The Bulwark Podcast - Jane Coaston: He's So Not a Badass

Episode Date: June 21, 2024

Trump is not drawing support from black voters because of his criminality—that's just MAGA's bigotry of low expectations. Meanwhile, he's now promising a green card to every foreign Harvard grad to please tech bro donors. Plus, the attempt to create a race war over Caitlin Clark, the annoying liberals on the coasts are creating MAGA reactionaries, and more from the mailbag. Jane Coaston joins Tim Miller for the weekend pod. show notes: Reid Hoffman's reply to David Sacks Tim interviews Reid Hoffman Tim's playlist 

landlord telling you to just put on another sweater when your apartment is below 21 degrees? Are they suggesting you can just put a bucket under a leak in your ceiling? That's not good enough. Your Toronto apartment should be safe and well-maintained. If it isn't and your landlord isn't responding to maintenance requests, RentSafeTO can help. Learn more at toronto.ca slash rentsafeTO. Hello and welcome to the Bullard Podcast. I'm your host, Tim Miller. I'm coming at you from my parents' basement for the next four days, so, you know, enjoy that. I'm delighted to be here today with Jane Koston. You might know her,

contributing opinion writer to the New York Times. She wrote recently for the Atlantic about nudity and she's a friend of the pod. Jane, welcome back. Thank you so much for having me. I'm happy to be back. And hello to your parents' basement. Yeah, you know, it's going to be interesting down here, you know, if I have any trauma, if there have any trauma, if there's trauma tears or anything, any flashbacks happening, everybody's just got to be patient with me because a lot of times you see a picture and you're like, whoa, I forgot how awkward I was at age 17. Yeah, your parents' basement always remembers. Like you forget, but your parents' basement remembers.

Correct. Correct. Our topic list today is really just, it's a parade of horribles, a parade of comedy, and I think we're going to enjoy ourselves. Unfortunately, we have to start with the douchebags at the All In podcast. For people who don't know the All In gang, it is David Balsak, Chamath, and then two other guys. And they're Silicon Valley tech people. And they started a pod. they're contrarian tech bros who have decided to support donald trump they held a fundraiser for donald trump recently

and in exchange donald trump graced them with his presence on their podcast so i want to play one clip from in particular but jane do you have any high level view on you know the silicon valley trump bro phenomenon and why these guys are much more prominent than in 2016. And in 2020, I think it is speaking to actually Matt Stoller wrote a piece about this. Now granted, I think the piece has that but the wallet inspector never came back with my wallet vibes. But he's like, you know, in 2016, Trump talked about like combating big business and like talking about you know rooting for the little guys and then in 2020 and 2024 he's not talking about that at all

and i'm like interesting so to me this is tethered to that also the idea that donald trump i think smartly recognizes that if he repeats back the thing that the person clearly wants him to say, everybody's happy with him. Yeah, well, I'm going to get to the repeating back thing because that is where we're going next. There's one other element to this that I think is there, which is just fatigue. And like in 2016, among the kind of progressive denizens of Silicon Valley where I used to live used to live, there was just this huge outrage at Donald Trump. He can only be outraged at something for so long. And so I'm not sure that the oligarchs, the people at the top of the chain, with the exception of our friend Reid Hoffman, who wrote a wonderful rebuttal to David Balsak, which I'll put in the show notes. I'm not sure that many of the oligarchs actually really hated Trump that much, you know, because they are in their, you know, castles of prosperity. They have many moats around them that will prevent them from any

dangers of Donald Trump, but they were responding to a bottom-up revolt, right? And the bottom-up revolt from the people that worked for them. And they were like, oh my God, if I don't speak out against Donald Trump, you know, then I won't be able to recruit people and there'll be this huge backlash against me. And what they found out was like, nah, actually that isn't really true. People will be mad for a little while and then they'll go on with their lives. And so now I'm kind of free to, you know, let my freak flag fly and support this guy who obviously give me whatever I want as long as I give him money. That's how I would sum it up. I have a theory that wherever you are, the most irritating people around you will help to direct where your political ire is aimed. This is a great. I've noticed this. There are a couple of outlets where I'm like,

this is very much I am surrounded by the most irritating leftists imaginable. The free press. Ergo, I am furious at the left. You know, I did not grow up surrounded by irritating leftists. Right. I grew up in Ohio in the 90s. I would have. That was not what we had.

I don't think they made irritating Ohio leftists until like, what, 2013? Yeah, there were one or two, maybe. Yeah. Tough times out there for that. Because I think that if you are the All In podcast, or you are someone who, you know, you live in Manhattan, or you live in like a big coastal city, you do not experience the outrages of the right, except sort of like tangentially. Yeah.

You experience the most annoying liberals you have ever heard of in your entire life and they are like literally next door to you but and i think that this is why like i would love to hear what the all-in podcast would be like if the all-in podcast were based in like kansas city shreveport yeah and it just is like that's not i think that this is more about like regional difference in some ways in terms of like what you consider to be the threat. Because understandably, if you are in a city in which Republicans or conservatism has basically no inroads, and if you are in a city in which the conservatism that exists in Louisiana or Missouri or Iowa or Utah has no entry, then it will not be as worrying to you personally as the liberalism that is very annoying to you and exists in San Francisco and Manhattan. Yeah, it's the ultimate reverse partisanship argument. Okay, well, if you have friends that

are like this in your life, later on in this podcast, we are going to play some audio from some of the worst people in MAGA world. So maybe show that to them. Expose them a little bit to what's happening. I always want to offer to Republican donors, like, I will take you on a tour of TPUSA events and Donald Trump events. I will go with you. We will bring a bodyguard, and we'll just go there and just hang out for 48 hours. And if you still want these people to run the country after that, then that's fine. And I think that that would be a worthwhile service for someone to provide. I want to play

one clip from this podcast. It's the only news in it. These guys were just like, Donald Trump, why is the border such a problem? And why was the economy so much better under you? It was not a hard hitting interview, but they accidentally made one piece of news on the issue of green cards. I apologize. We're going to have to listen to a full minute of the all-in douchebags and Donald Trump. But it's important. So let's take a listen. We need to recruit the best and brightest from the world.

