It Could Happen Here - CZM Rewind: Wild Faith: A Conversation with Talia Lavin

Episode Date: November 27, 2024

Molly Conger sits down with Talia Lavin to talk about her new book, Wild Faith: How the Christian Right is Taking Over America. Pre-order Wild Faith now, available in hardcover, audiobook, and e-book October 15. Buy Wild Faith: https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/talia-lavin/wild-faith/9780306829192/ Talia's Newsletter: https://buttondown.com/theswordandthesandwich Original Air Date: 9.27.24See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

You should probably keep your lights on for Nocturnal Tales from the Shadow Cross. Join me, Danny Trejo, and step into the flames of fright. An anthology podcast of modern-day horror stories inspired by the most terrifying legends and lore of Latin America. Listen to Nocturnal on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline podcast. And we're kicking off our second season, digging into Tech's elite, and how they've turned Silicon Valley into a playground for billionaires. From the chaotic world of generative AI to the destruction of Google search, Better Offline is your unvarnished and at times unhinged look at the underbelly of tech, brought to you by an industry veteran with nothing to lose. Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts,

wherever else you get your podcasts from. Curious about queer sexuality, cruising, and expanding your horizons? Hit play on the sex-positive and deeply entertaining podcast, Sniffy's Cruising Confessions. Join hosts Gabe Gonzalez and Chris Patterson-Rosso as they explore queer sex, cruising, relationships, and culture in the new iHeart podcast, Sniffy's Cruising Confessions. Sniffy's Cruising Confessions will broaden minds and help you pursue your true goals.

You can listen to Sniffy's Cruising Confessions, sponsored by Gilead, now on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes every Thursday. Hey, I'm Jacquees Thomas, the host of a brand new Black Effect original series, Black Lit, the podcast for diving deep into the rich world of Black literature. Black Lit is for the page turners, for those who listen to audiobooks while running errands or at the end of a busy day. From thought-provoking novels to powerful poetry, we'll explore the stories that shape our culture.

Listen to Black Lit on the Black Effect Podcast Network, iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. AT&T. Connecting changes everything. Hello and welcome back to It Could Happen Here, your daily dose of the horrors that are in fact already happening all around us. I'm your occasional host, Molly Conger, and I am delighted to be joined today by the critically acclaimed author of Culture Warlords, journalist, researcher, sword enthusiast, sandwich expert, and my friend, Talia Levin. Hello. Yeah, I once introduced myself at an event as a sandwich

historian, which I think was the pinnacle of my public speaking career. But this is the second pinnacle. Hey, Molly, what's up? Thank you so much for coming on today to talk with me about your new book, Wild Faith. It is coming out in just a few weeks, October 15th, right? Yeah, Wild Faith, How the Christian Right is Taking Over America, not the terrible B movie entitled Wild Faith. The SEO is scrambled on that one. But the book, however, is very good. First of all, I just want to say, I've been reading the galley copy that you sent me, which honestly made me feel very fancy.

I've never received a galley copy of a book that's not out yet before. So I felt kind of a broadcasting professional with my special book. It's an exclusive club. You're one of five people that's read it. Oh my God. That is, that's very exclusive. Yeah. Well, it's about to become a lot less exclusive. So feel special while you can. Right. But I realized while I was reading it, you know,

I have my little sticky tabs because I'm reading a lot more books lately. Regrettably not, not a big time book guy. It's always reading. I read a lot of court documents, but I'm reading a lot of books right now for research for my show. And it's like I'm in a little sticky tabs. And as I'm reading it, I realize I'm not marking passages that I think would be useful for us to talk about in this interview. I'm just putting my little tabs on passages that just like punch me in the gut.

You know? Sorry for punching you. No, but I mean, I mean, with the power of your words, because like, a lot of what I'm reading sucks. It's just like, I spent all day yesterday reading like 25 year old issues of resistance, which was the quarterly magazine for a white power music label. So this, I mean, it's a real departure. So, you know, really just reveling in the richness of the pros and the fact that it, you know, didn't want to kill me. Yeah, no, I also have experienced neo-Nazi research fatigue and also just like the sort

of relentless grimness of plowing through these like fundamentally hostile texts and also like academic texts which are difficult in their own way. I try to write excessively or just like excitingly. I find that a lot of especially non-fiction sort of journalism-y books tend to be a little dry and I'm like, let's not be dry, let's be like spicy and you know like form and function, like you're more likely to be moved by a message if you find the writing compelling, you know? It's just you have such a way with words. I mean you know this, you're a

professional writer. I don't want to embarrass you on the show. So if you'll- I feel like I'm twirling my hair and being like, yes, I do write for a living. If you'll indulge me, if it's legal, if the publisher will allow this, I just want to read this passage from the introduction that I think is a good jumping off point.

And it was one of the first things I marked because I was just like, oh hell yeah, we're getting into this. There's good words in here. Okay. The Christian right is a force in American politics and has been for decades, half a century to be precise, during which it has steadily gained power. It started in school rooms, continued in courtrooms, and perseveres with the aid of people who are perfectly willing to call in bomb threats to hospitals and attempt to overturn elections.

