Episodi
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Episode Summary
Far-right extremism is on the rise in the United States and in many other different countries and for the most part, the individuals leading these movements are Christofascist. That is, they are Christians who have a fascistic and authoritarian viewpoint.
But there is another subset. And while they are not as popular or well-known, they have lots and lots of money.
Another interesting thing about this group is that its leaders market themselves as centrist or moderate, which is unusual on the surface, but it makes sense within the larger historical context of far-right libertarianism labeling itself as somehow apart from the conventional left and right paradigm. They’re at great pains to portray themselves as different from conventional Republicans, and yet they are hosting fundraisers for Donald Trump.
Here at Theory of Change, we’ve covered libertarianism’s connections to 20th century fascism and some of the older history of libertarianism. And joining me today to talk about the more recent trends is Gil Duran. He is the creator of a newsletter called The Nerd Reich about San Francisco politics and right wing extremism.
The transcript of audio is below. Because of its length, some podcast apps and email programs may truncate it. Access the episode page to get the full text. The video of this episode is also available.
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Audio Chapters
00:00 — Introduction
08:39 — Balaji Srinivasan and the delusions of “Grey” libertarianism
20:21 — How the Covid-19 pandemic shifted the political alliances of libertarian dogmatists
27:29 — What investors have in common with conspiracy theorists
34:26 — Right-wing oligarchs have made it clear they will suppress dissenting speech
39:57 — Techbros love China's centralized authoritarianism
47:37 — Balaji and his friends are ludicrous, but their vast wealth means they need to be taken seriously
54:09 — Why right-wing oligarchs love to call themselves populist
Cover image: Far-right investor Balaji Srinivasan during an October 2023 podcast interview. Photo via screenshot.
Audio Transcript
The following is a machine-generated transcript of the audio that has not been corrected. It is provided for convenience purposes only.
MATTHEW SHEFFIELD: This is a really bizarre and a strange movement that you've been writing about but before we get into it, I did just want to get into your background a little bit, for people to understand how you got interested. So right now, you are doing a newsletter that is called FrameLab. Why don't you tell us about that?
GIL DURAN: Sure. FrameLab is a [00:03:00] newsletter that focuses on moral politics and language in politics, and it's very much rooted in the work of Dr. George Lakoff, the Berkeley cognitive scientist who's known for books like Metaphors We Live By and Don't Think of an Elephant, and we've been doing that for a few years. It's a Ghost-powered nonprofit powered newsletter. I also write a newsletter focused on San Francisco tech politics called The Nerd Reich, which focuses on the authoritarian nature of the politics emanating out of Silicon Valley and San Francisco these days.
SHEFFIELD: The Nerd Reich. Yeah, it is the perfect description of what we're talking about here. And it's remarkable that the group of people that we'll be talking about here, they really think of themselves as doing something completely different. It's not part of any tribe. They even use different terms to describe themselves. They call themselves Greys as opposed to Blue and Red, of course, Democrat and Republican. But these people are basically [00:04:00] just secular Republicans. That's what they are.
So, but you know, in in the nineties and the eighties and, let's say early two thousands, if you were a secular conservative or libertarian and you didn't know anything about political science or political ideologies. It was actually possible to think of yourself as a liberal in some sense because the Republican party was doing things that, I mean, they've always been crazy since the Goldwater days, but, they were doing stuff that I think everybody now, looks at it's just absurd, ridiculous. They were trying to censor rap lyrics, use the government to censor those, they thought The Simpsons was controversial. I mean, and they, were saying homosexuality was satanic, literally caused by demons, and so was mental illness.
That's what they were saying back in those days. And so if you had any sort of rationality, you didn't want to be a part of it. [00:05:00] And it seems like a lot of these people, they really did think that they were on the left and, but as the Republican party got better at PR and communications, they sort of tamped those beliefs down out of the public.
So they don't say those things. They still believe those things. And you get little flashes of it every now and again, like the Colorado. Republican party for pride month. They just released a video that, said God hates pride and you should burn pride flags. Like, so you still get, they obviously still believe this stuff.
They just don't talk about it. But for the Silicon Valley, right, they think there's something different. Why don't you, why don't you talk about that? Like they love the word centrist, especially.
DURAN: Yeah, definitely. We've have right now in San Francisco is a big push by tech venture capitalists and their acolytes to capture city government in one of the most progressive cities in the country and push it to the right by adopting a bunch of really right wing policies on [00:06:00] things like criminal justice on things like dealing with poverty and drug addiction. And they've been using words like centrist and moderate to mask this, but it's been increasingly untenable for them to do so, because in a lot of ways.
It's really clear how they are not moderate. They actually have some very extreme political beliefs and affiliations and some extreme behaviors. For example, Gary Tan, who's the CEO of Y Combinator, a very famous startup accelerator in January tweeted, die slow at seven progressive members of the board of supervisors.
Earned him a lot of local infamy, some really bad stories, bad headlines. He had to apologize, said he was just quoting Tupac lyrics. But I'd say that someone who's a moderate, And who's trying to take over the entire city government and who tweets die slow at, elected officials is obviously someone who's quite extreme.
So, we're seeing this development where we're seeing this [00:07:00] movement emerge from San Francisco and Gary Tan is not alone. He's got a bunch of other people just like him here in the Bay Area and in Silicon Valley pushing for a real right wing drift in California's politics, particularly in Northern California.
And so that's something I've been digging into over the past few months. I first got interested because I was the editorial page editor of the San Francisco Examiner and I've lived in the Bay Area most of my adult life. And for the first time ever, it seemed to me the politics here had become so weird, so oddly polarized especially driven by social media.
And I couldn't quite put my finger on what was happening back in 2021, 2022. But in subsequent years, I have done a lot more digging and research and they have also emerged more fully. And I realized that this is all part of a kind of a, of movement a new emergent ideology, which goes by a few [00:08:00] different names but it's very much a right wing tech focused ideology in which the wealthy.
People of Silicon Valley should have ultimate power over society and everything else should be pretty much subservient to their whims. Great example, for instance, Elon Musk, he's pretty much kind of the figurehead, the, major patrons of this, the patron saint of this movement. There are a lot of little mini Elon's though, here in San Francisco doing very similar things.
And you may not have heard of them yet, but probably soon you will.
Balaji Srinivasan's and the delusions of "Grey" libertarianism
SHEFFIELD: Yeah. And well, and for two of those people they are uh, Mark Andreessen, who is a billionaire investor. And then another guy, I guess he's a, not quite a billionaire as far as I know. But maybe he is Balaji uh, Srinivasan, who is a crypto, a very big crypto advocate.
And, both of these. guys are kind [00:09:00] of, they seem to be the ones who produce the most output for this, coterie of, oligarchs. And it's still not very good, I have to say. And they think they're so smart, but Srinivasan, he doesn't even know how to spell the word grey, that is spelled with a, with an E instead of an A but he thinks he's so smart and but yeah, like, I mean, and, Srinivasan, he wrote a book that's kind of, sort of, I think you describe it as a bit of a manifesto for these people called Network State.
Do you want to talk about that book and what he's preaching in his, new cult manual?
DURAN: Sure. Like I said before, there was something I couldn't quite put my finger on, but once I had time to do more reading, And to think I came across a book review by a historian named Quinn Slobodian called crack up capitalism.
And this is a book that deals with this movement of tech zillionaires to create their own independent [00:10:00] territories that they can govern new cities, new states, new little countries, even digital countries. Just as you create a new currency with crypto, you create a new country with this new emerging crack, crack up capitalism.
Ideology. Well, in that book, he mentions Balaji Srinivasan and the idea of the network state. And so after I read Slobodin's book, I read the network state and suddenly I had words and ideas to fill in the gaps. The thing that was missing there that I was perceiving was this underlying ideology. And you look a degree further and you find that all these people are connected with people trying to do this in San Francisco.
So then it became very clear in a matter of just establishing the. Connections, which wasn't hard to do because these guys go online a bit a lot and they speak on long podcasts and they kind Of say the quiet part loud the network state idea is the idea that the united states is not long for this world.
The United States is obsolete. He compared it in 2013, [00:11:00] Balaji Srinivasan did, to Microsoft, a company that is on the way out and new companies will emerge and take its place and in the place of countries like the United States and other traditional nations will be these smaller nations that are.
Completely different and completely government governed by basically tech corporations and tech billionaires, basically company towns that will be sovereign and independent and have their own rules and laws. And there's actually a movement right now to create these different territories all around the world.
There's a place called Prospera in Honduras, where they're trying to create a different. Their own little city on this island in Honduras called Rotan. There is a plan to build a city called Praxis in the Mediterranean, Afropolitan in Africa. There are projects in Asia. There's a planned 5 million person city for the United States.
I think it's called Tolosa. So there are actually people trying to make a [00:12:00] move and build these cities inspired by the philosophy of Balaji Sreenivasan. He wasn't necessarily the originator of this idea. Before that, even, you had Peter Thiel funding a movement called Seasteading, which was the idea that we would create these little floating countries out on boats or oil rigs, et cetera, and that those would be countries in the middle of the ocean.
But, no one wants to be trapped in the middle of the ocean with a bunch of annoying entitled and arrogant strangers. So now the movement has kind of moved away to doing it at sea, to doing it on land. And there's actually a City being proposed right now, about 60 miles northeast of San Francisco in Solano County in a very rural area called California forever, where a bunch of these connected tech billionaires like Mark Andreessen, who wrote the cover blurb for Balaji Sreenivasan's network state book.
are investing in trying to build a new 400, 000 person city in Solano County. [00:13:00] So it's not just a theory on nerd podcasts anymore, or in weird, obscure books. It is actually something they're trying to do. And so what I've been doing is trying to Excavate and illuminate that there's an ideology behind what's happening here.
SHEFFIELD: There's a plan and there's a hell of a lot of money behind it too.
Yeah, well, and also there, there's also a precedent even further back than Peter Thiel that. Libertarians for decades have fantasized about moving into the state of New Hampshire and they call it the free state project in which they will take over the entire state because it has, it's very small and has a small amount of people.
And well, it's just not worked at all, uh, because people don't want to vote for their ideas. And so, like that, I think that is the, difference is that essentially, these are just. Conventional sort of, libertarian dogma and, but they've realized they can't market it as [00:14:00] such anymore because if they did, people would run away immediately given how, I mean, and you can see that the libertarian party, I think, they're happy when they get 3 percent in a national for instance, so, Yeah.
And but also this, idea though and you've, gone through and looked at the network state book and, one of the other things that's in there is that, that really does belie this, their, false claims that they're not part of, red or blue is that, Srinivasan literally is telling his acolytes, you need to get rid of the blue.
You need to kick them out. You need to expel them and you need to ally with red and you need to essentially bribe the police and allow them to do whatever they want and turn them into your political and personal enemies. Security force, essentially, right?
DURAN: Yeah, one of the, that was really kind of a shocking moment for me.
I read the network state book and it seemed [00:15:00] a bit out there, but there was nothing in it. That was sort of off the rails. Shocking, then I started digging around Balaji’s and podcast appearances and lo and behold, I find this six hour podcast appearance in two segments, one four hour segment, one two hour segment from September of last year.
And in it, he lays out this nightmarishly dystopian vision for what could happen in San Francisco if tech gets its way. And basically what he spelled out was a situation in which tech aligned citizens who've decided to do whatever tech wants, adopt grey t shirts emblazoned with logos. I think you said like a Bitcoin logo or a Y Combinator logo, different kind of corporate based grey tribes because the grey tribe and the greys buy up entire blocks of the city, start putting in grey politicians and [00:16:00] demanding that things be oriented in the way the grey tech tribe wants them oriented. In addition, they bribe The San Francisco Police Department by providing weekly banquets and jobs for their relatives doing security for tech companies, et cetera, and start establishing grade dominance over the cities, kicking the blues, that is the Democrats out of entire parts of the city that the greys now control and Sreenivasan says that ultimately the goal would be to have like 50, 000 greys marching through the streets.
With the police, flying and real drones in a grey pride parade, and that really kind of blew my mind because this is not the kind of stuff you would even say, a few drinks in at the bar, much less in public. On a podcast that's being published on YouTube while you're supposedly completely sober and in your normal [00:17:00] state of mind.
So that really showed me that there's some really alarming thinking going on with some of these folks, especially when you consider the fact that he has very, close alignment with Gary Tan, who's the guy trying to spearhead the takeover of San Francisco. City Hall as we speak. In fact, in October, a month after Srinivasan's appearance on this podcast, where he talked about the Grey Pride Parade and purging the blues from entire sections of the city, Gary Tan spoke at Srinivasan's Network State Conference.
That was the first Network State Conference in Amsterdam. And in that speech, Gary Tan, in a conversation with Balaji Sreenivasan, says that his project in San Francisco is basically part of the network state project. Previously, two years ago, when he took over Y Combinator, he said he sees Y Combinator as an example of what Balaji talks about when he says the network [00:18:00] state.
So their alignment is really, close. And here is, Balaji Srinivasan, the guide, the thought leader for Garry Tan saying, we're going to do this weird fascist thing and wear grey clothes and kick out the Democrats. And so that was really kind of like a big moment for me realizing just how far gone this ideology is that someone could think they could say that.
And we think it's a good idea to say that and is actually being listened to. And promoted and played up as a important philosopher by the people who are actually trying to do this here. In fact, there's a group right now trying to build a one square mile tech dominated zone in San Francisco called City Campus.
And the idea is that, you buy a property, create co sharing, move all the offices there. And so they're trying to create the grey zone. And in fact. One of the companies, one of the three companies behind this city campus [00:19:00] idea is funded in part by Balaji Sreenivasan. So this is not just something they're talking about in weird podcasts.
This is actually something they're trying to do. And I got concerned because no one who's reading a newspaper in San Francisco today, for the most part, is hearing anything about this stuff. You're hearing that the techs are funding the moderates against the progressives. It's a very simple, dumbed down narrative.
And I felt like somebody needed to start telling the real story. And so that's why I started writing about these things.
SHEFFIELD: Yeah. and it's important to really be aware of, because I do think that, the stuff that Andreessen and Balaji and other people say is just, it's so ludicrous. On its face that it's people don't take it seriously.
And, like, I in a lot of ways Balaji, and he goes by his first name. We should note that. So we're not being disrespectful by referring to him in that manner. That he he, sounds just [00:20:00] like, you're crazy. Uncle, Ron Paul loving uncle. He talks just the same way as him, but what's dangerous is that he has billions of dollars at his disposal.
Whereas your uncle, everybody tries to avoid him at the holiday family parties. And
DURAN: Facebook posts. Yeah.
How the Covid-19 pandemic shifted the political alliances of libertarian dogmatists
SHEFFIELD: Yeah. And so, so this is, these are serious, issues. And and, just to go back to kind of the ideological connection to it. yeah. So the, political spectrum for most of the, modern American history it was largely kind of like this, that that politics is as libertarians often demand to that people say that it's an X Y graph. And so, Then, rather than a complete linear graph, and so essentially we have that over on the, left side, Marxism describes itself as sort of a science of politics and everything that they believe is rational.
And so that's why, and again, this is what they say themselves, whether they do that or not, that's, a different thing. But so [00:21:00] Marxism is basically at the far left of the political spectrum. And then, you go through social democracy or progressivism. Then we've got liberalism over here. As we move toward the center, religious democracy.
So that would be like in more particularly in, in Europe and other countries where there are, Christian Democrat parties such as Angela Merkel's, who they believe in Christianity as a social framework, but they also are not hostile to personal freedoms and things like that.
And then over here, we got conservatism and libertarianism is kind of this very large circle that. can be slightly, to the left of center. And that's where things were, as I was saying earlier during the nineties and whatnot, that, the libertarians weren't fans of impeaching Bill Clinton for lying about sex.
They weren't, they advocated for marijuana legalization and, sex work legalization, et cetera. But as time has gone on, and I'd say, especially during the COVID pandemic, [00:22:00] Politics has sort of reconfigured, and now the ideology of conspiracism is really kind of the main underlying, the biggest ideology that exists now, and that's, Where if we think of politics as about who, do you trust and what do you want, conspiracists doesn't trust any institution and that's how you can go from any ideology to any of the other ones.
And then libertarianism, instead of being a centrist thing now. Is a far right thing. And I think that's kind of what we're seeing there. And, there is, of course, as you can see on the chart, that there's a direct linkage between libertarianism and fascism and, as things have moved along with some of these Big tech executives, they are pretty much, almost explicitly saying that they, they kind of like fascism.
They, are very interested in that. And Peter Thiel, as an [00:23:00] example, he he was going to speak at a group that has, direct ties to former Nazis. Peter Thiel was going to be their featured speaker before the Southern Poverty Law Center had exposed him in that regard. And so it should be concerning to more people, but I think the complexity of it makes it, people get reluctant to be interested in it. I don't know. What do you think?
DURAN: Well, it'll, get a lot more interesting real quick here because we're starting to see some of these Silicon Valley guys, including some who were supposedly Democrats or moderates in previous cycles now become pro Trump.
Today, there's a fundraiser in San Francisco for Donald Trump. And one of the co hosts, Shamath Palihapitthaya was a democratic megadonor a few years ago, who even considered running for governor of California on a moderate platform. And now he's gone full Trump, full MAGA in 24, which is not normal.
But I think part of what you're explaining [00:24:00] is that I think these tech guys. Well, all of them may not align with the Republican party or traditional Republican party in certain ways on certain social issues, like maybe gay rights in some instances, they see the Republican party is the vehicle through which they can get what they want the most and the most quickly.
Trump is willing to do anything for support and for money. At this point, he made a huge offer to the oil industry, give me money and I'll give you what you want. Same thing for crypto. So Trump is like making it clear. This is government for sale. And these guys have a lot of money and they want to buy that government.
They want to be in charge. And so we were seeing this alignment, this overt alignment between Silicon Valley tech figures and these authoritarian fascists. Elements of the Republican party as expressed and exemplified by the leader of the party, Donald Trump. And so I think it's going to become harder and harder to ignore.
And some people are already on it. Adrian LaFrance, the executive editor of the [00:25:00] Atlantic wrote an entire piece on the rise of techno authoritarianism, and we've been starting to see it bubble up. I do think it's, a struggle for the mainstream political media to understand. They still want to deal with these very simplistic, moderate, liberal, right wing ideas.
But I think when you have Silicon Valley donors who claimed they were Democrats until in previous cycles, now going all for Trump, post January 6th, post. Felony convictions. I think that's pretty much a red alarm. You got to say, Hey, you know what? Maybe things are not working the way they've always worked.
Maybe something has fundamentally changed in our politics and maybe it's quite dangerous and something we need to inform our readers about because American democracy is at stake. And so that's very much what we see here is that they have really gone to the far, far, right. And it seems to me like the pandemic in some ways accelerated this because all of us went through a hard time during the [00:26:00] pandemic, it was a transformational moment and I, and the conspiracism you talk about, I remember I was in Sacramento at the time and I went to a certain yoga studio and watching them go full on anti vax, anti lockdown, open the studio anyway, was a really amazing.
And shocking thing to see because, a few months earlier, this had been a normal thing. You go to your yoga class, everybody seems normal and nice. And it really became a mask off moment for a lot of people. And so even people who are on the woo kind of left shifted into real conspiracism mode.
And I call it the slippery slope from essential oils into. Full on fascism. So, that's what we saw there. You saw that with different people and people felt threatened or businesses were threatened. It was a tough time for a lot of people. And so coming out of that, it seems like a lot of these Silicon Valley guys also got.
A lot more radicalized. They also got a lot richer [00:27:00] and we're seeing that convergence now in 24, they see American democracy as ripe for disruption and they see betting on Trump as the quickest way to do that. And I'm not entirely convinced that they're wrong. We're going to find out in November whether they're wrong or they're right.
And so I think people need to be informed. People can only make a decision. If they know what's going on. And right now, I think a lot of people do not know what's going on.
SHEFFIELD: Yeah, no, it's true.
What investors have in common with conspiracy theorists
SHEFFIELD: And the other thing about it is that, this, radicalization that did happen during the pandemic what it did is that it, it revealed and Paul Krugman last year, I think it was, he, wrote a column talking about how that there are a lot of similarities between sort of the epistemology of conspiracy and in, in sort of the investment banker epistemology as well, because the thing about investment making that I think a lot of people don't realize is that, the people who get rich off of [00:28:00] investing in these companies, They're not particularly skilled at anything.
They don't know how to, create CPUs. They don't know how to create graphics cards or laptop designs or servers. They don't know how to do any of that stuff. None of them have any experience with, almost none of them have at this point, almost none of them have any experience with that stuff and what they were is just in the right place at the right time.
And essentially. They play with house money, and I mean that in the casino sense that, your odds of winning decrease if you're in a casino, the longer you're there because you don't have as much money like that's ultimately what a game of chance is about is that whoever can play the longest wins.
Is going to win. Like generally speaking, that's how it works. Just again, because the odds catch up to you after a while, if you did happen to
win,
Especially if they're not 50 50, right? So, but if you're in a, economic system where you are [00:29:00] playing with billions of dollars, if you make a hundred faulty investments and one correct, investment.
Then people think you're a genius. But in fact, you are kind of a failure. Like if you had a 0. 001 batting average as a baseball player, people would think you're terrible. And so, but in the investment world, it, it doesn't work that way. And so, But, and so, but a lot of investment is just simply based on hunches that, you think well, this thing might work, so I'm going to give them money.
And it's not based on real, research or because in the, and in many cases, like if you're creating something completely new and different. Any sort of research, quote unquote, or numbers that you can provide are pulled out of your ass. Like they're not real to say that I predict that, 20 million people will download my app.
Well, you don't have any real clue of what you're talking about and, anybody else could make completely different [00:30:00] numbers. So it really is about hunches. And guess what? That is what conspiracism as a thinking is also about, because the Alex Jones fan. They can't prove that COVID was, designed in a lab by Anthony Fauci to kill and to kill the world.
They can't prove that at all, but they still choose to believe it because it fits their priors. And it makes sense to them. It's an intuitive reasoning type of thinking. And so this is why I think that they became so radicalized because by the pandemic, because it, Hit to the core of how they think and, how they operate on a daily basis.
And then they realized, Oh, Hey, you know what? The right wing Christians are also against evidence based thinking. They're also choosing to believe things that they cannot prove because it makes them feel good. And so that's fundamentally why I think they've. Decided to go full bore for the Republican party in the same way, [00:31:00] to be honest, like, like Charles Koch and some of these other, right wing older and another generation of right wing oligarchs did.
I mean, David Koch ran for president in 1980 on the Libertarian ticket. And eventually he realized, oh, well, no one's going to vote for a Grey or in his case, a Yellow as the Libertarian color is. And so this is like, these people are just, they're, just retracing everything and yet they think that they're amazing innovators and super smart but really they invented the wheel 2000 years afterward, someone else.
DURAN: And they belong nowhere near public policy. They have no idea what they're talking about. They're so clueless and out of touch and lacking in curiosity and maturity. There's a lot of serious problems in society. But you don't just kind of come in with your bad ideas and your lack of research and start doing all the stuff that we know already failed.
And that's what really, concerns me about these guys. I have seen no evidence that they [00:32:00] really care about what's happening to people and what people need. I see evidence that they believe they should have all the power and they should make all the decisions. And as far as I can tell their plan for San Francisco is just to kick out anybody who's poor and anybody who doesn't work for them and called that a successful society.
And that's really not how things work in this country. So. I really think that the money goes to their head and they think that because they made a lot of money making a few good guesses that they are now entitled to control everything. And that's just not how it works. I spent about 15 years in politics and government.
After I started as a reporter for the San Jose Mercury news during the first dot com boom, and then Craigslist came along, sucked up all the revenue. There was the dot com bubble crash, and then was no longer easy to work at a newspaper, ended up working in blue collar jobs for a few years, then met Jerry Brown, who was then the mayor of Oakland.
And that was the beginning of a career in politics. Well, I've worked for two mayors. I've worked for the governor of California and the problems are [00:33:00] very serious. They're some of them almost seem intractable and it takes a lot of knowledge and a lot of ability to create consensus and to get voter approval to get anything done in.
Politics and mistakes get made wrong approaches are taken. Sometimes it takes decades to unwind them. And these tech want to be authoritarians seem to have no idea or inkling of that and no interest in it either. They just think it'll be different because they do it. They think that they are special.
And they're really not and the ideas they have have already failed, they, they, took out the progressive district attorney of San Francisco because they blamed him for all crime and drug dealing and overdoses in the city. Well, there's still crime and drug dealing and overdoses in the city, even though you got a new day.
Anybody who's been in politics could have told you that. Crime rates are higher in Republican states with conservative laws. The issue there is not that you have to be harsh with people and then that's going to be a solution, but they don't seem to be really [00:34:00] interested in inspecting their own deficiencies or learning anything.
They're just interested in hearing them, their own selves speak and imposing this very sort of tech authoritarian vision on everybody. But it's not really clear to me what the end game is because, The one thing I know that they don't, even though I don't have billions of dollars or millions of dollars, is that they have no idea what they're doing and they're going to completely fail.
Right-wing oligarchs have made it clear they will suppress dissenting speech
SHEFFIELD: Yeah. And well, and the other, I think thing that is has also become evident with these guys besides their lack of policies and understanding of history and, whatnot is that. They also, they love to, to claim that they're for absolute free speech, that's what they want. But in practice, they definitely do not like free speech.
And especially if it's regarding free speech about them. And that's something that you had talked about in your piece for the new Republican in terms of like, Balaji, he [00:35:00] is encouraged I guess, yeah, he's encouraged his followers to attack journalists and Elon Musk obviously is very big on doing that as well.
And they're aligning with their fascist leader, Donald Trump, who says he wants to, crack down on, the media and is constantly trying to cancel anyone who criticizes him on Fox news or elsewhere that basically in their minds, unless something is a hundred percent pro by, biased in favor of them, then it's unfair.
And they have no concept of public dialogue and listening to opinions that disagree from them. And I mean, They're then they're made it clear. Like this is a core seems to be a core tenant of their belief system that you will not be able to criticize.
DURAN: Yeah, it's about power and who has power. It's about me speech, not free speech.
You should be able to say Nazi stuff, but you'll get flagged now, I think, if you say cisgender, which regardless of how you feel [00:36:00] about that concept should not be a cancelable offense on Twitter. And, but look, I'm, sort of prejudiced here because I was one of the journalists banned from Twitter.
When Elon took over, I was banned from Twitter for 12 months for asking a question. The question was it was the time he had banned the Elon jet account that was tracking his account. And then he banned someone who wrote a story about the Elon jet account. So I asked if you could be banned for asking about a ban.
Of an account that was banned for mentioning this other account that was banned. And I got banned for that. So Elon Musk doesn't believe in free speech. Elon Musk is an authoritarian. Elon Musk believes that whatever he decides should be free speech is free speech and whatever he doesn't agree with should not be free speech.
And that's pretty much how everything will work if these guys get their way. So, it's very much a hierarchical structure George Lakoff, who we mentioned earlier, who I do a lot of work with, kind of has spelled out something called the conservative moral [00:37:00] hierarchy. And at the top of that, it's God over man.
And then it's sort of man over nature and men over women and white men over others and on. Well, I think what the tech authoritarians are doing is pretty much getting rid of God over man and making it sort of tech. Over man founders over man. I think they see themselves as God in this scenario and they believe therefore they should be able to sort of capriciously decide the rules and sort of return us to a kind of a feudal, a techno feudal society where they are the Lords and the masters and the rest of us are at their mercy and at their whims.
And I really think that's what's at stake. Right now, because they see, again, they see some vulnerabilities here. And I can't say I totally disagree with them. The, our political system is very ripe for disruption. Democracy is hanging on by a, Gossamer thread. The Republican party is sort of an empty vessel that they can take over and inhabit and push [00:38:00] it because they have the money, which is the one thing Trump really wants and worships to do that.
They can buy off the Republican party and make it do what they want. Journalism, they're all about now start owning their own media, parallel media, starting their own newspapers, taking over Twitter, turning it into something completely different, look at the traditional press is dying and something else is going to take its place.
And if they get their way, it will be oppressed that answers to them that is willing to publish pure fiction. If it serves their purposes, and in the meantime, you have all these traditional reporters who won't have jobs in 5 to 10 years trying to still do the same thing they always do and kind of report in a very straightforward, logical way, while the bottom is literally falling out from.
Under them. And so I do see that there's some real vulnerabilities we have right now in terms of the things that have upheld democratic society. And it doesn't seem like people are alarmed to the level that they need to be about what's happening. And so that's one place where I do kind of agree with these [00:39:00] guys is that they do see something that is exploitable.
And manipulative and they are taking action to make those things happen and so they're not completely wrong about that. I just don't think that once they have the power, they're going to do anything except create a very dangerous and volatile situation that will end with a very bad revolution against anybody who's wealthy and and, a grey, that's also another thing that history shows us, the Greeks dealt with all these ideas along 2, 500 years ago, they knew what happens when you have plutocracy and oligarchy and autocracy.
And the democracy we have, the system we have is very much based on an accrued knowledge over thousands of years that is not going to be disrupted by some. Crypto bro who loses a million dollars in a bet over the price of Bitcoin, which is what Balaji did back in 2021 or something.
Techbros love China's centralized authoritarianism
SHEFFIELD: And the other thing is that the approach, I mean, the approach that they want is [00:40:00] really not. that different from command economy of China in a lot of ways, like that, is the paradox is that and you do see that for instance, like Elon Musk loves China. He, says how great it is all the time.
Like they have all kinds of, control over his companies and factories in China. But the reality is, the, people who live in China, it's not a good situation for them. Their economy is, much more volatile and, uh, it has some serious problems and they've got, they wasted all this money on projects that they thought were going to work.
They've wasted literally hundreds of billions of dollars on these failed cities with build on the same principle that we've been talking about today. Like the ghost cities of China, like if, people in the audience, if you haven't looked those up, I do encourage you to do that. Like China has completely failed as a, command economy. But in, in the minds of these, [00:41:00] uneducated ignorant right wing oligarchs, they, they don't, they have no knowledge of history. They don't understand that all of these things that they want, as you said, have been tried before and failed. And, but, essentially the difference for them as well.
I didn't do it. So, so therefore it will work this time because I'm, smarter than those other guys. And it's like, it's the same concept. It's just not how it works.
DURAN: And, to some degree, it's all a hustle, right? It's all short term hustle to get as much as you can by telling whatever story you got to tell that will attract the capital and money and make things work in your favor.
I mean, even if you strip it all the weird grey. authoritarian nightmare weirdness of Balaji's theory you still have a plan to take all this money from the cloud, all this wealth that's kind of in some abstract form, buy up real estate and property and with it political power, right? So, they, also pushing really, it's hard to, it's impossible to disentangle the [00:42:00] network state idea from AI.
They're kind of one in the same. They're really pushing it as there's going to be this big boom based on AI. So invest in all our companies, give us all this money. And so whether or not the governing part works out, they will still have massive amounts of more wealth at the end of this narrative cycle.
Right. So again, it's sort of that casino model of pumping this, who cares if the political experiment fails, as long as, certain people become billionaires or trillionaires in this next big hype cycle. So there's multiple layers to it.
SHEFFIELD: Yeah. and it's, it is, I mean, basically essentially they're, trying to apply the, business model of private equity investment to government.
So, a lot of, many of these private equity funds. They don't actually build successful businesses. What they do is they buy existing businesses, strip them to the, for parts, sell them off and then sell the carcass at the end of the day. And, say, wow, look at all this money we made. But in fact, they [00:43:00] destroyed the very thing that they claimed that they were trying to save in the beginning. That's, their view of government. That's what they want to do to government.
DURAN: Yeah. Gary Tannis turned Y Combinator into not just a company that's trying to bet on startups, but that's also trying to bet on little local startup political movements and politicians.
And they're making a lot of bad bets. They might make one or two. Right. So he's turned it into an overtly political organization that is literally trying to combinate a way to get power. And, we've got kind of different little modes, little characters they've invented to try to gain power some better than others, but it's very much applying that metaphor of, we're going to take over.
Government and can create new forms of government, just like we've done this with certain businesses, but I think they'll find that it's a lot more complex. In government and the problems because they involve [00:44:00] people you can't necessarily control are harder to solve. But another important point, I would say that Balaji makes that isn't talked about enough, including in my writing, is that government is the only trillionaire.
Government has the most money. So why are we allowing all these politicians and Democrats to control that massive spigot of money and on both in local budgets and in state budgets and in national federal budgets, when we could have that massive power turned to our own purposes. So then we can get into our outer space or conquer death through transhumanism.
We haven't talked to really about the whole bundle of weird beliefs that unite these folks, but it's not just about taking over San Francisco and having the grey uniforms there into things like transhumanism, they think. That some of them are going to live forever. They found a way to beat death. They believe.
SHEFFIELD: And actually, oh, and I'm sorry. And for the audience [00:45:00] we, do have a an entire episode about this, the whole TESCREAL idea.
DURAN: Yeah, exactly. Oh, good. I'll listen to that one. So you guys then know about TESCREAL and, Gary Tan views himself as an effective accelerationist. And it's about, we got to do whatever we got to, we are entitled to do whatever it takes to make the human species multi planetary and accelerate into this amazing future that we're going to create. Therefore, anything we do is justified and everybody should get out of our way. It's basically an ideology of tech supremacy that borders on a religious belief, right?
It's very culty. Right, all cult leaders tell the story.
SHEFFIELD: Yeah, yeah, Operationally, it's no different than a evangelical authoritarian leader who says, my goal is to bring about the rapture and so therefore I'm going to give Israel all the money that I can and encourage it to have as many wars as it can and will invade as many countries in the Middle East as we want and with the end [00:46:00] goal of Armageddon and having Jesus come to earth and I will bring that to pass.
It's really no different than that vision operationally. Like the justification is different. , but it works the same.
DURAN: Well in San Francisco in the seventies, we had a religious leader who was very powerful and very charismatic, and he decided to go to South America and start his own little city. It was called Jonestown, and 900 people died in the end drinking the Kool-Aid.
So I would call Jim Jones, perhaps the network state OG, because this has all been tried before in different forms. They're not creating anything new. And it's very dangerous to play with these ideas in this way. And there's an increasing tone of violence rising in San Francisco, Bay Area politics. And this is an area where we, where people actually do get killed in politics.