Every time we get somebody super intelligent from India or Europe, any country. Three of us are immigrants, sir. Yeah, and three of the four here are immigrants. The ones without the ties. And we can get these great people into our country, and that's a loss for our adversaries and our competitors, and it's a gain for us. But I've never heard you talk about this.

Can you please promise us you will give us more ability to import the best and brightest around the world to America? I do promise, but I happen to agree. That's why I promise. Otherwise, I wouldn't promise. Let me just tell you that it's so sad when we lose people from Harvard, MIT, from the greatest schools and lesser schools that are phenomenal schools also. And what I wanted to do, and I would have done this, but then we had to solve the COVID problem because that came in and, you know, sort of dominated for a little while, as you perhaps know. But what I want to do and what I will do is you graduate from a college. I think you should get automatically as part of

your diploma, a green card. So on the face of it, a good policy, but there are a lot of, there's a lot of things underneath the surface. So Jane, why don't you take the first swing at that? Okay. One, I maintain that lesser colleges that are still phenomenal colleges is a funny line. Like Fordham, like, you know, where he went. It is, yeah, you know. The Rams. One, what he is proposing is a visa that sort of already kind of exists, like the highly skilled, high talent visa.

That is a real thing. As a side note, if you explore the world of high level visas, they're like the visas for like extremely talented people. Do you remember like when Justin Bieber was getting into a bunch of trouble and people were like launched a change.org petition to get his visa rescinded because he had like a special one for i don't call that being highly talented or something so there are multiple types of visas so this sort of exists the replies to this on twitter i will never call it the other thing we're so funny because all of these people what that's the thing with trump that is weird and confusing to anyone who has any political consistency whatsoever or the memory of longer than like 45 minutes

because all of the people who were like we got to close the border and stop legal immigration like the people who are like Stephen Miller that that guy doesn't seem terrifying. All of these people replying like, oh, this is so good. So based. I love it. And I'm just like, so you think it would be an amazing policy? One, I love that Trump was like Harvard, amazing school. And all of these people who have spent the last four months pretending like Harvard is like evil backwater. We're like, yeah. Like if you are a student on a student visa and you attend

Harvard, and when you graduate from Harvard, you just get a green card, like the immigration restrictionist pretzel that would put immigration restrictionists in, if there was any need for logical consistency would be very funny. And yet all of these people are like, yeah, it's amazing. And I'm like, this is exactly the thing that you said you were mad about. Like, he literally did the thing of just being like, I do promise because I agree with you. I remember that early in like 2017. There was this thing of like, what if Nancy Pelosi just started suggesting things and complimenting trump a lot like you know you could have gotten universal

health care or something i don't think that was really true because the people actually put in charge of the trump administration were not like that but it is interesting how he will promise anything absolutely anything and then he will put step put Stephen Miller in charge of it. And every and like, Stephen Miller is like, you know, the Immigration Restriction Act of 1924 didn't go far enough. I've been trying to think more about Donald Trump less than anything he says and more about what he does or promises to do. And not just like promises to do on a podcast, but like policy positions that are put out, because I feel like that's the closest we will get to actually understanding what he would do as actual president because he keeps doing this thing where he pretends like he wasn't president like i don't know if you

saw he thinks that there was a conspiracy around the assassination of jfk and i'm like sir same podcast you were president there's like people who are allowed to know the ins and outs of the assassination of jfk you're like you are one of the people that's you like there's such a weird tabula rasa effect happening again which he did very successfully in 2016 but now he's doing it again of being like the four years i was president i don't know what you're talking about made up not real but like it is interesting only in that he will say anything and then he will put stephen miller in charge and stephen miller absolutely 100 does not think that if you went to yale you should get a green card uh no absolutely doesn't and you know how we know that because stephen miller's in charge of the fucking immigration regime for four years it's like

are these four guys these four douches like are they this gullible when they meet with vc founders who come to them and they're like i'm gonna invent the next great ai widget like you should give me 100 million dollars like how gullible do you have to be trump was in charge of the immigration regime for four years and he throws this aside out where he's like well you know we wanted to do this but covid happened like what are you talking about covid resulted in actually a ton of immigration changes like your your your administration cracked down in draconian ways on immigration of all kinds legal and illegal that's what you did you could have changed you could have also said over the course of those changes that people with a college degree who test negative for covid can get a green card like you could have done anything you wanted but you

have fucking stephen miller this the santa monica gobbles running your your thing and like these four guys are it's like yeah yeah great point mr trump great point mr trump it's amusing to me only in i wonder what you could get trump to agree with if you just complimented him a lot on a podcast oh and gave him money the complimenting and gave him money these guys all gave him money and he switched on the tiktok band too it's the same thing he flipped on the tiktok band because some rich guy gave him money he is pretending he cares a lot about crypto which again i think that we need to get my dude Jonathan Swan to ask Donald Trump what is cryptocurrency because the three minutes that would follow would be like what it would sound

like if you watch the cat fall down the stairs like it would be true dissembling but it's like I think that that's the challenge that and I think a couple, you know, there's been some smart writing on this is that Trump somehow manages to pretend as if he exists in a world of eternal possibility and non reality. This is not true. He was actually president. We were all there. Because I am, you know, in my 30s. And I am not five. This all happened. We were all there. He was president. Here this all happened we were all there he was president here are the things that took place while he was president and the idea that you can just memory wipe all of that and pretend as if he exists again as a tabula rasa upon which you can project all of your greatest hopes and dreams is bizarre it is the most giving your wallet to the wallet inspector thing I have ever heard in my entire life. Like there are so many things that he actually did and he actually

