# Rural Folk VS. City Snobs: Does Geography Help Explain MAGA?

An episode of [TheThinkingAtheist](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/412308695), 12 Aug 2025, 1 h 21 min.

Audio: https://dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/mgln.ai/e/711/api.spreaker.com/download/episode/67270402/podcast820_ruralvsurban.mp3

An interesting Cracked.com article prompted this week's discussion. Is much of Trump's appeal about rural Americans feeling ignored and insulted by the Elites? Become a supporter of this podcast: https://www.spreaker.com/podcast/thethinkingatheist--3270347/support.

## Transcript

[0:05] Speaker 1: The Thinking Atheist. It's not a person, it's a symbol,
[0:09] Speaker 1: an idea.
[0:10] Speaker 2: The population of atheists this country is going through.
[0:13] Speaker 1: The rule, rejecting faith, pursuing knowledge, challenging the sacred. If
[0:18] Speaker 1: I tell the truth, it's because I tell the truth,
[0:22] Speaker 1: not because.
[0:22] Speaker 2: I put my hand on a book and made a.
[0:24] Speaker 1: Wish and working together for a more rational world.
[0:29] Speaker 2: Take the risk of thinking. Feel so much more happiness.
[0:32] Speaker 2: Truth Usian wisdom will come to you that way.
[0:35] Speaker 1: Assume nothing, question everything, and start thinking. This is the
[0:43] Speaker 1: Thinking Atheist podcast hosted by Seth Andrews.
[0:56] Speaker 2: So I saw something that was posted on the Cracked
[1:00] Speaker 2: Facebook page.
[1:01] Speaker 3: Now.
[1:02] Speaker 2: Cracked is an American humor magazine that was founded back
[1:05] Speaker 2: in nineteen fifty eight. I don't know if the magazine
[1:08] Speaker 2: itself is still around, but the online page, the Facebook page,
[1:12] Speaker 2: certainly is and Cracked posts a bunch of lists and
[1:17] Speaker 2: you know, funny stuff, and it's usually pretty lightweight, a
[1:20] Speaker 2: little bit mad magazine, all right, that's what Cracked is.
[1:23] Speaker 2: But I saw more and more serious stuff posted on
[1:28] Speaker 2: the Cracked page. And on the second of August there
[1:32] Speaker 2: was a reposting of a David Wong piece from twenty
[1:36] Speaker 2: sixteen the Donald Trump phenomenon explained in three movies. Well,
[1:42] Speaker 2: this intrigued me and it was a pretty long piece,
[1:45] Speaker 2: and I was so interested that I figured I just
[1:48] Speaker 2: read it for you here. So this is from nine
[1:52] Speaker 2: years ago. It says I'm going to explain the Donald
[1:54] Speaker 2: Trump phenomenon in three movies, and then some text in
[1:59] Speaker 2: the article. He actually references several movies and he's got
[2:03] Speaker 2: images that are pasted into the article. Talks about Brave Heart,
[2:07] Speaker 2: Hunger Games, Star Wars, Deliverance, Iron Man, maybe another one.
[2:12] Speaker 2: There's this universal shorthand that epic adventure movies used to
[2:17] Speaker 2: tell the good guys from the bad. The good guys
[2:20] Speaker 2: are simple folk from the countryside, while the bad guys
[2:23] Speaker 2: are decadent assholes who live in the city and wear
[2:27] Speaker 2: stupid clothes. And Star Wars Luke is a farm boy,
[2:32] Speaker 2: while the bad guys live in a shiny space station.
[2:36] Speaker 2: In Braveheart, the main character is a simple farmer, and
[2:40] Speaker 2: the dastardly prints Shithead lives in a luxurious castle and
[2:44] Speaker 2: wears fancy, foppish clothes. The theme expresses itself in several ways,
[2:50] Speaker 2: primitive versus advanced, tough versus delicate, masculine versus feminine, poor
[2:56] Speaker 2: versus rich, pure versus decadent, traditional versus weird. All of
[3:02] Speaker 2: it is code for rural versus urban. That tense divide
[3:07] Speaker 2: between the two doesn't exist because of these movies. Obviously,
[3:11] Speaker 2: these movies used it as shorthand because the divide already existed.
[3:16] Speaker 2: We country folk are programmed to hate the prissy elites
[3:21] Speaker 2: that brings us to Trump. It's not about red and
[3:25] Speaker 2: blue states. It's about the country versus the city. David
[3:29] Speaker 2: Wong says, I was born and raised in Trump Country.
[3:33] Speaker 2: My family are Trump people. If I hadn't moved away
[3:36] Speaker 2: and gotten this ridiculous job, I'd be voting for him.
[3:40] Speaker 2: I know. I would see political types talk about red
[3:44] Speaker 2: states and blue states, where red equals Republican conservative and
[3:49] Speaker 2: blue equals Democrat progressive. But forget about states. If you
[3:54] Speaker 2: want to understand the Trump phenomenon, dig up the much
[3:57] Speaker 2: more detailed county map. Here's how the nation voted, county
[4:02] Speaker 2: by county in the twenty twelve election. Again, red is Republican,
[4:08] Speaker 2: and the map itself looks like somebody just splashed the
[4:11] Speaker 2: whole country with red paint. I mean, it's almost all red.
[4:14] Speaker 2: And there's these tiny little blotches of bloom. Okay, and
[4:18] Speaker 2: I'll post a PDF version of this article in the
[4:21] Speaker 2: description box for you. So it's mostly red. It looks
[4:24] Speaker 2: like a red country. Back to the article Holy Cockslaps.
[4:29] Speaker 2: That makes it look like Obama's Blue Party is some
[4:32] Speaker 2: kind of fringe political faction that struggles to get twenty
[4:36] Speaker 2: percent of the vote. The blue parts, however, are more
[4:39] Speaker 2: densely populated. They are the cities in the upper left.
[4:44] Speaker 2: You see the blue Seattle Tacoma area, lower down to
[4:47] Speaker 2: San Francisco than La. The blue around the dickt shaped
[4:51] Speaker 2: Lake Michigan is made of cities like Minneapolis, Milwaukee, and Chicago.
[4:56] Speaker 2: In the northeast, of course New York and Boston, leading
[5:00] Speaker 2: down into Philadelphia, which leads into a blue band which
[5:04] Speaker 2: connects a bunch of Southern cities like Charlotte in Atlanta.
[5:08] Speaker 2: Blue islands in an ocean of red. The cities are
[5:12] Speaker 2: less than four percent of the land mass, but sixty
[5:15] Speaker 2: two percent of the population and easily ninety nine percent
[5:20] Speaker 2: of the popular culture. Our movie shows, songs, and news
[5:24] Speaker 2: all radiate out of these blue islands. And if you
[5:28] Speaker 2: live in the red that fucking socks. See, I'm from
[5:34] Speaker 2: a blue state, Illinois, but the state isn't blue. Freaking
[5:38] Speaker 2: Chicago is blue. I'm from a tiny town in one
[5:42] Speaker 2: of the blood red areas. As a kid, visiting Chicago
[5:46] Speaker 2: was like well Catnis visiting the capital, or like Zoe
[5:51] Speaker 2: visiting the city of the future in this ridiculous book.
[5:55] Speaker 2: Their ways are strange and the whole goddamn world revolt
[6:00] Speaker 2: surround them. Every TV show was about La or New York,
[6:04] Speaker 2: maybe with some Chicago or Baltimore thrown in. When they
[6:08] Speaker 2: did make a show about us, we were jokes, either
[6:12] Speaker 2: wide eyed, naive fluff balls, as in Parks and Recreation
[6:17] Speaker 2: and before that New Heart or filthy Murderous Mutants dru
[6:21] Speaker 2: Detective and before that Deliverance, you could feel the arrogance
[6:26] Speaker 2: from hundreds of miles away. Nothing that happens outside the
[6:31] Speaker 2: city matters, they say at their cocktailed parties, blissfully unaware
[6:36] Speaker 2: of where their food is grown. Hey, remember when Hurricane
[6:40] Speaker 2: Katrina hit New Orleans. Kind of weird that a big
[6:44] Speaker 2: hurricane hundreds of miles across managed to snipe one specific
[6:48] Speaker 2: city and avoid everything else. To watch the news or
[6:53] Speaker 2: the multiple movies and TV shows about it. You'd barely
[6:56] Speaker 2: hear about the storm utterly steam rolling rural Missississippi, killing
[7:01] Speaker 2: two hundred and thirty eight people and doing an astounding
[7:04] Speaker 2: one hundred and twenty five billion dollars in damage. But
[7:08] Speaker 2: who cares about those people? Right? What's newsworthy about a
[7:12] Speaker 2: bunch of toothless hillbillies crying over a flattened trailer. New
[7:17] Speaker 2: Orleans is culturally important. It matters to these ignored, suffering people.
[7:24] Speaker 2: Donald Trump is a brick chucked through the window of
[7:28] Speaker 2: the elites. Are you assholes listening now? But isn't this
[7:33] Speaker 2: really about race? Aren't Trump supporters just a bunch of
[7:37] Speaker 2: racist Don't they hate cities because that's where the brown
[7:40] Speaker 2: people live. Look, we're gonna get actual Nazis in the
[7:44] Speaker 2: comments section of this article, not calling them Nazis for
[7:48] Speaker 2: argument point Nazis, but actual swastikas in their avatars rooted
[7:54] Speaker 2: against Indiana Jones Nazis. Those people exist. But what I
[7:59] Speaker 2: can say from personal experience is that the racism of
[8:03] Speaker 2: my youth was always one step removed. I never saw
[8:07] Speaker 2: a family member, friend, or classmate be mean to the
[8:10] Speaker 2: actual black people we had in town, We worked with them,
[8:13] Speaker 2: played video games with them, waved to them when they passed.
[8:17] Speaker 2: What I did hear was several million comments about how
[8:21] Speaker 2: if you ever ventured into the city, winding up in
[8:24] Speaker 2: the wrong neighborhood meant you'd get dragged from your car,
[8:28] Speaker 2: raped and burned alive. Looking back, I think the idea
[8:32] Speaker 2: was that the local minorities were fine as long as
[8:36] Speaker 2: they acted exactly like us. If you'd asked me at
[8:40] Speaker 2: the time, I'd have said the fear and hatred wasn't
[8:42] Speaker 2: of people with brown skin, but of that specific tribe
[8:46] Speaker 2: they have in Chicago. You know, the guys with the
[8:49] Speaker 2: weird slang music and clothes, the dope friends who murder
[8:53] Speaker 2: everyone they see. It was all part of the bizarrow
[8:57] Speaker 2: nature of the city. Sas perceived from a are a
[9:01] Speaker 2: combination of hyper aggressive savages and frivolous white elites. Their
[9:06] Speaker 2: ways are strange, and it wasn't like pop culture was
[9:10] Speaker 2: trying to talk me out of it. It's not just
[9:12] Speaker 2: perception either. The stats back up the fact that these
[9:16] Speaker 2: are parallel universes. People living in the countryside or twice
[9:21] Speaker 2: as likely to own a gun and will probably get
[9:23] Speaker 2: married younger people in the urban blue areas, talk faster
[9:28] Speaker 2: and walk faster. They're more likely to be drug abusers,
[9:32] Speaker 2: but less likely to be alcoholics. The blues are less
[9:36] Speaker 2: likely to own land, and more importantly, they're less likely
[9:40] Speaker 2: to be evangelical Christians. In the small towns, this often
[9:45] Speaker 2: gets expressed as they don't share our values, and my
[9:49] Speaker 2: progressive friends love to scoff at that, what like illiteracy
[9:54] Speaker 2: and homophobia. Nope, everything trends always start in the cities,
[10:01] Speaker 2: and not all of them are good. The cities are
[10:05] Speaker 2: always living in the future. I remember when our little
[10:08] Speaker 2: town got our first Chinese restaurant and twenty years later
[10:12] Speaker 2: its first fancy coffee shop. All of this stuff had
[10:16] Speaker 2: turned up in movies set in LA, of course, decades earlier.
[10:21] Speaker 2: I remember watching eighties movies and mocking the valley girls stereotypes,
[10:26] Speaker 2: young girls from Lake California who would like say like
[10:30] Speaker 2: in between every third word. Twenty years later, you can
[10:34] Speaker 2: hear me doing the same in every Cracked podcast. The
[10:38] Speaker 2: cancer started in LA and spread to the rest of America. Well.
