Lara Bazelon: "What are the repercussions when you speak outside your tribe?"

Summary

Podcast Summary: The Gist

Episode: Lara Bazelon: "What are the repercussions when you speak outside your tribe?"
Host: Mike Pesca (Peach Fish Productions, with guest host Adam Levin introducing)
Date: July 31, 2026
Main Guests: Lara Bazelon, David French
Key Theme: Examining the personal and professional costs of speaking one’s mind outside one's ideological “tribe,” with a focus on free speech, social backlash, and the erosion of civil disagreement.

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Episode Overview

This episode dives into the repercussions faced by public intellectuals, writers, and journalists who express views that diverge from their own ideological communities. The conversation features journalist Lara Bazelon and New York Times columnist David French alongside Mike Pesca. Together, they reflect on personal experiences confronting their “own side,” the nature of online and institutional pushback, and the broader climate of discourse in America. The segment is a special, previously unaired discussion from the now-ended "Not Even Mad" show.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Costs of Crossing Ideological Lines

(Starts around 10:22)

• Lara Bazelon raises the central question: How much do you consider the potential backlash from your own tribe before publishing opinions they may dislike?

  • “I wonder how much both of you think about the repercussions of what you're going to say when you know that what you're going to say in a rather public forum is quote unquote, outside of your own tribe.” (10:22)

• Both David French and Mike Pesca discuss their calculations, or lack thereof, about audience reactions and the toll it takes to maintain integrity.

2. Maintaining Credibility vs. Satisfying the Tribe

(11:50–12:40)

• Mike Pesca: Prioritizes credibility and honesty over appeasing core audience or tribe. He accepts personal and professional cost, referencing his split with Slate as an example.

  • Notable quote: “What I think primarily about is my audience, my podcast audience… I just have to be guided by what I think is the ethical consideration of maintaining my credibility…” (11:50)

• David French: Describes tension between being seen as a “lawyer for the Right” and his self-concept as someone committed to telling the truth, regardless of consequences:

  • “My job isn't to advance the interests of a particular movement… I respect people who are willing to tell hard truths, even to their own tribe. So if that's the kind of person I respect, then I want to be that kind of person as well…” (12:40–14:40)

3. Experiencing Severe Backlash

(15:13–18:07)

• Lara Bazelon: Shares her harshest backlash story—supporting due process protections for those accused in Title IX cases earned her vehement criticism, but she stands by her views.

  • “The most extreme case was in 2018. I wrote an op ed in support of the Trump administration overhauling Title 9 to insert protections for people who are accused rather than having them run out of school with no process…” (15:28)

• She contrasts her role as an advocate (“for someone”) with being a journalist or podcaster, and stresses the importance of intellectual robustness:

  • “If you can't rebut [your real opponents’] arguments, then you're going to lose... maybe the more it infuriates me, the more closely I need to examine it.” (17:10–18:00)

4. Standing Up to Bullies and Intimidation

(18:19–20:47)

• David French: Talks about the extreme intimidation faced by writers and thinkers—harassment, threats, and even attacks targeting family members.
  • “You're not going to persuade me that your cause is righteous when you're photoshopping a picture of my then 7 year old daughter into a gas chamber and putting it on Twitter...” (18:51)
  • French identifies the reliance of the Trumpist wing on “raw intimidation” to force conformity (e.g., threats to election workers, Republican lawmakers fearing for family safety).

5. The Left, Journalism, & The Power Game

(20:59–23:07)

• Mike Pesca: While seeing Trump's movement as more extreme, Pesca expresses disappointment with progressive circles, observing a shift from persuasion and argument to power exercises.
  • “I thought the rules of the game were essentially a persuasion game and an argument game. But then it gets shifted... it really is a power game.” (20:59)
  • Expresses personal “disillusionment” with the journalistic profession, questioning if he would choose that path again.

