Yannis Pappas Hour - The Woke Media with Batya Ungar-Sargon

Episode Date: November 18, 2021

Batya Ungar-Sargon is the author of the new book, Bad News: How Woke Media is Undermining Democracy. She is the deputy opinion editor of Newsweek. Before that, she was the opinion editor of the Forward, the largest Jewish media outlet in America. She has written for the New York Times, the Washington Post, Foreign Policy, Newsweek, the New York Review of Books Daily, and other publications. She has appeared numerous times on MSNBC, NBC, the Brian Lehrer Show, NPR, FOX and other media outlets. She holds a PhD from the University of California, Berkeley.Batya Ubers in to the LongDays studio, despite fearing for her life because it seemed like her driver was a Russian mafioso, to dissect wokeness and talk about her hit, new book, Bad News. She has been making a splash on all the news outlets talking about her premise and clips of this have been circulating twitter to millions. This well needed book gets behind what wokeness is really all about and how it has betrayed journalism’s roots and purpose. Yanni & Batya have tons of laughs and unpack some of parallels of wokeness in journalism and comedy. It’s an absolute watch or listen! Find out what’s really behind woke media and why. Enjoy your LongDay and stay woke!Buy her book on Amazon here: https://www.amazon.com/Bad-News-Media-Undermining-Democracy/dp/1641772069/ref=nodl_Yanni tour dates & tickets: https://www.yannispappascomedy.comJoin for weekly Bonus episodes: https://www.patreon.com/yannilongdaysLongDays is now officially going twice a week. Every Saturday & Thursday night. One weekly solo pod & a chat pod on Thursdays. Enjoy you hyenas!The show goes out every Saturday night & Thursdays to youtube and podcast audio platforms but while it's being recorded the show goes LIVE on Yannis' Instagram on Wednesdays.Come join in on the LONG DAY & Follow Yannis PappasInstagram - https://www.instagram.com/yannispappas/Twitter - https://twitter.com/yannispappas Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Down as poppers, yeah When you all talked up in the day been long And the news online going on and on What's lying wrong and there's something up Now here comes a great kid you know you can trust From the true who's who To the news and cameras To the fake politics

And the propaganda Yeah this kid's screwed in Got a lot to say Aw shit, it's about to be a long day It's a long day. It's a long day. What's up, everybody? Welcome to another episode of Long Days.

I am very excited to have a little chat episode today. We have a real journalist here. Not like me. Although my Twitter bio does say journalist and scientist, I have to admit I'm a liar. I'm a liar, and there's no consequences for it. My pronouns are not hee haw But That's what I put on my profile So it has to be right

We got an actual real journalist We put her in an Uber She thought she was going to get killed by the Russian mob on the way here And then she came and she used a bathroom that has no mirror But I gave her A nice glass of water De Blasio's finest I mean are you used to this level of green room treatment to just walk into the first apartment I ever bought?

I mean, would you ever think in this? You have to admit, before we start, because your book is incredible. Obviously, you got this clip going around that's gone viral. Um, is this not an indication doing this podcast today? What kind of crazy, uh, world we're living in where there are kind of are no rules that you took an Uber here. This is going out to a lot of people, believe it or not. And this is the scenery here. This is a real, this is media now.

I have to say, like, I really feel like I made it like sitting here, like just with you and knowing that anything could happen. Yes, anything could happen. Like I said, this is a comedian's podcast, so it starts wrong. So it can't go right. But I know when you were a little girl dreaming about being a journalist, you probably thought one day I'll be able to take an Uber to Bay Ridge and show up and go to a bathroom that the mirror fell out of.

And when you flush it, it reminded me of public school where you gotta hold it down with your foot. Anyway, our guests, I haven't even How rude of me! We're having too much fun already. My guest today is Batya Ungarasargun. My first question, has Star Wars ever approached

you and asked to use your name as a character in Star Wars? So, the best tweet I've ever read was somebody tweeted at somebody who was saying something about me and said, Batya Unger Sargon sounds like the last thing you hear before someone chops your head off with an axe. And I was like, he got it. He gets it. It does sound like you're gargling blood. I think it was more like, Batajra, you're so hard.

Yeah. That is the last thing they hear. The last thing you hear is, Ali Akbar. You hear Ali Akbar and they hear, Bajra, you're so hard. Your name does sound Dothraki. Yes. Yes. Now, let's get to the bottom of it.

What is your name? Ethnically speaking. Ethnically speaking. Ethnically speaking. Which is very important. I need to know before we start whether I am empowering. Who you can make fun of, right? Yeah, and who I'm empowering here. Okay?

If you're just a plain old, you know, Caucasian woman, I don't feel like I want to stop this interview now. Yeah, and I'd like to have someone come in and replace you because you're encroaching on a space that could be occupied by somebody who deserves it. I totally hear that. That's totally fair. Giannis is an interesting name as well. Yes. Are you related to Yanni?

Are those closely related names? Technically, I think we're related if you go back far enough because we're both Greek. But I don't think we're specifically related. I also have some Turk in me. Nice. Probably product of rape during the Ottoman Empire. That's nice.

Yeah, because my dad was from a little island called Imbros, which is now Turcus. And the Ottomans occupied Greece for 400 years. We were slaves to the Turks. So sometimes they get a little Islamophobic just because of our background. I'm like, wow, they conquered us for 400 years. And then I'm here and people are like, you can't. You can't be scared of Turks.

I'm like, yeah, but my grandfather was sent to Egypt because the local sultan there was raping young kids. True story. No kidding. True story, yeah. And he never saw his family again. So they sent him to Egypt. What? My grandfather.

Yeah, this was during the Ottoman era. What? Yeah, and there was some sultan there who had a, he had a taste. He had a, let's call it, he had a little bit of a Jared from Subway taste. Oh my God. Preference. Wait, and your granddad was sent to protect? To protect him.

Him? Because the sultan was kind of like, because the Greeks that lived on Inveros, it was Ottoman occupied, and so a lot of them were displaced, a lot of them were raped, a lot of them were oppressed, but the local I guess they call sultan, right? Or whatever envoy, you know,

the Pontius Pilate of that era whatever they do they run that area he liked to take little boys it was like oh my god it's a true story

my dad told me and so they sent him to Egypt to protect the pedophile to protect the kid to protect my grandfather because the Sultan

was the pedophile oh wow so his parents sent him away to Egypt oh and they never saw him again. This is like a biblical story. Yeah, it is a little biblical. Wait, so he just disappeared into Egypt?

He just went to Egypt at like nine or ten years old. Stayed with relatives. Lived in Egypt. Then he made his way to the United States and of course, you can guess what he did. Eventually as a Greek. Diner? Yes!

That is so stereotypical and racist of you! I can't believe I said that out loud. But yeah, I'm sorry. I'm so embarrassed. Yeah, because it's true. No, it's the passport for Greeks into America. That's how you do it. You know, that's why Greeks were very worried about Trump's wall.

Because they're like, if they build a wall, we're going to build an underground tunnel underneath that wall. Where Mexicans can traverse freely as, you know, no way they're taking our workers from us. So, yeah, my dad and my grandfather started as a busboy waiter. So your dad never met his grandparents? My dad, my grandfather, yeah, my dad never met his grandparents. Why? Because they lived in Imbros and that was it. They never went back.

Why? I don't know. I guess once they got here, they were just like, they never went back. My granduncle came and he joined my grandfather's older brother came and they opened up a restaurant. At one point, they had the biggest diner in New York City. and they opened up a restaurant. At one point, they had the biggest diner in New York City.

They had one in Red Hook where they used to get extorted by Albert Anastasia's brother, which my father described as not extortion back then. He's like, back then everything was cash. This will lead us to this book

because I believe, your book is called I Love This because if you don't know me that well. I've been talking about this shit for so much. The media, there's no consequences. They dox with impunity. They can write anything with impunity.

There's no consequence. They just go whoopsie. They put a retraction. Your reputation is ruined. And I'll give you an example of something that happened recently. But it's called Bad News, How Woke Media is Undermining Democracy. It's absolutely crushing it on Amazon

I went and it has like 10,000 reviews already you were on CNN being interviewed by I guess his name's Brian Laundrie I don't know his name he's a bald guy

and you gave this beautiful description that's kind of going viral on Twitter I saw that and I was like I just reached out and I was like I gotta get you

I gotta get you on but my point is to lead us to that is my dad you know context has gone everyone kind of thinks like a child now

where there's like good guys and bad guys it's like very cartoonish you know and people don't think like adults and I think that's because of the amenities of modernity

we have such a comfortable life right now that people are still living like children you know you go to the north and they're like call me they

and you're like okay I'll play that game I see only one of you but I'll play and then you go down south and you're like Hillary Clinton's go to the North and they're like, call me they. And you're like, okay, I'll play that game. I see only one of you, but I'll play. And then you go down South and you're like, Hillary Clinton's a salamander. You're like,

I like that game a little bit more. I'll play that game. Everyone's living in like a childlike game that they would create with their kids. And the example I was about to give

is my dad said, look, back then everything was in cash. The mafia was kind of fulfilling a void in the marketplace like you know in order for your restaurant not to get robbed constantly and stuff like that you hired like the you couldn't count on the police to just like show up you didn't have an you didn't call you didn't have a cell phone to call them right away so if a place knew that your restaurant was

albert anastasia's nobody else fucked with it it. And it wasn't seen so much as extortion as sort of a necessary expense to protect you in the kind of... You know, the mob should hire you to do their PR. It's not so bad. A shakedown. Really compelling.

