The David Pakman Show - 12/15/22: Obama on the Toxic Left, Texas AG Wants List of Trans People

Episode Date: December 15, 2022

-- On the Show: -- Allison Butler, contributor to “The Media and Me: A Guide to Critical Media Literacy for Young People,” and the Director of the Media Literacy Certificate Program at the University of Massachusetts, joins David to discuss media literacy, critical thinking, and more -- If you want to know how the rich and powerful actually control American politics, conspiracy theories aren't actually necessary to understand it -- Former President Barack Obama accurately and concisely calls out the toxic elements of the American left that get in the way of progress -- Explaining "reactionary populism" and why it's an appropriate term for many modern right wingers -- The Texas Attorney General has asked for a list of all Texas who have petitioned the state to change their sex on legal documents, a chilling revelation -- It is revealed that failed former President Donald Trump kept for himself most of the $147 million that he supposedly raised to help 2022 candidates -- Failed Arizona Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake is still talking about her lawsuit to overturn the election she lost to Katie Hobbs -- Donald Trump's approval hits a 7-year low as Joe Biden's approval continues to climb -- Voicemail caller is upset that David did not review MyPillow pillows, instead leaving it to Producer Pat, who according to the caller did not do an adequate review of the pillows -- On the Bonus Show: Biden administration sues Arizona governor over attempt to fill in border wall, Elon Musk taking legal action against Twitter account tracking his private jet, Georgia Secretary of State calls for an end to runoff elections, much more... ⚠️ Use code PAKMAN for a free supply of BlueChew at https://go.bluechew.com/david-pakman 🌳 Use code PAKMAN for 20% off HoldOn plant-based bags at https://holdonbags.com 🌿 Sunset Lake CBD: Get 20% OFF using code PAKMAN at https://sunsetlakecbd.com 🌰 Munk Pack: Code PAKMAN saves you 20% at https://thld.co/munkpack_pakman_1222 🧻 Reel Paper: Use code PAKMAN for 30% OFF + free shipping at https://reelpaper.com/lemur -- Become a Supporter: http://www.davidpakman.com/membership -- Subscribe on YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/thedavidpakmanshow -- Subscribe to Pakman Live: https://www.youtube.com/pakmanlive -- Subscribe to Pakman Finance: https://www.youtube.com/pakmanfinance -- Follow us on Twitter: http://twitter.com/davidpakmanshow -- Like us on Facebook: http://www.facebook.com/davidpakmanshow -- Leave us a message at The David Pakman Show Voicemail Line (219)-2DAVIDP

I'm going to tell you today how the rich and powerful really control American politics. And it's so funny because it sounds like a conspiracy headline, the truth about the elites controlling our political system. But that's the joke. That's what's funny about it for all of the people looking for the conspiracies for how American politics is controlled. Oh, it's a cabal of pedophiles who trade kids and drink the blood of children in exchange for favors, maybe outside a pizza shop. I don't know. Or it's an elite of Jewish men, maybe with space lasers or the voting machine people.

It's out in the open. It's a conspiracy out in the open. The real way that the rich and powerful control American politics is publicly known. And we're going to go over it here. You don't need to look for the hidden conspiracy. Let's start with campaign financing. The cost of running for office, national office in the U.S. is huge and it continues going up, which means candidates rely on donations from corporations and wealthy people in order to fund their campaigns. On average, the candidate that raises more money wins and the donors expect something

in return for their investment. It's out in the open. It's legalized bribery. When a candidate takes money from a donor, the donor on average has influence over the candidate. It doesn't mean they're meeting in person and saying, here's what I need you to do, but it exerts some influence for sure. And they can expect at least for the candidate to listen to them, to take their concerns into account when making policy decisions. And we find it in the facts. We find there's that famous Princeton study from a few years ago which found the legislative desires of the wealthy and of corporations

are much more likely to be pursued as legislation and made into law by our elected officials than the concerns of just the average person. So it works. It's out in the open. You don't need to search for the secret way in which influence is being wield works. It's out in the open. You don't need to search for the secret way in which influence is being wielded. It's not just politicians influenced by money. The policymaking process itself is heavily influenced by special interests and lobbyists, which then can come in and say, focus on this rather than that. These are people who are paid. It's all legal to advocate for certain policies on behalf of their clients. They often have access to lawmakers that you and I don't.

They can make their voices heard in ways that average people can't. And so it's another part of the feedback loop that leads to policies that may not be in the public interest, but they benefit the select few that are using their money to get that influence. But that's money. There's more than just money that gives the rich and powerful control over American politics. They also have access to the best strategists who can help them shape public opinion, focus group polling, market research, and they can use those strategists to influence the outcome of elections. You and I don't have that. We can phone bank. We can donate paltry sums, but we don't have access to that. The political strategists are experts at crafting messages, framing issues in ways that are favorable to their clients and to their desires.

They've got the data, the market research to understand what will work on voters. And that's another reason they are more likely to succeed. And then the third prong of this is media and access to the media. Media can be used in and of itself to shape public opinion and to influence the political discourse, to include certain topics and exclude others. And of course, the money is used in order to influence media and media plays a major role in American politics. We shouldn't we should accurately assess what the media is and isn't.

But we have no choice if we're connected to reality to acknowledge that media generates or wields the power to decide what stories get covered and which stories don't. How are they presented? What's the framing? Can something be inserted or excluded from the public discourse, which has a dramatic impact on both elections and also on legislation passing or not? When it comes to the wealthy and the powerful, they often get favorable coverage, either through their use of strategists and PR people, through their use of advertising dollars. And this can make it really a difficult thing, an uphill battle for just the average person to have their voice heard in the same way.

