Unclear and Present Danger - Conspiracy Theory

Episode Date: March 11, 2025

On this week’s episode of Unclear and Present Danger, we watched the 1997 action thriller Conspiracy Theory, directed by Richard Donner (which explains a lot) and starring Mel Gibson, Julia Roberts and Patrick Stewart.In Conspiracy Theory, Gibson plays Jerry Fletcher, a cab driver who is consumed with all manner of conspiracies, using his captive audiences to share his ideas and delusions. He is fixated on Alice Sutton, played by Roberts, a Justice Department lawyer who tolerates him because he once saved her from a mugging. When Gibson is kidnapped by secretive government agents — led by the mysterious Dr. Jonas, played by Patrick Stewart — both he and Sutton become embroiled in a genuine conspiracy that centers on Fletcher’s mysterious past and raises difficult questions about the circumstances behind the murder of Sutton’s father.Conspiracy Theory was a hit, grossing a total of $137 million and displacing Air Force One at the box office. The critical response was mixed but not altogether negative, with most reviewers criticizing its script and plotting but ultimately holding it up as a serviceable thriller. The taglines for Conspiracy Theory were: “They knew too much.”“What you know could kill you.”“What if your most paranoid nightmares had just come true?”“Jerry Fletcher sees conspiracies everywhere. One has turned out to be true. Now his enemies want him dead. And she's the only one he can trust.”You can find Conspiracy Theory to rent or purchase on Amazon Prime and Apple TV.Episodes of the main feed come out every two weeks, and so we’ll see you then with Enemy of the State, the 1998 conspiracy thriller starring Will Smith and Gene Hackman.And don’t forget about our Patreon! You can sign up at patreon.com/unclearpod. For just $5/month, you get two episodes on the films of the Cold War. As always, our producer is Connor Lynch and our artwork is by Rachel Eck.

You're just too good to be true. When you're in love, you'll jump from the top of the Empire State, screaming Geronimo the whole way down. I love her so bad, I just... Well, she wrecks me. My name is Sutton. I'm with the Justice Department. I am an American citizen, and I demand to see Alice Sutton. It probably is crazy, but there's something about Jerry.

Jerry Fletcher has theories. The whole Vietnam War was fought. war was fought over a bent at Howard Hughes lost to Aristotle NASA. Some would call his theories crazy. You're telling me that NASA is going to kill the President of the United States with an earthquake. It's not exactly the kind of thing a secret service agent can like just throw himself on top of... He writes them in his newsletter. This is a third issue this year, conspiracy theory.

He sends them out. Look, I feel kind of naked back here. Could we get out of here? Please don't tell me you're naked back there. No, it's just a bigger of speech. Could we call? And she is the only one he trusts. I've loved you since the first time I ever saw you.

Jerry, you don't love me. I don't. Now, one of his theories is true. Can you prove any of this? Absolutely not. Only he doesn't know which one. Must have hit a nerve with one of those articles in there. But his enemies do.

How many subscribers do you have? Five. Well, they're dead. I have to find, Jerry. Bingo! I got him. There he is. These things that you're talking about, you did them to Jerry.

Jerry is very dangerous. What are you gonna do? I'm gonna find him because he'd find me. Pick them up, heading for the bridge. By nature, I'm not a violent man. If you heard Allison, I'll kill you. No. What are you doing?

I'm tortured my hub. Oh my God! Get down in this hole. Kiss me. What? For luck. Conspiracy theory, directed by Richard Donner. podcast about the political and military thrillers of the 1990s and what they say about

the politics of that decade. I'm Jamel Bowie. I'm a columnist for the New York Times opinion section. I'm John Gans. I write the substack newsletter on popular front. I'm a columnist for the nation. And I'm the author of When the Clock Broke, Conman, Conspiracists, and How America Cracked Up in the Early 1990s, which is available wherever good books are sold. a book that helps explain our current predicament yeah predicament permanent status quo who knows what it is the way things are now the way things are now yeah how we got here and why it sucks well you know why it sucks sorry i just took a sip of this chai i'm drinking um which is a little too hot

it's really good i you know i make my own chai mix right so it's It's cardamom, black pepper, fennel, cinnamon, ginger, what else do I throw in there? And clove. That sounds delicious. I love chai. It's so good. It's very spicy. I like it really.

The black pepper rites like mix nice, nice and spicy. But I got to say, Jamel, guy who makes his own chai mix is not exactly beating the coastal elite allegation. fair point you know fair point but i mean i say i buy i buy mine at the store but but but i no that sounds delicious i'd love a cup of chai right now but this isn't the chai podcast uh no although i could i could talk for chai for a while uh this is a podcast again about the political on the ultra-thrillers. And on this week's episode, we watched the 1997 action thriller conspiracy theory directed by Richard Donner, which I had forgotten. It was a Donner movie and I was watching it. And I'm writing. I'm writing it to do my write-up here. And it's like,

yeah, Donner, that explains a lot about this movie. And it stars Mel Gibson, Julie Roberts, and Patrick Stewart, the great Patrick Stewart. In conspiracy theory, Gibson plays Jerry Fletcher, a cab driver who is consumed with all manner of conspiracies using his captive audiences to share his ideas and delusions. He is fixated on Alice Sutton, played by Roberts, a Justice Department lawyer, who tolerates him because he wants safe to her from a mugging. When Gibson is kidnapped by secretive, seeming government agents, led by the mysterious Dr. Jonas, played by Patrick Stewart, but he and Sutton become embroiled in a genuine conspiracy that centers on Fletcher's mysterious past, and it raises difficult questions

about the circumstances behind the murder of Sutton's father. I got to say, I was looking back at the summary, like the official summary of this movie, a little synopsis, and it was like, you know, Mel Gibson is a cab driver obsessed to conspiracy theory, except one of them is true. But that's not what happens in this movie. One of the conspiracy theories he's obsessed with isn't true. It just happens to be a person in conspiracy theory. Sorry, I just, that, that, it's like really misleading.

Yeah, that's like really misleading. And you kind of think that that's where the plot is going. And then it just totally takes a you, he's just, well, he's just fucked up. Anyway, we'll talk about it. But keep going. Conspiracy theory was a bit of a hit. It grossed, I think, like, $70 million domestically, $6 million internationally for a total of $137 million. dollars and it ended up displacing Air Force One at the box office the week came out.

