Speaker 1: The Internet is our best shot at holding these cowards accountable.
Speaker 2: There are no Girls on the Internet. As a production
Speaker 2: of iHeartRadio and Unbossed Creative, I'm Bridget Todd, and this
Speaker 2: is there are no girls on the Internet. Remember Signal Gate.
Speaker 2: It's been a minute and a lot has happened. So
Speaker 2: here's a quick refresher. The President's national security team got
Speaker 2: caught using Signal, a private messaging app, to discuss sensitive
Speaker 2: military operations, top tier secret stuff that should only really
Speaker 2: be discussed on the Pentagon's ultra secure, billion dollar communication systems.
Speaker 2: But instead of following protocol, Vice President j d Vance,
Speaker 2: Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseach, National Security Advisor Mike Waltz,
Speaker 2: and others were chatting on Signal. Now, I want to
Speaker 2: be clear, Signal the app did nothing wrong. We're huge
Speaker 2: fans of the Signal app here at there are no
Speaker 2: girls on the Internet. It's run by a nonprofit led
Speaker 2: by Meredith Whittaker, who I deeply admire. This was user error,
Speaker 2: plain and simple. So how did we even find out? Well,
Speaker 2: it wasn't through a leak or a hack or a whistleblower. No, no,
Speaker 2: no, no no. Someone accidentally added the editor in chief of
Speaker 2: The Atlantic, Jeffrey Goldberg, to the group chat, I have
Speaker 2: to be honest. It's the kind of fat fingered mistake
Speaker 2: I find kind of relatable personally, but I am not
Speaker 2: handling national security. And it gets worse. After the scandal,
Speaker 2: Waltz was photographed using an unofficial signal knockoff called TM signal,
Speaker 2: made by a company called Telemessage, which was recently bought
Speaker 2: by I kid you not a company called smarsh That's
Speaker 2: a name that definitely inspires confidence. Now, unlike Signal, TM
Speaker 2: signal stores messages on central servers insecurely, kind of the
Speaker 2: opposite of signals. Whole thing. Since this story broke, hackers
Speaker 2: have breached the servers multiple times. One hacker told four
Speaker 2: l four media that Telebassage had not bothered to implement
Speaker 2: basic digital security of practices, and that's the whole thing,
Speaker 2: always with about fifteen minutes to break into. Now, this
Speaker 2: is not just political drama. It's about real lives, like
Speaker 2: those of America's three million service members, people like the
Speaker 2: husband of my friend Kendall Brown, a digital strategist and
Speaker 2: content creator. Service members can't always speak out, but Kendall can.
Speaker 2: She makes it her business to use the Internet to
Speaker 2: speak up for service members like her husband.
Speaker 1: Weirdly, he in some ways I think he lives vicariously
Speaker 1: through me online, that I'm able to say all of
Speaker 1: this shit and he cannot. So I think in some
Speaker 1: way like I've never made a video related to the
Speaker 1: military without running it by him first, and I have
Speaker 1: yet to make one that he doesn't agree with, So
Speaker 1: in some ways I feel like I'm being his mouth
Speaker 1: for him.
Speaker 2: Beyond the logistics of what happened with Signal Gate, Kendall's
Speaker 2: reaction went deeper. She was pissed off. Here's a little
Speaker 2: of what Kendall had to say in her now viral
Speaker 2: TikTok about Signal Gate.
Speaker 1: As someone whose husband is currently deployed in the Middle East,
Speaker 1: not far from Yemen, I'm gonna warn you now this
Speaker 1: is going to be the angriest fucking video I have
Speaker 1: ever made in my entire life, because there are not
Speaker 1: adequate words in the English language for me to fully
Speaker 1: fucking communicate to you right now, how fucking furious I am.
Speaker 2: I can only really describe the tone of that video
Speaker 2: as like righteous, righteous anger, like very I don't know,
Speaker 2: like yeah, it lit a fire in me, and I
Speaker 2: do think that there's something about seeing a video like
Speaker 2: that right now, where every day I am seeing content
Speaker 2: that enrages me and it's easy to sort of get
Speaker 2: numb to it, but something about your video really broke through.
Speaker 2: So what was going through your mind? And when you
Speaker 2: first saw this news about the signal chat?
Speaker 1: Oh, I was big mad, Like I It was the
Speaker 1: kind of mad where I feel like all thoughts left
Speaker 1: my head entirely and it was just left with this
Speaker 1: like buzzing noise.
Speaker 2: It was.
Speaker 1: You know, a lot of the content that I post
Speaker 1: online there is at least some amount of like forethought
Speaker 1: to it. This was not one of those times. I
Speaker 1: literally just got my phone started recording and immediately was
Speaker 1: just honestly practically screaming into my phone, definitely yelling, almost
Speaker 1: to the level of screaming, and just honestly it was
Speaker 1: I just I was so mad. I had to get
Speaker 1: it out there. And I knew that this is one
Speaker 1: of those topics that the people in power get away
Speaker 1: with this shit, specifically because they know the people most impacted.
Speaker 1: Active duty service members literally cannot say anything publicly, and
Speaker 1: so the overwhelming majority of Americans have no way of
Speaker 1: connecting emotionally with the topic. And so you know, most democrats,
Speaker 1: most leftists can look at the story and be like, yeah,
Speaker 1: logically this is bad, but they can't feel the emotion
Speaker 1: of how scary it is, how infuriating it is. And
Speaker 1: I think it's really important for people to connect to
Speaker 1: the emotions of it. I think that's one of our
Speaker 1: biggest flaws on the left is that we get like
Speaker 1: really absorbed into the like facts and we're going to
Speaker 1: fact check you to death and somehow if we just
Speaker 1: tell you enough facts, you're going to be on our side.
Speaker 1: And that's just not how humans work. So yeah, I
Speaker 1: try to show up emotionally in most of my content,
Speaker 1: but especially when I'm talking about a subject that I
Speaker 1: know most people just have no I mean most people
Speaker 1: not only haven't served, they don't have a loved one
Speaker 1: that like a close immediate loved one that has served.
Speaker 1: And so there's just there's no way to connect to that.
Speaker 1: And we live in a society where media has depicted
Speaker 1: military service as this like romantic you know, oh, it's
Speaker 1: the sacrifice and everyone that does it is so ready
Speaker 1: to lay down their lives and just oh, and the
Speaker 1: reality is like most of the people in the military
Speaker 1: are just poor people that needed a path out of
Speaker 1: poverty or out of whatever rural hellhole they were born in,
Speaker 1: and like they just want to do their job and
Speaker 1: go home at the end of the day. They're just
Speaker 1: normal people.
Speaker 2: Oh.
Speaker 1: I think even for people on the left, like I said,
Speaker 1: it can just be really hard to connect to it emotionally.
