Behind the Bastards - Part Two: John Schmitz: The First Trump

Episode Date: January 11, 2024

Our tale of Orange County bastardry reaches it's apex in John Schmitz, the conspiracy maniac who ran against Nixon from the Right and blazed the trail that led us to Donald TrumpSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

I'm Mary K. McBrayer, host of the podcast, The Greatest True Crime Stories Ever Told, where I dig into crimes where a woman is not just a victim. She might be the detective, the lawyer, the witness, the coroner, the criminal, or some combination of those roles. These are the stories we need to know, to understand the intersection of society, justice, and the fascinating workings of the human psyche. Listen to the greatest true-crime stories ever told on the iHeartRadio app Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Over the past five years making my true-crime podcast Helen Gone I've received hundreds of messages from people asking for help with an unsolved murder that's affected them their families and their communities. I'm Catherine

Townsend. I've launched a new show on the Helen Gone feed, Helen Gone Murder Line. Every week, I feature a new case and help as much as I can to get the word out about unsolved murders. Listen to Helen Gone Murder Line on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast. I'm Mo Raka, and I'm excited to announce

season four of my podcast, Mobituaries. I've got a whole new bunch of stories to share with you about the most fascinating people and things who are no longer with us. From famous figures who died on the very same day to the things I wish would die like buffets. Listen to Mobituaries with Mooraka on the iHeart Radio app Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. That sound listeners was me opening a bottle of my very favorite productivity beverage, Club Mate, which you can get now in the US in some places.

It's effectively a year of a Mate soda that I started drinking in Berlin because you get dehydrated when you're doing ketamine, and then eventually you get tired when you're at one of those underground sex clubs that's open for four days in a row and Club Mate. It's really, really, really hits the spot. I like how they let you in the club and not Elon Musk, Robert. Yeah, cause I didn't, I didn't bring my phone, you know? That's right. That's what it let me in.

You weren't wearing a dumbass Zorro mask. They were, you had, you had, I can be separated from Twitter occasionally. Yeah. Now speaking of guys who are not allowed in German sex clubs, John George Schmitz, that is the bastard for our episode. That is my name too. Whenever we go out, the people always shout, they go, John George Schmitz is a piece of

shit. La, la, la, la, la, okay. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's got to be related to John Jacob Jingleheimer. You know, he will have the shits at the end, more or less. So our John Schmitz was born on August 12, 1930, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, at the very mouth of hell itself. Now, there are unfortunately few details

that I ran into on his very early life. His mother was named Will Helmina, which is a red flag, right? That they, in 1930, that name means I love Kaiser Wilhelm, or at least my parents did. And his father was Jacob John. There you go. There he does basically between them and his dad. Jacob John Schmitz.

You're joking. That's a, that's a, no, no, no, that's him, baby. Where's the jingle Heima? Was that just like a sort of unknown SS officer? Look, 1930, you still did get some people who were anti-German racist. I would not be surprised if jingle Heima was a slur, like specifically.

Really? It's like sausage eater. Yeah. Totally, totally, totally. Schnitzelheads. Yeah. They were devout Catholics. She knits a lads. Yeah. They were devout Catholics. John would remain a devout Catholic his entire life.

And again, we don't know nearly as much about his childhood, but his family seems to have been comfortable, middle class or upper middle class. There's some hints that he may have had a degree of family money, but it is unclear. Whatever it was, either it wasn't that much or his parents still wanted him working a job and he did have a job as a young man scrubbing out vats of beer that will be relevant for a very stupid reason later. His family was again comfortable enough that he's able to go straight from high school into college where he received a BS at Marquette University in 1952 and subsequently joined the US Marine Corps.

He qualified initially as a jet fighter pilot and then as a helicopter pilot. From what I can see, he didn't do any combat tours. He was instead stationed in North Carolina and then Japan flying F-2H-4 banshees and F-9F-8 kugers. Part of why I think he doesn't actually get sent anywhere because obviously the US during the time he's in the military like is in Korea. And then kind's, you know, in the military, like, is in Korea.

And then kind of while he is still in the military, we start being in Vietnam. But he is in the Marines and he is part of like kind of an experimental Marine air wing. The Marines really hadn't had like that previously to the same extent that they did, at least with jet fighters. And so his unit is not sent anywhere because they're still trying to figure out if like that's a thing that they think will work for the Marine Corps. His career is then of little note, but for one fact,

which is that after he retires from active duty in 1960 and transitions to being a reserve officer, he volunteers to teach a class on communism for the Fleet Marine Force Pacific Leadership School, which is based at the El Toro Marine Corbase. And the El Toro Marine Corbase is in, you guessed it, Orange County, California. Now doing this series of anti-communism lectures seems to have basically been an excuse for

Schmitz to rant about communist plots to conquer the world and how peace is impossible with the Soviet Union and China to an audience of young men who then went over to Vietnam and did the kind of things that you did in Vietnam, most of which are not very nice. His lesson plan seems to have been deeply inspired by Frederick Schwartz's, again, lot of Schwartzy names flying around here, very frustrating,

but Frederick Schwartz's anti-communism school. And so given the mood at the time, the fact that this dude is doing basically the version of this big public anti-communism school that the not-sbury farm guy is funding and that this Australian fascist is doing the lesson plan for. The fact that John Schmitz is doing a class on communism for the military, it makes him fit in really well with this whole fucking zeitgeist, right? Yeah. Upon leaving active duty in 1960, he became a history and philosophy professor at Santa

Anna College. He quickly became a fixture in the Arch conservative Orange County political scene. He joined the John Birch Society. He also attracted the attention of local far-right businessmen, including Carl Cartier, the founder and namesake of the Carl's Jr. Fast Food Empire. Everything, truly everything. Really, really a remarkable set of things there, right? Not very far.

I love the Carl's Jr. Not very far, and the Carl's Jr. are funding the fascist movement. Yes, seriously, what else? Like, the giraffe from Toys R Us is just a fucking... Oh. Oh, he actually is in Levin Worth's still for crimes he committed during Vietnam War. The Jaffrey went too far for even the Army in that period.

The name of the... That's right. Yeah, Jaffrey. J for even even the army in that period. That's right. Yeah, Joffrey. Joffrey is the name of the giraffe. He just a mountain of blood behind him. Yeah, he had the the me lime massacre was his idea. He invented the concept of saturation bombing. That was him.

Joffrey the giraffe. He's made of Agent orange. Like what other loved it. They got it from glands in his skin, and fully ate it the jungle. Seriously, though. I could blame a giraffe for all of our country's worst crimes. Alas. Alas, we'll blame the country. Schmitz, you know, he gets out of the military, he becomes a history and philosophy professor at Santa Ana College, and he quickly becomes a fixture in this political scene, right? And he's working with the Carl's Jr. guy,

with the not-sbury farm guy. He had married while he was still in the Marine Corps to a significantly younger woman. I'm not sure exactly, but one newspaper I found from when he was like in his 40s, described her as youthfully pretty and contrast to him. So I'm going to guess a decent bit younger. Mary is just as conservative as her husband and almost as hungry for power, but I'm getting ahead of myself here. So in 1962, right, the family Schmitz get their first daughter, a young girl

named Mary K. And we will be talking about who Mary K. Schmitz becomes a little bit later. Cause I think it might surprise you. Not Mary K. Not the cold leader, not that Mary K. No, no, no, don't forget she exists though because boy, howdy, it's gonna really be a satisfying

into this series. Now, the same year that Mary K is born, her father would carry out an act of probable heroism that helped make him into a local celebrity. He was leaving the Marine Corbase one day after a long day of screaming about communism to teenagers when he encountered a man stabbing a woman by the roadside. Quote, with nothing more than the sheer authority of his voice, according to the LA Times, Schmitz disarmed the assailant. So the story is, he finds this man stabbing a woman and he yells at him and that disarms his voice is so commanding that it disarms

this guy. Now, that is, I think, literally what happened in that this guy, Schmitz yells at this guy and he stops the attack. I think that the casual descriptions these sources get tend to minimize a crucial detail. And I want to make it very clear that detail is that the woman dies, right? This is not a case where he saves a life by stopping an attack. This is a case where a man stabs a woman to death, probably an affidav rage, and then someone yells at him and he realizes what he's done and he stops, right?

