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- [00:00]
Jack Armstrong
This is an iHeart podcast, guaranteed human broadcasting. Live from the Abraham Lincoln radio studio at the George Washington Broadcast Center, Jack Armstrong and Joe Getty. Armstrong and Getty. And now here's Armstrong and Getty.
- [00:29]
Joe Getty
President Trump announced in a post on Truth Social the Republican Senator Lindsey Graham had passed away and added, quote, details
- [00:35]
Jack Armstrong
and arrangements to follow. Wait, why are you in charge of the arrangement? He has a family. Lindsey would have wanted us to serve cheeseburgers.
- [00:50]
Joe Getty
So Lindsay's sister's gonna be the senator until November anyway?
- [00:54]
Jack Armstrong
Yep, so it seems.
- [00:55]
Caller or Guest
Yeah.
- [00:55]
Jack Armstrong
I saw where Mitch McConnell put out a picture of himself in the hospital to prove he was still alive. And the Internet immediately said, AI.
- [01:02]
Joe Getty
Yeah, well, it's a problem with AI. I saw Lindsey Graham interviewed I don't know how many years ago, where he said his sister is his greatest achievement. The fact that she's turned out good is. Makes him happier than anything in his life because, man, both their parents died. He's 19, she's 13. He adopts her and takes care of her.
- [01:24]
Jack Armstrong
That's a lot. Yeah. Saw a bunch of interviews from his small town that he grew up in and, and where he lived. And he would just go home all the time from D.C. he was not one of those denizens of D.C. he was home in South Carolina all the time. You just go to the Walmart in his ball cap and people say, hey, Lindsay. You'd say, hey, how you doing? Just acted like a regular guy when he was home. Really, it's really an interesting character.
- [01:48]
Joe Getty
So socialism is in the news, and I hope that didn't make you roll your eyes or dive for the dial to turn it off to hear more talk about socialism. It is, it's, it's interesting that it's comebacks. Funny, my son and I were talking about this in the car just the other day, like how, how this has made a comeback. My dad explained to me when I was like 6 years old why it doesn't work. And I never doubted it once because it made perfect sense to me. If everybody gets equal stuff, nobody's gonna try. I thought, okay, it makes sense. That was the end of the conversation. That's all I needed to hear, because
- [02:19]
Jack Armstrong
the rest is just details.
- [02:20]
Joe Getty
It makes perfect sense.
- [02:22]
Jack Armstrong
Yeah.
- [02:23]
Joe Getty
And it just. All you gotta do is look around you. Oh, my God. But collectivism, or whatever you want to call it, Marxism or whatever, it's, it's, it's, it's coming back, obviously. I was on one of your fancy pants Twitter feeds with smart people explaining where Rosso came In on this whole conversation a good 80 years before Marx did his writing. Rousseau invented a lot of this stuff. The great French philosopher. Every premise of contemporary progressive ideology traces directly back to one man who had never met a noble savage, that was his term. Never raised a child and never lived according to a single principally preached. Just like all of these other people. Marx, Rosso, Platner, all these people. All these people who like socialism, never had a job, never raised kids, usually never, like, lived any of the real life. It's amazing. Anyway, Rousseau's foundational claim, a man is naturally good and civilization corrupts him. Which sounds compassionate, but it's the most dangerous idea in the history of Western political thought. Because if a man is naturally good, then every failure, every crime, every inequality is caused by the system, not by the individual. Responsibility evaporates. The oppressor is always external, the victim is always pure. This is the complete architecture of Wokeism in one sentence. And it was written in 1755.
- [03:51]
Jack Armstrong
That's. That's an excellent point.
- [03:52]
Joe Getty
Yeah, that's good.
- [03:53]
Jack Armstrong
I disliked Rousseau since I first read him in college, but it hadn't occurred to me that. Yeah, that's like the DNA of it.
