Marc Maron on Brainf*cked Trolls and Liberal Scolds

Summary

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Pod Save America: "Marc Maron on Brainf*cked Trolls and Liberal Scolds"

Release Date: August 24, 2025
Host: John Lovett
Guest: Marc Maron

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Episode Overview

In this wide-ranging and darkly funny conversation, John Lovett sits down with legendary comedian and podcast host Marc Maron. They dig deep into the state of comedy and politics, the rise of right-wing troll culture, liberal “buzzkills,” Maron’s comedy special, the cultural fracturing of the left, the decline of curated taste, masculinity and “daddy holes,” the dangers of online mania, and why empathy is so hard. The discussion spans from cultural observations to intensely personal insights, with candid takes on Trump, Trumpism, the podcast ecosystem, and the evolution of stand-up comedy.

Producer Austin called it “one of the darkest conversations we’ve had”—but it’s also revealing and unexpectedly hopeful in places.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Opening Chemistry and Maron’s Interview Style

• Maron’s ‘Alpha Dogging’ & Interview Approach
  • Lovett reminisces about an earlier interview, sensing Maron’s “alpha dogging.”
  • Maron reflects on his radio roots, on tossing pity laughs to guests, and performing defensively:
    • Marc Maron [03:16]: “...there’s a radio laugh that you do out of politeness and it’s instinctual... But in terms of alpha dogging, I get a little dickish. But it's not full power play. It’s just a defiance.”
  • Both joke about Maron making the rounds on podcasts, and how motives are often misunderstood.
    • Marc Maron [05:01]: “People are going to assume they know why you did things... And it’s very odd to come up against these type of people where they're like, you did that because of this. I'm like, I wasn't even thinking that.”

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Comedy, Politics, and the ‘Buzzkill’ Problem

• Are Liberals Annoying People into Fascism?

  • Lovett highlights a theme from Maron's special: "liberals annoyed average Americans into fascism."
  • Maron says it’s a joke—but a resonant one:
    • Marc Maron [07:08]: “When I say we annoy the average American into fascism, that's a joke. Yeah, it's a joke, but it resonates, and it resonates for a reason...”
    • He critiques self-righteous anger:
      • Marc Maron [10:25]: “...self-righteous anger is about the most intolerable anger... even if you believe what the person is saying, you want them to shut the fuck up.”
  • Maron describes his comic approach evolving to more empathy and community-building, especially post-election, as he senses fear in his audiences.

• Fragmentation of the Left

  • Maron sees the left as fragmented and lacking a unifying vision:
    • Marc Maron [11:50]: “There is no unifying policy... no unifying community... So when you have all that fragmentation, what becomes annoying is people’s commitment to their specific cause, as righteous as it may be.”
  • Lovett acknowledges: “Democrats do find Democrats annoying... One reason—they’re kind of annoying. That’s true.” [13:09]

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The Right-Wing Media Machine & Online Mania

• The Right’s Messaging Advantage

  • Maron argues the right is coordinated, using trolling and online youth culture:
    • Marc Maron [15:45]: “The left messaging is never going to be as efficient because we don’t have an army of frustrated teenage boys... that trolling is a pastime.”
  • They discuss how social media radicalizes, distorts, and incites mania:
    • Marc Maron [19:23]: “Mania makes you feel good... the information is fleeting and unfounded, but if it fits your emotional feeling, then just drive it.”
    • He references an “Elephant Graveyard” YouTube documentary—Comedy Jonestown: How Comedy Was Destroyed by an Anti-Reality Doomsday Cult—on the intersection of comedy and propaganda.

• From Radio to Phones: The New Feedback Loop

  • Lovett: Conservative talk radio once stayed in the car, now the “frenetic pace follows us all the time.” [19:57]
  • Both discuss “philosicide”—a term for killing your internal principles to stay in the game.

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Masculinity, Troll Culture, and the Rise of Anti-Woke Media

• ‘Daddy Holes’ and Lost Men

  • Lovett and Maron talk about why right-wing podcasts and Trumpism attract certain men:
    • Marc Maron [25:20]: “The daddies are pretty powerful... that void that needs to be filled... In order for someone to define themselves, especially if they're lost or feel neutered... if you get the right words into those people, they’re going to light up.”

• Crowdwork, Algorithms, and Taste Collapse

  • Maron laments the rise of crowdwork, clickbait culture, and the lowering of the bar:
    • Marc Maron [28:00]: “Now... the bar gets lowered to the point where regular people just adapt to the garbage and they don’t seek out the other stuff. And the outlets that make the other stuff are... marginalized.”

• Anti-Elitism and Anti-Expert Populism

  • Maron unpacks right-wing framing of Hollywood and expertise as elitist, tying it to classic fascist instincts.

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Comedy as News, Rogan’s Influence, and the End of Gatekeepers

• Comedians as Ideological Influencers

  • The conversation addresses Rogan’s role, comedians as news, and how jokes are politicized:
    • Marc Maron [37:14]: “Now anything any comic says is a representation of their personal ideology. The ability for them to be objective about humor is gone... They are subjective, which most humor is, to a specific ideological bent.”
  • Maron says, “Rogan has positioned himself as the arbiter of what comedy is.” [37:32]

• Selling Out, Platform Power, and Decadence

  • Lovett: “There are people being glib about life and death decisions, including endorsing a monster because it’s good for the gram…” [39:51]

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Empathy, Community, and Leadership

• Hope and the Power of Empathy

  • Despite the bleakness, both see possibility if leaders and influencers promote empathy:
    • John Lovett [43:57]: “That’s what leadership is. And... we need that. I think it’s possible.”
  • Maron: “Trump has many powers, talents. One of them is... making what’s the worst thing about you the truest thing about you. He’s very good at that.” [42:36]

• The Limits of Facts

  • Lovett argues it’s not lack of information, but something “deeper and sadder”:
    • John Lovett [51:15]: “A lot of people got behind Trump knowing who he was. And that’s a harder, deeper, sadder problem. And I think that is where we’re at now.”

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Personal Reflections: Addiction, Catastrophizing, and Growth

• Addiction and Hosting Podcasts

  • Maron & Lovett discuss the self-insight, vulnerability, and empathy that come from recovery:
    • Marc Maron [54:54]: “One alcoholic talks to another about their life and gets out of themselves. So... with recovery, you’re very used to people being candid about emotions, vulnerabilities, and telling their stories.”

• On Catastrophizing and Loss

  • Lovett asks if Maron's experience with tragic loss changed how he thinks about catastrophe:
    • Marc Maron [80:24]: “No, what it changed was my sense of mortality... there is no way to answer the question why. That’s just life... It didn’t diminish my catastrophizing, but it did make me realize how fragile life is.”

• Success, Validation, and Motivation

  • Maron reflects on late-career comfort and continued need for validation:
    • Marc Maron [64:45]: “Once I got an audience... it did help my comedy and I guess that's success. But ultimately... validation is still too important.”

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Comedy Generations & the End of Gatekeepers

• Gen X, Snark, and Authority-Avoidance

  • Discussion of why Gen X hasn’t produced political leaders:
    • Marc Maron [71:17]: “I think... Gen X is probably guilty of the beginning of a terminal uniqueness on an individual level and not so hip to real civic community... The boomers need to get out of the way.”
  • Lovett observes Gen X’s tendency to “be on the outside.”

• The Death of Late-Night, Rise of Clips

  • Maron laments the cultural impact:
    • Marc Maron [78:40]: “…if the bar has been lowered to consuming only clips... it’s dictated by media platforms... If something is good, they’ll stay in it. The format…has shifted to entrepreneurs and media bubbles... people don’t care anymore.”

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On the culture war in comedy:

  • “Real rights are denied and real lives are at stake because of what comics thought was an anti-woke just was just about their language issue. And now they were used in... anti-woke, you destroy all the policy that helps people who are vulnerable or marginalized or in trouble. And I can’t separate them. I will remain committed to the fact that they did that, that comics helped that.”
    — Marc Maron [27:58]

• On self-righteous anger:

  • “Self-righteous anger is about the most intolerable anger... even if you believe what the person is saying, you want them to shut the fuck up.”
    — Marc Maron [10:25]

• On leadership and the need for an empathetic advocate:

  • “If we can start getting leaders and influencers... to kind of reflect those values [of empathy and democracy], suddenly a lot of people that were open to Trump might remember some good parts of themselves...”
    — John Lovett [43:10]

• On what’s changed post-2024:

  • “From the first term people learned that things don’t really get that bad...” — John Lovett [53:14]
  • “That was before they had 2025 in place... now you have guys that really know all the fucking weak spots of the government who are churning out executive orders.”
    — Marc Maron [53:22–53:36]

• On the end of curated taste:

  • “...There was curation, there was human connection, was a limited resource, whether it was through art or through having to go somewhere to meet a friend... The party had real meaning because you connected there...”
    — John Lovett [30:13]

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Timestamps for Important Segments

• 03:15 – Maron on “pity laughs,” alpha-dogging, and podcast/radio style
• 07:05 – Discussing the ‘buzzkill problem’ among liberals and joke about “annoying people into fascism”
• 15:45 – Right-wing meme culture, trolling, and Bannon’s influence
• 19:23 – Online “mania” and the feedback loop of radicalization
• 25:20 – Gender, fatherlessness, Trump, and the “daddy hole”
• 28:00 – Crowd work, tropes, and the collapse of curation
• 37:14 – Stand-up as political/tribal signaling; Rogan’s influence
• 51:15 – The myth that facts will fix everything; why people back Trump
• 54:54 – Recovery, empathy, and the vulnerability of podcasts
• 64:45 – Professional fearlessness, validation, and Maron’s late-career confidence
• 71:17 – Gen X’s avoidance of civic responsibility
• 78:40 – The decline of late-night talk and the rise of algorithmic consumption
• 80:24 – Maron on the effect of grief and tragedy on the catastrophizing mind

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Tone and Language

Both Lovett and Maron keep a conversational, candid, and occasionally darkly comic tone. Maron is reflective, sharp, self-critical, but never sanctimonious. The episode is shot through with rueful laughter, gallows humor, political exasperation, and a determined search for empathy and collective action.