supported. And it is interesting to see again and again, how the things he didn't things he actually supported exist. Like in this weird time warp, like the things he did and things he actually supported exist like in this weird time warp, like the bump stock ban, which I wrote back when it happened in, I think, 2018, like ATF was like, I don't think we can do this. Like everybody within the government essentially was like, I do not think we can actually do this. Late Senator Dianne Feinstein was like, I don't think this is legal. Like we just cannot do and trump was like we'll do it and then obviously the supreme court shuts it down and so we now have you know

we've had i think someone you know write legislation being like well republicans you all said this was a great idea we should ban bump stocks like this is a thing congress can do so many times the supreme court is like hello we are the supreme court and then now the republicans are like what are you talking about trump this wasn't us this was the libs that did this no no and i'm like but it was you saying this and they're like i don't know i blacked out for four years if if they just would say like i don't know i blacked out the entire trump term i'd be like you know okay i get it it would just be like how you know david bowie had absolutely no memory of doing the station the station album he was just like great album no memory of doing the Station to Station album. He was just like, great album, no memory of it.

And everybody's like, all right, checks out. Let's not compare Marco Rubio's brain fog to David Bowie. All right. Like we're extending this metaphor a little far. I'm just saying I would respect that more than to just pretend as if the entire Trump had missed, like to say all of these things during the Trump term. And then I'll come back now and just be like, I don't know what you're talking about. And then pretend again that he is this tabula rasa

upon which you can project a immigration regime that cares about you specifically, Guyon podcast and cryptocurrency. Landlord telling you to just put on another sweater when your apartment is below 21 degrees? Are they suggesting you can just put a bucket under a leak in your ceiling? That's not good enough. Your Toronto apartment should be safe and well-maintained. If it isn't and your landlord isn't responding to maintenance requests, RentSafeTO can help. Learn more at toronto.ca slash RentSafeTO.

There's been a lot of chatter about the black voter and how Donald Trump is potentially making some inroads there, or maybe Joe Biden's just struggling with black voters. And I particularly wanted your insight on one element of this. There's a poll out a couple of days ago of black voters over 50. Biden was at 82%. Trump was at 8%. That's essentially in the margin of error from what happened in 2020. Among 18 to 49 year olds, Biden is at 62%. 62. Trump is at 25. And that's a absolutely sea change from what we saw in 2020 so the question i have for you is do we think is there something on the polling or they are the are just you know it's hard to pull

young black people like there are certain demographic groups that's hard to pull i've talked about this before it's very hard to pull spanish-speaking hispanics it's for a while it was hard to pull trump supporters and they started to like to brag to pollsters so you know there was a change there maybe that demo is just hard to. Maybe Trump is a tabula rasa for them, right? Because they're younger, they didn't pay that close of attention last time. Maybe it's economic, right? They're struggling more with, you know, dealing with inflation than folks that had savings. I don't know. Do you have any theories of the case on this? Well, I'd be interested to see what the gender breakdown is. I read about this in 2020.

If you look at 2016 exit polling, 13% of Black men voted for Trump, 4% of Black women did. My favorite number of this is that 1% of Black women in the state of Pennsylvania voted for Trump, which I believe means you could fit all of the Black women in the state of Pennsylvania who voted for Trump into one room. And in 2020, the exit polling was about 19% of Pennsylvania who voted for Trump into one room. And in 2020, the exit polling was about 19% of Black men voted for Trump, 9% of Black women did. And so there's been a long running gender gap among support for Donald Trump among African Americans. That's just a thing that has existed for many reasons. So I would be very interested to see what that breakdown would look like, especially even, you know, over 50 and 18 to 49. I also think that polling is often, we treat it as being forward-looking,

but I think it's more like it's a picture in time. It's a picture in time, and it is, to me, this is reflective of soft Biden support, not necessarily strong Trump support. People are attempting to send a message. I'm not going to do the thing of like the polling needs to be unskewed or something like that. I am saying like, I think that this polling is reflective of trying to send a message, not necessarily a predictor of the future. I will also say, this is a side note, it drives me kind of nuts when activist groups look at polling like this and are like, wow, it would be so funny that the thing we care about the most is the thing that we are going to decide is what people care about in this poll. That's not I don't that's not a thing. Like, I do not think that if Biden did a specific thing that an activist group wanted him to do, that this polling would change that much.

Criminal justice reform or Gaza or reparations or whatever. That's not, that's not necessarily how this works. Like, let's keep in mind also that like, if you care a lot about an issue, that means you are way more well-informed about the issue, whatever it is,

then 96% of the human race. So I think like, it's important to think about this for me as reflective of a moment in time, as a picture, as a, here is a piece of information, not necessarily a forward looking prediction. And I think that that's something like you're seeing this from, I was about to say conservatives, but I'm like i'm like that's unfair because i think that like what we're saying this is from like the weirdo right the people who are like oh black people love trump because black people love criminals yeah that's uh that's racist just to be clear and it is interesting how this idea of like oh it's because trump is you know he's a badass or something like that. And I'm like, one of the people who are badass, Trump is like so far down on the list.