- [04:01]
Joe Getty
Yeah, really is. Anyway, so Jonah Goldberg of the Dispatch took a break, thank God, in my mind, from Everything Trump, and got back to one of his greatest things he's ever written about is the free market and capitalism versus socialism and all that sort of stuff. He's written many books over the years. Works for the Dispatch now, and he was. He went on several screens over the last couple of weeks with all these candidates winning as part of calling themselves democratic Socialists and beating out the mainstream Democrats. I'll read a little bit from this because I thought it was good. We hear a lot about how democratic socialism isn't communism, has no similarities to communism, and people who suggest it does are ignorant. McCarthyites are both mainstream media pundits, academics and democratic politicians insist that the democratic socialism of the dsa, that's the actual party, Democrat Socialists of America, that's where Mandami came from. Right. Has nothing to do with communism or revolutionary or violent communist struggles. Jonah Goldberg writes, I have no problem conceding the definitions of democratic socialism and communism are very different, and that there are sincere democratic socialists who aren't communists. That MLK Jr. Wasn't a communist. The founder of the DSA, Michael Harrington, wasn't a communist either. But it's worth noting that within the Democratic Socialist Party there are a bunch of affiliated caucuses. They call them because they have different branches within their party that they call caucuses. And many of the caucuses are avowedly and openly communist. And, and nobody in the DSA ever has to explain them away. For instance, the Liberation Caucus is a self described Marxist Leninist Maoist caucus. This is in quotes. This is from their website. Marxist Leninist Maoist Caucus and Democratic Socialists of America. It defended the murder of the two Jews outside the Capitol back in 2025. DSA was forced to condemn the shooting, but did not condemn the Liberation Caucus. In their own party. The Liberation Caucus has a dedicated Common Misconceptions about Maoism page.
- [06:15]
Jack Armstrong
Wow.
- [06:15]
Joe Getty
Isn't that amazing?
- [06:17]
Caller or Guest
Wow.
- [06:18]
Joe Getty
Mao, who killed more people than maybe any human in the history of the planet, certainly is in the running tens of millions. The Liberation Caucus recommended reading list does not include any titles promoting Swedish style social democracy, which is what your socialists are always talking about. No, we don't want to do what Sweden does.
- [06:37]
Jack Armstrong
It's what your Caitlin Collins on CNN is always trying to tell you that the DSA is, for instance, right?
- [06:44]
Joe Getty
Goldberg writes, it's mostly a dog's breakfast of Marxist Leninism, black national and of course, Maoist doctrine. And he has the links if you actually want to read about it. The Marxist Unity Group is another DSA faction that is officially in its party and not being, you know, booted out or anything. Among its seven points of unity is fight the Constitution, in which they openly say we want to fight and overthrow the Constitution. The Red Star Caucus, yet another group, explains that it's a Marxist Leninist caucus in the dsa. Our primary goal. All this is in quotes. Our primary goal, the goal which informs all of our organizing work, is to abolish. Abolish capitalism and ultimately to achieve communism. It's on their web page.
- [07:30]
Jack Armstrong
Right.
- [07:31]
Joe Getty
Red Star conceives of itself as an ideological center in the dsa. Then there's the Communist Caucus, which rejects the notion that power can simply be taken via the ballot box. It rejects mere reform as incrementalism, not a solution. They insist that the DSA has a great potential for promoting and unifying working class struggles. Um, but they need to come at it much harder. We believe there are many avenues that feed into the democratic road to socialism. Our vision pushes, pushes further than social democracy and leaves behind authoritarian visions of socialism and the dustbin of history. Okay, so Jonah Goldberg ends with this. I have looked in vain to find evidence that any major media outlet has asked DSA candidates to repudiate these caucuses by name or even meaningfully engage with the fact that they are fully recognized caucuses and factions within their party. Nobody's having to speak for that at all. And he goes on to say, we can only go too far with the guilt by association arguments. But the simple fact is that they are literally associated with these groups. They may not be members of these groups. They may even privately oppose them or work to minimize their influence within the party, but they are still a part of an organization that does not reject them. Maoists and Communists are in their tent. If a Republican candidate was a member of some broad front that had openly Nazi and fascist organizations committed to overthrowing the Constitution within it, I don't think we would hear a lot of. Well, actually, conservatism and fascism are very different things. The way we hear. Actually, democratic socialism and communism are not the same thing.
- [09:16]
Jack Armstrong
Right, right.
- [09:18]
Joe Getty
I thought that was really good. And everybody should know that. And the mainstream media, yes. Should make these DSA members who have won I don't know how many different primaries recently, including the one in Colorado and then that guy that's leading currently for the Senate nominee in Michigan, make them openly say, disavow those other parts of their group.
- [09:43]
Jack Armstrong
Yeah, they. They'd lie about it, but they at least need to be asked about it. I wonder if we all need to take a sacred vow. If you encounter any member of the mainstream media, ask them, why don't members of the DSA ever get asked about the openly communist members of the dsa, about the Maoists in the dsa, the
- [10:01]
Joe Getty
people whose whole goal, according to their own website, is to overthrow capitalism or the Constitution.
