Chapo Trap House - 894 - Drone Bore feat. David J. Roth (12/16/24)

Episode Date: December 17, 2024

Defector’s David Roth is back on the pod. We start with his write up of the recent drone scare over New Jersey, and how our ever-skittish suburbanites are discovering new ways to be scared of the lights in the night sky. Then, a review of recent media reactions to Luigi-mania, including the Atlantic tut-tutting over “decivilization” and the Root having a certified “bruh” moment. Finally, the most important bellwether poll of the year: the PornHub annual search trends results. Find all things David Roth at the Defector: https://defector.com/author/david-roth Last bits of merch going at discount over at https://chapotraphouse.store/

All I wanna do is hit the drum All I wanna do is hit the drum Hello everybody, it's Monday December 16th and Felix and I here at Chopper Trap House are simply having a wonderful Christmas time because we are ending out the year with all of our returning champions, all of the fan favorites. And today is no exception because returning to the show is the great David Roth. David, welcome back to the program. Hey, thanks for having me. Now David, right at the jump of this episode, there's an issue that when I saw news reports

breaking about it, my first thought was, I need Roth to write about this. And lo and behold, you did. And the story that I'm talking about is the curious case of drones over the great state of New Jersey. And you just wrote about it for Defector yesterday, the headline here, it's time for a little recreational mental illness in New Jersey. And you begin with this great sentence.

There's a kind of hush that is specific in old growth suburbs, a quietness that is more vast and more inherent than any disturbance. That kind of place can kick up. David, the phrase old growth suburbs was just so perfect. But like, what is, what is going on with, uh, is going on with drones over New Jersey, people seeing drones over New Jersey, and has the Iranian mothership landed? So, I should be clear about this,

because I did get a little bit dinged for it on social media that like old growth suburbs, I think you kind of know what that term means. It's like a suburb that has like stores in a downtown area as opposed to one that is sort of warily circling a large big box store. Like that is a newer type of suburb to exist. But the sightings are mostly not happening

in the part of New Jersey where I grew up, which is North Jersey. Not to say that they haven't, that, you know, like the drones haven't gotten there yet. I think there's just more light pollution from the city nearby. But so much of the sightings have been in what I think is like the most deranged part of New Jersey,

which is quite an honor, like great, like Metro Wildwood, like the strange kind of conservative Philly shore area. And that's in a lot of the, the Iranian mothership thing is being, that has been led by representative Jeff Van Drew Who I recommend anybody listening to this to look a picture of him up like he looks like someone who would get screamed at by John Taffer like someone who Runs a failing steakhouse called like respectibles and we gotta put TVs up in here Yeah, shut it down like You're making people sick.

Yeah. Jeff Andrew has the, he looks like he is the husband to a wife who cheats on him with an eighth grader. Like that type of a genotype. Yeah, he's the, I mean the videos of him, he's gone on Fox and talked about how these are Iranian drones flying in from international waters. Then he got criticized for it. Then he went on YouTube and cut a two camera promo, which also brought home the other aesthetic that he has to be, which is like, I don't know if

they still have these anymore in wrestling, but when they used to have managers, where there would just be some- It's like Paul Bearer. Paul Bearer type, or yeah, or um, whatever. I'm trying to think. There's like a guy that kind of looked like Richard Petty, but wasn't. Like just these like, kind of like weasely Tennessee type dudes that like, they couldn't really wrestle, but they were really good at making like eager hand gestures while someone else was talking and they were able to make a life doing that.

So Jeff Van Drew right to camera being like fear has no part in our governance and now I would like to talk to you about the mothership like is the accent is unreal and from very high sources very qualified sources very responsible sources I'm going to tell you the real deal Iran launched a mothership probably about a month ago that contains these drones that mothership is off i'm going to tell you the deal it's off the east coast of the united states of america they've launched drones is everything that we can see or hear and again these are from high sources i don't say this lightly the delivery is great like he's a pig in shit i know and speaking of other jersey politicians i did see congressman chman Chris Smith This is a headline here congressman Chris Smith wants to give local cops the authority to shoot at planes if they think they might be drones

They just look like planes. I think that's your yeah Look folks if you're if you see lights in the sky at night and you're concerned that it might be a drone But could possibly be a plane just start shooting at it. Yeah, you know duty to retreat from an air It's you're in your life Light them up. How do they think like? Anti-air works in 2020 like if you could just shoot like a nine millimeter to any plane and bring it down I mean, why would anyone have serviced air missiles if you could just get like a Patrolman who can't run under a minute mile

To just aim his Beretta at the sky and take down a plane. I mean, I just I love all of this I love the idea that Iran who their currency depreciates by half like every year that Somehow they're the only country that like gets to live in ace combat. Like they have a parasite drone mothership that can cross fucking multiple oceans without anyone noticing. And then it can release like, these would be like seventh generation drones that can do like coal bits and all this crazy shit and like if they could do that like

Community would not be making speeches where he's telling people to vote. Yeah Yeah, I think that's the part of it that's kind of a lot of this I mean, I feel like we're we're kind of gonna try to do like 1986 to 1990 again as a country. I think that's like where is really comfortable. I think that's kind of going to try to do like 1986 to 1990 again as a country. I think that's like where Trump is really comfortable. I think that's kind of where most of your older people's heads are at anyway. But I think in this case, like, you're really feeling the limits here because there isn't like a Soviet Union with a blue water navy that you can talk about.

Like, you just have to be like, and I think these are North Korean drones from one of the North Korean battleships it's in the Atlantic Ocean but in international waters everybody knows about this I'm not gonna waste your time elaborating like yeah we could get to the bottom of it if according to Congressman Chris Smith it says here a New Jersey lawmaker wants a drone and he wants one now Republican Congressman Chris Smith is demanding the Pentagon shoot down one of the nearly 1,000 drones that have been spotted above the Garden State since November 19th, so answers can be had.

Why can't we bag at least one drone and get to the bottom of this? You know, there is a, right now, look, there is a limit in drone season on how many drones you can bag. Yeah. Just please make sure you bag male drones and not emails who could potentially be creating new drones. You know, let's let's pay it forward to the next generation. But in some areas, drone drone's are where drones are proliferating problematically in some areas.

It's actually better to do it because it makes it harder for you to get your satellite up links. I don't I don't respect people who have those like fully furnished drone hunting. Like it's basically basically like a cabin. I mean, it's not very sporting in my opinion. When I was going out with my dad as a young man, look, those are some of the coldest hours I ever spent, squatting in a swamp, waiting to see a drone

the size of an industrial refrigerator hovering over me for no obvious reason, and then firing a shotgun at it. But I learned a lot. I learned a lot about being uncomfortable, being impatient. That is the other thing is like, okay, if this was, if Iran has like one Ace Combat 7 super weapon, they're using it just to go like,

eh, I'm not touching you. Yeah. Like, because like, what military value is there, for like South Jersey, the South Jersey Philadelphia area? Yeah, I like the events of them hovering over the Wildwood Boardwalk watching someone lose $20 trying to make one basketball shot so we can win a plush toy.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, they're putting, they're like doing YouTube-style surveillance of like tax stamp with cigarette trafficking. Right. Just hovering over a place to be like, that is, they have sold so many cheese steaks. That can't be healthy.

