The Daily Zeitgeist - NY And LA Back2Normal? Girl Scout Cookie Drought 6.16.21

Episode Date: June 16, 2021

In episode 931, Jack and Miles are joined by This Day In Esoteric Political History host Jody Avirgan to discuss GOP refusing to help the Democrats, Republicans being blacklisted for criticizing Trump, New York and Los Angeles getting back to normal, Darnella Frazier being honored with a Pulitzer nod, UFOs, Girl Scouts, and more!FOOTNOTES: Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell On President Biden Judicial Nominees, A New “JCPOA” White House to Democrats: Get ready to go it alone on infrastructure A ‘political death warrant’: GOP lawmakers struggle after criticizing Trump ‘I didn’t take an oath to defend Donald Trump’: Rep. Tom Rice tests whether Republican voters will support a conservative who crossed Trump Former congressman Dana Rohrabacher breached Capitol police barricades on Jan. 6 Cuomo: New York going back 'to life as we know it' after reaching vaccine threshold California officially reopens its economy Teen who recorded Floyd’s arrest, death wins Pulitzer nod 'Truth embargo': UFOs are suddenly all the talk in Washington Do We Believe in U.F.O.s? That’s the Wrong Question Thinner Mints: Girl Scouts have millions of unsold cookies LISTEN: Hiatus Kaiyote - 'Chivalry Is Not Dead' (Official Audio) Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Kay hasn't heard from her sister in seven years. I have a proposal for you. Come up here and document my project. All you need to do is record everything like you always do. What was that? That was live audio of a woman's nightmare. Can Kay trust her sister or is history repeating itself? There's nothing dangerous about what you're doing.

They're just dreams. Dream Sequence is a new horror thriller from Blumhouse Television, iHeartRadio, and Realm. Listen to Dream Sequence on the iHeartRadio iheart radio app apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts captain's log stardate 2024 we're floating somewhere in the cosmos but we've lost our map yeah because you refuse to ask for directions it's space gem there are no roads good point so where are we headed into the unknown of course Join us on In Our Own World as we uncover hidden truths, navigate the depths of culture, identity, and the human spirit. With a hint of mischief. One episode at a time. Buckle up and listen to In Our Own World on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Trust us. It's out of this world. How do you feel about biscuits? Hi. It's out of this world. How do you feel about biscuits? Hi, I'm Akilah Hughes, and I'm so excited about my new podcast, Rebel Spirit, where I head back to my hometown in Kentucky and try to convince my high school to change their racist mascot, the Rebels, into something everyone in the South loves, the biscuits. I was a lady rebel. Like, what does that even mean? It's right here in black and white in print.

It's bigger than a flag or mascot. Listen to Rebel Spirit on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, everyone. It's me, Katie Couric. You know, lately I've been overwhelmed by the whole wellness industry. So much information out there about flaxseed, pelvic floor, serums, and anti-aging. So I launched a newsletter. It's called Body and Soul to share expert-approved advice for your physical and mental health. And guess what? It's free. Just sign up at katiecouric.com

slash body and soul. That's K-A-T-I-E-C-O-U-R-I-C.com slash body and soul. I promise it will make you happier and healthier. Hello, the internet and welcome to season 189, episode three of the Daily Zeitgeist, a production of iHeartRadio. This is a podcast where we take a deep dive into America's shared consciousness. It is Wednesday, June 16th, 2021. My name is Jack O'Brien, a.k.a. When I'm done pitching pods, I go back on the daily zeit. When I stop, I turn around and do meetings with Miles till I get to the evening, then I do it again. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And then I heart empire. Na-na-na-na-na-na-na. I heart empire. Na-na-na-na-na-na-na. That is an AKA to Helter Skelter, courtesy of Johnny Davis. And I am thrilled to be joined, as always, by my co-host, Mr. Miles Gray. It's Miles Gray, AKA Miles Graywolf, AKA the Miles in! It's Miles Gray, a.k.a. Miles Graywolf, a.k.a. the Miles in the Gray

flannel suit, a.k.a. the portrait of Miles Gray, a.k.a. I can see for miles and miles and miles. Again, that's Johnny Davis. Doing two for two today. It's been a while. Been a while, Johnny. But thank you for those a.k.a.s.

Alright. Yeah. trying to do that aka just then gave me a real appreciation for paul mccartney's vocal performance i think it's paul mccartney's vocal performance on that maybe it's john lennon but yeah man that was the white album yeah white album i only know because of the gray album i'm like oh yeah that's from the gray album right then and i'm like oh beetles then that mean from white album right right well miles we are thrilled to be joined today by a very talented podcast producer and host currently hosting this day an esoteric political history from radiotopia where you can hear him talk to, you know, lightweights like Jill Lepore about a Russian propagandist who traveled the U.S. and saw us.

In a way, we couldn't ourselves. Very fascinating. Most recent episode. For instance, he was willing to cover the fact that America has a white supremacist, a little undercurrent, overcurrent type thing. He is the story editor on The Line, the Dan Berski podcast we raved about when we had Dan on, executive producer of Death at the Wing, the Adam McKay podcast about tragedy and basketball in the 80s. You may have heard him hosting 30 for 30 for ESPN, the 538 Politics podcast. We are thrilled to be joined by the brilliant and talented Jody Aberga. What's up, Jody? Hey, and going into this, I told myself I'm not going to be one of those guests on The Daily Zeitgeist who is flustered by the AKAs.

And it is not it is impossible to not be flustered. I know it is quite a thing to witness yeah it inspires a different range of reactions some my favorite is outright confusion yeah when they look around the room it's like the it's like the best moment i'm like yeah and occasionally you get that one where it's like the notification of someone just leaving the zoom call like oh oh yeah or they like in the chat they're like what the fuck is this like sorry that was for The notification of someone just leaving the Zoom call. Yeah, like, oh. Boop, boop. Oh, huh. Yeah. Or they're like, in the chat, they're like, what the fuck is this?

Like, sorry, that was from my manager. Like, oh. It's a podcast. I told you, no fuckboys. What the fuck? Oh, look, and I'm wearing my shirt that says Oslo City Fuckboy. There you go. Wow, I didn't even see that.

It was Paul McCartney, by the way. It was. Okay, good. Great performance. He's got that growl was Paul McCartney, by the way. It was. Okay, good. Great performance. He's got that growl. He's got that growl. Yeah. I feel like he created, with that and the end of Hey Jude,

I feel like he created Steven Tyler's entire career with his vocal stylings. Jody, what's good, man? What's new? What can you tell us about esoteric history? Well, I'm just over here slacking, only doing three episodes a week. Whereas you crank out one every day. Right. No, you know, it's been fun to do this show, which has been my main thing since I left ESPN about a year ago.

But, you know, I'm trying to, like, engage with the world by looking at the past and not having to get dragged into the uh bs of the of the day whereas you guys have decided to just stare directly into the sun yeah 24 hours i can at this point i could look i could look into the ark of the covenant and nothing would happen yeah i would be like oh cool light show yeah everyone i wonder what twitter has to say about that right it is i mean i'm telling you i mean that this was like how i designed my my last year and i didn't even know last year was going to be what it was but i was like i know 2020 is going to be crazy i want to somehow talk about

it but not actually have to feel obliged to yap about whatever the bs of the day will be and so my answer to that was let's look to history and pick little historical moments that I feel like they're resonant. It's a great idea. It's a great show. Yeah, and I slept a lot better than I did when I was covering the election in 2016, I'll tell you that much. Oh, yeah, I bet.