It features self-proclaimed prophets with a distinct interest in politics, newly-minted apostles with very definite ideas about spiritual battle and its earthly components, and pastors eager to usher in the end of the world. Its adherents have hymns and devotionals and speak in tongues on occasion, and the showiest among them are known to march their cities blowing ram's horns in an effort to topple, as Joshua once did, the wicked cities of the world. They have their own insular world, their own media apparatus. They have legislators who give fire and brimstone speeches from the badly carpeted rooms where laws are made. They have lawyers, too. And in case the lawyers fail, there's always the promise of congregations that might coalesce into mobs or arsonists whose burning holy zeal coalesces into the tiny pinpoint of a

molotov cocktail. And I knew from the intro that we were in for a ride. Yeah. It's like cast of characters, the worst people ever people ever but like let's write about it in an exciting way I I think that one of the themes of the book is really how these extra legal extremist movements like the anti-abortion terror movement

And the legal framework of a movement work together I actually Initially heard about this from a friend who was talking about how during the gay rights movement, you had the ACT UP, well, demonstrations, the die-ins. And then you had the more respectably coded gay people who were talking to the government and trying to get elected and really trying

to influence research. And that every movement needs a radical outside and then a respectable inside. And I'm like, oh, this works in theocratic movements, too, where you have this fringe that's burning down clinics and then people steadily working for 50 years to ban abortion. And they have the same DNA and they have the same goals. They just go about it differently

but compliment each other. And I think that's a running theme in the book is that you have lawyers and you have legislators and then you have mobs and they're all working towards the same goals. And that's really what we're seeing, I think, from the Christian right after decades of building power. Yeah, one of the notes that I wrote down in that vein while I was reading was that, you

know, the Christian right drives its power across a spectrum, right? From the clinic bomber to the senator. But it's not, you know, you might say, it's two sides of the same coin. But to me, it looks like this isn't two different spheres of power or two sort of separate but coexisting or comorbid ideologies. They're just different numbers on the same dial, right? It's turning up and turning down. Yeah. It's like the hand that lights the torch and the hand that puts it to the py you know, pyre, they perform different functions, but they have really the same goals. And if, like me, you view stripping

half the populace of its bodily autonomy, imposing a theocracy, hounding queer people out of public life slash into death as fundamentally violent goals. Yeah, I don't think there's like a respectable iteration necessarily. There's just cosplaying respectability. You can say it with a tie on on the Senate floor, but it's it's the same message. Yeah.

And I think so much of our media apparatus and governmental apparatus is really sort of views like, again, this like form and function, right? Like if you say something politely, it doesn't really matter what you're saying. Like if you say something with a pseudon in the register of like, you know, in a calm sort of Mike Pence Ian Rush Limbaugh and decaf as he called himself voice. Jesus, did he say that? Yeah, that's what he called himself. And he read it did a like evangelical radio show. Yeah, no, no matter what you say, as long as you are like white and you say it politely, like, this is fundamentally sort of fine. And then if you look at it from, you know, a step or two

back and you're like, no, actually, no matter how politely you say it, this is like a violent, deeply unpopular, theocratic agenda that like, fundamentally is incompatible with multiracial democracy. I also think, and I keep running into this, like well-meaning liberals being like, but isn't there a separation of church and state? I'm like, I don't know. Do you fucking think there is in Alabama? Do you think there is in Arkansas and all of these, you know, in Texas? Like all of these figures are like, we're Christians, we're making laws for Jesus and we have covenant marriages and we want you to too Yeah, like we're gonna outlaw divorce because of god and like, you know women dying of sepsis in

hospital parking lots is what Jesus wants and like And I experienced this. I think you probably have to when you like report on You know zealots and extremists and people inevitably wind up measuring other people's wheat by their own bushel. In other words, they're like, they can't really believe this stuff. And it's like, no, they really do. They can't really have these goals. First of all, they do, but also doesn't matter.

Right. I mean, the question of like impact versus intent, first of all, I think it's perfectly possible to be both a grifter and a true believer at the same time. That's just synergy, baby. Yeah. And also fundamentally, this is a world premised on grievance, where it's this idea that like the world

has got one over on you. And so in a sense, grift is just like, well, you know, the world's corrupt and I'm fighting a righteous cause. So what does it matter the ethics that I sort of skimp on along the way? I mean, once you've amped the stakes up to we're fighting the literal devil and everyone who's getting in my way is animated by actual demons from hell. I mean, the stakes couldn't be higher. So you do what you have to do. Exactly. And it's this theory of power. And so then people sort of standing

outside of that paradigm, who are not keyed into this idea of like, we're in an ethical spiritual battle, like, and we must create like a kingdom of Christ on earth in America to win against the devil. And then people outside being like, you're hypocrites. And it's not a valid criticism to them because they're like, first of all, you're not a Christian if you're a liberal, but also you're not on our level. We're fighting Lucifer and you're probably his team, if you oppose us. So, you know, a multitude of apparent hypocrisies can be excused by the idea that like, this is a holy war. And in war, there's like all kinds of aberrant behavior that's okay.