So far down. Can you imagine if Trump was punched? I mean, I always like to bring up my favorite video of Trump where he gets scared of the bird, scared of the eagle. Understandably, eagles, if you've ever seen like a hawk or eagle in very close proximity, they're much and scarier looking like you think but i mean he handled it like not like no he did not he did not handle it well but i think like it's interesting also because you see like something that i always am really bothered by personally is a view of afric that is as uncharitable as that while attempting to pretend as if you are supporting African Americans. There was a piece in the Miami New Times, well, it was actually an ad. There's a great Axios piece on this. The ad got pulled,

but it basically was a pro-Trump ad from a group called Blacks for Trump, which if you recall, perhaps, one of the members of which may have been involved in some light murder, alleged. It is linked to a group, Black Hebrew Israelites, which are not great people in many respects. But this ad was essentially like, you know, Trump is a criminal. He's our criminal. He's just like us. And it uses the N word a bunch of times. And in miami people were like uh how did this ad get in but like that to me is indicative of how some on the right have such low views of african-americans writ large that a person doing something in in every way i even remember this before trump became a convicted felon the idea that african americans would find commonality in trump because he had an affair

and had sex with a woman who wasn't his wife because you know that's a thing black people don't do that yeah white people don't do that black thing it's a it's famously not a not a white people thing but i think that that is to me indicative of a very disturbing view among some on the right of african americans as being essentially like i mean it's the same way that i i talked about this online that like the best way to become a very wealthy right-wing is to be a right wing minority who just says like incredibly stupid things and then people will just be like oh but she's black so it's okay like candace is back to beating us in the pod ratings now that she's back so you know please send this podcast to your friends so we can we can no longer be getting beaten by candace yeah it's i mean i think that that's something like the bigotry of low expectations is really it's this is what it looks

like when it is african americans are some african americans i would argue probably some african american men are probably going to vote for trump and i'm going to guess that they're not voting for trump on the basis of he's a criminal just like me. Like, come on. Well, this is the funny thing about this. Like, to me, it's like the most obvious reason for this is, well, there's some cultural elements, I think. The base view of this might be that there is like some kind of machismo element, which explains some of the gender gap that helps Trump appeal to young men of all races. It's not unique to black races, but it's why Trump's doing better among young men. There is kind of this machismo, some progressives might call it toxic masculinity.

I mean, men in general tend to be currently more conservative, more socially conservative than women in general. And like, it's very clear if you spend any time on like right-wing Twitter as how much people, the degree of hate right-wing twitter has for white liberal women whom they believe genuinely to be the source of all evil but like the gender gap exists across races uh just in a general fact so to me like this is not surprising exactly and to me it's like the funny thing about it all for me is like the obvious answer this this is, well, there's some gender gap to it. And there is some legitimate inflation. If you look, there's another pullout this week that was like, I don't have it right in front of me, but I believe it was Trump is winning among people who say that they are struggling financially 60 to 28 or something like that.

And it's the inverse of people who are saying they're fine or that they're doing better, they're doing well. And like younger black voters are not doing as well financially as other demos, right? Like that's just a fact, right? So I do think that some of this is just simply inflation has hit working class communities harder. Disproportionately, you know, that is a lot of black communities. And so there's some percentage of voters that are frustrated with the economy. And as a result, they're looking around for another solution besides biden maybe they'll come home and in the meantime the trump people are seeing this data set that's like very obvious they're like you know why they really like us because we're criminals because we're outlaws we got to bring up we should bring rappers who killed people up on stage to help do even

better with this group i I mean, I, there, there's some comedy in that. I mean, it's a dark, there is, I mean, especially because it is interesting that they're like, it couldn't possibly be because of like an actual policy issue.

It has to be because of the thing that this guy did. That is why he's a felon. Now. Yeah. It also has to be an ego boost. Like it's because we're such bad-ass like we're rebels. We're the rebels without a cause. okay speaking of uh speaking of mega white men who think that they're rebels we've had a segment here i don't know if you if you've caught it i think i kicked it off

after your last visit but it's called the right stuff i love that you know johnny mcinty of course the deputy president, the head of the right stuff, the right-wing dating site, the guy that's going to be in charge of hiring in the next Trump administration. I do know. If I recall, UConn quarterback great and trick shot maven. Correct. That's a good poll.

One thing I think when we've done these segments, I might not have made clear to the audio listeners of this podcast, is these videos that I play, the conceit on TikTok is that Johnny is sitting there eating. He's at a restaurant. And so the conceit is that he is on a date. And this is a POV video. And the POV is you and the camera are on the date with Johnny. And he's talking. So I just I think that's important context as we hear these clips. Let's hear Johnny talk about that's important context as we hear these clips. Let's hear Johnny talk about trans fats on a date with an imaginary person.

It's funny how things change. 10 years ago, everyone was scared of trans fats, but now everybody celebrates fat trans. Do you get that one? Do you get the joke there? He really tickled himself. You know, it's a good sign when you start laughing after your own joke. I do that. And usually it's because the joke is bad. But it amused me.

The joke missed. I do not want to go on a date with this person. No. Here's a little more evidence you might not want to go on a date with him. For your health purposes, let's hear a recent take that he had about the vaccine. If the vaccine was so great, why is it so easy to find people who regret taking it, but not a single person who regrets not taking it? I guess it's true that you can't interview Herman Cain.

No. No, there are lots of people who I think would probably regret not having the vaccine. But, you know, when we get the means by which we can communicate beyond the veil, well, then we'll get to it. You know. I met a medium at a recent wedding that I was at. And so maybe we could bring her into the process that would be so helpful i'm sure herman cain has a lot to say through through the expanse of time these guys are such douchebags on the one hand there's the scary element to this this is the

person that's going to be hiring people an appoint man for project 2025 and the schedule f reclassification then there's the part of me that's like how is this race tied like how does this appeal to people how are half the country appeal to this fucking idiot douchebag i think that the best thing we can can do is combine concern action and laughter because it's like every time i see somebody like jack posobiec who helped to foment the seth rich conspiracy theory that has made his parents lives a living hell his parents and brothers lives living hell do anything ever like the whole like white boy summer thing at tp usa which please explain for our listeners what white boy summer is okay so turning point usa is you know they have their big youth conference which if you look in the audience there is a lot

of people there everyone the average age at this conference appeared to be what like 34 older well so so this is a just important context for somebody who's had to suffer through many of these it's one of these conferences where like there's a room where people sit and listen to these horrible, obnoxious speeches where people make jokes even worse than the trans fat joke that we just started to suffer through. And the people that sit in the room are like grandparents age, not 34. The median age in the room listening to the speech is like 66. Nothing wrong with 66 year olds.

