George Bellows, New York, 1911. Oil on canvas, Ashcan School. Image source: nga.gov, public domain.

Joey speaks with Michael Tomasky. Michael is the editor of The New Republic and editor-in-chief of Democracy. We discuss Trump’s war on civil society, polarization, federal programs, race, and other topics. He and his writing appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Guardian, and on PBS, MSNBC, C-SPAN, Fox News, and other media. He can be found on X @mtomasky and Bluesky @mjtoma.bsky.social.

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Vincenzo Camuccini, The Death of Julius Caesar, 1805. Oil on canvas, Italian Neoclassicism. Image source: commons.wikimedia.org, public domain.

Joey speaks with Alexandra Hudson. We discuss her book The Soul of Civility and Joey’s recent speech at an anti-gay church in the context of the Charlie Kirk assassination. Alexandra is the founder of Civic Renaissance. She and her writing appeared in The Wall Street Journal, TIME, POLITICO, and on CBS, PBS, Fox News, and other media. She can be found on Instagram at alexandraohudson, on X @LexiOHudson, and on her website.

Jasper Johns, Three Flags, 1958. Encaustic on canvas, American Modernism. Image source: commons.wikimedia.org, public domain

Joey speaks with Nick Gillespie. We discuss our takes on the state of the arts, conservative art and entertainment, the Kennedy Center, the role of the audience in media, misinformation, political prejudices and polarization, our family backgrounds, understanding the New Right, reactionary Catholicism, anti-wokeness, the Trump administration and DOGE, government spending, and other topics. Nick can be found on X @nickgillespie, Substack @, and at Reason.com

Nick hosts the Reason Interview with Nick Gillespie podcast and is an editor-at-large at Reason magazine. The star libertarian has been with Reason since 1993. He received his Ph.D. in English literature from SUNY Buffalo. He also holds an M.A. in English with a concentration in creative writing from Temple and a BA in English and Psychology from Rutgers. His work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Wall Street Journal, The Los Angeles Times, The New York Post, Slate, Salon, Time, The Daily Beast, Marketplace, Suck, and numerous other publications.

You can support Joey on Patreon or become a paid subscriber on Substack. You can find him on X @JosephTMcFadde2 and Instagram @joeyt.mcfadden.

Leonardo Da Vinci, The Last Supper, 1495-98. Tempera on gesso, pitch, and mastic; Italian Renaissance. Image source: commons.wikipedia.org, public domain

Joey speaks with Bret Stephens and Chloe Valdary. We discuss DEI, prejudice on the right and left, MAGA, wokeness, social media, polarization, communicating across the aisle, intentions and misunderstandings, graciousness, human uniqueness, understanding one’s political opponents, the media and Trumpism, the crisis of meaning and connection, balancing moral clarity with compassion, antisemitism, pro-Hamas protesters, perceptions of Israel, Daryl Davis, and other topics. Bret can be found on his NYT page. Chloe can be found on Instagram @cvaldary, Substack at Chloé Valdary, and her website.

Bret is an Opinion columnist at the New York Times and Editor-in-chief of Sapir. He was previously at The Wall Street Journal, The Jerusalem Post, and Commentary. He earned a BA in political philosophy from the University of Chicago and an MA in comparative politics from the London School of Economics. He has won numerous awards, including a 2013 Pulitzer Prize.

Chloe is a writer, entrepreneur, and diversity & inclusion educator. She runs the DEI program Theory of Enchantment and her app, Dojo. She graduated magna cum laude from the University of New Orleans in 2015 with a BA in International Studies. She has also contributed to The New York Times and The Atlantic.

You can support Joey on Patreon or become a paid subscriber on Substack. You can find him on X @JosephTMcFadde2 and Instagram @joeyt.mcfadden.

Victor Wagner (photo by Greg O’Bernie), Bust of Socrates, 20th century. Stone carving, Australian. Image source: wikimedia.org, Creative Commons

Joey speaks with Ilana Redstone. We discuss her book The Certainty Trap, the state of academia, conservative media, trust in media, reaching across the aisle, polarization around Israel-Palestine, dialogue in Islam, prejudice, democracy, travel, family, Joey’s experience in college, and other topics. Ilana can be found on X @irakresh and her website.

