From the Kitchen Table: The Duffys - Romanticizing Your Life, Or The Beginning Of Narcissism?

Episode Date: April 7, 2022

This week, Sean and Rachel sit down with Writer at The Federalist, Co-founder & Managing Editor at The Chicago Thinker, and their oldest daughter Evita Duffy to discuss her latest piece in The Federalist called "How The 'Romanticize Your Life' Tik Tok Trend Is a Gen Z Rejection Of Postmodernism​​​." Evita explains how Gen Z's newest trend of romanticizing everyday life is actually a form of rejecting postmodernism and the idea that life has no meaning. She believes this is a step in the right direction, however, she sees the dangers in faking joy on social media and explains how it can eventually lead to narcissism. Follow Sean and Rachel on Twitter: @SeanDuffyWI & @RCamposDuffy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Landman, new series now streaming exclusively on Paramount+. Hey everyone, welcome to From the Kitchen Table. I'm your host, Sean Duffy, along with my co-host for the podcast and partner in life, Rachel Campos Duffy. Hey Sean, it's so good to be back at the kitchen table. And today at the kitchen table, we have, by the way, a non-invited guest called Valentina, who's sipping her sippy cup right here and may end up making some sort of, I don't know, noises or questions. I don't know what she's going to do in the middle of this podcast, but we have our oldest daughter as well, Evita Duffy. She is a senior at the University of Chicago Thinker, that newspaper, that conservative collegiate newspaper that's making all kinds of waves all over the country,

coming out on behalf of students who have been forced to vaccinate, forced to mask. She's been calling out all kinds of wokeness on campus. And she's our daughter. And by the way, she's getting married, Sean. She's getting married at the end of June. And as she's busy studying, I've been busy wedding planning. That's right. Welcome to the kitchen table. Back to the kitchen table. That was an awesome welcome. Thank you. There's a little bit of guilt in there about how little you've been contributing to the wedding

preparations. But aren't you grateful that I'm not a bridezilla controlling everything? I actually am. Well, hold on a second. We've actually debated that maybe a bridezilla would be better than the daughter and mom does everything. No, you know what? I've actually decided. So at first, you know, I was really upset that you would not participate in wedding

planning, that you just wanted to get married, but you didn't want to deal with any of the wedding details. And then I, exactly what Sean said, I just, I embraced it actually. And I decided that I was going to pretend like this was my wedding. And so the cake, the menu, the flowers, everything has been my idea. The only thing that you were absolutely determined to have a say on and you got your way on and we spent more than we wanted on was your dress. So true. Just to know, Rachel, your mother and I will have been married for 23 years this Sunday. So that's wonderful. So do you know that I joke every time you ask me a question about wedding planning and say, what do you think of

it? And I say, it's your wedding, mom. I know you do. Well, guess what? When I got married to Sean, I said the same thing. I kept talking about it as my wedding. And Sean's like, aren't I part of this? I'm like, not this part. It's my wedding. Mom has all, but that's, we're not here to talk about weddings on today's podcast. Sorry. Actually, I think, can I just say one one thing? I can't let the wedding stuff go. We're actually going to do a segment, I don't know, in a few weeks from now on cutting corner with all the inflation

and all the bad economic news. How do you save money on a wedding? And I'm like, this is a little late for the producers to tell me about this, but maybe we might be able to use some cost-cutting last-minute things on the wedding. If you've seen the movie Father of the Br Pride, I feel like I'm living that. I'm like, this costs how much?

I know. I'm going to go to the store and start ripping hot dog buns out of the case. Six buns to eight hot dogs. Ridiculous. By the way, we're not having hot dogs and hamburgers at Evita's wedding. Not that I didn't propose that. Not that Sean wouldn't have been down with that. So listen, we want to talk to you about a lot of things.

But the first is a lot of people have been absolutely loving this piece that you wrote for The Federalist. And I don't think I recall so many people writing me over something that you wrote and saying, I needed to read this. I was losing hope in young people. And this actually, so why don't you tell us about the piece and then why you wrote it? Yeah. So the piece is about a recent, actually not recent, a two-year-long TikTok trend that's still going strong.

