Speaker 1: Cool Zone Media.
Speaker 2: Hello, and welcome back to it could happen here in
Speaker 2: your daily dose of the horrors that are, in fact,
Speaker 2: already happening all around us. I'm your occasional host, Molly Conger,
Speaker 2: and I am delighted to be joined today by the
Speaker 2: critically acclaimed author of Culture Warlords, journalist researcher, sword enthusiast,
Speaker 2: Sandwich expert, and my friend Talia Lavin. Hello.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I once introduced myself at an event as a Sandwich historian,
Speaker 4: which I think was the pinnacle of my public speaking career.
Speaker 3: But this is a second pinnacle. Hey, Molly, what's up?
Speaker 2: Thank you so much for coming on today to talk
Speaker 2: with me about your new book, Wild Faith is coming
Speaker 2: out in just a few weeks October fifteenth, right.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Wild Faith, How the Christian Right is taking over America.
Speaker 3: Not the terrible B movie entitled Wild Faith.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the SEO is scrambled on that one. But the book, however,
Speaker 2: is very good. I mean, first of all, I just
Speaker 2: want to say, like I've been reading the gally copy
Speaker 2: that you sent me, which I honestly made me feel
Speaker 2: very fancy. I've never received a galley copy of a
Speaker 2: book that's not out yet before. So I felt, you know,
Speaker 2: kind of a kind of a broadcasting professional with my
Speaker 2: special book.
Speaker 4: It's an exclusive club. You're one of like five people
Speaker 4: thus read it.
Speaker 5: Oh my god, that is that's very exclusive.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: Well it's about to become a lot less exclusive, so
Speaker 4: feel special while you can, right.
Speaker 2: But I realized while I was reading it, you know,
Speaker 2: I have my little sticky tabs because I'm reading a
Speaker 2: lot more books lately, regrettably not not not a big
Speaker 2: time book guy.
Speaker 5: It's always reading.
Speaker 2: I read a lot of court documents, but I'm reading
Speaker 2: a lot of books right now for research for my show,
Speaker 2: and it's like my little sticky tabs. And as in
Speaker 2: reading it, I realize I'm not marking passages that I
Speaker 2: think would be useful for us to talk about in
Speaker 2: this interview. I'm just putting my little tabs on passages
Speaker 2: that just like punched me in the gut.
Speaker 4: You know, Ah, sorry for punching you.
Speaker 2: No, but I mean, I mean with the way the
Speaker 2: power of your words, because like a lot of what
Speaker 2: I'm reading sucks. It's just right, Like I spent all
Speaker 2: day yesterday reading like twenty five year old Issues of Resistance,
Speaker 2: which was the quarterly magazine for a white power music label.
Speaker 2: So this, I mean it's a real departure, So you know,
Speaker 2: really just reveling in the richness of the pros and
Speaker 2: the fact that it, you know, didn't want to kill me.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: No, I also have experienced neo Nazi research fatigue, and
Speaker 4: also just like the sort of relentless grimness of allowing
Speaker 4: through these like fundamentally hostile texts, and also like academic texts,
Speaker 4: which are difficult in their own way. I try to
Speaker 4: write accessively or just like excitingly. I find that a
Speaker 4: lot of especially nonfiction sort of journalism me books tend
Speaker 4: to be a little dry, and I'm like, let's not
Speaker 4: be dry. Let's be like spicy, and you know, like
Speaker 4: form and function, Like you're more likely to be moved
Speaker 4: by a message if you find the writing compelling.
Speaker 5: You know, it's just you have such a way with words.
Speaker 5: I mean, you know this.
Speaker 2: You're a professional writer. I don't want to embarrass you
Speaker 2: on the show.
Speaker 4: So I'm twirling my air like yes, but I do
Speaker 4: write for a living.
Speaker 2: If you'll indulge me, if it's legal, if the publisher
Speaker 2: will allow this, I just want to read this passage
Speaker 2: from the introduction that I think is a good jumping
Speaker 2: off point, and it was one of the first things
Speaker 2: I marked because I was just like, oh, hell yeah, we're.
Speaker 5: Getting into this. There's good words in here, okay.
Speaker 2: The Christian Right is a force in American politics and
Speaker 2: has been for decades, half a century to be precise,
Speaker 2: during which it has steadily gained power. It started in
Speaker 2: school rooms, continued in courtrooms, and perseveres with the aid
Speaker 2: of people who are perfectly willing to call in bomb
Speaker 2: threats to hospitals and attempt to overturn elections. It features
Speaker 2: self proclaimed profits with a distinct interest in policy, newly
Speaker 2: minted apostles with very definite ideas about spiritual battle and
Speaker 2: its earthly components, and pastors eager to usher in the
Speaker 2: end of the world. Its adherents have hymns and devotionals
Speaker 2: and speaking tongues on occasion, and the showiest among them
Speaker 2: are known to march their cities, blowing rams horns in
Speaker 2: an effort to topple, as Joshua once did, the wicked
Speaker 2: cities of the world. They have their own insular world,
Speaker 2: their own media apparatus. They have legislators who could fire
Speaker 2: in brimstone speeches from the badly carpeted rooms where laws
Speaker 2: are made. They have lawyers too, and in case the
Speaker 2: lawyers fail, there's always the promise of congregations that might
Speaker 2: coalesce into mobs or arsonists. Who's burning holy zeal coalesces
Speaker 2: into the tiny pinpoint of a molotop cocktail. And I
Speaker 2: knew from the intro that we were in for a ride.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's like cast of characters, the worst people ever,
Speaker 4: but like, let's write about it.
Speaker 3: In an exciting way. I think that one of.
Speaker 4: The themes of the book is really how these extra
Speaker 4: legal extremist movements like the anti abortion terror movement, and
Speaker 4: the legal framework of a movement work together. I actually
Speaker 4: initially heard about this from a friend who was talking
Speaker 4: about how like during the gay rights movement you had
Speaker 4: sort of the act up builth demonstrations, the diets, and
Speaker 4: then you have the sort of like more respectively coded
Speaker 4: like gay people who you know, we're talking to the
Speaker 4: government and trying to get elected and you know, really
Speaker 4: trying to influence research, and that every movement needs sort
Speaker 4: of a radical outside and then a respectable inside. And
Speaker 4: I'm like, oh, this works in like the acratic movements too,
Speaker 4: where you have like this you know, fringe that's burning
Speaker 4: down clinics, and then people steadily working for fifty years
Speaker 4: to like ban abortion, and they have the same DNA
Speaker 4: and they have the same goals. They just go about
Speaker 4: it differently but complement each other. And I think that's
Speaker 4: like a running theme in the book, is that, like
Speaker 4: you have lawyers and you have legislators, and then you
Speaker 4: have mobs, and they're sort of all working towards the
Speaker 4: same goals. And that's really what we're seeing, I think,
Speaker 4: on the Christian Right after decades of building power.