We appreciate everybody who's listening to 66, but it's a youth conference. So that's a little concerning. Then out in the hall, there are like little 20-year-old Hitler youth who are trying to, like boys, who are trying to sleep with the 20% of girls who attend. And so that's essentially what's happening here, just for context.

Yeah, and every year, they have actual white nationalists who try to come and then they get thrown out because they're actual white nationalists. And then the white nationalists complain, which I'm amused by because I'm like, you're a white nationalist. Imagine that life. But also your biggest dream is to get into a TPUSA event. I am apparently, I'm sure i've told you this tim i am apparently on the band list from tp usa events and it has bothered me not at all it is also

interesting how you know they keep trying to throw nick fuentes out of these events but on the same hand they keep like charlie kirk keeps saying gripery things about the great replacement and pretty much with the idea that like you know white nationalism has bad pr but if you just say similar things it's fine but uh so jack posobiec at this conference is waving this like white boy summer flag which i really think that tom hanks's son should sue over that but it's it was just funny because you look in the crowd and as you said it is a bunch of 66 year old grandparents watching some dude wearing sunglasses waving a white boy summer flag and i was like this is embarrassing this is embarrassing on every level for everyone involved it is indeed embarrassing

we have a couple more embarrassing things to uh talk about which one do i want to do first we'll end with your article on the nudes internet and the slow sexualization of everything online. And for people who don't want to hear about the nudes internet and Jane talking about labias, you can fast forward, fast forward, fast forward, because we have some great questions from you guys and I'm keeping Jane from the mailbag. But I want to do two minutes on the Caitlin Clark discourse, if you will, before we get to the nudes internet, because these are also some of the worst people in the world. And so it's a nice transition.

There was a social media post that went viral there have been many social media posts like this but there was one in particular that i want to read to you because i think it really hits everything on the head this one received 5 000 retweets it had 9 million something views those numbers are kind of skewed but even even still 5 000 people saw this one was like they're like i agree with this enough that i want my followers to also see this uh here it goes for those who are unaware here's what's going on with caitlin clark she's a straight white woman in a league of mostly bitter black women and a lot of black lesbians the media has told black women for months clark is popular only because she's straight and white the black women are now bullying assaulting and smearing her.

And mostly black basketball media is defending the black mean girls and asking Clark to defend the women attacking her. You know, we also had Clay Travis and many other of the Fox types sharing a similar mean that, that Caitlin Clark is being attacked because she's white. There's reverse racism. And unfortunately now, finally, when women's basketball is gaining the interest of the public, caitlyn clark is being attacked because she's white there's reverse racism and unfortunately now finally when women's basketball is gaining the interest of the public because like other sports it's got rivalries it's got awesome players it's got amazing shot making it's got everything that you want in sports the worst people in the world want to make this a race war right it's a content

thing i was thinking about this because there's c Clark, the athlete, and I want to separate that out. Caitlin Clark is a professional basketball player. She plays the sport of basketball. And there have been so many examples of people trying to generate content about her where I'm like, have you never seen a basketball game before? And I believe the answer is no. We see this all the time in which like when like right wing or even left wing commentariat try to talk about sports and i'm like oh so you've just never watched the game before in your life it's like kate and clark gets fouled and they're like whoa this was an attack yeah they're like we

should call the police it is also funny for the same people who've been complaining about how soft american culture is and now they're like my baby someone i saw someone being like it is odd that people talk about kate and clark like she's their daughter and not their 22 year old daughter their six year old daughter but there's kate and clark the athlete she's averaging 16.3 points a game 5.5 rebounds 6.2 assists she's doing great she's very doing great she's playing professional basketball at a very high level on a team where people seem to forget also that like if you have a really high draft pick that's not because you were so awesome it's because the indiana fever were very bad right and so like they've gone on a winning streak recently that's great like they're doing it

i want to put her in a the athlete box the athlete is over here it's fun to hang out over there like that's fun it's fun to watch it's inspiring. Like, that's fun. It's fun to watch. It's inspiring. Yeah. Oh, my God. Actual sports. It's amazing. Then there's Katelyn Clark with Tabula Rosa. And I came up with this idea.

You know, Tim, you're a college football person. Do you remember a man named Tim Tebow? Of course. Yeah. So there's Tim Tebow, the college football player who won the Heisman, I believe, twice. Twice. And then played in the NFL for like a little bit. Had one of the most astounding playoff wins,

Broncos over Steelers with one fantastic pass that caused John Elway to like leap up and down for 15 minutes. That was cool. I can picture it in my head. Yeah, it all happened. Going right down the left sideline. Yeah, it all happened. And then, you know, kind of fizzled out of the NFL.

He tried playing in Major League Baseball for a minute. Anyway, he's doing commentary now. He's actually very good at commentary. He works for the SEC network. He's great. Then there was this thing which I called Tebowism, which was treating an athlete not as an athlete, but as a symbol of something you've projected onto them.

Everything mean that people say about that person is actually because of the thing you've projected onto them everything mean that people say about that person is actually because of the thing you've projected onto him so with tim tebow it was like you don't want him to succeed in the nfl because he's a christian and i'm like there's no dearth of christians in the nfl they do like prayer circles it's a whole thing every game like literally like i would say if i had to guess 80 percent of nfl players are like either explicitly or tangentially christian and at least half of post-game interviews thank god at least you know yeah like you thank god all the time everybody's thanking god like because god was like hang on i really got to make sure that you get this fourth and one and there have been numerous times in which I believe the Lord did want us to convert that fourth in one.