The critical response, this was somewhat surprising to me, was mixed but not altogether negative with most reviewers basically just criticizing its script, right, and it's plotting, but ultimately being like, this is a perfectly fine movie to see on a Friday night, right? Like, it wasn't, they weren't like, this is trash. Just sort of like, yeah, this is generic and predictable and worth seeing. I think, I think this movie is very bad. Yeah. But the taglines for conspiracy theory were they knew too much, I guess.

What you know could kill you, I suppose. What if your most paranoid nightmares had just come true? Which to me sounds like a question that Jonathan Frakes would have asked on like Ripley's believe it or not. But what if you're most paranoid nightmares have come true? And then the last one, which is actually on the poster, Jerry Fletcher sees conspiracies everywhere. One has turned out to be true. Now his enemies won him dead,

and she's the only one he can trust. Now, you can find conspiracy theory to rent or purchase on Amazon Prime and Apple TV. And the film came out on August 8th, 1997. So let's check out from New York Times for that day. Oh, boy. The newspaper looks so different. It's such a different era. Lugar vows trouble for Helms if he blocks,

if he balks on hearing for Weld, threatens to introduce tobacco issues into diplomacy matter. Richard Lugar raised the stakes today in the battle over William F. Weld's nomination to be ambassador to Mexico, threatening to make trouble for Senator Jesse Helms' tobacco interests if Mr. Helms did not call a committee hearing and permit a vote on the nomination. It was the second time in a week that Mr. Lugar,

chairman of the agricultural committee and the second ranking republic on the foreign relations committee which mr helms heads criticized mr helms handling of the well nomination once again in our theme of when the senate mattered um like this is this is not exactly the senate um uh taking it to the executive in a way it is uh because mr because jesse helms is being a pain in the ass for uh you know an attempted uh appointment of of a of a Clinton administration person and a fight between two senators is front page news. Of course, Jesse Helms is one of the United States Senate's biggest pieces of shit of all time. All time.

That's saying a lot because the Senate has had some real gems like John C. Calhoun and Strom Thurmond. But Jesse Helms is really pretty nasty. He was kind of like a precursor of the rise of Reagan's new right. I mean, he was he was in Washington even before that. Just very ugly dude. No, I mean, I would very much put him as sort of almost a proto new right figure from his relationship, from his sort of like status as, you know, segregationist Democrat, he becomes a Republican to the fact that he is this node for kind of right wing. uh right wing white southerners in politics who he kind of gathers around um helms is uh infamous for in his 1990 re-election campaign but she almost lost to harvey gant who was

the first black mayor of charlotte um and in that election jesse helms runs this ad called the hands ad which is like one of the most sort of racist ad in modern American politics where it's just a pair of hands crumpling up like a job application or whatever and a voice server it's like you needed that job but they gave it to an unqualified minority yeah yeah um you know basically basically what the what the current administration is arguing about you know the anti-dei thing the same thing um Helms served until 2003 he was He was in office for a long time. He only died in 2008.

I wish he could have seen. I wish he could have lived to see Barack Obama win. Yeah, that would have been. That might have killed him. That would have been amazing. This breaking news, Barack Obama wins to become America's first African-American president. And in other news, Jesse Helms has died of a stroke. Yeah, but it wasn't to be.

It wasn't to be. No. Real quick on Bill Weld, one of the one of the, one of the. the, like, long-lost liberal Republicans. He was governor of Massachusetts after the caucus and served from 91 to 97. I believe he was then succeeded by Romney? No, there were two people between him. I mean, it's funny to look at, look at Massachusetts governors because, you know, famously liberal state, but well, then Paul Saluci, who resigned, apparently.

I don't know anything about him and his lieutenant governor took over Jane Swift and then Romney is elected in 2003 and really Massachusetts basically since the 80s Massachusetts has had three Democratic governors Dukakis, DeBal Patrick and the current governor Moira Healy but otherwise it's been Republicans

What else have we got? here. I mean, you know, this is such a boring mid-90s scientists find cause of brain, cause of death of brain cells, which I think includes movies like the one we just watched.

Landmark settlement and Hispanic housing biased suit. Yeah, you see, the world seems North East states pressuring EPA to move on smog. Now we don't really are not going to really have an EPA anymore.

And the Supreme Court has basically said that it's like unconstitutional for the EPA to, you know, do anything. I clean the air or wine. Calling overseas may get cheaper. FCC moves to cut the rate. Yeah. I mean, like, it's just another world. It's not, this is not the most interesting cover of the New York Times that we've had, but it's, it's just like, just a completely different world. It's, it's bizarre.

And one, you know, that obviously. it's hard not to feel a little nostalgic for because everything is such a fucking disaster these days anyway I think that's enough for the New York Times this time I think it's enough as well so conspiracy theory John have you seen this movie before I did see this movie I think this is one

I don't think I saw this in theaters I think that my sisters and I rented this and watched it I remember kind of enjoying it as a kid but watching it this time It's just a terrible movie First of all This movie I started I texted you were like

This is terrible I'm sorry And I texted you less than I was like It's it it's a pastiche Of so many other films right So It begins where he's like A taxi driver Weirdo taxi driver

Person and then it It quickly moves into like Marathon Man No it it's like It's the clockwork orange in the torture scene, marathon man in the torture scene, you know, where he doesn't know why he's being tortured. And then it quickly moves into parallax view where he's like a secret brainwashed assassin. Like it's just a Manchorian candidate for that matter. It's all over the place.

It's taking a lot of other movies and cobbling them together, much like a conspiracy theory, takes a bunch of different narrative. narratives and cobbles them together. I remember, like, this was part, I mean, this could be a mismemory in just my distorted vision of this as a child, but, like, the 90s was a kind of breakthrough of conspiracy theory into mainstream culture because you had the kind of a malicious subculture. You had a lot of conspiracy theories about the Clintons. Clinton Kill List. Yeah. I mean, conspiracy theories have always been a part of American political culture and paranoia and so, so forth. So it's not really anything new. In the 90s, though, they were treated. There was a, I don't know, you want to call it like a conspiracy theory chic. There was something kind of funny or cool about indulging in a few conspiracy theories, especially if you were like kind of a Gen X slacker type to be like, oh, yeah, I believe this. It was a side of showing kind of like insoucients and a lack of, a certain lack of willingness to take authority seriously, but also.

