Hi, and welcome back to the Carol Markowitz Show on iHeartRadio, and welcome to the new time slot. The Carol Markowitz Show is now airing Wednesdays and Fridays, so you can get my non political podcast this show, The Carol mark Wooz Show on Wednesdays and Fridays, and then normally the political podcast I co host with Mary Katherine Ham every Tuesday and Thursday. Only day you don't get me is Mondays.
So after the last two weeks of talking about fostering likability in your kids and helping them make and coordinate friendships and their teens, one listener writes in that I'm overthinking it. Hi, Carol, love the show and your perspective, but you're overthinking it regarding kids. They're going to be who they are no matter what tips you give them to be more likable. Kids don't listen to their parents, especially when they are teenagers. I mean, yes, of course
that's true. I remember very well instantly discarding the advice my parents would give me. That's why it's important to start young, but also model the behavior. Don't tell long winded stories yourself, be personable, be funny, let your kids see you with your friends and show them what that interaction should look like. My kids hear us cracking jokes with our friends, and they see us make plans with
our friends, sometimes spontaneous, sometimes weeks in advance. But I don't think that they'll just pick it up by osmosis. And so we've had a lot of conversations, starting quite young, about how to make friends, how to maintain friendships. A lot of times kids need stuff pointed out to them
so they can see how it works. This conversation started, like I said, two episodes ago, with a listener writing in that their daughter is a teenager and has friends, but never seems to see them outside of school and doesn't know how to coordinate plans. I don't think that's a crazy thing to teach your kids. I think that they might not necessarily know how to coordinate their own plans after years of you making the plans for them.
I mean, yes, you can't make play dates for them when they're in high school, but it's not crazy to give them the strategy for how to make plans. And then last episode, we talked likability and whether you can help your kids be more likable to others. I say yes, I think people can change, and they can adjust their personality to be better. Yes, it's true, we're not more
and perfect. I was a very shy kid, and then I was a teenager who talked too much, and I had to get over both of those challenges, and I like to think that maybe I did. Although if I told the teenager who talked too much that I now have two podcasts, she probably would have said that sounds about right. I get the argument that we don't want to be helicopter parents to our kids, and I assure you I'm the furthest thing from that, as anyone who
has ever watched my kids run free can attest. But that doesn't mean we can't guide our kids, and it doesn't mean we can't tell them the things and their personalities that they maybe need to improve to attract more people to their orbit. We've swung too far in the opposite direction if that scene is overstepping. We know our own kids, We know the amazing parts of their personalities and the less amazing parts. Well they listen, we'll see. I'd love to hear your thoughts on this, or anything
I talk about on the show. Drop me an email. Carol Maarkowitz Show at gmail dot com. Thanks for listening. Coming up next an interview with David Harsani join us after the break, but first, with daylight savings behind US crime rates tend to rise. You've heard us talk about the Saber home defense launchers, the ultimate choice for protecting what matters. But did you know that Saber also offers a full line of on the go pepper sprays, gels
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Safe Today. Welcome back to the Carol Markowitz Show on iHeartRadio. My guest today is David Hersani, senior writer at the Washington Examiner and the author of the new book The Rise of Bluing on how the Democrats became a party of conspiracy theorists.
Hi, David's so nice to have you on.
It's nice to be on. Thanks for having me so.
I am super excited about your book, which I have here. I haven't read it yet, I just got it.
Tell us a little bit about it.
Well, I'm sure you know and you've heard that the common perception, or the common case the media makes is that the right wing is far more perceptible, far more inclined to believe conspiracy theory is disinformation, misinformation and spread them. But the more I thought about it, not just in recent times, but historically speaking, the more I realized that that wasn't actually true. Now, I'm not saying right wingers
aren't conspiracy theories. Sometimes we certainly are. But I think that the left wing conspiracies are much more dangerous and embedded in the argument they're making in a lot of ways, and it's not just conspiracy theories. It's like paranoia and more dangerous because it's laundered through media institutions, culture. You have experts, you know, who were supposed to trust, who spread these things, so it's a lot more difficult to dislodge or just debunk and stuff like that.