And you see this happening with Caitlin Clark, where a bunch of people see that, one, she's a content generator. And you're starting to see, I think, smart people calling this out more and more often. There was like, you know, she had a shot blocked and somebody taped that was like why is this person being so mean and like trey wingo who used to be at espn was like you're just trying to get clicks because it's like this is the sport of basketball caitlin clark plays basketball she talks shit she plays hard she will go hard in the paint she goes inside outside like she does the sport that's the way it is that's why she's so good at it. And I think that people in this content generation space have no tether to sports. That's why you see all these people being like, she should start her own league. Why?

Because of content. Because you just want to say things for content. Like people getting very mad that she isn't on the Olympic team when she was playing in the national championship game. So she couldn't try out for the Olympic team when she was playing in the national championship game. So she couldn't try out for the Olympic team. And the WNBA does not run USA basketball, which is how the Olympic team is made. And you don't need to put somebody on the team just because you would generate content with people who don't watch sports. It's insanity producing for people who care about sports. It is insanity producing for people who care about sports. It is insanity producing for people who care about athletes. We keep doing this thing where women's sports is a thing that we're allegedly very supportive of.

But when women play sports, people don't know how to talk about it. But I think also treating Caitlin Clark, who is an actual person, an actual person who's playing in an actual league, an actual league an actual league that has lots of straight white women in it for the record tons of straight white women and some queer white women yeah some queer white women some queer black women and some straight black women because that's how many people are like treating this in this way that like, she has no tether to any of this content generation nonsense. Like, you know,

Caitlin cart gets criticized or people aren't super into her because she's straight and white. Like what? And so I think like, this is the perils of content generation as an avowed good sports center wants to talk about Caitlin Hart because she generates a lot of eyeballs. And I think that that is in many ways such a challenge because yes, more people are talking

about women's basketball. That's great. More people are talking about a sport. That's awesome. And more people are watching the sport and seeing the sport and that's great. But I think that what people are not doing is taking the sport seriously as a sport that is real it really speaks to this idea that there are people

and then there are women and those are two different things yeah this is important so just listeners is my the way i'd sum that up because i agree with everything you just said is you don't you don't have to play into this right if you're a white listener there is no race war happening there are a couple of basketball players one happens to be white one happens to be black angel reese and caitlin clark that are both very good caitlin's probably a little better angel's team was a little better when they were in college so they won the championship and um they're having a little feud and they have a rivalry they're having fun that's what you do yeah there's nothing so you don't have to come to caitlin's defense you don't have to try to spur racial animus over this you don't have to you can just enjoy it and and that's that's my takeaway on this because it is it's wonderful

it should be good yeah and also like you are allowed to engage in one of the great joys of watching a sport which is like random hateration yeah like you can have an athlete that you just are like randomly you get mad at and hate but like in sports ways like how i've been mad at um former pittsburgh stealer then new york jet now retired his daughter now plays basketball for oregon state came up on ohio i've been mad at him for 19 years because he tore Carson Palmer's ACL playoff game, wildcard game. I was like, I've been mad about this for nearly two decades. If I saw Kim Ivanoff and I'd be like, it's a pleasure to meet you.

You're scum. Cause he tore this guy's knee ligament, but that's what sports is. It's like, yeah, the joy of success and the thrill of victory, but sometimes it's just hateration. And as we've learned from Kendrick Lamar, hateration can be kind of cool and awesome. We're gonna have time to get to kendrick unfortunately but the kendrick live concert from this week was was one of the was one of the great cultural moments we've had i'm with you i hate you kevin durant rudy gobert and grayson allen and it has nothing to do with the fact that you're french or white or black it's

just that you're on the teams i don't like and i didn't i didn't like the way that you're French or white or black. It's just that you're on the teams I don't like. And I didn't like the way that you acted in free agency. I got to get to the mailbag, but we do have to at least do one minute on the nudes internet. Because I think this is important. You wrote about this for The Atlantic, the slow sexualization of everything online. Why did you write about this and just talk about what you think the evolution has been? There's always been porn on the internet, you might be aware. What do you think is different different now i think that the way in which sex is so tethered to content generation i think in some ways the nudes internet is actually my strident plea against the use of sex for content generation purposes for example like if you go on twitter at any one time there are like weirdos showing a video of women doing something and then yelling about how this is why Western women are failed.

Or you see like kind of the weird red pill dudes entertain any number of sexual criminals. Like the way in which sex is wielded for content generation, for money, for power. But it has nothing to do with anyone actually getting laid at all ever and so i wrote about this because part of this is that like if you tweeted anything you were you i tweeted about the great show alone which is like one of the few good reality shows it's like that and rupaul's drag race alone is a show in which it's on the history channel and it is a show in which they leave people with a camera and like some supplies there's a supply list and you can figure out what you would take basically in like the most remote

parts of vancouver or any other place and they're far apart from each other and they basically like there you go and it is surprisingly fascinating because you know there's no like oh you have to complete a challenge there's no teamwork just these people by themselves trying to survive there's always like some guy who's like i think i'm so tough and then he makes it three days before bears bully him out which actually happened on one season there was a guy who was like i'm never more than three feet away from a gun in my house and a bear walked past his tent and he was like i'm out can't do it goodbye please come get me you know there will always be somebody who makes it way further than you think they will

or someone you kind of you kind of root for people it's a really interesting show anyway i tweeted about that in the replies full labia full straight up labia and i was like wow that's a lot and so like the prominence of porn bots has been written about um you know in many platforms on the prominence of porn bots on twitter but i think i was getting at like how there is this way one you know i was engaged in evangelical culture in the 90s and early 2000s at the peak of like purity culture, where the thing that I learned was that the most important thing you could do is not have sex. Sex is the worst thing you could possibly do. Second to having sex would be getting pregnant, which is actually the worst thing you could possibly do. The biggest crime you could