Illana is a professor of sociology at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. She is also co-director of the Mill Institute at UATX. She has a joint Ph.D in demography and sociology from the University of Pennsylvania. She also authored Unassailable Ideas and Why We Disagree About Inequality. Her writing has appeared in Forbes, The Chronicle of Higher Education, and other outlets.

You can support Joey on Patreon or become a paid subscriber on Substack. You can find him on X @JosephTMcFadde2 and Instagram @joeyt.mcfadden.

Josepf Albers, Homage to the Square, 1967. Oil on hardboard, Geometric Abstraction. Image source: commons.wikimedia.org, Creative Commons Universal Public Domain Declaration

Joey speaks with Heather Mac Donald. We discuss the state of the fine arts, the need for classical training, modern art, the state of “wokeness,” the Democratic Party, the war in Gaza (this conversation took place before the cease-fire), Western sympathy for Hamas, race politics, antisemitism, other prejudicial attitudes on the populist right, Joey’s concerns about race realism, and other topics. Heather can be found on X @HMDatMI and her MI page.

Heather is the Thomas W. Smith Fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a contributing editor of City Journal, and a former lawyer. She holds a B.A. in English from Yale, an M.A. in English from Cambridge, and a J.D. from Stanford. She is the author of The War on Cops, When Race Trumps Merit, The Diversity Delusion, Are Cops Racist?, The Immigration Solution, and The Burden of Bad Ideas. Her work has been published in The Wall Street Journal, The Washington Post, The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, The New Republic, and The New Criterion.

You can support Joey on Patreon or become a paid subscriber on Substack. You can find him on X @JosephTMcFadde2 and Instagram @joeyt.mcfadden.

Giotto, Kiss of Judas, 1304-06. Fresco at Scrovengi Chapel in Padua, Italian Proto-Renaissance. Image source: wikimedia.org, public domain

Joey speaks with Dr. Diana Blum. We discuss the rise of antisemitism, the ongoing lawsuit against the Sequoia Unified School District, the Ethic Studies curriculum in California schools, Diana’s attempts to reach out to school officials, the climate at the school, the school district’s attempt to silence the film Killing America, Benny Morris and Norman Finkelstein, Abigail Shrier’s piece for The Free Press: The Kindergarten Intifada, the impact of antisemitism on societies that succumb to that infection, the war in Gaza and accusations of genocide against Israel, race-conscious policies, the Democratic party, the future of the far-left, the lurch to the right, cultural relativism, the future of Islam, and other topics. Diana can be found on LinkedIn and her website.

The daughter of Russian-Jewish immigrants, Diana is a board-certified Neurologist who, before starting her private practice, was a shareholder-physician at the Palo Alto Medical Foundation (PAMF). She graduated Summa Cum Laude from UC Davis, earned her MD at the University of Chicago, Pritzker School of Medicine, and completed her neurology residency at Stanford University. She became involved in educational and medical activism several years ago when she noticed ideological prerogatives in her daughter’s school and in the medical field.

You can support Joey on Patreon or become a paid subscriber on Substack. You can find him on X @JosephTMcFadde2 and Instagram @joeyt.mcfadden.

Edvard Munch, Puberty, 1902. Ink on paper, Symbolism & Expressionism. Image source: wikipedia.org, public domain

Joey speaks with Aaron Kimberly. We discuss Aaron’s work as a pediatric gender nurse, the impact of trans activism on American and Canadian politics, the cultural and political attitudes of trans people, the right-wing reaction to far-left trans activism, Canadian media and LGBT, Joey’s belief that he was trans when he was a child, transgenderism and children, the reality of biological sex and intersex, cancel culture around trans issues and Aaron’s firing, Carole Hooven, the simplicity of far-left ideology, Aaron’s family, the LGBT movement, gender non-conformity, pediatric transgender medicine and the exploratory therapy model, modern childhood, disempowering the far-left, and other topics. Aaron can be found on X @Aaron_GDAC, YouTube @AGKimberly, and their website.

