The Ideological Brain with Dr. Leor Zmigrod

Summary

The Gist: Episode Summary – "The Ideological Brain with Dr. Lior Zmigrod"

Released on March 31, 2025, "The Gist" hosted by Mike Pesca delves deep into the complexities of ideological thinking with renowned neuroscientist Dr. Lior Zmigrod. This episode explores the scientific underpinnings of why individuals adopt extreme ideologies and how cognitive flexibility plays a pivotal role in shaping one’s ideological stance.

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Introduction

Mike Pesca opens the episode by touching upon current geopolitical tensions surrounding the United States' interest in Greenland. While this segment provides a backdrop of ideological rigidity in international relations, the core focus swiftly shifts to the psychological exploration of ideologies with Dr. Lior Zmigrod.

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Interview with Dr. Lior Zmigrod

Understanding Ideological Rigidity (00:00 – 06:00)

Dr. Zmigrod introduces her book, The Ideological Brain: The Radical Science of Flexible Thinking. She emphasizes the distinction between rigid and flexible thinking patterns and how they correlate with ideological extremism. Pesca sets the stage by quoting the book's impactful opening:

"People have an ideology as though it were a suitcase or a banana." (00:47)

Cognitive Experiments on Flexibility (06:00 – 11:00)

Dr. Zmigrod discusses her pivotal experiments involving shape and color sorting tasks. Participants first deduce sorting rules based on color, only to have the rules abruptly change to sorting by shape.

• Key Insight: Individuals with strong ideological beliefs tend to resist adapting to new rules, showcasing cognitive rigidity.

"People who are most ideologically rigid about their beliefs also tend to be more cognitively rigid on this kind of game that has nothing to do with politics." (09:32)

Ideology vs. Identity (11:00 – 17:00)

The conversation delves into the relationship between personal identities (like fandoms) and ideologies. Dr. Zmigrod explains that while passionate identities don't inherently equate to rigid ideologies, they can evolve into ideological stances when accompanied by strict doctrines.

"To be a fan is actually a shortened version of fanaticism." (13:41)

The Chicken and Egg Problem: Cause and Effect in Ideological Formation (17:00 – 20:00)

Addressing whether psychological traits determine political beliefs or vice versa, Dr. Zmigrod acknowledges the bidirectional influence.

"It's a really fragile, slippery thing because it's so much easier to actually believe in very black and white ways of thinking about the world." (15:10)

Tolerance of Intolerance and Societal Implications (20:00 – 26:00)

The discussion shifts to societal challenges in addressing extreme ideologies, especially within tolerant frameworks. Dr. Zmigrod references Karl Popper's "paradox of tolerance," highlighting the dangers of allowing intolerant ideologies to flourish under the guise of free speech.

"Ideologies legislate what is permissible and what is forbidden. Unlike culture, which can celebrate eccentricities and reinterpretations, nonconformity is intolerable and total alignment is essential." (16:05)

Strategies for Building Cognitive Flexibility (26:00 – 28:02)

In concluding the interview, Dr. Zmigrod emphasizes individual responsibility in fostering cognitive resilience against dogmatic thinking. She advocates for continuous self-reflection and openness to credible evidence as defenses against ideological rigidity.

"Each person needs to take that responsibility for ourselves and think about how we lead a life that's more flexible." (28:02)

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Case Study: Judge Boasberg and Ideological Bias

Analyzing Judicial Decisions (28:10 – 32:02)

Post-interview, Mike Pesca transitions into a critical analysis of Judge James Boasberg's rulings on President Trump's deportation efforts to El Salvador. Citing critiques from conservative commentators like Julie Kelly, Pesca examines allegations of bias and inconsistency in Boasberg's judicial conduct.

Key Points:

• Judge's Rulings: Boasberg's sentencing of non-violent offenders, including a man with cancer and a 60-year-old woman, sparked accusations of leniency influenced by personal sympathies.

• Contradictions Highlighted: Pesca underscores the disparity between Boasberg's treatment of Venezuelan deportees versus January 6th rioters, questioning the underlying ideological motivations.

• Legal Counterarguments: Despite criticisms, Pesca defends Boasberg by clarifying that sentencing decisions were legally grounded, with appeals and judicial oversight addressing perceived leniencies.

"The law is the law. And if Boasberg isn't following the law, that can be appealed." (30:26)

Conclusion of Case Analysis (32:02 – End)

Pesca reinforces the importance of relying on accurate legal interpretations rather than partisan narratives. He cautions listeners to critically assess information before forming judgments about judicial impartiality.