6. Possibility of Change

(23:07–24:16)

• Lara Bazelon asks what might restore Pesca’s faith in journalism or progressives.
  • Pesca: "If more of the institutions got behind my ideas or rebuked and stood up to, I think a misapplication of the definition [of journalism] in a more consistent way, that would hearten me at least..." (23:16)

7. Emotional & Psychological Realities of Backlash

(24:16–26:26)

• David French: Points out that humans are not made to be hated, and enduring public censure is psychologically harsh.
  • “We were not created to be hated. This is not something that sits with our soul very well at all… It's very hard to go through this stuff.” (24:16–25:00)
• He recommends gaining distance from online culture wars and notes that often backlash is from a vocal minority, not society at large.

8. Meta-Reflection: The Demise of the ‘Not Even Mad’ Show

(27:46–34:30)

• Pesca explains the show’s end: Co-hosts Jamie and Virginia dropped for professional and emotional reasons—intense ideological disagreement proved to be a barrier to sustained friendly conversation.

  • “It has become clear that ideological disagreement is a true enemy of personal bonds. I never thought that it needed to be or was to the extent that it clearly is in America of 2022 and 2023.” (31:39)

• He laments that the ideal of sustained, good-humored cross-partisan banter is far harder to sustain than he hoped.

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Notable Quotes & Moments

| Timestamp | Quote / Moment | Speaker | |-----------|-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------|-------------------| | 10:22 | “I wonder how much both of you think about the repercussions...outside of your own tribe.” | Lara Bazelon | | 12:40 | “My job isn't to advance the interests of a particular movement...my job is to tell the truth.” | David French | | 15:28 | “The most extreme case was in 2018...I spoke up...in favor of them. And the next couple of weeks of my life were rough.” | Lara Bazelon | | 18:51 | “You're not going to persuade me...when you're photoshopping a picture of my then 7 year old daughter into a gas chamber and putting it on Twitter.” | David French | | 20:59 | “It ceased to be about arguments...I thought the rules of the game were essentially a persuasion game and an argument game. But then it gets shifted ...it really is a power game.” | Mike Pesca | | 23:16 | “…if more of the institutions got behind my ideas or rebuked and stood up to…that would hearten me…” | Mike Pesca | | 24:16 | “We were not created to be hated. This is not something that sits with our soul very well at all.” | David French | | 31:39 | “Ideological disagreement is a true enemy of personal bonds. I never thought that it needed to be or was to the extent that it clearly is in America of 2022 and 2023.” | Mike Pesca |

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Important Timestamps

• 10:22 – Bazelon opens the central question about speaking outside the tribe.
• 11:50 – Pesca on his own calculus before publishing controversial opinions.
• 12:40 – French on role identity and honesty.
• 15:28 – Bazelon’s recollection of her most severe backlash.
• 18:19–20:47 – French expounds on intimidation, online bullying, and the Trump movement.
• 20:59 – Pesca critiques contemporary progressive spaces and journalism.
• 23:07 – Bazelon asks about the possibility of restoring faith.
• 24:16 – French on the emotional toll of online hatred and strategies for psychological resilience.
• 27:46 & 31:39 – Pesca explains the ending of "Not Even Mad," reflecting on the challenge of civil cross-ideological dialogue.

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Tone & Language

The discussion is candid, personal, and earnest—tempered by wry humor (especially from Pesca). The guests speak frankly about pain, disillusionment, convictions, and aspirations. Throughout, they avoid inflammatory language, instead using clear, accessible expression and reflecting on their own limits as well as principle.

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Takeaways

• Speaking outside your “ideological tribe” can provoke significant personal and professional consequences—including severe harassment and institutional censure.
• Oddly, standing up for free speech and critical engagement is admired in theory, but punished in practice—often by one’s own community.
• The shrinking space for principled, civil disagreement and varied institutional support has created a climate in which intellectual honesty requires thick skin and sometimes, a willingness to endure isolation or even danger.
• The experiment of sustaining friendly, principled debate across ideological lines faces profound practical and emotional challenges in today’s environment.

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For new listeners:
This episode is a thoughtful, occasionally raw conversation about courage, speech, and the real price of going “off-script” in an age of partisan silos. It provides a grounded, human perspective on issues often discussed in the abstract.

