Speaker 1: Also media.
Speaker 2: It's the podcast that it is on election day, but
Speaker 2: you won't hear this on election day. You know how
Speaker 2: the election has gone? You listening have information in December? Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: probably in December, which hopefully means the election is over
Speaker 2: by then. But god willing, Yeah, god willing, the election
Speaker 2: is almost certainly over, which means, you know, find a
Speaker 2: way to communicate to the past and let us know
Speaker 2: so that we can gamble on it. That's That's what
Speaker 2: I'd like you to do. Anyway, speaking of gambling, you
Speaker 2: know who knows all of the words to the classic
Speaker 2: song The Gambler. Our guest today, Molly Conger. Molly, do
Speaker 2: you know when to hold him? Oh?
Speaker 3: I know when to fold him. That's as much of
Speaker 3: that song as I know.
Speaker 4: D well done.
Speaker 3: Oh my god, I think I only know that from
Speaker 3: Info Wars.
Speaker 2: I do love watching Alex Jones sing that and the Highwayman,
Speaker 2: Poncho and Lefty.
Speaker 3: You know, you're just grooving. It's things are going well
Speaker 3: for als when he's doing that.
Speaker 2: That's the most jealous I ever am of him. Because
Speaker 2: we're not allowed to use we have no licensing agreement
Speaker 2: with any company that owns songs. Yeah, he must, otherwise
Speaker 2: he wouldn't be allowed to air them like that. I
Speaker 2: think there because there are like there are like like
Speaker 2: ways that you as a broadcaster can just like make
Speaker 2: a deal for access to you know, they have X
Speaker 2: number of songs and we can use them for whatever.
Speaker 2: I think that exists. I think that's got to be
Speaker 2: what you were somewhat correct.
Speaker 4: But that doesn't mean that Alex Jones has a deal
Speaker 4: with them. He could totally be grifting, because yeah, that's
Speaker 4: what you do.
Speaker 2: I think he'd have been sued before then about this.
Speaker 3: Maybe they're so chiper today, Robert Yep, I'm I'm chipper.
Speaker 2: I'm doing good.
Speaker 4: How many did you get, Bud?
Speaker 2: I had like six last night. I tried to get
Speaker 2: to bed early, but I really couldn't get to sleep
Speaker 2: before like three thirty in the morning. I don't know. Uh, well,
Speaker 2: it's behind the bastards and we're all trying not to
Speaker 2: obsess over the election, and I thought, you know, we
Speaker 2: all might be hoping that history goes a different way
Speaker 2: depending on what happens today, So why not read a
Speaker 2: work of alternate history? Uh? You know, we love doing
Speaker 2: book episodes over here because it's lets me rest a
Speaker 2: little bit. The trouble is finding a book. You can't
Speaker 2: just use any book, and it's sometimes hard to figure
Speaker 2: it out. And thank god I got very lucky. Margaret
Speaker 2: Killjoy was over at my house recently, not bragging, although
Speaker 2: I am kind of bragging.
Speaker 3: You know some celebrities.
Speaker 2: I know some celebrities. I know a famous kill Joy
Speaker 2: who's also a famous Margaret, And she brought me a
Speaker 2: book that a fan had given her at an event,
Speaker 2: because our fans are unhinged and have just decided sometimes
Speaker 2: we should hand one member of the team an absolutely
Speaker 2: terrible piece of literature to give to another member of
Speaker 2: the team. And the book that I have received is
Speaker 2: nineteen forty five by Newt Gingridge.
Speaker 3: Mollie, Wow, what if things had been different?
Speaker 2: What if things had been different? Do you know much
Speaker 2: about old Newt in this book?
Speaker 3: So I did not realize and this is this is
Speaker 3: on me entirely. You know, I know a little bit
Speaker 3: about you know, old Moon based Newt. But question was
Speaker 3: he had written like thirty works of fiction.
Speaker 2: He has written a lot of things.
Speaker 3: Where does he find the time?
Speaker 2: I mean, he doesn't spend a lot of his political career,
Speaker 2: does not take up a lot of time.
Speaker 3: Okay. You know usually when you see like, oh, you know,
Speaker 3: this politician has written a book, men want memoir or whatever,
Speaker 3: and it's like, okay, well, like a campaign staffer wrote that.
Speaker 3: That's for pr No, this is his passion. Yeah, he's
Speaker 3: writing these Yeah, this is what he really wanted to do.
Speaker 3: And my god, it's a I wish we had some
Speaker 3: sort of program in place where when we find some
Speaker 3: guy who has like an artistic dream but also weird
Speaker 3: right wing politics, we just kind of like swallow our
Speaker 3: pride and fund, like, have a have a government agency
Speaker 3: buy up copies of their books so they feel like
Speaker 3: a success. Anything to keep them from running for office. Right,
Speaker 3: Hitler pain?
Speaker 2: Yeah, what if let Hitler paint. Let Ben Shapiro make
Speaker 2: his dog shit TV show about fucking law students.
Speaker 3: And just sort of like a Truman Show type experience
Speaker 3: encapsulate them safely.
Speaker 2: We have to Truman show these people, right, run a fake.
Speaker 2: You know that White House Correspondence dinner that supposedly got
Speaker 2: Trump committed him to run for office. Hold a fake
Speaker 2: one of those where everybody just talks about how nice
Speaker 2: he is and how much they admire him, you know, like, yeah,
Speaker 2: we really have to put these people in bubbles. It's
Speaker 2: the kindest thing for all of us. Oh man, So yeah,
Speaker 2: we're going to be reading nineteen forty five. As you
Speaker 2: might guess, it is a World War two alternate history. Yeah,
Speaker 2: of course, Sophie, what else could it be? What else
Speaker 2: could it be? And this it's a particularly.
Speaker 4: That but I did not process it. I was like,
Speaker 4: I was like, that's not what it is.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, of course of course, and it's a wild one.
Speaker 2: I'm going to tell you that, right right, So our
Speaker 2: author for today, I'm going to go through a little
Speaker 2: bit of a scripted portion. Here is Newton, Leroy Gingrich,
Speaker 2: le Roy, Yes, king Rich. Yeah, you can't not do
Speaker 2: the Leroy Jenkins thing, which is just going to be
Speaker 2: incomprehensible for anyone in our audience that's like younger than
Speaker 2: their mid thirties. You don't know who Leroy Jenkins was?
Speaker 2: Remember the old Times pieces as shit? Sorry anyway, there's
Speaker 2: a post in the subreddit now saying that I'm an
Speaker 2: old man and all my references are old man references,
Speaker 2: and the thing that makes me angriest is they're like,
Speaker 2: he never references the Simpsons, for many episodes later than
Speaker 2: the year two thousand and I'm sorry I never referenced
Speaker 2: the Simpsons episode from later than nineteen ninety eight, because
Speaker 2: that's when they stopped being good.
Speaker 4: You're not an old man.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Sophie. But you called me an old man
Speaker 2: on the show.
