The Eric Metaxas Show - Ethan Nicolle

Episode Date: June 24, 2025

Comedy writer and producer Ethan Nicolle shares his latest project: This Book Might Explode! More at: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/thisbookmightexplode/this-book-might-explode

Welcome to the Eric Mattaxas show. We'll get you from point A to point B. But if you're looking for point C, well, buddy, you're on your own. But if you'll wait right here in just about two minutes, the bus to point C will be coming right by. And now here's your Ralph Cramden of the airways, Eric Mattaxas. Folks, welcome back. Right now I get to talk to somebody that I'm very fond of.

His name is Ethan Nicole. he he's done a lot of crazy stuff. For example, he wrote a book called Bears Want to Kill You. Now, that's generally true. Bears do want to kill you. Some of them want to eat you. I've always known that, but I've never written a book with the title, Bears Want to Kill You.

That's where Ethan and I differ. Ethan, welcome to the program. Hey, thank you. It's good to be back. It's good to see you. You're a funny guy. You've written a lot of great stuff. You, for years, worked with the Babylon B.

You're a comedy guy. Give my audience a little bit of your background so it doesn't fall to me to read your resume. Okay. Yeah, kind of a combination of comedy, comics and kids animation. So another thing I have, or one thing I haven't come with you is I wrote Veggie Tales. I wrote, me and my buddy Eric wrote almost 150 episodes of Veggie Tales for Netflix DreamWorks. And also, yeah, like you said, Babylon B. I've written for shows like Teen Titans Go.

And then one of the things I'm more well known for, depending who you talk to, I created a webcomic called Axe Cop, which went viral and became a TV show on Fox that I made with my five-year-old brother when I was 29. I totally forgot about that. Yeah, Axe cop. You don't mean Ask Cop. You mean Axe cop. No, you can't ask Axe cop, but it's hard to pronounce. Um, okay, so you've done, you've done a lot of stuff.

And I forgot how much writing you had done for veggie tales. I didn't do a ton of writing for veggie tales. I did some writing for Veggie Tales. Um, gosh. So what are you working on right now? So, so most recently me and Eric were working at Daily Wire on their kids content. We co-created Chip Chilla, their flagship TV show they created. The, everybody that was there, the,

kids entertainment department all lost their jobs it just wasn't working um but me and eric who i've worked with on veggie tales we worked together together in the baby um and then what else oh yeah and chipchilla uh we're starting this thing we're creating a book and it's basically our we're packaging our own idea for a kids entertainment company into a book and uh it's it's think of it as like a magazine style book like a highlights on steroids made by a bunch of dads from the industry we're bringing everybody that we can think of in on this. We got Doug to Naples. You know Doug in exile on YouTube,

I'm sitting in his chair right now. It was one of my best friends. Eric Brandscombe. We got Michael Foster. I'm not sure if you know Michael Foster, but we got the guy of plans versus zombies. We have an amazing group of talent. Okay, so say it again because I want to be clear.

You're creating a book. Yeah. So the book is, it's a subscription-based book. It's like a magazine style. but it's a book that comes right now. It's going to be bi-monthly. It's called This Book Might Explode. Okay.

The title is, folks are you listening, the title is, this book might explode. And indeed, it might. It might. This book might explode. Is there a website? Because I know people are dying

to see the kind of a book that might explode. What's the website? This book Might Explode.com. And it's a Kickstarter at the moment. That's very funny. This book might explode.com, ladies and gentlemen. This book might explode. Got to make it easy.

Okay. So what will people find if they go to this book might explode.com? Might the website itself explode or just the book? Everything might. I mean, you never know. But on the website, it's pretty much just a contact and a button to the Kickstarter, which is happening right now. We have funded already, but we, you know, that's on Kickstarter.