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Summary Takeaways

• The left’s “buzzkill” problem is real but reflects deeper issues of fragmentation, righteous anger, and a lack of leadership/messaging.
• The right’s cohesion, online apparatus, and “mania” make it more effective at messaging and radicalization.
• Comedy is caught in a crossfire: with gatekeepers gone, taste is algorithmic, and jump cuts outperform deep thought.
• Maron believes hope hinges on empathy, vulnerability, and refusing to cede ground—even if the other side’s “mania” seems overwhelming.
• Personal growth, for comedians and citizens alike, requires real risk, self-reflection, and a willingness to be both funny and honest—even when the material is dark.

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Transcript

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[John Lovett]

Hey everybody. Welcome to Pond Save America. I'm John Lovett.

[Marc Maron]

Today.

[John Lovett]

Today on the show, I sat down with Mark Maron to talk about the end of his podcast, talk about his comedy special, talk about politics. Trump, Theo Vaughn, Jerry Seinfeld, Bill Maher. I think Jeanine Garofalo came up very briefly. We covered a lot of ground about the right, the left, life and death. It was a great conversation. Producer Austin said it was a funny conversation and one of the darkest conversations we've had and you'll decide how right that is. But it was really great. And here it is. Hi. Thanks for being here.

[Marc Maron]

You're welcome. Nice to be here. I've admired your work from afar, my friend.

[John Lovett]

Oh, that's so nice to hear. We all. Yeah. What about up close?

[Marc Maron]

Well, I'm going to see how that goes.

[John Lovett]

Okay. Okay. Okay. When we you were on Love it or leave it in 2017, I went back and listened to it and my takeaway had nothing to do with you. You were there, but I was mostly listening to how I sounded. Sure. And it was one of the first shows we did and it's one of the first times I've been doing a show on a stage and I'm still getting the hang of it. And I remember when you came on, I really felt you not annoyed at me. But like, you're like, yeah, okay, sure. I felt like you needed to be won over. Like, you've been doing this a long time. You think we're going to talk. I felt you like, alpha dogging me a little bit.

[Marc Maron]

Oh.

[John Lovett]

But not in a bad way. It was fine. But in watching you do interviews, here's what I took from it, which is when you're with somebody you genuinely like, you will not laugh as much, but you'll sometimes throw a pity laugh at someone who's trying their best, who you don't care for. And I wasn't getting that. And I wasn't getting that with people.

[Marc Maron]

In terms of pity laughs, you know, there's an old radio habit. I don't know if people who started in podcasting, but it seems to have. There is a radio laugh that you do out of politeness and it's instinctual. And I think after a certain point, you may not know the difference between that and a real laugh, but it is an acknowledgement. It's not always pity. It's just saying like, yeah, okay, yeah, you did it.

[John Lovett]

Gotta fill the space till we get to the next point.

[Marc Maron]

Well, I mean, if it's funny, it's funny, you know, But I think people know when I'm really laughing and I think that in terms of alpha dogging, I get a little dickish.

[John Lovett]

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Marc Maron]

But it's not full power play. It's just sort of a defiance. I'm defying you to bring me down a notch.

[John Lovett]

But you're setting a bar for. If you're gonna wanna have a conversation.

[Marc Maron]

Sure.

[John Lovett]

You're gonna have to bring something. Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

I don't know what to say.

[John Lovett]

You can't just show up empty handed.

[Marc Maron]

Sure. I mean, yeah, because I can talk probably too much if I'm allowed to. I don't mind it. This is the first time I've done sort of a run of guesting in a long time over the last month or so.

[John Lovett]

Yeah, no, no, I noticed. I feel like you've done every podcast and I assume what's left after this is maybe like the Geico caveman. Is that what's after this?

[Marc Maron]

Is he doing one?

[John Lovett]

Yeah, Yeah, I think you're gonna hit that. Well, I did a couple. That Petco Dog.

[Marc Maron]

Sure. Yeah. I don't think I'll do that. I was kind of strategic in what I wanted to do for reasons that I had. Some of them were not the reasons that were sort of interpreted. I learned recently that people are going to assume they know why you did things or frame why you did things in their particular context. And I know why I did things. And it's very odd to come up against these type of people where they're like, you did that because of this. I'm like, I wasn't even thinking that.

[John Lovett]

What's an example of that?

[Marc Maron]

Well, I mean, for instance, that there was this notion that, you know, I did a lot of the comedy podcasts, the more bro. Ish ones that I would do or get on specifically to take them to task, and it really the farthest thing from my mind. I just wanted to make sure that people who were fans of comedy knew that I had a special out there, you know, no matter what ilk they are. That was really the intention because I got into stuff that I've been talking about a long time about the political situation within comedy that just happened. It wasn't like that was my agenda. I didn't want to talk that shit to Howie Mandela. I barely wanted to be on Howie's show.

[John Lovett]

That does come across. Sure.

[Marc Maron]

But I mean, but it was like, you know, I know how to have fun.

[John Lovett]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

You know, but he was, you know, spouting his mouth off in sort of a boomery, shallow, kind of insulated way that I thought was, you know, way off the mark. And so I didn't engage, you know, fun mark because it became not fun very quickly and it became serious and he didn't have much to say.

[John Lovett]

Yeah, let's talk about politics, because you.

[Marc Maron]

Have been going off already.

[John Lovett]

Well, yeah, this is what I put on the top of the card.

[Marc Maron]

We can edit, however. No, no, no.

[John Lovett]

We don't have to follow this.

[Marc Maron]

No, you're kidding. Just do what you.

[John Lovett]

No, you're kidding.

[Marc Maron]

Do what you gotta do.

[John Lovett]

He's kidding. So in your special, which is great.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, thank you, which is great.

[John Lovett]

You say it's your best.

[Marc Maron]

I think so.

[John Lovett]

I like your last two. I think they're both your best.

[Marc Maron]

End Times Fun, Bleak to Dark.

[John Lovett]

Yeah, yeah.

[Marc Maron]

And this one, it's kind of a trilogy. Panicked.

[John Lovett]

One of the things you say in the special is that liberals annoyed average Americans into fascism and that we have a buzzkill problem. Now, a lot of the buzzkills listening to this are going to take issue with that. But what is the buzzkill problem? What is it?

[Marc Maron]

I think most of my specials, I speak to politics and culture in a specific way because I think I should. I think it's my responsibility. And over time, I. Especially in this last episode, I figured out a way to. What I felt was finessing it because the situation culturally and politically for this special was different than the other ones. And some sort of strange empathy kind of evolved in terms of my presentation. So I'll explain to you, I will answer the question. But in my last special, like Weak to Dark, where I talked about Christian fascism, you know, it was sort of like I had some swagger to it. I was laying something down. I wasn't really exploring it. It was sort of a heads up in a fairly cocky way in what you would say, probably what it looks like as alpha dogging. In the special before that, I did a fairly operatic closing bit with Mike Pence Blowing Jesus, which is a specific sort of homage to a comic that had an impact on me in this special.

[John Lovett]

You gave him a blowjob?

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, well, you know, you gotta do what you gotta do. No, it was more like as I get older, I realize what my influences are and I realize what part they play in certain bits. Like, I can kind of identify it. So I see it that way. I see that, like, I would not have been inspired to navigate this joke without Hicks. So that's that. But in this special, because I started doing it after the election or maybe a little leading up to it, I found that at the audiences in the theater audiences, that there was a, you know, there was a frightened, desperate, angry vibe which was, you know, justified and real and despairing. And so over time of building the material, I realized that I was sort of doing some sort of community service in a real sense that, you know, these are, you know, liberals, Democrats, you know, Democrat liberals, Democratic, liberals, whatever to the left of center that these people were showing up. I don't know their lives. I don't know how long they're sitting at home alone on the phone. I don't know what they're doing. But I did know they were scared and I knew I was in the same boat. So I figured out a way, I made a decision this special, to speak directly to them, you know, not just posture as one of us, but to say, look, I'll do this for you. We're all in the same boat. We all have flaws. There's funny things about us. I don't have any answers for you, but I can give you that kind of relief of being, of sort of taking pokes at who we are and that joke. And I think it's a problem now too, with comics and comedy. When I do comedy, when I say we annoy the average American into fascism, that's a joke. Yeah, it's a joke, but it resonates, and it resonates for a reason. Because I've also lately been exploring the difference between anger and hate. That anger as a tone in all its spectrum is not always entertaining. And you know, self righteous anger is about the most intolerable anger. Yeah. And even if you believe what the person is saying, you want them to shut the fuck up. So that joke, and to answer your question, I think we know what these things are and I don't know that there's a way around it. I mean, that's going to take some sort of amazing vulnerability and empathy in the face of a completely unsympathetic and terrifying force to make it not annoying. But I mean, I think that's sort of what's at stake.