Speaker 1: So there have been times where I've recorded rants where
Speaker 1: I haven't posted but because you know, I'll watch it
Speaker 1: back and I'll be like, ooh, okay, I was a
Speaker 1: little too far on that one. I need to like
Speaker 1: bring it down a few notts. But this was not
Speaker 1: one of those times.
Speaker 2: Kendall's righteous anger struck a chord. Her video rapped up
Speaker 2: over three million views and sparked headlines across the country
Speaker 2: like military wife rips, hegsas for risking husband's life and
Speaker 2: viral video.
Speaker 1: So I just went ahead and I was like, let's
Speaker 1: do it. So I just went ahead and posted it.
Speaker 1: And I genuinely I was expecting there to be people
Speaker 1: that were angry about it. I wasn't expecting there to
Speaker 1: be as much of a positive response to it that
Speaker 1: there was. What was the response like, so on Twitter,
Speaker 1: it was basically just immediately launched into like a week
Speaker 1: and a half of thousands of people calling me fat essentially,
Speaker 1: like that was the primary response is oh, well, you're
Speaker 1: a fat bitch essentially, And then Instagram was a little
Speaker 1: bit of both. I just got to the point where
Speaker 1: I started oscillating back and forth between I'm not gonna
Speaker 1: look at any of the comments, screw them. I said
Speaker 1: what I said, and I'm just whatever. They can have
Speaker 1: their feelings and I don't have to listen to them,
Speaker 1: to then oscillating back to no, you know what, I
Speaker 1: am going to read the comments and I'm going to
Speaker 1: go in and I'm going to be mean back to
Speaker 1: them because none of these motherfuckers know how to make
Speaker 1: a funny insult. So I really for the first week
Speaker 1: that's mostly what I was doing, just because it was
Speaker 1: fun to me. And then weirdly on Instagram was first
Speaker 1: of all, Instagram was like right in the middle in
Speaker 1: terms of how people respond to it. But that was
Speaker 1: also where I started hearing from a ton of military spouses,
Speaker 1: a ton of active duty service members reaching out to
Speaker 1: me and being like, oh my god, thank you, Like
Speaker 1: we can't say this or we didn't know how to
Speaker 1: say this, And so once I started getting those messages,
Speaker 1: I didn't give a shit what they were saying on
Speaker 1: Twitter at that point because like the people that responded
Speaker 1: by telling me how repulsive they thought, I was, like,
Speaker 1: they clearly have no idea what it's like for military families,
Speaker 1: So who gives a shit about their opinions when the
Speaker 1: actual military families are reaching out to me and saying
Speaker 1: that they're grateful.
Speaker 2: Military families cannot always be as outspoken as Kendall is,
Speaker 2: but sometimes they are. Take what happened Back in February,
Speaker 2: Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth announced a series of hardline changes,
Speaker 2: banning trans people from joining the military, halting gender reforming
Speaker 2: care for service members, and restricting certain books of the
Speaker 2: Department of Defense schools. Soon after, during a what is
Speaker 2: It to a US military base in Germany, he was
Speaker 2: met with unexpected pushback. About two dozen military families, mostly
Speaker 2: young people, gathered to make their voices heard. They booed, heckled,
Speaker 2: and even chanted d Ei d ei, you know, basically
Speaker 2: saying you, Pete Hegseth, are the dei higher? You know?
Speaker 2: It has to be a real specific kind of dynamic
Speaker 2: where if you are a service member or somebody close
Speaker 2: to a service member, you can't always say your opinion
Speaker 2: about things or you know, even if you are not
Speaker 2: a service member yourself, if you're close to one that
Speaker 2: comes with its own kind of baggage, that might be
Speaker 2: very silencing. So in ways, do you feel like you're
Speaker 2: able to sort of be the person who you know
Speaker 2: explains the emotionality behind this situation for folks who sometimes
Speaker 2: really can't.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think so. But I'm also honestly, I'm really
Speaker 1: inspired by a So even like a lot of people
Speaker 1: have been saying, like, oh, what you said, being willing
Speaker 1: to say that and like take that risk is really brave,
Speaker 1: But I was actually inspired by the bravery of there
Speaker 1: was a group of middle school age kids who have
Speaker 1: a parent that is active duty military and is stationed
Speaker 1: in I want to say, it's Stuttered, Germany. It's one
Speaker 1: of the German bases. And right at the very beginning
Speaker 1: of like right after Pete Hegseth had been confirmed, he
Speaker 1: went to this military base and not only was he
Speaker 1: met by a couple a dozen active duty military families,
Speaker 1: like when he was getting off the plane, they were
Speaker 1: standing there protesting him and yelling at him about how
Speaker 1: he has been attacking the concept of DEI. But also
Speaker 1: when he visited the middle school that's on base, the
Speaker 1: there was like a fifth grader that led a walkout
Speaker 1: of all of the students in response to him.
Speaker 2: It's impressive, for sure, but not without risk for service
Speaker 2: members and their families. Speaking your mind comes at a
Speaker 2: high cost.
Speaker 1: I don't think people understand how big of a risk
Speaker 1: you're taking as a military family member, especially when you're deployed,
Speaker 1: when you're stationed overseas, because anything that you do on
Speaker 1: base is held against your sponsors, so your active duty
Speaker 1: service member. I have seen families get kicked off of
Speaker 1: bite base housing entirely because of something their kid did. So, like,
Speaker 1: you know, where I'm where we live, there was a kid.
Speaker 1: Usually it's like, you know, shitty teenagers being shitty teenagers
Speaker 1: and like vandalizing something, and if they figure out who
Speaker 1: did it, that whole family has to move off of
Speaker 1: base housing. So like it is very very serious. So
Speaker 1: the fact that these kids were brave enough to do
Speaker 1: that knowing that, like, the stakes are even higher when
Speaker 1: you're at a base overseas because if you get kicked
Speaker 1: out out of base housing on an overseas base, where
Speaker 1: the fuck are you going to live? You know, and
Speaker 1: we already know that these this is an administration that
Speaker 1: is willing to strand people overseas, like they did to
Speaker 1: a bunch of the US AID employees that were stationed overseas,
Speaker 1: and then they were just like, well, not only are
Speaker 1: we eliminating your job, We're also not going to pay
Speaker 1: to fly you back, so have fun figuring out how
Speaker 1: to get home from Sudan or wherever. So it was
Speaker 1: a huge risk that they took, and so I was
Speaker 1: very inspired by them, and I recognize that I'm in
Speaker 1: a very fortunate spot this like weird intersection of you know,
Speaker 1: I work in communications, so I have the ability to
Speaker 1: put together an argument at a level that maybe not
Speaker 1: a lot of people have been trained to be able
Speaker 1: to do. I also, because I work in comms and
Speaker 1: because I work in politics, I have from the very
Speaker 1: beginning kept my digital online footprint separate from my husband,
Speaker 1: so like, I don't have to worry about, oh God,
Speaker 1: if I say something now, I have ten years of
Speaker 1: posting about him constantly that they could connect me to.
