James Dobson, founder of Focus on the Family, is dissected as a powerful lobbyist wielding $125 million in influence and a database of 4 million names to mobilize political action. The hosts detail his controversial history, from a childhood marked by physical discipline to authoring books advocating corporal punishment, while criticizing his exploitation of Ted Bundy's final interview for profit. Dobson's shift from non-partisan advice to leading the religious right through the Family Research Council is highlighted alongside accusations of racism and opposition to gay rights. Ultimately, the episode portrays Dobson as a figure who monetized tragedy and enforced authoritarian control, linking his methods to broader themes of power and violence against dissenters. [Automatically generated summary]
Transcriber: nvidia/parakeet-tdt-0.6b-v2, sat-12l-sm, and large-v3-turbo
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Math and Magic Marketing Insights00:01:59
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Hi, I'm Bob Pittman, chairman and CEO of iHeartMedia, and I'm kicking off a brand new season of my podcast, Math and Magic Stories from the Frontiers of Marketing.
Math and Magic takes you behind the scenes of the biggest businesses and industries while sharing insights from the smartest minds in marketing.
Coming up this season on Math and Magic, CEO of Liquid Death, Mike Cesario.
People think that creative ideas are like these light bulb moments that happen when you're in the shower.
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Take to interactive CEO Strauss Selnick and our own chief business officer, Lisa Coffey.
Listen to Math and Magic on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast.
It's Financial Literacy Month, and the podcast Eating Wall Broke is bringing real conversations about money, growth, and building your future.
This month, hear from top streamer Zoe Spencer and venture capitalist Lakeisha Landrum Pierre as they share their journeys from starting out to leveling up.
There's an economic component to communities thriving.
If there's not enough money and entrepreneurship happening in communities, they've failed.
Listen to Eating While Broke from the Black Effect Podcast Network on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.
This is Amy Roebach alongside TJ Holmes from the Amy and TJ podcast.
And there is so much news, information, commentary coming at you all day and from all over the place.
What's fact, what's fake, and sometimes what the F.
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Dobson's Early Life Struggles00:15:23
Parker McCollum.
The man the unique Riley Green.
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Russell Dickerson.
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Tickets are on sale now.
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Welcome to Behind the Bastards, the only podcast about bad people that there's ever been under NATO law.
I'm Robert Evans, host of this podcast.
Normally, I tell the very detailed story about a terrible person or a terrible group of people or a terrible thing that was done by terrible people.
But this week, we're doing things a little bit different.
Garrison, my friend, local youth about town, Portland photo journalist.
Garrison, you want to explain what's going on today?
Does Garrison have a last name?
Oh, yeah.
Hi.
This is Garrison Davis, local youth in Portland and reporter.
My young ward.
Yeah, Robert's young ward.
And because of Robert's injury, I have now successfully couped this podcast.
Yeah, you did.
And I am now going to be running the show for today until there is a coup to this coup.
A counter coup.
A counter coup.
I've been studying the School of the Americas.
I think I can pull one off.
Is it really a coup if you go, hey, can I host your podcast?
And then Robert and I both go, yeah.
I don't know.
Either way, Sophie, I've got some death squads in El Salvador, but that may wind up just being just a separate thing I do.
Anyway, Garrison is going to be presenting the episode this week, an episode that he wrote.
And I will be the guest on my own show.
And I will supervise all of it.
While drinking.
Sophie's going to drink a Per Secco out of a glass straw.
And we've we've scheduled this for Garrison's 18th birthday so that I'm no longer violating child labor law by having you on the podcast.
Yay.
Hello.
Yes.
Yeah.
It is my birthday today.
Wow.
So Garrison.
You want to tell the people, America, England, Australia, numerous other countries?
Canada?
Maybe.
You want to tell them what the episode for today is?
We are going to be talking about an organization called Focus on the Family.
If you've heard of that, you've probably heard of it from John Oliver's show.
Or you grew up with this organization kind of in your life as like if you grew up as a Christian.
We're going to be learning all about some weird stuff they did, some surprising stuff they did.
Yeah, and it was actually a surprise for, even though I'm familiar with this organization personally, I learned some new things when I was doing research for this.
So even I was surprised with what I found.
Yeah, and for our listeners who haven't been stalking you on the internet, you grew up in what you've called to me repeatedly a cult.
Yeah, me and my family were in a cult in Canada for about 11 years.
We moved to Portland to get out of the cult and have been here.
And I've been here ever since.
Some of my family's back in Canada, but not in a cult.
Yeah.
When you're in a Canadian cult, is it the Mounties that burn your compound by incinerating tear gas or is there another agency?
I've seen the Mounties do stuff like that.
Also, the Canadian Revenue Service was the big enemy of our cult.
Okay.
That makes sense.
That was the one that they had fights with.
I'm going to guess a lot of people didn't think they ought to pay taxes.
Illegally trying to get tax cuts for their fake school that they were running that I went to for the first like six months of my first six years of my schooling.
Yeah.
Anyway.
All right.
We'll talk about this.
This stuff will come back later.
So let's talk about Focus on the Family.
Focus on the Family.
Yeah.
Oh, thank you, Sophie.
To really understand what Focus on the Family is, both in the past and what it kind of is now, we're first going to have to kind of learn about its founder, James Dobson, or technically it's Dobs.
It should be Dr. James Dobson, but we'll talk more about why I don't want to say that later.
Since Focus on the Family is really just an extension of who Dobson is as a person.
Dobson was born in 1936, and he is still alive.
He was born in 1936.
He shouldn't be.
He's still alive.
He was born in Louisiana.
His father was a traveling evangelist.
Religion was a prevailing part of Dobson's life since he was essentially a baby, quoting a book about Focus on the Family and Christian right-wing radio and the influence they had on American culture across the whole 20th century.
It's a book called Stations of the Cross.
Actually, a pretty good book.
But this is a quote.
Dobson claims to have been able to pray before he could talk and to have felt God's calling from as early as age three when he toddled up to the altar in response to his father's Sunday morning altar call that the unsaved offer their lives to Jesus.
And this isn't that all uncommon for like people as young as three to like have their parents pressure them into doing stuff like this.
Even now, this is still, this isn't that uncommon.
If listeners want another look at what it's like to be pushed into stuff like this when you're three, check out the documentary Marjo, which is about the youngest pastor in American history who was performing marriage ceremonies when he was like four years old.
Marjorie Gordon.
His name was Marion Joseph.
That's what they call it.
Have you seen the photo and video that's been going around the interwebs this week of the baby that was jet skiing that's six months old?
Well, that's just rad as hell.
That sounds good, actually.
I don't see a problem with that.
No, I actually think babies should be jet skiing at even younger ages.
They should be jet skiing before they should be able to pray.
That is my opinion.
I would agree with you.
Yeah.
All right.
And There's an article from 1990 in the Washington Post by a journalist named Laura Strepp.
And it detailed a lot of stuff about Focus in the Family in the 70s and 80s.
And it details some of Dobson's early life and family.
This is a quote from that article.
His father and mother, James and Myrtle Dobson, were married for 43 years.
His father never went to college and became a traveling evangelist in the Church of Nazarene, which is like a fundamentalist Protestant type of church.
As an only child, he received all the attention and love his parents had to give.
His mother deferred to her husband on all major matters, but she often found herself alone.
From her, Dobson says, he got his idea that firm discipline is the cornerstone of the parent-child relationship.
And this is very important.
Here's a quote from Dobson's first book when he talks about his mother.
She knew that back talk and lip are the child's most potent weapons of defiance and must be discouraged.
On one occasion, she- Famous weapon, back talk.
Back talk.
Violent weapon.
On one occasion, she cracked me with a shoe.
At other times, she used a handy belt.
This is in response to the weapon of back talk.
Yeah, well, you got to use the weapon of a shoe against the weapon of back talk.
That's just fine.
The day I learned the importance of staying out of reach shines like a neon light in my mind.
I made the costly mistake of sassing her when I was about four feet away.
Her hand landed on a girdle.
It weighed about 16 pounds and was lined with lead and steel.
Jesus Christ.
She drew back and swung that abominable garment in my direction.
The intended blow caught me across the chest, followed by a multitude of straps and buckles, wrapping themselves around my midsection.