- [10:08]
Jack Armstrong
Right. Yeah. Yeah. Why don't you ever ask them that? I would love to hear that question come from every man, woman and child with a conscience in America until it gets the job done.
- [10:20]
Joe Getty
That was news to me. I didn't know that the DSA was full of people that hardcore, openly. I assumed they had hardcore people like that, but not openly that hardcore and getting away with it. We're a Maoist organization. Here are the myths about Mao. Is your website. Oh, my God.
- [10:39]
Jack Armstrong
Trump was at all effective in talking about this stuff. Or somebody could step out and take the lead on this. Just somebody with a platform big enough that folks wake up to it. There are plenty of folks on the conservative side of things who aren't fully aware of what the DSA is, and it's troubling.
- [11:01]
Joe Getty
Well, I wasn't aware that those groups were in there as open as they are about their goals.
- [11:06]
Jack Armstrong
I didn't know. I knew there were openly communists that were at the heart of the movement. But I didn't know they had like separate factions of different sorts of communism and were recognized caucuses within the party.
- [11:20]
Joe Getty
And accepted.
- [11:21]
Jack Armstrong
Yeah, and accepted.
- [11:24]
Joe Getty
You couldn't be like part of the Republican Party, obviously, and, or run against mainstream Republicans and win and. No, I'm a Nazi. I'm part of. We're part of the Nazi party. We believe in national socialism and the eradication of, well, the Jews thing. You might have to be a Democrat, then at that point you couldn't be a Republican.
- [11:45]
Jack Armstrong
And then as we were discussing earlier, the fact that the Democratic socialists say openly, oh, we're here to supplant the Democratic Party. We're going to shove their leadership out and take over the party in the name of socialism. Can you imagine the Republican Party saying the Nazis. They keep saying they're going to take over the party, but we need them for our coalition.
- [12:04]
Joe Getty
Right.
- [12:05]
Jack Armstrong
Sick.
- [12:05]
Joe Getty
The thing I would like to know is how big these various groups are, how many people are in them? Is it, is it tens of thousands, hundreds of thousands of millions? I'd sure like to know are they
- [12:16]
Jack Armstrong
big enough and wily enough and brutal enough to take over the politics, though, of places? The answer is yeah, clearly. Like in New York and in Colorado and everywhere else, they're winning elections. Bernie Sanders, Graham Platner, who, you know, he's gone, but his ilk will remain. So they're effective, never mind the numbers. Although I'm curious about the numbers, too. How effective are they? Very. Is the answer.
- [12:40]
Joe Getty
The takeaway in Jonah's point, I think really was none of these candidates that say they're members of the DSA should get away with being on Face the Nation talking to Margaret Brennan without her making them disavow those other factions.
- [12:55]
Jack Armstrong
Yeah.
- [12:57]
Joe Getty
Or even how can you be a member of a party that has avowed Maoists and communists in it? Like, how can you even be in the party, let alone disavow them?
- [13:07]
Jack Armstrong
Maoists.
- [13:08]
Caller or Guest
Yeah.
- [13:09]
Joe Getty
Here are the myths about Mao.
- [13:12]
Caller or Guest
What?
- [13:13]
Jack Armstrong
Wow, that's crazy. These are crazy ass times, man.
- [13:18]
Joe Getty
Crazy ass.
- [13:19]
Jack Armstrong
Things are getting weird and they're getting weird fast.
- [13:21]
Joe Getty
I'd say you're right, Elon. More on the way. Stay here.
- [13:24]
Jack Armstrong
Armstrong and Getty.
- [13:30]
Guest or Contributor
And we would like to invest tremendously in the United States as opposed to charging a fee. And I like that, actually, because I don't think anybody should be able, able to charge a fee for the, for the straight or for any other straight relationship in terms of other sections of the world. I don't think Anybody should be really in that position. But we were doing it as a reimbursement. The Gulf states are going to invest a tremendous amount of money into the United States, and that was very satisfactory to me. I think it's actually much better.
- [14:04]
Joe Getty
Okay, so let's explain what's going on. Trump, off the top of his head, came up with the idea of a 20% fee for ships to go through the strait yesterday. Then he realized, oh, I didn't realize. The secretary, Marco Rubio, said that would be horrible just like three weeks ago. And everybody explained to him how it would be horrible and undoable and all kinds of different stuff. So he's backed off of that within 24 hours. And now it's countries investing in the United States and they'll promise to. And they may or may not, and you'll never know, because I would even keep track of that.