Speaker 1: And I'm really lucky that I have a partner that
Speaker 1: is like, yeah, girl, go get them. You know, like
Speaker 1: he understands that my career and my activism is really
Speaker 1: important to me, and as long as I'm not just
Speaker 1: blatantly setting out to ruin his career, he is very
Speaker 1: accepting of the fact that, like, this is a calculated
Speaker 1: risk that I am taking. So yeah, all that together,
Speaker 1: I think just put me in a very fortunate spot
Speaker 1: where I could be that mouthpiece to try and put
Speaker 1: it in people's face. And yeah, as long as I'm
Speaker 1: in this position and I can do that, I'm going
Speaker 1: to continue to do that because I think the military
Speaker 1: industrial complex has gotten away with a lot for a
Speaker 1: really long time, and a huge part of that is
Speaker 1: because the people with the most knowledge and ability to
Speaker 1: push back on it are also the people who were
Speaker 1: most often silenced.
Speaker 2: That silencing that you spoke to is so real for
Speaker 2: so many issues, and I think the powers that be
Speaker 2: kind of depend on the people who are closest to
Speaker 2: the harm, who can speak to the harm most clearly
Speaker 2: and saliently also being silent, and then the people who
Speaker 2: can speak up fully. Putting myself in this camp are
Speaker 2: some times really only able to do so from this
Speaker 2: incredibly heady or logistical place, but they're speaking about something
Speaker 2: that is deeply human and emotional at its core. Why
Speaker 2: do you think it's so easy to sort of skip
Speaker 2: over the human emotionality of these stories in favor of
Speaker 2: things like facts and figures.
Speaker 1: That's a really good question. I think it's probably a
Speaker 1: couple of factors, because it's certainly not just like the
Speaker 1: things impacting military service members that we do that too, right, Like,
Speaker 1: just look at like the entire conversation about Gaza, right Like,
Speaker 1: we get really focused because it's we can't understand what
Speaker 1: it's like to be living there. We can't, like, I
Speaker 1: have no way of even trying to put myself into
Speaker 1: that position. So it's just I think it's partially that
Speaker 1: it's an easier leap in people's brains. I also think
Speaker 1: that again, it is partially just a democratic and leftist
Speaker 1: impulse that we always jump to the facts of the
Speaker 1: case and the logistics, like we want to know everything,
Speaker 1: and we're just if we can just get you to
Speaker 1: see that you're being hypocrites, we can finally get you
Speaker 1: to stop. So I think that's partially it. And I
Speaker 1: also think that there's some element to it that is
Speaker 1: the American people, I think have been groomed to do
Speaker 1: that somewhat like it's beneficial to the Trump administration if
Speaker 1: we skip over the emotion of it, because it's a
Speaker 1: lot easier for the Press Secretary for the White House
Speaker 1: to get up there and be snide and dismissive and
Speaker 1: like mocking of reporters when they ask questions related to
Speaker 1: the logistics. It's a lot harder for her to be
Speaker 1: dismissive and snide if the emotion of it is put
Speaker 1: in their face. And yeah, so I think the the
Speaker 1: Trump administration wants us to do that. They've been grooming
Speaker 1: us to do that. I also think that the media
Speaker 1: is kind of complicit in it because when you have
Speaker 1: a media that is so overwhelmingly a certain type of person,
Speaker 1: a certain socioeconomic status of person, like, they can only
Speaker 1: convey the emotion of the experiences that they understand themselves.
Speaker 1: And there aren't a lot of service members or military
Speaker 1: spouses that go on to become reporters, and so it's
Speaker 1: just most of the media doesn't have the ability to
Speaker 1: write about it in the same way that like most
Speaker 1: of the media has no idea about how to write
Speaker 1: about the emotion of Gaza or the emotion of being
Speaker 1: an undocumented immigrant, and so they don't, and so we
Speaker 1: get further groomed into not thinking about it or carrying
Speaker 1: about it.
Speaker 2: Let's take a quick break at our back. The invasion
Speaker 2: of Iraq was my political awakening as a young person.
Speaker 2: My favorite cousin had enlisted a few years earlier, and
Speaker 2: when President Bush announced that we were going to war,
Speaker 2: I honestly thought we had to stop it so that
Speaker 2: he wouldn't be deployed. Eventually, he was deployed, but this
Speaker 2: was also the beginning of my time online. I was
Speaker 2: on message boards looking for protests, trying to find folks
Speaker 2: who were organizing. Now these days, everybody says they were
Speaker 2: against the Iraq war, but that's not how I remember it.
Speaker 2: What I remember is that if you were anti war
Speaker 2: like I was, people would say, oh, so you don't
Speaker 2: support the troops. Support our troops kind of became this
Speaker 2: slogan that basically meant you could not criticize US military
Speaker 2: policy because if you did, you were somehow against the
Speaker 2: very people risking their lives. That was two thousand and three. Today,
Speaker 2: it feels like things have really changed. I feel like
Speaker 2: there was a time, especially for the Republican Party, where
Speaker 2: the troops were these like exalted people that you had
Speaker 2: to support the troops. You could not question the troops,
Speaker 2: just like you were saying this like massive hero narrative
Speaker 2: that these are people who are risking their lives and
Speaker 2: we have to do everything to support them, including not
Speaker 2: questioning what the government is doing with regards to service members.
Speaker 2: And today seeing Republican leaders be so flippant about those
Speaker 2: very same service members when dismissing the fact that they
Speaker 2: needlessly endangered their lives with signal gad that just a
Speaker 2: few years ago we were saying were the most important
Speaker 2: people that you had to support the troops, It just
Speaker 2: really makes clear that maybe they didn't really give that
Speaker 2: much of a shit about service members and their families.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's actually a specific moment in our history as
Speaker 1: a country that I would point to as being the
Speaker 1: moment where that shift started to happen, and it was
Speaker 1: during a Republican primary debate for the presidential race in
Speaker 1: two thousand and eight, somewhere around there. If anybody wants
Speaker 1: to watch what I'm talking about, it's literally featured in
Speaker 1: an episode. This is embarrassing to site, but it's also
Speaker 1: featured in an episode of the Newsroom. So there's a
Speaker 1: moment where they are, you know, they have questions that
Speaker 1: are being asked by general like normal people, and they
Speaker 1: have a soldier who is currently he was stationed, he
Speaker 1: was deployed to either Afghanistan or Iraq like as he
Speaker 1: was asking this question, they were video videoing him in
Speaker 1: and he says, because this is when don't ask, don't
Speaker 1: tell was still a thing, and so he says, you know,
Speaker 1: I am a gay service member and all I want
Speaker 1: to do is serve my country. Like I this is
Speaker 1: very important to me. I want to continue to serve.
Speaker 1: I want to continue to put my life on the line.
