WEBVTT - S4E13: Jon Lovett and the Donner Party 0:00:01.000 --> 0:00:03.520 I don't know that I'm made for ox work. I 0:00:03.560 --> 0:00:06.680 couldn't even be like a paralegal in the Old West. 0:00:07.080 --> 0:00:09.920 I struggle at a best Western, so I can't imagine 0:00:09.920 --> 0:00:13.000 if I'm at the actual least Western. You know what 0:00:13.039 --> 0:00:16.040 I mean, the actual West. So yeah, even a best 0:00:16.040 --> 0:00:24.880 Western is too Western for you. Today I am joined 0:00:24.960 --> 0:00:29.680 by former Obama speech writer, current pod Save America co host, 0:00:29.960 --> 0:00:33.800 and a guy I considered to be a whip smart, 0:00:34.000 --> 0:00:38.320 world class communicator with a startling command of the issues 0:00:38.560 --> 0:00:43.520 and devastating comedic timing. He's also somehow turned crippling anxiety 0:00:43.520 --> 0:00:48.360 about the future of America into a wildly successful media empire. 0:00:48.440 --> 0:00:52.720 Please welcome the one and only John love It. Hi. 0:00:53.040 --> 0:00:55.840 What an intro? Thank you? Hey? Yeah, that's what we 0:00:55.880 --> 0:00:59.360 do here. We honor our guests, we elevate them. And 0:01:00.800 --> 0:01:03.680 I've been I've been on your shows over the years 0:01:03.720 --> 0:01:06.240 many times. I'm so glad to have you on here. So, 0:01:06.840 --> 0:01:12.360 in your job at Crooked Media, you basically spend a 0:01:12.400 --> 0:01:16.560 lot of time analyzing the daily horrors of American politics, 0:01:17.360 --> 0:01:23.039 particularly Trump World, and yet somehow you stay quick and 0:01:23.360 --> 0:01:29.560 clever and weirdly hopeful. What's your secret like what's the 0:01:29.800 --> 0:01:32.680 like are you is it just therapy or are you 0:01:33.120 --> 0:01:36.120 on black market ketamine? Like? How do you not collapse 0:01:36.200 --> 0:01:39.520 into despair all the time. I want you to know something. 0:01:39.680 --> 0:01:43.039 If I ever am on ketymine, it will be from 0:01:43.080 --> 0:01:47.960 a prestigious Los Angeles Chase pill pushing fancy doctor. I'm 0:01:47.960 --> 0:01:50.080 not going to do black market drugs, forgive that why 0:01:50.120 --> 0:01:52.040 I moved to this city, and I shouldn't know better. 0:01:52.480 --> 0:01:58.120 But so it's interesting. The truth is for me, I 0:01:58.120 --> 0:02:00.480 think hope is important. I think it's important that people 0:02:00.520 --> 0:02:02.240 feel it because I think without it they may not 0:02:02.320 --> 0:02:07.280 be as involved or invested in it has real genuine value. 0:02:07.600 --> 0:02:10.240 But it's never been my motivator, to be honest, I've 0:02:10.280 --> 0:02:14.200 always been motivated by anger. I really have, like what 0:02:14.440 --> 0:02:18.640 like anger, not just anger at Republicans who I disagree with, 0:02:18.639 --> 0:02:22.160 but like angry at the fact that these problems are solvable, 0:02:22.240 --> 0:02:25.160 right like just I like, Yeah, I'm the kind of 0:02:25.200 --> 0:02:30.040 person where I was at a buffet line over the weekend. 0:02:30.080 --> 0:02:32.840 In fact, what a life I lead? And I'm at 0:02:32.840 --> 0:02:35.680 this buffet line and there was basically it was a 0:02:35.760 --> 0:02:39.800 Nacho's buffet line, okay, And here's how it was organized. 0:02:40.000 --> 0:02:46.480 It went plates, chips, cheese, another bowl of chips, another 0:02:46.520 --> 0:02:50.000 bowl of cheese. There's a long fucking line behind me 0:02:50.040 --> 0:02:54.120 and in front of me. I see this, and nobody's 0:02:54.120 --> 0:02:56.760 doing anything. And so I walk to the front of 0:02:56.800 --> 0:02:59.520 the line. I take half the stack of plates and 0:02:59.560 --> 0:03:02.520 I put it next to the other bowl of cheese 0:03:02.720 --> 0:03:05.080 and chips, so that a whole group of people aren't 0:03:05.120 --> 0:03:09.040 walking by. And because that's where the logjam was, that's 0:03:09.080 --> 0:03:12.360 where the hold up was. Okay, look, I see that 0:03:12.400 --> 0:03:15.680 I'm becoming the old Jewish relatives I knew from my childhood. Yeah, 0:03:15.680 --> 0:03:18.600 you're Larry