- [14:36]
Jack Armstrong
Anyway, I'm picturing the Cabinet going from probably in the early days saying, sweet mother of God. He said, what? To now. It's like playing a board game. President said, we're going to be confiscating all the airliners on Earth. Oh, okay. Why don't we explain that we're actually in favor of free air travel and we just wanted to ensure that pollution's held under control. Okay, great. Yeah, I'll put that.
- [15:05]
Tony Ayo
That out.
- [15:05]
Jack Armstrong
Oh, it's just ridiculous. A couple of World cup notes.
- [15:08]
Joe Getty
Yes. Watching the soccer.
- [15:11]
Jack Armstrong
The greatest rivalry in sports on earth, England v. Argentina.
- [15:15]
Joe Getty
Didn't know that.
- [15:16]
Jack Armstrong
Brief history.
- [15:17]
Joe Getty
They're playing tomorrow.
- [15:18]
Jack Armstrong
They've only played five games over 150 years. Here's the five games. A match so violent it prompted the invention of the red card.
- [15:30]
Joe Getty
Oh, really? Yeah.
- [15:31]
Jack Armstrong
That's England. Argentina. A goal so controversial it became known
- [15:35]
Joe Getty
as the hand of God.
- [15:37]
Jack Armstrong
That's when Maradona punched the ball into the net for the winning goal for the World cup. Back before there were replays. Oh, ref missed it looked like a header from his angle.
- [15:48]
Joe Getty
Oh, okay.
- [15:49]
Jack Armstrong
Even though it was clearly punched it in with his hand. A goal so sublime it became known as the goal of the century. Allegations of vile racism, endless chance about the Falkland Islands. Oh, that's a little uncomfortable. They fought a war. Margaret Thatcher. Anybody?
- [16:04]
Joe Getty
Falkland Islands are part of Argentina. I couldn't have told you that for a million dollars. Yeah.
- [16:09]
Jack Armstrong
Fought a war over the ejection of soccer icon David Beckham and an effigy of a player hanged outside a London pub. Yeah, yeah. Just. It's. Both countries are crazy about the. About the rivalry.
- [16:24]
Joe Getty
I didn't know, Beckham, who played for England, got kicked out of one of their matches. Wow.
- [16:32]
Caller or Guest
And.
- [16:33]
Joe Getty
And if you're kind of a casual ish fan, you've probably at least heard of Lionel Messi, considered maybe the greatest player of all time. And he plays for Argentina currently. He's an old man now, but he'll be playing tomorrow.
- [16:45]
Jack Armstrong
When the two sides met at London's Wembley Stadium in 1970, 1966, tempers frayed so quickly that Argentina captain Antonio Ratin was sent off after a series of vicious fouls. He refused to leave the pitch for eight minutes before ultimately taking a seat on the red carpet that had been exclusively reserved for the Queen. Wow. I didn't even get into the. The referee is a Jew and he fixed the game controversy.
- [17:10]
Joe Getty
Wow.
- [17:11]
Jack Armstrong
That's emerged in the wake of Argentina, Egypt.
- [17:15]
Joe Getty
I didn't know that.
- [17:16]
Jack Armstrong
More on that to come.
- [17:18]
Joe Getty
And a bunch of other stuff. If you miss, you get the podcast.
- [17:21]
Jack Armstrong
Armstrong and Getty.
- [17:24]
Joe Getty
The governor of New York just signed whatever you sign as governor, banning data centers existence in the state. First nations statewide ban of these AI data centers. That's wild.
- [17:41]
Jack Armstrong
Yeah, that's. Is that a thing?
- [17:44]
Joe Getty
I don't know that's even legal. And and then my other breaking news. Trump is one of the wackiest people who've ever lived, certainly the most powerful wacky person ever lived. There will no longer be a 20% toll on the Strait of Hormuz. Less than 24 hours after he imposed a 20% toll and sent the markets going in. Everybody talking and articles written here and there and.
- [18:07]
Jack Armstrong
Well, you got to write your articles fast. Yeah, I'll take care of that tomorrow, boss. No, no, write it today. Oh, boy. So I found this discouragingly believable. The match in the World cup between Argentina and Egypt was one for the ages. I've got it on the dvr. I haven't watched.
- [18:26]
Joe Getty
I'll watch the second half, probably that's arg, Egypt. And then the next one, who did they beat the most recently? That was really good, too. They fell behind early.
- [18:36]
Jack Armstrong
Yeah. Yeah.
