After Party with Emily Jashinsky - FBI Expands Kirk Assassination Probe, and Culture of Violence, with Eliana Johnson and Spencer Brown

Episode Date: September 16, 2025

Emily Jashinsky starts the show with a look at The New York Times’ interview with Hasan Piker following Charlie Kirk’s assassination and his comments on material happiness and how it relates to the causes that became so crucial to Charlie Kirk’s life work. Then Emily is joined by Eliana Johnson, Editor-in-chief of the Washington Free Beacon, to discuss the latest in the assassination investigation including the exclusive Washington Free Beacon reporting that the FBI is looking into social media accounts that appear to indicate foreknowledge of the attack, Stephen Miller linking the assassination of Kirk to a “vast domestic terror movement” and promising to destroy those networks, PLUS the firings of people like Washington Post columnist Karen Attiah. Next, Spencer Brown, Chief communications officer for Young America’s Foundation, joins Emily. They talk about New York Post reporting on investigators looking into whether pro-trans, online groups knew in advance about Kirk’s assassination, young people’s reaction to Charlie Kirk’s death, how Clemson found itself in a PR disaster over staffers’ anti-Kirk posts, and new polling that raises concerns about how some liberals view political violence. Emily rounds out the show addressing the dust-up over her conversation with Krystal Ball and why she believes social media algorithms must change. Cowboy Colostrum: Get 25% Off Cowboy Colostrum with code AFTERPARTY at https://www.cowboycolostrum.com/AFTERPARTY Aware House: Visit https://awarehouseshop.com/discount/PARTY & use code PARTY for 15% off your first order.  Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Well, it's great to hear that song again because it means I'm back here with all of you and have another show tonight where a couple of my friends are going to be joining us first. Of course, the other E.J. Eliana Johnson, maybe you've missed us together on Megan's show. Well, Eliana is going to be here tonight and actually in a very timely evening to have Eliana here because the Washington Free Beacon has some important reporting into the assassination of Charlie Kirk, which, of course, we tragically covered on the last. show within hours of everything happening. So Aliana is going to be here to talk through some of that and some of the awful media reactions. And my friend Spencer Brown is going to be here as well. He works

at Young America's Foundation, does a lot of stuff with college students. And so we're going to talk a bit about some of the things happening at universities around the country, also awful things happening at universities around the country, just here, get the pulse of students, of the mood on campuses. And I'm eager to talk through all of that with Spencer. So thank you. thank you for joining us. If you watched Megan's show today, you know that I was up in New York. So I got up at, I think, like, 5.30, got on the train, spent a few hours in Midtown, got back on the train, and I'm here in D.C. and couldn't be more excited, as I always am on Monday. So Wednesdays, here 10 p.m. live and joining you, of course, as you catch up on the podcast side as well.

And make sure to keep your ears peeled if you're a podcast listener because we have more coming I want to start with Hassan Piker, though. Before we bring Elion in, before we bring Eliana in, I have a few thoughts on Hassan Piker, who is a leftist streamer. Some people have sort of compared him to a left-wing Charlie Kirk. I think there are some obvious issues with that comparison, but nevertheless, he gave an interview to the New York Times, just in the last couple of days, as everyone has been reeling from the tragedy,

including, by the way, a Hassan Piker. Now, I don't know that the New York Times would be interviewing Hassan Piker if he were a conservative and had a history of making some of the comments that he's made. But he was scheduled. One person who was happy to talk to Hassan Piker was Charlie Kirk. The two were scheduled to debate at Dartmouth later this month. I think that is fantastic. And it is a tragedy. We are not going to see that debate play out.

Hopefully, Piker will debate other conservatives in the months to come. and we can all do that without fear for anyone's safety and have a good exchange of ideas. And I want to do a little bit of that now, actually, because something in Piker's interview with the New York Times jumped out at me. And by the way, many of you know I spend time with people on the left and take their ideas and arguments often seriously. And Piker, Zara Madami, Mamdani is another person. Piker is someone whose ideas are obviously resonating with a lot of people, especially younger Americans. So I do absolutely take them seriously. And I want to offer rebuttal with some substance here to, I think one of the critical points that Piker makes, one of the predicates of his worldview,

you could argue. He says in the New York Times piece, we can maybe put the piece on the screen, he says, quote, I try to redirect people's anger and resentment to systemic problems because I'm a leftist. I'm a Marxist, I'm a socialist. And therefore, I believe that everything still comes back to material conditions. And that's what people's anger and resentment are born out of, deteriorating material conditions and hopelessness that is instilled upon them because they don't see a hopeful future. There's clearly an affordability crisis. You hear Mom Donnie, by the way, talk about that a lot.

There's this notion brewing among the youth because they're never going to retire at a reasonable age, never going to be able to own a home. 50% of our salary is going back to the rent, right? the price of a college education is skyrocketed, and it's not even a guarantee that you will have a decent job with decent wages and benefits that your parents had. Actually, just that entire graph in this New York Times article, starting with there is clearly an affordability crisis and ending with, it's not even a guarantee that you will have a decent job with decent wages and benefits that your parents had. I mean, that is basically I can co-sign everything in that paragraph as a Christian conservative. He goes on to say, so all of that, I think, feeds into this. and what I try to do is explain to people than when all seems hopeless,

that the best possible thing you can do is reach out to one another and organize your communities to be the change that you want to see in the world to claw back some sense of autonomy. Now, the New York Times actually just had a report today that said, the fraction of long-term unemployed people with a college degree has grown from about one-fifth a decade ago to about one-third today, according to government data compiled by two researchers at the University of Chicago. The problem has worsened over the past year or two

after easing temporarily. So this question that Piker raises is in some sense about motion, about regression, some of the resentment that is boiling in the millennial generation and Gen Z is not just related inherently to the question of material comfort, but into a change and what is interpreted as a backsliding in material conditions. So I actually want to say I agree with him on that part of the argument. But what he said up top, again, going back to, I try to redirect, quote, I try to redirect people's angered resentment to systemic problems because I'm a leftist,

I'm a Marxist, I'm a socialist, and therefore I believe that everything still comes back to material conditions. That is very clearly the predicate of material worldviews, and he's saying it, and I think he's expressing it pretty well there. And the reason that I just wanted to pause and kind of camp out of it. on that point. And I know that it's a foundational pillar that is kind of the cornerstone of a lot of materialist worldviews is actually because Charlie Kirk's arc speaks. The arc of Charlie Kirk's career is a sort of giant rebuttal to that point. And actually there's some research. Because I spent a lot of time with people on the left, I think about this a lot. And this is just me humbly

talking about a point that I've spent a lot of time reflecting on in recent years because it gets raised a lot in conversations that I have, but it's salient. There are a couple of important studies I've gone to over the past couple of years, because as these conversations about materialism, and it's chicken or egg, right? Is it the culture or the material conditions? Does a deteriorating culture or does a good culture produce good material conditions or vice versa? And I've been sort of obsessed with that question in recent years. And one way I thought you can kind of look into that is by studying indigenous communities. And researchers have actually done this. So back in 2021, there was a survey that said, while cross-cultural research on subjective well-being and its