Transcript

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[Adam Levin]

Happy Friday. It's July 31, 2026. From Peachfish Productions, it's the gist. I'm Adam James Levin arity host of Uncertain Things, sitting in for Mike. Today I'm going to play you an episode that was requested by listener Airy. He wanted us to dig out old, not even mad segments. Well, specifically was interested in something that happened in one of the earlier iterations of the show. It's a discussion where the panelists did in fact get rather mad, as did Mike. Now I'm a fan, almost notoriously so, of the art of verbal pugilism. As such, I have not once tried and failed to get under Mike's skin in an argument. It is therefore a unique pleasure to hold this slice of history that shows cracks in the cool facade of Mr. Pesca. This is a discussion where Mike is joined by my dear friend David French, who's also an insufferably cool tempered individual by the way, and the excellent journalist Lara Bazelon. Thank you ERI for this excellent selection. Let's go.

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[Mike Pesca]

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Foreign.

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So who are we? Well, this is where I come to reveal what was strongly hinted at. But I shall tease no longer. We are no more. We are just me, Mike Pesca, the host of the Gist. But no longer. Not even mad. Because there will no longer be a not even mad. At least for the time being, the foreseeable future on this show, the last episode for at least a while, maybe ever. For this show, I will explain why opting for a period of hiatus was chosen. Note the passive voice kind of thrust upon us. And I'll also reflect on what throwing this here race car into neutral says about the specific program. Not even mad, but also the general project that we were after. But today's program is not just me and you. I also bring you an unaired segment that will have great appeal, I believe. Guests Lara Bazelon and David French were on the show, and Lara steered the conversation to the costs of clashing with one's ideological fellows, or at least with one's usual side of the partizan and ideological spectrum. David French is now a columnist for the New York Times. The guy deserves it. He is a survivor of one of those conflicts. I am a different type of tale, as the demise of this very forum attests. And I would admit that I am not as unambiguously successful as David has been. He has a column in the Times. I have a subscription to the Times. But I have to say, and this is not to brag, I do have a four day streak of getting wordle right by line five. So, you know, it's kind of like six of one, half a million of another. David, Lara and I were talking about free expression, the government telling a Colorado web designer she had to take gay weddings as things she designed websites about. Both David and Larry's discomfort with convicting the Oath Keepers for a conspiracy charge when they didn't even take part of the conspiracy. So they came at it from the left and the right and they were really consistent on these issues of free speech. And I recognized as we conducted the conversation that a hallmark, a founding principle of not even mad, was putting aside jettisoning one side and sticking to principles. And these two impress me with their free speech bona fides. And then Lara took the conversation in this direction.

[Lara Bazelon]

So this is a question that I have for both of you, and I feel like it's pertinent because this podcast is called not even Mad and it's supposed to bring together people who agree to disagree harmoniously, which is not. Which is not. David, the experience that you had after your Atlantic piece was published. And Mike, it's not the experience you've had in other contexts in speaking your mind, even in ways that sometimes seem almost ludicrous. Like the recent thing with Adam Davidson. Maybe you can get into that. And I guess, why am I talking about this? I'm talking about it because I wonder how much both of you think about the repercussions of what you're going to say when you know that what you're going to say in a rather public forum is quote unquote, outside of your own tribe. I mean, surely, David, you must have known that this was not going to go down super well, and yet you chose to do it anyway. And I think, Mike, you've repeatedly spoken your mind, probably knowing that people are not always going to be bowled over with joy. And it's a question I ask myself a lot too. And I think we've talked about, we've talked about the importance of free speech and how I think it's a value that the three of us hold very sacred, even though we might define it differently and it has different boundaries for us. But I wonder how much of a calculus goes into the before talking or writing for both of you.

[Mike Pesca]

Well, for me, I think it's very important to maintain my credibility. And what I think primarily about is my audience, my podcast audience. I usually get a sale by people outside that audience, and it really doesn't matter to me. I could take that. Except certainly with the Mastodon case, I could take that. There was one time I couldn't take that because it robbed me of my audience because I was forcibly uncoupled from Slate. But, but I probably, I just have to be guided by what I think is the ethical consideration of maintaining my credibility and very much wanting people to take me seriously on things they agree with. And therefore I have to put out there the things that those of, say, a left or center left ideology might disagree with. And it's not a hard choice for me, although I've been made to pay some hard, big prices. David?

