The Majority Report with Sam Seder - 3696 - Unseen Lindsey Graham Footage; St. Louis's White Supremacist Cult w/ Devin Thomas O'Shea

Episode Date: July 27, 2026

Welcome back to The Majority Report On today's program: For the last three years until his death Lindsey Graham was the subject of a documentary and some of the footage has been released to the Wall Street Journal. The footage shows Graham celebrating the start of the war on Iran like it's the Knicks championship. Another clip shows Lindsey on the phone with Benjamin Netanyahu discussing Graham going to Mar-A-Lago to convince Trump to join Israel in attacks on Lebanon. Writer Devin Thomas O'Shea joins Sam in a pre-taped interview for a conversation about his book. "The Veiled Prophet: Secret Societies, White Supremacy and the Struggles for St. Louis". In the Fun Half: Trump bombs spectacularly at the White House Correspondents Dinner. A Canadian politician accidentally reads the AI prompt that he used to draft a speech for him. Fox News airs a segment explaining who Hasan Piker intended to scare their geriatric audience, spending time on his "Mao-like suit" he wore while addressing a young Democrat event. David Pakman echoes the same sentiment towards Hasan Piker and his Mao suit as Fox News Haley Stevens deflects from discussing the tens of millions of dollars of out-of-state dark money her campaign has received by victimizing herself over being the subject of internet mockery. Senator Chris Van Hollen rallies for Abdul El-Sayed and laughs at an audience member calling for Chuck Schumer to be replaced. all that and more. To connect and organize with your local ICE rapid response team visit ICERRT.com The Congress switchboard number is [phone]. You can use this number to connect with either the U.S. Senate or the House of Representatives. Follow us on TikTok here: https://www.tiktok.com/@majorityreportfm Check us out on Twitch here: https://www.twitch.tv/themajorityreport Find our Rumble stream here: https://rumble.com/user/majorityreport Check out our alt YouTube channel here: https://www.youtube.com/majorityreportlive Gift a Majority Report subscription here: https://fans.fm/majority/gift Subscribe to the AM Quickie newsletter here: https://am-quickie.ghost.io/ Join the Majority Report Discord! https://majoritydiscord.com/ Get all your MR merch at our store: https://shop.majorityreportradio.com/ Get the free Majority Report App!: https://majority.fm/app Go to https://JustCoffee.coop and use coupon code majority to get 10% off your purchase Check out today's sponsors: DELETEME: Get 20% off your DeleteMe plan when you go to www.joindeleteme.com/MAJORITY and use promo code MAJORITY at checkout. SUNDAYS FOR DOGS: Go right now to sundaysfordogs.com/MAJORITY and get 50% off your first order. Or, you can use code MAJORITY at checkout. SUNSET LAKE CBD: Use the coupon code CBG26 to save 25% on all their tinctures, including the new Focus CBD + CBG Oil. This sale ends July 28th at midnight Eastern time at SunsetLakeCBD.com.  Follow the Majority Report crew on Twitter: @SamSeder @EmmaVigeland @MattLech On Instagram: @MrBryanVokey Check out Matt's show, Left Reckoning, on YouTube, and subscribe on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/leftreckoning Check out Matt Binder's YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/mattbinder Subscribe to Brandon's show The Discourse on Patreon! https://www.patreon.com/ExpandTheDiscourse Check out Ava Raiza's music here! https://avaraiza.bandcamp.

Hey folks, have you ever looked at the ingredient list on your dog's food after the first ingredient? I wish you luck because kibble is made using extreme high heat to keep it shelf, stable, and inexpensive. So brands have to add back synthetic vitamins and minerals in the form of strange chemicals, which are difficult to understand and pronounce. And is that really what you want your dog eating? Well, Sundays for Dogs is different. founded by Dr. Torrey Waxman, Sundays was created to meet her high standards as a veterinarian and as a dog parent. Sundays start with 80% plus all natural meats and then add superfoods such as kale, ginger, and blueberries, no fillers, no nutritional blends, no chemicals, just simple, complete nutrition.

Sundays is gently air-dried instead of using high heat so it doesn't look or smell like dog food. It looks like high quality human-grade jerky. And the best part, Sundays requires no fridge, no freezer, no prep, no mess. You get the quality of a home-cooked meal with the scoop and serve ease of kibble. It's what dog food should have been all along. And Sundays just launched a brand new fish recipe. It's also made with 80% whole, all-natural ingredients, whole and mince fish, including eco-friendly, invasive carp source from America's rivers for a naturally rich flavor.

In fact, do you know that many dogs actually prefer fish flavors? So Sunday's fish recipe is especially great for picky eaters. Plus, it's packed with omega-3 fatty acids that help support healthy skin, shiny coats, joints, and brain function. It's complete and balanced nutrition for all life stages. I know that Sam has waxed poetically about his dog and how much he's loved this for, for his dog. It's the kind of stuff that you can give to your canine friend and not feel like, oh, you're giving them a bunch of junk here.

Make the switch to Sundays. Go right now to SundaysforDogs.com slash majority and get 50% off your first order, or you can use code majority at checkout. That's 50% off, 5.0% off your first order at Sundaysfor Dogs.com slash majority. Sundays for Dogs.com slash majority. majority or use code majority at checkout. Link down below in the video and episode descriptions and at majority.fm.

And now time for the show. The Majority Report with Sam Cedar. It is Monday. July 27th, 26. My name is Emma Vigland in for Sam Cedar and this is the five-time award-winning majority report. We are broadcasting live steps. from the industrially ravaged Gowanus Canal in the heartland of America, downtown Brooklyn, USA. On the program today, Devin Thomas O'Shea, writer and author of The Vailed Prophet,

Secret Society's White Supremacy, and The Struggle for St. Louis, that is a conversation that Sam had that you will be hearing in just a minute. Also on the program, the Pentagon updates its database. to include 140 U.S. soldiers wounded in this Iran war, eclipsing 600 total. After nearly two weeks of bombing, the U.S. has backed off its war crimes in Iran for now. Iran has called his bluff. The Iran-backed Houthis in Yemen hit Saudi oil facilities over the weekend the first time since 2022. Netanyahu and Zelensky arriving Washington for Lindsay Graham's funeral tomorrow.

Israel publicly confirms Netanyahu and Trump will meet after Trump was apparently avoiding him. We're doing that same thing apparently from the Biden era. It's just so upset with Benjamin Netanyahu, although nothing's going to change. After four Palestinians and two Israelis were killed in a settler attack, Israelis set fire to mosques and homes. in the West Bank in retaliatory pogroms this weekend. Wildfires rage across France and Spain, with 300,000 people being forced to evacuate.

Putting out the blazes could take weeks or months. Financial disclosures reveal that the DNC is millions of dollars in debt as the RNC lapsed them with cash on hand. Maine Democrats have officially selected Troy Jackson as their Senate candidate to take on Susan Collins. An internal DEA assessment finds that Trump's Caribbean boat bombing campaign, which has killed over 200 people, hasn't slowed cocaine trafficking. Huh. Who would have thought?