So it's all in the open. Whenever you hear a conspiracy theory about the secret campaign to wield influence and the elites control, you could say, why it's it's all happening in the open. There's no need to find the secret way in which it's being done now to counter that influence. What can be done? Everybody has to be voting as a starting point. Don't throw away the one vote you have. We should be educated and aware of the ways in which this is taking place. If you don't even know the mechanisms, it's going to be hard to fight against them and then support candidates and policies that are number one in the public interest, but number two would work

to maybe diffuse or reduce this disproportionate power that the rich, wealthy and corporations have. That's the way it is. You don't need to find some secret conspiracy because it's all happening out in the open. Barack Obama accurately called out the toxic left at a very interesting event called the Obama Foundation Summit yesterday. You remember that guy. I have to tell you, I think what Barack Obama says here is pretty damn accurate. I have made clear the toxic left is a small part of the left, but it exists and it's really destructive and counterproductive. Barack Obama in this clip, we're going to look at hard to imagine a more accurate assessment of this sliver of the left.

Let's take a listen. You know, this this idea of purity and you're never compromised and you're always politically woke and all that stuff, you should get over that quickly. The world is messy. There are ambiguities. People who do really

good stuff have flaws. People who you are fighting may love their kids and, you know, share certain things with you. And I think that one danger I see among young people,

particularly on college campuses, Malia and I talk about this, Yara goes to school with my daughter. But I do get a sense sometimes now among certain young people, and this is accelerated by social media. There is this sense sometimes of the way of me making change is to be as judgmental as possible about other people. Folks, this is verbatim the stuff I've been saying for four years on the show. These are genuinely wise words. I've been careful to say there is a small but very loud part of the left. The right is almost completely bonkers nuts. OK, that's clear.

That's a clear part of the show. But there is this slice of the left that's very loud and they will allow the perfect to become the enemy of the good. They will use purity tests. They will dismiss entire groups of people over the narcissism of what we sometimes call small differences. And in my universe, in the left media platform, they often try to ruin what people like me and others are doing because we're not perfect by their standard. And this is part of why the left loses slash doesn't win as much as we could. Let's continue. And that's enough. Like if I tweet or hashtag about how you didn't do something right or use the word wrong verb or then I can sit back and feel pretty good about myself because, man, you see how woke I was. I called you out.

Let me get on TV, watch my show, watch Grown-ish. You know, that's not activism. That's not bringing about change. You know, if all you're doing is casting stones, you're probably not going to get that far. That's easy to do. There are lots of people who I know don't like this. And these are the same people that get mad at me sometimes when I say, hey, you know, it might be better to get this win a tangible step forward. But we might benefit from that even if it's not perfect or even if some of the people helping us get this win don't agree with us about this other area here, particularly on

some of these cultural issues. And the way I understand what the former president is saying is that there are shared values and desires that are much broader than our exact political orientation. You might ask me about my position on 50 different issues and you and I might only agree on 30. But there are some overriding values that we share, particularly that the right doesn't. And there's going to be ambiguity. There are contradictions. We all you know, as much as we all like to be consistent,

you know, when I say to you, hey, listen. If I don't praise or blame a Republican for gas prices, then I have to try to be consistent and apply the same standard to a Democratic president. We're all trying to be consistent, but there are contradictions and there are ambiguities, and some of them come from all sorts of different things in our background or our upbringing or education or whatever the case may be. The nuance is great, but we can't allow those differences to get in the way of the progress that is available for all of us to take. This includes things like, to be perfectly frank, the idea of if it's not Bernie, then I don't care if it's Hillary or Trump.

It's sort of all the same. Wow were those people proven wrong. And again, it's a small slice of the left. But I love this. I think Barack Obama is absolutely spot on here. Reactionary populism. That's the name we should be using for this sort of newish right wing that some call Trumpism. Our friend Aaron Ruppar, I believe with a guest writer named Noah Berlatsky,

has a nice piece on his sub stack called Elon Musk's reactionary populism. I want to zoom out from Elon Musk a little bit and just kind of give you a foundation to think about this movement, because we it's very easy and popular now to say MAGA isn't conservative. Jair Bolsonaro is not a conservative. These are we're not recognizing traditional conservatism in this new movement. What is it? Reactionary populist, I believe, is something that encapsulates it.

Reactionary populism is a political ideology characterized by populist rhetoric and using populist rhetoric for the people. Right. That's what we're talking about when we say populist rhetoric, populist rhetoric to oppose progressive social and progressive political change. So it often will involve rejecting established political institutions, a defense of traditional values and ways of life. But under the rhetoric, because remember, populism is a rhetoric rather than a set of policy ideas using the rhetoric of populism for your opposition.