And it's called romanticizing your life. And people will say, called romanticizing your life. And people will, you know, say hashtag romanticize your life. And it'll be them, you know, talking, changing the way that they look at life. So they'll be, you know, using, starting to do, starting to have better habits or enjoying the beauty in everyday life. And all these little things that are sort of changing their outlook and making their lives more meaningful. And so they're saying hashtag romanticize your life. And so my synopsis was that actually this entire trend is a rejection of postmodernism in young people because postmodernism, and this is something that Jordan Peterson talks a lot about, doesn't espouse that life has meaning. Everything is just suffering. And then eventually you die because there's no God. Everything is a critical theory. Everything is arbitrary and can be constructed. And morals are relative. And so when you have that belief system, when you have that worldview, your life becomes really meaningless. And this trend is the exact opposite. It's saying enough of this really horrible outlook on life. We're going to start romanticizing our lives. And so maybe Gen Z doesn't know that they're rejecting postmodernism

because they're not aware of even what postmodernism is, but they are. And I think that it might not be perfect, but it's a really hopeful trend in our current social media sphere because there's a lot of really horrible things on social media too. And this is just a great bright spot. Right. It's a super positive thing. So for people who have never been on TikTok and seen somebody romanticize their life on a TikTok video, can you give me just a little better description of what that looks like? So what that means is, pretend like you're talking to your dad who has no idea about TikTok or what I'm explaining to me. Yeah. So one of the ways that people participate in the trend is there's this audio that will play in the background of every one of the romanticize your life TikToks. And the audio is basically saying

you have to start romanticizing your life. You have to start enjoying the little things. And then they'll show you in the TikTok them doing those things. So it'll be them having better habits. They're getting up in the morning and they're going to work out. And then they're coming home and they're making a healthy breakfast and they're looking at a sunset or flowers and they're looking at beauty in their everyday lives and making things seem better, making their lives feel more meaningful. So they're showing you a visual representation of how they themselves are changing their perspective on life. And it probably makes the most sense to actually watch the videos. And if you look it up on the Federalist, you can see

a bunch of TikToks embedded of examples of this. But that's the best I can do. You know, I think that's, I kind of get it. I'm with you is this is this because there's this idea too that we're this collectivism the socialism this marxism that's taken root in culture is this also a trend to say listen i'm an individual i um i'm in control of my life i'm not a victim i'm going to drive um you know my own life i'm going to be the star of my life. Yeah. I mean, I think that's part of it too. I think there's a lot of... So this is actually, this is interesting because I talked about in the article that there is in Gen Z a sort of toxic self-love culture. So I think that's... Yes, I've seen it. It's like self-care. toxic self-love culture. So I think that's- Yes, I've seen it. It's like self-care.

Elton Castor Cortez is really big on this. And it kind of goes into not just self-care, but then self-obsession, where you are like the center of everything. And I think this trend can be dangerous in that, because one of the lines in the audio that I was talking about says, you have to see yourself as the main character. Well, you're not the main character of the lines in the audio that I was talking about says, you have to see yourself as the main character. Well, you know, you're not the main character of the world. You're not the center of the world. So that's not a good thing to devolve into main character sort of energy. But the idea that like dad was saying that you should, you know, take control of your life. You should be an individual. You should take ownership of your habits and your actions and your outlook. Those are really positive things that I see the trend promoting. So there's always a chance that people can take it in the wrong direction, but I think overall it's good. You know, Vida, you have been taking a class on Thomas Aquinas,

right? Yes, that was last quarter. Yes, you took a class on Thomas Aquinas, I should say. I forget you're in the trimester cycle at your university. So can you talk to me about this trend in the context of that philosophy versus post-martyrs? Because I think for a lot of people, these terms are very esoteric. And I want to help people understand what you're talking about a little bit more on that level as well. Yeah. Yeah. So, you know, philosophers all throughout history from the great ones like Aquinas, like you said, and Aristotle, they all promoted the idea. They all believed that beauty was objective, that we can actually quantify and understand and evaluate what beauty is.

And it's not just whatever. It's not just a construct. It's not a social construct that we've decided beauty is. It's actually something much more innate. And so it's like if you can attribute it's like porn, you know it when you see it. Right. I mean, you know, that's exactly what just like, you know know when something is beautiful and when somebody shows you something that's garish and ugly but then tries to convince you that that building is actually beautiful and post-modern and you're like well the hunter biden painting is beautiful right at the same time right no but i i love that that they're that that beauty is knowable right right and Right. And so just to bring the connected tissue in with that, the trend of all of the videos in this TikTok trend happened to be very beautiful. So on another, even deeper level, this trend is actually rebuking postmodernism again,

