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- [00:11]
A
Katie, it's America day. It is July 4th. As we record this, how are you celebrating?
- [00:16]
B
Happy birthday.
- [00:16]
A
Happy birthday. Other than fleeing the fireworks, how are you celebrating?
- [00:20]
B
I was thinking I might call the police on my neighbors later. What do you think?
- [00:24]
A
That's an extremely American thing to do. Call the police? On what basis? Fireworks. Oh, for the fireworks.
- [00:29]
B
It's not illegal, but it is annoying.
- [00:32]
A
Yeah.
- [00:32]
B
What about you? You're in dc. Are you going to the big heat wave celebration at the. At the Capitol?
- [00:38]
A
Katie, in a life that can be characterized as bad decision after bad decision, choosing to come to Washington D.C. this particular weekend.
- [00:47]
B
Yeah.
- [00:48]
A
Oh, my God. Let me just. Let me read. Let me read one thing for you, okay?
- [00:52]
B
Sure.
- [00:52]
A
This was from some weather guy on Twitter. We're recording this Saturday where it's just as hot today. But this weather guy. DC will be hotter than 99% of the planet on Friday. Only parts of. Only parts of Africa's Sahara desert, the Middle East, China's Gobi Desert, and a few spots in the desert. Southwest will be hotter.
- [01:11]
B
How?
- [01:12]
A
Look, I know how boring this is. I just want people to feel my pain. 116 degree heat index. 109 in the shade.
- [01:18]
B
Jesus.
- [01:18]
A
Look, DC's always gross in July. I come down here. I have some friends down here. One of them has thrown a barbecue the last few years. That has been fun. It's become sort of a tradition. If it was like merely 85 degrees, I would have gone down to that shit show state fair thing. Just out of morbid curiosity, but I'm not doing that in this weather, so. All the videos I've seen suggest that it was not particularly well attended.
- [01:41]
B
Yeah, I imagine people were at the cooling stations. In the spirit of the moment, the 250th birthday of the country. If it were. If you were in Paris right now, you would not have air conditioning.
- [01:51]
A
True, true. I've been reading a lot about that.
- [01:53]
B
I have been giving some thought to the things that I like most about America as we celebrate the 250th anniversary of this country. And. And what? Do you have a. Do you have a list?
- [02:02]
A
I just like America in general. I. I like. Mass migration is my favorite thing.
- [02:09]
B
Yeah, I like the gdp.
- [02:11]
A
You like our gdp?
- [02:12]
B
Real. In favor of that? I like our gdp. I like ice tea. I. And like the Europeans. I like ranch. I'm a big ranch fan.
- [02:19]
A
Ranch is great. I mean, I was. I was the. The World cup thing, which I know you're against because it's sports. It has been nice because Like, I think, like, people can be dicks to one another, but there's been a lot of. I think we needed some sappy, multicultural, intercultural exchange, and we've gotten that at a time when we needed it.
- [02:36]
B
We needed Egypt and Iran playing the Pride March or the Pride match in Seattle. We needed that to bring us all together.
- [02:43]
A
Yeah.
- [02:44]
B
How funny it was.
- [02:44]
A
Yes, that's true. But also, there's been some genuinely nice, I think, like, as I get older, the sort of sappy West Wing bullshit liberalism, that that's where I belong. Not none of this fucking revolutionary.
- [02:56]
B
That's your T levels dropping.
- [02:58]
A
It's my T levels dropping. Yeah. And I've actually. I've still never seen the West Wing, and I'm not. Because who has the time? But that's. Yeah, but the. The World cup has been a nice sort of anti maga thing, but it'll be over soon.
- [03:11]
B
All right, what are we talking about today?
- [03:12]
A
Well, speaking of the tumultuous nature of American politics, we're going to talk about the DSA revolution occurring in my neck of the woods, or my. My normal neck of the woods before that. It got a lot of coverage. Our friend Helen Lewis wrote an excellent piece in the Atlantic. But there is a Supreme Court ruling on the transports thing, was there not?
- [03:33]
B
There was.
- [03:34]
A
So Helen had a line in her coverage that says, in recent years, LGBTQ advocates have portrayed any deviation from the statement that trans women are women who should be treated identically with biological females in all circumstances as inherently bigoted or even genocidal. I take it you don't disagree with that.
- [03:52]
B
I do not, no.
- [03:54]
A
Now, this was actually a fairly narrow ruling at issue where whether a couple of states, Idaho and West Virginia, could pass laws explicitly saying that women's sports or girls sports are for biological females. And some of the specifics in this case, you know, they. They edged into the less obvious area, including what do you do about someone whose puberty is blocked and then goes on female hormones? That's obviously very different from something like Lia Thomas. I think we can agree. But at the end of the day, the court ruled 6, 3. That, yeah, states have a right to say that this is a biological sex thing, that. That you have to play on the sports team that matches with your biological sex. Now, for now, blue states can still do whatever they want on this issue. So it's not as though this was. Can you imagine how incredible that would have been for the GOP if there was a Supreme Court ruling saying that all states need to go self ID Just like instantly elevating this to a major election issue. The next two elections.
- [04:55]
B
Yeah, absolutely. You know, best case scenario for the Dems, they would have. I know this wasn't. This wasn't even on the docket, but if they had somehow forced all states to segregate sports by sex, that would have been a gift to the Dems because the issue would have been decided for them.
- [05:11]
A
Yeah, it's just like it's this thing where now. And the Times had a story on how, like, you know, a lot of the Democrats are slinking away now. Helen had examples of people. Seth Moulton called it a deliberate act of cruelty and part of a crusade to erase trans kids from public life and keep Americans divided. Which, like, he has to. Because he got in trouble for acknowledging what almost everyone thinks on this issue, which is like self ID is crazy in sports and he's.
- [05:35]
B
The Massachusetts congressman is.
- [05:37]
A
Yeah. And. And running in a Senate primary. House member from Massachusetts. I just, I have to say, and it's difficult for us to talk about this because we're sort of part of the story because we, you and I, came together because we'd written.
- [05:52]
B
We did this.
- [05:52]
A
We did. First of all, it's our fault. Anything bad that happens is our fault. Second of all, we met each other basically because we were both writing about detransition at a time when this was as hard as it is to imagine, a fraction as toxic as it is now and polarized as it is now. What I want to say is that the efforts, the decisions I think that trans activists have made, I don't think have been good. And I think if you compare this to the gay rights campaign, which was such a straightforward argument, let people fucking get married. This doesn't affect you. Versus genuinely trying to impose a different understanding of sex and gender identity on everyone. And there's been this quiet walking back and a lot of Democrats. I was referencing a Times article, Democrats not really wanting to talk about this. Setting aside folks like Seth Moulton, I just sort of think this was a disaster. There's also been an attempt to pretend that Title 9, which prohibits discrimination on the basis of sex in educational settings, that Somehow in Title 9, that applies to gender identity and also makes it. You can't, you can't segregate sports on the basis of biological sex, which is exact. It gets very.
- [07:14]
B
Quite ironic. I mean, Title IX was built in part to protect female sports.
- [07:17]
A
Yes, yes. And that aspect of the argument, it's tricky because I think one of the. I think one of the two Plaintiffs actually wasn't making that argument. The other was, I think. But in any case, guess how many of the nine Supreme Court justices buy the idea that Title 9 makes it so you can't discriminate on the basis of gender identity in sports settings? Out of nine? Guess.
- [07:37]
B
I'm guessing 0.
- [07:38]
A
00.
- [07:38]
B
Or maybe 1. Potentially 1.
- [07:40]
A
0. Tanji Brown Jackson in her dissent was like. She's like, I basically agree, but I don't. I think you're reading Sex student. Whatever. Nine. Zero. This, this, this cornerstone of a lot of democratic efforts to institute self ID that Title 9 sort of demands we do it. And there's complicated political reasons why they went that route, like since the Obama administration. Leora Sapir is good on this. Sociologist Rogers Brubaker is good on this. It gets very complicated. They might have chosen this route out of a lack of other options, but it's been a failure. Basically everything these trans rights groups have tried to do has. Has failed when it's, as Helen puts it, made contact with the American public. So, I mean, we should acknowledge we're being biased here because the trans activists we're talking about really dislike us. And a small number of them, I think it's fair to say, have sort of tried to ruin our career. So it could be we're just beset by bias and can't look at this with clear eyes. Right? Is that what's going on here, Katie?
- [08:37]
B
I suppose so, maybe in theory. But I think that our views on this are squarely, or at least my views on this. You, You're, I think, a little bit more guarded about your personal feelings about this. Just because you try to focus on the youth, gender, like the medicine stuff, more than sports. I'm very willing to say that I think that this was the correct ruling.
- [08:59]
A
Well, no, no, no. Look, I. I'm not. I genuinely am not a lawyer. It struck me as a totally reasonable reading of all the relevant laws. And it was interesting in reading Sotomayor's dissent, the amount of words she gives to feeling bad for one of the plaintiffs and talking about how important sports had been for her, which, like, that's not. That's not what's at issue here. And even the conservatives are able to say, like, look, we. This is tough, but. But they, they point out something that every. The vast majority of Americans have been able to understand, which is that if you give. If you give a slot to a trans girl, you're taking a slot most likely from another girl for whom sports could also be important. There's no perfect solution. That includes everybody.
- [09:43]
B
No, this is, it is. There are trade offs here. There are trade offs to transitioning. There are going to be trade offs here. I also think that, you know, in blue states, if they want, in blue communities, deep blue communities like let's say San Francisco or whatever, if they want trans girls competing with girls, that's their prerogative, they can do it. I'm against that. I think sports should be segregated by sex. But this is their, this is their prerogative.
- [10:10]
A
Well, it, for now, it's a prerogative. There is litigation making a Title 9 case against those self ID policies. So we will eventually might have more, more decisions on that. For now, it is their prerogative. You're saying you're okay with it being their prerogative?
