Your Capacity To Be Continuously Surprised Makes You So Charming

Summary

Podcast Summary: Armstrong & Getty On Demand

Episode: Your Capacity To Be Continuously Surprised Makes You So Charming
Date: January 12, 2026
Host: Armstrong & Getty (Jack Armstrong & Joe Getty)
Produced by: iHeartPodcasts

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Episode Overview

This episode centers on the amplified rhetoric surrounding immigration enforcement in the U.S., specifically the fallout from a recent Minneapolis ICE shooting, the resulting protests, and the political and psychological ramifications. The hosts critically analyze public and political discourse, the role of media narratives, polarization, the state of American liberalism—especially among young, affluent white women—and digress into lighter topics like Dry January, the Golden Globes, and the legacy of the Grateful Dead following Bob Weir's death. Throughout, Armstrong and Getty maintain their trademark mix of sharp critique, sarcasm, personal anecdotes, and cultural commentary.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Dangerous Rhetoric & Political Polarization

• Historical Analogy: Jack draws a parallel between contemporary political rhetoric and the era surrounding President Garfield’s assassination, highlighting how "hot rhetoric" can lead disturbed individuals to violent acts.

  "You’re putting the thoughts into the heads of crazy people that they are justified in very, very violent or awful behavior." — Jack Armstrong (00:28)

• Current Example: Discussion centers on Philadelphia Sheriff Rochelle Bilal's harsh anti-ICE statements and their potential to incite dangerous confrontations between local and federal law enforcement.
  • Rochelle Bilal's statement referring to ICE as "Trump’s new army" and "made-up fake wannabe law enforcement" prompts concern.

  “No law enforcement professional wears a mask. None. None. ... You don’t want this smoke.” — Rochelle Bilal (03:25)

  • ICE Director Todd Lyons responds forcefully:

  "You can't pit a local law enforcement officer against a federal law enforcement officer. ... My message to the sheriff is try it. Try arrest my folks. Let's see what happens." — Todd Lyons (05:43)

2. Media Narratives & Public Perception

• Narrative Framing: Hosts express frustration with selective media coverage that shapes perceptions and may prolong outrage or misconceptions regarding law enforcement justification.

  "As if they're picking their facts to fit their narrative. My God." — Joe Getty (09:15)

• Surprise at the Persistence of Outrage:

  "It’s your capacity to be continually surprised that makes you so charming." — Joe Getty (09:41)

3. American Political Attitudes & Polls

• ICE Approval & Public Support: Noting that support for ICE’s handling of immigration is low (around 25%), with much media attention casting ICE in a negative light.
• Escalation of Protest Tactics: Citing a new poll indicating 24% of Americans agree with using violence to stop federal immigration enforcement—rising to 61% among liberal white women ages 18-44.

  "61% think it’s acceptable to use illegal and violent activity to stop ICE from enforcing immigration law." — Joe Getty (22:13)

• Sociopolitical Diagnosis:
  • The hosts analyze possible causes, focusing on the intersections of gender, ideology, psychological well-being, and lack of fulfillment among young liberal white women.

4. Catastrophization & Miserable Identity Politics

• Matthew Yglesias Analysis: Quoting at length, the hosts echo his view that left-leaning individuals, especially young white liberal women, are particularly vulnerable to a psychological pattern of catastrophizing, which is associated with depression.

  “Mentally processing ambiguous events with negative spin is just what depression is... Stop encouraging people to catastrophize." — Quoting Matthew Yglesias via Joe Getty (26:05)

• Consequences: Discussing how "victim mindset" and feelings of powerlessness are cultivated for political purposes but lead to chronic misery and societal fragmentation.

  "People who feel like they are the chief architects of their own life ... are vastly better off than people whose default position is victimization." — Quoted article via Joe Getty (29:23)

5. Lifestyle, Self-Control & Well-being

• Dry January & Personal Discipline: Jack and Joe discuss the challenges of abstaining from alcohol and desserts—relating self-awareness and “self-coaching” to life decisions.

  "You’ve got to look at yourself like a coach looks at a player and just separate from yourself...if you send yourself into situations where it’s difficult to not drink, just be realistic." — Joe Getty (12:47)

6. Critique of Contemporary Political Discourse

• Media Labels & Wokeness: The hosts lament the trend of labeling every piece of pop culture as either "woke" or a "reactionary Trump thing," noting how it sours initial impressions.

  "That whole thing is so annoying ... any movie TV show album or whatever, somebody deems it a ... This is woke or whatever. And then I’ve already got that in my head ..." — Jack Armstrong (15:24)

7. The End of Mass Literacy & Book Reading

• Cultural Shift: A sobering reflection on the decline of widespread book reading, with Jack noting mass book literacy's brief historical window (roughly 300 years).

  "The age of literacy is coming to an end... it only lasted 300 years." — Jack Armstrong (35:04)

  • Joe tries to differentiate between book reading and basic literacy.