So that's the basic idea of the book.
Yeah, what was the trigger for you, Like, which conspiracy theory for you was like, Oh, that's it, I'm writing a book on this.
I don't know how if it worked like that, but I think the Russia collusion conspiracy frightened me, and that frightened me. But I thought was the biggest, most successful conspiracy theory maybe in the history of the world as far as the political conspiracy theory goes. It consumed us for years. It shut down the ability of the White House to govern, in Congress to govern, and infected all
kinds of people and I think changed everything. And then when COVID came, I think that finally was broke the fever and we don't trust anyone anymore.
So I'm not sure.
That they ever be able to get away with something like that again, right, that was gonna be My next question is, could something like that happen again?
We're about to head into a second Trump term. I can't imagine a lot of people haven't gotten over it, right. I mean Bill Maher, who was considered sort of a voice of sanity on the left, still believes Russian collusion happened. He said it just recently. So could something of this happen again?
I think because of the margin of victory, it's going to be a little more difficult to pull something like that off.
It could happen again.
I don't think it's going to happen tomorrow or in the next few years, because we are so people aren't. As this election probably proved, we don't really listen to mass media anymore in any serious way.
I don't think we take them seriously.
And it's not good because in a free country you need a media who you know, that's watching over people in power. So even if Donald Trump did something wrong, I don't think anyone would believe it, you know, and that's not good really for us at all. Right, So yeah, I mean, you know, just think about this cycle. Everyone, the whole media was kind of consumed with the idea that Hitler was coming and that fascism was a problem,
which is also just paranoia. You know, it's a style of paranoia in politics that makes people kind of act very hysterical and stupid.
Yeah, why did they need the Russian collusion? Like for I don't understand, like you could just hate him, just hate him regularly. Why does he have to be a Russian spy? You know, I never quite got that. It was like he's so hateable in so many different ways, like, just just hate him regular They won't let us hate him because they're so insane that I'm constantly you find.
Your you know, there was a skit about this. Yeah, you're constantly have to defend a guy. Yeah, I don't. I just think they wanted to delegitimize his presidency. I mean that's another part of my book. You know, we we that stupid term election denier, where if you question anything you're in an election. To go back to two thousand, there's not a Democrat alive who's going to tell you that Bush actually won that election, even though there have
been independent recounts of Florida and all that. Even in two thousand and four, they were almost every major Democrat had gotten involved in talking about dive bold machine or I remember.
That very well.
Ohio, Hio was stolen from them in two thousand and four Dia Bold machines.
And then twenty sixteen they didn't accept that election as legitimate. So it's not as if they just.
Began doing this, right. Yeah.
I mean there are writers who I started with, you know, at the same time I did, who are on the left who had never until maybe today, accepted a Republican presidential victory. So they're just as much election deniers as anyone else.
Yeah, how did you get into writing?
Well, my dad, you know, he's defected from Hungary my mom as well, and he was really anti communists and really big on history and all that.
We had books all over the place.
So I just always enjoyed that and just not a very serious young person, I guess, and writing always seemed like an easy and fun thing to do, so I just kind of fell into sports writing first, is what my first jobs were.
I did start writing.
Politics until after nine to eleven, so I don't know, I never really thought of doing anything else.
What do you consider your beat now at the Examiner, Like, what do you like to write about.
I feel like I you.
Know, I often get into I'm very into the culture, right. The culture topics do it for me much more than straight politics.
Which I still do occasionally.
But you know, definitely lean into some some beats more than others.
I mean, if they let me, I would sit here and write about obscure records from the seventies.
But they don't let me do that. Uh no, not now. I'm not sure many people would be interested in that to you.
Pitched a column on that, because I feel like that actually would be very popular.