multiple drivers is growing, the study of happiness among indigenous peoples continues to be underrepresented in the literature. In this work, we measure life satisfaction through open-ended questionnaires to explore levels and drivers of subjective well-being among 474 adults and three indigenous societies across the tropics. I think this one was in plus one. They go want to say the researchers, we found that life satisfaction levels in the three studied societies are slightly above neutral, suggesting that most people in the sample consider themselves as moderately happy. We also found that respondents provided explanations mostly when their satisfaction with life was negative, as if moderate happiness was the normal state and explanations were only

needed when reporting a different life satisfaction level due to some exceptionally good or bad occurrence. And this is an important part. They say, finally, we also found that issues related to health and to a lesser extent social life were the more prominent explanations for life Now, there was a huge survey in 2024, and this was in another paper with researchers from Spain, McGill, other places. They say, we present results from a survey of 2,966 members of indigenous peoples and local communities among 19 globally distributed sites. We find that high average levels of life satisfaction comparable to those of wealthy countries are reported for numerous populations that are very low monetary incomes. Our results are consistent with the notion that human societies can support very satisfying lives for their members without necessarily requiring high degrees of monetary wealth. Now, to return to this point about Charlie Kirk, who Brad Wilcox, one of the preeminent researchers on marriage in this country, has pointed out, he pointed this out in Deserate News just in recent days after the tragedy of last Wednesday.

Kirk's positive vision of family life, of being a husband, of being a father, and being in a marriage with children, may have contributed to Trump-supporting males in a recent NBC poll appearing to prioritize marriage, to value marriage at higher levels than other demographics. And that's really, really important to what we just discussed in those surveys of indigenous communities, where there's not a question of post-industrial material conditions. I don't know. It would be sort of interesting to have a conversation with Karl Marx about some of this literature.

But I can see there is some material well-being that's critical to happiness. So far we can see from the research. Health is a material condition. I mean, there's a question of mental health, of course. But if you're unhealthy, your life satisfaction is probably not going to to be super high. And that's why I think conservatives have a giant blind spot when it comes to health care. That's a conversation for a different day. But also the social ties in your community,

the fabric of your community, is that necessarily material? I mean, you can kind of see that in both the material and transcendent sense. But at least healthcare is a pretty material reality. So that's one piece of the puzzle, of course. And I think that's where some folks on the left have a decent point. And the right needs to come with an example for health care, with an answer for healthcare, because I think it's actually emiserating a lot of people in the country. But all that is to say, I read this article from Hassan Piker. I know he was going to debate Charlie at Dartmouth later this month. And because he articulated his position on material happiness or material life satisfaction, life satisfaction, based on material conditions. So clearly, I just wanted to take a moment to address how Charlie sort of went from someone being a guy who was advocating using his platform to talk about things I agree with, by the way,

smaller government, lower taxes, and ended really focusing so heavily on faith and family. And I think it's because it's become clear to everyone over the last couple of years, over the last decade that we're suffering from deep spiritual, deep societal, deep cultural illnesses. So that was just a moment on the Hassan Piker interview. Before we bring Eliana in, I want to say recently, I learned about calastrum. Have you heard about

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Well, I rambled on about socialism. Eliana, thanks for being here. Thanks for having me. I'm really great to be with you. How's the baby? He's doing great. Amazing. Yeah, if people haven't been following Eliana's life closely. First of all, you should be. I mean, what a life. And secondly, she's been on maternity leave. When did you get back, Eliano? About a month ago. Let's see. This is maybe the third week that I've been back in the office. So, man. Wonderful to be back. You go from babysitting actual children to babysitting the sometimes children of the Washington Free Beacon. Exactly. Well, you guys had some really important reporting today that I want to talk about. This was from the great Aaron Sabarium, another reporter that people absolutely need to be following over at the Washington Free Beacon.

And talk about this a bit on Megynstra today because it's such a significant piece of reporting, Eliana. But the headline here is exclusive, FBI investigating social media accounts that appear to indicate for knowledge of Kirk assassination. We're going to put some of these up on the screen. Eliana, my position on these is that if it was one poet, If it was maybe two posts, you can kind of just chalk it more easily up to coincidence, up to trolls, messing around with a high profile speaker. But tell us a little bit about what Aaron found in this story. Sure. And I want to, I think important to say its background that just because the FBI is investigating something doesn't mean we know anything beyond that. So we know that the FBI is investigating social media posts by at least seven different accounts that appeared to indicate that they had foreknowledge of the Kirk assassination.

And the accounts appear to be associated with either transgender individuals or transgender internet subcultures. gamer memes. I have to admit that I'm not particularly familiar with some of these, you know, meme gaming subcultures. But that is what this appears to be. And we do know that the FBI is investigating this. So that appears to be where this investigation is going, looking at who knew what before this assassination took place and and who was messaging whom on this discord platform.

It also appears that some of these accounts followed or were in contact with this roommate and romantic partner of Tyler Robinson, the alleged assassin, with and those two appeared to be part of this furry subculture. I also was not familiar with what a furrow. was, but it apparently is people who wear these animal costumes. This is where this is headed. I'm enormously surprised, Eliana, to hear that you were not deeply familiar with furry culture. But I'm actually glad to hear that. So let's play a little bit here of Stephen Miller talking about a potential organized campaign

or potential organized campaigns in general that may become the target of the government. And I just want to say echoing, underscoring what Eliana pointed out is we don't actually know. Right now we can't verify anything. What we can do is say that when you have posts like Charlie Kirk is coming to my college tomorrow, I really hope someone evaporates him literally on September 9th.

And then another one, a follow-up saying, let's just say something big will happen tomorrow. And then posts like this one is, we effing, did it. This is after it happened. A post like September 10th will be a very interesting day. Someone saying it'd be funny if someone like Charlie Kirk got shot on September 10th, L-M-A-O, and you have, I mean, that's just a, that's just a sampling. When you have that combined with a, at least what looks like, a 22-year-old shooter who pulled off a tragedy and a horrific act, but seemingly

on their own, as of right now, in a somewhat unbelievable way. These are questions that are obviously worth asking. So let's go ahead here and roll S2, Stephen Miller. There's incredible sadness, but there's incredible anger. And the thing about anger is that that unfocused anger or blind rage is not a productive emotion. Right. But focused anger, righteous anger, directed for a just cause, is one of the most important agents of change in human history. Probably showed that, amen.

And we are going to channel all of the anger that we have over the organized campaign that led to this assassination to uproot and dismantle these terrorist networks. The organized docks and campaigns, the organized riots, the organized street violence, the organized campaigns of dehumanization, vilification, posting people's addresses, combining that with messaging this design to trigger inside violence and the actual organized cells that carry out and facilitate the violence. It is a vast domestic terror movement.

With God is my witness, we are going to use every resource we have at the Department of Justice, Homeland Security, and throughout this government to identify, disrupt, dismantle, and destroy these networks and make America safe again for the American people. So Vice President Vance took the microphone for the Charlie Kirk show today and did it as a tribute to Charlie Kirk. That was Stephen Miller saying that he wants to disrupt terrorist networks that led directly, as he says it, to this crime. That can be a lot of different things. But, Eliana, let me ask you, based on what you guys are reporting and what you've heard and how you analyze the situation, what might that look like. just in terms of, let's start with the investigation as of right now.