No one in this community should be eating like that. Yeah, reporting to the IRGC. Okay, we have 70,000 hours of surveillance footage of casino security guards who are trying to start a rap career Yeah, the I mean the benefit that I've enjoyed just as a as an observer too Is that this is all being driven beyond the fact that like elected officials all have to weigh in Chuck Schumer said today That he wanted to like he's like we got to get our anti drone drones in the air to beyond the fact that elected officials all have to weigh in. Chuck Schumer said today that he wanted to, he's like, we gotta get our anti-drone drones in the air to defeat the drones that are there. So this is like a bipartisan thing now.

But it's all based on the worst photographs that an old person has ever taken. Yes! Yeah, so many, so many, every photo that I've seen that isn't just blurry beyond belief, it's just like, it an obvious like 737. Yeah. And they're sort of like that's like Darren Revelle, one of my favorite reporters.

Oh, hell yeah. Baseball business sociopath had one where he was basically put up there. He's like, that looks a little big for a drone. Right. And the the community note on Twitter is just the word airplane. Not to be not to not to have Jersey or down rebel be outdone. Former Maryland Governor Larry Hogan posted videos of what he claimed were drones and he was like we need to get to the bottom of this. This is unacceptable unacceptable.

And then he got community noted and like the New York Post pointed this out as well that sort of eagle eyed observers of Governor Larry Hogan's nightly videos pointed out that the lights that he was pointing to was in fact the constellation Orion. Right. Now, and I just like, I don't know what's like what's going on here because I feel like this is a mix of, as you pointed out David, like the kind of quiet and boredom of the suburbs mixed with like a return to like a I don't know a pre-modern Mentality of like when you see lights in the sky. They're they're strange and disturbing. Yeah, like sometimes they go away

Sometimes they come back. But what are they? What's going on here? What is going on here? This is like it's creeping Naomi Wolfism. I think yeah, this is like basically like that's where the mind is trending now It's basically people getting Wolfism, I think. Yeah. This is like basically like that's where the mind is trending now is basically people getting not just like sort of the world is confusing. Like I can't like fault somebody for seeing. And I have friends that live in like, you know, the drone belt. I talked to one of them yesterday and he's like, something is making my dog bark a lot. I don't know. I don't know what it is.

Like it's like it's not like I don't think it's from Iran. I don't think it's from, you know, space. But like something is making this little guy freak out. And the leap, like the bit that you have to, like this is like the Naomi Wolf commitment that like I think a lot of people are getting into this mindset is like seeing that, observing it, feeling that little bit of unease

and then just being like, this is 5G. Or like, I think they got vaccinated guys on those things or whatever, just like leaping into whatever mania floats your boat. To the people who have like, you know, their dogs are freaking out. I have noticed since Biden got inaugurated, dogs are worse behaved than ever.

Yes, and that comes from the top, honestly. That is one of those things that the president sets a tone and then dogs see it and they know that they can go with this. Every place I've lived in since the Brandon Reich began, I just like, I've heard more barking dogs in idle moments than I ever have at any other part in my life. And I think like people were saying Biden needed a sister soldier moment.

It was to kill commander in chance because other dogs like see what they're getting away with and they're behaving worse. Yeah, this is, I think also the, and you can follow your own course in your life. It's yours to live. I think that you could start with that observation and completely destroy your sanity

in about 36 hours if you wanted to. Start with, I'm hearing more dogs barking and then like by the end of this week you can be too crazy for anyone to make eye contact with. Like that's the gift that we've been given in terms of like not just social media but then also like these other sort of amplifying factors. Like I don't even know where, I'm assuming this is a lot of next door driven stuff or like Facebook, but I don't know where older people or suburban people are going to get more insane now. Outside and they're looking at the sky at the night.

This is it. We told them to touch grass and it got worse than anyone could have expected. But like, I mean, like there is a question of just like, yeah, like what is going on here? I mean, what are people seeing? I mean like it could be it could be the constellation Orion or it could be a Swamp gas interacting with the planet Venus but like I don't know I I mean like there there is there is the sort of like the need to like Have an exciting narrative but like I don't know like the fixation on drones or the idea like there are thousands of drones

You know like sort of loitering over New Jersey could be the case, but like, they're not hurting anyone. Right. And I can't help but think that like, this is sort of like a displaced guilt over the hundreds of thousands of people that this country has killed with drones. And like, we like the idea that like, oh, what if that happened to us? You know, like the in the Independence Day thing of just like, oh, what if that happened to us? You know, like the Independence Day thing of just like, oh, what if there was a superpower bigger than America that destroyed our cities? Drop a huge bomb on one of our important buildings. Can you even imagine?

Yeah, that I think is there's something to that. I didn't want to get too deep into it in the blog, especially because like I mean, I've lived in noisy places longer than I ever lived in quiet places. But I grew up in, you know, old growth suburbs and stuff. I still have like a soft spot for it. You don't necessarily go insane there. You just get kind of bored. But I do think that there's the idea of being like watched by some party.

And then this is the new sort of twist is like, you get the pick. Like a lot of it for a while, it was like, it's the Russians or it's aliens.'s just kind of like whatever man who do you anyone can have a drone you want it to be MS-13 that's fine do you want it to be like family court officers also fine like just you know pick whatever it is that's gonna help you feel engaged and insane in the way that like adds a little bit of meaning to your day. Moving on from drones over Jersey to the other signs and wonders of our present moment Now like you know a couple weeks on now from the Luigi Mangia on the United Health Care shooting I've been fascinated by the kind of full court press that the media is engaged in to kind of remove healthcare and like the profits generated by the health insurance industry from being politicized and just profits generated by the health insurance industry from being politicized, and just essentially turning this murder into like a giant morality play about how we've lost our way.

And I'd like to begin with probably the best media hit that I saw in this regard was Michael Smirkanish on CNN lamenting the fact that he walked by the site of the murderer just the other day and did not see any piles of flowers and teddy bears being left for CEO Brian Thompson and in fact the only evidence that the murder took place there that he did discover was a poster that said free Luigi depicted him as a saint and he was just like no memorial of the kind that often appears spontaneously after a similar tragedy, like when John Lennon was murdered in New York City in 1980. But there was no sign of any makeshift memorial on 54th Street.

Instead a poster was taped outside the Hilton Hotel depicting the suspect as a saint with the words, free Luigi. And I guess the thing that struck me about this is that like Michael Smirconish, like he wants to know why didn't people erect makeshift memorials for Brian Thompson like they did for John Lennon? And the thing is, he absolutely knows why. But like I said, this is part of the that they're working overtime to make sure that the profits made by the health insurance industry is never politicized. And I was talking to Catherine about this over the weekend.

I think she put this quite succinctly. She was like, if you woke up one morning and saw the headline, CEO of Ace Hardware killed outside Manhattan Hotel, I think people like the reaction would just be like, oh, like, gee, I wonder why that happened. Or that's kind of shocking. But the fact that everyone in America saw the headline,

United Healthcare CEO assassinated in broad daylight in Manhattan, and virtually everyone just thought, yeah, I know the reason why that happened. Yeah, right. They're just sort of like, I'd like to know more about the specifics, but my first response is, fuck yeah, dude.

Let's go. The idea that any Fortune 500 CEO, much less anyone who makes over, let's say, $250,000 a year, that they would be honored by one of those garish teddy bear roadside memorial displays. Like if you were to be forgotten. Like if you were to be forgotten.

Like if you were to be forgotten. Yeah, yeah. If like a big ice shard fell on me, that's my favorite death scenario as of late. If I get impaled by a big ice shard and people put up teddy bears, I would haunt all those people. It's very tacky.

