The Daily Zeitgeist - Weekly Zeitgeist 4 (Best of 12/11/17-12/15/17)

Episode Date: December 17, 2017

The weekly round up of the best moments from DZ's Season 10 (12/11/17-12/15/17) Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th 2017 was assassinated. Crooks Everywhere unearthed the plot to murder a one-woman WikiLeaks. She exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. Listen to Crooks Everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. 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. Curious about queer sexuality,

cruising, and expanding your horizons? Hit play on the sex-positive and deeply entertaining podcast or wherever you pursue your true goals. You can listen to Sniffy's Cruising Confessions, sponsored by Gilead, now on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes every Thursday. Hi, everybody. It's Katie Couric. Have you heard about my newsletter called Body and Soul? It has everything you need to know about health and wellness. From skincare and serums to meditation and brain health,

we've got you covered. And most importantly, it's information you can trust. Everything is vetted by experts at the top of their field. Just sign up at katiecouric.com slash body and soul. That's K-A-T-I-E-C-O-U-R-I-C dot com slash body and soul. I promise you'll be happier and healthier if you do. non-stop infotainment laugh extravaganza. Yeah. So without further ado, here is the weekly zeitgeist. Before we get into the news stories of the day, we usually like to ask our guest for a media myth, something that people, the national shared consciousness of the species or just like of the nation believes that you think is incorrect.

OK, here's here's a battle that's been going on. People thinking that it's not cold when it's cold. We live in Los Angeles. Yes, we got beautiful weather. Yes. And nighttime we get that high desert sometime. It's like 48 degrees. And you're walking with somebody from the East Coast.

Right. And they're coal shaming you. Yes. Because you're cold. And it's like, it's cold. Like, I don't care if you grew up in snow. I didn't grow up in snow. Snow would also be cold.

Right. If it was in hell, it would be hot. Right, right, right. I'm from the South. I've lived in very hot areas. But if we in hell, I'm not going. Right, right, right. I'm from the south. I've lived in very hot areas. But if we in hell, I'm not going to be like, man, it ain't hot out here. You got to go to Mississippi. You're from Tuscaloosa?

Yeah. It's like, shut up. Yeah. And so that's one thing that pisses me off when people cold shame. Like, it's 48 degrees. I'm walking out here in a thin hoodie. Right. I'm cold.

I'm shivering. No, I'm not about to die of frostbite. No, it's not Everest. No, it's not Everest College. Right. But I'm cold. Like, let me be cold, man. Like, that don't make me weak.

I think that's just a way for people who are transplants, they get to feel like, you know, a little bit of pride. But that's been. Back where I'm from. Yeah, that's been true everywhere I've lived. I've lived everywhere in America. There's always somebody who is proud that they're wearing shorts in December. They're like, yo, the cold doesn't bother me. It's a state of mind, bro.

Shut up. Shut the fuck up. I just retweeted this tweet by Bella K. Martinez, too. She was like, Southerners, snow is so pretty, Northerners. This isn't even a real snow. Just you wait. I was born in Igloo, and I drove to school on a snowmobile. We eat ice for every meal.

I can't wait to die in a snowbank. Warmth, never heard of it. That's how people from the Northeast, like, yeah, I knew a couple people from Massachusetts who that was their claim to fame. Oh, really? Yeah. That's so funny because I was in Boston last December. I was doing a video piece somewhere at mit or whatever and i was walking through the campus there were kids straight up

in like they had just come out of the gym in wet t-shirt like sweat t-shirt and shorts and we're just like oh yeah this is great right and i i'm out here with the fucking parka on with the scarves and mittens shivering and yeah and and they look at you like you're a freak. Yeah. We did an article about things white people don't understand. And I did research into stereotypes about white people that white people don't know are stereotypes. Right. And not dressing well enough for the weather was one of the stereotypes of white people. That like white people will just wear shorts in like really cold weather. That was like a funny vine that was going around.

It's like white people when it gets cold. It was like a woman eating ice cream. Like in shorts. It was like a funny vine that was going around. It's like white people when it gets cold. It was like a woman eating ice cream. Like it's like, oh, it's great outside. And then they pan over and reveal black dudes like in a fucking park. I'm talking about. There was a terror attack this morning, but that was not our president's first tweet of the day. Rather, it was his response to this amazing New York Times article that came out over the weekend. It might have come out on Friday, but it was actually printed. It was

their front page article yesterday in the Sunday Times in the actual paper paper version because I was on vacation. I read paper paper newspapers when I'm on vacation. And in the paper is called President versus the presidency. But that's I don't think what it was called in the online version. But it was just sort of a run through of like a day in the life of Donald Trump during the first year of his presidency. He wanted to let people know that he doesn't watch that much TV this morning in his first tweet of the day. But because because that's where the president started, that's where we're going to start. We'll get to the terror attack a little later on. But so among the highlights, he drinks 12 Diet Cokes a day and watches anywhere from four to eight hours of TV a day. There's this great moment where they talk about not just the rumor that he watches 48 hours of TV a day. And so during the

press scrum where the media, he goes back and sits with the media on Air Force One or they come up and hang with him, somebody asked him a question about Roy Moore and his response was, believe it or not, even when I'm in Washington or New York, I do not

watch much television. People that don't know me, they like to say I watch television, people with fake sources, you know, fake reporters, fake sources. But I don't get to watch much television, primarily because of documents. I'm reading documents a lot. I actually read much more. I read you people much more than I watch the TV. I haven't been able to devote very much time to it uh hey i read documents i'm too busy reading these uh documents well i'm reading

paperwork yeah right they put words on the pieces i don't watch the electronic flip book um it's like the press is asking him sir sir, did you get a D in history? Sir, did you get a D minus in history? I did not get an F in algebra. Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're asking you about a separate failure. The question we were asking you was about a separate fault.

