Hello the Internet, and welcome to this episode of The Weekly Zeitgeist. These are some of our favorite segments from this week, all edited together into one NonStop infotainment laugh stravaganza. Yeah, So, without further ado, here is the Weekly Zeitgeist.
Miles.
We are thrilled to be joined in our third seat by a writer, speaker, activist, best selling author who works on issues of race and identity in America. Her new book is Be a Revolution, How everyday people are fighting oppression and changing the world, and how you can too. Please, welcome to the show. The brilliant, the talented Igioma.
How you doing Welcome?
I am, I'm doing well. How are you?
We're doing great. We're doing great. It's great to have you. We've we've just finished your book. We're very excited to talk about it and pick your brain and ask you questions, but not make you do any of the extra labor that sometimes you're asked to do in other spaces. Obviously, we want this to be a free, fully conversation. But yeah, I also have to say you are from Seattle, and the first thing I always say to every person from
Seattle is dis ain't it great? Aren't the fries great, and you came with it and said it was part of your very substantial moment in your life on your wedding. So I'm glad to hear that we have we have that in common, just to start. Yeah.
Yeah, sometimes it's all you need.
Mm you don't mind, because dicks aren't. Miles has very specific taste in French fries that he likes them. The texture, medium, rare, you know, he likes. He likes Matt Saggi mashed potato sticks?
Is that Matt sticks?
Now?
Is that always your preferred type of French fry or just Dix? There's something about dis.
Yeah, no, no, I like all different types of fries. And there aren't fries like Dicks anywhere else. Like it's there's a Dick's fry and then you can't get it anywhere else. But it is a particular kind of soft, very salty thing that's beautiful. But it actually tastes like real potato when a lot of French fries don't because it is just real potato. You can watch them chopping them up and tossing him in the fryer. But yeah,
it's a really specific thing. But no, I like French fries other places, but when you want a Dick's French fry, you can't go anywhere else.
That's all there is. Yeah, love it up there, Love it up there. Beautiful, You've got it all and a great miss. See.
Well, we are going to dig into your book and just all all the work your expertise. But first before we get to that, we do like to get to know our guest a little bit better and ask what is something from your search history that's revealing about who you are or what you're up to.
H The other day, I was trying to figure out what happened to Seal Oh, like his singer? Yeah, yeah, I was.
I don't know.
I think like Heidi Kluon showed up in my feed, and then I was thinking what happened to Cel And my partner was like, oh, did he die? And I said, I don't think he died, And so I spent a good amount of time.
I don't know.
He just seems happy. He was recently at like his sister I think, or his cousin had a film released and he came and brought kids. Yeah, he seems happy. I don't know.
So yeah, that's for me a.
Lot of times it's random things popping up into my head of you know, what happened to this person that, you know that used to be a part of my life. I was thinking about Jaman Honsu the other day too. Maybe it's just like really beautiful black men you know that popped up in like the nineties, and I'm like, where did they go?
What happened? Yeah? What happened to Jamal Hansu? What's he doing? I mean he's always popping up in movies all the time, and then like and sometimes in roles. I'm like, Jami, you I felt like sometimes you look, it's Hollywood, do you do? You do all kinds of roles. But yeah, I'm trying to think of what the last thing I saw him in was.
Yeah, I'm trying to think he was. I saw him in something just a few years ago, but it was like a really bit part with some futuristic like space thing. I think I remember. Yeah, But like I feel like he got type cast so bad, you know, I mean we're like the nineties and yeah, you know, of like he was only going to do like this trauma porn or he was so exotified because of his looks and his accent, and I just think that they really put him into a corner that made it a hard for
him to get out of. And you know, and I think he has said the same, Like I think I remember some quotes from interviews in the past being like, yeah, he was absolutely type cast. But you know, my favorite memory of him is always going to be the Janet Jackson video because that's really where I just watched that on repeat, you know, in my little like preteen hormonal like explosion of like yeah, yeah, ooh, it's this incredibly beautiful human being and just watched.
It over and over again. Love will never do without you. You know, we know that chim In or jim On for what fore people called him jam In too. Yeah, And I know another person I remember I went to school with someone who called him Digimon.
I heard that a couple of times, being like dig yeah.
It's digital monsters, the cartoon man.
You know what. I think part of the reason that like seal's kind of hard to search online, Like I searched steal Urban Legend and they were like, Okay, is breaking the seal a real thing when you're out drinking? And yeah, I just feel like it's a very specific, but Seal is sixty and thriving and touring. Last time Google checked out with him, the.
Last last tweet he had was He's playing Redondo Beach Beach Life Festival this May through May third weekend with Sting Incubus Devo Fleet Foxes. This is a real interesting lineup. What I feel I feel like he should get higher billing. He's like on the third line. It feels right.
Yeah, I just want to know what crowd is going, like, what how people are mixing, like like, oh, you got your Fleet Foxes, we got your Sting. Yeah, like I can see, I can see whatever the VENN diagram is between Sting and Seal being very like, I don't want to be in that.
Yeah, there's a lot of Yeah, there's a lot of voted for Obama third term. If I could, and I feel like, then.
You add the Fleet Foxes into that ven diagram becomes pretty Yeah, there are three separate circles. Suddenly, yeah, oh no, what is something from your search history?
Wow, I guess you're prepared for the first time ever.
Not you, It's me.
I was going to guess that, but Miles guessed not you.
No you somebody out don't tell me.
That all I do is like a TikTok now, and my latest search on TikTok was for cool animals and whatever shows me too many people? I like talk to it. I'm like, show cute, funny animals.
And what did you did you see anything?
Binter wrong? What a binter wrong?
Bin wrong?
Look it up? You ever seen a binter wrong? They're so cute and weird they all it's.
Like a little like a raccoon thing.
Yeah, it's a cool animal.
Wow, binter wrong?
Wow?
Meet me looking up bin to wrongs all day.
See this is what TikTok so I. I just asked the TikTok of my generation Google for animals and they didn't give me shit.
Yeah.