U.S. measles cases have officially shattered last year's record hitting South Carolina, Utah, and Texas hardest. And lastly, India's education minister was forced to resign after successful protests by the Gen Z movement, calling itself the cockroach Janta party. All this and more on today's majority report. Welcome to the show, everybody. It is fun day, Monday. Sam is out until Friday. That is when he will be back, folks. But you get a little taste of him today.

Yeah, a little bit of a taste of him. Yes, with this pre-recorded interview. My earpiece just went out. So if we could find an alternative one, I couldn't hear the music. So I was a little nervous. I could hear it super faintly. But I think it went all right. You know, this is just the things that we deal with here on a day-to-day basis.

As Brian finds that, I've seen these clips. So I should be able to react to them, I guess. Maybe I'll switch out my headphones. We're looking for him right now. So, as I mentioned, Netanyahu and Zelensky have a touchdown in Washington for Lindsay Graham's funeral tomorrow. Over the weekend, it was revealed that a filmmaker named Alex Holder was working on the documentary with Graham, dating back all the way to 2023.

So there's going to be a lot of footage. of Lindsey Graham that will come out in this in this documentary and particularly after you know October 7th and after and and we'll get some footage of that most likely. But some of this stuff is really remarkable here. The documentary filmmaker here was able to get access or was able to record this phone call that Lindsay Graham has. with Benjamin Netanyahu, but let's go with a clip number two first, actually, because we're going to go in chronological order. This is two. Oh, okay, great. So they got, okay, I'm sorry. Number three, we updated it. Apologies. Okay, gotcha, gotcha. Okay. I actually think I opened the wrong. We're off to a great start this morning. I opened the wrong document. Okay, great. So yes, number three.

This is on the day that the Iran war launched that Israel and the United States bombed a girls' school, killing over 120 little children, also killing the Supreme Leader of Iran and other top officials. And look at how gleeful Lindsey Graham is when he sees that he's able to achieve his lifelong dream. of starting this war against Iran. Virtually everything they have has been knocked out now. Their missile count is going way down. Look what we've done here. I almost cried. I mean, like, how long have we been pushing this?

You've been pushing this for years, right? Right, it's here. I thought the Trump is born. Oh, he's Jack. It's the best thing I've ever done. he loves blowing stuff up. So, you know, there are a lot of people inside didn't want to do it. So I had my challenges.

But President Trump, when he gets into the zone, he listens, ask good questions, you know, no tweeting. He hasn't tweeted much at all. No drama. He's been a great wartime president. I said last night. No drama. Trump and Bibi are like Roosevelt. and Churchill.

I mean, they're the right two guys to confront this evil. They're like Roosevelt and Churchill. I wish they were more like him. I mean, look at how... I mean, dead. Look at how, right. Remember how Roosevelt and Stalin

edged Churchill out? Anyway, go on. I mean, it's just, it's amazing to see how excited he is and what he values in the president with Donald Trump. You know, when he's tweeting, it's too much of a distraction from the war crimes that we want to commit.

But now he's very decisive when he decides to bomb Iran in a way that no other president was willing to do because of the quagmire that we get into. I mean, this is five months later now. And we are still in this quagmire in Iran, as was predicted, as is why presidents prior to Donald Trump said Netanyahu, no, we're not going to do this. This is not good for us politically, especially, after the fatigue of the Iraq war and Americans of specifically younger generations finding these forever wars to be politically toxic, Trump didn't seem to care about the messiness of

democracy here and wanted the glory and was high on his own supply after Venezuela. And Netanyahu was able to manipulate him. And increasingly, Lindsay Graham was in the room. There's some interesting quotes from him about how, you know, you can't get to Trump by just sucking up to him, essentially. You have to tell him. him hard truths as well because he won't respect you. And I guess that's how Lindsay Graham got further and further into the inner circle and was able to push his agenda of this war on Iran. Now, this is March 4th here, this clip. Another just, you know, an incredible piece of footage. This is Lindsay Graham talking to Netanyahu on speaker phone, trying to get Trump to.

to join Israel in Lebanon. And Lindsey Graham even here is out hawking Benjamin Netanyahu. And then you'll also see footage of Lindsay Graham speaking to Jake Sullivan of the Biden administration, who is currently on this media tour trying to distance himself from his complicity in the genocide in Gaza. But he was on the phone with Lindsay Graham at the start of this Iran war earlier this year. Here's more of that footage. Do you have it on speaker, Ryan? Yeah, we're good.

Okay, all right, connecting you now. Hello. Hey, baby, Lindsay. Hey, Lindsay. How are you? I couldn't, I'm just so impressed. Glad to be your friend. I'm glad you are my friend.

I'm going to meet with the president this weekend. I'm going down to Doral. I'm going to try to get him to join with y'all in Lebanon to maybe fly some with you. Would you like that? Yeah, I get that. I think you're at a point, but I've been thinking about the other side of it for a second. We're concentrating right now on Yvonne. If we tell Zbalah that we're going all the way, we threaten them, but if we actually do it,

then they have no reason not to go all the way against us. And right now that's not our interest. Okay. We can do it later. Well, I'll, okay, well, that's actually good counsel. I'll put it out there as an idea we can always go back to it. Okay, all right, pause for a second before this Jake Sullivan call.

That is just actually remarkable. Lindsay Graham wanted to do a little cop ride-along for war crimes, and then I was like, I don't know if that's a great idea, but also speaking about like the overall objective, trying to get the United States, President Trump to join Israel in the bombing of Hezbollah, that would have just completely, you know, exploded the conflict bringing the United States

into the war in Lebanon, the ethnic cleansing campaign. And Netanyahu is probably saying like, all right, I know you're bloodthirsty, Lindsay, but right now we have the kind of skeleton Lebanese government in our pocket, and we have long-term ambitions to spark a civil war, having them on our side fighting against Hezbollah. So maybe we don't want to turn the Lebanese people against us right away by having the U.S. bomb on our behalf.

Sort of asking, you're sort of like asking how high before you, you're even told to jump. Yep. Right. Exactly. Bibi. What's up, buddy? Baby!

I like everyone talks about representatives. Like, how do you work the halls of power? It's like, you just pick up the phone and be like, I love to be your friend, Bibi, Nanyahu. Yes, please, sir. How can I help you? How can I help the Israel lobby? What a statesman. I mean, right.

We're concentrating right now on Iran. Netanyahu said. Can we fly some, meaning bombing raids? Right. Well, I mean, and he says he wants to join him. And then I think actually what he was referring to now that I'm remembering it correctly is that he wanted to go down to Mara Lago to get Trump to do that. That's what he was referring to, not the rival. But it still is a funny little image to think of Lindsay Graham doing that.

