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A
Hey, everybody. I'm Tim Miller, and this is fypod. I'm just gonna be real with you. We're always real on FYpod, so I'm just gonna just tell you the truth, which is I don't really know what the hell we're gonna do with this page and with this feed. While Cameron is exploring life as a congressperson, we have multiple potential bulwark people running for Congress. The same district, George Conway is out just a little bit ago, before he taped saying he's flirting with that race. I've never thought I'd have two colleagues in the same congressional race potentially. But we live in a strange world. So, you know, Cameron's out doing his thing. There's been a lot about what we've done over the last almost year that I think is good. There's definitely could have done a little better. I think that we. I think. I mean, we're funny and cute together, so the material's been good. I think that we haven't quite achieved what I wanted as far as, like, reaching youths. We do. I hear from youths. We have some youths that are. That are listening. I do notice that a lot of the comments are from, you know, grandmas that are, like, interested in what's happening in their youth, in their grandchildren's lives, which is great. That's great. Whatever. That's cool. We appreciate everyone still listening, but, you know, that wasn't the original targeted audience. So that I'm working on figuring out when we relaunch, how, you know, what. What our strategy should be. And in the meantime, there's something that we've done really well, though, which is the guests on this show have been unbelievable. I mean, I feel like in 20 years, like, there'll be entire cabinets worth of people that have been. That were fy podcasts. This year, we have, like, the best zoomers and young millennial cuspers out there. If you go back and look at our guest roster, everything from crypto Marxists to Steve Bannonite nationalists, I mean, we've had. We've. We've. We've touched all the bases. And so over the next month, we got the holiday gonna bring back some of them, hang out, chat, we'll do some fypodish stuff, and then we'll have a fresh plan for y' all in the new year. In the meantime, one of my favorites, maybe my favorite, I don't know. You don't wanna rank your children. One of my favorites of that roster of wonderful zoomer guests, she has the rebuild On Substack. She's shitposting on X a lot. Her name's Tara Hoops. She's back. What is up, girl?
B
Hi. Thanks for having me. Love the introduction of being called a youth still. I just turned 20 over a week ago and it's been weighing on me. I feel like I've hit my boomer stage of life, so I appreciate that.
A
Yeah, well, that's you. That's part of it. Because you got married too, you know.
B
I know.
A
So you're making grown up choices. Cameron turned 25 on Wednesday, so. Happy birthday, Cameron.
B
Happy birthday, Cameron. We miss you already.
A
He's becoming unk kind of. I guess when we reboot this, when it comes back, we need someone even younger. Maybe. Maybe it's me. And then Cameron is unk for like a 19 year old.
B
Did you say his unk?
A
Yeah.
B
Oh, I didn't know we're doing like the gen Alpha terms.
A
Yeah, I mean he's looking. He's kind of unk for gen Alpha, I would say.
B
No, no, he is.
A
Don't you think?
B
I don't know what that makes me though.
A
Because if he's. No.
B
Oh my God. Now I'm the brown auntie. I've hit that stage.
A
Now you're Sauron's brown aunt.
B
I thought I had more time.
A
Yeah, that's. No, you're youthful and whatever. You know, it's all relative. We're doing the best we can out here. Well, it's good for you to be back. Are you and the substitute teacher, are you feeling, are you excited about that being the substitute teacher?
B
I was literally messaging with Cam the other day and I was like, I feel like the substitute teacher that is coming in when like the favorite teacher is gone, I'm like, they're gonna be like, oh my God, Freepod. Oh, that's not Cam. But I will do my best. And we will remember Cam during this trying time as he seriously considers running for possible New York 12 hashtag, yes, we can.
A
Yes we. Cam, are you, are you going to be able to like Cameron, vacillate back and forth between like, you know, deep feelings and like oversharing about your personal life into like 4 minute long soliloquies about BB Netanyahu? Are you going to be able to manage that or are you just going to bring your own, your own style?
B
I think I'll just try my own style and see how that goes. I don't know, I feel like once you hit like long form convo, you're saying things that you did not think you would say out loud. And then you just start saying whatever comes to mind. That is my issue in life. I have raging adhd. Some people think I'm like just a fast talker. Just like there's no stopping me at times.
A
So that's the goal. About a long form podcast, you want people to say like for example, earlier this week I was taping the daily pod with Alex Wagner. We're talking about the Epstein file release and you know, we're doing mostly what we're supposed to do as political commentators, talking about the political implications, what this means for Trump, the COVID up the scandal, blah blah, blah, messaging and. But then we just, we start talking about the emails between like Larry Summers and who's the other guy? Farkas, Jonathan Farkas and Epstein and these old men who are like being like, Jeffrey, the girls don't like me, Jeffrey, these hookers are being mean to me. And it's like, and so I, we ended up in like an 8 minute long tangent talking about what we're going to do about sad old men that need love. And like, like that's an unanswerable question. And I was blurting out, this was not in the outline. I was blurting out maybe we do need AI sex bots for sad.
B
I was just thinking that as you said that I was like, I don't know, I don't want to subject real life women to that.
A
Like maybe, maybe we need AI sex robots for Larry Summers.
B
I mean also in that email, I only, I don't know if there was more of his. I just saw the one and it just had a weird, very off color tangent about women. And then in caps, do not share. This insight was almost chef's kiss. It was just like these are the people who we are supposed to think know more than us. It's, it's genuinely something to think about.
A
Their spelling was very bad. Yeah, I get it, okay? We all need love. I get it. You know, I get it. Everybody does. You were just talking about your aging crisis. We're all dealing with this in our own different ways. But you know, if you're a 65 year old man, you know, maybe finds age appropriate lover or maybe find somebody who wants to be there with you because you're charm, because you're nice and a caring person, you know, that might be something personable. Maybe you can offer something else besides, you know, because Farkas in his email is talking about how he's short and bald and old and it's just like, okay, well, but you have other, other traits. You would think you're wealthy and connected. You can bring a woman to part. Maybe there's some woman out there that would want to be there with you.
B
I don't think women care about height.
A
Rather than being sad. A sad old man talking about calling these poor young women hookers and asking a child sex trafficker. Anyway, we're off topic again. I want to talk to you about the groipers.
B
Okay.
