Offline with Jon Favreau - Shocking Facebook Secrets Revealed, JD Vance Meme Wars, and a $10,000 Conspiracy Bet

Episode Date: March 13, 2025

A new Facebook whistleblower has come forward with shocking allegations—seems like company execs have been trying to cozy up to everyone from the Chinese Communist Party to their own employees. Max and Jon break down the drama, check in on Trump's TikTok sale, and discuss how this week’s viral J.D. Vance memes reflect the war for dominance between Democrats and Republicans. Then, audio journalist Zack Mack joins Offline to talk about his latest project, "Alternate Realities," for NPR’s Embedded podcast. Last year, Zach made a $10,000 bet with his dad, hoping it would pull him out of a right-wing conspiracy rabbit hole. He shares how he found ways to empathize with his father, and the painful lessons he learned about persuasion. For a closed-captioned version of this episode, click here. For a transcript of this episode, please email [e-mail] and include the name of the podcast.

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to get free shipping and 365 day returns. Quince.com slash offline. My story is not unique. This is just happening all over the country in thousands and thousands of households. And in the two weeks since the story has come out, you know, I've gotten like 500 plus emails and DMs all from people who are going,

I'm going through the exact same thing. Like my story is the exact same as yours. My father or my mother believe the exact same thing. Like my story is the exact same as yours. My father and my mother believe the exact same things. And it's overwhelming to see how many people are wrestling with the same thing. I'm Jon Favreau. I'm Max Fisher. And you just heard from today's guest,

award-winning podcast producer, Zach Mack. So last week, Zach reached out about a story he just did for This American Life, an NPR's embedded podcast about a $10,000 bet he made with his dad who has gone way down the right-wing conspiracy rabbit hole. I will not spoil the whole thing, but I wanted to talk to Zach because the story that came from all of this is, I thought some of the most compelling, empathetic reporting I've heard about what conspiracy rabbit holes can do to a family. And so, invited Zach on, we talked about his reporting, got an update on his effort to chip away at his father's conspiracy theories. It was a great conversation.

It's nice to hear a kind of new approach to this problem we've all been dealing with in one way or another for the last 10 years, which is how to deal with people you know or family members who are falling down these rabbit holes. And I kind of appreciate him making not a game out of it exactly, but it feels like it's less just about like, can you pull people out not, and more about how do you live with people? Yeah, and it is a very, I would say it's, when I listened to the series, it's more emotional than you expect,

just because it's a tough thing. I'm sure, yeah. To be, like, and it's sort of kind of torn their family apart in a little way, but anyway. So tune into that, it was a great conversation. Before that, we have a new Facebook whistleblower. Oh my God. On Tuesday, Sarah Wynn Williams,

the former director of global public policy at Facebook, published an explosive memoir about the many years she spent working closely with the most senior leadership at Metta. There are allegations of sexual harassment and inappropriate behavior involving then COO Sheryl Sandberg and VP of Public Policy Joel Kaplan. Allegations that Mark Zuckerberg knowingly misled

a Senate congressional committee about Facebook's willingness to cooperate with Chinese censors. And plenty of new revelations about just how far Mark was willing to go to get Facebook into the Chinese market. In fact, Wynne Williams also filed a whistleblower complaint with the SEC before the book was published, alleging that when trying to enter the Chinese market, Facebook was willing to give the Chinese Communist Party access

to the private user data of dissidents in China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan. In one memo, Facebook's own leadership stated that one of the cons, there were some pros and cons, one of the cons of the company doing content moderation for the CCP, which was one of the plans, it was, do we let China do the moderation themselves or do we do it for them?

One of the cons of Facebook doing it would be that, Facebook employees will be responsible for directly responding to requests for data that could lead to death, torture, and incarceration. Sheesh. A line that Joel Kaplan changed to, requests for data from a government that does not respect international standards

for human rights. That's why he makes the big bugs. He says, let's not admit to doing mass international crimes and murder on behalf of Xi Jinping because we think it might make us some money, which is, it's crazy that they Wrote that down. Yeah, that's how far they got with this. One con is just they're not up to the standards The rest of us would like the standards of not killing people deliberately for money. Yeah, that's the one

So as a programming note, we're working on getting Sarah on the show. Oh my god, it would be great I know so I think it's so stay tuned. So we're not going to spoil the whole thing here, but Max, as someone who has spent a lot of time reporting on Facebook slash Meta, what do you think about the allegations that have been reported so far out of this book? And how do they compare in your view to the allegations brought by Francis Haugen a few years ago? Huge. I think that some of the details in this book that we know of so far, especially some of the things with regards to China, are far and away the worst things

that Metta has ever done, allegedly. Like, beyond even abetting, knowingly abetting, genocide. And like, that's not just me. Like, I think Metta thinks that. I don't know if you saw that they are openly saying that they are trying to legally halt distribution of the book in the United States, which they have never done before. And being that open about saying, we want to be the bad guy speech suppressor villain

goes to show you that they are like really terrified about what's in this book. But to answer your question about what's different, we've gotten from people like Frances Haugen, we've gotten like leaks from people who are mid-level in the company, she had a lot of documents, a lot of reports internal in the company. Sarah Wynne Williams is the first person

who has ever given us a glimpse inside the inner sanctum, like the shadowy inner circle of the leadership of arguably one of the most powerful companies, it's kind of like a country in the world. I mean, this is kind of like getting a high-level defector in the Cold War from the Soviet Politburo Standing Committee. Like, it's that big of a deal. We've never had someone speak out because either they're in it for life or they

get these like ironclad NDAs when they leave or often they just get a ton of money and they have just trailing assets forever and ever after they leave. So the fact that she is willing to take on this level of financial and legal risk in order to get this information out I think shows that she really cares about it and the fact that Metta is willing to go so far. Have you started the book at all? I am almost done with the book. Oh really? Oh okay.

And you know me and reading. I know. Well, now that we've done the offline challenge, you can't get enough. But I have been unable to spend my free time on almost anything else. Really? Wow. She just, here's why. It is, first of all, she's a fantastic writer. It is written as more of like a drama

than it is like details of their policy. All of that's in there. And she's got the goods in terms of she's got emails, she's got memos, but it is written as a compelling narrative. so it's an easy read. And it's also... I do think what you said about Haugen versus her, like, you know, Francis Haugen had more about the policies, the algorithm, like how... And this was much more about how Cheryl, Mark, Joel, Elliot, Shrej... I'm not sure how to... I know you're talking...