by showing that they understand what beauty is and that beauty actually exists because they're able to recognize it, record it and share it on social media. Yeah. It's so interesting because Tucker Carlson on Tucker Carlson today had a really great show on Sean and I were kind of talking about the other night just on how ugly so much of American architecture has become. And again, it's that idea you're talking about. We'll be back with much more after this. Your teen requested a ride, but this time not from you. It's through their Uber teen account. It's an Uber account that allows your teen to request a ride under your supervision with live

trip tracking and highly rated drivers. Add your teen to your Uber account today. Add your team to your Uber account today. you know, ideas that, that, for example, Thomas Aquinas has talked about and, and others, but I had a friend, you actually knew her Evita when you were a little girl and her name was Elfrida. She was a German immigrant. She was a good friend of Sean's mom. And I became very close with her and I would go visit her with you. And she once told me that she, when her husband died, she was really depressed. And she was just this really hardworking woman. She cleaned homes.

She cleaned like a good German woman. She knew how to do it. She just had such a great work ethic. But when her husband died, she was just deeply, deeply depressed. And I remember I was a very young bride at the time. I had you, and I don't even think I'd had your brother yet. And I asked Alfreda, I said, well, how did you get out of it? And she goes, it is the small things, Rachel, darling, darling, darling. It's the small things. I would pour my diet Coke into a wine glass, a goblet, and it would just make me feel so good. Like it was like that, that little thing of pouring her soft drink, right. This very pedestrian kind of drink. Right. But into a nice goblet and just sort of

that special moment, it kind of, I mean, I know it's probably not the same thing as this, you know, multimedia TikTok thing you're talking about, but again, it's about elevating the ordinary, right? thing you're talking about. But again, it's about elevating the ordinary, right? Yeah. No, I think that's absolutely right. And I know maybe you guys probably don't know, but if you guys have any younger fans that listen to the podcast, one of my favorite quotes- That's why you're here to get us fans, younger fans. One of my favorite quotes from The Office is at the end of the whole series when Pam says, you know, there's beauty in ordinary things. And I think that was the point. The whole show, the show was about, you know, people in a dying industry, the paper industry. Right. They work for Dundramyphoran and they had pretty mundane lives.

They lived pretty boring lives. But at the same time, you know, arguably the main character was Jim Halpert. boring lives. But at the same time, arguably the main character was Jim Halpert. He met his wife, he built a career, he raised a family, and suddenly this is this really entertaining show. And it really actually, the message is profoundly beautiful that you can find joy and happiness and fulfillment in ordinary life or in an average job like at a paper company. I love it. That's actually very Catholic. I thought it was interesting too, This is a side note. I didn't realize how popular The Office had become with your generation, Avita. And you're watching every episode. And I think it was on Netflix when they were going to take it off or they took it off of Netflix, like your generation was wild about it. They can't take The Office off of Netflix. It was outrage.

Yeah. It's one of the highest rated shows on Netflix and you guys all started watching. You didn't grow up with it, but you all started to watch it on Netflix, which I thought was interesting. Can I ask you, I don't mean to be a pessimist, but I see so much on social media, Vita, that is fake, right?

Everyone is like, Rachel and I were just, we went to Mexico for a couple of days because we can't go for that long with all these kids. Right. We only get a couple of days. But you see all these young girls on the beach like oh my god that was so crazy we would

go for a walk and they'd be like on like taking pictures of each other and pretending like they were sex objects on the beach in this professional shoot like there's a lot of staging there's a lot of fakeness around social media um to to to present to everyone who follows you that you are having a blast and you're having a ball and it's so much fun. And if you're not with me, you're missing out when really they're not really having that much fun. I wonder if the same thing is happening with this TikTok trend that you're talking about. Are people pretending to be the star of their life and pretend like they're working out and eating healthy and making their bed every morning to make them seem really great? Or do you think

actually it's a trend that people are showing that I'm actually doing this? Is it real? Yeah, I think that's a great question. And I'm not going to tell you that everybody who did that, who was participating in the trend is doing it sincerely because that would be a lie. There's absolutely people who are, who are not doing it because they're actually changing something about their lives. They just want to show people that they have it all together. But what I think is heartening is maybe they're lying about it. Maybe, maybe, maybe they're not. What's, what's interesting is that they've recognized they don't like what the postmodern world has offered them. Maybe they're lying about it, but the point is that what they have is not working for them.

