The Bulwark Podcast - BONUS EPISODE from Tim's New "FYPod"

Episode Date: March 2, 2025

Tim has a new Gen Z podcast, co-hosted by Cameron Kasky. The most recent episode is called "Nazi Parties Aren't Ragers," and features guest Joshua Rush, a former Disney Channel star turned political operative. Covid-19 locked up Gen Z during their formative years, and the GOP offered them a party. Sure, there’s some Nazism mixed in with the drinks, but during a loneliness pandemic, you take what highs you can get. Tim and Cam discuss how Covid helped push Gen Z right. Plus, Joshua Rush defends the activist tactics of Gen Z and explains how— in the face of nonstop nihilism—he still has optimism for the future of America. Joshua Rush joins Tim Miller and Cameron Kasky. show notes FYPod page

Hey guys, I launched FY pod with my buddy, Cameron Caskey, who was a Parkland survivor and started March for our lives. And I did so because we wanted to talk to Gen Z influencers, Gen Z activists, people from across the ideological spectrum in Gen Z to get a sense for, you know, why these guys, particularly guys, let's be honest, trended more towards Trump than us earnest, westling millennials, understand what is happening culturally,

understanding what's happening with them on their phones and with their anxiety. And I'm super excited to do it with them, playing the, I was about to say the dad, but could I be cool older brother? Probably not, there's pretty big cool older brother? Probably not. There's a pretty big gap between us age-wise. Anyway, I'm doing the best that I can try to learn from the kids.

We have a huge array of guests. They're going to be coming. I'm excited about some of the folks we have coming up. This week, the episode you're about to hear was episode two with Joshua Rush, who was a Disney star that then quit Disney and became a political activist, political campaign professional. Now he's working in Texas. So he has more of a positive view on things than me and Cameron, who are pretty jaded. So I just wanted to give you guys a taste of it. You can go to subscribe to the feed, go to FY pod on your

podcast player of choice. We'll be having, I think next week's guest is gonna be pretty fun and we've got some good ones coming down the pike. So, would appreciate it if you subscribe to the feed, give us five stars, hope you enjoy it. Up next, FY pod with Cameron Caskey and Joshua Rush. I'm Cameron Caskey. I'm Tim Miller.

And this is FYPod. You are listening to the second episode of the record breaking and historic look we're taking into Generation Z. And you know, we're asking a lot of questions about why we're all acting so crazy. We're exploring the idea that maybe we're called Gen Z because Z is the last one and it might be over gang. So it looks like it's over, man. I mean, we last time we spoke, you and I, Tim, one of the president's puppet masters had done a sig-hile in front of everybody. And then the president's puppet master said, no, no, no, no, no, one is not enough.

Steve Bannon's got to go up and do the sick aisle as well. So now we're two sig-hiles into this presidency and probably more to come. We'll just see if the orange guy decides he wants to do it as well. It's a Roman salute, Cameron. The sig heil is a nice transition into the topic I want to pick your brain on today. And it is the Germans. Do you have any thoughts on bratwurst now? It's not just about the Germans, but the Germans had an election. And they, you know, things went, I guess, better than

they could have. You know, the Nazi party only got 20% of the vote and they finished in second place, which, you know, wasn't the worst case scenario, which is we can take our wins where we get them these days. But I was interested in this thread by a friend Rachel Janfaza, who's a good follow for folks if they want to. Her sub stack's also pretty good. And she does like a little thread here on the German youth and, you know, blah, blah, blah. The voter participation was higher.

Great job, Germans. Hell yeah, gang. 71%. That's what I like to hear. Nice job, Germans. Hell yeah, gang. 71%. That's what I like to hear. Nice job, German youth. On the other hand, a lot of them were moving to the right-wing parties, including AFD. And she posited that COVID was a big reason for a lot of us. And a lot of the young Germans were not thrilled about the lockdowns and the distance learning and the social isolation. And my boy, Derek Thompson, wrote about a similar thing for the Atlantic earlier this week. So I just kind of wanted

to start with that German election and see if you can shed any light for me on why these loners are turning to Nazism. I think that a lot of right-wing values, especially where the right has turned these days, they require isolation. The Republican Party wants everybody to be further away from each other. They act like, oh, we're going to stop lockdown. We're going to start the frat parties again so everybody can get COVID and have herd immunity, but they want you to be isolated.

You move farther to the right when you're isolated because you are less likely to believe in the power of what happens when people come together to support each other when you're on your own. And you know, it brings to mind the fact that I have reflected several times that I don't think I'm that far from the life where I ended up a red pill incel type guy. I mean, I saw those ideas when I was a teenager. Some of them spoke to me in certain ways. And I flirted with this idea that maybe this party of bad guys, maybe if I join the bad guys I can win too. And the thing that stopped me from that, I mean I think my family, I think there were

multiple factors, but I really think the reason that I did not turn to the right, which my brother did and he had the same parents, the reason that I did not turn to the right was that I did drama and in drama class you are around women. You're a young man and you're around women and it's harder to other women and to treat them like this other group of people when you're all part of the same team. Boys and girls feel different, boys and girls act different, but when you're in drama class, boy or girl, it doesn't matter, you got to get on stage and make a good fucking show. And there were people of different races, ethnicities, that drama class really made us part of the same team. And the reason that I say this is I know a lot of young people who

have moved further to the right because of loneliness. And I know a lot of young people who were farther to the right that I've watched surround themselves with other people. And the more people that they're around, the more human beings they're interacting with, a lot of their right-wing views start to kind of fade away and they start to have more faith in other human beings and have more faith in each other because they understand what we can all accomplish when we come together. So I do think isolation is the main thing driving these young people into these Nazi I wanted to say Nazi adjacent, but I mean, Elon and Steve are sig-heiling.

You can call it a Roman salute all you fucking want. They're doing the Hitler thing. So I think isolation is part of that and I think that part of what's driving isolation is also the way our social media algorithms are kind of locking us into our belief system. So once you start to watch those self-help videos made by right-wing douchebags who go to the gym. Suddenly you're going a little further and you're going a little farther. I was on an airplane the other day. It was really funny. In the row across from me, there was a young man, probably around my age or younger, who was constantly refreshing his crypto and then he was going to TikTok and watching Andrew Tate and TPUSA

TikToks. And then the guy in the row in front of him was watching the Tim Miller show And I wanted to go up to him and be like hey, I'm sorry to bother you on the plane But you know, I actually just launched a show with Tim Miller. It's called FY pod We were number 12. You should have gone up to the guy already watching my show You should have gone up to the Andrew Tate guy and like figured out how we could get into his feed Well, I'm a person his feet were trying to get into I'm rambling But I do think loneliness is a big part of what's driving young people to the right. And I think that, you know, a big part of that is right-wing politics

are working to drive us away from each other. The attacks on the education system are designed to make sure that young people are not going to school with people outside of their social class. And it's really disappointing. I'm with you on the loneliness thing and that having an appeal, right? Like if you're lonely, if you don't have a support structure, if you're not hanging out with women, IRL, you become more drawn to the Andrew Tate, I'm a tough guy and like, you know, after the man kind of, you know, element, right, the you get drawn to that ethos. I understand

that. The thing though is that like, and so I want to talk about that. But if you if you dial it back to COVID, and like this was the theory that, that Derek Thompson was putting forth, you know, was that a lot of this stuff was these guys feeling that the powers that be the medical infrastructure, the government infrastructure, the schools, I kind of failed them, like where they were not really at risk of dying from COVID. And their, you know, whatever, you know, their wrestling tournaments got canceled, they had fucking social distance graduations, they didn't, you know, get to, you know, experience their whatever these prime years of being 18, 19, 20, 21 in the way that they could have been able to. And I think that there's something legitimate

about that. Like I understand why there's maybe a reactionary response to the people that canceled the graduations. I understand the other side of that argument too, but I'm wondering what you think about that. You know, COVID was a real, it was a real interesting glimpse into what happens when we all don't feel like we're on the same team. And I think, you know, young people lacked the awareness and empathy to say, we're not staying at home for us,