She gave me an entire thrashing with one massive blow.
From that day forward, I cautiously retreated a few steps back before popping off.
Good lesson for kids to learn.
Stay out of reach of adults because they want to harm you.
But remember, this is the stuff that influenced his ministry.
This is the stuff that he thinks is the cornerstone.
His earliest lesson is you always want to stay away from adults, is out of reach of adults because you never know when they will want to physically damage you.
Yes.
But this is a key tenant of his ministry is teaching stuff like this, though.
This is like the cornerstone of a strong parent-child relationship.
Does this guy tie into train up a child in that book and stuff?
Oh, awesome.
Wait until we talk about his first book and some fun legal issues that happened.
Oh, boy.
It's a child abuse episode, everybody.
This is very exciting.
This whole two-parter is a child abuse episode.
Sophie, send Sophia a letter of apology that we don't have her on to talk about children.
Are there dead babies, Garrison?
There's dead teenagers.
Hell yeah.
All right.
But, I mean, and yeah, no.
Hell yeah.
Dead teenagers, Robert.
Damn right.
We'll figure this out later.
The Washington Post article continues.
As Dobson was about to start his junior year in high school, his father decided to take a job as a pastor and settle down in San Benito, Texas, a very hot, flat outpost near the Mexican border.
Because of his religious beliefs, Dobson couldn't dance or go to the movies like the rest of his friends, but he earned their respect by becoming a top tennis player.
Okay.
Which so in terms of culture, tennis.
Is tennis involved in the cult?
No, what is involved in the cult is like being able, like in these kind of very firm Christian kind of churches and also, you know, some more of the worst cult stuff, not being able to dance or go to the movies is pretty standard.
Like I couldn't go to the movies for most of my, most of my life so far.
I've not been able to do that.
Well, yeah, because that's like Hollywood's just straight the devil.
And like, sure.
At my parents' wedding, they weren't allowed to dance.
There was no dance allowed at all.
There was no dancing.
Well, that would have let the devil right into the wedding.
You would have grown up with your brother, the devil, if that had happened.
But wait, I don't understand.
How does what does tennis have to do with this?
Tennis is how he is how he gained his friends' respect because he couldn't go to the movies or dance.
So the thing Dobson did to get like friends is play tennis very well.
So it's not, I guess it's not like how Keith Ranieri made all his people play volleyball at like three in the morning, right?
I don't know what that means.
I'm too young.
Oh, that was another guy we did an episode on.
Oh, it was another cult where he forced them to play volleyball at like three in the morning.
No, no, it sounds like it was just a kid gaining.
No, this is a kid trying to find anything to gain friends because he can't because he lives in a bad situation.
All right.
Yeah.
Those were the best years America ever had, said one of Dobson's high school friends, retired Colonel Harlan Baker Jr.
That's his high school friend.
Okay.
Colonel Bake Baker Jr.
Bake Baker.
Okay.
We had the hamburgers, the milkshakes.
We didn't drink or smoke.
Our parents gave us room to spread our wings, but also set limits.
Again, this is the kind of stuff he's going to talk about in his ministry.
You know, we'll find.
I'm seeing what's building.
This is kind of obvious what's kind of being built here.
After graduating high school, Dobson went to Pasadena College, a small liberal arts college.
Well, a small liberal arts Christian college in Southern California with an interest in human behavioral studies.
The Washington Post, the hope, yeah, yeah, you can see where this is going to go in like the 50s and 60s.
Washington Post article writes, but after he had taken a couple of psychology courses, Dobson was convinced that God was calling him to go all the way into the field.
It was not an easy time for a Christian to go into psychology.
Some psychologists thought Christians were deluded know-nothings, and some Christians thought psychologists were devil worshippers or worse.
Okay.
I'm not sure what worse.
I don't believe either side of that.
I don't really believe that there was ever a situation in which like a bunch of psychologists were like, oh, hey, members of the largest and most culturally dominant religion in the country, y'all are silly.
You can't be psychologists.
Yeah.
I don't think that ever happened.
No, not in the 60s.
But he's into psychology because I know a lot of cults are like against psychology, anti-psychology, etc.
Yeah, he's into psychology, and this is going to be his most potent weapon in trying to take over the country.
I think this is going in a good direction.
I'm so excited.
Continue.
Yeah.
Soon, Dobson went on to the University of Southern California to get his PhD in child development.
This is when Dobson became Dr. James Dobson.
This was in 1967.
His doctor status was very important to him as he became popular in the 80s and 90s, with his employees only being able to refer to him as Dr. Dobson.
Like this was this was very important to give him credibility to speak in like wide settings both politically and like to Christian people.
He was very happy about being able to be called a doctor.
Yeah, I mean, I'm pretty proud of being a reverend doctor, according to the state of New Jersey.
So Dobson, according to the Post, Dobson took the precise number of credits needed to get his doctorate and not one more.
He was anxious to get his family life going and to speak out on the values he believed were eroding at breakneck speed.
All right, well, okay.
It's a little weird to critique him for not taking more credits than he needed to get his doctor.
That's a lot of credit.
That's a lot of credits, but he was very anxious to get his work started.
And the values that he thinks are eroding, he writes about in one of his books.
When he was getting his doctorate, he was in LA during the mid-60s.
Great time to be in LA.
And that happened.
Yeah.
In one of Dobson's books from the 90s, the book is titled The Strong-Willed Child, by the way.
Just, you know, you can get a sense of what his books are titled.
I guess strong-willed means talking.
Yes.
This is what Dobson writes about the summer of 1965 in LA.
Our cities began to burn during the hot summer of racial strife.
That signaled the start of the chaos to come.
The class of 1965 entered college at a time where drug abuse was not only prevalent, but became almost universal for students and teachers alike.
Intellectual deterioration was inevitable.
Accompanying this social upheaval was a sudden disintegration of moral and ethical principles, such as which has never occurred in the history of all of mankind.
All at once, there was no definite values, no standards, no absolutes, no rules, no traditional beliefs on which to lean.
Now, when Dobson's referring to this talk of chaos and a long, hot summer of racial strife, quote unquote, he's referring to the Watts uprising of 1965.
Yeah, yeah, I got it.
When he was in LA.
And that was, if you're unfamiliar, this started when the police assaulted multiple people during an arrest for reckless driving.
The LA Times writes, after rumors spread of the police had roughed people up and kicked a pregnant woman, angry mobs formed, turning a 46 square mile swath of the city into a combat zone.
And this isn't like exaggerating.
So people get angry when you kick pregnant women.
Yeah, the police kick some pregnant women out.
A lot of people during a nasty arrest.
It's estimated that 35,000 people took part in the mass rioting and looting over the course of those six days.
14,000 members of the California National Guard were deployed to put an end to this civil unrest.
Again, this is for like six days.
In all, 16,000 law enforcement officers were mobilized as a self-described attacking force.
31 people were killed by law enforcement during these protests and riots.
There were over a thousand reported injuries, 3,500 arrests over the course of these six days.
Racist Discipline Advice Exposed00:03:25
The police chief that handled this uprising was the same chief that, if not coined, at least popularized the term thin blue line.
Same guy.
And Dobson was here for all of this.
He watched this unfold and he was very upset.
In referring to this, referring to the Watts uprising, he said, what's happening to this country?
And what will happen to my children as a result?
So he was there for this.
He was not a fan.
Because I mean, yeah, he's...
Not a fan of all of these people getting angry that a cop kicked a pregnant woman.
Yeah, and he's not that pro racial civil rights that much.
Oh, no.
That's not going to be like a big part of what we're talking about, but he was known to be a racist, which, you know, he's a guy.
He's a guy born at...
I know someone's a real character when you can say like, he was super racist, but we're not even going to be able to do that.
We're not going to talk about that.
Child abuse is going to take up.
Child abuse and gay conversion therapy, which is much worse.
Yeah.
Really, the racism was the best part of it.
It did the least amount of damage.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Unfailing obedience to authority and old-fashioned Christian morality became Dobson's signature talking points when he spoke about raising children.
Despite him having like an actual job at the university, he got a job at the University of Southern California School of Medicine for quote, researching childhood disorders that led to mental retardation.
Because again, this is the 60s.
So that's how we phrase things.
