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also before we get started love to

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wish a happy birthday to the unofficial

0:38

third host of this podcast Miss

0:41

daddy Hinson. Happy birthday daddy turned 7

0:44

today and for her birthday She asked

0:46

for him in to give her a

0:48

treat. This is a dental bone treat.

0:50

Hold this disgusting. Call the dog

0:53

doggy Good

0:55

girl and All

0:58

good girl. She loved it. She

1:00

loves him and Hammond hates her.

1:02

Yes I almost

1:04

made him give her a pig's ear But I

1:06

figured that was important for a vegetarian and I

1:08

care about people offended. Anyway, happy

1:11

birthday to my sweet dog She's 7

1:13

shop adopt don't shop, etc. All right

1:15

off we go. Let's talk about

1:17

little Nas X Oh,

1:21

oh he's up to a lot of things. Yeah,

1:23

he has a new song coming out on Friday,

1:26

January 12th Okay, okay,

1:28

that is tomorrow as a recording

1:30

this obviously daddy's birthday the 11th

1:33

as we all know it's his first new

1:35

single since 2022 and basically little

1:39

Nas X has perfected I

1:42

think the art of trolling

1:44

Christians in order to promote

1:46

everything he does now and

1:49

I'm here for it. I love that. I was

1:51

when he brought him up. I was genuinely

1:53

afraid he did something bad, but oh Bless

1:56

his little heart little Nas X

1:59

among the many things he's doing. The new song is

2:01

called J Christ. When

2:05

he announced it earlier this week. No, no, you don't

2:07

understand. It's my cousin Jennifer Christ. Yeah, yeah. And

2:10

it's in all caps, by the way. He

2:12

also announced earlier this week, it's dedicated to

2:14

the man who had the greatest comeback of

2:17

all time. And the image that

2:19

accompanied that image, I'm sorry,

2:21

the image that accompanied that like tweet that

2:24

Instagram post was basically a

2:27

little Nas X crucified on

2:29

a cross being raised up

2:31

by people in various stages

2:33

of dress. Raised up

2:36

this way? Like raised up the cross is

2:38

going up and it's being pulled up

2:40

by strings because it's very heavy. Like it's

2:42

pivoting up, right? It's not like floating upward.

2:44

So there's that. So that's part one. Very

2:46

case of dress you say? Uh, yeah.

2:48

Is there a pattern? Can I see it? You can have

2:52

fun watching this. Yep. Oh,

2:54

I love it. Like it looks like a

2:57

painting, like an oil painting. It's really beautiful.

2:59

Maybe he's just oiled up. I can't.

3:01

I would argue they're not in very states

3:03

of dress. I would argue they're more in

3:05

like very like chic versions of what they

3:07

might have worn around the

3:09

fashion expert. Like

3:11

it's all sort of like chic shawls that

3:14

look kind of raggedy, but probably cost $12

3:16

million. I guarantee you that's

3:18

what's up. Then he posted because of

3:20

course you don't just market your new

3:22

single with one image. You got to

3:24

go every day of the week and

3:26

give something big. So the next picture

3:28

was Lil Nas X dressed up as

3:30

an angel holding two machine guns.

3:36

To be fair, which to be

3:38

fair resembles modern day evangelicals far

3:40

more than dressing up like Jesus.

3:42

I was really hoping you're going to say

3:44

he dressed up like a biblically accurate angel

3:46

and just like with a bunch of wheels and

3:48

eyes and wings. Oh, he's going after some people.

3:51

But all of that was,

3:53

it paled in comparison to

3:55

the third announcement that Lil

3:58

Nas X, whose real name is Montero, Hill.

4:00

Excuse me, Montero Hill? And

4:02

he changed it? Are you out of

4:05

your fucking mind? That's a dope name.

4:07

Let me read the caption before I read

4:10

you the post. I

4:12

know some of y'all hate me right

4:14

now, but I want y'all to know

4:16

I'm literally about to go to college

4:18

for biblical studies in the fall. Not

4:20

everything is a troll. Anyways, I'm a

4:22

student again. Let's go. And then he

4:25

posts his acceptance letter from

4:27

Liberty University. Dear

4:31

Montero Hill, congratulations.

4:34

You've been officially accepted to

4:36

Liberty University for the fall

4:38

2024 semester with a dual

4:40

concentration in Christian leadership and

4:42

biblical studies. What

4:45

are you saying? How am

4:47

I supposed to process this?

4:49

Montero, the entire Liberty family congratulates

4:52

you. Now is your time to

4:54

train as a champion for Christ.

4:57

Sincerely, Jerry Falwell,

5:00

president. I'm so

5:02

confused. I was at first. I will admit.

5:04

I was deeply confused. But he said specifically not

5:06

a troll. Is that a troll? Are you double

5:08

trolling us? He may be reverse crosstrolling. I

5:11

mean, reverse crosstrolling. I don't

5:13

know what the right word is. I

5:15

will admit this is the first thing

5:17

I saw. Yeah. Not the third thing

5:19

I saw. So I was like, wait,

5:21

is he joking? He must be. He

5:23

has to be. But also what? And

5:26

then it did if you take more

5:28

than three seconds to look at

5:30

it, it's like, oh, right. Liberty

5:33

University, if they're saying you're admitted for the fall of

5:35

2024 next year, while

5:37

the president of Liberty is not

5:39

Jerry Falwell. Jerry Falwell, the original,

5:42

died in 2007. Jerry

5:44

Falwell, Jr., which

5:46

is what everyone's thinking of. That guy resigned in 2020

5:48

to watch the

5:51

pool boys. Yeah. So like, okay,

5:53

it's clear this is a joke.

5:55

Oh, God, I was. Who is

5:58

the current President

6:00

of Liberty University the answer is no one

6:02

cares anymore because that dudes not in the

6:05

news really Does he have a name that

6:07

I'd recognize? Sondi Costin it doesn't matter No

6:09

it doesn't matter But the point is he's

6:11

trolling again, and it's glorious That is I

6:14

guys the emotional roller coaster I just

6:17

went on was a lot I'm

6:19

really sad we're recording in the morning, and

6:21

I don't have wine to cover it with

6:24

me. That's so good Wait he didn't just

6:26

limit it to Twitter no Instagram

6:29

he's also on tiktok, and I want to

6:31

show you this I know I know it's

6:34

hard to do this on a podcast, but

6:36

come come enjoy Everybody

6:38

a word picture yeah come enjoy.

6:40

What was happening over here? Because

6:43

the other thing he posted this is not the one I want

6:45

to show you The

6:47

one I want to show you is If

6:49

I can get this to work he

6:52

posted a video of himself on tiktok

6:54

where he was Downing

6:56

communion wafers and communion

6:58

wine To

7:01

which everyone's like yeah, you know you've all

7:03

wanted to do this this one isn't even

7:05

evangelical this is straight-up Catholic But

7:08

he's just down in communion wine like he's

7:10

at a buffet They're

7:14

all each individual little shots Shooters

7:21

Mowing down though have you ever had a

7:23

communion wafer um I feel like I must

7:25

have at some point I

7:27

don't remember, but you know Yes,

7:30

is not the tastiest no

7:33

It's a plot nick is

7:35

a Polish thing I think it's just a giant

7:37

wafer cracker But they really they're like kind of

7:39

styrofoam you can put away 12

7:41

of those and not even notice right and if you got it

7:43

from like an actual wafer from

7:46

the story it'd be even more Cuz

7:48

they're actually tasty. Yeah, but the communion

7:50

wine altar. I mean wine

7:52

alcoholic it can be But like

7:55

so if I bring my eight-year-old my

7:57

Catholic eight-year-old yes to wait

8:00

I'm sure they have a 14 year

8:02

old. I'm sure they have children's versions

8:04

of them I just wonder just writ

8:06

large like you know, obviously it's a drink

8:08

of wine So it's not gonna make that

8:10

much of all the things you are ingesting

8:12

from the Catholic Church Alcoholic

8:15

wine is the least of anyone. I

8:17

have a curious mind Hemet. I've questions

8:19

that need answered. So basically

8:21

I Don't know what

8:23

the songs about. I don't know what

8:26

the album is about. No one's heard it. It's not

8:28

out tomorrow So it's like

8:30

where are you going with this? I

8:33

don't I don't care Yeah, doesn't matter.

8:35

I'm here for it used but just

8:37

to remind people we have this conversation

8:39

in 2021 because his

8:41

first album you you've heard of Old Town

8:43

Road, but the album his first Album

8:46

called Montero came out in 2021 and at

8:48

the time one of the ways he promoted

8:50

that thing Was that he partnered

8:53

with a design company called mischief? Who

8:56

which is famous for putting out

8:58

like just rolling Sort

9:00

of things and they released Satan shoes

9:04

In them right did have a drop of human

9:07

blood these were a limited run of 666

9:10

modified Nikes with

9:12

a drop of human blood and pentagram

9:15

and It was there was

9:17

a reference to a Bible verse Luke chapter

9:19

10 verse 18, which says I saw

9:21

Satan fall like lightning from heaven And

9:26

That thing It

9:29

riled up every conservative Christian and he was ready

9:31

with the response every time like he was sitting

9:33

on Twitter Waiting for them to chime in so

9:35

he could respond. So you had Governor

9:38

Kristi Noem saying like our kids are being

9:41

told that this kind of product is not

9:43

only okay. It's exclusive talking about the shoes

9:47

North and our photos at Dakota

9:49

Dakota Also,

9:51

I heard about governor and I was confused She

9:54

is governor of NASA. He wants to be

9:57

The go she wants to be vice president. We'll

9:59

see that works out for her. But

10:02

anyway, gnome. Gnome? Yeah. Like a

10:04

G? Nope. You're going off on

10:06

the wrong tangent. Okay, okay, sorry.

10:08

So she's like, you know what's

10:10

more exclusive? Her God given eternal

10:12

soul. To which little Nas

10:14

X responds, you're a whole governor and

10:16

you on here tweeting about some damn

10:18

shoes. Do your job. That's very funny.

10:20

But I would also say that your soul

10:22

is like not very valuable

10:24

because everybody has one. That too. Someone else

10:27

chimed in like my kids will never play

10:29

old town road again. To which little Nas

10:31

X responded. They shouldn't be playing old town

10:34

road anyway. We stream and call me by

10:36

your name now. His new song. Candace

10:39

Owens chimed in to which he said, you

10:41

know, you did something right when she talks

10:43

about it. Uh, Greg Locke.

10:45

Can we talk about heaven's excellent little Nas X

10:47

voice? Thank you. Good. I really like it. Go

10:49

ahead. I know Greg. Lost chimed in

10:51

and he was not a fan to which

10:54

little Nas X chimed in with I'm

10:56

sampling this sermon thing.

10:58

He didn't, but it was funny. And of

11:00

course, if you've seen the video for Montero,

11:02

call me by your name. This is the

11:05

video where a little Nas X slides down

11:07

a stripper pole to hell before giving Satan

11:09

a lap dance. Our world

11:11

got kind of weird. Yeah, that was the good

11:14

times. This is what we're talking about. I'm like a news.

11:16

But it all worked because stripper

11:20

pole all night at nine stripper pole to

11:22

hell. Is there one in your town? I

11:24

mean, to be fair, if it was that long, that's

11:26

like one of those giant water slides. Like I would

11:28

totally go down to like a pole that long.

11:32

You would definitely need some sort of like gloves.

