"Red States" Are a Myth with Trae Crowder

Summary

In this episode of "Factually!" with Adam Conover, comedian Trae Crowder, also known as the liberal redneck, shares his perspective on the myth of "Red States" in America. The conversation touches on political dynamics in the U.S., the misconception of uniform political opinions within states, Crowder's unique upbringing in Tennessee, and how these experiences shape his views. He also discusses his career in comedy, how political and social commentary is perceived, and the rising trend of conservative comedy. The episode highlights the diversity within so-called red states and challenges the polarized narrative often portrayed in the media.

Highlights

• Adam Conover returns to the U.S. after touring in Europe to discuss America's political landscape with Trae Crowder. 🌍
• Crowder talks about growing up in a politically diverse Southern family, breaking stereotypes about 'rednecks.' 🏡
• The discussion reveals how electoral systems and media amplify a distorted image of uniform 'Red States' in America. 📣
• Trae shares how a mix of familial, cultural influences, and a lack of religious upbringing shaped his liberal views. 🔄
• Conservative comedy's rise is noted, showing a shift in the comedy scene's traditional dynamics. 🎭
• Crowder reflects on his life, career, and the importance of recognizing diverse voices within America. 🎤

Key Takeaways

• The term 'Red States' oversimplifies the political diversity within U.S. states, ignoring the millions who vote differently. 🔄
• Trae Crowder explores how his Southern upbringing with progressive influences shapes his comedic and political outlook. 🎙️
• Political dynamics are distorted by the electoral college system, making states seem more uniform than they actually are. 🗳️
• Conservative comedy is on the rise and is becoming a significant part of the comedy scene. 📈
• The conversation highlights the disconnect between political narratives and the reality of diverse opinions in every state. 🌎

Overview

In this lively episode, Adam Conover sits down with Trae Crowder, known as the liberal redneck, to discuss political myths surrounding 'Red States' in America. Conover kicks off the episode with reflections on his time touring in Europe, observing from afar the complexities of American politics.

Crowder shares his unique perspective of growing up in the South, where progressive ideas were part of his upbringing despite the traditionally conservative surroundings. This blend of influences contributed to his career as a comedian who challenges stereotypes and highlights the nuanced political landscapes of states perceived as uniformly conservative.

Together, they delve into the evolving dynamics of comedy, where conservative comedy has gained prominence, challenging previous norms. The episode is a thoughtful exploration of how media narratives often fail to capture the intricate realities within America's political spectrum.

Chapters

• 00:00 - 03:00: Introduction and European Tour Adam Conover introduces the episode of 'Factually' and shares his excitement about being back in the United States after a European tour. He mentions performing sold-out shows in London, Amsterdam, and Providence, Rhode Island. During his trip, he took time off to travel around Europe, spending an additional week in Amsterdam, visiting Prague, enjoying good food, and leisurely activities like biking and riverside views. His European adventure was periodically interrupted by notifications on his phone, hinting at his connection to ongoing matters even while on tour.
• 03:00 - 07:00: American Politics and Electoral College The chapter discusses the current state of American politics, focusing particularly on the chaotic and alarming events unfolding domestically. There is mention of severe trade tariffs that are affecting global economies and the issue of individuals being mysteriously removed from the streets and transported to prisons in El Salvador. This situation reflects a broader sense of chaos ('batshit crazy') that is recognized both within the United States and internationally, leading to widespread confusion and concern across the globe.
• 07:00 - 10:00: Interview Introduction: Trae Crowder This chapter introduces the central theme of the episode, which is delving into the political dynamics of the United States. The focus is on how the political system affects perceptions of American identity and the issues facing the country. The speaker challenges the notion that the problem lies with the American people themselves, suggesting instead that the political system creates a distorted view of the populace.
• 10:00 - 15:00: Trae Crowder's Background and Politics The chapter delves into Trae Crowder's educational background, specifically highlighting his understanding of the electoral college system. It explains the winner-takes-all allocation of electors in a state, leading to the disregard of votes for the losing candidates, creating an impression of political homogeneity. This contributes to the perception of states as strictly 'red' or 'blue,' a notion perpetuated by media coverage amidst current political polarization.
• 15:00 - 20:00: Rural and Urban Political Divide The chapter 'Rural and Urban Political Divide' challenges the notion of strictly divided political lines between states. It argues against the oversimplification of 'red states' and 'blue states,' emphasizing that the American population is more diverse and dynamic than media representations suggest. Highlighting that millions voted across traditional party lines, such as Texans voting for Kla Harris and Californians for Trump, the chapter underscores the existence of 'purple states,' where communities from various backgrounds and beliefs coexist. The key message is that America's political landscape is a complex and varied space, not easily pigeonholed into binary categories.
• 20:00 - 25:00: The Impact of Trump on Rural Communities The chapter discusses the political diversity in rural American communities and the untapped potential for political transformation across the country. It emphasizes the vast possibilities for new political dynamics that can be activated nationwide. The speaker introduces a guest who exemplifies these ideas and expresses enthusiasm about the upcoming conversation with them.
• 25:00 - 30:00: Public Education and Economic Changes In this chapter titled 'Public Education and Economic Changes', the focus is on a speaker who is continuously touring, with various dates announced both in Canada and the United States. The specific dates mentioned include April 16-17 in Vancouver, Canada, and April 18-19 in Eugene at Olsson's Run Comedy Club. There are plans for shows in Charleston, South Carolina, from May 9-11, along with additional dates to be announced. The chapter highlights the ongoing tour schedule and the availability of tickets, directing readers to a website for purchases.
• 30:00 - 35:00: Media, Misinformation, and Right-Wing Comedy The chapter starts with a promotional message from the channel host encouraging listeners to support the channel via Patreon for exclusive content. The host then introduces the guest for the week's interview, Trey Crowder, who is popularly known as the 'liberal redneck'. Trey Crowder is a comedian and commentator from Tennessee, recognized for his viral standup comedy and YouTube videos.
• 35:00 - 40:00: The Role of Comedy in Politics In this chapter titled 'The Role of Comedy in Politics,' the discussion focuses on the insights of comedian Trey Crowder. Known for his sharp and funny commentary, Crowder challenges the prevalent narratives about Americans and the political landscape of the country. As the nation faces a constant stream of distressing news, Crowder's perspective provides a refreshing take on current affairs, emphasizing the power of comedy as a tool for change. The chapter captures a conversation with Crowder where he shares his thoughts on the country's present condition and what can be done to improve it.
• 40:00 - 45:00: Conclusion and Upcoming Shows In the concluding chapter, the speaker reflects on their personal political journey and background. Raised in the South, they identify as a liberal and have been active on platforms like YouTube, particularly known for their persona 'the Liberal Redneck.' Their political views are influenced by their upbringing, particularly by their father and uncle Tim, who was openly gay. This familial experience has shaped their outlook and approach to politics. The chapter hints at upcoming shows, maintaining the speaker's engagement with their audience.

"Red States" Are a Myth with Trae Crowder Transcription

• 00:00 - 00:30 Hey everybody, welcome to Factually. I'm Adam Conover. Thanks for joining me on the show again. Uh, I'm excited to be back in the United States. I just spent a couple weeks on the road. We had some soldout shows in London and Amsterdam and then Providence, Rhode Island. In between those, I took a week to just travel around Europe. I I was in Amsterdam for an extra week. I went to Prague. I uh ate a lot of really good food. I stared at some rivers. I rode a bike. And then every so often I would get a ping on my phone about something
• 00:30 - 01:00 batshit crazy happening in America. Uh very difficult to be mentally out of America right now when America is traumatizing the rest of the world with these uh insane tariffs that have been put on with uh the fact that people are being disappeared from our streets and sent to El Salvadorian prisons. Um uh [ __ ] is crazy in the United States and that is apparent everywhere in the world. People all over the world are asking what the [ __ ] is happening in
• 01:00 - 01:30 America. And uh so I'm back in America to talk to you guys about it. Uh I've got a really great episode for you this week. Um that I think we're going to get into some of the deeper political dynamics that are driving what's going on in this country. Because look, it's easy to look at what's happening in this country and say that there's a problem with Americans, right? that that the American people are the issue. But I actually think the problem is that our political system distorts our sense of who Americans are. Take the electoral
• 01:30 - 02:00 college, right? You learned about the electoral college in school. All the electors from a given state are awarded to the presidential candidate who gets the most votes. That means that the votes of everyone who voted against that person are basically thrown out within that state. And that creates the illusion of uniformity. It creates the illusion that we have red states and blue states where everyone in that state either is Republican or Democrat. And in our age of political polarization, the media endlessly amplifies that distinction as if people from different
• 02:00 - 02:30 states are simply coming from different species. The reality though of who the American people are is way more dynamic than what is portrayed in the media. Look, nearly 5 million people voted for Kla Harris in Texas. And over 6 million voted for Trump in California. We do not have red states and blue states. We have purple states full of different people from all walks of life who have different opinions. America is a big [ __ ] place with tons of different
• 02:30 - 03:00 political opinions within it. And when we forget about that massive political diversity, we neglect the real political possibilities in this country. We act as though big things are not possible when in fact they are. There is a huge amount of political potential for a new America just lying in wait for us to activate it across the country. And my guest today demonstrates that in a way that I I find really compelling. I know you're going to love this conversation. Before we get into it, I want to remind you that I am
• 03:00 - 03:30 on tour. I'm continuously on tour even though I'm back from Europe. Coming soon, uh, April 16th through 17th, I'll be in Vancouver, Canada. We sold out the show on the 17th, but we added a new one on the 16th. So, get tickets to that. April 18th and 19th, I'm doing shows in in Eugene at Olsson's Run Comedy Club. We've sold out a couple of those, too, but there's tickets still available. May 9th through 11th, I'll be in Charleston, South Carolina. Can't wait for that. And then we are adding new dates. Check them out. Uh, we got dates in Oklahoma and more coming all the time. Head to adconover.net for all those tickets. And
• 03:30 - 04:00 of course, if you want to support the channel directly, head to patreon.com/adamconver. Five bucks a month gets you every episode of this podcast and my monologue adree. We have an awesome online community. We'd love to have you. patreon.com/adamconver. Now let's get to this week's interview. Today I'm talking with Trey Crowder. I love this man. He is also known professionally as the liberal redneck and he's a comedian and commentator from Tennessee. You've probably heard his standup comedy. You might have seen his YouTube videos which go viral all the time. This dude is so
• 04:00 - 04:30 sharp and funny and he contradicts so many of the narratives that we are fed of what Americans are like and and and just the way things work in this country. With the non-stop barrage of fascist awfulness coming through the news, it seemed like a great time to have him on the show to talk about what he thinks about this country and and what we can do to change it going forward. Please welcome Trey Crowder. Trey, thanks so much for being here, man. Yeah, good to see you, buddy. Glad to be here. Uh we met like a couple
• 04:30 - 05:00 months back or last year in New York. I've been following you for a while. You've been doing this stuff on YouTube, the liberal redneck for a long time. You're you're a liberal guy from the South. Where do your politics come from? Uh I what I've always mostly chocked it Well, the more elaborate answer I usually give is that uh my I was raised by my a single father and my dad who has since passed away. He had one sibling, my uncle Tim. And my uncle Tim is an openly gay man. Mhm. And so like and I've known that my whole life, like
• 05:00 - 05:30 since I knew what being gay was, like that he's been out since before I was even born. And him and my dad were very close. So I always thought that was sort of at least part of the reason why I didn't go to my dad didn't send us to church. Like I didn't grow up in church or anything like that. and he just grew up. My dad was also he was kind of like a long-haired sort of rock and roll like dope smoking redneck kind of guy who loved like he loved like David Bowie and David Lynch movies and [ __ ] like that and was into you know more uh weird for
• 05:30 - 06:00 where we were rural this is rural Tennessee Salena Tennessee by the way like tiny little town so that was all kind of odd. I mean, he liked Skard, too, but he liked this other [ __ ] also, and he had this gay brother he loved, and we didn't go to church or anything. And I've just always sort of chocked it up to that. But I also think, put more simply, I've just kind of really, even though it happened in a weird place for this to happen, I'm just kind of the way I was raised to be because like most of the other rural southern liberals I
• 06:00 - 06:30 know, and I do know a lot because I'm one, so you know, birds of a feather and whatnot. My wife is one, some of my best friends. Almost all the other ones are a blue sheep in their family, you know, like the, you know, like they're they're the weirdo, you know, standout one that's different from everybody else. But for me, it wasn't really like like my sister's like this too. My dad, they were like a family of like southern Democrats. And like my dad's dad, my grandpa, I do mean southern Democrat in the the traditional sense, which to say
• 06:30 - 07:00 like, yeah, he was also racist, but he was like a Democrat, you know, his whole life. He was, you know, not like not like robew wearing racist, just like casually racist. I mean, the Democrats at one point were the party robe racist. I know. That's why I feel the need to clarify that my grandpa didn't he didn't have the robe. I'm just saying he would just casually bandandy about slurs and things like that. Yeah. Yeah. but was like a lifelong Democrat and so was my dad and like my dad hate my grandpa died in 2004 but my dad like hated George W.