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's that's because I'm allowed to It's okay when
Speaker 4: I do it.
Speaker 3: They're not allowed to do that.
Speaker 4: You are used to them. To me, you are anxious.
Speaker 2: I'm not. They haven't even seen Alien four. These scrubs,
Speaker 2: these babies. None of them know what Sequest DSV was. Molly,
Speaker 2: did you watch sequest.
Speaker 3: I don't know what you're talking about.
Speaker 2: Oh my god, Oh my god. Go get a learner's permit.
Speaker 3: Anyway, I think we're the same age.
Speaker 2: We might be, but mentally. Newton Leroy Gingrich was born
Speaker 2: two years before the title of his novel, on June seventeenth,
Speaker 2: nineteen forty three. Knut's father was a career soldier, but
Speaker 2: Newt takes a different path. He's actually an art student.
Speaker 2: He gets like an ma in the mid sixties, and
Speaker 2: like any guy who could. During the Vietnam War, he
Speaker 2: gets a deferment from being drafted by arguing that he
Speaker 2: was a student and a young father. Remember that, because
Speaker 2: there's going to be a funny code of that a
Speaker 2: little bit later in this story.
Speaker 3: Well, we all know Nuts a family man.
Speaker 2: We all know Nuts of family man. We all know
Speaker 2: nuts big not fighting in wars, but not a big
Speaker 2: not having wars. Guy Newton is elected to Congress in
Speaker 2: nineteen seventy nine. In an address to college Republicans before
Speaker 2: his election, he said, I think one of the great
Speaker 2: problems we have in the Republican Party is that we
Speaker 2: don't encourage you to be nasty. We encourage you to
Speaker 2: be neat, obedient, and loyal and faithful. In all those
Speaker 2: boy scout words, Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, they've done a
Speaker 2: terrible job, a pathetic job in my lifetime. In my
Speaker 2: lifetime I was born in nineteen forty three, we have
Speaker 2: not had a competent national Republican leader, not ever. And
Speaker 2: it's very clear from that context that a competent leader
Speaker 2: is a mean one, right, Like that's what he's missing,
Speaker 2: Like Richard Nixon's just too nice.
Speaker 3: And politics really needs is more vitriol.
Speaker 2: Yeah, needs more real assholes. I think that's interesting because
Speaker 2: it makes a case that I think is an important
Speaker 2: thing to understand if you're trying to like puzzle out
Speaker 2: why we are where we are now in American politics,
Speaker 2: And the basics of that case is well, because Republicans
Speaker 2: lost their minds when Nixon had to step down, and
Speaker 2: everything they've done since then has been dedicated to stopping
Speaker 2: making sure that no other Republican would ever have to
Speaker 2: leave office, no matter what crimes they committed. Right, And yeah,
Speaker 2: no modern press for that. So in nineteen eighty five,
Speaker 2: as a congressman, Newton told an interviewer I think from
Speaker 2: the Washington Post who asked about his deferment during Vietnam, quote,
Speaker 2: given everything, I believe, a large part of me thinks
Speaker 2: I should have gone over. Oh if only Newton, I
Speaker 2: do wish you had gone to fight in Vietnam. Now.
Speaker 2: That same year, when President Reagan held a summit with
Speaker 2: Soviet pre Premier Gorbachev, Newton called it quote the most
Speaker 2: dangerous summit for the West since Adolf Hitler met with
Speaker 2: Chamberlain in nineteen thirty eight at Munich. And I love
Speaker 2: the idea like Gorbachev is a Hitler figure, This guy
Speaker 2: who wouldn't even shoot back during the protests that overthrew
Speaker 2: his government is like a Hitler, you know, the future
Speaker 2: Pizza Hut spokes their Gorbachev as a Hitler kind of figure.
Speaker 3: Areddie Hitler, you would have loved Pizza Hut.
Speaker 2: That does tell you where our boy Newt is. Unlike
Speaker 2: the political alignment chart, right, he sees Ronald Reagan as
Speaker 2: a fucking Neville Chamberlain type. Now, that same year, Gingridge
Speaker 2: made the news for comparing a house race that was
Speaker 2: in question in Indiana to the Holocaust. Here's a quote
Speaker 2: about it. Hey, I'm going to read you the quote, Molly.
Speaker 2: Here's a quote about it, as relayed by an article
Speaker 2: in Mother Jones, and it starts with Newt.
Speaker 1: Here.
Speaker 2: We've talked a lot in recent weeks about the Holocaust,
Speaker 2: about the incredible period in which Nazi Germany killed millions
Speaker 2: of people and in particular, came close to wiping out
Speaker 2: European jewry. If someone said to me two days ago,
Speaker 2: talking frankly about the McIntyre affair in which Democrats refused
Speaker 2: to seat the winner of a house race until they
Speaker 2: conducted a recount, and the efforts by the Democratic leadership
Speaker 2: to not allow the people of Indiana to have their representative,
Speaker 2: but instead to impose upon them someone else, something in
Speaker 2: which he quotes, something in which he quotes German poet
Speaker 2: Martin Eemuhler. I have never quite until tonight, been able
Speaker 2: to link it together. Or Niemuler, the great German theologists
Speaker 2: said at one point when the German, when the Nazis
Speaker 2: came for the Jews, I did nothing, And when the
Speaker 2: Nazis came for me, there was no one left, right,
Speaker 2: I think, sorry, I think it's Ni Muler, But this like,
Speaker 2: so basically the Democrats are like, well, until we finish
Speaker 2: a recount, we're not going to sit this guy because
Speaker 2: there's questions about the election and fucking nude is like,
Speaker 2: this is the same as the holocausts?
Speaker 3: So at what point did millions of people die? Did
Speaker 3: they kill all the voters?
Speaker 2: Did they murder everybody? It just kind of seems like
Speaker 2: they were doing a thing that legally is a part
Speaker 2: of the election, like having a recount, waiting to seat
Speaker 2: the elected leader until you do their recount. Is that
Speaker 2: the same as killing millions of people in factories of death?
Speaker 3: There needs to be a swear jar for people who
Speaker 3: abuse the knee Mueller poem. Yeah, yeah, you need to
Speaker 3: put a dollar in the jar, because that was not appropriate.
Speaker 2: I think anytime you reference it you have to lose,
Speaker 2: Like it should be like a Yukuza thing where you
Speaker 2: have to give up one of the joints of a finger, right,
Speaker 2: And maybe that'll cause people to be like a lot
Speaker 2: more care about when they deploy that bad boy.
Speaker 3: I heard it in closing arguments at a trial last month,
Speaker 3: a trial for a man who is a white nationalist,
Speaker 3: and his lawyer's argument was, you know what with this,
Speaker 3: this is free speech. You're trying him for his free speech,
Speaker 3: and it is closing arguments. He's, you know, he refers
Speaker 3: to the nimo or poem, except you know, the poem
Speaker 3: starts first they came for the Communists, and I said
Speaker 3: nothing because I was not a Communist. And then they
Speaker 3: came for the Jews, and I said nothing because I
Speaker 3: was not a Jew. And he says, he's going to
Speaker 3: quote the poem, but he says, first they came for
Speaker 3: one group, yeah, and then they came for another group,
Speaker 3: and it's like, what are the groups?