[10:43] Speaker 2: The perception back then was that those city folks were
[10:47] Speaker 2: all turning atheist, abandoning church for their bisexual sex parties.
[10:53] Speaker 2: That we were told was literally a sign of the apocalypse,
[10:58] Speaker 2: not just due to the ritual consequences, which were dire,
[11:02] Speaker 2: but the devastation that would come to the culture. I
[11:06] Speaker 2: couldn't imagine any rebuttal in that place. In that time,
[11:10] Speaker 2: the church was everything. Don't take my word for it.
[11:14] Speaker 2: Listen to the experts. Church was where you made friends,
[11:18] Speaker 2: met girls, networked for jobs, got social support. The poor
[11:23] Speaker 2: could get food and clothes there, couples could get advice
[11:26] Speaker 2: on their marriages, addices could try to get clean. But
[11:30] Speaker 2: now we're seeing a startling decline in Christianity among the
[11:34] Speaker 2: general population, the godless disease having spread alongside Valley girl talk.
[11:41] Speaker 2: So according to Fox News, what's the result of those
[11:44] Speaker 2: decadent atheist, amoral snobs in the cities having turned up
[11:49] Speaker 2: their noses that God chaos? The fabric is broken down,
[11:54] Speaker 2: they say, just as predicted. And what rural Americancy on
[11:59] Speaker 2: the news today is a sneak peek at their tomorrow.
[12:02] Speaker 2: The savages are coming, Blacks riot Muslims set bombs, Gays,
[12:09] Speaker 2: spread aids, Mexican cartels, behead children, Atheists tear down Christmas trees. Meanwhile,
[12:17] Speaker 2: those liberal Lena Dunhams and their five thousand dollars a
[12:21] Speaker 2: month apartments, sip wine and say, but those white Christians
[12:25] Speaker 2: are the real problem. Terror victims scream in the street
[12:29] Speaker 2: next to their own severed limbs, and the response from
[12:33] Speaker 2: the elites is to cry about how men should be
[12:35] Speaker 2: allowed to use women's restrooms, and how it's cruel to
[12:39] Speaker 2: keep chickens in cages madness. Their heads are so far
[12:44] Speaker 2: up their asses that they can't tell up from down.
[12:47] Speaker 2: Basic obvious truths that have gone unquestioned four thousands of
[12:52] Speaker 2: years now get laughed at and shouted down. The fact
[12:55] Speaker 2: that hard work is better than dependence on government, that
[12:59] Speaker 2: children do better with both parents in the picture, that
[13:02] Speaker 2: piece is better than rioting, that a strict moral code
[13:06] Speaker 2: is better than blithe hedonism, that humans tend to value
[13:10] Speaker 2: things they've earned more than what they get for free.
[13:13] Speaker 2: That not getting exploded by a bomb is better than
[13:16] Speaker 2: getting exploded by a bomb, or, as they say out
[13:20] Speaker 2: in the country, don't piss on my leg and tell
[13:23] Speaker 2: me it's raining. The foundation upon which America was undeniably built, family, faith,
[13:30] Speaker 2: and hard work had been deemed unfashionable and small minded.
[13:35] Speaker 2: Those snooty elites up in their ivory tower, laughed as
[13:39] Speaker 2: they kicked away that foundation, and then wrote ten thousand
[13:43] Speaker 2: word think pieces blaming the builders for the ensuing collapse.
[13:48] Speaker 2: Don't message me saying all those things I listed are wrong.
[13:52] Speaker 2: I know they're wrong, or rather I think they're wrong,
[13:55] Speaker 2: because I now live in a blue county and work
[13:58] Speaker 2: for a blue industry. I know the good old days
[14:02] Speaker 2: of the past were built on slavery and segregation. I
[14:06] Speaker 2: know that entire categories of humanity experienced religion only as
[14:10] Speaker 2: a boot on their neck. I know that those traditional
[14:14] Speaker 2: families involved millions of women trapped in kitchens and bad marriages.
[14:19] Speaker 2: I know gays lived in fear, and abortions were back
[14:23] Speaker 2: alley affairs. I know the changes were for the best.
[14:28] Speaker 2: Try telling that to anybody who lives in Trump country.
[14:32] Speaker 2: They're getting the shit kicked out of them. I know
[14:35] Speaker 2: I was there. Step outside of the city and the
[14:38] Speaker 2: suicide rate among young people fucking doubles. The recession pounded
[14:43] Speaker 2: rural communities, but all the recovery went to the cities.
[14:47] Speaker 2: The rate of new businesses opening in rural areas has
[14:51] Speaker 2: utterly collapsed. See Rural jobs used to be based around
[14:55] Speaker 2: one big local business, a factory, a coal mine, etc.
[15:00] Speaker 2: When it dies, the town dies. Where I grew up,
[15:03] Speaker 2: it was an oil refinery closing that did us in.
[15:07] Speaker 2: I was raised in the hollowed out shell of what
[15:10] Speaker 2: the town had once been. The roof of our high
[15:13] Speaker 2: school leagued when it rained. Cities can make up for
[15:16] Speaker 2: the loss of manufacturing jobs with service jobs. Small towns cannot.
[15:22] Speaker 2: That model doesn't work below a certain population density. If
[15:26] Speaker 2: you don't live in one of these small towns, you
[15:29] Speaker 2: can't understand the hopelessness. The vast majority of possible careers
[15:34] Speaker 2: involved moving to the city and around every city is
[15:37] Speaker 2: now one hundred foot wall called cost of living. Let's
[15:42] Speaker 2: say you're a smart kid making eight dollars an hour
[15:45] Speaker 2: at Walgreens and aspire to greater things. Fine, get ready
[15:49] Speaker 2: to move yourself and your new baby into a seven
[15:52] Speaker 2: hundred square foot apartment for twelve hundred a month, and
[15:56] Speaker 2: then to pay double what you're paying now for utilities, grocery,
[16:00] Speaker 2: and babysitters, unless, of course, you're planning to move to
[16:03] Speaker 2: one of those neighborhoods hope you like being set on fire.
[16:09] Speaker 2: That is, if they don't replace the only room you
[16:12] Speaker 2: can afford with a thirty three hundred dollars per month
[16:15] Speaker 2: high rise. In the city, you can plausibly aspire to
[16:19] Speaker 2: start a brand, or become an actor, or get a
[16:22] Speaker 2: medical degree. You can actually have dreams. In a small town.
[16:27] Speaker 2: There may be no venues for performing arts aside from
[16:31] Speaker 2: country music bars and churches. There may be only two
[16:34] Speaker 2: doctors in town. Aspiring to that job means waiting for
[16:38] Speaker 2: one of them to retire or die. You open the
[16:42] Speaker 2: classifieds and all the job listings will be for fast
[16:45] Speaker 2: food or convenience stores. The downtown is just a corpses
[16:50] Speaker 2: of mom and pop stores left shattered in Walmart's blast crater.
[16:55] Speaker 2: The suburbs are trailer parks. There are parts of these
[16:59] Speaker 2: towns that look post apocalyptic. I'm telling you, the hopelessness
[17:04] Speaker 2: eat you alive, and if you dare complain, some liberal
[17:09] Speaker 2: elites will pull out their iPad and type up a
[17:12] Speaker 2: rant about your racist white privilege. Already, someone has replied
[17:17] Speaker 2: to this with a comment saying you should try living
[17:20] Speaker 2: in a ghetto as a minority. Exactly to them, it
[17:25] Speaker 2: seems like the plight of poor minorities is only used
[17:29] Speaker 2: as a club to bat away white cries. For help. Meanwhile,
[17:33] Speaker 2: the rate of rural white suicides and overdoses skyrockets. Shit.
[17:38] Speaker 2: At least politicians act like they care about the inner cities.
[17:43] Speaker 2: It really does feel like the worst of both worlds,
[17:46] Speaker 2: all the ravages of poverty, but none of the sympathy.
[17:49] Speaker 2: Blacks burn police cars and those liberal elites say it's
[17:53] Speaker 2: not their fault because they're poor. My son gets jailed
[17:57] Speaker 2: and fired over a baggie of meth, and those same
[18:00] Speaker 2: elites make jokes about his missing teeth. You're everyone's punching bag,
[18:06] Speaker 2: one of society's last remaining safe comedy targets. They take
[18:11] Speaker 2: it hard. These are people who come from a long
[18:14] Speaker 2: line of folks who took pride in looking after themselves.
[18:17] Speaker 2: Where I'm from, you weren't a real man unless you
[18:20] Speaker 2: could repair a car, patch a roof, hunt your own meat,
[18:23] Speaker 2: and defend your home from an intruder. That was a
[18:27] Speaker 2: source of shame to be dependent on anyone, especially the government.
[18:32] Speaker 2: You mowed your own lawn and fixed your own pipes
[18:34] Speaker 2: when they leaked. You hauled your own firewood in your
[18:37] Speaker 2: own pickup truck. Mine was a nineteen ninety four to
[18:40] Speaker 2: Ford Ranger. The current owner says it still runs, not
[18:45] Speaker 2: like those hipsters in their tiny apartments or those people
[18:50] Speaker 2: in their public housing projects, waiting for the landlord anytime
[18:54] Speaker 2: something breaks, knowing if things get too bad they can
[18:57] Speaker 2: just pick up and move. When you don't own anything,
[19:01] Speaker 2: it's all somebody else's problem. They probably don't pay taxes either,
[19:06] Speaker 2: just treating America itself as a subsidized apartment. They can trash.
[19:12] Speaker 2: The rural folk with the Trump signs in their yards
[19:15] Speaker 2: say their way of life is dying, and you smirk
[19:18] Speaker 2: and say, what they really mean is that blacks and
[19:20] Speaker 2: gays are finally getting equal rights and they hate it.
[19:24] Speaker 2: But I'm telling you they say their way of life
[19:27] Speaker 2: is dying because their way of life is dying. It's
[19:31] Speaker 2: not their imagination. No movie about the future portrays it
[19:35] Speaker 2: as being full of traditional families, hunters, and coal mines.
[19:39] Speaker 2: Well except for hunger games, and that was depicted as
[19:43] Speaker 2: an apocalypse. So yes, they vote for the guy promising
[19:46] Speaker 2: to put things back the way they were, the guy
[19:49] Speaker 2: who'd be a wake up call to the Blue Islands.
[19:52] Speaker 2: They voted for the brick through the window. It was
[19:57] Speaker 2: a vote of desperation. But Trump is objectively a piece
[20:02] Speaker 2: of shit. You say. He insults people, he objectifies women,
[20:06] Speaker 2: he cheats whenever possible, and he's not an everyman. He's
[20:10] Speaker 2: a smarmy, arrogant billionaire. Wait are you talking about Donald
[20:16] Speaker 2: Trump or this guy? And he posted there a picture
[20:21] Speaker 2: from Marvel Studios of Iron Man under the caption make
[20:25] Speaker 2: the Avengers Assemble Again. The article says, you never rooted
[20:30] Speaker 2: for somebody like that, someone powerful who gives your enemies
[20:34] Speaker 2: the insults they deserve, somebody with big, fun appetites who
[20:38] Speaker 2: screws up just enough to make him relatable, like Doctor
[20:42] Speaker 2: House or Walter White or any of the several million
[20:46] Speaker 2: renegade cop characters who can break all the rules because
[20:49] Speaker 2: they get shit done, who only get shit done because
[20:53] Speaker 2: they don't care about the rules. But those are fictional characters. Okay,
[20:59] Speaker 2: what about all those millionaire left leaning talk show hosts.
