Hi, and welcome back to the Carol Markowitz Show. On iHeartRadio. Last episode, I talked about taking advice from people who don't know what they're talking about. The example that I used was this perpetually single young woman on the Internet who offers advice about relationships to men. She has no idea about anything, not even the basics, and I don't recommend listening to her. I was thinking about this as
Greta Thunberg hit the news again. Greta, of course, is the Swedish girl who quit school to travel around the world and lecture us about climate change, and now she's on to the latest cause, the Warren Gaza, and she's wearing a cafea and protesting a Jewish singer performing at the Eurovision Company Titian in Malmo. Greta had this childlike
understanding of the environment. She had these insane demands like end oil, you know, which would have caused hardship and poverty and pain for people all over the world, and yet she was taken seriously. And now she's on to anti Israel demonstrations, which I'm also sure she knows nothing about. She was turned into a child activist by adults and now she's this empty adult going through the motions, tagging
on to whatever demonstration will have her. And part of it, I think is that we're drawn to atypical advice givers. Here's this little girl from Sweden telling us we need to end oil, or here's this single woman on the internet giving advice to men. This isn't a political show, but it's important to be able to ignore ignorant voice is like Greta's, and societally we really failed to do that. I've mentioned on my Twitter, et cetera that for a long time, and I actually mentioned this in my book
Stolen Youth as well. My son in first grade in school in Brooklyn when we lived there, had months where I would ask him what are you learning in school? And he'd come back and say Greta. And so societally we failed to ignore her. We have failed to ignore this ignorant voice. And I think that the personal changes that we talk about on this show, like not listening to people who don't know anything, can translate to society
being better about this kind of thing too. If in our own lives we know to dismiss people giving bad advice, maybe that can trickle down to our culture recognizing a Greta when they next see her. Coming up next, an interview with Jordan Shaftel. Join us after the break.
Welcome back to the Carol Marcowitz Show on iHeartRadio. My guest today is Jordan Shackdal. Jordan is publisher of the Dossier on Substack. Hi, Jordan, so nice to have you.
Hey, Carol, It's good to be here. Appreciate you having me on.
So, Jordan's also part of our Florida crew.
And you also moved here from where did you move here from? DC?
Yeah?
I was in d C for far too long. I went to graduate school there. I grew up in Jersey across from New York City and ended up in DC for graduate school. Stayed for a while. You know, I had a pretty decent time until the COVID era and then all hell broke loose and I just couldn't take it anymore. And you know, had a good network of
friends and family down in Florida. So I was just you know, I think it was like somewhere around mid twenty twenty where I was just like I'm out of here, like I've just got enough.
I don't think I I knew you got here mid twenty twenty. That makes you one of the earlier people. I mean, I think only John Cardillo beats you.
Yeah, and David Reboy. Both of them were pre COVID.
Yeah.
John is like the unofficial ambassador from Florida to the United States, and Reboy is the Miami local who's been here for a while.
Yeah, he's the mayor.
I definitely credit Reboy with some level of making me consider Florida.
I mean, obviously there were larger.
Things at play, but he, you know, he definitely played a role being the mayor of Miami and telling me how great my social life was going to be when I got here. And you know, he wasn't wrong. But I had John on here a few weeks ago and we talked about how he came here for like sleepy Florida, and I don't feel like that's what we got at all, do you think that?
Yeah?
You know, like I kind of like the mix that we have in Florida. I grew up coming down here because you know, a lot of my family with snowbirds and those in the Northeast.
Can you understand that snowbirds to Florida weird?
Yeah, there's a whole. There should be many books written about it. But basically, you know, you you spend the winter months in Florida or at least have a place
or rent a place for the holidays. But yeah, so I spend a lot of time in Florida growing up, and you're right, it was like old sleepy Florida, which I wasn't particularly fond of, but you know, now in my mid thirties as as an old sleepy person, No, but it was interesting because, like, you know, you you come to appreciate more of that stuff.
But also Florida is.