"Just know that you're not actually being given all the accurate information that you need to make your decision in good faith." (31:09)

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Closing Remarks

As the episode wraps up, Pesca reflects on the interplay between societal stressors—like political turmoil and pandemics—and the increasing ideological rigidity observed both in individuals and institutions. He ties back to Dr. Zmigrod's insights, emphasizing the pressing need for cognitive flexibility in navigating a polarized world.

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Notable Quotes:

• "People who are most ideologically rigid about their beliefs also tend to be more cognitively rigid on this kind of game that has nothing to do with politics." – Lior Zmigrod (09:32)

• "To be a fan is actually a shortened version of fanaticism." – Lior Zmigrod (13:41)

• "The law is the law. And if Boasberg isn't following the law, that can be appealed." – Mike Pesca (30:26)

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Conclusion

This episode of "The Gist" offers a profound exploration of the neurological and psychological factors that underpin ideological steadfastness. Through Dr. Lior Zmigrod's expert analysis and Pesca's critical commentary, listeners gain valuable insights into fostering a more flexible and resilient mindset in an increasingly polarized society.

Transcript

[Mike Pesca]

Hilarity will ensue for the second season of Funny you Should mention debuting both in this here channel on the gist and as its own feed on Funny youy Should mention. Funny, you should mention Season two features my conversations with such comedians as Rose Bud Baker, Michelle Buteau, Alex Edelman, TJ Miller. Where we sit down and I ask them, do you really believe that? Is that why you said it? Is it the funniest way to say it? Is it the truest way to say it? Sometimes we describe it as unpacking the profundities and punchlines. Yeah, I know that's alliterative. But what I'm trying to get at is comedians are like the modern philosophers of our time. So I asked them about their philosophy. Funny you should mention Like I said has its own feed. Subscribing there will give you bonus materials and make sure you never miss an episode or every other week in the gist starting on April 4th. It's Monday, March 31st, 2020 25. From Pitch Fish Productions, it's the Gist. I'm Mike Pesca on Greenland. A crazy amount of credence has been spent giving ballast and substance to the idea that the US should acquire it by if not enticement, then threat or menace. It is the menace part I can't stand. And the people in Greenland are genuinely worried. ABC interviewed a local journalist. People are afraid here in Greenland. And I, as I talk to people, people are actually sleepless about this. Is he going to strangle us economically? Is he going to put troops on the ground? Trump, of course, won't rule it out. But stop. Forget it being wrong. I mean morally wrong, probably strategically wrong. Why are we even contemplating this? If ever a situation called out for a non military solution, the cost of invading or waging war on Greenland or Denmark overall is a lot more money than simply buying off the Greenlanders. There's 50,000 of them. Half a million each gets it done for 25 billion. And that's if you get 100% approval. Well, you could say we'll give you all half a billion each if the majority vote for becoming a United States territory colony. Whatever. It's quite an inducement. I'd do it if I was Greenlandish, you know. And 25 billion to the US federal government. It's really nothing. USAID not that got cut $50 billion. We can restore half of USAID funding and still buy Greenland. Come on. If ever a case for bribery or incentivization existed, this is it. I call it the Clayton Doctrine. You Remember the best line from the movie Michael Clayton I'm not the guy that you kill, I'm the guy that you buy exactly in hello Greenland. On the show today a big spiel about a medium sized lie to smear Judge Boasberg. But first I guess a through line to everything we're talking about today, and maybe even this year, is extreme ideologies. Why do people think the way they think? Good question. Here with some answers is Dr. Lior Zmigrod. Her book is called the Ideological Brain. If you buy it in the UK they will tell you that the book is about exploring the science of susceptible minds. Here in the United States, little more of a self help sheen. The book is called the Ideological Brain, the Radical Science of Flexible Thinking. You don't want to be so flexible as to be say a neo Nazi. Dr. Liora Zmigrod runs the hard science and has some great theories which we shall discuss next.

[Lior Zmigrod]

Them.

[Mike Pesca]

Hi, I'm here to talk about True Work. True Work is hell bent on creating the most technical high performance workwear in the world. Don't let that intimidate you. Do let it intimidate the elements. But True Work is a coherent story that begins in the Colorado mountains. A trade worker said, I'm not going to wear jeans to do this work. I am not going to wear material that gets wet and bogged down. It's engineered for maximum comfort and efficiency, but I wear it casually all the time, and I mean all the time. I wear the jacket, I wear the pants, which is a nice rust color. Yellow has a lot of pockets. It is soft, it is stretchy, it is sweat wicking. And people who wear True Work love true work. Over 50,000 5 star reviews and countless stories from trade pros in every state and in every job across the country. Even actuarial accounting, I assume. It does look good. Check out the full lineup and get 15% off your first [e-mail] the gist that's 15% off at t r u e w e r k.com the gist we say people have an ideology as though it were a suitcase or a banana is a great first sentence in the new book by Lior Zmigrod, the Ideological Brain, the Radical Science of Flexible Thinking. It's such a good first sentence because of the choice of banana and suitcase among all the stagnant objects she could have chosen. She chose those and they resonate. And as I'm reading the book, I'm saying she knows what she's doing. She's a neuroscientist. She's operating on me. She's convincing me that she's right. But this is an excellent new book about ideologies, how we get them, if we can ever get out of them. Liora's Migrod, welcome to the gist.