He's the head of comms, basically. Yes, yeah. How all these people operate. how to, I know you're talking, he's the head of comms basically. Yes, yeah. How all these people operate, and she, you know, she started in 2011, she left in 2017. She was fired in 2017. Metta's pushback is basically, she was fired for poor performance

and unfounded allegations, which is a sexual harassment claim that she files at one point. That's so crazy to me, that even now, Metta Spin is, well, we had to fire her because she complained about her boss sexually harassing her. That's your calm strategy? Well, and so far, because, you know, I got into this on Twitter with,

because I had tweeted about the Washington Post story about this. Okay. The Washington Post, the first story was about China and the China part of it. There's a lot more than just China, but I think that's the big news in here. And so I tweeted about it and then Andy Stone, who's one of their comms people, was like, let's be clear about what happened. We were very clear that we wanted to get into China

and we're not now and blah, blah, blah. And I was like, well, I don't think that's a denial. But then I was looking at his, and they've got all these people at Facebook tweeting, I've known Joel Kaplan for a while and he's a mentor and he's a good person and blah, blah, and this doesn't reflect anything that I, and I know Sarah too, but none of them have denied her stories.

Some of them have like tried to say that some of the details of the story are off or whatever, but all the statements look like they were written by an AI chatbot, you know, or which is like, I have known Joel for a while. He is a great mentor. This everyone is entitled to their own opinion, but this does not reflect the faith,

which means that I think they're nervous that this is right. Yes. Oh, of course. I mean, it would be like if everybody at Crooked Media suddenly tweeted the same thing about how you have an incredibly healthy relationship to your phone and never look at it. This does not reflect the Jon Favreau phone relationship that I've come to know. Who has a totally sane, reasonable amount of coffee every day. So I mean, the China stuff is...

It is wild. I truly thought I could not get any angrier at this company and the Brazenness with which it is selling out people around the world, but I don't know if you want to get into it but the okay, so Do you want I can go through some of the stuff from the SEC completely? Okay, so This is all in an SEC complaint that Sarah Williams filed separately from the book I think maybe last year and provided a ton of documentation for since been reported on. Basically, Zuckerberg offered to turn meta into Xi Jinping's personal Orwellian police state,

like enforcer and mass surveiller, and then lied to Congress about it for years and years that he was doing it. So some of the things that he was offering China proactively to do, proactively cens do, proactively censor Chinese users and implicitly help Xi Jinping to monitor and track people within China by hosting user data within China, which everybody knows means the Chinese government can access it. And just to be clear, this is not just like, oh, China gets to set some moderation rules. Like the way censorship works in China is they have this whole agency that delivers basically like a stock ticker of running dick tats constantly throughout the day that tells

you what to promote, what the news is, what the facts are, what like to suppress. And they were like, yes, we will be happy to do that and participate openly in your mass censorship regime. He agreed to crack down on the account of a high profile Chinese dissident living in the United States. Yeah, Gao. And he did it. Miles Guo, who I would like to brag, I correctly guessed who it was based on.

I read the complaint and it was like, I think this is Miles Guo. He's a weird guy. He's a billionaire and a big Trump donor. He's like a Steve Bannon friend. Very tight with Steve Bannon, but the CCP hates him because he was like among the elite and then he left and lived in the United States. I've just got to that part in the book. Do you know how bad that was?

So they, this was. He lives in the United States, he's not even in China. So Facebook shuts down his page. For Xi Jinping. And then when the New York Times finds out about it and asks them, they say, oh, this was an accident. We don't know how this was an error, blah, blah, blah. Fucking liars. But Sarah has like the communication with them in the Chinese government that's

like, oh, well, you know, we can shut down his one option is we can shut down his page if that's what you want. That's fucking nuts. So to be clear, Mark Zuckerberg will shut down your Facebook page or your Instagram account if Xi Jinping dangles money in front of him to do it. And then we'll lie about it. But you know what? Now that Donald Trump's elected, Mark Zuckerberg will shut down your Facebook page or your Instagram account if Xi Jinping dangles money in front of him to do it and then will lie about it. But you know what? Now that Donald Trump's elected, Mark Zuckerberg's very excited that we're getting back to our roots of free speech. It's so happy to have the free speech.

I have to say, I never thought Mark Zuckerberg was a good guy, but this book. It's so beyond the page. And Sheryl Sandberg too, it has radicalized me about's about how they are well the same person is just like yeah There's a we can talk a lot about this you can tell I'm very excited about this book because I don't even know where to begin Yes, but the Sheryl Sandberg stuff is disturbing and I'll read from the New York Times review the book When Williams is a gas to discover that Sandberg has instructed her 26 year old assistant to buy lingerie for both of them. Budget be damned. The total cost is $13,000 for the lingerie. During a long drive in Europe, the assistant and Sandberg take turns sleeping in each other's laps, stroking each other's hair. And on the 12 hour flight home on a private jet,

a pajama clad Sandberg claims the only bed on the plane and repeatedly demands that Sarah, when Williams quote, come to bed, says she denies her and then, and then Sheryl Sandberg is miffed about this. And after they land, now I'm just saying from reading the book, she like goes up to her and is like, you should have said yes and come and slept in the bed or whatever. So very weird Sheryl Sandberg stuff.

Weird Joel Kaplan stuff. And aside from the like, you know, she was worried about harassment. Also the author, Sarah Wyn Sarah Williams goes on maternity leave and during maternity leave, they're like asking her to work. She also has horrible health complications. She is like bleeding and it's really, really bad. And she almost dies a couple of times,

like post childbirth. Yeah. Oh. And through it all, they're like, okay, so let's just like, just keep the work going like the work Yeah, sure is so it's intense Oh my god, and it's not and obviously it's like lots of big companies have intense work cultures You're an executive and sometimes you get crazy requests from your boss and like that's not unusual But I think what is important here is taking away that these are people who have no

Based on what she has described, people have no sense of humanity. It's just like abject cruelty and like weirdness. And it's like, these are people who are making decisions on all of our behalf secretly, sometimes at the behest of hostile foreign governments and then lying to us about it. This show is sponsored by BetterHelp.

Think about your favorite leaders, mentors and idols. They don't have all the answers. Donald Trump and Elon Musk accepted, you know, but they do know when to ask questions or seek support from their community. Fortunately, no on that too. In a society that glorifies hyper independence, it's easy to forget that we're all better when we have a support from their community. Fortunately, no on that too. In a society that glorifies hyper-independence, it's easy to forget that we're all better when we have a support system behind us.

Therapy can be a source of support for any area of your life. It's time to shift the focus from doing it all to knowing that we're better when we ask for help. I just went to therapy today. You did. You seem, there's a spring in your step. You seem more aware of your patterns.