Even though Dobson had a job, Dobson just eventually began showing up at local PTA meetings to like talk about child development, like not for his own kids, just local ones.
Showing up at PTA.
Yeah, I've done the same thing before.
Sometimes I'll get a little bit drunk.
Like it's, you know, it's a good way to spend Wednesday.
And then eventually he got invited to teach Sunday school classes and then got invited to speak on like radio talk shows.
He actually, he actually got on just invited to speak on Barbara Walters' TV talk show, just about random stuff.
Because I mean, again, he's a doctor in child development, but this was just like a thinly veiled thing to spread his religious kind of parenting advice.
Cool.
That sounds fine.
His biographer, Rolf Zetterston, I believe that's how you say it.
Whatever.
We don't pronounce things right on this podcast.
It's fine.
Cool.
Great.
He wrote about why Dobson had such immediate popularity with parents.
This is what Rolf says about Dobson in one of Dobson's biographies.
He condemned the so-called new morality.
He demanded more discipline in the schools.
He taught parents how to reassert their authority at home, and he unflinchingly called sin by its biblical name, sin.
And that's all in all caps.
The only difference is it's all in all caps.
Yeah.
That's really it.
By 1970, Dobson was able to publish his first book by Christian publisher Tyne Dale House.
The book was called Dare to Discipline.
And I'm sure we can all guess what that book was about.
Yeah.
Because what he says, discipline is picking up a girdle.
A bit of tennis racket was used and slashing your children, like how it happened to him, and probably tennis rackets.
Yeah, I mean, the key to beating children, I've always said this, is that you want to use improvised weaponry because that shows that there wasn't intent if you wind up in a court case like later.
You want to be able to claim that it was just an accident.
Dare to Discipline Released00:04:46
The kid ran into your girdle, which you can't claim if you're like using a telescope and baton on a child.
Yeah, yeah.
Five years later, he released another book.
This book has the best title.
This is the title to his second book released five years later.
Oh my God.
What wives wish their husbands knew about women.
Oh, which is really.
Oh, but this is full of a lot of good information.
Yeah.
I really love that.
Again, him as a man born in the 30s wrote a book called What Wives Wish Their Husbands Knew About Women.
And that's that's that's his second book.
What wives wish their husbands knew about women.
Okay, wrong answers only.
Robert?
Oh boy.
You know what?
I don't want to get canceled, so I'm not even going to try to make a joke about that.
Moving on.
I think I might be in hot water after the batoning children remarks.
So let's just, let's just sail on.
Yeah, because we're like, yeah, all right.
We're like 20 minutes in.
Oh, I think I think.
You know what won't baton your children?
Oh, yeah.
You need them batoned.
You know what will only baton your children?
Garrison, Garrison.
You're the host.
You get to do it.
You will not get your children hit by a girdle, giving them a thrashing in one single blow.
Any guesses?
Ooh, ooh, ooh.
Sophie, what is it?
Robert, no?
Is it the product?
I don't have a girdle.
Services that support products.
Products and services.
It is indeed.
Products.
On a recent episode of the podcast, Money and Wealth with John O'Brien, I sit down with Tiffany the Budgetista Alicia to talk about what it really takes to take control of your money.
What would that look like in our families if everyone was able to pass on wealth to the people when they're no longer here?
We break down budgeting, financial discipline, and how to build real wealth, starting with the mindset shifts too many of us were never, ever taught.
Financial education is not always about like, I'm going to get rich.
That's great.
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If you've ever felt you didn't get the memo on money, this conversation is for you to hear more.
Listen to Money and Wealth with John O'Brien from the Black Effect Network on the iTeart Radio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast.
Hey, Ernest, what's up?
Look, money is something we all deal with, but financial literacy is what helps turn income into real wealth.
On each episode of the podcast, Earn Your Leisure, we break down the conversations you need to understand money, investing, and entrepreneurship.
From stocks and real estate to credit, business, and generational wealth, we translate complex financial topics into real conversations everyone can understand.
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If you want to learn how to build wealth, understand the markets, and think like an owner, Earn Your Leisure is the podcast for you.
Listen to Earn Your Leisure on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.
I'm Iris Palmer, and my new podcast is called Against All Odds.
And that's exactly what the show is about.
Doing whatever it takes to beat the odds.
Get ready to hear from some of your favorite entrepreneurs and entertainers as they share stories about defying expectations, overcoming barriers, and breaking generational patterns.
I'm talking to people like award-winning actress, producer, and director, Fiva Longoria.
I think I had like $200 in my savings account, and my mom goes, what are you going to do?
And I was like, I'll figure it out.
We had a one-bedroom apartment for like $400 a month, and we all could not afford.
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For those of you who think you know me from what you've seen on social media, get ready to see a whole new side of me.
Listen to Against All Odds with Iris Palmer as part of the Michael Tura podcast network available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast, or wherever you get your podcast.
Hello, gorgeous.
It's Lala Kent, host of Untraditional Ila.
My days of filling up cups at Sir may be over, but I'm still loving life in the valley.
Life on the other side of the hill is giving grown-up vibes.
But over here on my podcast, Untraditional Ila, I'm still that Lala you either love or love to hate.
I've been full on oversharing with fans, family, and former frenemies like Tom Schwartz.
Psychologist Critiques Parenting00:15:12
I had a little bone to pick with Schwartzy when he came on the pod.
You don't feel bad that you told me I was a bootleg housewife?
I must flipped a pizza in your lap.
Oh, God, I literally forgot about that until just now.
Sorry, I don't want to blame all of that.
I got to blame that one on the alcohol.
This is about laughing and learning when life just keeps on laughing.
Because I make mistakes so that you guys don't have to.
We're growing, we're thriving, and yes, sometimes we're barely surviving, but we do it all with love.
Listen to Untraditional Ila on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.
We're back.
That was a great ad pivot, Garrison.
Really good for a first try.
I tend to advise more death threats against billionaire social media, which will then get edited out.
CEOs, which will then get edited out.
Yeah, yeah, that's key to the process is all of the incitements to violence that we have to have Chris edit from the podcast, which is like 30% of the runtime generally.
So that's why these take so long to record.
Okay.
In 1977 is when Dobson really started the thing that kind of makes him famous.
Or that'll eventually make him, you know, that eventually be what he's known for.
He started his own weekly radio show.
Initially got picked up by 40 stations.
The Washington Post article reads, by 1978.
Oh, wait, sorry, yeah, this is separate.
So he had his radio show.
What he was also doing at the time was filming seminars and selling them.
And then also churches would like invite him to teach seminars like across the country.
And then here's a Washington Post article.
By 1978, Dobson's seminars on the family, like on family issues, were making so much money, drawing up to 3,000 people per weekend at $12 a ticket that he finally quit his job at University of Southern California and formed his own non-profit company, Focus on the Family, which was then what he retitled his radio show as well.
So he's making so much money from these seminars he would do every once in a while.
It's unclear how often he did these.
You can't really find that kind of information because this is like in the 60s or 70s.
But it's enough that he was able to quit his.
People like hearing this guy talk about kid beating.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And what women want.
Yes, about what wives wish their husbands knew about women.
Yeah.
But despite Dobson formally making this a non-profit company, what he was really starting was a Christian media empire.
As the name suggests, focus on the family was primarily about Christian family life and how to properly raise your kids.
A short quote from the post says, Dobson's adult journey into family psychology and family politics is one man's attempt to retrieve the era that he grew up in, which is really fair.
All of his kind of stuff is about going back to this era in like the 30s and 40s about what family life was like back then.
Yeah, it's the essence of conservatism, looking back at a past that's half remembered and half imagined.
Yeah.
Yeah, that is very, that's very accurate.
This sentiment is shared by Joyce Johnson of the Child Welfare League, saying of Dobson about how Dobson clings to his philosophy from quote, 20 to 30 years ago that said children were property of their parents.
Which again, kind of, kind of fair.
Yeah, they're like cats or dogs, but they yell more creatively when you hit them.
Good.
Yeah.
Dobson would say.
Yeah, but like even in the even in the 80s, people thought his philosophy was like 30 years old.
Why are you hitting cats and dogs?
It was.
It's because none is their property.
Yeah.
You can hit your property.
According to Dobson, you can just hit your property.
