There’s more news and less comprehension today than any historical period that didn’t involve literal witch trials, and trying to stay on top of it all can feel like playing a game of telephone with 30 people, except everyone’s speaking at the same time and like a third of them are openly racist for some reason. From Cracked co-founder Jack O’Brien, THE DAILY ZEITGEIST is stepping into that fray with some of the funniest and smartest comedic and journalistic minds around. Jack and co-host Miles Gray spend up to an hour every weekday sorting through the events and stories driving the headlines, to help you find the signal in the noise, with a few laughs thrown in for free.
https://www.iheart.com/podcast/105-the-daily-zeitgeist-28516718/
episode 2: ‘Spiracy Theories Class of 2024 05.21.24
In episode 1679, Jack and Miles are joined by journalist, Jared Holt, to discuss… The Relative Danger Of Conspiracy From Taylor Swift To Stop The Steal, The Resurgence Of Q-Anon and more!
LISTEN: Cartagena by Reyna Tropical
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
00:05
Speaker 1
It's tough, being tough being lead guitar up there up front.
00:08
We need bass players though, Thank you for your service.
00:12
Speaker 2
Yeah yeah, look I love it, Like you get to
00:14
be the least sober person in the band and people
00:17
don't realize it, I think is what the fun part
00:20
is playing bass sometimes.
00:21
Speaker 3
Did you have a bass face? Did I have a
00:23
bass face?
00:24
Speaker 4
Oh?
00:24
Speaker 3
Yeah, you when you get like nasty, I would have
00:27
to be.
00:27
Speaker 5
Like, how premeditated is the face? Is the question that
00:30
I always have for musicians, like when they're coming in,
00:33
do you practice the face or does it just like
00:35
come out of you if.
00:36
Speaker 2
You're a hack. I mean it's not like I had
00:38
a face or like time for bass face. It's just
00:40
more like when you're if something, if you're improvising or
00:43
something something happens, you're nat You're like like you're just.
00:45
Speaker 1
If you yourself are funky, it just comes out of
00:48
your soul, your your face contorts with it.
00:51
Speaker 2
Yeah, mine's a little bit more like I'm hard of hearing.
00:54
I'm like, it's not like st Heim like st Him
01:00
and high. She's like like she's got a full on
01:03
base face.
01:04
Speaker 3
Yeah. Yeah, to the point that she.
01:06
Speaker 5
Opened for titay when I went and saw Taylor Swift
01:09
and I was googling in the middle of the thing, like.
01:13
Speaker 2
Is everything okay? Like is that she was just serving base,
01:16
serving base face, giving you base facease face base for
01:21
that ass.
01:28
Speaker 5
Hello the Internet, and welcome to season three thirty seven,
01:32
Episode two of Daly's Like I Say.
01:35
Speaker 3
Production of iHeartRadio.
01:36
Speaker 1
This is the podcast where we take a deep dot
01:39
into America share consciousness.
01:41
Speaker 2
If you listen to us while you're sleeping, wake up,
01:44
because I'm sorry.
01:46
Speaker 5
That wasn't very nice. I listened to so many podcasts
01:50
like going to sleep. That's really the only time I
01:52
have to listen to podcasts, so just put them on.
01:55
And if someone did that to me, I would not
01:57
appreciate it. So I apologize.
01:59
Speaker 3
I just woke you up. You can go back to sleep.
02:01
Speaker 5
It's Tuesday, May twenty first, twenty twenty four.
02:05
Speaker 3
Mm hmm, you know what that is? May twenty first.
02:09
Not a lot a lot, Actually, not a lot, a
02:11
lot a lot of that.
02:12
Speaker 5
Not a lot a lot.
02:14
Speaker 3
It's National Strawberries and Cream Day.
02:16
Speaker 5
That's one of my favorite songs. I love that you
02:18
references what she do.
02:21
Speaker 2
Yeah, she was at uack Barns same college as me.
02:25
Speaker 3
She's in college with you.
02:27
Speaker 5
Yeah, I guess I learned this after the fact, but
02:32
my wife was like, yeah, I know she went there
02:34
and was just like left early because that song was
02:37
blowing up as we were in school.
02:39
Speaker 6
Wait, and she was at she was your classmate. I
02:43
don't know what year she was, but she was there
02:46
were eighty nineteen eighty, so she what the fuck? Okay
02:51
out here with black Korean icon amory okay b deal.
02:56
Speaker 2
Ummm, that just completely threw my momentum. Oh but not
02:59
a lot a loto is National Strawberries and Cream Day.
03:02
It's also a National weight staff Day, shout out to
03:05
people out there having.
03:06
Speaker 3
To fucking deal with the fucking impatient customers pretending that
03:10
you give a fuck.
03:11
Speaker 2
Also National Memo Day. I don't know what that means,
03:14
but I'm guessing just the idea of a memorandum as
03:18
they used to call memo.
03:20
Speaker 3
Yeah, oh a memo.
03:22
Speaker 5
Yes, my name is Jack O'Brien akaa so so so
03:27
so mel Lee Balls, please be mean extra mean because
03:31
because I'm gonna pay it. So so so so mel
03:35
Lee Balls, please be me an extra me because I'm
03:38
gonna pay Yeah. That is courtesy of Charlie Xavier to
03:42
round ball rock Tim Robinson lyrics where he goes bo
03:46
bo bo bo basketball, give me, gimme, give me the
03:49
ball because I'm gonna don't get on SNL.
03:53
Speaker 3
I believe it was. Yeah.
03:55
Speaker 5
Anyways, great ref Shout out to Charlie, Sorry are you?
04:00
I fucked up the phrasing a little bit, but you know,
04:03
caught a whiff of my smellyballs and it just fucked
04:05
me up a little bit.
04:06
Speaker 1
Anyways.
04:07
Speaker 5
Thrilled to be joined as Elias by my co host,
04:10
mister Miles Grad.
04:11
Speaker 2
Yes, it's Miles Great, the Lord of Lancasham, North, Hollywood's
04:15
finest and also.
04:17
Speaker 3
Just uh, what was I gonna say?
04:19
Speaker 1
I forgot?
04:19
Speaker 3
Oh, the latest fan of the Challengers Score.
04:23
Speaker 2
I've just been listening at Score A lot an't go wrong.
04:27
Just who would have thought some like industrial electronic music
04:30
goes soa pairs so well with tennis scenes. Anyway, Shout
04:35
out to everybody that's been saying to check it out,
04:37
especially super Producer and who now seeing it. I've seen it.
04:41
I've seen it, and I know and I know.
04:42
Speaker 5
Yeah and I know, and of course I do know.
04:45
Now we both saw weekend. You've seen, you've heard. Of
04:48
course we know, and of course we have seen it
04:50
and heard it. Miles, We are thrilled to be joined
04:54
by today's special expert guest. He's a senior researcher of
04:58
US hate and Extremist Movement at the Institute for Strategic Dialogue.
05:03
To quote Samuel L. Jackson, hold onto your butts. Oh,
05:07
it's the return of whole to Mania. The Holtster is
05:11
in the house, So Holtster your weapons.
05:15
Speaker 2
It's Jerry, Jerry, Jerry.
05:22
Speaker 5
Hold hold, hold, hold, it's good to be here.
05:27
Speaker 3
Hold on, We're not done. Jared, hold on. I feel
05:31
like I was off there. Give me one second.
05:33
Speaker 2
Hold.
05:34
Speaker 3
That's good man, oh man, God help.
05:37
Speaker 1
Things are good. It's hard to complain too much. It's
05:41
it's warm in Chicago again, so it's it's nice to
05:45
go outside and see things start to grow and walk
05:49
my dog along the lake front, which he is crazy about.
05:53
But yeah, it's been good. Thanks.
05:54
Speaker 2
What do you mean like the like the like he's rabid,
05:57
so when he sees his body's of water. Yeah, just
06:01
are just loving and generally just excited by the year.
06:05
Speaker 3
Bas he loving it.
06:06
Speaker 1
Oh, he he goes crazy. He loves to smell all
06:10
the weird stuff that washes up on the shore of
06:12
Lake Michigan, which a lot of stuff washes up there,
06:15
like kinds of fish you wouldn't expect, Like that's probably
06:18
a good sign, Like there's a lot of like crab
06:21
looking things that wash up And maybe I'm just showing
06:24
my own ignorance over bodies of water, which I will
06:27
fully right right too. But uh but but yeah, he
06:32
just goes crazy. He runs in circles, goes nuts for
06:35
like ten minutes, and then my wife and I usually
06:39
carry him the rest of the way.
06:40
Speaker 3
But he loves it. Yeah.
06:42
Speaker 2
Wow, like that like that metaphor or that story about christ.
06:47
Speaker 3
On the beach carrying him? Yeah, do you make him
06:50
look back at his footsteps and tell.
