Loading summary
Transcript125 lines
- [00:00]
Podcast Host (Ad Reader)
This episode of the Dispatch Podcast is brought to you by Pacific Legal Foundation. Since they were founded in 1973, PLF has won 18 Supreme Court cases defending the rights of ordinary Americans from government overreach nationwide, including landmark environmental law cases like Sackett vs EPA. Now PLF is doubling down and launching a new environment and natural resources practice. They're on a mission to make more of America's land and resources available for productive use and to make sure freedom drives our environmental and natural resource policy, not fear. To learn more, visit pacificlegal.org flagship hi.
- [00:40]
Russell Berman
I'm here to pick up my son, Milo.
- [00:42]
Brianna Wu
There's no Milo here who picked up.
- [00:44]
Russell Berman
My son from school. Streaming only on Peacock. I'm going to need the name of everyone that could have a connection.
- [00:52]
Brianna Wu
You don't understand. It was just the five of us. So this was all planned. What are you going to do? I will do whatever it takes to get my son back.
- [01:01]
Russell Berman
I honestly didn't see this coming. These nice people killing each other.
- [01:05]
Brianna Wu
All her fault.
- [01:06]
Russell Berman
A new series, streaming now only on Peacock. Hello, I'm Madame. I'm here with Brianna Wu. And this is was originally supposed to be merely an Uncertain Things episode. My show where we talk to people who are in the epistemic ambiguity of the current moment. But since Jamie Weinstein could not host the Dispatch podcast on this Monday, I also decided to share this with our dispatchers. In case you are interested. You might have grown tired of me because we just released the episode of my interview with Jonathan Greenblatt of the adl. But if you are interested in more conversations, then stick along. Brianna, thank you so much for joining me.
- [02:06]
Brianna Wu
Thank you so much. I'm sorry I stepped on your interview.
- [02:08]
Russell Berman
I don't think I gave you a proper introduction.
- [02:10]
Brianna Wu
How.
- [02:10]
Russell Berman
How do you want to be introduced.
- [02:12]
Brianna Wu
To former Democratic epistemic horror of the moment? That works for me. I'm changing my Twitter title as soon as I get out of here. No, I'm executive director of Rebellion pac, Democratic fundraiser. Lovable gal about town, as I like to say it.
- [02:29]
Russell Berman
And I know that you've been doing a lot of work with Free Press recently as well.
- [02:33]
Brianna Wu
Yes, love them. It's always a great time.
- [02:36]
Russell Berman
Can you give our listeners a quick background of how you found yourself in politics?
- [02:42]
Brianna Wu
Sure. You know, it's so interesting that 10 years ago there was something called Gamergate. I was an independent video game developer working on my own game studio. I just wanted to tell stories where women got to be the hero. Back in 2014, there just were fewer women protagonists. So I hired as many cool women game developers as I could find and we shipped a game that I thought was a really breakthrough piece of design. It was fully animated, women were the main characters. Beautiful hair, rich storytelling, all of that. And we won a bunch of awards as that game was shipping. Gamergate was happening to the game industry. Gamergate was a backlash. It was the way we argue online today with personal destruction and going after women. It really was a cultural flashpool. Like Gamergate was the moment that American politics changed forever. It really was this toxic version of politics where we could no longer talk to each other that permeates everything today. So, so many of the key people from Gamergate, me, Steve Bannon, my Luggianopoulos, Candace Owens, Lauren Southern, I mean, just go through the list. A lot of the major media figures today, like got our start there.
- [04:01]
Russell Berman
Explain it to people who really probably only have heard it as, oh, those kids are arguing online. What were the stakes, how it played into the questions of media ethics? What were the fault lines at that moment?
- [04:12]
Brianna Wu
Well, there was a sense that like the feminists are coming to change the video game industry. And look, in retrospect, they were right 100%. Give them credit for that. You know, the truth is this progressive idea of how to approach inclusion, it did end up corrupting the game industry and a whole lot of other things. What is Amazing to me 10, 11 years later is to look back at Gamergate and to understand in many ways progressives are the villains now. You know, we're the ones sending rape threats and death threats. It's just a JK round. So very disturbing.
- [04:47]
Russell Berman
So, so before we even move forward to when this got you more engaged in politics broadly, I. This is, sounds interesting. You're, you're rushing through this moment because for you, I think this is something that you've was first, I'm sure painful, but second, something that you've, you've processed million bajillion times in your head. But I think it's not that trivial to a lot of people who, who only know you from afar and only heard the shadows of these arguments. It's interesting that you've already processed the idea that to some extent, the anxiety that gamers had that led them to rebel so violently against, quote, unquote, the feminization of the video game industry is something that to some extent you now agree, even though obviously you disagree with the way it was expressed and the violent undertones, or not even undertones, the overt tones that it took at the moment. So can you Explain what were the things that caused that kind of anxiety at the time that. Where you disagreed with them, with the arguments, not with, obviously, the violence and the death threats and the cruelty. And then what changed your mind about this?
- [05:53]
Brianna Wu
Well, Leigh Alexander wrote a really famous piece for Kotaku called Gamers don't have to Be youe Audience. And she was noting the explosion of more casual games, like, you know, a Stardew, Stardew Valley, or, you know, mobile games, Candy Crush and all of that. And she was really saying, like, look, game developers don't have to focus on this traditional audience, very male, very into hardcore games. And, you know, the game industry can change. And I remember thinking at the time, like, wow, that's just. That's stupid. That's ridiculous. You know, and yet the truth is that there has. I think gamers were correct to understand that some of this ideology was, I don't want to say dangerous, because it's not dangerous if a game developer makes Candy Crush, but there was an effort to change their culture. Let me just give you one really good example. A game came out last year called Stellar Blade. Now, look, I'm into men. I am not the target audience for games with extremely sexualized women protagonists. This is not a game for people like me, but this is a game heroine design that only could have been made 10 years ago. And it's just been kind of decided to be put on the wayside. That game sold like crazy last year. There's clearly a massive audience for it, even though, like, the game developers have kind of gone like, oh, no, this is bad. We don't want to do this. So there's like a distance between the political goals of a lot of game developers and what the audience itself is asking for.
- [07:29]
Russell Berman
The backlash from gamers was a sort of gatekeeping sense of, don't touch my toys. Don't take away the thing that I care about and turn it into preachy. Don't try to educate me. I think that for a lot of. For that crowd, that created a sense of rejection of what they started seeing as authoritarianism, right? This is when a lot of people who may not have been as political were captured by the sense of the left is coming for my toys and they're trying to control my life and control my mind. And this is why you get figures like Steve Bannon and Milo Yiannopoulos starting to get popular attention.
- [08:10]
Brianna Wu
They literally. There's a quote from Steve Bannon before Trump got elected in 2016, where he says, look, you bring these young men into the Right through Gamergate or whatever, you radicalize them, you start turning them into the issues, and then you bring them into Trump. And that's exactly how Trump won in 2016. It wasn't just Gamergate. It was a whole host of, hey, they're trying to take away your culture. This is actually remarkably similar to what the right is doing right now with trans women in sports, where it's like, hey, these trans women, they're trying to take away culture better. Look at this. And then it just causes everything to catch on fire. So let me just tell a really quick story on this. You know, when I was growing up in Mississippi, I had an internship in an office. This was Trent Lott's office. Remember, we were looking at some polling that came in one time, and one of the top questions there was, the Democrats are trying to take away our culture. That was one of the things that they were thinking about running the campaign on tested through the roof, sky high. Crazy. So when you make people feel like their culture is under attack, they will rally behind the flag and they will do something about it. That is what, like, this works two ways. Like a. The young men of Gamergate were far too concerned about the number of women in games being hired, going from 5% to 7%. That's just a silly thing to be upset about. At the same time, you know, there was a culture that was changing with all of these progressive politics that were coming in there. I got into Gamergate because I thought women were not being treated fairly with how we were being hired and what the process was for women to have a fair shake to get venture capital to start Game Studio. There is structural discrimination there. That is a real issue. I didn't sign up to usher in some fringe progressive censorship over everything that is said and done. And that, unfortunately, is a lot of the direction that the industry has gone in the last decade. And I think it's really unfortunate, looking back on this, that I played such a part in ushering in a culture I agree with.
- [10:21]
Russell Berman
It's the problem of having this polarized cultural discourse where it becomes, if you want to support getting more women into gaming, then you also have to buy into this entire package of critical theory and completely reimagining the mind of young men.
- [10:43]
Brianna Wu
Yes.
- [10:44]
Russell Berman
Or you are against the, you know, the tyranny over the minds of men, which means that you also are against seeing any progress for women. Or you completely buy into entirely hidebound troglodyte views about gender roles and politics.
- [11:01]
Brianna Wu
Exactly. It's all or nothing thinking and Gamergate was very much the start of that. And you know, as we're saying, like, your original question, how we got on this digression here is, Brianna, like, how did you get into politics? So after this, I ran for Congress. I didn't win, but I did really well. And from there I learned, like, the bread and butter fundraising skills, lobbying skills, compliance skills. I learned how to be a pretty good Democratic operative, which is what I've done for the last decade. And what I've seen in the progressive sphere. I had a really, really, really hard break with them on October 7th after that, because I had been seeing this movement that was cancerous and immature and destructive, and I'd seen it hurt project after project after project in the Democratic Party. I'd seen it lose US Elections up close, and I'd had, like, my severe reservations about it. It's not that I don't agree with the progressive idea. Like, universal healthcare would be a good policy goal to move towards. It's this belief cluster that goes along with it that it's like, oh, if you believe we should have universal health care, then you've got to, like, believe in this reverse hierarchy of oppression where a black, disabled trans woman who's an amputee gets to speak and a white guy is at the bottom and has to shut up all the time and is secretly evil. No, that's not America. That's not democracy. Like, we're moving towards something where we're all equal. And what I found is the distance between what progressivism was fighting for in the policy arena and the outcome of what we were doing in the party was so distanced that I just could not be involved with it anymore before October 7th.
- [12:49]
Russell Berman
Where do you see signs of that, if at all, during your process with the party?
- [12:54]
Brianna Wu
Oh, my God. Left and right. My really first regret with the progressive movement was with the Women's Watch. And, you know, they had a bunch of anti Semites on the board there, you know, talking, basically kicking Sarsau, I think, most notably, yes, 100%, absolutely disgusting. And, you know, I. I want to just be honest. I saw this at the time and I was like, yeah, this is kind of a. I don't know that much about Palestine and Israel. I will just shut up. Because women's rights are important and abortions on the ballot. Let me just go forward. But I remember looking at this and going, holy. This is just flat out anti Semitic. This is worse than anything I saw in Mississippi growing up. What the hell? And I started thinking through, like, all the really Uncomfortable conversations I'd had with people about Israel and Jews and how there really is this permeating belief in progressive circles that Jews run the world, which is just crazy. So, like, there were signs and I just, I went right over them.
- [14:01]
Russell Berman
These were impressions that you were getting earlier. Like when we were talking about the heyday of the Women's March, we were talking about what, 2017, 2018, 100%.
- [14:11]
Brianna Wu
But before that, during Gamergate, a lot of the feminist figures would put things like about Palestine and their, their comments. And you know, again, I just. Palestine is not something I really thought about before October 7th. It just didn't impact my life. It's a part of the world that's been on fire my whole life. And I just tuned it out largely. I was aware of the second Intifada when the peace talks broke up under Bill Clinton, but I just honestly didn't know that much about it. So there's this cancer of antisemitism that is growing in the progressive movement. It's getting louder and bigger and worse. I'm seeing it hurt more things. And then October 7th, and. Oh, Jesus. Like, there's a woman who I went to a conference in, in a city, a major city, I don't want to name her here, Feminist, Feminist conference. And we're up there talking about sexual violence on stage and the importance of standing up. And this is a professor. This is someone that I really liked, I considered a friend I talked to on the phone all the time. And after October 7th, I'm looking at her Twitter and she's talking about how there's no rape and this is actually an act of resistance. I just lose my shit. And I call her up and I'm like, do you not remember how we met? How can you be minimizing this? Like, I thought we were against sexual violence. When does. When do we start giving a thumbs up to, like, rape is a legitimate tactic of a struggle. How dare you say this? And then she starts getting into the really anti Semitic conspiracy theories. Like, it didn't really happen. The Jews are lying about it. It's an IDF plot. It's like I'm just looking at this bizarro thing that I could not have even imagined happening in front of me. And it's like all this evil that I've just been looking past, like, I can't dance past it anymore. It's right there on my friend's face. And this is why I realized I really needed to sit down and start reading about the history of Israel, Palestine, like something was really, really wrong here that I needed to understand. And the more I educated myself, just, I. I came to a point where I had to have a complete break with progressiveness. It's just not a force for good.
- [16:40]
Russell Berman
It's interesting to note you don't come at it as not a Jew, not a latent Jew, even like many progressives who might be. Come from a Jewish family, you have some Jewish background. You don't have a Jewish background.
- [16:51]
Brianna Wu
I'm Presbyterian. I mean, I'm adopted. My mom couldn't be Jewish, but yeah, it's like, it's just not my stuff. Right. I grew up in the church.
- [17:00]
Russell Berman
Right. And I don't think that's a. That's, I think, the surprising thing about your evolution on this particular topic, because I don't think that many people who don't have any kind of affinity to or some sort of Jewish background experience that moment as a breaking point. Because for a lot of people, the Palestinian Israeli conflict is a topic that they feel uncomfortable. Either uncomfortable to have an opinion on, or they default to their natural positions about power relations. And especially when you are embedded in democratic progressive politics where, where certain notions of power are definitive of one side's morality. Right. If you are the powerful player, if you are coded as the power holder in our dynamic, you are ipso facto the oppressor. And it is the only people that I've. Or for the most part, the people that I've seen to have broken out of that mold post October 7th were Jews, which to me, I have to confess, always irked me a little bit from. From. From Jews who. Who were supposedly paying attention to the Palestinian story and turned a blind eye to that. You called it a cancer. I'll just call it this pathology on the left and then suddenly paid attention on October 7th from. From Jewish friends. For somebody who's not Jewish, does not. Did not particularly have any affinity to this story, to that part of the world. To have gone through this process is intriguing. Why do you think this was such a break for you?
- [18:44]
Brianna Wu
Well, it's not like, I mean, I marched with Black Lives Matter, right. Like that mattered to me. I mean, I grew up in Mississippi. Like, I've seen. I've seen like, antisemitism up close. Yeah. I remember when a Jewish person moved into our neighborhood growing up and hearing all my relatives mocking me. Like when I was growing up on Thanksgiving, I didn't even know what a Jew was. I'm sitting there listening to it. I'm like, this is the same way they talk about black people. And it just was like the most evil thing I'd ever heard in my life. So, I mean, it's not like I don't feel solidarity. I mean, I'm a trans woman and I feel like I understand oppression. I think in some point, like we have a responsibility to look out for each other. I think what really got me about this conflict is the stakes, in my view, are insanely high. This is not just about Palestine. Because if you really, really start understanding these forces like this is just looking at from 30,000ft. I think the big conflict in the world right now is the west and democracy versus everything else in the West. And democracy is under attack by strongmen and it's also under attack by Islamism. And I think if you were looking at, you know, this, this theocratic political project that is, you know, led to 9, 11 and led to ISIS and destabilized the Middle east is why, you know, there are rockets firing into Israel nonstop. You've got to understand this political project is also currently destabilizing Australia, is destabilizing the uk And I think it is, as we saw from the post October 7th protests, I think it's destabilizing the United States. I think that that was a non trivial factor in Trump getting elected. So it's not like it is personal for me. Like I care about my Jewish friends and neighbors, but I also understand I've got skin in this game. Democracy is what gave me my civil rights as a trans woman and that is fundamentally under attack here.
- [20:55]
Podcast Host (Ad Reader)
Aura frames are my favorite gift to give. I gave one to my mother several years back and I hear from her on a near daily basis that she loves seeing the pictures that I upload. But more than that, she loves seeing the pictures that her grandkids upload and I get feedback about what she's observing in their everyday lives. What I really love is that Aura Frames comes packaged in a premium gift box with no price tag. It already feels like a thoughtful gift even before they open it. You don't have to wrap a thing and I'm not one for wrapping presents. For a limited time, visit auraframes.com and get $45 off Aura's best selling Carver mat frames named number one by Wirecutter by using promo code dispatch at checkout. That's a U R A frames.com promo code dispatch. This exclusive Black Friday Cyber Monday deal is their best deal of the year. So order now before it ends. Support the show by mentioning us at checkout. Terms and conditions Apply.
- [21:58]
Brianna Wu
This is a real good story about Bronx and his dad Ryan. Real United Airlines customers.
- [22:04]
Russell Berman
We were returning home and one of the flight attendants asked Bronx if he wanted to see the flight deck and meet Captain Andrew.
- [22:10]
Brianna Wu
I got to sit in the driver's seat.
- [22:11]
Russell Berman
I grew up in an aviation family and seeing Bronx kind of reminded me of myself when I was that age.
- [22:17]
Brianna Wu
That's Andrew, a real United pilot. These small interactions can shape a kid's future. It felt like I was the captain.
- [22:24]
Russell Berman
Allowing my son to see the flight deck will stick with us forever. That's how good leads the way.
- [22:29]
Podcast Host (Ad Reader)
Shopping is hard, right? But I found a better way. Stitch fix online Personal styling makes it easy.
- [22:34]
Russell Berman
I just give my stylist my size, style and budget preferences. I order boxes when I want and how I want.
- [22:40]
Podcast Host (Ad Reader)
No subscription required.
- [22:42]
Russell Berman
And he sends just for me pieces plus outfit recommendations and styling tips. I keep what works and send back the rest.
- [22:49]
Podcast Host (Ad Reader)
It's so easy make style easy.
- [22:51]
Russell Berman
Get started today@stitch fix.com Spotify that's stitchfix.com Spotify so that's interesting. I think there's actually a very dispatch ian line about holding the ideal of a liberal democracy and the liberal world order at at the top of your priorities and recognizing that it is being that it's coming under attack. Why was it clear to you that the threat to liberal democracy comes in one direction? Because if Israel is this military superpower who has currently a very right wing government with a very, you could say, I don't want to say intolerant, but the bellicose agenda, how is that not also a source of threat to the stable liberal world order to be aligned with this kind of government?
- [23:42]
Brianna Wu
Well, so boy, I don't want to sum up all the history since 1948 quickly, but I think all of this has been made way too complicated. And respectfully, I think Jews really overcomplicate this story. When you try to educate the public about it, I think you go, well, 1948 and then we had the Suez crisis and then the first Intifada and then the six Day War and the second intifada. And you want to go into each conflict really in a complicated way. This is actually super simple.
- [24:12]
Russell Berman
We like our granularity.
- [24:13]
Brianna Wu
Well, I guess I think it's hard to follow. I think there's a reason I couldn't follow it going up. This is really simple. In 1948 the British overpromised the land to two people. There was a conflict, the Jews won and the Muslims who had kicked the Jews out of every single country for centuries. Really got really angry about that. And in the, what is it, 76 years, they've started six wars and six major conflicts. Israel has, in my view, started zero of them. And Israel's won every single one of those defending themselves. There is a anti semitic political project to destroy Israel and slaughter the Jews there. And Israel is trying to survive. And I really, genuinely think it's that simple.
- [25:02]
Russell Berman
So tell me about the. If you're comfortable about the responses that you got for staking this position after October 7th.
- [25:11]
Brianna Wu
Oh my God, it's been like setting every friendship in my life on fire.
- [25:15]
Russell Berman
Personal friendships.
- [25:16]
Brianna Wu
Personal friendships, relationships. I did the math on it. I've lost over $100,000 of contracts. Like, it's, it's really, really been a major factor in my life. Now I've gone and gotten other work, but there are a lot of people in the Democratic Party that are really, really pissed at me for taking this position. So, you know, it's, it's hard. But, you know, I also think, like, something about my personality is. I'm going to say what I think and I just am not going to sit here and be silent while there's this project that's very obviously anti Semitic that wants to target the rights I need to survive. Like, it's just insane to me.
- [25:58]
Russell Berman
So the, the idea of a complete break with a friendship. And that's why I've said like, personal friendship as opposed to, say, a colleague who you're only united on for the, for the sake of a temporary, expedient political alliance. And then suddenly when you realize that your ideology is break too far apart, you know that the friendship cannot sustain itself. But if it's a personal friendship, if it's somebody that you've actually had in your life, can you tell me about how does this play out? How, how, how does your opinion about some moral issue create a rift in, in a real true bond?
- [26:38]
Brianna Wu
I, I'm gonna tell you. There's a Syrian, half Syrian girl that I was really good friends with, another trans woman. I really, really cared about this woman. Like, I really genuinely cared about her. Talked to her every day, genuinely considered this friend. And I tried as hard as I could every single time it would turn to Israel to go, hold on, let's just not talk about this. You've got your point of view on this, I've got mine. Let's just form our friendship on all this rich ocean of stuff we deeply agree on. I tried so hard to do that. And just for whatever reason, she is so deranged about this Israel issue and thinks every single Jew is a killer and just is frankly an anti Semite. And it just got to the point where that friendship could not go on. That really, really hurt me. And I've got probably 20 or 30 stories exactly like it's. For whatever reason, I don't understand it. There is a derangement and a set of double standards that apply to Jews that don't apply to anyone else. And I just, I think there's a lot of evidence for this. If you look at what's going on with college campuses right now, you've got these lunatics running around, clearly intimidating Jewish students. If anyone was doing this to a black student or a woman or a trans student, they'd be thrown out like that. And just for whatever reason, these people get arrested and the NYPD just sets them loose. I don't know why Jews don't count, but for whatever reason, to a lot of Americans, they don't. And it's just not acceptable to me.
- [28:23]
Russell Berman
I asked this to Jonathan Greenblatt in my talk with him, and I think this is just an inevitable question to grapple with. But you talk about Jews being targeted, and I think that the targeters would argue that they are only looking to exclude Zionists. Right? That the identity that they are tackling is not really. It's not the ethnicity, it's not the religion. It is a political view that they are fighting against. And. And why should they not exclude a political grouping, a view that they consider detrimental, even genocidal, in their minds?
- [29:05]
Brianna Wu
Well, first of all, the alternative to Zionism is a second holocaust. Let's just be clear about that. If Israel doesn't exist at this point, was it 9 million Jews there and probably the 2 million non Jews, they're just dead, right? Ethnically cleansed. They're gone. So if you're not a Zionist, you're in favor of a second holocaust, in my view. So that's the first thing. Secondly, do you think I haven't seen this dance before? Like, I grew up in the 90s, I knew that when people couldn't say the N word, they just moved over to saying thug instead. Like, this is. It's obviously coded language. Like, when I look at my Twitter DMs and I get death threats, it's always Zionists, like, you don't deserve to live. That's how they dehumanize me. Like, it's. It's clearly a political project that's based in anti Semitism. And I think it's just laughable to try to separate those things.
- [30:00]
Russell Berman
And yet you'll have people who self identify as Jews, who lock hands, lock arms with these protesters, with these rioters, and would, would even share the sort of vehemence in, in fighting against the Zionist oppressor, including the individual people carrying a Israel flag on campus. Right. And they will consider, I am a Jew and I have a right to stand up to Israel and the, and the servants of this oppressive regime.
- [30:32]
Brianna Wu
I don't want to psychoanalyze the entire Jewish people, but I would like to make some observations because I've made a lot of friends that are Jewish since October 7th. And you know, let me just back up for a second here. When I came out as a trans woman, my mom disowned like that. It is a pain that is still with me 20 years later. And what I have discovered with a lot of Jewish people is like, your moms are a little inappropriate and they're a little nosy and they ask too many questions, but they're very well meaning. And what I have seen from my position is because you've got these communities that are so tightly knitted, knit, there's a good deal of trauma that I think a lot of Jews are dealing with from growing up with a community that kind of doesn't give you space, where you kind of see the worst of it all the time. And I think there's a desire to distance yourself from that that is manifested in some really unhealthy politics, in my view. So I think it's partially minority stress. And I think. I don't know, I think there's some people, for whatever reason, they see the beauty of this community and just need to define themselves as not it. And I think it's just, frankly, sad.
- [31:52]
Russell Berman
Where do you see the sort of center, And I don't just mean political center between right and left, I mean a core of political energy to defend the sort of liberal values you represent in them, the liberal world, the democratic world, because it's clearly not going to be the political moment on the right that's not. The current government has made it very clear that protecting the liberal world is not in its priorities.
- [32:24]
Brianna Wu
Do you think so? Do you really believe that?
- [32:27]
Russell Berman
I mean, how would you. This is interesting. If. Okay. Do you think that there is potential for the current Trump administration to be a defender of the liberal world? Stalwart defender.
- [32:38]
Brianna Wu
I can tell you I have talked to more people in this administration than I have any Democratic administration. They are very eager for relationships with People on the other side, in my experience, and don't get me wrong, it's not that I disagree with Trump. I worked against him for a reason. I recognize he is a threat to democracy. But I do think that there's a mirror issue with extremism on both sides. And I think that now that the problem on the left is so apparent and the problem on the right is so apparent, I actually think there's a lot of overlap with people in the middle in our ability to talk to each other. You know, Richard Hanania is someone I consider a friend. We don't vote the same way, we don't see the world the same way, but there is a commitment to democracy that he has that the fringe left just simply does not. So I actually think there is a really rich opportunity now for the reasonable people in the middle to talk to each other and move us forward if we can just get past this culture war nonsense that isn't getting anyone the policy they want.
- [33:50]
Russell Berman
But if I read both some of the actions coming out from the Trump administration as well, and that's vis a vis Ukraine, prosecuting enemies while pardoning friends, everything is sending signals of a more transactional, a more thuggish, mafioso approach to politics, which does not seem to primarily or at all prioritize a liberal world.
- [34:20]
Brianna Wu
Trump is terrible. I mean, I fully agree. What I'm saying is Trump may be their president, but he does not represent every single Republican. And I think that there are a lot of opportunities right now for Democrats to work with Republicans. Does that make sense to you?
- [34:37]
Russell Berman
I mean, I hope so. I think so. I don't know if you know the history of the Dispatch, but the Dispatch was founded from disaffected right wing pundits and Republicans, and primarily from the perspective of preserving their view of conservatism, which is really conserving the American mission of classical liberalism and liberal democracy, seeing that as the constitutional commitment to the Constitution and to the American world order, the Pax Americana of post Cold War liberalism. So what I'm saying is that if you talk to my colleagues, you will hear a lot of despair. So, in fact, you are probably the person that I hear the most sense of optimism and potential for new alliances around these shared values. I don't know. I. I try to. I try to watch. I don't have any talent for prognostication, but it is just interesting for me to hear the most optimistic view of our current state coming from somebody who is a. From the left and second, who has been under grueling relentless attack from her own crowd.
- [36:02]
Brianna Wu
Yeah. And the right for years. And from the right.
- [36:05]
Russell Berman
Right, that's after surviving, after surviving a decade of attacks from the right. Turning, turning a page to be. To enjoy the hatred of your own community.
- [36:15]
Brianna Wu
Don't you think that there's a rich constituency in America that's just tired of all this culture war bull? Because I can show you polls all day long that show this is true.
- [36:25]
Russell Berman
What is it? The, the tired majority, the exhausted majority. I, I want to cling to that. I mean, my, on my optimistic days, I tell myself that the, the power of the American constituency to redefine itself and oscillate and even the back and forth between Obama, Trump, Biden, Trump shows, I guess, a vitality of an electorate.
- [36:51]
Brianna Wu
For better or worse.
- [36:52]
Russell Berman
And on my darker days, I think that it will be difficult. It will be difficult, in fact, because the terms of the argument in the culture keep getting more and more aggressive and violent and it becomes, I think, more difficult for people to maintain their quietude and their healthy reticence from politics. And they are dragged into having stronger, harsher, more violent, more violent opinions because they keep thinking that the other side is coming for them. And sometimes the other side is coming for them.
- [37:28]
Brianna Wu
At some point, we're going to have to put down a gun. I mean, that's just the truth of it. At some point, one of us is going to have to put down a gun and try to talk to the other side, and we're going to have to have more tools in our toolbox than just violence and destroying the other side. That's just the truth. And I can tell you, I've been on the front line of this culture war in a way very few people have. It does not get us anywhere. There's no public policy I can point to the Gamergate accomplished, like it's just the way democracy works. And I understand this so clearly now in a way I didn't a decade ago. You're not pushing for some utopian future. You're trying to put together a coalition of people where you can just agree on something that makes it better. And then you take that step and you assess and you do another. They so clearly what America needs right now. Like I'm old enough to remember where goddamn country worked. And it just keeps getting worse and worse with this hyper partisanship. And I just, I, I have to believe that the fever is going to break itself.
- [38:37]
Russell Berman
There's also the, the cyclical effect of you, the view that you're describing, which I would Consider again, very conservative or at least dispatch Ian, in understanding the value of sluggishness, of the government being plotting and not rushing towards remaking the people in a more perfect form. And I think that instinct seems to be either forgotten or at least wearing out on people. And in fact, the energy is increasingly towards wanting to speed up government, letting, you know, move fast and break things.
- [39:17]
Brianna Wu
Well, that may work well for Windows, but I don't think it's going to work work here. I do want to. I think we're taking a turn that really brings us to something I would love to talk about right now, if that's okay. Because I think this feeds really well into this, which is, you know, I'm not just known as someone very dissatisfied with their policy. Post October 7th. I've really become someone who's synonymous with being a critic of our current approach to trans rights. And I think this really ties into the thing that we're talking about here because the dispatch being kind of an old school looking for those conservative values. I want to tell you a story about what's gone wrong with trans rights and why the trans people that are coming out today are so different than I am. So when I transitioned over 20 years ago, we had a document called the Standards of Care. It was written in 1998, and there was a really, really, really long list of stuff I had to go through to transition from male to female. It involved months and months and months of therapy. It involved getting letters, it involved going to an endocrinologist, getting buy in, have tests done, getting second letters written. Before I could start getting surgery, I had to go out and actually hold a job to show that I could thrive in my social role and make friends and not just sit on the Internet all day long. And there was this guy pattern that we went through and it said, look, you're in pain right now. If you go do this thing, we can evaluate you and see if you're ready to go to the next step. And it created a generation of trans women that like, I think I've done pretty well for myself. I've been married to a man monogamously for 17 years. I've run for Congress, I own the house, I'm recording in, got some lovely Porsches. Like, I. I've had a good life. It really set me up for success. This comes into the conservative argument because that document, the Standards of Care, was at its core a conservative document. It was thinking through this and going really slowly with people. And there has been a progressive political project to take that document and tear it to shreds in the name of instant access to all of these medications, which, I want to be clear, will change your body for your entire life and make you dependent on external hormones. I could take you to Planned Parenthood literally right now and get you on antiandrogens that would destroy your testosterone in your testes today. And you would be going down that path because every part of that has been destroyed. And I feel so strongly that this progressive political project in the name of love and acceptance of everyone, it has caused us to embrace a series of extreme medical procedures on people where there is 0,00 evidence it serves them the way it did me. And I think until we can have a real reckoning with all of this, my fear is these nut jobs that are lying about the science are going to make the healthcare for people like me not tenable if we stay on this course.
- [42:46]
Russell Berman
Not tenable because it is leading to a backlash from the right that is now trying to claw away not just back to your view, but 50 years behind and in fact 100%.
- [43:00]
Brianna Wu
But not just that. Like, the science is giving very poor results nowadays because when you get people that are not transsexuals the way that I was like, I responded very, very well to these treatments because I'm the textbook. I'm the thing in the medical textbook. They're not. And they're going out and they're getting on all these extreme hormones. Hormones. And they're having extreme surgeries like vaginoplasty, which is. You don't have your penis after that. You know, it's an extreme surgery. And it's not serving someone when you're.
- [43:34]
Russell Berman
Saying they're not like you in the sense. In the.
- [43:37]
Brianna Wu
They don't meet the clinical criteria.
- [43:39]
Russell Berman
Phenomenologically, they are not. They are not. You would say that they are not trans, that they are.
- [43:45]
Brianna Wu
No, they're not trans. If you go through their case history, they don't meet the DSM standards in the same way. They've got comorbidities. Comorbidities. Autism is something we are not even talking about. There's a massive explosion in trans people with autism. I would estimate it's about a third of us now. It was not that way 20 years ago. They transition for different reasons. They don't experience gender dysphoria in the same way. And maybe transition helps them. Maybe it does. I can't say. But I can't say it doesn't because we don't have any science on any of this. It's so understood.
- [44:20]
Russell Berman
Your view is that this explosion is. Is a form of culturalism, right?
- [44:24]
Brianna Wu
Is is lowered standards where you've got everyone from people with pedestrian gender nonconformity to confused bored teenage girls to fetishistic cross dressers are telling themselves if they just go on hormones, it's going to fix all their problems. And it doesn't. This is extreme health care by any definition. It should really only be held for the people that meet a very high set of clinical criteria. And we've substituted like, this is what really upsets me is the standards of care. The document that outlines our health care has moved from science and things that we know with a reasonable level of certainty to applying all these crazy social theories, like, are you aware of that? With no evidence whatsoever, they are telling people that if they want to have genital nullification, meaning having no genitals or endocrine system at all, that they will go facilitate that medically. There's no study you can point to saying, this is a good idea. When I grew up like the people that wanted to be eunuchs, that was a fetish and it's just been rolled into. Trans healthcare is absolute insanity.
- [45:38]
Russell Berman
How do you explain the gates being flung open this way?
- [45:43]
Brianna Wu
How do I explain the gates being flung open? I think that the activism project has hijacked the healthcare. So there's an organization called wpam, the World Professional Transgender Health Organization. It's been ideologically captured by the French left. Go on Twitter, like, look up who the staff are at wpath and go follow their Twitter. They're communists, they're anti Semites, they're just nuts. They're absolutely crazy. And they are fundamentally not interested in science the same way that other, like, medical healthcare providers are. So I think until we go and really put the science first, I think trans healthcare is going to keep getting weaker and and weaker. And I think people that do not benefit from these procedures are going to get caught up. Every leap in American history has needed breakthrough energy.
- [46:45]
Podcast Host (Ad Reader)
Ignition, liftoff.
- [46:48]
Brianna Wu
Now AI is here and Chevron is working to power it. We're aiming to develop multi gigawatt power plants near data centers designed with future power pathways to lower carbon intensity. AI gets the power it needs, communities get the jobs, and the grid stays strong. Powering AI today builds America's next superpower.
- [47:10]
Podcast Host (Ad Reader)
It's easy to see how payroll and HR tasks can quickly take over your time. I've seen how stressful it can be for small teams without the right tools. And I can only imagine how much Tougher it is for bigger ones. Let's be real. No one launches a business because they're passionate about payroll or tax paperwork. You do it to build something meaningful and take care of your team. That's where Gusto makes all the difference, handling payroll, benefits, and compliance so you can stay focused on what truly matters, growing your business and supporting your people. Gusto is online payroll and benefits software built for small businesses. It's all in one remote, friendly, and incredibly easy to use, so you can pay, hire onboard, and support your team from anywhere. What's really appealing about Gusto is how simple they make everything. Payroll taxes, file automatically, direct deposits, easy. And if you want to offer benefits like health insurance, commuter benefits, or whatever, Gusto has options to fit almost any budget. And here's a big one. Unlimited payroll runs for one monthly price. No hidden fees, no surprises. You know exactly what you're paying for. And that peace of mind really, really matters when you're running a small business. Plus, it's quick and simple to switch to Gusto. Try gusto today@gusto.com dispatch and get three months free when you run your first payroll. That's three months free of payroll@gusto.com dispatch one more time. Gusto.com dispatch.
- [48:40]
Russell Berman
And this is one of the issues that, well, until October 7th probably would get you the most grief, to say the least on social media and in general public discourse. I mean, I guess the fair, the kindest way of thinking about this is probably for a lot of people, this is a very intimate, sensitive issue that raises strong emotions, but then it also creates an environment of heightened emotions, anger, and hyperbole that gets thrown at anybody who stakes a position like yours. Where are the adults who are. Who want to say, you know, we want to help people in need. But helping people requires discernment, and it requires a more careful, qualitative evaluation of people's conditions and what. What could help and figuring out what would help each individual under their conditions. It would not help to just, you know, bring down the lock from the medicine cabinet and say, like, have a free for. All right? And it's. It's. It would be obvious with any kind of other treatment, let alone things that require surgery that, like, that are essentially irreversible and would. Would. Would define your life from here on.
- [50:10]
Brianna Wu
If you're asking, where the adults, where are the adults?
- [50:12]
Russell Berman
We are the adults.
- [50:13]
Brianna Wu
They don't exist. Yeah, I'm just being flat out, like, who are the stakeholders here? You've got HRC ideologically captured. They're pushing for the trans fringe. All this non binary stuff, which we have no evidence for, 100% on board with it. Wpath gone. Like their emails have been leaked through these lawsuits. I encourage people to go read it. It is an organization that is interested in politics and not science in my view. Like seriously, go read it and make your own assessment. That's mine. You know, there are individual health care providers that are good, but you don't have democratic politicians that can just flat out say this. Seth Molden did that in my state, faced a very steep price. So like this is the truth here is we don't have adults running this ship for trans health care.
- [51:05]
Russell Berman
Now I think the reason this is so hard for me to get my head around, even though I've been paying attention to it as an outsider. This is a topic that I've never waded into because it's not my bailiwick. But it blows my mind that something that, you know, I can understand how people take an issue like the Israel Gaza war and turn that into their own proxy narrative. They're playing their video game through the stories of Israel and Palestinians and each player in America can pick their own heroes, their own players, and project whatever narratives they want without having to actually study history, without having to really develop the complicated moral and political historical savvy required to really have a discussion about this topic. Why would they, when they can just cosplay as. As freedom fighters, wear keffiyehs and march on the streets? But with the transgender, I would say.
- [52:07]
Brianna Wu
Transsexual debate, transgender police perceived. Yes.
- [52:10]
Russell Berman
Oh, sorry, Transsexual. Fair point. And actually I want you to clarify this distinction. But, but, but my thinking is that with transsexuals we are talking about people that you meet in your real life. This is not a story that is playing out on your Twitter feeds alone. This is something that can affect people that you know, and especially if this is with a growing social contagion. This is theoretically something that you see more and more of and you have to navigate whether this person that you saw yesterday should actually go through a life altering procedure tomorrow. And this is something that. How could, how could you be bliss about this? How could you be just. Well, I, I guess just like just go for it. Like if you have. I don't understand. It feels like you would have like just being human, seeing other humans making these like difficult decisions. You would have to apply more weight in thinking about this than what seems to be the case with the supposed gate.
- [53:07]
Brianna Wu
But it's been the progressive Political project. Let me give you a really concrete example that maybe can help you do this. So Buck angel is a good friend of mine, and if you talk to Buck angel, it's just clear he should be a duke. He's just got male energy. He's obnoxious in the best way men can be. He's just got dude energy. It was obviously a good call for him to go on testosterone. But it's also just true that we don't know that much scientifically about female to male transsexuals as composed as opposed to people like me. Like, you can go into, you know, 4,000 years ago, you can see my predecessors, like in Rome, like, we are just a phenomena that's been all through human history. Women that want to be men is a much newer phenomenon. We weren't studying this in the 60s, and now it's just been this explosion of them. You know, like, you can go back 10 years ago where it was like one person in seven was a female to male transsexual. Today those ratios are flipped. Like it's absolutely terrifying, like how fast this has exploded. So we, the problem is a healthcare process that was interested in getting those natal women the right kind of healthcare would go, well, let's talk about this. If you want to go on testosterone like Buck angel did, we can talk about that. Like, we will work with that. But we need to be honest with you. We don't know that much about the phenomenon compared to male to female transsexuals. And the surgeries that we have are not as good. And there's a lot of weird complications you need to be aware of. Like you can be in your 20s and incontinent and your organs may fuse together and you may have sepsis and die. Like a, a honest healthcare system would give those patients that information. Instead, what happened is this progressive political project happens where it goes well, Men and women are equal, right? So therefore these two phenomena has got to be the same thing. So if this study is true for the male to females, I'm sure it's fine for the female and males. And so they extrapolate it out.
- [55:26]
Russell Berman
This is crazy because the history of feminist criticism of the medical establishment was that the, that women's health care never got the same kind of attention that male health care does, and many studies only apply to men and therefore put women's health at risk. This is a very smart and longstanding.
- [55:46]
Brianna Wu
Criticism that's really true. I can't believe I've never thought about that. You're Dead on. Yes.
- [55:50]
Russell Berman
Like how, how has it flipped? This, this is, this is, this is mind blowing.
- [55:55]
Brianna Wu
But hasn't flipped, has it? It's health care for poor natal women.
- [55:59]
Russell Berman
So you know, I mean polit, but politically you, this is. So are you basically saying this is the internalized patriarchy of the left?
- [56:09]
Brianna Wu
I'm saying that there is a politics first approach to the science, right? If we were honest, we would tell those natal girls if they want to have be boys, we could say this may work, this may not work for you. We don't really know. We don't really have a criteria to determine who's going to really respond to this. And instead we just said these things are the same. Another one is this non binary political project. We have no evidence. No evidence, no evidence. No evidence that putting these non binary people that in no way qualify for transsexuality. They fundamentally do not meet the diagnosis. There's no study out there that would justify putting them on testosterone or estrogen. But this happens every day to not adults, but children because we do not honestly label these.
- [57:04]
Russell Berman
So how do we, we hear this term a lot non binary. But what I spoke with James Kirchuk several times and he, he is entirely dismissive of the entire category of, of non binary as, as a, as a false concept. But what do you, what do you understand even as non binary? What is this category?
- [57:27]
Brianna Wu
So I think it, it's clearly something like there it goes beyond pedestrian, non gender, non conformity for some of them, for many of them is just pedestrian gender nonconformity. But this again is where if we were treating this seriously, we would be commissioning studies, we would be developing a protocol for it.
- [57:48]
Russell Berman
When you say pedestrian gender nonconformity, you would say just like an effeminate guy.
- [57:52]
Brianna Wu
That effeminate guy, a girl likes to play with Legos, engineers, all that kind of stuff, right?
- [57:58]
Russell Berman
So a tomboy girl, that would be pedestrian gender, non conforming, right.
- [58:04]
Brianna Wu
In my view. Like, look, when I transition, I adhere fairly closely to a typical gender stereotype. I like men, I cook dinner for my husband, love putting on makeup, all that kind of stuff, right? Like that's just my vibe. Like I, I am comfortable with that stuff. There's some natal girls that aren't and that's okay. Like, like I understand, like in the age of Instagram, like there's gotta be a lot of pressure to be perfect. But my point here is not a judgment call on, on non binary. I think something is going on. My point is if you truly value those people, you don't funnel them into a cheap political project that just fits into the progressive narrative. You commission studies, you start developing a protocol to identify them at the clinic, and you start figuring out what helps them with these feelings. Is it testosterone? Is it estrogen? Is it treatment for the ones at autism to help them deal with sensory issues? Is it just helping them accept their gender role? I don't know. And neither does any other doctor. And we need to start being honest about that.
- [59:15]
Russell Berman
Would you mind sharing how you knew that you were trans?
- [59:19]
Brianna Wu
Oh, my God. I've never had a second of doubt in my entire life. You know, it's when I was really, really young, I wondered why I had those parts and started asking my parents when they were going to go away. Wanted to play with girls in kindergarten. And, you know, this was Mississippi in the 80s. And, you know, feminine boys get fairly punished for that. You know, I played dress up in my mom's closet and played with her makeup or high heels, all that kind of stuff, and just, you know, it. That's just what I am. And, you know, I went into a really deep depression. I substance addiction. And life went wildly off course and I finally got the courage to transition. I was actually the first student to ever transition at the University of Mississippi, which is kind of crazy.
- [60:14]
Russell Berman
How did you come upon that as a path, the transition itself?
- [60:19]
Brianna Wu
I mean, I'd been thinking about it my whole life, actually. I can show you. So when I was 12 years old, I was feeling very suicidal. So I knew I was going to die if I didn't figure out what was wrong with me and pedaled down to the University of Mississippi library because they checked the libraries at my school. And this is a book from 1964 called Transsexualism and Sex Reassignment. It's basically a psychological breakdown of what we knew about girls like me in the 60s. And I'm reading it and looking at graphic medical photos of vaginoplasty from that era and kind of horrified me. So that was when I found out what I was.
- [61:06]
Russell Berman
Was there when the idea finally landed that you were going to do it? Were. Was there a lot of hesitation or when it clicked, it clicked?
- [61:19]
Brianna Wu
Well, it's. I knew I probably wanted to transition and I went on estrogen and just bam. It's like my brain had been broken my whole life. I could think clearly, I had emotions. Just wonderful. It was like going from a black and white TV to full HD surround sound in every aspect of my life. And I just knew it was right for me. And went full steam ahead from there and have never regretted it for a second, even though my family disowned me and I ended up homeless. It was the right call.
- [61:55]
Russell Berman
And I'm sure I would have been assumed that without knowing your Twitter feed. But you are concerned about what's happening now from the Trump administration. General Republican motion to completely curtail access.
- [62:13]
Brianna Wu
I mean, there's some stuff that I think is reasonable there. I mean, there are obviously two sexes, Right. And I think anyone that is denying that is just lying. Right? So I don't necessarily have an issue with that. What Trump is doing goes beyond that. It is robbing us of lives of dignity where we can transition and move on with life. You know, he's making it so we cannot use NIH dollars to do any kind of research into transsexual healthcare outcomes. So let's say if you are a parent and your child comes to you and says, I'm non binary, please put me on testosterone. There's no research that's going to happen on that with NIH dollars thanks to Trump, which would probably give us some helpful answers. So it's one of these things where it's. I think parts of it are good because there's clearly a correction that needs to be made. But I would really urge conservatives, like, really think about this. You know, for me, I had a healthcare issue. I went and got health care, and it made my life better. I have paid millions of dollars in taxes throughout my career. I hire people. I am a credit to my community. I participate in our government. I am a good American citizen. That happened because I had a pathway to go have a normal life and move on once I transition. Those are the things that are being taken away by the Trump administration. So you really have to choose, like, do you want a nation of Brianna Woos, or do you want a nation of broken progressive activists that can't leave their house? Because if you take away all the options to normalize this, that's what you're going to end up getting.
- [64:10]
Russell Berman
Brianna, you've been so generous with your time. So before letting you go, I have to ask you my kicker question. For uncertain things. Since this is the double podcast today, what do you say? What would you say is the. The blind spot on the left and what are the blind spots on the right at this particular moment?
- [64:31]
Brianna Wu
I think the blind spot on the left. Do you know what Chesterton's fence is?
- [64:35]
Russell Berman
Oh, yeah.
- [64:36]
Brianna Wu
Okay, so just in case your listeners don't know, there's this. It's a Catholic theologian came up with this. And basically it's like a bunch of people go out into a field and they see a fence that's there. They don't know what it's for, and they tear it down. And it finds ends up that that fence is really, really important. I think that the left, in our rush for things, tends to tear down institutions in the name of progress without asking ourselves if there's value. And I think it's. It's really to our detriment. I think on the right, the really big blind spot that I have is I see as a lack of compassion sometimes. Yeah, I say this as someone that grew up in the right, but I think there's a real sense that you can just tell people to ignore a problem and it will go away. And that's just not the way the real world works. We need conservatives. We need your pragmatism, we need your thoughtfulness. And we need to keep that core focus on our values moving forward. We need you in the mix for solving these very complicated problems that our nation is facing. So I think we're stronger if we do that together. And I hope you'll do that with me.
- [65:53]
Russell Berman
Randall, thank you so much.
- [65:55]
Brianna Wu
Thank. You.
- [66:07]
Russell Berman
It.