8. Notable Miscellanea

• Golden Globes: Brief mention of the Golden Globes, Nikki Glazier’s comedy, and more light-hearted banter about showbiz.
• Grateful Dead Tribute: Tribute to the recently deceased Bob Weir, exploring his career, legacy, and the financial reality of classic rock bands in their later years.

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Memorable Quotes & Moments with Timestamps

• On Historical Rhetoric & Modern Parallels:

  "We put these thoughts in his head with our hot rhetoric. I thought that was pretty interesting given our current times." — Jack Armstrong (00:28)

• Sheriff's Rhetoric and Response:

  “You don’t want this smoke.” — Rochelle Bilal (04:24)
  "Try arrest my folks. Let's see what happens." — Todd Lyons (05:43)

• Media Narratives:

  “As if they're picking their facts to fit their narrative. My God.” — Joe Getty (09:15)
  “It’s your capacity to be continually surprised that makes you so charming.” — Joe Getty (09:41)

• On Left-Liberal Women’s Survey Data:

  "61% think it’s acceptable to use illegal and violent activity to stop ICE from enforcing immigration law." — Joe Getty (22:13)

• On Catastrophizing:

  "Stop encouraging people to catastrophize." — (Quoting Matthew Yglesias via Joe Getty) (26:05)

• Personal Anecdote:

  "I’m really good at not drinking and I’m really good at drinking. You know what I’m not really good at? Drinking a little." — Joe Getty (12:48)

• On Book Reading's Decline:

  "The age of literacy is coming to an end ... clearly as a species." — Jack Armstrong (36:24)

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Listener Takeaways

• Rhetoric matters: Hyperbolic, inflammatory political speech can have serious, real-world consequences—both historically and in the present.
• Media framing: Selective reporting and focus can foster misunderstanding, polarization, and persistent outrage.
• Polarization and Identity: Modern American political and cultural discourse increasingly fractures by subgroup, with young liberal white women standing out in attitudes toward law enforcement and protest tactics.
• The psychology of activism: Being perpetually convinced catastrophe looms is both an unhealthy mental state and a political tool; breaking the cycle of negativity is hard but important.
• Personal growth: Self-awareness about strengths and weaknesses enables better decisions; “all or nothing” approaches to self-discipline can be both helpful and limiting.
• Cultural change: The hosts worry about the decline in book reading and deeper forms of literacy, seeing it as a sign of cultural shallowness.

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Segment Timestamps

• [00:28] – Historical lens on political rhetoric and Garfield’s assassination
• [03:08] – Rochelle Bilal’s statement and responses by ICE and local police
• [05:43] – ICE Director Todd Lyons issues a direct challenge
• [09:41] – Discussion of repetitive surprise in media and outrage
• [12:12] – Personal discipline, Dry January, and self-coaching
• [15:22] – Golden Globes, "woke" culture in media, & review skepticism
• [17:13] – European vs. American use of force by government, media narratives
• [18:54] – “Awfuls” explanation, affluent white liberal women and violence tolerance stats
• [26:05] – Matthew Yglesias on catastrophizing and liberal misery
• [35:04] – Mass literacy, book reading in decline
• [36:19] – Reflection on end of reading culture and the inability to reverse trends

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In summary: This episode offers a lively, skeptical, and at times scathing look at the current American cultural and political landscape, focusing on rhetoric, protest, polarization, and the fading depth of discourse—even as they poke fun at themselves and pop culture along the way.

Transcript

[Jack Armstrong]

This is an iHeart podcast, Guaranteed Human.

[Joe Getty]

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.

[Jack Armstrong]

My son and I finished the Netflix mini series Death by Lightning, about the assassination of James Garfield, which is way more entertaining than you might guess if you just heard that description. But one of the things that happens after President Garfield is assassinated or shot before he dies is the vice president who had been involved, Chester A. Arthur, who involved in. With some other scumbags and some really, really hot rhetoric about the president, was feeling super guilty that their hot rhetoric about, you know, the equivalent of calling Garfield a Nazi today led to him being shot. And then the argument was, well, no, he was a crazy person that shot him. Yeah. But we put these thoughts in his head with our hot rhetoric. I thought that was pretty interesting given our current times. And a lot of the things that politicians say now where you're putting the thoughts into the heads of crazy people that they are justified in very, very violent or awful behav.

[Joe Getty]

Right, right. I.

[Jack Armstrong]

And if you're gonna go around calling ICE officers Nazis, some people are gonna, you know, take that seriously.

[Joe Getty]

Right. And worse, just never ending descriptions of them as illegitimate, fake police, masked, violent, ignoring the law, that sort of thing. I listened to a absolutely terrific history podcast not long ago. I think you may have too, Jack, but they're talking about how in the 1930s, one of the things that the actual Nazis were able to do is whip up the German people, about the Germans in the Sudetenland in what was then Czechoslovakia, and their horrible, horrible treatment, which was really just fine. And nobody ever thought about it much. There were other groups in Czechoslovakia at the time that were treated worse, and just nobody really. It wasn't an issue. But the political leadership said to the newspapers, no, this is the issue. You'll write about it all the time.