[Julie Kelly]

Thank you. It's wonderful to be here.

[Mike Pesca]

So I like the book on a. I really like the book on a philosophical level, as if all you had done is study the texts of ideology and Hannah Arendt and Marx and Engels. But what you really do, that's extra and a bonus as you do experiments. How does one begin to conduct an experiment that gets at how we hold on to ideology?

[Julie Kelly]

So what I'm really interested in and what my experiments have always been about is to look at the connection between our psychological and mental habits, how we perceive the world, how we act on the world just in our everyday lives, and see how that connects to our brains, to kind of our political preferences, to our ideologies, to how passionately we hold them. And, you know, we're often very obsessed with whether people fall on the left of the political spectrum or the right. But I'm interested in ideologies in whatever form they take and how people passionately hold onto them.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah. So, great experiment. I didn't even know where it was going. That you describe is with shapes and colors. Could you describe that experiment and what you're getting at with that?

[Julie Kelly]

Yeah. One of the experiments that I conducted with hundreds of participants is where we invite them to complete this kind of cognitive task. It looks like a game where people are asked to sort cards according to some color. So to. According to some rule. And maybe at the beginning, that rule is a color where you don't tell.

[Mike Pesca]

Them what the rule is. No, that's the point of the game.

[Julie Kelly]

Yeah, that's right.

[Mike Pesca]

They kind of figure out the rule. Right.

[Julie Kelly]

Precisely through trial and error, they kind of figure out a rule, and then they get rewarded every time they follow the rule. So then they kind of learn to enact it as though it's a habit. And so they're doing it. They're playing the game. They're kind of sorting cards.

[Mike Pesca]

So to interrupt, there is a card, and it's a green triangle.

[Julie Kelly]

Exactly.

[Mike Pesca]

And you ask them, okay, what does this go with exactly? Well, it could either go with triangles or green or maybe something else. There's two green triangles, maybe to go with some other shapes that are too. So they'll. They'll make a choice and they'll be told correct or incorrect. Correct or incorrect. And pretty soon they figure out, I don't know, maybe you change the game around that all that matters is the color green on green, and that's the game. And they're figuring out the game. And then at some point you change the rules of the game, right? And they get a green square. I'm like, I know this green. I'm putting it on the green. And they're wrong. Like, what is going on? And it turns out mid game, oh, my God, now it's like something about squares. So continue.

[Julie Kelly]

Exactly. And then what I'm interested in is that moment of change when suddenly the rules change and how people adapt to them. Do they then go, okay, well, let me look at how I should change my behavior? Or do they say, no, let me stick to what I already know and I'll try that again? And what we see is that there really is a big difference between how people approach this. Some people, they see a new rule that they see that they need to change their behavior. They change their behavior. They figure out, maybe now I need to match the card according to the shape on them. Okay, they're starting to match, you know, circles to circles, squares to squares. Whereas other people really resist the change. They're like, nope, I'm going to keep on trying that color scheme, that color rule. And they keep on doing that despite the fact that they keep on getting wrong. Like a beep. No, you're getting the answer wrong. So that is a great way for us to measure who is a cognitively flexible, adaptable person and who is rigid and inflexible and tends to kind of really deny change when it comes about.

[Mike Pesca]

Right. So I get that that's a. That's a very good analogy. But how well does it map on to the actual ideology of the participants? Do you find that, I don't know if you ever had an ISIS member play the game, but that this guy is going to just stick with his green circles or. So the question is, are people who are, by whatever metrics you have, more rigid, ideologically worse at the game? You find that.

