Straight White American Jesus - Weekly Roundup: No Catholics at the Pentagon, Trump as Jesus + the Conversion Therapy Court Case
Aired: 2026-04-03
Duration: 01:04:19


=== Good Friday and Christian Coalitions (15:22) ===

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[00:01:14]  Welcome to Straightwide American Jesus.
[00:01:15]  I'm Brad Onishi, author of American Caesar, Hathiocrat.
[00:01:18]  and tech lords are turning America into a monarchy.
[00:01:21]  Founder of Access Muni Media, here today with my co-host.
[00:01:24]  I am Dan Miller, professor of religion and social thought at Lamarck College.
[00:01:28]  Pleased to be with you, Brad.
[00:01:30]  Happy Passover to those who celebrate.
[00:01:33]  It is also Good Friday, so lots to cover, and we'll get into some Good Friday material because Trump compared himself to Jesus once again.
[00:01:40]  And Pete Hegseth is hosting Protestant-only chapel at the Pentagon, so we'll talk about that.
[00:01:47]  We'll get into one of the SCOTUS rulings from this week.
[00:01:51]  Regarding conversion therapy and what that means, how it works.
[00:01:55]  And finally, the scandal surrounding the Gnome family, Christy Gnome and her husband, who leaked images show is somebody who likes to dress up in ways that suggest he is somebody whose gender identity is not as the Gnomes would say.
[00:02:15]  We'll get into the details of that.
[00:02:17]  Lots to cover.
[00:02:18]  Let's go.
[00:02:34]  All right, Dan, let's just start here.
[00:02:35]  Here's Donald Trump comparing himself to Jesus as we get to Good Friday and Easter this weekend.
[00:02:43]  When somebody's nice to me, I love that person.
[00:02:47]  Even if they're bad people, I couldn't care less.
[00:02:50]  I'll fight to the end for them.
[00:02:51]  Because the United States can't take care of daycare.
[00:02:54]  On Palm Sunday, Jesus entered Jerusalem as crowds welcomed him with praise, honoring him as king.
[00:03:01]  They call me king now.
[00:03:02]  Do you believe it?
[00:03:03]  I'm a king.
[00:03:04]  If I was a king, I'd be doing a lot.
[00:03:06]  I'm doing a lot.
[00:03:07]  But I could be doing a lot more if I was a king.
[00:03:10]  So Trump talks about Jesus, talks about.
[00:03:12]  We didn't play the entire clip, but if you listen to the whole speech, he compares himself to Jesus, death, resurrection, and then he talks about king.
[00:03:20]  And he says, Well, I'm the king.
[00:03:21]  And they say I'm a king, but if I really was, I'd be doing more than ballrooms.
[00:03:25]  And first of all, he just sounds like an old man who is having a really hard time staying on topic.
[00:03:30]  He doesn't seem to have a linear, coherent thought here.
[00:03:34]  This is a stream of consciousness person who seems not to be able to kind of.
[00:03:39]  Have a conversation in a professional setting at this stage in his life.
[00:03:42]  But once again, and I think we can point out the obvious, I'll throw it to you.
[00:03:46]  The idea that you would compare yourself to Jesus is such blasphemy in every Christian circle I can imagine, except if you are Donald Trump and you are a MAGA Christian.
[00:03:56]  That is the only exception.
[00:03:57]  I cannot think of anyone else who can get up on a microphone and say, yeah, kind of like Jesus, you know, it's Good Friday.
[00:04:03]  Jesus was crucified.
[00:04:04]  Easter, he rose again.
[00:04:05]  Kind of like me.
[00:04:06]  Am I right, guys?
[00:04:07]  I cannot think of a person in the world who could say that.
[00:04:12]  I mean, other than Donald Trump, so maybe he is exceptional in this way and not have Christians, at least MAGA Christians, think of him as a complete and absolute, you know, sacrilegious pariah.
[00:04:25]  But I'll throw it to you.
[00:04:26]  Any thoughts there?
[00:04:27]  And then we'll go to some breaking news about Pete Hegseth.
[00:04:30]  Yeah, I just think, I mean, we're recording this on Good Friday.
[00:04:34]  And so I think it's just more ironic at the very least.
[00:04:37]  But no, I think you're right.
[00:04:38]  And we've seen this.
[00:04:39]  This is the same guy that in the first one was like signing Bibles, or people remember like.
[00:04:43]  Autographing Bibles.
[00:04:45]  Talked then about that was a really weird thing for somebody to do and for Christians to be so into.
[00:04:49]  It felt, you know, for many Christians who believe the Bible's the word of God and has this special place and whatever.
[00:04:55]  It was, you know, in the abstract, a strange thing to have a human autographing Bibles and handing them out.
[00:05:01]  And we've talked about this double standard.
[00:05:03]  I think just another thing about this is I've used this term before, the malleability of the biblical text when it comes to politics or whatever.
[00:05:12]  People, I know they ask you all the time, they ask me all the time, like, what's the biblical argument that they'll give for X, Y, or Z?
[00:05:18]  And I'm like, well, it's It kind of depends, right?
[00:05:20]  It's a, well, it's a lot like certain Supreme Court justices.
[00:05:23]  You find the solution that you want, and then we'll find a way to make the Bible support it.
[00:05:28]  We'll find a way to make the law support it.
[00:05:30]  Originalism, yes, here, but not here, and so forth.
[00:05:33]  So it's a very malleable text.
[00:05:35]  And so we can go back to the first term when everybody was like, oh, but he's a terrible person, and so forth.
[00:05:39]  Like Osiris, Persian king, wasn't even Jewish and allowed the Jewish people to return.
[00:05:43]  He was a great champion.
[00:05:44]  The Bible calls him a Messiah.
[00:05:46]  So Trump doesn't have to be a good guy.
[00:05:48]  And now he's like, yeah, I'm pretty much like Jesus.
[00:05:50]  I got arrested and convicted.
[00:05:52]  So clearly I'm the same.
[00:05:54]  And there, apparently, when Trump does it, as you're saying, it's okay to draw that parallel.
[00:05:59]  So he's moved up from being Cyrus to being Jesus.
[00:06:02]  But you're right about just the blatant double standard that Trump can say and do ridiculous things when it comes to the Christian faith.
[00:06:10]  And the same Christians that are upset if you say happy holidays instead of Merry Christmas are just up in arms, up in arms.
[00:06:18]  But Trump can see, yeah, I pretty much did the same thing Jesus did.
[00:06:21]  Yeah, it's just a blatant double standard.
[00:06:24]  And it shows the way that partisanship.
[00:06:26]  Dictates how the faith is interpreted when it comes to MAGA and Christian nationalism.
[00:06:32]  Well, this was a week when Trump was supposed to give a speech about Iran that would settle the public, lay out the objectives, and help the markets.
[00:06:40]  Like, I've got no issues with Iran anymore.
[00:06:42]  I was convinced by all the non arguments and everything.
[00:06:45]  So, you know, I thought it was a done deal.
[00:06:48]  I've gone back to building ships in a bottle.
[00:06:52]  That's my hobby.
[00:06:53]  And I've now taken that back up.
[00:06:54]  I feel a lot better.
[00:06:56]  So, Trump declared victory as he did.
[00:06:59]  We're close to our objectives.
[00:07:03]  And just last night, we learned that an American.
[00:07:06]  Air fighter was down over Iran, an F 35, I believe.
[00:07:11]  One of the pilots is reportedly safe, but we do not know about the rest, at least at the moment that we are recording.
[00:07:17]  But I bring this up in the context of what we cover on this show because last week on March 29th, Pope Leo said that God rejects the prayers of leaders who start wars and have hands full of blood.
[00:07:28]  And this was pretty remarkable.
[00:07:30]  This is an American Pope saying very directly that God rejects those prayers.
[00:07:35]  And what we now know is that there is a Good Friday service happening today.
[00:07:42]  But let me read from Jennifer Bendry at HuffPost.
[00:07:45]  The Pentagon has invited more than 3,500 employees to attend a Good Friday service at its in house chapel, except it's only for Protestants, not Catholics.
[00:07:53]  Just a friendly reminder there will be a Protestant service, no Catholic mass for Good Friday today at the Pentagon Chapel, reads a Friday email sent by Air Force leadership, a copy of which was shared by an employee.
[00:08:03]  I guess so.
[00:08:03]  The Catholics know their kind ain't welcome, said this employee, who requested anonymity.
