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. I once introduced myself at an event as a
Speaker 3: Sandwich historian, which I think was the pinnacle of my
Speaker 3: public speaking career. But this is a second pinnacle. Hey, Molly,
Speaker 3: 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 3: 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 3: It's an exclusive club. You're one of like five people
Speaker 3: thus read it.
Speaker 4: Oh my god, that is that's very exclusive.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Well it's aboud to become a lot less exclusive,
Speaker 3: so 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. It's always reading. I read a lot
Speaker 2: of court documents, but I'm reading a lot of books
Speaker 2: right now for research for my show, and it's like
Speaker 2: my little sticky tabs. And as in reading it, I
Speaker 2: realize I'm not marking passages that I think would be
Speaker 2: useful for us to talk about in this interview. I'm
Speaker 2: just putting my little tabs on passages that just like
Speaker 2: punched me in the gut.
Speaker 3: 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.
Speaker 4: Of what I'm reading sucks.
Speaker 2: It's just right, Like I spent all day yesterday reading
Speaker 2: like twenty five year old Issues of Resistance, which was
Speaker 2: the quarterly magazine for a white power music label. So this,
Speaker 2: I mean it's a real departure, So you know, really
Speaker 2: just reveling in the richness of the pros and the
Speaker 2: fact that it, you know, didn't want to kill me.
Speaker 3: Yeah. No, I also have experienced neo Nazi research fatigue,
Speaker 3: and also just like the sort of relentless grimness of
Speaker 3: flowing through these like fundamentally hostile texts, and also like
Speaker 3: academic texts, which are difficult in their own way. I
Speaker 3: try to write accessively or just like excitingly. I find
Speaker 3: that a lot of especially nonfiction sort of journalism me books,
Speaker 3: tend to be a little dry, and I'm like, let's
Speaker 3: not be dry. Let's be like spicy, and you know,
Speaker 3: like form and function, Like you're more likely to be
Speaker 3: moved by a message if you find the writing compelling.
Speaker 3: You know, it's just you.
Speaker 2: Have such a way with words. 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 3: So I'm twirling my air like, yes, but I do
Speaker 3: 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,
Speaker 2: we're getting into this.
Speaker 4: 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 Molotov cocktail. And I
Speaker 2: knew from the intro that we were in for a ride.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's like cast of characters, the worst people ever,
Speaker 3: but like, let's write about it in an exciting way.
Speaker 3: I think that one of the themes of the book
Speaker 3: is really how these extra legal extremist movements like the
Speaker 3: anti abortion terror movement, and the legal framework of a
Speaker 3: movement work together. I actually initially heard about this from
Speaker 3: a friend who was talking about how like during the
Speaker 3: gay rights movement you had sort of the act up
Speaker 3: builth demonstrations, the diants, and then you have the sort
Speaker 3: of like more respectively coded like gay people who you know,
Speaker 3: we're talking to the government and trying to get elected
Speaker 3: and you know, really trying to influence research, and that
Speaker 3: every movement needs sort of a radical outside and then
Speaker 3: a respectable inside. And I'm like, oh, this works in
Speaker 3: like the acratic movements too, where you have like this
Speaker 3: you know, fringe that's burning down clinics, and then people
Speaker 3: steadily working for fifty years to like ban abortion, and
Speaker 3: they have the same DNA and they have the same goals.
Speaker 3: They just go about it differently but complement each other.
Speaker 3: And I think that's like a running theme in the book,
Speaker 3: is that like you have lawyers and you have legislators,
Speaker 3: and then you have mobs and they're sort of all
Speaker 3: working towards the same goals. And that's really what we're seeing,
Speaker 3: I think, 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 3: Yeah, it's like the hand that lights the torch and
Speaker 3: the hand that puts it to the you know, pyre.
Speaker 3: They perform different functions, but they have really the same goals.
Speaker 3: And if like me, you view stripping half the populace
Speaker 3: of its bodily autonomy, imposing a theocracy, hounding queer people
Speaker 3: out of public life, slash into death as fundamentally violent goals. Yeah,
Speaker 3: I don't think there's like a respectable iteration necessarily, there's
Speaker 3: 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 3: Yeah, And I think so much of our media apparatus
Speaker 3: and governmental apparatus is really sort of views like again
Speaker 3: this like form and function, right, Like if you are
Speaker 3: if you say something politely, it doesn't really matter what
Speaker 3: you're saying, like if you say something with a suit
Speaker 3: on in the register of like, you know, in a
Speaker 3: calm sort of Mike Pencian, rush Limbaugh and decap As
Speaker 3: he called himself a boy. She says, did he say that, Yeah,
Speaker 3: that's what he called himself when he read it, did
Speaker 3: a like evangelical radio show. Yeah, No, no matter what
Speaker 3: you say, as long as you are like white and
Speaker 3: you say it politely, like this is fundamentally sort of fine,
Speaker 3: And then if you look at it from you know,
Speaker 3: a step or two back, and you're like, no, actually,
Speaker 3: no matter how politely say it, this is like a violent,
Speaker 3: deeply unpopular theocratic agenda that like fundamentally is incompatible with
Speaker 3: multiracial democracy. I also think, and I keep running into this,
Speaker 3: like well meaning liberals being like, but isn't there a
Speaker 3: separation of church and state? And I'm like, I don't know.
