Loading summary
Transcript49 lines
- [00:02]
Tim Miller
Craftsman days are here at Lowe's with big savings on the tools you need right now. Get a free select tool when you buy the Craftsman V22 pack battery kit. Whether it's the backyard, the bathroom, or beyond, Craftsman has the tools to help you power through and get the project done right because diying is unpredictable. But your tools shouldn't be shop. Craftsman at Lowe's today valid through 618, while supplies last. Selection varies by location.
- [00:30]
Cameron Caskey
Well, after the big beautiful bill that magically got passed because a couple Democrats died, it seems like a lot of. A lot less people are going to be getting medical services from the United States of America. So there might in fact be a drive in recruitment. We might actually get more people signing up for the military, but not because of some sort of crazy Kim Jong Un patriot propaganda videos. More because they don't have healthcare.
- [01:00]
Tim Miller
Hey, everybody. I'm Tim Miller.
- [01:02]
Cameron Caskey
I'm Cameron Caskey, and this is FY Pod at the Bulwark, our young people show where we talk about new stuff. And you know what? I've got a monologue I want to open with. I'm really upset about something, Tim. I feel like there isn't any goddamn respect anymore in our culture. And I have a question for you, which is, have people gotten more narcissistic, selfish, and cruel in the past, let's say five to seven years, or am I just getting older and starting to notice it for the first time?
- [01:30]
Tim Miller
Hmm. I think that people are feeling a little bit more willing to let their narcissism freak flag fly. Like, I think that there was a moment during my, you know, coming of age era where, like, you know, that was like, the whole term around virtue signaling was just kind of like another way to be narcissistic, Right? But, like, there's, like, this social pressure to. To try to package your narcissism in, like, some other higher purpose. And I kind of preferred that actually better than just the, you know, more uncut version. I guess that'd be my social observation. Why? What makes you. What makes you bring that up?
- [02:08]
Cameron Caskey
So I was on. I flew back to Parkland for my little sister's high school graduation this past week. Shout out Connor. Soon to be at Florida State University, like my older brother. And both flights that I was on, people were watching TikToks on their phone with the volume all the way up and no headphones. And I know that, listen, I'm talking about a broader cultural cruelty. I'm talking about the fact that it feels like kindness is the counterculture now, and by the way, everybody comment down below if you think things have gotten worse, if you think people have gotten meaner. But something about this tiny little thing, these people looking at TikToks on their phone with the volume up. By the way, one of them was a zoomer. And everybody, everyone's going to think this is just a zoomer thing. One of them was like 55 years old. And by the way, he wasn't even like a weird mag guy. He was mostly watching clips from the Daily Show. So it seems as though my thesis is that social media has encouraged everybody to center themselves in the middle of the universe. And again, we all want to think it's a zoomer thing and a millennial thing, but I really think it's everybody. The same way that people, people from all generations are getting addicted to TikTok and stuff. And it's gotten to a point where kindness is the counterculture. And people in mago world and people in manosphere world and everything, they still think that they are like the movement against the culture. But no, no, no, no, no. The culture right now is in fact selfishness. It is putting yourself first. And it's extremely aggravating to me because, you know, it's from the littlest things, like holding the door for people to larger things like going out of your way to support someone who you barely know, but you have the opportunity to make your life just a little bit more complicated, to make their lives quite a bit better, it seems like that stuff is out. And it seems like being able to get on social media and just espouse your views to everybody how has made people crueler and more selfish. And the last thing I'll say to that is yesterday was the fifth anniversary of George Floyd's death. I hate to call things so tragic. Anniversaries. It's the same thing. Like when we talk about the anniversary of the shooting at my high school and I'm like, I don't know when, when I think anniversary, I think like, yeah, going to a nice dinner and everything. But still, it was the five year anniversary of George Floyd's death and I saw this huge account end wokeness tweeting an AI image of George Floyd holding a birthday cake with the number five on it. And it said, congratulations, George Floyd, for being five years sober. And I'm just thinking like, the types of people who used to do stuff like that, the types of people, they used to need clan hoods to keep themselves comfortable doing things like that. But no, social media has just given everybody the platform to be kind of a micro fascist.
