Tangle - PREVIEW - The Sunday Podcast: Isaac and Ari talk raw milk, Israel-Hamas ceasefire, and purity tests.

Episode Date: January 19, 2025

Please enjoy this preview episode of our Sunday podcast. The full editions are available exclusively for premium podcast members. To become a member, please go to tanglemedia.supercast.com and sign up. In this episode, Isaac and Ari talk about the feedback from Isaac's raw milk discovery, political purity tests, The Israel-Hamas ceasefire agreement, Medicare, SCOTUS, and Trump's cabinet. They also play a trivia game inspired by The Week. And last but not least, the Airing of Grievances.You can subscribe to Tangle by clicking here or drop something in our tip jar by clicking here. Our podcast is written by Isaac Saul and edited and engineered by Jon Lall. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet 75. Our newsletter is edited by Managing Editor Ari Weitzman, Will Kaback, Bailey Saul, Sean Brady, and produced in conjunction with Tangle’s social media manager Magdalena Bokowa, who also created our logo. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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11pm eastern. Research and supply. See full terms at canada.casino.fando.com. Please play responsibly. Coming up, we talk more raw milk and Amish people, obviously, the Washington commanders, the split between liberals and conservatives and how they perform their purity tests and update on the Gaza, Israel, Hamas ceasefire deal that's probably expired by the time you're listening to this, and a very good performance on the Week magazine's quiz from Ari and I, it's a good one. ["Tangle"] From executive producer, Isaac Saul, this is Tangle.

["Tangle"] Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening. And welcome to the Tangle podcast, a place we get views from across the political spectrum, some independent thinking and a little bit of my take. I'm your host, Isaac Saul. I'm here with Tangle managing editor, Ari Weitzman. And I don't know about you, Ari. I was inundated with emails about raw milk and the Amish over the last week.

Swimming in raw milk. Swimming in raw milk since our last podcast. Turns out we have a lot of very smart readers. Let's see, microbiologists and dieticians and people of all sorts of trades who understand the chemistry of the body. I know my job is literally to make complicated topics concise and clear. I would say my takeaway from the responses I got to last week's podcast where I ranted about drinking raw milk despite being lactose intolerant and finding out that it didn't bother me is that there's such a thing as A1 and A2 cows and they're different and the proteins they have in their milk are different. And it's probably more about that than the pasteurization.

Seemed like a lot of people felt that way. Yep. I got the same emails that there's an A1 protein and A2 protein. And most of the cows that we get our milk from have the A2 protein. And that's where a lot of people get lactose intolerant from, but it's not actually the lactose they're intolerant to, it's the protein. Right. And then I also got emails from some people saying that the pasteurization in milk might be killing certain kinds of enzymes or proteins that are helpful for your body to digest the milk regardless of what the cow is, which was also fascinating. I do not understand any of this stuff. And then- Sounds like you understand it a little bit.

Yeah, a couple of people, including my mom, who emailed me an article to the New York Times about why raw milk is dangerous and telling me stop drinking raw milk. I have a good Jewish mother who's still listening to all my podcasts and reading the newsletters and looking out for my health. I'm not giving health advice by saying drink raw milk, though I felt incredible for the week I was drinking it, mostly because I've never really had the experience of

just sitting down and drinking a glass of milk and being okay. It seems like such an American thing to do, just a nice big fat glass of cold milk. That felt really good. It made me feel like I was stronger than I was somehow, just the act of doing that. Do you think you'll do some science with this now? Try to get some A2A2 cows and get milk from them, some pasteurized, some not pasteurized, see what's going on, eat some cheese, just full blocks and test this lactose first protein theory? I'm interested and I'm open to destroying my stomach for the sake of a good two minute segment on the podcast. Time-wise, I don't know if I really have time for that, but yeah, I'll put that on my like maybe my 2024

goals, things I want to tackle or do. Also turns out that I guess our conversation and our little back and forth was indicative of broader views about the Amish, which is that they're a bit controversial because I got some emails from people, including I'll say a police officer who works in an area where there is a large Amish population and also as a Tangle reader who shared some disconcerting perspectives about some of the things he's observed in the Amish community. I'm not going to repeat them here simply because they're unverified, not because I don't trust him. I do. I think it's probably real and what he's saying is probably true. But yeah, he wasn't the only one. A couple other people wrote in and you had this immediate gut reaction of, I don't know,