The minimum money you need is what you ask for. So we're trying to get up higher, get up to, I mean, our goal is to become a monthly book. But kind of just to kind of paint a picture for, we're really trying to make something as parents that we think parents would really like. We're trying to address some of the things in the children's entertainment industry. We think issues that I think a lot of your audience has, number one that, or one of the big things is you don't know who's making your kids content. Who are these people? What are the do they like? Besides the devil, but that's too generic.

That's too generic. the globalist satanic communist overlords. We know they are, but we want to be more specific than that. So the bottom line is, yes, we know. I mean, listen, this is so serious. We have to joke, right? I mean, clearly the world of entertainment, media, and kids entertainment, it's been taken over by people who simply don't share our values.

That's the nicest way of putting it. And so they are catechizing our children. with values that are antithetical to what we believe and what we would want to teach our kids. So this is extremely important. And I'm glad to know that you and your colleagues are working on this because this is genuinely important, folks, to have stuff that we can share with our kids knowing that we can trust it. So which is why the title, this book might explode makes no sense to me. Yeah. The reason that we call that is because if you imagine, I think a lot of parents can relate to this, you go to the book, the kids section at Barnes & Noble, and there's so much to choose from. There's the book of new things to try. We're cramming it all into one volume. So each book is like 150 pages. It's thick. It's like big. It's not like a little comic book. It's got ongoing chapter books. It's got comic books. It's got picture books. Everything from your three-year-old to your 11-year-old.

boy and girl content. It's got games, mazes, things you cut out, things you color. It also has interactive things where you, kids finish the story, come up with a character, use like kind of this thing we've laid out to come up with the character and send it in. So interactive content,

because we want it to be not just things that you kids read. We want it to be very friendly to kids who like to read, or parents who like to read to their kids, which is a huge thing. All of us who make this book love reading bedtime stories for our kids and stuff like that. But kind of driving their creativity so this book isn't just a book that you read,

but it's actually becomes sort of a monument to their creativity at the age that they're at, and you can actually stick it on the shelf. You kind of think of it like, have you heard of Crunch Labs? It's the, that Mark Rober? He makes like engineering, things that inspire kids to get into engineering. A box shows up at your house.

Oh, yes. Yes. We kind of see this is kind of a creativity version of that. Something that sparks your kids' creativity. It's got all this art from all these amazing artists, all these different stories. some continue into the next book. And then they might get to see their own stuff later on another book. We might do things where, you know, they write a story and we have a professional

movie, a guy who does art. We have a guy who does movie art for like the Narnia movie and all these, you know, all these Marvel movies and stuff. He might draw your kid's character. So we're just, we're looking for ways to really just have like a creative explosion. And I think that the thing like you said, how in the industry there's so many people that aren't, you know, they don't share our values.

There's a ton of people in this street that do share our values. A lot of the guys that are working this book do share our values, but they're working on the, you know, latest My Little Pony reboot because that's where the money's at. So, like, I think. You just made me want to kill myself. Yes, exactly. It's a sad.

You're working on the latest My Little Pony reboot. I mean, I use that to make you set. My Little Pony reboot makes me want to jump out the window. Honestly, that's so depressing. Thank you. But seriously, so it sounds like part of what you're trying to do here is create a community so that every month or whatever people looking forward to something in the mailbox. You know, even that, like the idea of looking forward to getting something in the mailbox is so retro and awesome. Like there is nothing cooler when I was a kid.

There was nothing cooler than like ordering something from the back of a comic book and then knowing that it's going to arrive in the mailbox. It's going to be in the... So the idea that one day, I open the mailbox, there it is. That alone is fun. The concept of waiting for something to arrive in the mailbox is cool. Yeah, it's a blast. And I love just the randomness of the content that's going to be in this book. It's...