He doesn't, he doesn't commit a spree killing because most killers aren't spree killers, right? He murders this woman for some specific reason, and then someone yells at him and he realizes, oh my God, what have I done, right? That's what he said. That is how I'd, hey, don't stab that lady. Hey, knock it off, knock it off. Hey, knock it off. You, you crazy kid. Hey, that's enough. She's out enough. You did it.

You did it. You, again, I'm not saying he didn't do anything bad, but like you should, in fact, if you see someone get against stabbed at least yell at the stapper. Sure. You know, but it, it's framed as like he disarmed this man. And I really don't think that's exactly what happened. Exactly.

They didn't talk about the 30 seconds he spent watching it happen and then it was like, all right, buddy. The tweaking is nipples. Yeah. Well, it's also the thing that's really weird because I, I'll shit on him for everything, but this isn't a bad thing. But the way the news describes it, they always talk about how cool it is that he disarms this guy with his voice, and then just casually announce, oh yeah, the lady died. Like the LA Times just summarizes it this way. Although the woman died,

Schmitt's reputation as a hero was made. Just like, yeah, she died. But what a cool thing this guy got to do. Very funny, I love that all of the newspapers right at the same way. It's just that after thought I find that darkly interesting. That is funny. It is, it's, it's so unremarkable that like it, it only is remarkable if she lives. It's not remarkable if she dies. Everyone we get that right. Stop something. Yeah. Yeah. Or if he's like stabbed multiple people and then you could genuinely say, yeah, maybe he somehow stopped more people from getting stabbed, but all I'm saying here, she came upon the end of a murder.

Exactly, yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. You witnessed the very end of a murder. But I think if I can put my conspiracy hat on, I think what's happening here is that like, Schmitz is a PR savvy guy. He has a degree of charisma. He knows how to spin things things and as soon as he realizes what's happened here like this is too good a story to waste. I can really make this work for me.

And by 1964 Schmitz had become one of Orange County's leading political lights. He is still working as a professor of philosophy and political science at Santa Ana University. And he's already he's become very active in the John Birch Society. His support for the Carl's junior guy and several other wealthy conservatives ensured they had enough donations to run his campaign. So Schmitz, who regularly joked that he joined the John Birch Society

to get moderates to vote for him, comes out blazing in this like local, like state congress election, with a raft of absolutely bug-fuck policy proposals. He wants to ban sex ed in public schools. He wants to encourage citizens to carry loaded handguns in their cars, which the corollary to that is he wants citizens to leave loaded handguns in their cars. Whenever they leave their cars, he wants to sell all California state universities to private corporations

so they can use violence to crack down on student protests against Vietnam. That's why he wants to privatize colleges so that the corporation can use security guards to beat up students. This all occurred during a very special time for the United States. When the most prominent Republican is again, Barry Goldwater. Barry is such for an idea of how freaked out people are about what a fascist this guy is. When Goldwater is running, like is in this campaign, this is LBJ's re-election campaign, right? Goldwater, not re-election,

because he was never elected the first time, but you get what I'm saying, right? LBJ's been president a little while since the Kennedy assassination. He's running to continue to get to be president. And Fidel Castro sends a private letter to LBJ, basically saying, hey man, I really want you to win reelection.

If you need to bomb us a little bit, right? So you can brush up your anti-communist credentials for the election, I get it. You just give me a heads up before you fuck with us, and I won't respond. Like I love you, bro. Like good luck out there. I get it. You just give me a heads up before you fuck with us, and I won't respond. Like I love you, bro. Good luck out there.

So funny. I like that's hilarious. It is because like Kester is a rational actor. He's like, yeah, man, gold water might fucking nucus. Like this guy might actually be crazy. Like gold water is the namesake for what's called the gold water rule, which is this rule where if you're a mental health professional, you cannot diagnose a presidential candidate that like, you know, isn't coming to you for medical help

or whatever, because there were so many people in the media being like, goldwater may actually be insane. Like that's how crazy we think his policies are. And he is, it's also worth noting, goldwater, a big reason people think he's crazy is that he is, one of these guys like Henry Kissinger who thinks low yield nukes should be used tactically in battlefield situations. Like we need to we need to win this battle in Vietnam.

We should drop a little nuke on him. So goldwater's rule is you can't diagnose someone running even if they're absolutely saying and saying shit. Yeah, you should not use that to diagnose someone with a mental health condition. Someone else or this candidate. Yeah. Okay. This candidate.

Oh, yeah. Basically, if someone's running for election, you shouldn't say, if you haven't worked on them or whatever and you shouldn't be like, this person has this mental illness. Right, so we can't say Trump, yeah, as a sociopathic narcissist, because we don't know clinic. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Yeah. You're not going to, you're not going to get a psychologist

shouldn't say that, right? That's the gold water rule. It's fine for regular people to say, I think that guy's a fucking psychopath, right? I think we've gone. Yeah. That's probably good. Yeah. Yeah. We might have jumped the shark on this though. I feel like there's a few people. Yeah. It's always debatable. on this though. I feel like there's a few people who probably know it's all. It's always debatable, but it tells you how crazy people think goldwater is, right? Yes. You have a whole rule about not declaring presidential candidates crazy because of how crazy everyone thought this guy was.

Right. Now, another big thing that goldwater is a proponent of, and this is a less controversial thing than the nukes, is the idea that positive change for people who aren't white men Meads that society is in collapse, right? Goldwater Opposes the Civil Rights Act as does John Schmitz and the rest of Orange County and this is the beginning of a new era One in which you can't be as racist, right? You can't say I don't want the Civil Rights Act because I hate black people Right and said you have to say I love everybody But my property rights are I hate black people, right? And said you have to say, I love everybody, but my property rights are more important than that, right?

And if you're saying we have to integrate the school, like private schools, you're saying private schools can't be whites only, that's bad for property rights. Or if you're saying I have to serve black people at my restaurant, that's a violation of property rights. And so I don't oppose the Civil Rights Act because I'm racist, I oppose it because it's a violation of property rights. And that's the most important thing in the world. Yeah, this all comes down to like fair housing, right?

Yes, exactly. And schooling and education. Access. I mean, but again, it's sort of what's running cover for what? Your libertarianism running cover for your racism and then your religion running cover for all of it, like just like blanketing the whole thing. Yeah. And this kind of comes to a head in California politics in 1964 because there's this proposition backed by the California Real Estate Association to rescind the Rumford Act, which is a state law that makes it illegal to discriminate housing based on race, right?

And the proposition to like say, no, we want to be able to be racist in who we let by houses places is obviously like Orange County had kept black people out for a long time by doing shit like that. So the mobilization for Prop 14 to let people discriminate when they sell houses and shit, that's hugely centered around Orange County. And I'm going to quote from the book suburban warriors here. Indeed, one activist, Tom Rogers of San Juan Capastrano, who served as the campaign finance manager for John Schmitz's state senate run in 1964, and who shortly afterwards served as co-editor of the Catholic traditionalist paper The Wanderer, asserted years later that for him and many others,

Proposition 14 was what the movement was all about. Goldwater's frequent references of freedom of association, his belief that prejudice is the immoral issue that cannot be legislated, and a strong advocacy of property rights placed him firmly on the side of those opposing the Rumpford Act. Moreover, Goldwater's determination to fight lawlessness has references to rising crime rates and his linkage of crime to lawlessness of other sorts, a reference to the civil rights and students movements appealed to the white middle classes in Orange County. So, Goldwater does not succeed in his dream

of becoming the president, but Schmitz does get elected to the California State Senate, representing Orange County, and he is the first member of the John Birch Society to make it into local California politics. He immediately gets to work being the loudest, craziest asshole in the capital. The first full year that he served 1965 is the year of the Watts riots. Now if you know anything about anything, you know that this becomes like a massive political issue for the right in California. His attitude is not, well, this was a response to generations of abuse by the local government and by the police. This was a communist operation. He's so incensed that he sponsors a bill to investigate

the backgrounds of every public school teacher in the state for communist Affiliations like his response to the Watts riots is we need to have build a CIA basically to go after school teachers and make sure they're not Communists that's clearly what this came from John develops. Yeah, he is just just a maniac now What's interesting we've been talking a lot about how Reagan is such an important development for like the far right getting increasingly into legitimate conservative politics in this country. John Schmitz hates Reagan. So do a lot of virtues, right? The buncher is right. Because they see Reagan as a compromiser, right? And a compromiser is the same as a communist sympathizer. Schmitz is the only Republican Senate member who votes down Governor Reagan's 1967 tax program. And his issue is that as much

as they'd cut, taxes are still too high. And I'm going to quote next from an article on cafe.com by David Curlinder. Over the next three years, Schmitz took many, often lonely, far-right stands. He argued for eliminating state income taxes altogether. He sponsored a bill to repeal fair housing laws. He argued that there should be no sex education in public schools. He led a successful effort to censure University of California Berkeley for allowing black Panther leader Eldridge Cleaver to speak on campus. He fiercely spoke out against abortion and women's rights.

