WEBVTT - The South African Perspective - Part One (with Robyn Curnow) 0:00:01.360 --> 0:00:04.440 I'm John Cipher and I'm Jerry O'Shea. I was a 0:00:04.480 --> 0:00:07.840 CIA officer stationed around the world in high threat posts 0:00:07.840 --> 0:00:09.520 in Europe, Russia, and in Asia. 0:00:09.600 --> 0:00:12.680 And I served in Africa, Asia, Europe, the Middle East 0:00:12.760 --> 0:00:16.840 and in war zones. We sometimes created conspiracies to deceive 0:00:16.880 --> 0:00:17.759 our adversaries. 0:00:18.040 --> 0:00:21.720 Now we're going to use our expertise to deconstruct conspiracy 0:00:21.760 --> 0:00:23.520 theories large and small. 0:00:23.800 --> 0:00:26.280 Could they be true? Or are we being manipulated? 0:00:26.800 --> 0:00:28.840 This is mission implausible. 0:00:31.720 --> 0:00:35.240 So I'd like to welcome Robert Kerno. She's an award 0:00:35.240 --> 0:00:40.560 winning journalist, broadcaster, author, and is a charity ambassador for dyslexia, 0:00:40.680 --> 0:00:43.240 something that touches on a lot of families, including Robin's 0:00:43.400 --> 0:00:46.480 and my own. Robin is now an American, but she's 0:00:46.600 --> 0:00:49.760 also a global citizen who can say that she's from Australia, 0:00:49.920 --> 0:00:53.080 South Africa, Britain and the US. So you were a 0:00:53.080 --> 0:00:56.680 CNN journalist and anchor for over twenty years and had 0:00:56.720 --> 0:00:59.560 a ring sight seated at almost every defining event over 0:00:59.560 --> 0:01:01.560 the last twenty years, and you now have a great 0:01:01.600 --> 0:01:05.000 podcast I want to plug Searching for America, where you 0:01:05.280 --> 0:01:09.080 explain or try to explain America to the rest of 0:01:09.120 --> 0:01:12.160 the world. So if you ever find America, please let 0:01:12.240 --> 0:01:13.200 us know. I will. 0:01:13.240 --> 0:01:15.600 I think it is one of those odyssees that where 0:01:15.600 --> 0:01:17.640 the journey is more important than the destination. 0:01:18.080 --> 0:01:21.600 So it seems like everything with three letters these days 0:01:21.680 --> 0:01:24.959 is viewed with distrust, right, you know, the focus of 0:01:25.040 --> 0:01:31.120 popular conspiracy theories, the FBI, the CIA, and the MSM. 0:01:31.400 --> 0:01:36.240 Mainstream media something that you were a representative of and 0:01:36.280 --> 0:01:38.160 still are. And so it's one of me. If you 0:01:38.160 --> 0:01:40.039 wonder if you could start to take us down the 0:01:40.120 --> 0:01:44.520 rabbit hole of why there is now so much distrust 0:01:44.800 --> 0:01:48.720 of mainstream media. And that's a plural, not a singular, right, 0:01:48.760 --> 0:01:50.120 that's a wide spectrum. 0:01:50.160 --> 0:01:52.240 I don't think there's an easy answer, and I think 0:01:52.280 --> 0:01:55.600 if we had the answer, perhaps the media wouldn't be 0:01:55.640 --> 0:01:59.200 in the pickle it is in right now. But certainly, 0:01:59.280 --> 0:02:02.240 when I was ends Africa correspondent, which I was for 0:02:02.280 --> 0:02:05.800 a long time, and I was traveling, more often than 0:02:05.800 --> 0:02:08.120 not people would say to me, oh, so you're from 0:02:08.120 --> 0:02:11.760 the CIA, and I'd go, no, it's CNN. I'm from CNN, 0:02:11.880 --> 0:02:13.640 and then they go yeah. But sometimes it would be 0:02:13.680 --> 0:02:16.480 interchangeable for some people, And I don't know you guys 0:02:16.480 --> 0:02:19.120 obviously didn't announce yourself when you walked into places. But 0:02:19.720 --> 0:02:22.400 I'm sure the sort of sense that the media and 0:02:22.560 --> 0:02:27.320 spies or intelligence was sharing the same space wasn't a 0:02:27.360 --> 0:02:31.560 big leap for people, And I think particularly in those days. 0:02:31.560 --> 0:02:34.600 Now this is ten years ago, and this is outside America. 