David all of a sudden, But in ways 0:03:18.720 --> 0:03:21.760 large and small, that is my nature. I can't stand 0:03:21.800 --> 0:03:26.000 those things. And so maybe I was just always motivated 0:03:26.000 --> 0:03:29.160 by the kinds of like. I don't need to love 0:03:30.200 --> 0:03:34.040 or be inspired every day to be motivated to participate 0:03:34.160 --> 0:03:36.680 or make jokes or do whatever we need to do. 0:03:36.800 --> 0:03:39.880 So maybe that's my good fortune. I do think like 0:03:40.080 --> 0:03:43.080 in a serious way, there's a whole home media apparatus 0:03:43.080 --> 0:03:45.480 that wants people to feel cynical and negative and to 0:03:45.840 --> 0:03:49.040 view all politics as corrupt and all politicians is useless. 0:03:49.360 --> 0:03:55.520 And if you give into that, the people that want 0:03:55.520 --> 0:03:57.640 you to feel that way when they really do. And 0:03:58.640 --> 0:04:00.720 as bad as things have got, as bad as they 0:04:00.760 --> 0:04:04.160 could continue to get, there are always places where we 0:04:04.200 --> 0:04:08.280 have agency. And if you're giving up, it's not because 0:04:08.280 --> 0:04:10.360 you can't make a difference or you can't be involved, 0:04:10.440 --> 0:04:13.160 or you can't have an impact. It's because either you 0:04:13.200 --> 0:04:16.160 don't know the way to find it or you've decided 0:04:16.200 --> 0:04:18.559 it's too hard. And maybe that's okay, that's something people 0:04:18.560 --> 0:04:21.120 can decide. But like I think there's a way a 0:04:21.120 --> 0:04:23.680 which people try to tell themselves things are worse than 0:04:23.680 --> 0:04:27.000 they seem or are irredeemable because it makes it easier. 0:04:27.960 --> 0:04:30.320 And the truth is, hope makes demands of us. It does, 0:04:30.440 --> 0:04:32.920 and it requires you to do things well said. Thank 0:04:32.960 --> 0:04:36.560 you for reflecting on that with me. I actually I 0:04:36.680 --> 0:04:39.960 kind of only want to talk about this stuff with you. 0:04:40.120 --> 0:04:42.279 I just like how you communicate about these things. Just 0:04:42.279 --> 0:04:45.279 a quick question. You were on the show Survivor. That's right, 0:04:45.600 --> 0:04:47.920 Did you guys at any point on that show ever 0:04:48.040 --> 0:04:54.240 consider eating one another, just like casually a backup plan? 0:04:54.480 --> 0:04:57.480 The truth is I was only I was only surviving 0:04:57.520 --> 0:04:59.960 for three nights, which meant I only really missed three 0:05:00.480 --> 0:05:03.359 and eating a fellow person doesn't come up after three dinners, 0:05:03.560 --> 0:05:08.279 you're already taking this question too seriously. But so it 0:05:08.400 --> 0:05:10.160 never comes to that. The other thing, too, is there 0:05:10.200 --> 0:05:14.000 are coconuts strewn about. Sure right, you know, the exact 0:05:14.120 --> 0:05:16.960 number of coconuts one might need to survive happened to 0:05:17.000 --> 0:05:20.880 be randomly distributed by I think God. Uh yeah, Well, 0:05:20.920 --> 0:05:24.640 today's NAF does involve actual cannibalism because one of the 0:05:24.680 --> 0:05:28.919 most famous disasters in American history. We're talking about the 0:05:29.040 --> 0:05:36.240 Donner Party. Hell yeah. The years eighteen forty six a 0:05:36.360 --> 0:05:40.400 time when Americans were charging westward under the banner of 0:05:40.600 --> 0:05:44.440 manifest destiny, which was basically the nineteenth century version of 0:05:44.960 --> 0:05:47.120 I want it and God said I could have it, 0:05:47.240 --> 0:05:51.039 so gimme it. It was kind of a conveniently divine 0:05:51.080 --> 0:05:55.159 permission slip for land grabs, broken treaties, and some really 0:05:55.279 --> 0:05:59.800 creative definitions of morality. But we'll come back to all that. So, 0:06:00.760 --> 0:06:04.320 like today, eighteen forty six is a time of deep uncertainty. 