My favorite quote from the article is not a quote that he said, but just the way the article is written. Not a quote that he said, but just the way the article is written. They say, to an extent that would stun outsiders, Mr. Trump, the most talked about human on the planet, is still delighted when he sees his name in the headlines. And he is on a perpetual quest to see it there. One former top advisor said Mr. Trump grew uncomfortable after two or three days of peace and could not handle watching the news without seeing himself on it. peace and could not handle watching the news without seeing himself on it. So, you know, when it seems like, wow, we're actually having moments where Trump isn't dominating the headlines and then he suddenly like surges back to the headlines by doing something crazy. That is by design.

He is like, whoa, Trump has not been making people completely terrified or angry on a like daily basis for a while. And his addiction to Twitter, basically, and social media, that feedback loop of like, I do the thing and then I get likes or retweets. It's permeated into like, okay, now I've conquered Twitter. Now go another level, I guess, world news, which is like the ultimate Twitter. And I can just be like, oh, I'm going to say one thing. Oh, now look at me.

I'm back on the pages. What's interesting too about that, there's another line from that article about how he'll even call people up when he thinks he has a fire tweet and one of it says in june according to a longtime advisor he excitedly called friends to say he had the perfect tweet to neutralize the russia investigation he called it a quote witch hunt They were unimpressed. So we want to get right into Sex Crim Watch, a.k.a. Mengazi. Mengazi. It's a portmanteau. And that's just the rest of the episode.

Yeah, keep talking, boys. Keep talking. Mario Batali. How surprised are we by this? Not very. Super producer Anna Hosnier was saying that she saw his appearance on the untitled Action Bronson project and that he was just all sorts of sort of out of his mind. Just, I don't know, all over the place. And so she wasn't surprised by it.

But, Miles, you were saying you weren't surprised by it for another reason. Well, no, I mean, I just I have I have friends that work in restaurants and I know how they like to blow steam off, like especially after work. And I've also read Kitchen Confidential, which is my first glimpse into like kitchens. And these dudes fucking are wild. Like they're doing drugs they drink all the time they're like not that they're evil people but these aren't people who are like they're not trying to conduct business in a overt like an overly professional way like they're just dudes who are in the back of a hot room all day and like there's no rules right so consuming and making

things and yeah absolutely and also when you look at it too, like they're like, after like looking into this a little bit more, it, the hospitality industry has like the highest reported incidences of sexual harassment. Like there's no other industry that comes close. Right. So this is interesting because I think we've talked about, you know, is this sort of, uh, movement going to be just a Hollywood thing? And I mean, I guess you could say it still is because Batali is sort of a Hollywood chef. But that's a crazy statistic that there are industries and the restaurant industry being the top one. There's 85 percent of employees. There's a restaurant workers advocacy group that's that has a like based on some of their

research, they found that 80 percent of workers in the restaurant industry report being sexually harassed. Eighty fucking percent. That is absurd. Yeah. Yeah. It's like totally normal. It's like it's almost a normalized part of our culture that we have until now just totally accepted. Right, right, right.

As being OK. Right. I mean, if you watch our ancient media, like, say, in the 90s or even before, like, the idea, like, the figure of a waitress in pop culture, a waitress in particular, is just always, like, a butt to be slapped or, like, a face to put buttons on a vest and then you get to look at her tits because there's buttons on her vest. Like, even in media, which seems to be, like, as a discussion is this is only a Hollywood thing, like Like Hollywood portrays that industry as a den of sexual harassment. Right, right, right, right. And the reality is painfully, terrifyingly true. And as scary as a Weinstein is, and he's a fucking monster scary guy. Like there are Weinsteins like every Applebee's, Chili's, TGI Fridays and like drive-in diner anywhere.

Right. Like it or at least in 85% of them. Right. Yeah. It's a horrifying – in such an intense industry, there's a study. I don't remember who did it or where it was, but I believe that I remember it, that the two most stressful professions by just measurable stress level are like surgeon and server. Those are the two.

How hard you work in the restaurant industry goes so underappreciated that almost how hard you suck goes underappreciated. Like nobody sees it. Nobody sees how hard you're working. Nobody sees how dark and kind of gross it can get. It's just, you know, I guess tip 25% next time you go out. Right, right. Because somebody got her butt patted or worse to bring you that ranch dressing.

Well, yeah. It seems like there's even some of the other articles about sort of the harassment in the industry too. It's like it's also kind of a regular story for servers to be trapped in the walk-in refrigerator constantly. So, yeah. I mean, we'll see what how like this. Like you said, in the beginning, we thought it was like limited to Hollywood and I guess Batali is some extension of that, but we'll see. Like, I hope that this creates a actual sea change or cultural shift in that industry. Not only not just Hollywood, but Hollywood is reflecting what's happening in the rest of the world.

So the same way, I mean, as a person in comedy, this is a crazy thing to keep looking at, but the same way there was a machine around Louis C.K. to make it OK for him to jerk off in front of women and then lie about it. That is a reflection of the machine that keeps your garbage shift leader there at your garbage restaurant job. Right. Even though he's done creepy shit to every girl on staff. The same machine is working. Don't complain. It's easier if you don't complain. I don't know.