Speaker 1: And of course this is when there was like active war,
Speaker 1: so putting your life on the line like really had
Speaker 1: weight to it at the moment at that time. And
Speaker 1: you know, I want to know, are there any anyone
Speaker 1: on this stage, any candidate that would be willing to
Speaker 1: do away with don't ask, don't tell so that service
Speaker 1: members like me don't have to hide who I am
Speaker 1: in order to serve my country. And not a single
Speaker 1: person on that stage responded with any empathy towards him
Speaker 1: with any respect for his service, and the overwhelming majority
Speaker 1: of the audience booed him.
Speaker 3: In twenty ten, when I was deployed to Iraq, I
Speaker 3: had to lie about who I was because I'm a
Speaker 3: gay soldier and I didn't want to lose my job.
Speaker 3: My question is, under one of your presidencies, do you
Speaker 3: intend to circumvent the progress that's been made for gay
Speaker 3: and lesbian soldiers in the military.
Speaker 1: Before he had even finished asking this question, the audience
Speaker 1: was booing him. And I genuinely think that's the moment
Speaker 1: when it started to shift. And I think that a
Speaker 1: huge part of that shift is because the Republican Party
Speaker 1: only wanted to focus on the emotional side of things
Speaker 1: when they could be assured that military service members and
Speaker 1: their families were a silent audience that they could tokenize
Speaker 1: without any risk of them pushing back in the same
Speaker 1: way that the Conservative Party still tokenize it, like talks
Speaker 1: about like, oh, the unborn babies, and this is why
Speaker 1: we're so you know, because they know unborn babies, like
Speaker 1: literal zygotes cannot speak up and be like, hey, actually,
Speaker 1: we do support women's right to choose, so uh, I
Speaker 1: think that was part of it once they realized that,
Speaker 1: like at any moment, if we invoke the military and
Speaker 1: try to romanticize their service, somebody in that audience could
Speaker 1: stand up and be like, you, motherfucker, how dare you
Speaker 1: invoke our service when you are sending us to die?
Speaker 1: You know, just like the guy that threw his shoes
Speaker 1: at at George W. Bush. And that's why, you know.
Speaker 1: In addition to my original signal Gate video I had,
Speaker 1: I recorded myself when I called and talked to Senator
Speaker 1: Mark Wayne Mullen's office since he's my senator, Kendall recorded
Speaker 1: herself calling her Oklahoma Senator, Senator Mullens, and let's just
Speaker 1: say her anger comes through loud and clear. Quick heads up,
Speaker 1: there is a lot of strong language and what you're
Speaker 1: about to hear. And so help me, God, if I
Speaker 1: have to quit my fucking job to make sure that
Speaker 1: I can drive to every fucking campaign and public event
Speaker 1: that the senator has for the rest of his career,
Speaker 1: I will make it my life's work to destroy his
Speaker 1: career by making sure that every fucking Oklahoma knows how
Speaker 1: few fucks he gave about my husband's life and the
Speaker 1: lives of other active duty service members, But I do
Speaker 1: want to make it very clear, and I hope that
Speaker 1: you will take down this message and relay it to
Speaker 1: the Senator to help encourage him to actually be a
Speaker 1: man and make sure that I get a call set
Speaker 1: up when I reach out to this scheduler. I want
Speaker 1: you to let him know that if he doesn't reach
Speaker 1: out to me, I'm recording every single time that I
Speaker 1: have called his office and left a voicemailt or spoke
Speaker 1: to an intern like you. I am recording all of
Speaker 1: those and if I don't hear back from him, I
Speaker 1: will be sending them to every possible newsroom, both in
Speaker 1: Oklahoma and nationally, to let them know that the Senator
Speaker 1: is too much of a coward to call back the
Speaker 1: wife of one of the service members in his constituency
Speaker 1: that was put at risk. And so help me God,
Speaker 1: if I have to quit my fucking job to make
Speaker 1: sure that I can drive to every fucking campaign and
Speaker 1: public event that the Senator has for the rest of
Speaker 1: his career, I will make it my life's work to
Speaker 1: destroy his career by making sure that every fucking Oklahoma
Speaker 1: knows how few fucks he gave about my husband's life.
Speaker 1: And the lives of other active duty service members. If
Speaker 1: I'd known that video was gonna go viral side note,
Speaker 1: I would have cursed significantly less. I'm a little embarrassed
Speaker 1: that I cursed this much on the phone to a
Speaker 1: US senator's office, but I straight up said, like, I
Speaker 1: don't care. If I have to quit my job and
Speaker 1: make it my life's work to destroy Senator Mullen's career,
Speaker 1: I will do it. I will drive to every fucking
Speaker 1: campaign event he has for the rest of his life
Speaker 1: and be in the audience and be there to remind
Speaker 1: people of how few shits he gave about my husband's
Speaker 1: life and about the lives of other service members.
Speaker 2: And I.
Speaker 1: Want not even just Republicans, I want all politicians to
Speaker 1: have that fear at all times. I want them to
Speaker 1: know at any moment if you tokenize someone, whether it's
Speaker 1: over their military service, or do you're tokenizing DOCCA recipients
Speaker 1: or whatever it is, I want them to know, at
Speaker 1: any moment, someone could stand up in the audience and
Speaker 1: remind everyone at your event of the actual humans behind
Speaker 1: what you are talking about. And I think if we
Speaker 1: could get politicians to feel that fear again on every topic.
Speaker 1: I think politics in our country would look a lot different.
Speaker 2: Yes, make politicians afraid again. And this is why I
Speaker 2: love your content, because, as you say on your TikTok,
Speaker 2: you're telling the stories of men in power and reminding
Speaker 2: you not to respect them, and showing people but the
Speaker 2: layers of ways that they have screwed people that they
Speaker 2: supposedly say they care about. They've not upheld, you know,
Speaker 2: anything looking like accountability to the people that they have
Speaker 2: been elected to serve. I don't know, I really appreciate
Speaker 2: that about your content, that it's like about shifting our
Speaker 2: understanding of like who works for who, who should be
Speaker 2: afraid of who? I think that's the magic of the internet,
Speaker 2: you know, Like, think about how many videos we've seen
Speaker 2: over the years of constituents trying to confront their elected
Speaker 2: official in Congress on any topic, whether it's military, health care, whatever,
Speaker 2: and almost without fail, those clips end with that member
Speaker 2: of Congress getting into the congressional member only elevator and
Speaker 2: then the doors slowly sliding shut in front of their
Speaker 2: face and protecting them from actually having to have that
Speaker 2: hard conversation with their constituent. And I think the magic
Speaker 2: of the Internet is that it can it can knock
Speaker 2: those sliding elevator doors down. They can't run from their
Speaker 2: constituents in the same way that they can in real life.
Speaker 2: And obviously, you know, there's there's other ways that they
Speaker 2: can dodge that. When it's the Internet, right, they can
Speaker 2: just pretend that they don't see it or whatever.
