On this already-stale episode, the ladies discuss the past week’s debate between Kamala Harris and Donald Trump, before delving into the more politically salient topic of Joe Rogan’s Austin kingdom.
I almost started crying in the grocery store when you guys got to the pet euthanasia talk--I'm sorry for the loss of Goose, even if it was time. I still mourn my pet that I had to euthanize just over a year ago, and I constantly alternate between thinking it was too soon vs too late--in reality it was probably just the right time. Marc Maron has a good bit about this being part of pet ownership, knowing that in the best case scenario you'll have to have them killed. It is for the best in most cases, but it's such a responsibility to take on. People should really think about it before becoming pet owners.
My vet tech friend recommended donating pet remains to vet schools so that the medicine can continue to advance and new vets can be trained. I was pretty interested in that with mine, since rabbits are considered exotic pets and the vet care around them is still quite behind cats/dogs, but alas it wasn't a possibility *because* he was an exotic pet.
Thank you for writing this comment; it may end up inspiring me to donate my dog’s remains when he dies (which of course will never happen, but y’know, IF it were to happen…), because yeah, it hadn’t occurred to me that they’d be short on pet cadavers. And maybe they’re more short on rabbits or chinchillas than dogs or cats, but hey, maybe not! So yeah, thanks for putting this out there. I will keep it in mind, and hopefully others will too.
I don't generally have a problem with Joe Rogan, but I think the fact that he felt the need to apologize for saying he would support RFK Jr over Trump or Harris tells says a lot about his audience. Same thing with Bari Weiss. She's fine, but the comments on Free Press articles is full of conspiracists.
I think Sarah lacks imagination about a potential Trump second term. Try to picture it's 2017 and I tell you not only that he's going to incite a riot on January 6, but that every single Republican state Attorney General and more than half of Congressional Republicans are going to file an idiotic lawsuit against Pennsylvania to throw their votes out. Or that Georgia election officials will have to go into hiding. Or that ultimately more than 40 senior Trump officials, including his Vice President, would not endorse a second term.
It's true that he would not govern in an ideological manner, but he absolutely would govern to enrich himself and punish his enemies. A really simple example: in 2017 he got the DOD to throw out a deal with Amazon cloud services because Jeff Bezos owns the Washington Post, and he didn't like the Post's coverage of him. He also tried to block ATT/Time Warner' purchase of CNN, for the same reasons. In both cases there were career employees who were able to limit his power. But with Schedule F he would be able to fire anyone who gets in his way.
Sarah, if Trump gets in again, he will most likely not hand power over should he loose in 2028 and that is arguably the main feature that distinguishes a democracy from a dictatorship. In that sense he is an extremist and that is why we should be worried about him getting back in again. Also, many people's (election helpers etc..) lives very threatened or destroyed because of what he did in an attempt to turn around the result of the election. What about the police officers that were physically harmed on January 6th? He has a violent mob at his disposal and that is bad enough. By means is it desirable for him to have even more that.
Both Hitler and Mussolini got in via elections, then set about dismantling any institution that would prevent them from having absolute power. Viktor Orbán has done the same thing. Erdogan too. All of them won elections.
You have no proof of this. You just don’t. If you hold that opinion, I guess fine.
I just get very tired of people presenting this as some sort of well established known result. The fact of the matter is that he’s also old, I very much doubt that there will be any sort of craziness this time around after having lost twice if that happens. If he wins, the likelihood of him not conceding the end of his term is also extremely low. Even if he didn’t, it’s not like he would be the first president to serve more than two terms, I think that thought likely would bother you much less if we were talking about your favorite candidate. Maybe it would, I don’t know.
This also fails to mention that if threats to democracy are on the top of the importance list, perhaps political lawfare is not the way to go?? It completely undermines the democratic position that Trump is the primary threat to democracy 😂😂.
Anyway, I’m not much of a Trump guy to begin with outside of the meme quality but I find the fear of him to be dramatically overblown.
I don’t buy that what he did last time was anywhere near as big a deal as many are making it out to be to begin with. He is not by far the first sore loser of a presidential election. I would not in the least be surprised if very similar avenues were looked at by previous losers of elections, the difference being that Trump can’t keep his mouth shut and told everyone exactly what was going on in his brain, which led people to take it more seriously than it should have been by the media and the layperson. As a result of this belief, no I don’t think it’s a bigger claim.
