S4E13: Jon Lovett and the Donner Party

and devastating comedic timing. He's also somehow turned crippling anxiety about the future of America into a wildly successful media empire. Please welcome the one and only John love It. Hi. What an intro? Thank you? Hey? Yeah, that's what we do here. We honor our guests, we elevate them. And I've been I've been on your shows over the years

many times. I'm so glad to have you on here. So, in your job at Crooked Media, you basically spend a lot of time analyzing the daily horrors of American politics, particularly Trump World, and yet somehow you stay quick and clever and weirdly hopeful. What's your secret like what's the like are you is it just therapy or are you on black market ketamine? Like? How do you not collapse into despair all the time. I want you to know something. If I ever am on ketymine, it will be from

a prestigious Los Angeles Chase pill pushing fancy doctor. I'm not going to do black market drugs, forgive that why I moved to this city, and I shouldn't know better. But so it's interesting. The truth is for me, I think hope is important. I think it's important that people feel it because I think without it they may not be as involved or invested in it has real genuine value. But it's never been my motivator, to be honest, I've

always been motivated by anger. I really have, like what like anger, not just anger at Republicans who I disagree with, but like angry at the fact that these problems are solvable, right like just I like, Yeah, I'm the kind of person where I was at a buffet line over the weekend. In fact, what a life I lead? And I'm at this buffet line and there was basically it was a Nacho's buffet line, okay, And here's how it was organized. It went plates, chips, cheese, another bowl of chips, another

bowl of cheese. There's a long fucking line behind me and in front of me. I see this, and nobody's doing anything. And so I walk to the front of the line. I take half the stack of plates and I put it next to the other bowl of cheese and chips, so that a whole group of people aren't walking by. And because that's where the logjam was, that's where the hold up was. Okay, look, I see that

I'm becoming the old Jewish relatives I knew from my childhood. Yeah, you're Larry David all of a sudden, But in ways large and small, that is my nature. I can't stand those things. And so maybe I was just always motivated by the kinds of like. I don't need to love or be inspired every day to be motivated to participate or make jokes or do whatever we need to do.

So maybe that's my good fortune. I do think like in a serious way, there's a whole home media apparatus that wants people to feel cynical and negative and to view all politics as corrupt and all politicians is useless. And if you give into that, the people that want you to feel that way when they really do. And as bad as things have got, as bad as they could continue to get, there are always places where we

have agency. And if you're giving up, it's not because you can't make a difference or you can't be involved, or you can't have an impact. It's because either you don't know the way to find it or you've decided it's too hard. And maybe that's okay, that's something people can decide. But like I think there's a way a which people try to tell themselves things are worse than they seem or are irredeemable because it makes it easier. And the truth is, hope makes demands of us. It does,

and it requires you to do things well said. Thank you for reflecting on that with me. I actually I kind of only want to talk about this stuff with you. I just like how you communicate about these things. Just a quick question. You were on the show Survivor. That's right, Did you guys at any point on that show ever consider eating one another, just like casually a backup plan?

The truth is I was only I was only surviving for three nights, which meant I only really missed three and eating a fellow person doesn't come up after three dinners, you're already taking this question too seriously. But so it never comes to that. The other thing, too, is there are coconuts strewn about. Sure right, you know, the exact number of coconuts one might need to survive happened to

be randomly distributed by I think God. Uh yeah, Well, today's NAF does involve actual cannibalism because one of the most famous disasters in American history. We're talking about the Donner Party. Hell yeah. The years eighteen forty six a time when Americans were charging westward under the banner of manifest destiny, which was basically the nineteenth century version of I want it and God said I could have it,

so gimme it. It was kind of a conveniently divine permission slip for land grabs, broken treaties, and some really creative definitions of morality. But we'll come back to all that. So, like today, eighteen forty six is a time of deep uncertainty. Most of the people heading west, they're not thrill seekers, they're not adventurers. They're just families chasing stability and hoping