[21:03] Speaker 2: You think they keep their insults classy? Tune into any
[21:07] Speaker 2: bit about Chris Christy and start counting down the seconds
[21:10] Speaker 2: until the fat joke. Google David Letterman's sex scandals. But
[21:14] Speaker 2: it's okay because they're on our side and everybody wants
[21:18] Speaker 2: an asshole on their team. A spiked bat to smash
[21:21] Speaker 2: the enemies with. That's all Trump is. The howls of
[21:25] Speaker 2: elite outrage are like the sounds of bombs landing on
[21:29] Speaker 2: the enemy's fortress. The louder the better. Already some of
[21:34] Speaker 2: you have gotten angry, feeling this gut level revulsion at
[21:38] Speaker 2: any attempt to excuse or even understand these people. After all,
[21:42] Speaker 2: they're hardly people, right, aren't they just a mass of ignorant, rageful, crude, cursing,
[21:49] Speaker 2: spitting subhumans. Gee, I hope not. I have to hug
[21:54] Speaker 2: a bunch of them at Thanksgiving, and when I do,
[21:58] Speaker 2: it'll be with the knowledge that if I hadn't moved away,
[22:01] Speaker 2: I'd be on the other side of the fence. Leaving
[22:04] Speaker 2: nasty comments on this article, the alternate version of me wrote,
[22:10] Speaker 2: it feels good to dismiss people, to mock them, to
[22:13] Speaker 2: write them off as deplorables, but you might as well
[22:17] Speaker 2: take time to try to understand them, because I'm telling
[22:20] Speaker 2: you they'll still be around long after Trump is gone.
[22:28] Speaker 2: And that's the article again. I will link it in
[22:30] Speaker 2: the description box that you can read it, share it,
[22:34] Speaker 2: not share it, argue about it. So at least you
[22:36] Speaker 2: can reference the photographs that he had in the piece,
[22:39] Speaker 2: So that's in the show notes. I have thoughts, I'm
[22:44] Speaker 2: going to share them with you next. Hey, I'm going
[22:53] Speaker 2: down to Texas to do some speaking at the end
[22:56] Speaker 2: of August, and I would love a chance to see
[22:58] Speaker 2: you down my southern name. You know, a state just
[23:01] Speaker 2: as read or maybe even more so, maybe not than Oklahoma,
[23:07] Speaker 2: the state of Texas. You know, it's it's crazy down there,
[23:11] Speaker 2: and yet an atheist, humanist, secular activist will be an
[23:15] Speaker 2: infieldtrator and I will be speaking in Austin, Texas on
[23:19] Speaker 2: August twenty ninth, San Antonio August thirtieth, and Houston at
[23:23] Speaker 2: Houston Oasis the morning of August thirty. First, all the
[23:27] Speaker 2: details just go to my personal website Seth Andrews dot
[23:31] Speaker 2: com and then click the speaking tab and there'll be
[23:34] Speaker 2: links and everything you need to know. And Drew McCoy,
[23:38] Speaker 2: genetically Modified Skeptic, is going to be with me on
[23:41] Speaker 2: the Friday night event because he lives in Austin. And
[23:44] Speaker 2: that just made a whole bunch of cents. So that's
[23:46] Speaker 2: going to be a one to two punch on Friday, Okay,
[23:49] Speaker 2: Seth Andrews dot com and then click on the speaking
[23:52] Speaker 2: tab Okay, I have a few thoughts. I'm sure you
[23:56] Speaker 2: do as well about the opening article, and this better
[24:01] Speaker 2: understanding perhaps of how rural voters, you know, the heartland
[24:05] Speaker 2: voters in the United States are thinking about those West
[24:09] Speaker 2: and East Coast liberal elites, and it's messy. A lot
[24:14] Speaker 2: of people don't think it's messy, you know. They hear
[24:16] Speaker 2: about MAGA and they just scream out the word Nazi
[24:20] Speaker 2: and then they get on with the rest of their day.
[24:23] Speaker 2: And there are a ton of neo Nazis in MAGA, right,
[24:26] Speaker 2: there's a ton of them. But I don't think it's
[24:29] Speaker 2: that simple. Don't let anybody tell you that liberal progressives
[24:33] Speaker 2: cannot be guilty of reductive, binary thinking, of knee jerking,
[24:37] Speaker 2: of being so I don't know so creola about addressing
[24:43] Speaker 2: these very real and complex problems. Don't ever let anybody
[24:46] Speaker 2: tell you that we Libs are not meat covered skeletons
[24:52] Speaker 2: capable of emotional knee jerky biased stuff, because we are
[24:56] Speaker 2: all human beings. Okay, I'm not making an equivalence argument,
[25:00] Speaker 2: but you know there is true. I mean, I live
[25:02] Speaker 2: in Tulsa, Oklahoma. We are about a million people here.
[25:05] Speaker 2: Oklahoma City is a little bit larger, but we're not
[25:08] Speaker 2: considered big cities. So even our cities are kind of
[25:11] Speaker 2: rural compared to New York, Chicago, Los Angeles, etc. And
[25:18] Speaker 2: then we've got our own suburbs which become even more
[25:21] Speaker 2: and more and more country, with more land and you know,
[25:26] Speaker 2: more wooden fences. It becomes the whole, the whole cliche.
[25:31] Speaker 2: You know, people out there with barns and tractors and
[25:34] Speaker 2: horses and cows and all that. It's legit. And I'm
[25:37] Speaker 2: telling you those people are largely Trump voters. Many of
[25:42] Speaker 2: them are Trump worshippers. And there are so many reasons
[25:47] Speaker 2: I think for this that are related to in the article.
[25:50] Speaker 2: They do think that the cities are filled with the snops,
[25:55] Speaker 2: the people looking down their noses at heart land Americana.
[26:00] Speaker 2: And if you look at the map and see all
[26:02] Speaker 2: the reds, well America looks like us. Why do those
[26:06] Speaker 2: blues have so much control? Why have they suffocated all
[26:10] Speaker 2: of these institutions? Why are they in all the TV
[26:13] Speaker 2: and the movies and the music business. How come it's
[26:15] Speaker 2: all about the blues, the Libs, all of them progressive,
[26:18] Speaker 2: the secular humanists, instead of us great conservatives who love
[26:22] Speaker 2: America this is the thinking, and I think we have
[26:24] Speaker 2: to understand that. However, because it's messy, and this was
[26:30] Speaker 2: alluded to in the article, we can't escape the reality
[26:35] Speaker 2: that there's a shit ton of neo Nazis in Maga.
[26:41] Speaker 2: And I'm going to tell you a story. And this
[26:43] Speaker 2: relates to a member or an extended member of my
[26:46] Speaker 2: wife's family. And Natalie won't mind me telling this story
[26:49] Speaker 2: because we're both fed up and pissed and we don't
[26:51] Speaker 2: give a shit. Okay, we're just we're up to here.
[26:54] Speaker 2: We don't care. I'm gonna tell you the story. So
[26:56] Speaker 2: this was two months ago. A guy kind of a
[27:01] Speaker 2: patriarch of Natalie's side of the family. You know, he's
[27:05] Speaker 2: on the tree, but he's kind of out there. He's
[27:07] Speaker 2: an older guy, probably seventy five, silver haired, straight up
[27:13] Speaker 2: white country guy, and we figure just by looking at
[27:18] Speaker 2: him he voted Trump. He's just one of those dudes
[27:22] Speaker 2: where I don't think it's stereotyping, but when you look
[27:24] Speaker 2: at what he says and who he is, and where
[27:27] Speaker 2: he lives and the house he lives in and the
[27:29] Speaker 2: car he drives and all the stuff that interests him,
[27:32] Speaker 2: you just think Maga maga, that alarm goes off, and
[27:38] Speaker 2: beyond that, we never really thought much about it. And
[27:40] Speaker 2: I'll call this guy Richard. Well, Richard has a family member,
[27:47] Speaker 2: like a nephew or something. And Richard's nephew pays a
[27:51] Speaker 2: rare visit to Richard's house. He comes over and hangs out.
[27:55] Speaker 2: He's catching up with his uncle, and he's looking all
[28:00] Speaker 2: around and near the living room. I guess he sees
[28:03] Speaker 2: this display on the wall, and he sees a symbol
[28:08] Speaker 2: that looks suspiciously like a swastika. He says, hey, uncle Richard,
[28:17] Speaker 2: what's this framed thing on the wall here? Well, it's
[28:22] Speaker 2: it's about our history. It's a collector thing, kind of
[28:26] Speaker 2: a you know, it's a remembrance of the mid twentieth century.
[28:30] Speaker 2: It's one of those things that has some value and
[28:34] Speaker 2: and you know, it's one of those it's a collector's thing.
[28:38] Speaker 4: You know.
[28:38] Speaker 2: He's kind of fumbling in that way, according to the
[28:40] Speaker 2: story that was told to us. And of course you
[28:44] Speaker 2: and I are thinking, hey, well, donate it to a museum, right,
[28:48] Speaker 2: I mean, okay, it's part of our history, but make
[28:51] Speaker 2: it part of a display which talks about the larger
[28:54] Speaker 2: genocide of millions of people in bigotry and hatred and
[28:57] Speaker 2: murder and death and pain and all that stuff, But
[28:59] Speaker 2: why would you you hang this in your living room?
[29:02] Speaker 2: And that's what the nephew said, Hey, Uncle Richard, how
[29:05] Speaker 2: come you're displaying it right here in this way? And
[29:10] Speaker 2: I guess within two minutes shit went down and Uncle
[29:17] Speaker 2: Richard hit a point where he just unloaded all the
[29:21] Speaker 2: stuff that he was really thinking. He said the quiet
[29:24] Speaker 2: part out louder maybe for him it wasn't the quiet part,
[29:28] Speaker 2: and it became the most heinous, bigoted screed about how
[29:34] Speaker 2: this country would be better off if we just took
[29:37] Speaker 2: all the brown people and put him on a plane
[29:39] Speaker 2: and sent him out of here because America. And his
[29:43] Speaker 2: nephew was horrified. Holy shit, Uncle Richard is a swastika brandishing,
[29:52] Speaker 2: neo Nazi, white supremacist, brown person hating piece of jet.
[30:01] Speaker 2: It's just and he could not be leave it. And
[30:05] Speaker 2: that was the tone when he told the story to
[30:08] Speaker 2: the rest of the family. He's like, f y, I
[30:11] Speaker 2: you know, we got some Nazi as I'm going on
[30:14] Speaker 2: over here in this particular part of the family tree.
[30:20] Speaker 2: And that's I mean, that stuff's real. Now, it's true
[30:23] Speaker 2: that when I was growing up, I had some embedded biases.
[30:29] Speaker 2: We would talk about those inner city areas with black people,
[30:34] Speaker 2: and even though we didn't say it that way out loud,
[30:37] Speaker 2: you know, it was always like, well, I've got a
[30:39] Speaker 2: black friend. And we did. We had people in our
[30:42] Speaker 2: school who were people of color, whether they were black
[30:45] Speaker 2: or Hispanic or Asian, Native American, et cetera. And we
[30:48] Speaker 2: were friends and hung out, but there was always this
[30:50] Speaker 2: idea that those people over there were a little bit different,
[30:55] Speaker 2: even if we didn't really understand what was going on
[30:57] Speaker 2: in our own mind. It was bias. It was big,
[31:00] Speaker 2: it was othering, it was racism, and it was just there.
[31:03] Speaker 2: We just didn't really understand how it had been baked
[31:05] Speaker 2: into us, and you know, it wasn't done as much
[31:10] Speaker 2: with malice, just stupidity and ignorance and whatnot. And then
[31:14] Speaker 2: we crawl out of that and realize what it was,
[31:17] Speaker 2: how it worked, and why, you know, we have to
[31:20] Speaker 2: be aware of it. And so there is that kind
[31:24] Speaker 2: of bias. I'm not excusing it, but I'm saying, let's
[31:28] Speaker 2: understand it. And then there is Uncle Richard who is like,
[31:33] Speaker 2: white is right, and I just I'm giving a speech
[31:41] Speaker 2: in Let's See. I'm going to release it to YouTube
[31:44] Speaker 2: in September, which it shows my exasperation with MAGA. A
[31:53] Speaker 2: part of me is that guy who says brainwashing is real,
[31:57] Speaker 2: bigotry can be overcome, love must win, and those things
[32:02] Speaker 2: are true. And then there's another part of me that's like,
[32:07] Speaker 2: screw these people. They have dragged us down into the sewer.
[32:12] Speaker 2: They are destroying everything that we care about. They can't
[32:16] Speaker 2: be reasoned with, and what the hell are we gonna
[32:20] Speaker 2: do now except crush them utterly so that person exists.