Look, I mean, you know, when John Gotti was around, neighborhood was kind of... There was some pros. Obviously, it is extortionortion but you can tell how they were more necessary back then i wouldn't just put giuliani's not just the savior i mean it's like they became antiquated the mob a little bit right like you couldn't really just shake down but back then they were really needed wouldn't you say that which is what your book's really

about is that bad guys are good wouldn't you say that the... Which is what your book's really about, is that bad guys are good. Wouldn't you say that the difference between them providing a service that one was happy to pay for and them being like mobsters and extortionists would have to... You could only judge that like if you decided to stop paying. Right.

It's kind of... It's not really like a question of... You can't really say, hey, can we re-examine the contract? You were right. Technically, it's extortion with criminals Technically You couldn't just go hey Albert Anastasia You know what I hooked up with the Armenian mob

And they're giving me a better deal Can we re-examine this Can we talk to our lawyers about this contract Wait but let me ask you something But I'm just saying in that context Your dad didn't mind doing it My granddad kind of I was going to say, it's like a... Wait, but let me ask you something. But I'm just saying in that context, you can see how it flourishes more. Your dad didn't mind doing it. My granddad kind of, he saw it as a necessary evil.

Necessary evil is what I'm saying. Because they couldn't get the protection. Couldn't get the protection. So, I mean, it's not good. But you see that now with history and things like that. People going, Abraham Lincoln is bad. Because you look at some of the speeches against Douglass and he was trying to, he didn't want the expansion of slavery,

but he wasn't morally opposed. You're like, okay, you're living kind of in a fantasy. You're kind of judging something with today's context about that era's context. First of all, he's a politician. So let's just put the context of the era aside and let's just say he's trying to get elected. So he can't just go up there and john brown and be

like i'm gonna kill slave owners you know he has to kind of dance around like we read other stuff you know compromise yeah yeah read other stuff you're like oh he really was opposed i mean he yeah he didn't end slavery so it's like you know let me ask you this yes um so the my book is very much about well there's like a lot of history of American journalism. But then there's a lot of focus in the second half on like what happened recently, which I'm sure we'll get to. But do you remember when you first noticed like the woke culture starting to percolate, starting to take over? Like what was that like? What were the first times you

noticed it and what did you make of it and did you know immediately that it was crazy crap or did you like come to that over time you're asking the right person because as comedians we felt it initially because we travel just like we kind of knew trump was going to win because we travel and people were like laughing and we're going i'm'm telling you, man, you go around like he's more popular than you think. I started to feel it around 2012-ish, 11, 12-ish. And I actually had a character which is behind me named Marisa. That's it. My name is Marisa.

Take me to Westchester. She's a trans Latin woman. And it got extremely popular with Latins. And I would sell out and I would do her. And it got popular with gays and Latins and women. And the funny thing is, none of those things. So I'm an interesting person to ask because I kind of got grandfathered in. This came with next to no controversy.

Whereas if I did that today, I could be taken by AOC's human rights SS. They could come and get me and throw me in a re-education camp. But that character was beloved by the people. So it's almost like i'm bulletproof like if some you know like you would call elite uh woke person tried to wave their finger at me um wave their finger me wave their finger at me on behalf of the people that they would think would be offended there's actually like a 10 year history of proof that those people actually love that character because this was created in 2010 i noticed in 2012 i went to start working at Fusion, which was a network.

I had a show with two journalists. They were real journalists. And I was like the comedian. They just opened the cage. And I came out and I was like, oh, and, you know, I was the comedic relief. That's what I get hired to do. And Fusion was kind of a little woke-ish. So I started to notice that was the beginning of the media starting to push that a little bit. And then in comedy, that's when you started to feel it a little bit. Comedians started to turn on each other, call each other out for jokes, and started to notice that, oh, you can get a platform by pointing the finger at somebody else and trying to take away their platform.

So you see it as like a cynical, like climbing the ladder ploy? In part, in part, in part. I see it as, it's multifaceted in my opinion. What I see wokeness as is, I think the independent variable, the most important variable to it is the modernity. You know, we're coddled. We have phones.

Like, you know, it's the irony, like the freer you are, the more you complain because you are free to complain. That's the irony of it. You know, there's nobody complaining about the gender gap in China. I'll tell you that right now. So you're not allowed, right? So the gender pay gap. So we're coddled.

So we're living as children and stuff. And then the internet is also a factor where everything's documented. But the independent variable, the most important variable to me is we have a surplus of liberal arts majors who don't really have, like, you major in history, you major in English, you major in anthropology, you major in sociology, you come out, you don't want to work a real job, right? The internet's there to make your mark, to start your blog or your YouTube channel or whatever, but you don't have the talent per se as a comedian or a real journalist. You know, when I was growing up, journalists went in the field. Like I made a joke in my podcast. I was like, I don't want to hear anything from you unless I see

you in a vest that says press and you're risking your life. Now you have these journalists just like sitting there Googling stuff and like doing these fourth account you know lazy journalism because the internet provides it's like a library right there and there's no consequences for what they write nobody's really checking up on them and uh they also didn't adapt to the digital age whereas you know at the beginning maybe they should have did the subscription model at the beginning but they didn't they went with the ad model right so they started doing these click and of course fictionalized clicks i call my car crashes they've turned into car crashes where they get like everyone slows down to see a car crash you see the headline you're going like i gotta look at it and then i gotta click right so they can get their click-through

rate and so these are all factors but the independent factor to me is that we're getting our ass kicked by the east you know know, China's kicking our ass. They're all majoring in STEM. You know, if they make a mistake, they hit them over the hand with a ruler. You know, you can look at the immigrants coming and kicking our ass. I remember doing a show at Carnegie Mellon.

There was nobody that spoke English there. It was all South Asian and Asian. Culturally, we've become like the end of the Roman Empire. Lazy, content, consumers. We're just fat guys on the couch while watching football going, can you believe he just did that? You know, with Cheetos all over. And people are taking the easy, spoiled way out.

History major, you know, English major. Like the STEM, the science, the math, it's just going down. And so you have this surplus of just like uselessly educated liberal arts majors that created this market to give themselves a raison d'etre. It's almost like they created this reality in order so they can have a purpose. It's like, I am an activist. And you're like, how do you make your money? And you're like, how do you make your money? And you're like, uh... No, but the sad thing is, is that our economy works so well for people in knowledge industry jobs

and so badly for the working class. Like, that's the thing that's so upsetting about it. It's like, you're totally right. It's like, they've created an economy that works really, really well for them. So I talk a lot in the book about how journalists, like journalism used to be this working class trade. Just like you said, you were out in the field, you know, you made maybe a little bit more than your neighbor, the cop, you know, like you didn't live in these like extremely expensive cities, you know, like where only very, very liberal woke people live, where you're writing only for each other you know but like there was this like total status revolution over the course of the 20th century to where now journalists are in the top 10 percent and they only write for each other and to each other in this like bubble

but it's like they make so much money doing it and i think that's the thing that's like that's like so offensive about it is like they sit there in this bubble creating these new like ethical categories right ethical crimes in order to completely further silence the people who have lost at the economy that's rewarding them you know like all the people who are like downwardly mobile and like what used to be the middle class the working class like all these deaths of despair like you go on CNN every day and you'll find somebody sneering at like the very people who are committing suicide because there's no future in this country for them it's so so sick and that's what's so great about your book is because always follow the money underneath everything the quote by james carville is is very true it's the economy stupid

people want to survive they want simple things they want a job they want to survive. They want simple things. They want a job. They want to feed their families. And yeah, these, I saw it as a comedian. And it's, I saw it as a comedian happen, what you're saying. It's like the alt scene came around. It was called like the alt comedy scene. And it was like the early 2000s, around 2010, 11, 12, 13.

Now it's gone. But it was people who moved from the suburbs after they graduated college. They didn't go to the clubs. They created their own sort of comedy rooms in these gentrified neighborhoods. And like you were saying, it was very masturbatory. It was like a lot of people in the audience wanted to be comedians.