Speaker 2: A group is a Nazi? Yeah, first thing came for
Speaker 2: the Nazis, and I did not speak out because I
Speaker 2: was not a Nazi man. It's abuse. It's very funny, Okay,
Speaker 2: so let's get back into it. Newts served as the
Speaker 2: Republican Speaker of the House from nineteen ninety five to
Speaker 2: ninety nine. Gigrich was the arc at of the Republican
Speaker 2: victory in the nineteen ninety four congressional election, which legitimately
Speaker 2: set the stage for nearly everything the right has been
Speaker 2: able to accomplish since. Without the Contract with America and
Speaker 2: his retaking of the House, it's possible we see it's
Speaker 2: possible that we see no George W. Bush presidency, no
Speaker 2: right wing Supreme Court today, and at least a lot
Speaker 2: less of a right wing drift on behalf of the
Speaker 2: Democrats who stumbled to fight him. Right, this is a
Speaker 2: major move in US politics. I don't think a lot
Speaker 2: of folks who you know, whose awareness of politics has
Speaker 2: sort of started since the Trump years, know much about this.
Speaker 2: But you had, you know, slick Willie stop George H. W.
Speaker 2: Bush from getting a second term. It drove these people crazy.
Speaker 2: You have briefly the Democrats in control of government, and
Speaker 2: then in ninety four Newt leads I think they pick
Speaker 2: up fifty four House seats. It's this massive sweeping victory
Speaker 2: that comes with this thing called the Contract with America,
Speaker 2: which is basically Newt introducing what becomes kind of the
Speaker 2: neocon platform. Right, And this is like a really I mean,
Speaker 2: it's it's one of the most important moments in modern
Speaker 2: electoral history. Right. Newt is one of the first conservatives
Speaker 2: to see a real promise in creating a right wing
Speaker 2: system of education to push conservative values. In nineteen ninety three,
Speaker 2: he crafted a college course taught at Reinart College called
Speaker 2: Renewing American Civilization. We're looking at this as like sort
Speaker 2: of a proto what's that fucking guy who does the
Speaker 2: Little Kids TV? Bullshit?
Speaker 5: Oh?
Speaker 2: Like the university Prager University. Yeah right, this is a
Speaker 2: precursor to Prager University. Right, I mean he was on
Speaker 2: the Hillsdale track.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, And it's eventually televised in a cable channel
Speaker 2: called Mind Extension University.
Speaker 3: I don't like that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you got to extend your mind now. Obviously, he
Speaker 2: was a ferocious opponent of gay rights and the degradation
Speaker 2: of American values in the modern era. He talked a
Speaker 2: lot about how you know people today, especially because of
Speaker 2: you know, democrats gaining such cultural dominance are just you know,
Speaker 2: awful compared to you know, the the glorious greatest generation
Speaker 2: who really understood morality. He also cheated on his second
Speaker 2: wife with a staffer who became his third wife, while
Speaker 2: he was advocating for the impeachment of Bill Clinton over infidelity. Now,
Speaker 2: this should not have been surprising to anyone who knew that.
Speaker 2: In nineteen eighty nine, in an interview with The Washington Post,
Speaker 2: he explained that he fought with his second wife not
Speaker 2: because it mattered to him what they were fighting about,
Speaker 2: but because he had a habit of dominance that had
Speaker 2: been stoked by his time in politics. He estimated to
Speaker 2: the Post that his marriage had a fifty three to
Speaker 2: forty seven percent chance of making it.
Speaker 5: Oh Man.
Speaker 3: Family values fifty three forty seven. I mean that's I
Speaker 3: wouldn't met on those odds.
Speaker 2: Fascinating, fascinating odds to give your own maya. Now, Newt
Speaker 2: has a long and fascinating history, and I do recommend
Speaker 2: reading that. There's a twenty twelve Mother Jones article with
Speaker 2: some of his best quotes that will link in the
Speaker 2: show notes if you want a better understanding of the man. Though,
Speaker 2: you know that's a good way of getting it. But
Speaker 2: for our purposes today, we're going to be focusing on
Speaker 2: the novel nineteen forty five, which he co authored. It
Speaker 2: is set in an alternate world where the US defeated Japan,
Speaker 2: but Hitler never declared war on the US and so
Speaker 2: we never got involved in a war with Germany. The
Speaker 2: Nazis won their war with the Soviets. They took most
Speaker 2: of their European holdings and forced them to accept a piece.
Speaker 2: They then boxed the Brits into a corner. A few
Speaker 2: years later, they carried out a surprise attack on the
Speaker 2: United States in order to kill our nuclear scientists and
Speaker 2: stop the completion of what in our universe we know
Speaker 2: is the Manhattan Project. Now, because of where this takes place,
Speaker 2: i'll spoil it for you, Molly. This book centers around
Speaker 2: the Waffen SS invading East Tennessee. That's what this book
Speaker 2: is about.
Speaker 3: How they get all the way to Tennessee.
Speaker 2: They've got their wonder weapons, They've got these newt Is. Again,
Speaker 2: he's like a History Channel history buff, right, So a
Speaker 2: huge part of this book is like the Nazis building
Speaker 2: all of these wonder weapons that were mostly theoretical during
Speaker 2: the actual war, including this like massive you know, bombing
Speaker 2: type plane that they had kind of been talking about
Speaker 2: making that probably never would have worked out. Like it's
Speaker 2: all sorts of like nonsense sci fi weapons, right, And.
Speaker 3: What didn't they want with Tennessee specifically.
Speaker 2: It's where the nuclear program was headed.
Speaker 3: That's true.
Speaker 2: Well, actually I think it was initially before they moved
Speaker 2: to Los Alamos. I think they had it was somewhere
Speaker 2: in like the southeast before they moved to Los Alamos
Speaker 2: that they had like the early stages of the nuclear program.
Speaker 2: And I think he's just kind of positing a much
Speaker 2: more primitive nuclear program. But I'm going to pull up
Speaker 2: the book, Molly, because at this point you should see
Speaker 2: this bad boy. Look at this. Look at this.
Speaker 3: Look at that cover art.
Speaker 2: There we go, there we go, full cover art. Look
Speaker 2: at the size of his name. There it looks king
Speaker 2: Ridge nineteen forty five. Yeah, like it's a book about
Speaker 2: a two year old Newt Gingrich and kind.
Speaker 3: Of that's like a sci fi fielder. If a listener,
Speaker 3: you know, if you're not watching this on YouTube, I
Speaker 3: don't ever go to YouTube dot com. I'm not watching
Speaker 3: this on YouTube. The cover of the book is on
Speaker 3: the books Wikipedia page, and it has kind of a
Speaker 3: sci fi vibe to it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, now I want you to look at the back here.