0:06:04.400 --> 0:06:07.719 Most of the people heading west, they're not thrill seekers, 0:06:07.720 --> 0:06:12.080 they're not adventurers. They're just families chasing stability and hoping 0:06:12.120 --> 0:06:15.880 for a fresh start. John, have you ever had the 0:06:15.920 --> 0:06:20.000 fantasy of just like leaving it all behind and walking 0:06:20.000 --> 0:06:23.320 away from everything for a fresh start, like just off 0:06:23.400 --> 0:06:26.640 somewhere new. I'll tell you it's pretty embarrassing. But my 0:06:26.720 --> 0:06:30.480 friend Sam and I when we were graduating college, we 0:06:30.560 --> 0:06:33.000 decided we really wanted to like we're gonna we want 0:06:33.000 --> 0:06:35.680 to like go west, all right. We really did talk 0:06:35.720 --> 0:06:39.880 about this, and are in unimaginative brains. We were like, 0:06:39.920 --> 0:06:42.400 we're gonna go to Alaska. We're gonna move to Alaska, 0:06:43.640 --> 0:06:46.280 but we were gonna become paralegals there. And I don't 0:06:46.360 --> 0:06:50.160 really understand how it was. We'd like twenty twenty one, 0:06:50.480 --> 0:06:53.240 and we thought, oh, well, go become paralegals because we 0:06:53.279 --> 0:06:55.640 know we could get that job. And I just there's 0:06:55.680 --> 0:06:59.599 something so embarrassing about imagining going all the way to 0:06:59.680 --> 0:07:03.640 allow SCA as an experiment, but being only able to 0:07:03.680 --> 0:07:06.040 conceive of an office job once we got there. We 0:07:06.080 --> 0:07:08.160 could have gone fishing, we could have done a lot 0:07:08.200 --> 0:07:10.120 of different things, but that was what we imagined. That 0:07:10.160 --> 0:07:12.960 there was a Jewish pragmatism in the heart of even 0:07:12.960 --> 0:07:16.440 that adventure. But there's also like this ken keezy kind 0:07:16.480 --> 0:07:20.560 of like adventure spirit to Alaska that we all crave 0:07:21.160 --> 0:07:24.400 kudos to you for that. Thank you. So it's eighteen 0:07:24.480 --> 0:07:27.760 forty six. The Oregon Trail was a well worn path 0:07:27.800 --> 0:07:30.800 at this point. There were maps, guide books, and a 0:07:30.840 --> 0:07:34.400 pretty clear playbook for how to make it successfully, as 0:07:34.400 --> 0:07:36.560 long as you leave on time, follow the route, and 0:07:36.720 --> 0:07:39.560 don't try to get too fancy, which makes what happened 0:07:39.640 --> 0:07:43.600 next all the more unbelievable because one group looked at 0:07:43.600 --> 0:07:46.280 that solid, proven plan and they were just like, hold 0:07:46.280 --> 0:07:49.360 my beer, because we got better ideas. We're going to 0:07:49.440 --> 0:07:53.240 do this our own way. What's your dinner party knowledge. 0:07:53.360 --> 0:07:57.080 I have never done a full deep dive. There's some 0:07:57.400 --> 0:08:01.880 tiny part of my brain that members that at some 0:08:02.000 --> 0:08:05.120 point they get hoodwinked in some way. We'll get there, 0:08:05.120 --> 0:08:08.119 but you're right. Let's meet the partiers, shall we. First 0:08:08.200 --> 0:08:13.200 up brothers George and Jacob Donner, who brought their entire families, kids, wives, 0:08:13.400 --> 0:08:17.640 kids from other wives, basically just a massive frontier Brady bunch. 0:08:18.160 --> 0:08:20.679 They also hired a crew of teamsters, not the Jimmy 0:08:20.680 --> 0:08:24.360 Hoffa kind. Back then, a teamster was someone who drove 0:08:24.480 --> 0:08:26.520 a team of oxen. Today, of course, it means a 0:08:26.640 --> 0:08:30.440 Union truck driver, so basically a similar vibe as today, 0:08:30.600 --> 0:08:34.559 just more hay and less honking. So do you think 0:08:34.559 --> 0:08:36.360 you'd make a good teamster back in the day or 0:08:36.400 --> 0:08:39.840 would you just tap out at the first blister? Oh yeah, 0:08:39.840 --> 0:08:42.840 I don't know that I'm made for ox work. I 0:08:42.880 --> 0:08:46.439 couldn't even be like a paralegal in the Old West. 0:08:47.120 --> 0:08:53.240 To your earlier point, I struggle at a best Western, right, 0:08:53.800 --> 0:08:57.600 no matter if it's if it's in the West, or 0:08:57.760 --> 0:09:00.000 even if it's in the East. Yeah, a long time 0:09:00.040 --> 0:09:02.400 along a highway upstate New York, I'm at a best Western. 