- [18:37]
Joe Getty
Anyway, you got to watch that last 10 minutes. It's incredible.
- [18:41]
Jack Armstrong
Okay, will do. The thriller on the field was also a prelude to something much bigger and much darker. Within hours of the final whistle and anti Semitic conspiracy theory is born, the idea began galloping across the Internet that a cabal, including Benjamin Netanyahu, the Mossad, Lionel Messi, Argentine President Javier Milei, and the FIF had conspired to rig the game for the Argentine team. Now, Jack, there was Evidence. I'm just asking questions. All right? The evidence consisted of nothing more than photos of Messi posing with Israeli officials and praying at the Western Wall more than a decade ago, plus a few pictures of Milei with Netanyahu. Even among the conspiratorially minded, this was pretty thin stuff, writes Ashley Rinsberg.
- [19:26]
Joe Getty
I assume Messi is Catholic or he's not Jewish, is he?
- [19:32]
Jack Armstrong
Right, right. But what the theory lacked was a FIFA component, something that would link the nebulous Israel Argentina connection to the game itself. So just like that, one was invented. A baseless claim that the game's referee, Francois Lexitier Le Texier, was Jewish. Or all the signs of a classic digital influence operation, but subtly different. Just a handful of edits on Wikipedia leverage structural and chronic vulnerabilities in our information ecosystem to fabricate truth broad daylight. This guy's not Jewish at all. But the Internet believed he was for a while and this conspiracy theory went wild. Always the freaking Jews. I am so sorry, my Jewish friends. Anyway, it was bunk. Which brings us to utterly soulless evil grifter and prayer on the weak minded at Candace Owens, you can spend a
- [20:21]
Caller or Guest
billion dollars on influencers because this is all becoming increasingly inexplicable. You are asking me to be an idiot, actually, and I cannot do that for you. Someone once commented beneath this show that if the situations were reversed and there were this many verifiable lies that Charlie told regarding the murder or assassination of his wife, Charlie would be in prison awaiting trial. And I actually agree with that assessment. We are way beyond coincidence. This is now a full blown conspiracy.
- [20:56]
Jack Armstrong
So that's her grift now. And she's making lots and lots of money and it's absolutely evil. Mining gold from the corpse of her quote unquote friend and his grieving widow and little children with her bizarre ass theories. I found this super interesting. Michael Shermer wrote a book about conspiracy theories, cleverly titled where is It? Something like Conspiracy. Oh, Conspiracy. Why the Rational Believe the irrational in 2022. I don't think I bought that. I think I will though. And he starts with the Charlie Kirk thing. And how in the preliminary hearings about the. The evidentiary hearings for Tyler Robinson, the. The guy who shot Charlie Kirk in the throat.
- [21:45]
Joe Getty
Allegedly.
- [21:47]
Jack Armstrong
And also actually the evidence is overwhelming. For instance, for example, he confessed to the crime by text to his transgender roommate, both by text and then in person. His own parents recognized him from released images said that the rifle he used matched that of his grandfather. Robinson's DNA was found on the rifle's trigger, a spent cartridge casing, two unspent cartridges, and the towel used to wrap the rifle. Surveillance footage showed Robert Robinson jumping down from the rooftop where the fatal shot appeared to have been taken. And bullet cartridges recovered at the scene featured engravings made with a tool found in Robinson's bedroom, along with the shell casing, engraved test shot. And this is not even an exhaustive list.
- [22:29]
Joe Getty
No, because he had the testimony from the girlfriend, boyfriend, roommate about the engraving on the. Well, the confession. That's a good place to start. But then also that Robinson had done the engraving and he knew all about that.
- [22:43]
Jack Armstrong
Yeah, yeah. And. And he points out that this is not an exhaustive list. And you might assume that given all this, the vicious conspiracy theories sparked by Kirk's assassination, which have infected our society ever since, would have faded. But you would be wrong. Then he goes into some of the conspiracy theories. Turning Point usa. Erica Kirk in the Mossad and or Israel was involved in the murder. Primary purveyor of this conspiracy theory is the soulless Candace Owens. Or two, the CIA programmed Robinson as part of a mind control mission that also apparently roped in Charles Manson at one point or three, false flag, deep state, inside job, et cetera. Or four, staged hoax, psyop or fake death. All of these are kicking around the Internet. And Mr. Shermer believes that it all has to do with what we've discussed a couple of times already. Proportionality bias, a well documented concept in the study of conspiracy theories. It kicks in when there's an imbalance or mismatch between the size or importance of an event and that of its purported cause. And he points out the assassination of. Well, actually he points out first that the Holocaust was a giant horror perpetrated by a giant horrible regime. And so for most of history there haven't been conspiracy theories about that because there was congruence between the proportions. But like John F. Kennedy's assassination by a lone loser is way out of proportion. So it went crazy.