Wear a different shirt. He wear green. He hates green like that.llywood didn't invent that it didn't come from here uh that was the world and then hollywood used that model and it there's too much light shining here and showbiz and it shined on some darkness and that darkness is revealing that it wasn't it's everywhere yeah right everywhere is darkness and And I guess the question is will people in other industries have a mechanism for reporting these people? Because the reason that this sort of sea change is happening in Hollywood is because they're able to get media attention because these are famous people behaving like monsters. If it's your shift manager at applebee's then uh you know who is going to give enough of a shit when you report right oh wait oh wait unions oh no no no

yeah more gravy no those were those were bad for democracy first off roy moore uh called and you know issued uh he was like congratulations on this great oh no no he said uh right he was like congratulations on this great he was like nah the Lord will provide I can't have possibly lost this election yeah that's a wild one where he was like God will decide

I mean God decided but see that's how God works in Alabama it's like if it's not on your side then it can't be God. But isn't the whole Christian mantra like God's plan? So it's like, Roy, this was God's plan. He actually said that in his thing. He was like, but the one thing we know is whatever happens, it is God's plan.

And I was like, yo, it happened. Yeah. So that's God's plan. Yeah. God would not like that. He's not a fan of this version of God. Are they going to do a recount? I mean, like, is that what he's –

No, there's not enough. He would have to pay for it. So if it's under a half a percentage point, they will automatically do a recount. Okay. If it's over that, then the person who's requested the recount has to actually pay for it themselves. Okay. And, you know – And he won by one and a half percent.

Yeah, he won by one and a half percent. Yeah, he won by one and a half percent. Oh, okay. So there's no way. I mean, there's enough money in the GOP, as we know, that he could get that funded. Yeah. Are they ready to be done with him? I think they're done with him. Yeah.

I think everybody was like, well, that was embarrassing. Well, and also they're like, thank God, because we don't then have to be like, hey, so what are you going to do about this pedophile in the Senate? They don't have to do that anymore. It's like, okay, we'll figure it out. So you think when they were like, we'll let the people of Alabama decide, Mitch McConnell secretly was like, please decide the right way. I don't think so. I think he's like, give me this pedophile.

I think he just said he didn't want to be so overtly against him that he just he dialed it back to being ambiguous. So that way, when Steve Bannon tries to attack him he's like you see news for connell and we'll get into all that because that's there's so many dimensions of of uh the gop cowardice yeah exactly um my horse visual was fun yeah yeah the best was horse twitter flaming him for not knowing how to ride that horse oh really yeah they're like they're like he's holding the reins wrong. The horse looks confused. I was picturing him like riding it backwards, like facing the ass of the horse. Side saddle. My favorite tweet on this was from Andy Zeisler.

She said, guys, of course, the sex predator doesn't take no for an answer, which I thought was pretty much right on point. Yeah, he's not willing to concede. Also not taking no for an answer. Fox News was their immediate reaction was, yeah, but see, Roy Moore was a flawed candidate. This result is very specifically based on his character and not a repudiation of Trump or a shift towards Democrats in the state. Like, who cares? Which is fine. That's like a very specific response to that.

Well, yeah, but Fox News is meant to be, like, the channel you go to to figure out, like, tell me it's going to be okay. Like, if you're a GOP, if you're a Republican and you're really, like, shook up about this, you kind of need Fox to be like, don't worry, man, this guy was, like, what they said, I think, uniquely flawed is one thing I heard many times yesterday. And I was like, don't worry, man. This guy was, like what they said, I think uniquely flawed

is one thing I heard many times yesterday. And I was like, motherfucker, you mean he's an accused pedophile? Don't obscure that by calling him uniquely flawed. I think it's good for the Democrats though to like, basically Fox News is being like, take your bottle. Go to sleep.

And we, that didn't happen when trump you know like everyone was enraged when yeah we were just like we fucked that up yeah really bad we didn't take a bottle yeah um so but we cried but it's like that's great i hope you guys go with the rhetoric that like oh no we're fine we're fine we're fine we're fine we're fine we're fine we're fine we're fine we're fine we're fine he was a ped. We're fine. We're fine. We're fine. We're fine. We're fine. We're fine. We're fine. We're fine. He was a pedophile. We're fine. Right. Because it's like, well, then that's how you can sneak in and take some seats.

Yeah, right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. They got to figure out how they're going to market themselves. This is sort of how the cycle goes, right? The people who won are sort of passive and believe that they have things in the bag, and that continues until they suffer some catastrophic defeat, at which point they wake up. And, you know, yeah, like you said, giving themselves the bottle. And I also don't like that.

There's people being like, it should have been by a bigger margin. It's like, shut up. We want. Right. The pedophile loss. Can't you just like be happy? And I was like sitting as the polls close being like, he's going to win. You know, like it was astounding that Doug Jones won.

So like let's just take the victory and like stop counting the tiny pieces about it. Yeah, right, right, right. Let's thank black women and then like – It'll never be a perfect victory. You a perfect victory you know i mean i think people only wanted like a hundred percent doug jones like then there we go he wouldn't he would have dropped out of the race if he thought he didn't have a chance right so um and trump has been like see this is why i said it should have been luther strange and not roy moore uh so you know we'll get more into his response and what this means for Trumpism going forward.