0:02:35.280 --> 0:02:38.040 I think in those days it wasn't a big leap 0:02:38.080 --> 0:02:41.720 because for a lot of particularly African nations, with public 0:02:41.760 --> 0:02:46.440 broad broadcasters and the way societies were set up, that 0:02:46.560 --> 0:02:51.840 actually there was an intersection between journalism and spying, and 0:02:51.880 --> 0:02:55.639 that journalists sometimes had to report back to the government, 0:02:56.040 --> 0:02:59.639 or sometimes journalism was used as a front for a 0:02:59.720 --> 0:03:02.359 ficial a kind of spying operations. You know, that wasn't 0:03:02.360 --> 0:03:05.120 a far leap. So I think I've always had to 0:03:05.160 --> 0:03:10.840 deny that I was there for the wrong reasons, and 0:03:10.880 --> 0:03:13.000 the way I dealt with it was just to be 0:03:13.040 --> 0:03:16.280 pretty open about the way I was asking questions and everything, 0:03:16.280 --> 0:03:19.320 and use humor, which I'm sure you guys would use 0:03:19.320 --> 0:03:21.800 a lot as well. The way it is now that 0:03:21.880 --> 0:03:27.240 the entire institution of sort of media is seen as 0:03:27.240 --> 0:03:32.200 some sort of suspicious puppet of some dark, nefarious, sort 0:03:32.200 --> 0:03:35.880 of secret organization, and that we are being being played 0:03:36.120 --> 0:03:40.960 and all playing the public. It's terrifying and it is worrying, 0:03:41.200 --> 0:03:44.400 and I don't know how it got so bad so quickly. Yes, 0:03:44.480 --> 0:03:49.960 social media. Yes, leaders using the sort of the opportunity 0:03:50.320 --> 0:03:53.640 to do this in order to get themselves credit. There's that, 0:03:54.120 --> 0:03:55.920 And I think there've also been a few owned goals 0:03:56.520 --> 0:04:01.560 by mainstream media that perhaps as the debate got more 0:04:01.600 --> 0:04:06.320 and more fractured and fragmented, we did all pull into 0:04:06.320 --> 0:04:09.480 different corners. And so what you see now, even from 0:04:09.520 --> 0:04:11.840 ten years ago when I moved to America, you do 0:04:11.960 --> 0:04:16.200 see more of a defined CNN is taking a position, 0:04:16.839 --> 0:04:20.400 or Fox taking a position, or MSNBC taking another position. 0:04:21.040 --> 0:04:24.080 And I think that sort of perhaps in trying to 0:04:24.120 --> 0:04:28.840 protect ourselves, we might have just played into some stereotypes 0:04:29.400 --> 0:04:31.560 and that hasn't been helpful and it'd been given some 0:04:31.720 --> 0:04:33.159 of the critics an easy win. 0:04:33.160 --> 0:04:34.800 If you looked at a heat map, I think in 0:04:34.800 --> 0:04:37.039 the United States of the media where it was on 0:04:37.080 --> 0:04:39.400 the political spectrum of where people thought it was. The 0:04:39.480 --> 0:04:41.920 term that's thrown at you mainstream media is mostly thrown 0:04:41.960 --> 0:04:44.480 from the right because they believe the media is as 0:04:44.520 --> 0:04:47.040 a leftist bias. But now when I see these sort 0:04:47.080 --> 0:04:49.479 of heat maps of what people are watching, listening to, 0:04:49.520 --> 0:04:52.800 and where they're getting their information. It is largely frankly 0:04:53.400 --> 0:04:56.120 right wing stuff. I think the places that we consider 0:04:56.520 --> 0:05:00.560 more left wing media seem much smaller and being able 0:05:00.600 --> 0:05:02.880 to reach far fewer people, Like how did that happen? 0:05:02.880 --> 0:05:04.400 Like if you had even asked me a few years ago, 0:05:04.400 --> 0:05:07.880 I'd said, well, you know, on the spectrum media overall 0:05:07.920 --> 0:05:10.320 maybe is a little bit more liberal than conservative. But 0:05:10.600 --> 0:05:13.880 now that's actually not true. I don't think a right No, I. 0:05:13.880 --> 0:05:16.120 Think you're right. And I used the words fractured and 0:05:16.200 --> 0:05:19.520 fragmented for a very good reason. Somebody also talked about 0:05:19.600 --> 0:05:23.839 broadcasting and the way I you know, I'm an old traditionalist. 