[Jack Armstrong]

You.

[Joe Getty]

You'll tell the heartrending stories. You will whip the people up into hatred for the Czechs because of the way they treat our fellow German speakers. And sure enough, turned into a huge issue and a pretext to launch a world. A war, which turned into a world war. So it works.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah. And you could be completely against Trump's policies regarding booting out illegals and ICE enforcement and all that sort of stuff, and come way short of calling them Nazis and a lot of the things other people are saying, including people in positions of power, which is what we're leading up to here.

[Joe Getty]

Yeah, indeed. The sheriff Of Philadelphia, one Rochelle Bilal made a statement on Friday. I think it was that we played at the time. And it's one of the most extraordinary things I've ever heard any law enforcement officer say, not practically any human being say. Let's hear it, Michael.

[Rochelle Bilal]

This should not have happened. But we're here today. Let know that law enforcement professionals, real ones, not the fake made up ice, probably Trump's new army to attack citizens of the United States. Did you hear what I said? No law enforcement professional wears a mask. None. None. And so we stand here today with all those who stand against the made up fake, what you can call ice, professional law enforcement. I don't call them none of that. I call them made up fake wannabe law enforcement. Because what they do is against not only legal law, but the moral law. If any of them want to come in this city and commit a crime, you would not be able to hide. Nobody will wish you off. You don't want this smoke.

[Joe Getty]

Because we.

[Rochelle Bilal]

Will bring it to you.

[Joe Getty]

Well, first of all, she went heavy on no real law enforcement wears masks. Nobody. Nobody. On the front page of her own website, there are several cops, including one wearing a mask. So.

[Jack Armstrong]

But what's the whole fake made up Again, you can be as against this policy as you want to be, but we, we have something called Immigration Customs Enforcement. We have many, many illegals in this country. We need to figure out how to deal it. We have laws.

[Joe Getty]

It's not. Yeah, and they have fake made up organization.

[Jack Armstrong]

It's existed, I don't remember how long, but a long time.

[Joe Getty]

Well, and they have, while they have a limited jurisdiction, they absolutely have Federal policing power, 100%. What are you talking about? Of course she doesn't know what she's talking about. She's just whipping up her uneducated acolytes into, you know, fervor. Because that's useful politically, but a moron. For what it's worth, the Philly Police Department, in contrast to the sheriff's department, said she's not in charge of municipal policing. And the city's police officers would continue to work in conjunction with other law enforcement officers moving forward.

[Jack Armstrong]

Well, there's a grown up.

[Joe Getty]

Yeah, here's another one. ICE Director Todd Lyons, responding to the Philly sheriff's threat to arrest if they came to town.

[Todd Lyons]

This increased rhetoric is what's causing the issues right now. You can't pit a local law enforcement officer against a federal law enforcement officer. We are out there trying to do a lawful law enforcement mission. And this rhetoric right here Is pure example of what we're facing every day. And, you know, I'm not one for, like, big, you know, banter or bluster, but my message to the sheriff is try it. Try arrest my folks. Let's see what happens.

[Jack Armstrong]

Oh, boy. Oh, boy. We don't want that.

[Joe Getty]

No, no. What is he saying? We're not gonna get it. She's just mouthing off. What an idiot.

[Rochelle Bilal]

Did you hear what I said?

[Jack Armstrong]

But what is he suggesting? That ice. What should they get into a gun fight if somebody tries to arrest him?

[Joe Getty]

I don't know what's supposed to happen. The Great Philadelphia skirmish. It'll be known as. No, it's. It's never gonna happen.

[Rochelle Bilal]

You don't want this smoke.

[Joe Getty]

All right.

[Jack Armstrong]

So there are a thousand more Border Patrol agents that are going to be sent to Minneapolis. A lot of the protests are about our immigration policy. I mean, the one that I saw in my town yesterday, I was looking at the signs. It's basically that we shouldn't enforce our immigration policy. Which is fine. You get to have that opinion. But it's interesting. That so. Well, I guess that's what you believed all along. And then this woman getting shot in the head gave you more.

[Joe Getty]

Somehow connect the. In your mind. Excessive use of force as just a further illustration of how brutal and wrong it all is. These people never spell it out. They just shout emotionally. So it's difficult to figure what their process, their thought process is.

[Jack Armstrong]

If your policy is all the illegals should stay, that's nuts.

[Joe Getty]

That say so, though.

[Jack Armstrong]

Nutso policy. Yeah, that you should just say it out loud.

[Joe Getty]

Yeah.

