0:04

I think we're all in a little bit of whiplash.

0:06

One day were are marching for one cause and then

0:08

the next day we're all marching for another cause it

0:10

it becomes the most important cause. And it's like it's

0:12

like though your pussy out out the window. Now you're

0:14

under this like and like a how did all of

0:17

a sudden were chanting anti Bought A Revolution Like I

0:19

don't know. This is the reason.

0:21

Interview with Nick Gillespie My guess

0:23

today is Nellie Bowl, who cofounded

0:26

the immensely popular substitute publication, The

0:28

Free Press, where she writes T

0:31

G I F, a weekly news

0:33

roundup that has earned a fanatical

0:35

following. She's also the author of

0:38

the brand new book, Morning

0:40

After the Revolution Dispatches from the

0:42

Wrong Side of History, a deeply

0:45

reported account of how America

0:47

responded to covert lockdowns and racial.

0:49

Unrest In Twenty Twenty and Twenty

0:51

Twenty One and her to Mulcher

0:53

was tenure at the New York

0:56

Times. This interview was recorded that

0:58

a live event in New York

1:00

City. Here is the reason. Interview

1:02

with Nellie Balls: No way. Thanks

1:04

for talking to reason. It. Is

1:07

such a pleasure to be here and such a pleasure

1:09

we talking here. So. The

1:11

reviews. But I thought I was

1:13

going to start with the elevator of. Yeah, well,

1:15

we'll get to that on soccer, but

1:17

the reviews are not good. Here's the

1:19

Guardian. Ah, The

1:22

Guardian says morning after the

1:24

revolution a bad faith attack

1:26

on woke the New Yorker.

1:29

Calls. It Nellie Bowls is

1:31

failed. provocations, wire. There's nothing

1:33

revolutionary about Morning after the

1:35

Revolution and then on the

1:37

right, the Federalist manage in

1:39

Morning after the Revolution. Nellie

1:41

Bowls can't pick a side

1:43

so. Why

1:46

they usually me a bisexual. Vulnerable

1:48

hurts when I lived the show

1:51

as around really really riled up.

1:53

So what is the elevator pitch

1:55

for Morning After The Revolution? Think.

1:58

you nick the The

2:01

elevator pitch that I was thinking,

2:03

what would be a good elevator? Have

2:06

the last few years felt

2:08

a little crazy? Have

2:11

they felt a little maybe funny? Do

2:13

you want to read about the craziness and some

2:15

of the funniness? Then you should

2:18

buy, the morning after the revolution, buy

2:20

Nellie Bulls. OK. Is that good? That

2:22

works for me. We're

2:26

on a high-level floor. That

2:28

fills up the time. The book is

2:30

set during the pandemic in the summer

2:32

of what's become known as the racial

2:34

reckoning 2020 through about the end of

2:36

2021. Before

2:39

we get into some of the

2:41

issues that you go deep on,

2:43

how important was the

2:45

pandemic and the lockdown and

2:48

then the viral video, particularly

2:50

of George Floyd's death? How

2:52

important was the viral video of George Floyd's death?

2:54

I mean, that started the whole thing. And

2:57

I think the lockdown. And

3:00

the way in which we were all separated

3:04

from our social communities, separated from our ties, separated

3:07

from all of the things that keep

3:09

us kind of reasonable and normal and bumping into

3:13

strangers, that was all torn apart.

3:16

And so we could just live online. And we could just live

3:18

online with people we agreed with. And we can just live online

3:20

with the sort of craziest voices that

3:23

were going the most viral. And

3:25

I think that really set it off. The

3:30

lockdown was perpetuated and kept

3:33

much longer than it needed to

3:35

be kept even after the vaccines and stuff, in

3:38

part because I think that some of that radicalism

3:41

and some of that rage was very useful

3:43

for a political movement and moment. And

3:47

it created, I think,

3:49

the movement that now has led to where

3:52

we are now with the pro-Hamas protests

3:54

on campus or pro-Palestine

3:56

protests, whatever you were going to phrase it. violence

4:01

is a normal part of

4:03

the rhetoric. Clearly the George

4:05

Floyd video in particular which itself is

4:07

part of the lockdown or it wouldn't

4:09

have had the same effect absent the

4:11

lockdown. What started the trends I

4:13

mean the things that you're writing about in the book

4:16

the revolution is really around

4:18

race relations, it's around gender,

4:21

it's around an orientation towards

4:24

government power. Can you

4:26

talk a little bit about what what's been going on

4:28

in the 20th 21st century

4:30

that gave rise that you

4:32

know that pulled together all of the chips

4:35

or the kindling that then exploded? I think

4:37

that you had a

4:40

lot of people who were very

4:43

comfortable in a lot of ways in

4:45

their life and things were very good and all of

4:47

a sudden there was a lot of money flowing into

4:49

society with the stimulus money

4:52

and so people had free

4:54

time, they had cash

4:57

on hand and they

4:59

had this video which was a

5:01

horrific video and the sort

5:04

of whatever we want to call it the

5:06

woke movement the new progressive

5:08

movement had been rising for

5:10

a while that wasn't invented

5:13

with George Floyd that didn't start right after

5:15

that but I think the

5:18

confluence of the

5:20

money, the boredom and

5:23

the video of a murder created

5:27

that moment that fire. One of

5:29

the things that you come back

5:31

to again and again in the book is you

5:34

know the concept of defunding the

5:36

police, all cops are bastards, ACAB

5:38

which became a popular graffiti. Talk

5:42

a bit about how that played out I mean

5:44

one of the most interesting things and this is

5:46

something I think that the reviews from

5:49

people who disagree with you politically

5:51

just overlook but the

5:53

stories that you tell again and again come back

5:55

where the people who are supposed

5:57

to be liberated by the revolution end

6:00

up suffering the most. And can you talk

6:02

a little bit about that in terms of

6:05

how did defunding the police,

6:07

what kind of effect did that

6:09

have on people whose name it

6:11

was supposedly being defunded for?

6:14

Yeah, so one of the first chapters

6:16

in the book, I go up to CHAS,

6:19

the Seattle Autonomous Zone, that became very famous, and

6:21

there was sort of a reporting blackout. We weren't

6:23

supposed to cover it. I write about getting in

6:25

trouble with my colleagues for trying to go. And

6:29

you were at the New York Times. I was at the New York Times, and

6:31

it was sort of a question of like, why do you want to go? Like,

6:34

what are you expecting to see there? And like, we

6:37

shouldn't pay too much attention to Antifa. We

6:39

shouldn't pay too much attention to these things

6:41

because they're

6:43

not really stories. It's like how NPR handled

6:45

the Hunter Biden laptop. It's not a story.

6:49

And I went up there,

6:52

and what was the most interesting thing was

6:54

the people who were really suffering in the

6:57

CHAS Autonomous Zone were these small business owners

6:59

who had moved there because it was the

7:01

gay neighborhood. It was a gay neighborhood. They

7:04

were like South

7:07

Asian small business owner who has a

7:09

little cafe who is being harassed

7:11

by Antifa because he doesn't want them to keep

7:13

breaking his glass. And I think

7:16

time and again, at this point, it's

7:18

almost cliche, but time and again, we

7:20

saw spaces where the community

7:22

didn't want the police abolished.

7:24

The community was fighting for

7:26

police to remain and maybe even be increased.