[00:08:08]  It's so ridiculous.
[00:08:10]  A Pentagon spokesperson confirmed it is not hosting another separate religious service for Catholic employees.
[00:08:15]  The Protestant service is the only service scheduled in the Pentagon Chapel today, they said in a statement.
[00:08:21]  Now, I'll just remind everybody Pete Hegseth seems to have his hands directly tied to the religious services at the Pentagon these days.
[00:08:29]  He hosts a monthly worship service.
[00:08:31]  He speaks at that service personally.
[00:08:33]  I'll also play you a clip here of his theological mentor, Doug Wilson, saying that if he were up to him and we have a Christian nationalist nation, it will be a Protestant nation with no public expression of Catholicism.
[00:08:46]  Catholic church bells would be okay.
[00:08:49]  Catholic church bells would be okay, but a parade in honor of the Virgin Mary, carrying an image of the Virgin Mary down Main Street, no.
[00:09:03]  What about the Eucharist?
[00:09:04]  What about a Eucharistic procession?
[00:09:09]  That's a new one.
[00:09:10]  I would say probably not.
[00:09:14]  It would depend on what was being done around it, how it was being conducted.
[00:09:18]  But basically, public displays of idolatry, what the Protestant foundation of the law would consider to be idolatry, would not be allowed.
[00:09:28]  So you wouldn't have a Hindu procession with a Hindu God.
[00:09:31]  You wouldn't have a procession of the Virgin Mary.
[00:09:33]  So, Dan, the Pope says God rejects the prayers of those with blood on their hands from war.
[00:09:41]  Pete Hegseth says, it seems at least, maybe it wasn't Hegseth.
[00:09:45]  I don't know.
[00:09:46]  I don't want to lie here.
[00:09:48]  I don't have this reporting.
[00:09:48]  But to me, it smells like Pete Hegseth was like, no Catholic Mass on Good Friday.
[00:09:54]  And that lines up with Doug Wilson's theology of what a Christian nationalist nation should look like.
[00:09:59]  I put it to you, Dan Miller, a man with four degrees, 10 years in grad school, 10 years as a pastor, 20 years as a professor.
[00:10:07]  I don't know how old you are, but that's a lot of years.
[00:10:09]  But anyway, all that to say, You smell what I smell, or am I just out here fishing?
[00:10:14]  There is, at the very least, very strong, convincing, circumstantial evidence that this is all Pete Hegsteth.
[00:10:20]  I'll just remind everybody I mean, so anybody who wants to argue that, I don't know, and I don't know if anybody has, but if this comes out, it'd be like, oh, it was an administrative decision, or it was about facilities management, or something like that.
[00:10:32]  We just couldn't accommodate two different services, or something like that.
[00:10:36]  It's nonsense because Pete Hegsteth's the ultimate micromanager.
[00:10:40]  He's the guy that makes sure that people he doesn't want to get promoted don't get promoted.
[00:10:43]  He just removed.
[00:10:44]  people from a promotions list.
[00:10:46]  So he's down at that level.
[00:10:47]  You had helicopters flying by Kid Rock's house and the crews were suspended and they said there was going to be an investigation.
[00:10:55]  And literally, like almost immediately, Pete Hegseth announced that there would be no investigation and they would not be suspended and that they're brave heroes and, you know, whatever.
[00:11:04]  I mean, so my point is he's way down as Secretary of Defense, way down into the micromanagement of all kinds of things.
[00:11:12]  He doesn't seem that busy.
[00:11:14]  He seems like he has time.
[00:11:15]  To be like, oh, yeah, send the helicopters to Kid Rock's house.
[00:11:18]  I was watching videos of him bench pressing with people and stuff.
[00:11:21]  He's got time on his hands.
[00:11:23]  He's got time to make videos of putting up his three plates, if indeed he did.
[00:11:27]  It's a whole separate thing.
[00:11:28]  The speculation about whether or not he really did 315, whatever.
[00:11:31]  I'm not going to weigh in on that.
[00:11:33]  Pete, maybe Pete and I can work out sometime.
[00:11:36]  Man, I would love to watch that video.
[00:11:40]  I've not received word from any of his people, but I'll let you know if I do.
[00:11:43]  The point is, he micromanages everything across the board to make sure it looks the way he wants it to.
[00:11:48]  All the new, like, Health and fitness standards, all of that stuff.
[00:11:52]  That is all Pete Heg Seth.
[00:11:54]  Never mind the fact that we do know that he not only sort of dictates the path of religious services in the Pentagon, he hosts them, he preaches there.
[00:12:04]  He is the pastor of the Pentagon.
[00:12:07]  I think that's how he views himself.
[00:12:10]  So, you tie that in with the Pope's statement, broader statements of anti Catholic statements from his pastor, and you've talked about the influence of Wilson on him and so forth, together with just the classic MAGA petty retribution of like, oh, you're going to say things about me?
[00:12:28]  Well, you're not going to get to have masks.
[00:12:31]  You know, that kind of thing.
[00:12:32]  Yeah, it's absolutely Pete Hegseth.
[00:12:34]  It is petty and dumb, and I can make funny noises to make fun of it.
[00:12:37]  It's also chilling because it shows, I mean, you've talked about this before, that when MAGA comes after somebody, And people can sit back and be like, well, it's not me.
[00:12:47]  They're not after me.
[00:12:49]  So it was like they're going after the worst of the worst immigrant criminals, right?
[00:12:53]  It's not me.
[00:12:54]  And then they start going after everybody else.
[00:12:56]  And, well, they're going after your kids, not my kids.
[00:13:00]  And that circle is going to expand.
[00:13:02]  Well, here it's expanding, right?
[00:13:04]  It's not enough to be a good Christian in America.
[00:13:06]  It's not enough to be a military Christian in America.
[00:13:09]  Not enough to be a white male military Christian in America.
[00:13:12]  You need to be a white male Protestant Christian in America.
[00:13:16]  We see the narrowing of that circle that is typical of Christian nationalism and Pete Heck's S worldview.
[00:13:23]  So, we know now that one general has been fired, and that general was the one who refused to take service members off the promotions list who deserved promotion.
[00:13:32]  And we know that those people on the promotion list were black women.
[00:13:36]  And so, the general that was fired basically refused to take women of color and black women off of the promotions list.
[00:13:43]  And Pete Hex was like, get out of here.
[00:13:45]  So, I just want to reinforce what you're saying.
[00:13:47]  Pete Hex says, like a micromanager, it kind of makes you wonder who's actually steering the big ship because he seems to be fighting culture wars everywhere we look.
[00:13:56]  That's point A. Point B would be this is, of course, to the detriment of our armed services and to our country.
[00:14:03]  Because when you say that only white Christian men or white Protestant men can be in charge, when you alienate Catholic service members, as we talked about last week, when you strip the chaplaincy from other religious traditions, making it harder for those who are not Protestant or Catholic to get spiritual guidance while they're in the armed services, you are hurting our armed services.
[00:14:26]  You are making us weaker.
[00:14:27]  You are making us less strong.
[00:14:28]  You are making morale.
[00:14:31]  You know, dip, you are saying to a lot of folks who want to serve and fight for this country, actually, we don't need you.
[00:14:38]  And I think this is a really clear example of Christian nationalism is self defeating, toxic masculinity, self defeating, authoritarianism is self defeating.
[00:14:47]  There are no more lonely people than like people who exhibit the toxic masculinity of PTXF.
[00:14:54]  I think if you were not with us at our bonus episode where we went into the manosphere a couple days ago, that's something that was clear to me as we discussed that documentary.
[00:15:04]  So that's point B.
[00:15:07]  I think point C is just this is a good reminder that the Christian nationalist coalitions, the Protestant Catholic, the Christian Tech, the Manosphere, Theobro, however you want to imagine some of these coalitions and alliances, they're tenuous because these people are petulant, they're childish, and they want power.