• 07:00 - 07:30 Bush, you know, like with a fervor and so um like I'm just kind of, you know, like I said, just kind of the way I was raised to be. But how unusual do you feel that I mean you literally built a comedy brand around it, right? Around being it like a a unique thing. Yeah. Uh but I don't know sometimes we like overinflate how politically divided the country is, right? Because like so many states are actually just 6040, right? Like California is like 6040. I talk about that. I like to point that out a
• 07:30 - 08:00 lot because yes, it's like right 6040, right? The blue like California there's a whole lot of people who voted for Trump out here. A whole lot of MAGA people in Tennessee there's a lot of people who can't stand Trump. And that is true. But I have also found generally the more like urban rural divide though is pretty pretty universal. You know what I mean? Like a lot of those more mega- parts of California are the more rural parts. And it's same in Tennessee. Like Nashville's, you know, very liberal and
• 08:00 - 08:30 everything and so is Memphis and wherever else, but then like the hinterlands, you know, are generally not a lot of times. And I'm from there. I'm from the middle of nowhere. So, it was still like we were definitely like I definitely was that kind of weirdo kid in school and everything. Even though I at the same time I still had plenty of friends and still do who are agree with me. I say plenty. There's like it's like five of us. You know what I mean? But but my but my school was tiny, you know, like there was probably uh 50 or 60 kids in my
• 08:30 - 09:00 graduating class, which is the biggest one they've ever had there. Normally a graduating class in my school is like 30 to 40 or something. So, you know, five is not that bad, but it's still it's still like ve very much minority. And it's gotten much worse and more divided in places like my hometown since I left there at 18. Why is that? Well, I mean, I you know, in 2016 when Trump was running, I had this whole thing. I was like somewhat sympathetic to it or not.
• 09:00 - 09:30 I I could understand how it had happened because I mentioned earlier my grandpa's a lifelong southern Democrat. That's true. But I have a very vivid memory of my grandpa. It would have been in like 97 or eight or something like that. Like NAFTA had passed. My town is very small. The beating heart of the town's economy was this big uh clothing factory, Hashkosh Bagosh. Uhhuh. Which in a very small town employed like 250 people. So like Yeah. Everybody, literally everyone either worked there or they worked at a
• 09:30 - 10:00 place that like sold stuff to the people that worked there. Like my dad ran the video store in Art. I grew up in like a 90s video store. Yep. That was very cool. My grandpa had a car lot. My gay uncle and his partner had a deli on the town square. My maternal grandmother had a like a country diner, little restaurant on and all the people at the Oshkosh factory eat in the deli in the diner diner and they rent movies for my dad and get cars for my grandpa and all that stuff. And then uh that factory left in the mid '9s and in like 96 or 97
• 10:00 - 10:30 and it just utterly decimated my hometown and it's to this day never really recovered but I remember the vivid memory I have is sometime in that time frame mid to late 90s I don't remember exactly I was sitting at the counter in my dad's grocery store and I'm like 11 or 12 and I remember my grandpa w storming in holding a uh a newspaper and he throws the newspaper on the counter and he says I'll never vote for another Democrat as long as I live. Wow. And um and so I think that just kind of sums up the general thing that happened there. Like cuz that county
• 10:30 - 11:00 despite everything I just said about a minute ago, that county up until around really like two I think even no I know even in 2000 my tiny little rural county in Tennessee was a blue county like it went for Al Gore in 2000 Bush in 2004 and has been more you know a deepening shade of red ever since. And I think that that's uh you know that's a big part of the reason why. All right. So in 2016 when Trump was like actually playing into all that talking about all that type of stuff, people were very open to it. Now even then I was my whole
• 11:00 - 11:30 thing was like okay I hear you but he's so clearly full of [ __ ] though like like I get why that appeals to you and you do have that's the thing is like I'm very sympathetic to like the plight. They have legitimate grievances like people in town like they didn't they didn't do anything to deserve what happened to them like my town cuz it wasn't just that the jobs left forever and the pills showed up for good at like the exact same time like oxycottton and and opioids and all that that those two things happened in concert with one
• 11:30 - 12:00 another in the mid to late 90s and like the rural south and it just I mean destroyed these that that community but all but all communities like it and So, you know, again, I get what why they're mad and upset and everything, but even in 2016, I was I was like, "Okay, but you know, that he isn't going to do anything about it, though." But then he won and I was like, "Well, he conned a lot of people." And then this time around, I'm just like, I don't know. I
• 12:00 - 12:30 don't know what anybody expected. You know what I mean? like he had a chance to follow through on things and didn't and then got elected again and now you know like as we're sitting here recording this like the you know global economy is crashing and all that stuff. Stock market's down 20% right now. And there's I see like money people like business Republicans. I've seen a bunch of them get shared around on Twitter today in a kind of point and laughy way where they're saying like look I look I got to say I did not expect this. Like I
• 12:30 - 13:00 thought I thought economic reasonability would be at the core of everything. I really did. But even like a I feel like the implication of that is like look yeah I knew they were going to strip people's civil rights away and you know people into camps. I knew that. But I thought the economy would be good. Well, they thought that he was going to keep on cuz in the first term he had Steven Minutuchin in there and that guy was just sort of a normal like the economic policy was just normal. Trump didn't do much with it. And that's probably what they all expected was okay he'll yeah
• 13:00 - 13:30 he'll send a bunch of barbers to El Salvador and their families will cry but that's fine as long as the market is okay. He'll keep the economy doing normal. But the second part of a, yes, that which I feel like makes you you're out of yourself as an [ __ ] when you say like, "Yeah, that's cool with me." But also b I still don't I don't even understand that part cuz it's like he was talking about tariffs and everything the whole time. Like all these people keep saying like I just can't believe he's doing this. It's like he it's he said he was going to, you know, and all the economists were like this is crazy. So
• 13:30 - 14:00 crazy that nobody thought he would actually do it. But but it does speak to when you say what changed your town, which was free trade. And by the way, the interesting thing about that is your grandfather saying, "I'd never vote for another Democrat again." A Republican would also have passed NAFTA. Like Clinton was being Republican from a Democrat perspective. That's 100% true. But he still just got he was the one who did it. Blamed for and that whole like and it was, you know, in 2016 obviously he's running against Hillary. So it's like Yeah. It's not just Democrats. like
• 14:00 - 14:30 Clinton specifically to a lot of these people are just, you know, yeah, they just start. It's funny that, you know, a Republican, well, Trump ran as a Republican. He was the first one to like run against that free trade regime explicitly. Yeah, Bernie did do it to an extent, but uh the tariffs that he's putting in place are like through a lens like him doing what he said he was going to do and him responding to that anger that your that your community felt like it's it's protectionism. It won't
• 14:30 - 15:00 actually bring the factory back, right? But that's ostensively that's supposed to be part of the argument, right? I mean, yeah. No, I mean, yes, that's true. That's but like but again it's like with so many things with him it's like okay but but it but it won't though like you know what I mean like it isn't it's just going to make everything it's just going to be it's just a tax on you know working class and middle class people just a big sales tax for everybody and you know you're still going to be buying ashkosh bash from China it's just going to be more expensive or from Bangladesh
• 15:00 - 15:30 or wherever right yeah so I you know I don't know it's been uh it's been a wild trip. Cuz also it's just when I said in in 2016 when I was sympathetic to their where they were coming from, but I couldn't understand it with Trump specifically, it's because like another thing I know cuz it's like he didn't come out of nowhere. He's been famous for being a rich douchebag my entire life. Yeah. you know, so like I know he was a known quantity and I know that before he got into politics,
• 15:30 - 16:00 he represented like one of the worst types of people that a person could be to people in my hometown. Yeah. You know what I mean? He's like a like a silver spoon blue blood big city Yankee who thinks he's better than everybody else and like you know is pompous and needs his ass whipped and all that stuff. Like it's just I could just could not and still kind of cannot believe that he in particular is the champion, you know, but I guess I underestimated the whole like dumb bully part of it or whatever,
• 16:00 - 16:30 you know. Well, he was he was able to channel a certain kind of rage like deep American conservative skeptical, free trade skeptical rage. Um but is there Yeah. What do you have any idea what it is that allowed him to make that cultural flip? Because it is one of the most remarkable things about him that he started out as, you know, literally an [ __ ] real estate developer from New York. Who could be more hated? Um,
• 16:30 - 17:00 right. But like what is it that made him culturally appealing to folks you grew up with? Is there that whole I mean it's kind of like what I said a minute ago the dumb bully part I think like meaning like you know the whole thing was like he tells it like it he was very different right in the like national political sphere than anybody had been before just in terms of temperament the way he talked and everything and it was and it just like he talked [ __ ] and he made fun of people and all that and I mean yeah you know and he was like
• 17:00 - 17:30 there's the racism part and all the other stuff that like and it just the xenophobia and everything that's like inherent parent in it. But that whole drain the swamp tells it like it is type thing because they definitely even though he had been that guy forever, the politicians in Washington were like the ultimate, you know, uh they look down their noses at us and [ __ ] us over at every turn type of person. And so him being like talking about sticking it to
• 17:30 - 18:00 them and draining the swamp and all that just I mean that's the best answer that I've got. You know, I again, I still think that it's wild. Like even like trying to rationalize it that way all these years later, I still am kind of confounded by it, but that's like all I can really come up with. You know, I keep saying I'm in my busy season, but honestly, I think I'm just always busy now. With so much on my plate, podcast, standup, touring, I'm constantly tempted to cut corners. And grocery shopping for healthy meals, it's usually one of the first things to go, right? That's why I
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• 20:00 - 20:30 go to joindeme.com/adam and use promo code Adam at checkout. That's jointdeme.com/adam. Promo code Adam. What do you think that uh I mean you tour a lot. I assume that like a lot of coastal liberals love you because you're like, "Oh, you're one of the people who normally hates me, but we agree about stuff." Yeah. Yeah. It's like a novelty sort of. Yeah. I mean, what is that like for you? Do you feel that they there's [ __ ] that they misunderstand about, you know, folks where where you're from or about you? I mean, yeah. You know, and