I basically sit down with each artist. And the thing is, we're all just creating this out of passion. Like, no one's getting paid till it makes enough money. So it's on Kickstarter. We've made just enough to make the books and make no money right now. You're going to book purely fueled by all these artists who have stuff they so much, so badly want to make. And I'm really picking artists who want to make things for kids because there's a huge thing in the comic in the kids industry of people who,

they work in it bitterly because they want to be making the latest David Lynch-style film, but they're stuck doing my little pony rebounds. Okay, hold that thought. Folks, from the author of Bears Want to Kill You, This Book Might Explode. We'll be right back. You can go to This Book Might Explode.com. There's been a national focus on eating only the healthiest of foods, and that's great news for balance of nature. Their method of producing a vibrant nutritional supplement is second to none.

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Ethan, who came up with this kooky idea? You know I love this already, but who came up with this idea? So I'm partnered with my buddy, Eric, who I mentioned a bunch. Not you, you're a good friend, too, but Eric Branscombe. but this comes from working it probably started back at the Babylon B when I started thinking about because at the B at the B I got to create my own team I got to work I got to start hiring other creatives that I know and I really loved utilizing other people's talents and finding ways to make it work I loved making

multiple different kinds of media at the same time and then when I was at Daily Wire Benke the kids entertainment I just kept thinking about how I would do kids entertainment if I was if I was running it you know and so this kind of all comes out of like how do I, I kind of like built back from like, if I had like my full on kids empire with theme parks and everything, how do I bundle it down to like the first seat of that? And to me, it became this book because this book has all these, a lot of different intellectual property stuff, has all these different stories and characters or kids can get into. And it could very easily start to become an, and we know we wanted to

become an app. We wanted to become a, a channel on you on YouTube. And then we want to go on from there create animated content and who knows from there where it could go but so i want people to kind of get that vision that you're you're supporting a whole possible new kids industry by pushing helping us push this book and and and bringing all these guys out of these like i said my little pony reboot reboot jobs who are awesome and like help us get them working on stuff that's like genuinely good and original if you if you keep uh referencing my little pony and i were to kill myself you will feel guilty for the rest of your life. So you need to push back.

I'm going to push you on that. Push you back on that because it's, I don't want you to walk around with that guilt because it can happen. Have you ever had a close friend and then find out that they're a brony? That they're what? A brony? Do you know what a brony is? Have you, it's been.

That's like an outdated term now. Thanks, be to God. I don't know what that is. What is that? The grown man who loves my little pony and dresses up as my little pony characters and stuff. I don't know about that. exists is evidence of the fall. In case people aren't like, I don't know about the doctor in the fall, you heard what

Ethan just said. All right, QEDD, all right. There's nothing to discuss. Yeah, no, it's so, it's so, we have to joke because it's actually so sad. Okay, so the title of this project is this book might explode. And people can find out more at this book might explode. Dot com. Now, when you say this book might explode, you don't mean literally, you're speaking

figuratively. I want to be very, very clear. Yeah. There's no, there's nothing in this book might explode when it arrives in your mailbox that is itself incendiary. You're just talking about explode with great ideas. That's what you're talking about. Yes, as far as I know, we haven't reached the tier

on Kickstarter where we could actually put real explosives into the book. Now, that's too, you don't want to get there. You don't want to get there. But honestly, so you what you're talking about is this is so jam-packed. Yeah. It's bursting with so much creativity and such great ideas that could just explode in that sense, that it's just, it's hard to contain

and the amount of creativity between the covers of two books. It's going to be tough. And so it might explode in that sense. Correct. And I think also the, I feel like the creators that we brought on there, it's like I was starting to say, like there's kind of a, you get two kinds of people in kids entertainment. You have the people that are bitterly doing it because they wish they had gotten their student film, you know, become the next whatever.

famous director making movies for grownups. And they're just trying to stick all their values into kids' content. And they actually don't even like kids. And there's some people who actually like kids and then want them to, you know, they just want to make great entertainment that they would have loved as a kid. And those are actually, those people are actually harder to find. They're usually not high up in the kids entertainment.