He also continued to buck fellow conservative leaders. Schmitz declined to endorse a presidential candidate in 1968, telling the press, George Wallace is too moderate for me. He were at Humphrey's taking a dive. And if I endorsed Richard Nixon, he might repudiate it the next day. Like, again, George Wallace is like the guy

who became famous for loving segregation as a governor of Alabama. But that's what they want. I mean, that's effectively what this sounds like, right? They've never gotten over it. And here's what I've realized. Now we're in part two. Could we say as a native California myself, I mean, not like, you know, native to the

land, but someone who's born and raised in California, obviously, nor California for life, but that these are a kind of transplants. That ultimately the OC is a blight, is an anomaly, that it's not really California. This is, they're all from somewhere else. It's, it can be disowned. I mean, the OC is what I want to know. I feel like you can't because I think a crucial aspect of California culture, at least over the last going back 200 years or so, is the gold rush mentality.

Yeah. The idea that the culture in this area, and this big thing in North Cal too, right? It's a big part of Northern California, San Francisco culture, is like a bunch of the people who live here now are descendants of folks who rushed here to try to grab a bunch of money from a social phenomenon that had a ticking time frame to it, right?

These upper middle class and rich people who fill out the OC and who are these kind of fascist maniacs running the defense industry, that's a gold rush. That is, one day there's nothing. The next, there's all the money in the fucking world. And you got to sprint over there as fast as you fucking can to pick it up. Totally. It just depends on the industry like Silicon Valley and the dot com. Silicon Valley is another gold rush, right? Same idea, same cultural and so is the pod industry as a matter of fact, right? Oh, and I said the pod like the podcast. No. Well, yeah, I mean, actually a little bit, right? That's less geographically centered than weed or the tech industry, the defense industry. Gold. Yeah.

True, true, true. Yes. A little bit less harm, less harm. But it is, you know, California is a state of like a lot of our culture is gold rushes and these people embody it, right? Yes. It's not a pretty part of California heritage, but it is, it is very much part of it, I think. Although, you don't need to jettison them as much because things have gotten better. We'll see if it lasts, right? There's always a... Let me know in the beginning.

Okay, so not right wing enough for the birchers and shmits. They hate Nixon. They don't like Reagan much better. They do like him better than Nixon, but not a lot. So Schmitz is, he's one of these guys where he's such a hailing fascist, but the Republican Party in this period is not nearly as inviting of that.

So most as much as he yells about the left and socialism, all the people he really fights hard in his political career are other Republicans, right? Like he is constantly going to war with Republicans. Now, his wife, Mary, is really interesting too, because she uses her husband's newfound power and notoriety, the fact that he's gotten elected, he's making all these waves, is this just kind of arch-burcher in California Congress. She becomes one of the first female far-right media influencers, right? Oh, okay.

She gets on local TV, she becomes a, she has, eventually she gets like a permanent place on a TV show that's like a politics roundtable. She is just like a frequently wanted speaker, she like gets speaking reasons, things going around supporting different candidacies. If she were around today, she'd have a podcast and a blue check Twitter account

and she would make seven figures working at the daily wire. She is the prototype for that kind of like woman and conservatism. Her handle, like her bio would be like mom, wife, American flag, cross. And she'd have like really nice arms, which is always the most annoying thing about right wingers, is they all have the same trainer and they all have the like just sort of like strong arms which I don't understand and simultaneously covet. You people know what I'm talking about.

You guys know that right wingers are terrible but the women have great, they have their arms are great. You have all my spoken truth. Right and you're like, I don't know, you definitely can't fight. Like they're not fighting arms. I'm thinking of Ann Coulter. Yeah.

And Ann Coulter, like the celebrity that I would compare her to positively, I think this is actually a compliment for her, is Jack Skellington. Um, yes. No, no, no, we should probably cut all of that. Don't cut that. She would, she would take it as a, as a W. She, she, she

presides. Well, we, we got to go to an ad real quick. We sure do. We sure do. Speaking of Jack Skellington, he would want you to participate in capitalism well past Christmas. Yes, he doesn't actually like Christmas all that much. Does he?

Anyway, whatever. Here's ads. From the studio who brought you the number one podcast, The Piked and Massacre. This is Murder 101. A group of high school students started a project to research a string of unsolved murders. Those murders happened in the mid-1980s. He's out there doing stuff. He just didn't stop. Everything that the students predicted through their profile turned out to be accurate. Redhead killer profile, male Caucasian, 5'9 to 6'2, 182, 270 pounds, unstable home, absent father and a domineering mother. Right-handed IQ above 100, most likely heterosexual.

There is no profile of this killer except for the ones the students created. Just because some of these women no longer have people to speak for them is not mean that they deserve to not be so people. What if this guy still alive, like what if he comes after us? I said, you're going to kill me if you say yes. Listen to Murder 101 on the I Heart Radio app Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Over the past five years, making my true crime podcast Hell and Gone, I've received hundreds of messages from people all around the country,

asking for help with an unsolved murder that's affected them, their families, and their communities. We may have some information for you. I don't have that help, Annie. Maybe they saw something and something happened. In past seasons of Helen Gone, I've only been able to focus on one case. But I've launched a new show on the Helen Gone feed, Helen Gone Murder Line. Every week, I've featured a new case, add updates to old ones,

and help as much as I can to get the word out about unsolved murders. I'm Katherine Townsend. If you have a case you'd like me and my team to look into, you can reach out to us at our Helen Gone Murder line at 678-744-6145. Listen to Helen Gone Murder line on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.

In every town, at the end of a quiet tree line street, there's one house that looks the same, but everyone knows is different. And in my new podcast, Murder Homes, we tell those stories of routine days that start like any other and turn into wrenching nightmares. My name is Matt Maroonovich and I've been obsessed by homes that are stigmatized forever by the brutal crimes that happen inside four walls. All across the country, there are addresses I'll introduce you to that you'll never forget and the experts that know them best. Take a walk with me down the street to the house, everyone whispers about, and step inside to hear the shocking story of a day that is still frozen in time. I actually felt barrel of a gun on my head. Because a murder home is almost always two things.