=== Wars of Religion and Power Consolidation (03:27) ===

[00:15:29]  And I get asked every time I go give a talk, hey, what happens if they get power?
[00:15:33]  You can only have a Protestant king or a Catholic Caesar, right?
[00:15:37]  You can't have all three.
[00:15:37]  And I'm like, yep, there's.
[00:15:39]  History teaches us that the wars of religion coming from Europe and the Protestant Catholic divide kind of show us like this doesn't go well once they start fighting over the throne.
[00:15:49]  And this is like a little preview.
[00:15:50]  Pete Hegseth is a Wilson guy.
[00:15:52]  Wilson is very clear.
[00:15:55]  He does not really see Catholics as kind of legitimate.
[00:15:58]  Now, he's had to backtrack some of the statements and he's kind of had to smooth them out a little.
[00:16:03]  But he's pretty upfront about like, I'm not ecumenical, even with Catholics, it's Protestants only.
[00:16:10]  That harkens back to a certain America, a certain 1920s America, a certain 1890s America.
[00:16:15]  It harkens back to the KKK.
[00:16:17]  It harkens back to so much of American Christian bigotry.
[00:16:22]  But it's a reminder that these coalitions are weak and that the wedges can be driven between them.
[00:16:29]  So any other thoughts here?
[00:16:31]  Yeah, go ahead.
[00:16:31]  Just to pick up on that same theme, you highlight the historical examples of Catholic-Protestant conflict.
[00:16:37]  You could go further, and I guess it's maybe a general sociological or political theoretical point.
[00:16:43]  Look at fundamentalist or ideological purist movements.
[00:16:47]  Look at communism in the Soviet Union.
[00:16:50]  Once it was in place, it destroyed itself.
[00:16:52]  It started eating itself, right?
[00:16:54]  You just get further and further and further demands for purification.
[00:16:57]  And so, people who were allies when they had a common opponent, but they've now consolidated power, it turns inward.
[00:17:03]  You can look in France and the French Revolution.
[00:17:06]  If somebody wants to be like, oh, let's just not look at communism, fine.
[00:17:09]  Look at the French Revolution and the Reign of Terror and how that played out because of the concept of ideological purity.
[00:17:14]  In my own religious background, you had that in the Southern Baptist Convention.
[00:17:17]  You had what was known as the fundamentalist takeover that kind of got all the moderates out of the denomination, but then they are still spending decades now further purifying and cannibalizing one another.
[00:17:29]  And we saw this with.
[00:17:30]  You know, the rise of Donald Trump and Southern Baptists who had been part of that earlier fundamentalist takeover who were now not passing the Trump litmus test, who were forced out or chastised or whatever.
[00:17:39]  So, when you have movements that are based on this kind of loyalty test, it becomes narrower and narrower and narrower.
[00:17:48]  And we've, I don't know how many countless examples we could find from history or just people's experience.
[00:17:53]  And that's what we see glimmers of in this kind of discussion.
[00:17:58]  Because let's imagine what the discussion is between Pete Hegseth and, I don't know, JD Vance.
[00:18:02]  In a back room somewhere, Catholic JD Vance and Protestants only Pete Hegseth.
[00:18:07]  At some point, that could well come to a head.
[00:18:09]  I agree.
[00:18:09]  And I think we're seeing some of that play out.
[00:18:11]  I mean, we just talked a couple of weeks ago about the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast.
[00:18:15]  The Catholic presence in the MAGA coalition is strong, but I can't imagine that this kind of move by Hegseth goes over well.
[00:18:22]  And so the purity test doesn't work.
[00:18:25]  Neither does the politics based on loyalty to one leader.
[00:18:30]  So I just, we're not going to really go into it today, but Pam Bondi was fired this week.
[00:18:34]  Todd Blanch, the president's Once personal lawyers, now the act, the interim AG, she was a sycophant.
[00:18:42]  It didn't matter.
[00:18:43]  Like Christy Gnome, Pam Bondi, it doesn't matter.
[00:18:46]  You gave full and total loyalty.
[00:18:47]  You embarrassed yourselves time and time again in front of Congress for him, and he got rid of you.
[00:18:52]  Now, there's a lot to say about it being the two women that were fired, like Kash Patel's still here.

=== Selling the Country for Parts (06:17) ===

[00:18:57]  RFK is still here.
[00:18:58]  The misogyny seems to be there.
[00:19:00]  Pete Hegseth is still here.
[00:19:02]  I mean, you know, Lutnick, Besant, the cast of, you know, MAGA Avengers is still in place, but.
[00:19:10]  They're all the dudes.
[00:19:11]  And so who's next?
[00:19:12]  Is it going to be Tulsi Gabbard or is it going to be Kash Patel?
[00:19:15]  Well, I would probably bet on Tulsi just because we know the misogyny is rife.
[00:19:19]  But if it's a loyalty test, that doesn't help either because it's really the whim of the old, aging, senile man who's rambling on camera that is the president.
[00:19:30]  So let's take a break.
[00:19:32]  Actually, can I just say one more thing about this, Dan?
[00:19:33]  Can I play you a clip of Donald Trump?
[00:19:35]  Okay, here's Donald Trump saying, We don't have money for daycare because we're fighting a war.
[00:19:40]  So here's Donald.
[00:19:41]  Because the United States can't take care of daycare.
[00:19:45]  That has to be up to a state.
[00:19:47]  We can't take care of daycare.
[00:19:48]  We're a big country.
[00:19:50]  We have 50 states.
[00:19:51]  We have all these other people.
[00:19:52]  We're fighting wars.
[00:19:53]  We can't take care of daycare.
[00:19:55]  You've got to let a state take care of daycare, and they should pay for it, too.
[00:20:00]  They should pay.
[00:20:00]  They have to raise their taxes, but they should pay for it.
[00:20:03]  And we could lower our taxes a little bit to them to make up for it.
[00:20:07]  But it's not possible for us to take care of daycare.
[00:20:10]  Medicaid, Medicare, all these individual things.
[00:20:14]  They can do it on a state basis.
[00:20:16]  You can't do it on a federal basis.
[00:20:17]  We have to take care of one thing military protection.
[00:20:20]  There you go, Don.
[00:20:23]  Here's a clip of JD, the drizzler vance, at the VP debate with Tim Walz.
[00:20:29]  And this is the drizzler saying that because of the tariffs, we're going to have so much money that we will have robust child care, child tax credits, and everything else.
[00:20:40]  Is President Trump committed to the $5,000 per child tax credit that you have described?
[00:20:47]  You have one minute.
[00:20:47]  Well, what President Trump said, Margaret, I just want to defend my running mate here a little bit, is that we're going to be taking in a lot of money by penalizing companies for shipping jobs overseas.
[00:20:57]  And penalizing countries who employ slave laborers and then ship their products back into our country and undercut the wages of American workers.
[00:21:05]  It's the heart of the Donald Trump economic plan.
[00:21:07]  Cut taxes for American workers and American families, cut taxes for businesses that are hiring and building companies in the United States of America, but penalize companies and countries that are shipping jobs overseas.
[00:21:19]  That's the heart of the economic proposal.
[00:21:21]  And I think what President Trump is saying is that when we bring in this additional revenue with higher economic growth, we're going to be able to provide.
[00:21:28]  Paid family leave, childcare options that are viable and workable for a lot of American families.
[00:21:34]  This is it.
[00:21:35]  I mean, if you're a Democrat, I can cut the ad right now if you want.
[00:21:39]  Like, here is, yeah.
[00:21:41]  I mean, I don't know what I'll throw it to you.
[00:21:43]  Thoughts on this?
[00:21:44]  Yeah, just so a couple thoughts.
[00:21:47]  One is, of course, surprise, surprise, the tariffs were not the magic cure that they were supposed to be.
[00:21:53]  And we know that now they've been called into question by the Supreme Court and all of that stuff, right?
[00:21:58]  So that's fine.
[00:21:59]  But the shifting rationale, and I think.
[00:22:02]  The truth, the clip by Trump where he's like, ah, you know, Medicaid, Medicare.
[00:22:07]  I mean, he's implicitly threatening those.
[00:22:09]  Child care is like all this individual stuff, all this stuff about helping people.
[00:22:14]  That should be a state thing.
[00:22:15]  That doesn't need to be a federal thing, right?
[00:22:18]  It gets at the heart of it.
[00:22:19]  There was never any plan on the part of the GOP to do these things.
[00:22:22]  And it just brings it into view.
[00:22:25]  But to your point about trying to get Trump to string together three or four words, there was famously, or it was covered a lot recently, he had the cabinet meeting.
[00:22:35]  Got a war going on, everything.
[00:22:36]  And what does he do?
[00:22:37]  He starts like rambling about his special Sharpie that's been made for him and stuff.
[00:22:41]  And I mean, this is typical at this point.
[00:22:43]  So you've got like real policy issues, and he'll joke around about being a king and having olive branches laid down for him coming into DC and, you know, things like that.
[00:22:51]  But childcare?
[00:22:52]  No, no.
[00:22:53]  He's like, I can't afford that.
[00:22:54]  We've got, you know, we've got, as Pete Hegseth would say, some bomb diplomacy to do.
[00:22:59]  That's expensive stuff.
[00:23:00]  We need that.
[00:23:01]  We need to make sure that, you know, we can restrict voting.
[00:23:04]  These are the priorities, not helping people.
[00:23:07]  So.
[00:23:07]  Yeah, it's just on full display.
[00:23:09]  And everybody who watched that presidential debate, excuse me, vice presidential debate or candidate debate, who would have said, this is a bunch of bullshit.
[00:23:16]  They're not going to do that.
[00:23:17]  Well, here it is.
[00:23:19]  So, I'll just say one thing, and this is a tip of the iceberg situation.
[00:23:24]  But way back when Trump was first elected the second term, one of the arguments I made is that one of the best comparisons to make with Trump and his admiration for Putin is that he wants to do to the United States what Putin did after the fall of the Soviet Union.
[00:23:41]  And what he did is he consolidated power in himself, and then he had about these dozen, couple dozen oligarchs around him, and they were his vassals.
[00:23:51]  They controlled all the resources in the country.
[00:23:53]  So, Putin's sometimes considered the richest man in the world.
[00:23:56]  He controls so much of the resources in Russia.
[00:24:01]  And then all of his allies are these billionaires who also have assets and so on and so forth.
[00:24:06]  So, what Russia became was an autocracy with oligarchic elements.
[00:24:12]  And the country was really sold off for its parts.
[00:24:15]  The people have, there's no consideration for the Russian people.
[00:24:18]  There's no consideration for a middle class or raising up those who need healthcare, childcare, good schools, good roads, right?
[00:24:25]  It's just about the top 1% and Putin, okay?
[00:24:28]  And so you sell off an empire.
[00:24:30]  The Soviet Union was an empire that got sold off.
[00:24:33]  You know, we can make all kinds of comparisons with Trump.
[00:24:36]  And I do that in my book.
[00:24:37]  And there's ways to sort of use historical prisms to understand what's happening.
[00:24:41]  One of the ones that's not talked about enough is he is selling this country off for its parts.
[00:24:46]  He does not care about you.
[00:24:47]  He does not care about his voters.
[00:24:48]  He does not care about the person in Kentucky who's a coal miner, does not care about the person in Iowa who's a farmer, does not care about the person in Ohio who needs help with childcare, does not care about the person in Oregon who needs better schools, does not care.
[00:25:00]  Does not care about the national parks, does not care about the safety of those fighters who were shot down over Iran last night.
[00:25:07]  He cares about enriching himself.
[00:25:09]  His sons are over in the Middle East now trying to sell drones that will help with missile attacks.