They don't like thinking that life is meaningless, that nothing is innate, that beauty doesn't exist. They don't like it, and so they're trying to do something about it maybe it's fake but the but the heartening thing is that at least they recognize what we have right now is not is not good they aren't happy with it so they're rejecting what our culture is offering now this post-modern but even but even if this is fake right they're they're putting things out there on the line um a quote from the uh the uh the Sean. See, you're so obscure. I love that movie too, but I didn't know that. But they're putting it out there and it's aspirational. So even if they're faking it, they're inspiring other people who may not maybe do their own videos, but they're going, isn't that great? People are actually making their lives better. They are the

stars of their lives. They're taking control of their lives. They're rejecting, as you say, They are the stars of their lives. They're taking control of their lives. They're rejecting, as you say, postmodernism. And maybe that'll inspire people to live better, healthier, beautiful lives. You know, Vida, in Catholic, the Catholic way of thinking of things is, and of course, I kind of come back to a lot of that. You hear Mother Teresa always said, do small things with great love, right? These little things that we do. that you hear mother Teresa always said, do small things with great love, right? That these little things that we do. And as a mom, for me, one of the things that was really important for me when

I, you know, I was at home, people see me on TV, but they, they don't know that I was actually an at-home mom for 14 years, most of your life, Evita, until I got my first job. You were still mostly at home. Yeah, I got a job with the Libra Initiative, which led me to Fox. But, you know, even when I was with Libra and Fox, I still was working out of home, but traveling and definitely busy in a different way. But those 14 years when you're a mom and you're home and you're home and you've seen all those home videos that we have of those times when we lived in Ashland, Wisconsin. And, you know, the things that you do, no one sees, you know, you're in your house.

of how I had to think about things was that, you know, these things mattered, you know, whether I was cleaning or, you know, changing a diaper or teaching you how to sing or helping you with your homework or making cupcakes with you or whatever we were doing, that it may seem like a small, you know, thing to, you know, it may seem like nothing to Barbara Walters, right? Nothing to the world. Yeah. Nothing to the world, nothing to every, everybody who everyone thinks is so accomplished, but it was the world to you and it was the world to me. And again, that thing about I'm the star of my, this is the life that I'm building for my family. Kind of like what you were talking about with the office. I thought that was such a great analogy you brought up because, you know, the rest of the world would look at the characters and even the industry, as you mentioned, at the office and

sort of mock it. But in the end, what is life about? But relationships and building, you know, a life and a family. I just think that's so interesting. Yeah. Yeah. And maybe this is a little tangentially related, but dad was bringing up how upsetting it was to see all these people living these fake lives when they were supposed to be enjoying themselves

in Mexico, right? And they're just living in the digital world. And as I'm thinking for myself, when I one day want to start a family because I'm getting married, as much as I think this TikTok trend is heartening, I'm not going to give my kids a smartphone or social media. If they want to pay for it themselves, maybe, and that won't be for a long time. Right. I don't want to put that in their hands because I don't think that it's ultimately healthy for them and for the exact reasons that that brought up. So as well, this this might be a good trend. I think it's helpful because we know that a lot of kids are going to be on social media no matter what. If you are a parent who's thinking about what they want, you want your kids to be there. a parent who's thinking about what they want you want your kids to be there i i would suggest not like and i'm so sorry because you know i got a phone you know in in as a freshman in high school

which is you know old for some years but i would say i probably didn't even need it then so it's kind of change the rules after you we know no we didn't we so we the first four have all gotten phones probably at that same time like freshman year but pal. But Paloma is not getting a phone. She's so mad about it. She's in eighth grade. She's going to be a freshman next year. And we're like, nope, not getting a phone. We really learned a lot from, I think,

the mistake we made of letting you guys have phones. I don't think we understood just how powerful the tool that was. And that's the benefit of having all these kids. We can make mistakes with the first four and still have five left. You get lots of do-overs when you have lots of kids. To get it right. We'll get it right with Valentina. Go ahead, Anita.

There's a study that says that half of, I think it's 12 to 18-year-olds who have smartphones, a little less than half of teens who have smartphones spend around 10 hours a day on their phones. So they're consuming social media and text messaging, almost all of their waking hours, they're completely consumed on their smartphones. And that's a really frightening stat to think about. on their smartphones. And that's a really frightening stat to think about. Yeah. Also most, I think it's like, like it's a most boys. I wish I had the stat in my head, but the number of boys that are exposed to pornography at the age of the average age for a boy to be exposed to pornography is 11 years old now. And that is because of the phones, which is also frightening

and has massive implications about how boys develop the way they think about girls, the way they think about sex, their expectations. I mean, it just absolutely pollutes their brains. And that's because of the ease of the phone. And I'll just go back to my youth at that age. I mean, because of the ease of the phone. And I'll just go back to my youth at that age. I mean, young boys at that age. At 11? Or 13.