[32:24] Speaker 2: And these two seths argue with each other all the time,
[32:30] Speaker 2: all the time, and I think they both may be right.
[32:37] Speaker 2: There are victims who are also perpetrators who are still victims,
[32:42] Speaker 2: and there are awful people who think Hitler was the
[32:47] Speaker 2: good guy in the human story. That's just. But understanding
[32:55] Speaker 2: is important. We must be creatures of understanding, and I'm
[32:59] Speaker 2: gonna hold onto that. I want to know why things
[33:03] Speaker 2: are happening, because long after Donald Trump is gone, the
[33:08] Speaker 2: people who supported him will not be gone. And you
[33:12] Speaker 2: and I have to deal with him if there is
[33:15] Speaker 2: still a United States. Laughed when that happens, Well, what
[33:22] Speaker 2: are your thoughts. I would be curious. James is dialing
[33:27] Speaker 2: in from eight one to seven.
[33:30] Speaker 5: James either, good morning, Set, It's great to talk to
[33:33] Speaker 5: you again today.
[33:34] Speaker 2: What's up.
[33:35] Speaker 5: I just wanted to add something to this. I started
[33:37] Speaker 5: thinking about as I was growing up, and it's been
[33:41] Speaker 5: it's been a long time. When we were growing up,
[33:43] Speaker 5: things were so much different. The Christian conservative values pretty
[33:46] Speaker 5: much dominated the culture in our country. What I mean
[33:50] Speaker 5: by that is the majority of people just accepted it
[33:53] Speaker 5: as is. That's how things were. If you went outside
[33:56] Speaker 5: of that that norm then people would give you already looks.
[34:00] Speaker 5: I mean they could they could correct you just by
[34:02] Speaker 5: giving you that look. You know, that side eye, and
[34:04] Speaker 5: you knew you were messing up. You knew that you
[34:07] Speaker 5: were on the wrong path, and you better not stray
[34:10] Speaker 5: too far from those normative values that were just that
[34:14] Speaker 5: way back in the day. It didn't take anything to
[34:17] Speaker 5: enforce their world view. And now that the culture has
[34:20] Speaker 5: changed so far outside of that, I think they've just
[34:24] Speaker 5: gone crazy with the fact that they can't control the
[34:26] Speaker 5: culture anymore. I mean, they this five has been going
[34:30] Speaker 5: on forever. This isn't a new five. They've they've been
[34:33] Speaker 5: priming for this type of battle between us versus them.
[34:38] Speaker 5: For as long as I can remember, I mean for
[34:39] Speaker 5: at least the last thirty years, talk radio, conservative television
[34:44] Speaker 5: has been priming the pump. And then the Internet came
[34:46] Speaker 5: along and set it all on fire because a certain
[34:49] Speaker 5: amount of us realized that we weren't alone, that the
[34:52] Speaker 5: thoughts that we had weren't crazy, and that that what
[34:56] Speaker 5: we had the things can say, made sense and it
[34:59] Speaker 5: was It was bad. We had other people that agreed
[35:03] Speaker 5: with us that back in the day we would have
[35:05] Speaker 5: they weren't in our community. We had no way to
[35:07] Speaker 5: connect with those people. So when we did, we found
[35:10] Speaker 5: out we weren't alone, and all of a sudden, the
[35:12] Speaker 5: culture started shifting out from underneath the way things used
[35:15] Speaker 5: to be, and especially older people, they can't deal with that.
[35:20] Speaker 2: I think us first as them has always been around,
[35:22] Speaker 2: don't you think, and on some level, but you're right
[35:25] Speaker 2: about the media and the connected world and has become
[35:28] Speaker 2: so much more amplifying.
[35:30] Speaker 5: And it's all about money. I mean, we can't forget
[35:33] Speaker 5: that the powers to be this is all about money,
[35:36] Speaker 5: with inequality is worse than it's been in a very
[35:40] Speaker 5: long time, and they've successfully pitted us against each other,
[35:44] Speaker 5: and I don't know what the culture wars raging the
[35:48] Speaker 5: way they are. I don't know how we walk back
[35:51] Speaker 5: from that. They're destroying our country.
[35:54] Speaker 2: Do you think we'll ever bounce back?
[35:58] Speaker 5: I have a hard time maintain hope that that will
[36:01] Speaker 5: happen every day when you just see the direction of
[36:04] Speaker 5: things that are going. I mean, I guess it gives
[36:06] Speaker 5: me some hope when I see in the news that
[36:08] Speaker 5: they start to revolt against certain things, but when they
[36:11] Speaker 5: start feeling when it gets so bad, when it gets
[36:13] Speaker 5: so bad that they can no longer ignore it because
[36:16] Speaker 5: it affects them and not just us. If it affects them,
[36:19] Speaker 5: and they start feeling the effects of the actions that
[36:22] Speaker 5: they've brought about, and I guess it's possible that people
[36:25] Speaker 5: could become humble enough to start talking to one another
[36:28] Speaker 5: again in a way that maybe we could work towards
[36:31] Speaker 5: solutions and not just throwing moth top cocktails at one another.
[36:35] Speaker 5: I hope that's the case. I mean, I think that's
[36:38] Speaker 5: what we need.
[36:39] Speaker 2: I've heard some people say they'll support Trump because Trump
[36:42] Speaker 2: pays who they hate. I think there are some people
[36:45] Speaker 2: like that. What's your perception?
[36:48] Speaker 5: Absolutely, I don't know how they don't. It seems like
[36:53] Speaker 5: they don't care as long as it's just a game.
[36:55] Speaker 5: It's like a football game, polities, like a football game.
[36:58] Speaker 5: I've got my team and I'm going to beat and
[37:01] Speaker 5: I'm going to win and at all costs, and all
[37:04] Speaker 5: the things that they said that they used to believe
[37:06] Speaker 5: in and hold as sacred, like the Constitution, or law
[37:10] Speaker 5: and order, or just things that were very basic to
[37:13] Speaker 5: the core identity to that particular group, They've just given
[37:17] Speaker 5: it up and said, hey, we're on the winning team,
[37:20] Speaker 5: and whatever you want to do to win is okay
[37:23] Speaker 5: by us. And I think Trump is terribly bombastic and
[37:27] Speaker 5: caustic towards our culture, towards the people. I hate to
[37:31] Speaker 5: see that that they've fallen so far away from what
[37:35] Speaker 5: they once said that they believed this country can never survive.
[37:40] Speaker 2: James, I appreciate your calling perspective as part of this
[37:43] Speaker 2: much larger discussion, and I'm sure we'll talk again. Thanks
[37:47] Speaker 2: for dialing in, man Love you said, take care, appreciate you.
[37:52] Speaker 2: Some people I think are afraid of change. There are
[37:55] Speaker 2: certain personality types that are averse to change. They are
[37:59] Speaker 2: more prone to want routine and structure. Those people, I think,
[38:05] Speaker 2: travel less. They are less interested in what is different
[38:10] Speaker 2: or who is different. You know, they experiment less. And
[38:14] Speaker 2: I'm not just talking about sexually, but I mean everything
[38:17] Speaker 2: from diet to life experiences, et cetera. There have been
[38:22] Speaker 2: studies about people who tend to lean more into maga
[38:27] Speaker 2: type culture, and those traits seem to line up. They
[38:32] Speaker 2: yearn for yesteryear or this myth of yester yearing. Maybe
[38:36] Speaker 2: they you know, they want to go back before black
[38:38] Speaker 2: people could vote, and before interracial marriage was legal, and
[38:42] Speaker 2: back when women were paid less if they worked, and
[38:45] Speaker 2: they were encouraged to stay home and be barefoot and pregnant.
[38:47] Speaker 2: And maybe that's the reality they do want to return to.
[38:50] Speaker 2: But I think others have sort of embraced this lie that, well,
[38:54] Speaker 2: back then, it was all the Norman Rockwell painting kind
[38:58] Speaker 2: of thing. You know, it was all so pristy. We
[39:00] Speaker 2: never locked our doors at night, and no one was
[39:02] Speaker 2: sports to wear seat belts, and everybody was neighborly and happy.
[39:05] Speaker 2: And it's this totally fabricated nineteen fifties Americana that they
[39:10] Speaker 2: yearn for. And I think that is a reflection in
[39:14] Speaker 2: many cases of white privilege because if you weren't white
[39:18] Speaker 2: and probably male in the nineteen fifties, in the nineteen sixties,
[39:22] Speaker 2: things were not necessarily all that good for you. Those
[39:26] Speaker 2: were not the good old days. But I think those
[39:31] Speaker 2: who are promised structure, I think they respond to someone
[39:36] Speaker 2: who says I will bring structure. Plus, if someone says
[39:39] Speaker 2: I alone can fix it, I am the chosen one.
[39:41] Speaker 2: Trust me, follow me. They are primed to line up
[39:45] Speaker 2: behind a shepherd that allows them to check out. They
[39:48] Speaker 2: don't have to get into the messy noise, the white
[39:52] Speaker 2: noise of the world. They don't have to participate, they
[39:55] Speaker 2: don't have to get their hands dirty. They can just say, ah,
[39:58] Speaker 2: he's my guy. Let's send him off into the coliseum.
[40:01] Speaker 2: He shall do battle in our name, and then we're
[40:04] Speaker 2: gonna go off and watch the Kardashians or whatever else
[40:07] Speaker 2: they're gonna go to. I mean, I don't know if
[40:09] Speaker 2: does Maga watch Yeah, Yeah, I think they do. They do.
[40:13] Speaker 2: I'm thinking of one Maga right now. She is hooked
[40:15] Speaker 2: on The Bachelor, the Golden Bachelor, and a show called
[40:19] Speaker 2: Farmer Wants a Wife, which I'm guessing is the Bachelor
[40:25] Speaker 2: in Hooterville, and Hooterville is the name of the town
[40:32] Speaker 2: from a nineteen sixties sitcom. What was the name of
[40:35] Speaker 2: that sitcom? Wasn't Green Acres? What was the one? Green
[40:41] Speaker 2: Acres was the one with the Donna da nut Dunt
[40:44] Speaker 2: Bump bump. Remember that song Donna do Nat dun dun
[40:47] Speaker 2: dunt dunna dunna dun dunna dunna dun dunn dun. Green
[40:52] Speaker 2: Acres is the place to be. I can still remember
[40:55] Speaker 2: the song fum living is the life for me, petty
[41:00] Speaker 2: Coat Junction, petticoat Junction. Thank you very much for that.
[41:07] Speaker 2: There was another one too, It wasn't the Andy Griffiths show.
[41:12] Speaker 2: Hee Haw, Yeah, that was another one.
[41:14] Speaker 6: Man.
[41:14] Speaker 2: We watched a lot of he Haw growing up. Hee
[41:16] Speaker 2: Haw was funny Hang on your second for me at five.
[41:20] Speaker 2: He Haw was funny because it was targeted to conservative
[41:23] Speaker 2: country folk because it was like people in straw hats
[41:26] Speaker 2: and they were sitting on hey Baale singing country songs
[41:28] Speaker 2: with Roy Rogers. But he Haw was loaded with women
[41:32] Speaker 2: who were wearing these little, I don't know, tablecloth looking
[41:35] Speaker 2: mini skirts in their boobs were busting out, you know.
[41:38] Speaker 2: So the wholesome family values types were totally watching. It
[41:43] Speaker 2: was like Benny Hill with corn. That's what kee Haw
[41:47] Speaker 2: was like, I'm sorry, five oh five high? Are you there?
[41:51] Speaker 7: I am Seth. It's good to talk to you. My
[41:53] Speaker 7: name is Prince Brent.
[41:54] Speaker 2: Welcome. Let's talk. What's your perspective on the things we
[41:57] Speaker 2: have been speaking about?
[41:59] Speaker 3: Sure?
[42:00] Speaker 7: Absolutely, Yeah, the rural urban divide is really interesting. I
[42:03] Speaker 7: was actually more interested in your take on it, given
[42:07] Speaker 7: that you were a pundit for a while and you
[42:10] Speaker 7: know what appeals to that particular demographic. So what do
[42:14] Speaker 7: you think is the primary separation that we're seeing?