Yeah, like give those to children. I don't want, I don't, first of all, I'm dead. I died hilariously and I don't need your toys. Yeah, also, giving like teddy bears is like a marker of death is just like, it's sort of like the last insult. It's like, ah, we're we're giving him baby shit because he was into baby stuff.

Presumably, he's starting again somewhere. So like eventually maybe he'll find these have been reincarnated as a slightly worse guy because of what he did in this life. But yeah, it's like giving someone a Barney themed funeral. Very good. Hey, hey, if I die, someone a Barney themed funeral. It's very Hey Hey, if I die, I want Barney at my funeral I want all of Barney's friends like, you know, baby carried out of the church by the teletubbies

Well, yeah, you know, hey if the sesame street muppets they got they you know, they're looking for work now So if they want to like, you know, do gig my funeral, please do the like the Ghanaian pallbearer dances. Yeah. I had seen this smirk onish thing about being like, why is there no memorial? Just I saw the headline and was like, that's disgusting. But like that happens a thousand times a day. That's just participating in culture.

I hadn't seen that he made the comp between United Healthcare CEO, Brian Thompson and John Lennon is one of the most deranged. I mean, this whole discourse has had a lot of moments. And we're going to talk about some of the stuff where people actually wrote it down, presumably read over their own copy and missed it. But like, how do you not fucking hear yourself when you're like, you know, beloved by millions, polarizing one of the most popular artists of all time. Okay. That kind of reminds me of this guy I hadn't heard of before who looks like a D

three offensive line coach and who ran a company that basically existed to make sure that nobody got more healthcare than they deserved. Well, woman is the underinsured of the world. Think about it. But David, I mean, like that's part of the pushback is like I hear the like like these narratives like from health insurance, like representatives, and they're just like, you know, health insurance

companies were really like the middle managers of the American health care system. And we're really there to protect the public from patients who access care too much. Right. For being able to go to the hospital. Yeah. You've never been there? It sucks. We're using the system by simply using their health insurance more than they should and driving up costs. And Felix and I, we were talking about this over the weekend. But like, I keep people like, like, they're, they're setting polls and they're like, actually, 60% of the American public says that they have good health insurance. And it's just like, well, sure. But then if you told them that they could have, if they lived in Europe, they would

have the same in health insurance, but not pay for it. They might start to resent the health insurance company that's they're paying money to. But then other, other things would be like, this is the idea that this Luigi guy is some sort of folk hero this is a this is a like you know a marginal point of view and let's not get over our skis on like you know celebrating this guy and they're like well point to a poll that says when the question is asked should this husband and father of two been shot down like a dog in the streets do you support the cold-blooded murder of this human being who was a father and husband?

10% of the country is like yes, and they're like look. It's a mark. You know yeah, nobody thinks that but it's just like 48 52 where they're like I need to know more about him. Yeah, I was like a fucking shithead Well, I mean like the the poll question. I'd like to be asked is like well like obviously Sure, no one supports murder and like like, you know, this guy's probably gonna spend the rest of his life in prison for killing this guy. But the question should be asked, do you believe Brian Thompson and people like him are also murderers? I would love to hear the answer to that question.

Yeah, that's been the bit that's like the most deranging and in sort of the coverage of it, because I think that all of this, and there's been a great deal of it, the Atlantic has had a lot of it, but every newspaper been a great deal of it, the Atlantic has had a lot of it, but every newspaper has sort of weighed in to some extent or another on the worrying coarsening of the culture that this portends. And I think to a certain, that not just the murder,

but that people sort of responding with a flurry of LOLs and zero teddy bears of tribute. That like that. And I think that there's a sense in which if you just woke up for the first time today that would certainly seem like a coarsening of the culture to you and yet I think that it's just a question of like what kind of violence you are capable of seeing and then like how you're able to countenance

it. I think that the idea that you know it's bad to shoot people in the back on the sidewalk I don't support that and yet I mean I think that the idea that it's bad to shoot people in the back on the sidewalk, I don't support that. And yet, I mean, I think that this is, the entire binary of this being like good or bad, like are you team Luigi or team Brian, falls apart as soon as you start considering what the healthcare system does and what it's designed to do.

Like, it's just, it's not a conversation there. Like the volume of brutality is so outlandishly on the side of the institution, as opposed to the individual, that like, I can't really believe that anybody's talking about it as if it's like a 50-50 thing. Yeah, it's also like, no one is going to say on the phone,

like, yes, I love this murder. Like, I really thought that we sort of like learned our lessons about polls, but apparently not. Even that like 10% of the American populace that will answer polling phone calls will openly say yes. I mean, the poll question I saw is, is Luigi a hero? If 10% of those people are saying yes, then, you know, to do the Bill Mitchell methodology, it's probably like 89.

Yeah, you got to you got to uncut that result. Yeah. Well, like, I mean, like, as I as I said, like mentioned, like in bringing this up, like it feels like, you know, just but but four years ago, there was a moment in this country where the healthcare industry became politicized. And the idea of Medicare for All, or the idea that like this industry really only exists in America and is basically marginal or doesn't exist in the rest of the world, which has much better and cheaper healthcare systems than we do. But as soon as the 2020 primaries were over like it's been like you know that that issue of health care in American society and the

role that the health insurance like industry which is a huge huge portion of our economy and like something like one out of every seven dollars spent on health care in this country is paid directly to United Health Care in one way or another has just it's just it's just, it's been kept invisible. Like, it's just, it's not politicized. It's not an issue. It's not controversial. And like, in light of this, this, this assassination now, which is like, you know, put it rather violently into the forefront of people's consciousness, and like, the media and the people who, you know, speak for the health insurance industry in the media, are like genuinely shocked to find, like,

you know, like they don't know how to metabolize this, I don't know, like outpouring of anger or support for the person who killed this guy. And like, so they have to make it into this morality play. And David, you mentioned the Atlantic. These are headlines from the Atlantic that was just from the last six days. First one, Luigi Mangione has to mean something. The internet is better at telling stories than it isn't making sense by Charlie Warzell. This is how political violence goes mainstream. The United Healthcare shooting marks a new moment

of normie extremism by Ali Breeland. Luigi Mangione's commonplace deplorable politics. From his actions and the glee that they have elicited. One learns not that the health care system is broken, but that many people are by Graham Wood. Indeed. That's a Graham Wood. That was a bar. Graham Wood thought that stupid shit was hard. You read that sentence and you know that that is spelled G-R-A-E-M-E. It's a colonial spelling. But the granddaddy, the main one from the Atlantic was by a woman named Adrienne LeFrance for the Atlantic. And the headline is, De-civilization may already be underwent.

And now look, I feel like, do I even need to mention the grotesque irony of the Atlantic magazine lecturing people on how we've become desensitized to violence and bloodshed. I mean, do I need to bring up the parallels here of what that magazine's been doing over the last year? I mean, we can just leave it there, but I want to read a little bit from this article. It begins, the line between a normal functioning society and catastrophic de-civilization can be crossed with a single act of mayhem and just like like I said just the introduction of a term like

Decivilization of just the pure mystification and like an intentional pretend for like pretend play acting to understand Try not to understand why people are just saying lol when they think of this guy can kill or whether not so much that They're saying lol to him being killed, but why they're reacting lol to this outpouring of like he was such a he was a good man. He was that he was actually trying to work to get health costs down in this country. Meaning like to improve his market. Right. I was going to say, yeah, like he was trying to get health expenditures down in this country. It's not a goal like Like that is a, you're doing a business thing there.

