The Daily Beast Podcast - The Most Absurd Conservative Controversies of 2024

Episode Date: December 27, 2024

Andrew Lawrence, Deputy Director of Rapid Response at Media Matters, unpacks 2024’s most absurd conservative outrages, from Olympic controversies to Taylor Swift’s political stances and the supposed “wokeness” of “Wicked.” Plus! Professor Ray Brescia, legal columnist for the Daily Beast, explores privacy and surveillance in the digital age, highlighting the need for stronger protections against big tech’s data exploitation and misinformation. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Hi, I'm Andy Levy, former Fox News and CNN-HLN guy, and current cable news conscientious objector. I'm a former libertarian who now sits pretty comfortably on the left. Hi, I'm Danielle Moody, former educator and recovering lobbyist. But today, I'm an unapologetic, woke commentator on America's threats to democracy. And I'm producer Jesse Cannon, and I'm here to make sure things don't go too far off the rails. We're here to have fun, smart conversations with some of the most knowledgeable and entertaining people in politics, media, and beyond. goal is to try and make sense of our current crazy world, our new abnormal, and hopefully even make you laugh through the tears. What a great show we have for you today. We're still

on vacation and we hope you're enjoying your holiday as well. That doesn't mean we didn't record something extra special just for you. Today, Andrew Lawrence, Deputy Director of Rapid Response at Media Manors, unpacks 2024's most absurd conservative outrages from Olympic controversies to Taylor Swift's political stances. Then Professor Ray Beesha, the legal columnist for The Daily Beast, explores privacy and surveillance in the digital age. But first, let's have some fun. So as is new abnormal holiday tradition, what we like to do around here is ask you some questions to let the listeners get to know you guys a little better. Okay, how about a book? Okay, here we go.

I have a couple. So one of them that I have loved is Hope for Cynics. So this is nonfiction. And actually, we've had the author on this show a couple of times. Dr. Jamil Zaki, and the book is so good. Just the storytelling mixed in with the science of hope is for a person who has considered themselves a cynic was really inspiring. So that one. I'm going to go with only fiction books because I don't want to offend anyone I had on for a nonfiction book that I'll forget to name. Wow. Okay. Great. Look at this diplomat.

Unlike Danielle, who doesn't mind doing that opinion. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. But a book by, um, Paul Tremblay, who's an incredible horror writer, he wrote a book called Horror Movie, which is absolutely fantastic. And it is sort of a, I guess sort of a meta novel that contains within it the screenplay of a movie that was made. He is an amazing writer. And I read a lot of horror, and I can usually read it any time of day. This was a book that I found myself not reading at night because it just, it made. me really anxious. There's like just so much going on. And it wasn't like, you know, it wasn't

like scary, can't have the lights out kind of thing, but it's just the feelings of anxiety that it engendered were, were fairly strong. So, uh, so there's that. Um, I would say the best book I read this year that didn't come out this year is a book called Babel by R.F. Kwong, which is an unbelievable book. It takes place in the 1800s in, mostly in England at Oxford, but it's a slightly different world from our own where silver working, it turns out that in this world, silver has sort of magical properties when infused with the right words. So it has sort of a little bit of a fantasy science fiction base, but it really is a book about language. It's a book about colonialism because so much of it revolves around

how England acted in China. And it was just one of those books where I was really, really sad when I finished it because it was just such a beautifully written thing with an absolutely fascinating plot. So that's the best book I read this year that didn't come out this year. I think it's 2022. Okay. I love this. My favorite author, my favorite fiction author, Nettie Ocalfour's two-part book Like Thunder, which is part of a duology. It's a two-part sequel. And it came out actually in 2023, but I read it in 2024. And it's just, it's imagine the Niger West Africa in the year 2077. And it's just like an extraordinary journey of this young man coming into like his powers.

And it's just it's the way that she fuses real with reality, with sci-fi, with African mysticism. and spiritualism. It's just, it's a, it's a brilliant, brilliant read. And it really, you know, takes you off of this planet, which is so comforting. All right. We're going to do a few reoccurring questions that are a little easier now. Okay. Twitter threads are blue sky.

