Latest / V / Welcome to Boulder: Gun-Free, Pride-Obsessed, and Terror-Prone (Ep.216)

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Welcome to Boulder: Gun-Free, Pride-Obsessed, and Terror-Prone (Ep.216) · V

0:11
Speaker 1: On Sunday in Bowler, Colorado, a peaceful weekly walk organized
0:17
Speaker 1: by Run for Their Lives to advocate for the release
0:20
Speaker 1: of the Israeli hostages turned into a terrifying terror attack.
0:26
Speaker 1: Mohamed Sabri Solomon, a 45-year-old Egyptian national, unleashed a makeshift
0:33
Speaker 1: flamethrower and Molotov cocktails upon the demonstrators injuring 13 individuals,
0:38
Speaker 1: including an 88-year-old Holocaust survivor. Eyewitnesses reported Solomon shouting free
0:44
Speaker 1: Palestine during the assault. Solomon entered the United States on
0:48
Speaker 1: a B-2 tourist visa in August 2022. And although his
0:52
Speaker 1: visa expired in February 2023, he has remained in this country,
0:57
Speaker 1: having applied for asylum, a process that allows him to
1:00
Speaker 1: stay while his application is pending. Now, during this time,
1:04
Speaker 1: he actually meticulously planned out this attack, expressing a desire
1:09
Speaker 1: to target what he referred to as a Zionist group.
1:14
Speaker 1: As one person put on X, a scenario that would
1:17
Speaker 1: have been rejected as a right-wing mad lib fever dream
1:22
Speaker 1: is what took place on Sunday. You have Muslim illegal
1:25
Speaker 1: immigrant in Democrat-run sanctuary city firebombing a Jewish parade near
1:31
Speaker 1: a courthouse flying the trans pride flag. You can't make
1:35
Speaker 1: this stuff up. Michael, I think we have a picture
1:37
Speaker 1: of that image with the trans flag in the background.
1:40
Speaker 1: You really can't. And what's more disturbing to me is
1:45
Speaker 1: it's illegal to carry a firearm in the area of Boulder, Colorado,
1:48
Speaker 1: where the terror attack occurred. So gun control laws prevented
1:52
Speaker 1: law-abiding citizens from defending themselves. Just like Coloradans were forced
1:58
Speaker 1: to stand by as a gang of illegals took over
2:00
Speaker 1: an apartment complex and started charging rent, there seems to
2:04
Speaker 1: be a pattern in this state. I want to talk
2:08
Speaker 1: about this and a lot more with the wonderful Emily Jasinski,
2:11
Speaker 1: former colleague of mine. But first, I want to get
2:13
Speaker 1: to some sponsors. Let's get them out of the way.
2:14
Speaker 1: These guys are amazing. And by the way, they are
2:16
Speaker 1: not participating in the pride, the rainbow capitalism, the bombardment
2:22
Speaker 1: of pride in the month of June. These are good
2:24
Speaker 1: guys who actually share our values. All right, let's bring
2:27
Speaker 1: in DC correspondent for UnHerd, host of the Undercurrents podcast,
2:31
Speaker 1: co-host of CounterPoints. This lady has a lot of jobs.
2:34
Speaker 1: Emily Jasinski, thank you for being here.
2:37
Speaker 2: Thanks for having me, Evita.
2:38
Speaker 1: It's been a while since I've had you on, but
2:40
Speaker 1: it's always fun because we can talk about politics, but
2:42
Speaker 1: we can also talk about culture. So we're going to
2:44
Speaker 1: get into some politics today. But for all of you listening,
2:47
Speaker 1: stay tuned because I have some culture topics to get
2:49
Speaker 1: into with Emily at the end of the show. She
2:52
Speaker 1: was the culture editor at The Federalist when I was there,
2:54
Speaker 1: so it's only appropriate. All right, Emily, I want to
2:57
Speaker 1: talk about this attack that happened over the weekend. I
3:00
Speaker 1: feel like this is actually what Democrats are all about,
3:03
Speaker 1: like illegal immigrant terrorism, pride flags, restrictive gun laws, like
3:07
Speaker 1: leaving the innocent completely vulnerable. It seems like a perfect
3:11
Speaker 1: snapshot of what they want the rest of the country
3:13
Speaker 1: to be.
3:14
Speaker 2: Well, actually, on a cultural note, one of the things
3:16
Speaker 2: that struck me about that video is how long the
3:20
Speaker 2: alleged attacker in this case is standing around. He's just
3:24
Speaker 2: milling around the crowd, and nobody, I mean, no men
3:28
Speaker 2: are tackling him. How long does it take law enforcement
3:31
Speaker 2: to respond to this? First of all, they know this
3:33
Speaker 2: is an extremely politically charged movement that was being represented
3:38
Speaker 2: by the demonstrators, so they didn't think to maybe have
3:41
Speaker 2: extra protection against And nobody was able to stop this
3:45
Speaker 2: man from, you know, maybe it was stopped before. We're
3:49
Speaker 2: still learning more details. I mean, maybe the attack was
3:51
Speaker 2: stopped before more damage could be done. But so many
3:54
Speaker 2: people were injured. A Holocaust survivor was one of the
3:59
Speaker 2: people injured by this man. And my first reaction watching
4:03
Speaker 2: that video, Evita, was, wow. Why is this guy walking
4:07
Speaker 2: around shirtless being filmed by so many people? Why are
4:12
Speaker 2: bystanders who have their cameras up not tackling him, making
4:16
Speaker 2: sure he doesn't get away? To me, the video is
4:19
Speaker 2: disturbing for that reason as well.
4:22
Speaker 1: Well, I couldn't agree more, Emily. But I also wonder
4:24
Speaker 1: if this is what's to be expected now in America.
4:27
Speaker 1: Because this is, I mean, look at what happened to
4:29
Speaker 1: Daniel Penny in New York. I mean, this is a
4:31
Speaker 1: guy who he stepped in. He saved the people who
4:34
Speaker 1: were around him from this crazy guy, Jordan Neely, who
4:37
Speaker 1: was saying, I'm going to kill everybody on this subway.
4:40
Speaker 1: And he was having a schizophrenic episode. He puts his hand,
4:45
Speaker 1: he puts him in a chokehold to try and subdue him.
4:48
Speaker 1: And actually, Michael does jujitsu now, my husband does. And
4:52
Speaker 1: he was saying what happened was really that he was
4:55
Speaker 1: having too loose of a grip on this guy, and
4:58
Speaker 1: that's probably why he ended up dying, because he didn't
5:00
Speaker 1: pass out. If he had passed out because he had
5:03
Speaker 1: had a really sturdy chokehold on him. So it suggests
5:08
Speaker 1: that perhaps actually Daniel Penny was trying to keep him
5:12
Speaker 1: alive and just didn't have the right technique here. But
5:15
Speaker 1: the point is that there's a chilling effect for young
5:18
Speaker 1: men in America to not stand up for regular citizens
5:23
Speaker 1: to not protect the innocent and the weak because they'll
5:26
Speaker 1: get punished for it.
5:28
Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's very true. And your point about
5:30
Speaker 2: the gun control laws in Boulder, I think, is extremely
5:33
Speaker 2: relevant as well. If you come from a part of
5:36
Speaker 2: the country where people, it's normal for good guys with
5:41
Speaker 2: guns to be protecting their community. It's always bizarre to
5:45
Speaker 2: watch videos like this. Evita, you and I are both
5:47
Speaker 2: from Wisconsin, so we're from that part of the country.