Speaker 1: But I think that's where I'm trying to utilize my
Speaker 1: content to prevent them from even being able to do that.
Speaker 1: Like Mark Wayne Mullen cannot fucking pretend that he has
Speaker 1: not seen my videos. And I know he can't pretend
Speaker 1: that because there have been national reporters that have called
Speaker 1: his office and asked him for comment on them. There's
Speaker 1: not a chance in hell that man has not seen
Speaker 1: every video I have ever made about him. And I
Speaker 1: just I if I could that like snap my fingers
Speaker 1: and have any wish come true. I would love to
Speaker 1: be able to like dedicate significant portions of my time
Speaker 1: and of my life to being able to train other
Speaker 1: people on how to do what I'm doing right now.
Speaker 1: Like I I don't want to be the one person
Speaker 1: that's like seeing as like ooh, she's doing this thing,
Speaker 1: you know, Like I want there to be so many
Speaker 1: people doing the same exact thing that no one ever
Speaker 1: again thinks that like what I'm doing is special or remarkable.
Speaker 1: Like I if I could completely drive myself out of
Speaker 1: a job as a content creator by getting enough people
Speaker 1: other people to be doing the same thing, I would
Speaker 1: because I really think that the internet is our best
Speaker 1: shot at holding these cowards accountable.
Speaker 2: More after a quick break, let's get right back into
Speaker 2: it rather than just preaching to acquire. Kendall has an
Speaker 2: entire series on how to talk the conservatives In a
Speaker 2: digital climate that often prioritizes dunks and clapbacks. Kendall's taking
Speaker 2: a different approach, using the Internet to have the kinds
Speaker 2: of conversation that might actually change hearts and minds. It's
Speaker 2: not about giving someone like me a quick dopamine fix
Speaker 2: or a smug sense of superiority for her. It's about connection, persuasion,
Speaker 2: and doing the harder work of actually reaching across divides.
Speaker 2: I feel like you're able to occupy this very specific
Speaker 2: lane where you're able to speak to people that might
Speaker 2: not be there yet and train other people on how
Speaker 2: they can do the same. Is that intentional with your
Speaker 2: sort of content strategy here?
Speaker 1: Yes, very much. So so, First of all, okay.
Speaker 2: So this gets.
Speaker 1: Dangerously close to a topic that I could rant about
Speaker 1: four hours. Uh, but I think genuinely one of the
Speaker 1: most destructive things that has happened in content creation writ
Speaker 1: large over the last several years, and one of the
Speaker 1: most destructive things that TikTok specifically has groomed people into doing,
Speaker 1: is is viewing political content as solely through the lens
Speaker 1: of those like clap back videos that lots of people do,
Speaker 1: right Like, I'm gonna find a conservative doing the dumbest
Speaker 1: fucking video I can, and then I'm gonna take it,
Speaker 1: and I'm gonna respond to them. I'm gonna be smug
Speaker 1: and snide, and I'm gonna tell you why they are
Speaker 1: the dumbest piece of shit ever. And then I'm gonna
Speaker 1: get one hundred thousand likes on it. I'm gonna make
Speaker 1: thousands of dollars. But have I moved the needle in
Speaker 1: any way on any issue? No, absolutely not.
Speaker 2: So I have to tell you this comes up on
Speaker 2: the show like this, I am right there with you.
Speaker 2: I feel like that kind of content has made our
Speaker 2: entire discourse, especially online, so much worse. It's so harmful
Speaker 2: and The thing that gets me about it is that
Speaker 2: like it is so like it's like when you eat
Speaker 2: a bunch of McDonald's and it tastes so good and
Speaker 2: then it's so empty in the end, like it is
Speaker 2: so hollow and shallow, but it's so like it scratches
Speaker 2: an itch I wish I didn't have. And I think
Speaker 2: I'm seeing the results of that writ large on our
Speaker 2: on our social media discourse. Do you know what I mean? Like,
Speaker 2: I'll just say yes, I agree with you one hundred percent.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, I mean. And that's the thing, like, when
Speaker 1: I say this about this content, I am not in
Speaker 1: any way judging people that consume that content, because hell,
Speaker 1: I consume that content. There are times where I really
Speaker 1: enjoy that content, you know, especially when we're in a
Speaker 1: society where it can feel like you are just like
Speaker 1: screaming into a void and being like how are not?
Speaker 1: How are there so many people that think this is
Speaker 1: normal in any way? So like watching somebody get put
Speaker 1: in their place can feel satisfying, but first of all,
Speaker 1: those people are not getting put in their place. Most
Speaker 1: of the people being featured in those videos are thrilled
Speaker 1: when they get featured in a leftist clapback video, because
Speaker 1: all it does is drive up their engagement. These are
Speaker 1: just dollar Tree brand, like store brand Tommy laurens in
Speaker 1: the same way that Tommy Lauren used to intentionally piss
Speaker 1: people off in order to increase her stardom. At least
Speaker 1: she was like actually trying to reach, like you know,
Speaker 1: actually being on television. These people are settling for like
Speaker 1: I just want to get ten thousand views on my
Speaker 1: TikTok video and make one hundred dollars off of it.
Speaker 1: But like it's the same general process, right, and like
Speaker 1: they just the two sides feed off of one another,
Speaker 1: and it's just this like circular. I mean, it's honestly,
Speaker 1: it's just and a digital and political human centipede. They're
Speaker 1: just regurgitating the same shit into each other's mouth over
Speaker 1: and over and over again. Like not to be too graphic,
Speaker 1: but like that's what's happening.
Speaker 2: And so.
Speaker 1: Not only does that content not move the needle, I
Speaker 1: genuinely believe it pushes us further apart. It like increases
Speaker 1: the divide, and then politicians respond to that widening divide
Speaker 1: by panicking and being like, oh, well, now we have
Speaker 1: to compromise on our values. So that we can like
Speaker 1: chase after that other side that's moving further away from us.
Speaker 1: And then you know, that's how you get politicians like
Speaker 1: John Fetterman just out there calling himself the Democrat and
Speaker 1: doing all the Republican things. And like, I genuinely believe,
Speaker 1: we don't have to compromise on any of our values.
