← After Party with Emily Jashinsky
After Party with Emily Jashinsky
Israel-Hamas Deal Details, Civil War Potential, Unhinged Katie Porter, and CHILLING Supreme Court Plot, with Rod Dreher and Evita Duffy-Alfonso
01:23:48
Emily Jashinsky opens the show discussing the historic announcement by President Trump that Israel and Hamas have signed off on the first phase of the U.S.-proposed Gaza peace deal, allowing for the release of all Israeli hostages and a halt in the war. Then Emily speaks with Rod Dreher, Author of “Rod Dreher's Diary” and books including "Living In Wonder,” to talk about rising tensions in the West amid multiculturalism, what history tells us about the future of Europe and America, the prosecution of former FBI Director James Comey, the dangers of AI, and the “re-enchantment” movement as young people increasingly turn to faith as they seek meaning. Then Emily is joined by independent journalist, Evita Duffy-Alfonso, to discuss The Washington Post’s report on how TikTok keeps its users scrolling for hours, Gallup polling that shows trust in media is at a new low, California Democratic gubernatorial candidate Katie Porter’s epic meltdown, PLUS why Evita is a fan of Japanese anime. Em...
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ABC Promoter
ABC Wednesdays Shifting gears is back.
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Emily Jashinsky
He has arisen.
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ABC Promoter
Tim Allen and Kat Dennings return in television's number one new comedy.
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Emily Jashinsky
What what?
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ABC Promoter
With a star studded premiere including Jenna Elfman, Nancy Travis and hey buddy. A big home improvement reunion.
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Rod Dreher
Welcome. Oh boy, that guy's a tool.
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ABC Promoter
Shifting gears New Wednesdays, 8, 7 Central on ABC and stream on Hulu.
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Emily Jashinsky
Welcome to After Party, everyone. Thank you so much for tuning in. We always appreciate it if you throw a little subscribe our way. Actually, tonight I'm going to be in the live chat over on YouTube because we have Rod Dreher who was taped earlier today, coming up on the show. I had an incredible conversation with Rod, who's one of my favorite writers with. We went really deep on some, some timely, topical news stories like Jay Jones in Virginia, what happened in Manchester at the synagogue not long ago. And we dive into all of that, but also just cover some, I think really interesting foundational questions about Western civilization. So I will be in the stream chatting with all of you during that pre taped interview. Right now though, there is breaking news and we are going to talk about it with Evita Duffy Alfonso, who will be with us live after 10:30. I do want to start though, we get into the breaking news out of Gaza just by saying this was brought to my attention maybe about an hour ago. It looks like Hakeem Jeffries is going to get a primary challenge and I want to start just by saying I think that's so wrong. Hakeem Jeffries is a statesman and he is the future of the Democratic Party. He is a brave voice, a, a beacon really of moral clarity and strength for Democrats. This man has his finger on the pulse of the elector and to, to primary him would be to undermine the entire Democratic Party. That's a joke, of course. I understand very much why someone would primary Hakeem Jeffries because this entire shutdown squabble has shown how very, very ill equipped for the job he is. So no surprise that in the midst of it. It looks like a Mamdani aligned candidate is looking to unseat Hakeem Jeffries. I wanted to start on that point. I know there's a lot of important stuff going on in the news, but Hakeem Jeffries, man, the leader of the Democratic Party, just absolutely face planting day after day. In more important news, however, we appear to have peace in the Middle east, at least peace in Gaza right now. I want to start with this post from Donald Trump. So he says, quote, I am very proud to announce that Israel and Hamas have both signed off on the first phase of our peace plan. This means that all of the hostages will be released very soon and Israel will withdraw their troops to an agreed upon line. As the first steps toward a strong, durable and everlasting peace, all parties will be treated fairly. This is a great day for the Arab and Muslim world, Israel, all surrounding nations in the United States of America. And we thank the mediators from Qatar, Egypt and Turkey who worked with us to make this historic and unprecedented event happen. Blessed are the peacemakers, obviously quoting from Matthew 5 Sermon on the Mount there. Blessed are the peacemakers. Everyone in politics could use a good reminder of Matthew 5 just about every day, actually. Now, Benjamin Netanyahu posted as well. He said, with the approval of the first phase of the plan. And I'm just going to stop there in the first sentence because notice that language echoing Trump's language. So they're obviously both using this first phase language, which is important because there were, there was a deal that Donald Trump memorably stuck sucked. That Donald Trump memorably was able to negotiate before he came into office in January. Right on the cusp of coming into office in January. It was a really remarkable feat getting everybody to agree. That deal, of course, ended up falling apart as the phases went on. And so that first phase language, obviously no peace deal this complicated is going to be immediate, flip a switch night and day. But the first phase language I think should give all of us pause. Netanyahu goes on to say, all of our hostages will be brought home. This is a diplomatic success and a national and moral victory for the state of Israel. From the beginning, I made it clear we will not rest until all our hostages return and all our goals are achieved through steadfast resolve, powerful military action, and the great efforts of our great friend and ally, President Trump, we have reached this critical turning point. I thank President Trump for his leadership, his partnership, and his unwavering commitment to the safety of Israel and the freedom of our hostages. Now the Nobel Peace Prize talk is already mounting once again as you will not be surprised to learn. Eric Trump just posted about a half an hour ago, retweet this if you believe that Donald Trump deserves a Nobel Peace Prize. I saw Meghan McCain also making calls for a Nobel Peace Prize as well. Some of those calls were echo calls that were made in January and have been made after the Abraham Accords. For example, Netanyahu in his nomination for Donald Trump to receive the Nobel Peace Prize actually mentioned the Abraham Accords and that's probably for a strategic reason. I know a little bit too much about the Nobel Peace Prize right now because I've been working on story for unherd about it. But basically the Nobel Peace Prize nominations are due February 1st and it's technically supposed to be for the prior year, although that's not always the case. Sometimes it's invoked that, you know, something happened within the prior year and that's why a particular candidate is especially supposed to be worthy. But sneaking it in before the deadline could help. I don't know, probably unlikely that Trump gets a Nobel Peace Prize, but in this case there's no downplaying the significance of what Trump was able to achieve. And I want to, before we toss to Rod, explain a little bit why using reporting from obviously the left leaning website Dropsite and of course you know that from Ryan Graham and Jeremy Scahole. But this reporting, this reporting is really important and it gets to actually I think the achievement that Donald Trump seems to have within his grasp here. So reading from drop site's report, quote, multiple sources from Hamas and other Palestinian factions have told Dropsite that their central concern in these negotiations was that handing over all Israeli captives would remove nearly all of their leverage if it did not include a complete Israeli withdrawal. Israel has, as a matter of policy, systematically violated its ceasefire agreements with Hamas and also with Lebanon. Drop site says in entering into these negotiations, Hamas negotiators accepted they were engaging in a high stakes gamble. Here's the important part. The source close to the negotiators told Dropsite, quote, trusting Trump's word is the gamble they are taking. If it works, they will be considered geniuses. If it fails, they will be considered fools. It's as simple as that. So a senior Hamas official also told Dropsite the Palestinian negotiators have faced unprecedented pressure from Arab and Islamic mediators over the past 48 hours to make significant concessions and to quickly reach an agreement on the aspects of Trump's plan that address the exchange of captives, a ceasefire and the resumption of aid. Those last two bits. In particular, sources say that it was was Trump who has, has given his word. Because if you remember in this peace plan, Trump says he will be at the head of the board. If you remember the specifics in this 20 point peace plan that Trump and Netanyahu announced at the White House last week, that was actually one of the key. I remember in the White House reading it as it came out before they were coming to the podium. And that was a fascinating point of this 20 point peace plan because that was as drop site's reporting has suggested just over the last week as well, important for the Palestinian side because they wanted Donald Trump to sort of personally guarantee that he was going to push for peace. They obviously feel that Donald Trump wants to have this as his legacy. And so from that side, what they're saying is Trump is going to put, if Trump puts his reputation on the line here, it gives us more trust. Now, I don't think they have, you know, any, they're under any illusion that Donald Trump is, is in any way whatsoever on their side during any of this. But what they do believe is that Donald Trump wants peace to be a part of his legacy. He's been called peacemaker in chief repeatedly over the course of his presidency by his own staffers. That's clearly deliberate. He touts having accomplish pulled off seven peace deals and ceasefires over the course of his presidency. He talked about that at the United Nations. He said, I think this was back in the summer, if his name were Obama, he would get the Nobel Peace Prize for the Abraham Accords, something to that effect. But you see how important it is in his historic legacy. And that also speaks to Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff. Being in Egypt, it looks like Egypt today, before this deal was reached. That gets to the point Dropsight emphasizes here about how the Palestinian negotiators say they have, quote, faced unprecedented pressure from Arab and Islamic mediators. This once again brings us to something that really only Donald Trump find himself in a position to pull off, which is bringing together the Arabic world to put this pressure on Hamas and negotiators in Palestine. That is something you cannot imagine another Republican president being sort of, I was going to use the word flexible enough and maybe that is the right word, politically flexible. I don't think ideologically flexible is the right word. But just that is a very, very difficult thing for any president, Republican or Democrat, to pull off. But because Trump doesn't care about the political norms in the way other politicians have, he literally sent his son in law, who is not a formal part of the administration and who of course I and many other people have concerns about conflicts of interests. Same thing with Steve Wyckoff, by the way. So Trump pluck his friend, longtime friend from the New York real estate business world and his son in law and they're operating behind the scenes in a way that gets many of these allied countries to pressure Hamas to accept this deal. Again, this is not something that you can imagine virtually any other politician pulling off. So if it holds, it is a singular Trumpian accomplishment. If it holds, I'm probably less optimistic than other people about to what extent this will hold. That 20 point peace plan which seems to have been the framework that was agreed to this evening is fraught. There are all kinds of ways it can go wrong and hostilities can resume again. But I am hoping and praying right now that, that this sticks because this is, this has been, you know, for everyone. I mean, it has just been an unbelievable, unbelievable tragedy. So, hey, if Trump can do it, every person, if Trump can achieve a just and lasting peace in this, in this case, every person should be shelving their biases. And I think reckoning with the reasons that Trump himself was, was able to do this again, that's, that's if it holds and if it sticks. Okay, so this is a breaking story. Obviously a lot of these details are going to be filled out in the hours and the days to come. We will of course cover them here. We're going to cover more reactions with Evita Defi Alfons. First though, I'm going to bring in an interview that I recorded earlier in the day, actually before this news broke with the great Rod Rare, one of my favorite writers subsector that I subscribe to and read every single day. And so we have a great conversation. As I teased earlier in the show, I mentioned this, but I'm going to jump into the YouTube chat. I'll be there in just a second. Before we bring in Rod, of course we're going to do the Cowboy Colostrum ad and maybe because of the new tonight, I can do it in a Trump voice. Recently I did learn about Colostrum. Wasn't super familiar with it. It's the very first milk known as liquid gold that babies receive from their mother's afterbirth. Packed with proteins, natural growth factors, antimicrobial peptides that work to enhance your immune response, reduce inflation, inflation, repair and balance gut lining, reduce bloating and make your hair and skin look amazing. 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Please support our show and tell them our show sent you Whenever I need.