I'm not sure because I still think there's a lot we don't know about what actually transpired here. To the extent that there are underground networks looking to foment domestic political violence in this country, the FBI should be involved in disrupting, disarming, and ensuring that no event like the one that took place last week, ever happens again. But it does seem to me like the picture of what happened to Charlie Kirk is still unclear, at least to me, there's a lot we don't know. And it seems like it will still be a while before the full picture becomes clear. You know, as of this afternoon, the suspect himself was not talking. And it does seem like there's quite a bit.

that it will take authorities, you know, another couple weeks a month to put this whole thing together. I do think tomorrow morning when he's indicted in court, we'll learn a bit more about what happened here when that is unsealed. Yeah, important point. The Washington Post also got an exclusive. It was this afternoon. The suspect in the Charlie Kirk shooting, this is their headline, appeared to confess in a discord chat. quote, hey guys, I have bad news for you all. It was me at UVU yesterday.

I'm sorry for all of this. Now, in another Discord chat, we already know Robinson, the alleged suspect here, was blaming a doppelganger, sort of trollishly, apparently blaming a doppelganger. But not talking right now. We've heard the roommate or the lover is probably the better way to put it in this situation from what we know right now is cooperating, but then there's also a question of a potentially

deleted message from Robinson that may have functioned as a confession. So, Eliana, there was a semiforce story about... The thing I think that is, that I do think we do know is that Robinson and his roommate, you know that these were discord messages, which is like a not super common messaging platform encrypted end to end, that they were clearly heavily involved online in relatively obscure sort of, you know,

gaming and meme type things, and we're pretty far down the rabbit hole in these things, which I think is noteworthy for young men. And the other noteworthy thing about the Washington Free Beacon story, that we have up today about these seven online accounts and the messages that the FBI is investigating is that they were all deleted in the wake of the murder.

So it does involve people who are trying to cover up or remove evidence of what they were saying after this happened. So all of this involves, you know, online platforms and, you know, obscure internet subcultures. Yeah, important point. And obviously there are legal ramifications that could come of all of that. And add to that, by the way, the etching's on the bullet that in some of these obscure sort of sign, signs, symbols, messages. And like a picture does start to come together, but I still think that there's a lot we don't know. Yes. And I actually think the same still applies to the Minneapolis shooting where, again, we're trying to peel back the layers of irony in a deep online gaming culture.

And what you know is that it's people who are in the fringes of society that much is clear and they're not conservative by any means whatsoever. So that much is abundantly obvious at this point in the case of Tyler Robinson and in the case of the shooter in Minneapolis. But piecing together, I think the puzzle of how people end up going down these dark rabbit holes is an important one going forward for parents, but also probably for regulators as well. And I don't know if you saw this the Sunifor's story. It's been, there have been rumors going around that people in Trump world are unhappy with FBI director Cash Patel. That is not just a rumor really anymore because Steve Bannon has made some of those gripes public. Some of those reporting that Trump is content with Cash Patel at this point and is backing Cash Patel at this point. Patel has been making the rounds a bit more talking publicly and all of that.

What sense do you have of his status in Trump world right now as we enter almost, I mean, the second week of this tragedy? You know, it seemed to me from the drop with this that if they arrested a suspect and they got the man, Patel would be fine. And if a search dragged on and the murderer eluded federal officials, Patel would be in real jeopardy. And I don't think that the semaphore story contradicted that. Look, a month may go by and Cash Patel may be out for completely different reasons because that's the way it works in Trump world. But insofar as his performance with the Kirk assassination,

Insofar as it has to do with his performance as it relates to the Kirk assassination and how he did at this press conference or what he posted on Twitter, it always seemed to me that if they arrested somebody and had somebody behind bars who actually did this crime, Patel would be fine. Yeah. So we have to talk about Karen Ataya, Atia. I always forget how to say her name. Do you know how the correct pronunciation? I think it's Kar and Atia. Kar and Atia. Thank goodness you're here, Eliana. So she posted on Substack because where else, The Washington Post fired me, but my voice will not be silenced subheading. I spoke out against hatred.

You got to show the art. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I think we have it. I spoke out against hatred and violence in America, and it cost me my job. And the Substack Post goes on and on about arguments from the progressive left. she made in relation to like Charlie Kirk's position on race and all of that and acts like she was fired for just disagreeing with Charlie Kirk. And just there's just such a brief mention of what I can only imagine, Eliana, is the actual reason that her social media activity sent the Washington Post editors and management through the roof, which is that.

F-18, this post on blue sky from a journalist, mind you, that takes a quote, black women do not have the brain processing power to be taken seriously. You have to go steal a white person's slot and attributes it to Charlie Kirk, this was several days ago,

when that is Charlie Kirk paraphrasing, the mindset, he said was problematic if you have affirmative action problems. That is not his reflection of his position at all, which as a journalist, she presented on a public forum as being Charlie Kirk's position,

it was him paraphrasing the attitude that comes downstream of affirmative action, which he opposed because he thought that was a bad attitude. So are you crying for Karen tonight, Eliana? Well, look, her whole argument is of a piece with many on the left trying to accuse the right of embracing cancel culture. And their attempt is to say that if you point out, if you try to say that cheering political murder, you know, is outside the bounds of polite society, that's the same as, you know, canceling somebody

for having garden variety political views. and it's like Supreme exercise in gaslighting. Now, what's amazing with the Karnatia thing is that Oliver Darcy over at his, I guess it's not a substack, his whatever his newsletter,

he's actually obtained the termination letter, which cites the blue sky posts for which she was fired. And they say, your postings on blue sky, which clearly identifies you as a post, columnist about white men in response to the killing of Charlie Kirk do not comply with our policy. And they cite her post, refusing to tear my clothes and smear ashes on my face in performative

warning for a white man that espoused violence is not the same as violence. And they cite other ones where she's, you know, saying, I won't be sad that this white man died. and note that these violate their policies. And they demand that she, you know, they tell her she's fired and demand that she remove any association with the Washington Post from her social media account. Yeah, and by the way, I have to imagine also just like flagrantly quoting a man who was involved in one of the most high profile political assassinations in modern history,

flagrantly misquoting him on a published social media post. had to play into that as well. But, Eliana, your point there is really interesting because, again, Sabarium has done some of this reporting in the Free Beacon about how institutions have been jolted into recognizing that they should not have any quarter for abject racism. And they shouldn't be afraid to act when people are expressing abject racism just because of the threat that they might get on the wrong side of cancel culture. These institutions actually aren't afraid of that anymore in the case of the Washington Post.

Jeff Bezos has his ambition to pour a bunch of money into the paper and make it a pro-American. And, you know, this is not all the problems with the billionaire owner stuff aside. The point is about the institution having a very different position, even in the Bezos era, than it did just several years back, about whether or not it's acceptable to tolerate this kind of conversation. that is just sort of obviously racist on its face. Yeah, and I think it's also important to note that, like, this is not cancel culture. Cancel culture is an attempt to inflict disproportionate punishment on people and to redefine norms of what's acceptable in, you know, civilized or polite society.