Yeah, but doing holy war crimes. Yeah, exactly. I mean, this is why, for example, you see a lot of like prominent female figures from Phyllis Schlafly, you know, in the 70s and 80s to like the tradwives now. And it's like, how does this fit in with your overall sort of idea that women should be chased and submissive and meek and silent? I mean, first of all, tradwife stuff is often fetish content. That's fetish content. But yeah, I mean, Phyllis Schlafly made a living professionally saying that women

shouldn't make a living professionally. But that contradiction doesn't matter. Yeah. I mean, I think I call them Valkyries for feminine submission in the book. Yeah. I mean, at the end of the day, like if you believe that this is your you're calling your mission You know your mission field in the service of the Lord to undo the demonic sort of Influence of feminism like of course you're going to speak. You've been moved by God to do so Yeah, and and of course like female leaders with the evangelical community

like sort of Minority Republicans can be like knocked off their pedestal quicker and easier, but like they still can come out and exist and testify. And Schlafly throughout her very long prolific and lucrative career, you know, was like, I'm a housewife with six kids. And that was her, that was how she defined herself, even while being this incredibly prominent figure and one of the sort of key architects of the current Christian right coalition of like right-wing Catholics.

She and Paul Weyrich and Leonard Leo and some other right-wing Catholics brought these Catholic values of being all about abortion to the evangelical right, which prior to the 70s was like, that's a weird Catholic thing. We don't really care. I wanted to talk about that. So I'm not sure how sort of common knowledge this is, but the Protestant Christian community in the United States did not care about abortion until the 70s. It was not an issue in their communities. They were generally pro-abortion. They were, you know, the Baptists were in favor of Roe v. Wade. Yeah, the fucking Southern Baptist Convention came out in like, 74, I think it was, and was like, yeah, we approve of Roe v. Wade. So it's not like, you know, opposition to abortion is

baked into Christianity. It is baked into the American evangelical Christianity of post 1975 or so because of this sort of conscious, cynical, political decision. And that I think is so interesting because, you know, we get into this conversation of, well, what are their deeply held beliefs and do they really believe it and does that matter? But we can pin down the moment they started believing this and we know why and it's segregation. Yeah. I mean, first of all, I would say like people can still like, this is like several generations later of like constant barrages of extremely violent propaganda against abortion. So, right. So the belief is sincere today, but you could look at it where it was born. Yeah, exactly.

You could have been aborted. Right. Yeah, no, it definitely should not have been carried to term, but like, it's crazy. And in addition to Mwa's book, Randall Balmer does some really good coverage of this. So the sort of general arc is like three sort of 1970s, you had this like generally conservative population of Southern Baptists who were like on board with McCarthyism, hated the godless Reds, but kind of viewed politics as like worldly and not really their sphere.

And we're not particularly politically engaged. And then Brown versus Board of Education passes. Immediately the white Christian populace just disinvests, leaves from the public schools, leaving multiple counties in the South without functionally any public education at all. And this mushroom after rain kind of like patch of, uh, patches of, of parochial schools with church or Christian in the name start popping up and they're all white schools.

They're segregation academies is the sort of term of art for these. And they're explicitly under a Christian aegis. They're religious schools. They're tax-exempt as a result. And then in like the late sixties and seventies, the government was like, um, you can't be tax exempt and like considered a charitable organization if you are segregated and don't have any black students or minority students. And that is what woke the sleeping dragon of the Christian right.

Really like, you know, get your filthy government hands off our tax exemptions. Like they just went, you know, nuts. They were really mobilized, you know, like these are the people who are like throwing tomatoes at Ruby bridges. Like, you know, they're really politically motivated for the first time because they're

experiencing a consequence for segregation. And so this is when Jerry Falwell and Ralph Reed and James Dobson start coming forward and being more prominent. And then by the mid 70s to 80s, you had these like, savvier political operators coming out and saying, Hey guys, segregation now segregation tomorrow segregation forever is like, it's great that it really fired y'all up. But it has sort of a limited appeal. They shot George Wallace, it's over. Yeah, like there's gonna be a ceiling on that.

And a lot of people think you suck. So why don't you get in on the ground on this new civil rights struggle abortion, where you can fight for the unborn who conveniently will never disagree with you. Right, their voices don't have to be centered here. We can speak for them. I mean, they're the most convenient political constituency in history. Right. Because they're so innocent and you can't milkshake duck a fetus. He's not even here.

Yeah, he can't talk. Like he's not going to say shit. Welcome. I'm Danny Thrill. Won't you join me at the fire and dare enter. Nocturnum, Tales from the Shadows, presented by I Heart and Sonora. An anthology of modern-day horror stories inspired by the legends of Latin America. Ow!

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So, I mean, that's like the very capsule history. And then of course, it becomes this idea of like the moral majority, and we're the guardians of America's soul, and we're going to get really weird about sex. Also, it's just like, if you strip it all the way down to the studs, like the core of this is women are bleeding to death in hospital parking lots because Jerry Falwell didn't want to pay his taxes or stop being racist. Yeah. I mean, that's not fair. No, people sometimes like are a little skeptical when I'm like,

all of the hatreds are interconnected. But then you look at like concrete historical examples of like this world historical wave of misogyny. I mean, it's not that this population was like, weird about sex or weird about women, like to start with. I mean, maybe they would have gotten here a different way, but that's how we got here. Yeah, we got here by just like, no, we will pay taxes on our segregation academies. Bob Jones University's interracial dating ban is perfectly great and we're going to mobilize about it. And so what you have then now is just like 50 years of political lockstep. And you see this in other religious communities.