[John Lovett]

Yeah, it's funny because.

[Marc Maron]

Did that make sense?

[John Lovett]

Yes, it does make sense. Well, even when I was thinking about what I wanted to talk to you about, I know when I say, you know, oh, you and the special joke about America having a buzzkill problem, annoying people into fascism, that people are going to say, well, that's not fair. It's obviously more complicated than that. But that's why it's a joke.

[Marc Maron]

But see, and I say it in the special, that in terms of a real organized left, when was the last time we had that? And look, I did Air America. I know what it's like to deal with different factions of the left and even within the Democrats trying to figure out how to platform the left right. And I know that there is very insulated, very, very committed groups of people to very specific things that are all part of this big umbrella idea. But there is no unifying policy. There is no unifying community. There is no. It's not as simple in terms of what it's become as what Bernie preaches. You know, the original American Left, Right. So when you have all that fragmentation, what becomes annoying is people's commitment to their specific cause, as righteous as it may be. It doesn't fit to the umbrella of the community necessarily. It does not have that much significance on its own. I mean, some issues do. So it almost becomes, you know, I don't want to use the word virtue signaling, but there is a sort of righteousness. And I get the whole idea. It's like pick an issue and you work it. But bigger problems abound.

[John Lovett]

Yeah. My take on it is we do have a problem of being buzzkills, that the Americans have a very dim view of Democrats. Americans do find Democrats annoying. Why is that? One reason they're kind of annoying. That's true. Another is, yes. There's like a kind of a collective sense of loss and righteous anger and uncertainty around the fact that that's even more extreme this time because at least in 2017, you can say, oh, half the country didn't vote for this. It's a fluke. He won the electoral vote, not the popular vote, but we lived through it and the country embraced it. And he won a majority this time, which makes it even more kind of enraging and insecure, poking kind of experience for the left. But there's also a big right wing apparatus that exists to take all these things and the most annoying liberal and make them famous. There is.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, they turn it. They turn it around.

[John Lovett]

And then there's social media that takes the most annoying bits of things. Like. Sure. Like, you know, you make a joke in your special about the Ovan. It's very funny. It's a great joke. It is everywhere. It is everywhere. That gets pulled out. Right. And it gets spread because it's great material, it's very funny, it's resonant. But it's not surprising that the more thoughtful and circumspect parts of the special, it's not surprising those parts aren't what's online. What's online is the bit.

[Marc Maron]

Well, there's a bit about that.

[John Lovett]

Sensational.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. The R word and the Theo Vaughn thing. A couple of the smaller ones did okay out there. But yeah, there's a lot in the special. And, you know, I had to think about what that Theo Vaughn joke would do because there's this idea, there's a talking point within the right wing tribalized comedy community that any sort of criticism is some sort of jealousy, which it isn't. And I had this issue years ago before this type of stuff. If you're going to be critical through humor of people in your own profession. There's always this sort of stigma to it. But I believe that if somebody becomes a cultural phenomenon and they are part of the cultural apparatus, that they're fair game. And I think the Theo joke at its base is funny. You know what it implies. You can do whatever you want with that. Sure, it's an easy correlation to make to Trump or to humanizing fascism, but in and of itself, the impression was good enough. You know, the jokes that I put within him talking were funny. I mean, I'd be hard pressed to think that he didn't think it was funn.

[John Lovett]

It's really funny. It's good. But my point is only that, like.

[Marc Maron]

Sure, the apparatus is. It's impossible to fight against. And, you know, that's a whole other problem, that the left messaging is never going to be as efficient because we don't have an army of frustrated teenage boys who have been taught over the last 20 years that this is all some sort of game and that trolling is a pastime. And they were sort of turned out and radicalized by, you know, Bannon. And it just. The apparatus, it feeds itself. And people who are doing it are not ideological thinkers or deep guys. They just are in it for the game.

[John Lovett]

Yeah, well, that's what I mean about it. Going further than just the left being annoying, of course, but it's also, you look at in the past, I'm talking.

[Marc Maron]

On a human level.

[John Lovett]

On a human level. But when countries have embraced right wing fascistic leaders, right. Germany, the economy's in shambles. Millions of men were in World War I. Their brains are all fucked up. There's no word for it. The only advice is for everyone to whisper, right? Like there's nothing. And they embrace this autocrat. America had a lot of problems in 2016. We had a lot of problems in 2024, more than we had before. But we don't have, let's try autocracy problems. But there's something about this era, whether it's social media or what's happened in the economy, that's led people to feel this loss of meaning, loss of purpose, loss of order, and they're casting out. And Donald Trump had purchased with a lot of those people. A lot of people, turns out, were excited about someone like Donald Trump their whole lives. We just didn't know it, which is very frightening. But there was a lot of people that were just receptive to someone like Donald Trump in a way that I think was very surprising. Was surprising to me. I don't know if it was surprising to you.

[Marc Maron]

I think that, look, anger and the excitement of being validated and having your grievances honored despite any sort of human connection to them, I think it's appealing to angry people. And the people that weren't angry were annoyed. And they may be untethered. They may not have any real sense of civic responsibility or even the structure of government. They just knew that it felt good to be able to double down on hate and to double down on othering and to double down on bullying. I think most people have an innate bully. I think that empathy is a muscle that you have to work. And at some point the Democrats were okay at that. But I don't think most people are naturally empathetic. I used to think that. But I also think that a lot of this propaganda you're talking about and the sort of intensity of what we're taking, taking in on a day to day level creates the, the mental relationship with the information creates a kind of mania. I just watched a brilliant documentary this morning that I've watched all this guy's stuff. It's a guy, he calls himself Elephant graveyard on, on YouTube and he did, and it's specifically focuses on the alignment of, of politics and comedy. He did one called Comedy Jonestown, How Comedy Was Destroyed by an Anti Reality Doomsday Cult. And I think that that is a bigger conversation about what you're saying that, you know, the propaganda and the existence of social media platforms and what they can do to the human brain and what they can do to foment a sort of mania.

[John Lovett]

Yeah, mania's a good word for it.

[Marc Maron]

That enables it, you hear it in people on these mics. And I used to do it. I used to do morning radio and I knew what it took to get it up to do that, you know, for three hours. You know, you're up at three in the morning, you're crunching news, we're doing comedy bits, you're live. So there is, there was a mania to it. And if that mania has a specific ideological thrust that's driven by talking points and, you know, basic debate exercises, it's rewarding and it lands and it makes you feel good. Mania makes you feel good.

[John Lovett]

Yeah. And it has sort of left, you know, conservative radio, talk radio. It was in your car and a lot of people listen to it. You know, a lot of salesmen and trucks, drivers listen to it all day, every day. It was like kind of this secret audience for it. But you got out of your car and it stayed in the car and you lived your life. And now that kind of frenetic pace follows us all the time. And I do think like you're going to look back on this era and you say what happened? And we're going to look at the way in which we all kind of, whatever direction it was, we were all radicalizing each other through our phones.

[Marc Maron]

But radicalizing in emotion. Yeah, that the information is fleeting and unfounded, but if it fits your emotional feeling, then just drive it. Yeah. And now it's everywhere, people. The guy in this new documentary, in the doomsday cult documentary identifies something about collaborators that may not have seen themselves as being willing collaborators at the beginning, but they go through something called, I think he called it philosicide, which is where you don't kill yourself, but you kill yourself inside. And if you look at somebody like Marc Rubio or anybody within that administration, what happens in cult like behavior is sometime, some point after another, in order to stay in the game, they kill whatever principles they might have had, even though they were a few.

[John Lovett]

Yeah, they surrender to it. And there's also, I think, another part of this.

[Marc Maron]

But killing it is probably better because that sort of supports the mania element that you have to surrender, but you have to aggressively push it back because you literally have to. Your personality is in conflict with that until it's not.

[John Lovett]

Look, we're doing Germany, we're doing 1984. Deal with it. But like, you know, in 1984, it's about letting go. You know, you're fighting against this tide, you're fighting against this tide and all of a sudden just like, you know what? I'm just going to float.

[Marc Maron]

But that's the rest of us. That's not the operatives. I mean the operatives, you know, they, they make a deal, they make a deal. Like, I mean I, you know, have had to on some level believe and accept, not in the way that I surrender to it, that we're currently in an authoritarian country. I have to see it that way in order to exist in the, in my life. I have to frame it like that. I'm. There's not hope, but I, I do think that what we're up against is something more than a, like a two party problem.

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[John Lovett]

One way I think people rationalize it is around well, you know, I don't like Trump, but I really hate the fucking democrats. Right? Or like I don't, I don't totally on board with this, but both sides.