0:09:02.720 --> 0:09:05.480 I'm complaining You're life. So I can't imagine if I'm 0:09:05.520 --> 0:09:08.560 at the actual least Western, you know what I mean, 0:09:08.640 --> 0:09:12.200 the actual West, the actual the worst Western, which is 0:09:12.240 --> 0:09:16.040 the real Old West. Okay, So yeah, even a best 0:09:16.080 --> 0:09:20.800 Western is too Western for you, right right, all right, 0:09:21.120 --> 0:09:24.600 all right? Well, also joining the crew James f Reed, 0:09:24.679 --> 0:09:28.560 an Irish immigrant from Springfield, Illinois, whose business had just 0:09:28.760 --> 0:09:31.199 gone belly up, so he's looking for a fresh start. 0:09:31.240 --> 0:09:34.640 He brought along his wife, Margaret, their kids, and Grandma Keys, 0:09:34.679 --> 0:09:37.720 who is in her seventies. That's that's got to be 0:09:37.760 --> 0:09:40.960 a tough old broad right, Just I'm surprised the Donners 0:09:41.000 --> 0:09:43.160 would have allowed Irish people. I think that's probably where 0:09:43.160 --> 0:09:45.600 they that was where they went wrong maybe. So at 0:09:45.640 --> 0:09:49.560 the start here we're talking about roughly thirty one people 0:09:49.600 --> 0:09:51.440 in the group. Now I'm going to throw out numbers 0:09:51.440 --> 0:09:54.560 this whole time, but historians kind of dispute the exact numbers. 0:09:54.559 --> 0:09:58.000 So these are rough numbers about thirty one people in 0:09:58.040 --> 0:10:01.600 the group. And according to young Virgin, the Reeds had 0:10:01.640 --> 0:10:05.559 the nicest ride, what she called a two story pioneer 0:10:05.760 --> 0:10:11.040 palace car pulled by four Oxen. Meanwhile, the Donners were 0:10:11.080 --> 0:10:15.600 apparently slumming it with just three Oxen wagons. So even 0:10:15.600 --> 0:10:18.800 on the Oregon Trail, teenage girls, or they're going to 0:10:18.880 --> 0:10:23.720 judge your ride, there were double deckers. Yeah, I know, 0:10:24.000 --> 0:10:28.880 quick little sidebar, John love it any like disastrous road 0:10:28.880 --> 0:10:30.920 trips in your life, because this is about to go 0:10:30.960 --> 0:10:33.559 off the rails. I'll tell you. I was the presidential 0:10:33.559 --> 0:10:37.439 speech writerer, and it was my job to be on 0:10:37.480 --> 0:10:39.840 the road with the president on a rural tour. He 0:10:39.960 --> 0:10:42.959 was doing a swing of rural areas talking about rural issues, 0:10:43.480 --> 0:10:49.880 and something went wrong with my physical plant, with my corpus, no, 0:10:50.240 --> 0:10:53.679 my habeas. Okay, this is very cryptic, but it sounds 0:10:53.720 --> 0:10:56.520 like sounds like you was sick, You're getting ill. You've 0:10:56.559 --> 0:10:59.959 never been going to the bathroom while the plane landed. 0:11:01.600 --> 0:11:05.079 That's not something you've ever done. You've never been You're 0:11:05.080 --> 0:11:10.320 not allowed to. And literally I am having I'm I'll 0:11:10.360 --> 0:11:12.960 just I'm shooting my brains out on Air Force one 0:11:13.200 --> 0:11:16.880 while it is physically landing. And I know that I 0:11:17.000 --> 0:11:20.320 have like thirty seconds after this plane stops to get 0:11:20.400 --> 0:11:24.440 to the van because the motorcade leaves when the President 0:11:24.640 --> 0:11:28.880 gets off the plane. And I spent that whole day wondering, 0:11:29.240 --> 0:11:30.920 am I gonna have to like fake some sort of 0:11:30.920 --> 0:11:33.000 a medical episode to get this van to pull over? 0:11:33.440 --> 0:11:38.040 Because I was in trouble that whole day. That whole day, God, 0:11:38.120 --> 0:11:40.480 I am sick to my stuf. Where is this? Where city? 0:11:40.480 --> 0:11:42.400 Are you at it? As well? But where is this 0:11:42.760 --> 0:11:48.079 mouth and butt? That's where it is? Geographically, I think 0:11:48.120 --> 0:11:50.040 we had flown maybe into Des Moines and we were 0:11:50.080 --> 0:11:55.600 doing a swing through Iowa, Okay, And uh it was 0:11:55.679 --> 0:12:00.439 an unbelievable nightmare. It was my secret nightmare. But I 0:12:00.440 --> 0:12:03.720 I made it all the way through. Nobody was the wiser. 