Speaker 2: First off, Nut's smaller than I expected when you see
Speaker 2: him in a photo like this. This is a picture
Speaker 2: of him with his co author, William R. Forstun Uh
Speaker 2: and with Jim Bain, who is the owner of Baine Publishing.
Speaker 2: And we're going to be talking a lot about Baine Publishing.
Speaker 3: I also related to Baine Capital or Bane. The Batman
Speaker 3: villain no.
Speaker 2: Not at all spelled differently, has not broken Batman's back.
Speaker 2: I do. I do really like the hitler on the
Speaker 2: back here. You can see him here. He's he just
Speaker 2: looks so happy.
Speaker 3: You hold it up to me on camera, on camera,
Speaker 3: other camera.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's hard to figure out here, Yeah that way, Yeah,
Speaker 2: there we go. Wow, that's a good hitler. Look at him.
Speaker 2: Look at him.
Speaker 4: The choice Spokinger.
Speaker 3: Is six feet tall. How big are those other men?
Speaker 2: Oh wow? Because yeah, I thought he was actually tall
Speaker 2: so these guys. So I think it's William Forst. It
Speaker 2: is just kind of a fucking mountain of a man. Yeah,
Speaker 2: he's got to be like six three sixty four. It's
Speaker 2: a big guy. Jim Bain not a big guy, also
Speaker 2: has the and I say this with all loved pornographers,
Speaker 2: he has the smile of a pornographer, right like, look
Speaker 2: at that. That's a man who's looking at you naked.
Speaker 2: Like there's no, there's no, there's no other way to
Speaker 2: describe the look on Jim Bayin's face. Speaking of people
Speaker 2: who look at you naked. Our sponsors don't they would
Speaker 2: never do that. They're gentlemen, you know, or gentle thems,
Speaker 2: because I think they probably don't identify as a binary
Speaker 2: gender given the bar raytheon is definitely non binary. Yes,
Speaker 2: speaking of non binary, here's more ads and we're back.
Speaker 2: So I want to get into the book jacket of this,
Speaker 2: of this mammajama. Let's let's see what this is about.
Speaker 2: And you can tell right away on the inside. This
Speaker 2: was a nineteen ninety five, twenty four US dollars That
Speaker 2: is kind of pressing way way too much money to
Speaker 2: spend on Newton Gingrich's nineteen forty five Holy.
Speaker 3: Shit, twenty nine to ninety nine for that hardback today
Speaker 3: would be pushing it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, this is like maybe like a fifteen dollars book. Man,
Speaker 2: that's a lot. That's a lot, So introducing Lieutenant Commander
Speaker 2: James Martel. He's the right man in the right place
Speaker 2: at a very bad time. The year is nineteen forty five.
Speaker 2: In Europe, the Third Reich reigns triumphant, the Soviet Union
Speaker 2: is a fragment of its former self, and Britain has
Speaker 2: accepted a dictated armistice in the Pacific after a brief,
Speaker 2: sharp war with Japan. America is the only significant military
Speaker 2: presence now. The world's two superpowers a ee each other,
Speaker 2: warily across an Atlantic Ocean that daily grows smaller. The
Speaker 2: big show is about to start. Who will win? The
Speaker 2: Americans with their formidable industrial base and superior logistical techniques,
Speaker 2: or the Germans with their science fiction super weapons that
Speaker 2: turn out not to be fictional. After all, only one
Speaker 2: thing is certain. If America is beaten, this alternative Reich
Speaker 2: will last one thousand years. Join Speaker of the House
Speaker 2: Newt Gingrich and fellow historian William all Our Forestune and
Speaker 2: a world that, save for Adolf Hitler's inexplicable hot folly
Speaker 2: and prematurely declaring war in the United States in nineteen
Speaker 2: forty one, would have been.
Speaker 3: Just revisiting the timeline here. So he's not writing this
Speaker 3: in his spare time, like in his retirement, or this
Speaker 3: is speaker.
Speaker 2: This is a year after he like orchestrates a complete
Speaker 2: upending of US electoral politics.
Speaker 3: Should he be focusing on like the government?
Speaker 2: No, No, I think we can all agree this was
Speaker 2: a better use of his time to doing his job. Also,
Speaker 2: I just find it very funny that he describes himself
Speaker 2: and his co author as fellow historians, because, as a spoiler,
Speaker 2: they are not. Neither of them are historians. Well, Forestine
Speaker 2: is a little bit of a historian, but he's like
Speaker 2: a historian who went immediately into writing alternate histories. He
Speaker 2: is a professor of history at Montreat College in north
Speaker 2: But that's not a yeah, look, I'll give it. I'll
Speaker 2: give a partial to Forestin right, because again, he spends
Speaker 2: most of his career like his big job is writing
Speaker 2: a bunch of articles for Boys Life magazine as well
Speaker 2: as young adult novels. And does that make you a
Speaker 2: real historian. I'm going to put that. I'm gonna put
Speaker 2: that on the cusp. But fucking Newt Gingrid certainly is
Speaker 2: not a real historian. Forstin's main publisher was Bain, who
Speaker 2: back in the early to mid nineteen nineties was a
Speaker 2: major purveyor of of pulp sci fi and alternate history books.
Speaker 2: That changed as a result of nineteen forty five, which,
Speaker 2: due to Gingrich's star power, was expected to be a
Speaker 2: major hit. You can tell that just just by the
Speaker 2: look of this cover, right, Nut's name is massive. They're
Speaker 2: charging twenty four fucking dollars for this thing, and yeah,
Speaker 2: it's a catastrophe, Molly. It's one of the greatest disasters
Speaker 2: in fucking alt history publishing. If you read online forums
Speaker 2: where alt history fans discuss this book, the rumors, credible
Speaker 2: ones are that Newt promised Baine he was going to
Speaker 2: devote a lot of time using his platform. Newt is
Speaker 2: a famous pr house, right, He's constantly talking to the
Speaker 2: Washington Post. He's willing to say like shitty stuff about
Speaker 2: himself to them, as we've kind of covered earlier, because
Speaker 2: his attitude is I should always be in the Post. Right.
Speaker 2: So Bain is like, well, old Newt, he knows how
Speaker 2: to get all the attention. We need to move some
Speaker 2: real copies. Let's buy like a hundred thousand copies of
Speaker 2: this fucking.
Speaker 5: Book sells a thousand cos I know it's so funny
Speaker 5: and yeah, Newton fails to do the actual pr that
Speaker 5: he had promised to do, and as a result, nineteen
Speaker 5: forty five is one of the biggest flops in publishing history.