There's been a lot of violence assassinations over the years. And so that's another part of what they're doing. I wrote about this on the nerd Reich recently pushing this sort of violent Tone, which is very disturbing [00:47:00] to me. We can disagree on a lot of things on local politics, but the moment we're sort of liking pictures of guns being pointed at politicians, things of this nature, it gets kind of scary.
And so that's why I bring Jim Jones into it because it's not an exaggeration to say things are getting really scary with these tech guys in their politics, and I don't think it's going to end well.
SHEFFIELD: Yeah. No, it isn't. And, that is why people have to, who are against, I mean, the majority of people don't like these ideas and they have to pay attention and they have to tell their friends and their family members, about it.
Balaji and his friends are ludicrous, but their vast wealth means they need to be taken seriously
SHEFFIELD: Kind of the organizing problem for the left in the United States or the center left, we'll say, is that the right has become so bizarre, so Baroque, so fascistic that it's almost unbelievable what they want and what they say, and, and, it's just this constant stream of horribleness. And so, so [00:48:00] oftentimes people will just be so disgusted by it that they just completely tune it out. I don't want to hear about that. This is depressing. This is awful. Or they don't believe it's real. Like, the, very common reaction to Balaji and his things that he's saying, people just say, Oh, this guy's a clown.
This guy's a clown. He's ridiculous. He's a loser, whatever. Like that, I see people say that all the time about him. I see people say that about Marc Andreessen, about Elon Musk, and it's like, did you not pay attention to what, people said about Donald Trump in 2015? Like, like I, I wrote an analysis at the end of, November of 2015 saying Donald Trump will win the Republican nomination and here's why.
And when I published it, I got so much pushback from people saying, oh, this is ridiculous. You are exaggerating your, this is nonsense, Matt. No way would this ever happen. And, then it did. And so, and we're kind of, Stuck seeing this [00:49:00] happen again with the, techno fascist.
Right. It seems like, and hopefully it doesn't repeat in that way.
DURAN: Well, we'll see if not, they'll try out some new models and modes, right. They're going to keep iterating, but I think something that gives me hope is. That we do have a tremendous amount of power as democracy loving people. They are a small minority trying a really dangerous act here.
And if they fail, we're going to all see exactly who they are. And we're going to know that going forward and we can take appropriate measures, hopefully to protect society from any further attacks or incursions of this kind. In Solano County, where a group of billionaires is trying to build this tech utopia called.
California forever. Solano is about 60 miles northeast of San Francisco, kind of a rural area, mostly Democrat, but pretty mixed in the billionaire secretly bought like tens of thousands of acres of property and are trying to impose this 400, 000 person vision for [00:50:00] a city on the county, and they have really united Democrats and Republicans against them.
The, Democrats in 2024 are uniting with Republicans in 2024 to say no to the billionaire project because they know that whatever it is, these billionaires want, and they all see different reasons for disliking them and their project that this is not the way things should work with just these wealthy groups of individuals imposing entirely new.
Entities upon us. And so that gives me some hope. And if people wake up and they have knowledge and they're told what's happening, I think there'll be a major pendulum swing. And I think we'll see these Silicon Valley types go back to acting really nice and progressive and appreciating things like diversity and democracy, because right now they seem to think they can get away with anything.
And they're making a big bet and we've got to make a big bet in the opposite direction and show them that in this country, it's a government of the people. By the people and for the people, not government of the billionaires, by the billionaires and for the billionaires.
SHEFFIELD: [00:51:00] Yeah. And, people, and some of that also includes supporting independent media, like that's and not cause you know, the New York times doesn't need your money.
Washington post doesn't need your money, regular, small podcasters and writers and like, That's and, journalists that you see, trying to do their thing on, on, Substack or Ghost or whatever, like that's who needs your support here. Don't throw your money away on the Atlantic or, some big media corporation, like don't do that.
This is what you should not be subscribing to those things with your money. There's enough of us out there that we could make a difference if more people understood that, I think.
DURAN: Well, I mean, I read and subscribe to all of those things, but I'd say it's important to find the people doing the important local work, or the important work that's focused on the issues that matter that you care about, and also support them.
If you can, I don't expect to make a living totally off of my newsletter. It's nice when people subscribe and pay, it certainly helps keep me [00:52:00] motivated and keep me believing. But I think we've got a, and you want to make sure whoever you're paying or subscribing to is, doing something that's based on the general principles of truth, of facts, things you can verify that represent kind of the full reality.
Cause there's some stuff out there that's not like that, but I definitely think that going forward. We do have to invest more in independent media because it's not clear as more and more outlets fall prey to private equity or billionaires that we're always going to get the same level of truth or reporting that we got out of some of those institutions and look at the Washington Post is kind of in the middle of a big takeover by Editors who just kind of kicking out people making it clear things are not going to work the way they've traditionally worked.
And so I think that kind of thing is going to get bigger and more pronounced. And I do think we're going to need to find new ways to do journalism that are not dependent on corporate funded entities or [00:53:00] investment funded publications. And it's dangerous because there's a lot of room there for propagandists and disinformationists.
I mean, look at Michael Schellenberger's got 108, 000 subscribers on a mostly paywalled sub stack newsletter. The guy's just publishing pure fiction. So there is a degree to which we have to be careful about who we trust and not assume that because somebody's publishing something that they are a Telling the truth or using journalistic principles.
But I, for myself have lost the dream of working for a mainstream publication and think that the journalism I'm going to do in my lifetime is going to be very independent what I'm doing now. And it may be something that I'm doing on the side like this. I'm not sitting around all day writing a newsletter.
This is something I do on the weekends at nights when I have some free time during the day. And but I think we're going to have to find ways to tell each other what the truth is and keep each other informed because. The billionaires are going to be able to buy everything at some point.
That's one thing their money will get them. And we have [00:54:00] no guarantees that, then how do we get information? how do we know what to believe or what's going on?
Why right-wing oligarchs love to call themselves populist
SHEFFIELD: And yeah, well, and you see that, sorry, and you do see that, like with the there's this just enormous profusion of right wing TV news, quote unquote, networks, like alternatives to Fox News.
So, there's Newsmax, there's Real America's Voice, there's there's a, there's Trinity Network Television, which is or Like a right wing evangelical. there's, so many and, there's a, of the right side broadcasting network, all of these people are just getting, tons of oligarch money which is really ironic because at the same time that this is happening and websites like the daily caller and other places that the oligarchs are buying up all these institution right wing oligarchs are, they also are trying to say that they are populist that they represent the people, an average person.
And [00:55:00] I think, Elon Musk pushes that a lot, and his, friend Jason Calisanes pushes that a lot. And Balaji pushes that a lot also. Like, they claim that they actually are in favor of the regular common person and that they're populist. Like they, like they love to say that J. D. Vance is a populist, the guy who's literally Peter Thiel's errand boy. Or that Donald Trump is a populist. The idea that Donald Trump is a populist is so patently absurd. The guy, spent his entire career. Cheating and refusing to pay small contractors who did work for him. Like that is the one consistent thing that Donald Trump has been in his whole life is that, is a guy who stiffs the contractors.
but it, is, it does seem like, at least to some people that this is. This is an appealing narrative of the, these are just guys who want to innovate. They want the freedom to innovate. And I'm a populist too. I can be rich if I just believe in [00:56:00] them enough or something like that.
Like that's what they're pushing to people and some people buy it.
DURAN: Yeah. Well, claiming things are popular is an important part of persuasion. To make undecided people think, Oh, that's what's happening. This is where the movement is. This is what's popular. And so they try to tap into that because, the, social effect of people believing that something that everyone else is doing thing or thinks that thing is good.
But yeah, don't never trust the. Populous messages from people who wouldn't give you the time of day and probably, haven't been anywhere around normal people for a very long time. These people are all traveling in bubbles and places where they're just sort of worshipped or treated with great respect.
And so, you're not going to see them out there on the shaking hands and knocking on doors and, being of the people. And but again The big lie is really popular with these folks. So the bigger, the lie, we're the popular ones. We're working for the common people. The more you can see their right wing leanings, because they have no problem with that level of, [00:57:00] disinformation and misdirection.
And so it's not really surprising. Hypocrisy is not surprising. Lying is not surprising. It's all part of the strategy. And I think we're going to see an exponential increase soon as Elon's. Twitter tries to make a big game changing difference in this election, aided in part by these early-stage AI shenanigans.
So, the lies are going to get bigger, the lies are going to get better, and the lies are going to get harder and harder to disbelieve because we'll be seeing them with our own eyes. And the yeah, I mean, you've seen some of these photos they've generated of Trump, like, surrounded by African Americans at a barbecue looking popular.
So all this AI generated stuff that would never actually happen in real life. And we're going to see more of that. It's going to become more sophisticated. And that's why I've been, we've had some Democrats doing ads using AI video, and I've been against that because once that's the game, man, it's going to really be really hard for people to know what's [00:58:00] up and what's down.
So, yeah, I think there's, a lot more to come on this and soon. Yeah.
SHEFFIELD: Yeah, the thing people can do is, yeah, pay attention and help your friends get educated. As well. So. All right. Well, let's see. Is there anything else you think we need to cover here, or do you think we hit all the bases?
DURAN: I think we, we hit a lot. Give people a lot to think about.
SHEFFIELD: Okay. Well, great. All right, well, so, Gil Duran for people who want to keep up with your stuff what's your recommendations for,
DURAN: You can follow me at thenerdreich.com. I'm also on Twitter at GilDuran76, and you can easily find me on any other social media platforms.
As well, I occasionally write for the New Republic and the San Francisco Chronicle, but I'd say if you, uh, subscribe to the Nerd Reich, then you'll kind of be up to date on whatever I'm up to.
SHEFFIELD: All right. Well, sounds good. I encourage everybody to do that. Thanks for being here.
DURAN: Thanks for having me.
SHEFFIELD: All right. So that is the program for today. I appreciate everybody [00:59:00] joining us for the conversation. And if you want to get more, just go to theoryofchange.show where you can get the video, audio, and transcript of all the episodes and my thanks, especially to the paid subscribing members. Thank you very much for your support.
You're making this possible. But we also do have free subscriptions if you can't afford to do that right now. And I do also encourage everybody to go to flux. community where you can get the archives of this program and also my other one, Doomscroll, and other articles that we publish as well. And I appreciate everybody who signs up and follows us and all that good stuff.
If you can leave a nice review on your favorite podcast platforms that's much appreciated. And if you're on YouTube, please do click the like and subscribe button as well. All right. So that will do it for this one. I will see you next time.
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0:00 — Trump finally convicted of crimes, but will low-info people realize he’s much worse than a regular politician?
06:10 — Larry Hogan, Republicans' Maryland Senate candidate, faces cancellation in party for supporting Trump's guilty verdict
10:01 — Mexico becomes latest country to elect a female president before the U.S.
10:58 — Joe Biden calls for Gaza ceasefire
14:31 — Dinesh D'Souza's trash movie "2000 Mules" has been retracted by its distributor
18:34 — Rudy Giuliani revealed to be using 9/11 victims charity to evade payments to women he defamed
21:32 — Fox honcho Rupert Murdoch marries 5th wife at age 93
28:57 — Maya Hawke, daughter of Ethan Hawke and Uma Thurman, admits she is a "nepo baby"
34:04 — Ryan Reynolds declares popcorn bucket war with new Wolverine and Deadpool movie
Cover image: A citizen casts a ballot at a voting place in Brooklyn Park, New York City.
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00:00 — Donald Trump booed big-time at Libertarian Party convention
08:44 — Nikki Haley endorses Trump after pretending she was reluctant about it
11:30 — Minnesota Republican Senate candidate spent campaign donations at strip club and sporting goods stores
15:43 — Justice Department prosecuting Live Nation Ticketmaster for monopolistic practices
21:09 — Florida priest arrested for allegedly biting parishioner during communion
26:06 — Pope Francis prepares to canonize 15 year old known as “God’s influencer”
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00:00 — Mainstream media reporters are desperate to avoid the question that half of their audience has insane beliefs
03:41 — Biden and Trump are set for two presidential debates now
08:30 — International Criminal Court issues indictments of Hamas and Israeli leaders, including PM Benjamin Netanyahu
15:20 — Red Lobster declares bankruptcy, closes more than 100 restaurants
17:15 — Kansas City Chiefs kicker stirs controversy with extremely religious, anti-American commencement speech
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11:46 — Right-wing SCOTUS justice Samuel Alito blames wife for flying upside-down American flag
14:37 — The Republican judiciary needs to be reigned in by the public
24:04 — Neo-Nazi activist Nick Fuentes streamed gay porn on his website
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22:17 — Bumble CEO proposes nightmarish AI future for dating
29:02 — The Drake vs. Kendrick Lamar feud flares and ends quickly
33:58 — Rent is so expensive, people are living in store signs now
36:55 — Lifetime debuts new movie about mother who cyber-bullied her own daughter
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Episode Summary
Like many businesses right now, America’s news media industry is in a crisis. But what’s particularly dangerous about this crisis is that it’s one that most people don’t really know about it. A huge part of the reason why is that many journalists themselves, who are used to explaining how other parts of the world work, don’t seem to understand their own industry.
There’s a lot that’s changed about the media business in the past few decades. The internet and the idea that “information wants to be free” have seriously disrupted the news industry of course. But there’s another trend that’s had very serious implications for journalism that is mostly unknown, and that is the rise of private hedge funds that have almost completely gobbled up America’s newspapers. While that might seem like just another boring stock market story, the conglomeration of newspapers has led to massive job cuts which have in turn led to a lot of important local news being missed or being covered incorrectly.
The death of local news is a very serious problem for America and so today I wanted to talk about the situation with Margot Susca, she is the author of a new book called “Hedged: How Private Investment Funds Helped Destroy American Newspapers and Undermine Democracy.”
The transcript of audio is below. Because of its length, some podcast apps and email programs may truncate it. Access the episode page to get the complete text. The video of this episode is also available.
Related Content
* Black churches and independent media helped shape African-Americans’ political identities, and Republicans seem to be benefiting from their decline
* How the far right built a political machine that's crushing the opposition
* MAGA media outlets are showcasing the extreme policies a second Trump administration would enact
* Today’s disinformation economy was built on the lying techniques of Big Tobacco
Audio Chapters
00:00 — Introduction
10:22 — What hedge funds are doing to local media
16:51 — How corporate media consolidation facilitates misinformation
20:55 — The importance of local news in civic education and de-radicalization
32:06 — Newspapers didn't actually need hedge funds, they were profitable
38:32 — The nonprofit news ecosystem: A glimmer of hope
Audio Transcript
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MATTHEW SHEFFIELD: This is a complex topic, I think, and it's about finances and stocks, so [00:03:00] most people, when they hear those things, their eyes roll all the way back into their heads. But it's a serious issue. Maybe let's start with how did you get into it because it's not something that you were initially really paying a lot of attention to?
MARGOT SUSCA: I think it's it's fair and I did try to bring some narrative elements to it, but I think it's a fair point. Initially when I started doing research for the book, it was because of a question that I was asked in an interview with NBC News “Think” program that, it was not long after the FCC had eroded some media cross ownership rules and I was asked by the producer of the show about, how did I know that, I was saying, gosh, this is so terrible for democracy that you could now own a TV station or a radio station and a newspaper in the same market.
And I said, this is [00:04:00] terrible. And, this producer said, well, how do you, know it's as bad for democracy as you say? And I was thinking, theoretically, I knew as a politically economist of media, I had studied this, I had several dog eared works.
From, scholars that I had, used over the years, but I didn't really have any data to back it up. So early in 2018, I started studying the newspaper chains. I started looking at some of the, largest publicly traded newspaper chains in the United States to look at layoffs.
Specifically, I wanted to really kind of dig into the issue of layoffs. And over the course of the next several months I was doing a little bit at a time, it became very clear to me that the real story wasn't just the layoffs, but the real story, really, the institutional investors. These were the private equity firms that Controlled most of the shares of [00:05:00] the publicly traded chains but also by then, Alden Global Capital owned owned the digital first media news group newspaper chain.
So it became very clear that the story wasn't just about the chains that I was studying, and it wasn't just about these kind of effects, which I thought layoffs was one of the effects, but it was really about These institutional investors. It was about these wall street firms, but I'm about to write a business book.
I mean, this was not even a section of the paper that I would read. I would read the sports section. I would read the front section of the paper. When I was younger, I wouldn't even read the business section. So it's not, it's kind of funny to think that I would write. A book that was so heavy into, into financial issues.
And I think because I had been a journalist, I was used to having to, research subjects. And, if you looked at the bookshelf that's behind me, it's filled with texts about private equity and hedge funds. And I was very lucky that. [00:06:00] One of my good friends from college is now at a hedge fund and he was one of the first phone calls that I made, which is, what am I, where do I look?
What am I talking about? Where do I even go? And became a resource as I started. Looking at this subject. So, it is a huge issue and it is, as I, and over the next three years, it took three years and, unraveling, 20 years of what became 20 years of us securities and exchange commission documents.
Bankruptcy court documents for a number of the chains some that still exist, some that were merged into others or folded. It became this, steady kind of unraveling of, kind of what had happened to newspapers over the last, 20 years and well, yeah,
SHEFFIELD: And one of the things that you, do talk about in the book is that, the gobbling up of, newspapers and media by hedge funds. It is something that this is part of [00:07:00] a larger trend of private equity firms buying up other industries as well. And, so let's can we maybe talk maybe about the larger context of that? And when did all this stuff start happening and and maybe some of the other industries that have been affected this.
SUSCA: Yeah, so I, I learned, in the course of doing the research that this was part of what other scholars have called this period of financialization, that this wasn't just newspapers weren't just the only things that became the targets, that newspapers became the targets of a certain trend.
Group of private equity firms and hedge funds, but that there were other, other firms and other sectors that have been influenced and affected chances are, if you live in an apartment complex that it probably has a private equity connection if you're, at a major hospital chain, it probably has a private [00:08:00] equity or, have been, in a hospital.
It's probably has a private equity connection. A nurse, a major nursing home company probably has a private equity connection. It is literally in almost every industry that you can think of. That has. Had, other researchers have studied its impacts that have had dire consequences linking it to the 2008 mortgage collapse that a very small number of firms have profited very handsomely off of the destruction of, really on the backs of average Americans.
And what I was really interested in studying once it became clear over the course of. What was a couple of years of research was how this one institution that we have, which is the U. S. Newspaper market, which is meant to be a watchdog on all of these other government officials. And in some cases, industry has been really hamstrung by industries that were meant [00:09:00] to be a watchdog over.
And that's, what's really the most troubling is if it's, if we are, left with private equity influencing, we're supposed to be the watchdogs, we, the one industry that's named in the U S constitution, and if this is supposed to be really the last frontier and with the amount of influence that I was able to trace, I think it's really troubling how much influence there is.
In the U S chain market. and it grew over the time, I started doing while you were
SHEFFIELD: looking at it. Yeah,
SUSCA: that's right. From early 2018 until, from early 2018 until early 2022. And I turned in, the final draft Alden global capital bought a chain, Chatham asset management bought a chain.
And along the way there were all these communications with senators, you know I had foiled the u. s department of labor. There were a number of government agencies that were aware That were at least expressed some [00:10:00] concern. A supreme court case that you know dealt with the fcc so we essentially have what I say in the book's conclusion is a failure at every turn a regulatory a legislative failure as these chains just grew Larger and unchecked by a system that is meant to be.
A guardrail for public for the public.
What hedge funds are doing to local media
SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Yeah. Well, and you mentioned some of these companies. Let's, maybe kind of talk about in detail about some of the specific ones. So, all the global capital, I think, is, the 1 that is often talked about by, if to, to the extent that people are aware of it, but for people who haven't heard of, Alden Global Capital, what is it and how much do they own?
And generally what are their business practices?
SUSCA: So Alden Global Capital owns the well now they own Tribune. So that is the Chicago Tribune. So the Orlando Sentinel. [00:11:00] And that deal went through, gosh, you're going to test me on some of the dates, I think that deal went through in late 2021, and they also, they first became owners of the Media News Group chain, sometimes used synonymously with Digital First which was a chain That includes the Denver Post and a number of other titles kind of regional newspapers.
So that puts them, in charge of, two of, I think, the, most significant regional newspaper chains are, in the country. How many newspapers they own is sometimes up for debate and I would have to, I'm not sure how many it is. I'd have to double check on what that figure is.
Of course, they own the Baltimore Sun, which they just sold, they just offloaded. To the person who owns Sinclair. And that was a hotly debated issue. So what their playbook [00:12:00] is, they started as part of Randall Smith, who was a hedge fund guy who was, I, found in a financial text was described as a profiting off of the misery of other people.
And Heath Freeman, who's the head of Alden, is described as kind of Randall Smith's protégé. And in 2017, so often newspapers get described as this tired old business. In 2017, Ken Dockter, who's kind of a newspaper writes about newspapers for Neiman described and wrote about some leaked Alden financials where he reported on Alden making $170 million in profits from the operation of its newspaper chains.
So I think it's important to note that whereas a publicly traded newspaper company, might have millions of shares traded on the New York Stock Exchange or NASDAQ. When it comes to a hedge fund company, one of the things that happens is if you only [00:13:00] have, five people in that hedge fund, you get to share and split whatever profits exist among a very small group of investors and hedge funds like Alden Global Capital get to choose who they pick as their investors.
And it's oftentimes there's a minimum buy in that hedge funds have for their investors. They don't get to just Like, you and I probably wouldn't get to, they have a very wealthy class of investors that get to be chosen. And yeah,
SHEFFIELD: they're also not really regulated in almost in terms of who is allowed to become a member, whether it's foreign countries or, just individuals of any kind and other businesses.
And they're not required to make disclosures. They are really this black box that is buying up America's information ecosystem that is not overtly reactionary. I mean, like, that's, that really is [00:14:00] the, quintessence of the problem is that, we're, there has been a profusion of, radical far right media. Like for right now, for instance, of course everybody knows about Fox News Channel, but now there's like five alternatives to Fox News Channel that are there even further to the right. So you've got Newsmax, you've got OAN, you've got Real America's Voice, you've got Right Side Broadcasting Network, you've got Salem Media or whatever they, Salem News Channel, I believe they call it.
So there's been a profusion of these far right sources, and then at the same time, there has been kind of this massive concentration in by private equity firms of non overtly right wing media.
And then they are cutting it to the bone at the same time. Like that's one of the other, that's one of the other practices of how they get all this money from their newspapers is they lay off thousands and thousands of people.
SUSCA: Yeah. I mean, that's, it's almost inevitable. You can, the, patterns that emerge.
It's immediate that the [00:15:00] layoffs come. And, I just was reading Gannett's annual report. Gannett is not owned by a hedge fund, but its largest shareholders are some of the world's largest institutional investors. One of its largest is BlackRock, which has like 10 trillion, trillion with a T, like Tom in assets under management.
I mean, these firms have, assets under management that would rival some some countries, GDPs. I mean, these are huge, hugely wealthy, firms. And at the time of its merger with gate house, which was owned by a private equity firm, they employed 21, 000 people. When at the time, these two companies merged Thursday's annual report showed they employ now 10, 000 people.
So in, the span of four years, they have hacked more than half. Of their staff, and largely a lot of those came in the newsroom. I mean, came from people who were doing the work of democracy, who were [00:16:00] covering school boards, who were covering, the kind of county commissions, mayoral races, covering legis state legislatures.
I was reading another report. One in 10 state legislatures is covered by students today. I mean, that should shock everyone. I teach some very talented. Young people, but they're, many of them are still teenagers without that kind of institutional knowledge, to really understand, but into your point about the right wing media ecosystem and the void and this kind of lack of consideration of what happens.
The Miami Herald and El Nuevo Herald, its Spanish language counterpart, is owned by a different hedge fund, a New Jersey based hedge fund named Chatham Asset Management.
How corporate media consolidation facilitates misinformation
SUSCA: And I just saw a friend who just left the Miami Herald a month ago. And she's, she speaks Spanish and she was talking to me about the readership at [00:17:00] El Nuevo Herald is down dramatically because there have been, there has been no investment in El Nuevo Herald since Chatham has taken over at the Miami Herald and El Nuevo Herald.
So what's happening is that she lives in Miami and she said, what's happening is El Nuevo's readership is going. To this far right am radio ecosystem that is flourishing in Miami Dade County, and it is rife, she said, with miss with misinformation and disinformation. And she said, when it comes to issues of.
LGBTQ issues and, again, we've talked about book banning and some of these other issues, it's just so alarmist and just rife with, factual inaccuracies that, her concern is that people are just not getting any Anything that even resembles, resembles any kind of fair, [00:18:00] accurate coverage.
And, that's the reality of news. If you call it the news ecosystem is without reliable local coverage, people are turning to this, to complete, complete, the, information void. Is just, it should shock all of us, really.
SHEFFIELD: Yeah. And like another another way that this is happening is, that there are these right wing organizations that are creating websites, which they're marketing, they're describing themselves kind of as a newspaper, but in fact, they are a propaganda operation owned by big donors or even the Republican party itself.
Of that state that they're in. And so like you've got, and there's now, a pretty, there are many states that have these things that are running in them. So there, there's a chain of things called the star. So Arizona star, Virginia star, et cetera. And then they've also got their other [00:19:00] ones as well.
And, and then of course the talk radio ecosystem is still there as well. So like all of these things are happening and it's almost like. I, feel like a lot of people who, especially, if you live in the the Ella corridor from, Boston to dc like local media there does exist and, is, has at least some, stronger foothold compared to the, in the rest of the country.
So, like, for instance, even in Southern California, so like here, I live in the Los Angeles area, which is the biggest. The, geographically the biggest metro area in the United States, second biggest in terms of population, all of our newspapers, that are like the sort of local.
So like the Long Beach Press Telegram, the Orange County Register, those are both owned by Alden Global Capital. And those, are, Papers have just become a shell of themselves. They really don't cover much of anything. And like, you pick up their [00:20:00] physical copy. It's literally like 10 pages or, they're, a section or less and like, it's, really affecting people's ability to know anything and.
We're in this situation now where if the, where in many cases, the only people that are talking about stuff are these horribly biased, reactionary extremists who are trying to shove an agenda on people like another example is. You've got this paper that's owned by the the Falun Gong cult, the the Epoch Times.
Like, now they're, they are delivering newspapers, physical copies in my neighborhood, and I'm sure a lot of people have seen this happening in their neighborhoods, that they just show up and throw it on your doorstep, whether you ask for it or not. And like, This has real impacts on people's opinions. So that's, I guess I put a lot on the table there, so feel free to pick and choose which one you
respond to.
The importance of local news in civic education and deradicalization
SUSCA: That's, listen, I mean, we should, local news, having a vibrant local news [00:21:00] newspaper in your community slows political part partisanship and it slows voter apathy. So regardless of your political affiliation It should be a bipartisan issue and I think You know that is it should be something that if you really are concerned about democracy Then it should be, something that both, liberals and conservatives care about and that, and it's, funny that you mentioned that, my dad is an MSNBC watcher and over the Christmas holiday, I was down and he was kind of, he's been kind of sick and he had it on and, I am not a cable news viewer because I just find it toxic and he had it on and it was, I was like, This, and I said to him, like, this is toxic, like, this is bizarre, I mean, this is, this is left wing Fox News, and it was just, like, this is just pumping [00:22:00] partisanship into, the living room, I mean, it's just, by design, as, it has partisanship as a feature, not a bug, and, that newspaper and his community, which he doesn't subscribe to, has been absolutely gutted. And I just think there are so many communities where, again, if you had that kind of, it used to bind people. So, where you're turning and, the other point that I would make is, there, there has been a lot of research from Columbia on these pink slime outlets, which are these kinds of hyper partisan dark money funded sites that you're talking about.
The other place is that Chevron funds. A local news site. I put that in air quotes in California. So that's the other reality is like, we're not just getting political dark money or political sites or hyper partisan cable sites that are driving a wedge places, but that we [00:23:00] have actual corporations funding sites, right?
So Chevron funding a local news site. I mean, imagine if there was, you're not going to get OSHA violations covered, by, and I'm not saying there are OSHA violations that Chevron is, has, but certainly if there were, they're not going to be covered. Imagine Chevron covering any kind of real climate change news in that community.
Never going to happen, that is also a real concern. So, I mean, this is really a time where we have to, I never believed in, in government, funded. I mean, we've always had the Corporation for Public Broadcasting. Of course, the public broadcasting system, but there have been other scholars, Victor Picard at the University of Pennsylvania, who has advocated for, the return of a, a stronger publicly financed model.
And as a former journalist, I always thought, [00:24:00] Oh, well, that's going to interfere with our independence. But, after the, I finished this book and I saw Victor at a conference in October and I said, I think I'm really coming around to, to your view, which is the alternatives are just too dire to ignore.
And I'm not sure I know exactly what that would look like. There have been some others who have experimented with some plans. But, this is the continuation of this thread of hedge fund and private equity ownership of an audience that completely disengages or goes completely partisan. 10 more years of this, I think the consequences are, just almost too, almost too difficult to, even think about, and I don't think I'm being, I don't think I'm being, You're not
SHEFFIELD: exaggerating.
Yeah.
SUSCA: Yeah, I don't think so. I mean, I really think it's, just really dark to think [00:25:00] about, how severed. We are how polarized we are as a nation.
SHEFFIELD: Well, and it's also that the idea that of local media as a sort of a dissolver of partisanship, because, the 1 of the problems of why there's so much.
I think why there's so much depression and sort of discontent with society is that people have become, addicted to following national and international news that they have no control over themselves and that, and it's just the, these gigantic sort of morality plays, if you will, and that's, It's replaced.
It's like a soap opera of the news and you have no power over it at all. But it's also the thing that they tell you is the thing you have to obsess over. And, like, for somebody who is a [00:26:00] professional political activist or something like, obviously that's different. You may have some limited ability to do something about it.
You're just. As somebody who has a regular job, you're a teacher or, whatever, you're, a job that's not involving political activism. You really don't have anything that you can do about it. But then at the same time, there it's a nationalization and it's taking you away from things where you could.
Have an impact, which is your local community and your state and being concerned about things that are happening there, whether it's trying to get a, like, we're still at this stage where many states, they're, they, have the federal minimum wage floor as an example that, that they, that there are people who are, they would love to have a higher minimum wage, but they don't realize that they could, or that they deserve it.
And so like, and that's just one of many problems that if people were paying more attention to their local circumstances in their communities, that they could do something about it. Or, like, I mean, there's just so many things, but, yeah, [00:27:00] like, and the national press doesn't have the ability to talk about those things.
Of course they don't. Right. And you can't expect them to do it. But you could support your local your local media to do that. And they would tell you about, what's going on with that.
SUSCA: Yeah. And I,
SHEFFIELD: oh, go ahead. No, you can go ahead.
SUSCA: Well, I just, I mean, I think the issue of trust is also a huge, a huge issue, I may not trust, the CNN anchor, because they don't know me, but you know, I trusted the person who I saw, Covering that issue, or I, who I met who was gonna cover my daughter's gymnastics team being cut because the school board didn't have a budget for it.
And I, I got to know them over the course of that budget cycle, so I think that there are issues. Yeah. Because you can actually see them.
SHEFFIELD: Yeah,
SUSCA: absolutely. So I, that's, that's, something that I've been thinking a lot about too, and you know how all of these are kind of tied.
Tied together. And but you know, I think you're what you just brought up is [00:28:00] a really good point. And, I think these local mask mandate, that became so heated these board school board meetings, people screaming about Anthony Fauci at local school board meetings.
I don't know, it just, became just fodder for, it was, I think, a signal of how, how polarized we were I don't, it's,
yeah, it's, well, it's also interesting time.
SHEFFIELD: Well, and the other, as another example of this, that besides, the decay of local media is that, or an example of the decay of local media affecting people's ability to know things that affect them directly is that with these, book bannings that, that, have been happening, especially in Florida, but not just Florida, many other localities and states that these groups that were nationally controlled and operated They would descend into school board meetings and they would be professional activists who had been trained, for extensively to know how to [00:29:00] kind of bully a school board system.
And, they've done that also to try to suppress LGBTQ teens in, schools and teachers. Just from even acknowledging that they have a spouse of the same sex or, just even basic stuff like that. And, then the local media, if they're even there at all, which in many cases they're not but if they are there, they come in and they don't know who these groups are because their staff is, extremely young, extremely untrained.
They have no political memory. And so, they just show up and they're like, Oh, well, look, here's some concerned parents who are talking about, obscene material and they have no context and they don't provide the audience anything. They don't, they have, even if they hadn't tried to actively misinform them, that's what they've done.
And this stuff like this is going to keep happening and happens every single day. Across America because of the decay of local media, [00:30:00]
SUSCA: it's such a good point and I think, it's trying to stress to students that, my journalism students that, people will actively try to, manipulate you as a journalist, from, in trying to be.
weary of that and trying to be, you know, trying to understand that from whether or not that's a, politician spokesperson, or in this case, the deliberate action of, these kinds of people who paratroop into a local event and claim that they're being affected by, a book about, Jason Reynolds book that's, in a library or, the hate you give being in the library, it's, just, astounding when that young reporter is, expected to cover.
The beat of four people because of layoffs, because a hedge fund is, won't staff, fully staff a robust newsroom. I mean, it's, a really interesting point. And that is [00:31:00] the effect that is a direct line from ownership. To an audience that is underserved by a newsroom under this kind of control.
I was talking to one of my students, a first year student from a town in New England, a small town in New England, who said that, when she was a member of like a student liaison to the board of education, she received death threats from a group. That's very similar to what you're talking about.
I mean, it's just, Imagine giving death, I mean, death threats to a 16 year old who's trying to make her community better. A community, like you're saying, who, kind of paratrooped in to try to actively go against a mask mandate in, one of these small towns. It's just, it's, just, it's mind boggling what some of these groups are doing and it's just, there's a local news ecosystem that is ill equipped to try to inform citizens about the realities of these, of, as you say, this kind [00:32:00] of power structure that exists behind it.
It's, just outrageous.