I mean, I know it's sort of notorious how much corruption slides by in New York because the Hasidic communities vote as a bloc. It is very useful to have a congregation that all votes the same way. It's politically useful. I mean, what other populations can you get together once a week as a captive audience and speak to with authority? If you can mobilize those people. And that's what Jerry Falwell

saw, right? Is like, this is a great way to get a lot of people to vote the way I want them to vote. Yeah. And, you know, the church has always been like a really prominent institution in American civil society, especially as the rest of sort of civil society has fallen away and degraded. Like churches are some of the only social outlets that Americans have. And what's interesting when you talk to evangelicals and ex evangelicals is just like being a Republican is like part of their religious identity in a major way. It's like, this is how you vote, and this is, you know, how you dress, and this is how you go to church,

and so on, but like, the idea of being a Democrat is like not only, you know, a little bit out of step with your community, it's heretical. I mean, that's how the demons get in. Yeah, yeah, demon-crats. I mean, and like, yeah, it's stupid, but it's also like half of the people saying demoncrats like literally mean Democrats are aligned with Lucifer.

And I think that's a point that I don't want to get lost on the listener. This, you know, this idea that people literally have demons in them, that demons are active in the world, that demons are motivating the actions of their enemies is real for them. And I'm not saying that to be derisive or, you know, it's real, it's real. It is, it is an animating factor for a lot of these people. And that's hard to wrap your mind around. I mean, I struggle with the idea that that is real for them, but like, that's how you get things like satanic panic. And we see echoes of satanic panic in this idea of, you know, groomers in kids' schools, they really have this fundamental

like foundational belief in this, you know, whether or not they're calling it demons, the existence of some sort of ontological evil that is coming for their children. And once you arrive at the place where like, where you understand that that's real for them, their actions make more sense. Like, they're not behaving irrationally. If you, if you truly believed that these things were happening, you'd act crazy too. Yeah. I mean, it's really hard to get people to step outside their own worldviews and in both directions, right? Like I don't believe that demons are, you know, abroad in the world and motivating like every element of political action to someone who's

starting to see them some places, but generally, no, to someone who does, my viewpoint is incomprehensible and vice versa. So I think part of I mean, not that I'm like one of those people that's like polarization is the big problem, like, you know, as opposed to anything with like concrete policy, like, you know, where it's like the big problem is we all don't like each other enough. And I'm like, no, the big problem is like people are espousing policies that will cause deaths and like also that people like believe their political enemies are like literally agents of Satan. I would say is like a bigger problem than polarization and the abstract. But yeah, I mean, this doctrine of sort of spiritual warfare,

which if you like Google it, it's just like, oh, this is the mindset. And it's like you, the listener to it could happen here. Like you've been drafted into the spirit war from like birth. Congratulations, private. You're probably on the side of the devil. So good job. I mean, I don't know.

Like a lot of Americans believe in angels and demons and that's fine. But it's like when that starts impinging on the political sphere in a very serious way, it's like, how far would you go if you believed your opponent was under the thrall of like Satan, you would go pretty damn far. Beth, I mean, that's why, you know, clinic bombings were, and I guess are on the rise again, right? Like these arsons of clinics, it's not like other kinds of crime in my mind, right? It's not a crime of passion or an interpersonal dispute. It is people who have been motivated by this belief that this is a place where a genocide is happening, that there's a Holocaust

going on in there, that people are ripping, you know, actual living babies limb from limb. And if you really did believe that, their actions make sense. And that's why it happens so often, right? Because these people are motivated by this belief that God commands them to take this action. Yeah, I mean, there's sort of dual element to that. I mean, first of all, absolutely yes, like I've read some anti-abortion terror manuals speaking of extremely unpleasant research. And it's really like, these people are murderers. It's mass murderers. Like you're like killing Hitler, right?

And wouldn't you, wouldn't you kill baby Hitler? Exactly. Jeb Bush would. It's not hypothetical about baby Hitler in like a country wide scale. And when specific abortion doctors have been mentioned in right-wing media, those guys end up dead and that's not a coincidence. So there's that element of it, which is the majority of it. It's huge, but there's also this idea of demonic geography where demons can possess sort of places like abortion clinics or institutions like Planned Parenthood or even the Democratic Party, which, you know, I read a lot of demonology books and like taxonomies of demons.

Pigs in the Parlor was this really big hit in like the 70s and it's been like reissued and reissued and millions of copies. And it's just like, on one level, it's really compelling because it's like, are you tired? Are you sad? Are you feeling clumsy? Do you have like persistent stomach aches? It's demons. And here's how you deal with that. And like in a country with shitty health care,

I can totally see why someone who's like really depressed, um, might go to like an exorcist or a deliverance minister, which is the Protestant. If you'll try anything and this guy's going to do it for free. I watched so many videos of deliverance ministers doing their thing and it's like, freezy. It's like people, you know, are just like sitting there and they're like people praying over them and screaming in their face like, and, and they wind up vomiting and crying and it's all very intense.

And if you think about it from a placebo perspective for one second, you're like, obviously this person would feel a weight lifted from them. They've had this ecstatic experience. And this isn't the majority of it. This is about 14% of America identifies as white evangelicals. So many. I've got to sense it it's still so many people. Because people keep asking me like, how many people really believe should like this? And I'm like, well, about 80 to 90% of like people who identify as white evangelical Protestants espouse most of these beliefs.

So that's like 30 million people. Yeah, yeah. And then you add in the Catholic right. Which is getting weirder every day. Yeah, yeah. And then you add in the Catholic right, which is getting weirder every day. Yeah, JD Vance. I hate women. Women exist to reproduce. Read you filthy sow.

