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From Pure Contempt to Empathy: How 'I've Had It' & 'A Necessary Conversation' Rewired My Brain · Surviving-ISH Podcast

• 0:10
  SPEAKER_00: Hey, what's up guys?
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_00: Welcome back to Surviving Politics Ish.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_00: And this is a mini episode where usually I go into what I'm trying to learn and understand about politics, such as Project 2025 and Donald Trump's America.
• 0:25
  SPEAKER_00: But I kind of want to take a break from that.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_00: I've been in the weeds a little bit here lately with you know trying to dissect Project 2025, going through the Epstein Files, educating myself and sharing, you know, what I'm learning or understanding, and of course my opinions on some of those things.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_00: But today I want to do a little bit of maybe a confession time, have a little bit of a palette cleanser, and talk about something that's a little bit more personal.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_00: If you've listened to this show or any platform that I've been on for any amount of time, you know exactly where I stand.
• 0:54
  SPEAKER_00: I don't hide.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_00: I don't hide my opinions on the political America that we're in.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_00: I'm a gay man living in the South.
• 1:01
  SPEAKER_00: I'm a blue dot smack dab in the middle of a very deep, very red state.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_00: And my opposition to MAGA movement isn't just academic.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_00: It's rooted in my lived experiences and things that I've faced in in real life, such as discrimination.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_00: I'm a survival of a brutal hate crime.
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_00: Because I lived that trauma for years, my relationship with the MAGA movement was purely survival-driven.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't just dislike the ideology.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_00: And I would go straight for the Jagular guys.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_00: I had zero tolerance, zero patience, and a whole lot of completely justified anger.
• 1:31
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, you know, my friend Jenny from Unholier, she and I would have these conversations all the time.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_00: She had to taught me off the ledge a lot.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_00: And honestly, she has the same ideology as I do, but the her way of handling it was more productive.
• 1:44
  SPEAKER_00: So she taught me a lot.
• 1:45
  SPEAKER_00: But I looked at the Mega Crowd and I associated them immediately with hate and universally with hate.
• 1:51
  SPEAKER_00: And it was cruelty, it was violence, and there was sexual assault.
• 1:55
  SPEAKER_00: To me, it it still looks like a death cult.
• 1:58
  SPEAKER_00: And they only care about straight white dominant Christian nationalists.
• 2:01
  SPEAKER_00: And I identify as an atheist.
• 2:03
  SPEAKER_00: Ironically, I live closer to the actual compassionate teachings of Jesus than most of the churchgoers do that I know.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_00: And I had nothing but contempt for that.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't see the voters as people who were misguided.
• 2:16
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't look at them as victims.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_00: I saw them as willing participants in a machinery of hatred that directly threatened my physical safety.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_00: My family is incredibly loving, and thank goodness they are they're so accepting.
• 2:31
  SPEAKER_00: So I didn't have close loved ones inside this inside that echo chamber, the MAGA echo chamber.
• 2:37
  SPEAKER_00: And where I stood, it was completely black and white over the last couple of months.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_00: Something in me has kind of shifted.
• 2:43
  SPEAKER_00: My perspective got challenged, not by politicians or cable news pundits, but by two very specific podcasts that completely rewired and placed a huge influence on my political landscape.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_00: They didn't soften my stance, not by a long shot, but they forced me to ask a really uncomfortable question about how I use my own voice moving forward.
• 3:04
  SPEAKER_00: The first piece of the puzzle came when I stumbled across a podcast called I've Had It.
• 3:09
  SPEAKER_00: And specifically, it was their daily news spin off iHip News, hosted by Jennifer Welch and Angie Sullivan, who we know as Pops.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_00: She has other nicknames.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not going to get into those now.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: Now, if you've ever listened to Jen and Pops, you know they are progressive women broadcasting right out of Oklahoma, another red state.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: They are so damn funny, completely unhinged, but in the best of way.
• 3:31
  SPEAKER_00: And when it comes to this political circus that we're in today, they don't hold back on a single damn punch.
• 3:37
  SPEAKER_00: And they do, they go straight for the throat.
• 3:39
  SPEAKER_00: They talk about the Triple Trumpers, the hardcore Rotterdam MAGA believers who actively peddle racism, homophobia, transphobia, misogyny.
• 3:48
  SPEAKER_00: They don't talk about it lightly and they definitely don't play nice.
• 3:52
  SPEAKER_00: They bash the movement relentlessly.
• 3:55
  SPEAKER_00: And they expose how Christian nationalism is actively designed to strip away rights of women, rights of queer people, and marginalized communities.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: So when I first started listening, I loved that raw throat approach energy because it matched my own anger.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_00: But as I kept listening, I realized something else.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_00: Gin and Pumps, they were not just venting.
• 4:14
  SPEAKER_00: They actually know the political stuff inside and out.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_00: They understand the systematic policy frameworks and how and how they work.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_00: And frankly, things that I don't understand yet, they have absolute receipts for why they go for the jugular.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_00: So this made me realize that so many things can be true at the exact same time.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_00: It made me look at that eye-hip approach and realize something about myself.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_00: Going for the jugular of the bigotry is essential, but I need to figure out how to take that fierce, uncompromising stance against the system and its architects while mixing it with a new, uncomfortable reality that was unfolding due to another show that I came across.