for a fresh start. John, have you ever had the fantasy of just like leaving it all behind and walking away from everything for a fresh start, like just off somewhere new. I'll tell you it's pretty embarrassing. But my friend Sam and I when we were graduating college, we decided we really wanted to like we're gonna we want to like go west, all right. We really did talk about this, and are in unimaginative brains. We were like, we're gonna go to Alaska. We're gonna move to Alaska,

but we were gonna become paralegals there. And I don't really understand how it was. We'd like twenty twenty one, and we thought, oh, well, go become paralegals because we know we could get that job. And I just there's something so embarrassing about imagining going all the way to allow SCA as an experiment, but being only able to conceive of an office job once we got there. We could have gone fishing, we could have done a lot

of different things, but that was what we imagined. That there was a Jewish pragmatism in the heart of even that adventure. But there's also like this ken keezy kind of like adventure spirit to Alaska that we all crave kudos to you for that. Thank you. So it's eighteen forty six. The Oregon Trail was a well worn path

at this point. There were maps, guide books, and a pretty clear playbook for how to make it successfully, as long as you leave on time, follow the route, and don't try to get too fancy, which makes what happened next all the more unbelievable because one group looked at that solid, proven plan and they were just like, hold my beer, because we got better ideas. We're going to do this our own way. What's your dinner party knowledge.

I have never done a full deep dive. There's some tiny part of my brain that members that at some point they get hoodwinked in some way. We'll get there, but you're right. Let's meet the partiers, shall we. First up brothers George and Jacob Donner, who brought their entire families, kids, wives, kids from other wives, basically just a massive frontier Brady bunch. They also hired a crew of teamsters, not the Jimmy Hoffa kind. Back then, a teamster was someone who drove

a team of oxen. Today, of course, it means a Union truck driver, so basically a similar vibe as today, just more hay and less honking. So do you think you'd make a good teamster back in the day or would you just tap out at the first blister? Oh yeah, I don't know that I'm made for ox work. I couldn't even be like a paralegal in the Old West. To your earlier point, I struggle at a best Western, right, no matter if it's if it's in the West, or

even if it's in the East. Yeah, a long time along a highway upstate New York, I'm at a best Western. I'm complaining You're life. So I can't imagine if I'm at the actual least Western, you know what I mean, the actual West, the actual the worst Western, which is the real Old West. Okay, So yeah, even a best Western is too Western for you, right right, all right,

all right? Well, also joining the crew James f Reed, an Irish immigrant from Springfield, Illinois, whose business had just gone belly up, so he's looking for a fresh start. He brought along his wife, Margaret, their kids, and Grandma Keys, who is in her seventies. That's that's got to be a tough old broad right, Just I'm surprised the Donners would have allowed Irish people. I think that's probably where

they that was where they went wrong maybe. So at the start here we're talking about roughly thirty one people in the group. Now I'm going to throw out numbers this whole time, but historians kind of dispute the exact numbers. So these are rough numbers about thirty one people in the group. And according to young Virgin, the Reeds had the nicest ride, what she called a two story pioneer palace car pulled by four Oxen. Meanwhile, the Donners were

apparently slumming it with just three Oxen wagons. So even on the Oregon Trail, teenage girls, or they're going to judge your ride, there were double deckers. Yeah, I know, quick little sidebar, John love it any like disastrous road trips in your life, because this is about to go off the rails. I'll tell you. I was the presidential speech writerer, and it was my job to be on

the road with the president on a rural tour. He was doing a swing of rural areas talking about rural issues, and something went wrong with my physical plant, with my corpus, no, my habeas. Okay, this is very cryptic, but it sounds like sounds like you was sick, You're getting ill. You've never been going to the bathroom while the plane landed. That's not something you've ever done. You've never been You're

not allowed to. And literally I am having I'm I'll just I'm shooting my brains out on Air Force one while it is physically landing. And I know that I have like thirty seconds after this plane stops to get to the van because the motorcade leaves when the President gets off the plane. And I spent that whole day wondering, am I gonna have to like fake some sort of a medical episode to get this van to pull over? Because I was in trouble that whole day. That whole day, God,