Speaker 2: Yeah, one of the notes that I wrote down in
Speaker 2: that vein while I was reading was that, you know,
Speaker 2: the Christian Right drives its power across a spectrum, right
Speaker 2: from the clinic bomber to the senator. But it's not
Speaker 2: you know, you might say two sides of the same coin.
Speaker 2: But to me, it looks like this isn't two different
Speaker 2: spheres of power too sort of separate but coexisting or
Speaker 2: comorbid ideologies. They're just different numbers on the same dial, right,
Speaker 2: it's turning up and turning down.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's like the hand that lights the torch and
Speaker 4: the hand that puts it to the you know, pyre.
Speaker 4: They perform different functions that they have really the same goals.
Speaker 4: And if like me, you view stripping half the populace
Speaker 4: of its bodily autonomy, imposing a theocracy, hounding queer people
Speaker 4: out of public life, slash into death as fundamentally violent goals. Yeah,
Speaker 4: I don't think there's like a respectable iteration necessarily, there's
Speaker 4: just cosplaying respectability and right.
Speaker 2: You can say it with a tie on on the
Speaker 2: Senate floor, but it's it's the same message.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And I think so much of our media apparatus
Speaker 4: and governmental apparatus is really sort of views like again
Speaker 4: this like form and function, right, Like if you are
Speaker 4: if you say something politely, it doesn't really matter what
Speaker 4: you're saying, like if you say something with a suit
Speaker 4: on in the register of like, you know, in a
Speaker 4: calm sort of Mike Pencian, rush Limbaugh and decap As.
Speaker 3: He called himself a boy.
Speaker 4: She says, did he say that, Yeah, that's what he
Speaker 4: called himself when he read it, did a like evangelical
Speaker 4: radio show.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: No, no matter what you say, as long as you
Speaker 4: are like white and you say it politely, like this is.
Speaker 3: Fundamentally sort of fine.
Speaker 4: And then if you look at it from you know,
Speaker 4: a step or two back, and you're like, no, actually,
Speaker 4: no matter how politely say it, this is like a violent,
Speaker 4: deeply unpopular theocratic agenda that like fundamentally is incompatible with
Speaker 4: multiracial democracy. I also think, and I keep running into this,
Speaker 4: like well meaning liberals being like, but isn't there a
Speaker 4: separation of church and state?
Speaker 3: And I'm like, I don't know.
Speaker 4: Do you fucking think there is? In Alabama? Do you
Speaker 4: think there is an Arkansas? And all of these you
Speaker 4: know in Texas, Like all of these figures are like,
Speaker 4: we're Christians.
Speaker 3: We're making laws for Jesus, and.
Speaker 5: We have covenant marriages and we want you to too.
Speaker 4: Yeah, like we're gonna outlage because of God, and like,
Speaker 4: you know, women dying of sepsis in hospital parking lots
Speaker 4: is what Jesus wants. And like, and I experienced this,
Speaker 4: I think you probably have to when you like report
Speaker 4: on you know, zealots and extremists, and people inevitably wind
Speaker 4: up like measuring other people's weep by their own bushel.
Speaker 4: In other words, they are like they can't really believe
Speaker 4: this stuff, and it's like, no, they really do, they
Speaker 4: can't really have these goals.
Speaker 5: First of all, they do, but also doesn't.
Speaker 4: Matter, right, I mean the question of like impact versus intent.
Speaker 4: First of all, it's I think it's perfectly possible to
Speaker 4: be both a grifter and a true believer at the
Speaker 4: same time.
Speaker 5: That's just synergy baby.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: And also fundamentally, this is a world premise done grievance,
Speaker 4: where it's this idea that like, the world has got
Speaker 4: one over on you. And so in a sense, grift
Speaker 4: is just like, well, you know, the world's corrupt and
Speaker 4: I'm fighting a righteous cause, so what does it matter
Speaker 4: the ethics that I sort of skip on along the way.
Speaker 2: I mean, once you've amped the stakes up to you're
Speaker 2: fighting the literal devil and everyone who's getting in my
Speaker 2: way is animated by actual demons from Hell.
Speaker 5: I mean, the stakes couldn't be higher. So you do
Speaker 5: what you have to.
Speaker 4: Do exactly, and it's this theory of power. And so
Speaker 4: then people sort of standing outside of that paradigm who
Speaker 4: are not keyed into this idea of like we're in
Speaker 4: an ethical spiritual battle and we must create like a
Speaker 4: Kingdom of Christ on earth in America to win against
Speaker 4: the devil, and then people outside being like, you're hypocrites,
Speaker 4: and it's like it's not a valid criticism to them
Speaker 4: because they're like, first of all, you're not like a
Speaker 4: Christian if you're a liberal, but also like you're not
Speaker 4: on our level, Like we're fighting Lucifer and you're probably
Speaker 4: a stand like on his team if you oppose us. So,
Speaker 4: you know, a multitude of apparent hypocrisies can be excused
Speaker 4: by the idea that like this is a holy war
Speaker 4: and in war there's like all kinds of avert behavior.
Speaker 5: That's they're doing holy war crimes.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 4: I mean this is why, for example, you see a
Speaker 4: lot of like prominent female figures from Philish Slafley, you know,
Speaker 4: in the seventies and eighties, to like the trad wives now,
Speaker 4: and it's like, how does this fit in with your
Speaker 4: overall sort of idea that women should be chaste and
Speaker 4: submissive and meek and silent. I mean, first of all,
Speaker 4: tradwife stuff is often fetish Spanish content.
Speaker 2: But yeah, I mean Pilish Laffy made a living professionally
Speaker 2: saying that women shouldn't make a living professionally, but that
Speaker 2: contradiction doesn't matter.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean I think I call them valkyries for
Speaker 4: feminine submission in the book. Yeah, I mean, at the
Speaker 4: end of the day, like if you believe that this
Speaker 4: is your your calling, your mission, you know, your mission
Speaker 4: field in the service of the Lord to undo the
Speaker 4: demonic sort of influence of feminism, Like of course you're
Speaker 4: going to.
Speaker 2: Speak, You've been moved by God to do so.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: And of course, like female leaders with the evangelical community,
Speaker 4: like sort of minority Republicans can be like knocked off
Speaker 4: their pedestal quicker and easier, but like they.
Speaker 3: Still can come out and exist and testify.
Speaker 4: And Schlaughley throughout her very long prolific and lucrative career,
Speaker 4: you know, was like I'm a housewife with six kids,
Speaker 4: and that was her. That was how she defined herself,
Speaker 4: even while being this incredibly prominent figure and one of
Speaker 4: the sort of key architects of the current Christian right
Speaker 4: coalition of like right wing Catholics. She and Paul we
Speaker 4: Wairik and Leonard Leo and some other right wing Catholics
Speaker 4: brought these Catholic values of being all about abortion to
Speaker 4: the evangelical right, which prior to the seventies is like,
Speaker 4: that's a weird Catholic thing.