11:34

Yeah. But children's playgrounds don't do it

11:36

for me anymore. No, no, no, no. Cause

11:38

they're like five feet tall. Yeah. Six

11:40

feet tall. Why aren't there

11:43

playgrounds for adults? Oh, high ropes

11:45

courses. So that song,

11:47

the Satan song, that one

11:49

debuted at number one on the billboard,

11:51

hot 100. The full album peaked at

11:53

number two. Not bad. Like he did

11:55

well. So of course he's generating, he's

11:57

doing all the Christian trolling now because

11:59

that worked the last time. Yeah, it

12:01

broke, don't fix it. And given that

12:04

he's an openly queer artist whose whole

12:06

thing is defying convention, why

12:08

not piss off the right people? The

12:10

fact that he makes music people actually

12:12

like means their outrage just makes them

12:14

look bad. They get madder and madder.

12:17

He's just poking them harder and harder.

12:19

It is funny that like, he's

12:23

so blatantly trolling them and

12:25

they have just no understanding

12:28

that like, A,

12:30

this is nothing. This is

12:32

a flash in the pan thing that like people will

12:34

remember in the Isle of the 2020s and 30 years.

12:37

But like, you know, it's a flash in the pan thing.

12:39

Hopefully that's a prolific career to run for a long time.

12:42

But they being

12:44

the Christian right are just getting so

12:46

bogged down in like the

12:48

little minutia of like pop

12:51

people not adhering to their

12:53

culture. It's just the dumbest

12:55

fight you can pick. It's just like,

12:57

it's like people telling the Beatles to

12:59

cut their hair. Like you're in the

13:02

same generation of people. Like,

13:04

oh, David Bowie, he doesn't dress like a

13:06

boy. Like these are the same people generation

13:08

after generation. And none of them, none

13:11

of them have the wherewithal to like look

13:13

back a generation in history to be like,

13:16

is this really the end time? Were we the

13:18

baddies? Because we also thought, were we the baddies?

13:20

Like we also thought that D&D was bringing the

13:22

end times and all it's done is

13:24

giving a lot of white guys podcasts. Which is

13:27

fine, I like those. But you know what I

13:29

mean? Like their long

13:31

game is so stupid

13:33

because like picking these culture words. And

13:35

then they ask themselves, why are all these young

13:38

people leaving the church? Don't understand it. And then

13:40

they blame Lil Nas X and then yell at him and

13:42

everyone's like, well, if you're yelling at him, I

13:44

like him. And I think one thing I

13:46

appreciate is that there was a time when

13:48

people might be afraid of conservative Christians boycotting,

13:50

flipping out over your stuff. And he's just

13:52

leaning into it like, oh no, you're doing

13:54

my marketing for me, which I love. One

13:57

person online said this last

13:59

time. time he trolls Christians which

14:01

is love seeing Christians be

14:03

like I can't believe LGBTQ teens

14:06

are worshiping Satan instead of our

14:08

nice God who hates them I

14:11

mean yeah it's to

14:14

be fair I would say every three

14:16

years some big celebrity comes out and

14:18

does the oh like Christians love you

14:20

so much they'll murder you or whatever

14:22

and like good for them good for

14:24

every new person who realizes or points

14:26

out that the Christian right is just

14:28

hypocrisy in a trench coat this is

14:30

what I appreciate about him like he's

14:33

using his giant platform to go after

14:35

one of the most pernicious forces in

14:37

our society conservative Christians were primarily motivated

14:39

by how much harm they can inflict

14:42

truly on marginalized communities power they can

14:44

gain over people unlike other pop stars

14:46

say like Taylor Swift whose whole thing

14:49

is she's universal and everyone loves her

14:51

music he knows that's not his jam

14:53

like he's playing to an audience and

14:55

his audience knows the difference between like

14:58

spirited mockery and inherent cruelty

15:01

and so like the side

15:04

that worships Jesus they're not the good ones

15:06

in this battle and again little

15:08

Nana Nas X is leaning into it

15:10

the website promoting the new single good

15:12

the beginning it's beginning is near dot-com

15:15

not the end is near beginning is

15:17

near God he's a G is me

15:19

like 20 12 yeah something like that

15:24

baby good for ya get he

15:26

does say he does not consider

15:29

any of this trolling even though I think

15:31

he's very clearly trolling he sees this is

15:33

art which is using iconography that so many

15:35

people recognize and then reinterpreting it for himself

15:38

which is what everyone does I mean is

15:40

with any world rolling exactly like all those

15:42

pictures we talked about this like a week

15:44

or two ago all those paintings of Jesus

15:47

that make him look like a white guy

15:49

what is that it's taking a familiar story

15:51

then putting your own stamp on it because

15:53

Jesus wasn't white and that's what he's doing

15:56

he's like no this isn't of course the

15:58

real thing but this is the story you all

16:00

know and I'm gonna use it to say something

16:02

different that's how art works he

16:04

says this is a basically a sincere homage

16:07

this is from little mazek's this week the

16:09

crazy thing is nowhere in the picture of

16:11

the crucifix being raised up is a mockery

16:13

of Jesus no Jesus's image is used throughout

16:16

history and people's art all over the world

16:18

I'm not making fun of shit y'all just

16:20

got to stop trying to gatekeep a religion

16:22

that was here before any of us were

16:24

even born shut the fuck up and he's

16:27

that to his end there are

16:29

places where people reenact the crucifixion

16:31

yeah I mean I feel like it was like

16:33

discovery in 1999 but

16:37

like you know you go to certain parts of

16:39

the country and somebody gets like so crucified and

16:41

they do so like if that's not mocking Jesus

16:43

why is this mocking Jesus right and by the

16:46

way literally looking at the picture there is nothing

16:48

like Donna has famous you famously you

16:50

know really country Kanye West back in

16:52

the day wore a crown of thorns

16:55

on his head for the cover of

16:57

Rolling Stone yep like and now he's

16:59

totally a conservative Christian and believes all

17:01

the conspiracy theories no one is hurting

17:08

Christianity more than the biggest use Jesus

17:10

as an excuse to hate others little

17:12

nazek's is not your problem like you're

17:15

worried about who's doing damage to the

17:17

faith it's not that guy it's all of

17:19

you so it's truly like

17:21

when I brought up the idea of you know a

17:24

generation before it was cut your hair

17:26

dirty hippie or whatever I think that

17:28

there is a short-sightedness in the religious

17:30

right that is very interesting to me

17:32

I listened to the same political the

17:35

same esoteric political history

17:38

and they did a thing about the

17:40

you know the letter that Thomas Jefferson

17:42

wrote to the Baptist yeah

17:44

yeah the separation of church

17:46

and where the phrase a wall separation between

17:49

church and state and so they talked about

17:51

that and about

17:53

how the Christian right

17:56

has what that means to them is different

17:59

now than it was would have been then. And

18:01

I would highly recommend everybody listen to it

18:03

for context for like, what today's

18:05

Christian right is compared to what it used

18:07

to be not that they used to be

18:10

better or worse or whatever. It's just incredibly

18:12

different. Their goals are different. And I think

18:14

it's worth if you're interested in this worth

18:16

listening to. Yeah, I'll make a note

18:18

about it. And with that, let's

18:20

talk about politics. Oh, good. Were we

18:22

not? We were not. Next

18:25

week is the Iowa caucuses, the

18:27

first step in the primaries for

18:29

Republicans. Oh, Republicans

18:31

because Democrats are done though. We have

18:33

a president and we don't need a primary.

18:36

I remember how politics works. Yes. Technically, there

18:38

are two Democrats challenging Joe Biden and no,

18:40

and one of them literally had a campaign

18:42

event this week where zero people showed up

18:44

and there was a picture of him sitting

18:46

on the back of his truck. Like sometimes

18:48

you build it and they don't come and

18:50

it's like, yeah, buddy, we told you this

18:52

when you entered the race. What do you

18:54

do in Dean Phillips? Okay.

18:57

Yeah. Anyway, wow. Republicans have their

18:59

Iowa caucus on a Monday. And

19:02

one of the, there's always all the articles

19:04

about what do these Iowans think, which

19:06

is the only time anyone ever cares

19:08

about that question. But every four years,

19:11

thankfully Democrats are done with Iowa forever.

19:13

So the, no, I don't

19:18

even know where you're going with that. Oh, that's just music pants. Whatever

19:20

you bring up Iowa, I have to quote music. There was

19:23

an article this week in the New York Times

19:27

about basically what's going on with

19:30

the influence of Christians in Iowa

19:32

ahead of the caucuses because

19:35

Iowa is famously like

19:37

almost 80% white

19:39

evangelical, at least in the Republican side

19:41

of things. And so they've always

19:44

had an outsized influence in who wins the

19:46

Iowa caucuses, which has an outside influence

19:48

on who gets the nomination. So it can,

19:50

yeah. And what's interesting about that

19:52

is in the past, some of

19:54

the more famous leaders, for example,

19:56

there's a guy, Bob Vander Plaats,

19:58

who is like, like the white

20:00

evangelical that all the candidates,

20:03

Republicans anyway, want to get the

20:05

endorsement of because they know he

20:07

has a lot of sway among

20:09

evangelicals. Vander Platt? Vander Platt.

20:12

Love it. And in the past, who did

20:14

he endorse? He endorsed Mike Huckabee, I think that

20:16

was 2008. Guess what, Mike

20:18

Huckabee won the caucus that year. He

20:21

wasn't the nominee, but he won the Iowa

20:23

caucus. He endorsed Rick Santorum. Oh boy, I

20:25

forgot about that. In 2012, Rick

20:27

Santorum beat Mitt Romney in Iowa. Vander

20:30

Platt endorsed Ted Cruz in 2016. Ted

20:34

Cruz won the Iowa caucus. That's it, okay.

20:36

So Vander Platt has sway. Well,

20:38

he has sway for Iowa. He doesn't

20:40

seem to have national sway. But that's it,

20:42

that's all we're talking about. We're talking about Iowa,

20:44

and in Iowa his word goes a long way.

20:47

So this goes to the heart of the question

20:49

like, all right, so what's gonna happen? There obviously

20:51

wasn't a Republican caucus in 2020. They

20:53

were going with Trump. So

20:55

the question is, what's going on

20:57

now? Well, one thing to keep

20:59

in mind is Bob Vander Platt's

21:01

this time around, he's endorsing Ron

21:03

DeSantis. Because Ron DeSantis is playing

21:05

up his safe credential. DeSantis is

21:07

Catholic, but he's very much- Catholic?

21:10

He's Catholic. What? Yeah,

21:12

not news, because none of it really matters anymore. I know it's

21:14

not news to you, but like- No, it's not news because- But

21:17

he's Catholic like an evangelical. That's the thing,

21:19

he is Catholic like an even- But

21:21

so is Vivek Ramaswamy. Yeah, fair enough,

21:23

fair enough. And Donald Trump- Isn't any

21:25

of those things. Yeah, yeah, he's- So

21:27

that's the thing. So Ron DeSantis gets

21:29

the endorsement, the coveted Vander Platt's endorsement,

21:31

but obviously the polls don't show DeSantis

21:33

doing well at all. Sure, sure. Like

21:36

you're losing to Nikki Haley. Is anybody doing-

21:38

No, Trump has more than 50% of the vote according

21:41

to the polls. Nikki Haley is second place and

21:43

she's like at 20%. So

21:46

really the, I mean, there were debates this

21:48

week between Haley and DeSantis. And it's like,

21:51

why are we here? Because all of you

21:53

are losing and neither of you want to

21:55

go after Trump. You're going after each other.

