After Party with Emily Jashinsky - Revenge of the Cis Woman, Taylor Swift's TRUE Love, Dems Go Extreme, and Jussie Smollett's Comeback

Episode Date: August 14, 2025

Emily Jashinsky takes a look at the new democratic posture that’s emerging, and why the left is obsessed with Hasan Piker. Then she’s joined by her pals Inez Stepman, Legal analyst for Independent Women’s Forum, and Rachel Bovard, Vice President at the Conservative Partnership Institute, to discuss the Federal takeover of D.C., Taylor Swift’s big appearance on New Heights and if love has changed her for the better, a new article in The Cut that’s a low-point for lesbianism, how sorority girls are proving the kids are going to be alright, PLUS Jussie Smollett attempts a comeback, and more.  Cozy Earth: Visit https://cozyearth.com for up to 40% off with code EMILY. PreBorn: Help save a baby go to https://PreBorn.com/Emily or call 855-601-2229. Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Welcome to After Party. Thank you so much everyone for tuning in. Big show tonight. Taylor Swift just got off a live stream of the New Heights podcast with her boyfriend, Travis Kelsey, and of course his brother, Jason Kelsey, arguably the more superior Kelsey. But we're going to get into all of that. I actually surprised myself in reaction to the Taylor Swift appearance on New Heights, which again, the world is currently digesting. We haven't had much time to chew on it. But we're going to do. some quick, rapid response to the Taylor Swift appearance so much going. I mean, they had a million people watching live on YouTube, basically uncalled for YouTube numbers. Really interesting stuff that I think broke new ground for pop culture, and it just happened within the last hour. So we're absolutely going to get to that. My friends, Rachel Beauvard and Inez Stepman are here, and we're going to have a great conversation on everything from Washington, D.C. and the Trump administration's federal takeover here in the capital city. They have really interesting perspective. Actually, both of them have lived in D.C. Enes will be able to talk a little bit about why she left D.C.

And fled, of course, to New York City where people find refuge in the clean and peaceful streets. We'll have some fun with that one, but also get, I think, some serious insights from people who are fired up about it. And there's a crazy new article in the cut. I'm just going to stop right there because you've heard probably that line 7,000 different times over the course of your life, but it's almost like it's Groundhog Day. It is another crazy article in the cut. We're going to break it down. Let's just say it has something to do with an economist crunching the numbers,

leaving her husband and marrying a woman. Lots to get into, of course. And, you know, we might, if we have time, I might get Rachel and Innes to tell me what they think about the sorority videos. I'm going to make them think about that. So Jesse Small A also is plotting a comeback. We have all kinds of huge groundbreaking news to cover tonight. We're going to get to all of it. Let's start, though, with what I think is maybe one of the underappreciated

storylines in all of politics right now. Obviously, what we're seeing in the state of Texas is Democrats, realizing actually what Wisconsin Democrats thought that they had realized in 2011, the National Party never quite caught up to it, but that what their base wanted them to see, wanted to see from them was staunch, intense, bold resistance to, at that time, it was Wisconsin Governor Scott Walker and his Act 10 policies. But now, Texas Democrats believe that the base wants them to stand up on this question of gerrymandering and fled the state, preventing a quorum. Republicans, you'll notice, are trying to fight back just as tough. And so the significance

of this. I mean, obviously, there are real electoral downstream effects that will come of all of it. But I think this is a story that tells us a lot about our politics right now and tells us something really important about the Democratic Party that a couple of Democrats are waking up and realizing and you may not like Betta O'Rourke, but I'm about to play a video where I think, which I think shows that Betta O'Rourke is really on the cutting edge of where Democratic Party politics are headed And let me just say, if you're a centrist, if you're sort of someone who just votes for the best candidate, goes back and forth, not super interested in the labels, man, are the next 10 years probably going to be rough for you. So let's go ahead and roll this clip of Beto O'Rourke. We are in a basketball game right now, if you'll excuse a metaphor, where the refs have left the arena. And the other side is just clobbering the shit out of us, just punching us in the face, kicking us in the nuts. And we're kind of throwing our hands up and we're asking the crowd, the people of America, hey, do you see what's going on here? This is unfair.

This isn't the rules that we agreed to play by. Well, who cares about the fucking rules right now? Punch back, kick back, dunk over their heads and win some fucking power. Dunk over their heads and win some power. Now, if you're on the right, that clip probably does feel a little cringy to you, right? You see that sort of really all the F bombs. and it feels from a lot of Democrats, especially if you're like a privileged white guy like Betta or Roark,

it feels a little bit like he's putting on a show, a little performative, of course. And I think there's something to that. I think there are Democrats, mainstream, high-profile Democrats, who do that worse and are much cringier than Beto when he does it. But we've talked about this on that show. We've talked about this on the show. the Democrats right now are in a position where they're starting to realize they have the sentiment in

their base that Republicans had during the Tea Party years. And Donald Trump came along in 2016 and made it impossible for the Republicans to continue ignoring the Tea Party base, which said, I despise the Republican Party establishment as much as I despise the Democrats. What are you telling me that I should trust John Boehner over Nancy Pelosi? John Boehner is supposed to believe what I believe and share my values and represent them and run a House of Representatives that represents where I am. And John Boehner does not do that. It's almost worse in a way than Nancy Pelosi. And I'm paraphrasing arguments that were much more common in 2010, 2012. And when the 2012 Republican autopsy report came out that said, we're going to diagnose what went wrong in Mitt Romney's

loss, it of course famously now, infamously now, recommended a path of moderation as the the path to electoral success. None of this had anything to do with the morality of the policies, of course, but you need to moderate on immigration. You need to moderate on social issues. This is what the RNC prescribed after Mitt Romney's loss. And what Donald Trump did was come along and say, actually, there's a path to victory that also allows you to get what you want on a moral level, on a policy level. And he turned it all completely upside down. Democrats haven't really listened because the Democratic establishment hasn't had a Trump-like wrecking ball. And Trump is like the only Trump-like wrecking ball that will ever exist. He's singular and he will always be

singular in the history of American politics. But Democrats haven't had any force come along and knock them back off their feet and say, you guys have to at least give some significant wins when it comes to breaking with your establishment priorities. And that might not even mean anything serious, right? We saw in 2020 a bunch of corporatist centrist Dems come along and say, wow, this Bernie Sanders guy did really well in 2016. Let's all be for Medicare for all. Let's all play footsie with abolish ice and defund the police.