Speaker 3: You don't really I.
Speaker 5: Wanted to talk about that.
Speaker 2: So I'm not sure how sort of common knowledge this is,
Speaker 2: but the Protestant Christian community in the United States did
Speaker 2: not care about abortion until the seventies. It was not
Speaker 2: an issue in their communities. They were generally pro abortion.
Speaker 2: They were you know, the Baptists were in favor of
Speaker 2: Roe V.
Speaker 5: Wade.
Speaker 4: Yeah, the fucking Southern Baptist Convention came out in like
Speaker 4: seventy four I think it was, and was like, yeah,
Speaker 4: we approve of rov Wade.
Speaker 2: So it's not like, you know, opposition to abortion is
Speaker 2: baked into Christianity. It is baked into the American Evangelical
Speaker 2: Christianity of post nineteen seventy five or so because of
Speaker 2: this sort of conscious cynical political decision. And that I
Speaker 2: think is so interesting because you know, you get into
Speaker 2: this conversation of well, what are their deeply held beliefs
Speaker 2: and do they really believe it and does that matter?
Speaker 2: But we can pin down the moment they started believing
Speaker 2: this and we know why, and it's segregation.
Speaker 3: Yeah.
Speaker 4: I mean, first of all, I would say, like people
Speaker 4: can still like this is like several generations later of
Speaker 4: like constant barrages of extremely violent propaganda against abortions.
Speaker 2: So right, so the belief is sincere today, but you
Speaker 2: could look at it where it was born.
Speaker 4: Yeah, exactly, you should have been aborted, right, yeah, no,
Speaker 4: it definitely should not have been carried to term. But
Speaker 4: like it's it's crazy. And in addition to Mooi's book,
Speaker 4: Randall Baumer does some really good coverage of this. So
Speaker 4: the sort of general arc is like three sort of
Speaker 4: nineteen seventies, you had this like generally conservative population of
Speaker 4: Southern Baptists who were like on board with McCarthyism, hated
Speaker 4: the godless Reds, but kind of viewed politics as like
Speaker 4: worldly and not really their sphere, and we're not particularly
Speaker 4: politically engaged. And then brown versus a board of education
Speaker 4: passes immediately, the white Christian populist just disinvests these from
Speaker 4: the public schools, leaving multiple counties in the South without
Speaker 4: functionally any public education at all. And this mushroom after rain,
Speaker 4: kind of like patch of patches of parochial schools with
Speaker 4: church or Christian in the name start popping up, and
Speaker 4: they're all white schools their segregation academies is the sort
Speaker 4: of term of art for these and they're explicitly under
Speaker 4: a Christian agis they're religious schools.
Speaker 3: They're tax exempt as a result.
Speaker 4: And then in like the late sixties and seventies, the
Speaker 4: government was like, you can't be tax exempt and like
Speaker 4: considered a charitable organization if you are segregated and don't
Speaker 4: have any black.
Speaker 3: Students or minority students.
Speaker 4: And that is what woke the sleeping dragon of the
Speaker 4: Christian right really like, you know, get your filthy government
Speaker 4: hands off our tax exemptions. Like they just went, you
Speaker 4: know nuts. They were really mobilized, you know, like these
Speaker 4: are the people who are like growing tomatoes at Ruby Bridges, Like,
Speaker 4: you know, they're really politically motivated for the first time
Speaker 4: because they're experiencing like a consequence for segregation.
Speaker 3: And so this is when like Jerry Fowell.
Speaker 4: And Ralph Reid and you know, James Dobson start sort
Speaker 4: of coming forward and being more prominent. And then by
Speaker 4: the sort of mid seventies to eighties, you had these
Speaker 4: like savvy or political operators coming out and saying, hey, guys,
Speaker 4: segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segregation forever is like, it's great
Speaker 4: that it really fired y'all up, but it has sort
Speaker 4: of a limited appeal.
Speaker 5: And they shot George Wallace. It's over.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Like there's going to be a sailing on that,
Speaker 4: and a lot of people think you suck. So why
Speaker 4: are you getting on the ground on this new civil
Speaker 4: rights struggle abortion where you can fight for the unborn
Speaker 4: who conveniently will never disagree with you.
Speaker 2: Right, their voices don't have to be centered here. We
Speaker 2: can speak for them.
Speaker 4: I mean, they're the most convenient political constituency in history.
Speaker 2: Right because they're so innocent and you can't milkshake duck
Speaker 2: a fetus.
Speaker 5: He's not even here.
Speaker 4: Yeah, he can't talk, but he's not gonna say shit.
Speaker 4: So I mean that's like the very capsule history. And
Speaker 4: then of course it becomes this idea of like the
Speaker 4: moral majority and where the guardians of America's soul and
Speaker 4: we're gonna get really weird about sex.
Speaker 3: Also, it's just.
Speaker 2: Like if you strip it all the way down to
Speaker 2: the studs, Like the core of this is women are
Speaker 2: bleeding to death in hospital parking lots because Gary Fowell
Speaker 2: didn't want to pay his taxes or stop being racist.
Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean that's not fair.
Speaker 4: No, people sometimes like are a little skeptical when I'm like,
Speaker 4: all of the hatreds are interconnected. But then you look
Speaker 4: at like concrete historical examples of like this world historical
Speaker 4: wave of misogyny. I mean, it's not that this population
Speaker 4: wasn't like weird about sex or weird about women like.
Speaker 5: To start with.
Speaker 2: I mean maybe they would have gotten here a different way,
Speaker 2: but that's how we got here.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we got here by just like no, we will
Speaker 4: pay taxes on our segregation academies. Bob Jones University's inter
Speaker 4: racial dating ban is perfectly great, and we're gonna mobilize
Speaker 4: about it. And so what you have then now is
Speaker 4: just like fifty years of political lock staff because and
Speaker 4: you see this.
Speaker 3: In like other religious communities. I mean, like I know, like.
Speaker 4: It's sort of notorious how much corruption slides by in
Speaker 4: New York because like the that a communities vote as
Speaker 4: a block, like it is very useful to have a
Speaker 4: congregation that all votes the same way.
Speaker 3: It's politically useful.