[Julie Kelly]

Exactly. So what we find is that the people who are most ideologically rigid about their beliefs also tend to be more cognitively rigid on this kind of game that has nothing to do with politics. So we're starting to see how a person's cognitive style in how they approach any information in the world, any problem in the world, can foreshadow how extreme they are. And that can be the political extremes. We see that people who are both extreme on the political right and on the political left tend to be the most cognitively rigid on these kind of tasks. And people who are more independent, have looser kind of affiliations, tend to be the most cognitively flexible. And this is also true about people's affiliations with other social, religious ideologies too.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah. So I. We should congratulate myself. I know I do all the time on my. My non. Rigidity, my flexibility, my malleability. There are several synonyms I could throw at you. But you know, you also write about in the book how Hannah Arendt was talking about. Was it Eichmann who she described as essentially having an empty vessel of a brain and you could put any strong idea in there and then he would go along with that. And there are some critiques. But I want to know about are the people who are so ideologically flexible that they don't have an ideology at all? This could be a bad thing. They just might not have a coherent worldview. Are they actually worse at the game? They get the rule later than the ideologically rigid people.

[Julie Kelly]

So what we actually find is that the people who are most committed to an ideology, who are most rigid about it, tend to perform worse on the game. People who have less of an affiliation are actually doing quite well because they tend to be able to see the world in a very flexible, nuanced way. They're not sticking to kind of rigid black and white binary ways of thinking. But it's interesting what you're mentioning about what happens to the people who are kind of nowhere to be found or like.

[Mike Pesca]

I don't know, I believe.

[Julie Kelly]

Yeah, exactly. And they're hard to pin down because they could be anywhere. They could be actually highly flexible people or they might just be misinformed or badly informed or have less engagement with the political world.

[Mike Pesca]

You talk about identities how. And the difference between identities and philosophies or identities and doctrine. And there are example with people with somewhat rigid, rigid or clearly defined identities, like a huge fan of a sports team or someone in, you know, some fan community, some huge, you know, believable Justin Bieber fan. I guess Taylor Swift is like that too. Is it possible though, to have rigid identities without rigid doctrines? Do they or do they tend to go together over time that we're going to find that that fantastic San Francisco Giants fan or Taylor Swift fan is more likely to have a rigid doctrine?

[Julie Kelly]

Yeah, it's so interesting because when I've thought about ideologies and kind of subjected them to experiments, what I've seen is that Often to be fully ideological, you need to have both a rigid doctrine about the world that you have, like these absolutist description of how the world is, and they're really resistant to any evidence. And you have this rigid identity. So everybody falls into categories of a believer or a non believer for you. And there are instances of people who, like you say, maybe just have a really passionate identity and don't really have a doctrine. And the reverse were people who really believe in the doctrine really passionately, but don't really follow social identity groups. But often we do see that those can tip into ideological ways of thinking. Right. If you're a really passionate sports fan, you have that identity, that kind of sense of belonging with a group, but then suddenly you start really evangelizing it to others. You start deciding that this, despite all evidence, this group is superior to all other groups. And you're really starting to analyze the world in a way that resists any evidence. Then maybe you're starting to tip into something that looks ideological.

[Mike Pesca]

Is it because the appeal of both an ideology and fandom hit upon certain either pleasure centers of the brain or probably certain truths about us as cultural creatures?

[Julie Kelly]

Interesting. I mean, it's actually funny that you mentioned fandom because. Right. The word to be a fan is actually a shortened version of fanaticism. So we often forget that. And it is true that being immersed in these kind of passionate ideological groups is just incredibly rewarding for our brains because it gives us a sense of connection with people. It also gives us a way to explain the world. Right. Like our brains are constantly out there trying to understand reality. And this ideologies are these great frameworks, these great narratives that help us understand the world and that give us that kind of those pleasurable rituals and kind of habits that we can engage in with others.

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah. John Dryden once said, first we make our habits, then they make us. Is that actually the causal link?

[Julie Kelly]

I like that. This is a kind of chicken and egg problem. Right?

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah. Right. Which. That's a whole chapter in your book.

[Julie Kelly]

Yeah, that's right. That is it that we have certain psychological traits that mean that we gravitate towards certain habits, political habits, ideolog habits. Or do our habits make us. How are our bodies and brains changed by performing these habits again and again?

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah. Well, I would say, you know, smoking gives us cancer, but there's probably something about ourselves, and I don't want to be too metaphorical, but maybe a cancer within ourselves that draws us at this point to the cigarette, which we should know. A Lot about.

[Julie Kelly]

Yeah, it's this kind of two way street and we say it's a chicken egg problem kind of. Does our psychology determine our politics or does our politics determine our personality? And it probably goes both ways.

[Mike Pesca]

Isn't it funny, the total aside that the chicken and egg problem, the eternal conundrum. It's not a conundrum. I mean, everyone knows that every chicken came from an egg, but somewhere inside the egg, the chicken was perhaps evolved a little bit differently from the mother chicken. It's just a weird one that we keep going to since there is an.