The people that are high up are the ones trying to jam their values in. So Jeffrey Katzenberg, but we're not going to mention names. So how did you, Ethan, because I'm always curious. people's stories and I know a little bit of your story but just tell my audience like how did you get to be you the person that's doing this kind of stuff where did you grow up and when did you realize that you you liked entertainment and comedy um I grew up in a small town called Coosbe in Oregon and my I always knew I like to draw my my both of my grandparents were artists my grandpa got me a chalkboard when I was really young so I always drew and I always knew I wanted to do cartoons

I got into comics, drawing comics when I was in high school. I started doing my own self-publishing at that time. And that's kind of worked my way up to where I got my first comic book published by an independent comic book publisher. I got nominated for an Eisner Award, which is like the Emmy of Comics for comedy. So that was kind of like my first leg in, which got Cartoon Network knocking,

which got me to pitch, where I could actually pitch to Cartoon Network. So I went for, you know, this. so that's the got one night and then i got a tv show option that's so it got me to finally move to down to california where dug to naples had been mentoring me uh he i'd been a big fan of his um and i kind of what is what is he what is he known for he did oh sorry i thought you knew doug because you guys you guys have talked before uh he created earthworm jim he has a and he has a youtube and he has a youtube channel called uh dug in exile created cat scratch and nickelodeon

I know I know the name and I remember him, but I couldn't remember what he was famous for. Right. Yeah, Earth Run Jim is he's most famous for Earthroom Jim, which is a famous video game and TV show. Right. I never played a video game. I just want to be glad.

I've never never played a video game, but I'm aware of a concept of video games. So, okay, so you moved to California for that. I mean, because of that. Yeah. Yeah, he kept telling me at the time you got to move down here. do you want to make it in this industry you got to get down here so it's not so true now but back then it was pretty true um so yeah that was my my big adventure and funny thing is i got down here

uh the tv show didn't work out like many options don't but it it had got me to move um and it was in that time where i was trying to figure out what i was going to do next i was trying and failing at a lot of stuff i had two part time or full-time jobs that i was working at the same time crummy jobs but they paid well both laid me off in the same week and then around in that month I visited my family for Christmas. And the comic that I drew with my little brother during Christmas was Axe Cop. And I saw it as just something I did for the fun of being with my family. I didn't think it was going to happen, anything was going to happen, but it went viral.

And it became a career changer for me. So that. Now, remind us what is Axe Cop. So Axe Cop is a, it's a comic that if you, there's a web comic, a comic on the internet. And in this comic, it's basically, turned to my playtimes when I was 29 of a five-year-old brother. So there's a backstory to that with my dad and his crazy history of multiple wives and things like that.

But I had a brother who's a love to be my son. And he'd say, I want to play axe cop with you. And what he meant by that was he had a toy fireman's axe that he got. And he thought that if you're a cop, but you don't have a gun, you just pick up an axe then you're an axe cop. It's just a different thing. But I had this idea for this. Go ahead.

I just remember this. Like that's such a wonderful, sick idea. please continue. And so I said, so finally I was like, I kept seeing this image in my head of like a Bert Reynolds cop with like a perfect, you know,

Tom Selleck mustache and aviator shades and a giant axe, just confidently lopping heads off of criminals. Yeah, who doesn't want to lop the head off a bad guy now and again? You know what I'm saying? I think in one of the Kojak episodes from my youth, I remember Kojak takes an axe to the bad guys. No, maybe not.

But so that's axe cop and it's so loony that it's a feeling. Super looting. Because it's, yes. Like, his first fight is with dinosaurs, and then it turns out his, because we just start playing, and I turn that playtime into a comic. And so the next weapon he picked up was a toy. It was like a recorder. Like, so I called the flute.

I'm like that flute. So he called me flute cop. So it's axe cop and flute cop. And you see like how it plays out. We fight dinosaurs. And he gets dinosaur blood on him. He plays flute cop because I'm like, I don't want to be a lame flute cop. So he does it.