So we will be right back. Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th, 2017, was murdered. There are crooks everywhere you look now. The situation is desperate. My name is Manuel Delia. I am one of the hosts of Crooks Everywhere, a podcast that unhurts the plot to murder a one-woman Wikileaks. Daphne exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into

a mafia state. And she paid the ultimate price. Listen to Crooks everywhere on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. In 1982, Atari players had one thing on their minds. Sword Quest. This wasn't just a new game. Atari promised $150,000 in prizes to four finalists.

But the prizes disappeared. And what started as a video game promotion became one of the most controversial moments in 80s pop culture. I just don't believe they exist. I mean, my reaction, shock and awe. That sword was amazing. It was so beautiful. I'm Jamie Loftus. Join me this spring for The Legend of Sword Quest, a podcast about the fall of Atari and the disappearing Sword Quest prizes. We'll follow the quest for lost treasure across four decades. It's almost like a metaphor for the industry and Atari itself in a way. Listen to The Legend of Sword Quest on the iHeartRadio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This summer, the nation watched as the Republican nominee for president was the target of two assassination attempts, separated by two months. These events were mirrored nearly 50 years ago when President Gerald Ford faced two attempts on his life in less than three weeks. President Gerald R. Ford came stunningly close to being the victim of an assassin today. And these are the only two times we know of that a woman has tried to assassinate a U.S. president. One was the protege of infamous cult leader Charles Manson. I always felt like Lynette was kind of his right-hand woman.

The other, a middle-aged housewife working undercover for the FBI in a violent revolutionary underground. Identified by police as Sarah Jean Moore. The story of one strange and violent summer. This is Rip Current. Available now with new episodes every Thursday. Listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

I've been thinking about you. I want you back in my life. It's too late for that. I have a 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. Someone from one of our favorite websites, Right Wing Watch, Jared Holt, who works for them, is here with us to talk a little bit about the alt-right. We want to get the temperature of what's going on in the land of Pepe the Frog. So, Jared, are you there? You are there, right? Hello? Yeah. Hey, Miles. What's up? How are you? How are you? And you're also here with Jack, just so you know. There's two people doing this interview.

So, yeah, I mean, obviously we wanted to talk to you because Right Wing Watch is a very great website and tool for us because we like to keep track of all the things going on. But can you tell us a little bit about what you do at Right Wing Watch and sort of what your role is there in terms of the alt-right. Yeah. So my role with Right Wing Watch is to research and sort of monitor the movements and the narratives coming out of the fringes of right-wing media. And my specialty in particular is social media and new media, which as I'm sure a lot of your listeners have heard, and if they haven't, has been grossly taken over by the far right and what has become known as the alt-right. So I guess you could say you're a bit of an expert. You've been following this group for a minute now. Yeah, it's been a couple years. They sort of first got on my radar after Gamergate, which was this big online movement that ended up harassing a lot of female journalists who covered video games and different

video game designers for introducing more women and progressive characters. And that was sort of the starting gun to all of this online. And so it's been on my radar then. And then a couple years ago is when I really decided to sink my teeth in and start watching it full time. And when that happened with Gamergate, I know that at that point, it was mostly focused on misogyny and, you know, the fact that women were infiltrating the gaming community. And were there right wing politics attached to that rage at that point? A little bit. It was mostly this motive,

and we can talk about this later, that fuels this movement, which is the idea that social justice activists, or who they call social justice warriors, are somehow taking over the institutions they love. In this case, as trivial as it sounds,

it was video games. But then, when Trump came along, they saw that as a chance to get it into politics too. Yeah, I mean, we've talked before on the show that Steve Bannon was doing a separate business venture where he was trying to make money mining for gold in World of Warcraft, and he came across this sort of gamergate community and was like wow there might be a way to politicize all this energy um so it was it was like a conscious

decision on on their part yeah it was this it was this huge movement and steve bannon uh was one of the first people uh to really take advantage and start pumping it mainstream. Even after the white supremacist crowd saw it happening and decided they wanted to use it for their movement too. Right. You know, just this online culture of like shit posting and just trolling people and stuff. They thought like, hey, this is a useful weapon in defeating social justice warriors. So we can get these people on our side and use them for our advantage. Right.

Have you seen like obviously Doug Jones won yesterday in Alabama. Have you just from what you've been seeing, like in the lead up to the election, what was sort of been the alt-right stance in terms of Roy Moore or now in the wake of the loss? Has there been any kind of shifting of positions or anything like that? So one of the core pillars of the alt-right is this attempt to discredit mainstream media and what they see as a liberal order, a liberal establishment. So they wanted Roy Moore to win simply to counter that establishment. Roy Moore's win simply to counter that establishment. They were all totally aware of the pedophilia allegations and were doing their own thing to try to discredit them.

But in the end, it didn't really matter to them because they just wanted to send a message. Now, since Roy Moore lost, the four chans and 8 chans of the world just went into complete meltdown. There's kind of this all hope is lost and then another vein of sentiment going on that, you know, Roy Moore was always crazy and wasn't really one of us, so it doesn't matter. And probably one of the bigger narratives is that the mainstream media, like, teamed up with the GOP to character assassinate the guy. And so they're sort of mourning the loss in a couple different ways, slowly going through the grieving process today. So their conspiracy is that the Washington Post and the mainstream, like Mitch McConnell's of the world, got together and found these women and concocted this whole story of Roy Moore being a pedophile.