we're staying at home for everybody else and old people, they don't deserve to die before it's time for them to die. You know, that's one of the things that I saw a lot of young people saying was like, yeah, it's the old people who are at risk. And to me, since I'm such a woke hero, I was like, yeah, it's the old people who are at risk. There's this thing that old people deserve, and it's called not to die until they have to. And young people were like, no, no, no. But I mean, it is just a larger government failure overall. And I

think that we lost a lot of faith in our institutions for a lot of reasons. You know, I lost faith in Democratic institutions when I saw Democratic congressmen selling all their fucking stocks right before the market went down. You know, that made me a little less flirty with the Democrats was when there were Democrats who were literally fucking gambling with our lives and making it about money. And then Republicans went in and said, here's what the people want. This is not what's best. This isn't what's going to lives and making it about money. And then Republicans went in and said, here's what the people want. This is not what's best. This isn't what's going to be good for the people. But the people want to hear, no, no, no, no, go out and party. And the Republicans really know how to either give people what they want or convince them that they're being given what they want. So young people who were at home and they were at home because they needed to be because

we needed to make sure we were stopping the spread, they said, okay, well, the Republicans are saying, no, no, no, no, no, go out, go have a ball. And why would you not want to listen to the fun uncle who's letting you take a hit at the joint when mom and dad say no? I know. So this is where when you were saying at the top that you kind of understand, like you feel like, you know, had you not been a drama boy that you might have tipped over or at least been more intrigued by the red pill path.

Like libertarian all boys school and Rand reading Tim comes out when I start to think about all this and the Derek article he writes, he's like, maybe some of this group will not be generation Z, but generation C, there'll be people radicalized by COVID and turned conservative because of it. And like, I don't know, man, just, I know you're like mocking that notion that like, let's hang out with the fun uncle kind of, but it's, I kind of get it. I don't, I don't know. Right. I mean, like there is, there's responsibility. Sure. But isn't there somewhere between being a scold and being the fun uncle? Right. I don't think anybody was really selling like, be, yes, be responsible. Don't go to a fucking, you know, Molly party and then go to your grandma's house afterwards. You know, like, do like, let's, let's not maybe all read on each other in a gym, right? During the height of the COVID wave, but also to, you know, like, we should have outdoor sports and like you should people should be able to go to the beach and you shouldn't feel scolded if you're not wearing a mask, you

know, if you're in an open air set, right? Like, I don't feel like that was happening. And I can understand, I think, right, the fun uncle appeal. Can you? Of course you can understand the appeal. The appeal reached out to me, man. I was hearing stuff Republicans were saying and I was like, I think this is the right idea.

I was hearing that, you know, sexual assault is this really bad problem. And I was hearing people say, well, maybe women shouldn't dress like that. And I said, well, maybe they shouldn't. And you know, that brings to mind Ayn Rand, who wrote a book where the protagonist commits sexual assault and the book just acts like that's totally fine and keeps going. So congratulations,yn Rand. Call me Atlas because all I have to say is, but I'm anti sexual assault. I just want to say that I was pro like not not wearing a mask post vaccine and I was pro like being able to hang out with the boys and and do a do a blunt circle Like outside at the beach rather than you know being forced to sit in sit in our homes

you know like so I feel like there was a middle ground there totally in sexual assault and Not being allowed to do anything. No for sure I just don't want to ever talk about Ayn Rand without mentioning that she kind of acted like that was a little bit of a sleigh. But, you know, I think that this is just one of those many situations, and this happens all the fucking time, where the Democratic Party ended up on the wrong side of an issue, not the incorrect side of an issue, but the side of an issue where the people aren't going to want to hear what you have to say. Because very often, being part of a society where you have to go out of your way to make other people's lives better, people don't want that. People don't want to hear that you have to be inconvenienced in order to maybe stop

somebody from dying while they're gasping for air. Who fucking cares, right? I care, but who fucking cares? You know, Republicans are so quick to say the easy thing. It's easy to say, oh, you know, if we all go out, maybe we'll get a little sick, but let's go out because it's fun. And I do, you know, I do see people who years after the pandemic were scolding folks for not wearing masks while we were double, triple vaccinated. And I'm like, oh, fucking K, calm down. Like, this is not how you win people over. This is how you make people like you less. But

also it just speaks to a broader thing where Republicans say the easy thing because liberal, democratic, even progressive values are very easy to characterize as the more complicated way to do it. And people don't want to do the more complicated way to do it and people don't want to do the more complicated thing. Let's look at Bernie Sanders versus Joe Biden at the presidential debate. Bernie Sanders was picking apart universal health care and explaining to you how you will be paying a little bit more in taxes but ultimately saving money because of your health care costs. Joe Biden was saying, don't you remember when everybody was nice? What if we just got nice? And guess who won? Joe Biden. Because be nice works a lot more than

here is a detailed financial plan for how I'm going to. So, you know, Republicans say, oh, shootings are a problem? People getting shot? Okay, bad guy with gun? Well, what if we good guy with gun? And people are like, oh my god, that makes so much sense Now mind you obviously so many gun control policies that are treated as so partisan are extremely popular like yes many many many Republicans support things like universal background checks and issues like that But ultimately the simple answer here in opinion, and obviously there's plenty of more complicated conversation to be had by people more qualified than me, but the simple answer is a lot of conservative policy is the easier thing to say and the easier thing

to explain. And therefore, people are going to be more responsive to that. You know, I was, um, do you ever get invited to the dime square thing? You know about the dime square vibe in New York? I know you don't party anymore. So maybe I don't know that I don't square party You should feel very lucky. I got invited to this thing or I was actually uninvited but I was doing some research on it and Try to figure out what the fuck I was being invited to because I'm not cool anymore either

I have a seven-year-old but there was like a group of like MAGA folks in the lit in New York I tried to figure out what the fuck I was being invited to because I'm not cool anymore either. I have a seven year old, but there was like a group of like mega folks in New York, like hung out, like in lower Lower East side, like almost on the way to Brooklyn and in dime square and they like had parties during COVID. And that was how they started. And like the pipeline in this instance was like direct. Like they were literally inviting people to parties because they were the only ones having parties indoors.

And like they brought actual New Yorkers who were not political to them who then Have since gone down the MAGA pipeline and this group was now hosting the cool party during CPAC this weekend like here in DC and Unfortunately, I didn't get to go because they didn't want any shit live youtubers there but I was intrigued by this just because of that, right? Like there is something to that. Like Obama did bring in people who like were there for the cultural, you know, sheen. And I think that I maybe missed how much like the Republicans

benefited from that during COVID with younger people. Yeah, and I missed it too because I spent COVID in a very tight COVID pod with a mid-30s political strategist. So I wasn't exactly dime square partying. My friends and I were actually quite satisfied with zooming each other and playing Minecraft and playing among us and doing stuff like that. That's interesting. You were satisfied zooming in Minecraft. zooming each other and playing Minecraft and playing among us and doing stuff like that. That's interesting. You were satisfied zooming in Minecraft.