Would you get angry at somebody who like, I don't know, pounded on their desk because they were frustrated?
No.
Then it's okay for people to hit kids because kids are like a desk.
But they're not like a dog.
A dog is like a desk.
It's property.
It's all property.
It's not property.
Oh my God.
I'm just saying this is.
Speaking of child abuse.
Speaking of canceled.
The next paragraph is going to be a good one.
Oh, good.
So, yeah.
Here's what the post says about some controversy that like, of course, is going to develop eventually along Dobson's parenting advice.
Quote, but it is Dobson's view on childhood punishment that got him into the most hot water.
Several years ago, this is in 1990.
Several years ago, for example, a Massachusetts couple was charged with child abuse because they beat their children.
And they say it's because their pastor said it was all right based on Dobson's writings.
No, that's good.
I'm going to bet that's the only time that happens.
Now, Dobson said his books have never advocated beating children.
But again, his first book was called Dare to Discipline and was about physically punishing your children.
Yeah, I think he might argue that it's not beating them as long as you're angry.
But yeah, so like this, this was an ongoing problem back in the 20th century for most of the 20 and still now.
Seems like it's still an ongoing problem.
And it's still an ongoing problem.
Yeah.
Seems like it might have something to do with all those guys who keep assaulting people based on their political opinions.
Yeah, a lot of beating is still to come.
Cool.
Yeah.
Mainstream family psychologists say that while setting limits to help build secure parent-child relationships are good, there are better methods than the back of the hand or a strap, such as giving, you know, stuff that was recommended back in the 90s was giving people timeouts.
That was kind of a new concept in the 90s.
Sure.
And the article writes, spanking can, quote, stimulate rebelliousness rather than respect and wisdom for the parents, which it's, you know, a psychologist trying to say, Dobson, you're not going to do good.
No, yeah, your kids are not going to respect you if they're always thinking about whether or not they're far enough away that you can't.
Yeah, like part of the cult I was in, I was spanked by people that aren't even my parents.
And I have grown up with heavy respect for authority.
Yeah.
Which is why I'm now a journalist.
That's what everyone says about you.
Covering the uprising.
You respect authority.
I love the feds.
Yeah.
I love all authority.
Yeah.
So I don't think his really philosophy even that work.
It doesn't even work that much.
Even though these psychologists criticize a lot of Dobson's work because they thought it was bad, they were quick to admit that he is better known as a psychologist and probably a lot richer than they'll ever be.
I doubt there's any American psychologist selling more books than Dobson.
This is a quote from a psychologist.
I doubt there's any other psychologist selling more books to the American public right now than any other psychologist.
This was a psychologist named Paul Klempt, who's also a professor of psychology.
So yeah, he was really the man for psychology in the 80s and 90s and late 70s.
Dobson was just really starting to kick off.
But eventually, Dobson wanted to be more than someone who gives bad parenting advice.
At the start of Focus on the Family, it was relatively non-partisan, still very conservative, but it wasn't really about partisan politics.
He wasn't advocating for candidates or endorsing parties.
In fact, when he filed nonprofit status, he answered no to the question if Focus on the Family would engage in activities intending to influence legislation.
Now, this very quickly turned out to be not true.
By 19.
So again, he started his radio show in 77.
He got his nonprofit status in 78.
By late 79, Dobson started to get more formally involved with politics.
President Carter was forming what becomes known as the White House Conferences on the Family, and Dobson wanted in.
Focus on the Family's vice president and co-founder named Gil Alexander Mogarell described Dobson's entry into politics like this, quote, Jim got tired of telling people what to do when a six-year-old went to bed, unquote.
Yeah, so you might as well start making policy on like nukes and shit.
So he may as well start making a lot of this is a really interesting time in the history of like American evangelism because that period of time, like right as so Carter came, got elected off the strength of the evangelical Christian vote, and he was the last Democrat that that was ever true of because Reagan was elected immediately afterwards based on a lot of friends of Mr. Dobson's in a sec.
Uniting them all, you know, mainly to deal with abortion and gay rights and women doing stuff that isn't getting hit by their husbands.
Yeah, yeah, this is that whole very cool period of time in politics.
Yeah, it's not great.
The way Dobson describes his move into politics and the way he marketed the change in topic to his audience, because again, you have to switch his audience to being used to him talking about like family issues to talking about political stuff.
Now, the way he gets past this is talking about how schools and governments are taking authority of parenting away from the parents.
Schools and governments are becoming too influential in deciding what kids are and aren't allowed to do, essentially.
Dobson says this in an interview: Until 15 years ago, a girl couldn't pierce your ears without getting her parents' permission.
Now, a parent can send a 13-year-old to school.
The school can transplant that child to have an abortion, and the parent won't even know about it.
She may come home and begin to bleed, and the parents won't know why.
The parents have been eliminated from the entire process.
How did that happen?
It was discussed somewhere, even debated, but Christians didn't participate, which I don't think is true in the 70s or 80s.
Yeah, nor even now.
Can a 13-year-old get sent to a hospital to have an abortion by a school and the parents not knowing?
Yeah, I don't think that's ever happened ever.
I don't know.
At least not in the 70s.
Yeah, I think we would, yeah, I don't think that's that's a thing, but I don't know.
Maybe, maybe, maybe I'm wrong on this.
We could be, but I think not in the 70s.
No, because it's a minor and it's a major medical procedure.
You usually don't get rights over your body medically until you're dead.
So you don't have any right to privacy as a 13-year-old because you're property like a desk.
That's what Dobson would say.
Yeah.
Dobson's co-founder of Focus in the Family, who later came out kind of against Dobson because he was scared of what he was doing, Gil Alexander Mogharell, wrote a whole book about Dobson called James Dobson's War on America.
Awesome.
Now, this is...
I hope somebody writes a book like that about me one day.
Robert Evans War in America?
Well, on the FDA, maybe.
It's a good title.
Yeah.
Noted.
Here's a quote from the very good book, James Dobson's War in America.
Two years after we started Focus in the Family, Jim got his first taste of the surreal sense of power and control that working in Washington offers.
The flavor is sweet to this only child.
And ever since, Focus on the Family's component about political activism has been a central feature in the life and work of James Dobson, and one that he personally relishes more than any other aspect of it.
And this absolutely is true.
Great.
As soon as he got some political influence, he got addicted to this.
Yeah, it's almost like power is a literal drug that ruins people.
And if you are already kind of shitty beforehand, it makes you into something more frightening than anything Lovecraft ever dreamed up.
Sure.
Yeah.
Yeah.
How did we end up at Lovecraft?
I don't know.
But like Cosmic Horror.
Scarifying Cosmic Horror.
James Dobson.
I think about Cosmic Horror.
I think about the death of stars.
Yeah, and the death of many teenagers.
Yeah, a lot of teenagers.
Which we'll find out about.
Yeah.
The first taste of worming his way, like the first taste of power was him worming his way onto the Carter Family Advisory Council, like the thing that President Carter established.
Yeah.
By now, Focus on the Family's radio program was expanded to a daily 15-minute program instead of a weekly one.
It was on hundreds of stations now.
A year later in 1981, the program got turned into a 30-minute show.
It became racking up thousands of stations around then.
Now, the way Dobson got on this council is that one day on air, he persuaded his listeners that he needed to be on this whole family conference thing, telling them that such conferences are usually dominated by quote, Eastern establishment, liberal, secular humanists.
He's got all the buzzwords in there.
Yeah.
So Dobson was trying to scare his audience and saying that maybe if Maybe he can, maybe Dobson can't even get invited on if his listeners write in to the conference director urging to invite Dr. Dobson.
And wrote in they did.
80,000 people either called in or wrote in to the White House requesting Dobson join the committee slash conference.
An invitation to join was sent out to this relatively unknown Christian radio psychologist from LA.
Oh, yeah.
Also take notes, listeners, because I would like to be on a commission.
I don't really care what.
80,000 people call in?
Yeah, just whatever commission.
Whatever commission.
Whatever commission Robert wants, we're going to get him on there.
Yeah.
Everyone get your phones ready for...
Something like something to do with like potatoes or some shit.
Something in the ad.
I don't know potato conference would be good.
Yeah, I could, I know a lot about potatoes.
Yeah, like the ones that were bottling in your house a few weeks ago.