And they kind of performed and audience for each other. And it was the same neighborhoods where a lot of these comedy central execs lived. And then you'd go to these shows and like nothing was funny. They had this cadence and it was like, because you know, you have to have pain to be funny. You got to, you know, people who have a good life need comedy the least that's why miami is such a horrible market for comedy that is so smart what you just said no like that is so thank you deep thank you i'm serious like that i never thought of that before that is that why like our class is so humorless like yes they're privileged they're coddled oh my god they they

that's so skillless they're talentless they haven't suffered in a trade or a skill you know and those rooms that's so smart much like what you're saying those rooms kind of promoted that because it was they knew that they were giving themselves a raison d'etre. They were giving themselves a need. It was like, and if you came in and be funny, you came in and were funny. They were like, you're a racist. You're like, yeah, comedy is supposed to say, comedy is the inappropriate thing said with charisma. You know, it's like nobody got kicked out of class by saying the right thing. Going up and. Going up and going, hey, guys, racism's bad is not funny. Me going up and saying, hey, let me tell you why racism's good.

That could be funny, you know? That's what comedy is about, is taking something inappropriate and trying to get you to laugh, you know? So I've been a class clown my whole life. laugh, you know? So I've been a class clown my whole life. And I'll tell you, yeah, I was never, I was never, the teacher never said, you're so, you're such a good person. That's not why I was funny. It was because I said the wrong thing at the wrong time. And, you know, I did it with charisma. And so if you came into those spaces in those alt rooms that were, you'd go and you listen and it's like these speeches and people aren't really laughing. There's a lot of claps. And it was just like, it was soulless

because it was a bunch of privileged kids who came here who don't want to work real jobs, don't have any real skills, aren't really that funny, were pretty smart in school, middle class, suburban. And they were like, I'm not going to go work. First of all, there's no factory for me to work at.

I don't wanna work at the bank. I don't wanna do this. I wanna have, my parents are paying my rent for a while, so I'm gonna be a comedian. And that was their cadence too. You remember their cadence? I'm gonna be a comedian.

They had this like snarky, you just wanna smash their fucking face. You know, they had this smirky, snarky kind of cadence. And then they would always talk about diversity and preach and then you'd look

at the audience and be like, this looks like Madison Square Garden in the 30s. This looks like the Nazi rally. It is as white

as fucking white can be in here. And it was mostly white. And it was like if they tried to do that comedy in front of a working class black audience

or Hispanic audience or any immigrant audience or working class audience of middle American Caucasians, everyone would just look at them like, what the fuck are you talking about? That's not funny. It was very specific. So that, when you said that about journalists living in those neighborhoods and performing, they're writing for each other, that's exactly what happened in the comedy community. Man, that's depressing. In that era. Well, so, but it's over? It's over, man.

It's over? It's kind of over. So comedians are coming out of woke? They're kind of like... It's very interesting. Oh. So... Exciting.

Yeah. So there's a certain few that are like picked by the industry and pushed. And you have to be super woke. You have to be super woke and have some sort of story that they say hasn't been heard yet. And that's all identity based. It's all identity based. This is not hyperbole. This is like a known thing.

You can just look at what's being put on now. It's identity first very much and so there's a small section of those who get paid by the industry but those shows almost always maybe always just don't do numbers like nobody cares they make no money the internet and podcasts has created sort of a place for comedians who want to be edgy want to be a little more funny to go directly to fans and be honest with you those people now are making a lot more money in a lot of cases than the people who are I mean a lot more money you can see it on their patreon I have a friend who's making like a couple million dollars a year on his Patreon. And then you have advertisers on your podcast.

So the internet, it's a split. Comedians have gotten split. We look at them and call them woke. They look at us and they call us alt-right media. It's very funny and childlike. There was an article that came out where

journalists, I like to he was covering the local comedy beat so that's kind of like the open mic scene for journalism going into comedy clubs i mean he's an open mic or journalist but he wrote an article in the new republic um he accused the owner of the stand comedy Club for as being this racist on this message board. He wrote the article. New Republic published it. The owner of the stand was like, hey, this isn't me. I'm going to sue if you publish this.

They published it. They went ahead. Turns out. Wait, it literally wasn't him on the message board? Turns out it was some kid trolling and pretending to be him oh my god and then he came out and he showed all the emails

and everything so this is after this guy's been called a Nazi hurt his business you know and by this time everyone in the comedy industry

has probably read this article by the New Republic now it turns out that it's not true at all so they put a little retraction at the bottom but the owner of the stand is suing and saying i want you to take down the whole article so now they're right now

in the midst of like are we taking down the whole article writing a new one so he has a list of demands but he also his lawyer's saying sue this is liable so right now that's what it is but the fact is is that it came out that none of it was true and this is the new republic this isn't this isn't you know newsmax.org right the new new republic used to mean something like a lot of these outlets i remember when i saw the the new york times when they tweeted you know uh rachel levine is the first female at admirable of the health you know you're going like you're going okay can this at least be a discussion you're going, okay, can this at least be a discussion?

Can you support this kind of stuff? Because if you don't support it and submit to it 100%, you're putting a Nazi category or alt-right. There's these childlike groups they throw you. And when you're going like, she may be the first trans woman, but that is, I mean, then it becomes semantic. Like what are we calling what now is she a person with the womb i know that's a big popular one is like you're a person with a womb and she's a woman which i love because you've been demoted and then it's a very you get it because you wrote

a book about it so um it's like you have to ask yourself like what percentage of americans are represented by the view that it's it's accurate to call a trans woman female, right? What percentage do you think it is? Like, best case scenario, right? You know, a new Pew study came out today found that only 6% of Americans identify as progressive. Right. That makes sense. Yeah. You know, is that a good, you know, so 6%, a good number, a good, do we think that people calling themselves moderate Democrats would consider female to be the right word for somebody who identifies as a trans woman?

Probably not, right? So we're talking about 6%. So it's just very telling that the media is now being produced for 6% of Americans. Who benefits from that? They're not making any money off it that's for sure but let me ask you now because i've been speaking too much but i've enjoyed it but when did you start noticing well i'm a former woke me too yeah you are there's a

lot of us yeah we're homeless well that's what i was trying to get at so you i'm like look i believe in health care i believe in take care of the elderly. I'm pro-choice. You can go down the list of the things I'm woke up. But then I'm like, can I just call a woman a woman? If she can make a baby, can I call her a girl? That's it. But that's not, I would say that's not woke. I don't think, for example, advocating for an end to mass incarceration, that's not woke. When Trump released 5,000 black men from prison

with the First Step Act, he was not being woke. You know, he was being a good American. But you can't say that because all things Trump. I know, you're not allowed to even admit that that happened, but that did happen. And that's not, it's not woke to advocate police reform. We really need police reform.

Everybody knows that. In fact, even Republicans know that, you know, it's like a really good time to be American. You don't think it's a good idea to have social workers show up with clipboards and ask people what medications they're on? Right. So that's exactly the point. Because I did social work for five years.

And that's all we did. I did it for five years. You were a social worker? I was a social worker. And all you do is you show up and you go, what medications are you on? Okay, maybe we'll change them. You know, so it's funny. Wow.

Wait, so were you a funny social worker? I was a funny social worker. Did that help? It did. That must have helped so much. It did. It does help. Damn.

I was popular with the residents, but it is a... Yeah, you get burnt out quick. It's really hard. Yeah, really hard. So you don't think social workers showing up for violent crimes is a good idea? I think that's woke. Yes. Like saying police officers should have some kind of accountability is not woke.

It's woke to be like they shouldn't exist. And wokeness is very much an elite white liberal phenomenon, you know, and it's they're literally lining their pockets with it. Now, I don't agree with you that it's sort of a cynical ploy. I really think that like they believe that this is how you bend, you know, the moral arc of the universe towards justice. I think they really believe it. Oh, I didn't say they were aware. Oh. Yeah, I didn't say they were aware. But I think it's really been- I think they think they're doing good just like Hitler thought he was doing good. Well, okay, I guess that, you know, we don't-

Welcome to a comedy show where I- But the problem with them is the Hitler analogies. Yes. I'm sorry. Hitler's everywhere now. I love it. No, because the left the left sees hitler everywhere and the right sees everyone's nazis have never been more popular

everyone is a nazi right now so it's like it's never been more popular and i don't see them anywhere like there's probably just like three dudes on meth with no teeth being like hitler has some good ideas and you're like okay those are nazis well no so the okay it's a really good example with um so the filibuster is now white supremacy, right? That's the thing. The Democrats are- White supremacy is in everything. Right.

The thing is, they used the filibuster to kill Senator Tim Scott's police reform bill. And then three months later, they were calling it white supremacy. It's like there is a level of cynicism, I think, at the level of politicians and the media. But yeah. So what- Yeah. Is it profitable? of cynicism i think at the level of politicians in the media but um yeah so what so what yeah is it profitable you said that because you just said quickly that they're they're it's an elite thing they're running away they're making money performing for each other obviously we know we saw the defund the police thing critical race theory it's not popular with a lot of left-leaning

people too and you can see in poor neighborhoods defund the police is not popular in Harlem. They're going, fund them more. Because these protesters go and say, defund the police, and then they go back to Carroll Gardens and sleep pretty nice and feel good about themselves. 81% of black Americans oppose defund the police. Right. I would too. I mean, you need cops if there's crime.