I found the zoom hangs with my friends to be so unbearable to the point that I quit them. We did something. I did this with my college friends. We did something where we did a reading of a Shakespeare play. I believe it was either Twelfth Night or Midsummer Night's Dream where every scene, everybody took a shot. So about an act and a half into the reading

of the Shakespeare play we were just fucking wasted and like nobody knew when there was their line. So we were just like all right you know let's just talk shit about people that we know from school. But you know it's like that was a way to have fun together. They required just a little bit of thinking you know required a little bit of conceptualizing and trying to do something creative. But looky, looky here, we were able to have fun anyway. It was just not fun the easy way and people wanna do it the easy way. So, you know, maybe this party group

was able to attract people during COVID and throw a quote unquote cool party at CPAC, which, you know, I'm sorry, even cool parties once thrown somewhere that the Nazis are hanging out are not cool. But, you know, even if the young people are hot, most of the hottest people I know are actually extremely uncool. I know some very cool hot people, but it's actually crazy how, you know, I have friends who are like influencers with hundreds of thousands, if not millions of followers, gorgeous, always going to beautiful locations, posting pictures at the nicest getaways,

retreats and parties, and you'd think that they have just this extremely bubbly effervescent social life, but I know them, I hang out with them, they're my friends, they're bigger fucking dorks than I am and I read fantasy novels every day. Like, turns out social media has us convinced that people are different from who they really are. Like, if I posted my actual life on social media, people would think I wasn't just a little tiny bit broke. But anyway, I think that a lot of young people who end up doing conservative things ultimately wanted to be conservative. They wanted to do it and they were just looking for an excuse. I know plenty of Jewish people who said, you know what, I was a liberal my

whole life but I'm voting for Trump because he's the one who's good on Israel. And I'm like, man, if you look at the Harris policy section on Israel in her campaign, it is almost indistinguishable from what Trump was campaigning on. They were both just like, yep, we're gonna do what Israel wants, we're gonna support Israel, we'll give them what they want, we're gonna stop Hamas. Um, but Trump was being more racist against the people that certain people wanted to be racist against and therefore because it was Israel, which is, you know, something that in our culture is widely regarded as this thing that can do no wrong and is just purely perfect and good, they said, okay, now I have a reason to go to the right. But I know plenty of very pro-Israel people who are very Zionist, very pro-Israel, who saw Harris and Trump and said, I'm supporting Kamala Harris because she's in line with my values and she's supportive of Israel anyway.

The Jewish people I know who moved to Trump because of Israel, they wanted to move to Trump anyway. Their social circles were liberal. They wanted to fit in. They didn't want to support the abhorrent thing. And therefore they were liberal and supported liberal causes. But then when they got away to support Trump in a way that they can virtue signal as some sort of, oh, this is to protect my people, they went for it.

Those were not people who were liberal until Trump was more racist against Arabs. They are people who wanted to be conservative the whole time and then they got an excuse. So I don't know how many people with true liberal values got pushed to the right by the ability to party. I think there's just this idea as you're a young person growing up that liberalism is the way to go because we all ought to come together and support each other and be part of something bigger than ourselves instead of isolating as much as possible. But then they were like, oh the Republicans are letting letting me party, I'm gonna be Republican now. And I just don't know if a party is gonna make you say

women should not control their own bodies. I don't know if a party is gonna make you say minorities who have worked their entire life to get a position that there are now programs to support them getting over some white nepo baby hire. Those people are just woke DEI and to quickly dismiss the accomplishments of people of color as wokeness without even looking into the tremendous things that they've done to get their positions. I don't know if parties during COVID really did that. I

think it just gave people an easy in. Derek Thompson, smart boy. He's offering the premise that it is the alternative that actually the desire to go to dime square parties did give people a rationale for opposing women's rights or not caring about it. And I don't know, maybe there's something to that. I'm going to weave, you know, Trump does the weave, but we're going to weave here. We know how to do it. I'm going to tie the room together for you. Because here's the thing that I don't really know the answer to, that I think is a real

pickle for those of us who don't want fascism in appealing to this group. If your point that isolation and social isolation make the kind of anti-establishment Republican view, whatever you want to call that, anti-elite, anti-institutional Republican view more appealing because you're isolated because you don't have experience with other people, you don't have experience with women, you don't have experience with people outside of your income bracket. I'll buy that. I'm with you on that. I think there's something to that. And then if you layer onto that the point that I was trying to make about how Republicans did make things more fun during COVID, and in a lot of ways people are reflecting back on that and making them more appealing, which I think is true to an extent.

And you learned up that Democrats right now don't want to talk to or appeal to or date or kiss anybody that likes Donald Trump at all. How do you crack the nut? Aren't we stuck? Aren't we stuck then in a situation where people are isolated and they're appealing towards and so they're going to be drawn more towards right-wing stuff and nobody who has progressive views is going to let them in or make it seem appealing for them to switch back. I think it brings to mind how dangerous their attack on the public school system is. While Trump is distracting everybody with fucking Greenland and Canada and the Gulf

of America and just other stupid bullshit, we're watching the Department of Education get absolutely fucked and they're going to rip it to shit and make it a disaster. But schools are where young people come together. Schools are where they meet each other. Schools are why a lot of the public school kids I know are cooler than the private school kids I know. And it's really important for us to have these social spaces. I read some article, and by that I mean I read the headline in the first two paragraphs,

about how young people are lacking social spaces where people go and cohabitate and hang out with each other. And that kind of just reminded me how my friends and I face that. Like, fortunately, as I've said so many times on this podcast, and I will continue to until the bulwark sends me an email to stop, fortunately, I'm really cool. So I can figure out these things for myself, but a lot of my friends kind of want a place to go where they can like meet and hang out with other people. And we lack these things.

And school, public school is such an important part of that. And getting to know other people is such an important part of that. And you know, I was a very lonely kid because I was never in tune with young people my age. I, in many ways, was much more mature than them and in other ways was much less mature than them. But I was very rarely as mature.

I was just all over the place. And you know, this speaks to something I normally talk about in greater length, about how maturity is not a linear thing that just Is some basic crescendo Maturity is a circle and people grow out in all these different directions at different speeds in different ways So I have friends in their late 30s who are extremely brilliant people where I make more mature Decisions than they do in some situations and then in many more situations. They're more mature than I am

but all this is to say I was a very lonely person because I was very different from my classmates. And I remember the feeling of feeling like there was no place for me in this world. And it is a very bad feeling and it can really ruin your life. And it left me thinking sometimes, what would happen if I just disappeared? I mean, and this is coming from someone who has the most loving family in the entire world. My and it left me thinking sometimes, what would happen if I just disappeared? I mean, and this is coming from someone who has the most loving family in the entire world. My family treats me in such a great way,

my parents went out of their way to say to me, the best version of yourself that you could be is the one that's the most Cameron. The best thing you could do is embark on the pursuit to become true to yourself. So I had the best support I could have ever had from my family. I couldn't be more grateful and yet I still found myself feeling so alone and so isolated. And this was before fucking social media. I mean there was like Instagram but this

was before TikTok was fucking everybody's brains up and this was before Covid. I felt alone and I wanted answers and the feeling of feeling like there's no place for you in this world is something I would not wish upon my worst enemy. And it put me in such a dark place and it's in those lows. It's in those depths that these ideologies that are thriving now can get you. And unfortunately we have more kids

in those depths than others. I mean, I don't wanna brag, but I kind of beat Gen Z to isolation like I did it before it was cool. But you know it was being someone like that and it's the young people I know who had similar experiences to me that are the ones who are super red-pilled right now. The ones who I had to unfollow on Instagram because as interesting as it was to see them get radicalized I just couldn't put up with it anymore. Pepe the Frog started as this adorable little cartoon. I loved Pepe the Frog, he was a cutie patootie and then he became a fucking Nazi and I just couldn't look at him on my

Instagram story anymore. But it's the isolation that does this and it's so crazy. Young people are not getting this important lesson that you can play a part in making somebody feel less lonely. Even the smallest things you can do, the littlest bits of attention you could pay to people, the recognition that you can offer them as another human being who deserves respect and dignity and deserves to be seen, you can do such small things that could very well ripple into saving somebody's life.

And all of us can be less alone if we just make a little bit of effort to connect with other people. And a lot of the best friends that I've kept to this day were kids I met when I was popular in high school, and they were fucking nerds, and I just knew that I had the chance to pay them just a little bit of attention. And I saw them, and I saw myself in middle school feeling like I had no place, desperate for somebody to just come up to me and recognize that I was fucking alive. So that kind of part of me that saw myself in them made me go up to them and just pay them a little mind and say hello. And now they're some of my best friends to this day.

And I forget that they were kind of a, you know, loneliness DEI hire in my life. This is a real challenge though. I mean, like this is hard. This is a lot harder than the other stuff that we're talking about on the pod. And because it's like, mate, you know, finding a place, like,

it's one thing to, like, middle school fucking sucks for everybody, right? Like, it's one thing in middle school to, like, find another middle school kid and go up to them and, you know, be a nice person and welcome them to sit at the table, right? Like, that doesn't happen a lot, but, like, there's not a lot of preconceived baggage there, right? Like, a lot of times it's just surface level middle school shit, you know? Like this is like way harder than that. Like this is like, how do we engage people that you think are kind of terrible and bring them out from isolation?