Newspapers didn't actually need hedge funds, they were profitable
SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Well, and to go back to something you were saying earlier about kind of the financialization of the economy. The, newspaper industry itself wasn't actually unprofitable. Most of these, local dailies, I mean, they went from making gigantic obscene profits to making a smaller amount of profit, but it was still profitable. And like, I, that's a, that is a fact that I think often has gotten lost when people who might defend some of these hedge funds or, giant media conglomerates, they never acknowledged that reality, that they weren't saving anything like the industry itself, obviously you had needed to make some changes and, there were mistakes in terms of training and, some business model stuff, but it wasn't in.
A, it wasn't just massive money sinkhole that they like to portray it as. It, [00:33:00] that's just something not true.
SUSCA: Someone said to me once, well, these private equity firms, they saved journalism, and I, said, well, where's the evidence of that? Where's the evidence that they saved journalism?
I just don't see that if you can, cause I'm, my thing is I, always say to people, Where is your evidence? Where is your evidence? Because I have now, 20, 000 pages of documents. I mean, I'm looking at SEC documents. I've got, bankruptcy court documents that show, annual reports, shareholder meeting, documents.
Just give me the report. Give me the record. And the favorite, someone said recently on Facebook, they said, well, I was there. They say, I was there. I was in the newsroom. I said, Okay, well, where's your, other than you being there, Bob, where was your evidence? Do you have a document or a report? Something, show me, and I think this idea again, that, newspapers used to be among portfolio winners, I mean, they, you, I had one [00:34:00] person say to me as a former editor at the South Florida Sun Sentinel he said, which was in tribunes portfolio, and he said, the only way we could have made more money, this is from, they made so much money from advertising in the late eighties and into the nineties.
He said, the only way we could have made more money is if our printing presses printed 10 bills. I mean, it was a wildly profitable business, but into the two thousands, into the two thousands. Certainly the digital transition. There were changes even in 2021. Newspapers still beat S and P 500 averages and it doesn't get discussed.
And, I start one chapter even talking about Warren Buffett who called the newspaper industry toast. And I was still like so upset about this and because Warren Buffett isn't, didn't run a private equity firm. He wasn't, he was a newspaper owner. For almost a decade. And he had been [00:35:00] a longtime investor.
We own the Buffalo news, which is for, a long time, but in a long time, investor in the Washington post
SHEFFIELD: as well, right.
SUSCA: when he owned this newspaper chain and he said, so he, he bought it and this newspaper chain, and then he sold it to Lee enterprises. And he called the newspaper industry toast.
And one of the things that got reported in the Financial Times, but didn't get reported as widely as him calling the newspaper industry toast, is that BH Finance, so the subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway, when he sold his newspaper chain to Lee Enterprises, He also refinanced some debt that Lee Enterprises had to a different private equity firm and a different Wall Street bank firm.
And so what, and what's going to end up happening is that BH Finance, the subsidiary [00:36:00] of Berkshire Hathaway, is going to make hundreds of millions of dollars off of the debt. that Lee Enterprises, a different newspaper chain, has. So, he's calling the newspaper industry toast, but here, Berkshire Hathaway is also making tons of money for its shareholders off of the debt that a different, that a newspaper newspaper chain has.
So, you see, it's like people, you profit off of this, story that you're telling of a newspaper's insolvency, and it just, there's a part of me that just, as the accountability part of my title, I'm a professor of journalism, democracy, and accountability, like, it just drives me bonkers that, that can be, that narrative can be allowed to exist.
SHEFFIELD: Well, okay, so, let's, [00:37:00] of the things that are in the book that we didn't talk about. formally yet. What would, what are like one or two things that you want to make sure that we do?
SUSCA: Okay, so I, yeah, so I think that, one of the things that I would just emphasize is that, not to say that the U. S. newspaper system is a perfect system, not to say that it worked for everyone throughout American history, It certainly, I think, was the best established system that we had to provide voice for, for, communities across America to, to right wrongs, to right institutional failures.
And I think that, we're losing that system. Day, by day, weekly newspapers are closing at an alarming rate. Daily newspapers, more than 200 have closed in the last 15 years. And I think [00:38:00] that, behind those closures there are not, behind those closures, are certainly there are profit motivations.
So I think that the one thing that I would say is that, we're losing functioning system that is meant to hold government officials accountable. And I think that's a really troubling, troubling reality. And I think that it's not too late to try to get some interventions.
The nonprofit news ecosystem: A glimmer of hope
SUSCA: And one of the things that I would emphasize is that there is a growing nonprofit news ecosystem.
Even since I finished the book when I wrote finished the book, there were 400 nonprofit newsrooms in the United States. And today their number about 425 nonprofit newsrooms. So I think that this is a really encouraging sign. There's been a massive philanthropic. A commitment from the MacArthur Foundation and the Knight [00:39:00] Foundation to, give 500 million to the local news ecosystem.
Much of it will be geared toward the nonprofit news space. So I think that there are some hopeful moments for the local space. It may not be the newspaper space, and I don't think it has to be the newspaper space, but I think that. It's going to be up to citizens to try to, be active and engaged and it's not, they're going to have to be, to reach out and try to engage with some of these nonprofit newsrooms.
In their communities. Hopefully they are in their communities. And, to try to find these reputable news outlets because, the alternatives are are pretty, pretty bad.
SHEFFIELD: Yeah, I agree. Well, it's been a great conversation. Margo. I I think the book is definitely something that people should be looking at, especially if you are, somebody who works in the news [00:40:00] media, like those are the people who absolutely should read this book.
You need to understand your own business and understand what's happening to it, even if it's boring and not exciting to you immediately, it eventually once you get into it, you'll realize It's a lot scarier and a lot more. To you. So at the very least, they should be reading this. And I think everybody else should be reading it too.
So, we'll encourage everybody to do that and I'll put it up on the screen. So it's the book is hedged how private investment funds helped. Destroy American newspapers and undermine democracy. And then you are also on social media over at Margot Susca. That's M-A-R-G-O-T-S-U-S-C-A for those who are listening. Thanks for being here.
SUSCA: Okay. Thanks, Matt, for having me.
SHEFFIELD: All right. So that is our program for today. I appreciate everybody for joining us for the conversation. And of course, you can get more if you go to theoryofchange.show you the full episodes with the audio video and transcript of [00:41:00] everything. And if you are a paid subscribing member, thank you very much.
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In this special Doomscroll episode, Matt tells about his time working in right-wing political comedy, including constant pressure from reactionary Christian colleagues about racy jokes. The video of this discussion is available.
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02:01 — Matt's upcoming memoir
10:13 — Launching a YouTube politics show in 2007, before the internet wheel was invented
17:35 — Taking right-wing comedy into broadcast syndication
Cover photo: A screenshot from “The Flipside,” the syndicated comedy news TV show on which Matt worked as an executive producer
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Episode Summary
Protestant televangelists have been infamous for decades for their lavish lifestyles and nefarious scandals. They’ve also been extremely successful at promoting far-right political viewpoints to people who just want to watch some devotional preaching.
The radicalization of American evangelicalism is finally beginning to attract the journalistic and scholarly attention it deserves, but there is something very similar happening among some Roman Catholics in this country that has not be reported on enough. One of the prime culprits is a cable TV channel called Eternal Word Television Network which many people outside of EWTN’s elderly demographic have never heard of.
While it may not be the most famous brand among political junkies, EWTN’s influence on Catholicism in America and around the world is substantial. By its own account, EWTN reaches 400 million households in more than 150 countries. It also owns a radio network with 380 affiliates, several news services, and the influential national Catholic Register newspaper.
At its founding in 1981 EWTN wasn’t about mixing far-right political agendas with religious services. But in the years since, it’s gone all in for Donald Trump and a host of extremist Catholic figures who are bent on canceling anyone with progressive views in the church, even Pope Francis himself.
Joining us in this episode to discuss is Molly Olmsted. She is a staff writer at Slate, and she wrote an extended article about EWTN that is definitely a must-read.
This episode of Theory of Change aired previously on July 30, 2022. The transcript of the conversation is below. Because of its length, some podcast apps and email programs may truncate it. Access the episode page to get the complete text. The video of this episode is available.
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* In the Republican coalition, Evangelicals bring the votes, Catholics bring the brains
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Audio Chapters
00:00 — Introduction and background on EWTN
06:37 — The beginning of EWTN's shift to the far right
09:40 — Raymond Arroyo, EWTN host and Fox News commentator
12:16 — Once it shifted far-right, EWTN has been buying up other Catholic news sources
16:51 — EWTN and the rise of far-right American Catholicism
27:10 — The theological framework of being more Catholic than the pope
Audio Transcript
The following is a machine-generated transcript of the audio that has not been corrected. It is provided for convenience purposes only.
MATTHEW SHEFFIELD: So I gave a little intro about what EWTN is, but let’s maybe just go through a little bit of the history. So it started in 1981 and who was the founder of it? And how is it structured?
MOLLY OLMSTEAD: Her name was actually—Rita Rizzo was the name she was born with, but most people know her as Mother Angelica.
She was this poor girl [00:04:00] who grew up in Ohio, in this neighborhood that was ruled by the Black Hand, this mob basically. And it was just this really violent, intense childhood that was governed by a lot of illness and death. And it was a bit of a horrific childhood actually. So she eventually just sort of sought comfort in religion, that she found to be compatible with her experience of suffering, which has really formed a lot of the shape of EWTN as it exists today.
It is one that really does expect a sort of intense form of the faith, one that’s slightly less forgiving. And so Mother Angelica, well before she was Mother Angelica, she became a nun. And she moved on down to start a monastery in Alabama. Initially her intent was actually to work with the black population in the South, which she never actually ended up doing, because she almost immediately, through her charisma and levels of charm, was able to start an entire media network.
It’s something that she got hooked on quickly. I think she realized she was really good at fundraising. Really good at being able to capture people’s attention. And she really wanted to proselytize and spread her version of the faith.
So when she became Mother Angelica, when she was head of the order, she actually was a woman who had a lot of people really devoted to her. And she amassed quite a bit of power through this charisma, despite the fact that she was technically a cloistered nun.
SHEFFIELD: And one of her inspirations for this, for what she was doing, was Pat Robertson, the Protestant televangelist. Talk about that a little bit as, as far as that went, if you could.
OLMSTEAD: Yeah. It is interesting to see how [00:06:00] Catholic media have sort of taken a lot of the lessons they learned from really influential Protestant televangelists, given that so much of the Catholic media branding is often to differentiate itself from Protestants.
But in this case, we found that Mother Angelica really learned from them the tricks of the trade in some ways, and actually ended up hiring a bunch of people who came from this Protestant televangelist world who were able to help her figure out how to run her network.
It’s funny, because I think there was also this charismatic Catholic movement that was happening at the time, which is very– it emphasizes speaking in tongues, that sort of dramatic thing, which we tend to think of as a Pentecostal thing now, but it, there is actually a history of this in the Catholic charismatic movement.
And she got into that for a bit. She later sort of distanced herself from it as, so I think she thought of it as maybe something sort of silly she got into, but there’s so much of the sort of drama of Protestant televangelism that she was able to adopt and really speak directly to the listeners in a way that I think made her a lot more successful than maybe if the bishops, who are a bit stuffier, tried to do it on their own.
SHEFFIELD: Yeah. And for the longest time their programming, it was less dramatic than it is now. And it was not really political. I mean, it was primarily a lot of devotional stuff, so sermons and showing various ceremonies and speeches from various religious leaders.
But eventually that kind of started to change over time. When do you think that they started becoming political? What was the first step, if you will? Was it bringing on the more news content do you think?
OLMSTEAD: Yeah, there, it was a [00:08:00] bit of a slow shift in some ways, it’s one of those things where in retrospect, the broader context was also changing of how people thought about religion and politics, but there was a specific moment where she seemed to really snap, which is when there was a World Youth Day in the nineties. And the Pope was there, it was a big deal.
And it was this huge moment for EWTN, because they were carrying the whole thing live. So they were really the ones who were sort of spreading this big, massive moment in which Catholics were coming from all over the world to the United States. So this was a time when Mother Angelica herself had been slowly turning away from her earlier, more loosey goosey, hippie moments and was becoming more personally socially conservative, which seemed to be a general trend she’d been on for some years at that point.
But these stations of the cross which I’m sure is something that’s in every World Youth Day, it was being acted out by a troop of mimes, which is kind of funny. And then when the mime came out who was supposed to represent Jesus, it actually turned out that that mime was a woman, which I’m sure they did to sort of be really inclusive and a little bit different, reach out to all the young people.
But Mother Angelica was horrified and she pretty much snapped. And she, in her show soon afterwards, gave this really incensed diatribe in when she just poked her finger at the camera and was like ‘You evil, liberal American church.’
Because she really believed that the Catholic church, as it was represented by Rome, was true and good and doing the right, normal thing; that the Americans were derailing it to try and make it something really into gender politics [00:10:00] and just breaking all the rules. And so immediately she enacted all these strict rules for her own nuns.
She had them wear a more traditional habit. She sealed them back up in their cloister, tightened the rules, and then every show after that was increasingly political in nature, where she was really going on about these sort of conservative– not fully partisan, but largely partisan politics. That was a big turning point.
SHEFFIELD: Mm-hmm. And I guess one of the other stops along the way was their their creation of a weekly news show called The World Over with this guy named Raymond Arroyo. Talk a little bit about him and where he is in the Republican media landscape.
OLMSTEAD: Yeah. Raymond Arroyo was kind of Mother Angelica’s anointed son. She seemed to really love him. He wrote her biography actually. He is their most inflammatory host by far. His weekly shows, if you watch any of them, it’s consistent, it’s all partisan politics.
It is basically a Fox News segment that just has some Catholic elements sprinkled in, is how I would describe it. His guests come on are typically priests and other Catholic figures who are willing to talk about the same partisan politics.
And Raymond Arroyo, who again, he’s sort of the face of the network or at least on the news side, now that Mother Angelica has died. He’s like the big face that still is out there. He himself is frequently on Fox News. He goes on Lara Ingraham’s show regularly. They have a segment together and sometimes he even hosts for her.
So he is really keyed into the Fox News network. He’s just hyperpartisan to an extreme of the kind where he was downplaying the January 6th insurrection, of the kind where he’s always sort of [00:12:00] floating ideas about black violence, particularly when it comes to riots. It’s pretty extreme and it very rarely has anything significant to do with Catholic matters, as you would’ve expected from the early days of EWTN’s programs.
SHEFFIELD: Yeah. And, and the other thing about him as a media figure is the way that Fox has included him, is extremely different from how they regard other right wing television enterprises. So like they absolutely hate Newsmax. They absolutely hate OAN. They ban anyone who’s affiliated with those entities, but they see EWTN as a source of branding for them. And so that’s why they bring him on so extensively.
And I have to say just on a irrelevant personal sidenote, he kind of looks like Peewee Herman, I have to say.
OLMSTEAD: He does. And I think that’s part of the reason he hasn’t been more successful on Fox. I just think he doesn’t quite have those sort of tougher look. Yeah.
SHEFFIELD: Yeah. But he’s, of course, not the only political person. They have several other ones, they’ve been expanding their news, quote unquote since his show came on the air, but EWTN has been just on, on a really expansionist impulse. They’ve been buying up these new services. And in the Catholic media, there traditionally had been really two kind of large enterprises that were kind of pushing and pulling against each other in a mostly friendly rivalry. But EWTN bought one of them. Can you talk about that dynamic a little bit?
OLMSTEAD: Yeah. I mean, they really are eating up everything else, and you haven’t mentioned this, maybe we’ll get to it later, but huge international expansion as well. But there’s two, there were two major Catholic sort of news wire services. One that was a little bit– it wasn’t fully, it wasn’t progressive, but it was centrist, at least. Whereas there is a conservative one that is actually [00:14:00] free to the public and free for all dioceses who want to print news to be able to use.
And part of the reason that it was free is because it really wanted to be able to sort of expand its perspective throughout the Catholic church. So I’m talking about Catholic News Service.
SHEFFIELD: Well then of course there’s the National Catholic Register as well, and then not a news service, but yeah. Yes, those are some similar things.
OLMSTEAD: Also have the National Catholic Register, whereas there is the progressive National Catholic Reporter, and those have that pull and push situation going on.
But the rest of Catholic media is pretty much being gutted. And so what you have found yourself in a situation is where EWTN essentially dominates the entire Catholic media market, along with the properties that it owns.
SHEFFIELD: Mm-hmm.
OLMSTEAD: So now there’s virtually, I mean you have America magazine, which I think is largely for sort of the liberal intellectual types. And then Commonweal, which is also pretty progressive, but virtually–
SHEFFIELD: Small circulation though.
OLMSTEAD: Yeah. Small circulation. And then you have the National Catholic Reporter, which a lot of what it has was based, I mean it ran a lot of things pulled from the news wire service that is now being gutted. So we are ending up in a situation in which the vast majority of Catholic media is owned by EWTN and is conservative in nature.
SHEFFIELD: Yeah. One of the things that I’ve always found interesting about Catholic media is that it gets dramatically less scrutiny compared to– I mean the mainstream media doesn’t really pay attention to religion generally, unfortunately. But at least every once in a while, they’ll run a report from someone, saying, oh my God, look at what these televangelists are doing. What is Jerry Falwell doing? What is Pat Robertson doing? Franklin Graham, et cetera.
They might run those once in a while, but there’s literally no coverage of what’s happening in Catholic media.
This [00:16:00] is a serious issue, because you quoted from some of the the viewers of EWTN. And they’re just, they’re so devoted to it, and it is warping their minds. So I’m going to quote from somebody that you quoted, it’s a 95 year old viewer of EWTN.
She said: “I have trouble falling asleep since my husband passed away two years ago. In January of 2021, I scrolled through the television at midnight, I came across your channel and daily mass. I am so thankful to have EWTN in my home. It is so hard being alone. You have become my family.”
And that’s, I’m sure, not a dissimilar perspective to a lot of their viewers. These are people that they just are looking for comfort, or religious devotion, or just something to speak to things that they care about, and it’s radicalizing them and, they don’t even know it.
OLMSTEAD: Yeah. There was some, I don’t think I included all of this, but I heard that a lot of people were alienated from their parents because of QAnon, people who were alienated from their parents, because they got sucked into this sort of EWTN world. Because a lot of people watch it in retirement homes, or just in general it is attractive to a lot of older Catholics.
And then you also have, I talked to one professor who told me he teaches at a Catholic university. And he told me a lot of his students, EWTN had been sort of their big Catholic media source as well. So you’re seeing it not just with the older people, but with a huge number of these intensely fanatic young Catholics as well. And it’s quite influential.
SHEFFIELD: Yeah. They’ve been having some conflicts with the pope recently. How does the church take their recent radicalization? It’s not, it’s not owned by the church.
OLMSTEAD: Right. Yeah. It is not owned by the church. Actually, this is another thing I think I couldn’t get into, but Mother Angelica– EWTN was about to undergo a visitation from the church, which essentially means [00:18:00] they were they were going to investigate the problematic things about it.
And she was worried the bishops were going to then take it over because technically, as a religious sister, she could not directly disobey the–
SHEFFIELD: She’s an employee of the church.
OLMSTEAD: She’s an employee of the church, exactly. So what she did is, right before that visitation came to happen, she was like, I need to get, I need to make sure that this is a lay run institution so that they can’t take this away from us. So she signed off her ownership of it. So that it was run by a lay board that then the church had no ownership over. So this happened decades ago.
And the result has been, there is no oversight. They can’t do anything about it, but Pope Francis has said, he didn’t say it was EWTN, but he was like a conservative television network in the United States. That’s the only one. He was like, ‘they are the work of the devil.’
He was very direct about ‘these people are corrupting the church by selling division.’
And the way that a lot of the people who defend EWTN are able to sort of deal with that is by saying that– I mean, Pope Francis doesn’t watch EWTN, I’m assuming or read any of it. So they’re just assuming someone was whispering that in his ear, who was maybe sort of a liberal advisor who had it out for them kind of thing.
That’s how they tend to react to that. But the one and only thing that I have heard sort of speculation about them trying to intervene is like a little bit of backdoor, backdoor like discussions especially over Raymond Arroyo’s show, which seems to be the main issue. So there was a little bit of talking to– having these discussions about, can you get him to pipe down and just sort of voicing that they were not a big fan of it.
And then also, they’re trying to keep a close eye on [00:20:00] them by– they appointed the CEO to this Vatican board essentially for communications. It is an advisory position.
And then they also might be keeping an eye on the local bishop in Alabama, but still there’s nothing they can do. It’s totally a lay-run organization, which I do think a lot of people agree is for the best. The Pope shouldn’t be able to just take control over things, willy-nilly take control over media, but it is a situation where they’re also pretty reliant on EWTN, because there’s so few Catholic media networks that they do need EWTN to broadcast things for them to get their appearances out there. And so there’s also a little bit of dependency issue there as well.
SHEFFIELD: You mentioned the international presence of EWTN, and I mean, that’s not just a source of viewers. It’s the great source of revenue for them. But it seems like also that they are kind of in many ways, kind of serving as a center for building out opposition to Pope Francis across the globe for different cardinals who don’t like him or archbishops who want to criticize him.
They say they have household reach of 400 million people. And it’s, I just find it incredible that the American press really doesn’t cover EWTN at all. I mean, why, why do you think the mainstream media doesn’t pay attention to religion as much?
OLMSTEAD: Well, first off. I will say that. I don’t know how much we can trust that number because there’s no.
SHEFFIELD: Oh, sure. Yeah.
OLMSTEAD: Journal thing to check that.
SHEFFIELD: That’s just, but it’s 400 million available.
OLMSTEAD: Right. Right.
SHEFFIELD: Is my guess.
OLMSTEAD: I mean, with Catholic media, I will say, the thing about EWTN is if you, if you ever watch it, it does look like it has a pretty low production value. Like if you watch these shows, they are not particularly glamorous. Even their shinier news shows, they do just look like sort of [00:22:00] the, the, the offbrand Fox news vibe. Right. And something about that, I think can make you underestimate them. Because you forget that a lot of the older viewers that they have don’t care that it looks like it’s from the 1960s.
SHEFFIELD: It might be an advantage for them.
OLMSTEAD: Right, exactly. Where like, with the big flashy, evangelical televangelists, there’s that obvious pizazz there. Whereas this can look pretty sleepy which makes it boring, which makes it not interesting.
So you might just not be paying attention to the fact that they’re saying these pretty radical things, and at times hateful things, and it just goes under the radar, because it just looks like the least intimidating thing in the world.
You also have an assumption when you’re dealing with Catholics that because you’re working with a hierarchy, it’s easy to just sort of focus on what’s coming from the top, without remembering that Catholicism is being lived, not in a top down way, but in the same way religion is being lived everywhere.
So even though you do have these, these rules, people choose to ignore them. They choose to have their own version of the faith. It operates culturally, just like everything else. And it’s just a easy thing, I think, to forget.
And also, Catholics are not a, they’re not a political bloc. They don’t operate in the way that white evangelicals do, where they’re quite the same political force.
But experts have been saying a lot that we are underestimating conservative Catholics. Because they are pretty influential. Just they don’t do it in quite the bold and inflammatory way that white evangelicals often do.
SHEFFIELD: Mm-hmm. And I think a, a way where that’s demonstrated is that when you look at the way that right wing Republican policy is effected, it’s almost overwhelmingly Catholics who are doing it. So [almost] every single Republican Supreme Court Justice on the court is a Catholic, if I’m not mistaken.
And then you had people like former [00:24:00] attorney general Bill Barr, and there’s a lot of people in Republican politics who are part of this hardcore faction. But what’s, I guess even more concerning is that that faction, which has been around for decades, is actually under attack from an even further-right faction among Catholics.
So you had this outlet, internet outlet, church Militant, it’s run by a very flamboyant, supposedly “ex-gay” guy. And they’re openly aligning themselves with white nationalist groups and, doing things with them and going to events, promoting each other. I mean, this is some serious stuff that’s happening and it seems like it deserves a lot more attention. .
OLMSTEAD: Yeah. I mean the, the Church Militant guys, they kind of, they represent this inflammatory version. There’s also the, there’s these sort of snooty academic versions that are sort of represented by the legal scholars that’s just as, or even more dangerous, but also coming from a very extreme right position.
You have all these different factions. You have the people who want to take us back to this sort of medieval times, before a lot of reforms were made. The Catholic right is not a unified bloc. There’s about four different factions, I would say. There’s crossover between them.
But I would say that what we think of is sort of this traditional EWTN style leading a lot of things in the Supreme Court or even in the judiciary or the Trump administration or whatever, those people are relatively centrist compared to some of the figures we’re seeing out there.
SHEFFIELD: And what’s your sense about EWTN’s perspective on some of these extreme right-wing Catholics or do they talk about them?
OLMSTEAD: Yeah, I asked people about it, and I think they see it as competition more than they– I mean, they’re not worried about it in terms of the worldview. They’re worried about them in terms of audiences that can be taken away from them.
So [00:26:00] you mentioned Church Militant, but we also have this group out of Canada called Life Site News. These two pages have both gotten in trouble for spreading fake news and misinformation.
They’re pretty extreme. And I think a lot of people worry that they’re sort of able to whip people up a little bit more. Able to get them more worked up. And so I think EWTN sees them as this sort of rightward flank. As a potential audience, more than they see them as anything dangerous.
SHEFFIELD: Mm-hmm. And now what about the Catholic center to left? In the United States and elsewhere, do they, are they aware of just how influential EWTN has become over their own parishioners? I mean, does this concern them at all?
OLMSTEAD: So I do think the concern is EWTN’s participation in this broader network. So when we are talking about the Catholic right, we are talking about this sort of behemoth that is several institutions working together.
One of them is people in these fundraising type groups that also operate as ways for people, wealthy Catholics to network with people who are high up in the administration or people who are in the judiciary or whatever it is.
So you’ve got this sort of clique that also has deep ties to people in academia, that also has deep ties to people in media. And then also ties to a number of prominent bishops who are sort of the Francis opposition. And so you have this little network that is actually, if you look at who the power players are, you, you see them in every single institution, they’re just popping up over and over again.
And they’re deeply connected. But the media is the part of it that is the way that this really grows and is most threatening. So when they see EWTN’s [00:28:00] influence, I think it worries them as it represents this whole network of people.
SHEFFIELD: It’s kind of fascinating to me, this dynamic though, of the Catholic right. They allegedly are believing in authority and top down obedience. But they don’t behave in that way at all with regard to Pope Francis. And what they’re doing essentially is trying to force this kind of rightwing American– because I mean when you look at maps of political parties around the globe where they are on the left or right, the United States Republican party is way off to the right compared to most political parties in Western countries. And so among Catholics globally, the perspective that these people have is just totally out of step.
And the viewpoints of Pope Francis are– that’s the mainstream basically. And I don’t know if they’re aware that they’re out of the mainstream, or they don’t care, but it, it’s just fascinating that as much as they pretend to, claim to believe in following the magisterium of the church, well, the main thing of that is obeying the pope.
OLMSTEAD: Yeah. This is a thing that I have come to understand a little bit better as I spent more time talking to these people. There is like the fringe that believes that the pope is like the “anti-pope” or whatever it is. This is not the sort of position that the EWTN people take.
They see the magisterium, the church, its teachings, its leadership, but the leadership that they sort of choose to draw their inspiration from are those is past popes.
And the conservative bishops. So they don’t so much see the current pope, Pope Francis is part of that. And again, it’s something that there is a tradition of, in that the U.S. has always been rebellious when it comes to the Catholic church. It used to be flipped the other way around where in the [00:30:00] sixties, you had a really conservative Vatican and then the bishops in the U.S. were more liberal. But now it’s extremely the other way.
And we have this very different church here, but yeah, they just, it’s so funny. Because this is the irony is– they used to be all about obeying Rome. And now they have just chosen to believe that that’s what they’re doing, but they’re doing it in a way that is longer term than the missteps of the current pope.
They see it as something that it’s like, ‘we exhibit the true nature of the church, even if the pope who’s leading it right now has strayed from that.’
SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Really, this is the old phrase, ‘more Catholic than the pope.’
OLMSTEAD: Yeah.
SHEFFIELD: That’s what it is. And it is an interesting little contrast, because you do kind of see this also with regard to Republicans and law enforcement. So ‘back the blue,’ et cetera, they talk about that all the time, support police. But then at the same time, they also don’t want to prosecute anyone who was invading the capital on January 6th, and was injuring police and attacking them with poles and knives and whatever.
They don’t talk about that stuff. It does kind of point to a larger sort of dynamic in the, the right wing sensibility, which is more that there are no principles, there are only people. That’s who is believed in. So as long as the right people are in power, then they can basically do anything that they want. And it’s, so it’s more about people than it is about principles. That’s that’s my take on it. What do you think ?
OLMSTEAD: I mean, I really think, just looking at this, is it all comes back to the culture wars. I mean, it’s all about finding your tribe in the culture wars.
And if your tribe is the kind that says gay marriage is evil, you’re going to do whatever you can [00:32:00] to buttress it, stay with it. Even if it takes you down these extremes, your identity is so tied up in that, that there’s just no letting go of it. The culture war–
SHEFFIELD: You’re God’s servant, yeah.
OLMSTEAD: Yeah. I mean the culture wars are just, they’re like no other. Here in the U.S., it’s just not like any other country in the way that it’s taken over politics. It’s very much taken over the Catholic church in a way that doesn’t neatly fit the culture wars on paper. I mean the Catholic church just doesn’t fit with it. If you look at the actual policies coming out of Rome, you got some things that are on the left, some things that are on the right.
There’s just– it doesn’t work in the way that it does with Democratic and Republican parties here when we’re talking about partisan politics, but they just try and jam it in there to make it work, because it’s tribal identity above all else.
SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Yeah. Well, alright, well last question before we wrap up here is what kind of response did you get to your article?
OLMSTEAD: I didn’t get anything from EWTN itself. They never responded to me. They never talked to me. Just a lot, I will say for legal reasons, there were a bunch of things I couldn’t publish.
And a lot of people wished that I could have aired more dirty laundry. And I understand that. So there were some people who are really out there hoping that Catholic media are going to be able to pick up the things that I wasn’t able to run with. And so if there’s any Catholic reporters out there who ever see this, hit me up, I have stuff.
But I think for the most part, people felt relieved to see people talking about this, because there’s just been virtually no discussion of it. Otherwise, I got the people you would expect who said I was evil and all that, but mostly I was happy to see that there were people who were like, I’m so glad we’re talking about this.
SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Okay. All right. Well, I hope people can follow you on Twitter. So you’re at Molly stead that’s O L M S T E a D. And then of course, people can find you over on slate.com as well. Thanks for being here, Molly.
OLMSTEAD: Thank you.[00:34:00]
SHEFFIELD: So that is our show for today. Thanks for joining and I appreciate you being here. Please do visit us at flux.community. You can also go directly to the Theory of Change archives at theoryofchange.show. And then if you’d like what we’re doing here, we can use your support. And I appreciate everybody who is supporting us right now. Thanks very much. And if you would like to support us, please go to patreon.com/discoverflux.
I hope to see you on the next show, and that will do it for today. Thanks. I’m Matthew Sheffield.
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The past two episodes of Theory of Change have focused on dating and sex, and I wanted to end the miniseries with a conversation that brings in the topic of media as well. Not just because the next episode arc we'll be doing is about the state of journalism, but also because media have played an important role in how people meet and form connections.
It seems forever ago now in 2024, but for many years, one of the ways that people went on dates was through a local newspaper and their personal ads. You’ve likely heard of them, even if you never used them: “Single white female seeking man for tennis and deep conversations.”
There were many other types of classified ad as well: “Got a trip to Spain coming up? Learn Spanish from the comfort of your own home with our great tutors!” And so on. Millions of short messages like these were the original social media feeds for communities, the place to figure out what the regular people around us were up to and what they were looking for.
And as it happened, some people were looking for sex workers. But strippers, escorts, and other such professionals weren't allowed to advertise in the respectable daily newspaper, so instead, they turned to their local alternative newspaper. In their heyday, alt-weeklies, as they were often called, were an industry that brought in hundreds of millions of dollars a year. They also produced a lot of great journalism—and the first real challenge to the bland and cowardly approach that even today dominates so much of mainstream media.
The story of the alternative weekly newspaper and how the former “counterculture” became the mainstream is one that Sam Eifling and his co-producers tell in a new podcast for Audible called “Hold Fast: The Unadulterated Story of the World’s Most Scandalous Website” that’s definitely worth a listen.
The transcript of our conversation is below. Because of its length, some podcast apps and email programs may truncate it. Access the episode page to get the complete text. The video of this episode is also available.
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Theory of Change is part of the Flux Media network, please support our work and get more content like this by subscribing on Patreon or Substack.
Related Content
* Dating in the present age has become quite the mess, how did it happen?
* How the Christian right is using sex to sell religion
* CNN and Fox are having very different identity crises
* Editorial cartooning is under threat in the age of the meme
* The rise of Donald Trump reshuffled the right-wing media business
Audio Chapters
00:00 — Introduction
07:27 — How Jim Larkin and Mike Lacey’s New Times revolutionized newspaper classified ads and later online adult ads
19:31 — How dating and hooking up via text advertisements worked
30:09 — Alt-weeklies were the first real challengers to the false promise of “objective” news reporting
36:24 — Before the “counterculture” won, libertarians thought they were on the political left
47:04 — How Backpage replaced alt-weeklies for sex workers trying to be safe
52:47 — The bipartisan prosecution of Backpage’s founders
01:05:57 — The personal story of a john named John
01:14:41 — Conclusion
Audio Transcript
The following is a machine-generated transcript of the audio that has not been corrected. It is provided for convenience purposes only.
MATTHEW SHEFFIELD: I think a lot of people have never heard of Backpage at this point, whether being too young for it or not being [00:04:00] interested in those types of services. So why don't we start off by describing what Backpage was, and then we can get to where it came from.
SAM EIFLING: Sure. The simplest way to describe Backpage is that it was a knockoff of Craigslist, like a pure just, straight up Craigslist knockoff that eventually, because of the attitudes and past sort of business expertise of the owners, really became the go to red light district for sex ads on the internet for the better part of a decade.
It was a company that grew out of a company I used to work for. It was a newspaper company called New Times Inc. When when I started working there in the early two thousands, it was the biggest chain of alternative news weeklies in America. So these papers you would get, they were free. They were paid for by advertising display ads, which are usually what companies take out and classified ads, which are what individuals mostly take out.