[Jack Armstrong]

And then there are the people that. This is not polling well. By the way, I saw the most recent poll. Only, like 25% of Americans approve of the way ICE is doing as a business right now. Of course, you know, it doesn't help that the media is almost 100% in on making it look as awful as possible. But.

[Joe Getty]

Well, and Donald J. Is. He confronts confrontation with higher confrontation. That's really his one play in the playbook. And so you have. God forgive me for the cliche, a perfect storm of. You have the lefty activists, love the ratcheting up. You have Donald Jay, who just. He's like a pig and slop. And then you have the media, which is so excited to have blood, blood and violence to show on the tv.

[Jack Armstrong]

So right when we got off the air on Friday, the body cam video or whatever, cell phone cam video, whatever the video came out from, officer that was standing in front of her car came out. And I thought, oh, okay, this is the end of it then we'll. We'll stop talking about the. Well, at least we'll stop talking about the. Whether he was justified or not. I thought he was going to be run over everything. I thought that video ended that conversation, but it did not. I was still watching over the weekend and all your media outlets still only show that one video that from the very first video that came out. That's a lot more confusing and, and you know, you could. If somebody.

[Joe Getty]

As if they're picking their facts to fit their narrative. My God.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah, it's.

[Joe Getty]

It's utterly unsurprising, frankly.

[Jack Armstrong]

Well, I was kind of surprised. I thought that video that came out Friday. I thought, okay, this is the end of it. We had three days of this and now it's over. But man, it. I haven't actually haven't seen that video since I watched it on my phone Friday morning. I don't think I've seen it on any news site. It's your capacity that.

[Joe Getty]

It's capacity to be continually surprised that makes you so charming. Yeah. Why are white liberal women so damned crazy? There's a new poll out that will convince you it's true. Plus need to talk about and I don't. Where is that number I had in front of me just a second ago? There was something like 2000, 2000 ICE arrests of illegals during the Obama administration. It's either two or six and I can't find it. But anyway, it was, you know, in the single thousands and nobody seemed to care. Anyway, on a totally different topic, the. Even the idiot sheriff of Philadelphia would agree with this. When it comes to home security, you want to feel like you picked a system that actually keeps trouble away, not one that just tells you something bad just happened. That's why we love Simplisafe home security. It's not just another alarm. It's designed to help stop crime before it starts.

[Jack Armstrong]

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[Joe Getty]

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[Jack Armstrong]

Safe. I very nearly ate a piece of apple pie on Saturday night, I.

[Joe Getty]

Think. Oh, that's.

[Jack Armstrong]

Right. I was in a. I was in a situation where somebody who, who had gone out of their way to get a piece of apple pie for me, knowing how much I like apple pie, having heard me talk about it, and. Oh, and I thought, oh, boy, I don't. I shouldn't hurt their feelings. And it's just one piece of pie. It's not like I have to go back to eating desserts. What difference does it make? The whole zero tolerance is kind of dumb. I mean, I was making all the.

[Joe Getty]

Justifications. Totally get.

[Jack Armstrong]

You. Which for a normal person, though, they aren't stupid justifications. You should be able to drink the one day if it's your, you know, your daughter's wedding on dry January, then go back to it. I mean, there's no law involved here. It's the letter of the law.

[Joe Getty]

Versus the spirit of.

[Jack Armstrong]

Law. The spirit of the law is to drink less in January. The spirit of my resolution is to eat as few desserts as.

[Joe Getty]

Possible. Well, right. Indeed. Yeah, I agree with you.

[Jack Armstrong]

Completely. But I'm an all or nothing, nothing person. And I know from working out and eating in all kinds of different things, I break the seal, it's over. I did not eat the.

[Joe Getty]

Pie. Yeah, I actually had a couple of drinks Saturday night because my daughter was going back to law school and she want to have a cocktail to sell. We did. Now I'm back on the wagon, helped by the fact that I got the flu shot on Saturday and felt like I have the flu for the last day and a half or so. Although the Tylenol knocks it back, it's.

[Jack Armstrong]

Fine. The flu shot made you feel.

[Joe Getty]

Bad? Yeah, yeah. I just had the. I've mounted an immune reaction, Jack, and I feel kind of flu y. But it'll be fine. But I was thinking, I was joking with a buddy of mine, we were playing golf, and I said, you know, I'm really good at not drinking and I'm really good at drinking. You know what I'm not really good at drinking a little. And, and, and then I started thinking about it. It's funny, maybe it's because I was watching so much football, but I thought, you've got to look at yourself like a coach looks at a player and just separate from yourself and say to yourself, all right, this player is really good at this. They're not terribly good at that. I can't send them into a situation over and over again where I'm asking them to do something they're bad at. That's bad coaching and it's bad self coaching. You know what I.

[Jack Armstrong]

Mean? If you send yourself into situations where it's difficult to not drink, just.