The place a family felt safest and the last place on Earth they expected to be hunted down. Listen to murder homes in the IHAR radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And we're back. So Mary Schmitz is, to give you an idea of like how people view her and the conservative movement, her nickname is the Phyllis Schlafly of the West. So this family, they're just bad. Yeah, that's horrible. Just two real powerful right wing ghouls. Yeah, oh, Lord of the

West. And very soon these people, you know, their state level figures right now, but very soon they're going to be in the halls of real power throughout this whole time mid 60s and stuff. The Senate representative for the district that John and Mary live in for, for, you know, the district that covers Orange County is this lunatic right wing hero named James B. Utt, which yes, does look like James butt when you type it all out. That is the man's name. It is Ut with two teas. I know, I know. Like that's like a joke you will see some fucking dude

with a comic make on Twitter. Yeah, no, no, this is real fucking name. No, this is real fucking. No, it's B. That B, James, B. You know what, when your name is James, B. Ut, you keep the B because you want people to think it's but like you you relish in the but this because you're you want to be a little you want to be

asked clearly. Yeah, you want you know what you're going to become. So James, but his pet theory is that quote, a large contingent of barefooted Africans had been snuck into the United States by the United Nations, which is a communist organization. Oh my God. It's for the country. And that's where the Watts riots were not a mere black people born and raised in the United States. There were Africans snuck into Southern California by the United Nations to destroy the

United States. But this is the same shit. This is the same thing we talk about now, right? And it generally is like the Jews have done this, but it's right. It's like sneaking, they, they sneak in the elites, sneak in migrants to rile up the blacks until they want their rights, you know, they're fine with black people, as long as they're in their place, as long as they're happily in ghettos and prevented from, you know, owning homes anywhere near Orange County,

of course. Yeah. But yeah, it's the same shit. My God, it's the same shit. And it's crazy how like they don't see how much they recycle this stuff. And I think Mr. Butt should get more credit. Yeah, no, that's what we all feel about Mr. B. But so, uh, was the son of a rancher.

He'd won his seat representing Orange County by attacking his opponent for preaching the gospel of socialism. He believed that the music of the Beatles had inflicted artificial neuroses on young people and given them brain damage. He was, I will say this, he was occasionally on the right side of issues, always for the wrong reasons. He opposed the annexation of Hawaii, not on any kind of anti-colonial grounds, because the islands had too many non-white people and they would inevitably breed with white people. Yes. That's what.

Yeah. He is in his family. Can we kill him all? No, I don't want it. Well, then I don't want to admit here. When his grandson decided to oppose the Vietnam War, Ut said that he would have rather seen the boy die over cease. Oh, wow.

He is just a giant piece of shit. This is the congressional, the national congressional representative for like the district that Schmitts lives in. Yeah, and he's just a real bad guy, but extremely popular. He wins in Orange County by a two to one majority. But is one of the few men in politics who is extreme enough for John Schmitz's taste.

He's basically the only dude who could hold that office and be sure John would not run against him. But then in 1970, tragedy struck. James B. Ut died due to complications from being a huge piece of shit. In literal terms, he has a heart attack in church, which you might read as God striking him down if you're inclined to that sort of shit. In literal terms, he has a heart attack in church, which you might read as God striking him down if you're inclined to that sort of thing. But while one less dead, but is generally

good, it also created opportunity for John Schmitz. Schmitz runs for the former representative seat and wins. Now, his camp, the slogan that he uses to like win the special election, it's impenetrable today. It's when you're out of Schmitz, you're out of gear. That doesn't mean anything to you, does it? What? Is it? Shhh. No.

I know. Well, it's because he works at cleaning out beer stones, no, at a beer company. Okay. And there was, I think the slogan was when you're out of Schlitz, you're out of beer, like for some Milwaukee beer. But like he takes this slogan that's very much this like Milwaukee area beer slogan. And he repurposes it for a campaign in Southern California.

I don't know how this worked. No, and the rule of puns, it does not work. It's just such a weird idea. You can only change one side of the pun. It can't be both. It can't be when you're out of schmitz, you're out of gear. When it's, if you're out of schlitz, you're out of beer. You got to keep schlitz or beer in there. Yeah. Yeah. Otherwise, it's just, it's just nonsense.

No one knows what the fuck you're talking about. But he wins the special election. It works. So now this fucking guy is in DC and is a full on asked Congressman. He moves his wife and family to the Capitol and he gets to work extending his unique brand of God awful politics nationwide. His biggest enemy in government again is not some leftist, but his actually Richard Im Nixon who Schmitz saw you guessed it as basically a calm sleeper agent from that article

in cafe.com. Matters were made more tense given that he was president Nixon's congressman, representing the Orange County District containing San Clemente. Schmitz was particularly critical of Nixon's rapprochement with China, telling the press, I have no objection to Richard Nixon going to China. I just object to him coming back, which is actually pretty good. That's not bad. to him coming back, which is actually pretty good. That's not bad. Schmitz vocally backed Ashbrook's attempt

to primary Nixon in 1972. And so this is something that pisses off Richard Nixon. He is, Schmitz has made it his business to become a thorn in his side. And he starts to expand in this period of time, outside of like harboring these kind of economic grievances and even grievances against like, you know, communist states to this more sort of esoteric conspiracy theory conservatism.

In 1971, he writes an introduction to Gary Allen and Larry Abraham's Nunder Colett conspiracy. The book, which was in hugely, this is influential, this is like the center of Alex Jones' ideology today, The book argued that Eastern American elites, particularly the Jews therein, were funding global communism. Alan proclaimed, among other things, that Chase Manhattan Bank President David Rockefeller had personally fired Soviet premier and decadent

cruise chef in 1964. Jesus. What? You know, the Chase Bank guy has the, has the, has the, fire them for hacking the Soviet Union, who could be more influential in Soviet politics than the head of Chase Manhattan Bank.

Oh my God. It is so funny. Again, I mean, who is the head of Chase Manhattan Bank? Was it a Jew again with these like broad, like anti-Semitic think like just like the history of this is just like and the like super powers that Racists and bigots anti-Semites apply to Jews is just wild. Oh, yeah. Yeah, it really is Denny hacked into that. I mean again, and it's just the Jewish space laser Marjorie green the Rothschild the same shit Same shit

Absolutely now if you know anything about Dick Nixon. I'm trying to do it. I'm trying to do it. I'm trying to do it. I'm trying to do it. I'm trying to do it. I'm trying to do it. I'm trying to do it. I'm trying to do it. I'm trying to do it.

I'm trying to do it. I'm trying to do it. I'm trying to do it. I'm trying to do it. you for all time. Now Nixon, again, he remembers his fucking enemies. And so in 1972, Schmitz has just finished backing an attempt to primary Nixon. He's been yelling at him the whole time, two years he's been in Congress. Tricky Dick is like, well, this guy's up for reelection. I'm not going to let that son of a bitch fuck with me anymore. He turns his petty manchild laser on John Schmitz and he blasts his career in national politics to smithereens. John loses the primary nomination to a tax assessor, which is basically, I kind of wonder

if Nixon did that on purpose because there's no one worse you can lose to as a libertarian and a tax assessor. I'm happy about this. Yeah, fuck this guy. I mean, yeah, yeah, it is fun. It's funny. Nixon, but no, but, you know, fuck this guy. I mean, yeah, yeah, it is fun. Like Nixon, but no, but you know, no, no, no, but I respect Nixon's ability to both be petty and wield power effectively enough to squash this motherfucker like a bug. Right. Yes. Yeah.

Like you just have to take some satisfaction in it. Like, Nixon beat everybody else, but at least the sun, this son of a bitch didn't get a fucking like hand up on it now. Well, that's the other thing is that I feel like the right now is like, oh God, maybe I should cater more to the John Birch society, or maybe I should cater more to the far right, or maybe I should change up my tune. And it's like, yeah, you know, it, it takes a certain SOB to be like, no, fuck you. I'm the president. I'm doing what I want. And yeah, I'm going to kill your career. There you go. Like, I don't know, I respect that. I respect that more than I respect someone who's like, just going to be, oh, yeah, could jolt by the most extraneous elements of their own party and literally stands up for nothing and cannot lead. And I'm

not even talking Trump. I think just broadly, the Republican party, what it's become. Yeah, yeah, yeah. At least Nixon, there was this like animal cunning at work with the man. You had to at least respect in the same way. You respect a tiger in the woods, you know, as opposed to just like a hoard of fucking Havollina that have gotten drunk on Prairie wine, which is how I feel today. So Schmitz was adamant that this was all a conspiracy. You know, when he loses his reelection,

and Nixon had flexed his influence and done it specifically to embarrass Schmitz. And that is probably what happened, right? Schmitz is like, the president had his henchman come out and get me. And honestly, this is the one conspiracy Schmitz believed in that like, oh yeah, there is no world in which Dick Nixon did not destroy this man for hitting him from the right.