I used to write the Happy war or occasionally write the Happy Warrior column in the National Review, and I would send them columns about stuff like that, and I'm always like, I can't believe they're letting me publish lists, you know, and they would. I would write the weirdest columns, but I think it's a no. I do get passionate about certain things. So if I'm writing, I like what I do. I'm very lucky. So I just my beat
is anything. No one really tells me what to write, and I generally write about what's going on in politics. I try to be a contrarian on some issues. I don't feel like I'm being a contrarian, but people seem to think I'm doing it on purpose. I don't know. Ye,
I don't know if that's my instinct. Like I was telling Molly Hemingway, who we both know, you know today that when a large group of people are really happy like they are today, I have I get very uncomfortable and restless and want to I want to steal some of their joy. Yeah, and I like to spark that kind of conversation. You know, That's what I try to do at least.
Yeah, I feel.
Like I agree with you a lot, So I don't know. You're gonna have to work harder.
Yeah, someone is doing it. You know, no one agrees with me anywhere. I probably wouldn't have a career right right.
I'm trying to think if there's anything big I disagreed with you on, and I don't think so. So you're going to have to really try hard on that contrarian streak.
I'm going to really pay attentions, and when you're passionate about something, I'm going to I'm going to jump into your mensions and I'm just going to go the other way.
Yeah.
Yes, that's excellent.
So what would you tell your sixteen year old self, Like, any advice that you would offer young David Harsani.
Yeah, stop smoking up and acting like a lunatic. Start getting serious about your life.
Don't look at him, sixteen year old. Those those are the you know, you're supposed to do that kind.
Of fine years.
Yeah, yeah, I think, yeah, yeah, I just wish I would have been a little more serious about the world, because it's good to get an early start. But yeah, you have to enjoy those years, and you should just do it. But don't do drugs. All little drugs, not too great stuff, not too many.
Right, So what do you worry about?
What were those things that you think you should have been taking more seriously?
Well, honestly, what I worry about the only I am not very worried. I mean I'm not a person who like worries very much. I mean, I have a general worry about the future of the country. I just feel like there's not much I can do about that. I
have my little space there and I make arguments. So so I just really worry about my own kids and hope, you know, and I hope that the world is a good you know, that they find fulfillment in this world and happiness and all that, and that the country is still the same country that I grew up in general, and you know, so I do worry about that.
Yeah, how do you keep kids off the blue and on stuff?
It's tough because the I didn't have the Internet growing up, you know, And I think that the Internet fuels that a bit, because a bunch of people who have crazy ideas can get together and kind of.
Reinforce the craziness. So I worry about that a little.
But also I like the Internet because it lets us debunk crazy things as well. Where you know, how do I keep the kids off? Well, my kids are pretty old.
I can't.
They don't even They don't listen to me anymore or tell me what they're up to. Yeah, so I just hope that twenty one and twenty three.
Soon are they're going to read your book.
I doubt it. They're not very interested in politics, thankfully, Yeah.
Thankfully, my kids read the acknowledgments in my book because I mentioned them.
But that was It's funny that you mentioned the acknowledgements because they're so They're like the hardest thing for me to write, because I know I'm going to forget someone. So I used to used to be I used to have like four pages of them. But now when in the opposite direction, I'm just like all my friends and this I don't have to worries.
You got to keep it short.
Yeah, yeah, Well, my co author of Bethany Mendel, like my joke at the time was like, she's she thanked everybody she'd ever met in her acknowledgements, and I just couldn't possibly do that. So I only thank like my family and like a few friends that like maybe really helped me with the book or had some role in my professional life, not just like yeah, every friend I've ever had, Yeah, she really ruined it for me.
You could go either way on that.
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foot pepper cloud experience sensory irritation plus. Sabers Home Defense Launcher is the only sixty eight caliber launcher with a seven projectile capacity, offering up to forty percent more shots than others. Stay secure day or night with Sabers solutions. Visit saberradio dot com. That's Sabre radio dot com or call eight four four eight two four Safe Today to protect what matters most. So other than Russiagate, what other blue and on conspiracy theories are out there?
Well, there was a book in the sixty about the paranoid style of politics that at the time certain fringes of the Republican Party were involved in. Even though I think it's a terrible book, but anyway, my view is that it's.