- [10:25]
B
I am. I mean, I still think that it's a, it's the wrong decision. Like, I still think no matter what that sport should be segregated by sex. And like, so this is actually, this actually does have a little bit of an impact on me directly because, because Washington state has an initiative that will be on the ballot about this very thing. So this is something that I will be voting on in November. And in this case, I will admit I'm actually a bit torn on this specific.
- [10:48]
A
Well, tell us, tell us exactly what the ballot initiative says.
- [10:51]
B
So the ballot initiative, when I first heard about this, like the, the liberal reading of the ballot initiative that I kept hearing in the, in the liberal media was that this was going to force genital checks. And I was like, that's an impossibility. That's an impossibility. And then I started reading, and then I read the ballot initiative itself and, and I think this initiative is written way too broadly. So in most states that have passed these ballot initiatives, something like a birth certificate will suffice. And in edge cases, there will be like a secondary inspection. But the ballot initiative in Washington state does require all, everyone who's participating in female sports. Not about birth certificate isn't enough. There has to be. There's like three avenues to prove your birth sex, one of which is anatomy. So it's, it's a, it's a genetic test. The possibilities are a genetic test, a testosterone check.
- [11:47]
A
And the genetic test is just a cheek swap.
- [11:49]
B
It is just a cheek saw. But the thing is, every girl will have to do this. Every female in sports will have to do this. And it's really.
- [11:56]
A
Oh, that seems like very heavy.
- [11:57]
B
Who's gonna pay for it? The parents have to pay for it.
- [12:00]
A
You make. You're forcing every girl to get a genetic test.
- [12:03]
B
Well, no, a genetic test, a testosterone test or a medical exam, which you have to get a physical to get a, to participate in school sports anyway. But you know, boys have to like drop their shorts and cough when you get a, when you get your physical, right? Yeah, well, yeah, like you have to show your balls. Girls don't have to do that. When you, like when I was a kid and I would, when I would get it physical, a doctor wasn't looking at my vagina.
- [12:27]
A
I'm, I'm Jen. Sorry. I'm genuine. I didn't. This maybe because I've never talked to a woman that's like they don't give a quick check under the, under the hood. If you're female and you get a
- [12:37]
B
physical in Washington state. No, there's no breast exam or genital exam. Now your medical records should have your birth sex, whether or not you're trans or, or CIS or whatever. Like that should be in your medical records. I would be really surprised if it wasn't in everybody's medical records, especially a child's medical records. So maybe this is really no big deal. And what you're hearing is on the left, advocates against this initiative are saying that this is going to require, potentially going to require genital checks. On the right, the people who, who wrote this initiative, they're saying, no, this is not going to require genital checks. But when you read the text of the initiative itself, it's actually a bit unclear. So let me just read you the relevant section here. It says that sex is determined based on a, quote, required routine sports physical examination, a health examination and consent form or other statement signed by the student's personal health care provider that verifies the student's biological sex, relying only on one or more of the following, the student's reproductive anatomy, genetic makeup or normal endogenously produced testosterone levels. So every person who wants to play women's sports or girls sports, including girls, just biological females, are have to, are going to have to have this, this form signed. And if the doctor just looks at the medical records and says, yes, this is a female, that's one thing. But I do think this leaves open the door for actual, that line. The students reproductive anatomy. And if they're not currently doing vagina checks on girls and they start having to do vagina checks on every female in order to play sports, like, I think that's bad. And there are just much narrower ways they could have written this bill that
- [14:30]
A
seems like a, a blunder especially in a liberal state.
- [14:34]
B
So I. I really thought when I first started reading about this, and, like, I would hear on npr, like, there's. This could open up the potential for. For, you know, all girls to have genital checks. I was like, no, there's a cheek swab.
- [14:46]
A
Well, because. Because that's often a line you hear that I think is. Is almost always false because.
- [14:52]
B
Totally. And to be clear, like, that is still an option, but who's going to pay for that? I assume that, you know, a. A cheek swab, a genetic test, or a testosterone test is gonna cost more than just a doctor, like, taking a peek underneath the hood. Or if it was just like. Honestly, if it was just like a doctor looking at medical records and saying, yes, this person is a female, like, no big deal there before they sign off, the. Sign off on the form. Although I do think making every girl do this rather than, like, just paying attention to edge cases is a bit onerous. But I just, like, I think they should have narrowed this a bit. Other states have already enacted these bills. They could have taken guidance for what works and what doesn't. Like, in Ohio, they passed a version of this sort of bill, and I believe in 2022, and the initial bill that was proposed in the House, that version had. It was like, any student accused of being trans, there was going to be like, an internal and external genitalia evaluation. And then there was huge backlash about that, so they revised it. And so now I believe they have, like, according to their Save Women's Sports act, they have a. A. The requirement is for a birth certificate.
- [16:18]
A
A referendum on titty inspection. Yeah, that was not a good name for it.
- [16:24]
B
No, it wouldn't be titties, because some boys have moods.
- [16:26]
A
No. Under the hood. Yeah. That's interesting.
- [16:29]
B
Yeah.
- [16:29]
A
Just line by, like, item by item by item of everything on the sort of trans rights agenda other than Bostock, which is ironic, given the court. That was a very big victory for trans rights, albeit one that my understanding is, like, relies on the traditional understanding of sex. They are worse off than they were 10 years ago on, like. It's like everything they touch sort of turns to crap. And I understand that it's comforting to hallucinate the idea that this is because of the Atlantic or because of the New York Times being transphobic. But that's the problem. The main problem of that is it's deranged. Like, I'm trying to be polite here, but that's deranged because, I don't know. There's like, I don't I don't. I try to avoid the term gaslighting, but you have this situation where like 10 years ago, Chase Strange IO is informing a solid slate that there's no such thing as a female body, which everybody knows is, is bullshit. And then it goes from there to I can't believe the Atlantic made these bad things happen. It's like, maybe you just aren't good at activism.
- [17:33]
B
Right.
- [17:34]
A
I don't know.
- [17:34]
B
Right. Well, I mean, we talked about this on our episodes about Marsha P. Johnson, this tension within gay rights, what used to be called the gay rights liberation movement, this long, long tension between assimilation and revolution. And the assimilators have done a pretty good job of making their case in winning battles, and the revolutionaries have not.
- [17:54]
A
Yeah, well, and I think about, like, you know, California, pretty quietly passing a law that self ID in prisons, which I think is pretty horrible and, and led to at least one, I think, in progress rape accusation case. I would just, you know, I would like to, if you're Chase Strangio or we could name some other people. I'm not trying to start warship. Like, they should just. I would, It'd be much more honest for them to just get up and say, like, look, I think. Well, they wouldn't say biologically male. They say assigned male at birth, which, by the way, is the language like all the liberal justices use. They just completely defer to activists on. It was just interesting. The conservative justices say like biologically male. But yeah, be more honest and maybe Chase has done this. If so, I apologize to Chase. Chase should just get up and say, yes. I think someone who comes out as trans in a prison in California, as the law says, any, no matter how much they've transitioned or how little, if they say they're female, they have to be housed with women. But what seems to happen is people call for these policies and then they get them and then there's consequences and then they, they back into the hedges. They back away. Which doesn't seem like honest or effective politics. All right, anything else on this, Katie?
- [19:05]
B
How do you, how do you deal with this in your book? I mean, every time there's a, there's a update to, to the law. How do you, how do you handle this? Do you have to rewrite a chapter?
- [19:17]
A
It's gonna be tricky. I mean, Skremetti, I think, is the biggest one for youth gender medicine. So that's like, already on the books. This, this probably won't get into the book because the book's about youth gender medicine, but it's a very fast moving landscape, especially with like clinics shutting down and stuff. And you know, I've should just emphasize like I've talked to parents of kids who have identified as trans for a very long time and we're getting treatment and then their clinics shut down and that's, that's really not a good. It's not a solution at all. That's not a good outcome either. So this is all. It's a mess. But I just, I. Sorry. I think some of the mess was self inflicted by really bad decisions on the part of activists. Should we just get housekeeping out of the way and then go all DSA the rest of the time?
- [20:00]
B
Sure, let's do it.
- [20:01]
A
You do it.
- [20:02]
B
We are a podcast. If you have questions, comments, feedback, you can reach us at blocked andreported podcast gmail.com. what else Jesse? The best way to support the show, really the only way to support the show right now is to become a premium subscriber, a Primo. For just $7 a month or I think 20% less if you join for a year, you get.
- [20:26]
A
It's insane. You're making money. You're making Money.
- [20:29]
B
You get 3.5 roughly extra episodes of this podcast every month. You also get access to our live chats or a fantastic community which as of this count has. I think we're down to back down to one. I think, I think one of the self selected out. So it's a really positive place. We have a robust comment section. We have a chat in our in the Substack app and it's overall, it's just a. It's a good place to hang out and talk to your friends about the podcast or about really whatever else you feel like it. We are very hands off when it comes to moderation. What else Jesse, is that it? Don't buy the merch.
- [21:08]
A
In fact, I get mad when we have to be hands on because it's such a nice.
- [21:12]
B
It's pretty rare though.
- [21:14]
A
It's rare. But it's such a nice group. And then like occasionally. But I mean that, that speaks to what a nice group it is. Yeah. The other thing you get is occasionally there's primo only meetups. I don't know when the next one will be but like everywhere from where haven't I done a meetup? Katie? London, Amsterdam, Berlin. Portland.
- [21:35]
B
Cleveland.
- [21:36]
A
Seattle. I've not done Cleveland. I'm not going to. Sorry Cleveland. I'm just, I'm not going to. I feel bad, but I'm not really.
- [21:41]
B
Are you supposed to Be lovely.
- [21:43]
A
Is that. Sorry. Is that true?
- [21:46]
B
Sure.
- [21:48]
A
Seems like a very easy thing to say. What's funny is I got mad at you because when I said I was going to El Paso, you called it a shithole.