We’re likely going to disagree on this so that’s fine but honestly the “threat to democracy” media circle jerk feels extremely similar to the “Trump is a Russian operative” drivel that was spouted on about for 4 years after he won.
The truth that he’s a sore loser and an egomaniac is enough, it doesn’t need hyperbole.
He is not the first person to try that. It’s wrong obviously, but I stand by my statement that his biggest crime is being more open about the things he does in Washington. These are things that have been done before, have been attempted before, but he just doesn’t shut his mouth about it.
Real talk, where do you think he and his team got these ideas? They were aware of them because they have been tried and attempted historically, and there’s record of it. It doesn’t mean it was the right thing to do, it does mean that he is not some unique political monster. He just happens to not filter anything going through his brain.
It just screams to me that what really pisses people off about Trump is that he is so brazenly open about how the levers of government power actually work.
Outside of that, pretty much everything he’s done has been done before, has been tried before.
Ironically, we the people are in large part responsible for this madness because we keep giving absurdly broad powers to the president. Then we get upset at how one person has so much power to do harm to the country as if there haven’t been people screaming about the potential abuse of power the whole time.
Our own naïveté as a country has been biting us in the ass for a long time now.
Not committing to a peaceful transfer of power and then taking real steps to ensure that there isn't one doesn't seem all that common to me. What other presidents did that?
Sarah, do you honestly think saying “they’re eating cats” is more effective than just saying “a third of the town has moved there in the last few years and it’s severely straining social services?” Then perhaps the (Republican) mayor of Springfield would’ve backed him up instead of having to alert people to bomb threats.
What I’m confused about is this: Shouldn’t those who are concerned about gentrification increasing rent for the disadvantaged also be concerned for the disadvantaged people in Springfield who have experienced higher rents due to the influx of immigrants? Isn’t it the same thing? Why are they so dismissive of these people’s concerns?
Here's what I mean. My understanding is that a lot of these Haitians moved there with the help of a government-supported NGO that gave them money to help them make the transition. You could argue that this is a subsidy that has driven up costs and caused social friction.
Trump and Vance could've made a very compelling argument that subsidies like Kamala's $25,000 proposed first-time homebuyer credit are the problem with Democratic economic policies, that they not only drive up housings costs but cause social friction when there is mass re-location of immigrants with different cultural norms.
This would've been a really good story for reporters to cover. They could've talked to people whose rent has gone up and people whose wages were depressed by the surplus labor. They could've talked to housing economists and compared inflation rates in Springfield to other midwestern studies. They could've speculated about impact on Kamala's housing credit to housing in Springfield.
But instead Trump lied about immigrants eating pets, and activists like Chris Rufo spent three days offering bounties for anyone to prove it. For the media NOT to debunk that would've been malpractice, and because of the lie the larger message is lost.
Good points. Only thing I would point out is that I don’t believe the MSM would ever explore the real issue regardless of whether Trump made unsubstantiated claims about pet-eating or not.
As far as I can tell, neither Trump nor Vance has criticized it. Anything a candidates says in a debate will get coverage. The problem is Trump’s hyperbolic lies swamp any substance.
I’m not making the case that Trump was smart by talking about eating cats. I’m just saying the MSM won’t touch this issue, specifically as it relates to Springfield because of the identity markers of the people involved.
The Vox piece is far is more general, and even it couldn’t resist invoking race when talking about who comes out on the short end. The victims must always look a certain way. The folks in Springfield don’t fit that mold, and thus shall never qualify for victim status.
Besides being hypothetical/speculative, that’s a very fatalistic point of view, isn’t it? (Your assertion that the MSM will never touch this issue, I mean.) There are plenty of right-of-center people who are very good at working the refs, haranguing reporters, and just generally getting stories in the paper. There’s also an increasing awareness of housing as an issue among rank-and-file liberals (like myself, though I’ve been obsessed with it for years), and *a lot* of reporters are rank-and-file liberals, especially in news divisions at good papers, including the Times.
I could easily imagine a piece in the Times where they interviewed some economists and local residents and so on, and told the story about Springfield and Haitians and housing and so on. In fact, I could imagine it coming out soon, because this brouhaha could serve as a nice hook; a piece about immigration affecting housing in an Ohio town is newsworthy, but it might be low-priority or put on A14 or whatever—except now that it was in the presidential debate and is an inescapable topic of discussion, it could really improve a reporter’s chances of getting a piece like that on the front page/placed prominently online.