• 20:30 - 21:00 again, like I you know, glad to have f mo most of them actually are really cool, but like yes, there they do say weird [ __ ] sometimes. like from the beginning it was things like you kind of alluded to it earlier but things like oh you're like you're like seeing a unicorn you know what I mean like that type of thing like literally those words sometimes but like just the idea that I'm the only I'm not supposed to exist I'm the only one that exists that there's no one else and that's inherent in the in the name the liberal red
• 21:00 - 21:30 you're highlighting that a little bit and making it sound unusual but when someone says that to your face right it's like a little insulting well but it's also I I can't deny what you just said is true, but it also is just those two words just like describe me and who I am and where I'm from. Yeah. And I just put the two words together and it worked because people are like, "Oh, that's not a thing or whatever." You know what I mean? Right. But for me, it is a a novelty to these people. Exactly. That's exactly what it is. Cuz it's like
• 21:30 - 22:00 it is like kind of a gimmick, but it also is just it is just who I am. you know, like be they also a lot of times they think some of them who think they're being particularly shrewd think that it's like some kind of like a character or that like or like that the accent is fake or something like that. Like I've gotten that a lot especially out here because in LA too there's another element of like some people who don't even know who I am will think the accent is fake because they think I'm like a like an actor or something. Your accent's too good. And it's like when I go back to New York and I meet like uh
• 22:00 - 22:30 someone from Bay Ridge, Brooklyn and they have a perfect Brooklyn accent and you're just like this is too It sounds too good to be real, right? Like there isn't It has that same effect. Yeah, I know. Yeah. So, I get that a lot. Then also and people, you know, some like people I talk about it sometimes on stage, but like I say that sometimes people I say out here when I'm doing shows in LA because this is where I live, but that that you know these coastal people sometime they talk to me like I'm a North Korean defector. You know what I mean? Who like somehow made it across the DMZ. Exactly. Well, they
• 22:30 - 23:00 literally I say what you try literally people ask me like you're from the rural south, you know, how did you get out? Right. And the joke I say is like well first I had to bribe a riverboat captain. But uh but yeah, like that type of thing. I've had people ask ask me like how I got to college or made it to college and that type of [ __ ] And of course, it's the same way anybody did. I did good in school and applied. But I do think there's like sort of a a an unagnowledged divide like you said rural urban. I also think there's like a
• 23:00 - 23:30 divide in America of people who leave their hometowns versus people who don't. Like my mom No, that's definitely true. was the only member of her four sisters, four four uh brothers and sisters to like leave and move somewhere else. Everybody else lives in the hometown and like we get along great. But when we go visit, you know, and I hang out with my aunts and uncles and cousins who like live in the same town as their grandparents grew up. Yeah. You know, and I and you know, my my side of the family is like all over the country, you know what I mean? It's like Right. It it's a different it's a different life.
• 23:30 - 24:00 No, very much. Yeah. Most small towns are like that. You either you either like I said like I did you like leave at 18. You like grow up Yep. dreaming of leaving, you know, like the moment I can leave, I'm leaving. Yeah. Or you like stay there forever or in the general like vicinity forever. And it's like my wife uh her she's from a different small town in Tennessee, but culturally it's the same place. It's like four hours away on the other end of the state, but it's basically the exact same place called Wesboro. and she we live out here
• 24:00 - 24:30 with our two sons, but she's got she's from a huge family and every single other member of her family lives within a like five mile radius of each other. Yeah. In Wayne County, Tennessee. And again, they're great, too. Get along great with them. But we're definitely the, you know, like the weird ones, the odd ones that like we come back for holidays and stuff and Yeah. You know, one of my sons is a vegetarian and the other's got long hair and all that [ __ ] And it's just, it's weird to them. But again, just we could be Yeah. Yeah. And
• 24:30 - 25:00 in fact, we were before we moved out here, like living in Knoxville, like Tennessee, a city 4 hours away, even though it's a southern city is the same state. It still was kind of like that cuz it's like you said, it's just that itself is like a dividing line, you know? You think you're like fancy or whatever. Yeah. I mean, my grandparents, my mom was the only the first step she took was she didn't go to the college in her hometown. Instead, she went she grew up in the UP of Michigan and instead of going to college there, she went to Ann Arbor in the in the in the Yeah. She
• 25:00 - 25:30 just went to the state university and her parents didn't want her to. They were like, "You want to go?" Yeah. Right. You want to go to the Oh, wow. Who are you? Kind of a little bit of that vibe. No. Yeah. Um definitely a very very real thing. And yeah, it is kind of tied to the the like I don't know political and cultural divide and stuff too. Yeah. I've always wondered what that is that makes some people go I'm getting out of here and how that is tied to well using me as an example like and again I said I got a bunch of friends who are from similar backgrounds
• 25:30 - 26:00 as me which is true most of them like two of the other guys are comedians my wife lives with me out here and it's like we're also all the people that leave and I think they're tied together because if you grow up being this way in that like I did Mhm. you want to leave, you know, because you don't because I've didn't I never I've been a man without a country my whole life because like I never fit in in my hometown, you know, I had great great friends, some of whom are still like my very best friends, but
• 26:00 - 26:30 like overall I didn't fit in in that town and I was like a a weirdo and stood out for sure, you know, but then like but I moved to Southern California and I definitely don't fit in out here either. So it's like but you just you your sensibility like it's a you know like a cause and effect type thing or chicken and egg type thing. You know what I mean? Like people that are there's a connection there because those are those are the people that that leave the people that leave and and the people that are more open-minded or however you
• 26:30 - 27:00 want to put it tend to be the same people. Yeah. Like let's drill down on that a little bit. You said the people who are this way. You don't just mean like, oh, liberal like like not, you know, didn't vote for Trump or whatever. There's like some personality trait, some like frame of mind, some perspective, open-mindedness, something. Yeah. Again, that's the type of saying open-minded is the type of thing that people in my hometown will hear and be like, you know, that's condescending. Yeah, exactly. And I get that. But I just I I don't know how else to put it.
• 27:00 - 27:30 Wanting just having even an interest in Yeah. going elsewhere and seeing other things like a curiosity if that's I don't that's probably all that's all I don't know how to say in a way that isn't condescending people like the other people are satisfied they're like this is you know this is where my life is where my family is and I love it here and it's like I love my hometown too it's not that it's just but they don't there's not an interest in like uh you know like we I could not believe we got my in-laws to come visit us here last
• 27:30 - 28:00 summer but we did Right. But it was my wife was always like, "Oh, no. My mom maybe, but not my dad." And again, they're not even they're not hardcore Trumpers or nothing. They're just like very small town sensibility type people. And then when they come out here, it's like, you know, like, you know, suggesting like sushi or something, you know, forget it. Like that's not going to happen. What did you do with them? Uh, what did they enjoy? What did they not enjoy? Uh, well, we just bought a house last year. So, my father-in-law mostly just like did house [ __ ] like,
• 28:00 - 28:30 you know what I mean? Found like jobs to do and stuff. And my mother-in-law, like they went to Disneyland with my sons and that sort of thing, you know, and uh but but yeah, it's just there's just the Grove and get it's a sense of like that all that ain't for ain't for me, I guess. And also again, now it's a sense of like and the people who live there like they don't like me. They think I'm stupid. they kind of, you know, and I don't like them either for the and so I don't want anything to do with all that.
• 28:30 - 29:00 And also like people are afraid of cities and it isn't just it's not just like a racism thing or an immigrant thing or whatever. It's literally just cities are scary. Yeah. You know, like my mom who passed away last year, but she also she [ __ ] hated Donald Trump. She was so like terrified of I live in Burbank, right? Yeah. And when I talked to her on the phone, she would be like worried I was going to get like mugged at the grocery store or whatever. It's like you mean the the Whole Foods and
• 29:00 - 29:30 Burbank, you know, like but she doesn't know what any of that means. It's just like a big scary place. I mean, a lot of the news elsewhere in the country is just constantly playing Los Angeles is dangerous, Chicago is dangerous, New York is dangerous, like this endless stream. But that only works because it feeds into sort of a deeper belief that people have that those places are like fundamentally terrifying and and like unsafe. Yeah. And even me, I'm, you know, again, I'm one of the the weirdo
• 29:30 - 30:00 one, the ones who left very much so. But like even me, like I don't like I've loved New York, but if I'm I've never lived in New York and if I'm in New York for more than like a 5 days or a week or so, like I start to kind of get overwhelmed by it a little bit cuz it's like it's a lot. Like Yeah. Like I live in the valley and the valley is very like suburban. Yes. Like LA is a huge sprawling city, but it doesn't that part of it especially does not feel like it's lowkey up there an urban metropolis or whatever, but like New York very much
• 30:00 - 30:30 does. And I love that for a change of pace for a few days, but a but after, like I said, a few days, it start it starts to like stress me out. Yeah, I love New York and I want to go back there and spend more time there. But I do think if I if I lived there again like I did for 10 years in my 20s, like 365 days a year, it would it would be a little too much for me. I like going and coming back and like being in a slightly more relaxed atmosphere. Um, but yeah, I you're putting a mind to me. I read like a study years ago or at least this is
• 30:30 - 31:00 the thing that I've heard that like one of the main personality traits between differences between liberals and conservatives is like liberals really seek novelty or really highly value novelty new things things they've never done before and like conservatives generally don't not every single person but that and that that you can see that culturally at least at least that makes sense. Yeah. Right. No. Yeah. No. Yeah. the the dumb way that me and my other liberal southern buddies put we we have a saying kind of for that where we say you know same hits different don't hit
• 31:00 - 31:30 is what we say for these people we use the word hits to mean something is good but anyway just like same good different bad basically is like the the general uh philosophy of a lot of a lot of people in towns like ours you know when you're touring who are you drawing because you say you feel like a man without a country right like you're not like totally aligned with anybody are you hitting both conservatives or liberals. Are you mostly getting liberals? No, liberals. Yeah. I say man without a country. I mean more like culturally. Like I said, it's just like out here like I was the most even though I wasn't
• 31:30 - 32:00 California at all and they wouldn't have termed it that way. I was the most California type person in in my hometown, you know, which is like, you know, like I just I like [ __ ] I read books for fun and I like Eddie Isard and [ __ ] Uh you know, and but also I wasn't Christian. I mean, I didn't go to church and I was openly skeptical of it all, you know, which was like blasphemous. So, like, you know, this is also the land of godless heathens and everything.