I am sick to my stuf. Where is this? Where city? Are you at it? As well? But where is this mouth and butt? That's where it is? Geographically, I think we had flown maybe into Des Moines and we were doing a swing through Iowa, Okay, And uh it was an unbelievable nightmare. It was my secret nightmare. But I I made it all the way through. Nobody was the wiser. I mean, just like it was unbelievable. It was a high high low low day. I do love that story. Okay,

we're jumping back in. The Donner Party officially departed Independence, Missouri and headed to the Oregon Trail on May twelfth, eighteen forty six, having now ballooned to roughly eighty seven members. But it didn't take long for shit to hit the proverbial fan. Because May twelfth is way late in the season, the best time to leave on a westward trek was early to mid April. This was pretty much common knowledge,

so shame on the Donner Party, right. Travelers relied on seasonal grass and flowers to feed their cattle, and also needed to avoid the rainy spring, which created crazy amounts of mud. Are you a big planner when you travel? Do you do you? Are you in the guide books? Are you just kind of winging it? Like what's your style? Yeah? I'm a planner. I'm a planner. The Internet made travel worse because it used to be you went to a city to explore it, and now if you arrive unprepared,

you feel as though you didn't explore it. Yeah, you know what I'm saying, and so, but I like to know before I go I agree. And also cell phones have made travel really annoying because I found myself walking around Florence like just staring at my map, like where where am I going? And like scrolling trying to just like orient myself as opposed to like, you know, twenty years ago, you'd just be looking for landmarks and finding your way around and just so much more in the space.

It's yeah, and it's like you the risk of that is, oh, you didn't eat the right gelato. But the reward of that, the reward of that is maybe a discovery or an experience that you otherwise wouldn't have had. Yeah, hot take John love it. I think the internet might be bad. I know, I know, it's yeah. I agree. Well, needless to say, there was no internet back in the day, so despite the late start, the Donner group was in high spirits. Initially, the party made fine progress, traveling from

Missouri to Wyoming in about six weeks. For all you coastal elites, that's over six hundred and fifty miles, which is pretty impressive in wagons. Okay, now we're getting to the part that you sort of knew a little bit about or had an inkling of in early July, the Donner party arrived in Fort Laramie, Wyoming. While the party rested, they crossed paths with a man named Lansford Hastings, a Westward Expansion supervan with a name that sounds kind of

super villainy. Hastings had big dreams of flooding California with settlers to spark a bloodless revolution against the Mexican government casual. He'd also written a guidebook promoting a shortcut through the wa Such Mountains and the Great Salt Lake Desert, claiming it would shave three hundred miles off the trip. Small catch. He had never actually taken this shortcut, and in reality

it added one hundred and twenty five brutal miles. But still in Laramie, the Donners took this terrible advice and turned onto the now infamous Hastings cut off. What's the worst advice you ever got from a stranger, John Lovett? Was it the person who gave you that pad tie on Air Force one? Or yeah, it was the night before someone said you got to try the seafood special. The Oyster's right out of the ocean, right out of the Hudson. Yeah, oh right, Oh god, Hudson Oysters. That

would be it, all right? This so called shortcut cost the Donner party two grueling weeks just to get through the Wasatch Mountains, but at least the desert was next, and Hastings had assured them it would only take two days, so they packed accordingly, But in reality it took six days, after which the families were exhausted, dehydrated, and severely undernourished. You ever been screwed by a short cut? Yeah? Yes, cliff Notes got me because the cliff goats would get

me off. In high school, they got me pretty bad because the teachers caught wise. Look I'm a sucker for a short cut. I am. I am. You tell me that there's a better way. I'm gonna try it. I really will, are you like Hastings would have gotten me? Yeah, honestly, pretty compelling. Shave three hundred miles off this epic journey. The one valuable thing about the Internet is that if there was a Reddit forum in eighteen whatever hear this is, it would have said do not do. It would be

under everybody our you know, Oregon r slash Oregon Trail. Hastings, do not follow this is bad, don't believe him. Yeah, there was a little bit more because you know, nobody, how are you going to check? How are you gonna check? There's nobody. You can't ask somebody in California when you're in Wyoming if they took the Hastings cut off. Yeah, and if he's got a really nice mustache, like you're gonna trust him. Yeah. This is the era of the

snake oil salesman. Yeah. You know, maybe the internet's not all bad. It's not all batter I'm coming back around a little bit. I take creatine. How about that? That's my snake oil. And I don't know why because a very hus ski strong man on the Internet said it was good for your bones or something. Yeah, it's still like knowing how much the Internet is trying to manipulate us. It's still amazing how much we allow ourselves to be manipulated or just sort of like don't catch it at first.