Maybe I’m being incredibly naïve, but I really could see that story being published in Joe Kahn’s New York Times. (Probably a lot less likely under Dean Bacquet’s editorship, though, I’ll certainly grant you that.)
That’s the difference in likability between the two. Hillary comes off as someone who genuinely believes that she is better than everyone else and that she is entitled to rule as part of some hidden aristocracy. She believes (incorrectly) that her CV is reflective of some intrinsic quality. Kamala, on the other hand, comes off as someone who lacks confidence. It’s also why she’s such a big equity advocate: she believes (correctly) that she would never make it in a meritocracy.
Don’t get me wrong, they’re both terrible. Just in different ways.
I think you’re correct about the differences between Hillary Clinton and Harris. It’s interesting to me the “tribalism” of the main stream journalists in their assessments of candidates they like (and dislike). The flaws of Trump are obvious and the MSM are more than happy to report them and expound on them, and even go along with creative journalism that creates inaccurate information about him. They don’t seem interested in understanding his appeal, or conversely the distaste for H Clinton or Harris. This is part of why many people just don’t trust MSM. The past two presidential elections were very close, and I expect this one to be the same.
I felt frustrated by Meghan's overall characterisation of Joe Rogan's podcast by using the example of Alex Jones, and feel so many people do this with Joe, using extreme examples to make a generalised point. Sarah kept the conversation balanced at least, but using one (and undeniably terrible) guest to make an overall generalisation of what he stands for or represents is unfair. Joe brings on so many brilliant and thoughtful guests over the years, who have really changed the way I think about things, even to the point I wouldn't be here listening to this podcast without it. He platforms people from all walks of life, backgrounds, interests and Sarah is spot on about his authenticity being what people love and appreciate about him.
I think Joe Rogan actually promotes critical thinking. Because his guests and the stuff they say varies so widely, you know that not everything is going to be of equal quality. I haven't listened in a while, but I used to occasionally and I'd pick and choose episodes because nobody has time for all that. Because he asks so many questions, it encourages the listener to think what questions they might ask, and there's a real back and forth you don't get on TV news. And of course the show often has someone looking up answers in real time.
People who watch Rachel Maddow or Sean Hannity or who read NYT or WaPo on the other hand, don't get any of that. It's those people who tend to view the news as gospel.
That, and I like that he is a genuinely enthusiastically curious person. I’m not interested in all of his topics and I only have so much time so I listen to maybe 1/4 of his output. But his curiosity and willingness to just let people talk without having to arrogantly bigfoot into every topic and pretend knowledge he doesn’t have (like most of the media and so-called journalists) is what makes him worth listening to for me.
I think people dramatically underestimate how disliked Hillary Clinton was by the time she ran for president. Her time in congress had her name spoken in the same circles as Nancy Pelosi, which is to say, she was a democratic horseman of the Republican Party apocalypse.
That and she came across as deeply elitist, not just in public appearances, but in the fact that she just didn’t go to a lot blue collar places in her campaign. She was incredibly disliked outside of liberal circles.
Michael Lind: "A Clinton or a Bush was president, vice president, or secretary of state in every year between 1981 and 2013." Just saying... I liked some of them.
On Alex Jones: At a recent discussion of free speech (as my college was trying to crawl back out of wokeness) someone asked me, “Okay, but should we allow a Holocaust denier to speak?" Well, Noam Chomsky supported a denialist book's right to be published; Alex Haley interviewed the head of the American Nazi Party. Journalists and academics are in the knowledge business, for which the issue should not be "is this harmful?" but "does it add to our attempt to figure out what's true?" Because pursuing that goal is the way we try to do good. I probably wouldn't interview Alex Jones, or invite the Holocaust denier, for the same reason I wouldn't interview the Flat Earth society -- life is short, and I don't see the plausible truth-value. The "harm principle" is a good one, but using it as the final criterion opens the door for anyone to say “False views are harmful. And yours are false.”
Never heard of him (Williamson) either. And I'm pretty up on this stuff; I'm not hanging out with Joe Rogan in Austin but I have met a fair number of the people in this space (not including our hosts here). Lex Fridman I've heard of but never listened to.
Full disclosure: the only reason I know Lex is that he interviews a lot of heterodox/libertarian journalists and scholars so he shows up in my Youtube feed. I listened to the entire Glenn Loury interview but usually have to resort to clips.