Blue sky. Blue sky. Threads, but I'm coming around to blue sky. Oh, okay. So sadly, a year ago this time, I asked, when do you think Eric Adams will be indicted? This year, I'm not. I ask. So where do you see this fellow ending up? In the administration?

God damn. I mean, seems a natural progression. Yeah, no, it really does. I have said all along I didn't think he was going to resign after all these charges and I don't see any reason why that would change

in the upcoming year. I mean, I think he'll end up serving out his term. I really do. And then we'll see what happens from there. I don't have a lot of faith in powerful people being subject to the law these days. Call me crazy. Why so cynical? So weird.

I know. I know. I know. Yeah. So I see him ending his term. And I mean, he is someone that very clearly belongs in prison. Don't get me wrong. He is among the most corrupt mayors of New York that I can remember.

And that's saying a lot. I will go against you on the prediction though. Okay. There is a deadline that I'm trying to Google, but I can't find right now, that the mayor election won't have a temporary mayoral election and it'll just go to the next one. I bet you he resigns after that because then there's going to be a lot of knives out for him. And I will tell you this too. There is about a Steve Madden store amount of shoes left to drop.

Mm-mm. I just don't see him having the personality. of resigning, regardless of anything. There is function for him to not have to, thank God. Another reoccurring question. Let's see who you got for this year. Worst Supreme Court Judge of 2024. Worst Supreme Court judge of 2024?

Oh. Oh, dear. Well, it's a tie. Who had the bigger sugar daddy? Well, we know it's Thomas has the biggest, but then right behind him is Alito. Alito with his flags. Oh, God, it's just so.

hard. I'm going to go off book and say it's Roberts. Oh! I like that take. Because all of this shit is happening and he is doing absolutely nothing about it. Yeah, you're right. And he portrayed himself as someone who was very much into how the court would be judged in history and how the court is perceived by the public. And all of that has completely and utterly gone away. And they can't even come up with a.

They can't even come up with a voluntary ethics code. And he is an unbelievably bad chief justice, is what I'm saying. A hard agree. For the past couple of years, Media Matters, Deputy Director of Rapid Response, Andrew Lawrence has joined me to go over the most absurd, conservative, quote-unquote, controversies of the year. Things like Lizzo playing the flute, Disney making a mermaid black, Eminem's getting a makeover, etc.

Thankfully, this year, all the conservative cultural complaints were very smart and serious, So there was no reason to invite Andrew back. I am joking, of course. He is here to give us his list of the dumbest conservative outrages or non-traversies, as we like to call them, of 2024. Andrew, thanks so much for coming back. Of course I'm back, Andy. Of course we have plenty of talk to about again this year. But yeah, no, thank you.

This is always fun. And thank you for having me. Absolutely. All right. So let's start with the Olympics. It felt like there were several instances where conservatives, along with the, the so-called heterodox thinkers lost their minds. And it all began with the opening ceremonies. I believe they were referred to as demonic, anti-Christian, pagan. Who knows what else?

Refresh our memories here. What exactly was going on? Yeah, you know, well, first of all, the Olympics are always a ripe environment for controversies from conservative media in America. And, you know, the opening ceremonies, you know, first of all, this was the Paris Olympics, you know, and so it was very, let's say, artsy, you know, maybe a little flamboyant, and conservatives were very mad about that. You know, but where they really lost their mind was the opening ceremonies included a sort of an homage to the story of Dionysus, which I believe is entrenched in French culture. American conservatives saw that and misinterpreted it as the Last Supper.