Speaker 2: According to The Washington Post, for every hundred copies of
Speaker 2: this book that were sent out by Bain, eighty one
Speaker 2: were returned unsold, leaving the publisher with almost one hundred
Speaker 2: thousand copies sitting around their warehouse. The scuttle butt is
Speaker 2: that this was such a flop it nearly killed Bain entirely. Well,
Speaker 2: I was doing my presearch for this episode, I found
Speaker 2: a thread on a forum titled alternatehistory dot com from
Speaker 2: two thousand and seven. Users speculated about why the sequel
Speaker 2: never came to pass. One user bco wrote, nineteen forty
Speaker 2: five practically bankrupted Baine books. They assumed a prominent figure
Speaker 2: is Gingridge, would lead to huge sales, printed up a
Speaker 2: lot of books, couldn't sell many of them. The idea
Speaker 2: of a sequel was out of the question. Another user,
Speaker 2: Amerigo Vespucci, replied with added context to make matters worse,
Speaker 2: there was a falling out between Jim Bain and Forstin
Speaker 2: over creative differences in the story and part Forston wrote
Speaker 2: the story as a single volume, but in order to
Speaker 2: better capitalize on the name on the cover, Baines split
Speaker 2: it into two volumes. There were other differences as well,
Speaker 2: and bain never really discussed the matter in public and
Speaker 2: left a bad taste in his mouth. Even with Bain's passing,
Speaker 2: I doubt we'll ever see the second volume. It'd be
Speaker 2: too many legal problems surrounding it. Your best bet might
Speaker 2: be to wait twenty years or so until Forston is
Speaker 2: dead too. He is still alive into a law school
Speaker 2: to become a Crackerjack lawyer and publicist, and then start
Speaker 2: negotiations to have the second volume released from his estate.
Speaker 2: I love the thought of a man who's that dedicated
Speaker 2: to a nineteen forty five sequel. It's a thirty year
Speaker 2: plan to get that book.
Speaker 3: Does Hitler die?
Speaker 2: Hitler is still alive at this.
Speaker 3: In the sequel, How does it end for Hitler?
Speaker 2: I think the way this book is supposed to explain
Speaker 2: things with Hitler is that like he's in a horrible
Speaker 2: plane crash and forty one and so he gets all
Speaker 2: fucked up and his people are able to like negotiate
Speaker 2: a piece with the USSR, and as a result, he
Speaker 2: kind of loses his mind. Like he's just like this damaged,
Speaker 2: broken figure of a man in the book.
Speaker 3: But he was so mentally normal.
Speaker 2: He Yeah, he was doing so great before because this
Speaker 2: is an alt history thing, and because Newt is the
Speaker 2: kind of dude that he is. The main Nazi in
Speaker 2: this is a guy named Otto Skorzeny, who is a
Speaker 2: lot of people. He was a real guy. He was
Speaker 2: one of the fathers of like modern special forces tactics,
Speaker 2: like Screzenny is a major figure in the development of
Speaker 2: like that kind of shit. I did find in a
Speaker 2: there's a Fucking U Orlando Sentinel book review that says
Speaker 2: that he died during an attack on crete, which is
Speaker 2: not true. He lived until the seventies. He moved to
Speaker 2: Spain so that Franco would protect him, and he lived
Speaker 2: a fairly long life for a dude like him. But yeah,
Speaker 2: I wanted to start here with one of them. I
Speaker 2: was probably the most famous passage in this book, right,
Speaker 2: the opening scene, which features a high powered DC politician
Speaker 2: who happens to be If I'm not mistaken, the speaker
Speaker 2: of the House.
Speaker 3: So this is self insert.
Speaker 2: Yes, this is Newt's self insert. And remember nineteen ninety five.
Speaker 2: This is right around when Newt Gingrich is attacking Clinton
Speaker 2: and saying that he should be impeached because he.
Speaker 3: Describing self insert character as like very handsome.
Speaker 2: He describes his self insert character as having an affair
Speaker 2: while he, as the real Speaker of the House, was
Speaker 2: in this moment having an affair.
Speaker 3: Okay, we have some honesty.
Speaker 2: And specifically, the point of this chapter is his self
Speaker 2: insert character hands over the secret to a Nazi spy
Speaker 2: who is the person he's having an affair with that
Speaker 2: the US is working on creating an atomic weapon like
Speaker 2: the inciting incident in this is his self insert being
Speaker 2: compromised and giving up nuclear secrets in order to get
Speaker 2: laid and.
Speaker 3: He is, in the real world the Speaker of the House.
Speaker 2: The Speaker of the House, and having an affair with
Speaker 2: a statu it'sund trustworthy to me. It's amazing stuff. September first,
Speaker 2: nineteen forty five, Washington, DC. Also, I don't know why
Speaker 2: they do this, but they spell prologue wrong.
Speaker 3: That's not so any ways to spell that.
Speaker 2: At the end of this I've only ever seen it
Speaker 2: spelled with an E at the end of it. I
Speaker 2: don't understand why they're doing it this way, But Darling,
Speaker 2: Germany and the United States are not at war. What
Speaker 2: harm is there if we share the occasional bit of gossip.
Speaker 2: Surely you don't think that I a loyal Swede? The
Speaker 2: question trailed off in a lethal paser as his beautiful
Speaker 2: and so very exotic mistress stretched languidly mock innocent appeal
Speaker 2: in her eyes. Still, he mustn't let her see just
Speaker 2: how much she moved him. A relationship had to have
Speaker 2: some balance. He stretched, in turn, reached out over his
Speaker 2: for his cigarettes and gold plated ronson on the Art
Speaker 2: deco nightstand with its tiffany lamp. Since he wasn't sure
Speaker 2: what to say, he made a production out of lighting
Speaker 2: up and enjoying that first luxurious after bout inhalation. What
Speaker 2: an unsexy way of talking about the aftermath of.
Speaker 4: Sex, just to say Prologue NOE is a declarative programming
Speaker 4: language designed for developing logic based AI applications.
Speaker 2: I think, okay, so this is oh maybe this is
Speaker 2: what open ai used to create their AI. Is it
Speaker 2: all based on.
Speaker 4: Gingrich saying, here, that's exactly what ian.
Speaker 2: What a nightmare, What a hideous, hideous nightmare. So he's
Speaker 2: having after sex smokes with this lady who's very obviously
Speaker 2: Nazi spy.
Speaker 3: Yeah, she's not even being kind of sly about it.
Speaker 3: She said, what if we just if you really loved me,
Speaker 3: you'd tell me national defense information?
Speaker 2: Yeah? Yeah, now here is Newt not at all talking
Speaker 2: about his actual marriage and actual infidelity. Playfully to drive
Speaker 2: home the potential law, she bit his shoulders than kissed
Speaker 2: it better. Ah, hell, I don't want to. I wish
Speaker 2: I could just divorce miss little Goody two shoes. I
Speaker 2: like this arrangement, she laughed softly. Mistress to the chief
Speaker 2: of staff of the president of Oh, sorry, the chief
Speaker 2: of staff. So it's not exactly him, right, it's just
Speaker 2: basically him. A nice title. Don't you think such a
Speaker 2: book I could write? Mayhew shuddered at the thought. Don't
Speaker 2: even joke about it. But he could trust her to
Speaker 2: be discreet. He was sure he could trust her more
Speaker 2: to cover his moment of doubt than for any other reason.