06:52
Speaker 2
Him me and me and mom, Oh man, I'm glad
06:57
you're here. Because the Donald Trump and Race beach drifted
07:01
into Q town and I was like, oh, we're still
07:04
playing that music again, so I'm glad you're here to be.
07:07
Speaker 5
It was definitely on a bit of a Q tip
07:09
on that.
07:10
Speaker 2
One, Yes, Yeah, when he could have been on a
07:13
comal the abstract sort of wave that's a deep that's
07:17
a deep Q tip cut for all my drive call
07:19
qust fans out there. Yeah, but I'm sure that was
07:22
that like getting people excited on the old Q internets.
07:26
Speaker 1
Yeah, some of the Q and on influencers, which is
07:29
such a weird thing to say. Yeah, like the same
07:32
way we think of like, oh, I'm like a spirituality influencer,
07:36
just like Buddy, I've read a lot of posts and yeah,
07:39
you're in safe hands, don't work?
07:41
Speaker 3
Are those are my spiritual influencers? Yeah?
07:44
Speaker 1
Right right right, yeah, yeah, some of them that I
07:47
still like kind of keep an eye on from the
07:49
Q and on heyday we're like, oh, it's this music again.
07:53
And it's interesting to see this make the rounds because
07:57
during the twenty twenty campaign, you know, at Trump rallies,
08:01
this music would play and all the QUE people would
08:03
get like really pumped up about it because it's this
08:06
song by you know, it's uploaded on I think it's
08:10
SoundCloud or a YouTube channel or something by somebody who
08:14
is just like straight up Q pilled and or appears
08:19
to be I guess I should say. And so they've
08:23
always been like, look, this is this is for us,
08:26
this is our music, this is our anthem. And the
08:29
Trump where us by Can campaign has just been adamant
08:32
about like, no, it's just a song. And then reporters
08:35
are like, well, how'd you find the song? And they're
08:37
like and the next question, you know, and for all
08:43
the flak they got for using that song four years ago,
08:46
it's definitely I mean, this was like somebody's conscious choice
08:52
was like we're going to play this song again.
08:54
Speaker 5
Right, yeah, oh, and he's gonna pause for thirty seconds,
08:58
so to just like let that shit cook.
08:59
Speaker 3
That let everyone based yea, Mari.
09:03
Speaker 2
And Natean, Well, yeah, I'm glad you're here because I'm
09:05
I have many questions about that and generally what we're
09:09
looking at this fall.
09:12
Speaker 5
You like wears coast off of the vibes of people
09:15
who are in Chicago during summer because they have to
09:18
like trudge through like Andy Duframe crawling through ship to freedom.
09:23
Chicagoans need to trudge through eight months of pure ship
09:27
to get to really like one of the best places
09:30
to be during summer months, spring and summer months and
09:33
like in the world.
09:35
Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah, Chicago in the summer is like my favorite
09:37
place on earth.
09:38
Speaker 3
Yeah, it's really great. Yeah, wow, now I must go.
09:41
Have you been Jack Sureley, you've gone said, I've never been.
09:44
Speaker 5
I just uh, you know, I've seen Ferris Bueller and
09:47
I feel like summer. All right, Well, we're gonna talk
09:55
more about conspiracy theories u Resa paper about not all
10:00
conspiracy theory is created equal, some more alarming, some deserve
10:04
more attention than others. But before we do that, we
10:09
do like to get to know you a little bit
10:10
better by asking you what is something from your search
10:13
history that's revealing about who you are or what you're
10:16
up to.
10:17
Speaker 1
Do you have a warrant for this question?
10:21
Speaker 2
We got a warrant for this one. What are some
10:23
of you recently screencapped on your phone?
10:25
Speaker 5
Oh?
10:25
Speaker 3
Yeah, we have a war case.
10:27
Speaker 1
Yeah, I'll go with the Google search all right. I've
10:32
been getting sort of back into watching stand up lately,
10:37
so I've just been trying to remember, like all my
10:40
favorite comedians and see what they've put out in the
10:42
last couple of years. The most recent one I watched
10:45
was Connor O'Malley's Stand Up Solutions.
10:49
Speaker 3
How I saw him promoting that and I was really curious,
10:52
how was that? It's so good?
10:54
Speaker 1
It takes a very weird, almost kind of dark twist
10:58
at the end.
10:58
Speaker 5
But that O'Malley, the stand up comedian, the guy who
11:04
used to just scream at people on his bike on
11:06
fine the people on the walls.
11:09
Speaker 1
Yeah, it's weird at the end. Can you believe huh
11:12
huh so unlike him? Yeah no, but but it's it's
11:17
very good. So that the Google searching has been fruitful
11:20
so fun?
11:20
Speaker 5
Yeah?
11:20
Speaker 2
Yeah, have you have you come across any bummer ones?
11:23
They're like, I used to love this person. Then you're look,
11:25
You're like, oh fuck, man, no, Hey, what's.
11:28
Speaker 5
Louis c k up to?
11:29
Speaker 3
I used to watch all his stand up specials, but
11:31
I haven't been catching the latest worst. Yeah, that dude
11:33
just been in the lab for like the last seven man.
11:36
I can't like to see what he comes up with. Well,
11:38
I looked up.
11:39
Speaker 1
I guess a lot of people like that. Uh Shane
11:42
Gillis guy.
11:43
Speaker 3
Sure, I really do.
11:45
Speaker 1
And I I mean, he's like good, but I don't
11:48
get the hype. Well, I think it's like a disappointment
11:51
for me. It's like the way you see people talk
11:53
about him online. You think he's just like the funniest
11:56
dude alive. But yeah, but I don't really get it.
11:59
I don't know, yeah, I know, like people were like, dude,
12:02
he came in like Andrew Schultz and like fucking poned him.
12:05
Speaker 3
And then people like and you also got canceled off
12:07
s and like there's like this like lore behind him
12:09
too that I.
12:10
Speaker 5
Know was a big, big, big boost, big boost.
12:15
Speaker 1
That's and they think it's like the best thing that
12:17
can happen to you as a comedian for you lose
12:20
a job.
12:21
Speaker 2
Right exactly, and then you can go to Austin, Texas
12:23
and then you're the new king controversial.
12:26
Speaker 5
Lose a job controversially, some people just like quietly get
12:29
fired after once.
12:31
Speaker 3
That's no fun for them.
12:32
Speaker 1
They fired me. They canceled me from SNL because they
12:35
said I was not funny.
12:39
Speaker 5
They're like, oh man, we got to support this character then.
12:42
But yeah, I am in my Gilly suit, which is
12:44
my Shane Gillis T shirt and match shorts all over
12:49
France Shane Gillis shirt. What is uh?
12:53
Speaker 3
What's something you think is underrated?
12:55
Speaker 1
It's warm again? So I'm playing golf again. I think
12:57
golf is underrated. It rightfully so has a reputation as
13:02
this like very stuffy boys club. But in the last
13:06
like five years, especially the game has grown to be
13:10
like a lot more inclusive. There's all this like I
13:14
maybe I'm you know, too cynical but hilarious, like conflict
13:19
between the PGA and live golf and like the pinnacle
13:23
of capitalism like coming down to take it to its
13:26
ultimate end and stuff and like, but the golf is
13:31
has changed quite a bit, like as a game and
13:33
like culturally, I think it is very hard, impossible to
13:39
master and a good excuse to spend like four to
13:43
five hours outside seventeen hours.
13:46
Speaker 5
In my case, I'm not very good at it. But
13:49
how are they changing? Are they hitting it with the
13:51
stick end? Now? Which what's changed about how we're playing golf?
13:56
Speaker 1
You get you get two balls and you stick them
13:58
together and I.
14:02
Speaker 3
A string and then just whip him around your head.
14:04
Speaker 5
Real fast and yeah, let it fly.
14:06
Speaker 2
It's just wild even to see like like one of
14:08
my favorite rappers, Schoolboy Q, like he started getting into
14:12
golf heavy and he's just like, yeah, I started going
14:15
on the tours, like I made more money golfing than
14:18
I did rapping, and he's like, yeah, it was racist,
14:21
but you know, you kind of find your community, you
14:23
get through it.
14:23
Speaker 3
And I was like wow, like when I saw people
14:25
like that, like la gangster rappers.
14:28
Speaker 1
Be like, oh man, I'm really fucking with golf.
14:29
Speaker 3
Now.
14:30
Speaker 2
I think that she's saying he made more money. What
14:33
he said he made more golf. This is a quote
14:35
he said. He said he didn't wrap for five years
14:37
because of golf, because he was like lucrative. I didn't
14:41
make that much money off rap. I made a lot
14:43
of money off rap, but I would say golfing helped
14:45
me a lot in times where I probably needed. I
14:46
made a lot of money off golf, like a lot
14:48
from connections on the golf course and offers.
14:51
Speaker 3
I don't think he's necessarily.
14:52
Speaker 2
Oh okay, he's saying like being in that world just
14:56
like somehow became very beneficial to him.