I did.
I did have some potatoes that were left in my cabinet for far too long.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Got really potatoey.
So after this invitation was sent out, the post article writes, that's when he realized the power of his electronic forum.
The power he's not hesitated to use on other issues, including the Civil Rights Restoration Act.
And now here, this is...
I'm scared.
Dobson got hundreds of thousands of people to call in and oppose the Civil Rights Restoration Act of 1984.
The bill then failed to pass on the first few votes that they tried to do.
It only passed four years later in 1988 after, quote, abortion-neutral language was added.
So, you know, utilizing your public power to quash the Civil Rights Restoration Act.
Yeah.
As one does.
As one does.
Yeah.
Loving this story.
So here, here's the good part.
After the bill was passed with, you know, the with the abortion neutral language, Reagan then vetoed the bill.
Great.
Great.
I love politics.
Sensational.
Lobbying Power and Civil Rights00:04:09
The Senate then had to override his veto.
It's unclear how much influence Dobson had on this whole like vetoing process with Reagan and stuff.
But as we'll soon see, Dobson and Reagan became very close friends.
And Dobson did not hesitate to use his power to mobilize hundreds of thousands of people to call the government to complain about civil rights.
I just happened to agree with him about hitting little kids.
That was my Reagan.
There's some really good pictures of Dobson and Reagan together.
Just sitting together pretending the AIDS crisis isn't happening as they both were wanted to do.
Dobson was happy about the AIDS crisis.
Dobson hated gay people so much.
I'll bet that was the best thing that ever happened.
That's why he wasn't talking about gay people in the 80s because he was happy where things were going.
He only started talking with them in the 90s and 2000s when they started to get a little bit better.
Yeah, when they weren't all dying.
Yeah.
I'm sure that was hard for him.
Shortly after Ronald Reagan's election, he put Dobson on the National Advisory Commission to the officer of the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Program, which is way too long of a title.
Yep.
That's way too long of a title for anything.
But Dobson got put on this because Reagan liked him.
Dobson also served as co-chairman on the Citizens Advisory Panel for Tax Reform in consultation with Reagan.
I don't know what Dobson's qualifications were for tax reform because that's not really part of any of his education.
It doesn't seem like he has any meaning or training and he was running a non-profit tax-exempt business that was just a media empire at this point.
So I really don't think he should be the one on this tax advisory commission.
This has just convinced me that I do have what it takes to run the American Coast Guard.
I'm going to start putting out feelers to the Biden.
Put me in charge of the Coast Guard, listeners.
Let's email the Biden team.
Yeah.
And let's get Robert on charge.
I don't know what I'll do, and neither will the Coast Guard.
That'll keep them on their toes.
Dobson also served as a member.
Dobson also served as a speaking of the Coast Guard.
Dobson served as a member and the chairman of the United States Army's Family Initiative, which was like about Army families and stuff and stuff.
He was appointed to Attorney General Edwin Mises' Commission on Pornography in the mid-80s, and he got put on a teen pregnancy prevention panel, which I think is not a good call as someone who hates abortion.
Yeah.
You know, seems like he might not have a lot of helpful things to share there.
Yeah, and he also got put on Attorney General's advisory board on missing and exploited children.
He was up to so much stuff.
Seems like he actually might know why some kids are missing.
He is responsible for a lot of missing children.
His kind of work is the reason why a lot of kids ran away.
Yeah.
Especially in the 90s and 2000s.
Good decision for those kids to make.
Yeah.
So despite him being up to a lot of stuff during the Reagan years, Dobson wanted more and he wanted more direct lobbying power.
This next bit is taken from the Washington Post article again.
In 1988, Dobson convinced that Dobson was convinced that the conservative cause needed more help than he alone could give.
He persuaded the Focus on the Family Board to buy the Family Research Council.
Since that purchase, the Family Research Council has become one of the largest evangelical Christian lobbying organizations in Washington.
And this is slightly inaccurate.
It was the biggest Christian lobbying group ever in the history of this country.
Awesome.
The former vice president and co-founder who since like came out against Dobson now says of Dobson, he is a tremendous threat to the separation of church and state.
James Dobson lobbies Washington more powerfully than any individual or organization within the religious right.
I mean, I'm glad he figured it out after a while, but it would have been nice if he hadn't helped him start the business start the thing that is essentially a giant weapon aimed at shooting all of our freedom in the dick.
Threat to Separation of Church State00:04:08
He should have.
Or whatever.
He should have realized that.
Do you know who won't shoot your freedom in the dick, Robert?
Or whatever.
Oh my God.
Or whatever.
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Thank you, Garrison.
Yeah.
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Hello, gorgeous.
It's Lala Kent, host of Untraditional Ila.
My days of filling up cups at sir may be over, but I'm still loving life in the valley.
Life on the other side of the hill is giving grown-up vibes, but over here on my podcast, Untraditional Ila, I'm still that Lala you either love or love to hate.
I've been full-on oversharing with fans, family, and former frenemies like Tom Schwartz.
I had a little bone to pick with Schwartzki when he came on the pod.
You don't feel bad that you told me I was a bootleg housewife?
I must flipped a pizza in your lap.
Oh, God, I literally forgot about that until just now.
Sorry, I don't want to blame all of that.
I got to blame that one on the alcohol.
This is about laughing and learning when life just keeps on laughing.
Because I make mistakes so that you guys don't have to.
We're growing, we're thriving, and yes, sometimes we're barely surviving, but we do it all with love.
Listen to Untraditional Ila on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.
I'm Iris Palmer, and my new podcast is called Against All Odds.
And that's exactly what the show is about.
Doing whatever it takes to beat the odds.
Get ready to hear from some of your favorite entrepreneurs and entertainers as they share stories about defying expectations, overcoming barriers, and breaking generational patterns.
I'm talking to people like award-winning actress, producer, and director, Fiva Longoria.
I think I had like $200 in my savings account, and my mom goes, what are you going to do?
And I was like, I'll figure it out.
We had a one-bedroom apartment for like $400 a month, and we all could not afford.
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For those of you who think you know me from what you've seen on social media, get ready to see a whole new side of me.
Listen to Against All Odds with Iris Palmer as part of the Michael Tura podcast network, available on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcast.
Rush Limbaugh Political Alliance00:06:40
And hello, we are back.
This is Garrison talking about focus on the family here.
And this is Robert listening and planning a violent counter coup.
Yes, and we'll figure things out after the recording session.
Why does it have to be violent?
Just because of the mercenaries I hired.
Oh, sorry, question.
I should have been more prepared.
I should have brought more than one of you.
You should have brought mercenaries.
It's a coup.
Yeah, I should have planned this a little bit more.
You want to get yourself some former Navy SEALs who have just been doing nothing but mainlining cocaine ever since they got out of the service.
Building pipe bombs.
And building pipe hearts.
Those are the best guys to help you do a coup.
They never, for example, wind up arrested on the streets of Venezuela soaking in their own urine.
Good times.
Coups.
Better times than this.
Because better times than the mid-90s in America, because in the mid-90s, Dobson was receiving $125 million in lobbying power between Focus and Family Research Council in the 90s.
The family, the FRC, it's kind of referred to.
They continue to be an active Christian lobbying group today.
It's not as influential now, but it still is active.
It also is affiliated with a conservative PAC called Family Research Council Action.
In 2010, the Southern Power, we're skipping ahead a little bit, but we'll go back in time later.
2010, the Southern Poverty Law Center declared the group as an anti-gay hate group.
Yep, seems like that's fair.
This is the Family Research Council lobbying group here.
Focus in the Family never got declared an anti-gay hate group because they were too religious about it.
That Southern Private Law Center didn't feel comfortable calling it that.
I feel very comfortable calling it an anti-gay hate group because they ran a conversion therapy program.
We're going to talk more about what Focus and the Family was doing for anti-gay stuff in part two, because they didn't really get really active that until the 90s.
But the post article sums up quite well what made Dobson's entry into politics unique at the time, and it kind of ushered in a whole new type of political Christian conservative activism.
Dobson says he has no intention of ever running for office, a pledge even his critics believe.
But he also says Focus and the Family should not endorse candidates, although letters to the GOP and Democratic presidential nominees in 1988, copying it sent out to constituents, leaves little room for doubt that he believed Bush to be the better candidate.