So much more lively now than it used to be. You know, even the architecture, the neighborhoods. It's just a whole different ballgame down here, and you know, I so much appreciate that that it's not, you know, just the reputation that it used to have, just as like basically Heaven's uh, you know, waiting room is definitely you know, there's still that element. But I think Florida is so you know, diverse, the demographics now in a good way, and it's.
Like such a happening place.
I feel like everything is happening here and like people are constantly coming here.
I mean, I guess they always were.
Florida was always a vacation destination, but now there's so many events and like political stuff and like a lot of our world plays out here. I think more than ever, I I don't feel like I have to leave here to get the full experience.
Yeah. Absolutely, Like, you know, I think about my time in d C, and you know, we had a lot of good times with fellow right leaning people down there, but are up there? And I say down there because I'm from New Jersey, so but it's you know, I think back at like get togethers and whatnot. Basically everyone has left, so you know, there's probably no cool get togethers in DC anyway anymore, or if that applies, could there be?
Yeah?
Yeah, gone, Yeah, I've never lived in DC, I mean briefly, like during an internship, But yeah, how could there possibly be when everybody's in Florida exactly? So you published the Dot and you have a wide, wide following. What kind of stuff do you cover in your subject?
Yeah? So we basically cover everything.
And the only rule, you know, it's it's coming from a right of center conservative slash libertarian slash you know, freedom oriented whatever you want to call it perspective. But you know, the only thing that I think that our audience looks for consistently is the analysis or journalism needs
to be independent. I'm trying to get away far as far away from possible as possible from like the aggregation, the clickbait that you know, you see a story somewhere and you just kind of repeat it in your own words elsewhere. I did that when I was in you know, other parts of the right of center media.
Working under you know, a big.
Company, not corporate media, but you know, kind of like anti establishment media, and I found that kind of boring, so I definitely didn't want to bring that work into my own publication. So I think that's what we try to do, is you know, we we try to give our audience a unique set of facts and circumstances on every story, or a unique perspective, and try to engage with it from you know, our open bias.
So I feel like I started reading you early COVID, and you were one of the early voices, i mean against lockdowns and you know, later on against vaccines, but the lockdown stuff specifically, how did you know, like what made you think like this is the wrong path and we can be doing this.
Because I have to admit.
I mean I was like, I'm in April twenty twenty, we shouldn't lock down anymore, which you know is considered early, but you were before that. So what made you kind of see the light earlier than everybody else?
Yeah, I've kind of always had this like anti authority streak from from not from like an antifa perspective, but from a right wing perspective. So you know, super early on, I remember because you know, I read the news every day and like that's what like a lot of people are our industry do, Like we're just reading all day
on the internet all day. I was going to social events with non political people and like in very early twenty twenty, like January February, and I was like wow, Like I was the one that was freaked out in the beginning because I was like, wow, I can't believe this is going on, Like don't these people know that
all these scientists are saying these awful things? And then it, you know, the way the waves started coming to the US, and you know, the more and more reading I did, the more and more I realized that like none of this was based in any evidentiary standard, and that what happened basically was that there was this consensus formed I think among the academics and you know, science class in which it kind of like frowze so many people into this state of like dysfunction and being afraid to say
something because like, I think a lot of people were thinking what I was thinking, but they just weren't willing to put themselves out there because of the repercussions, because of the group think, you know, very similar to any type of like you know, I cover foreign policy too a lot, and like how the right got caught so off guard with like a war like Iraq, or you know, finally agreeing that we needed to leave Afghanistan eventually. So
like that stuff is just hard. When there's so much consensus among people who are your peers, you never really want. That's I think what one of the lessons of the COVID hysteria era is that, you know, it's very difficult to show to really truly be an end of kind of thinker and to be outspoken about issues like that. I think it's just it showed that human nature is kind of just like get along with the crowd, and that really came to harm us during the COVID era.
It's interesting because I you know, I admit I was for the Iraq War, and that was an extremely popular position. But looking back at it, I think like the people that were arguing against it were making such terrible arguments, Like there were so few. I remember the libertarians were making like good anti war you know, arguments, but on the left in general, it was like Irish is just doing this because he wants their oil or he's trying to avenge his daddy.
Like it was not very.