Speaker 3: Do you fucking think there is? In Alabama? Do you
Speaker 3: think there is an Arkansas? And all of these you
Speaker 3: know in Texas, Like all of these figures are like
Speaker 3: we're Christians. We're making laws for Jesus, and.
Speaker 4: We have covenant marriages and we want you to too.
Speaker 3: Yeah, like we're gonna outlawe because of God. And like,
Speaker 3: you know, women dying of sepsis in hospital parking lots
Speaker 3: is what Jesus wants. And like, and I experienced this,
Speaker 3: I think you probably have to when you like report
Speaker 3: on you know, zealots and extremists, and people inevitably wind
Speaker 3: up like measuring other people's weep by their own bushel.
Speaker 3: In other words, they're like they can't really believe this stuff,
Speaker 3: and it's like, no, they really do, they can't really
Speaker 3: have these goals.
Speaker 4: First of all, they do, but also doesn't.
Speaker 3: Matter, right, I mean the question of like impact versus intent.
Speaker 3: First of all, it's I think it's perfectly possible to
Speaker 3: be both a grifter and a true believer at the
Speaker 3: same time.
Speaker 4: That's just synergy, baby.
Speaker 3: Yeah. And also fundamentally, this is a world premise done grievance,
Speaker 3: where it's this idea that like, the world has got
Speaker 3: one over on you. And so in a sense, grift
Speaker 3: is just like, well, you know, the world's corrupt and
Speaker 3: I'm fighting a righteous cause, so what does it matter
Speaker 3: 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. I mean,
Speaker 2: the stakes couldn't be higher. So you do what you
Speaker 2: have to do.
Speaker 3: Exactly, and it's this theory of power. And so then
Speaker 3: people sort of standing outside of that paradigm who are
Speaker 3: not keyed into this idea of like we're in an
Speaker 3: ethical spiritual battle and we must create like a Kingdom
Speaker 3: of Christ on earth. In America to win against the devil,
Speaker 3: and then people outside being like, you're hypocrites, and it's
Speaker 3: like it's not a valid criticism to them because they're like,
Speaker 3: first of all, you're not like a Christian if you're
Speaker 3: a liberal, but also like you're not on our level,
Speaker 3: Like we're fighting Lucifer and you're probably a stand like
Speaker 3: on his team if you oppose us. So, you know,
Speaker 3: a multitude of apparent hypocrisies can be excused by the
Speaker 3: idea that like this is a holy war and in
Speaker 3: war there's like all kinds of avert behavior.
Speaker 4: That's together doing holy war crimes.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly. I mean this is why, for example, you
Speaker 3: see a lot of like prominent female figures from Philish Lafley,
Speaker 3: you know, in the seventies and eighties, to like the
Speaker 3: trad wives now, and it's like, how does this fit
Speaker 3: in with your overall sort of idea that women should
Speaker 3: be chaste and submissive and meek and silent. I mean,
Speaker 3: first of all, tradwife stuff is often fetish Spanish content.
Speaker 2: But yeah, I mean Pilish Laughfly made a living professionally
Speaker 2: saying that women shouldn't make a living professionally, but that
Speaker 2: contradiction doesn't matter.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean I think I call them valkyries for
Speaker 3: feminine submission in the book. Yeah, I mean, at the
Speaker 3: end of the day, like if you believe that this
Speaker 3: is your your calling, your mission, you know, your mission
Speaker 3: field in the service of the Lord to undo the
Speaker 3: demonic sort of influence of feminism, Like of course you're
Speaker 3: going to.
Speaker 4: Speak, You've been moved by God to do so.
Speaker 3: Yeah. And of course, like female leaders with the evangelical community,
Speaker 3: like sort of minority Republicans can be like knocked off
Speaker 3: their pedestal quicker and easier, but like they still can
Speaker 3: come out and exist and testify. And Schlaughley throughout her
Speaker 3: very long prolific and lucrative career, you know, was like
Speaker 3: I'm a housewife with six kids, and that was her.
Speaker 3: That was how she defined herself, even while being this
Speaker 3: incredibly prominent figure and one of the sort of key
Speaker 3: architects of the current Christian right coalition of like right
Speaker 3: wing Catholics. She and Paul Weyrick and Leonard Leo and
Speaker 3: some other right wing Catholics brought these Catholic values of
Speaker 3: being all about abortion to the evangelical right, which prior
Speaker 3: to the seventies is like, that's a weird Catholic thing.
Speaker 3: You don't really I.
Speaker 4: 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. Wade.