We're very dumb creatures. We're very primal John, That's it's just who we are, all right. So by late September, the Donner Party had made it to the Sierra Nevada Mountains, just in time for that classic road trip phase where the simmering tensions are so high, everyone's feeling one sarcastic comment away from a complete freak out. Sure enough, October fifth, tempers flared along the Humboldt River when James Reid's oxen got tangled with another wagon. How dare they? Words were exchanged,

and then blows. John Snyder, the driver of the Graves family wagon, struck Reed in the head with the butt of his whip. That's pretty badass. Margaret Reid tried to intervene. She caught a blow from the butt of that whip. That's when James Reid snapped. He pulled a knife and fatally stabbed Snyder. So after the stabbing, some in the group wanted to hang James Reid. He claimed self defense. Tensions were high. One vocal member pushed for punishment of

some kind. The group compromised. Reid was banished, sent into the wilderness alone with nothing but a horse. So, uh, John, you've been voted off before, that's true. What does it feel like? What do you think is going through James Reid's ahead? Do you think they handed him a menu and let him choose whether he wanted a cheeseburger or a pizza? No, to make you feel better. Probably not. Probably is that what you got on Survivor? Yeah, you

walk off? Oh right, there's a little booby prize. Yeah yeah. Well no, it's more like like it's more like, Okay, you've been out there. You know, you're kind of like still in shock. And then they're very sweet because they know you're you know, you're you're just sort of stunned by what's happened. And then at some point they hand you a menu and like, hey, you're you're out, but

you get to eat whatever you want. So you get to eat, like, you know, you can have a burger or a steak or a cheese or a pizza or wings or whatever. So that's a that's a nice moment. You get to have that food again, do you when you're eating that meal of this just like the most decadent junk food that's so delicious. At that point, are you just like I would imagine you're in your mind you're like, I think I just won. Like also they're

the suckers. There's still so much you're still swirling. And also you're not that hungry because you just haven't eaten for days, so you eat like a little bit of it, and you're you're already kind of starting to build the story of what happened that you're gonna have to tell people. Oh, that's what you're kind of working. You're already you're working over you're working over what happened. And yeahs still fun though.

So Reed had to leave his wife, Margaret and their kids behind, but his daughter Virginia pulled off a stealthy act of love. With help from their teamster, she snuck out at night and caught up with her dad, smuggling him his rifle, some ammo and what little food she could she could find. Meanwhile, the Donner party pushed forward, low on food, high on stress, and by Halloween they were just one hundred miles from their destination, which is

pretty pretty exciting. That's not like it sounds like a lot, but like, given how far they'd come, this is like a big deal. They're getting close. And Virginia kept spotting little notes her father left along the trail, as well as these little clusters of feathers from birds he had killed to eat, and he would leave these little symbols kind of signs for his family to let them know he was alive and ahead. Of them on the trail

and doing okay. But then John, the snow hit, and it hit hard, and we're talking five feet right out of the gate. Those little signs from Read to his family stopped. The Donner party ground to a halt themselves. Provisions were dwindling, morale was basically toast. They were stuck. They're so close, they're so close close, and winter had just begun. When is this? What is the date? Roughly when this has happened a little bit after Halloween at this point. Wow. So they also got unlucky because you

know they're late. They started late. That's a big snow. That's a big snow to come come In November, the stranded families hunkered down around Trucky Lake, building makeshift cabins that would later become Donner Lake in Today's for Today's cartographers, building makeshift cabins and praying for a break in the weather. After eight straight days of relentless snow, they started to suspect they might be in over their heads quite literally, because the snow is getting really deepy in it. That's

the heigh of the snow. They're in over their heads physically and metaphorically. The motive metaphor being being in over your head. That's good. With that snow or water, that's good. That's good storytelling right there. Yeah, it's really good. Desperate for help, a group of ten men and five women strapped together homemade snowshoes and set out on foot. The rest of the party gave them a name that sounds kind of like a bad ass heavy metal band, the