And also in this call, the Wall Street Journal reports apparently Graham said it would be time for Israel to normalize relations with Saudi Arabia when the Iranian regime falls. and that he'd already lined up Republican and Democratic support. Netanyahu encouraged him to focus first on Iran. But you hear this in Trump now, right? The ghost of Lindsey Graham, this attempt to shoehorn parts of the Abraham Accords into these peace negotiations, which are really just a poison pill. It's what, Lindsay, what I'm not. Right, because as I headlined, Iran had enlisted the Houthis in Yemen to bomb

Saudi oil facilities are taking responsibility for it over the weekend. And this is the first time since 2022 that this has happened. Saudi Arabia does not want to get bogged back down in Yemen. China was a part of brokering talks in a way that, you know, the U.S. never did as it was supporting the Saudi-led, you know, disgusting starvation campaign in Yemen. We were so uneven in our hand that China ended up stepping in and playing a mediator role and successfully was able to get Iran and Saudi Arabia to back away from this proxy war. The Saudis don't want to get back involved in this. And this is another way that the Iranians can make U.S. allies in the region hurt because of the U.S.'s willingness to go to war here. Now here's that other part where

Lindsey Graham was on the phone with the former Biden administration official Jake Sullivan. just to show how bipartisan this commitment to this bloodthirsty Middle Eastern policy is. Democrats and Republicans are okay with the treaty. Now, you'll never get the treaty until you get a pathway for the Palestinians. You just can't get there. You can't get NPS to recognize Israel. So when I'm going to tell Bibi and I just told lighter, I talked to Bibi this morning. He called me and thanking me for everything.

He says he's game. I said, listen, Bibi. and Smaltridge and Ben-Gavir are not going to deliver. If you win your election, it's going to be before our election. I think the time probably do this is Elaine Duck. We'll know pretty quickly whether a BV is able to deliver. Oh, if I think, I think about three to four weeks, we should have them in a spot where they start losing control of some cities.

and what we're trying to do is just get a few cities to fall in the next month, get the Arabs more openly involved tomorrow or by the end of the week, and just have almost irreversible momentum. This was March, by the way. Yeah, that's the end of that clip. And that is him in March, March 4th, saying that all they need is for cities to fall in Iran. And in three to four weeks, the Iranian government is going to lose control in the they're going to fall. How'd that work out? How did that work out? How many weeks are we

into this now? April, May, June, July, almost August. Almost August. Not one Iranian city has fallen by this point. But we have committed a lot of war crimes and are promising to do more unless we get what we want. And honestly, it's pretty astonishing to see a war-mongering brain in real time make these justifications and see how wrong he was as well. But when he says the best time to do this might be the lame duck, I wonder what he's referring to there. Trump losing the midterms. Trump losing the midterms, right?

All these guys still being in Congress, I assume is our lame duck. Yes, yes. But what does he mean by like what the plan is during the period? That would be in between the swearing in of the new Congress in November and late January. Just something to pay attention to because there's a window into like what the plans could be. They think they could punch through the Abraham Accords. I think yeah. But another piece of evidence to what we've spoken about here on the show, which is that Israel and Netanyahu are immensely aware of the public backlash here in the United States and what the midterms could look

like. And they are taking this as a window of opportunity because they understand how things could change and how there might actually be some sort of accountability for the Trump administration in this illegal war if the Democrats were able to have success in the midterms. And that's a nif. And it also needs a change in leadership and pressure from the bottom, right? Like this isn't going to happen instantaneously, but the Israelis are planning, you know, in ways that are strategic. Operation Cast led was in the lame duck of George W. Bush.

and it was they wound it up right on 18th January 2009 as Obama was under an office. Like the idea, when it's so funny when the media is like, why are you so obsessed with Israel? Like Israel is obsessed with us, specifically our elections. Right. Joe Snuffy, Emma, how dare you besmirch a dead man by playing recordings of his exact words and letting him do it for you? Have you no decency, madam? Yes, I know. I'm curious, like, you know, this guy was given access to Graham. I'm just interested to know more about the like meta of this and like how these like

whose interests are being served by releasing this stuff. Yes. Why Graham was giving this kind of access to this guy. Yes. I mean, I think, I mean, easy answer is he was an egomaniac and wanted to look good to the press. But, you know, it's just interesting to what's getting out. Right.

Exactly right. In a moment, you will hear this interview that Sam conducted with, uh, Devin Thomas O'Shea, but first a word from our sponsors here. You know what time it is, folks. It's sunset lake sebeday time. Our friends up at Sunset Lake Farms sent us some new tinctures to try, and we are excited to share them with you. Introducing Sunset Lake's new focus, Sebeday and CBG oil tincture.

What is CBG you ask? Well, early clinical studies suggest that CBG can enhance verbal memory, manage pain and promote a more focused mental state. They've added a splash of natural citrus flavor as well as sabadei, which can promote a sense of calm and balance perfect for when you need to buckle down and get stuff done. They're kicking off this new focus tincture by doing a 25% off sale on all of their seabade oil tinctures. Just use the code CBG26 at checkout. That's CBG26.

We're huge fans of Sunset Lake. day by day here at the majority report. I am a daily user of at least one of their products, their sleep gummies or tinctures to help me go to sleep. Their lotion is phenomenal. I've got the scented and I've got the unscented. I've got these relaxed gummies here that I pop oftentimes before I head home on my commute. It just makes things easier, makes me able to relax without, you know, melting into the couch and being completely unable to function or anything like that. So that, is where we can attest to Sunset Lakes efficacy. And also, they use regenerative farming practices.

They're pesticide-free. They treat their workers well in terms of their wages. They've partnered with us on certain fundraisers, but they support refugee resettlement, strike relief funds, and more. It's a company that you can feel good about supporting. And the product is third-party tested, so you know what you're getting. head on over to sunset lake sebedee.com and use the coupon code CBG26 to save 25% off on all their tinctures, including the new focus, Sebeda and CBG oil. This sale ends July 28th at midnight eastern time. See their site for additional terms and restrictions.

Again, that's 25% off all Sebedee oil tinctures, including the brand new focus. Sebeda and CBG oil tincture code CBG 26. And lastly, have you ever thought, you know, I should really be doing something to protect myself from stalkers, scammers, hackers, all these people on the internet trying to access my data, but you're not sure what? Well, here is what you do. Go to www.Jindleatme.com slash majority and enter code majority. You'll get 20% off. Delete me removes your personal information that is being sold online. And before I even started here at the majority report, before I even knew that they were a special. sponsor. I was a user of

Delete Me. When I started doing this business, I was like, how do I protect my information on the internet? And I was suggested to delete me and I've been using it ever since. And I get these emails with reports about what it's caught and what I need to pay attention to as well. So it keeps you updated and it's constantly

catching information that might be out there about you on the internet. Because in the age of AI, we're all especially vulnerable to scammers using your personal data that's floating around. Have you ever Googled your and found your home address phone number or the name of a family member, it can be unsettling. But the good news is, Delete Me can help. You can get an individual plan for a little over $8 per month. Discounts get even better with a two-year plan. Or when you enroll with your partner or

family, Delete Me does all the hard work to wipe your personal information from data broker websites. Thanks to Delete Me for sponsoring the Majority Report. Take control of your data and keep your private life private by signing up for Delete Me. Now, at a special discount for our audience, get 20% off your DeleteMe plan when you go to www. www.joinedleetme.com slash majority and use promo code majority at checkout. The only way to get 20% off is to go to www. www.jointedleetme.com slash majority and enter code majority at checkout.

