wellRED podcast - #2 - Sarah Smarsh

Episode Date: February 15, 2017

The boys sit down with Sarah Smarsh at her home in Austin, Texas.Sarah Smarsh is a journalist who writes about socioeconomic class. The daughter of a carpenter and a teenage mom, Sarah was raised as a fifth-generation wheat farmer in rural Kansas. She often writes against stereotypes about poverty and the white working class. Sarah has reported on politics and public policy for The Guardian, NewYorker.com, Harper's, and many other places. She's currently finishing a book on her upbringing among the American working poor, which will be published by Scribner Books. She lives in Kansas and Texas. Super fun hang! As always, check out wellREDcomedy.com for tour dates, and to order our book - The Liberal Redneck Manifesto: Draggin Dixie Outta The Dark. See y'all next week!

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So cancel your unwanted subscriptions and reach your financial goals faster with Rocket Money. Go to RocketMoney. dot com slash well read today that's rocket money.com slash well r e d rocket money.com slash well read and we thank them for sponsoring this episode of the podcast they're the what's up drew welcome everybody what's up buddy not much chilling wait on try as usual late as usual for our little intro to our second episode of the well red podcast can't even get it together for the second GD episode.

How do you feel about the first one? I think we've had a good response. We had a really good response. Obviously, there was technical, well, not technical difficulties, audio issues, but that's to, you know, it was funny to make as much people going, I don't know why. I don't know why we can't hear you. It sounds like y'all are in a big room. Are y'all in a big room?

Literally the first maybe five words out of our mouths was, well, we're driving in a goddamn car. Sorry, it doesn't sound good. Well, the other thing about that is, I don't know why. We can't hear you guys, because we're idiots. We're idiots. We're stupid. What do you expect?

Yeah, we're going to get better. But Trey's done his way here, and we will talk about, well, we'll talk about, I guess, a specific topic. I'll intro this a little bit. Later on, you're going to hear me and Trey interview Sarah Smar. Sherry is a writer. Trey's got her bio points, her most recent bio points, that she wanted him to hit, so I'll let him read there. I think he's here. He's knocking on the door.

Sarah's a writer. She's an author and a journalist, and we first got introduced to her. I want to say Patterson Hood shared an... article she wrote with Trey no Trace here It was Rob Thomas The producer and writer that I work with Not the matchback 20 front man

Yeah yeah A different Robert Thomas But a very awesome Rob Thomas So I was just starting to say that that's who You and I are going to be They'll be listening you and I interview later on What were the bow points she wanted Well first of all

Cory wasn't there because He's a drunken child I think it's pretty much what it's a man I'm in Texas. Austin. We're in Austin. Scott hammered. What we talked to her a lot about and what I want to circle back to now and us talk about is she made it a point in that article.

And we talked a lot about the white working class in America, how they did. A lot of them vote for Trump, but how it's so unfair for liberals to blame Trump on them when that was just a portion, you know, of his votes. All white people voted for Trump. I think the closest shitty white people But there's shitty white demographics is what I meant Right

Went majority for Trump The closest was 51% of white women Oh you're talking about like actual facts Like statistics and mess Yes Actually every category Every demographical category Even white women right

Like even women That was the closest one Right Educated woman was like 50 and a half Yeah Every demographic You couldn't break it down That I know of

I mean you might have been able To get real specific But generally speaking All white And generally she raised a good point how it's ironic that liberals are blaming poor white people when they're just one of many groups. The problems persist with liberals reaching out to poor white working class people. And also this is your fault.

Right. That's what, yeah, that's, I mean, that's the rub for all that shit is it's a lot of just like finger pointing or whatever. And I feel like the attitude a lot of times is like when you try to talk to them about reaching those people or whatever, the attitude is like, We don't need them Why would we try to reach them? They're awful. We don't want them on our side. I mean,

it's like, yeah, but there's a whole lot of them. And also, they're not awful, man. You know what I mean? Like, I mean, some of them are. Oh, without an doubt. Not in any greater numbers than any other demographic of people. Like, some of these people are fucking good-hearted people. Absolutely.

And I think that's. Our family members and shit. Well, and not all of them, to be fair, are fucking conservative. Right. You know? Like, I mean, there's a lot of. I mean, even out of the ones that are is what I'm saying. Sure, sure.

But I'm just saying just politically you could reach them because they're not hardline reds. You know, like a lot of people who went for Obama changed the Trump this time because, you know, they believe crazy shit on the internet. And Hillary, my friend James Myers, who I can't believe I'm shouting him out, he's the only Trump supporting comic that I think is funny that I know of. There might be another one out there. He's got a great bit, though, about why she lost. And he's just talking about how Trump just murders. in a stadium for an hour and a half. He's just up there 70 years old, just killing.

Yeah, Riffing. Like Metallica would be like, yeah, we let him open for us, but we couldn't follow his ass. All the crowd's already drunk, barefoot, and pregnant. I think he's on the lines. And he goes, and then you've got him up against, you know, he calls her a dead-tooth battle axe, which is, you know,

which I think goes too far in most rooms in New York. You know, it's his fucking joke, and he's hilarious. But then he says, and this is true, He says, if Hillary was in this room right now, we'd all be having a worse time. Politics aside, that's why she lost anyway. I mean, I feel that way about Trump, though, too, for the record. Now, a lot of Trump supporters, a lot of Trump supporters you could hit with in a room. Who would we be talking about this with?

Oh, it was me and Brian. It wasn't y'all. But Trump? My other friends. We were talking about the presidents that's alive. Who would you most want to hang out with? Trump came in sixth as president. But before being president, he moves way up on the list.

There's six presidents alive. Former, I mean, I think maybe if you're one of his boys, you'd like to go to one of his parties. Right. But I don't think I'm going to sit on a couch. Yeah, not over Clinton. Well, but also, like, I just think. He didn't move right to the top. I think he would suck interpersonally.

But, I mean, I'm sure. He doesn't know how to be interpersonal. Right. I know. So is that what y'all are saying? Or you've been like, go to a party that he's at? I'm sure he threw some bitch and ass party. Sure.

Basically partying with him. Yeah, like, it might be wild. You know, who knows what's going to happen. Without a doubt. But still. But still, we said, there was a little bit of rearranging at the top. You know, W. Clinton and Obama were top three for everybody in some order. And then it went, oftentimes Carter, because even though he's like Uber Christian and probably not like wanting the party.

Billy might be there. Exactly. Exactly. And then H.W. And then Trump. Yeah. Well, I like to actually go to one. You know, Jimmy Carter still preach a Sunday school.