[Julie Kelly]

Answer, you know, I agree, I agree.

[Mike Pesca]

It's not like angels on the head of the pin or making a rock that God himself can't lift. All right. You also talk about the ideology, the difference between ideology and culture. I'll read some of the. The book for everyone. I'm sure you have it memorized. Ideologies legislate what is permissible and what is forbidden. Unlike culture, which can celebrate eccentricities and reinterpretations and ideology, nonconformity is intolerable and total alignment is essential. Okay, so on that last part, what about ideologies that call themselves or are in fact pluralistic and open and accepting? Are they really ideologies?

[Julie Kelly]

I often think that ideologies do tend to talk about themselves as ideologies of virtue and freedom and openness, but that language can be very misleading sometimes. It's true that there's a kind of philosophical approach behind it that tries to promote plurality of thinking, like a kind of anti dogma way of thinking. But so often so many ideologies that even if they claim that they're there to talk about, to evangelize freedom for everyone, the second that you get these really strict rules for how you ought to behave and these really harsh moralities for who is good and who is bad, often it tips into an ideology that's no longer about freedom.

[Mike Pesca]

Right, right. Like there's the heterodox community, which I never really identified with, because even though there's a lot of good ideas there, first of all, calling yourself the heterodox community. But second of all, there's a dox in the heterodox. It's just a different docs. Like it's not like, it's not like if you've got the heterodox people altogether, they'd be entirely randomly distributed across the ideological range. I mean, they all, not all, but almost all of them think almost all the same things about all the big issues.

[Julie Kelly]

It's funny yeah, because the second that you're trying to make a really kind of conformity oriented collective, it stops being about plurality. And the second that you have a dogma that everyone should kind of believe in and buy into, you're, you're starting to be dogmatic despite your best intentions.

[Mike Pesca]

What do you think can be done about ideologies that are not functional or not adaptable for a society? So I don't even say good or bad ideologies because you know, one society has power. There's a lot of subjectivities. But let's say a Western society has determined that Islamic fundamentalism or Islamicism is not compatible with its society. Americans and Americans look at ISIS and we say that's bad the west, so so does the uk. What could be done about that? What kind of retraining can be done? Or do you have to know what you're talking about beforehand and get them before the ideology takes hold?

[Julie Kelly]

Yeah, and I think what you're alluding to is to some extent that kind of tolerance of intolerance. Right. Like if we have these really open societies and we say we're tolerant of everything, but then within those societies there are very intolerant forces.

[Mike Pesca]

That's the tolerance paradox.

[Julie Kelly]

Exactly. Karl Popper talked about that a lot. And so what do we do? I mean, some people have kind of very big kind of solutions about how society should operate or shouldn't operate. What I'm interested in is the individual. What can an individual do to build a kind of resilience against, against that dogmatic way of thinking, against that rigid thinking that tries to often kind of lure us in. And I think that one of these things that we can all try to do is to think about what it means to be flexible and kind of open and receptive to evidence, to credible evidence when we see it, and to make our judgments kind of according to that. Obviously I'm not giving any prescriptions because the second I'm going to tell you here are these rules for living. This will become an ideology. And that's totally not the point. Right. The point is to think well, how can we be the most flexible, evidence receptive thinkers that are almost thinking in an anti ideological way so that we don't tolerate intolerances that, you know, try to seduce us in a way.

[Mike Pesca]

But you, I don't even mean one, I mean, you lior can't be so allergic to ideologies that it infringes upon the force and depth of your ideas, right?

[Julie Kelly]

What do you mean?

[Mike Pesca]

Like you have, you've done all this research, you have all these thoughts. If you express the thoughts with great vigor and if you have a strong belief in your thoughts, do you say to yourself, ooh, I'm being too ideological and dogmatic here?

[Julie Kelly]

Well, you always have to be very careful because you know, to be flexible is not this like end goal that you've reached and that's it. Like flexibility is this really fragile, slippery thing because it's so much easier to actually believe in very black and white ways of thinking about the world and binary ways of thinking about the world and just subscribe to some narrative about how the world works rather than figure it out all on your own. So to continuously be flexible is this really challenging thing. And obviously something that I think each person needs to be self reflective about almost every day. Right. Am I just accepting things because it's the easy way out or can I find the nuances? Can I find whether my beliefs are really grounded in evidence?

[Mike Pesca]

Is it even a good thing though? I'm just thinking about the act of creation to be impassioned, to be very excited for your ideas, not to be closed out. Everyone should always stress test their ideas. But when we think about ideologies, communism, Marx and Engels, Hegel, let's take Marx and Engels. Would it, would the world be a better place if they didn't believe in their ideas as fully as they did?