Speaker 2: He harked back to her initial gambit. One thing, we
Speaker 2: really don't have to worry about is a war between
Speaker 2: Germany and the United States. It just isn't in the cards.
Speaker 2: There's no way it could happen within the next year
Speaker 2: or so. And after that we'll take it from me.
Speaker 2: But nobody is going to dream of messing with the
Speaker 2: United States, not even Adolf Hitler. I don't think there's
Speaker 2: going to be a war either. But you seem so sure.
Speaker 2: What is your big secret? You were so excited about
Speaker 2: it when you came in here, and now you won't
Speaker 2: tell me. Suddenly, the pouting sex kitten gave way to Diana,
Speaker 2: the huntress. Tell me, she hissed. Mayhew looked at his
Speaker 2: delicious interrogator for a moment. Her intensity almost frightened him.
Speaker 2: Then he was overcome by it by her. His had
Speaker 2: been a strict and starchy upbringing, and his marriage had
Speaker 2: not been born of love but of political opportunity, though
Speaker 2: his wife didn't know that, so he capitulated. Besides, he
Speaker 2: wanted to tell. What good were secrets if you couldn't share? Okay,
Speaker 2: I surrender, Lucky for you, she purred, then left, such
Speaker 2: games we have, she whispered, in his year, you play wonderfully.
Speaker 2: Now tell Having given in characteristically, he stalled, Sure, you're
Speaker 2: not looking for a story for your Swedish newspaper. She
Speaker 2: just looked at him. He could tell she was tiring
Speaker 2: of the delay. And then he tells her that we're
Speaker 2: making a nuke.
Speaker 3: Uh missed the annual training that they give men in
Speaker 3: the government that like, beautiful women do not want to
Speaker 3: with you with their tops off? Now women aren't just
Speaker 3: aren't doing that?
Speaker 2: Yeah, no, they never would. Uh. I think that's very funny.
Speaker 2: I think there's so much, so many, so much off
Speaker 2: putting language in this book, like thinking of Newt Gingridge
Speaker 2: writing the word sex kitten gives me like physical shivers
Speaker 2: up and down my spine, and it should do the
Speaker 2: same to you. But you know what doesn't make me shiver?
Speaker 4: How cute my dog is in the background of this video.
Speaker 2: That gives me a little shiver. That gives me a
Speaker 2: little shiver, but like a joy shiver, right, yeah, joy shiver?
Speaker 2: You know? Sure? Why not?
Speaker 1: Uh?
Speaker 2: The products and services that support.
Speaker 4: Our pod, but do they support my dog?
Speaker 5: Uh?
Speaker 2: No, they're neutral, they're neutral. They're cat people.
Speaker 4: She left. Uh huh the second you said no, she left?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 3: Wow, Standra Brown Anderson.
Speaker 2: And weird.
Speaker 4: You can really tell this is election day?
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, we're really We're half asking our nineteen forty
Speaker 2: five episode.
Speaker 3: So I can't wait to find out what happens when
Speaker 3: she doesn't do anything with that secret.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, well she does and Hitler invades East Tennessee.
Speaker 3: Which is funny because there is a guy who does
Speaker 3: love Hitler who has a compound in East Tennessee.
Speaker 2: There's a lot, Molly, there's more than one guy who
Speaker 2: loves Hitler and has a compound in East Tennessee. God,
Speaker 2: so there's a Gizmoto article I found called newt Gingrid
Speaker 2: should go back to writing science fiction. Yes, we should,
Speaker 2: kind of urging him to finish this book. It has
Speaker 2: some interesting stuff to say about this piece of fiction.
Speaker 2: In any case, whether nineteen forty five is as historically
Speaker 2: dodgy as many have claimed, it contains several vile elements
Speaker 2: of total awesomeness. For one thing, the triumphant Nazi Germany
Speaker 2: spends its time developing what the back cover describes as
Speaker 2: science fiction super weapons. You think I'm kidding? How about
Speaker 2: rockets that are remotely guided via television cameras or superjets
Speaker 2: with drop tanks to provide ground support. Plus super rockets
Speaker 2: and hydrogen powered submarines, plus every villain in front of
Speaker 2: a real you got to stick super in front of it,
Speaker 2: otherwise people won't know that it's better than the normal
Speaker 2: kind of thing. Every villain in this book is hideous
Speaker 2: and crazy. At some point, Scorzenny gets injured and loses
Speaker 2: an eye so he can get an eyepatch or maybe
Speaker 2: some kind of cyborg guy. In this passage, our hero
Speaker 2: the square jaw Jim Martel, tries to shoot down Scorzenny's
Speaker 2: plane and fails. Now ammunition gone, he can only watch
Speaker 2: is the second and then the third plane lifted off.
Speaker 2: Unlike the second plane, the third stayed low as the
Speaker 2: pilot pushed it in just enough lefts rudder to cause
Speaker 2: the plane to crab onto the edge of the grass
Speaker 2: strips that it passed by, not twenty feet away from
Speaker 2: where Jim stood otto. Skorzeny looked down, grinning demonically, and
Speaker 2: James Martel finally understood the meaning of hatred. There's apparently
Speaker 2: like three or four times where a character learns the
Speaker 2: meaning of hatred, and that's because Newt Gingridge is an
Speaker 2: educator likes it when people expand their minds. For a
Speaker 2: little bit more coverage of some of the awkward lines
Speaker 2: in this book, I'm going to turn to an Orlando
Speaker 2: Sentinel piece titled as a writer, Gigrich makes a good Politician.
Speaker 2: Good title for a book review. Nineteen forty five is
Speaker 2: cluttered with awkward lines, like the exhaust vapors that swirled
Speaker 2: in through the car's open windows stank like hell itself.
Speaker 2: Then there's this, the scene brought to Martell's mind, the
Speaker 2: absurd image of a cobra tenderly protecting a baby. Much
Speaker 2: of the free puff, what's bringing that to mind? Why
Speaker 2: would that bring that to mine? Have you ever seen that?
Speaker 2: Is that a thing you can picture because you've witnessed it?
Speaker 2: You know what this reminds me of? Yeah, you know,
Speaker 2: this reminds me of a thing no one's ever seen
Speaker 2: much of. Yeah, it's very funny. Much of the pre
Speaker 2: publication hoopless surrounding nineteen forty five involved it supposedly steamy
Speaker 2: sex scenes, some of which were exerpted last year in
Speaker 2: The New York Times magazine when the book was still
Speaker 2: in draft form. Gingrich vowed to tone down the sex.
Speaker 2: He succeeded, for example, in bed with his Yeah, I mean,
Speaker 2: we just read that passage. But I love that there
Speaker 2: were leaks of this that were too horny and he
Speaker 2: had to change the final draft. There's also a lot
Speaker 2: of tweaking these. It's got to be newde right, who
Speaker 2: else would lead these? Right, He's just testing the water.