That is totally in character for Richard Nixon. Yeah. And you would have done the same. So now, the thing here, this is really a case of you've got Schmitz, fucks with Nixon, Nixon being a petty bitch, like destroys his, his chance at getting reelected. And then, but the thing is like Schmitz is also extremely petty. So when Nixon nuked his hopes of staying in Congress, John Schmitz starts scheming. Fate presents him with an opportunity in the form of a bullet, which in assassin fired in the body of George Wallace, the segregation governor.

Wallace is badly hurt and he has to drop out as a presidential candidate for the American party. Now, I know what you're saying, Francesca, the American party isn't a thing, but it was. It did used to be. Yeah, yeah, this is now deep political lore here for the country, but it was a third party that was formed entirely to support the ambitions of George Wallace, right?

Like, if the fact that goldwater isn't just saying slurs on stage doesn't mean you don't trust gold water. And if the fact that Nixon isn't completely out of his mind means you won't vote for Nixon, the American party has got your back, right? Thank God. We love you. Just a little slur, only a bit of slurs. Yeah.

More than a bit. This is George Wallace. So now, Wallace is to the right of gold water, even to the right. I don't know, even to the right, like they're just kind of saying he's just cruder, right? I think it's probably a better way. He is more, I don't think gold water, like he is more directly motivated by racism, but they are both, they're both of their campaigns are pretty race-bady, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And the American, and this is, you know, Goldwater, I think, a 64, this is 68. And in the 68, well, the 68 election is when the American party runs for the first time. And it does really well. They get 10 million votes in the 1968 election, right? And that's, this is, it comes to something that's kind of relevant today, which is that, you know, we're starting 2024, which is, this presidential race is going to be the first race in a very long time where a third party candidate seems likely to win a lot of votes, right? We're talking about RFK. The Kennedy, yeah, yeah, yeah, the new Kennedy that we got up in politics, he's going to

get, I don't think, like, certainly not enough to win the presidency, but more of like he is pulling better than a third party candidate has in the time, like since I've been aware of politics, right? That's, yes, yeah. I don't know. I think we're going to find his Vax card at some point. He's got a Vax card. It's possible. It's all going to be over. Yeah, it didn't even get happened. It's January as, you know, but it is like at the moment right now. He is a bigger factor in the election than a third party has been in quite a bit, right? Sure.

But I'm bringing this up because I want to talk about how significant the American party was for a brief period of time. They get 10 million votes in the 68 election. Today, the libertarian party in the US has 732,000 registered voters. The green party and constitution party together are another 350,000, right? Ross Perot got about 20 million votes in 1992, but he was a billionaire and he had the money to finance a sizeable campaign. In the next election, he barely, he barely broke 8 million votes. So Wallace's American party, it's not going to win the election, but it can spoil the

election for a Republican. 10 million votes, that kind of potential, having done that in the previous election, that's not something to scoff at, right? No. Yeah. So, you know, that's interesting. So the American party is not this inconsiderable thing within US politics at the time, not entirely. And any candidate who could perform at the level Wallace had might be able to take away

enough votes from Nixon to assure his reelection. Schmitz wanted to be that man. The fact that he might be able to wrench the Republican party because again, if you force Nixon out, if you make him lose the election, then the fact that you got that many votes might is going to convince a lot of Republican leadership, okay, we need to speak to some of the issues that this guy has adopted, right? That's, I think, his assumption, right, that I can wrench this party to the right,

and I can hurt Nixon, who I hate, and who was a communist anyway. He gets the nomination for the American party at that party convention that year, and he's, you know, I'm actually going to read a quote from that cafe.com article again about like how he kind of frames his campaign. Schmitz continued to tie himself to conspiracy theories. He made much use of his co-nection to Nundare call it conspiracy, which by election season had blown up,

selling five million copies. Gary Allen even came aboard the campaign, providing his mailing lists accumulated from the book's success. He also suggested Arthur Bremmer, Wallace's would-be assassin was part of a cadre of killers, which also included Lee Harvey Oswald, James Earl Ray and Sirhan Suran, that was secretly funded and trained

by left-wing groups like the students for a democratic society. Shmit summed up his basic presidential campaign pitch. I boil down our platform to a two-plank platform. There's a foreign plank that says never go to war unless you plan on winning and a domestic plan that says those that work ought to live better than those who don't. Right? Which is both not politics and also real easy to see why that spreads among a certain chunk of the country, right? Oh, yeah. So cool stuff. You know what else is cool? Oh, I know what's cool. Ads. Sure.

The nice cool breeze of capitalism blowing down our backs. From the studio who brought you the number one podcast, The Pike to Massacre. This is Murder 101. A group of high school students started a project to research a string of unsolved murders. Those murders happened in the mid-1980s. He's out there doing stuff. He just didn't stop. Everything that the students predicted through their profile turned out to be accurate. Redhead killer profile, male Caucasian, 5'9 to 6'2, 180 to 270 poundssable home, absent father and a domineering mother. Right handed IQ above 100, most likely

heterosexual. There is no profile of this killer except for the ones the students created. Just because some of these women no longer have people to speak for them does not mean that they deserve to not be so people. What if this guy's still alive like what if he comes after us? I said, are you going to kill me? Yes. Listen to Murder 101 on the I Heart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Over the past five years, making my true crime podcast, Hell and Gone, I have received

hundreds of messages from people all around the country, asking for help with an unsolved murder that's affected them, their families, and their communities. We may have some information for you. I don't know if that helps any. Maybe they saw something and something happened. In past seasons of Helen Gone, I've only been able to focus on one case. But I've launched a new show on the Helen Gone feed,

Helen Gone Murder Line. Every week I feature a new case, add updates to old ones, and help as much as I can to get the word out about unsolved murders. I'm Katherine Townsend. If you have a case you'd like me and my team to look into, you can reach out to us at our Helen Gone Murderline at 678-744-6145. Listen to Helen Gone Murderline on the I Heart Radio app Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. In every town at the end of a quiet tree line street, there's one house that looks the

same, but everyone knows is different. And in my new podcast, Murder Homes, we tell those stories of routine days that start like any other and turn into wrenching nightmares. My name is Matt Maroonovich and I've been obsessed by homes that are stigmatized forever by the brutal crimes that happen inside four walls. All across the country, there are addresses I'll introduce you to that you'll never forget and the experts that know them best. Take a walk with me down the street to the house, everyone whispers about, and step inside, to hear the shocking story of a day that is still frozen in time.

I actually felt barrel of a gun on my head. Because a murder home is almost always two things. The place a family felt safest, and the last place on Earth they expected to be hunted down. Listen to murder homes on the iHeart Radio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And we're back. Are you feeling Francesca about all this Republicaning? Yeah, it's a lot of Republicaning.

I'm feeling overwhelmed, but fascinated by all of this. I wish we had the countervailing force on the left to do shit like this, but we don't. But I love, yeah, the evolution of the, the, the right thinking really hasn't evolved at all. Yeah. I mean, this is really the evolution of the right thinking, right? Like the evolution of the modern right is so much where this guy was back then. But the broader Republican party adopts a lot of those attitudes in part because Schmitz is kind of cracks that wall between Orange County and the rest of the country.

Right. Well, because it's simultaneously, it seems like Orange County is, it is just so isolated from the rest of the country that is turning on things like the Vietnam War, that is for things like not just integration, but like civil rights. Civil rights. Exactly. Like actual civil rights and. Certainly more so than O civil rights. Exactly. Like actual civil rights and certainly more so than O.C. is. And in awakening and just more culturally, like there is a backlash, of course, against like

conservatism of your parents and whatnot. There's like free speech movements, you know, like whatever, you know, hitby movement, drug culture, whatnot. Like there's a whole rejection of this bullshit, which is why Reaganism was such a fucking blow. So it was Nixonism, Nixonianism. So it was Dixism. But yeah, it is interesting to have Schmitz come in here and get that many votes. And then also was such a simple plebber.

I believe in money. Money number one and white people. I mean, private property. Yeah. Money, but just for the people who are already rich and bombing people who do not live here. Like that's his plank, right? It's a perfect encapsulation of right-wing isolationism, you know, which is if you're going to fight a war, make sure you win it, which is the if you're going to go to war in the

Middle East, take all the oil, right? It's that like it's coded as isolationist, but it's really not. It really is, as we talked about, like, super pro war, just kill them all dead, deader than dead. Yeah, kill them all, take their stuff. Yeah.

