Tracy Alloway and Jordan Ritter Conn: The Global Economic Shock from a Stupid War

Summary

The Bulwark Podcast — April 21, 2026

Episode Title: Tracy Alloway and Jordan Ritter Conn: The Global Economic Shock from a Stupid War
Host: Tim Miller
Guests: Tracy Alloway (Bloomberg’s Odd Lots), Jordan Ritter Conn (author, journalist)
Theme: The episode explores economic shocks from ongoing geopolitical conflict, especially the Middle East war’s ripple effects on markets, and then turns to a deep discussion of the struggles, expectations, and realities of modern American men, as explored in Ritter Conn’s new book, American Men.

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Episode Overview

This episode starts by examining how the current war in the Middle East has created unpredictable and extreme impacts on global markets, supply chains, and everything from oil to fertilizer prices. Tim Miller talks to Tracy Alloway for insights on markets’ bizarre resilience, manipulation or political jawboning, and the downstream effects on everyday commodities.

The second segment features Jordan Ritter Conn, discussing his new book American Men, which explores masculinity, loneliness, changing gender expectations, and the search for community and meaning among American men. The conversation gets personal, intimate, and, at times, quite funny.

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Segment 1: Tracy Alloway — The Economic Dominoes of War

Main Discussion Points:

1. Market Reaction to War & Trump’s Influence

• Jawboning the Market:

  • Trump’s regular call-ins to financial shows (“Squawk Box”) are seen to drive market optimism, especially before weekends, with subsequent correction when reality sets in (04:04).
  • "The expectation is that he announces something along the lines of talks or some sort of ceasefire agreement on a Friday, and then over the weekend the bad news actually hits and then on Monday the markets open lower." — Tracy Alloway (04:04)

• Madman Theory, Inverted:

  • Tracy discusses a theory that chaos is now perceived as opportunity by investors:
    "The more intensely speculative a market is, the more it views chaos as an opportunity instead of a risk." — Paraphrased from JVL’s theory (06:29)

  • Tracy: "I like that... Now we’re seeing markets just recover almost instantaneously. The velocity of those moves have been really unexpected." (04:04–06:54)

2. Market Manipulation vs. Uncertainty

• Are big players participating in active manipulation? Tracy:

  • Hard to prove deliberate day-to-day manipulation; what’s clearer is an ongoing strategy to cushion market shocks through rhetoric (05:31).

  • "It’s hard to know how much of this is deliberate... versus how much is just part of a general Trump jawboning strategy." (05:56)

3. Fundamentals: Oil, Fertilizer, and Supply Chains

• Oil Markets:

  • 20% of global oil and gas supply has been disrupted with potentially years-long recovery ahead (09:02).
  • Domestic producers hesitate to ramp up without price certainty. Trump administration’s conflicting goals: encouraging drilling vs. wanting low gas prices (10:00).

• Fertilizer Crunch:

  • Middle East supply cutoffs and Chinese export controls are distorting markets (13:04).

  • U.S. fertilizer is suddenly cheap but may not last as foreign buyers look to American producers. Companies like CF Industries are emphasizing domestic customers for political reasons (14:00).

  • "Even if the US has its own supply... that doesn’t mean prices aren’t going to increase in the future." — Tracy Alloway (14:00)

4. Corporate Behavior in Uncertain Times

• Tech giants aren’t pursuing tariff reimbursements, possibly afraid of political backlash; Tim notes this doesn’t feel like “free-market capitalism” (16:33).
• Patronage and political favor-taking are increasingly visible in big business, e.g., Apple’s Tim Cook praised for his "loyalty" to Trump (18:56).
  • "When you read those sorts of statements... it does seem to devolve into something that looks a lot more like a patronage system than free market capitalism." — Tracy Alloway (19:17)

5. The Future: Supply Chain Lessons & Structural Inflation

• Even if the Strait of Hormuz reopens, the world won’t return to pre-war supply chains. Governments will stockpile, driving long-term inflation (19:41–21:54).

  • "This is one of those 'the toothpaste can't go back in the tube' moments. Every government is going to try to rebuild its own stockpiles." — Tracy Alloway (19:41)

• Tim: would take a $1 million bet that gas prices will be higher next year, but fears global stagflation, not just winning a bet (20:33–21:54).

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• On market unpredictability:
  "We are waiting to see the full impact... critical damage to a bunch of oil and gas facilities... going to take years to fully repair." — Tracy Alloway (09:02)

• On structural inflation:
  "We've had six years now of talking about unpredictable choke points... I just don't think it's going away." — Tracy Alloway (21:54)

• On corporate deference:
  "You guys do fun niche stuff... it devolves into something that looks a lot more like a patronage system than free market capitalism." — Tracy Alloway (19:17)

---

Segment 2: Jordan Ritter Conn — The Search for Modern Masculinity

Main Discussion Points:

1. The Book: American Men

• Chronicles four very different men wrestling with identity and masculinity (25:04).
  • Gideon: ex-military, struggles with self-worth.
  • Nate: Black trans man, economic and identity challenges.
  • Ryan: Gay Native American, wrestling with violent impulses.
  • Joseph: From evangelical background, dealing with trauma.

2. Themes of Masculinity, Violence, and Vulnerability

• Jordan: "I wanted men who... were willing to look at some of the uglier pieces of it" (26:48).
• Each man’s struggle highlights both universal and unique challenges tied to race, sexuality, class, and religion.
• Joseph’s evangelical past frames masculinity as both vulnerability and expectation to lead:
  • "Growing up... you have to be a man who other people will follow. I think that often sets us up for relationship structures... not really great for us or our partners." (31:59)

3. Religion as Community vs. Source of Guilt

• The paradox: evangelical settings fostered confession, vulnerability, but were also sources of shame (30:11–31:32).

• Churches and religious settings once created community and accountability (34:13), something now sorely missing.

• "We are, at this moment, kind of starved for structures that foster... being in community... At its best, that's what religion can do." — Jordan Ritter Conn (34:13)

4. The Crisis of Disconnection and Technological Dislocation

• Not just a masculinity crisis, but cultural and technological isolation:
  • "We're in a crisis period of people being increasingly dislocated and disconnected from one another... and what comes out is men grasping for their sort of basest impulses." (36:23–36:56)
• Tech and social trends (“prediction markets,” looksmaxing, Andrew Tate) fill the void with often superficial or toxic substitutes for real connection (49:24–51:54).

5. Economic Shifts and the Loss of “Provider” Role

• The erosion of breadwinner jobs complicates men’s self-worth.
• "It's much more complicated to find your way to being in people’s lives in a way that contributes through who you are as a person, not just what you provide." — Jordan Ritter Conn (40:34)

6. Friendship, Loneliness, and Community-Building

• Male friendships diminish over time; few men prioritize maintaining them (41:14–43:14).

• Book research led Jordan back to rebuild his own relationships:

  • "I looked up after finishing the book and realized a lot of my friendships had atrophied... I should probably do some fucking work to make sure I’m not one of the lonely men." (45:37)

• Creating structure (like a book club) and prioritizing effort is key to breaking cycles of isolation (46:32).

7. Broader Reflections: Feminist Viewpoints and Intersectional Pushback

• Jordan notes moms of boys have been most eager to read his work; some “intersectional libs” dismiss men’s struggles but he insists half the population’s internal struggles matter, not just for themselves but society (53:00).
• "It’s less demanding more attention from others than it is digging into stuff that we are often... the reason why it’s not really discussed." (53:00)

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Notable Quotes & Moments

• On male friendships:
  "We often just struggle to do that, struggle to check back in with that person we haven't heard from in a long while... We just don't treat this part of our lives like it matters." — Jordan Ritter Conn (43:04–43:52)

• On the loneliness epidemic:
  "We’re in a crisis period of people being increasingly dislocated and disconnected... men grasping for ways to feel like they have worth." (36:23–41:41)

• On self-worth and “looksmaxing”:
  "That feeling's not gonna just vanish because you're the 'optimized' version of yourself." (51:18)

• On community in crisis (Minneapolis):
  "I haven’t seen a more robust expression of community... People really want to care about each other." (58:13, 59:27)

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• Market volatility & Trump’s influence: 03:41–07:35
• Oil & supply chain crunch: 09:02–13:04
• Fertilizer crisis: 13:04–15:20
• Patronage and capitalism: 16:33–19:17
• Long-term energy & inflation prospects: 19:41–21:54
• Introduction of American Men book: 25:04–27:00
• Evangelical communities & masculinity: 29:45–34:30
• Masculinity crisis vs. technological loneliness: 36:04–36:56
• Loss of the “provider” role: 37:37–41:41
• Male friendships & vulnerability: 43:04–46:59
• Looksmaxing & modern masculinity trends: 49:24–51:54
• Intersectional pushback & societal takeaways: 53:00–54:17
• Community under crisis (Minneapolis): 57:08–59:27

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Memorable & Funny Moments

• Tracy Alloway, dryly on prediction markets:
  "Prediction markets are not a substitute for a viable social network. So men should work on those relationships." (03:21)

• On men’s emotional insights:
  "The men can always be improved. That’s what I see." — Tracy Alloway (02:43)

• Tim Miller’s RuPaul therapy advice:
  "If you don’t love yourself, how the hell are you going to love anybody else?" (52:10)

• On starting male book clubs to fight loneliness:
  "I should probably... do some fucking work to make sure that I’m not one of the lonely men." — Jordan Ritter Conn (45:37)

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Tone & Style

The episode is brisk, witty, and direct, with quick back-and-forth, humor, and relatable personal anecdotes. Miller’s sharp questions balance the seriousness of economic crises and societal malaise with moments of levity, hope, and gentle prodding for solutions.