But what made it more unique is how Dobson entered into politics quietly, without the press conferences and pomp that surrounded predecessors like Reverend Jerry Falwell.
This represents a maturing of a certain segment of evangelicalism within mainstream politics, particularly in the Republican Party.
According to a Brookings Institution fellow, an expert on religious life, gone are the days of TV preachers and bombast.
What lay in their place are laymen like Dobson who are emerging and taking more of a, and talking more about with a palatable language that's less about religion and more about civil rights.
So like trying to like, you know, their right to run, their right to raise their kids their way and their right for, you know, unborn babies.
That's the kind of, it's like, it's the real change from like religious conservative activism to being, like, to be mainly about religion to being more about civil rights was Dobson when kind of was the first one to do that, which is now we see a lot of that nowadays in the Senate, in Congress, in the White House.
Awesome.
Okay.
Yeah.
So yeah, a 1995 ABC primetime profile on Dobson opens up like this.
He was one of the most powerful men in the country, and yet few people even know his name.
On Capitol Hill, he's treated like some big, powerful lobbyist.
Because he was.
And yeah.
And you've probably never heard of him, but James Dobson is one of the most influential leaders in the entire religious right.
Dobson's vision to transform America is known to every member of the House and Senate, and he's been delivering his messages to the White House in person for years.
Thanks, ABC, for really cracking the case on that one in the 90s.
Yep.
Dobson's often described as like a stealth campaigner or a stealth lobbyist for his ability to remain kind of under the radar despite his massive influence.
Because yeah, even if you're kind of into politics, there's a good chance that now you've never even heard of Focus in the Family or Family Research Council or Dobson because he was very good at staying under the radar despite his massive power.
Yeah, they're just one of those groups that you like, you see them referenced constantly.
You see their logo on things, but it's usually just with a bunch of other fucking different like non-governmental organizations.
It doesn't, he's not the kind of, yeah, no, that's, that's really how you exercise terrifying power.
That's good.
Yeah, because it's more dangerous because we, because we knew so little about it at the time.
Well, everybody's angry about, I don't know.
There was other stuff happening.
There was other stuff happening.
A couple of wars, I think.
Yeah.
Yeah.
As Dobson's political aspirations were growing, so was Focus in the Family's so-called non-profit publishing empire.
Citing the book Stations of the Cross, Christianity Today, which is the biggest evangelical slash Christian magazine, dubbed Focus and the Family's president and founder, James Dobson, the undisputed king of Christian radio.
In 1995, Focus in the Family was the third most listened to radio show in the entire country after the Rush Limbaugh and Paul Harvey programs.
An estimated 20.6 million people listened to his evangelical radio program at least once a week.
So in the 90s, he was the third, he had the third most popular radio show in the entire country.
Well, that's terrible.
Yeah.
Yeah.
I'm not happy with the way this is going.
Really thinking electricity might have been a mistake.
And it's good that Rush Limbaugh is the most.
And then it's Paul Harvey, and then it's James Dobson.
Although, actually, according to other sources, James Dobson beats out Paul Harvey in some years.
They're kind of neck and neck.
But Rush Limbaugh is the first one.
And then you have James Dobson.
Rush Limbaugh is the first one.
The good old one-two combo of Rush Limbaugh and James Dobson.
Yeah, Dobson wasn't a big part of my childhood, but Limbaugh was.
And that's why I had fun lessons from my mom, like why it's okay to carpet bomb the Middle East.
And I had the opposite.
I didn't have Rush Limbaugh, but I had James Dobson.
Oh, well, yeah.
So, yeah.
That explains the differences between.
That's the only differences we have is that one event has.
And a Canada thing.
You call hats the wrong word.
What do you call hats?
Toque.
Toque.
It's a Canadian.
Limbaugh Childhood Lessons00:16:07
It's a little toque.
Degenerate term.
Yeah.
I know.
Cancel me on Twitter, Sophie.
Do it.
Write a post.
I mean, listeners can't see it, but my face went, oh.
Yeah, it went like, oh, what's that?
Sophie's expressed the proper reaction to Canadian verbiage.
Yes.
By 1990, they had seven separate magazines in print, Focus in the Family here for this non-profit.
They had good content for all of us.
This non-profit magazine had seven of them, which they sold, again, non-profitly.
Focus on the family successfully had books being published themselves at this point.
Many seminars and sermons were taped and then sold nationally and internationally.
They got a deal with the U.S. Army.
Oh, that's good.
The U.S. Army bought tons of people and sent them out.
To teach Army parents how to hit their kids.
Yes.
Yeah.
That makes sense.
Yeah.
Because you're in the Army, you know how to hit, but you might not know it's okay to hit your kids.
Your own children.
You don't just have to hit Iraqis.
You can hit your kids.
It'll help you get better at hitting Iraqis.
Yeah.
It's good practice to make practice.
If you get good at doing it to your children without remorse, you can hit any other child in Iraq.
If you can harm your own children without a thought, then you can really commit violence on behalf of the state.
Yay.
Focus on the Family made a 13-episode live-action, like half-live-action, half-animated TV show called McGee and Me.
They started a whole film department, most popular for their Last Chance Detectives series in the mid-90s, which cost about like $1 million per film to make.
And it's all just propaganda, right?
Here's not all of it, which is why it gets actually really interesting and dangerous.
That's why you hear about Focus on the Family.
Like you'll see their name at the end of a bunch of different public TV shows and stuff.
Yeah.
Right.
Yeah.
So like the thing about all of their entertainment media is that more often than not, it's frustratingly competent.
Because again, they had hundreds of millions of dollars at their disposal.
A review of McGee and Me, which I've watched all of as a kid.
I watched all these stuff, all these things.
Slash Chance Detective is just kind of helped me get on my detective path, which I'm now using.
You are a detective.
But yeah.
Those of you who don't know how to track down the identity of Kyle Rittenhouse, the Kenosha shooter, like six hours before the police figured out who it was.
There's a Forbes article about it.
Yeah.
Thanks, Focus and the Family.
A review of McGee and Me from Chicago, from the Chicago Tribune, says that the show is exceptional, saying it has the production quality is top-notch.
The show offers an entertaining mixture of live action, animation, as well as well-written stories with positive moral messages.
And although the stories are definitely based on principles from the Bible, the series isn't excessively preachy or pushy, which is why I can get on the air.
And apparently, the animation from the show was done by the award-winning team from Frago Rock, My Little Pony, and Muppet Babies.
Oh, Fraggle Rock.
Yeah, I know.
I'm sorry, Robert.
No.
I know.
I'm sorry, Robert.
The Fragile Rock people got drawn into this.
And Muppet Babies.
That's the one that hits me.
I didn't want to hear the Fraggle Rock dudes helped make Dominionist Christian propaganda.
Let us talk about Muppet Babies and Fragil Rock, Sophie.
Come on.
My little.
Step back.
Unacceptable.
I'm not happy with any of this.
But by far, the most successful and popular media program that Folks of the Family has ever made and run is an audio drama series called Adventures in Odyssey.
Now, we're going to go on a bit of an aside here because, again, this is radio.
This is where we're on radio.
Why is radio, Garrison?
It sounds with your voices.
Sounds with your voice.
What a concept.
Forms and wavelengths.
Yeah, I'm not sure it's going to catch on, but continue.
I listened to shitloads of the show as a kid.
It's been running non-stop since 1987.
And by 1995, it was the second most listened to Christian radio program.
Can you guess what it was only beaten out by the other Focus in the Family program, the main one?
Great.
That's okay.
So the premise of the show is that you're in this small Midwestern town, and the main character is this old Christian man named Mr. Whitaker, who's an ex-secret agent and a genius inventor who runs an ice cream shop/slash learning center called Wits End.
Here's a picture, Robert.
It sounds like you're describing the kind of dreams that you get after, I don't know, like taking a shitload of acid and being tear gassed.
This show is so weird.
Yeah.
So here's Mr. Whitaker.
Can you describe how that looks to the audience?
It looks like Wilfred Brimley.
Oh, yeah, he looks like Wilfred Brimley.
So even though I said the main character is this old ex-agent man who's an inventor and runs an ice cream shop, their prospective characters are these like different families that cycle out of the show every 10 years or so.
