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- [00:00]
Isaac Saul
This is a mini meditation guided by Bombas. Repeat after me. I'm comfy. I'm cozy. Cozy. I have zero blisters on my toes. Blisters. And that's because I wear Bombus the softest socks, underwear and T shirts that give back. One purchased equals one donated. Now go to bombus.com acast and use code acast for 20% off your first purchase. That's B O M B-A-S.com acast and use code Acast at checkout.
- [00:30]
John Law
This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever think about switching insurance companies to see if you could save some cash? Progressive makes it easy to see if you could save when you bundle your home and auto policies. Try it@progressive.com Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states.
- [00:50]
Ari Weitzman
Thumbtack presents the ins and outs of caring for your home out procrastination. Putting it off, kicking the can down the road in plans and guides that make it easy to get home projects done out Carpet in the bathroom. Like why? In knowing what to do, when to do it, and who to hire. Start caring for your home with confidence. Download Thumbtack today.
- [01:17]
Isaac Saul
Coming up, we talk more raw milk and Amish people, obviously the Washington commanders, the split between liberals and conservatives and how they perform their purity tests. An update on the Gaza Israel Hamas ceasefire deal that's probably, you know, expired by the time you're listening to this, and a very good performance on the Week Magazine's quiz from Ari and I. It's a good one.
- [01:48]
From executive producer Isaac Saul. This is Tangle.
- [02:03]
Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening, and welcome to the Tangle Podcast, a place where you get views from across the political spectrum, some independent thinking, and a little bit of my take. I'm your host, Isaac Saul. I'm here with Tangle Managing Editor Ari Weitzman, and I don't know about you, Ari. I. I was inundated with emails about raw milk and the Amish over the last week.
- [02:28]
Ari Weitzman
Swimming in raw milk.
- [02:29]
Isaac Saul
Swimming in raw milk since our last podcast. Turns out we have a lot of very smart readers. Let's see, microbiologists and dietitians and people of all sorts of trades who understand the chemistry of the body. I know my job is literally, literally to make complicated topics concise and clear. I would say my takeaway from the responses I got to last week's podcast where I ranted about drinking raw milk despite being lactose intolerant and finding out that it didn't bother me is that there's such a thing as A one and A two cows and they're different and the proteins they have in their milk are different. And it's probably more about that than the pasteurization. Seemed like a lot of people felt that way. Uh, yep.
- [03:27]
Ari Weitzman
I got the same emails that there's an A1 protein and A2 protein. And most of the cows that we get our milk from have the A2 protein. And that's where a lot of people get lactose intolerant from. But it's not actually the lactose they're intolerant to, it's the protein.
- [03:42]
Isaac Saul
Right. And then I also got emails from some people saying that the pasteurization in milk might be killing certain kinds of enzymes or proteins that are helpful for your body to digest the milk, regardless of what the cow is, which was also fascinating. I do not understand any of this stuff and then.
- [04:09]
Ari Weitzman
Sounds like you understood it a little bit.
- [04:12]
Isaac Saul
Yeah, a couple of people, including my mom who emailed me an article to the New York Times about why raw milk is dangerous and to telling me stop drinking raw milk. I have a good Jewish mother. He's still listening to all my podcasts and reading the newsletters and looking out for my health. So yeah, I mean, I'm not giving health advice by saying drink raw milk though I felt incredible for the week I was drinking it mostly because I've never really had the experience of just sitting down and drinking a glass of milk and being okay. And it seems like such an American thing to do. Just a nice big fat glass of cold milk and that felt really good. Made me feel like I was stronger than I was somehow. Just the act of doing that.
- [05:01]
Ari Weitzman
Do you think you'll do some science with this now? Try to get some A2A2 cows and get milk from them. Some pasteurized, some not pasteurized. See what's going on, eat some cheese, just full blocks and test this lactose versus protein theory.