ever commit in the history of time. And as a side note, I think that people have not looked into how much that messaging might impact how people feel about having kids like as adults, when it's still like, I was talking to a friend of mine about this, where, you know, we find out that a friend of ours is having a baby. And there's like a moment where you're like, Oh, no, oh, wait, hang on. No, that's it's cool. And good. Now. It's cool. This is our first main disagreement, because I love babies babies and i'm a natalist but please no i love pure joy every time i love babies and i'm a huge fan but there is just this moment where i you know if you spend the first like your entire puberty going up to like 22 having the idea of getting pregnant being like we would rather you committed murder like it would just be easier on all of us like

if you like you know shot someone i feel like my high school would have handled that way better than like when one girl got pregnant and was like get out get out go hide hide somewhere we will never see you again leper it's been so weird to see this turn all based on content to you know we're all cheering for Elon Musk because he keeps impregnating people with whom he has no relationship. You know, women need to have babies right now. There's nothing more important. It is so important that you are having sex. And you're seeing like, there's a Catholic blogger who was like, you know, you know, it's okay if you get pregnant before you get married. It's just weird that Catholic women don't think that. And I'm like, oh my God. And so I was writing about this in the way,

because it is about, it's about content generation and it's about the wielding of sex. And the wielding of sex is a form of power, like the ability to have sex, the ability to be wanted for sex, being a power source. And I think about think about that like especially online when it's everything when it's conservatives complaining about how high school students aren't sexy enough when it's people complaining like left-leaning commentators complaining that you know we're not having sex because of capitalism and it just is like everybody just shut the fuck up. Stop it. The fact that we're mad that teens aren't having as much sex is like baffling to me. I will not be mad. This is fine. It's also it's like when people show the like, the graph of like teens are drinking less and smoking cigarettes

less or whatever. And I'm like, good. Sex is not the end all and be all of human existence. Like the pursuit of it doesn't need to be for everybody all the time and especially for content purposes it just is like i just i was infuriated so you're just hoping for you're just hoping for balance you're hoping for a balance on the internet you don't want evangelical schools telling us to be scared of pregnancy and you don't want the highest and best purpose of yourself online to be sexy pics so that people give you the most likes. That's what you want. Exactly. And I also, the swing from evangelicals yelling about how you do not have sex to evangelicals yelling about how it's very unfortunate that women aren't having more sex because they aren't having babies. I'm like, pick a lane. Pick a lane. Pick a lane,

Martha. Okay. We have to get to the mailbag. You should read the whole piece. It's wonderful. Boy, people want advice from us, apparently, Jane. Well, I guess they want advice from me, but I want your advice. I want to start with Jonathan. My siblings and I want to connect with our 74-year-old MAGA father. He lives in his big Bear Mountain cabin and only texts me. He's cut off my brother and sister, thinks we're all woke snowflakes. His wife and he watch Fox News and get drunk every night. The last time we met, we argued about politics. How can we build a relationship with him? First, I want to say I'm sorry, Jonathan, that sucks. And thank you for emailing.

Do you want to go first, Jane? Or would you like me to go first? I'm interested to hear what you think. But I think the biggest thing I have found for relationship building is doing the best to talk about things that aren't politics, because you are connected by a thread that is stronger than any political mechanism, you know, this is your father. And so when I've had friends who are in that same situation, I think that really connecting about family and good memories, because what it sounds like to me, this sounds like somebody who is deeply depressed like the whole thing about like getting drunk every night and watching television by themselves

and they don't talk to anybody like i think that there have been i talked about this somewhere else but like there are lots of things where i'm like when people get really doomery online i'm like are you really concerned about the end of the world or are you dealing with depression that has not yet been treated or diagnosed? I mean, so I think like one recognize that this could be someone who is dealing with all some issues that are way bigger than politics. And but then are being fed everything they need to continue fomenting the issues because cable news, specifically Fox News wants to keep you anxious and watching. Like Fox News will never be like, everything's cool now. Good job, everybody. Because somewhere someone will be doing something that they don't like, but try to find means by which you can connect with them about things that aren't politics.

One of the reasons why I love sports so much is that I have gone to so many football games or sporting events in which I'm aware the people around me are like, they differ from me on everything, but we are there united by this thing. I remember going to like a Michigan Maryland game at Maryland. And these very nice people offered me drinks and were like, you know, rooted for Michigan together. And they had a giant let's go Brandon flag above their car. And I was like, huh, huh, okay. And like, there were moments where you can't argue about politics. You can't do it. But you can reform the bond that is bigger than politics.

I agree with that. I would add to it. And this is a related point to the sports. But when I was reading this note, I think back, me and my mother we're doing great now hi mom but you know we i was a piece of shit i was a bratty teen like anybody else and so when we would fight like the thing that me and my mom always had was scrabble and so we would have you know a beer summit but not beer it'd be a scrabble summit you know where

a lot of times at the beginning of scrabble would just be quiet because we're angry at each other we're just scrabbling but over the time you know you begin to discuss the play on the board and then over the time you maybe have a memory about a Scrabble game prior and and then all of a sudden you're talking about Scrabble and then we would go to our separate ways and it would be healing like this is just it I don't and it needs to be the person that something that your dad likes you know like you just have to suck it up and like i don't know does he like to hunt does he like to fish does he like to yeah whatever i don't know he's got to have some other he has to have some other interest or maybe it's a past interest maybe he no longer has any interest because he's depressed and his only interest now are fox news and drinking but maybe there's something from your childhood yeah like

dad we need to go and go back to this play i want to take you back to wherever we had a camping trip whatever it is and maybe that won't work maybe it will but like that's your best bet and not taking the bait on politics because it's over like there's no hope at this as you said for like this person voting for joe biden are you guys having healthy dialogue about immigration regime. So like try to have healthy dialogue about something else. Yeah. Also because both hunting and fishing,

great activities to do together while not talking. Perfect. Great. Stand in silence. It's great. Yeah. Yeah.