Classified ads could be [00:05:00] selling your couch, selling your car, a help wanted ad.
And part of the New Times model for a long time was to welcome and encourage ads that had a sort of a grey zone of sexuality, right? So it could be massages, it could be escorts. I'm sure there were working prostitutes advertising at the Backpages, Backpages of New Times papers and probably helping to pay my salary and that of other reporters. It really wasn't our business to focus on at the time. But as that model fell apart, as Craigslist came in, especially, and started disrupting the entire online classified ecosystem, and these papers started wondering how are we going to get the money to pay for the journalism, executives at New Times came up with the idea of essentially running the same style of ads that they ran in the papers online in a Craigslist like format.
And over the years, that became increasingly [00:06:00] a lightning rod for attention and negative attention, especially when it came to people who would go to the media or appear in in different venues and say: “I was trafficked via Backpage. Someone held me against my will and advertised me as a sort of basically a prostitute or at that point, really a victim of a crime of sex trafficking on Backpage.”
And with a few of those accusations out of millions and millions of ads, there became this groundswell. The groundswell led to activism. The activism fed into political pressure. Political pressure led to the arrest of the main characters in our show, Michael Lacey and Jim Larkin. Years ago it started this chain of, alternative news weeklies, and now we're being arrested by the FBI and charged with essentially facilitating prostitution at probably the largest scale that's ever [00:07:00] been, accused in the history of the U. S. government. They were basically saying, you guys are, in the biggest pimps in the history of of America.
And they were thrown in jail and taken to trial. And so that's sort of where we picked up is, the beginning of the show is the arrest of, of Lacey and Larkin, and by the end we're, we're at a, a federal trial to hear, to hear the government make their case against, against Backpage and the Backpage executives.
How Jim Larkin and Mike Lacey's New Times revolutionized classified ads and weekly newspapers
SHEFFIELD: Yeah, no, it's a, and it's a story that. It's a, it's a really important story more than you would think. I think for people who, like, Oh, I would never place a adult classified ad, or, I would never go to a prostitute or whatever.
There's, there's some, a lot of real implications to all this, both where they came from, and, and the case against them.
So let's maybe step back then to the beginning here. In 2024, it's like, It seems a world removed in many ways, this industry that these, these guys really kind of started [00:08:00] and of alternative newspapers.
And a lot of this, I mean, it really got started with the village voice out of out of New York City in the 1950s, and then kind of, there were a bunch of, Sort of self styled underground newspapers that were kind of run by anti war college students primarily in the 60s and 70s. And then it became a business with these guys.
So, why don't you talk, tell us about that and what they were doing. What they, what did they discover that people had missed certainly.
EIFLING: Yeah, it is. it's to me, I'm born, I think age is a big part of this. So I can just say born in 1980.
And when was a college student thinking about getting into newspapers or journalism at all, newspapers were still really king newspapers and magazines. And I think a lot, as a lot of did probably in that age. before there were blogs, before there were podcasts, you might think about starting your own paper, [00:09:00] right?
It was, it was something you could, you could write, you could print, you could, you could report, you could have a voice, you could raise hell and distribute it. And that was a model that had been around for a long time.
In the case of the Village Voice, it started in the mid fifties in New York and sort of set the template, right? Which was a paper that was adversarial to the entrenched power structures in the city, including the existing media, which I think was a big part of what, I anybody now who, gets or a lot of I don't know how many vlogs are picking apart the mainstream media.
Well, that used to be the role of these, kind of insurgent newspapers and news gathering organizations.
But what, what made New Times different, what made New Times successful was that found a business model to go with it. So our, our really our protagonist the show is a guy named Mike Lacey. Mike Lacey was a college student at the at Arizona State University in the early 70s, and he and a bunch of friends put together this anti Vietnam War protest paper. [00:10:00] At first, it was a collective. It was chaotically run. I'm sure with the ideals of the day in mind as they set the business structure, which was basically no business structure at all.
And when I worked at New Times, very famously, Mike Lacey would talk about having donated plasma in the early days to keep the paper going right? These guys were broke. They're having fun. They're raising hell, but they Jim Larkin. Who was not a journalist, but who really enjoyed journalism and appreciated good journalism approached the paper sometime it started and said, look, I think you guys have a really good thing going. I Also think you don't know what you're doing on the business side I have a lot of ideas.
And essentially Larkin didn't invent this model But I think he ran it very well, which was to sell a lot of small ads in the paper that maybe were coming from businesses sort of, they were selling these ads to businesses that were too small to advertise in the in the big [00:11:00] daily, which was the Arizona Republic in phoenix.
So if you ran a very small business, or if you were a one person, if you were like a person giving guitar lessons, you were a handyman, or you were you were the kind of seamstress who would patch up people's clothes. Like this is the kind of stuff that, you know, you probably wouldn't place an ad in the daily, might just flyers around your neighborhood, but here comes this paper. The space is cheaper. You can buy small ads and you can participate in the community through your advertising, right?
You, you become, you have a platform effectively. If you buy a little piece of this paper, the genius of classified ads, the absolute, the key to classified advertising. They're really two one, they are really small, but because they're small, you can sell them basically at a premium on the page. So if one page of advertising holds just one ad, that ad costs a lot of money.[00:12:00]
But you have holds 200 ads collectively, those 200 ads add up to a lot more money than you would charge for the one. It's more work to put them in and also just know, it's, it's it's like any kind of, like, parceling up of a, of real estate, right? The smaller you cut it, the more you can sell, the more total sales value you're probably going to get out of it. So what happened in these papers, New Times especially, but The Voice did this, they could run literally thousands of these ads.
And these ads were run by so many people from so many walks of life that, No one advertiser really had editorial say over the paper, which was key. If you had one big ad and one big advertiser, that company, and it was always a company at that point, that company would expect to have some leverage against paper.
And they would. And dailies they did, anywhere, anywhere a big advertiser is funding a lot of the work of a journalism organization, they have a lot of say whether whether [00:13:00] the journalists even realize it or not, right? The owners make way for for a big advertiser. If there are thousands and thousands of advertisers, if it's that democratic, that collective and that many people are coming in, you can run a lot of material in the paper that could potentially piss a lot of them off.
But be fine because if 10 people walk out, you don't really right? There's so many people advertising that it effectively creates this way of community support, financial support for a newspaper, a news venture, and New Times ran that model very well. They ran it in in Phoenix, and then eventually they saw other weekly papers around the country.
This is in the early, mid nineties. Actually, I guess, yeah, the early, mid nineties is really when they started to expand and they saw other papers that maybe were doing good journalism that had the, had the instincts to cover their city really aggressively and and to connect with a community of readers, but maybe they didn't have the business down.
And so [00:14:00] gradually New Times started buying up these papers. They went to Denver, they went to Miami. They went to San Francisco and where they went, they would buy a paper that maybe wasn't making as much money as it could. They sort of install their software, a way of thinking of it. Their, their business--
SHEFFIELD: Their formula.
EIFLING: Their formula, which they took lot of s**t for over the years, like having a formula, but they became very financially successful. And through that through a zillion teeny tiny ads, right, from people every walk of life, walking, walking into the newspaper with up to the ad window, sometimes dictating an ad, sometimes having it written down they were making at the time I guess 2005, they eventually merged the Village Voice Company and New Times.
And when those two companies merged, they created a company that had Even though Craigslist was eating into their model at that, at that stage, then it combined [00:15:00] revenue of almost 200 million a year.
It was a giant And that was off of, I think, 17 papers. And there was big money to be made, and a lot of. Bare journalism that just would not have any place, in many cases, at the Daily Papers because it was just too it was too unfriendly to kind of the, the ethos that most papers maintain to be to be the kind of like network TV of, of their city, right?
These papers could be HBO or something more aggressive, something a little more adult, something a little more risk taking. And for a lot of journalists that made an attractive place to go try to start a career.
SHEFFIELD: For people, I think, especially who kind of built. This alt weekly model. They, and the people who worked in it, at the, at the high level, I don't think they really understood that how abnormal this was and that this was a moment in history that was so [00:16:00] completely unique.
Nothing like that had ever really been done before. And and it was fleeting with, with the rise of a Craigslist and, and social media.
EIFLING: I think. I think that's right. I think we got a good, I know, 40 year run out of it, which I was lucky enough to grab a little piece of and a lot of my co creators too, we were, we were of a generation that look backward, enjoy the heyday, really the peak. We were there at the financial peak of alternative weeklies and maybe the cultural peak.
And I think as the internet atomized journalism in different ways. The cultural need for a paper that did the things that those papers did also kind of dispersed, right? Like, they were very aggressive about covering music and culture and well, I mean, that's TikTok now, right? That's instagram.
There's so many people [00:17:00] who have become mainstream. Yeah. Experts on those sorts of things in their cities, you no longer need a newspaper to be the arbiter of where to go on a date this right? You don't need to pick up the paper to find concert listings mean, think about the days where, like, you didn't know what movies.
SHEFFIELD: Yeah, you got, yeah, you got Fandango. You got Yelp.
EIFLING: You've got all of it, right?
SHEFFIELD: Or even in your maps app.
EIFLING: Yeah, it's, the, it really is the took apart the, departments of, of weekly newspapers, papers too, but just focusing weeklies, it took took and. who just loved those subject areas, I kind of just started doing mean, let's take Craigslist, Craig Newmark.
Sometime, I don't know when he moved to San Francisco, was, he was the Bay Area in the 90s, and was new to town, and had given him recommendations on go shows, what bars to hang out in, or [00:18:00] he was into at the time. those recommendations from people.
And so he decided, man, I now know the well enough. want to give my own recommendations on this stuff. So he started Craig's list of basically just like stuff to do around the Area. And it out of generous spirit. I all had in a certain town and they do we go?
And they say, all right, well, here's my top 10 recommendations. he was kind of doing that on a rolling basis. And as he got a large enough list, he made it gave a more formal structure and kind of operationalized it and built on this classified site, which turned into a literal website of world historic importance and in what it did publishing in America.
And, but it came out that same impulse, It's like, I some cool stuff. I know people are looking for cool stuff. I'm just going to tell him what I think is cool. And this conversation. And so [00:19:00] think that large, that writ by everybody who has a publishing platform now always going to make it really tough for papers to exist because much of what got do was a conversation now lot more people lead a lot more conversations and their, their to and there are benefits to
And, but but it was a completely different time for, for us. Understanding a city understanding was to do and who who had to say it's completely You're right.
How dating and hooking up via text classified ads worked
SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Well, and in addition to that, at the sort cultural level it also definitely was the case that this was a unique. Model in terms of what it did for dating and sex and things like that, that, I, and we, you talked about it a little bit earlier but you know, the, the idea that, because, I mean, obviously call, prostitution, the oldest profession.
So people have always done it and they did it before the old [00:20:00] weekly. But doing it became a lot more manageable for people. They pre screen their clients. this was not something that, somebody who was just working really could ever do back the day,
And so with the rise of the, the, adult ads in, in these papers and then later within Backpage know, some of the And dating websites. I mean, this was This was something completely different, but that I, think is interesting and unique about the, the sex ad in the old paper is that these were ads. These were, you were interacting with someone, but it was only based on like now, you, you look at, whether Tinder, Bumble, whatever it is, you see And that tells you nothing really about who they are. Not really.
And [00:21:00] so it's, whereas, with, with these classified ads, you could actually see how somebody thought. thing you could see about it. I mean, what's, what's your
EIFLING: I think that's, yeah, there's a few vectors there that I admit I never dated Via classifieds, right? I'm the, I'm at that generational cusp where I was born earning a salary from that, but I was never my dating scene. So in course of reporting the show, I had to go back and ask people who, who did use classifieds, right?
And, and there are a lot different ways, a lot of different entry points, but one couple who I found in San Francisco who married based on ads that they 90s, Ed and Lisa I talked to, I to their home and I asked them, hey, how did this work? it?
And the way they did which I think a, was common model at the time, And there are certainly like, degrees of classifieds. [00:22:00] Let's just, let's just be, be clear in the way that there are adult dating sites versus just dating sites, right? There, there are certainly a myriad different dating apps.
These that have different levels of of different. They have different cultures, right? Different cultures, different of you're going to find and what people are going to be based on what you can assume they are. And I think the same was true for placing personal ad in a paper. So Ed and Lisa found each other through the mutual appreciation of a paper the San which was competitor to New Times Francisco.
And back then, you place an in the personals section and the personal section would, as say, have just some writing about yourself. Right? It would probably list some you people how old you are. would tell people your your age, usual things.
You might [00:23:00] educational background. You might say what sort of industry or field you work in. And then want to, yeah, I think be charming in a small Sometimes way to be charming is to you're 6'4 right?
That's fine. to be charming is to say you have an athletic build and you really enjoy a certain, certain like exercise pastimes that, know, you want somebody surfer, like say you're surfer, right? Whatever, whatever that is.
And in the and Lisa, Lisa placed the ad and she kind of had charming patter go the models that no longer exist who wanted to respond to that called a number and it was like 1 a minute or 50 a minute and you left voicemail for Lisa. Right? So if I read Lisa's Lisa seems really don't get to swipe on her and she back. Right. have to pay money to [00:24:00] call. 900 number at time, leave a voicemail. It's going to charge credit card.
in that, and this is what happened with Ed he, he had been a college radio DJ in his day. He, he had very good voice and was charming on his message. He mentioned that he think he's, I think he's 6'4 that he, he would tell him that he looked like Jeff Goldblum is the early nineties that Jeff Goldblum, early 90s Goldblum, 6'4 with a radio DJ voice is good.
So he leaves his message and Lisa calls him back. But what she was telling me was that once she plays the ad, and I don't know what she the ad, if anything, the bay Guardian ran for as long as she left in. Because, Probably people are reading it and they're like responding to And as long as ad paper calling the number, that's the money. that was, that was the old model was had to pay to try to court this, you know, this anonymous person who you only know through [00:25:00] 40 words of type or something.
I don't know was. It was it was short. And then you would call and leave the voicemail. So, a little bit people and the way that I think if you're on Tinder, Hinge, whatever. Like, you know, a little bit and you just of hope that you bring your best self and that whatever is the little bit that you can reveal in that small somebody else responds to.
So it very much, I think, of a to that dance, in a different way. And you're without an image of somebody, you really have to you have, you have to, you have to people with other, other wiles, right? have to bring, bring other stuff to table. Yep. Yeah. And then there was also a genre and you guys did talk about it in the show.
Also that there was the, sort of the, the spotted Type of classified personal ad where, essentially proclaim their infatuation with someone that they saw somewhere in a random moment. And like, I, I don't, that sort of thing is gone now, I think. But for those who [00:26:00] aren't familiar with that tell us about those.
I used to love this on Craigslist. So as a sort of a sidebar of this, Craigslist used to run personals. They no longer do. Craigslist dropped out of that game. Amid the pressure that Backpage stirred up, Craigslist was also in the in the crosshairs of Congress and Whereas Backpage basically said come at me bro. Craigslist was like peace too much heat. We're getting out of this game.
But Craigslist used to have the most fun read anywhere. I thought, were the missed Connections, right? It's what you're talking about, which is usually the I was riding the bus, I was on, I was in line at this coffee shop or, or I was riding my bike and I saw this amazing person and we had this tiny interaction and you, it's, it's this kind of letter in a bottle that somebody just throws into the ocean-- is the internet of whatever city and they say, you were wearing this, you were about this tall. You said this to me. I said this to you. I should have gotten your number. And, let's get together.
And it [00:27:00] feels like those are usually written by guys, but they're, they were this wonderful, I don't know, sort of like sub genre of like inner interior monologues that people were having all over the city.
And you really got to see what people wish they'd said in the moment, or maybe there was a reason they couldn't say what they wanted to say, they tried something and it didn't quite work whatever, but you really got to sort of see inside people's hopes romantically and people's regrets, oddly, right?
Like an instant regret situation you say, Oh man, I should have, why didn't I just, if I'd only, I could have. And, and as a genre, I, those have been around a long time. Those were in the Village Voice for years.
There was a the movie, the Madonna movie from the eighties desperately seeking Susan was kind of based on some of the same same premises in those ads, right? So those have been around a long time. But there I think you're right. They're pretty much gone these days. I follow at least one Instagram account. I can't remember what [00:28:00] called that does that in New York, that there are still misconnections partly because. They're so entertaining, which is the other part of what made classified such a strong component of these papers for so long.
They're entertaining. You read that want it. It's like it would be like looking inside of somebody like the city's tender profiles and you're just kind of like scanning these. And what are people, what are people doing to try to find each other? What are the risks that they're taking, which is always part of dating, always part of trying to find somebody is like taking a risk of some kind, right?
And When you see people walking through like I should have taken more of a I have put myself out there. Here's who I am. Here's who I know. you are, you're out there and I can tell you a story. So I actually did. I used to be, this is years ago, but I loved reading those so much.
And it was always so frustrated that people didn't like, walk up to somebody and start a conversation. And so I actually placed a misconnection for myself in the misconnections. I was like, I was in New York. I was like [00:29:00] 26 years old. I was like, look, I can't. I don't understand why nobody talks to anybody.
I'm gonna be at the Natural History Museum. I look like this. I'm gonna be walking around this time. Come up and talk to me if you see me right. I've placed like a like a preview misconnection for people.
And I ended up not even go to the museum. I was too sleepy, too sleepy and lazy that day. But somebody wrote me back this woman, her name is Heather, and she was a cook in New York. And she said, Hey, this was really funny. I also I have the same reaction to these I won't make it to the museum. I'm sorry, but I invited her to a house party we ended up dating for a little while because I was like, Hey, you seem cool. Like come to this party.
And she did. And then here we were in New York. Right. And so, I think that was the one like weirdly successful wormhole I went through on a misconnection to actually connect with somebody, but it was, It came out of that shared sense of like, are people kidding? Like, step and ask her her name, man.
SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Yeah.
EIFLING: Yeah.[00:30:00]
SHEFFIELD: that's lost and, it's, it's worth remembering it or knowing about it. You never heard
Alt-weeklies as the first real challengers to the false promise of "objective" news reporting
SHEFFIELD: There was a political component as well to these papers that we're talking about as well that, that as you were saying, that a lot of the sort of family papers, as you guys refer to them the general interest newspaper, like the, Cleveland plane dealer, Kansas city star, et cetera, et cetera, Amy Harold. They, strictures on them, editorially speaking that, in, in many ways we're kind of seeing a recapitulation of that with the Republican party nationally, having gone so completely insane that, a lot of the national press organizations, they are afraid to say that and afraid to tell the full truth about the Republican party.
And, but this is a dynamic that has always existed, ever since the [00:31:00] invention of mainstream journalism, quote unquote and the idea of, object objectivity as a, as a business proposition.
And, and it was always absurd because of course, believed it necessarily, especially if it was about something that they knew about I think everybody's had that experience that, when you, when you know about, it's something that I feel that you work in or something that you have is a really big hobby and you read about it.
And, publications, a lot of times you'll be like, nah, that's wrong. Or that's, that's not fair or whatever it is. So it was always a flawed model, but you know, it's collapsing on itself, I think, at the, on the national scale, but you know, the Alt Weekly is kind of, they expose that on the, on the local level as well.
EIFLING: Yeah. There's a, certainly there's always a component of language policing that we all do with ourselves all the time, every day at scale, at a business, the kind of business that a daily wanted [00:32:00] to be, which is essentially a monopoly. In, in town. Right? They want to be the 1 stop shop, but they also wanted to be. For the most part, inoffensive, right?
I think, if you ever read a daily paper, place where you see that attitude, I think, carried out the most is on the, with the, like, the comics. If you, if you read the funny pages, whatever it was. Most newspaper comics really suck. They are so boring. They're not funny. They're, they're really just pretty much like the definition of content as this kind of regurgitated stuff that you open it up and you're like, oh yeah, that's what beatle Bailey is doing today. It's not funny.
And then you think of underground comics, right? Underground comics, Are so dynamic and so lively and so alive and so weird and funny and maybe sexy and dark and touch upon human experience in this way that like the kind of the stuff served up in the paper every day is like just isn't I think you can, you can certainly amplify that out and yeah, that [00:33:00] we're just, you didn't want to offend in certain ways. The, the phrase that you'd always hear working at Dailies and I started my career at Dailies and I went to a journalism school at Northwestern that was oriented toward the culture of Dailies.
And so part of the culture of dailies is people are going to read this over breakfast. Imagine a person who doesn't want to be hit with a certain level of, like, sexuality or, or graphic violence or whatever are the things that could put somebody off as they eat their grapefruit and drink their coffee, right?
You're writing for that person. A person who in the, in the sort of like imagination of the paper is person easily offended who might cancel their subscription or write an angry letter or call the publisher, going to happen. And so most of you're there to do is like not rock the table.
Some news. It's just gonna be scary or, or off putting like there's, [00:34:00] that's just the way news is. But, but so much of what the paper coached internally reporters to do and editors to think about is like, don't offend anybody needlessly, right?
Well, but like, okay, like life is hard and there's a ton of things that we talk about, a ton of subjects we don't talk about that. can hit people the wrong way.
if you never, if you're never going to put yourself in a position to disturbed, well, you're going to have a view of reality that's just a little warped, right. kind of self policing is a big danger of what you're talking about. If, and if you say, I think now certainly there's a lot of, a lot of the culture war, a lot of the sort of left, right bite over reality comes down to what words do we use?
Right. What comes down to, I mean, just, it's just extraordinary to me how how much mileage [00:35:00] the, the sort of like, tut, tut right has gotten out of a pronouns. Right. And I think, and I think really the strategy there is to say, you're policing our language, so we're going to police your language. And it becomes this weird, like mirror upon mirror effect,
But I think that that battlefield has been really opened up, partly because people don't read the dailies anymore. The exist because they kind of moderated things right?
And I I don't moderate in terms of like a debate moderation, but it was a place that that moderates had really the stage, right?
And, and I think we have removed moderates from a lot of the content and a lot of the media that we absorb. And so what we get are people who are really pissed off on both sides feeding algorithms that feed us more of that. And so we're back to having language wars when a of it was just kind of, it was understood like you just you use [00:36:00] certain language.
It didn't use certain language, whereas at new times we got to use certainly certainly in quotes, right? A lot more profanity and a lot more. Color in the language than, than we would ever get away with in the daily. And it was really fun, but it also helped you capture life as it happened and not be not pretend everything was, was PG rated when life is, life isn't.
Alt-weeklies enabled libertarians to intersect with progressives in a way that's almost entirely disappeared
SHEFFIELD: And the other interesting thing is that they were conceived in sort of. This moment where Libertarians saw that they were anti-conservative. And basically, essentially what happened is that a lot of things that were perceived as counter-cultural such as being openness to drugs or.
Like, supporting marijuana legalization or supporting prostitution legalization, or, being saying profanities on stage, things like [00:37:00] that.
EIFLING: Access to abortion, right? Access to abortion is a big one.
SHEFFIELD: Yeah. And so. Those things became mainstream and so essentially libertarianism bifurcated and joined up with its right wing origins and and and some of that story played out in the in the all weekly world as well.
Right?
EIFLING: I think that's right. I think what used to be counter cultural. Lit. And in some ways it won, right? Like we now, it's not like, i, I wasn't alive in the early seventies, but from all accounts, oh my gosh, there was just no recognition that anything but heterosexuality was the default mode that everybody was issued upon birth.
And we just didn't talk about anything else. Right. And it wasn't until, The riot, which literally happened across the street from the old village voice office and the voice, which was not particularly progressive on this, on this particular issue. They were kind of, an old straight boys club, like everybody else.
At the time they looked out their [00:38:00] window, watched these, this like gay bar blow up and get into a riot with the cops are like, well, we have to go cover this. And have to discuss this issue. We have to talk about civil rights for people who aren't the sort of like nuclear family from the fifties that everybody had been kind of like boxed in by.
I think, I you're right. It, there wasn't a shattering in a way. And I think, though, strangely, we're coming back to it, right? It's coming back around in this way that it felt like many of the, many of the reasons for there to be a counterculture. eventually won the day. I think drug laws, certainly compared to the 70s, are far less draconian nationwide.
That's changing very slowly, but man, what a difference between now and when I was a kid.
I mean, to think that today in New york City, like, they basically just don't prosecute marijuana possession, and to think of the untold lives wrecked by that [00:39:00] before over basically a Nixon era campaign against people he didn't like. I mean, his. Is a big sea change, right?
But now we're back to, for instance, arizona its 160 year old abortion law that roe v. Wade had, had tamped down. We're, we're back in the, we're back in the Civil War. I mean, literally, we're back in Civil War days if you want health care and before, 50 years before women could vote and, and that's where we are, right?
SHEFFIELD: You're also seeing it like in, in Florida with these book ban laws, like, the Republicans went back to it.
And, and then largely it is because the Libertarians let them do it. That's really they need to, wake the f**k up. It's what I would say
EIFLING: I think it's funny because I and I made this joke with my with my co producers on this is, for a long time, I think in recent years, libertarians and the [00:40:00] religious right have been have been sort of linked arms right in places like Texas.
But I think they're both going to be really unhappy. If either of them gets what, what they want, right, if libertarians really get what they want, like the religious rights gonna be pissed off and if, and if religious, if the religious right gets what they want, true libertarians, and I don't think there are that many, frankly, true libertarians I think they're gonna be pissed off.
There's this, politics, weird bet, strange bedfellows and all that. But certainly I think if people were ideologically consistent libertarians instead of this sort of like authoritarians in sheep's clothing, as I think a lot of libertarians have proven to be there, they would be consistent on things like government interference in your personal life, including who you marry, who you have sex with, if it's consenting adults, can you, can you, can you advertise that you are a person who is gonna have sex with people. Can you do it for money?
All of that would seemingly be things libertarians would be in [00:41:00] favor for, I think what we find is libertarianism, these days as it exists, mostly belongs to men, and most of it isn't really ideologically consistent with anything except laws that certain men want to see put in, put into play, frankly if, if I benefit themselves.
SHEFFIELD: Yeah.
EIFLING: Or just to benefit their glandular to world. I mean, I don't even think it's really consistent or don't think a benefit. There's not a benefit to most men For women not to be able to access health care and get an abortion this is like it's like guys have you played this out on your checkerboard of life like what happens if sex becomes life threatening to people. Do you think you're gonna have more sex or less?
And it, it stuns me to, to see the, the zeal with which men want to, men in particular want to clamp down on women's behavior [00:42:00] and to imagine the world think gonna inherit when, when they're successful that. It's not one. not one that is make you happy. It's not gonna, it's not gonna peaceful. it's not gonna be enjoyable. And and yet here we are, we're fighting these fights without, in some like, without sense of history or without the sense of place that I think frankly, good local journalism can provide help ground in a, in a reality.
SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Well, and yeah, and that is definitely a thing that's missed is that as these conversations and different topics have, have, sort of bifurcated into their own realms, the things that people like let's say if you were primarily interested in reading an alt weekly for the music reviews or the restaurant reviews, like that was why you picked it up. But you would still look at these other because they were there and it was easy. Right. But now if you're, somebody who's just like a hardcore foodie or, you're a heart, you're [00:43:00] dedicated to two or three musical groups or whatever.
You can look at, Only those things. And you don't have to see anything else and you don't get educated about any other issue or any topic. And it really has. I think that's kind of a dilemma that Joe Biden is in right is that I think a lot of people who, I mean, when you ask Americans in polls, do you support same sex marriage or do you support birth control?
Do you support marijuana legalization, any of these variety of things that has a vast majority support. Many of the people who have those viewpoints have no idea that there is a party that is trying to take those things away from you. They want to take your contraception. They want to take your, right to get an abortion.
They're going to do it. They're going to make your kids pray in their fashion in school. These are their goals. And they don't even know that this is happening. Because they, they don't have any exposure to the media.
EIFLING: I think there's also a sense along those lines. I think there's a sense of, well, that's [00:44:00] not really gonna happen. Well, okay. Yes. If you can totally can. has in the past. Think there a lot of people who never thought Roe would be overturned partly because It was so good for the republican base To never be able to get to the end of something, right?
It was this, was this telenovela you would always tune into. Republicans are like, tune in next week with your donation dollars as we try to overturn abortion. Everybody's like, man, they just keep making all kinds of money off this. And then, the strangeness of the Trump administration getting to install three judges in four years bites everybody on the ass.
And you say, No, these guys were serious. Like they were serious. And I think it would be folly not to take them to at their word. I think I think it is more certainly seems more real then it had been for a long time. The idea that really fundamental questions of American democracy and American rights, [00:45:00] that we had been conditioned to expect could could be overturned. And in fact, there wouldn't be a place to go to really appeal that that that wouldn't be like a do over. It's a bit like Brexit, right?
I think there were a lot of people in the UK who are like, we're not really gonna do this, right? Like, we're not this. We're not serious. And then you see,
SHEFFIELD: I don't have to vote on it.
EIFLING: you watch this. Yeah, or like, this just isn't a big deal. And then it passes barely. And then you see this, the news stories the next day about how many Google searches there were In the U. K. For what is Brexit, right? I think we're at that point where it's like, Wait, what is what is a wait? Contraception like we're not going to have contraception like that just doesn't compute with people. And I think there are and this is my area of expertise at all. But I think there are a lot of journalists who are who are working really hard right now to try to do those stories that get beneath the surface of what certain political leaders.
And I think there are a lot of journalists who are who are working really hard right now to try to do those stories that get beneath the surface of what certain political leaders. True religious backgrounds are and what they might ascribe to and what they might do. And it's [00:46:00] way more serious than I think a lot of people have given it credit for.
And, I, I come at it from the journalism world. I think we should have more coverage of the results of elections. I think that'd be terrific. think we live in a country where because of the electoral college, I think we There are really only about 10 states every four years that decide the presidential election.
We have been conditioned to just not really participate in ways that I think really the kinds of and kinds aims that you're describing. Because truly it just does not matter if most of us participate and that's so deeply structural it will never change in
And that, I think it, the well, frankly, to change through action or political attention. may as well just like, watch and go about our, our lives very, very hard turn those things back if [00:47:00] if they flip.
SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely.
How Backpage replaced alt-weeklies for sex workers trying to be safe
SHEFFIELD: Um, so, just now to go back to your, to the story you guys are telling with the, so, so Craigslist comes along and destroys the newspaper industry basically. And a lot of that is their own fault because these executives, they thought that this was forever what they were doing.
They didn't realize it was abnominally. And they, and they thought you could get away running a business with 20 or 30 percent profits forever. When no business was like that almost, like it, well, and yeah, like from literally no business other, other than a few years timespan industry will last that long with that kind of just never happens, never and these guys, they, they, they just sat on their ass and, and their business was taken away from them by their own negligence. And so, and, and that was also the case guys, as, as [00:48:00] you guys talk about that, they, they knew Craigslist was out there, but they didn't really, paid too much attention to it and until it kind of completely destroyed the weekly business.
So then, as you said, they, they went over and started Backpage and Backpage, and I have to say like Backpage in its heyday, it, it was very important for sex workers to be able to, get a living and in a way that was safe for them. And I mean, you, you want to talk about that aspect For for a little bit here, if you,
EIFLING: Yeah, that's. I so I'm not a person who ever used. Backpage or used, I know, like, to me, back, I was a little naïve in, in my 20s and 30s, but on a show this, you sort start to see, like, oh yeah, this is, this was more of a thing.
People would really advertise, like, sexual services, and it would be, be online, and reply to [00:49:00] that, and then they would go exchange money, and have sex, and the world would keep turning, and Backpage would keep a little piece of and take an even smaller piece of and give it to, give it to newspapers to keep them running. What's so wild to me about what Backpage did from people that we talked to making this story and sex workers that we quizzed about it, they all really liked it. And it was, it was such a contrast talking to people who advertise on Backpage or use Backpage or who were sex workers.
And it might not be, look, it might not be prostitution. It could be, it could be running a dungeon. It could be a of different things that people advertise for. So I don't want to say it was like, all prostitution. wouldn't be the case, but, the public perception of a place of a lot of
And there were terrible things that happened out of the ads that people placed in Backpage and on Craigslist. [00:50:00] As, look, I mean, you get millions of people connecting and a lot of them are expecting sex or, or, people get into sexual situations for power dynamics and, and, know, when people got killed, we don't want to minimize that one bit, right?
But it a very small number compared with the millions and millions of ads that were going And what sex workers told us was that in those more or less in the open, as Backpage gave them the opportunity to do, that gave them control of the market in a way that they didn't have when they were advertising in more clandestine ways. Right?
So if you were advertising your services on Backpage, you might have, because it was so available and open and obvious. And just easy to access for anybody. you might dozens [00:51:00] or hundreds of replies from your you don't have to accept dozens or hundreds of people, your clients or your customers, or, know, whatever term you want to use in this your date, you sift through that. You can be really picky. You can find people who have a good reputation among other people, are in your same business. You can vet aggressively. You don't have to take. The first guy who shows up your door, whatever that is.
And so for a lot people who were using Backpage, they felt like they had more They had more safety and they had a better sort of social network that they could use to, to regulate, self regulate the marketplace than they had without it. When it went away the description that we got from sex worker advocate was that it was, it was total chaos, right? It was, it was a lot fear and it was a lot of income lost and it was a big scramble.
And what came immediately afterwards for women who were advertising on Backpage [00:52:00] were men who wanted essentially to be like managers or pimps or whatever term you want to use, people who said hey, I can help you find clients now. Well, listen, man, like pimps suck. Like, You don't, we shouldn't, we shouldn't glorify pimps. Pimps are, pimps are not, like, in a perfect world, we would not have people who take a cut of of dangerous and in, in many cases extremely personal profession for with the, the threats of violence, the threats of like financial imbalance, everything that comes with that taking Backpage at least we were told our reporting on this, really put a lot of women in what they felt was a precarious position which was, again, as I say, kind of a fascinating perspective on because if you follow the congressional hearings,
The bipartisan prosecution of Backpage's founders
EIFLING: If you looked at what the FBI wanted to say, what the, what the feds have said, it really is this even in the federal trial many of these ads were brought in as evidence and the term that the federal government used the prosecutors used [00:53:00] was these are victims on Backpage. It's I don't really see a victim here. I see somebody who's putting a picture of themselves in a low cut on the Internet.