It's interesting because they will concoct conspiracy theories about pedophilia to like discredit the Democrats. But when there's actual pedophilia, they will concoct conspiracy theories to ignore it, which I mean, there was this whole thing, Pizzagate, where they believed that there was a pizza restaurant where high powered Democrats were molesting children. But is there are there underground tunnels, you can't forget that. And I'll say I've been to that restaurant just to have pizza and there is no basement. So the tunnels thing really got me on Pizzagate. Show you the level of discourse we're dealing with. So are there any myths about the alt-right, things that you think the collective consciousness has wrong about the alt-right or the story of how they came to be? I think that there's a few things. I think one is that Richard Spencer still holds any sort of prominence in the alt-right. He was extremely fundamental in lining out the core and setting

the tone and the mission for the alt-right going forward, and was one of the main ones who helped bring it online. But when he got punched in the face on Inauguration Day, they all kind of abandoned him and have speculated that he's like a deep state operative who's meant to smear their movement and everything. And another one is that I think a lot of things that aren't necessarily alt-right get called alt-right. And that really discredits the term because what happened after Trump's election is we saw the alt-right shatter into all these different movements.

There's the new right, the proud boys, Chad Nationalist, Traditionalists, and went from this larger movement of people all banded together to help elect Trump to all these different fractured movements that just went to the furthest extremes of the ideology that they thought was most important that the alt-right embodied. So can you talk about Chad Nationalist? Because that was one of the more interesting sort of subspecies that we came across in tracking the news cycle. Oh, yeah. Chad Nationalism. Where to start on this one? So imagine your typical nationalism uh you know wanting to uh serve the interest of a nation first uh so leading to policies that are anti-immigrant uh leading to a foreign policy that's very uh non-interventional uh but then hand it to some like super buff gym rats and then also crank their heads full of all these misogynistic views. And you've got Chad Nationalist. So these guys like to toss around the term soy boy as an insult because part of this, what these guys believe is that if you eat too much soy products it'll boost your estrogen and feminize you and it's like it's like the insecure gym rats that they are not to say all gym rats are

insecure but these people are definitely insecure you know that's like the worst thing that could possibly happen right it's a very like homoerotic sort of we went to a website where they had all these pictures of like the ideal like chad is basically a name they came up with for like the ideal uh sort of white nationalist dude who like is that they're like he's a sexy hero who lifts weights and like is a hero to women and they had like all these pictures of like arnold schwarzenegger and like you know these 80s like homoerotic male bodybuilder types that they were like these are great examples of like who a chad nationalist should try to be um just a very strange subculture is there anything aside from like the idea of like hyper masculinity that like ideologically

separates them from other groups or it's their whole main thing is like, look, we're fucking ripped. All the ladies want to fuck and we hate immigrants. Is that sort of the platform or is there something like even more specific? Like it's like, well, actually, we're also very fiscally conservative. Honestly, I think you got it, man. OK, perfect. Yeah. So that's good.

I want to make sure I'm reading the tea leaves correctly. Proud Boys is an interesting one because they add the idea of like you don't masturbate, right? Yeah, no wanks. Yeah, so there's different levels of being a Proud Boy. There's like four tiers. So for listeners that don't know, Gavin McInnes, who's a popular right-wing media personality, came up with this idea to create a fraternity for guys that support Trump. They're, again, maybe not Chad Nationalist. There could be some crossover, but it's still that same hyper-masculinity boys club idea and that women should be subservient and so on.

But so in order, I'll just take you through the four levels of being a proud boy. So the first level is that you have to publicly declare on social media or whatever that you're a proud Western chauvinist and a member of the proud boys. The second tier is that no less than five already initiated proud boys repeatedly punch you until you can name five breakfast cereals. So they're punching you, and while you're being punched, you're trying to prove that your brain can work well enough that you can name five breakfast cereals while they're beating the shit out of you, essentially.

Oh, yeah. It's like being beat into a gang, but with a weird cereal twist. The fucking lamest, weak-ass version. Like, hey, homie, we're going to jump you, and we'll punch you until you can name five cereals. Like, you can prepare for that beatdown. You can be like, I'm just going to go cinnamon toast, crunch, Chex, Kix, Rice Krispie Treats, Honey Nut Cheerios.

Yeah, but they just landed like five punches. I'm good. I'll eat those. Welcome to the Proud Boys. Yeah, and then thank you. Okay, so that's level two. I would actually, just for any aspiring Proud Boys, Chex, Rice Chex, Corn Chex, and you're out.

Just go out the Chex list. Yeah, Chex is one syllable, nice and easy. What else? Oh, so you're a Chex nationalist. So that's level two. What's level three? Level three is the no wanks. No wanks.

Yeah, so you can't masturbate unless you're within. Well, you're not a proud boy. I have a reversion to anybody telling me I can't masturbate. Well, you will go blind. Okay, so the no wanks go on. I apologize. So it's no wanks unless you're within a certain distance of a woman and you get her consent. The idea being that not masturbating boosts your testosterone levels and unlocks some sort of secret testosterone, you know, super man powers that I am still unclear what exactly they are. Yeah, because that's not quite scientifically based.

Right. uh they are yeah because that's not quite scientifically based right yeah i think they say that to keep the optimal level of testosterone like it's good to have some sort of cycle going where you're actually uh masturbating on a somewhat regular basis well it's also built off that idea like sports coaches like hey don't fuck before the big game which is not true yeah exactly boxers don't actually do that unless they do, in which case they learned it from Raging Bull. Yeah, and obviously, like, look, if you're looking up to somebody who's punching people out for a living and they're telling you they're fucking and masturbating on the regular, yo, maybe, like, listen to them, you know?