- [21:55]
B
I said, no, I said that when you drive on, I think it's i10. And you can see Mexico on one side, slums on one side, and then American sprawl on one side.
- [22:07]
A
Juarez is in all slums.
- [22:09]
B
Juarez is like a major driving on i10. And this is what you see. You see slums on one side and then on the other side you see Ross Dress for Less. A TJ Max, Another Ross Dress for Less. A third Ross Dress for Less. That is a shit all.
- [22:22]
A
You're very. You're just biased because you live in an unusual part of the country without strip malls. Strip malls are part of this great American experiment, as we know from all these. All these soccer tourists who come here and are like Buc EE's.
- [22:34]
B
Yeah.
- [22:34]
A
Yeah. I want my country to become part of the US for BUC EE's.
- [22:38]
B
Anyway, get back to El Paso.
- [22:39]
A
I just really like. I liked El Paso a lot. I thought it was beautiful and fun place. But I didn't try to do a meetup there. But in the future, if you want to join for these occasional meetups, I do become a primo. It also makes it easier to get into these sort of independently organized meetup groups that meet in my absence. As horrible as that must be to not have me there. All right, should we talk about disa dsa?
- [23:00]
B
I would like. I would prefer to talk about Taylor Swift's wedding, but if you insist, actually.
- [23:05]
A
Well, give me your quick take on Taylor Swift. Sweating.
- [23:07]
B
I. Okay. I've been abnormally invested in this. And it's weird, you know, I haven't had FOMO since I was like 25 years old. I normally have the opposite of FOMO,
- [23:18]
A
which is fear of being included.
- [23:20]
B
Invited. Yeah. Not want to be. Yes. I do not want to be included. I am. I'm almost. Would you say my shut in?
- [23:28]
A
Well, you've got your.
- [23:30]
B
I mean, I leave my house.
- [23:31]
A
Yeah. You go. You get like. Go to meet other dog owners on the beach or whatever. And you used to have the sex offender. Oh, no. Sorry, I'm confused. Different things. You had the old man to bathe.
- [23:40]
B
He was a racist.
- [23:40]
A
But sometimes you help out sex offenders.
- [23:42]
B
Yeah, I do leave my house on a regular basis, but I don't like to go to events for the most part. And yet I've been feeling grief that I wasn't invited to Taylor Swift's wedding. And I don't. It's not like I want to go and, like, sit at Lena Dunham's table and, like, see what everybody's wearing. Like, I would be. Like, being a bathroom attendant would be fine. I just want to. I don't need to be, like, a part of the conversation. I just want to see. I just want to be there to see it. Like, if they. If they streamed it on YouTube, that would have been fine, but I'm just. I'm feeling kind of sad about it that I wasn't invited now.
- [24:19]
A
Why would you have been?
- [24:20]
B
She listens to the podcast.
- [24:22]
A
Taylor does.
- [24:23]
B
Do you think. Do you have. Have you heard that she doesn't listen to the podcast?
- [24:27]
A
I think Travis is much more likely to listen than we do.
- [24:29]
B
Although you did. I did see that you retweeted his tweet from 2011 yesterday. What was it? What was the exact.
- [24:35]
A
Oh, can you read that? Can you read it? It was so good.
- [24:38]
B
Okay, so this was.
- [24:40]
A
DSA can wait.
- [24:41]
B
April 14, 2011. Travis Kelce. I just gave a squirrel that is S, Q, U, I, R, L, E spelled in a way no one else in history has spelled. Curl squirrel. A piece of bread, and it straight smashed all of it. Exclamation point, exclamation point. I had no idea they ate bread like that. Haha. Hashtag crazy.
- [25:07]
A
I think the reason that really got me is because, like, I spent a chunk of. Of my week arguing with just like, horrible people on Twitter about whatever USA stuff, and then something as innocent as like, dude, I gave a squirrel a piece of bread and it smashed it. That was so cool. It's just. It's just pure innocence.
- [25:27]
B
I like it too, because it makes it seem as though Taylor Swift is marrying. Just marry someone who has special needs, which is just. It's a sweet story.
- [25:36]
A
It's not special needs.
- [25:37]
B
Who do you think that when they go out to dinner, who do you think pays?
- [25:41]
A
I would hope Taylor. But I also see Travis being like a fairly traditional gentleman.
- [25:45]
B
Probably him.
- [25:46]
A
When they. When they see a squirrel who. When they see a squirrel who pulls out a piece of bread to feed it.
- [25:51]
B
You know what? I bet that she keeps bread in her purse for him, but he carries the purse for her.
- [25:57]
A
Yeah, I can see that.
- [25:58]
B
All right. Dsa.
- [25:59]
A
Yes. So we're going to talk about. There was this wave of DSA or DSA adjacent candidates who won Democratic primaries recently. We're going to talk about what that means, what it doesn't mean how you Katie Herzog feel about it. But this, there's a little bit of appetizer of pure bar pot online bullshit. So why don't we start with that?
- [26:18]
B
Yes, let's do it.
- [26:19]
A
Okay, so one of the races everyone was keeping an eye on was the race for New York's 10th district. This is a race between Dan Goldman, the incumbent, who is has been critical of Israel but not enough, he's pretty pro Israel, and Brad Lander. Brad Lander is the background comptroller. He had run against Mamdani in the primary last year, lost to Mamdani, but Mamdani, they're boys. And Mamdani supported him. So he's not dsa, but he's like DSA adjacent. And he's perhaps more importantly, Mamdani adjacent, given how powerful Mamdani is right now. So recently, just before the Democratic primary, a coffee shop called Poetica posted something that got a lot of attention on social media. And if you look up where there are Poetica coffees in New York, you'll basically find them in some of the DSAs. DSA est? Is that a word? Should be parts of Manhattan and Brooklyn. So, Katie, please read this coverage via Fox News.
- [27:17]
B
Hey, Congressman Dan Goldman, we see that you stopped by our shop today for a coffee. Do you see how it doesn't taste like genocide juice? What Is genocide juice taste like sorrow? Or are you still having a hard time telling the difference? The Post stated, referring to Goldman's support for Israel and accusations that the Jewish state has committed genocide against Palestinians during the war in Gaza. Quote, here at Poetica, we don't serve racist fascists, homophobes, genocide enablers or anyone in between. The Post discontinued. Too bad we don't. We didn't recognize you right away or we would have turned you away. We issued you a refund. We don't need your money. It's probably coming from apac. Anyways, enjoy your loss on Tuesday. Don't ever come to Poetica. Ouch.
- [27:55]
A
Ouch indeed. So this was accompanied by what is frankly a sort of creepy surveillance camera image of Goldman. He's just on his phone in the shop. That led to this exchange in the comments. I'll be the Jew, you be the Muslim. We'll. We'll get to him in a minute. I'm sorry to see this post. The barista could not have been nicer to my 7 year old daughter and me allowing her to use the bathroom. Even though we had not purchased anything. I made sure to buy a coffee in return for her Kindness. I hope you at least make sure she gets the tip she deserved.
- [28:20]
B
And then Poetica Coffee responds. We have some of the nicest, most amazing people working with us. It was actually her idea to refund the tips while I suggested we refund everything. Dan, I have you here. You mentioned your 7 year old and I want to mention my 6 year old son because of your stance and the way you constantly dehumanize people like me and subsequently my son. We, as Brooklynites, as Brooklyn and your constituents will be voting for someone who actually cares for us. We need a representative who will make our neighborhood safe for your daughter and my son alike. Okay, so this is a little confusing to me because.
- [28:54]
A
What are you confused by?
- [28:55]
B
Well, it's, it seemed like he's saying that. Is he Palestinian?
- [29:01]
A
He's Uzbek.
- [29:02]
B
Okay, so he's Muslim, presumably.
- [29:04]
A
Yeah, Let me actually double check if that's. I assumed he was, but I didn't check. Uzbek owner. But what confuses you about it?
- [29:10]
B
What would, what would Goldman's stance on Israel have to do with making, making their neighborhood in Brooklyn safe or not? How does that translate?
- [29:22]
A
That's a. Katie, it's, it's been, it's been more than six years on this podcast.
- [29:30]
B
Does he live in Brooklyn? Gaza?
- [29:33]
A
I would just say. I don't, I don't get. I. Look, I don't, I don't want to deny anyone their lived experience. I don't think these, the neighborhoods in question, with which I am very familiar, are unsafe places for openly Muslim presenting people. I'll just say that I don't think that's true.
- [29:53]
B
I mean, I don't believe that it is Muslims who have, who have experienced a massive spike in, in hate crimes in the Brooklyn area. Is it?
- [30:03]
A
No. No. So, yeah, look, this caused a massive blow up and, and this is going to be important, but I, I feel like when you. Obviously, this guy is trying to get attention by posting this to Instagram, right? Like why. Yeah, of course. Soon, Goldman went on TV to say this in part to Lauren Coates on CNN. I'm reading this from the CNN's write up. I had such a nice interaction with the barista in the coffee shop, Goldman said, echoing a comment he left on Poetic, his Instagram page. She was wearing a hijab. I didn't know her, but she couldn't have been nicer and allowed my daughter to go to use the bathroom. But I honestly was so grateful for her kindness that I felt like I should buy a coffee. And so I did. And I Gave her a large tip. He later said, continued, it's a reflect. Think of a sad state of affairs that without knowing me, we could have had such a nice interaction. He also pointed out that the interaction with the woman, this nice human moment between the Jew and the Muslim, was diametrically opposed to the larger Instagram post.
- [30:56]
B
Okay, so a couple questions. One, did the woman not know who she. He was at first, or would they? Was the owner, like, later reviewing the coffee shop material and was like, hey, Joe.