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Takeaway

The current “stupid war” has kicked off not just global economic shocks that will outlast the conflict, but also underscored the fragility and interconnectedness of both markets and human communities. Meanwhile, the crisis of meaning, loneliness, and shifting masculinity in American men is as acute and complex as ever, with answers found not only in policy but in the slow work of personal outreach, vulnerability, and genuine community.

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Listen if you want:

• A crash course on the economic whiplash from global conflict
• Thoughtful analysis of modern loneliness and the changing shape of masculinity
• Insight into how both policy and personal initiative are needed to rebuild what’s lost in society and in our own lives

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Key Guests:
Tracy Alloway: @tracyalloway (Twitter/X)
Jordan Ritter Conn: @jrdnrtr (Twitter/X), author of American Men and The Road from Raqqa

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End of summary

Transcript

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[Tim Miller]

Hello and welcome to the Borg Podcast. I'm your host Tim Miller. A few notes. We've got tickets on sale now for everybody for our live events in California. May 20th in San Diego, May 21st in Los Angeles. I'm working on some fun stuff for y', all. So please, if you're in Southern California, come hang out.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

If you want to make a trip

[Tim Miller]

to beautiful Southern California, what better time than May. I hope to see you all there. I've got a fun double header for you today that are about a couple of niche topics. So if you just want straight politics, trump porn.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Ew, that's gross. But you know what I mean.

[Tim Miller]

The next level always out on Tuesday nights.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Or we're trying to make it always out on Tuesday nights. So make sure to check that out in your podcast feed of choice.

[Tim Miller]

In segment two we've got Jordan Ritter Khan got a new book out, American Men.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

It's talking about the travails of men in our culture right now. It's kind of bleak, but he's a great writer and it's really sweet. So we're going to hash that out in segment two. But up first, she's the co host

[Tim Miller]

of Bloomberg's Odd Lots podcast, which I have been binging on because the news is horrible and when the economic news is horrible, I always like to turn to my friends at Odd Lots It's Tracy Alloway. How you doing, girl?

[Tracy Alloway]

I'm good, thanks. That's fine. By the way, we're used to people binge listening odd lots episodes when the world is falling apart. So all good. I kind of want to talk about the men, though.

[Tim Miller]

You want to talk about the men?

[Tracy Alloway]

Let's just talk about the men.

[Tim Miller]

Okay. What do you. Do you have thoughts about men and what's happening with the men and it doesn't seem great.

[Tracy Alloway]

Yeah, the men can always be improved. That's what I see.

[Jordan Ritter Khan]

Yeah.

[Tim Miller]

Men need to be improved. It feels like a lot of times away, away from, you know, doing things that are fulfilling to their life and being in communion with other men and

[Co-host/Interviewer]

instead replacing that with a lot of time betting on listening to podcast.

[Tim Miller]

Podcast is good. That's fulfilling, that's nourishing. I'm talking about maybe, I don't know,

[Co-host/Interviewer]

gambling on what Donald Trump is going to say on Squawk Box today. Like whether he, you know, whether Donald Trump is going to use the word hormuz on Squawkbox today. Today. Gambling on that. That seems less healthy, but that's just.

[Tracy Alloway]

Yeah, I would say prediction markets are not a substitute for a viable social network. So men should work on those relationships.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

They should.

[Tim Miller]

Thank you, Tracy. We're trying to model that here at the Bullock Podcast. Trump was on the Squawk Box this morning and it's just like he does a call in at 8:30 right before the markets open.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

And it is pretty wild. The extent to which, like jawboning the market is driving war and peace negotiations.

[Tim Miller]

I've never really seen anything like it. There's the old line about weekend wars. I don't think this is what they meant, which was just that we had

[Co-host/Interviewer]

fight literal wars while the markets were closed.

[Tim Miller]

But it seems to be working for him kind of on the margins. I don't know. What do you think?

[Tracy Alloway]

I mean, you're definitely seeing that sort of pattern of impact on the market where the expectation is that he announces something along the lines of talks or some sort of ceasefire agreement on a Friday before the weekend and then over the weekend the bad news actually hits and then on Monday the markets open lower. I guess the question is how long that pattern can continue without the talks actually materializing into a durable agreement of some sort. But yeah, the market moves have been crazy. So I was looking at a chart yesterday. Apparently we've had three weeks now where the S&P 500 has rallied over 3% per week. That's something that's happened seven times since 1928. So this is really unusual. Like the speed of the moves that we are seeing in markets are I think what a lot of investors are struggling to get their heads around right now. Because it used to be if you were an investor you were used to bad news comes out, the market plunges really, really quickly and then it takes a while to sort of dig yourself out of that hole and climb the proverbial wall of worry is what we used to call. Now we're seeing markets just recover almost instantaneously. And so the velocity of those moves have been really unexpected for a lot of market participants.

[Tim Miller]

How much of this do you think

[Co-host/Interviewer]

is manipulation versus just something that.

[Tracy Alloway]

Manipulation? Yeah, I mean look, it's hard. We've all seen the same stats about what's going on in prediction markets, right? Big accounts that are putting on bets, I know they don't like to call them bets, putting on event contracts very close to news breaking and then the

[Co-host/Interviewer]

wokes that made us do certain words now, now it's the prediction market bros

[Tim Miller]

that are doing politically correct language. We can't call it what it is.

[Tracy Alloway]

I'm following CFTC regulations. The CFTC says these are event contracts. So I'm going with that language. But I've seen the same things you have. I mean it's hard to know how much of this is deliberate sort of day to day manipulation versus how much of it is just part of a general Trump campaign jawboning strategy where he's trying to manage what would otherwise be some serious market fallout from a kinetic war in the Middle East.

[Tim Miller]

JVL's theory on this, my colleague in

[Co-host/Interviewer]

the triad last week was that we have a madman theory of the stock

[Tim Miller]

market, that the madman theory of foreign

[Co-host/Interviewer]

policy didn't really work because eventually people smell the bluffs. But it does work in the stock market for this reason. He says that the more intensely speculative a market is, the more it views chaos as an opportunity instead of a risk. When stability is the norm, chaos is an outlier, so it presents risk. But when chaos is the baseline, there's no inherent risk to it and any outbreak of normalcy creates an opportunity for growth and optimism.

[Tracy Alloway]

I like that.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

That's his theory of the case.

[Tracy Alloway]

I like that. The other framing I've seen, and it's sort of similar along those lines is you know how investors, when a company reports results, you'll get earnings before taxes and depreciation and interest and all of that. I've seen people talk about earnings before the Trump factor, which is Basically that chaos that you're talking about. Like if the chaos is so unpredictable and if the headlines are changing on a day to day, if not hour by hour, minute by minute basis, all you can kind of do is try to look through some of that and think about what earnings would look like without that cloud of chaos sort of obscuring them.

[Tim Miller]

Here's a counterpoint from your colleague stalwarts, Joe Weisenthal.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

He posted a meme that I liked. I'm sorry to compliment him when we're

[Tim Miller]

with you, but I'm going to read from.

[Tracy Alloway]

Try not to take it personally.

[Tim Miller]

I'm going to be. I don't know, do you. I don't know if you have that

[Co-host/Interviewer]

rivalry like I do. I. It would hurt my feelings if I

[Tim Miller]

was on someone else's podcast. They're like, you know, I want to tell you about something Sarah Longwell said

[Co-host/Interviewer]

recently that I really liked. But anyway, so I, I apologize but too good not to share it was

[Tim Miller]

me about these people talking to party. One person is talking to the other

[Co-host/Interviewer]

and they say they don't know the street of Hormuz isn't actually open, that the prices on the screen don't represent the two situation the commodity markets, that even if the war comes to an end, we're looking at an environment where inflation is already higher than the Fed's target, meaning rate cuts are off the table. And this is before we get to

[Tim Miller]

the fact that deficits are rising when combined with increased trade frictions and we're creating a structurally greater inflationary picture and therefore we're facing the most stagflationary environment over 50 years.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

There's more, but that suggests the more

[Tim Miller]

I listen to your show, this is

[Co-host/Interviewer]

what I come away with.

