A Geek History of Time - Episode 160 - Brynn Tannehill Interview part I

Episode Date: May 28, 2022

I said good day sir. You don't ever plan anything around the Eagles because the Eagles represent the grace of God. You heathen bastards. One of vanilla Nabish name. Well you know works are people too. I'm thinking of that one called they got taken out with one punch. So he's got a wall, a gole, a gole, and a wall. Every time you mention the Eagles, I think Don Henley.

Ha ha ha ha. This is a geek history of time. Where we connect, nergary to the real world. My name is Ed Blaylock. I'm a world history and well, yeah, on two different levels, world history. Teacher here in Northern California with a side order of English. And the biggest news that I have to share with everybody is Damien can see it right now if he looks. But all of the rest of you will just have to take my word for it.

I am broadcasting to you this evening from the office of my house, which we have finally gotten to a place where I can set up my recording equipment in it, which is useful because my son has started deciding that he wants to go to sleep with his bedroom door open. Which means if I was out in the living room right now, we would be consistently interrupted because I'm making noise and he's not totally asleep yet. So this is a step forward for a number of reasons and I'm very excited about it and Damianian, well, I just gave it away,

but normally I ask her, who the heck are you? Well, I'm Damian Harmony. I'm a Latin and drama teacher here in Northern California. And I can just hear your wife's voice telling your son to go to sleep in the background, like in the background in my head, in the movie that's playing. And I know that voice well.

But I'm Damien Harmony, as I said, I actually, let's see, my daughter made two different spicy chicken meals, neither would she liked, but I loved. And so. How did you send, I know your son wasn't fond of the first one. What did he think of the second one? Too spicy. I mean, he thinks that apple cider is too spicy. So

I forgot, right? Yeah, so but and then my son also made, uh, he made, uh, cookies that you don't cook. Um, so essentially refrigerated dough, So essentially refrigerated dough, Avatar Day cookies. And they were yummy, but we had some trouble forming them. So it's a recipe we'll come back to. He told me before going off to his mom's house for the week, for her half of the week, that he hoped to come back and make the lobster corn dogs from the Marvel cookbook.

So I'm going to be poor for the next little while until I can get them out of the Tony Stark section of the goddamn cookbook. I'm trying to wrap my head around the idea of a lobster corn dog. Take a hot dog. Yeah. Stick a stick a tongue depressor in it. And then coat the hot dog in essentially, you remember when you made the fish balls the other day? Yeah, yeah, yeah. So do the same thing to lobster and then coat the hot dog in that

and then dip that in batter and then deep fry that. I eagerly await a report of how that turns out because that could be awesome and that could be haunting. Yeah, yeah, he's not going to like it either way because there's like more than three flavors. But he's still, and that's the. Yeah, yeah, he's not going to like it either way because there's like more than three flavors. But he's still, and that's the cool thing about it is that he always wants to try to make a thing and he hardly ever likes it. So I get most of it. So. Okay, well, there you go.

Also, final harvest, as of the release of this recording, final harvest happened a while ago, when I let the kids in on the fact that in in fact, donuts don't grow from the ground. But in real time, tomorrow is the final harvest, and they have both started getting wise to the idea. So it will be the final harvest and the celebration of the magic that we had for four years. So that'll be fun. There'll be cream filled donuts growing out of the ground.

So very cool. Yes. Now, we actually have two fun things. Number one Producer George is silently in the background. Go ahead and wave George. Thank you and Also, we have a guest tonight Yeah, and and I've been stoked about this this guest required homework So I read an entire book, but I will let them introduce said book because it's theirs.

But the guests wanted me to let everyone know that they don't work for a living at all and that they walk their dog. No. But our guest has more books behind her than I do a fact for which I am both impressed and jealous. She plays D&D, she has a dog and has lots and lots of books. Ladies and gentlemen, our guest this week is Brynn Tannahill, author and all around great person. Brynn, say hi. Hey. Good evening.

How you doing? Good. All things considered. Well, there's that. What you got going on that's light and fluffy in your life? Hey, hey, how you doing? Good. Good. All things considered. Well, there's that. What you got going on that's light and fluffy in your life. So, I ran a campaign or started a campaign for my son and his friends. They're 11 12 sixth graders.

Wonderful. And it's, oh gosh, what's one? Dragons of Ice Fire Peak, because I'm sick of running lost mines of fan deliver, because I've run like three sets at beginners through it. I'm ready to shoot myself. Nice. And that's not the fun part.

The fun part is where I'm finally getting them to introduce their characters, because it's a tavern, right? Because that's where you start. That's where you got to introduce them to the tropes early, right? Right, right. You know, none of this high-falutin critical role stuff. I'm just trying to get these kids to be able to describe their characters and how they see them.

And so my son's best friend Grace, who's very nice, but absolutely is ADHD as he is. And I said, okay, so the other characters walk in and they see your character sitting at the tavern and sipping a glass of wine, what did they see? How do they see her? And she says, well, she has dark purple skin and she has a haircut like those guys in the cover of rubber rubber soul. And I just kind of like had to bite my finger because like that was the last response I expected from an 11-year-old knowing what the cover of an album from 19 freaking 67 looks like, right? So I was like that's an inspiration point right there.

Yeah, that's good. I have to wrap my head around the fact that the description would be haircuts like the guys on the cover of rubber sole. Right. Not the beetles. Right. But like, like, I would expect that from a kid who doesn't know 100% of English,

who might be only, like, 95% like a Swedish kid. I would expect wouldn't do well, but a Norwegian would. No, her dad's in the Navy. Parker. You okay there? Good night, sir. That one makes me mad. Oh, legitimate way makes me mad. Oh legitimate.

He picks me angry. So I just thought it was funny and cute. Yeah, well, yeah, no, it is. It's awesome. So I just have one question to ask you. You're running them through Dragon's Vice Spire Peak. What edition are you using? Yeah.

OK, cool. I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, I mean, what kind of merciless bastard would put kids through force? Thank you. Thank you. Kids, adults, you know what, that's like that dungeon in San Francisco.

If you sign the non-disclosure agreement, if you sign the consent forms, fine, you can play fourth. But kids, no, you got to give them fifth. Yeah, any answer would have been fine, obviously, but I was curious because edition wars have been something we've talked about previously. That is true. That is very so relevant to the interests of the podcast. But yeah, so cool. Very cool. That's a lot of fun I have it's like a cross between the game memory and a math quiz Which was a game site better than two Like keep in mind it was an improvement

There are there are fans of this podcast who are going to label you a heretic and that's saying that about that's fine. They know where to email us. I know they are yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So But that description of 3.5 is one of the best I've ever heard. Yeah. I'm just going to say however you left out the part were required a library the size of the one behind you in order to play the whole game. That's the one thing about 3.5 that you left out of that description. Yeah. Actually, I've got a shelf that you can't see

that is about yay wide, which I'm gesturing with my hands about two and a half to three feet wide. That is nothing but third and a half edition books. So, yep. That's, yep. Yep. Yep. And you're not even clearly from that description. I can tell you're not a completionist because then you did at least three of those shelves.

Well, because that was an open gaming license thing too. Like, well, I'm just, I'm just talking about the books that Wizards of the Coast put out. Oh, yeah, yeah. They like, they're, they're, they're revenue, their revenue model changed from we're going to put out the game and we're going to publish modules

too, we're going to put out the game and then we're going to put out new rules and feats and then we're going to put out some more new rules and feats And then we're going to create a new setting and then we're going to put out rules and feats some of which duplicate Feats from other books we've already published, but we're going to rename them right and we're going to put them in a new book Right and it and it turned into put them in a new book. Right. And it turned into, you know, a splat book, uh, uh, uh, triple. Yeah. It's, you know, it did what, uh, honestly, what fantasy flight games did with X wing was, you know, the game is called X wing. So frankly, an X wing should be able to handle everything that you throw at it. Now, there might be different strategies and whatnot, but an X-wing should be able to handle it.