• 32:00 - 32:30 And so, like I was the most, I guess, would be coastal type person in my hometown, but I'm like the most rednecky person in my neighborhood in Burbank or whatever, you know? So, and so, and none of that even has anything to do with like politics, but at my shows, it's almost entirely liberals. Sometimes they drag a, you know, conservative spouse with them when it's one of those couples, you know? So, like it's not completely bereft of any conservatives, but usually it's a conservative who's in a relationship with a liberal. So, they're by nature more, you know, are
• 32:30 - 33:00 you open to are you able to speak to those people? Because when I'm on the road, you know, I tour all over and people, you know, it's mostly I get a liberal crowd, but not everybody. And like my favorite compliment I get I'll get occasionally is someone saying like, "I don't agree with everything you say, but oh, I like the show. That was funny." And I you had you had some good points. Yes. You know, and I I talk [ __ ] about everybody. So, like, do you get that? Yeah, I get that. That's also one of my favorite compliments to give those affforementioned, you know, conservative husbands or whatever. But if they it
• 33:00 - 33:30 I've gotten that a lot from when they said like I don't agree with it, but I did think it was funny. And like you said, it's like I mean, as far as I'm concerned, that's like the best Yeah. you can hope for. But also, like you said, I'm I just to be clear like I do because I know what my crowd is and I know what my internet thing is. So I do I do like I talk about politics but not entirely and not even really the majority of it. I would say that most of it is like you know just regular standup from the perspective of someone like me. So like I talk about living in California a lot or I have son I have
• 33:30 - 34:00 middle school sons. I talk about that. I talk you know I don't but like but when I do talk about politics which I'd say is maybe 10 15% of my act is political. When I do talk about it it's very clearly from a leftist perspective. So, it's like, you know, the people in the crowd are not going to miss that. But one of the nice things about standup is, yeah, you can't talk about politics too much in standup because people people want I find people want some of it and then they want you to move on. They want a taste. That's exactly how I approach
• 34:00 - 34:30 it. Yeah. Especially right now, crowds want like a little bit of relief. They want someone to make a joke so they can laugh about it and then they want to forget about it. But if you do both, then the crowd like they know you. They're like, "Okay, I've heard about this guy's kids. I understand his perspective. He thinks a little differently from me. But I I believe that he's a thoughtful, you know, good person who's thinking through it. And then they can maybe laugh at at your perspective, even if they don't entirely agree with it, maybe. Yeah. No, I No, I mean, I have basically the exact same philosophy about it. And I've had people
• 34:30 - 35:00 tell me, you know, uh, fans of like hardcore fans of mine who are very very into politics, very liberal have said to me a version of like, I was worried that you were going to be talking about nothing but politics tonight, but and I'm glad you didn't because yeah, it's just I mean it's exhausting. Like it's a lot. But all but then I also I've got a big chunk right now about schools because again I have sons and they go to school here and there's been a so like in politic there's been a big narrative people talked about schools a lot in recent years like public schools right
• 35:00 - 35:30 and about them being like woke right and like letting kids identify as cats and giving them litter boxes and all that crazy [ __ ] Yeah. And I don't even get into specifics of all that, but I just talk I talk about the idea of public schools being woke is funny to me because I went to a public school in the rural South and it couldn't have been less of a woke place. And then I just talk about my school for a while. And so it's just it's just me talking about the school I went to, but it's framed in a whatever social commentary type of way or something. And then I talk about my son's school in the valley and how it is
• 35:30 - 36:00 kind of woke, right? And I make fun of it a little bit too. So it's like that is all like politics adjacent but it's not when I say 10 15% politics you I'm talking like what you know we're talking about the Trump and the [ __ ] going on with it and then but I also have things it's like I feel like if you like me specifically for the politics it can like scratch that itch but if you don't care about that you won't even necessarily think to yourself that it's a political thing. But all those issues are political in a deeper way. You don't
• 36:00 - 36:30 need to specifically talk about Trump or the Republicans and Democrats, but you're talking about like America and our [ __ ] problems and etc. Right. But see, that's the exact because to me all my favorite comedians were always people who like talked about [ __ ] social social commentators, you know, that type of thing. Even before I was known for being the liberal redneck or any of that, that was still the type of standup that I liked and wanted to do. But I didn't cons I didn't think of myself as a political comedian though despite
• 36:30 - 37:00 talking about thing you know like in the as an unknown comic in the south I came you know come up in Tennessee and Georgia and all that I would do uh you know anti-confederate flag or jokes or make fun of the Bible or progay or anti-racism and all this type of stuff that I didn't think of as being political. It was like um you know I was talking about real [ __ ] and I was like uh I knew it was like edgy for some of those places or whatnot, but I didn't think of myself as like a political comedian. And so now I don't know
• 37:00 - 37:30 exactly how to verbalize what I think the I think the more like straight up ripped from the headlines like more topical type of I think of that as like political comedy. Yep. And then the other stuff like the [ __ ] with the schools I think of more as like social commentary or whatever that because of the climate of everything. Some people might look at that and say that it's like political, but I would not have described it as such before. Like I'll talk about that [ __ ] in front of any general audience. Do you know what I'm saying? And so I don't know. I don't know exactly how to dev. No, I know what
• 37:30 - 38:00 you mean. It's like uh I I open my act right now by talking about like literal current events for like 10 minutes. That's me. I do sound like we do the same. I'm sure the shows are very different because of who we are. But so far, yeah, we have the same approach. It sounds like cuz that's what I do too. Well, I do and then I do a lot of stuff about sex and about like uh you know men being sexually repressed and all this [ __ ] I'm like when I think deeply about it, I'm like that is it's political or at least it's social. It like has to do with the politics of the country, but
• 38:00 - 38:30 like really I'm talking about [ __ ] and coming and like you know that kind of thing. Um, like that's but that's like my deeper perspective. Like that's the thing that's more interesting to me to talk about than even tariffs serve whatever, right? Oh, no. For sure. Yeah. Well, it's also I mean, yes, I agree with that. But also, it's just I feel like it's not practical to expect or want to do like a full act of the first 10 minutes of what you do or whatever. Yeah. There's no, it doesn't have a shelf life. Like, do you know what I mean? Like, it's always changing
• 38:30 - 39:00 and it's just not I wouldn't want to do it regardless. But also, it just isn't even a practical approach. You have to get into the more broader and deeper perspective topics like you said that hopefully also sort of strike some of those same chords or whatnot. Yeah. You have to talk about people's actual lives and your own life, right? I'm curious just to talk about education though, like you know, Trump's trying to disband the Department of Education. Sometimes it seems like uh conservatives or the right-wing movement like literally does not want people to be educated. Right. I know.
• 39:00 - 39:30 And that's part of the idea. I get into a little bit of this like on stage, but it like uh drilling more into the topic. I'm often it's wild to me that the attack on public education that like people who like like Trump in my hometown that they're on board with that or that they're okay with that because what I talk about on stage is like in towns like mine, this is literally true. There's one every generation of every family goes to the same public school.
• 39:30 - 40:00 Yeah. and has the same teachers often times for, you know, like decades or whatever. Like I had teachers that my dad had, right? And like there's friends of mine, they have kids in school have teachers that we had, you know, and so I just can't believe and the school in towns like mine, the the school is like a like a real institution. Like you know what I mean? Like people there's pride they have parades and ball games and pep rallies and and you know bake sales and all this stuff and it's like nobody has a problem with this the school.
• 40:00 - 40:30 Everybody loves the public school. Yeah. And they certainly want their kids to go to it. They don't want $4 million taken away from the public school or whatever. No. And so when the just the broader like attack on public education itself happens and they support it, I I can't really wrap my head around that cuz it's like they but it's like with a lot of things with them in my opinion, they don't ever think about it being, you know, their school or their kid or their whatever, right? It's all the other, right? You know what I mean? It's all
• 40:30 - 41:00 like whatever the bad public schools which are I guess the ones in like Denver or wherever the hell they are, you know, Minneapolis, but not but not their public school. But it's like, well, if they are successful in what they're doing, it's going to affect yours too. And then what? And I don't know what they expect or if they ever get that far. The attack on universities and even like medical research is the same way cuz if you look at like midsize towns throughout the country, like what's the biggest employer? It's the university. It's the university football
• 41:00 - 41:30 team that everybody loves and it's the university hospital that is treating people and is like doing research and [ __ ] and like that's what they're defunding right now is like this is like this engine for so many well that first you're 100% right about the economic impact of it but I so the college part is a little I don't know anybody in towns like I don't care how much they love Trump if they have kids they want their kid to go to school like you know to like Clay County high school and they want them to like learn you reading, writing, and arithmetic and all that
• 41:30 - 42:00 good stuff. But like colleges is can be a different story. There's a lot of working class people that are like now again my family I was the first person in my family to ever go to college and I was like it was never I mean I'm a comedian. It doesn't matter that I went to college but it was like never left up can be helpful but help you think through things. I would never change anything. I loved my time in college and would and you know it's one of my favorite parts of my life. like it was great. But like um my family was always
• 42:00 - 42:30 like my grandpa the guy I was talking about earlier was it was always like you are going to college like no matter what like you're you know you don't have an option not to and again I'm glad I did. So, it's not universal, but there's definitely there are definitely families in places like mine who just don't really have much use for college because they think of college as being even though they all got a doctor or whatever, you know, like generally speaking, college is, you know, what's it like good for to a lot of them, you know what I mean? It's like a blueco
• 42:30 - 43:00 collar workingass person and that's where people go to learn, you know, all the comedy gay [ __ ] that's ruining the country or whatever. So, it's true part of that. It does also strike me though like and and I say this as a guy who grew up in the Northeast, right? But in the Northeast like all the sports teams that everyone rooted for were the pro sports teams. That's what we had in like New York, right? Yeah. Uh like the Knicks and the the Yankees and all of that. And when I think of like who people are just rooting, what sports team they're rooting for in more conservative areas, they're much more
• 43:00 - 43:30 often fans of like a college team, right? A university team like out west or down south. My uh oldest son's middle name is uh Neland, which is the name of the stadium where the Tennessee Volunteers play football. It's also the name of the like the the coach that it doesn't matter. But anyway, it's like that's my I'm a big sports guy wearing a Memphis Grizzlies shirt right now, but like I love the Grizzlies, the Titans, whatever. But like if you gave me the ability to give just one of my teams a championship, it would be the Tennessee
• 43:30 - 44:00 VS football team. Like without a doubt. like that's the one that's like I bleed orange and uh at people and I didn't go I went to Tennessee Tech. I didn't go to University of Tennessee, but I've been a Tennessee Balls fan since I was four, three, four, you know, was way before you ever even get to college. So, you're 100% right. It's so weird you bring this up cuz literally just yesterday, I don't even remember what made me think of this guy. I was just yesterday I was thinking about this dude who when I lived in Knoxville it's where I used to my day
• 44:00 - 44:30 job used to be when that's where I started standup at and everything and I lived there before I moved here when I was living in Knoxville I used to listen to sports radio volunteer sports radio and they'd have call-ins you know we all know like the the sport the terrestrial radio sports call-in crowd you know not a beacon of like you know local intellectuality or anything like that hey they got a lot of energy Yeah, but they had a guy, they had a bunch of regulars, but they had one regular in particular who called in a lot and like I was just thinking about him yesterday
• 44:30 - 45:00 because it's like he die hard Tennessee VS fan and every time he called in he would talk [ __ ] about the university like the college part of the university and the professors there. Like he l them liberal professors down there trying like they're like they're trying to ruin the football program or something. But like complete separation in his mind. Like he would happily just like Thanos snap the college part of the university completely away. But if anything happened to the football program Yeah.