[Joe Getty]

Be realistic about your strengths and weaknesses and coach yourself accordingly because you go to a lot of frat. Stop.

[Jack Armstrong]

Pretending. I know you're a big frat party.

[Joe Getty]

Guy. I do. I still hang around my alma mater. I hit on the girls and try to hang around the fellows and use their.

[Jack Armstrong]

Lingo. Jam band, mosh pits. You spend a lot of time there. Another place. Difficult to not.

[Joe Getty]

Drink. I do love.

[Jack Armstrong]

Mama. We'll get to some of those things. Joe mentioned some football highlights, among other things on the.

[Joe Getty]

Way. Armstrong and.

[Guest or Correspondent]

Getty. Timothy Chalamet is here for Marty.

[Todd Lyons]

Supreme. This is.

[Guest or Correspondent]

Interesting. Not a lot of people know this, but Timothee Chalamet is the first actor in history to have to put on muscle for a movie about ping pong. This is true. He gained over 60 ounces. It's insane. And lastly, Steve Martin and Martin Short keep proving to us that in this industry you are never ever too old to still need.

[Jack Armstrong]

Money. Nikki Glazier is a comedian who is famous for those roasts that they have on Comedy Central where they say awful, awful things about each other. Really good at that sort of thing. So that was a toned down version of her for go the Golden Globes last night in which one of the big winners was a movie called One Battle after another, which I was excited about when I read summer reviews, got a lot of big stars in it. And then I read some review about how it's incredibly woke and it's a lecture and I. That's either true and I'd be annoyed or it's completely not true because some people are as likely to see liberal bias where it isn't as they are to out awoke film. So I, I don't know. I'd have to watch it, I guess to make up my own.

[Joe Getty]

Mind. Yeah.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah. That whole, that whole thing is so annoying at this point where any movie TV show album or whatever. Somebody deems it a. This is just a back trump or this is woke or whatever it is. And then I've already got that in my head when I listen to.

[Joe Getty]

It. I've kind of gotten into only reading the first paragraph of reviews, and that's probably for that sort of thing. Katie, were you going to say.

[Jack Armstrong]

Something? Yeah, I think Jack.

[Joe Getty]

Should. Should tough it out and see it because we need. We need a.

[Jack Armstrong]

Review. Yeah, I will watch.

[Joe Getty]

It.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah. Supposed to be really, really good. The ping pong movie that Shalom won for sounds really good to me too. I'd like to put on muscle for a ping pong movie that's pretty.

[Joe Getty]

Funny. It's a movie about America, Jack, and Americans and optimism and opportunity and.

[Jack Armstrong]

Something. So I wasn't planning to go here, but I guess I will. So somebody had tweeted out. And this is. This is an online argument, but it's the sort of argument that's being had. Somebody I don't know I've never heard of tweeted this out some. There's somebody from Europe. Maybe I'm too much of a European, but I honestly can't understand how so many Americans find it perfectly natural to be shot in the head on the spot for the slightest act of disobedience toward any sort of law enforcement. You might want to revisit that land of the free thing. David Harsani, who I really, really like on Twitter, responded to that with this. And I thought it was really interesting. Whatever you think of the legality of the ice shooting, nothing close to this has ever been true in the United States. That is shooting you in the head for the slightest act of disobedience. That has never been true in our nation's history. Whereas he points out, in Europe, on the other hand, it has been true in virtually every country at some point in their history. Which is.

[Joe Getty]

True.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah. At some point in France, in Germany, in lots of places in Europe, you would get shot in the head by your own government for the slightest disobedience. So take it down a notch. But the fact that it's being portrayed that way, what happened last week to that poor, to me, crazy woman in Minneapolis is just. It's not good. It's not good. There are so many high school and college kids are being told this and are gonna go through their lives thinking that that's their relationship with the.

[Joe Getty]

Government. Yeah. I don't think she was crazy. I think she was naive and excited and caught up in LARPing as we were Discussing. But you know, it's funny, I look at this argument slash discuss, I find that the, the percentage of people who are persuadables is very, very small.

[Jack Armstrong]

Man, no doubt, as.

[Joe Getty]

Usual. So it kind of takes the fun out of discussing it at least. You know, you're certainly not going to convince anybody of.

[Jack Armstrong]

Anything. That's why are every.

[Joe Getty]

Issue. What are awfuls? It's a demographic group in America and they're having a lot of.

Effect. Stay with us, Awful Armstrong and.

[News Reporter]

Gettys. We continue to see clashes between federal officers and protesters following that deadly shooting involving ICE officer Jonathan Ross. And at this ICE facility in Minneapolis overnight, we saw federal officers warn protesters to disperse, giving them a final warning and to stop prohibiting the exit of the ICE facility. Officers deployed several rounds of flashbangs, pepper spray, bullets and tear gas into a crowd of protesters on Sunday night. Multiple people were arrested throughout the day as protesters at times blocked.