0:05:23.920 --> 0:05:26.000 I mean I started off in the analog world, and 0:05:26.040 --> 0:05:29.360 I still believe in that sort of traditional, almost moral 0:05:29.440 --> 0:05:34.359 imperative of the journalist. Whereas the broadcasting, which tended to 0:05:34.440 --> 0:05:37.320 see a program or on CNN International what I used 0:05:37.320 --> 0:05:39.880 to do, would tend to be quite of a wide 0:05:40.080 --> 0:05:42.320 you'd be kind of throwing a few stories at the 0:05:42.360 --> 0:05:45.800 dartboard in one thirty minute bulletin. Whereas I think what 0:05:45.839 --> 0:05:48.920 you're talking about now is this fragmentation to this narrow 0:05:49.040 --> 0:05:53.120 casting where you're seeing these tiny little it's not even 0:05:53.200 --> 0:05:55.599 just echo chambers, it's echo chambers with an echo chambers 0:05:55.600 --> 0:05:59.839 with an echo chambers. It's this network of honeycomb of 0:05:59.839 --> 0:06:04.160 the these tiny, little fragmented pieces of media. And that's 0:06:04.240 --> 0:06:06.719 where I think the ecosystem for the right, which is 0:06:06.720 --> 0:06:09.279 the podcast which you talked about so much during the 0:06:09.560 --> 0:06:13.200 run up to this sort of recent US election, particularly 0:06:13.240 --> 0:06:15.960 the kind of bro podcasts which just seem to have 0:06:16.040 --> 0:06:19.720 so much more clout. Why are those so much more 0:06:19.760 --> 0:06:22.120 powerful now and why are they getting so much audience? 0:06:22.440 --> 0:06:24.400 And I think that's also the question, you know, is 0:06:24.440 --> 0:06:28.680 it a conspiracy? No, I think it's because people are 0:06:28.720 --> 0:06:32.000 looking for something else. They don't trust the bias as 0:06:32.040 --> 0:06:34.880 they see it, the liberal bias of the mainstream media. 0:06:34.960 --> 0:06:37.200 But I don't think there's an easy answer to this, 0:06:37.279 --> 0:06:38.960 and this is why I'm puffing and puffing when I'm 0:06:38.960 --> 0:06:41.320 saying this, and I think it's probably also probably why 0:06:41.360 --> 0:06:44.200 you're asking these questions. And I don't think the bosses 0:06:45.040 --> 0:06:48.040 in New York have the answer, because if they did, 0:06:48.120 --> 0:06:51.000 they also wouldn't be trying. They would have fixed the 0:06:51.080 --> 0:06:54.440 viewership problem at CNN. They would have fixed the viewership 0:06:54.440 --> 0:06:57.400 problem at MSNBC, at New York Times. I mean, look 0:06:57.400 --> 0:07:00.839 at Washington Post. Nobody reads it really, I know I do. 0:07:01.360 --> 0:07:04.920 They're losing audience and they're not gaining new audience. And 0:07:05.600 --> 0:07:08.560 if there was an answer to this question, then we 0:07:08.640 --> 0:07:10.520 would have the solution. And I think we're in this 0:07:10.640 --> 0:07:15.320 incredible space of transition technologically clearly, you know where you 0:07:15.360 --> 0:07:17.200 can call it the Third Industrial Revolution. You can talk 0:07:17.240 --> 0:07:20.960 about reformations or whatever. But the sort of media, the 0:07:21.040 --> 0:07:23.080 ugliness and the messiness of where we are in the 0:07:23.120 --> 0:07:26.600 media right now, it's like a stew It's a mess. 0:07:26.840 --> 0:07:29.120 We're not quite sure where it's going to all land up. 0:07:29.640 --> 0:07:31.600 So I'm sorry, I'm not even answering your question because 0:07:31.600 --> 0:07:33.320 I don't have an answer. And there's a reason I'm 0:07:33.320 --> 0:07:36.040 not working in the media anymore, because it did become 0:07:36.120 --> 0:07:36.880 quite toxic. 0:07:37.520 --> 0:07:42.400 There are conspiracies in the mainstream media, and I'll name 0:07:42.440 --> 0:07:46.280 you too, okay. One is Fox News got hit for 0:07:46.600 --> 0:07:52.160 seven hundred and eighty million dollars for reporting things that 0:07:52.280 --> 0:07:55.920 they knew not to be true, and we're basically feeding 0:07:56.120 --> 0:07:59.239 their audience something that they knew not to be true. 0:07:59.560 --> 0:08:02.040 And there's an other case coming with smart manic. And 0:08:02.160 --> 0:08:06.840 the second one is miss you've mentioned sinister forces behind 0:08:07.640 --> 0:08:10.680 one American news network is owned up to fifty percent, 0:08:10.760 --> 0:08:14.480 it's not clear by the Altani family, the Royal family 0:08:14.520 --> 0:08:17.840 and Cutter. So you've got a foreign influence. It's not 0:08:17.920 --> 0:08:21.640 a democracy that has must have some influence on these. 