And, you know, there were bearded men wearing dresses in the Olympic ceremony and stuff. like that. So conservatives misconstrued it as the Last Supper. And then they decided that it was an attack on Christianity. It was an attack on conservative culture. It was attack on gender norms, what they consider to be gender norms. All of these things. It was like this perfect confluence of things for them to get angry about. And what made it so interesting is that it was all based in them not knowing artwork. Shockish. Which is, you know, yeah, shocking. Just based on ignorance, you know. And that's, I think that's going to be part of a theme here in our, our conversation here today. But the Olympics, it always is, you know, just this area where they lose

their minds, especially the opening ceremonies. And, you know, you have, it's very multicultural. America isn't the center of everything. Straight white men are at the center of everything. And they just can't handle it. And every two years, you know, media matters, we know this is coming. I know I'm going to be watching hours and hours of them being mad about the Olympics. And this was no exception. Yeah, I guess Sean Hannity said he refused to act to watch. the Olympics and then talked about the fact that there was what he called a drag queen parody of the Last Supper, which as you just pointed out was not a parody of the Last Supper. But to be fair, it was a bunch of people all on one side of a table. So what else could it be other than the Last Supper? Right, exactly. Yeah, exactly. There's no other possibility of what it could be. There is nobody that drapes themselves in the flag and the Constitution like Sean Hannity does. And here you have, you know, Americans on the world stage competing in sports. and he's refusing to take part in watching it cheering on his fellow countrymen,

you know, over a, what was it, maybe three or four minute, a segment of the opening ceremonies. It's just, this is conservative virtue signaling, is that type of thing that we saw from Sean Hannity there. Yeah, one person I have to grudgingly give some credit to is the Daily Wire's Michael Knowles because he at least understood that there was paganism going on because the Olympics have their origin in ancient Greece. And so he sort of was like, he said,

I guess it takes more to scandalize me than weird pagan sex stuff at a Greek thing, which, yes, that's actually right. As odd as it is for Michael knows to be right, at least he identified what was going on. Yeah, exactly. This is just sort of a great example of how in conservative media, they can be wrong and it can be pointed out and they can know that they're wrong, but the majority of them will just keep pushing.

forward, man. And, you know, they just, they just keep going. It doesn't matter because it keeps getting them clicks on their podcast, subscribers, that type of thing. And it's, it's, I don't know, I guess we could have a conversation about that for like two or three hours. Yeah. So how much time exactly did Fox News spend obsessing over culture war stuff at the Olympics? Was it like, what, 10, 15 minutes? We had four hours and seven minutes on two different culture war controversies, one we haven't talked about yet with the boxer, but the opening ceremonies and, and yeah, the boxer. All right, so let's get to the boxer. And what we're talking about here is the quote unquote transvestigation of the Algerian woman's boxer, Imani Khalif.

And this became such a huge obsession for some of the worst people around, didn't it? Yeah. And it was just so bizarre. And for your listeners that don't remember weren't paying any attention, there was a boxer Imani Khalif. And I apologize as if I say that name wrong. I think that's right. And she was the target of all of this vitriol from American constituents. conservatives and right-wing media because they were saying that she was transgender.

And now, now this is a person who was born a woman on her birth certificate. Roaster of her ranks passed all of the testing by the IOC that everybody else has to pass. All of that is she's exactly what conservatives say that they want, you know, that if you are born as a woman, if it's on your birth certificate, that you are born female, then you should compete as a female. That's what she was. But she didn't fit to the gender norms, I guess, that we've established.

She's a very muscular woman. She's large, you know, she has. has a square jaw. She has, I guess, a traditionally masculine look to her. They couldn't handle that, you know, so they just kept calling her trans, even though she wasn't. It was, it was so bizarre and so hateful and ruining, you know, this, this poor athlete is there at the height of her career, I'm sure. And having to deal with this over nothing. We have a lot of fun with these not traverses a lot, but this was really heartbreaking. Like watching this all play out. It just, it wasn't fair to the athlete. It wasn't fair to any of the other athletes that were there. And

was taking attention away from their accomplishments. And this was a tough one to watch. It just, it wasn't fair and it was all based on a lot. And this was a person who did everything that conservatives say they want done. Did it exactly the way that they say they want it done. And it wasn't good enough. So yeah, that was a tough one to watch. Yeah.