Hey Sarah, this isn't related to this week's discussion topics, but I wanted to bring your attention to this article I just came across, as it relates to the declining fertility topic which frequently comes up:
Trump either isn't smart enough or strong enough to stand up to any of those on the right wing of his party. He thinks it is okay to hang out with Laura Lumer, and doesn't get why this is a bad look. So either he is too dump to get it and is talked into this by Laura Lumer and the likes, or he actually doesn't see any problem with Laura's outrageous comments. He would be exactly the same in office and the government would be run by a shadow cabal of wiley right wing cabinet members who know they can manipulate him. He is starved for approval from those he perceives as having power, including other dictators. Why would we risk another four years of this man?
The Tulsi and Eric Weinstein simping was a bit, right? Tulsi is the queen of grifting at this point. Joe Rogan took a turn during Covid for the worse - his podcast is now just a revolving door for pseudo-intellectual right wingers to whine about the make-believe culture wars.
I went to school in Austin from 2001 to 2004 and even back then it was well on its way to becoming what it is today. Dell, technically not in Austin but close enough, was founded in the mid-80s, and South by Southwest started in the mid-80s as well. The TV show Austin City Limits dates back to the 70s. Whole Foods was founded in Austin in the late 70s. Apple, IBM, Motorola, TI, and a lot of other old guard tech companies all had operations in Austin going to back to the 90s and in some cases as far back as the 70s. The tech scene and the music/arts scene that characterize Austin today have both been around for going on 50 years, but in the 80s and 90s Austin was still first and foremost a state capital and a college town. I think what's changed in the last 10-15 years is that Austin has grown so much that it's being the the state capital and home to UT is a much smaller part of its identity that it used to be.
I almost started crying in the grocery store when you guys got to the pet euthanasia talk--I'm sorry for the loss of Goose, even if it was time. I still mourn my pet that I had to euthanize just over a year ago, and I constantly alternate between thinking it was too soon vs too late--in reality it was probably just the right time. Marc Maron has a good bit about this being part of pet ownership, knowing that in the best case scenario you'll have to have them killed. It is for the best in most cases, but it's such a responsibility to take on. People should really think about it before becoming pet owners.
My vet tech friend recommended donating pet remains to vet schools so that the medicine can continue to advance and new vets can be trained. I was pretty interested in that with mine, since rabbits are considered exotic pets and the vet care around them is still quite behind cats/dogs, but alas it wasn't a possibility *because* he was an exotic pet.
Thank you for writing this comment; it may end up inspiring me to donate my dog’s remains when he dies (which of course will never happen, but y’know, IF it were to happen…), because yeah, it hadn’t occurred to me that they’d be short on pet cadavers. And maybe they’re more short on rabbits or chinchillas than dogs or cats, but hey, maybe not! So yeah, thanks for putting this out there. I will keep it in mind, and hopefully others will too.
I did not know about this. Thanks, Monia, for bringing it to our attention.
I don't generally have a problem with Joe Rogan, but I think the fact that he felt the need to apologize for saying he would support RFK Jr over Trump or Harris tells says a lot about his audience. Same thing with Bari Weiss. She's fine, but the comments on Free Press articles is full of conspiracists.
I think Sarah lacks imagination about a potential Trump second term. Try to picture it's 2017 and I tell you not only that he's going to incite a riot on January 6, but that every single Republican state Attorney General and more than half of Congressional Republicans are going to file an idiotic lawsuit against Pennsylvania to throw their votes out. Or that Georgia election officials will have to go into hiding. Or that ultimately more than 40 senior Trump officials, including his Vice President, would not endorse a second term.
It's true that he would not govern in an ideological manner, but he absolutely would govern to enrich himself and punish his enemies. A really simple example: in 2017 he got the DOD to throw out a deal with Amazon cloud services because Jeff Bezos owns the Washington Post, and he didn't like the Post's coverage of him. He also tried to block ATT/Time Warner' purchase of CNN, for the same reasons. In both cases there were career employees who were able to limit his power. But with Schedule F he would be able to fire anyone who gets in his way.
Sarah, if Trump gets in again, he will most likely not hand power over should he loose in 2028 and that is arguably the main feature that distinguishes a democracy from a dictatorship. In that sense he is an extremist and that is why we should be worried about him getting back in again. Also, many people's (election helpers etc..) lives very threatened or destroyed because of what he did in an attempt to turn around the result of the election. What about the police officers that were physically harmed on January 6th? He has a violent mob at his disposal and that is bad enough. By means is it desirable for him to have even more that.