0:08:21.920 --> 0:08:24.560 And yet this is not the New York Times or 0:08:24.560 --> 0:08:28.080 the Washington Post, which are fact based and yes they've 0:08:28.080 --> 0:08:31.240 made mistakes, but they cop to those mistakes and they 0:08:31.240 --> 0:08:34.160 say we got this wrong, and they'll retract things. And 0:08:34.200 --> 0:08:39.400 so I my sense is that there are conspiracies within 0:08:39.520 --> 0:08:43.080 the media, but it's not the places where that generally 0:08:43.120 --> 0:08:45.160 are getting blamed for it. I don't think there's some 0:08:45.640 --> 0:08:49.480 cunning plan behind the Washington Post, right or maybe Jeff 0:08:49.480 --> 0:08:51.199 Bezos now, but yeah, no. 0:08:51.280 --> 0:08:54.560 But I think when I talk about self inflicted, because 0:08:54.559 --> 0:08:56.280 I mean trying to figure out, how do you get 0:08:56.320 --> 0:08:59.520 to this point where nobody trusts you, even if you've 0:08:59.559 --> 0:09:02.800 been doing the same thing the same way, same fact 0:09:02.960 --> 0:09:06.719 checking at CNN, even doubly so you know, in the 0:09:06.800 --> 0:09:11.200 last ten years, same and even more passionate dedication to 0:09:11.360 --> 0:09:16.800 actually saying to giving fact based news visually representing stuff 0:09:16.800 --> 0:09:18.439 that's happening. This is what's happening. 0:09:18.640 --> 0:09:21.120 You see it, we all watch it. 0:09:21.679 --> 0:09:24.439 We saw it happen. So then how does it get 0:09:24.480 --> 0:09:27.320 to the point that we are still not trusted, or 0:09:27.360 --> 0:09:29.720 that my colleagues are not trusted. My husband still works there. 0:09:29.760 --> 0:09:32.280 He runs all of CNN's operations in war zones, so 0:09:32.320 --> 0:09:37.360 he was running CNN's operations in Israel and then Ukraine beforehand, 0:09:38.160 --> 0:09:40.559 and sometimes people would come to me and say, well, 0:09:40.840 --> 0:09:43.920 just tell us, really what's happening, And I'm like, turn 0:09:43.920 --> 0:09:46.400 on the television. It's not like we my husband and 0:09:46.440 --> 0:09:50.720 I know something that's not making it onto air. There's 0:09:50.760 --> 0:09:53.680 not another story that we're hiding. And you can have 0:09:53.720 --> 0:09:55.360 a few glasses of wine and we'll tell you the 0:09:55.360 --> 0:09:57.520 real story when you come to our house. But what's 0:09:57.559 --> 0:10:00.720 going on air is something different. And the word always 0:10:00.720 --> 0:10:02.440 comes around, particularly if you grew up in a place 0:10:02.480 --> 0:10:05.120 like South Africa, that's the word that you used to 0:10:05.120 --> 0:10:09.880 describe sinister groups of whoever. And that surprises me still 0:10:09.920 --> 0:10:12.200 as if to say, you know, really what's going on, 0:10:12.240 --> 0:10:14.599 and it's got worse and worse, and the self inflicted 0:10:14.640 --> 0:10:18.520 stuff is it because we took ourselves too seriously, that 0:10:18.600 --> 0:10:23.200 we lost the sense of storytelling perhaps and joy and fun. 0:10:23.360 --> 0:10:25.760 Sometimes news would be kind of a little bit more 0:10:26.320 --> 0:10:27.360 less produced. 0:10:27.840 --> 0:10:30.240 Might it be more simple that the most powerful man 0:10:30.240 --> 0:10:32.559 in the world has been consistently, over and over saying 0:10:32.559 --> 0:10:34.600 that you're the enemy of the people, and the person 0:10:34.600 --> 0:10:36.440 who's the richest man in the world, who owns one 0:10:36.440 --> 0:10:39.680 of the biggest Twitter and acts, the biggest places for media, 0:10:39.800 --> 0:10:42.760 is saying the same thing. I mean, if you're pumping 0:10:42.840 --> 0:10:46.000 out to people over and over that the media can't 0:10:46.040 --> 0:10:48.120 be trusted, people are going to start to believe it. 0:10:48.880 --> 0:10:51.600 And that's absolutely that's an excellent point. That's the basis 0:10:51.600 --> 0:10:52.559 from which we're starting. 