- [31:07]
A
So what? The owner there was no hey, Jew. Why is it like a southern accent? Most of them. I don't like your topper out here. The owner of Poetica is named Parviz Muhammad Kulov. He's an Uzbek immigrant. He opened up the First Poetica in 2020 during the pandemic, and he's obviously been really successful. And yeah, if you look at a map of Poetica locations, it's basically in some of the sort of wealthiest DSA parts of New York City. And what he later said is that the barista wanted to give the tip back to him and that that sparked his decision to post to Instagram. I don't think we'll, we'll, we'll get to these details. I don't think it's been good that he sort of put this on her because he's made it seem like it was sort of her decision to engage in this, which I don't think there's any evidence for that. But look, once this story blows up, the same thing happens to this Parvis guy that happens to basically anyone who goes viral saying or doing something super controversial.
- [32:10]
B
Milkshake duck.
- [32:12]
A
Basically a milkshake duck. There's a huge spotlight on him. And naturally, because this always happens, journalists who are more sympathetic to Goldman's position than Landers, you know, journalists who are sort of more pro Israel, they start looking into his background and Katie, it's not great. There's some milkshakes and some ducks.
- [32:29]
B
What did he do?
- [32:30]
A
So one of these journalists is John Levine. He did a piece in the Free Beacon pointing out that, first of all, pointing out that Parviz is a far left Grand Platner supporter, which no surprises there. But he also wrote this. Katie, please read.
- [32:42]
B
And while he has expanded to eight locations since then, he's, that's. He, that's the Poetic owner. He's done so as he skipped out on paying the Empire State hundreds of thousands of dollars in tax revenue as of June 20, 2026. Mokama Kalav and Poetica Coffee of the State of New York $397,000. 168 Mostly an unpaid sales tax. According to the New York Department of Tax, Taxation and finance. All but one of Mukamakala's 16 DOC docketed warrants were incurred in 2025.
- [33:18]
A
Woo. So $400,000 in unpaid sales tax.
- [33:22]
B
That's bad.
- [33:23]
A
That's bad.
- [33:24]
B
Of all the taxes that you don't want to not pay, sales tax is a bad one.
- [33:30]
A
And yeah, and coffee shops are like really thin margin businesses, so I mean, who knows?
- [33:35]
B
Yeah, and the, the. I've been doing a lot of research on sales tax recently for unrelated reasons. And the thing about sales tax is if you're, if you're charging your customers sales tax but not remitting it, that's fraud. So this moves from civil to criminal pretty quickly.
- [33:53]
A
Yeah, it's, it's not great. Levine also mentioned some like health inspector reports. I don't know if that's fair or not. Just because I assume any restaurant or coffee shop in Brooklyn is just infested with rats. But he, Levine really went after him. But unless I. The $400,000 unpaid sales tax. Well, no, no, there weren't rats. There was other stuff. I'm just saying in general, New York is so disgusting that I don't think we should have health codes. I think if you move to New York, it should be like a libertarian anything goes zone. If you look, you're choosing to live in a disgusting place. You can't expect that no cockroach has made love to your sandwich.
- [34:26]
B
You know what? It's probably ultimately good for your microbiome.
- [34:29]
A
Probably the hardy people now. Okay, so that seems like a pretty fair hit. And that again, that's what happens if you choose to make yourself the subject of a. In the meantime, things have really heated up in terms of the discourse over these coffee shops and this guy. And in my opinion, you can separate the blowback into sort of acceptable and unacceptable responses. So to me, some people protested outside Poetica saying that this wasn't cool what he did. This is fine, right? Fight speech with more speech.
- [34:59]
B
Sure, yeah.
- [35:00]
A
I mean, if you don't want your place like coffee shops. Basically every coffee shop in every liberal city posts liberal imagery and no one protested. In this case, the guy went a little further. And like, if you don't, if you don't want your coffee shop protested, you really can just not. You don't, like, you don't have to say stuff. You really don't. You don't have a Right. To say stuff and not if people protest it.
- [35:18]
B
Right. And then there should be a protest of the protests and then another protest of the protest of the protests. It's the turducken of protests.
- [35:25]
A
The turducken of protests. Less acceptable in my view. So this is via Fox News. Mark Traeger, the CEO of the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York, said the incident warrants a review under city and state human rights law. Quote, turning a cup of coffee into a Jewish identity litmus test is an affront to the law, our values, and every New Yorker who rejects discrimination. He wrote on X, if an identifiable Jewish customer walks into a coffee shop wearing a kippah or a Magen David, are they Star of David? Are they expected to first disclose their views on Middle east policy before being served? This strikes me as very woke because you're not. You're saying it's like, you know, you would disagree with a specific trans person on a specific issue on Twitter. And some be like, oh, oh, you won't listen to trans people. This is sort of the same thing. Because they weren't. This wasn't cuz he was Jewish. It was because he's a member of Congress. Am I missing something here?
- [36:15]
B
Well, what is his actual stance on Israel?
- [36:18]
A
He's a. He's a supporter of Israel. Like he has criticized the government, but he's a supporter of Israel. He's not the kind of Democrat who seems likely to like, go hard after Israel for what it's been doing.
- [36:26]
B
He's not gonna use the G word.
- [36:28]
A
He's not gonna use the G word. No.
- [36:29]
B
Okay, gotcha. No, in that case, I think you're right. It would be pretty easy to test this. You just. Jesse, single, walks into the coffee shop wearing his yarmulke, sees what happens. Although they probably couldn't see it at the top of your head because you're so tall.
- [36:45]
A
Yeah.
- [36:46]
B
Although in places like Seattle, like Seattle does have a law in the books that you can't discriminate against ideology as well. I assume Brooklyn does not have this. It seems to be pretty French, which
- [36:55]
A
is sort of funny. It's like a city law.
- [36:56]
B
Yeah. Here's the law. It is illegal to discriminate against, harass or deny equal treatment to anyone in employment, housing or public accommodations based on their beliefs, political beliefs, ideology.
- [37:05]
A
That's interesting.
- [37:06]
B
It's very expansive.
- [37:07]
A
Yeah. And, and my understanding is that that law, that local regulation or whatever could itself be considered unconstitutional because if you have a private business, you're allowed to. I think you're allowed to say, I mean, we're going to get into this.
- [37:20]
B
But I don't, I don't think that this is enforced because you will, I mean, walk through Capitol Hill and you will see many, many signs that say things like, no racism, no homophobia, no fascism.
- [37:31]
A
Yeah. You see those signs everywhere. They're not. Well, or they're not welcome here. Yeah.
- [37:34]
B
Technically, that would be, I think, illegal under this law.
- [37:37]
A
But I. Well, but I think that law, if it was ever tested.
- [37:39]
B
Yeah, right. I don't think, I don't think that this has been. I don't, I don't think that, that this is something that is enforced. I don't think that the cops are going out and telling people to take away their no homophobia size because we don't discriminate on. Against homophobes around here.
- [37:51]
A
Yeah. Can I, can I backtrack just on one Goldman thing? Because he, he is a, he's pretty pro Israel, but, like, this is a very lefty district. And as, as another thing we'll get to is just, just the dialogue on Israel in these districts has gotten pretty intense. So this is from AM New York, the local outlet, Democratic Debate. What happened in Gaza was horrific, absolutely horrific, Goldman said. When pressed by moderator Dan Manorino on whether Israel's actions should be considered genocide, Goldman said the term requires evidence and is, quote, somewhat beside the point. Lander, that's Brad Lander, by contrast, cited genocide scholars and said never again must mean never again to anyone. So Goldman was like, he said what happened in Gaza was horrific, absolutely horrific. So he's not exactly, like, super Zionist. Israel never does anything wrong, but he is fundamentally supportive of Israel and won't use the G word. And I think the G word is the linchpinnel of a lot of this. Like, I think you. Well, like, the Scott Wiener thing's another example because he sort of started closer to liberal. Well, yeah. Scott Wiener is state rep in California who's like, like sort of a conservative nightmare of a social justice advocate with power. He's like, he's, you know, he could
- [39:04]
B
see him at the Folsom Street Fair wearing a harness and a puppy.
- [39:07]
A
Yeah. And he's like, at least partially responsible for a law that means, like, if California, if you see what appears to be an underage prostitute on the streets, it's much harder to pick her up and try to get her out of there because it's like the idea. He's sort of been the. Against the stigmatization of sex workers. So he's like text workers, prostitute hookers who was.
- [39:32]
B
No, you said stacks workers.
- [39:34]
A
Text workers.
- [39:35]
B
He's super far left, but the stigma of text workers, of tech workers, that is a problem.
- [39:41]
A
He's. He's super far left. And he originally wouldn't call it a genocide, but then he did. But then there's this viral video of a trans march that he'd participated in without incident, forever because he's widely viewed as great on trans issues by, by Bay Area lefties just getting hounded like crazy for.
- [39:57]
B
Not say it, say it, say it. It's very much like, like, like the people during BLM who like, say Black Lives matter. Say Black Lives matter. It was that. But it's a genocide.
- [40:06]
A
Yeah, yeah. And he, but he has called it a genocide, but he. It's also, there's some, there's some NIMBY subplot here. The guy harassing him is apparently a big nimby, but the, this is a whole.
- [40:16]
B
Oh, he's good then. Right?
- [40:18]
A
You're pro. Nimbly. The point is whether or not be like it to remain, even have a chance of remaining in good graces in lefty circles. You have to call it. It a genocide. Now.
- [40:29]
B
Yes. Back to have to use the word trans women are women. Black lives matter. Israel is a genocidal state. Say the word.
- [40:37]
A
It is sort of the new thing. Like if you go on, if you go on Blue sky, there's still obviously a lot of agitation over trans rights stuff. But you do see this being replaced by Israel as like the issue. Yeah.
- [40:48]
B
And I assume we're going to get into how this is affecting the Democrats.