Serious, and it seemed like the pro war side. I mean I was, I was young, I was in my early twenties. I mean, I don't I don't feel particularly responsible for the opinians I had at the time.
But but I remember reading all about.
It and it was like the pro war side was like just more serious, And I think that's really what lured me into thinking that it was a good idea, because the anti war side was just ridiculous.
Yeah, no, I agree, like that the neo conservatives were true intellectuals. I thought that that just you know, their policy ideas were were atrocious, but you know, they were very well educated and they had you know, basically taken over the Republican Party.
I mean I was, I think I was.
The first time I voted, I was eighteen, freshman year of college. I voted for John McCain. Right, So we all, we all make mistakes, but you're right, like, what's the alternative?
It was Barack Obama?
Right, So it's like sometimes, no, that's an easy I feel like that's an easier choice.
Yeah, But it's just you know, sometimes like we're just faced with two competing groups that don't want to facilitate our interests, and I think, like that's you know, that's the that's the reality of our system right now. But like I would still prefer that system to like, you know, we see what's going on in Israel with the canesset or in Europe with these you know, the parliamentary system where you have thousand different parties and then you know
you really can't get anything done. So you know, there's positives and negatives.
Right, Yeah, So what would you be doing if it weren't this, If you weren't a writer?
What would be Plan B for Jordan?
Yeah?
I don't know, Like I wanted to have a real job my whole life, and then when I was in grad school, you know, I just started like I.
Wanted to have a real job.
So when I was in graduate school for international affairs, I wanted to be basically like a deep state fed. And I think I was too maybe open in that interview process and they didn't want to move my applications forward, which ended up being a blessing. But you know, and then before that, you know, growing up, I just wanted to be you know, pro baseball player, pro basketball player,
pro ball you know, makes some I don't work out. Yeah, like probably, I'm sure that's what your kids are looking at right now, but it's yeah, you.
Know, like I kind of just fell into this.
I was in grad school and one of my professors
was like, hey, that paper was kind of interesting. You want to submit that, And I submitted it, I think to like Breitbart or something, and then I started working at Breitbart, and then you know, from there, it's been it's been like twelve years in this space now, so I know for a lot of people that's not too long, but you know, it just became more and more interesting, and I think, you know, the best way to become a better writer is just to write more and read
more too, So as I became yeah, as my skills improved, I think that like more people became interested in my work, so you know, kind of had this effect of encouraging me to continue pressing on.
But never would I have imagined.
You know, in my first twenty years of life, that I would be doing this right now. You know, I'm not a particularly extroverted person, so being like in the media space is kind of weird. For it's still kind of weird, but I very much enjoy it now were you're doing great.
I think.
I think this interview is going really well. So you have the substack where you support yourself on it, and you have you know, your your own publication, and that's really dazzling to me. I mean, you know, you and I have had conversations and you've encouraged me to start a substack, and I'm like, I'm just too old for this.
I don't understand how it works, but.
You're doing it, and I think that's really impressive. Do you feel like you've made it, like you get to do.
Whatever you want.
I think that it's great to have that kind of flexibility. I don't like phrasing it as if I've made it because, like you, I'm sure you encounter these people all the time who have internalized this idea that they've made it, and you're having a conversation with them, and you just feel like it's a one way conversation from them to you because they've decided that there's nothing more that they can learn. So that's why I would never say that
I've made it. But I think, like you know, kind of growing older and maturing, you start to kind of shift priorities from material possessions and goods to like, what is making it really mean? I think it would means, like, from my perspective, maybe having a big family and a cool legacy and to be remembered for doing something positive. And I think that would mean that I've made it.
But I think like it like an Andrew Taate, like figure, I think that guy probably goes to sleep and he's absolutely miserable every night, although he probably is worth a billion dollars and might be the most influential thirty something on the planet. So, you know, making it it's you know, there's a wide variety of answers, but I think, like definitely making it to me would mean being like super content with how you're living your life, how you lived your life and the legacy that you left.
Yeah.
Absolutely, I mean I asked that question of all my guests, and I've gotten a real range of answers, and you have, you know, multimillionaires who say that they haven't made it and people who make, you know, much more modest livings than saying that they have. And so I think it's it's really you know, obviously it's objective, but I love to hear what people.