And comments like the ones. that that she made were really never acceptable. Chearing somebody's murder was never acceptable. And those are the sorts of things that we want to be outside the norms of civilized and polite society, that it's healthy for society to keep outside the norms. And so I think even referring to these sorts of things as cancel culture, you know, is not quite right. And, you know, the sorts of things that she's,

she were saying actually bear on her ability to do her job as a journalist in this case. So how dare you? Good riddance. How dare you? Well, Eliana, it's time for me to cancel you so that you can go to bed as a mother of a, what, six-month-old? I know. You see it three-and-a-half months. Yeah, you need your rest.

Thanks so much for being here, Eliana. I was really looking forward to this. Party on. Let's go. All right. Coming up after this, Spencer Brown, Chief Communications Officer for Young America's Foundation. But first, if you are looking to support more made in the USA manufacturing this year, whether that's home decor, clothing, or furniture, we all know,

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Home Code Party. All right, let's go ahead and bring in one of, truly one of my closest friends, Spencer Brown. He's the Chief Communications Officer for Young America's Foundation. Spencer, Spencer, it's great to have you here. Hello, friend. It's very good to see you, especially after the last couple days we've all been through. Yeah, it's been a tough one, of course. And Spencer, I see I think you're wearing your Hym T-shirt under your blazer, a very suave look, a very 80s look.

We can't have, you know, a little bit of Hymn fun. That's right. What else can we do in this dark time? Yeah, Spencer and I went to the Hym tour opening concert in Philly a couple of weeks back. And it was eye-opening for me to discover my mentions are about to blow up that Philly is a hellhole. People are wonderful. The people are wonderful. But that city needs to be cleaned up.

I mean, I thought our walk through the rain where we got soaked and had to dodge. a couple, you know, questionably substance abusers with their shopping carts. I thought it added to the ambiance. Yes, dodging the dodgy. Speaking of dodginess, Spencer, this story out of Clemson is not surprising at all. I know it's probably least surprising to you and everyone over at Yaff where in full disclosure, I'm a member of the board of directors and I'm fully have worked there before. I'm very biased in the direction of Yaff when it comes to, you know, Spencer, the work that you guys are doing and the information that you've reported on the past, including F-22. This is a picture, this is a poster of queer resistance. This wasn't a Clemson, I don't think, maybe it was.

This was from 2023. You guys got your hands on it, and it's come up again. This is actually from Utah. It's come up again. In reference. to the investigation now unfolding regarding whether there was a broader conspiracy in the case of last week's assassination. So actually, before we get to Clemson, I want to just start on that point, Spencer, given that you guys reported this a couple of years back. Is there, is that a thing? I mean, again, like your job every single day is talking to students on campuses. Have you noticed in the last couple of years, that there's a sort of militant arm of the LGBT movement that warrants finding itself under a microscope right now?

Yeah, I think it definitely deserves a lot more scrutiny that it has gotten. You know, like a lot of these things that's sort of a pet project of the left, it kind of just can skate by for a very long time. The media is just never really interested in it, especially, you know, corporate legacy media. They just are like, oh, it's fine. They're doing their thing. But I think, you know, as you know, Emily, you used to work in the Trump.

trenches on college campuses as well from the time you were a student and your time at yeahf and still you're obviously covering it but i mean it's to call it a conspiracy i think we're getting closer to that point but as you know it's just sort of this this undercurrent on campuses where whether it is in the form of a student club uh you know where there's sort of all these similar types of student clubs where it's you know some sort of alliance or some sort of a safe space that they set up and they have their time to plot how they're going to overthrow or whatever they think they're going to do um but then you also have the faculty factor which is almost more alarming. And I think that is what deserves even more scrutiny because to a certain extent,

you know, all of these faculty members belong to these different associations and things like that. They all go to these same conferences. And so I think it would be interesting to see sort of where they're getting some of the materials that faculty and advisors and different people in these official offices on college campuses as a career are getting their information, getting their guidelines, getting sort of their marching orders, because we do see that there is a little bit of a hierarchy there in terms of what's going on. It's not all just organic from the ground up on the part of the students. There's also some stuff that goes on at the higher levels of these universities. And then because universities are these bastions of, you know, correct speak and not,

you know, speaking out of turn or saying anything that might hurt someone's feelings, they just get a lot more weight on these campuses. And I'm sure you remember, I mean, for years, this has been going on where people, supposedly the adults in the room on these college campuses were telling their young impressionable students that if you hear something you disagree with, say, ouch. And so this sort of priming people to, again, treat. ideas as violence has been going on for so long. And it's, I remember back in the day when that was first, you know, people were first discovering that in orientations on college campuses. And it was just laughable at the time, right? Because that is laughable to say, ouch, because you hear something you

disagree with. But then you look at sort of what becomes then the end effect of this and how much they're able to get away with and how far they push the boundaries to the point where you have, God help my home state of Minnesota, the lieutenant governor there, you know, wearing T-shirts that have imagery of firearms on them saying protect trans kids and daggers. and things like that. And it just has escalated for so long because nobody was looking at it. No one was calling it out. And now, you know, you get to situations where things are wildly out of control. And it's definitely time to look at it. Yeah. I mean, that's such an important point. It's easy to forget about that T-shirt because the horrors surrounding what brought it to

everyone's attention once again, which was the awful shooting at the Catholic school in Minnesota, not that long ago. But this isn't the first time that we've seen a high school, college age student who is deep in these layers of gaming irony, taking out their angst, their upset in horrific and violent ways, Spencer. So can you tell us a little bit about also where, since you deal with students a lot and they're dealing with us themselves a lot, I know they are, where this subculture of gaming comes into the campus left now? Well, as I'm sure you're where Emily is one of my good friends. I'm not nearly cool enough to understand basically anything about actual game culture. Dude, that doesn't make you cool. I'm just going to tell you right now.

It doesn't make you cool. It did when I was in ninth grade at a private school in Minnesota, but I guess times have changed. Dance dance revolution, just mastering guitar band. I mean, or what was it? Rock band. Rock band. Guitar hero. We're showing our age very clearly now. But no, I mean, it's one of these things where, again, this goes back to sort of the societal woes. that we face, not just here in the United States, but sort of everywhere. And it's how technology and the internet and all these things have supplanted normal community organizations, normal, you know, having a community that you grew up with. I think there are probably more memes on Facebook at this point because of how old it seems.