[Marc Maron]

But that's a false equivalent.

[John Lovett]

Of course it is. Of course it is. But what I, what I, what I see there's a there, there is a reason that Donald Trump gains purchase in this ecosystem of podcasts at the same time that a bunch of this anti woke anti trans masculinity core takes hold at the same time. And it has to do with some. There's some way in which A lot of men feel lost. And there's order and meaning in what Trump offers, in what kind of the Rogan kind of way of learning about.

[Marc Maron]

The daddies are pretty powerful. And you know, these docs that he talks a lot about, the daddy hole in these guys, you know, from bad daddies, that void that needs to be filled. And you know, a lot of megalomaniacal people come from that. Trump comes from that. I mean, look, I'm no psychiatrist or psychologist, you know, but in order for someone to define themselves, especially if they're lost or they feel neutered or diminished, if you get the right words into those people, they're going to light up. And if they feel like they have a leader, they're going to light up. And as opposed to like, you know, I didn't like what the Democrats had to say or whatever. I think that is all part and parcel to the demonization of Democrats as not having real policy or not being real men or not speaking to the working class. Because there's a couple of guys out there and I don't follow as much as I used to, but it seems like there's a couple of guys out there that are rational, sort of level headed, very wonky Democratic politicians that are totally inoffensive and really bright and are making it as simple as possible to understand what the real issues are. But I don't know if that's what it takes to get people on board. And then you got Newsom's approach, which is.

[John Lovett]

Okay, he's trying to get. Everyone is struggling. Look, I do think that the collapse society can be tied back to crowd work. I think we can get it back to comedians that are just doing crowd work. And in the same way we could talk about how what goes viral, what spreads, what gets people's attention is conflict, it's anger. And so the satisfying things.

[Marc Maron]

Satisfying things because cats do too, right?

[John Lovett]

Sure, yeah. Things that scratch some sort of a primitive itch in there.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. Whether it's like sweet or savory.

[John Lovett]

Yeah, cats too. Yeah. Rescued puppy getting a growth removed will also get millions.

[Marc Maron]

I can watch a pipe evacuate itself for a minute.

[John Lovett]

You ever see a video of someone pulling a tire through a pipe?

[Marc Maron]

Oh, yeah, it's the best.

[John Lovett]

I watch that all day.

[Marc Maron]

I guess that's that all day kind of primal fecal thing. Yeah, well, bring it, bring it back to crowd work is that they're with all this othering and with all this sort of idea. This is one of their big debate points when you come at them they accuse liberals of being closed minded in terms of really embracing other people's point of view. And for me, if that other point of view is shut the fuck up.

[John Lovett]

I don't want to hear it. Yeah, yeah, right, right.

[Marc Maron]

Well, I just think what happens is once the othering is successful and I covered in the special that real rights are denied and real lives are at stake because of what comics thought was an anti woke just was just about their language issue. And now they were used in. Under the sort of auspices of anti woke. You destroy all the policy that helps people who are vulnerable or marginalized or in trouble. And I can't separate them. I will remain committed to the fact that they did that, that comics helped that. But I think in the bigger picture with say, crowd work or the kind of, you know, hackneyed tropes of tribalized comedy is what ultimately happens. I said this to Howie and with all the proliferations of podcasts, is that because the production values are shitty and everybody knows them now and cause crowd work is kind of establishes this way of writing, you know, kind of having an improvisational moment. What happens to all this stuff that is really good and truly creative and interesting is that the bar gets lowered to the point where regular people just adapt to the garbage and they don't seek out the other stuff. And the sort of outlets that make the other stuff are kind of marginalized. Mainstream show business is kind of marginalized. So all this stuff fits into that anti elitism kind of frame of right wing thinking.

[John Lovett]

Yeah, and it does. It's about taste too, which is that this stuff performs well. It does well in the world, for good and for ill. All the gatekeepers are gone. Right. You can kind of build your. Build an audience online. That's good. A lot of amazing people have started online, but we've lost. There was curation, there was human connection, was a limited resource, whether it was through art or through having to go somewhere to meet a friend. You didn't know what happened to people in your life. So you saw them at a party. The party had real meaning because you connected there.

[Marc Maron]

That's it.

[John Lovett]

And all of this took out the availability of all this removed the meaning of liking a comic. Discovering someone going to a club and seeing someone's hilarious. Telling your friends about it.

[Marc Maron]

People with researched and respected opinions.

[John Lovett]

Right?

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, look, and I did a joke that was turned inside out by one particular kind of libertarian thinker. I don't even want to give him that. He's a comic. But I said it was better when everybody didn't have a voice. It's a joke.

[John Lovett]

Yeah, it's a joke.

[Marc Maron]

But it's the same thing as saying like, everyone's got a podcast now. But I just said it like that. So I left myself open to like that guy. See, the liberals are, you know, they're.

[John Lovett]

Totalitarian, you know, well, it's everybody, you know, they cancel culture. Anti woke comedy. It was about feeling like there's feedback that they didn't want to hear anymore. But I also like being a celebrity got worse too, which is why I think it was able to spread so far. Right. Like because, you know, you were, if you were famous in the 1950s, you could drive your, you could do coke, get drunk, drive your car through a plate glass window, give $200 to the mater d at the hotel, and it was gone. Now like James Corden gets into a fight, pulling a suitcase down from the overhead, and it's news and it follows him forever. There's a way in which attention, celebrity and feedback have made made having the power of a platform less fun. And I think that annoys very powerful people.

[Marc Maron]

It's predatory.

[John Lovett]

Yeah, yeah.

[Marc Maron]

Well, yeah, they have to insulate themselves. But I do still think that outside of just the kind of emaciated world of press and this chasing of clickbait, I do think in terms of the ideological bend on it is that it's anti elitism, it's anti intellectualism, it's anti expert. I think it's all part of that. I think that Hollywood has been framed as elitists. I think that not unlike with the universities and the intellectual thing was always part of fascism, but I think that Hollywood represents elitism to the right. And I don't believe that's true. I mean, you know, movie stars and movie stars. But I really think that's where a lot of that comes from. Outside of just clickbaity stuff.

[John Lovett]

Yeah, but. And then there's also just a big audience for it. Right. There is, it turns out, an audience for.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, but that, but that doesn't make it right.

[John Lovett]

Of course not.

[Marc Maron]

I think that.

[John Lovett]

What does that tell us about the people listening? That they wanted this.

[Marc Maron]

Well, but most people like, so what do you got? 75 million vote for Kamala, 77.5. You know, vote for Trump. And there's 150 people who did what? What are they doing? Who are those people? Are they just floating? Are they the ones that's watching? It's a lot of people.

[John Lovett]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

What are they doing? So, so I, and I think that in terms of how fascism or authoritarianism, like, you know, we've got a president who is a thug. So, you know, his way of doing business is like, oh, you gotta. Got a pretty nice university here. Hate for anything bad to happen to it. You know, like that's a nice state for anything bad to happen to it. You know, maybe you kick into the charity. Yeah, it's. It's straight up mob shit. But the, you know, but like people like Russ Voss vote. Yeah. What's vote? I mean, that's the guy that's doing it.

[John Lovett]

Yeah, yeah.

[Marc Maron]

You know, so like, however you see Trump, you know, he's still a puppet to something that is bigger, that he doesn't give a shit about as long as he can be the guy out front. But those guys are the guys that are dismantling the federal government in the name of Christian nationalism. But I think that the way that business. See what you're saying to me feels like that, you know, fascism is good for business.

[John Lovett]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

Because if you like Netflix, like Netflix will just, you know, co opt anybody that can take that algorithm. And I think you kind of. I used to do a joke about it, I don't. That, you know, Netflix can become Reich flicks, you know, very quickly. And I think the pivotal moment was when they had pushback from the trans community about Chappelle. They realized after several days that that community was not gonna affect their bottom line at all.

[John Lovett]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

And they cut them loose. And, you know, that is how fascism works in business.

[John Lovett]

Right. Well, right. Their argument and response would be, well, we believe in being a home for everybody. So there's Chappelle, there's Ricky Gervais, there's all these kinds of comics that do the same fucking joke. And we have a bunch of gay movies and films and queer stuff and like, we're a home for everybody. And that's our answer.

[Marc Maron]

Sure. But ultimately, who's getting the big deals? Which shows stay on the air?

[John Lovett]

Yeah, yeah.

[Marc Maron]

You know, what do they keep repeating? It's like the bigger audience, you know, that's them saying, like, we got this other stuff and we know there's a few of you, but we're throwing you a bone, so shut up. But the big money's on the ones that you're talking about that titillate in a certain way that is not always right minded. And look, people can say whatever they want. My belief is that eventually this stuff would have found its level. That ultimately, in terms of left leaning or specific marginalized cultures creating grassroots action by overwhelming Twitter and stuff. That when Trump was campaigning for the second time that was ebbing, that it would have found a level where tolerance would have maybe reigned. Because I believe that in order for democracy to work, if these guys are doubling down on intolerance and hate, that you got nothing to work with. I mean, it used to be like, you know, you'd get a guy who'd be like, yeah, gay marriage. Now the gays, they want to get married. It's ridiculous. Fuck the gays. And then it passes in his state and over time he's like, I don't know, I work with a guy, they're nice. And then it evolves in the way that democracy's supposed to work. But I think it should always be said that what these guys are fighting for is not democracy, and they're shameless about it. They can say that, you know, democracy enabled us to vote for that guy, but that was the fucking end of it. And that's the loophole in democracy is that that you can freely elect a fascist and then who the hell knows what's gonna happen, right? But I do feel that they are shamelessly anti American in their political ideology and I imagine most of them would own it.