5:50
Speaker 2: We watch videos like this. And it's just, it's strange
5:53
Speaker 2: that people would feel safe when you see, again, a
5:57
Speaker 2: man able to get away to carry out this attack,
6:00
Speaker 2: infuriating that he came during the Biden years and actually
6:03
Speaker 2: had overstayed a visa and not been apprehended by this
6:08
Speaker 2: current DHS, not been apprehended by this administration. He's about
6:12
Speaker 2: two months at the point of the attack overstaying on
6:15
Speaker 2: the visa. That's outrageous. It's obviously a lot of work
6:20
Speaker 2: to get through all of the people who came, overstayed,
6:23
Speaker 2: should never have been here in the first place during
6:24
Speaker 2: the Biden administration. But this man, for two months, has
6:29
Speaker 2: been in the country on an overstayed visa. And in
6:31
Speaker 2: that time period, it seems that nobody was paying attention
6:34
Speaker 2: to what his terroristic goals were. And that's just, I mean,
6:39
Speaker 2: how do people feel safe? They don't. I mean, not
6:42
Speaker 2: only what you just said, do you have Those videos
6:44
Speaker 2: of Daniel Penny and Jordan Neely, the chill men who
6:48
Speaker 2: may want to intervene. But we also have strict gun
6:52
Speaker 2: control laws in some of these cities and people roaming
6:55
Speaker 2: the streets that don't belong here and are not part
6:59
Speaker 2: of the fabric of civil society.
7:02
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think that a lot of Trump supporters, and
7:05
Speaker 1: we've talked about this on the show, there seems to
7:07
Speaker 1: be some frustration in what was promised and what's being delivered.
7:10
Speaker 1: We were promised mass deportations. There's been studies that have
7:13
Speaker 1: shown the majority of Americans want mass deportation, not just
7:18
Speaker 1: of people who have committed heinous crimes while they're here.
7:20
Speaker 1: So certainly the rapists and the murderers, but actually what
7:24
Speaker 1: the American people want is everyone who's here illegally gone
7:28
Speaker 1: because of course this devalues labor. It also just makes
7:31
Speaker 1: our country less safe. This guy is somebody who might
7:34
Speaker 1: not have committed a terror attack in the past, but
7:37
Speaker 1: he's here unvetted. And so anybody who's here unvetted is
7:40
Speaker 1: a threat to this country. And we're not seeing the
7:43
Speaker 1: number of deportations that I think a lot of people
7:45
Speaker 1: are hoping for. Now, the Trump admin has responded to
7:49
Speaker 1: this in a way that I think is meant to
7:52
Speaker 1: bolster other Trump deportation policies. So Trump responded on X
7:57
Speaker 1: to this attack. He said, this is yet another example
8:00
Speaker 1: of why we must keep our borders secure and deport
8:04
Speaker 1: illegal anti-American radicals from our homeland. So a lot of
8:08
Speaker 1: people are arguing, especially people in the Trump admin, that
8:12
Speaker 1: this attack gives a lot of credence to the administration's
8:14
Speaker 1: deportation of pro-Palestine activists here on student visas, people who
8:20
Speaker 1: the Trump admins say hold values that are incompatible with
8:24
Speaker 1: the United States of America. Now, some people say there's
8:26
Speaker 1: a difference, right, between those who support and engage in
8:29
Speaker 1: violence and those who simply sympathize with Palestinians. So, for example,
8:34
Speaker 1: back in March, DHS officials arrested Palestinian Lekha Kordia, who
8:39
Speaker 1: came to the United States to study at Columbia. And
8:42
Speaker 1: she had not only overstayed her expired visa, but she
8:45
Speaker 1: also was previously arrested for her role in violent pro-Palestine
8:50
Speaker 1: protests at Columbia last year. So that's one case. But
8:53
Speaker 1: then you have, by contrast, Mohammed Khalil, who was arrested
8:57
Speaker 1: again in March, was a legal U.S. permanent resident, Columbia
9:02
Speaker 1: University graduate student. He has no criminal charges or prior arrests.
9:07
Speaker 1: And the Trump admin is claiming kind of seemingly without
9:09
Speaker 1: evidence that he supports Hamas and distributed propaganda. But others
9:13
Speaker 1: are saying that his role on campus was simply to
9:17
Speaker 1: peacefully negotiate between the two sides. So I guess, Emily,
9:20
Speaker 1: all this is to say that a lot of people
9:23
Speaker 1: have differing opinions on who should be allowed to stay
9:26
Speaker 1: in this country. And is there a difference between somebody
9:29
Speaker 1: who's here and overstayed a visa and we haven't vetted
9:31
Speaker 1: them versus a legal resident who that the admin is
9:34
Speaker 1: saying shouldn't be here because they're a threat to this
9:37
Speaker 1: country based off of what I would say is probably
9:39
Speaker 1: First Amendment protected speech and beliefs. But they'll say, right,
9:43
Speaker 1: it gets complicated because they'll say, well, you're not entitled
9:46
Speaker 1: to those if you're not a U.S.
9:47
Speaker 3: Citizen.
9:48
Speaker 1: So I don't know, Emily, I want to get your
9:49
Speaker 1: thoughts on this. Do you think that this attack bolsters
9:52
Speaker 1: the admin's justification for the deportation of foreign students? No.
9:59
Speaker 2: So I think in a broad sense, there's an argument
10:02
Speaker 2: to be made that when you have such open immigration
10:06
Speaker 2: policies as we do, then you end up importing a
10:11
Speaker 2: lot of conflicts from around the world that are extremely
10:15
Speaker 2: emotional to people in those corners of the world that
10:17
Speaker 2: then play out on American soil. So in a very
10:21
Speaker 2: broad sense, I think yes is the answer to that question.
10:24
Speaker 2: But I'm a firm no in the micro sense, which
10:28
Speaker 2: is that if you are deporting Mahmoud Khalil on the
10:31
Speaker 2: grounds or Rumeysa Ozturk on the grounds that they were
10:35
Speaker 2: in some ways harming American foreign policy, that's what's been cited.
10:40
Speaker 2: And in the case of Ozturk, the only evidence that's
10:42
Speaker 2: been supplied is an op-ed. In the case of Khalil,
10:45
Speaker 2: there is no evidence of him being a part of
10:47
Speaker 2: those awful, insane, violent Columbia protests. He was an organizer,
10:51
Speaker 2: as far as everyone can tell, now months into this controversy,
10:54
Speaker 2: only of peaceful demonstrations. So all that is to say,
10:58
Speaker 2: the way we treat people who are non-citizens and their
11:02
Speaker 2: civil liberties, that is going to apply to American citizens
11:05
Speaker 2: at some point, too, who happen to disagree with the
11:08
Speaker 2: administration's policy of what constitutes a threat to U.S. foreign policy.
11:13
Speaker 2: So that's really serious. I mean, there was an example
11:16
Speaker 2: going fairly viral back in the early days of the
11:18
Speaker 2: Khalil controversy, which is, what if Joe Biden had deported
11:22
Speaker 2: Jordan Peterson because he was a bigot over the way
11:25
Speaker 2: he thought about transgenderism? We have to really, really guard.
11:31
Speaker 2: I think we learned over the last five years, we
11:33
Speaker 2: have to guard our civil liberties so dangerously or so preciously,
11:38
Speaker 2: even when It's least convenient and even when it's hardest.
11:42
Speaker 2: So I don't agree that this somehow goes into that argument.
11:46
Speaker 2: I do, though, agree that we have to be extremely
11:50
Speaker 2: careful about looking at why people want to come to
11:55
Speaker 2: the United States. Are people coming to the United States
11:58
Speaker 2: specifically to undermine the United States? That's a legitimate question.
12:03
Speaker 2: I don't think it applies in the case of Mahmoud
12:05
Speaker 2: Khalil or Ramiza Ozturk. But I think it does apply
12:08
Speaker 2: in the case of many thousands of people who have
12:10
Speaker 2: come into the country over the last five, 10 years
12:12
Speaker 2: and have been lost, just like this alleged perpetrator was
12:17
Speaker 2: lost in the shadows of society, overstaying a visa for
12:20
Speaker 2: two months. Nobody seems to have any eyes on him.