• 45:00 - 45:30 it would, you know, it would be uh catastrophic. But it's like he doesn't realize that they're the you know that they're the same like entity. Yeah. It's the univer but they he doesn't look at it that like the football team is separate from the college part when the football team's good and the college part's bad. And I'm not saying everybody's like that, but like there are dudes like that and they don't they completely oblivious to how nonsensical that is. I mean, the reason college sports, I believe, grew up in the US is partially because that was like some of
• 45:30 - 46:00 the main institutions in those places in America, right? Like in a lot a lot of parts of the country, it's like there isn't that much big business. There isn't that much, you know, urbanization. There's a university. Okay, great. Those people can play some sports. They have the capacity to build a stadium. You know, we can go. Uh it like uh well even just the sports part it's less so now especially in football and everything but even like you look at baseball like like in the south for a long time there weren't a lot of pro sports Yeah. of franchises in most of the southern states. Like even like in my lifetime,
• 46:00 - 46:30 you know, the Titans and the uh Carolina Panthers and the Jacksonville Jaguars and all that like um and with baseball, it's just the Atlanta Braves outside of Florida, outside of the Florida teams, it's just the Braves. And so like they a lot of these places like Alabama and now look obviously part of it for them is that they're like it pains me to say the best uh ever but at college football but they don't you know there's nothing else they don't there's not really anything else in Alabama like to root like a re
• 46:30 - 47:00 source of regional pride like that or whatever. Yeah. But the college football team was good and so that and then and then by extension when the basketball team's good they root for them too. But it's like, you know, I mean, Nick Sabin's like a deity in Alabama. So, but there just wasn't there's not a lot of other And I find my Northeastern friends and stuff, if they're big into sports, it's usually some, you know, pro sports franchise. They're not that big into college stuff for the most part, except for Yeah. I mean, it's not it's not a part of the culture. My dad grew up in Florida in the South, and he followed
• 47:00 - 47:30 all the university teams growing up. And then he, you know, when we were growing up in New York, it was all pro sports because that was those were the teams that had life and vitality to them, right? Um, but the point you make about how like that guy who was calling on the radio show is compartmentalizing. I just like the team. I hate the university and if something bad happens to the university, it won't affect my team. If something bad happens to someone else's school, it won't affect my school. It feels like the whole country's been doing that, especially with who like Trump is taking retribution on. Oh, the tariffs will
• 47:30 - 48:00 make other people pay more but not make me pay more, etc. Do you think that's finally going to make people feel the effects? I don't know. I'd like to think so eventually, but it's like, you know, there's a whole I mean, it's that very popular subreddit, you know, leopards ate my face, you know, that one, right? It's like, but it's like that's kind of the premise of that whole thing. It's like, you know, I didn't think the leopards would eat my face, says person who voted for the leopards eating faces party. And it's like that's what they do
• 48:00 - 48:30 all the time. And you I as far as it finally getting through, it's like I'd like to it I feel like if it keeps going in the direction it's been going, it affects more and more people like negatively enough, you know, like if things get bad enough for enough people, you'd like to think that surely it would have to have an effect. I think there's a certain subset of them that will just will never ever see it. But I think there's enough people that could be, you know, uh, woken up or however you want
• 48:30 - 49:00 to put it if it does if it does affect them personally enough. Yeah. I'd like to think, but I don't know. I mean, I guess maybe we'll find out. You know, do you buy the theory that there's this theory that uh, you know, there are the committed right-wingers, right? They hate liberals actively. They hate liberal culture. Um, they have, you know, all those sort of various views. But then the reason Trump won was just a lot of people were like, "Ah, eggs are too expensive." And I remember 20 I remember 2019 and 2019 was pretty good
• 49:00 - 49:30 for me and uh uh this guy's more famous than this Kamala lady who I've never really heard of, right? Which is I think a big part of the effect too. And so that maybe that's sort of like a broad but shallow uh support that the economics could change. Is that Yeah. No, I do. I mean I buy that cuz there was a few things that that I feel like gives some credence to that idea which was like if at the time we we weren't the only place that had an election and like the incumbent regimes you know really got uh wrecked in the the
• 49:30 - 50:00 elections after co and the inflation that they had everywhere. So there was like it was reactionary everywhere but it didn't matter which side of the political spectrum that regime in that given place was on. They had to pay for it had to pay for you know the economic pain after co even though if it wasn't their fault it didn't matter. So, it's felt like it was a global trend, first of all, and secondly, I I mean, maybe this was apocryphal, but I remember hearing that after like on election day in November,
• 50:00 - 50:30 like one of the top Google searches in America was, "Did Joe Biden drop out or what?" Or who's running for president? Yeah. Yeah. And so, it's like that too. It's like to me it's crazy that Yeah. that there are people that miss all that or that are just they don't even really care at all, but it's just like nothing but kitchen table stuff if eggs are who eggs are too expensive. Who's in charge? Well, [ __ ] that guy then. And it's like just as simple as that and that they don't even know who's running and it's crazy to me that those people are out
• 50:30 - 51:00 there, but it see I guess apparently they are. And I do think that like you know if that just holds true that's what I'm saying. And if it gets bad and it, you know, we're just we've gotten even more reactionary. Yeah. You know, so it's like if it continues in this direction, it probably, you know, I there'll be a big uh a big uh you know, retribution uh for in the other it'll swing hard back in the other direction, you know, and then when the liberals if they get back in, they come in and they fail to adequately clean everything up
• 51:00 - 51:30 in, you know, a fouryear time period, then it'll swing back the other way. It seems like we're doomed to go back and forth. I can't imagine think that either. It's hard to imagine there being anything other than a Republican wash out pretty soon, which is I don't I'm not making predictions, but like, you know, the the the tariff stuff is going to affect people before uh the next midterm election, right? Yeah. Folks, you know, we've been talking on this show lately about political polarization in America, how we're stuck in our bubbles, and about how it's so hard to
• 51:30 - 52:00 know whether the information that you're getting is accurate and unbiased. ble to help me wade my way through the thicket of American political media. That is why I am so happy to use Ground News. Ground News is this awesome aggregator. They collect all the news for you, but they give every single source a bias and factuality rating. So, you know, if the source you're reading is from the center right, the far left. That doesn't mean that what is in it is wrong. It just means you should know the perspective that they write from. Same goes for their factuality rating where they give
• 52:00 - 52:30 you a actual rating of how factual each source is so you can avoid misinformation and know that you're getting the real deal. We use ground news on this show in our research process. We find it super reliable. I think you're going to find it really useful as well. If you want to break out of your bubble and make sure you're getting the real story. So, if that sounds good and you want to give it a try for yourself, well, guess what? You can get 40% off a membership if you go to groundnews.com/factually. Once again, that's 40% off if you go to
• 52:30 - 53:00 groundnews.com/factually. But also, like it really seems like what happened in my mind is, you know, first time Trump ran and won, it was like a fluke and the the traditional Republican just the establishment was like, "All right, we'll just let him be president. We'll like sort of hold a lid on everything." Yeah. But the second time he ran, the really far right-wing elements, like the Heritage Foundation people who've like been making plans for like 40 years to reshape the country, we're like, "This is our guy. if he wins, we can do all this [ __ ] And then that's what they're
• 53:00 - 53:30 doing. They're like like the they want to destroy the federal government. That has always been their plan. And so now they're just, oh, we'll fire everybody. We'll we'll, you know, ignore the laws on the books about it. Um we'll just wreck house. Like they are doing their wish list to a degree that no political movement has ever done their wish list before. And like I just don't think there's enough people in America who actually like that wish list. I no I agree with you completely. Yeah. It's like I mean when you manage to remove
• 53:30 - 54:00 the uh like party affiliations to certain ideas like pretty much every poll ever shows that a lot of like progressive policies themselves are popular with people or that a lot of the those hardcore policies like that like project 2025 stuff are not popular with people but it gets mixed up in the whole identity politic you know the people identify as like sports team element of who people view vote for tribalism. Yeah, tribalism and um but like you said they haven't been able to like you
• 54:00 - 54:30 mentioned earlier Trump's first term and it was minutin and whatever and there was we found out in the January 6th committee there was like even inside the administration there was like team team sane and team crazy or whatever and there you know but there were still sane people around. Yeah. And there were still the old like political establishment type people, Republicans that were like weren't going to let things go too far off the rails, but those people were like, you know, sanity's not, you know, that ain't that ain't what's up in the Trump world and they were all they just they're disloyal
• 54:30 - 55:00 and they push back and all that. So this time around it's like fanatics and true believers and people that are really there to like Yeah. do something know and they're like and idiots as a result. Like if you're if you're optimizing for who's a fanatic and a true believer, you're not getting the smartest people. You're getting like these drunks who are like on a signal chat, right? The the chief like the the mastermind of the whole terror strategy is that is the Navaro guy, right? Based all of his his whole philosophy on a
• 55:00 - 55:30 persona that he made up for himself and like he he made an anagram of his own name. His name's Davaro. So it's like Ron Ron Veo or something like that. He like sourced all this. You don't know what I'm talking about? I didn't hear about this. Yeah. He like in his like writings for like justifying these terrorists. He sources it to an expert named like it's something like I can't do the letters and it but it's like he's like written pseudonym articles that he's citing. Yeah. Right. Exactly. Very much seems that way anyway because that that guy he who's like
• 55:30 - 56:00 behind all that doesn't seem to exist and again it's a perfect you know anagram for his name. So it's like it's just silly [ __ ] That's the thing too is it's like everything is so like bad and catastrophic but so dumb and silly and absurd at the same time and it's a real bad convers combination. You should do all these uh all these big economic changes. You got there's this great economist named Eve Pro under it's the opposite of my name uh coincidentally but yeah just like listen oh yeah he's eminent guy from Likenstein. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Right. No, and that's like
• 56:00 - 56:30 literally happening and it's um but yeah, right that it so the first time around because you didn't have that same element or that same drive and and everything a lot of their worst instincts were sort of not, you know, brought to bear and they're really doing it this time and those things we think are and will be bad. Yeah. Undeniably so. So, how could there not be kind of a reaction to that from the American elector, however electorate, however
• 56:30 - 57:00 goldfishy their memory might be or whatever. Yeah. So, I don't know. But by the same token, it's not like Democrat policies have been good for uh working- class people. You talk a lot about class, right? Like how does that how do you analyze what's happened in America class-wise? you know, like, oh, well, the Democrat, you know, I mean, the the big Democrat got, you know, taken over by the like moderate neoliberal pro business forces that kind of left regular people behind a long time ago, and there's like a progressive element, but they get shut down at every turn.