All right, so that's level three. Don't masturbate and you'll become superhuman. Okay, level four. Final level is to punch a member of Antifa. So it's, you know, this group claims not to be affiliated with the alt-right, but the fact that they're showing up at these, like, protests like Unite the Right just so they can get the chance to throw the punch in and ascend to the highest level, I definitely think puts some guilt on their hands for, you know,

the white supremacist, white nationalist alt-right movement. Right, because I remember – I think it's a mistake to totally, you know, separate them from that. Right, right, right. Because I remember like in the aftermath of Charlottesville, like Gavin McGinnis was really clear to try and be like, yo, we had nothing to do with that. We had nothing to do with that because it's like – Oh, yeah, they all were. Like these new right people like the Mike Cernovich, Alex Joneses of the world, they were all doing the same thing.

I think after the election, the alt-right kind of fractured. And then when Charlottesville happened, people just started running in different directions. Right. Because everyone wanted to get away from the alt-right label. In terms of looking ahead, what do you see their growth looking like, if any, or recruiting tactics that they're using now? Is it a pivot or is it kind of steadily growing? What's sort of the forecast from your end?

So there's different factions that I think are all competing for the same group of disaffected white people, especially young white men uh like college age or maybe fresh out of college and couldn't get the job that they thought they wanted to or like think society is you know discriminating them or making them out to be a boogeyman i think someone put a poll out that like somewhere between 40 and 50 percent of white people in the country feel somehow victimized right now and i think uh the future for the alt-right or the new right or uh like god forbid the chad nationalist is to figure out how to talk to those people and uh inject uh the white nationalism into them and sort of play to maybe

these subconscious fears uh that exist in the conservative voter base right now. Right. And I guess like one of the last things I kind of want to ask about is like, I've read a lot about how alt-right has like, one of their biggest problems is getting women to participate. And essentially, since a lot of these groups are sort of built on these dated misogynistic ideas and shit, that they're having a real problem getting women involved. But then there are women who want to be involved in the movement, but they're realizing that men don't want to include them. So like, is that like a thing that even men discuss in like alt right? Like sort of these message boards, because you see articles about the women talking about it,

but it's, I'm curious to know, like, if there's any, like, you know, inherently something that is so discriminatory is going to have trouble inviting more people to the table. So like how, how is that affecting things? Yeah. So, uh, to be a woman accepted in the alt-right, you really have to decry feminism and, uh, work against a lot of your own best interests as a woman. Um, and that's, that's really like the barrier to acceptance. But for the most part, a lot of people in these circles think that women are meant to be home keepers and child bearers. Um, and there's like an insane amount of slut shaming that goes on, um, or attacking, you know, the media personalities trying to join the alt-right

if they find some picture on Facebook of them dating someone who's not white. Like Tommy Lauren? Yeah, it gets really nasty towards women. So eventually they're not going to have women to procreate with to keep this thing going. It's an odd sort of paradox. procreate with to keep this thing going. Like it's an odd sort of paradox. Well, it started, it grew out of the soil of a like anti-woman movement, right?

The whole Gamergate thing was like, we hate women. It was just explicitly hateful towards women. So it's not surprising that that would be, you know, a problem that they would eventually face. Yeah, I think I think you're touching on something that sort of gets to the core of it, which is that, you know, through what you guys have been calling Benghazi and various other parts of our culture right now, we're seeing all these like decades, if not centuries of misogyny and horrible treatment of women trying to come to terms with the fact that women have begun to claim agency for themselves and are pursuing things like careers and, you know, oftentimes being very successful and threatening the status quo power structure that's been in place for so long. and threatening the status quo power structure that's been in place for so long. And I think that's really like a driving force that the alt-right is going to have to reconcile with if it is going to continue to grow.

Because if they leave women out, that really leaves the only option is dominance and not any sort of resolution. Right. I've described and I've heard it described that, you know, a lot of white people, especially young white people, were born on second thinking they hit a double. And I do think that there's some semblance of like acknowledgement that they have an advantage when you see these groups that are so viciously fighting against the rights of people who are, you know, who society is trying to raise up and, you know, give equal opportunities to. There's like, maybe it's not a conscious awareness of that, but maybe there's an unconscious awareness of the fact that, you know, they have had a huge advantage for a long time and they would like to continue to have that huge advantage. These young white men are experiencing the most minor taste of what it's like to be looked over because of your sex or your race, and they just don't know how to handle it. Right.

Which is, I don't know, it's hard to describe. It's something that a lot of these people that are a part of this movement have never dealt with or experienced before. So I think that you're right. That's where a lot of the anger and rage comes from in this movement. And then just to wrap up, are you seeing any flagging of the momentum that sort of propelled Trump to the White House? And, you know, obviously there was the Doug Jones victory last night in Alabama. And, you know, are is are you seeing as somebody who's been following and paying attention to the, you know, alt right and just the right wing in general? Are you seeing this as like part of a big movement or is is that just something that's

happening while there's still this wave of, you know,-wing hatred kind of building at the same time. Yeah, so there's that wave of right-wing hatred, and I think that the people that are part of the alt-right, and I mean like the core true white nationalist alt-right, realize that they're not going to get any of their own people elected, or at least we hope not, in 2018. But what they do hope to do is influence the level of public discourse in a way that pulls conservative candidates to the right or influence the public discourse in a way that would make people more sympathetic to more extremist candidates like Roy Moore that we saw. accused of uh sexually assaulting teen girls and that is like appalling enough on its face but before that he was this like crazy religious right-wing guy who thought that he could run the state out of a bible instead of the law book um or what he interpreted to be the bible anyway um so i think going forward uh their goal is going to be more of a cultural one and less on one of promoting Richard Spencer to the Senate or something.