We're against this trans stuff because of what's best for the average person and the people, the average girl playing sports. The trans stuff is bad for the. So they use populist rhetoric to oppose relatively standard at this point, quite frankly, progressive political and social change. They focus on nostalgia for a past that may not even have existed. That's an important thing to understand. They refuse to acknowledge and address the challenges that we have today through this nostalgic focus on a past past that may or may not have been real. They will resist the progressive

social and political change, which can actually hinder progress and hinder social mobility. In many cases, they reject established political institutions, which will often lead them to ignore the rule of law. That's sounding pretty familiar when we think about Donald Trump and MAGA Trumpism. they will defend traditional values and ways of life, but not with the traditional conservative rhetoric. They will defend it with populist sounding rhetoric which can trick people. And this is how some left wingers fall prey and victim to right wing populist rhetoric. They will often promote nativist and protectionist policies like around immigration,

justifying it by saying this is what's good for the people. And of course, in so doing, they'll harm global trade. They'll destroy alliances with other countries, as we saw under Trump. They will resist globalization. Generally, they will resist immigration. They will resist social diversity, all using the pseudo populist rhetoric of what's best for the people. And as we saw during the covid pandemic, the reactionary populists will often reject evidence and expertise, and that can undermine public policy. It can undermine decision making. It can undermine the country coming together to actually deal with issues. Perfectly describes what happened thanks to the MAGA right under during the covid pandemic under

Donald Trump. The reality, of course, is that while the reactionary populists will use rhetoric that sounds like maybe it's sort of left wing, it's not in the sense that this reactionary populist movement is associated with the far right, far right political movements, extremists, et cetera. And it will all be under the guise of we are under threat. They will use fear. We are under threat. It's a political ideology rooted in reactionary right wing conservatism and a nationalist

worldview. But it has been sort of passed through a populist rhetoric filter. So examples include Trump, of course, the Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Orban, French politician Marine Le Pen, Brazilian president, former president Jair Bolsonaro. These are leaders whose supporters will often espouse populist sounding rhetoric, but they oppose progressive political change. They oppose progressive social change. They appeal to a nostalgia that may not exist. And they at the end of the day, when you get to policy, which you don't always get to with the reactionary populists,

they promote nativist policy, protectionist policy and reactionary policy. I think that's as good a name as any reactionary populism. Let me know your thoughts. Check out Aaron and Noah's piece and we'll follow up about this again. One of our sponsors today is Blue Chew, a unique online service delivering the same active ingredients as Viagra and Cialis in a chewable form and at a fraction of the cost. And they're giving my audience an entire month supply for free. So if you think you could benefit from an extra boost of confidence, all you have to do is take a short quiz on their website. A licensed doctor approves your prescription. The medication comes straight to your home within days

in a discreet package. No driving around to the doctor's office or the pharmacy. No waiting around. No awkward conversations with your doctor. All of Blue Chew's tablets are made in the USA. The with David Pakman, the director of the American Public Broadcasting Corporation. dollars for shipping. Plastic is everywhere we look and not enough is being done about it. One hundred billion plastic bags are used and thrown away every year. But you can help make a change. Our sponsor, Hold On, makes trash and kitchen bags that are heavy duty, plant based, non-toxic and 100 percent home compostable, which means they break down in weeks rather than decades. They don't fill up our landfills. They don't pollute our oceans. Their zip seal kitchen bags come in sandwich or gallon bag sizes to fit your needs.

And the best part about hold on bags is they work. I use them at home. They're just as good as all of the name brand bags. You fill them up, they stretch and they don't break. Everybody uses trash bags and freezer bags. The David Pakman Show hold on bags dot com slash Pacman and use the code Pacman. The link is in the podcast notes. In a truly shocking and disturbing move, the Texas attorney general is demanding that the

state's health department release a list of all transgender people in the state by asking for a list of those who have requested changing their sex on documents. This has sparked outrage among not only the LGBT community, but also their allies, people like me who see it as a blatant attack on the rights and the privacy of trans individuals. The Washington Post has a report. Texas AG's office sought state data on trans Texans. Employees at the Texas Department of Public Safety in June received a sweeping request from Republican Attorney General Ken Paxton's office. Compile a list of individuals who changed their gender on their Texas driver's license and other department records during the past two years. Now, why does the AG claim they need this? They say we need this list to defend a state law that requires people to use bathrooms that correspond with the gender on their birth certificate. But

it's very obvious what this is. This is a thinly veiled attempt to start generating a list which could be used to target. It could be used to harass trans people. The attorney general is using this pretext of we've got to defend law and order in order to gather information, personal information about trans people in the state. Now, I don't want to be hyperbolic or dystopian here, but we should understand history. And the right loves to talk about camps. They say Obama is going to put you in a FEMA camp or, you know, they talk about camps. They say Obama is going to put you in a FEMA camp or, you know, they talk about camps. They're obsessed with camps and rounding people up and all of that. We should understand. And I'm not saying that's the direction this is going in Texas,

but we should just understand historically what have been the steps that are taken before actually putting people in camps or overtly starting violent actions against groups of people. Like if that's what you were planning to do, what would be on the list of things that we would want to watch out for? And this is where history is actually very important to understand. Historically, what you see in the lead up to an attempt to go after a population, whether it's for discrimination or enslavement or genocide or whatever, right? It's a big spectrum of what one might plan to do. Here are some of the steps, and you don't always see all of these incitement of hatred and violence against a group. So this

can include using propaganda to make people angry at that group. Look, look at what the right has been doing when it comes to trans people and trans sports and bathrooms and so-called predators and pedophiles for years now. Okay. So, uh, use propaganda and other tactics to demonize, dehumanize and direct anger so that hostility goes up and willingness to do violence goes up against a particular group of people that's happening with trans people. No doubt about it. Economic and social discrimination. So the targeted group might be denied access to something. Could be education, could be employment, could be some other resource.

