WEBVTT - Part One: The Cult Behind Josh Duggar 0:00:00.400 --> 0:00:04.040 Welcome to Behind the Bastards, the podcast that just got 0:00:04.120 --> 0:00:08.920 introduced properly because I fucked up. Fuck. I wasn't supposed 0:00:08.920 --> 0:00:11.760 to do it right, I was supposed to do it badly. Um. 0:00:11.760 --> 0:00:17.000 I'm so sorry Sean. Sean is here today because Sean 0:00:17.800 --> 0:00:21.079 donated a very generous amount to the recall effort for 0:00:21.120 --> 0:00:23.760 the mayor of Portland, who sucks uh And and I 0:00:23.800 --> 0:00:27.120 wanted to introduce the podcast well for Sean by doing 0:00:27.160 --> 0:00:30.080 something incompetent shouting the name of a dictator. You know, 0:00:30.160 --> 0:00:33.040 I was I all day, all day. I was gonna 0:00:33.200 --> 0:00:36.000 I was gonna shout chow Chessco. Just just scream out 0:00:36.159 --> 0:00:39.400 chow Chessco's name, but I forgot to at the last minute. 0:00:39.479 --> 0:00:42.640 And I'm so sorry, Sean. That's okay, I mean it's 0:00:42.800 --> 0:00:45.640 it's you know, it's no Punani. But you know, well, 0:00:45.680 --> 0:00:48.040 we can talk about Poonani. We can talk about but 0:00:48.040 --> 0:00:50.520 but we do have we do have a different bastard today. 0:00:50.560 --> 0:00:54.120 Although all bastards lead one way or the other to 0:00:54.440 --> 0:00:57.400 Steven Seagal, I do believe that strung and I'm fairly 0:00:57.440 --> 0:00:59.640 certain you could connect today's bet Well, let me let 0:00:59.640 --> 0:01:01.440 me double check here, let me do check here, because 0:01:01.440 --> 0:01:04.520 we're talking about Josh Dougger today, and in a broader sense, 0:01:04.560 --> 0:01:07.240 we're talking about aspects of the Quiverful movement. And I 0:01:07.319 --> 0:01:11.480 kind of wonder, can we here with the production company 0:01:11.560 --> 0:01:14.120 or something related to a movie made by Steven Seagal. 0:01:14.280 --> 0:01:16.440 That's that's there. I think I know how I can 0:01:16.440 --> 0:01:20.680 make this connection. Um, okay, yes, we can make this connection. 0:01:20.800 --> 0:01:24.040 So Mike Huckabee went on the View in two thousand 0:01:24.080 --> 0:01:27.440 and seventeen and denied that Joe R. Pio was a 0:01:27.560 --> 0:01:29.960 racist and says that he knows Joe R. Pio their friends, 0:01:30.000 --> 0:01:31.800 and he knows that Joe R. Piot was not a racist. 0:01:32.080 --> 0:01:34.880 Joe R. Pio has shown up at campaign events and 0:01:34.920 --> 0:01:39.480 campaigned with both Jim Bob and Josh Dugger. Joe R. 0:01:39.560 --> 0:01:42.040 Pio was connected directly to Stephen Seagal. We did it, 0:01:42.200 --> 0:01:45.000 We did it, hey, perfect, We should put it out there, 0:01:45.000 --> 0:01:48.760 put out to the universe. Steven Seagal, the bastards, Kevin Bacon. 0:01:49.000 --> 0:01:52.120 That's right, Yeah, we could. I mean, I bet if 0:01:52.120 --> 0:01:53.880 we were to spend the time, we could draw a 0:01:53.920 --> 0:01:57.680 connection between him and Hitler. Um, but I would probably 0:01:57.720 --> 0:01:59.480 need to do a little bit more digging than I'm 0:01:59.480 --> 0:02:01.920 going to do right now while we're recording an episode, 0:02:01.920 --> 0:02:06.880 but for a depressingly less amount of there's just a 0:02:06.880 --> 0:02:12.880 photo of him in an s S uniform. No, he 0:02:12.919 --> 0:02:15.440 has an age nearly that. Well, Sean, you want to 0:02:15.480 --> 0:02:17.600 tell the audience a little bit about yourself before we 0:02:17.720 --> 0:02:20.400 before we get into this episode. As I was telling 0:02:20.400 --> 0:02:24.840 you before we started up, I worked on the healthcare 0:02:24.880 --> 0:02:30.280 front lines during the during the pandemic and kind of 0:02:30.360 --> 0:02:33.520 sat on my hands while watching and paying attention to 0:02:34.400 --> 0:02:38.520 Twitter and all that stuff of all the protests and 0:02:38.560 --> 0:02:40.720 the tear gassing and all that stuff going on in 0:02:40.760 --> 0:02:43.359 real time, being kind of like, oh, I'm at this, 0:02:43.560 --> 