But like even beyond the adult Catholic convert style weirdness, like right wing Catholics are an integral part of the Christian right. Like Amy Coney Barrett, you know, Antonin Scalia, that kind of thing. That's another bunch of millions. So this reactionary force has like, it's a numerically significant constituency. On the other hand, it definitely punches way above its weight in terms of- Right, they have an outsized influence of both, you know, on the legislative floor and when it comes to, you know, on the legislative floor. And when it comes to, you know, who's racking up the most bodies. Yeah. And also even like the culture

wars, right? Like the sort of loudest culture warriors tend to at least come from like a background of I'm speaking for God or Christ is King or whatever it is. Like, how many times have you and I encountered that in extremist context, but also, like, the sort of more mainstream-y... What the fuck the mainstream is. I don't know, it's full of piss. But, like, the more mainstream-y, like, Christian grifter, right? They come from this, I'm speaking from my faith,

these are my religious principles. But, like, it is worth noting again, and just to rewind in our conversation, but like full concept of religious liberty and religious freedom absolutely was like an ad slogan coined in the seventies around segregation. Right, religious freedom to do what? I mean, it's like states rights, states rights to do what?

Right, yeah. And like answer the question. I mean, it's like states rights, states rights to do what? Right. Yeah. Answer the question. Yeah, it's religious freedom to have segregated schools is the answer to that. And you still see echoes of that with either still religious schools that can't accept federal grant money because they don't let students be gay, right? Like it's not racial segregation anymore, but they are refusing to admit gay students and that is

a violation of federal civil rights law. Yeah. But that's where, I mean, that's where that slogan started. And then it's blossom to include basically like a gay person came into my shop. Except they didn't. Right. I know there's no standing. Right. Like that whole case was built on a lie, whatever. That's. Yeah. It's like, and the standing in the Supreme Court is so ridiculous. This I mean, in many ways, this Supreme Court is the culmination

and embodiment and apotheosis of like Christian right theocracy, because you have these like absolutely batshit religious zealots. I mean, Amy Coney Barrett is like from a cult. And in this unaccountable body, they're passing unpopular, theocratic principles that the majority of the American public disagrees with. But like specifically what they're trying to enact and what they are enacting is this theocratic agenda, where like the government is in your bedroom, the government is in your doctor's office, like the government is sniffing your panties.

It's gross and it's upsetting. Fundamentally, theocracies are just very famously all up in your junk. They're obsessed with controlling and censoring sexuality of all kinds, but particularly female sexuality and queer sexuality. Snuff those And so that's part of the reason why so many abortion arguments, like, first of all, you have the, like the, you're murdering this cluster of cells, which is a full human baby. Like, do you remember that article in The Guardian a couple of years ago that like showed the actual size of like fetuses at various stages of development. And it was like, they were just like, so little, like these little like... Little fingernails.

Yeah. And it doesn't look like a tiny baby doll that's just very small. Yeah, exactly. It's not like a mini baby, like tides of gore. It's literally like a tiny cluster of cells. So anti-abortion propaganda, like you are not immune to propaganda, it has like wormed its way into the popular consciousness just by virtue of its ubiquity and constant repetition being the key to successful propaganda. But so many of these arguments, in addition

to this abortion is murder stuff, is also just like you should have kept your legs closed. Right. This is a consequence. God did this to you. Yeah, like sex is a mortal sin, and sex should be punished. They must be doing it wrong. Like, I'm like, why do you want sex to have consequences and be punished?

The like intensity of the misogyny around purity culture was so intense. [♪ MUSIC PLAYING FADES IN AND OUT OF TUNE V.O.] [♪ MUSIC FADES IN AND OUT OF TUNE V.O.] Welcome. I'm Danny Trejo. Won't you join me at the fire and dare enter? Nocturnum, Tales from the Shadows, presented by iHeart and Sonora. An anthology of modern-day horror stories

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as part of MyCultura Podcast Network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline podcast, and we're kicking off our second season digging into how tech's elite has turned Silicon Valley into a playground for billionaires. From the chaotic world of generative AI to the destruction of Google search, Better Offline is your unvarnished and at times unhinged look at the underbelly of tech from an industry veteran with nothing to lose. This season I'm going to be joined by everyone from Nobel-winning economists to the leading journalists in the field,

and I'll be digging into why the products you love keep getting worse and naming and shaming those responsible. Don't get me wrong, though. I love technology. I just hate the people in charge and want them to get back to building things that actually do things to help real people. I swear to God things can change if we're loud enough. So join me every week to understand

what's happening in the tech industry and what could be done to make things better. Listen to Better Offline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, or wherever else you get your podcasts. Check out betteroffline.com. Curious about queer sexuality, cruising, and expanding your horizons? Hit play on the sex-positive and deeply entertaining podcast, Sniffy's Cruising Confessions. Join hosts Gabe Gonzalez and Chris Patterson-Rosso as they explore queer sex, cruising, relationships, and culture

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That would be me, Devyn Simone. And then there's me, Devon Rogers. And we're here to take you behind the scenes of, drum roll, please. Ah-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na-na. The Challenge 40, Battle of the Eras. Yes. Each week, cast members will be joining us

to spill all of the tea on the relentless challenges, heartbreaking eliminations, and of course, all the juicy drama. And let's not forget about the hookups. Anyway, regardless of what era you're rooting for at home, everyone is welcome here on MTV's official challenge podcast. So join us every week as we break down episodes

of the Challenge 40, Battle of the Eras. Listen to MTV's official challenge podcast on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. I wanted to ask you about the experience of writing the book, right? So your first book, Culture Warlords, was traumatizing for you to craft, right? Because you had to spend so much time in these digital spaces, in some cases, physical spaces with neo-Nazis, 4chan guys,

aspiring terrorists. And so that's traumatic to experience. But largely that experience was alone, like at your computer screen, sort of consuming this content that was eroding your soul. But the second half of this book is about child abuse, right? And like you interviewed people who grew up in this movement about their lives, about their husbands raping them and their parents beating them as children and like lives about their husbands raping them and their parents beating them as children.