But then because it gets dinosaur blood on him, he becomes. a dinosaur soldier. So just... You know, in case people are listening, I just want to say, folks, if you're listening to this and you're under the impression that Ethan Nicole is a lunatic, I just want you to know, I share that impression. And it's why he's on this program, because like this kind of creativity, so appealing to me, it's so nuts.

The freedom, you know, to think this way, to have fun with it. And also to understand how appealing that is to kids. It's just, it's beautiful. So, but you've, you've obviously always been this way. You can't learn to be this way. I guess not. Yeah, I've always loved the world of imagining, of creating. I mean, I have a hard time retaining real information because my mind is always going in

these other worlds that I'm trying to come up with or play with. So like, I'll read history books and they just don't stick with me. So I just try to keep really smart people around me and talk to them. I can relate to this. But so all right, so all of this culminates, of course, in the project we're discussing now. Yes. this book might explode, which is, you're, you're hoping it to be a monthly thing right now. At first, it's going to be a bi-monthly thing.

But the idea is that people will sign up, go to this bookmightexpload.com, and every month in the mail, I love this. It's just so retro, in the mail, will be delivered to you a book bursting, perhaps not literally, but close enough, bursting with creativity and ideas. and you can go there right now. It's a Kickstarter thing, so it can't happen without you folks. This book might explode.com. I will say it again.

Please write it down. This book might explode. com. And if you don't spell explode correctly, it really might explode. So be careful. This book might explode.com. We'll be right back talking to Ethan Nicole. The creator of this book might explode.

Welcome back talking to Ethan, Nicole, who is the man behind many insane things. For example, the book, Bears Want to Kill You, in case you didn't know, that's the title of the book, Bears Want to Kill You. But right now we're talking about his new project, this book might explode, which you can find at this book might explode.com. So you said that this can appeal to kids from like three to 11. So this like, it's quite a range. I mean, part of the thing that I, one thing working in kids entertainment, you know, there's a lot of rules that get stuck to like religiously and that one of those is like really making really specific content or really specific for ages but i mean having had four kids now i know that like young boys especially but young girls too they're so curious they take in all kinds of stuff they don't just read picture books that have simple words and i'm also i'm a huge fan of writers like roll doll c s lewis they don't write down to kids they they write content they would love to read and they know that is

excitement about the concept. Kids are hungry enough to figure out what a thing means if they don't understand it. And a lot of people in kids entertainment don't give kids enough credit. And so that's one thing is I really want our content to kind of reflect that. So I think a variety of stuff in the book will help. There will be some things that'll be kind of a gateway for the younger audience to get in. But I think that they could have mom or dad read them, the older stuff. But the general age range will be two to 11. But I wanted to be fun enough that even parents, I think I would have a blast looking through this book. I mean, I'm not.

Well, that's always the key. No, I was going to say, that's always the key. And I mean, I don't mention it too much, but I've written 30 children's books over the years. I mean, of course, I worked for veggie tales, but I did so much. I worked for a company called Rabbit Ears. And I was, my job initially was to adapt folk tales, folk stories. And I always, it's not like I was trying to use big words, but I never wrote down. to kids. It's not like a PD Eastman, like an I can read book. There's a place for those books.

There's also a place to stimulate kids thinking, to provoke them, to say, what does that word mean? I like that word, you know? And I always have tried to do that. And I think that what happens if you write that kind of stuff for kids, it is appealing as well to adults. And there's nothing more wonderful for an adult to be sharing something with a kid and actually enjoying the thing themselves. as an adult. And I remember, I mean, I didn't read the Narnia books until I was 30 years old. I didn't read them until I was an adult. I remember I'm thinking, this stuff is so fantastic.