21:57

Like where are you going with this? It's

22:00

a battle for who might be vice president or

22:02

something. I have no

22:04

idea how this year is going to

22:06

change. Oh, I'll tell you how it'll go. Donald Trump will

22:08

wrap this up within like two weeks, and then we'll be

22:11

done with the rest of them. Then he'll pick Nikki Haley

22:13

to be his vice president, and then they will put up

22:15

a hello. I mean, it's not going to be an easy

22:17

November. Hopefully some people will come

22:19

to their senses and vote for Joe Biden,

22:21

even if you don't like him, because the

22:23

alternative is crazy. Is there any ongoing

22:27

lawsuits that can shift something? Maybe.

22:30

If Trump gets convicted, that could shake

22:33

the election up. Things are going

22:36

to happen between now and November, obviously. But

22:39

on paper, he'll make fun of Nikki

22:41

Haley right now until forever, and she's

22:43

attacking him kind of from

22:45

now until forever. But he will eventually be like,

22:48

I need to win to stay out of

22:50

jail. So I'll pick Nikki Haley to show people,

22:52

look, I can have a quote unquote moderate, and

22:55

then she will act like she never said anything

22:57

bad about Trump. That's how she rolls. She doesn't

22:59

have any principles. Anyway, so back

23:01

to the question of what's the influence

23:03

of evangelicals in Iowa? Because they're not

23:05

helping Ron DeSantis. And there's

23:08

an article that basically talked to Iowan

23:11

voters. My favorite quotation was from

23:13

this lady. Her name

23:15

is Karen Johnson, and this is the quotation

23:17

that got a lot of attention because it

23:19

was hilarious. She's a Trump supporter. She

23:21

says she loves frequent

23:23

prayer. She's a right-wing megacultist.

23:27

But here's the quotation. Trump is

23:29

our David and our Goliath. Well,

23:32

that doesn't mean anything. That doesn't mean

23:35

anything because in the story, Goliath's

23:37

not the guy you

23:39

want to be, so what are you even talking about?

23:42

I mean, I think what she thinks

23:44

she's saying is he's both the underdog

23:46

and a mighty soldier. Yeah, I think

23:48

you are correct. Which I understand why. Yeah,

23:51

so she's trying to say, unfortunately,

23:53

maybe casting him as

23:55

the villain in one of the most famous biblical

23:58

stories isn't the way to go. Yeah, maybe. And

24:00

also it's like what it

24:02

comes down to is these religious conservatives

24:05

are using whatever biblically based reasons they

24:07

want to offer to support someone

24:09

who clearly doesn't give a shit about any of

24:11

this and that's kind of the joke because White

24:14

evangelicals you used to think in Iowa

24:16

these people care about certain issues culture

24:18

war issues And if you could rile

24:20

them up on those things yeah like

24:22

Ted Cruz like Mike Huckabee Of

24:25

course they'll get your support because they did

24:27

in the past They won the Iowa Republican

24:29

caucus and now yeah Trump

24:31

will say he supports all that stuff

24:33

But even Trump knows enough to say

24:35

like yeah abortion I did it I

24:37

overturned out Roe v. Wade because I

24:39

put those three Supreme Court judges on

24:42

the bench But also he knows as

24:44

well as anyone That's

24:46

not a winning issue for our side so he

24:48

goes back and forth about it So what is

24:50

it that white evangelicals care about these days because

24:52

it doesn't seem like they're transformed by Ron

24:55

DeSantis who is all about the

24:57

culture wars yeah All

25:00

for Trump because I think it's not about

25:02

culture wars. I think it's a cultural personality Yeah,

25:04

and I think that's the change because these

25:06

people I mean critics like us

25:08

in versus like 2016 and Everything

25:10

before that okay like us have said these people

25:12

don't actually have ethics or principles Yeah, they just

25:15

say like oh, I hate gay people so that's

25:17

why I'm gonna vote the way I'm voting right

25:19

and now it's like It

25:21

is cult of personality because you never cared

25:23

about Jesus This was never because I hate

25:26

gay people because the Bible teaches me

25:28

to do this You hate people because

25:30

they're not your people yeah, and it's

25:32

other and it's all other in everybody

25:34

And this is a perfect example of

25:36

that because now they're all in on

25:38

Trump who is nothing Like

25:40

the sort of Jesus they claim to pray

25:43

to yeah, here's the paragraph in the Times

25:45

article It was interesting being

25:47

evangelical once suggested regular church

25:49

attendance a focus on salvation

25:51

and conversion And

25:53

strongly held views on specific issues such

25:56

as abortion today. It is

25:58

often used to describe a cultural and political

26:00

identity, one in which Christians

26:03

are considered a persecuted minority,

26:05

traditional institutions are viewed skeptically,

26:07

and Mr. Trump looms large.

26:10

Which I think is very accurate. Yeah, it's

26:12

a good idea. If you think of evangelical

26:14

Christians, you're not thinking of, these are good

26:16

devout people who go to church every week.

26:18

Right. They really care about

26:20

your salvation. No, if I want to

26:23

put up a magnet to draw evangelical

26:25

Christians, I'll hold up a picture of a

26:27

trans person or a drag queen, not a

26:29

picture of Jesus. They're not coming to, they're

26:32

not going to come crawling to that.

26:34

Right. You just tell them, here's

26:36

a group you hate, and they'll come crawling

26:38

to that. Instead, here's a gun. Here,

26:40

they will be drawn to that like a moth

26:43

to a flame. Well, we even talked about in

26:45

the Year in the Review episode, the guy

26:48

who said that like the qualities that we

26:50

used to admire about Jesus, people are not

26:52

calling weak. And like, how do

26:54

you... Jesus was a socialist. They would never vote

26:56

for Jesus if he was running in the Republican

26:58

primary. I do wonder how they... It

27:01

doesn't matter about how they figured this Jesus

27:03

who said he loved everybody and helped that

27:06

group. That guy never existed and they never

27:08

cared about that dude. I mean, the fact

27:10

that white evangelicals in Iowa are flocking to

27:12

Trump, even though Ron DeSantis would advance a

27:15

nearly identical agenda. And is probably more politically

27:17

viable at this point. Yeah, and that's his

27:19

whole campaign. I did it in Florida with

27:21

the help of a super majority of Republicans.

27:24

You can do anything you want with the super majority.

27:26

But he's like, look, I did it in Florida. Don't

27:28

you want me to do that everywhere? And

27:30

they don't care. They're just like,

27:32

no, Trump, we just like

27:35

this dude. That's it. That really is

27:37

all it is. It says more about

27:39

how much Christianity really ever motivated these people.

27:41

It doesn't. It never has. It

27:43

was always just the othering. It was the we're part

27:45

of the same tribe and we're

27:47

not swayed by principle. We're swayed by

27:50

whoever painters to us. Better. I

27:52

think there's a few problems with

27:54

longevity in this particular plan that

27:56

they have. One would be that

27:58

the like. demographic

28:01

of white Christian

28:03

straight evangelicals is

28:05

shrinking. Yes. Percipitous. Which

28:07

also means the shrinking base is

28:09

more extreme. They don't have anyone

28:12

to moderate. But also when I was

28:14

in 2016, 2018, or 2018 when I was knocking

28:19

doors there's a lot of talk about

28:21

down ballot stuff. You know down ballot

28:23

measures you're not just voting for president,

28:25

governor, whomever. You're voting for

28:28

your city council member. And

28:30

I wonder, and this I don't know, I

28:32

wonder if this sort of fixation on one

28:34

person who doesn't even necessarily represent the

28:37

GOP. Like he doesn't talk about himself as

28:39

or... Right? He's just him. He's just pro

28:41

him. So I just wonder

28:44

what that is going to do to dink

28:46

ticket ballots of people just showing up to

28:48

vote for Trump and then sort

28:50

of he's not gonna go down and support

28:52

anybody down ticket, right? He's not gonna... I

28:55

mean that's a hope in the general

28:57

election that enough people, not the white

28:59

evangelicals, they're a lost cause in a

29:01

lot of cases, but that a lot

29:03

of people will be so disturbed by

29:05

Trump. Especially if he gets convicted, which

29:07

would turn off a lot of independent

29:09

voters, that they wouldn't go

29:11

to the poll. Even if they don't

29:13

support Biden they probably won't vote for

29:15

Trump. Which would hurt Republican candidates down

29:17

ballot too, which would be fantastic. Another

29:23

interesting thing about this is that

29:26

there are polls, this is also from the

29:28

article, polls show that the future nominee, Trump,

29:30

back in the day, this is from 2016,

29:34

he was most popular among one

29:36

group of people in particular, white

29:38

evangelicals, self-described white evangelicals who seldom

29:41

or never went to church. Which

29:43

makes you wonder if these people aren't

29:45

going to church, why do they think

29:47

they called themselves evangelical? Because church goes

29:49

to church, and they don't. Church going

29:52

isn't their identity. They think they're evangelicals,

29:54

they say they're evangelicals, but what does

29:56

that actually mean in practice? Not what

29:58

theologians, not what scholars of evangelicals... said

30:00

like what does it mean to be

30:02

an evangelical? Well there's a few things

30:04

you have to every angelize is kind

30:06

of right there. And if these people

30:08

aren't going to church you're kind of

30:10

violating what everyone considered the definition of

30:12

evangelical. Sure. There was one other anecdote

30:14

in this story that I found interesting

30:17

which is this is from

30:19

the article at Mr. Trump's rally in

30:21

Coralville it was Joel Penny now.

30:24

No. It was Joel Penny a 27 year

30:26

old local evangelist who does not lead

30:28

a church who delivered the opening prayer.

30:31

The crowd responded tentatively to

30:33

his impassioned recitation of several

30:35

Bible verses. But the rally

30:38

goers roared to life when he set

30:40

aside the scripture and told them what

30:42

they had come to hear. So

30:45

when he starts talking about Trump they cheer up

30:47

they get super excited when this dude is reading

30:49

from the Bible they're all like yeah I don't

30:52

care I'm not here for this. Which

30:54

is very much a Greg Locke thing as

30:56

well. Sure. Like he claims oh we're going

30:58

to do a Bible reading. No one cares

31:00

no one spreads that online so he doesn't

31:02

do it as much. They want to see people

31:04

get their head touched and fall down on stage.

31:06

And they want to see him prance around

31:09

on stage and just yell about government spread

31:11

conspiracy theories. Just make up some shit and yell

31:13

about and say in certain tonality so they know when

31:15

they're supposed to cheer. Yeah I mean

31:17

so what does it mean to be an evangelical

31:19

these days church adherents in one particular community fell

31:21

31 percent from 2010 to 2020 the steepest in

31:26

the state even as 80 percent

31:29

of the population continued to

31:31

identify in surveys as white

31:33

Christians. Is there any

31:35

kind of parallel for

31:38

like liberals of like

31:40

oh yeah I consider myself liberal

31:42

but I've never voted. That would

31:44

be it like I'm really liberal

31:46

but I don't vote or isn't

31:48

the term I would use. But if

31:50

there are people who are so disgusted

31:52

by Trump and Trumpism that they might

31:54

say well I'm on the other side.

31:57

I do vote. Yeah. But I don't

31:59

call myself a. Democrat. I don't call

32:01

myself a liberal. Maybe I've seen that

32:03

a lot. Sure. But now you're saying

32:05

you're a Democrat or you're saying you're

32:07

a progressive. I feel like what does

32:09

that mean in practice? That means you

32:11

care about politics and you vote. Yeah.