Speaker 3: Yeah, the fucking Southern Baptist Convention came out in like
Speaker 3: seventy four, I think it was, and was like, yeah,
Speaker 3: we approve of Rob 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. I mean, first of all, I would say, like
Speaker 3: people can still like this is like several generations later
Speaker 3: of 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 3: Yeah, exactly, you should have been aborted, right, Yeah, no,
Speaker 3: it definitely should not have been carried to term. But
Speaker 3: like it's it's crazy. And in addition to Mooi's book,
Speaker 3: Randall Baumer does some really good coverage of this. So
Speaker 3: the sort of general arc is like three sort of
Speaker 3: nineteen seventies, you had this like generally conservative population of
Speaker 3: Southern Baptists who were like on board with McCarthyism, hated
Speaker 3: the godless Reds, but kind of viewed politics as like
Speaker 3: worldly and not really their sphere, and we're not particularly
Speaker 3: politically engaged. And then brown versus a board of education
Speaker 3: passes immediately, the white Christian populist just disinvests these from
Speaker 3: the public schools, leaving multiple counties in the South without
Speaker 3: functionally any public education at all. And this mushroom after rain,
Speaker 3: kind of like patch of patches of parochial schools with
Speaker 3: church or Christian in the name start popping up, and
Speaker 3: they're all white schools. Their segregation academies is the sort
Speaker 3: of term of art for these and they're explicitly under
Speaker 3: a Christian agis they're religious schools. They're tax exempt as
Speaker 3: a result. And then in like the late sixties and seventies,
Speaker 3: the government was like, you can't be tax exempt and
Speaker 3: like considered a charitable organization if you are segregated and
Speaker 3: don't have any black students or minority students. And that
Speaker 3: is what woke the sleeping dragon of the Christian right
Speaker 3: really like, you know, get your filthy government hands off
Speaker 3: our tax exemptions. Like they just went, you know nuts.
Speaker 3: They were really mobilized, you know, like these are the
Speaker 3: people who are like throwing tomatoes at Ruby Bridges, Like
Speaker 3: you know, they're really politically motivated for the first time
Speaker 3: because they're experiencing like a consequence for segregation. And so
Speaker 3: this is when like Jerry Fowell and Ralph Reid and
Speaker 3: you know, James Dobson start sort of coming forward and
Speaker 3: being more prominent. And then by the sort of mid
Speaker 3: seventies to eighties, you had these like savvy or political
Speaker 3: operators coming out and saying, hey, guys, segregation now, segregation tomorrow,
Speaker 3: segregation forever is like it's great that it really fired
Speaker 3: y'all up, but it has sort of a limited appeal.
Speaker 4: And they shot George Wallace. It's over.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Like there's going to be a ceiling on that,
Speaker 3: and a lot of people think you suck. So why
Speaker 3: are you getting on the ground on this new civil
Speaker 3: rights struggle abortion where you can fight for the unborn
Speaker 3: who conveniently will never disagree with you.
Speaker 4: Right, their voices don't have to be centered here. We
Speaker 4: can speak for them.
Speaker 3: 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 4: He's not even here.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he can't talk, but he's not gonna say shit.
Speaker 3: So I mean that's like the very capsule history. And
Speaker 3: then of course it becomes this idea of like the
Speaker 3: moral majority and where the guardians of America's soul and
Speaker 3: we're gonna get really weird about sex. 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 4: Yeah, I mean that's not fair.
Speaker 3: No, people sometimes like are a little skeptical when I'm like,
Speaker 3: all of the hatreds are interconnected. But then you look
Speaker 3: at like concrete historical examples of like this world historical
Speaker 3: wave of misogyny. I mean, it's not that this population
Speaker 3: wasn't like weird about sex or weird about women like
Speaker 3: 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 3: Yeah, we got here by just like no, we will
Speaker 3: pay taxes on our segregation academies. Bob Jones University's inter
Speaker 3: racial dating ban is perfectly great, and we're gonna mobilize
Speaker 3: about it. And so what you have then now is
Speaker 3: just like fifty years of political lock step because and
Speaker 3: you see this in like other religious communities. I mean,
Speaker 3: like I know, like it's sort of notorious how much
Speaker 3: corruption slides by in New York because like the that
Speaker 3: a communities vote as a block, like it is very
Speaker 3: useful to have a 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 3: Yeah, And you know, the church has always been like
Speaker 3: a really prominent institution in American civil society, especially as
Speaker 3: the rest of sort of civil society has fallen away
Speaker 3: and degraded. Like churches are some of the only social
Speaker 3: outlets that Americans have. And what's interesting when you talk
Speaker 3: to evangelicals and next evangelicals is just like being a
Speaker 3: Republican is like part of their religious identity in a
Speaker 3: major way. It's like this is how you vote, and
Speaker 3: this is you know, how you dress, and this is
Speaker 3: how you go to church and so on. But like
Speaker 3: the idea of being a Democrat is like not only
Speaker 3: you know, a little bit out of step with your community,
Speaker 3: it's heretical.
Speaker 4: I mean, that's how the demons give in.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, demoncrats, I mean, and like, yeah, it's stupid,
Speaker 3: But it's also like half of the people saying demoncrats
Speaker 3: 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 actions.
Speaker 4: Of their enemies. 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 4: 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 3: Yeah, I mean it's really hard to get people to
Speaker 3: step outside their own worldviews and in both directions, right, Like,
Speaker 3: I don't believe that demons are, you know, abroad in
Speaker 3: the world and motivating like every element of political action
Speaker 3: to someone who.
Speaker 4: You're starting to see them some places, but generally, I.