14:58
Speaker 5
He's like, I'm going to this is making me hate
15:01
golf more. It's just people like because that's the thing
15:04
you always hear that are like, Yeah, it's just you're
15:06
out there, you're making business deals. You're I don't know,
15:10
getting drunk the park.
15:13
Speaker 1
Those are those are not the people I played golf with.
15:18
Speaker 3
Jack.
15:18
Speaker 2
We go out there, we're ready for some deals, ready
15:22
for these deals.
15:24
Speaker 3
Hello, my good man. I'm here to golf and make
15:27
some money, is that you?
15:29
Speaker 5
Yeah, man, I was like, I was very hopeful. You know,
15:33
we've long talked on this show about the fact that
15:37
in some ways, especially in the city of Los Angeles,
15:40
golf courses are just the best parks the city has
15:43
to offer, but ones where we're not allowed to go
15:46
to them. And it would be cool if we just
15:50
said fuck golf and like took them over. And I
15:53
was hopeful that it was going to be a generational
15:56
thing and that people would, you know, well, once all
16:00
the people who play golf now aged out, like they
16:02
wouldn't be replaced. But I know so many people who
16:05
just right on Q, like they hit forty and they're like, yeah, no,
16:09
I golf now all the time.
16:10
Speaker 3
What are you talking about? Why don't you?
16:12
Speaker 1
Of course they do getting out there.
16:13
Speaker 3
Well, then top golf too.
16:15
Speaker 2
I just need to go to I haven't swung a
16:17
club since I was pretending to be Tiger Woods when
16:19
I was thirteen, So I think I would have fun
16:22
just smacking the shit out of the ball. But the
16:24
other parts that require patients and skill, no, no.
16:27
Speaker 5
No, no, yeah, I'm gonna start going to try and
16:29
start a revolution against golf, just because every time I
16:31
hit it, it like curves off to the right, like the.
16:34
Speaker 3
Fuck it's goods. The fucking golf's fault. What classes? But
16:42
it is classes as fuck. But a crazy schoolboy Q.
16:45
Speaker 5
Was like, yeah, man, like I only like fifteen card dealerships.
16:50
Speaker 3
Now, yeah, it's wild.
16:52
Speaker 2
There's like on this I think interview on Lil Yachti's
16:54
podcast or something, but yeah, he is, he is out there.
16:57
But yeah, even the way he talks about like just
17:00
his experience, it's it's very it's very eye.
17:02
Speaker 5
Opening for me, school boy Q fans, I must listen amazing.
17:06
And then he came back and just effortlessly dropped a classic.
17:09
So it's like, I guess it's not bad for the
17:11
soul like I thought it was.
17:14
Speaker 3
No, No, dude, good for your bank account too.
17:16
Speaker 5
Bronna really sound you really sound like the people I
17:21
know who have started golfing.
17:23
Speaker 3
I'm going to fuck it.
17:24
Speaker 2
I'm going to I'm gonna see because I can't go
17:25
in a country club. I'm have to go to like
17:27
the public, like like Griffith Park or some ship. And
17:29
they're like, bro, I can't help you with anything unless
17:32
you need uh like air conditioning repair. My cousin hook
17:35
you up.
17:36
Speaker 3
Maybe that might be so.
17:38
Speaker 1
You're gonna start golfing and then the sponsorships for the
17:41
show or they're gonna go from like whatever they are
17:44
to like Wells Fargo is.
17:46
Speaker 2
Yeah right, yeah yeah, rather than like the errant Michael
17:50
Rappaport podcast ad showing up on the ads that it'll
17:54
be like, you know, when.
17:56
Speaker 3
I'm out on the links, I like to use my links.
18:00
It's still a Michael Rappaport when I'm out on the links.
18:04
My good friends, that's what we do. But yeah, I
18:12
who knows.
18:12
Speaker 2
I mean, look, there's already a very iconic blazon in golf.
18:17
They're like, remember remember this, what about this guy? Except
18:19
he sucks and that could be me.
18:22
Speaker 3
That's my link.
18:24
Speaker 5
I'm like Tiger Woods, except I suck at golf. I
18:26
fucking suck, bad, dude. That's how I shock. They're like, oh,
18:30
up to the tee is Miles Gray. I'm just panicking.
18:32
I'm just fucking stupid ass fucking club. I'm probably gonna
18:35
fuck this up anyway.
18:37
Speaker 3
You guys can talk.
18:38
Speaker 7
I don't care.
18:38
Speaker 3
You could talk, I don't care, but fuck it up anyway.
18:43
Speaker 5
Tiger Woods, except bad at golf, is just like a
18:46
really low level of swag. Oh yeah, that's that's tough.
18:53
What is uh, Jared, what is something you think is overrated?
18:57
Speaker 1
Being good at stuff?
18:58
Speaker 3
Mm hmm.
19:00
Speaker 1
I think, especially with social media and stuff, a lot
19:04
of our brains have kind of been rewired by different
19:08
like cultural, technological, whatever forces in society to seek a
19:14
lot of our validation outward. So I think when it
19:18
comes to hobbies like art or sports or whatever it is,
19:25
I think a lot of us, you know, at least
19:27
speaking for myself here, can feel pressure to be like
19:30
good enough, or like past a certain baseline at something
19:33
to feel like it's worth my time or worth doing.
19:37
But I think that, you know, collectively, we have to
19:41
lean into kind of sucking and stuff, which you know,
19:47
going back to golf, I kind of suck at golf,
19:49
but I have to to you know, out there. Yeah
19:53
I heard that I'm not good. I mean me either,
19:56
but but yeah, I mean I think just just doing
20:00
stuff for the joy of doing it. I think right
20:03
is important and can be easy to lose sight of,
20:05
especially if you're like me internally online and.
20:09
Speaker 2
Right you know, well, yeah, I know, like so many times,
20:12
like people like when you start something they're like, oh,
20:14
are you good at it? You know, like oh I
20:16
started like playing this, or starting like oh, like what
20:19
are you gonna put in an album? You know, Like
20:20
there's always like this thing of like the sort of
20:23
assumption is like you're doing it for some kind of success.
20:26
A lot of especially in LA, when you tell people
20:28
you're trying some new shit, versus being like, no, I'm
20:30
merely just experimenting with something, an activity that might like
20:35
may bring me pleasure. I'm hoping that it does for
20:37
sustained periods. I'm divorcing myself from like what the results
20:41
are of it.
20:42
Speaker 1
I thought it would be fun, Yeah right, Yeah, it
20:45
turns out I suck shit at golf, and I kind
20:47
of like that.
20:48
Speaker 3
I pissed off all these people that I'm holding up
20:50
behind me.
20:51
Speaker 2
Yeah, when it takes me seventeen strokes on, it gives.
20:54
Speaker 1
Them more time to do deals.
20:56
Speaker 3
Yeah, exactly. They should be thanking facilit facilitator.
21:00
Speaker 5
Yeah, I'm just taking pretty good at golf, which you're
21:04
allowed to pick it up and throw it right where
21:06
you wanted to go, is that?
21:08
Speaker 7
Yeah?
21:08
Speaker 3
Yeah, you're are you guys? Have you ever played what's
21:11
what was the last time you played golf.
21:13
Speaker 5
I was not terrible when I was in my like
21:15
early twenties, but I was always playing on like Part
21:17
three's and ship just like close to my house. And
21:20
I got a hole in one on one of those
21:22
and then stopped swear together on Part three. Yeah, I
21:26
did swear down, swear to swear to God up and down,
21:30
my God, and then well you have to just quit
21:32
after that. It was so it was so lucky that
21:35
I spent like three minutes looking for the ball before
21:37
I looked in the hole.
21:39
Speaker 3
I was like, whoa, you were really like, no way,
21:41
there's no way. Yeah, I had no idea. How are
21:45
you a mini golf sucking.
21:51
Speaker 2
Kid place, fucking castle park Man, that place fucking bullshit, man,
22:00
fucking bullshit, man, fucking I hate that one.
22:04
Speaker 3
That shaped like the old Civil War fucking fort ship. Stupid.
22:08
Speaker 5
I've never been on that on that mini golf course,
22:11
oh Jack, been there, but not done the I've never
22:14
played around.
22:15
Speaker 3
Oh man, you should join me. Man, I got a
22:17
good group of dudes. Man, we go out there swinging
22:20
the rubber golf utters and.
22:22
Speaker 5
We do a lot of a lot of six pack
22:24
each orange genising golf. Man, You're not supposed to do that.
22:29
That's why not Orange genis, man, Orange genis. We're not
22:32
breaking the rules. We do things above board. You know,
22:35
we're business people. We're business people, man. Yeah, all right,
22:38
closing so many deals on the back nine of the uh.
22:43
Speaker 3
Right there and go right off the four or five freeway.
22:45
Yeah yeah, yeah, I was.
22:47
Speaker 5
Like trading uh Pokemon cards, killing.