7:28

I mean, you saw this in Oakland. There

7:31

was a scene where a group

7:34

of black parents are

7:37

reading the names of all the, this

7:39

was when the crime wave came a couple years later, reading

7:42

the names of people who had been killed in the

7:44

crime wave. And they

7:47

were surrounded by protesters who came into the

7:49

sort of outskirts of the scene and were

7:52

screaming and yelling that they were white

7:55

supremacists, that they were perpetuating

7:58

violence. that

8:01

was playing out across the country. And

8:04

so you have minorities, racial and

8:07

ethnic minorities, asking for

8:10

structure and good policing

8:12

being attacked as white

8:14

supremacists by white Antifa

8:16

members. Yes, over

8:18

and over and over and over. What's the humor

8:20

in that? Because

8:23

it's kind of it's funny, right? And

8:30

just the absurdity of

8:32

this, the silliness of

8:34

it in a way. And I think

8:37

like Rob Henderson has that amazing luxury

8:40

beliefs idea that he's coined, which is like

8:43

all these rich people and all these privileged people want

8:45

things that don't impact them at all. If you

8:47

live in a beautiful gated community, if you live

8:50

in an apartment in New York, or have a

8:52

doorman, especially, you're not worried about security. You can

8:54

be abolished the police all you want. You're not,

8:56

it's not a real part of your life. And

8:58

so that's he describes this as luxury beliefs in

9:01

the same way of like, abolishing

9:04

the SAT is a luxury belief, because

9:06

it's not important. If you don't

9:08

need the SAT to prove you're bona fide, you can

9:10

do you did dressage and whatever. And,

9:13

and I think there's some

9:16

I think it's really just funny. And I also

9:18

think it's like, it's

9:22

funny to me how so

9:26

many good intentions, and

9:28

so much money behind those good intentions

9:30

went to such odd

9:33

places. Well, one of the

9:35

things in a chapter that you read

9:37

called abolitionist entertainment LLC. You

9:40

you note that the Washington Post,

9:42

that's the real name abolitionist entertainment

9:44

LLC is the real name of

9:46

the Black Lives Matter co founders.

9:50

LLC that we're she funneled a lot of money through. You

9:52

noted that the Washington Post estimated that

9:54

$50 billion was promised

9:57

to groups fighting racism between

9:59

mid to 2020 and mid 2021. Where did that money go? Your

10:08

guess is as good as mine. I mean, in part,

10:10

it went to pretty fabulous things. It

10:12

went to a party house in

10:15

LA, like a really chic party house

10:17

that they bought that was

10:20

bought with nonprofit funds. So the address could be

10:22

reported. You're allowed to report a nonprofit address,

10:24

but of course, it was sort of

10:27

blocked on big social media

10:29

companies for the address being shared. And

10:33

the money went to another party house

10:35

in Toronto. The money went

10:37

to... This is simply for Black Lives

10:39

Matter, right? The group that was co-founded

10:41

by Patrice Conn Cullars. It was just

10:43

normal scam stuff. I mean, where does

10:45

the money that LA

10:47

or San Francisco pays to homelessness

10:50

services go? Just like basic

10:52

scams. People hire their siblings.

10:56

Black Lives Matter founders hired siblings,

10:58

parents, ex-boyfriends, slash current

11:00

boyfriend. The list

11:02

goes on. You can imagine how you spend money.

11:05

Some people even start businesses with their spouses,

11:07

right? I'm

11:11

a proud Nepo spouse. Yes.

11:15

When you came back from CHAS, and I

11:17

remember, I'm not sure if we knew each

11:19

other by the time that story came out

11:21

or not, but I remember reading that. It's

11:24

a stunning piece in the New York Times because the

11:27

victims of the group that is

11:29

controlling the CHAS spot in

11:31

Seattle are almost inevitably, as you

11:34

were saying, they're small business people

11:36

often of racial or ethnic minorities.

11:39

What did your colleagues at the New

11:41

York Times say after that story ran?

11:45

It is worth reporting on. It was

11:48

funny because the bosses at the

11:50

Times were always trying to keep a lid on

11:52

this. They're still trying to keep a lid on

11:54

this, but no. My colleagues went crazy. They went

11:56

berserk with it. It was like normal people who

11:59

had been... friends with and

12:01

who were reasonable people went berserk

12:03

in these years and all the time why

12:05

was that I mean because they're I mean

12:07

are the New York Times are they like

12:09

you know celebrities are they so different than

12:12

the rest of us that they're living in

12:14

on a different time I don't think it

12:16

was limited to the Times at all

12:18

like I think the experience that I had a

12:22

lot of people are having it in a lot

12:24

of mainstream media institutions I

12:26

think you have the same thing at NPR I mean

12:28

obviously Uri Berliner wrote an amazing essay about

12:30

what was going on in NPR that just

12:33

came out a couple weeks ago I

12:35

think there was a I mean

12:37

okay just deal man it there

12:40

was a panic about the risk

12:42

of Trump and a panic about

12:44

you have someone who is

12:47

unpredictable who's a little scary as a person

12:49

and you're sort of like that's

12:51

the most important thing we just have to make

12:53

sure he doesn't get elected we just have to

12:55

not give anyone fodder to make that happen and

12:58

I think that was a genuine and earnest help

13:01

and desire and so

13:03

I don't think it's people just like maliciously deciding

13:06

they want to be censor or as assholes even

13:08

if that's how they kind of ended up being

13:10

but I think it was like we're

13:12

in grave danger and

13:15

we all need to work together to prevent what

13:18

might be like the end of democracy and that's

13:20

how it's always phrased like Trump winning would be

13:22

the end of democracy but then you get it

13:24

really believe that then you get into this thing

13:26

where we have to in order to keep

13:28

the end of democracy from happening we have

13:31

to kind of erase democracy so he can't

13:33

wait I mean yeah I mean it's a

13:35

kind of Vietnam logic yeah it's really weird

13:37

you know you you write

13:42

by October 2021 only 23% of

13:45

black Americans want a police funding cut in

13:47

their area according to Pew Research so yeah you

13:50

know reputable survey group how did you

13:52

know did that filter into your colleagues

13:54

or to the media coverage him and

13:57

why wouldn't it because again

13:59

I mean one of the things, you

14:02

kind of conjure up in the book and

14:04

it's very compelling and it strikes me as

14:06

convincing that you know the media saw themselves

14:08

as the guardians of the

14:10

poor and they dispossessed in American society

14:12

but then when they hear stuff from

14:14

those people they're like no you really

14:16

don't know what you need. Yeah

14:19

that's the attitude that

14:21

these people don't know what's

14:23

best for them and there's this

14:25

philosophy behind it I write about in the book this sort of the

14:29

new anti-racist movement became a

14:31

sort of therapeutic movement right

14:33

and there's chapters

14:35

I can ramble on about about

14:38

what that looks like and what those therapy

14:40

sessions look like but one

14:42

thing it meant was that whiteness

14:48

and internalizing whiteness it

14:50

has to do with race but

14:52

not entirely and so when

14:54

a black person saying they want more

14:57

police they maybe have

14:59

internalized some whiteness in there maybe

15:01

internalize some white supremacy when when

15:03

an Asian family in San

15:05

Francisco is arguing that we still need

15:07

elite high schools test

15:09

in high schools they

15:12

were accused of

15:14

being white supremacists and

15:18

that's not an anomaly that's not that's part

15:21

of the philosophy it's that white

15:24

supremacy doesn't know race

15:26

exactly it's not the most coherent I'm

15:28

really honest but but

15:31

it's that an Asian family wanting to keep

15:33

Syveson or Lowell High School is

15:36

showing a white supremacy so

15:39

that's kind of how I think it was thought of within the times

15:42

within NPR within all these places because all

15:44

these places they're smart people they're reading these

15:46

stats they see that this isn't actually popular

15:48

this isn't actually what the

15:50

folks in this community want one of

15:52

the most interesting sections of

15:55

the book has to do with white

15:57

women in particular where who you know

15:59

really seems to, and I say this

16:01

as a white man or as, you know,

16:03

yeah, as a white man, thank you for

16:06

taking the heat because after about 2019,

16:09

it was like, okay, white men were

16:11

the problem. During

16:13

the pandemic, white women became the problem. Oh,

16:15

it was our time to shine. Yeah.