Google sucks now, Yeah, I will say. Actually, the Google image search has been ruined by ai. Have you guys noticed this? If you look for something, now you can look for anything on Google image Search, which used to be good, and now all it shows you is AI generated images from all these free AI generating sites that it's like, oh, you wanted to see like a picture of like Jesus drinking a cup of coffee, here's like a hundred AI generated You know you you can use them.
Wait really, yeah, you can hardly find the real picture of Jesus drinking a cup of coffee, Jesus working as barista.
Let's see.
But yeah, this shit is all real basic. They don't have been to wrong, Is that what it is?
Been?
Yeah?
Been?
Oh shit, yeah, like open art. Yeah you really did. Just serve me a fucking dumb ass picture of a guy with great hair and a beard with a just working on something.
Yeah, that's what happens. It just shows you this open AI thing where it's like, oh, you want to see this thing, we'll make it for you and then you can use it for free. And they're all terrible. They're all yeah, terrible AI combinations of like images.
In this one, Jesus is wearing heavy eyeliner for some reason, because.
You wear eyeliner in the desert to keep it out of it out of your eyes, keep it foot out.
Of your eyes exactly. Oh, it makes sense to me. The earliest form of EyeBlack was just the thick eye makeup for Jesus.
But obviously a lot of people don't know Jesus was rocking eye black out there in the desert.
Like John Randall, the Viking style radis all over his face. Another washed reference for them out there. Come on, jan what's something you think is overrated? All right?
For this one, I decided to do this the biggest argument I've had in my family in the last week, which was I was saying how much I enjoy watching movies on double speed, and my wife and kids were just furious. So my overrated is watching movies at regular speed. And because you know, I wanted to see Flowers of the Killer Moon, but I'm not going I just did not want to spend four hours doing that. So I rented on YouTube and you can put it on double speed, and it was fantastic.
The way it was meant by a white man at double speaking.
On my iPhone on the toilet. Yes, I'm sorry, I know maybe the experience was like, well, I still felt emotions, I just felt them faster.
I just, you know, I lying at you.
My My argument is I'm a writer and I don't I'm not going in and then yelling at people who skim my books or fast. Yeah, yeah, I'm like, do what you want. Here's my book, doing what you want, right, right, right? So but yeah, I know that my filmmakers and art and are not are on my family side that this is a terrible thing. But I mean no offense. I listened to you on double speed.
And I why not. I mean, I think it's all I do. I do that with Like I watch a lot of reality TV, and sometimes I can get through it faster by watching it at one and a half x speed, like because there's so much dramatic pausing that when you actually condense the information down, you're like, oh yeah, yeah, yeah great, I got the gist of that inane content pretty quickly.
But with oh yeah, now if you cut out the repeats when they say and then let's remember what happened before the commercial break, like yeah, there's literally like eight minutes.
Of actual new stuff. Right, That's right, That's that's true. I've never tried to watch a movie at two X speed. I've listened to books at two X speed, and some of them I'm like, you know, flying through, getting everything, and sometimes it's like two dense and I just do not, Like I'm I'm thirty minutes and I'm like, I don't.
Know what the fuck just happened here?
Like right, Well, there are some shows and movies definitely don't like deep. I remember I tried to watch that at double speed, and I was like, what the hell is going on? Because they are so fast and witty. But but yeah, like a slow movie that's you know, got lots of nature shots like you mentioned. I can deal with that.
That's probably some kind of like speed comprehension test is to like take like a Tina Fey written show or ip and watch that as like three X speed to be like, did you catch all that writers? Yeah?
Yeah, yeah, she watched this episode of thirty Rock three every speed and give me a solution. Yeah, yeah, Terrence Malick, two X speed like probably just looks like a regular like an eighties movie.
It says like, oh this is this is normal.
Well, sometimes I think when I listen to MPR normal speed, I mean double speed, it just sounds like normal talking people talking.
Yeah, yeah, they're not like so they're there. There's not the pauses and yeah that makes sense to me. Older movies, I will say, incredibly slow. Yeah, just long periods with people being like, all right, we've got a head to the store to like meet up for this package drop and then watch them stand up from that table, walk to the car, get in the car drive to the store, it's like realistic.
Then like wait you hold on, I forgot my walle and okay, I'll turn around right hey, make sure you hang your cote up before you go inside. I will.
There are shots in The Godfather of like somebody's just walking down a hallway for long periods of great movie and maybe like at the time people needed that breather or something, but it's just like man.
And even old comedies it's hilarious. I remember watching the Marx Brothers and they had like they're doing their ANTIQ stuff, which is it's not that antic compared to what happens now. But then they'll do a five minute harp solo, like Harpo will come out and actually play the harp for five minutes in a comedy movie, and you're like, what the hell.
Is going on? Well, I mean that legacy kind of lived on in our eighties and nineties films where like some band inexplicably had a full on song performance in the middle of a film when you're like, what, like why did they do?
The Blues Brothers is I mean, I've always said that John Belushi is like a little bit puzzling to me because I think because he, like Chris Farlee's was my favorite like comedic figure growing up, and his whole stick was like kind of an evolutionary Belushi. But yeah, the Blues Brothers like when they just like break into long moments of them doing like white guy blues for you know, I'm just like, who is this for other than you guys, wether than the performers who made this movie.
Blame the cocaine man, blame thee you fucking sick dude. And then we do like a harmonica so home. But everybody fucking.
Loves that shit. Like people, I know so many people who are like, oh, have you seen The Blues Brothers?
Though, Oh you like comedy? Who are you hanging around a bunch of cops? Yeah it's cops.
It's mostly cops and the cops that I play cards with. Laurrie, what's something you think is underrated?
I guess, well, if I'm going to go sports wise, let's say swimming is underrated, you know, as an Olympic sport, Synchronized swimming is underrated. Yeah, it's absolutely my favorite thing. It's so beautiful and difficult and anytime you post a clip, so and post the clip of Martin Short and Harry Shearer from SML and it's like, guys, can these athletes just do one Olympic big so that happing to see that clip please?
Right?