[42:17] Speaker 2: Well, for me and I wrote about this in Fox News, Christian,
[42:21] Speaker 2: I was in a disinformation bubble. So what happened was
[42:25] Speaker 2: is they told me the left wing quote mainstream media,
[42:30] Speaker 2: they're all infected. They're infected with permissive attitudes, godlessness, they
[42:37] Speaker 2: hate America. Part of that, I think had to do
[42:40] Speaker 2: with this idea that they didn't really consider our borders sacred.
[42:44] Speaker 2: So the one world government was part of that narrative,
[42:47] Speaker 2: and I was taught to believe that a one world
[42:49] Speaker 2: government meant the anti Christ and the devil is going everywhere.
[42:53] Speaker 2: I remember I would leave my job at KXOJ Radio
[42:58] Speaker 2: and Rush Limbaugh would be on starting at one o'clock,
[43:02] Speaker 2: so my shift ended at one. I did the morning show,
[43:04] Speaker 2: and then it was all production and other things, and
[43:06] Speaker 2: I would be in my car just in time for
[43:08] Speaker 2: the first hour of his monologue, and I would be
[43:11] Speaker 2: totally centered in calm, and by the time I got
[43:15] Speaker 2: home twenty minutes later, I would be livid because what's
[43:19] Speaker 2: this country coming to? And those permissive, progressive, immoral people.
[43:24] Speaker 2: I can't but they hate America. This place is going
[43:27] Speaker 2: to hell in a handbasket. And so I was in
[43:30] Speaker 2: that place where I was hyper targeted through right wing
[43:33] Speaker 2: media to believe that everybody was coming for everything I had.
[43:38] Speaker 2: They were all godless, immoral and un American. And you know,
[43:43] Speaker 2: when you have that attitude, it is really easy to
[43:47] Speaker 2: other someone else. And the fact that everybody in my
[43:50] Speaker 2: circle was like me. They were all Sunday go to
[43:52] Speaker 2: meet and church hypocrites. You know. They all listened to
[43:56] Speaker 2: the same music, they went to the same movies, they
[43:59] Speaker 2: talked the same way. I wasn't introduced to other people
[44:03] Speaker 2: in any meaningful way until I got into my thirties,
[44:06] Speaker 2: and man, it opened up my world. So that's my
[44:08] Speaker 2: long version of the short answer. Does that make any sense?
[44:12] Speaker 7: No, I gotcha, No, yeah, absolutely, thank you.
[44:14] Speaker 4: Yeah.
[44:14] Speaker 7: What I heard was number one, you kind of found
[44:17] Speaker 7: yourself in an information silo. You were sort of stuck
[44:19] Speaker 7: with the same opinions with the same people all the time.
[44:23] Speaker 7: There was this idea of a conspiracy that kept rolling around,
[44:26] Speaker 7: right the rise of the Antichrist, the one world government,
[44:28] Speaker 7: et cetera, et cetera, et cetera, tying into religion, and
[44:32] Speaker 7: then this rage machine that the right wing makes this
[44:36] Speaker 7: like just get mad about something because it sells, it sells.
[44:41] Speaker 7: And then the last thing you mentioned was this whole
[44:43] Speaker 7: idea of patriotism and othering people. So, with regard to
[44:47] Speaker 7: the rural population, what do you think would be the
[44:49] Speaker 7: most effective way to address those the information silo, conspiracy, religion,
[44:53] Speaker 7: rage machine or patriotism.
[44:56] Speaker 2: I in my own circle, when I'm not in a
[44:59] Speaker 2: re with people who are just as outraged and horrified
[45:03] Speaker 2: and grieved, and we're saying all the things that were
[45:06] Speaker 2: you know, all the primal things that emit out from
[45:09] Speaker 2: our gut. When I'm actually engaging person like the Maga
[45:13] Speaker 2: who we were talking on the phone a couple of
[45:16] Speaker 2: months ago, and who I texted just a few days ago.
[45:19] Speaker 2: I'm leading with questions. I'm trying to engage with a
[45:23] Speaker 2: legitimate attitude of concern without insult, in the hopes of
[45:28] Speaker 2: planting a seed that might germinate and become something. Knowing
[45:33] Speaker 2: not everybody can be reachable. But I'll tell you I
[45:36] Speaker 2: haven't had a whole lot of success. I have seen
[45:39] Speaker 2: some people get out. There are people who are in
[45:42] Speaker 2: our family tree. I've got nephews and nieces. Natalie's got
[45:46] Speaker 2: some cousins. We didn't think they'd ever bust out of Conservatism.
[45:50] Speaker 2: They're pissed and they're going hard publicly at Trump to
[45:55] Speaker 2: the horror of their mega family. So some people are
[45:58] Speaker 2: getting out. Approach is imperfect. I'm just trying to speak,
[46:04] Speaker 2: and I ate an atmosphere of no.
[46:05] Speaker 7: Absolutely, I don't expect it. Yeah, I don't know. I
[46:08] Speaker 7: don't expect a panacea. The people you were talking about,
[46:10] Speaker 7: are they more of the urban population or more of
[46:12] Speaker 7: the rural population. The ones who are sort of turning
[46:14] Speaker 7: on Trump right now?
[46:15] Speaker 2: Both there are a couple. In my mind, actually, one
[46:18] Speaker 2: of them just moved to Massachusetts. You may have seen
[46:21] Speaker 2: that statistic where Oklahoma just got ranked fifty in education
[46:26] Speaker 2: while Massachusetts is ranked number one, and they purposefully went
[46:30] Speaker 2: online and.
[46:31] Speaker 7: Say Mexico is the last.
[46:32] Speaker 5: Mexico is the last.
[46:34] Speaker 2: Finally they left and moved out and said, FYI, I
[46:38] Speaker 2: am moving out of this backward ass state and I'm
[46:41] Speaker 2: going to Massachusetts. And she moved a few months ago
[46:44] Speaker 2: before this stat came out, but she's already out of here.
[46:47] Speaker 2: And then there was somebody else who lives in another suburb,
[46:50] Speaker 2: a suburb called so Pulpa, Oklahoma, and she's pissed. So
[46:54] Speaker 2: I've seen city and I've seen regional and rural. I've
[46:58] Speaker 2: seen them both.
[46:59] Speaker 7: Man hm, Okay, Yeah, I'm just trying to think back
[47:03] Speaker 7: about the things that you had said about kind of
[47:05] Speaker 7: where you were at the time that information silo, this
[47:08] Speaker 7: conspiracy mindset tied into religion and the rage machine of
[47:12] Speaker 7: the right wing and patriotism and othering. I really kind
[47:15] Speaker 7: of feel like the best approach when it comes to
[47:17] Speaker 7: the rural population is attacking them on that level of
[47:21] Speaker 7: patriotism and othering because they have neighbors. You know, Rural
[47:24] Speaker 7: communities are by their very nature communal, and so they
[47:29] Speaker 7: will bond together to try to protect themselves from what
[47:32] Speaker 7: they appear to be outsiders, and within that inside group
[47:35] Speaker 7: there are LGBTQQIA people, there are trans people, There's all
[47:39] Speaker 7: sorts of neighbors that they have. So I really think
[47:42] Speaker 7: looking at it from the hey, you know what, these
[47:44] Speaker 7: are our neighbors, these are our friends, these are our
[47:45] Speaker 7: fellow Americans. I think that's really the approach on the
[47:49] Speaker 7: rural side.
[47:50] Speaker 2: But that's my take, all right. Thanks for a perspective
[47:53] Speaker 2: that we can all sort of talk about and think
[47:55] Speaker 2: about and show on. Thanks so much for comp.
[47:57] Speaker 7: Awome awesome, and I think you, yeah, thank you so much.
[48:00] Speaker 7: I really appreciate it, and I really appreciate what you
[48:02] Speaker 7: do and keep on getting on those calling shows because
[48:05] Speaker 7: you rock those colors than anybody else in.
[48:09] Speaker 2: You're very kind. We'll see you later. Thanks. He's talking
[48:13] Speaker 2: about my guest shots on the Line Network, And if
[48:17] Speaker 2: you're not subscribed to the Line, just go on YouTube
[48:21] Speaker 2: and type it in. You'll see it pops up. And
[48:23] Speaker 2: there's a whole bunch of people who co host. Matt
[48:27] Speaker 2: Delahunty's on there and they bring it in R and Raw,
[48:30] Speaker 2: Paula Gea Eve was framed is there, Shannon q Erica
[48:36] Speaker 2: got sick given Forrest Valci and Forrest and I we
[48:40] Speaker 2: hosted just a few days ago. Again, they like this
[48:42] Speaker 2: pairing of me and Forrest. The dynamic of our personalities
[48:47] Speaker 2: apparently gels really well because you know, Forrest, he's a
[48:50] Speaker 2: Jack Russell Terrier. He's just like and me. I'm you know,
[48:56] Speaker 2: but I lately have been a little more animated me
[49:00] Speaker 2: maybe maybe too much so. And it is an interesting format.
[49:06] Speaker 2: It's very much a different animal than what we do here,
[49:08] Speaker 2: where you and I are having conversations really as a
[49:11] Speaker 2: as a family, as a community about the culture at large.
[49:14] Speaker 2: And we do have some people call in and challenge
[49:16] Speaker 2: and disagree, but it's it's a different vibe where the line,
[49:20] Speaker 2: at least when I'm co hosting the Sunday Show or
[49:23] Speaker 2: Skep Talk is theists, mostly theists who call in and
[49:27] Speaker 2: they are trying to explain or prove or defend God.
[49:34] Speaker 2: And I'll tell you that's some weak sauce, man, It's
[49:38] Speaker 2: weak sauce some of these serial callers. I mean, it'll
[49:43] Speaker 2: say on the switchboard twenty six previous calls to the line, Jesus,
[49:49] Speaker 2: I'm sorry you called twenty six times. Do you just
[49:52] Speaker 2: like hearing your voice on the air, because I suspect
[49:55] Speaker 2: you just like hearing your voice on the air. And
[49:57] Speaker 2: they talk about all kinds of crazy stuff. Okay, speaking
[50:03] Speaker 2: of crazy stuff. And this clip has been around since
[50:07] Speaker 2: the show aired in twenty sixteen. How have I not
[50:10] Speaker 2: seen it until this morning? But I hadn't and it
[50:14] Speaker 2: blew my mind. This is from the Comedy Central. Triumph,
[50:19] Speaker 2: the insult comic Dog said the puppet with a cigar,
[50:24] Speaker 2: and Triumph was a character. I don't know what Triumph
[50:27] Speaker 2: is doing now, but Triumph this little rubber puppet with
[50:31] Speaker 2: a cigar. And in the show Election Watch twenty sixteen,
[50:35] Speaker 2: they had a survey group, so they brought in voters
[50:38] Speaker 2: for Trump and they brought in voters for Clinton, and
[50:41] Speaker 2: they played fake audio of the two candidates saying horrible things.
[50:48] Speaker 2: And then they said, look, you know this is a
[50:50] Speaker 2: focus group. We need you to help us spin this
[50:54] Speaker 2: so that it doesn't totally torpedo them in the election.
[50:58] Speaker 2: You're a member of the vot voting public. What do
[51:01] Speaker 2: you think now? I'm going to be totally upfront and
[51:04] Speaker 2: say that they played a bunch of bogus stuff for
[51:06] Speaker 2: Hillary and the Hillary voters, And this is proof that
[51:11] Speaker 2: the left, progressive liberals, Democrats are not immune from in
[51:15] Speaker 2: group favoritism because they squirmed and stretched and did all that.
[51:21] Speaker 2: They did that. But that's not the clip I'm going
[51:23] Speaker 2: to play here. Because Hillary Clinton is not the president
[51:27] Speaker 2: of the United States. Hillary Clinton has not been engaging
[51:31] Speaker 2: in a war to dismantle pretty much everything. It is
[51:35] Speaker 2: streaming on Hulu, but it's on YouTube as well. Trump
[51:38] Speaker 2: and Clinton supporters react to shocking revelations. Okay, let me
[51:43] Speaker 2: just play the Trump section, because these people are doing
[51:47] Speaker 2: the same shit today. Check this out.