• 57:00 - 57:30 Yeah. And I think that there needs to be a uh Yeah, we haven't talked about them yet, but no, I mean, I'm I'm not a fan generally, and I think there needs to be a a leftist equivalent to like a tea party moment, like a paradigm shift or something. Yeah. that they had after, you know, they when the country elected a black guy in 2008 and and the right was like, "We got to change everything to, you know, keep this [ __ ] from happening every we got to get way crazier, way dumber, right?" And by God, they did it. We need to have like the progressive inverse version of that
• 57:30 - 58:00 happen, you know, where it's like there needs to be a reckoning, I think, with the Democrats with people that actually like will advocate for the interest of just regular people again instead of just, you know, obviously same [ __ ] everybody says cuz it's true. too much money in politics at Citizens United and all this and people are bought and paid for and they got everybody serving corporate interest and loves the banks on either side and all that and the people that get left behind are just regular working class people and that should be it is the left but it should be the you know the Democratic party. Yeah. Should be
• 58:00 - 58:30 taking up that B and again they have some people who are actually in the party who do but not enough and those people have to fight internal civil wars with the old guard for no good [ __ ] reason and it needs to change. Well, what's crazy is there's this idea on the left that like it it sort of can't be done within the Democratic party, right? Or that, you know, left policies will like never work or they go too far, right? The leftists either say, "Oh, we can't make it happen in the Democratic party." The moderate Democrats say, "Oh, Americans will never go for it, right, for progressive policies." And so, just
• 58:30 - 59:00 nobody ends up doing anything. When you look at what the right has done, the Republican party was taken over from the inside by the most right-wing element of the party. Like, the moderate Republicans are dead. They don't do [ __ ] Mitch McConnell is disempowered and like now they're doing the craziest [ __ ] And so it we should look at it as an opportunity. You can do anything in America. No, that's exactly what I mean when I say like our own version of that. That's what I mean. It's like I that's one of the worst things ever happened in this country in my opinion. But the inverse of that Yeah. the like leftist
• 59:00 - 59:30 or progressive version of that happening to the Democratic party I think is exactly what needs to happen. I don't know if it's going to or or not, but um I you know that's what I think. Yeah. When you look at the arguments that like Democrats, moderate Democrats are like making against Bernie. Oh, people won't vote for this, like we can't actually do these things. Well, they ended up losing. Yeah. Uh by by trying to chart the safer path and the Oh, and Trump will end they all thought Trump would lose because he's too crazy and the guy has run the table. Mhm. Uh what would
• 59:30 - 60:00 you like to see actually happen in terms of policy? You know, uh I um just drop my pen. It's completely pointless things like universal healthcare and UBI and uh you know raising the minimum wage and all these things that just help regular people like economic stuff. I'm very look like don't get me wrong I'm not uh we everyone should have equal rights too and we can't like compromise on that but I think that the driving force of it needs to be the more like [ __ ] FDR
• 60:00 - 60:30 New Deal type thing you know of like uh infrastructure education like I said healthc care just building for the future putting people to work paying people what they deserve and taxing the [ __ ] rich yeah and the way that we need to you know cuz it's like you can whatever they could even you can make multiple millions of dollars a year and then just tax over that. You know what I mean? You can make the threshold pretty high, plenty enough for anybody should be and then just tax the [ __ ] out of what's over that and there still be rich
• 60:30 - 61:00 as hell. Yeah. You know, we can fix a lot of So like that someone who's willing to, you know, take on billionaires, act like legitimately uh and just turn get this country back to like just regular people. The the disheartening part is that Biden for all of his faults, he had many obviously and the Democratic party overall has many, but he was starting to do a couple of the things that you said, right? Like when they came in, they were basically like this is the new FDR. Like that was
• 61:00 - 61:30 their aesthetic point and they started doing some antitrust reform, you know, started trying to like uh break up big companies, go after billionaires a little bit. Lena Khan was at the FTC, you know, going after like stopping mergers and stuff like that. That's all a little bit technocratic, you know. Uh but a the billionaires like fought back right as soon as a little bit you started pushing a little bit. They were like, "Oh, we all got to become Republicans and get Trump elected." And also it did not win him any points with working class people despite him trying.
• 61:30 - 62:00 No, I know that part Yes, that part's very frustrating cuz I thought the whole time by the end the like mental capacity things with Biden I felt like were undeniable. You know what I mean? Yeah. And that killed that killed, right? and that made it non-negotiable to me. But in terms of like what things they accomplished or you know that like and actually got done I it was maddening to me some of the discourse around the B administration all the time because it just wasn't fair you know like people just didn't give him any credit for any
• 62:00 - 62:30 things they actually did accomplish and that then that's a whole other aspect of like [ __ ] propaganda and disinformation in the media and what that's become and where people get their information from and the bubbles people live in and and that and that. So then there's that. There's like I feel like that and all the money and politics like those two things I feel like may be the the big, you know, headliner items that are [ __ ] this country up like the main things. And I don't it's like there's too many people making too much
• 62:30 - 63:00 money off of how it all currently works to Yeah. I mean, sometimes I think it's going to take, you know, something pretty extreme. Yeah. Depending on how bad it gets, you know, something kind of Frenchy or um or Luigiesque, but I don't know. Well, one of the problems we have though is that like workingass people do not support like leftist like policies that are designed for working-class people, right? I'm actually listening to this history of like the the rise of the Third Reich right now. Just funny thing.
• 63:00 - 63:30 I was like, I should maybe learn about like what happened in like the early rise of the Nazi party, you know, and like see exactly how that went down. How you sleeping? How's that doing for your, you know, sleep? Yeah, it's uh honestly, it's more comforting than reading the news right now. Okay. Like uh [ __ ] makes a little bit more sense. One of the things that makes a little bit more sense in that story is that like the working class in Germany at the time, like a lot of them were communists, right, or socialists because like that was who, you know, the the the
• 63:30 - 64:00 leftists were espousing ideas that were specifically for the working class. And so like one of the things the Nazis tried to do was, oh, we we want to get that support. We want to take it away from the communists, right? But like if you look around America now, the people who are, you know, the leftists most want to support actually support the other side um to a crazy degree. And it's like uh people call it disalignment, right? That like the the uh the the people who the policies are supposed to help do not support the policies or do not support the people who are putting the policies forward.
• 64:00 - 64:30 And I have no idea how to solve that. I don't know how to solve it either. But I think it's like I said, I think it comes back to the propaganda and the media and all that and all the culture war [ __ ] you know, they don't think they don't think about like there are people who genuinely believe that like every liberal is like a pedophilic, you know, blood drinker or whatever, like basically killing blood, like literally. Yeah. And I don't know what I don't I I don't again outside
• 64:30 - 65:00 of there would have to be some kind of regulation that reigns in you know what like disinformation you know and and again I don't know how that's ever going to happen because it it benefits too many people and we have a first amendment and like do we want to live in a world with that kind of regulation like I know so I don't I no I I know that I don't I don't know what you I don't know how you actually fix that either outside all like giving them enough rope to hang themselves in that Like we were saying earlier, this is all real bad and stupid. I genuinely
• 65:00 - 65:30 believe. Yeah. And so if they and they're they're, you know, heading down the track still. And if they keep doing it, hopefully people just won't be able to deny anymore. You know what I mean? However bad the propaganda is, they won't be able to deny like things are bad and this is clearly the reason why. Yeah. I outside of that, I don't know. If the other side I mean, one of the things that's pathetic about the Democrats is they're not able to say this is bad. here's why and here's what we should do instead, right? Like there's a couple people, right, who try,
• 65:30 - 66:00 Bernie has tried, right? But like the mainstream of the party like Schumer and and whoever else is leading it, these people are the the current DNC chair, they're just like they cannot even enunciate what the [ __ ] is happening, right? Yeah. No, I don't Yeah, I don't know. I mean, that's another one, too. It's just like I said, paradigm shift, new leadership, new approach, all of it. Cuz Yeah, you're right. It's like they it feels like they've been playing by a different set of rules the whole time. Even though it's should have been
• 66:00 - 66:30 abundantly clear by now that all that is out the [ __ ] window. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like it's completely whole new ball game. But there's still a lot of them like Schumer and his ilk are like still acting like things work the way that they always have in this country. Yeah. Cuz they're all 85 and that's what got them there. What else would they think, you know? Yeah. Right. Exactly. I think that uh what we don't think about enough is you said we need a new FDR. Um and that would be great except that what brought us FDR was the
• 66:30 - 67:00 Great Depression. Yeah, I know. Like well and that was the result of the 19th century corruption regimes which is like that looks like what we have now. So maybe that's where we're heading. I know the guilded age, the Robert Baronss and everything like un you know wealth just running rough shot over the entire populace and no regul Yeah. No, it's a startling parallel, but it's also like Yeah, I don't like I don't love the idea of that either, but I'm saying like I kind of think that that just is happening. Yeah. You know what I mean?