Speaker 3: Know, to someone who does my viewpoint is incomprehensible and
Speaker 3: vice versa. So I think part of I mean not
Speaker 3: that I'm like one of those people that's like polarization
Speaker 3: is the big problem, like you know, as opposed to
Speaker 3: anything with like concrete policy, like you know where it's
Speaker 3: like the big problem is we all don't like each
Speaker 3: other enough, and I'm like, no, the big problem is
Speaker 3: like people are espousing policies that will cause deaths, and
Speaker 3: like also that people like believe their political enemies are
Speaker 3: like literally agents of Satan. I would say, is like
Speaker 3: a bigger problem than polarization in the abstract. But yeah,
Speaker 3: I mean this this doctrine of sort of spiritual warfare,
Speaker 3: which if you like google it, it's just like, oh,
Speaker 3: this is the mindset and it's like you, the listener
Speaker 3: to it could happen here, like you've been drafted into
Speaker 3: the spirit war from like birth.
Speaker 4: Congratulations private, and.
Speaker 3: You're probably in the side of the devil, so good job.
Speaker 3: I mean, I don't know, like a lot of Americans
Speaker 3: believe in angels and demons, and that's fine, but it's
Speaker 3: like when that starts impinging on the political sphere in
Speaker 3: a very serious way. It's like, how far would you
Speaker 3: go if you believed your opponent was under the thrall
Speaker 3: 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 babies,
Speaker 2: 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 3: Yeah, I mean there's your dual element to that. I mean,
Speaker 3: first of all, absolutely, yes, Like I've read some anti
Speaker 3: abortion terror manuals speaking of extremely unpleasant research and it's
Speaker 3: just really like these people are murderers. It's mass murderers,
Speaker 3: Like you're like killing Hitler, right.
Speaker 4: And wouldn't you wouldn't you kill baby Hitler exactly?
Speaker 3: But poltical about baby Hitler in like a countrywide scale.
Speaker 3: And when specific abortion doctors have been mentioned in right
Speaker 3: wing media, those guys end up dead and that's not
Speaker 3: a coincidence. So there's that element of it, which is
Speaker 3: the majority of it. It's huge. But there's also this
Speaker 3: idea of demonic geography, where like demons can possess sort
Speaker 3: of places like abortion clinics or institutions like planned parenthood
Speaker 3: or even the Democratic Party, which you know, I read
Speaker 3: a lot of demonology books like Taxonomies of Demons. Pigs
Speaker 3: in the Parlor was this really big hit in like
Speaker 3: the seventies, and it's been like reissued and reissued and
Speaker 3: millions of copies, and it's just like, on one level,
Speaker 3: it's really compelling because it's like are you tired, are
Speaker 3: you sad? Are you feeling clumsy? Do you have like
Speaker 3: persistent stomach aches? It's demons and here's how you deal
Speaker 3: with that. And like, in a country with shitty healthcare,
Speaker 3: I can totally see why someone who's like really depressed
Speaker 3: might go to like an exorcist or a deliverance minister,
Speaker 3: which is the Protestant.
Speaker 4: If you'll try anything, and this guy's going to do
Speaker 4: it for free.
Speaker 3: I watched so many videos of deliverance ministers doing their thing,
Speaker 3: and it's like crazy. It's like people, you know, are
Speaker 3: just like sitting there and they're like people praying over
Speaker 3: them and screaming in their face, like and they wind
Speaker 3: up vomiting and crying and it's all very like intense.
Speaker 3: And you know, if you think about it from a
Speaker 3: placebo effect perspective for like one second, you're like, obviously
Speaker 3: this person would feel a weightlifted from them they've had
Speaker 3: this ecstatic experience. And this isn't the majority of it.
Speaker 3: This is about fourteen percent of America identifies this as
Speaker 3: white evangelics, so many Protestants and still so many people
Speaker 3: because people keep asking me, like how many people really
Speaker 3: believe shit like this? And I'm like, well, about eighty
Speaker 3: to ninety percent of like people who identify as white
Speaker 3: Evangelical Protestants espows most of these beliefs.
Speaker 4: So that's like third, that's like thirty million people yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and then you add in the Catholic right.
Speaker 4: Which is getting weirder every day.
Speaker 3: Yeah JD Evans, I hate women exist to reproduce breed
Speaker 3: you filthy now. But like even beyond the adult Catholic
Speaker 3: convert style weirdness, like right wing Catholics are an integral
Speaker 3: part of the Christian right, like Amy Cony Barrett, you know,
Speaker 3: antonin Scalia, that kind of thing. That's another bunch of millions.
Speaker 3: So this reactionary force has like numerically significant constituency. On
Speaker 3: the other hand, it definitely punches way above its weight
Speaker 3: 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 3: Yeah, And also even like the culture wars right, like
Speaker 3: the sort of loudest culture warriors tend to at least
Speaker 3: come from like a background of I'm speaking for God
Speaker 3: or Christ is King or whatever it is, Like how
Speaker 3: many times have you and I encountered that an extremist
Speaker 3: contacts But also like the sort of more mainstream me,
Speaker 3: what the fuck the mainstream is? I don't know, it's
Speaker 3: full of piss, But like the more mainstream like Christian grifter, Right,
Speaker 3: they come from this. I'm speaking from my faith. These
Speaker 3: are my religious principles. But like it is worth noting
Speaker 3: again just to rewind in our conversation. But like the
Speaker 3: full concept of religious liberty and religious freedom absolutely was
Speaker 3: 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 4: To do what?
Speaker 3: Right? Yeah, like you answer the question, Yeah, it's religious
Speaker 3: 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, and.