Speaker 2: How can we get a good amount of George HW.
Speaker 2: Bush slander in this? Gingrich talks about like has a
Speaker 2: character who knew him when he was a pilot, because
Speaker 2: George H. W. Bush fought World War Two, who says,
Speaker 2: if you needed someone to lead a group straight into
Speaker 2: enemy black, he was your man, which is funny because
Speaker 2: he was in fact shot down during the war. And
Speaker 2: he had to also edit those portions to be nicer
Speaker 2: to George H. W. Bush, which is cowardly new like you,
Speaker 2: you've blown up any sort of legitimacy your book had
Speaker 2: when you do stuff like that. Anyway, I want to
Speaker 2: move to a passage midway through the book that's set
Speaker 2: in Winston Churchill's office because one of the things that
Speaker 2: happens while the Germans and vad East Tennessee Rommel conducts
Speaker 2: the landing in Scotland. Of course they're moving down through
Speaker 2: the Desert Fox is going to the Desert Fox. No one,
Speaker 2: no one's better, no one better to conduct a war
Speaker 2: on the Scottish Mors than the Desert Fox. Just poort
Speaker 2: the Africa Corps right on over. They'll appreciate the breeze.
Speaker 2: So I want to talk about this just because there's
Speaker 2: a little bit here that's kind of relevant to modern politics.
Speaker 2: Here's Winston Churchill talking uh and one of his aids.
Speaker 1: I've both made the same face where we're like, oh no,
Speaker 1: uh huh.
Speaker 2: He's talking to one of his aides again named Andrew.
Speaker 2: For my part, I've ordered a secret alert for the
Speaker 2: Royal Air Force starting at midnight. Also, the Army will
Speaker 2: move on spring maneuver schedule up so as to increase
Speaker 2: troop strengths throughout England. I'm also going to make a
Speaker 2: speech before the House next week accusing Hitler of preparing
Speaker 2: to launch an attack against US. Winston, I wish you
Speaker 2: wouldn't do that. Why because the America First crowd will
Speaker 2: go to town on you. That's why they claim it
Speaker 2: was part of an ongoing plot to drag US into
Speaker 2: yet another European conflict. They'll say it was a repeat
Speaker 2: of what you and Roosevelt tried to do in forty
Speaker 2: and forty one. They'll say you're deliberately trying to provoke Hitler,
Speaker 2: that you came back to office intending to do just
Speaker 2: that to finally drag us into a showdown with Germany.
Speaker 2: If you make that speech, I won't be able to
Speaker 2: back you up. A cold, static laden silence was the
Speaker 2: only response. Even Roosevelt didn't start to move openly until
Speaker 2: after the forty elections. You know, Andrew continued, after a
Speaker 2: moment's pause. You know that I agreed with him one
Speaker 2: hundred percent. I could see the threat as far back
Speaker 2: as the denownment Versailles and the move into the Rhineland.
Speaker 2: I knew then, and I know now that the maniac
Speaker 2: son of a bitch would never stop on his own,
Speaker 2: and that nothing short of a full scale war with
Speaker 2: the United States could stop him. We should have been
Speaker 2: in it back in forty one. If it hadn't been
Speaker 2: for that damned accident, he'd have declared war on us
Speaker 2: after Pearl Harbor. He all but told me that himself
Speaker 2: in forty one we'd have won easily. Now he's ten
Speaker 2: times more dangerous. I just love that the America first
Speaker 2: guys are the bad guy in nineteen ninety five, and
Speaker 2: fucking Gingrich is absolutely going to wind up on that
Speaker 2: side here. Yeah. Now, there's a couple other fun moments
Speaker 2: in another chapter not long after this, we go to
Speaker 2: Rommel talking with some of his people, and there's a
Speaker 2: line here that's very funny. Americans would be startled to
Speaker 2: discover the degree of camaraderie that existed not just between
Speaker 2: different ranks within the German officer corps, but between officers
Speaker 2: and rankers. The practice had its roots in the mutinous
Speaker 2: conditions prevalent in the German military at the end of
Speaker 2: the Great War. Perhaps Germans could afford the informality because
Speaker 2: German society was early status conscious, whereas Americans soone ready
Speaker 2: to grant superior superiority to anybody needed the outward manifestations
Speaker 2: of rank, because otherwise they would lose track of who
Speaker 2: issued orders and who took them. It's an interesting description
Speaker 2: of American culture.
Speaker 3: A strange read of Germans. I don't know that there
Speaker 3: was informality in ranks.
Speaker 2: Yeah, informality in the German military. I think he's trying
Speaker 2: to talk about like Alftrig's tactic, which was this kind
Speaker 2: of anti It was this kind of flattening of military
Speaker 2: hierarchies in certain specific ways that came about as a
Speaker 2: result of like combat in World War One, where you
Speaker 2: were saying basically, like unit leading officers should have a
Speaker 2: lot of freedom to like conduct advances and kind of
Speaker 2: carry out attacks in a way that sort of they
Speaker 2: see fit, rather than having to follow orders to the
Speaker 2: letter from above, right.
Speaker 1: It was.
Speaker 3: I just don't know that translated into sort of the
Speaker 3: social I don't know that.
Speaker 2: I would say the German military was particularly informal between
Speaker 2: officers and civilians, especially since, like the Prussian younger officer
Speaker 2: class was still a major part of the German military
Speaker 2: in this period.
Speaker 3: So what happens when they get to Tennessee, is it
Speaker 3: like a ground invasion?
Speaker 2: I think they, I mean they come in from the air,
Speaker 2: right of course. And then I mean I can tell
Speaker 2: you what happens, which is that Sergeant Alvin York and
Speaker 2: a bunch of elderly veterans formal militia and stop the Nazis. Largely,
Speaker 2: that's who saves the day. Because Newt's got to have
Speaker 2: his like pro Second Amendment stuff, so he like puts
Speaker 2: it in the mouth of like an elderly sergeant York fighting.
Speaker 3: Off old men of Appalachia.
Speaker 2: Just look by that can buy that. I mean, the
Speaker 2: SS proved in the actual World War two that they
Speaker 2: were not very good at fighting an insurgency, and I
Speaker 2: think that Appalachia is worse terrain to fight an insurgency
Speaker 2: than anywhere in western Russia. So I'm going to say, yeah, probably,
Speaker 2: probably that would have gone bad for the Nazis.
Speaker 3: So this could conceivably have been an interesting alternate history,
Speaker 3: the Waffen SS trying to like fight their way down
Speaker 3: to town through apple Achian just getting their shit wrecked.