Yeah, it's almost kind of racist in a cynical, unaware way to say defund the police. Like you're looking at black people as a monolith, you know, and you're thinking about things like there's good people and then there's criminals. A lot of good people in black neighborhoods, you know, are like, we want cops because I don't care if that guy's black he's a criminal i'm not thinking about his race it's like i want to be safe from the criminal no matter what color they are but woke quote-unquote woke people are going like defund the collapse distant they speak in these generalities disenfranchised neighborhoods and you know systematic and you're going like have you went door to door and talked to these people there's some most of the people there have jobs and they're good people, have you went door to door and talked to these people? There's some, most of the people there

have jobs and they're good people. They're just not rich and they have to live in neighborhoods they can afford and they want to be fucking safe. They don't care about color and shit as much as you do

because you're looking at things in theory and everything is beautiful in theory, you know. It's like you're in this platonic realm where you're safe. It's like you're watching a movie. It's like you're sitting there watching a Michael Myers movie, judging, Sunday morning

quarterbacking. It's like, you don't care. You don't live in that neighborhood. You're advocating on behalf of that neighborhood, and then going back to a neighborhood where you don't have those issues. I remember I was talking to a cop, and he said the profile that they did on a lot of those protesters kids protest the kids that were protesting there most of them are young um he said the typical profile was uh white upper middle class suburban who uh was um disagree with their parents on politics that totally tracks yeah those images of like young you know 20 something white 20 tobacco can't do it on cnn but you could do it here want one that was rude to me you want to snooze uh i'm i'm not familiar it's a swedish snooze they figured out a way you swedes that you can put this in you don't have to spit so it's like gross but not too gross is that instead of smoking

instead of smoking yeah so you quit, yeah. So you quit smoking? I quit smoking. I just love tobacco. I quit smoking and I really regret it. Do you? Yeah. Why? Because it's so fun.

It's so good. And it's so cool. After a cough with a coffee? With a coffee, after spicy food, a glass of wine. Yeah. So good. I really, really, really regret it. Write another book

on how cigarettes are good I mean really I'd take 50 years smoking enjoying it to 80 years if I'm gonna be like have dementia or have any

those last 20 years are gonna be uncomfortable I would like to know 23 if 23 and me could tell you like look you're gonna be in a wheelchair

for the last 20 I'm gonna go buy a fucking pack of Marlboros tomorrow so you quit for health reasons or health reasons baby it's not good for you wife doesn't like it yeah you know i believe the fake media okay trying to tell us cigarettes are bad there's a link for cancer there's no link that's the fucking science industry trying to get funded fauci's behind it. Yao Ming's behind it. Okay, James Dolan. It's a whole conspiracy.

Sesame Street's behind it. They're just trying to hurt free market companies. All right, anyway. So. Yes. We're having fun. Yes. But you started to see this pattern.

Is that because you were in those circles as a journalist? Yeah, I was in those circles circles but I would learn things and it would be like a glitch in the matrix you know like right when you learn a fact you'd be like oh that doesn't match yeah it doesn't track yeah right so you sort of had a did you have a moment of conscious like why did we panning you know there's a great of okay why did you not go along do you have what they call integrity? Are you a rare human with integrity? No, definitely don't have any integrity.

I think you're being humble. That means you do have. So you saw, and this just wasn't adding up, because you could have just continued to go on and keep writing articles like, do you know how hard it is to make it as the journalist with the name like Batya Ungar Sargal? Do you know how much discrimination I had to face against the patriarchy jordan peterson is hitler

no i mean like even the okay the me too movement right like i don't understand how you can be a woman and act like things were the same before and after that like that there's no like that was a reallocation of power it used to be that men in the workplace more or less decided how much flirting there was going to be between you and them and now you decide like now mostly especially for women in my class upper middle class and you know white collar jobs obviously there's still probably much more problems like in you know working class jobs but like the idea that now men aren't on the defensive and waiting for you to set the tone and the cues is just ridiculous but there's no there's been no shift in tone there's been no like oh we have the power now this is kind of cool i wonder who i'm gonna flirt with or who i'm not you know like

oh no i'll be a good girl today you know like whatever it's like there's no shift it's like as as there's been a massive say is make shift in the culture but that has not been reflected in the hysteria of the tone like things like that but it really makes you think like okay well somebody's like obviously benefiting from that at some point i don't think women are doing it on purpose i don't think they're purposely being like oh we're just going to keep the level of discourse at this level of hysteria like because that's how we keep this power but you know the failure to acknowledge um improvements on race relations on gender relations you know the the number one issue that the right has shifted on by almost 180 degrees lgbtq rights right gay

marriage it's not like that hasn't happened like the left didn't win a humongous culture war like you know in five years to act like there hasn't been insane shifts in like things like interracial marriage, you know, the approach, you know, how the right feels about that. Just total skyrocketing of approval over the last 15 years. Like that just stopped making sense to me, you know. But then there were other things that were like even more intense, like, OK, you'll like this do you know that the yale study from 2018 that found that there's differences in how white white liberals and white conservatives talk to black and latino people have you read this okay so you know the the bear in mind of course that the liberals think that all conservatives are racists right so but this yale study found that white liberals when they talk to black and brown people, they dumb down their language.

They use fewer syllable words than when they talk to white people and white conservatives don't. And I remember reading this study and being like, huh, that doesn't fit. Right. Because that's a racist thing to do. But we say that they're the racist. And I like it's not like the scales fell from my eyes immediately. But I remember being like, that's a racist thing to do. But we say that they're the racist. And it's not like the scales fell from my eyes immediately. But I remember being like, that's uncomfortable. Right. Uncomfortable truth. There's a sickness in a worldview that makes you behave that way and then makes you get high and drunk on your own virtue while you are being racist and demeaning.

Right. demeaning and and it was like i had this glimmer of like there's a lot of things on my side that are influenced by that exact impulse of like don't use a four-syllable word with this person right they are going to be very embarrassed because they won't understand it because they have darker skin than you you know like that i was like that that condescending yes dehumanizing condescending yes some money i'm guilty yes, this will fix it. You guys, because you can't do it on your own. Robbing them of autonomy. Exactly.

That's exactly right. You can't do it on your own. We know that. I'm here to help you. I'm here to help you. I've arrived. I'm here. I'm here.

Yes. That's what's behind it. That is certainly what's behind it. So this is extremely fascinating. Is it? Yeah. It is extremely fascinating. Is it? Yeah, it is really fascinating. So when did you decide to write this book and why?

Oh, well, this is not the book I wanted to write. Interesting. I wanted to write a book about, I was doing a lot of reporting in the South during the Trump era. And you as a person who have traveled and made people laugh across the nation, will have known what I, as a New York City journalist, was shocked, shocked, I tell you, to find out, which is that there were really good people across this nation in the divisions that we think are deep and real about racism and sexism and Islamophobia and transphobia. Like that these things don't actually persist in other places in America.

So you're saying everyone's living in bubble. The irony is the internet opened up communication with everybody, but everyone, ironically, kind of retreated more into their bubbles. Yeah, because all the money for liberal outlets, they're all going for the same 6 million highly over-educated, liberal, college-educated elites. They're all going, that's where the money is.

So the New York Times is making a lot of money right now. Right. So contrary to what I'm saying, they do make a lot of money serving those coastal niches. Yeah. Do you think, obviously, like you said, not acknowledging the achievements that were made in the culture war by the left, which objectively have happened. Objectively. That's where the grifters come in when they continue. Do you think that's in part human nature?

I remember this quote. I think it was by Caesar or maybe Cicero. Who knows? This isn't about accuracy. But the quote is very good. It's that it's very hard for a person to know when to put down the sword and pick up the plow. Meaning like when you're an actor, you even saw that with the social movements in the 60s, the counterculture movements, like the hippies turned into the yippies

and then it got into like it was like they won a lot of those cultural wars and then what do you do do you go get a job at best buy or do you continue to find other things to fight about because it's sort of addictive in that you know chris hedges always said that fog of war kind of addictive like you're you're a warrior. How do you put down that sword and just go, I won. You're almost looking for something else. Like it was like, okay, we got gay marriage and they're like, okay, but I'm not done.

This feels too good. So now how about this? Call me they, motherfucker. I'm trying to come up with like a female version of that analogy. And I think it would be like, if you're like, you're always like contouring your cheeks and then you go on a diet and you lose a whole bunch of weight. Like at some point, when do you be like, I can put down the contouring

brush, you know, the cheekbones are there, you know, like I can give up. It doesn't stop till you're throwing up your food. I think the, I think my answer to that is no. And my evidence for it is that if that were the case, you would expect black Americans to be more much more pessimistic about race, race relations, and much more extreme on what still needs to be done. And you would expect white Americans who are less impacted by it to be more optimistic and like, well, you know, they never really knew what the problem was. And so they are, you know, less, but you see the opposite in public polling. So, you know, you see that around 2015, white liberals just started to become way more extreme on their pessimism about race relations in America and their insistence that racism is a huge and growing problem. whereas black and Latino Americans stayed kind of where they were, which was like, yeah, there's room to improve. There are still problems, but overall things are okay.