It is, I mean it's iconic, but it's it's one of those things that I remember you the second you try. That's when you have respect for synchronized swimmers because you're like, oh, okay, what they're doing under well, okay, I can stay inverted underwater. And then you're you're like fucking flailing because you can't do like those like micro balance paddles that they do like their hands and yeah, respect only that.
But they they all have to do them exactly the same. So you know, but the eight of them and their hands are right next to each other and they can't mess up, and their legs have to say, their feet have to you know, meet at the top that you can have one foot you know, one person's feed higher than the other.
So it's so hard.
But the team, the team version of it, you know, just the individual stuff on its own is really difficult too.
But man, is there individual like dancing kind of it used to be.
Like synchronized with the music. That's what they that's what they meant.
But like, oh right, got it?
No, I mean like individually learning to do all those skills and then there's eight of you together learning to do it so that you're all you're you're as one.
Right right right? Holy ship, there's eight of them there. I think they lost powers.
I'm trying to remember.
It seems like at least six to eight on the in the team.
That's unbelievable.
Yeah, yeah, that ship might as well be like a magic trick to me. I'm just like there's something I don't understand because that is looks completely impossible to me.
Yeah, it is really impressive.
Synchronized diving. Yeah, that was pretty fun. That's like very meditative to just like watch people do that over and over again. I got into like the last Olympics. I would just like sit there and watch that for like an hour straight.
Yeah, that's very cool looking. I like they let these little sneaky sports in the Olympics.
You know.
Yeah, somebody made up four years ago, did by.
Accident when they the same time as your friend.
Yeah, it got invented like when somebody was trying to break againness Book of World records, just like trying to like I don't know, maybe most dives together.
Yeah yeah, I mean because in twenty twenty eight, isn't we're gonna have flag football? Aren't we in the LA Olympics? So is that right? Yeah? Flag? Yeah, it's out there, so and I means, like America, you better clean the fuck up.
I mean, that's what kids are playing these days. I feel like like young kids aren't playing like Pop Warner football, at least not the ones who grow up in New York City. Like I have nephews who just play like flag football.
That's the version of.
Football that they play.
Yeah, why not? I mean, which makes sense to me. A lot of cautionary tales out there for banging your fucking skull over and over and you know turns out yeah, not being able to like navigate your own neighborhood. Did you ever see that that one that like CT documentary is like the one soccer player, this woman who just headed the ball so many times, like it affected like she needed like GPS to get around her town because it was just like affecting so many things like that.
And that's when I was like, wow, wow, wow, wow wow.
I read but I didn't I didn't know that documentary that's terrible. Was that ever gonna get better or she just permanently.
I'm not did not feel hopeful. It was sort of like it was it was sort of covering like all kinds of sort of content. It was just like a it was sort of showing many different contact sports athletes and just sort of the varying degrees in which like these like repetitive head impacts kind of like were affecting people because it doesn't seem like across the board thing
with heading the soccer ball at least I'm not. I didn't know about that, but that was like the first time I saw him, I was like, that makes sense.
Yeah, hey, he got his bell rung, you know what I'm saying.
Yeah, that's all. That's all. You just got all get back up there, man, Back up there.
Man.
This kid can take a lick and keep on ticking those stars you're seeing. That's your future, kid, when you're a superstar, lean into it into it. So brutal.
Yeah, by the way, I can't navigate my neighborhood without GPS. But that's another story. We'll talk about that another time. Maybe I need a documentary crew follow me here. Let's take a quick break and we'll be right back. And we're back. We're back, and this Taylor Swift story just won't quit that people. People have some have some theories as to how the Chiefs made it to the Super Bowl. I mean, the Chiefs in the Super Bowl. They've made
it only four of the last five Super Bowls. How could they have possibly gotten here?
I was gonna say what I mean, I'm not an NFL fan, but like, at the beginning of the season would have been absolutely absurd to think that the Chiefs would have gotten close to being in the Super Bowl.
No, they would have been the favorite or one of the things.
They won the championship last year exactly like I love that. They're like, yo, man, this whole fucking shit's engineered. So we touched on the frantic screamings of the right after the Chiefs booked their ticket to the Super Bowl, and you know, we talked about all these conspiracies that came out. Vivic Ramaswami was like, you'll see this completely fake, propped up, engineered duo to help Joe Byron. It'll it'll you'll see the impact it'll have in a few months. And now
it's only gotten like more momentum. Since then I thought it would just be like okay in passing, like you just want to say something about the fear of Taylor Swift. But on Newsmax they really went to an interesting level with a combination of satanic panic and anti Semitism. George Soros Bookiyman kind of shit. Allison Steinberg, who has a show on Newsmax, regurgitated basically a combination of Ramaswamy's tweet,
like almost word for word, which is very weird. I was like, you're saying the vivic Ramaswami tweet but pretend to passing it off as your own words, and also a combination of like the debunked Pentagon Nato syop where Taylor Swift was seen as an asset that we also talked about a couple weeks ago, where that was merely like just not even it was hypothetical about how a celebrity would use their influence on the internet. And I think they also talk to you some Game of Thrones
characters as an example. But anyway, let's just allow her to first let people know how like, what's really going on here? What are the Democrats really trying? What's their endgame here with all this Taylor Swift crap.
Guys by and can't seem to turn off. The question is, with the wide open border and millions of illegals pouring and daily, the stealing at the ballot boxes and censoring conservative news and Republican incumbents being removed from the ballot and financing Nikki Haley and so on, why do the powers that be need this dynamic duo to sway the vote? Have enough dirty tricks up their sleeves as it is. Think about it, Taylor Swift is really owned by Soros.
We might actually have a rare chance to unite against him using Taylor Swift as the trojan horse. Instead of pushing the alphabet mafia and murdering of babies to her fans, she should be warning about the dangers of the corrupt eleites.
Anyway, goes on there. Wow, this oughts to do with the fact that like Soros apparently was like his one of his companies was an investor in buying her catalog.
Yeah, what's crazy is that Taylor Swift also posted something once that was kind of dog whistling about Soros, and people were like, oh, man.
Like Taylor, why didn't they show that, Cliff, Yeah, she's.
On your sign kind she about the new World Order.