[Tim Miller]

I'm like, I don't like Trump. And so at some level I do want things to go badly.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

But I'm not wishing for the economy to go bad.

[Tim Miller]

But you just look at what is happening and I don't understand why.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Like that perspective. Let's go. Which is like even if the straight gets opened right after we get off this show and it's open for good, like there was still all of this disruption that is augering poorly for the

[Tim Miller]

next few months that the investing market

[Co-host/Interviewer]

doesn't seem to see it that way.

[Tracy Alloway]

Joe likes to make fun of rational takes on the market. I think the guy at the party has a very rational take on the market. Like I am all in favor of sincere basic analysis on Twitter and that is some sincere, basic, accurate analysis. I would argue which is we haven't seen all of the impacts flow through into global markets just yet. I mean, just a week ago, we still had ships that had the last loads of Middle east oil that were making deliveries. Right. So, again, like, we are waiting to see the full impact of this. We've already seen some demand destruction, mostly in emerging market countries like Bangladesh, maybe Thailand, that aren't necessarily going to resonate with Americans just yet. But it is an undeniable fact that 20% of the world's oil and gas supply has been disrupted. For the past six or seven weeks, we've seen critical damage to a bunch of oil and gas facilities in the Middle east that in some cases is going to take years to fully repair. Qatar came out and talked about one of its oil and gas fields was going to take three to five years to actually fix. That is just inevitably going to have to translate into higher prices. And the wild card, I guess, is the supply response from the U.S. are we actually going to see a bunch of drillers try to make up that lost production over here? We've been doing a bunch of episodes on this. I'm sure you've been listening. I hope you've been listening. We spoke to Jack McClendon, he's the CEO of a small oil producer in the US yesterday, and he pointed out there's a fundamental tension here, which is, number one, you don't know how long the Iran situation is going to last. So you could wake up tomorrow, and if there's some sort of agreement reached, then oil prices immediately plunge lower, which means that they don't have incentive to immediately ramp up production. And there's also a fundamental tension within the Trump administration itself, which is they keep talking about how they want everyone to drill oil, but at the same time, they want lower gas prices. And if the drillers don't see profit in encouraging that additional supply, they're just, they're not going to start those new projects. And so I have yet to see the administration really square those two goals.

[Tim Miller]

And all this stuff takes time, too.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Like on the margins, we could put out more oil here, but to the degree of what is being disrupted, there's just basic supply chain limitations of ports, capabilities, et cetera. You go down the list?

[Tracy Alloway]

Oh, absolutely. And this is another thing that came up with Jack McClendon, which is this idea that even if you want to start new oil rigs at the moment, a lot of the prices for the components to actually build those drills have gone up because of tariffs. And in fact, if you look at I'm looking at it right now, the Baker Hughes Oil and gas index on my trustee Bloomberg. That thing has been moving sideways basically since mid-2025. And in recent weeks when we've had that big oil spike and you might have expected some sort of supply response from US drillers, it actually fell by 3 last week. So here we are.

[Tim Miller]

Another gap that you were pointing out

[Co-host/Interviewer]

is between the fertilizer inflation costs and

[Tim Miller]

kind of the lag in food inflation that we've seen. I learned about urea from your guys podcast, which is coming from the Middle east and how that impacts fertilizer and how fertilizer costs go up. The Secretary of Ag I saw this was saying that like, well, this isn't that big of a deal because 80%

[Co-host/Interviewer]

of the fertilizer for the season has already been bought. But then the Farm Bureau, which is pretty Trump friendly, went out, did a survey that they put out publicly I think to pressure for a bailout or something, and basically said that is wrong. In the Midwest, it's 67% was the highest, but in other parts of the country, like the majority had not bought fertilizer yet. And so you would assume that that increase is going to yield increase in grocery prices.

[Tracy Alloway]

Yeah. The fertilizer story I find really interesting and I've seen the same figures as you and they seem kind of contradictory at times. So I'm not entirely sure what to make of where exactly we are in the planting season. But again, even if you've set aside this particular planting season, there's a broader problem here, which is America is not the only food producing nation in the world and there are a lot of other countries out there that have different planting seasons and they're going to want the same fertilizer for their particular crops. And where are they going to get it if they can't get it from the Middle East? Well, China, which is a big fertilizer producer, has tightened up its export controls because it's concerned about keeping enough supply at home for its own food production. And meanwhile, the U.S. if you look at U.S. prices for fertilizer at the moment, they are trading at a huge discount to what normally comes out of the Middle East. So US Fertilizer is really cheap at the moment compared to everything else available in the world, again because most of the supply has been cut off because of the Iran situation. So a lot of those food producers are going to start coming to the US for their fertilizer needs. And there's actually a Reuters story out today talking about US fertilizer companies selling more internationally. So even if the US has its own supply of fertilizer, that is maybe, you know, keeping US Farmers somewhat insulated from what's happening at the in the Middle east right now, that doesn't mean that prices aren't going to increase in the future as we see other countries scrambling to get supplies. One other interesting thing here, I got to say I find all the corporate behavior in this particular environment really fascinating. There's a big US Fertilizer producer called CF Industries and they actually put out a statement talking about everything they're trying to do in the context of this fertilizer crisis. And one of the things they explicitly said was we are going to give up the ability to sell a bunch of US Fertilizer at a huge, huge premium to international customers. We're going to keep it all at for US Farmers. So there's an element of politics that's coming into here and like it's also kind of similar to what maybe greedflation

[Co-host/Interviewer]

is real after all.

[Tim Miller]

Well, I kept hearing the greed placement was not real. But if the fertilizer companies can avoid the greed, maybe other companies could too.

[Tracy Alloway]

Well, we can talk about the exact motivations. I'm sure they'll win like a bunch of fans from some U.S. farmers. But like, what do their shareholders think if they're explicitly foregoing the ability to make money in order to keep US Farmers happy?

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[Tim Miller]

speaking of big corporate behavior, I wanted

[Co-host/Interviewer]

to ask you about two other things

[Tim Miller]

really quick on Squawkbox, Andrew Ross Sorkin asked Trump about how some of the big companies, particularly the big tech companies, are not seeking reimbursements for the tariffs,

[Co-host/Interviewer]

even though they can get them because

[Tim Miller]

of The Supreme Court ruling.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

He said that they're not doing this because they're worried to offend Trump. Trump replied that the people doing that are very smart and he'll remember them. So he's thrilled if American companies aren't taking money that was wrongly garnishing from them back.

[Tracy Alloway]

It's a very weird style of political capitalism, isn't it?

[Tim Miller]

Yeah. Is it capitalism? Is that what capitalism is?

[Tracy Alloway]

Politically tinged capitalism? I mean, he was also talking about spirit. Right. And this idea that maybe the US government would support spirit in some way. It wouldn't be the first time that the US government bailed out an airline, that's for sure. But like, it certainly has did different political undertones in the current administration.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, I guess I would just say that the government wrongfully seizing money from

[Co-host/Interviewer]

companies and then not giving it back

[Tim Miller]

to them because they're threatening the companies. It doesn't really feel like free market capitalism. I feel like there's another word that a lot of the Wall Street Journal types, I think Joe Kernan would call

[Co-host/Interviewer]

that something else if it was Obama

[Tim Miller]

seizing money from companies and then threatening them if they were going to take it back.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Just, just my opinion. I don't know.

[Tracy Alloway]

I mean, I will just say I remember specifically paying a tariff on a vintage item that came from Spain. So it's not even something that I could necessarily buy in the us it's an old item. And the mailman turns up at my door and says, like, I need a check for 50 bucks or you can pay me in cash. That money is never coming back.

[Tim Miller]

Are you gonna get it back?

[Tracy Alloway]

Specifically how? I have no idea. It's seems like they're not even instituting a system for individual payers to actually get any money back. I don't even think it's recorded as paid probably. I can't even imagine what the systems look like for actually recording all of this stuff.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

I have a few rebates I want too.

[Tim Miller]

We also have in suck up corporate world. Tim Cook stepped aside at Apple. The President put out a very lengthy statement about how he's always been a big fan of Tim Cook, about how excited he was of the head of Apple calling to kiss my ass and how that was really smart of him

[Co-host/Interviewer]

and other CEOs should do that. And he's actually better than Steve Jobs.