It's the name of the game. But with every new iteration of things that came out and new rules that came out and new things that made the X-wing basic, I mean, and I mean basic, and it ended up being like you had to know all these different expansion set rules. It was a bummer. So and three five certainly did that. But it was the Halcyon post 9, 11 days. So speaking of books, though,

Brynn, you are the only person in this Zoom call who's actually written one. Would you like to avail us of said title, or would you like me to do that? So the title of the book is American Fascism, how the GOP is subverting democracy. And you can kind of see it being held up there. And I wrote it over a period of four years and it started off the genesis of it was the week after the election of Donald Trump and I recognize things had taken an extremely dark turn that most Americans did not appreciate just how ugly this

was and what it meant. was and what it meant. Cool. Yeah. Well, that sounds cheerful. That sounds like a fun book to write. So my wife, wife says that my book should come with a free prescription for well-buterin and in court order to have all the guns removed from your house. I, I will second that having read it all the way through, including the acknowledgement of thank you, wife, and sorry.

But I'm Damien Frazing, of course. But afterwards, I started legitimately and purposely looking for other countries to expatriate to. Once my children are old enough to decide to come with. And I found one, and I have a fun story about that little journey, perhaps I'll tell next week's episode. But I do think I'm legitimately going to expatriate in about 12 to 15 years. And I'm just hoping that the country will do as Wilson Phillips advised us to do for another 15 years. So hold on.

Hold on, exactly. Yeah, my time horizons about three. Shit. Well, we're all getting into the pitch in here, people, because my kids are not old enough. So. So you're a white guy with a beard. So I think you're probably gonna be,

your survivability factor is a little bit higher and you know, in public of Galead, yeah. True, now what it really means is that I get set up with my own podcast. That's part of the starter kit. But my white face with a beard has also been plastered from here to the UK and back again as an agitator. So not, yeah, I've come down a little. So yeah, we work in education. So we're not, we're not

white at the bottom of the of the hit list, right? So all right. So I have some questions about your book. And I was hoping that you would indulge us on questions and observations about what we've read, if that's, if that's okay. Absolutely. Wonderful, because I mean, the title is, is one hell of a thesis. And I do love the 1800s title approach. The, I'm going to tell you everything that is,

this book is about bias cover cover so that in fact, people could judge a book by its cover. So I like that, but I have to ask you, I am an historian, I have a master's degree in history, I got my undergrad in history as well, and I've got to ask you as an historian, why on earth did you choose end notes? I mean, couldn't couldn't give me footnotes really, is that? I, you know, the problem with footnotes when you footnote everything is that I did my first book, which has about the same number of footnotes and end notes, is that typically the footnotes were taking up anywhere between a third to half the page. I don't see the problem.

Okay, it's a little bit visually distracted. I think it was more aesthetics than catering to people who actually want to check that I've cited everything, which I did. If you want a funny story, when I did my undergraduate work, my thesis advisor you know took me aside at the beginning of it and it was a thesis on genocide and regime collapse and forecasting it. You just don't want to have a good happy life outside of it. No, no, no.

I'm happiest when I'm miserable and making everyone else miserable. Now, I was writing it this about... You're missing Cassandra. No, but it was my moniker on Twitter for a very long time. There you go. All right. And he took me aside and said, you know, this is not high school. This isn't college. You will cite everything.

You'll track it to the original source. If you don't, note everything. If you don't cite everything, I will put you up on academic charges and have you expelled. Do you understand me? Yeah. Right? I'm like, okay, I will cite everything, everything, right? And my bibliography in my postgraduate work ran for like 35 pages.

And at the end of it, he said, you know how I told you to cite everything? Yes, yes, doctor. He's like, yeah, I'm sorry, I said, you know how I told you to cite everything? Like, yes, yes, doctor. He's like, yeah, I'm sorry. I've never said that. Good. Delicious compliance. Is there a friend? I have a similar story, although not post post grad.

Well, I guess my master's grace. I don't know what we call that, but I was in a historiography class and the professor said, okay, I want you to compare the seminal books on this particular subject. So we were looking at the Annalists or something like that. I said, okay, and then she looked right across the table from me and she said, Damien, no more than seven books for this three-page paper. I was like, but I was going to talk about agriculture and how it grew sideways, and I need a site for sore rise.

You're a resident in this trail. Oh, I think you're, you get nothing. Nothing. So, so I do, I actually do want to circle back to around to serious questions now. First actually though in the news, there's been a lot of stuff. So I hope you don't mind us segueing into that and maybe as an entry level into an entry point into your book. So Texas and Florida both are just going all in on being evil and shitty like you do. And they specifically have a couple of anti trans anti gay bills. I specifically have a couple of anti trans anti gay bills that the governors are talking about signing and I'm just wondering based on your book, which is essentially on fascism, how does that fit in with the paradigm that you've set forth about America?

I mean, is that are they jumping the gun or is that one of the, the, this is on brand and it's right in rhythm for what they're trying to do? On brand completely symptomatic and completely fits with the Historical characteristics of fascism. So my book my first book Mostly dealt into trans issues a little bit on the LGBT stuff But I wanted to make my second book have a broader audience. So how do you make a cis white person care about on rushing fascism? That's actually tougher than you'd think.

No, I can see how it would be pretty tough. I'm going to admit. But I understand what you're saying. I don't mean sorry. No, I actually wrote an article addressing that by some guy that's in the same school of liberalism as Glenn Greenwald. He's, well, why should we care? Like, well, okay, here's an article.

And that came out after I published the book. But what we're seeing in Texas is part of fascism's need for us versus them, for a need for a history of the Heidenvulch versus the corrupt cosmopolitan elites. They need enemies that are simultaneously powerful, powerful, dangerous, existential threats, and at the same time, weak, pathetic, and disgusting that can be defeated if the head and vult just sees power and uses it like it should be used. And when you look at,, I hate to go back, keep going back to Germany, but unfortunately,

that's where so much of my academic work lies. There are also the trope codifiers. Did I do it right? I do, yeah, I am so proud of you for using that term in that way. But they, I mean, they set the brand like, like if you want, you know, a how-to, we look at them, right? Like Spain had different aspects, Italy had different aspects, Hungary has different aspects, America has, but Germany is, I mean, that's, that is the conifier, that is...

They're the defining brand. Yeah. You need an enemy of the state that is somebody who meets all of these criteria that you can blame society's ills on or state that if we don't do something about these people they will destroy society and the kinds of language that the UC Tucker Carlson and Jordan Peterson and Steve Bannon and you also see Steve Miller, right? You know, all of these high ranking Republicans talk about trans people in a way that suggests that if something isn't done about trans people, that they're either a symptom of the collapse

of Western society or the cause, that they will be the end of not just Western America, not just Western civilization, but the end of humanity. And what's really striking to me is one of the narratives that's become sort of this conspiracy theory that's gotten air time on Tucker Carlson and elsewhere media is that trans people are part of this cabal of our, that there's this cabal of Jewish billionaire, some of whom are transgender, who are pouring money into this movement in order to promote transhumanism, right? That will destroy humanity.

Which, and as part of that, they're stealing and sexually mutilating and killing children, right? And when you look at this narrative being promoted, you know, at major right wing outlets, it's tough to say how this is any different from the protocols of the elders of Zion. And if you know the name of that, then you understand why that should be like a woe. Let's stop the rush on trans people here. But all of this, what we're seeing in Texas, what we're seeing in Florida and Idaho is, and Oklahoma is, when they say make America great again, they envision America that is pre-roversous Wade, pre-Oberga fell, pre-Brown versus Board of Education, pre-Civil Rights

Act, pre-Numan V. Piggie Park, they want an America that looks like 1953, 1953, 1954, where black people knew their place and queers were invisible because if they had any sense whatsoever, they would make themselves, they would pick a closet and stay there forever. Right. Because now, so two things that I kind of ask or say at the same time about that. Do you think any of them understand how miserable even straight white people were behind the scenes during that time period?