Speaker 4: That is a violation of federal civil rights law.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but that's where I mean, that's where that slogan started.
Speaker 3: And then it's blossomed to clue basically like a gay
Speaker 3: person came into my shop.
Speaker 2: Except they didn't, right, I know, there's no standing, right,
Speaker 2: Like that whole case was built a lie.
Speaker 4: Whatever.
Speaker 3: That's yeah, it's like and the standing in the Supreme
Speaker 3: Court is so ridiculous. This, I mean, in many ways,
Speaker 3: this Supreme Court is the culmination and embodiment and a
Speaker 3: botheosis of like Christian right theocracy, because you have these
Speaker 3: like absolutely bat shit religious zealots, I mean, Amy Cony
Speaker 3: Barrett is like from a cult, and in this unaccountable body,
Speaker 3: they're passing unpopular theocratic principles that the majority of the
Speaker 3: American public uh disagrees with. But like specifically, what they
Speaker 3: are trying to enact and what they are what they
Speaker 3: are enacting is this theocratic agenda where like the government
Speaker 3: is in your bedroom, the government is in your doctor's office,
Speaker 3: like the government is sniffing your panties, and it's it's
Speaker 3: gross and it's upsetting and fundamentally, like theocracies are just
Speaker 3: very famous all up in your junk, like they're obsessed
Speaker 3: with like controlling and censoring sexuality of all kinds of
Speaker 3: a particularly female sexuality and queer sexuality, like snuff those out.
Speaker 3: And so that's part of the reason why so many
Speaker 3: abortion arguments, Like first of all, you have the like
Speaker 3: the you're murdering this cluster of cells which is a
Speaker 3: full human baby, Like do you remember that article in
Speaker 3: the Guardian a couple of years ago that like showed
Speaker 3: the actual size of like fetuses at various stages of development,
Speaker 3: and it was like you were just like so little,
Speaker 3: 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 3: Yeah, exactly, it's not like a mini baby like it
Speaker 3: like tides of gore. It's like literally like a tiny
Speaker 3: cluster of cells. So the anti abortion propaganda, like, you
Speaker 3: are not immune to propaganda. It has like wormed its
Speaker 3: way into the popular consciousness just by virtue of its
Speaker 3: ubiquity and constant repetition being the key to successful propaganda.
Speaker 3: But so many of these arguments, in addition to this
Speaker 3: abortion is murder stuff is also just like you should
Speaker 3: have kept your legs closed.
Speaker 2: Right, this is a this is a consequence God did
Speaker 2: this to you. Yeah, Like sex for your sins immortal sin,
Speaker 2: and sex should be punished and.
Speaker 4: They must be doing it wrong.
Speaker 3: Like I'm like, why do you want sex to have
Speaker 3: consequences and be punished? The like intensity of the misogyny
Speaker 3: 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, was 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.
Speaker 4: But the second half.
Speaker 2: Of this book is about child abuse, right, and like
Speaker 2: you interviewed people who grew up in this movement about
Speaker 2: their lives, about their husband's raping them and their parents
Speaker 2: beating them as children, and like, how did those experiences compare?
Speaker 2: And like what was that? How, I mean, how did
Speaker 2: you prepare to do that? I don't know even know
Speaker 2: how it would begin to do that with care.
Speaker 3: I mean, I think my goal going in is like
Speaker 3: I'm not going to betray you, Like that was my
Speaker 3: guiding ethos of just like I view like your trust
Speaker 3: in me as a sacred thing, not like sacred in
Speaker 3: any formal religious sense, but just like you know, I
Speaker 3: view your trust in me as something that I hold
Speaker 3: very dearly. It's very important. I'm going to treat your
Speaker 3: pain with as much gentleness and respect as I can.
Speaker 3: And like, I interviewed over one hundred people largely about
Speaker 3: their experiences with experiencing child abuse and an evangelical milieu
Speaker 3: as is laid out with pain steaking instructions and like
Speaker 3: all of these parenting manuals. Actually, like I think reading
Speaker 3: the parenting manuals was even more disturbing than talking to people,
Speaker 3: because like people were like, this fucked me up and
Speaker 3: it was wrong. And then these books are like, no,
Speaker 3: you must beat your toddler because Jesus says so, and
Speaker 3: like here's exactly how to beat your toddler, and here's
Speaker 3: what you should use to beat your toddler, and here's
Speaker 3: the like supremely fucked up, like weird ritual that we prescribe.
Speaker 3: And then like reading those in tandem with like like
Speaker 3: the accounts of people who were like this specific thing
Speaker 3: like sucked me up for life and really messed up
Speaker 3: my ability to have like intimacy or self confidence or
Speaker 3: whatever all of that stuff. I mean, that was tough.
Speaker 3: I definitely took more time, Like I wrote Culture Warlords
Speaker 3: in nine months, so I was like totally immersed constantly
Speaker 3: it just like didn't come up for air yeah at all.