And they kind of pivoted once it became at least somewhat clear that she had been assigned female at birth. They then sort of, it seemed like they pivoted to saying, well, that was wrong. And that's, and that's, I guess, because of testosterone levels. you know, that she may or may not have had? Yeah, and I'm, look, I'm not a doctor. I'm not an expert on any of this. So I'm going to try to be as vague as possible.

I remember reading something that whatever was that she had, if it was the higher testosterone or there was something with chromosomes maybe or something that were a little bit different or something. You know, but I was reading a study that a larger percentage of female Olympian athletes would be like that versus like the general public, you know? Like, it was not just this one boxer who would have been part of that group, I guess, that they started targeting. You know, but really what I think happened here is that they were just wrong.

And they couldn't admit that they were wrong. So they had to retcon it into something else after everybody was laughing at them and telling them how evil and terrible they are. Yeah. No, absolutely. It was, as you said, it was absolutely horrific. And it was watching people who trumpet what good folks they are, just totally destroying this woman and thinking that somehow, you know, they were the good guys.

And it was absolutely disgraceful. So sticking with sports, 24, it feels like that was the year also that conservatives pretended to care about the WNBA? Yeah. Yeah, it was a big year for conservatives pretending to care about the WNBA with Caitlin Clark at the center of that. And, you know, I'm not a sociologist, but I think there's some very interesting sociological things going on here. You know, she was really an avatar for conservative media, right-wing media, for a lot of their hobby horses, for what they call reverse racism, racism towards white people, for anti-LGB hate, you know, stuff like that. And she was a reluctant avatar for all of this.

She didn't want any part of this. And I think we need to point that out. And give her credit, she's made statements talking about how she's earned everything that she's got, but that she's also benefited from privilege, you know, white privilege and that type of stuff. And how she's a star, but the WMBA was built on the backs of black females. And we all need to recognize that. And that type of stuff, I mean, conservative media is just freaking out because Caitlin Clark really was kind of the great white hope for conservative media. And they don't care about the WNBA at all.

I mean, you'd have Matt Walsh, Daily Wire host, you know, sitting there talking about Caitlin Clark. But then the next sentence, he's saying that the WNBA should be abolished, you know, and that we shouldn't even have a WNBA. So these people don't care about women's sports. They don't care about the WNBA. But they see Caitlin Clark having a cultural moment and they see a way for them to horn in and take it. advantage of that and get subscribers to their podcast and clicks on their on their stories about how, you know, she's, she's a target of reverse racism and how the WNBA is full of lesbians. So, of course, she's being, she's being targeted.

You know, there's a big controversy around her when she didn't make the Olympic basketball team. You know, I remember sitting there thinking to myself, like, wow, yeah, she should have, she probably should have made it. And then, you know, a moment later, recognizing like, Andrew, what are you talking, you don't know anything about the WNBA. Like I'm assuming that the person in charge of putting together the Olympic team knows more about it than I do. Like I know, I know the name Caitlin Clark and Angel Reese. And that's about, you know, all I know about the WNBA. So, you know, and then you take a deeper look at the stats. And she was leading the league in turnovers at the time and kind of

struggling through a rookie season up to that time. But conservatives saw her as this way to sort of push their talking points of particularly reverse racism, you know, racism against white people, which they've really opened up about and has become a central theme in conservative media. Yeah, for sure. And also, as you know, Angel Reese, who you brought up also was not named to the Olympic team. It had to do with them being rookies is really all it was. Yeah. But of course, you know, they did what they did. Look, Caitlin Clark has handled herself with, I think, sort of extraordinary class in a lot of ways. Yes. And this also has annoyed conservatives. And Clark said, she gave a quote and said, I want to say I've earned everything, but as a white person,

there is privilege. A lot of those players in the leagues that have been really good have been black players. And she basically said the league needs to do more to elevate them. And Riley Gaines, quote, tweeted that and said, I've yet to hear a sensible answer as to what privileges white people have over black people in the year 2024. And my response to that was, girl, you're literally famous for being mediocre. Yes. Yeah, exactly. I mean, maybe you're not the person that we should be looking to, uh, to explain privilege. You know, Riley Gaines, for your listeners who don't know, she became famous when she finished in fourth or fifth and a trans person finished in a swimming event.