I think that ties into your term, say, topopulism, doesn't it? Yes, it does. But what it ties into more, I believe, is the mythical past that fascism needs. Some great and glorious time when the nation was good and wonderful. It's part of what you see with some of the like the Viking warrior mythology of how civilization was great when you know was ruled by manly men with beards, you sail the seas

and pillage the English coast, you know. You know. God yeah. Yeah. Yeah. those people bug as, as a, as a world history teacher and, and especially a feudal history teacher, those people just pissed. Like God damn it. Public education system failed you so badly. Yeah, so sorry, I, I, you know, I have to say some medievalist societies society the society for creative and anachronism and explaining what the laws of shivalry really were is a lot funnier when you put it in modern military terms. That's it is. So okay so thank you for that. You know that actually I have this question for a little later in the book, but I think, you know, it fits here. You talk about in your book, and I didn't label my questions per chapter.

I just was furiously thumbing out these questions as I was reading. The, and there it is, you talk about the loss of a generation of research at one point. And it's funny because I'm conflating it also with the fact that there are anywhere from 25 to 33% fewer, and I hate using percentages as fractions, but that many fewer people going into history. And it reminded me of the burning of all the Institute for Sexual Wieseng Chopped And it reminded me of the burning of all the Institute for Sexual Wiesenchaft archives. And the persecution of Hitler, or the persecution of Hitler, rather, which was setting back transgender research by literal generations because Vimer Germany was kind of the crowning place for that. And some of it went to Sweden and Switzerland, I understand, but

by and large, like you had so much of that just disappearing. And I liked how you were tying it back to the protocols because the things that were being burned, everybody has heard of the burning of Jewish science and Jewish books and things like that. But one of the first things on the fire was all of the transgender research that was being done. And I mean,. But one of the first things on the fire was all of the the transgender research that was being done. And I mean, you had some of the first successful transition surgeries. I think that's what they called them at the time. You had some of the first successful ones in that place with that research. And then it was it literally was all up in flames. it literally was all up in flames. It literally said it back 30 years.

The library of Magnus Hirschfeld, very, very few people who aren't either into queer studies or study Germany know about it and recognize when you look at the most famous pictures of bookburnings in Germany, Most of the really famous ones are of that particular library being burned because they were so happy to burn it. And at the same time, we've lost generations of research on gun violence, right? We are losing generations of research on climate change right now. We are on epidemiology. Here's another one. Hungry.

A couple of years back, banned gender studies and women's studies classes. We've seen the first US state ban. I can't, is it Montana, Wyoming, South Dakota, I'd have to go back and check. One of those three states has basically written into law that they will ban women and gender studies classes from, from universities in the state, if they received state funding. And this is, should be extremely worrying that we're seeing the end of 10 year, that we're seeing the entire departments being wiped out because they fall afoul of the ideology. And one of the things that I mentioned in the book is Lamarkey and Evolution. Are you familiar with that? Yes. I stretch enough and then my kids will get along with her next.

Yeah. Yeah. Right. Rather than genetics. Wait, you mean that you mean that the gravity hanger thing I'm using isn't going to help my son get taller? It will. Well, if you put it on him after breaking his chins. Well, that's not going to work. Damn it. Yeah. For it. God damn it. You once, you once, you see PS and you

would have some words and I think your wife might have something to say about it. So, oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Damn it. So, you know, you know, the idea, there is an idea that the proper ideology will produce the correct results. Right. And, you know, yeah, okay, I'm conflating communism fascism, there are two different things, but when you have a government that is run based off of an ideology rather than where does the, where does the data take you? I think there's, I think there's something to be, to be said about the, where does the data take you? That's what you end up with. I think there's something to be, to be said about the totalitarian aspect. Yes, data of the regimes involved,

that one of them is right, leaning in one of them is left, leaning in but they're both intensely authoritarian. And I think it's, I think the, I think your analogy is perfectly valid simply because we're talking about totalitarian. So there's a difference between totalitarian and authoritarian. Totalitarian, old school totalitarianism, how should I put it? Controlled every aspect of people's lives, right? It was, you know, there was Gestapo and Stasi and KGB, right?

That had to be in every part of every facet of people's lives. More modern versions of fascism don't go the direction of totalitarianism. They prefer a model of competitive authoritarianism, which is actually more efficient in some ways, because if people still have hope, even if it's a false hope, if they still continue to vote, if they still have the trappings of democracy, even when it isn't, when your vote can't make any more difference in the outcome of the election my dog can. You still it still has a veneer of legitimacy right and that you don't need stossy you don't need KGB you don't need KGB. You don't need Gestapo. When the public can't change the outcome of the election, they can't remove anybody from office. They can't change the course of the country. Why should we care? Let them protest. Let them hold up their little signs. Let them

yell at the White House. What do we care? And if they get too uppity, well, then we have plenty of pepper spray and rubber bullets and they will disperse. They will shout themselves out. And that's the way autocratic leaders like Edward Scheberg-Nazi, who I quoted in the book, see it, is demonstrations and protests are a temporary nuisance, but not in any way shape or form a threat to the regime. Right.

And you know, there's also another leg to that stool in some ways is that go ahead and let them do that and then let some of your cronies commodify it. So sell them pink hats or Warner Brothers. Go ahead and sell and make money off of the anonymous, the Guy Fox masks. We did an episode repeat on V for Vendetta and that was kind of the epilogue was, by the way, the people who were protesting what Warner Brothers was doing, were wearing Guy Fox masks, all of which were licensed

by Warner Brothers and therefore enriching Warner Brothers. You masks, all of which were licensed by Warner Brothers and therefore enriching Warner Brothers. So you can get them coming and going and now they feel like they've done something, they go home and they are blissfully disengaged thinking that they have actually done something. And we saw pictures like that throughout 2016, 2017. Meanwhile, there were Nazis marching in Charlottesville. You know, and it was a damned unfortunate thing in a lot of ways. And it's something that I'm kind of coming to grips with still having participated in some of these events because I was still believing that there was some say that we could have if we raised up our voices.

But the next three years kind of proved otherwise. Now, that's on that populist level. That's not on the total level because we clearly still have some vestiges that are still, you know, barely hanging on comatose though they may be now. So there was a term that you used in your book. Several times, and I never got a good working definition of it, and I was hoping you could help me out with it. Agit prop.

Yeah. Give me like the elevator pitch of that because I think I think I get it conceptually, but I couldn't put it into words. So, Agit prop is propaganda that agitates the populace that the purpose of it is to get people is propaganda that gets people angry and moving in a particular direction. Gotcha. Okay. Good. Good. You or you and on. Be considered a weirdly viral form of agit prompt. It is and it's mixed in there with conspiracy theories which I talk about in

in the chapter nine about the characteristics of fascism that conspiracy theories are pretty central to to fascism but propaganda in itself is also fairly central to fascism that you need to get people to believe lies, right? And it's actually not that hard, as long as lies are things that people wanted to believe, to believe to begin with, and you leave them down the Primrose path and the next thing, you know, you know, you've got people believing that if we don't kill, if we don't kill the Jews and they're going to kill all of us. So it was us or them, right? And there's a quote in the book and I can't remember if it made the final cut, and I believe it did, was he who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit atrocities. That was in there. Yeah.

And that's by Voltaire. And it's going to end up in my next book as well, which if you want to sneak, if you want to sneak peak. Yeah, yeah. It's, it's, I'm finishing up my third book. And I'm just starting the, the lit review on my fourth, which I intend to be called, it will happen here, life and post-democracy America.