Let's all be fully on board with the furthest, most rare. radical policies when it comes to transgenderism. Let's, if you're, I think it was like even Kirsten Gillibrand swear off corporate PAC donations, which is another thing Ken Martin over at the DNC is seriously considering right now that was in the New York Times today. And what I mean by all of this is Democrats at least postured a little bit towards Bernie Sandersism, right? And I think Joe Biden's, I wrote about it at the time, McClatchy didn't announce

of Joe Biden's platform in 2020 and said it was the most radical Democratic Party platform in modern history. And the one before that that had been the most radical democratic platform in party history, the furthest left. I shouldn't say radical. I believe the word they used was furthest left, most progressive. The one right before that was Hillary Clinton in 2016. And how did Joe Biden govern? Well, in a way that left the left, left to the left, deeply, deeply unsatisfied with their party leadership. And is it policy or is it vibes? I mean, I think it's a little bit of both. I think the same was true in the Tea Party era because the Tea Party was up in arms about the national debt and these ballooning entitlement costs. And where did

that lead everyone? Well, to a movement right now where you do still have some debt and deficit hawks. You do still have some people who are absolutely furious about government spending, about no audit of the Pentagon being able to be completed satisfactorily, never being able to get anyone to really do it. People are still deeply angry about some of the same things. But it's really how those frustrations are channeled. And in the case of Democrats right now, this is one of the reasons that they were never able to have or to keep Joe Rogan. And it's why they haven't really been able to compete with a Joe Rogan, except for basically one guy. In all seriousness, Hassan Piker.

And we can go ahead and put this GQ headline on the screen. Hassan got a splashy profile in GQ just that was published just today. And the headline is Hassan Piker thinks America might be cooked. Now, if you don't know who Osan Piker is, he's like a Twitch streamer who is incredibly, let's say, reverent and deeply anti-American. I think he would probably agree with that. One of his most controversial statements is, I'll say that's very offensive to many people, but that America deserved 9-11.

When he says things, he's sort of often misunderstood because people don't realize the nihilism that infects every corner of like Zoomer streaming, of the Zoomer streaming ecosystem. So a lot of it, honestly, is, Just a, it's an attempt to like find purpose, meaning. And, you know, the guy is like chewing through every zen within three square feet of himself to get like a little bit of a buzz. And listen, Gen Z doesn't have a lot of sex or drink a lot of booze, but they do get high on saying crazy shit on the internet. And Hassan is one of those people.

Let's put F2 on the screen. This was his comment on Zoran Mamdani. He said, quote, Big Z's the man. He's great. He's going to implement woke Sharia in New York. Very excited about that. All the buildings have to face Mecca, that kind of good stuff. And like, listen, as Aunt Piker can be enormously cringe,

and so can the people who write about him. I'm going to put this up on the screen. Someone pulled this part from the GQ article where the writer, the writer says, as Piker burns through his 70-minute workout, exhausting himself in the process, he strips his shirt off. An army of girls and gays, not to mention admiring looks maxers, would kill to be where I am right now.

Next to Piker, as he pants in a pair of neon shorts with black Calvin Klein boxers poking out, and sunlight glinting off the sweat beat it on his chest beards. Beated on his chest hairs. I watched the ending. Maybe I should read the last line again. No, I'll spare you.

didn't do that. But like the fandom over Hassan Piker feels really desperate sometimes, like people are just looking for anything on the left to cling to that looks like it might be masculine and that it looks like it might be irreverent in a way that, frankly, Amy Klobuchar and Pete Buttigieg just couldn't pull off. And so I get why this GQ writer is clearly enormously aroused Piker. Mentally, of course, I don't mean physically, although it just sounds like he's physically aroused by, I think the author was a man by Hassan Piker. But there's a desperation, right? It's max of desperation. But it's actually, I mean, I think with Piker, he's as, and this is one of the big takeaways that people should have, they're looking into the guy, he's as critical

of the Democratic Party establishment as NET Party Republican Party Republican. was of the Republican Party establishment in 2012. And this is where, again, could Kamala Harris do a good job on the Joe Rogan experience? Absolutely not, because she is not willing to go beyond platitudes when it comes to excoriating the Uniparty. Hassan Piker, no fan of Republicans, no friend of conservatives. But he has that same frustration at the Uniparty that people had on the right in 2010 and 2012. And the only reason the Republican Party is, paid a modicum of attention to it. And I'm not, as deeply cynical as I am generally, I'm not really that cynical about the downstream effects of populism on the Republican Party,

because whatever happens in the second Trump administration, Republican voters have re-learned some, I think, really good impulses, like questioning the military industrial complex. Not everyone, but that is now a significant seat at the table in Republican politics. And, you know, there are people who are going to try to force this on the Democratic Party. Let me put one more thing up on the screen. This was a really good observation from Prem Backer, who pointed out that Andrew Cuomo just put out a tweet. He says, being a progressive means making real progress.

There's only one candidate in this race who's passed a bill supported by Bernie Sanders. Surprise, that's me. I'm a progressive because I believe in getting things done for people who need it. And Prem responded, the political atmosphere in the U.S. has changed so much that the establishment candidate is now trying to insist that he's more like Bernie Sanders, which is funny. And again, on a policy level of your conservative, you look at that and you say, well, I'm not sure that I want Democrats to be more like Bernie Sanders on, again, like a policy front. Although I suppose it depends on a policy. Bernie can have some interesting observation on, for example, credit card companies and Wall Street. and, you know, he used to be a little bit maha.

Not so maha anymore if you remember those confirmation hearings. But, you know, this is the direction that the Democratic base wants to go. I'm not talking about the average Democratic Party voter. I'm talking about the base, the party faithfuls, the grassroots. And for a long time, the party elite have ignored them. And this is what created a kettle that was boiling over for the Tea Party. So Dems, by ignoring these forces and not even trying to address them in a meaningful political way have shot themselves in the foot. They have been way too defensive of their party infrastructure and the official apparatus of the Democratic Party.

And it's about to come back to haunt them because they poured gasoline on the fire that is this appetite for complete and total upheaval for the better part of a decade now. And Republicans got a taste of what that's like, got a taste of that populism. And Democrats shut down Bernie Sanders campaign over and over again. And voters never forgot that. The base never forgot that. And the base now feels like Bernie Sanders was widely, or let's just say, broadly vindicated because they saw the entire party establishment lie about Joe Biden's mental capacity.

Lie about Joe Biden's mental capacity. The party base was furious at the Biden administration when it came to Israel. We can debate whether that's right or wrong. I'm just saying that they're furious about it. And so that's where the Democratic elite find themselves right now. And whether it's Zoramam Dani, and again, that's Deep Blue New York, of course. But we're not talking again about your average Democrat at the Union Hall or at the PTA meeting. We're talking about the party faithfuls, the grassroots, who often steer primary battles,

who the media is often very responsive to. And it's not insignificant. And many people, political scientists, look at how the base controls politics because of the primary system and say it's a bad thing. I don't really agree with that. But it's definitely when you're in a highly polarized environment, one that keeps you ping ponging back, back and forth from populist left and populist right at this moment. in our history. So Dems, I think, are in for a wake-up call, again, whether it's Beto or Zoron or