Yeah, and people go. I will like that. Yeah, of course I go. BitterSouthern.com is an online magazine. We love. If you like us, you'll like them. They ran a story where somebody went. It was pretty recently.

They went and saw him preaching a lot. There's like a line. You got to like get the lottery if you're not a member of the church. I'm not surprised. And they said, what? Did they say ahead? Yeah, they said it's awesome. Yeah.

So you asked me earlier what Sarah's bio bullet points are. That's in a forthcoming email that I don't have yet, but we will have it and it will be, y'all will have seen it before you clicked on this, probably, because it will be in the text description. Also, I don't know what else you said about her, but I mean, basically. She was an author and a journalist that we had discovered her through that article, that great article she wrote for The Guardian about, you know, the U.S. working white class and how they were being blamed like they always are and how unfair that was.

And then I know she's working on a book about, she grew up in Kansas and worked as a journalist for a little while in Kansas after living in New York. Is that right? Yeah. And she's got a book. But she talks about the book on the episode. Before we, you know, go to her, I guess let's talk a little bit about current stuff. Did you tell her what, do you tell them what she said earlier when she texted me?

Have you covered that yet? No, no. I don't know if I should or not. I don't know, man. It's pretty damn, man. Yeah, it's funny, but I think it hit for her. It would hit for her. Okay.

Well, I'll double check. We'll cut this out later. We won't cut this out. I don't know how to do that. But so I, if you ever, if you're going to hear us probably say a lot, yeah, we'll have to cut that out. And it won't happen. So I texted her and said, hey, Sarah, just so, you know, we launched a podcast, your episode's going to be coming out on Wednesday. Let me know what you got going on, what you want us to plug in there or whatever.

Also, I hope everything's going good because we hadn't talked to her since then. And she said, yeah, I'll send you an email line all that up. You know, I'm super pumped about it. And, yeah, I'm doing pretty good. I just got out of the hospital. I'm doing better now. I just got out of the hospital. I was in there because I got bitten by an infected flea from a possum.

I got bitten by a flea off of an infected possum. And she's like, I know. That's like the trashiest country-ass shit you can think of. So her red cred qualifies. I said, God damn, my red creg can't hold up next to that shit. But so, yeah, she's had to tell legit. So I think y'all will dig her. They'll definitely dig her.

Yeah, she's something else. Well, did you guys see then, let's talking current stuff, North Korea has done a ballistic missile test fire. I mean, I feel like it's possible that the world is just going, look, it's almost over for America. Well, you know what's, you know what's, it's time to party. I think what's crazy, though, is that you just brought up North Korea, and things have been so crazy over here that just for a second ago, oh, yeah, I forgot they're also bat shit crazy. I hadn't thought about North Korea in forever.

Well, dude, I'll tell you, and y'all tell me how you feel about this, because I'm sure this is yet another one of my ignorant-ass beliefs that I have, but how I've kind of always felt about North Korea, and I've said this before, but, like, to me, North Korea is a lot like the Bible. It says all kinds of crazy shit. But, like, I just, I'm not worried about, like, look, what they do is fucked up and, like, it shouldn't be allowed to happen. It's horrible what they do to their own people and, like, it's not okay. But as far as, like, them is a threat, I could not be less worried about North Korea, man.

Well, I think it's more about who their allies are and what happens if the region over there, you know, gets, so Japan's freaking out. Yes. China ain't going to do shit. Who's going to buy all the fucking shit they make, man? Exactly. That's us. Don't about the hand to feed you. Japan's freaking out.

And you guys, I think you guys know, I think we've talked about it. Trump met with their prime minister recently. It was great. And pretended that he could understand, Japanese. He got shaking his hand and nod. And then what was the thing about the look at me? The dude, okay. So, like, the camera people were saying,

in Japanese, look at me, look at me, and Trump's looking at, he asked the prime minister who speaks both English and Japanese, he goes, what is he saying? And the prime minister goes, look at me. Trump took that literally as he was saying that as a command of him, and Trump just peered into his soul for like five minutes. It was like his tiny little hand death grip on him. And the Japanese prime minister is just sitting there like, oh my God, please let go of me, you disgusting fuck. It was cringe worthy Well anyway They gotta figure out what to do

About North Korea now If dude can figure out how to deal with Trump He makes people so uncomfortable Like Yeah I guarantee Of the list of things to talk about Obviously this is not really an important one But at the same time

Is it important Like when you meet with leaders of foreign governments To just not be a total fucking weirdo Yeah foreign diplomacy Of course it is It's pretty important And he fails on every I think that like, even if we like impeached him next week or whatever,

I still think it's going to damage our foreign relations for years because I think, and we're not going to be trustworthy at all for a while. Because I think all those countries, no matter what happens with him, they now know that we are capable of electing somebody like that. You know what I mean? Like that's never going away. They're like, well, we can't put too much trust in them motherfuckers. Look at what they did.

Right. You know what I mean? Who knows what they'll be? do next time. You know, like that shit ain't going away, I don't think. No matter what happens. Everybody who came to our show last night,

the All Met comic, he was talking about that and he was making the point, you know, you're at work or whatever. Like, your boss can be a complete shit show, you know, outside of work. Sure.

If you don't know about it, that doesn't matter. Right. If everyone there believes that he or she has their shit together, you know, works hard, is smart, and is going in the right direction, then you're like,

but as soon as that's just, that goes away, as soon as you no longer believe in that person, and he's like, that's America to the world. For better for worse, not saying it's good, just like, for better for worse, we're the leader of the world, and everyone's going, wait a minute, right? They don't have their shit together? Right, exactly.

And, I mean, I think a whole lot of them have suspected that for a long time, but now it's like, it's validated. I think they've known that, like, the whole freedom and glory for everybody, and it's like, yeah, well, you guys drop bombs on our neighbors. Yeah, that's a show. They've known that. but the fact that we put the show on. You know what I mean?

It's like, well, it's a hell of a show they're putting on over there. That's a good point. And now it's just like, it's a hell of a show they're putting on over there. That's a good point. It used to be like pro wrestling. It's like, well, it ain't real, but they got a lot of showman's shit. Well, that was literally like pro wrestling. Yeah, the example I was going to use, it's like, you know,

Gene Simmons is wacky of shit and Star Child and all them. But like once they hit the stage and the fucking lights go off, you know, Detroit Rock City hits, God damn it. But aside from that, like, yeah, you're at home, they're crumbling, I'm sure. But yeah, no, so we're kiss now. So that's great. Oh, Lord.

