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I'm sick of boys fighting and like one-upping each other and being petty at the same time I'm at the fucking lawyer. Me and Natalie are like, oh, we're not going to do Christmas because we're going to the lawyer because I got to put together these fucking documents to create a marriage. So when they overturn marriage equality, I have a protective partnership with my wife. That's the shit that working people are doing. Normal people are doing. Well, you're tweeting about your limp dick and trying to get him on your fucking show.
Rise and shine, fever dreamers. Look alive, my friends. I'm Fee Spear. I'm Sammy Sage. And this is American Fever Dream, presented by Betches News. Where we explore the absurdities and oddities of our uniquely American experience. Speaking of odd, wicked. Absurd.
Oh my gosh. Okay. So we are the Tuesday after Thanksgiving and we have both been transformed forever by seeing Wicked. We have. We've been changed for good. Changed for good, if you will. For the better. Yeah. Because I knew you. What did you think? Because I knew you. I loved it. I mean, come on. She's not a Broadway girlie. So
So I'm not a Broadway girly now, but when I was younger, I was into certain musicals. And I do like plays, particularly like one hour plays with like one or two people in them. And like a simple set. I love something like that. She's a black box girly. She's a black box theater girly. There's nothing I love more than a black box theater. But you know, Rent, Hairspray, Chicago, Wicked. Wicked was always in my canon and I have seen it
And I love the movie. What'd you think? I loved it. And I've seen Wicked on Broadway a couple of times and I am a Broadway girly. And I kind of had this moment of like, well, am I going to like it as much as the stage show? Am I going to feel it as much? And then I like hysterically cried the entire time.
I'll tell you, they did it justice in having real sets, limited CGI, that singing, the dynamic, the chemistry between the whole audience. Everybody was so present. Whoever this director is, I don't... John Chu. He's incredible. Yeah, he did a spot on Morning Joe this morning. He was talking about how he built out that whole set and that every place you could actually go into, like all those stores. And honestly, I felt that it was better for screen than for Broadway because it was...
you know, you could get the fantasy and, you know, you don't need to put the goat in like a mask or something. Oh, poor Dr. Dillman. Which character are you?
Do you think you're an Alphabot or a Glinda? I'm neither. I'm the wizard. We left. What? You're a scammer? Not really, but you know what I mean? Like, not in the worst way, not in the bad way, but in the way that, like, you really want things to be magic. And, like, I just, I could totally see me. When we left, I was like, of all the characters I would ever be cast as, the wizard was the highest. Like, let's assume I had all the talent in the world, right? They would never cast me as Alphabot or Glinda, but I do have a shot at the wizard.
I have no shot at any of them, but I think I'm a slightly more Elphaba than Glinda, but
But not Anessa. No, not Anessa. Watch out for her. People are like Nessa fangirling. Not to lack too. Oh boy. She earns that Wicked Witch of the East name. Don't they know? They don't know. I do kind of love people like discovering this after and also revisiting it in my own mind. Like, yeah, because it's such a well-formed world and series. And I think this could be the beginning of a full cinematic universe. I hope so.
I want to visit one, one thing, one theme of the movie as where, you know, obviously this is a movie for our time. The New York times did a whole op-ed second, you know, all their opinion writers did a whole conversation about how it really maps very cleanly onto the way people think about things. Like whether you're on the right or left, you can see yourself as the one who's crusading for truth against, you know, these oppressive forces. And I,
one thing that I had not thought about for a while, but the song Popular is obviously one of my favorite songs, favorite scenes. And what it reminded me of was when I first saw the play, I guess like right when it came out when I was young, like I guess maybe I was like 13. It's sort of like
put a new spin on the concept of popularity. You know, you're like in middle school and you're in high school and like you care about being popular and you're learning, you're sort of learning to navigate that socially in your head. And I feel like that song put in my mind a sort of sense of unease around the idea of popularity because it sort of like planted the idea to me that that means fake and it means it's precarious and you have to always be trying to do things to win other people's
love. And it made me think- It's not about aptitude. It's the way you're viewed. Yeah. It made me just think back on how when at a formative time for understanding like, do you want to be popular? Is popularity important to prioritize? It
kind of like gave me a refreshing view on that. And I think it's one that I've kept with me. That's the power of art, right? And that's why we need art. And we hope that Donald Trump doesn't defund the National Endowment for the Arts. But we need art for these reasons. Now, when I was 13, the musical Rent came out, which is why I wanted to be, I wanted to move to New York City and be on drugs. I wanted to be a sex worker on drugs in New York City. But, you know, we...
We all grew up a certain way. I thought that looked so fucking cool. I was like, why wouldn't I want to live in a drafty loft with all my friends and do like stage shows at a coffee house and struggle? That's what I want out of life. You know, what's so funny is that rent was also hugely formative for me, but I was in like third and fourth grade listening to rent, which was so inappropriate. Yeah. But also I was too young to, for it to be appealing. Yeah. And,
And now, as I've gotten older and listened to it at various times in my life, I'm like, I can't believe my mother was letting me listen to this. And I would ask her, like, what is a stash? What is – I didn't understand what I was watching. You're like, it's a literal candy bar. No, it's not. Yeah. No, I was so weird about Rent. I had this Rent t-shirt because my older cousin loved Rent. And so, of course, then I had to do everything Kristen did because she's the coolest. My camera screen name was –
had Rent in it. It was like, we were so young. I was crazy. I had this black and white Rent t-shirt that I used to wear with a long sleeve thermal, white thermal under it. I'm telling you like every day, my mom had to like peel it off of me to wash it because I was obsessed with it. And I would listen to it all the time. I performed that over the moon thing that Maureen does. And they're in coffee houses in my hometown, like on open mic nights, like to thunderous acclaim. Like I was too obsessed with Rent. I was very weird about it. Can you do that?
now? Oh, I absolutely could. We should do a stage show. Can you explain that? I would love to do a stage show in a little black box theater. Yes. Can you explain Over the Moon to me? Because I didn't understand that at all as a child, and now I'm thinking about it, I'm like, what the fuck?