All right. We are going to get to know you a little bit better in a moment. First, we're going to tell the listeners a few of the things we're talking about. bit better in a moment first we're gonna tell the listeners a few of the things we're talking about uh we're gonna talk about the democrats looking for more reasons to play nice with the gop we'll talk about what trump is continuing to do to the gop that's sort of a continuing story uh new york and la are back to normal baby so we're just gonna talk about all our plans to just go mask free and really rub it in people's faces. We'll talk about the pandemic problems at the Girl Scouts. We'll talk about Darnella Frazier, who took the George Floyd video and got honored by the Pulitzer Committee. I want to ask the

overall question, and Jody, as a historian, I'm curious for your perspective on this, about whether we should continue to cover the UFO stuff. I am going to continue to, but I'm just interested in the question of why people do or don't cover that, because I don't feel like there's a historical corollary to it. But maybe you can correct me. All of that, plenty more. But first, Jody, we like to ask our guest, what is something from your search history? It's a very good question. One of the things that I was recently searching for, my search, the actual search term was just Deadwood swearing. I don't know if you've

seen the show Deadwood, but we recently did an episode on my history podcast about Andrew Jackson's funeral during which his pet parrot had to be escorted from the room because it was swearing uncontrollably throughout Andrew Jackson's life. I guess he had taught this parrot to swear. And I think Andrew Jackson was probably just a salty individual. And apparently during the funeral, the parrot just went off and started swearing. And so it's an amazing story. One of my favorite tidbits from the historical accounts are that people didn't just find the parrot disruptive, but they found it like rude. Like several accounts just say like, you know, the parrot was removed for not understanding the solemnity of the moment. Like the parrot's supposed to understand. You're not just swearing, but you're not taking seriously what's going on here.

What's wrong with that bird? Went to parrot finishing school. Exactly. Unfortunately, there's no historical record of what the actual swears were. And so I was trying to get a sense of what like mid 18th century swearing would be. And I think Deadwood is my best analog for that. Yeah, that's a great question. I always kind of assumed that Deadwood was a heightened,

like almost like Shakespearean, like people didn't actually talk like this, but it's fun to just kind of hear reality described in these ways. Like, did you find that Deadwood is actually an accurate portrayal of how creatively people swore back in the day? I think it's somewhere between the two. So I think that the creators of Deadwood were careful to only use swear words that were of the time. I think the amount of swearing, I mean, it's something like 72.

There's like 72 cocksuckers in the pilot or something. That maybe, you know, there weren't people like that. But I think the, I mean, you know, you you look at swear words there's some interesting ones from back you know from back then but it's just a lot of motherfucker and cocksucker too right they're pretty big yeah yeah the classics very few fuck boys in the first episode of the dead what uh what's something you think is overrated i thought yes was it on yesterday's show that someone said uh on your show yesterday that they said going out is overrated i think that's right yeah yeah yeah i i kind of actually i think that may have stolen mine i kind of am finding myself getting back to the normal of

saying no to stuff and we're going to talk about that we're going to talk about the return to normal later but um i find it very liberating to know about to like do what i usually do which is have all these wonderful things i could be doing and then say no thank you i'm just going to stay home yeah so that is my that is my return to normal the wave of relief when somebody cancels is uh like when somebody's like i can't do that or like one of our kids so like we can't do that. Or like one of our kids got sick. So like we can't do the play date. Like that is, you know, they say introverts like get life from being alone and extroverts get life from being around people. I get life from people canceling plans with me. The extremely specific phenomenon I'm undergoing because I'm on the East Coast um plans to watch basketball games that on the east

coast start during the playoffs east coast start at like fucking 10 p.m right and i'm like but i still want to get together with friends and we're gonna watch basketball this is great we can watch sports together but you know that game's gonna end it i mean i'm gonna fall asleep halfway through that game right uh and then when someone cancels on me it's like oh great i can fall asleep on my couch in peace during this game yeah whenever i get like, sometimes there's those moments you're like, damn, maybe this doesn't happen this weekend. And then you get like the text that it isn't. I go to church that Sunday.

God is real. Yeah. Like I didn't, I wasn't believing, man. And then you came through and you canceled that barbecue. Thank you. Thank you. Food does not taste good when they cook. Oh, man.

The NBA playoffs, though. What a... I feel like those are... I feel like the plans for the NBA playoffs are being canceled. Everybody's getting hurt. I know. It's kind of a bummer. Yeah.

It's a bit of a bummer. What's something you think is underrated? I... This might be sacrilege to say, but I think listening to anything other than podcasts is underrated. And I cannot tell you how consistently it feels like a miracle whenever I just like, remember that I can listen to something other than a podcast. Oh my God. Like who would have thought this is amazing. Uh, you know artist or like a new album or that you're like where was this my whole life and that to me is like some of the the that's what the juice of life is but yeah i find myself really leaning into that although i've been the audiobook pendulum has been swinging very

aggressively back into my life again so yeah i, I would say the majority of what I listen to that's not music is audiobooks instead of podcasts. Hit me with a good audiobook that you've... I'm listening to A Brief History of Seven Killings. Have you heard that, Marlon James? Yeah, yeah. Or read that? I have read that with my ears.

Yeah, there you go. And really well read yeah but uh brilliant book i will say of course to undercut myself marlon james also hosts a really good podcast uh so there you go you can go listen what is this podcast he does this amazing thing i forget what it's called but um it's it's a podcast that he hosts with his editor and they just have an amazing relationship and it's the kind of thing that like i feel like a really good novelist and their longtime editor have a type of relationship that's probably unique in the, in the world. Right. And so they have that and they just talk about books they love, but it's, you know, it's really based around their chemistry, but it's like

so open. And I mean, I wouldn't, I don't know. I've been people's editor and I've had editors. I don't know if I would ever have those like really honest, open conversations, knowing that then at some point I'm going to have to send them my work and they're going to have to tear it apart. Right. I don't know. But it's a it's a really great it's a really great podcast. So underrated is his podcast. I know. I know. Somehow came back to recommending a podcast after all this. Miles, what do you what do uh what audio book do you read my life in red and white by the former manager of arsenal arson venger and narrated by him as well

and he just has a fantastic perspective on life and soccer football as it were and i think for a lot of fans of arsenal myself included like there are a lot of things that happened during his tenure that he never really spoke about with much depth. He wasn't really always like giving like the most sort of open interviews, but in this book, he's able to really speak about how he saw player management. Like he, you know, he like has a background as an economist and that factored heavily into how he even like managed trades and things like that. So there are moments as fans are like, well, why would he trade this person or like what's going on like why what's why don't we keep these people and then you find out like sort of from from his perspective so it's a nice like sort of

post-mortem on his time there and his voice is just you know classic miles do you do you know that show desert island discs that bbc show it's i've heard of it yeah it's like been running for like 80 some years now but it's basically a guest talks about the five or eight records they would take with them onto a desert island, but it's sort of an excuse to talk about. But he did one of my favorite desert island discs. Oh, really? In recent memory, if not of all time.

It's just phenomenal. So go check it out. But yeah, he's got a great voice and very thoughtful guy. And yeah, I'm not an Arsenal fan, but I admire him. Yeah, change the game. And now he's wrapped up in FIFA, so he can't really even speak scathingly of this body that is probably actually ruining the game. But, hey, you know, that's how they get you. I can give an anti-recommendation for an audiobook.