Well, don't hit, boys. How'd y'all feel after that, after we did old base seasoning exploratory surgery to our stomachs earlier? Buddy, I don't know about y'all. It ripped me up. I didn't take a semblance of a nap because I spent that entire time on the turlick. I did. You guys are wondering if anyone missed that? what we're talking about is eating seafood in Baltimore.

He's literally caked in old base. Oh, my God. I mean, it was good that I was just met the bar right before I came up here. He's lived in Baltimore for five years. I told him we went there and they were like, you know, you did good. That's a place to go. Sure, it was one of the places you should go here. So I think we made a good choice.

I mean, it was good as hell. Oh, it was great. I'm just about dead right now. What about us not knowing how to fuck to eat crabs? Yeah, yeah. We're just like, oh, I got a hammer. I got a crab. I'm going to smack the crab with a hammer.

And some Baltimore ladies sitting on table. And literally Drew did that, smacked the cram with the hammer. She's like, no, no, don't do that. Don't do that. Like you're on its belly, I should have hit it on his belly. Like you, like, you know, like it hurt her soul to see you do that. In defense of Drew, I had done it first, and the lady just hadn't seen it.

You did it the right way. I did? No, you didn't do it the right way. No, the hammer wasn't for the crabbed. The legs. You can just peel the right. crab apart, remember? Yeah, that don't

you pull its ass off. Pull its ass off. And then you grab it and you just pull it apart. And the woman said, the thing that she said not to eat in there was literally the only thing I had been eating. Don't eat it. Yeah.

That's the gills. You don't want to eat that. That's really gross. And that Corbinson or cheering out like the consistency of just ain't. I don't let's like that. Look, it's crushing. It's not supposed to be crunchy. What the fuck is that? We should try hard to make this. at least a semi-tradition that, you know, we talk about politics and our guests and our comedy,

but we also just, like, go into what we ate and help. Remember that from the L.C. Games, Todd's Taste of the Town? Yeah. Yeah, we'll do that. Well, you're very lucky that you have made because what had just happened was, you had left. What had happened was you had left, and I didn't want there to be any dead air, and we'd been talking about politics, I ain't good at that. So as soon as you got up and left, I go, oh, I left that crap.

That's literally all that was. I thought maybe for a second when I heard that that you were going to make some joke about Trump being at Mar-a-Lago still. That's just where he's hanging out. He's at the resort dealing with all this. He also looked like a cook crab. He looks like old bass season. He's just an old bay.

He's just an old bay. Oh, God. All right. Well, I believe we need to go ahead and get into the episode, boys, because we're about to have to head down to the club soon. This is coming out next Wednesday. Should we plug your thing? Wednesday we should plug yacht.

Jacksonville has. tickets left. Jacksonville has tickets left, guys, we think. Word. No, it. Come on, Jacksonville. Come on. Go on. I don't know that. Okay, I don't know that for a fact.

That's February 18th will be at Ponteville concert hall. Charleston is definitely sold out. So if you're in Jacksonville, there might be a ticket. If you get on there and there's not, guys, it's sold out before. And I want to say, I don't know about tickets or not for this because it's a little different, but I also am opening for the drive-by truckers on February 17th in Athens. That just hits and I like to say it. It does.

Can you say that? If you're in Georgia and come to me, I mean, I guess it's on the calendar. Coming up soon, I don't want to say the day because it might not be exactly right. But in late February, my episode of the WTF podcast with Mark Marion will be airing. I sat down with Mark in his garage in California, and that was a hell of an experience in a good time. So we'll be looking for that, y'all. It was awesome.

Also some low-ticket warnings, I guess, because we're going to. We've added second shows in some of these cities. March 10th, Salt Lake City, March 18th, Oklahoma City, March 31st, Oxford, Mississippi, May 2nd, Columbus, Ohio. Also, I don't know if you've heard, but we wrote a book. We sold Columbus out. We sold Columbus out. Well, you know, come hang out outside. We'll talk to the after the show.

We might have some books. Come to date. Because we did write a book. We wrote a book. So that's the liberal redneck manifesto. And the book has, correct me if I'm wrong here, Corey, because I know you stay up to date on it. it. On Amazon, it's got 4.7 out of five stars. 4.8 now, I believe.

4.8. And on Audible, it has 4.8 out of five stars. So the book hits. It does. It all ain't heard of. It's a thing. It's like to refer to as critically fucking acclaim. So the, was it, the audio book is us reading it. Yeah, it's a lot of fun. If you've enjoyed this, you will enjoy that. One funny thing about the audiobook, we mostly read our own chapters, but not entirely. And the only reason why I realize. halfway through the process, was that woman who directed us who was great,

she just didn't know whose chapter was what, and we just never told her. All of us were just like, I guess this is what was to do. That did happen. She just sort of split them up that way, and it wasn't our chapters. And we said, are we okay with that? And we pretty much were okay with it, with the exception of a couple of chapters. Like, for example, pill billies I wanted to do. So we switched that one with whatever.

But other than the ones that were important to us, we just let it be. Honestly, rolled with it. This is so stupid, because I'm. My interpretation, because in my mind is like, well, the only thing that switched was I read Redneck Reveory and Drew read my booze. I was like, they wanted me to read Redneck Reveory because my accent sounds the most ridiculous, and that makes sense. I really don't think she, I don't know how she went about it, but I'm an idiot. I honestly think it was kind of arbitrary. But, I mean, it worked out, though.

Well, it is. That's all I'm saying. You can go to well-read comedy.com to get that, or Amazon. A well-read is spelled, well, just like this podcast is. Yeah, if you can't figure that out. All right, y'all. You can't read a book. podcast, enjoy Sarah Smarsh, and come back next week.

We'll see y'all then. Well, well. Okay, so we're sitting here with Sarah Smarsh. Hey, Sarah, how you doing? Hey, I'm good, Trey. Thanks for having me. And Drew's here. Hello.

Hello, Drew. Corey is not. He's sleeping it off somewhere. But, you know, we'll have him. He'll be around on the next one. Maybe. I don't know. I don't know. Maybe we'll never see them again. I don't know what's going to happen.

But, so we are in Sarah's house. That's right. In Austin, Texas, where we had a show last night at Spider House, which is, that was one of the coolest places we've been, period. That was something else man. I think that's the cool of venue we've been to. It's a good joint. The place is wild. Yeah.

So, Sarah, you are very impressive. You're a very impressive person. Thanks, I like that intro. Yeah. You are to me, for sure, because I come, we come from similar backgrounds, I think, and Drew does to an extent. But you grew up in poverty, right, in Kansas, rural Kansas? Poverty, Kansas. Yeah.