Well, one of my favorite things I saw was someone said that at the start of the pandemic, the federal government couldn't figure out how to get money to providers in time. And Brian Thompson stepped in and said, hey, we can help. And it's like, what a hero keeping the system that's enriched him and everyone before him going.

Like, no one talks about like JPMorgan loaning the government, you know, the equivalent of 100 billion dollars. Like, it was this great philanthropic act. To me, the decivilization thing, I mean, she goes on and explains. It's worth mentioning, too, that this woman is the executive editor of editor of the Atlantic like this isn't one of those things where it's some freelancer grinding out a take for 350 because like the dogs got to eat no this is like they know this is important and they need to get their big guns on the case like andrea lefrenz and graham wood they got to come out and be like hey all the all the greats hey like the problem with our society

it's not all the people that die or go bankrupt because of our fucking evil profit seeking health insurance industry. It's actually just the the the crass, unfeeling, violent, soaked. I mean, they might as well be saying, this is like when they blame Marilyn Manson for Columbine. Also, like the mark of a freelancer, you know, a freelancer who's just being thrown to the dogs to make some rage bait.

There's an interpersonal touch there that isn't here. Like if a freelancer wrote this, it would be like signs that your boyfriend may like freak out until a CEO. It's always weird. Business Insider has is like a big part of their business plan, that model. Like there's stuff that you pay for that's generally very well reported, but then the rest of it is them taking a 22 year old and being like, you're going to write a story called I went to Los Angeles and the food sucked. You're going to want to change

your name. Like, and if it's possible, you're going to want to alter your appearance because you will never publish under this name or that face again. Yeah, that is yeah, the bottom rung of the article economy now is like getting a 22 year old to write an article that's like tips and tricks to returning your foster dog. But going back to Miss LaFrance here, she says, in recent days, journalists and other observers have worked to undercover the motivations of the accused killer. And it's like, OK, they've done that. cover the motivations of the accused killer. And it's like, OK, they've done that. And there's one thing we don't need to argue about. It's his motivations.

He has a whole fucking manifesto that is not even not running. As manifestos go, it's like basically a long tweet. He goes, this is a worthy exercise when trying to understand a single shocking event. But when attempting to understand how brutality spreads across society, studying individual ideologies only gets you so far. As violence worsens, it tends to draw in and threaten peopleying individual ideologies only gets you so far. As violence worsens, it tends to draw in and threaten people of all ideologies. Mm hmm. So, yeah, I mean, saying a lot there.

Thank you, Professor. Yeah. And once again, it's like this is also basically like, what if you become CEO of a health insurance company? Yeah. And like I'm sorry, like I said, the Atlantic magazine has been running PR for like an ongoing Holocaust. So like, I mean, coming up with every excuse for why that's actually okay and not violence. Also I think with a similar mystification involved where it's basically the idea of like if this is again sort of presented as a binary and like Luigi is the termite eating at the foundations of our culture like civilization is our current health care system in that.

Like, if you're in that argument, in the same way that, like, with, certainly with the coverage of, you know, Israel and Palestine, that a lot of it is basically, like, the force of, like, the democracy, the one that is, like, standing up for the, you know, virtues that we all hold dear in this type of culture, is the one that's,'s like dropping bombs on tents. Like you can't at some point you have to interrogate the frame that you came in with when it no longer remotely matches the argument that you're keeping me you know keeping on making. It's kind of the same thing it's like sort of like I know to the you know casual unlettered observer it seems like the American health care system is just about the most expensive and like you know it

profits off misery and death and I know like for simple people it seemed like can't we have something different than that but it's actually the trade officer here are quite complicated and like they do the same thing with you know like they're like I know it seems bad to shoot doctors journalists and children's with with quadcopters but you know like it's a it's a complex issue it's very complicated and we shouldn't surrender ourselves to emotion and ideology and rage against the people doing it that's the one that is so well whatever go ahead felix i'm just keep making the same

point because i'm still mad about the one thing go ahead just like the way that like all of these are i've seen like a billion articles like, but the way they talk about like the crime specifically is like Luigi was one of the bad guys from Death Wish. Like he was just like, yeah, let's go out tonight and get a burner. It could be anyone. I don't care. They killed the Giggler. They had no business doing that. None.

Yeah. I mean, I think the part of it that I think also you have to avoid in this is that his ideology was pretty incoherent beyond hating private health insurance. Yeah, but incoherent in a way that like most Americans are. Yes, exactly like that. I mean, the sort of thing, and I think that that's also been the other sort of like counter discourse of this that you've seen in New York is that like this happens right around the time that Daniel Penny is acquitted on all charges for choking a man to death on the subway while people recorded on their phones. And so there's been this attempt to sort of like hold it up in some cases, you know, like literally on the

the cover of the New York Post, where it's like a picture of a smiling Daniel Penny next to a picture of like the worst picture they can find of Luigi Mangione, which is still just better than the best picture of the ever been taken of me. I know I was going to say that's just basically like Christian Bale has a booger like it's sorry, still a really good looking guy. But the but like trying to create that binary is entirely about like whose lives are worth something and what ways of killing are or are not honorable And I just don't think that any of that holds up to the barest scrutiny in this case Well going for some more drivel from the Atlantic here

It says we already understand many of the conditions that make a society vulnerable to violence And we know that those conditions are present today just as they were in the Gilded Age. Highly visible wealth disparity, declining trust in democratic institutions, a heightened sense of victimhood, intense partisan estrangement based on identity, rapid demographic shift, flourishing conspiracy theories, violent and dehumanizing rhetoric against the other,

and sharply divided blah, blah, blah. Then it goes on, one way to understand in which direction a society is going, toward or away from chaos, is to study emotional undercurrents and its attitude toward violence broadly. Medieval Europe, for example, was famously brutish. Medieval Europe, famous for its brutality. I would say, I would say the average person in medieval Europe was probably more kind and charitable to their fellow Christians

than anyone in America is. Right, I mean it's like other things that medieval Europe was known for was being like incredibly malnourished and everyone dying at the age of 34. Like, I'm not sure that that's entirely applicable in this particular case, but. You have to assess the whole culture and its direction over time. A society's propensity for violence may be ticking up and up and up, even as life continues to feel normal to most people. A drumbeat of attacks by different groups or individuals with different motivations may register as different kinds of problems. But take the broad view that you may find the point at the same diagnosis. Our social bonds are disintegrating. It's like, gee, yeah, it does seem like, maybe not like American society domestically is getting more and more violent, but like America,

as it relates to the rest of the world, has world has been yeah a steady uptick of violence for the last I don't know 30 years now or like probably most of my entire fucking life yeah like this is how this country relates to the rest of the world is through war and violence yeah and I think that process necessarily like demands a desensitization desensitization and numbness to the from the American public absolutely right I mean I think that's the issue with this is and again this is a desensitization and numbness from the American public. Absolutely right. I mean, I think that's the issue with this is, and again, this is sort of like, are you hearing yourself Adrian LeFrance thing that I kept thinking and reading it, is that like what you want is brutality, like domestic brutality, but not violence.