A
For people who are listening, who don't know. I guess everybody knows at this point. But in case you're one of the ones who blessedly are unaware, it's Nick Fuentes little following these young, little Nazis. And the word Nazis is maybe losing its specificity at this point. It's getting thrown around a lot. In the case of these young men, they are explicitly white identitarian. They want some. So you can call that whatever you want, but they're racist. They think that white identity is important and they care about themselves. Young men, some of them are incels, involuntary cell, but some of them are vol cells. They're very nasty. They talk about how women want to be raped, all this sort of stuff. Anyway, Rod Drear, who. I can bring something to the table on the spot on this one. As an elder millennial. Cause he was like, he was kind of a big player in the discourse 10 years ago and then moved to Hungary. But he's a Christian conservative type that might be a little gay. Turns out he might be gay, but that happens. Yeah, they all are. Yeah. Anyway, he was a big evangelical Christian conservative writer 10, 15 years ago. Kind of out of the picture. Got out of the picture, went to Hungary. He's mobbed up there with Viktor Orban. Now he's going to the Russian baths with other guys and you know, whatever he's doing out there, good for him. He came back to D.C. on like a fact finding mission with what's happening with the Christian conservative movement now. He went and met with a lot of young guys who are interns, see how they're doing, you know, and to check in with them. And then he wrote a substack about it and I want to read a little bit of it for you. The claim I first floated on this sub stack last week when I was quoting a DC insider who said that in his estimation, between 30 and 40% of Zoomers who work in official Republican Washington are fans of Nick Folk Fuentes. I found out that's true. It was confirmed multiple times by zoomers who live in that world. What they like most of all is his rage and his willingness to violate taboos. I asked one astute zoomer what the groipers actually wanted. He said, they don't have any demands. They just want to tear everything down. Then he went on to explain in calm, rational detail, while his generation is so utterly screwed, the problems are mostly economic and material. They don't have good career prospects, they'll never be able to buy a home, Many are heavily indebted with student loans, blah, blah, blah, blah. Okay, I want to get into the substance of the critique in a second, about the extent to which that's true on economic matters. But first, what you. You did, you hung out, you're in D.C. you're out and about, you're, you know, locked down now, you're cuffed now.
B
But, like, I never got that in. I just. So I lived in Navy Yard at one point in my life in D.C. and it was one of the new apartment buildings which they kind of just like, shuffled every young staffer who worked on the Hill, and I want to say this was around 2021. So you saw people coming off of, like, Trump won.
A
Yeah. And maybe our code's kind of Republican as far as where. Where you get an apartment. I just. For people who don't know, like, in D.C. it's. It's not like all. It's like, all Republican segregated, but it's kind of like if you're a young Republican staffer, Navy Yard is one of the neighborhoods you would go for where maybe some of the young Democrat staffers might go for more like a Bloomingdale or a Shaw.
B
And I did not know that moving there until I, you know, like, I was new to D.C. like, didn't know that many people and started meeting people in my, like, you know, neighborhood and, like, apartment. And I noticed that these people were, like, very conservative. It was kind of at the rise of, like, barstool conservatism. And these are the type of people who would, like, in public, like, depending on who they were talking to, had, like, very normal stances, but in private had very harsh, like, far right views. There's something that actually will never leave my mind. I will never forget this. Right after Roe v. Wade was overturned, I'm opening my Instagrams, just clicking through stories, and I see a video of a group of these people who live in Navy Yard, like, swinging a pinata, celebrating that this is the best news that has ever happened. And I was like, oh, oh, 4chan. People are like, real. Like, this is, like, this is real. Yeah.
A
And this Was so Fuentes. Famously, when that happened, did the your body, my choice thing, which got. Which became very in vogue.
B
And it just like, I'm someone who was, like, very online, so I had a spinal fusion when I was, like, 13, so I had to, like, learn how to walk again. I was, like, not in school for, like, half of a year. And from that, it was like, obviously a very.
A
Like, you and Jack Schlossberg. Do you know you and Jack Schlossberg had that in common?
B
No, I did not.
A
I don't know if it's exactly a spinal fever, but it was a similar type thing where he couldn't walk for a long time. He was online. Yet another person in the New York 12 primary, potentially arrival of camp. So we can't be too kind to him right now. You never know about him. No.
B
No, we can't.
A
I did not know that about you. So what grade was that?
B
Like, seventh grade, between seventh and eighth, I want to say. It did lead into a summer, and I remember it was, like, early spring when it happened. And then summer came around and my parents just, like, shipped me off to Morocco to be on my grandmother's was, like, very isolated from the world also because, like, we did not have, like. I didn't have a phone with, like, service. I didn't even have a phone at that time. So I was just, like, very deep on, like, Tumblr pages and that. Just, like. And, like, watching, like, anime and, like, movies and all the time. I was like, the definition of, like, an online weirdo. So, like, it boggles my mind as someone who was also placed on the Internet at such a young age without, like, parental supervision and, like, just did not have, like, social contact. And I still was able to come out of that thinking, like, no, people should have rights. Like, we should not delve into, like, Nazism and all this. And these are people who have lived, like, seemingly, like, normal lives. If you meet them, you would not expect them to have these views. When I first met them, I would not expect them to have these views. And then, like I said, that was, like, such a turning point for me to open, like, my Instagram stories and see that and had to, like, unfollow every single one of them because, like, not to be one of those, like, you know, bleeding liberals. Like, I can't be friends with you. We have differing views. But, like, if you're so writing the overturn of, like, Roe v. Wade, like, that's just. That's a whole different level. Like, we. We just have different Morals at that point.
A
We're going to get into that in the mailbag at the end of a mail. A related mailbag question. But there's an interesting thing about the Groipers, and Fuentes specifically advocates for this. I think there's something people miss if they, if they don't follow him that closely, which is like, he wants his followers to go to D.C. to live in Navy Yard, to work in congressional offices, and to, like, not reveal all their views, right? Because, you know, not that it's like, oh, a secret. Part of it maybe is. It's a little titillating. It's like, we're undercover, we're infiltrating the establishment. But part of it is like, he's like, he knows how somebody with, like, openly racist views is ostracized, right? And like, it's like part of the idea of the. I hate to even give them the credit to call it a movement, but idea of whatever. Like, their. Their goal is to say, okay, no, we want people like us, these young racist young men in positions of power. And we do that by, like, concealing and going to D.C. and doing these jobs. And so, like, that, I think is like a feature, right? Not about, like, where. Where people get surprised, right? Because you expect. It's like, oh, you think like this one. These are just the super weird online guys. And like, you would just know if you met them, like, oh, that's a Fuentes type. But like, that's. That's, I think, the key insight of Rod Drear's saying. It's like, that's not really true. Like, there are a lot of guys in the end. And it also is. It's not like, necessarily you're a Fuentes person or you're not, you know, like, they're also. He is just like in the ether for a lot of these young guys where, like, you know, you're. Maybe you're watching it for fun on the side and you're getting a lot. You agree with some of it, not all of it. You're getting a little radicalized. You're laughing about it, you know, I don't know. Is that your kind of experience, your friends experience? You even have friends that are in that world enough anymore to know in.