How do those experiences compare? And like, what was that? How did you prepare to do that? I don't even know how to begin to do that with care. I mean, I think my goal going in is like, I'm not going to betray you. Like that was my guiding ethos of just like, I view like your trust in me as a sacred thing, not like sacred in any formal religious sense, but just like, you know, I view your trust in me as something that I hold very dearly, it's very important,

I'm going to treat your pain with as much gentleness and respect as I can. And like I interviewed over a hundred people largely about their experiences With experiencing child abuse in an evangelical milieu as is laid out with painstaking Instructions and like all of these parenting manuals actually like I think reading the parenting manuals was even more disturbing I'm talking to people because like parenting manuals was even more disturbing than talking to people. Cause like people were like, this fucked me up and it was wrong. And then these books are like, no,

you must be your toddler because Jesus says so. And like, here's exactly how to beat your toddler. And here's what you should use to beat your toddler. And here's the like supremely fucked up, like weird ritual that we prescribe. And then like reading those in tandem with like, like the accounts of people who are like this specific thing, like sucked me up for life and really messed up my ability to have like intimacy or self-confidence or whatever. Oh, that's tough. I mean, it was tough.

I definitely took more time. Like I wrote culture warlords in nine months. So I was like totally immersed constantly. You just like didn't come up for air. Yeah, I don't. And this one, I was like, totally immersed constantly. You just like didn't come up for air. Yeah, I don't. And this one, I was like, I need a little more time, guys. Like, I wrote it over, you know, almost three years. I also pretentiously started calling this philosophy guarding your heart. Because I really got lost in the sauce with Culture Warlords. Like I was in a dark place while I was writing it.

And afterwards, I was also... Like, it came out in mid-COVID, so that didn't help either. But it was a really rough experience with this. I was like, I'm gonna keep writing. I'm gonna write about sandwiches all the way through. I'm gonna, like, make sure I have friendships and stuff that's grounding me. I think consciously having that

at the forefront of my mind really helped. That being said, like what was really encouraging was all of these people who had experienced this sort of child abuse industrial complex in the evangelical community. Where like, we really value that someone wants to hear what we have to say. And also that it's someone from outside the

community is like paying attention and thinks this is important, which is not to denigrate like ex-vangelical voices, but more to say that like, I guess there's a certain validation when someone who's like not, didn't grow up in your corner of religiosity, dark corner. And sort of bringing it to an outside audience too, because I think a lot of ex-vangelicals, their audiences largely, they're fellow ex-vangelicals. Exactly. And I'm someone who like, I grew up as a Jew and I'm like, yeah, this sucked. This is terrible. I'm like appalled reading like to train up a child by the Pearls or the strong willed

child by James Thompson, which like to be clear, the strong willed child is a bad thing. It's a bad thing to have a child with us. You have to beat it out of them. Sure. Literally. And I ran into this in the wild recently. I don't know if you have come across this guy online. Do you know the 90s movie, the little rascals? Oh my God, Al from the little rascals turns out to be Alfalfa. The guy who played Alfalfa, his name is Bug Hall. He like really like, I don't know, got into a sort of main character situation over some posts about how he beats his infants. He beats infants because that's, I guess, a good way to raise a baby. Yeah.

Also, I think he's homeless. No, he's a serf. Oh, in a voluntary serfdom arrangement. Oh my God. Okay, well, he sounds like a big rascal. Yeah, he's a big rascal. He's continued that trajectory of rascaldom. But don't be your kids.

I mean, I will also say the reason why this book focuses so much on child abuse, which I I encountered some some haters and losers and doubters along the way who were like why are you focused so much on child abuse? and I was like There are a lot of different theories about like how authoritarianism develops, but one of the big ones Is focusing on the pedagogy in authoritarian societies, like societies that become authoritarian, evolve from democracy to authoritarianism, and beating the shit out of people from when they're in infancy, and particularly when they display disobedience

or ask why, or just deviate from expectation. That's a great way to make an obedient brown shirt. Yeah, exactly. Like, this is a recipe for future authoritarians. Like, the people I spoke to had sort of broken away largely from this culture, but many of the sort of most obedient soldiers in the Army of God, like, are that way because, again, I can't overemphasize how much these parenting manuals, which spanned from like 1970 to 2015, these texts, you know, the dates that they were published,

emphasize having an obedient child. What you want is not like a child who's kind or curious or thoughtful or smart. It's obedient, instantly obedient. Don't make me count to three is the title of one of the books. And like what you're creating is a culture of people who A, like empathize with the aggressor at all times. So hence this admiration for strength and even admiration for cruelty, people who are trained to obey and obey without question

and people who are very acclimated to the use of violence. I mean, you're doing fascism in the home. Right. So the author, like Alice Miller, the author of the book For Your Own Good, lays out a pretty, she was also a Holocaust survivor. She lays out a pretty strong case for like, you know, early 20th century Germany, having this poisonous pedagogy that also involved beating the shit out of your kids until it was like illegal to love your children. Yeah, to obey you. And how basically this is how you make a torture. And the book is called

for your own good. And yeah, I mean, I, I really think it is like undervalued in politics how much this culture of corporal punishment, which is, yeah, Americans have moved away from universal approval of corporal punishment. We're still a lot higher than other Western democracies in that regard. And on a national level, we're the only country in the world that hasn't ratified the UN conventions on the rights of a child, which include like having a name and like not being beaten and not being thrown into like juvie solitary. Oh, well, that's why America can't touch that. We need to incarcerate the children.