12:23
Speaker 2: That has happened hundreds of times, likely thousands of times,
12:27
Speaker 2: with people who are potentially violent. We have enough problems
12:30
Speaker 2: in our country with violence. We have enough problems in
12:33
Speaker 2: our country that we do not need more people who
12:36
Speaker 2: are non-citizens preying on citizens. So it's infuriating. And I
12:41
Speaker 2: understand why people say this is an example of why
12:45
Speaker 2: anybody who's pro-Palestine is undermining U.S. foreign policy. But that
12:50
Speaker 2: does a grave disservice, I think, to the many, many
12:54
Speaker 2: American citizens, as much as we may disagree with them,
12:56
Speaker 2: who are just on the other side of this issue
12:59
Speaker 2: and abhor violence as much as anyone else.
13:02
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think, Emily, that there is definitely some nuance
13:06
Speaker 1: to this conversation because I totally agree we have to
13:09
Speaker 1: safeguard the rights and the liberties of American citizens. This
13:13
Speaker 1: can have a chilling effect. And in fact, in the
13:15
Speaker 1: negotiations that the Trump admin has had between Columbia and
13:18
Speaker 1: Harvard and some other schools is that in addition to
13:22
Speaker 1: things that we do like, like getting rid of DEI
13:26
Speaker 1: and putting back merit-based hiring practices, that these schools will
13:29
Speaker 1: have to implement IHRA speech codes, which essentially say, if
13:33
Speaker 1: you are at this university, it is potentially against the
13:38
Speaker 1: school rules to criticize the Israeli government. I personally think
13:43
Speaker 1: that a better way of figuring out who here in
13:46
Speaker 1: this country on a student visa or any kind of
13:48
Speaker 1: visa is anti-American is not whether they participated in the
13:52
Speaker 1: protests last year at Columbia University, But whether they participated
13:57
Speaker 1: in the BLM riots in 2020, which were explicitly anti-American.
14:01
Speaker 1: This was an anti-American movement that lit the entire country
14:06
Speaker 1: on fire in the summer of love. We had an
14:09
Speaker 1: autonomous zone set up in left-wing cities. I mean, it
14:15
Speaker 1: was just astounding the way that we saw statues of
14:19
Speaker 1: George Washington torn down, churches burnt to the ground. Just
14:23
Speaker 1: our entire founding under attack. And there hasn't been the
14:26
Speaker 1: same kind of, I guess, address of that attack versus
14:31
Speaker 1: the one last year. So something to think about. I
14:34
Speaker 1: also want to get your reaction to this, Emily, because
14:37
Speaker 1: former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, he's apparently still giving commentary.
14:42
Speaker 1: I don't know why. But he went on on the
14:45
Speaker 1: news recently to say that the FBI was just too
14:48
Speaker 1: quick to call the attack on the Jew's On Sunday
14:52
Speaker 1: as an act of terror. I want to get your
14:54
Speaker 1: reaction to this. Emily, take a listen.
14:56
Speaker 4: This is the sort of thing that the FBI really
14:58
Speaker 4: can help out the local police department with providing manpower,
15:01
Speaker 4: technology and resources to do that sort of work. That's
15:05
Speaker 4: what the FBI does. We don't step in and take
15:08
Speaker 4: over and draw conclusions five minutes after the attack about
15:11
Speaker 4: what happened. We reach out to the local authorities. We
15:14
Speaker 4: provide people and we offer assistance in any way that
15:18
Speaker 4: we can. The Bureau is there to help the first responders.
15:23
Speaker 1: Thank you so much to both of you. One thing
15:24
Speaker 1: we know for sure, certainly thinking about these victims and
15:27
Speaker 1: their families. Just for the audience's context, this is a
15:29
Speaker 1: Russia hoaxer, Andrew McCabe, somebody who lied under oath to
15:32
Speaker 1: try to start a coup. I don't know why he's
15:35
Speaker 1: giving the FBI advice. I think the guy should be
15:37
Speaker 1: in prison. But Emily, I'm just kind of shocked by
15:40
Speaker 1: this response because a Biden admin, an Obama admin will
15:46
Speaker 1: immediately say that any kind of attack against somebody who
15:50
Speaker 1: happens to be black, brown, or gay is a racially
15:54
Speaker 1: or sexual orientation targeted attack. And somehow when it is
16:01
Speaker 1: about antisemitism or Jews, we're like, no, no, no, we
16:04
Speaker 1: can't call this a targeted attack. We have to take
16:07
Speaker 1: a lot of time before we say that it is
16:10
Speaker 1: a hate crime or it's a terror attack. What are
16:13
Speaker 1: your thoughts on this, Emily, and just the difference, it seems,
16:16
Speaker 1: the disparity in how we respond to events based on
16:20
Speaker 1: seemingly immutable qualities?
16:22
Speaker 2: This is completely insane. And that CNN clip also had
16:26
Speaker 2: one of CNN's analysts, I think on criminal justice, who
16:30
Speaker 2: was sitting next to, if people were watching, Andy McCabe
16:32
Speaker 2: in the box, who made the same argument, but even
16:36
Speaker 2: more vociferously in that segment. about how the FBI rushed
16:42
Speaker 2: to judgment in this situation, got ahead of local law enforcement.
16:46
Speaker 2: But what's outrageous is that local law enforcement said they
16:50
Speaker 2: were waiting for the facts to come in when this
16:53
Speaker 2: particular case, you have literally video instantaneously being recorded and posted.
16:59
Speaker 2: of a man saying that he was terrorizing people for
17:02
Speaker 2: a political goal, that he was committing violence for a
17:06
Speaker 2: political cause. That's the definition of terrorism and it was
17:10
Speaker 2: on video immediately. It would be malpractice not to say
17:14
Speaker 2: that you were investigating this as an act of terror.
17:17
Speaker 2: Whether or not local law enforcement was willing to do
17:21
Speaker 2: that because they're worried about being in a blue city
17:25
Speaker 2: and responding to their blue constituents, this was very obviously
17:30
Speaker 2: an act of terror. It was very obviously at least
17:33
Speaker 2: worth investigating as an act of terror. It was very obviously,
17:35
Speaker 2: from my perspective, an act of terror. But to not
17:38
Speaker 2: investigate this as an act of terror would be full malpractice.
17:41
Speaker 2: So these guys are just grasping at straws to stake
17:45
Speaker 2: out any position against Kash Patel and Dan Bongino because
17:49
Speaker 2: they've convinced themselves that that Trump and his law enforcement
17:54
Speaker 2: are wrong about everything, are dangerous, are fascist authoritarians. So
17:58
Speaker 2: that puts them on the other side of every single
18:00
Speaker 2: thing they do, even if it's perfectly reasonable.
18:03
Speaker 1: Yeah, I couldn't agree more, Emily. And there is this
18:06
Speaker 1: question about what do we do about anti-Semitism in this country?
18:11
Speaker 1: I mean, certainly hatred against every group exists. Certainly it
18:15
Speaker 1: does exist against Jewish people. And I want to get
18:18
Speaker 1: your take on this. So this guy's name is Scott Stringer.
18:23
Speaker 1: He's a former New York City comptroller. He's now currently
18:26
Speaker 1: running for mayor. He's a Democrat. He announced a plan
18:31
Speaker 1: over the weekend to combat anti-Semitism using technology that would
18:36
Speaker 1: predict and prevent attacks before they happen. So the plan
18:42
Speaker 1: is to partner with the Anti-Defamation League, the ADL, and
18:45
Speaker 1: employ advanced technology to track social media activity, particularly during
18:51
Speaker 1: what he says are international emergencies involving Israel or Jewish institutions.