Forlorn Hope. So the Forlorn Hope just sets off on their on their their homemade snowshoes, and back at camp things are really falling apart. Adults are getting delirious, kids were starving, and the cold was sinking in deep. One by one, people started to die. Now, there are a lot of myths that swirl around the dinner party, but desperate times do call for desperate measures, John, Real Talk. Do you think they actually ate each other? Yes? I do, I do. I mean, I don't. I don't. I mean,

I guess it could just be lure. All right, Well, you're right, I don't know. They did. They did do it. They did, they did. But it's also it's been sort of like I think, spun up into you know, like, was it this violent cataclysm where they attacked each other and ate well. According to historian Michael Wallace, they did eat each other, uh and he even interviewed descendants who confirmed it. But it wasn't quite the Schmorgas board. Yeah,

it wasn't. It wasn't quite the sort of like violent like attacking each other in order to eat one another. It was more analogous to like the alive story of the the soccer people who died of natural cause, well, you know, died of exposure. Sure they're they're eating became fair game, Sure shall we say. One of my favorite

Monty Python sketches of all time is like these. It's a it's from one of their record one of one of their audio albums, and it's just you hear the creaking of a lifeboat in the ocean, and they start debating who looks more delicious, and it's so perfectly done. He's like, well, he looks like he's got a gambileg. I'd rather have Richard, and they just start debating. I think, I think it's a nice thing to do to say, hey, go for it. Just wait till I'm dead. Yeah, don't

kill me, wait till I'm dead. And then I would just say, you know, wings and drumsticks first. Yeah, sure, I think that's fair. That's honestly, that's a fair I would honor that. If you and I were in this situation and you said that to me, I'd be like, fair totally. As you as you turn into the road runner and you and you picture me and you your your your lips are watering, and then you look over and I become a turkey, you know, with a head. I'm like, what's ed? What are you? What are you

looking at me? Weird for because you look like with those little chef hats on your Yeah, I'm above your exactly exactly. So according to Wallace, this uh, this historian, what's really accurate is that as the crew died, their bodies were stored in snowbanks, becoming viable sources of nutrition. Who precisely among the various party members participated in this cannibalism is not clear. That has not been uh that has not been all verified. But because who's putting that

in their diary? You know you're gonna write, there's no one's being like and then they ate a person and I didn't, but everybody else did? I get that? That's that's for you, Like you know, there's that there's that tradition, there's that like French tradition where there's a tiny delicate bird they eat whole. Do you know what I'm talking about. Yes, it's called the ordolan. It's called the ordolan, and and and it's considered a such a garish thing to do

that you don't want God to see. So before you eat the ortolan, you put a towel over your head and you eat it under the towel with your hands because it's uh, God, your towels. Yeah, God can't see under the towels. It's it's sort of an apology for this depraved and decadent act. In the same way I think people aren't writing in their journals that they just ate the reads. I mean, you just can't. You can't

hold someone in that situation to like normal standards. No. Back on the other side of the mountains, across the California border, the Forlorn Hope rescue crew was still doing all right. Sure them had died along the way, but the rest had made it, and at this point dozens still remain trapped at the Lake Camp back in California, in a town called Yerba Buena, which is now known as San Francisco. A crazy man was running around town telling anyone who would listen about a party of travelers

trapped in the mountains. That man was James Reed. He had survived after being banished and going ahead on the trail. He survived and he made it. And of course he's now worried about his family and all of the other people, and he's telling everyone he can about it. And amazingly, the remainder of the Forlorn Hope rescue group also arrived in town shortly after Reid. Together they managed to organize a relief effort for those who were still trapped, and

it worked. The first rescue crew traveled up over the mountains and arrived at the camps on February nineteenth, eighteen forty seven. They took twenty three of the starving party members back with them in that first wave, including Margaret and Virginia, back to California. James Reid was actually part of the cruise caboose, reuniting with Margaret, Virginia, and most,

though not all, of his family. Because of the forty people who remained at the camp, this included two of Reed's smaller children who weren't strong enough to make the journey easily. Margaret, of course fought leaving her kids behind tooth and nail, but finally gave in for the greater good. That's a tough one. Woof. I don't know. I don't know if I'd be leaving my two youngest behind in a group, and in a group that's already eaten people.