16:19

It was. How, I guess first,

16:22

remind us, because one of the great things that you do

16:24

in the book is remind us of kind of sheer insanity,

16:26

not from 100 years ago. You

16:31

know, this isn't learning about doctors

16:33

using electric, you know, vibrators to

16:35

cure women's hysteria in the 19th

16:37

century. This is from like 2021. What

16:42

is race to dinner? Oh

16:44

my God. And how does that exemplify? I

16:46

thought you'd never ask. How does that exemplify

16:48

the kind of madness that we were all

16:50

kind of under? One thing

16:52

I do in the book is I

16:54

go to a couple anti-racism courses and

16:58

race to dinner is one of these. It's a dinner.

17:00

I didn't actually go to race to dinner. I went

17:02

to the Robin DiAngelo one, which was a four day

17:04

long. I of course also did the

17:07

extra credit two day long one. Race

17:10

to dinner. You pay $5,000 for them to

17:13

come and kind of berate you. You

17:17

gather a group of white women together, obviously, and then they

17:19

come and they berate you about your whiteness. But

17:23

anti-racism and the work of it used to

17:25

be like hard and

17:27

sort of like dismal. It

17:29

was like people

17:32

getting together in Berkeley to try to change laws and

17:34

try to write books about this and that and try

17:36

to do campaigns in third

17:38

world countries. And what

17:40

happened in the last 10 years,

17:43

thanks to a few really interesting white women,

17:45

is they presented

17:47

a model for anti-racism that didn't involve any

17:49

of that. It didn't involve

17:53

trying to learn about your local

17:55

laws and do all this nonsense

17:57

and community meetings. It involved working.

18:00

on your self. Seriously.

18:03

It involved changing your

18:05

internal whiteness. And

18:08

so you had things like Timo O'Koon

18:10

who came out with a list. And

18:13

it was a list of white supremacy

18:15

traits, white supremacy characteristics. Can you explain

18:17

who Timo O'Koon is? She became my

18:19

obsession. She

18:23

was an anti-racist instructor. Her background

18:26

was in physical therapy. She had been

18:28

a clogger. And she

18:31

literally sounds like someone I'd be friends with. And

18:33

she came out with a list

18:35

after what she

18:41

describes as a particularly frustrating meeting

18:44

in some of these anti-racist groups. And

18:47

the list was of these traits. And

18:50

the traits include things like right

18:53

to comfort, individualism, sense

18:56

of urgency, worship of the written word.

18:58

And she said these are white traits.

19:02

These are things that white people

19:04

value that are unique to white

19:06

culture. And in

19:09

order to fight racism, we need to work on

19:11

ourselves and sort of get excavate those,

19:13

get rid of those. And this list

19:16

that to me now saying

19:18

it sounds wildly racist. I

19:20

mean like saying this out loud sounds

19:22

insane. It became

19:24

very popular. It became very mainstream. So

19:26

mainstream in fact that the Smithsonian Museum

19:28

made a poster of the

19:31

list. Graphically designed,

19:33

beautiful like the list of white

19:35

supremacy traits. And now of course it's all

19:37

trying, people are trying to memory hole it and say this never

19:39

happened. But it happened. And so

19:42

that then spurred a whole movement of these

19:47

workshops. Robin

19:50

Gayle and General being sort of the most famous

19:52

voice of this but there were tons, tons of

19:54

these workshops. And the workshops were you would get

19:56

together and you would work on your

20:00

perfectionism and your

20:02

sense of urgency and just

20:04

getting rid of that and it feels

20:06

really good. And white women, it turns

20:09

out, love that shit. We

20:13

love to work on ourselves.

20:15

We love to self-flagellate.

20:20

So it clicked and it took off. And

20:23

actually these guys argue that

20:28

the goal is not, Tima has

20:30

a quote in the book where she says, the goal

20:33

is not to expand the boardroom table. The

20:35

goal is not to get more people

20:37

in the boardroom. The goal is to dismantle

20:39

the boardroom altogether. So it's like

20:41

stop trying to impose your white supremacy logic

20:44

and try to bring more people into capitalism. You've

20:46

got to just get rid of capitalism. Yeah,

20:49

and this became the winning doctrine of the day.

20:51

And I think we're still living in it. Even

20:53

as now people kind of laugh at some of

20:55

these ideas right, Robin DiAngelo, but it

20:58

won. This is the model. Particularly

21:01

in reading your encounters

21:04

with Aken, her

21:07

talking about urgency as white supremacists.

21:09

I mean, anybody familiar with Martin

21:11

Luther King's letter from Birmingham Jail

21:14

would recognize he's saying

21:16

we need to be urgent like we

21:19

can't wait any longer. It just is

21:21

peculiar that that would

21:23

win in argument. I

21:25

think it's a

21:27

little bit kind of more fun. And

21:30

if you tell me, Nelly, you

21:33

need to work on your perfectionism. You've got to

21:35

release that. I

21:38

love that. And

21:40

instead of a yoga mat, you can buy a

21:44

package of programs and things like

21:46

that. Yeah. So there's

21:48

no accessorizing. It really works. I

21:51

had fun in the course. What were some

21:53

of the exercises that you did? I cried.

21:56

Oh my God. The exercises were like, feel

21:59

your white. skin, like tap, rock, a

22:01

lot of rocking, a lot of then,

22:03

and then humming, you'd hum, I'm

22:06

dead serious. And it works. I was in

22:09

it, I was feeling it. I

22:11

was, I cried like a few times.

22:13

But you're not supposed to cry, right? Or that's that race

22:15

to dinner. No, you're definitely supposed to cry. But a race

22:17

to dinner, you're not allowed to cry. But white tears, but

22:19

you still have to do the white, no, no, there's no

22:21

way out. So you're doing the white tears because

22:24

you're supposed to do them, but then also white tears. Not

22:26

good. Can't be used for

22:28

manipulation. And it,

22:32

I mean, it just

22:35

works very well. By the end,

22:37

I was, I felt trapped within it

22:39

after the, I guess, six days

22:41

altogether. It's a weird time. I

22:44

felt trapped within

22:46

that thinking because there's no way out in

22:48

this thinking. It's not, it's

22:51

intentionally not like productive. It's intentionally, there's

22:53

no like thing you're supposed to do.

22:55

And in fact, the

22:57

lessons they tell you are, to

23:00

spend more time just with

23:02

white people that you should, it's

23:06

very like the actual takeaways

23:09

are sort of alarming.

23:12

Like at the end, I was like scared.

23:14

I was like, should I call up my

23:16

Asian friends and apologize for something like I

23:18

it really is psychologically weird. And they say,

23:21

don't work on anti racism stuff outside of

23:23

groups of white people. Like, if

23:25

you're married to someone who's not white, that's pretty dangerous.