18:55
Speaker 1: And I guess the ADL has developed this first of
18:58
Speaker 1: its kind interactive customizable map known as the Heat Map,
19:02
Speaker 1: which will let users examine specific incidents of hate, extremism, antisemitism, terrorism,
19:10
Speaker 1: both by state and nationwide. And Per Stringer, it would
19:14
Speaker 1: flag content that incites violence or signals coordinated threats. It
19:18
Speaker 1: would provide the tools for law enforcement community leaders and
19:20
Speaker 1: institutions like this one to act before tragedy strikes. Now,
19:24
Speaker 1: he's saying that this is not about targeting dissenting opinions
19:28
Speaker 1: or maintaining a list of people who are guilty of
19:30
Speaker 1: thought crimes, but that it's about surfacing potential danger before
19:35
Speaker 1: it becomes real violence. And I'm not sure what surfacing means,
19:37
Speaker 1: but I don't know, Emily. To me, it kind of
19:38
Speaker 1: sounds like criminalizing constitutionally protected speech. And as repugnant as
19:43
Speaker 1: antisemitism is, I'm not sure that this is constitutional. So
19:48
Speaker 1: I guess I kind of want to ask ask your
19:50
Speaker 1: thoughts on this, Emily, because this is a Democrat who's
19:52
Speaker 1: suggesting this. Republicans have suggested similar things. How do you
19:57
Speaker 1: think we should tackle something like antisemitism? And do you
20:00
Speaker 1: think that this is a viable option?
20:03
Speaker 2: This option sounds eerily similar to what the Twitter files
20:06
Speaker 2: uncovered was happening between social media companies and the FBI,
20:11
Speaker 2: law enforcement and the administration when it came to targeting
20:15
Speaker 2: conservatives or anti-woke people, even in the center and on
20:19
Speaker 2: the left. And one of the things that was uncovered
20:23
Speaker 2: by the Twitter files is how disturbing that pattern is,
20:27
Speaker 2: how troubling that pattern is. And what actually really, I
20:31
Speaker 2: don't want to say shocked, but disturbed me, Evita, covering
20:33
Speaker 2: that story as it was happening is how many people
20:36
Speaker 2: will nod along and say, yes, that sounds perfectly reasonable.
20:40
Speaker 2: We should have these massive private corporations flagging things to
20:44
Speaker 2: people in government so that they can keep a closer
20:47
Speaker 2: eye on the speech of American citizens, even people who
20:51
Speaker 2: have done nothing wrong. This is a great example, I think,
20:55
Speaker 2: of something that feels like the warm bath water that
20:59
Speaker 2: seduces you into just careening down the slippery slope because
21:03
Speaker 2: everybody understands that, or most everybody, I should say, understands
21:07
Speaker 2: that anti-Semitism is evil. You know, everyone understands, if we
21:12
Speaker 2: flip that to the other side, that nobody wants mass
21:16
Speaker 2: deaths during a pandemic. Nobody wants mass deaths from COVID.
21:20
Speaker 2: Nobody wants bigotry. But these are the labels that are
21:25
Speaker 2: used to seduce Americans into giving up more and more
21:28
Speaker 2: of their freedoms to be watched more and more closely
21:31
Speaker 2: by law enforcement, government, and big corporations, big tech. So
21:35
Speaker 2: I think this sounds like a horrible idea, especially when
21:39
Speaker 2: you put it in the context of our often inflated
21:43
Speaker 2: definitions of bigotry, anti-Semitism. They've been weaponized against conservatives where
21:48
Speaker 2: you inflate the definition of bigotry to even include black
21:51
Speaker 2: conservatives who disagree with BLM. to include people who don't
21:55
Speaker 2: want to give hormones to children, and now in this
21:59
Speaker 2: case to include people who are just critics of the
22:01
Speaker 2: Israeli government under the guise of anti-Semitism being the same
22:07
Speaker 2: thing as anti-Zionism. So when you combine an inflated definition
22:12
Speaker 2: of these problems, which is something we can't escape in
22:15
Speaker 2: our culture right now with these inflated powers, I think
22:18
Speaker 2: it's actually genuinely a chilling reality.
22:21
Speaker 1: Yeah, I couldn't agree more, Emily. And I also think
22:24
Speaker 1: there's something to be said about risking more antisemitism by
22:29
Speaker 1: promoting policies that are Orwellian and dystopian like this. I mean,
22:32
Speaker 1: you kind of encourage people to say these things or
22:34
Speaker 1: assume that the Jews control the world if you're saying, oh,
22:38
Speaker 1: we're going to stop people from criticizing Israel or being
22:43
Speaker 1: antisemitic online. I think really this is a cultural problem.
22:47
Speaker 1: This has to be handled as a cultural problem coming
22:50
Speaker 1: in over the top and censoring speech or violating the
22:53
Speaker 1: First Amendment, even if it's in the name of a
22:56
Speaker 1: good cause, is always going to be damaging. It doesn't
22:59
Speaker 1: really matter what your reasoning is. This is something that
23:02
Speaker 1: we hold sacred. I think this is what we have
23:04
Speaker 1: to do as Americans is hold on to these principles,
23:07
Speaker 1: even as the times change, because one second we're targeting
23:12
Speaker 1: people for anti-Semitism, but then as you pointed out, Emily,
23:15
Speaker 1: it was just not that long ago, a few months ago,
23:18
Speaker 1: where you had the Biden admin partnering with social media
23:21
Speaker 1: companies to censor conservatives for that wrong think. So it's
23:26
Speaker 1: a very slippery slope. And again, you can think anti-Semitism is,
23:30
Speaker 1: I mean, anti-Semitism is evil and we can talk about
23:33
Speaker 1: it and want to address it and also hold true
23:36
Speaker 1: to our constitution and the First Amendment. I also want
23:39
Speaker 1: to talk to you, Emily, about Pride Month because everything
23:43
Speaker 1: is rainbow now. Everything is everything has turned gay. Every
23:47
Speaker 1: corporate corporation has now decided to rebrand as LGBTQIA +.
23:53
Speaker 1: And it kind of upsets everybody, I think. Even leftists
23:56
Speaker 1: find it to be kind of cringe and a very tokenist.
24:01
Speaker 1: But the one example that has gone pretty viral on
24:06
Speaker 1: the internet of somebody embracing Pride Month has been Sesame Street.
24:10
Speaker 1: So Sesame Street, On social media, they posted, this is
24:14
Speaker 1: June 1st, on our street, everyone is welcome together. Let's
24:19
Speaker 1: build a world where every person and family feels loved
24:22
Speaker 1: and respected for who they are. Happy Pride Month. And
24:26
Speaker 1: then you see these different rainbow-colored Sesame Street characters all
24:31
Speaker 1: holding hands. At this point, Emily, I really don't see
24:36
Speaker 1: how they can justify continuing to receive public funding. I mean,
24:40
Speaker 1: it just seems, I think the Federalists ran a piece
24:42
Speaker 1: about this last year, like, this is state-enforced homosexuality. Like,
24:46
Speaker 1: why is this being pushed on us, and especially children,
24:49
Speaker 1: and with taxpayer funds?
24:52
Speaker 2: So this post actually gets to the heart of our
24:55
Speaker 2: culture wars because what it shows is that people in
24:59
Speaker 2: the super zip bubbles, that's what Charles Murray has studied,
25:02
Speaker 2: we're now overeducated, I shouldn't say overeducated, but people with
25:06
Speaker 2: above average education levels and then above average salaries tend
25:10
Speaker 2: to live and work. So Washington, D.C., New York City,
25:13
Speaker 2: but a lot of those top zip codes are around
25:15
Speaker 2: the Washington, D.C. area where a lot of PBS's work
25:17
Speaker 2: is done, of course. They see the world so differently.
25:21
Speaker 2: that they don't actually believe there's anything political about the
25:27
Speaker 2: post you just showed on the screen from Sesame Street.