[Tim Miller]

So that's an interesting valedictory for the President to Tim Cook.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

I assume that this is just a pretty standard transition with Apple and Tim Cook wants to enjoy his time on yachts and stuff. I don't know if you have any takes on the apple transition.

[Tracy Alloway]

I don't have any good takes on the apple transition. But I mean, when you read those sorts of statements and we talk about what capitalism actually is and what it looks like, it does seem to devolve into something that looks a lot more like a patronage system than free market capitalism.

[Tim Miller]

You guys do fun niche stuff. Is there anything else out there you're watching or you have a show coming up we should look for? Or something in the market people should be keeping their eye on?

[Tracy Alloway]

Oh well, just going back to the sort of broad outline of the impacts of the Strait of Horror Moose Closure. We have a great episode coming out with oil historian Dan Jurgen later this week. He's the guy that wrote the book on energy history called the Prize, and he does a really good job of explaining why even if the Strait is opened tomorrow, we're not really going back to the previous energy world. We just can't. This is sort of like one of those, you know, the toothpaste can't be put in the bottle kind of moments where every government on Earth has realized how unpredictable geopolitics is at the moment, and every country on Earth that has the monetary ability to do so will be trying to rebuild its own stockpiles of energy for future unforeseeable unpredictable events. So it does feel like that's interesting. Yeah.

[Tim Miller]

Because right wing MAGA podcaster Clay Travis challenged me to a $1 million bet

[Co-host/Interviewer]

that gas prices will be lower next April than they were before the war started.

[Tim Miller]

And I feel like I would win that bet. I don't have a million dollars to throw around, though. I don't know. Maybe. Do you have any thoughts?

[Tracy Alloway]

I mean, I feel like there is, there's going to be a longer term structural bid for oil going forward. I just don't see how there can't be. You know, the US Is using some of its strategic petroleum reserve through this crisis. China has built this big strategic petroleum reserve as well, and again, they're using it during this crisis. They're going to want to top those up as soon as possible, I would imagine. And the same for every other country that's, you know, through the shock. So this idea of governments really stockpiling crucial commodities and products, I don't think it's going away anytime soon. We've had six years now of talking about unpredictable choke points. First with the pandemic where we all sort of woke up to these supply chain vulnerabilities, and now with the Strait of Hormuz closure. I just don't think it's going away. And that's, you know, that's a long term underpinning on stockpiling and it's a long term upward pressure on inflation.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

All commodities.

[Tracy Alloway]

It has to be.

[Tim Miller]

The thing that worries me most about

[Co-host/Interviewer]

the bet is that we end up that the earnest guy at the party thing comes true and then we end up in stagflation, then we end up in a recession and the market crashes and I lose the bet. I lose the million dollars because we're in a recession. And that would really be a pyrrhic loss in a lot of ways. So I don't know, I'll probably stick away. But if any listener wants to take the bet for me, they can.

[Tim Miller]

Tracy, I really appreciate you. I hope you don't feel guilty at all.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

That bad news means your downloads go up.

[Tim Miller]

I hope that I want you to

[Co-host/Interviewer]

free yourself of that if you have those feelings.

[Tracy Alloway]

Our download figures are correlated with the vix, or at least they used to be because the VIX isn't actually moving that much anymore either. But yeah, it's a pattern that we've. We've come to recognize and we're okay with it.

[Tim Miller]

Okay.

[Tracy Alloway]

You know, we're just happy that we're able to elucidate some of these hidden corners of the global economy during a crisis. And if that's what it takes to get people interested in things like urea and helium prices, that's all right with me.

[Tim Miller]

We appreciate your elucidation.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

All right, that's Tracy Alloway.

[Tim Miller]

The podcast is odd Lots.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Up next, Jordan Ritter Khan.

[Tim Miller]

Estate planning. It's not something anybody's so excited to think about, and it can be a little intimidating. But I gotta tell you, it's a relief to know your family's future is protected no matter what happens. And it's easier than ever. Thanks to our friends at Trust and Will. Trust and Will offers affordable attorney designed estate plans online that you can create in as little as 30 minutes. I don't like paperwork. I get the question all the time.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Tim, how are you content maxing?

[Tim Miller]

And I said, well, there's some things I'm not doing.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

I don't iron. That's why my shirts are all wrinkles. Okay. I don't like doing paperwork. Other people are carrying the load from the on that. And I just appreciate them. I'm not playing NBA 2K like I used to. It's really sad.

[Tim Miller]

It's lost time when it comes to something like this.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

It's like, I'm sorry, Trust and Will. This falls into the I don't do paperwork bucket.

[Tim Miller]

But it's so easy. It's barely paperwork. 30 minutes, you can get it done, secured. If you're like me and you're not doing this because you don't like paperwork, that's dumb.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Go to Trust and Will to make it as easy as possible.

[Tim Miller]

Trust and Will.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Affordable estate plans.

[Tim Miller]

Priceless peace of mind. Go to trustandwill.com bulwark and get 20% off. That's trustandwill.com bulk bulwark to get your 20% off. Trustandwill.com bulwark all right. He's a features writer for the ringer. His 2021 book, the Road from Raqqa, about two Syrian brothers, was one of

[Co-host/Interviewer]

my favorite pandemic reads in my bed in Oakland.

[Tim Miller]

And now he's the author of a brand new book, American Men, out today.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

It's Jordan Ritter Khan.

[Tim Miller]

What's up, bro?

[Co-host/Interviewer]

How's it going, man?

[Jordan Ritter Khan]

Thanks for having me.

[Tim Miller]

American Men.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

All right.

[Tim Miller]

Well, you've entered the podcast arena. The book is out today. This is your first, you know, day

[Co-host/Interviewer]

of podcasting about it.

[Tim Miller]

And so I feel compelled to ask

[Co-host/Interviewer]

you about your book, American Men. What is a man?

[Jordan Ritter Khan]

A big question that doesn't have an easy answer. And. And one that I more wanted to kind of explore rather than trying to answer explicitly. What this book is is a book that weaves together the stories of four

men who are very, very different, come from different parts of the country. Very.

As they kind of wrestle with things

that we all wrestle with, as they wrestle with that specific question of who they are as men, what it means to be a man, and kind of

come up against kind of their own

feelings of inadequacy against that definition and try to navigate that feeling of inadequacy in ways that work for them.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, the four men you picked, it was interesting to see how kind of

[Co-host/Interviewer]

weaved through the themes of kind of the challenges facing men right now through these four stories. We had Gideon, who was a West Point graduate, leaving the military and dealing with that, a poor, underemployed black trans man, Nate in Ohio. And thinking about what his story is like and what manhood and fatherhood eventually is for him. Then you had Ryan, a gay Native American. They like to get in bar fights, obviously, my favorite character. And Joseph, a married law student from. From Alabama who moved to the Pacific Northwest and had all these emotional problems.

[Tim Miller]

And I guess I'm just wondering, like, you talk to A bunch of people

[Co-host/Interviewer]

for this, you were trying to tease out certain themes like, what was it about that interconnected these four stories for you?

[Jordan Ritter Khan]

Yeah, so, you know, I set out to kind of write something that was

really, really intimate into several. Several men's lives.

And so I wanted to find A, men that were willing to kind of

open up in the ways that. That.

That would require, but B, men whose stories would really complement each other. I. I did kind of have the belief, and still do have the belief that everyone's story is.

Is really, really interesting if they're willing

to kind of look at some of the uglier pieces of it.

You know, some of the. The pieces of it that they might

be a bit afraid of. And so it was finding about finding men who are willing to do that, but also who kind of fit together.

And so there were a few different

themes that I feel like kind of

touch on conversations around masculinity in this country that I wanted to make sure were kind of present in their stories.

I wanted someone with some sort of relationship to violence.

I mean, that's so often what.

What comes up quickly when we talk

about men in this country.

And like you mentioned, Ryan is. Is a gay man who, a lot of his story, he's kind of struggling to kind of come to terms with

his sexuality, with who he is, and

also dealing with the fact that he really likes to beat people up.

He. He'd been bullied a lot as a

kid, and he kind of. He snaps as an adult outside a bar one night and likes it.

And so he's.

He's kind of both trying to find kind of a romantic partnership, trying to find a relationship with men that is, you know, tender, loving, car. Also wanting to, you know, craving that

kind of violence at times.

I. I wanted men who had been in the military.

I mean, that's so, you know, such a. A big part of how we kind of talk about masculinity in this country. And so one of them, Gideon, is a West Point graduate. Another, Joseph serves in Iraq as an enlistee.