This leads to being economically marginalized and socially marginalized. Another aspect to watch out for. You sometimes will see political and legal discrimination. The targeted group might be denied some right. Could be the right to vote. That's not happening with trans people. Could be to hold public office. Could be just basic rights that would typically be protected under the law. You could argue that in some ways the right is arguing for that by saying, well, sexual orientation or gender identity should not be a protected class. They don't want it to be. That's another aspect. And then as things escalate,

you might see systematic violence against a group. The targeted group could be subjected to physical violence and verbal abuse that that is considered acceptable in society. And of course, in crazy, you know, when things in instances in history that really get bad, you're talking about rape, torture and other forms of brutality. There could be forced displacement where the targeted group is removed from their homes or communities, either through direct violence or through policies and practices that make it impossible for them to remain. So the big examples, of course, you've got the Holocaust, you had forced displacement, you had legal discrimination, systematic violence,

the Armenian genocide. Another example, incitement of hatred and violence through propaganda, economic and social discrimination, political and legal discrimination, systematic violence, forced displacement. And I think another example that would be at the top of the list is the Rwandan genocide, incitement of hatred and violence through propaganda, absolutely economic and social discrimination, political and legal discrimination, systematic violence, forced displacement. So we're not saying that's the plan of these right wingers with trans people if they got their way. But when you start asking for lists, any sensible person is going to say that's a red flag. And the reason they're citing they need that list is simply not believable.

Really scary stuff happening in Texas. Donald Trump being dishonest and scamming his followers say it ain't so. Donald Trump kept for himself most of the hundred and forty seven million dollars that he raised supposedly for the twenty twenty two midterms. Now, you might ask, why do the same people keep falling for this stuff over and over again? We will get to that. Huffington Post reports Trump hoarded most of the 147 million in small donor money he raised for himself just weeks after touting a new super PAC rights SVD for HuffPost in the November, supposedly to help Republican candidates in the November midterms. Trump wound up spending just a fraction of the hundred million he had available, and he hoarded the rest for his own 2024 presidential run. The coup attempting former

president in October transferred 60 million dollars from his Save America leadership pack to his Make America Great Again Inc. super pack, which was ostensibly to boost candidates in tight races, Republican candidates. It collected another nine million from an existing pro-Trump super pack and then four million in new contributions. Of that seventy three million dollar total, though, only 15 million dollars went to electing Republicans in just five Senate races, according to a HuffPost analysis of FEC filings, with not a dime spent helping Herschel Walker in Georgia. A full $54 million remains available for the super PAC's new stated goal,

helping Trump win back the White House. Remember, in late September, Taylor Budowich, who is now the head of MAGA Inc. and was a spokesperson for Trump's PAC, told Politico, quote, President Trump is committed to saving America and make America great again. Inc. will ensure that is achieved at the ballot box in November and beyond. He's keeping the money. He's keeping the money. So let's get back to that interesting question. Why do the same people keep falling for the same stuff over and over again? It's important to understand cult membership and it's important to understand sort of victimization. It's crazy that these are the terms we have to think about. One reason cult members remain part of the cult is they have a strong belief in the group's ideology

that makes them vulnerable to being manipulated or controlled by the cult leader. In this case, it's Trump. I scammed you once and again and again and again after the 2020 election, saying we were going to overturn it. And now I'm scamming you again. It's the same scam because they're loyal to the ideology. They are predisposed to be manipulated. Oftentimes, cult members have a strong emotional attachment to the group and to its leaders. And that is absolutely the case with Donald Trump. That makes it difficult for them to break away and to stop being scammed by the cult leader. The cult followers also are sometimes isolated from the outside world. In this case, we might call it isolated from everything other than MAGA Trumpism. That makes it tough for them to even get other inputs about, hey, he might be scamming you

again. Friends and family try to tell them you're getting scammed. Stop donating. Doesn't happen. They remain vulnerable. So you've got cult membership. You then also need to look at scam victims. Scam victims are often victimized by scammers multiple times. It's really common,

and it fits here as well. Some people seem to just be more susceptible to scams, either because of their emotional vulnerability, psychological vulnerability, lack of education, lack of knowledge about scams. Sometimes it's they're lonely and donating to Trump is a way to be part of a group or they have low self-esteem or they want to be validated. Trump's emails are quite literally exactly those. We want to put you on a list of Trump's best and biggest supporters. Oh, that sounds validating. That's interesting. And then there are some people who are just a little too trusting or naive, and they are more vulnerable to be scammed. So repeat victims of scams, really common

cult followers who just never realize it's a cult, really common. And Trumpists, many of them are that perfect combination of people predisposed to be scammed and predisposed to falling for a cult leader. I would say a charismatic cult leader. To some degree, Trump is charismatic in ways that I think would appeal to MAGA. And next thing you know, Trump's raising tens of millions again, saying I'm going to help twenty twenty two candidates and he's keeping the money. What will he use it for? Probably to try to help himself win in 2024. Whether or not that happens is increasingly in question. Make sure that you are subscribed to The David Pakman Show on YouTube at YouTube dot com slash The David Pakman show. for the David Pakman Show David Pakman dot com. I'm a fan of Sunset Lake CBD coffee, which uses Rainforest Alliance coffee beans.