[David French]

Yeah, that's a great question. I'm so glad you asked that question to me. It goes down to sort of who you are, what is your role in this world? Who are you really? And a lot of people who get very, very angry look at someone like me who's a conservative and say, well, your job is to advance the conservative movement, and that will mean the Republican Party in a contested election, or that will mean a conservative. So you are to be, in essence, a lawyer for the right. That is your job. And that is not how I see my job. I see my job as I'm trying to tell the truth as best as I see it. I don't pretend to be omniscient. I'm very flawed and, and, but my job is to tell the truth. My job isn't to advance the interests of a particular movement. And so if I see a news event like the Twitter files, and I think, huh, here's what I legitimately think about it. This is my takeaway from it. I don't think, oh, this is going to really make people mad. Except that I might, might take steps to sort of mitigate the impact of that. Like, okay, I'm just going to put down the Twitter app for a while. I know what's going to happen. Right? But it doesn't change the fundamental, my fundamental job description, which is tell the truth as best as you can see it. And then also I have this view that I don't. I have a hard time trusting somebody based on my experience in this really mixed up ideological time when what even is the conservative movement is up for grabs in a lot of ways. I mean, if you say the word conservative, what does that mean? And that's a lot of people don't even know anymore. I mean, that's up for debate. But if you say, hey, I think this guy, this guy's honest, he tells the truth, he will say things that he believes are true even if it angers his allies, then that's the kind of person that I respect. Right? I respect people are willing to tell hard truths, even to their own tribe. So if that's the kind of person I respect, then I want to be that kind of person as well, because I think that that's the kind of approach that, you know, that we should be respecting. And I want to practice what I preach. So it's, it really is. I try to tell the truth and take steps on mitigating the blowback, but I'm not going to try to mitigate telling the truth as, as best as I see it.

[Mike Pesca]

Indulge me. Lara, have you experienced this? I know that you're a big champion of free speech, but sometimes you, you've written in the Atlantic and you've taken on the aclu, for instance. Is that hard for you to do?

[Lara Bazelon]

That one was less hard than some other op EDS I've written where the punishment online has been worse. The most extreme case was in 2018. I wrote an op ed in support of the Trump administration overhauling Title 9 to insert protections for people who are accused rather than having them run out of school with no process. And I spoke up in favor of them. And the next couple of weeks of my life were kind of rough. I don't regret it at all. I had a point of view that I think was backed by facts and that I stand by. And it's also my experience as an advocate. I think what I maybe envy about both of you is it kind of seems like based on your answers, the two of you have fairly thick hides and that the more personal kinds of assaults, even if they're from people with big followings and big platforms, don't sort of gnaw at you in that same way. I mean, I had some just days where I felt kind of like queasy and David saying, not wanting to pick up my phone, that kind of thing. I guess the way I come at it also is David was talking about this pressure for him to be an advocate for the right and him rejecting that. A lot of my job as a law professor, I'm a clinical law professor, so I train my students, we have real clients, is to actually be an advocate for somebody. But I actually feel like in the advocacy space, it's even more important to engage in debate with the other side. David was saying how much he hated hypotheticals in law school. Me too. But your real opponents are quite real, and if you can't rebut their arguments, then you're going to lose. And in the past couple of years, I've been thinking about it more and more as I have found the media becoming increasingly siloed. And so if you only listen to certain podcasts and certain programs, I almost feel like my brain is softening because I'm just not hearing the other side. And then it just worries me when I have to, for example, go into court and make an argument on behalf of a client that I've not fully taken into account the other side, however much it infuriates me. And in fact, maybe the more it infuriates me, the more closely I need to examine it. And so I actually think that whether you see yourself as a journalist or a podcaster or a truth teller or an advocate, I think in all of those fields and professions, it's sort of equally important to speak your truth or your client's truth or whoever's, but also to be able to metabolize and grapple with the other side. And what worries me about these pylons is that it just discourages people from doing that.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah, yeah. And let me say it's great in your case with your university and the Atlantic and David with the Atlantic and the Dispatch to have the institutional backing that you have.