I wanted to tell the story of a trans man, and I wanted to tell the story of a trans man in. In a pocket of the US where

you might expect trans people to not really find love and care and acceptance. And.

And Nate is.

Is a trans man in Youngstown, Ohio, a town outside Youngstown. And. And the story kind of follows him as he goes through his. His transition and as he kind of tries to find economic security there.

I wanted a story of someone who had some sort of relationship to the

evangelical church, because that's another way in which masculinity is, I don't know, just on full display in a very particular kind of way.

And Joseph, the man who's kind of

dealing with the effects of childhood sexual

trauma, is also someone who's kind of

coming out of the world of evangelicalism and trying to figure out his relationship to that world.

It's impossible to take four lives and really, really fully survey masculinity in this country. But I wanted to do the best

I could with four stories that were very different.

[Tim Miller]

Let's talk about the evangelism part of

[Co-host/Interviewer]

it or evangelicalism of it.

[Tim Miller]

You started the book like this.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

This is part of your story and background as well. I opened it up on the airplane on the way to Coachella with my husband. Another story of masculinity. We sat next to him on the

[Tim Miller]

plane, opened up the book, and it begins like this. Every Saturday night when I was in

[Co-host/Interviewer]

high school, I sat in a room with a half dozen other teenage boys and I announced whether I'd made it through the week without masturbating.

[Tim Miller]

I was like, all right, we're diving right in. I also left it out in the rain.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

So it's kind of a. It's already a beat up copy of it.

[Jordan Ritter Khan]

It's weather, it's nice.

[Tim Miller]

But it's clear that you kind of

[Co-host/Interviewer]

started there to frame this up also with kind of your experience and kind of thinking about manhood through that, like, kind of Christian right frame. And, and you've. You went to school at a, you know, Christian university.

[Tim Miller]

And I'm just kind of wondering, like, how.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

How, you know, much that trajectory intersects with like, where we are now.

[Jordan Ritter Khan]

Yeah, a lot.

So, you know, I grew up in

kind of an evangelical Christian context, like you mentioned. My parents were both from the Church

of God, which is this Pentecostal denomination.

And so I grew up around a lot of. A lot of speaking in tongues, a lot of running the aisles, a lot of people fainting at the altar call that sort of thing.

[Tim Miller]

Have you spoken in tongues?

[Jordan Ritter Khan]

I have not. I've attempted or, you know, I've hoped the spirit would overtake me as a 12 year old kind of yearning to be.

Yearning for that experience.

It didn't happen. Didn't happen.

[Tim Miller]

But I will say life, you never know.

[Jordan Ritter Khan]

Yeah. As an adult, I've spent a lot of time in like, you know, kind of like Episcopal churches, like liturgical Methodist churches, like more kind of lefty progressive churches. And I've also, as a journalist Spent

time in a snake handling church.

And that felt much more familiar to me in terms of my, my childhood experiences than, than any of the nice crunchy, lefty churches that I've been happy to be, to be a member of and am now. But. But one thing I'll say about the evangelical experience is like, you see men talking in some ways with vulnerability about their lives. It's under the guise of like trying not to sin.

And for me as a, as a teenager, as I write about in that book, like I was in this Bible

study where we would go around the

room announcing ways in which we had sinned that week and trying to, to, to be better the next week. And the first question every single week was, did you masturbate? That led to a lot of kind of shame around, around sex that I've spent some time unpacking.

But it also put me in this place where like, I was really open

and vulnerable with, you know, other, other guys as a teenage boy. And I've kind of followed that into adulthood.

And I think like, paired with that

is just this like kind of often bombastic performance of kind of man as leader, man as like the hat. You have to be the head of the household in every possible way. I was certain, taught from, from a young age, not really by my parents, just by the waters. I was kind of swimming in that you have to lead your household someday, that you have to be a man who other people will follow.

You know, I think that often sets

us up for relationship structures that are not really great for us and not really great for the other people we're in relationship with. And it certainly sets us up for a sense of kind of entitlement as to where our place should be kind of in any sort of hierarchy.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, I'm kind of wondering how you

[Co-host/Interviewer]

see that, that tension and that change developing over time from when we were growing up. We're both kind of elder millennials versus now and what you're seeing in the younger Christian right church. I went to a TPUSA conference about a year ago now, and I was struck by on the main stage, it was all this political speech, all of the stuff that you would expect from the Charlie Kirk crowd. But then they had side sessions, breakout sessions that were about faith. And like I went and sat through

[Tim Miller]

a couple of those. Like you would sit in them.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

And that, that tension that you talk about is just on display so intensely. It's like half of the conversation is about being a better person and you know, being in service to others and you Know, taking responsibility.

[Tim Miller]

And then, like, the other half of

[Co-host/Interviewer]

it is a lot of the culture war masculine bravado, you know, know, being the man of the house, you know, all this stuff that. And then, you know, some obviously negative and hateful attitude towards LGBT people or immigrants or whatever. Right.

[Tim Miller]

And so, like, those two kind of

[Co-host/Interviewer]

elements are living together.

[Tim Miller]

I remember I would be sitting in

[Co-host/Interviewer]

there and feeling moments of.

[Tim Miller]

I'm kind of. There's like a kernel of something here

[Co-host/Interviewer]

that could maybe be a positive for the people in the room but is sort of overshadowed by the culture war element.

[Tim Miller]

And I kind of feel like, like,

[Co-host/Interviewer]

that has been exacerbated recently.

[Tim Miller]

I. I feel like that tension was

[Co-host/Interviewer]

always there, but it's, like, particularly acute now. But you kind of lived it.

[Tim Miller]

How do you.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Do you kind of agree with that or. No? Yeah.

[Jordan Ritter Khan]

You know, I know a lot of

kind of ex evangelicals, like, in my

social circles these days, and sometimes we're so traumatized by certain.

The negative pieces of that experience that we don't want to kind of remember what we, at one point were really

connected to in it. We don't want to kind of admit out loud the ways in which that

there are pieces of attention that are

really not only appealing, but also nurturing.

You know, I think we are, at this moment in our culture, kind of starved for structures that foster, you know,

pushing each other, being in community with

other people, pushing them to try to be the best version of themselves.

And at its best, that is what.

What religion can do and often does.

And.

And that's present in. In those settings. It's present in settings where, you know, there are sermons being preached in the pulpit that I would find means, you know, pretty abhorrent. But there's still this, you know, there.

There is someone trying to hold you

accountable, to be the best version of yourself.

And I. I do think, you know, we're seeing data showing young men kind

of making a turn back toward.

Toward religion after kind of years of.

Of religious activity kind of being. Being in decline.

And I think that that's a huge

reason why, that there is something.

There's a craving for kind of structures

of community structures of accountability, and going to a place once a week where you're trying to tell each other or work on being a better person. It's really appealing.

[Tim Miller]

Talk to me about those ex evangelical communities, because I think about this, and it's like, on the one hand, you

[Co-host/Interviewer]

see the benefit of that, and you

[Tim Miller]

talk a lot in this book about loneliness.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Obviously, there's this epidemic of loneliness that's showing up. And the data and the anecdote, we all sort of see it. So you can kind of see the benefit of. Of like, having a, you know, positive structure, force for, you know, men, young men to get together and kind of work through all this stuff.

[Tim Miller]

But that's.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

That's kind of not really very visible in the culture.

[Tim Miller]

Like, what you instead have are, you

[Co-host/Interviewer]

know, gatherings that are, you know, have a lot more of the, you know, pernicious elements to it, whether it's the

[Tim Miller]

right wing evangelical crowd or Andrew Tate ism or Groeperism.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

You know, what do you feel like, is the disconnect there?

[Tim Miller]

Like, is. Is it just that the libs are

[Co-host/Interviewer]

too soft and there's like, kind of

[Tim Miller]

nothing we can do about it?

[Jordan Ritter Khan]

Or.

[Tim Miller]

I don't know, like, how do we

[Co-host/Interviewer]

find positive, nurturing, structural, masculine organizational outfits?

[Jordan Ritter Khan]

You know, my general sense is that,

you know, there's people talk a lot about whether we're in like, a crisis of masculinity. I think we're kind of in a crisis period of people being increasingly dislocated and isolated and disconnected from one another.

And we're kind of siloed off in.

In a culture that makes us less empathetic, less eager to engage with kind of the full humanity of other people.

And what. What comes out is. What is what has often come out, which is men kind of grasping for.

Toward their sort of basest impulses, grasping

toward things that are kind of dehumanizing

to other people to. Toward that are subjugating other people.

You know, when you have a sense

that you should be powerful, that you should be on top, and you have moments where you feel disempowered. Often men grasp for something that's, you know, really awful and gross.