B
The groper's world, God knows, like, in.
A
D.C. i can hang out with Republican staffers enough. Not like, not like going to groiper meetups, you know what I mean? But, like, to get a sense for, like, whether that's true.
B
The beauty of being in Los Angeles is that I get to be very removed from the day to day of D.C. things I would say. A lot of my friends like here don't even know what I do for a living. Sometimes post like a news club and they're will like text me. I'm like, why would they ask you about that? Like my friends don't know. It's a whole different world.
A
That's great. It's healthy.
B
I can see what he is saying to be true in D.C. specifically. But I do not want to subscribe to the notion that many or all or like a large sum of men are falling down like the alt right, like Pipeline. DC is different because DC is probably the only place you could say, like Twitter is like real life. Those are people who are looking for power in some way. Think about all of the debate kids, the theater kids, people who want to be the front of attention and think they have something specific and unique to them to deliver on that. And these gropers, like the Fuentes type people also believe that, you know, like the establishment and society and even now Trump, they're turning against like are it's standing in the way of this. But we have something special. So we are going to look past that. Look past all the people who have failed us before and this is where we will be able to thrive. So I can see it being true in the city of D.C. specifically. I want to be optimistic in the sense like men across the nation are not subscribing to that.
A
So yeah, so let's get into that broader question. So it's kind of a long clip, but I think it's important. I want people to bear with us. So part of the reason why this is like in the conversation now also is because Tucker interviewed Fuentes and it created this whole infighting on the right where like some Ben Shapiro's and others were like chastising Tucker for doing it. And then Megyn Kelly tried to broker a piece and she failed. But I was interested in the interview that Kelly did of Tucker where Tucker was asked to explain himself. He gave one answer about why he felt it was and Tucker's full of shit. So I want to caveat this with a grain of salt like Tucker's full of shit. But I think this is at least an interesting. That he thinks that this is a good rationalization is interesting in itself, whether or not he actually believes it. Let's listen to Tucker explained himself to Megyn Kelly.
C
I kind of think of Fuentes in terms of what place does he occupy? What does he say about our society? And I'm not making excuses for any. Anybody else's views. I'm just saying as a factual matter, if this is the most popular person among young men, young white men, then we need to, like, start thinking about why that is. And we need to reflect on what we have collectively done to young men, which is destroy them, actually. And no one wants to say that because no one wants to take any responsibility, responsibility at all for anything ever. No one ever wants to repent. They all want to cast stones. They don't see the plank in their own eye. This is including me. It's just humans are like this and they want to be like, Nazi. And it's like, oh, yeah, okay, great, great. But like, how did this happen?
B
Why are they listening to him?
C
Kind of.
B
Can I ask you?
A
So, so.
C
And part of the reason is because the Republican Party completely betrayed its voters by obsessing over Israel.
A
That's just a fact.
C
Like, what is this? It's a country of 9 million people.
A
There's a lot there. The fact that I want to just talk about two things. One is it's like, funny that the premise is that, okay, this person matters because young white men are struggling so much, we've destroyed them. And I think it's worth exploring, exploring that premise about whether that's true or not. But then I get amused and want to keep the clip running because it's like when he's trying to come up with an example of the ways that we've destroyed young white men and made them and ostracized them. Like, the first thing that comes to his mind is Ezra, because he's obsessed with Israel now and he's just like, and we've abandoned them with our support of Israel. It's just kind of like, is that like, is that what I mean? That's maybe at least defensible thing on Iraq, right? Like, we abandoned young men and we sent them off to this war to die. And so they're pissed. Like, that would have been. That would have been a sensible thing to say like 15 years ago. And maybe it's true that young Gen Z white men are anti Israel. Okay? But like, that is why they're turning to Nick Fuentes like this. It doesn't. Is nonsensical to me. Like, it doesn't make sense. It's kind of the thing that like, sounds smart. Like, oh, young men are in crisis. And so we have to listen to why they've turned to the. And like, I listened to that and I'm like, no, actually, like Being a racist contrarian cunt was like always kind of appealing to young boys, like in every era. Nothing is new in the universe. And I don't think there's anything special about the neocons Israel policy or about the state of young men now that is causing this. But I don't know, what do you think?
B
I can see younger generations being upset right now, period, based on having a lot of economic insecurity that I can understand the idea that the Israeli lobby just came. I just have not. It's such like an online talking point that we have now spread out into everything. Because it used to be a very far left issue when it came to Israel and Palestine and the entire ongoing war. And it was never something that conservatives were ever. If anything, they were so Islamophobic they were happy to like. So I'm just like very. I'm not caught up on like where this actually when the turn happened. I think right now you have a bunch of podcasters who are just following what is trending on Twitter right now. And Twitter is a website that is just incentivizing rage bait every day. I personally think we need to get rid of monetization on Twitter. I will give back the $200 I get per month or whatever I get because it's just not necessary for us to have a more civil society because clearly it has spillover effects. Or you have people like Tucker Carlson who are just like spouting these ideas that are coming from accounts that are getting paid to say these things over and over again until it like makes sense. They have all these like bot accounts going out there, like where you're not even sure if it's like a true statement. So I don't believe young men are becoming gropers because of that alone. I also want to just like put out the side note right there. I am a woman. I don't want to speak for all men right there. Not to be the whole, like, they're gonna hate me now, but I just can't see that happening. I think these people just feel extremely disenfranchised by institutions that they feel like are failing them. They feel like they did everything right. They went to college, it's on the debt, and things aren't going the way that they have planned. And then I hear, I've only ever heard clips of one days on my timeline. I try to scroll past it. I don't want to like muddy my brain up too much with it, to be honest with you. It's not, it's not safe but the whole reason why, he says, like a lot of the reason why men aren't doing well is because of like women doing well. They have such a zero sum mindset where it's like, well, now women have started working more and taking jobs away from men. And then you also include some immigrants in there and you also include some other marginalized community. Like you just have everyone except for white men doing slightly better. And then these people take it as an example for why our society as a whole is failing. And now he's just. I, like, just before this call, like I went on Fuentes page for like the first time and I saw like his branding is all like, America first. And I'm like, what America are you putting first right now? Like, I just don't understand it at the scene.