23:28

Like you might be harming them and you should really think about that a

23:30

lot. And, and

23:32

they say, I mean, I remember at

23:34

the end of one of the classes, he said, the teacher said, doing

23:38

this work may

23:40

end marriages. And

23:42

I was like, that doesn't

23:45

seem very anti racist. I

23:47

don't know if that's the goal of what we should

23:49

want here. But anyways, and

23:53

again, as silly as it sounds, this is a

23:55

philosophy that's one. Like,

23:57

we're living in this. Do you I mean, Well,

24:00

yeah, I've come to see whether

24:02

or not we've kind of peaked and

24:04

are on the other side of this or not in a

24:07

second But would you you talk about

24:09

the progressive stack? What

24:11

is it and how does that work and

24:13

how did that kind of infuse a lot

24:15

of the things you experience? The progressive stack

24:17

comes from a place that

24:20

makes intuitive sense to me, which is But

24:25

some people talk too much and especially no

24:27

offense white men, you know They just are

24:29

so assertive and they take

24:31

over and and maybe we should try to

24:33

balance that out but

24:36

what it looks like in practice in a lot

24:38

of left-wing spaces is You

24:42

do a progressive stack where

24:44

the most oppressed person let's say everyone's around

24:47

Having conversation you're all doing input and you

24:50

raise your hands the most oppressed person goes

24:52

first then you rank

24:54

the people and who was Least

24:56

oppressed goes last and it kind of happens

24:58

quickly or but or someone who's in charge

25:01

of the conversation will manage it it's different

25:03

people meant it's it's a little awkward when

25:05

it's like Standing up at a mic like

25:07

I've seen a video of

25:09

someone moving people physically to the back

25:11

of the line to ask

25:13

a question at a mic, you know, um But

25:19

Yeah, so this became kind of the

25:21

guiding principle of conversation in progressive movements

25:23

and I was always curious like How

25:27

exactly do you decide who's most privileged and

25:29

who's least privileged and like what about in

25:31

like complicated like you and I's obvious Right

25:33

that clearly you're behind me You

25:36

know, it depends if we do a

25:38

good Marxist analysis your way ahead class

25:42

baby Well

25:44

that free press I don't know that's a sub-stuck

25:47

Harris, but the Like

25:50

what about like gay

25:52

versus Latino? Who's in

25:54

front not sure unclear. So

25:56

it gets to it gets to quirky spaces

25:58

and I think The logic behind

26:01

the progressive stack, and I

26:03

write in this chapter about the movement

26:05

of a

26:08

lot of academics especially,

26:11

who took on often

26:16

Native American or Latina

26:18

names and identities

26:20

and it was basically

26:22

people who decided, I deserve

26:25

to be further ahead in the

26:27

stack. I don't deserve to

26:29

be in the middle or towards the back.

26:31

That's bullshit. I'm a

26:34

professor of English

26:36

and I deserve to be a little bit further

26:38

up. We've read about maybe

26:43

a dozen of these but there's more. It's

26:47

largely women who decided that they wanted

26:49

to get further up in the stack. They

26:52

just say fake lineage or

26:54

a heritage. Yes. I

26:56

mean they'll put on accents. It helps if they have maybe

26:58

a little Italian blood or maybe they

27:00

can take on a tan. Do

27:04

they look good in heavy earrings? It's

27:08

not easy to commit

27:11

to this. The women who did this,

27:14

the professors, many of you professors, you

27:17

have to basically cut yourself off from

27:19

your family. You have to cut yourself off from

27:21

everyone who knew you before who could expose

27:23

this. It's a really radical decision once

27:26

you decide to do this. You have

27:28

to think about it. How

27:34

desperate do these people feel to

27:36

get a few steps ahead in the stack that they did

27:39

this? The

27:44

actor who portrayed the Indian in the famous

27:46

ad in the 1969

27:48

and 1970, The Crying Indian

27:52

was actually an Italian-American from Texas

27:55

who came to believe apparently by

27:57

most accounts that he was actually Native American.

28:00

of American. Do the people you're talking

28:02

about, do they know their fakers or

28:04

at some point are they like,

28:06

no, this is who I am? Oh,

28:09

God. I don't, I mean, they definitely know. I

28:11

mean, we know like Rachel Dolezal seems to be

28:13

in a category of her own. I was going

28:15

to say, she

28:17

believes it. Most of them, most of the

28:19

professors, I think they know it's

28:21

not true. And eventually

28:24

when they confess, they confess and apologize.

28:26

Rachel Dolezal is a unique character

28:28

in this. But

28:30

most of them, they know.

28:32

They know it's not true.

28:35

The rewards are so great. I mean,

28:37

some of these ladies are,

28:41

my favorite one, literally participated

28:43

in various cancellations of, like

28:46

a cancellation of like a, I think

28:49

it was a music venue that named

28:51

itself Winnebago. And she was like, that's

28:54

appropriating indigenous culture and like she led

28:56

that as a fake

28:58

Native American. I mean, it was amazing.

29:00

It was, but

29:02

I think it seems irrational. It seems crazy.

29:05

And it takes a certain mania, obviously. Right.

29:08

But you really commit to the bit. Yeah. Yeah.

29:11

But it's not irrational in that the rewards

29:14

are true. The rewards you get

29:16

from it are real. In

29:18

the beginning of cancellation, one of the great phrases

29:21

that you use in the

29:23

book, you talk about a cancellation

29:26

turducken, which

29:28

some of you may remember

29:30

this episode, but could you

29:32

explain what a turducken is

29:34

in this cancellation turducken and

29:37

how that exemplifies kind

29:39

of the madness of the lockdown era?

29:42

A turducken is a turkey

29:45

with a duck inside of it. And

29:47

inside the duck is a chicken. That's

29:50

a turducken. And so... It's

29:52

delicious. I've never... Yeah. It

29:55

seems disgusting. Have you really had one? Yes,

29:57

I have. I've even had a vegan turducken.

30:00

And even they are good. So it's like

30:02

when you put more stuff in the middle

30:04

of something, it's always great. It's

30:07

like a taste treat. I know the

30:09

libertarians don't believe in laws, but I think it

30:11

should be illegal. My

30:17

favorite cancellation for Duckin was

30:20

the, oh

30:23

God, it started with this

30:25

poor magazine editor. Let

30:29

me make sure I get it right. I'm sorry,

30:31

I'm like pregnant and sweating and my head is

30:33

all over the place. No, you

30:36

don't get to play those cards. Yes,

30:38

I do, I never play that card.

30:40

No, no, no, no, no. It

30:42

starts with the Bon Appetit editor.

30:45

And then it goes, and

30:47

then it goes, the Gimlet podcast team.

30:50

And then, no, but there's one

30:52

more. And then, no,

30:54

it starts with, who did this? It starts

30:56

with the Bon Appetit editor who has

30:59

created a- Adam Rappaport, thank

31:01

you, guys, forgive me. Who

31:03

has been successful in having

31:05

videos of people

31:08

doing different types of food. Yes, and

31:10

bringing in more

31:13

diverse talent and he's really trying his

31:15

best. But there

31:17

is a little bit of disruption

31:20

within the Bon Appetit world.

31:23

And they decide that Adam Rappaport is

31:25

not a great guy. And

31:27

they find a photo of him that he's posted

31:29

and that actually, I heard from someone recently, is

31:32

in his office, a photo that he has

31:34

laid in

31:37

which he is dressed as a Puerto

31:39

Rican. And most

31:41

damningly of all, it could have been sort of

31:43

ambiguous because he was wearing a durag,

31:46

like wearing a beater, I'm

31:49

sure there's more PC way to say beater. And,

31:53

but the thing that really damned him

31:55

was his wife commented, my

31:57

puppy. So

32:00

Adam was screwed, he was done,

32:02

and he was cancelled. So

32:07

then, down a few blocks

32:09

away in Brooklyn, the

32:11

team of Gimlin decide

32:14

to do a podcast around

32:16

Adam Rappaport and the cancellation and all

32:18

this, and they decide they're gonna do

32:20

it so perfectly. They

32:23

announce that they're not interviewing

32:26

any of the white men for the

32:28

podcast. They're not interviewing any

32:31

of the perpetrators of this. They're only

32:33

interviewing the victims of the Bon Appetit,

32:36

my puppy scandal. And

32:41

I mean, I was like, that's

32:43

pretty safe. You know, like, you're

32:45

really going all out there. That's

32:47

safe journalism. But

32:53

then what happens, Shruti, who's one

32:56

of the leaders of this, I mean, it- She's the

32:58

host of the podcast. She's the host, and PJ, and

33:00

all these. So

33:03

what happened is that she,

33:06

it turns out, had not been fully supportive of

33:08

the union, and the union

33:10

drive was seen as the Gimlet union drive,

33:12

which, when you think of Gimlet, you think,

33:14

they'd certainly need a union. And

33:18

the leaders of the union drive decided

33:20

to push her out because

33:23

Shruti had been not totally

33:26

on the good. And so how could

33:28

she come in and do a thing

33:30

about a cancellation when she was so

33:33

bad herself? And so after like,

33:35

I think two episodes, no,

33:37

one episode aired, and then the

33:39

second episode was an apology. And

33:43

I think they aired, they ended up doing maybe

33:45

three different sort of formal apologies,

33:48

with different dwindling numbers

33:50

of people involved. And

33:53

she ended up having to resign, like half

33:56

the Gimlet team resigned over this, and then

33:58

eventually the replay all shut down. all

34:00

together and it was just like a complete

34:02

mess. But basically

34:05

this and a couple other stories

34:07

around really Brooklyn, really stay

34:09

away from that place guys, it's scary. I don't know

34:11

what the hell's going on there. But a

34:14

couple other stories around Brooklyn for me

34:17

represented like there's no,

34:19

you can never be pure

34:21

enough. There's

34:23

no, even

34:25

if you only interview

34:28

the non-white victims of

34:30

my poppy, you are,

34:32

you're still in the line of

34:34

fire. In the book you take issue

34:37

with the definition of the word of

34:39

the term lesbian that appeared until 2023

34:41

at a Johns Hopkins University webpage.