0:02:48.919 I'm at this front uh of all the crazy stuff 0:02:48.919 --> 0:02:51.560 going on. I don't want to bring COVID from one 0:02:51.600 --> 0:02:56.600 to the other. Uh. So I was like, when this 0:02:56.800 --> 0:02:59.400 auction came up, I was like, Oh, I am willing 0:02:59.400 --> 0:03:02.919 to spend a real amount of money to to did 0:03:02.919 --> 0:03:06.560 Wheeler fuck Ted Wheeler? Yeah, I'm I'm I'm glad that 0:03:06.600 --> 0:03:08.680 you did. And for those of you listening who live 0:03:08.720 --> 0:03:10.600 in the city of Portland, if you go to Total 0:03:10.680 --> 0:03:13.920 Recall PDX dot com, you can print off the sheet 0:03:13.960 --> 0:03:16.400 that you can then sign and and and scan back in. 0:03:16.960 --> 0:03:18.520 You can also print off sheets that will allow you 0:03:18.520 --> 0:03:20.839 to sign up multiple people. It will explain everything. There's 0:03:20.840 --> 0:03:23.400 like a whole process. It's more complicated than it should 0:03:23.440 --> 0:03:24.560 be and more of pain in the ass, and it 0:03:24.560 --> 0:03:28.000 should be because they don't want Mary's to get recall UM. 0:03:28.040 --> 0:03:30.120 But if you go to Total Recall pd X, they 0:03:30.120 --> 0:03:33.120 will explain the whole thing. If you're not in Portland 0:03:33.160 --> 0:03:36.520 and you want to support the recall effort against Ted Wheeler, 0:03:36.680 --> 0:03:40.200 who is trash like Shan did very generously, you can 0:03:40.240 --> 0:03:42.520 also go to Total Recall PDX and you can donate. 0:03:42.720 --> 0:03:44.640 They have paid people going out and who are helping 0:03:44.680 --> 0:03:47.320 to um, who are helping to fund this. Timber is 0:03:47.320 --> 0:03:50.000 a thorn's game. They're usually out there and it's you 0:03:50.040 --> 0:03:52.560 know what, I there's there's a lesson I learned from 0:03:52.560 --> 0:03:54.600 all this, and that is you know, there's a phrase 0:03:54.640 --> 0:03:56.640 that comes up a lot and on this podcast too. 0:03:56.720 --> 0:04:01.440 It's called fuck you money, and it kind of it's 0:04:01.520 --> 0:04:03.600 usually people that are so super rich, you know they 0:04:03.640 --> 0:04:05.920 have It's like, fuck you, I have money. Fuck you 0:04:06.040 --> 0:04:08.400 I have enough money to change your life if I 0:04:08.440 --> 0:04:11.080 want to. If you've annoy me. Yeah, and it's it's 0:04:11.080 --> 0:04:13.560 something most of us will never have, never ever, nor 0:04:13.640 --> 0:04:16.080 should we ever have, because it really kind of gollums 0:04:16.120 --> 0:04:18.839 up your Sniegele, you know what I mean. That's a 0:04:18.839 --> 0:04:21.719 good way to put it. So, but hey, I just 0:04:21.760 --> 0:04:24.880 want everyone to know if I've learned nothing else from this, 0:04:25.080 --> 0:04:27.159 It's said, if you have hope in your heart and 0:04:27.240 --> 0:04:29.720 even but a penny in your pocket, you have fuck 0:04:29.760 --> 0:04:34.000 Ted Wheeler money. Yeah, and that's that's together we can have. 0:04:34.480 --> 0:04:37.120 We can have fuck Ted Wheeler a variety of things, 0:04:37.120 --> 0:04:39.440 because it's not just money that fuck Ted Wheeler. It's 0:04:39.440 --> 0:04:41.600 getting out on the ground and signing people up. It's 0:04:41.640 --> 0:04:43.839 adding just your name or your name and people in 0:04:43.880 --> 0:04:46.839 your household to the sheet. All of that is in 0:04:46.880 --> 0:04:50.320 an ephemeral sense, Ted Wheeler money. Yeah. You don't even 0:04:50.320 --> 0:04:52.919 have to spend a time. You could be sitting broke 0:04:53.640 --> 0:04:58.679 in a little uh in a little cafe in Louisiana. Again, 0:04:58.800 --> 0:05:00.640 just that little pen in your pocket. It just know 0:05:00.760 --> 0:05:02.880 that you do have fun Ted Wheeler money. Or if 0:05:02.920 --> 0:05:04.919 you're living in Portland, you've got a good relationship with 0:05:04.960 --> 0:05:06.960 some neighbors, go out and signed some people up. There's 0:05:07.120 --> 0:05:10.919 a lot of ways to fuck Ted Wheeler. Um, we 0:05:10.960 --> 0:05:12.400 could make a joke about the fact that you just 0:05:12.440 --> 0:05:15.320 got broken up with, but we won't because that's not classy. 