And the white liberals kept adding things to the agenda, so then it became racist to oppose mass immigration. It became racist to believe that we should enforce the national border. They started adding things onto it. And that's a shift that happened very recently. So I think it really isn't, it's not like all these people who were like pulling for civil rights and then, you know, just couldn't accept that like a lot of the fights had been won. And so they started finding new things, but it's more like it happened very recently that white affluent liberals started to obsess over race and racism. And I think it's because it became very enormously in their economic interest to do so.

Interesting. Because we have a huge class chasm in America. We have disgusting levels of income inequality. And so it became in their economic interest to focus on race as opposed to class. Because that way, they can continue to enjoy the fact that the economy is working so well for them. So you're calling them grifters. Well, I think it's unconscious. I think it's unconscious.

Well, I can just say it because I'm a comic. You're saying you bunch of fucking consciousness grifters who are benefiting from this. So they kept going and they started saying things like no person is illegal. Which you're going like, okay, that's not what they're saying. They're saying they're saying they're here illegally are we really gonna have a discussion about this should we not have a border it starts to become things like this and you're saying quite aptly i might add that they're doing this because it's in their own economic interest to keep this narrative going because it serves

those other guilty, deluded people. But also because they are the ones who need cheap domestic labor in their homes. Yeah. They are the ones who want to go out to eat to a nice restaurant and not pay, you know, $500. They're the ones who want like a gorgeous bottle of wine for $15, right? Who's benefiting from mass immigration?

It's highly educated liberals living in the coast, right? Not the working class. And who's paying for it? It's highly educated liberals living in the coast, right? Not the working class. And who's paying for it? It's black Americans. I just got to tell you right now, if this was, if this was NPR or this was CNN

or MSNBC, I know I look like Rachel Maddow when I shave my beard. Oh my God, you really do. I do. Okay? Or I also look like John Stamos if he was blind.

If this was Rachel Maddow, I would say this. You just sounded off some right-wing talking points. Yeah, I love when they say that to me. And they would say that. And you know what? I have to admit that I've heard Ann Coulter say a few things similar. Then again, you can't say that because there's a lot of other stuff I've heard Ann Coulter say where I say, shut up, bitch. But people can't do that anymore.

People can't... Pick and choose. Yeah, because you just said... Ann Coulter has made that point that the people who are affected most by illegal immigration are working class people, not liberal elites, which has become their sort of dog whistle.

But you're kind of saying conservatives are kind of right by that liberal elite term. I'm like, that's not, being a conservative is not, that's not a slur. That's only a bad word if you accept their, right, if you accept their, I'm a socialist. You want to call me a conservative socialist? I don't care. That's not an insult to me. Or AOC's latest thing, only old people use the word woke. Like literally that's your argument that it's not cool?

I'm not cool enough? I don't need to be cool. I don't need to be young, you know? Let's change it to tedious. How about tedious? Yeah, AOC. But you know what I mean? Like they try to smear you by calling you a conservative.

You don't actually have to accept that that's an insult. I don't accept that that's insulting, you know? Like it's like I happen to not see myself as conservative, but I'm not going to be offended by that. Yeah, see me as you want. That shows that you have a strong, you're a sigma. Yeah, you're going like, you're like, I don't care what you think about me.

I'm going to be who I believe. Because we live in the internet, do you think the internet, everyone's kind of become performative? Everyone has kind of created this avatar, this veneer of perfection, this veneer of a happy life. It's always like we've become our own PR people. Twitter is like our own, things are things are great. This is my, I'm a good person. How much of wokeness is performative? And is it the perfect grift because, so it's two questions.

Is it the perfect grift? So how much of it is performative because of this era we live in? The second is, is it the perfect grift because you can't really criticize someone when they're saying they want more justice? You know, it's hard to criticize someone when they're saying there should be no racism. You can't really call them a grift or a bad person because then you look like a bad person. So is it a perfect home for sociopaths? Because as we know, sociopaths don't show up and say, hey, I'm a sociopath. They show up like Ted Bundy and go, my arm hurts.

And then you got your titties bitten off. So they don't announce like it's Catholic priest. Same thing. It's like, I'm here to help you. And then the next thing you know, you black out as a child in Catholic school. So did you get those two questions? I did, yeah. How much is performative because of the internet?

I want to give an example because I'm really curious what you think about this. Okay. Okay. Do you remember when AOC went to the Met Gala and she wore that dress? How could I forget it? How could you forget? How could I forget it? And how could the media let me forget it?

Right, exactly. That poor immigrant woman from Toronto who was dating an Arab... Bronfman. A Bronfman made that dress and her company had tax evaded in almost every state. How could I forget how she helped that poor immigrant designer gain some, to platform her with such a beautiful selfless thing on AOC's part?

AOC, people say AOC, they see a beautiful woman who's kind of self-interested and a little bit of a utopian child. I see Mother Teresa. She is Jesus. beautiful woman who's kind of self-interested and a little bit of a utopian child. I see Mother Teresa. She is Jesus. Yes, I do remember. Okay. So this is, now I'm doubly curious what you're going to make of this. So to me, like if she had done that, you know, the dress had taxed the rich, right? Yeah.

If she had done that before I wrote the book, I wouldn't have needed to write the book because it was such a perfect encapsulation of what I'm describing, which is, you know, someone who has clearly reached elite status, you know, in this very American dream way. What are you talking about? I hang out with AOC in her district all the time.

She loves going to Jamaican restaurants. I see her all the time at some of the bachata clubs in the Bronx. She's not hanging out in her tests with her honka-donk boyfriend on the Lower East Side. That's not where she is. She's in bachata clubs. She loves the nightlife in her district. I disagree. It's laughable how transparent it is, really.

Right, exactly. Right, like the, you know, at the event of conspicuous consumption, hobnobbing with the celebs, you can only get there as a total celeb, you know, once you're sort of inducted into that area. And then, but the slogan, like, tax the rich, acting like this is some courageous act when actually everyone there agrees. You know, all the liberal elites are like, yes, yes, yes, just tell me how much to pay in taxes, right? They're so rich, they really don't care. It's like, you give them the tax rate, no problem, right? Because they really won't feel it, right? But acting like it's a revolutionary act to be telling these people exactly what they want to hear to assuage their guilt about being so rich, right? But then a video came out that she had filmed with Vogue

while she was sort of preparing for the event. And it came out two days later in the midst of all of the pushback she was getting from both sides, right? You know, lefties like me were, you know, the right, of course, they attack her no matter what she does. But even people like on the left who were like, this was really like tone deaf, right? Yeah. She was getting dragged. I'd say the left was criticizing, the right was criticizing, the left was dragging her.

Right. Exactly. So she, but then the video came out in the midst of that. And so you got to see it really from her point of view before the event and before the pushback. And it was really heartbreaking because you could see that she really, really believed it. She really believed that she was about to go into the lion's den with this message for the people representing the people and like it really wasn't cynical at all it was like she was completely believing that this was a revolutionary act that was going to make america a better place and that

you know she was going to platform this idea of taxing the rich etc etc and to me it's like really important to keep to keep that in mind like the look on her face of like total genuine belief that this event, you know, like this spectacle was somehow more than just a spectacle, that it was actually like some sort of like revolution that was going to help the working class and the poor. Is that the naivety of youth? Is that what I'm talking about? Like sort of like, you know, college hasn't ended? I don't think so. There's this philosopher, Yuval Levin, and he once said something I think is really smart. He was like, you know, Washington would be a lot easier if everybody showed up and

was like, hey, hey, hey, I'm gonna get lots of power and money and keep it for myself. Instead, everybody shows up and is like, I am making the world a better place. And and they really believe it and that is sort of what makes it harder to sort of shift things and change people's minds and get through and govern and whatever even hillary clinton too she showed up that way i'd say she showed up but she showed up to the wedding to her husband with that in mind it's a long plan for her a long con you gotta love a long con yeah it's a long i think she showed up with good intentions to the meeting on how to crash jfk jr's plane no i'm kidding i that's a joke i don't i don't believe in the clinton body count um but it is interesting um i was at a party last night and somebody said to me,

well, you know Hillary Clinton was behind COVID, right? And I was like, I haven't heard that one before. Yeah, where were you? Joe Rogan's house? He's a friend of mine. I'm joking, it's a joke. Yeah, what kind of party was that? No, it was just a random party. It was a blue-collar comedy tour?

No, it was a... Because that's something... That was a random party around here? And somebody said Hillary Clinton was behind COVID? Yeah was a blue collar comedy tour? No, it was a... Because that's something... That was a random party around here? Yeah. And somebody said Hillary Clinton was behind COVID? Yeah, a black man. Yeah. Oh, okay.

That makes sense. Yeah. They can get conspiratorial too. I was like, tell me more. How did she get the virus? But don't you think it's more interesting? I like that. When someone comes with a good, juicy conspiracy.