Hassan Piker, suddenly people are starting to be responsive. Or Andrew Cuomo, by the way, Cuomo and Beto are good examples of guys who are closer to the mainstream. They're not considered like crunchy hippie leftists, but they're adopting a tone. And whether that trickles into policy is another question. I think probably it does on certain issue areas. But it's really going to be what the test is really going to be for any Democrat that wants to make it in the new media ecosystem but more importantly with the Democratic Party base that is consuming that new media ecosystem. The test for them is going to be how much they can match these sentiments. And I think that's not as well understood as it probably should be or it's it's let's say foggy to a lot of

people in D.C. right now. It hasn't crystallized, but it will soon enough. Maybe not through a Dem version of Trump, but it will soon enough. So on that note, I'm going to bring Rachel in Inenez in just one second, but I want to start by saying it's actually pretty hard to go to sleep after the show. You might think that all the booze puts me to sleep, but I actually don't drink that much while we're filming. But after wrapping the shows at 11, live broadcasting just gets your adrenaline going. And one of the things that helps me. me go to bed is in all honestly. I really look forward to those cozy earth bamboo sheets. I love them. And of course, the bubble cuddle blanket. They make it much, much easier to get to sleep. I get

excited to jump in bed even after the high of partying with our great guests who, you know, just keep making news on the show. You get the adrenaline of the news and all of that. These bamboo sheets are next level, though. They're buttery soft, breathable, and they keep you cool all night. You'll sleep a few degrees cooler and wake up genuinely refresh. They really are awesome and that bubble cuddle blanket is like a warm luxurious hug midweight plush faux fur equal parts napworthy and stylish there's a reason cozy earth offers a 100 night sleep trial and a 10 year warranty they know you'll fall in love so here is the move everyone go to cozy earth.com and use my code emily for up to 40% off that's cozy earth.com code emily and if you get the post purchase survey

be sure to mention you heard about it right here because your bed shouldn't just be a place to sleep It should be your happy place. A cozy earth makes that possible. On that note, I'm excited to be joined now by Innes Stepman. She's a legal analyst for independent women's forum and Rachel Vovard, who is, of course, vice president at the Conservative Partnership Institute. Guys, what's up? I brought a drink this time.

Yeah, we're still up. That's what it was. Oh, good. I was worried one of you would fall asleep. Yeah, I was legitimately. worried one of you would fall asleep, but I know what kept you up is that both of you have been championed at the bit to talk about the D.C. crime story. Because, and actually, Annes, you have an interesting, Rachel works in D.C. Anez lived in one of the parts of D.C. actually very near where the

one and only big balls was assaulted just last week in the sensible precipitating event for Trump's federal takeover, which was probably in the works anyway. But there were like, have you guys seen these clips? Let's roll. This is a voiceover, V1. There were, there's like federal law enforcement roaming union station. Last night, union station definitely needs a heightened police presence, but they were also roaming the streets of Georgetown, one of the high-end neighborhoods, though, I will add, has had smashing grabs. I had an attempted vehicle, vehicle theft on the street broad daylight in Georgetown just a few years ago, vehicle vandalized, all that good stuff.

Fun times, fun times. So, Anez, as both a great legal mind and someone who fled D.C. for the verdant, peaceful streets of New York City, you seem to be pretty happy about all of this and unperturbed by the jackbooted thud. thugs taking over the streets of idyllic Georgetown. Yeah, you know, it's funny that the overlap between the people who pretend to be urbanists and into, you know, the walkable city and everything and the people who want law and order so that people can actually walk on the streets is basically zero.

But, yeah, no, I'm really glad to see DC actually have a chance of turning itself around. I don't think people understand how violent DC is. and I have the perfect comparison, especially how you set this up, Emily. DC homicide rate, if you account for the number of people and you normalize it for the number of people in the city, is 10 times

the homicide rate in New York City, right? So there's all of his coverage about, you know, New York falling apart, and it is. So I'm not, you know, denying that. Like, there are crime problems in New York, but DC has 10 times the homicide rate of New York City. Apparently, that's eight times the homicide rate in Fallujah.

I discovered that today. So it's all, no, I mean, in all seriousness, both the stats and the anecdotal experience in Washington, D.C., the anecdotal experience reaches the point of data, which is how, you know, with how voluminous it is. There isn't anyone in Washington, D.C. who doesn't know someone who is a victim of a major crime. Like, honestly, I don't know anyone who doesn't know somebody who was the victim of a major crime. I think Rachel's going to agree with me living in that. area. I've been a victim of Rachel's crimes many times. We're all victims of Rachel's crime. Many such cases. Yeah, well. Take a number. No, but I'm sure Rachel has her stories too. I have my stories. Emily, I'm sure you have your stories. I was fortunate to do on and off 10 years in the district

and never be a victim of a serious crime. But I mean, even the ones that I was a victim of were, and this is like completely normal, to be clear, this is like you said about Georgetown, This is something that happens in D.C. Even if you're not hanging out in Anacostia, you're not hanging out in, like, the bad areas of D.C. I had my license plate stolen and then people, you know, committing a bunch of crimes with my license plates attached to their cars and I had to deal with that through the city. People exposed themselves to me. I had somebody. Once again, that was Rachel.

And go into my building to try to, like, follow me into my building. It wasn't some, you know, it wasn't the stalking that is the stuff of, you know, internet funning games, right? This is, this is like not somebody who knew me. It was somebody who fixated on me on the street because he was eye out of his mind and then followed me into my building and tried to follow me into my home, right, to do who knows what. Anyway, these are like very minor crimes and everybody has experienced these things in Washington, D.C.

But, but yeah, both the stats and the anecdotal experience makes it so that they're just lying when they say this is not a problem. Anybody who has been in the D.C. area for any amount of time and is not just coming in and out very briefly, even in the nice areas and knows how much of a problem with this is. And they are just straight up lying because Donald Trump is not allowed to be right about anything in that city. That is like the bottom line of this is, I mean, honestly, I'm amazed that they lie so blatantly about this because I know that there are so many people in Washington, DC screeching about authoritarianism right now who are going to be secretly so happy the next time they drive into Capitol Hill that they don't have to put their head on a swivel when

they're in their car at a stoplight. Yeah, that's a real thing. Rachel, you actually work on Capitol Hill and you have actually for many years worked on Capitol Hill. So let me get your response to this clip. It's going to be S3. This is MSNBC. I think it was morning, Joe, realizing in real time the politics of continuing to deny the problem that Anness just laid out, S3. And the murder rate, you can't keep saying violent crime is down, but the murder rate's up to the average person. The murder is about life and death.