We should do a full Sammy and V's special interest breakdown. Yeah, it's about breaking capitalism and the government and whatnot. In Cyberland, we only drink Diet Coke. Yeah, it's about a dystopian future, and that's where we are right now. An overconsumption, over, like, you know, it's the Elon Musk future that he dreams of.
I think I need to do a full listening session later or maybe watch the movie with Cory Booker's ex-girlfriend. Yes. Sammy and V's special interest Broadway edition. Okay. Email us. Email us if you have a show. Because then after Rent came Aida and then I was obsessed with Aida and my screen name was Amneris1321.
All right, back to Wicked. It was amazing. It was amazing. And I think it is reflective of the times, not as reflective as Hadestown, where they have that song, Build the Wall, Why We Build the Wall. If you haven't seen Hadestown, it is very Trumpian coded. And it's one of my favorite musicals, not just because my wife was the Broadway cellist for it, but.
That's a good reason. It's phenomenal. It was a good reason. I've seen it many, many times. It's a great show. And what I learned from that show and that I carry with me today is the idea of showing people the world that could be in spite of the way that it is. And even if you know that things will turn out bad, you try again. You keep trying. And that's the thing with the show. We know that Orpheus will turn around. We know that it won't work out, but we try again. We try again. That's also the thing with our show. Yes. We try again.
Here we are. And we are going to talk to you more about the promise of American Fever Dream. Do you believe in the promise of American Fever Dream? I do, Sammy and I. Sammy and I, this show came from me and Sammy's friendship largely, like in our group chat and wanting to bring it out into the greater world because we're really good friends. Well, first I foisted you off on Amanda. Yeah.
That's true. Temporarily, because I had too many shows. But now we're in the perfect amount of shows. I loved Amanda, too. I still do. Amanda's phenomenal. I love Amanda. Yes.
And the iteration of the show we have now really comes from me and Sammy's friendship and this idea of like, you know, including more people in the group chat because so often we feel lonely in our ideas. And I often feel the most lonely when I want to be positive about something, when I want to be like, yes, this is terrible and we can do something about it. Right. A lot of times, and I've seen this, unfortunately, since the election with creators on TikTok who have fallen into such incredible despair and conspiracy content. And just, you could tell that they're exhausted and it's because they're
We are a country of consumption and they don't know how to stop and reflect. I didn't even realize I took a month off really. Like I did a couple of videos here and there, but I haven't done a YouTube in a month. We've sort of like taken the time to reflect. It's a light use of time.
time off, but okay. True. But for me, but I mean, in terms of like giving yourself the time to mourn something and then through that clarity, you can say, okay, you know, like I talked to Natalie and my team and I was like, what am I going to do with under the desk going forward? Because I got a little confident, right? Like I haven't really been physically under the desk in probably over a year because I was like, oh, it's okay. It's like safe to come out here. And I'm like out on stage now and I'm like touring and I'm doing different stuff.
And she was like, I think you have to go back under the desk. You started under the desk during Trump's administration the first time. We created a space for people to learn that wasn't scary and that they could count on just being steady. And so over the weekend, we put the desk back together. And tonight we start under the desk again the way that it was.
Because there is some safety in going back to what worked before, because we will get through this, right? Like we're going to get through the Trump administration. There's only two more years until the midterm election when we can do Congress and the Senate again. I do think that people will emerge as helpers. And I also think that we're going to see a lot of pain and disappointment and strife and struggle and weird shit.
But we'll be back under the desk. And so that was my promise on Under the Desk is that I'll be back under the desk. It'll be something familiar that we know worked before that you can count on. And then Sammy and I were talking about what's the promise of American Fever Dream? What are we promising people? What's the reward for giving us your time other than our Broadway analysis? I mean, other than the Broadway analysis, I think that is why people come to listen to me, a hater of musicals, talk about musicals.
What I think is that it has been really hard to see the reaction that feels very nihilistic and maybe rightfully so. But what I think we want to do here is get back to our roots, which was the original purpose of Betches News, which is to have fun, to discuss things in a way that is lighter because you can get the doom and gloom so many places. You can get that everywhere.
You can also get to be completely tuned out if you want to go other places. But we want to stand in the middle of that and continue to really discuss what is that intersection of our culture and what is happening that you need to know about in the news. And
you know, what is happening is really the fabric of what makes our lives, whether we realize that or not. And we want to be a protective layer against all of that, whether that means in terms of what we will help you maybe practically do to the extent we can or advise to the extent we can. And also continue to really be a space to lighten up to the extent that you can. Because I know it's really hard to let go
And especially when you're focusing on it, it's hard to just totally tune out. You kind of want to doom spiral, but I don't know. I grew up on the daily show. I grew up on Bill Maher. Yeah.
Chelsea Handler even. Chelsea Handler. Like all these people who really inspired me to see the cross-section of culture and entertainment and politics. And that's what we're going to continue to be. We want to entertain you. It's okay to have fun. And honestly...
Emily and I talked about this in our book. Joy and hope, those are disciplines, they're choices, and they are actually forms of asserting yourself against an oppressive regime or against the powers that be. And really leaning into your joy and being present in it and allowing yourself to take time where you can is a reward for yourself, and that is a form of
quote unquote, resistance. It is.