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Emily Jashinsky
Go ahead and turn to Rod Dreher, author of Living in Wonder. He has a subset called Rod Dreher's Diary as well. Without further ado, here's Rod. I'll be in the chat. Well, one of the perks of my job is that I get to talk to some of my favorite writers. So we're joined now by Rod Dreher, author of the wonderful book Living in Wonder, along with of course, the Benedict Option and Live not by Lies. His substack is one of the few that I read every single day. I don't miss an edition of it, Rod. So thank you for being here here.
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Rod Dreher
I have, I have no unsubstacked thoughts, Emily. So thank you for tuning in.
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Emily Jashinsky
Right. Well there, I mean, you're also like a wonderful curator of links from around the world, which is, I think, such a valuable service that you offer, Rod. So one of the many reasons I subscribe and I actually saw you recently, you've been talking a lot about David Betts and the kind of civil war discourse over whether or not the UK and maybe the United States are teetering on the brink of a potential for civil war, which David Betts, who's a fairly nonpartisan historian of civil wars, says, in some ways, yes. And you wrote on X recently, civil wars are coming absent strong government action. As Renu Camus said, and got convicted for saying it, quote, in the unfortunate circumstance that it comes to this, if the choice is between submission and war, I say war, war, war. Now, I wanted to ask you about this in light of a clip of Eric Trump talking to Chris Cuomo that's been pinging around the Internet today. Also, of course, the National Guard is in Chicago. It's very tense here in the US So let's watch this clip of Eric Trump and we'll break it down.
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Eric Trump
Did we raid Biden's home? You know, did we, did we try and bankrupt Biden? Did they come after us? Do we weaponize every AG and da, you know, against Biden? Do we do that against Hunter Biden, who had a laptop from hell, pictures of, of cocaine, illicit drug use, prostitution? You know, did we, did we do that? Did we make up a dirty dossier about Biden? Did they try and destroy Biden's marriage? You know, was any of that true? I mean, did we make up stories that Biden had secret servers in the basement of his home communicating with the Kremlin in Russia? You know, did we strip Biden off the ballot of multiple states? Did we take Biden off of Twitter and Instagram and Facebook and try and silence his votes voice so he couldn't communicate? Did we provide him in a courtroom every single day, 91 felony counts that have all been overturned from my father now, right, for nonsense, to try and keep him off of a campaign trail and to try and destroy his life? You know, do we do any of that?
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Emily Jashinsky
So, Rod, that was in response really to a question about James Comey, who pleaded not guilty at an Alexandria courthouse today. But just listening to Eric Trump, you can hear the Camus line, war, war, war, sure. Do you think the, the prosecution of Comey, but also basically the entire last five plus years is the recipe sort of being fulfilled in the U.S. do you think?
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Rod Dreher
Yeah, you know, I first started listening to David Betts, who's a professor in the King's College London War Studies department. He started doing podcasts earlier this year talking about how all of the elements for civil war are present in almost every Western nation. Especially present, he says, in Great Britain And France, but also everywhere else. And he says the main. The main driver of this is multiculturalism. But that's not the only one. And I think what we just heard there from Eric Trump is a good example of why we in the US Are flirting with this, too. I mean, look, I'm living in Europe now. You're talking to me from Budapest. And to be looking from across the ocean back at America at a time like not one month after Charlie Kirk was gunned down, you have this situation in Virginia with Jay Jones, the Attorney general, Democrat candidate, talking about how he wants to see a Republican killed and the children of this guy killed, too. These, quote, little fascists. And all the Democrats are standing with him. Emily, I gotta say, I mean, what is the spark going to be to set this thing off? I hope it doesn't come. But we cannot live under the kind of regime that the Democrats and the liberals have been trying to inflict on us and would inflict on us again if Trump weren't in power.
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Emily Jashinsky
In the question, you know, if you're. Eric Trump is. Well. And you're concerned about the prospect of a civil war is okay, so. So what do you do to avoid it? Well, then also, I mean, are you supposed to not prosecute James Comey? Are you supposed to not prosecute people who erred in their attempts to prosecute your father and your political allies? You've written a lot about what Bets is saying on this, Rod. And the entire question, it's just, what is the. It feels almost inevitable because everything just keeps getting ratcheted up further and ratcheted up further, but there's no. Nobody has any real incentive to stop.
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Rod Dreher
Yeah. You know, this reminds me a lot of what happened in Spain in the early 1930s, after the monarchy fell in Spain, around 1930, I think it was, the left came to power in a democratic election, and some of the radicals on the left went crazy and did things like burning down convents and churches. So when the right came back to power two years later, in the next election, it got its revenge. Then two years later, a pendulum swung left again. By the time you got to 1935, both sides hated each other so much that there was no coming back from the brink. And I believe it was 1936 that the Civil War broke out. Now, the Spanish Civil War was one army against another army. And David Betts said, that's not what we're going to see if it breaks out in the West. We're going to see things more like assassinations, bombings, racial violence, especially in the cities. And I got to tell you, just earlier tonight, I was out with some friends who are over in Budapest from the UK and they're very, very worried. They were talking about my one friend said, I can't let my little girl go down the street, around the corner to the supermarket at night without having to fear for her being abducted. This is not a joke. Americans never hear this from the American media. But this is what everybody in Western Europe is talking about, except here in Hungary, where we don't have that problem, because guess what? Viktor Orban guards the borders.
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Emily Jashinsky
And on that point, actually, I wanted to ask you just today, this is being reported in the Associated Press. The assailant in last week's attack on a synagogue in the northwest of England that left two congregates dead pledged allegiance to the Islamic State group, police said Wednesday. This is the ap, quote, the attacker, Jihad Al Shami, called emergency dispatchers during his deadly attack on October 2nd to express his commitment to the terror group Counterterrorism Policing Northwest said in a statement he was shot dead by police outside of that synagogue in Manchester after he rammed a car into pedestrians, attacked them with a knife and tried to force his way into the building. The Telegraph is also reporting he had three wives in. In Rod. It does probably all on welfare. And to many people in the uk, it starts to feel completely untenable, especially just in the last few years, five years.
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Rod Dreher
You know, I. I was in Oxford earlier this year at a conference, and I talked to this one American student who was in Oxford studying, and he said, look, this is not my country. But looking at it from the outside, if the people who actually ran Great Britain, if they actively hated the British people, I don't know how they would behave any different than what they're doing. People in Britain and all across the West. This is happening in France, too. Whenever I go to France, I say the same thing. People have had it with the ruling class and we don't know how this is going to go. I mean, when I was in France earlier this year, I was there right after Lent started. It was on Ash Wednesday. The churches were full all over France. They hadn't seen that in decades because France is a pretty secular country. And I asked French Catholics, I talked to, how do you explain this? And a lot of them said, people are terrified that civil war with Islam, with Muslims who live here is coming and they feel afraid and they want to shore themselves up spiritually. Well, this is what Reno Camus was talking about. He's an atheist himself. But he feels that there's no way to avoid this and he doesn't want there to be a civil war. Nobody should. David Betts said in a lecture in Budapest recently millions will die if this happens. But Camus, right, He said if the question is whether or not to submit to this new order or to fight, then we've got to fight.