[51:52] Speaker 8: Look any cameras in the dressing room, you know, cameras
[51:55] Speaker 8: on the wall, cameras on the floor, aims up at
[51:57] Speaker 8: their whatever. I want the best camp shut up by
[52:01] Speaker 8: the best Chinda mean, yeah, it's to make sure that
[52:07] Speaker 8: they're say day. I mean, look, I can't be there
[52:10] Speaker 8: all day. I'll just start grabbing him.
[52:12] Speaker 2: Believe name for that. I mean, I'm a.
[52:15] Speaker 8: Man the beautiful women. It's totally natural.
[52:18] Speaker 4: You know.
[52:18] Speaker 8: Sometimes I'll walk in naked, so then we're all make
[52:23] Speaker 8: you know, they file a complaint against me, I can
[52:25] Speaker 8: file it right back at them. Jew lawyer told me
[52:28] Speaker 8: that one.
[52:35] Speaker 4: We need to have a plan in place on how
[52:38] Speaker 4: to react and respond to the stuff if its in
[52:40] Speaker 4: the media.
[52:41] Speaker 2: Well, this is obviously old before you decided he was
[52:44] Speaker 2: going to be a politician. I personally don't care. I
[52:47] Speaker 2: just I just don't care.
[52:48] Speaker 4: I like him because he says. I like him because
[52:50] Speaker 4: he says all.
[52:51] Speaker 2: I really love it when he says what everybody thinks
[52:52] Speaker 2: and won't say. And with that personality, it goes those
[52:55] Speaker 2: kind of comments most of the time.
[52:57] Speaker 4: As a man, I know, I've been in a situation
[52:59] Speaker 4: where and lots of things and we've been this man talk.
[53:03] Speaker 4: I've done it, said it, They've done it, said it.
[53:05] Speaker 4: I've been around plenty man, professional, I mean, you name it.
[53:09] Speaker 4: Every man is something says something to the facts.
[53:14] Speaker 8: You know that they'd like to put the camera in
[53:16] Speaker 8: a teenage great change.
[53:17] Speaker 2: All right, we're going to move on to the next one.
[53:22] Speaker 2: We'll be back with lots more of Donald Trump. Don't
[53:25] Speaker 2: go away, Okay?
[53:28] Speaker 8: So am I doing all right, Larry, Because I'm a
[53:30] Speaker 8: little woozy. I just get back from giving blood for
[53:32] Speaker 8: this fraternity test.
[53:34] Speaker 2: So what do they have to say?
[53:36] Speaker 8: It's rivoka double checking that she's really my daughter. You know,
[53:40] Speaker 8: I don't want to go my whole life and find
[53:42] Speaker 8: out that she was fair game after all, you know, boom,
[53:46] Speaker 8: it's just that she's voluptuous, successful and you know, frankly,
[53:49] Speaker 8: I heard she's great in bed and we're back in
[53:51] Speaker 8: five okay? Or does oral cameras interest and we're.
[53:55] Speaker 2: Back don will be the wall over the board tonight. Okay?
[54:01] Speaker 2: So how do you feel about this one? He's complimenting
[54:04] Speaker 2: his daughter like in his How jaw droppingly unbelievably creepy
[54:13] Speaker 2: is that? And how many of those people go to
[54:17] Speaker 2: church on Sunday and worship them some Jesus?
[54:22] Speaker 7: You know?
[54:22] Speaker 2: He says it like it is. He says the things.
[54:24] Speaker 2: I mean, this is just how guys talk. Well, he
[54:27] Speaker 2: was complimenting his daughter, Are you shitting me? And then
[54:32] Speaker 2: I think there's no reasoning with that. It's not reasoning yet.
[54:37] Speaker 2: The one thing I do when I have heard a
[54:40] Speaker 2: few people say this, well, he says it like it is.
[54:42] Speaker 2: He's imperfect or whatnot. And this was an issue with
[54:46] Speaker 2: grabb him by the pussy and moved on her like
[54:48] Speaker 2: a bitch and the miss teen USA dressing rooms. And
[54:52] Speaker 2: my tactic there is to insert proper names or direct relatives.
[54:57] Speaker 2: So I'll say, well, what if it was your daughter
[54:59] Speaker 2: CHRISTI and Christy was in a beauty pageant and she
[55:03] Speaker 2: was naked or almost naked, and Trump came in, I mean,
[55:07] Speaker 2: and someone told you about that. He came in just
[55:10] Speaker 2: to check out your hot daughter. How'd you feel about that?
[55:13] Speaker 2: What if it was your wife whose pussy was grabbed?
[55:17] Speaker 2: What if it was your mother who was raped in
[55:19] Speaker 2: a dressing room in an apartment store back in the
[55:22] Speaker 2: nineteen nine What if he'd raped your mom? What if
[55:24] Speaker 2: your mom had come back and said, I accuse this
[55:27] Speaker 2: man of sexual assault. What if she was one of
[55:29] Speaker 2: the twenty eight or whoever who have come forward like that,
[55:33] Speaker 2: how would you feel about it? That seems to make
[55:36] Speaker 2: a little bit of headway. They won't admit it in
[55:38] Speaker 2: the moment, but you can totally see them for the
[55:41] Speaker 2: first time. They're having to do personalize, take personally this
[55:45] Speaker 2: idea of sexual assault. But the fact that that's what
[55:48] Speaker 2: it takes is terrifying to me and to you. I'm
[55:52] Speaker 2: sure he was complimenting his daughter. Oh my god. I
[56:02] Speaker 2: get to take a break and I'll be back and
[56:05] Speaker 2: we'll take more of your calls. I so appreciate your support.
[56:15] Speaker 2: On Patreon. It makes a difference. So if you want
[56:18] Speaker 2: to support the broadcast with I don't know, a pledge.
[56:23] Speaker 2: I hate the word pledge, but you know you can
[56:25] Speaker 2: support per show. Have very many shows a month that
[56:28] Speaker 2: you want. You choose the dollar figure you set the terms.
[56:31] Speaker 2: Go to patreon dot com slash Seth Andrews and thank
[56:36] Speaker 2: you so much. Peggy is dialing in from area code
[56:42] Speaker 2: for zero four. Peggy, thanks for your patients. Are you there?
[56:46] Speaker 3: I am Jeth.
[56:48] Speaker 2: I'm so good, you know, except for the fact that
[56:50] Speaker 2: the country's on fire and there's a fascist takeover and
[56:54] Speaker 2: I'm worried about the collective IQ of half of the country.
[56:59] Speaker 3: And uh and that's why I appreciate you.
[57:02] Speaker 2: Oh okay, all right, I'm sorry. I didn't need to
[57:04] Speaker 2: be a you and your show well hit me, Peggy
[57:06] Speaker 2: was on your line.
[57:08] Speaker 3: Okay, Well, this show is my life what you're talking
[57:11] Speaker 3: about here, because I was born in Chicago. We had
[57:15] Speaker 3: to move to Tennessee when I was sick, so all
[57:18] Speaker 3: of my education was in the South. And now I've
[57:21] Speaker 3: been living in Atlanta for almost thirty years and where
[57:27] Speaker 3: I'm in the only blue dot in a big red
[57:29] Speaker 3: state like you were, talking about. And all of my
[57:33] Speaker 3: family that I have left is still in Tennessee, very
[57:36] Speaker 3: mega fundamentalist Christians, including a friend that I used to
[57:41] Speaker 3: go to church with because I used to be also
[57:44] Speaker 3: and my sister, who is my closest family member. I
[57:49] Speaker 3: didn't even know she thought that she had any racist
[57:53] Speaker 3: or fundamentalist thoughts until twenty seventeen, which was, you know,
[57:57] Speaker 3: Trump's first year in office. And I do think that
[57:59] Speaker 3: a lot lot of what that he just gives people
[58:04] Speaker 3: permission to say their hate out loud. You know, It's
[58:07] Speaker 3: like they were validated in what they always believed somehow.
[58:12] Speaker 3: And I know that my oldest sister was the first
[58:15] Speaker 3: person my mom's side of the family to go to
[58:18] Speaker 3: college and always the second, and we have lots of
[58:20] Speaker 3: cousins there, and it was really considered disloyal to go
[58:24] Speaker 3: away to college. You shouldn't leave the family or the
[58:28] Speaker 3: country and go where there's all these other people with
[58:31] Speaker 3: all these other ways of thinking and all these races.
[58:33] Speaker 3: It was just like, why in the world would you
[58:35] Speaker 3: even want to do that? And so it is heartbreaking
[58:40] Speaker 3: to me that my sister and I, in order to
[58:43] Speaker 3: stay in communication, can no longer talk about religion or politics,
[58:47] Speaker 3: which are both like pretty much all I'm thinking about lately.
[58:52] Speaker 3: So we talk about family, we have to leave everything
[58:57] Speaker 3: else out. I certainly have friend's high school friends on
[59:01] Speaker 3: Facebook that I see them post things from time to time,
[59:04] Speaker 3: and I used to mean mag of people who are
[59:09] Speaker 3: maga now, So in high school, those things weren't even issues.
[59:13] Speaker 7: We didn't need.
[59:13] Speaker 3: I remember even talking about religion and politics and the fooste,
[59:17] Speaker 3: which is when I was in high school, and at
[59:21] Speaker 3: first I would think, I just need to post the
[59:23] Speaker 3: facts because they're believing this crazy stuff. Just post the
[59:29] Speaker 3: truth and that'll matter, and I realized it didn't at all,
[59:32] Speaker 3: and some of the things they would say back would
[59:34] Speaker 3: be so despicable. One woman said something so despicable. I
[59:38] Speaker 3: just gave up trying to even just counter with facts,
[59:42] Speaker 3: with not criticizing anybody, not putting anybody down. But it
[59:47] Speaker 3: just didn't seem to matter, because their choices and their
[59:51] Speaker 3: beliefs right now are based on emotion and also very
[59:54] Speaker 3: much based on their religions, and they trust their pastors.
[59:58] Speaker 3: So if they're told that the church, especially, you can't
[1:00:02] Speaker 3: challenge it. And I am just a hipster. It's just
[1:00:05] Speaker 3: because I eat kale and recycle makes me you know,
[1:00:09] Speaker 3: somebody who thinks she's better than everybody else.
[1:00:12] Speaker 2: So you hippie, But I you liberal hippie. You wanting
[1:00:16] Speaker 2: to make the world a better place and eating kale.
[1:00:19] Speaker 2: I mean, what's this country coming to. We're all a
[1:00:22] Speaker 2: bunch of cow eaters here in the United States. I
[1:00:25] Speaker 2: know what you mean when it comes to trying to
[1:00:27] Speaker 2: make a dent with facts. Just a few days ago,
[1:00:30] Speaker 2: Donald Trump made the outrageous claim that he had reduced
[1:00:34] Speaker 2: the cost of pharmaceutical drugs by one thousand, five hundred percent.
[1:00:41] Speaker 2: And so I said to a maga Trump supporter in
[1:00:44] Speaker 2: my circle, I said, you realize that Trump just made
[1:00:47] Speaker 2: the claim that the pharmaceutical companies are now paying us
[1:00:51] Speaker 2: when we buy their drugs. Well, how do you explain that?
[1:00:55] Speaker 2: And there was no response. Totally got ghosted, like I
[1:00:59] Speaker 2: think they should down and went la la la la
[1:01:02] Speaker 2: la la in their mind and they didn't even want
[1:01:04] Speaker 2: to talk about it. And there's a lot of that
[1:01:06] Speaker 2: going on in there, Peggy, A lot.
[1:01:08] Speaker 3: Yeah, And that's usually that's what would happen so much
[1:01:11] Speaker 3: in discussions with my sister, was just I would say
[1:01:13] Speaker 3: something logical back like, well, what about January sixth? I mean, like,
[1:01:19] Speaker 3: how do you reconcile him trying to overthrow the entire government?
[1:01:24] Speaker 3: And she actually said, well, I don't know about that.
[1:01:26] Speaker 2: Well, what I hear is what about the riots in Portland?
[1:01:29] Speaker 2: Or didn't you see the other side of the Pentagon
[1:01:32] Speaker 2: where the police officers were allowing protesters to come in
[1:01:36] Speaker 2: and take a little you know, meandering walk through the
[1:01:39] Speaker 2: halls in a very peaceful way. Why aren't they being acknowledged?