Nice. I mean, because I read, it can't happen here. And then I read, it can happen here. So it'll be nice to have a trilogy instead of a duality. I just have to find a publisher. We'll see about that. Sure. The thing you mentioned about propaganda, and I have a few notes on it from later, from when we get to chapter 9, is if you can't get them to believe the lies, at least get them to

disengage from valuing the truth. And you use different words for truth, different Russian words. And one was like, it reminded me a little bit of the movie sleepers, where it's word on the street versus what's the word for the public kind of thing. But it was essentially like, there's a bullshit truth, there's an actual truth, and then I think there was the official truth, too. So there's a triad, yeah. There's three. There's three. There's Pravda, Athena, and Vranya.

There you go. Pravda is, and I'll use the analogy I use in my book just because I like it because everybody gets it, right? Pravda is the truth, you know, as it needs to be right now, if you look at it from the right angle, Athena is the actual truth, right? And vranya is loosely translated as useful bullshit. And the way I like to, you know, explain it is, isthena is that Darth Vader is Luke Skywalker's father.

that Darth Vader is Luke Skywalker's father. And Pravda is that Darth Vader betrayed and murdered your father. You know, because the Jedi are bad guys. From a certain point of view, as Obi-Wan said, I feel book, the book goes into a lot of Russian propaganda methods because they're actually very similar to what we see in on Fox News. You know, it's the rant corporation today publication on it. Two publications on it. One of which firehose of Falsehood and Truth Decay. Firehose of Falsehood came out in 2015 and it's really, really good. And it describes kind of the Russian model of propaganda. And as you read about it, you're like, oh, sheep, this is Fox News. It's high volume. It doesn't need to be consistent.

It doesn't have to impart you with any actual information. It just has to get people going in a direction, right? And it just has to, and it needs to be repetitive and it needs to be full volume and it needs to be continuous. Simple and easily branded. Yeah. It is.

Mm-hmm. Oh man. And I just want to say, first off, I love the fact that you use sheep dip. But I want to let you know, like you can, Lord knows I use enough fucking four-hour words on the sheep dip. Let me sheep dip.

You need to. Usually to describe me. You did, well, yeah, fucker. But you know, just just so you know, we swear all the like, okay, I swear, all the time, I don't have to swear. I utter puns, which you know, yes. Yeah. Why do I need to get my hands dirty? So I lost that page, but there was this wonderful quote that you had about from Chichescal. And there was a pessimism of what he was saying. if you don't remember it, forgive me as well. But there's this quote, and I just, I have this note here saying,

do you think it was pessimistic because of what led up to his overthrow or what happened after his overthrow? And I think it was, it was having to overthrow what he did. Yes, and that's kind of the point is that like essentially you can't get rid of these assholes unless there's like either extreme violence or you let them die off of old age, which by the way, how come people who are evil get to live that long? Like I had a couple grand laws that did that. And that was a preserve. I've come to the conclusion that they're a pickling agent. They all in fact are like semi undead, like they're tapped into their liches before they actually completely physically die.

Must be. That's my, that's my standard here. People bastards spend their lives robbing, cheating, and stealing from people. And drive pleasure from one of the easiest things to achieve in life, which is making other people miserable when you have money So they get the best possible medical care and you know, that's that's why you know

Rich evil bastards live the longest True yeah One of my favorite moments as a teacher was when my students came up to me and they said, Mr. Harmony, and they were freshmen. So Mr. Harmony, did you hear? I said, what? And they said, Pinochet died. I was like, good for you recognizing that. Good job. Because we'd done a whole unit on Pinochet and his thing. So, all right, so you mentioned Trump loyalists and the things that came to mind with Trump loyalists pretty quickly was the people who went with West with Aaron Burr and those who joined Sam Houston.

And it may be sad. Is it sad statement on American education that both of those are deep cuts? Like yeah, like there is there is an obscurity to both of those are deep cuts. Like, there is an obscurity to both of those events that says something really bad about the system we both work in. Yeah. Sorry. That's okay.

Step down your toes with that, but wow, that hurt to think about. But I want to know how different Trump loyalists are. Other than the fact that with both Burr and Houston, there was this moving west, invading other people's territory, or as Americans call it, settling. So there was this release valve

that they seemed to enjoy by taking over indigenous lands. Now that's not a thing that can happen much anymore unless, of course, we find precious minerals on reservations. But Trump loyalists and these people who went west, is that like the only difference? I mean, were those people just as poisonous and it's kind of a good thing that they left? I mean, and it's okay if you can't speak to that too, but- So what I would say, the overlap is the callousness that is deeply endemic to both sorts of movements is, oh, those people, well, let's, trail of tears, kill the buffalo, drive them

off their land, deport them, right? They're not like us, right? Our interests come first last and always. And in, in ability to recognize, well, wow, those are people too. We probably shouldn't do these things if you recognize that they're humans and shouldn't be treated this way because we wouldn't want to be treated that way. Because, and that's the weird thing is, is there's this either manifest sense of manifest destiny, which is, you know, I spend a chapter on Christian nationalism and manifest destiny is a clear part of that. And the grievances is very clear from the lost cause kinds of stuff.

But when you look at how they see themselves, they see everyone else as deserving of bad things happening to them. And I think that that is a common thread between 18, you know, 18, 30, 18, 40, and where we are today is that there is this assumption that black people are poor than white because they deserve it because there's something lot about them. That LGBT people commit suicide because they're broken and God has turned their backs on them, or that they are defying God's, and that maybe if we just make them wretched enough, maybe they'll come back to God. There is an assumption that creating misery is part of the manifest destiny.

It's good for their soul. Good for their souls. It's what God wants. And you don't have to think. You don't have to exercise empathy and you don't have to think too hard. Well, because God's gonna pluck you up. Like it's this blend of, and I mean, Ed's got it. I mean, go ahead, Ed, I don't want to stay with Thunder here. I hear it right here. This is your bellywack.

Yeah. I hear where you're going all the way. Yeah. I hear where you're going all the way. Do it. The, you know, second grade awakening, you know, Baptist ideas that that, you know, we don't need to worry about any of this shit

because, you know know at the end of days we're going to be God loves us more than he loves everybody else he's going to pluck us up because we're the chosen and because of ideas of predestination and you know Calvinist ideas of salvation we're all going to be lifted up you know to heaven and like whether we do the right thing or not it doesn't matter because we're saved. Right. And there was a nice commercial break from that during the civil rights movement

where it secularized the faith again. Jesus is coming, we better fix this shit so that he's happy when he gets here and then it switched back to Jesus is coming, look busy. Yeah. Which of course, go ahead. And you and you bringing that point up leads me to ask, Brynn, I want to know to the extent that you, you know, have studied the intersection

of all of this religion and, you know, right wing kind of ideology and so forth. With the particularly with the revelation that I want to say it's Franklin Graham, has now come out and said that he didn't actually ever believe any of his dad's bullshit. There's like it was, there's artists been's, there's been out there that he, he gave an interview where he said, you know, I never, I never really believed any of that. This is after his, his, you know, you just benefited a lot from it. Yeah, thanks for after his, his, you know,

stepping down as the, as the head of, you know, the university and all that stuff. Oh, not Franklin Graham. You mean, uh, Falwell. Falwell. Yeah, yeah. Okay. That makes more sense. Franklin Graham. Did I, I'm announcing Billy Graham? Wow. Yeah, I mean fall well. Fall well. Yeah, yeah. Okay. That makes more sense. Franklin Graham. Yeah. Renouncing Billy Graham. Wow.

I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm going to tell you. It's a fall. Well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, well, Jerry fall will son. Yes. You know, coming, coming out and saying he never, he never believed any of it. How, how much for, for the folks in the movement, you know, the really, you know, the hard for Trump supporters, how much do you think they are aware of the bullshit that's involved in there.

How much do you think they are really not getting true believers in the theology? And how much do you think the theology is just a convenient excuse for them? I don't know if I'm articulating my question. Yeah, you are. So I would put the percent of the GOP base that constitutes true, true believers at something a little bit in access to 50%. I'm going to guess 55 to 60% as as died in the world and the way I come up with that number is the people that that when they ask, okay, Trump shoots somebody in the middle of Fifth Avenue.