And so I do think that a lot of what we're talking about is

kind of as much a technological problem as anything. It's just the fact that, like, you know, there are these companies that benefit from these kinds of images and messages that draw a strong reaction kind of being beamed around the world into everyone's pocket all the time.

You know, it's not good for anyone. But I think we're talking about very

old problems mapped onto new technologies.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, I think that's right. I mean, another change in addition to

[Co-host/Interviewer]

the technology is just the way the American economy has developed has offered, like, a lot of more opportunity for women.

[Tim Miller]

Like the cultural manner in which it's

[Co-host/Interviewer]

been a good thing, like the way

[Tim Miller]

that the culture has changed.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

More women going to college, more women going to the workforce before finding like

[Tim Miller]

all this sort stuff of stuff.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

And now as we get into the types of industries where people are succeeding in the white collar parts of the economy, you have a lot more women college grads and a lot more men struggling economically. And I do think that in the past, a lot of men were finding this kind of structure that we're talking about in community in a way that is fulfilling in the workplace, in their job. And when you write about this in the book, look, I mean, a lot of these folks are struggling, obviously Nate is really struggling economically. Joseph goes from Alabama to Washington and goes through a period where there's huge economic strain and really all of them go through periods of huge economic strain. And I think that navigating the modern economy has sort of layered on, particularly in certain demographics, kind of like exacerbated these problems.

[Jordan Ritter Khan]

Yeah, I mean, we, we hear a lot, talk a lot about how men

are falling behind, but really what a

lot of big part of that story

is just advances that women have made over, over a period of decades.

And, and so you have that paired with still so many people hanging on

to, you know, this image of, of being the provider, that, this desire to, to be a provider. There, there's kind of a simplicity to that. There's like a clarity of if I fill this role, I am a person who has work worth.

It's a very simple way just to

feel like you matter.

And as you know, families have become

structured in ways that, where that's not really, that's not really the case as the economy, you know, wages aren't keeping up with inflation. That's a story that's been continuing for, for decades now. Jobs like manufacturing, that sort of thing have been in decline for a long time.

You, you have, you have a lot

of men who are kind of grasping

for ways to feel like they have

worth grasping for ways to feel like they, they matter when the simplest, easiest way to do that is not really as easy to obtain as it once was.

And so I think there's a sense

of often just being a bit adrift.

I mean, there are times I'm like,

I care about that stuff as much as I try to tell myself that.

It's not like I want to be

making sure that I'm providing for a family. And the man in this book, Gideon, who is kind of like the tall, handsome West Point grad baseball star, he's married twice in the book, but in his second marriage, it takes him years

to kind of come to Realize that

his wife married him for the fact that he kind, curious, empathetic, good listener, caring of their children. He just doesn't want to believe it. He thinks that he kind of exists as someone who's supposed to achieve, as someone who is supposed to provide. And it kind of leads to this real crisis of identity for him because

it's a much more complicated thing to

find your way to being in people's lives in a way that contributes to

them through kind of who you are

as a person, not just what you provide.

[Tim Miller]

These things are all in connection to each other in the sense of.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

So if you don't have that confidence that comes from being a provider of that feeling of worth. Right. Another thing you write about in the book is a lot of men have fewer and fewer friendships as they get older. You see this in the data too. I mean, Gideon is the character you just talk about at one point is having suicidal thoughts and only has two good friends. And he calls both of them and neither of them answer and kind of realizes that they just don't talk that much anymore. And so if you have this crisis

[Tim Miller]

of self worth, if you, you don't

[Co-host/Interviewer]

have community or fellowship to lean on, and then you're relying on devices of whatever it is in your phone, whether that be the porn or the gambling apps or you're drinking, right? Like, it's just this cycle that people get into.

[Tim Miller]

I guess the one.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

My one question for you is kind of how, like living the lives of all these men do you feel like that is like, like how can that be intercepted, right? Like, in what ways can that be resolved? Like, it's easy to be like, well, if you get a good job and

[Tim Miller]

start feeling self confidence, or you go out and join a softball team and meet friends, you know, it's kind of like. But at one of.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

In one of those areas, I feel like something has to be remediated or things just spiral.

[Jordan Ritter Khan]

You know, I think like a lot of what we talked about with, when

it comes to like these larger structures

that have kind of upheld those relationships, the decline of those has been just

a really big problem. You know, religion has certainly filled that role. But like you said, the workplace, like just being in person with your coworkers, a huge piece of that.

The military functions that way for, for two of the men in this book at times.

You know, sports teams, you know, things like just a beer league, softball team, like you mentioned.

And I, I'm kind of curious to

hear, hear what you think about this

because you, you strike me as someone who is really, really good, it's kind

of making and maintaining friendships and, and that's just always been kind of natural for you.

But often, yeah, often we're just not good at it. Like, we're just not. And like, you know, it's largely, I guess, the, the ways that we're socialized but like the simple like dumb vulnerability

that comes from just reaching out to a person saying like, hey, I'd like

to, I'd like to meet up for

a drink or I'd like to, you know, go play around the golf or do, do whatever it is that thing is that you do.

We often just like struggle to do

that, struggle to kind of check back in with that person we haven't heard from in a long while.

Well, the number of men who will

say things like, you know, I saw

so and so for the first time

in, in 15 years and we just picked up right where we left off. It, it was, was like no time had passed.

And it's like, well, what have you been doing over those 15 years? Like, you couldn't just have that feeling, you know, a few more times over the course of that period of time. Like, I do think that some of

it is just like, kind of interpersonally, like not, not on like a, kind of a structural or policy level, just

interpersonally like trying to work our way

toward, you know, reaching out to each

other, toward like treating this part of

our lives like it matters. I think we're, we can be good

at treating our jobs like they matter,

matter, our marriages and families, like they matter. Even like our physical health like they matter. I mean, Gen Z, like very much is prioritizing kind of physical health.

But we don't treat this part of

our lives like it matters. And it's a huge, huge piece of having a well rounded, meaningful life.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, I sometimes feel bad when I give advice on this stuff because I

[Co-host/Interviewer]

am like an extrovert and this is easy for me. I understand that it's harder for some

[Tim Miller]

people, but what I want people to know is that other people want to

[Co-host/Interviewer]

hang out with you.

[Tim Miller]

Other people are in your boat and

[Co-host/Interviewer]

want socialization like humans want socialization. And you like, get in your head that like, ugh, it's going to be a hassle. I'm going to ask that. And it's like, I don't know, I

[Tim Miller]

think back to my grandparents and on

[Co-host/Interviewer]

both sides, like both my grandfathers just like had a poker club and they

[Tim Miller]

met every week or every other week

[Co-host/Interviewer]

and it was just like that's what we did on Thursday nights.

[Tim Miller]

And I don't know, for some people, some reason, I think people feel like

[Co-host/Interviewer]

that is an imposition now to like go schedule that sort of thing, which I don't understand why.

[Tim Miller]

I don't know.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

I was laughing with one of my friends in town this weekend about this, where he was like.

[Tim Miller]

He's like, other people at work tell

[Co-host/Interviewer]

me that it seems like I go out a lot.

[Tim Miller]

And they're like, how do you do that? And he's like, I just do it.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Like, what do you do between 8 and 10 o' clock at night? And they're like, well, I'm scrolling on

[Tim Miller]

my phone and doing laundry. And it's like, well, maybe you go

[Co-host/Interviewer]

meet a friend instead. And I think that actually, like a

[Tim Miller]

lot of things in life, like you

[Co-host/Interviewer]

say, like, prioritizing it and trying to

[Tim Miller]

it, like, really matters, but it's.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

I think it becomes hard once it's lost, to regain. And I, you know, I see this in my life. Like, once you stop doing it and get into your interior life, like on your phone, in your apartment, and you get sad, then it becomes harder and harder to break out of it. And I think that that is. Like I was saying, I think that there's kind of this intersecting issue and I. You see it with people who, like, feel unfulfilled in their work life, feel unfulfilled in their marriage or if they don't have one, don't have friends, and. And then it's easy to just kind of get into computer life after that.

[Jordan Ritter Khan]

So over the course of the time

I was working on this book, I also, you know, I work full time at the Ringer. I also had a child. I have a son who's almost three. I kind of looked up at the end of it and realized that a lot of my friendships had kind of atrophied and it was entirely my fault. I'd just been kind of consumed by other things. You know, I was kind of like, well, I'm about to be putting out this book about masculinity. There's a lot of talk about loneliness among men. Like, I should probably, you know, do some fucking work to make sure that I'm not one of the lonely men.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah.

[Jordan Ritter Khan]

And so I spent a lot of

time kind of just doing that stuff,

just reaching back out to people I

hadn't talked to in a long time.