Now, for a running mate, he picks a guy named Tom Anderson, who is a farm magazine publisher, who was far right, but also not the kind of guy who's gonna detract attention from the main Shows. Mostly I take pictures of cows cows lounging. Mm-hmm. It's livestock. Yeah, just looking pretty. It's like a right wing livestock magazine. I think it's an early homesteading magazine right? You're saying we have to go back to the land to drop out of society. Because like, like, a guy who takes pictures of cows, I would, that sounds like a cool dude.

But that sucks. Yeah, he got drawn into this mess. Yeah, yeah, poor guy. What a bummer. So his campaign manager is Dan Smoot, who's a former FBI agent, who's obsessed with the council on foreign relations. And because this was fucking California, his finance director is actor Walter Brennan, who had won three best supporting

actor Oscars. So that's this guy's bench. Yeah. What a crew. They had better celebrities, though. I feel like all the celebrities you mentioned are like at least spesive. They at least they won best supporting. Yeah, he seems to have been an actor. I don't know. I can't recall anything. He was in but Gina, Karano now or fucking no, no, no, Tim Brewer, Jim Brewer, wherever the fuck his name is. Yeah, it's Jim. Jim, who cares? Whatever. Yeah. So the campaign was immediately aggressive, filled with wealthy, small owning middle-aged men who were just

desperate to get to feel like they were like insurgent revolutionaries. One American party official told a journalist, this party is a distillation of the John Birch society, the Christian crusade and the Minutemen. We're revolutionaries. We're getting together to try to work through the system, but I'll say this, we'll have constitutional government in this country. And if we don't get it through a ballot box, we'll get it in the streets. That's what the Constitution would want. Again, that's very much that like J6 attitude. It is. We're going to work through all of our daddy issues together. If we lose an election, we have the right to kill people, right? Like that's what he's saying. And Schmitts knew that he had an uphill battle in getting elected, or more to the point, stopping Nixon from getting reelected.

His brand of paranoic, utterly fantastical conservatism, was not popular nationwide, but he was tailor made from media soundbites, which helped to keep him in the news. He told ABC, The Nixon Family motto is, be sincere whether you believe it or not. He besodged both Donald Trump with his meaner lines and the presidential campaign in personal brand of the Nixon family motto is, be sincere whether you believe it or not. He presodged both Donald Trump with his meaner lines and the presidential campaign in personal brand of Ronald Reagan with folksy right wing widthicisms like this. Do you know why a newborn baby cries because he's naked? He's hungry. And he already owes the government $5,900 and taxes, which is funny

because like, well, that baby already owes a private corporation thousands of dollars for being born because that's what it costs to be fucking born in this system you people insist on continuing to have for us. And Jesus for dying for its sins according to them. Yeah. And cafe.com, David Cordlander writes, quote, the Wall Street Journal offered a piece entirely devoted to Schmidt's rhetorical flourishes entitled, Keep them Laughing as the motto as John Schmidt's runs for president.

The piece even referred to Schmidt's as sort of the Bob Hope of the ultra-right. Oh, God. What an unappealing series of words. His mix of jokes, conspiracies, and righteous indignation at everything he deemed the political establishment garnered decent returns. He managed to get himself on the ballot in 32 states, even as Wallace refused to formally endorse him. And in the decades to come, this kind of style of far-right, populous, conspiracy messaging really the fact that he is marrying outright conspiracy theories to an attempt at mainstream politics. This is now dominant, right? This is the dominant

form of conservatism. Be honest, it's not dominant on the left as well, just in a different direction, but like conspiracism is so mainstream now. And we all get together in the Epstein conspiracy. That's where we meet. Yeah. Left, right?

The Serengeti of conspiracism. A little while. For a little while, Then we all go. Yeah. Then we decide we want to be angry at specific people on that plane. Different way. No. Yeah.

I do think we should do a squid game for all of the people in the Epstein books. And we pretend whoever survives didn't do anything wrong. Or their children, you know, send their children there. So we're like the hunger games, but for the rich. I do like, I do think it'd be fun. That would make a lot of money as a TV show. Oh yeah, I mean, oh God, don't get me started on that TV show and Netflix is awful,

but I would, I love them, but I do want to hear what Chomsky has to say, because he apparently was also an associate. But no, more importantly, I want to hear what Kate Blanchett has to say, because he apparently was also an associate. But no, more importantly, I want to hear what Kate Blanchett has to say. I really actually want to see here what she has to say. Like, what the hell, my girl? Sure. Yeah, I want to hear you.

I want them all to have to say something. Cameron Diaz, girl, what? Yeah. Yeah, I mean, he did do. Epstein did do a lot of flights to like anything that would get famous people on his plane to like different Galas and shit overseas. But I don't know, maybe I have trouble imagining Cameron D is wanting to buy whatever he was selling. But who knows? Who knows? I think it's just like everyone who was famous in the year 2002. That is a lot of them. But a lot of those people

are also sex. It's a mix. It's a, it's a really, it's a grab bag. Anyway, we're getting on with topic, but, but, but, but the conspiracy theory, yeah, that wasn't, it's interesting that though, it also is the media, because he and his wife are also media figures. So it's the marriage of the media figures, good sound bites, which is what you need, or at least what the media wants, good sound bites, which is what you need or at least what the media wants and the conspiracy. Yeah, it's one of those things where he has predicted where things are going, but also

at his time, the Republican Party is not ready for that, right? He does not succeed in his time because it's just not, you can't win nationally, even among Republicans doing that quite yet. That's not really going to be possible until you've had a few generations of Rush Limbaugh and Andrew Breitbart, etc. Propagandizing to the masses. That said, he doesn't do badly. He takes in 1.2 million votes, which is an amount vastly higher than nearly any third-party candidates get today,

but also well-short of what Walla's did. In his concession speech, Schmitz aptly identified that Republican influencers would use his techniques to win support of the dedicated maniacs who made up his base in the future. We got 1 million votes, enough to strike fear in some hearts in this country. He's not wrong there. He saw this as a good start. He was at the time the 7th most successful third party candidate in US political history. And his plan was to double down, get back into Congress and weld together a coalition of the deranged

that could lurch their Republican party to the right and act as a constant thorn in Dick Nixon's side. They were not aware at this point that Nixon was going to get shit can. Coalition of the deranged is beautiful. Yeah, yeah, what's going on here, right? While he plotted, his wife organized her campaign against the Equal Rights Amendment of the deranged is beautiful. Yeah, yeah, well, it's what's going on here, right? While he plotted, his wife organized her campaign against the Equal Rights Amendment and scored a job on TV as a political pundit, things were going great for the schmitzes. They had power, money, and growing influence.

Soon, in 1973, John Schmitz, who is again a family values candidate, right? That's a big part of this degeneracy of modern areas for their kids. Oh, I know. Yeah. He won. He won. He won.

He won. He won. He won. He won. He won. He won. He won. He won.

He won. He won. He won. He won. He won. He won. He won Stuckel. He is like 50 now, she's like in her late 20s, and he starts sleeping with his student, Carla Stuckel, former student, and then he fathers two children with her over the space of a few years. And while he's doing that, Mary Schmitz is doing her Phyllis Schlafly routine.

She's going on TV, she's organizing the fight against the equal rights and then they're helping to, you know. And while, you know, he is seeing his mistress and she is becoming a media influencer, you know what no one is doing watching their fucking kids. And this is going to end in tragedy. One August afternoon in 1973, both parents are out and their daughter, Mary K, a sixth grader, had been put in charge of the baby. Phila. Time out. First of all, that's totally not a not you can totally do that.

No, this is family one family two. What are we talking about? We talking about mistress's family. We talking about Mary. No, no, his his his his family one family one. Oh, G fan. Oh, G fan. Oh, G fan.