And, you know, I grew up on Ricky Lake and Phil Donahue and Diane Sawyer. So you're going to get a little of that too. We're going to be a little bit Ricky Lake show and that maybe we'll have on the worst people in the world, but we'll always be on your side when we're interviewing them or something. I will always love that Ricky Lake episode when she had Fred Phelps, the founder of Westboro Baptist Church on, and he was saying the most disgusting, vile, shitty, awful things to her. And she was only 24 years old at the time. And I remember she was standing in the audience and she's like, get the fuck
get the fuck off my set. This is my show. You don't talk to me like that. And like she, we've interviewed her before and she was like in my ear as the producer going, he can't leave. He can't leave because this is like the guest for the day. And she's like, get the fuck out of here. Like I want, I love Ricky Lake. We'll get Ricky on the show, but we're going
to bring back the nostalgia, the fun. I used to say, I hope you listen to this show as you're walking around home, good shopping. And now with Trump's tariffs, we won't be able to do that anymore. So I hope you're listening to this show with a little bit of wine or like a fancy iced tea somewhere in a comfy couch under a blanket with your gal pals. And then you're also talking about what's going on because it's about in-person connections and building these small sort of groups now. Yes, exactly. In-person connections, which actually was originally my...
reason that I included my thoughts about popular in this outline, although I didn't put it in the outline. I just wrote popular, popularity, so precarious. That is what we want to talk about today. We want to talk about the pitfalls of popularity when it comes to the most popular podcast on the left, Pod Save America.
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Ryan Reynolds here for, I guess, my 100th Mint commercial. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. I mean, honestly, when I started this, I thought I'd only have to do like four of these. I mean, it's unlimited premium wireless for $15 a month. How are there still people paying two or three times that much? I'm sorry, I shouldn't be victim blaming here. Give it a try at mintmobile.com slash save whenever you're ready. For
Welcome back, friends. We are here to tell you the question that has been floating around all weekend in left-wing media circles, and that is, what happened to Pod Save America? And obviously, we are the perfect experts on this as people who have never been on the show. But we're here to tell you what we have seen.
And look, this is not going to be a pod save bashing because honestly, I don't think that that helps anyone. And the left is like loves to admonish. And I'm not like admonishing. We've gone through and kind of looked at like what is media as it relates to like the promises we're making on our show. Not because we like think we should advise anybody else on what to do on their show. But, you know, pod did not save America apparently. And according to Jack Schlossberg, Kennedy's only grandson pod saved my limp dick. Yeah.
I could not believe he went so crazy, Jack. I love Jack. Yeah. I mean, he really, is he okay? I don't think so. He's going through a breakup too. It seems like he's got a lot. Is that a real thing? It seems like. I thought he was kidding. Is he kidding? I don't know. I can never tell if he's kidding. He's acting like a crazy person after a breakup. So I feel like maybe it's real. Maybe the breakup is with American democracy. Maybe it is.
Maybe it is a real breakup. He is no longer a listener, as it turns out. I do enjoy his performance art or whatever it is he's doing. I appreciate it. He's a weirdo. It's not offensive. That's why I want my Kennedys, weird and in the media, not in politics. I can't vote for a Kennedy or a Clinton. I'm so sorry. I've done my best. Or a Biden. Well, be thankful if you get to vote again. So-
I don't do political dynasty families. I also won't be voting for a Pelosi. I can't. Don't write off your options until you have the election. I wouldn't worry about that. See who your opportunities are.
Before you make any commitments, which is, I think, what we want to talk about because that, I think, is where this extreme criticism and backlash is coming for them because there's two pieces of this. There's the backlash at the campaign, which, oh boy, that's its own piece. But then there's the backlash at Pod Save America. Yeah.
Partly because maybe people think Dan Pfeiffer didn't push back enough on the interview. Personally, I think it's good that he didn't because it made them comfortable enough to say exactly what they felt. And I think that that's more helpful as a historical document than if they had felt defensive or if they had felt like they had to make certain decisions.
Like how we interview serial killers and we have to pretend like the things they're saying are normal so they keep telling us where the bodies are? Yeah. Yeah. Just like that. Just like that. But I think what they have come to represent, partly because of what the premise of their business, what they said it was –
They've come to represent an avatar for what everyone is mad at about the left and this failure to make inroads in new media in a way that has built a broad and trusting audience because who was supposed to appeal to men if not them? Four white dudes who were on the Obama staff, yeah. Which people on the left have been mad about them being for the past several years. Yeah.
And I don't know, like, but want to talk about the campaign first and then we'll talk about the pod save guys. Okay. So they had the campaign managers on the show and I'll be honest, I listened twice because it was that I was in disbelief.
at their inability to at any point say, we got this wrong. We looked at this incorrectly. We fundamentally failed to consider X, Y, and Z. And there were a number of things that they did fail to consider. If the best like oopsies was that we were too careful about the legalities between super PACs and the campaign, that's like going to a job interview and being like, oops, I'm too much of a perfectionist. That's my biggest weakness. Right.
It just, it came across as justifications, defenses, but it also revealed how much they do not understand about the new media ecosystem and about the way that what they would call maybe the working class, but what really should just mean everybody because a third of Americans don't vote. So you're not reaching them.
They do not understand how people receive information. They don't understand how they perceive the landscape, which is more like a late stage Monet perspective.
Then an old master, maybe, if we're going to go use elitist language. Annie Wu put it really well early on, and she was like, they so badly want the Taylor Swift endorsement. They think that's going to win the election, but that's not going to do it. It's going to be like all these other things. We need to not worry so much about the Taylor Swift endorsement. That's not going to win us the election.
And she was talking about how that was like a thing that apparently from the inside of the campaign, they were like very like even when Biden was president, like, oh, once we get Taylor Swift, it's over. We're going to win.
And I think that reliance on celebrities is very dated. I think, you know, there was a time when Oprah's favorite things would sell out, right? They don't anymore. You can't present change and campaign with the Clintons and the Obamas and Liz Cheney and all the people who have been around for so long. Right. And if you want to talk about money...