Yeah, so I don't know, like what exactly you know? That was her take. And then Greg Kelly, who we also talked about a couple like I think last week when Trump had misidentified Nicky Hayley as Nancy Pelosi, and he was like, actually he was deploying his sinility tactically to highlight Pelosi's role in January sixth and really spun
that shit. He's trying a more as I would say, christ based attack on Taylor Swift and why she needs to be ignored or at least people need to be warned about, you know, h double hockey sticks if you go down this road with Taylor.
I kind of have a problem though, with the hardcore Taylor Swift fans. They are totally over the top worshiping this woman. Have you seen any of the pictures of her in concert? I wouldn't go myself. I don't do that kind of thing anymore.
But I think what they call it is.
They're elevating her to an idol idolatry. This is a little bit what idolatry I think looks like and You're not supposed to do that. In fact, if you look it up in the Bible, it's a sin.
So I don't like that you do that. I like, you just lost the train of thought.
He's just so he acts like he just invented the term like pop idol there, like where he just heard it for the first time, like we've I don't.
Know, I'm really making a lot of sense to me, Like why.
You fear that? Yeah? Are you? Are you worried about the state of your soul in eternity? Molly as you it's like like pop idols.
And then I was like, wow, worshiping false idols?
Yeah, damn, go on, Greg Kelly, That's what I'm saying, Like it's like, sir, y'all worship at the altar of Donald Trump.
Well, it's also funny that they're like, yeah, normally we like football, but now.
Yeah, we love we love the racist name, the problematically named football team from his from Missouri, right, and the white guys.
Like this Kansas, Kansas City team with the racist name is two.
Woke, right, right.
I think they're right to connect this to idolatry and the idea that Taylor Swift and like big stars have come to replace We've talked about this idea before, but like the the size and fervor with which people are devoted to their favorite musicians, Like we saw a bunch of people like driving their favorite musician to like number one, like voting basically just like playing the thing playing their songs over and over again as a form of devotion
to Like I think it was Britney Spears over the weekend, but like that is a new yeah, and then Nikki obviously.
But Jesus.
Fans of Jesus are the original barbs.
Yeah right, yeah, but that has gone as that has gone down, and as more and more people identify as like no religion, this is kind of what has come in to replace it, like Star Wars fandom, Taylor Swift fandom, And I don't think they're wrong. I just think they're wrong to be to moral upset about it because they're doing the exact same thing.
Yeah, Donald Trump, people shouldn't worship famous people. But they're like, you're worshiping the wrong famous people.
Worship this fuck face? Please you worship our.
Yeah No, I know, because I saw people too being like what, I'm shocked, Why don't maga people love Taylor Swift and Travis Kelcey, the all American prom queen and king kind of thing. But you know it's also Travis Kelcey did a did a vaccine commercial.
You mean, mister, he's mister.
So they do think this is kind of a brand alignment. Now I'm gonna put on my tinfoil hat.
Here go ahead.
There are people who who do think the Taylor and Travis thing is sort of a PR stunt. They're moving really fat.
I wouldn't surprise me.
Well, here, I'll tell you my real opinion, my non crazy real opinion, is that she's trying to get back at her ex boyfriend. She she was in a relationship, no if Joe Alwin, the British guy. Oh okay, she was in a relationship, not the racist guy. She's a relationship that was her first attempt to get back at the boyfriend. She was in a relationship for six years that she thought, I think was gonna culminate in marriage, and then instead he dumped her and she's very hurt.
But she's also Taylor Swift, so she's like, I'm going to use my huge public platform to make him feel bad, and then instead I think it's sort of maybe making that ex boyfriend think he made the right decision because he was the one who didn't like all the publicity stuff, right, that goes along with the Taylor Swift circus. And I think she's kind of acting out what she would like
to be happening in her personal life. And and her and Travis Kelcey are kind of shit because like it makes sense everybody, just everybody seeing all these Taylor Swift friends like freaking out about them kissing on the field, you know, after the game and being like he's gonna propose when the Chiefs win, He's gonna propose on the field, And then somebody else was like, yeah, they've been dating for four months, right, yeah, right, you know, And like I do think her whole thing is this kind of
fantasy image of like, you know, falling in love and being like the perfect all American gal. But like she's got to know on some level, they're like, you can't marry somebody you've only been dating for four months, even if America wants you to.
Yeah, that's already like we already know what that album sounds like, like rushing it after four months kind of but that just seems like.
A thing you do after you've been in a long ass relationship that you thought you were going to be settled down and then you're like, Okay, I'm ready to be fucking settled down.
Who's around, Like, who's the next person?
Yeah, like I'm ready to get married and that guy didn't want to marry me, so so like, oh, this football player might want to marry me because as a brand alignment, it makes a lot of sense for both of us. And he's an athlete who might want to retire, and then he could be mister Taylor Swift. And he seems to be the first of her boyfriends ever who
really likes being mister Taylor Swift. Which is a big thing she needs in somebody is that they have to be willing to like be a fucking idiot for her publicly. You know, for sure, she doesn't want a private relationship. She wants a public relationship. And he's a football star.
Yeah.
I think that's one of the unique skills that she has, is that she is a public figure, like to her core, right, there's no part of her that is like I'm secretly a private person, but I'm like playing this role. I think that like any feelings she has for him are like tied up with understanding what that would like. I feel like she's camera away when she's in a room by herself.
Yeah, definitely. And I think she's very insecure, and so she needs everybody to see that a man wants to kiss her in front of everybody, you know, right, I think you don't get that famous unless you're seeking validation. She seems like she's seeking the public's validation of like, yeah, I'm awesome, right, everybody wants me to be their girlfriend because I'm the best, right Yeah.
Yeah. I mean with the Republicans too, Like it seems like a lot of this I mean and that analysis. I wish they would do that. They're like starting to be like just reading her to be like that's how they're going to get her to go the other way. They're like, we know what's up, Taylor, Like you want this to work so bad? No, I know what's up.
But I think she wants Joe Alwen to see these clips of her, like, you know, spinning around on the field kissing this other guy and be like, damn, I fucked.