I don't know how old I am. Shocked by that. No, but you might see a Playboy magazine, right? Maybe. Oh, my God. I thought they were playing Legos at 11. That too. But there's a difference, though, in the hardcore porn that's there now

versus what someone might have seen 30 years ago or 40 years ago, no doubt. But if you take kind of what I find fascinating about this conversation, so mom and I come from culture a little bit. We met on reality TV. We did reality TV. We were on MTV. But as I've gotten older, I kind of accepted the fact that I'm not hip. I'm not cool. But it's interesting now to have kids your age to kind of bring us up to date on what's happening and the trends that are taking place and the meaning of the trends, the good and the bad. As a dad with a early 20 year old something daughter, it's fascinating to go, I'm so out of touch with what's happening. Even when you were in your 20s, you were out of touch with pop culture. We would never know what in your twenties, you were out of touch. But we would never know what's happening,

but for having kids of the age that is using it, right. Which I think is actually really helpful. That's true. But when everyone had already moved on to Nirvana, Sean was still loving. What's the, what's the, who's the one you like a lot? I can't live. Oh, come on, Sean. Yeah, no, no. I wish it was Guns N' Roses. No, it wasn't. Was it Guns N' Roses? Yeah.

No, no. I wish it was Guns N' Roses. No, it was Guns N' Roses. You're talking about Meatloaf? Yeah. No. I love Meatloaf. I'm sorry.

I got stuck in a lumberjack truck in Iowa somewhere, and it got rained out all weekend, and the only cassette tape we had was Meatloaf. Poison. I was going to say poison. Oh, I love poison. Yes, Bret Michaels. Oh, that's classic. I was trying to think of the name. Yeah, Guns N' Roses,

Poison, you know. I like them too, but you're a little late. I'm still thinking them. Everyone moved on to Grunge. I didn't move on, right? I didn't. You rejected Grunge. Grunge was too dirty for me. You rejected Grunge. I did. And you embraced it, right? You were kind of grungy yourself.

In those little pictures. I was too crisp for that, right? She was. I saw her on the real world. She was kind of living on the edge. She was. They even said that. They said, Rachel's views are conservative, but her lifestyle and her vibe is pretty edgy and liberal.

And here's the problem with what, if you do reality TV when you're in your 20s, you have to remember that your 20- old daughter will watch you when you were back to your mother. It is, it is the greatest form of entertainment for me, but I will say if anybody actually watched the real world when it came out, mom's season is way better than dad's. I couldn't even make it through dad's so season season three was amazing yeah boston was a little boring there were some there was some good stuff in boston for sure but um but anyway you know avita i i love that you wrote this piece i think that it's very it's a very interesting look at at young people at what they're doing at again this rejection of this you know millism and bleakness.

And I don't know how else to say it. You call it postmodernism. But I do think that, you know, we all want what's beautiful. We all want what's good. And that maybe it's built into us, right? And that even people who don't know they want it actually, or didn't even know they wanted it, are seeking it in their life. We'll have more of this conversation after this.

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Visit connectsontario.ca. Tell me what you think. Are there any other trends that you're seeing out there that make you or others feel a little bit more hopeful about Gen Z? Oh, that's a good question. You know, I'm going to circle back to there are many. That's why I felt so inclined to write this piece is because, but you know, in the article, I do talk about there being other ways to find hope or to give your kids a better outlook on life. And that's, you know, stuff you're not going to find on social media. So the best example is the Lord of the Rings. I mean, I love that series. I didn't actually read it until I was in college. But it's one of the greatest one of the first of all, it's, it's entertaining. It's an amazing epic story. But

also, it's one of the best refutations of postmodernism, of modern leftism. In what way? Right. So, I mean, this is these are these are. So, I mean, it's in it's in it's in the characters. Right. So one of the best scenes in Lord of the Rings is when Sam and Frodo are climbing the mountain to destroy the ring. are climbing um the mountain to destroy the ring and sam you know notices he says you know we're we're in the stories that we were told as children that you know there's some good in this world and it's worth fighting for and all of these these storylines and and the the quotes are not just integral to that story from middle earth but also reflected in our own world. And, and it's a deep mean Tolkien said of himself, it's a deeply Catholic story. Um, even though it's, it's, you know,

fantastical and has elves and dwarves. Um, and those are the kinds of stories that we should be putting in the hands of kids, um, that will actually create, you know, or foster their minds and their souls, um, in a meaningful way, not the smartphone. So Sean and I are reading Little House in the Big Woods to your sister, Margarita, and to Patrick. And it's so interesting. There's one chapter. First of all, how these people survived in pioneer days is amazing. And it's very accurate to what people had to do to survive in the big woods, which, of course, is so interesting to them because it's the big woods in Wisconsin. So they're familiar with it. But what I what there's an entire chapter on how the dad cleans his gun and makes his bullets. And your siblings were absolutely mesmerized by the whole story. And I thought, there is no way anyone would be, like, no publisher would allow a chapter on how, you know, Pa cleans his gun and makes homemade bullets in a book today.