=== Narrow Speech Rights and Therapy (15:01) ===

[00:25:14]  Surprise, surprise.
[00:25:15]  His son in law, his top advisor on Iran, is over trying to get billions from the Saudis and others.
[00:25:21]  He is reenacting the post Soviet Union sell off of Russia in ways that I think are largely going unnoticed.
[00:25:30]  They are wasting so much money, so many resources, so much funds.
[00:25:34]  And it's all to hurt you, your education, your infrastructure, your health, your well being, your safety, your happiness, your ability to go to a national park and go camping this summer, all of it.
[00:25:46]  And so I think that's one way to look at what's happening here.
[00:25:48]  We could spend the next four hours on that whole discussion.
[00:25:50]  I'll cut it.
[00:25:51]  We'll take a break, come back, talk about the Supreme Court.
[00:25:55]  Be right back.
[00:25:57]  All right, Dan, we got an eight to one decision this week, which is abnormal.
[00:26:01]  Usually we have a kind of partisan vote, six to three.
[00:26:04]  This was eight to one.
[00:26:05]  It was about conversion therapy in Colorado.
[00:26:08]  A lot of discussion about this by legal experts, a lot of people probably confused as to why someone like Kagan or Sotomayor might jump in with the conservatives here.
[00:26:18]  Tell us about the case and why you think it went this way.
[00:26:21]  Yeah.
[00:26:22]  So, as you say, it was an anomaly, the contemporary court.
[00:26:26]  They happen every now and then.
[00:26:27]  There are decisions that are unanimous or close to unanimous.
[00:26:30]  They tend not to get a lot of coverage because they're often.
[00:26:32]  Things that are not very contentious, which is why they're unanimous or close.
[00:26:37]  I think a lot, nobody was surprised, I think, that this came out against Colorado.
[00:26:41]  I think people were surprised by the eight to one margin, meaning that most of the liberal justices, with the exception of Jackson, shared in this decision.
[00:26:49]  So basically, what it was Colorado, like I think over 20 other states, has a ban on so called conversion therapy, which is a form of psychological practice aimed at helping people to. change their gender identity or their sexual orientation to their birth gender, birth orientation, and so forth.
[00:27:11]  They would say to help people, quote unquote, struggling with their sexuality or struggling with their gender.
[00:27:17]  If you affirm their sexuality and gender, there's no struggle.
[00:27:19]  So it's every major medical association rejects conversion therapy, recognizes it as harmful, and so forth.
[00:27:26]  It sort of is counter to best practices within those fields and so on.
[00:27:30]  So for licensed therapists and counselors, I think that this is an important point.
[00:27:34]  Places like Colorado had banned so-called conversion therapy.
[00:27:39]  And so SCOTUS ruled 8-1 this week in favor of a Christian counselor who was challenging that ban.
[00:27:44]  So they voted against the ban as it currently stands.
[00:27:48]  It was a Christian counselor, and it was on the grounds that it violated her free speech rights.
[00:27:53]  Now, this is significant because it overturned numerous lower court rulings, including, I think most relevantly, the 10th Circuit Court, which held that it burdened, quote unquote, professional speech and only secondarily free speech.
[00:28:06]  That in other words, because this was about speech in a professional context and a licensed profession and so forth, That it was basically about essentially professional requirements, not free speech, and therefore it was not an undue burden.
[00:28:20]  But eight of the justices rejected that argument.
[00:28:22]  One, Katanji Brown Jackson, was the only dissent.
[00:28:25]  It gets complicated, as you say.
[00:28:27]  It does not actually overturn the law straight out.
[00:28:33]  It requires lower courts to re examine the law, stringently evaluating the First Amendment rights.
[00:28:38]  But as I understand it from reading all those legal experts, the issue is that it was raised under the concern of what's called viewpoint discrimination, that it was.
[00:28:46]  Basically, saying you can't articulate the viewpoint that somebody might want to affirm heterosexuality if they feel same sex desire, or that they might want to feel okay in their birth gender if they don't, and so forth.
[00:29:00]  And what a lot of legal experts have pointed out is that that's a really, really, really high bar when it comes to First Amendment cases.
[00:29:06]  And it's very, very unlikely that lower courts are going to now side with Colorado on the basis of a free speech argument.
[00:29:12]  So it doesn't straightforwardly overturn the law, but it does, it causes those sorts of problems.
[00:29:18]  Neil Gorsuch, Neil Gorsuch, rather, wrote for the majority.
[00:29:23]  And this is what he had to say.
[00:29:26]  Excuse me.
[00:29:27]  And I'm quoting this, I think, from CBS News that pulled out some of the key elements of this.
[00:29:31]  This is what he said.
[00:29:32]  He says Colorado's law addressing conversion therapy does not just ban physical interventions.
[00:29:37]  In cases like this, it censors speech based on viewpoint, right?
[00:29:40]  So there's that viewpoint discrimination.
[00:29:42]  Colorado may regard its policy as essential to public health and safety.
[00:29:46]  Certainly, censorious governments throughout history have believed the same, but the First Amendment stands as a shield against.
[00:29:51]  Any effort to enforce orthodoxy in thought or speech in this country.
[00:29:56]  And he argues that Colorado's law doesn't just regulate the content of speech, but, quote, goes a step further, prescribing views that she may or may not express.
[00:30:05]  That is the defendant in this, or excuse me, the plaintiff in this case.
[00:30:09]  Jackson, in her dissent, took a viewpoint that I would have thought would have prevailed.
[00:30:14]  She says it opens a dangerous can of worms, this finding.
[00:30:18]  And she wrote, it threatens to impair states' ability to regulate the provision of medical care in any respect.
[00:30:23]  It extends the Constitution into uncharted territory in an utterly irrational fashion, and it ultimately risks grave harm to Americans' health and well-being.
[00:30:34]  So that's the majority decision, the dissent that was given there.
[00:30:38]  A few things about this, though, that continue to make it a little more complicated.
[00:30:41]  Number one, this is only about so called talk therapy, and people who've been in therapy and counseling understand what that means.
[00:30:48]  This is literally about speech, therapeutic models that are based on talking with a client and helping them work through things and so forth.
[00:30:54]  It's not about therapies that involve medication, that were involved maybe some sort of other kind of physical augmentation in some way or something like this.
[00:31:04]  Gorsuch was hinting at that in his statement, all right, saying that this is.
[00:31:07]  So it's narrowly about speech.
[00:31:10]  The reason that that matters, and I think that this might be part of why people like some of the conservative justices signed on with this, is that, as Elena Kagan said, some of the strictures that would have applied to talk therapy would have applied had a conservative state said, you know what, you can't in talk therapy affirm somebody's gender identity.
[00:31:33]  You cannot affirm their same sex orientation.
[00:31:35]  We're going to make a law that says that there are only two biological sexes and that therapists are not allowed to suggest otherwise or whatever.
[00:31:42]  So I think there was something of a concern to also make sure that this doesn't expand in that direction.
[00:31:47]  One way or another, it will have that effect.
[00:31:50]  A final point that makes this complicated, Polly Crozier, a director of family advocacy at GLAAD Law.
[00:31:57]  So the LGBTQ rights group has sort of a legal wing to it.
[00:32:03]  And she made this point.
[00:32:04]  I'm cutting.
[00:32:05]  She says a long thing.
[00:32:06]  But what she does say is she says, today's decision does not change the science.
[00:32:09]  And it does not change the fact that conversion therapists who harm patients will still face legal consequences.
[00:32:16]  Somebody could still be sued for malpractice, right?
[00:32:20]  If they give advice that in some way leads to negative health outcomes, mental health outcomes, and that can be demonstrated.
[00:32:27]  So it doesn't straightforwardly make it just carte blanche legal or okay to affirm conversion therapy.
[00:32:35]  But the problem with this is, as I see it, and lots of other people have noted, is that you can't challenge malpractice unless you've actually been harmed.
[00:32:44]  These laws are intended to prevent harm from happening.
[00:32:47]  Now you got to wait until somebody, you know, what, harms themselves, goes into a deep depression, perhaps takes their own life before their family can then proceed with a malpractice suit against a practitioner.
[00:32:57]  So I think overall a chilling decision.
[00:33:01]  I've read a few analyses of people who are strong LGBTQ advocates who think that on the letter of the law, it's actually the correct decision.
[00:33:09]  It's one of those things where they're like, this sucks, but this is precedent under the First Amendment.
[00:33:14]  And if you get this viewpoint discrimination argument, It's there.
[00:33:18]  People looking for the silver lining have highlighted that point that Kagan makes and say, well, you're right.
[00:33:23]  We can't simply block conversion therapy, but we also can't make well-meaning therapists, you know, we can't prohibit them from affirming to a gay teen that it's okay to be gay and that they should affirm who they are or whatever.
[00:33:35]  So a lot of moving parts.
[00:33:37]  I think a surprising decision for a lot of people, a very disappointing decision for a lot of people, but I think really significant with the eight-to-one ruling, as we say.
[00:33:49]  Here's my understanding, and I'm looking to you to kind of you know, fill me in here and tell me what you think.
[00:33:54]  But I think there's a lot of folks online who I saw that were just disappointed when they saw the eight to one.
[00:34:00]  I don't think a lot of folks took the time.
[00:34:03]  And I'm not saying everybody.
[00:34:04]  So you may be one of the people out there who did take the time and you're still really disappointed in the eight to one.
[00:34:09]  So I understand that.
[00:34:10]  But I think on the face of it, you can take the eight to one and you can just see a headline that says conversion therapy and just get like super outraged and be like, what is this?
[00:34:19]  You got to be kidding me, Kagan.
[00:34:21]  Come on.
[00:34:24]  Everything that I've seen kind of lines up with what you're talking about here, Dan, which is that there's some nuance here and complexity that makes some, don't get me wrong, anything that enables, condones, or makes it more likely that conversion therapy will be practiced.
[00:34:38]  And it's not therapy, it's conversion.
[00:34:40]  And we shouldn't even call it therapy.
[00:34:41]  I mean, we should not even be talking about it in that way, right?
[00:34:47]  It's really forced gender dysphoria.
[00:34:51]  Yeah, I mean, to cut you off, but to that point, it's interesting to me.
[00:34:55]  But this was not argued on the basis of patients' rights or well being or benefits because there is no evidence that can be cited to be like this benefits patients.
[00:35:04]  It doesn't.
[00:35:04]  Yeah.
[00:35:05]  Yeah.
[00:35:05]  One form of therapy that has found to have absolutely no beneficial impacts at all for, say, gender identity is talk therapy, trying to get people to feel okay as the gender they were identified with at birth.
[00:35:18]  Like there's mountains of evidence.
[00:35:19]  So it was all about the side of the therapist.
[00:35:21]  A therapist should be allowed to say what they want to say.
[00:35:25]  To your point, that this is not about patient centered care.
[00:35:29]  This is like, Therapist ideology centered care, gender ideology centered care.
[00:35:35]  And I think that that's the point you're making.
[00:35:37]  I don't mean to cut you off, but I think that's an interesting element of how the argument was made.
[00:35:41]  There was no defense here that this is better for patients, it was about the rights of the therapist.
[00:35:48]  And so I think number one, yeah, even calling it gender, or even calling it therapy is wrong.
[00:35:54]  And as you point out, none of this case was focused on actual patients or experiences of those on the receiving end.
[00:36:02]  What we do know, and I'll just back you up here, is like I interviewed Lucas Wilson, who's written extensively about this.
[00:36:08]  Lucas went through therapy at, or not therapy, but abuse, I would call it, and he would call it, at Liberty University.
[00:36:16]  He's a gay man.
[00:36:19]  Knew he was a gay man, attracted to men, and chaplains and others at Liberty University were like, Well, we got to get that not to happen anymore.
[00:36:27]  And, and so, you know, that's just one instance, but there are many memoir data.
[00:36:36]  There's all kinds of surveys that show you the immense harm that this kind of abuse has on people.
[00:36:40]  Right.
[00:36:41]  The most, the most famous, largest, most well known.
[00:36:44]  There used to be lots of Christian ministries and counseling practices about this.
[00:36:47]  And like, they've, the big ones have, they've all collapsed and it's come out that like the people who founded them and were the, the, the leaders of the so-called ex-gay movement are like, yeah, it turns out I was always still gay.
[00:36:57]  And like, many are married to same-sex partners now.
[00:36:59]  And they're like, it never worked.
[00:37:00]  And I said it did, but it didn't.
[00:37:02]  And I mean, you've got that aspect of it too.
[00:37:04]  Just mountain, like any direction you look, you see the inefficacy and the problems with this practice.
[00:37:11]  I think, though, that the other point I want to make is on the kind of complexity that Kagan or Sotomayor might be trying to bring out here, which is if we were a show that did hot takes and we really just wanted clicks and to drive up anger and drive up fear, we could just go full on like this is an outrage.
[00:37:29]  And I'm sure some of you are feeling that way.
[00:37:32]  I think what we're trying to do here is see the reasons why somebody like Kagan or Sotomayor would say, you know, look, I'm just not sure this is the precedent we want to set because it could mean.
[00:37:45]  That it could go the exact opposite way, and we would be in a heap of trouble when it comes to a quote unquote red state enacting laws that would prevent folks from actually finding health and understanding and expression of their gender and sexual identities.
[00:38:02]  So I think that's there too.
[00:38:06]  I just want to point out, and I'm just curious about what your thoughts on this, Dan, that this took place on Trans Visibility Day.
[00:38:12]  And I think there's a renewed viciousness around Trans Visibility Day.
[00:38:16]  It feels like a day.
[00:38:17]  Where many conservatives feel like it's open water to say, if you celebrate Trans Visibility Day, you are sick, you are twisted, you hate children.
[00:38:25]  I saw a post from Nancy Mace, the South Carolina representative, along those lines.
[00:38:31]  I think that part felt particularly cruel for a lot of people.
[00:38:34]  And I think that overall, whether or not the legal case has this kind of nuance that we're discussing and these different layers, I think one of the things I really want to be sensitive to and point out is that.
[00:38:48]  Right now, to be a trans person, to be a queer person in general in this country, I think feels more precarious than it has in a long, long time.
[00:38:57]  It feels vulnerable.
[00:38:58]  It feels dangerous.
[00:38:59]  It feels like you're not sure what's going to happen at any moment in terms of your safety and your well being.
[00:39:07]  And so I want to just sort of say I see that.
[00:39:11]  I see that any case like this brings out that fear, that sense of being vulnerable.
[00:39:18]  And when it comes down eight to one, Whether or not there is a sense of like reasons for that, I can understand if like this just feels really sad and hurtful, even though we might dig into the legal details and realize maybe there is some sense of why it went eight to one, not six to three.
[00:39:36]  Anyway, thoughts on that?
[00:39:37]  Any further thoughts on this that you want to jump into before we leave?
[00:39:40]  I understand that too.
[00:39:41]  I felt that.
[00:39:42]  I looked at how this was decided, and when I saw the eight to one number, I was like, oh, come on, you know?
[00:39:48]  I think I understand and maybe even, you know, there's some sympathizing with some of the rationale of somebody like Kagan.
[00:39:58]  But Jackson basically is like, this is a medical practice and should be regulated like medical speech.
[00:40:03]  It should be regulated like, I don't know, if a cancer doctor said, well, you know, it's not really that bad, I wouldn't worry about it.
[00:40:09]  Or I'd, you know, just go prey on it.
[00:40:11]  It'll clear up.
[00:40:12]  And then it didn't.
[00:40:13]  That person, that's not protected speech.