Up, right, you know. He's like English, He's like there's only one football love. Yeah, so so good, and she's like, do you like this? How's this joke?
He did something amazing, which is that on her birthday, when everybody was like expecting him to look, you know, looking to see if he would post something on her birthday, he posted a pro Palestine thing.
Mm. That was oh wow, just because he knew there'd be so much attention. Joe Alwin Yeah interesting.
Yeah, Like I think he's you know, because people are also like, oh, he kind of like tamp down that part of her that's like needs the validation all the time, and that's why she was kind of quiet for a few years. And then when they broke up, it's like the part of her that needs that public exposure just went crazy and right. And it's happened before where she's gotten so overexposed that people are like sick of her. And she's definitely headed that direction again no matter what.
So but we just needed to last till November and then go back into the I.
Mean, if the team loses, if they don't get to the super Bowl and they don't win the super Bowl, like that relationship's over.
I know, right, are there taking are people taking prop bets?
She leaves him for the quarterback of the forty nine ers.
No, I mean, I mean, I think she's also doing I do think this was sort of a publicist set up in the first place. You know that they were like, he's he he allegedly was trying to get a famous girlfriend all year and was hitting up making the Stallion apparently Wow, yeah, like he was. He was allegedly trying to become famous. Has this publicist, That's why he hosted SNL. He wanted to be a name brand and dating Taylor
Swift incredible way for everyone to do that. So I think even if they are a little bit playing it up for the cameras, like they seem to like each other enough, you.
Know, a plus to that publicist.
I think it's like they it's it's been pointed out that they both date like they they're not each other's usual types. Sure, she dates little British guys.
I mean Molly Lambert, one of the great profilers and thinkers on celebrity. We're so lucky to have you for this conversation. I did not know about the Travis kelcey. That the idea that Travis kelce was like on a make me famous tour and even considered dating Megan the Stallion for a while. Where is that like dumont or where is that coming from?
I mean yeah, basically, you know, yeah, sure, yeah. I mean people said, there's somebody else he was trying to date. People said, basically he was looking to become a household name. He's got a podcast, as we all know with his brother. He's trying to become a sports personality who's more, you know, who's famous, on top of being an athlete, so that when he's not in the NFL anymore, he can be
like a famous sports personality who's on TV. That's why he hosted SNL because he, you know, wants people to think, oh, he's funny for an athlete. He's kind of cool for an athlete. He's smart for a football player. Honestly, his podcast is pretty funny.
Well, I mean yeah, look, I haven't listened to it called Jack, you simply must.
I like to dip into athlete podcasts. I listened to Tom Brady's podcast ones because I just how I imagined it in my head was being Tom Brady being like Tom Brady, brain don't work so good, right, mouth work fine, But you know he talked about he said stuff about football he kind of had. I was like, oh, he's got I guess I've never heard him talk. He just looks like such a dummy that I assumed he would sound like one. Right, Travis Kelcey is like, I'm cool for a football player.
I'm not like the other players.
He's not like the other players. He's funny. He was good on SNL also, But like it's definitely like, you know there's managers and agents involved in this, that that part's not made up.
Yeah, right, right, right, yeah, because I mean, like you know, that publicist and stuff will be like, here's a menu of options to keep you in the news, which one would you like to do? You know?
Yeah? And I think her first attempt to get back at the ex boyfriend, which was dating Mattie Healy from the nineteen seventy five like, didn't work and blew up in everybody's face kind of because he kept saying out of pocket things. Unclear how their relationship ended, either she dropped him because of the ice by stuff or he
just disappeared because the heat got too hot. And then comes this opportunity to date a football player who is very famous and all American, and she's obsessed with looking like like she can keep a man that's like her main because look, because people that are she's never been in therapy famously, and I saw, you know, people that are her fans saying, oh, well, you know, she's broke, got out of this six year relationship. She should really take some time to work on herself before she gets
in a serious relationship again. She should, like, you know, be with herself, be with see what she wants. And she doesn't do that. She doesn't fuck that.
She was like she just conquers the world.
She just needs a boyfriend because she needs everyone to know that she's like hot and desirable, and that's the way that she conveys it to the world because she's like the most heteronormous person on earth. You know, She's like, no one will know I'm hot unless I'm dating a big hot football player.
Just big chunk of beef man. Yeah. I mean, I think she's like.
Addicted to the idea of being in love to an extent that maybe it doesn't even really matter who the guy is, you know, which I think is a lot of people are just kind of like, well, I want to be married, So who who's going to marry me?
Right? I mean just this like with the whole obsession with the right on Taylor, it's like, really, I'm still trying to figure out, like what the fuck is going on.
That's what's funny, is like her fans are like, wow, you know, fairytale love. She never gives up on love, and now she and Travis are in love. Right wing people are like, she's a sucubust. She's an unmarried woman in her thirties and she's all used up and her eggs are dying. That's what I saw from the right wing as being like, she encourages abortions and he's mister vaccine and together they're leading people away from the light of Christ over to the dark side.
Yeah, the dark side of wokeism.
And they're like and they're like, you guys, can't use this all American bullshit.
That's our thing, right, I Mean, A lot of the ink seems to be coming from this poll too recently came out that said eighteen percent of voters, not just Taylor Swift, fans of voters said they would probably support whoever Taylor Swift supported, and then it also said that seventeen percent would be put off by a candidate that's Swift supported. So like on Fox, you're like, well, that just cancels each other out, so we don't have to worry about this. We don't have to worry about this.
But I don't, I mean whatever, that's there's like this really interesting fear and like I feel like this desperation
about talking about her. It feels like twofold right. One is they're hell bent on winning by any means in November, so anything that could introduce any sort of wobble to their confidence is like fucking existential because they say absolutely, Like you see all the fucking think tanks going all in on Project twenty twenty five and being ready to be like, yeah, let's just fucking flip the switch on the dark side like this November.
Yeah.
And she also used to stay out of it. That was like the thing was she used to not ever say anything about politics because allegedly her dad is like a Trump voter, you know, and she didn't want to stir the pot. And so then she got attacked from all sides when she wasn't saying anything where people are like, oh, it's because she's secretly Trump voter. It's because she is a Biden voter but doesn't want her Trump voter fans to know that because it'll affect album sales, but.