You don't brag about a rising murder rate. And the Democrats are, I agree with you, Mika, they're falling into the trap of defending what's indefensible. It's a trap. Yes, it's a trap. I mean, if it's not a winner politically, to say, oh, you're wrong, look at the data. Because, you know, if one violent crime happens in a very heavily popular part of the city,

people hear about it. And it's visceral. They don't want it. And they want to, they'll gravitate to the person who appears to be doing something about it. So, Rachel, just south of Capitol Hill and Navy Yard, there have been multiple team takeovers, which sounds like a fun thing, right, where like the Beatles, come and everyone gets really excited and, you know, all of the ladies are fanning themselves, like a teen takeover. But actually what it is is pure anarchy in the streets of a residential

neighborhood with like luxury buildings and stores and normal restaurants. This has happened like several times while the occurs to the last few months. People are outraged about it. Not far from Capitol Hills, it's where a lot of Capitol Hill people work and live. And to meeka's point, this is literally hundreds of teenagers and has been reported in local news, hundreds causing anarchy in the streets, literally less than a mile from the seat of our legislature. So it's not just a political problem. It is actually a real problem, not a political one. It is real. It's insane the amount of gaslighting that has been going on about this topic. So the funny thing about Navy Yard is I actually, I used to live there. I lived there before.

it was gentrified. So there was like two buildings and the new stadium. This is like 2011 to like 2015. It was safer then when there was literally nothing there except like. And it probably wasn't very safe. Yeah, it wasn't, right? It wasn't. But it was like walkable to the Congress. So that is why I live there with my, you know, into the morning Joe studio, by the way. It's like two miles from that studio. And now it's it's completely built up. It's like marketed as one of the high luxury areas of the city. And as you mentioned, there are many members of Congress that live there because of the proximity to the hill. At least two members of Congress have been assaulted in that region. Henry Quayor, I think, was carjacked. There was another member, a female member. I can't remember.

I think who was assaulted in an elevator. And that's not to mention the number of, like you said, these like team gangs that rush the entryways of these buildings. There have been multiple shootings. And again, this is not marketed as anything but a luxury area of D.C. And I think it's funny, I tweeted something earlier this week that I thought was so banal. It was like that I was almost like, why am I even tweeting this? But it basically just said anyone who's lived in D.C. for over a decade knows that the last five years the city has fallen into decline. I did not think that that was a controversial statement. It completely went viral and the amount of people attacking me for saying this.

But it's so true. And I think that's the tragedy of all of this is that D.C. is an objectively beautiful place. It is a beautiful city. It, you know, it has amazing parks. It's set up in this, you know, wonderful, logical way. It's easy to follow. You know, it has a building code that the buildings in the city cannot be above Lady Liberty of the Capitol. So you don't get these, like, towering high rises. It's just a gorgeous city. And when I moved here in, in, I don't even want to say what you did. Do it. Do it. Say it. 1994. Okay. Close.

You know, the city was on a, okay, calm down. The city was on a good trajectory. I mean, you know, it's a city like any city, right? You have crime, you have to watch out for, but it was fairly a little level. And the city was beautiful and welcoming, and it was only going up. And areas of the city were only getting better. And that's what's so devastating about this is that really it was 2020 that broke this place. And it has become really unlivable in certain sections.

I've worked in D.C. in the southeast quadrant for over 15 years. I walk that city every day. I walk downtown. I walked to the hill. I walk everywhere. You can't walk without someone, especially if you're a woman, harassing you, riding bikes around you, trying to take your stuff. There was a period in 2020 where people would surround your car. My husband gave me pepper spray grenades at that point. He was like, if you ever get surrounded, throw these out the window. He's since taken them away for me because he was worried I would spray myself, which it's like not an unreasonable. I'm always worried about that. My husband gives me pepper spray in New York, and I'm like, you don't understand.

The chance that I'm going to actually successfully pepper spray somebody is way outweighed by the chance that I will pepper spray myself. But it's, I mean, like the state of union station alone, which if, you know, if you visited D.C., you know where this is, right? It's one of the centerpieces of the city. It is gorgeous. And it's a place where, you know, everybody used to hang out. There were places to eat.

You could get your lunch and sit in the center corridor of the station. They used to have these places where people just gather and hang out. It used to have really fun sushi restaurants, all these places. Now it's overtaken by like vagrants and people peeing on themselves and people following you off your train. I mean, it's, and that's just been in the last five years. So they have to take out. They had to take out every single place to sit that isn't in the lounge and the like immediate train boarding area of Union station because every single place that had a chair was taken over by vagrants and drug addicts.

I told everyone these two were excited to talk about DC crime, and clearly they have five years of built up anger at the situation to vent right now. So let me turn, and then it's back to you, to ask a sort of devil's advocate question. Although, to be honest, I won't lie and say I'm not concerned about potential overreach. And maybe all three of us went third. the typical libertarian phase of being a person in the conservative movement. But sometimes, you know, those reflexes come back out at me. And I always say the most hillbilly thing about J.D. Vance is that old, like, email or blog he wrote about hating the cops.

Sometimes when, you know, you see federal law enforcement, like there's already been a, there was a video of them, like, taking a guy who's smoker to joint and arresting him. I'm not saying that I don't, I don't even know what I think about that type of thing. I feel like there are bigger problems in the city. Like there's truancy rates that still haven't recovered from the pandemic that are unbelievable. Like the level of truancy in D.C. public schools is mind-boggling and obviously correlated with the rise in juvenile crime that the police chief here was talking about just a couple of months ago. None of this you're hearing in national media. You're not hearing in national media that there's a commander who has been suspended recently for allegations that he's cooking the books,

that the D.C. police union supports Donald Trump's plan so long as it's. temporary because they believe the crime stats are being, that the books are being cooked and they have believed that for a long time. So, Anez, do you worry that there is a, there's a risk of overreach that in the federal city, the beautiful federal city, there's something just wrong about having to crack down like this? Or what's your, what's your take on the potential ways this could maybe veer off course? No, honestly, what's wrong is that our beautiful federal city that is not maybe the first place that people from outside the United States think about when they think about the United States, but is the seat of our government. And as Rachel

said, and I completely agree, is a beautiful city. It is laid out on the basis of like Paris. Okay. And there are beautiful row houses all over. There are beautiful monuments all over the mall. It's a, it's walkable. It's small. This is part of the reason, by the way, that the crime is so inescapable is because the city is only, you know, You know, you can walk to Georgetown from Georgetown to Capitol Hill, which are kind of the furthest two points of the city across that are still, you know, sort of highly populated and have a lot of stuff to do in them that isn't just residential. You can, I think that's four and a half miles. I used to do it all the time. So it's very small.

You can't escape the crime with money the way that usually the critique on this, which is an accurate one. And there are people doing this. The critique on the crime in our cities is, you know, with all the libs who say, oh, like, I, I'm walking. There was a video that went viral in Flatiron in New York of all these people eating outside. And it was like, oh, okay, there's no crime here. What are the conservatives worried about? They're all wetting their pants over walking. No, you went to a really nice part of the city, obviously.

And that's usually the case. I left my wallet on a table outside the Flatiron once, one of those little patio tables. Yeah. Came back 20 minutes later. It was still there. I mean, I wouldn't do that. There's an accident. I wouldn't recommend it.

But no, it's like a really nice part of the city. and you hear these kind of takes all the time, and they are happening in D.C. But D.C. is so small that, as you mentioned, in the lead-up to this, you know, there was a murder on 33rd N.M. in Georgetown in 2022. And it wasn't, it was like at 5 or 6 p.m. There was still daylight out.