[David French]

Yeah, well, and another thing, I have a very strong anti bully instinct. And when people start trying to bully me is the moment when it's going to. I'm going to begin to be. All of my moral antenna are going off. Because the instant someone's trying to bully me is the instant they're not trying to convince me they're not Trying to, to appeal to my reason. They're trying to intimidate. And the intimidation efforts have been off the charts. Threats to our lives, bomb threats, you know, attacks on our kids. I mean, just unbelievable stuff. But you're not going to persuade me that your cause is righteous when you're photoshopping a picture of my then 7 year old daughter into a gas chamber and putting it on Twitter. Like you're not, you're not winning me over there and you're not convincing me that I need to join your team. And, and so I think one thing that a lot of folks have only just now become to realize is how much the Trumpist movement relied upon raw intimidation to bring people into line. Because if you had a public voice at all and you oppose Trump going all the way back to 2015 or 2016, almost every single person with a public voice had a story similar to mine. And then we began to see it with the election challenge. How many election workers faced death threats just for doing their job? As Peter, Representative Peter meyer said after January 6th, there are Republicans who wanted to vote to convict Trump, but worried about the safety for their, of their families if they voted to convict Trump. And so it's an absolute imperative to stand up to bullies. Absolute imperative. But you better prepare yourself for it if you're going to do it, because it can get really brutal, it can get very scary. And, but you know, how much better off would we be in the United States of America right now if just a few more Republican senators had stood up to the bullies? Just a few more. Not many more. Just a few more. And, and we would be through this Trump era and we're not. And he might actually become president United States again, which is a chilling thought. So it's hard, it's hard to stand up to intimidation. But unless you do, just look and see who wins.

[Lara Bazelon]

Mike, I know, I know we've been talking for a while, but I wanted to ask you, are you, are you disillusioned with the laughter with progressives in the last few years?

[Mike Pesca]

Well, since you asked. So I don't think what's going on in the left, so called progressives is 100th of what you're talking about, David, which is, we see very clearly. But it is about power. It ceased to be about arguments. And maybe people think it's about bad arguments, but I see that so much of what's going on is about power, exerting power, the powerless or marginalized or historically marginalized communities asserting their power. You could argue it was always ever thus. But you know, I thought that I was, I thought the rules of the game were essentially a persuasion game and an argument game. But then it gets shifted and maybe it won't even be acknowledged, but it really is a power game. I will say, and I haven't said this before, but I've been ruminating on this. What I'm very disillusioned with is journalism. I don't know if at this point in my life I would look back and say I was correct in wanting to become and be a journalist.

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I had a good time for 20

[Mike Pesca]

years, but now as a 50 year old, as I look over the next 10 or 15, I sort of despair for the profession. And I used to say, but that's not journalism, just as David says, You know, I'm not here to speak for conservatism. Or maybe you were saying at times, David, but that's not the real meaning of conservative. And then you kind of, it seems, let it go a little bit and stop debating what conservatism really is. I can no longer say, but that's not journalism. To oppose the like like your sister did and a number of other people in the New York Times, just writing well researched, factual, necessary accounts of hot button issues. That's what journalism is supposed to do. But when the people pushing back on those, the existence of that, they claim the mantle of journalism, I mean, maybe they're right, you know, who am I to say? Who am I to stand on ceremony and say it is this one thing. Maybe the meaning has changed so much. I'm beginning to accept that I no longer really see myself at least in the middle of this profession that used to be a big part of my identity.

[Lara Bazelon]

So what would have to change, do you think? And is it possible for it to change for you to feel differently and sort of re. Embrace your profession? Or is that just not possible?

[Mike Pesca]

I, you know, I could think of some things to happen where it would be a flourishing of what I'm doing in places like, well, people will point to substack or maybe this podcast, I don't know, doubles in listenership, but it just seems a lot easier, like I talk about, well, to put in a sentence, if more of the institutions got behind my ideas or rebuked and stood up to, I think a misapplication of the definition in a more consistent way, that would hearten me at least. And then I would be able to say, okay, at least we know what we're dealing with and at least we know that certain People are going against the traditions and norms of this profession. Right. And so I just think the norms are being redefined. And it's a very. It's upsetting. I don't mean emotionally, but it's. It. It's. The ship is, you know, tilting from left to right, and you don't really know how steady the waters are.