A
Heritage Americans.
B
Yeah. Like, I'm honestly a little glad they're being more upfront about it because there was something that they were trying to keep quiet to exist in polite society. But like, it's also insane at the same time time if the factual debates happening right now with Republicans are if we should include Nazis or not. I never want to hear complaining about factional debates on Democrats ever again. Oh my God. If what we are discussing is whether we should do zoning policy or not is the biggest issue we have on the Democratic side. Like, I never want to hear anyone complain about that ever again. Because like, this is, this is insane that we're even like speaking about this almost.
A
So just really quick on the Israel thing, and I want to. Cameron isn't here, so I'll represent the Cameron view. I mean, part of the reason why this became a bigger and bigger issue on both sides is that like just the horrific way in which Israel was prosecuting the war after they were attacked on October 7th. Right. And so like, this is getting into people's feeds and, and I understand why people are upset. So I don't want to like minimize that. Like, I think it's possible certainly that young men and young women, of course, of left and right and whatever are upset about this from a genuine sense. They've been seeing these images. They're, they are pissed. They don't want America to be supporting Israel. I, I understand that it's that next step which is like, and, and this is, and, and this is the reason why young men have been destroyed and now are turning to Nick Fuentes. Like, I just don't get, like, there are a lot of people that are anti, that are, don't like Israel who are mainstream. There are a lot of people who don't like Israel who have not turned to Nick Fuentes. Like, do you like using that? Like, Tucker's, like, obsession with that. And, and Nick Fuentes has been possible since before October. Popular rather since before October 7th. I mean, Donald Trump had lunch with him, so before October 7th. So it doesn't. The correlation isn't there for me. Right. So there's got to be something else. Right. And then the other thing that people always turn to is economic, like, oh, we've destroyed young men. They aren't doing as well. That's why I want to go back to Drayer really quick. He writes, you know, they don't have good career prospects. They'll probably never be able to buy a home. Many are heavily indebted with student loans that they were advised by authorities to take out. And the idea that they are likely to marry and start families seem increasingly remote. And I look at this again and we've done a lot of this in the show. Like, I'm sympathetic to some elements of, like, the Gen Z cost issue and like, job availability and how expensive it is ever to live in a lot of cities. But I just, I think that a lot of this is just rationalization for these guys. It's like, I don't want the idea that they're likely to marry and start families seem remote. I mean, you got married, you're starting feeling. I know you have people. Like, it's not, I don't know. Like, I think about my grandparents, you know, like, my grandfather was a, was a, was a real estate guy. My grand. My other grandfather's an accountant. Like this. It's whatever. Those are all regular jobs. So, like, neither of them went to fancy colleges, wanted to go to college, went to regular colleges. You know, had big families. They lived in, like, the suburban St. Louis, like, exurban St. Louis. And they had families. They went on vacations. They didn't. Their vacations were not fancy. Like, they did one summer a year to Florida or whatever in the car, in the station wagon. I guess the fucking 1960s, you know, like, people, they go back to that and say, oh, we can't have that now. And I'm just like, that just isn't true. Like, if you grow up right now in St. Louis and go get an undergrad from Umpsil or whatever, like some state college and just take a regular job, you can live in fucking exurban Kansas City or St. Louis right now, and you can afford it and you can meet somebody else from Missouri if you want to. And you can marry them. You can start a family. Like, it's not. That is. That is available to you still. It's like, it's that people want to, like whatever. I think people want to live in New York. They want to. They want to travel on trips and go to Europe and I don't begrudge anybody there once. But it's just like this thing. I just kind of reject this idea. And you tell me, because you pay attention to economics, to this more closely, that like that there is something so uniquely challenging about the economy right now for young men, as opposed to 60 years ago, that they have no choice but to turn to groperism. I just reject that.
B
I reject that to a point of it being on the national level. I don't think every single man, if they get bogged down in life, immediately becomes a groper. I refuse to think that lowly of the male species. But I think we should. They should feel validated in their concerns. And I think a lot of it travels back to distrust in institutions. It used to be you would get married and you would have a kid, whether or not if you were even sure you were like fully ready to do so. Now we are people who overtly plan before buying a house. We're buying houses way later in life when. Because we can't afford to just buy a house outright. But also, like, people are very scared to get themselves locked into a mortgage. And also the idea of having a family and expanding their family seems like something they need to have savings in the bank. I think of my parents who they had my sister in Morocco. They then moved there. I was born, I want to say like a year after them living there. My parents are on work visas at this time. They're living in like a studio apartment off of Myrtle Avenue. My only. My dad is working. My mom is not working. They're in a country where they are trying to learn the language. And my mom still thinks this is a lovely time to welcome a child into that place. And they were. They just had such a trust in the American dreams.
A
Turned out great. It did.
B
It did. I am very lucky for my life. But it's because my parents believe in the American dream. It's because they believe that you can come here. My dad worked hard. He was a. Still is a small business owner, an entrepreneur. And they had such faith in the system. Like, no, I'm doing everything right. I'm paying my taxes, I'm working hard. Like, there's no reason for me to not have kids. Year people now have such distrust in institutions where they would rather feel stable themselves before going out there, then building on that foundation, which is completely understandable. I think when it comes to marriage and having kids, those are two different things. I myself don't feel ready to have a kid anytime soon. I think I want to cement my career. I'm 25 years old.
A
You've been a great mother.
B
I do think I will be. I'm so great to my nieces. I have so many younger siblings. I'm going to be amazing, amazing mother. But I don't want to do that until like, 30, mid-30s. I have so much time because I would love to focus on my career first for a little bit. I also have the spinal issue thing because whenever I have a kid, I feel like I'm gonna be, like, out.
A
For a little bit.