Poverty was the county seat of Poverty County. And, you know, maybe you guys can appreciate this, but when I was growing up, I absolutely never would have applied that term to myself. Right, right. One of the things that struck me about Tray set last night was when you're talking about, you're kind of, I think he said like many epiphanies of when you got into other kind of cultural and economic spheres realizing like, oh shit, other people have all matching dishes. Yes. And so, you know, and I still, to be honest, I don't feel comfortable using that word because I didn't starve. Right, right.

And the way I was raised was to think, you know, it's kind of a cliche, but it's true, somebody's always worse off. And we felt, you know, I mean, we weren't like living in some kind of miserable, wretched situation. You know, we worked hard. It was a lot of manual labor. We didn't have much, but we had enough to live, and we laughed and had parties in our farmhouse, and it was kind of great in a lot of ways, you know. And you had a farmhouse. So would you say you were working class?

Yeah, I would say that. But I would say, you know, to the first question that an enormous part of this country would probably very readily use the term poverty about my upbringing. And so it's, you know, it's in my brain that word doesn't gel, but probably in relative terms it's right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. That's interesting to me because when I first saw statistics on those numbers like this is the poverty level. level and this is what working class is defined as and this is middle class.

And I realized I grew up working class, but where I'm from, we were middle class or higher. Because the area was so poor and dad worked for the railroad, which was a good job. Right. You got one of those quote unquote good jobs. Yeah. Yeah. So I had that too, but just on a different scale, I think. The rich kids in my school, there was like two legitimate rich kids.

one of them, their parents owned like a lake resort. We have a lake there. But the other one, though, their family won the lottery, right? Literally. And then other than that, the rich kids in my school, all that meant was their parents were still together and both of them had a job. Right. That was pretty much it. Right.

That was true. High on the hog, Drew. Yeah, and it wasn't, nobody called them rich, but they were, you know, they got money. Like, that was how people talked about it. And that's the kind of standard, like, where I grew up. But so I was sitting in my hotel room in New York last week. We were up there doing our serious radio show that we did. And Rob Thomas, who's a producer and a friend of mine, who's from Austin, actually,

and was at the show last night, too, he sent me in an email. He sent me a link to this article. It was like, you have to read this. And it was your article in The Guardian that was basically about, Poor people being scapegoated for causing the problems that the left, like what the left deems to be problems with the country right now, are blamed on rednecks or poor white people, white trash, hillbillies, whatever, you know. And you were saying that's not really fair because, you know, there's plenty of white people with money who support Trump out there. And I've been thinking that for a while. So as I'm reading through this article and you made so many really good points, like seriously,

me and Corey were sitting there in the hotel room and I would like by the end of it I had read out loud almost the whole thing because when I would get to something that I thought was great I would be like you got to listen to this dude and then I would read it and again I read him almost the whole thing out loud by the end of it I was like pumped up this is like 1.30 in the morning I was dead tired but by the end of that article I was like fired up I was ready to start a goddamn revolution thanks so I'll join it I loved it loved it and that's when I first reached out to you about doing this but you are you're a journalist and a writer you're from rural Kansas you graduated from Kansas and then Columbia right that's right yeah and you got you have a book coming out or is it out already into the red is that what it's called it's called in the red which is funny because I and I have had that going for a while I'm finishing it it'll come out probably in early 2018 then I saw the name of your guys' tour doing a kind of similar play on that term that is just kind of a signifier for a kind of stereotype that it seems like we're all kind of working against in our different genres.

For sure, yeah, exactly. That's why, you know, that's why what you do struck me like it did. But another thing that I noticed, I was looking on your website, and one thing that's fascinating to me about you is you may. moved to New York to, I'm assuming to go to Columbia. That's right. And then you lived there for a little bit after that and working as a writer and cutting your teeth and all that stuff.

But then at one point, eventually in your mid-20s, you decided to move back to Kansas because you wanted to, you wanted to make sure somebody was talking about what was going on where you're from, right? Is that pretty accurate? Yeah. Yeah. So it was about, well, I finished grad school in New York in 05. and, you know, that was when I'd already been working as a journalist for a few years,

and I, but it was before the digital moment had like completely subsumed print journalism. But so I, the reason that relates to your question is because now I feel like journalists and writers and people in the communication realms being in, you know, dispersed throughout the country rather than just kind of settling into these urban centers on the coast is crucial because of, for, because digital media has given us, for one thing, an opportunity to decentralize those kind of hubs of power. You know, we're sitting here in Austin, Texas, recording this podcast that you're going to spread through a platform that can operate theoretically from anywhere in the world. So that's 2016.

In 2005, it wasn't quite that kind of world yet, but I just had a general sense. I think from just a deep place inside that seeing the cultural divide and truly reckoning with that for the first time as a young woman between the place that I came from and where I first, and where I was trained as a journalist and first started writing, and then into the kind of media centers of New York, seeing the distinction in not just the approach to coverage and reporting, but just the experiential awareness of the people at work is like, you know, I can either kind of fold into this world if it would have me and maybe that would come with economic boons and maybe it won't.

Or I can take my computer and pen and paper back to Kansas and not be part of the so-called brain drain or I don't like that term. suggest that people who don't leave don't have a brain. But that phenomenon is real that we're kind of encouraged to leave our native places. Right. And I just, I love my home and I wanted to speak for it from it rather than speak about it while I'm like going to some. Yeah, you said two things I'd like to dig in on there. One, you talked about the cultural divide.

Did you, like was it as soon as you got to New York? Was it in graduate school? We'll just talk about that. Well, so first, you know, like Trey said, I did my, I went to journalism school at KU. Right. But, and which was the only college I applied to. I mean, I was a straight-a student, and I did very well in high school. It's kind of like the prototypical overachieving small town cheerleader in every club.

Yeah, literally both. Yeah, when we met, we were like, oh, we're the same person. I knew. I could tell that. It's like, these are my soul brothers from Tennessee. Yes. But so, you know, so I thought, you know, well, first of all, you know, I'm the first person from my family to go to college. But then, so even that seemed like crazy aspirations. And then to me, the big decision was do I go to the ag school, K-State, or do I go to K-U, which is a kind of liberal. center, Lawrence, Kansas, that people where I'm from sometimes refer to as gay you.

And so, like, to me, the fact that I'd gone to KU is like a height of like cosmopolitan liberal shenanigans, you know what I mean? When you were there, did you experience that, like being from a small town? I did, to some extent, and I bet you guys can get that where sometimes when I tell folks who are like from New York, they're like, to them, KU is super country. And I'm like, no, you don't get it. Like, to me, that was fucking, like, fame and fortune, fancy time. So they, yeah, it's all relative.