unwillingness to do anything about it just like kind of the being like well i don't really slacker um ideology if you want to call it that of the world's fucked but i'm not going to do anything about it so like conspiracy theory speculation kind of um goes sort of melded into that subcultural thing and moved all over it and this movie yeah it's just a mix of different ideas and different stealing from older movies, you mentioned Rayman that we're supposed to earlier when we were discussing this. Mel Gibson's supposed to be this kind of

savant, perhaps neurodivergent. I don't know what you want to call him. If this movie were to come out today, people would be like, why is Mel Gibson playing an autistic conspiracy theorist? Right, right. And who has like, also,

yeah, back to the kind of taxi driver's part of it. He has a weird obsession with Julia Roberts who's this fed so it's garbage it's just garbage and the plot cannot be believed it's not interesting like some of the movies

that we watch are not great or like all right this is a pretty this movie is like not watchable like it's it's it's hard to get through yeah it's boring and hard to get through it's hard it's hard to get through I got to say I mean regular listeners

will know but I will happily watch all kinds of trash in fact at this moment you know when we're done recording this I might go finish the mechanic resurrection have you heard of that I don't know what that is for good reason that it sucks

yeah but it's entertaining enough and I just need something to watch this movie makes the saint a movie I know you don't like look like it was made by fucking I don't know Felini like yeah

that movie is purely good fun compared to this this movie's real crap and it and it's not it's crazy to me that I mean this happens in 1997 this was a hit again 97 was like a high watermark for really great American movies I mean look air force one which we recently talked about is not a great piece of world cinema but it's a very serviceable thriller that you want to watch the whole time this took me two sittings like that's how tedious it was and like that's crazy i should be able to finish a hollywood movie from the 90s in a single sitting it's not it's not an art movie that i you know

subtitles so so like this is this was a terrible terrible movie and and like one of the one of the truly shittiest ones we've watched that has like a high budget like some of the ones we've watched like you're like that that's kind of a b movie like especially in the early part of our podcast when like hollywood was still doing kind of like like low budge stuff like in this genre but this movie is like was definitely you know they put money into it had just big huge stars Mel Gibson was a huge star Julie Robbins is a huge star Patrick Stewart was a big actor uh and just crap and I okay here's my other thing I am like one of the most un when it comes to the consumption of art and appreciating it I will watch

anything. I maybe won't advertise that fact to everybody, but I guess I'm advertising to everybody who listens to our podcast. I will watch a Roman Polansky movie. I will watch a Woody Allen movie. I am a believer in separating the art from the artist. The only person, and maybe this is a little bit parochial for my own concerns, one person that I actually kind of struggle with is Mel Gibson, where I find him to be so gross. um because and maybe that's because it's his politics and not his misbehavior i don't know if that means because it's not just like i'm a shitty dude who did bad things because i'm like a weak human being but he's like no i believe this is the way the world should be you know like is sort

of um offensive to me so the mal gibson just grosses me out i can't stand him i he's a giant anti-semi and and uh i find his like him to be disingenuous and nasty and he he just i he's one of my least favorite people in hollywood and i am not a fanboy of of many hollywood actors i don't i see their flaws as human beings but as a filmmaker as an actor as a cultural figure one of my least favorite people and um i would say i can't even really enjoy watching Braveheart or the Patriot, which are kind of dumb guy, like fine movies. Like, Mel Gibson's, we'll be doing the Patriot on this, on this, on this, uh, on this podcast. Yeah.

Mal Gibson is just one of the people who I kind of draw the line at. And, and, and I don't know how you feel, but that's, I love Clint Eastwood as I know you do. And I don't give a shit about his bad politics. And even, I'm trying to think of who's the person with the worst politics who I like. the most i mean so like with with clint it's like i did i disagree with clint's politics but like they're he's he's just like an old libertarian guy and it's like i don't know i can't i don't get up in arms roll cleanies with politics you know it's just sort of like yeah he's he's he's an he's an old rich white guy was born in the god damn 1930s right and he's like

shrewd he's like a libertarian but he's actually quite introspective about himself in like his role and his image and like that's why his movies are interesting because he his are humanism about him and he's not like trying to make conservative art he's just like he's a conservative guy who happens to be an artist um Gibson though he really does have like beyond a pale politics like he is a vicious anti-Semite and reactionary Like, you know, who is an active participant in efforts to sort of like, you know, make these things part of our mainstream politics. Yeah. And is in stars in movies, you know, before, before he got Me Too'd, uh, S. Craig Zaller, um, uh, good director of a piece of shit.

Uh, S Craig Zoller basically was like pumping out these like MAGA adjut prop movies. Uh, uh, brawl and cell block 99. dragged across concrete even bone tomahawk all are sort of like steely white men up against you know subhuman racialized people right right right um and Gibson is like a Gibson's a happy participant in that stuff Vince Vaughn too which you know um real quick I want to just go through the plot of this movie real quick just because I didn't give it like a full treatment at the top So, we're introduced to Jerry Fletcher, a New York City tax driver.

We see him basically cornering every person in his cab with conspiracy theories. I should say right here just as some quick commentary. This move, so I mentioned that the fact that this is directed by Richard Donner explains a lot. Donner is, you know, a famous director, director of comedies. It's like a very strong comedic sensibility. directed the directed Superman 2

well directed Superman the movie and Superman 2 I think I have that right yeah directed Superman the movie screenplay by Mario Puzzo Superman the movie directed the Goonies directed to Scrooge so again this very strong comedic sensibility

you also directed lethal weapon which obviously one of Gibson's breakout roles. I'm trying to look at, look, he directed the toy, which is with, uh, Richard Pryor, um, just like, again, lots of stuff that has a lot of jokes. Um, and he brings that to this movie. There are a lot of jokes. And there's a bit of a comedic sensibility, especially the Gibson's performance. But there's a version of this movie.

for to remove all the comedy or attempts at comedy. And this is a terrifying paranoid thriller about an insane person. Yeah, exactly. Why is it? Oh, that's another genre mix. Why do they have all this comedic stuff in it? They're like, ha, ha, this goofy guy. Yeah, he's a stalker.

He's, he's, he's peeping on a woman in the part of the movie. And we're supposed to play. It's played as like a, as like almost heartwarming. It's like, no, this is really scary. Yeah, he's a, he's a, he's a, it's like an insane, you know, like, I don't know, there's, there's sometimes like, yeah, there's, there's all these movies where if you, if you change slight emphases, like you get a completely different message. Yeah, and this movie kind of like portrays behavior and, and beliefs that are totally wacko and is like, oh, this person is kind of charming and interesting. And it's like, no, this guy is a disturbed individual. In fact, you know, if I were, if I were a person with too much time in my hands, it would be easy enough just to like change the score. and change the editing.