Like that's a lot harder challenge, honestly. Yeah. And I think it requires a belief that human beings are better than everyone's telling us that we are. And I think that this is a problem on the left and on the right. We are all characterizing the other as bad people. And if you can have some belief in the human spirit that humans have good in them, that's not to say, you know, let's let Steve Bannon do sig-hiles.

That's not to say, you know, if Hitler had gone to art school, he would have been a super nice guy. Not that there's much of a difference between Steve Bannon and Hitler these days. But you know, And Hitler might have gone to art school, actually, he was kind of really into the arts and frou-frou stuff. Well, listen, I today was talking about how the thing that stopped me from all these ideologies was drama. So in many ways, Hitler and I have the talking about how the thing that stopped me from all these ideologies was drama. So in many ways, Hitler and I have the whole should have gone to art school thing in common.

Hopefully not much more though. And I think that people, young people need to reinvest in each other. Young people need to be given the chance to believe in what we can do for each other and what we can do for each other and what we can do together. Because it is in meeting other people and understanding their relationship with this thing that we call being a human who's alive that we all become better.

I know young people who were on the right again, who got a little bit more hope in our ability to support each other and in doing such, had a few more values that were a little bit better and more progressive ability to support each other and in doing such, had a few more values that were a little bit better and more progressive because they met other people. And I think that we need to support this notion and this truth that if you support certain things that a party supports, that doesn't mean you need to believe all the shit that they say.

And I know young people who identify as conservative that do believe women should be able to get abortions. I know young people who say that they're conservative, say that they're Republicans, who think that we need to have background checks on guns, and who think that trans people should just be left alone. There are young people on the right who I'm friends with, who's, you know, I believe in supporting and uplifting trans joy and and platforming their voices and celebrating them But I know young people who just say you know what? I don't know what the hell they're doing and that means I'm not qualified to tell them how to do it and

It is in meeting other people that they were able to get these beliefs So I really think it all ties back into this question of how can we get young people to buy into each other again and support each other and build community because it is in building community that we can stop things like fascism and it's in isolation that fascism thrives. All right we're going to be building community after this your buddy Josh Rush There were some dating rumors about you at one point. It sounded like he's on some Disney shows I've never heard of but they're apparently amazingly first He was the first gay Disney character, which I don't think we're gonna get many more of those in the next couple years

No, that'll be like antiquated. Yeah You know having a date being a gay Disney character like he'll be we can put him like in a hall Of fame, I guess Just called woke. He was the first woke Disney character. He was woke. Yeah, no more woke DEI Disney characters No, we're no lesbian kisses and Buzz Lightyear No, Josh rush having little boyfriends in whatever show that was Andy Mack it's so disappointing because it's just like, once the studios just started making too many things and letting corporate algorithms decide

how they were going to tell their stories, that happened to line up with when we were trying to tell more diverse stories. So these diverse stories that deserve to be told suffered from fucking nerd, data nerd execs, letting algorithms make their movies. And now everybody's saying that the movies got worse when the diversity came in and they did get worse,

but it's not because of the diversity, it's because they started letting math make their fucking movies. We don't like math, but we do like traditional Disney movies. So we're gonna go back to the old way where we do Disney movies, where it's just good old-fashioned relationships just very normal middle of the road like when people kiss passing out princesses.

Like we want princesses who have seven midget friends to be kissed by princes against their will. Like that's the kind of traditional relationship we're looking for. I think it's important for us to hold space for the fact that no executive would let Aladdin get made today. Nobody would make Aladdin today. Aladdin came out in the fucking 90s. Is Jafar as gay? Okay, well, that's its own thing. But studio execs would be like, oh, so you're trying to make Hamas the movie. Meanwhile, if you watch the Dune movies, the Dune movies are more fucking Israel, Palestine than anything you see on the news.

The Dune movies are just white Mohammed played by Bob Dylan. So anyway, we've got Josh Rush coming on. Josh Rush was a Disney star. Now he is a an organizer who does a lot of great work in the Texas State House And also people used to think that we had gay sex together, which we'll talk about this in the interview surprisingly We never did I'm excited. He seems great. He's doing real work down in Austin He's way like nicer and more optimistic than us So it'll bring a nice change of pace to this Bleak podcast. And so everybody should

stick around for that. Oh, we also have, in addition to Josh Rush coming up, we have a new segment, Boomer Mailbag. So if you're a Boomer out there and you want to send us some mail, send it to the Bulwark Podcast at the bulwark.com. And we also have Gen Z News. So stick around for all of that. All right. So Cameron should be in charge of this segment, but he's decided to take the interview, take the conversation from the children's wing of the Spirit Airlines terminal at JFK. It was an interesting choice. It wasn't one that was vetted by his co-host, but here we are.

Okay. Just because I'm podcasting doesn't mean I don't have a life. And I got to catch a flight to Los Angeles, baby, City of Angels, to do awesome stuff with the gang. But I wasn't going to abandon my duties to put more white man podcasting into this beautiful world. So I'm joining us today and I'm really happy to be here with such a great group of guys. Okay, great. Well I also have a life and managed to just kind of find a time to

tape it from from an actual microphone but that's just one man's opinion. We'll figure it out as we go along. We've brought in your friend Josh Rush. Josh I know nothing about except for that he was Bunga in the Lion Guard and I have a little bit of Lion King related content at the end of the discussion. That's probably not what we should lead with, but what is up, man? How's it going? What's up?

That's probably the weirdest thing that you could possibly know me from. Really? Is something, well, you know, a voice character that I did. I have a seven-year-old. Oh, well, yeah, there you go. Well, then I'm sorry for all of the headaches that my very, very high-pitched preteen voice was doing on that show. Yeah, it seems like you have hit puberty since Bunga.

I have hit puberty, I no longer can do the voice. It's way up there. I'm sorry, Josh, the Lion Guard or whatever it is that he's referencing, that is not the weirdest thing he could remember you from. The weirdest thing he could remember you from is the Where's Waldo cartoon where- That's the coolest thing thing he could remember you from the weirdest thing he could remember you from is the where's waldo cartoon where that's the coolest thing that he could remember me from

and that's the most similar to how i sound now um and also it's the most similar character that i've ever played animated character that i ever played that looked like i actually do in the real life okay so let's feed the libs. You were a Disney star. You were one of the first openly LGBTQIA plus coded Disney characters. Not coded. Oh yeah, you guys like held hands. Over we held hands and he said I'm gay, which as we know is the pinnacle that is the most progressive thing that you're allowed to do on children's television.

Okay, okay, hold on. Was this in a cartoon or was this like in a real life character? Were you a real boy? This was me in real life. Yeah, this was me in real life. I was on a show for four years called Andy Mack on Disney Channel. We were the number one children's show in America for quite some time. So, you know, thanks for remembering, Tim. ranked him. And yeah, played the first openly gay character on Disney Channel and then quit that pretty much immediately after. That is so cute though. The young gays have it so much better now, you know, they get to have role models like you. I had Dawson's Creek, it wasn't as cool. So okay, so you went from that. Now what do you have to? Now I'm the communications director for the Texas House Democratic Caucus,

which is a little bit of a left turn. But I've been doing professional political communications first alongside my acting work and then full-time pretty much once I turned 18. And I've been doing it basically for the last seven years now. I've been a professional political operative. I've been taking an extended vacation from being famous and have instead been trying to make other people famous and trying to fix the world. So what are your, are you just like a median woke lib or kind of what are your politics? Are you a secret Bernie? You know, I was a Bernie guy, 2016, 2020, convinced both of my like, you know, sort of moderate, dem parents to vote for Bernie in 20, which I was very proud of. It was a

surrogate for him. But have worked for basically everyone at this point point have worked for Democrats, have worked for Republicans, have worked for independents. My political philosophy is dictated by the work that I'm able to do and my personal goal, which is to be the absolute best Swiss army knife for beating fascism that I can possibly be. That's the political philosophy is that there are bad people, they are on the rise, They're becoming more powerful We're watching it happen and the opposition to the bad people is not doing a very good job at fighting back And so we need to be as creative and different as we could possibly be Wait, sorry Swiss army knife for beating fascism. Is it the Swiss or the Swedish that didn't fight the Nazis? it's It's the Swiss that didn't