you seem very skeptical of the Amish. But yeah, it was, I got a lot of notes about the Amish raw milk intersection last week. Not a single person emailed me to talk about the Washington commanders winning their first playoff game in 20 years on Sunday. I guess that didn't matter to any of you. My happiness means nothing, but the Amish and Rolmholtz got people going. The curiosity means everything. Not a whole lot of people are curious about the Washington commanders. We know who they are. They're just going to do wild stuff for three and a half quarters or mess around for three and a half quarters and do wild stuff for seven minutes. We expect it, but the A1, A2, A2 proteins and the Amish, it's stuff that we don't see in the news as

much. So that's probably why people are curious. Congrats on your team's win, I guess. That's what you want to hear. Yeah, that's fair. I mean, the commander's winning means so, so, so much more to me than anything that has to do with raw milk or the Amish. I guess that's really why my feelings were hurt is just I've been living in the misery of rooting desperately and loyally for a terrible football team for my entire life and now we're good. And so I want opportunities to talk about that. Can I put forward an olive branch here between the two of us on something that I don't think we're opposed on, but maybe a little bit?

I'm ready. I'm a Steelers fan. We met during a year when I was doing some postgraduate study at Pitt, which I didn't finish because I'm really good at not finishing grad programs. But my father's a huge Penn State fan. I was brought up in a big Penn State household. I'm a Penn State football fan. I have been for life. I've gone to dozens of games since the time I was small. And you're a Pitt guy. It's loyal to that, to that program. Commander's fan, Steelers fan. I think we can commiserate a little bit in the college

and pro feelings with you as a commander's fan since you were born. All you've known is bad ownership and teams that showed promise and flamed out and then reached new lows. As a Penn State fan it hasn't been the exact same arc. When I started watching like the first season I remember was 94 and Penn State went undefeated and then weren't awarded the national championship because it was before playoffs. And ever since I've known teams that have underperformed scandals, tarnishings of the program, and it's been rough.

And I think maybe we can not go at each other over these things. Would be nice. I appreciate the commiseration and the olive branch. I just want to be clear though, Penn State's football program over the last 20 years has been so much better than the Washington commander's football program. That's true. To your standards of what Penn State is historically, you probably feel like the last 20 years have been horrific and you have the scandals which were admittedly horrifying and terrible.

Uh, but we are the only team in the NFL that didn't win 11 games between 1991 and 2024. I mean, we are statistically like the worst football team in the NFL in the last 30 years. So, um, I was maybe a little more desperate than you were, I guess, coming in to say this season, but I do appreciate that. That's good. We'll be right back after this quick commercial break. New year, new me. Season is here and honestly, we're already over it.

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way more interested in the Amish and A1, A2. I have a couple of things I want to talk about at the top. There's a lot going on in the world right now. We're going to talk about the ceasefire deal that maybe is going to happen. We're recording this on Thursday afternoon. Last night, it seemed sure thing slam dunk. This morning, it seemed very much on the rocks. The moment we sent our newsletter out and published our podcast this morning, it seemed very much on the rocks. The moment we sent our newsletter out and published our podcast this morning, news broke that they're scheduling a vote

for tomorrow, Friday. By the time you guys listen to this, we'll have some answers to whether this phase one is being started. We're going to talk a bit about that and there's a lot of important stuff there. I guess what I'm about to say is not like a new theory, but it's just this stark dynamic that I'm observing recently with liberals and conservatives and being in a unique position, I guess, in publishing Tangle, where we have a pretty diverse readership politically. I hear every day how different parts of the newsletter lands with different parts of America's political tribes. I've started to notice something that first I think was kind of a pattern and now is just in my mind almost a rule that this is how people are acting or how people on different sides of the political divide are behaving with each other and toward me. What I've noticed, and again,

this is not, I'm not saying this is like some totally original thought because other people have said it before, but I have two examples of it that I think are really strong, is that liberals at this point, people who are passionately liberal, I'm not talking about just your center left moderates, but liberals are basically just purity testing in every direction. And the feedback trend that I find with them to the things that I write or say is that if I agree with them about 85% of an issue and I disagree on 15% of an issue, that's not good enough for us to be aligned or on the same side of something. aligned or on the same side of something. The purity test framework, I think, is the best way to describe it, but it manifests itself in ways that are so obviously unhelpful from my perspective

for liberals who are trying to build political coalitions. As a person publishing this podcast and this newsletter, I just see it when the way people respond to me and the stuff they write in, it's as if I almost hear, I almost get more voracious and annoyed disagreement when I'm not outright on the other side of an issue from them, but when I'm halfway to where they want me to be, but not all the way there. The language policing stuff is a big part of that too. The example that came to mind that happened for me recently was Elon Musk was, and I'm