That's www. www.joinedleetme.com slash majority code majority link down below in the video and episode descriptions and at majority. dot fm all right quick break and when you come back when we come back you'll hear this interview that sam did with devon thomas o'shae writer and author of the veiled prophet secret society's white supremacy and the struggle for st louis be right back we are back sam cedar on the majority report it is a pleasure to welcome to the program uh devon thomas o'shae author of his first book the veiled prophet secret society's white supremacy in the struggle for st louis and uh devon welcome to the show the book

as far as i understand started out um at the idea was you were going to write a fictional novel and it really does feel like it couldn't have been more bizarre in many uh ways or um and it and it turned out to be a history of st louis um tell us okay let's just start where this story starts in the late 1870s, there is the Great Railroad Strike. Give us a sense of like what St. Louis, Missouri was at that time. Sure, yeah, because it's much different. And especially in the 1870s, you know, St. Louis is way out on the Western frontier.

It is like the end of the railroad. tracks basically. It's the end of like the United States in a meaningful way because there's just nothing west of St. Louis. It's all frontier. But at the same time, after reconstruction is over and you're on the cusp of the gilded age, St. Louis is like poised to become the largest city in the United States.

It's like people are saying it's going to be bigger than Chicago and New York. And there's this big lobbying effort to get the, uh, capital, D.C. moved to St. Louis because it would make more sense in the middle of the continent. And that industry is what is like spurring this. You have this big river route in the Mississippi that can get goods from South America and from all over the world up into the middle of the country and then spread it out through the train rail system. And so it is a boom time. It's like there's a lot going on as opposed to maybe now. We should remind people that Missouri was a border state and in the union, but there was a real attachment to slavery. Yeah, to put it lightly. There's a line in a Cloud Splitter, the novel about John Brown, where he goes and digs up one of his grandchildren who was buried in Missouri because Missouri is cursed evil.

slave soil, and he did not want one of his family to be buried there. Missouri is where all of the pro-slavery forces from the South are starting this sort of creep into the West. And so the lead up to the Civil War all revolves around the Kansas, Missouri border, the bleeding Kansas. And the governor of Missouri, David Rice-Adresson famously, like, personally fired a cannon at Lawrence, Kansas. And so there's a lot of pro-slavery sentiment in the state.

And just give us a sense, too, in terms of reconstruction, how much impacted reconstruction have in St. Louis in terms of like any type of ascendant black political power? Yeah. In St. Louis, which is different from Missouri politically and always has. been. Missouri, the state has been very right and pro-slave. And in St. Louis, you have a gigantic population of German socialists and communists who settled in the city after the failures of the 1848 revolutions. Tons of Germans come and end up in the Midwest, Milwaukee, Chicago, but especially

in St. Louis. And they arrive right in time to do what they wanted to do in the 1848 revolutions, which is to destroy systems in which like singular monarchical figures or the archbishop can control people's lives and own people. And so they theorized or at least saw the slave-owning class as exactly like the king, and they were the first to join up with Lincoln's Union. And in a big way, they saved St. Louis from the Confederacy and therefore saved it from the fate of Vicksburg, which was totally blown up during the war.

And in the context of reconstruction, was there any, I mean, were there any inroads in terms of black political power? And then I'm curious how it unwound. A lot of places, obviously folks know that the reconstructionist project ends with, in many respects, you know, programs against the black communities, South Carolina, Oklahoma, I mean, on and on. Yeah. There was a Drake constitution that was set up in Missouri after the Civil War that was largely constructed by this German socialist sort of population, the people who won the war.

That was eventually repealed. And in St. Louis, during Reconstruction, you have this huge, you have a huge expansion of the public education system. And so it's the first time that a bunch of black schools are established. There is like this genuine, I think you can see the glimmer of what the country could have become if reconstruction had been allowed to progress. But as Du Bois talks about, it is systematically sabotage over and over again by the Ku Klux Klan, by industrial forces who, you know, the Confederacy and Union is made up of lots of rich guys. And they have to, they knit themselves back together at the end of reconstruction, which really ends. ends with the Great Railroad strike of 1877 because all of these union troops that are in the south have to get called up to these northern cities in order to put the strike down. So a lot of historians say

that year is sort of the whole end. How much? I'm curious as to how much, I mean, because now we're getting to the point where Slayback comes in, Lonzo Slayback, your protagonist, I guess. Yeah. Do you like his name? That was well-crafted. But this is how many of those soldiers state those Confederate soldiers? Like I mean, how like, because this is a moment where it's, I guess there's a recognition amongst the elite in St. Louis that, oh, we have a problem here. And how much of the problem that they perceived was sort of some measure of black empowerment or a vision of what black empowerment could be,

and also that like this black empowerment and this sort of like cross racial, like, class-oriented revolt in the context. And we should say this wasn't just a strike. I mean, there was, this was like the St. Louis commune takes place there. This was a almost like a full-on occupation, a little bit like a Jacobin type of situation. walk us through that, but also how much of the elites, what was it that had scared the elites at that point?

Yeah, I think they were genuinely very freaked out. In 1877, you know, the railroad strike has a very boring name, the great railroad strike of 1877. And it starts in Baltimore, Pennsylvania, moves through Ohio. There's like, I think Pynchon says, you know, the rail networks of this time are the iron skeleton of the country. and like the strike hits the tracks like lightning and spreads all the way out to the western fringe in St. Louis, where, as you're saying, you know, in other places, the strike takes the form of destroying cargo or burning roundhouses or sort of the National Guard gets called in and there's a firefight. But in St. Louis, the railroad workers theorize that the infrastructure of the city belongs to them because they did the labor to create it. And so there is this effort to take the railroad strike and expand it into a general strike and to call out the Coopers and Smiths and especially the roustabouts, which are guys who take cargo on and off steamships, a huge part of the St. Louis economy, which has mostly been abandoned by the white working class and is mostly done by ex-slaves, African Americans. The strike very intentionally becomes a multiracial general strike. a parade through the city for days on end.