[Joe Getty]

Traffic. So the chaos continuing in Minneapolis, which is always ready for a good riot slash demonstration. It's a very lefty city, but that sort of thing repeated around the country. People of a certain political bent are a little crazy about the shooting the other day and just ICE in general doing what it does. I mean, they were already demonstrating and breaking stuff and setting fires in various towns around America. Now it's kind of been intensified. So what are awfuls? This is actually some pretty good writing. I'll read you a little bit of it, but it's a reference to affluent white liberal women. Affluent white female liberals, I think. Awfuls. Yeah, awfls. And this one guy wrote an article pegging them as the biggest internal threat to America. Not foreign enemies, not terrorist cells, just well off women with pronouns in their bios and too much time on their hands. He, Kevin Dowd Downey describes them as attention seeking harpies who push extreme gender ideology, drag their kids to medicalized gender clinics, and parade them at sexualized drag shows labeled as family friendly. These are the same people, he argued, who want to defund the police, defend criminals no matter how violent or foreign, and censor anyone who steps out of line with their diversity and inclusion gospel. And you know, that's a little strong, but there's a lot of truth to it. And when you dig into these statistics and you know, I actually, I've got a fair amount of enthusiasm for mocking these people and berating them, I would enjoy it, but I don't want that to cloud how interesting all of this is. If you're just to look at it as a sociologist or political Scientist. And here's what I'm talking about, Jack. Big new poll out says 24% of Americans overall think criminal action, including violence, is acceptable to stop Federal Immigration Enforcement.

[Jack Armstrong]

24%? That's way too.

[Joe Getty]

High. It is way too high. It's not a big number per se. It's. It's troubling though, that it's that.

[Jack Armstrong]

High. How many of them who are saying that would actually do it? I don't know, but the fact that that many would even say that they would do it is really.

[Joe Getty]

Troubling. Oh, right, exactly. But let's break those numbers down and then you get into the holy crap territory. So, broader picture shows most Americans reject this craziness. Obviously, nearly 70% disagree with using illegal or violent tactics against ice. Opposition runs especially deep among, among Republicans who are around 80% opposition. Democrats are the only major group where there is significant approval. But even so, a majority still disagrees at 57%. Independents are just behind. Republicans at 72%. Opposed. Conservatives self described. Conservatives reject the radical fringe at numbers above 80%. And even moderates opposed it by wide margins. Liberals obviously show the most tolerance, but even among them, disagreement still outweighs agreement. But drill down to white women who describe themselves as liberal between age 18 and 44 and that number explodes to.

[Jack Armstrong]

61%.

[Joe Getty]

Wow. 61% think it's acceptable to use illegal and violent activity to stop ICE from enforcing immigration law. Wow. 6 in.

[Jack Armstrong]

10. Yeah, there is something happening.

[Joe Getty]

There.

[Jack Armstrong]

That needs to be studied.

[Joe Getty]

More. Yeah, I think I know what it is. I'll ask the question, then pay it off with something I dug up that we talked about, gosh, maybe last.

[Jack Armstrong]

Year. Need a man in their.

[Joe Getty]

Life. Well, that's one conclusion. So what makes white. You know what? Honestly, I think family would be do a lot of good for.

[Jack Armstrong]

Women. Imagine when you're biologically designed to have and raise a child and then you don't do that, where's all that energy gonna.

[Joe Getty]

Go? Well, and to get a little more specific, imagine you're designed to nurture and protect other humans, specifically your children, to the point that you would willingly die for them. And then you don't have any children and have to direct that instinct somewhere. Well, turns out what makes white women white liberal women, so.

[Jack Armstrong]

Uniquely. Obviously this does not apply to everyone who chooses or can't have.

[Joe Getty]

Children. Oh, no, of course.

[Jack Armstrong]

Not. As you direct your energy towards other things that are worthwhile. But some people.

[Joe Getty]

Ain'T. Well, right, exactly. We're talking about, you know, the masses of people and, and I'm glad you threw that caveat in because I to us, we've been doing this a long time and that sort of thing is unspoken. It goes without saying that of course it's not 100% correlation. Practically nothing is. But I'm glad you pointed it out. So what makes white liberal women so uniquely terrible? And it turns out they're miserable. And you've got your 2024American Family Survey found that 37% of conservative women and 28% of moderate women, young women, report being completely satisfied with their lives. So 37 and 28% for liberal women in the same age group, the.

[Jack Armstrong]

Standard is I have to be completely satisfied with my.

[Joe Getty]

Life. That's a pretty high.

[Jack Armstrong]

Standard. That's a high.