0:05:15.680 --> 0:05:21.200 Um the very little known rule thirty five. So Sean, 0:05:21.720 --> 0:05:24.400 you I asked you when you when you won the auction, 0:05:24.680 --> 0:05:25.800 who do you want to hear about? And you gave 0:05:25.800 --> 0:05:28.040 me a couple of different names, And the name that 0:05:28.080 --> 0:05:29.839 I decided to go with because I've been wanting to 0:05:29.839 --> 0:05:32.560 cover this motherfucker for a while was Josh Dugger. And 0:05:32.560 --> 0:05:35.960 I'm curious before we get into the episode, Um, what 0:05:36.000 --> 0:05:37.920 do you know about Josh and why did you want 0:05:37.960 --> 0:05:40.800 to learn more about him? So Josh Dougger. So what 0:05:40.880 --> 0:05:44.320 I know about him was the uh, the or j Dougs, 0:05:44.880 --> 0:05:47.560 you know, the dig dugger. Good God, I hope no 0:05:47.560 --> 0:05:56.200 one calls him that. Not interested if she's nineteen and counting? Uh, 0:05:56.200 --> 0:05:59.400 I know, you know obviously there's the uh, the violent 0:05:59.480 --> 0:06:03.800 child porn that came up, the being on the kind 0:06:03.800 --> 0:06:09.920 of pushing that quiverful life through tlcs um reality show 0:06:09.960 --> 0:06:14.080 of nineteen accounting, and uh, he just seemed to be 0:06:14.160 --> 0:06:18.159 a kind of like a celebrity spokesperson might not be 0:06:18.240 --> 0:06:20.560 the right way, but but like a represented like he 0:06:20.760 --> 0:06:25.240 mainstreamed stuff that was not that it wasn't like not 0:06:25.360 --> 0:06:27.880 that there wasn't a significant amount of it going around 0:06:27.920 --> 0:06:30.760 in the country. Like I grew up in it was 0:06:30.800 --> 0:06:36.039 it was real conservative Catholic, not not quiverful necessarily, but 0:06:36.160 --> 0:06:39.640 kind of towards that lines. And then like terms of 0:06:39.680 --> 0:06:42.919 politics and stuff, um, so I kind of knew we 0:06:42.960 --> 0:06:46.240 had a thing with that. And for me, part of 0:06:47.440 --> 0:06:50.120 kind of growing up and and paying more attention to 0:06:50.240 --> 0:06:53.600 things and looking back on stuff what got me interested 0:06:53.640 --> 0:06:57.599 in him was because this is this is something that 0:06:58.360 --> 0:07:03.520 is what he represents. I think is kind of not 0:07:03.640 --> 0:07:07.880 always mainstream talked about as as a danger. A lot 0:07:07.920 --> 0:07:11.040 of like they cause some sometimes they're ex evangelicals or 0:07:11.080 --> 0:07:13.520 they'll call themselves ex evangelicals, Like I know people that 0:07:13.560 --> 0:07:18.440 have struggled with like coming out of that and trying 0:07:18.600 --> 0:07:21.560 and so there's a lot of talk in those communities 0:07:21.600 --> 0:07:25.640 about it. Um. But I think maybe the best way 0:07:25.680 --> 0:07:28.720 to think about it for people who aren't familiar with 0:07:28.760 --> 0:07:30.240 it is you kind of you know, you have your 0:07:30.280 --> 0:07:33.240 kind of maybe like your sovereign citizen type libertarians where 0:07:33.240 --> 0:07:35.960 it's like the government should just have defense and have this, 0:07:36.840 --> 0:07:40.280 So the kind of people he represents, I would say, 0:07:40.280 --> 0:07:42.720 the best way to put it is they say that 0:07:43.360 --> 0:07:45.880 and and the follow up to the government should just 0:07:45.920 --> 0:07:48.080 do like defense and like a couple of civil things 0:07:48.080 --> 0:07:51.040 is and the rest belongs to Jesus. And so when 0:07:51.120 --> 0:07:53.880 you talk about separate, it's it's one of those vocabulary 0:07:53.920 --> 0:07:57.960 things that's also purposely deceptive. I think, where like when 0:07:57.960 --> 0:08:01.440 you talk about separation of church and state, they can 0:08:01.520 --> 0:08:04.760 say yes because they're defining the state in a completely 0:08:04.800 --> 0:08:07.480 different way. And I think that really kind of can 0:08:07.520 --> 0:08:10.840 hook