And there was a cold- flooded murder in the middle of Georgetown. There are hit and run, like, smashing grabs, everything in Georgetown, even the nice parts of D.C. because they're all so proximate or suffering from this. So, no, I don't worry about overreach with this, especially since the federal district is under federal control. Congress and the president control like D.C. Okay. So there is no authority that either the mayor or the city council or any of the municipal authorities in D.C. have that it was not explicitly, specially, voluntarily granted to them

by Congress. D.C. has a special status written out in the Constitution. There are a lot of reasons for that. We can talk about why I think D.C. statehood is a terrible idea. for a variety of reasons. But this is a city that has a very special status. And no, so I don't worry at all about overreach. And frankly, as somebody who was more libertarian on the marijuana issue, even 10 years ago, it's not my, not my bag, as they say. But, you know, cheers. But I, you know, I thought of it as fundamentally harmless.

The way that it has become a feature of urban decline. and public use has become completely normalized and accepted everywhere, from, you know, the playground to those nice tables that you're talking about that you left your wallet. I mean, the number of people who just come down and sit down next to you and just start smoking a huge joint and like make everything stink is huge. So, no, I'm happy to see them arrested. And frankly, I get excited when I see these videos. I'm like, this is great. Rachel, Rachel, Rachel, she's already excited. I can tell. She has something to say. Violating the law.

Fleequently, they expect to continue violating the law permanently. And now they're actually facing consequences. It's like watching a screaming toddler on the plane who's been kicking, kicking your seat, you know, get put in timeout. That is what that is the feeling that I'm experiencing right now watching people get arrested in Washington, D.C. So Bovard, I hope they kick you clean out of any Rand Paul alumni group chats that you're in for what you're about to say because I know it's, it's. going to, it's going to be the full abandonment of your libertarian legacy. You used to be one of the mouth breathers with a fedora. Well, as I like to say, as I like to say, libertarianism is the starter pack to conservatism, right?

If you weren't a libertarian in college, like, what are you even doing? But I, I really do feel like I've been on like an evolution on this point. Because to even the point in S was making, you know, five or ten years ago, I was very sympathetic to the overreach of policing throughout America. You know, I think I've written op-eds and talked about, like, how I'm against police officers or police stations purchasing war equipment, right? They'll purchase it from the DOD and use it. Like, I was very against all that.

It was kind of outspoken on those issues. The last five years, honestly, have broken me to some extent. Like, my boss's car has been broken into six times. The police have done nothing. Like, I used to take my toddler to work to, like, ride. his little tricycle up and down the sidewalk, like stoned teenagers on ATVs going everywhere, like pushing through their scooters. Like, I can't take him to the city anymore.

My friend actually, former, well, current Rand Paul staffer was just walking down H Street in northeast in the middle of the day on a Sunday was stabbed four times. The membrane in his brain pierced by the knife underwent multiple surgeries. And this was just by a random vagrant homeless man who had been let out of jail the day before. The city, you lose the social contract when you allow your citizens to be harassed in this way. So all of that to say, I was texting you guys earlier about this video I saw on Twitter of a guy. You can say that any day. That happens.

A day that ends in a Y. I was texting you guys really about this video I saw on Twitter. But it was this man who was clearly like high on something, smacking the FBI officer with a subway sandwich while wearing a pink lace shirt. And you know what? Federal crime now that it's a federal official. He ran. You're going straight to federal courts, my friend. He was arrested.

Janine Piro said he will be charged. And at that moment, every last vestige of libertarianism left my body on this point. And of course, that sentence had everything. This is the Stefan bit. Janine Piro, the libertarianism remaining in Rachel's body, subway sandwiches. Guys, I'm still against mass surveillance. and I will die on that hill of civil liberties, but everything else. Amen.

Amen. Well, I think we've solved the problem sufficiently to the point where now we should move on to Taylor Swift. Taylor Swift just appeared on what has to have been a live stream that breaks records. I think this was actually a fairly groundbreaking moment in pop culture because Taylor Swift is one of the most famous, one of the most powerful celebrities in the entire world. And yet she has not been on one of the most popular. powerful mediums in the entire world, which is podcasting, until just a couple of hours ago,

when two football players, one of whom happens to be her boyfriend, but Jason Kelsey and Travis Kelsey, Mr. Swift as Travis, should henceforth be known. They aren't quite married yet, but we will see, dropped an episode of their New Heights podcast that was basically a live premiere of their conversation with Taylor Swift about her new album. And guys, I'm about to be really embarrassed by this conversation. Let me just... Like you said, it's not a day that ends in why? Yeah, that's true. Okay, so let me just back up and give some personal context. I am slightly younger than these two very young, very energetic.

Control yourself. You don't understand. Emily, Rachel and I were just texting each other behind in the green room about how we don't like Taylor Swift, but at least she's a member of the the Chrome Caucus. I'm like you. Yeah, she's a little bit older than me. I'm like you. Yeah, that's what they call themselves. It's weird.

But they, so Taylor Swift is a little bit older than me, but I was like a young teenager, like right in the demo when Taylor started getting famous. And I loved Taylor because I bought into the myth about Taylor as the songwriter and grew up on country music, all that good stuff. And there was something so American and innocent and wonderful about Taylor Swift. And then she became American in a bad way. She became American in this way where she was this like indulgent, woke, and I would say like faux, selfless millennial who was starting to find her purpose and meaning through politics and social media and was doing the breadcrumbs on Tumblr and leaning into calling Marsha Blackburn Trump in a wig and putting out a documentary, Miss Americana, of course. It just, I thought she was a very accurate reflection of millennial anxiety and rudderlessness.

And I feel like actually Travis Kelsey has maybe, and this makes me sound like the most misogynistic, basic, fairy tale type anti-feminist in the world. But I honestly feel like Travis Kelsey has pulled her out of that period of meaningless and purposelessness. and now I find her likable again when she's sitting next to Travis freaking Kelsey let's roll this clip because she talks a little bit about

what it's like to date in like 2025. I guess they probably started dating what, 2023? This is going to be S5, Taylor on the algorithm. Like, information is power, I guess, unless all of your information is geared towards you thinking that

everything is about you. Because, you know, No, not everyone is ever thinking about one person all the time at any point. It's just like if your algorithm is giving you either criticisms of yourself or adulation or praise, you're creating an ecosystem in which you're the centerpiece of the table. And I just don't think that's healthy. Like that's not the way I want to move through the world. So I do detach from the internet in a huge way.

Like I'm just not, I have never, I have had my comments disabled on Instagram. for like 10 years now. Yeah. And I don't miss it. My business is making music and taking care of my fans. And I have ways of monitoring what they want from me and how best to entertain them, which is my job. Yeah.

And everything else, I'm just sort of like, it's not my business. I have actual business that I need to run. Mm-hmm. Can you imagine if we just talked about what people said about our relationship? Yeah. Because if we talked about that, that would be all we talked about because there's so much chatter. It's like we're busy having an actual relationship. Okay, this is from the woman who used to respond to random fans on Tumblr, which was in a way kind of sweet.