Yeah, I am, I am. It's always great. Love chatting with Jamie every week. Therapy is wonderful. You should try it. Even if you don't think you need it, you do. BetterHelp is fully online, making therapy affordable and convenient,

serving over 5 million people worldwide. Access a diverse network of more than 30,000 credential therapists with a wide range of specialties. Easily switch therapists anytime at no extra cost Build your support system with better help visit better help comm slash offline to get 10% off your first month. That's better help H e l p comm slash offline There's the story in the book about a Facebook employee who was in the Facebook leadership

in Brazil and Brazil passed some tough laws on the data laws. They've had some really, really good regulations. And they arrest this guy. And he goes to jail and then writes a note to Facebook and was like, I'm doing great. I'm here for Facebook and free speed, whatever it is. And Mark is like, well, I'm doing great. I'm here for Facebook and free, whatever it is, you know? And Mark is like, well, I'm gonna post about this and decides to post like,

look at this wonderful story about this. Instead of doing anything to get him out of jail, just wanted the story. And then he's at the APAC conference of world leaders in 2016. And the guy who has been freed from jail goes to meet Mark and Mark apparently looks at him and just is sort of like, uh-huh, yeah, thank you.

And then walks away. Oh my God. Like doesn't know who he is, was told who he is and was like, no, not really interested. Ends up going to a meeting with Obama at AIPAC. That was 2016, this is after the election and Obama is about to leave. And Mark Zuckerberg comes out of that meeting

and apparently gets back on the plane with Sarah and all the other people and is fucking so angry with Barack Obama for telling him, hey, the election, Facebook's rolling the election, like you guys are gonna need to change things ahead of the next election because it's, I think it was weaponized by Trump and all that kind of stuff and Zuckerberg's just like he doesn't understand and who does he think he is and he's a lame duck anyway like all this shit he was so mad because

because he's not used to anyone like actually criticizing him right at that point he wasn't. One of the details that I saw in a bunch of the reviews is that it's widely known in the company that when you in a bunch of the reviews is that it's widely known in the company that when you play board games with Mark Zuckerberg, you let him win. Which first of all, it's a weird thing for him to be doing, playing board games with all of his employees. Like you're a grown up, Mark. And can I give you a couple more of the, I actually did not even finish the list of all

the things that Facebook is doing to get into China. Zuckerberg wrote a letter to China's deputy propaganda minister, someone we definitely want Mark Zuckerberg to be in touch with, saying that Facebook had coordinated with the local Chinese consulate to, quote, take down terrorist sites that are potentially dangerous for China. And nobody knows what that means, but again, taking down websites at the behest of the Chinese Communist Party. But the biggest one, the I truly think the most horrifying thing I've ever heard of meta-doing

is that they agreed in 2014 to give the Chinese government, you mentioned this, access to user data, not just in China, but in Hong Kong. And the really important context is this is in the middle of a huge, apoccal fight over the future of Hong Kong, which had been an autonomous democracy for a very, very long time. Beijing is trying very hard to encroach on that. There is a huge, like Hong Kong wide protest movement to try to fight back against it. I was supporting a lot of Hong Kong at this point.

It was legitimately unclear who was going to prevail on that and whether Hong Kongers would be able to save their democracy from Beijing. And what Mark Zuckerberg is saying, implicitly, he is saying, I will help you, Xi Jinping, crush democracy, human rights and freedom in Hong Kong in exchange for access to your market. So not just like we're not going to have nice moderation rules, but we will actively crush freedom for you. And you've you you learn this in the book that this is not like Facebook leadership and Mark's just like,

like this was a project trying to get into China that Mark was obsessed, became obsessed with, and was like personally involved in a way that he was not involved in a lot of other things at the time. And it was very clear that he was not only willing but trying very hard to sell all of us out to do it. Yeah. And I see no reason to think that he has gotten any less cynical or nihilistic in his pursuits of this. Well, that last point I'll make on this. It made me realize that there's been a lot of questions swirling.

Has Mark Zuckerberg changed now? Now he's more MAGA, more Trumpy or how did he get... It's sort of like just a mask offoff thing. Like he's always been like this. He's always like, it seems more of like a more of an autocrat than someone who's... A partner of authoritarians. Absolutely. That becomes very clear. Very clear in the book. He talks about how Andrew Jackson's his favorite president by far. At one point he talks about how, why are we dealing with legacy media outlets at all?

Like Facebook should just build our, we could be the fifth state ourselves and just build our own thing. And then Sarah Williams is like, first. It's gonna be like William Randolph Hearst. And he goes, well, what's the problem with that? Wow, really? Either not knowing,

we know the first story or just not, or thinking it's knowing the first soul story, or just not, or thinking it's great. Yeah, no, it's the happy story of a man in a sled. Sorry, it's an Orson Welles deep cut. She says that to him, she says Rosebud. Oh, really? Yeah, and he's like, doesn't really get it. Now that I know that she's a movie nerd too,

I'm really so honored. I'm excited to talk to her. But anyway, so it's a... I'm horrified. What we're gonna learn about this guy. It is a bit of a horrifying read. It's a good read, but it's a bit of a horrifying read. I can't wait to get into it.

All right, speaking of Chinese Communist Party censorship, it's been a minute since we checked in on TikTok. On Sunday, President Trump told reporters that a sale of the Chinese-owned social platform was close and that his administration was in touch with four different potential buyers. As a reminder, on January 19th, Trump's first day back in office, the president signed an executive order delaying the implementation of the TikTok ban by 75 days, which means that unless Trump delays implementation again, ByteDance has until April 5th to accept a

bid or face a U.S. ban. Yeah. again, ByteDance has until April 5th to accept a bid or face a US ban. What did you make of Trump's comments? And like, does this deadline matter? Yeah, I know. It looks like the four buyers are like Oracle's Larry Ellison, Frank McCourt, former Activision CEO Bobby Kotick, and for some reason, Mr. Beast. So when you sent me this, I was like, oh, are we still doing the 75 day deadline? Are we still pretending that that's even a thing?

So Trump has not said who the four buyers are. Someone asked him and his answer was quote, all four are good. That was pretty funny. He's also said the US government would get a 50% stake in the company as a finder's fee, which is like, do we think we want the feds owning TikTok? Although honestly, if we doge TikTok, that might be not so bad. One case of government waste. He also thinks the government is him now, so it could be just personal stake in it.

I think that's true. He could think it means him. So who are the potential buyers? From previous supporting we know about two Possible offers one is a 20 billion dollar bid led by a guy named Frank McCord is a real estate Developer and the former owner of the LA Dodgers So he has a tech background and the other is a 30 billion dollar bid led by a guy named Jesse Tinsley Who's the head of a payroll company called employer comm? Along with the CEO of a video game called employer.com, along with the

CEO of a video game company called Roblox and for some reason, Mr. Beast. These are both huge underbids. ByteDance I learned was just valued at $400 billion up from $300 billion a year ago. Well it's nice to know that while Trump may be tanking the entire US economy, at least ByteDance is doing well. Yeah, that's nice to know that while Trump may be tanking the entire US economy, at least ByteDance is doing well. Yeah, that's important. Is the two pillars of the Trump economy are hostile foreign government propaganda apps and crypto Ponzi schemes.