trying really hard not to talk about Elon Musk because I know I've been doing that a lot recently, but he was just tweeting about this statistic about, not even a statistic, he was just making a broad claim that all homeless people are violent drug addicted criminals basically. I sub tweeted him, quoted him and said that actually a lot of homeless people are children or employed and don't have housing or military veterans and that just framing them in very simple terms is violent drug addicts is not a very productive thing. One of my followers who's progressive based on looking at their profile and the slogans and the flags and

how they replied to me basically said, they're unhoused, they're not homeless people, and your language is demonizing or discriminatory. And it's like, I am, I am making the case to humanize homeless people. And you're upset that I'm not using a term that literally, I, I, I, like, I've never heard a person use the term unhoused in real life, ever, like in an actual conversation. And I've interviewed people who work at shelters. I've interviewed people who are battling addiction and homelessness in Philadelphia where I live and the epidemic of harrowing use and fentanyl. I've done feature length stories on organizations that are providing housing and jobs

to people who just got out of prison. I've never heard anybody, it's like the most activist language as far on the activist left spectrum language. But because I didn't use that, it's they're not interested in the critique I'm leveling at Elon Musk and the fact that we're on the same side of the issue.

They're just mad that I didn't say it the way they want me to say it. And that's sort of this thing that's just a constant now on the left. And I think they're realizing it's hurting them. I'm hearing from the top down, I'm seeing more democratic politicians and pundits and people sort of saying we need to change the way that we approach these issues and be a big tent political organization again. But on the ground, the boots on the ground activists, the people who are the foot soldiers, the quote unquote mob, whatever you want to call them, they are still living in that paradigm. And I get it in my inbox too. I get it in response to Tangle all the time. And that's just a rule for me now. And then the conservative side of this,

which is really interesting, is that I am literally not allowed to criticize somebody who is a conservative and also be somebody who is not biased against conservatives. If I say something critical about a Republican or conservative figurehead, I am immediately and forever tagged and tarnished as a liberal hack who hates Donald Trump and hates Republicans. It doesn't matter how many nice things I say about Trump or whatever policies of his I support or assuming the best intentions of certain things the Republican Party might be doing that I disagree with. It doesn't matter how fair or even handed I try to be. The moment that I am critical of them, it is like DEFCON 1, it's over, you're done,

you've got the scarlet letter of media bias, whatever. And the example of that that just came up this week is the Pete Hegseth nomination, which if I can't criticize, if I can't say that Pete Hegseth is not qualified to be the Secretary of Defense with an argument that literally every organization he's ever worked at, there has been some controversy where he has sexually harassed someone or been accused of it or gotten drunk in public or been accused of it or mismanaged the money or been accused of it or just been a terrible leader with a bunch of people who work for him signing letters saying that he should not lead a giant

three million person civilian and military infrastructure. The guy has not had an organization larger than 100 people. He's been a Fox News commentator for 11 years. He's clearly not an independent political actor. He's a mouthpiece for the president. And he's not even that qualified from the military battlefield perspective, which we talked about in the newsletter, which is not necessary, but is the entire campaign that he's built his case for being Secretary of Defense on. And I say that and it's like, our inbox is just, we had a funny one, somebody saying I'd committed treason by writing this today. But truly, getting emails from people saying, I am unsubscribing, you showed your true colors today,

it's clear that you're a Trump hater or whatever. And I have written about almost all the nominees that Trump has nominated. And I approve of about half of them. And I disapprove of about the other half. And three of them I really strongly disapprove of of and I think they're really bad nominees. Pete Hegseth included, Matt Gaetz was another one who got withdrawn, thankfully. And I don't know how to operate in a world where you can't be critical. And they're both kind of purity tests in a sense, but it's the dynamic that I observe now is

if I agree with conservatives on 85% of something and 15% of it, we don't agree, their open arms come join us. If I agree on 10% of stuff with them, it's like you're getting love bombed to come join the MAGA movement. What you can't do is be critical of any well-liked figureheads in that movement. It's this idolatry of Trump and all the people he picks. And then, you know, with liberals, it's, oh, you can criticize any Democrat. You can hammer Biden, trash Nancy Pelosi as corrupt, and not lose any of the support of these liberals. But if you don't agree with him or don't say something the way that they want you to say it about a policy issue, it's over.