[Julie Kelly]

That's a kind of a question. I don't know if it's for historians or philosophers or you know, for, for people who look at it from the side, very big.

[Mike Pesca]

Asking you as a neurologist who does colored squiggle shape tests, please rewrite communism. You know something?

[Julie Kelly]

Yeah, I mean, I think that often we say, well, for social progress, maybe we need ideologies. Right? Maybe just like in order for change to happen, we need people to rally together really passionately around the cause. And that's what we need in order for progress.

[Mike Pesca]

Well, I would just say like what we need is the strong expression of an eye of ideas. Let's have the ideas as presented as strongly as possible. And then the receiver has to have these traits and these skills to be flexible enough to judge them. So I think that's maybe closer to the ideal than the actual people composing the ideas should essentially be bargaining with themselves.

[Julie Kelly]

Yeah, I guess it's not a question of whether a particular person. It's kind of the difference between a follower and a creator of an ideology. Right. Maybe the creators need to convey with a certain passion. But then followers each need to Judge what kind of level of passion, commitment, intensity, extremity they're going to go for?

[Mike Pesca]

Yeah, maybe. As I was reading your book, and I know you talk a lot about many different kinds of ideologies, and Hannah Arendt is in in it throughout, and there are mentions to ISIS and Islamic philosophies, I kept thinking about what's going on in the United States and the ideology around Donald Trump. And so it does seem to me, and the book addresses this, that what is happening is less an ideology, a set of beliefs, and more of a set of beliefs that's crafted around whatever a thinker says. So the classic example would be conservatism in the United States was always extremely wary of the Soviets and then the Russians, and then Donald Trump comes along, recrafts things, and the ideology totally shifts. And now they're much more open to Russians than they had been for their whole careers or, sorry, their whole lives. Is this consistent with what we know about ideology? Or is what is what's going on there the phenomenon, not an ideological one, something else called a personality?

[Julie Kelly]

I think it is a cult of personality, for sure. And we often all are very attracted to these cults of personalities, these idols, gurus, whether that's in the political sphere or in the wellness sphere or in kind of any realm of life. And it's interesting because, as you say, there are massive changes in what, for instance, quote, unquote, conservatism means. Typically, it's been about caution, about taking things slowly, in many ways, about traditions not revising kind of the status quo very quickly. And what's happening now is almost the opposite of that. It's a quick kind of upending of status quo, changing the rules of the games. And so is it. Yeah, I think you might be right that it's to some extent not a classically ideological phenomenon, but it is possible to happen because there are these kind of ideological currents in there that enable these people to feel like they have the support, the endorsement to act in these ways.

[Mike Pesca]

Do more rigid ideologies take hold when times are tougher, when we as animals are more in extremis?

[Julie Kelly]

That's right. What we see in a bunch of experiments is that when we make the body stressed, when we even physically stress it out, our thoughts immediately narrow, we immediately rigidify. And so even in larger kind of states of stress, of adversity, of a kind of resource scarcity, we see that the body, the brain, really rigidifies and becomes more discriminatory and more ideological as a result.

[Mike Pesca]

So that's interesting. So in my profession in journalism, it got more ideological, more explicitly ideological, a jettisoning of the ideal of being open to differing ideas. And that happened exactly as the pressures on society and the Trump administration and the COVID shutdown happened. So what you're saying describes what was going on there. Sometimes I wonder is, well, the world is putting us under more stress, so therefore we're getting more ideologically rigid. Or is it that the information systems that we interact with, you know, social media, makes us think that the world is more stressful? Either way, we're getting more ideologically rigid.

[Julie Kelly]

Yeah, that's right. And the more that it feels like there is scarcity in the world, there aren't enough resources to go around, the more we see in experiments that people really become more hostile to other groups, they become more racist in how they evaluate other people. And so we really have to be careful both about the rhetoric of scarcity. Right. That how that operates politically when people are telling us there aren't enough resources to go around, that already makes us like, puts us in this frame of mind that's very prone to ideologies and ideological solutions.

[Mike Pesca]

So the requirement of all books of this sort, where a brilliant scientist presents their findings, and it's also interesting, the requirement is the last chapter is. And what's to be done about this? I kind of hate that chapter in most books, but yours was kind of interesting. What's to be done about this?