But, you know, this whole idea of like in the summer, I didn't sit at home and sit in front of a TV or on an iPad or an iPhone, mostly because they hadn't been invented yet, but you were out playing with friends, you were building relationships, you were, you know, volunteering in your community, you were doing all these things that gave you a sense of belonging and helped you develop a sense of purpose and develop your character. And obviously, there were ways that that could still go wrong if you fell in with the wrong crowd. I remember my mom always used to say, if you drop a glove in the mud, the mud doesn't get glovy as sort of her warning to tell me to make sure that you're careful about who you associate with. But now, the internet

is such a deep, dark place and kids get so lost in it. And I think we have seen some correction in terms of now, again, actual adults in the room taking steps to limit kids access to phones and their schools and trying to limit, or at least alert parents to the fact that all of these things are just a tap or a click away from their children. And I think that's coming to light a little bit. Obviously, there's still a lot to find out of this situation in Utah. But it does sound like this kid, you know, had a good foundation and just got sort of swallowed up by this. And we've heard similar anecdotal evidence. One that comes to mind is detransitioner, Chloe. Cole. She talks about how she was just feeling so lost as a young person and didn't feel like she had anywhere to turn to. And then she found, you know, again, just on a very public, non-harmful seeming message boards, you know, people talking about how they had transitioned and they felt

like themselves and they had purpose and they felt a belonging in this community there that was completely artificially concocted around this idea was something that felt warm and welcoming to her. And that's how she ended up going down this path that she now, you know, thankfully was able to to see the truth and get herself out of it now is using her voice very bravely, I should add, in this current time to warn people, parents and policymakers and people around the world about the dangers of this kind of thing. But we see how quickly the internet and these communities that, again, are not real community, but how they're able to just completely corrupt a young mind and set somebody on such a dangerous path. I've interviewed a decent bit of detransitioners

or their parents. And actually, you know, it sounds like moral panic, satanical. panic, like relics from that era. But I'm just reporting what I've heard, which is that in almost every case, if not every case, anime, was a gateway, meaning, you know, that doesn't mean everyone needs to ban anime. But kids sort of first got into these internet subcultures because they were looking into anime fandom. And it sort of sucked people deeper and deeper into, or down these, these rapes. And Spencer, just on that note, before we get to Clemson, you can speak to a bit.

I mean, you've been on dozens of campuses with Ben Shapiro, with Matt Walsh, with others. And I can only imagine the threats that you've had to deal with relating to those events. I mean, I remember it very well when Ben was like basically locked in a lecture hall at CSULA back in, I think it was 2016. the students who had come to the lecture were basically locked in the room. There was a lawsuit that Yaf was involved with afterwards, but that was the tip of the iceberg. You and I were working together at the time to sort of get that into the kind of popular culture bloodstream, these awful things that were happening on campuses when people would just go try to speak and social media giving us opportunities to kind of go around the major. media outlets, the quote mainstream media outlets that wouldn't cover these absurd stories,

even though they were obviously so important and so relevant. And after that, it just snowballed. And I think probably it got worse and worse. Do you think that's the case? I mean, it has been steadily getting worse in recent years. Yeah, I think that's definitely true. I think some of the momentum, if you want to call it that, again, starting with, you know, CSULA came right after, I think it was at Mizzou, right after the, the,

hate crime hoax there and you had Melissa Click saying we need muscle in here, throwing her own students under the bus basically. A journalism professor, yeah. Yes, the, the luminary that she was. But so that was sort of, that to me is sort of the origin point of us realizing sort of we can rush a conservative into these embattled campuses. And very much, I mean, again, it's the, it's the model that Charlie embodied, you know, he was going to these campuses where supposedly there would be no conservative ideas and saying,

let's have a debate about these things. You know, there's something crazy happening on this campus or, you know, more broadly in society, and let's talk about it. And we did it there. We did it at Cal State, L.A. We did it at UC Berkeley. Again, like you said, I think I did probably 20-odd campus lectures just with Shapiro alone between 2015 and 2018, 2019. With Ben in a bulletproof vest, probably at every one of them. Yeah, he's talked extensively sort of reflecting on all of those adventures, as I think anybody who's worked in the campus activism, especially in the conservative side space, just kind of looking back on all the decisions that you made over the last five, 10 years. And it's been a little, that's probably been the most drawing thing, is thinking about how many times you were in what seemed like a dicey

situation, but you just kind of said, Ben talked about this on one of his shows recently reflecting on this, but saying, you know, this is ludicrous. I'm going to a college campus in the United States of America. I don't, I shouldn't need a bulletproof vest. This is, this is ridiculous. That's schools are acting like conservative ideas are so dangerous that they have to do all this. But because schools acted like that, they convinced so many people that conservative ideas are, in fact, dangerous, our violence, are hurtful to people and threaten people's lives even. And so, you know, looking through all this and thinking of all those situations

and how many things could have and maybe, but for the grace of God, should have gone wrong, it's kind of miraculous to look at it because things have certainly gotten worse. I think COVID having a break where there was no one on campus, I think gave people almost a false sense of, oh, it's kind of a reset almost for students. And that just wasn't the case. And I think conservatives also, during COVID, you know, there was so much extra awareness

of what students were learning at all levels. Because, again, every kid was parked in front of Zoom in their parents' house and their parents were hearing their professors tell them all these ludicrous things. And so there was sort of a reckoning almost there that I think a lot of people accepted as a false victory in a way. Like it was great because so many more people, people are aware now of what's going on in education, but ultimately, I think we didn't attack those

issues head on when we went back from the lockdowns and we went back on campuses because things have gotten a lot worse since COVID, and I think more violent since COVID as well. I think if you, again, thinking back to the Melissa Clicks and like, was she insane? Yes. Was she actually going to bodily harm anyone? Probably not. But yeah, it's a very dark thing. And just briefly, last night, I was invited up. some of the student activists who were involved with Yaff and Turing Point and college Republicans and young Republicans in New York City hosted a vigil for Charlie last night a memorial for him in Washington Square Park, which as you know is not exactly a bastion of conservatism. It's not the

Quad at Hillsdale. And seeing the reaction, I know much has been made about the online reaction and what's happening with people losing their jobs and being suspended for the things that they're saying, but being on the ground in the middle of New York City, supposedly the greatest city on earth, and you know the birthplace of all these things, you've got the statues of George Washington gazing down on you. And you have people screaming, Hail Satan and Charlie Kirk is in hell and all these horrible, horrible things in reaction to just, you know, 55, 65 students gathering for a candlelight vigil to pray for America, to pray for their school, to pray for their generation. And you realize that this is to the point that a lot of people have, or the conclusion a lot of

people have arrived at, that this is not a left and a right thing. This is very much a right and a wrong and a good and an evil thing. And there's, I don't know how to put a finer point on it than standing there watching these young students shaking as they're praying for their generation and somebody's standing behind them screaming, Hail Satan. There's just no, there's no, it's something that I still, I don't, it was just last night and I don't, I've been thinking about it quite a bit and it was very, very sobering. Now, it's not in your interest, of course, to say whether this has happened before, but I'm asking because I suspect the answer is know that it hasn't happened before. have you dealt with conservative students?

Because there's all kinds of news made about like those creeps and whatever the group, Patriot Front and Proud Boy, whatever. There's all kinds of news about those fringe right groups. And there is some research. I know that we have some of this from the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression Fire that we can put on the screen. There is some research that there are some conservative students who are more over time have become a bit more open to the idea that you could use violence to stop a speaker over time.