Speaker 2: I mean, what other populations can you get together once
Speaker 2: a week as a captive audience and speak to with
Speaker 2: authority if you can mobilize those people. And that's what
Speaker 2: Jerry Folwell saw, right, is like this is a great
Speaker 2: way to get a lot of people to vote the
Speaker 2: way I want them to vote.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And you know, the church has always been like
Speaker 4: a really prominent institution in American civil society, especially as
Speaker 4: the rest of sort of civil society has fallen away
Speaker 4: and degraded. Like churches are some of the only social
Speaker 4: outlets that Americans have. And what's interesting when you talk
Speaker 4: to evangelicals and next evangelicals is just like being a
Speaker 4: Republican is like part of their religious identity in a
Speaker 4: major way. It's like this is how you vote, and
Speaker 4: this is you know, how you dress, and this is
Speaker 4: how you go to church and so on. But like
Speaker 4: the idea of being a Democrat is like not only
Speaker 4: you know, a little bit out of step with your community,
Speaker 4: it's heretical.
Speaker 5: I mean, that's how the demons get in.
Speaker 4: Yeah, yeah, demoncrats, I mean, and like, yeah, it's stupid.
Speaker 4: But it's also like half of the people saying demoncrats
Speaker 4: like literally mean democrats are aligned with Lucifer.
Speaker 2: And I think that's a point that I don't want
Speaker 2: to get lost on the listener. This you know, this
Speaker 2: idea that people literally have demons in them, that demons
Speaker 2: are active in the world, that demons are motivating the
Speaker 2: actions of their enemies.
Speaker 5: It is real for them.
Speaker 2: And I'm not saying that to be derisive or you know,
Speaker 2: it's real.
Speaker 5: It's real.
Speaker 2: It is an animating factor for a lot of these people.
Speaker 2: And that's hard to wrap your mind around. I mean,
Speaker 2: I struggle with the idea that that is real for them.
Speaker 2: But like that's how you get things like satanic panic,
Speaker 2: and we see echoes of satanic panic in this idea
Speaker 2: of you know, groomers in kids' schools. They really have
Speaker 2: this fundamental, like foundational belief in this, you know, whether
Speaker 2: or not they're calling it demons, that the existence of
Speaker 2: some sort of ontological evil that is coming for their children.
Speaker 2: And like once you arrive at the place where, like
Speaker 2: where you understand that that's real for them, their actions
Speaker 2: make more sense. Like they're not behaving irrationally if you
Speaker 2: if you truly believe that these things were happening, you'd
Speaker 2: act crazy too.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean it's really hard to get people to
Speaker 4: step outside their own worldviews and in both directions, right, Like,
Speaker 4: I don't believe that demons are, you know, abroad in
Speaker 4: the world and motivating like every element of political action
Speaker 4: to someone who.
Speaker 5: I'm starting to see them some places, but generally no.
Speaker 4: To someone who does my viewpoint is incomprehensible and vice versa.
Speaker 4: So I think part of I mean not that I'm
Speaker 4: like one of those people that's like polarization is the
Speaker 4: big problem, like you know, as opposed to anything with
Speaker 4: like concrete policy, like you know where it's like, the
Speaker 4: big problem is we all don't like each other enough.
Speaker 4: And I'm like, no, the big problem is like people
Speaker 4: are espousing policies that will cause deaths, and like also
Speaker 4: that people like believe their political enemies are like literally
Speaker 4: agents of Satan. I would say, is like a bigger
Speaker 4: problem than polarization in the abstract. But yeah, I mean
Speaker 4: this this doctrine of sort of spiritual warfare, which if
Speaker 4: you like google it, it's just like, oh, this is
Speaker 4: the mindset and it's like you, the listener to it
Speaker 4: could happen here, like you've been drafted into the spirit
Speaker 4: war from like birth.
Speaker 5: Congratulations, private, and.
Speaker 4: You're probably in the side of the devil, so good job.
Speaker 4: I mean, I don't know, like a lot of Americans
Speaker 4: believe in angels and demons, and that's fine, but it's
Speaker 4: like when that starts impinging on the political sphere in
Speaker 4: a very serious way, It's like, how far would you
Speaker 4: go if you believed your opponent was under the thrall
Speaker 4: of like Satan, you would go pretty damn far's.
Speaker 2: I mean, that's why you know clinic bombings were and
Speaker 2: I guess are on the rise again, right, Like these
Speaker 2: arsens of clinics. It's not like other kinds of crime
Speaker 2: in my mind, right, It's not a crime of passion
Speaker 2: or an interpersonal dispute. It is people who have been
Speaker 2: motivated by this belief that this is a place where
Speaker 2: a genocide is happening, that there's a holocaust going on
Speaker 2: in there, that people are ripping you know, actual living
Speaker 2: babies limb from limb, and if you really did believe that,
Speaker 2: their actions make sense. And that's why it happens so often, right,
Speaker 2: because these people are motivated by this belief that God
Speaker 2: commands them to take this action.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I mean there's your dual element to that. I mean,
Speaker 4: first of all, absolutely, yes, Like I've read some anti
Speaker 4: abortion terror manuals speaking of extremely unpleasant research, and it's
Speaker 4: just really like these people are murderers. It's mass murderers,
Speaker 4: Like you're like killing Hitler, right.
Speaker 5: And wouldn't you wouldn't you kill baby Hitler exactly?
Speaker 4: But poltical about baby Hitler in like a countrywide scale.
Speaker 4: And when specific abortion doctors have been mentioned in right
Speaker 4: wing media, those guys end up dead and that's not
Speaker 4: a coincidence. So there's that element of it, which is
Speaker 4: the majority of it.
Speaker 3: It's huge.
Speaker 4: But there's also this idea of demonic geography, where like
Speaker 4: demons can possess sort of places like abortion clinics or
Speaker 4: institutions like planned parenthood or even the Democratic Party, which
Speaker 4: you know, I read a lot of demonology books like
Speaker 4: Taxonomies of Demons. Pigs in the Parlor was this really
Speaker 4: big hit in like the seventies, and it's been like
Speaker 4: reissued and reissued and millions of copies, and it's just like,
Speaker 4: on one level, it's really compelling because it's like are
Speaker 4: you tired, are you sad? Are you feeling clumsy? Do
Speaker 4: you have like persistent stomach aches? It's demons and here's
Speaker 4: how you deal with that. And like, in a country
Speaker 4: with shitty healthcare, I can totally see why someone who's
Speaker 4: like really depressed might go to like an exorcist or
Speaker 4: a deliverance minister, which is the Protestant.
Speaker 5: If you'll try anything, and this guy's going to do
Speaker 5: it for free.
Speaker 4: I watched so many videos of deliverance ministers doing their thing,
Speaker 4: and it's like crazy. It's like people, you know, are
Speaker 4: just like sitting there and they're like people praying over
Speaker 4: them and screaming in their face, like and they wind
Speaker 4: up vomiting and crying and it's all very like intense.
Speaker 4: And you know, if you think about it from a
Speaker 4: placebo effect perspective for like one second, you're like, obviously
Speaker 4: this person would feel a weightlifted from them they've had
Speaker 4: this ecstatic experience.
Speaker 3: And this isn't the majority of it.