We'll be right back. Daphne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16, 2017, was murdered. There are crooks everywhere you look now. The situation is desperate. My name is Manuel Delia. I am one of the hosts of Crooks Everywhere, a podcast that unhurts the plot to murder a one-woman Wikileaks. a podcast that unhurts the plot to murder a one-woman Wikileaks. Daphne exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. And she paid the ultimate price. Listen to Crooks everywhere on the iHeartRadio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. In 1982, Atari players had one thing on their minds. Sword Quest. This wasn't just a new game. Atari promised 150 grand in prizes to four finalists. But the prizes disappeared. And what started as a video game promotion became one of the most controversial moments in 80s pop culture.

I just don't believe they exist. My reaction, shock and awe. That sword was amazing. It was so beautiful. I'm Jamie Loftus. Join me this spring for The Legend of Sword Quest, a podcast about the fall of Atari and the disappearing Sword Quest prizes. We'll follow the quest for lost treasure across four decades.

It's almost like a metaphor for the industry and Atari itself in a way. Listen to The Legend of Sword Quest on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. This summer, the nation watched as the Republican nominee for president was the target of two assassination attempts, separated by two months. These events were mirrored nearly 50 years ago, when President Gerald Ford faced two attempts on his life in less than three weeks. President Gerald R. Ford came stunningly close to being the victim of an assassin today. And these are the only two times we know of that a woman has tried to assassinate a U.S. president. One was the protege of infamous cult leader Charles Manson.

I always felt like Lynette was kind of his right-hand woman. The other, a middle-aged housewife working undercover for the FBI in a violent revolutionary underground. Identified by police as Sarah Jean Moore. The story of one strange and violent summer. This is Rip Current. Available now with new episodes every Thursday. Listen on the iHeartRadio app,

Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. 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 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 iheart radio and realm listen to dream sequence on the iheart radio Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. And we're back. So out in the zeitgeist, some big news is that the first reviews of The Last Jedi are rolling in,

and the Metacritic meter says it's going to be great. It's an 87, which is up there with the Oscar nominees right now, or the movies that are likely to be nominated for Oscars. The first reboot, The Force Awakens, was at 81, so that got really great reviews, and people have mixed opinions on this one. Miles, I know you said you're not watching any previews. I'm not watching. Okay, so I really love Star Wars, and with The Force Awakens and Rogue One, I sort of just went crazy with the trailers and featurettes or whatever, just trying to get as much information because I've been so Star Wars-deprived over the last however many years. Because obviously, yeah, the prequels were fucking garbage but yeah now to see like so many people on twitter who have gone to screenings and like people whose opinions i respect like who like good films to see these people get so excited like

people are really excited about this and just like i can't this is great this i haven't seen a star wars movie they said this could be the second best Star Wars movie after Empire. That's fucking, that's a bold claim. Yeah, there's a film critic, Alonzo Duralde, who is a really good critic I like a lot, who said he thinks it's third best behind Empire and the OG original Star Wars, which is pretty crazy. Well, I'm here to say I don't care.

Of course you are. Now tell us why. Listen, you guys, why are we doing this to ourselves? Why are we letting them trick us? Is it any coincidence that this movie came after Force Awakens and is supposed to be just like Empire Strikes Back? We are stuck in a loop of the same garbage movies being played to us over and over and over again let's break it suggests that empire was a garbage movie do you think it's a garbage i think

it was great but i don't need to see it again i don't know i don't think that people i don't think people are likening it to empire in that like it's structurally the same like you could say that the force awakens definitely was very derivative like if it was nearly like it was seen by scene yeah it was it was wild like whereas this one people are saying i think it's because it's such a departure like i don't i from what i've read i don't think that people are comparing the actual content to empire but right but the feelings that you get as a star wars watcher that it it recaptured that magic right force awakens i think got a lot from like you're saying people, people just being excited, like that nostalgia wave. And we haven't had a good Star Wars movie in ages.

Right. And so that came out. Now I think we're at a point where the movie actually needs to be good. Yeah. Because, you know, there's been multiple movies in the last few years. Like, we're at a point where people could be like, if they see a shitty one, they'd be like, I'm tired of this shit, man. I don't think that's true, though. I don't think that's true.

I think Disney has gotten us hooked in a way that it's just like, they're just like, man, we could put out a movie where it's just a poop with a lightsaber and y'all would come back. I would. You see? And I think. That's actually what you're hoping this is about. That's why you're not watching this.

That's why I'm not watching this. I'm hoping, yo, that it's just a sentient doo-doo uh i can't do do you know what my favorite one was so far rogue one because it was so different than all the other ones and that's kind of like what i want from last jedi by the way i am weeping because no one wants to stop making these movies you understand the amount of scripts that sit on desk all day long because people are funneling money into Star Wars movies? Well, that's a whole separate issue. Is it separate? I think so.