=== Licensed Therapists and Systemic Abuses (05:20) ===

[00:40:16]  There have been cases about things like that and they would be censured and they would be, you know, whatever.
[00:40:20]  That makes so much more sense to me that this, because it's licensed practitioners, this is not about, I don't know, clergy.
[00:40:27]  Somebody is quote unquote struggling, as the language would be used in that world.
[00:40:31]  And they go to their pastor and talk about it, and their pastor gives them spiritual advice that accords with their theological views.
[00:40:37]  This is not policing that speech.
[00:40:39]  This is not policing the speech of parents.
[00:40:42]  I do coaching work, and coaching is not, there's no license.
[00:40:45]  There's no, and somebody who's a Christian life coach could say something like, this and it would not be regulated.
[00:40:53]  So to me, it feels like flawed reasoning, but I'm also in the position that I'm not a legal expert and it's an eight to one decision.
[00:41:00]  So there's something legally there that good, bad, or otherwise people across the legal spectrum saw.
[00:41:06]  But I found Katanji Brown Jackson's dissent compelling.
[00:41:09]  And yeah, I'm super disappointed about this.
[00:41:12]  But as they say, it is what it is.
[00:41:14]  And the question now is like, okay, how do we move forward?
[00:41:17]  And as I understand it, the Colorado legislature is already meeting and talking about additional protections and looking for like, okay, are there ways to legally Modify what we had done as a way to meet the standards of this, but still protect queer identified people and youth and so forth.
[00:41:34]  So it's an ongoing story, but it is disappointing.
[00:41:38]  Well, let's pick at that point a little bit because it seems like it's worth unpacking that.
[00:41:44]  As you say, this is about licensed therapists.
[00:41:47]  And so it does seem to be a situation where, if you were talking about clergy, I can see that in the legal structure of this country, a pastor who says, let's pray this away, which according to you and I and so many people listening is going to be harmful, borderline abusive, if not abusive, is going to be traumatic.
[00:42:12]  I mean, when you hear Lucas Wilson talk about things that they did there, and I want to warn everyone, I'm going to say some things that are a little bit.
[00:42:18]  Could be triggering, but they're just details about the kinds of things that happen in these quote unquote therapies, these abuses.
[00:42:25]  I mean, you have people who are like told to, you know, when they have a feeling of attraction towards somebody of the same sex, to put feces on their fingers and smell it so that they associate that attraction with the smell of feces, right?
[00:42:43]  I mean, that's the kind of thing people are told to do in some of these cases.
[00:42:46]  And that goes beyond talk therapy.
[00:42:47]  That's not, I mean, that's obviously like a go do something that's beyond talking situation.
[00:42:53]  Nonetheless, if you said that a clergy person said that, I can see the huge apparatus of religious freedom in this country being like, well, that's how it goes in their religion.
[00:43:04]  What are you going to do?
[00:43:05]  When you're talking about a licensed therapist who has a license from the state, I agree that, like, you know, Katanjia Brown's reasoning here, Katanjia Brown Jackson's reasoning here makes sense because you're not talking about a coach.
[00:43:16]  You're not talking about a therapist.
[00:43:17]  You're not talking about a teacher at a school.
[00:43:19]  I'm sorry.
[00:43:19]  You're not talking about a pastor.
[00:43:20]  You're talking about a licensed therapist.
[00:43:22]  That license means something.
[00:43:24]  You need to fulfill certain requirements to get that license.
[00:43:27]  That point, You know, that point sticks out.
[00:43:30]  I, you know, I don't, neither you or I are Supreme Court specialists, neither you are legal experts.
[00:43:36]  There's so many great podcasts, so many great blogs, lawfare, et cetera, that cover this stuff.
[00:43:40]  So I don't want to get out over our skis.
[00:43:42]  But as people who are familiar with these kinds of abuses, these conversion abuses, the kinds of camps people are sent to, the kinds of ways that they're, the extreme ways that they are told to hate their bodies in order to pray the gay away, I do think there's some interjection here on our part about, How this all works.
[00:43:59]  So, anyway, final thoughts on that sort of therapist clergy distinction.
[00:44:03]  And, you know, if you want to clarify or expand anything there before we go to the gnome family and what's happening with them.
[00:44:10]  The logic of this still, you know, and I'm like most people, I have not had all the time that I would need to really dive into it.
[00:44:18]  So maybe there's some missing links here.
[00:44:22]  But the logic of it seems to me, because it is a licensed therapist, I think if you went to, I've been friends with therapists.
[00:44:31]  I've spent time in therapy.
[00:44:32]  I have known people that you could meet.
[00:44:35]  You'd be like, are you just allowed to say whatever you want as a therapist, as a talk therapist?
[00:44:39]  They would be like, of course you're not.
[00:44:40]  What are you talking about?
[00:44:41]  That's crazy.
[00:44:42]  It's the reason why, for example, oftentimes if you have a loved one who's dealing with something really significant, maybe suicidality or something, they'll say, go seek professional help.
[00:44:53]  There's something about the professional piece that is about knowing how to approach that in a way that is helpful and beneficial for the patient.
[00:45:01]  And that's all that's the licensure.
[00:45:03]  If therapists are just there to say whatever they want, and that was the logic that was put forward here, it's like, what is the point of licensure or training or education and degrees and credentialing and training and all the things that go into it?
[00:45:18]  If it's like, well, you can just say whatever you want.
[00:45:20]  So I still feel that disconnect, right?
[00:45:23]  So I think that that's there.
[00:45:24]  And when I read Jackson's jackson's descent is what I would have expected to come from the liberal justices as a block.
[00:45:33]  And so I think that's the part that was interesting.
[00:45:35]  We'll shift to them.