32:13

On the specifics, it's going to change. When

32:15

I hear somebody says they're progressive, I think that

32:17

they are pro choice, pro

32:20

LGBTQ rights and like that kind of

32:22

thing. Yeah. But on the other side,

32:24

there's an open question as to what

32:27

evangelical means, at least in Iowa, at

32:29

least based on this election. One other

32:31

quote from someone else. This

32:33

is someone who said, I voted for Trump twice and

32:35

I'll vote for him again. He's

32:37

the only savior I can see. Raised

32:41

as a Baptist, this person no longer

32:43

attends church. I just try to do

32:45

right. She said, I

32:48

wish I could know what I saw. I wish

32:51

Democrats, if any prominent Democrats said,

32:53

Joe Biden's our savior, they

32:55

would get blasted for how dare you

32:57

compare him to Jesus. And rightly

32:59

so. And rightly so. It's

33:01

wildly inappropriate. Everything

33:04

else aside, calling a politician

33:06

your savior is so naive.

33:09

It's really embarrassing, especially.

33:12

They worship their elected officials

33:15

where I'm like, if

33:17

you ask me about Democrats, even ones I like,

33:19

I'm like, yeah, they're fine. I like them.

33:21

I was just talking to my. I'm

33:23

going to move on with my life. The lady who cuts

33:25

my hair because the she was like,

33:27

oh, did you hear the paper? They're

33:29

going to release whoever what's in spaces

33:32

list of pedophile islands. And

33:34

we were talking about that. And I

33:37

went to a casual salon conversation. Yeah,

33:39

well, I'm a very mature person and I

33:41

have interesting conversations. Yes.

33:45

But I one of my favorite things that

33:47

I see often on Facebook or whatever is

33:49

like, well, what if Bill Clinton is on

33:52

that list? Fucking take him. Right.

33:54

No one's defending him. Not a

33:56

single Democrat or anybody who

33:58

shares my ideology. not a single

34:00

one who if I found out they were fucking

34:02

a kid, I would not be like,

34:05

get out of my life. Like, truly,

34:08

I don't. By the way, now that

34:10

we're going to be demonetized, please go

34:12

to patreon.com/friendly atheist podcast. One

34:14

other lady who was quoted in this piece, she took

34:16

her eighth grade son out of school to attend a

34:18

rally for Trump. She said abortion

34:20

policy is quote, one thing I don't

34:22

really stress. Have

34:25

you ever heard a white evangelical? That's all I think about.

34:27

What is she voting for? Trump, her savior. But like, to

34:29

what end? What is Trump going to do? Because I thought

34:32

it was all about abortion. He

34:35

talks about Christians being persecuted and he

34:37

says, I'll be your champion. And

34:39

that's it. Again, he's not devout in any

34:41

meaningful way. He just tells evangelicals what he

34:44

thinks they want to hear. And they're dumb enough

34:46

to fall for it. Because again, he did give

34:48

them the judges they wanted. Which, of course,

34:50

any Republican would have done. I mean, yeah,

34:52

that's what we talked about for four years as

34:54

well. He got got this judge and they got

34:56

that. And because of

34:58

that, they do not give a

35:01

damn about the criminal indictments, the

35:03

Hitleresque rhetoric, the adoration of international

35:05

fascists, the selfishness, the embrace of

35:07

ignorance, whatever Trump offers. Do you?

35:09

God, I don't know. Another Republican in the article. Sorry, this

35:11

is in the Associated Press, but a different

35:14

article, same concept. This

35:19

other 72 year old Republican who says he's

35:21

going to caucus for Trump all the way

35:23

to the Senate, says he felt the former

35:25

president, quote, exemplified what Jesus would do. Which

35:28

what do you think Jesus did? That's the

35:30

thing I don't like. Listen, I get

35:33

that doesn't make Trump look good. That makes Jesus

35:35

look shitty. What are you doing? Well,

35:37

I've just watched so many documentaries

35:39

about cults and it's always shit like

35:42

this. And like it makes

35:44

me like I know objectively anybody's susceptible

35:46

to get drawn into a cult, but

35:48

it's so scary to see it like.

35:50

You have to be alive on

35:53

the country and it's getting worse. I

35:55

haven't watched it yet, but there's one that like it's a creepy

35:57

cult. And then the woman who ran it died. And I was

35:59

like, no, no, no. notes here, we'll just keep going.

36:03

I think if there's any silver lining

36:05

to all this, it's that the switch

36:07

from worshiping Jesus to worshiping Trump has

36:09

pushed a lot of decent people, especially

36:11

young people out of organized religion entirely,

36:13

even if they're not on our side.

36:15

But if and when Trump wins

36:17

the caucus next week, I think

36:19

it'll prove what people like us,

36:21

the critics of Christian nationalism have

36:23

been saying forever. Those Republicans, they

36:25

were never values, voters or anything

36:27

like that. They were conservatives who

36:29

used religion as a weapon to

36:32

hurt their enemies. And now they

36:34

found someone who speaks their language.

36:36

So they're, they're ready to discard all

36:38

the religious stuff that they never

36:40

cared about anyway. And now we have

36:42

like, we will have proof that,

36:44

yeah, you never actually cared about the

36:47

Bible, religion, Jesus. You said that

36:49

you still say that, but none of

36:51

that actually matters. It must come

36:53

down to, well, what's

36:56

the truth with that, right? Like, I think it just comes

36:58

down to tribalism, right? Of like, if you're not with

37:00

me, you're getting it. What does it mean

37:03

to be an evangelical? And it used to

37:05

mean conversion matters. And you believe Jesus is

37:07

the one who got whatever, all that stuff.

37:09

Now it's the belief that you are a

37:11

persecuted group. I

37:14

think that's the one thing that

37:16

combines, that draws together all of

37:18

these people. They believe for crazy

37:20

reasons that they are being persecuted.

37:22

And, and I just want to

37:24

yell back like, all right, who

37:26

has it good in this country,

37:28

because please tell me black women

37:30

and queer people are like, I'm

37:32

happy when they leave the house in the

37:34

morning, happy to swap out every Christian in

37:37

Congress for a non-religious person. Which group do

37:39

you want to be right now? I

37:41

mean, it really is so frustrating to cry

37:43

persecution when it's like, has there ever

37:45

been a non-Christian president? Yeah, I know. Maybe

37:47

one day. Like

37:49

how, well, we've had

37:51

a couple of Catholics and they don't like them either.

37:53

So, Oh boy. My

37:56

God, at Christmas, my mother, ready

37:58

for a really cool chill conversation. I'm

38:01

talking about a book he read about the

38:03

rise of the KKK. It's

38:05

like, fire in the heartland or something

38:08

to that effect. And so

38:10

we just, Christmas dinner, me, my mother-in-law,

38:12

and my sister-in-law, both of whom are Catholic,

38:14

had a really nice conversation about how the KKK is

38:16

a Catholic. Which I

38:18

think that is a sort of piece of historical

38:21

knowledge that has been lost.

38:24

That they're a Catholic organization? No,

38:26

no, no. They were anti-Catholic. Oh, I'm sorry,

38:28

it's a Christian organization, but yeah, they... They

38:31

were mainly anti-Catholic. Like,

38:34

the anti-Black shit was sort of like, oh, just throw

38:36

them on in the pile. It was an anti-Catholic group,

38:38

and like, Jesus fucking

38:40

Christ, guys, like, how can you

38:42

not see that anybody who is

38:44

an other is in danger? Like,

38:47

it is...it's just like people who

38:49

complain about how the Irish were treated in

38:51

the turn of the century, and

38:53

then they're like, well, the Mexicans are terrible.

38:55

Like, what do you say...why do people not

38:58

see the patterns of history? The fucking people

39:00

who told...the Beatles to cut their hair, the

39:02

people who were telling them, what's

39:04

the X's going to...it's just...it's just so

39:06

fucking dumb, and I'm tired of doing

39:08

the same thing over and over and

39:10

over. The moral panics over anything.

39:12

It's exhausting. I mean, we can't get

39:15

anything else done. Listen, when you're

39:17

homeschooled, and you have these Christian textbooks, history

39:19

is not their strong suit. It's just really... Ask

39:22

Nikki Haley about the Civil War.

39:24

I took...I went to Pinsil's house. I was at

39:26

decent high school. I went to Ball State. I took

39:29

some history classes. I didn't know the shit about the

39:31

KKK. I don't know a lot of stuff. It's

39:34

just annoying him, and it's a problem. Agreed.

39:37

Let's talk about the other aspect of

39:39

the Trump thing that stood out to

39:41

me, which was he released...he didn't release

39:43

this ad. He promoted it on Truth

39:45

Social, and it's basically

39:48

a three-minute propaganda video. I'm

39:50

going to read you the opening line. Truth Social's

39:52

still kicking, huh? It's just him. And

39:56

on June 14th, 1946, Trump's birthday. God

40:00

looked down on his planned paradise

40:02

and said, I need a caretaker.

40:05

So God gave us Trump. And

40:08

then this goes on for many, many minutes. Are

40:10

you kidding? Now, if that sounds familiar, yes it

40:12

is, and I'll tell you why in a second.

40:15

But this goes on for a long

40:17

while. Um, here's another

40:19

part of it. God said, I

40:22

need somebody who will be strong and courageous,

40:24

who will not be afraid or terrified of

40:26

the wolves when they attack, dot,

40:28

dot, dot. What wrong? Fight

40:30

the system all day and finish

40:32

a hard week's work by attending church

40:35

on Sunday. Really? And

40:37

then his oldest son turns and says, Dad,

40:39

let's make America great again. Dad, let's build

40:42

back a country to be the envy of

40:44

the world again. So God

40:46

made Trump. All

40:49

right. It's so embarrassing. It is.

40:51

It's just so yucky and

40:54

like, like, toddlers.

40:56

Like, there's no toddlers in the world. Yeah. So

40:59

that ad, of course, it is based

41:01

on a speech conservative

41:04

radio broadcaster, Paul Harvey, delivered in

41:06

1978. Paul Harvey,

41:08

the now you know the rest of the story, guys? Yes.

41:11

In 1978. Oh, yeah.

41:13

Oh, that's disappointing. Yeah. He delivered this speech

41:15

called, So God Made a Farmer. He was

41:17

speaking at a convention for the Future Farmers

41:19

of America, and he had to pander to

41:21

them. So he gave that speech, but he

41:24

just, it was all about farmers and like,

41:26

God made farmers because he needed people to

41:28

take care of things. And it worked for

41:30

that crowd. The gist is that God wanted

41:32

someone to do lots of work, impact local

41:34

government, help your neighbor, go to church, be

41:36

a real life Norman Rockwell character. And

41:39

so God made farmers. Like, great way to suck

41:41

up to the audience at the time. Ron

41:44

DeSantis, he actually released

41:46

an ad using all of

41:48

that rhetoric, and he used it in 2022. Another one

41:50

where he's like standing backstage, getting ready to

41:53

go on? I think you're right. Yeah.