34:45

They defined lesbian by

34:48

saying a lesbian is a

34:50

non-man attracted to non-men. Okay.

34:53

What's wrong with that definition? Because

35:00

the same list of

35:02

definitions defined a gay man

35:05

as a man attracted to other men.

35:09

And I was like, I was

35:12

like, if you're going to erase lesbians, at least

35:14

also erase them. Why

35:17

do the gay men get that? Obviously

35:19

these, I

35:21

mean, first of all, the lists of

35:23

verboten words kept growing over the last

35:25

years. And every few months I feel

35:27

we still get a new list of

35:29

verboten words. But it

35:32

was like ground bag all this.

35:34

And in among that movement of the list

35:36

of verboten words is list of redefined words.

35:39

And the key one that

35:42

always seems to be needing to be redefined and

35:44

or erased is anything to do with

35:46

women and anything to do with the

35:48

word woman. And you see places like Landsat,

35:51

you see like prestigious

35:54

medical journals and universities

35:57

putting out these things that do everything they can to make the

35:59

world a better place. can to erase the word woman,

36:01

but don't do anything around the word men.

36:03

Like any article about

36:06

ovarian cancers is always about people

36:08

with ovaries. Any article about prostate

36:11

cancers is about men. And

36:13

it's just, I mean there's

36:15

a broader conversation to have about that role. What

36:18

do you think is driving that? Because it does seem

36:20

to be weirdly gendered. Why is

36:24

that happening? I feel like we probably have some turfs in

36:26

the room who could take this. Yeah. I mean,

36:28

I'm going to have to wear my turfs. Why

36:31

do I think that's happening? I think there's

36:36

a lot of sexism in this world, not to sound

36:38

like a second wave feminist, but I

36:41

like Indigo girls and I think there's a lot of

36:43

sexism. Yeah, I do. I do. I

36:45

noticed that they haven't been redefined yet

36:47

as Indigo birthing persons. We're

36:49

going to see. Huge possible birthing

36:51

people. My indigos have

36:54

stood strong. But

36:57

I think that, I

36:59

mean, this is to, so basically

37:01

the last few chapters in the book talk

37:04

about the movement around gender

37:07

and around what we've seen, which in

37:09

a lot of ways, first you

37:12

had the Antifa movement, you had these cities

37:14

being taken over, then you had the kind

37:16

of more corporate BLM movement. And then for

37:18

about a year, most of the energy moved

37:21

to the trans movement and to the movement

37:24

around women

37:27

and how to define them. And

37:33

you may ask, you're not

37:36

against trans people, right?

37:39

And you have questions about what

37:43

age people should transition

37:47

and things like that. But you

37:50

have in one chapter

37:52

in the book where you really go

37:54

through the writing of some prominent trans

37:56

women. So these are people who were born

37:58

male. And

38:01

you really present them, I mean, their

38:03

writings are starkly misogynistic. Yes.

38:05

Could you talk a little bit about, you

38:07

know, what you find offensive in that? Basically,

38:12

there is a really interesting, very smart

38:15

movement of trans writers who are writing

38:17

about what it means to be a

38:19

woman. And when what it means to

38:21

be a woman has nothing to do necessarily with your

38:23

body, even with medical transition,

38:25

it's not necessary, it's being

38:27

a woman is an internal state. And

38:29

so then the question becomes, what

38:32

is that internal state? And

38:36

in the writing that these

38:39

trans women have put out, that's really smart.

38:41

And you should read it because it's fascinating

38:43

and difficult.

38:45

But it's basically, they're

38:47

arguing that to be

38:50

a woman is to be a

38:52

rebel. It's to be

38:54

submissive. It's to take. And

38:57

that's the womanhood they embrace, that's the womanhood they

39:00

love. And it's

39:02

a really different vision of

39:04

feminism than I'm used to. And

39:09

not to keep saying this, but it

39:12

very much has been a winning philosophy. It very

39:14

much has, and we're not

39:16

supposed to point out the misogyny in it.

39:18

We're not supposed to point out the insanity

39:20

of it, a lot of it. There's

39:24

a chapter about

39:27

the very

39:30

large movement of doctors who put

39:33

out all these videos or would put out,

39:35

go on

39:37

stage and give talks about how very

39:40

young children know when they're trans. Like

39:42

toddlers can be giving gender language. That

39:46

when a toddler pairs off a

39:48

barrette, that's a gender message. And

39:51

I'm serious. And

39:53

they say this, and you hear a crowd

39:55

applaud. And you're just like, what?

39:58

And I'm so sorry. I

40:00

think that there

40:02

was and has been

40:04

a movement to really reify gender and

40:07

make it like, well, and

40:10

I mean gender not sex, I mean

40:12

gender like womanness, like femaleness, like pink

40:16

skirts are somehow like

40:18

very important to being a female. And

40:21

that when that toddler rips out that barrette that that

40:23

means they're maybe

40:26

gender questioning. And I

40:29

think for me as a gay

40:32

woman, a lesbian, whatever I'm allowed to call it

40:34

these days, I so

40:37

non man attracted to non men

40:39

attracted to non men. I

40:42

looked at a lot of that movement. And obviously I'm sort

40:44

of like personally like, Oh my God, I can't believe you

40:46

would say that being a woman means to be a

40:48

receiver and like that I just like want to be

40:50

a whole like that's kind of I don't know. I

40:52

don't love that. Well,

40:54

it's you brought up second wave

40:56

feminism and it's a return to

40:59

a kind of essentialism that

41:01

second wave feminism really rejected and

41:03

moved beyond. Yeah. And I think some

41:05

of the quotes, I mean, I really in that chapter,

41:07

I really just list a bunch of

41:09

the craziest quotes that some of

41:11

these doctors say about trans youth,

41:15

that of gender nonconforming youth that that just

41:18

all the ways

41:20

that is centralized these kids and say

41:22

that that their behaviors

41:25

mean something very specific. And I as

41:29

a person who grew up

41:31

doing kind of gender nonconforming play

41:34

who had I mean, my voice now is

41:36

high, I'm sort of nervous, but normally it's so

41:38

low, like the audio book, the audio book is

41:41

like, it sounds like a funeral dirge. And

41:44

that's my natural voice. And

41:48

I think that I

41:52

think about myself as like a 12 year

41:54

old. I like I came out as gay when I was 14.