Don't get this one. No, you should get it it but just don't do what i did i fell asleep listening to blood meridian oh no no no no no no no no no and uh and then i was like why why am i so like anxious today and uh yeah it was because uh blood meridian was dancing visions of blood meridian were dancing through my head. I thought it would give me some insight into, you know, we need to know about Texas now as they're about to descend into an apocalyptic

post-electricity hellscape. I was like, let's get into this Blood Meridian I've been hearing so much about. Yeah, that's fucked up. Who narrates it? I don't know who narrates it okay i just did uh the autobiography of malcolm x narrated by lawrence fishburne and that was fucking amazing narrators can do yeah so much but jody just based on your uh podcast i was curious if there are any like esoteric moments in history or esoteric kind of trends in history that you think are kind of underrated in terms of understanding the the current zeitgeist

and kind of modern America I'm sure there's a ton but like yeah anyone that sticks out to you yeah it's an interesting question I mean you know I know, I, I try and be open, you know, part of this is like, you bring a lens of your own. And so I, I'm one of these people who often, I kind of feel like every story is a media story. And so, you know, I just feel like in every conversation we have, at some point, it comes down to just the like, radical transformation in media that goes back further than maybe, you know, Fox News came around in the early 2000s or in the 90s. But, you know, and my co-host, Nicole Hammer of Studies, wrote an amazing book called Messengers on the Right and wrote, you know, and studies a lot how,

especially the GOP came to really radicalize around new media in the 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s. But that's the kind of thing that I always feel like doesn't get rated properly. It's just the way in which we've just been fractured intentionally by a changing media landscape. So there's just all sorts of stories of people who were doing stuff in the 50s and 60s and 70s where you're like, oh, that's the blueprint that we're just seeing right now. You know, Facebook's just Facebook's just the latest iteration of the way in which it took all the brakes off. episode was talking about how the current culture wars are basically the modern like leftovers from the uh cold war not the leftovers but no it's basically they kept the cold war going by attacking

left-wing politics within america yeah i had i actually you know when she said that it was i'd first time i'd ever heard anyone really frame it that way a lot of people have been like you know but basically she said, you know, and this is the brilliance of Jill Lepore, it was just a sort of like tossed off comment, but she was like, you know, when we quote unquote won the Cold War, all the moves were still there. And so we just turned those inwards and we started fighting the Cold War with each other. And I was like, oh, right.

Yes, that makes sense. Yeah. But yeah, it was a very good insight. Yeah. Very cool. All right. Well, we're going to take a quick break and we'll come back and talk about Culture Wars. I've been thinking about you.

I want you back in my life. It's too late for that. I have a proposal for you. Come up here and document my project. All you need to do is record everything like you always do. One session. 24 hours. BPM 110.

120. She's terrified. Should we wake her up? Absolutely not. What was that? You didn't figure it out? I think I need to hear you say it. That was live audio of a woman's nightmare.

This machine is approved and everything? You're allowed to be doing this? We passed the review board a year ago. We're not hurting people. There's nothing dangerous about what you're doing. They're just dreams. Dream Sequence is a new horror thriller from Blumhouse Television, iHeartRadio, and Realm. Listen to Dream Sequence is a new horror thriller from Blumhouse Television,

iHeartRadio, and Realm. Listen to Dream Sequence on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hi, everyone. It's me, Katie Couric. If you follow me on social media, you know I love to cook, or at least try, especially alongside some of my favorite chefs and foodies, like Benny Blanco, Jake Cohen, Lighty Hoyt, Alison Roman, and of course, Ina Garten and Martha Stewart. So I started a free

newsletter called Good Taste that comes out every Thursday, and it's serving up recipes that will make your mouth water. Think a candied bacon Bloody Mary, tacos with cabbage slaw, curry cauliflower with almonds and mint, and cherry slab pie with vanilla ice cream to top it all off. I mean, yum. I'm getting hungry. But if you're not sold yet, we also have kitchen tips like a foolproof way to grill the perfect burger and must-have products like the best cast iron skillet to feel like a chef in your own kitchen.

All you need to do is sign up at katiecouric.com slash goodtaste. That's K-A-T-I-E-C-O-U-R-I-C dot com slash goodtaste. I promise your taste buds will be happy you did. When you think of Mexican culture, you think of avocado, mariachi, delicious cuisine, and of course, lucha libre. It doesn't get more Mexican than this. Lucha libre is known globally because it is much more than just a sport and much more than just entertainment. Lucha libre is a type of storytelling. It's a dance.

It's tradition. It's culture. This is Lucha Libre Behind the Mask, a 12-episode podcast in both English and Spanish about the history and cultural richness of Lucha Libre. And I'm your host, Santos Escobar, the emperor of Lucha Libre and a WWE superstar. Santos! Santos! Join me as we learn more about the history behind this spectacular sport from its inception in the United States to how it became a global symbol of Mexican culture. We'll learn more about some of the most iconic heroes in the ring. This is Lucha Libre Behind the Mask.

Listen to Lucha Libre Behind the Mask as part of My Cultura Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you stream podcasts. In a galaxy far, far away. No, babe, that's taken. We're in our own world, remember? Right, in our own world. We're two space cadets. And totally normal humans.

Tur, totally normal humans. Embark on a journey across the stars, discovering the wonders of the universe one episode at a time. We'll talk about life, love, laughter, and why you should never argue with your co-pilot. Especially when she's always right. Right. And if we hit turbulence, just blame it on

Mercury retrograde. Or Emily's questionable space piloting skills. Hey! Join us on In Our Own World for cosmic conversations, stellar laughs, and super corny dad jokes. Listen to In Our Own World as a part of the My Cultura podcast network

available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And don't worry, we promise to avoid any black holes. Most of the time. And we're back. And, you know, there are the culture wars that we were just referencing before the break.

But then there's good old bipartisanship that is the cure to that. And we just need to be nicer to each other. I think that's the end of that story. Right, Miles? Yeah. Bipartisanship will save us. It's not a lame ass excuse for not advancing any real transformative legislation. will save us it's not a lame ass excuse for not advancing any real transformative legislation not at all that's not the case it's not that we have people that are completely uh not up to the task of governing in the moment but yeah this bipartisan shit is becoming it's just like so in your face at this point there have been so many times that the republicans have shown themselves to not have any interest in governing in any way. Like there's merely just a bunch of racist snakes piled up in a trench coat who are trying to grind like the progress of society to an absolute halt because it seems to be the only way they'll be

able to sort of maintain their power or to just kind of do away with elections as we know them. But now, you know, first it was like the there was the stimulus bill where it's like, well, let's work with Republicans. And they did. And they still didn't vote for it. But then that wasn't enough to say, maybe these aren't people worth talking to. Maybe their mindset is such that it's not there's nothing they could bring to the table that would elevate or we can find any kind of compromise on. And so now we're just seeing more examples. Like recently, we talked about how Mitch McConnell said he would intervene if Trump's picks just got way too like out of left field for them to actually win elections. But part of that interview with

Hugh Hewitt was this other thing that he said was essentially, if as long as I'm alive and we control the Senate, the Republicans do, I will never advance a Supreme Court pick that comes from the Democrats. Never. You can count on that. And I don't care what you say. I know we had the thing where I said, well, Merrick Garland, that was different because an election year. But then when it was Amy Coney Barrett, we got the hyperspeed people mover, not even a red carpet, just to be like, let's fast track this person straight into the Supreme Court. even a red carpet just to be like, let's fast track this person straight into the Supreme Court. It's all ringing very hollow. And now we're sort of encountering the same thing with the infrastructure bill, where it's about of like, well, let's get some bipartisanship going. But all of their concerns are sort of rooted in like nativism or like some oligarchical ideology that

there's no room for things like, you know, climate change, like really addressing that in this bill, because that's a way to help the economy and also change our dire situation. So, yeah, we're seeing just more and more of like complaining about bipartisanship with no one really offering like like actually saying the hard bits out loud of, well, we need to move forward without them. I'm wondering when he says that he would never allow like a Democratic Supreme Court nominee to move forward. Like, is he doing that to like, do you think he wants the Democrats to try to load the Supreme Court because then it would be unpopular? It would like get kind of put things more in the sort of all out warfare that he feels most comfortable in because that's just such a needless like concession to make of just like, yeah, no, fuck y'all.

I think you are overthinking it. Yeah. I mean, that's almost getting at like 3D chess kind of stuff. And I just think the GOP just has goals and they say what they want to do and they do what they want to do. And that's it. And so I think when, you know, it's like, believe him, you know, when he says it and they'll change the rules, you know, and the rules will just sort of be the rules that are most convenient at any given moment. And it's a game that the GOP is like perfectly willing to play and does not feel there is no discordance in their head about it. That's just like, you know, no one in the GOP is like feeling bad about this behavior or feeling worried about being,

you know, charged with hypocrisy or whatever. That's it's just the game that they play. And I think that's the thing. There's just an asymmetry in terms of the different the games, the game that Republicans are playing, the game that Democrats are playing. Yeah, I think Republicans can tell like the writings on the wall in terms of the popularity of their party. So it behooves them to go all out. Just like, let's do everything. Let's try and gerrymander the fuck out of these districts.