22:51
Speaker 2
Yo, legit kids for trading Pokemon cards over there, like
22:55
in the where the lunch tables are.
22:57
Speaker 5
Yeah, all right, let's take a quick break and we'll
23:00
come back and talk about conspiracy theories.
23:14
Speaker 3
And we're back. We're back, and Jared, you have this
23:19
piece about to report. I guess we would call it
23:23
a report. It's official, and.
23:26
Speaker 5
It's about the fact something that I feel like we've
23:30
that's been coming up more and more recently, that not
23:33
all conspiracy theories are created equal. There are some that
23:36
are very dangerous, but they're not always the ones that
23:40
get the most attention. So just wanted to like kind
23:44
of get you to talk broadly about where the kind
23:49
of impetus for this report was coming from.
23:52
Speaker 1
Like many things I write nowadays, it's equal parts trying
23:57
to be helpful and also just my passive aggression at
24:01
the National news right in the way they cover the
24:04
stuff I research so generally conspiracy theories and sort of
24:12
how prevalent they feel like they've become in discourse, especially
24:16
political discourse, is important on the whole. But the premise
24:22
of this piece is basically to say that even though
24:25
that bigger picture is important, and all the conspiracy theories
24:29
like make up that bigger picture, it doesn't mean that
24:34
like people saying that the Illuminati is using Taylor Swift
24:38
to flush the super Bowl is equally as important as
24:43
you know, the same conspiracy theorists accusing some random no
24:49
no name election worker of being a pedophile in that
24:52
person's life being turned upside down by freaks on the internet.
24:56
Speaker 5
Yeah, So it's like there's a power imbalance that you
25:00
kind of comes up throughout the report that, like a
25:03
lot of the theories, the one that jumped out to
25:07
me because it's one that we've talked about on this
25:10
show is but the Boeing whistleblower thing, where whistleblowers keep
25:16
dying and everyone's like having fun half jokingly, like with
25:21
a little you know, while waggling our eyebrows aggressively mentioning
25:27
the two whistleblowers have died while while they were like
25:32
about to testify, and then like just unrelatedly linking off
25:36
to the Michael Clayton meme or the mic not meme,
25:39
the Michael Clayton scene where a corporation like murders.
25:43
Speaker 3
Where they tase that dude and then they shoot the toes. Yeah,
25:47
shoot him up between the toes. Yeah.
25:49
Speaker 2
Yeah.
25:49
Speaker 3
Yeah.
25:50
Speaker 5
Like, on the one hand, like it seems like, I
25:53
don't know, pretty pretty huge accusation to make. On the
25:56
other hand, I'm not as worried about boeing, Like I
25:59
don't think our problem as a society is boeing, not
26:02
like getting too much scrutiny personally, Like that doesn't seem
26:06
to be the main problem. But I guess I'm curious,
26:09
Like where does that fall for you on the list
26:13
of like conspiracy theories to be monitoring and concerned about.
26:18
Speaker 1
Yeah, so it's kind of conspiracy theories where yeah, we
26:22
all wiggle our eyebrows and wait for the other person
26:24
to be like, right, actually gave this though, yeah too, right,
26:28
like you know, yeah, just keep going. But yeah, but
26:33
like wouldn't it be crazy if then somebody pulled up
26:37
the banking documents for this and right, right, so.
26:40
Speaker 3
I told you we don't have a twelve in that, Sue.
26:42
I was just back there.
26:43
Speaker 1
Yeah all right, So so I always think about like
26:47
like power balances and then also like who is the
26:51
victim of a conspiracy theory?
26:53
Speaker 3
Right?
26:53
Speaker 1
And maybe that's victims the wrong word, but like this is,
26:58
I mean, what happens we all or a negative opinion
27:01
about Boeing their corporation. My heart does not break for
27:05
the stock price of Boeing, or you know, how people
27:09
feel about their airplanes or whatever. I think if you know,
27:13
those kind of theories started singling out, you know, like
27:17
a specific lawyer and then all of a sudden, like
27:19
two hundred thousand people are hyper fixated on this lawyer
27:21
and sharing their addresses and stuff like that can get
27:25
a little bit you know, then that would kind of
27:27
get into the territory of like, oh, maybe we should
27:29
keep an eye on this because this could actually like
27:31
cause some trouble to this person, who, as far as
27:34
we know, could just be like, you know, totally innocent
27:37
or whatever. It's just like people are coming up with
27:40
things online to say about it. Yeah, so this piece
27:44
is really more about like those power balances, like you
27:47
pointed out in considering the impact of conspiracy theories. I
27:52
think there's a lot of conspiracy theories that exist in
27:55
sort of a gray area like truth wise, of like,
28:00
this certainly doesn't look good. It looks a little weird,
28:02
and it might be fun to talk about or explore
28:05
or like get you know, but that's not something I like, Really,
28:09
it's not like a place I really try to go
28:11
in this piece because it gets like a little you know,
28:14
complicated to talk about is maybe more of like a
28:16
sociology question of like why do we enjoy this? But sure,
28:21
but yeah, that's that's kind of how I think about it.
28:24
I tend to think stuff like that is you know,
28:26
generally benign. We're harmless in the grand scheme of things.
28:31
Speaker 5
Right, yesterday we talked about how Trump is needle dropping
28:36
these C songs at his rallies, and for me, even
28:41
I feel like the slow creep of this has sort
28:44
of like flown under the radar, this latest needle drop,
28:47
because like at first it was this thing that like, yeah,
28:51
it might be tied to Q, and then he's started
28:53
just like playing it during his speeches like on purpose,
28:57
like in a like music would start swelling out in
29:00
a movie in a weird way, and like at first
29:02
that was like Jesus, well, like what is happening? This
29:04
is so strange. And now when he does it and
29:07
like stops for a minute to just like let the
29:09
music ride, We're just like, uh huh, like you so
29:13
like this feels like we have a presidential candidate who,
29:18
if the election was out tomorrow, would win or would
29:21
be very close to winning, who is embracing what is
29:24
ostensibly a cult with him as the figurehead. Is that
29:29
one of the ones that you feel like we need
29:32
to be worried about? And if so, why or why not?
29:35
Speaker 1
I would say yes because of you know, again going
29:38
back to this question of power, there's few people in
29:41
the US that hold more you know, sway and are
29:47
very close if not, you know, I mean, like you
29:49
pointed out, Trump very well could win this fall. It's
29:53
it's like very much in the cards. I tend to
29:56
think he probably will. I hope I'm wrong. But to
30:00
have that kind of level of power, indulging conspiracy theory
30:05
like QAnon, which has driven you know, several individuals to
30:09
violence throughout the years, I think is worth caring about
30:13
because it's getting the blessing of somebody from a position
30:18
of high power, which means that you know, if we
30:21
think of conspiracy theories like that, particularly some of the
30:25
more deranged ones like QAnon, that have potentially more grave
30:29
implications for the people that get caught up and targeted
30:33
by them, you know, if we think of that as
30:35
like a numbers game, then getting on stage with the
30:40
you know, potentially the next president. You know, it's hard
30:43
to think of a bigger, more consequential platform than that, right.
30:47
Speaker 2
And what like you know, just kind of watching the
30:51
ebb and flow of q Andon, like obviously they it's
30:55
things subsided. As you know, the drops became less and
30:59
less frequent and then like stopped completely.
31:02
Speaker 3
Then you see sort of like it popping up.
31:04
Speaker 2
I just saw an article that you shared about how
31:07
like QAnon references have been like just resurgent on like
31:10
on Twitter recently and looking at even like what Trump
31:13
is doing. Like in twenty twenty, I remember we were
31:15
all like, oh shit, you're really doing this to try
31:17
and like get as many people behind you for this
31:20
reelection push as possible, and like winking at the QAnon
31:23
people have been like yeah, come on, y'all right, like
31:26
here's my like, come on down under this big tent
31:28
and we can do it all together. Is it, like,
31:32
you know, from what you've seen, is QAnon still like
31:35
at this level where like this is sort of why
31:37
Trump's doing this again to be like all right, guys,
31:39
like is it or is it kind of like an
31:41
Avengers assemble kind of like bat signal to be like, hey,
31:45
we need to I need as many of the fucking
31:47
freaks as possible to sort of go all in on
31:50
my reelection campaign because maybe I can then turn that
31:53
into a you know, potential January sixth type sequel, or
31:58
is the only way given because he can't remember the phrasing,
32:01
so like where we go once, we go, we go always?
32:05
Many are saying.
32:07
Speaker 3
We go one.
32:09
Speaker 1
He's winking at him because he thinks they're kind of cute,
32:11
you know.
32:11
Speaker 3
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I love your shoes, you shoes.
32:15
Speaker 1
I mean, I think it it generally kind of lines
32:17
up with both of the previous Trump campaigns and what
32:20
is shaping up to beat this one as well, which is,
32:24
you know, put on a show for the freaks and
32:27
let them kind of do the work of drumming up
32:30
a larger page base of support.