- [40:52]
A
Yes, we shall. Now, Goldman himself said in an interview that he, quote, certainly had no problem if poetica was opposed to the Israeli government or had problems with his own actions, quote, I do too. Really? Meaning Goldman has problems with the Israeli government. And I'm really, really upset and angered by what this Israeli government has been doing in many ways, and I voice that a lot. But to take our frustration or opposition to what another country's government is doing on American citizens who are only affiliated to that country based on religion is outright discrimination and prejudice. Yeah, but that didn't happen to Goldman.
- [41:25]
B
Well, because he's a congressman, you're saying
- [41:26]
A
he's a member of Congress and he has power to vote on things like how much to fund Israel and that what it was about. So look, part of the reason I'm harping on this is Trump's Assistant Attorney General for Civil rights, Harmeet Dhillon, said the DOJ is now investigating Poetica because as Fox News puts it, federal law prohibits public accommodations, including coffee shops, from discriminating against patrons based on race, religion, or national origin. I don't. There's no discrimination. I'm sorry, there's not a discrimination case there. It would be one if. If a coffee shop literally asked every Jewish looking person for their view on Israel before serving them and didn't ask that question to others, that's a discrimination case. This is so clearly, in my view, pegged to Goldman being a congressman. And once you realize if they're singling him out for being a congressman who holds views they don't like, whether or not they're accurate in their assessment, that's not a civil rights case. You need to be allowed to deny service to a congressman you don't like. Not.
- [42:27]
B
Yeah, they need to find a better example. They need to find just a regular Jew who's wearing a Star of David who was not served at this coffee shop. Then they'd have a better case. Although it's the Trump AG department, so.
- [42:38]
A
Well, that's what I'm saying. Another part of the. Another issue here is we now know that, like, which alleged civil rights infractions will be investigated by the doj. Now it just depends entirely on who's in the White House. Like, there's no shared understanding of which. Which ones. You know, like even they're investigating cases of sort, alleged anti white bias, which would not have happened under Biden. Biden maybe would like. It's just, it sucks that that has gotten so politicized.
- [43:05]
B
And what has Goldman, has he said anything about this DOJ investigation? I assume that he does not want to appear to be connected in any way with the Trump administration.
- [43:14]
A
He said he's against it.
- [43:15]
B
Okay, what about his daughter? Has she commented?
- [43:18]
A
7 year olds who went to the.
- [43:19]
B
She just wants to pee.
- [43:20]
A
She just wants. I just want to pee. She said, I just. I can't. I don't see how. Dan Goldman, who I keep putting as
- [43:28]
B
Goldberg in the notes, now that is racist.
- [43:31]
A
Okay, now these things always escalate. Poetica has now received packets of white powder in the mail and a bunch of death threats.
- [43:38]
B
Flour, hopefully.
- [43:40]
A
Flour. I've heard they have stale pastries, so maybe people are just saying, make your own pastries. Parviz Mukhamad Kulav reinstated his Instagram account or Poetica Coffees to clarify that everyone's welcome at his coffee shop. Just read this top bit of it, please.
- [43:54]
B
Kate, Katie, A message from Parviz. If we simply had a Public disagreement about the policies he supports, that would be fine. But conflating criticism of those policies with anti Semitism did something else. It used the influence of a sitting member of Congress to smear a local immigrant owned small business, possibly for election eve media exposure. The resulting attention spurred death threats and horrific harassment. Strangers from around the world posted fraudulent reviews of my business, and the U.S. department of justice opened a civil rights investigation, citing my post and those. And those fake reviews reviews as evidence. Most recently, we received envelopes in the mail filled with white powder, along with death threats that are now under NYPD investigation. You know what's strange about this? This is like on a. Do you think he typed this and then printed it out and then took a photo of it? Because the.
- [44:41]
A
The. No, look at the.
- [44:43]
B
There's like folds in the.
- [44:44]
A
There's multiple folds. It's like tri folded. Yeah, the parv. What the fuck? Parv is. No, it's quad folded.
- [44:51]
B
Yeah, it's quad folded. This is really strange.
- [44:53]
A
But it's clearly not scanned because the lines are perfectly right. Can I make this about B for a minute?
- [44:59]
B
It's like a template. If you wanted to have like pass a note during class. Template, it's that. Yes, go ahead.
- [45:04]
A
Do you remember the. What's her name? Jesus Christ. Emily Vanderwerff. Emily St. James at Vox.
- [45:09]
B
Yes. The movie critic who tried to get Matt Iglesias fired. Right, for signing the Harper's letter.
- [45:15]
A
She didn't. She didn't try to get Matt Iglesia's fired, but after he. After Iglesia signed the Harper's letter, she said that. That. That made her feel less safe at worse at work, which does seem to be trying to get the attention of her employer to do something. I don't think she was trying to get him fired, but everyone. Everyone made fun of her for that because it was an insane thing to say. She then posted that it was me tweeting about it at a time when everyone was tweeting at her about it. I was the one who was causing her to be harassed. I sort of think this Parvis guy is pulling the same shit because he chose to chime in in a ridiculous way, and now.
- [45:49]
B
He didn't chime in. He chose to brag about.
- [45:52]
A
Yeah, brag about.
- [45:54]
B
Yes, yes.
- [45:55]
A
Dude, you were looking for attention. You got it. I don't think Dan Goldman is the reason you're getting. Look, death threats and white powder, unless it's Double O, pizza flour is completely unacceptable. But that's not because of Dan Goldman. It's because you chose to insert yourself in this.
- [46:10]
B
Right.
- [46:10]
A
And pay your. Pay your taxes.
- [46:12]
B
Wait, and this is a DSA man who. Who won't pay his taxes. Typical.
- [46:18]
A
I mean, there's. There is. Sorry, there is something like dsa, the system we need to make New York better. But I won't pay my tax. I mean, it's sort of insane. It's immediate.
- [46:27]
B
What would you do if someone refused to serve you?
- [46:30]
A
Well, we had. We. I faced that dilemma and I chose to let them off the hook. Remember the Portland thing?
- [46:34]
B
Oh, that's right. You wouldn't name the business, you puss.
- [46:36]
A
I wouldn't name the bar.
- [46:37]
B
Right. There was a bar.
- [46:38]
A
It was a ch. It was a Chuck E. We wanted to hold a meet up at a Chuck E. Cheese and Chuck E. Cheese company.
- [46:42]
B
That was. Cause you're on a list.
- [46:44]
A
No, it was. It was a guy. It was a guy who owns a number of bars in Portland and he said he wasn't comfortable hosting a bar pod meetup. And you, I think, try to get
- [46:53]
B
you to name and shame.
- [46:53]
A
And basically everyone I met in Portland wanted me to name and shame. But I said I prefer to feel superior to everyone morally and I do.
- [47:01]
B
Tell me the name of the bar offline and I'm going to send him some white powder, but it will be
- [47:05]
A
King Arthur jokes on you because I don't remember. There was.
- [47:07]
B
Wait, sorry to interrupt. That happened to us when we first started this show. Remember when we were going to do live shows in New York, I think, and someone reached out to us and was like, I'm interested in hosting. My venue is interested in hosting you. And then we wrote back and we're like, are you sure? Do you know anything about the podcast? And then this woman, we're back and she was like, never mind. We didn't name them. We didn't name them.
- [47:33]
A
I mean, it was like we did name.
- [47:35]
B
When. When Dartmouth. When they. When there was some. We did name Dartmouth when they had some about us doing a show there.
- [47:43]
A
Well, that was more. They sudd. Decided to close it up to. Only members of the community could come. And we were. Because of some sort of bullshit threat of protest or which. Anyway.
- [47:55]
B
Okay, well, Goldman must have had a pretty bad week because he lost the race. Right?
- [47:59]
A
Goldman got destroyed by I think like 30 points. And yeah, by now people are probably familiar with the basics. But just to review, in these congressional Democratic primaries, the DSA wing racked up three impressive victories. Claire Valdez beat Antonio Reynoso In New York's 7th congressional district Darieliza Avila Chevalier, DAC beat longtime incumbent and like real sort of progressive machine politics dude. Adriano Espilat in New York's 13th. And Brad Lander beat incumbent Dan Goldman, not beloved by Poetica Coffee in New York's 10th.
- [48:36]
B
And all the winners were Mondaami endorsed DSA candidates.
- [48:41]
A
Lander was not endorsed by dsa, he was just endorsed by Mamdani. The other two were endorsed by dsa. But, but what this really highlighted was just Mamdani's power because the army of young people who campaigned for him and then got him into office and what was at the time a pretty shocking result, they're still out there and they're still involved in politics. And a Democratic primary, or any primary is when the most engaged people can have the biggest impact.
- [49:07]
B
Yes, that is true. I mean when you look at the, at the turnout for these primaries, it's very low. Not abnormally low, it's always low, but it does, it's got we ranked choice fix this. The fact that the few people who show up in primary elections have outside power.
- [49:25]
A
The percentage these races I had my researcher check and it's like 7 to 10% of eligible Democratic voters in these districts voted. And it's just this weird combination of factors where a really small number of people can change the direction of the Democratic Party. These are such. Right. Well, exactly like we saw with the Tea Party insurgency. But these are such blue districts in such safe districts that whoever wins the primary is going to win.
- [49:52]
B
And something similar just happened in Denver. Is that right? Or in Colorado, was it Denver, Colorado?
- [49:57]
A
In Denver district in Colorado. But Malat kiros beat Diane DeGette very long run. I'm probably mispronounced her last name, but she's a very long running member of Congress. She'd been serving Colorado's first district district since 1997, which was before Kiros was even born.
- [50:13]
B
And I don't know much about the Denver, the Denver races, but I know in New York the biggest issue in these races is not local governance, it's Israel.
- [50:22]
A
That was what was interesting, like in the run up of it. Just so look, New York, huge, complicated, messy city with absolutely disastrous housing prices and we're in a pretty low crime period now. But there's always just these running debates about crime, quality of life and yeah, most biggest of all, affordability. So this is a race for U.S. congress. It's not ridiculous that Israel might come up because they might have to vote on Israel. Their views on Israel matter. But I did find it Unusual how these races were like, sort of gentrified or colonized by this Israel issue. Which is most important? The people. If you pick at random, one of the people in the US for whom Israel Palestine is like their one of their top issues, they're much more likely to be higher educated and relatively higher income or maybe family wealth. Because we talked about the distinction between those two last episodes.