25:30
Speaker 2: If anything, they would see it as political to not
25:34
Speaker 2: post that because it would be a sort of conservative
25:38
Speaker 2: stand against human rights. And so when as a culture,
25:44
Speaker 2: the gatekeepers decided that being fully in agreement with the
25:49
Speaker 2: pride agenda was a matter of human rights, then we
25:54
Speaker 2: stopped being able to really talk to each other because
25:57
Speaker 2: that is a brick wall. If you believe that the
26:01
Speaker 2: person who lives next door to you and is a
26:03
Speaker 2: practicing faithful Catholic does not believe in human rights because
26:07
Speaker 2: they have a different position on pride, then you have
26:12
Speaker 2: a very hard time participating in the political system and
26:16
Speaker 2: the culture with that neighbor. And I mean, I just
26:21
Speaker 2: think it's a crazy argument to compare the pride agenda
26:25
Speaker 2: to human rights. I think it is, you know, these
26:28
Speaker 2: are political questions. These are not things that are we've
26:31
Speaker 2: decided as a consensus are a matter of human rights,
26:35
Speaker 2: except for that everyone is treated equally under the law
26:38
Speaker 2: in the United States of America, because that is what
26:40
Speaker 2: we believe in. And even in that hypothetical situation, your
26:45
Speaker 2: faithful Catholic neighbor believes that. But we, at a certain point,
26:49
Speaker 2: decided that wasn't true, that if you didn't support the agenda,
26:52
Speaker 2: you're not a supporter of human rights. And so I
26:54
Speaker 2: think actually what we're seeing in that post from Sesame
26:57
Speaker 2: Street is is them still being unable to wrap their
27:00
Speaker 2: heads around what was rejected in part when Trump won reelection,
27:05
Speaker 2: which was just stop shoving this down everybody's throat.
27:10
Speaker 1: Well, I think that this is part of the vibe
27:12
Speaker 1: shift that so many of us have been talking about, Emily,
27:15
Speaker 1: because it was perceived as a human rights issue not
27:20
Speaker 1: that long ago. I mean, I would say under the
27:23
Speaker 1: Obama admin, even under the first Trump admin, we were saying, hey,
27:26
Speaker 1: this is just about people who identify as LGBTQIA plus whatever.
27:32
Speaker 1: They just want to be treated like human beings. They
27:33
Speaker 1: want to be equal to all of us. We can
27:35
Speaker 1: get behind that. We're Americans. We're tolerant. And actually, I
27:39
Speaker 1: would say probably most Republicans and especially most young people
27:43
Speaker 1: who identified as Republicans were on board with this messaging campaign.
27:47
Speaker 1: And it's dramatically shifted from there. I mean, I think
27:51
Speaker 1: the biggest indicator has been, I think the biggest catalyst
27:55
Speaker 1: has been the way men have taken over women's sports.
27:59
Speaker 1: To regular people, left and right, this has just felt
28:03
Speaker 1: way too far. You're seeing young girls who are working
28:06
Speaker 1: really hard. This is supposed to be about feminism and
28:09
Speaker 1: women empowerment, and we can do sports too, and we
28:12
Speaker 1: can work hard in these fields as well, and they're
28:15
Speaker 1: being stolen by men. You also have young children being
28:19
Speaker 1: chemically castrated and mutilated before they can buy a scratch-off ticket.
28:23
Speaker 1: These are things that it's gone from equality and human
28:28
Speaker 1: rights to a place that most Americans just don't even
28:32
Speaker 1: know what to do with. And there's been, I think
28:34
Speaker 1: you're right, Emily, a vibe shift since then. I want
28:37
Speaker 1: you to listen to this. This is an episode that
28:39
Speaker 1: Sesame Street actually aired. This is with gay activist Jonathan
28:43
Speaker 1: Van Ness. He's being featured in this children's episode. Let's
28:47
Speaker 1: take a listen and then get your thoughts. Annie, Alan
28:50
Speaker 1: looked just like Jonathan Van Ness. Cookie Monster Cookie, that
28:54
Speaker 1: is Jonathan Van Ness.
28:56
Speaker 5: Elmo, Cookie, are you ready to see my monster piece?
29:01
Speaker 2: Ready, Jonathan.
29:03
Speaker 5: Mama Bear, some runway music, please.
29:05
Speaker 1: Oh, yeah.
29:07
Speaker 5: People and monsters alike, a round of applause for the
29:10
Speaker 5: not-too-late show's newest monster, Alan.
29:13
Speaker 1: Ta-da!
29:13
Speaker 2: Woo-hoo!
29:16
Speaker 3: Woo-hoo!
29:20
Speaker 5: Alan Monster is wearing the latest in high monster fashion
29:24
Speaker 5: with a set of sleek horns, fluffy fuzzy fur, all
29:28
Speaker 5: topped off with a monster honker.
29:30
Speaker 1: And Emily, Sesame Street has been around for like decades.
29:34
Speaker 1: Like Sesame Street has been around forever. I mean, I
29:35
Speaker 1: think my dad watched Sesame Street as a kid. Not
29:39
Speaker 1: that my dad's that old. but it's a long ongoing show.
29:43
Speaker 1: I'm just trying to understand what's the educational value here anymore.
29:48
Speaker 1: In fact, it seems to be, frankly, damaging to young
29:51
Speaker 1: people to just be thinking about things like sexual identity
29:57
Speaker 1: at such a young age. It feels... really kind of,
30:01
Speaker 1: I don't know, sad because Sesame Street is kind of
30:02
Speaker 1: like an American institution and it's kind of not worth
30:06
Speaker 1: shit anymore, in my opinion.
30:07
Speaker 2: Well, it is sad because I feel like these are
30:10
Speaker 2: the things that we used to be able to do
30:12
Speaker 2: together as a culture. And we've had all kinds of
30:15
Speaker 2: problems over the course of American history, obviously, but even
30:18
Speaker 2: the last half century. But we used to actually be
30:21
Speaker 2: able to put together public television broadcasts in a way
30:24
Speaker 2: that didn't alienate a significant swath of the population for
30:29
Speaker 2: really no good reason. I mean, this is very powerful.
30:32
Speaker 2: If you are in the Sesame Street planning area and
30:38
Speaker 2: you want the full pride agenda to be seen as
30:42
Speaker 2: normal and accepted to the point where anyone who challenges
30:46
Speaker 2: it is seen as a bigot, that's the progressive or
30:48
Speaker 2: bigot binary. So if you want to be pushing that
30:52
Speaker 2: on the American people, I mean, this is enormously, enormously powerful.
30:55
Speaker 2: But then you end up perhaps losing your power because
30:59
Speaker 2: you do alienate so many people by being so aggressive
31:03
Speaker 2: about pushing that binary. And I think that is really
31:06
Speaker 2: what's happening to them right now. And it is sad
31:08
Speaker 2: because it doesn't have to be this way.