- [05:03]
Tim Miller
Yeah. Or they would just say it like with their friend groups and be like, just kidding, bro. Just kidding. Just kidding. You know, like there's be like that element. You'd have to. Either you'd have to give yourself a little cover about how it was comedy about how you didn't really feel that way. Yeah, no, it's pretty. I got to tell you, I have no. There's no appeal to fascism towards me for me as a, as a libertarian lover of freedom. But the. If I were to be drawn to fascism, I do think that very stringent punishments for people playing TikToks without headphones on their phone would be like, on one of the top things that I would want to see.
- [05:39]
Cameron Caskey
It's just respect. It's just have respect for other people.
- [05:42]
Tim Miller
Have.
- [05:42]
Cameron Caskey
Think about anybody in the world except for you. I'm sorry.
- [05:46]
Tim Miller
Yeah. There are other humans out there. It's good. Cameron, I love seeing your considerate side. Okay, we have Memorial Day stuff to get to. We're taping this Memorial Day morning. There's a video that I'm sure somewhere there's a MAGA watching without headphones in a bus station somewhere. And it was put out by Pete Hegseth. And I'm not going to make everybody watch the whole 90 seconds, but we're just going to, we're going to watch just a little bit of it right now.
- [06:10]
C
No more distractions.
- [06:14]
Cameron Caskey
No more electric tanks.
- [06:16]
C
No more gender confusion, no more climate change worship. We are laser focused on our mission of war fighting. We will measure our success not only by the battles we win, but also by the wars we end, and perhaps most importantly, the wars we never get into. It's called peace through strength.
- [06:41]
Tim Miller
So there you go, Cameron. Happy Memorial Day. Rather than honoring the sacrifice of our veterans, you know, who believed in something greater than themselves, you know, who wanted to defend the values of the country, we're going to celebrate this day by saying no more electric tanks, no more gender confusion, no more climate change. This is America. We don't. We have no values. Our only value is killing people and, and, and push ups. And I don't know, it doesn't. Didn't really land for me.
- [07:13]
Cameron Caskey
That's the most confusing thing about the video is like, it's the whole peace through strength narrative, which is already so confusing. But I watched that thing and I'm like, this video is every 10 seconds switching between we are actually going to prevent wars. We are going to make sure wars don't start. We are going to be the country of peace. And also, like, we are better at killing people than anybody in the world. And we. That's what we're all about, you know, so it's not just peace through strength, it's peace through demonstrations of war. And I'm like, you know, it kind of speaks to this larger confusion from the Trump world.
- [07:50]
Tim Miller
Gender confusion, you might say.
- [07:52]
Cameron Caskey
About what? About what peace even is. Including Donald Trump himself's confusion about why Vladimir Putin seems to be continuing the war that he never said he was gonna end. But I look at this thing and I'm like, people in our country are like soft, obese pudding people right now. So if we have another draft, I think, like, 95% of the people in this country are not going to pass, like, the basic physical exams.
- [08:22]
Tim Miller
Yeah, there are a couple. There are two things that really jumped out to me as absurd among just kind of. The whole tone of it is just kind of ridiculous and feels like it should be in, like, idiocracy or at some other spoof movie. But your observation about the, like, simultaneously to us putting out this video, us being the usa, putting out this video about how we're war fighting now and all we care about is fucking up the bad guys. Like, Trump is sending out posts about how, like, Vlad, why have you gone so crazy? Why have you gone. I don't understand. And it's just like, there's an incongruity between, like, we're really tough now. And also while Vladimir Putin is sending missiles into Ukraine killing women and children and civilians. And our reaction is, no, we will not help you at all. We will not provide any of our weapons to you. We will not do anything to support you militarily. There's a little incongruence there. My other incongruence is about the no more electric tanks, which is simultaneous with the government purchasing electric cybertrucks because Elon wants to get the cash. So it feels. I guess I'm saying it feels an inch deep. I don't think. I think they're full of shit.
- [09:42]
Cameron Caskey
We also have this piece through being really fucking dumb. I wouldn't say it's a motto, but it's certainly a practice of ours. Did you see those videos of the Chinese robot murder dogs?
- [09:56]
Tim Miller
I did not.
- [09:58]
Cameron Caskey
Okay, whoever's editing this, if you could just throw up real quick, like 10 seconds of a Chinese robot murder dog video. And when this flagship quadruped robot is compared with the kind already seen under.
- [10:11]
Tim Miller
Testing with the US military, China's is.