We could we could argue about the merits of that or whether that should be legal or, any number of, of approaches to that. But to call that person, the victim who placed their own ad and is saying, like, come over and, spend time with me and pay me money. And then we'll go our separate ways. Victim seems to me a bit a bit over the line, right?
I think it's I think it's rounding up in situation. but it was the perspective of the government that people advertising on Backpage were were being yeah, we're being exploited. And so it's like, and therefore the people running Backpage were criminals running, basically a criminal enterprise And it's it really, I think, calls, if you really go into it, it really calls into questions a lot of assumptions we have about the place of sex work and advertising sex work in [00:54:00] American society.
SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Well, and it's also I mean numerically You if you look at people making these similar types of ads on Or let's say posts we'll call them making posts of this nature There's a lot more of them on Facebook.
There's a lot more of them on Twitter or Instagram. I mean, that is the reality. Like there are a lot of people who are sex workers who, are their trade on But the fact that it's a lower percentage of the posts, that's really the only difference, on here.
EIFLING: I will tell you one other difference. Facebook is a giant company. New times was small. Twitter is a giant company. New times was didn't have the pockets. They defend themselves in the And I think we've always, as Americans have accepted that going to be some level of discourse [00:55:00] or advertising that talks about prostitution or sexual services.
I mean, I, I wasn't kidding earlier. It used to be in the yellow pages. Like when there were yellow pages back when people did that. There were a lot of escort ads in big cities, which I didn't know or realize because I grew up in a town too small to have escort sections of the yellow pages But but there's always been that presence and it is always been sort of a like marginal like, who's this really hurting? We can't police this bully. Just let it go kind of thing
But I do think when people advertise on. Instagram or twitter or Facebook or whatever platform people are using big platform regulated platform You a really big difference between those platforms and what new Times and Backpage represented is just scale and size and power.
And these guys were of the correct size that they were. They built this big marketplace with a lot of people using millions [00:56:00] of people placing ads. but they were, they, they weren't a public company. They weren't a multi billion dollar company. They, they were a very good size to like shoot down, mount their heads on the wall and move along.
They didn't have to they didn't have to pick apart. Right. They didn't have to pick apart twitter, it is, like
SHEFFIELD: when they, and they also didn't have the political connections as well because, oh, and they're pissing
EIFLING: years was just pissing off. He just pissed off politicians. Absolutely the opposite. Right. And they would tell it and it's hard to this is the kind of thing. It's hard to hard to verify. And so it's hard for me to make the claim. In full. But if you talk to these guys, they would say, absolutely, there's a political motive.
They're all political enemies for years, which in the case of Lacey and Larkin, John McCain, Cindy McCain, his wife, were for years since the 80s very in the sights of their [00:57:00] publications, specifically in Phoenix, Phoenix New Times. And they say that a of this is politically motivated, retaliation for years of thwacking the hell out of them every time they got a chance, which the danger of being an impolite, impolitic, aggressive news organization.
If you start a giant hooker ad website, people might come and put a guy in a way to put you out of business and throw you, you, throw you in jail, right? Like this is, this is the story that we got into.
And it's, it is crazy to think about it in those terms, but. There is a version of of the world in which they were more let's say political or just say maybe even obsequious to power in which they are. They still get to run this website, but they were not. They were really confrontational in a way that I think very few news organizations have that same ethic of [00:58:00] just, Relentless relentless scrutiny of what they saw as powerful and their actions. Right? So I think all of that rolls up over, oh my gosh, 30 years, 40 years of, of, of, of pissing off everybody you can. That comes home to roost eventually. And and I think it does in the story that we've. That we told.
SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Well, and it's interesting also that this is a bipartisan effort that happened to them as well.
And and you guys talk about that and that, but this is, this is another example of how I think that it's, it is very possible for people who strongly disagree with the Christian rights, authoritarian, morality system still be manipulated to do what they want. And that's kind of what happened with Kamala Harris when she was the, Like she was the one who kind of got this ball rolling. If you [00:59:00] want to talk about that.
EIFLING: Yeah, she was one. So there really I remember writing this section of the script because this all is in the recent past and I had to go through and it's what did happen? Once congress, congress, once it got to Congress, which is in 2017, once lacey and Larkin were hauled in front of Congress, they had hearings essentially around accusations that Backpage had facilitated a lot of pretty unsavory crimes some of them involving minors there were, I think it became very in sort of a preview I think, today of a lot of, political discourse that goes online talking about like groomers or, we talk about book bands. In 2017, it was child sex trafficking, right? And I think it's pretty clear now that a lot of the numbers You that advocates and politicians were using at the time to try to the size of that particular problem, which is a nightmare if [01:00:00] it's happening to people, we're way, way, way, way, way overblown, right?
It just was not anywhere near the scope and scale of what people thought might happening. Because there were some very terrible real cases that throw a shadow, throw a long shadow over everything else that's But once it got to, once it got to Congress it became a absolutely a bipartisan for Democrats, for Republicans.
I think Kamala Harris is a great example because she is a Democrat now that VP, but she's also a cop. She was, she was a cop in California. She was, I mean, I say this is sort of like loose terms, but she was, as the head law enforcement agent in California, she was the person who worked with Ken Paxton in Texas, who was a top cop in Texas, basically.
And they both said, linking arms, Kumbaya, Texas and California. These guys have got to go. We're arresting, we're, we're arresting these guys. And so, you Lacey and Larkin went to Sacramento. They were put in a cage. [01:01:00] And so they're in like orange jumpsuits in a cage. I think Lacey compares it to Cairo in the podcast when we interviewed him about And two weeks before her Senate election, right, she's got these big fish on the hook in a courtroom in, in California that that plays well. I think Democrats, look, I think Democrats Always I think back to the crime bill, Bill Clinton's, Bill Clinton's 1990s, right? Democrats love to, in some ways, overcorrect on law and order because they think it gives, it gives them a defense against republicans.
I think what ultimately happens, though, is republicans will call Democrats squishes no matter what happens. But Democrats, at least in my lifetime, have often pushed very hard and been real avatars for, like, strong crackdowns on, on things that are seen to have a marginal value, right? Or affecting, a case like this, which is, advertising for sexual [01:02:00] services.
There just aren't a lot of people who raise their hand and say, you know what? Like, I actually think we should have more freedom to run hooker ads like that. That constituency is, is probably pretty large, but also it's very quiet compared with how exciting it can be to bust people of ill repute for whatever it is.
And by the time it got to Congress in 2017, and they were debating the laws that eventually got passed, fOSTA, sESTA that would change the way that the Internet is regulated. And make it such that a website such as Backpage just won't ever exist again in the U. S.
And the way that that it was conceived. It was. Almost lockstep. It was almost perfect. Democrat Republican hand in hand voting to pass these laws that really changed the way the Internet can work. And It happened to be very ideologically conservative by historical standards, House and Senate, but they were not, they were absolutely not [01:03:00] passing many, many bills of that size with that that like mindedness, right? These are very, we live in very divided political times, and there was no division on this. Republicans, Democrats.
I'm sure there were, if I looked through Who voted against them, like there may be some really, truly committed social libertarians who, didn't think it was a good way to go, but mainstream man, they were, they were all about it for sure.
SHEFFIELD: It's also that it's. hard to have a, it's hard to have a concept of that freedom of speech has, it should protect things that might make you uneasy. In the same, but at the same point, like people were also like there's people haven't drawn the distinction, I think between the, advocating government is something that. That, that I guess, well, in other words, there are more limits that people want on that and [01:04:00] justifiably. So, then, if somebody wants to advertise their, their, their dominatrix website or whatever it is, like, that's not really hurting anybody. If someone wants to be paid to go on a
EIFLING: I think that's the thing that, that we really have to, as grownups look at and say I think, I think that is exactly where to start is like, look, man, who's it hurting? And look, there are definitely, there are definitely ways in which people pressure minors into sexual situations and that's gross. And if there's a hell people like that belong there, but most of the minors who get caught up in which I think would be called outside prostitution or street prostitution, mostly are, I was told by leading expert on this, in are people who are thrown out of their home often because they are gay, right.
There are just a lot of families in which a kid is in an abusive or, or bad situation. They have to leave home early. Maybe they're 15, [01:05:00] 16, I don't know, and, they're younger and they go and now they have to make money. And there people who take advantage of that and it's pretty bad times, right. But so big asterisk on that, right? I can dim Hamas. Like that's, that's that part of that conversation.
But, when it comes to people who want to have sexual experiences with somebody else, I think it is a a very natural, and if it's done in a civil way, probably mutually beneficial and for them and for the world for them come to an agreement and say look, I'm going to pay your time and I am looking to do this that either I've always wanted to try I can't do with my partner don't have a partner for it it's been a something I want to experience and look man, we're all dead for a long time. Like everybody should go have the consensual fun You want to have on this ride around on this rock, because we're not coming back. If you leave it on the table, that's where it's going to stay.
The personal story of a john named John
EIFLING: We talked with we talked with a [01:06:00] guy. So I have, I have friends who are sex workers. I to one of them and I said, Hey, I need to find a client. I need to find somebody who has paid for sexual services to be in the show.
And a friend of mine said, okay, I know a guy I'm going to she's a dominatrix. She said I'll put you in touch with this guy.
His name is John. I interviewed him. He appears in the podcast. Because he, he really didn't want people to recognize him.
And so we took the transcript of the conversation. We gave to an actor. Actor read, reads it. But the story John told me was, I thought pretty damn crazy because he had years earlier discovered via advertisement in the local paper in the city that he lived I think it was under a head right?
It something where it was like very weird language and went in and it was probably a place where you could buy bongs and stuff. and he wound up in this dungeon and he had, I guess what you'd call i, this is, I must admit, this is where my expertise sort of, sort of starts to falter But he had what he would [01:07:00] describe I think it's a pain session.
Probably he's restrained. Probably somebody's whipping him. There's a safe word is experiencing things that he hasn't experienced before. And what he discovers about himself through, over the years, many such sessions is that, um, he has these different kind of sexual tastes and sexual predilections and one thing that he discovered about himself is that only in these kinds of sessions where he has a safe word where there is a professional there who is, assume, just, you I don't know, whipping him or, or whatever's going on. He can tap out of that.
It's such a cathartic environment for him. He can't cry as an adult.
And I think there's a lot of men who would be like, if you ask them, when was the last time you cried to be like, I'm not, I couldn't tell you.
He said only in those kinds of sessions or when he can access the part of himself that feels safe emotionally to release these [01:08:00] big cathartic cries.
And during the course of reporting when I'm kind of, he and I are messaging each other and we're trying to find a time when we can talk, he says, at one point we were supposed to meet at one point. He says he says, hey my, my dad died. I have to cancel. so sorry. We'll reschedule.
When we talked again. He mentioned this about the crime. And he said, look as my, my dad just died. by then, it had been a couple of weeks, I think. And he said, I haven't cried about that yet, but I have a pain session and I'm looking forward to a really big cry.
Man, this is wild s**t. This is a guy who I think if, not to not to cast, there are people, there are people in this country who would say that's despicable. You shouldn't be able to advertise for this stuff. There shouldn't be dungeons There should be a place where a man gets like, tied up and hit with a whip or whatever whatever's on in there.
And to them, I'd say like, yo, this is none of [01:09:00] your business, but man, this guy needs to cry about his dad And this is how he's going to access it. and he's to leave it in a much better mood.
And I think the world will be on balance a better place this is just the kind of stuff that I, I don't want to be in charge of regulating in other people's lives. I think that is like a such a personal experience between him whoever he's paying for their, their time.
And that's just one example. I mean, if you think about that, think about the complexity of what people access about themselves And can enjoy or decide they don't enjoy or whatever is happening through through sex.
It's, it's kind of kind of wild to think that you know better in every case than a guy who's making those choices for himself. Like, my perspective I'm pretty, speaking of I'm pretty, I'm pretty lousy fair about that sort of thing. [01:10:00] Right? Like Right. If that's your, if that's your jam, like, I want you to have access to it, I hope you tip well at the end of it.
I have friends who have really made livings for parts of their lives doing sex work, and I think that's, that is a mostly, actually weirdly healthy economy for people to engage in within boundaries, and And I, it would be so weird to me to take that away from him because I just, it could, because it weirds me out or gives me the icks. Like, that's not my business.
Like, that's not my, I'll do you, man. I'll do me. I'll do you.
SHEFFIELD: Yeah, well, the other thing about this though, is, I think You know, people who again, like of this sort of squishy, moderate person who doesn't agree with the Christian right, but they kind of feel that, these people are icky they make me uncomfortable. What, and what they don't understand you ally with the Christian, right, not only are they going [01:11:00] to abolish the sex dungeon or the, the adult ads. They're also going to get rid of psychotherapy because they hate that also.
They want their one size fits all agenda for you also. And that's why they, they have to be put in a box and not let out because they, they will impose their viewpoint.
Look, because again, like, the rest of us, it doesn't affect us if somebody, wants to go to some pastor and say, you know, be Ned Flanders, and say I feel like I sinned because I saw a woman on a and I feel bad about it.
Like that's if that's your thing. Look, hey, it. But the rest of us will not be put in that box with you. Like you can go put yourself in there, but that's a kink. You need to understand. And these guys. Yeah,
and this is not an exaggeration because like in the state of, of Iowa, for instance, right now, the [01:12:00] radical Republican legislators there are trying to replace school counselors children with their psychological and emotional needs. They're trying, they're replacing them with completely untrained pastors. And this is a that they want and Republicans nationwide, they will do this if people let them like that. You might not like the sex ads or, the adult entertainment or whatever, but they're the frontier keeping you away from these people controlling your life.
Like that's the reality.
EIFLING: I think there is some of that. Yeah, that recognition needs to happen, which is, um, look, going to a dungeon, getting whipped, having a good cry. That's not, that's not my scene. But if I were to take the position that, that, gave, that made me feel a little, a little icky. And I, I don't mind if, if you crack down on that, right?
[01:13:00] Yeah. The line like that, that's, that slope. It is slippery. Like it go and it goes a long way. there are just certain matters that our best left to people who, people who are living those lives and, and have that experience.
I, I grew up in a religious part of the country and I in Northwest Arkansas and sort of, sort of developed a a bit of skepticism and hostility even at times to the Christian position on these things.
But it was. But it was at the time it was, it was very separate, right? There were churches in There were certainly religious organizations and institutions viewpoints on things, but we didn't have to pray in school. I didn't have to go. I didn't have to go. If I had a problem with school, talk to a right?
Like, no, thank you.
What does that guy? No, I I don't, I want to, that's not what that, that's not what that's there for. What is there for that is there's a church, there's a place you can go and do [01:14:00] And and I do think it is, yeah, I think it's, it's a, it's a responsibility of full adults to make good choices based not on how each one individually makes, makes us feel for ourselves, but to consider human experience and make sure that people's different needs and different inclinations can met safely and, and responsibly, right?
I mean, that's it seems really easy you it down to that, but then you think, oh, there just some other people who would really rather they in charge of your life than you.
SHEFFIELD: Yeah. All right.
Conclusion
Well, so in terms of the two subjects of the podcast they had a mistrial in 2022, what's the status of their situation?
EIFLING: Well, not to spoil the podcast, but so we did, this was, this was a we worked on this show. Really for four [01:15:00] years, right? We, from the time we started, these guys were arrested in 2018. Big news at the time.
And it in 2020, kind of everybody's in lockdown and trying to come up with ideas of things to do. We got Trevor Aaronson, Michael Mooney and me got and said, We should do this. We should do this show, right? We should do this podcast.
We should do the full story of what's happening with Backpage at the time. Yes, there was this trial scheduled that kept getting pushed back and pushed back and pushed back and eventually happened in 2022.
We didn't yet have we didn't yet have a deal or no, sorry, 2021. We didn't yet have a deal to do the podcast and I was losing my mind. I was like, God, if only we'd been quicker, if this were easier, if we just had, if we all worked at vice or something, we could be doing this, but we, we didn't, we're all independent and this was things move slow,
but it was a very quick mistrial and it was a mistrial for reasons that I think are very consistent with a lot of the rest of the show. Essentially the government [01:16:00] was making repeated insinuations that there was a child sex trafficking angle or a sex trafficking angle to the case. The government brought against Lacey and Larkin.
In fact, there really wasn't like that wasn't those weren't the charges. It was a lot of what was discussed in public, but those weren't in the charges.
And so the judge, after only week or two of testimony, pulled the plug and basically said, Look, the jury's been tainted. This come up too much. It's a mistrial for us. That was great because we weren't making the show yet. So we finally, in 2022, we make our deal with audible.
And so, I think there's a, there, no matter where you are with him personally, and we talked to people who do not these guys, if you listen to the show, plenty of people in there who did not, who were not fans of Lacey and Larkin would is still a tragic ending for two people who, absolutely changed the course of American journalism, changed the course of American history.
And it is a, it's a [01:17:00] dark conclusion for for a business and so many of us led and have so many good memories out of and did amazing work from. But yeah, the, the two of them mean, look, we'll see.
Lacey's strong, and I don't know what kind of sense he's going to get there's a really good chance that when he comes out, he will still be as much, piss and vinegar as he always has been. And and I don't want to, I don't want to say that his, his chapter is yet finished, but but from what we cover in the show, it's, it's pointing to a hard landing for sure.
SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Yeah. All right. Well, this is it's been a great conversation, Sam. Um, So for people who want to check it out they should they can get on audible. right?
EIFLING: Yeah. to audible. You can the shortest way to get there is just audible. com slash hold fast one word it is a subscription service. Podcasting's wild but audible Audible keeps its, its originals close to the vest. So you do have to subscribe. I have been subscribing for a couple of years because I [01:18:00] wanted to get familiar with platform, but there are certainly, if you just like type in Audible, they're free trials. There's like 99 cents for three months. If you're a first timer, it connects to your Amazon account. It's pretty easy to get on there and listen to it.
If you want, you can do this one in a day if you are really so inclined, but yeah, I suggest checking it out if this is at all interesting. Because I think we made a hell of a show, frankly. I worked with some really talented people and we poured a gazillion hours into it. We had access that we would not have in any world had if we had not worked at the companies years and years ago and been welcomed into the homes of guys facing federal trial.
I think they thought we would give them a fair shake. And I think we did. And it's certainly, I think the response we've gotten from the show so far from people in the media has been really positive. So I feel very comfortable recommending it to just go for a ride.
I mean, [01:19:00] if I say it's a show about the alternative press, like I'm sure everybody would fall asleep, but it's about that and sex, power, drugs, guns, and just some crazy stories that if they had not appeared in print, you would not believe they happened. I'll put it that way.
SHEFFIELD: Yeah, I think that is an accurate summation of it. So for people who want to follow you on social media, why don't you spell your last name for them?
EIFLING: Yeah, sure. Last name is Eifling. E I F L I N G. First name Sam. And I think I never really got more creative than just having a weird last name online. Pretty easy to find on that, all social handles. But, uh, yeah. Thank you for the opportunity. This has been a fun conversation.
SHEFFIELD: All right, so that is the program for today. I appreciate everybody joining us for the discussion. If you want to get more, you can go to theoryofchange.show where you can get the video, audio and transcript of all the episodes. And if you are a paid subscribing member, thank you very much for your support. [01:20:00] You have unlimited access to all of the content.
And you can also visit us over at flux.community. Theory of Change is part of the Flux media network. So go there and check us out. We got other podcasts and articles about politics, religion, media, and society and how they all intersect.
I appreciate everybody supporting us. Tell your friends, tell your family, hell tell people you don't like about Theory of Change and Flux. I really appreciate it. Thanks very much and I will see you next time.
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00:00 — Senate Dems showed how right-wing ideas should be treated by throwing House Republicans' impeachment of Alejandro Mayorkas into the trash can
02:28 — Supreme Court hears case about criminalizing homelessness
05:55 — Taylor Swift attacks Kim Kardashian in coded lyrics
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00:00 — Donald Trump’s hush money trial is destroying his carefully coiffed tough-guy image
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12:34 — Congress would rather ban TikTok than pass a privacy protection law
15:00 — Marjorie Taylor Greene gets 2 more co-sponsors to remove Mike Johnson as Speaker of the House
17:29 — Trump’s presidential campaign is so desperate for cash that he’s demanding Republicans pay him 5% of all their revenues
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Donald Trump has been very public about remaking the Republican party in his political image by boosting people who flatter and praise him the hardest in primary elections. But his longstanding role as leader of the Republican party isn’t just having an effect on the politicians, it is also remaking America’s right-wing subculture in his personal image as well.
Besides being thoroughly corrupt and authoritarian, Trump is also incredibly strange, especially in his attitudes toward women and sex. That strangeness is filtering down into the Republican electorate as a whole, turning MAGA into a sexual fetish as well as a political identity.
It’s really something to see, and joining me in this episode to discuss is Amanda Marcotte, she’s a senior columnist at Salon who has been doing some interesting writing on how the Christian right is using sex to sell religion in the age of TikTok and Trump.
The transcript of our April 2, 2024 conversation is below. Because of its length, some podcast apps and email programs may truncate it. Access the episode page to get the complete text. The video of this episode is also available.
Related Content
* Dating in the present age has become quite the mess, how did it happen?
* Young Republicans can’t get a date — or a clue as to why
* How an oversharing Christian blogger inadvertently documented his own radicalization
* The sexuality of reaction is complicated and contradictory
* No one likes Republican dating websites, but we keep getting more of them anyway
* Anti-LGBT groups promoting ‘conversion therapy’ programs using gender fluidity language to promote them
* New research finds that regardless of their religious views, people are more likely to condemn women having casual sex than men
Audio Chapters
00:00 — MAGA isn't just a political identity, it's a sexual fetish
11:21 — How the "tradwife" lifestyle transformed from a worldview for women into a sex fetish for men
20:33 — Many Mormon social media influencers clearly do not live Mormon doctrines
25:59 — Fundamentalist Christians have realized that sex sells, in their own way
32:09 — Far-right Christians have realized they need unplanned pregnancies, and so they're attacking birth control
39:07 — Controlling women is both a doctrinal and political necessity for the Christian right
41:39 — How far-right activists hoodwink moderate Republicans about reactionary authoritarianism
46:00 — The disastrous effects of oppressive religion on women
50:22 — The role of identity and religion in conservative politics
55:18 — While religion often justifies sexism, there are plenty of non-religious sexist arguments also
Audio Transcript
The following is a machine-generated transcript of the audio that has not been corrected. It is provided for convenience purposes only.
MATTHEW SHEFFIELD: I think the American political media doesn't really talk about a lot of this stuff at all, because national journalists have to pretend that nobody has sex and nobody goes on dates. These things don't happen. And so you've basically kind of had the field to yourself a little bit in this regard, I have to say.
So tell us, what the hell is going on with MAGA and the sexualization of MAGA?
AMANDA MARCOTTE: Yeah. I mean, [00:02:00] it's a complicated subject, I suppose. I've been writing about it a lot on different levels. I hadn't even thought of it as something I was specializing in, but I think that what we're seeing is a few threads that Evangelical Christianity has really had a lot of dramatic changes in its self presentation around sexuality and gender issues that, even as their ideological beliefs about these things have not changed at all.
And then you are seeing this dramatic, a lot of the coalition that Donald Trump has built, and one of the reasons that the Republican party has become so incredibly dependent on him is he speaks to this group of, I would say, secular male losers who are very difficult to mobilize. I mean losers kind of are hard to get to vote.
And Trump kind of set off, I call it the dirtbag bat signal for the sort of Joe Rogan audience of male insecurity, just [00:03:00] this rat's nest of that. And I think that those two have kind of come together in this way, it is about sex and dating. It's about masculine self image.
Trump, because he is a sociopathic narcissist, I think he actually has this real talent for sort of speaking to people's deep insecurities, because what is a narcissist, but a person whose entire life is about being a narcissist? Like the conflict between their, both the part of them that has this like overbearing sense of self, this like almost godlike sense of self, and then the secret fear that they actually are the worst, which we see with Trump all the time.
SHEFFIELD: Well, he has so many insecurities of his own that he's very good at playing to other people. I think that's really what it comes down to. And you do see that also in the elections where he's not on the ballot, that there's the Republicans just have much lower turnout. [00:04:00] Because there is really this subset of people who, they like him as a person, or at least they're inspired by him.
MARCOTTE: Yeah, he's an aspirational figure. I mean, he's definitely like, when you look at the chuds that follow Elon Musk and like him on Twitter and whatnot, that's kind of like Pepe the frog dudes.
So much of it is: ‘Oh, wow, he's a big, fat, gross loser like me that smells like a butt and ketchup, and is repulsive in every way. And yet somehow he manages to be successful.’ That speaks to a certain mentality of people that want to be successful without being good at stuff.
SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Well, and we're certainly seeing that with the Trump Media and Technology Group, recently they had to disclose to the public that they lost $58 million last year and made only [00:05:00] $4 million. So this is par for the course for a Trump business.
MARCOTTE: Yeah. I think Timothy Noah, if I recall, he wrote about this recently for the New Republic. I think that there are actually more people that invested in truth social than our users of it.
SHEFFIELD: Oh, wow. That, is hilarious, if that's true, yeah. They have what I think about 63 million shares, I believe, or something like that. Yeah. So there's a lot of, there's more Trump donors than Truth Social users.
MARCOTTE: Either way. Like the point is there, it's such a bad service that people won't take it even though it's free, but they will pay him money for this thing.
SHEFFIELD: Yeah, they won't use it, but they'll own the stock in it. If you're too extreme, too right wing crazy for Twitter under Elon Musk, he's basically opened the doors for everyone who is a complete psychopath, right wing nut job and said, come on in on Twitter. And they have, and so there [00:06:00] is basically no market if there even was one to begin with.
MARCOTTE: Yeah. I would say there was never really a market for it. And Elon is learning this the hard way too. Like the selling point of these services to those guys, to trolls, to right wing trolls is not their opportunity to speak to other losers like themselves. It's so that they can annoy people that they don't like because they feel on some level rejected, there's always such a mentality of, resentment and envy towards liberals. there's this real right wing rhetoric is all shot through with this real FOMO almost of the sense that that the left is having a good time. And they're the ones that have all the like musicians and artists and comedians and that, and the fun friends and the good parties.
And [00:07:00] so like it, it cultivates this childish desire in some people and we see it all the time on social media to just, well, pull on their ponytail then, and so without the liberals there to troll, there's not really any purpose for a social network of just a bunch of like fascists.
SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Well, this vibe exists with their romantic lives such as they are as well, because I mean, it is absolutely the case that when you go on various dating websites, there are no women on profiles saying things like, well, if you like Joe Biden, swipe left. That's just not happening.
And so, whereas in fact, there are a lot of, for very good reason, and I've heard from a lot of women that, they basically I used to Sometimes date Republicans and, once Trump came along, I, just don't bother with it anymore because if you actually like Trump and you're a guy, why you're an [00:08:00] a*****e, why would I want to be with you? It's gotta be very depressing for them.
MARCOTTE: Yeah. I think it is true that it's really underestimated how much perceived or an often real romantic rejection is feeling a lot of the, like resentment that a lot of like the men that get in, especially the low propensity voters that Trump kind of pulls on that are difficult to get out.
SHEFFIELD: Yeah, the Joe Rogan stans.
MARCOTTE: Yeah. I think a lot about the Proud Boys and what, they, when they came onto the radar, I think by then most people's perception of them were just that there were this paramilitary, neofascist organization. What was lost is that in the beginning, the Proud Boys, when Gavin McInnes was kind of putting them together, a huge part of their sales pitch was, we're going to make you better with women.
It was a lie. [00:09:00] Gavin got these guys to do a bunch of stuff that actually made them lonelier and less attractive to women. Like for instance, the Proud Boys only hang out with each other. Like they never speak to women and so they get worse at it, right? Their entire social life kind of is built around right wing politics, which is just a terrible way to meet women.
And so they actually become more unattractive. But what's funny about that is it's just like circular logic. Therefore they become more addicted to the MAGA lifestyle because it's the like only people that will have them anymore.
SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Well, it's, a, it is a self fulfilling curse in a sense that they become less effective and then also less able to realize that they're less effective at their dating.
And the other kind of interesting thing that, that isn't talked about a lot with this is [00:10:00] that younger people, generally speaking have been leaving evangelical denominations like the Southern Baptists for a number of years, and they've just been bleeding members.
But since Trump came along, there has been a small percentage of people who were in other Christian denominations who now identify as evangelical. And so it's it has been a little bit of a gravitational effect for them. And because they, feel like, well, that's, these are the people that agree with me politically.
So I guess. Maybe they're on to something where I don't know. It's, I mean, we can't tell what's going on through their heads since--
MARCOTTE: It's interesting. I was reading that book Exvangelicals last night and she had an interesting statistic, which was in 2000, And six, I do believe 23 percent of Americans identified as white evangelicals. That's dropped to 15%, but that includes, like you said, it's actually dropped more in a, in one regard in terms of like people that are like [00:11:00] church going evangelicals because the, a huge percentage of self identified evangelicals, I do believe up to 40 percent now do not attend church, do not belong to a church. They derive that identification from watching like Matt Walsh videos or something.
"Trad wife" has transformed from a worldview for women into a sex fetish for men
SHEFFIELD: Yeah, No, it is. And it's an identity rather than a belief system. And I think we're, we could definitely see that in regards to the whole tra wife thing, which you have been writing about quite a bit recently.
So for people who don't. Know what a what this whole trad wife thing is. What the hell is it? And we'll go from There's a lot to talk about
MARCOTTE: on one hand, I feel like trad wife is kind of like one of those self explanatory terms It just means traditional wife. But actually what it is it's an internet phenomenon It's it's like a hashtag trad wife, right [00:12:00] kind of thing and the idea of it is it's a bunch of social media influencers who present themselves in idyllic terms.
Like they, they have, they're influencers. So everything about them is kind of this like fantasy, but it's like a very politicized fantasy in that, they're, Pushing this idea that women have been tricked by feminism into believing that they should have a life outside the home, that they should want careers, et cetera, et cetera.
And that in fact, the real path to women's happiness is to be a stay at home wife. And not only a stay at home wife, but like a submissive stay at home wife, right? A lot most of them are very christian. A lot of them don't lead with that. But a lot of it is christian propaganda, right?
like right wing christian propaganda and you discover pretty shortly after like You might follow trad wives because [00:13:00] you like their sourdough videos or their You might envy their beautiful kitchens or whatever. They're little sweet, obedient children. But then what you get is this like message that it's because I adopt this like right wing Christian view of male headship in the house and female submission and, look how.
Wonderful. My life is and it's kind of a difficult subject to sort of explain in full to people because a lot of stuff on social media, there's actually a shocking amount of diversity within this kind of world. I mean, they're all selling the same fantasy, right? Of Women's joy is through submission, but some of them are kind of like trying to sell themselves to women.
Some of them are a little more obviously selling themselves to men and kind of pitches changes like person to person. So it kind of can be a diffuse trend. [00:14:00]
SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Well, and the religious motivations are different also as well for, cause like actually a huge percentage of these women are Mormon.
And a lot of them are evangelical and, some of them are just there because he wants you to go to their only fans also.
MARCOTTE: Yeah. Yeah. Well, and there's some crossover, but yeah, that I do want to be clear that it's like a lot of Mormons and then a lot of evangelicals. And while both have very like Rigid and sexist gender roles expectations, like the theology of them is a little bit different.
SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Well, and but in terms of it does seem like that the audience, like they. Sort of understand that these are different things that are going on, but, some of them don't quite understand that I think, and so it's interesting because yeah, as you were talking about, I mean, there is quite a bit of.
Kind of a [00:15:00] fetish marketing, sub subtext to a lot of the videos that they're making, whether it's showing the, making sure that they put their breasts very large and out front and so you don't miss them.
MARCOTTE: It's true. so. So much of the trad wife stuff on Tik TOK.
When I first started researching this, I expected it to mostly be like what I was told it was, which was influencers that are selling a fantasy to women of a mad, like an understandable fantasy of kind of almost slipping back to childhood, but as a wife, wouldn't it just be nice to give up on all these adult responsibilities to make money and make decisions and take care of yourself and instead just have a man take care of you.
Right. And there is some of that content, but yeah, a lot of it was just here I am in a negligee, like stirring some vague thing in a pot really hard. I found a photo of one trad wife influencer and I put it up. I didn't even notice this, [00:16:00] like a lot of the people in my comment section did. She was.
Kind of like, sexually posed over a bowl that she was stirring. But when you actually look at it, it's a, colander. It wouldn't have something that you can stir in a colander. Didn't even bother to check that part of her photo.
SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Yeah. Well, and it's, well, because, yeah, because that's the other half of it is that it's, it is a fantasy to the men as well.
And that fits to the Trumpian worldview as well, because, like you've got on the men's side, of course, this enormous plethora of male content creators and influencers that, that's the fantasy that they're selling that, we will, if you follow my advice, you will be able to be a high value man and, be able to get someone who will do whatever you say.
And and that's, they're, playing into that for people who [00:17:00] actually believe that stuff, that they're kind of like the sort of The virtual Christian wife for them in some sense.
MARCOTTE: Well, and it's funny to me, cause I feel like there's a long tradition in conservative politics of packaging a political message.
It's like self help. Right. But it's gone. It's on steroids in the 21st century as part of the MAGA movement. Like a lot of people. Buying into social media stuff that purports to give you advice on how to make your sex life better, how to make your home life better, how to make your marriage better, how to, be more attractive how to be better at your job, other things like that.
And actually what it is it's, glib b******t that is just reeling you in for what it's real message is, which is this fantasy claim, this nostalgia, this functionally a fascist nostalgia [00:18:00] for the idea that in the past, before Roe versus Wade, before Brown versus the Board of Education, before all these things, life was good and it's only those progressive changes that are why you personally are finding it hard to achieve the things that you want to in life.
SHEFFIELD: Yeah, well, and, that's important because, the actual policies that could be made to, if, allow people to have a single income household, they're against that. They're against family leave. They're against higher minimum wage. They're against unions. They're against, national health care.
they're, against all of these things. And so that's why it really is a fantasy and no, and it's, it is destructive in a sense because they are, it's I mean, in some ways it's kind of like the conservative feminism of Sheryl Sandberg, I would say [00:19:00] that, you can have it all, but don't actually do anything about this.