Let's suppress the vote as hard as possible. Let's do whatever we can to eke out these majorities, because it doesn't seem like the party is going to grow based on them just screaming like socialism's gonna antifa your guns and that's for a very select group of people and yeah i think because of that the democrats are looking at it with this calculus of like well then democracy will like i mean big d democrats have been sort of trying to defend like well we have to try and make it work, because if then we're not participating, democratically speaking, then then nothing works. And then we're in this terrible situation. But it completely sort of ignores the fact that one side of this is a group that has a complete like an antithetical agenda to democracy. So how do you then what what are you

preserving exactly, like with this sort of, you know, pie in the sky idea of bipartisanship? Yeah. And I think that that gets to I mean, so much of our culture wars and political wars now are just I think are people both willfully and just sort of maybe subconsciously like defining key terms in radically different ways. And so I think that there's just a definitional gap with the word like bipartisanship. And there's this sort of old school notion of bipartisanship being within the Senate, you reach across the aisle and you talk to the 50 people or whatever it is on the other side of the aisle. There's another

definition of bipartisanship, which is doing stuff that is broadly popular. And I feel like Democrats for a bit were starting to make that argument. I think now there's still this lingering fealty towards bipartisanship is within Washington, as opposed to things like infrastructure, things like health care, you know, are broadly popular. And if you can rename, you know, if you can redefine bipartisanship to that, we're going to do populist things that have wide appeal. Then maybe you start to get you start to get somewhere, though. I think, Miles, to your point, I think the GOP is, you know, with clear eyes starting to move away from that notion of our job is to do stuff that has wide appeal. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you mentioned the word populist and like that's a word that people use to describe Trump. And it's like kind of the opposite of that. Like he. Well, it's a populist appeal, but it's an incredibly narrow path,

you know, electorally. Right. And his populist appeal is to a small portion of the population. It's just that... It's the trappings of populism. Right.

We associated racism with populism early on, and I feel like that's... Racism has been pretty popular for a while, though, to be fair. Yeah, yeah. But I feel like it's becoming has been pretty popular for a while. Yeah. Yeah. But I feel like it's becoming less pretty well in this country. Yeah. Yeah. But can I can I say one thing just as you were talking about your definition of bipartisanship? Also, it made me

think of my daughter who's just turned four and we're trying to teach her about sharing. And I think we're doing a pretty good job. But she has now, I feel like, overlearned what sharing means, which is, you know, I have something. I'm like eating a sandwich. And she tries to grab it for me. And she's like, we're sharing. Right. I feel like that's that's sort of how Republicans are thinking about bipartisanship, like bipartisanship. Sure. Let me have that. We're doing it my way. Right. That's bipartisanship. you don't say no to me right what the fuck's the deal here and that that's how democrats very much see and that's why like it's really frustrating when you well now you have like ed markey and and jeff merkeley saying like we're not gonna vote for some watered down infrastructure bill like we give a shit about the climate so if those things aren't actually articulating the legislation we're not going to support it and that puts them in a really tough spot because how are you going to get 12, 12 Republicans on board? I don't know. And I think that's what a lot, there's a lot of hesitation, even within the house, like they're saying like, what is a bill that's going to actually get support in both chambers? Because the watered down version,

you're going to have defectors on like the progressive end who don't want to support it. So then what's the math there. And that's led to, you know, one of Biden's advisors going to the Hill and basically saying, like, look, there's two ways we do this. One is in seven to 10 days, you figure out how to get Republicans on board. And if not, we'll just try and just smash this through under reconciliation. So we'll see where that ends up. Yeah. The first time I've heard them be like, we'll do it without them. But will they? Can they? But do you think there's any any benefit to putting something out there that at least feels like it could get 60 votes just to get some Republicans on the record voting against something that is just like super simple, super straightforward, has all that bipartisanship? has all that bipartisanship,

bipartisan. I don't know. I mean, it depends. I don't know. I, it's really hard to know like who that appeals to because I'm clearly like in my own echo chamber and bubble and how I look at the politics on the Hill. And I have a calculus I use to determine if I want to support a party or not.

And I don't know if some people are just think of, it seems like the mainstream or a lot of the mainstream Republican view is just say no to everything Democrats do. Like we're so pissed off about the election that all we can do is just burn the house down. And so I'm not sure if that as much as like there have been these like moves to try and get Republicans on the record or try and coax them out. It doesn't seem like it's happening because Trump still has so much. He has so much influence still. So, yeah, I don't know.

It's a hard it's a hard one to predict. Republican Tom Rice of South Carolina, I think, voted to impeach Trump after the insurrection. And another kind of Chip Roy in Texas voted to certify the election results. And those two like one off decisions, they've agreed with Trump on literally everything else. Those two one off decisions, they're like, yeah, I signed my political death warrant by disagreeing with him once. And now I'm being primaried from the right. So that's the threat. I mean, I'm very curious about this. What is the actual, you hear it said all the time, you know, the GOP is scared of Trump. And I think for a while in 2016 and 17 and eight, even into 18, you know, there was a real threat of like Trump, you know, that you could get primary. Trump can swing elections.

I don't think that threat really is there anymore. I think Trump is a political liability. So what is the threat? That's what I'm trying to figure out. When you say he's a political liability, like, do you think that he can't win like another election at this point? I think it would be very hard for him to win another election. I think he stuck his nose in. I mean, it was very hard for him to win in 2016.

Right. People weirdly like talk about underrated, like people weirdly forget that was like the most Rube Goldbergian way to win an election ever. And people have forgotten that not to diminish, you know, the consequences of it. But um, but I mean, you know, he stuck his nose in Georgia in 2020, 2021. And, or sorry, 2020. Yeah. And probably lost that election. And I just, I think that threat, but maybe I'm wrong. I mean, you know, again, I'm curious what you think is the actual threat that to that a Republican elected official feels if they cross Trump, I'm scared of X happening.

I think it's like there's like anecdotal stuff like Kinzinger has talked about how much his life's become a hell, like with constituents like bombarding him with calls or harassing his family or his family harassing him. Because I think in general, they're not really they're not operating on principle. They're operating on what's popular or what gets the most cheers for them at a rally. So like if the Trump thing helps them, then I feel like that's what they were gravitating towards. And just any bit of turbulence that occurs from their base, because there may be like, you know, vocal MAGA people in their in their constituency, that hearing those words is enough for them to think that Trump very much has his power. Like, yeah, I'm also curious thing, because there are a few Republicans who said, no, I don't give a shit.