Although in Fires Research, the demo with the highest level of support for that is self-identified Democratic socialists, at least when they break that down by ideology. And if you look at, we can put F33 and F34 up on the screen. Political ideology, most American say it's unacceptable. This is a UGO poll, a snap poll right after Charlie was shot. People say most Americans say it's unacceptable to be happy about public figures' deaths, but younger and more liberal Americans are more likely to call it acceptable. Most Americans across the political spectrum say political violence is never justified,

but younger and more liberal Americans are more likely to disagree. And Spencer, these are two good pieces of research because the fire pole is measuring sentiments over time. And the UGov poll was a snap survey after the events of last week. So that's why I think these are two helpful barometers. But have you ever experienced young conservatives agitating for violence or talking like you experienced people, as you say, outside of vigil at Washington Square Park yesterday? No. You know, we've had instances in the past. One of the reasons I'm very proud to have worked for and to return to work for Young America's Foundation is we have not, you know, ever tolerated that sort of thing.

And we have had instances at some of our events where there are some of those fringe groups on the, you know, on the horseshoe or technically on the right, but they have way more in common with the left that will show up and try to, you know, we'll try to disrupt. They'll heckle. They'll try to ask. Grypers. Yes. And so we have dealt with those. but it was never threats of violence towards our speakers or our other students. And if anything, our rule at all of our campus lectures is if you disagree with the speaker, you go to the front of the Q&A line.

So it was Charlie's rule too, right? He was always bringing the groupers to the front of the line. Exactly. Because that's the whole point of this is having this open debate and talking about it. So instead of sitting in a Discord chat room, getting each other riled up about how right they are and how wrong everybody else is, you have a chance to actually air your ideas, hear somebody's rebuttal to it, and then think about, hey, did my idea went out on that? Or do I need, am I wrong?

Do I need a better argument? You know, all these things that, again, normally happen in a healthy society where you can talk things out, are supposed to happen. But in terms of the violence along, the acceptability of violence along the ideological lines and the different groups

is something that I think the longer I've worked in the conservative movement and the more I've thought about it, the more you again, and Charlie was very good at bringing this to light. Again, it's not this left first right thing, it's right first wrong, It's what is your hope.

What is your, how do you value your own life, basically, is almost always the basis of what he was asking these students. And so I think when you have a belief system that is either nihilistic or is just basically telling you that there's, you know, there's nothing getting better. And it starts from the point of the victimhood ideology that we always see in these overlapping matrices of oppression that is so important. All these things that tell you that, you know, no matter what you do, you're doomed. that makes a person just your own calculus in your head probably subconsciously more willing to do things that would typically be considered wrong. Because again, what's the point? If I adhere by this supposed societal contract where I don't commit violence against people

I disagree with, I'm still doomed. If I do this, maybe in those dark corners of the internet, maybe with these people who believe the same thing, they think, oh, well, I'm doomed anyway. So what does it matter if I do something crazy like this? And so whether it's, again, starting with these series of intersectionality, just all of this, all of this whole, the point of demonizing America and demonizing God and demonizing everything that's good about what we have in this world is to rob people of any sort of hope that they have or hope for a better future. And that is an incredibly dark place to be. And especially when you do

that at these young ages, you know, we see it especially in college campuses, but we see it in high schools. There are some middle schools where this sort of thing goes on in the curriculum. And it's just incredibly damaging. Not just, again, on a societal level, this is very alarming and should concern everyone and why we need to investigate. who's funding these curriculums, who's funding these different centers that are supporting these events. But just on a personal level, you know, if you care about the future of the country, you should want the people that are going to be running the country to be fulfilled and happy and have goals and dreams and aspirations that they believe they can actually reach.

Because if they don't think they're going to get anything better out of this, or especially if they don't think there's anything better after this, that's just not going to be somebody who's productive to society or is safe to even be around in society. Victim ideology strips people of agency, and being stripped of agency makes people miserable. It is a very clear process. There is not insignificant social science research, just from apolitical researchers that gets to that very point. Now, I've teased the Clemson story and want to get to it because Spencer, this is, I mean, so Clemson put out a statement today, Clemson University, saying, following it in immediate and deliberate investigation into inappropriate social media content.

Clemson today terminated an employee due to their social media posts. After being notified on Friday to stay out of the classroom, two faculty members now have been removed from their teaching duties pending investigation for termination. The university will continue to follow required processes with urgency, as these are personnel matters. No further details are available at this time. Clemson University's commitment to the safety and well-being of our campus community remains our top priorities.

So basically Clemson was dealing like many schools. I mean, these schools, places of employment, these compilation videos going around the internet, I think are worth people taking some time and watching. I don't normally advocate for elevating fringes unless we're very clearly talking about fringes. But in these compilation videos, what you see are nurses. You see teachers. You see every day normal. Americans, not the kinds of people who are shit posting on Discord celebrating the assassination

of Charlie Kirk or justifying the assassination of Charlie Kirk. So some posts from Clemson, apparently someone is employed there as an asbestos program manager, which is already hilarious, but posted, Robin Newberry posted in a world full of Charlie Kirk's and Brian Thompson's, be a Tyler Robinson or a Luigi Mangione. Now, we don't know which of these employees fits into which category. Clemson revealed, though, there in this investigation yet. I'm sure the details will be forthcoming in the days ahead, which have been terminated, which are under suspension.

There are a couple of other posts. This was from Melvin Earl Villiver, Jr. He's an assistant professor of audio technology and global black studies at Clemson. Retweeted a post said, no one mourns the wicked retweeted a post saying, according to Kirk Empathies and Made Up New Age Terms, So keep the jokes coming. It's what he would have wanted. A post that said Twitter after death tweeted that, actually. Melvin Earl tweeted that.

Also, can't speak in public no more. Think about the ramifications. Today was one of the most beautiful days ever. The weather was perfect sunny with a little breeze. This was such a beautiful day. Someone said Charlie was an old-looking 31. Melvin Earl said racism and white supremacy age you. You know, that's, I don't think, quite as egregious as,

the be a Tyler Robinson or Luigi Mangione post. But more posts from people at Clemson. Those aren't the full extent of it. I actually don't even have time, Spencer, to keep going through these. But is it fair to say these are representative of some reactions you've seen around the country? Yes, entirely. And I think it's obviously alarming to see this in a place like a supposed elite institution of higher education that is again training this next generation of people and is, you know, if that's your reaction to this, you can kind of conclude that they're, they're bent in the classroom or in any sort of faculty interaction is not going to be one that's beneficial for society. But I think it's especially alarming to see how far this is gone.