32:32
Speaker 3
Right.
32:33
Speaker 1
You know, Trump has done this from the very start
32:35
on immigration rhetoric, taking like much harder lines and sort
32:40
of restrictionist positions than other GOP candidates in the field
32:44
were at the time, and still has some of the
32:47
most extreme immigration policies that you know are floating around
32:51
the GOP. So, you know, between just like dumbing back
32:56
through the Trump campaign prior iterations, but the reviews with
33:00
Alex Jones, the praisine of like nutjobs like Ted Nugent,
33:06
the getting dinner with the lips of TikTok Lady. You know,
33:10
it's like very much this effort to cater to and
33:15
sort of bring along anybody who is going to be
33:20
ride or die for him. So I think his affinity
33:25
for the qan On people, I don't think he's like
33:27
deep in the weeds.
33:28
Speaker 3
I don't.
33:29
Speaker 1
I don't think he knows about like que drops or
33:32
you know, really like truly knows who any of these
33:34
people are.
33:35
Speaker 5
But he don't know about q drops because he is
33:38
que and doing the drops, right, So like he doesn't
33:40
even think about them as drops, right, is that what.
33:41
Speaker 1
He to say to say that he knows about him
33:45
would be under your selling it, you know, you.
33:48
Speaker 5
Know what I mean, he has Jared is waggling his
33:51
eyebrows at me, just like.
33:54
Speaker 1
But yeah, I mean I think generally, you know, he
33:59
he doesn't meet supporters that he doesn't like, and that's right,
34:03
you know, tries to give him a little pat on
34:05
the head and scratched to keep him going. In terms
34:09
of QAnon more broadly, it's certainly not what it used
34:12
to be. When the drops stopped, you know, a lot
34:16
of that energy went elsewhere. In twenty twenty, it was
34:19
like starting to spill into anti vax stuff. It continued
34:23
to spill there. A lot of it spilled into election
34:27
denihilism more broadly. So a lot of like diehard q
34:31
people you know, kind of looked up and went, okay,
34:34
well maybe the president wasn't posting on eight chan for
34:39
me to read, but you know, it's about the friends
34:42
we made along the way, and you know, sort of
34:45
the line in those spaces for a while was like, Okay,
34:49
it's not literally true, but you know it opened our
34:53
eyes and got us ready to see the truth or whatever. Yeah,
34:57
So a lot of these people have spilled over into
34:59
like your local GOP office or school board. You know
35:04
some of them like went through the broken windows at
35:07
the US Capitol Building and you know, went to jail
35:11
for that, And so the movement evolved. I don't think
35:15
it ever really died. That study that I shared from
35:19
NewsGuard sort of redid this methodology that I didn't think
35:24
it was twenty twenty two or twenty twenty one, where
35:26
I was looking at some of the catchphrases that you
35:29
used to think about as like, you know, there's the
35:33
flag that says I'm a queue head, where we go on,
35:36
we go all right, trust the plan or whatever it
35:39
may be. Storm, Yeah, and those were kind of rolling
35:43
off when I did that study, and to see that
35:45
come back up, I thought was sort of interesting. I
35:49
think it's definitely an incomplete picture of sort of what
35:52
has happened in that movement more broadly, but it'll be
35:55
interesting to see, if, you know, with this campaign kicking
35:58
back up, if we do see sort of a return
36:01
to form for some people, if they're like okay, well,
36:05
you know they're looking around and they're like, okay, we
36:07
played the you know, LGBTQ people are demons thing, what
36:12
what other greatest hits do we have?
36:14
Speaker 3
Right?
36:14
Speaker 4
Right?
36:15
Speaker 3
You know.
36:15
Speaker 1
I mean they might they might pull this back out
36:17
the songbook. We don't know yet, but yeah, it's interesting.
36:20
Speaker 5
The core belief of the Q stuff is that we're
36:23
all pedophiles, right, Like, isn't that like one of the
36:25
main ones, is any you jack, it's just me particularly
36:28
They do have some pretty uh detailed stuff. No, but
36:33
I guess that's one. Like there's this a New Yorker
36:36
article that we talked about a couple of weeks back
36:39
that is about this idea of misinformation and kind of
36:44
puts forward this idea that like some of the misinformation,
36:47
like some of the C stuff, is people like not
36:52
literally believing it, Like you just said, it's not that
36:55
they literally believe it. It's more that they believe it
36:58
in the way that like a Catholic believes that the
37:01
bread of the Communion is like actually the body of Jesus,
37:07
But like they don't expect blood to start like running
37:10
down their mouth when they like put it, you know,
37:12
when they bite into it.
37:13
Speaker 1
They yeah, I think that's the perfect way to put it.
37:16
Speaker 3
Yeah.
37:16
Speaker 5
Yeah, they just believe it as a you know, the
37:20
way a religious person does. And in those cases, the
37:22
more outlandish the belief like that this is where like
37:26
speaking in tongues comes from right, like in certain Christian faiths.
37:30
It's like the more outlandish and wild you can go with,
37:34
like the thing that you're saying you believe even though
37:38
you don't technically like adopt it as part of your
37:41
reality and like physically interact with it. The more outlandish,
37:45
the like more people are like, Wow, that person's like
37:48
going hard, you know, like that like.
37:50
Speaker 3
You get they're going hard for Q.
37:51
Speaker 7
Yeah, yeah, they're going hard for Q.
37:53
Speaker 5
But then like it does I keep waiting, Like once
37:57
I found out, Okay, there's this cult that likes a
37:59
lot of their beliefs. When you like pull out the
38:02
like selected readings of like Q drops and then like
38:05
the things that people are writing about Q would suggest
38:08
that they think they're at war with like Satan and
38:13
like people who are like worshiping the devil and like
38:16
want to kill their kids and drink their like vi adrenochrome.
38:22
And so I'm always like whenever there's like a mass
38:24
shooting or like something of that nature, I'm always like, well, this.
38:27
Speaker 7
Has to be cute.
38:28
Speaker 5
Like it feels like the sort of thing that if
38:30
people actually believe that we'd be seeing a lot more
38:34
horrifying violence in response then we are actually seeing. So
38:39
I guess that makes me wonder like where Q actually
38:42
falls on that spectrum, Like is it something that people
38:45
are just like this is like a fun thing that
38:47
I talk to with my other weird friends. We hate
38:51
Joe Biden and this is a fun way to like
38:53
channel that hatred, and we like think Trump is funny
38:57
and that's this is a fun way for us to
38:59
channel or is it something that's like And I don't
39:03
expect anybody to have the answer on this, but I
39:05
do think it's an interesting conversation as to like whether
39:09
you know Q is going to rise to that level
39:12
of being a justification for really horrifying violence.
39:18
Speaker 2
Like you're saying like juxtaposing that with like great replacement
39:21
theory or something right where people truly adopt that as
39:24
an ideology.
39:25
Speaker 1
And I mean, I guess I should point out that,
39:27
like we have politicians spreading stuff like great replacement, like
39:31
you just mentioned Miles, but as horrifying as they are,
39:34
like mass shootings are not happening because of it every day, right,
39:40
And the same thing with qan on there have been
39:42
instances of like really nightmarish violence. I remember a few
39:47
years ago this I think it was a surf instructor
39:50
in California like took his kids down to Mexico and
39:54
just slaughtered them because he thought they were like lizard
39:56
people or something. Right, So it definitely came and do that.
40:00
But that's something I also kind of get to in
40:03
the piece that I wrote with my colleague Lucy, which is,
40:07
you know, trying to encourage you know, writing kind of
40:10
directly to news audience here, trying to encourage like more
40:13
open thinking about the role that conspiracy theories have in
40:17
people's lives. You know, they, like any other form of media,
40:21
they offer all kinds of non material things to people,
40:26
you know, and it's not just like pure information that
40:30
must be deep onked. It's also like an expression for
40:34
the people that believe it of like identity and philosophy
40:38
and meaning and like these more abstract kind of like
40:42
front brain kind of stuff that that know, like, well,
40:47
actually the New York Times said that was false, and
40:51
then people are.
40:51
Speaker 3
Like, what what Okay?
40:53
Speaker 5
Each of the things that you just cited in that
40:56
paragraph got more than three pinocchios from the fact checkers
40:59
of the world. What shit you're averaging for Pinocchio's my
41:04
good man.
41:04
Speaker 2
Yeah.
41:05
Speaker 1
So yeah, So it's you know, I think trying to
41:09
think a little bit more openly about like what theories
41:14
like that can mean to people. To some people, they
41:16
can be very literal to people, especially people who are having,
41:21
you know, some sort of mental crisis or have inclinations
41:26
towards violence or you know, other dire sort of personal situations.
41:32
They can be justifications for really terrible things right to
41:36
a lot of people. They can be entertainment to some people.