0:12:03.840 --> 0:12:06.600 I mean, just like it was unbelievable. It was a 0:12:06.640 --> 0:12:15.920 high high low low day. I do love that story. Okay, 0:12:16.080 --> 0:12:20.720 we're jumping back in. The Donner Party officially departed Independence, 0:12:20.760 --> 0:12:23.560 Missouri and headed to the Oregon Trail on May twelfth, 0:12:23.600 --> 0:12:27.439 eighteen forty six, having now ballooned to roughly eighty seven members. 0:12:27.960 --> 0:12:31.080 But it didn't take long for shit to hit the 0:12:31.080 --> 0:12:36.160 proverbial fan. Because May twelfth is way late in the season, 0:12:36.440 --> 0:12:38.640 the best time to leave on a westward trek was 0:12:38.760 --> 0:12:42.000 early to mid April. This was pretty much common knowledge, 0:12:42.040 --> 0:12:45.680 so shame on the Donner Party, right. Travelers relied on 0:12:45.720 --> 0:12:48.920 seasonal grass and flowers to feed their cattle, and also 0:12:48.960 --> 0:12:52.640 needed to avoid the rainy spring, which created crazy amounts 0:12:52.679 --> 0:12:55.560 of mud. Are you a big planner when you travel? 0:12:55.600 --> 0:12:57.520 Do you do you? Are you in the guide books? 0:12:57.559 --> 0:13:01.240 Are you just kind of winging it? Like what's your style? Yeah? 0:13:00.880 --> 0:13:05.040 I'm a planner. I'm a planner. The Internet made travel 0:13:05.640 --> 0:13:07.760 worse because it used to be you went to a 0:13:07.800 --> 0:13:10.800 city to explore it, and now if you arrive unprepared, 0:13:11.440 --> 0:13:14.120 you feel as though you didn't explore it. Yeah, you 0:13:14.200 --> 0:13:15.840 know what I'm saying, and so, but I like to 0:13:15.880 --> 0:13:19.200 know before I go I agree. And also cell phones 0:13:19.240 --> 0:13:23.200 have made travel really annoying because I found myself walking 0:13:23.240 --> 0:13:28.800 around Florence like just staring at my map, like where 0:13:29.360 --> 0:13:31.600 where am I going? And like scrolling trying to just 0:13:31.640 --> 0:13:34.720 like orient myself as opposed to like, you know, twenty 0:13:34.800 --> 0:13:38.960 years ago, you'd just be looking for landmarks and finding 0:13:38.960 --> 0:13:42.040 your way around and just so much more in the space. 0:13:42.360 --> 0:13:45.640 It's yeah, and it's like you the risk of that is, oh, 0:13:45.679 --> 0:13:48.800 you didn't eat the right gelato. But the reward of that, 0:13:48.880 --> 0:13:51.280 the reward of that is maybe a discovery or an 0:13:51.360 --> 0:13:55.040 experience that you otherwise wouldn't have had. Yeah, hot take 0:13:55.880 --> 0:13:58.360 John love it. I think the internet might be bad. 0:13:58.679 --> 0:14:01.959 I know, I know, it's yeah. I agree. Well, needless 0:14:02.000 --> 0:14:06.080 to say, there was no internet back in the day, 0:14:06.400 --> 0:14:09.680 so despite the late start, the Donner group was in 0:14:09.760 --> 0:14:12.640 high spirits. Initially, the party made fine progress, traveling from 0:14:12.640 --> 0:14:15.360 Missouri to Wyoming in about six weeks. For all you 0:14:15.480 --> 0:14:19.160 coastal elites, that's over six hundred and fifty miles, which 0:14:19.200 --> 0:14:21.920 is pretty impressive in wagons. Okay, now we're getting to 0:14:21.960 --> 0:14:25.160 the part that you sort of knew a little bit 0:14:25.200 --> 0:14:27.760 about or had an inkling of in early July, the 0:14:27.800 --> 0:14:31.760 Donner party arrived in Fort Laramie, Wyoming. While the party rested, 0:14:31.960 --> 0:14:35.800 they crossed paths with a man named Lansford Hastings, a 0:14:35.840 --> 0:14:39.080 Westward Expansion supervan with a name that sounds kind of 0:14:39.160 --> 0:14:43.400 super villainy. Hastings had big dreams of flooding California with 0:14:43.440 --> 0:14:48.560 settlers to spark a bloodless revolution against the Mexican government casual. 0:14:49.280 --> 0:14:53.040 He'd also written a guidebook promoting a shortcut through the 0:14:53.080 --> 0:14:56.600 wa Such Mountains and the Great Salt Lake Desert, claiming 0:14:56.640 --> 0:14:59.880 it would shave three hundred miles off the trip. Small catch. 