Doesn't seem to have done anything. No, I mean I.
Think you know, she came out and said she capitulated.
Yeah, she said, yeah. She says as little as she possibly can for it not to be a thing. Yes, right, but you can't say nothing and have it not be a thing.
She knows a lot of her fans are these kind of like Christian Karen's too, where she's like, they don't need to know that. I'm like an adult city girl who believes an abortion, because then they won't maybe buy my records, but I think they will. They for records anyway. And I think she did say something a little bit pro choice and like all, maybe even a little bit pro Palestine.
So do we think there's never been a like it's always seemed like very out of touch to me that the Democratic Party is. So I don't even know if it's a Democratic Party or if it's just the mainstream media that emphasizes like, well, the Democrats have Katie Perry like performing at their you know, and paign event so well, that's.
Part of it, is like the way that they're just completely putting everything on pop culture and being like it has always been like idiotic, like the Pokemon go to the polls like like, no, give us healthcare, give us fucking healthcare.
Right.
The fact that they're like, no, we need to get a team of famous people to endorse this candidate because that's all anybody cares about. It feels very much like the you know, playlist politics, where it's just like, no, nobody cares what's on your playlist, Give us any actionable change that will improve people's lives because everybody's fucking struggling and miserable. Yeah, which maybe is a good segue over to Elmo.
Yeah, but I mean, like I think, just like the last thing of like I think this is also just a perfect opportunity for the right wing media to not talk about all the l's Trump's been taking in court recently, because like they don't want to talk about the eighty three million dollar judgment that was like awarded to Egene Carol And now this week we're going to find out what what he's going to owe for all the fraudgilant bs with the fucking Trump organization and Leticia James is
seeking three hundred and seventy million, So this dude could be close to a half billion dollars in the hole. Yeah, but he might still shit goes.
Be president and they of course, and they might use that to be like, oh, they're coming for him because he's too powerful, you know, they're trying to take him down, and now he's the underdog, which is like how he operates is convincing a bunch of privileged people that they're the underdog, right.
I mean he kind of his you know, if you think about it, you know, I've just just been he's been sitting with that. He's a fighter in down but never till the end. But yeah, I think again, it's just there's always like an aversion to talk about like whatever is happening with him in a negative sense. I feel like a lot of this Swift stuff, Like while a lot of people are like, oh they're so fucking scared of Taylor Swift, I'm like they also don't want
to talk about the news too. So this is like a good thing just to be like, you know, getting people on like an anti Swift thing.
Yeah, maybe it is a si op, but from the right.
Yeah, that would be vary them to like be screaming about a syop that they are actually conducting as they're screaming about the syop.
It's kind of their move.
All right, let's take a quick break and we'll come back and talk about how everyone's doing. We'll be right back,
and we're back. And you know, we've been covering this show's been we've been doing this daily show for a long time, and you know, covering the incredibly consistent energy pushing back against ideas like defund the police and abolitionism coming from places like The New York Times, you know, places that coming into adulthood, I had been told we're like liberal or progressive, and it feels like there's a lot of parts of the mainstream media that have kind
of pushed past the idea of defunding the police, like it's settled law among people that like defund the police with bad politics, Like everybody heard James Carvedll say it, and they're like, well, I guess guess that's true. If that old swamp creature says it, that old snake say it, then I don't like that.
Yeah, that's backwards idea.
But how I'd just be curious to hear from you on like, how are you seeing progress made in the fight for abolishing the current system of like policing and human caging. Maybe just talking about like what is abolitionism currently as you see it, and what are the areas that abolitionists are currently working on.
I mean, yeah, I would say it's incredibly broad abolitionism. You know, people have multiple understanding of understandings of it, but the one I worked from is abolitionism is the fight to end enslavement, incarceration, and the exploitation of people that is based in the model of chattel slavery. And so what we are in is a continuation of that of chattel slavery and that exploitation of people, in the imprisonment and enslavement of people, and we see it in
the ways in which our systems have built. Now that is broad, because we actually see that in our mental health system, we see this in our quote unquote child welfare system, and we see it in our incarceration systems, in our school systems, and so there are a lot of different places to fight this and say, you know,
people have the right to their own autonomy. We don't have the right to say that only certain people deserve freedom, deserve liberation, deserve a second chance, deserve to learn and grow and change and be a part of community, and that we will look at the problems we face as a community with the fundamental belief that as a community we can solve it because these problems don't exist in a vacuum. If these problems are rooted in society and community,
in our systems, then we can solve them. And I think that that is fundamental to this work. And so you know a lot of people will try to fight that and say, you know, with fear mongering, well, if there's no cops tomorrow, what are you going to do?
As if there isn't a process, isn't the system? And often I would say, you know that fear mongering glazes over how incredibly brutal the reality is, right, which is that you know, we have a system that does nothing to deter harm our crime, that is stealing away large percentages of our population, that is leading to the deaths of hundreds, if not thousands of people by police officers every year, that is leading to the thefts of children from black, brown and Indigenous homes, that is leading to
the forced treatment and incarceration of mentally ill people. And we're not seafer, We're no safer, right, And so this idea that trying something new would be worse how much.
Yeah than this?
Yeah, it's a system that like insert you know, exports brutality into the world that we live.
In, right, and reinforces societal inequities that create brutality, that create harm and violence, and you know, and I think that's why we're force fat all of these you know, stories and cop shows of if it weren't for a cop, you know. And I think one of the most important things that was said to me by Genia Kahn years back. You were talking and they said, you know, cops can't
prevent crime, they can only respond after it's happened. And yet we act as if that's the episode, like you can't you know, unharm someone with police officer, and if anything, they're showing up and creating a whole new level of crime. And so this idea that it would make us safer
just doesn't make any sense. And so I think it's important to recognize like that there's something so deeply hopeful and beautiful and abolitionism in that fundamentally it believes in people like it believes that we can actually solve this, that no one is irredeemable, that we can look at societal issues and address them and change the way that we relate to each other, that we can heal each other, and that yes, we can address safety at the same time.