Do you still vote for them? And the answer is, oh, Hell yes. Yes. Would you vote for somebody else in the primary? Nope. Still voting for Trump. Okay. That's your true believer that there is nothing that this individual can say or do that

will make them turn their back on them or recognize the reality of the situation that this is a shit human being. So there's no mental gymnastics there. It's I fully am on board with this. Right. Right now in the US Senate, you've got maybe a third of senators or true believers, probably a little bit less.

Whereas in the US House of Representatives, you've got close, you've got something between a third and a half, right? Remember that 60%, 64% of House Republicans voted to overturn the election, right? OK. to overturn the election, right? Okay. And that number is going to go up. It looks like next time around, the only two or three people that wouldn't vote to do so are gone, right?

Kinzinger and Cheney. So, you know, the thing is, is that a lot of Republicans who are educated and work inside the system, and who have experience with intelligence kids, So, you know, the thing is, is that a lot of Republicans who are educated and work inside the system, and who have experience with intelligence community, department of defense, governmental affairs, understand that Trump is a freaking, he's a monster. The moron.

He's a moron, right, He was incapable of a learning, right? Who is, and his instincts are petty, vengeful, and venal. You're universally bad, like, but the fact that he wants, the fact that he will go along with, you know, eliminating the queers, you know, and kicking trans people out of the military and granting religious rights, a religious right to ignore civil rights laws and shoot protesters, black protesters,

and defend yourself by running them down with your car. You know that they like that because for a long time even before Trump dating back to as I cited Newt Greengitches 1978 campaign speech were in a war. It's a war for power and they have seen this as a war for power for a very long time to save our country right and if Donald Trump is what gets them seven conservative justices on a Supreme Court that are gonna let them open, you know, you know, the Mike DeSantis Reeducation Camps for Queers, okay, sure. And at the same time, we could talk about this a little bit later,

but they're also willing to increasingly crowdsource the cruelty. Which goes back to your competitive autocracy in some ways. Like I see that working as you said in your book, Hand in Love or even better, one of my favorite quotes, Head and Hood, but it's very efficient to let the people do all the excessive stuff and then just not punish them.

And you don't have to pay anybody to do it or settle any lawsuits against your organization. The US court system has decided that they are not going to overturn laws that put bounties out there. If a woman gets an abortion in Texas, there's a bounty on reporting her. If a person has a transgender child, right?

And she's medical treatment for them. That's we're going the direction of bounties. We're going to see, and we're just going to see, and since the courts have ruled, we can't touch bounties. We're going to see bounties put on everything, right? Which is gonna be, yeah. A teacher, a teacher acknowledges that slavery was bad

and it affected black people, right? Oh my God, that's critical race theory. Well, Mr. Harmony, I'm sorry, but you're gonna be put on unpaid leave while this is investigated and oh, by the way, the parents of, you know, a little timmy, you know, Timmy O'Clanahan, you know,

I will be suing you for, you know, $10,000. And I can't crowdsource to raise funds either. Like, right, I have to pay for it. I mean, the point is, is suppression. Get the society want by suppressing it, suppressing ideas and people out of public life. And that should be terrifying. You know, that goes right back. What replaces it will be the ideas that are acceptable to one particular group of people in the US.

That goes right back, I think, to the church aspect, where you pointed out that the lost cause was just folded into the mix on church, and which, of course, as Ed was pointing out, you were, well, I'll come back to that in a second, but it goes right back into that idea of the Calvinistic, the cruelty is the point Christianity. And God's going to rescue us all. I want to back off a little bit their Calvinism is and necessarily about cruelty is the point Calvinism is about we don't need to worry about being responsible for what we do. Right. Because we're either going to get saved or we're not. And there's no way to know.

The cruelty is the point is an outgrowth of that. It's an Americanization of it. Yeah, yes. Yes, it's a very American adaptation of that. Yes. The cruelty is the point is a quote that comes from a Atlantic contributor Adam server in an essay from 2017 or 2018 and his background

is is historian on reconstruction. Yeah. Yeah. I think that that that isn't is a valid description of this kind of evangelicalism that is trying to punish people here on earth. Kind of, you know, again, you know, look, I wasn't being the bad one, kind of Christianity. I'm suppressing, look, I'm suppressing all the queers. I'm suppressing all of the non-whites and it's this really weird, very American, very

southern. It is what happens. But they don't see themselves as suppressing blacks. They just see it as well, you know, the reason that bad things happen to black people is their own fault. Whereas with queers in their own minds these days, they see it as doing God's work, making America a more godly country, right? They allow themselves to think about queer people the way they thought about Black people 60, 70 years ago. Whereas, this is polling data,

but when you take thermometer data on how they feel about black people in a very generic sense, it's not that particularly different from anybody else. But when you start asking very specific questions of, you know, why, why do black people suffer from a lack of familial wealth? The average black household is worth less than a 10th of what a white household is worth. They don't blame it on, you know,

for 250 years of repression and a system which has low social mobility, they put it squarely on the character of black people. Well, yeah, and that's that comes to I think a couple of things and I'm going to run this by you and see what would you think about my read on this, but I think part of it is. The again very Calvinist idea that. again, very Calvinist idea that virtue is reflected in your worldly circumstances. We can tell whether or not you're going to be saved by how you're doing in this in this world, which is not actually part of what Calvin taught, but the Dutch are a very strong example of this that that, you know, worldly success was considered to be a sign of God's favor and a sign you were more likely to be saved. And, and so if you were badly off, then that was a sign that like, you know, well, you're not going, you're not going to be one of the elect, which I could get all theology in your word about it forever. But that's part of it. And then part of it is also in my own view, and I want to say what you think about this, there is a very deep discomfort about admitting the existence of any kind of systemic issue, that it has

to be there fault because of the just universe fallacy. And if I'm better off than they are, that is all to my credit. And if they are more poorly often, then they must have done something. And does that track with the rest of what you see in the research that you've done about their, their kind of outlook and the way that we got where we are with these folks. So yes, and I only discuss it briefly, but the prosperity gospel, right, is that let's face it. These are the guys that are, you know, you know, sailing around gold-plated yachts. They're Jesus pimping. Yeah.

Exactly. It's like, oh, hey, give me money and God will give you money, too. Yep. Right? And there's an assumption within the Presbytery Gospel that God rewards good behavior with wealth and that wealth is a sign of godliness. And we saw during the Trump administration the prosperity gospel Charlottes and types getting further into US governance and administrations

than they ever had before. George W. Bush kept them at arms length. Reagan, Reagan and the moral majority, right? The moral majority kept those charismatic types out. They're like, no, this is a different brand, right? The fall well, like fall well. I did get, I wanna say, I did get that far into the book. I got about to the point of the end of the Reagan administration in your, in your, in the historical part of your thesis. So, like Pat Robertson was, was a charismatic, right?

Yeah, it was a charismatic school of Evangelicism, right? And he really didn't have a lot of the backing of what was left to the moral majority in 88 when he ran for president, right? That's why he felt flat on his face. Was, you know, people don't recognize that evangelicals aren't a monolith that said in the 30 years since they have become much more monolithic in terms of their views. in terms of their views. And there's much less, I would say, sibling rivalry that a lot of, and here's the thing though, is that your old school, old school, southern Baptists who are trying to remain kind of moderate,

kind of not crazy, have been pushed out in favor of the ones who would very much like to wage culture war forever and are just fine working with the charlatans and the creflo dollars and the polo whites. Now, now do you think that is because of where outside funding goes or do you think that's because of a popular shift within those movements by believers? knowledge that a while back, there was essentially a palace coup inside of the Southern Baptist Convention and other and other evangelical organizations were basically they grabbed power in elections within those organizations and forced out all the moderates. Basically,

you gave them the you're not welcome here. Right? moderation. Russell Moore, Russell Moore basically got tossed out on his ear from the Southern Baptist Convention because he, I mean, as much as I dislike him, he stuck to his guns and said, look, this guy is a lying, cheating, for landering, you know, landering, you know, a piece of garbage. Where we, you know, he's a horrible person. Why are we following such a horrible person and why are we putting him on a pedestal? And for that, he got exiled. Yeah, and because the answer is brand loyalty and also can we get seven judges that'll help us save theoretical babies?