That like what our healthcare system is brutal. Like it is the sort of thing where like you will lose all of your money and probably your life if you get sick at some point in your life. Like even if you have good insurance, it's gonna be as hard as it can possibly be to get what you want from it. And that is by design, that is the business model. It's not the sort of thing

where it's not functioning properly. That's how it's designed to function. That's brutal. But it's administrative. It's not the sort of thing that happens to you while you walk down the sidewalk and kills you instantly. It's something that happens to you over the course of your fucking life every day and that functions as a threat even when it's not hurting you. The 60% of people that say they like their health insurance. I mean, for me, I've never liked my health insurance. I like having it more than I've

liked not having it. But that doesn't mean it's good. I don't want to interact with it at all if I can avoid it. And I think another thing that we sort of alluded to is that due to his slightly, I don't know, vaporous politics of Luigi Mangione, is the fact that he can't be pigeonholed easily as being a man of the left or right, I think makes the media's desperation all the more immediate.

Because like he can't be siloed off until like he's a lone wolf, right wing terrorist or like, you know, radical left wing communist anarchist or something like that. He's just more or less a kind of like, you know, what would otherwise be like a, you know, like well off, well educated young man in this country. Yeah. Well, I think that like is sort of subtly one of the bigger things that makes people short circuit and write these sort of like nonsense articles where it's like there have been a lot of societies in the world and violence has been in all of them. But it's the fact that like someone someone who had something to lose did this. Yeah.

That idea is fundamentally terrifying to a Graham Wood or really anyone at The Atlantic or anyone in any of these publications. Because the rationale for every horrible thing that everyone does, whether it's like John Kirby or anyone at any of these publications is like, well, you know, what am I supposed to do? Just go off the grid? Oh, do you want me to kill myself? I have a mortgage to pay. When someone who was like maybe predestined for a life like that, just like for one reason or another snaps and does something beyond

himself, that is a very scary thing to face. Because everything else is reinforced to make you not do that. The reason that we have so many homeless people is just as like a cudgel to show people like this don't fuck up, don't do anything brave or you will end up falling through the cracks without any safety net. Just a permanent pest to everyone. Becoming like depersoned in the way that like, you know, the Daniel Penny's victim has in this case. It's basically like, I think that is exactly the thing

that sort of like puts off, not just like elite discourse people, but Peter Thiel's made some media appearances trying to talk about this and he's been looking. Appearances would be putting in my opinion. Apparitions, he's appeared in the way that like Slimer was in that ballroom in Ghostbusters. Just worryingly greasy, grinding his teeth, blinking his eyes at hummingbird speed.

And I think it's just the idea that somebody, like. I like to see him blink both sets of eyelids. You can see that. He's been leaving puddles in a lot of places. Yeah, the idea of a full spectral apparition of Peter Thiel showing up on Newsmax to say that you need to, we need to have a reasoned dialogue on this, since somebody has been perturbed by the wrong type of person getting theirs.

One might say that he had a reasoned dialogue with an ex-boyfriend. Well, it's interesting, like the right wings right wings, the right, like the attempts on the right to like metabolize Luigi Mangio was more or less dead on arrival because like the first day it happened, they were like, look at these psycho lefties celebrating this murderer and then like all of their comments were like, yep, me too. I guess I'm a lefty now. Like under like Ben Shapiro videos where they're like, I love all the things that you say about people of color, but I must respectfully disagree with you on this one, Ben. Like, have you lost those guys? I think they've been smart enough to just

let this one drop and instead like get in on all the joy and glee of celebrating Daniel Penny, who's like, you know, they're a vigilante hero. And it's just like, you know, it shows that like, look, everybody supports murder in some fucking context. Yes, like Daniel Petty was at the Army-Navy game in the fucking presidential box. Like there's certainly a photo of Elon Musk standing slightly too close to him somewhere on the news wire. But I would like to bring up now attempts from the sort of liberal media to sort of corral Public sentiment on this and I had to turn now to an article in the root Which is a publication that I pretty much for forgotten existence is 2020 But like holy shit, they're still around and still putting out absolute fire. This is the best article I've ever read

here is Luigi Mangione isn't the brilliant thirst trap y'all made him out to be by Madison Gray for the Damn it, I'm always wrong. Yeah I'll get it right one day. I like reading these blogs though, because it's how you find out that you're always wrong. It's exciting. Yeah So this here, um And then the subhead is this cat is being heralded as some type of brilliant rogue vigilante Probably because of his looks. Nah, son.

Wait, nah? Yeah, nah. It's a nah for me, dog. I thought, I thought like, okay, maybe he isn't the vigilante thirst trap I wanted him to be, but his roguish good looks are at least like something, but apparently I'm just a big fucking idiot Don't I have egg on my face?

It begins the best line from the Godfather saga is from the second movie in the series Michael Corleone says if anything in this life is certain if history has taught us anything is that you can kill anyone Maybe Luigi Mangione took this really seriously when he decided to allegedly bust a cap in the back of United Health Care CEO Brian Thompson on December 4th before disappearing. Congratulations to the author of this article. You are the first non- undercover cop to say bust a cap since 1997. Yeah, you have to imagine that this whole article is being read to Mario van Peebles in the movie New Jack Sting. Some were shocked that a broad daylight killing could take place in Midtown Manhattan, one of the most monitored areas in the country.

Others actually cheered the killing of the leader of a company that has gained infamy among regular people seeking reliable insurance. Before Mangione's arrest, when only an unclear photo of him at a New York hostel circulated, people were hailing him as some kind of brilliant vigilante who struck a blow against the evil healthcare industry. Others were lusting over him harder than they do Timothy Chalamet. Many believe this quote mastermind had fled the country for a place with no extradition laws, never to be seen on American soil again. I like the setup of this article is that they're like, yeah, you probably thought he was some rogue, brilliant, vigilante

mastermind, but actually he fucked up. Would they be praising him if he got away with it? Or they just say, oh, he was stupid to get caught. Yeah, that's basically what this is. I mean, I think that... And also the idea of it being... I didn't think that he was like Jason Bourne But I for sure like when he wasn't caught instantly I was like there's no way the NYPD is doing this stuff like they are injecting steroids harder than they ever have But they're not like gonna find somebody in New York City Especially if he got out in time like but that doesn't mean I don't know that wasn't because of his roguish good looks

It's because I'm like familiar with how the cops generally do in cases like this. Yeah, and also like okay Let's see you look cooler when you kill a guy Yeah, that was his first time and I when I saw it I was like he's done this before but he had it too He was like he was like McLovin having sex for the first time and making that girl cum. He did so well. He looked so calm. He like, the way that he was like manually rechambering the rounds, he at least practiced a lot.

And it's like, okay, I, I, anyone who has ever written an article, I dare you go and kill someone and I'll review the video. I've seen a lot of videos of people getting shot and if you can do as well as that, then okay. But you can't. David Roth isn't the jolly hunchbacked middle-aged man that y'all are making him out to be. And it's like, I know the NYPD couldn't arrest him

but the fashion police is on the case. I bet y'all thought he was probably, he probably looked pretty good in that hoodie and face mask. But it says here, now that we know that Mangione actually came from privilege with his Ivy League engineering and tech intern background, he probably could have written his own ticket. He instead chose to turn away from that pass, according to a manifesto he wrote, railing against the health care industry.

Something which, to be fair, needs railing against. Oh, okay. Okay. Thanks. That's an awesome to be sure Sure, we love that in there as smart as he's supposed to be man. Gion was never really about the criminal life You know we say that man. Gion was never about that criminal life He did dumb shit like remove his face mask in a heavily surveilled area Apparently he left a trail of evidence and even in his perp walk He wouldn't shut up a violation of rule number one when you get cuffed. It's like, I don't know who wrote this article, but like has she been in and out of prison? Like, what crimes has she committed that like she's gotten away with?