You know, when I would meet someone, someone new, like, you know, there's. There's the dad, like, playground circuit, which, you know, I'm it's not my natural kind of, kind of place. Yeah, I don't do great there.

My wife is so good at it. I'm just, I'm just not.

And I think that's.

That's a pretty common dynamic too. Yeah.

But, you know, I did things like

I, you know, I started a book club with some other guys. Like, it just like, we're gonna get

together once a month, we're gonna read

this book and we're gonna talk about it.

And that pretty quickly it was guys who I knew individually, but.

But they'd never met each other. And it pretty quickly became like, talked about pretty intimate stuff.

Just because, like, when you have like

kind of the structure and proximity of like, we are going to be together once a month and talking about books leads to talking about other stuff. Like, it's. That really helps.

But it does come back to just

like telling yourself, like, I just gotta do it.

Like, this stuff matters.

[Tim Miller]

You have to try.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

You have to prioritize it. Like, you try other stuff.

[Tim Miller]

Yeah, I mean, I feel like you're putting a lot of pressure on people by making them talk about intimate stuff. I mean, you work at the ringer, bro. Can't you just. You can just talk about, like, the balls. You can just talk about. You can start with sports or whatever,

[Co-host/Interviewer]

you know, don't, don't intimidate people.

[Janet Freeman Daly]

When I first heard the words you have lung cancer, I was in shock.

[Health Discovered Narrator]

This week on a special episode of Health discovered we're taking a closer look at a common form of lung cancer that accounts for 85% of all cases.

[Janet Freeman Daly]

I'm Janet Freeman Daly and I've been living with non small cell lung cancer since 2011.

[Health Discovered Narrator]

Non small cell lung cancer, it's a diagnosis that changes everything and yet the conversation around it too often stops, stops at the biology and misses what patients are actually living through every single day.

[Janet Freeman Daly]

There are some things you used to be able to do that you can't do anymore. It's easy to become depressed when you're dealing with all those losses. So mental health plays a really big role.

[Health Discovered Narrator]

So what does it really mean to advocate for yourself when you're living with non small cell lung cancer? Listen to health discovered on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Trace Dominguez]

Your social media feed says, eat more protein. Track your sleep, boost your VO2 max. Wake up in cold, plunge, Cleanse yourself of parasites. You're intrigued but confused. So where can you turn? Welcome to Health versus Hype, the show where we Take the loudest wellness trends on the Internet and ask the questions only science can answer. What's wrong, real, what's exaggerated, and what is completely wrong? I'm Trace Dominguez. Each episode we show the science behind viral health claims. From high protein diets to cold plunges, detoxing to sleep. Tech obsession. And we talk to the people in the middle of it all, influencers, the curious, but more importantly, doctors and researchers. Not to cancel the trend, not to hype it more, but to understand it. Listen to Health vs Hype with the American Medical association on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Slow the scroll. Start asking better questions.

[Tim Miller]

So you started this book like you

[Co-host/Interviewer]

said, many years ago, and there's been a lot of stuff that's changed since these characters were kind of coming of age. Right. And I'm just wondering how you think the book intersects with some of the things in the news now. Particularly I'm thinking of the prediction market boom, crypto, and now the looksmaxing trends that you were referencing earlier with the young men that are bone smashing their faces in order to look handsomer so that girls like them, or maybe not

[Tim Miller]

even girls like them. I don't know. At some level, as all this stuff

[Co-host/Interviewer]

is popping up, you gotta be like, man, the book, you could almost have a full post book that covers how the themes of it are echoing and what's happening now.

[Jordan Ritter Khan]

Yeah, I think the idea, I don't know, the looks maxing thing to me is like kind of intersects with some

of the stuff we've already been talking about.

It's on the one hand, it's another

way to answer this kind of very old problem, which is just men feeling inadequate and not knowing what to do with it. You know, feeling like we all kind of inherit this idea of who we're supposed to be. We all at some point kind of

fall short of that and how we

kind of navigate that in some ways kind of defines our relationship to masculinity.

And the looks maxing thing is like

one way to attempt to bridge that gap.

I think a lot of the messaging online to young men is telling them

different ways in which they can kind of bridge that gap. If you just work harder in the gym, if you work harder in your career, if you work harder at learning

how to talk to women, then your

inadequacies will be erased and you will have everything that you want.

And I think it's. It's great to work harder. And, you know, I think men respond to messaging that has like, emphasizes kind

of an internal locus of control.

Like the sense that like you have

some, some agency, some, some power over kind of the future of.

I think that's important, but also like that feeling's not gonna just like vanish

because you're, you're the like optimized version of yourself or you're the hottest possible version of yourself.

But I also think the looksmaxing thing

connects to like the provider conversation.

Like the fact that there was kind

of historically this very simple way to feel like you have worth, to feel like you're going to be attractive to a potential partner. And as, as the economy has changed in ways that have made that a bit more difficult to obtain, it's like,

what are the other ways Now? Some of those ways could be, you

know, become someone who. A bit easier to get along with, become someone who's a bit more considerate, a bit more thoughtful.

But it could also just be.

Get hotter.

And so I think that's what a lot of guys are trying.

[Tim Miller]

For somebody who's went through midlife crisis therapy, I would just like to say

[Co-host/Interviewer]

bluntly that you have to. What's the RuPaul line? If you don't love yourself, how the hell are you going to love anybody else?

[Tim Miller]

Unfortunately, you can't rely on external compliments

[Co-host/Interviewer]

and support for resolving those feelings of inadequacy. You've got to be happy with yourself. And I do think that that's something that clavicular is going to end up having to find out.

[Tim Miller]

I wonder what you say. The ringer's a little lib coded. We can say you've already mentioned you're

[Co-host/Interviewer]

in ex evangelical circles, which is pretty lib coded.

[Jordan Ritter Khan]

Sure.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Based on some of your other writing.

[Tim Miller]

What do you say to kind of

[Co-host/Interviewer]

the intersectional libs in your life that said, say, oh, poor men.

[Tim Miller]

There are all these other groups that

[Co-host/Interviewer]

have dealt with, you know, this for generations and you know, marginalized groups have all these challenges and men go through a slightly rockier period and now everybody is talking about their needs again. How do you kind of address that? The mindset which I know that you've heard.

[Jordan Ritter Khan]

Yeah, I mean, I think for one,

you know, we're half the population.

Like we're, we're a pretty big group of people like it. It's, it's probably worth kind of considering our, our inner lives think kind of, you know, this book talks about a lot of things that men ourselves don't really like to talk about.

So it's less kind of demanding, more attention from others than it is like digging into stuff that we are often kind of the reason why it's. It's not really discussed. Over the years I've been working on this as I told people what I

was doing, the kind of demographic that

was most likely to be excited and interested were millennial and Gen X women.

Usually if they have kids, especially if

[Co-host/Interviewer]

they have sons, because they see it.

[Jordan Ritter Khan]

Yeah, yeah. With men, it was kind of all

over the map, kind of how they would respond. Some were very, very skeptical and like, it was kind of the first time that they'd ever like, thought about the idea of masculinity.

Others, others were really interested. Gen Z women, for the most part,

when, when it has come up, are just like, I'm very happy for you. I. I will not be reading this

[Tim Miller]

book,

[Jordan Ritter Khan]

which, which I get.

[Tim Miller]

But no, it's, it makes sense that it's moms.

[Sheba Cat Food Advertiser]

Yeah.

[Tim Miller]

That mom's of boys see it like, they see it, right? Because they've grown up and they've lived

[Co-host/Interviewer]

through it and they, and they've seen

[Tim Miller]

the frailties of men already in their

[Co-host/Interviewer]

lives, but like to see the ways in which things are getting worse right now. I hear it all the time and

[Jordan Ritter Khan]

I just think, like, everyone in their

lives, you know, knows a boy or

has known a little boy. And like, it's, it's hard to kind

of imagine the little boy that you know in your life alongside, you know, some of the more negative feelings that you might have toward, toward men. And so like, wanting to imagine a world in which which that boy that you know and care about can, can grow up and be kind of the, the, the fullest, you know, kind of most human, like most like, socially connected, caring version of himself, I think is something that, you know, people want.

[Janet Freeman Daly]

When I first heard the words you have lung cancer, I was in shock.

[Health Discovered Narrator]

This week on a special episode of Health discovered we're taking a closer look at a couple common form of lung cancer that accounts for 85% of all cases.

[Janet Freeman Daly]

I'm Janet Freeman Daly and I've been living with non small cell lung cancer since 2011.