I am not happy to see it, but it does validate something that YAF has been warning about for at this point, at least two decades, probably closer to three. And that is that what happens on college campuses never stays on college campuses. And this has, it was this idea that, the right had for so long that, oh, they graduate college, they get into the so-called real world, they're paying taxes, they're having a family, things like this, they'll sort of straighten out and become more conservative, at least fiscally. And that was sort of the hope and the promise that was made. And that was just never going to be the case, because at the same time that universities were being taken over and turn in these mills turning on all these leftists with

these warped ways of thinking, all those people were going where, they were going into business, they were going into entertainment, they were going into media, they were going into every single corner of our society, and they didn't grow up in the real world. They made the real world match what they had been indoctrinated with on campuses. And this is the end result. You have pilots who, in theory, you know, should be mostly focused on getting you safely your destination, not whether or not somebody's political ideology offends them. And in the case of nurses and doctors, you know, the Hippocratic Oath, is that even a thing anymore if we're going to just talk about, like, oh, well, they deserve to die? So what if, you know, I get carded in and it turns into sort of a

social credit system. And they're like, oh, well, he liked this tweet from Chloe Cole saying that a man can't become a woman. So I guess we'll only try to resuscitate him once. Like, what is the end game of this? It's so damaging. It's so dangerous. And it's something that, again, those of us who work in this area had seen coming for so long. And so, like you said, normally I would not advise people watch stuff like those videos that people are releasing, but honestly do to understand, because sometimes you don't fully grasp the damage that's been done or the scope of work that it's going to take in order to remedy this or at least address it and counter it until you see it sort of face to face very viscerally like that. Well, and let's just talk a bit for a moment about what actually is canceled

culture and what's not. Eliana was discussing this a bit earlier, but the South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson put out a statement saying South Carolina's political firing statute does not shield professors who glorify assassination. It was written to protect free political thought, not to excuse public employees who celebrate violence. Clemson and every public institution in our state has the authority and responsibility to act. Professors who move from debate to endorsing murder, betray their duty as educators and public servants. And Spencer, I just want to say,

I don't think everybody who is blurring this line is doing so in bad faith. I just think many of them are, blurring the line and accusing conservatives of a double standard and of hypocrisy when it comes to cancel culture, which, again, of course, there are going to be hypocrites.

If you are nitpicking or nutpicking, I should say, reactions from certain people, especially in such an incredibly sensitive week. We are not even a week after this has happened. So, of course, emotion will get the better of some people. You will see some hypocrisy in the canceled culture front. But there's nothing inconsistent about saying, hey, don't get upset at this conservative professor for having a fairly normal viewpoint on sex and gender and maybe also at the same time don't have an employee who's saying be a Tyler Robinson or Luigi Mangione, right? Correct. Yeah. I mean, this is, I'd like to just acknowledge that this

statute was either crafted or had to be amended to exclude advocating or praising assassinations, which implies a backstory there. And it's also just a very sad narrative on like, okay, well, we need to make clear that you're not allowed to praise murderers and assassins and things like that. no, there is no double standard here, at least in most of these instances, like you said. I'm not going to say that every single one is sort of a clean firing of one of these or a suspension. But when you look at this, again, they still have the right to say it. They're not being put in jail because they said something like this.

They're not being robbed of the right to vote or participate in society. You have the right to express yourself, but that does not excuse you from the consequences of how you express yourself. And that's been the case forever. It's like, play stupid games, win stupid prizes is the second clause. should have added to the First Amendment, basically. That's like, you can do this, but if you abuse it and do it in a way that makes you look like an idiot, you may have some consequences in your professional life, in your personal relationships,

things like that. And again, it goes to the point of what is the job that they're holding that they're being suspended or fired from, you know, if it's in the case of, again, I already forgot how you, mispronounced it and then you were corrected, but Karen, whoever. Karen, I believe. Carrin, okay, sure. So, Karen. The great Eleana Johnson.

This is someone who is supposedly, you know, the grand journalism, the estate that they are. And here she is falsely attributing a quote to somebody. And that is, that's bad. That's journalistic malpractice. You should not be a journalist if you can't put your own blind rage against a certain political bent aside in order to do something, which is, in this case, your job to be a journalist, supposedly, or a columnist at least. And in the cases of, you know, these professors and other people, it's your job to do this thing. if you're not able to do your job as judged by your bosses, you'll be fired.

If I, you know, if I'm a kicker on an NFL team and I have a freak accident with a combine and they have to amputate my kicking leg, I'm probably not going to stay as a kicker because I can't do the job anymore. So if you determine that you're not able to do a certain job, whether it's because of physical malady or because of your own intellectual blindness. Malady, yeah. Whatever it may be. Like, it's not cancel culture to say, hey, you are not fit to be teaching them. next generation of students because you take a lot of time to praise assassins. And that's not the kind of message or the kind of lessons or the kind of person we want inspiring the next generation. So to say that it's canceled culture. And I'm sure there will be lawsuits. There almost always

always are. The left is notoriously litigious. So I'm sure there will be a ton of different things. And depending on how many people get fired or suspended from different things, I'm sure there's always a chance the unions will get involved. And that will be another sort of added aspect to this to see if they're willing to throw their way behind defending somebody on principle or just in order to defend the right to praise assassins. Again, the First Amendment, anybody can say that and do what they want, but they can't just then hide behind the First Amendment and say, you can't criticize me or have any other, you know, sort of polite society consequences for what they use it for. Call out culture. Okay. Spencer, before I let you run, just, I think it's probably

appropriate for both of us right now to shout out turning point. And, you know, all the credit in the world where it's due over the last week, incredible to see. And we're, we're, of course, praying for their students and praying for Charlie's family, praying for all of the people over there who were so close to him. And, yeah, we're thinking of them for sure. And just to put a finer point on, I mean, that tens of thousands of new chapter inquiries that they've gotten is a testament to, again, this idea that this movement was always so much bigger than Charlie, but Charlie was the driving force moving it forward and getting to a point where this sort of thing could happen and where it seemed possible for students at schools where they look around

and they think nobody else there thinks what they think or thinks that the left is nuts or something like that. And his boldness to, again, go into these places where you would think you would not have a fair shake and basically demand a debate with these people and ask, he would go in and he would I want your best leftist. Give me the best argument you have and let me tackle it head on. And that sort of boldness, again, is something just last night at Washington Square Park, like I said, these students who, it's weird now because, you know, we've been out of college for a while. So they seem much younger, even though they're not all that young, you know, they're full-grown adults, but how just their voice is shaking, shaking, shaking, holding the microphone

in the paper they were reading about, you know, how they were going to help make sure that their generation succeeded and didn't have all this bad stuff. And seeing how the fear is there, but at the same time this boldness and this fire is there in them, and they're not going to be, you know, scared away by leftists screaming at them and, you know, threatening things and telling them all these horrible things about Charlie or whatever. Again, all of it lies. But just seeing how this generation was so inspired by him that they are so ready to carry what he started forward is something that in the midst of this very, very dark time seemingly not just on campuses,

but society in general, it's a reason to still have hope that the next generation is listening to the good lessons. is willing to stand up and try to advance them. Spencer Brown at Young America's Foundation. Thanks for being here, man. Thanks, Emily. All right, before we wrap up for the night, I actually have a few more thoughts on cancel culture, actually. And, you know, I got into it a little bit today with America's Bayer.