[David French]

I think there's just a lot of fear out there, to be honest, that, you know, they look at what happened, Mike, what happened to you. They've looked at, you know, the various draggings that have occurred, and, you know, we were not created to be hated. This is not something that sits with our soul very well at all. No. And so, you know, to sit there and on the one hand, it's very easy to say, have courage, come forward, say what you think is true and right. But then on the other hand, as I can attest, it is extremely hard to go through this stuff. It's very hard to go through this stuff. And so then people see others go through it and see the cost it imposes on them, and rational human beings will say, no, no, there's another time, another place for me to stand up. It's not this time. It's not this place. And I get it. I get it. But I do think there is a necessity for sort of a psychological break from the online world, which is where so much of this pressure is concentrated, and sort of an understanding that often a lot of these pylons are not even representative of your industry overall. They're representative of a small slice of it, or they're not even representative of. They're not representative of larger movements, but smaller slices and gaining that sort of distance and perspective from the Twitter pylon, even if it's something as short as I'm not even going to look at my Twitter mentions for 72 hours, or I'm going to shut down Twitter for 72 hours and you'll turn it back on and it's like the thing never happened. They're onto something else and they're onto somebody else. So it is, on the one hand, very difficult as a human being to be hated. On the other hand, there is a necessity of being able to stand up anyway and place that hatred in the right kind of mental categories and proceed anyway. And it's just hard. Like, there's no easy way through this thing.

[Mike Pesca]

Lara, thank you for bringing it up. I appreciate it. And David, thank you for your comments, too. That, thank you in the end, is severe. We did not have time to air that on the episode where Lara and David were on in December. But I wanted to air it and so I air it now in this, our valedictory episode. And we will be back in a minute for the final send off. Stick around as we continue to be, or at least I do. Not even mad.

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[Lara Bazelon]

Foreign.

[Mike Pesca]