They deal with like family issues and small town political issues.
And this old guy is like a mentor figure to this whole town.
I'm going to show you, I'm sure Robert, I'm going to show Robert a picture of one of these families.
I don't like his outfit.
You don't like his outfit?
No.
Okay.
Well, I'm going to show Robert a picture of one of these families.
And note, these are the only black characters they've ever had in the entire show.
Oh, great.
When they were the over the course of the 30 years, for five years out of the 30 years, their main family was the black family.
But besides that, they've had no black characters.
Here's actually better.
Here is King.
Oh, no.
It's really.
Oh, no.
Oh, no.
So they just drew O.J. Simpson on that.
They just drew OJ Simpson for the dad.
Okay.
It's really bad.
That's.
Oh, boy.
So bad.
And they all have like really accentuated teeth and eyes looking at the fish.
Giant really thin their eyes.
They've seen a murder.
Giant foreheads, tiny eyeballs.
It's really bad.
That is OJ Simpson, though, correct?
That is absolutely OJ Simpson.
That is James Orinthal Simpson, the most innocent man in history on the show.
Yeah, the juice was loose for five years on Christian television.
Now, this episode that I listened to, the episode that Artwork is from, gave me nightmares as a child, by the way.
Before I saw the artwork, was because of some, it was like, it was their closest together getting to like a horror episode.
I see that they're in an old West town.
They're only in the land.
Wait, why is the kid holding?
I just realized he's holding.
He's got an axe.
He's only got a pickaxe.
It's because they were like, I forget, but I know this episode gave, I know this specific episode gave me nightmares because they went to this old western town and had to dig up a treasure or something.
Yeah, I'm sure there were ghosts.
Listeners, I'll post photos on social.
Ghosts aren't allowed because of Christian stuff.
Oh, right, because that would imply an afterlife outside of the.
I've told you this before, but one of their most popular episodes is called Castles and Cauldrons.
And they had a D ⁇ D episode.
They had a D ⁇ D.
They had an episode about how D ⁇ D is bad and satanic.
Oh, that's good.
That's good.
This seems like a fun show that you watched as a kid, Gary.
So much of this.
Yeah.
So, like, it was a radio show.
They also made a television show based off of it.
Okay.
Animated.
So the original gimmick of the show is that Mr. Whitaker, the inventor ex-agent guy, made this invention called the Imagination Station, which is like a mix of the holo deck and a time machine.
Kind of unclear.
Now, the purpose this serves in the show is a way to travel to the quote-unquote past to teach the audience and audience surrogates, quote-unquote, history of an incredibly whitewashed pro-colonial Christian revisionist history.
I mean, that's all terrible, but I'm already coming up with an alternate canon in my head in which Mr. Whitaker is a former CIA agent and all he's doing is dosing these kids.
He's an agent from the NSA.
Yeah, I've got my own head canon.
He's given MLSD.
This is all he's continuing MK Ultra on his own.
That would make way more sense.
Yeah, but like, again, the frustrating thing is that the show is very well produced, often hiring LA voice actors.
Like, it has people from the Animaniacs who are still on the show now, which I don't know how.
Yeah, because people need paychecks.
The main character from Steven Universe, like the guy who voices Steven, used to, when he was a very small child, voiced a character on this show before he broke out into animation for Steven Universe and stuff.
You know, a very gay show.
Yeah.
Yes.
And Focus in a Family is a very not gay, friendly company.
I mean, if he was a kid, yeah.
He was a very young child and now he's an adult.
Yeah.
We all need paychecks.
Yeah.
Yeah, we get good health insurance in this country, Garrison.
I don't know if they taught you that in Canada.
Yeah, I know.
I live here.
I know.
Yeah.
Yeah, not a great call, by the way.
I know.
Anyway, yeah, there was spin-off movies, tons of books.
For some reason, Mr. Whitaker's son is also a secret agent.
Okay.
But the goal, oh, you see, wait, Sophie, stop.
Sophie, stop.
Wait, guys.
All right.
So the goal of the show writers was to make him like an anti-James Bond or like a Christian version of James Bond.
Now, Robert, picture that man in your head.
What people in the 90s, Christian people in the 90s, thought the Christian version of James Bond would look like.
Picture that man in your head.
Okay.
Do you have him?
Yeah.
All right.
Now we scroll down.
Here he is.
Wait, he's all of them?
All these, all three.
He's Indiana Jones, clearly, in one of those.
So there's three pictures here.
One of them in like a very tight shirt.
The first one, he's in InSync.
Yeah.
Yeah, he does look like a member of InSync in the first one.
He has three boys.
In sync, just for the rest of the day.
He has like a goatee.
He has like a little soul patch and goatee.
It's not attractive.
It's not good.
He has giant feet.
Yeah, abnormal and elf-like at the toe.
And then in one of these pictures, they've done a terrible thing and put him in an Indiana Jones outfit, which I am offended by.
Yeah.
It's very upsetting.
Who was he in the middle?
Because Indiana Jones very famously was not a Christian because he knew for certain about the existence of other deities.
Yeah.
Magical powers.
All three of the same character.
These look like a disease.
This is the same guy.
This is the same guy.
Yeah.
Well, I guess...
I guess.
Indiana Jones' religious status is unknown, but he both engages with mystical powers on behalf of Hinduism, Judaism, and Christianity.
So you have to assume he's got some nuanced understanding of the matter.
Yeah, I just don't like that.
Yeah.
That this person, they tried to make a cool Christian version of James Bond who looks terrible.
Yeah.
The first guy's definitely the most fabulous of the three.
Yeah.
Really?
He looks like Lance Bass.
No, he doesn't.
He looks like the JC.
Oh, no.
I'm so sorry.
90s.
We'll have to agree to disagree.
All right.
Anyway.
JC Shazé from Dink.
He's the one.
He definitely knows the bye-bye buy dance.
That's all.
Back to Dobson.
Back to Dobson specifically.
One of his more weird griffs was doing Ted Bundy's final interview.
What?
How did that happen?
You're going to find out.
Okay.
On the day before Bundy was executed in 1989, Bundy received hundreds of interview requests from media outlets.
He denied all of these and specifically requested to be interviewed by James Dobson.
Okay.
The entire interview was about how it was actually pornography that caused Bundy to murder and rape all of those people.
What a weird last flag.
Which was which Bundy specifically argued against in court.
He said it wasn't pornography.
And then as a final troll, he got Dobson in to like record this whole interview about how it was actually porn that made him murder and rape all those people.
What a piece of shit.
So not only does he kill all those people, but like the last thing he gets a choice over, he uses that choice to fuck up porn for everybody.
Yes.
So it's clear that Dobson Dobson, it's clear that changed my mind about this Ted Bundy character.
Oh, this has really pushed you over the edge.
Yeah.
I'm no longer neutral on the Bundy issue.
Well, it's a good development.
I'm kind of concerned for your previous Bundy views.
Well, okay, like I have one tattoo of the guy.
That doesn't mean that tattoo?
Yeah.
It's like Roger Stone's.
Yeah, Roger Stone.
Yes.
So it's clear that Bundy was essentially trolling Dobson and the entire world here.
But Dobson found a way to capitalize on this exclusive.
The tapes were technically free to use, but with the stipulation that the interview be aired in its entirety without editing or interruption, which is over like an hour long.
So it gave Dobson a lot of time to talk.
Jesus.
Which, of course, news media is not going to do that.
Yeah.
So it's technically free to use because, again, he runs a nonprofit company.
But he would sell.
If you cut down the interview at all, he would charge you for the tapes.
This proved to be extremely profitable for Dobson.
He either gets...
He fucking capitalized on Ted Bundy.
Yeah.
Awesome.
So he either gets a straight hour of media exposure on national news programs or he gets money.
Within a year, Dobson raked in over a million dollars in profit from the tapes.
Awesome.
He initially pocketed all of the money for himself.
Oh, yeah, good.
Why would you give it to the families of his victims?
But amid public outcry, he donated $600,000 to it, $600,000 of it to anti-porn groups and anti-abortion groups.
You know, you're a good person when your backstory repeatedly includes the line amid public outcry.
So that he kept, so like he kept $400,000 for himself.