Speaker 2: Well, the problem with this book because that isn't it,
Speaker 2: And that's a book I would read, especially if someone
Speaker 2: like that, someone less problematic, like Harry Turtledove had written
Speaker 2: The Fucker. But that's not like Nute actually Nute and
Speaker 2: Forstune kind of fall for a standard pitfall in writing
Speaker 2: fiction here, writing particularly like speculative past fiction, is you
Speaker 2: have this point that's the actual thing that you want
Speaker 2: to get that's actually interesting, which is like an insurgent
Speaker 2: war in apple Atchia between the Nazis and like elderly
Speaker 2: American World War one veterans. That's a fun premise, but
Speaker 2: you don't get to it until the very end of
Speaker 2: the book. Right by the end of the book, Hitler's
Speaker 2: you know, geared up for a full scale invasion and
Speaker 2: we're actually getting ready to have like you know that
Speaker 2: he's set up like a navy conflict between like US
Speaker 2: carrier groups and Nazi like the German navy. Like there's
Speaker 2: a lot of cool stuff that's happening by the end potentially,
Speaker 2: but it's not really a part of the story because
Speaker 2: he feels the need to like go back much fur it.
Speaker 2: Like you should always start a book at the thing
Speaker 2: that's most interesting to you, right, Like you don't actually
Speaker 2: want to waste a lot of time building up to that,
Speaker 2: even if you're like, well, people are gonna want to
Speaker 2: know how we got here, No they're not. They don't
Speaker 2: give a shit. Start at whatever's most interesting. You know,
Speaker 2: it's a rookie mistake. Maybe if Newton hadn't been so
Speaker 2: busy being the Speaker of the House, he'd have been
Speaker 2: able to get it right.
Speaker 3: So what you're saying is the sequel is probably a banger, and.
Speaker 2: Need to get a sequel as a banger. It was
Speaker 2: all apparently intended to be one book that's too long.
Speaker 2: But yeah, you know, I don't know. We probably don't
Speaker 2: need to go through this whole thing, especially because I
Speaker 2: it's the election and I.
Speaker 3: Don't think thatst Jim Martel right the.
Speaker 2: Story march Al Martinal, you know the name, yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 2: also played by Christopher uh what's his name? From The
Speaker 2: Lord of the Rings. I don't know. I think I'm
Speaker 2: good on this book. We had forty five minutes, right,
Speaker 2: that's all we owe you on our on our off week.
Speaker 2: This is an off week. We're taking. We're taking a breather.
Speaker 2: We're trying not to focus too much on the news
Speaker 2: because nothing interesting is going to happen yet. You in
Speaker 2: the future know, so just scream at past Robert and
Speaker 2: Molly about what happened.
Speaker 3: And if I don't get any message from the future,
Speaker 3: I will assume that we all die this week.
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Please? Is it for the whole world? Thank god? Thank goodness. Anyway, Molly,
Speaker 2: how do you feel about the alternate past? What's you
Speaker 2: what's your favorite World War two counterfactual? Do you spend
Speaker 2: much time thinking about, like, for example, what if the
Speaker 2: Germans hadn't invaded Russia but had focused all of their
Speaker 2: military might on North Africa.
Speaker 3: You know, as a woman, Robert, I'm going to say, no,
Speaker 3: I have never thought about that.
Speaker 1: All.
Speaker 2: That's a shame. I spent a lot of time doing
Speaker 2: World War two counterfactually.
Speaker 3: Now I could run get my partner. I think probably
Speaker 3: could talk about this for hours. I think this is
Speaker 3: the thing that men like to think about. Oh yeah,
Speaker 3: but no, no, I have never considered this.
Speaker 2: So are you more of a World War one counterfactual guy? Like?
Speaker 2: What if? What if Serbia had had taken over the
Speaker 2: Austro Hungarian Empire? What if? What if by World War
Speaker 2: two the great land power in Europe was the Serbian Empire?
Speaker 4: What if?
Speaker 3: I'm always I'm always asking myself like that, Sylvia, aren't
Speaker 3: you always asking about that?
Speaker 2: I'll tell I'll tell you one thing. We never would
Speaker 2: have stopped putting cigarettes in movies. Right If Serbia is
Speaker 2: like a China sized like market for American television and film,
Speaker 2: cigarettes don't ever get cut out of Hollywood now, So
Speaker 2: that's good. That's my prediction.
Speaker 4: Anyway, Molly, do you have anything you want to plug?
Speaker 3: Yeah, you should listen to my podcast Weird Little Guys
Speaker 3: assuming no acts of terrorism happened this week, I won't
Speaker 3: have any new news to cover in there.
Speaker 2: But there have already been five bob threats against poling
Speaker 2: locations in Georgia.
Speaker 3: Oh, they did pick up a guy the other day
Speaker 3: with an armed bomb about to blow up the power
Speaker 3: grid in Nashville. So it does keep happening To.
Speaker 2: Say there will be no acts of terror rism.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, you can tune into Weird Little Guys to
Speaker 3: hear about these kind of weird little guys who do
Speaker 3: things like that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, speaking of weird little guys, Newt Gingridge probably a
Speaker 2: lot littler because he's extremely old now, so he's weird.
Speaker 3: Check out Knut's wife's Instagram. She photoshops her face to
Speaker 3: be completely smooth in every picture.
Speaker 2: It's in beautiful, beautiful, and presumably, if this book is true,
Speaker 2: she's plying him for nuclear secrets. She's, you know what, the.
Speaker 3: Ambassador to the Vatican. She's not anymore.
Speaker 2: Wow, And that is what a do nothing job. I know,
Speaker 2: Make me ambassador to the Vatican, because you know what
Speaker 2: I'm going to do. I'm going to get into those catacombs.
Speaker 2: I'm going to steal some saints bones. You know I'm
Speaker 2: gonna have.
Speaker 3: A bigger I'm getting the Coronavisor. Oh oh wow, hops
Speaker 3: time machine.
Speaker 2: Yeah, of course.
Speaker 1: Anyways, time machine hopefully.
Speaker 2: I love I love the idea that the Pope has
Speaker 2: a time machine because my imagination is, rather than doing
Speaker 2: like anything that would help the Catholic Church, he just
Speaker 2: repeatedly goes back in time to like put a thumbnail
Speaker 2: on Martin Luther's chair, like he's just constantly fucking with
Speaker 2: Martin Luther a little bit.
Speaker 3: I don't think the Coronavisor allows you to manipulate the
Speaker 3: past only to view it.
Speaker 2: Oh oh well, then I would go look at dinosaurs, obviously,
Speaker 2: That's that's the only thing I would be interested. I'm
Speaker 2: proud to say I wouldn't stop any historical crimes with
Speaker 2: a time machine. I'm doing nothing but dinosaur related stuff
Speaker 2: if I get access to a time machine. Yeah yeah, anyways,
Speaker 2: so I'm go have sex with nude Gangridge and get
Speaker 2: secrets from him. I hope there's only one way to learn.
Speaker 4: I hope future everybody is okay, yeah.
Speaker 2: Okay, and you know where a rubber you don't know
Speaker 2: where Nut's been, doesn't know where.
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