• 67:00 - 67:30 Like I I know it's like you have Hoover to get to FDR and all that, but it's like well I think we're maybe there like at the beginning of that process. Yeah, that's kind of what I mean when I say like I if it gets bad enough then maybe it'll swing, maybe we can finally course correct. That's kind of, I guess, a more diplomatic way of me trying to say basically that, you know, is that that's what it's going to take. And I don't want that either. Again, I got kids, but it's like it doesn't really matter what I want at this point. It's kind of what I think. It certainly seems like we could go in that direction with like
• 67:30 - 68:00 suddenly 50% tariffs on everything, meaning every average things are going to get 50% more expensive and the stock market crashing if that persists. Like there's an entirely new economic reality that'll like reshape people's lives in ways that are unpredictable that they might not even be aware of. It's [ __ ] crazy world entering. Yeah. No, I know. Yeah. It's uh it's like, you know, sure you agree. I'm very I'm I'm tired of living in interesting times. You know, ancient curse. Like I've I like boring
• 68:00 - 68:30 [ __ ] man. Well, my you know, movies and stuff, not necessarily, but like my times I like my times to be boring. That's why everybody's nostalgic for for the 90. The '9s really looked like that was the peak of America civilization. American civilization. And of course, that's because that's when I was in high school. Me, too. Feel the same way. But what was great about it, it was boring. There was not that much happening. Monica Lewinsky was the biggest thing that happened in the '9s. uh you know
• 68:30 - 69:00 the the the president in a sex scandal which is like by comparison now like oh what a nice little thing to gossip about. Yeah. No the president is an adjudicated rapist or whatever. He got reelected after that happened you know. I mean, yeah, it's absolutely that was a real like uh kind of a real turning point moment for me for a lot of people was, you know, during the first goround with Trump and that like the the [ __ ] tapes or whatever the like that was like it it was still at a point for me at
• 69:00 - 69:30 least with our politics in this country that when that first happened I was like okay well I mean I agree. No, no one can survive. I know he's got different rules everybody else but not to that extent. And then when that didn't matter at that point it was like oh okay we're entering a whole new era. I had this idea in the back of my head that from growing up in the '90s that so much of America was still like small C socially conservative just like prudish. Yeah. Prudish. The same people who didn't like seeing Janet Jackson's boob on TV would object to the man saying [ __ ] on tape. Yes. And just
• 69:30 - 70:00 hearing that and go, "Oh, well that's pretty crass. I don't like that. That's not what they say at church, so I'm not going to vote for him." And that was a big change that like we don't we don't give a [ __ ] about that anymore. That we're a much crasser sort of rder country than we were a couple years ago was something that took me by surprise. Yeah. No, I agree with you completely. I thought the same thing. But I think that specific like you said, it's what they that a how we talk at church. It's like that's a whole other thing. Again, this is in a lot a lot of ways has been kind
• 70:00 - 70:30 of a long time coming for the American right because that's also tied to like the successful campaign to just fundamentally align Republicans and Christianity or whatever like and because it didn't always used to be that way. That's a massive part of it all too. It's like there it doesn't matter like he's their guy. It doesn't matter the reality of who he is or how he is or what he does. It's like he just is their guy. So he's like, you know, a holy man or whatever. and and Barack Obama was a secret Kenyan Muslim. Yeah. Whatever. I I know you're not a Christian, but if I
• 70:30 - 71:00 can speculate a little bit, is part of it that like, well, he's a sinner, right? You know, like everybody sins. He's a of course he's a piece of [ __ ] We're all pieces of [ __ ] but we can all be in furtherance of God's plan. You know what I mean? Isn't that accommodation? I have never known these people to hold back from judging other pieces of [ __ ] regardless of how big of a piece of [ __ ] they might be. That's kind of a like an underlying precept with at least the Christians that I grew up with. Everybody knows it. Like even
• 71:00 - 71:30 even other Christians all like acknowledge it. It's like there's jokes about it and [ __ ] It's like why do you always go fishing with at least two Baptist? Cuz if you go with just one, he'll drink all your beer, right? Yeah. Like [ __ ] like that. They won't drink in front of a great joke. Yeah. There's tons of [ __ ] like that. So, it's like, no, I don't think I don't think that you're taking an almost like two Christian viewpoint of like, oh, it's, you know, he's a sinner. He's a lost soul. He could still be saved or whatever. But I don't think it's I I
• 71:30 - 72:00 think if they if they didn't if it wasn't if he wasn't like their, you know, their guy, their champion, their sports team that they're a part of that they root for, I don't think they would they would hold back at all calling him a uh, you know, Yeah. philandering piece of [ __ ] or whatever. But they just they just ignore it all and pretend it isn't there. Yeah. Maybe. Okay, let me speculate in a different direction because a lot of uh Christians in America have a fundamentally apocalyptic worldview that like somebody needs to come along to sort of bring about the
• 72:00 - 72:30 destruction of society in order to create the kingdom kingdom of God on earth. Yeah. Is it that maybe? I mean, that's what I've been told by my Christian friends or like ex-Christian friends about like uh I guess a lot of the Israel stuff evidently is tied up in that for American Christians because that's part of like the Bible and the prophecy or whatever is like they literally want that conflict over there to elevate to the level of like bringing Jesus back and the book revelation in the end times and so that's why they
• 72:30 - 73:00 support Israel politically or something. So there's definitely an element of that, but I really do just think it's like they just it's like I said, it's just more of the tribalism than anything. It's like I said, you're you're you know, a Christian, which you're a Christian and Republican, and those two are kind of one and the same. And so you just, you know, you got your team and he's like the coach or the quarterback or whatever of your team, and it doesn't matter. Unlike with sport, in sports, if the quarterback like sucks openly out loud, people are going to call for him to be replaced. But here that it doesn't apply
• 73:00 - 73:30 for whatever reason. Yeah. Do you what do you think about uh in terms of comedy like being a liberal guy from your area? We've also seen like a huge rise in right-wing comedy in the last couple years. Absolutely. Uh any thoughts on it? Oh, I'm not going to lie. I I don't know about you, but I I never really saw that coming uh really. I mean, like long enough because I grew up a comedy nerd. Yeah. And always wanted to do a standup and I didn't start. What did you love first? My f Yeah. the growing up the I
• 73:30 - 74:00 remember specifically like the moment I thought because I I grew up in my dad's video store. I always wanted to do some kind of show business something. Uh but with standup specifically it was Chris Rock's Bigger and Blacker. That's the special that has the stuff about you know dads like nobody that all he gets is the big piece of chicken. Nobody gives a [ __ ] about dad. Everybody because I I said I was raised by a single dad. I just remember my dad loving that [ __ ] It's funny. I mean comics have a similar story of like seeing their dad crack up at something or whatever. But that's literally what it was. So that was the moment. So Chris
• 74:00 - 74:30 Rock to this day for sentimental reasons and also I mean I just think he's great. Chris Rock is my all-time number one. He's my favorite guy. But uh I also then I got into all like I said I loved Eddie Izzard and I loved Yeah. Old Richard Prior stuff and I loved early Dave Chappelle and I just you know loved all of it. And uh but what oh right. So then as and like I I always knew I wanted to do comedy but I was in the middle of nowhere and I finally I get to Knoxville and I'm 24 and that's when I start in 2010 and like back then as I sort of
• 74:30 - 75:00 alluded to earlier I would to in Knoxville and in little bar shows and stuff right there I'd make fun of the Bible and that type of stuff and it was like super that was like as far as you could push the envelope a lot like it was very ballsy in that time and place right to a lot like be a lot of comics who also were in there be like I can't believe this [ __ ] you get away with like that type of thing. And I always thought it was cuz I sounded like them. You know what I mean? Like even then it was kind of a Trojan horse type deal. But either way, it was like, like I said, ballsy
• 75:00 - 75:30 and edgy. And now in comedy in general to a lot of comedy fans, it's like whatever. It's it's woke pandering, you know, liberal [ __ ] And like the real truth tellers now, the ones that push the envelope and stuff now are the guys who are on the right because you know they say [ __ ] and stuff like that. So literally they're just telling racist jokes from the 50s like street jokes. Yeah. Black people eat watermelon and like that's being a bold truth teller now. And we were talking about how everything the pendulum always
• 75:30 - 76:00 swings or whatever and everything's reactionary in this country. So I guess that's part of it. But I still didn't I didn't really foresee that uh until it was already kind of on us, you know, but it's it's wild to me, you know, that it's so cuz used to like people even when I like first even like in 2016 when I first went viral, people would ask they would be like it was you know how like for a long time was like are women funny? Which is hilarious. That was a thing. Well, that there also was a thing like I would get asked like are there any good
• 76:00 - 76:30 conservative comedians? You know what I like that that used to be they were like are there any funny conservative people? They don't have any. And now it's like the biggest ticket sellers and biggest names in all of comedy are on that side. And I just I never would have the biggest ticket sellers in comedy literally hosted Donald Trump on all their podcasts last year. Yeah. You know, and they're overtly conservatives. I mean, they're like they've they speak at his rallies. They went to the inauguration. But yeah, and I remember in like 2014, 2015 hearing liberals say
• 76:30 - 77:00 there's no such thing as conservative comedy fundamentally. It was the same as how Democrats used to say that there'll never be another Republican president because demographics are changing. You also had people say, "Oh yeah, comedy just is liberal." And I always thought that was suspect cuz like everybody likes to laugh and everybody, you know, all you got to do is figure out what people think and then say something that surprises them but also confirms what they believe and you can make them laugh. And like of course those those folks want to laugh, but it it has been
• 77:00 - 77:30 crazy to see it become like the the one of the biggest parts of comedy right now. Yeah. No, I mean it's I mean I think it it seems like it is the biggest part of comedy to me. Yeah. I didn't I mean I'm with you. Of course, you know that like but I think the the the argument of like because I used to think too is like any comedians generally are like uh they're skeptics. They are [ __ ] talkers. You know meaning like they question things. Yeah. They question authority. They make fun of things. They, you know, like pull pull [ __ ]
• 77:30 - 78:00 apart and uh, you know, try to expose it and that sort. And I did used to kind of think that those general traits were kind of antithetical to being at least like a hardcore conservative. But then, like I said, reactionary put it. The sense was that the left pushed so far that like, you know, oh, you can't say anything anymore. You can't joke about anything, right? And then I feel like that was a real big impetus for the push in that direction for right-wing comedy uh in particular was the whole
• 78:00 - 78:30 like who are you to tell me that I can't joke about something. But again, they're they're like screaming about that on like $20 million Netflix specials is the biggest podcast on earth. So, don't get me wrong, but I'm just saying that like feeling I think was a big It's crazy how that feeling took over when you know now if you say the wrong thing, some guys come and put you in a van and like take you to Salvador. That's always been true too. Yes. They're the ones that really cancel people. I saw you got Is that the