And it doesn't mean it's perfect, but oh my goodness, what we have right now is is causing more harm
than good. And so that means that there's so many different ways in which we can do this work, and you can pick different spots, and yeah, it can seem like we'll never get there right that we're not going to have a time whether aren't policing, But every time that we can kind of remove the task given to policing InCAR thural systems, every time that we can dismantle pieces of it and strengthen alternatives, we're doing really important abolitionists work. And we can do that and still say
this shouldn't exist. So I always say that, like it is abolitionists to say I don't want cops in schools. It's abolitionists to say that, you know, people need to be given alternatives to incarceration. It is abolitionists to say that people shouldn't be given, you know, forced treatment for mental health issues against their will. It is abolitionists to
do all of these. And I can say that work for and saying I don't want any cops, you know, I can say that right while also working towards these things that are available to me right now.
I mean yeah, I think, especially when it relates to policing, right, and we, like you said, the status quo is violence is dysfunction, is increased harm. It's not solution based, it's not about identifying root causes. Yet so many people are so frightened to make the change that like the fear instantly turns like passionate defenses of the status quo. So then the next thing that you get offered, especially from
legislators politicians, is our reforms. Right, and we talk a lot about reform is not we're just We're just you're just putting different, a different code of paint on the same problem. How do you sort of like balance obviously the need for these kinds of like deeper changes or these different like different kind of emphasis alongside like the reforms, because a lot of the times you get these sort of these debates now where people are like, well, don't
let the perfect be the enemy the good. They're saying they're they'll tolling cops to use a slightly lighter baton or something, and we're supposed to be like, oh, okay, yes, sure, but like, how do we sort of in a world where people are so focused and able to say like, no, like a lot of our crime is because of desperation or lack of support. That's what we need to be doing. I don't want to hear about anything unless I mean talk to me when we're getting rid of qualified immunity
or something like that. How do you how should people sort of like look at this balance of understanding what glacial, incremental sort of reform can do versus trying to like, for lack of a better word, hope for something revolutionary, something different, something that's sort of upending the status quo.
That's a great question, and it is something that we talk about in the book. It's so vital that we understand the difference between like true liberation, liberatory work, and harm reduction and recognize what's neither, because a lot of what we say is police reform is neither harm reduction or liberatory work, and we have to say, at least
give us some harm reduction. Right, So it's really important to listen to the people most impacted by it and the people who are actually you know, experts on this from the perspective of communities harmed, right, and say no, this doesn't work, and we know this doesn't work, and listen to that and be really really clear, because people will sell you anything and call it revolutionary, and then we will they'll label, you know, harm reduction as like
this huge attack on the system and we're not even getting to like the meat of it. Harm reduction matters, absolutely matters, because the truth is is if we have these long term, big goals, we have to be alive to get.
There, right.
But that means we have to be honest about what it is. And so you know when, first of all, if it's offered to us by the system, throw it away. You got that idea, Oh okay, we don't want that, right, You got to listen. We have to listen and listen to the communities who've been building alternatives, right, because communities
wouldn't we build alternatives. Some of those are revolutionary, some of those are harm reduction, right, and so we already kind of know what direction works and what direction doesn't. And so when it comes to issues that are as big as like policing and say, we would hate you know, we don't want this system here. You know, harm reduction, you know would be things like one, you know, getting
police out of officers out of schools. Right, the systems still exists, but we don't need the officers in schools. Studies have shown time and time again that you know, it leads to an increase in arrests a black and brand and indigenous and disabled students with no actual reduction in harm. And it's not in whether they're you know, arrested, has no ties to violence in schools, drugs in schools or anything like that. It's just do you have black students?
Do you have cops? Now we have more black students arrested, so we know it doesn't work, right, So harm reduction would be you know, getting them out, and that isn't you know, it's an abolitionist practice in that it is, you know, getting them out, but it's not getting rid of the system. Other ones would be you know, before you start referring making calls kicking kids out of school, and getting them in this in these pipelines. You know what,
who oversees them, right, who approves that? What records do you have, whatever things are you trying first? Those are all things that are really important to look at while saying, while recognizing if the system still stays in place, it's not getting rid of the system, and so we can work towards that, push towards that, don't accept anything that re entrenches the system. And so retraining always re entrenches the system. Retraining is never going to be a harm reduction.
It's just putting more money into a system and asking you know, and we've shown that they don't come out you know, gentler kind or more understanding of community. They come out with more police officers, you know, and they come out with more levels of excuses for why they're doing what they're doing. And so just listening to community
on that is really really vital. But when it comes to every day and if you're looking at smaller things we can do, you know, if you live in an area that has cash bail programs, getting rid of cash bail is one of the most vital things you can do right now, right you know, in Washington here we have like to stay where people actually have to pay for their incarceration if they work out a deal and they want to go in early so that they aren't
away from their family for three years and maybe six months, they have to pay for every day that they're in there. And so, you know, things like that are wild classes basist, and getting rid of that doesn't get rid of the system.
But it's also a really really important step that we can take right now to reduce the numbers of people caught up in this popular in these systems, and how long they're caught up in them, and that gives us what we need, the strength we need in community to keep fighting.
Just how do you think about the pushback from the mainstream media? Just that's been something that I've tried to get my head around, trying to picture the editorial meetings at these you know, major journalistic institutions where they decide, let's go with this story where the police are the
only source for the information. Do you think of that as being put in place by powers, like architecturally structured to put this power in place, Because I also feel like there's also some some desire for that narrative coming from below also, like from the readership, and I'm just wondering, like how you think about that? Hey, does that inform how you approach people when you're trying to talk to them about you know, the car soural system and you know,
things like that. There's this big infrastructure of power and money that is like trying to keep these institutions in place. But then there's also people who are just like really quick to believe the bullshit stories. And I don't know if it's because that's what they've always had, if it's because you know, it preserves their feeling of superiority and protection, but just just interested to hear your thoughts on that.