• 4:51
  SPEAKER_00: Working with Jenny from Anholier and listening to people who have deconstructed from cults and having conversations with some MAGA people or listening to podcasts from MAGA people, it had me really want to dive deep into average MAGA voters, are they victims of a massive psychological scam?
• 5:10
  SPEAKER_00: And that's kind of where this second podcast uh broke those thoughts wide open for me.
• 5:15
  SPEAKER_00: The second show is a podcast called The Necessary Conversation.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: And if you haven't heard of it, the premise is simple but incredibly heavy.
• 5:22
  SPEAKER_00: It's a couple of liberal siblings, Chad and Haley, and they sit down every week to have incredibly raw, painful political debates with their MAGA voted parents, Mary Lou and Bob.
• 5:33
  SPEAKER_00: Honestly, when I first press play on the show, I expected to hate the parents.
• 5:37
  SPEAKER_00: Based on my history, the second I find out that someone is a Rotterdam MAGA, my guard goes up, my empathy shuts down.
• 5:44
  SPEAKER_00: I expected to hear two characters of hatred.
• 5:48
  SPEAKER_00: And I expected to hear the exact kind of triple trumpers that Jen and Pumps chew up and spit out.
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_00: That's not what happened-ish, okay?
• 5:58
  SPEAKER_00: And put a pin in that, because we will definitely talk about Daddy Bob later.
• 6:02
  SPEAKER_00: Instead, I listened to a family that clearly loves each other, navigating an absolute tragedy of cognitive distance.
• 6:09
  SPEAKER_00: I listened to Chad and Haley patiently bring in actual data, news clips, and policy breakdowns to their parents, and I watched, or rather, I guess listened to the parents grapple with it.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: Lately, I see Mary Lou changing.
• 6:21
  SPEAKER_00: Daddy Bob has spent some time in the hospital recently, and she was visibly affected.
• 6:26
  SPEAKER_00: Bob and the whole family were heavily affected by the realities of our medical system.
• 6:30
  SPEAKER_00: Mary Lou went an entire week without watching Fox News or any MAGA news.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_00: And because she was forced to deal directly with the MAGA systematic issues inside the healthcare system, she kind of started caring.
• 6:42
  SPEAKER_00: She kind of started recognizing how others may be affected.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_00: Now, I hate that it took Bob getting ill and then being pushed onto the non-billionaire side of things to maybe have some understanding for the people who they actively vote against.
• 6:56
  SPEAKER_00: But on the flip side of the coin, when Mary Lou went one week without Newsmax and Fox, experiencing what people from different walks of life and financial brackets face daily, she showed some real empathy.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_00: Now, make no mistake, when Bob is on the show, Mary Lou is still a ride or die MAGA, and she loves her Trump merch and Trump stamp burgers.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_00: But there's a genuine breakthrough in each episode, I feel.
• 7:19
  SPEAKER_00: And then here's my opinion on Bob.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_00: I think Bob is in a place where he physically, mentally cannot admit that he was duped.
• 7:24
  SPEAKER_00: I think this is a trauma response to his childhood and a lifetime of neglect.
• 7:29
  SPEAKER_00: This is a man he's always gonna be right.
• 7:31
  SPEAKER_00: He's always got to be strong.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_00: And admitting he is wrong is something that he just cannot face internally.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_00: And this honestly breaks my heart for him.
• 7:39
  SPEAKER_00: To his core, I don't think he actually wants children or innocent people, regardless of their skin color, to die.
• 7:44
  SPEAKER_00: I don't think he truly thinks Michelle Obama is big mic.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_00: I think that 70 years plus of always have to be perfect is the enemy to him that is currently winning.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_00: The minorities that he thinks he hates and could care less about, it's all an act to protect himself.
• 7:58
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not a doctor, those are simply just my thoughts.
• 8:00
  SPEAKER_00: Surprisingly, this caused me to have love and empathy for him.
• 8:03
  SPEAKER_00: And it breaks my heart that I love and accept and want more from him than his precious leader Donald Trump ever will.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_00: Even though his leader, and according to Bob's own political worldview, I am not even worthy of life.
• 8:15
  SPEAKER_00: And Bob, if you ever see this, feel free to insert your insults here.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_00: Listening to this family has me loving and caring for someone who thinks and believes that I'm less than.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: Until I listened to that family dynamic, I did not view the average MAGA voter with an ounce of empathy.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_00: I didn't recognize them as victims.
• 8:33
  SPEAKER_00: But the necessary conversation forced me to understand the psychological reality of a cult.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_00: See, I've never been a part of a cult.
• 8:42
  SPEAKER_00: I don't have a cult mentality.
• 8:43
  SPEAKER_00: My brain just isn't wired that way.
• 8:44
  SPEAKER_00: From the outside, it's easy to look at cult members and think, how could you be so stupid?
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_00: How could you support a movement that traffics and cruelty and marginalizes people?