41:56

Basically, as soon as puberty was done, I was like, yeah,

41:59

I went through puberty a little young. I was like, I

42:01

know I'm gay, and I, as a kid, played

42:03

with tricks. I did all the things

42:06

that you would be like, maybe this person is gendered

42:08

on, like certainly she's gendered on conforming. But

42:11

maybe we should talk about other things. And I

42:14

think for me, I'm

42:17

really interested in this topic because I'm

42:19

really glad that I have my bits

42:21

and parts right now. And I think

42:24

that young kids, it's a little

42:26

bit, I mean, talk about

42:28

funny, it's a little funny to say that like

42:31

a nine-year-old knows themselves that

42:33

well. So, yeah. How

42:38

did, briefly, how do you think

42:40

things went from kind of racial

42:42

issues, which seem kind of straightforward,

42:45

particularly after, you know, Breonna Taylor,

42:48

the, her death at the hands

42:50

of police, but then also George

42:54

Floyd. How does it jump from

42:56

that to, and the discussions around that,

42:58

to gender? Because you're right, things shifted

43:01

out of kind of race mode into,

43:03

and now we're in a porn world. I think we're all

43:05

in a little bit of whiplash. I mean, how

43:07

do you think it shifted? It felt like one

43:10

day we're all marching for one cause, and then the

43:12

next day we're all marching for another cause. And it

43:14

becomes the most important cause. And it's like, it's like,

43:16

throw your pussy out out the window, now you're onto this.

43:18

Like, and like, how did all

43:20

of a sudden we're chanting in Deepwater Revolution? Like,

43:23

I don't know. These

43:25

things, we could say,

43:27

I mean, I guess the sort of pat

43:29

answer would be to say, social media. Things go

43:32

viral. So in the same way that

43:34

things go viral and a news cycle so

43:36

fast on Twitter, on Facebook,

43:38

a news cycle is now very fast

43:40

in our social movements, and very

43:42

viral. So,

43:47

yeah, we kind of, I think we're

43:49

all feeling like a little whiplash about

43:51

each of these twists and

43:53

where the next one comes and what the

43:55

new set of rules is. I'm hoping it's going

43:57

to be for a balanced budget. I

44:01

think that's, you know, but

44:03

you, let's talk a little bit about your hometown

44:06

of San Francisco, which in many ways was, you

44:08

know, kind of one of the epicenters for everything

44:11

that you're writing about. What

44:14

destroyed San Francisco? And

44:16

you have a long family history, go

44:19

back generations there. You know, was

44:21

it, yeah, what were the forces

44:23

that destroyed San Francisco? Okay, I don't

44:25

think it's destroyed. I think that there's

44:27

a big reform movement of like

44:29

normal, sensible people. Like this crowd

44:32

here, basically, who's in San Francisco,

44:34

who's like, this is enough, is

44:36

enough. But what destroyed San Francisco? It's

44:41

a city where it has

44:44

a period of politics that very

44:47

few other places have, and it has a

44:49

ton of money and a ton of smarts.

44:51

So you have like a pure progressive city where

44:54

there's no tension, there's no political

44:57

battle, and things can just go as

44:59

extreme as they wanna go. And

45:02

you see this, not if I do see this in Oregon with, oh,

45:04

I know you like this, with drug decriminalization, and

45:07

you see the things kind of, and then now the

45:09

move back. But in San Francisco, because of all the

45:11

smarts and because of all the money, it

45:14

became almost a parody of itself. So you had

45:16

a district attorney who

45:18

was arguing against prosecuting crime.

45:20

He literally said, we shouldn't prosecute

45:22

drug dealers because they are also victims and

45:24

they have families to support. And

45:30

you had the school arguing against

45:32

reopening the school and who spent

45:35

years on nonsensical

45:37

things like renaming schools

45:39

that were named for white supremacists like

45:42

Dianne Feinstein. I mean, you had

45:46

each kind of pillar of the city

45:48

became the parody of itself, became

45:50

the most unchecked version

45:53

of itself. And why?

45:56

I think because It's like good intentions.

46:00

Sweet Samuel, you refer to

46:02

these forces in San Francisco

46:04

as a sort of progressive

46:06

libertarian nihilists. Yeah, I not

46:09

a little bit. It sounds

46:11

exciting. Snowed

46:13

out. I want you to tell me

46:15

a better term for that, I guess.

46:17

What? What? I'm trying to explain his

46:20

let's say, the successes. In

46:23

this. A silly the thing more

46:25

in in San with more than the near times

46:27

more than like. Falling in love with Bear The

46:29

Thought Criminal More. Than. All that's it was

46:32

Being And seven. Cisco. And seeing

46:34

people literally dying on the sidewalks

46:36

for years. Of my life and then

46:38

seen that accelerates that kind of. Drove.

46:41

Me: To. Question: A lot

46:43

of decks and. The. Reason I

46:45

describe. It as progressive nihilism

46:47

or programmers and live with

46:49

my secretary. Analysis is because.

46:53

I think that. There's

46:56

a left wing or liberal response to a lot

46:58

of these issues is a liberal response to. Police

47:01

Brutality which is. Train them more

47:03

which is give them more funding and make them better.

47:06

That. Supper sponsored Americans had his with

47:08

abolished it's really different Response is there's

47:10

a live in response to seen people

47:12

dying on the streets and as to

47:14

say. Get them

47:17

help and it's descent. He might

47:19

see hard we have to force them to get

47:21

help. We can't just leave them to die and

47:23

that sidewalk even if they really want it. And

47:25

and I think you see that in. Our

47:28

cities in Europe rates that are

47:30

basically socialist but but the the

47:32

have a really different response to

47:34

these. Problems. That we all

47:36

share. And so I was trying to describe.

47:39

I think the kind of a very

47:42

American. I'm. Thread.

47:45

That comes in that says. Know.

47:48

As as fuck it. We. We

47:50

got to abolish the police altogether. It

47:53

says no, you can't force someone on

47:55

the sidewalk into treatment that that that

47:57

violates their freedom. and I

48:00

think that that's a really unique combination.

48:02

I would say, well, particularly with ODs,

48:07

I mean, this is fundamentally

48:09

a function of fentanyl.

48:12

Entering the drug supply, the only

48:14

reason fentanyl is in the drug

48:16

supply is because drugs are illegal.

48:18

Nobody's taking fentanyl in order to

48:20

overdose. So that might be a different. I'm

48:22

not going to win a drug debate with you. Wow.

48:25

And you're also not going to get any drugs from me.

48:30

I was moving for the fentanyl. Where are your

48:32

politics now? I mean, because you

48:35

talk about in the book, you were a liberal,

48:37

certainly, leaning to the left. You were never

48:40

really a progressive, right? I think I was

48:42

a progressive, I think. So where are you

48:44

now after all of what's transpired over the

48:46

past couple of years? The

48:49

easy sort of conversion story, and the

48:52

one that I know those reviewers and whatnot

48:54

want to put on anyone who questions or

48:56

makes fun of some of this movement is

48:58

to say, oh,

49:01

now you're a right winger. Now you're a

49:03

fascist. And I just reject

49:05

that. Obviously, I reject being a fascist. But

49:08

I reject it. Well, fascists always

49:10

do. Well, yeah. They

49:12

never admit it. As they would. But

49:14

I just reject that sort of dumb

49:17

binary and that

49:20

dumb knee jerk within modern

49:22

liberal spaces, progressive spaces

49:24

that says, if you're not for every plank for

49:27

every step of this, then you're against it.

49:29

Then you're the most extreme we can think

49:31

of on the other side. And it's just

49:33

silly. It doesn't reflect how people actually are.

49:36

So I don't know. I would say I have

49:38

some sort of cheesy answer in there,

49:40

which is like, more exhaustion than doctrine.

49:43

And I think that that's, I don't

49:46

know. I think most

49:48

of us feel sort of like unmoored

49:51

from an easy label. And that's

49:53

OK. And it's dumb, these labels. And

49:55

the Lock-down. That's

49:57

certainly that idea that, if you believe in

49:59

it. One thing that you here's another

50:02

ten things that you have to billie

50:04

think of a lot, right though. the

50:06

linkage of all issues to other issues

50:08

now unless they're Libertarian ashes and then

50:11

I also ah, our perfect sense and

50:13

if you don't believe them all, just

50:15

get the fuck out of this com

50:17

we're going to go to. Audience questions

50:20

are and just a second. but or

50:22

before we do that. How

50:25

does Social Tree had a positive social change

50:27

have a duty? It right in the book

50:29

that Feminism. Has given you a lot. You

50:32

benefited lot from that. I think it's everybody

50:34

in this room has benefited from feminism and

50:36

a variety of social change as much as

50:38

ten minutes sox. Yup, know now I'd neither

50:41

am I, neither am I In a sometimes

50:43

I don't want to drive in our. Office

50:46

or but I guess we're still talking about

50:49

sex. In

50:51

any case, you know how

50:54

to social change happen, if

50:56

not through the kind of

50:58

overblown you know, super public.