And that's how Riley Gaines got famous. Like you said, she is the definition of mediocre. And she has been elevated to a height that if she was a black woman, probably wouldn't have been elevated to where she's at. So you're right. Like Caitlin Clark, the way that she's handled herself, you know, some of the things, the harassment that's been sent, not just to her colleagues and her teammates and stuff like that, but also to her from conservatives disappointed in things that she said and stuff like that.

The way that she's handled herself, I think, has been really impressive. So let's jump now from sports to music. And that, of course, brings us to Taylor Swift. Of course. I mean, it was a huge year for Taylor Swift. She, you know, had the Erez tour. She is dating Travis Kelsey. It was also the year, though, that conservatives very much did not approve of her, wasn't it?

Yeah. And there's a real history with so funny saying this. But there's a history with Taylor Swift and conservative media. And over the past years, through her rise and all that, she really became sort of of this symbol of white perfection among hardcore extreme right wingers. She was kind of elevated to that level. She had nothing to do with it. This is all, you know, she doesn't embrace that or anything like that.

But she's obviously very left wing, very liberal. You know, she came out and endorsed Joe Biden back in 2020, endorsing Kamala and all of that. And I think they're just incredibly disappointed in her. I think the fact that she was taking crap on Fox News for not having kids, you know, for essentially being a childless cat lady. They're, I mean, they're instructing her to go out and get pregnant. And then you throw all that in with her relationship with Travis Kelsey, who was doing ads for the COVID vaccine and stuff like that. And, I mean, I really don't know anything about his politics other than that.

So I don't know where he stands. That also rubs conservatives the wrong way. And, you know, and then they're also just taking advantage of her stardom as well. You know, I think that's a large part of this as well. They get views and likes and subscriptions when they're talking about Taylor Swift because Taylor Swift is famous and people want to know what's what's being said about. and all that. It was weird. You know, and I know we heard the word weird a lot in 2024, but there was a lot of weird talk about Taylor Swift. I mean, Jesse Waters, like pretty much the face of Fox News, you know, he's got the 8 o'clock show now, instructing her to go get

pregnant. Like, it just so gross and creepy. And also saying she was a Pentagon asset. Yes, and a Pentagon. Yeah, just this weird stuff, like this bizarre stuff. And it was just nonstop. And a lot of it, you know, there were rumors before she endorsed, like, is she going to endorse and stuff like that. And I think a lot of it, this nonsense started bubbling up then. And I think kind of like as a warning shot, you know, a shot across the bow. Like, hey, do you better not, you better not endorse. You better not endorse. And she did it anyway. But yeah, it was just weird. There's just so weird about her. I mean, women in general, you know, and I think, I think Taylor Swift being famous is kind of a lightning rod for that when she's in the news. Yeah, for sure. But I think you're absolutely right.

It's like, look, she is possibly the most famous woman in the world, I guess you could say. Yeah. So they, you know, they have to sort of glom onto that and make it about themselves, really. Like you said, it's just, it's exceedingly weird. I only have like two minutes left. So I want to talk about a movie that just came out. And that movie, of course, is Wicked. There were a bunch of folks on the right who decided that Wicked, which is a movie set in the land of Oz, and sort of tells the story of the Wicked Witch of the West and is based on a long running Broadway musical. So people decided that the movie Wicked was too woke, right?

Yeah. And, you know, what I find so interesting about this and I haven't seen Wicked yet, I eventually will. I'll probably wait till streaming, though, if I'm being honest. But what's so interesting about that, from what I've read, from everything I've heard, the themes and the plot and the messaging of it is actually very woke, is very left-wing, very progressive. But that's not what they're mad about.