MARCOTTE: Yeah. And at least she was open to the criticism. at least on the surface she was, and they are not, it is interesting. Cause it's like, for instance, like in, in my, like my in depth article that I did on some of the people that are fighting back against trad wives online, like I opened talking about this Mormon influencer named Hannah Nealman.
She runs a little Instagram and all these other social media like feeds called ballerina farm. And that's because she. Used to be a ballerina and now she's a farmer's wife supposedly. And like they have eight children. She's only 33, which is kind of wild to me. And they run this farm and the whole kind of premise of the Instagram feed and their other marketing is that they have somehow made this like [00:20:00] fantasy of self sustainability happen, that they have this farm and they raise these animals and they sell farm goods.
And on that money, they're able to have this Enormous family and this perfect expensive kitchen and this gorgeous house and all this Extremely expensive stuff and what she doesn't really talk about is that it's because her Husband is the son of the jet blue founder not because they make a ton of money on their little farm project.
Many Mormon social media influencers clearly do not live Mormon doctrines
SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And they I mean that, that is kind of the fantasy behind all of these accounts either, they have money independently from that or they don't but they're just, Pretending to, in the hopes that they can get endorsements and whatnot for their social media.
MARCOTTE: And if you think about that, then that means that kind of by definition, none of these tradwife influencers are actually stay at home wives.
They are professional [00:21:00] content creators. Their job and my job aren't all that different. I'm just more honest about it.
SHEFFIELD: Yeah, well, no, and it's true. And and, but, and some of the more, some of the right wing audience does understand that. And the men in particular. Some men do criticize these content creators for that.
and saying that, well, look, if you really are sincere about wanting to be a, trad wife, you need to get off of social media because you can't be a trad wife if you're a real trad wife, if you're out there, prancing around for a million Instagram followers.
MARCOTTE: It's funny cause, and that's where the Mormon thing, I think really kicks in cause you're ex Mormon, right?
So, that there's like a long tradition there of not necessarily being like, you must be a stay at home, non employed mother. Right. But that there's a lot of discourse about like having a workout from the [00:22:00] home kind of job so that you are present for your children. So it's a little less like overt about the idea that women should not be making money, right?
SHEFFIELD: Yeah. It's, still better if you aren't, but yeah. Well, and then to the Mormon thing, and one of the other things that you talked about in that is that, a lot of these women who are making this content, they're not following, they're clearly are not following the Mormon doctrines in their in their lives including specifically, with regard to the.
The undergarments that Mormons are supposed to wear, like they're wearing these clothes that very clearly would not be allowed if you were actually wearing them.
MARCOTTE: I love that so much. I, cannot tell you how much. So, in my reporting on this, I spoke to this wonderful couple. They're named Jordan and McKay Forsyth. They just go by Jordan and McKay online. Look them up. They're so much fun. They're ex Mormon and they did an [00:23:00] how Mormon influencers aren't wearing their garments. And I, and I was like, why is this such a big deal? And they're like, because it's mandatory. And the fact that church is giving them a pass speaks volumes about how much this is propaganda.
SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Well, and the thing is there is a long tradition in Mormon culture of doing this sort of thing, like allowing members who very clearly do not live the expectations and requirements. And they never face any accountability, quote unquote, for that. I mean, like the Jack Dempsey, for instance, the, boxer, the mid 20th century boxer he was regarded as a Mormon, but he didn't follow any of their practices. He smoked, he drank, he, and I think he, was not had any sort of, traditional Christian lifestyle, quote unquote. And they never did anything to him. Never. Whereas if you're a [00:24:00] regular Mormon and they find out that you're smoking and drinking, they will come to you and start harassing you about, Oh, you need to, give that up.
And I mean, even in Mormon culture, unfortunately there are Mormons who will literally go and feel your body to see if you're wearing the garments underneath. It's so creepy. Yeah, these, women are not being subjected to that, obviously.
MARCOTTE: Yeah, no, I mean, look at the pictures. It's impossible.
SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Yeah. But it's, yeah. And yet, there is this, I mean, that, really is though the, this whole milieu, it really does speak to this constant tension that right wing Americans live with every day of their lives because, they know that they can't prove their beliefs that evolution is fake or that, vaccines are, harmful or, or that, or that, well, in the case of Mormons that, Native [00:25:00] Americans were the, our ancient Jews they know none of their beliefs are provable and they also know that their lifestyle mandates are oppressive and annoying.
MARCOTTE: And off-putting.
SHEFFIELD: Off-putting. Yeah. And yet they continue to believe them. When I was Mormon, I was, constantly had that tension in my mind that like for Mormons, their, dating experiences much like as bad as it is for everybody else on dating apps and whatnot in the Mormon culture, they have congregations that you're supposed to go to as a young single adult. And their sole purpose is to get you to marry somebody in that congregation. That's why they exist. And you're also chaperoned by a 60 year old at these events. You can't have your own congregation of young people. No, it has to be run by old people. Yeah, so it's just it's just a horrible tension. They all live in their own cognitive dissonance.
Fundamentalist Christians have realized that sex sells, in their own way
MARCOTTE: Yeah. And [00:26:00] I think evangelicals have a very similar situation going on, which is, you see this happen a lot and it's kind of getting worse. It was bad in the Bush years and it's, been bad for 40, 50 years, but it's, it seems like it's getting even more pronounced as they're trying to sort of vacuum over those contradictions.
On one hand, they know that the prohibitions against sex before marriage, the prohibitions against abortion. and while they're not necessarily all against birth control, it's kind of discouraged or at least, stigmatized. All of this comes together to create a very strong and accurate image of them being just really against sex and, but you know, it's not popular being against sex. Like sex is super popular. So sex is more popular than puppies and ice cream. I always say [00:27:00] most people have sex, like 95 percent of people.
SHEFFIELD: Certainly more than any politician. Yeah.
MARCOTTE: 95 percent of people have sex before marriage. It's incompatible with modern American life. And so what you get is a lot of propaganda and books and videos and sermons where evangelical leaders try to position themselves as we're not against sex. If you follow our rules, you're going to have the best sex of your whole life. It's going to be just so fulfilling. It's just going to be amazing.
It's an obviously false promise, as anyone who has had sex could probably tell you. But of course this pitch is being made to virgins and that's the like bait and switch that they're trying to pull off. And it kind of requires like an ad hoc conspiracy of sorts of everyone just not talking about the fact that in reality [00:28:00] we find that Couples that do wait until marriage and you all follow all the evangelical rules have really high rates of sexual dysfunction and Unhappiness because that just doesn't work.
SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Because they don't even know who the other person really is, even themselves. That's the other thing. It's just a bunch of ignorance piled upon ignorance, both individually and sort of philosophically, that's really what it comes down to.
But this is very important in becoming very important politically for them as well, I think. Because there's that old saying that right wing Christians used to say about about gay people, that they can't reproduce so they have to recruit. But the opposite is true for the Christian right. That they cannot recruit anymore. And so they have to reproduce. That's the only way that they can get anybody to sign [00:29:00] up for their oppressive alternative lifestyle.
MARCOTTE: Even then most of the loss, like the loss that they're seeing in terms of losing membership is younger people. So you can raise somebody to be evangelical. You can bully them into believing it for a long time, but a lot of them are going to grow up and start to be like, this isn't working for me.
SHEFFIELD: Yeah, well, I mean it is in fact the case like with Mormons, that now there are more former Mormons than there are current Mormons And similar things that are happening with evangelicals as well, to your point.
There is a little bit of pushback though, for among some of these Christian conservative content creators who are women that I think some of them have finally understood what it is that they are advocating for.
So like Allie Beth Stuckey, who is this commentator for the for The Blaze, I believe, and some of these women have begun [00:30:00] to occasionally say, okay, this is really horrible what you guys are saying. Like they have said that recently with there was this right wing fever about a video of women dancing to a rap song in Louisiana that, that it set off. the right wing fascists out there that they were saying, how dare these women, go out there and dance to this jungle song or whatever, why are they not home behind this stove, serving their man.
And, some of these right wing Christian women were like, okay, I'm not down for that. But they, they're, in this weird place where they don't, I don't know if they ever will Come out and just be like, look, you guys are wrong about everything. I don't think they can.
MARCOTTE: I don't think that they can cause they've sort of built their life around this, but it's certainly, yeah, it's certainly younger women. Hopefully you're seeing this and realizing they need to hit the eject button before they've gotten into deep because yeah, [00:31:00] The thing is back in the Bush years, like the Christian right, like definitely kind of marketed itself as a chivalrous movement, right?
You heard a lot about chivalry and there's a certain appeal and rationalization to the idea that, well, there's like a sexual hierarchy, but at least it obligates men to protect and cherish women, right? Like pets admittedly, or children, but not like equals, but there's still man has
SHEFFIELD: to submit to Jesus at least.
MARCOTTE: But now they don't even bother with that. It's just mean. And I think that they've they've given up on that argument and it's, I don't know. Like how you like they've just given up on persuasion, I think, and that's the end problem here.
SHEFFIELD: It's interesting to watch from afar.
Nice not having to be in the middle of it. I bet. [00:32:00] Yeah, if only we didn't have to share a country with these people, that's the only downside. I'd like it to be further afar.
Far-right Christians have realized they need unplanned pregnancies, and so they're attacking birth control
SHEFFIELD: But in the political realm, there's Turning Point USA has really been pushing ramping up a lot of propaganda aimed at young women to try to get them married off and having kids as soon as possible to kind of prevent them from seeing the world on their own or just seeing other people or seeing other cultures, other idea sets.
and they've really kind of pushed that quite a bit. You want to talk about that?
MARCOTTE: Yeah. I mean, I think that there's this, kind of a twofold thing. You have a lot of this kind of trad wife type material out there. That's like hyping this idea that getting married young and all that is a wonderful and great.
And again, I do think that there is a, I don't want to discount that there is like [00:33:00] a surface appeal to the idea that it would be nice to like, Never have to grow up and never have to be responsible for your own decisions, be responsible for household finances, be responsible for going to a job every day and doing it well, right?
And That has a certain appeal. But on the other hand, when you actually see the statistics of where young women are at, you realize that while people might enjoy that fantasy for especially you've come, you've been at work all day and it's been hard and you might go look at some trad wife stuff and think about it for 10 minutes.
And then the next day you're like, nah, I'm not going to do that. So where persuasion is not working, I think we're starting to see force and trickery come in. And obviously the most salient example of the force is the, is Dobbs is repealing Roe versus Wade and starting to ban abortion. But [00:34:00] that's coming with another, there's been a real uptick of and Peter Teal has been funding this a lot too, of propaganda being decimated on online that's trying to get women to give up on the most effective forms of birth control with lies saying it's bad for them.
And I think that's starting to work because it,
SHEFFIELD: if you don't mind, I actually have a clip that I want to play on that. So, yeah, that's why I got a clip on that. Alex Clark, who is a commentator for Turning Point USA, who focuses exclusively on young women, and she's an evangelical, and she basically, her biggest thing is lying about birth control to 20 something.
So I'm going to play a clip where she says some false information about that.
ALEX CLARK: Well, all of a sudden women are waking up to how absolutely toxic hormonal birth control [00:35:00] is. It accelerates aging. It amplifies feelings of anxiety and depression. It depletes our bodies of vitamins and minerals. It makes sex painful. It causes migraines, weight gain. It can affect how attracted we feel to our partner. I
UNIDENTIFED WOMAN: I know that. Oh my gosh. What else? There's, it's, it can cause so many hormonal acne. So people think, Oh, I went on to fix my acne. Well, it can cause acne. It can cause yeah. Infertility issues in the future. Not directly, but because it's depleting all of these essential vitamins.
MARCOTTE: Yeah. All lies. I just want to be very clear. Yeah. When I started the pill, my acne just went away. I had bad acne as a teenager and it just went as soon as I was on the pill. So I'm just going to put that out there. Anyway, like here's what drives me nuts. This has been a talking point that comes and goes for like ever since, like at least since the nineties, right.
And it's always been [00:36:00] untrue. And. What's also really frustrating about it is it's built on this assumption that is flat out untrue, which is that the medical establishment would let women have access to dangerous medications.
SHEFFIELD: Yeah.
MARCOTTE: Or like we do all those things.
SHEFFIELD: Yeah.
MARCOTTE: Yeah. That allow us to have sex.
As if there was so much like support socially for women having like sexual freedom, that, the risks would ever be overlooked. And it's if you've ever been female and been to a doctor, you will find that is not true in the slightest. it's just not how it is. The idea that you, this, is assuming a level of respect for women's ability to make choices that I wish was true in American society, but is not.
SHEFFIELD: Yeah, no, it isn't. Well, but of course, the reason that they're doing this is, to what I was saying that they [00:37:00] have to reproduce. It is literally their only way of having any sort of political coalition in the future because, because yeah, they're usually losing young people in droves.
And this is why they become so paranoid about, racial replacement and, all that stuff. And it's, just lies upon lies because of course these illegal immigrants are not allowed to legally vote. So they very clearly are not shifting the vote totals in any way to the Democrats at all.
And the real reason why Republicans are having a harder time demographically speaking is that they're losing young white people. That's actually what it is. Because of how they oppress them.
MARCOTTE: Especially young white women. And I think, a huge part of this. Because, a lot of the anti birth control thing is, not just about getting people to reproduce, but also getting young women to give birth before they're ready.
Before they know they're ready [00:38:00] is, a great way to derail their, I'm, I don't think I'm only speaking for myself when I say before you're like 25, 26 years old, you're not necessarily the best decision maker in terms of who you're sleeping with, maybe Republicans. But I think that there is like a, not to make it too sound too sinister, but I do think that a huge part of this is like hoping that college girls and, very young women get rid of birth control methods that are very effective and switch to condoms, which a lot of men don't want to wear and that they get pregnant and then they find themselves submitting to marriages that they weren't necessarily going to make if they were had a total freedom of choice there.
Now, I don't know how true that is. Cause I think what actually happens is women still do not marry those men and, end up just being single mothers or finding a way to abort [00:39:00] the pregnancy, even where it's banned. But I mean, I think that's the goal
Controlling women is both a doctrinal and political necessity for the Christian right
SHEFFIELD: yeah, well, and they do, I mean, they do openly talk about the idea that when you look at women who are married versus women who are not, that non married women are more likely to vote democratic.
And so by their definition, if we can do anything to make women get married and for whatever reason we don't care we feel like that will help us. And it's, it is, it's magical thinking in some sense though, because, it doesn't, Factor in that, well, maybe the percentage of women who are interested in being married at all are more likely to be conservative because, there's plenty of people out there that are like, well, why, what's the point of getting married?
I don't see the point of it when I can have the same effects as not, without the ceremony. Yeah, I think it's a little bit of contract.
MARCOTTE: I think it probably is a little bit of both, right? That's my, I think that both women that are more conservative probably get married [00:40:00] younger. So thus are more likely to be married.
and then I do think that marriage can make women more conservative because men are more conservative than women. And because we live in a male dominated society, Men's opinions tend to become the dominant one in a married couple more often than not. Like they pull women in their direction more than vice versa.
If not, if nothing but to keep the peace. Right.
SHEFFIELD: Well, and then it's also a matter of interest as well, because women tend to not follow. Politics as a hobby compared to men, but a smaller percentage are interested in it compared to men. And that's, that's just how it is, at least how, things are right now, at least in this country.
Yeah, so I think you're right about that, that and so, like that's, that really is the motivation and it's just so much manipulation. And it's no, I don't think it's sustainable for them. And, but rather than admitting, look, we [00:41:00] have ideas that people hate let's become more moderate. They're not going to do that.
MARCOTTE: We're seeing that we're seeing that a lot, like that play out really. Like dramatically with the Dobbs decision. I think they've been caught really flat footed by how angry it's made people. I've done this work my entire career and I've been caught flat footed, but how angry it's made people.
And I have some long, boring theories as to why that might be, but it doesn't really matter. what's happened is, By banning abortion, they made people more pro choice and more adamant about it.
How far-right activists hoodwink moderate Republicans about reactionary authoritarianism
SHEFFIELD: It made people realize how radical they were. Like, because I think that's, that really is, the linchpin of, reactionary political success is camouflaging their radicalism.
If you talk to your average Republican, or let's say your average Republican leaner, so an independent who says they're not a Republican, but they [00:42:00] vote for them, in their mind, they actually think that the Democratic party is more extreme than the Republican. They really believe this.
MARCOTTE: Yes.
SHEFFIELD: That is the foundation of reactionary organizing is getting is camouflaging extremism and making, conservatives think that they're centrist, basically, I think.
MARCOTTE: Yeah, I think a lot of people like, so I know a lot of like pro choice Republicans and, what I would find in my discussions pre Dobbs with them was that they really wanted to talk about this subject as if it was a matter of personal opinion, as a map instead of policy.
Right. and they wanted to talk about what they can see what they perceived as they saw the abortion issue as a bunch of meanie feminists being mean to the sweet little church ladies who just don't like abortion. And it's no, I don't care if you don't [00:43:00] like abortion, just don't try to ban it.
Right. And by banning it, they've made feminists, they've proved feminists were right all along that it was never about somebody's personal choices. That's why we called it pro choice. Like it was always about letting people choose. The religious right was literally trying to take away extremely crucial health care access.
SHEFFIELD: Yeah, well, and they're doing that with this birth control stuff. I mean, that's, there is obviously no fertilized egg at risk in when a woman is using hormonal birth control methods.
MARCOTTE: Yeah. Well, but they, will lie about that through their teeth. It's insane. And to the point where I've, unfortunately that propaganda has gotten so widespread that I hear liberals repeat it all the time.
They think that the birth control pill kills a fertilized egg. It [00:44:00] doesn't, it prevents ovulation. That's how it works.
SHEFFIELD: Yeah. But speaking of the, sort of educated Republican, I think, there's another person who kind of really personally, crystallized this, I think recently, which was Katie Britt in her State of the Union response to Joe Biden recently, that she, this is a woman who very clearly is a professional, educated, smart person, independent has always had, a high paying job and works very effectively and intelligently, but at the same time, she knows that's not what she's supposed to do.
MARCOTTE: Yeah, I think one of the reasons her response to the state of the union went over so poorly is like She's actually not all that great at doing the like Syrupy fundamentalist [00:45:00] trad wife bit, right?
I mean how much yeah, it's not her
SHEFFIELD: native language.
MARCOTTE: Yeah Even though she's from alabama and I feel like they just teach you that stuff from the cradle there Yeah I mean, she, had this sort of voice down the Fundy baby voice thing, but like she just could not sell it like but she looks the part.
And again, I think that she was put up to it by a bunch of like male leadership that told her that this was her way forward in the party and this was how she was going to get more power. And, she did her level best, but. And I think that's generally true. Like a lot of Republican women in leadership know that being able to sort of flatter and placate incredibly sexist men is the sort of path to success in their party.
And so they've, made their peace with that, if nothing else.
The disastrous effects of oppressive religion on women
[00:46:00]
SHEFFIELD: Yeah. It like, yeah, in some level they have. And yeah, it's just, it is really. It's really unfortunate to see, because I mean, I do personally know people who have had those things happen to them. women that I knew when they were teenagers.
who were so smart and witty and, but then over time they're, they just sort of gave in, lost themselves and it's, it's awful to see. And, I really, that was ultimately one of the reasons that, that I left Mormonism was that I didn't like what it did to women.
But it was subconscious at first. I couldn't see, I didn't have the vocabulary for understanding. Well, why is it that these Mormon girls are so different from the non Mormons? I couldn't see it. I, didn't understand how to say it at first.
And then, eventually I realized that's why I don't want to date [00:47:00] them.
MARCOTTE: It's, funny. yeah, I, often have said my whole like life that like one of the like hardest things for patriarchy to do. Do is to convince men not to see women as human beings, because we obviously are. And, you really have to beat it out of boys and and nonetheless, some still managed to keep hang on to.
Like the obvious fact that like women are people and not just helpmeets put here to serve them. I saw a speech by an abortion provider many years ago where he did talk about like why he got into it. And it was literally that when he was in high school, he had a crush on this girl. And she couldn't get an abortion with her boyfriend that she was dating.
And his just total compassion for her, drove him to go to medical school and become an abortion provider. And I was just like, [00:48:00] well, aren't you sweet? not only were you moved by this girl's play, but you didn't even care that she was dating some boy other than you.
SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Well, no, true. And.
but this just bundle of contradictions it, also, it was manifesting recently with the Donald Trump Bible that he's out selling now, that a guy who is literally on trial right now for paying off an adult film star that he had cheated on with his wife while she was pregnant.
It's also selling a Bible for 60.
MARCOTTE: Well, there's a lot of old Testament prophets who did similar stuff. I suppose, well,
maybe not prophets,
but figures like the evangelicals are always comparing Trump to King David and it's like, all right, whatever you guys,
SHEFFIELD: yeah, well, [00:49:00] yeah. And, but, and, that really is how they've kind of justified it.
It is that. They do see him as God's instrument, even if. They acknowledge that he may not live the, the, ideas and and, from a theological standpoint, I do think that also, their theology also makes them vulnerable to somebody like Trump or this type of thinking, because, if you believe, well, I'm, can be forgiven for anything that I do.
I just, I'm already forgiven, I can sin as much as I want, or, or you go to confession and then it's over, like If that's really your mentality and your belief, you actually can get away with any manner of sin, quote unquote.
MARCOTTE: Especially men. I will say in my research on my trad wives piece, like a lot of the religious trauma therapists I spoke with said that they've had a huge influx of patients since Trump, because [00:50:00] the contradictions are more than a lot of people in the church could bear.
And it was a breaking point for them for leaving. So I think we've been seeing an exodus. That's probably in larger numbers than the stats show because of what you said, that it's been offset by people self identifying as evangelical, even though they don't go to church.
The role of identity and religion in conservative politics
SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Well, and it's, yeah, it is, it's an identity which is another one of these, every accusation is a confession things like, the right wing Christians.
Southern right wing Christians invented identity politics. That's the entirety of what their movement is about. It's not about ideas. They don't have any ideas. They don't have policies. Their policy is the government shouldn't do stuff. But that's not really a policy or an idea.
MARCOTTE: It's true.
They always yell and scream about like people talking about race and gender. And it's well, but it's, like conservative forces, like historically that [00:51:00] invented these categories in order to classify people based on how much power they're allowed to have. . Like the concept of black people didn't exist until racists needed it to justify chattel slavery.
and as a lot of gender theorists point out, the only reason we buy into this myth of like that there are men and there women and there's no in between and there's no ambiguity around those two categories, that they're just a black and white categories. Is that. We need there to be men and women in order to know who's in charge and who's the servant, right?
And I think that liberals are just using categories that we've been handed to criticize them, but we're not, the people who need them as much,
SHEFFIELD: yeah, well, and again, and it's something that the right wing, right wingers don't understand when they talk about, That women need to be feminine and [00:52:00] men need to be masculine.
When they say things like that, they don't understand that people on the left don't deny that either. If somebody wants, if a woman wants to be feminine, quote unquote, nobody says, no, you can't do that. There's nobody out there saying. No, you cannot wear a dress if you like wearing dresses, take that off right now.
MARCOTTE: And one of my favorite contradictions about that is the same people who say that like gender's, inborn, unchanging, and immovable also completely lose their minds. If a man wears a skirt or a woman does sports or yeah, does something considered not of their sort of gender stereotype. And it's well, y'all decide, right.
Is it inborn and therefore unchangeable by any choice I make, or is gender performance that we have to just constantly keep up by what the clothes we wear, the choices we make, the like way we present to the world. I feel like you have to choose. [00:53:00]
SHEFFIELD: Yeah, well, and then from a theology standpoint, if they do claim to believe that, God is this, transcendent, non physical being that contains the essence of everything and everyone, so therefore you can refer to God as female, and that would be correct if you want to but you know, if you do that, like they get massively triggered and angry at you or calling God non binary. of course, like if you're talking about a non physical being that is eternal, of course it is non binary. of course it is but you can't say that to them.
MARCOTTE: Yeah. Every time that they're like, no, God is a man. I just. I'm just like, what does God have junk? I just want to know, does God have junk? I want but I never have the courage to ask that, but I'm always thinking it.
SHEFFIELD: I, I have once in a while asked people, did Jesus die for the [00:54:00] alien? I have asked someone that.
MARCOTTE: That's, a good one.
SHEFFIELD: And yeah, somebody told me that, yes, the answer was yes to that. Then I said, oh, okay, well tell me more. And then they
MARCOTTE: They wouldn't be unsaved because they haven't heard the good word. No, I don't want to go down this rabbit hole.
SHEFFIELD: Yeah, no, I see. Well, that's the thing, like you're not supposed to, you aren't supposed to think about it too much.
You really aren't like that's all of the, like all of this stuff. That's the one consistent thing they have is that you're not supposed to expect consistency. You're not supposed to think about it. You're just supposed to follow. That's really what it is.
MARCOTTE: Aliens land. Are we supposed to meet them with Bibles and be like, ‘Oh good. You're saved.’
SHEFFIELD: Yeah, I guess so. See, hopefully we'll have that, that, first contact. We can find that out.[00:55:00]
Well, so we're coming up on the hour here. So, is there any other aspect of this that we haven't talked about that you feel like we need to cover here?
MARCOTTE: No, I think aliens is good. That's some fun stuff.
SHEFFIELD: We've reached the natural end point.
While religion often justifies sexism, there are plenty of non-religious sexist arguments also
SHEFFIELD: Um, well, I guess, how about then let's just maybe end that, as much heretics like you and I do enjoy making jokes of this nature.
It is also the case, that a lot of these sexist stereotypes and submission narratives do, they're not dependent on religion necessarily.
MARCOTTE: No. And in fact, I think, maybe less so than when I was like first starting out as a feminist writer, but there was like this whole like notion.
and Jordan Peterson still kind of minds this territory a lot that like, there's something called evolutionary psychology that it, and it's not a real science, [00:56:00] but people present it as it is. And it is also the same kind of just so stories, but they package it as science instead of religion, that women are born to be helpers and men are born to be leaders.
And if you start to dig into it, you find that their claims are just unevidenced in all ways. And they're untestable also.
SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. To say, well, this is how things were for humans 20, 000 years ago.
MARCOTTE: Yeah.
SHEFFIELD: It's like, how do you know that.
MARCOTTE: Jordan Peterson and his lobsters is like the kind of thing that sounds persuasive at first glance and then you give it like five minutes thought and you're like, wait, none of that makes any sense. Is our society to look anything like lobster society? These claims here that are not testable, like you said, or like comparisons that don't really hold up under scrutiny.
So there is a secular version of it, but I do find it interesting that I, when I [00:57:00] look at like secular, like conservative spaces, I don't really see as much.
Of the sort of like elaborate Evo psych, like arguments that you used to see. I think it's just Donald Trump has kind of created this permission structure to just be a belligerent jerk about your views without ever even feeling the need to kind of prop up even a half assed fake proof,
SHEFFIELD: Yeah. And, and I was talking with somebody, another fellow ex Republican about that. And he made the point that I think was very interesting, which is that all of the arguments you used to see of this nature, they weren't for the general public, they were actually for the moderate Republican.
And once the moderate Republican was just like, yeah, I'll just vote for you no matter what you do. Then they don't even bother with the pretense anymore. And that's a really good point. Interesting idea. Yeah, and so and that is yeah, why I would say, you know the To the extent that there are [00:58:00] still any moderate Republicans out there, you guys need to f*****g stand up for yourself. Come on now.
Fascism is dependent on conservatism to win. It cannot exist without it. And conservatives need to understand that and they need to assert themselves because they are the first ones who will be up against the wall. The conservatives will, that's who they come for.
MARCOTTE: Yeah. I mean, that's. That's literally how Donald Trump is operating, right? He's following the fascist playbook of get the conservatives on your side and then purge them from the party. Hitler did it with the knight of the long knives. Trump does it with tweets, but it's, and that is less violent.
So I'll give him that, but it's kind of the same premise, right? You use them as a ladder to climb the power. And then when. You've gotten there. You just take them out.
SHEFFIELD: All right. Well, so Amanda people who want to keep up with your stuff, how would they do that?
MARCOTTE: I recommend just going to [00:59:00] salon. com. I, write there every day. I have a Twitter account under my name, Amanda Marcotte. I post there once in a blue moon. I also am on Bluesky, which is a little bit more fun for me these days. So, check me out in those places.
SHEFFIELD: All right. Sounds good. It's been a great discussion today.
MARCOTTE: Thank you, I've had a blast.
SHEFFIELD: So that is the program for today, I appreciate everybody joining us for the conversation. And you can always get more if you go to theoryofchange.show, you can get the video, audio, and transcript of the episodes.
And if you are a paid subscribing member, thank you very much. You are making the show possible. And if you can't afford to subscribe right now, I understand that. But please tell a friend or a family member about the show and ask one of your favorite podcasters to have me on. I do those once in a while as well. Those are always fun.
I appreciate everybody for joining me today and I will see you next time.
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Audio Chapters
00:00 — Arizona Republicans reveal that reactionaries have no real principles beyond getting power
05:18 — Another Elon Musk fail: Tesla is laying off 10 percent of workforce
10:06 — Iran attacks Israel with drones and missiles, will it lead to wider war?
15:52 — OJ Simpson's death brought the world together
18:38 — Satanic Temple in Salem Massachusetts attacked with explosive device
21:00 — Houston woman arrested for leaving little children behind while she went on 6-day cruise
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Audio Chapters
00:00 — After a lifetime of crime, Donald Trump is finally on trial
08:51 — NH Governor Chris Sununu humiliates himself shilling for Trump
11:48 — RFK Junior's New York campaign director says she's trying to help Trump win
18:39 — Trump's dementia is getting even worse
24:30 — Right-wingers are angry at Scrabble now
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Introduction
For a variety of reasons, increasing numbers of Americans are turning away from marriage and dating. In a 2022 study, less than a majority of adults surveyed were married, while 37 percent were not in any form of relationship.
As the percentage of single people has increased, it seems also that social media is filling up with awful dating advice as well. Self-styled dating and relationship gurus are proliferating on places like YouTube and TikTok in particular, many of them recycling old tropes about manipulating people for money or sex.
Dating has also become a lot more political as the Republican Party has become much more radicalized. Even before Trump, right-leaning Americans have been targeted by websites and apps offering to help them get a date where they couldn't get it otherwise, particularly the male Republicans who seem to hate the idea of female autonomy.
Straight women are now also getting their own share of bad advice as well.
There's a lot going on in the world of romance nowadays, and to set the table for a mini-series of episodes, I wanted to have a fun and light discussion on the topic with my friend Camille Corbett. She’s a filmmaker and comedian based in the Los Angeles area.
The transcript of our conversation is below. Because of its length, some podcast apps and email programs may truncate it. Access the episode page to get the complete text. The video of this episode is also available.
Related Content
* That right-wing freakout about some women dancing at a gas station is about so much more than it appears
* Male popular culture is obsolete, and many men are suffering because of it
* Reactionary ideas are increasingly abhorrent to Generation Z, but young right-wingers are refusing to look inward
* The American far right has been obsessed with sex since it emerged in the 1960s, but it’s a history that’ isn’t discussed enough
Theory of Change is part of the Flux network. To get more content like this episode, please stay in touch by subscribing via Patreon or Substack.
Audio Chapters
00:00 — Introduction
03:31 — How the internet gave rise to the professional daters known as “pickup artists”
08:54 — Republican men are angry that women don't want to date them
14:12 — Women are getting into the dating manipulation advice game now
22:04 — Some former pickup artists are becoming right-wing religious figures
23:27 — Dating apps for Republicans?
29:52 — The new and unrealistic obsession with “high value”
36:06 — Some healthier advice for dating
Transcript
The following is a machine-generated transcript of the audio that has not been corrected. It is provided for convenience purposes only.
MATTHEW SHEFFIELD: So as I said in our intro, the internet [00:02:00] is filled now with awful dating advice and it's coming from all sides and all corners, it seems like, and I think people, if they're not into dating, this has kind of taken place under the radar for a lot of people.
And you have been there kind of seeing all this happen in real time pretty much, right?
CAMILLE CORBETT: Yeah. Low-key, I downloaded Tinder when I was 18, which is crazy to think about. So I never have been dating as an adult without a dating app.
SHEFFIELD: Oh, wow. So how much is the sort of physical, going into a bar and people talking to you, like does that even happen anymore now?
CORBETT: Yeah, I get hit on a lot in person, but I feel like I'll get hit on a lot, but sometimes men can't finish the thought. Like they'll be like, oh my god, you're so beautiful, I just want to come up to you and tell you that. And I'll be like, thank you. And [00:03:00] then they walk away because they can't continue the thought and be like, oh, well, can I see you later or something.
So I definitely think there's an awkwardness there. I've even dated a dude that told me that he would be scared to approach me in person. Would have never done it, but because of dating apps he felt comfortable. And yeah, which is crazy.
I'm like, wow. I didn't realize I was dating such a pussy. Oh, can I say that? I don't even know.
SHEFFIELD: Well, you just did!
How the internet gave rise to the professional daters known as "pickup artists"
SHEFFIELD: But yeah, online dating really did kind of change the way stuff happened and when this really kind of started hitting its stride in, let's say maybe late 2000s, there was a group of people who—basically men—who said, they made a business of giving advice to men telling them how to do things and how to talk to women and basically kind of manipulate women.
And they eventually called themselves the pickup artists. [00:04:00] You enjoyed reading their material, as you've told me in other conversations.
And then I guess sort of the dissatisfied customers of the pickup artists kind of branched off into their own kind of, maybe sort of feedback loop that kind of goes in and out is, and that's the incels. So for people who don't know about these guys, what would, what's your description of them?
CORBETT: I feel like pickup artists gamify dating. It's basically what's the most amount of women. And they tend to fetishize and have ratings and values for women. So if you're like, I don't know, a white girl in college maybe like 22 years old, that's a high get for these sorts of men. They have value for all of these sorts of women, which is scary to think about.
SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Well, and it's. Yeah, no, ahead.
CORBETT: But so pickup artists, they basically [00:05:00] they just want to f**k the most amount of women as possible, and show their bros and it's totally not gay to show off the amount of women that you've had sex with to your close friends.