Speaker 4: This is about fourteen percent of America identifies this as
Speaker 4: white evangelics, so many Protestants and still so many people
Speaker 4: because people keep asking me, like how many people really
Speaker 4: believe shit like this, and I'm like, well, about eighty
Speaker 4: to ninety percent of like people who identify as white
Speaker 4: Evangelical Protestants espows most of these beliefs.
Speaker 5: So that's like third, that's like thirty million people.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, And then you add in the Catholic.
Speaker 5: Right, which is getting weirder every day.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Jdvans, I hate women exist to reproduce breede you
Speaker 4: filthy now. But like even beyond the adult Catholic convert
Speaker 4: style weirdness, like right wing Catholics are an integral part
Speaker 4: of the Christian right, like Amy Cony Barrett, you know
Speaker 4: antonin Scalia, that kind of thing. That's another bunch of millions.
Speaker 4: So this reactionary force has like numerically significant constituency. On
Speaker 4: the other hand, it definitely punches way above its weight
Speaker 4: in terms of right.
Speaker 2: They have an outsized influence of both you know, on
Speaker 2: the legislative floor and when it comes to you know,
Speaker 2: who's racking up the most bodies.
Speaker 4: Yeah, And also even like the culture wars right, like
Speaker 4: the sort of loudest culture warriors tend to at least
Speaker 4: come from like a background of I'm speaking for God
Speaker 4: or Christ is king or whatever it is, Like how
Speaker 4: many times have you and I encountered that an extremist
Speaker 4: contacts But also like the sort of more mainstream me,
Speaker 4: what the fuck the mainstream is? I don't know, it's
Speaker 4: full of piss, But like the more mainstream, like Christian grifter, Right,
Speaker 4: they come from this. I'm speaking from my faith. These
Speaker 4: are my religious principles. But like it is worth noting
Speaker 4: again just to rewind in our conversation. But like the
Speaker 4: full concept of religious liberty and religious freedom absolutely was
Speaker 4: like an ad slogan coined in the seventies around segregation.
Speaker 2: Right, religious freedom to do what? I mean, it's like
Speaker 2: states rights, states rights.
Speaker 5: To do what?
Speaker 4: Right, Yeah, like you answer the question, Yeah, it's religious
Speaker 4: freedom to have segregated schools, is the answer to that.
Speaker 2: And you still see echoes of that with either still
Speaker 2: religious schools that can't accept federal grant money because they
Speaker 2: don't let students be gay, right, Like it's not racial
Speaker 2: segregation anymore, but they are refusing to admit gay students,
Speaker 2: and that is a violation of federal civil rights law.
Speaker 4: Yeah, but that's where I mean, that's where that slogan started.
Speaker 4: And then it's blossomed to clue basically like a gay
Speaker 4: person came into my shop.
Speaker 5: Except they didn't, right, I know, there's no standing, right,
Speaker 5: Like that whole case was built a lie. Whatever.
Speaker 4: That's yeah, it's like and the standing in the Supreme
Speaker 4: Court is so ridiculous. This I mean, in many ways,
Speaker 4: this Supreme Court is the culmination and embodiment and of
Speaker 4: botheosis of like Christian right theocracy, because you have these
Speaker 4: like absolutely batshit religious zealots, I mean Amy Cony Barrett
Speaker 4: is like from a cult, and in this unaccountable body,
Speaker 4: they're passing unpopular theocratic principles that the majority of the
Speaker 4: American public uh disagrees with. But like specifically, what they
Speaker 4: are trying to enact and what they are what they
Speaker 4: are enacting is this theocratic agenda where like the government
Speaker 4: is in your bedroom, the government is in your doctor's office,
Speaker 4: like the government is sniffing your panties, and it's it's
Speaker 4: gross and it's upsetting and fundamentally, like theocracies are just
Speaker 4: very famous all up in your junk, Like they're obsessed
Speaker 4: with like controlling and censoring sexuality of all kinds of
Speaker 4: a particularly female sexuality and queer sexuality, like snuff those out.
Speaker 4: And so that's part of the reason why so many
Speaker 4: abortion arguments, Like first of all, you have the like
Speaker 4: the you're murdering this cluster of cells, which is a
Speaker 4: full human baby, Like do you remember that article in
Speaker 4: the Guardian A couple of years ago that like showed
Speaker 4: the actual size of like fetuses at various stages of development,
Speaker 4: and it was like they were just like so little,
Speaker 4: like these little like little fingernails.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and it doesn't look like a tiny baby doll.
Speaker 2: That's just very small.
Speaker 4: Yeah, exactly, it's not like a mini baby like it
Speaker 4: like tides of Gore. It's like literally like a tiny
Speaker 4: cluster of cells. So the anti abortion propaganda, like, you
Speaker 4: are not immune to propaganda. It has like wormed its
Speaker 4: way into the popular consciousness just by virtue of its
Speaker 4: ubiquity and constant repetition being the key to successful propaganda.
Speaker 4: But so many of these arguments, in addition to this
Speaker 4: abortion is murder stuff is also just like you should
Speaker 4: have kept your legs closed.
Speaker 5: Right, This is a this is a consequence God did
Speaker 5: this to you.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Like sex for your sins immortal sin, and sex
Speaker 4: should be punished, and I.
Speaker 5: They must be doing it wrong.
Speaker 4: Like I'm like, why do you want sex to have
Speaker 4: consequences and be punished? The like intensity of the misogyny
Speaker 4: around purity culture is so intense.
Speaker 2: I wanted to ask you, you know, about the experience
Speaker 2: of writing the book, right, so you know your first book,
Speaker 2: Culture Warlords, is traumatizing for you to craft, right, because
Speaker 2: you had to spend so much time in these digital
Speaker 2: spaces in some in some cases physical spaces with you know,
Speaker 2: neo Nazis, four Chen guys, you know, aspiring terrorists, and
Speaker 2: so that's traumatic to experience, you know, But largely that
Speaker 2: experience was alone, like at your computer screen, sort of
Speaker 2: consuming this content that was eroding your soul. But the
Speaker 2: second half of this book is about child abuse, right,
Speaker 2: And like you interviewed people who grew up in this
Speaker 2: movement about their lives, about their husband's raping them and
Speaker 2: their parents beating them as children, and like, how did
Speaker 2: those experiences compare? And like what was that? How, I mean,
Speaker 2: how did you prepare to do that? I don't know
Speaker 2: even know how it would begin to do that with care.
Speaker 4: I mean, I think my goal going in is like
Speaker 4: I'm not going to betray you, Like that was my
Speaker 4: guiding ethos of just like I view like your trust
Speaker 4: in me as a sacred thing, not like sacred in
Speaker 4: any formal religious sense, but just like you know, I
Speaker 4: view your trust in me as something that I hold
Speaker 4: very dearly.
Speaker 3: It's very important.