41:55

He used it in his 2022 reelection campaign

41:57

for governor of Florida, and they took the

41:59

same. They just changed like farmer

42:01

to fighter and modified the rest of the

42:03

script accordingly and he painted DeSantis

42:06

as if he was some kind of American Savior this

42:09

ad does not even bother to stick

42:11

to the original It just co-ops the

42:13

format and it just

42:15

makes shit up because Trump doesn't

42:17

do any of these things like it's not like

42:19

the Some of the

42:22

lines in here were in the original and

42:24

they just copy-pasted like no there. Here's an

42:26

example God

42:28

saying this supposedly I need somebody with

42:30

arms strong enough to Russell the Deep

42:33

State and yet gentle enough to deliver

42:35

his own grandchild Somebody

42:40

to ruffle the feathers Hands

42:42

to birth the child because I feel like there's a

42:45

good amount of pulling and yanking And

42:48

he definitely does not know he has kids Somebody

42:50

to ruffle the feathers tame

42:53

the cantankerous world economic forum

42:55

come home hungry have to

42:57

wait Yes have to wait

42:59

until the first lady is done with lunch with

43:01

friends Then tell the ladies to be

43:04

sure and come back real soon and mean

43:06

it So God gave us Trump like

43:08

that's not in the original. They said

43:10

that only now for Trump home from

43:12

the end of the day Hungry

43:15

and he has ever been hungry there And

43:19

he has to wait for his wife to

43:21

be done with lunch with her friends, which

43:24

she doesn't have any She doesn't have any

43:26

be a lot of lunch date goes

43:28

to like 330. Yeah, like yeah She's

43:31

five o'clock and so so what you're saying is

43:33

the first lady's job Is

43:35

to hang out with her friends all day and

43:37

then make the president wait for her to be

43:39

done hanging out with her friend Right so they

43:42

can eat dinner, right? But

43:44

she was been eating lunch, so why does she want and

43:47

she's a professional model she doesn't need either

43:49

and also she doesn't cook dinner So

43:51

why wait for her? You're

43:57

saying there might be reason to doubt yeah

43:59

Trump stuff Yeah, so like

44:01

they're co-opting the whole format, but they're

44:04

not even using the original. They're

44:06

making shit up in the way,

44:08

in that way. Yeah. And

44:10

again, what's the purpose? Because the people who follow

44:13

Trump's account might fall for it, I guess. But

44:15

again, going back to if Joe Biden

44:17

released an ad like that. Oh my God. Can

44:19

you imagine? I would rail, like just

44:22

rail on it so bad. It reminds me of

44:24

in 30 Rock, the Queen Latifah character from like

44:26

the latter episode, she played like a Democratic Congresswoman.

44:29

And once in a while she'll just like get off

44:31

on a rant and do that evangelical voice. And you'll

44:33

know when it's time to cheer because I'll stop. Like

44:36

this is what it feels like. This is

44:38

what it feels like. It's just like

44:40

if I say words that sound cool

44:42

and use my thesaurus and also say

44:44

them intensely with like drums in the

44:46

background, it feels like, guess

44:48

what? Music and speech are effective to people. So

44:51

Trump isn't a caretaker. He killed people with

44:53

COVID and his bad response to it. He

44:56

doesn't work all day. Actually, he

44:58

did not deliver his own grandchild.

45:01

I did. He

45:03

does, I believe. Yeah, but he doesn't take

45:05

care of his own. He didn't raise his

45:07

own kids. He praises North Korea. He's currently

45:09

not raising right now. I was thinking he's

45:11

not raising somebody. And the idea that he's

45:14

devout in any way, obviously, is a joke.

45:16

He's a sexual predator. He's the two Corinthians

45:18

guy. He said he doesn't need forgiveness. He

45:20

doesn't. He couldn't name his name as Bible,

45:22

his favorite Bible verse. He held up a Bible

45:24

in front of a church after his team used

45:26

tear gas to drive away protesters. There

45:29

isn't a single white evangelical church in America

45:31

that would elect someone like Trump to be

45:33

their pastor, at least if they wanted to

45:35

be taken seriously. But as we just talked

45:38

about in the last story, more than half

45:40

Republican voters, especially in

45:42

Iowa, they seriously believe Trump is a

45:44

person of faith. Remember that

45:47

survey a while back, like who's more

45:49

faithful? Trump got higher numbers than Mitt

45:51

Romney, Mike Pence. So

45:53

where did this? So this ad

45:55

was not made by Trump. It was made

45:57

by a troll like right wing troll account.

46:00

called the Dilly 300 meme

46:03

team. Right-wing trolls, trolling the right

46:05

or trolling the left? Oh, they're trolling

46:07

the left. Basically, their whole strategy. By

46:09

making a dumb ad? Yeah, and the

46:11

fact that Trump shared it, they're like, it's

46:13

a victory. Daddy loves us, like, because they

46:15

made this ad. The

46:18

guy behind this group, his name

46:20

is Brendan Dilly, in

46:22

2019 he openly declared his strategy on

46:24

a live stream. Right-wing Watch captured it

46:27

at the time. He said, quote, it

46:29

doesn't have to be true. It just

46:31

has to go viral. Which

46:34

is accurate, and also you said the quiet part

46:36

out loud. We know you are lying. And

46:41

again, he doesn't care, because none

46:43

of these Republicans care if they're lying as

46:45

long as it serves the purpose. God, it's

46:47

so frustrating. Yeah. The funny thing is, maybe,

46:50

the fact that it's directly ripping off of

46:52

what the Ron DeSantis team did, which directly

46:54

ripped off of this 1978 Pearl Harvey speech.

46:56

I still don't understand how trolling works

46:58

if you're just making an ad for

47:00

somebody, and then they share it. That's

47:02

not what trolling is. That's just making

47:05

a commercial for somebody. I think the other stuff

47:07

they do is more direct trolling. Okay, well,

47:10

there's a thing about satire that has to

47:12

make clear that it's actually satire, otherwise it's

47:14

just propagating the thing it's mocking. So let's

47:16

all be careful of that, huh? I would

47:18

also point out that any god who gave

47:20

us Trump wouldn't be a god worth worshiping.

47:22

Oh my god, he's the pet. Let's

47:25

talk about what's happening. This is a

47:27

quick story, but it happens in Michigan.

47:30

A Michigan lawmaker was

47:32

so upset because the

47:35

state capital last month, there happened to be a

47:37

Satanic temple display outside the capital. There's an open

47:39

forum there. I believe they have a native. Is

47:41

this one we talked about? We

47:44

did not talk about this one,

47:46

but there was a Fafamet goat

47:48

display outside the capital. There's also

47:50

a nativity out there. And

47:52

one of the things that happened at the

47:55

time, a democratic

47:57

staffer for one of the...

48:00

lawmakers in Michigan, took a

48:02

picture next to the display

48:04

and jokingly tweeted, in the

48:06

name of Satan, I claim

48:09

the sexy satanic Baphomet goat

48:11

altar at our Michigan capital.

48:13

Amen. And then

48:16

a right wing extremist account shared a screenshot

48:18

of that tweet as if she had done

48:20

something horrible. Well, if you share a screen,

48:23

a screen grab of something, you

48:25

automatically know that thing was wrong.

48:27

Uh-uh. And then Republicans in the

48:29

Michigan legislature, I mean, seven of

48:31

them signed on to a letter

48:33

calling on the Michigan Capitol Commission.

48:35

Seven, you say. They wrote a

48:37

letter, signed a letter urging the

48:40

Capitol Commission to remove the display

48:42

entirely, claiming it contradicted the foundational

48:44

principles of our nation and is

48:46

a public display of evil. What

48:49

was evil about it? They didn't say. They did

48:52

not understand how the law does not allow the

48:54

commission to pick and choose, which displays go up

48:56

as long as everyone meets the requirements.

48:59

So one of those lawmakers was this

49:01

kid named Josh Shriver. He's

49:04

a very young man elected to

49:06

the Michigan state house. So

49:08

he made a video right before Christmas

49:10

standing in front of the satanic display,

49:13

falsely suggesting it promoted Satan, which

49:15

the satanic temple does not. And

49:18

he said, you know, this is

49:20

promoting Satan who lies, steals, kills,

49:23

and destroys. Satan isn't real though,

49:25

bud. He also wrote online. You

49:27

know, Satan's not real, right? He

49:29

also wrote in the name of

49:31

Jesus Christ, I rebuke the sadistic

49:34

satanic Baphomet gold altar at our

49:36

Michigan Capitol. Okay, good. So it can stay

49:38

there and it's been a rebuke. Great. That's happy. That

49:40

was what I thought too. Like, all right, buddy, if

49:42

you rebuked it, then calm down. What are you mad

49:44

about? And it can't be, then it can't hurt you. It

49:47

can't hurt you if you rebuked it, Johnny.

49:49

So most of this, I would be like, all

49:52

right, roll my eyes. It's a Republican acting Republican.

49:54

We said he's young like in his twenties. Yeah.

49:57

And so whatever I could do. He's sending like these

49:59

are my favorite demographic gotta tell ya.

50:01

Oh you know what podcast he listens to

50:04

too, like you know the type. But here's

50:06

where it gets even worse. Last

50:08

week he did an interview on some other podcast I've

50:10

never heard of where he says he plans to

50:12

introduce a bill that would

50:15

revoke the non-profit status of

50:17

groups like the satanic temple. Actually he said the

50:19

church of satan which is not related to the

50:21

other group. I got this mix of two but

50:23

don't worry. This is what he said. Congress is

50:26

hard. This is what he said. I'm actually I

50:28

actually am working on a policy right now. I

50:30

haven't introduced it yet but it's

50:32

actually to really focus on making

50:34

a distinction between the church the

50:36

church of Jesus Christ and this

50:38

quote-unquote church of satan. And

50:40

so removing tax exempt

50:43

status from non-theistic churches

50:45

such as the church of satan

50:47

I think is very very well

50:50

in order. He wants

50:52

to remove the tax exempt

50:54

status from non-theistic churches basically

50:56

saying I think I

50:58

should have the right to

51:00

decide which religions are good and which

51:02

ones are worthy under the government and

51:05

I'm just gonna punish you for not being part

51:07

of one of the right religions that I think

51:09

are acceptable. Could you dig into

51:12

what's a non-theistic religion? There are

51:15

religion. Canism is non-theistic. Okay

51:19

that's what always matters. There are Unitarian

51:21

Universalists who would tell you they're non-theistic.

51:23

They believe in a higher power per

51:25

se but like not Jesus, not God

51:27

as people know it. So what? He

51:29

would punish all of them in theory?

51:31

How would he even do this? Because

51:33

the Constitution doesn't make a distinction. So

51:36

I don't even know what like I'm waiting to see

51:38

this bill. I don't think he's actually going to do

51:40

it because Republicans are all talk. People

51:42

like him are all talk. So I would love to see this

51:44

bill because I want to know how he gets around this because

51:46

he can't and he doesn't he's too dumb

51:48

to realize that but I'm

51:50

waiting to hear it. Like

51:53

a plain reading of the Constitution, several

51:55

decades of case law involving church and

51:57

state, they make no distinction between different

51:59

religions. or religion versus non-religion, freedom of

52:01

thought is protected under the law. The

52:04

only way you could revoke the Satanic

52:06

Temple's 501c3 designation is

52:08

to strip churches of

52:12

them too. Like yeah, we

52:14

could, by the way, if we wanted to

52:16

revoke the tax-exempt status for churches that are

52:19

not, that are breaking IRS rules, as many

52:21

evangelical churches are, great, guess what? The

52:23

Satanic Temple would be fine because they don't do that shit. So

52:26

again, if you want to fairly take

52:28

away their tax-exempt status for the Satanic

52:30

Temple, you would have to take it

52:32

away from all non-profits, including Christian churches,

52:35

including conservative charities. Like you don't get

52:37

to decide which religions count and which

52:39

ones don't. And I think I hate this

52:41

kind of shit because there is such a thoughtlessness

52:44

with which he describes

52:46

his plans as

52:49

if, like it

52:51

just is, I don't know how

52:53

to put this, but just like he says this as if like,

52:55

yeah, this is the thing we're all going to do and this

52:57

is how it's going to go. Like he said there was such a-

53:00

I mean Michigan's a blue state too. Where are you going to go with this? He

53:02

has such a deep misunderstanding

53:04

of lawmaking and laws and

53:07

the Constitution. Like I-

53:09

But he ran for office because he thought he's the smartest

53:11

dude in the room. I'm telling you, 20 something white

53:13

guys are going to rule in this

53:15

world. He also added later he's working

53:17

on a policy to make pornographic images

53:19

illegal. Good luck with that. Why

53:22

though? Because this

53:26

is what I am always questioning. The

53:28

porn thing, the

53:30

covenant marriage thing. Why

53:33

are you just trying to go around and scream

53:35

at people about the things you like or don't

53:37

like? It's so strange to me

53:39

of like, oh yeah, you- Then

53:41

be a preacher. Then you can talk about this

53:43

stuff. Elected office where you serve the

53:46

public is not your- Go start a church and

53:48

it will be porn free and no gay

53:50

people and no Satan and you will be

53:52

safe in your little church. But then later

53:54

he says, honestly, I work

53:56

for God and not for man. Well-

54:00

You're an elected official. You

54:02

literally were for the people.