- [24:13]
Joe Getty
Yeah. And I suppose to a certain extent, the idea that 21 Saudis could take planes and bring down two biggest buildings in the whole country, that doesn't. That's not very proportional either.
- [24:25]
Jack Armstrong
Well done, sir. That's his key example that he's working his way toward. Jackie Kennedy, for example, upon learning that Oswald was the assassin, said of her husband, and I hadn't remember hearing this quote, quote, he didn't even have the satisfaction of being killed for civil rights. It had to be some silly little communist Princess Diana they mentioned. But consider 9 11. How could 19 guys with box cutters, you know, wonder nine, 11 truthers pull off the biggest terrorist attack in US history? There must. Must have been other forces at work. They insist an inside job by the Bush administration, etc. We've all heard the stories many times, but it's all about proportionality bias.
- [25:05]
Joe Getty
Yeah. I want to reread the one quote I got here from Alan Moore, who I don't really know, but you say he's a really, really big deal. As a writer, the main thing that I learned about conspiracy theory is that conspiracy theorists believe in a conspiracy because that is more comforting. The truth of the world. The truth of the world is that it's actually chaotic. The truth is far more frightening. Nobody's in control. The world is rudderless. Some people can't handle the fact that the world is rudderless.
- [25:34]
Jack Armstrong
I loved your Lindsey Graham illustration of that point.
- [25:39]
Joe Getty
But that was good. I have no memory of it.
- [25:41]
Jack Armstrong
No, he said it's. It's. It's less. Less scary to believe. Go ahead.
- [25:46]
Joe Getty
Yeah, yeah. It's way better to believe the Russians killed Lindsey Graham than the idea that your aorta could blow up today just out of nowhere like Lindsey Graham's did.
- [25:58]
Jack Armstrong
It's a thousand to one on the scary meter.
- [26:01]
Joe Getty
Yeah.
- [26:02]
Jack Armstrong
David Harsanyi in the New York Post talking about the same thing, and he says there is no way, given what has become clear in court, that anybody could doubt that this guy was the killer. And like Candace Owens, and I almost hate to even mention her, although she has such a giant platform. It doesn't matter. She's claiming there's no way he was shot with a.30 06 rifle.30 06 rifle bullet. More likely he was killed by an exploding microphone or some other device, you know, that was wielded by some silent assassin in the front row or whatever.
- [26:45]
Joe Getty
So the original guy who was doing the Q stuff, QAnon stuff that he had, the website, and he is. What was he claiming? I. I work in the CIA, and I know all this stuff.
- [27:01]
Jack Armstrong
Yeah. Really deep in intelligence. Yeah.
- [27:03]
Joe Getty
He was just jerking people around for his own amusement. I get that. And then at some point, when he realized, you know, people are getting hurt or killed or this is causing trouble, he came forward and said, yeah, I was just jerking people around. Yeah, this is a bunch of crap I don't understand.
- [27:19]
Jack Armstrong
But those who profit in that, it's worth mentioning. Explain that away as. Yeah, right. Come on.
- [27:26]
Joe Getty
See, but I get him because I like jerking people around, too. It's fun. But at the point that you got some grieving widow crying and her little kids because people, they have to have. They've had to move because there are death threats because they think she works for the Jews, then it's not so fun anymore.
- [27:48]
Jack Armstrong
So I mean, you've got to be evil to perpetuate it.
- [27:51]
Joe Getty
You got to be full on evil
- [27:53]
Jack Armstrong
to effing evil for cash. Yeah, it's incredible. I agree completely. I'd like this from Harsanyi to wrap up the conversation. Sure, some genuinely naive listeners may have been gulled into falling for Owens manic nonsense, and sure, the trial might suck some of the macabre entertainment out of the case. But conspiracists often under the impression of just asking questions is a virtue in and of itself. They rarely get the facts in the way. A conspiracy theory is a never ending string of half truths threaded together with to create a narrative that's impossible to disprove. And conspiracy theories only grow with every denial. And when they can no longer grow, the conspiracist just moves on to the next enticing topic.