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Emily Jashinsky
And you mentioned Camus getting convicted for what he said in that post I read earlier. I'm curious because you actually are in Europe and as you mentioned, you've been in UK Paris recently having some of these conversations. It seems to me that it's become a lot less taboo to even bring up Camus and others in conversation. Is that your sense that there's sort of a reckoning among sort of like what we saw here happen with DEI blm, transgenderism. There's sort of a reckoning on multiculturalism and immigration happening in Europe and in the uk.
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Rod Dreher
Well, Emily, I think that's right. And in fact, just tonight with my British friends who were in town, they were talking about how their own kids who were teenagers back in the UK they despise, woke this younger generation. The Zoomers are responding against wokeness, against multiculturalism, against all these things that have ruined their countries and ruined their lives. And I think that this is one reason we see these governments in Britain, in France, in Germany cracking down very hard on their own people. Not the Muslims who come and talk about killing Jews and, you know, jihad and things like that. They don't get in trouble. But if you have native born people who say even the slightest thing against multiculturalism, against Islam, you can expect a visit from the police. People are fed up with it and it's becoming, as you say, less and less taboo. There's a new book out in English, a new English translation of the 1973 novel by Genrespy, a French novelist called the Camp of the Saints. Now this was a book I always read, was like, oh, it's white supremacy, it's white supremacy.
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Emily Jashinsky
Turner Diaries. Yep, right.
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Rod Dreher
It's like the Turner Diaries. Well, I finally read it in this new English translation that's out and I'm like, oh my God, A it's not white supremacist and B, this guy genres spy who wrote the book in 1973, he saw it all coming. And the real villains in the book are not the migrant horde, but the liberals and the establishment people. Even people in the church who surrendered just gave up because they were so filled with self hatred, civilizational self hatred.
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Emily Jashinsky
Now on that note, the only White pill scenario that I've been able to come up with in my own head is actually the Benedict option rather than civil war, at least here in the States, which is where I'm most familiar, of course, with the politics. Maybe. Easy way to get on the off ramp is to see a Benedict option play out along the lines of geographic sorting, something like that. People who are Benedict optioning, to use the verb, would be, you know, maybe if you, if you live in dc, you're going to be way out in Western Virginia or even West Virginia. People won't live in cities anymore if they don't want to be governed like this, and vice versa. That's. That's the only way I can think of avoiding what would be a really terrible confrontation at this point. Roger, do you see any possibility of something like that? That.
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Rod Dreher
Oh, yeah, for sure. In fact, I had dinner with David Betts when he was in Budapest recently, and he told me that he and his wife have moved far out of London in anticipation of something going off, because he said that there will be no warning, it'll just be a spark and it's going to kick off now. Bets is a very solid guy. If you watched any of his podcasts, you can see he's not an alarmist. He's just reading the evidence and drawing conclusions from the evidence. With the Benedict option, when I wrote that book, gosh, it's been almost 10 years now, it's not about escaping anything because I don't think we can fully escape the modern world. It's rather about building smaller communities where people share your morals, share your beliefs, so you can be resilient when you face the modern world. But in the case of civil war, if, God forbid, it should come to us, then you absolutely will need to have around you people you can trust. This is why, even though I live, you know, in Central Europe, I have land back in Louisiana, where I come from. And when I was just there recently, I was talking to my cousin about building a cabin there so I can have a place to retreat to if, God forbid, things kick off. Because if they kick off in one country, David Betts warns that it will be. It will spread rapidly because of social media.
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Emily Jashinsky
Yeah, it seems alarmist, and I think a lot of people just don't even push quite that far into what this would manifest as if it were to happen. But it. It does, of course, feel like we get closer and closer. You mentioned Jay Jones actually, earlier, and we can put F7 up on the screen. This is a Washington Post article for Today, which from today, which breaks down the situation as it stands right now, quote, Democrats are largely standing by their nominee for Virginia attorney general after revelations that he once mused about killing a GOP lawmaker, worrying some in the party who want to draw a hard line against political violence and drawing accusations of. Of hypocrisy from Republicans. And this is a really critical line. The Post says top Democrats have condemned the 2022 text from Jay Jones, but declined to join Republicans in calling for Jones to drop out. With early voting underway, already underway in the battleground state, no prominent elected Democrat has called on Jones to leave the race. And just for a little bit of context, if people haven't, if the story hasn't come across their transom yet, Jones sent the texts in 2022, not long after leaving the state legislature. In the message first reported last week by National Review, he imag imagined killing the GOP speaker of the Virginia House of Delegates and discussed urinating on the future graves of other Republicans. He laid out a hypothetical in which he had two bullets to fire at then state House Speaker Todd Gilbert, Adolf Hitler, the Cambodian dictator, Pol Pot, and he said two bullets for Gilbert, I believe. Rod, what's your reaction to even a month after we're still so close to the assassination of Charlie Kirk, Democrats actually not calling on this man to drop out?
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Rod Dreher
Look, Charlie Kerr did everything right. He. You remember after he was killed, there were clips going around of him saying earlier that the reason he goes to college campuses to engage his ideological opponents is because the alternative to that is violence, and they killed him for it. And now, not one month after he was killed, you see this with the Democrats are willing to accept it it and normalize it. I don't know how we come back from that. I hope we do. I don't want to be alarmist here, but you got to read the tea leaves. You got to know something about history. If you know anything about the history of the Spanish Civil War, you know this is how it got started. Now, one thing that worries me, Emily, I got to be honest here, even as a Trump voter, one thing that worries me about the Comey prosecution is the case looks weak. I think Jim Comey is a slime bag. I'm happy for him to have to pay the price for things he did, but from what I've been able to see, the case looks weak. If you go after the former FBI director, you better have a rock solid case, and I'm afraid they don't have it. If they lose this case, then that's Just going to add fuel to the Democrats fire. I hope they win it. I don't like Jim Comey, but I'm worried about this.
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Emily Jashinsky
Right. Yeah. I mean, it's certainly as far as perjury charges go, easy to imagine him legally finding plenty of wiggle room out of it, even if, as you say, he's. He's pretty obviously breached ethics while telling everybody that he is the paragon of ethical behavior. And Rod, that was my next question is what role you think the media plays in these tensions. Because when I look at this Jay Jones story, the media coverage, the volume of media coverage here is so obviously much lower than it would be if the parties were reversed. I think the same is pretty obviously true of what Comey did in and of itself. There was barely any coverage at the time in the legacy press of him as the evidence trickled out through other Durham report, IG Report, Inspector General Michael Horowitz report that Comey had acted poorly. And that feels to me like gasoline on the fire from the people who are lecturing everybody else about, you know, toning it down.
- [31:51]
Rod Dreher
Yeah. Look, Emily, I have worked in newspapers for most of my life as a journalist. I've been working for more than 30 years.
- [31:58]
Emily Jashinsky
Years.
- [31:58]
Rod Dreher
And I've always known from the inside that the media are liberal. This is not even a question. Right. They are. But I always had to believe that at least they were trying to find the truth. At some point over the last 20 years, I realized, no, they're not trying to find the truth. They more. They're more concerned with managing the narrative. This especially came home to me when I moved to Budapest in 2021. Sorry, early 2022. And I was here when the Ukraine, Russia war started. Well, I started watching on my laptop Russian tv, their English language broadcast, knowing it was propaganda, but I wanted to see what they were saying to their own people. Clearly propaganda. And then I turned on CNN to see what Americans were reading. We're sorry, we're seeing and hearing. And I gotta say, it was shocking to me how much they edited out out of the actual story. And I notice over the years when I go back to the US to talk to people about the war, so many Americans, even American conservatives with whom I share almost every view, they have such a radically different idea of the Ukraine, Russia war because they have been. They've only been told about it through what they get in the American media and it's just not true. Similarly with migration, every time I go back to America, they're all shocked when I tell them you know, Europe may be going to civil war because the American liberal media just don't talk about it. And I gotta tell you, thank God for X and thank God for online for podcasts like yours, because they do provide a wider view and people need to be paying attention to that. Because if you understand the mainstream media, again, not as telling you the truth as best they know it, but as managing it narrative, it will change the way you interact with the world.