By Hofsted or I think was his name. It's called the Paradois style of politics.
Yeah, and it was about sort of Birchers and Goldwater and all this stuff. I think it's very misleading, but but he was right about certain current politics that take hold, and I think that is happening on the left. I'll give you an example, and it's an insidious thing, really, is the idea that black people are not allowed to vote, that there's voter suppression when it is easier to vote today than it's ever been for anyone. Right, you've convinced
people that they have no agency. I'll give you another example, that white cops are hunting black young men across this country and killing them.
This sort of.
Thing is pernicious and false. And I'm not saying there are under racists. Of course there are racists out there, but the idea that the whole country is stacked against you and won't let you achieve anything, I think is
a dangerous kind of paranoia. There's the whole anti Semitism and Jewish stuff that's going on on the left now, which is embedded in leftism forever, and you know happens on the right too, But that's driven by a lot of paranoia about Jewish power and money and a bunch of ignorant people who know nothing about history or Israel. So there are a lot of strands of it. I mean I go through them in the book.
Yeah, how do you fight back against them?
Difficult?
I mean you try to make rational arguments, but when people are irrational, they're not typically open to hearing that. A lot of it is driven by emotion and by.
Yes or start to crack through emotion. It's like, you know, there's no reason there. You can't argue it out, it's just the.
Exactly that's how you feel. Yeah, so a lot of that.
So what do we do, David Te'll give us the solution. I'm sure there's one in the book.
The Thing that People Ivor in is my sixth book, and every book everyone's like, you never offer or a solution.
Really, they make you off most of the time.
No, they did.
So there's a very short chapter at the end of the book.
I don't know, this might be, this might work, try this.
Yeah, I just think you don't have to act. There's a thing now with a lot of people who like Trump where they're like the left did all these terrible things, we need to do all these terrible things.
Also to show them. I think that's not a.
Winning formula, and I don't think it's the way people should act. Now they'll call me a cuck or whatever.
I don't know if I agree with you.
I think that there's got to be some repercussions, like the whole cancel culture thing, where people, you know, the left comes for their enemies and cancels whoever they want. Like, yeah, I think we should cancel them back. I think, you know, just the idea is that lessons need lessons need to be taught.
M So I don't know. I yeah, okay, we found a point of disagreement.
There we go, there we go. Yeah, I should write a column on this. I don't actually disagree with that part of it. I'm not a big I've never big a big critic of cancel culture. I gotta be honest. I'm not saying that it's good. I think people should be heard. I believe in those principles, But the idea that someone should be teaching in a university and teaching that Jewish people are, you know, Martians who want to suck your blood or whatever they're.
Doing, we're not supposed to tell them.
Why should we have to platform people who are insane. I you know, so I think it's it's but that's not what I meant. I didn't mean it like that. I mean, if you believe in free speech and you're making arguments about free speech as a neutral expression that everyone should have a say, you should hold that principle
going forward. If you believe, you know, in separations of powers, or like you believe in the filibuster right, and you think it's a good thing, just because Trump's present, you should still.
Believe it's a good thing.
I just I'm worried about I should have answered this for the worried question.
I'm worried that.
Yeah, I am worried about the norms of governance being just completely shattered because people have gone insane with part heartisanship. So I meant it more like like that.
Obviously, I don't think Trump should go prosecute his political enemies like they did to him.
I think he should if they've actually done something corrupt or wrong. Everybody, that's true, that's true. I don't think that's a winning formula for him in the long run. I mean, I think that it will make people on Twitter feel good, but I don't think the normy who's used to vote Democrat, who decided to vote for him, is going to feel I think he's going to feel better if Trump's out there doing the stuff he said he would do, rather than chasing down some lefty who wronged him.
But yeah, that's politically the smarter move. Just I feel like people need to be punished for a lot of the stuff that's gone down in the last few years.