Both Hitler and Mussolini got in via elections, then set about dismantling any institution that would prevent them from having absolute power. Viktor Orbán has done the same thing. Erdogan too. All of them won elections.
Exactly!
You have no proof of this. You just don’t. If you hold that opinion, I guess fine.
I just get very tired of people presenting this as some sort of well established known result. The fact of the matter is that he’s also old, I very much doubt that there will be any sort of craziness this time around after having lost twice if that happens. If he wins, the likelihood of him not conceding the end of his term is also extremely low. Even if he didn’t, it’s not like he would be the first president to serve more than two terms, I think that thought likely would bother you much less if we were talking about your favorite candidate. Maybe it would, I don’t know.
This also fails to mention that if threats to democracy are on the top of the importance list, perhaps political lawfare is not the way to go?? It completely undermines the democratic position that Trump is the primary threat to democracy 😂😂.
Anyway, I’m not much of a Trump guy to begin with outside of the meme quality but I find the fear of him to be dramatically overblown.
Your claim that Trump will behave differently than last time is the bigger claim than ours. The burden of proof is on whoever holds the bigger claim.
I don’t buy that what he did last time was anywhere near as big a deal as many are making it out to be to begin with. He is not by far the first sore loser of a presidential election. I would not in the least be surprised if very similar avenues were looked at by previous losers of elections, the difference being that Trump can’t keep his mouth shut and told everyone exactly what was going on in his brain, which led people to take it more seriously than it should have been by the media and the layperson. As a result of this belief, no I don’t think it’s a bigger claim.
We’re likely going to disagree on this so that’s fine but honestly the “threat to democracy” media circle jerk feels extremely similar to the “Trump is a Russian operative” drivel that was spouted on about for 4 years after he won.
The truth that he’s a sore loser and an egomaniac is enough, it doesn’t need hyperbole.
Literally had a completely FAKE slate of electors that he wanted to certify to assert his win. Not sure how that is being hyperbolic
He is not the first person to try that. It’s wrong obviously, but I stand by my statement that his biggest crime is being more open about the things he does in Washington. These are things that have been done before, have been attempted before, but he just doesn’t shut his mouth about it.
Real talk, where do you think he and his team got these ideas? They were aware of them because they have been tried and attempted historically, and there’s record of it. It doesn’t mean it was the right thing to do, it does mean that he is not some unique political monster. He just happens to not filter anything going through his brain.
It just screams to me that what really pisses people off about Trump is that he is so brazenly open about how the levers of government power actually work.
Outside of that, pretty much everything he’s done has been done before, has been tried before.
Ironically, we the people are in large part responsible for this madness because we keep giving absurdly broad powers to the president. Then we get upset at how one person has so much power to do harm to the country as if there haven’t been people screaming about the potential abuse of power the whole time.
Our own naïveté as a country has been biting us in the ass for a long time now.
Not committing to a peaceful transfer of power and then taking real steps to ensure that there isn't one doesn't seem all that common to me. What other presidents did that?
Sarah, do you honestly think saying “they’re eating cats” is more effective than just saying “a third of the town has moved there in the last few years and it’s severely straining social services?” Then perhaps the (Republican) mayor of Springfield would’ve backed him up instead of having to alert people to bomb threats.
What I’m confused about is this: Shouldn’t those who are concerned about gentrification increasing rent for the disadvantaged also be concerned for the disadvantaged people in Springfield who have experienced higher rents due to the influx of immigrants? Isn’t it the same thing? Why are they so dismissive of these people’s concerns?
Here's what I mean. My understanding is that a lot of these Haitians moved there with the help of a government-supported NGO that gave them money to help them make the transition. You could argue that this is a subsidy that has driven up costs and caused social friction.
Trump and Vance could've made a very compelling argument that subsidies like Kamala's $25,000 proposed first-time homebuyer credit are the problem with Democratic economic policies, that they not only drive up housings costs but cause social friction when there is mass re-location of immigrants with different cultural norms.
This would've been a really good story for reporters to cover. They could've talked to people whose rent has gone up and people whose wages were depressed by the surplus labor. They could've talked to housing economists and compared inflation rates in Springfield to other midwestern studies. They could've speculated about impact on Kamala's housing credit to housing in Springfield.
But instead Trump lied about immigrants eating pets, and activists like Chris Rufo spent three days offering bounties for anyone to prove it. For the media NOT to debunk that would've been malpractice, and because of the lie the larger message is lost.