Like, I'm this is what I believe. Come at me. And increasingly, they've said, hey, I've had to spend more money on security. And I don't know if those sort of anecdotes sort of are the sort of the backdrop for a lot of these people's perception that this guy can make things really hard for you. But when you but I totally agree when you look at the people that he wants to run, like, how could you go from people who are like on paper, like objectively, not to say that I agree with their politics, but from a purely 50 percent plus one winning strategy point of view that you have viable candidates who just because they're not MAGA, you're going to flip them for someone who is completely not competitive in the same district. That's where I think like, is it happened in 2018 too? Like there, he put out a bunch of weird people and they didn't, they didn't, they weren't up to scruff. So I don't know if it's going to take another cycle like that. And maybe they go, man, this guy doesn't know what he's doing. Like, we're going to lose the party. But I don't I don't know how many of those Republicans are there who are thinking we're going to lose the party because there there's these new batches like, hey, we're here for nativism and white nationalism and, you know, making hot giving hot takes on the holocaust yeah i think i'm just like blown away by the fact that one of the

two major parties in the u.s is essentially openly authoritarian like yeah the thing that they disagree with is an open and fair election and like that's what gets you blacklisted and within that party now right well that's and part of that is what comes with when you're you know your singular goal is retention of power and then you're clear eyed about the fact that you can't really do that through normal means. I don't think it's necessarily pro-Trumpism, but I do think this culture war, own the libs. I feel like since the Mueller report, almost, when the GOP convinced itself that, oh, the Mueller report, it was a sham, there was no Russian collusion, liberals have gone around the bend, yada, yada, yada, yada. I think that anti anti Trumpism for like the Lindsey Grahams of the world, I actually think that's what's making them tick. It's this sort of like anti liberal thing more than it is core fealty to

Trump, if that if that distinction makes any sense. Yeah, it's just I guess that's what it's hard when all of their rhetoric is tied up in defending him or defending his actions still. And then that's when you're like, well, then what is it exactly like that? What is this other dimension or this influential, you know, lever of power or this force that we're not able to see with our eyes or

ears. That's also affecting them because yeah, at the same time you have Lindsey Graham, you're like, he would have won if the Wuhan lab leak thing was properly invested. You're like, what? You're still talking about this?

What do you owe him? Like, what's going on? But I feel like at some level, I thought, you know, maybe Liz Cheney and the old school Darth Vader wing of the GOP would be able to do something. But seeing that that didn't have much sway, I think shows that there's definitely like a different end game for these people. Which sway, I think, shows that there's definitely like a different end game for these people. Yeah. And just in other GOP news, Dana Rohrabacher, who we used to talk about, is no longer in power. A super arch conservative Trump supporting congressman. It was recently pictures revealed that he breached the police barricades at the insurrection and was like, they're kind of breaking the law. So that's one direction that,

you know, Trump can take your career is you're just, you're there. Well, I mean, Dana Rohrabacher, I mean, he went,

he fought with the Mujahideen against the Russians in the eighties. Like he went to Afghanistan. Like he's, he's always been like, Hey, where's the party at type energy. where you're like, Oh wow. There's like a really interesting photo of him, like with like a Kalashnikov and stuff in Afghanistan in the eighties.

Very interesting image. He was just born to be in it. Right. Yeah. Better work line. Yeah. It's just born to be in it. Exactly. Oh man. What anauspicious beginning to to that campaign man it's just born to born to be in it now watch this kickflip let's talk about new york and la getting back to normal and i yeah i just i just brought this up more because like it's more of just a feeling I have around all of there's like this fanfare about reopening. And like, you know, you have Cuomo being like, you know, we can go back to life as we know it.

And other people saying, like, you don't have to live with fear of the virus anymore. And like, we can we can go back. And these like all the verbiage being used just feels like it's not acknowledging like how traumatic this entire ordeal has been and there's like a there's like a dimension of acknowledging the humanity of the pandemic that i feel like really missing from all of like the headlines and you know news stories it's like hey man like the the la galaxy is going to full capacity and like isn't that great because at the end of the day, I feel like there's so many people who have gone through so much this last

year and have had to compartmentalize. And then on top of it, like the way people are even looking at their work and like how we, you know, we saw all of the, like the grim realities of like the ills of our society and who reaps the benefits and whose labor is being exploited while we just like give fancy labels like essential without the real like material acknowledgement that what they do is

essential to the country running and yeah there's just there's just something that like rings this hollow that i'm just i don't know i'm i'm more curious to see how everyone else is sort of seeing that because i feel like all of the messaging is just like oh man that's over few okay great yeah it's all come out it's over guys and nothing happened back then that was the last year none of that happened like it's i don't know and not to say that we have to dwell on it but on some level i feel like part of the reopening should have a dimension of like wellness to it or acknowledging like how you like acknowledging that it was a fucked up year for many people unless you're at a certain socioeconomic level yeah and i think if we don't acknowledge that

out loud it will be acknowledged in some other like weird cultural i don't know like that we saw that whether whether we go forward and like spend a lot of time talking about it and processing it, my guess would be Americans not going to do that. Mainstream American culture, not the best at processing trauma. And also, we talked before about how when you look back at the historical record, the 1911 pandemic was basically just like, it didn't really leave a mark. pandemic was basically just like it didn't really leave a mark like people didn't write that many novels about it but then you know there people have speculated that it led to all sorts of like kind of under the under the surface cultural movements and stuff it'll be interesting but i do agree like there's a healthy way to do it and we probably won't be doing that yeah i mean miles i'm glad you said that because i think it was, you know, maybe a month

or so ago, there was just a lot of consternation about if you're vaccinated, take off your mask and just a lot of pressure and a lot of people sort of taking these weird stands about like wearing a mask and giving people a hard time for still wearing a mask, you know, and I had the same reaction, which is like, this has been a really, really tough year. If it's going to take someone a couple of weeks to get to the place where they're comfortable taking off their mask, or if they're going to be like unsure of what to do, like, let them be unsure, let them be uncomfortable, like a couple of weeks, like this is going to work itself out. And like, why is that the hill that people feel this desire to tie on this? Like, this has to happen now. We have to draw these bright lines now. We have to flip this binary switch. Like, you know, I'm incredibly excited to get back to the normal things. I'm incredibly excited to rip or they're going to have to, you know, slow, slowly ease their way back into things.

It's bizarre and sort of like, yeah, there's no humanity to it. Right, right. Yeah. And even with the mask thing, it's sort of like, you know what? Have it completely ignores that so many people know someone, whether directly or indirectly, probably someone that's passed away because of covid and or no has someone that is experiencing long covid or you know i know people who are still on oxygen like from time to time because it's still not they haven't quite fully recovered all of those things play into people's minds because that's what the reality has been the last year. It's not like, got it. My whole last year has been me inside just playing Fortnite over and over and over again.

And I just wish I could go outside and just like start drinking at Applebee's again. Like it's been fraught for many people, which is like, I don't know what I'm gonna do with my kids. I don't know what I'm gonna do with my house or my job. I don't know if my parents are going to survive. And it's also freaky for me to try and see them because on top of that, I have the weight of potentially infecting them because I don't, you know, like all of these things have been thoughts that have been racing through, well, I think a lot of people's minds and especially for people who have had to go to work throughout it, they've felt that they've been forced to work in really unsafe conditions.

Their, their safety has been completely disregarded and no one, there's no consideration for that. And then there's no acknowledgement that they were putting themselves at risk this whole time too. And then it's sort of like, yeah, man, everything's great, huh? And there's just something that I just, I don't know why, like you'd hope that on some level, there were like mental health professionals that were also being like, people are going to have to sort of deal with what's happening. Because I do see this leftover trauma that's occurred from the pandemic. Like, yeah, metastasizing into something else later down the road because people didn't deal with all this other energy they had that was tapered over in the name of like getting back to normal. Not down the road.

I mean, it metastasized in real time last year. Right. We saw, you know, we saw the results of of what what this did to us as people were cooped up and. Yeah. Connect with each other. Yeah. I mean, the mask became a symbol of like anti individualism. I feel like for a lot of people in the country and like they reacted absolutely violently. I do wonder if we'll see a because I mean, there's no avoiding the fact that we just saw the social safety net just completely collapse. And it was made of spider webs. Right. And it was made clear, you know, who who is prioritized in America. And I you've seen like small ways that things have moved a little bit leftward, like just allowing people to make more money and kind of service jobs. But it's like you really people have had to had their hand forced,

like Chipotle had to have their hand forced to do that after the pandemic. But I am wondering if like that is how change happens. Yeah. I'm wondering if that's going to be a broader thing. Right. Like that's everybody now has this new normal where they're like, oh, yeah, this is this is bullshit. Like it's not. There are certain circumstances where we can't pull ourselves out of the quicksand by our own bootstraps.