And yet, even if they were telling it historically from that perspective, and yet it was riveting to the kids. It was so descriptive. It was amazing. And, and the kids loved it. Yeah. Yeah. I can tell. And I love those books too, growing up, but I'm so glad you guys are reading them, reading it to them because I mean, that's, like I said, it's, it's the best way, um, to, to combat everything that they're going to, that's going to be thrown at them on the phone, perhaps even the classroom with their friends. I mean, it's, it's the only way is with, with the family and with other books. And it brings me back to the theme I continue to harp on is, it's a parent's responsibility to expose their kids to um to little house on the

prairie right it's into and to um lord of the rings it's bringing those great pieces to to the attention of your kids getting them to read them or read reading them to your children is how you expose them because they don't find it themselves and you're not gonna get it in school you're not not now you're not and especially with some of these books, they're like, these are, these are racist books, gun toting books. You would never be able to read them. But I also think again, if, if, if we all start to pay attention as, as, as conservative parents or America loving parents and raise our kids well, the future is really bright. It's when we turn our kids over to social media, when we turn our kids over to the school system and disengage from the education and formation

of our children is when they're able to get our kids. And you, I mean, again, you've been in your fourth year, you're now in your fourth year at University of Chicago. I would argue from what you tell me is pretty liberal, it's pretty woke, despite what they want to present to the rest of the world about, you know, the river's campus of free speech. And you've done pretty well in actually, you know, starting a conservative paper, actually creating dialogue on campus, you know, pushing a different point of view that some kids may not like. You might get a whole bunch of threats and a whole bunch of hate, but it's forcing a dialogue and a conversation. And for us, that makes us proud that you've done that at the school. And it's not just at the school.

You've brought your writing and the issues on campus to a broader audience, whether it's at The Federalist, you've been on Tucker and Fox and Friends. So again, I'm proud of you, but I'm kind of proud of us as parents. I'm not going to take credit for Evita. I'm going to tell you what, she was born so flipping smart. I was just talking to somebody about how precocious you were as a child. But yeah, you're right. I mean, I think that, I think what you're doing and letting people in, giving a little window into what's happening on campus.

We do sometimes occasionally hear the crazy campus stories, you know, on the news, but you've given us some perspective really quick before you go, because today the last two days, Barack Obama has been at the university of Chicago at a conference, I guess, on disinformation and democracy. Members of the Chicago Thinker, you and your friends, your colleagues at the Chicago Thinker have been there to observe, to ask questions. A few of these questions have gone viral. Tell us what you're seeing. Tell us

how it went. Yeah, I mean, well, the crazy thing is that, so this is an event put on by the Chicago Institute of Politics, which is run by David Axelrod, Obama's former chief advisor. So that's why he has to contact Obama. And but this is a three day event about disinformation. And the people that they've brought in to combat disinformation are some of the greatest liars in American history. We have Obama, whose administration was responsible for the Russian collusion hoax. And then he invited Brian Stelter and some other- From CNN. From CNN, yeah. He's got a slide on his opponent, right?

Right. And then Ann Applebaum, who's, you know, another partisan from from the Atlantic. So this is a partisan event. There are a couple of conservatives, but they're acceptable conservatives. So there is Jonah Goldberg and Adam Kinzinger, who are obviously very useful to the left. So really, they don't care about combating disinformation at all. The reality and what I learned from actually listening to them is they care about taking back the power that they lost when social media democratized information. They literally said it straight up. And I wrote a piece about it. It's also in The Federalist that they want their gatekeeping powers back. Great piece I read this morning.