31:11
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, I want to get your take on something else, Emily,
31:13
Speaker 1: because we're talking about the vibe shift and the way
31:16
Speaker 1: that I think people have just changed dramatically in a
31:20
Speaker 1: matter of just a few years. And that includes individuals
31:23
Speaker 1: too in our culture, right? You and I have talked
31:25
Speaker 1: about JoJo Siwa in the past. I've covered her at
31:28
Speaker 1: The Federalist multiple times. She is really famous for her
31:31
Speaker 1: role in Dance Moms. She's currently 22, but she, again,
31:35
Speaker 1: was famous as this little girl who was involved in
31:38
Speaker 1: these sort of pageant dance competitions. And she's somebody that
31:44
Speaker 1: a lot of young people grew up watching. So if
31:47
Speaker 1: you're Gen Z, if you're Gen Alpha, You know who
31:50
Speaker 1: Jojo Siwa is. She dresses very kiddish for some reason,
31:54
Speaker 1: even though she's an adult woman. Lots of sparkles, lots
31:57
Speaker 1: of bows. And in 2021, she publicly came out as pansexual,
32:03
Speaker 1: meaning that she's attracted to people regardless of their gender
32:07
Speaker 1: identity or sex, I guess. And again, she is coming
32:10
Speaker 1: out talking about these things and also heavily targeting children
32:14
Speaker 1: because she's dressed up very bright in these jewels and
32:17
Speaker 1: the colors and the sparkles. Her content on social media
32:22
Speaker 1: is for kids, and also she's constantly talking about her
32:26
Speaker 1: sex and gender identity. By 2023, she's no longer identifying
32:29
Speaker 1: strictly as lesbian. Now she says she's queer, and she
32:32
Speaker 1: starts saying that she is using any pronouns because she's
32:35
Speaker 1: very fluid about her gender. I would say that she's
32:38
Speaker 1: been pretty confused for a number of years. Things have
32:41
Speaker 1: been constantly changing, but she has been, like I said,
32:44
Speaker 1: paraded around by the media as sort of this poster
32:46
Speaker 1: child for the LGBTQIA crowd. Fast forward to this year, 2025.
32:53
Speaker 1: JoJo Siwa is filming for the reality show Celebrity Big Brother.
32:57
Speaker 1: It's this television series where a group of celebrities live together,
33:00
Speaker 1: isolated from the outside world, under constant surveillance, kind of
33:04
Speaker 1: like the real world, only I guess not as cool.
33:07
Speaker 1: And on this show, JoJo is living with Chris Hughes,
33:13
Speaker 1: who's this 32-year-old former reality star himself. So JoJo's 22.
33:18
Speaker 1: This guy's 32. And there are rumors that the two
33:22
Speaker 1: of them are getting closer on the show. And they
33:25
Speaker 1: start posting pictures together. And then Chris shares this photo
33:29
Speaker 1: on Snapchat. Can we pull this up, Michael? It's the
33:31
Speaker 1: one where they're in bed together, seemingly without any clothes on,
33:35
Speaker 1: I think. Although there's nothing to show here. But do
33:37
Speaker 1: you have that photo, Mikey? Oh, you're going to pull
33:39
Speaker 1: it up? Well, anyways, this photo is posted. And then yesterday,
33:43
Speaker 1: JoJo confirms that she's actually indeed dating Chris. So she's
33:46
Speaker 1: dating a guy. Emily, I'm creeped out by the age gap.
33:50
Speaker 1: I'm creeped out. This is like a grown man with
33:52
Speaker 1: JoJo who looks like a child to me. But I'm
33:55
Speaker 1: also fascinated by this story because JoJo's this LGBTQIA plus
33:59
Speaker 1: whatever icon. And here she is now with a man.
34:03
Speaker 2: She was the very embodiment of the 2020s, that period
34:11
Speaker 2: of peak woke. She was the mascot of peak woke
34:15
Speaker 2: United States of America. She was treated that way. She
34:17
Speaker 2: embraced that. And to see that picture, I shouldn't be
34:21
Speaker 2: laughing because I think what she's gone through is probably
34:24
Speaker 2: very sad, but just see that picture of her in
34:26
Speaker 2: the arms of like a muscular, conventionally masculine, handsome man
34:31
Speaker 2: is genuinely so funny because listen, Women are women, Evita.
34:36
Speaker 2: And it looks like as a woman, Jojo Siwa found
34:39
Speaker 2: herself a weightlifting masculine dude. It's just so deeply funny.
34:49
Speaker 2: But at the same time, it's hard to laugh. I mean,
34:52
Speaker 2: it's actually easy to laugh, but it's hard to enjoy
34:55
Speaker 2: the arc. because you know she was somebody who became
35:00
Speaker 2: a youtube celebrity really young after dance moms is problematic
35:04
Speaker 2: in and of itself but then goes straight into youtube
35:07
Speaker 2: world and is part of a very confusing culture uh
35:12
Speaker 2: she influenced the culture but she was also influenced by
35:15
Speaker 2: the culture that was you know trying to aggressively say
35:18
Speaker 2: all of these different uh shattering all of these different
35:21
Speaker 2: norms that is actually getting us back to or getting
35:24
Speaker 2: us to a healthy normal place it's normal to, you know,
35:28
Speaker 2: be pansexual, to be attracted to anybody of any sexual
35:31
Speaker 2: identity or any gender identity. So whether they're non-binary and
35:38
Speaker 2: bisexual or they're straight, that's the pansexual label. I think
35:42
Speaker 2: Miley Cyrus, you can correct me if I'm wrong, but
35:44
Speaker 2: Miley Cyrus briefly embraced it as well. Demi Lovato was
35:49
Speaker 2: non-binary for a period of time and is not anymore.
35:53
Speaker 1: I think she's engaged or married.
35:55
Speaker 3: Yeah.
35:55
Speaker 2: To a man, right? Like a straight man.
35:57
Speaker 1: Yes.
35:57
Speaker 2: Yes.
35:58
Speaker 3: Yeah.
35:58
Speaker 2: I mean, so this in a way, I mean, maybe
36:01
Speaker 2: it's optimistic, right? Like maybe the arc of so many
36:03
Speaker 2: people who were confused and immiserated by these just lies
36:09
Speaker 2: that were spread in our culture. will find their way
36:12
Speaker 2: to something that makes them genuinely happy and something that
36:15
Speaker 2: is fulfilling for them. But maybe it's also us seeing
36:19
Speaker 2: celebrities with lots of resources find their way out of
36:22
Speaker 2: the misery and away from the lies. I hope it's
36:25
Speaker 2: happening to a lot of the average girls who were
36:27
Speaker 2: caught up in this deep confusion and chaos. So I
36:32
Speaker 2: hope it's not just Jojo Siwa who's willing to embrace
36:35
Speaker 2: something that makes her genuinely fulfilled.
36:37
Speaker 1: Well, I think, Emily, a key part of this is
36:39
Speaker 1: that JoJo Siwa was sexualized from a very young age.
36:43
Speaker 1: That's dance moms. I mean, this is completely inappropriate outfits.
36:47
Speaker 1: And if you look online, and probably you shouldn't, but
36:50
Speaker 1: she is dressed extremely inappropriately as young as like three
36:54
Speaker 1: years old. And so I have to imagine that the
36:57
Speaker 1: kind of trauma that you would have from being sexualized
37:00
Speaker 1: at such a young age can be really confusing to
37:03
Speaker 1: on who you are sexually as an adult. And what's
37:07
Speaker 1: interesting about this story is we're doing this at a
37:09
Speaker 1: mass scale to so many young people because they're being
37:13
Speaker 1: exposed to very confusing gender and sexual identities at a
37:17
Speaker 1: very young age. With social emotional learning in public schools,
37:21
Speaker 1: they're not just getting it in a health class, they're
37:23
Speaker 1: getting it in every single subject. So there is something
37:27
Speaker 1: I think to be said about exposing kids to things
37:31
Speaker 1: that they don't need to be thinking about At a
37:33
Speaker 1: young age. I mean, they were just not letting kids
37:35
Speaker 1: be kids anymore. And Jojo Siwa certainly never had a
37:38
Speaker 1: normal childhood. In fact, I think she was supporting her
37:41
Speaker 1: family for most of her life. Like she was a
37:43
Speaker 1: breadwinner for her parents. So there's something very disordered about
37:47
Speaker 1: the way that she grew up. And I am not
37:49
Speaker 1: surprised that she's been so confused about who she is
37:53
Speaker 1: for a very long time. But I am happy to
37:55
Speaker 1: see her, I guess, kind of embrace a hetero lifestyle
38:00
Speaker 1: because I don't ever think she really was. LGBTQIA plus
38:03
Speaker 1: identifying simply because she had such a traumatic upbringing. I
38:08
Speaker 1: think that is the case for a lot of people
38:11
Speaker 1: who fall into this category and the idea of social contagion, Emily,
38:15
Speaker 1: which we're never allowed to talk about, that it's kind
38:17
Speaker 1: of a trend to be LGBTQIA plus and people embrace identity,
38:21
Speaker 1: especially women who are feeling out of place in the world.