Speaker 1: We just have to figure out how to talk about
Speaker 1: our values in a way that appeals to a conservative
Speaker 1: morality system. And so that's what I'm now focusing a
Speaker 1: lot of my content on doing, is trying to help
Speaker 1: people learn that. Like you know, I use the moral
Speaker 1: foundation theory that Jonathan Hate came up with, where he said, like,
Speaker 1: there's six different foundational blocks that people build their morality
Speaker 1: off of, and people on the left tend to focus
Speaker 1: on two of those six, people on the right tend
Speaker 1: to focus on three of the six, and then the
Speaker 1: sixth one both sides like. And so I think the
Speaker 1: biggest issue we have with leftist messaging right now is
Speaker 1: we're talking about these values in a way that appeals
Speaker 1: to our morality system, not theirs. And we can talk
Speaker 1: about it in a way that appeals to I mean,
Speaker 1: like for example, immigration, like we're talking about it from
Speaker 1: the perspective of, like this, you know, you have to
Speaker 1: be fair. It is like horrific and unfair to think
Speaker 1: about deporting a DACA recipient to a country that they
Speaker 1: have never called home. They might not even speak about
Speaker 1: the speak that language, you know. All and all of
Speaker 1: that's true. All of that's true, And in a perfect world,
Speaker 1: at least in my opinion, that would be enough to
Speaker 1: convince people. But the reality is we don't live in
Speaker 1: a perfect world, and there's fifty percent of the country
Speaker 1: that doesn't give a shit that it's not fair. But
Speaker 1: if we can talk about it from the perspective of
Speaker 1: what that DACA recipient means to our country, like, you know,
Speaker 1: they're big into patriotism, And if we can talk about
Speaker 1: immigration from the perspective of, like, we are this incredible
Speaker 1: nation that is welcoming these people in, Like these are
Speaker 1: people that believe in our wors of life so strongly
Speaker 1: that they just want to be a part of it,
Speaker 1: you know, And if we can talk about those values
Speaker 1: in that way, then we can actually start to like
Speaker 1: narrow that divide a little bit and hopefully win some
Speaker 1: of those people over, because unfortunately, talking at them endlessly
Speaker 1: from our perspective, and especially creating videos where we're making
Speaker 1: fun of them and like you know, making money off
Speaker 1: of being snigged towards them. That's not going to pull
Speaker 1: them in. That is not going to get them to
Speaker 1: change their mind on anything.
Speaker 2: Okay, if you're like me, this might be the moment
Speaker 2: where you're thinking, why is it on me to change
Speaker 2: these people's minds? Kendall gets that, she really does.
Speaker 1: I understand the criticism that probably a lot of people
Speaker 1: would have for my strategy by saying, like, you know,
Speaker 1: these are people that have been super bigoted. They've been
Speaker 1: so racist, they've been so homophobic and transphobic and all
Speaker 1: of the phobics, Like I don't want to have to
Speaker 1: be nice to them. I don't want to have to
Speaker 1: do that labor. And I think that's totally fair for
Speaker 1: people to say, particularly more than any other group of people.
Speaker 1: I think black women one hundred percent get to say, like,
Speaker 1: you know what, motherfuckers, the ninety two percent is tired,
Speaker 1: so like, you do your jobs, We're gonna be doing
Speaker 1: our thing. Fuck you. So like, I get that, But
Speaker 1: any person on the left that has a skin tone
Speaker 1: like mine, absolutely the fuck not like you don't get
Speaker 1: to do what is fun or easy. Right now. We
Speaker 1: have work to do to repair the shit that we
Speaker 1: stood by as it got broken. And so I just
Speaker 1: I want more people to start looking at their content.
Speaker 1: More content creators and articulars start looking at their content
Speaker 1: from the perspective of what impact is this actually having
Speaker 1: beyond the check that I get from TikTok on the
Speaker 1: fifteenth of every month. And I'm really really worried about
Speaker 1: what's going to happen if more content creators don't start
Speaker 1: doing that, because I get why they don't write like
Speaker 1: my content where I'm talking about here's how to talk
Speaker 1: to a conservative about universal healthcare or immigration or whatever.
Speaker 1: It doesn't perform anywhere nearly as well as you know,
Speaker 1: these clapback videos. It also doesn't perform nearly as well
Speaker 1: as like my emotional videos that have gone viral. And so,
Speaker 1: to use your metaphor of the McDonald's right, you eat
Speaker 1: it and you don't feel satisfied. It is a little
Speaker 1: bit of a chicken and egg situation where it's like, Okay,
Speaker 1: we can keep telling these content creators to create more
Speaker 1: useful content. We can keep telling McDonald's you need to
Speaker 1: sell more vegetables. But if people keep going into McDonald's
Speaker 1: and only buying the French fries, eventually McDonald's is gonna
Speaker 1: be like, we can't do like you motherfucker said you
Speaker 1: wanted vegetables, and then none of you bought vegetables, and
Speaker 1: so we're going back to just selling French fries. And
Speaker 1: I think that there is a responsibility on the side
Speaker 1: of people who are consuming content to start really trying
Speaker 1: to work against our own impulses that we've been groomed
Speaker 1: to have to where like you know, hell, I have ADHD.
Speaker 1: Anytime I see like a ten minute long video on TikTok,
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh my.
Speaker 2: God, why are you left a minute? Shut up?
Speaker 1: Can you not tell me in like forty five seconds?
Speaker 1: Come on, guys. But like, I'm really trying to fight
Speaker 1: that impulse more often now because I recognize is if
Speaker 1: I just scroll on I'm doing I'm being the person
Speaker 1: standing outside of McDonald's yelling at them for not selling
Speaker 1: me vegetables when I wasn't buying vegetables. And so I
Speaker 1: think it has to be an effort on both sides
Speaker 1: of the process, both the creation and the consumption and
Speaker 1: I think if we don't fix it, uh, I don't
Speaker 1: know where we'll be in a few years in our
Speaker 1: country because right now the right is kicking our ass
Speaker 1: online and we have to figure out a way to
Speaker 1: fix it.
Speaker 2: I've had a personal sort of quandary, you know, after
Speaker 2: Trump was elected. I was really getting a lot of
Speaker 2: shot in freud I say that word wrong from like
Speaker 2: oh no, like I never thought the leopard was gonna
Speaker 2: eat my faith and something about that those that content
Speaker 2: was like clearly feeling a need for me. And then
Speaker 2: someone was like, you know, you know, so I live
Speaker 2: in DC, and when all when when federal workers were
Speaker 2: all being fired and like targeted, people were saying like, oh,
Speaker 2: a lot of those federal workers were Trump voters, and
Speaker 2: so they're you know, they're getting what they asked for.
Speaker 2: Maybe they didn't think it was going to be them.
Speaker 2: And someone was like, you know, we kind of need
Speaker 2: these people. Like if the people who are speaking up
Speaker 2: and being like dang, I feel like I got, you know,
Speaker 2: taken for a ride by Trump, somebody that I put
Speaker 2: my faith in and my trusted and he turned on me.
Speaker 2: I understand. Nobody understands the impulse to laugh at those
Speaker 2: people more than me, and I'm sad to say that
Speaker 2: I have, But at a certain point, don't we want
Speaker 2: people who are able to see that they made a
Speaker 2: mistake and are able to call out that like they
Speaker 2: they were misled. I feel angry that these people abdicated
Speaker 2: their responsibility to put effort into who they voted for
Speaker 2: and be a thoughtful consumer of you know, American democracy,
Speaker 2: but sort of just stroking my rage boner when when
Speaker 2: they speak up about it isn't getting us anywhere? Don't
Speaker 2: we kind of like like, isn't it sort of what
Speaker 2: we want for them to be talking about, Like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 2: I'm miss I was mislied. I got it wrong, right, yeah?