Like an edit job and a score job and this movie is terrifying. It's like a horror movie. Yeah. Thriller about an insane stalker. Yeah. But anyway, so Jerry Fletcher is this is a conspiracy theory is

he is also fixated on Julie Roberts, Alice Sutton, whose father was a judge and he was killed by what she believes to be, or what her boss believes and what she thinks was an inmate who her father denied and appealed to. On one day, Jerry notices some men who he says or he thinks are CIA agents who kidnap him

and bring him into a place where they inject him with LSD and begin to demand to know what he has been saying about them. This is where Patrick Stewart makes his appearance as like the doctor doing the interrogation. Jerry has these hallucinations. He has these flashbacks. And then he escapes. He runs to Alice at the Justice Department for Alice Sudden and is arrested there and then take him to the hospital. When he's in the hospital where he's handcuffed and drugged, he begs Sutton to switch his chart with the person in the next bed, believing that the agents will come back and kill him if they see him. there. The next day, the criminal or the person, and everything is criminal, the bed next to him has died from a heart attack. And both the FBI and the CIA arrived to ID the body, believing it to be Jerry's. That's for his see Patrick Stewart again.

He says his name is Dr. Jonas and he's a psychiatrist. Jerry escapes in the hospital. You know, he finds Alice again. She realized she's being tailed by an agent, but she, kind of tells that guy to head off and he's very sympathetic to her so she so he does they uh return to jerry's apartment where he is like my conspiracy newsletter may have produced the interest in him alice in his apartment clocks very quickly but this is a lonely and paranoid guy um sees all these copies of catcher in the rye that he's never read um uh and basically she's like he's a crazy person

And at this point, the SWAT breaks, SWAT scene breaks in. Jerry kind of sets his home on fire. They live, they leave rather to a trap door. It's at this point, Alice, she's a mural of her riding a horse that Jerry has produced, which freaks her out. Justifiably, again, cast this movie a little differently. And it's very scary.

They were good at Alice's apartment where Jerry kind of accidentally reveals that he has been watching Alice and following her. and that he's basically in love with her and she kicks him out. He goes to a bookstore, um, uh, uh,

compulsively buys a copy of Catcher in the Rye. Uh, and then the CIA goes after him again. Allison's cooperating with the department, Justice Department and Dr. Jonas to find Jerry. Uh, she's a bit suspicious,

so she begins trying to figure out what's going on, begins calling each person on Jerry's mailing list. for a newsletter described with all but one have recently died and she goes to the one who hasn't died Harry Finch who turns out to be Dr. Jonas and here's, this is like maybe an hour

and 30 minutes into the movie and this is where we learn what is actually happening here. What's happened here is that Dr. Jonas helped develop the MK Ultra program brainwashing ordinary people to turn them into assassins. This isn't, we should

probably, after this, do a quick explanation of what M.K. Ultra actually was. But in the film, a program to brainwash ordinary people into assassins. The techniques were stolen by an unknown party, and he needs Jerry to identify them. Jonas also tells her that Jerry was an assassin who was contracted to kill her father. And this is what gets her to agree to trying to, you know, know, find him. I'm getting tedious. So she finds him at the stables where her horse was.

She confronts him. Jerry's like, hey, listen, you know, yes, I was programmed to kill your dad, but I didn't do it. I saw you, and I was like, oh, she's so beautiful. And so I didn't do it. And I tried to help him and save him and everything. And someone else was sent to kill him. The movie kind of reveals all sorts of assassins that have been kind of like brainwashed in this program.

In the end, there's a big gun battle. where between Jonas's forces and these FBI agents who are actually members of a secret of government agency that watches the other agency is Jerry is shot by Jonas

Alice kills Jonas in all of this Alice tells Jerry that she loves him and the movie comes to his conclusion where Alice believes that he is dead. Jerry, that is, and takes up horse riding again, kind of in his and her father's memory.

But in actuality, Jerry is alive. His death and burial have been faked by the secret agency. And he will, he says he will not contact her until the rest of Jonas' subjects were caught. And him and his agents drive away singing, can't take my eyes off of you. And that's when the movie ends. uh yeah why does it have to like it has like eight endings too it just never ended it's not even

that long of a movie but it's just like i'm like why is this not the ending why is this not the ending yeah yeah i gotta say just the whole i love you and the whole like love story is so weird he is stalking her yeah even with benign reasons it's weird he stalks her it is clearly not right in the head yeah yeah yeah yeah and it's like he's not right in the head it's not right for her to to be romantically interested in him either because he's fucking been turned into a zombie by the by the mk ultra program you know what i mean like neither like he's not encompassment this you know this is not yeah like no one's okay here no one can give consent here you know um okay so real quick on mk ultra

This is just in Wikipedia. In Project MK Ultra was a human experimentation program designed and undertaken by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency to develop procedures and identified drugs that could be used during interrogations to weaken individuals and forced confessions through brainwashing and psychological torture. It began in 1953. It was halted in 1973. The project used numerous methods to manipulate its subjects, mental states, and brain functions such as the covert administration of high. Doses of psychoactive drugs and other chemicals. Additionally, they use electroshocks, hypnosis, sensory, deprivation, isolation, verbal and sexual abuse and other forms of torture. It does really just seem like a torture program.

We've discussed this on this podcast before, but to me, M.K. Ultra is a great example of how the CIA did lots of stupid shit that didn't do anything. Yeah. I don't think that they came up with a mind. control system they just tortured and made a lot of people unhappy and like and ruined a lot of people's lives yeah right okay so this movie um as you as you mentioned uh john kind of it's very much part of the kind of mainstreaming of conspiracy theories and the movie goes through a bunch of them kind of like almost greatest hits of conspiracy theories um you know paranoia about fluoridation but the united nations new world order

black helicopters, fake moon landing, you know, Freemasons, all that stuff. And I mean, I sort of wonder what you think about about this. But to me, this is all, I mean, it's all very right wing coded, right? Sort of like the, we've done, we did a whole little thing on Waco. We did some stuff on Ruby Ridge. But kind of like the right wing militia movement, the kind of paranoia around that is all tied up in these conspiracy theories about basically sort of like secretive efforts to establish some sort of tyrannical you know one world government or one thing or the other and this movie seems so

plugged into it and it's sort of fitting in that way that like mel Gibson is the star because Gibson is himself a conspiracy theorist um yeah with one favorite conspiracy theory one a favorite. I mean, her conspiracy in a lot of ways. But what do you hunt? Yeah, I mean, look, that's true, especially today, conspiracy theories are extremely right-wing coded. But there was a tradition, if you want to call it that, in the U.S. of left-leaning conspiracy theories, which I think made the movie, you know, obviously you had a lot of this kind of I would say there's like a left populist tradition of conspiracy theory which is represented in suspicions about corporate power

about institutions like the CIA institutions like the NSA and have a roughly not Marxian but kind of you know oh well the government is some vast conspiracy of extremely rich and powerful people to do what they want, which is not exactly untrue, but like is a gross oversimplification and sometimes mystification of that. And that was accentuated certainly by the new left, right? So the new left and it's more intellectual side. I mean, you see this today. I mean, it's an interesting thing.