A few quick hits on our way out. Omarosa on her way out set off some alarms at the White House. So what happened here? It's the best story. Apparently, I think it was at a Christmas party. These are the only facts you need to know. She wasn't doing shit at the White House, and she was getting $180,000 a year just to fucking distract the president. John Kelly, chief of staff, hated it because apparently she knew Trump so well she could just say some shit to him and have him fucking spiraling.

Right. And so over time, he had always wanted to get her out. And then I forget. Omarosa was, I came in third in the first season of. Yeah. She was kicked off. She lost on the apprentice twice.

I'm pretty sure. Cause I think she also was kicked off celebrity apprentice. Sure. That's how much Donald Trump is fucking with her. Right. And now a third time. So she was basically a distraction. Uh,

John Kelly is like, you're fired. She flips out. She was like, no, fuck this. fired she flips out she was like no fuck this you don't she's like like think somebody that effective like hell no you don't have the fucking power to fire me because i guess i do and you're fired and i'm not donald trump telling you this you're fired and she was like wasn't having it she apparently called ivanka trump was like begging her like i don't know what i'm gonna do for work or whatever the fuck it was. And then finally, she had enough that she stormed into the White House, into the residence part of the White House.

Not like the West Wing where they work, but the residence, which is completely like you can't just run up in there. Right. Like you're at a house party. Like walking into your boss's house. Yeah. And so it triggered alarms because you cannot just fucking stroll in there. So it was like a whole ordeal. alarms because you cannot just fucking stroll in there so it was like a whole ordeal some accounts are that the secret service had to fucking drag her ass out kicking and screaming because she was

like this is bullshit but then fucking like the next day the secret service twitter is like we did not have anything you know we did not have to escort her out or whatever all we did was uh you know deactivate her badge that gives her access to the campus. But then Sarah Huckabee Sanders earlier in the day was like, no, she's resigning, and she's going to leave on January 20th. I think as a policy on this show, we can just stop saying what Sarah Huckabee Sanders said just because it's never even remotely true. It's just she just gets up there and just says whatever the fuck.

It has no bearing on the truth. I'm so tired of her yeah so she says january 20th but then the secret service like nah we fucking we killed her her id badge so i mean if you're leaving the 20th why are you getting your key card taken away uh so quickly and again then she shows up on good morning america today and was just like the narrative it seems like now that she's like you know as a woman of color there was a lot of things that were really disturbing to me in the white house but it's like get, is that she's like, you know, as a woman of color, there was a lot of things that were really disturbing to me in the White House. But it's like, get your ass out.

First of all, it took you this fucking long? Like, what the fuck? Were you fucking alive during the campaign? Like, did you think this dude? Like, come on. Don't do that. Don't do that, Omarosa. Don't start playing that woman of color bullshit.

No, I mean, you had your chance. You had your chance. You had your chance. But I mean, if it gives us a great tell-all book, because that is one thing she said. She said, I have a story to tell that I think the world is going to want to hear. For a $300,000 advance check. Lovely. That is very exciting to me. But there's nothing better than a woman of color scorned who was in the White House watching all this racist shit happen, because I'm sure she has a fucking spicy one to tell well this just goes back to trump being

the easiest person to manipulate that has ever been president so he's going to have people around him who just are good at flattering him yeah and so like when they you know a lot of people who you know are just there to manipulate him have access to the White House. So that's going to come back and bite him in the ass. And I mean, Roger Stone also has announced that he's now writing a book about the downfall of Trump already. Yeah, already. That is interesting. I think Politico reported that this book is in process. I think Politico reported that this book is in process and then he came – or The Hill, one of those blogs.

And he came out and was like, well, that's just one of the directions it could take. But like that seems to be the direction it's going. Yeah, when your opportunistic ass is already preparing to bank in on the downfall of the president, like what the fuck do you know? And you were his main advocate. Like that's not good. You're like, no, I've seen it. We've buried bodies before. Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Damn. All right. were his main advocate like that's not good like no i've seen it we've buried bodies before right damn all right that's gonna do it for this week's weekly zeitgeist please like and review the show if you like the show uh means the world to miles he he needs your validation folks

i hope you're having a great weekend and I will talk to you Monday. Bye. Thank you. Defne Caruana Galizia was a Maltese investigative journalist who on October 16th, 2017, was assassinated. Crooks Everywhere unearths the plot to murder a one-woman WikiLeaks. She exposed the culture of crime and corruption that were turning her beloved country into a mafia state. Listen to Crooks Everywhere

on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. 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. Curious about queer sexuality, cruising, and expanding your horizons? Hit play on the sex-positive and deeply entertaining podcast, Sniffy's Cruising Confessions. Join hosts Gabe Gonzalez and Chris Patterson Rosso as they explore queer sex, cruising, relationships, and culture in the new iHeart podcast, Sniffy's Cruising Confessions.

Sniffy's Cruising Confessions will broaden minds and help you pursue your true goals. You can listen to Sniffy's Cruising Confessions, sponsored by Gilead, now on the iHeartRadio app or wherever you get your podcasts. New episodes every Thursday. Señora Sex Ed is not your mommy's sex talk. This show is la plática like you've never heard it before. We're breaking the stigma and silence around sex and sexuality in Latinx communities.

This podcast is an intergenerational conversation between Latinas from Gen X to Gen Z. We're your hosts, Viosa and Mala. You might recognize us from our first show, Locatora Radio. Listen to Señora Sex Ed on the iHeart Radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.