- [51:15]
B
You've got the entire population of the US and the two people that you pick out are Nick Fuentes and Hasan Piker.
- [51:22]
A
There you go.
- [51:23]
B
Both college boys.
- [51:24]
A
Yeah. So what I'm just saying is like the median. We have polling on this. Like the median voter in these neighborhoods probably does not have Israel very high at the top of their list. Just two quick snippets of polling. They just read this from Data for Progress. This is a lefty polling outlet. They had this to say after they pulled New York City Democratic primary voters in 2025. So this is already a very lefty group.
- [51:45]
B
Voters say the top issues in the 2025 New York City Democratic primary for mayor were affordable housing, 74 and lowering costs, 64%. Issues closely aligned with the focus of Mondami's campaign. For the 27% of voters who report that, quote, U.S. foreign policy and relations with Israel were were an issue that played a role in their vote, over three quarters think that the US should reduce its support for Israel 78% rather than increase or maintain it 21%.
- [52:12]
A
So let's just unpack this. For the 2025 New York Democratic primary voters, just 27% said that foreign policy and relations with Israel played any role in their vote. So you take this already very lefty group, group, not a top issue. There's Also the spring 2026 Yale youth poll, which is a big national poll of younger voters. So younger voters are already further to the left. Katie, just please read this.
- [52:36]
B
When presented with several pairs of issues from a list of 30 voters, selected cost of living, slash affordability. Most often, 84% is more important to their vote, followed by health care, 75%, democracy, 75% and corruption, 72%. Voters aged 18 to 34 held the same for our priorities, with one additional one, housing. Voters care least about Israel and Palestine, 28, Ukraine and Russia, 26, 77, China, 27, artificial intelligence, 24, acceptance of gay people, 22% and acceptance of transgender people, 19%. Despite the prominence of those issues in the news, young voters 18 to 34 prioritize housing, K12 education, higher education, abortion, climate change, acceptance of gay people, and Acceptance of transgender people greater than 10 percentage points more often than the overall population. Okay, this is interesting because it appears from this polling that Israel is not important at all. And these are the first thing that we read. This was actually from Democratic primary voters in 2025 for the mayor's race. So how does that, how does that square. The voters in those races are saying we don't care about Israel, but Israel did become a major issue in the 2026 primary primaries.
- [53:49]
A
I think that the New York City Democratic primary for mayor. Yes, it's just a much bigger, more attention getting race than these safe blue districts where it's just been normal for like, often one incumbent to just win over and over and over, you know, partly because they're supported by this machine that the DSA is supposedly against. So you wouldn't, you just wouldn't think, based on the numbers, Israel would play such a major role in the Democratic Democratic primary. But it was sort of just anecdotally, it dominated the conversation. And again, Claire Valdez, my researcher, pulled these numbers. Claire Valdez won with 38,000 votes out of 456,000 active voters, or about 8% of them. Chevalier won with 33,000 votes out of 449,000, or about 7%.
- [54:39]
B
Okay, so a tiny, tiny, passionate minority of voters in the district are choosing who will actually represent the district. Did you vote, Jesse? You didn't, did you?
- [54:49]
A
No. I feel, I feel torn on this because I don't know if I should be.
- [54:56]
B
Well, why don't you vote?
- [54:57]
A
I don't know. Like, I. It's. Okay. So basically I feel weirder about, like, as I've gotten older, and I think there's more of a difference between being a journalist and being like any kind of advocate. I just feel weirder about being a register registered Dem.
- [55:12]
B
But I mean, by that, by that measure, you shouldn't vote in races, period. And I know, like, like Andy Mills doesn't vote, I don't think, like, when Ari Shapiro was at npr, I don't think he voted. This is a, a reasonable stance to take. But it does seem like if you're willing to vote in the, like, it's, it's a yes or no thing. If you vote in the national races, which you do, then why not vote in local races?
- [55:36]
A
Yeah, I think I'm a little incoherent about it. It just, it feels weird somehow.
- [55:41]
B
Yeah, well, I mean, especially because your vote really does not matter in the national races, whereas in these local races.
- [55:47]
A
Right. Because I haven't been I mean, I, I don't. Oh, sorry, go ahead.
- [55:51]
B
Well, I just mean that you're like, you live in Brooklyn. They're going to go for the Democrat no matter who, whereas so few people show up in these local primaries. Your vote has a, just like, has a bigger impact.
- [56:05]
A
Yeah, it's, I think I'm incoherent on it. I mean, first of all, I think the least interesting or useful thing a journalist or commentator can do is tell people who to vote for. And we've tended not to do this on the show. While making clear our own stances. We did say the idea, the most explicit we were was like voting for Trump because you're anti woke is just not a good idea for a million reasons.
- [56:30]
B
Or because of speech.
- [56:31]
A
Yeah. Oh my God. Particularly. And I think we share most liberal people's disgust with, I don't know, like, I can't, can I, I can't pretend to be neutral on Trump. That just seems different from like being more actively involved in telling people who to vote for. But like, a lot of journalists think about this differently. Like Matt Iglesias, who follows state and local politics much more closely than I do, which is another problem. I'm just sometimes ignorant of this stuff. Iglesias, like, is not as shy about it, so I don't, I don't think there's a right answer. I feel like a little bit of a bad citizen for not being more involved.
- [57:03]
B
Yeah. I mean, it also depends on your job, your specific job. Matt Iglesias is an opinion writer. You're an opinion. I mean, you do also reporting, but like, but if you were a. It's different to be in a, like, at this point, you probably, I'm actually sure that you wouldn't be able to write a piece for the New York Times, like science section, because you've written for Opinion, so you are basically an opinion writer at this point.
- [57:29]
A
Yeah.
- [57:29]
B
But let's get back to, let's get back to the race. Okay, so what. Who's the one who's really nutty?
- [57:34]
A
They're all a little bit nutty. But DAC Chevalier is like really?
- [57:38]
B
What's her, what's the full name?
- [57:40]
A
Darieliza Avila Chevalier. She. Jeff Maurer has a good rundown. We'll link to how crazy she is. The peak of her. I mean, a lot of it is bizarre far left social media posting. But it's not just that, because this subset called the New York Editorial Board, which is local journalists, including Ben Smith talking to local candidates, they published an interview with her where they did the. Had the same conversation every prison abolitionist has at some point. That's what she is.
- [58:07]
B
What do you do about murder?
- [58:09]
A
What do you do about murder? Which is apparently a very naive and outdated question to ask. But she would not agree to imprisoning murderers. So that's to me, I don't know, I find that disqualifying that you don't think murderers should be, should be imprisoned.
- [58:27]
B
What are we going to do? Work camp? Did she want to do work camp? Because I could get down with that. But if she's talking about just like what everybody do, an accountability circle, not down with that.
- [58:37]
A
These are folks who really speak, you know, they're often from academia and they speak the language of sort of far left academic thought and they are not really generally big on America. Like they think America is really a force for oppression and they want to want to fight against that. So I mean, do you think that, that. My interpretation is basically, this is the same story we've been telling on this podcast for years, which is that within the broad Democratic coalition there are these really important divides having to do. Often they're really just class based and education based and the available evidence, you don't want to overstate it. It's not like there's no black or poor socialist. But the people most excited about revolutionary rhetoric and about the DSA movement and about Mamdani tend to be a bit wealthier and they tend to be the transplants and the gentrifiers versus I include myself among those, versus people who have sort of lived in New York for generations. Don't you think that general diagnosis of like the whole, all the stuff going on in the left, like basically applies here?
- [59:43]
B
Yeah, it's the Calla Walsh story. Is she from your suburbs? She seems like she'd be from your suburb.
- [59:47]
A
She's from the same milieu.
- [59:49]
B
Yeah. So yeah, this, this educated, privileged, truly privileged people who have downwardly mobile, downwardly mobile, downwardly mobile who seemingly have this very romanticized view. Hassan Piker is, is a perfect example, this very romantic view of communism. And then you have people who have actually fleed communist countries like Florida or
- [60:12]
A
fled, if you will.
- [60:13]
B
What did I say? You said fleed, fled communist countries like Venezuela or socialists Venezuelans or Cuban immigrants who come here and end up voting for Republicans because they are so like I have a friend who's. Whose family fled their. They were Vietnamese refugees. They are maga and they are MAGA purely because they are anti communist. And you know, this is in part this is why I'm in favor of legal mass migration to the US Because I think we need these immigrants to come and be a moderating force. I need, I think we need these capitalists come in here and moderate these college educated, largely white but not entirely white posers who think that, you know, communism is going to get them all like free tickets to Knicks games.
- [61:05]
A
There was a little brouhaha between, or a little spat between James Carville and Ta Nehisi Coates and, and the lefty Dropsite News posted an interview with Ta Nehisi Coase in which he said, future Congresswoman Chevalier represents actual voters, a district filled with black and brown people. And what James Carville is saying is a quote, statement on how he feels about black and brown people and the fact that they are useful to him when they vote the way that he agrees with. When they don't kick them out of the party, they don't deserve representation. Now this gets to like the complicate. What do you do about Chevalier now that she's won the primary? You let her stand for the election. That's how primaries work. I don't think she, I don't really think it's real. You're not going to kick her out.
- [61:49]
B
Any genuine, Is there any mechanism for that?
- [61:51]
A
You can't, you can't, you could, you could run like a third party candidate if they, only if they agreed. I'm just trying to get inside my head not really knowing the district, but only they'd have to agree to caucus with the Democrats, otherwise you're not getting a Democrat.
- [62:06]
B
Right.