Speaker 3: And this one I was like, I need a little
Speaker 3: more time, guys, Like I wrote it over, you know,
Speaker 3: almost three years. I also pretentiously started calling this philosophy
Speaker 3: guarding your Heart because I really got lost in the
Speaker 3: sauce with culture warlords, Like I was in a dark
Speaker 3: place while I was writing it, and afterwards I was
Speaker 3: also the like it came out in mid COVID, so
Speaker 3: that didn't help either. But uh, it was a real,
Speaker 3: really rough experience with this. I was like, I'm going
Speaker 3: to keep writing. I'm gonna write about sandwiches all the
Speaker 3: way through. I'm going to like make sure I have
Speaker 3: friendships and stuff that's grounding me. I think consciously having
Speaker 3: that at the forefront of my mind really helped.
Speaker 1: That.
Speaker 3: Being said, like what was really encouraging was all of
Speaker 3: these people who had experienced this sort of child abuse
Speaker 3: industrial complex in the evangelical community, where like we really
Speaker 3: value that someone wants to hear what we have to say,
Speaker 3: and also that it's someone from outside the community is
Speaker 3: like paying attention and thinks this is important, which is
Speaker 3: not to denigrate like expangelical voices, but more to say that, Like,
Speaker 3: I guess there's a certain validation when someone who's like
Speaker 3: not didn't grow up in your corner of religiosity, dark corner.
Speaker 4: And I'm 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 3: And I'm someone who, like I grew up as a Jew,
Speaker 3: and I'm like, yeah, this sucked, this is terrible. I'm
Speaker 3: like appalled reading like to Train Up a Child by
Speaker 3: The Pearls or The Strong Willed Child by jam Stobson, which, like,
Speaker 3: 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 3: Oh my god, alf from The Little Rascals turns out
Speaker 3: to be able Salfa.
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 4: He beats infants because that's I guess, a good way
Speaker 4: to raise a baby.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Also I think he's homeless.
Speaker 4: No, he's a surf.
Speaker 2: Oh he's in a voluntary serfdom arrangement.
Speaker 3: Oh my god. Okay, well he sounds like a big rascal. Yeah,
Speaker 3: he's continued that trajectory of rascaledom. But don't be your kids.
Speaker 3: I mean, I will also say the reason why this
Speaker 3: book focuses so much on child abuse, which, like I
Speaker 3: encountered some some haters and losers and doubters along the
Speaker 3: way who were like, why are you focused so much
Speaker 3: on child abuse? And I was like, there are a
Speaker 3: lot of different theories about like how authoritarianism developed, but
Speaker 3: one of the big ones is focusing on the pedagogy
Speaker 3: in authoritarian societies. Societies that become authoritarian, you know, evolve
Speaker 3: from democracy to authoritarianism, and beating the shit out of
Speaker 3: people from when they're in infancy and particularly when they
Speaker 3: display disobedience or ask why, or you know, just deviate
Speaker 3: from expectations.
Speaker 4: It's a great way to make an obedient brown shirt.
Speaker 3: Yeah, exactly, Like this is a recipe for future authoritarians.
Speaker 3: Like the people I spoke to had sort of broken
Speaker 3: away largely from this culture. But many of the sort
Speaker 3: of most obedient soldiers in the Army's Army of God
Speaker 3: like are that way. Because again, I can't overemphasize how
Speaker 3: much these parenting manuals, which spanned from like nineteen seventy
Speaker 3: to twenty fifteen, these texts, you know, the dates that
Speaker 3: they were published, emphasize having an obedient child. What you
Speaker 3: want is not like a child who's kind or curious
Speaker 3: or thoughtful or smart. It's obedient, instantly obedient. Don't make
Speaker 3: me count to three is the title of one of
Speaker 3: the books, And like, what you're creating is a culture
Speaker 3: of people who a like empathize with the aggressor at
Speaker 3: all times. So hence this admiration for strength and even
Speaker 3: admiration for cruelty, people who are trained to obey and
Speaker 3: obey without question, and people who are very acclimated to
Speaker 3: the use of violence.
Speaker 4: I mean, you're doing fascism in the home, right.
Speaker 3: So the the author, like Alice Miller, the the author
Speaker 3: of the book For Your Own Good, lays out a
Speaker 3: pretty she was also a Holocaust survivor. She lays out
Speaker 3: a pretty strong case for like, you know, early twentieth
Speaker 3: century Germany having this poisonous pedagogy that also involved beating
Speaker 3: the shit out of your kids until I was illegal
Speaker 3: to love your children, Yeah, to obey you, and how
Speaker 3: basically this is how you make a torture and the
Speaker 3: book is called or your Own Good And yeah, I
Speaker 3: mean I really think it is like under valued in politics,
Speaker 3: Like how much this culture of corporal punishment, which is yeah,
Speaker 3: Americans have like moved away from universal approval of corporal punishment,
Speaker 3: we're still like a lot higher than other Western democracies
Speaker 3: in that regard, and like on a national level, we're
Speaker 3: the only country in the world that hasn't ratified the
Speaker 3: UN Conventions on the Rights of a Child, which include
Speaker 3: like having a name and like not being beaten and
Speaker 3: not being thrown 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. But it's
Speaker 3: also just like a lot of it actually was like
Speaker 3: worries that like evangelicals like would sort of object to
Speaker 3: the interference in their it's.
Speaker 2: An infringement on their religious freedom to bet the shit
Speaker 2: out of baby.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and they're parental rights which is another buzzword of
Speaker 3: this this movement.
Speaker 4: Parental rights is a red flag for me.
Speaker 3: Oh yeah, no, I hear parental rights, and I think
Speaker 3: you want to beat the shit out of your kids.