But like she was seemingly obsessed with building or constructing this sort of mystery about herself in ways that were occasionally clever. But like 10 years ago, she was another millennial Tumblr girlie. Anez, am I wrong to be somewhat moved by that, like, silly little interaction she had with Travis Kelsey and his brother? I don't know. Yeah, I'm wrong, I guess. I don't know. You tell me. Yeah, you're wrong. I think this is cultivated like everything else, right? But I do think it says that, as the over-use phrase goes, the vibe has shifted, right? But I think this is a good point. No, wait, wait, can I just say that's such a good point? Because this is happening post-2024, vibe shift. She is no longer obsessed with putting forward this image of herself as a sort of feminist

man eater who is, that hasn't been every chapter in her career, but it has been some chapters in her career. Like she had to prove that to the world. And I feel like this is a Taylor Swift who's not trying to prove anything about men and women anymore. I don't know. Yeah, I mean, look, I don't think I'm a good person to ask because I've never been a Taylor Swift fan, despite like being in her crone caucus demographic. I just have never found that her music ever spoke to me. The most misogynistic tweet I've ever seen. You're so Polish.

You're so Polish. The most misogynistic tweet I've ever seen in, I don't know, 15 years or 12 years on Twitter, whatever embarrassing number that is, okay? Was this tweet from this woman who said that Taylor Swift represents the interior monologue of all women? I just I have no response like I read the most vicious in-cell commentary and I'm like I think that is less misogynistic so I've never been a big Taylor Swift fan

it's not even that I hated her it was just I developed a dislike for her when she was constantly being marketed to me I have a I think a neutral feeling towards her I didn't like her her music didn't really like her but didn't have you know didn't hate her either until they kept shoving her in my face and i finally got annoyed but yeah i mean i she is the queen of the algorithm she's the queen of being able to market herself uh i i think this is one aspect of that and if you think this is genuine i think you are getting played that being said you know oh she's using to market herself and what she thinks will work to market herself now versus two years ago versus

is five years ago, I think does say something about the culture. Well, these are the lies that you're able to tell yourself because the culture, something is en vogue at the time. And if it's you need to calm down style feminism, which, again, by the way, just a little personal background here. I had a giant section of the drudge report for something I wrote in the Federalist when that music video came out, calling it like elitist trash. So for me to be moved by Taylor and Travis, who is the most like all-American,

Ohio NFL dude. And they're sitting there like just chopping it up. Nothing over intellectualized because Taylor Swift often does over intellectualized things. She's so, she's such a type A millennial woman who's so obsessed. She's very, super, super self-aware. Super self-aware. That is true. In that sense, she is representative of millennials.

But isn't the sanguine take, though, that she is now in a relationship that actually means something? That's what I'm thinking. And that pulls you out of yourself. Yes. Right? Thank you for saying that. Thank you for saying. I mean, who knows, right?

This is just my saying, when tang out of it, pulls you out of this overthinking, posing performance that her whole life has been up until this point. So maybe she, who knows, maybe she's actually happy and is like, I don't need this. I think that's what that is like too much from my brain. I feel like you said what I was trying to say, but my drink is empty, so I couldn't quite get there. Well, the other one, only other observation I had was that, Travis Kelsey was looking at her like, she said the word ecosystem. So hot.

Like, I don't even know what that means. So it could also be that. She's very much the girl. He's going to be the model of the new pairing of America with over-credentialed women, which is. Yeah. So true. The woman with the master's degree and the guy who doesn't know what a primary is.

Right. And like, doesn't need her to have a master's degree, but like kind of thinks it's cute. Yeah. I actually think the world would be a better place if men just generally treated 90% of the degrees that women have received over the past 30 years as something cute, like the way that they're, you know, oh, yeah, she's into Pinterest and she has a master's degree. I think that's a more accurate way of conceiving of what that is. Or a master's degree in Pinterest. I mean, that's coming. You laugh, but, I mean, it's getting pretty close to that.

Have you seen some of these college course descriptions? No, I know. You have a PhD in Harry Potter? Well, Bovart does. Oh, well, naturally. I don't talk about that one. Actually, it's hanging on the wall over there. Well, I'm going to roll one more clip, and it's going to be of Taylor and Travis,

but it's also going to lead our way into a lovely headline in the cut. So let's go ahead and roll S6 here. Like, it was such a wild romantic gesture to just be like, I want to date you. Like, on, I don't know. It was at first when I looked at it, I was like, this dude is. That's what it does when you're on the stage and you perform in Arrowhead. That's what it did. This dude didn't get a meet and greet.

He's making it everyone's problem. I'm not a very, I'm not an online person at all. Not like on social media like that. And like, I'm genuinely terrified to open my DMs. Smart. It's just like, it's just like, it's just like, this is a. I just think there's smoke coming out of my DMs. I don't want to go near that.

I don't know what you want somebody to go through it. I'll go through it just because I'll laugh my ass off. It's like if you have like 20 million unread DMs. Are you not entertained? So this kind of felt more like I was in an 80s John Hughes movie and he was just like standing outside of my window with the boom box just being like, I want to date you. Yeah. Do you want to go on a day with me?

I made you a friendship place. Do you want to date me? Just come outside and meet me. Just meet me once. Give me a chance. I was like, this guy isn't crazy. which is a big if. This is sort of what I've been writing songs about wanting to happen to me since I was a teenager.

This is sort of what I've been writing songs about wanting to happen to me since I was a teenager right off the cuff, off the dome on the podcast. And as is wrong. It's not all fake. Let's put this cut headline on the screen, F6. The headline, this is by Anna Louis Sussman, who writes sort of predictably laughable articles like. I was on a panel with her once. She was very lovely. But this is a sort of typical cut story. This economist crunched the numbers and stopped dating men. And she's never been happier. I don't know if you guys read this one. You really don't need to. You could probably fill in all

of the blanks and just guess that it's an article about a new lesbian who decided because just weren't enough men out there that would fulfill these sort of unfulfileable expectations to go leave her husband, be with a woman, and crunch the numbers to sort of get to that point. But it almost feels like the juxtaposition of Taylor going, like, I don't even want to, like, there's a temptation to call it trad, but it's not trad. It's just baseline womanhood to sort of like going back to that. At the same time when these articles in the cut are starting to feel more and more niche and less and less, like it seems to me at least that the cut is now aware, or increasingly aware that this is niche, this is not going to be something that they're

going to push on the rest of the country. They can have the five people at Williamsburg read the story and pay to read it. And that's what their future looks like. And as am I wrong? Yeah, I mean, this follows up on that New York Times piece from a couple weeks ago about heteropessimism and heteropatelism, right? Two words that I've added to my vocabulary in the last couple weeks, much to my chagrin. Look, every week there's a new one of these viral pieces that all add up to basically complaining that men aren't women. So I'm really glad that somebody has finally taken it to the logical conclusion, which is

that you should just date women if this is what you're interested in. To be honest, you know, Sapphic, Pahlia probably is a week. in a corner here. Like, there's nothing, you know, romantic about dating a woman because she'll clean the counter the way that you will, right? Like, this is, I don't know, this is a low point for lesbianism, I feel like. And you know what, that's, I mean, Annes has declared it a low point. So it is a low point.