They're like starting to eat people right right right. Yeah, you know, sometimes the smaller pieces do fall to the bottom of the bucket at KFC, but it's only a matter of time before you get down there. You kinda guess that you don't throw that like any little fried crispy thing at the bottom. Yeah, you come get there, even if it's going in the fridge for a day or two, you're gonna go get there. You're gonna get

your good Yeah, boy, oh boy, Hobbly. There were three more waves of rescue attempts, but the snow made it like truly impossible. They could only travel through the pass over the mountains with so many supplies and or people in tow, having to carry many of the children or adults who were too weak. More people perished during each round of waiting, including George and Jacob Donner. George unfortunately had injured his hand during the snow in which became

gangrenous and ultimately killed him. It is said that Jacob died of starvation and was cannibalized. Here's a question I have for you. Okay, okay, uh, you're in this circumstance. All right, the plane has crashed the don You're in the Donner. Let's see whatever you're inn accountabalistic situation. You have spices, Okay, you have salt and pepper and garlic, powdered onion powder, you have paprika. Okay, you are going

to eat someone Italian seasoning. Is it more respectful to eat this human flesh unseasoned so that the esthetic experience matches the kind of moral experience, which is one of desperation, Or is it more respectful to the deceased to flavor it, cook it well, make it as tasty as possible so that you get the best experience from this food. So, from the comfort of our respective recording studios, I'm going

to say two things. One is I'm spicing the hell out of it because it probably is so hard going down right, it's gamy too. It's like, and I don't even I don't know what human tastes like, but I don't want to know. And even if it's even if it's delicious, I don't want it to taste like what it is, right, I don't want to just be thinking about this. So I'm spicing the ever loving hell out of it. But number two, I also am British that these debates did not happen on the day that they

got anything to make it go down easier. Yeah, you use what're you use it? Of course you use it? All right. There was a fourth and final rescue mission, and when they arrived, they found only one last survivor, reportedly found hovering over a cauldron of quote, cooked flesh and discarded bones. Sure, so you're to your point. Maybe there's probably some broth happening, and Jeb, it's just you. It's just you, you know, yeah, God, you're just there

by yourself. You're not You're not a little bit of Yeah, it's like you're doing a kind of cannibal version of like Mama number five, you know, like a little bit of a little bit of Andrew, a little bit of Jessica. Oh, you know, you're mixing, you know what I mean, you're sort of make you're just you're you're kind of you. I do think like you've crossed some kind of moral plane and now you're alone in the woods. Like what if when they showed up these weeks later, this person

had ballooned by like one hundred pounds. Oh wow, I'm gonna do a little swan to go. Does anybody want me to put any of this in to go? I'm gonna make up, you know, like, I'm gonna make it nice. This heats up. Here's the thing about human flesh. It reheats. Well, hmm, that's the thing about it, right, Or you know some food doesn't it doesn't travel. It makes a good jerky, Yeah, that's yeah. Dry it out. Oh boy, this San Francisco. This is making me sick. This whole thing. Really is

it making me hungry? It's fucked up about me. It's so upsetting. I did this before lunch. Well. According to Virginia Read, out of the eighty three people who were snowed in at Donner Lake, only forty one survived, and of the thirty one family members and teamsters of the original Donner Party family from Springfield. Only eighteen lived to reach California. Historians dispute these exact numbers, but that's the neighborhood.