0:15:00.680 --> 0:15:04.240 He had never actually taken this shortcut, and in reality 0:15:04.320 --> 0:15:08.080 it added one hundred and twenty five brutal miles. But 0:15:08.480 --> 0:15:11.640 still in Laramie, the Donners took this terrible advice and 0:15:11.760 --> 0:15:15.840 turned onto the now infamous Hastings cut off. What's the 0:15:15.840 --> 0:15:18.480 worst advice you ever got from a stranger, John Lovett? 0:15:19.000 --> 0:15:22.000 Was it the person who gave you that pad tie 0:15:22.000 --> 0:15:25.000 on Air Force one? Or yeah, it was the night 0:15:25.000 --> 0:15:27.360 before someone said you got to try the seafood special. 0:15:27.440 --> 0:15:29.120 The Oyster's right out of the ocean, right out of 0:15:29.160 --> 0:15:32.840 the Hudson. Yeah, oh right, Oh god, Hudson Oysters. That 0:15:32.880 --> 0:15:35.200 would be it, all right? This so called shortcut cost 0:15:35.240 --> 0:15:38.200 the Donner party two grueling weeks just to get through 0:15:38.240 --> 0:15:41.440 the Wasatch Mountains, but at least the desert was next, 0:15:41.440 --> 0:15:44.200 and Hastings had assured them it would only take two days, 0:15:44.480 --> 0:15:47.880 so they packed accordingly, But in reality it took six days, 0:15:47.920 --> 0:15:51.720 after which the families were exhausted, dehydrated, and severely undernourished. 0:15:53.440 --> 0:15:56.240 You ever been screwed by a short cut? Yeah? Yes, 0:15:56.520 --> 0:15:59.480 cliff Notes got me because the cliff goats would get 0:15:59.520 --> 0:16:01.480 me off. In high school, they got me pretty bad 0:16:01.520 --> 0:16:04.120 because the teachers caught wise. Look I'm a sucker for 0:16:04.200 --> 0:16:06.040 a short cut. I am. I am. You tell me 0:16:06.080 --> 0:16:07.800 that there's a better way. I'm gonna try it. I 0:16:07.840 --> 0:16:12.000 really will, are you like Hastings would have gotten me? Yeah, honestly, 0:16:11.760 --> 0:16:15.400 pretty compelling. Shave three hundred miles off this epic journey. 0:16:15.480 --> 0:16:18.440 The one valuable thing about the Internet is that if 0:16:18.440 --> 0:16:21.320 there was a Reddit forum in eighteen whatever hear this is, 0:16:21.360 --> 0:16:23.480 it would have said do not do. It would be 0:16:23.520 --> 0:16:28.080 under everybody our you know, Oregon r slash Oregon Trail. Hastings, 0:16:28.120 --> 0:16:31.600 do not follow this is bad, don't believe him. Yeah, 0:16:31.640 --> 0:16:33.800 there was a little bit more because you know, nobody, 0:16:33.840 --> 0:16:36.080 how are you going to check? How are you gonna check? 0:16:36.120 --> 0:16:38.360 There's nobody. You can't ask somebody in California when you're 0:16:38.360 --> 0:16:41.880 in Wyoming if they took the Hastings cut off. Yeah, 0:16:41.920 --> 0:16:44.960 and if he's got a really nice mustache, like you're 0:16:44.960 --> 0:16:47.680 gonna trust him. Yeah. This is the era of the 0:16:47.720 --> 0:16:52.080 snake oil salesman. Yeah. You know, maybe the internet's not 0:16:52.320 --> 0:16:55.000 all bad. It's not all batter I'm coming back around 0:16:55.040 --> 0:16:57.440 a little bit. I take creatine. How about that? That's 0:16:57.480 --> 0:16:59.520 my snake oil. And I don't know why because a 0:16:59.560 --> 0:17:02.080 very hus ski strong man on the Internet said it 0:17:02.080 --> 0:17:05.119 was good for your bones or something. Yeah, it's still 0:17:05.400 --> 0:17:08.760 like knowing how much the Internet is trying to manipulate us. 0:17:08.800 --> 0:17:11.439 It's still amazing how much we allow ourselves to be 0:17:11.520 --> 0:17:15.479 manipulated or just sort of like don't catch it at first. 0:17:16.760 --> 0:17:20.480 We're very dumb creatures. We're very primal John, That's it's 0:17:20.520 --> 0:17:22.600 just who we are, all right. So by late September, 0:17:22.640 --> 0:17:25.840 the Donner Party had made it to the Sierra Nevada Mountains, 0:17:26.359 --> 0:17:29.520 just in time for that classic road trip phase where 0:17:29.520 --> 0:17:33.080 the simmering tensions are so high, everyone's feeling one sarcastic 0:17:33.119 --> 0:17:37.760 comment away from a complete freak out. Sure enough, October fifth, 0:17:37.800 --> 0:17:41.640 tempers flared along the Humboldt River when James Reid's oxen 0:17:41.800 --> 0:17:46.240 got tangled with another wagon. How dare they? Words were exchanged, 0:17:46.480 --> 0:17:50.440 and then blows. John Snyder, the driver of the Graves 0:17:50.560 --> 0:17:53.879 family wagon, struck Reed in the head with the butt 0:17:54.000 --> 0:17:59.280 of his whip. That's pretty badass. Margaret Reid tried to intervene. 