[John Lovett]

The hope right too is like, this is hacky shit, right? A lot of this, like anti woke comedy is like hacky shit. And the way you beat that, you can scold people. I'm not saying you're doing it, but people on social media can try to scold their way to the other side of it, but the answer is to just be fucking funny. And the answer is to have a bit about the ovan that people really like and sort of clicks, turns something on in their brain.

[Marc Maron]

It's subjective, makes it silly to them, sure, right? But it's not gonna make it silly to the guys that are brain fucked in that direction. It's not gonna make it silly to the believers. And the problem with, like comedy comedians as news influencers is that now anything any comic says is a representation of their personal ideology. So the ability for them to be objective about humor is gone. And they are subjective, which most humor is to a specific ideological bent. And sure, you can make it as funny as you want. There's plenty of beautifully funny people doing amazing comedy all the time. But they're in the shadow of this momentum of the tribe wise comedy of, you know, Rogan. And again, those documentaries, which I highly recommend from Elephant Graveyard. You know, Rogan has positioned himself as the arbiter of what comedy is. And the way I framed it in my Conversation with Howie was like, how long can you kind of claim the victim mantle?

[John Lovett]

Right?

[Marc Maron]

It's like, my question is, it's like, you guys won. Woke is dead. What do you gotta keep beating these people up for? Some of them are losing their rights. Some of them are being, you know, you know, literally killed. Some of them are being deported. And these were all the big funnies for you guys who claim to be victims of this horrible policy. So then why not stop now?

[John Lovett]

Well, also, part of it is, yeah, but then also there's this sort of, well, we're just. We're just comedians just telling jokes here. And then it's like, well, hold on a second. You can't.

[Marc Maron]

They're not.

[John Lovett]

Well, you can't have the president on, in the run up to an election and give that person a forum, Trump, and not push back. You can't get behind him. And then when you don't like the consequences, say, like, well, I don't like any of this immigration stuff, but I'm just a comedian. I just had him on. He was a guest.

[Marc Maron]

I can't forgive it. I can't forgive it. Yeah, don't think it's like, in the sense that, like, well, you should have done your fucking homework before you come out and say, this is the guy to your army of kind of minions who look to you for intellectual fortitude and the proper diet and what is real and what isn't real. So in a sense, it's like they're going to backpedal and they're going to backpedal in relation to what's kind of like moving through MAGA in general. And I don't know that it matters. I mean, this.

[John Lovett]

I think it does matter. Oh, I think it does matter.

[Marc Maron]

No, I mean, I don't know that it matters. Oh, if MAGA buckles, they have to accommodate them.

[John Lovett]

I think we have to be practical. And I can't go back in time and make people not endorse Trump, but people with big platforms realizing that they were. Look, where is a decadent and depraved era in American politics, in American society? And part of that is a glibness with very serious things. You have Zelensky in the Oval. He's getting questions about putting on a suit. His country is being murdered by Vladimir Putin. He's getting jokey questions. Donald Trump is showing him his fucking hat collection. This is a depraved and decadent era. And as part of that decadence, there are people being glib about life and death decisions, including endorsing a monster because it's good for the gram and that and that and that happened. How do we help now that there's a good side to that, which is there's a shallowness to that support and that embrace, which means, yes, we can say that was stupid. I don't forgive you. Fine. But we gotta get those people to realize, we gotta make ourselves feel open to them, because those people with those platforms are maybe gettable, as are the kind of soft Trump voters that maybe got on board because all their favorite hosts, like.

[Marc Maron]

I'll agree you with that.

[John Lovett]

Okay.

[Marc Maron]

But I think you're taking out of the. The picture. They're afraid they're in, man, and they're in over their head. And, you know, there's real consequences when you push back against your authoritarian overlords and who the hell knows what they are? Because once you get above Rosvot, I mean, you've got the tech oligarchs, all right? So they're the real ones, you know, whoever's, you know, pawned out. You know, Vance is a stooge for those guys, for Elon and Theo and those guys. So once you get above Project 2025 and you get above Trump, then you've got these guys who really seek to destroy the fabric of democratic society. Okay? So if you're on the. If you're on the payroll of that shit and, you know, and you want to, you know, soften up, you know, there's a lot at stake, you know, so it's not. It's not just sort of, we got to say the right thing to these people and change their minds. Because you don't think Rubio is his pants every day. I mean, you don't think, like, any judge that rules against him is getting, like, hundreds and hundreds of death threats. I mean, this is straight up, you know, terrorizing. So I know we were heading towards hope somehow, but.

[John Lovett]

And we don't need to. Let's turn around.

[Marc Maron]

No, but I think that in terms of voters and whatnot, if they are still capable of empathy, you know, underneath this mania of grievance validation, then in so much to say, as if they're still human, that maybe something will speak to them.

[John Lovett]

Well, I think that's where there is genuine. Yeah. Trump has many powers, talents. One of them is he is very good at making. What's the worst thing about you? The truest thing about you? He's very good at that. He's very kind of reaching into somebody and saying, this thing, this weakness you have. I'm gonna make that more true, whether it's animus towards immigrants or embracing their ambition over their politics, if it's a politician. But one reason I think Trump was able to get get back is because there was a big hole. And everybody listening will be annoyed. Am I saying it? But whatever. Again, but the bully pulpit, Joe Biden, he left it open. And we didn't understand how big of a price we were paying for not having a vocal, aggressive, relentless advocate for democracy, for just empathy, which is something Joe Biden I think is very good at, but had lost his ability to communicate well. And if we can start getting leaders and influencers, it matters now it's the world we live in to kind of reflect those values more suddenly. A lot of people that were open to Trump might remember some good parts of themselves, because I think people are complicated. And you're right, in every person there's a bully, but in every person there's always an empathetic part of them as well. Donald Trump does a crackdown on immigration. Terrible, terrible crackdown. And what happens for the support for immigration just itself as a good rises.

[Marc Maron]

No anti immigration, anti immigration Senate plummets.

[John Lovett]

Support immigration itself, irrespective of the policy, rises to 80% highest it's been in decades. There's something that you can turn on in people. That's what leadership is. And we kind of. And we need that. I think it's possible.

[Marc Maron]

No, I agree with that. I mean, of course. And like, historically, it happens.

[John Lovett]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

You know, you can push back and you can, you know, change people's minds if the sadness, the weight of it. But like, what happens to, like, I've, I've become sort of obsessed with this idea of these, you know, these angry white dudes that you were talking about that were untethered. And many of them, the, the whole sort of angle of, you know, Democrats used to be like, they're voting against their self interest. That used to be the big thing.

[John Lovett]

Yeah, yeah.

[Marc Maron]

How does that happen? You know, because it feels good to be angry.

[John Lovett]

And well, you can't tell people what their interests are is one thing, I guess.

[Marc Maron]

But I'm just saying economic. Right. So, but like now it's like, I don't want to get more grim. I'll stick with yes, maybe people. Well, you get all these angry dudes. I mean, and then you offer them, I mean, south park covered it the second one. Offer them a job in ICE as, you know, non officer guys with guns for big money. And again, then you get into that philosicide Thing where they kill part of themselves to serve this because of their self interest. And I guess that ties in to me with what you're saying about influencers and about that if you can get them out from under their self interest, which sometimes is just posturing for a particular cause that determines their brand sort of appeal, but is rooted in almost nothing.

[John Lovett]

I mean, how do you make momentum becomes momentum almost?

[Marc Maron]

Well, it just becomes like you're using it as a marker to sort of determine your brand. Everyone is stuck in honoring the context of the social media platform, right? So arguably, if you really want to do it, there's no free speech because you're trying to get onto this platform and get traction with what you have to say in the bits and pieces that you can do it and make it appealing to enough people to get you some sort of recognition so you can get your grift going or move money into the right direction and subscribe to our YouTube.

[John Lovett]

But it was one of those fake laughs.

[Marc Maron]

But also there's a difference between this hyper reality and just sort of like, you know, going swimming. So I just think that it's complicated without a unified message.

[John Lovett]

I think that's true. Let's turn to life. I think we've done enough politics.

[Marc Maron]

Was it too much? Am I the bleakest guy you've had on?

[John Lovett]

No. And it's gonna edit beautifully. It's gonna darker, but not bleaker. We've had darker people, right?

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[John Lovett]

Mm.

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[John Lovett]

A real.

[Marc Maron]

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[John Lovett]

All right, let's talk about life.

[Marc Maron]

Sure.

[John Lovett]

You ever buy that $14,000amp?

[Marc Maron]

Yes. Long time ago.

[John Lovett]

You got it. You got the nice amp?

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. I don't spend much money on things, but I did buy that.