- [62:06]
A
And then that, what does that do? Does that then open the way to like, like the, the Republican having a chance. But the point is this idea that this represents the views of black and brown voters, like all the data I've seen suggests that. No, what predicts voting for this DSA candidates is being whiter and being more education, being higher income. And some of the heat maps that have been published on these districts show that pretty clearly.
- [62:29]
B
I'm actually surprised. So I just looked her up and I'm surprised that she actually was. This is her Wikipedia page. She was born and raised in Florida to working class Dominican immigrant parents. Parents. Her father is a truck driver and her mother a caseworker. She has also lived in the Dominican Republic in Venezuela. So that actually that plays sort of against type. My assumption would be, and I'm basing this partly on the fact that she went to Colombia, that she would have been a rich kid.
- [62:55]
A
I mean we talked, we talked about this with, with mom with Platner, where. It's complicated. It's not. It's not like your income or wealth directly create what you think and how you talk. Part of it has to do with, like, where you hang out. But in her case, yeah, she appears to come from genuinely more working class backgrounds, but she's adopted. She talks the way PhD candidates in sociology talk, which is not the way most people. Americans think about politics.
- [63:24]
B
Can we get to some of her crazy tweets?
- [63:26]
A
Okay, yeah, read these from ABC 3340 News.
- [63:29]
B
Okay, so in August 2020, she said Israel doesn't exist. That seems wrong.
- [63:36]
A
Fact check, please.
- [63:39]
B
In September 2021, she's. She. She posted a world without borders. Just like a world without prisons or police is possible, necessary, and the only moral way forward. How does that work? Like, who is the who? Like who is there one universal government in a world without borders?
- [63:55]
A
I don't know what to tell you, Katie.
- [63:57]
B
During that month, she also reposted messages that said, yes, literally abolish the border and all deportation is wrong. She also posted, oh, yeah, all that
- [64:08]
A
was another one that got attention. All deportations wrong for any reason.
- [64:11]
B
She's in favor of nationalizing utilities, hospitals and pharmaceutical companies, suspending rent and mortgage payments, dissolving private health insurance companies, and, quote, seizing all properties from landlords. Seize the means of production. She wrote in a 2019 post during Black Lives Matter. She posted, you we're going to defund and abolish. You don't get to water down our movements. She's also in favor of, quote, ending policing, full stop, period. No more police at all, ever. She said now, okay, this one. All pigs everywhere are haram. She's not. Are you talking about cops there or pigs? Pigs.
- [64:47]
A
No, she's talking about cops, but she converted to Islam.
- [64:50]
B
She called Joe Biden a rapist and a work criminal. It's the Taylor Lorenz line.
- [64:54]
A
Did she or Valdez say Kamala Harris?
- [64:57]
B
Oh, I don't know.
- [64:58]
A
And like, I don't. I don't for. I don't like that. I'm not gonna lose sleep over someone saying Kamala Harris. But again, it has to do with, like, how these people are gonna into the democratic establishment.
- [65:07]
B
She also called COVID 19 a European plague, which I. That also fact check on that one. It's a Chinese plague.
- [65:15]
A
The giant. The giant. The Giner virus.
- [65:17]
B
Yeah. She said that black and Arab men fetishize ugly colonizer women. And she is against interracial relationships. She tweeted, no whites, though. Whites is y t S. So, yeah,
- [65:34]
A
I think this is someone who's not qualified to be a member of U.S. congress. I think it's really unfortunate that that's where this sort of.
- [65:41]
B
Yeah. Okay, wait. Sorry to interrupt you. So she said that she regrets her tweets, but she did it in this, like, it was like, half a decade ago. Like, half.
- [65:49]
A
A full half decade when I was, like, 27.
- [65:52]
B
Right, right.
- [65:53]
A
And again, we don't, like, we don't need a. We don't need to speculate because she was just asked by Ben Smith and other journalists about the prison abolition thing, and she. Yeah, she doesn't think murderers should be in prison. So what all this shows more than anything is that Mamdani has real juice. And there is this. There was good reporting from the Times about how the Mamdani campaign, like, for young people who are in New York, which is this big city and pretty alienating, and some of them had come of age during COVID This was their chance to get involved in, like, a really exciting political movement.
- [66:26]
B
Movement.
- [66:26]
A
And Mamdani is an incredibly charismatic leader. And so when he says, go vote for this person, he now has, like, a small army of, like, we're saying, mostly downwardly mobile gentrifier types. And I just think that's the most accurate way to describe who they are. I'm not. I'm. I'm a gentrifier type, but that's. They can affect the outcome of a primary. And I. In the process, they are going to give a lot of ammunition to Republicans. So I don't really know where this leaves things. I just think this is not a model. Model that you can replicate outside of deep blue districts.
- [67:00]
B
Absolutely. And during the height of wokeness, you know, I think we rightfully had this sense that identity politics were bad for Dems, that progressives were leaning into these really unpopular, unpopular messaging, divisive messaging. Messaging that ultimately did, I think, lead to this backlash, this sort of resurgence of white identity politics, which seemed very predictable to me at the time, I think is proven correct. But I thought, you know, what would be a more universal and probably popular message would be leaning into class. Classes. Classes is raceless. Right. And I think that the far left is doing that, is proving to be a more successful. More successful messaging.
- [67:43]
A
Wait, how are they. How are they leaning in a class
- [67:45]
B
making issues of affordability, number one. Right. I mean, there's the Israel stuff. But, like, Mandami, he won because. Well, partly he won because Cuomo was a terrible candidate.
- [67:59]
A
Yeah, sorry. He won, like, a really Weird race. And he sort of chilled on the Israel stuff during the heat of the campaign just because there's a lot of Jewish voters in New York. These new folks running in very different circumstances, I would argue the bread and butter affordability stuff, they would talk about it, but I just think Israel actually dwarfed that, which is why I'm questioning.
- [68:19]
B
But they're not talking about. Well, no, no, no, absolutely. Is. Has become the new social justice movement. But they're not talking about like Black Lives Matter. They're not talking about trans as much.
- [68:27]
A
Right. They'll throw in some like black and brown people. But no, the language has shifted and it's like much more important from their point of view to talk about the, the genocide and ending US Support for Israel.
- [68:38]
B
Seizing properties from landlords. I mean things like rent control have proven to be pretty popular in New York. I don't see why, at least among the people who, who show up and vote in primaries. Same thing in Seattle. Katie Wilson, who won the, who won the race for mayor. She, she's a DSA endorsed candidate. Her messaging was way more about affordability and than it was about, about race in the like 2020 era. Woke issues. I mean she is woke, but she really leaned into, into issues of affordability. And it's been interesting to see her try to govern because she's being sort of held prisoner by the far, by the far left by the DSA who are in direct odds with like with the nimbyism, with the urbanist. Because what actually does things like build housing and lower prices is giving incentives to developers. Yeah, but the DSA types are so anti developer that they just like, even if it would lower the cost of housing, like you cannot have that. You cannot throw a bunch of developers.
- [69:36]
A
They, they have. Yeah. Their views are. It's tricky but it's also like if you want. The Democratic Party has a massive, massive issue with just being heinously unpopular. There's no youthful excitement in mainstream Democratic politics. And if you want to get young people involved, I mean you could be a generational Obama type figure who's just pretty classic normal normie liberal. But was just like very.
- [70:01]
B
This was pre. But yeah, but Obama maybe that wouldn't have. With those same politics. Would Obama be popular now among young people? I don't think so.
- [70:08]
A
Maybe not. But what I'm getting at is like, like I'm glad. I like the argument which is like sort of the, the spearhead, tip of the spear for like abundance liberalism. Kelsey Piper, Kelsey Piper drew some demsis gimby abundant stuff. There's some energy there, but I think it's dwarfed by the excitement because, like, telling young people there could be part of a socialist revolution is always going to get them going more. Yeah. And it's also like, it's sexier. And these are. Look, I don't know. I don't think you choose to live where a lot of these people choose to live in New York, unless you really like the products of capitalism. I'm sorry, there's a fundamental disconnect there. I'm not doing the thing where it's like, oh, if you're anti capitalist, why do you have an iPhone? I think that's dumb. But you chose to live in one of the global epicenters of capitalism and where you can most benefit from all the different coffee shops, all the restaurants. There's just something there that I find strange.
- [71:13]
B
I don't think they understand what capitalism is. I truly.
- [71:16]
A
Well, that's the other thing is, like, the criticisms, but it's like sort of the same way. It's like if. If conservatives are screaming about the evils of socialized medicine while supporting the va, there's. That's, that's sort of inconsistent. I Often when I hear people talk about capitalism, the critique will center on like. Like humans are greedy sometimes. Humans hoard resources sometimes. Which is like. That's true. But that's not necessarily. That doesn't necessarily mean the solution is to throw out capitalism.
- [71:41]
B
Sure. I mean, Jeff Maurer wrote a good thing about capitalism's branding problem.
- [71:46]
A
Did you.
- [71:46]
B
Was that Jeff? Did you read that one?
- [71:48]
A
I didn't read. I saw the headline.
- [71:49]
B
The argument is basically, and this is something. This has driven me crazy for forever is people confuse capitalism with consumerism.
- [71:58]
A
Sure. Our co. We're. Our communists. Are communists in socialist societies known for not producing a lot of pollution? Idle. Think so. No. Yeah. It's just.
- [72:04]
B
It is. I really think that capitalism has a. Has a. Much like Israel has. Is like in the midst of a PR crisis right now. And the people who are, who are, like, coming, like, willing to come out and say, I'm a proud capitalist, are not going to be popular with the next generation. People like Jack Schlossberg. I don't think this is the reason he lost his race, but he was one of the few young candidates who I heard say, like. And he did. I heard him say this on a. An interview with David Richard Remnick with the New Yorker. And he's sort of like, David Remnick asked them, are you. You Know, are you a capitalist? And he's sort of like, yes, I'm a capitalist. But he's, you know, he's speaking to his, his demographic is people who are old enough to have some, like, historical context.