Yeah. Well, there's that. And then there's also the fact that at this point, there is no separation of church and state. There's no separation of religion and being Republican, being Republican is increasingly a religion and religion is increasingly Republican. The mainline mainline Protestants have almost been wiped out. See, that reminds me of, I grew up a baseball fan and I grew up a football fan.

And it reminds me of my team, I'm a Kings fan. I'm a lapsed Giants fan because their owners are trash. Even though they're my beloved Giants, I will not give them any money because their owners are shit. I'm so sorry, your Kings fan. No, my heart goes out to you. No, it's easy because I'm so much more comfortable with a team that loses so badly and just finds new ways.

It's, I assume, yeah. I'm a Suns fan so badly and just finds new ways. I assume I was. Yeah. I'm a son's fan. I had a decade of that. I can't imagine two decades of it. Oh, it's easy. It's easy. The first decade goes down hard. The rest is just like, oh, this is normal. You're both your both hikers. I grew up a Padre's and a Charter's fan. Then we'll make you a whaler. But as a Kings fan, when Ron our test got attacked by fans from Detroit, and there were all kinds of problems, everybody, clocked their tongue. Then when he came to Sacramento, I was not so bad. Was kind of the vibe that I got from most people. It's like, hey, he's starving his dogs by neglect. Yeah, but like, do you see those rebounds?

And then he went to LA and we're like, yeah, fuck that guy, he changed his name. And so it seems like that whole, this guy's a flanderer, he's awful, he's a piece of shit. I have standards. And it's like, okay, goodbye. You don't get to sit in the King's fan section anymore because you aren't King's right or die, you know?

And again, I think there's that weird, you mentioned it in your book. It's a tribal epistemology. And it gets back to that triad of truths, the provd, and it very much is a provd of thing. It's the convenient truth is that Ron Artest is really good at grabbing rebounds. We'll ignore the other things.

Until he goes to LA, he changes his name, come on, provd of provd of provd. Now we don't like him because he's in LA. And so I think in very many ways that same thing happens. And it's like this collision of tribal epistemology with a pool's law of iron bureaucracy in combination with an ed, I don't remember the actual phrase, but it's where satire becomes the reality.

Oh, a pool's. Oh, post law. Post law, yep. Post law and pool law colliding with this tribal epistemology wherein you have essentially all of the reasonable principled people leave the organization. And the only ones who stay are the ones who seek power within the organization until the part, the point of the organization is to gain power. And it just uses the mission of the organization as it's thin veneer. Well, you have, so I think going back, yes, there's people like that who are, you know what,

Lindsey Graham is used to be sane, right? He used to be, he used to be John McCain's bestie. He's a colonel in the reserves. He's, he was a moderate. He said, if we nominate, if we nominate Donald Trump, we're going to get destroyed and we deserve it, right? He was a wrong. And he's, now he is Trump's lap dog. So as Ted Cruz, after Trump literally called Cruz's wife a dog. Right. Ted Cruz, like there is, there is, it would be very hard to find an insult that would be powerful enough to embody the cravingness of the extent to which Ted Cruz has done that.

Yeah. Like, you know, there was, there was a, there was a joke that came out from an unnamed staffer that if, if someone beat Ted Cruz to death in the well of the Senate chamber, it'd be tough to get any witnesses to testify. Yeah. Yeah. He is like the most hated man in the Senate, isn't he? Yeah, well, he's pretty close there. And look at how Donald Trump constantly

be rates and insults Mitch McConnell, and Mitch McConnell just takes it. But you also have the true believers and those are the dangerous ones. Those are the ones who are going to be calling the shots because the Republican majority in the house that we're going to see the same dynamic we saw with a tea party, which is you're going to have the true believers and nothing in the house can pass without the say of the true believers, right? Tea party, but on cocaine without literacy. It's going to be Marjorie Taylor Greene and Bobert and, um, you know, okay,

screwy Louis Gomer, it's going away, but, you know, you're gonna, you're gonna have massie and you're gonna have all these people who are just bug nuts, QAnon believing, gun-toting, you know, as John McCain, John McCain called them wack doodles. Right? And I'm gonna confess for a large part of my life, I was a McCain Republican. part of my life, I was a McCain Republican. So was he. I was not. But and and it largely because I remembered the savings and loan scandal and how he constantly branded himself as straight talk and he always would. He was he was too much into image management for me to feel comfortable with him with believing him. So I personally was not but that was more like just kind of a vibe that I got. So I can't say that it was because I was smart. It was it was much more just because of

a feeling that I got it. Just I didn't trust the guy you know it's kind of like when Kevin Johnson came to Sacramento. And we're back. Why is that because he was a Sunspoint guard? No, it was because of Why is that because he was a son's point guard? No, it was because of what he did while he was a son's point guard with 15 year olds. Yeah, and then he started a school where he went on field trips with 17 year olds. 15 year olds. Yeah, yeah. So, uh, so now the fact that he was a son's point guard did not help in my estimation.

But he's was point guard for Sacramento. I would have still. I would have still. See I liked I'm one of those weird fans where I will bench an entire team like I was a diehard diner's fan. And then they abandoned Kaepernick. And I said, okay, y'all are bench until you get new ownership. I'm not I'm not following you at all.

And same thing with the giants. And I've benched them twice before. So it's a bummer. I'm a man without a country, but I would much rather that than be loyal to an organization that does that. So I'm an outlier for that, but I understand the tribal epistemology of it. Now, speaking of McCain, I do wonder, do you find that his rehabilitation in light of all the shitty people who've come since? Do you find that rehabilitation is in some way disingenuous because it's so relative to these folks? Yes, when compared to Lauren Bobert, who claims that sweet stand lane of the fantastic Southern wrestling group, she claims that he being her first cousin once removed is her father, despite the overwhelming evidence that in fact he is not.

And a DNA test. Yeah. Part of that overwhelming evidence is a DNA test. I like every time this comes up, I need to throw that out there. And on our podcast, it's at least every other episode because I just can't let go of fact. Maybe every third, but yeah. But do you find that his being rehabilitated in light of them is kind of violating some sort of ethical principle about like Like like he's still I mean you said you were a McCain Republican for a while. I guess what turned you away from him and

Do you find it odd that people are judging him nicer now than maybe they should have by a different standard. So you mentioned the SNL scandal the way that at least I mentally worked around that at the time was that well yeah he screwed up he admitted he screwed up and then he supported laws that were meant to prevent anything like that happening again. Okay, sure. That he was notorious for crossing the aisle and cutting deals. That he did have some principles. Remember, he stood up to George Bush and said no torture. Yes.

Not, not, right. He was willing to tell his party to go, to go fuck itself when he thought they were wrong. Which is a level of principles that does not exist within the GOP anymore. The also recognized he wanted Joe Lieberman as his running mate, who would have been considered kind of dead center, but hawkish on military stuff. Yeah. To conservative for Democrats, to liberal for Republicans.

And he got convinced to make Sarah Palin. And he eventually, he regretted it. And he basically Was willing to admit mistakes. So here's the difference how I'm able to look at him differently than I am the GOP as it is today Mm-hmm Is that you look at dear leader you look at Trump is a man who is incapable of admitting mistakes and you look at the GOP And the GOP as a whole is is incapable of admitting mistakes. And you look at the GOP and the GOP as a whole is completely incapable of admitting mistakes ever, right? So yeah.