Speaker 1: Well, And the weird thing is is, honestly, I hate
Speaker 1: to break it to other people on the left, we're
Speaker 1: not always great at guessing which people were Trump supporters.
Speaker 1: I can't even tell you how many leftists I've had
Speaker 1: come into my comments, especially on Instagram and be like, well,
Speaker 1: you got what you wanted, you got what you voted for,
Speaker 1: so fuck you, And I'm like, uh, my friend, I
Speaker 1: not only voted for Kamala Harris, I literally worked for
Speaker 1: her campaign. I could not have been more kammala hair,
Speaker 1: like pro kamala in this election cycle if I tried, right,
Speaker 1: But like all they see is you're talking about the military.
Speaker 1: You're married to somebody in the military, obviously you must
Speaker 1: be on the right, And like that's bad because like
Speaker 1: if you're being like if you're pushing me away as
Speaker 1: somebody that's like dedicating my life to trying to win
Speaker 1: things for our side of the aisle, how are people
Speaker 1: that are actually on the right that are like conceding
Speaker 1: that they messed up. How are they going to respond
Speaker 1: to those kind of comments. You're only going to push
Speaker 1: him back into the cult. But I will also say
Speaker 1: I do understand like the need for that, Like I
Speaker 1: can't even tell you how many Francesca Ramsey videos I've
Speaker 1: watched of her with her ukulele singing about the leopards
Speaker 1: eating their face. And so I get it, and I
Speaker 1: think we can still have that content. It's just a
Speaker 1: matter of making sure it's targeting the people that actually
Speaker 1: deserve it and that aren't just everyday people. So like
Speaker 1: I will watch every possible video of Dave Portnoy being
Speaker 1: sad about losing twenty million dollars, Like, fuck that guy.
Speaker 1: Fuck you, Dave Fortnoy, Like I don't feel sorry for him.
Speaker 1: He deserves it, and like everyone should laugh at him
Speaker 1: in the same way that like, there is not a
Speaker 1: song in the world that you could set that video
Speaker 1: of Richard Spencer getting punched in the head too, that
Speaker 1: I wouldn't stop and watch it, like four times in
Speaker 1: a row, every time forever, my favorite video. Like, but
Speaker 1: there's a difference between Dave Portnoy and Richard Spencer and
Speaker 1: like random single mom of three working, you know, as
Speaker 1: an assistant manager at a rash dress for less and
Speaker 1: living in a prefab trailer park. You know, like she
Speaker 1: doesn't need to be mocked because ultimately she got tricked,
Speaker 1: she got hoodwinked. That does not excuse whatever horrible shit
Speaker 1: she has said or even continues to say to other
Speaker 1: people online, particularly marginalized communities. But if she is coming
Speaker 1: out and saying, hey, I screwed up. I realized I
Speaker 1: screwed up when I went to get my groceries and
Speaker 1: I found out my food stamps got cut off or whatever, Like,
Speaker 1: we can have discussions with her later about her other
Speaker 1: problematic shit that she's doing. But when she first says, hey, guys,
Speaker 1: I think we screwed up. I think our response should
Speaker 1: be yes, please welcome, welcome to our side. Now, how
Speaker 1: can we help you go convince ten of your friends
Speaker 1: that they also screwed up. Because it's not just about
Speaker 1: making sure we don't push her back into the cult.
Speaker 1: It's about recognizing that the people that are in her
Speaker 1: life are going to listen to her all day long
Speaker 1: and like, take that that is going to mean more
Speaker 1: to them than you could show them every single video
Speaker 1: I have ever made, and it's not going to convince
Speaker 1: them as much as her talking to them. And so
Speaker 1: we need to stop pushing people back into the cult,
Speaker 1: and we need to start giving them the tools necessary
Speaker 1: and empowering them to start being the pipeline out of
Speaker 1: that for the people in their life. Like, there's a
Speaker 1: reason why the alt right pipeline is so attractive to people.
Speaker 1: It's because it's easy to go down and everyone's nice
Speaker 1: to you along the way, and everyone like tells you
Speaker 1: how smart you are for like getting into the pipeline
Speaker 1: in the first place. So, like, we need to start
Speaker 1: building the pipeline going the opposite direction.
Speaker 2: More after a quick break, let's get right back into it.
Speaker 2: As someone who is so good at putting your opinions
Speaker 2: out of the world using social media, even when there's
Speaker 2: this like chilling effect to do so, even when you're like,
Speaker 2: you know, dog biled for doing so. What keeps you
Speaker 2: doing it? Like, what keeps you logging on and continuing
Speaker 2: to put your ideas out there?
Speaker 1: I mean, part of it is Okay, this is going
Speaker 1: to sound really weird, but I weirdly think having depression
Speaker 1: has made it a lot easier to do this and
Speaker 1: survive it, because I know I am at the end
Speaker 1: of the day if I have to lay down and
Speaker 1: close my eyes and go to sleep, and my options
Speaker 1: are either I'm going to be thinking about the fact
Speaker 1: that I said nothing, I did nothing, are were Our
Speaker 1: democracy is sliding further into fascism. More people are being hurt,
Speaker 1: more innocent people are being deported to an ill Salvadorian
Speaker 1: concentration camp. Because I said nothing. That is a lot
Speaker 1: harder for me to live with than if I do
Speaker 1: say stuff. And when I lay down at night and
Speaker 1: I close my eyes, the last thing that I'm thinking
Speaker 1: about is how you know Steve zero four seven five
Speaker 1: six on Twitter thinks that I'm a fat bitch like
Speaker 1: I will sleep soundly knowing that Steve thinks I'm a
Speaker 1: fat bitch. I will not sleep soundly knowing that I
Speaker 1: did nothing and I said nothing and things got worse.
Speaker 2: When you go to sleep at night, what will prevent
Speaker 2: you from getting a good night's sleep? And it's not
Speaker 2: like writhing up shithead Steve zero five five six on Twitter.
Speaker 2: It's actually doing something, saying something, speaking up.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And on top of that, you know, like just
Speaker 1: as a little added bonus for myself, Like you know,
Speaker 1: as I'm doing this content, like the main videos that's
Speaker 1: for everyone, the part I'm doing for me is when
Speaker 1: I'm responding to those insults and being funnier than they
Speaker 1: could ever possibly. That's the part that's just for me.