51:00

Out of control. Of

51:02

demonstrations. That and and arguing and yelling

51:05

and shouting that we've seen over the

51:07

past As to answers. One of them

51:09

is. That's. Not. How lot of

51:11

social said is? hop and let let's see the site

51:13

for gay marriage. There. Was a

51:16

movement during that fight. a very prominent

51:18

loud movement that said know we don't

51:20

want of movement of does. The

51:22

said no, we don't want gay marriage, etc Norman A.

51:25

Rival we Don't was a that's not a

51:27

slurry claim. her once had enough. Moderates

51:29

are conservatives like an end result of and to get

51:31

us gay marriage to they said. Like

51:34

now, we can keep a mass. Us

51:37

it's it's. some like. Inner

51:39

self and added about. About your

51:41

gaze at around khakis and standards and

51:43

white picket fences. Pressed against gay marriage

51:46

but didn't They also have to throw

51:48

rocks at police and stairwell. So.

51:51

Did. The broader question of like who

51:53

am I a some of the so

51:55

clearly benefited from progress to now stand

51:57

and say oh. This. is silly Oh

52:00

no, not that. And that's

52:02

something that I obviously wrestled with writing

52:04

the book, it's something I wrestle with in Woopa. It's

52:08

something I wrestle with as

52:11

a writer all the time. You always want to be thinking about that

52:13

and thinking about the generations before that got me

52:15

the rights I have now. I

52:17

mean the right to vote, the right to drive, the

52:19

right to be married to a woman, the

52:21

right to make a baby with a woman. Yeah.

52:25

I think the help of a sperm

52:27

donor. And who

52:30

is, I have to conclude. So a

52:33

non-woman who was probably attracted to non-women,

52:35

right? Exactly, and then Elon Musk came

52:37

and then, no. Are

52:40

you making, is that news? No. Are

52:42

you? No. Okay, yeah.

52:45

America's sperm donor, yes. Yeah. But

52:49

who am I to stand up and say,

52:51

no. And how

52:53

I think about it is, I

52:56

actually think that right now when we look back, the

52:58

march of progress seems linear. But in

53:00

the moment it's not. And I don't

53:03

think that the

53:05

people who call themselves progressives on this or

53:07

that issue own what is the

53:10

progressive next step. I

53:13

just reject that. Like I don't think it

53:15

is progress to abolish the police. I'm

53:18

not gonna ever think that.

53:21

And it's okay to say no. And it's okay

53:23

to say, yes, we need better policing, but it

53:25

doesn't look like abolishing it. And

53:28

it's simplistic and dumb to tell people,

53:30

oh, this is the way. Because

53:33

it's not. Or even the hot

53:36

button of the day, the trans issues and all this,

53:38

and let's say women's sports. I

53:40

don't think it's necessarily obvious that

53:43

the progressive thing is

53:45

to fully sex integrate sports.

53:48

I don't know if that's the next

53:50

step in the progressive march. And

53:53

I think it's okay to question that. Even if

53:55

you're someone who's benefited enormously from

53:57

progress, especially if you are. Yeah,

53:59

certainly. having benefited from a system

54:01

does not mean you have no right

54:03

to question it, right? That's a way

54:05

of silencing dissenters in a very perverse

54:07

way. And I think it means being realistic about

54:10

what got us here. That it wasn't

54:12

the rock throwers who got me gay marriage. Raise

54:14

your hand if you want to ask

54:16

a question and we'll have somebody who's

54:18

gonna come around and bring a microphone.

54:20

How optimistic, if at

54:23

all, are you about San Francisco

54:25

and what might your fellow San

54:27

Franciscans of whom I'm one do

54:29

to affect change there? Thank you. I'm

54:32

super optimistic about San Francisco. San

54:35

Francisco was ahead of the country

54:37

by five years and some of the

54:39

wackiest stuff. And it's ahead in the reform

54:41

movement. I mean, you have like GRO-SF, you

54:43

have a bunch of new organizations that are

54:45

coming up and saying, we

54:47

want a livable city. Like we

54:50

want a district

54:52

attorney who fights crime, which I think Brooke Jenkins

54:54

is doing her best. I'm

54:57

really optimistic. I think people kind of said

55:00

enough. We're not gonna be cowed

55:02

by these labels and by these

55:06

few nut jobs on Twitter and the

55:08

school board. And the fact

55:10

of the recalls, the fact

55:12

that Jessa was recalled, the fact that the school

55:15

board was recalled. I mean, that was unheard of.

55:17

It was crazy. The farmer's markets were crazy. It

55:20

was wild. There were battles. You

55:22

never see that. It's a political monoculture. And

55:24

all of a sudden it became a place

55:26

where the moderate liberals stood up and said

55:28

enough. And I'm optimistic. It's also just the most

55:30

beautiful place in the world. Come on, like eventually

55:32

those hills will slough off the nuts and a new

55:34

group of nuts will come in. And

55:37

that's, if anything

55:39

else, you just kind of wait it out and

55:41

your kids will enjoy a whole new battle there.

55:44

My question, do you think that there's

55:47

been a serious change of heart at the

55:49

New York Times to try to revert to

55:51

some journalistic standards that were

55:55

abandoned or at least kicked to the side of the road

55:57

in 2016 on, or do

56:00

you think they're just business people and

56:02

they're feeling the heat from the free

56:04

press and sub-stack and Taibbi, etc., etc., and

56:06

they feel like they're going to lose audience

56:08

if they don't get credible? Well,

56:10

I like to think that the free press

56:13

has results, gets results. And

56:16

so I like to think that NPR

56:18

will now go through Reformation, thanks to

56:20

the Art Whistleblower essay and that

56:22

little all. I

56:25

did find it hardening that Joe Kahn said that. I

56:27

mean, the fact that he had to say in a

56:29

big announcement that we are not going

56:31

to be the mouthpiece of Joe Biden

56:34

and that that was considered controversial tells

56:36

you a lot about the rhetoric internally

56:40

and what he's pushing up against. But

56:48

it's a big paper. There's

56:50

thousands of reporters and a lot are

56:53

brilliant. It's a

56:55

lot are amazing. Do I think

56:57

that they can push against this movement that's coming

56:59

up through the ranks that really has a

57:01

different vision for journalism? I'm

57:04

not super optimistic. I also

57:07

think the business model of being a

57:09

subscription business versus an advertiser business

57:12

is it's just a lot easier to fall to

57:14

audience capture. I mean, we

57:17

as we grow, we'll struggle with the same thing. Your

57:21

audience sees you as a sword for their

57:23

battle. And so the New York

57:25

Times subscriber sees the New York Times

57:27

as a sword for their battle. And so it's good business

57:29

what they're doing. I mean, their numbers are amazing. So

57:32

I don't know if we're going to see

57:34

some huge Reformation, but it's nice

57:36

rhetoric. And I'm happy he's a free

57:38

press reader. I was loving that. Can you talk a

57:41

little bit about audience capture? Because

57:43

most publications, I mean, the model of advertising

57:47

based revenue was kind

57:49

of dying everywhere on TV, on

57:51

radio, in print, online. How

57:54

at the free press, how do you prevent

57:56

from just becoming an echo chamber

57:58

for what you think you're doing? readers want

58:00

and will pay for. All of us in

58:02

this are now in a constant battle with that.

58:04

I mean in the same way that when you

58:07

were when advertising was the

58:09

main business that was a risk.