It's the Swiss that didn't. That's a fair point. So, ideally not a Swiss army knife. More like perhaps a Soviet army knife. Or like even an American army knife. An American club. You said it, not me. An American gun. USA, baby. You better watch out if you start talking about bringing actual weapons to fights. Eagle-eyed Martin and the DOJ might write you a letter Don't worry. I'm just at the airport

You're doing great Cameron. You're just you're just co-hosting the show from the airport. Just doing an awesome job I want you guys so here's my observation that I want you to divide on is Cameron has become very jaded, you know, he was he was a young activist like a young fledgling activist, you know, but when he couldn't shave and You know his earnest like got people to go to the mall and then became very jaded and you Seemed to like still, you know have that dog inside you for activism So I would like for you guys to kind of explain your perspective on the value and what you're getting out of it.

Cam and I have known each other for kind of a long time now, right? It's been, it's probably been upwards of, yeah, I was going to say five, six, seven, Cam was saying seven years. But like, yeah, Cam and I often talk about how we sort of switched positions. Cam was sort of starting to leave his advocacy universe that he had been in and was heading towards the performing arts. And I was walking away from that and headed towards it. I, you know, like, I think there's a lot of reasons to get jaded. There's a lot of reasons to get jaded. There's a lot of reasons to feel jaded. At the same time, the people that we serve cannot afford for us to be bored and half-assing our work.

The people who need an opposition to fascism, it has never been more urgent than it is right now. You should know you're hearing me at like my least jaded that I've been in years. Cam can probably tell you this pretty well. Right now? Right now. February 25? That's right. February 2025, I'm probably the least jaded that I've felt in years. Not that I don't feel like we have a very big fight ahead of us and not that I don't

feel demoralized by it, but more so in the sense that I do not feel like we have a very big fight ahead of us and not that I don't feel demoralized by it But more so in the sense that I do not feel like I can afford to be doing anything right now other than working and trying There's like I can't what else what the fuck are we supposed to do if we are not trying to beat them right now It's yeah, aren't you guys doing a white man podcast right now hang out We are doing a white man podcast, but I don't, I had to, it's kind of like my job. And so I had to keep doing it. But I, I, I would, I would get like wanting to check out right now and not being ultimate, being nihilistic. I don't know.

I, I've heard from a lot of people that are just feeling more nihilistic now than ever. Like what, what is, what is making you go the other way? Do you think? I mean, none of it's not to say that I don't feel nihilistic right now. None of it's not to say that I don't feel like we might be pretty cooked, you know? But at the same time, it's like, if I sit there, if I sit here every day, I go to my office at the Texas state capital in the Texas legislature, right? That's where I work right now.

And I'm like, well, we're fucked. Like I'm not going to do anything. I'm going to sit here all day and then I'm going to leave at five and nobody's going to be any better for it. But I show up every day. I make these people as uncomfortable as they possibly can be. I make it as hard as possible for them to exercise their agenda. I make it as loud as possible. I make it possible for Democrats to be as loud as possible in opposing their agenda.

I am doing something. I am doing the absolute most that I can with these two hands that God gave me. I am doing the absolute most that I can with these two hands that God gave me. Like, I, and I, and I do feel like it's like, if I'm in a position of power, and I'm not saying that like everybody should be feeling like they have to do something right now, but like I'm in a position where I have this ability and I'm here and I have been put in this position with the tools and the know-how to do what I need to do. Like let's, let's go. Like we should be making it as uncomfortable as we possibly can for them. with the tools and the know-how to do what I need to do, like, let's go. We should be making it as uncomfortable as we possibly can for them.

It doesn't matter if we're hooked. If I'm going down, I'm going down swinging. Cam, does this make you feel bad about yourself? Not like I'm noble or something. I don't want to give that impression, too. No, no, no, totally. You're just not some lazy prick like Cameron Marleykasky. No, it's really great to hear that kind of stuff, especially for someone in a state like Texas

that I think has a lot more blue voters on the ground than people want to say it does. But I guess my question for you, first of all, that monologue you just went on, the bulwark audience is going to like you so much more than they like the non- The non-voting, anarcho-communist that we had on last week, who is a great guy who I love and respect. But definitely less bulwark-coded than you. So just already, go check the comments after this. They're going to love you. But you know, so you and I both run in very progressive circles saying and doing progressive things with progressive people and I think you kind of share this perspective that I do. I mean I personally can't say I've worked with too many Republicans but this idea that you do have to accept a

certain amount of compromise and if you want to make the most progressive things happen, that means you're going to be working with people who don't feel that way and you're going to be trying to do that from the inside and you know to advocate for the right stuff, you have to meet people where they're at. So just what's your experience having your own values and working with people who might very well feel the opposite on some key issues. It's among the many reasons that I really love working in Texas, which is like, when we're when we're doing stuff, we're doing stuff because we can find like a level of

unity around it. You know, in inside of the Democratic Party, we are beefing with each other about so many different things. Here in Texas, we can kind of all come together and we can be like, well, you know, like we think trans people should be protected. We think that they should have some level of protections. Therefore, we're against what a lot of the Republican Party does in that context. We're against school vouchers, right?

In basically every format. This is the really easy one because Republicans are trying to pass a school voucher scheme in Texas that's the largest they just introduced yesterday, pass a school voucher scheme in Texas that's the largest, they just introduced yesterday, the largest school voucher plan ever introduced into the Texas house got introduced yesterday. It's very easy for us as Democrats to get together and say, well, we think that that sucks. We think that they shouldn't be doing that. So like I love, I think being in opposition is fantastic because it gives you this opening to say like, well, we may not agree on all of our preferred implementations on school finance. I worked in California

for some time. You get really into the policy weeds when you're arguing and debating among progressives and among the left. Here in Texas, I'm getting along with the furthest left members of the Democratic caucus and the furthest right members of the Democratic caucus We've got a whole big tent because what they are doing on the other side is so insane and so bad That everybody can get get in the same damn boat together and say like alright. Well, we think this is bad I love being in opposition and I love I love fighting in like red and purple states where we actually have to fight against them. I have a question for you about, and for both of you about how you can fight in red and purple states without being so annoying.

And, uh, I have an example for you. I'd like to give from just two hours ago. I was walking to lunch, uh, and this person, God love them. They don't know that I have a anti-Donald Trump podcast, all right? They must not be a listener. That's fine. So they don't know that I'm already out there in the battle space.

When I was going to Humblebrack, I was going to meet a senator for lunch and we were going to talk about how to beat Donald Trump's ass. They didn't know that that's where I was on my way to and then I was late. But that said, I walked by and she goes, do you have a moment for trans rights? I replied, sorry, not right now. Her reply, I forgive you. I wanted to turn around and be like, fuck the trans people actually. I was like, is there somebody else?

Is there an anti-trans person whose thing that I can sign right now? And I just, I do think that in your guys's world, like maybe not you two, but some folks are a little bit like, maybe you're being a little bit counterproductive in their activism. So I'm wondering how you think about that and not creating backlash by being annoying, you know, gen Z people chastising other Texans. You know, Tim, my question to you would be, did that interaction that you had with a progressive activist make you decide to vote Republican in 2016? I mean, if I was a worse person, maybe.