And it is infuriating to be the person in my position living in that reality. And it strikes me that there's sort're similar but opposite dynamics. I wrote it out when it occurred to me with such clarity and it felt like something worth talking about on the podcast. A podcast that we will dedicate to Mark Twain who said, loyalty to your country always and loyalty to your government when it deserves it,

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or make larger statements about larger spectrums of movements or sides of a debate based off of the loudest people who are speaking and it's almost impossible to gauge opinions about factions of people that aren't making their opinions known. It's really hard. How do you do that unless you go solicit and ask? Which we do but it takes a longer time to process and synthesize those opinions. We get the most immediate feedback from the people who are most willing to give it. So there's a little bit of that at play. I think there's a little bit at play also of our readership's kind of changing at scale

where we have a mission where we want to be able to give coverage of political events with analysis that's balanced across the spectrum in a way that everybody can trust no matter your political orientation. We believe in that mission as it starts to succeed a little bit more. We get bigger and bigger tents. So as we're actually giving coverage to people from all across the spectrum, we're growing and we're hearing those sides more. They're being elevated a little bit more. That's something that we've gotten a little bit of feedback from long time Tango readers and commenters about is feeling like the tenor is changing a little bit sometimes in the comments.

I have a theory about this that is not just that, but also that we're in a bit of a different environment when we have the most polarizing politician I can remember in my lifetime who is transitioning from being a campaigner to being a political leader. It's easy for people to talk about Trump when he's a campaigner and we're just throwing different ideas of what he might do or what he might think based on what he said against the wall in a hypothetical world and what he's running.

But now that he's becoming the president and these words are going to turn into policies that affect everybody, it's really hard for that polarization not to leak into the way that people express themselves. So I think that's part of it. I have specific responses I think would be interesting to talk about to your two examples, but I want to hear what you think about that large response first. Yeah. I mean, the Trump effect is obviously real in terms of the, there's been a genuine degradation

of just the discourse since 2016. I have mixed feelings about that part of it, to be honest with you, because it's sort of... I didn't feel any better when politicians were just beating around the bush about how they actually felt or using euphemisms to say really ugly things in kind of discrete ways. That didn't make me feel better about, you know, in a lot of ways, I guess what I'm saying is, I appreciate Trump's bluntness and just the approach that he takes. Even if I do think he's degraded the political discourse in a way that's unhelpful. I'm also conscious of the fact that a lot of people are just showing their true colors now because he's given them permission to

versus what we had before, which was people just basically being fake all the time, from the political class, I mean. So yeah, I guess I have mixed feelings about that. The point about the loudest voices is a really good point. I will say another thing that I observe is in podcasts like this or in the newsletter, if I make reference to some kind of criticism that we got that I've been thinking of. The typical thing that happens is we get inundated with all these emails from people who are like, hey, I didn't reply to your newsletter, but I loved what you wrote and just want to give you a show of support, whatever. And those often outnumber the really critical

responses, which is cool. I mean, I think it's a credit to our work that a lot of the times that is the case. I also think it's just the social dynamic that we live in where people tend to respond in the comments or write an email more often when they're pissed off than when they read something where they're like, wow, that was really good. I really appreciated that. So for those of you who are consumers out there, and I'm saying this not just for my sake, but just generally to spread some good in the world, make a habit out of that. I mean, you see a writer who publishes something that you really like, understand that it's

more often the case that people in my position who are publishing their thoughts for the public get emails from people who are pissed off or upset about something than from people who really enjoyed something they wrote. Even if there's a 10 to 1 ratio that every, for every 10 people who read it and loved it, there's one person who hated it. Even if that's the case, the feedback loop is not designed that way and we aren't designed that way. And then of course, on top of that, our brains hang on to the critical feedback more than anything else. So that is a real effect. So I am certainly referencing and building a framework for and talking about the people who are motivated to respond and maybe should broad brush all liberals and conservatives that way. Maybe just the emotional.

Hey everybody, this is John, executive producer of YouTube and podcast content and co-host of The Daily Podcast. I hope you enjoyed this preview of our Sunday podcast with Ari and Isaac. We are now offering this podcast exclusively to our premium podcast members, along with our ad-free Daily Podcast, Friday editions, in-depth interviews, upcoming new podcast series, bonus content, and much more. If you want to receive all that and give your support to help us grow Tangle Media, please head over to tanglemedia.supercast.com and sign up for a membership. If it's not the right time for you to sign up, please don't worry.

Our ad supported daily podcast isn't going anywhere. But if it is in your ability to support by signing up for a membership, we would greatly appreciate it. And we're really excited to share all of our premium offerings with you. For Isaac and the rest of the crew, this is John Law signing off. Have a great day, y'all. Peace. Our podcast is written by me, Isaac Saul, and edited and engineered by John Law. The script is edited by our managing editor, Ari Weitzman, Will Kabak, Bailey Saul, and Sean Brady.

The logo for our podcast was designed by Magdalena Bokova, who is also our social media manager. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet 75. And if you're looking for more from Tangle, please go to reettangle.com and check out our website. The Be the first to know what's going on and what that means for you and for Canada. This situation has changed very quickly. Helping make sense of the world when it matters most. Stay in the know. Download the free CBC News app or visit cbcnews.ca.

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