Speaker 4: I'm going to treat your pain with as much gentleness
Speaker 4: and respect as I can. And like, I interviewed over
Speaker 4: one hundred people largely about their experiences with experiencing child
Speaker 4: abuse and an evangelical milieu as is laid out with
Speaker 4: painstaking instructions and like all of these parenting manuals. Actually,
Speaker 4: like I think reading the parenting manuals was even more
Speaker 4: disturbing than talking to people, because like people were like,
Speaker 4: this fucked me up and it was wrong. And then
Speaker 4: these books are like, no, you must beat your toddler
Speaker 4: because Jesus says so, and like here's exactly how to
Speaker 4: beat your toddler, and here's what you should use to
Speaker 4: beat your toddler, and here's the like supremely fucked up,
Speaker 4: like weird ritual that we prescribe. And then like reading
Speaker 4: those in tandem with like like the accounts of people
Speaker 4: who were like this specific thing like sucked me up
Speaker 4: for life and really messed up my ability to have
Speaker 4: like intimacy or self confidence or whatever.
Speaker 3: All of that stuff. I mean, it was tough. I
Speaker 3: definitely took more time, Like I wrote Culture Warlords in
Speaker 3: nine months, so I was like totally immersed constantly.
Speaker 5: It just like didn't come up Forrayer.
Speaker 4: Yeah at all, and this one I was like, I
Speaker 4: need a little more time, guys, Like I wrote it over,
Speaker 4: you know, almost three years. I also pretentiously started calling
Speaker 4: this philosophy Guarding your Heart because I really got lost
Speaker 4: in the sauce with culture warlords, Like I was in
Speaker 4: a dark place while I was writing it, and afterwards
Speaker 4: I was also the like it came out in mid COVID,
Speaker 4: so that didn't help either. But uh, it was a real,
Speaker 4: really rough experience with this. I was like, I'm going
Speaker 4: to keep writing. I'm gonna write about sandwiches all the
Speaker 4: way through. I'm going to like make sure I have
Speaker 4: friendships and stuff that's grounding me. And I think consciously
Speaker 4: having that at the forefront of my mind really helped. That.
Speaker 4: Being said, like what was really encouraging was all of
Speaker 4: these people who had experienced this sort of child abuse
Speaker 4: industrial complex in the evangelical community, where like, we really
Speaker 4: value that someone wants to hear what we have to say,
Speaker 4: and also that it's someone from outside the community is
Speaker 4: like paying attention and thinks this is important, which is
Speaker 4: not to denigrate like expangelical voices, but more to say
Speaker 4: that like, I guess there's a certain validation when someone
Speaker 4: who's like not didn't grow up in your corner of religiosity,
Speaker 4: dark corner.
Speaker 5: And sort of bringing it to an outside audience too.
Speaker 2: I think a lot of expangelicals their audience is largely
Speaker 2: their fellow expangelicals exactly.
Speaker 4: And I'm someone who, like I grew up as a Jew,
Speaker 4: and I'm like, yeah, this sucked, this is terrible. I'm
Speaker 4: like appalled reading like to Train Up a Child by
Speaker 4: the Pearls or The Strong Willed Child by jam Stobson, which, like,
Speaker 4: to be clear, the strong willed child is a bad thing.
Speaker 3: It's a bad thing to have a child with us.
Speaker 2: You have to beat it out of them, sure, literally,
Speaker 2: And I'm going into this in the wild recently. I
Speaker 2: don't know if you have come across this guy online.
Speaker 2: Do you know the nineties movie The Little Rascals.
Speaker 4: Oh my god, alf from The Little Rascals turns out
Speaker 4: to be Able Falfa.
Speaker 2: The guy who played Alfalfa's name is Bug Hall. He
Speaker 2: like really like I don't, got into a sort of
Speaker 2: main character situation over some posts about how he beats
Speaker 2: his infants.
Speaker 5: He beats infants because that's I guess a good way
Speaker 5: to raise a baby.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Also I think he's homeless.
Speaker 5: No, he's a surf.
Speaker 2: Oh he's in a voluntary serfdom arrangement.
Speaker 4: Oh my god. Okay, well he sounds like a big rascal. Yeah,
Speaker 4: he's continued that trajectory of rascaledom. But don't beat your kids.
Speaker 4: I mean, I will also say the reason why this
Speaker 4: book focuses so much on child abuse, which, like I
Speaker 4: encountered some some haters and losers and doubters along the
Speaker 4: way who were like, why are you focused so much
Speaker 4: on child abuse? And I was like, there are a
Speaker 4: lot of different theories about like how authoritarianism developed, but
Speaker 4: one of the big ones is focusing on the pedagogy
Speaker 4: in authoritarian societies, the societies that become authoritarian, you know,
Speaker 4: evolve from democracy to authoritarianism, and beating the shit out
Speaker 4: of people from when they're in infancy and particularly when
Speaker 4: they display disobedience or ask why, or you know.
Speaker 3: Just deviate from expectations.
Speaker 5: It's a great way to make an obedient brown shirt.
Speaker 4: Yeah, exactly, Like this is a recipe for future authoritarians.
Speaker 4: Like the people I spoke to had sort of broken
Speaker 4: away largely from this culture. But many of the sort
Speaker 4: of most obedient soldiers in the Army's Army of God
Speaker 4: like are that way. Because again, I can't overemphasize how
Speaker 4: much these parenting manuals, which spanned from like nineteen seventy
Speaker 4: to twenty fifteen, these texts, you know, the dates that
Speaker 4: they were published, emphasize having an obedient child. What you
Speaker 4: want is not like a child who's kind or curious
Speaker 4: or thoughtful or smart. It's obedient, instantly obedient. Don't make
Speaker 4: me count to three is the title of one of
Speaker 4: the books. And like, what you're creating is a culture
Speaker 4: of people who a like empathize with the aggressor at
Speaker 4: all times. So hence this admiration for strength and even
Speaker 4: admiration for cruelty, people who are trained to obey and
Speaker 4: obey without question, and people who are very acclimated to
Speaker 4: the use of violence.
Speaker 5: I mean, you're doing fascism in the home, right.
Speaker 4: So the the author, like Alice Miller, the author of
Speaker 4: the book For Your Own Good, lays out a pretty
Speaker 4: she was also a Holocaust survivor. She lays out a
Speaker 4: pretty strong case for like, you know, early twentieth century
Speaker 4: Germany having this poisonous pedagogy that also involved beating the
Speaker 4: shit out of your kids until I.
Speaker 5: Was illegal to love your children, Yeah.
Speaker 4: To obey you, and how basically this is how you
Speaker 4: make a torture. And the book is called or your
Speaker 4: Own Good And yeah, I mean I really think it
Speaker 4: is like under valued in politics, Like how much this
Speaker 4: culture of corporal punishment, which is yeah, Americans have like
Speaker 4: moved away from universal approval of corporal punishment, we're still
Speaker 4: like a lot higher than other Western democracies in that regard.