Okay, that's all I'm saying. That's what I'm saying. It was radical. It was slightly radicalizing against the trans rights movement, I would say. Just slightly. So you got annoyed and your knee-jerk reaction is just to fully vote against them in 2026. You are probably in the minority of Americans. I think that we should be annoying as fuck all the time, actually. I do. Yeah. Mostly towards Republicans, but like, you know, I think that there's a lot of good reason to be annoying towards your Democratic representatives right now and make sure that

they are being loud and outspoken against, you know, Donald Trump and his fascistic agenda. Um, you know, I, I, I got a buddy of mine, my anarcho communist friend, um, who keeps talking about what South Korean, uh, parliament members did. Oh yeah., scaling the walls of their parliament building when they thought that their democracy was at risk. And like, this is what is happening right now is a four alarm fire to me. Like I want our democratic politicians scaling the walls at the Department of Education to figure out what's going on inside of there.

Same. I want us in there when they want us out, right? Like, they are actively attacking our institutions, but like beyond that, not only they're attacking our institutions, they're attacking our children, our futures, our families, our food system and our flights. I want our democratic politicians to be showing up in every single possible way that they can. Sending letters is great, showing up at the doors is great, but like I want to see that

our democratic politicians see this as a four or five, 10 alarm fire in the same way that I do. I'm with you on that. I want fighting, I'm for fighting, but sometimes the annoying part of the fighting can have some backlash. Cameron, you did some activism with some annoying people, I think. What do you think about my theory? I mean, I just think it's a matter of balancing. I think that, first of all, I don't know any annoying person I've ever done activism with. As a matter of fact, everybody I've done activism with has been perfect with no flaws, so I

don't know what you're talking about. But, um, I would say that- Right, every single one? You can't even think of a single person that was a little annoying that you did activism with? Couldn't even begin to imagine for at least the next four episodes. But I think that it's sort of a, choose your battles and figure out how hard you want to fight them situation because I don't think we should be managing a system right now where Democrats feel comfortable fighting this rise in authoritarianism and fascism that's being led by a foreign billionaire who's throwing the R word around on Twitter. I don't think we should meet that with

press conferences saying, hey, by the way, did you see that the price of eggs are up? Because it was never really about the price of eggs. And, you know, could have factored in here or there, but right now what we're seeing is everything that leads up to the type of authoritarianism that gets a lot of people killed. And I said this last week, you know, when people used to throw around the Trump is a Nazi Hitler stuff, I would say, cool your jets. But they're telling us who they are. It's not just Elon doing two sig heils in a row.

Now it's Steve Bannon. Now Steve Bannon. Roman salute. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. Now Steve Bannon is going up and saying at CPAC, we want Trump 2028. And he's just saying it. And I think that the idea that the Democratic Party is going to meet this with talking about the economy and is going to meet this with press conferences about how, you know, ooh, did you notice that gas costs a little bit more now?

I don't think that works, and I think people do need to be a little uncomfortable because I think the more comfortable you are as these fascist powers rise, the more dangerous they are going to get, and I think that they want us to feel this sort of apathy and say, you know what, maybe we ought to chill out. But also I think that of course, you know, certain types, certain forms of protest are, I don't know if I want to say counterproductive, but are just not really going to do anything. Because I do, I mean, I've been present enough in democratic, political and organizing circles to know that a lot of these politicians

laugh about these types of protesters in private and you know think of them as just these morons. So I do think there should be a certain amount of attention put into making sure everybody knows that we are far past the point of devastating damage and we are already at a point where it's going to take a lot of time and effort, even in the best case scenario, to undo the damage that has been done to the government and the services that it provides to make Americans' lives and futures better.

So I think it's a matter of figuring out and balancing your approach. And I wish I had a more obvious answer, but I guess the direction in which Eileen is, we need to make sure that politicians in the Democratic Party right now and politicians in the Republican Party who would dare to stand up against the regime are aware that this is the 11th hour. The doomsday clock is seconds away, and there's no shrugging that off. Well, so here's my question for you then Josh. Like, I love your energy. And like Cameron said, our people are going to love your energy.

And that's where I'm at too. But like, is it not, like among your peers, is there not like a greater apathy? I don't know. I was texting with Kim about this yesterday or two days ago, and I was like, we have a guy that like totally does not, you know, that believes climate change is a hoax as the president now. And that is trying to dismantle all of the progress anybody made on any climate action. I know you've done climate activism in the past. And everybody told me that Gen Z is like, that's their top issue, super into climate. And like this is all happening and it's kind of like, I don't know, like it seems to me

like there's a big meh out there among younger folks. So you're not seeing a march for our lives develop right now, but maybe I'm just missing it. I don't know. Like what do you see among your peers, like as far as excitement for action right now but maybe I'm just missing it I don't know like what do you see among your peers like as far as excitement for for action right now? No I see like widespread political apathy in all directions I'm an outlier maybe I should have led with that like I'm not I know certainly among people my age cams age like what I'm hearing is overwhelming nihilism. And what I'm

what I'm trying to respond to that every time with is like, okay, it's fine to feel bad, it's fine to feel nihilistic, it's fine to feel terrible, like and at the same time at some point we have to figure something out organized. Do you think that's like doom behind it? Is like doomerism, nihilism, or just like, I can't make any difference or what? Like, what do you think? Like an even split. I hear a lot of like, well, we're fucked anyway. Like there's, there's a very pervasive group, which will say like, well, we're fucked anyway, so we don't have to do anything. There is another like very pervasive group of like, America has always been fucked, so we don't have to do anything

I find myself sort of in the middle here of like okay well if we do nothing then we've done nothing and If we try and do something then we can do something maybe or maybe I like maybe I fail and end up in the camps But like then I at least I tried then at least I can like go home I go home at night with a pretty clean conscience and I feel like I've actually done something. I don't know if I could go home in my position every day and be like, all right, well, I did nothing. I'm going to like go home and watch ESPN and go to bed.

I think that one of the things I try to say to my peers and keep in mind, I do significantly less than Josh does. I'm significantly more apathetic than Josh is, and I'm still way more empathetic than most people my age. Like Josh makes me look like I do nothing and I still care way more and do way more than people our age, so that's how bad it is. But, you know, I say to people about the doomerism, the same thing I say about female electability It's like when people say we'll never elect a woman as president

I'm like, yeah We won't if you say we won't like it's it's a self-fulfilling prophecy doomer ism is a self-fulfilling prophecy If you say we're fucked we're definitely gonna be fucked and if we're definitely gonna be fucked you have to say Well, what can we do to try and prevent that fuckery? you have to say, well, what can we do to try and prevent that fuckery the most? And it's, and it's really a shame to see how apathetic everybody is, but also how could you blame them? The bad guys have won and the bad guys are not only winning, they're twisting the knife. The bad guys are winning. You know, the thing that I also want to say is like, we had to get through Hoover to get to FDR. Like there is absolutely, a little

deep cut, but like there is absolutely nothing to suggest that we are. This is where I was about to feel like old man had to give a history lesson here when you're like in half of my friends like America was always fucked. I was like, what? I was like, take, go in and watch a movie about 1962. Like things have gotten a lot better. I agree with you. Just for our Gen Z listeners who might have some questions right now, Hoover and FDR were presidents in America. Yeah, great.

Thanks, Cameron. They were presidents in America. They were presidents back to back. Hoover was bad and FDR was good. He did do the third and fourth terms, which is a little so so for us if we're going to be a pro democracy movement, but we don't need to, you know, there wasn't an amendment prohibiting that at the time. So like now there is, now I feel a little weirder about like, I was doing that, but like, yeah, in defense of norms, though, I don't know, you know that, you know,

that Trump is going to start dropping FDR soon once he realizes that he did it. Trump probably doesn't know yet that he had the three or four but you know that FDR is coming. He's going to be like soon as he figures that out just like as soon as he figured out what an asylum actually is like an asylum claim versus an insane asylum. He switched up his tune on that one. Yeah, definitely. All right. What you know, I guess my other question for you is like being there in Texas is just, you know, like as far as, you know, the colonel, right, such a good dude, you know, and he ran, he's like a fucking football player, you know, he did not say that he wanted to fund transgender migrant prisoners, sexual sex changes, and they still spent like a hundred million dollars in ads against him on that topic.