And I feel like incels are the men that hear the advice but can't actually apply it. And are just stuck in sexless lives for whatever reason. They have, I think, some theory that's you should be like six foot, have at least six inches and make six figures. Which is quite, I feel like that's like really a lot. I've dated a lot of people and I feel like that is unrealistic I don't know. I don't even think I've dated, or maybe I have dated a few dudes that meet these qualifications, but that's just not what is needed and you just don't understand women, but I feel like there's a plethora of reasons why they don't understand women or [00:06:00] why they feel devalued in that way.
SHEFFIELD: Well, and, a lot of the stuff goes down to techniques and things that they tell people to say to women. And from what you've told me in the past, like some of the guys would actually tell you the things that they had said to you were, that I read this somewhere that I should say this to you, right?
CORBETT: That someone would say what? Sorry!
SHEFFIELD: That they would say things to you and then you'd be like, what, are you telling me that for? And then they'd say, well, because somebody told me to say that.
CORBETT: Oh, yeah. Yeah. So I've like--
SHEFFIELD: So give us some examples of that. I want to hear about some of these.
CORBETT: Oh, when I saw this morning, which is crazy literally I was just scrolling and I saw it. This dude was just like if a woman gives you her number say it back with one number wrong, and if she corrects you, then she actually likes you. One dude told me that he could tell that I liked him because I [00:07:00] shaved my kneecaps.
I was like, what? That's a signal? And he was like, yeah, I read it on Reddit. That sign is one of the signs. Yeah, I just feel like they have all these weird rules because I feel like, again, I've said this before, but I think that pickup artists are just successful incels. They're men that , really, wanted to , collect women and be able to have sex with a bunch of them.
And once they sort of figured out the tricks of the trade, I guess, because I do feel like a lot of it is tricks, which is just sad to think about in the woman's part, because, I feel like most women generally have sex for at least a semi emotional connection.
But yeah, it's so interesting to me because they create all these rules and laws. And then, sometimes they make so much money off of it through publishing books, publishing manuals. I think Andrew Tate has a s**t ton of manuals that people buy or like a university [00:08:00] pickup artists university vibe where you can just learn through the modules how to trick women into liking you.
And I feel really bad for the dudes where it doesn't even work because I don't even know what could be going on, whether psychologically, or just how you look physically, where you can't even trick a woman into f*****g you. But I've noticed from a lot of incels that, because I've dated a few of them, because it's kind of fun to date a dude that hasn't had sex in a year, it's, for obvious reasons, but yeah, I find that a lot of times it's their aggression that makes them not be able to have sex, it's like you hate women. You just want to f**k us. We can tell you hate us.
Who wants to be having someone inside of them hovering over them and they want them dead? That is terrifying.
SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Yeah.
Republican men are angry that women don't want to date them
SHEFFIELD: There's also kind of a political aspect. to this stuff as well, [00:09:00] because, like you mentioned Andrew Tate, but there's, these other guys out there these two brothers that host this podcast called Fresh and Fit. And a bunch of these—
CORBETT: Oh those dudes are weird. And then he was exposed for having set or being on seeking arrangements. The dude that runs the Fresh and Fit podcast was literally on Seeking Arrangements, paying for women. Because who would actually date him after, if he's on a dating app, right, you connect your social media profile to everything. You see his photo. Maybe he's okay, he's wearing a hat because he's clearly balding.
And then you go to his socials and you see it's just like him degrading all of these famous influencers. Why would you ever want to go on a date with him? You'd be like, no, you have to pay me to see me. There's no f*****g way.
SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Well, no. And that's the thing. And so I think there's a lot of men out there who are [00:10:00] Republicans, primarily. That they're in this dilemma because, younger women who, the ones who are, the most likely to be dating are much more likely to be Democrats. And so a lot of these Republican men, they're just really angry that they can't get a date with women because in part, because of their political views.
CORBETT: I saw a crazy tweet. Recently, where it's just like, why do women want to be alone instead of going like 50 50 and submitting to a man? I was like, that sounds horrible. When you put it like that, I'd rather be alone. I'd rather be alone. At that point, I, so, yeah, I definitely have felt that way a lot of times clearly dating in, in cell, , I've been like, oh you just deserve to be alone I don't think that there is a person for you in your current mental state and if, you're , obviously, some people that can be [00:11:00] can become so successful that they can , find someone but I feel like even then it's like a revolving door of people, if they're crazy.
SHEFFIELD: Yeah, well, yeah. And some of that success, as you said, like, it would, it could maybe work. For a little while for some of these guys who just, they have so much money that they can just throw it around and get some, people for a little bit, but they're not going to stick around. But it , unless you, for the people that they sell the advice to, they don't have that kind of money.
They don't have that kind of thing or whatever. So, well, no, like the customers I'm saying, generally speaking, they're not going to have that. And so it doesn't work for them. So, but they, they, just get these people hooked on it. And that's where the whole incel thing comes from that, the guys that are giving you the advice to you, it's not good advice.
And or if at some point it might've worked at some point, before, cause I don't know. I, the. Well, I guess I'm getting ahead of myself. So like a lot of these [00:12:00] things, they're involving specific things to say to women. So like negging, as they call it, using negative compliments or insults.
CORBETT: Negging does not work. It really does not work. The few times I've dated incels, , I feel like they started out negging, and I've been , leave me alone and block them or something, and then they found just another way to contact me, and grovel and apologize. And then, I went on a date with them, but I was just like, what the f**k are you doing?
But yeah. It's weird getting negged because you're just like, why are you being mean to me? This is just too much. It's not attractive.
SHEFFIELD: Well, and maybe at some point that might have worked for some people at some point, but This is, this stuff has been around for like 20 years and I think, most, women at this point, either you figured it out directly yourself or your [00:13:00] friends or family members have told you that some people will do this or that, and it doesn't work anymore.
CORBETT: I feel like women don't know pick up artistry. They don't.
SHEFFIELD: You don't think so.
CORBETT: Not most women. Yeah, especially young women. That's why they prey on younger women. Like the younger they are, the less they'll know. That's why they're obsessed with women that are newly in college or stuff like that.
Because they were, I mean, high school is scary. I mean, to be right out of high school is too much in my opinion, at that point, you're just a masking pedophile. But I do think college is like, It's not pedophilia. It's just like you are praying after young, stupid b*****s. Cause I was so stupid when I was in college, I would have believed a lot.
But so I mean, not just, there's nothing wrong, obviously with being young and stupid. I definitely admire it, but yeah, I look back and I'm like, what the f**k? [00:14:00]
SHEFFIELD: How did I survive this?
CORBETT: Dude! Yeah, there was some moments and like dating where I'm like, why did I go to that dude's house? He could have murdered me.
Yeah, for sure.
Women are getting into the dating manipulation advice game now
SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Well, and then the other thing is that so now we're seeing kind of the, maybe the female equivalent of the incel or pick up artists. that's, starting to become a thing now as well.
CORBETT: I think those women are deranged. They're crazy. And incels have never experienced the life that they're claiming to be going after, or like the sort of men that they're looking for. I love it.
SHEFFIELD: No, I think it's, true because and, like some of them, like this woman named goes by Pearl Davis. I don't even know if that's her real name or whatnot. , they'll go out there and they give all this advice to women and they have never, been married and, or never been [00:15:00] in a long term relationship of any kind, and it's just like.
What do you even know about what you're talking about?
CORBETT: My favorite one is this girl. She looks super weird. I'll start by saying that she kind of looks like a Oompa Loompa and she like,
SHEFFIELD: send me the video so I can put that in.
CORBETT: Yeah, I will. But yeah, she always wears really bad, hair extensions and she just looks , Terrifying.
But she's always I'm a diagnosed sociopath. And as a very attractive diagnosed sociopath, this is what I do to trick men. And I'm sharing my what's it called again? Insights with you. Because I see women that have feelings or whatever. And I want to help my sisters. And I'm like She's, the best one.
To me, she's the best one because she is ridiculous. At least she's honest.
Unidentified Woman: I'm a diagnosed sociopath and this is how [00:16:00] I become an addiction to people. Let's be real, plebs needed addiction. You need to become all they think about, every moment of every day. To do this, they need to be on your schedule, not theirs. If they say 7. 45, it's 9 o'clock. You need to be completely unpredictable.
This is why men say, I've never met a girl like this before. She's different. So I tend to reply pretty quickly. But sometimes I vanish. Especially during a vulnerable conversation. You'd be surprised how scared guys get when they send a risky text. Thanks. You want them to think they've done something wrong.
Once you effortlessly come back, it'll be a massive sense of relief. They'll be grateful to see your name on their screen. It's like killing two birds with one stone. He's thinking about you 24 7. So you've effectively monopolized his time and taken out the competition. When men say that she makes me feel like the most important person in the world, there's a reason for that.
Because when he's with you, You give him 100 percent of your attention. You're not on your phone texting other people, [00:17:00] and you're not losing interest in his boring topics of conversation. When he's with you, he feels like a king. Now, you don't want to look obsessed, so plan your absences. This is when he'll be feeling his lowest.
Trust me, like I've said before, guys don't know the difference between anxiety and butterflies.
CORBETT: I'm like, what? I'm like, okay, coming from this place is way more grounded and real than being I only day to do that has Bugatti sprinkle like that's usually like the vibe
Doesn't make any sense. I find Also, it's hard for female pickup artists to actually Have any ethos because most dudes that are very successful do not want an outspoken woman So the idea of you going online and telling people how to trick men would be repulsive So it's so weird to me I'm, like I don't believe you
SHEFFIELD: Yeah, I don't know.
It's like to me. It's uh modern day [00:18:00] or a newfangled romance novel kind of vibe is what it is because yeah because the stuff they're saying it's not going to work and it doesn't work for them.
CORBETT: On the average man and even if it's like a dude that makes over a hundred thousand dollars like they're saying these prized individuals you're gonna bankrupt them like I will say I'm gonna be honest I feel like it can be toxic.
Like female being female pickup artist thing or whatever, because when I was , Growing up or like not growing up, but when I was in college and stuff, I would consume female rap or listen to these female pickup artists. And I literally, because of it have, I feel so embarrassed to say this, have made multiple of my boyfriends go broke because of it, because they will be like, no, you can just ask for all of these things.
And it's like, Yeah, you can, but [00:19:00] should you, because if someone really likes you, they'll try and make it happen. You know what I mean? And so I feel like it's not grounded in reality. Cause the average man you can't ask for these things. Cause if you do, you really don't care about them as a human being.
That's how I feel.
SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Well, and, yeah, having money as the foundation of your relationship, that's not a good foundation.
CORBETT: Every female pickup artists are like, Money first, love second,
insanity. Obviously money is important, but it just shouldn't be number one,
SHEFFIELD: well, yeah, and what's kind of weird is that, a lot of these people are kind of just, reading old dating books to on the internet or just repurposing them.
CORBETT: Something that's also interesting is like a lot of these female pickup artists will actually be doing things that prostitutes do [00:20:00] like, I saw this video of this girl and she was like, Oh, sometimes I just go to restaurants and try and find men to pay for the bill, which I would never-- that's that gave me anxiety already.
Cause I'm a pretty attractive woman. I've never been at a restaurant and the dude's like, And I'm not eating with the man and he's paid for my entire meal like that's crazy because who is Alone at a nice restaurant, you know what I mean? Like what man is alone? Yeah, what it's usually like a group of people like someone will be with someone so it's like the likelihood of a man seeing you at a table and then paying for your entire bill seems very You really have to try like in a way that You It just wouldn't naturally happen.
And so it was interesting watching this woman she's like eating her steak, whatever. And then looking trying to get this man to pay for everything. And then in the comments of the video, all these women were like, this is a [00:21:00] prostitution. It's called freestyling. This is what we do when we're trying to pick up a john.
And I'm like, this way makes way more sense to me because I could never be so brazen, Asking for things like that. It's crazy.
SHEFFIELD: Well, no and the other thing is like if a guy's sitting there You know in a restaurant by himself eating he's probably working or you know Waiting for somebody to show up or something.
Yeah, he doesn't want to talk to you. He's not interested in other people He's deliberately alone.
CORBETT: And yeah, you're expecting someone to pay for your like 80 meal It's kind of crazy to me if they don't know you, like when a dude buys me a drink. I'm like, Oh my God, this is so much like, you know what I mean?
Cause they don't know me. So it's just weird to me that that is, I feel like, yeah, female pickup artist thing is just finessing. It's just , being like a hunter gatherer, gathering as many items from men as you can versus like a male pickup artist is Hunting for as [00:22:00] many bodies to make your body count rise or whatever.
Some former pickup artists are becoming right-wing religious figures
SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Well, and One of them, his his, he goes by the name Roosh that he was a pickup artist. A lot of these guys, the other weird thing is that they have kind of a, eventually they end up in some sort of weird religious place as well. No, I'm serious. No, cause like, and he's trying to, he's now marketing himself as a spiritual Christian leader or some s**t like that.
And but in a sense it, It flows out of it though, because, they have this hostile, domineering attitude toward women, which they are, they got it from their sort of, secular, sex obsessed viewpoint. And then they discover over time, Oh, Hey, the, the Christian fascists, they also hate women and want to control them.
So, Hey, maybe we have something in common.
CORBETT: That's dark to think about. Yeah, I'm Christian, but I [00:23:00] don't go to church for that reason. I don't think that also if you're Protestant, like realistically speaking, you're Protestant. Martin Luther didn't fight for you to go to f*****g church and have some hack, interpret the Bible for you. This is my thought. Sorry. Rants.
SHEFFIELD: Yeah, that's probably true in his case. Yeah.
Dating apps for Republicans?
SHEFFIELD: and I guess one of the other kind of weird things about the dating environment now is that there is a Republican, there are Republican dating apps now.
CORBETT: I would go on there and scam. That'd be fun.
SHEFFIELD: Well, see, but that's, well, so the one that's out there now, and I, to be honest, like they have had trouble getting women to sign up.
It's called the right stuff. And but you can't get on there unless you have an invite from somebody else.
CORBETT: You can't? [00:24:00]
SHEFFIELD: Yes, you can't.
CORBETT: Republicans, if you're listening, get me a f*****g invite.
SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Well, but it's, interesting though, that, yeah, I mean, why do you think that they've had trouble getting women to sign up for their app?
CORBETT: Why would women be Republican when they can't even get an abortion? If there's a kid killing them inside of their bodies, like that's crazy. Well, obviously it's up to the state, but why would you stay with a party that doesn't respect you as a human being. Also, I find it so weird that people are so fixated on reproductive organs that aren't even theirs.
It's just strange to me because it's like most, yeah, it's just weird to me that, Republicans are fixated on that specific thing. It's a foundation of their party and why it just doesn't align with humanity and it doesn't align with women.
SHEFFIELD: [00:25:00] Yeah. Well, and, the other thing also is I would feel like that if you were, cause There are basically no Republicans who are kind of like non believing women.
Like the women who are Republican are all, fundamentalist Christians, basically. At least the ones that I've known. I have not, I have known one. No, two libertarian women. Two.
CORBETT: Fundamentalist Christians annoy me because then you'll ask them have you read the Bible cover to cover?
And then they're always like, no, I've been meaning to. It's like, b***h, pick a new religion that you could actually read. I'm sorry.
SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Well, okay. but so you think it's just that, that they haven't gotten, they have had trouble getting women to sign up. Because I would feel like the, Republican women that are out there, they are on these, evangelical dating websites or whatever, like that's where they would go.
CORBETT: They get snatched up to not a Republican too. I feel like [00:26:00] don't they get married earlier? It's like they do.
SHEFFIELD: Yeah.
CORBETT: If you're a man, I feel like most men like to get married a little bit later, like in their thirties and I feel like women like to get married younger and in places where they're more conservative women, the dudes are more down to get married at teenage years and stuff like that to find.
I feel like a lot of men that are Republican are looking for women. That basically are not their equivalent, like you generally want a partner that's on par with you, but they want someone that's basically a child and in order to get that they have to , go through different avenues like dating apps.
And I feel like it's sort of hard to find a partner if you're older and you want someone that's traditional, like a traditional woman wants to get married by the time she's like 21. And if you're like [00:27:00] 34, she doesn't want to marry a 34 year old man. It doesn't matter how much money he has.
It's kind of gross. I mean, maybe some are attractive, but it's very rare to see a man. I, know this because I used to have a sugar daddy and I would look at people that were, , in their 30s when I was, , in my early 20s. And I'm like, damn, they're old as f k. So it's like, why do you think a woman like that would want you?
I just feel like they have unrealistic standards. And then they go to these dating apps, expecting to be like these quote unquote, high value men and be able to find a plethora of women. And then they don't realize that it's not only women that get aged out of things like you cannot be old as f**k dating someone young and expect to have a notebook like relationship. It's just not the same thing. In the notebook, they were the same age. So yeah, I just think it's [00:28:00] like people aren't using their critical thinking skills.
SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Well, and then for the women, when they, let's say, get out into their late twenties and, older who are Republican, they got into that setup because, they, themselves maybe were not quite as traditional, were wanting to be submissive and then yet they're in a part, they want to be in a party and find a man who has those values, but. They're not going to want to date a 27 or 32 year old woman who has a grown job and doesn't do whatever they say.
You're out of, you're not what they're looking for. And so a lot of them are really frustrated, it seems like.
CORBETT: Because it's like, Oh man, women that are too young for me don't want me. And women my age are just , b*****s. That's like the perspective for sure. I, I remember I dated this dude that was an incel for a minute and it was almost self inflicted [00:29:00] kind of because he could he just had unrealistic standards and um and he would complain about women his age Trying to , spin the block with him, or hit him up after they had previously rejected him.
And I'm just like, but those are the people you're most likely to be compatible with. Statistically speaking, if there is a year or two in between your ages, you're more likely to stay together, versus someone that is I, was like, maybe six or seven years younger than him. So I was just like, all our incompatibilities could probably be solved if you were literally just dating someone like me, my, a version of myself, older.
SHEFFIELD: A little older, yeah.
CORBETT: Yeah. Because five or six years is vast.
The new and unrealistic obsession with "high value"
SHEFFIELD: And a lot of that is about, unrealistic standards or thinking too highly of yourself in the [00:30:00] dating market, quote, unquote, I think that's the other thing. And I've seen this with a lot of guys that I know that, they're like, Oh, well, I get on these apps and I get matched up with these people and I'm not attracted to them at all and they're not, I don't feel like they're where I'm at. And it's like,
CORBETT: that's your level.
SHEFFIELD: Well, and no, and that's the thing. and, I guess, it's like everyone wants to think that they're above average. But of course, by definition, that's not the case.
CORBETT: No dating apps give you like a numbers. They rate you. I'm someone, like, whenever I go on a dating app, all I do is just put bikini photos. That's all I'm doing. Put bikini photos. And so I always I get a million matches. And I feel like dudes that I don't match with will literally try and hunt me out. Because I didn't swipe on them. They'll find my social media and, like, ask me out there and beg. [00:31:00] And I'm like, there's a reason why we didn't match.
But I feel like men always feel like they deserve more than they realistically can get. from a woman. You know what I mean? Like, specifically in LA, because I live in LA I feel like every dude thinks that they deserve this supermodel woman. And you'll ask them what their job is, and they'll be like, I'm a PA.
Or not like nothing's wrong with being low level or whatever, but also understanding, there's multiple factors to make you a lucrative person today.
SHEFFIELD: Yeah, well, and it's, just the idea because there's this term that everybody is now throwing around, referring to themselves as I'm a high value no woman or a man or whatever. And it's just like,
CORBETT: well, yeah.
SHEFFIELD: And it's like, who does that? It doesn't really help [00:32:00] people to, again, if everybody's above average, then that's not possible. Number one, and not everybody. is, most people are not going to be a high value, whatever. And stop trying to think that you're better than everybody.
I mean, that's ultimately seems like the advice that nobody is out there saying, you're not better than everybody else. And you're not and that, whether it's, physical attractiveness or money or like, those are not. The, ways of having a good foundation of a relationship.
And I think a lot of people, they, still haven't learned that it seems like.
CORBETT: I feel like in general, for both men and women, we're going to see a trend of more people, never having partners and, just being generally dissatisfied. I feel like with AI and stuff like that, I feel like people are just going to go after their ideal man or woman through that versus, actually trying to be with a human being at this point.
That's the vibe that I've been [00:33:00] getting, because I'm friends, with a lot of women that , are obsessed with romance novels. obsessed with really beautiful men and it's like you won't settle for anyone less than an Adonis. And I'm like, I, can't even imagine only dating dudes with six packs.
I don't even know what that would be like. And so I feel like it it goes not only for the incels, but for women as well. I feel like a lot of people are gonna be more chosen to be single. I maybe am biased because, , I work in Hollywood, but I see so many people who are like, I'm too good for everyone, but they're all alone.
But maybe they prefer to be alone than to be You know with anyone and I can respect that to a certain degree. It's not me because I'm needy but some people I can admire that
SHEFFIELD: Well and it is the case, yeah, that definitely the percentage of [00:34:00] people who are married has, has declined quite a bit. So actually in 2022, there was a survey that was done and found that only 45 percent of Americans were married American adults.
So it's the majority that's single now.
CORBETT: Interesting. Yeah. Yeah. That's crazy. I have been someone that's always wanted to be married. So I've always come into relationships with compromise, but I feel like I've definitely as I've dated and talk to my friends who've dated, so many people are way more stringent than me and will not compromise on so many things.
And it's impossible to get married to anyone without compromise. I mean, I guess you can, but you won't be together for very long.
SHEFFIELD: Yeah, no, that's, I think that's a great point in that people yeah, you got, people have to realize that, that you're never going to get everything you want and, and life, you I mean, sometimes you'll have a bad career moment or, you'll have some financial [00:35:00] struggles one way or another.
And if you can't accept that going into it, then, you're going to only have disappointment inevitably.
CORBETT: Yeah, that's so real. But yeah, I just feel like every, like on both sides, everyone has unrealistic expectations. Yeah, viewpoints. Like I always think about that one TikTok mantra, if he wanted to, he would.
And I'm like, what if he can't physically, it's just kind of interesting to me. Everyone has these unrealistic standards, but it's all because of social media, people are , selling the fantasy. And then half the time, people would be like, Oh, actually, that was a horrible relationship. He was like, beating my ass. And you're like, what the F**k, why are you trying to sell people lies then?
I know that if I was dating someone abusive and they were giving me a lot of gifts, I wouldn't go on social media and be like, Oh, I'm living the dream. That's crazy.
SHEFFIELD: Posting [00:36:00] pictures of the gifts, yeah.
CORBETT: Yeah, that's crazy to me. Yeah, it's crazy.
Some healthier advice for dating
SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Yeah. All right. Well, I think we're, let's see, we hit all the things on the outline here. Was there any park any thing you want to go back to or that we didn't cover here yet?
CORBETT: Oh, I want to give dating advice.
SHEFFIELD: Okay. All right. Go for it. What dating advice do you have, Camille?
CORBETT: I am a pickup artist now. My, if you want to date in 2024, You have to be able to compromise. You have to understand what real bodies look like, both male and female, because y'all are delusional and you have to be kind to each other. You can't immediately be competitive and confrontational and be like, well, can you do this and this?
Cause that's just too much. Remember that they are a person, [00:37:00] not an ATM or that they're a person and not a sex doll. But yeah, that's my advice.
SHEFFIELD: All right, well. Sounds good to me. I think that's some, good advice for people. And I guess for people who want to keep tabs on what you're up to, what's your recommendation for that?
CORBETT: I'm @thewittygirl on all social media, and you can also check out my podcast, Smokeshow Show.
SHEFFIELD: All right. It sounds good. Thanks for being here, Camille.
CORBET: Thank you for having me.
SHEFFIELD: All right, so that is the program for today. I appreciate everybody for joining us for the conversation. And of course, you can always get more episodes. If you go to theoryofchange.show, you can get the video, audio, and transcript of all the episodes of this program.
So thank you very much and I'll see you next time.
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Audio Chapters
00:00 — Arizona Supreme Court reinstates 1864 anti-abortion law
07:51 — Donald Trump and Kari Lake are the latest Republicans who won't reveal their radical anti-abortion viewpoints
16:33 — Senate Democrats vow to quickly dispose of sham impeachment of Homeland Security Secretary
19:46 — Right-wing Christians are freaking out about Satan, the eclipse, and earthquakes
26:49 — Oregon ends decriminalization experiment for several hard drugs
29:48 — Beyonce becomes first black woman to top the Billboard country chart
32:20 — New Christian nightclub features Jesus rap and no alcohol or twerking
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Summary
The news is terrible. Americans are extremely divided along political and religious lines, and far-right radicals have completely taken over one of the country’s major political parties. It’s a lot to handle.
And yet, as bad as things are, it’s important to realize that they are improving. Although it may be hard to perceive right now, beginning with Generation X, every single generation of Americans has become successively more tolerant and more willing to update and expand the social safety net in ways that every other industrialized country has done so.
While Generation Z is by far the most active and progressive group of young people in decades, the older Americans who agree with them are going to have to stay in the fight to protect democracy by expanding it.
How do we do that though? It’s a complex question, a significant part of which is getting people with progressive views to be more open about challenging right wing extremism in their communities, families, and institutions, especially religious institutions.
In today’s episode, I’m pleased to welcome John Pavlovitz, he’s a writer, pastor, and activist who has personally experienced being canceled by intolerant Christians a few years ago. He’s since gone on to write several books and has a new one out that we’ll be discussing called “Worth Fighting For: Finding Courage and Compassion When Cruelty is Trending.”
The transcript of our March 15, 2024 conversation is below. Because of its length, some podcast apps and email programs may truncate it. Access the episode page to get the complete text. The video of this episode is available.
--Matthew Sheffield
Theory of Change is part of the Flux network, please support our work and get more content like this by subscribing.
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The Christian right was a theological rebellion against modernity before it became a force for Republicans
Audio Chapters
00:00 — Introduction
07:04 — The mental health crisis lurking behind MAGA
17:48 — Religious fundamentalists have finally realized they do not have facts on their side
28:57 — The challenge of reconciling progressive values with ancient religious texts
33:59 — How to love MAGA relatives while still protecting yourself
40:34 — Understanding what tolerance actually means
42:38 — Religion should be about the values rather than historical narratives
51:39 — The world has changed less than our awareness of it, and this is frightening for people who never really paid attention
01:00:22 — The need for religious and non-religious progressives to unite around common values
Audio Transcript
The following is a machine-generated transcript of the audio that has not been verified. It is provided for convenience purposes only.
MATTHEW SHEFFIELD: So there are a lot of different themes in your book that are worth exploring and I really do think that, and this, this is a theme in some of your other works—that it's easy to see all these terrible things that are happening and conflict. But it's important also that we see more than just that.
JOHN PAVLOVITZ: Right. For sure. I think that it's really easy in the day to day being in the trenches of life and being really up close to so much that we're struggling with. And the news is bombarding us constantly with all the threats and all the things to be worried about.
And there, many of them are valid, but for me, it's always about helping people and myself right-size the threats and to realize that that is only part of the story and that there is so much beautiful work happening in the small and close of all of our lives. And sometimes it's important to remember that the, the agency that we have individually and collectively, and that's what the book and that's what most of my [00:04:00] work is about.
SHEFFIELD: Well, okay. So when you say “right-size,” what do you mean by that?
PAVLOVITZ: Well, I think many of us get up every day and we hop onto social media and we see something that alarms us or worries us and we want people to be informed. And so we share that. And then they, they share it and they repost it and then they comment to us and we get a notification about that.
Then we see it on our timelines again. And so what social media does and what that influx of media can do is artificially enlarge the bad news. So that by 9 a. m, 10 a. m, we've seen the same stories over and over again. So much that it's sort of saturated us and we can get so deflated that by the morning we want to just stop everything.
And it's important, I think, that we remember there are other, there's other evidence. There's other data that we need to take [00:05:00] in and be reminded of that to balance out all of the existential dread that so many of us are feeling.
SHEFFIELD: Yeah, no, that's true. And well, and then also, I mean, you use the word existential and we're actually going to be doing a couple of episodes on theory of change about that later in the year existentialism proper.
But one of the key tenants of of existentialism is that you are the one that's responsible for how you choose to respond to the situation that you live in. And, and you talk about in the book, a lot of people have this belief that somebody's just going to come in out of nowhere and fix everything and save us from this mess. And it's a nice, it's a nice thought, but it's, it's a fantasy.
PAVLOVITZ: It is the, the, the greatest movements in history have been born out of people who looked around, saw [00:06:00] the evidence in front of them, and And decided that as dire or as disconcerting as it may be, there's something that I can do to affect that.
And those 2 sort of resources we have our agency and proximity. We are always somewhere. We always have. Closeness to a community into a group of people and to need and then we have. something that we can do to affect that. It's the idea that the arc of the moral universe, yeah, it is long and it does bend toward justice, but human beings are the arc benders.
We, we have the ability to affect the times in which we live. We're not passive participants in them. And so, whether that comes from a spiritual place or from your own morality or your own sense of identity, That's what I want people to embrace that there is always something you can do. And as you said what happens is is objective reality, but then we editorialize that in our heads and we can [00:07:00] choose how we respond to everything happening around us.
SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Yeah. And what an important part of being able to choose how to respond is. Is sound mental health care for yourself and and that, and that's something that you talk about also that, the, I mean, there is. A mental health crisis, particularly for Trump supporters. And I, it's something that, it's, it's something that really doesn't get addressed in, in most of the mainstream media coverage.
Like they love, sending a reporter on an expedition to a diner in Ohio or a church in Georgia. But they don't actually, really dig beneath the surface other than to simply ask: ‘Well, do you still like him?’ ‘Yeah.’ ‘Okay.’ And nothing beyond, well, what is it that was there inside of you before Trump?
And it's an important question to note [00:08:00] because a lot of people who are, are especially devoted to Trump. They weren't political at all before because they felt like there was nothing, there was nothing there for them. And for, for whatever reason they felt that way there's just this, this profound crisis that a lot of people are in of conservative and reactionary people are having, especially in the red states. And you talk about it.
PAVLOVITZ: Absolutely. And what I find is that when, when we do have media pieces about a Trump supporter and why they're still, we still have adoration for him, why they still support him, it almost is sort of a sideshow image that the media is creating.
But really beneath that, there's a sadness there for me. There's a, an understanding that a whole group of people in our nation. Lacked a sense of community or a sense of belonging so much so that they found in this person [00:09:00] and in this movement, a place where they somehow, as you said, felt that they belonged, even if that they were embraced conditionally, even if they were being, they are being used by a group of people.
And yet. They don't seem to understand that. And that's the saddest part. And what that movement has done, both politically and and religiously, it's leveraged the worst of people's fears and phobias and prejudices. And so you have a group of people who are not just. embracing a movement, but they are being weaponized to fear other people.
And I think the worst of religion and the worst of politics requires an enemy, an encroaching adversary. And that's the mindset that so many people are in. And it's just when people, no one is at their best when they're terrified, I think.
SHEFFIELD: Yeah. No, true. And, and the other thing about it also is that the, the, the sort of panic [00:10:00] response that they're having, it is it, it, it makes them behave well, and they, they're choosing to behave and that's, let's be clear about this.
Everybody has agency, they're, they're responsible for their own actions as well. But, the, the, their actions that they're engaging in oftentimes are so repellent and so, awful that the natural inclination is to just. Get away from me. I want nothing to do with you. You people need to.
Go away and, and, and, and like, and, and, and it's even cropping up especially I think also in terms of, of romance especially between in the, in the heterosexual sphere where, there is a significant political divide that is emerging between women and men. And you see it on, dating.
So I hear from women all the time. They're, they're like: ‘I keep getting approached by these awful Trump men who don't understand what I think at all. And they don't want to understand me and they don't care.’ [00:11:00]
PAVLOVITZ: And that for me, Matthew is the real story here as someone who has worked in-- I've been in local church ministry for three decades, but now doing this work as what I call a collector of stories. And I hear from people, hundreds of people every week. And what has really surfaced from the pandemic. And then from everything of the tribalism, we've sort of been living with for the past 8 years.
This is really a relational crisis. There's the political side of it. And there's the, theological side of it. And aspect with the church, but this really trickles down into the relationships we have with our families and friends and coworkers and neighbors. And that is where we're going to have to reckon with all of this because it's where it settles into really where the rubber meets the road of our lives.
And so many people are living with a, with an extremely different feeling about their, their tribe of affinity that they [00:12:00] used to have.
SHEFFIELD: Yeah. And, and, and a lot of it is. It is, it's the product, it's the product of decay or disinterest by institutions that should have been there for them. And, and and we'll talk about the religion side of it in a second, but you know, like, I think that people who are have a left of center perspective often correctly note that the, the The Republican voters are kind of going against their own interest, to use a phrase that's often used.
But at the same time, they're doing it because they feel that what Republicans are offering them is their interest. In other words, their interest has changed. And so their economic interests may not be benefited, but they have, they have been made to want something different.
And yet at the same time, the anger and angst that they feel is actually the product of the Republican party because they don't actually care about their voters and they don't take care of them in terms of, funding for mental health care or [00:13:00] funding for healthcare period, or, not having job training programs for people who are displaced economically for a variety of reasons, and trying to cut out things like social and emotional learning in schools because, those programs are really, really important right now, especially because a lot of people are not interested in, religious institutions that you have to give them some sort of tools.
To deal with with adversity in their lives, and the right wing is is trying to make people not have those tools.
PAVLOVITZ: That's right. And when you when you inject that fear into a person's emotional systems, and they're going around every day, believing that there are constantly, Adversaries and enemies around them.
And then you have a movement that says, we'll take care of you. It, the details don't really matter. And I think the Republican party has done a great job of creating a mythology that people will simply [00:14:00] embrace. And, and that's, there's, that's a product of things like our critical thinking, breaking down and people's just lack of general knowledge about civics or what's happening in the world.
Or, partisan media, which takes out any bad news or any differing news to the story that they tell themselves. And the end product of all of that is a group of people who will embrace the, the lie that Republicans care for them. And when really there's zero compassion in that movement, and that's what's been Startling to me as a minister for all these years is seeing a cruelty, a movement of cruelty rise up in the evangelical church and in, conservative politics that is simply predatory.