I think it's a mix of things, right, So one, I do think that if people were, you know, if the reality of systemic oppression were laid bare for all people, and the way in which people have been made to participate in the impression of others was laid bare for all people, that people would decline to participate in that, especially if they were able to see how it impacts their own personal safety. No one is safe in a police state, whether or not we've been told we are.
Even if you have privilege, only the very select few are and often that is only for a limited time, but you know, that is something that people don't want, and so that is often kept from the people who are made to participate most, right, people with the most privileged. The reality of how unsafe we are is something that many of us can't escape, you know, and which is why we're often the first and the most outspoken about
trying to change it. But that unsafety exists for everyone, and that culpability exists, and people want to avoid it, and people have been protected from it, and they're you know, their bellies are soft to it, you know what I mean, Like they're they don't they haven't built up that tolerance for it, and have been told that they would fall apart if they knew the reality that they couldn't handle it,
and they're fed a constant diet of fear. When we look at our media, and this constant fear of the other, fear of this danger that is pumped into people. Right, we look at these shows where it's just this random person gets a thirst for blood and is out murdering people who's going to come help you, or you know, like this, you know, gang violence where the gang leaders are just soul as creatures who popped out of nowhere and they're going to take over your city if you don't,
you know, have this. People are fed that, and people who don't have that firsthand experience with the reality of these systems and are living this completely alternate reality and are being told no other reality exists that you know, you you would feel comfortable calling a cop knowing they could help you get your out of a tree or whatever, and you'd be safe and everyone would because that's your reality. Challenging that makes the world terrifying, right, It can make
the world team really terrifying. Challenging how you've been made a part of it can seem really terrifying. It can make you feel really powerless in a way that you know, many of us have never had the luxury of avoiding. And people will put up walls around that. And it has little to do with intent. It has. You can say you care, you know, and you love, but if you're not actively challenging these ideas and willing to sit
with that discomfort, then you'll have a problem. And people don't want to hear it, right, People really don't want to hear it. They don't want it to land on
their doorstep. If they are thinking about things like police brutality, they want the name of the one cop that they can yell at and blame because if it's a system and they're, you know, paying taxes into that system, if they've been supporting that system, if they voted for the candidate who said they'll bring lawn or and safety to their area, knowing that that men it would increase cops in black and brown communities, right then there's a whole
level of culpability. And if that thing that they've been pouring money and effort into would endanger their disabled child, they don't want to know. They don't want that. They don't want that reality, and so it's really important that we challenge it while also showing that people are building alternatives, and that idea that we could build something else is kept from a lot of people who've never had to. And so it's always wild to me when people say, well,
what are you going to do? You know, what are you going to do? If someone read you, that's that's the thing people say a lot to me, right, especially as woman, people will weaponize that against me. And then like, first of all, I'm absolutely a survivor of sexual assault, as many women have been and please do anything right.
And my healing, my sense of safety, came from the practices that, like my black and brown community had to build to try to address list because we always knew that we weren't going to find safety in the system and we weren't going to find repair in the system.
And so you know, those kind of ideas, these things that are thrown out erases the fact that right now, the you know, a large segment of blackground and indigenous populations, queer and trans populations absolutely know that they could never find safety in our systems and they have to build elsewhere,
and they have been, but that is completely erased. You know, the ways in which we solve conflict is erased, the ways in which we ensure safety is erased, The way in which we heal each other and ourselves has been erased. And it all comes down to you have to trust this person with a gun. Nothing else has been done,
nothing else can work. And so media I think plays a huge part in that they're invested in that because one they personally don't want to investigate that, and I've talked with editors, you know, as a writer who don't personally want to investigate it. They want to keep it in a comfortable place for them, but also they have funders who are systemically, you know, invested in this, and there is a real backlash four people publicly taking a stand and saying we're going to address the real roots
of this. People have been made to pay, and I do think that people are afraid of that and afraid of challenging those assumptions.
Yeah, I think one of the most like one of sort of inspiring passages for me or just to just to kind of put everything into perspective, right, because we started off being like revolution just feel like this scary idea and like, even though I know, like we need to actually look out for everybody, true liberation is only when every single person is liberated, like even if they don't look like me or not part of my community.
That there was I think it was Miriam Caaba who you were saying, like, what's really put this into perspective, was like, it's it's not about like these big things, right, It's like, and I might be butchering the quote, but it's just about taking out removing just the bricks of like these oppressive systems. It doesn't have to be a wrecking ball type moment, because if if everybody's taken a brick out one by one for them elves, shit will
start crumbling. That's just there's just no way for something structurally to keep it structural integrity if we're always like just kind of picking away at it. And I think that's a really important message for I think, and I really encourage our listeners to really to check your book out, because we are in such a time right now where I feel like everyone feels like they're banging their heads against a wall and they're like, I'm seeing this happen right now, am I Like, but we're not doing the
right things. And I think it really is an empowering message a to see these other stories of people who a lot of are starting from absolute powerlessness and then opening the door to something really really substantive and really monumental without necessarily that being the initial intention of it,
of just it's more just about advocating for yourself. So I really thank you for putting all of these stories together and your words around it, because as someone who's done like worked from all over the political spectrum, from being a lobbyist to being like in the streets and things like that. I've always sort of grappled with these feelings of like where my power lies or how I can actually exercise that and what it means to be
revolutionary or not. And I think it makes it a very accessible way, and I think is very powerful, I think for people to understand that it's just about these small actions, because they all like, we can't just think
we can't. We have to get out of like the superhero mentality of them, like I'm going to figure it out by myself right now, rather than can I contribute to a community that's doing well, Can I from my space say, you know what, maybe we don't need funding that's contingent upon us interacting with the police to keep our nonprofit going, et cetera, et cetera. So yeah, I just again I feel like, thank you for putting this book out, and yeah, it's really great to just be
able to speak with you today. It's just been really eye opening, and I'm sure our listeners have had the same experience too. Yeah. Truly a pleasure.
All Right, that's gonna do it for this week's weekly Zeitgeist. Please like and review the show If you like the show means the world of Miles. He he needs your validation, folks. I hope you're having a great weekend and I will talk to him Monday. Bye.