0:17:59.400 --> 0:18:03.159 She caught a blow from the butt of that whip. 0:18:03.400 --> 0:18:06.119 That's when James Reid snapped. He pulled a knife and 0:18:06.160 --> 0:18:10.960 fatally stabbed Snyder. So after the stabbing, some in the 0:18:11.000 --> 0:18:14.280 group wanted to hang James Reid. He claimed self defense. 0:18:14.680 --> 0:18:19.760 Tensions were high. One vocal member pushed for punishment of 0:18:19.800 --> 0:18:24.080 some kind. The group compromised. Reid was banished, sent into 0:18:24.119 --> 0:18:29.840 the wilderness alone with nothing but a horse. So, uh, John, 0:18:29.880 --> 0:18:32.600 you've been voted off before, that's true. What does it 0:18:32.640 --> 0:18:35.119 feel like? What do you think is going through James 0:18:35.160 --> 0:18:38.439 Reid's ahead? Do you think they handed him a menu 0:18:38.640 --> 0:18:40.520 and let him choose whether he wanted a cheeseburger or 0:18:40.520 --> 0:18:44.119 a pizza? No, to make you feel better. Probably not. 0:18:44.520 --> 0:18:47.359 Probably is that what you got on Survivor? Yeah, you 0:18:47.400 --> 0:18:51.000 walk off? Oh right, there's a little booby prize. Yeah yeah. 0:18:51.040 --> 0:18:52.760 Well no, it's more like like it's more like, Okay, 0:18:52.840 --> 0:18:54.879 you've been out there. You know, you're kind of like 0:18:54.960 --> 0:18:57.280 still in shock. And then they're very sweet because they 0:18:57.280 --> 0:18:59.159 know you're you know, you're you're just sort of stunned 0:18:59.160 --> 0:19:01.040 by what's happened. And then at some point they hand 0:19:01.080 --> 0:19:02.800 you a menu and like, hey, you're you're out, but 0:19:02.840 --> 0:19:04.320 you get to eat whatever you want. So you get 0:19:04.359 --> 0:19:05.680 to eat, like, you know, you can have a burger 0:19:05.760 --> 0:19:07.800 or a steak or a cheese or a pizza or 0:19:07.840 --> 0:19:10.240 wings or whatever. So that's a that's a nice moment. 0:19:10.320 --> 0:19:12.439 You get to have that food again, do you when 0:19:12.480 --> 0:19:15.240 you're eating that meal of this just like the most 0:19:15.240 --> 0:19:18.320 decadent junk food that's so delicious. At that point, are 0:19:18.359 --> 0:19:20.800 you just like I would imagine you're in your mind 0:19:20.840 --> 0:19:24.480 you're like, I think I just won. Like also they're 0:19:24.520 --> 0:19:28.239 the suckers. There's still so much you're still swirling. And 0:19:28.280 --> 0:19:31.080 also you're not that hungry because you just haven't eaten 0:19:31.119 --> 0:19:32.960 for days, so you eat like a little bit of it, 0:19:33.359 --> 0:19:35.280 and you're you're already kind of starting to build the 0:19:35.320 --> 0:19:38.200 story of what happened that you're gonna have to tell people. Oh, 0:19:38.280 --> 0:19:40.280 that's what you're kind of working. You're already you're working 0:19:40.280 --> 0:19:43.600 over you're working over what happened. And yeahs still fun though. 0:19:44.960 --> 0:19:47.479 So Reed had to leave his wife, Margaret and their 0:19:47.560 --> 0:19:50.400 kids behind, but his daughter Virginia pulled off a stealthy 0:19:50.440 --> 0:19:53.480 act of love. With help from their teamster, she snuck 0:19:53.480 --> 0:19:56.160 out at night and caught up with her dad, smuggling 0:19:56.200 --> 0:19:58.800 him his rifle, some ammo and what little food she 0:19:58.840 --> 0:20:02.399 could she could find. Meanwhile, the Donner party pushed forward, 0:20:03.080 --> 0:20:06.360 low on food, high on stress, and by Halloween they 0:20:06.359 --> 0:20:09.399 were just one hundred miles from their destination, which is 0:20:09.440 --> 0:20:12.680 pretty pretty exciting. That's not like it sounds like a lot, 0:20:12.720 --> 0:20:15.159 but like, given how far they'd come, this is like 0:20:15.240 --> 0:20:19.680 a big deal. They're getting close. And