Rachel, low point from lesbianism from your perspective and your perch at the conservative partnership institute where such things are declared. Yes. we can officially declare it a slump lesbianism is in the valley. No, but like I find this stuff so tedious. Like these articles just great. Like the one I was pulling it up on my phone, the line that really broke me in this whole piece

was when she was like steaming her wife's shirt, for example, can be a gesture of love and care because she's super nervous about her first day rather than I'm expected to do this because of the patriarchy. You're not. Like, you're freaking not. Like, I think that one killed me because, like, my husband literally steams my clothes.

Like, and he doesn't do it because of, like, the matriarchy or the patriarchy. He does it because he cares about me and he doesn't want me to look like a slob when I leave. I was going to say, it's probably more that he doesn't want to be embarrassed because he's very well-dressed. Totally fair. But, like, these people live like this. They live in a checkbox, right? Like they go to places and they're like, I'm not allowed to enjoy this. If there aren't this many black people, this many queer people, this many trans, you know,

in non-binary professing. Oh, there are, okay, I'm allowed to enjoy this. Oh, I'm in a relationship, but I'm not allowed to be happy because, you know, there are seasons in my life where I have to do more of the housework than my spouse. Like, you are destined to be miserable. And I just feel like these people, it's like a vortex of misery that they're just sucking me into. I'm like regretting that you guys made me read that. I don't regret it at all. Can I flip this around?

I think it's the other way around. There are a vortex of misery, and then they're feeding the misery into a academic jargon machine and coming up with new terms. And the New York Times piece a couple weeks ago, I think, was the most transparent example of this, where the whole piece added up to the men that I'm attracted to won't date me. And with no self-reflection on that fact whatsoever, she made it into an ism. There is a lot of politics. I mean, the left is not wrong. The, you know, the personal is political, but in this case, it's the personal feeding, the political. And it's the elephant in

the room that people don't want to say because it seems mean and I don't want to attack anyone personally. But it's so clear and transparent in all of these viral pieces that it is personal disappointment or even legitimately bad experiences fed into politics with ISM attached to the end of it. So speaking of a low point for lesbianism, I don't know if your feeds have been algorithmically inundated with the sorority rush videos now that we've entered. No, that's a high point for lesbianism. I have a be beholder, I suppose.

This is going to be V2. We can roll it over the screen. I don't know if you guys' algorithms have been spitting these at you like mine has. We've seen these over the last, I don't know, what, five plus years starting to go viral. There have been some really funny people who juxtapose their sororities rush video this year with their sororities rush video in like 2012 where they're all dressed in like menswear and doing joke dances and not taking it seriously at all. But these are high production level routines. They're clearly competitive with one another. Very, very choreographed and very what is the word?

What is the word? Heteronormative. Heteronormative is the word, just like Taylor Swift. relationship with Travis Kelsey that we saw in detail for the first time tonight, finally, raw, Chelsea or whatever they call it. I don't know. I don't know what they've labeled it. But Rachel, I'll start with you on this one. I haven't been able to quite wrap my head around what I think about these sorority videos. Like, I don't know. Tell me, tell me, is there some type of cultural takeaway from this? Booboes are back. Whoa. Right. Like, did they ever go away?

No, I said a high point of lesbians. I know. No, it's the revenge of the cisgender women who are just like tired of looking at ugly lesbians on every cover of every magazine. I'm sorry. Like, this is what we were forced into and people are sick of it. And like give Sidney a presidential matter of freedom because the woman brought boobs back. Women are allowed to be hot again.

Whoa. Just as Innes and I age out the category. Yeah. Wow. I'm waiting for you to make a video like that. Anez, are you making one of those? Is IWF going to make one of those? Yeah, I'm working on it right now.

Anyway, I'll be out your next show. Okay, Emily, the three of us will do a coordinated dance the next time you do this. No, we won't. Don't, whoever you're, Kelly, your producer, don't listen to me right now. Don't, don't. Don't you put that evil on me, Ricky Bobby, don't you put that evil on me. Enter your head. No, I mean, like, there is an element of this so you can be accused of

overthinking everything, right, where it's just, okay, sororities have existed, you know, frat parties have existed all of this time just because it gets, you know, viral or not or it gets coverage or not. So you can be accused of that kind of overthinking. And maybe there's something to that accusation. But I actually think this is a case of woke more correct. I don't know if people are too online like me and see that phrase on Twitter a lot. But I think the woke reaction to this is actually the correct one. And that's to recognize that aesthetic are intimately connected and interwoven with the politics and the, for lack of a better word, vibes of an era, right?

And there is, it says something about us that this kind of blonde, bombshell jeans, Americana look. It's not that they're Nazis. That's not what they're right about, right? It's the fact that this kind of Americana look is back, this 80s, 90s, Redux is back. I think it does say something. something about our self-confidence maybe and our fed-upness. It's not a word.

But as Rachel said about, you know, we're just sick of an era where the defining, advertising characteristic was the obese black woman and really tight like Calvin's rate. Lizzo? Lizzo. What? Lizzo. Who's, by the way, now getting healthy? Yeah.

Yeah. Well, I mean, there's a whole conversation there about OZemex. too, but I think she has not used to something. I think it is indicative of something more seriously changing in the culture than people who are dismissing this commentary is completely silly. Obviously, there's a million sad takes online where people are just like, you know, woke is defeated because blonde sorority girls are dancing, right? But there is something to aesthetics either reflecting or, in fact, leading, you know,

the feeling of the country. And so I actually think, I think this is probably a best. predictor than a lot of commentators on cable TV. Go ahead. Beauty is biological, but it's also aspirational. And we've been stripped of both for the last five years. And I'm not just talking about people. I'm talking about buildings.

I'm talking about like city streets, even going back to the top of the conversation about D.C. Right? Our cities have become squalor. Towns across America are falling apart. Like you shove detritus into people's faces for so long. the human condition doesn't want it. They don't accept it.

And America has had so many years of, you know, cultural beauty and beauty all around us. I mean, that's kind of what we're looking for. Not that I think a sorority rush video is like, you know, peak Picasso or anything like that. But it's like you're starting to see this resurgence of people saying no. It's more of a Kincade. Right.

Right. Jack Spallick. I don't know, whatever. But like, people are revolting. This is the word. Yeah, again. DHS has been posting Kincaid painting. But people just don't, it's again, like, don't believe what your eyes tell you, right?

When we keep being told ugly is beautiful, brutalist architecture is beautiful, modernity is nothing but like cement corridors. People don't want that. That's not the human condition. So I just think you're seeing us regress a little bit to the norm. I don't think woke is defeated. I think it's still ideologically captured throughout a lot of the progressive institutions. But I do think that this is, gosh, finally, the kids are going to be all right, maybe. Here's an academic word. It's being decentered. Yeah, that's right. And it was always decentered. This was the mismatches. It was decented in the public, but it was centered in the institutions. And that created enormous strife. And the institutions have sort of cried uncle, I think, against the public backlash for now. And as you've written beautifully for years about how the professional managerial class is deeply committed to this entire ideology as their worldview, because

they sort of came up with it as their worldview and lacked tethers to anything deeper. And that's where a lot of them will remain because it would take a lot to sort of change literally the foundation of what you believe creates meaning and purpose in life. One final thought that which one of you mentioned, which one of you mentioned John Hughes? One of you just mentioned John Hughes. Guess who else mentioned that? Taylor Swift in her description of what it was like to fall in love with Travis Gelsie. So I think it's 2025. We have sorority girls mud wrestling in Bud Light again. It's Trump's America. Taylor Swift is back to being a basic bitch.