That's the foundation of a strong economy here in America. The stock market is fake, but that's right, the ByteDance, that's what we did. ByteDance, by the way, and China both continue to say, hey, we are not selling, so none of this matters. But according to Fox News, the White House is separately pushing a deal for ByteDance not to sell TikTok at all, but rather to quote unquote, license it to Oracle, the details of which sound like not even licensing TikTok, but rather just continuing to fully own and operate it, but with Oracle overseeing TikTok's US data centers, which you remember remember

kind of already do. Isn't that part of a project? Yeah. So you might remember project Texas, which was TikTok's big like compromise offer with the federal government, I think like a year and a half ago and was basically a vertical was involved in that too. That's right. Yeah.

It's the idea was that Oracle would oversee their data center. So they're basically just, I think, like pitching that again and hoping Trump will think it is both new and also his idea. And it sounds like that might be working. Yeah, I was going to say that seems like a good plan. It unfortunately does. For them. I mean, I think that if the deadline comes

and there's no deal yet. It doesn't matter. It's just what we think. Pam Bondi is going to be like, oh no, now I'm going to crack down on this. I know. Congress is going to assert its legal authority now I'm gonna crack down on this. I know. Congress is gonna assert its legal authority? I don't think so.

No, I agree. I think they're just- I think TikTok is not going away. I agree. I think he'll just continue to kick it every 75 days. He loves the drama. He loves getting tossed around. They won't find a solution.

Or they'll do this bullshit, quote unquote, licensing deal and he'll call it done. All right, enjoy your TikTok kids. Uh, while we're on the topic of Trump and big tech, a bit of an interesting announcement from Trump's DOJ this week. They will continue the Biden administration's effort to break up Google in a revised proposal filed Friday with federal judge Amit Mehta, who last year ruled that Google acted illegally to maintain a monopoly in online search.

The Department of Justice reaffirmed the Biden administration's recommendation that Google change its Android business practices to enable competition and sell off its Chrome web browser. Can you remind everyone what last year's ruling was and what the Trump administration's continuation of this Biden era policy means for the future of Google potentially? This investigation, this DOJ investigation to Google, actually goes back to the Trump

first term. This has been going on for a really long time, a huge antitrust case, the first of its kind in the internet era as the biggest antitrust case since Microsoft in the 90s, brought by both Department of Justice and state AGs, argues that Google, like you said, broke the law both by how it secured its monopoly over search and then by how it abused that monopoly to dominate other markets. Rather than getting people to use Google search by making it a better product so that people would want to use it, they paid tens of billions of dollars to Apple and Samsung to make it the default.

And you see the consequences of that and how shitty Google search has become because they don't need to make it a good product anymore because they're monopolistic. The judge agreed with that, issued this huge landmark ruling, this 220 page report, detailing all the illegal monopolistic behavior. So that brings us to the stage of the trial or the case that we are in now, which is called Remedies, which is basically where the government makes its case to this judge for what they think he should do to solve Google's monopolistic behavior. The Biden DOJ asked for several remedies, most of which Trump's DOJ has actually maintained and then it's modified a couple of them.

The ones it's maintained are, you said it asked the court to force Google to sell Chrome, which is huge, so literally breaking up part of the company, also force Google to stop doing these payments to Apple, Samsung for default search deals, so it would have to give rival search companies access to Google's data for 10 years. Wow. Yeah.

And that would force Google to either sell Android, which is a smartphone operating system, or bar Google from making its other services mandatory on Android. The Trump DOJ modified this. They're no longer asking Google to be forced to sell Android right away. Rather, they're asking them to change how they use Android. And if the court determines down the line that that hasn't done enough to make the market less monopolistic, then they can force them to sell Android. The big change is that Biden's DOJ was asking the court to force Google to divest from any AI products that could compete with search, the idea being

that that would extend their monopoly in search. And the Trump DOJ just revoked that, which kind of fits with their desire to blow a lot of money into bullshit AI products. Yeah, that does, that does. That does. But other than that, promising. It's promising. And I think it's really, it's important for the future of Google, but there are also a ton of other huge tech antitrust cases coming down the pike. And I think this is a really important marker for what's going to happen with those, including

the big case coming against our good pal Mark Zuckerberg of Metta just next month over his arguably monopolistic seizure of or purchase of Instagram and what's up. Oh, can't wait for that. Yeah, I neither can Mark, I'm sure. Offline is brought to you by Fatty15. Have you heard about C15? It's an essential fatty acid that's naturally found in whole fat dairy products. But over time, our intake of these foods has decreased.

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and using code OFFLINE at checkout. All right, something more fun before we go. This week in our production meeting, we decided we wanted to talk about the JD Vance memes that I'm sure everyone listening to this pod has probably seen by now. There's the baby face JD Vance, the giant head JD Vance, giant head, tiny face JD Vance. I'm partial to JD Vance Minion.

Minion, yeah, that was a good one. I think it's pretty good with the little suspenders. Many of them are JD Vance demanding a thank you like he did to Zelensky in the Oval Office. Right. Vance himself embraced the meme. He did. Tweeting a picture of his face on the Leonardo DiCaprio

pointing at the TV meme from Once Upon a Time in Hollywood. Anyway, you can check out all the memes. Check them out. Our conversation quickly turned to the larger meme, digital, online wars between Democrats and Republicans and why Democrats' efforts to compete always seem to result in things like the cringey Choose Your Fighter video. We saw a bunch of House Democrats participate in it. The two of these things coming at the same time is a real study in contrast. What do you think about this? We wanted to surface this conversation here, The two of these things coming at the same time is a real study in contrast. Yeah.

What do you think about this? We wanted to surface this conversation here, the one that we were having in the meeting, which is why does the left seem not great at understanding virality on the internet? So I actually don't know that this is an instance of the left, however you wanted to find that, being bad at memes and virality. Like this was kind of everywhere in a way that I think actually kind of mattered.