- [28:42]
Joe Getty
Yeah, so what is going on with why for most of us, can we just accept that the world is random and chaotic and sometimes one nut job can change world history?
- [28:56]
Jack Armstrong
Oh gosh, I don't know. I don't know. I had a conversation with one of my kids the other day about anxiety and anxiety medications and how widespread it is and what it is in the world and that sort of thing. And I made the remark I've made many times. I'm I'm pleasantly surprised when people's minds work correctly, including my own. Why some people have that weakness, I don't know. I don't know. I don't want to judge them because I find it more satisfying or I would prefer to be able to help them straighten them out. Although if they're too far down that road, I think they're too far gone. But Harsanyi finally writes, until the rest of us forcefully stigmatize, mock and explicitly reject the people who spread this garbage. Garbage, they will persist. Consider them stigmatized. Mocks didn't reject, mocked and rejected around here.
- [29:54]
Joe Getty
Well, if you like, in your personal life, though I don't mean the radio show. In your personal life, if you confront somebody on this stuff, do they just do you straighten them out or did they just cut you off?
- [30:04]
Jack Armstrong
Oh, it's so hard. Yeah, well, number one, that's likely. And number two, as David Harsanyi put it, it's a string of half truths that Are impossible.
- [30:12]
Joe Getty
Yeah.
- [30:12]
Jack Armstrong
To falsify.
- [30:14]
Guest or Contributor
Right.
- [30:14]
Joe Getty
Yeah.
- [30:17]
Jack Armstrong
He was married to the daughter of this company whose cfo.
- [30:22]
Joe Getty
That's what Tucker does.
- [30:23]
Jack Armstrong
He's the best.
- [30:25]
Joe Getty
He is the best at that.
- [30:27]
Jack Armstrong
Is that a coincidence?
- [30:30]
Joe Getty
And what company did his dad work for? Halliburton.
- [30:34]
Jack Armstrong
Right.
- [30:35]
Joe Getty
You know, that sort of thing. Okay, Right.
- [30:38]
Jack Armstrong
How do you falsify?
- [30:39]
Joe Getty
You can't. Which is what they got going for him.
- [30:42]
Jack Armstrong
The referee isn't Jewish. And even if he were, it wouldn't matter. Sweet mother of God, people. Oh my God.
- [30:49]
Joe Getty
We will finish strong.
- [30:50]
Jack Armstrong
Next, Armstrong and Getty.
- [30:59]
Joe Getty
Are you familiar with the hottest summer trend? The Hot Girl Walk. If you're not, you'll learn about it in the One More Thing podcast, which is not part of the radio show. It's a separate thing. We do look for it at Armstrong and Getty on demand.
- [31:13]
Jack Armstrong
Does everything need a name?
- [31:15]
Joe Getty
Of course it does. The Hot Girl Walk.
- [31:17]
Jack Armstrong
Yeah. Right. So one final note on the conspiracy theory thing, which I find fascinating. I had heard about this story, but I'd forgotten that psychologist Leon Festinger coined the term cognitive dissonance. Okay, dissonance, rather cognitive dissonance, discovered in the 1950s. He was studying a doomsday UFO culture that believed that on December 21, 1954, a great flood would be unleashed upon the Midwest. Cult members believed that they should avoid the effects by going to a mountaintop to await a mothership that would arrive just in time to whisk them away to safety.
- [31:51]
Joe Getty
Did that happen?
- [31:53]
Jack Armstrong
So. Yes, it did. So wait, I misread it? No, it didn't. So Festinger is studying this group and he and his colleagues joined the group with the intention of recording their reactions when the world did not end and no flood was in sight. But when all of that happened, the doomsdayers did not recant their beliefs. Rather they doubled down and re upped their evangelizing, rationalizing their apocalyptic error with familiar excuses. For instance, they had miscalculated the doomsday date. The date was not a warning. The date was a warning, not a prophecy. Predictions were a test of members faith. The prophecy was fulfilled physically, but not as expected. Or the prophecy was fulfilled spiritually but not physically. Physically. And he ended up writing a book when prophecy fails. And one of his students wrote a 2007 book, this fairly famous, documenting thousands of experiments in which people repeatedly spin doctored facts to fit their preconceived beliefs. Because humans go to great lengths to avoid reasons to question their deep certainties.
- [33:00]
Joe Getty
Now, I always assume everything has an evolutionary reason, so I wonder what that is. Wonder why we developed that way.