And, you know, we need we need something there to to grab onto. And it wasn't there. So, like, well, I mean, I'll tell you something I think about a lot, which is in the last spring and then even into this spring. But certainly the first round of stimulus, you know, I was really surprised, to be honest, that like in the conversation around the first round of stimulus and then Biden's first round of stimulus as well, it was really kind of taken as a given that there is a robust role for government in helping people in times of crisis. And that is not something this country has kind of like taken for granted, you know. And so, I mean, I think there is some

sort of level of progress there. I mean, and then there was another example that is there was there was some Republican congressperson or senator or someone just fairly recently who tried to trot out that Reagan line of the scariest words in the English language are I'm from the government and I'm here to help. And they basically got laughed out of the room, I think kind of by both right and left. And I think it was an indication like that kind of language doesn't play anymore. Like people are starting to really take for granted, I think, across the spectrum or whatever you want to call whatever we're living in right now, that there is a role for government. And so I do think like maybe that's one of the lasting things. And who knows how long lasting is. But, you know, at least right now, it feels like it's out there. I'm sure we'll see another squeeze and, you know, action from people as, you know, at least right now, it feels like it's out there. I'm sure we'll see another squeeze and, you know, action from people as, you know, certain Republican governors begin saying no to federal stimulus money for unemployment and see what comes out of that when they say, all right, well, let's take 50,000 people completely off of this and force them into jobs that don't even meet the, you know, what most economists say is the minimum to live in a state.

And if you have a child, like it's not even close. So, yeah, I'm I think. But that's the other thing is like I think there are other people to have found boundaries to or something, or at least they've become more resolute in trying to say what they are willing to do or not willing to do, or at least express that more openly, because I think before this, everything was just sort of like, oh, God, this whatever this given job sucks. There's nothing I can do about it. That's it. And now I think because unfortunately, people have been taken to the brink that they're

starting to be more vocal and say, you know what? I'm watching me say no to this job. That's how serious I am about not taking subsubsistence wages to keep my life going. Right. Yeah. Yeah. I feel like it's sort of a hacky metaphor, but I do feel like we're living in a bit of an era where people are seeing the matrix a little bit and are seeing the sort of way in which government and historical forces align to affect their day-to-day lives and are asking sort of fundamental questions about that. That's why I'm always talking about how we try to red pill people.

Exactly. It's a metaphor that we think works really well for the daily zeitgeist, and we're hoping people get it. And you keep breaking your tongue. Trying to reclaim matrix metaphors there. Right, exactly. All right, let's take a quick break we'll be right back i've been thinking about you i want you back in my life it's too late for that i have a proposal

for you come up here and document my project all you need to do is record everything like you always do. One session. 24 hours. BPM 110. 120. She's terrified. Should we wake her up? Absolutely not.

What was that? You didn't figure it out? I think I need to hear you say it. That was live audio of a woman's nightmare. This machine is approved and everything? You're allowed to be doing this? We passed the review board a year ago. We're not hurting people.

There's nothing dangerous about what you're doing. They're just dreams. Dream Sequence is a new horror thriller from Blumhouse Television, iHeartRadio, and Realm. Listen to Dream Sequence on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. When you think of Mexican culture, you think of avocado, mariachi, delicious cuisine, and of course, lucha libre. It doesn't get more Mexican than this. Lucha libre is known globally because it is much more than just a sport and much more than just entertainment. Lucha Libre is a type of storytelling.

It's a dance. It's tradition. It's culture. This is Lucha Libre Behind the Mask, a 12-episode podcast in both English and Spanish about the history and cultural richness of Lucha Libre. And I'm your host, Santos Escobar, the emperor of Lucha Libre and a WWE superstar. Santos! Santos! Join me as we learn more about the history

behind this spectacular sport from its inception in the United States to how it became a global symbol of Mexican culture. We'll learn more about some of the most iconic heroes in the ring. This is Lucha Libre Behind the Mask. Listen to Lucha Libre Behind the Mask as part of

My Cultura Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you stream podcasts. Hi, everyone. It's me, Katie Couric. If you follow me on social media, you know I love to cook or at least try, especially alongside some of my favorite chefs and foodies, like Benny Blanco, Jake Cohen, Lydie Hoyt, Alison Roman, and of course, Ina Garten and Martha Stewart. So I started a free newsletter called Good Taste that comes out every Thursday, and it's serving up recipes that will make your mouth water.

Think a candied bacon Bloody Mary, tacos with cabbage slaw, curry cauliflower with almonds and mint, and cherry slab pie with vanilla ice cream to top it all off. I mean, yum. I'm getting hungry. But if you're not sold yet, we also have kitchen tips like a foolproof way to grill the perfect burger and must-have products like the best cast iron skillet

to feel like a chef in your own kitchen. All you need to do is sign up at katiecouric.com slash goodtaste. That's K-A-T-I-E-C-O-U-R-I-C dot com slash goodtaste. I promise your taste buds will be happy you did. It was December 2019 when the story blew up. In Green Bay, Wisconsin, former Packers star Kabir Bajabiamila caught up in a bizarre situation. KGB explaining what he believes led to the arrest of his friends at a children's Christmas play. A family man, former NFL player, devout Christian, now cut off from his family and connected to a strange arrest.

I am going to share my journey of how I went from Christianity to now a Hebrew Israelite. I got swept up in Kabir's journey, but this was only the beginning. In a story about faith and football, the search for meaning away from the gridiron, and the consequences for everyone involved. You mix homesteading with guns and church, and then a little bit of the spice of conspiracy theories that we liked. Voila! You got straight away. I felt like i was living in north korea but worse if that's possible listen to spiraled on the iheart radio app apple podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts and we're back and uh darnella frazier who was the 17 year old who took the the video of

derek chauvin murdering george floyd uh has been honored by the pulitzer board i guess it's not a full pulitzer i don't know like all the different levels of pulitzer it's a citation uh which sounds bad it sounds bad you don't want to be you don't want a citation. But this is it's an honor. She's one of the only kind of private citizens to get it. in the Oklahoma City bombing was also taken by just like somebody who worked nearby and that person got a similar like Pulitzer honor. But this seems like it's on a whole new level like that. I don't know. I can't I can't think of anything more deserving of a Pulitzer. Like she was just a kid going to get snacks at a corner store and just, I mean,

had to stand in the face of like them holding onto their like pepper spray and just like doing all sorts of threatening shit like to her and just like kept taking the video and like really changed the world it's like a pulitzer even enough no you know i feel like like yeah in terms of like i get it because it's more you know it's for like you know journalism and literature and music and things like that and like this is some it almost transcends all of those things because it yeah yeah, unfortunately, it took this like un's so far beyond i mean because considering like the amount of sort of danger she was in for a certain period of time like right after that and the trauma that she had to go through and just other people who were there at the time trying to

plead with the police yeah it's yeah yeah i mean the the idea that Chauvin, while while ignoring the cries of bystanders and murdering someone just in cold blood, like in front of everybody as they asked him to stop, pulled out his mace like that is like, who who is that for? That's probably for the people who are just standing there. And she just didn't move. didn't let it uh make her run away yeah i mean i think like the yeah i think the citation here is the sort of surface level is this this photo had an enormous obviously an enormous impact but i do think what you what you two are getting at this that what she did um was it was was journalism right it's truth-telling it's standing there and bearing witness and so i think that that's the sort of real level of commendation here, citation here. And I also just think this is a reminder,

another reminder in this moment that like, if her video did not exist, Chauvin would have gotten off. We've all seen how the original police report was written up. You know, we're living in a sort of era that is defined by whether, you know, if police behavior is captured on a cell phone video, then that changes everything. And that's sort of one of the defining features of this era. So I think of this moment, this award, the citation to her as a reminder of just kind of like the power of starting with you know starting at this