Virginia kept spotting 0:20:19.680 --> 0:20:22.000 little notes her father left along the trail, as well 0:20:22.040 --> 0:20:24.719 as these little clusters of feathers from birds he had 0:20:24.800 --> 0:20:28.440 killed to eat, and he would leave these little symbols 0:20:28.520 --> 0:20:30.560 kind of signs for his family to let them know 0:20:30.600 --> 0:20:32.760 he was alive and ahead. Of them on the trail 0:20:33.160 --> 0:20:38.879 and doing okay. But then John, the snow hit, and 0:20:38.960 --> 0:20:42.240 it hit hard, and we're talking five feet right out 0:20:42.240 --> 0:20:44.959 of the gate. Those little signs from Read to his 0:20:45.000 --> 0:20:48.760 family stopped. The Donner party ground to a halt themselves. 0:20:49.119 --> 0:20:54.479 Provisions were dwindling, morale was basically toast. They were stuck. 0:20:55.000 --> 0:20:58.400 They're so close, they're so close close, and winter had 0:20:58.840 --> 0:21:02.240 just begun. When is this? What is the date? Roughly 0:21:02.280 --> 0:21:04.320 when this has happened a little bit after Halloween at 0:21:04.320 --> 0:21:07.480 this point. Wow. So they also got unlucky because you 0:21:07.480 --> 0:21:11.000 know they're late. They started late. That's a big snow. 0:21:11.080 --> 0:21:13.760 That's a big snow to come come In November, the 0:21:13.800 --> 0:21:18.120 stranded families hunkered down around Trucky Lake, building makeshift cabins 0:21:18.280 --> 0:21:23.560 that would later become Donner Lake in Today's for Today's cartographers, 0:21:24.560 --> 0:21:27.800 building makeshift cabins and praying for a break in the weather. 0:21:27.920 --> 0:21:31.159 After eight straight days of relentless snow, they started to 0:21:31.160 --> 0:21:34.760 suspect they might be in over their heads quite literally, 0:21:35.040 --> 0:21:38.640 because the snow is getting really deepy in it. That's 0:21:38.760 --> 0:21:40.680 the heigh of the snow. They're in over their heads 0:21:40.680 --> 0:21:45.320 physically and metaphorically. The motive metaphor being being in over 0:21:45.359 --> 0:21:48.360 your head. That's good. With that snow or water, that's good. 0:21:48.480 --> 0:21:51.320 That's good storytelling right there. Yeah, it's really good. Desperate 0:21:51.320 --> 0:21:53.200 for help, a group of ten men and five women 0:21:53.280 --> 0:21:56.600 strapped together homemade snowshoes and set out on foot. The 0:21:56.600 --> 0:21:58.919 rest of the party gave them a name that sounds 0:21:59.040 --> 0:22:01.760 kind of like a bad ass heavy metal band, the 0:22:01.800 --> 0:22:07.159 Forlorn Hope. So the Forlorn Hope just sets off on 0:22:07.200 --> 0:22:12.320 their on their their homemade snowshoes, and back at camp 0:22:12.400 --> 0:22:15.720 things are really falling apart. Adults are getting delirious, kids 0:22:15.720 --> 0:22:18.880 were starving, and the cold was sinking in deep. One 0:22:18.920 --> 0:22:23.359 by one, people started to die. Now, there are a 0:22:23.400 --> 0:22:26.240 lot of myths that swirl around the dinner party, but 0:22:26.359 --> 0:22:29.800 desperate times do call for desperate measures, John, Real Talk. 0:22:29.880 --> 0:22:37.800 Do you think they actually ate each other? Yes? I do, 0:22:38.119 --> 0:22:40.239 I do. I mean, I don't. I don't. I mean, 0:22:40.280 --> 0:22:42.440 I guess it could just be lure. All right, Well, 0:22:42.480 --> 0:22:44.399 you're right, I don't know. They did. They did do it. 0:22:44.400 --> 0:22:47.200 They did, they did. But it's also it's been sort 0:22:47.240 --> 0:22:51.240 of like I think, spun up into you know, like, 0:22:51.440 --> 0:22:54.360 was it this violent cataclysm where they attacked each other 0:22:54.440 --> 0:22:58.879 and ate well. According to historian Michael Wallace, they did 0:22:59.200 --> 0:23:03.199 eat each other, uh and he even interviewed descendants who 0:23:03.280 --> 0:23:07.880 confirmed it. But it wasn't quite the Schmorgas board. Yeah, 0:23:07.880 --> 0:23:09.760 it wasn't. It wasn't quite the sort of like violent 0:23:09.840 --> 0:23:12.520 like attacking each other in order to eat one another. 0:23:13.040 --> 0:23:16.119