- [05:16]
Isaac Saul
I'm interested and I'm open to destroying my stomach for the sake of a good two minute segment on the podcast, time wise. I don't know if I really time for that, but yeah, I'll put that on my like maybe my 20, 24 goals, things I want to tackle or do. Also turns out that I guess our conversation and our little back and forth was indicative of broader views about the Amish, which is that they're a bit controversial because I got some emails from people, including a. I'll say a police officer who works in an area where there is a large Amish population and also as a Tangle reader who shared some disconcerting perspectives about some of the things he's observed in the Amish community. I'm not going to repeat them here simply because they're unverified, not because I don't trust him. I do. I think it's probably real and what he's saying is probably true. But yeah, he wasn't the only one. A couple other people wrote in and you had this immediate gut reaction of, I don't know, you seem very skeptical of the Amish. But yeah, it was. I got a lot of notes about the Amish raw milk intersection last week. Not a single person emailed me to talk about the Washington Commanders winning their first playoff game in 20 years on Sunday. I guess that didn't matter to any of you. My happiness means nothing but the Amish.
- [06:50]
Ari Weitzman
And rollover curiosity means everything. Not a whole lot of people are curious about the Washington Commanders. We know who they are. They're just going to do wild stuff for three and a half quarters and then or mess around for three and a half quarters and do wild stuff for seven minutes. We expect it. But the a1, a1, a2, a2 proteins and the Amish, it's stuff that we don't see in the news as much. So that's probably why people are curious. Congrats on your team's win. I guess that's what you want to do.
- [07:15]
Isaac Saul
Yeah, that's fair. I mean, I. The Commanders winning means so, so, so much more to me than anything that has to do with raw milk or the Amish. So I guess that's really why my feelings were hurt is just I've been living in the misery of rooting desperately and loyally for a terrible football team for my entire life. And now we're good. And so I want opportunities to talk about that.
- [07:38]
Ari Weitzman
Can I put forward an olive branch here between the two of us on something that I don't think we're opposed on, but maybe a little bit, which I'm a Steelers fan. I'm also we met when, during a year when I was doing some postgraduate study at Pitt, which I didn't finish because I'm really good at not finishing grad programs. But my father's a huge Penn State fan. I was brought up in a big Penn State household. I'm a Penn State football fan. I have been for life. I've gone to dozens of games since the time I was small. And you're a pit guy, loyal to that, to that program. Commanders fan, Steelers fan. I think we can commiserate a little bit in the college and pro feelings with you as a commander's fan. Since you were born, all you've known is bad ownership and teams that showed promise and flamed out and then reached new lows. As a Penn State fan, it hasn't been the exact same arc. When I started watching like the first season I remember was 94 and Penn State went undefeated and then weren't awarded the national championship because it's before playoffs. And ever since I've known teams that have underperformed scandals, tarnishings of the program and it's been, it's been rough and I think maybe we can, you know, not go at each other over these things would be nice.
- [09:00]
Isaac Saul
I appreciate, I appreciate the commiseration and the olive branch. I just want to be clear though. Penn State's football program over the last 20 years has been so much better than the Washington Commanders football program. Like that's true to your standards of what Penn State is historically. You probably feel like the last 20 years have been horrific and you have the scandals which were admittedly horrifying and terrible. But we are the only team in the NFL that didn't win 11 games between 1991 and 2024. I mean we are statistically like the worst football team in the NFL in the last 30 years. So I was maybe a little more desperate than you were, I guess, coming into, say, this season. But I do, I do appreciate that. We'll be right back after this quick commercial break.
- [10:05]
Ari Weitzman
Thumbtack presents the ins and outs of caring for your home out procrastination, putting it off, kicking the can down the road in plans and guides that make it easy to get home projects done out carpet in the bathroom. Like why in knowing what to do, when to do it and who to hire. Start caring for your home with confidence. Download thumbtack today.
- [10:30]
Isaac Saul
What makes a great pair of glasses at Warby Parker? It's all the invisible extras without the extra cost. Their designer quality frames start at $95 and including prescription lenses plus scratch resistant, smudge resistant and anti reflective coatings and UV protection and free adjustments for life. To find your next pair of glasses, sunglasses or contact lenses or to find the Warby Parker store nearest you, head over to warbyparker.com that's warbyparker.com.