Like as you mentioned, the genesis for all of this was a response to that horrible meeting that Vance and Trump had with Zelensky. They were scolding him for being insufficiently obsequious and like were kind of threatening to throw 40 million Ukrainians to the wolves with Russia as punishment for him not sucking up to them enough. Like clearly they thought, it's great, it's a great moment. I really spiraled over it, I'm not going to lie to you. And like clearly what was important to Trump and Vance was having a moment of getting to

be tough guy bullies in front of the camera. Like that's what they value from this. They don't care about Ukraine. They don't care about Russia. Maybe they care a little bit about Russia and like turning this into a meme of JD Vance's goofy ass face where he looks like a little baby, like shouting at Zelensky, I think really does something to materially undercut that because what these guys care about is image, is perception, is getting to think of themselves

as tough guys, as self-image. So like, yes, to some extent, JD Vance kind of maneuvered his way around it effectively by participating in the meme in a way that diffused it a little bit. But the fact that he had to acknowledge it, like they wanted the big headline out of this and the big public perception of this meeting to be like, wow, these tough guys are standing up to Zelensky, which I don't know why that's supposed to be impressive, but they think it is.

And instead for it to be like, it sure is funny when JD Vance has a big inflated face. Like, I think that's meaningful. Like, I think that's really matter. Oh, I totally agree with that. I think he's very mockable, not just from a like partisan Democrat perspective. I think he's just a mockable, not just from a partisan Democrat perspective.

I think he's just a mockable guy, pretty weird, and just whiny all the time. The memes are great because that is like... They speak to a real truth, right? That is kind of what he seems like. So what we were talking about is there was a difference between... Okay, so JD Vance, I think you can argue smartly, then embraces the meme, tweets the picture, and that sort of whatever. Now he's in on the joke. Democrats have done this in the past.

Remember like the dark Brandon stuff, or let's go Brandon, then became dark Brandon. Really overdid it. Right, and then like the brat summer, we went through that. And so there's like, the challenge on the Democratic side or the left is, you get made fun of with the meme, then they learn to embrace the meme,

but then they like beat it to death. Sure, yes. Then there's like dark Brandon merch and this and that, and it's like, then it becomes not cool, right? It goes from being like cool and edgy to not cool. Right, right. And you know, the Choose Your Fighter video, which I'm just like, it was like a,

it was a trend a while ago. And like truly two years ago. Right, and like why has it come back? And I do think on the democratic side, there is a lot, right now there is a lot of like, we know that we were outmaneuvered in terms of communicating in this new media environment. So now we're gonna try all the things that the kids tell us to try.

And the kids being their young digital staffers who, like, God bless them, they know a lot about what goes viral and the various trends on the various platforms. Like they get that. But I do think before you get your boss to do that, which I know is also a challenge, but before you get him to do that, make sure that it fits with your boss's personality and make sure that it doesn't seem like it's a,

how do you do, fellow kids type of thing, which is what you get a lot from Democrats lately. I mean, I think there's a question of whether the Democratic Party establishment proper should be in the business of stirring up memes at all. I think that's a great question. And I would probably say no.

Here's my example on this. Like which Democrat has gotten the most attention for tapping into the energy fear that's out there right now over the last month since, or two months now, however many months since Trump became president again. A hundred, fuck. Bernie Sanders, right? And what has Bernie Sanders been doing?

Just going out and doing a bunch of rallies. He's authentic. He's just talking like he's not changing anything. He is who he is. He's doing his thing. And that doesn't mean that everyone should do what Bernie Sanders is doing. Everyone should do what is comfortable to them.

If you're the type of person who would rather sit and explain what just happened in Congress today to your followers, then do that. Do it in a setting that makes you feel comfortable. If that setting is with someone else and you're having a conversation, great. If you wanna do it direct to camera, do that too. But you've got to like, it's true that the style of we're going to come out and do a press conference on the hill with a bunch of people,

like, yeah, maybe that's over and you can't do that as much anymore. But there's a space between that and like doing the latest TikTok dance. I'm not saying that everyone's doing that, that's just a stand-in. I mean, that was the choose your fighter thing. That was basically a TikTok dance. Why do you think AOC did that? She's really someone who gets the internet.

I was really surprised to see her on that. Because I think what happens when you are unelected and you are going, going, going is, and you're relying on a lot of your staff to tell you, yeah, here's what's, this is cool. Here's what people are doing. It's okay, it's fun. You just do it, right?

Because you don't have time to like think about everything. And I get that, but like, and everyone's throwing stuff at the wall to see what sticks, but I do think that there is this view that all virality is good. And it's partly because on the, we're talking about the war for attention, on the Republican side, their belief is, and Trump's belief is, negative attention

is still good attention. And I just don't think that works for us in the same way. I agree. Because they are just a burn it down party. Right, it's a movement of nihilism. And so sometimes you get, you know, oh, well, you're making fun of the choose your fighter video, but it broke through and everyone's talking about it.

And it's like, okay, great that everyone's talking about it. Great that it's viral. Is it viral in a good way? Does it help the perception of the democratic party or the people who participated in the video? If it didn't, then what was the purpose? Breaking through for the sake of breaking through, I don't see a lot of value in that. So I want to talk about both the like how the left should engage in the Meemors question,

which I think is an important one, like it or not, and also where the impulse and the like feeling of an imperative that we have to do that comes from. I think something important to remember is that the first presidential candidate or political movement really in this country that we think of as really succeeding at the Meemores was Trump 2016. And that was almost entirely passive. They really tried to brand themselves and Steve Bannon really tried to brand themselves as like, oh, we're the masters of the internet.

We understand how all this works. But when you look at subsequently reported like emails between him and Milo Yiannopoulos and like all the people on the like alt-right in 2016 who are kind of pushing this online movement to lift up Trump, like they had no idea what was happening. They were really just riding the wave and kind of like, because they were so incompetent at it,

they didn't get in front of any of the memes except to just like reshare things that were already viral. That's basically all they did and that was enormously successful. And I think the lesson there is that as soon as a party establishment engages in the meme war, you've lost. Just definitionally because it comes across as inauthentic. It makes it cringe, like allow it to surface organically, which is what happened with the JD Vance memes. I don't know who fucking, nobody knows who started that. I will also say about Trump in 2016. If you go back to the speech when he came down the escalator in

June of 2015 and you read it, he is still talking about the same shit today. What's where they started, where they did figure out a strategy is he had a message. We don't like the message, but he has a story to tell. He has a view of the world. He believes in it, or at least he has convinced himself of it, whatever it may be. And he has been consistent that that is his worldview. The whole time we've had to deal with them. Same thing with Bernie Sanders on the left. Yeah, that's true.

Same thing, Barack Obama's like that, right? Like there's just, it doesn't matter, it's ideology, partisanship aside. Know who you are, know what your view of the world is, then figure out the best way to get the message out, which is challenging in this environment. I'm not going to pretend it's not. We've talked about it a million times. But you've got to have something to say and feel confident about it before you then figure out what the best way to get it out there to people is.