And that's part of my book too. There's no reckoning for there's no reckoning for Russia collusion. Like, no one lost their job. They got better jobs, Like Adam Shift did not lose his. He's, you know, one of the most corrupt people going in Washington. He has a better job. Now, did anyone in media get fired? No, they went on and you know, they went on and hid Joe Biden's acuity problems and physical decline. They just they don't care. So yeah, well there needs to be a Reckonizink.
We're having this conversation, this talk of Comcast spinning off MSNBC and CNN is going to have massive layoffs. So they did kind of get theirs or they will. So did anybody specifically get fired for the Russian inclusion? No? But trust in media is at an all time low, and you got to imagine that that has something.
To do with it.
Yeah.
I just think the incentives are always wrong when Trump's around, because it usually will bring you ratings if you are hysterical about him.
Right.
Maybe that's going to change now, But I do wonder in the long run if that's true, because, as you know, in media, it's not just we hate Trump. There's a culture problem from top to bottom. You have the if someone writes something or has a different opinion at your publication, a bunch of editorial assistants will get the editorial page, you know, editor fired. That's a cultural problem that's going to take a lot to change. You see these law
professors on Twitter. They're insane. They're against the First Amendment. They are, I mean, so that needs to change. I think going to journalism school is the worst thing you can do if you want to be a journalist these days. Are be a good journalist, but he gets rewarded with hits.
No.
Yeah, the year long internship with a sports writer. It was like an old timey, cranky sportswriter in New York, And I.
Think that was the best education. Yeah, I mean.
Journalism school like journalism professors, a PhD s. That's insane. You'd never even step in a newsroom. You should, you should. It should be like a one year certificate program to be a journalist. And that just used a common sense.
Yeah, yeah, to replace maybe four years of college. I don't think you need an additional one year.
I don't think if you need the four I.
Don't know, yeah exactly.
I mean I got started in the blog world, so I think to start a blog and see where it goes. I think that's that's my advice to that's my advice standing young people listening.
The blogging revolution was for me the best time because it was blew away the gatekeepers, big media didn't matter that much, and yet there were so many smart people out there who had never been able to, you know, never had the platforms arguing about things, all kinds of sort of niche topics and micro arguments and broad arguments.
And then Twitter came and everyone had to distill all their opinions into like an lol as they flew by, you know, someone's opinion or and mocked people, and it's become much uglier.
So for me, the blogging era was a lot of fun. I loved.
All the best people from the blogging era got hired by the mainstream outlets. That was sort of what what ended up happening, that if you were good and popular, you were getting picked up somewhere. And that's really what I think ended that whole Golden age. I mean, Twitter sort of almost brought it back a little bit, but just in a.
Dumb or fashion.
Yeah, that's interesting.
I was on a newspaper at the Denver Post when that was happening, and I remember going to the editors and trying to blog.
I was saying, we should be doing this. We're gonna this is.
Much more interesting, it's more immediate, you know, and quick reactions and all that. So I tried to recruit some people and they were like, well, we need to be paid extra to do this obviously, right. I'm like, yeah, yeah, you're missing the point of this. You know, you should you know, you should build. So I remember sending my pieces to Instapundent and others and trying to get involved in that world because I felt like that was where it was going. That's what excited me at least. Yeah. Yeah,
so there's no more Denver Posts. There's like eleven people work there, so.
They should maybe start blogging.
Well. I have loved this conversation. I cannot wait to read The Rise of Bluing on how the Democrats became a party of conspiracy theorists. And here with your best tip for my listeners on how they can improve their life.
For young people, I think that the thing they need to do is get married as early as possible and have as many kids as possible. I wish I had had more children. There's nothing greater in life than doing that. And the second thing, though I am in no position to get people tips about their lives, I think stop thinking about politics so much. It's just too many people
are too obsessed. I think with what's going on in politics, it really doesn't affect your life as much as you think, and it just makes people miserable most of the time. So that would be my small piece of advice to people.
Love it. Thank you so much, David. Loved having you on.
Thanks for having me appreciate it.
Thanks so much for joining us on the Carol Marko which show. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.