[Health Discovered Narrator]

Non small cell lung cancer. It's a diagnosis that changes everything and yet the conversation around it too often stops at the biology and misses what patients are actually living through every single day.

[Janet Freeman Daly]

There are some things you used to be able to do that you can't do anymore. It's easy to become depressed when you're dealing with all those losses. So mental health plays a really big role.

[Health Discovered Narrator]

So what does it really mean? To advocate for yourself when you're living with non small cell lung cancer. Listen to health discovered on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

[Trace Dominguez]

Your social media feed says eat more protein. Track your sleep. Boost your VO2 max. Wake up and cold plunge. Cleanse yourself of parasites. You're intrigued but confused. So where can you turn? Welcome to Health versus Hype, the show where we take the loudest wellness trends on the Internet and ask the questions only science can answer. What's real, what's exaggerated, and what is completely wrong. I'm Trace Dominguez. Each episode we show the science behind viral health claims, from high protein diets to cold plunges, detoxing to sleep. Tech obsession. And we talk to the people in the middle of it all, influencers, the curious, but more importantly, doctors and researchers. Not to cancel the trend, not to hype it more, but to understand it. Listen to Health vs Hype with the American Medical association on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Slow the scroll. Start asking better questions.

[Tim Miller]

I want to talk about one of

[Co-host/Interviewer]

your other stories recently, which kind of oversex intersects.

[Tim Miller]

At least one of the characters is

[Co-host/Interviewer]

a man I'd like to hear a little bit more about, which is Daniel. You wrote for the Inside the Hidden Network of Resistance in Minneapolis. Obviously we're covering this a bunch on the pod at the time, but I

[Tim Miller]

was struck in particular by this one

[Co-host/Interviewer]

story of Daniel, who's from Venezuela. He spent 36 days in detention, some at the Whipple Bill building. His family found an attorney, took on his case, but he heard nothing. For weeks. He sat in a cell, only one small window facing the hallway. He felt like a criminal. He's not a criminal. He'd been here as a legal resident with a work permit.

[Tim Miller]

Just kind of talk about that story

[Co-host/Interviewer]

and everything else that you saw when you were reporting this out in Minneapolis.

[Jordan Ritter Khan]

So I was in Minneapolis for.

For about 10 days, you know, during kind of the height of everything that was going on. Immediately after, after Alex Paretti's shooting, I. I went there and

mostly about kind

of the lives of people who were hiding, who were kind of sheltering in their homes away from ice.

And the thing that. I don't know, the thing about it that most struck me was just the sense of interconnectedness among the people in that community. We've talked a lot in this conversation

about social isolation and lack of community,

and I haven't seen a more kind

of robust expression of community than I think did when I was there.

[Tim Miller]

Well, so this is what I was going to ask you next we'll come back to Daniel, but just because I felt that way too.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

There was this tension between the book that I was reading, that story that you read.

[Tim Miller]

And I'm just wondering what your observation was on that. Is it something about how JBL says this?

[Co-host/Interviewer]

You hear people sometimes say that a lot of these problems that we're talking about, about loneliness and addiction, et cetera, are kind of related to societal decadence. Things are going so well that you have time for these other problems versus past eras where it's like you went to work every day, you're fucking tired. When you went home, you helped your kids go to bed and you cleaned the house. Then you did it again, and life. And that this societal decadence has led to some of these problems.

[Tim Miller]

And there's an interesting data point for

[Co-host/Interviewer]

that in Minneapolis that you see a city going through this crisis, really coming together and not. Not isolating or turning on one another. And I'm just kind of wondering how you mesh those two kind of narratives and two types of reporting you did.

[Jordan Ritter Khan]

I think that what you said about

societal decadence is really interesting because I

do think that crisis pulls people together.

Obviously.

I don't know. I think the lesson I took away is that people really want to care about each other. People really want to be together, to do something for someone el. And to. To find ways to kind of be more connected to the people around them. And sometimes like some sort of intense

strain, whether it be interpersonal or societal, can be the thing that kind of forces you into. Into that kind of action.

And right now, like, like you said,

it's so easy to be disconnected. It's so easy to. To not be relying on. On anyone else.

It's so easy to get like a

facsimile of the things that we actually need and care about that you. You know, something that feels like community, that feels like connection, but isn't really that thing. Something that feels like sex but isn't really that thing.

And you know what, what happened in Minneapolis is like, people needed that thing. They needed to like, show up for.

For other people in. In real and meaningful ways. And, and they did.

So I don't know, it was just.

It was just like incredibly moving.

Like, honestly, it was like frigid, like freezing fucking cold. And I'm just walking around that city

going and meeting these people, people, you know, in, in.

In homes and churches and, you know, out of protests everywhere and just like constantly moved by some random story that I'm hearing of the way that, you know, a mom is kind of checking on the, the mothers of, like her, her kids, classmates who are, who are

hiding in their homes of kind of a retiree who's driving around groceries and taking people to the hospital.

And I don't know, it was just a kind of remarkable reminder of kind of what, what humans and Americans are capable of. I hate that it takes something so

monstrous and so kind of craven on

the part of our government to bring that out.

But I hope that it's something that we can kind of find our way toward in settings that don't feel quite as dire as it did there.

[Tim Miller]

And Daniel, who he mentioned had been

[Co-host/Interviewer]

detention, I was just struck by the scene where he's speaking to Tracy, this local pastor, about how to rebuild his life and how to move forward. And you have his story having been wrongfully detained for a month and a half. And then you have Teresa, who has Sharpied under her arm her legal resident number and her lawyer's phone number, both of which she had memorized, but she put them on her arm for fear that if she was incapacitated or knocked out or something during a protest, that people would be able to, to contact representation from her. And it's just crazy. It feels like something that's not even from this country.

[Jordan Ritter Khan]

Yeah, really dystopian. I mean, like you said, like, not the sort of thing that you imagine

happening in, in the United States of America. You know, when I was there, I

was there with a, a friend, a photojournalist who mostly covers.

Covers wars, who, who I'd last seen in like southern Turkey.

And we were reporting on, on things related to Syria and couldn't believe that

she was in Minneapolis because that was where the story that most needed her skill set was happening in the, in the world.

It was pretty shocking to see up close.

And I'm still, to be honest, a little, a little shaken by some of the memories from my time there.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Then just finally on the Syria point, I was curious. I mean, so much has happened there. Obviously there's been another coup, another regime change. Now we've got some Syrian billionaires from Qatar who are trying to, to Dubai, Syria, where they're working with Jared Kushner, our president's son in law, lead negotiator on all war matters, and they're talking about putting a Trump golf course in Syria.

[Tim Miller]

I'm just like, it's such a strange world. I mean, your story followed these two

[Co-host/Interviewer]

brothers, like one that had stayed Syria, one that had come to America. I'm just kind of wondering if you have any postscript for us from your time there and what you're seeing in the region now.

[Jordan Ritter Khan]

So, you know, again, as someone who's not really a Syria or Middle east expert, but, but has a lot of, you know, knows a lot of people

from, from there and has written about

their lives, you know, what, what I hear is like just so much relief

that Assad has gone and cautious optimism

and patience for what might come next. Certainly not, not all the way bought in.

The infrastructure there is still, you know, totally destroyed. I mean, there's a reason why it's being discussed for, for this kind of, this kind of development, because right now there's just nothing there. You know, a lot of places are still pretty uninhabitable.

But the fact that this family that

had tormented so many people for so long is no longer in power, that,

the fact that, you know, I think

that the new president has seemed a

bit more like their impression of him

is that he's a bit more pragmatic than they.

They imagined he would be a little

bit less of an ideological.

And so I think there is patience

and cautious optimism while very much feeling like there is a long, long, long way to go and there's no certainty that they will get there.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

It's a really beautiful book, folks. Should go read it. They should get both of them. The Road from Raqqa from 2021 and then American Men, which I have right here, all mangled from a New Orleans rainstorm out today.

[Tim Miller]

Jordan, I appreciate you, brother.

[Co-host/Interviewer]

Good luck on the book tour. We'll be talking about you again soon.

[Jordan Ritter Khan]

Thank you so much, man.

[Tim Miller]

Thanks so much to Tracy Alloway and to Jordan Ritter Khan. We'll be back tomorrow. Still working out who we're going to be talking to, but it's going to be good. It's always good. Bangers only here. We'll see you all then. Appreciate you peace.

[Unknown Speaker (Possibly Podcast Outro)]

That doesn't quiver anymore and we could crush some plants to paint my walls and I won't try to fight in the weekend wars.

[Tim Miller]

The Borg podcast is brought to you thanks to the work of lead producer Katie Cooper, associate producer Ansley Skipper, and with video editing by Katie Lutz and audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown.

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