It seems like so much money went out the door to put on these huge productions when Donald Trump doing the dance with Aiden Ross...
on a TikTok with the car, that is actually what people connect with. And I think that this is where the campaign advisors and the pod save boys intersect is that they're all living in a top-down reality where we're living with a king-making mentality and we're living in a grassroots world where people...
More people connect with and find interesting the regular influencer or face that they see who they just think is really smart and interesting. And maybe none of those people are like household names.
But those people can have more influence on the way the average American is thinking about things across all demographic groups. Like they're thinking about people as like working class, white college educated people, black non-college educated people in Philadelphia. And it's like, yes, all of those people do have
And they have a different way of thinking about things. But the common thread is that they approached all groups like it was 2012, not like it was 2023 or 2024. Mm-hmm.
You just talked about the working class and the college educated people and the whatever. I have never liked Bernie Sanders as a politician. And that is a hot ass take. And some people are very mad at me because they're like, Bernie, Bernie, and the Bernie bro of it all, which again, speaks to the kind of 2014, 2015 landscape of politics, this like Bernie delusion, illusion, whatever we want to call it.
Bernie Sanders could not get the black vote because he did not include black people in his version of working people. Vermont is 92% white, 1.3% black. Okay. And he's held the office for 40 years there. So I really don't give a fuck if he marched with King. Where have you been since? The idea that Bernie could speak for working people while he, for 40 years, has been fairly isolated from representing black people. When you consider 1.3% of Vermont is black, you are not representing black people, even if you marched with King. Okay.
None of his plans ever worked out going all the way back to 2020 when Mike Bloomberg tried to call Bernie out, saying over 15 congressional sessions this man has had. He's been a member of the House and then the Senate. And Sanders has only ever had three bills directly become law. That's just point seven percent of the 421 bills he has sponsored during his legislative tenure. That's an awful lot of stumping and talking and promising and not a lot of delivering. I added that part.
Two of these laws that he got passed, of the three he's ever got passed, were to rename post offices in Vermont. OK, this is the second lowest ratio for any current senator who has ever served across 10 or more sessions. And further, he can't even get his bills out of committee. Sitting senators successfully passed their sponsored legislation through at least one chamber about 14 percent of the time. But Sanders average was one point nine percent. And he when Mike.
Bloomberg said this. He got roasted to fuck on it. And I can hear the Bernie bros now. Well, at least he tries. At least he's trying. Trying is not enough. Are you effective? No. Move out of the way. Also, it's really not that hard to put your name as a co-sponsor on a bill that you agree with and that is popular. So he could have increased his ratio simply by just engaging in bipartisan or even partisan politics. But
But he won't because he wants to maintain this idea of being like not a Democrat, a Democrat until he has to like get money in caucus from the Democrats. He wants to be an independent and a leftist and a visionary and all these different things until he needs some money. And then he caucuses with the Democrats. But what are you doing for the left? This was the issue with a lot of the rhetoric on TikTok and everything, too, is like the far left. What did you accomplish?
Right.
And he has only ever really recruited to be his super fans, white male college educated liberals. He does not represent the working class, no matter what he did with King or for unions or what he says, because he's never passed legislation to actually improve the life of working people. He does not represent black people or Latino people or whatever other not white you can think of, because he represents the state of Vermont, which is 92% white. And there was a woman on TikTok who was talking about
the people who kept throughout here, I think Kamala Harris has a great understanding of how to speak with and for and to black women, like undeniably, of course, this is her culture. This is what she grew up in. This is who she is. And she continued to be pulled back from it and pulled back from it. And don't talk like that. And don't lean into that because it wasn't what Hillary would do or Bernie would do or who any of these people would do. But none of those people could get the older black vote. And it's almost like
Older black folks won't vote for Bernie Sanders because they remember and they lived white men marching with King. And then what have you done for me lately? You know what I mean? I think they are rightfully suspicious of his needing black voters, but not centering the needs or even knowing those voters in a genuine way in a very, very long time. But that's my rant on Bernie. Let's go back to some other white dudes who maybe don't know the voters the way they once did.
There's so much to say with Bernie and the position that he's occupied in the party and in some ways that he has been effective at platforming certain ideas and conversations. But I have a real aversion to reactionaries. And I just don't understand why every communication in politics seems to boil down to reaction.
One person saying one thing and the other person can only ever be like, no, not that. And no one ever seems to come over the top with a new argument about how to explain something. So like in this race, it was like, basically you're saying Democrats are for trans rights. Republicans are like, Democrats are crazy about trans rights. And the Democrats are then saying, no, we're not.
Instead of making the argument, why should you care about trans rights?
Why should you leave this up to medical professionals? How do you appeal to people in a way that resonates? And so all that ever happens is like, no, no, you are worse. Like you, you have to do this. You are imperfect. And I think also the pod save guys, because they were responsive to the left, did get caught up a little bit in that. Like we have to satisfy that purity thing with among their audience.
And for that reason, they ended up sort of being unappealing to the average guy because they were so wonky and they didn't really ever get past politics. I think really the fact that they never really were able to expand into the culture, lifestyle, social media space of it all is why they were not able to dominate in politics.
They're not interested in us. They're not interested in us. They're nice to me. And again, this is not like a criticism of the entire business. We're just talking about in general. But it doesn't have to be us. It can just be in general. I'm just using myself as an example of like an influencer, right? Or like a TikTok person or something. Yeah.
I don't think that they see that as valuable. What I have seen as an outsider looking in is even going to some of their events and whatnot, they're fun and they're great, but the way that they sort of self-isolate to either only talk to themselves or better than. They'll go out of their way for Jen Psaki or the Clintons or Obama or any of the other staffers. They stay pretty insular even when they invite influencers and different things into their world. It's not like they provided mentorship to anybody the way that
You know, other like Joe Rogan, I don't know that provides mentorship, but he certainly is more in touch and he inspires more people to do what he does on the right. They don't provide that kind of like space for people. What he'll do, what Joe Rogan will do and what I think happens with those right wing people.
people, maybe because they're all white then, is because they all have these network effects with each other. And so the promise of Crooked Media was that it was going to be the new Fox News and this new hub for progressive media to challenge right-wing media. But you can't do that if...