But so I did, yeah. At KU, I was an economic minority. I was, you know, I didn't know just kind of the general terms that go with going to college. I didn't even understand what graduate school was as opposed to undergrad at school until I was like a senior and a professor encouraged me to apply. So, I mean, I did well while I was in college and I worked hard. So that's just to say that that was like step one of a kind of reckoning with my place in the socioeconomic scheme of America. Then I went to Columbia.

And it's like, you know, that's this ultimate bastion of, in some ways, far left politics simultaneously mixed in with ultimate privilege. Yeah. And so that was just kind of taking it to a whole new level where now it was not just a little bit of an economic divide, but it was a vast economic gulf between me and most of the folks that I knew. In addition to their, most of them never having stepped foot in Kansas and having some real curious ideas about what Kansas meant. Well, I was curious about that. Do you feel like you felt that divide more than them or vice versa? Well, I'm sure that I sensed it more in, yeah, as like a daily inundation where, you know, to, and, you know, I had great professors at Columbia and I made a lot of good friends.

I also had some people really overtly condescend to me and kind of challenge me in a sort of sly personal way, like in writing workshops. and, you know, I would say with the intention of insulting me, and that was, that was, no doubt, their problem, not mine. I mean, I felt confident in that space for whatever reason. I don't really identify. Well, we read the article. I think I know why you felt confident in that space. You belonged there. Well, I appreciate that.

I mean, I, you know, I wasn't like, you know, trembling like some, you know, crock, like, like, oh, I'm fish out of water, country. girl ride off the fucking wheat truck. But, even though that's kind of what it was, but... Was it kind of like you wanted them almost to do, or like you welcomed it? I've always, I've never been, you know, timid in that situation.

Like when, me and Drew both, I know, have huge chips on our shoulders about that exact thing. And I've always been like, you know, all right, motherfucker, let's do this. You know what I mean? Like, if you want, like, I almost want, when I meet people who I, even think are that way. I'm like, I'm sitting there saying, I wish a motherfucker would.

Like, intellectually, you know what I mean? Like, I almost kind of want that to happen because I've, you know, feel, I can helpably feel that mentality from people sometimes or they hear my accent or whatever. And it's like I just know what they're thinking. And I mean, I'll be honest. I'm probably wrong a lot of time. You know what I mean? Like I'm projecting on them and that's not fair.

But at the same time, there is a lot of that out there. And it, you know, it's just, it's something that as we've been on tour over the course of this year, that we've ran into quite a bit and more frequently, especially when we're outside the South, and especially when we're on either coast. And it's like, it's just really been on my mind, at least, more and more a lot lately, that whole dynamic of, like, you know, the way people look at the fly over states and all this. stuff, which is like, you know, 90% of the damn country. And it's like just the way they kind of, some of them, you know, look down their noses

at the whole thing. And it's, uh, that whole phenomenon is, you know, wild to me. And it because they don't realize it. A lot of them don't. Or that's what I'm finding. Like they don't, they don't realize how like condescending, ignorant and prejudice they're being. And those last two, that's two things they would never, ever be.

believe about themselves, that they could be ignorant or especially prejudice towards people, because those are traits that they ostensibly despise, right? But they have that exact same. They are guilty of exactly that when it comes to Middle America or poor white people or whatever, rednecks, however you want to put it, the South in general. I know Kansas is not the South, but... Well, according to them, it is. Right. They probably don't, they don't differentiate. No. And they don't realize all that. You know, they truly don't a lot of them. And it's just so fascinating to me and frustrating, too.

Yeah. Do you, one thing, and you touched on a little bit earlier that I wanted to ask you about or that I think is, you know, very interesting about your story is so you went there and then, like you said, you decided to come back. Me and him have talked a lot before about, you know, but it's our hometowns, our tiny little hometown specifically, usually we're talking about how bad things are there, whatever. And it's like, well, okay, but are you going to do anything about it? Am I going to do anything about it? No. So, because it's a thing where everybody from places like that, and to an

extent the entire south is a region, everybody from those places that's, you know, worth a damn, leaves as soon as they turn 18 or whatever, especially the really small towns. And then, you know, what's left behind. You know what I mean? Like it's the same, it's like a self-fulfilling prophecy or like an endless cycle with places like that. And of course things aren't going to get better, you know, when that's the case. So I've always really liked the idea of somebody going back home or just staying there or whatever, but like really working for where they're from, you know, and it seems like that's what you were doing. So, you know, if you want to talk about that a little bit. Yeah, I, you know, I think, well, for one thing, I want to say my having done that, the kind of go-back-home story,

which you can do, it turns out, I don't see that as any kind of like sacrifice. You know what I mean? Like, I feel best there, and I feel at home, and I love my family and community, and I feel like I can do both. I also have a great community of good friends and colleagues in New York and other places that are more like, you know, hubs of my industry. But so that said, it's not some kind of like sacrifice on my part. But I do also, I want to kind of invoke the idea of civic duty

in the way that we think about where we put our asses in this country, you know. So it's like if, you know, when you're saying before this idea that folks who are worth a damn, leave and I know what you mean by that is probably like worth a damn in the eyes of the economy or in terms of like who you know somehow ended up whether through hard work or whatever got getting a higher education that allowed for different opportunities and a kind of moving to an urban center that's that where there are jobs and theoretically more culture and so on um so to me, you know, Kansas's history as a state is something that I feel very, you know, closely identified with. It's like it declared as a free state at this really pivotal moment in a civil war.

And that had a lot to do with, like, you know, there were some real progressive farmers there. And it was like this kind of like firebrand, independent folks out on the prairie. I want to say, like, indigenous peoples were losing out horribly at that. moment and that's not to be whitewashed. But in terms of the history of the United States, that moment in Kansas had also a lot to do with the fact that abolitionists from Massachusetts were seeing that this spot is going to, this, whether Kansas declares as a free state or not, is going to be this, have a huge impact on the fate of the nation. Why do you feel that with?

What do you mean? Why was that the case? That's very interesting to me. Well, so Kansas butts up right against Missouri, of course, and Missouri was a slave state. And so in terms of Civil War history, there was, the nation's eyes

were on Kansas in terms of when it declared statehood, whether it would be free or slave. And so these abolitionists move from Massachusetts to kind of like inject the place with that with those sorts of politics.