He's a dad, he's a guy, he's more of a man than like makeup wearing Donald Trump, like, and yet still there was bleed, you know, among everybody, but men in particular, with him running against fucking Ted Cruz. And so I'm just, I'm just kind of wondering what you're feeling there on the ground as far as like, you know, the, the gender gap side of us. Um, I mean, I won't, I won't speak to the all red thing specifically, just because I wasn't here for that. I was working a different race in North Carolina at the time, um, with, with

other insane candidates that I certainly can talk about. Yeah, I just mean in the context of you're going there now, you're running and people got to be like, God, I mean, Allred, if you're looking for a model on what you're supposed to do to do better with men, you would think it would be it. Yeah. Yeah. Colin Allred for sure has got the bio that you create in the lab to run as a Democratic

politician. The gender gap exists. It's real. There is a counterculture almost movement of insurgent toxic masculinity. I think that certainly I wouldn't necessarily see it as a counterculture movement, but I know that the people who live like that, I wouldn't necessarily see it as like a counter-cultural movement, but I know that like the people who live like that, I've been going to comedy shows right since I moved to Austin. You know, I'm, you know, this is, this is certainly a place to work. I'm sorry, Elon told us that comedy was illegal and we have to make it legal again. Are you okay?

No, comedy's, comedy's legal in Austin as long as you drive a cyber truck to and from the place that you're doing it at. And can they make jokes at the shows? Can they make fun? Here in Austin, you really can. Here in Austin, something I've learned is that this city has got just an overwhelming population of dudes in blue button down shirts who do tech sales and make way more money than me. Yeah, keep it weird for sure. Those dudes are weird. But man, it's, you know, you could just say the R word a couple times on a stage in a comedy show and you can actually have

a whole group like that laughing. So like there's this like, there's this idea that it's like young men, it's Gen Z men. Like I, millennials, you all need to check your men too. Like there's some weird ones all around. Like but there's also not a ton of, I don't know. It exists. It's real. I don't know if I've got a great answer for you. So work with me here though.

Work with me. Maybe this is the answer. So you're there, you're in Austin, you're in Texas, you're going to the comedy shows, you're hanging out with Gen Z dudes. Maybe you just need like a pro-trans, anti-school vouchers, progressive guy that also says ****. How about that? I think we just gotta be normal. Maybe that's it. I mean, you know, to the gist of what you're going for, we just got to be normal. We can't continue to define ourselves by the identity politics that we use.

I also, I don't think that it's like a terrible idea for Democrats to continue to like have identity politics. I don't think it's a bad idea that we lift up minority communities within our midst. I also don't think that it needs to be at the center of our message to undecided voters. I think that our message to undecided voters should be about what we're going to do for you. And that message should be resonant with a large group of communities because the people who are making that message go out are from a large group of communities. Like to me that is the example. We just have to be normal about how we talk about shit. We cannot continue to be tremendously afraid of each other

within our own party. And can I just say, Tim, you will never catch me saying **** is a word that is not only completely unacceptable, it should not be normalized and we need to decenter the use of ableist language like so for you to even say in front of this hot mic and normalize the use of is despicable and you want to check yourself. I have anything else you'd like to add Kim. I apologize.

I want to get to I need to talk about scar being gay and gotta get to Gen Z news, but so while taking a break Cameron Do you have any other topics for Josh before we talked about scar being gay and Gen Z news? Yes, real quick. Um, so Josh Rush Disney Channel Superstar icon twink everything that's good Now that you and I are on our twink deathbeds good. Now that you and I are on our Twink death beds. Josh is an Otter now, officially, just so you know. I don't know. Okay, yeah, for those of you who don't know, Twink is an Otter who has some hair going for him. Otter is a Twink who has some hair going for him. Correct. Is that not what I said? No.'re okay my bad. So speaking of Otter space otter 42 on tumblr hosted a selfie of

You and I at this very airport from 2018 With the caption Joshua rush and Cameron caskey the subject of Josh's planned future first date with a guy Josh says this will happen if he gets a thousand tweet replies with proof that the person has registered to vote. Cameron is openly gay and turns 19 on November 11th. This picture was posted on Josh's Twitter three days after Josh came out as bi. So these rumors from the internet in 2018 that you and open homosexual Cameron Kasky were dating each other. I'm just so jealous. Like, what is that like? People tweeting that you might, like, about your love life? Like, that's fucking awesome. Like, did you feel that?

Did you appreciate how awesome that is? Or like, were you annoyed by it? Because it's awesome. Are you annoyed? I think I was annoyed. I think that I was annoyed at the time. People don't know, you don't know how good you got it, man. You don't know how good you got it.

Would have been great. Still true. How do you know the good old days are over till they're gone? Yeah. What about you, Cameron? Did you enjoy it? The attention or no?

You enjoyed it? I enjoyed that I thought it was funny. I don't know how much I enjoyed the invasion of privacy, but I also didn't really care because most of it was funny enough that I found it amusing. But you know, it was a nice change of pace because at that point in 2018, I had gotten so many tweets suggesting that my family was human traffickers and that I was not present at the school shooting that I had from. That part is not awesome. That I was not present at these school shootings that I had from. That part is not awesome.

And that I was a paid crisis actor. So when the tweets were like, Cameron is bisexual Disney stars, mans. That was a bit refreshing because I was like, you know what? I can handle this one. You know, it was interesting. We were sort of, the way we were posting together, it was sort of like, one could call it queer baiting, but since we're both queer, I don't know if it was queer baiting. I think it was more queer.

We were hanging out a lot that year. That was, yeah. We were around all the time. I'm surprised. I was just about to say that. You know, life is it was long maybe one day now I'm getting uncomfortable. Okay. I have a line guard question It is related actually So scar have you seen Mufasa have either of you seen Mufasa? You don't have children. So you haven't seen before I don't consume media. Okay, this is going to be distressing. Scar was obviously gay. All right, his whole affect was gay, his paw being limp was gay, he was alone in the cave, he needed a male lover.

This was obvious from the first Lion King movie, clearly gay. And then Mufasa just happened and they redid his origin story as if he became bad because he's mad that That Mufasa took Sarabi or whatever name is from from him and that fucking ruined my childhood and as somebody who's like part of the you know Greater Lion King universe Josh. I'm like, I'm just hoping that you could tell me who I could send a letter to about that Yeah, it's um, let me just make sure I'm correct about this, but it's 500 Buena Vista Boulevard, Burbank, California. California? Okay, so do you have somebody that I could put attention to?

Yes, I actually still remember that. Attention to who? I'm not sure, but you know, that's the central corporate headquarters for the Walt Disney Company and Disney Channel. So that's- Okay. Thank you. That's not that helpful.

I'm just, I'm devastated. And I was, when Cameron told me you were going to be on, I was excited that I finally had an in on this and you've done nothing for me. Sadly, I've left that behind for democratic politics. Okay. And I appreciate your energy. I'm useless to you now. That's not true. I really appreciate your energy.

It's just in this one specific complaint. You couldn't help me. No, I understand. Okay. All right. Before we get to the Gen Z news, I have another new segment for this show. It is called Boomer Mailbag. If you are a Boomer listener and you are a grandpa or grandma and you're listening because

you want to hear what your grandkids life is like, we appreciate you. Thank you for listening to FY pod. The first mailbag item and you can email us, bulwarkpodcast at the bulwark.com if you are a boomer and have a future comment or question. The first is from, I guess I'll redact his name, but a frequent emailer. He writes this, Notre Dame professor of political science Patrick Deneen said, My students are no-nothings. Their brains are largely empty, devoid of any substantial knowledge. That's how I felt listening to Klasky and Geik. Don't get me wrong, it was

fascinating to learn that people like them are influencing hordes of young people. Imagine how much bullshit the guys like Geik and Klaski are spewing to their young listeners. Good luck America. Do you have any response to that mail, Cameron? No, I think he covered everything. Josh, do you have any thoughts for the mailbag segment? No, that's definitive, 100% agree. Cannot believe you're spewing such bullshit to our younger generation, Cam.

Let me say, I am just honored that he thinks that I inspire hordes of young people. So thank you to Mr. Classgeeguy, and I hope he writes back next week with some more feedback. He actually has written three emails, and so if no other boomers write an email, I have another one for him for next week's mail back. So I appreciate you BW. All right.