They're mad about a black actress and Ariana Grande playing the two witches, you know? it's that surface level. That's what I find so interesting about this, you know, is it's not really the complaints about the themes, the left wing themes and messaging. It's the race aspect of the actresses. And, you know, we had a co-chair of women for Trump in 2020, Gina Loudon, I'm saying that Ariana Grande, playing this witch was cultural appropriation, which is, I mean, it's just so funny. Like, it's so stupid that it's just so funny and that it's racist against white people. And how is wicked racist against white people? And it's just so bizarre. And it's so funny. And, you know, I feel like every year we end up talking about a movie. I remember Barbie was really big last year. I'm finding that essentially any large blockbuster movie not geared towards straight white men is just too woke for them. Yeah, it's wild.

And the woman you're talking about Gina Loudon, I think, the co-chair of the woman for Trump. She referred to Ariana Grande as, quote, obviously a Hispanic woman. She is Italian-American, but, you know, don't let that stop you, Gina. And then I'll just end by pointing out a Newsmax host who was mad about Grande and said that she was making things go woke. And as we know, if you go woke, you go broke. So I don't think this strategy is going to work. And I just want to conclude by pointing out that in its first three weeks, wicked grossed over $320 million domestically and over $460 million worldwide. But again, don't let that stop you because we need things to talk about come the end of every year.

Exactly. Andrew, thank you so much for being here. This is always a fun thing to do. And I assume we won't have any trouble filling up another episode next year. Oh, my God. If there is a next year. Exactly. Fingers crossed.

But yeah, no, this is a blast. I appreciate it, Andy. Anytime. Folks, I am very happy to welcome to the new abnormal. Professor Ray Brescia, who is a legal columnist for The Daily Beast. And he also is the author of a forthcoming book coming out in late January of 2025, entitled The Private is Political, Identity and Democracy in the Age of Surveillance Capitalism. Ray.

This is the stuff of nightmares that is ever increasingly becoming our reality. Just give us kind of the 50,000 foot view on what has been happening that the public is unaware of or basically maybe has shrugged off as. just, you know, the cost of technological advancement, which is that we are being listened to, watched, advertised to all the time. But that's not the crux of what you're talking about. So please, give us a 50,000 foot view. Well, thanks, Danielle. Thanks for having me. Yes, I am a Daily Beast contributor, which is, I'm very proud of that fact. But I also teach law. I teach law Albany Law School in New York. And, you know, when I talk to my students about this, I talk to young people generally, you know, it is we, you know, in our generation, we have a different sense, I think, of privacy than younger folks. And then they just, you know, they don't think that there is privacy, which I think is a real tragedy. And I think that, you know, perhaps their realist vision is a bit better than what we might hope to be the

state of affairs in which the things that we do, you know, we might want to believe that we aren't being tracked, that we aren't being listened to, that we aren't being watched. And I'm, I'm sorry to say that I think we are in a lot of ways and that we willingly sign over a lot of what I describe as, you know, our identity to third parties. In some ways, our identity, which is more ourself than the selves that we may want to project to the world. which is, you know, the things that we search for on, you know, whether it's social media or in Google or anywhere else, the things we shop for, the questions we pose, the things that we ask of a generative AI. In many ways, we're revealing our innermost thoughts, right? You know, our ailments, our fears. This collection is really what our identity is in a lot of ways, if you think about.

it. And that is what is for sale, right? That is what is being released. And so the, you know, and being sold to people who will sell things to us, but it also, you know, can be and is being sold to governments. And that is where I fear we are at the most risk and that we've set up a fairly robust system for protecting our privacy from government actors, but it is the Wild West when it comes to private actors. And, you know, there is now a very thin line between the private and the public in terms of who has access to this information. And there are real threats because of this. But I'll stop there and let you go down any path you want. The threats, I think, are very obvious. And I want to, I want to bring

up kind of the faux outrage around TikTok versus what we have experienced with the meta platforms owned by Zuckerberg with Google, Apple, and the like. Right now, TikTok is basically on the countdown to being banned in the United States unless they sell to an American entity. and it is because of the thought that China is spying on us. And even though TikTok was created by a myriad of investors like most of these tech giants are, they happen to be Chinese, but they are not run by the Chinese government. And frankly, the reaction from those that use TikTok, which is about 170 million Americans, is, well, the government and meta and Google and Apple,

are already spying on us. So what's the difference? And there's kind of this like, I guess, nonchalant nature coming from the public that they know that this is happening. And so why are we calling out one platform over another when meta has been found to do much more egregious meddling, which we have seen in the past two election cycles, much more egregious suppression of information with their algorithms. then what we've seen with TikTok.