38:24
Speaker 1: There's a lot to explain here, but I think it's
38:26
Speaker 1: a fascinating story. Emily, I want to let you go
38:29
Speaker 1: because I know you probably have places to be, things
38:31
Speaker 1: to do, but I want to get your reaction to
38:34
Speaker 1: one more story here. This is a fascinating TikTok. It
38:38
Speaker 1: is a left-wing woman telling all of us, warning all
38:43
Speaker 1: of us, what could lead you down the alt-right, right-wing
38:48
Speaker 1: fascist pipeline. So it's a warning of all the things
38:51
Speaker 1: you should beware of. Take a listen to this.
38:53
Speaker 3: We don't want to lose young women to alt-right indoctrination
38:56
Speaker 3: in the same way we lost young men. We need
38:58
Speaker 3: to be very careful, cognizant, and critical of trends that
39:00
Speaker 3: can lead to the alt-right pipeline. Because while these things
39:02
Speaker 3: aren't inherently conservative or, dare I say, even fascist sometimes,
39:06
Speaker 3: they can be the starting point for a very slippery slope.
39:09
Speaker 3: So here are the top alt-right rabbit holes for women
39:11
Speaker 3: that I think we need to be cognizant of and
39:12
Speaker 3: educate around. clean beauty, and clean eating. While opting for
39:16
Speaker 3: more natural ingredients in your skincare and food seems fairly harmless,
39:19
Speaker 3: you can quickly slide down the slope to the alt-right
39:21
Speaker 3: by engaging in content around distrust in regulatory bodies, anti-vax rhetoric,
39:25
Speaker 3: conspiracies around big pharma, and next thing you know, you
39:28
Speaker 3: think you're making America healthy again. Tradwife content. While this
39:31
Speaker 3: starts off as romanticizing homemaking, this quickly can slide into
39:34
Speaker 3: a conversation about promoting very rigid gender norms, anti-feminism, and
39:38
Speaker 3: ideologies that contribute to Christian nationalism and white supremacy. Skinny
39:42
Speaker 3: talk and diet culture. While this starts as fitness routines
39:45
Speaker 3: and feeling your best, it's a slippery slope to assigning
39:47
Speaker 3: moral superiority to thinness, which then can slide pretty quickly
39:50
Speaker 3: into eugenics. Homesteading and homeschooling. And listen, I have a
39:53
Speaker 3: carrot tattoo, so. While gardening, being closer to our food sources,
39:57
Speaker 3: and taking a hands-on rule in your child's education is great,
40:00
Speaker 3: it can quickly lead to mistrust in institutions. Overall, a
40:03
Speaker 3: mistrust in public schooling, like public schooling isn't good enough, just.
40:07
Speaker 5: Lead to classism, racism.
40:08
Speaker 3: I feel this is extra important because of the attacks
40:11
Speaker 3: on the Department of Education right now. This problem is
40:13
Speaker 3: just gonna get worse. New Age spirituality, tarot, crystals, all
40:17
Speaker 3: that kind of stuff. Make sure the people selling you
40:19
Speaker 3: your crystals aren't- Make sure- I'm passionate about this. Make
40:22
Speaker 3: sure the people selling you your crystals aren't QAnon people.
40:25
Speaker 3: Once I spent like $ 200 in a crystal store and
40:27
Speaker 3: then I went home and looked at the shop and
40:29
Speaker 3: realized that she was like a great awakening weirdo. This
40:33
Speaker 3: is all anti-semitic, conspiracy, whack job bull- And it's rampant
40:39
Speaker 3: in the spirituality space. There's a lot more. I could
40:41
Speaker 3: do this all day, but last one, soft life living
40:45
Speaker 3: and like feminine energy. While there's some important conversations here
40:47
Speaker 3: around rejecting hustle culture and rest, this quickly leads to
40:51
Speaker 3: ideas about women needing to submit to their husband.
40:54
Speaker 1: Back to these really traditional gender roles. Okay, so I
40:57
Speaker 1: guess being healthy is alt-right. Being a traditional wife is alt-right. Homesteading, homeschools,
41:02
Speaker 1: femininity in general, I guess, is an alt-right pipeline. Because
41:07
Speaker 1: I watched this girl and I just thought, can a
41:09
Speaker 1: girl live? Can we just be women? Can we just
41:12
Speaker 1: be women without it being an offensive fascist pipeline, according
41:17
Speaker 1: to left-wing women? Emily, your thoughts on this?
41:21
Speaker 2: Well, they politicized all of those things, and then the
41:26
Speaker 2: right responded to them. I mean, the first, like, that's
41:29
Speaker 2: what this is.
41:30
Speaker 3: The U.S.
41:31
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41:32
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41:35
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41:37
Speaker 2: Arguably, your most impressive quality cannot be measured. You're a
41:41
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41:47
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41:50
Speaker 4: Thank you so much.
41:51
Speaker 5: That's a good intro right there. That's good.
41:53
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41:55
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41:59
Speaker 2: Actually a reaction to. A lot of what she's taking
42:02
Speaker 2: issue with is the reactionary, and I don't mean that
42:05
Speaker 2: in a pejorative sense, but the reactionary backlash to the
42:08
Speaker 2: politicization of things like food and working out and all
42:12
Speaker 2: of that. So I think she's actually not wrong that
42:14
Speaker 2: the more people engage in health culture, in food culture,
42:18
Speaker 2: and with that content, the more they're probably algorithmically served
42:22
Speaker 2: content that leans in the MAHA direction or leans in
42:27
Speaker 2: the MAGA direction. And it's the people that you have
42:31
Speaker 2: to actually be or the issue that you have to
42:33
Speaker 2: actually be concerned about is why that is persuasive if
42:36
Speaker 2: you're on the left. Is it persuasive because it's true?
42:40
Speaker 2: Because if it's persuasive because it's true, then the problem
42:44
Speaker 2: is actually with you and your argument. It's not with
42:47
Speaker 2: the people who are persuaded by actual factual information or
42:52
Speaker 2: information that is more correct, more healthy than what's being
42:56
Speaker 2: served up by the obesity normalization crowd that, again, politicized
43:02
Speaker 2: this stuff to begin with and made it so that
43:06
Speaker 2: if you wanted to look up whether it was healthy
43:10
Speaker 2: to have a certain BMI, whatever, then you would be
43:17
Speaker 2: told that you were perfectly healthy at any weight for
43:20
Speaker 2: a period of like a decade.
43:22
Speaker 1: It seems like I'm off screen because Michael just pulled
43:25
Speaker 1: me off. Are we good now? No, Emily, I agree.
43:29
Speaker 1: And it seemed interesting that she was so hyper defensive
43:34
Speaker 1: of institutions like that that seemed to be the main
43:36
Speaker 1: driver here like like like education and health and like
43:41
Speaker 1: it was a Like full defense of our institutions But
43:47
Speaker 1: a failure to address why people don't trust them at
43:50
Speaker 1: all and you're right also there's there's this element of
43:52
Speaker 1: just like hating femininity in general and it just makes
43:55
Speaker 1: you under like how can people not be be turning
43:58
Speaker 1: to the political right when this is the solution, the
44:01
Speaker 1: commentary being proposed by the left. There's really no refutation
44:05
Speaker 1: of why people don't trust our institutions. And there's a
44:07
Speaker 1: demonization of just what it means to be a woman
44:10
Speaker 1: for some reason. And it's bizarre to me. Emily, I
44:13
Speaker 1: don't know, are you super busy right now? I'll keep
44:16
Speaker 1: going with you, but if you have to be, if
44:18
Speaker 1: you have to get out of here. Okay, because I
44:19
Speaker 1: have something else I wanted to get to with you.