Aaron is a registered mental health nurse and gender diversity advocate. Aaron was born female and lesbian with a rare ovotesticular disorder, which wasn't discovered until age 19. Aaron is interested in the various reasons individuals are sex non-conforming and the cultural contexts that inform our understanding of these experiences. Aaron has held roles in clinical supervision and as a clinical instructor for the School of Psychiatric Nursing at Brandon University. Aaron has been a subject matter expert on gender dysphoria since 2019 and has advised individuals, educators, clinicians, policymakers, law firms, and faith communities.

You can support Joey on Patreon or become a paid subscriber on Substack. You can find him on X @JosephTMcFadde2 and Instagram @joeyt.mcfadden.

Childe Hassam, The Avenue in the Rain, 1917. Oil on canvas, American Impressionism. Image source: wikipedia.org, public domain

Joey speaks with Ben Kawaller. We discuss how Ben came to bridge divides in his work at The Free Press, humor, LGBT politics, the role of the media in polarization, why Kamala Harris lost, conservative media and audience capture, election discourse, mass deportations, Trump’s norm violations, cross-partisan communication, muscular conservatism & feminine liberalism, why gay guys go to the gym, Ben’s experience with the Democratic Socialists of America, polarization around Israel & Palestine, the war in Gaza, Benny Morris, Israel’s future, antisemitism, The Message by Ta-Nehisi Coates, and other topics. Ben can be found on X @benkawaller, Instagram @benkawaller, YouTube @benkawaller, at The Free Press, and on his website.

Ben hosts the sociopolitical interview series Ben Meets America and hosted the 2024 election series Swing State Debates for The Free Press. He holds a BA in sociology from Harvard. His writing and video reporting have also appeared in Los Angeles Magazine. Ben has contributed to The American Bystander, The Advocate, and Salon, among other publications. He is the author of the full-length plays Us and Them, which was workshopped by Los Angeles' Rogue Machine Theatre in March 2022, and The Politician, as well as various short plays. He is a current member of The Actors Studio's Play Development Unit.

You can support Joey on Patreon or become a paid subscriber on Substack. You can find him on X @JosephTMcFadde2 and Instagram @joeyt.mcfadden.

Jan Steen, A School for Boys and Girls, 1670. Oil on canvas, Dutch Golden Age. Image source: wikimedia.org, public domain

Joey speaks with Brian T. Allen. We discuss the state of the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts (PAFA), the impact of identity politics on art history and fine art pedagogy, the Critical Identity Studies, the impact of COVID on cultural institutions, the decay of art and humanities curricula, the re-emergence of figure painting; galleries, art fairs & museums; presentism, The New Philistines by Sohrab Ahmari, “Queer” art, the Venice Biennale, the Armory Show, and other topics.

Brian is a Senior Fellow at the National Review Institute and National Review’s art critic. He has a BA from Wesleyan University, an MA in art history from Williams College, and a PhD in art history from Yale. He was the Curator of American art and Director of Collections and Exhibitions at the Clark Art Institute in Williamstown, MA, and Director of the Addison Gallery at Phillips Academy in Andover, MA. Brian was also the Director of the Museum Division at the New York Historical Society. You can find Brian on his National Review page.

Bronzino, The Crossing of the Red Sea, completed 1542. Fresco, Florentine Renaissance. Image source: wikipedia.org, public domain

Today’s guest is Dr. Naya Lekht. She is a scholar of contemporary antisemitism, Soviet history, and the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict. We discuss the Arab-Israeli conflict, identity politics in education and its impact on perceptions of Israel, the Bible’s place in modern politics; the history of the region, including the League of Nations plan for Israel and the partition proposed by the UN; radical Islam, jihadism, pan-arabism, Zionism, and the left; Hamas, Hezbollah, and Iran; Israel’s security, the future of the West Bank and a two-state solution, the moral complexities and aspirations of Israel and Hamas, and other topics.