And so that's something, that's kind of like a piece of the country's history that has always made me cognizant of the fact that where we place our physical bodies has an impact on the political fabric of a place. And so I think that they're really, all of these so-called red states, of course, have liberal people in them. and you all know that well. But until those of us who have the economic opportunities to go to supposedly more desirable places, say, no, I'm going to stay put and I'm going to be like a loud liberal thorn in the right side,

then like you said, it's just going to be a circle that keeps spinning. Yeah, that's the whole thing with what, you know, I'm trying to do, with like the videos and our comedy and stuff is, we think, in our opinion, a lot of the reason why people in other places view the South and all the other red states, so Kansas included, as being just,

you know, these hick dystopias or whatever, where there's no intellectualism at all. That's his sweet band name, though. Yeah, hit dystopia. And part of that reason is because even though the ratio of like red to blue in any given red state is like you know

58 42 55 45 45 whatever even though that's the case the majority is the red side they are very loud and the people on the other side typically uh in those places are very quiet like we have people come up to us in our shows in the south all the time that say like they feel like they're living in the closet they're like causated liberals or whatever, where they're causing progressives. And that is a huge reason why people don't know that we exist. Like people in San Francisco will tell us, like, you guys are like unicorns. And we're like, no, we're not.

We're really not. That's right. You know, and they don't realize it. And that's part of the reason why is because the other side in those parts of the country historically has been so quiet. So to be very loud like I am or try to be. and also very aggressively, like, you know, in their face about it, I think is important to show those people like, look, you know, you don't speak for all of us. You know what I mean? And also, I don't know how it is in Kansas, but in Tennessee, those people on the right, they are so used to that being the case that, like, you know, they'll just talk openly and loudly about what they think as though they assume everyone there around them agrees with everything they're saying.

And then you do a side-eyed of Drew. Right. Well, I tend to go in on them. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Sort of my thing. And that's what I'm saying. It's important, I think, that those of us in those areas, whether it's Thanksgiving dinner or whatever, to start, if you don't already, to start doing that. When they do that, be like, you know, hold on a second.

You know what I mean? And don't just let them do it and just sit there like, oh, this is uncomfortable. But actually tell them, like, you know, I think you're way off base. with that in a nice way. You don't want to ruin the whole damn dinner for everybody. Sure. But, you know, I think that's important to do. I think that'll make a big difference if people where we're from actually take that approach to it.

I've spent a lot of time thinking about liberal elites judging where I'm from or whatever. Like when I went to law school and I experienced some of the stuff you've talked about. And then I spent a lot of time thinking about the people that are the reason they do that, the loud sort of obnoxious. the Supreme Court head Supreme Court Justice of Alabama who just refuses to acknowledge that gay marriage is now legal. People like that. And I've spent so much time thinking about that type of person

and then the type of person in New York who sees that and thinks, well, I mean, that's how Alabama is, it's always going to be that way. And I haven't spent enough time thinking about, and that's a lot of what this tour's about, and the book we wrote, is us. That third group of people who we have, I think, some sort of responsibility

to both speak truth to this Alabama, you know, if you're living in Alabama and you know that that's bullshit, say that it's bullshit, go vote, be loud, and be loud so that people in New York or wherever else will notice that. Not that it matters what they think, but we are responsible in a lot of ways for what they think. Yeah. And I do think it matters what they think in, not necessarily on a personal level, but in terms of the power that a media center holds in spreading images and ideas about, because as you guys know, then, you know, then it's like this weird,

twisted deal where then the misrepresented population, let's say like a rural white farmer in Kansas, he knows who he is, but then if the images sent to New York about his community are all twisted up, like it can

even get into his head in a negative way. You know what I mean? Like to buy into the prejudice about your own culture or like go to Walmart and buy a shirt that disparages your own people that's maybe on one level to like reclaim a term, but it's also on a level that is potentially devaluing yourself. I mean, it's crazy.

But I think that, shoot, I just lost my train of thought. You, what were you just talking about? I was talking about our responsibility. I grew up, in my younger days, I threw a lot of blame. Yeah. These people are being loud. and ignorant and their white things are the way they are. And these people are being ignorant and judging the South

and their wise things are the way they are without saying, when I was younger, without turning it on myself and saying, well, what am I doing to change both of their lives? And you were talking about, you said media, you said it actually does matter what they think, maybe not on a personal level, but as far as being a media center, that's how you started that. Yeah, yeah. So let me

edit my goofy moment out. But, but I think that one thing that you guys are doing that's so powerful in that way in terms of shifting representation of an area or geographic region or so-called type of people, is that you are integrating your liberal politics into a kind of irreverent comedy and also your native, the colloquialisms of your language and your accents

all melded together at once. I mean, I initially thought I was going to go into broadcasting, and part of journalism school is like learning to make your voice as like... Neutral as neutral as possible. And I don't know, you know, I can't hear the way that I speak as, you know, I don't know how it strikes to the people as whether it has an accent or not, but I know that at some point I, in fairly recent years, was like, you know, I can speak this kind of like, you know, learned academic-ish language.

And while also, like, wearing what I grew up, wearing or speaking in a way that is my native accent or voice, you know what I mean? I think that you guys doing that must be blowing people's minds because, you know, when I lived in New York, it was less, yeah, sometimes people were directly contemptuous to me. but more often they just look at me like he said like I was a unicorn. Right. So you must be incredibly exceptional. What they mean is that they can tell I have a brain in my head. And I also am from this. Kansas. And so like how do you swear that?

It just like blows open, has to blow open these kind of prejudice schemas. I think is probably what you guys are doing. Yeah, I've always felt like even before I've been doing. did comedy or anything, but especially once I started doing that or whatever, I've never once even considered trying to get rid of my accent. And people would tell me at times in comedy, but also before, it's like, you know, you need to do something about that accent. And I've always been like, no, I'm not doing that. Good for you. Because that's, that is part of the problem with why people, that's why the stereotypes exist about my accent.

Is that why you refused at first? Like at 19, were you like that forward thinking about it? like I'm not going to get rid of my accent because this is why these stereotypes exist? I don't know that I was like, I don't know how much I had a grasp on that. All I know is I was like, I'm not getting rid of my accent, no matter what. Because I want, they need, because that's the thing I've ran into so much with the videos. And it's like you were saying, blowing people's minds, people on the coast or whatever, you know, the liberal elites, whatever. God bless him.

They want to like, they want to like, they try to rationalize my whole thing. And what they normally do is try to, they'll be like, okay, well, you're from the South, but you know, you're not really a redneck though, right? Like, because you can't be. To them, like, you can't be a redneck and agree with me. Right. I don't agree with rednecks about things. Like, that's how they feel about it.