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_00: I'm learning that this is exactly how cults work.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_00: They don't recruit people telling them how they are joining an evil movement.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: They manipulate them through fear, through isolation, through a multi-billion dollar media ecosystem funded by dark money billionaires that explicitly distorts the reality and so they literally cannot see the truth.
• 9:13
  SPEAKER_00: So this brings me to the core realization of the entire episode.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_00: It requires us to hold two seemingly contradictory truths in one hand at the exact same time, blending the lessons I've taken from these incredible shows.
• 9:25
  SPEAKER_00: Truth number one, which I have exposed to so brilliantly.
• 9:29
  SPEAKER_00: The machinery of this movement is vicious, bigoted, and calculated.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_00: The dark money billionaires, the political opportunists, and the radicalized triple trumpers driving the ship deserve every single ounce of undulterated throat approach anger we can muster.
• 9:42
  SPEAKER_00: They are the architects of the destruction.
• 9:45
  SPEAKER_00: They deserve to have us go straight for the Jikular because they know exactly what they are doing.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_00: But then there's truth number two, which the necessary conversation forces me to look at.
• 9:54
  SPEAKER_00: The average voter, the Mary Lou's, and the Bobs are often the casualties trapped inside the burning building.
• 10:00
  SPEAKER_00: They are victims of massive, heavily financed psychological operations.
• 10:05
  SPEAKER_00: Holding both truths doesn't mean we minimize the danger.
• 10:08
  SPEAKER_00: And that's something that I'm having the internal battle with.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_00: Recognizing someone as a victim of indoctrination does not absolve them from accountability.
• 10:16
  SPEAKER_00: The average MAGA voters go into voting booths.
• 10:20
  SPEAKER_00: They are still making choices that result in the systematic oppression of gay people, the stripping away of women's bodily anatomy, and the enablement of political violence.
• 10:28
  SPEAKER_00: They are adults with agency and they are holding the matches.
• 10:31
  SPEAKER_00: And they must be held responsible for the political reality they are creating.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_00: But I want to be very clear, speaking as a gay man who still carries the scars of a brutal hate crime, empathy does not mean I owe you my safety.
• 10:43
  SPEAKER_00: It does not mean you're welcome in my heart.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_00: I can have complete compassion for the brainwashed person from a distance, but I'm refusing to let you inside my house while you're still holding the weapon.
• 10:53
  SPEAKER_00: I'm learning that I can understand the psychology of a cult without setting my own boundaries on fire.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_00: So, how do I synthesize this?
• 11:00
  SPEAKER_00: How do I take the lessons from both of these shows and use them to shape my own voice productively on this podcast?
• 11:06
  SPEAKER_00: To me, it's my understanding that these two approaches are not in conflict.
• 11:09
  SPEAKER_00: They are two sides of the exact same coin.
• 11:11
  SPEAKER_00: IHIP News gives us the blueprint of how to aggressively fight the power structures, call out the blamed hypocrisy, and attack the leaders with uncompromising force.
• 11:21
  SPEAKER_00: The necessary conversation gives us the blueprint for understanding the human cost, showing us how the illusions start to crack when the real world consequences finally appear through the right-wing media fog.
• 11:33
  SPEAKER_00: My lane and what works for me is trying to combine them.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_00: I want to use the unapologetic, fierce energy of the throat approach to dismantle the system while using the facts to show the average voter exactly how they are being exploited by the very people they voted for.
• 11:50
  SPEAKER_00: This is exactly why our Project 2025 series is so vital and why we are expanding on it.
• 11:56
  SPEAKER_00: It's not about shutting down our neighbors, it's about bringing the absolute receipts to expose the generals.
• 12:01
  SPEAKER_00: If we can lay out the cold, hard facts of what these policies actually do to an hourly workers' paycheck, to a family's health care, and to a community safety, we are then doing the real work.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_00: When the average MAGA voter realizes that the movement that they thought was protecting them is actually trying to strip away their overtime pay or monetize their local healthcare system, just like Mary Lou started to realize when reality hit home, these illusions they begin to crack.
• 12:25
  SPEAKER_00: And this is how destruction begins.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_00: My goal is to keep my standards high.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: I want to remain completely uncompromising in my defense for the for human rights, for the LGBTQIA plus safety, for women's anatomy, for the democratic norms.
• 12:40
  SPEAKER_00: I want to use my voice to expose the griff, blame the architects, and keep holding up a mirror to the source material until the truth becomes impossible to ignore.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_00: All right, thank you all for listening to a bit of a personal tangent today.
• 12:51
  SPEAKER_00: It's not easy to admit when your perspective shifts.
• 12:54
  SPEAKER_00: But if I'm not willing to grow and examine how I use my voice, then I'm not any better than the people that I'm criticizing.
• 12:59
  SPEAKER_00: If this conversation did resonate with you, if you are a blue dot and a red state trying to figure out how the hell to balance out a fierce protection of your rights with a shred of your humanity, let me know.
• 13:09
  SPEAKER_00: Drop a comment, share this episode, hit the subscribe button, and we'll be back next week diving deeper into Project 2025.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_00: But until then, stay safe, protect your boundaries, and keep looking at the sources.