people into it or have people not realize what 0:08:10.920 --> 0:08:14.280 it is. And I think there's from a little bit 0:08:14.320 --> 0:08:17.440 of of dabbling in some of the history of like 0:08:18.320 --> 0:08:21.680 um apocalyptic groups are knowing people that got out of 0:08:21.720 --> 0:08:28.720 like doom colts Um. They're the vein of kind of 0:08:28.720 --> 0:08:33.240 fundamental fundamentalism that he's in is one of those that's like, oh, 0:08:33.400 --> 0:08:35.800 Israel becoming a state is the sign of the end time. 0:08:36.200 --> 0:08:39.400 I'm not exactly sure if he personally is is within that. Oh, 0:08:39.440 --> 0:08:41.400 I mean, yeah, I'm pretty sure we're gonna go into 0:08:41.440 --> 0:08:44.880 detail about the exact chunk of evangelical Christians. Yeah, you 0:08:44.880 --> 0:08:47.000 can't really, you can't really explain the Duggers unless you 0:08:47.040 --> 0:08:50.720 explain the quiver full movement. Um. And so we have 0:08:50.800 --> 0:08:52.040 we have a bunch of that talk and we're not 0:08:52.080 --> 0:08:54.360 going to go We'll go deeper into the quiver Fule 0:08:54.400 --> 0:08:56.240 movement in another episode. I have a friend who grew 0:08:56.360 --> 0:09:00.840 up in that particular cult and I R l uh No, 0:09:01.240 --> 0:09:03.439 he has a friend of mine though, um as I said, yeah, 0:09:03.720 --> 0:09:09.120 I went to a traditional conservative Catholic college with Yeah, yeah, yeah, 0:09:09.160 --> 0:09:12.320 I remember. I was like Eve, I Eve has been 0:09:12.520 --> 0:09:14.040 a friend of mine for years and years and years. 0:09:14.040 --> 0:09:17.360 Who's how I met R. L. Stoler. Yeah? Okay, so 0:09:17.400 --> 0:09:19.520 we actually know some of the same people who grew 0:09:19.600 --> 0:09:21.440 up in this cult. Well, some of this is going 0:09:21.480 --> 0:09:23.520 to be old news to you, but it'll be new 0:09:23.520 --> 0:09:25.240 to a lot of people listening, and it's important. So 0:09:25.240 --> 0:09:28.160 I'm gonna I'm gonna get into it. From nine to 0:09:28.240 --> 0:09:31.559 two thousand to Jim Bob Dugger was a state legislator 0:09:31.559 --> 0:09:34.199 in the Arkansas House of Representatives. He made a couple 0:09:34.200 --> 0:09:37.160 of failed bids at seeking national election, and during one 0:09:37.160 --> 0:09:39.640 of these campaigns, he took his wife and his family, 0:09:39.679 --> 0:09:42.560 which at that point numbered fourteen kids, out to support 0:09:42.600 --> 0:09:45.200 him on election day, he and his wife voted and 0:09:45.200 --> 0:09:48.520 then marched off with their sizeable brood, and ap photographer 0:09:48.600 --> 0:09:51.559 spotted them and took a picture. The picture was purchased 0:09:51.559 --> 0:09:53.559 by the New York Times, and it went the early 0:09:53.640 --> 0:09:57.000 odds version of viral. Now. At the time, it was 0:09:57.080 --> 0:10:00.880 obvious that Jim Bob was a conservative Christian, but the 0:10:01.000 --> 0:10:02.960 enormous size of his family was seen as more of 0:10:03.000 --> 0:10:05.360 like a quirky personal choice than anything. That's how it 0:10:05.440 --> 0:10:07.360 really got portrayed a lot in the media. In the 0:10:07.360 --> 0:10:11.559 mainstream media, parenting magazines reached out to Michelle Dugger, his wife, 0:10:11.600 --> 0:10:13.920 and asked her to write an article about child rearing. 0:10:14.400 --> 0:10:17.440 Somewhere along the line, a savvy producer at Discovery Health 0:10:17.480 --> 0:10:21.480 decided the Duggers would make fascinating reality TV fodder. They 0:10:21.480 --> 0:10:25.040 put out several hour long specials featuring the family, whose 0:10:25.080 --> 0:10:28.000 fame rose consistently until in two thousand eight they got 0:10:28.040 --> 0:10:31.280 their own TV show, Seventeen Kids in Counting Yeah, I 0:10:31.320 --> 0:10:35.160 would like to interject real quick, something that uh uh 0:10:35.200 --> 0:10:37.679 an analogy or not analogy, but a comparison that came 0:10:37.760 --> 0:10:39.920 up is because I grew up with that was one 0:10:39.960 --> 0:10:42.480 of six