- [72:46]
A
Well, no, no, I, I don't think it. It's. There's got to be a way. You know, I'm not like waking up thrilled about capitalism per se. It's more that I think, like, this is probably. The alternatives are probably much worse. And I just think we should have more specific situations about what should be socialized. Things like education and medicine should be socialized to a degree.
- [73:07]
B
I disagree about education.
- [73:08]
A
You think we should just. Just whatever you get the education you can pay for.
- [73:12]
B
No, but I don't think that private schools should be illegal. Like, this is something that, you know, Hasan Piker and Gia Tolentino said in that, in that New York Times interview.
- [73:19]
A
Like, literally, she said private. Algia Tolentino said private school should be illegal.
- [73:23]
B
Yeah, they all agree that private school should be illegal.
- [73:26]
A
Yeah. This, this all gets really complicated. I think there's a reason everyone wants to live in. Well, but also like. But also the, all the, all the countries that have achieved, like, the best qualities of life in the world and often have more compressed wealth structures than we do and less inequality. Sweden, Denmark, Finland, they're all capitalists too. I don't really. I just don't know what model they can point to. Do a real world model that hasn't ended in disaster. But let me just to briefly change the subject, read this. This top of this tweet from Mamdani and then I want you to read one of the responses to it because I love how perfectly this sums up this.
- [74:05]
B
So he posted this today, July 4th. Today marks 250 years since a small group of newspaper editors, farmers and soldiers signed a document declaring our nation's independence. A truth that feels self evident now, but was revolutionary then. Good, good tweet. No problem.
- [74:18]
A
Look at this response. I love this fucking response. It just sums it up so nicely.
- [74:21]
B
Oh, David, clean on. I fully get and respect that Zoron is trying to reclaim a usable American past. And I think this is a smart thing for the left to do in general. But the idea that the declaration was signed by farmers and not managers of slave plantations crosses over into distortion for me.
- [74:36]
A
So you can't, you can't even. Just, just in one tweet, just say America.
- [74:41]
B
Yeah.
- [74:42]
A
Say something nice about the founders, which, yes, they were slaveholders. This is not a new point. But you can't even just briefly not mention that without someone popping actually, like. So I don't, I don't think Dave Kleon is going to get us to the leftist revolution. Okay, I forget where we are. I think you and I are both saying that everything should be privatized in all circumstances. Right. Let me make one last point that I think is going to be. I don't know, this is just something I've been thinking about. So you just got to let me cook for a minute. Israel was a big issue here. I, I think a lot of these status quo defenses of Israel and our allyship with it just aren't really working anymore. I've been wanting to talk about this for a while just because I've noticed just, just this stuff going on in heterodox spaces I don't like. So on this show we talk about Internet bullshit. So we're much more likely to talk about like encampments on campuses or blow ups involving coffee shops than the conflict itself. I think you and I both agree you and I should not really talk about the conflict itself. Is that safe to say?
- [75:41]
B
I try not to talk about things that I don't really understand.
- [75:45]
A
Yes. It's also, it's just a difficult issue to talk about because people are so mad about it. But the other thing is, is like, I do think American pro Palestinian activism is tailor made to draw negative attention to itself just because it shares a lot of the pathologies of privileged online slacktivism in general. It's like it's much more interested in finding enemies and shunning them than in building any sort of alliances or coalitions. It's, it's adopted language that I find very creepy, just the way the term Zionist or Zio is thrown around. And, and I understand why people have a negative reaction to these activists, especially because like the shit immediately after October 7th, they couldn't just say it's bad Israelis were killed. I mean, you remember how creepy that was. 1200 dead people, bodies not counted. They couldn't lift a finger just to say that's bad, which I found disgusting. And that stuck with a lot of liberal Jews who are sympathetic toward Palestinians. But I don't think those activists are the reason support for Israel has cratered in the US I think think Israel has killed tens of thousands of people. And I think people are aware of that. And I think constantly saying that this is anti Semitism or that people are confused or bamboozled just hasn't worked. Almost in the same way, trans activists claiming that Their negative results are a conspiracy of anti Semitism. That hasn't worked either. So just read this from Gallup really quickly.
- [77:05]
B
From 2001 to 2025, Israelis consistently held double digit leads in Americans Middle east seminar sympathies with a gap averaging 43 points between 2001 and 2018. However, public opinion began narrowing in 2019, several years before the October 7, 2023 Hamas attack on Israel and subsequent war in Gaza. The cumulative effect of gradual changes in U.S. attitudes since then has led to the Israelis no longer being viewed more sympathetically. What happened in 2019?
- [77:32]
A
Yeah, it's curious it started before then, but if you look at the graph, it looks like, like in 2023 it was still more than 50% of Americans said they sympathize more with the Israelis. After 2023 is when this has really cratered and it's now down to 36% with 41%, you know, saying they sympathize with the Palestinians more. And I, I don't, I don't love that framing. I think like I would hate to have to choose to sympathize with one or the other. But the great awokening started in like around 2014 according to Matt Iglesias. And that for a while that didn't have any impact impact on overall views on Israel. I guess like Israel just wasn't in the news as much. But Katie, what has happened since October 7, 2023?
- [78:14]
B
Well, I mean if you're asking what has happened on the actual landmass itself, there's been a hugely destructive war and massive numbers of people displaced and large numbers of numbers of people killed.
- [78:25]
A
I think Mamdani and people in his orbit have accurately identified that there's a lot of moral outrage over this issue and it has to be changed, channeled somewhere. And I don't think there's a lot of room in like normal mainstream liberal places for people to say this is up. In my experience, you will often find someone thinking you're deluded or that you're buying into anti Semitic tropes. I'm including in this a lot of people I otherwise respect and think are just smart folks. I think on this issue they just can't believe that people are genuinely outraged at the level of death and who generally don't think this level of, of death serves any meaningful purpose. So I'm not saying that like people are forced to become anti Semitic, but do you remember there's this line that if you or I say look economically dispossessed people in the Midwest Might, just might choose Trump not because they're racist, just because they feel like they've been a little bit left behind. You and I would accept that those people aren't necessarily racist, that like they made a different decision because of, of sort of feelings we can't quite understand. Right.
- [79:32]
B
Sure.
- [79:33]
A
I can understand a young idealistic person not really seeing other places, responding to their own feelings about what's in their social media feed. And whatever you think about like the G word or distortions or there's been plenty of bad reporting on Israel and inaccurate reporting on Israel. At the end of the day, you do have a large pile of bodies, including a lot of non combatants, whatever the estimates are. So I don't know, I think it could just be that I was talking to this lefty. I respect Richard Yeselson, a real old school lefty. He thinks that like the DSA is pushing the Democrats in like a pretty radical direction, but they'll land somewhere in the middle between like somewhat knee jerk support for Israel and not wanting Israel to exist. So maybe land in a place where they're just more skeptical of it and don't sort of give it carte blanche to do whatever it does.
- [80:19]
B
You can see this also on the right. I mean, Israel is losing.
- [80:24]
A
Yes.
- [80:24]
B
Across the spectrum. Israel is alienating itself. And you can see this in the changing rhetoric from Donald Trump and J.D. vance. And a lot of it is racist. That is true. There is so much anti Semitism online right now from both the right and the, and it's, and it's getting more and more overt. You're seeing it in people running for Congress right now. You're seeing it in Congress right now. It's truly disturbing. I don't know how they fix that. But whatever they're doing right now is absolutely not working. And they are, and they have alienated at this point even their most ardent supporter in the White House because this, now, this war in Iran is so unpopular.
- [81:05]
A
I, yeah, look, I think we just need to be able to hold multiple thoughts in our head at the same time. I, I don't know, like in the heterodox sphere, it's just folks who I respect who in other cases are very skeptical. I don't, I don't think, I just don't think you should accept the claims of this government at face value. But, and I think that does tie into the DSA thing where like you're creating a vacuum that more radical figures can step into. Feel, feel. So I don't know, I just want to say that hopefully that won't, hopefully won't get canceled by the Zionist controlled media.
- [81:36]
B
Well, I heard today on NPR that Tucker Carlson and Marjorie Taylor Greene are floating building their own party. So maybe this will all which would actually be the like best case scenario for Democrats because now if we have the DSA versus the Dems, it's just going to fracture everything. So hopefully the Republicans will get their own marginal party in there as well.
- [81:58]
A
What's interesting is like I don't. Maybe it's just because he's charismatic and charming. I don't get the sense Zoran Mamdani like actually I think he likes New York and therefore likes America. I think some of these people, if you take them at their word and setting aside their desire to live in like the cool hotspot hotspots, they just seem to have such contempt for America. And I just don't know how that fits into the fact that the Democrats need to be able to appeal more to non college voters who generally don't hate America. And as we've said a million times before, you know who hates America the least are immigrants. And like recent. Recent immigrants. Yeah. As evidenced by the fact that they're tormenting you with fireworks.
- [82:38]
B
You get two generations removed and the kids are Hasan Piker fans who are all vaping and trying to be influencers.
- [82:45]
A
Anything else, Katie? No.
- [82:47]
B
Happy birthday.
- [82:48]
A
Happy birthday to America. We've. We've solved the issue. No, the DSA subs can be really interesting. I'm. It's just, it would be very Democrats of the Democrats to like have this potential for an important wave election and for this to somehow fuck it up. I don't know if that'll happen. Like I. It's going to be like take a lot of weird triangular to like figure out who to condemn and how much. But it's been. It's not great to have people like DAC in Congress. But we'll see.
- [83:15]
B
All right, thanks, Jesse.
- [83:17]
A
This has been blocked and reported. As always, we are produced with help from Jessica the 80s baby. I think I just said Jessica.
- [83:22]
B
You did.
- [83:23]
A
Or Jessica, maybe your lisp is contagious. You don't have a lisp. Thank you everyone for listening. Bye,
- [83:34]
B
Sam.