Yeah, like would Louis, would he be cooler if it was like, oh he did five murders that we actually never found out about. Yeah, right. What's your point? Then if he did it for money? Yeah, like it's bad to do all those murders, but you would at least be about that life. You would remove that criticism from the blog. This feels like, I mean, like there's obviously levels

of being too online or mediated in writing about things that are untold and unfathomable. I think even probably in the rest of this story, we're going to get to some of them. But this is like watching, like, The Bourne Identity and, like, critiquing the choices that you make during your rooftop chase in Marrakesh. You're like, oh, this guy's never been in a fucking souk before, and it shows. I mean, the way he crushed that guy's windpipe with a book, like, the book was the paperback. Yeah, seriously.

It used to be the hardcover. But then the final graph I want to read here, it says, folks, especially white women are standing man gione because he's young and handsome. And I guess pretty privilege also applies when you take a mugshot. It makes me think of when serial killer Ted Bundy became a thirst trap for white women. One of it we even went so far as marrying him and having his kid while he was on death row. The medical term for it is hybristophilia and it's basically an attraction to really, really bad boys. And it's once again, it's just like trying to make it seem like, well maybe the reason, like A, he's not a serial killer, but B, maybe the reason he started talking about it immediately after getting arrested is that he wasn't just trying to do a murder and get away with it. Maybe like, you know, like he

was doing this for reasons larger than himself. I mean, whether you agree with it or not, you should at least have to like, I don't know, when you're categorizing the type of crime he did, and assessing its success or not, I think it should be at least part of the conversation. Yeah, this is the part with all of this, you can kind of write about political violence without acknowledging any of the political aspects of it. And of course, like then it does come down to the guy's jawline, but like you're leaving out 90%

of what happened. To quote my sister after she saw this article, do white women really deserve to be called folks after doing that with Ted Bundy? It's like the, the, the, the, the categorization of people, It's like the the the the the categorization of people white women are folks Ted Bundy is a very bad boy Ted Bundy could you know he is the son of at least one of folks if his mom was white

Well, whatever finish the up. I'm sure there's some there has to be a conclusion, right? Why else would you write a blog if you didn't have a reason to write it? She connects like the Ted Bundy thing to Donald Trump. Like she goes, well that's a whole... like it also reminds me of how white women are voting for an abuser. But that's a whole other blog. And I was like, always wanting more. It shouldn't come as a surprise because some of the same white women last month voted for a man who thinks their bodies are government property. But that's a whole other discussion. Mangione is trying to fight extradition to New York, where he'll be arraigned and likely formally charged. He'll probably wind up in Rikers Island where trust me, all that standing by the public won't protect bra. Okay, so just the just just like

a sly joke about being raped to death in prison there. Yeah. So just you know, that's, that's you know, a that's part of that life, I suppose. I've seen multiple people do that. Like Jesse Waters also did that where it's like, oh, we'll see how handsome he is in prison, where the Aryan Brotherhood, the Serenios, Nortenos and Black Gorilla family will all unite to get revenge for Brian Thompson. Yeah, I was gonna say. They're a hero.

Yeah, that's, I mean, I think this is the bit of it where you can't, like, when the discourse gets this dumb, even leaving the root part of it aside, that like, if Fox News is basically like, who's hotter, Daniel Penny or Luigi Mangione, you have to pick the hotter guy. Otherwise you're stuck doing that, which is, you sound stupid and also mostly you sound weird.

Yeah, and like, you know, to be sure, I don't think anyone should be raped to death in prison, but bruh's in for a rude awakening right on the sixth of November. Bad news for you, bruh. Yeah. I just got my dear bruh letter, I'm gonna be raped. Bad news for you, brah. Yeah. I just got my dear brah letter. I'm gonna be raped.

That's what I was gonna say. When he gets sentenced, that's the brah moment. Technically that is what the legal system refers to it as. Ha ha ha ha. ["Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairy"] Moving on from Luigi, there's just one quick thing I wanted to talk with David about because Semaphore has a piece out where the headline is, Kamala Harris's digital chief on Democrats losing hold of culture. It was said by Max Tanney for Semaphore.

And basically, like, I don't need to read much too much into it. But basically, they were like, the Kamala campaign made like, huge overtures to try to get Kamala on the podcasts and like TV shows of sports figures. And the articles about how they all turned her down because they quote, didn't want to do politics. But the thing is, a lot of I mean, like a lot of athletes did do politics in terms of loudly supporting Donald Trump. Yes. But like, it was basically like, I just want to read here, it says,

sports and culture have sort of merged together. And the sports and culture become more publicly and sort of natively associated with this Trump conservative set of values. It got more complicated for athletes to come out in favor of us. Flaherty told me in an set of values, it got more complicated for athletes to come out in favor of us, Flaherty told me in an interview last week. It got more complicated for sports personalities to take us on their shows because they didn't want to do politics. That's not to say Steph Curry and Steve Kerr and LeBron James and all them coming out wasn't impactful or important, he said. It was more impactful because it had gotten so much harder. But certainly the culture has been associated with heavy sports watching watching has become associated with right-wing culture in a way

That makes it harder for us to reach people So I guess I was wondering David like if you were advising the couple Harris campaign what sports figures Podcasts or TV shows would you've tried to get her on the one that I was I didn't do like a control F in there But when I was reading through this story, was like, they better mention Colin Cowherd. And he's in there. Like I didn't think they were going to get to it, but pow, second encore. There he is. Her being interviewed by a guy who like has a whatever, a 66 IQ and has been on TV just getting pointier and pointier facially for many years. So he used to have a set where it was basically he was on this enormous elevated

desk and then whoever he was talking to would basically be speaking to him from the like the half floor on being John Malkovich below, like shouting up. They're like, good point Colin. I think that would be great. I think that that's a really good way to project a presidential aspect is to go on there and talk to whatever talk to Pat McAfee and the heaving silent AJ Hawk Well, I was gonna say like I you know, like I was saying McAfee and like, you know, I know he's sort of I guess Tangentially associated with the cultural right? He's sort of like the I don't know like, you know the antidote to the liberal politics of get up and first take But like you know when they have like like Aaron Rogers comes on every week and they

pay him a million dollars to like, come on and just be like, they're like, oh, you know, Aaron, I keep hearing, I keep hearing news reports that you're bad in the locker room, but you know, you, you, you beat the Tennessee Titans by a field goal. And like, you know, Roger's just lying flat on his back with his eyes closed being like no yeah, yeah Yeah, nobody's just like dead-eyed And then like you know just like using it as a platform to just like have like these absolute sycophants Just butter him up

I mean come on eat something like that But like they should just pay Pat McAfee a million dollars a week to have her be like the Wednesday guest and just be like Hi Pat. Did you see see the Browns last night? Are you enjoying the Jameson's? Yeah, I think part of the issue is that it's Kamala Harris, you know, and I just don't know how well she would have done in any of those venues. She did do and I didn't watch this. She did the podcast that Matt Barnes and Stephen Jackson have together.