41:39
It can be like a quasi religion. It can mean
41:42
a lot of different things to a lot of different people.
41:43
And the point that I was trying to make in
41:46
the article is it's worth thinking about those kind of
41:49
implications or like what that might mean beyond just like
41:53
what a lot of coverage of conspiracy theories and big
41:56
publications tends to look like, which is they're saying Taylor
42:00
Swift is gonna, you know, get a sniper rifle and
42:05
shoot the ball and deflate it and then the Super
42:07
Bowl is gonna be ruined or yeah, whatever, you know,
42:11
and then being like damn, that got a lot of clicks.
42:13
Is there a lot of Americans that think this is true,
42:16
and it's like, but that's not.
42:18
Speaker 5
Like you're linking off to it in your massive news
42:21
publication by the way, Like, yeah, we the stupidity of
42:25
other people, like in the abstract is like a myth
42:29
that I feel like we want to believe in as Americans,
42:34
Like we want to believe that if you can tell
42:37
people that, like a big group of people is believing
42:41
something that like seems incomprehensibly like almost unbelievably stupid, Like
42:48
they they're going to eat that up. They they love
42:50
to believe that. It's just generally when you talk to
42:53
those people, not true that they actually Yeah, I mean
42:58
I've talked to like especially when I was doing more
43:01
like on the ground reporting stuff.
43:02
Speaker 1
I would just go to like QAnon events and talk
43:05
to these people and these a lot of I mean
43:08
some of them. We're not the you know, sharpest tools
43:12
and the ship, but a lot of them, most of them,
43:15
I would even say, we're perfectly smart people but had
43:18
like their intelligence had taken them into like nonsense land.
43:23
So it was a perfectly rational belief in things that
43:25
were laughably untrue, if that makes sense.
43:28
Speaker 5
Yeah, I mean there's a study about people who are
43:32
being deprogrammed from cults. When you like give people IQ
43:37
tests who have been in cults, like, they score on
43:40
average higher than the rest of the population, because the
43:44
theory goes that they're able to bend their mind around
43:49
and like construct more complex counter argument for more comprehensive
43:55
and bizarre systems of belief. Like basically, they would make
43:59
good lawyers because they're intelligent, and being a good lawyer
44:04
means you can construct a good defense of like anything
44:07
in your mind. This kind of is That's kind of
44:10
how I've always thought about that factor, like made sense
44:12
of effect that people and cults tend to be smarter
44:16
on average than the average person.
44:18
Speaker 2
But yeah, I mean that's one of the reasons my
44:21
golf game suffered. Like I was telling you, I took
44:23
one little trip down to Havana, started hearing some weird stuff.
44:27
Speaker 5
Man.
44:27
Speaker 3
Ever since keeps slicy.
44:30
Speaker 5
That's one that's one that like I don't think people
44:34
would technically think of it as a conspiracy theory because
44:36
it's coming from like openly coming from sixty minutes and
44:41
like you know, the Department of I guess it's less
44:43
and less coming from. But like I guess former Defense
44:46
Department officials, but of.
44:49
Speaker 1
The Havana syndrome, Savanna syndrome, or it's like you have
44:52
a tummy ache. Yeah, yeah, and.
44:54
Speaker 3
My ears are ringing and my memory is bad. I'm
44:57
seventy three.
44:58
Speaker 1
When when I'm seventy three and I drink an entire
45:00
bottle of whiskey last night and I woke up, and
45:03
I feel.
45:03
Speaker 5
Terrible to make the voices stopped from all the people
45:06
that I've had a hand in helping the US Army.
45:08
Speaker 3
Killer maybe or maybe not.
45:10
Speaker 7
I don't know.
45:10
Speaker 3
It's fine working at the CIA. I don't think that
45:12
had anything to do with my mental stretch man.
45:14
Speaker 5
But yeah, when it's going from the US military to Cuba,
45:18
I feel like that power and balance worries me a
45:20
little bit. Like right, that feels like a bad balance overall.
45:26
But let's take a quick break and we'll come back
45:28
and talk a little bit more about maybe some of
45:31
the ones that you're most worried about and others that
45:35
people can maybe not worry about as much.
45:38
Speaker 7
We'll be right back, and we're back.
45:50
Speaker 3
We're back.
45:51
Speaker 5
And so we've already talked about Taylor Swift conspiracy theories
45:55
maybe not being the most dangerous, damaging thing.
45:58
Speaker 3
Well, that's just like Jared's right.
46:00
Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah, we're still I'm sure Taylor has a very
46:04
different opinion about that.
46:05
Speaker 3
Yeah she does. She does these tea drops. They're wild.
46:11
The three albums he releases the year.
46:13
Speaker 5
No, I mean, I'm sure it's anytime it's a private
46:16
individual like that, that's scary. And you know, John Lennon
46:20
kind of test to you know, like that's fucking probably
46:24
pretty scary. But what what are some other ones that
46:27
you see? Like, we we've covered conspiracy theories of all sorts.
46:33
What are some others that you feel like got too
46:35
much media attention?
46:36
Speaker 1
I think conspiracy theories about the collapse of the bridge
46:40
in Baltimore after a like a shipping vessel hit it, right, Yeah,
46:46
that's just call it bad regulations.
46:48
Speaker 3
There was there was.
46:49
Speaker 1
One post I saw that had like ten thousand retweets
46:52
on it and it was just like evidence of a
46:56
detonation on the bridge and it was just the footage
47:00
of the collision in slow motion. And I've probably spent
47:02
like fifteen minutes watching this trying to figure out what
47:05
this person thought they saw, right, and I couldn't figure
47:09
it out.
47:09
Speaker 3
But it's like something shoots off the side. It's like, yeah,
47:12
that's a cable snapping or like part of the structure breaking.
47:15
It's like could have been it could have been something.
47:18
Speaker 1
It's like, why is the boat moving so slow? And
47:22
it's like because it weighs like a gazooo.
47:24
Speaker 3
Gap right, right, it's not a fucking jet boat. Yeah.
47:28
Speaker 5
That's like, I guess sort of a small local news
47:32
version of nine to eleven conspiracy theories where it's like
47:36
the the bad guy in this case is like diffuse
47:41
or the president of the United States, and so like
47:45
going back with our old rule of thumb of like
47:48
who is being targeted slash suspected in the conspiracy theory
47:54
if it's like just the man or something like that, Well,
47:58
I feel like that's how conspiracy theories sort of used
48:01
to be. It was like shadowy figures behind the scenes
48:05
and smoky rooms were like pulling the strings and that. Yeah,
48:09
that feels a little less harmful than this woman I
48:13
took a picture of carrying ballots from the counting.
48:17
Speaker 1
Yeah, you're the librarian. It feels like the satanic blonde.
48:25
Speaker 3
Dude.
48:25
Speaker 2
There's three sixes in her license plate in a row. No,
48:28
but just well, technically there's four sixes I saw, but
48:31
I mean that's got to be something. But I think too,
48:33
there's also this thing with conspiracy theories that like there
48:37
because so many people like have these sort of like
48:40
fucked up, weird like racist ideologies or whatever, anti Semitic beliefs,
48:45
that some of these stories are just kind of like
48:47
gives them an opportunity to sort of start saying that
48:49
shit too, where it's not necessarily like how like the
48:51
Francis Scott key Bridge thing turned into like.
48:54
Speaker 3
The dei mayor of Baltimore, you know what I mean, like.
48:56
Speaker 2
Oh yeah, yeah, other thing where it's almost like you know,
49:01
whether it's a conspiracy or just an outlet for someone
49:03
to be like aha, See this confirms my absolute fucked
49:06
up way of looking at the world, and this proves it.
49:10
It's like another weird way we see these things going.
49:13
And I'm just thinking too, like now, you know we've
49:15
seen obviously like with like Laura Lumer kind of being
49:19
near and not near the Trump orbit and things like that,
49:22
and like Trump being like I like her and another
49:24
peuple like get her the fucky.
49:26
Speaker 1
Everybody else that's around him is.
49:28
Speaker 5
Like this, yeah, which is like Laura Lumer is she
49:32
I know she's as who is she not?
49:36
Speaker 3
No?
49:36
Speaker 5
She was.
49:38
Speaker 1
I don't even remember off the top of my head
49:41
what she was doing before she got involved in politics.
49:43
But do you remember, God, this was probably like two
49:47
thousand and fifteen sixteen, there was like a Shakespeare play
49:52
in the park in New York and like every time
49:55
they do this play they make the Julius Caesar character
50:00
or like the sitting president. So Trump was the president
50:03
that time. And then when the scene came and like
50:06
Caesar gets stabbed in the back spoiler alert.
50:09
Speaker 3
But dude, what the fuck? So too Jared, So so.