But part of the $600,000 donated to anti-porn and anti-abortion groups, Focus and the Family is included as those groups.
So he just gave the money to himself.
He kept a piece of shit.
Beautiful.
He kept $400,000 in his own bank account and then gave the rest to the business he owns.
Oh, that's...
I gotta hand it to him.
That's a good grift.
Not many people would look at a man who repeatedly raped and molested the corpses of his victims and go, I bet I can make a million dollars off this guy.
So every media empire needs its own castle.
Focus in the family is no exception.
In 1990, Focus in the Family claims they accepted a $4 million grant from the Colorado-based L. Pomour Foundation.
The foundation's website says they accept applications from 501c3 organizations to serve Colorado in the areas of arts and culture and community and health and blah, blah, blah, blah, whatever.
So at the time, Focus in the Family was based out of California, so they applied for this grant and then they got this money so that then they had to move to Colorado to get the grant accepted.
So $4 million.
They transferred 350 employees from California to Colorado and hired 400 more in state.
A 46-acre lot was purchased to build their grand headquarters in Colorado Springs.
They have their own entire zip code for their headquarters.
Great.
During a tour of the Focus in the Family offices in 1993, a couple from Michigan asked if handling all of the sightseers in the main building was a distraction from the regular working staff.
The working staff said yes.
The couple then donated $4 million to build a new visitor center on the land.
So Focus in the Family soon had built 526,000 square feet of stuff on their Colorado property, including an entire replica of Wit's End, the ice cream shop slash learning center from their radio program.
Amazing.
Focus on Family Database Secrets00:07:18
Which I have been to.
Oh.
How's the ice cream?
Ice cream's not bad.
Rest of it, I may have some notes.
Did you get drugged by a former spook?
No, but my brother did cut his head open.
Oh, in here.
He fell and cut his head open.
He still had a scar.
Y'all should have sued.
Oh, well, we were very happy at the time because we were at their cult.
Yeah.
Whatever.
Yeah, so I've been there.
In Focus and the Family's like welcome center kind of film, he has like always, you know, people have like an always have like a film playing on a television.
Whatever.
Dobson compares his decision to build the headquarters in Colorado Springs to the founding of the Temple at Jerusalem.
Okay.
Okay.
Makes a lot of interesting calls, this guy.
So when I went to the Focus and the Family headquarters when I was like 10, I was not there in a journalistic capacity because I was 10 years old and in a cult.
So I'm going to refer to a Salon article about touring the facility in the late 90s.
The tour guide takes me upstairs to where the real work happens.
We stop first at a viewing room for an area full of cubicles.
120 people work here, the tour guide explains.
All they do is answer Focus on the Family correspondence.
The room is empty today because it's a Saturday, but he says during the week, it brims with activity.
He tells me how focused listeners pour out their problems, asking for prayers on their behalf and seek advice on things like marital problems, depression, and their sons and daughters who are gay.
We receive about 10,000 letters a day, he says.
Sometimes they send money, the guide admits, but Focus on the Family doesn't require them to.
Every letter gets an answer regardless of who sends it.
He points out that the correspondent staff takes the initiative to send out free literature, books, and tapes of Focus on the Family broadcasts, even to those who don't donate.
Focus in the Family also keeps a database with a description of everyone's problem to refer back to them if the person ever writes again.
This database has over 4 million names.
That's really creepy.
No, that's so weird.
It gets worse.
This database is very interesting and terrifying.
A big part of the daily radio show is asking listeners to write in with questions or for people to send donations.
Sometimes they'll advise, like, if you donate X amount, we'll ship you this book as a thank you.
You know, stuff like that.
That's kind of common.
The Focus in the Family co-founder describes the radio business model like this.
Most Focus on the Family broadcasts give the appearance of half-hour talk shows, but are actually 30-minute infomercials for a Focus on the Family product.
It's as ingenious as it is perfectly legitimate.
The goal here is obviously for people to send money because they're a donation, primarily a donation-based non-profit, quote unquote.
They also sell stuff.
Or you buy stuff, but it's technically a donation, and they send you a book.
It's a thank you, which is, you know, yeah.
But so sending them, so the goal is to send money, but just sending them any correspondence is a win.
Because whether they send in money or just a question, their names and addresses get added to this master database.
A special complimentary magazine is sent out monthly to everyone in this database, just like the radio show is a product catalog thinly veiled as a parenting guide.
So is this this magazine that they send out?
It's mainly, but people, it's to, you know, they advertise his products and stuff, but it's thinly veiled as like parenting advice for like, you know, a free, free magazine from Focus on the Family.
People on this mailing list are also strongly encouraged to set up a monthly donation with different like thank you gift tiers, kind of like Patreon.
Not only does Dobson and Focus on the Family use this database as like a grifting machine, it's also another way for Dobson to deploy his army of supporters.
He will routinely personally write letters for a call to action, including a way for someone to contact Capitol Hill.
Then he can just like mail out to everyone in this database, you know, for people to respond so they can easily get changes in legislation done.
So this database, combined with his ability to simply disparagingly mention a piece of a piece of legislation on air, can get resulting in hundreds of thousands of people to write in or call in.
Sure.
He also has the power to mobilize people to meet his political goals through this database letter system.
And everyone in Washington knows this, which is why so many conservative politicians have gotten so cozy with Dobson.
It's because he has this database that he can just use on a whim to like mail something out to like millions of people and then also just address stuff on his radio show.
What an impressive grift, though.
And part of why this works is because he develops a parasocial relationship with his listeners.
It's like, hey, I, James, as your friend, need your help with this thing.
We'll send you out a letter.
You know, call in to us if you have a family issue.
You know, he'll get people to respond.
Then you just get more and more names added to this database.
Yep.
Massive thing.
A huge amount of the right wing, like the whole right wing is all about getting mailing lists, which you then monetize and use to drive donations and stuff.
Yeah.
So in the next episode, we're going to hear about the best thing that ever happened with this database, but also all the gay conversion therapy program in the 2000s.
So we have those two things to look forward to.
But that is the end of this section about Focus on the Family and James Dobson.
How do you feel, Robert?
I feel good.
It's so far been pretty standard, kind of.
Yeah, I love that he managed to make hundreds of millions of dollars for himself and his organization, although those two things are essentially the same because nobody ever goes after these people for breaking the law flagrantly.
I loved that he monetized a mass murderer.
And then when he got in trouble from monetizing it, he still gave the money to himself.
I love, I love, what I love about the right is the complete lack of ethical consistency and the total and all-consuming lust for power.
And I think James Dobson embodies that in a number of ways, but most clearly in his desire to have people do violence to children, because that's really the core of like that right-wing obsession with power.
Is like, if a child disrespects an adult, they deserve to be harmed.
This was an idea that I grew up with a lot too.
Like my mom would tell me, if I ever, if I ever hear you talk back to an adult, like I'll beat the shit out of you.
And variations of that.
And the things that I got the most physical punishment for as a kid were times in which I disrespected an adult.
This idea that like the worst thing you can do as a child is not respect the power of adults.
It all speaks to the kind of man he is.
And as soon as he realizes like when he's got no power before he gets into politics, then he's obsessed with this idea of disciplining children.
But as soon as he has some chance to force his views on everyone else, he takes it because that's the kind of person he is.
He doesn't want people to be able to do things he doesn't personally want them doing.
That's the essence of him and of conservatism.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That's cool.
Well said, as we'll learn more about gay conversion therapy, which involves a lot of child abuse in the next episode.
Awesome.
Robert, do you have any pluggables you want to plug?
I really am doing that.
Yeah.
Obsession with Adult Power00:03:07
You know, I have a podcast.
It's this one.
You can listen to it.
Yeah.
You can listen to it on the internet.
Brewster's awesome.
Yeah, she's great.
The internet's also great.
One of many things that has no consequences.
So find me, find me on the internet alongside a bunch of racists plotting the downfall of civilization.
Robert's on Twitter at iRideOn together.
I'm on Twitter at 100 Mowtai.
There's a TeePublic store behind the bastards.
You can get FDA approved to prevent all diseases thing.
I'll see you guys in the next episode.
Yeah, Robert, you should shook right now.
Look how well he did.
I always knew he was coming from behind.
Yeah.
Phrasing.
All right.
Goodbye.
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