=== National Security and Private Lives (15:40) ===

[00:45:36]  Yeah, go ahead.
[00:45:37]  Well, I was just going to, you know, there's an example here that I don't have the answer to.
[00:45:41]  And again, I think what we're doing is reaching the limits, at least for me, of my expertise.
[00:45:45]  And so I'm not going to, like, I don't want to interject here as an expert, but, you know, if you have somebody who says to a therapist, I have, I feel attraction to underage people.
[00:45:56]  I think you and I would like to want that person to not have those attractions anymore.
[00:46:01]  Like, you know, and so I'm just trying to put the puzzle together here of like, all right, is that a part of therapy?
[00:46:10]  Me as a therapist talking to someone about their attraction to people who are not adults?
[00:46:16]  How do I argue that in court is different from somebody saying, hey, I'm a man, I've been assigned, you know, male gender at birth, I'm attracted to men, but I'm here to get.
[00:46:27]  You to help me not be attracted to men anymore, you know, how much per hour?
[00:46:32]  I'm here to sign up.
[00:46:33]  I think, I think, you know, those are questions that on a legal basis have to be thought through.
[00:46:37]  And anyway, I we're probably asking more questions than we are giving answers.
[00:46:41]  I feel like your breakdown of the case makes a lot of sense, but it's bringing to me more questions than I have answers today.
[00:46:49]  And I want to sort of dig into this more.
[00:46:50]  But let's take a break, we'll go to the gnomes and and flush this all out in in you know, in a case that's not not unrelated.
[00:46:58]  Be right back.
[00:47:01]  All right, Dan, I'll throw this to you.
[00:47:03]  The gist of this is Christy Nome was fired a couple weeks ago as head of Homeland Security, or DHS, excuse me.
[00:47:10]  And we now have published images of her husband, who it seems likes to dress as a woman.
[00:47:18]  And there is a lot of attention on this.
[00:47:23]  And I think you and I would like to make clear from the start that we have no interest in making fun of him, looking down on him, denigrating him for.
[00:47:36]  Dressing however he wants, identifying in any way he would like, exploring his gender or sexuality or their, I don't know what pronouns.
[00:47:45]  Mr. Gnome would even like to use at this point.
[00:47:48]  Don't care.
[00:47:49]  But the interest is always going to be there because of who Christy Gnome is politically and the ways she speaks out against people who are trans, who are queer, and the ways also that she has made a career over the last year dressing up in every imaginable costume.
[00:48:07]  So I think a question out there would be why does Christy Gnome get to dress up as an ICE agent?
[00:48:15]  Commercials in a helicopter dressed as a soldier.
[00:48:18]  Why does Christy Gnome get to be, as they say, the cosplay Barbie who is out everywhere dressed in every kind of different uniform one can imagine, but her husband does not get to dress in the way he would like, at least in his own personal home or his own personal life?
[00:48:33]  Fill in some details for us.
[00:48:36]  Give us more.
[00:48:36]  What do you got?
[00:48:37]  Yeah.
[00:48:37]  So it was a story actually in the Daily Mail.
[00:48:41]  I know.
[00:48:41]  The old.
[00:48:42]  A very.
[00:48:43]  The old.
[00:48:43]  The old reliable Daily Mail.
[00:48:45]  Yeah.
[00:48:45]  Yeah.
[00:48:45]  So photos of, you know, Christy Gnome's husband, Brian Gnome, participating in online fetish forums, wearing apparently like a spandex top with like inflatable breasts, and apparently over time paying something like 25K to different online, like live porn performers to transform themselves into so called Barbies and.
[00:49:08]  And so forth.
[00:49:08]  Okay.
[00:49:09]  Fine.
[00:49:09]  So cross dressing.
[00:49:11]  I think, yeah, the Daily Mail summed it up this way Brian Noem is a quote, a secret cross dresser who dons gigantic fake breasts and puts pink hot pants to chat with online fetish models.
[00:49:21]  That was how it was described.
[00:49:23]  So the first thing, and you already handed this, I'm going to say this shouldn't matter.
[00:49:28]  By which I mean, so I, Chrissy Noem has said she was blindsided by this, had no idea, whatever I call bullshit.
[00:49:35]  I think that there's no way that this is not something in, I think they've been married over 30 years or something that this, This fetish hasn't come up at some point.
[00:49:44]  But regardless, consenting adults, if that's what this is, then fine, fine, cool.
[00:49:51]  If it's a marital problem and like a fundamental disconnect about what we're into, cool.
[00:49:55]  They're business.
[00:49:56]  Go deal with it.
[00:49:56]  Like, I don't care.
[00:49:57]  And I'm not here to judge.
[00:49:59]  And I'm very well aware that some people who cross-dress, it may have nothing to do with gender identity.
[00:50:04]  It may, you know, whatever.
[00:50:06]  Who cares?
[00:50:06]  As you just said, in the most affirmative way, who cares?
[00:50:09]  Whatever.
[00:50:10]  Brian Noem, go be Brian Noem.
[00:50:12]  Good for you.
[00:50:13]  Christy and Brian, figure it out, work it out, split up if you're not compatible in this way, whatever.
[00:50:19]  Okay.
[00:50:20]  So why does it matter?
[00:50:22]  It matters, as you say, because she's MAGA and she's conservative and has been a voice of conservatism.
[00:50:29]  And if you read the conservative responses to this, whether it's the people in the district that she, places that she was representing when she was a governor and different kinds of things like this, and this small town, they talk about the language they use about this practice is really awful.
[00:50:47]  And really disappointing and not surprising.
[00:50:50]  But I think to your point, it matters because, as most sex scandals do when they're on the right, these are people who have made it their business to pry into the private lives of everyone that they don't like, to judge the private lives, to condemn, let's call them non normative sexual practices.
[00:51:08]  And they've got a very, very limited range of what's normative, right?
[00:51:11]  Straight man, straight woman, cisgender, pretty basic sex stuff, right?
[00:51:16]  And anything outside of that is deviant.
[00:51:19]  And it's bad.
[00:51:20]  You roll on the hyper masculinity of the MAGA movement, and there's probably nothing that feels more of a threat to that than a man dressing as a woman for sexual reasons and so on and so forth.
[00:51:32]  So it matters because of that.
[00:51:34]  And I think, again, I think the conservative commentary shaming all of this reveals that.
[00:51:39]  And I want to be really clear again, that's not what we're here to do, right?
[00:51:42]  But there are other pieces of this.
[00:51:44]  And one is that's sort of interesting about this.
[00:51:46]  I think I was looking in the, maybe it was the Independent that reported this, it was somebody else that added this way, but they're sort of like, yeah, nobody feels bad for Christy Noem.
[00:51:54]  Right now, she has managed to alienate basically everybody.
[00:51:57]  Everybody in MAGA, everybody on the left, everybody on the right.
[00:52:00]  So that you're getting this kind of pile on of this.
[00:52:05]  The other issue of why all of this matters is given all of those factors on the right, it's a security risk, right?
[00:52:14]  It's a national security risk.
[00:52:16]  And the idea is, and this was the mail's ostensible reason for releasing the photos.
[00:52:22]  The Daily Mail.
[00:52:23]  Yeah, they were about if we could have found these, like foreign agents could have found these.
[00:52:27]  And this becomes a blackmail risk, right?
[00:52:29]  That somebody goes to Chrissy Noem as Homeland Secretary and says, hey, we've got this compromising information on you.
[00:52:37]  How about you?
[00:52:38]  do this or that, influence this, whatever.
[00:52:41]  It's a national security issue.
[00:52:43]  In a different world, if people were grownups and just affirm people is who they are and somebody comes to you and says, I'm going to blackmail you, like, well, I guess maybe that'll be embarrassing.
[00:52:52]  But, you know, Brian and I have talked about this for a long time.
[00:52:54]  And so I guess do what you got to do.
[00:52:57]  You know, we're not going to hide from it or whatever.
[00:52:59]  But they can't do that on the right.
[00:53:00]  So it's a national security risk.
[00:53:02]  And this is the key for me, right?
[00:53:04]  Is there's this existing national security risk.
[00:53:09]  She has said she was blindsided by this.
[00:53:11]  I don't believe it.
[00:53:12]  The Trump administration has said they knew nothing about this, but there are reports that this had been kind of an open secret for some time, that there were lots of rumors and things like that in the Trump administration about Brian Noem and what this means.
[00:53:24]  It's a national security risk, all the while Noem tows the party line of targeting and terrorizing and murdering Americans in the name of national security.
[00:53:33]  That's, yep.
[00:53:34]  Of all the things that the MAGA administration does, they always cite national security.