Naya can be found on X @LekhtNaya and on Instagram.

Currier & Ives, The Inauguration of Washington, 1876. Hand-colored lithograph. Image source: metmuseum.org, public domain

Nearly the whole media described the recent vice presidential debate between Senator JD Vance and Governor Tim Walz as surprisingly civil. The coverage was banal, largely focusing on policy issues like immigration, abortion, and foreign policy. 

There are moments when I find JD Vance's personal story inspiring. His journey from a challenging childhood to his current position is indeed remarkable. Some of his pro-family positions could even remind one of Bernie Sanders. Yet, his evasion of the question about whether he would certify the election if he were vice president in 2020 starkly illustrates why I find him so revolting.

This evasion points to a fundamental flaw that pervades the contemporary political Right in the United States. This flaw is the Right's false equivalency between disagreements about normal policy issues and the fundamental issue of whether or not the Constitution and its processes should be respected. This false equivalency extends to common attacks against the Left's conception of "democracy," as including a set of federal institutions that emerged long after the Constitution was ratified. In doing so, the Right conveniently ignores the much more blunt assault against the legitimacy of our elections under the guise of "election integrity."

Vance supposedly represents diehard patriots, people who love their country and adorn their homes, cars, and bodies with paraphernalia Americana. This love of country is sadly missing among progressive youth — though the DNC was a reminder that it is okay for Democrats to love America again.

In the United States, love of country is not merely decorative. There is a reason why President Washington wore a plain brown suit to his first inauguration, refused the title “Your Highness,” and did not run for a third term. He believed his role was one of temporary service to a larger order that mattered more than himself. A belief in this system is the same reason President Washington advocated for the youth to be educated in the "science of government."

Love of our political order means a commitment to and understanding of the decentralized political and economic systems we call “liberal democracy” by the citizenry. It also entails respect for a set of (rather mundane) processes that underpin that system instead of elevating an individual leader. The president is merely one man, temporarily inhabiting one center of power among three branches of government and various levels of local governance, all operating within a framework of laws and norms. The system must take precedence over any one person.

The political tradition Sen. Vance comes from should provide the clearest roadmap for supporting constitutional processes. Vance is a paleoconservative, and while fortunately dumping the antisemitism of paleocon icon Pat Buchanan, he ignores one of the most fundamental ideas of his ideology. Paleocons believe, according to paleocon author Paul V. Murphy, that "In [a free] society by no means are all questions open questions; some questions involve matters so basic to the consensus that the society would, in declaring them open, abolish itself, commit suicide, terminate its existence as the kind of society it has hitherto understood itself to be."

Many of Trump's supporters believe they hold a commitment to a constitution they do not understand because they believe everything Trump says. They supported him over the system of expert judges, many of whom he appointed, who ruled unanimously that he lost the election. Republicans who do understand the Constitution and excuse attempts to violate it — excuses they were unwilling to make in the immediate aftermath of January 6th — appear even more shrill to me.

The resilience of any political system hinges on the commitment of those entrusted with its enforcement to uphold established rules and norms. The processes of the Constitution are a closed question that can only be altered by an amendment or clarified by the Supreme Court. All elected officials must follow these rules. Moreover, beyond mere compliance, there exists a set of norms that dictate respect for the system itself, as exemplified by Al Gore in 2000, who stopped his campaign manager from submitting an alternate slate of electors, and by then Vice President Biden, who halted Democratic maneuvers to delay the certification of President Trump's election in 2016. Vance is different than these men. It is no surprise he calls himself a “postliberal.”

George Caleb Bingham, The County Election, 1852. Oil on canvas. Image source: slam.org, public domain

I am fascinated by the social disconnection and polarization that permeates our culture. One of the nation’s leading social scientists who studies this issue is Harvard’s Robert Putnam. He authored the iconic book on social isolation, Bowling Alone, and his recent The Upswing: How America Came Together a Century Ago and How We Can Do It Again. In July, he sat down with the New York Times for an interview.