kids. So and there's always like the oh, 0:10:42.520 --> 0:10:44.199 it's such a big family, like it's kind of a 0:10:44.960 --> 0:10:46.920 there's kind of that like remember from I remember from 0:10:46.960 --> 0:10:49.960 the Rush Limbaugh Show, you Rush Limbaugh episodes, you talked 0:10:49.960 --> 0:10:52.600 about how he was fitted by the media. It's one 0:10:52.640 --> 0:10:54.839 of those things like, oh, this is interesting, this is fun. 0:10:55.040 --> 0:10:59.000 They don't dig and so then it gets spotlighted. We're 0:10:59.000 --> 0:11:01.120 gonna we're gonna cover We're actually going to go deep 0:11:01.120 --> 0:11:03.280 into one of the earliest article I've been able to 0:11:03.280 --> 0:11:06.959 find on the family. Um so for about seven years 0:11:07.040 --> 0:11:08.960 after two thousand eight, which is you know, kind of 0:11:08.960 --> 0:11:11.480 when they really hit the mainstream. The Dugger family grows 0:11:11.480 --> 0:11:15.199 steadily in fame. They become millionaires. UM. I don't know exactly. 0:11:15.400 --> 0:11:17.200 It's it's hard to tell, right because those what are 0:11:17.240 --> 0:11:18.959 your net worth or what is his person's networth is 0:11:19.040 --> 0:11:21.679 always kind of shitty. But it seems like what I've 0:11:21.679 --> 0:11:23.760 heard is like three and a half million for Jim Bob, 0:11:23.800 --> 0:11:27.679 which doesn't seem impossible. Like he's been on TV a while, 0:11:27.720 --> 0:11:31.120 it's been a successful show. Um And as a result 0:11:31.160 --> 0:11:34.079 of their growing fame, they became increasingly plugged into Republican 0:11:34.120 --> 0:11:37.679 Party politics. Jim Bob and his oldest son Josh, did 0:11:37.720 --> 0:11:40.559 photo ops with Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, who we now 0:11:40.600 --> 0:11:43.840 know is connected to Stevenology just one degree of separation, 0:11:44.320 --> 0:11:47.160 and Florida Senator Marco Ruby, oh, I guess is connected 0:11:47.160 --> 0:11:50.880 to Stevens well, probably actually has direct connections to both, 0:11:50.880 --> 0:11:53.520 probably one step away. Um. Now, it was hardly a 0:11:53.520 --> 0:11:57.040 secret that the Duggers were right wing, but most casual observers, 0:11:57.080 --> 0:11:59.920 including most people who watched their shows, were unaware of 0:12:00.000 --> 0:12:03.400 the sinister reality behind why the Dugger family had so 0:12:03.520 --> 0:12:07.600 very many children. On July eleven, one, the Washington Post 0:12:07.600 --> 0:12:11.360 published an article titled an American Kingdom. The logline was 0:12:11.440 --> 0:12:13.920 this and this this showed up all over my Twitter 0:12:13.960 --> 0:12:16.600 because of the fiction book that I just read about 0:12:16.640 --> 0:12:19.160 this sort of thing. The logline was a new and 0:12:19.280 --> 0:12:22.360 rapidly growing Christian movement is openly political, once a nation 0:12:22.440 --> 0:12:26.559 under God's authority, and is central to Donald Trump's GOP. Now, 0:12:26.600 --> 0:12:29.000 the article is this is what you were talking about? 0:12:29.080 --> 0:12:31.240 Is broadly accurate in a way that it sketches out 0:12:31.280 --> 0:12:34.160 the dimensions of the dominionist movement, which quote holds that 0:12:34.240 --> 0:12:37.440 God commands Christians to assert authority over the seven mountains 0:12:37.480 --> 0:12:41.840 of life, family, religion, education, economy, arts, media, and government, 0:12:42.040 --> 0:12:44.600 and which after which time Jesus Christ will return and 0:12:44.640 --> 0:12:48.079 reign for eternity. Now where that article gets things wrong 0:12:48.160 --> 0:12:51.400 is it classifies this movement as new. It's not. Now. 0:12:51.720 --> 0:12:53.719 You could argue that it's new that because these are 0:12:53.960 --> 0:12:56.960 you know, there's two broad in kind of this chunk 0:12:57.000 --> 0:13:00.160 of evangelical culture. There's pre millennial and post millennia old 0:13:00.200 --> 0:13:06.000 dispensationalist right, and Premillennials were the guys who were like, um, 