And I think a lot of the imperative and pressure that people are feeling for the Democrats to like do the meme war, and it's not just like Democratic consultants who are doing it. Like I feel like if you go online, you see a constant like, why don't the Democrats push this message or that message,

or like this is the meme that they should be letting into, or they should be like co-opting the JD Vance memes. And I think that it is symptomatic of the fact that, like yes, meme wars I think can be kind of effective at pressuring the Trump administration a little bit because they do care about public perception. And it is a place where you can break through and reach a lot of people

who are not the hardcore partisans. But I think it's also symptomatic of the fact that we have very few leavers right now. There's just very little that anybody in the opposition can do to try to rein in this lawlessness and the desperation to find someone who can stop Trump, I think is making everybody a little crazy right now. And I think is making us reach for and demand things from the party that are maybe not super

helpful. But I think this is also a reminder that we do have some grassroots power here. Like doing memes to make fun of Trump and Vance, I know it does not feel like a lot of grassroots power and it's not and is definitely not where I would put all of the eggs. It's not the basket I would put everything into. But I think that is a reminder that we do have slightly more power than we think because that kind of thing can matter a little bit. Are you saying that posting matters?

I think it does. I think posting does a little better. But I think it's also like the other side of that is being real with ourselves about what the, like, Democratic Party establishment can and cannot do right now at a time when they control zero levers of power outside of state governments. That is right. And I think everyone's trying, still giving everyone a lot of leeway here because, and

it is early, you know, there's not midterm elections or a while away. So like, this is the time for everyone to experiment, fail, try something new, whatever, but just something to keep in mind. I mean, I think also like keep your expectations real for like what, and I'm saying that to both the people in the party and people outside of this party. Did you see this Bill Burr quote about Elon Musk? I don't, it really, for me, it really distilled,

I think the way that a lot of people are tripping themselves up right now and how they think about politics. He's on Fresh Air promoting, I guess he has a new Hulu special. He was talking about Elon Musk, and I want to emphasize this quote is uninterrupted. I'm not abridging anything here. He was talking about the Elon Musk, who said, I just refuse to believe it was an accidental two-time sig hail, and he does it at a presidential inauguration. This is why I hate liberals.

Liberals have no teeth whatsoever. They just go, oh my God, can you believe this? And then he talked a little bit and then he said, why are we so afraid of this guy who can't fight his way out of a wet paper bag? We're all feeling the sense of powerlessness. And I know it's very tempting to be like, if only the Democrats had a spine, they would do the right meme that would stop Elon Musk. But like, that's not gonna happen.

No, it's not gonna happen. And also, if you're complaining about that, you should do something yourself. Right? Yes. That is part of it. And it's fine to complain. We all do that. We're all pundits.

We're all part of it. But like, just realize you have agency too. I think that's the main thing I want people to come away with, that they like the dichotomy between the JD Vance meme that did, I think, really kind of worked, and I think not for nothing they've walked back on Ukraine a little bit, and the choose your fighter meme that did not work. It's like, we don't want the Democratic Party establishment doing everything. There are some things that are better to come from the grassroots. That is very true. All right. In a second, we're going to jump to my conversation with Zach Mack, but before we do some quick housekeeping, we got a new crooked podcast. It's called Shadow Kingdom, God's Banker. Here's the quick and dirty on it. In the summer of 1982, the Vatican's top money man was found dead. Roberto Calvi was at the center of a prolific money laundering scheme that put him in the crosshairs of the Sicilian mafia, a secret far right chapter of the Freemasons and the Catholic Church.

And then 40 years after his death was ruled a suicide. There's an investigation into what really happened and who killed God's banker that you're going to have to listen to find out. Check out the trailer for Shadow Kingdom God's Banker right now wherever you get your podcasts and subscribe for episodes starting March 17th or better yet, join our friends at the pod community to binge all the episodes that same day at crooked.com slash friends or on the Shadow Kingdom Apple podcast feed. After the break, Zach Mack on conspiracy theories and his father's $10,000 bet.

Offline is brought to you by NetSuite. What does the future hold for business? Ask nine experts, you'll get 10 answers. Rates will rise or fall, inflation's up or down. Can someone please invent a crystal ball? Time will tell. That's a magic eight ball. That's a magic eight ball. Until then, over 38,000 businesses have future-proofed their business with NetSuite by Oracle, the

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and seize your biggest opportunities. Speaking of opportunity, download the CFO's guide to AI and machine learning at netsuite.com slash offline. The guide is free to you at netsuite.com slash offline. Netsuite.com slash offline. Zach Mack, welcome to Offline. Hey, thanks for having me, Jon. So we've done a few episodes on conspiracy theories.

Your story is different and personal. You have a series called Alternate Realities on NPR's embedded podcast that's about a $10,000 bet that you made with your dad. What was the bet? The bet was, so my father has just been getting increasingly into conspiracies over the years. A year ago, I tried to confront him about it. I work in media. I said, hey, I work in media.

I know where this is going. You're being radicalized. Let me help you out. He didn't agree, so he challenged me to a bet for $10,000 that 10 predictions of his would happen by the end of the year. And it was all very politically apocalyptic predictions. Our country would come under martial law, that an electromagnetic pulse device would wipe out all digital communication across the US that Obama and Pelosi and Biden and all these top Democrats would be rounded up and convicted

of treason and Trump would be reinstated without an election. It was just all this sort of right-wing fantasy. Of course, at the end of the year, none of it came true. And he was 0 for 10 on his bet. What I'm curious to know what your initial conversation with your dad was like before you started recording your phone calls and check-ins, which become the basis for the series for people who haven't listened, like where you asked him to participate in this project. Also, you talk to your mother, you talk to your sister, because this has been a sort of a people haven't heard it yet.

It's become a family issue. So how did those conversations go? Yeah. I mean, these conversations have been happening kind of slowly over several years, right? It's like, he's talking about conspiracies all the time. We're getting into it and having circular arguments that just aren't going anywhere.

They're not working. He's not listening. I'm not listening. And we're just kind of feuding. And really, two years ago, my sister came out to my father. My father's deeply religious. He's very Christian. But my mom, my sister and I are not.

My mom's like a left wing liberal Jewish woman. We live in the Bay Area. We grew up in the Bay Area. So it's very left wing. My father's very much an odd man out in a lot of circles, including our close family dynamic. And when my sister came out to him, that didn't go particularly well.

And that was like a real fissure in the family. And so we've sort of been dealing with that the last two years. And then a year ago, the conspiracy stuff had just really ramped up. And that's when he challenged me to the bet. In the moment he challenged me to the bet, I was like, well, this is obviously a podcast. Like I just knew, you know, it's like, I do this for a living. I just, I had had all the things.