It's only going to remain a very limited slice of people who, again, and I think, again, it comes from this top-down view of all of them are in this stratosphere where they could get any journalist or any household name probably on the phone. Danci Pelosi answers their calls. Exactly. In one degree to come talk to them for the most part.
And that is not the status and access that 99% of people have. And if you aren't using that access to then trickle down, essentially trickle down access, you are not going to be able to build enough network effects in order to create progressive media as you say you want to build it. And I don't know where that mission didn't
penetrate. You say maybe it's just a personal way that they are. Maybe you just need to be bigger personalities that are saying we can make this happen beyond just ourselves and our shows and what we see. It's easy to platform other people, right? So another grandmaism, a hungry dog works.
They ended up in being first. There is a lot more opportunity afforded to you. There's money. It's new. It's investable. They ended up getting like a ton of money for ads. They didn't have to – we have to sell ads. Like we have to – we have other work we have to do other than talking on the show to make the show work. And they sort of had like a little bit of like – because they were first, they had a little bit more support to get that going. Then as it started to raise up in money and whatnot –
The idea that I hear from them a lot is like, well, if you just listen to me, then you'll be good. And if I have more access and more whatever, then I'll just be the singular filter. Where even with Under the Desk News, I constantly put new people on. I'm like, I don't know this, but here's a person who does. I don't know this, but here's a person who does. I never got from them, here's a person who does. Even in the guests that they bring on, it's sort of like, okay, that was for me. And now I'm still the best person for you to come to. I think-
the new media is going to like, skirts can only get so short before the maxi dresses back in. The new media is going to replace. My grandma is very present on the show. No,
New media is going to replace what local news used to be, which was 20 or 30 people who cared about their local community telling stories from that point of view. There's not one anchor anymore. We will not have another Rachel Maddow or any of these like key single people. It's you. It's you. Regular people, citizen journalism. And I know they fucking – oh, it's me? Yeah, it's me because I'm like, I don't fucking know. Here's 16 other people who know. Like I'm just good at bringing all the people together and then being like, hey –
Follow her, follow her and watch her shit every day. Not, oh, come on my show so I can take everything that you do in one clip and then never speak to you again.
I invest in people to make sure that they know who is the expert on this. I invest in Elizabeth Booker Houston, who's so incredible and a wonderful lawyer. And I'm like, don't just watch the story on her. Follow her. Watch her shit every single day. Watch Alicia Luncheon every day. Watch Quentin Giles every day. Watch all of these people. Because it's all of us together that's going to break this –
media empire bullshit thing, especially once Trump starts taking away CBS's broadcast license or jailing journalists. It's going to be us.
Right. And just going back to the, what you had said about, you know, the hungry dog eats or whatever. Yeah. And I say this as another person whose business got very, very lucky with the timing because you can't be really successful. And I mean, everyone who's really successful, it is, there is luck and timing as much as you work hard and you prepare, there is luck.
And that is how it works. You hit the right place. You get that lightning in a bottle right that day. Right. And anyone who is, I think, had that can be honest about that.
They happened to hit at the time when resistance liberalism was extremely popular and they were coming from the most popular administration. They were the communications people for the most gifted order in a hundred years. So they have our first black president to thank for their visibility, for their credibility. And where did the, it doesn't feel like they paid it down at all.
It's access journalism, which everybody hates, right? Access journalism. It's access punditry. They didn't pay it down. They're not a newsroom. Right. But they didn't pay it down. And that's why people are fucking mad. They're mad because you promised us if we gave it all to you, we would get what we needed. It's like the people who gave millions of dollars to Kamala's campaign. You told us we were close. We were not fucking close. So then it feels like a lie. And it's not an intentional lie, maybe, but it's like a
At what point did this stop being personal to you? At what point were you high enough that you were isolated from it? At what point do we give the Supreme Court justices body details because they're making such bad decisions that now they need Secret Service protection? It just furthers that perspective.
place between the people who are saying, we gave it to you. We trusted you. We gave you our money, our subscriptions. We bought your merch. We tuned in. We gave you a million and a half downloads, an episode. We gave it to you. You were getting Joe Rogan numbers and whatnot, and we didn't get it back. We learned, but we didn't build community. We didn't win. Well, here's the thing. They now are getting more popular. And this is what really kind of drives me crazy about
The whole ecosystem is like the more mad people are at them, the incentives are for them to kind of play into that more because the bigger microphone you have, the more you make people mad and the more people are tuning in to like see what the drama is.
On the other hand, I'm like, well, the better their podcast does, the more they are likely to be able to keep their employees. Because in a cyclical business like that, especially going into the Trump administration, who knows what would happen. So I don't want them to fail. No. At all. No. I'm rooting for you. We were all rooting for you. Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah. And it's kind of like a win-win now because like, you know, now Jon Favreau can tweet at everyone who shit talks him on Twitter and be like, come on the show. I don't think that's helpful. You watch it play out live. That pissed me off so much. And it goes back to the Clinton era thing of the
the president never apologizes, right? And I know that these boys wrote for the president forever and ever and ever and whatnot. This idea that the president never apologizes, everything is an opportunity to continue whatever forward. So when Jack Schlossberg says, pod saved my limp dick or whatever, that's something you ignore. Jack Schlossberg doesn't actually expect you to see that. That was for him and his people. Yes, he did. That wasn't-
I don't think you, I think it was for him and his people. I don't think it was for fucking John favorite. Maybe he wanted him to see it and stew about it, but he didn't want him to try and turn it into an opportunity for John Fabro. So it's like, he says, pod saved my dick. John's like, Ooh, maybe one of our sponsors can help you with that. I don't know. Love to have you on the show because that would benefit him. Now you're stupid to me. I thought that was the stupidest shit in the whole world. Cause I'm like,
Like I'm sick of boys fighting and like one-upping each other and being petty at the same time. I'm at the fucking lawyer. Me and Natalie are like, oh, we're not going to do Christmas because we're going to lawyer because I got to put together these fucking documents to create a marriage. So when they overturn marriage equality, I have a protective partnership with my wife.