Even when they put a petarist, like Roy Moore, up-relaction, right? Where Sinabon had a better moral compass than the GOP of that state. Because they wouldn't let him had a better moral compass than the GOP of that state. Because they wouldn't let him with the insertion amount of distance from the ball. Synavon had a better moral compass. Because he was trolling for teen girls

when he was a 30 something year old district attorney. Imagine if you were a bober, a husband did, oh, you went there. You went there. Oh yeah. He's been smirching the good name of sweet Stan Lane. No, you don't get to do that. So I, what I'm saying at this point is that there is no room for are we judging McCain on a, on a sliding scale?

Yeah, perhaps. Okay. But, but that scale has led so far. So far that like, pain looks principled and rational compared to 99% of what's out there now. I'm going to, I'm going to argue from the polysideition as I understand it, McCain was rational, like he, you know, as compared to like the human-on folks who do not strike me as being rational actors in that sense.

So, you know, I think there's, I think depending on where you put the, the, depending on where you set the bar, there is an objective level of fuckery that, that still remains involved. I think with, with them, uh, so we mentioned Provda, I'm going to ask you what the word for useful bullshit is again. What is it? Vranya. Vranya.

Um, for them, Vrano has become their probda. Like that's how far into the muck they've gone brain-wise. Which Vrano is what they're pumping through the firehose of falsehood. Yes. Right. Yeah. And you mentioned something interesting, rational actors. And I touched on it earlier, but one of the biggest problems that we have now

that I talked about, I spent an entire chapter on it, is the death of expertise. Right. And we touched on this a little logic, facts, research, data, right, that ideology and conspiracies and religion and are all absolutely suitable substitutes for, well, what does the data say? What, you know, and they want to pick it apart because there is a deliberate need to destroy faith and expertise and faith and academia and faith in scientists and people who otherwise understand systems The there is a contempt for expertise. There is a contempt for bureaucrats. There is a there is a contempt for researchers, right?

Did they assume that common sense and religion and anything else is a suitable substitute for years of education and experience? Because well, this can't be possibly that hard. Look how stupid those people in Washington are. How hard can it be? I'm just going to use my common sense. Can I just interject here as a church going Catholic? The idea of equating is my common sense. And I just interject here as a church going Catholic, the idea of equating religion and common sense, like putting them in the same bucket is like, I'd you said it, like, like, say, believing Catholic, as somebody who wakes up every morning and chooses to believe

in transubstantiation, like, no, you don't get to put that in the same bucket as common sense. Fuck you. No. Um, but these people insist on doing that is kind of what I'm coming around to. And, and, um, I kind of tarnishes the brand of faith, doesn't it? It, to me, it does. I'm going to say and, and, and Asimov had had a great quote, and this is I'm going to say. And, and as Amov had had a great quote, and this is years ago, but I think what what you're speaking to is, is, and I actually want to ask you about what you think about this, because as Amov said this, I want to say this was back in the 60s or 70s, there is a cult of

ignorance in the United States, and there always has been the strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant threat winding its way through our political and cultural life nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge. And ironically, I picked that quote out and then put it in my book and then I was as I was writing it and then I got Tom Nichols book, the death of expertise and found he'd put it in his book as well. And there's a lot of stuff that Tom Nichols and I wouldn't agree on. He's coming from a much more right wing side. He's kind of in the never-trump wing of the Republican Party. I'd put him out there with kind of a

I'd put him out there with kind of a something in a lish, something slightly left of Liz Cheney and Probably in the Adam Kinzinger kind of Republican category. Okay, but I at least understand him because he spent decades teaching at the war college Okay At the naval war college, so I at least get where he's coming from. He makes sense because he understands national security and national defense in a way that I understand it. But we, this, this is something that that both sides can see, that this is not healthy, that this quote is out, that you just ran, is something that people with radically different views of what the right thing to do is see in the Republican Party today. You know, as... Go ahead. And to what extent do you think this is and I don't know if I'm even phrasing my question the right way but that that strain of thought having

been kind of a part of American populism since the beginning since since the Genesis and no no experiment yeah yeah and And even before that, I mean, forever. Can do you think there is, or to what extent, I guess is what I'm gonna say, to what extent, do you think there has been a conscious magnification or intensification of that? Like how much of that is natural groundswell feeding on itself and how much of that is actually, no, ignorant, strain of thought is always there.

You're absolutely right, but it has been nurtured. It has been cultivated. It has been commodified, starting with Rush Limbaugh, and then Fox News, and then everybody else that came along There is so much money to be made pushing That Vranio through the fire hose of falsehood right into to spray agit prop all over people and let that you know

And like a waterographic sense possible. Oh, I was going with like, I was going with like Alice Cooper or Gore, just like, yeah, blood and Cheerios everywhere. Yeah, I'm glad that you you explicitly made the, made the reference to, you know, pornographic because I was about to make a remark about, I feel like Agit Prop has become a euphemism for something else. But yeah. But it's the money show. It is so much, there is so much money in it, right?

And it doesn't have to be consistent. It just, look at, I mean, people buying food rations and gold and Trump memorabilia and Trump coins and Trump plates and Trump has made a lot of modifying his name. Let's go brand of flex. There is immense amount of money that is able to be poured into this. The amount of money that organizations like the Heritage Foundation and the Alliance Defending Freedom and all these other organizations that just they exist to obliterate LGBT people. The amount of money behind them is just staggering compared to you know the National Center for Transgender Equality, which runs on a $3 million budget. We're as going up against focus on the family, their budget's $1.2 billion. Yeah.

You know? This, this, no shit, really? Oh yeah, there's a lot of good money in, in white fear. You know, the cis white white fear doubly so. There is so much money. Just the Mormon church is sitting on a dragon horde of $110 billion in liquid assets. You're not talking honey. You're talking actual like cash. Like bonds, mutuals, index funds, yes. Well, we're coming to look something up real quick,

but don't carry on. We're coming to the end of this episode. And I want to ask you this question before this episode ends. And we're definitely going to have you back next week for another episode. I say knowing that people know that we record several episodes at once. But I like to keep that illusion going. So spoiler alert, everybody scrub forward 15 seconds from 15 seconds ago. So there's this wonderful wordplay that you do. And being the punter that I am, I always wonder if people did it on purpose or not, or if they're just brilliant, just because you said breaking the faith with democracy. And there's so many layers to that phrase that I, I, number one, well done. Number two, it brings me to this question though. Does Christianity itself lend itself more easily?

And I'm gonna say American Christianity. Does American Christianity, therefore, wasp Christianity? Although I will put Catholics in there as well, because they vote more for the guy who's not a Catholic than the Democrat who's a Catholic now. But does Christianity, American Christianity lend itself more easily to fascism or to democracy? And please tell me why. If you're going to say, I thought I was hoping that you say, does does American Christianity lend itself towards democracy?

I wish you to ask me that question so I could just fucking laugh hysterically for the next 30 seconds. All right, well, let's cry and pee my pants. Well, we'll fix this in post. So, Brynn, does Christianity, American Christianity lend itself to democracy? Jesus fucking Christ. No

We busted the levels. I don't know if it happened in your end, but like it did not happen. Like it was so Oh no, no God no No America's really only been a democracy since about 1965 when we passed the Voting Rights Act up until 1922. Women couldn't vote and before that, blacks couldn't vote at all. Slavery before that.

You know, it was only wealthy white landowners. When we look back at, you know, oh, it's just the sudden whites. No, no, no. At one point, in Maryland, I think something like 80% of the Catholics in Maryland were Black slaves prior to the American Revolution. Yeah, bring up that fact. I put my book. Amer Christianity is very authoritarian. All power flows from God or a religious figure. It doesn't give power to women. It was, it's been used consistently to oppress black people. Remember, Ephesians 6.5 slaves

obey your masters. That was absolutely the favorite Bible quote of white Christians in the US for a very, very long time. But wasn't it white Christians who did abolition? I mean they solved slavery, so there you go. Yeah, yeah, and then they also conveniently forgot, forgot about promoting democracy when reconstruction failed. That was part of the deal. Thank you. Thank you for bringing that up. When as the as the the believer of the Jesus I just like dude fuck you. Like no. Hopefully I'm not being too rude as an atheist. You know, no, no, no, not not at all. No, you're good.