- [33:54]
Emily Jashinsky
Rod, one major subplot in the broader culture war that you've been following closer than many people for longer than many people, and it's suddenly a pretty big topic of conversation across the west is what's been dubbed kind of the re enchantment, but spiritual revival as well, especially among younger men. So in that context, I had to ask you about this news today about Jonathan Rinder Necht. He's a 29 year old who the feds have named today in a press conference, quote, as an arsonist who started the devastating Palisades fire in California. Officials say he used ChatGPT to create pictures of people running away from a big fire and he was listening to music about starting fires. So what we have here is sort of the flip side of young men like Charlie Kirk digging deeper and deeper into their faith. It looks like what we have here is an example of, as Erica Kirk puts it, a young man the likes of which Kirk was, was trying to save, ending up ending his life. But Rod, in this case, I, I want to ask you particularly about ChatGPT because you've written a lot about the, the potential for infiltration of ChatGPT or, or powers coming with CHAT GPT that people may be unaware of. What's your reaction?
- [35:10]
Rod Dreher
Yeah, when I was working on my book Living in Wonder, which is about Christian re enchantment broadly.
- [35:15]
Emily Jashinsky
It's a wonderful book, by the way. Everyone should.
- [35:18]
Rod Dreher
Yes, thank you. I was really shocked to learn that there are no small number of people at senior levels in Silicon Valley who see AI not just as a tool, but as a sort of high tech Ouija board through which higher intelligences, as they put it, can communicate with us and they will lead us to a brighter, richer, more prosperous, happier future. And this really shocked me because you don't think of Silicon Valley people as being into the occult, but it turns out a lot of of them are. Now, I'm not saying that oh, the demons are in CHAT GPT, but, but I do think, and this is based on talking to actual working exorcists, that there is some potential for These things to be misused by evil spirits. A lot of people will laugh at this. But let me tell you what, if you actually talk to people who have come out of the occult or talk to exorcists who dealt with it face to face face, it's no laughing matter. And I mean, look, I use Grok for fact checking and things like that. I don't think every time you get on, on AI, you know, you're dancing with the devil. But what's really interesting, Emily, is to see the number of people who have surrendered to what they're calling AI psychosis. They began to think that AI is a God that's telling them what to do and telling them that they are God people. The New York Times did a story earlier this year about a 28 year old married woman who spends 60 hours a week on chat GPT with her online lover Leo. Now she knows that Leo is just a machine, he's not a real person, but he gives her the good feelings that she can't get from her husband. So she's willing to entertain this lie and treat it as if it's her partner because of the feelings. And this is the great concern I have. Leaving aside the spiritual aspect of, of it, if people have come to believe that that good feeling, sense of well, being, a sense of happiness or exaltation is more important than the truth, then we're done. We're done as a culture. And by the way, in that New York Times story, the husband didn't mind that his wife does this because he spends all his time with online porn. We are separating ourselves from reality and I don't know how we keep together a liberal democracy, much less a society, if people give up any, any care about truth. And finally, this is what Hannah Arendt, the great 20th century political philosopher, said was one sign of coming totalitarianism. When people cease to care about truth and instead only cared about having the things they already believed or wanted to believe, affirm, harmed.
- [38:08]
Emily Jashinsky
And the flip side of this again, Rod, it seems to me there's almost a heightening of the contradictions. Not necessarily in a Leninist sense, but in the sense that as these contradictions are heightened, literally when you are, you know, a curious young man, Charlie Kirk, for example, talked about struggling with porn addiction and those sorts of things himself. And you are just a normal young guy in the United States and you want to live a normal, happy life and you look around and you see the ravages of this ultra high technology. It can have the effect of not everyone but sending some people further and further into faith in this way that, you know, Michael Knowles talks about how he grew up, you know, really inspired by the New Atheists and Richard Dawkins and Christopher Hitchens and left that because he realized there was something much richer in the, the alternative. And it seems to me that's what's happening right now is both of these things are growing. You know, we have this, this sort of secularism growing and the spirituality growing alongside it.
- [39:12]
Rod Dreher
Well, yeah, and I, I gotta tell you, I wrote a piece for Barry Weiss's news online newspaper, the Free Press, earlier this year about the pilgrimage to Chartres. Chartres is a famous French cathedral about 60 miles from Paris. Every year for the past 43 years, about 20,000 young French traditionalist Catholics do a three day walk to Shatra. They camp along the way, they sing hymns, they pray, they worship. I went to do a story about it. Even though I'm not a Catholic, I'm Orthodox. And it was astonishing. The average age of these kids is 19. And these kids were desperate for faith, for roots, for community, for meaning, for purpose. When I interviewed a bunch of these kids, the main storyline was we have been raised with nothing and we're desperate for something. And they believe that they can find that something in traditional Christianity. Now, as I said, I'm Eastern Orthodox. All of my friends who are in Eastern Orthodox churches back in the US say they are overwhelmed with young people, especially young men, who are seeking something deeper. Not just a sort of happy, clappy mega church Christianity or a boring political sermons, but something that will give them deeper roots about the meaning of life. So in many ways this is a great time. One of my friend, my English friends I was having dinner with tonight is an Anglican priest and said that, you know, the, the churches in England, the Anglican churches that go woke and only care about, you know, climate change, Ukraine, whatever, the woke thing of the day is, they're dying out. But the Anglican parishes that really go deep, they, they are thriving and they're seeing so many young people, especially young men come in. So there are schisms happening even within the churches.
- [41:07]
Emily Jashinsky
Well, that, that's such an interesting example in the Anglican respect because there's no constituency for the sort of secular, watered down Christianity, whereas the constituency is for the deep traditional Christianity. Christianity. And that, that actually is, I mean, that was sort of the history of mainline Protestantism over the last 30 or so years. As a Protestant, I guess I can say that it's what happened with Elka, Evangelical Lutheran churches and those they're drying up. And they were supposed to be the future.
- [41:36]
Rod Dreher
Yeah. And, you know, it has to be said, I think Alibeth Stuckey has said this on her X account, that even though a lot of people are going to the Catholic Church leaving evangelicalism, the fact is, for every one convert, the Catholics get eight Catholics leave. Well, I can tell you, as a former Catholic, which ones are leaving. Those that go to liberal churches or churches that are so mushy that they don't give people anything solid to hold on to. The Catholic churches that are thriving are those that actually teach the real thing. I think the same is true for Orthodoxy. You know, it's. It's funny, this conversation reminds me of this young evangelical mega church couple who came to our tiny Orthodox Christian mission in Baton Rouge where I was living in 2020, and they came during COVID and we said, we're glad to have you here, but why are you here? Because Orthodoxy is kind of weird in an American context. And they said that Covid was like an apocalypse for them. It showed them how fragile our civilization is. And they realized that the sort of mega church Christianity that they were used to to was not giving them the spiritual and theological and moral depth and discipline that they would need to make it through a real crisis. So that's why they came to our church. Now, I'm not proselytizing here. I'm just telling people who are listening, whatever your tradition is, you better get into one that takes this stuff seriously and is not. Does not have its head in the ground. And it's just there to sort of anesthetize you about the reality of the crisis we're in, but one that gives you something real with which you can resist and build a life of joy and resilience.
- [43:21]
Emily Jashinsky
So beautifully put, Rod. One of the many reasons people should go out and buy Living in Wonder. Subscribe to Rod Dre's Diary. Also, Rod, you're a wonderful recommender of books. I read so many of them that you recommend. So if people need book recommendations, that's another reason to subscribe over on your subscribers. That such a privilege to talk to you today, Rod.
- [43:40]
Rod Dreher
Oh, it's always fun, Emily. Thank you so much.
- [43:42]
Emily Jashinsky
Thank you. Well, that was fun, right? I had fun in the chat, I'll tell you that much. We're about to bring the wonderful Evita Duffy Alfonso in. But before, did you know that chips and fries were once cooked in beef tallow up until the 1990s when corporations swapped it for cheap seed oils? Now, those oils make up 20% of the average American's daily calories and are linked to inflammation and metabolic issues. Somehow that got sold marketed to all of us as quote, healthy. But Masa Chips is flipping the script. They use just three ingredients. Organic corn, sea salt and 100% grass fed beef tallow. No seed oils, no fillers, just bold favorite flavor and serious crunch. Strong enough to scoop guac without crumbling. Stacking on Masa is a whole different vibe. That is so true. You feel satisfied, light and energized with zero crash bloat or that gross, slight, sluggish fog. Beef tallow is the secret sauce. It keeps you full and focused, not mindlessly munching. And honestly, it tastes so much better. My favorite flavor, I like the lime. I like the spicy flavor. I love the churro flavor too. The zing in the lime flavor is incredible. So if you're ready to give Masa a try, go to masachips.comafterparty and use code AFTERPARTY for 25% off your first order. That's masachips.comafterparty, and code AFTERPARTY for 25% OFF your first order. Don't feel like ordering online? That is fine. Masa now available nationwide at your local sprouts supermarket. Stop by and pick up a bag before they are gone.
- [45:12]
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- [45:58]
Emily Jashinsky
I'm joined now once again by independent journalist Evita Duffy Alfonso. Evita, thank you for being here. Here.
- [46:04]
Evita Duffy Alfonso
Thanks for having me.
- [46:05]
Emily Jashinsky
Where do you stand on the seed oil debate? I don't know if we've ever had that conversation.