50:15
Speaker 1
Her and Jack Phisobic stand up and just start like
50:19
screaming and hollering and get pulled out of this stage
50:23
for it. I do remember this, Yeah, And that's how
50:25
she made headlines really for the first time. And then
50:29
something happened and she was in New York City and
50:31
she went on this like crazy Islamophobic tirade against her
50:36
lift driver, oh yeah, and got banned from Lyft and
50:40
she got in really close with like Pamela Geller and
50:43
likes where the old school Islamophobes and wound up getting
50:48
banned from like a gazillion billion things, right, So her
50:52
claim to fame for the longest time was like I'm
50:55
the most banned woman in America, And then generally like
50:59
her whole shtick is just finding a politically relevant figure
51:04
and getting her phone out and screaming gibberish at them,
51:07
and when the person is like, get this fucking weirdo
51:10
away from me, She's like, yeah, they're scared of the truth.
51:14
Speaker 2
Huh right, right, got them They didn't like, they didn't
51:17
like that, But yeah, I mean like we see sort
51:20
of like how these figures get into orbit, like or
51:23
even I know in that report you talk about like
51:26
how even Speaker of the House Mike Johnson also seeing
51:30
like sort of this like conspiratorial thinking, what are can
51:33
you just kind of outline for us, like what you
51:35
think going into this election, like what's this kind of
51:38
gaining more attraction because I feel like just from the
51:40
last seven years, I'm like, yeah, I'm up on replace
51:43
great replacement theory, I'm up on QAnon. You've come on
51:47
and talked about active clubs, not necessarily conspiracy theory, but
51:50
like a group of extremists who are like trying to
51:52
get organized. What do you see as becoming something that
51:55
is actually gaining serious traction, and like obviously you've been
51:58
like rolling your eyes at the mainstream media coverage of
52:01
just being like, oh my gosh, isn't this wacky, rather
52:03
than like no, no, no, no, no, no no no, like,
52:06
this is wacky and it's very serious, and it's it's
52:11
gaining more and more I guess, you know, popularity or support.
52:15
Speaker 1
Yeah, yeah, And I guess that would I would say, like,
52:18
that doesn't mean that talking about Taylor Swift conspiracy theories
52:21
should be like out of bounds or like, oh that's terrible,
52:25
why would you talk about that? But like, of course
52:27
not how those are meaningful is different, and they might
52:30
not be meaningful in a like this is immediately dangerous
52:34
to somebody kind of way.
52:36
Speaker 3
Right.
52:36
Speaker 1
The ones that I have kind of been concerned about
52:41
going into this year are a lot of the ones
52:43
surrounding immigration. It's an election year, so Republicans are talking
52:48
about immigration again. But the way that it's threading into
52:52
sort of election denihilism and sort of these like anti
52:56
democratic attitudes generally mm hmm. I think that is kind
53:01
of a red flag for me, because if the people
53:04
that are spreading this get what they want, or like
53:08
the people in power, you know, Congress people and whatnot,
53:11
citing this nonsense to justify the kind of policies they're
53:15
putting forward that has a real material impact on a
53:20
lot of people and like cuts them off from their
53:23
ability to vote and participate in democracy as imperfect and
53:27
fucked up as it is.
53:29
Speaker 3
Right. Sure, So I.
53:31
Speaker 1
Like that's something that I see having like sort of
53:35
a clear through line to a material impact that could
53:38
harm people. And then generally, you know, great replacement theory,
53:44
spreading of hostile rhetoric, some of the conspiracy theories going
53:47
around about you know, college campus protesters, right, you know,
53:51
doing the encampments to support Palestinians, Like those students don't
53:55
have a means to defend themselves, and if people on
53:58
the line are getting them all riled up with nonsense,
54:01
it's claiming they're like connected with terrorists and whatnot, like right.
54:06
Speaker 5
Yeah, the mayor and the chief of police, right right,
54:09
you know, like it's them versus fucking children, right.
54:13
Speaker 1
Yeah, So like that kind of thing can be particularly
54:16
risky too, right, Yeah, So that's just that's like a
54:20
couple that come to front of mine.
54:22
Speaker 2
Yeah, and I think there's also this other thing that's
54:25
it's like not necessarily it's sort of like the re
54:27
emergence of like the Big lie sort of like it
54:30
feels like right wing media is definitely setting the table
54:32
again for whatever the outcome is in November, to at
54:36
least on the table have it be the possibility that
54:39
this election was also stolen, because you hear stuff like
54:43
on Fox or they're like, you know, warning Democrats to
54:46
be like they better not they better not cheat, they
54:49
better not do some you know, like we'll be watching
54:51
and not necessarily hurling accusations quite vividly or specifically yet,
54:56
but still saying things rhetorically that being like because we
55:00
know what they like to do, we know what they're
55:02
up to, you know how they like to do this
55:04
other stuff. And I see that definitely becoming, you know,
55:08
just like a very subtle way that they're keeping sort
55:10
of like the embers of election denihilism, like very just powerful.
55:15
So when the time comes in they need to like
55:17
get it to burst into flames, like it's able to
55:20
is that?
55:21
Speaker 1
Yeah, they did that in twenty twenty two, twenty twenty
55:24
Comma also right right, you know, before Stop the Steel
55:29
emerged as a movement. Before Trump started claiming everything was rigged,
55:33
all of the campaign surrocates were going out on TV
55:36
and being like, oh, yeah, Trump's gonna win an a landslide. Yeah, right, elections.
55:41
If everything's fair, if everything if everything's up, up, on
55:45
the up and up, we expect to win.
55:47
Speaker 5
It is why we knew what the what was going
55:50
to have. Like ahead of the election, everyone was like, so,
55:52
here's what they're going to do. And then sure enough,
55:54
like right down to like and the like verifying of
55:57
the electors or you know, whatever was happening on January seventh,
56:01
like that was going to be a key date for them,
56:03
and they did not disappoint.
56:06
Speaker 1
Yeah, so it's the same thing, but like the volumes
56:08
turned up. Yeah right, you know, you have more people
56:11
kind of participating in this. And then what I thought
56:14
was interesting was Trump had a rally in Wildwood, New Jersey.
56:19
I had a bunch of people. They had the everything
56:21
old is new again.
56:22
Speaker 3
You know, they're.
56:25
Speaker 1
One hundred thousand people were on this, you know, in
56:28
this venue that holds what like twenty or something. I
56:31
think was what I saw was it was just the
56:33
feeling on it. Yeah, and uh, you know after that
56:38
Trump was doing these posts on truth social and some
56:41
of his like fan boys were doing it too, where
56:43
it's like it's too big to rig the support, just
56:46
too big to rig the election against uff. Oh, sort
56:50
of seeing this idea that like you know, Trump has
56:53
this massive, massive base of support and it kind of
56:56
creates this condition mentally where you're like, oh, well, even
56:59
if they try to rig it, we're still going to win.
57:02
Then if you lose, it's like something seems really really
57:05
up right, right, so it's like getting it.
57:09
Speaker 3
Yeah, like there being.
57:11
Speaker 1
Sown, I think you're picking up on the right thing.
57:13
Speaker 2
Miles, Yeah, well, because that's what I mean, like aside,
57:16
because I feel like, yeah, like we've seen q Andon
57:18
go up and down, and with the lack of like corroboration,
57:22
like of anything happening in real life, like that fizzles
57:24
out pretty quickly. But now it feels like the more
57:27
insidious thing along with like because like you're talking about
57:30
with the immigration conspiracies, that's the kind of stuff where
57:32
it's like they're importing voters from across the border. Like
57:35
that's sort of like the sort of foundation of like
57:37
what the sort of like the xenophobic anti immigrant bend
57:40
to that conspiracy theory. But like with this, it's a
57:43
subtle way, but yeah, like it's it's working on people's
57:46
emotions again because you're creating this expectation of a given outcome.
57:52
So if that reality doesn't come true fruition or doesn't
57:56
come to pass, then you really have some Now you
57:59
can take people who have gone from their moment of
58:01
being like but.
58:02
Speaker 3
I thought it was supposed to and then be like,
58:05
you know what it really was they started, and.
58:09
Speaker 2
Can just easily funnel people into like really extreme beliefs
58:13
because yeah, like it's just been this constant sort of
58:17
you know, rhetorical massaging of this shit just to get people, yeah,
58:22
really riled up for it. That's what is scary. And
58:24
I'm like, when you look at I know, in the past,
58:28
who is your colleague that we had on who was
58:30
talking what was her name, Sabine.
58:33
Speaker 3
Yeah, Sabine.
58:33
Speaker 2
When Sabine was on, we were talking about like what
58:36
what's it look like out there on like kookie telegram channels,
58:40
And it seemed like for the moment, not sure anything's
58:43
quite becoming organized for anything that would resemble like a
58:46
January sixth kind of thing. Now, now that we're like
58:49
sort of five months I think or four months away
58:51
from that. Is that still the case or are is
58:55
there still is there starting to become like a rallying
58:58
again of people who are like, hey, we got to
59:00
be vigil at this time, we got to be vigil
59:02
at this time.