- [10:14]
Cameron Caskey
Making western Designs look a little clunky in a world where robotic dogs are already in active war zones like Ukraine. The rise of quadruped robotics and the.
- [10:24]
Tim Miller
Possibilities of how they might be used is still evolving.
- [10:27]
Cameron Caskey
It's certainly not the time to let sleeping dogs lie when it comes to.
- [10:31]
Tim Miller
Staying ahead of the game.
- [10:32]
Cameron Caskey
So, yeah, those are the Chinese robot murder dogs. I personally would not want to see one of those on the battlefield, but I was looking further into it, and I was trying to figure out how this is allowed and how exactly they were inspired to do this. And I learned that there was a UN resolution to ban the use of robots on the battlefield, and we were the ones that stopped it. The US Shot that bill down, and in reward for doing so, we got Chinese robot murder dogs.
- [11:06]
Tim Miller
I gotta tell you, that's a danger. That's a scary combo for me, the Chinese robot murder dogs. Trump likes talking about how people are dogs. And he was also given a speech yesterday to the graduates, to the cadets, the army. And there's just one clip I want to play from it on the daily pond. I have commitment to people that I don't play Donald Trump audio unless absolutely necessary. I feel like the rules can be a little bit different here because I think it's important that we just really kind of simmer in the brilliance of the President of the United States.
- [11:43]
C
Your trophy wife. It didn't work out too well, but that doesn't work out too well. I must tell you. A lot of trophy wives doesn't work out. But it made him happy for a little while at least. But he found a new wife, he sold his little boat, and he got a big yacht. He had one of the biggest yachts anywhere in the world. He moved for a time to Monte Carlo, and he led the good life. And time went by, and he got bored. And 15 years later, the company that he sold to called him, and they said, the housing business is not for us. You have to understand, when Bill Levitt was hot, when he had momentum, he'd go to the job sites every night. He'd pick up every loose nail, he'd pick up every scrap of wood. If there was a bolt or a screw laying on the ground, he'd pick it up and he'd use it the next day. And putting together a house.
- [12:43]
Tim Miller
Okay, so again, that's a graduation for cadets. During that speech, he started talking about how about how during the Biden years, nobody wanted to join the military, which is kind of an interesting topic to bring up in front of a group of people. Who all decided to join the military during the Biden years. Speaking of narcissism. But in addition to that, that is this lengthy thing, which there's, like, a hint of something maybe true there, which is like, you can find fulfillment. You should find fulfillment from your work and not from the trophy wife, I think is what he's trying to get at. But. But you can tell he also really likes the trophy wife life and, like, the Monaco life. So there's, like, a tension within him where he's trying to impart some advice about how you should find fulfillment outside of trophy wives and going to Monaco and, you know, and having yachts. But, like, when you're listening to it, it kind of feels like. But you really like the yacht life. I don't know. What did you make of that?
- [13:41]
Cameron Caskey
There was a longing to it. I think Trump was definitely speaking about it with a sort of feeling of, you know what? I could have avoided all the stress of this fascism, and I could have just gone to my Monte Cristo with my trophy wife. And it felt like Jay Gatsby staring off into the green light and thinking about all the things that could have been while he relentlessly pursues the great Daisy Buchanan. Not to evoke such a famously suave character when talking about Donald Trump, but Trump is a bit of a charmer as well. Something about the story he told felt like kind of like an old story. It felt like a great American novel. You know, he said, he's got the trophy wife, lot of wives didn't work out, but it made him happy for a little while, found a new wife, one of the biggest yachts anywhere in the world, and then he moved to Monte Carlo and he had a great life. Like, that feels sort of like its own version of Great Gatsby. It feels like Nick Carraway would have been telling us this story while having gay feelings for Jay Gatsby, which we'll get into in a later episode. But I hate to do the if Biden did this, everybody would be furious thing, because that speaks for virtually every single thing that's happened in this administration. But imagine Biden giving a speech at a university like that and just trailing off into these stories that are the types of things that you'd want to hear from Trump if you were, you know, at drinks with him or if you were, you know, sitting with him at Mar A Lago. Not that anybody would want to be doing that, but if you were sitting with him at Mar a Lago, eating McDonald's or whatever the fuck he does. There, you'd want to hear his, well, he got the boat, he got the trophy wife, he used to go to the construction site and pick up all the nails. But in that context, it's definitely weird. And I feel like a lot of the kids who are going to the military are super hype about Trump. So they're like, hell yeah, Grandpa's telling some fun stories. But flashback to the first ever episode of FYPOD when we had veteran anarcho communist Dylan Gigan. He was telling me that so many of the people that he was training with in the military were there because of economic instability. And so they can get things like health care and college and feel like they had some sort of semblance of security in the future. And I'm thinking now, well, after the big beautiful bill that magically got passed because a couple Democrats died, it seems like a lot of, a lot less people are going to be getting medical services from the United States of America. So there might in fact be a drive in recruitment. We might actually get more people signing up for the military, but not because of some sort of crazy Kim Jong Un patriot propaganda videos, more because they don't have health care and they won't have health care.