0:10:53.040 --> 0:10:56.000 That makes excellent points rarely, but when he does, and 0:10:56.040 --> 0:10:57.160 I mean I saw that. 0:10:57.840 --> 0:11:00.880 Even a squirrel finds a blind that's an excellent point. 0:11:00.920 --> 0:11:03.160 Sorry, And that's and that's the basis. Yet, but then 0:11:03.240 --> 0:11:05.520 why is this also being replicated in some parts of 0:11:05.520 --> 0:11:07.920 the world where Trump is not president or is not 0:11:08.440 --> 0:11:13.960 constantly on air. This sort of distrust of officialdom is 0:11:14.040 --> 0:11:16.280 something I think that is, you know, whether it's the 0:11:16.440 --> 0:11:20.480 whether it's intelligence or agencies, or whether it's government, or 0:11:20.480 --> 0:11:24.400 whether it's bureaucracies, or whether it's media. There's something about 0:11:24.720 --> 0:11:28.439 the distrust that we've seen, probably fueled maybe solely by 0:11:28.480 --> 0:11:32.720 Donald Trump, but then while people still not believing in 0:11:32.800 --> 0:11:36.440 sort of basic truths, and I don't have the answer 0:11:36.440 --> 0:11:36.680 for that. 0:11:38.960 --> 0:11:41.480 It's the end of the interview. You're gone, you're done. 0:11:42.520 --> 0:11:45.360 You can't make up anything. You've spent a life telling stories, 0:11:45.360 --> 0:11:47.480 and you're not going to give us some BS explanation. 0:11:47.679 --> 0:11:49.640 Well, we have the we have the answer, but we'd 0:11:49.679 --> 0:11:50.600 rather not put it out. 0:11:51.679 --> 0:11:56.800 When we've stopped recording. You can tell me why, the 0:11:56.840 --> 0:11:59.040 real truth. You can tell me what you really think. 0:12:01.600 --> 0:12:03.680 So let's take a break. We'll be back in a moment. 0:12:15.480 --> 0:12:18.240 Well, let me ask. So your podcast is excellent, and 0:12:18.240 --> 0:12:21.320 you're trying to explain America to the world, and you 0:12:21.400 --> 0:12:24.440 obviously have a long career and international news, and you 0:12:24.480 --> 0:12:27.520 have a background a lot of different places. As you 0:12:27.720 --> 0:12:30.520 do that, and you get feedback from people, what are 0:12:30.559 --> 0:12:34.320 the biggest questions or concerns or misunderstandings about what's happening 0:12:34.320 --> 0:12:37.040 in America? What is it you're trying to address. 0:12:36.760 --> 0:12:38.440 Coming I live in the South. I'm sitting here in 0:12:38.480 --> 0:12:40.959 Atlanta talking to you. So we're in the Deep South. 0:12:41.280 --> 0:12:48.280 And we're in a conservative neighborhood or liberal neighborhood, and 0:12:48.360 --> 0:12:51.360 one of my children plays sport. So we've driven a 0:12:51.360 --> 0:12:55.240 lot around Georgia into sort of those rural areas of 0:12:55.280 --> 0:12:59.880 Georgia that are Marjorie Taylor Green Territory and even further in. 0:13:00.040 --> 0:13:04.640 And I've sat on the sports fields next to very 0:13:05.200 --> 0:13:12.320 vociferous Maga Trump supporters, people who are very Christian and 0:13:12.440 --> 0:13:18.160 fulfill that stereotype of red neck ignorant and as Hillary 0:13:18.240 --> 0:13:21.680 Clinton would have said, deplorable. You know who are the 0:13:21.679 --> 0:13:24.839 people that voted for Trump? Well, it's these rednecks out 0:13:24.880 --> 0:13:27.360 here in Georgia. And you can kind of if you're 0:13:27.400 --> 0:13:30.200 not careful. And I think this was one of the mistakes, 0:13:30.240 --> 0:13:32.480 when I say South self inflected. One of the mistakes 0:13:32.520 --> 0:13:34.280 a lot of the media made, particularly with the run 0:13:34.320 --> 0:13:37.480 up to the first Trump election, was not listening to 0:13:37.559 --> 0:13:41.640 the anxieties coming from that chunk of America, the middle 0:13:41.640 --> 0:13:45.960 America or the lower middle class America, the white men, 