[Joe Getty]

Standard. But among conservative women, it's triple the rate of liberal women. And among moderate women it is about two and a half times higher. Liberal women are almost three times more likely than conservative women to experience loneliness multiple times a week. Among other characteristics, depression among liberal high school girls has surged. Blah, blah, blah. And the ideological effect on young women's happiness holds up. Even when you control for age, education, race and income. Liberal young women are less likely to be integrated into core American institutions like marriage, religion, and others, which give meaning, direction, solidarity to people's lives, lonely, negative, disconnected, blah, blah, blah. And I remembered we came across some really, really, really good analysis last year or so about why that might be true. What's the cause and what's the effect? Are you like born liberal and therefore you are miserable? Or is it that being liberal makes you miserable? Or to what extent? And nobody's really sure, but I was delighted I found what I was looking for. And it was this analysis very, very long by Matthew Iglesias. But, and honestly, the first half of it is substantiating what we were just talking about. And he gives a bunch of really specific examples and a bunch of different issues and attitudes and that sort of thing. But here it is, mentally processing. Oh, and he mentions that he's dealt with a fair amount of depression and gotten counseling and drugs and all sorts of things, and he's doing a lot better now through cognitive behavioral therapy. But I'll just read some of this to you real.

[Jack Armstrong]

Quick.

[Joe Getty]

Mentally. Take two. Mentally processing ambiguous events with negative spin is just what depression is. You look at something that people have, you know, a variety of reactions to, but you are consistently miserable about it. And while the findings that liberals are disproportionately likely to do it is interesting and important, it's not sound Practice to celebrate that or to tell them that they are right to do it. Stop this section, this whole section is called Stop Encouraging People to Catastrophize. And he goes into depression and cognitive behavioral therapy and taking control of your own emotions. Stop saying so and so made me angry by doing X, say so and so did X. And I reacted by becoming angry. Own your own emotions and your own emotional.

[Jack Armstrong]

Response. I've only ever really done this once in my life. I had one job that I hated a lot and a lot of the people there hated it and I got into for several years, unfortunately, just this, that was, that was what we did. We, we, we, we came to work and, and complained to each other about how miserable we were. And it like became my identity being miserable at this job. And it would have been weird to let it go. That's like the only time I've ever done that for a brief period of time. But I can see how you could get stuck in that for a lifetime of my identity is being miserable because of, you know, Trump or.

[Joe Getty]

Whatever. Exactly. Imagine if virtually every political issue was viewed through the lens of this is literally a catastrophe. It is a mortal threat. It is an example of evil trying to hurt and kill everything I hold dear always. You know, 10 on the 10 scale of, oh my God, this is a horror. We must march, we must organize, we're justified in breaking law, committing acts of violence, because everything is that serious and horrible. Imagine if you were fed that 24, 7, you would be miserable.

[Jack Armstrong]

Too. Yeah, I, I left that job at some point and then when I got away from it, it was very clear that I was like really emphasizing how much I hated that job way too much. If I hated so much, I should have left or just, you know, gone with some job sucks or some people are jerks or whatever and breaking out of it. But I just, I always remember that, that being sucked into that vortex of, of just negativity. And, you know, if you grew up in a house like that, you might not be able to ever break out of.

[Joe Getty]

It. And final thought. And he quotes an article from last year about students at McAlester College trying to block an exhibition by an Iranian American artist. This incident is part of a pattern of left wing social justice concepts being invoked to support right wing religious sentiments held by minority religious groups and ending up in conflict with Western feminists. You know, the whole Queers for Palestine thing. But then they point out that since the 90s, especially progressive institutional leaders have specifically taught young progressives that catastrophizing is a good way to get what they want. And I quote, I'm increasingly convinced that there are tremendously negative long term consequences, especially to young people, coming from this reliance on the language of harm and accusations that things one finds offensive are, quote, deeply problematic or events and words are violent. Just about everything researchers understand about resilience and mental well being suggests that people who feel like they are the chief architects of their own life, to mix metaphors, that they captain their own ship, they're not simply being tossed about on an uncontrollable ocean, are vastly better off than people whose default position is victimization. Hurt, in a sense, that life happens to them and they have no control over their response. It is a short road to misery to look at life that way, but it is enormously useful politically, fundraising, organizing, that sort of thing, to constantly convince people they're in the midst of a.

[Jack Armstrong]

Catastrophe. Yeah, no doubt. Man, if you saw that video where the dead woman's wife. You gotta bring it on, big boy. I don't think you're gonna. Big boy, you better pack a lunch or whatever she said, right? What is. Why you seem like a long day. Just whatever. Oh, my God. Oh, my God. People like.

[Joe Getty]

You. Yeah. Smug combativeness and that sort of thing. I think this is. This is the answer. We have the answer why young awfuls, affluent white female liberals are so miserable they're fed a constant diet of. We're in the midst of a horror. I don't know. One more reason to. And it's funny, just as an aside, Vivek Ramaswamy. If he shakes my hand, I check to see that my watch is still there. I'm not a huge fan, but he's incredibly bright. He wrote a great piece that was published in the Journal about a week ago or so, saying he is completely off social media personally. He's running for the Senate in Ohio, I think, and he said, I'm not taking in a single word online about what people think or want or believe about their lives. I'm just going around and talking to people that's probably said, the difference is.