[1:01:44] Speaker 2: Or I guess that's an inside job conspiracy theory, or
[1:01:48] Speaker 2: maybe Antifa as part of it. I don't know. There's
[1:01:50] Speaker 2: there's always an excuse, isn't there there is?
[1:01:53] Speaker 3: I mean, she does have a ready answer until I
[1:01:56] Speaker 3: say something logical that really is based in back, and
[1:01:59] Speaker 3: then she really doesn't have anything to come back with,
[1:02:02] Speaker 3: and then she has to hang up, she has to go,
[1:02:05] Speaker 3: you know, and she just cuts it off, and she says,
[1:02:07] Speaker 3: I'm not cutting you off. I just got to fixed
[1:02:08] Speaker 3: in her, I'm not cutting you off. But I just
[1:02:10] Speaker 3: bet she obviously is. And so I've just quit because honestly,
[1:02:14] Speaker 3: I feel so much anger, and I love her. She
[1:02:18] Speaker 3: is my younger sister, and I want to stay close
[1:02:22] Speaker 3: to her. But the things that she believes now and
[1:02:25] Speaker 3: she's not a stupid person. She's not ignorant. And that's
[1:02:29] Speaker 3: another thing that confuses me. I know some people who
[1:02:32] Speaker 3: I hey consider very smart, who still voted for Trump
[1:02:36] Speaker 3: three times. I don't know what they all think now
[1:02:38] Speaker 3: because I haven't been communicated with them anymore. But they
[1:02:43] Speaker 3: aren't stupid people, and I just it's just so baffling
[1:02:47] Speaker 3: to me that they don't want to look at like
[1:02:50] Speaker 3: it's worth it to not have to see gay people
[1:02:53] Speaker 3: on commercials. So what if people are being snatched off
[1:02:56] Speaker 3: the street and being treated like dogs. You know, I
[1:02:59] Speaker 3: don't have to watch gay people on commercials where I
[1:03:01] Speaker 3: live anymore.
[1:03:02] Speaker 2: Without being pedantic, I want to draw a quick distinction,
[1:03:05] Speaker 2: and I know you mean this distinction ignorance and stupidity.
[1:03:08] Speaker 2: I don't think of the same thing. I mean ignorance
[1:03:11] Speaker 2: being the lack of knowledge, even willful ignorance. I think
[1:03:14] Speaker 2: ignorance can be fixed. I do worry that stupid is forever.
[1:03:20] Speaker 2: You know, there is someone who you can give them
[1:03:22] Speaker 2: all of the you can educate them, you can give
[1:03:24] Speaker 2: them the info that they need, and they will still
[1:03:28] Speaker 2: reject it or twist it, distort it. You know, I
[1:03:32] Speaker 2: think ignorance and stupidity are two different things. Hell, I'm
[1:03:36] Speaker 2: ignorant about a ton of stuff, and yeah, i'd like
[1:03:40] Speaker 2: to think that I don't walk through my day stupidly.
[1:03:44] Speaker 2: And you and I share that frustration. And I think
[1:03:47] Speaker 2: a lot of people listening to the sound of your voice,
[1:03:49] Speaker 2: they've gone through the same things. If politics or religion
[1:03:52] Speaker 2: comes up during the holidays, it's gonna be thunder doome.
[1:03:57] Speaker 2: So it's better that we just shut up and everything
[1:04:00] Speaker 2: sort of under the surface. Let's get through the day.
[1:04:03] Speaker 2: But I'm frustrated, I'm heartbroken, I'm angry, and that's just
[1:04:08] Speaker 2: where we are. And so I think a lot of
[1:04:10] Speaker 2: people relate to that, Peggy.
[1:04:12] Speaker 3: Yeah, And it makes me feel not genuine anymore when
[1:04:15] Speaker 3: I'm around them, And it's heartbreaking to me that our
[1:04:19] Speaker 3: relationship has to be superficial now, which is how it
[1:04:22] Speaker 3: feels to me. Was that to talk about everything?
[1:04:24] Speaker 2: Was that a discussion that you had not to be labored?
[1:04:27] Speaker 2: You know the point? But did you say, Okay, from
[1:04:30] Speaker 2: now on, we need to talk about other things, no
[1:04:32] Speaker 2: more religion and politics.
[1:04:35] Speaker 3: Yes, we both agreed on that because we both got
[1:04:38] Speaker 3: so angry.
[1:04:40] Speaker 2: I don't bring it up around my family, but I'll
[1:04:43] Speaker 2: tell you I don't really see my family anymore. I
[1:04:46] Speaker 2: don't want to be around them. I'm pissed. Yeah, you know,
[1:04:49] Speaker 2: I'm mad. I'm just so outraged, and I'm having a
[1:04:53] Speaker 2: hard time being in the same room with him. So
[1:04:55] Speaker 2: I've just opted out. But I've come to the point
[1:04:58] Speaker 2: now where if I'm in the room and I find
[1:05:00] Speaker 2: an opportunity, I just don't think I'm going to hold
[1:05:03] Speaker 2: my tongue. I think I'm done, and I don't know
[1:05:06] Speaker 2: what that's going to mean. I don't know what the
[1:05:08] Speaker 2: response is going to be, but I'm kind of past caring.
[1:05:13] Speaker 2: I don't know, Peggy, I'm a mess. I'm a mess,
[1:05:17] Speaker 2: you know.
[1:05:18] Speaker 3: I know I want to stick a fork in my
[1:05:19] Speaker 3: eye too, but I don't. The last time I was there,
[1:05:25] Speaker 3: which was just a couple of months ago, nobody brought
[1:05:28] Speaker 3: it up. You know, I feel like you do. I
[1:05:30] Speaker 3: think if somebody brought it up, I wouldn't be able
[1:05:32] Speaker 3: to hold my tongue. But we all have this silent
[1:05:35] Speaker 3: agreement now and then when I say, ah, it's really
[1:05:38] Speaker 3: my sister is about the only one I have left
[1:05:40] Speaker 3: to have some nieces and nephews, but the rest of
[1:05:44] Speaker 3: our family have all passed on. And that's another reason
[1:05:46] Speaker 3: I think why it's so important to both of us
[1:05:48] Speaker 3: to stay connected somehow, because there's not many of us left,
[1:05:53] Speaker 3: and I would if it came up, I wouldn't be
[1:05:56] Speaker 3: able to hold my tongue. But that's why being quiet
[1:05:59] Speaker 3: is hurt It's not just frustrating, it's hurtful. And I'm
[1:06:03] Speaker 3: so I'm just I don't I'm so angry that my
[1:06:07] Speaker 3: last years are spent in this environment. You know that
[1:06:11] Speaker 3: we've been sort divided, and I lived I was in
[1:06:13] Speaker 3: high school in the sixties. I remember nineteen sixty eight
[1:06:16] Speaker 3: and all the horrendous things that were going on all
[1:06:18] Speaker 3: through the sixties, and I don't know that this time
[1:06:21] Speaker 3: was worse yet, it's just different in the way that
[1:06:24] Speaker 3: it's worse. And we did kind of come out of that,
[1:06:27] Speaker 3: but maybe not really. All of this has been under
[1:06:30] Speaker 3: the surface and people got more politically correct, I guess,
[1:06:34] Speaker 3: and Trump gave them permission to stop being politically correct
[1:06:38] Speaker 3: and just let it all hang out. And now it's
[1:06:41] Speaker 3: a big old fight, and I'll stop talking.
[1:06:43] Speaker 2: You're finding Peggy well, You've given us a lot to
[1:06:47] Speaker 2: think about, and I feel your pain. I relate to
[1:06:51] Speaker 2: completely to your situation. Peggy. It's so good to talk
[1:06:55] Speaker 2: to you and be safe out there.
[1:06:56] Speaker 3: Okay, thank you for taking my call. I appreciate you.
[1:06:59] Speaker 2: Yeah, we'll see. Catherine is dialing in from nine to
[1:07:03] Speaker 2: three seven. Thanks for your patience. Are you there, Catherine, Yes,
[1:07:07] Speaker 2: I'm here.
[1:07:07] Speaker 6: Can you hear me?
[1:07:08] Speaker 2: I can? Indeed? What's on your mind?
[1:07:11] Speaker 6: So I am a mental health counseling student and I'm
[1:07:16] Speaker 6: actually taking some classes about rural mental health. The program
[1:07:21] Speaker 6: I'm in has one of the only rural mental health
[1:07:24] Speaker 6: certificates in the country, so I was like, oh, I
[1:07:28] Speaker 6: might have some insight. I guess that maybe some other
[1:07:31] Speaker 6: folks might not have. But I just wanted to say
[1:07:34] Speaker 6: that I think the conversations you have been having are
[1:07:38] Speaker 6: really interesting. And one of the things I've been learning
[1:07:42] Speaker 6: is that rurality is really hard to define, Like for
[1:07:46] Speaker 6: research purposes, there's not really like an agreed upon definition
[1:07:51] Speaker 6: of what rural really means. So that complicates like how
[1:07:56] Speaker 6: we can study the mindset of people in rural because
[1:08:01] Speaker 6: nobody can really agree like what is rural? You know,
[1:08:05] Speaker 6: is it resources, is it how many people live in
[1:08:08] Speaker 6: an area, things like that. Nobody really agrees, but one
[1:08:12] Speaker 6: of the pattern I see is that rural people tend
[1:08:15] Speaker 6: to have lower mental health outcomes, There's higher rates of suicide,
[1:08:21] Speaker 6: less access to resource and material and economic conditions are
[1:08:27] Speaker 6: poorer in rural areas. Not saying that everybody's struggling right now, obviously,
[1:08:32] Speaker 6: but it's I think something to consider that these areas
[1:08:36] Speaker 6: are really struggling economically, you know, access to healthcare, things
[1:08:41] Speaker 6: like that. So do Yeah, that's my I guess.
[1:08:44] Speaker 2: That's my No, no, no, I'm so glad for your perspective, Catherine.
[1:08:48] Speaker 2: When I read the article at the beginning, the author
[1:08:52] Speaker 2: was speaking to a kind of resentment to I don't
[1:08:56] Speaker 2: know them, city dwelling elites that are in different or
[1:09:01] Speaker 2: callous about the problems of heartland Americans. Do you feel
[1:09:05] Speaker 2: like there's merit to that? Was there resentment in the
[1:09:07] Speaker 2: rural areas thinking well, those those city dwellers don't they
[1:09:11] Speaker 2: don't know us, they don't get us, they don't care,
[1:09:13] Speaker 2: so screw them.
[1:09:14] Speaker 6: Yeah, I definitely think there is, Like you're talking about
[1:09:17] Speaker 6: this othering, and I think there probably is that for
[1:09:20] Speaker 6: urban folks. I know in my training that there are
[1:09:26] Speaker 6: challenges for being a mental health provider in rural areas
[1:09:29] Speaker 6: because like ethics are a little bit different, you know,
[1:09:31] Speaker 6: like if you're in a community, like your privacy has
[1:09:35] Speaker 6: to be like really really really really strong. Not that
[1:09:40] Speaker 6: it shouldn't be everywhere, but you know what I mean,
[1:09:42] Speaker 6: Like if you're like, oh, hey, Bob, I just had
[1:09:45] Speaker 6: a session with you, you know, like at a grocery store,
[1:09:47] Speaker 6: and like urban areas, you don't get that interaction, if
[1:09:52] Speaker 6: that makes sense. And I guess my point is that
[1:09:56] Speaker 6: I do think that while the res might not be
[1:10:01] Speaker 6: valid or understandable, I do think resources have been pulled
[1:10:05] Speaker 6: away from these areas for so long, Like some of
[1:10:08] Speaker 6: the things I've been learning, you know, state legislatures they
[1:10:11] Speaker 6: don't support rural areas at all. They don't support urban areas.
[1:10:15] Speaker 6: They don't support anybody. You know, there's funding, there's bills
[1:10:18] Speaker 6: that are they try to progress these areas economically, and
[1:10:23] Speaker 6: they get you know, they don't get past legislative bodies.
[1:10:27] Speaker 6: So I think it's really complicated, and I think the
[1:10:32] Speaker 6: material conditions of it all for all of us are
[1:10:35] Speaker 6: important to recognize. Like people are just like really struggling,
[1:10:39] Speaker 6: And I think that does breed resentments.