- [16:33]
Tim Miller
It's a good observation. Yeah, I am just planning on just thinking about sitting there listening to Trump that speech. Biden also, you know, I've had a lot of not so nice things to say about Mr. Biden recently, but to his credit, he gave this commencement as well about three years ago and stayed and shook every cadet's hand on the way out of to congratulate them on their graduation. Trump left and went golfing after, after telling that story about the nuts and the bolts. And we keep saying different cities. It was Monte Carlo that he said. You said Monte Cristo. I said Monaco. Whatever. We don't, we don't know about this fancy shit. You know, we're normal middle, middle to upper middle class Americans. I don't know where the yachts go.
- [17:16]
Cameron Caskey
I think it might have been Monte Cristo, because when discussing how it sounds like a novel, I was thinking about the Count of Monte Crist, Monte Carlo. Anyway, it serves the same function narratively.
- [17:28]
Tim Miller
We've been one more, we've one more topic. You sent me an article and I had not seen it, which is very rare, by the way. And I get lots of people sending me lots of articles. Usually I've seen them all because I'm fucking sick and I'm online all the time. But I had missed this one and I Want you to talk to us about it. The headline here is, young US Men Are Joining Russian Churches Promising absurd level of manliness. I've got some thoughts, but I wanted to get your. Your initial reaction.
- [17:58]
Cameron Caskey
I'll tell you one thing. If you want absurd levels of manliness, there's two things for you to do. Number one, support the Denver Nuggets, and number two, support the Milwaukee brewers, baby. That's how to be a man in this country. By the way, I started the gym, so I'm gonna be.
- [18:15]
Tim Miller
How many. How many times have you been to Equinox so far?
- [18:18]
Cameron Caskey
I've been a couple times for yoga classes. I have my. I'm starting the workout regimen later this week, but my back has been so rickety lately.
- [18:29]
Tim Miller
You can tell with this. Your tris.
- [18:31]
Cameron Caskey
Oh, I wasn't. I wasn't even meaning to do that. That was because I very regularly put my hands over my head. It's an anxiety tic. But I was gonna say this, so I was really confused about this because people were. I saw that people were joining some sort of Russian church. It turns out it was more like an Orthodox thing than it was necessarily being run by the Kremlin, although I can't say I'd be entirely surprised. And young men are looking for that sort of manliness. And, you know, we have made the mistake of thinking that it's just people like Andrew Tate that young men are turning to for this manliness before, of course, they all switch over to us, but, no, it's also religion. And I know a lot of young people who. Who are turning towards religion in a way that they really hadn't been before. A lot's a big word. I know more. Quite a few. More than I had expected, especially since a good amount of my friends who had sort of gotten more religious than they were raised weren't exactly acting very pious over the past couple years. Something very recently has encouraged them.
- [19:39]
Tim Miller
Are they pivoting towards, like, woke. Like churches where they do, like, you know, kind of soft rock bands? Are they pivoting to, like, masculine churches? They're pivoting, like, more to evangelical. Where are they? Catholicism? What's.