What do you make of these kind of this, this tech giant showdown that we're seeing right now? Well, I don't like any of it. Part of the problem is that we don't really know what's going on behind the scenes with many of these companies. Whether it's TikTok or meta or whomever, you know, you talked about some of the problems with Facebook. You know, Facebook was involved in the Cambridge Analytica scandal. They paid a $5 billion fine. They paid a large settlement to Facebook users.

And, you know, it was revealed that they gave information to this company that was working with the Trump campaign. And, you know, subtle messages were tested and some not so subtle messages were tested. But you also have groups, Facebook groups, that have been created by Russian operatives to push propaganda out on these platforms, you know, to try and foam. dissent and disruption of our political systems. So, you know, I think that this is the next step that I write about, that it is, you know, it's one thing if a platform is saying, hey, you just searched for this glove, this brand of glove. And here's another similar brand that's a little cheaper.

You know, like, whatever, that's fine. you know, that might be something that consumer wants. If information about your searches, about your information, your private information is, you know, people push things to you that might scare you, that might force you to change your vote or decide not to vote, or might convince you that you don't need to worry about privacy, that you don't need to think about privacy legislation, you know, that, you know, any kind of legislation that would rain in the tech companies would, you know, thwart American innovation. Like those kind of messages, right?

Like, and that's what I talk about in the book is, you know, political privacy. I'm not so concerned about, you know, commercial issues where people are trying to sell you a better mousetrap, right? It's about this stuff that will chill speech, that will prevent people, you know, if someone goes online, If they're a new parent and they're saying to themselves, like, I'm hearing all this stuff about vaccines, you know, this is, you know, kind of scary if it's true. And then they start searching about the safety of vaccines. And then they start getting stuff pushed to them. This vaccine is really risky and this vaccine is really dangerous. And this vaccine is going to, you know, cause your children to grow a third arm.

Like, whoa, wait a minute, right? Like that kind of disinformation, you know, could. really be harmful, right? And so I try to think about strategies that we have. Well, first off, I try to raise the alarm, right? And Danielle, the alarm is raised for you. But also to say, like, look, you know, it's, you know, privacy is super important. But without that privacy, we can't even, you know, figure out ways to protect privacy. And so that's why I think, you know, privacy is kind of like a first right. Like it's really, it's a threshold, right? It's something that we have to have in order to protect other rights, including the right to privacy. You know, whenever I have seen over the

last several years, these tech giant CEOs pulled before congressional committees, it is terrifying. And it's terrifying, Ray, because the legislators have no idea what they are talking about. And it becomes incredibly obvious in their line of questioning. And so when you talk about the fact that we need to create kind of this privacy infrastructure, this wall to protect citizens not just from being advertised to for commercial capitalistic gains, but to stop the flood of misinformation that could lead and has led to great harm, How do you feel about our legislators and what is it that you think that they need to equip themselves with in order to be able to protect the rest of us? Well, you know, they could read my book.

But I do think, you know, I think that there are some legislators who get it. I think, you know, we've got Maria Cantwell, Senator Cantwell, Representative McMorris Rogers. you know, they're working on some privacy legislation. It's not perfect, but it could make some of the protections that we need, create some of the protections that we need. I think that there are, you know, there are some people who are aware of these concerns, you know, Representative Kana, Senator Murphy, Senator Coons. You know, there are people who are trying to raise the alarm bells about some of these

issues, but there are, you know, there are a lot of gap. And frankly, the tech giants have a lot of power on Capitol Hill. And so that is probably one of the biggest barriers to real reform, which is the fact that Capitol Hill is a wash in tech money. So I think that that is a real impediment to reform. But, you know, that doesn't, that shouldn't stop regular citizens from advocating for reform and advocating for change. I think that what I talk about in the book is try to sort of force the hand of federal legislators in one way, which is by pushing for state level legislation, where it