Speaker 4: You don't want your children to learn science.
Speaker 3: Yeah, you at a homeschool and under educate your kids
Speaker 3: or miseducate.
Speaker 2: You want to cause a measle's outbreak exactly.
Speaker 3: But that's like for us because we're weirdos. We're like
Speaker 3: obsessively clued into this stuff. If you're not, Like, parental
Speaker 3: rights is like religious freedom is, like it sounds good, Yeah,
Speaker 3: it's an effective marketing slogan, but like what it means
Speaker 3: is like we're going to show up at the school
Speaker 3: board and yell about how I mean. And Trump is
Speaker 3: like bought into this obviously because he knows where his
Speaker 3: bread is buttered. He has savvy Like he's like, you guys,
Speaker 3: do the policy. But like his current parental rights based
Speaker 3: his biggest like policy that he's advocating is like denying
Speaker 3: federal funding to any school with any vaccine a mandate,
Speaker 3: which is basically just like make measles great again, like
Speaker 3: bring back diphtheria. I think, like, yes, the maga movement
Speaker 3: ister of the the efflorescence, the apotheosis of this steadily
Speaker 3: building power, but like there's also just like fifty years
Speaker 3: of power building behind it. And like even if Trump
Speaker 3: was defeated at the federal level, which like I profoundly
Speaker 3: hope he is, sorry to come out as like a
Speaker 3: you know, partisan, a voter, like a hashtag a voter,
Speaker 3: but like, I think it would be just a nauseatingly
Speaker 3: it's a horrifying thought that he I mean, first of all,
Speaker 3: you would absolutely enact every item in this theocratic agenda,
Speaker 3: starting with a national abortion band like that would happen
Speaker 3: in the first hundred days, I think, which would just
Speaker 3: functionally plunge American women into like a very very dark
Speaker 3: septocemic nightmare.
Speaker 4: Yeah, the dark place that we're going as a coffin.
Speaker 3: Yeah yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 3: But even should he lose, which you know hope, there's
Speaker 3: still twenty two states where abortion is outlawed or severely restricted,
Speaker 3: and these places are becoming care deserts. Like medical residents.
Speaker 3: My extremely sexy partner is a medical resident, so I
Speaker 3: know more about the state of medicine than I otherwise would.
Speaker 3: But like residents don't want to do their residencies in
Speaker 3: states with abortion restrictions, they're like, right, given.
Speaker 2: A choice, gynecological providers just aren't practicing there anymore. Like
Speaker 2: even if you know, even your primary focus is not abortions,
Speaker 2: or even if your primary focus is not you know,
Speaker 2: pregnancy care, they just don't want to They just don't
Speaker 2: want to work there.
Speaker 3: Well, also, first of all that, but second of all,
Speaker 3: it's like, if you're in the er, you're going to
Speaker 3: experience pregnancy losss It happens in one in five pregnancy.
Speaker 2: Right, So they're choosing to work in states where they're
Speaker 2: not going to go to jail for doing medicine.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Like they don't want to incur the moral injury
Speaker 3: of not being able to apply the standard of care
Speaker 3: to patients in extremely common situations such as incomplete miscarriage
Speaker 3: and you know, pregnancy loss, whether you know self induced
Speaker 3: or just like miscarriage is super common and nobody talks
Speaker 3: 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 4: And then after the baby is born, then your lustrous
Speaker 4: hair all falls out.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Like ordinary pregnancy is so fraught with like weird
Speaker 3: body horror. Like, but anyway, that's besides the point. Whatever.
Speaker 3: The point is someone presents with abdominal pain in the
Speaker 3: er and it turns out to be an ectopic pregnancy,
Speaker 3: and like you can't do standard of care like dilation
Speaker 3: and cure tash procedures without checking with the hospital lawyer.
Speaker 3: Like that is a really bad position a care provider
Speaker 3: to be in. So when you have these fundamentally unscientific laws,
Speaker 3: right that are produced by people who don't know anything
Speaker 3: about pregnancy and are like very intentionally ambiguous, so that
Speaker 3: cautious institutions will sort of interpret them at maximally interpret them,
Speaker 3: Like the life of the mother.
Speaker 4: How dead does she have to be? 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 3: There, Yeah, Or people who have ordinary wanted pregnancies who
Speaker 3: can't access neonatal care, who have to drive hours and
Speaker 3: hours and hours to like get checkups, like you know,
Speaker 3: I mean, human reproduction is like a pretty major part
Speaker 3: of like life.
Speaker 4: And a lot of people are doing it.
Speaker 3: Yeah, like it's sort of how you know, It's just
Speaker 3: people do it all the time, and like, not being
Speaker 3: able to access medical care around like the entire spectrum
Speaker 3: of like reproduction is pretty catastrophic. But yeah, it also
Speaker 3: impacts all the people not engaging in reproduction at this
Speaker 3: moment in time, like doctors who are just like fuck this,
Speaker 3: I'm not wearing out an er in Tennessee, you know,
Speaker 3: because I want to be able to treat patients.
Speaker 4: Without a lawyer in the room.