Very well said.
Good points. Only thing I would point out is that I don’t believe the MSM would ever explore the real issue regardless of whether Trump made unsubstantiated claims about pet-eating or not.
Here’s a piece from the left-leaning Vox pointing out the problems with the Harris tax credit policy:
https://www.vox.com/policy/369525/kamala-harris-housing-plan-corporate-landlords-homeownership
As far as I can tell, neither Trump nor Vance has criticized it. Anything a candidates says in a debate will get coverage. The problem is Trump’s hyperbolic lies swamp any substance.
I’m not making the case that Trump was smart by talking about eating cats. I’m just saying the MSM won’t touch this issue, specifically as it relates to Springfield because of the identity markers of the people involved.
The Vox piece is far is more general, and even it couldn’t resist invoking race when talking about who comes out on the short end. The victims must always look a certain way. The folks in Springfield don’t fit that mold, and thus shall never qualify for victim status.
Besides being hypothetical/speculative, that’s a very fatalistic point of view, isn’t it? (Your assertion that the MSM will never touch this issue, I mean.) There are plenty of right-of-center people who are very good at working the refs, haranguing reporters, and just generally getting stories in the paper. There’s also an increasing awareness of housing as an issue among rank-and-file liberals (like myself, though I’ve been obsessed with it for years), and *a lot* of reporters are rank-and-file liberals, especially in news divisions at good papers, including the Times.
I could easily imagine a piece in the Times where they interviewed some economists and local residents and so on, and told the story about Springfield and Haitians and housing and so on. In fact, I could imagine it coming out soon, because this brouhaha could serve as a nice hook; a piece about immigration affecting housing in an Ohio town is newsworthy, but it might be low-priority or put on A14 or whatever—except now that it was in the presidential debate and is an inescapable topic of discussion, it could really improve a reporter’s chances of getting a piece like that on the front page/placed prominently online.
Maybe I’m being incredibly naïve, but I really could see that story being published in Joe Kahn’s New York Times. (Probably a lot less likely under Dean Bacquet’s editorship, though, I’ll certainly grant you that.)
I don’t dismiss their concerns. I just don’t see how Trump lying about immigrants eating pets makes those concerns salient in an election.
“Deplorables” was the real Hillary.
That’s the difference in likability between the two. Hillary comes off as someone who genuinely believes that she is better than everyone else and that she is entitled to rule as part of some hidden aristocracy. She believes (incorrectly) that her CV is reflective of some intrinsic quality. Kamala, on the other hand, comes off as someone who lacks confidence. It’s also why she’s such a big equity advocate: she believes (correctly) that she would never make it in a meritocracy.
Don’t get me wrong, they’re both terrible. Just in different ways.
I think you’re correct about the differences between Hillary Clinton and Harris. It’s interesting to me the “tribalism” of the main stream journalists in their assessments of candidates they like (and dislike). The flaws of Trump are obvious and the MSM are more than happy to report them and expound on them, and even go along with creative journalism that creates inaccurate information about him. They don’t seem interested in understanding his appeal, or conversely the distaste for H Clinton or Harris. This is part of why many people just don’t trust MSM. The past two presidential elections were very close, and I expect this one to be the same.
I felt frustrated by Meghan's overall characterisation of Joe Rogan's podcast by using the example of Alex Jones, and feel so many people do this with Joe, using extreme examples to make a generalised point. Sarah kept the conversation balanced at least, but using one (and undeniably terrible) guest to make an overall generalisation of what he stands for or represents is unfair. Joe brings on so many brilliant and thoughtful guests over the years, who have really changed the way I think about things, even to the point I wouldn't be here listening to this podcast without it. He platforms people from all walks of life, backgrounds, interests and Sarah is spot on about his authenticity being what people love and appreciate about him.
I think Joe Rogan actually promotes critical thinking. Because his guests and the stuff they say varies so widely, you know that not everything is going to be of equal quality. I haven't listened in a while, but I used to occasionally and I'd pick and choose episodes because nobody has time for all that. Because he asks so many questions, it encourages the listener to think what questions they might ask, and there's a real back and forth you don't get on TV news. And of course the show often has someone looking up answers in real time.
People who watch Rachel Maddow or Sean Hannity or who read NYT or WaPo on the other hand, don't get any of that. It's those people who tend to view the news as gospel.