And, and what I'm always trying to let people on the right know is that I'm for them. As well, I'm for their families. I want health care for, for their families as well as my own. I want to clean planet for [00:15:00] them as well as my family. And that's a hard thing in the, in the tribalism to, to hear,
SHEFFIELD: It is. And your point on that is, is really, really important because ultimately, the, the vast amounts of anger and loss and loneliness that, that is really what drives Trumpism it exists because, conservative institutions, they failed in what they were assigned to do. And, and that's a lot of that is on the, is on the, is on the traditionalist church and, and I mean, in terms of that, they haven't learned to evolve with the times.
So, I mean, like in many ways. We're dealing with the, our, our society as a whole is dealing with problems that were controversies that existed in the, in the early 20th century. Like, they, those were problems, that were debated by. Whether it was [00:16:00] Nietzsche, or Kierkegaard, or, these, these early 20th century philosophers, they saw this crisis of meaning much sooner than the rest of the world did, and, and they were writing about it, and, and, and Nietzsche also, I think, people, because of his sister kind of, um, she was basically a Nazi and kind of rebranded him, but you know, like so much of his work was, saying to people, look, what you derive meaning from is over.
And you cannot go back to it. And, I think that, that realization, It took a hundred years for everybody to finally have it. And, or at least in even maybe intellectually, they don't have it, but, but psychically, psychologically, they do have, and that's the moment that we're, that we're having right now.
PAVLOVITZ: It's some days I think for people like myself and possibly for you, many of your, your listeners and, and viewers is that there's a disbelief that [00:17:00] we're, we're Having these conversations and this struggle seems so profound that so many people seem to be pushing back against ideas that we felt like were now fixed parts of our society.
And just even the ideas that someone could marry the person they love, or a woman could have body autonomy voting rights, all of these things that felt like givens and maybe left us feeling a little falsely, that we had made more progress than we had. And, but now there's, there's an awakening, a disbelief that so many people are feeling and trying to decide, how do I find myself in this new environment?
What is my place? Where is my identity? And so it's happening from, both sides of the political aisle per se
.
SHEFFIELD: Yeah, well, and and just to go back to the religion side of things I mean, there is, there's, There's a real crisis. I think that like, I mean, when you look at surveys of Americans, a [00:18:00] large percentages of them have always disbelieved in evolution.
Even though it's been a scientifically proven for more than a hundred years and but it's, it's like, it's finally, They finally realized that they lost this because like before, let's say in the 90s, 2000s when the Internet was, first becoming sort of, completely mainstream and pervasive.
They really thought that the facts were on their side. They really did. And, like Ben Stein, for instance, the the right wing actor, he made a movie called Expelled, No Intelligence Allowed. which purported to, was a case against evolution. And I really actually encourage people to watch that movie because it's, it's so illustrative of this mindset and, but he, he put it out there and they all thought it was so great, but everybody else just laughed at it and thought it was absurd and, and stupid.
And like, That sort of thing [00:19:00] happens, has happened in so many people's lives. Like it used to be the case that people could say, well, like evangelical churches, they had tremendous growth in the United States for many decades, and they were always boasting against.
More mainline Protestantism or Catholicism that, Oh, you guys are headed for the grave. No one likes you anymore. You're losing all these members. We're, we're, we're going to win all this. And things have now actually reversed. That liberal Protestantism is now the one that's growing and evangelicalism fundamentalism is just collapsing.
And you said something, you wrote something in the book that I want to talk about in particular on this point. You said that. Honestly, I don't know if organized Christianity on balance is helpful anymore. I do know is that the compassionate heart of Jesus, I find in the stories told about him is helpful and urgently needed.
How is that perspective kind of terrifying to a lot [00:20:00] of Christians? Would you say?
PAVLOVITZ: What you wrote there, it probably is, but I think it's one of those questions that that many people of faith who are left leaning ask themselves all the time, because what progressive spirituality of any kind really is a willingness, as I say, to fight with and for our faith traditions to be ruthlessly critical of them to challenge them and to trust that the answers are going to be, Something that we can live with, but there is a sense of lostness or, or homelessness that comes when you look at the tradition of your past and you discover realities about it.
And then you have to decide, well, who am I now? And for me as a minister, that was where the journey began really asking hard questions about theology toward sexuality and toward racism and toward gender equity. The answer is I didn't like what I was getting because I had built my whole [00:21:00] life on this myth, this evangelical or this mainstream Christian orthodox understanding, at least in America of, of people's color of the marginalized.
And so now I'm in a place where so many others are is trying to decide how much of this faith can I hold onto? And how much of it do I need to discard? And what do I do with what's left? How do I identify?
SHEFFIELD: Yeah. No, and that, and that, that's what's terrifying, I think, and that's what's driving a lot of this traditionalist Christian rage against everybody that, they don't, they don't want to have these thoughts.
These thoughts are, are dangerous. Mentally, they are, and, and what, or at least they seem that way. Like in my case, I was born and raised in a very fundamentalist Mormon family. And, and I had all those beliefs. I I believed that, I had God, God gave me revelations and I wrote [00:22:00] them down.
I was all in for this stuff. I read the Bible and all the other Mormon books in their entirety by the time I was eight and many times subsequently, so like, I really believed it and But at the same time, so I, I, I left that tradition when I was 27, there were still throughout my, my life up until that point there were always these little things that I noticed along the way and, and people would tell me, don't notice those things.
Don't think about those things. You need to put those away. Those don't matter. You'll find out someday in heaven, God will explain it all. And, and, and that worked for me for a while. But then once I, once I realized it's okay for me to not it's okay for me to decide what I believe is correct.
I don't have to do what other people tell me. And like, that's, I think that that moment for, because many people, for [00:23:00] them The value of religion is, is answers. And it doesn't matter if they're good answers. It doesn't matter if they're healthy answers. It doesn't matter if they're kind answers. What matters is that they're there.
PAVLOVITZ: Well, and exactly. And what I usually say is most people want a shorthand religion. They want a group of scriptures that they can kind of pull out when they need to. They can be told. What they're to think and feel about these big issues and that those things can be settled and they can attend a building for an hour on Sunday and then go on with their lives.
And as I said before, that the existential crisis, most people don't have the time to go through something like that. And it's necessary. And I, I, I didn't intend to be a minister. And so I entered into the church, not realizing that this was going to be a position where I was going to find myself.
And yet it made me keep asking those difficult questions. And you're right. Certainty was sacred in so many of the communities that I was a part of. And [00:24:00] doubt or questioning was some sort of character flaw. And it was only when I really. Realize that whoever and whatever God would be would not be intimidated by my questions.
Only people are intimidated by questions that I pushed into those things and began writing and speaking and preaching about them. And that's when the trouble comes because people are threatened not by something you say. Usually they're threatened by simply saying, well, is that possible? Could you be wrong?
The existence of hell be incompatible with the character of a loving God, and could women be actually equal to men and have their gifts be responded to in a spiritual community? And once you begin upsetting that, that turbulence comes and people will run away from it.
SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Well, and that's because, I mean, for me, I, I think that, that everybody wants to be seen, but most people don't want to be known.
And the one, and the, oftentimes the, [00:25:00] The most terrifying person to be known by is yourself.
PAVLOVITZ: There are those I think speed and activity in our lives can always mask a lot of things. And so when you see people who are running all the time and their lives are busy and they are busy because there's important things happening, but that can also anesthetize us from those deeper things that we don't want to give time to.
And you talked about the sort of mental health crisis. And I've written about what I call the mental health crisis of MAGA America in that, There there's a whole section of our population who not only rejects science, but rejects the idea of therapy and medication and mental health care. And those things are somehow some, moral failings.
And that's contributed to a large group in our population who simply haven't. They don't know how to process their feelings or talk about [00:26:00] their angst, especially men, as you, alluded to earlier, there's a divide here along gender that men have been done a disservice by their politics and their religion.
And it's now being shown tremendously.
SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Yeah. It's, it's really unfortunate because, it's basically making like right wing people often, try to. They talk about sort of the, the product, which is, a decline in marriage rates or decline in birth rates. And they, and they get very upset about it and they blame, almost anything for it, whether it's, chemicals or gay people or, whatever it is immigrants doesn't matter, but like what they, what they don't want to admit is that, that many men, especially let's say 30 and up, they don't have the tools.
To process the reality in which they live and, and, and, and that, and that they don't understand that [00:27:00] when the feminism has won and women are never going to go back and they don't have to go back and they should never go. And so if you can't accept that, then, you're going to have problems in with reality and you're going to hate everyone and you're going to hate yourself.
And that's terrible.
PAVLOVITZ: Sorry. And then there's an irrational response. So it's not really people don't even know why they're angry, what they're angry about. We were at the airport not long ago and it was like one of the news stories. Some man there just got frustrated by whatever he was frustrated by. And he started screaming and ranting and raving and running around.
And singing amazing grace and all these very bizarre things. And I looked at him and people were of course, laughing and filming him. And all I thought was this, this is a 60 year old man who still doesn't understand how to process his emotions and how terrifying and sad is that? And and, and you're right.
When you look [00:28:00] at the often with conservative politics. And religion, I always say that the attack is an inside job. It's a, it's a lack of being willing to look in the mirror and say, well, what are we contributing to this problem? And for me, Compassion and courage are so huge in the book, because I think that's what we're lacking in so many men who are conservative, they, they, empathy is, A lost art and then the ability to offer a differing opinion.
You know what, when I was steeped in the, in the religious world, in that evangelical world, it was so fiercely protected. I always say organized religion and organized crime are very similar because they're fiercely loving when you're on the inside, but there's such a terror of, of being pushed to the periphery or excluded altogether that people will do anything to stay in there.
SHEFFIELD: Yeah, they will. And, and [00:29:00] kind of related to that, to some degree, I feel like also with this religion sort of unprocessed, reality that many churches are dealing with is that, there are progressive religious traditions that they, they, they do support women's equality.
They do support, LGBTQ relationships and identities. But they, but they, they are not telling the full story in that they try to say that the Bible supports these things. And the, the Bible says it's okay to be trans or that, it's okay to be gay. And, if those answers are, they're very unsatisfying for a lot of people. I, and I, I think a lot of progressive people, theologians or ministers, pastors, rabbis, I don't think that they understand that, that when, that when people think that you're lying to them and because the reality is, like these traditions, they're not making it up, like right wing authoritarianism has all kinds of [00:30:00] scriptures that they can cite to and all kinds of historical contexts and all kinds of.
Saintly authorities or commentator authorities. They're not making this up that they And, this is not some invention and people, it didn't come out of nowhere. Like, this is real, and to pretend that it's not, it's insulting, I think.
PAVLOVITZ: And I think that's where you see, for me, Matthew, is over the last few decades, as the religious right has so commandeered, theology, spirituality, religion, a whole group of people who are moderate left leaning and have spiritual inclinations of some sort, have simply quieted and yielded the floor to this one stream of theology.
And because it is a messy thing to say, for example, for myself, I started with simply the six or seven verses that were so used the clobber versus to attack people who are LGBTQ. And I dug deep into [00:31:00] those and studied them to find out what the context was and how they were being used. And I came to find out that they were being weaponized completely inappropriately for the conditions in which they existed.
And yet that didn't just mean I was taking those six or seven verses because now I had to ask questions about the words to either side of those verses and to the books they were a part of and to the entire library of the scriptures. And most people As we've been talking about simply don't want to do that on the right or the left.
It's much, it's difficult to say this massive sprawling thing that I have embraced may not be what I thought it was. And what am I going to do about it?
SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Well, and and, and I don't know, it's just like when you, when you're trying to get into, Bible bashing with people who disagree with you.
Like, I mean, the reality is the Bible is such an immense book. and written by, hundreds of [00:32:00] people literally. And, so it, you can pick out any verse to say whatever you want it to say. And so at a certain point you have to understand that, really what these differences are, they are philosophical differences and they're more than they are theological.
And you have to be willing to admit that. And I think a lot of religious people are not there yet, but clearly you have gotten there.
PAVLOVITZ: And for me, whatever the, I call myself a spiritual mutt at this point, I have been at every sort of spot of belief or place of understanding. And what I've come to the realization, and I think many people have, whether they are religious or not, is that your faith, your spiritual beliefs only exist relationally. That's the only way they, they really manifest themselves. And so your theology is really irrelevant to people, especially younger generations who don't aren't steeped in the stories or the [00:33:00] mythology or the orthodoxy. And they're saying, well, what kind of life are you living?
Because they don't really care what you say you believe. And so your, your theology is only valid to the degree that your life is loving. And. So that for me is where the, where the whole thing nets out. What are people experiencing and what you have in the religious right is a group of people saying.
Well, yes, LGBTQ people are telling us we're hurting them, but we're not hurting them. And the women are saying we're being subjugated and we're saying, no, you're not. And it's, so it's a lack of listening to the oppressed or the maligned or the discriminated against. And simply choosing not to hear them in the name of a God of love.
And so that's where it all begins to break down. And it's just frustrating for someone who is not grown up in that environment to even relate to them. So there is just that, that chasm of communication that exists now.
SHEFFIELD: Uh, [00:34:00] yeah. And, and certainly in the, at the interpersonal level as well. And you talk quite a bit about.
That in the book and a bunch of, of chapters and especially on the idea of, how can you, how can you love someone that is toxic? I think that that's, that is a, a, a thing that a lot of people are struggling with now that, they have relatives who, might be virulently anti gay or, or whatever it is.
And yet they still, they still are there and you still do love them. I mean, so let's tell us a little bit about some of that.
PAVLOVITZ: Well, I mean, gosh, hundreds of times a week, people are sharing their stories with me via email or video chats or texts, and they're saying, this is where I am.
I am married to someone who I've been married to for 37 years and suddenly I don't feel like I know them. And so I never want to be [00:35:00] cavalier with people's deepest relationships and say, well, okay, just say goodbye to them and begin to craft a different kind of community. Sometimes that's necessary. But the truth is.
That's what part of the book is, the fighting for America, for the church, for marginalized communities, but it's also fighting for our relationships, and for the people that have been a part of our families and tribes for, since we were born. Those things aren't easy, but To discard and nor should they be.
So it's trying to figure out in each relational exchange, is this still possible to save where, where is the common ground? Or in some cases, do I just simply have to love someone from a distance and realize I can love and respect their humanity, but not want that kind of relational proximity to them. So it's, it's a daily battle to figure out how to wisely yield, Well, I always tell people we're in the tension between our relationships and our convictions all the time.[00:36:00]
And it's how, when do we choose one versus the other is a real challenge.
SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Well, not to put you on the spot, but what are a couple of stories that kind of illustrate the approach that you are advocating here?
PAVLOVITZ: Well, I've got a, a good friend. Her name is Susan and I talk about her in, in this book.
And during the 2016 and the fallout of the election, Susan said, I'm disheartened by everything I'm seeing and the tribalism and the animosity, and I want to do something about it. So she decided to have a bunch of women over to her house every week to play bridge and have lunch, but to intentionally talk about the topics of the week that were making the news.
And these were women who were Diametrically opposite her theologically and politically, and that was a case where she invited this turbulence very close and for a long period of time, and it's been very difficult. But what she's been sharing now. Seven years into this is that [00:37:00] there there's true relational intimacy happening vulnerability.
That's allowing people to say, here's, here's the heart of where I am. It's not just some drive by social media exchange. It's something substantive. And I think that's the only way we're going to make any headway is really meeting people's humanity and respecting their story and learning that story. I'm a firm believer that the more we get to know a single human being, the better it is to understand them.
We may not like them after that. We may not agree with their politics or their theology anymore, but we're going to see them as a fully complex human being. And I think we continually have to remember that. And also that there are these universal experiences that we're all having, grief, loneliness, and fear, And whether we're to the right or to the left, those forces are always pushing on us.
So if we can recognize the universal grief and loneliness and fear in the other, [00:38:00] maybe we can meet them in a place where we can, we can reach them and have an understanding.
SHEFFIELD: Yeah, well, and one of the other points that you make in this regard though, is that that a lot of times people, you have the expectation that. Love requires physical proximity, and I'm just gonna quote, quote from the book here. You said, you wrote loving another human being doesn't necessitate you placing yourself in harm's way.
It doesn't demand you sustain, sustaining repeated wounds, and it doesn't require you to make peace. With what you cannot abide. The biggest misconception people have about love is that they owe people they care for permanent proximity. They don't. That isn't love's expectation, despite the way we are guilted into believing.
PAVLOVITZ: And, and that idea of love, it's so easily weaponized or the idea of tolerance related to acceptance and love. [00:39:00] I. I hear every day. Well, John, you're from you're a leftist and how you're supposed to be so tolerant. Where's that tolerance when it comes to these things? And it's simply that's a semantic use of words to try and dismiss you.
But for me, it's really about, there are things that I will not tolerate and it's my willingness to dig in and find those hills worth dying on and declare them. I don't want to lose relationships with people I love or people who I've served at my churches. But if that's the cost of my authenticity, and if it creates in me a desire to speak explicitly on these matters and help someone else, then that's, that's worth it for me, because that's the other part of this.
So many decent human beings, I think, are intimidated And they don't want to enter the fray. They don't want to be in that messiness that is required when social change needs to happen. And many people are just [00:40:00] busy or simply too tired. And I respect that. And that idea about love and proximity is important because I think we can all be guilted into believing we have to keep trying when sometimes we're not in that place where we can.
And I, I always want people to respect their, Current condition. There are days when I feel like I can enter that fight or, or try again with a person who I love. And there are days when I can't because it's creating too much toxicity in me and I need to step away. So there's an ebb and flow to this as well.
That's that we need to respond to.
SHEFFIELD: Yeah.
And it's, and the word tolerance is an interesting one because in the, in the denotation that we're using it here it's actually a metaphor. The, the original meaning of tolerance. refers to metal, how it can bend and yet not break but still be hard. And that's That's really what I think is, is what we should think about [00:41:00] tolerance in this modern age here that, you can be as strong in your convictions as you want to be, and you don't have to break them.
But at the same time, in order to exist in some fashion or another, and that's entirely up to you to be able to bend. I think that's. Something we're thinking about
PAVLOVITZ: And, and deciding how, how much will I, will I tolerate in this context? And how much, when does the moment come where I need to separate myself from this?
Because for me, as a minister, I found that there was a dangerous ambiguity that I. That I engaged in because I knew what I felt, but I knew what my people could tolerate and language. And so I would nudge them to a certain point, but I knew if I nudged them here, it would be too much. And that's one of those places we do that in our relationships.
We say, well, I don't know if I can push back here because if I do, it's going to start this whole chain of events and this [00:42:00] conflict. And it's for me, it's really worth it. The key for all of this to me is to humanize the other person. So I can disagree with someone. I can even decide that I need to cut ties with them, but still see their humanity.
It's the moment that I dismiss them or create in them some stereotype or some caricature that dehumanizes them. That's when I've, I'm in a dangerous place because that is what I see on the right so much. They've been able to discard the humanity of so many different kinds of people, and that makes it easier.
To hold the positions they hold and to yield the theology they do.
SHEFFIELD: Yeah, I think so.
And you have a section in the book that you call the church. We really need what what.
PAVLOVITZ: Well, Matthew, this is, these writings come from constantly trying to figure out what, what is the church to us? [00:43:00] And the church for many people of faith, the church with a big C is just the global gathering of people. When I asked that question talked about earlier, is Christianity helpful? It's asking the same thing.
What is, what is the church to people? And there was a story we always told ourselves earlier in our lives that the church did this and did that. And it was the center of the community. And now it's, it's looking and saying, well, what is the, the net result of organized religion? And can we have churches That are known for their empathy, for their generosity, for their diversity, rather than being known as exclusionary predatory environments, which is what they have become to be known by so many people, either because they've experienced them that way, or simply because.
The religious rights prominence has created the false image that that is the only kind of church that exists. So to younger people, to people who have walked away from faith or [00:44:00] never stepped into it, that's made easier by people thinking, well, this is the only kind of Christianity there is. So the questions I'm asking are, as people gather collectively, in a spiritual community, how can they do it in a way that does no harm?
And if we ask those questions, maybe we're going to be better believers in how we practice.
SHEFFIELD: Well, and, and I mean, and specifically, what do you mean by that?
PAVLOVITZ: Well, people will talk about anger, for example, and growing up, I heard about righteous anger, that I, we are Christians, we have righteous anger.
And then I realized, well, everyone who has ever been angry, believes their anger is righteous and their cause is just. And so then. I wanted to replace righteous anger with redemptive anger. So, to say, what is the result of my anger? Does it lead to more people finding acceptance? Does it [00:45:00] yield to civil rights, human rights for more people?
Does it lead to greater compassion? Are more people fed and healed because of The things that I'm driven to do as a part of my faith. And if more people are not helped, I have to seriously ask if this is really worth my time. And the constant question I ask, people of faith is why do you have faith?
Why do you believe it's worth having? And what are the results of your faith that you can point to that it is an asset to humanity? And to be specific. And sometimes they really can't, sometimes it's really the idea of what I always thought the story of religion was, or what I was told faith was it's similar to America.
There, there comes a time when our myths that we grew up with about these things are exposed. And so we have to decide, well, what do I do now? Do I abandon the thing or do I alter the thing so that it is better than it was before or better than [00:46:00] it actually is?
SHEFFIELD: Yeah, well, and again, and then it's another sort of terrifying thing to contemplate, because those types of conflict, like they can exist within yourself within your relationship to somebody else, like, let's say, I mean, in the interpersonal level, discovering a something about somebody that you really didn't know about them. And it's so different from what you had expected and, being able to say, well, is this really why am I mad about this?
Yeah. It really is tough. And that's certainly true within a lot of religious traditions, that what is it that you're there for? Are you there for the values? Or are you there for the history book? And a lot of, I think a lot of religious people need to answer that question in, and they don't want to. It's scary.
PAVLOVITZ: Right. When you, when you answer it, honestly, well, that leads to [00:47:00] It often leads to grief. I talk a lot about grief in grieving the old story, and if we really begin to ask critical questions, and we answer them honestly, as you said, we have access to so much more information than we ever had than our parents had, our grandparents had, and so, We can have a mindset that's more expansive, but along with that comes a grieving of the old story, maybe a letting go of the former community that we were a part of.
And so there, there is, it's a frightening thing to say, even if I'm going to hold on to some sort of personal spirituality, where can I do that now? That makes any sense. Where's my sense of place. And so in my travels in person and online, I'm meeting people who are saying, I simply feel like I've lost. A sense of home in my country, in my church, in my family, and that is a huge societal challenge for all of us.
SHEFFIELD: It is, and [00:48:00] something that is interesting and relevant to that point because of the, horrible legacy of racial segregation in the American Christian community. A lot of white Protestants in particular, they have no familiarity with the black Protestant traditions that exist. And they don't understand that, the black Protestant traditions, they've dealt with a lot of these issues, a hundred years ago, 150 years ago of how can you exist in a world that doesn't agree with you? And that doesn't see you and like there, there's so much incredible theology coming out of the the black tradition and I would really urge, a lot of white Protestants in particular, but if you feel this way, black people have had these problems a lot longer than you have. And you should, you should read what they think about that.
PAVLOVITZ: I think what we use, we hear and see and use the word privilege a lot, but [00:49:00] what privilege is in this context is never having to have had this crisis that says, what, what is the world, what is my faith and how does it.
interact with the world and is the system that I'm a part of creating more harm than it's, than it's alleviating. And that is something that for white people of faith is new for many of us to ask these questions historically, because we've never been challenged to ask them. It's always been the assumption that we're on the right side.
And that's the other thing. There is just a terrifying sense of, wow, I'm, The stuff I've built my life on for decades, it's all up for grabs. And some people's response is to press in and some people's response is to avoid and distract and explain it all away and become hardened. And that's what you see the differences.
I think in the right, [00:50:00] the right is responding to all these questions and challenges and saying, it must be something else. It must be immigrants. It must be LGBTQ people. It can't be. White, cisgender, heterosexual Christians who were born in America and raised Republican. And that's, I can understand why you would avoid that if you fit those categories.
SHEFFIELD: Yeah. It's easy. It's easy to think that way. Yeah. And it's tough to want to recognize that you have advantages. As a person that, have enabled you to avoid thinking certain, that's what it comes down to.
PAVLOVITZ: It does. And we have always had the, the life of least resistance. And so once you have all of these questions and all of this turbulence, you begin to think the world's changing. And it's not that the world is necessarily changing. It's that you're having things revealed to you that were [00:51:00] not revealed to you before.
And that's constantly. Kind of conversations I'm having with even people saying, well, I'm trying to understand sexuality, but it seems like there's so many more people coming out now. Why is that? Well, it's because they're not as terrified in some cases as they used to be, and they're learning. Society is learning how to accept a more diverse understanding of sexuality and gender orientation, all those things.
And so, that's the other part of this. It's helping people see that this is not something new that's suddenly happening. You're just seeing it for the first time and there's going to be some difficulty in even in that.
SHEFFIELD: Yeah. Yeah. No, it's no, that's a great point that the world, to the extent that it's changing, the things have not changed as much as so much as your perception has expanded is really what it comes down to. And for me, when I left Mormonism, like that, that was really the thing that, that I can relate to that because, I had been, [00:52:00] because for Mormons, you're instructed to never read anything critical of the church . It's worse than marital infidelity in many cases and to read it, to read a, a former Mormon's book or something like that. And it's advantageous to the church or, the local leaders to say things like that. And understanding that people have an incentive to tell you not to read other people like that.
That's the thing that is always interesting to me. I always hear people say, well, you don't want to debate my ideas. You don't want to talk to me. I'm getting canceled for saying things. And they don't understand that. Well, actually people debated your ideas a hundred years ago and you're a side boss. And so we don't need, we don't need to hear your, your, your you don't, we don't need to have your ideas about, the 6, 000 year old earth and the schools.
We don't need to have your ideas about that homosexuality doesn't exist or that trans people are not real. It's just a mental illness. We don't need those things because. Transgender people have been [00:53:00] around, since the beginning of humanity and, and there is ample historical record to indicate that and, but you just don't know about it.
And your ignorance is not an argument is what it comes down to.
PAVLOVITZ: That's right. And for years, I think, Especially a white male Christian was used to being able to speak their minds unabated and unchallenged. And, and, and even when you look at the evangelical church, I think we've been closely tied to many organizations that are doing, who are now really instrumental in perpetuating this toxic Christianity, your, your Franklin Graham's, your things like that.
And what are found in those places. Was that they, they simply didn't allow, I speak all over the country. I have for a decade now doing this work. I've been invited by progressive churches, by humanist conferences, by [00:54:00] synagogues and mosques and atheist conventions, but I rarely. Really almost never been invited by a conservative church to come and simply have a discussion about the things we're talking about today, because there is such a control that's being exerted over the people there because they're terrified
SHEFFIELD: of you're terrifying.
Yeah, yeah, terrifying. That's really what it comes down to. And. But they're, and they're so scared of you that they can't even say that also.
Like,
PAVLOVITZ: yeah, that's right.
SHEFFIELD: Is the, like there, there are, are all these people out there that, are making millions and millions of dollars saying, Oh, I was a former progressive. And now, I love Donald Trump, like, Matt Tybee, or, some of these other out there and they never want to have actual debates with anyone. And the same thing is true, in the evangelical world, same thing is true in the, in the Mormon world. None of these people actually want to have a discussion of ideas.
What they want to do is [00:55:00] bully and call it an argument.
PAVLOVITZ: That's right.
They want to have a. Be in front of people and have a monologue that just hits the person over and over again with the talk, with the talking points and the critiques that they've gotten so used to throwing out there in social media world, and they don't really want to have a conversation.
And that's the sad thing for me, being someone who still has a heart for some of the tradition that I come out of. It's realizing that It's actually a better place. I want people to experience that expansive understanding of the world that you, you can ask questions. You can challenge ideas and it's okay.
And it's looking at a group of people who simply have sidestepped that altogether is just really sad to me because it means you really don't believe. What you say, you believe you're actually really worried. I talk a lot about how conservative Christians talk about this God who is [00:56:00] so all knowing and all powerful.
And yet that God seems really neutered because they're so terrified of everything. And if God were as powerful and loving as they say God is, there wouldn't be as much to worry about as they seem to be.
SHEFFIELD: Yeah, no, absolutely. Well, and let's maybe end on two points here that trying to have that, that dialogue and, and being willing to, somebody who is, um, religious progressive I think a lot of religious progressives, they, and, and people would have told me that, that this was their viewpoint.
PAVLOVITZ: So I'm not just, making it up, but, and I'm interested in, and if you've heard this as well, but, Like a lot of religious progressives seem to think that, well, people will figure it out on their own. They will see that I'm right. And I don't have to advocate against these other people because they're just so obviously wrong.
And, and when people look at my material, they'll see that I'm right. And they don't understand that number [00:57:00] one, the, the followers of these people will never see your material unless you bring it to them. And then number two, why would you want to consign people to these, toxic churches where they are manipulated, where their money is stolen from them, where they are lied to, where their epistemologies are destroyed.
You Why would, do you, did you have any compassion for your fellow Christian? Aren't you concerned about them? Wouldn't you wanna save them? They deserve to be saved, don't they? That's what I would say
it, it's, yeah. Go ahead, Matthew. It's, it's the, it's that, but it's also, there's a point where I might allow someone to remain in their, their ignorance, intellectual ignorance or their.
They're toxic theology, and it's one thing to leave them with it, but I'm also leaving generations of people that they're existing around and damaging and influencing. So there's also that part about it to see for me, I [00:58:00] I've been so grateful for the power of social media because I was simply writing some words and those words were released into the world and those words could find the people they needed to find and challenge them.
And that's what I've, I've discovered is I need to speak specifically, not just to change the mind of the bully, but to stand with the people who are being bullied. So there's a, there's a dual purpose to the work we do in the world in this way.
Yeah. And, and I would say, for, I mean, people can, they're entitled to believe whatever they want.
And, but for, if you are, people need to, who are, our, our political struggles so much are the product of the fact that people do not distinguish between, Authoritarianism and conservatism. And it's the conservatives who, who allow this, their identity to be stolen. They have allowed, authoritarians to pretend to say, oh, I'm a conservative.
They have allowed that to [00:59:00] happen. And, and as a result, they've, they've taken over and they bullied the conservatives to be this little tiny rump. Of nothingness in the Republican party. And, they canceled and destroyed conservative evangelicalism and just stamped it out of existence almost.
And because the conservatives didn't stand up for themselves. So like, that is one thing that I do appreciate that you're doing to say, look, guys. Do you value your ideas? So you need to fight for them. Because no one's going to do it for you. And if you don't, you're going to lose
for sure. Yes. And, and they're, and they're seeing that, I think if the 2016 election goes differently, this.
Conservative religious evangelical right wing Frankenstein monster was on its last legs. And what it had been has been given over the past few years is a power and a voice that it hadn't really had. And I think if we can survive this time and get past this sort of [01:00:00] urgency, younger people, as we've been talking about, they're going They're decided these issues of gender equality and sexuality and race, so they're not going to be bogged down by those things.
And if we could just steward the nation and the world to keep them, having control over their bodies and their votes. Then I think we're going to be in good shape.
SHEFFIELD: Yeah, no, I think so. I think so. And let's maybe end with the topic of non religion. So, you're still a believer in God but a lot of people aren't, and, I think a lot of people who are not religious, they have a faith of their own that religion is just going to go away, and everything will be perfect after that happens.
And it is really naive because religion isn't going to go away. You're not going to get rid of it. It's not going to be destroyed on its own or ever. Probably people want to believe in a higher power for whatever reason, it seems evolutionarily we [01:01:00] are wired in some way, so many of us are. And so you have to realize that in the same way that right wing atheists have understood that, they need to make common cause with right wing believers, I think left wing atheists need to understand that as well. So you've, you've mentioned some of your experience on that, but let's maybe talk about
that a bit here.
PAVLOVITZ: I think that's been the most gratifying part about doing the work that I do is. Is creating the writing has become a hub for people who may be religious and non religious, but they're saying, Hey, there's enough here that we agree upon that we can formulate a sense of community. And those are things about, the fragility of humanity and the, the.
The interdependence that we all are a part of. And so those are really, whether you're a theist or not, whether you have spiritual leanings or you don't, we, we can align around things that are redemptive and productive. And so [01:02:00] that's, what's going to have to happen because this is not a, the fight is not religion versus atheism and it's not progressive Christianity versus conservative Christianity.
It's, I think, Empathy versus cruelty. It's, can we see our neighbor as a part of that? We're tethered together or that were enemies that were separate. And that's what you see. That's what we're fighting for is a group of a community that says we actually are better together than we are separately.
And those divisions are never going to be healthy. And so that's the work that I'm trying to do with the, with the book and with the writing and everything I do.
SHEFFIELD: All right. So yeah, it's been a great conversation, John. So for people who want to keep up with you, what are your recommendations for that?
PAVLOVITZ: Well, once you know how to spell my name, which is P A V L O V I T Z, there's not a lot of John Pavlovitz's around.
You can pretty much find me on any platform that you need to. I'm [01:03:00] kind of everywhere and would just look forward to conversations and, and questions and dialogue.
SHEFFIELD: Okay, awesome. All right. Well, thanks for being here today.
PAVLOVITZ: Thank you. Such a great pleasure. Matthew.
SHEFFIELD: Thanks for joining us for this conversation. You can always get more if you go to theoryofchange. show, where we have the video, audio, and transcript of the episodes.
And if you're a paid subscribing member, thank you very much. You have unlimited access to the archives. And if you can't afford to subscribe right now, I understand. very much. You can help out the show. Nonetheless, if you go to Apple podcast or Spotify and leave a nice review there, five stars as short as you want just some sort of writing on it.
That is really helpful to get people to get recommended to watch or listen to Theory of Change.
So that will do it for this episode. I hope you'll join me next time. I'm Matthew Sheffield.
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Audio Chapters
00:00 — Trump trashes judge's daughter, gets slapped with gag order in Stormy Daniels case
05:53 — Stock of parent company of "Truth Social" collapses after disclosure it lost $58 million last year
12:41 — GOP congressman says Gaza should be treated "like Nagasaki and Hiroshima"
13:58 — Does the majority of Americans realize that right-wingers declared a "culture war" on us?
18:34 — Far-right Christian attorney John Eastman disbarred in California for trying to overthrow the 2020 election
21:52 — Rudy Giuliani tells bankruptcy judge he needs $3.5 million condo for podcasting space
24:49 — Patricia Richardson denies Tim Allen's claims of a "Home Improvement" reboot
28:51 — Lara Trump releases another godawful country music cover
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