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, exactly, I mean, And then there are doctors
Speaker 3: who are bigots and doctors who are happily on board
Speaker 3: with abortion bands. But like, do you want that to
Speaker 3: be the only doctor in your county? I don't think so,
Speaker 3: you know, it's just it's a really grim situation. And
Speaker 3: I just like, I'm such an absolutist about bodily autonomy.
Speaker 3: It's like, if you don't own your body, you are
Speaker 3: not a full citizen, period of story. Like if if
Speaker 3: a major organ in your body is treated as a
Speaker 3: controlled substance, like, you are not a full and equal
Speaker 3: citizen with rights, which I would like to be.
Speaker 4: 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 4: I told you that I wouldn't keep you very long,
Speaker 4: and I lied.
Speaker 3: But it's like, it's just because I like talking to you.
Speaker 3: So it's I think I've done the majority of the talkics.
Speaker 3: You can't. You can't be like, oh, it's about your book,
Speaker 3: which you should buy listeners.
Speaker 4: Pre order it now wherever you buy your books.
Speaker 3: And if you like the delcent tones of my voice,
Speaker 3: which are I shouldn't have you to narrate in my
Speaker 3: audio books, you brush that passage.
Speaker 4: I'm a professional talker now, yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Well I narrated the audio book and then was like,
Speaker 3: why did I write such complicated sentences? Afterwards?
Speaker 2: So now that I read my own writing, like on
Speaker 2: a regular basis out loud, which.
Speaker 4: Is new for me.
Speaker 2: Right, So you know, I have my podcast and I'm
Speaker 2: writing my little scripts and then I'm reading into a
Speaker 2: little microphone. Now that I struggle with that. I noticed
Speaker 2: while I was reading your book that oh I wouldn't
Speaker 2: be able to read this out loud. I know, where
Speaker 2: would I breathe? I know it was because I write
Speaker 2: like that too, and it's something I'm like really grappling
Speaker 2: with right now.
Speaker 3: She's like call me ten clubs, Talia. I'm like, ah, fuck,
Speaker 3: this sentence is this paragraph? This sentence is a paragraph.
Speaker 3: Stop it.
Speaker 4: Like I really really lost, really lost momentum on that one.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I know, but like I managed to get through it.
Speaker 3: And if you if you enjoy the dulcae sounds of
Speaker 3: my voice, you can hear it for like I don't know,
Speaker 3: eight hours or whatever. I assume we're being like, listen
Speaker 3: to my voice.
Speaker 4: But you know, invite me into your mind.
Speaker 3: Yeah, but I do think it's nice as an author
Speaker 3: to read your audiobook because I can like get mad
Speaker 3: and like, you know, emphasize stuff that I think is important.
Speaker 3: And also I'm a theater kid, like, like I don't
Speaker 3: have many opportunities to perform, and it is a performance
Speaker 3: and it's it's fun.
Speaker 4: But yeah, and that comes out at the same time
Speaker 4: as the physical book.
Speaker 3: Yes, it comes out audio ebook, physical book with a
Speaker 3: cool snake on it.
Speaker 4: 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 3: Yeah, it's got a cool snake, a red and black
Speaker 3: snake on the cover. I've named him Rocco, but he
Speaker 3: has a cross for a tongue. If you're looking for
Speaker 3: a book to give to the metal head in your life,
Speaker 3: oh yeah, it's pretty metal, metal heads, atheists, degenerates. Everyone
Speaker 3: is going to love this book.
Speaker 4: It's perfect for everyone.
Speaker 3: And if you're light on cash flow, want it for
Speaker 3: supporting India authors is ask your library to stock it
Speaker 3: or your local bookstore because library orders are really important
Speaker 3: and you can just like put in a request in
Speaker 3: 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. Yeah, talywhere else can people find you online?
Speaker 3: So I have a newsletter. It's on button down. I
Speaker 3: left substack because they were like, We're never gonna sensor Nazis,
Speaker 3: but we will sensor porn. And I was like, I
Speaker 3: don't like your priorities, so I left for button Down.
Speaker 3: So it's buttondown dot com slash the sword in the sandwich,
Speaker 3: or if you just google the sword and the sandwich
Speaker 3: comes up. Most Tuesdays I write about like the horrific
Speaker 3: state of politics, et cetera, and then Fridays I write
Speaker 3: an essay about a different sandwich on Wikipedia's list of
Speaker 3: notable sandwiches, and so far I've written one hundred and
Speaker 3: 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 like ah, the
Speaker 3: shifting of peoples led to this sandwich, so I get
Speaker 3: really deep into it. And then you can also find
Speaker 3: me on Blue Sky, where I most of the time
Speaker 3: now because Twitter is just like robots and Nazis and
Speaker 3: Nazi robots, where I'm at swords Jew. I'm still on
Speaker 3: Vishy Twitter as Mobi Dick Energy. And you know, if
Speaker 3: you want to say hi or invite me to speak
Speaker 3: at your synagogue or bookstore I'm at Talia l even
Speaker 3: writes at gmail dot com. Or church if you're like cool. Yeah,
Speaker 3: if it's like a cool church, yeah, you show up
Speaker 3: and they pass you with snake yeah exactly. Oh God,
Speaker 3: I didn't do enough speaking you 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 3: Yeah, we stand civic services, and I'm a huge fan
Speaker 3: of public libraries and also of Molly Conger. So thanks
Speaker 3: for having me on and take care, Bye bye.
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