B
So I also keep that in mind.
A
I want to protect your spine.
B
Yeah. A lot of women think in the same vein, though. Like, some people do want to get married. It's the issue of finding a partner. I know, I hear from a lot of my girlfriends, this is all anecdotal evidence, of course, but when it comes to having kids, that's something they're ready to push down a bit more because we have started to slowly become a very individualized society. Like, again, I revert back to, like, my upbringing was raised very Muslim. In Islam, you grew up on, like, a very, like, community oriented, like, religion. You don't think about yourself. You're always thinking about other people. I, like, had to train my brain the second I got to college. Like, what do I want to do, what do I want to focus on, etc. In order to get where I want to go. If you don't think that way, you're fully thinking about community. You're thinking about expanding your community. Like, how can you do to be better? And that's why you might see, like, people who are more religious, who are more open to having, having kids. And you might see people who are not who are still focused on making sure their individual self is set up. So I think when men are not feeling like their individual life is set up, they are going to be very hesitant to feel like they can also now be a provider for a child if they also have that distrust in the institution to back them up.
A
Okay, Ross, doubt that. Oh, no, that was. I know it was. You are making the opposite suggestion as him, but working for the same premise. The premise of if you believe that, you know, we have an issue with our birth rate or whatever. Natalism. That the answer is that our society needs to find God again, that we need to be more religious. People are too selfish.
B
No, that's not where I was going. I mean, I'm not saying people. I'm not saying it's a bad thing to be.
A
I know you aren't saying it's a bad thing. I'm saying you're working from the same premise that this is that the lack of religiosity is driving down birth rate. He is saying that's a bad thing. You're saying that's good, that's fine, individualism, you know, whatever. You find fulfillment in yourself. Yeah, but the premise is the same kind of. Which is interesting. And the other thing is that premise takes us away from the economic side because economics is really more what you're focused on. And I do, like, what is your sense? And this gets us into the affordability discourse. Like, I. I am 100%, like, the housing affordability thing is a nightmare. And I just think that there are so many downstream negative effects, like, particularly for young people, related to how housing unaffordability. Like, and so I'm like a radical yemby, which I know we share. Outside of that, like, the rest of the affordability story is a little more complicated, I think. I don't know. The student loan story, I think is pretty real. Like, people who take on. Who've taken on big student loan debts, I think that's real. Of course, outside of that, I don't know. I mean, I don't know things are more expensive, but, like, it's not. If you just look at the data about, like, Gen Z average kind of income and wealth accumulation, it's not. It's like, not worse than my generation, really. Things are more expensive, you know, so you got to figure all that out. Like, what's your. What's your sense? Like, how do you disentangle all that about, like, what's. What's a real crisis? What is, you know, stuff that we're using as an excuse to make the boys feel better.
B
Yeah. I mean, if you ask me right now, we just. We also have not had recent economic data come about. Like, everyone is kind of going blindly. And I think that is making the vibe session worse. For example, like, consumer sentiment was like, the worst it's been since, like the 1950s. I saw someone make the joke on Twitter. Like, we're past Vibe session. We're hitting Vibe Pression. Like, people are not happy with how the economy feels to them, but if you look at some, like, the polling of the Cross Labs people will be like, well, like, how is this affecting you directly? People are like, oh, I'm kind of okay, it's not that bad. Like, I'm not really getting affected.
A
It's crazy. I talked to Chris Hayes about this earlier this week. It's like the idea that consumer confidence would be worse now than it is after the housing crash is insane. Like, for this is where, you know, I can bring again, once again, my millennial expert. I lived, I was there, I was, I saw it. I, you know, I experienced it. I had friends with parents who lost, who had underwater mortgages and all this sort of thing. Like, it's not good. I'm not saying things are great now, but it is, it is pretty weird. Like what do you attribute that to? That everybody is so much more unhappy now than they were then.
B
I think it also derives from the fact that you have a president who is single handedly, like turning the dial to a thousand when it comes to uncertainty. Anytime you have a long form interview with him, he is going to say something that you have never expected him to say or something that is almost like gibberish or something like a crazy old man would say. So you're thinking like, oh wow, the people in charge he won a cost of living election. I feel like we all have collective amnesia. 2024 was a cost of living election. People were very upset with prices during the Biden admin. And I am of the mind of thought that people viewed Kamala as very akin to Biden so they decided to vote for someone else. And the one thing that he ran on, he is just not making a priority. He cares about the east wing, he cares about his ballrooms. So when you feel like you're seeing all these things about tariffs and prices increasing all time housing, even though it is one compartment of, you know, weakening supply, making prices going extremely up, it's a large part of that. Housing is a very large aspect of how we view the economy as consumers. So when that's bad, and you compound it for the fact that you have headlines going everywhere of like tariffs impacting us in X, Y and z way, the constant overflow of that, on top of the fact that you have him and his admin changing their minds every few days of what we're about to do with economic policy and now for the past two months we don't even have any data going out there. When people feel uncertain they are going to be way more unhappy and risk averse to how they're viewing everything, it's the same way companies are going to be a bit more risk averse when it comes to hiring. The last time we had data, everything was like it was cooling at a very large amount. I mean even the last Powell Fed meeting, one thing he said that it was an interesting balance when it came to labor supply and demand is that both were going down but they were equaling each other out. And it's like, well, you know, the labor supply people are just getting deported and companies don't really know how to plan because you know, everything is changing by the second. So these are all compounding factors at the fact that one singular man who holds a lot of power is, and Cheryl said this when you last spoke to her, is coming at you to ensure that you do not have access to economic opportunity. When you specifically voted for him for that at hand, I think immigration was a very close second for some people. I think people were very upset on that. But I'm only going to look at the economy in that sense and I do believe that was prioritizing factor for people.
A
Probably seems like it was a mistake to elect him president I guess. But that's maybe for another day. The question is the Democrats are responding to this. There's this big. You mentioned the Republican factual debate. We're talking about this Republican factional debate is are Nazis okay? Do we like Nazis? Should we be pro Nazi? Should we be neutral Nazi, anti Nazi? The Democratic factional debate is okay. We've all agreed now we need to care about affordability. Maybe it was a mistake to talk about how great Biden Bidenomics was. Regardless what you think about the merits of the actual policies, just because of the nature of the vibes, maybe we should be more responsive to people's concerns and worries. Then the question is okay, how do you do that? What does it look like policy wise? What does it look like talking wise? And as part of this factional debate, the Zoran kind of DSA left wing, the tendency online at least is to say that that's where all the energy is, that that is what young people want, that young people are either crypto Nazis or they're dsa. And that's just where we are right now. And as you mentioned, I talked to Mikey Sherrill earlier this week and she ran an explicitly kind of normie center left campaign around affordability. And, and I asked her about this. Let's just play a little bit.