[1:10:44] Speaker 2: When uh yeah, it comes to the subject of psychology.
[1:10:47] Speaker 2: Here in heartland, Red state, Oklahoma, I was trained to
[1:10:52] Speaker 2: distrust mental health professionals like, you know, psychologists, psychiatrists, et cetera.
[1:10:58] Speaker 2: You know, in the in the Blue States, the Blue areas.
[1:11:01] Speaker 2: Rather you know, they're all going to their therapist every
[1:11:03] Speaker 2: day and they're weeping about their problems. And we were
[1:11:07] Speaker 2: trained to think, will either suck it up, buttercup or
[1:11:11] Speaker 2: the psychologist and the mental health professionals are dealing with
[1:11:14] Speaker 2: things like depression because it's a spiritual issue, or they're
[1:11:19] Speaker 2: indoctrinating their patients. Any merit to that one.
[1:11:23] Speaker 6: Thousand percent, Yes, And I think that that stigma still
[1:11:27] Speaker 6: very much exists, and that's another challenge of reaching folks,
[1:11:32] Speaker 6: I honestly think everywhere. I don't live in a rural
[1:11:35] Speaker 6: area myself, but I've worked in community and mental health
[1:11:38] Speaker 6: in an urban area, and that stigma is everywhere people. Really,
[1:11:43] Speaker 6: I think it's weird because, like, mental health is so
[1:11:47] Speaker 6: physical and vice versa. Physical health is very mental as well,
[1:11:52] Speaker 6: but we treat mental health like it's different because it
[1:11:55] Speaker 6: presents differently. But yes, you are absolutely right. And that's
[1:12:00] Speaker 6: another challenge of reaching rural people, overcoming that stigma and
[1:12:05] Speaker 6: recognizing like, hey, it's okay if these spiritual things help you.
[1:12:11] Speaker 6: Because I'm I'm I'm an atheist, but I as a
[1:12:15] Speaker 6: mental health professional, I'm trained to be not biased and
[1:12:19] Speaker 6: to support someone if someone is a religious person and
[1:12:23] Speaker 6: they find feeling in their faith, to not discount that.
[1:12:27] Speaker 6: And that has been really interesting for me to explore
[1:12:30] Speaker 6: my own biases as an atheist, because in the beginning
[1:12:34] Speaker 6: of my career, I'm like, oh, you know, that feels weird.
[1:12:36] Speaker 6: But I think of it more of like a psychological
[1:12:39] Speaker 6: or sociological tool for people. You know, I don't believe
[1:12:44] Speaker 6: in the evidentiary, you know, merits of religion, but if
[1:12:48] Speaker 6: that's what's helping that person, I'm not going to discount
[1:12:50] Speaker 6: it either. So I think a challenge for understanding rural
[1:12:56] Speaker 6: folks is recognizing the biases that are built into their
[1:13:01] Speaker 6: culture and their environments, and also recognizing that each rural
[1:13:05] Speaker 6: community is different. I think we paint like a broad
[1:13:10] Speaker 6: brush of like it's white and it's idyllic, but really
[1:13:14] Speaker 6: like rural areas are pretty diverse. That's what the research says,
[1:13:18] Speaker 6: which is interesting. I didn't know that it is.
[1:13:21] Speaker 2: Very much a community thing with the church. Get I
[1:13:24] Speaker 2: take some heat. In fact, I'm releasing an interview in
[1:13:29] Speaker 2: a few days with a Christian who is an ally
[1:13:33] Speaker 2: and someone I admire tremendously, and you know, some people
[1:13:38] Speaker 2: don't get that. And I really think most people use
[1:13:41] Speaker 2: church for a sense of belonging and structure and family.
[1:13:44] Speaker 2: I'm not defending the theology, nor am I saying we
[1:13:47] Speaker 2: don't have those discussions, but you're right that we on
[1:13:49] Speaker 2: the other side can be very uncharitable. Religion is a
[1:13:54] Speaker 2: mental illness and bullshit like that. I also think it's interesting,
[1:13:57] Speaker 2: and since you're a mental health student as well, people
[1:14:01] Speaker 2: like to separate the body and the brain, like you know,
[1:14:04] Speaker 2: we have organs like the lungs and the heart and
[1:14:07] Speaker 2: the liver and the kidneys, but somehow we don't treat
[1:14:09] Speaker 2: the brain like part of the body. We say, well,
[1:14:12] Speaker 2: is it a mental illness or is it a physical illness?
[1:14:15] Speaker 2: But there really isn't a distinction. The brain is an organ.
[1:14:18] Speaker 6: Right absolutely, one hundred percent, and our physical health affects
[1:14:23] Speaker 6: us mentally. You know, there's a connection between for example,
[1:14:27] Speaker 6: cancer and depression. A lot of people with cancer develop depression,
[1:14:33] Speaker 6: and there's complex reasons why that happens. But we can't
[1:14:36] Speaker 6: separate folks. We can't separate mental health from physical health
[1:14:40] Speaker 6: because there's this one and the same. But the stigma
[1:14:43] Speaker 6: of mental health in rural areas is really high. I
[1:14:46] Speaker 6: did a paper on suicide in rural areas, and there
[1:14:50] Speaker 6: are more suicides for rural folks. So I guess, just
[1:14:53] Speaker 6: like food for thought.
[1:14:56] Speaker 2: Is the suicide because of a hopelessness they're locked into
[1:15:01] Speaker 2: a cycle of failure or I mean, what do you
[1:15:04] Speaker 2: think drives the higher statistics for suicide in these rural areas.
[1:15:11] Speaker 6: I think it's really that's a super complicated question and
[1:15:15] Speaker 6: I don't know if anybody has the answer, but from
[1:15:18] Speaker 6: the research I've done, and there's not a lot of
[1:15:20] Speaker 6: research out there, so this is another thing. We need
[1:15:24] Speaker 6: to just research rural people more. There's just not enough.
[1:15:28] Speaker 6: But I think definitely hopelessness and I also think that
[1:15:33] Speaker 6: middle aged men are really at risk for suicide, and
[1:15:39] Speaker 6: in rural areas, they also have access to firearms, So
[1:15:42] Speaker 6: I think that that combination of factors is definitely at
[1:15:46] Speaker 6: play there. But I also think that the stigma and
[1:15:50] Speaker 6: lack of access to mental health care. If they don't
[1:15:53] Speaker 6: have the resources, they don't have the therapist they can call,
[1:15:57] Speaker 6: they don't have the mobile crisis team that can go
[1:16:00] Speaker 6: out to them. You know, Trump is defunding nine to
[1:16:04] Speaker 6: eight eight, which is horrible. You know, the suicide hotline,
[1:16:09] Speaker 6: it's all these Yeah, it is complicated, but I do
[1:16:12] Speaker 6: think there's just this perfect storm of things that are happening.
[1:16:16] Speaker 2: I think an ingredient of that too. And this is
[1:16:19] Speaker 2: very much true in Oklahoma is men are still sort
[1:16:22] Speaker 2: of taught that old school model where if you were
[1:16:26] Speaker 2: to admit that you had depression or that you were
[1:16:31] Speaker 2: struggling mentally, that's weakness. You know, men are strong. Men
[1:16:34] Speaker 2: have to suck it up and buckle up and pull
[1:16:38] Speaker 2: themselves up by their bootstraps and put on the brave
[1:16:40] Speaker 2: face and go out and be John Wayne. And it
[1:16:44] Speaker 2: doesn't mean that all of those psychological issues and the
[1:16:47] Speaker 2: heartache and the baggage and all of the stuff they
[1:16:50] Speaker 2: drag around isn't there. But many don't have the tool set,
[1:16:53] Speaker 2: you know, they were never taught how to navigate that.
[1:16:56] Speaker 2: And then cultural pressure is bottle it up, don't say anything,
[1:17:00] Speaker 2: or else they're going to think you're a pansy, you know,
[1:17:02] Speaker 2: something like that.
[1:17:03] Speaker 6: Yep, absolutely, one hundred percent. That is definitely a factor
[1:17:08] Speaker 6: as well. I've learned so much from the classes I've taken.
[1:17:12] Speaker 6: The professor that teaches the class is one of the
[1:17:15] Speaker 6: leading researchers in this area, in the whole world, which
[1:17:19] Speaker 6: is really cool. And so yeah, I don't know, just
[1:17:23] Speaker 6: considering that everybody's struggling everywhere, including in rural areas, and I,
[1:17:32] Speaker 6: you know, listening to Peggy and how do you talk
[1:17:35] Speaker 6: to your family members, I don't know. I I struggle
[1:17:38] Speaker 6: with the same things. I don't talk to my dad
[1:17:40] Speaker 6: because he's a Trump supporter, mega ultra Catholic nationalist person.
[1:17:44] Speaker 6: I don't know. But you know, if you have moments
[1:17:47] Speaker 6: where you can show kindness to someone even that you
[1:17:50] Speaker 6: disagree with, it might, I don't know, it might make
[1:17:52] Speaker 6: a difference.
[1:17:55] Speaker 2: Yeah, it's so hard.
[1:17:59] Speaker 6: I know.
[1:18:00] Speaker 2: It's massy Catherine, No, no, no, no, no, I'm on
[1:18:02] Speaker 2: your page. And this is a refreshing injection of compassion
[1:18:07] Speaker 2: and perspective into the final chapter of the show here.
[1:18:10] Speaker 2: And it's so good to talk to you, so all
[1:18:13] Speaker 2: my best in your studies and let's talk again down
[1:18:15] Speaker 2: the road.
[1:18:16] Speaker 6: Okay, yeah, for sure. And thank you for all that
[1:18:19] Speaker 6: you do. You've been in inspiration for me. You actually
[1:18:22] Speaker 6: have been an example of empathy for me.
[1:18:25] Speaker 2: So really, because I'm struggling with empathy these days. I'm
[1:18:29] Speaker 2: telling you, I'm just well, I'm struggling, but but I'm trying,
[1:18:35] Speaker 2: and the fact that you picked up on that is
[1:18:37] Speaker 2: just a huge gift to me. Thanks for the kind words.
[1:18:39] Speaker 2: Be safe out there, okay, of course, we'll see you later.
[1:18:45] Speaker 2: I had my moments. I mean I posted something on
[1:18:47] Speaker 2: Facebook just recently and it was somebody holding up a
[1:18:51] Speaker 2: sign and it said, in this house we say please,
[1:18:54] Speaker 2: thank you and fuck Trump, and I stamp you know what,
[1:18:59] Speaker 2: And I actually wrote this. I'll read it to you
[1:19:02] Speaker 2: to finish the show today. I don't despise him for
[1:19:05] Speaker 2: the sake of hate. I hate the cruelty, stupidity, and grift,
[1:19:12] Speaker 2: the fact that he's only happy when aggrandizing himself, creeping
[1:19:15] Speaker 2: on women, or insulting others. His cartoonish lies, embraced by
[1:19:21] Speaker 2: fools don is everything parents teach their children not to
[1:19:25] Speaker 2: be egotistical, greedy, a bully, a deceiver, a predator who
[1:19:30] Speaker 2: ranks himself by pussy's grabbed golden trinkets sold and detractors punished.
[1:19:36] Speaker 2: He's a best friend of Ebstein, the guy trolling Miss
[1:19:40] Speaker 2: teen USA dressing rooms, a federally convicted rapist. Is it
[1:19:47] Speaker 2: Trump Derangement syndrome to strongly opposed the dismantling of decorum,
[1:19:52] Speaker 2: democracy and decency, or is it rather TDS to be
[1:19:56] Speaker 2: a red hatted enabler. I only say fuck Trump because
[1:20:01] Speaker 2: stronger language evades me. That's how I feel about the man.
[1:20:10] Speaker 2: But I'm trying with this cult. I'm trying, trying to
[1:20:17] Speaker 2: looking for a breakthrough. I don't know. Appreciate your perspective
[1:20:24] Speaker 2: on the broadcast today, and I appreciate so much your support, encouragement,
[1:20:28] Speaker 2: and community. I'll see you next time and we'll do
[1:20:32] Speaker 2: it again.
[1:20:33] Speaker 1: Follow The Thinking Atheist on Facebook and Twitter for a
[1:20:37] Speaker 1: complete archive of podcasts and videos, products like mugs and
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