[Julie Kelly]

For me, what I think is to be done is for each individual to kind of develop their own resilience. And by looking at this research that shows all these traits that on one hand, can make us vulnerable to extreme ideologies, but also give us clues for what traits make us invulnerable, that make us resilient and stronger in the face of authoritarian ideologies, we can figure out what kind of lives we want to lead and what personality traits we want to express, because those are also our choices. So that's one of the most important thing for me is this question of how we exercise individual agency and freedom, because I genuinely think that each person's capacity for flexible plastic thought is so immense. And so often psychologists talk about all the negative biases and all the problems with our minds and how we process information. But I think in many ways, we also have these really incredible organs that are capable of resisting authoritarian worldviews. And unfortunately, each of us has to take that responsibility for ourselves and think about how we lead a life that's more flexible.

[Mike Pesca]

Lior Zmigrod is the Author of the Ideological the Radical Science of Flexible Thinking. Thank you. You opened my mind.

[Julie Kelly]

Thank you.

[Mike Pesca]

And now the spiel. I wanted to take this spiel to take a moment to just dissect and unpack one argument. Really. It's a tossed off sliver of an argument that has been used to discredit perhaps the most prominent federal judge who is scrutinizing President Trump's deportation efforts. He's James Boasberg. And he has found fault in both the legal and rhetorical senses of fault of how the administration is conducting its deportations to El Salvador. The administration claims there were Venezuelan terrorists on board. The judge says maybe, maybe not. You still have to go about it the right way. The rules have to be followed. I'm summarizing, and I'm sure a critic of the judge would phrase his objections not as enforcing existing laws, but as something closer to upending the rightful prerogatives of the executive branch. Okay. And when I say I'm sure that a critic of this judge would say that, it's because I've been listening to such critics. One prominent critic is named Julie Kelly. She has written extensively about the January 6 rioters/protesters and has become a go to source in conservative media for her coverage of what she and they call J6. When members of Congress, Elon Musk and President Trump called for impeachment of Judge Boasberg based on recent rulings they didn't like? Steve Bannon and Julie Kelly talked about it on Bannon's War Room. That's his podcast. It's an agenda setter. The thesis was that Chief Justice John Roberts was totally wrong to issue a fairly benign and obvious public statement saying you can't just go around impeaching judges when they give you orders you don't like. Do you believe that the opposition here is seeing enough wins and enough traction, at least in the federal court area, that they're going to continue on or even see a double or triple down of this? Ma'am.

[Lior Zmigrod]

Absolutely. And you and I talked about this after Chief Justice John Roberts made his comment about impeaching judges. First of all, it's not his place to comment on that.

[Mike Pesca]

Julie Kelly is also a frequent guest on the far more reasonable than Steve Bannon, but no less pro Trump Megyn Kelly. And on that show she made a quick comment or two. It went by rather quickly, but I spent a long time looking into them. So just to set the scene, Judge Boasberg has come under intense critique, including calls for his impeachment over his rulings in the Venezuelan nationals deportation flight. And Julie Kelly sought to contrast his supposed concerns for Venezuelans, a dangerous and unsympathetic group, with another group that she and her audience regard as much more sympathetic.

[Julie Kelly]

She says the judge's concern for Venezuelan deportees stands in stark contrast to how.

[Mike Pesca]

He treated nonviolent Trump supporters.

[Lior Zmigrod]

Sentenced one man who had just told him that his cancer returned. He's sentenced him to 45 days in prison. He sent another woman, 60 year old woman from Pennsylvania on nonviolent offenses, sent her to prison for 14 months. Her husband also had cancer. You know, they're aware of how these federal prisons operate. They know exactly how these people are going to be treated. So I think that's the real double standard here is his very cautious concern over not just the alleged due process rights of these Venezuelans, but worried about how they're going to be treated in El Salvador prison when he, he demonstrated no such concern over how Trump supporters were going to be treated in federal prison.

[Mike Pesca]