- [46:09]
Evita Duffy Alfonso
I am a very anti seed oil. I don't eat seed oils. Yeah, it's. It's to be expected. Also, it's eat, eat a Lot of raw meat and raw dairy. But I was not, I was not the first person to drink raw milk like on the Maha bandwagon. I was doing it forever because I grew up in Wisconsin.
- [46:26]
Emily Jashinsky
I was going to say, I remember you going on that jihad pretty early. You were on the raw milk jihad.
- [46:31]
Evita Duffy Alfonso
Oh, yeah, yeah. Oh, yeah. Very early. It's a, it's a crime that it's illegal in a lot of states.
- [46:36]
Emily Jashinsky
You're proto Maha, actually.
- [46:38]
Evita Duffy Alfonso
Exactly.
- [46:40]
Emily Jashinsky
All right, well, let's get to the breaking news from Israel, where actually right now, Evita, it's being reported. Barack Ravida is reporting over at Axios. He spoke to Trump on the phone. Trump is saying he's going to go to Israel. He's open to speaking at the Knesset. The Nobel Prize is going to be announced on October 10th. So just in a couple of days. Days. What is your just first reaction? Again, this is breaking news. We're going to learn a lot more in the weeks and so in the days. Hours, weeks to come. But you've tracked this story very closely. So what do you make of the news tonight that there seems to be a breakthrough?
- [47:15]
Evita Duffy Alfonso
Well, the president has been working extremely hard for a peace deal for a very long time. He has branded himself the President of Peace. So this is, this is what he's wanted. This is what the American people put him into all office for. I think this would be a massive victory if it actually comes to fruition. There have been some back and forth.
- [47:33]
Emily Jashinsky
Right.
- [47:33]
Evita Duffy Alfonso
Initially we thought we had a peace deal. Netanyahu made some changes. The Arabs seem to want to back out. Now it seems like we actually have a deal, which is wonderful if it's true. I think the American people will be very happy. It'll be wonderful for the families of the hostages, even the ones who have deceased members whose bodies are still being held in Gaza. And of course, we'll be good for the Palestinian people whose, whose home has been under siege for a very long time. I am just, I'm hopeful, but I'm going to wait until it actually happens before I say anything more.
- [48:04]
Emily Jashinsky
Yeah, no, I'm with you on that. Let's say hypothetically that a week from now, we're looking in the rearview mirror and this deal does seem to have very much been settled, let's say a month from now. Let's say we're in the holiday season and it looks like this is a durable negotiation, which, again, I share your skepticism towards, or healthy skepticism, I should say towards. But if that happens, where do you think this Raging debate among younger conservatives about America first in Israel. Where does that go? If this conversation fades into the rear view mirror, do you think that makes a difference when we look at polling, you know, six months from now, a year from now, will there be support for Israel that rebounds among younger conservatives? Because right now there's a very stark difference between support for Israel among younger conservatives and older conservatives.
- [48:52]
Evita Duffy Alfonso
Well, I'll just say this. If you're a pro Israel person, the best thing to happen for Israel, for the country, for the, for the people, is for this war to come to an end. Because it's the fact that this war has continued for as long as it has and all of the images that we're seeing out of Gaza are popping up on people's TikTok and Instagram feeds that support for Israel has plummeted with a lot of young people. Having this war continue is I think what has driven a lot of genuine anti Semitic feelings and then also just skepticism towards support for Israel among the American people in general. So this is a great thing for Israel, frankly, if this war comes to an end, if they want to continue to have a partnership with America for generations to come. I'm saying that genuinely I think this is a good thing for the state of Israel. And I think that if this is no longer in the minds of everybody, it's on the forefront on the front pages of the news, that there could be a change of heart potentially. But if the longer it continues, I think the more that young people feel entrenched in their beliefs that Israel is a genocidal state. I'm not saying that, but that is the perception of many young people, especially because it's what is being promoted on social media where young people tend to get their news from.
- [50:03]
Emily Jashinsky
We're going to talk about that in a minute. This is a long running dispute between the two of us, so stay tuned for that. So finally on this question of the peace negotiations, I'm curious what you make of Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, the President's son in law, president's longtime friend from New York real estate world, Steve Witkoff, being involved in these negotiations seemingly at a crucial level, looking like they've, they were really a crucial part of pushing this over the edge. And so if this ends up again sticking around. Evita, I also right now have a really hard time looking at the future of the kind of post Trump Republican Party. And to me it just looks like such a Trumpian achievement at first blush as the. So I can't imagine any other politician getting all of these parties to the table and managing to have an agreement like this. What do you make? I mean, is there anyone else who could have done this?
- [51:02]
Evita Duffy Alfonso
Well, certainly Joe Biden didn't. Okay, let's be honest about the state of Israel. I mean, there's been decades of conflict in that region and a lot of presidents have tried to come to a two state solution and oftentimes there is failure. I think, I think we need to see what time has to say about this if there's going to be a lasting solution. That would be amazing. He would go down as one of the greatest peace presidents of all time. I think it's interesting you brought up Jared Kushner and Witkoff and there are Jewish men who are at the helm of these negotiations. There's been some criticisms of the admin that we're not pro Israel enough, that somehow President Trump is anti Semitic, which is ridiculous.
- [51:43]
Emily Jashinsky
His ambassador is Mike Huckabee.
- [51:45]
Evita Duffy Alfonso
His ambassador is Mike Huckabee, I know is one of the most pro Israel admins of all time, no doubt. And so this is the people who are working for a peace deal from the Trump admin, well meaning many of them Jewish. And so again, if this brings lasting peace, it's a wonderful thing for Trump's legacy.
- [52:03]
Emily Jashinsky
Well, let's get to social media because the Washington Post had a splashy deep dive where they actually quote, created a database of roughly 15 million videos search served up to 1100 users. They plucked these 1100 users from their own readership and served up these videos to them in a six month period last year. Our analyses showed just how effective TikTok is at getting even its heaviest users to swipe more and watch more on its platform after five months. The data trends for both groups suggested the features of quote, compulsive behavior, repeatedly feeling urges to do something even if the person thinks it's harmful in the long run. They go on to write that increases in watch time could be signs of binging behavior where a person finds it hard to stop something once they start. And opening the app more often may represent craving, while the faster swiping for new videos can be an indication of automatic or habitual behaviors. And lastly, they say research has shown that users on TikTok report being more prone to losing track of time and spending more time in the app than intended compared with users on Instagram. I'm just, we could get into all this. Obviously this comes as the TikTok deal looks like it's also been completed. Like the sale to U.S. ownership owners, including of course Larry Ellison who seems to be like the reporting suggests one part of a seven person board that's going to oversee it. The details are a little bit murky right now exactly as to logistically how it gets worked out. But that's how this reporting is. That's when this reporting is landing. I think that's useful context. So tell us Evito, why you love TikTok and Chairman Xi. Okay, okay, okay.
- [53:35]
Evita Duffy Alfonso
This is, this is already an attacking leading question. Katie reporter would not be happy if she was in my shoes.
- [53:41]
Emily Jashinsky
Yes.
- [53:42]
Evita Duffy Alfonso
Okay. So Emily, I will say TikTok is addictive. That is 100% true. But so is Instagram Reels and so is YouTube shorts. They all have short form video content and you don't see a massive Washington Post profile about Instagram and about YouTube. And the question is, why is that? Well, now they'll say it's Chinese influence. You don't want the Chinese to influence the American people to brainwash the minds of our youth. And to that I would say BS because our own American social media companies are controlled by our American deep state. This was borne out before all the world with the Twitter files. We saw the way the Biden admin was directly censoring speech on X and presumably Facebook and Instagram and all other American forms of social media because they were American and their section 230 and a veiled threat that they would lose their protections if they don't follow follow in line with whatever the federal government wants. Now TikTok being a Chinese app, doesn't have those same kind of obligations. They aren't under the same kind of pressure that American social media companies are at. What I think this is is a bid to control the minds of Americans. TikTok is a very good app. A lot of people are on it and the American intel agencies cannot control it like they can other social media companies.
- [54:59]
Emily Jashinsky
Well, I actually don't disagree with you on that point at all. I think it's fairly clear we've heard many people actually just say the quiet part aloud. Mike Gallagher is one example of been like we have to control TikTok because the narrative is spinning out of control and they'll blame, for example China for doing it. When I think, you know, very clearly public opinion was organically shifting. In the case of Gaza and Israel over the last couple of years. It was, you know, I wouldn't put it past China to sort of be manipulating the algorithm. But the one point that I still disagree with you on on is that when the Twitter files came out, we had a measure of at least some democratic and then free market response from the American public. And X is now better than Twitter was. Mark Zuckerberg has been responsive to the American public. And again, that's just in a way that the Chinese government would never have an incentive to, you know, be responsive to. In fact, we know that because they largely haven't been responsive to it over the last, whatever, five years, however long TikTok has been around. So I still think it's been better that it's in the hands. You know, I'm not a huge fan of how this deal was going about, but I guess I still think it is better if it's in the hands of people who are at least marginally responsive to the American public. I don't know.