Next up, Gen Z news and producer Sebastian. So this is from Fortune again, like last week, title, Gen Z is doom spending, not saving survey fines and that's bad news for their financial well-being. A recent survey bears out the trend finding that 47% of Gen Z respondents did not have an emergency fund and 27% of Gen Z carry more debt than they do savings. Explain to me how you guys cannot drink, not have sex, and not have savings. What are you spending your money on? Eggs.

Yeah, rent. I saw this, there's this post that I've seen a hundred different places, which is, you know, an old person saying, anytime a kid says, okay, boomer to me, I'm going to say, okay, renter. But you know, the cost of living has gone up so much. I can't say I'm a big doom spender. I definitely have a good, good deal of friends who spend money on some things that leave me asking why exactly.

But I think that it is all part of the larger doom narrative, the same doomerism that affects our politics and the way that we view ourselves and our futures. And it's this collective feeling that we are at the end. So if it's the end of the world as we know it, and I don't feel fine, sorry, Michael Stipe, I'm going to spend my money. And again, I can't relate. I can't say I have much money, but I don't spend it that much. That's why I dropped out of Columbia.

What is doom spending? I saw this in the article and they didn't give a definition. It's just the world is ending and now we're going to go take a cruise because of it. The world is ending. So we're spending. So who cares about saving money? Who cares about, you know, me carrying over this credit card debt to next month, even though my APR is, you know, 45%. What am I going to do buy a house like I'm not getting my $20,000 for Kamala Harris.

You know, the, I think this is just kind of boomer shit, to be honest. We got this too, the us millennials. There was a whole meme about this, about how we were wasting all our money on avocado toast. We don't cook anymore. And you were and you don't, right? I was spending my money on avocado toast and I didn't cook. That is correct. And yet... In 2014, we all were.

Yeah, and here we are. I have savings now, thanks to you, our Bulwark Plus subscribers. Okay, next question, Sebastian. All right, so a new poll survey from Gallup says that more than one five Gen Z adults those born between 1997 and 2006 for those who aren't aware identify as LGBTQ plus 31% of Gen Z women versus 12% of Gen Z men so gay agenda

thriving Despite Josh, I believe drinking from a Chick-fil-A cup right now. I have some problems with this. I think you guys are to blame for the backlash against the LGBT community. That is too many. What was the percent again? Of just Gen Z. Total? 31? One in five Gen Z adults. 31 Gen Z women versus 12% of Gen Z men. So it's not the young white dudes of this podcast that are ruining it. It's the woke lesbian women that are ruining it. One of you guys has to go back straight. Actually, well, well, let's be clear. I have been, there's a very easy explanation for why the number is so much higher with women and I have been

with men and women so I can confirm this women are better so if I was a woman and I tried you know the other side of it all I don't understand why I would ever go back whereas with men you know to to be with other men is to realize that those things no no that's a woke answer that's fucking wrong that's not what's happening it's a hundred wrong. That's not what's happening. It's 100% true. That is not what's happening. Women are not really, they're kissing other women and they're being like, okay, count me. I count because like I did a make out one time. Then they're counting themselves. I disagree. I think that I did a make out one time.

You think 31% of women have done cunnilingus? You think 31% of Gen Z women have done cunnilingus? I refuse to fucking believe that. Absolutely. Yes? Yes. I don't think 31% of Gen Z anyone has actually done that from what I've heard around the block. No, I actually think I know a good deal of Gen Z women who identify as straight, I know a great deal of Gen Z women who identify as straight. Actually, I know a great deal of Gen Z women who identify as straight that have had their kissy sessions with the other girlies. So I think that these numbers on both ends are actually criminally under reported as they always have been. Everyone's always been gay. It's just a matter of who's going to say it. And if you don't believe me, look at Abraham Lincoln, look at the Greeks. Everyone's

been gay the whole time. Bax. Josh, you, Josh. Believe me, look at Abraham Lincoln, look at the Greeks. Everyone's been gay the whole time. Josh, you, Josh. I did a movie about Abraham Lincoln once, and I can tell you for sure, you're 100% right, Cam. What do you think about the girls? You think one in three women have, you know, kind of gone down under?

I say this as a bisexual person. I think we have a crisis of bisexuality in this country. I just think, I think we need more people to pick a side. And we would get these numbers to somewhere stable. I'm desperate for Karen to book a non bisexual. I'm not sure that it's going to happen. He sent me a list of 13 potential guests and there were 12 bisexuals and a trans person. I think we're on the list. I don't understand. An interview that's now going to be very different now that Tim has had that

encounter on the street. Here's what I'll say. That was bitchy. I don't think we need less bisexuals. I think we need bisexuals to stop acting like this. I think like bisexuals, if bisexuals just started getting our shit together, I wouldn't mind it as much. It's not the bisexuality That's the problem. It's the vibes and the aesthetic and the attitude. I have a serious follow-up Are you are we sure that there's not? That that part I'm back to the backlash again And I'm not stuck because it's not just because I'm better that that young lady And I'm not just because I'm better that that young lady told me she forgives me when I didn't do anything that merited forgiveness on the street today.

But like, I don't know, is this a little bit of part of the backlash that we saw? Is this why the trans stuff is working better? Just because like there are a lot of parents out there who aren't as cool as me or like I'm pretty nervous. I mean, one in three, I got a one in three chance here. It feels a little risky. Feels a little trendy. It feels a little too trendy for me. Maybe we got to dial it back. Maybe we need somebody really butch like Stephen Miller in the White House to make sure that we kind of dial back the bisexuality. Is that possible?

That's the culture war. That's the boogeyman that they picked to make everybody scared. That's the like 12 trans athletes that got the entire United States government to mobilize. It's just the boogie man that this party that's really fucking good at press picks. Right now it happens to be LGBTQIA plus people. It's something about which they can raise alarms and act like everybody ought to be scared. What'd you say? What's the I? Umsex, I think. But if I'm wrong, cancel me. I actually have one more thing for you. Do you have any final thoughts on that before

my final request for you, Josh? No final thoughts. Okay, here it is. Give us a stirring close. You gave us such a bulwarky open, you know, passionate, we need like a bisexual William Wallace calling people into action to close. Sure. Same shameless plug. Please, if you are a Texas resident and you're listening to this, please visit don'tdefundmyschool.com. Please visit that website. Enter the school district that your children or you, if you are a child, go to. Find out how much it will lose under school vouchers. Enter your zip code on that website.

Get a script to call your representative. Because if there's one thing that I am certain of from my perch right here in Texas is that we've got an opportunity to defeat school vouchers this year, which Republicans have been trying to pass in Texas for over 40 years now. Like this is a project that came out of segregation. They have been trying to pass school vouchers in Texas. They have been stymied every year by a bipartisan group of Democrats and Republicans who have said, hey, this is a scam.

This is bullshit. We want to stop this. We have still got an opportunity to defeat it here in Texas. If you are not here in Texas, please don't call a Texas state representative because they won't care about what you have to say. But if you are not from Texas and you are feeling stressed out and you are feeling nihilistic about everything that is going on, just know that we have got a legitimate shot here in Texas at defeating school vouchers, which has been a Republican priority in damn near every state in the country and has won in

damn near every state in the country. If we can do this here in Texas right now, you can get off your ass too. And you can start working for it for defeating them for at the very least making sure that it is clear that you stood up against this. That's all. I'm ready. We can beat them. You just have to give a shit. I love it.

That's what I was looking for. You're great, Cameron. Great pick. All right, everybody. Well, this is an announcement officially to end this episode on high note that I am in early talks, negotiations, and exploratory phase of launching a multi-million dollar pack from which I am going to pay myself a hefty salary and ideally promote it as aggressively as I possibly can. Whether or not my focus should

probably be on strengthening the Democratic Party. I love the Democratic Party totally, slay, but I'm really focused on me right now and my interests and ideally gaining as much financially and opportunity wise as possible. Okay, all right. Thank you Cam and thank you Josh.