54:04

Did God vote for you? I want to see the

54:07

balance. God did not vote for him. God would never.

54:09

Right. So again, I

54:11

don't think he's going to file a bill, much

54:13

less get humiliated when he puts it out. I

54:15

want to see his stupid face. Uh-huh. And the

54:18

answer is, yeah, you guessed right. Oh, that's right.

54:20

That's what I thought he was about to lie.

54:23

Yeah. So there you go. He's the sort of

54:25

dude who's all talking, no action. I just think

54:27

that guy tried to assault me in a bar

54:29

one. Yeah. A better Christian would use the power

54:31

he has to get things done for the people

54:33

in his state. Yeah, the least of

54:35

our guys. Yeah. Because his

54:37

faith taught him to be selfish. He's wasting

54:39

his time on meaningless gestures like this one.

54:42

Boy, Christians, you guys are doing

54:44

good stuff out there. Congratulations. Yeah. Hey, if

54:47

you're Christian and listen to this. Well,

54:49

thank you. What's up, bud? What's going

54:52

on here? Yeah. You feel good about this? Talk to me. Can you

54:54

take care of your people? Can you give somebody a phone call?

54:57

Talk to your friends and just say, like, hey, guys,

54:59

guys, hey, guys. I don't think maybe

55:03

introducing legislature to strip non-profits of their non-profit

55:05

status for no specific reason. I don't know

55:07

what the grant is of your time, my

55:09

dude. You're

55:12

in Congress. If you look at the list of bills

55:14

this guy has filed, it's just a collection of insanity.

55:16

What are they like? Like water mountain bills? That's

55:20

next term. Was that too dark? Yes. I

55:22

mean, was it? Is it

55:24

far off, though? No. I'm

55:26

going to do the next story. I have a story for you. In

55:29

2007, when I wrote I Sold by Soul on eBay. And

55:33

at the time, no, you didn't. I

55:35

did. I sort of fucking did. So

55:38

anyway, when that book comes out, It was

55:40

very good. Thank you. I was asked by

55:42

a bunch of publishers, like, hey, can you

55:44

provide blurbs for other books,

55:46

especially because this is a Christian publisher,

55:48

mind you. They're like, there's a bunch

55:50

of hip Christian pastors, the sort of

55:52

people whose whole thing is, I

55:55

want to reach people who don't necessarily love church.

55:57

They sit backwards in chairs. They play guitar. They have a

55:59

pure stare. Every youth pastor, I blurb their

56:01

book. That sort of thing. Or they asked

56:03

me to. And I wouldn't do

56:06

it today. At the time, I kind of appreciated

56:08

what they were trying to do, which is to

56:10

say, look, Christians have a reputation. We need to

56:12

fix that. Yeah. And just, you're in 2010, 2011? Years

56:16

before then. Really? Like mid-aughts. Oh,

56:19

okay. So it's like, yeah, good. If you

56:21

want to try to rest Christianity away

56:23

from the more fundamentalist, more right-wing preachers and

56:25

make it more loving and less hateful, I

56:28

mean, okay. Good luck to you. You

56:30

become the cool atheist. He like, it's

56:32

cool with Christianity, but like, we disagree,

56:34

but we can be friends. Yeah.

56:36

And again, I'm not there now. Nope. But

56:39

at the time, that was prudent. At the

56:42

time. All right. So one of those books

56:44

that they sent me that I did provide

56:46

a blurb for, it was written by this

56:48

pastor in Canada. His name is Bruce Cavey.

56:51

He goes by Bruxy, B-R-U-X-Y. That's

56:53

his nickname. I don't know from

56:55

childhood or something, but it's Bruxy.

56:57

And he became later on Ontario's quote,

57:00

most influential pastor. He started a

57:02

church called The Meeting House, which

57:04

builds itself. It still does on

57:06

its website as a church for people

57:08

who aren't into church. It's

57:11

like the theological equivalent of girls saying,

57:13

I'm not like other girls. Sure. Like,

57:15

but you are. All right, whatever. Well,

57:17

and also that's just saying that you think other

57:19

girls in other churches are bad. So. Yeah.

57:21

They were also, it's technically,

57:24

it seems like a non-denominational thing, but

57:26

they were affiliated with an

57:28

Anabaptist denomination called Be In

57:31

Christ Church of Canada. Is

57:33

Anabaptist mean you're an adult to be baptized?

57:36

Yes. Thank you for almost talking over the fact

57:39

that I knew something. Nicely done. So it

57:41

appealed this church to a lot

57:43

of people tired of traditional churches.

57:45

They actually drew in a ton of young people, which

57:47

is weird for a lot of those types

57:49

of churches. People crave culture and community. Sure.

57:52

And so this became one of the largest

57:54

churches, certainly in Ontario and arguably in Canada

57:56

as well. So this is again, he

57:58

started this thing in like the 2000s. It

58:00

became really big really fast and

58:03

all of that came crashing down in like 2021

58:06

So this guy brought somebody found your

58:08

blurb. Yeah, exactly No,

58:11

no one read his book either. I don't know. Um

58:13

after allegations of abuse Bruxy

58:16

went on a leave of absence and

58:18

then in 2022 he confessed at the

58:21

time to an adulterous relationship Which

58:24

I would normally not care about but according

58:26

to the victim. Oh buddy No, this was

58:28

sexual abuse and I was under your counsel.

58:31

I was under your pastoral counsel That

58:34

victim actually said this for

58:36

me was not an extra marital

58:38

relationship or affair It was a

58:40

devastating twisting of pastoral care into

58:43

sexual abuse So

58:45

after that he resigned from the church

58:48

And this is where it gets kind of interesting

58:50

the meeting house because this still exists even without

58:52

the dude They hired a victim

58:54

advocate. Her name is Melody Bissell to

58:56

handle any additional allegations Basically, if you

58:59

also have complaints about the people at

59:01

our church like talk to her. She's

59:03

a third-party independent person

59:07

That actually does sound like a healthy way

59:10

for a church to handle this thing

59:12

clearly we're incapable of dealing with this We

59:15

are hiring a professional to take care of this

59:17

you can talk to her They had a part on

59:20

their section on their website

59:22

where you could reach out to her

59:24

specifically so It's a woman

59:26

is really cool that too. So then it things

59:28

got worse because Bruxy

59:30

was later charged with sexual

59:32

assault by local law enforcement

59:35

and the police even said there may be multiple

59:37

victims by August

59:39

of 2022 the church said it's Substantiated

59:43

two claims of sexual abuse and

59:45

another case of sexual misconduct against

59:47

the guy and in one case they admitted

59:50

Well, the alleged victim was

59:52

underage Whoa. Yeah,

59:54

so as things stand right now This

59:57

dude is on the verge of going to trial because

1:00:00

there are criminal charges involved here, it has nothing

1:00:02

to do with the church anymore. He

1:00:04

maintains his innocence, he denies everything. Okay,

1:00:06

it's going to trial. But

1:00:08

there were additional charges of sexual assault filed

1:00:11

against him as recently as last month. Bissell,

1:00:14

Melody Bissell, the advocate there, she said

1:00:16

there were ultimately 38 allegations of

1:00:19

misconduct against this guy. From how many

1:00:22

accusers? Well, I don't know the accusers, but

1:00:24

they went against this guy, Bruxy, and three

1:00:26

other pastors he worked with. In the meeting

1:00:28

house? In that church, yeah. And

1:00:31

those incidents include

1:00:33

a lot that occurred long before she

1:00:36

stepped into the role, meaning they only

1:00:38

came forward when she got that position,

1:00:40

but they did not necessarily come forward.

1:00:42

When people the opportunity to tell somebody what

1:00:44

happened to them, they'll usually do it. And

1:00:46

they're older, and they have a better sense of what

1:00:48

happened now, too. So like the news is,

1:00:51

this is happening, this is a universal thing, and

1:00:53

it must feel less lonely. So what do

1:00:55

you think Bruxy is doing these days besides

1:00:57

going to trial? Oh,

1:00:59

God. He's read another

1:01:01

book, and he reached out to you for a blurb.

1:01:04

No, no, he's going on

1:01:06

a redemption tour of sorts. He started a

1:01:08

new ministry online. Oh, what's it called? It's

1:01:10

called the Ghost of 1820, which

1:01:14

is a reference to, I can't remember what it's a

1:01:16

reference to. But anyway, he

1:01:18

says, hello, friends, welcome to my

1:01:20

therapy. My name

1:01:22

is Bruxy, and I'm a mess, but

1:01:24

I'm also discovering that suffering, especially from

1:01:27

self-inflicted wounds, can be a good teacher,

1:01:29

and I'm learning so much. Also,

1:01:31

you can give him donations at the website. And

1:01:35

the church, by the way, has said, you

1:01:37

know, they basically said, those

1:01:39

were a few bad eggs. They're all gone

1:01:42

now, so all the rest of you should

1:01:44

stay. Like, you're bad, they were bad, we're

1:01:46

good. Look at us, we hired an independent

1:01:48

contractor to handle potential allegations. We created a

1:01:51

system to maintain accountability. But here's the thing,

1:01:53

and this is why I really wanted to

1:01:55

talk about this. Yeah, Melody Bissell,

1:01:57

that woman who was hired as an advocate. She's

1:02:00

no longer working with the church. She actually

1:02:03

left last year. This is not

1:02:05

news that's happened. She left last year.

1:02:07

But this week, the Canadian

1:02:09

Broadcasting Company, CBC, whatever it stands

1:02:11

for, they put out an article

1:02:14

this week talking to her because she's speaking

1:02:16

out now. And she says

1:02:18

the church has since implemented new policies

1:02:20

that are actually making it harder for

1:02:22

victims to come forward. Oh, good job,

1:02:24

guys. We're going to listen. And this

1:02:26

is what she was speaking out about

1:02:28

now for the first time. She says

1:02:30

now, if victims want to report possible

1:02:33

allegations of abuse, in

1:02:35

the past, the church said, talk to Melody. We

1:02:37

have nothing to do with her. She's a third

1:02:39

party. You know what I mean? Yeah, yeah. Now,

1:02:41

the church makes them go through someone else first

1:02:44

before certain complaints are then

1:02:47

forwarded along to Melody Bissell.

1:02:50

So that's weird. Who is this person

1:02:52

that they would be sending it to?

1:02:54

According to the website... I bet it's a

1:02:56

man. No, it says all

1:02:58

complaints will be directed to, quote,

1:03:01

our independent complaint intake partner, Linda

1:03:03

Lambert. Who's that? Who is Linda

1:03:05

Lambert? She's a pastoral

1:03:08

counselor affiliated with the Be

1:03:10

In Christ Church. Huh. So

1:03:13

it's someone who works on the inside.