[00:53:40]  And here's this real national security threat that apparently they knew about.
[00:53:45]  Did nothing about.
[00:53:46]  She clearly didn't report it in the vetting.
[00:53:49]  There's a lot of winking and nodding.
[00:53:51]  This is not a thing where, I don't know, six months ago she's summarily dismissed and nobody knows why, and the rumors come out later that maybe there was something compromising.
[00:54:00]  Nope.
[00:54:00]  They were willing to let this go because she was helping them target undocumented immigrants and Americans and citizens and naturalized citizens and again, murdering people all in the name of national security while once again the Trump administration demonstrates they don't care about national security.
[00:54:19]  They only care about their agenda and their targets and their enemies.
[00:54:22]  And I think for me, that's maybe the biggest takeaway of all of this is that aspect of what that does.
[00:54:30]  And now, of course, they're trying to turn it into a strength and it allows them to further distance themselves from GNOME and so forth.
[00:54:36]  So, a lot of dynamics to this, but that for me is what sticks out.
[00:54:40]  Well, I want to link national security to a hierarchy of order.
[00:54:45]  So, the overarching idea you heard Donald Trump say earlier today in a clip we played for you hey, we don't have.
[00:54:51]  We don't have any money for childcare, Medicaid, who knows about Social Security.
[00:54:55]  We need to fight wars.
[00:54:56]  Sorry.
[00:54:57]  And we also know that the highest priority of the Trump administration is to mass deport, to detain anybody who they don't think belongs in the country, somebody who's out of order in the United States, right?
[00:55:10]  You're a brown person in the country, you're an Asian person in the country, you're Native American, we might just detain you.
[00:55:14]  You show us your passport, I don't know, you might be thrown on the ground by that point, who knows?
[00:55:20]  Order.
[00:55:20]  It's about order.
[00:55:21]  Okay.
[00:55:22]  So national security is order.
[00:55:23]  Us on top, a few, the one with all of the power, everybody falling in line.
[00:55:30]  The gender ideology, the gender binary that they act on is about order.
[00:55:35]  And we've talked about this endlessly on this show.
[00:55:37]  There's men and there's women, two genders.
[00:55:39]  Okay.
[00:55:39]  And the normative roles that they all play.
[00:55:41]  Exactly.
[00:55:42]  Order of those genders as well.
[00:55:43]  Yep.
[00:55:44]  So men do this, women do that.
[00:55:46]  Okay.
[00:55:47]  That's how it works.
[00:55:48]  Men marry women, women marry men.
[00:55:50]  You are attracted to women if you're a man.
[00:55:52]  If you're a woman, you want a man, period.
[00:55:54]  You don't deviate from that.
[00:55:55]  No, sorry.
[00:55:57]  Now, within that, you can be somebody who misbehaves.
[00:56:01]  You can be a man who wants women too much, and we will forgive you for that.
[00:56:05]  But if you're a man who wants men, sorry.
[00:56:08]  If you love men or are attracted to men, sorry, that is unforgivable.
[00:56:12]  It doesn't work.
[00:56:13]  Okay.
[00:56:14]  So it's about order.
[00:56:17]  So, the point for me with the national security idea is that the kinds of fetishes you're allowed are the ones that reinforce order to a sadistic level.
[00:56:29]  Let me say it again.
[00:56:30]  The kind of fetishes you're allowed to have in MAGA, Christian nationalist frameworks, is a fetish that rises to sadistic levels of human suffering.
[00:56:42]  So, we talked about it last week with Pete Hegseth.
[00:56:44]  Pete Hegseth is just really into people hurting, he's got a lot of love.
[00:56:48]  He really loves.
[00:56:49]  I mean, Dan, he talks about murder, lethality, bombing.
[00:56:54]  He seems to get really excited about it.
[00:56:59]  Yeah, yeah.
[00:57:00]  He seems to be aroused by violence.
[00:57:02]  Let's just put it that way.
[00:57:04]  Christy Nome, and here's where I am going to get angry today.
[00:57:09]  Christy Nome stood in front of prisoners, half naked prisoners, in one of the most brutal prisons in the world, where people from this country were shipped, even though they were not from El Salvador.
[00:57:23]  People who were American, people who were Venezuelan and were living in the United States.
[00:57:29]  And they were just taken off the street, detained, and sent to CICOT.
[00:57:33]  Do you all remember that video?
[00:57:35]  She's standing in front of a bunch of prisoners.
[00:57:37]  And it's sadistic.
[00:57:39]  It's like, look at the people behind me.
[00:57:41]  They're not even human.
[00:57:42]  Look at what we're doing to them.
[00:57:44]  Look at the suffering.
[00:57:45]  And MAGA itself has turned into this sadistic cult of like, we love that Donald Trump hurts the people that we want to see hurt.
[00:57:54]  We'd love it when he punishes the people that need to be punished.
[00:57:57]  We want a brutalizer.
[00:57:59]  I don't want a pastor in chief.
[00:58:00]  I want a guy who beats people up.
[00:58:02]  And you know what?
[00:58:03]  No more talking.
[00:58:04]  No more George W. Bush, compassionate conservatism.
[00:58:07]  No more like Ronald Reagan cut the taxes.
[00:58:09]  No, no, no, no.
[00:58:10]  Barack Obama got in here.
[00:58:12]  This black guy thought he could be president and he let the gays get married.
[00:58:15]  It's time to beat everybody up and make them suffer.
[00:58:17]  And if we need to kill him, we'll kill him.
[00:58:19]  And I want to watch it.
[00:58:20]  That's what I want.
[00:58:21]  That's what MAGA became from Jan 6 till now.
[00:58:26]  That's what it's become.
[00:58:27]  And to me, You're allowed to be a woman dressed up as a soldier, standing in front of prisoners who are half naked and being imprisoned and many brutalized.
[00:58:40]  That's a fetish that's totally allowed.
[00:58:43]  You're allowed to be in that kink.
[00:58:45]  But if you're Brian Gnome, sorry.
[00:58:49]  If you are a trans person, sorry.
[00:58:51]  If you're a gay person, if you're a bi person, sorry.
[00:58:55]  You're disgusting.
[00:58:56]  You're out of order.
[00:58:57]  You're out of God's plan for your gender and your body.
[00:59:00]  And you need to be punished and you need to be brutalized.
[00:59:03]  To me, that's the lesson here.
[00:59:05]  That's why we don't feel sorry for Chrissy Nome in terms of like she's devastated and prayers are asked.
[00:59:09]  Like you said, Dan, if you read the reports about Chrissy Nome, it's like she asked for privacy at this moment.
[00:59:13]  And it's like, lady, you stood in front of prisoners.
[00:59:18]  You watched from a rooftop while they tear gassed kids in an American city.
[00:59:25]  You revel in humiliation.
[00:59:26]  Like you revel in humiliation, humiliating others.
[00:59:29]  Like there's the torture aspects of this.
[00:59:34]  There's the violence aspects, but just the humiliation.
[00:59:36]  Aspects, right?
[00:59:37]  That scene in front of the prison was all about humiliation, public humiliation.
[00:59:42]  So, yeah, sorry, Christy.
[00:59:44]  You know, the war on empathy.
[00:59:46]  I don't think many of us are feeling a lot of empathy for Christy Noem right now, given who she is and what she's done.
[00:59:52]  But it's like pleasure is outlawed.
[00:59:56]  Humiliation is not.
[00:59:58]  Yeah.
[00:59:59]  Humiliation is the only pleasure in MAGA to me.
[01:00:01]  You know what I'm saying?
[01:00:02]  Like, and that's clear in this case.
[01:00:05]  I don't want to humiliate Christy Gnome.
[01:00:07]  I don't go to bed at night thinking about that.
[01:00:09]  I go to bed at night thinking, I wish people could feel happy and safe and pleasurable in their own bodies, in their own communities, in their own homes.
[01:00:18]  All right.
[01:00:19]  What's your reason for hope, Dan?
[01:00:20]  My reason for hope is really kind of overall a pattern of a Trump losing streak that I think is kind of continuing.
[01:00:27]  And I'm aware as I say this about the time of year that it is.
[01:00:30]  So what I mean by that is also in SCOTUS this week, you had the opening arguments about the birthright citizenship case.
[01:00:35]  And by all accounts, it does not look like it went well for the Trump administration.
[01:00:40]  It even looked like you had conservative justices trying to give the Trump administration kind of an off-ramp in a way for some of the claims that they were making, and they rejected it.
[01:00:48]  You have the Bondi and Noam firings that you referenced earlier.
[01:00:51]  It's never a good sign for a president when they're having to fire cabinet-level officials and so forth.
[01:00:56]  There's a lot of discussion about whether Trump is going to withdraw his surgeon general nominee.
[01:01:01]  That's because it's all snarled up in the Senate and doesn't appear that the support is there.
[01:01:05]  You have the polling data and the being underwater.
[01:01:07]  You have the, you know, messaging on affordability that we haven't heard for like how long now?
[01:01:12]  Like, does anybody remember when that was the thing they were going to talk about?
[01:01:15]  Got no money for daycare.
[01:01:16]  Yeah.