And the sugar refinery has to come and ask the strike committee for permission to operate. And that, according to many historians, that you got yourself a de facto government, you know? And so that's like the first St. Louis commune. And that freaked out the city fathers to an extreme degree because it showed that if everything is just left the way it is, the workers will spontaneously organize a Soviet. They will become, you know, you could have this like hinterland sort of worker movement, especially in these industrializing rust belt cities. And of course, the rich people were so afraid that they filled their bathtubs with water

and their sinks because they thought that the workers were going to cut off, you know, all of the water supply and drive them out of town, like in the French Revolution, that they were going to have to escape. That was very active. The strike is crushed, and you have characters like Alonzo Slaebuck, this ex-Confederate cavalry officer who got to waltz back into civic life in St. Louis as a lawyer, and he and his brother organize the Veiled Prophet Society as a parade that basically commemorates the crushing of the strike. How much like, and it's obviously difficult to get inside the, the minds of these guys. And we should say that Alonzo's brother Charles came from New Orleans. And so he had sort of a, I guess, like a sense of what a parade looks like on some level. But how much was,

was it just merely like we're going to celebrate the end of the strike? I'm how much like, how much strategy was there in this? Or was it just sort of like, we're going to make the, you know, some sentiment, like we're going to make the libs cry. Like, you know, like that. I mean, because it ends up having a lot more, and obviously branching out, we're going to get into this. But I'm just curious at that first moment where did they just stumble on something

that ends up being opportunistically becomes a locust for things? Or was there some sense of like, this is what we're going to do? We're going to start a civic organization and the best, way it started is with the parade. Yeah, that's a great question because in St. Louis history, there's always been this kind of plausible deniability about the first image of the veiled prophet, which is a stamp in the Missouri Republican newspaper. And he's got a pistol and then he's got a rifle and then he's got another rifle behind him and a bowie knife stuck in his belt. And when they are advertising the first parade, they say, this is the veiled prophet, and he's coming to

town. He's like an ugly, evil-looking clown, and he's coming to town to, he won't be stopped by any striking trolley workers. And so the trolley workers were like sort of the most radical part of the strike, and they had some knock-on strikes after the big one the summer before. And so you have this like very threatening image. And then on the first parade, float, you know, the operative question for me was like, what were people in the street if they saw him? What would they be thinking? The first parade float is the veiled prophet, who we know is the chief of police, John Priest, who crushed the strike. And then he's up there with an executioner and in between them is a bloody butcher's block. And this is a strike that would parade through the

working class neighborhoods with subtlety, you know, that like suggests. So, of power dynamic. How did people respond to there? Is there really no way to know on the ground? Like there, it's, I mean, it would be like the, it feels like it would be the functional equivalent of, I don't know, you know, taking a statue of some Confederate general and parading it through like Morehouse College or something. Do we know what the reaction?

Do people put this together? or was it sufficiently mystified in such a way that people just sort of like, oh, that's what a fun-looking little vignette that we're watching here? Yeah, that's a, I mean, in these early sort of years, the Vailant Provin Society goes waxes and wanes in power. And in these first couple years, it is like very powerful. It is like the mayor and all the circuit judges and the CEOs and the police chiefs. they're all very much suspected to be Vailed prophets.

And so in the newspapers, there's not like anybody interviewed who's like, I don't really like the sociopolitical connotations of this. But there are people who are like, I suspect that this judge is in the Vailed Prophets and that somebody has to come out and say, oh, no, I'm not in it. There's also the group in the year after, you know, the executioner, everybody basically decides that was a little too much. We have to sort of back up and maybe do a different kind of character. And so he become, the veiled prophet becomes much more of a godfather or a wizard who is arriving in St. Louis from his magic carpet from the land of Coruscant, which is far away and prosperous.

And he's coming to St. Louis because he wants to bestow his gifts upon the city because we are preternaturally of good moral standing. than the rest of the world. So is, at that point, is the veiled profit, like, it's a group and are they, is it just we get together to plan the parade or is it just a networking sort of, I guess, situation or what exactly, what is its function at that time? Yeah, it is mostly the planning committee for the parade. and then they also have a big ball. So they have a big ballroom dance at the Merchants Exchange,

and they start a little tradition. I go into in the book about how, especially in early American cities, you know, they want to model themselves on, you know, European traditions, and they want to, like, invent or build a new tradition. And so they have a big ballroom dance, and they have a bell of the ball.

It's Susie Slayback for the first. year. Also a great name. Come on. And that they, uh, is that they have daughter. Is his daughter is his daughter the bell of the ball? Okay. I mean, his daughter is the bell of the ball. Of course. And I also talk about how, you know, a secret society in general is kind of like a prestige brokerage, right? It is a way for people to bring their status in society to the club. and then the club also doles out accolades. And so becoming the bell or later the queen of love and beauty or becoming the veiled prophet himself

is sort of a way of bestowing graces upon individual people in the club that lots of people wanted to join and align themselves with. Now, you mentioned that through your research, you found that the original image, or I guess model for the veiled profit was in a paper that was an image used by the Klan. And this, of course, has been like, you know, this controversy goes up as recently as the Ellie Kemper situation, who I've been told is on the office or was. But talk about what the Klan was in this iteration, as opposed to

because I think the vision of the clan that most people have today is the one that sort of like had its resurgence in the teens in the early 20s where you know there's everybody's wearing the white hood and white robe and maybe there's some variation but like literally everybody six million people were card carrying members of the clan at those time and they there was they were part of like a national organization. in some way. But the clan, the first iteration of the clan was a little bit more ad hoc. Yeah, I think that was the most interesting and surprising thing about researching this is like, you know, there's so much of the image we have of a clansman is made by birth of a nation. And that's not until the 1910s. And they have the advantage of having cheaper textiles and Hollywood and like, that's also like very Christian heavy.

You know, the birth of a nation clansmen is aligned with the cross, and then that becomes the burning cross, which is like a big clan symbol. But in the first wave, it's much more anarchic. There's not as much like standard, you know, mass-produced textiles around, especially after the war. And so a lot of clansmen are pretending to be men from the moon, or they're dabbling in a little bit. of satanic stuff.

They're not Christian. They might be the ghosts of Shiloh, or a wizard who comes back, or a Orientalist figure. And so there's like this lost-to-memory kind of form of the clan that's crazier. And then also needs to be federally suppressed. And so the grant administration comes in and makes it, he's got to lock a bunch of people up and find a bunch of people

and then make it kind of illegal to dress as a Klansman by making it illegal to cover your face on public highways. And so that's sort of like the milieu that's happening. As you had said, there's been plausible deniability that this first stamp that was in the Missouri Republican is like that was made for the Vailed Profit Society, but in fact, I benefited a lot from the digitization of newspapers and there's a newspaper from four to five years ago before the first stamp that's about

Southern Illinois clan violence. And it's at the end of this first wave where everyone has decided the clan is not good. They're in fact a bunch of rapists and they're a bunch of monsters who are really just hired to go and collect debts for people. They're just violent thugs. And so this like evil looking clansmen is just being used by. Alonzo Slaibak and the Vailed Profit guys to get around this grant administration edict that you can't cover your face in public and to put a little fear into the heart of the workers.

And then on top of that, they were reappropriating it on some level, right? I mean, that would basically, was the clan, did they refer to themselves as the clan? Or did they have like their own? sort of local branding and we're just and then would they be would they say and where

you know where the knights of wherever and but we just happen to be the local chapter of the clan I mean how would they is that basically it? Well the clan in the first wave was also like all over the place

because it was basically you learned how to do a clan attack by reading about it in the newspaper and there's a bunch of other clan type organizations, the Democratic clubs in New Orleans, or the Knights of the White Camellia are also basically a clan chapter. There's also the Invisible Empire, which is another different, I think, in the Carolinas. They're active there. But the strategy worked so well that a bunch of guys in Kansas City across the state decided that they were going to have basically the same thing happen.