No, you're fine. Like the the institution and the the tenants of the faith are, you know, different things to me. So I just want to come back to what you said about. What was the figure that you gave for the liquid assets of the Mormon church? Yeah, I'm trying to remember. It was reported in the Washington Post about two or three years ago that a whistleblower came out and revealed that somewhere between $105 or $10 billion that had been given to the church for charitable work had never actually

been spent and had just been flowed into investments, which have sat there churning for decades and decades and decades until they are the richest church on earth. And I had to ask you for that figure again, because let's think about my own church, which is no example of letting go of worldly wealth. Best estimates about the Catholic churches, liquid wealth wealth are somewhere between 10 to 15 billion. Yeah, but then count real estate. Well, okay, we're specifically talking about liquid assets. We're talking about cash on hand, which is what staggers my fucking being.

Sure. Because, you know, we'd have to go back, I don't need to be basically a thousand years or more to to talk about where the church accumulated the real estate they're talking about in terms of Catholicism. The Mormon church isn't even 200. Well, not even 200 years old. And they've got 10 times the liquid cash on hand. Well here's the other thing. And I'm an ex-more. I was my dad tried to raise me Mormon obviously didn't take. But keep in mind when was the last time you saw a Mormon hospital giving free cancer treatments to kids. How about a Mormon homeless shelter? How about a Mormon school for underprivileged kids that provides a top-notch education for free? How about Mormon universities that are free to underprivileged people? Do you see where I'm going with this?

Oh yeah, no, I totally see where you're going with that. And the only kind of tag I can add to it is that makes it sadly a very, very American religious institution. That's bad to say. That's one of the reasons I think they're so liquid is because they came up in a cash economy country at a time where cash economy, you look at where the church started, where it went. I mean, we're talking railroads and then going off of spurs and trying to get ahead

of it so that you can buy up that land and take it from the indigenous peoples there. But essentially, you know, cash on hand was because of railroads to begin with. That's why we have the Federal Reserve Banks where we have them was because they were railheads. Makes perfect sense to me that a church that starts kind of along those same veins would would end up very, very liquid. So, okay, so to recap, Christianity, Jesus absolutely wants us to have democracy in the American style. And you know, I think we're all grateful for that. I think that's really the lesson here. Did I? I'm sorry, I had a few of state.

I think I think Jesus would want us to have true democracy. I think American Christianity as an institution. Loleso, like 95 percent. I wrote an article after my book came out that was basically religion is not good for American. It basically pointed out, look, whatever moderating or liberalizing or humanistic influence religion and Christianity in particular might have had upon the United States during the civil rights movement or during abolition is Long gone the forces that were a liberalizing

The parts of American Christianity that pushed towards liberalization and human rights are dead, or dying very, very, very quickly. Their numbers have plummeted, and there's a reason why Black Lives Matter was founded by a bunch of queer lesbian Black women that were trans-inclusive, right? And that, yes, churches participated, but they weren't leading anymore. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Well, on that note, as cool, I don't transition well from like the, oh, Jesus, I didn't do

that on purpose. But yeah, I'd say you need a lot of electrolysis and laser before you can do that successfully. Only from the neck up. I'm like a dolphin below. I've ruined dolphins for every. Okay, I'm like a manatee below. But so what we normally like to do is ask people what they're reading and then also where they can be found on the social med's or whatever platforms or talking circuits they want to be known at. So I'll start off with Ed, just so we have a good example. Ed, what's your reading? of the show, Bishop O'Connell's debut novel, the stolen again. It's the one about Norwegian wedding cakes, right? I know you were gonna go for that damn joke.

You always do. I do. Come on. I'm so good at it. It's stolen valor, baby. So anyway, I am rereading that in preparation for our interview Who's possibly with him coming up? It's us. It'll be far. Yeah, well, yeah

But you know, I don't know you never know. I can He and I might not spend you know half an episode just talking about high school But anyway, I'm back to six rate we go. Yeah, I told you before we started recording, historically, there were only three rates. You're about to find. Yeah. So anyway, I'm reading the stolen reading the stolen by Bishop O'Connell. I very highly highly recommend it. It is an excellent modern set. I guess it fallen in the category of urban fantasy. And so that's what I'm reading. And I can be found on the social medias on the tiki talk at Mr. underscore playlock. And I can be found on Twitter at eHBladeLock.

And we collectively can be found on Twitter at Geek History of Time. And online we can be found at aghicistryofTime.com. How about you? What are you reading right now? And where can we find you? Well, I actually just picked up the final installment of the Olympians by George O'Connor.

Okay, so this is a comic book series that's gone back for I think about 10 years. It's the 12th of the Pantheon. It is amazing. The my favorite is still Hermes, but Dionysus is the last one. And it weaves the story of Vestia and Dionysus together because she stepped down so he could step in and it is a very heartwarming story. It is wonderful. It's a wonderful, wonderful story. It's a comic book, a graphic novel by Georgia Conner and I strongly recommend it. It's fantastic. I've fascinated about how anybody can make

the story of Daynice's heartwarming. Oh, it's beautiful. It really is. Yeah. Now, I am going to recommend two books in as well. First, I'm going to recommend Punching Nazis and other good ideas by Keith Lowell-Gensen, local author here in Sacramento.

He wrote another book as well, and that'll be coming out soon. Or it already has, I forget, but punching Nazi seemed appropriate for the next book. I'm going to recommend which is American fascism, how the GOP is subverting democracy by Brynn Hannah Hill. So I highly recommend you go out and pick up that book. And I'm going to let Brynn tell people the best place to get it because I don't necessarily think that feeding Amazon is the best way to do it. So it's not. So Brynn, tell us where you can find that and then tell us what you're reading. So the best place to buy my book is transgresspress.org. Let me double check that I've got.

Is that transgress press? And you can also find it on Google Play. It's also not the best. It's transgresspress.org for slash American-fascism.html or transgresspress.org, all in work. And I am working hard on doing the background research for Lit Review for my next book,

which I intend to call it will happen here. Life in a post-democracy America. So I'm reading How Civil War Start by Barbara Walter. Just finished that. Also have something by Stephen March on origins of Civil War. I'm reading It Can Happen Here, and It it could happen here by Alexander Hinton and Jonathan Green, glad of the ADL. And I'm reading, Genocide is Social Practice by Daniel Firestein.

Let it never be said that you don't know how to have a good time, huh? Lordy. I'm going to need to go get another beer just hearing the title of what you're reading. Yeah. Yeah, I've never been depressed by a bibliography. So folks, you can find me on TikTok at duh harmony one. There's a hashtag called how I torture ed. I strongly recommend you go check it out.

You can also find me on Twitter and Insta at duh harmony. Two Hs in the middle. As Ed said, you can find us both collectively at geekhistorytime.com, where you can find all of our episodes. If not, if you don't wanna go there, you can go to the app, which is the Apple Podcast app, as well as Stitcher.

You can find us there. Brynn, if people want to find you on any kind of social media, do they get to or should we just buy books? You can follow me on Twitter where I'm most active at Bren Tana Hill. It's just B-R-Y-N-N-N-T-A-N-N-E-H-I-L-L. Nothing particularly fancy there. And I'm also on Instagram, but mostly I just post videos of my Huskies. Cool.

Well, for a geek history of time, I want to thank you for joining us, Brynn Tannenau, and I'm Damien Harmony. And I'm Ed Blalock, and until next time, keep hunching Nazis. Until next time, keep hunching Nazis!