D
But then I'm at one rally with a group of teenage boys and I have teenage boys and so I thought.
A
All the teenage boys were MAGA gripers. Now is that not well, this is.
D
How quickly things shift, right? As people understand economic opportunity and college kids are worried about jobs. So I see these teenage boys and I thought they were sort of trolling me because like I said, I have teenage boys. But they're like so excited. They're taking all these selfies in the audience. They're even doing like hearts like this. And I'm going, what is, what are those boys? You know, are they talking?
B
I was like, are they going to.
D
Like put out some video like how much I suck? So I asked afterwards, I said I noticed those gentlemen, you know, kind of right, front left, what was that about? And they go, oh, they have been knocking doors for you. They are so excited. I'm like, wow, okay. I'm like, we're, we're, you know, we're hitting it.
A
She talks about how she was kind of surprised how many young people are going there now. Again, we're all, I'm going, this is not polling data. This is a political candidate saying she was surprised to see high school boys at our event. So, okay, it is what it'd be to be excited about it. But like, what, what's your sense that I is there as a, you know, 27 year old pushing, you know, kind of whatever. What would you call yourself? Neolib? Center left? Pro growth? Abundancy? How about abundancy? Abundancy? Economic affordability.
B
Labels. I'm just your normie Dem.
A
Normie Normie Affordability capitalist. Like is that, is there, is that, was that landable, do you think? I don't know. What do you think about Mikey?
B
One thing that I will say is that I love how she spent the beginning of her campaign going back out there to persuade people back into the tent. I think a bit of why we lost is just like we got way too comfortable. We just assumed people were going to be there for us. And Zoomers kind of like, you know, just like saw like right through that. They're like, I, I'm new to life. What do you mean? You've been there for me my entire life. Like I'm so used to having all of this amazing quality of life, like advocate for me, like, you know, persuade me, sell something to me. So I love that she made sure that she had foundational roots within her constituency to go out there and actually speak to people about that. And I love that one of the first things she came out with was an affordability agenda focusing on to making your average day to day life better. And the fact that that was going, I think she had young men. This is off exit polling. So exit polling is always wonky but just like off like 14 points from there. I'm just quoting from my mind.
A
I mean it was a huge whatever. Even if it was off like the gap, you know, and you shouldn't rely on the actual numbers and exit polls, but you can learn about trends and like the trend for young men from Trump in New Jersey in 24 to Cheryl in 25 was significant.
B
Yeah. And I had a tweet just like similar to what we were discussing before is like, I don't believe we had mass amounts of men just shift to the alt right pipeline and they fully voted based on these cultural ideologies and that they didn't care about like financial security. I believe men1 believe a lot of them believe they have to be provider someday. So economic security to them matters much more than to other people. Like especially when they're young and they're trying to establish themselves in life. The fact that she made it focused on having access to opportunity to move yourself up in the ranks that spoke to them. They want someone to talk to them directly and say like, I understand that we did you guys wrong. She fully said, she's like, I'm not doing another 10 page paper. I'm not doing another listening study. We were wrong before. I want all Democrats to say that. I think all Democrats who do well are going to be people to say, to come from an outsider's mindset, to detach themselves a little bit from the establishment and say what we were doing before clearly did not work and did not resonate with you. So I'm not going to do that anymore. I'm going to be action oriented. I'm going to focus on your future. I'm going to focus on reforms. No matter how minuscule they are, if they make your life better, I'm going to be there fighting for that. And I think she did a great job at doing so. I even love the fact that when it came to fights against the advent, she was like, I'm going to pick and choose because I know what actually matters to my constituents. She was like, I have people like you to discuss the East Wing ballroom. So I love that she was able to differentiate what is just noise online versus priorities from her voters and her constituents.
A
Yeah. The only sad part about the interview for me was when she said she was like, look, I knew I wanted to talk about affordability. We wanted to talk about specific tangible things that people care about. Some things didn't resonate with people, so we moved on to other things. And I was like, well, what are some of the things that didn't resonate? And she was like, well, it was disappointing for me because I still want to do it. But the building a lot of housing thing, you get pushback from people because Regular people are NIMBYs. We're doing our best. The YIMBY crowd, we're on the rise, See momentum for us in the MB world. Like it's, it's taking off. But even still, when it gets to specific examples, regular people just don't want new apartment complexes in their neighborhood. I see this in every once in a while I have to. One of my besties lives around the corner. We were talking about this the other day and they're building a Trader Joe's with some apartments around it. And just, you know, we're just having conversation. He's just like, yeah, the traffic though. And I was just like, bro, it's not going to be that bad. Okay? We're not, it's not, we're not in Los Angeles, like Tara Hoops, like, it's fine, it's okay. Like, we can, we can, it's, we can hang. So people just have a natural NIMBY instinct. It's a human instinct to kind of overcome. One person who is shout out to the DSA side, one person who is trying to do NIMBY stuff from the left is Zoran. The hotness of the moment. The big news this week is in New York there's this thing called Elizabeth Street Garden. It's kind of a funny thing people should Google if they don't know. The backstory is like, there was like a museum around there and then it was privately funded. And then like the sculptures in the museum got put outside in the garden and there was a period of time where only people that lived there could see it. But then they opened up to the public and anyway, it's kind of a, it's a mundane sort of situation, but it's like for a while they've been wanting to put housing for low income seniors there. And Zoran's like, no, we're gonna do it. Like, we're gonna. Sorry. To the Elizabeth Street Garden, which, you know, we appreciate gardens, but like the sculptures can go somewhere else. We're gonna put up the housing for low income seniors here. Cause we need housing for low income seniors in fucking New York City. And, and so shout out Zoron for that. But Eric Adams on his way out is trying to block him.