Yeah, smoke, which is like of all the guys to wind up with, like it's not, it's a popular podcast. I have no idea if it's any good or not, but the idea of like two guys that just kept getting suspended for getting in fights during their NBA career, being like, welcome Kamala, like today we're like to talk about your housing policy. The idea of, I mean also it's just some of the policies that she would, if she were to try to do that,

I mean like Trump didn't talk about anything but Trump when he went on like Theo Vaughn or whatever. He did excitedly listen to Theo Vaughn describe doing cocaine, which was like a nice little vintage Trump moment. He's actually interested. But it's like with Theo Vaughn, it's like when you see a dog standing on its hind legs, you're like, what are you doing, man?

What is that? But with her, the idea of her trying to explain the sort of qualified tax credit for first-time home buyers in certain areas to Theo von would have been like thrilling video to me. I just don't know like what's the ceiling for that? Like how well could that possibly? I mean, I know she did Shannon Sharpe's podcast.

She did Shannon Sharpe's show too, right? Yeah. So I mean, it's like, we felt like she was totally blanked by athletes. But, yeah, and I like it was just like, I'm not saying Steve Kerr's endorsement wasn't a big deal, because it definitely was. Yep, right. Well, I mean, it's all, this is like the classic thing. There's a great essay that the writer Ian Williams wrote about, like, the class that he teaches. He talked to his students about, you know, how they felt about Kamala after the election and all that.

And a lot of them who wound up, you know, most of them did vote for her. That's at the University of North Carolina. Were like, yeah, all those celebrities, they were like, they were endorsing her. That's nothing to do with me. Like you think Beyonce cares about what goes on in my life? And I feel like that's the same thing with like

Steph Curry, LeBron James. I admire them. I'm glad that they availed themselves of the opportunity to not endorse Donald Trump or whatever, but like whose opinion is that supposed to move? This still feels like a very like Democrat, national Democrat brain approach to all of this. It's like simply if you go on all the podcasts,

like you still have to go there and like be in a room with Joe Rogan for three hours. That's where you show the commitment. And also, if you like, if you're trying to do this outreach to like the sports media, like I mean, like when when Timothy Chalamet went on college game day, everyone was like, what a joke, myself included. I was like, he grew up in Manhattan. He can possibly know about college football, but then he actually knew how

to be actually new ball. Yeah, Kamala doesn't know ball. He doesn't know shit about anything. That is the understated thing in all of this is like, it doesn't matter what podcast you put her on. If you put her on like the Pat McAfee show, if you put her on Hot Ones, if you put her on fucking, if you brought back Mom's Basement with Keemstar and Facebanks, it would be the same thing every time, which is like a sort of bullshit, like folksy antidote where it's like, my mom always bought Ruffles chips.

And then they would ask her like a policy question and she would go, we think that good ideas are something that can happen to everyone. And it's the same, you're giving the same thing everywhere you go. It doesn't matter the vessel you're pouring it into if it's the same shit. Right, which is, that's the, I mean, and that's like the classic Democrat misapprehension there is like the problem is not your strategy

and it's not that you're not employing the right consultants or paying the consultants and playing too much. It's not a very good product, like, and people don't believe in it. So to the extent that, not to say that you, I think you could prop all kinds of things up in front of Theo Von and get him to smile. I think that's his charm. But I also don't think that this is the area where you need to be examining doing better.

Like if you, anybody running that particular gambit against somebody who's, I mean, obviously it's a whole other suite of derangements in terms of what people talk themselves into vis-a-vis Donald Trump. It's still like, you have to offer people a counterpoint. It doesn't matter where you do it. If you're, if you're just showing up and not doing it, then it's more or less the same thing as not showing up. Yeah. It's the same thing that they're going through with like, you know, I guess none of Biden's policies are popular. He can't fucking communicate and Kamala can't communicate either, but for an entirely different reason, which is that she doesn't, when you ask her a question about fucking Israel or

anything for that matter, she doesn't know what she actually thinks. We've talked about it before how like all successful politicians in America have like pattern, right? Like when Donald Trump has nowhere to go, it's like jobs, the wall will be respected again, et cetera. Even Biden in 2020 had like, you know, you won't have to watch the news. What did Kamala have that was like that? That was like an identifiable theme that she could fall back on.

She couldn't even explain like why she was doing the things that she was doing. Yeah, I think that's a combination of like, where you've got a bad product, which is basically she wasn't allowed to deviate from the unpopular policies of an unpopular administration. And then also either over-coaching, I think in a lot of ways,

because she did have that kind of like Teddy Ruxpin aspect of just basically like, just saying a line when you're done talking. But there's also like, there's a reason why like NFL coaches script the first 15 plays of a game or whatever. Do you know what I mean? Like you want to like, put the people in a position to

succeed, let them get confident, and then let them make plays if you got to do it. In this case, the scripted plays are unpopular and also they've been drilled down. And then those 15 plays just reset when you get to the 15th. There's not a strategy or any capacity to like trust anyone to do better. Like sports was talked about in this article as an example of one of like the last bastions of American monoculture. And now to close out the show,

I'd like to talk about another, perhaps less heralded, but still example of American monoculture that still exists. I am of course talking about pornography. And it's that time of year folks, it's that most wonderful time of year. It's the Pornhub 2024 Year in Review is out. We've talked about the skepticism about polling, folks. These are the only poll results that tell the truth about America. Because like, you know, if you call someone on the phone and ask them what they believe about something, Because like, you know, if you call someone on the phone and ask them what they believe about something, it's like their response will be filtered through like a number of

different guises or poses. Or like, it's just hard to get what people really believe in. However, the things that people search for when they're dying to work one out, you cannot lie about that. You cannot lie. Yeah, when you're like, of trying to appear respectable to a pollster versus breathing like Tony's soprano while Mashing search terms into a box on porno And like I want to think with two of the results here

I'm like the best one is always United States top relative searches and now this is term searched more often in each state when compared to all the other states I thought you meant like stepsister when you said that. Well yeah, I mean like these are the terms, but like this is like by state the results of like what was the result in that state that like differentiated it from every other state when compared to search terms. And I'd like to begin straight here in my home state of New York with the most one of the most baffling or perhaps not so baffling porn pornography search terms for the state of New York that term was

Turkish now I think maybe that basically the IP address of Gracie Mansion is throwing off and then also David Turkey Jersey for the state of New Jersey, it's Iranian. And I'm thinking like, is this drone related again? Like, what's going on here? That is not... Well, like this is the way that kids use like chat GPT, like Google, the idea of just being like any search box. I want to know what type of drone this is.

And then getting something back where it's like, it turns out the drone was like a stepmother stuck in a washing machine, I guess I don't know. Well, if you remember, um One of the most popular search terms for porn in Iran was hotel businessman Well, actually so maybe this is like it's like a roundabout way of getting there a hotel businessman This isn't related for the state of Iowa, their unique search term was work trip. Awesome. Amazing. It's like fantasizing about having a job. Traveling out of state, like, and presumably they're paying for this hotel, but only,

unfortunately, they did double book you with your code. And, and like, look, obviously, like, I like the states that have like really depraved search results, like for instance, Minnesota, futahentai, Missouri, grandma, I mean, just go to jail immediately. Just do not Tesco, Maine, Harry Bush, and then Alaska, anal dildo. I mean, like, you but that's what you expect but I really do I really have an extra special appreciation for states that have just the most generic like search terms like God bless the state of Pennsylvania for their most searched term naked woman. Fantastic. Naked woman. That's what it says on the package. I thought you were gonna say porn but they like showed up in porn up there like let's see what you got.