And they, like, started their own veiled profit kind of organization called the priests of palace. And they elected their parade character to be King Kiki. And so you just get a pretty on the nose KKK right there. Right. And so the veiled prophet, King Kiki, the same kind of character in New Orleans during Mardi Gras. You have similar characters who are able to be in public. It all speaks to the way that the clan infected, you know, culture and that even suppressing it at the federal level, I was still able to escape into, you know, the imagination. And then you could signal to people who are coming into St. Louis that, don't worry, this is a place where white supremacy still reigns.

Did that, did that have, did that message, it resonates with people who maybe are familiar with the clan iconos? iconography or like the they get the wink there's a real quality of like 4chan uh element to this on some level like we're we're being ironic or look at the funny sure and it's the um uh quasi oriental uh you know figure that we have here but everybody knows what it is do the people locally do the to the potential victims of the clan uh did they have that awareness as well There's not a lot of African-American voice in St. Louis politics in the 1870s, 80s, 90s. But what you do get is this recognition that the veiled prophet when he comes to town, he is bringing his ways from Corosan from a faraway land,

the same way the clan is bringing their clan attack from the moon or the afterlife. he's bringing the structure of Coruscant to St. Louis, and in Coruscans, slavery is legal. So he arrives, and the little girls and the people who bring the dancing mats out, they are slaves of the veiled prophet. And there's this role-playing aspect to all of the ball, especially, and that, like, Elaine Parsons' book about the First Wave of the Klan is, like, instrumental about this, because she talks. talks about how the clan attack is the, it's a rupture point where you can rip open the rules of everyday life and reassert plantation violence, right? You can like bring the supremacy of the plantation owner back just for a few hours during this theatrical assault on people. And the Veiled Prophet is doing basically the same thing. It's letting a bunch of industrialists

in St. Louis role play the omniscience of the plantation owner. So going forward, and at one point we should say, like, there must become some awareness of what it represented, I guess by the 30s or so, you, and we should say, you know, Alonzo was, Slayback was ultimately slain himself. In an exciting fashion. Yeah, I mean, all the stories I have to say are like that you could almost like stop off at any point. this history for some great stories and people should read the book just for that reason alone. But the larger story, of course, is that this becomes both a symbol and a sort of like a functioning networking of elite control of St. Louis. So by the 30s, the United Electric Union, I think it is, starts to do a rival.

one as a way of what? Like, what's the point of the rival ball? Yeah, the one of my favorite guys in St. Louis history, the communist organizer Bill Centner, he organizes the electrical workers in St. Louis and is like spreading out to the rest of the Midwest. And the United Electrical ethos is very much in line with the general strike. And that is a multiracial coalition of, this is a pain point for producing, you know, electrical goods. And Settner and the U.E have the theory of the union that, you know, everyone should be, it should be a family affair. And to have like a rival VP queen, a queen of the U.E, is like a way of sticking it to the veiled profits. When Sennner is being prosecuted under the McCarthyite legislation called the Smith Act,

He is, him and his allies produce a pamphlet that is about how the Veiled Profit Society was organized by business owners and big capital in league with the police to crush the general strike. And that the whole reason that they do this debutante ball is to destroy worker solidarity. And there's a very beautiful little cartoon of the Veiled Prophet listening through a door with a pistol in his hand. and he's the boss and he's listening in on your union meeting. And that, you know, it's this thing that's like in the unconscious of the working class in St. Louis. But there's also at the same time a bunch of rival black veiled profit balls, the African-American community organizes their own sort of rival celebrations. And then when the veiled prophet comes back in the birth of a nation era, he's like harkened as a Klansman.

So it's hard to say exactly what an average St. Louison would have thought of him, but there's these like tell-alls, or there's tells in the culture that like everyone understands this is sort of what he means symbolically. And what does it mean that there was like at that time a resurgence of worker power, of, you know, a multiracial coalition, like, that this became the symbolic fight, I guess. What was also, were there, were these fights indicative? The symbolism of that fight, of a rival ball, etc. Was it played out in the politics at the time as well? Yeah, I think that there was the, you know, the sale, the Vail-Profit is a Ku Klux character,

but he's also different from a regular clansman. He's more like the grand dragon of the clan and that he's like the orchestrator. The Vailed Prophet never goes and gets his hands dirty. And so he is in that way much like the boss, the factory owner. And I think that there was a very concerted effort in St. Louis to use him as like an icon for oppressive workplace conditions, which more and more people are getting sucked into during industrialization,

especially in the 30s as everything starts to malfunction, and we start casting around for like, who did this, who designed the society? Well, there's this omnipotent guy who comes from Khorasan, and he is like worshipped by all of everyone's boss, and he's kind of like a perfect target, which is then later glaned onto again once the civil rights movement starts, and you get Percy Green, our home. hometown civil rights hero who targets the available profit for the same reason.

I want to I want to get to Percy Green and Corps in just a moment. But the, was there, was there alarm amongst the elites when there starts to be pushback to the, you know, supremacy of this ball and parade? I mean, it obviously it's indicative of what was going on there. But was there alarm at this point? was there a sense of like, we've got to, we got to just bring our mystic, you know, veiled profit to another level. Like, we got to make this guy like maybe a veiled god or something.

Yeah. Well, you might be surprised that they, instead of Tony and down went in the opposite direction, there is, in the 30s, the Bengale Lancers sort of join the crew of veiled profit guy. And they're a bunch of turbaned soldiers, veterans from World War I, and they wear red coats, and they have a Lancer pole. And they're modeled also on the lives of the Bengal Lancers, a movie about how British colonialism in India during the Raj was actually awesome and very cool. And so you have like this security detail suddenly around the veiled prophet. At the same time, you also have Mayor Dickman, who, during the Funston Nut Strike, which was like the first industrial strike done entirely by African-American

women. It was incredibly successful. It was a huge landmark thing, and it shocked to the country that African-American women organized and then won wage increases. Mayor Dickman has to moderate that negotiation between the strike and the Funston family. In that year, he also is like we got to maybe make the party more democratic. We like the ball itself that everyone can be invited. But that didn't last for very long because as, you know, the depression hits St. Louis very hard. There's a miles long Hooverville down by the arch along the river bank. But then as World War II starts ramping up, the military infrastructure in St. Louis also just grows and grows and grows and grows.

and sort of the Red Scare wraps up Bill Settner. You sort of move into this post-popular front era. And let's jump to Percy Green and Corps, and there was an infiltration of the ball. The 1972, what was that about? Yeah, this is like the conference. People really take this ball seriously. Yeah.

There's actually a New York journalist who comes to the ball during the set, like the 60s, and she's just like, man, this is such a like a guy comes out and reads from a scroll and an ancient, uninterpretable language. And it's like everyone's walking around on marshmallows and clouds. And then all of these debutantes parade down the center of this aisle and bowed before the veiled prophet, very sincere. And it's all taken, you know, varied to heart. And then you have the civil rights movement that Percy Green is like, he gets famous because as the arch is being built and it's only two little sort of legs, they're using all white workers to do it.