That's the shit that working people are doing. Normal people are doing. Well, you're tweeting about your limp dick and trying to get him on your fucking show. That shit is where, look, we have found the righteous indignation. That is why people are mad because they're like, how the fuck you were supposed to save me from something that I am now a victim of greatly. And you're being smug still.
Right. And that's all the interview sounded like. It sounded smug. It sounded like we couldn't have done any better and you should thank us for this. Meanwhile, the people who this exists for outside of their scroll-
dealing with it in reality. And they're worrying about, will I lose these benefits? People are worried about, will I lose social security? Will the Department of Education be abolished? And will my child who has special needs, what will they need to do? What is going to happen with their schooling? That's what real people are doing. The day that Trump won, people in the fucking world we live in said to me, V, this is going to be great for your career. No, it's not.
I'm going to lose my marriage. My kids are going to go to fucking school or whatever's going on with them. Like, what do you mean good for my career? But there are people who have the money and the power and the access and the delusion that will be isolated from this. And I think that is the mistake that Podsafe made was like, well, this is going to be great for the podcast because like, you know, now we can kind of like be that reactionary neolib media again. And it's like,
No, we're not doing that. We're not.
Those are my babies, right? Like they give me the life I have. And in return, I will do everything I fucking can to make sure that everything I know, you know, and I, and over there they're being smug and they, and that pisses me off. I think the feeling that is missing, I'd say like, it's this top down idea. It's like, I can get George Clooney on the phone. Sure. And I, I think when you look at what we-
But I think when you think about what we do – and look, I don't want to pretend like I'm not also doing very well for myself because this isn't really for me. I know as we're criticizing them for having money. I'm not criticizing them for having money. I'm criticizing them for getting money, allowing that to become a shield and not a sword. I'm criticizing them for saying –
Well, now I've leveled up and now I'm a shield from you. I'm different than you as opposed to a sword, something that they could fight up with. Or a ladder. Or a ladder. A different tool. A grappling hook. I don't know. Something good. I want Spider-Man rich, not Batman. Okay, Batman's a fucking villain.
♪♪♪
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That is the difference. It is, I think that
I don't know, maybe it is part of not being like a rich white man, but I feel like I've never felt really different than like any other person who could be in the Betches audience. Like it could have been that, like they could have been my friend who I started, or I could be reading their blog when I was younger. And when I feel like I find funny creators or like, I don't care about their size. Like it's not about like how...
recognized are they? And I think that that's kind of what's missing is that, and obviously it's not like, oh, you can't promote and support everybody and you can't help everybody. But it's like, there's a connection with people that goes beyond, oh, you're my audience member versus like, you're just another person like me and this is my job and that's it. And there's not really like a
Right.
And that's why I think working class also doesn't really work anymore as a term or a catch-all. And the way people think about the labor force needs to just be very, very different. Working class is no longer white men in a union providing for a family of five, okay? And they still treat it like it is.
Even we see in the military community the fact that like Veterans Affairs and veterans used to have a lot more clout when it came to being the voting block that they are. There are a lot more people who are dentists, doctors and McDonald's workers than veterans now. We don't it's not like when the boomer, you know what I mean? Like it used to be that so many people were a veteran because, you know, all the way up through like Vietnam stuff. And now it's such a small voting block that they're willing to fuck with a little bit more.
So you can't come out and be like, I'm for the troops. God bless the troops the way that you would in the 90s or the 80s or the 70s even and expect that it's going to work the same way. We don't have that power. People also just have so much more access to you as a person to know if you're actually for the troops or if you're just like putting out a message that's bullshit. Right.
are now women who need abortion and OBGYN care because they're stationed in Okinawa and they need a flight to Hawaii to get any OBGYN care. There are 15,000 trans people in the troops right now who Trump's saying he's going to get rid of them straight away. That fucks the chain of command in a level that is like he cannot comprehend pulling 15. Imagine 15,000 soldiers died today. We'd be like, holy crap.
Fuck, that's a big deal. He's just going to pull them out for no goddamn reason. That's the troops. But the way they talk about it now is the troops are World War II and Vietnam veterans, which they're not. And the working class is white men in a union who provide for a family. We need a reset on reality. And to what we just said, this space between the people who are making decisions from the Democratic Party and the people who have historically and traditionally voted for them or benefit best from their policies –
It's they're, they're not representative. The people making decisions are not representative. No. And then you get somebody like Maxwell Frost in there, right? Who's young and hungry and awesome. And he does get it. He's a great idea. He's a great person, but he's still held under, well, you're a young buck brother. You're going to have to pay your dues. You'll never get on a committee in a senior position because I've held that seat for 23 years.
Right, and how could he ever know enough? But that's where the lack of mentorship comes in. Why doesn't he know enough? Because there's no one who has shown, who's willing to show him the ropes because they think he's too young and not ready to take over. Because we see competition. We see competition in the Democratic Party. Well, what if I show him a rope and then he tries to take over that rope? That used to be my rope. And when you're 80-something years old-
It's a little harder for you to swing those ropes than 27-year-old Maxwell Frost is. And so now they're threatened. And that has to do with the age of the Democratic Party. I talked about this on the Meghan McCain show. We talk about being the party of the youth and progress and whatnot. And the average age of our politicians is like 60-something. Theirs is much younger.
much younger. You could see yourself, whether you like him or not, Josh Hawley's my age, right? Madison Cawthorn, oh God, whatever, he was young. Mack Eats, he was young. They're young. And so people who aren't in politics as much as we are look over there and go, you know what? That's a mom. That's a mom who went through a divorce. I know what that's like. I'm going to vote for her. They're also even...