Yeah, the children yearn for the cells. But it's also just like, a lot of it actually was like worries that like evangelicals, like would sort of object to the, the interference in their It's an infringement on their religious freedom to beat the shit out of babies. Yeah, and their parental rights, which is another buzzword of this, this movement. Parental rights is a red flag for me. Oh yeah, no, I hear parental rights and I think you wanna beat the shit out of your kids.

You don't want your children to learn science. Yeah, you wanna homeschool and under-educate your kids or miseducate. You want to cause a measles outbreak. Exactly, but that's like for us, cause we're weirdos, we're like obsessively clued into this stuff. If you're not, like parental rights is like religious freedom is like, it sounds

good. Yeah, it's an effective marketing slogan. But like what it means is like, we're going to show up at the school board and yell about how I mean, and Trump has like bought into this obviously, because he knows where his bread is buttered, he has savvy. He's like, you guys do the policy. But his current parental rights based, his biggest policy that he's advocating is denying federal funding to any school with any vaccine mandate, which is basically just make measles great again.

Bring back diphtheria. I think like, yes, the MAGA movement is sort of the efflorescence, the apotheosis of this steadily building power, but like there's also just like 50 years of power building behind it. And like, even if Trump was defeated at the federal level, which like I profoundly hope he is, sorry to come out as like a, you know, partisan.

A voter. Like a, you know, partisan. A voter. Like a hashtag a voter. But like, I think it would be just a nauseatingly, it's a horrifying thought that he, I mean, first of all, he would absolutely enact every item in this theocratic agenda, starting with a national abortion ban. Like that would happen in the first hundred days, I think, which would just functionally plunge American women into, like, a very, very dark, septicemic nightmare. Yeah, the dark place that we're going is a coffin. Yeah. Yeah.

But even should he lose, which, you know, hope, there's still 22 states where abortion is outlawed or severely restricted. And these places are becoming care deserts, like medical residents. My extremely sexy partner is a medical resident, so I have no more about the state of medicine than I otherwise would. But like residents don't want to do their residencies in states with abortion restrictions. They're like, given a choice. Gynecological providers just aren't practicing there anymore. Like even if, you know, even if your primary focus is not abortions or even if your primary focus is not, you know,

pregnancy care, they just don't want to work there. Well, it's also, first of all, that, but second of all, it's like, if you're in the ER, you're going to experience pregnancy loss because it happens in one in five pregnancies. Right. So they're choosing to work in states where they're not going to go to jail for doing medicine. Yeah. Like they don't want to incur the moral injury of not being able to apply the standard of

care to patients in extremely common situations, such as incomplete miscarriage and, you know, pregnancy loss, whether, you know, self-induced or just like miscarriage is super common and nobody talks about it. It's more common than we'd, and ectopic pregnancy is so much more common than people realize. Like there are so many things that your body could do

to betray you that you need a doctor's help with. Just ordinary pregnancy. When then after the baby's born, then your lustrous hair all falls out. Yeah. Ordinary pregnancy is so fraught with weird body horror. But anyway, that's besides the point. Whatever. The point is, someone presents with abdominal pain in the ER, and it turns out to be an ectopic pregnancy. And like you can't do standard of care like dilation and cure-a-tash procedures without checking with the hospital lawyer.

Like that is a really bad position for a care provider to be in. So when you have these fundamentally unscientific laws, that are produced by people who don't know anything about pregnancy and are like very intentionally ambiguous. So that cautious institutions will sort of interpret them at a maximally interpret them, like the life of the mother. How dead does she have to be first?

Yeah, she has to be almost dead, right? And then sometimes she winds up dying because almost dead is tough to judge. Like, it just winds up this grotesque sort of farce of medicine and very wreckly, like residents don't wanna train, doctors don't wanna practice in these places. And so, you know.

Right, so this ends up killing more people than just the ones hemorrhaging in the parking lot. There are people who have completely unrelated problems who are now unable to access unrelated kinds of care because the doctors just aren't there. Yeah. Or people who have ordinary wanted pregnancies who can't access neonatal care, who have to drive hours and hours and hours to get checkups. Human reproduction is a pretty major part of life.

And a lot of people are doing it. Yeah, like it's sort of how, you know, it's just people do it all the time and like not being able to access medical care around like the entire spectrum of like reproduction is pretty catastrophic. But yeah, it also impacts all the people not engaging in reproduction at this moment in time. Like doctors who are just like, fuck this, I'm not working at an ER in Tennessee, you know, because I want to be able to treat patients.

Without a lawyer in the room. Yeah, exactly. I mean, and then there are doctors who are bigots and doctors who are happily on board with with abortion bans. But like, do you want that to be the only doctor in your county? I don't think so. You know, it's just, it's a really grim situation. And I just like, I'm such an absolutist about bodily autonomy.