0:13:46.200 --> 0:13:49.240 the non college educated people. It was sort of dismissed 0:13:49.240 --> 0:13:52.800 as sort of red neck deplorables who were being taken out, 0:13:52.840 --> 0:13:56.199 who were being fooled by this rich gold tapped a 0:13:56.280 --> 0:13:59.479 multi billionaire who was really just a really just bankruptost 0:13:59.520 --> 0:14:02.319 the time. But when I sat next to them on 0:14:03.080 --> 0:14:05.240 the sports field and you're in the middle of nowhere, 0:14:05.559 --> 0:14:09.400 and they're good people, their sons, their dads, their wives, 0:14:09.480 --> 0:14:11.840 their sons and daughters. They're the first people in a 0:14:11.880 --> 0:14:14.440 pouring rainstorm that would pull over and help you change 0:14:14.440 --> 0:14:18.480 a car tire. And so that's the disconnect that I'm 0:14:18.520 --> 0:14:21.000 trying to find, because I think if I do what 0:14:21.080 --> 0:14:23.520 I was doing when I was at CNN, which was 0:14:23.560 --> 0:14:27.000 trying to have this sort of high brow analysis with 0:14:27.400 --> 0:14:31.200 Washington folks or whatever. And yes, I have a master's 0:14:31.240 --> 0:14:33.840 degree from Cambridge and international relations. I can talk foreign 0:14:33.840 --> 0:14:38.080 policy for hours, But does that really help me to 0:14:38.240 --> 0:14:42.840 understand the instincts and the patterns and the anxieties and 0:14:42.880 --> 0:14:46.800 the hopes that American voters are really feeling. And that's 0:14:46.800 --> 0:14:48.360 what I'm trying to do, And I think being an 0:14:48.400 --> 0:14:51.840 outsider helps. So I kind of try to listen to 0:14:51.880 --> 0:14:55.680 them with compassion, and I've found that fascinating, where you 0:14:55.760 --> 0:14:58.240 walk into a place and you're like, I'm not going 0:14:58.280 --> 0:15:00.160 to try and judge them. I might not vote for them. 0:15:00.200 --> 0:15:02.680 I maybe don't believe in the same things, but I'm 0:15:02.720 --> 0:15:06.040 not going to other them, and particularly coming politically is 0:15:06.040 --> 0:15:09.640 a white South African. I understand that very clear political, 0:15:09.840 --> 0:15:13.320 very easy way of othering somebody and maybe you fearful 0:15:13.360 --> 0:15:16.479 of somebody else. And I think a lot of American 0:15:16.600 --> 0:15:20.400 leaders Trump in particular, but then towards the end also 0:15:20.800 --> 0:15:24.680 a lot of very left progressive Americans have made the 0:15:24.720 --> 0:15:27.320 same mistake and have othered, do you know what I mean? 0:15:27.400 --> 0:15:30.520 So I think that the sort of So that's the 0:15:30.600 --> 0:15:32.840 very long version of what I'm trying to do, so 0:15:32.920 --> 0:15:36.040 to try and look past why don't they believe in vaccines? 0:15:36.280 --> 0:15:38.400 I sat next to the field and I'm like, what's 0:15:38.440 --> 0:15:41.760 with the anti vaxin shit going on here? 0:15:41.800 --> 0:15:42.080 Now? 0:15:42.480 --> 0:15:45.240 But I that's when I realized, oh, RFK has got 0:15:45.280 --> 0:15:47.400 a real chance, do you know what I mean? It's interesting, 0:15:47.440 --> 0:15:50.760 I'm curious, and so I think a lot of people 0:15:50.760 --> 0:15:53.840 and as you know, a lot of conspiracy theories are 0:15:53.880 --> 0:15:56.680 bred from a fear of the unknown, and if you 0:15:56.760 --> 0:15:59.400 play into that, whether on the left or the right, 0:16:00.280 --> 0:16:04.400 you can create fear and anxiety which then gets amplified 0:16:04.520 --> 0:16:08.560 unfortunately by news because it's good for ratings, and it 0:16:08.680 --> 0:16:11.240 creates this as I remember, John, I think you called 0:16:11.240 --> 0:16:16.560 it this angertainment industry, and that's unfortunately where maybe again 0:16:16.720 --> 0:16:20.040 one of these self inflicted aspects of mainstream media, which 0:16:20.080 --> 0:16:22.840 is really I hate the term, but is that the 0:16:22.840 --> 0:16:27.440 more we catered towards ratings, the more we amplified our 0:16:27.600 --> 0:16:31.480 own part in the division. And people have just got 0:16:31.520 --> 0:16:33.640 sick and tired of it, or they just like, I 0:16:33.640 --> 0:16:35.520 don't want to be scared and angry, or you're making 0:16:35.560 --> 0:16:38.160 me too scared. You're making me too angry today and 0:16:38.200 --> 0:16:41.240 there's a weird little calibration that goes on in people's brains, 0:16:41.440 --> 0:16:42.720 and yeah, that's where I am. 0:16:43.360 --> 0:16:48.120 So Robin is a South African, Australian, brit Americans. 