- [56:13]
Evita Duffy Alfonso
Oh, that's an okay argument to make, Emily, and to say you think it's better in the hands of Larry Ellison than it is with the ccp. Okay, fine. Well, what I'm upset about is the lying, because they'll say, yeah, about protecting your data. This is about your security. Well, okay, okay, first of all, we're not secure with Instagram and Facebook and X and all these other accounts and all these other social media apps that collect our information via the federal government, which itself has been weaponized against the American people many times, including against you and I, Emily. And what I'll say is we fix the data problem. So there are little arguments about how, oh, our data is being stored in China and can be weaponized against America. We already have a deal where the data on TikTok is housed in the United States. So what this deal is about, this latest deal is about the algorithm, which is my point, that this isn't about privacy and data. It never was because they don't. The government never respects our privacy and data. This is about the algorithm. It is about controlling our minds. And in fact, the federal government admits to doing that all the time. Cisa Cybersecurity Infrastructure Agency, publicly said, Said their, Their. Their leader, Jenny Sterling, under the Biden Admin, that her job is to protect our cognitive infrastructure, meaning our minds. She's literally went out and said, my job is to control the minds of the American people. They're pretty upfront about it, so I just wish they would be upfront about the reason that they're trying to control TikTok.
- [57:39]
Emily Jashinsky
I think that's a great point. Actually. This is the most that we've agreed on this since like 2020. And I think you, you make a point that's important. Also with the new Gallup poll. They put out their annual poll of trusted mass media every October and I wait for it like a child on Christmas. And this year, I hate to say it, in some ways it's good, in some ways it's bad. They actually hit another record low. And this is different from what happened after 2016, where dem trust in mass media and independent trust in mass media started ticking up a little bit for like the first couple of years of the Trump administration, then continued on the decline. This is now at another record low, lower than the previous records in recent years. So just reading a bit here from Gallup. When Gallup began measuring trust in the news media in 1970s, between 68 and 72% of Americans expressed confidence in reporting. However, the next reading in 1997, public confidence had fallen to 53%. Media trust remained just above 50 until it dropped to 44 in 2004, and it has not risen to the majority level since. The highest reading in the past decade was 45% in 2018 18, which came just two years after confidence had collapsed amid the divisive 2016 presidential campaign. The latest 28% confidence reading from a poll in mid September marks the first time the measure has fallen below 30%. So Evita, a couple of quick things before I toss it over to you. On the one hand, I'm actually very happy to see that the number of people who trust mass media is low because mass media does not deserve a high level of trust from the American public right now. If the media media were trusted by the American public, I would be more concerned than people being skeptical of mass media. At the same time, it's really not a sign of a healthy system where people don't trust the primary information delivery vehicle. So that high watermark in the post war period I think is historically unusual. I think it did make for a relatively functional system. Them it's probably never going to be that way again. It's sort of halcyon days of, you know, monoculture. But at the same time where we are right now is really bad.
- [59:46]
Evita Duffy Alfonso
I would push back, Emily, on the idea that let's do it. They are that the mainstream media is our main source of news. I think that's true for people over 50. I think it's not true at all for Gen Z and millennials and increasingly Gen X mixers. And I think people are, I think people are doing what Megyn Kelly said really recently. I think she was at the, the Charlie Kirk. It was, it was, it was a Q A that she did. Somebody asked her a question about media and she said, you know what I think you should do to discern the truth these days? I know it's opaque. We don't always understand what's going on. We feel like we're lied to a lot is to pick a few people, a few individuals in media and, and go with them like, like maybe it's an influencer, a podcaster. That's. I don't know if that's the answer, but it's what a lot of people are doing. They have three or four people that they really trust and they're listening to their show every day or every other day. And I think that there's something to be said about going with an individual who is maybe independent and accountable to themselves and their viewers versus a company where you don't know if the person who's talking has orders from someone unseen scene. You don't know if the overhead has their own, you know, messaging that the, the person who's in front of the camera really has no control over there. There is something personal and accountable to an individual who's independent in media that I actually really like. Maybe I'm going to be wrong about this. It's going to turn out terrible and there are some really bad influencers out there. But I think by and large that's better than mainstream media media, clearly, because they have been liars forever. There's a reason the trust is low.
- [61:25]
Emily Jashinsky
I can't believe you just gave a full throated endorsement of Shock Collar dog owner Hasan Piker. I can't believe you did that, Evita. This is a video from today, by the way. What are you doing? People noticed. It looked like Hassan was. Hasan Piker used a shot collar on his dog who was trying to move out of Free Frame. And I think Hassan said that it was like, it's a zap collar. It's one of those ones that like, they make you try on yourself to actually, you know, know that it's safe and effective. I have no idea. But then now everybody is digging up the way that Hasan Piker has treated his dog Evita. I didn't know if you wanted to weigh in on that given the full throated endorsement that you just.
- [62:05]
Evita Duffy Alfonso
I did not give an endorsement. Hasan Piper. I said some of them are very bad and not all of them are great. Megyn Kelly is a great influence. Answer. Emily Jasinski is a great media personality. These are good.
- [62:18]
Emily Jashinsky
I only shock cats.
- [62:20]
Evita Duffy Alfonso
Okay.
- [62:20]
Emily Jashinsky
Oh, oh. I only put shot collars. On cats.
- [62:23]
Evita Duffy Alfonso
Let it be known I do not support animal cruelty. Whether it's from Hassan or it's from Emily. Not a fan. Hassan is terrible. And by the way, he is. He wears dresses, he does weird things. If you listen to his podcast, he is a bizarre human being.
- [62:39]
Emily Jashinsky
I like how you're like, don't. It's the problem isn't that he's like, the dog is one thing, but wait till you see him in a dress.
- [62:45]
Evita Duffy Alfonso
Okay, but the dress thing is scarring. He's like at a Japanese, like, maid cafe. Don't go down the Hasan pike.
- [62:52]
Emily Jashinsky
I know you know exactly what I'm about to do, Evita, because I was going to pivot into Anime World, but before we do that, let's put F13 14 up on the screen. These are charts showing how low trusted mass media is by age. In the Gallup poll, it's at. It's at 38% of Democrats between the ages of 18, 29, 29% among independents in that age range and 12% among Democrats. So even among young Democrats, trust in mass media is only at 38%. And that is such a huge gap between older Democrats who have 69% level of trust in mass media, which I think explains the way that MSNBC programs. It shows as older Democrats are watching and want to hear Nicole Wallace say, I am the voice, voice of truth and reason. So it's a huge, it's a huge problem for Dems going forward about how they target their media. You know, Zoram Hamdani, Evita was, was really clever about putting different videos on different mediums. And I guess that's probably what everyone's going to have to do going forward.
- [63:53]
Evita Duffy Alfonso
Well, I'm surprised it's not lower for young Democrats because young conservatives, many of them have come into the MAGA fold, which used to be on the outskirts of the Republican Party and now it is. Or Republican Party, like right wing populism, Trumpism, that is the movement. A lot of young people, the vast majority of them are a part of it. There's a whole MAGA information ecosphere for young leftists. There's really nothing like they do not associate with cnn, msnbc. They don't like it. I think that what's happened with Israel and Palestine is a huge reason for that. There's a major disconnect in support of Israel among young left leftists and their politicians and their media personalities. So I'm surprised it's not even lower for them. And it's a huge problem. I think that the future of the Democratic Party is clearly with left wing populists who, which frankly is a scary thing to think about. Right. You have like government owned grocery stores from Zoran Mamdani, aoc, Bernie Sanders. That's a scary thought. Like it's, it's equitable suffering for everyone. But that is clearly the future of the party.
- [64:58]
Emily Jashinsky
Party. Well, speaking of Dems and media, let's roll this clip of Katie Porter, who is one of the, the candidates for governor in California, one of the Democratic candidates for governor in California whose interview with CBS News Sacramento has gone mega viral on political Twitter, Political X, I guess we have to call it. Now for her interaction with the reporter, we can roll S5.
- [65:24]
CBS Reporter
What do you say to the 40% of California voters who you'll need in order to win who voted for Trump?
- [65:31]
Katie Porter
How would I need them in order to win, ma'?
- [65:33]
Emily Jashinsky
Am?
- [65:33]
CBS Reporter
Well, unless you think you're going to get 60% of the vote. You think you'll get 60% all everybody who did not vote for Trump will vote for you.
- [65:40]
Katie Porter
That's what you're in a general election. Yes.
- [65:43]
CBS Reporter
What if it's you versus another Democrat?
- [65:45]
Katie Porter
I don't intend that to be the case.
- [65:47]
CBS Reporter
But you just said you don't need those Trump votes.
- [65:49]
Katie Porter
Well, you asked me if I needed them to win.
- [65:51]
CBS Reporter
So you don't think they feel like.
- [65:52]
Katie Porter
This is unnecessarily argumentative? What is your question?