It's like, if you don't own your body, you are not a full citizen, period. End of story. Like if a major organ in your body is treated as a controlled substance, like you are not a full and equal citizen with rights, which I would like to be. I aspire to it. Yeah. So I wanted to ask you one more question about your book

and then we'll let you go. I told you that I wouldn't keep you very long and I lied. But it's like, it's just cause I like talking to you. So it's, I think I've done the majority of the talk, so you can't, you can't be like, oh, it's about your book, which you should buy listeners. Preorder it now wherever you buy your books. And if you like the dulcet tones of my voice, which are, I should have gotten you to narrate my audio books.

You crushed that passage. I'm a professional talker now. Yeah. Yeah. Well, I narrated the audio book and then was like, why did I write such complicated sentences afterwards? So now that I read my own writing, like on a regular basis out loud, which is new for me, right? So I have my podcast and I'm writing my little scripts and then I'm reading them into a little microphone. Now that I struggle with that, I noticed while I was reading your book that, oh, I wouldn't be able to read this out loud. Where would I breathe? I know it was because I write like that too. And it's something I'm

like really grappling with right now. She's like, call me 10 claws Talia. I'm like, oh, fuck, this sentence is this paragraph. This sentence is a paragraph. Stop it. Like I really, really lost, really lost momentum on that one. Yeah, I know. But like I managed to get through it. And if you, if you enjoy the dulcet sounds of my voice, you can hear it for like, I don't know, eight hours or whatever. I still, we're being like, listen to my voice, but you know, invite me into your mind. Yeah.

But I do think it's nice as an author to read your audio book because I can like get mad and like, you know, emphasize stuff that I think is important. And also, I'm a theater kid. Like, like I don't have many opportunities to perform. And it is a performance and it's it's fun. But yeah. And that comes out the same time as the physical book? Yes.

It comes out audio, ebook, physical book with a cool snake on it. Oh yeah. Oh, I guess this is an audio medium. The listener can't see that I'm showing the cool cover. Yeah, it's got a cool snake, a red and black snake on the cover. I've named him Rocco. He has a cross for a tongue. If you're looking for a book to give to the metalhead in your life.

Oh yeah. It's pretty metal. Metalheads, atheists, degenerates, everyone is going to love this book. It's perfect for everyone. And if you're light on cashflow, one tip for supporting indie authors is ask your library to stock it or your local bookstore because library orders are really important and you can just like put in a request in your library system and that is super helpful.

Oh yeah. Everybody go to your library's website right now and request that they purchase a copy of Wild Faith by Talia Lavin. Yeah. Talia, where else can people find you online? So I have a newsletter it's on button down I left some stack because they were like we're never gonna censor Nazis, but we will censor porn And I was like, I don't like your priorities. So I left for button down

So, um, it's button down comm slash the sword of the sandwich or if you just google the sword in the sandwich comes up most Tuesdays I read about like the horrific state of politics, etc. And then Fridays I write an essay about a different sandwich on Wikipedia's list of notable sandwiches. And so far I've written 111 sandwiches. The sandwich content alone is worth the price of admission. You need to find out about these sandwiches. I mean, it just, and I get really deep into like the history and the provenance and like, like, ah, the shifting of peoples led to this sandwich. But as I get really deep into it,

and then you can also find me on Blue Sky where I most of the time now, cause Twitter is just like robots and Nazis and Nazi robots. Where I'm at Swords Jew, I'm still on Vichy Twitter as Moby Dick Energy. And you know, if you want to say hi or invite me to speak at your synagogue or bookstore, I'm at TaliaLevenWrights at gmail.com. Or church, if you're like cool.

Yeah, if it's like a cool church. Yeah. You show up and they pass you a snake. Yeah, exactly. Oh God. I didn't do enough speaking in tongues for this book. Well, Talia, thank you so much for coming on today. Again, the book is Wild Faith by Talia Levin and you can pre-order it now wherever books

are sold and you should request it from your library. Yeah, we stan Civic Services, and I'm a huge fan of public libraries and also of Molly Conger. So thanks for having me on and take care. Bye. Bye. It Could Happen Here is a production of Cool Zone Media. For more podcasts from Cool Zone Media, visit our website, coolzonedmedia.com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts.

You can now find sources for It Could Happen Here listed directly in episode descriptions. Thanks for listening. You should probably keep your lights on for Nocturne. Tales from the Shadow of Wrath. Join me. description. Thanks for listening! by the most terrifying legends and lore of Latin America. Listen to Nocturnal on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, I'm Ed Zitron, host of the Better Offline podcast, and we're kicking off our second season, digging into Tech's Elite and how they've turned Silicon Valley into a playground for billionaires. From the chaotic world of generative AI to the destruction of Google search, BetRothline is your unvarnished and at times unhinged look at the underbelly of tech, brought to you by an industry veteran with nothing to lose.

Listen to BetRothline on the iHeartRadio app, Apple podcasts, wherever else you get your podcasts from. Curious about queer sexuality, cruising, and expanding your horizons? podcast from. Sniffy's Cruising Confessions will broaden minds and help you pursue your true goals. You can listen to Sniffy's Cruising Confessions, sponsored by Gilead, now on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes every Thursday. Hey, I'm Jacquees Thomas, the host of a brand new Black Effect original series,

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