Speaker 4: And like on a national level, we're the only country
Speaker 4: in the world that hasn't ratified the UN Conventions on
Speaker 4: the Rights of a Child, which include like having a
Speaker 4: name and like not being beaten and not being thrown
Speaker 4: into like ju the solitary.
Speaker 2: Oh well, that's why America can't touch that. We need
Speaker 2: to incarcerate the children.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the children, you're in for the cells.
Speaker 4: But it's also just like a lot of it actually
Speaker 4: was like worries that like evangelicals like would sort of
Speaker 4: object to the interference in their it's.
Speaker 2: An infringement on their religious freedom to bet the shit
Speaker 2: out of baby.
Speaker 4: Yeah, and they're parental rights, which is another buzzword of this, this.
Speaker 5: Movement, parental rights is a red flag for me.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, no, I hear parental rights, and I think
Speaker 4: you want to beat the shit out of your kids.
Speaker 5: You don't want your children to learn science.
Speaker 4: Yeah, you at a homeschool and under educate your kids
Speaker 4: or miseducate.
Speaker 2: You want to cause a measle's outbreak exactly.
Speaker 4: But that's like for us because we're weirdos. We're like
Speaker 4: obsessively clued into this stuff. If you're not, Like, parental
Speaker 4: rights is like religious freedom is, Like it sounds good, Yeah,
Speaker 4: it's an effective marketing slogan, but like what it means
Speaker 4: is like we're going to show up at the school
Speaker 4: board and yell about how I mean. And Trump is
Speaker 4: like bought into this obviously because he knows where his
Speaker 4: bread is buttered. He has savvy Like he's like, you guys,
Speaker 4: do the policy. But like his current parental rights based
Speaker 4: his biggest policy that he's advocating is like denying federal
Speaker 4: funding to any school with any vaccine a mandate, which
Speaker 4: is basically just like make measles great again, like bring
Speaker 4: back diphtheria. I think, like, yes, the MAGA movement is
Speaker 4: for of the the efflorescence, the apotheosis of this steadily
Speaker 4: building power, but like there's also just like fifty years
Speaker 4: of power building behind it. And like even if Trump
Speaker 4: was defeated at the federal level, which like I profoundly
Speaker 4: hope he is, sorry to come out as like a
Speaker 4: you know, partisan, a voter, like a hashtag a voter,
Speaker 4: but like I think it would be just a nauseatingly
Speaker 4: it's a horrifying thought that he I mean, first of all,
Speaker 4: you would absolutely enact every item in this theocratic agenda,
Speaker 4: starting with a national abortion band like that would happen
Speaker 4: in the first hundred days, I think, which would just
Speaker 4: functionally plunge American women into like a very very dark
Speaker 4: septocemic nightmare.
Speaker 5: Yeah, the dark place that we're going as a coffin.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 4: But even should he lose, which you know hope, there's
Speaker 4: still twenty two states where abortion is outlawed or severely restricted,
Speaker 4: and these places are becoming care deserts. Like medical residents.
Speaker 4: My extremely sexy partner is a medical resident, so I
Speaker 4: know more about the state of medicine than I otherwise would.
Speaker 4: But like residents don't want to do their residencies in
Speaker 4: states with abortion restrictions, they're like.
Speaker 2: Right, given a choice, gynecological providers just aren't practicing there anymore.
Speaker 2: Like even if you know, even your primary focus is
Speaker 2: not abortions, or even if your primary focus is not
Speaker 2: you know, pregnancy care, they just don't want to They
Speaker 2: just don't want to work there.
Speaker 4: Well, it's also first of all that, but second of all,
Speaker 4: it's like, if you're in the er, you're going to
Speaker 4: experience pregnancy losss It happens in one in five pregnancy, right.
Speaker 2: So they're choosing to work in states where they're not
Speaker 2: going to go to jail for doing medicine.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Like they don't to incur the moral injury of
Speaker 4: not being able to apply the standard of care to
Speaker 4: patients in extremely common situations such as incomplete miscarriage and
Speaker 4: you know, pregnancy loss, whether you know self induced or
Speaker 4: just like miscarriage is super common and nobody talks about it.
Speaker 2: It's more common than we an Ectopic pregnancy is so
Speaker 2: much more common than people realize. Like there are so
Speaker 2: many things that your body can do to betray you
Speaker 2: that you need a doctor help.
Speaker 3: With just ordinary pregnancy.
Speaker 2: And then after the baby is born, then your lustrous
Speaker 2: hair all falls out.
Speaker 4: Yeah, like ordinary pregnancy is so fraught with like weird
Speaker 4: body horror. Like, but anyway, that's besides the point.
Speaker 3: Whatever.
Speaker 4: The point is someone presents with abdominal pain in the
Speaker 4: er and it turns out to be an ectopic pregnancy,
Speaker 4: and like you can't do standard of care like dilation
Speaker 4: and cure tash procedures without checking with the hospital lawyer.
Speaker 4: Like that is a really bad position a care provider
Speaker 4: to be in. So when you have these fundamentally unscientific laws,
Speaker 4: right that are produced by people who don't know anything
Speaker 4: about pregnancy and are like very intentionally ambiguous so that
Speaker 4: cautious institutions will sort of interpret them at maximally interpret them,
Speaker 4: Like the life of the mother, how dead does she
Speaker 4: have to be?
Speaker 5: First?
Speaker 3: Yeah, she has to be almost dead, right, and then
Speaker 3: sometimes she winds up dying because almost dead is tough
Speaker 3: to judge, Like, it just winds up this grotesque sort
Speaker 3: of farce of medicine, and very directly like residents don't
Speaker 3: want to train, doctors don't want to practice in these places,
Speaker 3: and so you.
Speaker 2: Know, right, so this ends up killing more people than
Speaker 2: just the ones hemorrhaging in the parking lot. There are
Speaker 2: people who have completely unrelated problems who are now unable
Speaker 2: to access unrelated kinds of care because the doctors just aren't.
Speaker 4: There, yeah, Or people who have ordinary wanted pregnancies who
Speaker 4: can't access neonatal care, who have to drive hours and
Speaker 4: hours and hours to like get checkups, like you know,
Speaker 4: I mean, human reproduction is like a pretty major part
Speaker 4: of like life.
Speaker 5: And a lot of people are doing it.
Speaker 4: Yeah, like it's sort of how you know, it's just
Speaker 4: people do it all the time, and like not being
Speaker 4: able to access medical care around like the entire spectrum
Speaker 4: of like reproduction is pretty catastrophic. But yeah, it also
Speaker 4: impacts all the people not engaging in reproduction at this
Speaker 4: moment in time, like doctors who are just like fuck this,
Speaker 4: I'm not wearing out an er in Tennessee, you know,
Speaker 4: because I want to be able to treat patients.