Aside from their age, they also are genuinely integrated into their community through cultural things like guns. They own a restaurant in town. Marjorie Taylor Greene owns a gym in her town. She just does. Right. They are part of their town in a way that isn't the same as a lot of the Democratic elderly elite folks are where they're a full-time politician.
Yeah. Or like the pod save boys, they're a full time podcaster. We're still in our communities. And it's not to say it's one or the other, but you can't pretend to be the voice of people that you no longer know.
And that's my problem with Bernie Sanders. That's my problem with the Ponce boys right now. And a lot of different people in democratic establishment who are like, they see everything as a board game and it's not, this is my fucking life. I'm glad it's your board game. And you say, Oh, I rolled a 10 and I should have rolled a 20. If I had rolled the 20, I guess it would have been different. Oh, well, we try and we start the game over. Meanwhile, like I said, I'm down at the fucking lawyer's office trying to figure out if I, how to, how to craft a legal marriage.
Right. Astead actually tweeted that at him. Did you see that one? No. He, I don't, it was like a reply. He wrote, I'm glad you guys think this is all a game or something. It's a game. Yeah. Right. It's not like. We're not in the campaign office anymore, guys. We fucking lost and people are going to be hurt by this. We now need to meet them with mutual aid. I need you to be down here.
Okay, back to kitchen. When my line would go down, even if you were the expo, even if you hadn't been on the line a long time, your dishwasher calls out, your line's down, you're down. You have to be able to jump in and work. And I don't know that they could jump in and work. And so I don't want people around who can't jump in and work the line right now in whatever way that they can. I don't need you to be in the dining room and saying, dishes are slow. You're nine minutes behind on ticket times. Shut the fuck up and get in here and wash some dishes. Like that's where I'm at. Well, they did go canvassing.
But I think what we realize is that canvassing is not as helpful as some thought. No. People lie in your face on canvassing. They don't want to be – people have so little time at home and they get up – I canvassed. They get up, they answer their door, and they want you to have a good experience as a canvasser because they feel bad for you because it's hot out here and you're handing out some literature. So they're like, yeah, I'm going to vote. I'll see you later. Yeah.
I think we got a lot of that. I think we got a lot of really fucking nice people who were like, oh, good job. Yep. And a lot of, you know, because they just want it to be over quicker. Yeah. Did you ever argue with the canvasser? No. I mean, I don't get canvassed, but you, because I live in New York and no one cares about us right now, that might change. Yeah, it's a very, it's unfortunate. And I do want to touch on one more thing, is the debt.
And the Democrats are still asking for money. And let's play this clip from Lindy Lee, who was a bundler for Harris. And she talks about the actual impact of this.
I'm interested, Lindy, you were on the call. You were on the call today. There was this call today with the campaign and Harris was even on the call. What did they say? We heard on the podcast, but what did they say on this call? Did they accept any blame? Did they sort of talk about mistakes that were made? Absolutely no, no.
No, none. No responsibility, no accounting, no postmortem, no explanation. All they said was that she was a visionary leader, that the Biden-Harris administration was a tremendous success. We didn't hear any sort of explanation for what exactly happened. This was not a squeaker of a race. This was not a close race. This is a serious shellacking.
And we need to understand why the difference, the delta between the expectations and the reality was so significant. How are you ever going to expect anyone to ever donate or to believe in the Democratic Party again?
Don't ask me for any more money at this point. We talked about raising a billion dollars. I got an email from the DNC the other day saying, we just need $3 from you. And I was like, one, don't ask people for $3. It's so weird. It's like we told you we don't trust you and you're further degrading that trust.
Every day. So now I'm unsubscribing from everything, which means and if I'm doing it, other people are too. And that means that we won't be reaching them in the midterms because you've you've blew it. You've you've you've showed up and like a like a what there's there's this whole trend on TikTok of people talking about their man child husbands.
who like the woman has just given birth and he's like, well, are you going to make dinner tonight still? And she's like, no, you have to. And he's like, well, what should I make? And she's like, I don't know, make them like, just heat up anything, get a McDonald's. I just gave birth. And he's like, well, I never usually get it for them. And she's like, fine, I'll just do it. And that's how I feel about the Democrats sending me money emails. I'm like, I don't have a man child husband and I'm not sending you $3. Go figure it out. Well, the other thing that's strange is that they don't need to raise money this way. They can do events.
fundraisers. They can do things with, they don't need to be texting Joe Schmo. Well, and maybe that's what they should do, right?
I mean, the thing that Trump did well with raising money was keeping the donors happy and somewhat anonymous. He's got that venue, Mar-a-Lago, where he hosts all these dinners where you come, you get to hang with Trump for a minute, makes it feel like he knows you, like you're a friend, you're on the end. You give your $10,000, you get a shitty airline chicken and some mixed veg, and you go home.
But that shit works. People want to feel like they're in, they're included in something right now. Look what they're doing with all the cabinet positions because people who gave the most money, he's given cabinet positions too. Now, are they going to get confirmed? Maybe not, but it feels like a win to them.
It's just very embarrassing to see how mismanaged it was. And what were they paying attention to? One of the strangest things I thought was when Jen O'Malley Dillon, I think it was, said that spending money on the sphere was not a Las Vegas play. It was about a culture play. It was like a culture play. I'm like, well, why wouldn't it be a Las Vegas play, even if it was a culture play?
That was so strange. And she admitted that they had paid street artists to paint murals, which is so upsetting. Not cool. I mean, I'm glad for the street artists getting some money. Yeah. But like... Well, that's... Again, and I'm back to 100...