I can't even believe I'm saying that sentence. But I don't know. Some people have probably seen this pinging around the internet. There is a clip from, it was like last Friday, breaking points of one of my co-hosts Crystal Ball making a quip about Tyler Robinson not being like as good, I think she's as good looking as Luigi Mangione, because we were talking about and it kind of, the clip got cut off right there. But what we were talking about actually was that I was bringing this up. With Luigi Mangioni, there was this cult, it still is, this cult of

personality that almost immediately developed around him among young leftists. And part of the problem is that there were so few answers and he was not apprehended for so long that people started filling in the blanks about motive. And it created this vacuum that was filled with a like, what's, I was going to say leftist, but I mean, I just say this like fringe leftist, almost vigilante mythology. And that's what the vacuum was filled by. So the context of what we're talking about is actually that it was great. The FBI was at that point Friday morning coming up with more and more answers about who the suspect is and what their motivations might have been.

And now, as of today, I actually think we're starting to have all kinds of questions popping up. some of them raised by Megan's interview with Dan Bongino earlier today, and some of them have been raised, frankly, by Steve Bannon and some really important, clear questions that we should get answers to as soon as possible. But this clip is going around, and Rudy Giuliani posted, my team respects you to me, but why did you laugh at her, Crystal, callous, cruel statement, Crystal's facial expression, as she said it, is what is particularly concerning to us. It's disgusting and vile. Where is your humanity? And by the way, I think it's perfectly legitimate for people who knew Charlie Kirk right now to be on edge and to be sensitive.

And I have all of the grace in the world for people, you know, by the way, including myself, I hope people are giving me grace during this time period because this has just been, especially if you're on the right, it's been hard for everyone. But especially if you're on the right, this has been like a collective trauma. And so it's been interesting to see this clip. I think I have this up on the screen go viral on different social media. If someone sent it to me on Instagram, I'm sure it's all on TikTok, Rudy Giuliani posted it. And, you know, I actually don't mind if people are upset about the full clip, to be honest. Like, people disagree. Like, that's fine.

I don't mind it. But it just has been such a reminder of how I just think unhelpful these conversations are on social media. Because the point that was being made is so different than what's being conveyed in the posts that come afterwards. And that's where when we're trying to define what is and what isn't cancel culture, like what is worthy. of public shame and what is not worthy of public shame. That is an essential cultural function. Every healthy culture needs to be able to draw those boundaries with some sort of consensus. And it's in no healthy culture, are there no boundaries that's called anarchy? You know, and you just say we're not going to decide on a political level or a social level.

or you believe that because you don't draw the boundaries on a political level, you'll be able to better draw those lines on a social cultural level. We needn't debate the finer points of anarchy right now. But basically, no healthy culture has zero stigma. You have to be able to come up with some boundaries collectively. And I've just been thinking this afternoon, as this has been bubbling up and going viral, I mean, it annoys me, but it's hardly the worst thing in the world that's happening right now.

But, you know, when you're having these conversations on casino apps in your pocket, it's one thing for a company to entice you to spend your money in, you know, reckless ways. It's another thing for companies to entice you to spend moral and intellectual capital in reckless ways. And I think the more our discourse is, the more our discourse is, what's the best way to put this. Let's just say on is the more our discourse is run through these casino apps. The less we are going to be able to decide a point of consensus on where these healthy boundaries are, because we are so easily stripped of nuance because the algorithms prize strong emotion and they actually just prize posting.

So even just the idea that you're going to post on social media rather than having a private conversation, not with the world and not with strangers, versus posting something to the world and with strangers, that is very, very new for, humanity. And I think the experiment as it's run over the last 10 years has produced pretty clear results at this point. And if I were a big tech CEO, I would probably never get a good night's sleep. But what would make me sleep a little bit more easily is taking a huge financial hit

and taking the algorithms out of people's timelines. If you're slightly older, if you're my age above, you remember when Twitter first came out. It was a literal timeline. Someone posted at 1112 p.m. And then someone posted at 1113 p.m. You saw those posts in sequence on your timeline. It wasn't delivered based on which was more likely to get you to spend more time on the app and to engage on the app. And those algorithms, since they've come to dominate the platforms, I mean, you would take a any app would take an incredible financial hit for getting rid of algorithms because that's what allows them to deliver even higher quote quality ads that are are more valuable to advertisers and social media advertising is a huge business as we all know at this point but if you

got rid of the algorithms then you would have a a healthier discourse because those incentives I mean there's still some bad incentives, right? Like you want to become more prominent and develop followings and you still want likes and retweets and all of that. But there isn't an algorithm pouring rocket fuel on it. And everybody who was on Twitter before it left the original timeline format and was more heavily moderated with an algorithm, them will tell you the platform had a healthier sense of dialogue. I think just about it. There may be some of you that will be in the comments disagreeing with that,

but I think it's pretty obviously true. It was just more normal back and forth that was calmer. And just, you know, I'm talking only about X right now, which is a platform that has a minority of the American public as daily users and even as users, period. But so much of the political discourse is funneled through X and actually it starts on X. I mean, we're talking about statements from the South Carolina Attorney General here. We're talking about places where people decided to post awful things that they may not have

said to anybody's face, frankly, because, hey, likes, retweets, clout, and it teaches us to find our purpose and meaning in these places. And that is a really unhealthy habit culturally. And all of us fall into this at one time or another. Nobody's immune from this. This is not me preaching down to anybody or lecturing anybody. We absolutely all do this. But this is a time for a complete paradigm shift on social media. Unfortunately, I'm not seeing many calls for that right now, which is part of why I just wanted to discuss this. Because in the wake of what's happened, we need to have a totally different, the Overton window about acceptable solutions to the social media crisis needs to change. It has to be acceptable to talk about much more dramatic proposals.

And I say that, by the way, as like a civil libertarian free speech absolutist. But the power of these apps, the chemical power of these apps, has to start getting compared more and more to food and cigarettes. And we need to start thinking about ways for young people particularly to legislate them. And we need to start, and this is the, I think, most important, except it's ironic in a meta sense, because I was just talking about how hard it is for us to draw boundaries and consensus as a culture on social media. Well, we need to bring stigma to the CEOs who are making billions of dollars a year encouraging us to transfer our social and political lives into their casino apps. It's completely messed up, and that should be stigmatized. So there are potential regulatory solutions.

Of course, I'm cautious of many of those, but we just have to have a different, I have to have a totally different standard of solution to these problems and start to think very seriously about these apps in a different light. We need more research, of course. But anyway, by the way, one of you, one of these listeners sent me this wonderful Barry from Offsuit Beer Company, me this wonderful Vaha-style lager that I've been drinking tonight. It's just incredible. So shout out to the folks over at Offshoot beer, not an ad, genuinely just sent me some of them, and they're fantastic. I love Mexican loggers, and this is a great one after a long day in the midst of a very long week. So I'm looking forward to being back here. Wednesday, I had a sort of

therapeutic in a sense, right, to talk to your friends about some of these issues. It's good to have Beliana and Spencer on the show. Appreciate all of you listening. Appreciate all of your feedback. Seriously, I really do. I think I answer almost every single email at Emily at devil makecaremedia.com. Please feel free.

You can always reach me there. I answer just about everyone. And we're hoping to add a little something to the podcast listeners where we answer even more of those questions in the days ahead because we're having so much fun here and after party. such great feedback. We appreciate all of you. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. I'm praying for you. Be safe. We'll see you back here Wednesday live at 10 p.m. Eastern.