might be easier, where you might see. And I think that there is, you know, some degree of convergence on the right and the left about social media companies and privacy. And if if you can sort of, you know, like Velociraptor is testing the fence, right? Like you can push, you know, you can push in some states where you might have more of a, you know, more support for this legislation. You know, we've got states like California that have robust privacy. It's protected in the state constitution. So, you know, you can push in these areas where there might be more of a ground swell,

where there might be less influence of money on the state legislators. And then that will sort of bring the issue to a head at the federal level because the tech companies will go to Congress saying, oh, we need a federal law because we've got all these states doing their own thing. We need some uniformity, which, of course, there's a risk there that that play for, uniformity across the country will result in what's known as preemption, which is the federal law will preempt any of those stronger state laws. So there's always a risk in that. So what you have to do is not only fight for that sort of broad uniformity, but either say that the state laws won't be

preempted if they're a little stronger or make sure that the federal law is as strong as possible. But I do think that the, you know, citizens have more of a say at the state legislative level. And they have and they should continue to push for those state laws that will protect privacy, at least for the citizens of those states. What is it that the people can do for themselves? What can we do in order to be cognizant of the fact that privacy is a right? to your opening point about young people feeling as if, well, there is no such thing as privacy, that's not the way that prior generations understood their privacy.

What can the average person do to protect themselves outside of reading and understanding where the risks are? Is there any action to be taken? Yes. I think that, you know, it starts with understanding the importance of privacy and understanding that, you know, there are real risks to not having privacy. As we see freedoms slowly eroding, and maybe some people will say not so slowly eroding, and I would agree with them, but as we see freedoms eroding, there are real risks that privacy will undermine people's ability to access reproductive care, any kind of medical treatments if they are looking to transition gender. So they're a real concern. right? And so the first is understanding, you know, the risks associated with a lack of privacy

and also understanding, and I get into this in the book a little bit, that, you know, we sometimes think of privacy as a negative right, right, as, you know, a freedom from something. But privacy is actually a positive right in the sense that it is a freedom to do something. It is a freedom. Privacy, protecting your privacy frees you to make critical life decisions, to have the family you want, to live the life you want. So it is a freedom too. It's not just a freedom from. So that's, you know, sort of awareness, you know, raising awareness and then becoming cognizant of how the things that you do might be open to sale and exposure. and, you know, trying to use tools that are more protective of your privacy. You know, there are search engines that are better than others.

There are companies that are better than others in protecting people's privacy. And what I advocate for in the book is a system that, you know, sort of grades apps and websites on the extent to which they protect privacy. and so that, you know, when you access an app, go to download it, or you go to a website, you know, instead of this like, you know, read our extensive cookies policy, right, it will give you, like, this is a website that, you know, let's say we grade them A through F. This is a website that protects your privacy. This is a website that doesn't. And so I go through a number of the different things that companies would have to agree to if they're They wanted a A letter grade. And if they don't agree to those things, they don't get the A letter grade and they can, you know, get a B, a C, a D based on the extent to which they protect consumers' privacy. And if you go to a website and instead of, you know, having to read their cookies policy and their end user agreements, you're just told, hey, this is a dangerous site or this is not a dangerous site, then you can make a more informed decision. That kind of system I advocate for in the book. Well, we will have to leave it there today, but I cannot thank you enough for this kind of look inside where our tech futures are at this, where our tech present is and where our and where our future is headed.

And the more informed people can become, the better off they will be. Folks, the forthcoming book is entitled The Private Is Political, Identity, Democracy in the Age of Surveillance, Capitalism. Ray Brussia, thank you so much for making the time for The New Abnormal and hope to have you back again in the new year. Thank you so much, and I'd come back anytime. Hope you enjoyed checking out this episode of The New Abnormal. We're back every Tuesday, Friday, and Sunday. If you enjoyed it, please share it with a friend. and keep the conversation going.

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