Think made it means. And so that's, you know, why why I keep that question in the roster. So one other question that I ask all of my guests, and.
I feel like you probably are well poised to answer this because you write about this kind of stuff all the time. But what would you say is our largest cultural issue, like or societal issue in America?
Yeah, you know, I remember seeing this question, and I don't, like, I think that I am not qualified to give.
Qualified But I know this show isn't political. However, It's okay.
It could be it could be something.
I mean, you know, it fears into politics. I've had lots of guests who automatically just go go political because you know that that's what feels comfortable and it's it's okay, we accept it.
Yeah.
I think that there's an incredible detachment between the elected representatives and you know, the average American person. And while there's many people who claim to have the perfect system to resolve that issue, particularly like the fiscal status of the United States, you know, I've very much, i guess, evolved on this issue. Like I come from a very free market perspective and coming and similarly over the COVID years, I came to realize.
That you know, there's there there's very much like.
A uniparty system in the United States, because you know, there were there were very there's always been arguments from the right that the GOP is kind of like this party of big business, and the and the Democrat parties
just like the insane party. And it's kind of true because like you know, if you look at income over time and like purchasing power of the dollar, like everybody's getting screwed at the expense of the very powerful interests in Washington, d c. And on Wall Street, and the capital just flows to people who are closest to the
money printer today. And that's an issue that I think about a lot is like, how do we resolve that through you know, free market principles, because like I feel like, for a very long time under like you know, the Bush, McCain, Romney era of Republicanism and even some Trump stuff, Trump printed trillions of dollars too, like, and that did not do anything to resolve the issues of the income disparity in the United States. And I think it's a very
real thing. And I think people are right, no matter what their ideology is, that this is a very troubling issue in the United States that people are saddled with so much debt today. Like I think about like my future children, God willing, like how going to be able to make sure that they have no debt because once the debt, you're basically begging the government, you know, you see with Biden right now, you're begging the government to bail out people who were saddled with student loans for
many years prior. And there's really no way today. Like I know that the boomers and whatnot say that, oh, you know, I was washing cars pay through college. Well now college costs go to good school, and you don't you know, you don't have a you know, some type of wealth or scholarship. You know, you might be paying eighty thousand dollars a year to go to a top tier school. So it's like, how are you going to how are you going to get out of that debt hole?
It's very difficult. So it's something that's always on my mind. It's like, how are we going to deal with this crisis of people being like if you're not working at a top pedge fund or private equity firm out of college like you have, and you don't have any support, Like this is very much an uphill battle that so many American states, right.
I mean, I think that there's a lot of answers to this, but like, for one thing, I think people need to start either not going to college. And I know this is like an unpopular thing to say, but I'm not necessarily encouraging my kids to go to college. Like I think that they will because it's the path that everybody around them is taking.
But I'm not saying to them like.
You know, how you must or this is what you have to do if they want to pursue something else, I'm going to be completely open to it. But also the idea of state schools and community colleges like, we just don't. Everybody goes to these insanely expensive private Not everybody, but a lot of people go to these insanely expensive private schools, and I do amass this insane debt.
Debt I called graduate school the most expensive mistake I've ever made. That was the first time in my life I had.
Debt, and it was crippling and it was really scary, and it was unnecessary. I wish somebody had been there to be like this, you know, you want to go into politics, you don't.
Need a graduate degree.
This is like not at all necessary graduate degree?
You don't I already have one.
I already had one. I already had an undergraduate degree.
And then I was working as a paralegal and I decided to switch fields, and I felt like I needed to go get.
The graduate degree in order to switch fields.
And what I learned is a nobody has ever asked to see the graduate degree or my grades or any of that. And I'm not sure I learned anything. I mean, I had some interesting teachers. I know, some like famous teachers. Dick Morris is one of my teachers. But it's ultimately I was so in the world already and I was so immersed in it that I didn't need to go to graduate school.
We're going to take a quick break and be right back on the Carol Marcowitch Show.
But what I wanted to say about the money printing, I like to say, you know, real capitalism has never been tried.