It's a big federal project. And so Percy Green and another activist climb the arch and they protest because they want black workers to be hired there. and he sort of transforms this thing that's going to be the gateway to the west, this sort of manifest destiny icon, into an icon of the civil rights movement. After that, he's looking around for a similarly big symbol. And the veiled profit, where at the ball, there's no better place to get in front of every CEO in the city. And if you want to deliver your message that North St. Louis, the African American community in St. Louis, is being deindustrialized first.

It's just like a totally different world that's being destroyed north of Del Mar. And in order to get in front of TV cameras and newspapers and sort of to manipulate the media of the day in order to deliver their message, they start handcuffing themselves to parade floats during the parade or picketing and doing a black veiled prophet counter protest

outside of the ball. Year on year, it gets more intense until in 1972. We're not sure who gave them the tickets still, but they got three tickets to the ball and three of the white women in action, which was like a multiracial, you know, organization of guerrilla theater protest.

Three women get up into the balcony and you have this big amphitheater full of people watching the debutantes and a big stage with the veiled prophet on his throne. and two of the protesters start throwing pamphlets off of the balcony and saying down with the VP. And Jenna Scott grabs a hold of a electrical cord and raffles down onto the stage or onto the theater below. And the cord snaps and she falls and she fractures a rib. But she pops up and is like someone comes over to ask her how she's, are you okay?

like what's going on? And she's like, I got to get a phone call. And so she runs around to the back of the stage, getting through people saying she's got to take a phone call. And she gets up to the veiled prophet and pulls his veil and crown off. And it is Tom K. Smith, the vice president of Monsanto Corporation. Of course. At the height of Agent Orange production.

Wow. And I mean, obviously, like this is so much, it's so, reminiscent of the yippies and Abby Hoffman getting in throwing money on the stock exchange floor. Absolutely. I think very effective, too, because it's, you need to understand. Yeah, I mean, there's also, I guess, a certain amount of Saul Olinsky in this era where how much of it was they were going, they know this is where the attention is. This is how they can, this is a good place to protest.

but also a function of they're protesting it as well. Yeah, I think it is very, I really admire the theoretical stuff that action was doing that seems very simple, but I think was very, very effective. And so by having like the black veiled profit and demanding to be sat next to the white veiled profit, you're sort of, you automatically queue up that, oh, he's the white one, right? that we all understand that there's a racial component here. And so Percy Green has always said that the thing that he wanted was good jobs for black families and that that was the point of action was to get concessions from these people, the CEOs.

And that the protest of the ball happened to be this intersection of like, there's also the feminist aspect of like the debutante ball is, a way for the fathers of important families to marry their daughters into, you know, all these other powerful families as political tools. And so you have both the fact that St. Louis is a very segregated and racist city with a African-American population that's being emiserated and this sort of patriarchical top-down structure that like, so then choosing to protest. it and say that this is what's wrong with everything, I think is a really effective strategy.

Let's jump up to the 2014 Ferguson protest. Where was the veiled profit now in its sort of like journey? Because each era you outline how it sort of evolves and changes based upon the context of the time. and the various needs and sort of the sensitivities, how they can sort of, I mean, it's all been from, I guess, day one, a way of trying to obscure what it's really about on some level. And you have to sort of evolve your tactics, I guess, depending on the sensitivities of the time.

Where was it at? Where was that evolution in 2014? Yeah, after the unveiling, no picture of the veiled prophet unveiled of Tom Smith without the veil on exists, even though the arena was full of photographers. So a bunch of flashes went off and the post-dispatch and globe editors who attended the ball. Suppressed the image and Tom K. Smith's name. It was published by the St. Louis Journalism Review, thankfully.

But that moment is like the end. It's the apocalypse. Every year after that, the Veiled Prophet Society has to take a step out of the public. arena that they were using, for example, and then go and have it at a hotel. And then it sort of loses steam in the lead-up to Reagan, but then once Reagan arrives, they start the VP Fair, which is this huge summer festival under the arch, blistering hot, no shade, but you get to see Dolly Parton, and then a Harrier jet flies over, and it's all hosted by the Veiled Prophet. Until then, also people are like, isn't he kind of a clansman?

And then they have a big debacle about closing bridges to East St. Louis, which is predominantly black because they don't want thugs and thieves to come over and ruin the fair. They just can't stop bringing this back. It just haunts them over and over again. So they have to change the name to Fair St. Louis. By the time you get to 2014, the club is not really a lot. so much in public life. I believe he's still in the Fourth of July parade.

But then that year as the Michael Brown protests are happening in Ferguson, not far away, the chief of police, Sam Dodson, goes to the veiled profit fair, or the failed rapid ball. And in the lobby, there's like a room with glass. We know this because a couple of activists got into the ball that year. a glass room with a bunch of SWAT guys around a table. And so the ball starts going on. And then the protesters arrive at the ball outside of the hotel.

And Sam Dotson has to leave the ball in order to direct the SWAT team to like break up the protest outside. Because again, it's just like every time there's strife and especially economic strife, the Vail-Profit becomes this target because he's supposed to be the father of the city. us to have brought all of these good things to us. And yet we're all immisorated and life is getting harder and more brutal. And he just becomes a great target. And so today they actually we're recording this on July 2nd. And in the next couple of days, they're having their party.

They don't call it the veil profit anymore, but they still keep the VP. Like just talk about that. because it's so fascinating to me the how important this is to some people and yeah you know it's hard to get into people's heads but you wonder like oh this is just this is like the you know the white knuckled holding on to the the the the class struggle the racial struggle like this is we need our culture, I guess. Yeah. Yeah, our tradition.

You know, all of these powerful guys from St. Louis's past were in this club. And then I got invited to, you know, join it. And then I got hazed theoretically and like initiated. And I think there's a lot of like social bonding that keeps this very active and that they don't want to change it. But two years ago, like you say, I think that they hired like a consultant to come in and do cleanup after Ellie Kemper got in so much trouble and it almost like ruined her career. Like the price of becoming the veiled profit queen that you're shot through the roof. It's like you can sandbag your daughter if you get her involved with this. And so they were like, okay, we need to let's go ahead and get rid of the guy.

Let's like listen to the community and we'll get rid of the guy and we're changing the name to VP St. Louis. And VP doesn't stand for anything. It's just letters. And they seriously came out and said that. And then they had the ball, which is in December. I just want to stay on that moment for a second because it's sort of amazing. And it is like it's doing what the original veiled profit did, right? Like we have this bizarre figure, but if you know what it means, you know what it means.

And if you don't, then you're part of the out, you know, the out group. And it's the exact same thing with the initials VP. Yeah. I mean, I think this happens in, you know, proto-fascist and fascist organizations of like, you know, I'm just wearing a Hawaiian shirt with my AR-15. That doesn't signal anything necessarily. but they're clinging onto it in a way that's totally bizarre and then they just get caught because not only do the bingo lancers sometimes put blackface on and this year they did that again of course

but then they have they do the ball and there's a photograph and it looks like the guy is still there he's up on the stage but oh no they took the veil away and they gave him a mask and his name is the Grand Oracle now. He's not the Vailed Prophet, which do you think that's closer or further away? Grand Wizard was already taken, I guess. Yeah, it's closer to a clan name. And also from the start,

the Vailet Prophet had a sub-moniker called the Grand Oracle. So they were just, you know, trying to get away with adjusting a couple branding things. And I think that's incredibly insulting, you know, to everybody. It's also, I just,

wonder like what the mandate was to that consulting firm. Look, we need to clean up our image, but we also want to stay true to the fact that we are racist and, you know, trying to crush labor. Yeah. It's like an impossible job of like, could you change how the public perceives us? But it's like, we still want to be the same, like no changes, but change a little bit. I get the feeling that they, are having a lot of trouble. Well, a bunch of them are reading the book, hate reading the book, and, you know, they're upset about it, and that's fine.