0:16:49.200 --> 0:16:51.320 Exactly with Southern Children. 0:16:51.720 --> 0:16:58.360 Southern Children is America. Are Americans uniquely vulnerable to a 0:16:58.400 --> 0:17:02.120 conspiratorial mindset. And let me set this by saying, we've 0:17:02.160 --> 0:17:04.600 all lived in other parts of the world, and I've 0:17:04.600 --> 0:17:06.760 lived in Southern Africa. It's still one of my favorite 0:17:06.760 --> 0:17:10.159 places in the whole world. But aside from the Middle East, 0:17:10.440 --> 0:17:16.280 Southern Africa was completely full of wild conspiracy theories. And 0:17:16.400 --> 0:17:21.359 I remember foolishly thinking in the US, we don't at 0:17:21.440 --> 0:17:24.360 least have that we don't believe in, like secret military 0:17:24.359 --> 0:17:28.240 bases or witchcraft, or you know, because we have modern 0:17:28.280 --> 0:17:30.920 medicine we believe in. So you've lived around the world 0:17:30.960 --> 0:17:34.119 as well, and are we any different than anybody else 0:17:34.280 --> 0:17:35.320 now or were we? 0:17:35.760 --> 0:17:37.800 You know what an interests me. I actually stole one 0:17:37.840 --> 0:17:42.160 of your guests, Drew McCoy, because I'm fascinated by the 0:17:42.200 --> 0:17:47.080 American religiosity, and I think a lot of the conspiratorial 0:17:47.240 --> 0:17:53.600 stuff is amplified by the way Americans view the spiritual 0:17:53.680 --> 0:17:56.359 or the supernatural, and there's I don't know if it 0:17:56.400 --> 0:17:59.040 goes back to the Pilgrims. I don't know if it's 0:17:59.040 --> 0:18:02.840 in your DNA. I don't know what it is about Americans. 0:18:02.840 --> 0:18:07.600 But the Jesus stuff, the personification of Jesus as somebody 0:18:07.600 --> 0:18:10.960 who is walking with you, goes fishing with you, drinks 0:18:10.960 --> 0:18:15.000 a beer with you. Jesus is right there. That kind 0:18:15.040 --> 0:18:18.119 of personification of Jesus is very American. And it's not 0:18:18.200 --> 0:18:21.879 just evangelical, and it's not just Trumpian either. There's something 0:18:21.960 --> 0:18:24.240 baked in and obviously I'm in the South here, so 0:18:24.320 --> 0:18:26.920 I see it within my daily life, and so it's 0:18:26.920 --> 0:18:30.080 not just a Catholicism. I'm a very lapsed Catholic, but 0:18:30.119 --> 0:18:33.080 that sort of high Church stuff that I grew up with, 0:18:33.680 --> 0:18:37.119 where you talk about God as some sort of supernatural 0:18:37.160 --> 0:18:40.960 being and Heaven is something that is esoteric here in America. 0:18:41.040 --> 0:18:43.800 People believe you will go to Hell, and that plays 0:18:43.800 --> 0:18:45.960 into the politics in a way that I've not seen 0:18:46.040 --> 0:18:48.919 in any other nation. I think that if you talk 0:18:48.960 --> 0:18:52.800 about conspiracy theories, a lot of conspiracy theories here talk 0:18:52.880 --> 0:18:56.119 about the devil or the demon or Satan or you know, 0:18:56.320 --> 0:18:58.680 even with you know, even when Trump was shot, there 0:18:58.760 --> 0:19:00.760 was this meme going around and with the sort of 0:19:00.800 --> 0:19:05.640 a Jesus who looked like a white bearded Jesus sort 0:19:05.640 --> 0:19:08.760 of saving him as if he was his own personal, 0:19:09.200 --> 0:19:12.000 you know, secret service agent, sort of deflecting the bullet. 