Yeah, I love it. It's fun. Yeah. It's fun. Yeah, it's fun. It's good stuff. And so this is all very interesting. The book is about the media specifically. Yes, yes. The media, let's talk about the media.

You're in the media. Somehow I've become in the media now because someone in the media, I see journalists with Twitter accounts trying to be seen more than they used to, like in the days of Seymour Hersh, when you had Bob Woodward, things like that. They kind of, I'm sure it's human nature to enjoy the fame, the infamy, the notoriety, whatever. But now there's an actual platform where journalists want to be seen themselves and some could argue from an outside perspective as much as the work it's like let me

be seen as much as the work does does that has that contributed to the lack of integrity sometimes you see but it's it's so much worse than that. So the New York Times in 2014, it had a really bad year digitally. And the guy who's now the publisher, A.G. Salzberger, he was put in charge of figuring out why. And one of the main things he said was,

our reporters aren't out there pushing their stories. We need them to become social media stars. Yes, it was literally a directive from above and now what you see happening is like those social media stars that he instructed his staff to become they wield that power against him and force him to fire people when they get upset it's so funny it was literally baked into the current dna of the of the new york times so is that what is happening it's sort of like journalists or activists now putting pressure on the power structures? Oh, yeah, absolutely.

Because we saw that, I guess, a microcosmic example of that would be the protests at Netflix. I think it was like 10 people who went. I mean, of course, you would never know that we were in a Cold War with China because Dave Chappelle put out a special. And then all the media had to rush to cover those the 10 people who were protesting but it was is that happening everywhere where a few employees and they can use the cover of virtue and just extort yep um for lack of a better word or to use an accurate word to be honest with you the their superiors into action.

So that is the anatomy of what's going on right now in media. Yeah. But unlike with Dave Chappelle, who has FU money and who's making so much money for Netflix that the head of Netflix is like, I'm going to mealy mouth my way around this, but I'm not really going to,

Dave Chappelle's going to win, right? I think also it was probably in the contract with him specifically because he's no dummy. He knew what he was going to do. He took four specials. I mean, he really harped on it. He probably said, his lawyers probably said, hey, listen, no matter what the backlash, this is staying up. And they probably, because they wanted Dave Chappelle so bad and the backlash hadn't been so bad, who knows, to that point, or just because it was an icon like Dave Chappelle, that I was probably baked in.

His hands were probably tied legally. Interesting. Or you think he would have caved? I think he might have caved. I think otherwise he might have caved. I mean, you know, I don't think he's above. I mean, is anyone above that? It's about who the market is, right?

So the New York Times' market people the only people they want reading them are the people who want them to follow the directives of the twitter mob right because that's who they're for is the people who get caught up in that i think netflix must have a bigger audience than just progressives right the whole country exactly so would they really have that's what makes your book so good and I haven't even read it. Because you're... Because I can see. I can see. I can see what your premise is.

It's like, this is all about money. This is all about... Yeah. Wokeness is a market that was created by people to serve themselves. See, you're a smart guy. You're like picking that up just from what I'm saying, but that's literally, yeah.

And this is at the expense of... The entire working class of all races. Black working class, Latino working class, obviously Asians because they're on the wrong side of the woke, just like us Jews.

And of course, the white working class. So in a sentence, is wokeness hurting the people that it's purporting to help 1 000 right wing talking point is that i wish it was i keep trying to bring it to the right wingers i'm like guys i'm being sarcastic because it's it's not it's it's truthful i mean this is all editorialized of course it's not a science but if anyone has any common sense what you're saying is true

but i'm just being sarcastic saying like on a lot of these networks who any common sense what you're saying is true but i'm just being sarcastic saying like on a lot of these networks who are guilty of what you're saying that would be considered a right-wing talking point yeah you know by you by you saying that that would be considered a right-wing so you're you're taking us back and saying hey folks this is how we got here these are elite people who are writing for other elite people and serving that market and ignoring, completely ignoring the working class of all creeds. Yeah, I'll give you another nice statistic. So in 2019, Pew asked black Americans where they were getting their news. So 12% said that they had looked at the New York Times in the last week.

But a lot of them said Charlamagne Tha God. No. Well, he's super woke. Yeah, he's super woke. He's way more woke than the average. He's very woke. But 36% said Fox News. And that's because the difference between Fox and CNN is not race and it's not politics.

It's class. It's about whether they're picturing a viewer who is working class or a viewer who has a college degree. That's it. That makes every single decision about what they're covering and how they're covering it. How much of this is a consequence of what I was talking about at the beginning of this show? Sort of all of our jobs have been exported.

Corporations have set up shop in other places that don't have the labor laws we have here to pad their profits, have made deals with the devil in other countries. I think the causality is the exact opposite. I think the liberal media abandoned the working class, which gave Bill Clinton the idea that he's allowed to ship their jobs to China, 5 million of those jobs to China,

5 million jobs to Mexico. The abandonment of the working class by the liberal media throughout the course of the 20th century as they became rich and moved away from working class Americans was what gave the Democrats the idea that they could just start ignoring these people who used to be their base. Democrats used to be the party of labor. Right. private like that's a marriage between an unscrupulous one between the private corporations and politicians to allow to open up those trades you know nixon going to china formalizing those relations sending our totally so republicans are guilty of that too right but you expect it from

them they're supposed to be the party of the rich i don't care what they do right right okay they were supposed to be yeah the countervailing. I don't care what they do. They were supposed to be the countervailing force. It was Clinton who really normalized trade relations with China, who signed NAFTA into law. It was just the death of manufacturing in America. Is that what's behind this?

If we continue to pull out, is what's behind this the economic abandonment of the working class for the greed of whatever whoever you want to put in the elite class that that's why i'm that's why i wrote this book because it's so disgusting to be high on your own virtue when you have essentially dispossessed the entire working class of all races of america in part that's aoc's uh platform you look at her platform every single plank in there is just, it's Brahmin leftism.

The Brahmins are the Hindu, the highest caste in Hinduism, the priestly caste. And there's a French economist, Thomas Piketty, who's described how the left in all of the developed world, Europe as well, what happened to the Democrats, which is essentially they went from being the party of labor to being the party of this Brahmin leftism, meaning the whole platform, it sounds like social justice, it smells like social justice, but it's actually lining the pockets of liberal elites at the expense of the working class who are paying for it. Mass immigration, okay? Banning fracking.

The whole Green New Deal is a tax on the working classes that flatters the vanities of the elites, defunding the police, you know, all of this stuff that's happening in education. It's just way liberal elites are using the real pain of black Americans to withdraw from the common good and line their own pockets, all while being convinced that they are the side of virtue. It's just crazy how that happened. And in the book, I argue that the media really sort of wrote the playbook for this and the side of virtue. It's just crazy how that happened. And in the book, I argue that the media really sort of wrote the playbook for this, and the Democrats followed along. And now, you know, for giving $50,000 in student loans, like, come on, you know, it's so naked. But if you're like, what are you doing? We're supposed to be the party of the working class, not the party of

dentists. What are you talking about? You know, it's like, no, there's no ability to see it. Is it overall, net? Is it conscious or unconscious? No, no, it's unconscious. It's unconscious. Everyone thinks that they're doing good. Everyone thinks they're on the right side. Right.

So they just, they fall into this pattern. It's sort of, so it's bigger than them. the group it's sort of so it's bigger than them it's not a choice per se by by this uh elite liberal woke they could choose not to they could choose to see what's going on if they become aware to it like you did in some way it's like it's like the way they treated you know trump voters right like they weren't aware that they were just projecting onto these people you know all sorts of you know racism whatever because they had the temerity like the audacity to vote for somebody that the elites didn't that offended the sensibilities of the elites like they didn't realize they were doing that they really saw them as this like racist

you know monolithic threat that was coming to, like, they look at the, you know, 400 people who stormed the Capitol and are like, that's, that's 72 million Trump voters. It's more than 400, though, wasn't it? Wasn't it 400? Was it 400? I thought it was 400. Wow, that's close to the Spartan movie. It's only what, there's only 400 of them? 400, I thought there were 400 in diamonds, no?

That's not that, yeah, probably, that's not that much, yeah. 400, I thought there were 400 in diamonds. That's not that, yeah, probably. That's not that much, yeah. Do you think that them, they, so did the liberals, is their blind spot that, you know, how the old expression that war, the Shakespearean expression, war makes for strange bedfellows,

did they not see that a lot of those people on the right were voting for Trump, not because they love Trump, but as sort of a rebuke of the national conversation being about a third bathroom. But I think that's correct. I think that's the correct analysis. But no, they were in case.

If you said these people have economic anxiety because we, the Democratic side, ship their jobs overseas. If you said that, they said that's a dog whistle. Now, economic anxiety is a dog whistle to cover for the real reason, which is their racism. And by the way, as somebody who spent a lot of time interviewing Trump voters, I haven't met a single one who didn't say to me, like, I really wish he would stop with the tweeting. It's really undignified. It's really undignified. There was one person who told me that, no, no, I like it. I like it. This black guy in Georgia.