Speaker 1: That's my little treat. And so the fact that I
Speaker 1: get to go to sleep at night knowing that I
Speaker 1: did something, I said something, and yeah, Steve thinks I'm
Speaker 1: a fat bitch. But also Steve's going to sleep tonight
Speaker 1: knowing that I made a very funny joke about his
Speaker 1: bald spot and that's gonna eat at him. That's the like, Oh,
Speaker 1: I sleep very well when I get to note because like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, I the I think the thing that
Speaker 1: blew my mind the most this entire experience has been
Speaker 1: you know, tens of thousands of insults later, not a
Speaker 1: single one of them has been funny. No, I'm a
Speaker 1: deeply insultable person. I mean, Jesus Christ, I cut my
Speaker 1: own bangs, y'all. My bangs look like shit. One hundred
Speaker 1: percent of the time. They are uneven, and like you
Speaker 1: could make a hundred jokes about that. That would be
Speaker 1: so much funnier than just calling me a cow. So
Speaker 1: I just, in the same way that I want the
Speaker 1: left to get better at talking about our values and
Speaker 1: winning people over, I just want conservatives to get funnier,
Speaker 1: because Jesus Christ, if I'm gonna have to interact with you,
Speaker 1: I at least want it to be funny. And I
Speaker 1: can take a good insult as long as it's funny.
Speaker 1: So please please just learn from me, develop the ability
Speaker 1: to insult someone in a way that's funny.
Speaker 2: Step your game up, Steve zero five six y four
Speaker 2: on Twitter. Or if they really wanted to be smart,
Speaker 2: they could hire you as a digital strategist. You would
Speaker 2: write for them, The money you would go right into
Speaker 2: your pocket, and then the insults would improve. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, I've thought about creating a TikTok series that's
Speaker 1: like comedy one oh one for conservatives, because, like I mean,
Speaker 1: it's it's not even their fault. Like when the best
Speaker 1: example of conservative comedy that you have is like Stephen
Speaker 1: Crowder and Greg Guttfeld, No, what if you're not funny?
Speaker 1: Come on Jesus. So they're just regurgitating the things that
Speaker 1: those two say, and it's like it wasn't funny when
Speaker 1: they said it, it's extra not funny when y'all are
Speaker 1: repeating it. So, just conservatives, if you're listening to this, please,
Speaker 1: for the love of God, just please, please get better
Speaker 1: at comedy. Speaking from the perspective of someone that's not
Speaker 1: only a content creator but is also a digital strategist,
Speaker 1: I think one of the things that the right did
Speaker 1: during this last election cycle that the left did not
Speaker 1: did not do enough of, and also did not do
Speaker 1: nearly as well as the right is having a strategy
Speaker 1: where non political content creators were getting content out to
Speaker 1: their audiences about politics, whether that was them talking about
Speaker 1: themselves or them just quietly reposting stuff from other people.
Speaker 1: And I think that we need to accept the party
Speaker 1: as a whole needs to accept. But also, like anyone
Speaker 1: that cares about the direction of our country needs to accept,
Speaker 1: there are only so many people who are going to
Speaker 1: willingly watch explicitly political content. The reality is the majority
Speaker 1: of people do not give a shit about political content,
Speaker 1: will never watch it. And I think simultaneously, while yes
Speaker 1: the part that the piece of the puzzle that I
Speaker 1: am doing, I think is very important in training people
Speaker 1: to talk to conservatives, I think equally important is empowering
Speaker 1: content creators in radically different spaces, whether it's true crime
Speaker 1: or makeup tutorials or muck bangs or whatever. I think
Speaker 1: that the obstacles that we are facing are monumental enough
Speaker 1: that just getting political content creators to do the right
Speaker 1: thing and to say the right things and like, do
Speaker 1: our part is not going to be enough. So if
Speaker 1: you are a content creator of any type at all,
Speaker 1: I would very much encourage you to try and figure
Speaker 1: out what is the piece of this puzzle that I
Speaker 1: can be playing. It doesn't have to look like creating
Speaker 1: political content. And I would be happy if there's any
Speaker 1: content creator that hears this, that wants to do that
Speaker 1: and isn't sure how to please reach out to me,
Speaker 1: I will help you figure out a way. And oh
Speaker 1: my god, if you work for any political campaign on
Speaker 1: the left at all, please make that a part of
Speaker 1: your strategy. And if you need help figuring out how
Speaker 1: to make that a part of your strategy, please reach
Speaker 1: out to me, because, like I mean, as stupid as
Speaker 1: it was, Trump's strategy of talking to like Aiden Ross
Speaker 1: and the Pool Brothers and all of that, that was
Speaker 1: a hugely influential into his win and we have to
Speaker 1: do that or we are going to keep losing.
Speaker 2: So I can't tell you how many people that I've
Speaker 2: interviewed from all different spectrums of like content or digital strategy,
Speaker 2: who are all saying the left needs to be making
Speaker 2: huge investments with content creators podcasters. I firmly like I
Speaker 2: mean this, like literally, I think we have Trump in
Speaker 2: office again because of podcasters. I think that podcasters shifted
Speaker 2: the landscape of our political fabric and we need to
Speaker 2: just like understand that and get on board. It's not
Speaker 2: too late, but we have a lot of ground to
Speaker 2: make up for, and now it's the time.
Speaker 1: Yes, oh yeah, we coasted for so long and this
Speaker 1: is not even the only time that we've done this,
Speaker 1: Like I mean, I've been doing digital strategy for long enough,
Speaker 1: and I know you were also around and seeing this,
Speaker 1: Like when digital first became a thing. Ooh, we were like,
Speaker 1: we were confident. We were like, the Republicans are never
Speaker 1: going to catch up with us. We are so much
Speaker 1: better at the Internet than they are.
Speaker 2: Oh, what a time to be alive.
Speaker 1: That was a great feeling. But it was not an
Speaker 1: impulse that we should have listened to, because oh no,
Speaker 1: we were so confident that we were at the front
Speaker 1: of the pack that we just slowed down to a
Speaker 1: leisurely stroll and they just ran right past us and
Speaker 1: we caught up. And then the same thing is happening
Speaker 1: now with like podcasts and things like that. So yeah,
Speaker 1: I think you are right about podcasts. We have to
Speaker 1: we just have to stop congratulating ourselves on how good
Speaker 1: we are at certain things and start focusing on getting
Speaker 1: better at the stuff that they are clearly kicking our
Speaker 1: ass on.
Speaker 2: Got a story about an interesting thing in tech, or
Speaker 2: just want to say hi. You can reach us at
Speaker 2: Hello at tangody dot com. You can also find transcripts
Speaker 2: for today's episode at tengody dot com. There are no
Speaker 2: girls on the Internet was created by me bridget Toad.
Speaker 2: It's a production of iHeartRadio, an unbossed creative. Jonathan Strickland
Speaker 2: is our executive producer. Tari Harrison is our producer and
Speaker 2: sound engineer. Michael Almato is our contributing producer. I'm your host,
Speaker 2: bridget Toad. If you want to help us grow, rate
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Speaker 1: Long They Well, Meppen, O Love and Well Lippen