So you heard it. But I'll summarize. The legal analysis has nothing to do in this case with the idea that Judge Boasberg wasn't following the law or interpreting the law to the best of his ability. Here she was just pointing out or alleging that Judge Boasberg is sympathetic to these dangerous Venezuelans and unsympathetic to these poor old January 6th participants. Beset by cancer, the lot of them. The truth is not quite so clear. So the 45 day sentence to the man with cancer, that man never went to jail for 45 days. So the woman in that case, Cynthia Ballinger, the wife of Christopher Price, those two weren't violent. That's true. But as Judge Boasberg noted, in order to get to a mob, you need individual people to make up the components of the mobile. And those two were definitely components of the mob. This was proven at a trial that they insisted on having and probably that increased their court sentences. Ballinger and Price, by the way, her name and press accounts is also Price. But in court orders, they were Cynthia Ballinger and Christopher Price. They definitely entered a restricted area. They did this by knowingly stepping over barriers and bike racks. They completely ignored blaring alarms. She came to the Capitol armed with pepper spray and bear spray and a pocket knife. And I will read from court documents, Price, Christopher Price texted, we're just taking over the Capitol. He also took a video of a woman repeatedly banging on a Capitol window and shared the observations of tear gas and explosions going off and someone on the floor. This was all produced in evidence to show he knew that it was not fine for him to walk into the Capitol. He saw a woman being administered cpr. They knew it wasn't fine to go into the Capitol. Still, they marched onward into the Capitol building. This point Ballinger texts, we stormed the Capitol and that they, quote, totally owned it. Much later in the case, the fact that we stormed the Capitol had an emoji after it in the original text. But in the court documents, the emoji was excluded. Was said to be extremely important. The judge didn't think so. They were part of a mob. They were part of a mob that clearly violated federal law. They were lightly armed and they knew what they were doing was unlawful. Add it all up. Judge Boasberg sentences Cynthia Ballinger to 45 days in a small fine. And her husband, who had pepper spray and was a self proclaimed Capitol stormer, he got a sentence of 45 days. But because of the cancer that you heard about, the judge had sympathy. The judge takes that into account and I will read from you the document from last year. Court orders. The court orders that defendant Cynthia Ballinger shall surrender to the Bureau of Federal Prisons no earlier than March 5, 2024. And defending Christopher Price need not surrender until further order of the court. That further order never came. Medical records and doctors were consulted. And what we have here is a quite sympathetic and I would say temperate application of justice to the man with cancer who was storming the Capitol. Now, as far as the 60 year old woman, now, she was in her mid-50s at the time of the Capitol riot slash protests. Her name is Sandra Weier. Here's what the court found that she did and what Julie Kelly describes as nonviolent. Weir helped remove the barricades protecting the Capitol and encourage others to do the same, yelling tear it down. Wire continued past additional police lines on the East Capitol steps and forced her way with the crowd into the East Rotunda doors, yelling charge, don't retreat and march forward. As well as chanting stop the steal and break the door. With other rioters. Wire joined the rioters forcing open the doors of the Capitol, pushing past Capitol police officers who had just been violently attacked by the rioters right in front of Wire, who acknowledged that in her view that the officers, quote, stood down because the crowd was too massive to contain any longer. And by the way, she was livestreaming all of this. So here's some of what she was saying in her livestream. You know what mainstream media does to Trump supporters and patriots. They're always going to say that we're the violent ones. I haven't seen anybody here be violent. Just a couple small, maybe one, two, three people. I've been up front the entire time. The entire time. I was helping break down barricades, too, and get into the door. Then she uses her live stream to support and urge people in her home state of Pennsylvania to breach the state Capitol There. You guys, if we do not take this country back now, we are screwed. Get out to your capitals and start fighting back today, just like the people here in D.C. did today. You got to fight back. They ain't going to fucking shoot you. Maybe just with some pepper spray or flashbangs or something. Look at these patriots here. They ain't afraid. They storm the damn Capitol. This is exactly what we need to do with the Pennsylvania Capitol. All right? Nonviolent. She seemed to be very much advocating violence. That's what the court found. Actually, the court just found that she broke the letter of the law and went where she shouldn't have and caused a ruckus and chaos. And so she got 14 months. Is that too much? Well, we don't even have to wonder or worry because much like the Christopher Price case, she didn't actually serve 14 months. There was an appeal filed in another case, and the court took this into account and ordered her release. And by the court ordered her release, I mean specifically, literally, Justice Boasberg. She went in on September of 2023, came out February 2024. Four months. A little over four months. And because that is what a fair interpretation of the law required, that's what she got. Forget all the claims of who is or isn't sympathetic. I say when you try to decide if this judge was acting like a judge should act, we can see. I think I've just demonstrated at length over a small claim that took me a day and a half to track down. But I just wanted to show to you that sympathy. It's subjective, and it's also open to being twisted and lied about. But the law is the law. And if Boasberg isn't following the law, that can be appealed. And if the administration says that requires impeachment, Chief Justice Roberts can say, no, that's not the way we do it. The next time you want to buy into counter arguments of Chief Justice Roberts getting out over his skis or this judge being deserving of impeachment because of how he interpreted the law, the next time you want to wholeheartedly buy into those arguments and say this judge bad and unsympathetic and issued these rulings that were way too far and put these innocent people in jail. Just know that you're not actually being given all the accurate information that you need to make your decision in good faith. But that is exactly what Judge Boasberg is attempting to do in all these cases. That's it for today's show. Cory Wara produces the gist. Astrid Green is in charge of our Instagram and social media, and Michelle Peskis, CBSO of Peach Fish Productions. And thanks for listening.