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only one gram of sugar, two to three net carbs and about 150 calories. Perfect if you're doing keto or low carb or low sugar. You can have a treat that feels indulgent and satisfying without the guilt. Monk Pack comes in flavors like sea salt, dark chocolate, caramel sea salt. They just launched two new flavors. I love peanut butter, cocoa chip and dark chocolate cocoa. My favorite thing is the texture. I've tried a lot of these nut bars, granola bars. Monk Pack is superior. If you don't agree, you get your money back and it is the perfect holiday gift. Go to Monk Pack dot com and get 20 percent off your first order with the code Pacman. That's M.U.N.K. P.A.C.K. dot com. Use code Pacman for 20 percent off. The info is in the podcast notes. It's great to welcome to the program today,

Alison Butler, who's a contributor to the media and me, a guide to critical media literacy for young people and also the director of the media literacy certificate program at my undergraduate alma mater, the University of Massachusetts in Amherst. Alison, it's really great having you on. I appreciate it. Thanks so much. I'm really excited to be here. So I mean, I guess let's just start with something.

It's a simple question. The answer may not be so simple, but it's something I talk about a lot. Media literacy, I think, should start being taught at the latest in seventh grade to everybody. Probably fifth grade is even better. It's pretty rare, particularly that public schools have media literacy programs. Is it as simple as it's just not a priority to those creating the curricula, or is there more to why it's not commonly taught? I think there's more commonly taught, and I would raise your fifth to seventh grade to say we need to start an early childhood education. Our children

are exposed to the media within immediately, and certainly with with social media we can learn a lot about them before they're born their identities are out there really early on I think yes it is something that is really can be understood to be difficult to add to the curriculum and part of the reason why it's difficult is we don't have formal training formal education for people who want to teach media literacy. So oftentimes teachers have to kind of figure it out on their own and goodness knows they have enough to do. So to ask them to add more is arduous. Part of our work, part of my work is to say we need teacher education and media literacy. Yeah, that's interesting because I remember that there were these kind of one off classes in middle and high school that were interesting. I remember one

called like transportation, power and energy, which was really interesting. It didn't really fit anywhere. And the teacher who taught it was not certainly an expert in that field and sort of had to figure it out as as he went. And so it does seem that part of the problem, as you're pointing out, is it's not common that the teacher base is necessarily equipped to teach media literacy. Correct. I talk with teachers all the time who say that they're really interested in bringing in the study of the media to their classrooms, particularly because they see how glued to their devices their students are, but then they're at a loss for how to teach it formally. I think also sometimes, like you mentioned, these kind of one-off classes, they can often be seen as like what you get to do when you're done with what you're supposed to be studying. Yes, yes, yes. Absolutely. Which is sure. That's that's I mean, there's value

in that, right? There's absolute value in that. I wouldn't say that that was that that was that that's a bad idea. But I do think it's bad if it's the only way that we're teaching it, because our media are so infused in our lives. Why would we then think about educating them as like an add on or as something to do when you're done the important stuff? By the time people get to you. So at the college level, what do you find are the most common blind spots in being able to look at media and think about it critically in terms of, you know, we often hear really young kids can't tell the difference between advertising and content, for example, or people can't necessarily distinguish between whether

they're watching news or opinion programming is a more common one for older people. What are the most common blind spots by the time people are college age and get to you? I mean, I'd say there's probably two really big ones that can then branch out into so many more. One, for the most part, by the time they get to me, they're pretty good at understanding the content, but they don't know where that content comes from. They don't know the power behind the content. And that's part of a lot of the work that I do and that my colleagues and I do in the media and me is say, it's not just about what's on the screen or just what we're hearing. The actual power is behind the scenes. We have other big area is, again, by the time students come to my classroom as college students, freshmen through seniors, they're really invested in media. They're involved in a lot of media. They have multiple social media accounts, but have no clue where their information is going. Social media is a huge tool of surveillance, massive amounts of data gathering. Probably safe to say that most, if not all of us, zip through those terms of service, zip through those privacy documents, don't read the truly, truly fine, fine print and all the

paragraphs of legalese. We sign off on them. It's the only way that we have access to these platforms. And yet we have no idea where our information is going, what's happening to it. The one clue that we get is often as soon as we search for something, quite quickly after that, an advertisement for that very thing will pop up. We gave away the data that let that happen. Do you pretty dangerous? Do you find that over the last 10 years, the usage of social media among 18 to 22 year olds has changed in any appreciable way? I mean, one of the things I've read is that on average, people's use of Facebook is going

in the direction of fewer friends and tending towards people you really know, rather than a larger circle of friends. Like that's a change in terms of average Facebook use. But do you see that the 18 to 22 year olds are thinking of their social media presences differently than maybe a decade ago? Oh, absolutely. I mean, I think maybe some of what's going on with young people in Facebook is that they, I mean, you know of their own personal use of social media, it's a source of anxiety that it's meant at least at some points for them to be fun and as its name for it to be social, but it can be remarkably antisocial. You're often pretty isolated with it. And certainly some of those comparisons against

the beautiful airbrushed images are incredibly difficult. But they're also entering a world where they're expected to know how to use this professionally. And so that anxiety is not just about self, but it's also about their preparation for their future and what's like sort of what's to come next. And I think in some ways, like all of us do with certain areas of our life, is that young people can kind of become their own worst enemies. They will be upset or concerned about once it's introduced to them about some of these surveillance technologies. But one of the biggest things that's happening these days is that young people use the Find My app, where they are constantly tracking where their friends are. And what I hear from my students is they use it so

that when they don't text a friend back, their friend knows it's because they're in a class where they're not supposed to have their phones on. So as much as they might get frustrated by being surveilled, they also are participating in that. Speaking of phones in class, I last taught as an adjunct at Boston College in 2017, and it was a once a week class. So it was just like, listen, we're here once a week. I don't want to see any phones, period. Just absolutely no phones. They're on laptops. I don't know what they're doing on the laptops. I don't really want to get involved in that. But it was just like there should never be a phone that's out. How much of an active distraction is whether they're on social media or not, the phones in the classroom right now? What's your sense of