- [11:07]
All right. Well, people aren't here to listen to me gab about the commanders. I get it. You're way more interested in the Amish and a one, a two. I do. So I have a couple of things I want to talk about. The top There's a lot going on in the world right now. We're going to talk about the ceasefire deal that maybe is going to happen. We're recording this on Thursday afternoon. Last night it seemed sure things slam dunk this morning it seemed very much on the rocks the moment we sent our newsletter out and published our podcast. This morning, news broke that they're scheduling a vote for tomorrow Friday. So by the time you guys listen to this, we'll have some answer as to whether this phase one is being started. We're going to, we're going to talk a bit about that and there's a lot of important stuff there. I guess what I'm about to say is not like a new theory, but it's just this stark dynamic that I'm observing recently with liberals and conservatives and being in a unique position, I guess, in publishing tangle, where we have a pretty diverse readership politically. I hear every day how different parts of the newsletter lands with different parts of America's political tribes. And I've started to notice something that first I think was kind of a pattern and now is just in my mind almost a rule that this is how people are acting or how people on different sides of the political divide are behaving with each other and toward me. And what I've noticed, and again, this is not, I'm not saying this is like some totally original thought because other people have said it before, but I have two examples of it that I think are really strong is that liberals at this point, people who are passionately liberal, I'm not talking about just your center left moderates, but liberals are basically just purity testing in every direction. And the feedback trend that I find with them to the things that I write or say is that if I agree with them about 85% of an issue, and I disagree on 15% of an issue, that's not good enough for us to be aligned or on the same side of something. And there's just, there's a the purity test framework I think is like the best way to describe it, but it manifests itself in ways that are so obviously unhelpful from my perspective for liberals who are trying to build political coalitions. And as a person publishing this podcast in this newsletter, I just see it when I the way people respond to me and the stuff they write in. It's as if I almost hear, I almost get more voracious and annoyed disagreement when I'm not outright on the other side of an issue from them, but when I'm like halfway to where they want me to be, but not all the way there. And the language policing stuff is a big part of that too. I mean, the, the example that came to mind that happened for me recently was Elon Musk was. And I'm trying really hard not to talk about Elon Musk because I know I've been doing that a lot recently. But he was just tweeting about, you know, this statistic, about not even a statistic. He was just making a broad claim that all homeless people are like violent drug addicted criminals, basically. And I subtweeted him, quote, tweeted him and said, you know, that actually a lot of homeless people are children or employed and don't have housing or military veterans, and that just framing them in very simple terms as violent drug addicts is not like a very productive thing. And one of my followers who's progressive based on looking at their profile and you know, the, the slogans and the flags and how they replied to me, basically said they're unhoused, they're not homeless people. And your language is, you know, demonizing or discriminatory. And it's like, I am, I am making the case to humanize homeless people. And you're upset that I'm not using a term that literally I like. I've never heard a person use the term unhoused in real life ever, like in an actual conversation. And I've interviewed people who work at shelters. I've interviewed people who are battling, you know, addiction and homelessness in Philadelphia, where I live, and the epidemic of, you know, heroin use and fentanyl. I've done feature length stories on organizations that are, you know, providing housing and jobs to people who just got out of prison. I've never heard anybody. It's like the most activist language as far on the activist left spectrum language. But, but because I didn't use that, it's. They're not interested in the critique I'm leveling at, you know, Elon Musk and the fact that we're on the same side of the issue. They're just mad that I didn't say it the way they want me to say it. And that's sort of this thing that's just a constant now on the left. And I think they're realizing it's hurting them. I'm hearing from the top down, I'm seeing more Democratic politicians and pundits and people sort of saying we need to change the way that we approach these issues and be a big tent political organization again. But on the ground, the boots, on the ground, activists, the people who are the foot soldiers, the quote, unquote mob, whatever you want to call them, they are still living in that paradigm. And I get it in my inbox, too. I get it in response to tangle all the time. And that's just a rule for me now. And then the conservative side of this, which is really interesting, is that I am literally not allowed to criticize somebody who is a conservative and also be somebody who is not biased against conservatives. If I say something critical about a Republican or conservative figurehead, I am immediately and forever tagged and tarnished as a liberal hack who, you know, hates Donald Trump and hates Republic. It doesn't matter how many nice things I say about Trump or whatever policies of his I support or, you know, assuming the best intentions of certain things the Republican Party might be doing that I disagree with, whatever it is, it doesn't matter how fair or even handed I try to be, the moment that I am critical of them, it is like DEFCON 1. We are, it's over, you're done. You've. You've got the scarlet letter of, you know, media bias, whatever. And the example of that that just