So the story of the Donner Party soon gained notoriety, but it weirdly didn't really deter people from the Oregon Trail. The younger daughter, Patty Reid, even wrote a letter to her cousin in Illinois stating, don't let this letter dishearten anybody. Never take no cutoffs and hurry along as fast as you can, which I mean understatement of the century, or like, still do what we did, just don't take no cutoffs. Yeah,

you know, no such thing as a free lunch. The survivors of the Donner Party got up to various things after their rescue and settled into California. Do you think anyone like found success in California? I'm gonna say yes. I'm sure somebody must have made something of themselves. A guy named John Breen got rich in the California gold rush of eighteen forty nine, taking home over twelve thousand dollars in gold, which is almost five hundred thousand dollars

in today's money. So maybe karma is legit. I don't know. Also, how old do you think the oldest survivor lived to? Oh well, I mean I think once you get through that, ninety eighty nine. Wow? Good guess, John, Okay, really good? Yeah? Okay yeah. John Breen's youngest sister, Isabella, who was one year old at the start of the journey, was the last living survivor of the Donner Party when she died in nineteen thirty five at the age of eighty nine.

Whatever happened to Lanceford Hastings are scammy snake oil salesman who convinced them to take the shortcut. Oh, I assume he goes on to some other kind of scam gets He's the kind of guy that dies in a bar fight or gets killed because he's stealing somebody's ghost. Yes, close, all right. In fact, he later died while leading a group of Confederates trying to colonize Brazil. Yeah, terrific, Yes, lancer,

the guy's got big. Yeah. He was a Confederate during the Civil War and he actually opted to emigrate to Brazil, pulling many disgruntled Southerners along with him, and that's where he died. Well, you know, uh, too bad for him, you know what not' I don't have a lot of

sympathy for him. No, The Donner Party kind of a grim reminder of how far people will go when they're sold a dream, ignore the warning signs, and follow bad advice deep into the wilderness, which kind of feels like America right now in a nutshell, a little bit desperate people promised easy shortcuts left starving in the cold, while the guy who gave them the map is nowhere to

be found. Thoughts, reflections, takeaways seaking the Donner Party, I would say, based on that analogy, it's also a reminder that we shouldn't really stay put, that we got to keep moving and nobody is coming, that we have to save ourselves, I would say, soldier on. Yeah. Also eat each other. Yeah. And I just think, don't start start in the flank, start with the big muscles, all right. Start start where you'd start at a restaurant, you know, to get don't get cre native, don't get don't get cold,

don't get adventurous. Yeah. If picture that little place, Matt, you get at the restaurant, at the steak place when you were the cow on, it cuts the cow, It cuts every Look at that group of meats, every single one of those basically has an equivalent on the human body. There you are, right, so take take with you, ah, Peter Luger's place, Matt is the is the lesson. By the way, don't sleep on the cheeks. Yeah all right. I haven't been going to pilates all this time to

have you not eat my ash what? Okay? John? Love it. This has been an utter delight. I'm so grateful to have you on the show. Is there anything you can tell us about where we'll see you in the coming days months? What's what else is going on for you? Everybody? Do me a favor. Subscribe to pote of America. Love it or leave it otherwise, you know, see on the internet posting and posting. Keep up the great work. Thanks so much for being on, Jennings. So good to see you.

This is fun always Cheers. Snapho is a production of iHeart Podcasts and Snapfoo Media, a partnership between Film Nation Entertainment and Pacific Electric Picture Company. Our post production studio is Gilded Audio. Our executive producers are me Ed Helms, Mike Falbo, Glenn Basner, Andy Kim Whitney, Donaldson, and Dylan Fagan. This episode was produced by Alyssa Martino and Tory Smith. Our video editor is Jared Smith. Technical direction and engineering

from Nick Dooley. Our creative executive is Brett Harris. Logo and branding by The Collected Works. Legal review from Dan Welsh, Meghan Halson and Caroline Johnson. Special thanks to Isaac Dunham, Adam Horn, Lane Klein, and everyone at iHeart Podcasts, but especially Will Pearson, Kerry Lieberman, Nikki Etour, Nathan Otowski and Alex Corral. While I have you, don't forget to pick up a copy of my book, Snafoo, The Definitive Guide to History's Greatest screw Ups. It's available now from any

book retailer. Just go to SNAPO dashbook dot com. Thanks for listening, and see you next week.