It's nothing else. Exactly. It had all the things like there were stakes, there were character, he gave me a deadline and you know, it was just all these things. And I said to him, as soon as he proposed it, I was like, hey, do you mind if I interview you? Before I even talked to him about the bet,

because first he just sent it to me, he sent like a photo of his predictions. And I said, hey, can we talk about this, but I want to interview you and maybe I'll do something with it. And he was like, absolutely, that's a great idea. He was really into it. He was, I mean, he thought he was going to be right.

So, you know, to be fair. But he was very into it and supportive of the idea the whole way. And I think my mom and sister were also involved and supportive because I think they just felt like we had tried everything else. We had tried to talk to him every other way. So this sort of felt like a Hail Mary pass

at the end of the game, you know? It was like one last, you know, weird attempt to get through to him. So there's a lot of different theories on why people end up gravitating towards conspiracies, media diet, social connections, or lack thereof, mental health, personality, you know, upbringing. Why do you think your dad gravitated toward conspiracies? And what do you think made it, kicked it up a notch over the last year or two? I think my father has some clear disadvantages and why he is predisposed to conspiracies being appealing to him. I think one, he is,

he really struggles to navigate the internet. You know, tech and all that is a very foreign concept to him. He doesn't follow the news particularly closely. He's deeply religious. I also think when you are deeply religious, you're sort of trained to take a lot on faith and what you feel is true. His father was an anti-vaxxer. He was a chiropractor and very embittered towards the medical institutions. So my father sort of grew up pretty anti-institution, especially medical institutions and anti-vaxx as well. So like that all plays into it.

And I also just think he's a little bit of a contrarian with an ego. And he lives in the Bay Area surrounded by people he disagrees with. And I think he's sort of carved out that space for himself a little bit. So there's a lot of reasons why I think it appeals to him. And then there's a lot of reasons why it appeals to different people. And I think everyone has a little bit of a different entry point. Yes. I mean, you talk about how he consumed a lot of content by a woman named Julie Green. Yeah.

Tell me a little bit more about her and the relationship between conspiracy theorists and their sources. Yeah. So, my father, at some point during the pandemic, came to believe in the idea of that God still speaks through intermediaries. God still speaks through prophets. And so, he went looking for prophets and he stumbled upon this woman named Julie Green. And I think she's someone who appealed to him because she, like him, she's from the Midwest and she's sort of, she's not like really theatrical and big. She's a little more toned down and he just started watching her and she is just pumping out all these like big predictions and conspiracies and saying God is speaking directly through her.

And of course, she's wrong all the time. All the time. She's wrong on these predictions. I think in 2022, she said, you know, Pelosi and Chuck Schumer were going to die that year. She said, you know, King Charles would, before he was king, was never going to get to be king and that he would also kill the queen and she's just, she's wrong on time. But for some reason she appealed to him and he started watching her videos, but she's kind of part of this larger movement of online prophets. You see like these very on the religious right.

There's a lot of them. And at some point my father made a separate bet with my mother and lost that. And once he lost that, the deal was he couldn't watch Julie Green anymore. And what we realized is like, it didn't really matter. Like it wasn't about Julie Green at all. He just moved on to the next online prophet. And there's other ones that he now prefers more than her. So, but it's part of this whole like world.

And yeah, it gets pretty nuts. I know you talk to a lot of experts who study conspiracy theories. Was there anything you learned that surprised you or helped your relationship with your dad? Yeah, I think because of my media background, because of the work that I do, I always came into it thinking,

oh, you just don't have the right information. Like, let me just get you the right information, here you go, and you'll be on your way. Like, you just clearly read the wrong thing and we're good. That's just, that's like so far from the truth. That's not what's going to, that's not what's going to help him. And I think the more I realized it wasn't about fighting falsehoods with facts or fighting at all.

And it was more about being empathetic, being curious, really trying to understand why these ideas were appealing to him and how he got here. And so just taking like a much slower, more curious route was definitely a way where I was able to connect to him and understand him. Ultimately, I wasn't able to change his mind. So I can't say like, oh, here's the formula for how to pull someone out of the rabbit hole. But I still feel like I'm chipping away at him. Even though, you know, our bed is over, I still think I'm chipping

away at it. But it's, it's what basically every expert told me is that it's really, really difficult to pull someone out of the rabbit hole once they go down it. And if they don't want to come out, they're not going to. Your point about empathy, I've heard before and thought a lot about. What did you learn when you tried to see things from your dad's perspective and try to figure out and talk to him about why these ideas are appealing to him? Yeah, I think conspiracies in a lot of ways, people just want to feel like the world is really scary and unpredictable right now, right? It's really scary and

all of us want something that feels like a sure thing. We want to be assured in some way. And I think in some ways conspiracies can do that, even though a lot of them are like really scary. There's sort of that knowledge that is very, there's something very comforting about them. So I started to understand that. I started to understand why these ideas could just be helpful, especially when you felt a little bit like an outcast maybe in your family or community. They can be a way of elevating your status, right?

If you're a little bit of an outcast, well now suddenly you sort of have access to privileged information. You know something that those other idiots don't know, so you can feel a little better about yourself. There's just so many reasons why these things are appealing, but yeah, I think what I learned in talking to my dad, I think there's just times where he feels really alone. I think there's probably, you know, when we were talking, he had just turned the same age that his father was when his father passed away and his father passed away very tragically.

So you know, I think he was sort of grappling with some death anxiety. That was something a clinician pointed out to me was like, I think your father's definitely wrestling with, you know, death anxiety. And he was like, well, how old is he? How old was his father when he died? And I realized, oh my God, they're the same age, you know? But yeah, the empathy route, it helped me connect with him. It, ultimately I didn't change his mind, but I do think I'm sort of paving the road to eventually reach him. Maybe, we'll see. But... The one part stuck out at me is, I think you asked him why he wanted to do the bet and why he proposed it. And he said to you that in part, he wanted you to believe that God was still in control of the world.

And that made me, you were just talking about this, but it made me think of, you know, conspiracies are a way to explain the inexplicable and give us a sense of order in a pretty disordered world. And I did, when I heard him say that about like God is in control, I'm like, oh, that could be at the root of this. Totally. And I think it's at the root of religion in a lot of ways, right? It just sort of explains it, snaps everything into place and gives it all a purpose and a reason. And it's telling you everything is gonna be okay.