[John Lovett]

Yeah, it's a tube amp.

[Marc Maron]

It's a. Yeah, Macintosh. Some people don't love them, but I, I've got a good stereo setup with some nice Wilson speakers and the Macintosh amp and the Macintosh preamp and a Riga 6 turntable and a HAMA cartridge. And you know, I, I kind of. It's waning a little bit. That's the problem with getting a obsessed and not being a fully committed nerd to a thing. You know, fully committed nerds have one thing and they do their life with that. Mine kind of comes. It dabbles. But when I dabble hard, then when it starts to pass, you're like, I'm going to have to build another structure for these records.

[John Lovett]

Oh yeah. I get monomaniacal and then move on.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, yeah.

[John Lovett]

You're left with a bunch of objects.

[Marc Maron]

Or sometimes they're great and you can go back to them. Like boots always seem to come back around. Well, I got, yeah, these ones, I'm trying to figure out if I like them or not. But what I was going to tell you before. Sorry, is that in like I said before about playing to our audience and having enough, you know, skill to kind of take little shots and, but have that, that fun moment of like we are kind of like that, that entering the political part of this last special, I days before, I changed the tone of how I was going to do it because like I said with that alpha doggy or whatever thing that like with the swagger which is either genuine or just a means for me to confidently a trick to deliver it. I decided in this one just go under it, almost be passive about it, like hey, everything's great, you know, everything. And then move from that tone. Because I believed in the spirit of what you're doing here that if I do it like that, you know, people who aren't necessarily like minded will listen.

[John Lovett]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

And I did some of these shows, I had a guy come up to me in like Skokie or somewhere and I did all that stuff and he came up to me and said, you know, I think I'm probably the only Trump supporter in here. And I said, did I get it right? And he said, yeah, man, he's crazy. What do you even do with that?

[John Lovett]

Well, I think it gets at something important which is I feel like a lot of liberals and gets to the kind of buzzkill thing. A lot of liberals have kind of had convinced themselves that if only we can reach people with the truth, they just don't have the facts. And once they have the facts, we gotta get on the facts. We gotta make sure the New York Times headlines are accurate, that they capture things correctly. Cuz if people had the facts, they really knew who Trump was, then they wouldn't do it. But no, a lot of people got behind Trump knowing who he was. And that's a harder, deeper, sadder problem. And I think that is where we're at now. I think the first term was we just have to reach people to make them understand. Now it's wait, wait, wait, they did understand, they did this. Anyway, this is a bigger problem than we realized.

[Marc Maron]

You have to, like you said, have a leader that believes in liberal democracy.

[John Lovett]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

And can speak to why it's good. You know, even with, you know, creating policy that may, you know, undermine businesses, maybe you know, creating policy for the benefit of all, you have to somehow re engage people with the idea that, you know, they have a civic responsibility for those who don't have.

[John Lovett]

And it has to deliver, it has to deliver for people. Because I do think that's right that people have come to believe that it just doesn't matter that Democrats can't. They under promise, they over promise and they under deliver if they deliver at all. And really the federal government just doesn't affect me. And that's a wealth problem. It's a wealth problem. I think it's also a, this is a kind of cultural problem right now, which is the assumption that as things, that how things were is how they will be, that there are certain things you can count on. Right. Like you can just, yeah, the Trump is crazy, but Social Security is going to function. And yeah, Trump is crazy, but like he's not going to ruin the whole global economy with a by announcing tariffs for penguins. Like there's that.

[Marc Maron]

I think a lot of people learn.

[John Lovett]

From the first term that things don't really get that bad.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, but that was before they had 20, 25 in place.

[John Lovett]

Exactly. Of course, of course.

[Marc Maron]

And they, you know, all they had was Bannon and you know, his mystical beliefs, you know, churning out executive orders. But now you have guys that really know all the fucking weak spots of the government who are churning out executive orders.

[John Lovett]

And they had four years to prepare totally. And second term presidents always know the job better than first term presidents. They rarely get four years to be outside so that the policy people, the wonks, can get their plan together. That's what's so different.

[Marc Maron]

Sure. But also, how do you get the young people that identify with liberal Democratic or leftist politics to focus on getting involved in being involved in the government?

[John Lovett]

Well, I think this is where it's like, what brings all these disparate groups together? What makes people see themselves as part of one movement? Leadership. And we didn't have it. And Democrats didn't have enough trust with non Democrats to believe the threats, to believe what we were saying about what Trump posed. And Democrats didn't have enough purchase with less engaged lefties to earn their vote and to believe that they could be trusted either to kind of get people excited. And Kamala did a lot to try to fix the damage that Biden had left, but there wasn't enough time. So Theo Vaughn, Dax Shepard, you. Is there something about being a recovered addict that makes you good at hosting a podcast and having conversations?

[Marc Maron]

Well, I cited as a foundational thing the sort of idea of the seed of AA thought is that one alcoholic talks to another alcoholic about their life and gets out of themselves. So on that premise, maybe. I just feel also that if you have some experience in recovery, you're very used to people being very candid about showing their emotions and vulnerabilities and telling their stories of the most horrible things. It's just part of the community and part of how it works. So on that level, maybe there's a.

[John Lovett]

Lot of people that are miserable and hate their lives and they're not brave enough to fix it. And they're also not brave enough to do drugs. You know, it takes a little bit of courage, I think, to ruin your life with drugs. You've joked about that too in the past. And like, you know, bravery is just a kind of recklessness that we like, you know, it's recklessness with a good direction.

[Marc Maron]

I don't know if they see it as bravery. I think they're out of control. And if they survive, they can frame it. You know, my joke was I don't trust anybody who hasn't lost complete control of their life for a few years.

[John Lovett]

There's a kind of. Yeah. A willingness to say fuck it. Right. There's a fuck it quality.

[Marc Maron]

And I think that, like, sometimes it's a. It's a compulsion more than a willingness.

[John Lovett]

Maybe at some point it started as I'm just. I'm. I'm furious, I'm angry, I'm sad, I'm. Whatever.

[Marc Maron]

Oh, yeah.

[John Lovett]

I'm gonna throw this back.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[John Lovett]

And change my circumstances. But there's a vulnerability to it too. I like feel like, like in the addicts that the people that I know that have had an addiction, once they've.

[Marc Maron]

Gotten out of it. Yeah. Well, once they got out, because the hole is open. The hole is open.

[John Lovett]

But also I do think that there's a kind of a vulnerability from before too. A kind of a softness that made a pain. Right. I think that comes from a vulnerability and that continues after you've beaten it. But I think is part of, I think, what makes you a good host. Right. You know, you are open, right?

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. And I'm pretty like, you know, my empathy has sort of expanded from doing it. And also I'm kind of innately kind of co dependent in that, you know, I assume that anyone I'm talking to has their shit together more than me. And I kind of meld with them and I kind of pick up their vibe. And there's certain times where I'll ask Brendan McDonald, my producer, I'm like, did I start talking like an old Jew when I was talking to Mel Brooks? He's like, yeah. And did I start talking a little bit like a black guy when I was talking to a black guy? Happens. You mirror.

[John Lovett]

You mirror. Yeah. Right.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, but that's me. Yeah. I don't know how they do it.

[John Lovett]

I don't know how they do it either. Yeah, there is something about that that you kind of like match somebody's Energy. Are we doing that? I think so.

[Marc Maron]

A little.

[John Lovett]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

You're a little guarded, you think? A little bit. It's okay.

[John Lovett]

I think I am. Well, I can bring it down.

[Marc Maron]

No, you don't have to. It's your show. You got to drive.

[John Lovett]

I don't even know how to be. I don't even know what's the guard. What should I take down? What do you think it is?

[Marc Maron]

I think you, you know, you have purpose. I think that we're all scared, but you have to sort of keep it together for the operation.

[John Lovett]

Yeah, I think that's true locally and globally. I think I want to make sure I know you as a performer, and I want to make sure we don't land in the fucking grave, you know, I want to be out of it by the end. I think we're. But I also want to. I want people. I want to. Yeah. So I think that's. Right.

[Marc Maron]

Well, I think that if you watch the special, that I do, you know, I do walk a tightrope, but it definitely. It comes out funny, and it took a lot of time to do that.

[John Lovett]

I remember you in the Conan days. Like, I remember watching you on Conan, and I wouldn't have known you were on drugs and drinking that, like, when you were in those. In that avenue.

[Marc Maron]

I wasn't, like, sloppy, you know, And a lot of times I didn't do it the day of those shows, you know, I don't think, you know, a lot of people think I was on coke for that HBO half hour at the Fillmore in 95. I was just sweaty. I don't think I was on coke. I do know on my first Comedy Central half hour, I had done coke the night before, and I didn't sleep well, but I wasn't getting jacked to work.

[John Lovett]

You weren't? You weren't?

[Marc Maron]

No.