58:11

How do you make sure that you're not just trying

58:13

to please the local mall owners and trying to like

58:16

keep the car companies happy. You

58:18

have to be constantly thinking about it and and

58:21

protecting yourself from it. I

58:24

think it's helpful in the

58:26

free presses case because

58:28

we have a really diverse

58:30

readership. So there's not like

58:33

one clear free press reader which

58:35

I have learned a lot through the where I

58:37

TG is. It

58:39

is a truly diverse group of people.

58:42

I mean you have the the

58:44

please insult them now.

58:46

No, no, I'm obsessed with them. I'm obsessed

58:50

but it's like people from all over from

58:52

all walks of life from all politics. So

58:54

if I was trying to please them I'm

58:57

trying to please the PhD student who's sending

58:59

me where I TG from Yale and the

59:01

farmer who's sending me where I TG and

59:04

he's showing me his goats. Like I don't know how I

59:06

would please both of them. There's a lot of ham radio

59:08

operators and pilots. I don't know how I would please them.

59:10

I wouldn't mind. It's

59:15

such a eccentric group who have come

59:17

together. I mean the people

59:19

in this room like what you know it's

59:22

such a weird movement

59:24

of free thinkers whatever we want to

59:26

call ourselves in this moment. I

59:28

think it would be very hard for us to suffer from

59:31

audience capture. At some point

59:33

I mean we do think about it

59:35

and I'm sure as we grow to be

59:38

you know on par with let's

59:40

say the New York Times obviously within the next year.

59:42

We'll think

59:45

about it even more. Get a comics page and you're

59:47

halfway there. I know we need the game. Another question.

59:49

Just wanted to ask since this is

59:52

a largely free market group

59:54

here. Is there a

59:56

way that we can invest

59:58

in some kind of venture

1:00:00

or have you seen a venture where

1:00:03

we can get people to start laughing

1:00:05

at their own absurdities so

1:00:07

we can start loving our crazy

1:00:09

friends again instead of just

1:00:11

yelling at each other. Free

1:00:13

Press CEO Barry Weiss is

1:00:15

here to talk about all

1:00:18

investment opportunities as we grow

1:00:20

to be the size of the New York Times. I

1:00:23

think you'll want a tax

1:00:25

advantage donation to the nonprofit

1:00:27

reason fund. Get out of

1:00:29

here Nick! Get out of

1:00:31

here Nick! Nick is progressive

1:00:33

stack time! Let's

1:00:35

do one more question please. I

1:00:39

was going to ask if you think

1:00:41

the arc of history bends toward justice

1:00:43

and whether your view

1:00:46

on that has changed over time. You think I'm

1:00:48

so much smarter than I am? That's an amazing

1:00:50

question. Wow! Anyone does

1:00:53

it bend toward audience

1:00:56

volunteers? We've got to

1:00:58

know. You're the author. Yes or no? No

1:01:01

I can't do it. Not

1:01:04

necessarily. No. No!

1:01:07

I think that what

1:01:10

we have, liberalism,

1:01:14

these amazing societies where

1:01:17

people can disagree and not hurt each other,

1:01:19

where we have a kind of agreed

1:01:21

upon set of rules that

1:01:23

are so fragile. I

1:01:27

think it can fall. I do. I

1:01:29

think it has. We've seen it. You see it

1:01:31

around the world. What we're

1:01:34

doing now and maintaining this is the

1:01:36

hardest thing humans do. It's

1:01:39

a remarkable exception to our norm which

1:01:41

is chaos

1:01:43

and tribalism and brutality and

1:01:46

nastiness. All

1:01:48

of these movements that we're

1:01:51

seeing that seem so irrational and

1:01:53

that seem like the exceptions, those are the

1:01:55

rules. This is the exception. So

1:01:59

no, I don't think it... and towards justice

1:02:01

or goodness. And I don't think necessarily that's

1:02:03

a given and I don't think it's forever.

1:02:05

I think we're living in a really special

1:02:08

moment that will last maybe a few generations. What do you

1:02:10

think? I'd like to think

1:02:12

it's gonna last for at least 50 more years. And

1:02:15

then I can cash out. You just want

1:02:17

to make sure you can die. You know,

1:02:19

as a final question for you, I

1:02:21

wanted to ask because the book, as

1:02:23

a couple of people have mentioned, is

1:02:25

a delight to read. It's both funny,

1:02:27

it's extremely well reported, and

1:02:29

two writers are kind of like guardian

1:02:32

angels for the book, Tom Wolfe and

1:02:34

Joan Didion. Joan Didion is referenced in

1:02:36

your title. She wrote a famous essay

1:02:38

called On the Morning After the Sixties,

1:02:41

very Californian. I

1:02:43

do not pretend to be as good as

1:02:45

Tom Wolfe, Joan Didion. Or as thin as

1:02:48

Joan Didion, right? Or as thin as Joan

1:02:50

Didion. Or as well dressed as Tom Wolfe.

1:02:52

So I was gonna ask

1:02:54

though, what is there, you know, are

1:02:59

they kind of like your parents, influence

1:03:04

parents, or what are you big fans of

1:03:06

those, and what did they bring to journalism

1:03:08

that is just- Oh my God, they brought

1:03:10

everything. They brought everything. What

1:03:13

did Joan Didion bring to journalism? You're asking

1:03:15

a 35 year old white woman,

1:03:17

36. What Joan Didion

1:03:19

brought to journalism? Do you

1:03:21

have three hours to sit? Like what do

1:03:24

you do for dinner? They

1:03:27

brought skepticism and laughter

1:03:29

and darkness. I

1:03:36

mean, they made journalism storytelling. They

1:03:38

did, I don't know, guys, I'm such

1:03:40

a freak for them. I'm gonna say I'm

1:03:42

like a crazy person. I

1:03:45

think a lot also about PJ O'Rourke. And

1:03:48

I think he is an underappreciated character.

1:03:50

He was once kind of the most

1:03:52

quoted political commentator. And

1:03:55

I'm trying tomorrow actually, we're publishing a piece

1:03:58

that's about, that's the- Free

1:04:00

Press's first book club and it's going to be

1:04:02

to go reread some PJR work and

1:04:08

I think what they had that is lacking

1:04:10

now, and I don't pretend to be the torchbearer

1:04:12

I hope that a better writer than me becomes the

1:04:14

torchbearer or a

1:04:17

lot of better writers do but

1:04:19

I think that they had Empathy

1:04:23

but also curiosity and that they were willing

1:04:25

to be Somewhat

1:04:27

brutal like Joan Didion's best

1:04:29

essays are brutal

1:04:33

and fair but harsh

1:04:36

and I think it's

1:04:40

really hard when you're thinking of

1:04:42

yourself as a Partisan

1:04:46

or as a political

1:04:48

actor it's very hard to

1:04:50

be a mirror and To be honest

1:04:52

about what you're seeing and what you're experiencing And I

1:04:55

think that they were very good at that and that

1:04:57

that has been kind of lost in a lot of

1:04:59

now the feeling of

1:05:01

journalism as Tool

1:05:04

of your of your politics and tool

1:05:06

of of your of your

1:05:08

tribe And

1:05:10

I hope we bring some of that back soon I

1:05:12

hope I think that's coming back

1:05:14

a little bit with the kind of sub-stack

1:05:16

world with the new world of

1:05:19

media companies that Aren't

1:05:22

Fox News like you're not gonna find Tom Wolfe in Fox

1:05:24

News. You're not gonna find This

1:05:26

in the Times anymore either and Anyways,

1:05:29

I think the new world promises to bring some of that

1:05:31

back Well, the book is morning

1:05:33

after the revolution dispatches from the wrong side

1:05:35

of history Nellie balls. Thanks for talking to

1:05:38

me This

1:05:43

has been the reason interview with Nick

1:05:45

Lesby before you do anything else Please

1:05:47

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1:05:49

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