• 78:30 - 79:00 book from Cliff Netor talks about like how on the show people are aware it's like you know like Lenny Bruce went to jail. Yeah. and [ __ ] like people you used to you couldn't talk you couldn't like say the word pregnant and like the comedy routine or whatever and that was always the equivalent of the right you know like the the conservatives or the equivalent of at that time who were policing what could and could not be said and still to this day they're the ones who really cancel everybody and that was true the whole time you know they can't cancel Bud Light and Disney
• 79:00 - 79:30 and all them all the time they got something new to be pissed off about like I mean it doesn't you don't need to say Republicans social conservatives who are in positions of power, legislate morality and what people can say and like social progressives or social liberals, whatever you want to say, don't do that. They say, "We'd prefer you not say that thing or they might show up with signs or something like that and protest you if you're really, you know, you're really far beyond." Um, but like no one's passing laws about it, you know. Um, and in most case what
• 79:30 - 80:00 people are complaining about is just college students didn't laugh at my joke. college students who are have never been to a comedy show in most cases and are like nervous because they're around their friends, you know? Yeah. I guess for bigname comics, I guess it was different and their expectations were off because of that. But I've always gotten the impression it's like I every every comic I know knows that college shows as a general rule are at least like hit or miss. You know what I mean? Like and often times not about dating cuz they don't do it. Well, they just don't they're like you said, they haven't been to a comedy show
• 80:00 - 80:30 or they're too cool for it or whatever. Sometimes, you know, people don't even show up and when they do, they're just like, you know, they just don't give a [ __ ] about it. So, it's not their pajamas. They're taking a break from studying, right? Exactly. So, it's like it's not necessarily tied to Yeah. Oh, they're too uptight, you know, politically to laugh at this. It's just like they wouldn't they wouldn't some of them just wouldn't be laughing at anything. They got like misinterpreted or whatever. I don't know, man. That just put me in my uh memory once of like almost 10 years ago I did a show at uh a
• 80:30 - 81:00 girls college like I forget which one but it was like a historically you know all all female university and um that was like one of the more intense shows I've ever done to to be laughed at exclusively by an audience of women in my mid20s was like kind of rocked me to my core and also yeah just like grow you know growing up the judgment of women always meant a lot to me. You know what I mean? I was like, "Oh, I I hope that I hope that the women around me
• 81:00 - 81:30 think think well of me." And then also having to tailor my my my material specifically to that particular circumstance. I'm going to do comedy for exclusively an audience of 19year-old women is like different than a general audience. Absolutely. And like I think a lot of comics just are not able to make that adjustment, you know, of like here are the people in front of me. Um, but do you think that uh I guess let's let's wrap it up with this general topic. Like um I don't know. I think too much is made often of like whether comedy is
• 81:30 - 82:00 politically powerful. Like to me it's like an expression of what's happening politically or like maybe we're able to detect something about what's going on politically cuz we're going and like trying to make people laugh in person. But at the same time, like conservative comedy or right-wing what this trend that we're talking about, it has been like part of the politics of the last two years in like a really definite way. That's true. Um, so like how do you think about it? I used to always I definitely agreed with you when people would ask me. I would be like I don't think I don't know that I
• 82:00 - 82:30 buy that political comedy or comedy in general or satire like really changes much of anything or changes people's minds or whatnot. But I do still think it could be important because it like speaks to some important [ __ ] that's happening in the world. It gives people a way to think about a way to laugh at something that might be hard to laugh about. So it can still be cathartic or helpful or whatever. So it's still good and important. I just don't I don't know that it's really like making a difference, right? Sometimes you get some liberal comes up to you and they're like, "Thank you. Thank you for making a difference." You're like, "You got to
• 82:30 - 83:00 chill out, right?" Yes. No, I'm a giggle monger. But yeah. No. So that was always my position. But I but but you're right though about this new like rightwing version of it. It's uh it's because I also I've got two son. My sons are middle school aged and they're both they're good boys. They're not into any of that type of [ __ ] yet. But I think about it all the time. And when I say that type of [ __ ] I mean like alpha male, you know, like I live in fear of Andrew Tate, man. Like or them finding him or what and liking it or any of that
• 83:00 - 83:30 stuff. And I I don't see them being like that. But I think about this [ __ ] a lot because I have sons and that I do think there was something to that whole thing of like uh finding a way to to talk to or reach or appeal to like young guys. Yeah. You know, and because they vote too and they could be a powerful, you know, demographic and they pretty much exclusively are, you know, owned by and driven by these right-wing forces right now lately like in the media and stuff or in comedy and in podcasting and all that. Yeah.
• 83:30 - 84:00 So, like I don't know what the answer to it is, but I, you know, again, I do think about it a lot because it's like it's like personal to me, you know, hear all this talk about what young guys are like now. And also, it's like I'm a man. I was a young guy. I have sons. It's like I do think there's also some of that like and I'm white. I'm a white man with white sons. And the whole like, you know, the idea that like white young white dudes get the impression, however fairly, from society or the media or
• 84:00 - 84:30 whatever frequently that they, you know, suck or that they should just shut the [ __ ] up or that nobody wants to hear from them or that they shouldn't be doing anything. I don't think that's completely unfounded. And I can see why they would uh some of them would, you know, push back against that and be like, "Well, [ __ ] you then." Yeah. you know, and so I think that uh you know, people need to be more honest about that and try to figure out a way to, you know, uh try to offer some kind of other option,
• 84:30 - 85:00 counterprogramming. Young white man, come in here. The water's what I'm saying. Go to go to a I literally been thinking about trying to [ __ ] do start Twitch streaming, dude. Like, you know, something cuz I do cuz I that's how much I've been thinking about this. But it's like, you know, but also I know enough cuz I have sons. Like I'm I'm a dad of the guys. He's like, I know that I'm not cool. You know, we need somebody that's like cool is that's also, you know, not a raging rightwinger or whatever. So, but I don't know. Dads are cool. Plenty of those guys are dads. They're, you know,
• 85:00 - 85:30 solid family values, but also that is true. Yeah. You know, I know. But I do think a lot of it's like it was kind of Trojan horse. I feel like meaning like a lot of that stuff did not it didn't start out as like overtly political or that wasn't the main feel and it stuff that young guys like and so they start [ __ ] with it and then that gets like Yeah. filtered in. Yeah. No, it's like you're just listening to your favorite workout podcast or comedy podcast and the people on it go Joe Biden, you know, and then it's just ambiently around and
• 85:30 - 86:00 that's just like what your bros think, what your pals think. In the same way that liberals operate, right? I listen to this like ambient, you know, here's all the stuff that we agree on. The people I like all sort of think this way, so I'll think that way too. It doesn't need to be political content in that way. Like I think that literally political comedy uh is often not the most important thing. It's like just what your favorite gamer or comic who talks about completely different things.
• 86:00 - 86:30 I fully agree. I've been, again, that's another thing I've been thinking a lot about lately. Yeah, that's sort of like I guess I don't know if Trojan horse is the right way to put it because I don't know how uh like deliberate it is for everybody that that's how it works. But I do think that you're right that that's like it that is more important. You know, it's just having um you know, a more reasonable sort of voice behind some of these things that, you know, draws these people in to begin with. You just got to start your hit podcast about
• 86:30 - 87:00 the Tennessee Volunteers and you know then occasionally drop a little politics in it or so or whatever your interest is. Yeah. No, I know you I mean been thinking about it. Not maybe not that specifically. I don't know. I mean I do love sports [ __ ] but I um yeah I mean I think that type of thing is what is needed. I'm saying are you working on are are you building towards anything bigger now than what you're currently or like what are your I don't know. I mean again aspirations I'm mulling all this stuff. I mean my general I also like the traditional Hollywood stuff. I also want
• 87:00 - 87:30 to do you know I mean you had a TV show that was great and that people loved. So I don't um I don't make those anymore. They don't make TV shows anymore. I know it's good good for me but um but yeah like you know I write scripts and put shows and stuff like that too but I also am thinking about yeah sort of next steps or whatever for just my own thing because you know like most of us now my my whole career is just it's me and my following. You know what I mean? not the Hollywood apparatus or anything. So, I'm trying to think of what the next Yeah. step in and I haven't figured it out
• 87:30 - 88:00 yet, but I am. The great thing about that is that like, you know, when you build something here, you know, podcast, live touring, what we do, it's like no one can ever take it away from you, right? You can it can't be cancelled. You don't have to make an executive happy every year to keep it going. But then you miss the sort of like infrastructure like the supersuit of the media, you know, of being able to build something bigger, right? That maybe goes further. Um, that's like the constant war I have too is like, oh, do I put more time into something that isn't a
• 88:00 - 88:30 safe bet, like, you know, to pitch something where like maybe I waste my time or do I keep building like the thing that I that I have that is, you know, giving me uh a stable life currently but is not going to have that chance of being like another another lottery ticket or another like big project that would be fun to do, right? Yeah, that is the question. This also reminds me I should have said at some point because I haven't. I have a YouTube special out now called Trash Daddy. Oh, hell yeah. Yeah, the second one. It just came out a couple weeks ago. So, check that out. I'm also always on tour. Treycrowder.com. So, where are
• 88:30 - 89:00 you headed soon? Uh, some of the same places you are. And I don't know when you did this come out like within a week or two or what? Or anyway, um, it's going to come out in two days. Oregon, uh, Eugene and Portland and Houston, Texas, and then Seattle and uh, Vegas, and then La Hoya, and on from there. Oh yeah, man. Where do people get tickets? Treycrowder.com. Recrowder.com. and the new special Trash Eddie. Trey, thank you so much for being here, man. It's been awesome talking to you. Thank you, buddy. It was a good time. Well, thank you once again to Trey for coming
• 89:00 - 89:30 on the show. You heard his tour dates. Mine are April 16th through 17th, I'll be in Vancouver, Canada. April 18th through 19th, I'll be in Eugene, Oregon. After that, Charleston, South Carolina, Tulsa, Oklahoma. Whole bunch of other cities. Head to adamconver.net for those tickets. And if you want to support the show directly, head to patreon.com/adamconver. Of course, five bucks a month gets you every episode of the show ad free. for 15 bucks a month. I will read your name in the credits of the podcast. It's been a little while since I recorded one, so we got some we got some new people to read off. We got uh Anthony and Janet Barlay. Thank you
• 89:30 - 90:00 very much. We got David Sears, VG, Christian Brower, Tank Guy, Damen Frank, Matthew, Robert Miller, Griffin Meyers, Oh No, Not Again, Sam Biggins, Taylor Kfik, BK, Ryan Copesel, Roth, Robin Ward, Alex Wac, Grant King, and 90 miles from Needles. If you'd like me to read your name on the show or put it in the credits of every single one of my monologues, head to patreon.com/adamconver and adamconver.net for tickets and tour dates. I'd like to thank my producers Sam Rodman and Tony Wilson, everybody
• 90:00 - 90:30 here at Headgum for making the show possible. Thank you so much for listening. We'll see you next time on Factually. That was a Headgum podcast.