This is not for kids. I mean, I'm glad some kids like it, but this is for everybody. And so I think, you know, you're just talking about different genres. It's not like stuff that's kiddy stuff. I mean, you know, so you're just talking about stuff that works on a number of levels. Some people know I wrote this three books in the Donald, the Caveman series, originally I wrote the Donald the Caveman books for adults as kind of like a parody of children's books, that they were funny stories that they look like kids' books, but they're really, you know,

political fables. But then people kept saying, I bought these kids for my books. My kids love these books. And you start realizing, well, some stuff just works on a number of levels. And I think the best stuff does work on a number of levels. C.S. Lewis has written an essay about that. And we're talking about it here. but that it's important to understand that if parents don't like what their kids are reading,

they're not going to share it with them. They're just going to be like, you take this and go in a corner and entertain yourself, which is not really always the best thing. The best thing is when parents share stuff with their kids. Yeah, the last book I did before this is called Brave Ollie Possum. I made it through it. It's on Canon Plus or with Canon. I don't know, Canon, Doug Wilson's company.

Yeah. And I really made it after becoming. So when I got, I married my wife, she had two kids already from her previous marriage. So I became an instant stepdad. And I became the bedtime story guy. And suddenly I was reading all these stories that I'd never read before that I'd been meaning to read like Nard the Narnia books and all the roll doll books and stuff. And I started to put together what made a really good bedtime story. And that's what I put into Ray Vlypossaman.

It's a, it's got a character where you can do really funny voices. It's got just enough kind of kind of scaryness and even enough grossness, kind of like what rolled dolls so good at, enough comedy, the journey, kind of all these. things I want this makes the greatest funnest dad read you know bedtime story and that's the other thing is I because of axe cop I got hooked on things that parents and kids both love and that's been my favorite reviews that I've gotten um brave all I possum you know wives sending me reviews saying like listening to my husband read this the kids has been a blast uh and then ax cop the dads the dads love it for a different reason than the sons because it's it's it's funny on two different levels or to kids it's just awesome but then to parents it's funny so i really i've gotten it hooked on those on that genre of

thing whatever that is that parents and kids can enjoy it together i really i really would want to be thinking you know i think too much kids entertainment is thinking hey your kids your parents are kind of lame like let's uh let's make this little rebellious cartoon that only you can enjoy and uh or it's so soft it's like the parents like and the kids like all right i'll watch it mom like i really like finding that sweet spot of something they both actually I mean, you've just, you've absolutely just put your finger on it. And this is what I've observed in my lifetime is that that people start creating stuff just for kids, almost excluding the parents. Like you just said, it's kind of like, this is just for you and you're cool and your parents aren't cool.

Yeah. That is dividing generations and it is fundamentally evil. If I can use that word, it's horrible. Or you create stuff that is so saccharine that parents wouldn't begin to be intrigued by it. And it's just, it's really talking down to kids. It's just serving them, you know, sugary garbage that they will outgrow in five minutes. And so to find that sweet spot, as you just said, that's the place of true creativity and beauty and so much stuff that you've referenced that you and I love. It falls into that.

And so I'm just, you know, glad that you're doing this. So right now, because we're at a time, I want to make sure people know they need to go to this book might explode. Folks, you've got to check this out. If you have kids or grandkids, this is cool stuff. It would be so cool to get this in the mail once a month or whenever. This Book Might Explode.com. Check it out. Be a part of this community because that's what it's going to be.

This book might explode.com. Ethan Nicole, thank you so much. Yeah, thanks so much for having me. Folks, welcome back. You didn't know who my guest was going to be right now because I didn't tell you. One thing I assure you, None of you ever, ever, ever in a million years expected that I went on this program be discussing the presidency of U.S. President Chester Arthur. There are many people listening right now who have never heard of U.S. President Chester Arthur.