Yeah, that's a good one. They want their gatekeeping powers back. And they want to put back trust in government and in journalism and academia. And they don't consider why regular Americans might distrust those institutions. They just say we need to control the social media algorithms so that we can control the information again. And that is a scary thought. So instead of, you know, combating information they don't like with whatever they deem better information, they say, actually, we're going to silence you. And we're going to do it via the government. So if you think things are bad now with the tech

oligarchs in Silicon Valley, you better be concerned because everything I've heard this, you know, these last couple of days has been they are gearing up to get the federal government to have oversight, um, over the algorithms and what you're allowed to say and think essentially in this country, because they don't want government to free speech to, to advance free speech. They want government to put tighter controls on, on technology. Yes, exactly. So it's, it was, it's really disturbing really disturbing and you can read about it. And if you go to the chicagothinker.com or our social media on Twitter, you can see a lot of clips. We've had a couple of our journalists push back, student journalists push back against some of the reporters that have been there. And it's been interesting and actually very insightful. If you want to

sort of take a look inside their brains and see what's going on, it's quite disturbing. Well, you know, I find it interesting because the eyes opened of the left when Donald Trump won in 2016. And they said, listen, Donald Trump won because of Twitter and Facebook. And it was still at that point, it was a free speech platform. After he won and used those platforms to get his message out and others would share his message was when they said, we have to shut this down. We have to have better control over information. We have to control disinformation, which, by the way, we all know that, again, for three, four years, the left wing media was promoting and big tech was promoting the Russian hoax. Absolutely disinformation.

They shut down the information around Hunter Biden's laptop, which is important because Joe Biden was making money off of Hunter Biden's foreign escapades and therefore may be compromised right now as president. They completely shut that down. And so the purveyors of disinformation have been Democrats and big tech. And I just, I'm a firm believer that no one can tell you what truth is, right? Because everyone has a different perspective on truth. And that's why our founders were brilliant in saying, listen,

we believe in free speech. You can tell lies, you can tell misinformation, you can tell partial information, partial lie. And I leave it to the smart people in America to figure out what the truth is. I can't have a ministry of truth decide what is true and what's not. That's not the way we were founded. We were great debaters. We had great conversations. And with a smart public, we could figure out what the truth was. And it's worked well for us for over 200 years. But that also takes away power from the elites. And if the elites can control information, can control speech, can control ideas, they control everything. And so they see the power of the public square, which is now social media. If they can control that, they can control you. And so the tool for this free engagement of free speech and ideas has now been used as a horrendous tool against one side by another side. You know, I think also, Evita, prior to social media and then social media plus Donald Trump, what happened was the New York Times basically set the headlines for the day and the rest of

the country kind of followed. That's why they were called the paper of record. And they would put out their headlines during the Trump candidacy and presidency. And Donald Trump would tweet something and blow up the headline. I mean, it would be the whole country would be talking about whatever Donald Trump tweeted about because they were genuinely interested in whatever that was. and all these important publications, very, very crazy. They couldn't take it because they want to be able to decide what everyone in the country has to talk about. Right. Right. Can I have one last point? Sure.

I forget the magazine that did it. So someone said something about election time about Donald Trump. There was a conservative article. And then the left-wing media started to call that and other articles in favor of Trump, fake news. Fake news, fake news, fake news. They used that phrase first, the left-wing media did, MSNBC, CNN, the New York Times.

And Donald Trump took the moniker of fake news and applied it to the liberal media. Back at them. And it stuck that fake news is actually the establishment media. And by the power of one guy in a Twitter account was able to flip the narrative on the most powerful media outlets in the world. And it showed the power of what Trump could do.

Again, take their attack and throw it right back at them. And everyone was like, of course, they're the fake fake news and you'd point them out you'd point out their lies um which led lended credence to the fact that they were you know providing disinformation well and i gotta tell you i'm proud that you're there and that the thinker who i know had a fight to get a press pass it's the most wet red paper on campus. You do better than the maroon. They weren't going to give you a press pass. The establishment liberal paper. Right. On campus at Chicago. You guys fought for a press pass. You guys got in and were able to report on it and get major views because I think a lot of us, like mom and I, and a lot of others

don't see what happens on campus and how liberals and professors and universities will use the power of politicians and people from power like David Axelrod, big authors, Barack Obama, and use that to drive a false narrative to students and that you guys expose that the rest of the country. Again, I think one of the videos has 1.3 million views on Twitter. Barack Obama was there. Were you guys able to ask him questions? Yeah, so that's an interesting one. So virtually all the speakers have been able to ask questions of, except for Obama, who had pre-screened questions that were asked by the moderator. They're not very brave of him.