So they try to, like, to turn me into. something else. Like, well, you know, you're not really a redneck. You're just, you know, maybe you're a good old boy or whatever. Like, I get shit like that. And, and that's the whole thing with me. It's like, no, God damn it. I'm a poor white trash redneck from the middle of nowhere in Tennessee. I am also educated and liberal and non-religious and all this shit that you are. And it's like, and if you can't reconcile that, then that's your fucking problem, not mine, you know, Like, because I don't want to, that's another problem in my opinion with the South. And you see it in comedy and everything, though, is that people, like, go out of their way to lose their accents because they know that they know what people will think of them.

Sure. And it's like, but it's important, in my opinion, to not do that because, you know, that's what leads. It's just, you know, it just validates what they already think. This may be a can of worms, but I think it's true. we talked about how we are treated as if we are exceptional, but by definition, everyone in this room is. Yeah, me and you've talked about that. That word has value attached to it in our society, like, oh, exceptional means you're better. Right.

And without saying that, just by rule, I am the exception. In terms of odds. And being in my hometown and et cetera, et cetera. Yes. But in terms of my beliefs or the way I feel about the world, I'm not. not exceptional. It's like, well, you're liberal. That's exceptional. It's like, no, there's a lot of liberals in the United States. It's like, well, where you're from, and then that's through the prejudice. So what you're saying to me is, because of where I'm from, it's unlikely that I would have this

view of this issue or that issue. That's the most prejudiced thing and the hardest thing for me to fight because on paper, they make sense. I don't know. I said it'd be a can of worms. I really don't know what to do about that. There's probably nothing to be done about that. But I think about it a lot. Yeah. About people saying, they want to say to us, you're exceptional. And I don't have a counter argument because by definition I am, just statistically. But I want to say to them, you feeling like I have somehow risen above something and to agree with you, what you're saying is people who believe like me are better. Right. And so you're exceptional by coming from that shitty place you come from and somehow getting to my level.

Yes. Right. Exactly. Yeah. It's a very self-aggrandizing criticism or reflection. But I would say two things. One is that, you know, if you are exceptional if we're looking at the country as a red and blue map. But, you know, as Trace pointed out, if, you know, 40-something percent of Californians are going to vote.

for Trump and 40-something percent of people in Arkansas or whatever are going to vote for Clinton, then, you know, that's not nothing. That's a minority in the electoral college that colors a state all one color. But, you know, there are, like you guys have said, a whole bunch of maybe too quiet liberal-minded people everywhere. So that would be one thing is that I don't know how exceptional we are statistically because the way that the way that the political race is framed is so misleading potentially. The other thing is that, you know, let's say that you are exceptional politically. Let's just use that as an assumption and go from there then in terms of your place, then, you know, one way I like to challenge people who see

their political view is kind of indicative of superiority of. of character is that, you know, look, most people I know who are liberal in kind of so-called blue centers were born to those politics, just like most of my friends who are on the other side were born to theirs. So I don't think that's a coincidence. You know, I think that like we're all products of our culture and our place and our information sources crucially. And, you know, I don't, I, like I say in my essay for The Guardian, like if you were raised liberal and to have progressive values and this and that and Fox News wasn't on in your house, then I don't know that you get to give yourself any paths back. Yeah, right, right.

And I just meant exceptional in the sense of the redneck mixed with, you know, the liberal thing. Yes. But they want to assign value to it because it elevates them and it elevates their own, you know, view of their self. I'm very curious, not just in the sense of like, hey, we're interviewing you. let's ask you about your book. I really want to know what it's about. Oh, man. I'm happy to tell you.

Thanks. Believe it or not, I mean, I think of this book is kind of like my life's working in a way, even though I'm only 36, hopefully I still got some more something left in me. But I've known ever since I was probably like, you know, eight years old, I had this conversation with my grandma. She's like driving her beat her Toyota, her smoke hanging out the window. and down a dirt road. And I was like, I'm going to write a book about you someday.

And she actually is the one that told me this memory. And she goes, I said, what did you say? Or did you believe me? And she said, yes, I believed you. Like one of the really cool things about my family that might resonate for you guys, even though they had like so many decks stacked against them and they weren't always able to do right by me in a lot of ways, they mostly just kind of like stayed out of my way and thought, you know, like they never,

I know folks from like more well-to-do families that had all these expectations placed on them or it was like these high pressure stakes or you ought to go into this or you ought to go to this college. My family was just like, I don't know, this kid seems to have some things for it. I was just like, let her. You're killing it by the girl. Keep it up. Do your thing. So that's a long way of saying that my book is about my family.

and I've been working out for a long time. Some of the passages in it were actually written over 10 years ago. But now that I see the countries at this moment of finally reckoning with this idea of class that was sort of, you know, it was just like kind of invisible to me growing up. It was so this America, as you guys know, doesn't have much of a language for discussing these sorts of things. So I saw an opportunity to kind of fold that family story of my kind of, I was born in 1980. I like to say I was conceived under Carter and born under Reagan. And so my life trajectory is kind of like my family maps right up against the kind of downward mobility of working people.

Right. And so it's really like it's a family story, but it's attempting to comment pretty directly on. socioeconomic class in America. Awesome. Well, I look forward to that. I'm going to read the hell out of that. Coming from Kansas, specifically, I mean, you got, like, I guess the famous idea of states is, well, there are little labs and we can try different things.

Has it been going super well in your state lately? Is it looking to that, or is it more of a history looking back kind of thing? It's definitely, so you might be referring to our current unfortunate administration is, Sam Brownback has described his havoc raking on the Kansas economy with tax cuts as an experiment. And that's a cute word in his governor's mansion, I'm sure. But it has decimated a lot of people's lives in terms of health care and finance and public programs that used to help them and now are defunded. But so my book is really much, it's a bigger scope. So I kind of use Kansas as a microcosm, but I'm hoping to talk about the whole country as opposed to just the state.

I cannot wait. Let me ask you about something I thought of earlier. You talked about a little bit in your article in The Guardian that introduced us to you. So people ask us a lot. why do rednecks vote against their own economic self-interest like they do? And for years, I was always like, oh, well, because of Jesus. That's why it's because of Jesus. Because I have always attributed my own liberal redneckism to not having the Jesus part.

I didn't grow up in the church at all because my uncle's gay. And I found that out early and I left and all that stuff. And that's what I always thought it was. And I realize now that's way too simple and I'd like to think I would have turned out this way no matter what. But that's always kind of what I thought it was about. Like I've honestly, I've always looked at Jesus and Christianity, particularly the southern iteration of it as a very, very corrupting thing. And I know for a lot of people like Drew's parents, it's a very personal, you know, enriching and uplifting thing. But like to me, it's always been like, no, it's poisoning us.

how I've always looked at it. But recently, and especially very recently, over the course of the past year or so, I've started to realize or think, and this is what I want to ask both of you about, that like Jesus might have a little bit to do with that, with why they vote that way, but I'm starting to think now that it's less about Jesus and more about the left in general and the way people feel about them. Like the way that people where I'm from feel like they are treated or not treated or acknowledged at all by what the American left appears to be. Like from the way they look on their platforms and what the things they say and whatever they feel ignored completely.