I was just having this conversation with some friends about, you know, some of the rhetoric coming out of the administration is like this critique of U.S. foreign policy, U.S.AID, stuff like that, as being, you know, the CIA or having nefarious purposes, that has a right-domain, a right-wing populist dimension and a left-wing populist dimension. Obviously right now, the right-wing populist stuff is what we hear the most about. But there's, like, two different traditions on the American left, I guess you could say. One is an anti-statist or, or anti-government one, anti-establishment one. And the other one is like, comes out of the New Deal, which is, well, you know, the federal government is actually the most progressive institution we have, maybe.

And a lot of these institutions are not so bad, especially if we can get minorities in them and, you know, make them kind of have liberal values. And obviously, conservatives got hip to that game pretty early. It's interesting, like, you know, the attack on the American federal government, which goes back at least to the New Deal era, and I think really before, that uses conspiracy theories, is basically like, you know, the federal government is this communistic, liberal, feminist Jewish plot to destroy. white Christian rule over the United States and that ideology is the ruling

ideology of the United States right now which is like oh we got to get rid of all these institutions because they're woke quote unquote right but this is just this is just McCarthyism over again or like it's the same business it's like you know or the John it's just the John Birch society

it's a it's a weird way of like all these things I mean our ways of like there are class cultural and political struggles in the U.S. that are kind of actually because we don't have great sociological

information and we have generally mystified ideas about American society and political economics in general that kind of get like conspiracy representations and conspiracy theory because it's just the easier way to think about it. But there is some kind of like

ongoing class struggle, not class struggle, but like, because there's, it cuts across class. There's something weird, and it used to be rural and urban, and now it's less that between, let's say, I don't know what do you want to call it. There's like the old bourgeoisie that was reactionary, and then there was like new corporate liberals who thought that the state should help modernize the world, and now this is kind of flipped in a weird way, where we, the liberal. are like this old gentry protecting a previous thing and then the new like the right wingers are now kind of techno modernist anyway all that's to say it's very confusing and it and and that's

why conspiracy theories often step in to simplify things um and i think it also they're also useful for demagogues obviously to simplify things but for people who feel extremely alienated from the institutions of representation in American society. So I think like, you know, like if you're not integrated into, you know, if you're part of so, if you're like part of USAID and you're inside of it, you may like the idea that it's some kind of weird conspiracy theory to you would seem preposterous because you just see the people who work there and you're like, these are normal people.

What the hell is going on? That being said, there's another side of that is like, well, when you're part of institution, you naturally kind of want to reject the critique of it because you're like, that's absurd. Of course. I'm not saying, you know, parts of the American government are above criticism or that, you know, everybody, like, just because nice people work, look, I would say that probably most of the people who work at the CIA and the FBI, if you met them, are, you know, pretty nice normal people you wouldn't mind having a barbecue with now does that mean everything that their institution does is good no of course not but like i think um yeah i think it's much easier to have a conspiratorial point of view when you're on the outside of these things and you don't see the members of it as individuals who are just like you um who are just in a certain institutional context. And there is a certain creativity.

There is a certain creativity involved in conspiracy theories, which, you know, they're imaginative constructions about the way the world works. And if you're not super well informed or you've had experiences in life that are alienating from institutions, their natural way of thinking about things. And we all, look, very sophisticated people, so quote unquote, lapse conspiratorial thinking, because conspiracies are real, like I would say, you know, conspiratorial thought is a part of political thought and it's even a legitimate one to the extent that to a certain extent all political deliberation is kind of a conspiracy, that happens behind closed doors is kind of a conspiracy, right? So, like, anything like, when the media is not there, what the, what the president is doing with his advisors is essentially conspiring, you know, like, so it's, it's, it's, both conspiracy theory and conspiracies are part of politics. Any deliberation you do with a group of people in private is without then going to the public and giving every detail of that deliberation is from a very capacious reading. a conspiracy. So do I think that the U.S. government right now is a conspiracy of right-wing

oligarchs to strip the government for parts in their own interests? Yes. So I've become much more conspiratorial. Now, when you lose power, you get very conspiratorial. I have become much more conspiratorial now. When my guys were in charge, I was like, oh, come on, don't be absurd. But now I'm willing to believe whatever you tell me, you know, they're doing mind control experiments on people. And it's partly because it's sort of true. I mean, like, it's not as dramatic and gothic, but that's sort of what politics is. I mean, it's powerful people in private, coming up with plans for your life that they may not be telling you everything about. And they may, in fact, have decided to intentionally mislead you because they think that's the only way to get

it done so like politics is a series of conspiracies now um it's also much more than that and the problem with conspiracy theories in my view is that it makes it makes people it deforms people's political consciousness is consciousness and makes them both makes them passive actually right and less yeah less apt to judge things correctly yeah i was i was going to say that it is worth making a distinction, right, between political plotting, kind of conspiracy, like lowercase C conspiracy, right? Sort of people engaged in behind doors, conversations, planning, plotting, that sort of thing. And conspiracy theories, which really are these metaphysical, yeah, right, these metaphysical, broke narratives, which all kind of, of center on the basic belief that nothing can be random, right?

Nothing can be chance. Nothing can be a function of just, you know, human societies doing the things of human societies do. But instead, everything that seems like a deviation from what you imagine the proper order of things to be is the direct result of not just. secret of elites doing something but like active and directed plots right um active so that's why i mean that's why i would i would distinguish between like doge is a lowercase c conspiracy right like a bunch of powerful people kind of behind closed doors secretively destroying the capacity of the federal

government to do anything i would distinguish that from the kinds of populist right, populist left conspiracies about US AID as sort of like, oh, well, there's no, there were no actual protest movements in 2020. It was just that this government-funded agency was, was, you know, spreading discontent, was trying to do a color revolution in the U.S. or whatever. And so the latter thing is both, again, sort of like someone pulling the strings, But also, I think the passivity is a really important point. There's a vision here in which no one has agency other than the secret of people, the ordinary people or even sort of like, you know, mid-level political leads. No one has any agency.