point almost 10 years ago just the sea change of everyone having a camera in their pocket and what that's done and still it's like so rare for me to pull out my camera like that it just really puts into perspective like how common these sorts of things must be like the the number of times that something like what derek chauvin did or worse happens that it doesn't get captured on camera like that i also think about that with the walter scott murder where the cop shot him as he was running away in the back and then just like walked up and planted evidence like that is it's wild that somebody happened to be just like taking a video of that like from you know 20 feet away it's truly unbelievable and you know an amazing stroke of luck that just goes to prove like god how frequently is this

happening when like the one in a million chance that somebody has their camera out at that moment isn't in effect yeah kind of bums you out though too because you have mounds of body cam footage that are just as incriminating in a lot of cases too but somehow in like these other cases the needle doesn't move and yeah i think for for all that's happened just shows just the insurmountable i don't know it just almost feels just like this mountain we're still at the foot of of trying to ascend because there's still so many obstacles to actually bring people who are abusing their power to justice yeah it's worth pointing out that darnella frazier i believe this award it's a special citation but it comes with the same

prize money as all the other awards. It's not a ton of money, but, you know, it is worth pointing that out. Yeah. Okay. Real quickly, I do kind of just want to get, because I've been getting questions and, like, comments from people saying, like, come on, we have enough problems here on Earth. Why are you covering this, like aerial phenomenon or submerged phenomenon nonsense? And I kind of want to just have that conversation on the show about, Miles, what your thoughts are on whether it's worth continuing to keep an eye on and also jody as somebody who hosts a history podcast like what how do you view like the importance or like just even the conversation around the video evidence that's coming out i think it's compelling yeah i mean i the no one's saying this

footage is fake right that's what i and so that base because of that my curiosity is i'm immediately interested to say well what is going on yeah what is this why are things moving like that is it a technology we don't know is it some other thing but at the very least i'm interested because it goes against fucking everything i thought that was realistic or possible or plausible up until this point or like you know it was always treated as things like get over it it's just some other thing that happened but i don't know when you see this all all this footage and then you're on top of it the pentagon's like help us right i'm definitely interested i don't know if it's i don't think

it's like frivolous to talk about it necessarily but i think it's because i don't know it seems pretty significant unless what, at the end of the day, it comes out and they're like, ah, they were all fake. Yeah. Like then, yeah, then it was what were we talking about

this whole time, but I don't know. Well, I think even in that scenario, it's a worthwhile conversation. I mean, I think the disconnect, and maybe Jack, you're hearing a little bit of this, is just that for some reason there's this expectation

that, oh, we haven't talked about UFOs for so and and the conversation about them have been sort of relegated off into the corner and now we're finally tearing the top off and that means that we should uh there should be a big definitive answer at the end of that and like we're not gonna we're not gonna get that anytime soon it doesn't mean it's not a worthwhile conversation or it's not interesting especially if you you have a host, a daily podcast. You got to fill 45 minutes every day. And what else are you going to do? We can fill it with all kinds of nonsense.

More frivolous than the UAPs. We're filling it with conversations about whether we should have conversations. This is the meta level that I love. But no, I mean, you know, I have found it endlessly fascinating and also incredibly confounding. Like, I don't feel any more like I know more with a capital K, no more any, you know, now than I did. or you can at least like think about it in the context of history. And this one is just, we, we don't, it's just,

it's well, yeah. You mentioned very briefly that the beginning of this project I did called death at the wing. It is with this guy, Adam McKay, who's one of my favorite sort of directors. And he's just a brilliant guy.

And he has this production company. I know this is sort of secured us, but he has a production company called hyper object industries a hyper object is a thing as i'm probably going to butcher this you'll have some sci-fi geeks get in touch with you about the actual definition but you know it is basically a like thing that doesn't have context it just arrives and you do not know how to place it and you know i think climate change is one of those things. That's just like, there is not a historical precedent for coming around to understand it. I would argue actually like the level of wealth inequality we're seeing in this country is sort of a hyper

object. Like we just don't have the language to process what it means to be a multi, multi, multi-billionaire and what that does to us. I think the UFO thing is sort of the same. Like there is not a continuum of conversations that prep us us for this right now it's just like yeah we're we're beyond the we're beyond the looking glass here jack you're a modern day copernicus man that's how i'd look at it you're challenging like oh wow geocentricity okay i'm a modern day uh copernicus groupie who's like yo Copernicus we love you we love you Copernicus so one thing that I think is tied up in like my interest in this is

the idea that if this is real there is like some hopefulness that that like there is this scientific continuum that keeps going beyond like what we currently know and whoever is at that level beyond what we currently know has decided not to kill us like that there's something like almost like uh religiously like optimistic about that idea to me that like is basically contained in any version of this that isn't just that this was somebody doing fake photography and somehow fooling a bunch of fighter jet pilots. Yeah. And I think I think some people push back, though, too, because a lot of the shit that's discussed about, you know, aliens or UFOs is like Art Bell type shit where it's a little bit like, you know, coming out in a left field and you're like, I don't know.

Is this like for real? This guy said he was on a Navy ship in the 70s and stuff. And like, OK, let's everything felt like it was just sort of these like this oral tradition of like, you know, people saying they saw stuff. But I think that's what makes this really interesting is that we're we're going to like what the government is saying, like, no, this is this is the real footage. This is what has happened. It's documented. And we're still saying we're not sure what we're looking at. And I feel like that gives a little bit more sort of fuel to it. or if there was any real event that was treated as the way that UFO and alien culture is treated, I feel like if you were just like, baseball doesn't exist, and the military's official position was like, yeah, there's no such thing as baseball,

and the only people who had been to games were the only sources of information. And like you couldn't like I just feel like any observable thing that was treated by the military. Like so many of these pilots are now being like, yeah, we see it every day. And we just were scared of like being called crazy. So we didn't do it like that's such a profound stigma to like try and then create like build a body of information around like so yeah the baseball metaphor was a nightmare i did not get that at all no terrible um but i really admired your you're going for it you're saying it's bigger than baseball all It's bigger than baseball.

All right. Finally, let's talk about what's going on with the Girl Scouts real quick. Some pandemic-related problems. Yeah. Apparently, look, many industries, governments had their deficiencies exposed during this pandemic. And I guess the Girl Scouts aren't safe either. during this pandemic. And I guess the Girl Scouts aren't safe either. But like this story first,

I just saw that they had, they did terribly with Girl Scout cookie sales last year. They have 15 million unsold boxes, which is like never happened before. They're like, everyone's scratching their heads. A lot of the people at these, like at the local council level, up to the, like the national level, have different, I guess, competing ideas around this at the highest level.

They say, look, it was a global pandemic that was unprecedented. Like what do you, that's why we have, that's why we have this surplus of cookies. Like, I don't know how else to explain it.

Like you, the traditional ways of selling weren't available. Yeah. Because. Go to the grocery store, like where they have the folding table out in front with a girl. A co-worker has a kid. I mean, yeah, it's all just informal, like foot traffic.

Yeah. And it's all like networks. There's typically just whatever you just exploit your own social network to just being like, yeah, let me just crank out a bunch of boxes being sold. So that's the one that's the sort of overarching idea. box is being sold. So that's the one that's the sort of overarching idea. Then other people point to like problems that are a little bit bigger within the Girl Scouts that they said, you know, over the last 12 years, the membership has declined from two and a half million to one point eight million. And some say they said because the Boy Scouts have like began to rebrand and change their policy that just that also allow like anyone anyone to join now not just boys that it's

also siphoning away some of their membership like is like the more conspiratorial it's like it's the boy scouts they're they're messing up our recruitment i think the other there's a few other things though too that i think might make sense wait wait the argument there though is that there are not literally not enough boots on the ground for the girl scouts to move the product essentially like that's one because this is where it gets soldiers yeah yeah this is where it's not enough boots on the ground for the Girl Scouts to move the product. Essentially. Like that's one. Because this is where it gets a little bit. Yeah.