0:13:06.040 --> 0:13:09.040 it's going to like the the God is going to 0:13:09.120 --> 0:13:12.000 like come soon and we're gonna have us a rapture 0:13:12.000 --> 0:13:14.040 and ship. And the post millennials are like, we'll talk 0:13:14.080 --> 0:13:15.760 about this more a little bit later, like, well, no, 0:13:16.120 --> 0:13:18.719 we have two ready the world for God to come back, right, 0:13:18.800 --> 0:13:21.880 and one of those was dominant, like the left behind 0:13:21.960 --> 0:13:24.080 books are kind of the old the older way, and 0:13:24.080 --> 0:13:27.280 that's less dominant now because it didn't. I don't know 0:13:27.280 --> 0:13:29.120 if you're aware of this, but the the Changing of 0:13:29.160 --> 0:13:31.360 the Millennium didn't really do much. And there was a 0:13:31.400 --> 0:13:33.800 movie with Nick Cage. He kind of was a movie 0:13:33.840 --> 0:13:36.400 with Nick At that point, God, I want to know 0:13:36.440 --> 0:13:38.920 more about how they managed to make that because remember 0:13:38.960 --> 0:13:41.439 he uh, he was so deep in text for what 0:13:41.520 --> 0:13:43.560 he had to sell his dinosaur bones and take any 0:13:43.600 --> 0:13:46.960 movie too many dinosaurs and he had to be in 0:13:47.000 --> 0:13:52.240 a weird Christian propaganda movie. Nicolas Cage is about the 0:13:52.280 --> 0:13:55.080 only actor I could never be angry at for doing that, 0:13:55.120 --> 0:13:57.000 because it's like, well, yeah, you gotta you gotta keep 0:13:57.000 --> 0:13:59.360 your dinosaur bone addiction going. Man, I don't blame you 0:13:59.400 --> 0:14:02.680 for that. Any movie Nicolas Cage is in, just keep 0:14:02.720 --> 0:14:05.679 the bones flowing. That that should have been the tagline 0:14:05.920 --> 0:14:15.440 Nicolas Cage has to bone left behind. So yeah, um yeah. 0:14:15.480 --> 0:14:17.640 So again, not a super new movement, although it is 0:14:17.679 --> 0:14:20.080 kind of new and being as dominant with an it 0:14:20.160 --> 0:14:22.520 like that that has changed over time. The election of 0:14:22.560 --> 0:14:25.320 Donald Trump was which was you know, partly fueled by 0:14:25.400 --> 0:14:31.840 evangelical support. Um, and so sorry I framed that badly. Again, 0:14:31.920 --> 0:14:33.880 this is not a new movement, and it's tied into 0:14:33.920 --> 0:14:36.040 everything that's been happening over the last five six years 0:14:36.040 --> 0:14:37.480 that have really freaked out a lot of kind of 0:14:37.520 --> 0:14:39.560 liberals who maybe weren't paying as much attention or who 0:14:39.560 --> 0:14:42.280 wrote off the Christian Right as kind of just like 0:14:42.520 --> 0:14:45.360 they're just they're just nuts, right, like they all together. 0:14:45.400 --> 0:14:47.080 It's the same thing. It's the same. It was easy 0:14:47.160 --> 0:14:49.640 during the Obama era. It seemed like you you could 0:14:49.640 --> 0:14:51.280 make fun of these people in the silly things they'd 0:14:51.280 --> 0:14:53.680 say online and like movies like Jesus Camp and stuff, 0:14:53.720 --> 0:14:57.560 and it didn't seem like as much of a it 0:14:57.560 --> 0:14:59.320 didn't seem like they were gaining as much power as 0:14:59.320 --> 0:15:01.440 they were. And every we're seeing today both the rise 0:15:01.480 --> 0:15:03.640 of Donald Trump, the current assault on trans rights, and 0:15:03.680 --> 0:15:06.600 states like Tennessee and Arkansas, the present groundswell of right 0:15:06.600 --> 0:15:09.560 wing Christian support for crackdowns on voting rights. All of 0:15:09.600 --> 0:15:12.080 these things have their origins in the same, very specific 0:15:12.120 --> 0:15:14.960 Christian subculture, and for more than half a decade, the 0:15:15.040 --> 0:15:18.000 Dugger family was the trojan horse for bringing that subculture 0:15:18.000 --> 0:15:21.040 into the American mainstream. To understand the Duggers, we have 0:15:21.080 --> 0:15:23.720 to talk about the Quiverful movement. The name comes from 0:15:23.800 --> 0:15:27.440 Psalm one seven, like arrows in the hands of a warrior, 0:15:27.520 --> 0:15:30.200 Our sons born in one's youth, blessed as the man 0:15:30.320 --> 0:15:32.320 whose quiver is full of them, They will not be 0:15:32.400 --> 0:15:34.600 put to shame when they contend with their enemies at 0:15:34.600 --> 0:15:37.160 the gate and the gist of this idea is that 0:15:37.200 --> 0:15:40.360 American society has become hopelessly godless and sinful, and if 0:15:40.400 --> 0:15:42.520 you're going to bring the nation back to God, you 0:15:42.560 --> 0:15:45.600 need a new generation of holy warriors to fight for Christianity. 