that? Oh, I think they're a huge distraction. It's so hard for us not to look at our phones. I actually have a policy in my class that unless there is a documented accommodation need, no cell phones, no computers, and stop looking at your smartwatches, that we're here to discuss ideas. There's no tests in my class. There's no final exam. This is about engaging with each other and engaging with our discussions. And most of them can't really put their phones away. They sort of turn them over on their desk. I will watch them

get up and leave the room for a few moments. And I'm assuming they're checking their phones, but they don't want to get like caught checking it in class. And at the end, there's stress about that. And some of them do get frustrated with me. But at the end of the semester, the consistent commentary I get is this is the one class I actually paid attention to because I couldn't be distracted. other things to talk about when it comes to how do I identify a trustworthy source? Anybody who's been in this field any length of time, we know about all of the things that are often said and they tend to involve research. They tend to, you know, it's not, oh, hey, here's an article I just found. I'm very in 30 seconds going to be able to do all of the things that on paper we often say, here's how you identify whether a source is trustworthy. What's the lowest hanging fruit that any news consumer can employ to try to suss out whether

an article or a video clip or whatever the case may be is coming from a source that can be trusted? I think the first thing to do is, is an author mentioned? Because if an author isn't mentioned, who knows how that got put together? It could be PR. Do you know the website, right? Does it end? Look closely at the website because websites are easily manipulated. So you could have like, you know, newyorktimes-com.gmailmail or you know and then you're like wait i saw the new york times but then it's something totally different right um so truly look at the ending of the website almost of the url almost before looking at the beginning does it look like a real website can you get back to that article without i mean look at everything is going to have pop-up ads, but if it's the ones that are just like overtaking your screen, can you learn more about the author?

You don't have to like what they say, but can you actually learn more about this person? And if not, I would be suspicious about whether or not that person is either actually a person or, you know, potentially a bot or so on and so forth, or if it's somebody who's kind of hiding behind some other sort of idea or some other sort of message. So those would be the absolute first things. I would also say be really cautious about maybe the next level would be really cautious about what you click on on social media. Social media platforms are not news platforms. We can share news on them, but they are not news platforms. So if we, you know, like if we talk to young people who say like, oh, I get most of my

news from Twitter. Well, no, you don't. You get information on Twitter that somebody might have shared that might be news. You're finding links on Twitter. Exactly. Yeah. You're finding links on Twitter. Another thing that seems critical that I tell people is make an attempt to get to the primary source if there actually is one, because there's so there will be situations where not to pick on any of these particular news outlets, but you'll see a raw story article with a headline and it will quote Newsweek. It's actually a Newsweek article that they are summarizing and editorializing. You go to the Newsweek article and Newsweek actually says as reported by The Washington Post. And so you drilling down to where did this actually come from? Seems like a fundamental first step in evaluating it, because really all Ross story might be doing is rewriting

an article. You can't really ascertain the truth of the matter. You can ascertain whether it's honestly rewritten, but not the the underlying reporting. And so finding the primary source seems really important. A lot of people may not realize the difference between a rewritten blog style article and the reporting. Yep, absolutely. And that's true. I mean, I think one thing to you're absolutely right, is who is being sourced and our sources being named. Are those the primary sources is, you know, if something says something to the effect of like research shows, well, where's that research? I should be able I might not be able to distill the research myself that quickly, but I should be able to access the research. I also think that, especially in the previous presidential administration, the idea of unnamed sources, right? What does it mean for a

source to go unnamed? For some stories, that is really legitimate. There are dangerous issues why somebody's name out there could be a problem. But for others, it's it's it's a kind of a circuitous route around citing your sources. So part of our work in the media and me and part of our work in critical media literacy is evidence based research. We want to provide evidence ourselves and we want people to be looking for evidence themselves. There was even confusion during the Trump era of when we talk about an anonymous source, are they known to the reporter? And there were countless instances where people misunderstood that even the reporter didn't

know who the person was when the reporter did. It's just they weren't they weren't naming them. And that's a critical difference. Absolutely. Absolutely. One hundred percent. We've been speaking with Alison Butler, contributor to the media and me, a guide to critical media literacy for young people, also director of the Media Literacy

Certificate Program at UMass. Alison, really great having you on. I appreciate your time. Speaker 2 Thanks so much, David. It was great chatting with you. Our sponsor, Real Paper makes toilet paper 100 percent from bamboo, never from trees, meaning no deforestation. Sustainability and climate change can be a tricky topic for people of all ages.

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Paper dot com slash L.E.M. You are code Pacman gives you 30 percent off and free shipping. The info is in the podcast notes. Continuing our conversation from earlier about cults and scams, we have to talk about Carrie Lake. Carrie Lake, who lost her attempt at becoming governor of Arizona, is still talking about suing to overturn the election. At this point, I don't even know if the people hosting her believe this drivel. Here is Carrie Lake on with Tucker Carlson last night, and she is still acting like there's actually something going on here that might allow her to become the governor of Arizona.