[Jack Armstrong]

Stark. I. I don't doubt.

[Joe Getty]

That. Yeah.

[Jack Armstrong]

Absolutely. I know a few people in my life who are very, very online and their view of the world is so distorted from reality, it's amazing. Yeah, it's highly troubling. Bob Weir died over the weekend. We'll check in on that, among other things coming.

[Joe Getty]

Up. Armstrong and.

Getty. Born in the Bay Area, Weir joined the band that would become the grateful dead in 19 as a teenage guitarist after a chance meeting with co founder Jerry Garcia. Bobby, you were 16 when you first heard Jerry Garcia playing.

[Jack Armstrong]

Banjo.

[Joe Getty]

Yeah. In Palo.

[Jack Armstrong]

Alto. Yeah. Yep. The Grateful Dead span been around for 60 years. And their other lead singer, not Jerry Garcia, died over the weekend. Bob weir at age 78. I assumed he was sick of some sort based on some of the announcements they've made recently with concerts and that sort of stuff. And I saw one of their final shows a year or so ago and it was fantastic. Dead and Company with John Mayer taking over the Jerry Garcia role. Can you go on without Bob Weir? You can't, can.

[Joe Getty]

You? No. Unless you just openly say, hey, we're a tribute.

[Jack Armstrong]

Band. Right. Interesting, because they're printing money. I mean, just insane amounts of.

[Joe Getty]

Money. Yeah.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah. Without Jerry Garcia, probably more money than they ever made in their.

[Joe Getty]

History. Can you imagine as a musician, somebody saying to 23 year old you, by the way, you're gonna make the most money in your 70s from music. Yeah, yeah, from music. And you're thinking, what happened? How's that gonna.

[Jack Armstrong]

Work? So I remember reading about this. He got kicked out of the band once, like when they were already really popular because Jerry Garcia didn't think he was a good enough guitar player. Like, learn your parts. Kicked him out and he had to go practice up and got let back in. I thought that was.

[Joe Getty]

Interesting. Yeah, well, fair.

[Jack Armstrong]

Enough. You.

[Joe Getty]

Suck. Do your.

[Jack Armstrong]

Job. Get out of.

[Joe Getty]

Here.

[Jack Armstrong]

Yeah, I mentioned earlier, our friend Tim Sandifer's got a new book about the Declaration of Independence coming out in April, and I'm excited about it. But Tim had said to me when I was talking to him a while back about books about how nobody reads anymore. And he was. He hit me with some stats on book sales and stuff like that that are just freaking highly troubling somebody. I was talking to somebody the other day about reading Ulysses, which I am and I'm almost done with, and they said you might be among the last people who ever read that. And that's probably true. It's considered one of the greatest books ever written, but there aren't very many people that are going to read it in the future. And I talked a couple weeks ago about this piece I read that I think is true that the age of literacy is coming to an end. I mean, it's just statistically true. And it only lasted 300 years. Mass literacy, where the mass of humanity read books, didn't happen until about 1700 and it ended a couple of years ago. And we're on the downhill side. It only lasted 300 years and it's gonna be over.

[Joe Getty]

Soon. Well, let me quibble a little bit with equating literacy with reading books. Can we separate those.

[Jack Armstrong]

Two? Probably should. But reading books is coming to an end. It only lasted 300 years and I can't. I can't believe that that's.

[Joe Getty]

Okay. We're.

[Jack Armstrong]

Good. But there's no stopping it. It's just, it's. It's definitely happening, if it hasn't already happened. Now, I was at a bookstore the other day, still packed full of books that nobody buys because it costs like nothing to print them. But one that was on one on the table. You know, they put the stuff out on the table like the candy books that they hope people will buy that like shares memoir. And this is what grabbed my.

[Joe Getty]

Attention about Cher's memoir page.

[Jack Armstrong]

Flipper. The memoir part one is what it says on the video. This is a two parter. It's like 600 pages long and it's. You need two parts to tell that.

[Joe Getty]

Story. Cher's kids don't want the two part.

[Jack Armstrong]

Wow. Yeah. There's some hot pictures of her in there, though. I didn't realize she was a teen.

[Joe Getty]

Model. I didn't know.

[Jack Armstrong]

That. Yeah. Isn't it interesting though, that the whole book thing for human beings only lasted 300 years? Now it's.

[Joe Getty]

Over. Yeah. I think we're just going to become more and more shallow, clearly as a.

[Jack Armstrong]

Species. Yeah, clearly. But there's no turning that back. And we got more on the way. If you missed a segment, get the podcast. Armstrong and Getty on.

[Joe Getty]

Demand. Armstrong and.

[Jack Armstrong]

Getty. This is an I heart podcast. Guaranteed.