44:21
Speaker 1: Because I was thinking last night, I watched that video,
44:24
Speaker 1: and I was thinking last night about femininity and women
44:27
Speaker 1: and who kind of is bucking the trend in Hollywood
44:33
Speaker 1: and just the entertainment industry in general. And I'm constantly
44:37
Speaker 1: coming back to Lana Del Rey. I have this endless
44:40
Speaker 1: fascination with her because her music, it's so dreamy. It's
44:44
Speaker 1: so melancholic and vintage and Americana. You see a faded
44:53
Speaker 1: Hollywood nostalgia. There's kind of this like Southern Gothic element too.
44:57
Speaker 1: I think I wrote down blue collar romanticism is how
45:00
Speaker 1: I would describe her. Like drive-in theaters, trailer parks. If
45:04
Speaker 1: you're listening, you don't know who Lana Del Rey is.
45:06
Speaker 1: She's a singer, very famous among Gen Zers, millennials. But
45:11
Speaker 1: it's not just her music. It's not just her fashion.
45:14
Speaker 1: She doesn't seem to just perform Americana. She kind of
45:18
Speaker 1: lives it. So a few years ago, she showed up
45:20
Speaker 1: at a small town Waffle House in Alabama and just
45:22
Speaker 1: was like, I'm going to work here for a day,
45:24
Speaker 1: which was just random, but amazing. And then she recently
45:27
Speaker 1: got engaged to a pro-MAGA, formerly divorced alligator tour guide
45:33
Speaker 1: in Louisiana, randomly told no one about it. There were
45:35
Speaker 1: no celebrities there. She just did it. And she's bringing
45:39
Speaker 1: him around to all of these award shows. And she
45:41
Speaker 1: clearly loves him a lot. And I don't know, I
45:44
Speaker 1: was just thinking, that in the past she said left-wing things,
45:48
Speaker 1: but she seems to be so right-wing coded. And I
45:52
Speaker 1: feel like really emblematic of the counterculture. Maybe I'm wrong
45:56
Speaker 1: about this, but how do you view Lana Del Rey, Emily,
46:00
Speaker 1: in the world that we're living in now? And just
46:03
Speaker 1: the way that she seems so different and so also,
46:07
Speaker 1: I think, in tune with the zeitgeist.
46:10
Speaker 2: Yeah, Lana Del Rey is actually genius. She's not my favorite,
46:15
Speaker 2: to be honest, like not my kind of music, but
46:17
Speaker 2: she's genius. She's a poet. She is a real artist's artist.
46:23
Speaker 2: And what's interesting is that she entered the scene in
46:26
Speaker 2: the 2010s. when all of the sort of Taylor Swift
46:29
Speaker 2: girl boss momentum was building and was really hot. And
46:34
Speaker 2: she was very much like seen as mainstream normal, but
46:39
Speaker 2: she's always been subverting exactly that, which is why I
46:43
Speaker 2: think now more than ever, she is able to shine
46:49
Speaker 2: because it's become clearer to an even bigger group of listeners,
46:54
Speaker 2: especially young women, who love Lana Del Rey, that there
46:58
Speaker 2: was always truth to what she was singing. And to
47:02
Speaker 2: your point also, her entire lifestyle is subversive, has gotten
47:06
Speaker 2: increasingly so over the last five plus years. But what
47:10
Speaker 2: she does is, I think, represent the American spirit for
47:15
Speaker 2: good and for bad. And she does it in a
47:17
Speaker 2: really elegant, beautiful, poetic way. She's very much unmatched among,
47:24
Speaker 2: I would say, female pop artists in terms of being
47:26
Speaker 2: able to do that. Again, the best way to put
47:29
Speaker 2: it is she's like an artist's artist. And she appeals
47:33
Speaker 2: to young women particularly because she's not drowning them in falsehoods.
47:38
Speaker 2: Like she's authentic and she's very feminine. I think you're
47:44
Speaker 2: completely right. I think your assessment about what she represents
47:48
Speaker 2: and what she is substantively. is totally accurate. And I
47:51
Speaker 2: think that's why younger people who aren't like millennials, when
47:56
Speaker 2: she was, you know, when I was in college, Lana
47:58
Speaker 2: Del Rey was super, super popular. And it's really interesting
48:00
Speaker 2: to me that her sort of there's bookends on the
48:06
Speaker 2: last decade where Lana Del Rey is becoming really, really famous.
48:09
Speaker 2: And then she's now becoming popular with Gen Z. And
48:13
Speaker 2: that's very, very interesting.
48:15
Speaker 1: I think there's some always great quotes about this, but
48:19
Speaker 1: I'll just kind of articulate what a lot of people
48:21
Speaker 1: have said about artists in general, that they can identify
48:25
Speaker 1: what's missing in a culture or what needs to be
48:27
Speaker 1: said in a culture before anybody even knows that it
48:29
Speaker 1: needs to be said. That is what a true artist
48:33
Speaker 1: does and when they're at their best. And Lana Del Rey,
48:36
Speaker 1: you're right, she came into the scenes in the 2010s.
48:39
Speaker 1: And if you had asked me when I was 14
48:42
Speaker 1: years old or 15 years old, like, the culture is
48:46
Speaker 1: going to be shifting right and Gen Z is going
48:48
Speaker 1: to be leading it. Young men are going to shift
48:50
Speaker 1: 30 points to the political right in a matter of
48:52
Speaker 1: four years. I'd be like, you're crazy. This is not
48:55
Speaker 1: what's going to happen because we're just submerged in the
49:00
Speaker 1: Obama era, the post-Obama era, submerged in just the Taylor
49:05
Speaker 1: Swift girl bossing in the culture. Lana Del Rey was
49:10
Speaker 1: saying things and singing things that now I think in 2025,
49:15
Speaker 1: I get it. Like, oh, okay, I understand what she
49:17
Speaker 1: was doing and we're all kind of shifting to where
49:21
Speaker 1: she has been pushing the culture for a long time.
49:23
Speaker 1: And again, she identified as a Democrat. Like she was
49:25
Speaker 1: a leftist. She said left-wing things. And yet she, through
49:29
Speaker 1: her music, through her style and just like who she
49:32
Speaker 1: is as a person was constantly, you're right, Emily, subverting
49:36
Speaker 1: in a way that I think a true artist can't.
49:39
Speaker 1: I think only a true artist really can. And so,
49:41
Speaker 1: I don't know, I'm endlessly fascinated by her. She's not
49:43
Speaker 1: a Republican traditionally, but again, she's kind of embracing more conservatism,
49:48
Speaker 1: I think, over the years, especially now that she's married
49:50
Speaker 1: to an alligator tour guide.
49:52
Speaker 2: It's incredible.
49:53
Speaker 1: Endlessly fascinated by Lana Del Rey. But Emily, I so
49:56
Speaker 1: appreciate your insights today. I so appreciate your especially culture analysis.
50:01
Speaker 1: Where can people go to follow you and all of
50:04
Speaker 1: the work that you do?
50:05
Speaker 2: You can go to UnHerd, you can go to Undercurrents
50:07
Speaker 2: on YouTube, and Breaking Points on YouTube. So there you go,
50:10
Speaker 2: all on YouTube. Amazing.
50:12
Speaker 1: Love it. Emily, thank you so much for being here.
50:14
Speaker 1: For all of you listening, make sure to drop a
50:15
Speaker 1: comment like this episode. If you want to follow me,
50:18
Speaker 1: my user is EvitaDuffy1 on Instagram and X, and I
50:22
Speaker 1: will see all of you tomorrow.