B
So I found that to be. So I posted about that and I was like, the first thought I had is like, you just gotta be kidding me. And I got a reply that I thought was so funny. It was like, listen, I am annoyed by this, but like, I kind of respect it on a level of pettiness. And I thought about it. I was like, this is the most New York thing Eric Adams can do on his way out. Like, let me go take this one little project that like, finally got people from the Yimbys to start, like, rooting for you. The, like, the first little bit, like, he started monitoring. Like, let me go take that from you. Like, you, like, let me win this one last battle. So I was like, from a pettiness level, like, damn, he got him. But also, I just want a broader sense. Very much appreciate Mamdani's ability to moderate and appease diverse coalitions in New York City. I feel like writing for mayor in New York. Like, it is, I like so proudly say, because I was born and raised in Queens, like, it is one of the most diverse places in the world. You have to have a lot of conflicting views in order to appease your base. And he's done such a great job at doing so. Do I think he's going to do a perfect job at housing?
A
No.
B
I still don't believe in rent caps. I think they are very political feasible. I think they're very politically popular. But I think in the long run it is not going to do much for the supply crisis that we have in New York City. But I can that I appreciate his ability to understand where the YIMBYs were coming from because not that many people are able to operate on that. It's the same thing you said with Cheryl. She said it was like incredibly unpopular. There was like that deciding to win paper that came out a couple of weeks ago. And like, again, it was the same thing where some of the policies that we advocate for are still not popular. And it's like, well, that's our job then. Our job is to get out there and explain to people why this is popular. You can't just, like, because you believe it is good policy, think it's going to make good politics. Like, you can't get lazy halfway and decide, like, your job is just done.
A
Like, lecturing people about how stupid they are and how obvious it is we need to build more housing because supply and demand was something that Adam Smith figured out like hundreds and hundreds of years ago. That doesn't work. You can't do that. You can't just lecture people and yell.
B
That's another thing that Vandani did so well is that he was nice. Have you ever interacted with a leftist online? Oh, my God, they're so mean.
A
They're so mean.
B
The amount of profound profanity that they could put in 280 characters is, like, shocking, absurd. Like, you guys could do such a better job at building a grassroots movement by just being nicer to people.
A
You win more with honey than with vinegar, you know? Yeah, get people over with honey than vinegar. Try that. Zoran figured out. Okay, I want to get to the mailbag segment, but just first, really quick. I saw one tweet from yours I need to follow up on because this fypod is educational for me. I try to learn things, learn new terms, learn about new subcultures I don't know about. You posted this. I need the woke fit male content creators to start dropping. Hey, isn't it wild? This guy won on lowering costs, but is doing the opposite. Is that a thing? Woke fit male content creators?
B
No, I don't think so.
A
Okay, you're saying you want that to be a thing?
B
Yeah, I would love. Okay, so it's my whole thing. Like, I. Right after the election happened, people were like, oh, my God, we are in a podcast crisis, like the libs. Or like, all we got are, like, Hasan Piker, who should not be a representative, like, the main representative of the Democratic Party. I'm sorry. And we just realized we need more podcasters, but you can't do it in a way where you just have DNC talking bots that are just going out there and speaking approved messaging. Like, then we're learning no lessons. I was, quote, tweeting a piece saying I fell down some alt right pipeline because the fitness influencers I was listening to started giving weird subliminal messaging and, like, dropping some weird things. You're like. And I'm like, okay, can we do that, though? Like, clearly it worked for some of them.
A
Got it. Yeah. We need some hot fitness influencers to do yimby shit and woke shit. I hear you. Yeah. Okay. We gotta work on that. Well, anyway, I sent you. Yeah, that's a great idea. I sent the tweet out to just. I was like, is this a thing? I sent it to a friend and they said no. Or they didn't think so. They didn't know, but they did. They found this one guy. I'll put his link in the thing. Jared Schultz, who is doing, like, bro, lefty hetero, like, Thought cool stuff. So that's amazing. Start. Yeah, yeah. So we could, you know, whatever. There's a market for it. He's doing.
B
The men who haven't, you know, decided to just hate women and minorities. So just like, you know, start making some videos if you're good looking, like, get a camera, get like a selfie light, like post about your protein regime and all that stuff. And then once in a while be like, protecting healthcare is really cool. Right? And then just like go on as if you said nothing.
A
Straight guys. We're talking to straight guys. There are already plenty of shirtless gays posting lib shit. We don't need any more. We're at capacity.
B
And I appreciate every single one of you.
A
That's great. I appreciate you too. But we're at capacity. So this is a message for hot straight men with muscles who work out, we need you to do. And who are also woke. We just need to just do a little bit of commentary.
B
Wasn't there like some, like, story where like the DNC was like, secretly like paying some of those, like, influencers and they weren't like, talking about it? I'm like, hey, maybe the DNC will send you a secret check.
A
Yeah, maybe they'll get a secret check. Harry Sisson's been going to the gym. He was our first. He was our first two time guest after before you. He obviously beat you because the president pooped on him via AI, so he was gonna. Obviously.
B
I can't level with that.
A
You can't? Yeah. That's hard to compete with. But he's been doing some bicep curls. Okay, we're gonna keep working on that. Do you have anything else you want to talk about before we get to the mailbag? Do you have been waiting to pop off on.
B
Oh, do I have any hot takes? I've been waiting to pop off on. Oh, my God. This is a very funny thing that I saw online. I don't subscribe to it. I believe in the freedom of speech, blah, blah. Anyway, China has decided that if you are an influencer speaking on a subject that needs expertise, backgrounds, you will be fined if you do not have that background to speak on it. And I was like, wow, that's hilarious. Imagine if the US started fining people 100k, if influencers started speaking about theory and had no backing on it. I'm like, what a world we would live in.
A
The Chinese seem to be dominating us in the influence game. I mean, Hasan is over there right now doing CCP agitpra.
B
Did you See the tweet he had?
A
I mean, it's hard. Oh, there's a couple bad.
B
I know. No, there's so many. There was one that was insane. He was like, I'm out here in China, it looks like abundance infrastructure out there. And then I'm looking at a state controlled economy, and then I get to go to the Gucci store. And I was like, what? It was just like such a. I'm like, this is the guy that we've just like, okay, China's bad people.