And I'm back to a hungry dog works, right? What would you have done if you didn't have that kind of money? How would you have strategized? Sometimes money can make you comfortable because you just throw a bunch of money at something, but it never does. It never works. You need that reflective, creative, like gritty, really getting in there time.
connecting with people. And I agree. I think the astroturfing made it look to me and to so many other people, it reinforced this idea that she was doing so well. Look, all I see is her face fucking everywhere. I see it everywhere. She must be doing great. She's going to win.
Right. She didn't. And that broke the trust. What do you think about Kamala running again in 2028? Why the fuck would you do that? I would vote for her. I'd do it all again. I would not. I'd do it all again if she was allowed to have her people and not be tied to like creating –
She would need to win a primary, first of all. Well, she could win. Let's say she won a primary. I'd do it all again for her. I don't think she'll win a primary. I think there were so many mistakes made because we had to pay all this homage to the old folks. And I think it fucked us up. Even at the DNC, they had to make all this room for all these establishment Democrats to be there. And they cut things like the Tennessee Three. They should have never cut the Tennessee Three. They cut things like Rua Romana. That would have gone super far. No, they purposely cut Rua Romana.
I think that you are discounting the fact that people do not connect to her the way you think they do. Look, I have supported her. I very much like her, but she has shown that she is not a good off the cuff speaker. She is not good at resonating without a script. And,
And that's not the world we live in. We don't live in a world where you can repeat things that are shallow. Like you won't even go off on the For You page. You have to have substance and resonance. Was that her? I guess what I'm willing to see is was that her or was that the campaign? Of course it's her because – But I liked her in 2019. She was on fire, man. She dropped out before there was even a vote. She had all this support. But she did the debate.
But, okay, where she really gets a lot of momentum around small moments and then when she's put under, like, in the hot seat, it doesn't work. Like, think about her CNN town hall. That is...
is not the campaign. That was her lack of answers and her lack of ability to connect. So who do you think it'll be then? I can't think about that. AOC 2028? I can't think about it. I can't think that far in advance because we're thinking about a totally different world. It's way too far off. But the thing is, I don't think that one needs to be president to be
be very effective or to make a really important mark or to make history. So like me saying she shouldn't be president does not mean she should just go the fuck away. Like she should do, she should definitely do something to contribute to the civic fabric of America. And I'm excited to watch what she does and how she does that. But there's so many things you can be that are not president. And I think this idea that like,
we have to, a successful politician, quote unquote, is just more and more powerful in terms of title and seniority. That is a really damaging idea that I think we need to get away from. People need to think about
Who's actually good at doing what? And realize that you can make a difference without having like the most power. True. And I think AOC should take her time. I think she will. I think she threatened the president thing because I happen to know that she was kept from primarying.
Kirsten Gillibrand in New York for Senate this year. And I don't think that should have happened. And again, I think this is another thing where certain people in the upper tops put their little finger on the scale and they try to make decisions that aren't for the people. Do you think that she, but it's,
I think she would have won Senate or in New York. Absolutely. And I think it would have been great for her career. Maybe. I think she would have won Senate for New York. Of course she would have. Kirsten Gillibrand sucks. What has she done? Against Kirsten Gillibrand. Against Kirsten Gillibrand? Come on. In a primary, she would have smoked Kirsten Gillibrand. I mean, I don't want to be like, oh, she sucks. She should probably come on the show someday. But she's not my favorite because they wanted Kirsten Gillibrand to have more time.
They thought it was a safe seat to not have to invest in and just run with the incumbent. They told her it's not her turn yet. They told her, oh, well, who's going to run for your seat? What if we lose Congress? It's going to be such a tight race this time. And they made her stand down. And that was fucking wrong. I don't think they should have done that. Honestly, it is possible that she could have lost given the way that things turned in New York based on who the Republican opponent was. If it was some like-
moderate kind of Democrat that is actually, I would rather, here's the thing. I'd rather lose trying, I guess. And I don't think she would have lost it all, but I,
She's still – Kirsten Gillibrand didn't offer anybody anything. People just voted blue because they voted blue. And she's the incumbent. And, I mean, there's a lot more to talk about with the DNC because they also left a lot of races uncontested. It was not a well-organized machine from top to bottom. The party has failed. I put this more on the party than I even put it on Kamala Harris.
Sure. Oh, I definitely agree. I think Kamala Harris is just as much a victim of the party and of everything that surrounded it than anybody else. And also only having 107 days, what she did is incredible, incredible, the culture that she captured in that amount of time. But I agree. I think the purpose of political parties is to win elections. And if the Democrats aren't going to win them, then there needs to be a different change. And if we're only going to have two systems, then this system needs to change. And Nancy Pelosi said she's running for reelection in two years.
And I fucking can't. Okay? I just can't do it. She didn't need to do that. She didn't need to do that. Someone should primary her, like a random San Franciscan. We'll do a special episode on people who have tried to primary Nancy Pelosi and what happened to them. Remember when somebody tried to primary her? They challenged her for Speaker of the House.
It was every bit of like 12 or 13 years ago because it was when I was doing political catering and the shit that went on behind the scenes to ruin this fucking man's life. We'll do a special episode on that. We got to have tea. We're going to have tea time with V. We'll call it the dish from when I was in the dish pit overhearing all these assholes put shit together between 2012 and 2018. All right. But until then, I'm Vita Spear. I'm Sammy Sage. And this is American Fever Dream. Good night. Good night.
American Fever Dream is produced and edited by Samantha Gatzik. Social media by Candice Monega and Bridget Schwartz. Be sure to follow us on Instagram and TikTok at Betches News and follow me, Sammy Sage at Sammy and V at Under the Desk News. And of course, send us your emails to AmericanFeverDream at Betches.com.