The protest movement, people weren't independently, you know, reacting to things that they experienced. It was all just a plot. If you go to the civil rights movement, you'll find similar kinds of. Yeah, it was the communists. Right. it was the communist it was like no one could possibly be exercising agency it must be under the control of someone else and to me it's a reflection right of just sort of of of people having a a rigid notion of how the world works and ought to work um and are unable to fit basically

contrary information into that i'd also say that like it's a it's a function of an of a difficulty with abstracting, right? I just, when you were speaking earlier, I went to my bookshelf and I grabbed Bernard Baylens, the ideological origin to the American Revolution, a very, very famous book. And he has in the middle section, it's called A Note on Conspiracy. As I've indicated at length in Chapter 3 and 4, the conviction on the part of the revolutionary leaders that they were faced with a deliberate conspiracy to destroy the balance of the Constitution and eliminate their freedom had deep and widespread roots,

roots elaborately embedded in Anglo-American political culture. And the rest of the chapters kind of discussing this. But one of the things that you can take away from that discussion is that part of why there was this, these deep roots of conspiratorial thinking is that the notion of social forces was really difficult for people to wrap their heads around, right? Like it wasn't, it was not intuitive or easy to grasp the idea that, in fact, people acting independently and autonomously in groups, like their actions, collectively produce certain conditions that make certain outcomes more likely than other outcomes.

No, what it has to be is the crown is actively plotting against us, right? And I think that dynamic is still very much in effect, right? Like the difficulty in perceiving social forces, the rejection of the idea of social forces in favor of, no, there are just, there are just discrete individuals. It's the Rockefeller's. It's the trilateral commission. Right. If we just got rid of these people, then everything would be okay, too. But the thing about that is, well, okay, true. I agree with that. But I definitely do have trouble. I mean, like, as in trying to analyze the politics of the present moment, you know, you talk about contingency and chance events and just the way the world doesn't, you know,

have a rational pattern. And the tendency of conspiracy theories is to over-rational. and see designs within everything, I have trouble and it's a difficulty in one that I think I do a decent job of getting through and analyzing the president administration where there are a lot of reasons to believe that it's highly chaotic, filled with incompetent people, led by a person who is, has notoriously hard time focusing, doesn't maybe have a very capacious understanding of the world. But then at the other hand, you know, there are definite ideological programs and beliefs that these people have in a way that the world works.

So it's very difficult to tell sometimes I'm like, are they doing this because they're dumb and like and they don't get it or are they doing this intentionally and this is part of a big plan? And I'm kind of team plans sometimes because of my study of the right where I'm like, that looks like the kind of thing that they would try to do. if they were going to get into power, you know, like maybe it's, maybe it's going to be a train wreck and, and they're, they're hitting the gas way too much. But I'm like, not like, I don't know. And I think that probably, but I don't know, it's look at this, this situation with Zelensky, right?

So it's hard to understand, to look at that and say, did they try to set this guy up and put the set piece together where they would try to humiliate him in public or are they really such fuck faces that they lost their temper on TV? You know, like, are they really, like, are they really, I believe, but I don't, I'm like, look, look, Trump is like a very incontinent person in terms of, I mean, I read about this, I read about this week. Yeah. Like, Trump's not a complicated guy. Yeah. But, like, I just don't understand.

Like, I'm like, well, yeah, but they have this ideological commitment to this anti-Ukrainian view. So I'm sure they went into this with some level of deliberation. On the other hand, like, if you watch the whole thing, it kind of. seems like things just go off the rail naturally and people did lose their temper and you're like so i i don't know i think it's probably a mixture of things but it's very difficult especially under unprecedented circumstances to interpret you know when you're facing somebody who appears mad you're always like are they just like freaking out or is this like a fucking is this a whole plan here you know like so i don't know i i think it's very difficult to judge in the current moment and it

makes me, I think it makes one tend towards one interpretation or the other, which is there's the, it's a big mess interpretation where it's just like, dude, these people are just like, it's a seat of their pants and they're improvising, they don't know what they're doing and they don't have that strong ideological, or is it like, is this all part of like basically a plan to destroy the United States? I mean, I think it can be both. It can be both there, right? Like, people can have grand designs.

They can have plans. They can have plots or whatever. But actually, actualizing those things is very difficult. And just as often, they're just like doing stuff, right? They're just like trying things. Right. And seeing what happens. I mean, this is, you know, the, what's his name?

Eric Routchway, story of a New Deal, will make this observation about FDR, right? that like the old sort of conventional wisdom is that like there wasn't really a new deal. FDR didn't really come in with any ideas. He at Roshway shows that that's wrong. Brezbole really did have a set of ideas that he wanted to pursue

but at the same time it's sort of like you're also experimenting you are you are also kind of improvising once you're in power. It's a combination of the two. That's why I mean that's sort of what the the kind of

conspiracy theories of the kind that we see in this film, part of why they don't work is because they kind of deny that latter part. It's all sort of rigid plots being executed perfectly in which there's no room for anyone to, no one makes mistakes, no one improvises, no one experiments. Of course, the movie undermines its own premise by having a conspiracy theory go wrong, you know, I guess. Right, right. Wait, I think the FDR thing, I think that's how conservatives view what they're doing now. They think they have the right in general. They think they have the right wing FDR who's going to like reconfigure American society and state in a right wing direction the way that FDR did to the left. But what FDR had was like a

massive mandate. And like so I think they're just like they're trying to do this high wire act of like, we have the once in a generation, once in a hundred years opportunity to change American society and state, but instead of like coming into office on like, you know, like huge blowouts, they like came in on this much. And I think it's like they're trying to do, they're trying to like do, it's like watching someone try to make it's a little like what's it called that movie The Room. or something like that it's like you're watching someone with like extremely grandiose ideas trying to make like a hot what needs an extremely high budget like on a very small budget

and it's like it's like you're like dude you cannot make this movie for this much money it's gonna look absurd and it's gonna be disaster that's sort of like what and they're like we're making this movie and they're like we're making this movie and you're like it looks like a joke but they're kind of making the movie like it just looks like a complete fiasco that's I guess the best metaphor. To bring it back to film, I think they're trying to make a big budget blockbuster off of a tiny budget and it looks like shit is my basic. I mean, that's what, that's what, this is one of something I've been kind of like losing

my mind about is how, you know, Trump will issue an executive order and it's reported as if he's passed a law, right? Right. Executive orders are basically just memos to the executive branch about how to implement existing law. They don't, you can't really create new things with their executive orders. And part of what is interesting about this administration so far is that they have no legislative program. Like they do want to have, they have FDR-sized ambitions.