- [65:55]
CBS Reporter
The question is the same thing I asked everybody. What do you say to the 40% of voters who voted for Trump?
- [66:01]
Katie Porter
Oh, I'm happy to say that it's the do you need them to win part that I don't understand.
- [66:06]
CBS Reporter
Well, to those voters. Okay, so you, I don't want to keep doing this.
- [66:09]
Katie Porter
I'm going to call it. Thank you.
- [66:12]
CBS Reporter
You're not going to do the interview with us?
- [66:14]
Katie Porter
Nope, not like this I'm not. Not with seven follow ups to every.
- [66:17]
CBS Reporter
Single question you ask every other candidate has answered.
- [66:21]
Katie Porter
I don't care. I, I want to have a pleasant, positive conversation which you ask me about every issue on this list and if every question you're going to make up a follow up question, then we're never going to get there and we're just going to circle around. I've never had to do this before, ever.
- [66:37]
CBS Reporter
You've never had to have a conversation.
- [66:39]
Katie Porter
To end an interview.
- [66:41]
CBS Reporter
Okay, but every other candidate has done this.
- [66:43]
Katie Porter
What part of I'm me, I'm running for governor because I'm a leader, so I am going to make.
- [66:49]
CBS Reporter
So you're not going to answer questions from reporters.
- [66:52]
Katie Porter
I don't want to have an unhappy experience with you and I don't want this all on camera.
- [66:56]
CBS Reporter
I don't want to have an unhappy experience with you either. I would love to continue to ask these questions so that we can show our viewers what every candidate feels about every one of these issues that they care about.
- [67:08]
Emily Jashinsky
So Katie Porter is not especially known for being like a charmer, Evita. And you may have even heard more about that in the past. When she was serving in the House of Representatives, she was sort of known for being gruff with her staff. There's ugly allegations that came out from her I think ex husband at one point about her throwing stuff and just being sort of emotionally abusive. It sounded like. I'm not surprised by this but those were some easy questions, man. Like those were, were those are some softballs she was getting mad at.
- [67:36]
Evita Duffy Alfonso
That was my reaction to Emily because if that's a hostile interview like this, this interview is obscene. Like I should have walked out five, ten minutes ago.
- [67:45]
Emily Jashinsky
Emily, you're like, I am not going to do this on camera. Not if there are seven follow ups to every question about TikTok.
- [67:52]
Evita Duffy Alfonso
It has to be a nice and by the way, this is cbs. Like are we kidding, right? This is like easiest. So the answer is so easy. What are you going to do to win Trump voters? Well, I'm going to message them. It's like, no. She was like why do I need them?
- [68:04]
Emily Jashinsky
She literally did.
- [68:05]
Evita Duffy Alfonso
I don't need them. Like this is like how to lose a guy in 10 days. How to lose an election in 10 seconds. Like what is this answer? What, what is the strategy here?
- [68:16]
Emily Jashinsky
Beats me. Katie Porter probably didn't have a strategy in this moment. She probably let her own. Okay, so let's roll S7. This is another clip of Katie Porter back from when she was in the House of Representatives to the point you're asking of you about what is her strategy. It seems like sometimes she lets her personal emotions. You have a lot of little brothers and sisters, you know about managing our personal emotions. Evita. It sounds like Katie Porter could use some of that. S7 we did a study recently this.
- [68:40]
Katie Porter
Fall in September and what it showed is if we don't electrify our transportation sector.
- [68:47]
Emily Jashinsky
She's talking to former energy secretary Jennifer Granholm here during the Biden administration prematurely pre turtle air pollution and other problems. There we go. Upper right, upper right. See the staffer in the surgical mask creeping in, shocked.
- [68:59]
Evita Duffy Alfonso
I wanted to tell you that's actually Incorrect. It's not that it's electric vehicles. It's that if we don't meet the.
- [69:05]
Emily Jashinsky
Commitments under the Paris climate.
- [69:07]
Katie Porter
Okay, it does. Okay. You also were in my shot before that. Stay out of my shot. Okay, I'm going to start again with electric vehicles. Saving us money.
- [69:19]
Emily Jashinsky
Please start again. Okay, so that is a member of the House talking that way with the energy secretary on the other end of the zoom. Imagine Evita, when there's no energy secretary and no cameraman to watch Katie Porter.
- [69:34]
Evita Duffy Alfonso
I mean, she clearly is a deranged human being. She clearly is a deranged. But what can I just say, Emily, her last answer about. About how to win over Republicans and how she's just. She's just not going to win over Trump voters. She doesn't care about them. That actually is not just a Katie Porter issue. That is a, like, all Democrats issue. You cannot win on Trump derangement anymore. Like, actually you never have. Trump derangement has never won anyone any election. It doesn't work. Left wing populism works. What Zoran Mamdani is doing is working. Unfortunately, this strategy doesn't work. And I'll say we're from Wisconsin. I'm from Marathon county in Wisconsin. This was a place that went for Obama, a black man, and then went for Trump. And then the New York Times came in and tried to call my working class major city in Marathon County. Wausau. Yes, Johnson, a racist town. A town that voted for Obama twice. Suddenly we're racist because we're Trump supporters and we don't want to sign an equity document. The details don't matter. The point is these people are lashing out at the working class voters that they lost to MAGA and they're never going to win them back that way. This is a losing strategy. So I say continue, Katie Porter. Keep doing it.
- [70:50]
Emily Jashinsky
I forgot about. I forgot about that New York Times story. I mean, just incredible. People should Google it. Wausau, New York Times. And the way that it talks about how the Hmong community was integrated by working class white people in Wasa, like, just completely insane. And people are still mad about all of that kind of stuff. So when they hear Katie Porter talking like that, it sends them through the roof. There are fewer people like that in California, but there are still people like that in California. No question about it. Evita, before I let you go to bed or watch more anime, I'm going to ask you, I'm going to ask you about this Federalist story you wrote. Why demonstration Slayer speaks to the soul and Disney doesn't. Because I thought this was a really lovely story, Evita. And I think you should. You should make the argument.
- [71:33]
Evita Duffy Alfonso
Well, thank you for bringing up this. This piece that I.
- [71:36]
Emily Jashinsky
It's.
- [71:37]
Evita Duffy Alfonso
It's just one of those articles I just had to write because I just had to, like, get it off my mind. I saw recently, and I think it's a little older, but a. A video that Michael Knowles did where he and another guest accused anime of being demonic or something.
- [71:51]
Emily Jashinsky
Michael and I agree on this. No, no, no.
- [71:54]
Evita Duffy Alfonso
I'm just. Anime is a medium. It is animation and oftentimes made in Japan. And what I'll say is it does not. Some of it's bad, just like other types of medium are bad. And it. A lot of it is really good. And it's not, I think, defiled in the same way that a lot of Western children media is defiled. Elio, which was the recent Disney movie that came out, did terribly in the box office. Right now we're seeing Demon Slayer, which is a Japanese anime about this young boy who slays demons with his demon sister. It has a lot more heart and spirit than Anything Disney or DreamWorks has put out this year, and it's doing better in America. This is a foreign film that is doing incredibly well.
- [72:41]
Emily Jashinsky
Well, I was gonna say, isn't this thing, like, a juggernaut, like, hugely, hugely, hugely popular?
- [72:45]
Evita Duffy Alfonso
Like, massive. Like, they, like, like, have quadrupled the. The weekend, say, box office sales that Disney's Elio had a foreign film and. Right. And right after this, this, this major news that Demon Slayer is doing incredible, Trump is now, I guess, putting 100% tariff on foreign films. So maybe he heard the news about Demon Slayer. But I'll say there is. It's not. I mean, it's. There's a lot to get into, but there is real heart and soul in it. And I think, think when somebody goes at a story to, to write or to create something that is just honest and heartfelt, even if it's not coming from an explicitly Christian place, Christian values always shine through. Like, I. I'm a big believer that the Christian story, the greatest story ever told, always comes through stories that aren't intentionally trying to do that. Lord of the medicine, like J.R.R. tolkien said, I was never trying to create an allegory. This was just my work. And this, My faith shined through. And I think people who are just good people are able to create stories like that. And Disney and a lot of other American media are explicitly trying to create Bad stories. Stories to indoctrinate and they don't ring true and people don't like them.
- [73:59]
Emily Jashinsky
Okay, Vita, maybe I'll watch it. Maybe I'll watch it.
- [74:01]
Evita Duffy Alfonso
It's good. It's excellent. It's the only 10 out of 10 movie that I have seen in recent movies. Memory. Seriously?
- [74:08]
Emily Jashinsky
All right. I mean, I'll take your word for it.
- [74:10]
Evita Duffy Alfonso
But I will say, Emily, that there is like four other seasons of this anime and another movie that you have to watch before you go, so maybe, Maybe that's too much.
- [74:18]
Emily Jashinsky
Oh, you do actually have. So wait, but that actually makes its success even more impressive, right? That people are bought into this entire entire franchise.