0:15:45.800 --> 0:15:48.680 So it's your responsibility as a true Christian to pop 0:15:48.680 --> 0:15:51.080 out several basketball teams worth of babies in order to 0:15:51.240 --> 0:15:53.800 fight it build the army of God. Right, that's the Again, 0:15:54.240 --> 0:15:56.840 we both have friends who were who were raised to 0:15:56.880 --> 0:16:01.400 be soldiers in God's army. Um. Now, the quiver full 0:16:01.440 --> 0:16:04.280 movement evolved rather naturally out of several different strains of 0:16:04.360 --> 0:16:09.000 right wing Christian culture. One of these was the homeschooling community. Obviously, 0:16:09.120 --> 0:16:10.960 parents can choose to home school kids for a lot 0:16:11.000 --> 0:16:14.160 of perfectly sane reasons. Uh. And in fact, one of 0:16:14.160 --> 0:16:16.320 my old co workers, Christie Harrison at Cracked, who is 0:16:16.400 --> 0:16:20.720 not at all a quiver full type you know, Christian, 0:16:20.760 --> 0:16:23.280 home schools her family um and is a perfectly reasonable 0:16:23.320 --> 0:16:26.680 person not shipping on the concept of home school. I 0:16:26.720 --> 0:16:29.920 was homeschooled from first grade too through high school. Graduation 0:16:31.400 --> 0:16:33.760 was yours, but yours was pretty reliou. I mean, it's 0:16:33.800 --> 0:16:36.360 efet not to be so here's so here's the weird thing. 0:16:36.400 --> 0:16:39.640 So the background on that is it was more there's 0:16:39.680 --> 0:16:42.400 there's family dynamics, which I won't go into for the 0:16:42.400 --> 0:16:45.120 sake of but basically it was kind of a more 0:16:45.160 --> 0:16:47.760 of a it's a thing we should do, so it's 0:16:47.800 --> 0:16:49.360 kind of weird, Like we did a lot of the 0:16:49.440 --> 0:16:53.720 performative stuff without getting super into the CULTI stuff. It 0:16:53.800 --> 0:16:56.520 was more of like viewed as an obligation to life 0:16:56.640 --> 0:17:00.720 for the community or like grandparents or whatever. Um So 0:17:00.800 --> 0:17:04.520 it worked for me. So I'm like on the low 0:17:04.680 --> 0:17:08.000 end of the spectrum, and I can see like school 0:17:08.320 --> 0:17:10.159 or what what used to be or maybe still is 0:17:10.200 --> 0:17:15.320 called Asperger's um so, but uh, I can see going 0:17:15.359 --> 0:17:19.960 to school given that, given how aware of my given 0:17:20.040 --> 0:17:22.960 everything at home and family dynamics and issues and mental 0:17:23.000 --> 0:17:24.840 health and all that stuff, I can see that being 0:17:24.880 --> 0:17:28.040 a real bad time for me. So it's like it's 0:17:28.040 --> 0:17:31.640 not a great time for most It's so I mean, 0:17:31.680 --> 0:17:34.320 and my my dad had a restaurant, so I worked 0:17:34.320 --> 0:17:36.040 at that, so I kind of had like one foot 0:17:36.080 --> 0:17:39.440 in the secular, one ft in the like insular kind 0:17:39.480 --> 0:17:42.400 of sheltered. Yeah, that seems like a pretty lucky and 0:17:42.720 --> 0:17:44.880 it might very yeah, one of the things. But if 0:17:44.920 --> 0:17:46.679 you're even if you're coming at it from a more 0:17:46.720 --> 0:17:49.199 reasonable perspective, if you're in home schooling, you're gonna encounter 0:17:49.200 --> 0:17:52.600 a lot of weird Christian propaganda because it's so dominant 0:17:52.600 --> 0:17:54.840 in schooling, right, even if you're trying to be secular 0:17:54.880 --> 0:17:59.120 with it, it's just everywhere in that community. Um, and yeah, 0:17:59.200 --> 0:18:01.919 the practice. This leads to what I'm saying. The practice 