Oh, G fan. daughter from family one Mary K. Who I told you to keep an eye on. Not for this. Although this plays into why you need to remember Mary K. They have her watching the baby while he is having sex with his former student and Mary is on TV, right? And I'm gonna quote from the LA Times here,

the baby was a fearless three year old and when he took off his life jacket and stepped into the deep end of the pool, not even the diligent Mary Catherine, playing in the shallow end with her older brother Jerry. Notice the tiny splash only after their mother began looking for Philip. Was he found lifeless on the bottom of the pool? Oh God.

So that's bad. Yeah. Pools. Not great. And I mean, people who are not wealthy enough to have this problem don't know, but like me, but apparently pools, yeah, pools are total death traps. There's like one of them leading killers of babies. Of course it is. They're not like, that's not even surprising. I mean, guns are really trying. It's just a thing for a small person to drown it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Guns are truly trying to like, I think it might be neck and neck. It might actually be guns at this point, but pools. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Guns are truly trying to like, I think it might be neck and neck. It might actually be gun to this point, but pools.

Oh, I think guns probably beat him at this point. Yeah. Guns are much more affordable than a pool. Everybody can have a gun. I know. It probably pools were as accessible. We could be drowning for more days. The tragic case brought.

Yeah, we could really up those numbers. So, you know, this is tragic, obviously, and it brings Schmitz a lot of sympathy, partly because nobody knew that the reason he had not been there to watch his baby is that he was having sex with a woman, not his wife, who was also his former student. You know, if people had known that he was a fraud as a moral paragon and that his son had maybe died in part due to his ambitions, they might not have felt as positively about him though, but this doesn't come out immediately, right?

And through the mid 1970s to the early 80s, Schmitz, you know, continues to run. He gets back into state Congress. He's in California Congress for another term. He makes another national level campaign, and he becomes more comfortable broadcasting openly racist remarks on the campaign trail. After Lawyer Gloria Allred gives him a leather chastity belt during a state senate committee on abortion, and Gloria is like making fun of him.

She, they're doing, they have a state senate committee in California on abortion laws, and obviously she's Gloria Allred. She thinks it should be legal, and he is being a howling fascist about it and saying no women shouldn't have the right to have sex. All right. And so she gives him a chastity belt, right? I love it.

Which actually he needs. It's like a joke. She doesn't even know that he's bothered a whole other family. He literally does. She has actually anticipated a real need. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. So he issues a press release calling Gloria and other pro-choice activists, quote, a sea

of hard Jewish and arguably female faces. There it is. There he said it. He did it. He did it, everybody. He got there. And there's is, there he said it. Yeah. He did it, he did it everybody. He got there. He got there. And there's a backlash to this, like, even in the 70s, you can't say this. So there's a backlash in his response to the backlash is basically they say, I don't

hate Jews, they're like everyone else except Morso, which is still pretty racist. They're like everyone else except a homeroid. So they're not like everyone else. She's pregnant. I mean, it's something people used to say about the Japanese too. I think it's like a classier way of saying they're not like regular people. Right. I think it's what you say too when the group you're afraid of has a reputation at least

for like being powerful in an industry or in some other way, right? You know, Japan is a military power and people are saying that about Japan. There's this widespread attitude that Jewish people run certain and I think that's kind of what he's saying, right? So it's the polite company bigotry. Yes. Yes. It is the polite way of saying I think the Jews run the media, right? That is basically what he's saying. He also, he did not just confine himself to talking about Jewish people. He said of Latinos, I may not be Hispanic, but I'm close. I'm Catholic with a mustache, which is what a wild thing to say.

That's like, yeah, that's what a dad or that's what a guy on Synco DiMio says, like, yes, yes, absolutely like a nacho bowl like some braero. Yeah, and calling every waiter Pedro. Yeah. Um, he also called Martin Luther King Jr. a notorious liar. He had regained his Senate seat in 1978, but he failed in two campaigns to win election to the US Senate. By 1982, he had been thoroughly relegated to the status of a local headache. And then in 1982, a month after losing yet another primary election, the news broke that Schmitz had fathered two children with his mistress. Now, you want to know how this news broke? Because this is a fucking story. Oh, yes. Okay, it's Mary. It involves a penis injury.

Oh, no. Not a good one. This is a child's penis injury. So nobody laughed. You're not allowed to laugh if you just had laughed before. Feel bad about it right now. Yeah, I think it's a much shorter. 30 seconds reflect on your crimes.

Yeah, yeah, you sickos. So his also, this is kind of a sicko thing. He names his second son out of wedlock after his father. No. Which is a weird move. For your kid, you're gonna deny the rest of his life, but okay. Like, you have to have a little bit of deniability. Like, if your wife finds out, but like that's not my kid.

It's like, it's an epic, it's named after your dad. Are you kidding me? Yeah. Its name is Schmitzzy Ditsy. Like, come on now. Yeah. I don't know if it's a Ditsy. And it's, you know, the reason this all comes out,

so he's got this kid, John George, who is a baby at this point. And the baby gets booked at an OC hospital for an injured penis. The injury is very peculiar. A piece of hair had been wrapped, and it's described as being wrapped in a square knot around I think the head of the penis so tightly that it had nearly severed the member. Right? So the baby has to have surgery.

Yeah, it's fucked up. But the baby's fine, like it does, he does recover, right? But the incident prompted obviously an investigation, right? That's the kind of thing that looks like it could be something intentional, right? Someone hurt this kid, you know? I think they're perfectly reasonable to look into this. Detectives threatened to arrest the baby's mother,

Carlos Stuckel, if she didn't tell them who the father was. And I think this is the police assume, if someone's abusing this child, it's probably the dad. So we need to figure out who the dad is, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And they're like, well, they rest you if you don't tell us. And that's how Schmitz, his name gets out, right? Because he's famous, right?

He's their local, he's been there a couple of times. He's this big figure. So I'm a mom, so I know, like I see all these Instagram posts and some of them are like careful with stray hairs because I guess hairs, yeah, when a hair gets wrapped around your finger, that can happen, it can hurt and it's hard to cut it or break it.

Just random reasons for parents to worry, random shit. But getting it out of your dick, I don't believe in God, but I'm pretty sure God put that piece of hair around. Oh God. That is kind of the shitty thing God would do instead of just strike John Schmitz down, make a baby sufferer to ruin his career. Fucking asshole. That is, that is very your testament. God. So, you know, the story breaks, I'm sure the police just can't keep their mouths shut or whatever, but like it breaks and it craters John as a political figure. This is the end of his, his like meaningful public life.

He makes another congressional run in 1983, but he loses by more than 50 points. The affair was such a scandal that it also ends Mary Schmitz's career on TV, which is a kind of evidence of some misogyny, right? Because like, this isn't her fault, right? There has been cheated on her with a lady, but she loses her job on TV as a right wing shithead anyway. I guess it's unjust. She does suck.

So, you know, take, think about that. You want to, I guess. The two separate, but they get back together. True to his nature as human garbage. Schmitz never supports Carla Stuckel or helps to support their, he refuses to pay, right? He is like this his whole life. When the police question him, he tells the police straight up, I do not and will not support him financially because the police are like, do you want to help pay the bill at the hospital

for your son? He's like, I will not pay any money. It is her responsibility to take care of him, not mine. That'll ever be public. Part of your personal responsibility. Yeah, indeed. I mean, at least I will give him this. He didn't like advocate for stealth abortion

the way other Republicans do with their mistresses, right? No, he has the kid. And then he, I mean, he was anti-abortion, but he does have his kid or he's- Yeah, and then allows him to live of life of like, you know, a shitty life where this dad doesn't hug him or support him or love him, the way Republicans want in order to breed more Republicans.

Guess what? You've, you're ahead of the game again, Francesca. Okay, these kids have a nightmare life. Yeah, Carla Stuckle is left to support both children on her own. This is actually did you watch the House of Usher? No. Oh, well, these two kids have literally the background of the kids. Hi, I honestly wonder if that's who, uh, what's his name was thinking of when he anyway. Honestly, wonder if that's who, what's his name, was thinking of one anyway. So Carly is left to support these kids on her own, which she does until 1993,

when she dies due to complications from type one diabetes. She had been like working barely keeping it together to take care of these two on her own, and then she dies, Schmitz refuses to take either of his children and they're sent to an orphanage. John Schmitz wins. Yeah, it's fucked up. What a piece of shit.