But how do we fix that? How do we fix that flow?
I think that you really it's a very interesting point, and it is political point, but it is also a cultural point that people are suffering and they're in debt, and this money printing situation that we've gotten ourselves into is so harmful. Like what what would Jordan Shaft tell them to do to fix this?
Yeah, you know, I think the solution is a multi generational approach. Obviously, you know, I'm very public about the fact that I'm a big bitcoiner, but other than bitcoin, will keep that aside because it's a very niche issue. You know, from very early on, people are indoctrinated in public schools and through college to accept premises that are that are ridiculous, and it creates a system in which the government, you know, Congress specifically and the FED are
empowered to basically do whatever they want. And we've created this entire system in which, like you have all the top minds on Wall Street just you know, tuning into every FED press conference and then Congress, you know, every time there's a crisis, Prince trillions of dollars. And I think that there's not a lot of pushback because there's not a lot of people aren't really tuned into having solid economic principles, and until that changes, Congress is going
to continue to get away with it. But if tens of millions of people understood that the people in Congress are basically robbing you and your family's future blind to pay for the priorities of the thousands of lobbyists who spend billions of dollars in DC to get, you know, whatever they want out of these legislatures, I think that, you know, at least through the democratic process, you could
hold these people accountable. But there just doesn't seem to be enough of a wealth of knowledge right now about how much we're being screwed on this issue. Really, you know, the simplest thing to do is just to run the numbers and show people, like, you know, I've pretty much written off the idea that I'm going to be able to be collecting any type of you know, government welfare or social security checks in thirty years, so I think,
you know, it's just something needs to be done. Unfortunately, I don't think that it's going to be done, you know, anytime soon. So that's why, you know, I became a big bitcointerer. It's like, you know, try to find a system that's detached from the money printer because I think like we're kind of just in this uh, you know, monetary death spiral that's just contributing to the likes of you know, Blackrock and JP Morgan while harming everyone else.
So I still hold out hope that enough people can be fired up to make change, but if not, that's what I kind of view as the escape hatch to all the madness, you know.
And Culture has this point where she says that the national debt is to Republicans as climate change is to Democrats, Like we keep saying it's the scary thing when nothing ever happens. And I think that's the concern. People don't understand the connection. They don't understand that, like how much money is printed and all of that, that it affects them every day.
I'm not sure how to solve that.
So answer the culture question, I think like the best example of what we were talking about is like, can.
You pay your way through college today? Can you do what your grandparents said? Can you? Can you work?
Can you wait tables and wash cars to pay for your tuition? The answer is obviously not, So what happened in between?
Yeah, that's exactly. I think that's what Republicans are.
You know, maybe not Republicans because they're just as culpable in this, but that's what people who care.
About this should be saying.
I guess is the all right, We've solved it. I think we did so good. So for my last question, Jordan, I like to end with if you could offer a life tip to my listeners.
Yeah.
I was looking at that question earlier and I was like, man, I got to put my Jordan.
Peterson hat on.
But you know, it's kind of similar themes to the question of having made it. What I find is that, you know, I'm always trying to work on keeping an open mind and listening to people, because although I thought I used to have an open mind and listen to people, I wasn't really listening to people. I was kind of just set in my ways. But in terms of Like you know, I think physical and mental fitness are very
much connected. But you know, I'll leave the guru stuff to Jordan Peterson because, like you know, I don't really have I don't want to fall into the trap like I much rather would learn from people than to offer advice. And I think maybe I'm capable of giving some advice, but it's it's a difficult question for me because, like you know, everyone has their own set of circumstances.
But I think that.
Just to continue learning, like you know, the best thing that I think I'm doing is that I'm really trying to focus on continuing to learn and continuing to keep an open mind and hopefully.
Keeps a great tip.
I mean, you know, I feel like you undersold yourself. Buck Sexton was like read before bed. I mean, it doesn't have to be, you know, Jordan Peterson esk. But I think continue learning is a great tip. Thank you so much for coming on, Jordan.
No, thanks so much, Carol appreciate it.
Thanks so much for joining us on the Carol Marcowitch Show. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.