State of Maryland, girlfriend. And the state of Rhode Island. That's adorable. That's adorable. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like, they're climbing the ladder. Girlfriend to naked women to wedding. And then finally to work trip.

And then maybe if you live long enough, grandma. Work trip is my favorite because it's not even like it's just they're dreaming of being able to leave Iowa. Yeah. Yeah. Even if just for like a week. Yeah. That's just basically that search is more or less hotel interiors. Yeah. I hope that there are some words like the is Utah. Is it just like Utah jazz highlights? I mean, there's like a lot of the states like haven't really distinguished themselves.

There are no results for Utah that's like unique enough. But for a few looks for you for the state of Illinois, the search term was ASMR role play. Hmm. The state Minnesota and Illinois ASMR role play and food to hentai. That suggests that old people in those states are still getting their porn from like brown bags. Yeah, it's gonna say it's like mailed to their homes. Yeah. Yeah. Not like Illinois, I see it like ASMR.

Like it's just the guy with the Chicago accent. They like, oh, yeah, I like that. Super. That'd be more. But yeah, that's like, well, not that the rest of the Midwest be outdone. Michigan amateur wife. I mean, that's that's nice Midwest be outdone. Michigan amateur wife. I mean, that's nice. That's awesome.

Amateur wife? Amateur wife, yeah. State of Wisconsin. Can you go pro in that? Yeah. Is it in the transfer portal, court cut until you're 24? You know, I just, I really don't care about the game as much ever since we started paying wives.

Yeah, it's terrible. You can't really, it's like, you only really care about the coaches at this point because the wives are just changing teams every wives. Yeah, it's terrible. You can't really, it's like you only really care about the coaches at this point because the wives are just changing teams every year. Yeah, and it's a really bad effect on the culture. I don't like seeing wives flexing with their new Bentleys and stuff. Yep.

But yeah, not to let the rest of the Midwest be outdone. Wisconsin, pee. Cool. Pee. But by far the worst result out of any state in the nation. Connecticut? Cleef. Come on, man.

Yeah. What are you doing? What are you doing, Connecticut? And then the other search breakdown that I thought was worthy of discussion was they broke down the difference between search terms between Gen Z and boomers. Now, the boomer search terms are just everything you might expect someone to

search at a pornography website. They're all just categories of pornography. I mean, like, no, no, nothing interesting there. However, the Gen Z search terms were so insane that I, like, I, I did not know what to make of them here. Here, like from, from most like from most search to least search, Gen Z search terms on Pornhub. Number one, vertical video. It's like you want the experience of watching it on your phone, on your laptop, that's important.

Vertical video. Number two, hentai. Little sinny ass with their aspect ratio issues. Number two is hentai, I suppose that ass with their aspect ratio issues. Number two is Hentai. I suppose that's understandable. Okay, but like then it goes gaming, cosplay, virtual reality, cartoon and music. And then the last one SFW, safe for work. And now you mentioned this, like the only way I can like account for this is that like Gen Z all search bars and websites are just sort of

flattened. So like every search bar is just like Google. And I was saying like, just further out of the results where the most search terms on Pornhub for Gen Z were history of Ottoman Empire and how can I write this term paper before Friday? Yep. SFW is really safe Is safe for work, yeah. The idea there is that it's like plausible deniability if you get caught watching it at school. You're like, technically it says this is safe for, and I'm working here now at this high school

where I am attending. And the music results just like, I thought it was like looking through a kaleidoscope or something. I just don't, I don't know what's going on with the kids these days. It's also incredibly general too, where it's just like any kind of music is fine. I don't care if it's like if it's a grandma doing it, if it's somebody with a Chicago accent doing it, whatever,

I'm just trying to hear something. I'm trying to feel alive. Well, there you go. That's the true face of America 2024. And the results of what pornography everyone in this country is watching the true monoculture left in America that and National past this is what we're distracting ourselves with before we let David go. Can I ask him one question? Sure a few two weeks ago right after Thanksgiving David on blue sky you posted a picture of the Mar-a-Lago Thanksgiving a plate of wet food and corn niblets with the caption, in the most dispirited voice imaginable, hell yeah, we are so back. And I guess my question is, David, because you, in the first Trump term, you were one

of the premier chroniclers of the weird and uncanny about it. We of course had you on for the, the, the, the legendary burger night, uh, in tonight. Yeah. And I was just wondering, looking forward to another Trump term, do you imagine that it will generate weird, uncanny images and moments at such a rate? Are we in for at least more high Trump weirdness or now that Trump has been kind of fully metabolized into our body politic? Is it going to feel more normal?

I feel like it already feels more normal. Like it doesn't feel good for that. Like I was not joking about like most dispirited voice imaginable. Like there's, just, it feels like there's nothing much left to say. I mean, honestly, like that plate of food did kind of shock me. Like it was, you know, you get to this point where you're sort of just approaching everything to do with him and national politics with a thousand yard stare and then like to see a piece of turkey, like just bird meat looking that fucked up. And like I was surprised that I could still get it up for that. Yeah, seriously. I was just like, wow, I still hate that. That's great.

But I think that this is where like it could go one of two ways, right? Like, as he's slowing down, he's older, he's going to be doing a little bit less. I think he's going to be spending more time at Mar-a-Lago. And that's where I think the really unsettling stuff kind of tends to come from. That like everything that happens in D.C., it's like he's just in the president's house doing Donald Trump stuff. So it's all, you know, it can only get so weird. But once you get him someplace

where there's like a steam table buffet that never stops, that has just been going continuously since 1995, like they swap out the roast when it starts getting like. The water and the steam, yeah. The steam has been billowing for 25 straight years. And all those people, like just basically like the real life people from the black hole sun video, like the, like the people that inspired that vision are just there all the time waiting to like eat near him. There's still stuff. I still remember,

we talked about it. I think it might've been the burger night app, but we've talked about Trump food on here a few times. There was a picture of a lobster that looked as if the shell had been opened and then just like filled with sand. Like there's still, they've got new moves, you know, like that we don't know about yet. And so I don't want to say that they've covered everything. Like there's all kinds of stuff. Like we've never really seen a Trump dessert, for instance. Well, so, we have, David, we have such sights to show you.

I was just going to say. We're going, we won't need eyes to see. And that sounds great. We're going to bring the event horizon back? We're going to, uh, coming soon to the Mar-a-Lago steam table. Garmin Bozea, All your pain and suffering! Mmm, creamed corn! Yes, um, Gar-mon-bo-sia. That's, it's what's on the menu for America. It's what's for dinner.

We'll leave it there. We'll be talking backwards in the black lodge for probably the next four years. But, uh, yeah. Let's leave it there. If you want more David Roth, you know where to get him. Defector. We'll have the we'll have the links in the episode description and check out his article on the drones over New Jersey or just planes, birds, constellations, the moon, the sun, the sky. It's just weird things happening everywhere. Yeah, David Roth, always a joy to talk to you. That does it for us today. Chris, do we have any more plugs at the end?

Oh yeah, check out Felix's mini-series, Searching for a Friend at the End of the World. New episodes exclusive for patrons on Wednesdays. And I think we are extending our sale on the Chappotraphouse.shop basically I think until everything's sold out, but we're running low on product. So if you want to get discounted hats and shirts, the BCCI hat, the Zapata hat, now is the time because we are selling out the product and then we'll reload some stuff a little later into the new year. All right everybody, until next time, bye bye. Bye bye. Thanks guys. I'm sorry.