Stand in silence together. It's beautiful. Big Bear Mountain is beautiful. And man, it is tough. I've been there. But yeah, you just got to try to find other things to talk about okay i've got one more that's relevant for both of us i had a bunch of other mailbag things but i'll get back to them next week but this one is relevant for both you and i it comes from matt i live in increasingly nuttier republican state that's making life slowly

shittier but we're raising a toddler and our entire friend and family circle is in a 40-minute drive. Plus, we genuinely like our neighborhood and bought our house years ago when rates were low. What should I do? I'll take this one first and answer Matt. I've got some hopefully happy news, maybe disappointing news for you. You're living the dream. Your life is great, actually. You know, life is hard. A lot of people live in places with very bad politics in America, throughout the world. The ideal place where you live somewhere that is affordable and where you have friends and this podcast, I hope that you just wake up every day with a freaking smile on your face because that just isn't life for a lot of people.

Part of the reason why we moved to New Orleans was because, for me, it's just the friend circle, but most of my entire friend circle is within a 40-minute drive of where we live, related to the Jonathan question. None of those friends are MAGA, but none of them are really into politics. Most we don't talk about our kids and fun memories and LSU and music and other stuff. And that is fulfilling for me. And that brings me an important respite from these conversations I have to have with you all all the time. And it's nice. And we have a Republican governor in our state that is making life slowly shittier. And he and jeff lander if you ever want to debate me on this podcast i'm happy to come do that but you know it's the best of some bad options and i also think that a lot of people who listen to this podcast who live in blue parts of red states and i think that's kind of the sweet spot right now in a lot of ways people in blue cities and red states are a lot of great blue cities and red states right now and i think that

people who live in redder parts of those red states, particularly marginalized people, particularly people who don't have a lot of money, it's a different animal. If you told me I live in a red part of a red state and I have no friends and family around and I have to send my kid to a public school where they're demanding that they teach the Ten Commandments and they tell them that if they say that they're gay, then they'll be expelled, then I would tell you that you should probably move, but that's not your situation. Jane, do you have anything to add to that? Yeah. I think also let's, politics changes over time. Like there are some areas that have gotten bluer or redder over time. My parents, they bought their house in 1979 in Cincinnati, Ohio. They are in Cincinnati. My sister lives about like three streets away. And like, that is where they are. That is where my aunt is. That's where my late grandmother was, like grandparents were. And I think for my parents, like everyone that they know and want to be around who is not me is there. And so I think that having that real community is so important. We try to create, I think, especially now, people try to use politics as a replacement in some ways for community. But I think that political community does matter. But I've lived in places where I think everyone pretty much agreed with me politically and been super annoyed all the time. I've lived in places.

I live in Utah. I live in Salt Lake City, a blue area and a red state. It's pretty great. I've really enjoyed my time here. You do have a much better governor than I do. I don't know where Matt lives, but probably a better governor than Matt. It's about the best case scenario for a red state governor. Well, it is also funny because Republicans are very mad at him all the time because he's not like super MAGA. But like the thing that my parents

have shown me is like Cincinnati used to be in some like a very conservative kind of backlashy place to be if you're a liberal. My house honestly felt like a blue island in a red sea when I was a kid. You know, I went to Catholic school. Everyone we knew, I knew, like their parents were like big time Republican donors and they were all like young Republicans. It's interesting. None of them are. None of the people I went to high school with think of themselves as being Republicans now, which is interesting to me. Make sure they're listening to the Bullard podcast, your high school friends. That's our target demo. Exactly. Now Cincinnati is like a pretty progressive place to be. Ohio is not,

but you know, that's, Ohio is a large state with a lot of people in it. Like Cincinnati now has like a cool mayor and you know, people are moving there And it's like a blue city in a red state. And my parents locked in early and are like, whatever happens, they have their home, they have their friends, they have close family, and that's it. And so often, I think that we permit politics to change how we want to live our lives in a lot of ways that are helpful in some ways, but not so helpful in others. And if you're in a place in which you're close to friends and family, you have a locked in community,

you feel good at home, and you can use that place as a bulwark against the outer politics of the world in which you have a place in which people can come and feel safe and good and build community that stands athwart the politics of your state, that's awesome. Amen to that. Jane Koston, you're always a delight. I am tonight in a couple hours interviewing

Jared Polis, governor of Colorado. So we'll be airing that on Monday's episode. We'll do a little news of the day too for folks because, you know, we went far afield today, even though we didn't even get to all my topics. I wanted to discuss Viktor Orban saying that Germany no longer smells the same because of immigrants or the secessionists. And, you know, we've got a lot more to get to next week. So thank you all for sticking with us. Kelly and Jessica, we're going to get to your mailbag next week. Jane Koston, I appreciate you so much. Please come back soon.

Will do. Thank you so much. We'll see you all back here on Monday. Hopefully I don't embarrass myself with Jared Polis. Bill Kristol will be here you so much all right we'll see y'all back here on monday hopefully i don't embarrass myself with jared polis bill crystal will be here see y'all then peace i'm every woman It's all in you I can read your thoughts right now

And remember me today I can cast a spell Secrets you can't tell Mix a special groove with fire inside of you Anytime you feel danger or fear, then it's to me I will be your only light, everyone It's all in me Anything you want done, baby, I do it naturally The Bullard Podcast is produced by Katie Cooper with audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.