This is where it's funny. Soldiers on the corners. Exactly. Everyone. Slinging their cookies. Exactly. And then they come back to the, like throw a tennis ball across the street and then you throw up a hand

signal so you know how many Thin Mints to give the Custies. But the other thing that's really interesting is that whole, like at the end of the last year, that the huge stories that were coming out about palm oil production and how it's used as child labor. It's terrible for the environment. And it's also like a huge ingredient in Girl Scout cookies. And that led some troop leaders in certain jurisdictions, certain parts of the country say, you know what, we don't want to use our children to sell products that were created by children.

Huh. Interesting. So that's like another reason they said some people were so woke. But then I think a lot of people also just point to the fact, like you're saying, there's no when people aren't going into an office, you're not able to just foist just tens of boxes on coworkers and people like that. And also, they say that just overall, like over the last 10 years, there's so much more options for kids for things they can do, like and what they want to put their energy. And it's not always going to be Girl Scouts.

Like now there's a video games. I'll tell you what, rot in their damn brains. They seem like a confluence. Yeah, this feels like an Occam's Razor situation where it's just we were not together and Girl Scout cookies are a social product.

Yeah, right. That seems like the answer to me. Yeah. I just don't know. I think also I feel like over the years I've slowly began to look at girl scout cookies with more contempt just in terms of like like they're not they don't hit the same like this not as good was it because i was a kid and i was like uh you know it was like a the one thing that like the sweets that my parents would like let me have because it's like we're supporting my friend

at school who wants them but then now like i remember just like some of the newer flavors just don't sit right with me i don't know i don't know if maybe my palate is i've just gone beyond the girl scout cookies now yeah also like i mean why don't they just collapse like i'm sure it will become increasingly weird for the scouts to be gendered by like boy scout girl scout right what and the boy scouts change their name the scouts to be gendered by like boy scout girl scout right and the boy scouts changed their name to scouts bsa i don't know why they kept it as kept the initials of boy scouts of america but like it seems like that is probably the next move is just to like collapse them and but i don't know the fact that that's not even being part of the conversation suggests to me that maybe I'm too naive for this Cub Scouts game.

All right. You might be. Yeah. Well, Jody, such a pleasure having you, man. Where can people find you, follow you, hear you, all that good stuff? I appreciate you asking that. People can listen to This Day in Esoteric Political History. It just rolls off the tongue, doesn't it? Wherever you get your

podcast, it's a Radiotopia show. So, you know, you can find us there. And then I am on Twitter at Jody Avergan, and you can find me there, too. Nice. And is there a tweet or some other work of social media you've been enjoying? I actually do have one Instagram account that I really do want to recommend that I've been enjoying the hell out of lately. And it's called, the account is Ballhouse. If you just Google Ballhouse Instagram, it's got some weird spelling. But if you Google it, you'll find it. But it's this guy who does side-by-side images of photos from the NBA with like master artwork next to it that

sort of look the same. I mean, it's, it's very hard to describe, but he finds these synergies and connections. So he'll have a photo from last night's playoff game with like a Degas right next to it. And they look almost exactly the same, or, you know, he'll have like a de Kooning and then a photo of James Harden. And he just has this ability to make these mashups and find these connections. It's like it has in any just world. This would have like five million followers. And right now it's like 2000. But it is amazing.

These are. Oh, you've seen this? Yeah. And it's spelled like Bauhaus. The house is spelled like Bauhaus. So it's it's and it's all underscore. So it's B underscore, A underscore,

L underscore, L underscore, H underscore, A underscore, U underscore, S. Got it. But it is brilliant.

If you know, if, if you like art at all, not that you don't even have to know anything about art, but if you feel things looking at works of art, this is actually, it's yeah. The way he's sort of distilling a lot

of these images and then finding like these parallels and fine art is yeah i like this yeah it's pretty great it's pretty good thank you it was one of those things when i discovered it i like immediately emailed and texted everyone right so i'm trying to spread the word it's one of those get in early uh miles where can people find you And what's a social media work you've been enjoying? Twitter, Instagram, Miles of Gray. And also the other podcast, 420 Day Fiance. You can check us out on twitch.tv slash 420 Day Fiance. We talk 90 Day Fiance, if it wasn't clear.

And, you know, I'm not really kind of in the same boat. You know, I was was talking my therapist i'm like you know sometimes you you get your you get your wheels going spinning too fast when you're on that social media so i just want to shout out an account on tiktok of this really fantastic drummer who plays like drum and bass and like jungle type beats like on a kit and has like all these like really great cymbals to give you all kinds of like reverse cy reverse symbol sounds and stuff and he's playing it all live and so it's a combination of social because you get to watch it but then you get a little tunage and the account is called ned drums one two three that's on tiktok i think he has an instagram account but you can see this dude just get just nasty on the kit playing like what is you know traditionally like sampled

electronic beats so yeah check that out uh tweet i've been enjoying josh gondelman just in general has been very funny on twitter lately he tweeted it's unreal that the public bathroom air hand dryer industry aka the airborne germ blowing around industry survived the past year and a half they must have the most powerful lobby in washington and then george wallace mr george wallace classic tweeter and comedian tweeted i grew up so poor we could only listen to cool or the gang uh he's the best really Miles you were feeling that that did it for me you can find me on twitter at jack underscore o'brien you can find us

on twitter at daily zeitgeist we're at the daily zeitgeist on instagram we have a facebook fan page and a website dailyzeitgeist.com where we post our episodes and our footnotes we link off to the information that we talked about in today's episode, as well as a song we think you might enjoy.

Miles, what are we sending people toward? More hiatus, Coyote. Yeah, yeah. If you haven't been listening, come on now, get into it. Coyote is spelled K-A-I-Y-O-T-E. They're my favorite band right now. They are so solid on their instruments. I say that every time as someone who plays bass and trumpet and want to be drummer.

I'm always impressed with the instrumentation. This track is called Chivalry Is Not Dead. And it's just their songs are so rich with the sounds that they use like even how they go into odd meter at times so check this out chivalry is not dead i can't believe they have a song named after my catchphrase chivalry is not dead ladies uh the daily zeitgeist is a production of iheart radio for more podcasts from iheart radio visit the iheart radio app apple podcast or wherever you listen to your favorite shows that's going to do it for us this morning we're back this afternoon to tell you what's trending and we'll talk to you all then. Bye.

Bye. Kay hasn't heard from her sister in seven years. I have a proposal for you. Come up here and document my project. All you need to do is record everything like you always do. What was that? That was live audio of a woman's nightmare. Can Kay trust her sister, or is history repeating itself? There's nothing dangerous about what you're doing. They're just dreams. Dream Sequence is a new horror thriller from Blumhouse Television, iHeartRadio, and Realm. Listen to Dream Sequence on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. In California during the summer of 1975, within the span of 17 days and less than 90 miles,

two women did something no other woman had done before, try to assassinate the president of the United States. One was the protege of Charles Manson, 26 year old Lynette Fromm, nickname Squeaky. The other, a middle-aged housewife working undercover for the FBI, identified by police as Sarah Jean Moore. The story of one strange and violent summer this season on the new podcast, Thank you. There's so much beauty in Mexican culture, like mariachis, delicious cuisine, and even lucha libre. Join us for the new podcast, Lucha Libre Behind the Mask, a 12-episode podcast in both English and Spanish about the history and cultural richness of lucha libre. And I'm your host, Santos Escobar, emperor of lucha libre and a WWE superstar. Hi, everyone. It's me, Katie Couric. You know, lately I've been overwhelmed by the whole wellness industry.

So much information out there about flaxseed, pelvic floor, serums, and anti-aging. about flaxseed, pelvic floor, serums, and anti-aging. So I launched a newsletter. It's called Body and Soul to share expert approved advice for your physical and mental health. And guess what? It's free. Just sign up at katiecouric.com slash body and soul.

That's K-A-T-I-E-C-O-U-R-I-C.com slash body and soul. I promise it will make you happier and healthier.