=== Affordability Crisis and Senate Gridlock (02:27) ===

[01:01:17]  All of that stuff.
[01:01:17]  You got to go bomb people.
[01:01:19]  Yeah.
[01:01:19]  It's, it's, it's a, it's a, I think a losing streak for the Trump administration.
[01:01:23]  The reason I think it's significant is we're in April now.
[01:01:26]  We don't have that long before the summer recess in Congress.
[01:01:30]  And you come back and it's like basically what doesn't happen before summer, you're into the election in the fall.
[01:01:37]  And I think that.
[01:01:38]  I think the timing is significant.
[01:01:39]  I think that the, I think there are a lot of people on the right who are recognizing that the Trump administration is not in a good position right now.
[01:01:46]  And I take a lot of hope in that.
[01:01:48]  Doesn't mean that I am glad that the country's in a shitty place because of the Trump administration.
[01:01:53]  Doesn't mean that I think that that's all going to stay or last.
[01:01:55]  But I take hope in seeing some of these things that are happening in the timing that they are, especially after it felt like he was sort of unstoppable for those first few months of the administration.
[01:02:09]  This week, we got news that the Drizzler is coming out with a book called Communion.
[01:02:13]  That's not my reason for hope.
[01:02:15]  I was just going to say.
[01:02:18]  Everything's going to be better now because we can.
[01:02:20]  I just wanted to mention it because there's going to be like a 19 week breakdown on this show of like chapter by chapter of JD Vance's return to faith and his bestowed religious instruction he got.
[01:02:31]  You know what that means is he didn't have to go to like confirmation class like everyone else.
[01:02:35]  He just got a priest to like give him the.
[01:02:38]  You know, the straight Jews.
[01:02:40]  Anyway, my reason for hope is Luann James, not LeBron James, Luann James.
[01:02:45]  Rutherford County Library Board fired her because she refused, as an American hero, to comply with its vote to move more than 100 LGBTQ books from the children's to the adult section.
[01:02:57]  And Luann James, you are a hero.
[01:02:59]  You are somebody that gives us hope.
[01:03:01]  We appreciate your resolve, your bravery, your courage, and not giving in to fascists who want us to.
[01:03:10]  To ban books, move books, not allow children to have access to books, and so on.
[01:03:15]  So, we salute you and thank you for your service.
[01:03:19]  All right, folks, go subscribe to One Million Neighbors, a new series about a time when Christians welcomed one million neighbors by helping to resettle Southeast Asian refugees in the 1970s.
[01:03:33]  This is, in some ways, the prehistory to the neighborism that you saw in the Twin Cities over the last couple of months.
[01:03:39]  You can find that in our feed.
[01:03:41]  You can find it on its own feed.
[01:03:42]  Check the show notes.
[01:03:43]  1 million neighbors.

=== One Million Neighbors Series Launch (00:34) ===

[01:03:45]  Subscribe to our Substack so you can get our newsletter and figure out what's going on with us and in our world.
[01:03:51]  We just had our great live recording of our bonus episode, and that'll be out soon.
[01:03:55]  Subscribers, it's all about Into the Manosphere, or as Dan called it, Into the Danosphere.
[01:04:01]  It's the alternative.
[01:04:01]  It's the alternative reality we're creating, Brad.
[01:04:04]  The Danosphere.
[01:04:05]  The non toxic men are into the Danosphere.
[01:04:08]  Here we go.
[01:04:09]  And this Sunday, we have a great interview.
[01:04:11]  Annika Brock Schmidt is back interviewing AJ Bauer, and you don't want to miss it.
[01:04:15]  More to come.
[01:04:16]  Thanks, y'all, for being here.
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[01:04:18]  Thanks, Brad.