Yeah. Okay. Yeah, he just like, not my responsibility, not my job. Her body made him fucker. Like it's, that's him. He lives on increasingly, increasingly angry and irrational until 2001 when he dies of prostate cancer. The Journal of historical review, which

exists tonight, the Holocaust called him a good friend in its obituary. He's a just a cool guy. He is by the way a Holocaust denier. He attends events held by the journal of historical review. Of course he is. He had to get the bingo card, you know? He's agglia to complete it. Yeah, and that's almost the infrared Jessica because we got one button on this episode. Yes, Sophie just read it. Oh my God. Yeah, I mentioned at the start, I mentioned at the start. Remember his daughter Mary K, right?

Yes, yes. Oh God. She meant this is the daughter that he had with his wife, right? Who is there when her baby brother dies. Yeah, which probably fucks her up somewhat. So in between, John getting exposed as a flandering fraud and dying while he's still alive, something else happened. Not to him, but to his daughter, Mary K.

She becomes a middle school teacher, and she marries someone. Do you want to guess what the last name of her husband is? It becomes her last name? No, no, no, I don't want. It's a materno. Mary K. Laterno. That's John Schmitz's daughter. Now, depending on how much you know about this story, some of you are saying, oh, shit. Oh, my God. I actually don't know this story before. Oh my God. Oh shit. Yeah.

In like the mid-90s Mary Kay Le'Ternog, I think it's the mid-90s, Mary Kay Le'Ternog gets famous because she starts, she's a schoolteacher, a middle schoolteacher, and she repeatedly statutorily rapes one of her 12 year old male students and has two children with him. Oh my fucking God. This gets public and she, it is a massive national news story. This is front page news, right? Because it's like on every household for weeks. For the first time in a woman,

a female teacher is a predator. And you probably, you've probably seen the clips of like them when they're older and her being like, oh, the boss and him being like, what the fuck? And run like, yeah, it's because they go on to like get married and have like a normal. Oh, they do, yeah. Well, she's pregnant in prison and then makes, yeah, it's really dark.

Oh my God. A fucked up story. She died horribly though, so that's cool. She does die really dark. Oh my God. A fucked up story. She died horribly, though. So that's cool. She does die really badly. So yeah, that's John Schmitz's primary legacies are that he helped create the modern Republican party that were all desperately hoping doesn't kill everybody today. And he gave birth and raised Mary K. LTerno who became one of the most famous pedophiles in this country's history. So, oh my God. That's good.

I was not ready. You can see that one coming. Did you sell me? I was not ready for that last paragraph. Oh my God. Surprise pedophile in the fourth quarter, baby. Oh my God. Thank you for knowing in the fourth quarter, baby. Oh my God. Thank you for knowing what the fourth quarter is.

Wow. They breed. This is like, these are the kinds of people they breed. This is what happens. Yeah, I mean, if you say- I mean, you know what, I will, Mary K. Litterno's a bad person, but having your parents be fascists who neglect you and kind of put you in a situation where you are responsible for your infant brother or your child brother's death couldn't have helped.

Like that didn't make the odds of her turning out healthy better. Right. No. And also like we don't know whatever like some other shit might have happened. You know what I mean? Sure. Yeah. I mean, who knows exactly like something else might have happened or not. She is bad and so is he.

She's bad, she's very bad. The whole, I mean, curse, they're so cursed. Also. Sounds like a duck shit family. Yeah, it's a very duck shit family. Robert, I think this is the first time in like a really long time that I've been extremely surprised at the end of the podcast.

Yeah, you didn't see that one coming at all, did you so? I wish I was more up on my, on my child rapist. So there's a, there's a, there's a lot of clips going around because there's a Netflix movie that's loosely based based off the story called Made in December. Yeah. Good stuff. Good stuff. I, I just know this is one of those episodes that like

the instant I said that across the country like hundreds of thousands of people all went, oh, fuck really? No. I did not like it was it's such a funny bookend for this. Not funny because like a child, an actual child was deeply, deeply harmed here more than what a lot of children actually are in the story. But just, it was not, not what you expect. The first 90% of this story. Very to end with.

It's a fun distraction from the recipe, which is like the origins of like the far right and the, I let her know. Like that's, I like it. Took her a, so that's how the news was really refreshing. Yeah, exactly. It really exactly cleans my palate from all the other stuff. Yes, like that's simple water when you're doing a wine tastic. For sure. Okay, pal, this is probably not a road to go down.

No, no, no, do not. But hey, look, they got a Netflix show. I mean, movie. So. Oh, yeah. No, I'm going to be watching that tonight. Yeah. Poor Schmitz doesn't get a special.

So, Francesca, if you're in Teenie, you have a podcast, the BITUATION room, which people should listen to. I have been on it. You have. You were great. You were there in person, I'm doing another live show on January 28th, 7pm at the Gateway Theatre in San Francisco as a part of SF Sketchfest and Miles Gray is going to be there.

And thank you so much and now I'm going to just sit and shame that I didn't know who Mary K. Littorno was and I was just, it's okay. It's okay, I double knew it. I double knew it. So we made up for you. You got time before sketch fest to really, really work on some Mary K let her know jokes. You know what? If you just find David Letterman's monologues from back then, you can steal some.

No, I will steal them. And Cat Williams will call me out for it. It'll be great. Yeah. It's been. This has been for it. It'll be great. Yeah. It's been just been. I'm glad you're so much. Anything else you want to tell people? No, man.

Just listen to the BITUATION ROOM. And there's a comic and a. Oh, yeah. There's always a comedian. There's always an expert or an activist. We talk politics and kind of big. What the fuck are we going to do in 2024 stuff? So it's good.

Yeah. Yeah. And I stuff? So it's good. Yeah, yeah. And I think that's, it's useful. The Bituation Room has a style that is cathartic to it. And if you think you need that right now, as we start to head into 2024, it's a great place to get it. So listen to some of that, relax, don't feel too bad for laughing.

I will never relax again. About the, yeah. No, you never know where Mary Kate Laterno that, relax, don't feel too bad for laughing. Yeah, no, you never know where Mary Kate Laterno is gonna be heading in an episode. So I could do that any day. I like that. My face is a different shade. That's how shocking.

Yeah, no, it's like how, you know, you have American history before J6 and after where like, oh wow, now a coup could just happen at any time. It's real to us. Now the possibility of being confronted with Mary K. Laterno is gonna be lurking in the back of your mind every episode, Sophie, forever. It's been five or six years.

And this is the first time where I couldn't close my bow. Just pure shock of the Mary Kay to turn a draw. Oh my God. See, it's a good way to open 2024. It is, I feel like I gotta go like hug a dog. And this episode, what the fuck? Yeah. Bye. Yeah. All Yeah, yeah. Bye. All right, everybody.

Bye-bye. Good bye. Behind the bastards is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more from Cool Zone Media, visit our website, CoolZoneMedia.com. Or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast. I'm Mary K. McBrayer, host of the podcast, The Greatest True Crime Stories Ever Told,

where I dig into crimes where a woman is not just a victim. She might be the detective, the lawyer, the witness, the coroner, the criminal, or some combination of those roles. These are the stories we need to know to understand the intersection of society, justice, and the fascinating workings of the human psyche. Listen to the greatest true-crime stories ever told on the iHeartRadio app Apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts. Over the past five years, making my true-crime podcast Helen Gone, I've received hundreds of messages from people asking for help with an unsolved murder that's affected them, their families, and their communities.

I'm Katherine Townsend. I've launched a new show on the Helen Gone feed, Helen Gone Murderline. Every week I feature a new case and help as much as I can to get the word out about unsolved murders. Listen to Helen Gone Murderline on the I Heart Radio app Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcast. I'm Mo Raka and I'm excited to announce season 4 of my podcast Mo Bichuaries. I've got a whole new bunch of stories to share with you about the most fascinating people and things who are no longer with us, from famous figures who died on the very same day. To the things I wish would die. Like buffets.

Listen to MoPituaries with MoRaka on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.