Shame on you. You should know the name of every United States president. And you should know that before Chester Arthur, the president was John Garfield, who was murdered. Did you know that after Lincoln? Garfield was murdered. McKinley was murdered. I think, you know, Kennedy was murdered. But the reason we're talking, or going to be talking about President, U.S. President Chester Arthur, is because I have with me now, Destry Edwards, the producer and director of a film called Dear Mr. President, the letters of Julius Sand. It's on Salem now. This is so fascinating. Destry, welcome to the president. program. Hey, Eric, great to be on with you. Can you please tell me how in the world you came to make a documentary film about President Chester Arthur, which I've just said most Americans are kind of like who? What? Was there a president named Chester Arthur? Yes, there was. What led you? What is your background that led you to this? Absolutely. As most people in this country, I never had expectations to make a film about it, but Chester Arthur didn't know much about it myself either.

several years ago a good friend of mine had just mentioned the general basic stories of Arthur and his interaction with this woman, Julia Sand, and I thought that was interesting, but didn't really know much about it other than a couple sentences. I've been in the DC nonprofit space for several years now doing video work, and two, three years ago I was working on an explainer video that was about the rise of the bureaucratic state and touched upon the Pendleton Act, which was part of Arthur's presidency. And as I was doing research for that video, I came back across this story and Arthur's presidency in general, how he became president, and the interaction he had with this woman, Julia Sand,

who was writing to him these letters during his presidency and how she influenced him and just this incredible dramatic story. And I just kept doing more and more research on it. It was just fascinated by all of this. And the story was well outside the scope of that explainer video I was doing. But at that point, I was determined that if the opportunity ever came up to focus on this story in particular, make a documentary on this, that I would take that opportunity. And eventually that opportunity came. Okay. So just to give people the headline and tell me if I'm wrong, the headline is, ladies and gentlemen, at the end of the 19th century, President Garfield is murdered. His vice president, Chester Arthur, who is basically a political hack. Think of Joe Biden,

becomes president of the United States. He has been put there, just as Joe Biden was, really to serve the interests of corrupt pigs who don't care about the American people. But in his presidency, Chester Arthur, because of the letters of this woman, Julius Sands, decides to use his power as president to go against the vested interests, the corrupt figures in the government, and to do the right thing and in a sense to drain the swamp of his day, to go against the deep state of his day. I had never heard this in my life. So is that the gist of the story, Desry Edwards? Is that the gist of the story of what we're talking about? Is that the headline? Am I getting that right? Yeah, I mean, that's definitely a big part of all this. Chester Arthur had been

a career bureaucrat. He wasn't even an elected official until he became vice president. He was just part of the bureaucracy. He was a top figure in the bureaucracy. And the big problem they were facing in the bureaucracy at that point was the spoil system that started under Andrew Jackson, where people just got government jobs not based on their skill. They just got their jobs based on who did you help politically? Whose side were you on politically? What election did you work in? It doesn't matter if you have the skills or the qualifications for the job or even the character for the job.

If you are part of our team, we're going to give you a job and just give you that cushion for as long as you can hold it until the next party comes in and takes you out, basically. And Arthur got his political start and his entire political career up until the presidency as part of the president's. that system. Okay. So again, we're talking about corruption, folks. We're talking about drifting away from the founding father's vision. And again, this is only 100 years after the presidency of George Washington. So America had drifted very, very far. So what precipitated Chester Arthur really betraying the corrupt people who put him in power? So as you mentioned, he was the vice president under James Garfield. And he was picked not because of his skill or his ability to be vice president,

but because the Republican Party needed both sides of the party, both the reformers, which Garfield represented, as well as the machine that they were reforming against, which was the biggest part of that was in New York State run by Senator Roscoe Conkling. And Chester Arthur was basically Conkling's top lieutenant. and so they picked him so that side of the party would vote for the ticket and Garfield could win the presidency. And then as most vice presidents, Arthur could be left in obscurity. But then this person Charles Guto assassinated President Garfield for the sake of protecting the spoil system that he saw threatened by Garfield and with the intention of putting Arthur in power. And so Arthur comes into this not wanting to be president, not expecting to be.