That, and I like that he is a genuinely enthusiastically curious person. I’m not interested in all of his topics and I only have so much time so I listen to maybe 1/4 of his output. But his curiosity and willingness to just let people talk without having to arrogantly bigfoot into every topic and pretend knowledge he doesn’t have (like most of the media and so-called journalists) is what makes him worth listening to for me.
Yeah, i completely agree with you John and I think that back and forth is the reason he is so popular.
I think people dramatically underestimate how disliked Hillary Clinton was by the time she ran for president. Her time in congress had her name spoken in the same circles as Nancy Pelosi, which is to say, she was a democratic horseman of the Republican Party apocalypse.
That and she came across as deeply elitist, not just in public appearances, but in the fact that she just didn’t go to a lot blue collar places in her campaign. She was incredibly disliked outside of liberal circles.
That and the dynasty aspect. The idea of Bushes and Clintons forever was the whole thing the American Revolution was fought to stop.
Michael Lind: "A Clinton or a Bush was president, vice president, or secretary of state in every year between 1981 and 2013." Just saying... I liked some of them.
I mean I definitely agreed with HW's stance on broccoli.
On Alex Jones: At a recent discussion of free speech (as my college was trying to crawl back out of wokeness) someone asked me, “Okay, but should we allow a Holocaust denier to speak?" Well, Noam Chomsky supported a denialist book's right to be published; Alex Haley interviewed the head of the American Nazi Party. Journalists and academics are in the knowledge business, for which the issue should not be "is this harmful?" but "does it add to our attempt to figure out what's true?" Because pursuing that goal is the way we try to do good. I probably wouldn't interview Alex Jones, or invite the Holocaust denier, for the same reason I wouldn't interview the Flat Earth society -- life is short, and I don't see the plausible truth-value. The "harm principle" is a good one, but using it as the final criterion opens the door for anyone to say “False views are harmful. And yours are false.”
First?!
I feel a little inadequate nor knowing who Chris Williamson is. Meghan mentioned his name about 4 times.
I suppose there's some other listener who has never heard of Lex Fridman. I've known of Lex for a couple years so maybe the universe is in balance.
https://www.youtube.com/@ChrisWillx
Never heard of him (Williamson) either. And I'm pretty up on this stuff; I'm not hanging out with Joe Rogan in Austin but I have met a fair number of the people in this space (not including our hosts here). Lex Fridman I've heard of but never listened to.
Glad I'm not alone.
Full disclosure: the only reason I know Lex is that he interviews a lot of heterodox/libertarian journalists and scholars so he shows up in my Youtube feed. I listened to the entire Glenn Loury interview but usually have to resort to clips.
Hey Sarah, this isn't related to this week's discussion topics, but I wanted to bring your attention to this article I just came across, as it relates to the declining fertility topic which frequently comes up:
https://becomingnoble.substack.com/p/its-embarrassing-to-be-a-stay-at
tldr: It's about status.
Trump either isn't smart enough or strong enough to stand up to any of those on the right wing of his party. He thinks it is okay to hang out with Laura Lumer, and doesn't get why this is a bad look. So either he is too dump to get it and is talked into this by Laura Lumer and the likes, or he actually doesn't see any problem with Laura's outrageous comments. He would be exactly the same in office and the government would be run by a shadow cabal of wiley right wing cabinet members who know they can manipulate him. He is starved for approval from those he perceives as having power, including other dictators. Why would we risk another four years of this man?
lex, malice and williamson do hang. been there
The Tulsi and Eric Weinstein simping was a bit, right? Tulsi is the queen of grifting at this point. Joe Rogan took a turn during Covid for the worse - his podcast is now just a revolving door for pseudo-intellectual right wingers to whine about the make-believe culture wars.
I went to school in Austin from 2001 to 2004 and even back then it was well on its way to becoming what it is today. Dell, technically not in Austin but close enough, was founded in the mid-80s, and South by Southwest started in the mid-80s as well. The TV show Austin City Limits dates back to the 70s. Whole Foods was founded in Austin in the late 70s. Apple, IBM, Motorola, TI, and a lot of other old guard tech companies all had operations in Austin going to back to the 90s and in some cases as far back as the 70s. The tech scene and the music/arts scene that characterize Austin today have both been around for going on 50 years, but in the 80s and 90s Austin was still first and foremost a state capital and a college town. I think what's changed in the last 10-15 years is that Austin has grown so much that it's being the the state capital and home to UT is a much smaller part of its identity that it used to be.
menopause lowers a lot for women