But the thing about the first few months of the New Deal is that he was just like signing legislation and rough and right. Just sort of, you know, send them a bill. He signs it. But there's been no legislation, just these executive orders. They're trying to pump them up as if they are grand pieces of legislation. But that's not really the case. And that really does, that really does matter. I think you're right.

you know the actions of any kind of public like trump to the same that trump has a mandate for anything it's just to sort of like lower the price of groceries that's basically it and like make people feel like they're making more money um uh fDR genuinely had a mandate for kind of like broad change in american society right like i do think people do like the sound of the anti institutional anti systemic populist stuff but when it actually comes to fruition they might not like it that much. Everyone's like, I hate the government. You're like, you don't know what you're talking.

Like, I hate to be that liberal, but it's true. Like, everyone's like, I hate the government. You're like, no, that's not what you're mad about. You're mad about a lot of different other stuff. And like you're centering that on the government. You're probably more mad about your boss and your shitty job, honestly. Like, right. And the fact that it does, I will say this, though.

And now that we're coming to tax season, I will say as a taxpayer and I don't often identify that way because I think it's kind of fundamentally right wing. It does kind of suck to pay taxes and then be like, where is the fucking infrastructure? Like everything, you're like, I'm paying taxes and everything looks like crap. And like, I will say that's a little, in the, and in New York City that comes out in two different ways, which is just like, it's really, it looks, you know, sometimes this place looks like a total dump. But on the other hand, you know, there are nine million people here living in relatives.

peace and prosperity. So like, and there are many places in the world where this would be a complete meltdown of chaos. So I don't know. I do think people are going to miss it when it's gone. Because like, yeah, I think that's right. I just don't think people really understand what it is that the federal government even does. Like you wake up, you open up your phone, you check the weather and you're just like, well, obviously my phone gives me the weather. You're not aware that there's an agency of people who work for the United States federal government whose job it is. to like track the weather and then they provide that information free to you know whoever may be app that you use and it's like yeah that's like the answer to conspiracy theories

which is yeah there's like a big benign conspiracy going on all the time there are thousands of people working on your behalf to do things that you take for granted you're like they're like everyone's like they change the weather no they give i mean i'm just living out now but i'm like they they they they they they they give you what the weather is it's like there are they're in a way like people just have this total it's sad it's just like yeah you know like we've built a lot of institutions like there are a lot of institutions in the united states that are fucked and and serve people extremely badly and then there are a lot that are just like fairly benign and like and and have no moral dimension one way or the other like the fucking weather service it's just like

yeah like you know and then over the years like in the miracle that the Congress actually does something they put together this organization and it's just been working behind our backs without anybody thinking about it twice for like 50 fucking years or 75 fucking years and it just was a basic part of American life and now it's not going to be there and you're going to be like hey man like I thought we were supposed to have like this on demand you're like like, nope, not anymore. They don't do that anymore. We don't know what the weather is.

We just make it up. You know, like, it's very frustrating and sad. It's just like, you know, the United States government built something in the United States. It's really extraordinary. Not anybody's not a right winger's perfect dream, not a left winger's perfect dream, but like a pretty amazing country. Like a very rich place. a place where and now we just seems to be like

we're giving up on it for what? Yeah. I mean, you know, I think it's out of boredom basically. Yeah, you're just like, yeah. Yeah, that's,

I do think that's that's like that take. Yeah, yeah, I'm kind of, I'm kind of Fukuyama built all this. Just sort of like people that are so bored with prosperity. I mean, people are so bored with prosperity that they'll insist that sort of like,

yeah, Oh, yeah, I'm making more money than I ever had in my life, but economy is terrible, right? Like, that's, that's sort of where a lot of Americans are. I think there's a lot of just basic ignorance. Like, people take for granted that, for example, your grandparents get their social security payments on time without any trouble. You don't have to contact anyone. You don't have to bother anyone. Just sort of like, like clockwork, your parents or your grandparents get their social security.

checks. Like clock work, you know. Do you know how many people use Medicaid? Like, and expect it just to work? Like, for as much as there is dysfunction, a lot of stuff our government does just works. Yeah. And it's taken for granted. I think you're right that once it begins to deteriorate, people are going to miss it. Now, my fear is it'll start to deteriorate, and this will dovetail with the right-wing ideas about how government can't do anything. Oh, so Social Security isn't paying the checks on time, so, you know, this means we have to cut it, right? Well, that's a pretty neat trick that they, I mean, if they can pull that off, then game over. Like, if they can continually make everything bad that they're doing look like

actually it suggests that our programs need to be doubled down on, all right, you found you got some cheat code you win you know like that but i just don't think speaking of the contingency of the world i just don't think that that's possible i don't think that they can convince people that we're the ruling and they don't have the powers of mind control you know they don't they can't say like oh well uh it's all the the last administration's fault and um you know uh every time something bad happens uh we got the right answer for that like that's a tough one to do like if they fuck things seriously they're not going to be i don't no one as so long as there's free elections and somewhat of a free press i think that's a huge heavy lift to be like well this just proves

the theory of our case even more don't you yeah i i think it's a huge lift but i i wouldn't just under underestimate just the insane cynicism of so many people i don't know this is where i'm going to get into sort of like my my uh what i've been describing as like my uh social democratic George Will era, which is just like, like, cranking this about the extreme levels of cynicism about everything that does nothing but empower the worst actors among us. And so if you believe, you know, I've argued about this so much so much in the internet, if you believe that social security is just like a Ponzi scheme, then, yeah, that actually makes it easier for people who want to take the money away to do it. If you believe that

everyone he gets into politics is a liar who just wants to, like, line their own pockets, then it actually does, like, facilitate and assist those people who are liars. Yeah, yeah, it does. No, I'm totally with you there. Yeah. And to my mind, the cynicism is so pervasive. It's almost like, it's, I mean, to me, it reads as like a lack of, like, any kind of. virtue. You're abandoning any sense that you have like, you know, broader obligations

that you ought to try to improve things as best as you can. Yeah, it's like kind of like, oh, we just decided like we're not doing human civilization anymore. You know, like, we're just going to like, right. We just give up on like universal idea. Just grab what you can and fuck everybody else.