It's kind of like when he was in the White House, pre-screening questions from the media. Don't ask him any more questions. All right. Any last thoughts, Evita? By the way, tell us the name of both articles. What's the article that you just wrote yesterday about the conference at the University of Chicago about disinformation and democracy

with David Axelrod and Barack Obama? What's the title of that one? Yeah, so the title is Barack Obama. What's the title of that one? Yeah. So the title is Barack Obama and Company Dishonestly Lecture You Chicago Students on Disinformation. OK, that's at that's at the federal list. And by the way, she starts off the article by saying Barack Obama talking to the students about disinformation and democracy is like seeing an arsonist lecture you, hearing an arsonist lecture you about fire safety. I think that's a pretty good description, Evita. Okay. And the one, yeah, pretty accurate. And then the one that you wrote about being the

star of your own life, what's the title of that one? The TikTok trend. That's how the romanticize your life TikTok trend is a Gen Z rejection of postmodernism. And both of these are- One more time. Say it one more time so people can remember. That's a mouthful. How the romanticize your life TikTok trend is a Gen Z rejection of postmodernism. Love it. And that's on the Federalist. So both of those articles are at the Federalist and the ChicagoThinker.com. All right. And so just so you know, Evita, this weekend, me and your sisters are going to your cake

testing, tasting. We're going to be tasting cake. Yeah, we're deciding on your cake. Me and your sisters are going to do that this weekend. I am not going. He's not going. He's staying home with Valentina and the boys. And then I'll take all the other girls.

And we're going to decide for you. It's going to be a surprise. We're going to continue planning away as if this were our own wedding, Evita. Mom plans away and I pay away. I'm grateful to both of you. I'm very, very grateful. It's going to be beautiful. We're really excited for you.

We love you. And again, very proud of you. I think these are two really great articles that people can check out at The Federalist and also at The Chicago Thinker. If you have not subscribed to The Chicago Thinker, a great place to put a little of your extra cash too, because they're doing great work. They're really at the forefront of the freedom movement, of the free speech movement on college campuses. There's not a lot of other publications that are doing as much to advance that cause and be a respite and an oasis for students, not just at University of Chicago, Vida, you've told me about people, kids from across the country that write to the Chicago Thinker and say they're inspired by that work. Last word on the Chicago Thinker. Yeah, well, and I would just say, you know,

we're one of the few publications in the entire country that is actually fighting the fight. Most of them, you know, a lot of the other papers like the Stanford Review and the Harvard paper and the Dartmouth Review, they tend to be pretty centrist and not very brave. And the Chicago Thinker is brave. And I think that's why we've had the amount of success that we have is because we've had we've cultivated a team of very courageous writers. So if you want to you want courageous young journalists, the Chicago Thinker dot com is the place to go for those kind of stories.

Yeah, not just courageous. Great writer. Great writing. Great writing is hard to find. There is great writing at the Chicago thinker. By the way, one last plug for the Chicago thinker is that when professors are attacked on campus or are in any way, you know, silenced, a lot of times they can't come forward because they're afraid. And they'll leak stories to the writers at The Thinker. So you have the students who are, you know, sadly more brave than many of the professors, but the professors have, you know, their careers on the line. And that's really what happens on college campuses. We have university administrators, students, professors,

even members of like the UCPD, like the Chicago Police Department, all of them have leaked stories to us because they're looking for a place that they can actually tell the truth to and we're that institution that's gonna give them a voice. All right.

Well, Levita, thank you so much for joining us. I know you have so much to study. So many papers to write here in your last semester at UChicago. Thanks for joining us at our kitchen table. We're looking forward to when you can... It's your kitchen table too. It's your kitchen table too, but we want you back. We don't want you virtually at the kitchen table. All of us really miss you, want you back home. So we're looking for, I guess you're going to be back in a couple of weeks, right, home? Yes. So very soon.

I'll see you guys at the real kitchen table at the real kitchen table. We've enjoyed this conversation with you. Love you, Vita. I talked to you earlier this morning. I'll talk to you later tonight, but this is our public conversation. All right. If you've enjoyed this conversation, let us know. Subscribe, rate, review this podcast at foxnewspPodcast.com or wherever you download your podcast.

We hope to see you around the kitchen table next week. Thanks, everybody. From the Fox News Podcast Network, subscribe and listen to the Trey Gowdy Podcast. from the Fox News Podcasts Network. Subscribe and listen to the Trey Gowdy Podcast. Former federal prosecutor and four-term U.S. congressman from South Carolina brings you a one-of-a-kind podcast. Subscribe and listen now by going to foxnewspodcasts.com.