1:03:15

Sounds about right. Uh-huh. And so basically

1:03:17

she filters all those messages and

1:03:20

then maybe some of them, theoretically, would

1:03:22

go through to Melody. Girls do better.

1:03:26

Uh-huh. And by the

1:03:28

way, according to another person affiliated

1:03:30

with the church, he said, the

1:03:32

church hasn't received any referrals or

1:03:34

submissions since switching from having a

1:03:36

victim's advocate to the complaint intake

1:03:38

partner in April of 2023. Oh,

1:03:41

that's good. That sounds like everybody's not being abused. Yeah.

1:03:43

Great, great news, Canada. Melody

1:03:45

Bissell said that while there were fewer

1:03:47

complaints, like at the end

1:03:50

of her time there compared to when she started,

1:03:52

she was receiving complaints up until the end of

1:03:54

her time in that position. Which means... She

1:03:57

must be furious. People were contacting her.

1:04:00

Up until the time she left and got

1:04:02

replaced by someone in-house, at which point that

1:04:04

pipeline was shut down. Jesus Christ.

1:04:06

You fucking people, it's so

1:04:08

insidious. It's so insidious. And it

1:04:11

means it's not just a couple bad

1:04:13

eggs. No, it's the institution. And we've

1:04:15

never thought of a couple of bad eggs. All this

1:04:17

shows me is that any dude who comes into power, and

1:04:19

a lot of women too, and probably

1:04:21

non-binary people have their own shit going on,

1:04:23

but dudes who come into power want to

1:04:25

exercise that power more and more. And like,

1:04:27

that is truly, as I grow older, this

1:04:29

is what I'm understanding, is that like, people

1:04:31

crave power. And whether that is power over

1:04:34

another person, or power over their own fucking

1:04:36

diet, and that's why they can only eat

1:04:38

18 calories this day, and 20

1:04:40

calories, like, it's all of a piece. It's

1:04:42

all trying to control everything around you, and

1:04:45

it's killing people. Yup.

1:04:49

So the lack of complaints, it might be good

1:04:51

news for the church, but it doesn't mean people

1:04:53

don't have reasons to complain. It could mean victims

1:04:55

are no longer safe telling someone what a church

1:04:57

leader did to them. Listen, if I'm looking

1:05:00

for a new church, and I'm like, oh, this

1:05:02

place seems chill, and then I find this out,

1:05:05

there is a Jessica-shaped hole in the wall

1:05:07

as I run out of there, because I

1:05:09

am not safe. People do not take my

1:05:11

safety seriously in that place. They take people's

1:05:13

reputation seriously. And if the complaint... And this

1:05:15

is how they operate. And if the complaint

1:05:18

is, well, if it's criminal, go talk to

1:05:20

the police. Well, guess what? Some of these

1:05:22

concerns don't always rise to criminal behavior. And

1:05:24

the police aren't exactly... I

1:05:27

know. But even if your

1:05:29

concern is this was really

1:05:31

inappropriate that happened, it may not

1:05:33

break a law, but it needs to be reported,

1:05:35

because this is part of a pattern or something.

1:05:39

Reporting those actions through the church's website

1:05:41

may be the only option they have to stop it

1:05:43

from happening in the future, and now they don't have

1:05:45

that anymore. Like, why would you go to HR if

1:05:48

the department exists to safeguard the church and not the

1:05:50

people harmed by the church? Yeah, also don't go to

1:05:52

HR anyway. They're working for the company, not for you.

1:05:55

Right. There's an investigative

1:05:57

outlet, media outlet in Canada called The Wall

1:05:59

Room. They reported on this church

1:06:01

last year They

1:06:05

produce good stuff they reported on

1:06:07

this church last year and they

1:06:09

spoke to many current and former

1:06:11

members quote and they pointed to

1:06:13

a Culture of denial and gaslighting

1:06:15

that enabled misconduct and that swept

1:06:17

long-standing problems even criminal ones under

1:06:19

the rug So

1:06:22

like people know about this people are speaking

1:06:24

out about this and the church the church

1:06:26

is the problem That also means the people

1:06:29

who attend that church still and give it

1:06:31

money and granted legitimacy They

1:06:33

apparently don't give a damn about these abuse

1:06:35

victims either. So yeah, blame church

1:06:37

leadership all you want But

1:06:39

also I say this to people

1:06:41

who go to Catholic churches still like

1:06:44

what are you doing? Why are you

1:06:46

supporting this institution because whatever good you

1:06:48

think it's doing? This is

1:06:50

also what you're supporting and you should keep

1:06:52

that in mind because yes You're doing something

1:06:54

very bad by propping it up and listen

1:06:56

I'm sure I could be called the

1:06:59

hypocrite on that too on a number of sure there are

1:07:01

plenty of things I have to do or I

1:07:03

feel like I have to do and I

1:07:05

don't love everything the company does Make

1:07:08

you feel bad about it. Yeah, I

1:07:10

think also I think there is

1:07:12

an element of holding Now

1:07:14

that we should hold Christians and churches

1:07:17

to a higher standard, but I would expect

1:07:20

Churches would hold themselves to a higher

1:07:22

standard Well, just like

1:07:24

you know I've talked about I'm a writing

1:07:26

instructor and I have this this gal who's

1:07:29

16 and she's like my little assistant and

1:07:32

I'm Constantly in my

1:07:34

head and to her saying like got a model good

1:07:36

behavior here like true like oh I thought I literally

1:07:38

was walking with her. I forgot to turn out a

1:07:40

light You

1:07:44

take responsibility serious I take respect

1:07:46

because I literally said there if you weren't here I'd

1:07:48

pretend I didn't see that light but I'm modeling good

1:07:50

behavior I went back and and it's just things like

1:07:52

that that like I am so aware of My

1:07:55

actions and how they ripple out in the world,

1:07:57

especially as an authority figure to young people or

1:07:59

to people who follow me. Like, it

1:08:02

just, how can you not take that responsibility seriously?

1:08:04

How can you look at your church and say

1:08:06

there are women who have been assaulted by the

1:08:09

leaders of this church and the most important thing

1:08:11

we need to do is shut those women the

1:08:13

fuck up. Yeah. Like, can

1:08:15

you, it's unconscionable. How can

1:08:17

you say that you're a good person or a

1:08:19

Christian or here for community or keeping your community

1:08:21

safe? When you know the damage that is happening,

1:08:23

you see it, you know who is doing it

1:08:26

and how those people are getting help and you're

1:08:28

like fuck them. It's, it's,

1:08:30

it's horrifying to me. It is horrified

1:08:32

how little these people care about their

1:08:34

parishioners. This is like, this is very

1:08:36

much to me like the big

1:08:39

movie studios hating animators and writers. Like,

1:08:41

dog, that's your bread and butter. That's

1:08:43

how your product gets made. If

1:08:46

you're letting all the women in your, in

1:08:48

your church be, you know, be potential victims

1:08:50

of sexual assault by your staff and you're

1:08:52

like, well, they give me

1:08:54

five dollars every Sunday in the basket.

1:08:56

So it's, it's just

1:08:59

infuriating. Like, god

1:09:02

damn it, they can't pretend that churches are the end

1:09:04

all be all and then pull this shit. They

1:09:06

just can't. I'm

1:09:09

just hoot there. One last story

1:09:11

for you. I'm sweating though. We'll be done. Representative

1:09:14

Mary Miller, who's a congresswoman from

1:09:16

Illinois, but the part people don't

1:09:18

go to, she said

1:09:21

in a recent interview that we would all

1:09:23

be better off if there were more Christians

1:09:25

like her in power. Oh. Specifically

1:09:27

she said, I want

1:09:29

to encourage people to run for office.

1:09:31

That's fine. We need people that fear

1:09:34

God, that believe they can't hide from

1:09:36

God and ultimately they're going to give

1:09:38

an account to God. Those are the

1:09:40

best people to hold positions whether it's

1:09:42

local or in the federal government. Just

1:09:45

really quick, the ghost of 1820 is from Matthew 1820, didn't

1:09:48

tell the disciple

1:09:50

wherever two or three gathered my name I am

1:09:52

there in the middle with them. I don't know

1:09:55

what ghost means, but anyway, where is this young

1:09:57

lady from? She's from southern Illinois. Oh,

1:10:00

yeah. Oh, oh, have fun googling

1:10:03

her. I will run you through

1:10:05

but so anyway, obviously,

1:10:07

I don't have to spend a lot

1:10:09

of time on this podcast talking about

1:10:11

no, we don't need Christians in office.

1:10:13

We can have them. There's a bunch

1:10:15

that are fantastic. But no, they're not

1:10:17

the best people to hold office. As

1:10:20

we just saw in that Michigan story,

1:10:22

the guy who thinks he's working for

1:10:24

God and not man, you're not you're

1:10:26

not sending your best Christians. Well,

1:10:29

she's in this south

1:10:31

eastern part of Illinois.

1:10:33

Yeah, it's very conservative. The place close

1:10:36

to like St. Louis. No, it's just

1:10:38

red bubble near Indiana. Yeah, I was

1:10:40

gonna say it's basically Indiana and

1:10:42

Kentucky. It's kind of a tri state area.

1:10:44

She didn't say out loud, but she's suddenly

1:10:47

suggesting is that atheists should be shut out

1:10:49

of public office, at least in theory, it's

1:10:51

not in law and Muslims and Jews and

1:10:53

progressive Christians, none of them should be in

1:10:55

power because it's not like she thinks we're

1:10:57

better off with President Joe Biden, who is

1:10:59

a Catholic. She wants conservatives. Right.

1:11:02

So it's not about God. It's not

1:11:04

about God. It's about just whatever she

1:11:06

agrees with. This is the same woman

1:11:08

who has blamed the quote far left

1:11:11

atheist quest for power, whatever

1:11:13

that means, for creating a quote, mental

1:11:15

health crisis, a drug addiction crisis, a

1:11:18

crime wave and a homelessness crisis, which

1:11:20

I don't understand that we have

1:11:23

been. She also presents a meeting.

1:11:25

I don't remember the homelessness. Not

1:11:27

on the agenda. Drug addiction, obviously.

1:11:30

She pretends the Department of Justice

1:11:32

is targeting Christians. She also has

1:11:34

famously liberal Department of Justice. Yes.

1:11:37

And she also says the basis

1:11:39

of all good law is the

1:11:41

law of God. Meanwhile,

1:11:43

by the way, as we speak, we're

1:11:46

facing a government shutdown because the Christian

1:11:48

nationalist who's the speaker of the House

1:11:50

can't even figure out whether to support

1:11:52

our allies overseas. I'm just wondering how things

1:11:54

are going in Gaza. If you need a strong

1:11:56

belief in God to have peace. Just

1:11:58

really quick. I haven't been paying attention to this. Middle East what's going on over

1:12:00

there? She doesn't either. The

1:12:03

reason she can get away with saying any of

1:12:05

this is because she is in one of Illinois'

1:12:07

few Ruby Red districts. But again, just

1:12:10

in the past couple of weeks, Republican

1:12:12

governors in many states rejected federal funding

1:12:14

that they could have gotten just by

1:12:16

asking for it for a food program

1:12:19

that would have helped low-income families in

1:12:21

their states. They chose, they're like, what,

1:12:23

feeding kids over the summer for free?

1:12:26

Never, even though it's their own tax dollars

1:12:28

that are paying for it. And it's already

1:12:30

like on the books. You're not adding money

1:12:32

there. We've seen voters

1:12:34

in deeply red states support abortion rights against

1:12:36

the desires of prison leaders. I think

1:12:39

she represents Champaign-Urbana, your old stomping

1:12:41

ground. No, not my, I never went there. Oh,

1:12:43

you went to UIC. Yeah, different one. I remember now.