But aside from him, hundreds and hundreds of people, every single one of them had a decent reason for voting for that guy, a respectable reason. I'll tell you who liked it, liberal media. Oh, for sure, they got rich off of it. Literally, literally. SNL loved it, Colbert loved it. CNN.

CNN loved it. Totally, the New York Times. Do you know how many times trump's name appeared in the new york times in 2017 um you're about to tell me is there like a fact yeah yeah i have the number yeah what is it yeah 97 000 times which is once every 250 words now now lest you think that's normal for a president you know so so obama's first year in office yeah how many times did his name appear? It was 37,000 times.

Wow. 37 versus 97,000. I mean, they couldn't keep his name out of their mouth. Right, right. And he knew it. He knew it. He knew it, yeah. What is the solution?

Is there one? Is it just an awakening? Is it too far gone? Does it have anything to do with the things being made overseas and it can't come back? What is, how do we get off these fringes and get back to the way things used to be where people didn't call each other Nazis all the time? Well, I think the good news is most Americans are not falling for this crap. Like this is not, the problem of polarization is very, very much an elite phenomenon because elites are making money off of it on both sides. So it's not, I don't know, I don't believe that America has a problem of being polarized or divided.

I think our elites do. Our chattering class does. Our political class does. Because it's very much in their benefit to be so. So the problem, I think, is smaller than we think. And the solution, well, I'm religious. So I think the solution happens, you know, in every person's heart. Like stitching back together the fabric of American society, remembering that we're, you know, brothers or sisters.

Like we're in this together. Because the evidence is there that we're all in this together, the evidence is there that we all agree about the important values that this great nation was founded on, so it's really, that I think, it's getting offline, it's stopping addicted to the news and to this information that is meaningless. Like all the negotiations with these two big bills,

who cares, they're gonna figure it who cares they're gonna find they're gonna figure it out they're gonna pass some version they have to yeah they have to why is it every single day i have to know who the good guys are and who the bad guys are and who's the stymies and who's the this and it's just come on like you know right yeah has this affected you in your personal life with uh yeah lost a lot of friends you've probably lost interest like actually lost a lot of friends for having a different opinion yeah yeah they denounce you on twitter like people you've helped people you've known for they can't help themselves it's like this compulsion like to it's horrible so they've kind of called you right wing you've been as a pejorative a nazi a capo uh you know an embarrassment

to the jewish people uh you know oh it's horrible a racist every single time, you know? Yeah. And you, let's talk about Virginia because things seem to culminate in Virginia. A lot of people trying to figure out what happened. Are you, what side are you on? I am a comedian. Okay. That's what I always say. And that's why I get shit from everyone. Uh-huh.

Like, if you want to know me, it's like, I take it to everyone uh-huh like if you want to know me it's like um i take it to everyone and i lose a lot of people like one week they'll be with me right right totally totally yeah i i don't think that uh bill gates sneaks into your asshole when you take the vaccine so i've lost a lot of people saying that i lose people all the time because my i i i think i stand by my principle, which is I'm not left, I'm not right, I'm a comedian. I mean, it's not my job to take a side. Why would I alienate one side? I want to make fun of it. I like being a rascal.

I like poking all the bears. Which in this era, based on the way algorithms work now, has not been particularly advantageous. Because you've got to run with one and just say, hey, this is my, everyone's got a niche now. So true. But I just don't want to do that. That's really admirable. Well, I can't help it. It's because I had a human rights mother

who was very difficult and she instilled those things in me. So it's tough. Wait, what do you mean? She didn't care about me getting rich, but she made sure I fucking walked around Halloween with a fucking UNICEF coin thing, and collected quarters.

No kidding. To buy fucking Christmas cards. Wait, so she was like a lefty? My mother was a human rights lawyer. So my mother is Anna Mamalakis Pappas. She wrote a book. It's a seminal piece in the International Rights of Children

called The Law and Status of the Child, which is like, if you Google it, it's quoted now as international law. The problem with international law is culture. You know, I don't know if we'll ever be able to agree on. We can't enforce it. We can't enforce it.

It's unenforceable. It's unenforceable. You know, and so. But that's so, I'm sorry, just to get a little metaphoric here. No, go. But that's, to me, that's so interesting that your mother wrote this unenforceable law about protecting children like there's something very poignant about that she headed up it was called unitar it was a whole

ad hoc project under the united nations i guess in the 80s where a lot of international lawyers came together and tried to come up with some sort of cohesive seminal uh common law on how we protect children that was her passion so on halloween i would you know she would send me with the little cardboard thing to go collect coins we always got wait instead of candy yeah that's what that was my thing yeah it's abuse it's abuse and uh we would get our christmas cards um you know christmas cards were always unicef and we had posters everywhere uh in the house of like you know all like these united nations posters and so that that was her wait wait wait wait wait wait so as a kid did you feel like oh there are all these children suffering and i have it so good and i

should be grateful or was it what how what what that like? My mother was, I wouldn't say, yeah, I don't look at her as like a, she was passionate about that. That was the one, there's a lot of positive. My mother grew up during Nazi-occupied Crete. She saw a lot of horrible things. She hated Germans, she hated Turks. So as progressive as she was,

she couldn't get over those two things. Germans, that was it. It was just not they're all nazis and and and turks just like you know she hated her so it's like she was very greek in that way but you know people are three-dimensional that's what i don't love about this these cartoon this this modern cartoon type of uh thinking you know it's like my mother was a complicated person. You know, I became a comedian because of my mother. It wasn't all good.

But the one thing my mother was very passionate about was the rights of children. And she was very passionate about justice. Sometimes so much, too much. You know, because those people who can, those are the people

you, I don't fear like assholes. I'm like, I know who you are. I fear someone who's going, I got a salute. We're going to fix it all. We're going to, utopians scare me. So yeah, there's a lot of that on the left. There's a lot of that. And my mother had a little bit of that.

Where it's like, in the adult world, it turns into hypocrisy. Because nobody's that good. Nobody's that good. And like I said, she hated Germany. She couldn't get past some of her own biases. She was very progressive, but then also, you know, gay people she thought was unnatural. So it's complicated.

She's a woman of her era as well. But yeah, she was very passionate about children. And she was the one who, on the train, if there was someone beating their kids, she turned into a lion. And my mother was small, and I would be there, and I'd be embarrassed. And I remember one time in particular, it was a huge woman. But my mother turned into a lion to protect. This woman was hitting her kid, and my mom just went up and started screaming at her.

And the woman cowered, like cowered. And I was sitting there going like, I'm going to watch my mother get killed by someone who's a little tougher than my mom. But it didn't happen. And she did that a few times. My mother would turn, those are the times she would turn into an absolute lion. Otherwise, she was like this small Cretan Greek girl. What an amazing memory to have. Yeah, and I could tell you a whole bunch of other ones

that aren't so amazing. Is she still alive? Yeah, she's kind of alive. Oh. Yeah. Say like she's on the runway. She's going to take off soon. She's got dementia.

She's in her late 80s. I was the youngest of a lot. But yeah, I mean mean it's a adult conversation seems to that's why i bring up utopians because i do almost feel like i'm even on twitter now you'll see these people who become thought leaders and they're just saying like the most fundamental common sense things i'm going, how crazy is this era that just some run-of-the-mill professor before he stood up and said, I think men can't get pregnant

is now a thought fucking leader? You know? It's like the standard has dropped. I feel like I'm in a dormitory. Twitter's like a freshman dormitory where people are like posting these harangues and they sound like college freshmen you know because they don't have any experience with what they're talking about they're judging they're throwing things around calling this person saying our

country has no freedom or you know it's just uh spoiled it's like a private college. And I see a lot of that utopian stuff. And is this the collapse of the American empire? No. No. Oh, I like some optimism. Definitely not. This isn't like the end of Rome. No.

You see a future. Yeah. Is that just because of your faith or is it your brain? Chaucer said let the head guide the heart. What are we talking? What does your head say? I think people are really sick of this. So you think it will snap back?

You don't think we're turning a corner? I was on CNN talking about this stuff. I've never heard someone say it. Let me give you credit. And that's why I jumped. I was like, I would love to get her on a podcast. And when you said yes, I was like, you really didn't flinch. And you didn't flinch. I was expecting him to would love to get her on a podcast. And when you said yes, I was like, you really like didn't flinch. And you didn't flinch.

I was expecting him to be so much meaner. Yeah, because I think he got a little intimidated. By me? I think he got a little intimidated because you don't come across as someone who has like a grifting agenda. You were just kind of, you look like you, he didn't want to fuck with you. I felt like. You look like he didn't want to fuck with you, I felt like. From an outside perspective, how you presented it and the way you like when he tried to play devil's advocate,

you had that energy like I'm glad you said that. Your energy was like I'm glad you brought that up. Am I wrong, Jess? He follows you on Twitter. He knew about you. He knew how to pronounce your name before I did. Every time I go for it, I got to look at the book. Batyar Ungar Sargon.