She won't. She won't listen to this. We vote for a full month in Arizona with early ballots. And on Election Day, when the Republicans showed up, the Election Day voting was sabotaged. And that it was not sabotaged. A few tabulators briefly didn't work. They were fixed. That's what our case is going to prove. It's a 70 page lawsuit that reads like a real crime novel. Yeah, I mean, it reads like a crime novel in the sense that it's fiction. This was overall a bizarre interview. Here's how Tucker Carlson introduced Carrie Lake.

And this is he devoted four and a half minutes to this, which on the one hand isn't a lot. But for a Fox News segment, for something so absurd, they often will do two minute interviews. And this is a four and a half minute interview. We won't watch all of it. Don't worry. I won't subject you to that. According to official tallies, Carrie Lake lost her bid to become the next Arizona governor by just over 17,000 votes. That's a tiny margin in a big state. Now Lake is suing the state's election officials. She says many ballots were not properly counted. She also says her opponent, then Secretary of State Katie Hobbs, worked illegally with big tech to silence voters online. And for the record, that appears to be true. There is not actually evidence of that. Lake is also citing widespread printer failures

in Maricopa County. Also true. She says they prevented people from voting. Maricopa County claims they didn't stop anyone from voting, but has not responded further. We reached out to Kitty. Now understand the way they they manipulate language. Maricopa County has said they did not prevent anyone from voting, but they have not responded further. It is not on them to respond further. Carrie Lake has not actually presented evidence of that. These folks, I want to say they don't understand.

They certainly pretend at least not to understand burden of proof. This office and got no reply at all. Kerry Lake joins us tonight. Thanks so much for coming on. What an important conversation we're going to have. So Maricopa County, as far as I understand it, does not deny that a huge number of printers didn't work on Election Day, but they're saying it had no effect. I don't know what Carrie Lake's going to say here. We're going to check it out in a moment. Remember, they don't deny it. The Republican Party filed a lawsuit initially over the broken tabulators. Once they were satisfied, a few tabulators briefly didn't

work. Everyone who wanted to vote voted. Everything was OK. The Republican Party retracted that lawsuit. People are satisfied other than Carrie Lake. Well, and it had a huge effect. Obviously, Tucker,. Our voters were showing up on Election Day. That was no secret. And the minute the polls opened, the wheels fell off. The ballot printers weren't working. There wasn't enough toner in the printers. The tabulators weren't working.

It became a debacle. And the lines started forming right away. Some of the lines, three hours, four hours, five hours. And there's video of people walking out of line. People told us, and this is in our lawsuit, that they showed up, they couldn't even find parking because the parking lots were full and the lines were long and many people didn't even get to vote. And those who did vote when they went up to, you know, get the printer out, the printer didn't have toner in it. So the ballots weren't dark dark enough and our voters were showing up and voting three to one to for me on Election Day. We think of that that none of that is even remotely believable and there's no evidence for any of it. But listen, she's filed a lawsuit. So I guess I guess at

some point it'll all come out right. Like Mike Pillow used to always say, remember, Pillow, we're doing a class action lawsuit against all machines. And yet the information never seems to make its way out. Vote for a full month in Arizona with early ballots. All right. And this is the segment that you already heard. Carrie Lake then appearing on Real America's Voice again to give an update on this lawsuit. Now, again, I just don't know. Does Carrie Lake really believe this is going to go anywhere or is it just a way to raise money? Because if you actually look below in these tweets, she responds, donate to my legal fund, save Arizona fund. Is this just another grift to try to make money or does she genuinely believe this might go anywhere? Listen to this

update from her. We have three whistleblowers from Maricopa County reach out and say the system is flawed, seriously flawed. The three levels they have to determine if a signature is valid or not. They were throwing out tens of thousands of signatures saying they were scribbles, they in no way matched. But somewhere between there and the ballots being completely tossed out, they got looped back into the system and counted as if they were fine. This is crazy. Are you even fall sometime between the mismatch on the signature she claims exists and the

ballots being tossed? They were counted as if they were fine. So is the problem that ballots were counted or weren't, Carrie? I guess it's both. And they had no flagging done. And they laid it out how that happened, how somewhere between being flagged as a bad signature and going into the curing process, which would mean they were cured, sauteed and later cold smoked phone calls or emails to the actual voter to see if they wanted to come in

and verify their signature. Dear God, it wasn't happening. There was a disconnect there. And there's a disconnect. All right. And part of the disconnect is first, the problem was disenfranchisement. People didn't get to vote. Now the problem is too many people voted whose votes shouldn't actually count. Here's the real position, right? Her supporters weren't allowed to vote and people who didn't really mean to vote for Katie Hobbs had their votes counted for Katie Hobbs. But I guess those would be her supporters, right? I mean, it doesn't really make any sense if her supporters weren't allowed to vote and

votes that weren't really for Katie Hobbs were counted for Katie Hobbs. Those wrongfully counted votes for Katie Hobbs must have been her voters. So they were allowed to vote, except part of the argument is there wasn't. If you don't know what I'm talking about, it's because it doesn't make any sense. Three whistleblowers said that they believe that a second level manager was pushing these through these rejected ballots, pushing them through as if they were approved. And we did some calculations that we believe that up to one hundred and thirty five thousand ballots were pushed through that should not have been pushed through. We're asking a judge to let

us take a look at all of the. Yeah, it's just not going to happen. And again, I don't know whether she believes this crap or whether she just needs to get her followers to believe it. None of it makes sense. There's no evidence for all of it. It's 2020 all over again. Lawsuit, lawsuit, lawsuit. They're all thrown out. If and when something is actually granted, they'll say no, no, no, no. But you're just looking at those bogus ballots and just counting them again. We need to actually throw them out. It'll be the same thing. Nothing will happen. Kerry Lake lost. Katie Hobbs is going to be the governor of Arizona. That's the bottom line. Sorry to people holding out hope if there are actually any that somehow Kerry Lake will end up governor. It's as likely as that Trump will end up reinstated