Speaker 5: Without a lawyer in the room.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, exactly, I mean.
Speaker 4: And then there are doctors who are bigots and doctors
Speaker 4: who are happily on board with abortion bands. But like,
Speaker 4: do you want that to be the only doctor in
Speaker 4: your county?
Speaker 3: I don't think so.
Speaker 4: You know, it's just it's a really grim situation. And
Speaker 4: I just like, I'm such an absolutist about bodily autonomy.
Speaker 4: It's like, if you don't own your body, you are
Speaker 4: not a full citizen, period of story. Like if if
Speaker 4: a major organ in your body is treated as a
Speaker 4: controlled substance, like, you are not a full and equal
Speaker 4: citizen with rights, which I would like to be.
Speaker 5: I aspire to it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so I want to ask you one more question
Speaker 2: about your book, and I will let you go.
Speaker 5: I told you that I wouldn't keep you very long,
Speaker 5: and I lied.
Speaker 4: But it's like, it's just because I like talking to you.
Speaker 4: So it's I think I've done the majority of the topics.
Speaker 3: You can't.
Speaker 4: You can't be like, oh, it's about your book, which
Speaker 4: you should buy listeners.
Speaker 5: Pre order it now wherever you buy your books.
Speaker 4: And if you like the delcent tones of my voice,
Speaker 4: which are I shouldn't have you to narrate in my
Speaker 4: audience books, you brush that passage.
Speaker 5: I'm a professional talker now, yeah.
Speaker 4: Yeah, Well I narrated the audio book and then was
Speaker 4: like why did I write such complicated sentences?
Speaker 3: Afterwards?
Speaker 2: So now that I read my own writing like on
Speaker 2: a regular basis out loud, which is new for me, right,
Speaker 2: you know, I have my podcast and I'm writing my
Speaker 2: little scripts and then I'm reading into a little microphone.
Speaker 2: Now that I struggle with that. I noticed while I
Speaker 2: was reading your book that oh I wouldn't be able
Speaker 2: to read this out loud. I know, where would I breathe?
Speaker 2: I know it was because I write like that too,
Speaker 2: and it's something I'm like really grappling with right now.
Speaker 4: She's like, call me ten clubs, Talia. I'm like, ah, fuck,
Speaker 4: this sentence is this paragraph? This sentence is a paragraph.
Speaker 4: Stop it.
Speaker 2: Like I really really lost, really lost momentum on that one.
Speaker 4: Yeah, I know, but like I managed to get through it.
Speaker 4: And if you if you enjoy the dulcae sounds of
Speaker 4: my voice, you can hear it for like, I don't know,
Speaker 4: eight hours or whatever.
Speaker 3: I assume weird being like listen to my voice.
Speaker 5: But you know, invite me into your mind.
Speaker 4: Yeah, but I do think it's nice as an author
Speaker 4: to read your audiobook because I can like get mad
Speaker 4: and like, you know, emphasize stuff that I think is important.
Speaker 3: And also I'm a.
Speaker 4: Theater kid, like, like I don't have many opportunities to
Speaker 4: perform and it is a performance and it's it's fun.
Speaker 5: But yeah, and that comes out the same time as
Speaker 5: the physical book.
Speaker 4: Yes, it comes out audio ebook, physical book with a
Speaker 4: cool snake on it.
Speaker 5: Oh yeah, Oh, I guess this is an audio medium.
Speaker 2: The listener can't see that I'm showing the cool cover.
Speaker 4: Yeah, it's got a cool snake, a red and black
Speaker 4: snake on the cover. I've named him Rocco, but he
Speaker 4: has a cross for a tongue. If you're looking for
Speaker 4: a book to give to the metal head in your life,
Speaker 4: oh yeah, it's pretty metal. Metal heads, atheists, degenerates.
Speaker 3: Everyone is going to love this book.
Speaker 5: It's perfect for everyone.
Speaker 4: And if you're light on cash flow, want it for
Speaker 4: supporting India authors is ask your library to stock it
Speaker 4: or your local bookstore because library orders are really important
Speaker 4: and you can just like put in a request in
Speaker 4: your library system and that is super helpful.
Speaker 2: Hell yeah, everybody go to your library's website right now
Speaker 2: and request that they purchase a copy of Wild Faith
Speaker 2: by Talia Lavin.
Speaker 5: Yeah, talywhere else can people find you online?
Speaker 3: So I have a newsletter. It's on button down.
Speaker 4: I left some stack because they were like We're never
Speaker 4: gonna sensor Nazis, but we will sensor porn. And I
Speaker 4: was like, I don't like your priorities, so I left
Speaker 4: for button Down. So it's buttondown dot com slash the
Speaker 4: sword in the sandwich, or if you just google the
Speaker 4: sword and the sandwich comes up. Most Tuesdays I write
Speaker 4: about like the horrific state of politics, et cetera, And
Speaker 4: then Fridays I write an essay about a different sandwich
Speaker 4: on Wikipedia's list of notable sandwiches, and so far I've
Speaker 4: written one hundred and eleven sandwiches.
Speaker 2: The sandwich content alone is worth the price of admission.
Speaker 2: You need to find out about these sandwiches.
Speaker 3: I mean it just and I get really deep into
Speaker 3: the history and the provenance and like I'm like, ah,
Speaker 3: the shifting of peoples led to this sandwich, So I
Speaker 3: get really deep into it. And then you.
Speaker 4: Can also find me on Blue Sky, where I most
Speaker 4: of the time now because Twitter is just like robots
Speaker 4: and Nazis and Nazi robots, where I'm at swords Jew.
Speaker 4: I'm still on Vishy Twitter as Mobi Dick Energy. And
Speaker 4: you know, if you want to say hi or invite
Speaker 4: me to speak at your synagogue or bookstore I'm at
Speaker 4: Talia l even writes at gmail dot com. Or church
Speaker 4: if you're like cool. Yeah, if it's like a cool church, yeah,
Speaker 4: you show up and they pass you a snake.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly. Oh god, I didn't do enough speaking at
Speaker 3: times for this book.
Speaker 2: Well, Tally, thank you so much for coming on today again.
Speaker 2: The book is Wild Faith by Talia Lavin, and you
Speaker 2: can pre order it now wherever books are sold, and
Speaker 2: you should request it from your library.
Speaker 4: Yeah, we stand civic services, and I'm a huge fan
Speaker 4: of public libraries and also of Molly Conger. So thanks
Speaker 4: for having me on and take care, Bye bye.
Speaker 5: It Could Happen Here is a production of cool Zone Media.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website
Speaker 1: coolzonmedia dot com, or check us out on the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever.
Speaker 3: You listen to podcasts.
Speaker 1: You can now find sources for It Could Happen here
Speaker 1: listed directly in episode descriptions. Thanks for listening.