0:18:01.960 --> 0:18:04.919 of homeschooling has been heavily dominated by the evangelical Christian 0:18:04.920 --> 0:18:08.199 community for decades. The U s Department of Education currently 0:18:08.320 --> 0:18:11.199 estimates that more than one million school age kids are 0:18:11.320 --> 0:18:14.200 homeschooled in the United States, and the real number could 0:18:14.240 --> 0:18:16.240 be double or triple that because a lot of those 0:18:16.240 --> 0:18:18.680 families do not participate in the census or get birth 0:18:18.680 --> 0:18:22.879 certificates for their children. That is very common in the 0:18:22.920 --> 0:18:25.840 Quiverful movement, if you like, especially in the fringes, not 0:18:26.000 --> 0:18:27.840 even the fringes of it. A lot of people in 0:18:27.920 --> 0:18:30.720 it like like maybe you get birth to maybe you 0:18:30.760 --> 0:18:32.480 get a birth certificate for your sons, you don't get 0:18:32.520 --> 0:18:35.480 them for your daughters because birth certificate she could leave 0:18:35.520 --> 0:18:39.160 at some point a social Security number with a birth certificates, 0:18:39.320 --> 0:18:43.760 security passport, do you leave, get get away from your 0:18:43.760 --> 0:18:47.159 weird family, cut it off through So we really don't 0:18:47.200 --> 0:18:52.119 know how many kids there are like this um and 0:18:52.160 --> 0:18:54.440 that's I mean, there's a lot of other different subcultures. 0:18:54.600 --> 0:18:57.480 Sovereign citizens get looped into some aspects of this, but 0:18:57.560 --> 0:19:01.520 not all. Like once you're the once you're home setting 0:19:01.560 --> 0:19:04.480 in the middle of nowhere and not getting birth certificates 0:19:04.480 --> 0:19:06.360 for your children, you become you're getting the co into 0:19:06.359 --> 0:19:08.960 contact with a lot of subcultures. It's it's like the 0:19:09.000 --> 0:19:14.400 white version of avoiding immigration to by not doing the census. Yeah, yeah, yeah, 0:19:14.760 --> 0:19:17.520 which you you do not have. Well, I don't know, 0:19:17.520 --> 0:19:19.600 I'm not I can't say that you shouldn't worry about 0:19:19.640 --> 0:19:23.360 the census if you're an undocumented immigrant because some sketchy 0:19:23.400 --> 0:19:26.119 ship was tried to be done by the Trump administration. 0:19:26.160 --> 0:19:30.280 I don't know. It's a bummer the census should it shouldn't. Yeah, yeah, 0:19:30.680 --> 0:19:33.520 that's a whole other rand. So over the course of 0:19:33.520 --> 0:19:36.800 the nineteen seventies and eighties, a backlash against feminism and 0:19:36.840 --> 0:19:38.919 the civil rights movement helped lead to the birth of 0:19:38.920 --> 0:19:41.879 the moral Majority. The first organized up swell of what 0:19:41.920 --> 0:19:43.880 we now called the religious right. We did a two 0:19:43.880 --> 0:19:46.719 parter on this. Jerry Folwell was the biggest man in 0:19:46.760 --> 0:19:48.800 that movement, but there were a lot of of I 0:19:48.800 --> 0:19:50.560 mean it's it was a huge movement, right, A lot 0:19:50.560 --> 0:19:53.600 of people were involved. Another prominent member of the early 0:19:53.640 --> 0:19:56.600 religious right in the Moral Majority was Howard Phillips, a 0:19:56.680 --> 0:20:00.840 Russian Jewish Man who converted to evangelical Christianity. He broke 0:20:00.960 --> 0:20:03.480 off from the Republican Party in nineteen seventy four and 0:20:03.520 --> 0:20:07.639 founded the far right Constitution Party. Now. Howard and his 0:20:07.760 --> 0:20:10.360 son Doug were two of the of the first prominent 0:20:10.440 --> 0:20:12.840 advocates of a very specific way of looking at the 0:20:12.840 --> 0:20:15.240 Culture War in the United States. Like many in the 0:20:15.280 --> 0:20:18.159 religious right, they argued that the struggle between humanism and 0:20:18.280 --> 0:20:21.359 Christianity was a war. They went on to argue that 0:20:21.400 --> 0:20:24.760 this war could only be won by Christian women, and 0:20:24.840 --> 0:20:27.280 the only way for Christian women to fight was for 0:20:27.320 --> 0:20:31.120