came up this week is the Pete Hegseth nomination, which if I can't criticize, if I can't say that Pete Hegseth is not qualified to be the Secretary of Defense with an argument that literally every organization he's ever worked at, there has been some controversy where he is sexually harassed someone or been accused of it, or gotten drunk in public or been accused of it, or mismanaged the money or been accused of it, or just been a terrible leader with a bunch of people who work for him signing letters saying that he should not lead a giant 3 million person, you know, civilian and military infrastructure. The guy has not headed an organization larger than 100 people. He's been a Fox News commentator for 11 years. He's clearly not an independent political actor. He's a mouthpiece for the president. And he's not even that qualified from the military battlefield perspective, which we talked about in the newsletter, which is not necessary, but is the entire campaign that he's built his, you know, case for being Secretary of Defense on. And I say that, and it's like our inbox is just, you're. We had a funny one. Somebody saying I had committed treason by writing this today. But, like, truly getting emails from people saying, I am unsubscribing. You showed your true colors today. It's clear that you're a Trump hater, whatever. And it, I, I, I have written about almost all the nominees that Trump is nominated and I approve of about half of them and I disapprove about the other half and like three of them I really strongly disapprove of. And I think they're really bad nominees, Pete Hegseth included. Matt Gates was another one who got withdrawn, thankfully. And you know, I just, I don't know how to operate in a world where you can't be critical. And these are the, they're both kind of purity tests in a sense. But it's the dynamic that I observe now is if I agree with conservatives on 85% of something and 15% of it, we don't agree their open arms. Come join us. If I agree on 10% of stuff with them, it's like you're getting love bombed to come join the MAGA movement. What you can't do is be critical of any well liked figureheads in that movement. It's this idolatry of Trump and all the people he picks. And then, you know, with liberals it's oh, you can criticize any Democrat, you can hammer Biden trash, Nancy Pelosi is corrupt and not lose any of the support of these liberals. But if you don't agree with them or don't say something the way that they want you to say it about a policy issue, it's over. And it is infuriating to be the person in my position living in that reality. And it strikes me that they're sort of similar but opposite dynamics. And I wrote it out when it occurred to me with such clarity and it felt like something worth talking about on the podcast, a podcast that we.
- [21:45]
Ari Weitzman
Will dedicate to Mark Twain who said loyalty to your country always and loyalty to your government when it deserves it. As we talked about a little bit in Slack.
- [22:03]
Isaac Saul
We'll be right back after this quick commercial break.
- [22:09]
Ari Weitzman
Some TAC presents the ins and outs of caring for your home. Out Uncertainty, self doubt, stressing about not knowing where to start. In plans and guides that make it easy to get home projects done. Out Word art Sorry. Live laugh lovers in knowing what to do, when to do it and who to hire. Start caring for your home with confidence. Download thumbtack today.
- [22:35]
John Law
This episode is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever think about switching insurance companies to see if you could save some cash? Progressive makes it easy to see if you could save when you bundle your home and auto policies. Try it@progressive.com Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states.
- [23:01]
Ari Weitzman
I've got a lot to respond with because that's a lot of stuff well presented. But I think there's a bit of an effect almost always at play, which is it's very easy to judge or make larger statements about larger spectrums of movements or sides of a debate based off of the loudest people who are speaking. And it's almost impossible to gauge opinions about factions of people that aren't making their opinions known. It's really hard. How do you do that unless you go solicit and ask, which we do. But it takes a longer time to process and synthesize those opinions. We get the most immediate feedback from the people who are most willing to give it. So there's a little bit of that at play. I think there's a little bit at play also of our readerships kind of changing at scale where we have a mission where we want to be able to give coverage of political events with analysis that's balanced across the spectrum in a way that everybody can trust. No matter your political orientation, we believe in that mission. As it starts to succeed a little bit more, we get bigger and bigger tent. So as we're actually giving coverage to people from all across the spectrum, we're growing and we're hearing those sides more, they're being elevated a little bit more. That's something that we've gotten a little bit of feedback from long time Tango readers and commenters about, is feeling like the tenor is changing a little bit sometimes in the comments. I have a theory about this, that it's not just that, but also that we're in a bit of a different environment when we have the most polarizing politician I can remember in my lifetime who is transitioning from being a campaigner to being a political leader. It's easy for people to talk about Trump when he's a campaigner and we're just throwing different ideas of what he might do or what he might think based on what he said against the wall in a hypothetical world where he's running. But now that he's being becoming the president and these words are going to turn into policies that affect everybody, it's really hard for that polarization not to leak into the way that people express themselves. So I think that's part of it. I have specific responses I think would be interesting to talk about to your two examples. But I want to hear what you think about that large response first.