[John Lovett]

Even now I forget when I'm thinking about, like, I don't sort you into the category of, oh, guys that did a lot of drinking and coke. Cause you strike me as a nerd. You're like a nerdy guy, kind of contained Jewish. Like, I just. I think of you like that. And even when I think of you from the Conan days, I think of you as being like a. Like, not a party guy. I think of you being, like a record guy.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, I think I was like. I kind of wrote a line. You know, I grew up in, you know, townie culture in Albuquerque, but I was from Jersey, and I was very compelled towards, you know, higher pursuits. I wanted to really be an intellectual. And. But I do have, at some point, you know, a rock and roll element. I was never really a nerd. I was more of an awkward person, unfocused. I think nerds are awkward, focused people, and they can community in that. I was just an uncomfortable guy that knew how to be funny and sort of move through all different cliques. But it was never that focused. And I kind of took to, and still do to a kind of rock and roll sensibility. So it's that combination of that with pretty. I think I don't like using the word, but neurotic, anxious, Jewishness. So it's kind of a hybrid. I think that Randy Newman once told Lorne Michaels many years ago, and Lorne told Jim Biederman, who was producing me on a show for Broadway Video. It was a streaming show. That was before streaming, though. But Randy said I was a verbesen, which is a sourpuss.

[John Lovett]

Oh, yeah.

[Marc Maron]

And I kind of. I'm okay with that. I was a cranky guy, but I didn't know quite how to make it funny. I don't think I have the. That, you know, real cranky guys who are naturally funny. It's a rare thing, you know, like, Lewis Black is good at that. I think, you know, Burr, at some time, just this sort of put upon, you know, kind of anger that doesn't cross over into intense anger, which isn't fundamentally entertaining, which is where I would go. I think over time I've become a little more cranky funny.

[John Lovett]

That's interesting. Why is that? And I think part of it is, for whatever reason, like, there's a way in which, with, like, Bill Burr, Lewis Black, that you're rooting for them even when they're populist.

[Marc Maron]

Crank.

[John Lovett]

Yeah, they're populist.

[Marc Maron]

And I'm a heady guy.

[John Lovett]

Yeah. Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

I'm more of a poet in terms of how my brain processes things.

[John Lovett]

It never rhyme, though. That's a shame.

[Marc Maron]

No, it's all free verse. Occasionally there's a rhyme, but I take them right out.

[John Lovett]

You do? Yeah, you gotta take him out.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. Rhymes.

[John Lovett]

Cheap, cheap. Can't.

[Marc Maron]

Rhymes and puns. No, can't do it.

[John Lovett]

Yeah, we do it.

[Marc Maron]

That's okay.

[John Lovett]

We do it.

[Marc Maron]

Sure, it's cute.

[John Lovett]

There's a way in which. Now, I don't know, you seem more, like, comfortable as a performer, as a standup, which is amazing how you're doing it for such a long time. Was it like. I know that when I was in politics, I remember when I got a job as a speechwriter Like, I have several chips on my shoulder. A couple of them are still there, but I've seen them fall off. Like when I've had milestones and you say you can't get that outside validation can't really change how you feel. I don't think that's true. I think it absolutely can totally. Do you think for you success, was it financial success, acclaim? Did those things matter in how you are on stage? Did it make you feel comfortable, safer, freer, what?

[Marc Maron]

I think that, and I said it before that for a long time, however long it takes, your comics job is to pretend like they're not afraid and then eventually the fear will leave you. And that's sort of a big day. And I think in terms of success, just the fact that I was able to build an audience of grown up people, mostly, mostly thinky, creative, you know, disgruntled, you know, people, you know, I kind of talk about in the special, you know, I worry about alienating them, but there's also some part of me that wants to a little. But I think that once I got an audience and I had a freedom of mind that I knew would be received, that it did, it did help my comedy and I guess that's success. But ultimately I have been working a long time at this and I think along with that fearlessness, especially in this special, was one of the only. It's the only special where beforehand I didn't let my brain undermine me for dumb shit. There's some part of my brain that prepares that way. I've got to find something to make me uncomfortable. And it just didn't happen. And I was more grounded in this special than I ever have been because I had purpose, like I always kind of do. But I had a different purpose, both to my audience, to the way I thought about culture and politics, and also to the risks I wanted to take around personal things. Like a long time ago, I really set out to not talk about anything that wasn't from my point of view because I could own that and no one could take it. And anytime that I'd see similar things, I'd have to sort of like go, well, is it that similar? I'll just lose it, you know, I don't. I want it to be mine. So the risks I took in the last two bits around trauma and around grief were. It took a long time to work those out. So I just feel like that I have a confidence in how I do what I do that is much more grounded than it's ever been. But yeah, Validation is still too important.

[John Lovett]

Me, is it?

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[John Lovett]

Who do you want it from?

[Marc Maron]

I don't know. My parents. It's always about the parents.

[John Lovett]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

I mean, because, like, if you don't have a voice in yourself that you've evolved because of being, you know, emotionally, you know, manipulated one way or the other in a negative way by, you know, your, your early experiences, it's hard to have a voice in your head that, that says good job.

[John Lovett]

And you don't have that even now?

[Marc Maron]

No, I do, you know, but I still, like, I know it, but then when other people don't know it as much as I do, it makes me upset.

[John Lovett]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

With this one, the stuff that, like, I felt like it was really the best work that I've done in terms of. From, like, the risks were different. The last special was about grief and, you know, at least 20, 25 minutes. And this one was back to sort of almost a three act structure, you know, where, you know, I do the political, cultural stuff, then I tell them I want to just be entertaining and I do that and then I get into personal stuff. But I do feel like the stuff that I thought needed to get out there in terms of. Not the stuff like you said before, there's a lot of stuff in this special that goes, you know, undiscussed, that's gnarly shit and deep shit. But, you know, the stuff that landed I'm okay with because I felt like it was not being said, you know, in a way that was like, no one can deny my skill set. So as a comic, if I'm going to take on what's going on in comedy in relation to culture, and I do it in a funny way, then I've achieved something. Because a lot of comics are scared to talk about it. They're afraid of audiences. And, you know, you just got to really get that ratio into your head. It was, you know, 75 million to 77.5 million. Not every room is full of monsters, and certainly not in la. And that there has to be some. You have to have the guts to be a. Stand up, stand up and say what you want to say. Again, you know, it's dicey when you sort of take on people in your world, but when it reflects on the world at large in a negative way, I think it's ripe, but to the point, like, I felt good about, I articulated it well and going into it, I was 100% confident in the set and I feel good about it. And I'm fortunate in that it was received very well, which is not always the case.

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[John Lovett]

I guess technically your cusp, but I think of you as a quintessential Gen.

[Marc Maron]

X. Yeah, I think so. Comic last year boomers. So it's, it's.

[John Lovett]

Yeah, you're, you're right there. You're right. But, but Gen X energy all the way through. It's right there with the kind of. In the. In the sort of.

[Marc Maron]

There's probably a little too much Led Zeppelin in me to be fully Gen X, but yeah, you can grunge it.

[John Lovett]

Up a little, I suppose.

[Marc Maron]

Sure I did. You know, it was later, though.

[John Lovett]

Later. Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

You went through your grunge. The groundwork had been laid by acts from the 70s.

[John Lovett]

But why do we have had a bunch of baby boomer presidents?

[Marc Maron]

I'm not running.

[John Lovett]

No. And first of all, thank you. That's one less thing to fucking worry about. Imagine that. Oh, that'd be annoying. But just you heckling Democrats back at you. Just. What a disaster. I don't know.

[Marc Maron]

Gavin's doing that.

[John Lovett]

Yeah. Yeah. And I think he's more suited to it, honestly, than you.

[Marc Maron]

Oh, yeah. He wants it pretty bad. I can't. Look, I know what it's like to think you are speaking your truth and to be completely saturated in talking points that you don't know anymore. I mean, I did Air America for a year every morning and you start to, you realize, like, I didn't think this.

[John Lovett]

I don't remember your show being that talking pointsy.

[Marc Maron]

No, it's not. But it's the tone.

[John Lovett]

Yeah, yeah.

[Marc Maron]

That really honoring narrative.

[John Lovett]

But we seem to have skipped over Gen X in terms of presidents and there's a sort of a gap in terms of even our representation. We went right from a lot of boomer members of Congress. There's obviously Gen Xers in there, but we went right from the boomers to the millennials as well. Why is it that Gen X hasn't really shown up? They've also moved to the right more than millennials have. What was something about your generation that kind of had this sort of.

[Marc Maron]

I think it was probably the beginning of that sort of self centered entitlement and need to define yourself in a unique way that was based on music, fashion, bits and pieces of esoteric wisdom from old books and whatnot. I think it was probably the boomers are selfish in a different way because they built the world and now as they were looking down the tunnel of death, they kind of want to end it.

[John Lovett]

They want to be buried in their pyramids.

[Marc Maron]

Well, I think there's a part of narcissism that it's like if the world ends at the same time they do, they don't miss anything. And I think, I think Gen X is probably guilty of a kind of the beginning of a terminal uniqueness on an individual level and not so hip to real civic community. Maybe. I don't know. I'm really spitballing. I don't really think in terms of generations, that much I do know that the boomers need to get out of the way.

[John Lovett]

There's sort of the Gen X comics. Jon Stewart's in there. You're in there. Bill Maher is in that group. I think he's a little older. Is he a little older?

[Marc Maron]

But I think he's kind of solid boomer.

[John Lovett]

You think? Is he?