59:03
Speaker 1
I mean, I think a lot of those folks are
59:04
still pretty scared of federal law enforcement, right and the
59:08
people that were like really bad I'm like, really responsible
59:12
for a lot of the more like organized violence on
59:15
January sixth are in prison now, you know. So it's uh,
59:21
I think that that in combination with like the stories
59:25
that these folks tell themselves about January six it just
59:29
made them like way too paranoid to do that, right now.
59:33
That's said, things can change, right right, Yeah, And we've.
59:37
Speaker 3
Loved what a conspiracy theory keeps people in line.
59:40
Speaker 1
I mean, we've still got like five months and some
59:42
change until the election, and most of the craziest shit
59:45
that happened twenty twenty happened after the election, right right,
59:49
So you know, I mean we're we've got a pretty
59:53
like long timeline to look down where things could change
59:56
quite a bit. At the moment, I don't think there's
59:58
an appetite for it, although in a deeply like cynical
1:00:03
it would it would be terrible, But if they did
1:00:06
it again, they would be like something at least a
1:00:08
little bit funny about it.
1:00:11
Speaker 5
That didn't know they're doing right, sick like this time,
1:00:14
it's gonna work out for all of it.
1:00:16
Speaker 3
I mean.
1:00:18
Speaker 5
To stop the steel specifically, Like so if you like
1:00:23
had a Supreme Court justice flying a Q flag, like
1:00:27
I think there'd be you know that that seems more
1:00:30
unlikely to me. But the fact that like Alito had
1:00:33
the stop the Steel flag flying at his home or like,
1:00:39
it just you know that Ginny Thomas, like Clarence Thomas's
1:00:43
wife was like as involved in the stop the Steel
1:00:47
stuff as she was. Like that, it just feels like
1:00:50
there's more institutional support for around that one, and that
1:00:54
that one is actually like fairly focused and insidious and
1:00:59
like specifically able to undermine the very foundation of like democracy.
1:01:05
Speaker 1
Yeah, I mean it's it's all like way more organized now,
1:01:10
and I don't think they need to storm the capitol,
1:01:14
like if they can just build sympathy of like all
1:01:17
of the people on one side of the aisle in
1:01:20
said capital or the sympathy of people who are doing
1:01:24
the vote counting and certifying, you know, like, yeah, I
1:01:29
don't think they need to storm a capital right.
1:01:31
Speaker 3
Well shit, so they've gotten better. Stay tuned, everybody. Hey,
1:01:36
Like I said, November, take your time, take your sweet
1:01:38
ass time.
1:01:39
Speaker 5
November as time November. God, Jared, such a pleasure having
1:01:43
you on the show as always. Where can people find you?
1:01:47
Speaker 3
Follow you? Read you all that good stuff.
1:01:48
Speaker 1
You can read me. I write periodically for these two
1:01:52
for Strategic Dialogue, which is at ISD Global dot org.
1:01:58
I'm on Twitter or no? Everything?
1:02:03
Speaker 4
Is it?
1:02:03
Speaker 3
Everything up? Okay, never mind, I'm in.
1:02:05
Speaker 1
I can't wait to give my banking information to the
1:02:08
richest idiot.
1:02:09
Speaker 3
Yeah, and my blooded it's a Jared L.
1:02:12
Speaker 1
Holt and uh yeah that's It's like the two kind
1:02:16
of public facing things I do because of the work
1:02:19
I do.
1:02:19
Speaker 5
So there you go, amazing. Is there a work of
1:02:22
media that you've been enjoying?
1:02:24
Speaker 1
When it gets warmer outside, I start listening to more
1:02:26
like heavier music. I've been kind of revisiting some of
1:02:30
my like post hardcore favorites like Touche a More and
1:02:36
really getting into or I guess back into this band
1:02:39
called the world is a beautiful place and I'm no
1:02:41
longer afraid to die, which that's a mouthful. Is a mouthful,
1:02:46
but they pull it off somehow. But yeah, yeah, just
1:02:50
revisit the music you listen to when you were a teenager.
1:02:55
Most of it probably still goes really hard.
1:02:57
Speaker 3
Yeah, it does, it does.
1:03:00
Speaker 5
Miles, where can people find you as their working media?
1:03:02
Speaker 2
You've been enjoying Twitter we call it twitter on Instagram
1:03:08
and that and the like, don't know about meta whatever, threads,
1:03:11
TikTok at Miles of Gray. If you like basketball man,
1:03:15
just get ready for this week's Miles and Jack got
1:03:18
Matt boosties because our heads are basically you have spun
1:03:21
around and popped off our bodies because the fuck o man,
1:03:25
the West, those Western Conference sem they're We're blessed. We're
1:03:30
blessed to just see such a such a wild ending
1:03:33
to that. And then also catch me on four talking
1:03:36
about ninety day fiance. A tweet I like is from
1:03:43
past guest Roywood Junior at Roywood Junior. He's quote, there's
1:03:48
fucking Terrence Howard. It looks like he was on Rogan
1:03:50
recently and he's talking now. I don't know if this
1:03:53
is a recent thing. But it's it's a clip of
1:03:55
Terrence Howard on Rogan and he put every black barbershop
1:03:58
used to have one of these brothers walk in on
1:03:59
a satturday afternoon and fuck up the vibes and let
1:04:02
me just play this whole fuck.
1:04:04
Speaker 3
Whatever the fuck Terrence Howard is talking about here.
1:04:08
Speaker 4
That that we call intellectual phase locking, where when they
1:04:12
get different measurements for the speed of light, all of
1:04:15
the scientists around the world will average it out to
1:04:18
one thing instead of showing the fluctuations in it. Oh wow,
1:04:23
it's called intellectual phase locking.
1:04:25
Speaker 3
It's not oh wow.
1:04:27
Speaker 2
It truly is a shit like bro I don't know, man,
1:04:31
where's the guy who's selling bootleg tapes? But anyway, yeah, Terrence,
1:04:35
he continues to wow the people with his inferior intellect,
1:04:39
I mean, superior.
1:04:40
Speaker 4
In the joy.
1:04:41
Speaker 3
You can find me on Twitter at Jack Underscore.
1:04:43
Speaker 5
Obrian tweet I've been enjoying Boob Dylan at b yu.
1:04:48
Super Soaker tweeted you let your cat sleep great names
1:04:53
by the way, tweeted quote you let your cats sleep
1:04:57
in your bed? Question mark brother, I would let my
1:05:00
cat shoot a gun if you wanted to. And then
1:05:04
Andy Ryan tweeted, so embarrassing in an antique shop when
1:05:08
I tried to buy a vase and it turned out
1:05:10
to be the negative space between the faces of two
1:05:12
other customers.
1:05:14
Speaker 3
We've all been there.
1:05:16
Speaker 1
Well.
1:05:18
Speaker 5
You can find us on Twitter at Daily Zeigeist, where
1:05:21
a d Daily Zeichgeist on Instagram. We have a Facebook
1:05:25
fan page kind of that we're constantly just updating. We
1:05:30
just thought we were just told that it hasn't been
1:05:32
updated in four years.
1:05:33
Speaker 7
But we're gonna keep.
1:05:33
Speaker 3
Telling you about way yo big things coming. Bit keep
1:05:36
your eye open.
1:05:37
Speaker 8
Facebook a website Daily Zeiguist dot comery post our episode
1:05:41
than our footnotes, where then go off to the information
1:05:43
that we talked about in today's episode, as well as
1:05:46
a song that we think you might enjoy.
1:05:47
Speaker 5
Miles, what song do we think people might enjoy?
1:05:50
Speaker 2
Yeah, you know, as things get slightly warmer, although la
1:05:53
is still stuck in its like late winter ish spring thing,
1:05:57
we have not quite gotten the heat.
1:06:00
Speaker 3
That we're used to. Although look it's it's the June
1:06:02
gloom always hits around this time, but the vibes are
1:06:05
getting more warmer in summer.
1:06:07
Speaker 4
Ear.
1:06:07
Speaker 2
I want to play this track by Reina tropical and
1:06:11
it's called Cartagena and it's just like a I've the
1:06:15
first time hearing her work, but she's like a singer, songwriter,
1:06:19
guitar player and it's just guys like that Latin tropical
1:06:23
sort of energy to it. And yeah, it's just a good,
1:06:26
good track just to play as we, you know, enjoy
1:06:29
the warmer months.
1:06:30
Speaker 3
So yeah, this is Cartagena by Reina. We would like
1:06:34
off to that in.
1:06:34
Speaker 5
The footnotes today He's like, guys, is the production of iHeartRadio.
1:06:37
For more podcasts in my heart Radio, visit the iHeart
1:06:39
Radio app, Apple podcast, or wherever fine podcasts are given
1:06:43
away for free. That's going to do it for us
1:06:44
this morning, back this afternoon to tell you what is trending,
1:06:48
and we will talk to hell then bye bye