- [33:12]
Jack Armstrong
Probably primitive man. Our only deep certainties were about don't mess with a bear and fire hurts if you sit in it. And and you wanted. That's bedrock knowledge and you can't lose it.
- [33:28]
Joe Getty
Maybe, I don't know.
- [33:29]
Jack Armstrong
Or
- [33:32]
Joe Getty
various beliefs about the world have always exist and we all have to believe them together for cohesiveness of our tribe. I don't know.
- [33:42]
Jack Armstrong
So. So when OG the caveman gets gored by a mastodon or flipped in the air, does Oog the the caveman go around saying, oh, you believe it was just a straight on mastodon Goring? You're a fool.
- [33:56]
Guest or Contributor
Right?
- [33:57]
Jack Armstrong
It was the Jews.
- [33:59]
Joe Getty
Good question. It's Final Thoughts, boys.
- [34:04]
Jack Armstrong
That I'll do, boys. Soon we'll hear your comments. Oh my.
- [34:12]
Joe Getty
Entertain us, give us closure.
- [34:16]
Guest or Contributor
Elliot.
- [34:17]
Jack Armstrong
For the show is nearly done. Oh, that's so good.
- [34:23]
Joe Getty
Here's your host for Final Thoughts, Joe Getty.
- [34:25]
Jack Armstrong
Let's get a final thought to wrap up the show for the day. There he is, pressing the buttons in the control room. Michelangelo, Michael, what's your final thought? Yeah, if you're a parent, teach your kids to read and write, but also as a little kid, teach them capitalism versus socialism. There you go. Or call it the free market freedom, economic freedom. Jack, final thought?
- [34:44]
Joe Getty
Yes, we are going to talk about the hot girl walk, among other things in the One More Thing podcast, which we should promote more often because it's really good and you don't hear it unless you look for it. Wherever podcasts are found, the One More Thing podcast.
- [34:58]
Jack Armstrong
Or if you subscribe to the One Man One More Thing podcast, it automatically downloads for you. That's right, the Armstrong and Yeti on demand. You get One More Thing Automatically. I have decided I'm rooting for Argentina because I really prefer Javier Milei and the reforms he's instituting to the crappy, crappy British government.
- [35:18]
Joe Getty
I'm on board with that and I'd like to see Messi move on his final World cup. Five foot seven, little Messier, Messi, Messi. Going up against all those great big giants somehow.
- [35:35]
Jack Armstrong
Quick as a cat.
- [35:36]
Joe Getty
Yeah. Armstrong. Armstrong and Getty are wrapping up another grueling four hour workday.
- [35:41]
Jack Armstrong
Clever as a devil, sly as a fox. Thanks A little time. What? Go to armstrongandgetty.com subscribe to the podcast.
- [35:51]
Joe Getty
Drop us a note.
- [35:52]
Jack Armstrong
Mailbagarmstrongygetty.com what do you know about all this stuff? Come on, you're smart.
- [35:56]
Joe Getty
Share your wisdom.
- [35:57]
Jack Armstrong
Mailbagand armstrong. Getty.com oh and pick up some swag. We got got some great new T shirts.
- [36:02]
Joe Getty
We will see you tomorrow. God Bless America.
- [36:08]
Jack Armstrong
Armstrong and Getty Part of our thesis
- [36:11]
Joe Getty
here is that people do not want their candidates grown in bats.
- [36:14]
Jack Armstrong
Armstrong and Getty they're not grown in vats. They don't sound like cartoon porcupines. Jack and Joe they're real human beings and they do a podcast. If you listen, you'll have no regrets. Armstrong and Getty on demand who are real human beings. Armstrong and Getty this is Tony Ayo
- [36:39]
Tony Ayo
from the Real Report with Tony Ayo and Uncle Murder. You ever notice how everything keeps going up? Rent, streaming, even extra Sosa at your favorite burrito spot? But with Boost Mobile, you don't have to play the Willis Go up soon game. Boost Mobile offers an unlimited talk, text and data plan at a price that'll never go up. It's the same price you'll pay for Life. Switch now for unlimited wireless at a price that'll never go up. Only at boost mobile. After 30 gigabytes, customers may experience slower speeds. Customers will pay $25 a month as long as they remain active on the Boost Unlimited plan.
- [37:09]
Caller or Guest
To some, a baby's babbling doesn't mean much. But it does, especially if there's no babbling at all. Little to no babbling by 12 months or later is just one of the possible signs of autism in children. Learn more@autismspeaks.org brought to you by Autism Speaks and the Ad Council.