Is your husband Sargon? Is that why it's hyphenated? No, he is not Sargon. That's my dad's mom. Oh. She was from India. Very progressive. So you're going with the matriarchal.

My dad did it. Oh, your dad did it. Yeah, I think to get back at his father. So you're Jewish-Indian? What's your combo? Well, she was Jewish, too. Yeah. Oh, from India. Just Well, she was Jewish too. Yeah. Oh, from India. Just all Jews all the way back.

Nice. Just a lot of, yeah, from India. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. My cousin-in-law's Israeli. Married my cousin, yeah. I like this.

I like your... Yeah, I'm trying to represent everybody. And then we got the Allah. I love Allah mugs. Are you religious? No. No. I am Jesus, though.

I thought. I mean, I Are you religious? No. No. I am Jesus, though. I thought. I mean, I suspected it when I walked in here. No, I'm not religious, but I do believe there's something more, for sure. I do believe there's good forces, there's evil forces. I don't know what's going on. I don't know if this is like a simulation and like aliens are having fun. I don't know if aliens are us in the future coming back and they don't want to mess it up like Back to the Future.

There's a lot of questions. Wait, do you think you have free will? I don't know if people have free will. I can't tell. I do. You do? And that's because of a book, one book that I read, which I think is the Bible for normal people. What's it called?

It is called, I have dementia. I do have the gene for it. Come on, Jess. You know what I'm talking about. Steinbeck. Oh, I have dementia. I do have the gene for it. Come on, Jess. You know what I'm talking about. Steinbeck. Oh, East of Eden. East of Eden. East of Eden.

East of Eden by John Steinbeck. I was not expecting that. Yeah, East of Eden by John Steinbeck, which he considered to be his magnum opus, even though it was not one of his more commercially successful books. But if you read that book, it's based on Cain and Abel. And the moral of the book, the overarching moral of the book is, well, you're Jewish, so timshel. Yes.

The word timshel. Yes. At the end of the day, no matter what your genetic predispositions are, no matter what, you do have choice. It's a choice. At at the end you can resist it you can do it otherwise you know uh i'm trying to think of someone who lost a lot of weight when they were fat how did that happen that one actor from some movie who's now he's jacked that's you know that's just a you know a uh oversimplified example of it.

But yeah, your disposition. Genetically, you were supposed to be fat. You've had ancestors. Whatever the reason is. But you can push. Gattaca. Rudy. Yes.

Push through. That's what makes the hero stories. Yeah. It's those people who resist. A lot of times people stand up from the group i love that one photo i there's this one from the nazis how did you know i just knew i just knew i just i love that photo too i hope we're gonna get our periods together at the same time we're in sync that photo from history is so powerful. It's one guy just going like, I don't fucking buy this.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm not sure about that. One guy. And so that just shows you that it's possible. And that just shows you that, in my opinion, America is based on the best idea of inalienable rights and pursuit. Those things are the best. That's what separates us from the animals,

to dream and try to achieve those dreams and to free us from the sometimes burdened-like anchorings of culture. Because sometimes culture is like, oh oh this is my culture it kind of stifles individuality america in that way america is unique yeah and that it's an experiment where all the i mean of course other empires have had people from different races religions together and they lived in peace or whatever doing their own thing but america is really that only the only place that's ever existed that you can come here and be an individual. You can go like, hey, I'm going to believe what I want to believe

and you're legally protected. So that's what makes America unique. I know Joe Rogan said this is the only place we've had democracy and freedom. I'm like, I think Europe's free. I'm not sure. It's less free, though. Well, well depending on how you look at it they're freer to you know get care if they get sick that's true they're free yeah it depends that's true but in that way of like there's no ceiling yeah america is a feast of famine type of place i wished we had health care i wish we took care of people a little better things like that but um by the way

a lot of republicans do too like voters like that. By the way, a lot of Republicans do too. Like voters, not the leadership. The leadership really doesn't represent them on that front. Yes. And I sometimes have sympathy for politicians. I mean, let's talk like adults. Humans are the only species that have such a wide variation in intelligence. The diversity within our species is unlike any species.

You know, you have a lion. They're pretty much a lion. They come in a pecking order of more dominant or less dominant. But there's no lions having existentialist ennui. True. Nobody's just sitting there going like, but wait a second, why are we lions? Is there a god what should we kill is it bad that i just fucking killed this hyena should we be cooperate it's just all instant whereas humans there's just like you have like genius

level people tesla genius level people mozart and then you got like barely sliding into human just play at the plate you know just got a finger in on the tag like almost an ape and you have everything in between it's very hard to govern and then you throw culture and belief and genetics in there it's very hard to govern so it is a challenge like it is a challenge but I feel like we're living in a time of like a crisis of leadership where people won't stand up and do the unpopular thing and so for example when when biden withdrew from afghanistan i thought that was amazing like because he got slaughtered on both sides you know there was no difference difference between CNN and Fox News for those two weeks. And he didn't back down.

And I was like, wow, that's so rare in American politics. Like you said, if you don't pick a side, you can't get that audience, that constituency. And it just, I don't know, do you agree with me that we're in a crisis of leadership? We are in a crisis of leadership in that people are putting, I think, interest over principle always. You know, to me, it's like you can act in two ways. You can act under the principle of interest or in the interest of principle. The latter seems to be lacking. It's very poetic.

It doesn't seem like, it seems like we're all whores now. I just look around and all I see is whores. No gender attached to that. I just see every- But it's like nobody's enjoying it, you know? Nobody's happy. Someone's supposed to be enjoying it when there's a whore on the- But it's like nobody's enjoying it. You know, someone's supposed to be enjoying it when there's a war on the scene and it's just,

there's not, everyone's miserable. Well, that's the thing. You know, people, somehow we've all kind of bought into this kind of the only key to happiness is richness at all costs

by all- Or fame, yeah. Fame or anything like that and just people don't have any principles. Maybe that's a lack of religion or a breakdown of spirituality. I don't know any principles maybe that's a lack of religion or a breakdown of spirituality i don't know what it is maybe it's uh the inevitable uh sort of uh usurp the way that uh you know the american dream has usurped everything and they that's the thing that's

marketed to us constantly and maybe it's advertisers buy buy this, buy this, buy this. Maybe marketing has taken over everything. Maybe it's the social media, the way they're engineered to, because let's be honest, the social media apps are set up for us to fight. It's like, hey, look at this person, likes, dislikes. It's set up to make you envious.

It's set up to make you jealous. It's set up to make you envious it's set up to make you jealous it's set up to make you insecure because it benefits them and they're doing that out of the principle of interest so maybe that is the overarching thing that we've we've lost all principles yeah a point i make in the book is that if you're online and you're like scrolling through social and you see something that enrages you you know that feeling it's like road rage it's physical you're like scrolling through social, and you see something that enrages you, you know that feeling, it's like road rage. It's physical, you're like, I can't believe somebody thinks this on the internet. Every time you feel that way,

someone's making a million dollars, like literally. It's not normal to feel that way about a stranger. That's not natural. They've hacked that outrage button, you know? And every time you feel that way, you're literally allowing someone to take your heart and make a million dollars off of making you hate some other American. You know, like randomly for no reason.

That's an amazing thing you just said. I'm going to let that hang because I don't think we can top that. Batya Ungar Saragan. Did any marketer ever tell you, can we just go with Betty Stevens? But no. Batyar Batya Ungar Sargon. So get used to that name.

If there's one thing in the book beyond what you've already said about the liberal elite that I've heard you say on other shows, what will people get out of reading this book? It's a tough one without giving away the entire book. Like American journalism started as a populist revolution against elites on behalf of the working class. I spent a lot of time in the early chapters looking at these heroes of populist

journalism who showed up at a time of massive disgusting income inequality and were like we're here to represent the poor we're here to represent the working class like there is an alternative we don't actually have to hate each other there are alternatives in our history and and um you know i guess that's really the message of the book is like do not allow somebody to make you hate your fellow american so they can make money boom how woke media is undermining democracy go get this book everyone watches podcast has to get this book and check it out i i can't wait to read it i can't wait to read it i can't wait to learn to read and then read it. It'll take a little bit, but it's a little bit of a protracted process. First, I've got to learn to read,

and then I will read it. Hats off to you, and I'm sure it's going to be a fantastic book. Thanks for coming on. Follow her on all social media. It's all just your name, right? There's not another one. I don't think there's another one. I don't think people are gonna put

that name in and there'll be anything more that comes up to you are you the only person that has this name I'm pretty sure pretty sure

pretty sure so I'm destroying everything the Greek helmet Swedish snooze New York Newsday and of course we got

a pocket pussy who is this who was it again Ava Lovia Ava Lovia gave me that she was I had her on as a guest

so it's a diverse cat it's a diverse set and also Abe Lincoln the racist he hates everyone cancel him tear this statue down oh my god

get the book it's been a long day