president and with the entire country arrayed against him because of his association, not his actual association with the assassin, but the perception that they were both from the same faction of the party and the fact that the assassin wanted him to become president. I mean, it's kind of an amazing thing that we could forget the circumstances around the assassination of a president of the United States. Most people in America are not aware of James Garfield. And it's a staggering thing. thing to think that in 1865, Lincoln is murdered, 20 years later, Garfield is murdered, 15 years after that, McKinley is murdered. We have three presidents murdered in the space of 35

years in the United States of America. It's just unbelievable to think about that. We've got to go to a break here. Folks, the film, this is important history. And I think part of the revival and the restoration of America is learning our history. This is an important piece of it. The film is called Dear Mr. President, the Letters of Julius Sand. Dear Mr. President, the Letters of Julius Sand is available at Salem Now. Go to SalemNow.com. Please check it out. SalemNow.com.

We'll be right back. Welcome back. I'm talking to Destri Edwards, who is the man behind a new film called Dear Mr. President, the Letters of Julius Sand telling the story. Amazing, we don't know the story, of the presidency of Chester, Arthur. So what are the years of his presidency? He became president in 81 and served through 85. Okay, unbelievable.

1881 and 85, obviously. Yeah, 1881, 85. Okay, so the title of the film is Dear Mr. President, the letters of Julius Sand. So we still have to get to the bottom of who is Julius Sand? Who is the woman? And why does she write the president in the United States to do the right thing when everybody thinks he's going to do the wrong thing? And why does he listen to Julius Sand?

Who is this woman that has the ear of the president, which is so important at this time in history. So Julia Sand at this time, she was a 31-year-old woman in New York City. She lived just a couple blocks from Central Park. She was unmarried. She was fairly ill. We don't know the details of what exactly she had, but she had an illness that kind of kept her fairly reclusive and housebound for a lot of the time.

Her father had been a German immigrant. Her mother was from the United States. She had several siblings. She lived with her brother, Theodore. And her family was decently well-off financially. Her brother was a banker, but they didn't have any kind of political connections. They had no political clout. But she because, I think in part because the fact that she was confined to the house, she was very interested in the outside world. She was reading the newspapers all the time. And so she was following what was going on in the country. And something about this situation with Garfield being assassinated and Arthur being propelled to the presidency, apparently clicked with her and she felt compelled to write to Arthur and she said to him in her first letter she says that the people are bowed in grief but not so much because he Garfield is dying but because you were to be his successor which is kind of a gut punch I think for anyone who could

read that realizing that she's kind of right about that Arthur himself as far as listening to her again no there was no connection between the two they'd never met they'd never had they he never knew of before this. But something I think about is how Arthur had lost his wife a couple years before this and his friends were all people in the machine and those aren't really the kind of people you can talk to in this situation where everyone's suspecting you in the machine of being part of this plot to kill the president. And so he was very isolated. And so you take this guy, he's very isolated in this extreme position and have someone who's reaching out to you, I think that kind of compelled him to listen to what she had to say.

Well, what an amazing thing. But who was she? I mean, was she a woman of faith? What would lead her to do this extraordinary thing? So it's a good question. I don't know we have all the answers on that. As far as whether she was a Christian, she does mention God. a couple times in her letters, not extensively, and I think only once in really theological terms.

I think she might have professed to be a Christian, as most people would have during that time. But as to what specifically drove her, we don't really have strong evidence of that, as to what exactly compelled her to do this other than a concern for her country. So you're a documentary filmmaker and this film is available at Salem now.com. Is it available anywhere else or right now is it just SalemNow.com? As of now is only on Salem. We are putting through film festivals as well. We just won the Best Documentary Feature Award at the Anthem Libertarian Film Festival this past week.

But as far as to be able to watch it from your home, certainly Salem Now is the, Okay, well, listen, we are part of Salem, and I'm thrilled that SalemNow.com is the place to see the film. Folks, check it out at SalemNow.com. There are other films there, but right now, we're pushing this one because you need to know American history. It's called Dear Mr. President, the Letters of Julius Sand, absolutely fascinating. Destri Edwards, thank you so much. Thank you, Eric.