from 2020, which I guess some people believe will happen, but it's not going to. Donald Trump has hit a humiliating seven year low in polling as Joe Biden is seeing his approval rating climb since the 2022 midterms. There's really interesting dynamics developing in national politics. This is not about the 2024 election. This is about how it is interesting to think historically of circumstances in which current or out of office elected officials see dramatic changes in approval rating and to understand what precipitates that. So let's start with the news. CNBC reports Trump hit seven year low in the new national poll as Biden approval climbs. About a month after launching his 24 campaign,

Trump's standing with voters has hit its lowest point in more than seven years. This is according to a Quinnipiac University poll released yesterday. Only 31 percent of registered voters surveyed hold a favorable view of Trump versus 59 unfavorable. That's the lowest rating Trump has received since July 2015, shortly after he launched his first presidential bid. So two ways to interpret that one historic low and Trump is going down in flames. Counterpoint. This is as bad as it was for Trump when he started running in 2015 and he ended up being president of the United States. So maybe we shouldn't write it off. Meanwhile, what about Joe Biden? Joe Biden's approval rating still underwater is at its highest rating since September of 2021. Just 43 percent of respondents say they approve of Biden. Forty nine disapprove. But that is a significant increase from last

month. And Biden has not yet announced that he's running in 2024, but it is increasingly looking that way. And so Trump down Biden up. So check out this list of ideas about how someone can raise their approval rating. And I think you'll very quickly see why it may be a problem for Donald Trump. Effective leadership, people seeing you as doing effective leadership. Trump's not in office, so that's going to be really difficult. Handling important issues. Well, Trump's not in office, so it's going to be hard to do that.

These are ways that people in power can raise approval rating. Good communication skills. Well, sure. I mean, I guess if Trump somehow became good at communicating, that would be useful. Being responsive to constituents. Trump doesn't care about constituents. That's hilarious. Economic performance. Trump's not in power, so it would be hard to do that. So given that Trump is not in office, what can elected officials out of office do to raise their approval rating? OK, stay visible and engage with the public. Even if you're not in public office, you can become visible and engaged

by doing public events, media appearances, speeches, rallies, et cetera. Well, Fox News and many other prominent media don't seem to want to interview Donald Trump. And it's not totally clear how quickly he is going to go back to rallies. But I guess potentially holding rallies might be something Trump can do. Although having 4000 people go to see you speak, I don't know if that's really going to move the needle nationally. Secondly, Trump can be vocal on important issues, even if he's not the one handling them. He can speak out about issues facing the country. Trump could do that, except mostly when he gets the opportunity to speak. The issues are the 2020 election was rigged. We have a problem with men in women's sports, as he likes to say it. And the country is now communist. Not exactly the type of stuff that's

going to raise your approval rating. And then lastly, Trump can build a strong team that inspires confidence. And there are rumors Trump might soon announce who would be his VP. I don't know if he's going to do that. We'll see. But often it seems as though Trump's team is getting worse and that right now it's a very ragtag, low end team, even compared to what he had in 2016 and 2020. The additional problem Trump has right now is that there's a significant faction of the Republican Party that's preemptively breaking away for Ron DeSantis, even though Ron DeSantis hasn't announced that he's running for anything yet. So it's going to

be tough. It's not looking great for Donald Trump. But I think the important thing is if Trump does get the nomination, the people that break away for DeSantis mostly will fall in line and vote for Trump because they hate Democrats way more than they dislike Trump. We have a voicemail number. That number is two one nine two. David P. Here's a caller who's upset that I didn't end up reviewing the my pillow pillows and that it was Pat who did. David, it's Alan from Jersey. I'm watching the bonus show. Yeah.

You know, the bonus show where all you want to do is make money, but everybody else that makes money is bad. Oh, the bonus show where you want to make money, everybody else that makes money to fund themselves is bad. Exactly. And you promised us that you would review the pillows. Yes. Now, Mike Pillow broke his promise because he never sent you the pillows until you finally shamed him into sending you the pillows. Correct.

Okay, fine. He broke his promise, but eventually he did send you the pillows. But you broke your promise where you promised to review the pillows, not send your soy boy Pat to review the pillows. Right. No, you promised to review the pillows right no you promised to review the pillows and fine okay pat you know you're too busy you know mr big shot gave a pack like too busy to review pillows so you sent your soy boy pat to review them but pat didn't even review them pat said he tried the pillows for 20 minutes and gave up no that's not a review. Okay. Listen guys, this isn't a pillow show. So they didn't

send me the pillows. Then they offered to, cause they heard I was telling people pillow didn't send me the pillows. I told Pat, quite frankly, I've got enough pillows and I've got a lot on my plate. Pat tried the pillows. He couldn't even fall asleep. So yes, after 20 minutes, he bailed and switched back to his normal pillows. That's the review we were able to do, sir. I apologize with tears in my eyes. If you want to see Pat's review of my pillow pillows, it's on the bonus show earlier this week. We've got a great bonus show for you today. We'll talk about the border wall. We'll talk about Elon Musk censoring speech on Twitter. Could it be? We will talk about a call to end Georgia runoff elections and so much more. Sign up at joinpacman.com.