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, he's gotta be like. Gotta be close to 70. Somebody.

[John Lovett]

Let's get a Bill Maher work.

[Marc Maron]

69.

[John Lovett]

Nice.

[Marc Maron]

69.

[John Lovett]

Yeah, nice. Famously 69. Oh, right. We talked to him about it. I had him on.

[Marc Maron]

That's pretty solid boomer shit. But Janine, you know John. Sure. You know some of the other Gen Xers, you know, Patton, and then there's a bunch of other, you know, younger guys. The alt comedy scene for whatever it did was mostly Gen Xers and some millennials, I guess.

[John Lovett]

Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

It was an insulated community that was based a lot in kind of snark. And, you know, snark doesn't age well because it doesn't run that deep.

[John Lovett]

Yeah. And it's. Well, there's something about it, too, that's snark. You have to be on the outside, and you have to not want to be on the inside.

[Marc Maron]

That's your answer right there.

[John Lovett]

Yeah, I think that's it. There's something about Gen X that was like, you know what? We're just gonna. We'll be back here. Yeah, we'll be back here with our zines.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, exactly. I think that's it.

[John Lovett]

I think it was a mistake. I think you should have guys gotten in the ring with us.

[Marc Maron]

I'm the last boomer. Don't blame me.

[John Lovett]

You're right. Okay, okay. You're right. I take that back. I take that back. So you're a catastrophizer. Because I was thinking about this. I went back and I watched parts of the special From Bleak to Dark, and, you know, I'm a catastrophizer as well. So if I'm on the phone call with my. I'm on the phone with my fiance. I'm engaged. Congratulations. That's what it's gonna take. But the.

[Marc Maron]

How long you been engaged?

[John Lovett]

Like, six months. Okay, six months. Planning the wedding.

[Marc Maron]

Good. Oh, good.

[John Lovett]

Yeah, we're planning the wedding.

[Marc Maron]

It's not like a six year.

[John Lovett]

No, no, no. The last one, we didn't plan the wedding. And I think that that Was assigned.

[Marc Maron]

This is second marriage, second engagement, second. Okay.

[John Lovett]

There was no first marriage.

[Marc Maron]

Okay. Okay.

[John Lovett]

I made a lot of changes when I turned 40. A lot of changes. Yeah.

[Marc Maron]

Like what?

[John Lovett]

I was no longer engaged once I was 40. I actually never was single. In my 30s, I was single. When I was 29, I met somebody, and then the next time I was single, I was 40, so I forgot to be single in my 30s.

[Marc Maron]

And yet you did it again.

[John Lovett]

Well, if I thought it was gonna be like when I was in my 20s, it is not. When you're in your 40s, a little more work. Yes. Yes. You can't. You can't get my dunk gone, and I didn't have a dunk.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah, the game starts to fade, and now I'm 40. Yeah, but you look good. Do you have anything?

[John Lovett]

I'm okay. I'm working on doing Pilates. Do Pilates?

[Marc Maron]

No. I do, like, kind of a full body flexibility workout, and then I run a few days a week. You run this morning? I did, yeah.

[John Lovett]

Where do you run?

[Marc Maron]

I do a hike out in Glendale sometimes. And then other times I just do intervals on the treadmill at Equinox.

[John Lovett]

Okay.

[Marc Maron]

I like Equinox.

[John Lovett]

Okay.

[Marc Maron]

I'm an elitist.

[John Lovett]

You seem to be aging well. I think comedians age well.

[Marc Maron]

That is not true.

[John Lovett]

Not physically. They become ghouls. But I'm saying that mentally, some of the great.

[Marc Maron]

Like, you're gonna have to give me an example.

[John Lovett]

Well, I think comedians that have tried to stay kind of sharp and curious about the world, I think you're one of them. There's gotta be a couple more.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah. I don't know. I think it's a faulty premise. But you said it confidently.

[John Lovett]

I think that. Well, like, look, I think Seinfeld is somebody that's. Keep trying to do new material. And I don't do. Like, you can like or dislike what Seinfeld does. Oh, yeah, you can. But even the great. But even the other day, like, he gave some answer about woke stuff, and it got some blowback. And then he actually came back and he said, you know what? I was wrong about that. And he actually gave a really good answer. He thought about it. He came back and he said, you know what? What I said was stupid. And actually, if the. If the goalposts move, I should hit the goalposts. That's my job.

[Marc Maron]

Sure.

[John Lovett]

And I thought that was cool.

[Marc Maron]

I think that what happened with Jerry ultimately is that he was really a guy that didn't speak much publicly, and then, you know, not just because of the advent of podcasting and the needs of the new publicity environment. All of a sudden, Jerry was never shutting up. So everybody saw Jerry for Jerry. And you do with that what you will.

[John Lovett]

Okay, I'll do with it what I will.

[Marc Maron]

I'm glad he apologized. And you feel good about that?

[John Lovett]

Who else? Let's see. Let's do some more beefs. What do you think about Bill Maher?

[Marc Maron]

I can't. I can't do it. You know, I can't. You know, I don't. Tone. I always had a problem with his tone. I think I did. I did politically correct years ago.

[John Lovett]

Yeah, I'm sure you did.

[Marc Maron]

A couple of times, maybe. And I think I did real time maybe once or twice, but I don't.

[John Lovett]

You were dating Ann Coulter at the time.

[Marc Maron]

Oh, yeah. Yeah. That was a dark time. I tried to help her. There's nothing. She's lost cause I couldn't do it. There's nothing I could do with all my years of experience in and out of bed that could help her.

[John Lovett]

Okay.

[Marc Maron]

So, no, I don't. I don't know. Like, I feel with Bill that there is this. And it happens with some of the other boomers. There's this desperate chasing of relevance that, you know, changes someone's mind in terms of how they approach what they do and also kind of makes the whole undertaking feel desperate. And, you know, outside of, you know, his ideas about primarily, I think, wokeness, I don't know. It's just not for me. I know his joke. Right. You know, he's got good joke writers who know how to write for his tone. And I've known a couple of those guys. They were comics, and they're good guys. But I can't see past the desperation and what he's willing to do to stay in the conversation.

[John Lovett]

And what do you think about the death of, like, Late Show's gone. Conan Show's obviously gone.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[John Lovett]

It's coming undone. This place that I know, I'm sure for you was this pinnacle of where comics went, what comedy was like, from Carson to Letterman to Conan. What do you think of that?

[Marc Maron]

I think it's just the nature of what we talked about before is that if the bar has been lowered to consuming only clips, you know, which is dictated by media platforms, that this whole idea of, like, you know, algorithms and what people's attention span can and can't do is. It's sort of. I don't know if It's a catch 22, but it's like, even with any streamer, you work on. It's like, well, our algorithm says people can't pay attention for this long. And I'm like, but not my people. And if you keep promoting that, they won't. I mean, if something is good, they'll stay in it. I guess the format and the nature of show business has just again shifted to entrepreneurs and media bubbles that are self driven by individuals or tribal entities. And the whole framing of show business being this, it's the talk show, here come the celebrities. It's just people don't care anymore. And they're all chasing clicks for quips of having interesting people do dumb shit.

[John Lovett]

And we're gonna bring those pies in in a second.

[Marc Maron]

But the. Oh, God damn it. I knew there was a big closer.

[John Lovett]

No, I wanna end with this. It's a serious question and it's where I was going to before. But look, when I'm on the phone with Ari and the phone cuts out, I think they're dead. I just assume the building has collapsed. Truly, like earthquake, a 9 11. Truly. If they're in New York, I'll think a 911 has happened. Like I'd really go there. You're a catastrophizer. Done it your whole life and, you know, you've been through a terrible loss. Your plane hit the mountain.

[Marc Maron]

Yeah.

[John Lovett]

Did it change how you view catastrophe? Does it change how you allow your mind to create catastrophe all the time?

[Marc Maron]

No, what it changed was my sense of mortality. It did not change. Like it doesn't, you know, tragic loss of somebody you love, that's not my go to catastrophe. I didn't see that coming at all. I mean, my parents are both still alive. You know, it's not great, but I didn't see what happened to Lyn. There was no way I could have ever seen that coming. So, you know, when somebody dies tragically, you know, all the other catastrophizing about me and cancer or you know, what someone's going to say about me or the world or the fires or anything else. When somebody dies, it does make me more scared. Relationship because it's happened. But it also sort of makes you realize just how fragile it all is and how there is no real kind of universal order to it. And, you know, there's no way to answer the question why? And that's just life. So I don't. It didn't diminish my catastrophizing, but it did make me realize how fragile life is.

[John Lovett]

And I didn't.

[Marc Maron]

Too heavy for an answer?

[John Lovett]

No. I just think now we're ready to start. Let's record.

[Marc Maron]

Oh, good. Let's get things going. We got warmed up and now we're now in it.

[John Lovett]

Marc Maron, good to have you.

[Marc Maron]

Thank you. Nice to be here.

[John Lovett]

That's all for this week. Thank you to Marc Maron for Stop Baked By. We'll be back in your podcast feeds on Tuesday with our usual episode with me, John.

[Pod Save America Host]

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[Marc Maron]

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[Marc Maron]

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[Marc Maron]

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