- [74:25]
Evita Duffy Alfonso
It's all on Netflix. If you want to watch all of this. All four seasons and the previous movie are on Netflix. And this is a follow up to all of the. That it's. You cannot watch this movie and not have all of the prior context, unfortunately.
- [74:38]
Emily Jashinsky
I mean, I don't have the moral high ground that Knowles does to critique anime for being demonic. Because instead of watching the anime, you know what I'm gonna be doing? She's gonna be Real Housewives. And I don't. Again, I. I can't claim to have the moral high ground on this. So. Evita Dovey Alfonso, independent journalist, it was great to see you. Thanks for coming back.
- [74:56]
Evita Duffy Alfonso
Thanks for having me, Emily.
- [74:57]
Emily Jashinsky
Of course. Anytime. Now I have something that's making me a little bit angry. Before we talk about that though, I'm gonna talk about some. Something that makes me happy, which is Vandy Crisps. I love them so much. It's. Did you know that the chips and fries, they were cooked in tallow? We talked about this earlier. Until the 1990s when those big corporations switched them to cheap seed oils, which you can taste now. Those oils are a disgusting 20% of our daily calories, and studies do link them to inflammation and metabolic issues, which is not okay. And Vandy Crisps is fighting back with the best chips. Seriously, the best chips. It's a chip that's made from three ingredients. Heirloom potatoes, sea salt, and 100% grass fed beef tallow. No seed oils. True story. When I first had these chips, they were so incredible to me that I looked at the back of the bag, saw the three ingredients, and I couldn't believe it. It was like, genuinely mind blowing for me. The tallow packs nutrients for your skin, brain and hormones. And it makes these chips taste incredible. Unlike regular chips, Vandy leaves you satisfied, energized, with no bloat or crash. They're 100% American made, no compromises. The best chip I've ever tasted. The tallow keeps you from mindless binging and my go to is barbecue. I love love them so so much. They're a perfect complement to a sandwich. So if you're ready to give Vandy a try, go to vandycrisps.com afterparty and use code AFTERPARTY for 25 off your first order. That's vanicrisps.com afterparty and code AFTERPARTY for 25 OFF your first order. And if you don't feel like ordering online, that is fine. Vandy is now available nationwide at your local Sprouts supermarket. Stop by and pick up a bag before they're gone.
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- [77:16]
Emily Jashinsky
Now before I'm going tonight, let me talk a little bit about this new report in the Daily Wire. I first heard about this story in local news here in Washington D.C. by the the way, and had one of those moments you see a news story and you think why does this seem to be getting buried? Well, fast Forward. This is F17. The Daily Wire is reporting today. Washington D.C. police on Sunday arrested a man with hundreds of explosive devices outside a church holding a mass in order in honor of the Supreme Court. The man had a manifesto that suggested he was targeting the Supreme Court and Catholics. According to court papers obtained by the Daily Wire, Lewis Jerry, a 41 year old from Arizona and New Jersey, was apprehended outside the Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle. It's a beautiful, beautiful cathedral. On October 5th, the same day the church held its annual Red Mass in which a cardinal prays for the High Court as it embarks on a new term and which is historically attended by Justices I think Last year there were three justices at this Mass. So just to pause, we already talked today about Jay Jones in Virginia who texted three years ago these like, absolutely insane, unhinged thoughts about Republicans where he, according to the Washington Post, quote, imagined killing the GOP speaker of the Virginia House of Delegates and discussed urinating on the future graves of other Republicans. Now amidst no major Democrat, again, according to the Washington Post, they say this is no prominent Democrats. It's a, quote, elected. No prominent elected Democrat has called on Jones to leave the race. This Daily Wire story, we know if this was not an anti, ostensibly, at least from the reporting and evidence that's been released so far, if this was not what appeared to be an anti Catholic, anti conservative, because obviously the Catholic justices are largely conservative justice justices. That overlap is baked into a lot of the criticism, if not most of the criticism that they get. We know that this story would be massive. This is not, certainly not a local crime story. But in the wake of what happened to Charlie Kirk just about a month ago, what date is it? Yep, October 8th. So still, we are still within the first month after Charlie Kirk's assassination, you have a man with explosive explosives that were fully functional, according to reporting, fully functional explosives in a crowded area of downtown Washington, D.C. at a cathedral, saying he was going to commit an act of anti Catholic terrorism. And this is barely a blip on the radar of the media. A blip on the radar of the media. I'm not saying this should be the biggest story in the world, but I'm just saying in the context of this big national conversation that everybody said it was time to have within the hours of what happened to Charlie Kirk, a lot of the people, particularly people on the left, but let's just say particularly people on the left, should be thinking very hard about this story. And I'm not somebody, again, who comes from the perspective that this is only happening from the left. I'm disappointed with the media coverage that suggests often downplays and uses BS Studies, as we talked about with Rachel and Inez last week, to pin this more on conservatives. I'm not even somebody that is trying to get bogged down into this competition about who is more violent. But most of the high profile acts of terrorism or attempted terrorism, political violence in the last couple of years that have been downplayed, complained by the media have come from the left. Have come from the left. And I'm not saying that's everything. I'm not saying that's everything. But I am saying this story, we all know it in our hearts, we all know it. It would be wall to wall coverage of this story, which again, I'm not suggesting is the most important story in the country, but it would be treated as the most important story in the country if this were not ostensibly an act of anti Catholic, anti conservative violence. And this stuff is obviously very frightening. If it were looking like it was targeting the liberal justices, it would be very frightening. It's very frightening. And so I just, it's so hard to have this conversation when the, when one side, who had power over most of the mass media, as we were discussing in Gallup, cultural power over most of the mass media. I think we could have conversations about where the media's bias is when it comes to economics and foreign policy. I certainly agree with a lot of people on the left that the media has biases that line up with the kind of political establishment and even with Republicans when it comes to hawkish foreign policy and economics. But on cultural issues, we all pretty much understand that the media's bias goes in one direction and the mass media is losing its power to independent media. No question about it. But it's still very powerful. And that's what makes it extremely difficult to have this conversation when the very journalists and news organizations and corporate news organizations, I should add, corporations, powerful people, Democratic lawmakers are purporting to care about the rise of political violence and not pausing and reflecting and spending time talking about this as they want would if the sort of ideological, ostensible, ideological leaning here were reversed. And I'm going off of what we have right now, by the way. These stories do change. But again, this, this is pretty good evidence here in the Daily Wire story, certainly good evidence in the case of Jay Jones. It's, it's outrageous and it makes the conversation almost impossible to have because if you're a conservative, you are constantly going to be up against that. And it just, again, in order to even talk about political violence, you have to get over the hump of how we perceive it as a country. And the metaphor that I always use is like, the media is our glass, like it's the window into public affairs. And if the window is smudged and cracked, depending on where you're looking through it, you're going to see or even say it's like a glass divider at a zoo. If the glass divider is smudged and cracked, you're going to see the red parrot it behind the glass divider in a very different way depending on where you're peering through the glass. And so if we can't all be on the same page about what's actually happening. And one one side of the aisle, which has plenty of its own problems, but on the question of political violence, constantly feels like the other side is downplaying. Downplaying, downplaying. Which, of course, people on the left feel like what happened in Minnesota were downplayed and all of that. But these exist examples by the power brokers in mass media are obviously being downplayed in one direction. And so it makes it impossible to even have this conversation with consensus. And I find that very, very frustrating. I find it very frustrating this daily wire report isn't getting more attention. I find it very frustrating the story itself isn't getting more attention because it's horrifying. It was close to a massive tragedy at a historic cathedral in downtown Washington. I would say about a mile north of the White House. I used to live right around the corner from. Actually, it's a beautiful leafy neighborhood in Northwest Washington that came so close to mass tragedy. And we are teetering on the brink here. You know, everyone felt that when Charlie Kirk had his erupted in blood in front of the entire country less than a month ago. Everyone felt that. And think about how close we just came to another possible, possible like, breaking point event in American politics and culture. So, again, just very, very frustrating that these stories are so needlessly downplayed. And I think it makes it. This is like a sort of tough love thing for friends of mine who are in mass media or on the left. I'm happy to have these conversations. They're really difficult ones. Um, and, you know, I don't think everyone is getting everything 100% right. Certainly not me. But it's so frustrating to see dramatic, significant stories like this one just get. Get downplayed and get so little attention. All right, on that really, on really unfunny note, sorry about that. I'm gonna sign off. But remember, I'm not signing off until Monday. I'm only signing off until Friday when we release a new edition of. Of Happy hour. So send me those questions. You can send them at afterparty, Emily, on the Instagram. Send them to emilyevilmaycare media.com we love, love getting those questions. I love answering them. I answer them live to tape. It's taped, but I'm going through them for the first time as I answer those questions. So hit me up afterparty, Emily. Appreciate it. That's instagram and emily.caremedia.com thank you so much, everyone. Everyone, we will be back here next Monday, next Wednesday, 10pm live and on Friday on Podcast. Wherever you get your podcast, your favorite podcast platform that drops Friday, so subscribe there as well. See you all soon. Thanks for tuning in.