- [25:27]
Isaac Saul
Yeah, I mean the Trump effect is obviously real in terms of the. There's been a genuine degradation of just the discourse since 2016. I have mixed feelings about that part of it, to be honest with you, because it's sort of. I didn't feel any better when politicians were just beating around the bush about how they actually felt or using euphemisms to say really ugly things in kind of discreet ways that didn't make me feel better about, you know, in a lot of ways. I guess what I'm saying is I appreciate Trump's bluntness and just the approach that he takes, even if I do think he's degraded the political discourse in a way that's unhelpful. I'm also conscious of the fact that a lot of people are just showing their true colors now because he's given them permission to, versus, you know, like, what we had before, which was people just basically being fake all the time from the political class. I mean, so I. Yeah, I guess I have mixed feelings about that. The point about the Loudest Voices is a really good point. I mean, I will say another thing that I observe is in podcasts like this or in the newsletter, if I make reference to some kind of criticism that we got that I've been thinking of, the typical thing that happens is we get inundated with all these emails from people who are like, hey, I didn't reply to your newsletter, but I loved what you wrote and just want to, like, give you a show of support, whatever. And those often outnumber the really critical responses, which is cool. I mean, I think it's a credit to our work that a lot of the times that is the case. I also think it's just the social dynamic that we live in, where people tend to respond in the comments or write an email more often when they're pissed off than when they read something where they're like, wow, that was really good. I really appreciate that. So, for those of you who are consumers out there, and I'm saying this not just for my sake, but just generally to spread some good in the world, make a habit out of that. I mean, you see a writer who publishes something that you really like understand that it's more often the case that people in my position who are publishing their thoughts for the public get emails from people who are pissed off or upset about something than from people who really enjoyed something they wrote. Even if there's a 10 to 1 ratio that every. For every 10 people who read it and loved it, there's one person who hated it, even if that's the case the feedback loop is not designed that way and we aren't designed that way. And then of course on top of that, our brains hang on to the critical feedback more than anything else. So that is a real effect. So I am certainly referencing and building a framework for and talking about the people who are motivated to respond and maybe should broad brush all liberals and conservatives that way. Maybe just the emotional.
- [28:55]
John Law
Hey everybody, this is John, executive producer of YouTube and podcast content and co host of the Daily Podcast. I hope you enjoyed this preview of our Sunday podcast with Ari and Isaac. We are now offering this podcast exclusively to our premium podcast members along with our ad, free daily podcast, Friday editions, in depth interviews, upcoming new podcast series, bonus content, and much more. If you want to receive all that and give your support to help us grow Tangle Media, please head over to tangle media and dot supercast.com and sign up for a membership. If it's not the right time for you to sign up, please don't worry. Our ad supported daily podcast isn't going anywhere, but if it is in your ability to support by signing up for a membership, we would greatly appreciate it and we're really excited to share all of our premium offerings with you. For Isaac and the rest of the crew, this is John Law signing off. Have a great day y'all. Peace.
- [29:57]
Isaac Saul
Our podcast is written by me, Isaac Saul and edited and engineered by John Law. The script is edited by our Managing Editor, Ari Weitzman, Will Kaback, Bailey Saul and Sean Brady. The logo for our podcast was designed by Magdalena Bokova who is also our Social Media Manager. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet75 and if you're looking for more from Tangle, Please go to retangle.com and check out our website.
- [30:44]
What makes a great pair of glasses at Warby Parker? It's all the invisible extras without the extra cost. Their designer quality frames start at $95 including prescription lenses plus scratch resistant, smudge resistant and anti reflective coatings and UV protection and free adjustments for life. To find your next pair of glasses, sunglasses or contact lenses, or to find the Warby Parker store nearest you, head over to warbyparker.com that's warbyparker.com this episode.
- [31:14]
John Law
Is brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Do you ever think about switching insurance companies to see if you could save some cash? Progressive makes it easy to see if you could save when you bundle your home and auto policies. Try it@progressive.com Progressive Casualty Insurance Company and affiliates. Potential savings will vary. Not available in all states.