And everyone feels free. Nature is healing. Golden era. That's right. That's right. You too. This was so much fun. You were of course here for the very first show.

And it's only been two months, but I'm nostalgic. And I need you guys. You're sort of like my, what's the best way? my comfort blanket. So thank you. Thank you for being here with us today. Anything for you, Emily. Happy to be your blanket. All right. Oh, boy. Get out of here. Okay. Go to bed. Go to bed. Now, over the years, I have been very clear about this. I am not just pro-birth. I am pro-life. Everyone who's pro-life should also, of course, be pro-birth, pro-life, all of those things that go together and being pro-life means standing with mothers not only before their baby is born, but long

after. And that is exactly why I partner with pre-born and very proudly partner with pre-born. Pre-born doesn't just say babies. They make motherhood abundantly possible. They provide free ultrasounds and share the truth of the gospel with women in crisis. And then they stay with real practical help, including financial support for up to two years after the baby is born. That is what true Christ-centered compassion looks like. Not just for the baby, but for the mother too. And here's where you can make a difference. Just $28 provides a free life-saving ultrasound,

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That's preborn.com slash Emily. All right, before I let everyone, go tonight. I just want to update you on a big story. Jesse Smollett is making a comeback. And I'm not joking. Jesse Smollett is actually making a comeback. Let's cut to F8. This is a splashy profile of Jesse Smollett in variety today. Here's the headline. Jesse Smollett, what is it? It slammed Chicago police, Rahm Emanuel as, quote, villains while denying hate crime hoax and mounting a comeback. My story, quote, has never changed. I mean, this is incredible stuff. There's a documentary that's going to stream next week on Netflix about Jesse Smollah. I believe it comes out on August 22nd.

And Smolet is standing Jesse Smollett. In your head, you always think juicy, but then I know that I'm supposed to say Jesse. You guys don't mind if I say juicy, but you know, you're sort of trained, right? This is journalism, after all, to be accurate and, of course, to be neutral. And so in the interest of being neutral, I have to call him Jesse, but it's pretty hard not to call him juicy. So there's a new Netflix dot coming out next week that is called The Truth About Jesse Smollett. And he says, according to Variety, quote, the Chicago establishment conspired to frame him. He claims he experienced a hate crime when that the world came to believe he faked. Why would the Chicago PD and Emmanuel do this? Variety asks.

Quote, he answers the question with two questions. Could it be that they had just found out about the missing minutes and missing tape from the murder of Laquan McDonald? Could it be that the mayor helped hide that? Jesse Smollett says he then goes on to address why two Nigerian American brothers started talking to the cops and confessed in great deep. with receipts to, quote, cooperating with authorities, claiming that they carried out the attack at Smollett's behest, as Variety puts it. What does Smollett have to say to that? Why would two people make up a story like that? He replies, all I can say is, God bless you, and I hope it was worth it. Every single other person's story has changed multiple times. Mine has never.

I have nothing to gain from this. So here we are. are. Speaking of everything we were just discussing with the vibe shift, the Jesse Smolet case happened in 2019. I would say that probably early 2020, that time period is really, if we have to call it woke, that was like peak woke, capital P, capital W. That says this wave is starting to crest. And all of these celebrities, politicians put out statements immediately after Smollett's story broke into the media offering unconditional support of small. And I think probably decades from now, we will look back at this example in Covington Catholic that was around the same time frame. I want to say that was like 20. It might have been 2017, 2018, but it's within the same time frame as we build up to 2020 and then

to 2024 when you start to see real backlash. This was in the time frame where the reflex of people in positions of power was just to support, support, support, not question anyone. and not acknowledge that people can exploit the good faith of the public for power, that people can exploit these woke claims, quote, woke claims for power. That it could be when elites are all embracing the same ideology, a way to sort of burnish your credentials and your reputation and gain yourself more money and more power. And this was obviously happening.

I think Taylor Swift did it a couple of times. You need to calm down music video is a good example. The Miss Americana Netflix documentary about her uphill battle against Marsha Blackburn is an example of this while we're kind of going full circle from the start of the episode to the end of it on today's show. For Jesse Smollett to come back in 2025 and try to mount a serious comeback, serious comeback. To me, it's fascinating because I think, really, he's going to, mark my words, succeed with a slice of the microculture. We don't have macroculture anymore. We don't have monoculture anymore.

But what we talk about here is that the microculture is basically what we all cluster into in various genres, whether it's music, movies, politics. It's where we find ourselves. And I think Jesse Smollett is probably going to find a group of people who believe every word he says. I think that's going to be the case. I think because he is doubling, tripling, quadrupling down, he's going to convince some small number of people that he's really telling the truth and that something shady was going on. when you combine microculture with low intellectual, or low intellectual, low institutional trust, which is what we have in the United States right now, it is ripe for a bad actor like Jesse Smollett

to exploit for his own power and reputation. Do I think he is ever really going to be a mainstream? I mean, he was on Empire making like 100K an episode. One of the biggest shows was it was one element of monoculture, one scrap of monoculture that remained at the time. And really, We don't have much like that anymore, and it's only been six years. But he was a bona fide celebrity. He was not a household name, but he was on a primetime hit television show on a network. I don't think he's ever going to be anywhere like that again. I think very few people ever will be in positions like that again because of the way that we're splintering into these niches.

But the intensely low institutional trust that we have in this country, I think, has made an opening in the market for Justice Smollett to come back in with all of the conviction of a man who will not seed an inch of ground to the obvious reality that he concocted this hoax. He will not seat an inch of ground. And that conviction is persuasive and attractive. And when you combine it with low institutional trust, so meaning of the court system, which his case went through. We got off on technicality at one point of the police and of the media. There's a way for Jesse Spollett to mounts a comeback and make a little money. It's not going to be empire money, but he'll be able to make a little money. All right, I always say this, but Wednesdays

are sad because I unplug all the equipment and then I don't get to see everyone, all of you until Monday. But make sure that you, if you're not watching us live, make sure you're catching up on podcast platforms. Make sure you email me at Emily at Devil Makecare Media.com. If you have questions, I try to answer all those emails, try to read all those emails. Emily at Devil Makecaremedia.com. Thank you all so much for tuning. It was a blast. I have Innes and Rachel here. Love, love, love, love having them around. We will see you back here on Monday, 10 p.m. Catch up on podcast. If you can't stay up late, you're old like Rachel and Inez, otherwise 10 p.m. live Mondays on Wednesdays. We'll see you back here with more next week.