We're back with Not Even Mad, a show that held the line of ideological fracture for nine entire episodes. So here's the explanation why we are no more Not Even Mad. My original co host, Jamie and Virginia each had different reasons for wanting to end it without speaking for them. I will say that Jamie was very busy. He seemed interested in occasionally continuing, but he really couldn't do so each week. Generally, the motive pundit who holds forth on a political or almost every political and cultural development doesn't really suit the guy's style or his skill set. I mean, he's a person who spent years writing the authoritative book on gay Washington. He just took many months to produce a 9,000 word piece in Air Mail about Army Hammer. Jamie likes to train his aim before firing. Virginia, on the other hand, I would say she just wasn't feeling it. We both knew this enterprise would take time to achieve exit velocity, but you know, it had to be fun along the way. And I think it was hard for Virginia to feel that at the end of every show that we taped, she felt a lot better than when we started. She was definitely getting crap from followers of her substack, people who followed her on Twitter who are saying, you know, you were being restrained in the pushback you were able to meet out, especially to Jamie, sometimes to me, you know, not that she was cowed by this critique, but you consider it, you weigh it, you say, of all the things I do, why might there be one where I can't, you know, give full voice to everything I say? I would say, well, as you know, the show is called not even Mad. It's not called I'm no longer going to put up with your conservative bullshit, but sometimes you just don't want to put up with bullshit, be it conservative or otherwise. Virginia and I and Joel, who is absolutely essential to everything you heard here, Joel Patterson, the producer. But we all piloted. I think it was 14 episodes, 13 episodes. We worked very hard so that when the first show aired, it was professional, it was compelling, it was, you know, certainly a work in progress, but it didn't sound raw or undercooked. Joel was driving the train for all of this in the end, or really just nine episodes. In the beginning, I did think we were on a good trajectory. I think our listenership numbers were good, the feedback was good, the product was good. But if my co panelists disagreed, I can't really say they're wrong. There are the co panelists. They're 2/3 of the show. I thought of our struggles as thorns. A few thorns on a rose bush. I guess my partners thought of it as a briar patch. I do think our cancel Court segment has a real possibility to be very popular. I think our basic premise of disagreement, but with in bonding or the bonds of three people who enjoy each other, that is something I do want to hear. The whole show was always one I would want to hear and hearing from you, the listeners. I know that's true for you too. I have to be honest that right now in America, the entire premise of airing ideologically disparate acquaintances who are engaged in friendly, maybe fun disagreement, that whole idea is a lot harder to execute than I thought it would be. I thought I had identified a market niche. Hey, there are all these great podcasts out there and they all have permanent cast members and the audience bonds to the permanent cast members members and likes their interplay. But they're always agreeing with everything when they're political. It's always a political agreement show. And I love a good disagreement. So let's get the good esprit de corps and marry it to the good disagreements. And we got a hit. I thought the only reason why those shows were done the way they were done is because they maybe emanated from a particular ideological outlet. Or maybe that from the beginning, the participants or the producers of the show didn't really try to challenge themselves, to draw from opposite ideologies. But it has become clear that ideological disagreement is a true enemy of personal bonds. I never thought that it needed to be or was to the extent that it clearly is in America of 2022 and 2023. I actually think that maybe, you know, in 2015 things were different. But that's just reality. You have to accept reality on its own. Terms. So what I'm saying is we don't generally hear friendly banter across ideologies because it generally doesn't happen. I thought it happened more on a personal level and with friend groups, not in front of microphones, but I just don't know how much it really does happen. I do think there's a way for the left ish and the right ish to get along. And I always knew that they couldn't be too far left or too far right. And by the way, too far right I defined as Trump supporting. I just think that that wouldn't work if there was the conservative were mostly a Trump supporter or certainly a Trump apologist. I didn't just default to. Well, the mainstream is whatever each party is putting up and saying he's our standard bearer. But I think what I found out, what we all found out was that even with a left leaning person, a moderate me, a center right panelist, real bonding is hard. That mix of people I think can talk sports. I think they could talk movies. I listened to a great podcast called across the Movie Aisle from the Bulwark that does that movie talk thing really well. It's much harder to accomplish it when the subject is current events. Much harder than I thought. So what could I do? What were my options? Well, I thought maybe I would reach out to guest panelists and have a rotating cast or just different ones every time. Maybe I'd be looking for a permanent set of panelists among the guest panelists. That idea was dubbed in house as left, Right and Pesca. I think left, right and Pesca could work. I do think the effort would be intensive. I do think the idea of a permanent cast that listeners would bond with was always an important part of the conception of not even Man. So I didn't know how the period where we'd be having all different guests would appeal to everyone or would fit with the DNA of the show. I also had to consider the practicalities. There is a cost of doing the show in actual cost and actual money. There's the cost and time and there's a special of the opportunity cost of if I could do this, can I do other things? And so now I shall be dedicating myself to the Pesca profundity substack. This week's entry is comparing substacks ability to inspire passion versus Podcast ability to inspire passion. We have a gist subscription option now available for ad. Free content for just plus content takes a lot of resources. Took a lot in the beginning to set them up. Still is taking many resources. That's very hard to square with everything I had to do with not even Matt. The resources are not limitless, especially when the landscape overall as I've described it ideological non brethren getting along not as promising as I had hoped. That, my friends, my listeners, is my assessment. I am sorry if you feel that we wasted your time either in this show, a lot of blathering today or the previous nine. What the hell was that all about? Sorry if we got your hopes up. I sometimes feel elements of both of those sentiments myself. So we say goodbye and we say for the last time for at least a while. Not Even Mad is a Peach Fish Project. The show is produced by Joel Patterson. The CEO of Peach Fish Projects is Michelle Pesca. Our theme song was by Max Kerman. Thank you, Max. Content designed by Big Yellow Taxi. If you haven't availed yourself of their services, go to their website big yellow taxi.com we're still receiving feedback at not even mad@peachfish projects.com until perhaps next time. We're not necessarily saying we're right. We're definitely not saying you're right. But we are not even mad.

[Kleenex Advertiser]

Do you remember in school when your teacher had a favorite of everything? A favorite marker, a favorite element, and yes, even a favorite student who wasn't me. So let's move on. I want to talk about their real favorite Kleenex tissues. According to teacher lists, Kleenex is the number one facial tissue trusted by teachers. They're silky soft, help prevent skin irritation. And now with Kleenex, Snap and go, you can take them anywhere. Stock up on the ultimate classroom favorite for whatever happens next. Grab Kleenex.