0:19:12.840 --> 0:19:15.800 And I found that interesting because I think if you 0:19:15.880 --> 0:19:19.440 believe that Hell and Heaven exists literally, and that Adam 0:19:19.480 --> 0:19:22.439 and Eve is a literal story, then I think it's 0:19:22.480 --> 0:19:25.760 a quicker leap to saying there's child trafficking and a 0:19:25.760 --> 0:19:30.960 pizza parlor in Washington, or all these CIA agents want babies, 0:19:31.160 --> 0:19:34.440 And so I think the American conspiracy stuff is somehow 0:19:34.600 --> 0:19:39.040 wrapped up in a very particular version of America's Americans 0:19:39.080 --> 0:19:42.320 idea of Hell and Earth and Jesus and the devil. 0:19:45.560 --> 0:19:54.359 That's take a break. 0:20:00.119 --> 0:20:02.000 A friend of mine when I was in Africa, and 0:20:02.160 --> 0:20:04.760 I don't want to be sued by the wrong African country, 0:20:04.760 --> 0:20:08.080 but I think it was Equatorial Guinea. In World War Two, 0:20:08.720 --> 0:20:12.320 an aircraft crashed in Equatorial Guinea and it had all 0:20:12.359 --> 0:20:15.720 these British soldiers on this, like thirty British dead. And 0:20:16.320 --> 0:20:19.280 Britain doesn't have an embassy in Equatorial Guinea, in Malabo 0:20:19.359 --> 0:20:22.440 and whatever the capital is, and so the American said, well, 0:20:22.480 --> 0:20:26.520 we will tend the war graves. So every couple of 0:20:26.520 --> 0:20:30.160 months the American embassy would send out and the ambassador 0:20:30.240 --> 0:20:32.840 and the deputy ambassador, the DCM would go out and 0:20:32.840 --> 0:20:35.280 they would tend to the war graves. And the number 0:20:35.280 --> 0:20:39.639 two in the embassy was kicked out of the country 0:20:40.040 --> 0:20:44.520 and accused of political witchcraft. It was like he got PNG, 0:20:45.080 --> 0:20:47.640 And I thought that could never happen in the United States. 0:20:48.119 --> 0:20:51.159 And now I hear Marjorie Taylor Green talking about demonic 0:20:51.359 --> 0:20:56.440 forces are behind the Democrats and Jesus is protecting one 0:20:56.480 --> 0:20:59.440 particular thing, and I think, note, we're not actually too 0:20:59.520 --> 0:21:01.280 much equatorial Guinea. 0:21:01.320 --> 0:21:03.240 We got to start using Jesus as a weapon, like 0:21:03.240 --> 0:21:06.960 we ought to just pretend that we're like that. No, no, no, no, 0:21:07.320 --> 0:21:09.760 you're wrong. I thought to Jesus and he said. 0:21:10.320 --> 0:21:13.280 I think Jesus was Cia Sours. Yeah, I have a 0:21:13.280 --> 0:21:16.239 specific question for you, so something I'm fascinated about it, 0:21:16.280 --> 0:21:17.840 and I'm not sure you can talk about it. But 0:21:18.440 --> 0:21:20.800 Anderson Cooper on CNN loved the guy. 0:21:21.080 --> 0:21:23.480 He was at the farm, yes, no, no, no. 0:21:23.440 --> 0:21:27.520 I wasn't going there. But he actually interviewed and talked 0:21:27.560 --> 0:21:30.960 to someone who believed in the Q ANDN theory who 0:21:31.119 --> 0:21:34.320 told him that he was going to go like they 0:21:34.320 --> 0:21:36.119 were going to send him to prison. And I'm not 0:21:36.200 --> 0:21:39.200 quite sure what there was this q Andon conspiracy theory. 0:21:39.200 --> 0:21:41.600 And do you have anything more on this? What when 0:21:41.640 --> 0:21:46.159 you confront a wacky conspiracy theory like head on like that? 0:21:46.280 --> 0:21:46.920 How did that go? 0:21:47.080 --> 0:21:47.480 I have not. 0:21:47.560 --> 0:21:49.600 I'm assuming he did the interview very well and probably 0:21:49.600 --> 0:21:51.879 didn't believe a word that he said. But what is 0:21:51.960 --> 0:21:54.040 interesting about Q and on and I was going to 0:21:54.119 --> 0:21:57.200 and it refers to the South African stuff, is that 0:21:57.280 --> 0:21:59.720 I think many people believe that Q is South African 0:22:00.560 --> 0:22:04.400 right got a guy, and they got a guy who's 0:22:04.400 --> 0:22:08.240 apparently a guy and who's whatever. But that doesn't surprise 0:22:08.400 --> 0:22:13.399 me because South Africans, as you know, whether white or black, 0:22:13.840 --> 0:22:17.959 have this extraordinary ability to believe all sorts of things 0:22:18.520 --> 0:22:21.240