Like that's, I mean, who is that guy? Who was that, who was that, that, that, that pundit who was, who was, like, scolding someone for, like, their universalist ideas? Did you see that? Like all of them. No. Shadi, Shadi Hamid's, uh, partner in crime. Oh, Demir Marusich. Oh.

Yeah. Yeah. He was like, you shouldn't, like, this is the way the world is now and you shouldn't give a shit. Just be a cynic. And like, this is, this is, this is literally, not to say we're an exact. I mean, I'm often accused of using these analogies. too much. But like that whole idea that we're in like a new era and the old things don't apply was exactly what people said during the rise of Nazism, or when Hitler was winning

victories in Europe. They're like liberalism is done and socialism is done. This is just the way things are now and you've got to get used to it. This is the new Europe. And and it didn't, liberalism didn't look like it was in great shape at the time because everyone was like, well, that's a very old ideology. Socialism is from the 19th century. This seems to be the new thing. It's winning a lot. So anyway, that's all just to say.

That sort of like, get with the program. This is the new way of doing it. I have a lot of contempt for that. I mean, I believe that times have spirits or whatever. There's some kind of overarching meaning to historical eras. But I don't like that. Like, oh, bully weird, like zeitgeist. bullying, which is like, yeah, you got to get with the way you're, you don't want to be left

behind, you got to get with the way things are. It's like, no, why? Conservatives never did. Their whole thing was like, we're not getting with the program. Yeah. Um, it's just cowardice. Yeah. It's just sort of like, it's an, it's an unwillingness to stand by your own. Yeah. Principles. Values. Yeah. Um, it's, it's, it's, I think of people who, you know, if you're talking about the past, like, you can't judge people by the standards of our time. And it's like, well, First of all, we can judge people by the sentence of their time and they come up lacking. But second of all, I kind of think people who say that are basically saying, don't judge me according to the values of today.

Yeah. I don't want to be judged. And it's the same thing. If I'll get with the program, it's just sort of like, well, you know, I'm going to go along to get along with what I think is the new way of, the new way of doing things. and that that just strikes me as like basic cowardice also just sort of not smart on like a strategic level like if it turns out that it isn't a new wave right then sort of like things aren't going in a different direction or not the direction you think then congratulations you're like now out in the cold better to just sort of like stand by what you believe in or or you know better to cultivate actual beliefs better to decide to believe things and stand by those things rather than try to chase wherever you think the Zykeyes is going. But that's asking too much, I think, of a lot of people, among them,

America's commentary class and politicians. Yeah, yeah. And also, like, people just also, I mean, everybody writes the same fucking column. You know, you go, you like, I've seen. Well,sters, now we're going to gripe about our day jobs. Okay, all right, sorry. No, no, please. This is a main feed episode, I forgot, right?

So everyone's just like, they, like a term comes up and then, and then you got four or five columns right about the same goddamn thing, like this new, like their right wing wokeness. I've written, I've written like read or seen five columns on right wing wokeness, right wing wokeness. And it's just like, dude, once somebody gets there first, like, okay, maybe that's a clever way of looking at first column. Don't all six of you write about a column. And that's how things get turned into a thing, you know? they're like oh yeah and then people just start repeating and you're like well can you be specific

and you're like nope i don't need to be specific because i read it in the newspaper and it's like you know like that's just it's frustrating because it does a disservice to your readers it's like i know it's hard to write a column i know it's hard to do that and to make and to judge what's going on politically but like you have a duty you have a duty to pay attention and try to sort things out and not to rest on lazy cliches and make arguments and come up with so yeah yep i agree anyway we both we i think we both try to do that in our jobs anyway but that's neither here nor there as far as this podcast that's for that's as john alluded to that's for the patreon where we will definitely let loose on people we don't like yeah yeah yeah yeah we'll name names sign up on the for the

page around to hear me talk shit. I think we're going to try to wrap up on this episode. Conspiracy theory, my recommendation, don't watch this trash. Don't do it. It's not good. And Mel Gibson is uncomfortable to watch. So that's our show. If you're not a subscriber, please subscribe.

We're available on iTunes, Spotify, and Google Podcasts, and wherever else podcasts are found. If you do subscribe, please leave a rating and review. It helps people find the show. and you can reach out to us on social media if you want to. And then also reach out to us over email at unclear and present feedback at fastmail.com for this week in Feedback. We have an email from Daniel,

titled Air Force One Remake. I don't know how you did it, but I just saw a trailer for an Amazon Prime film where Viola Davis plays the U.S. president who was attending the G20 summit when terrorists take all the world leaders hostage to create deep bakes of all of them. Viola Davis' character is in a rock war event,

and so of course she has to take. on the terrorist a la Air Force One diehard style. Of course, this had to be in production before the election, so it was clearly meant to air during a Harris presidency. Anyway, just shock at how accurately your last episode predicted this. I think we did predict or posit a modern-day Air Force One with a black lady president. And so, yeah, I'm going to claim that one for us. I will probably watch this.

It seems like right up my alley. I can already visualize what it looks like. Overblown lighting, bad sets, but Viola Davis really giving a performance that is worth more than the movie itself. Thank you for the email, Daniel. Episodes of the main feed come out every two weeks, and so we will see you then. Okay, I want to pitch something to you. I meant to see you before the show, but I'll do it yet.

Now, so Gene Hackman just passed away. Great Gene Hackman. And I thought that we should do enemy of the state. I agree with you. Let's move it up. And I saw you also wanted to do the conversation for the Patreon. Let's do that. Let's move.

Let's skip that or move it down. Oh. Okay. Cool. Okay. All right. Sounds good. So we'll see it then with enemy

the state, the 98 conspirators of Biller, starting Will Smith and Gene Hackman just can honor of one of the great screen actors of all time. Yeah. And our next Patreon episode will be on Frankenheimer's The Year of the Gun, which is from 91,

but then the next Patreon episode will be the conversation. So there will be a Hackman double feature there. And speaking of the Patreon, you can sign up at patreon.com slash unclear pod for $5 a month you get two episodes on the films of the Cold War as well as I alluded to

occasionally us talking shit. Yeah. We're also putting a video episodes on a Patreon episode so you can see those as well and we're starting to put a video episode to the main feed which you can find on my own YouTube page for now which is just

Jay Bowie underscore NYT it's on YouTube. As always our producer is Connor Lynch and And our artwork is by Rachel Eck. For John Gans, I'm Jimal Bowie, and we will see you next time.