1:12:45

So anyway, the reason if any of the rest of

1:12:47

you have heard of Mary Miller, it's because-

1:12:49

Because you have a neighbor, her name

1:12:52

is Mary Miller. Yeah. No, it's because

1:12:54

the day before January 6th, before the

1:12:56

insurrection attempt, she was at

1:12:58

a rally where she favorably quoted

1:13:00

Hitler. Oh. Yeah.

1:13:04

The exact words being Hitler

1:13:08

was right about one thing. She

1:13:10

said his name. She said his name.

1:13:12

I thought it would be like some

1:13:14

sort of quote, like, you know, the

1:13:16

wheel only moves with the blood of the willing

1:13:19

or whatever. And it's like, yeah, this is a

1:13:21

fun quote. But no, no, no. You

1:13:23

know, my good friend Adolf. Yeah. You might not

1:13:25

have heard of. I want to maintain his anonymity, Adolf

1:13:28

H. So she did

1:13:30

that the day before January 6th. And then

1:13:32

after the Supreme Court overturned

1:13:34

Roe v. Wade- I was too in her defense. Hitler

1:13:36

was a Christian. So-

1:13:39

After the Supreme Court overturned Roe v.

1:13:41

Wade, she also made a speech where

1:13:44

she called it a

1:13:46

victory for white life. Zoinks!

1:13:49

And then later on, everyone's like,

1:13:52

wait a minute, what'd you say

1:13:54

now? And her spokesperson was like,

1:13:56

she meant to say right to

1:13:58

life. And everyone's like,

1:14:01

nope, it's not victory for right

1:14:03

to life. That's not how a

1:14:05

language works. So that's Mary Hiller.

1:14:07

Oh, theory, mistranslation problem. My

1:14:09

favorite version of this is like, if

1:14:11

she's saying Christians are better in office, like, forget

1:14:14

the gaps, if you want to call them

1:14:16

gaps, which is generous. Ma'am, you quoted

1:14:18

Hiller. It's that she's bad at her

1:14:20

job. In fact, this past August, there was

1:14:23

a local newspaper that pointed out, like,

1:14:25

while other politicians, including Republicans, were able

1:14:27

to get millions of dollars in federal funding

1:14:29

for local projects. Because this is the

1:14:31

one thing any congressperson can do, which

1:14:33

is, oh, we have no money to

1:14:35

their own money to their fucking point. There's

1:14:37

an appropriations bill and everyone can be

1:14:39

like, well, we need to build XYZ

1:14:41

in our district. So I'm filing for millions

1:14:44

of dollars. And then when they get that, they go back

1:14:46

home and they say, look at what I did for you.

1:14:49

Look at this great bridge. I mean, yes. And

1:14:51

Mary Miller, her district, which covers, by the

1:14:53

way, I think a third geographically it's

1:14:56

a third of Illinois, but there's only four people that live there.

1:14:58

But that's not how a population works out. But

1:15:01

her district was shut out entirely

1:15:03

because she's like, I will not ask

1:15:05

the government for anything. I don't believe

1:15:07

the government should be doing this. And

1:15:10

the argument from the newspaper was like,

1:15:12

I get what you're saying on principle,

1:15:15

but Republicans everywhere else have no

1:15:17

problem. Like because if this is the

1:15:19

rule of the game, but it's bad for her district. Of

1:15:21

course it is. That's why we should vote her out of

1:15:23

office. And this is the thing.

1:15:26

This is while Republicans are in control of

1:15:28

the house too. Like it raises the question

1:15:30

of what good are you doing by electing

1:15:32

people like you if you literally can't bring

1:15:34

things back home? Well, she got to say

1:15:37

Hitler tell a lot of people. Your constituents

1:15:39

are already paying for with their taxes. So

1:15:42

it's not that Christians can't be good

1:15:44

public servants. It's that Christians like her

1:15:46

are horrible servants, even for the

1:15:48

people they're trying to who are their voters.

1:15:51

Yeah. By the way, who

1:15:53

are you speaking to for this interview? Who

1:15:55

was asking her questions? It was Tony Perkins,

1:15:57

a right wing guy who has ties to

1:15:59

white supremacists. He posed. in front of the

1:16:01

Confederate flag. And of course he didn't press

1:16:03

her on any of this. He

1:16:05

just spawned over her as if she's ever

1:16:07

done anything worth putting in. That's all she said is

1:16:09

I don't believe in big government and so like

1:16:11

I... That's her whole thing. She doesn't believe

1:16:14

in earmarks or pork barrel politics which is

1:16:16

fine on principle. But if those are what

1:16:18

the rules are and even the Republican House

1:16:21

does not want to change those rules then

1:16:24

buddy play the game. I don't

1:16:26

know. This is my thinking about

1:16:28

gerrymandering too. It's like I'm all

1:16:30

for ending gerrymandering, partisan, racial gerrymandering

1:16:32

across the country but

1:16:35

it's a problem in red states. So in

1:16:37

Illinois where it's controlled by a Democratic supermajority

1:16:39

should we gerrymander? Yeah we absolutely should. So

1:16:41

should New York. Yeah. And they should because

1:16:44

again it is stupid to go into battle

1:16:46

where only one side gets to play. I

1:16:48

just I would be fine with ending it.

1:16:50

I know you're right but it feels terrible.

1:16:52

I know you're right but it feels you and

1:16:55

also like... No it doesn't. It

1:16:57

feels no it feels shitty. It feels

1:16:59

shitty that in order to get a

1:17:01

fair representation of the country everybody

1:17:03

has to cheat. Like that it's just... Or every

1:17:06

Democrats are all on board with pretty

1:17:08

much all on board saying fine just

1:17:10

if you want to end it let's

1:17:12

do it everywhere. Republicans do not go

1:17:15

that far. They're like gerrymandering in Illinois

1:17:17

is bad. Okay follow-up question. So you're

1:17:19

cool with ending it everywhere right? And

1:17:21

then all those Republicans especially in Illinois

1:17:23

shut up about it. Well because they

1:17:26

don't want to end it. They

1:17:28

know Republicans are advantaged by that

1:17:30

unfair practice so they don't actually

1:17:32

want to fix the rules. Democrats

1:17:34

do their credit by and large

1:17:37

do want to fix the rules but they

1:17:39

don't have the numbers to pull it off

1:17:41

right now. Because of it. I

1:17:44

guess okay this is a bad opinion

1:17:46

and I know it I'm going to

1:17:48

say it anyway. There is something that

1:17:50

I do respect that she sticks to

1:17:52

her principles. Yeah. Yes those are miserable

1:17:54

principles and she is doing active harm

1:17:57

for her district. I recognize that. However

1:17:59

those people... voted a person like

1:18:01

her into office. Oh, yeah, and the right

1:18:03

way to think about it is, alright, if you voted for

1:18:05

her, you're not getting anything. Then that's what you get. And

1:18:08

if you're not happy with that, maybe reconsider. It's

1:18:11

your own damn fault. Marjorie Taylor

1:18:13

Greene's district, you want to suck it

1:18:15

up and vote for her? Fine, you're

1:18:17

a loss. I just, I don't know, there's

1:18:19

just something about, to me

1:18:21

it's worse being a Republican who is like, I

1:18:24

don't believe in federal government, I don't believe in whatever,

1:18:26

and then you get in and you're like, well, I

1:18:28

want this bridge, or whatever. To me,

1:18:30

that is more underhanded, even

1:18:33

though it's better for their district, but it's a

1:18:35

more underhanded action because they are running

1:18:37

on a platform of no federal

1:18:39

bullshit and then immediately folding. Which,

1:18:42

again, is better for their district. But her stance, which

1:18:44

you're saying is, at least

1:18:47

she's committed to her principles, that means

1:18:49

her own constituents are paying taxes

1:18:51

that they never get back in return in

1:18:53

the same way. Yeah, duh, because they voted

1:18:55

for a fucking idiot Republican, like, this is

1:18:57

what I'm saying. If you vote for a

1:18:59

shitty Republican, if you vote for Marjorie Taylor

1:19:01

Greene and you still get your roads made

1:19:04

and your schools fixed and

1:19:06

whatever federal stuff they give you, then

1:19:08

what is your, why are

1:19:10

you voting her out? You have

1:19:13

your loud mouth, but she's also getting the shit

1:19:15

done that you want done. Versus this woman, as

1:19:17

she's running her mouth and living by those principles,

1:19:19

and maybe those are shitty principles, and maybe people

1:19:21

in southern and southeastern Illinois will learn that. They

1:19:24

will not. But

1:19:27

do you see what I mean? Yes. Okay. I just

1:19:29

need that sometimes from you. I just need to know that

1:19:32

you've a little bit been listening. And

1:19:34

that's all I got. Where do we find you?

1:19:38

You don't find me, I don't know, on Facebook,

1:19:40

Discord, hit me up. I really enjoy when

1:19:42

I get on there, but I forget about

1:19:44

it because of ADHD. There you go. You

1:19:46

can find us at patreon.com/friendly atheist

1:19:48

podcast. Yes, there's a Facebook group

1:19:50

and a Discord server. The

1:19:52

links are in the show notes. Do

1:19:55

your crosswords on Thursday night slash Friday.

1:19:58

Oh, yay! Is that tonight? That's

1:20:00

really exciting. Yeah, it's a fun one.

1:20:02

You can also leave us a review on iTunes

1:20:05

I actually read this the other night so it's feeling

1:20:07

really sad and I was like maybe some real thing

1:20:09

That's something nice about in the comments guys depression sucks.

1:20:12

All right, this is This

1:20:14

is from Traszic

1:20:19

j t r a c i j c

1:20:21

feels Polish five stars. This is one of

1:20:23

my favorites. I get excited Each

1:20:25

new episode for each new episode because I

1:20:28

know I'll be equal parts disgusted by the

1:20:30

news and laughing at the delivery Thank you.

1:20:32

Hemet for your interesting stories with follow-up and

1:20:34

thank you Jessica for your honest and hysterical

1:20:37

reaction. Don't ever lose that fire Thank you

1:20:39

so much. Such a nice break from vote

1:20:41

shaming I will not support a candidate for

1:20:43

president that supports genocide stop telling people what

1:20:46

they feel is wrong We get gas lit

1:20:48

enough by mainstream media. We don't hear anything

1:20:50

from you do better from Ed sparkle 12

1:20:53

Vote shame. What is vote shaming? I don't know like

1:20:56

we say don't have fun with Trump. I guess I

1:20:58

don't know what you want to do then I

1:21:00

feel like just the thing I just said was very clear

1:21:02

of like if what you want is nothing then vote for

1:21:07

Don't have respect for that condition gonna have to

1:21:10

get insurance because those potholes are gonna be egregious Anyway,

1:21:14

that's what are we talking about in the bonus? Oh,

1:21:16

you know what all I have written down So

1:21:20

stupid is endless chowder because it's just the worst phrase

1:21:22

I've ever heard in my entire life And I want

1:21:24

to talk a little bit about that I

1:21:26

also had another one of my fun sleepovers

1:21:29

with my friend and and our friend Jackie

1:21:31

joined us I'll talk a little bit about

1:21:33

that. I watched a movie really

1:21:35

what movie salt burn I haven't

1:21:37

watched that. Oh my god. I'm ahead of you on this

1:21:39

one. No, I need to watch it because I need to give away

1:21:42

Spoilers. Oh boy. I think I have something else.

1:21:44

I don't remember