- [19:54]
Cameron Caskey
There's actually. There's actually a pretty wide spectrum, I would say. I have a friend who was raised sort of modern Orthodox, and when he was in college, he, you know, was using his phone on Shabbat, and he was still practicing a lot of Jewish stuff, but definitely less than he was when he was at home. I lived with a modern Orthodox family where, you know, we Weren't using our phones on Shabbat. We were doing Shabbat dinner every Friday, different sinks. You know, in Orthodox Judaism you like, can't have milk in the same sink as meat or some shit like that. I remembered it when I was living with them because I wasn't going to break their rules. But you know, no phone on Shabbos. I was still using my phone, but definitely not at the Shabbat table. But a friend of mine who was modern Orthodox has gotten phone further and further into the Jewish practice. And a friend of mine who I had never heard talk about religion other than her saying that me being Jewish was hot. She is now super Jesus pilled and. But she's Jesus pilled, not in like a, you know, we need to use this to oppress people way. She's the type of Jesus pill that Jesus would want where she's very accepting and inclusive and everything. But I think it speaks to yet another thing young people are turning to while we're all feeling so lost, which is the warm embrace of religion. And a lot of my recently pious friends, I feel, have had a lot of questions about the near future and what it holds for them and where the world is going and how any of us are really going to be able to find our way in it. And there's, it's just this very dangerous thing, I think, to mix the power of God in Christ with the idea of masculinity because it's sort of conflating misogyny, heteronormativity and, and the power of man with, with the all powerful word of God and Christ. So not only are you saying like, ooh, you know, the men need to be in charge, we need to, you know, drink more protein shakes and you know, be a little bit more aggressive with people in order to be real men. There's also this element now of like the most eternal being in the history of the universe is telling you to do that. I mean, how much like manly type shit were you hearing when you were being raised Catholic?
- [22:20]
Tim Miller
God, it's hard to think back on it, like. Well, I'll come around to answering the question because just like it is so comical and absurd, like what is happening in this situation that I can't really think of a parallel for my youth, but I wonder as I kind of go through it, whether they're just more subtle elements to it. I just think for folks have missed this, it's important just to see just how ridiculous this is. This is Father Moses McPherson. I apologize for demeaning Your very sincere faith, Father Moses. The article starts here. A lot of people ask me, Father Moses. He talks in the third person about himself. How can I increase my manliness to absurd levels? And then in a video, he goes to talk about how skinny jeans, crossing your legs, using an iron, shaping your eyebrows, and even eating soup are too feminine.
- [23:20]
Cameron Caskey
Fellas, is it gay to eat soup?
- [23:23]
Tim Miller
It is gay to eat soup if you're in the Russian Orthodox Church. We might all be stuck eating soup depending on how the economic downturn go. So, like, there was just none of this, right, what I recall. And I went to, you know, soft Jesuit Catholic high school. So I'm trying to think back to middle school, even in middle school, just regular old parochial Catholic school. They're mostly just, like, trying to tell you to be a good person. I mean, like, I don't know, there's some rules that I didn't like. You know, obviously there's some rules against sexuality and masturbation that, like, ran into conflict with some of my personal interests. So, like, there were things I didn't like about it. Like there. There was a paternalism to it, right? Like, you can only have a male priest, right? And they're telling you what to do and not do. So there is a paternalism, but, like, there was none of this, like, oh, you need to do bicep curls to be a man. And I guess, like, a little bit before my time. There's a little bit of this in 80s culture, right? This is like what Brett Easton Ellis kind of spoofs in a lot of his work, like American Psycho and all those books. Like, it's not as if this comes out of nowhere. But, I mean, it is all like. He calls it absurd. Father Moses used the word absurd himself. And. And this is just what it is. Like, it is that whole, like, fake masculinity thing to absurd degrees, mixed with.
- [24:46]
Cameron Caskey
The eternal power of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. And of course, God shout out Jesus for being the most famous Jewish person in the world, Larry David, you'll get there one day, I promise. But, yeah, it's concerning. And people are very lost and scared. And I don't know the answers quite yet. But what I do know is that when you mix something as divine as our Lord with something as trivial as here's how to Be a Man, there's only dangerous things to come. More. Soon we'll do a more. We'll do a more spiritual episode of FY4.
- [25:25]
Tim Miller
We need to find a Russian Orthodox guest. That's the whole thing for me, it's like, okay, hey, look, we're all looking for meaning out there in this world, baby. I'm for it. I get it. Turning to the Russian Orthodox folks to tell you not to wear skinny jeans? I don't know, man. That feels pretty shallow to me. So, yeah, we should be on the lookout for some really religious guests. I think that'd be cool.
- [25:50]
Cameron Caskey
I will try to find you more equally strange articles before next week. Everybody. Thanks so much for listening. Remember that you should respect people. You should wear headphones if you're going to watch videos in public. And you should be a good person like me. And like Catholic Tim Miller. Thanks, everyone.
- [26:08]
Tim Miller
Peace. Happy Memorial Day.