So yeah, I do think that that probably plays into it for him, for sure. At one point, your dad makes the argument that you and the rest of your family are the intolerant ones because he's fine with your views, but you're the ones who aren't fine with his. What was your initial reaction to that when you heard that? You know, that's one that kind of stumps me to this day,

because he's not wrong, right? He's not wrong. I do think we are being intolerant of his views. Now it's clear that many of his views are incorrect, like, and we can factually prove that, right? But we are being intolerant of it. I think he is also not realizing the effect that he's causing on his marriage, you know? The fact that my mom feels like she lives in a house with a person she can't share reality with

and she can't trust, especially with financial decisions because he's proven, you know, that he can go off and make big financial purchases without consulting her that correlate to a lot of these conspiracy theories. And then, you know, meanwhile, my sister feels rejected by him because of her sexuality. So I don't think he's necessarily being as tolerant as he thinks he's being, but I do understand. Like, I think everyone has a threshold for their tolerance and what they're willing to

put up with. You know, I still love my father very much and we will continue to have a relationship, but there's only so close we can be when he's just, when we are not sharing a reality. Yeah, that did, it opened something up for me about conspiracies when he said that, because I was like, well, when you think about the conspiracies on the list, right, he probably thinks he's not doing any harm to you by guessing that Barack Obama and Joe Biden

are going to be arrested and convicted of treason, right? Like, that's a guess. It doesn't seem like it's going to harm anyone. No, of course, that goes down a path. And then when he was talking about your sister, too, and you said, well, she doesn well, she feels rejected by you. He said, I love your sister. I love her dearly.

And I would never, and it was just, it's a, it makes me think about like folks on the right who've gone down these rabbit holes or even some who haven't gone down the rabbit holes that far. And they really do seem to think that we're the intolerant ones and that they're not wishing anyone harm,

even though they have these views that we think are harmful, if not just having them, but like carried out to their logical conclusion. Yeah, and also if given the opportunity, I'm sure my father would like vote a lot of rights away from my sister and things like that, right? So it is harmful. There is action attached to these beliefs sometimes and you know, sometimes not as directly but yeah

He doesn't sound like the kind of guy that would like go storm the Capitol No, no, but but but the kind of guy who would say, oh, of course the election was stolen Exactly, and he believes the election was guy who would say, oh, of course the election was stolen. Exactly. And he believes the election was stolen. And he believes, you know, both Obama and Biden are illegitimate presidents for whatever reason. You know, yeah. At this point, are you still attempting to convince your dad of anything?

What's the relationship like now? So, he, since the show's come out, he's heard it. He's actually not upset. He was like, oh, I thought it was well done. He knew it was going to be a difficult listen, but he expected that. And he's been like a great support, like a great support about it, very supportive.

You know, we've checked in a number of times and he did challenge me to another bet. No way. Really? He challenged me to another bet, which it was very similar. It's $10,000, another new crop of 10 predictions. And the only reason I took it, because I don't want to take advantage and I don't want to keep making podcasts about my family. This was incredibly, emotionally difficult for me to make. But I wanted to do it again because I said to him, okay, I'll take this bet.

But at the end, when you've lost again, then I get to control your media diet. Like I get to eliminate stuff that you're watching and I'll give you like a big list of pre-approved things that you can you can check out and we can talk about things and I'll just be a little more in charge of your media diet and my reasoning for that was like well at that point if you have lost 20 straight predictions in a row it would be pretty clear that you're on the wrong track and maybe maybe I know what I'm

talking about and he was like yeah, that seems reasonable to me. So that is our bet. What are some of the good... What are some of your favorite new conspiracies that are part of the bet? You know, so last year was all, you know, like a political upheaval. And this year, because Trump is in office, it's all predictions like this and this will all come out. The truth will really come out about the JFK murder,

Fauci's involvement, and COVID, and that Barack Obama and Joe Biden are illegitimate presidents. And it's all this, like, these revelations will come out, and so much so that he's like, you will believe it, Zach. You will believe it. And I was like, okay, I'm not gonna believe it unless, you know, one of these like 18 news sources confirms it.

And I sent him a list and I was like, it really has to be confirmed by one of these news sources for me to even entertain it as true. Do you feel like you're making some... You said you thought you might be chipping away at this. Do you feel like you're making some progress just in talking about the new bet? I hope so. I'm not, I think last year I really set out to change his mind. I was really hopeful I could change his mind and pull him away from these conspiracies.

At the end of the year when that didn't happen, I just came to accept where he's at and I understand that this is largely up to him. I'll do what I can, but I don't, I'm not carrying it the same way that I did last year. But I will say that I knew the story was important to tell anyways because my story is not unique. This is just happening all over the country in thousands and thousands of households and in the two weeks since the story has come out, you know, I've gotten like 500 plus emails and DMs, all from people who are going,

I'm going through the exact same thing. Like, my story is the exact same as yours. My father and my mother believe the exact same things. And it's overwhelming to see how many people are wrestling with the same thing. Has your story and your father's story taught you anything about the wider effort out there to fight conspiracies right now? You know, I wish there was a more organized effort and unified effort.

Everything feels so fractured and it doesn't feel like there is a clear consensus on how to get someone out of the rabbit hole and in the clinicians and psychologists and experts and people I spoke to. There are things that are helpful and kind of work, but there's no magic bullet and that's upsetting. And we're in this weird moment right now where there's just like a war on truth. I mean, you see what's happening. It feels like the truth is more up for grabs than it's ever been.

And I just think that's a really tough spot for people to navigate. Even you or I, I mean, there's a moment in the podcast where I misquote something, where I get something wrong. And I wanted to put that in because it's like, we can be wrong too. It's not that I have all the answers. It's not that we're always right.

There is just so much garbage and misinformation out there and not a lot of accountability. Yeah, and I do think I've come to believe that the fact checking, while while important and it's good to have the truth out there, someone should have the truth out there, that is not the answer to persuading people and that it is much more down the path of as difficult as it may be. And it was very difficult for you.

Just I could tell just hearing the series, empathy is the route to at least try to put yourself in the other person's shoes and see where they're coming from. And that's much harder than fact checking them. It's really hard. It's really hard to be patient. And you hear some people and they just say something and it just seems so outlandish and over the top. And it's hard to have patience for that. But ultimately, these are our family members. These are our friends. These are our colleagues. These are the people we have to share a neighborhood, a country with.

And we have to figure it out. And I just don't think that's going gonna happen yelling and screaming at each other. It's gonna happen hopefully through more empathy and productive conversations. Yeah. Zach, I'm glad you did the series. I know it was difficult for you but it was a it's an excellent series. Everyone should go listen and thanks for joining offline. Thanks for chatting. Thanks so much John. I appreciate it. Take care. Frank. Jordan Cantor is our sound editor. Audio support from Charlotte Landis and Kyle Segland. Delon Villanueva produces our videos each week. Jordan Katz and Kenny Siegel take care of our music. Thanks to Ari Schwartz, Madeleine Herringer, and Adrienne Hill for production support.

Our production staff is proudly unionized with the Writers Guild of America East. Thank you.