Or when they are acknowledged at all, it's in a very condescending way. And I think like why would you expect them to do what you want? them to do politically or support the things you're saying with the way you treat them and where they live and where they're from. Of course they're going to be resentful of that. And, you know, I think that has a lot more to do with it. And liberals, a lot of them, they don't want to hear that, you know. And, you know, I don't think the current version of the American left, I don't think they care about poor white people. Like ostensibly liberals care about poor people. But I don't think they really care about poor white people, or if they do, they have a weird way of showing it.

And so, of course, those people are not going to support them and what they think, or they're going to go against them if for no other reason than just, hey, fuck you, man, kind of thing. I think that has a lot more to do with it. What do you think about that? Yeah, I think that if you could distill Trump support down to a couple words this year, it would be fuck you. And it clearly doesn't have a lick to do with Jesus if Donald Trump is in the mix. So I'm with you on that. I think that, you know, Kansas came out for Bernie Sanders in the primaries. And so I'm real cognizant of a kind of like, fuck you, populism on the left.

and that was a massive groundswell this year, but didn't, of course, get as much of a media platform as the other one. But I point that out to say that not, you know, not everybody is now, I think it's a very cynical act to say, like this system is so far in the shitter that I'm going to vote for this dude that I know is horrible. and I think that a lot of Trump supporters do.

As more of a middle finger to a plutocracy or an oligarchy that might be represented by the name Clinton in the White House again with recent memory of NAFTA and other senses of betrayal on the side of the white working class, that's a very cynical move. I know a lot of folks who came out for Sanders who are now, you know, like the WikiLeaks shit's coming out showing that we weren't being unduly paranoid with the sense that like the Democratic Party's machine was saying disparaging things about our progressive ideas and anti-establishment, anti-Wall Street movements. But we're still going to show up and vote

for Clinton because like the state of the union is at stake. Right. Yeah, yeah. So like, so there's that. So, so. So, So I don't want to make a sweeping statement about the whole white working class, but for those that are for Trump, I do think it's this middle finger. And I also think that it has a lot to do with really toxicly different, distinct information sources. And I'm always aware of that as a journalist. So there have been analyses done of showing like the average Republican voter, what does his or her Facebook feed look like versus mine or yours.

And, you know, we're all products of the messages that we receive. And I know that because I was raised, you know, I was raised, like, socially liberal, but I differently had a deep fiscal conservative streak that I would now see as against my own interests. And I wasn't dumb. Right. But I was basing my view on the information I had at hand. That's to say that a lot of these folks that are coming out for Trump have a lot of interesting ideas about Hillary Clinton's levels of corruption that seem to have a lot more to do with Fox News than with the truth. Right.

I think the second aspect of that for me, I agree with that, is the history of the South and rural states turning red, especially the South. I mean, famously, I don't remember the guy's name, someone told LBJ, you know, you just lost the South for the next 40 years because of the civil rights movement. I think at that time that was important. I don't think that's important now, but those people raised Republicans. Those people who said, well, we're not, the Democrats sold us out and fuck them, and they raised Republicans. So even if they stop saying we hate Democrats because they like black people, even if they came around on that, they were sort of dug in culturally at that point on being a Republican. And then I don't. I don't. I don't. I don't. I don't. I don't. I don't. I don't. I don't think that any of the people I know back home who are voting for Trump believe they're voting against their economic self-interest. I don't think they believe that when they voted for George Bush. Right. And I think they would be offended by that sentence because they bought into the notion that this system will work. Yeah. And the Republicans are going to get rid of a lot of the rules and a lot of the taxes. And I am going to rise to the top of that meritocracy. I don't think that's how the system under Republicans actually works. But to be

fair, I don't think what the Democrats claim, what we claim is the system how it works under us. I don't think it works that way either. Woo, that's right. It sure doesn't. And that's why it is a real bitter pill to swallow to show up and vote for, you know, for me, what I see as

an also objectionable Democratic Party. Of course I'm going to. But it can be a bitter pill for the same, you know, it's like there are no paragon of virtue in terms of public service.

But, you know, something that what you're just saying reminded me of, Drew, was that one aspect of my, the kind of conservative strains of my upbringing that I still, that I think has a lot of merit and that I still am proud to hold is what I would describe as a healthy distrust of government. So, like, I, you know, I'm a bleeding heart. liberal in a lot of ways in terms of policy, but I also, you know, it's like, let's not go so far down the leftist rabbit hole that we forget that the foundation of this country is built on breaking away from a monarchy. And so I think that that very understandable and admirable

strain of conservatism that makes a lot of sense to rural self-sufficient folks who feel like I never got shit from the supposed government system. And I don't fucking need it either. And I don't need it either. That's real and I can respect that. Where I think it has been perverted this year is then by going so far as to say, and therefore fuck government altogether. And this, you know, like bloviating orange dude who's born with a silver spoon up his ass

is going to like somehow be our way to ironically say, screw you to the system like that that's just like conservatism gone mad right it's he i don't want to i think he got lucky in a lot of ways but if he didn't he's really a genius sincerely trump's ability to subvert exactly what you're talking about and tap into that i think he got lucky i think he just is a heel from like wrestling and that's just what that you know movement needed or whatever yeah well i don't know we'll see what happens hopefully it uh you know well he's not going away no matter what the fuck happens. Not any time soon.

But anyway, you know, we hate to, but we got to wrap this up because I could sit here and keep talking about this shit for at least another hour or two. We know. Probably all day. But we got to get on the road, so we have to say goodbye now, Sarah. But this has been an absolute pleasure. Likewise. Thank you. Thank you so much for joining us here on our little podcast.

We appreciate it. Thanks for having me. I'm a big fan, and I matter what you guys are doing. Well, likewise. All right. We'll see you next time. Take care. Hey, Mark, remember, getting help from Progressive is so easy.

You can use the mobile app, chat with us online, or call us. And you pick now to tell me. I couldn't miss Little Grace's ballet recital. Thanks for inviting me, by the way. Did I? Because you know I'm always here for you. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I can use the mobile app if I need help.

Sorry, you're in my wife's seat, though. Oh, yeah, I got to go anyway. Tell Grace, she nailed her chaise. Get the help you need from Progressive with her mobile app online chat. or over the phone. Progressive casualty insurance company affiliates and other insurers.