A
The grocery stores in Russia are not anything special. And yeah, China's economy has improved. There's some improving stuff. But, you know, it still is not a free country. And they're still cracking down on. On minorities and opinions that you're not allowed to give. And like, the worst shit that the Trump administration is doing, which is bad, is like every day in China on. On the speech crackdown. So, anyway, glad you're enjoying yourself, though. A little vacay. All right, mailbag time. You ready? This one's a couple weeks old because Cameron went on hiatus, so it's been sitting in my inbox. So who knows if this relationship is even still happening anymore, but it's still fun. Longtime listener, first time writer. I'm looking for a little life advice. I've been on a few dates with this med student who's smart, funny, and has a huge heart. He also looks like you'd have a promising career in the adult film industry if medicine doesn't work out, if you know what I mean. I didn't see any red flags until yesterday when politics came up. He shared that he didn't vote last year, but that he would have voted for Trump. Harris, he said, would have accomplished nothing, but at least Trump does stuff. He goes on to list a little bit of their exchange on various issues where he defended Trump. Ryder goes on, I can be friends with someone with such views, but building a life with them is another matter. We view politics and morality in fundamentally different ways. I'm not sure how to reconcile the care with which he approaches his work with his disregard for people's rights. What do you think? Should I be able to live with these differences or should I decide we're fundamentally incompatible? I hate to let politics dictate my relationships, but I know it would become a point of contention to our hoops.
B
I just feel like if you are already writing that into a political YouTube show, your answer is right there. Clearly you care about politics enough where you had to, like, put your thoughts down and reach out to some pundits to get your like the feedback on this, like, it's not going to work out. I'm so sorry. I think you can also, I think like Trump 2 is so different than Trump 1 where like I think some relationships maybe could have survived. I think the COVID pandemic really just stopped Trump from doing a lot of the things that he wanted to do. But I also think like if you have seen the, the things that he is doing, like even just from like an economic side, let's forget about, you know, like the ice and torture Inc. Let's forget that even just like the insanity that is happening every day. And you look at that, you're like, now I would like to start supporting him. I didn't vote for him yet, but now is the time I want this guy on my side. It's like, then I would be a little worried off that. I think clearly if this is something that she is bringing up now, it's never going to get better. And I agree with her that it is a bit worrying that he is seeing what is happening and is also a medical doctor. So I just hope he's good at his job. I don't care if my doctors have good bedside manner, whatever, as long as they make me healthy go crazy. But she cares. That's it.
A
This is my fault because I degendered it, but it is a boy. These are gays. Oh, even sains device doesn't change.
B
So yeah, it's the same still.
A
And who knows, maybe it's and I don't know pronouns weren't given. So you never know these days. I went ahead and asked Dan Savage, my friend who's an expert advice giver, what he thinks and I expected that was going to be your answer because it was basically my answer. But I was surprised that Dan gave a little bit of a different view that I think it's worth us all listening to. Dan's torn. On the one hand, I don't think people who support Trump deserve any dick at all. On the other hand, this guy sounds like he hasn't thought deeply about any of this. While some people are too far gone to have sense fucked into them, some people can be reached. This dude sounds young and it's possible someone he likes and who floods his body with oxytocin and other things on the ra. I don't know what that is. What's oxytocin?
B
I didn't know either.
A
We'll find out in the comments on the regular. Might inspire him to reconsider his political beliefs, which actually sound more like assumptions or defaults than firmly held beliefs. We can make a distinction, I think, between Rick Grenell and young guys who haven't thought deeply and can be reached. There's a long way to go before you get to the making a life stage. I think he can fuck this guy with a clear conscience so long as he keeps engaging with him and challenging him. If the boy doesn't come around, he can end things long. The make a life stage rolls around. Classic gay guy feedback. Classic feedback. Keep on. I mean, he's hot. Sounds like. Keep on banging them for a few more weeks or months. See how it goes.
B
If it doesn't, you know, here too. Are they just having fun? It seemed like the note was like considering like a long term life with them.
A
Yeah, well, he said at the beginning, I've been on a few dates. We're at the few and he's a med student. So we're assuming context clues. 20s and probably your age. Probably. And it's like, you know, it's not that they're gay. It's not like they have a biological clock ticking or anything.
B
No, I mean go forth and prosper. I. If you feel happy and you feel safe in that environment, like, go crazy. Do I think you have a life with this man? No. You wrote a letter already voicing your doubts about this man after a few days. I don't think you're magically going to fall in love with him now.
A
I don't think he's going to magically change his politics after just because of a little bit of dick either. But I appreciated Dan Savage's rare optimism and I wanted to inject it, so to speak, into this pod. All right. Tara Hoops, wonderful. Thank you for doing this trial run with me. First cam hiatus show. It was lovely to do this with you. Everybody else, I don't really know when the next episode is gonna be. We're doing our best out here. Okay, so keep subscribed. Subscribe to fypod on YouTube because it's gonna. There's gonna be more shit. We just don't know exactly what yet. And you know, it's gonna be good. So subscribe. Keep an eye out for it. Keep your eye on the other bull work stuff in the meantime. And when we have an announcement, we'll do it. Does that sound good? Follow Tara on Twitter too. She's. She's posting. She has a posting habit and you might as well encourage that a little bit. I appreciate you, girl. Everybody else will see you all soon. Peace.
B
Thank you.
Podcast: The Bulwark: FYPod
Host: Tim Miller
Guest: Tara Hoops
Date: November 15, 2025
This episode marks a transitional phase for FYPod as co-host Cameron Kasky explores a possible congressional run, leaving Tim Miller to reflect on the show's trajectory and its mission to decode the political psychology of Gen Z—especially after their surprising shift toward Trump in 2024. Tim is joined by recurring guest and sharp political commentator Tara Hoops to navigate the current Gen Z political climate: the rise of alt-right subcultures, the mythos around economic “disenfranchisement,” and pragmatic paths for Democrats to reconnect with young voters.
The pair blend humor, sharp critique, and firsthand observations, diving deep into the underlying factors driving young voters' polarization. They also touch on internet subcultures, economic “vibe” crises, factional divides in both parties, and practical advice for listeners navigating personal politics.
The episode maintains FYPod’s signature sharp, fast-talking irreverence, blending generational self-awareness, first-person anecdotes, and deep dives into political and social subcultures. Banter and memes are balanced by frank policy and economic analysis, making the show both accessible and substantive for a wide age range—whether you’re a “youth” or a worried grandma.
Follow-ups: