The Denial of Reality Is a Powerful Drug (w/ Bret Stephens) - Members Only #334

Summary

Podcast Summary: "The Denial of Reality Is a Powerful Drug" (w/ Bret Stephens) – The Fifth Column, Members Only #334

Date: July 17, 2026
Hosts: Kmele Foster, Michael Moynihan, Matt Welch
Guest: Bret Stephens

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Episode Overview

This engaging, deeply personal Members Only episode features New York Times columnist Bret Stephens joining the Fifth Column hosts for a candid, often hilarious exploration of his family’s fascinating history, political evolution, and cross-cultural experiences. The discussion winds through tales of revolutionary artists, communist parties, brushes with Trotsky, the culture of corruption abroad, and the virtues (and weirdnesses) of American society. Along the way, the group unpacks how upbringing and travel shape beliefs, the value of American contrarianism, and the idiosyncrasies of Europe’s educational and social systems.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Bret Stephens’ Colorful Family Backstory

• Art, Politics, and Scandal: Stephens shares stories of his grandmother, an artist who mingled with historic figures like Trotsky, Diego Rivera, and possibly Frida Kahlo, weaving together family politics, art, and romantic intrigue.
  • "My grandmother knew Trotsky pretty well. And then, of course, when he went to war, my grandmother was cheating on him with Diego Rivera." – Bret Stephens [01:17]
• Naked Portrait Legacy: Stephens describes a “seven or eight-foot starkers portrait” of his grandmother, painted during her wild, artistic 20s.
  • "My kids will be like, oh, that's my great grandmother, the sex pot." – Bret Stephens [02:25]

2. Family Politics and Identity Formation

• Generational Contrasts: Stephens details how his family splintered politically—grandparents mingling with communist circles, yet his grandfather turning “militantly anti-communist,” influenced by an ex-Stalinist composer step-grandfather.
  • "My grandfather was militantly anti communist, but from the left." – Bret Stephens [06:08]
• Mother’s WWII Survival: He tells a harrowing story of his mother, a hidden Jewish child protected in wartime Milan by a wealthy Italian family.
  • "It wasn't like Anne Frank in a tiny little garret. It was in a huge suite of apartments on the equivalent of Fifth Avenue." – Bret Stephens [07:43]

3. First Political Memory: Reagan’s 1980 Victory

• Formative Moment: 7-year-old Stephens, living in Mexico City, recalls his father’s reaction to Reagan’s win:
  • "He said, ‘I think Western civilization was just saved this evening.’" – Bret Stephens [09:23]
• This moment marked the beginning of Stephens’ political consciousness, shaped in part by living as an outsider in a leftist environment.

4. American Contrarianism and Expatriate Insights

• Thinking as an Outsider: The panel discusses how living abroad sharpens appreciation for American freedoms and contrarian values.
  • "You have this contrarianism that kicks in when everyone should have got America appreciate stuff about America that no American stops to think about." – Bret Stephens [10:11]
• Anecdotes of Corruption: Contrasting American rule-of-law with Mexican corruption—“you bribed the cop because... it was the understood thing to do.”
  • "In America is a law abiding country and laws mean something… what a great country. Like, the cops are honest. I don't think Americans stop and think, God, it's amazing. I've never bribed a cop." – Bret Stephens [11:37]

5. European Societal Structures vs. America’s Plural Paths

• Matt Welch’s Experience: Welch shares his frustration with rigid pathways and compulsory service in both journalism and European society, only to find the U.S. comparatively open.
  • "In other countries… there is really only one way to go. Everyone obsesses to get into the one school." – Matt Welch [13:07]
• Stephens’ Take on Social Mobility: He laments that European societies often waste talent due to structural rigidity, as exemplified by a multilingual train bartender in Belgium:
  • "This guy who has like high human potential is serving people beers and coffee on a high speed train. And one of the things that's great about America is that... it's a society that actually allows for late bloomers." – Bret Stephens [15:22]

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Memorable Quotes & Moments

• On Heritage and Art:
  • "Are we recording now?" — Stephens, repeatedly [throughout 01:14–02:00]
  • "Think of Marilyn Monroe, the famous on the pink sheet." — Michael Moynihan [02:55]
• On the Weirdness of Belgium:
  • "The more you dig into Belgium, like, it's like a really sick little horrible place." — Bret Stephens [14:30]
  • "Hey, guys, we have the headline for the episode: A Sick Little Horrible Place." — Moynihan [14:45]
• On European Labor Rigidities:
  • "There was a person who worked [at Liberation] who hadn't filed copy in I think like 20 years and had a desk and would like sleep there and they just couldn't get rid of them." — Moynihan [14:13]
• Family Political Motivation:
  • "She was essentially interested in art and sex. Oh, politics came third. It's just that all the hot guys were mainly commies." — Stephens [05:40]

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Timestamps for Key Segments

• 00:44–03:15: Stephens' family history, Mexico connections, painterly ancestors, Trotsky, Rivera, and Kahlo stories
• 05:03–06:54: Political divides in the family; Communist vs. anti-Communist lineage
• 07:03–08:47: Mother’s WWII hiding story and emigration to America
• 08:47–10:11: Early political memories: Reagan's election, forming an American identity as an expat
• 11:37–12:20: Contrasts between Mexican and American rule of law
• 13:07–13:54: European academic and professional rigidity
• 14:30–15:45: Belgium’s idiosyncrasies and the societal waste of talent; American openness to late-bloomers

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Tone & Style

The tone throughout is self-mocking, irreverent, warm, and occasionally outrageous. The hosts and Stephens riff off each other with half-remembered history, family scandal, and pointed jabs at European and American foibles alike, all delivered in their signature blend of highbrow wit and barroom banter.

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For Listeners Who Missed It

This episode offers rich storytelling, personal confession, and shrewd cultural critique. If you love tales of bohemian great-grandmothers, odd European scandals, or want to appreciate why it’s remarkable that Americans don’t have to bribe police, this is your must-listen Fifth Column entry.

Transcript

[A]

What happened to Megyn Kelly?

[B]

That's a different episode. That's a different episode. And that one's going a very big paywall, because.

[C]

Big, beautiful paywall.

[B]

It's going to be built by Mexican paywall. It's going to be the best paywall

[D]

paid for by Mexicans and also built by Mexican.

[B]

Yeah, because all of our listeners are in Mexico, our Mexican listeners in the paperwork

[A]

we know of new methods of attack. You went to Caracarlo?

[B]

Yes, yeah, I went to the.

[A]

The Trojan Horse chest.

[C]

You?

[B]

Absolutely nothing. Yeah.

[C]

You lived in Mexico because your dad worked for the CIA or what?

[A]

No, I hope not. My.

[D]

That's a yes.

[A]

My grandparents moved to Mexico in the 30s. My father's parents. My grandmother was a painter and was inspired by Mexican art. She went down with husband number one, met my grandfather and dumped husband number one and moved to Mexico.

[D]

Wow. Good for you.

[A]

Yeah.

[B]

And then nothing to do with the killing of Trotsky.

[A]

Well, my grandparents knew Trotsky and were around when he was killed.

[B]

Yeah.

[D]

What do you mean around?

[B]

Yeah, yeah.

[A]

Well, my.

[B]

Sharpening the ice axe.

[A]

Sharpening the ice axe.

[D]

Are we recording now?

[C]

Yes, of course.

[A]

No. My grandmother knew Trotsky pretty well. And then, of course, when he went to war, my grandmother was cheating on him with Diego Rivera.

[B]

Your grandmother was?

[A]

Yes. And so when he came back from war, he learned that his wife had been out and about.

[B]

Really?

[A]

A boot?

[B]

Yeah. Out and about with. Is that right?

[C]

Describe your grandmother's relationship with Frida Kahlo.

[A]

We speculate that there was one. My grandmother was like a super. I have a huge, very well done, Starkers portrait of her at the age of 21 hanging in my living room, which. Are we recording?

[C]

Yes, we are. Yeah. Yeah.

[A]

Oh, I had two nice portraits, actually three nice portraits of her because she was a very beautiful woman. And in her early 20s, she had a number of lovers, one of whom painted her naked. And it's like this seven foot, eight foot portrait.

[D]

You have that?

[A]

Yeah. And the funny thing is, my kids, like, it's not just like a piece of. Like, we don't even look at it. Like, it's just. Well, I mean, I hope not.

[D]

Actually.

[A]

Sometimes guests come to our house and they're like, who's that? And you say, my kids will be like, oh, that's my great grandmother, the sex pot.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

Is it like. I'm trying to say this.

[D]

Just do it.

[C]

Is it like a 70s playboy situation or is it more like a 2000s?

[A]

I would say it's more like a 50s playboy situation I don't really understand.

[D]

Can you just give me, like, Hustler, Penthouse?

[B]

No, no, that's.

[D]

That's.

[B]

But I just want to say, think

[A]

of Marilyn Monroe, the famous on the pink sheet.

[B]

Do we need to continue with the episode when we realize that Brett has a painting of his naked Stalinist grandmother?

[A]

In her defense, she's much more of a Trotskyite.

[B]

She did sleep with Diego, who was a Stalinist.

[A]

No, he was more of a Trotskyite. He was the guy who brought Trotsky to be killed to Mexico. It was Siqueiros adversary who was the Stalinist.

[B]

Yeah.

[A]

Well, are we actually filming?

[C]

Yes, we really are.

[B]

The people we think like this, we're not curious.

[D]

This is actually the best. You can only see one of the

[B]

last paintings that Kahlo produced was a portrait of Stalin. And people didn't realize this. If you look it up, it was right before she died. And then they published her journals, which are the most deranged things, like, up until she died. And there's a lot of illustrations.

[A]

They're wonderful. I have them, and they're all sorts. I mean, I don't have the originals. I wouldn't be hanging out with you.

[B]

Who knows with you, right, Grandmother? Geez. But there's all this, like, poetry about how great Stalin is in the journal.

[A]

Yeah. Well, their politics differed, and so did their romantic interests.

[B]

No, they didn't. They all got together with their grandmother.

[A]

But what's actually quite interesting about it is I'm delving into this history for a variety of reasons, but they were having, like, competing affairs. So while Diego was sleeping with Marian Greenwood, who's actually a significant New York artist once Mexico, she was sleeping with Isamon Noguchi. You've probably, like, encountered a Noguchi table in your life. And there's, like, a whole story about Diego getting. They were setting up a love pad, and Diego somehow got the furniture bill and got wise to the fact that his wife was cheating on him with an American. So apparently came back in a rage, and Diego had to flee by climbing a tree in the courtyard of their home and running away. This is the story as it's told. I don't know if it's true.

[B]

What were the better grandmother's politics? I mean, she'd hang around with tribes.

[A]

My grandmother was a leftish, I would say, like. I mean, she was part in. When she was living in New York, because she grew up in New York, and In the early 30s, she was orphaned early and had money, and her husband was a Kind of a boring lawyer. And she was taking classes at Columbia. And she was part of a group which was a kind of an offshoot of the Communist Party usa. The name of it was like the group to fight Fascism or something like that.

[B]

Front groups.

[A]

But I don't think her politics were the. I mean, she was essentially interested in art and sex. Oh, Politics came third. It's just that all the hot guys were mainly commies.

[B]

We are talking about your grandmother, to be clear. Right. Art and sex were her two main.

[A]

I've written about this before.

[B]

Yeah, okay.

[A]

I'm not shy about discussing this.

[B]

Where did your politics come from? If you come from this illustrious line of commie painters?

[A]

Naked comic. My grandfather was militantly anti communist, but from the left.

[B]

Like a Sidney Hook kind of person?

[A]

No. Yeah, kind of. He was like a Franklin Roosevelt Democrat who after the war became very anti Stalinist. It didn't help that my mother's. My grandmother's next husband after my grandfather was a Stalinist. He was a famous composer named Conlon Nancaro. I don't know if you know like music, but it's sort of an avant garde musician. And so the fact that Conlon was a. Was an out and out Stalinist who had fought in the Abraham Lincoln brigade probably or may have influenced my grandfather's politics. And my dad became kind of a moderate Republican. And I sort of got that sensibility probably from him.

[B]

Wow.

[A]

But, you know, on my mother's side. My mother was a refugee from. She was a hidden child in World War II. So that's another.

[B]

She came what year?

[A]

1950, as part of the Displaced Persons Act.

[B]

Oh, so she was in a DP camp?

[A]

No, she wasn't in a DP camp. But she was a stateless person. So she was a displaced. Her mother had been born in Russia and had fled the Bolsheviks. And then they had fled to Berlin. And after Hitler came to power, they fled again to Italy, just over three. And then they were in hiding during the Mussolini. The late years of the Mussolini period.

[B]

I think you should be a painter. Yeah.

[A]

And then they came to the States. But it's two very different sort of stories.

[B]

But yeah, there's a certain point in Italy where you are no longer welcome. But for a while it was fun.

[A]

But the odd thing is, my mother spent those crucial years as a young child in World War II being protected by a very well to do Italian family. So she was in hiding, but she was. It wasn't like Anne Frank in a tiny little garret. It was in a Huge suite of apartments on the equivalent of Fifth Avenue in Milano, Milan. So her memory at the age of five is running around huge corridors of a well to do Italian family that was sort of untouchable.

[B]

And they why did the family take her in?

[A]

That is a mystery. I do not know. My grandmother had some kind of social connection. I suspect it's because my grandmother's sister married into a very well regarded Catholic Italian family and somehow they were able to obtain fake papers. And all this happened before my mother turned five. So some of these details are unknown to her. And she never thought to ask her mother, you know, when she was a

[B]

young woman, when was the first paper political moment that you remember having yourself?

[A]

Yes, I remember it vividly.

[B]

Do you?

[A]

Yeah, November of 1980. I was. We were living in Mexico City. My dad had sort of inherited his father's business down there. And we were living down there and we were listening because somehow our TV was on the fritz. We were listening to the radio bringing in the announcement the, the election results from like Reagan's landslide victory. And my dad looked at me and I had no idea what he meant, but he said, I think Western civilization was just saved this evening.

[D]

Wow.

[A]

And I was like, well, that, that sounds like a good thing. I mean, you know, what do I know?

[B]

You were eight or something at the time?

[A]

I was seven.

[B]

Seven.

[D]

Wow.

[A]

I was just shy of my seventh birthday, I guess. And. And. But my dad liked to talk about politics. He was very anti communist. And most of the social. Most of my parents, social acquaintances were left wing. Like Mexico was very leftist at the time. Kind of just generally speaking, America's the bad guy and Ronald Reagan's a cowboy. And my dad was pro Reagan, pro America. And I kind of admired his like, contrarianism at least. And he liked to talk about politics and history. And I was a very intent young little listener and. And that's kind of.

[B]

Yeah, it's a thing that happens. I became much more kind of generically pro American when I lived abroad. And I felt like one of the characters in the Whit Stillman movie, Barcelona. If you haven't seen his terrific. The best movie, the best movie about anti Americanism ever, because Whit Stillman lived in Spain and I think was the American spectator writer in Spain for a while. But yeah, that's. You have this contrarianism that kicks in when everyone should have got America appreciate

[A]

stuff about America that no American stops to think about. When we were kids in Mexico, before the age of boiled water, all the water we drank was Excuse me, before the age of bottled water, all the water we drank was boiled. And boiled water tastes gross. And so you come to America, turn on the tap and drink straight from the tap. I thought that was miraculous. There was a moment, I have another distinct memory because in Mexico, if you ever got stopped by a copy of immediately, you bribed the cop because you didn't want, you had to. It wasn't even the hassle, it was the understood thing to do. You got stopped and he got a bribe. That was just standard procedure for everyone. And if you tested that, you'd get into trouble. Right? So at one point we were driving somewhere in Texas and my dad got pulled over speeding or something. And of course there was no question ever of thinking of like bribing a police officer. You'd never do that in a million

[B]

years, right in the backseat, rolling down, then just handy pesos out the window.

[A]

You'd pay the fine. I mean, so the idea is like in America is a law abiding country and laws mean something and people at the sort of fingernails of the law, so to speak, believed in this. And that was. And I just thought, well, what a great country. Like, the cops are honest. I don't think Americans stop and think, God, it's amazing. I've never bribed a cop because I can assure you, whether it's Mexico, Peru, South Africa, you name it, if you get stopped, you're gonna pay a bribe because you don't wanna go through a legal process that could end up with you in like life threatening jeopardy.

[C]

When I was 21, I left America. When I was 21, went to France, left on July 4, 1990, because I was gonna take a stand.

[D]

Traitor.

[B]

It's totally a traitor.

[D]

Wow.

[C]

Two of the things that I was most annoyed with at America at age 21 was obviously the Selective service, which I didn't sign up for. And just the notion that you had to like. It felt like there was one proper way of doing things back in journalism then. Like you had to get the internship here and then do this and do this. There's like the one way to go. And you go to Europe and you spend any time there and you go, oh, right, everyone. All these countries, not only do they have selective service, they have the draft and you've got to serve. This is no longer as true. It's rarely true now, but at the time it was widely true in all of Europe. So, okay.

[B]

And if you didn't want to do the military, this is true in Germany and in Sweden, which got rid of it too was that you would drive old people around from when they needed to go do their shopping.

[C]

Or if you're French and you're elite, you would go to a cheap country and get a job for like Dannon and make a ton of money and have champagne parties all the time and hang out with Stillman movies. So there was like that. And then also you get to realize that in other countries there is. And France is very much like this. There is really only one way to go. Everyone obsesses to get into the one school. It's not like the Ivy League, it's like the Ivy School. And so everyone obsesses. The point of nervous breakdown to get the test to pass to this because it's the only way to really do it. And every French person that you meet in the United States is like, I can actually go to Dallas.

[B]

I remember talking to you, your wife, who at that point worked for Liberation. Yep. The. Was it Jean Paul Sartre that started that newspaper? And there was a person who worked there who hadn't filed copy and I think like 20 years and had a desk and would like sleep there and they just couldn't get rid of them.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

And I was like, well, that's why Europe sucks.

[A]

I can actually think of certain American journalists.

[B]

Yeah. As a New Yorker. Wow. It's just. It's not the government, it's David Remnick. You know,

[A]

I lived in Belgium for a time when I was working for the Wall Street Journal.

[C]

Not a real country. Go.

[A]

Definitely not a real country. And a very perverse country, I might add. The more you dig into Belgium, like, it's like a really sick little horrible place.

[B]

It's a sick little horrible.

[A]

We'll come back to that.

[B]

Hey, guys, we have the headline for the episode.

[A]

A Sick Little horrible place. I'm really getting myself into terrible trouble here. Well, I was. When I moved there, they were finding out, like. Anyway, I'll leave that to one side. The point I was trying to make was they had their own Jeffrey Epstein scandal name. I promise.

[D]

You said you didn't want. You said, I don't want to talk about my entanglement with Jeffrey Epstein right before we started. And here we are.

[B]

Is that the phrasing he used?

[A]

I think that is not the phrase I used. Okay. 100% not. That is fabricated.

[D]

Okay.

[A]

What I was going to say is.

[B]

Much like the Jeffrey Epstein scandal.

[A]

Don't talk about it. The. What I was going to say is I used to take the high speed train off into Paris because of course, I had to get out of Brussels as fast as humanly possible. And the guy who would serve drinks at the bar car spoke like five languages. I mean, sometimes I'd sit there and you just observe him dealing with different customers. And he'd speak fluent English, fluent Flemish, fluent French, German, one other language. And I think this is the problem with Europe, that this guy who has like high human potential is serving people beers and coffee on a high speed train. And one of the things that's great about America is that because we don't have that system where you have to pass the one test, it's a society that actually allows for late bloomers. It's a society that allows for people to kind of figure it out and come into their own.