I'm sorry, guys. But. Nice of you to apologize. I have the Midwestern, I hate to be rude, but you guys are kind of a horrible detriment to St. Louis and like a PR nightmare for the rest of the country, because you keep doing this crazy, like, thing that everybody hates,

and you won't stop. But I think that they're having trouble recruiting new people and that this has been an ongoing thing. The other part is just that in St. Louis, we are fully neoliberalized in that the executive class that used to make this group so powerful in the mid-century, they're not here anymore.

The Anheuser-Busch, that's owned by Imbev. That executive class is somewhere else now. It's the same for McDonald-Douglas, is owned by Boeing. And then you have Ralston Purina that's owned by Nestle and Monsanto is owned by Bear. It's just happened to every single St. Louis giant industrial company that the executive positions that would have made up the club just are elsewhere now. And so it's sort of the rump of that group.

I'm curious as to, I mean, it's going to be interesting to see what the fallout of your book is in terms of like what it does to the organization. But I was struck by the, how much has the city really reconciled this? Because there is like a, there is an analogy to, you know, how does the United States come to grips with its own history, broadly speaking, and how do you move forward from there? Yeah. I mean, the best hope that I could have for the book is to talk about this thing from our past, and especially because the book really isn't about the contemporary guys. It's about a lot of the guys in the mid-century who are more interesting and got really powerful.

But my hope for the book is that it can close this chapter of anti-democratic, you know, shadow government, sort of an understanding of our history is being predisposed to this. form of like anti-democratic organizing by the elites and that they do it right in front of us and that we can maybe put that aside and then move into a more democratic way of having the city. I am not really sure, yeah, what the fallout will be necessarily, but what I would like is for us to just be like, okay, no more guy. We'll just not do the guy anymore. Give all of that Vailed Prophet stuff to the History Museum. You can do the debutante ball and call it the St. Louis

debutante ball. But just like get rid of this thing that is holding St. Louis back from becoming itself. Because St. Louis is a very diverse, really beautiful place to live. It's cheap as hell. The food here, like punches way above its weight. It's got a pun of Bosnian people and Kohl. as well as Afghan refugees. It's like, it's surprisingly diverse and cosmopolitan,

which is the antithesis of the Vailed Prophet. Well, it's a fascinating book. We will link to it. It's the Vailed Prophet, Secret Societies, White Supremacy, and the struggle for St. Louis, Devin Thomas O'Shea, thank you so much for your time today. Really appreciate it. Great job.

Really, just an incredible. an incredible act of both research and writing, really impressive. Thank you. And thank you for having me on. As I was saying, a huge majority report head going back to the early days of the Michael Brooks show. I've just consumed an enormous amount of the program. It's really a dream come true to come on.

Oh, well, thank you. We are back, folks. I hope you enjoyed that interview from San. or what we're calling AI Sam. The AI Sam? Yeah, I hope you couldn't tell the difference. It's me and one of those Mission Impossible masks. Yes, we cut right before Brian ripped it off.

Sam will be back on Friday and we'll be back to our regular schedule with Sam starting next week. Matt, what's happening on Left Reckoning and with the Jacobin Show? Yeah, Left Reckoning, we got a... new show coming out for you tomorrow. This weekend for our Left Reckoning supporters of our Patreon.com slash Left Reckoning, we talked about a number of people having a bit of a meltdown about the popularity of socialism, like Libertarian Robbie Soev over at the Hill, and David Packman, who decides right as the State Department starts counting Amy Goodman as a supporter

of terrorist Cuba to talk about how. the left is extreme, the left that's critical of like a Democratic Party that just committed a genocide. So Patriot.coms, left, and if you want David Griskeman and I to hear David Griskema and I talking about that. I'm eager to hear about that as well. As a reminder, folks, we will not be throwing DSA under the bus here. And even if it might hurt our pocketbook. What if Gavin Newsom comes into studio? Right, right. I mean, well, yes.

He has that... That's interesting. He has that megawatt smile that just might completely disarm us. I mean, megawatt is being a little bit kind. It's very, I don't know, snake-like. Villanish.

Villanish, right, right. Almost cartoonish in how it curls upward. Not trustworthy. But, okay, I'm not trying to do body language expert stuff on... Gavin Newsom. He's done plenty on the substance in and of itself. Join the Majority Report.com. It helps us stay resilient, even if the Trump administration is cracking down on leftists.

It's not going to impact our coverage, and that is because of you guys. That's because I say things like this. The president must know what he's doing. But your piece is not working again, so I'm missing it. We're going to have to fix it in the fun half break. I know, I know, I know. We're off to a great start. Join the Majority Report.com.

All right, folks, we will, in the fun half, actually have a lot to get to, including Trump bombing at the White House Correspondents in there. check it out. See you in the fun half. Okay, Emma, please. Well, I just, I feel that my voice is sorely lacking in the majority report. Wait, whoa. Look, Sam is unpopular. I do deserve a vacation at Disney World.

So, ladies and gentlemen, it is my pleasure to welcome Emma to the show. It is Thursday. I think you need to take over for Sam. That's good. No, no, I'm going to pause you right there. Wait, what? You can't encourage Emma to live like this. And I'll tell you why.

So it's offered a twirp, sushi, and poker with the boys. Twerp, sushi and sushi and ties. I just think that what you did to Tim Poole was mean. Free speech. That's not what we're about here. Look at how sad he's become now. You shouldn't even talk about it because I think you're responsible. I probably am in a certain way, but let's get to the meltdown here.

Dwerp, oh, sushi, and poker with the boys. Oh my God. Twirl? Wow. Sushi. I'm sorry, I'm losing my fucking mind. So it's offered a twerk. Yeah.

Sushi and poker with the boys. Logic. Twerp. Sushi and Pauke. Yeah. Okay. I'm not trying to be a dip right now, but like, I absolutely think the U.S. should be providing me with a wife and kids. That's not what we're talking about here.

It's not a fun job. Twirp. That's a real thing. That's a real thing. That's a real thing. Sam has like the weight of the world on the shoulders. Sam doesn't want to do this show anymore. It was so much easier.

When the majority report was just you, you were happy. Let's change the subject. Right. Now, shut up. Don't want people saying reckless things on your program. That's one of the most difficult parts about this show. This is a pro-killing podcast.

The Hatchet left his best. Trump. Violet twerk. Incredible theme song. I Bumbler. Emma Viglin, absolutely one of my favorite people. Actually, not just in the game. Like, period.