In my opinion, this is the most interesting quotation from Putnam’s interview:

“What stands upstream of all these other trends [that cause social division] is morality, a sense that we’re all in this together and that we have obligations to other people. Now, suddenly, I’m no longer the social scientist, I’m a preacher. I’m trying to say, we’re not going to fix polarization, inequality, social isolation until, first of all, we start feeling we have an obligation to care for other people. And that’s not easy, so don’t ask me how to do that.”

In essence, Putnam argues we need to embrace citizenship again so we have a sense of “each other.” He may not understand how to do that, but he knows that’s what Americans must do to fix our enormous social problems.

I notice among my peers, and less so among older generations, that we no longer have a sense of patriotism that binds us together. Millennials, Gen-Z, and Polars (those born after 2013) often deride America, especially progressives.

In 2023, the Wall Street Journal reported stark declines in the values that keep society together: patriotism, religiosity, fecundity, and community involvement, especially among young people. The only value Americans hold more today than several decades ago is making money.

There are many reasons for this loss of “social capital.” Putnam sees this as a natural process that occurs cyclically over centuries. In my day-to-day life, I see multiple culprits.

“The Kids Today”

An entitled and helicopter-parented generation is unable to attain the economic prosperity of their parents while simultaneously being unable to maintain the large social networks necessary for a healthy, less lonely, and more civically engaged society.

Like the ancients, I take friendship seriously. It is a duty. I am horrified by the expression, “friends owe each other nothing.” I believe a large minority of people my age are so morally oblivious, self-centered, and saturated in the shallow relationships they maintain on social media that many friendships now lack the emotional depth they need to be salient relationships.

I see this as a microcosm of what is happening to our culture. The social bond of patriotism that made America a family slit its wrists in front of us. Most of us merely shrugged in response to this emergency, as though losing a common national identity as Americans meant nothing.

Part of the reason young progressives are less patriotic is their feelings about America. Most people I went to high school and college with feel one of two ways about America. They feel almost nothing — usually with a slight tinge of negativity — or they viscerally hate their imperialist, patriarchal, systemically racist country.

Young conservatives are not blameless, either. They misunderstand progressives in a manner that stymies conversation. In my experience, the left is less interested in dialogue with the right than vice versa. However, many of my conservative friends and peers believe I am one of the only liberals left who still believes in dialogue.

I am not blaming “the kids today” for the consequences of how we were raised. Our parents are polarized, too. The left-wing professors who teach students to hate America are all older than us. And the crises of social trust, loneliness, drug addiction, and suicide impact people of all ages.

However, progressivism used to be characterized by a love of country — a concept fundamentally alien to many of my left-leaning peers.

Ideology Fills the Void

Radical ideologies fill the void that common sense and more reliable sources of information leave open when trust collapses. These trust-shaped holes were filled by the con-artistry and conspiracy thinking of Trumpism, the woke ideology that spent decades festering in universities, and the shadowy “red-pill” ideology previously only found on Reddit. After Oct 7th, antisemitism decided to join the cadre.

These dangerous and misshapen ideas took the opportunity presented by social dysfunction, latched onto our culture, and spread like a disease.

Radical ideologies and conspiracy theories are the demagogues of sense-making, especially for those who are lonely and isolated. They provide simple answers to complex questions in a vicious cycle that creates further social distrust.

America needs a common narrative. Instead, the right and left basically became different societies with their own cable networks, narratives about America, and organizations that — sometimes — provide meaning and connection.

Solutions: A National Story & National Service

Americans, especially young Americans, need to share a superordinate goal and a common story about what it means to be Americans. This story must be so captivating and exciting that it overcomes the pull of other attractive ideologies.

I believe that national story should be rooted in love for each other as Americans and incorporate the teachings of Martin Luther King, especially his insistence that we feel “agape love” for all people.

A period of mandatory national service that requires young Americans to spend a year in a very different part of the country — ideally, the year before they go to college — could create a sense of national unity and understanding between Americans from different backgrounds.

This program could create a common story by resuscitating America’s civic religion, which used to be one of the most powerful forces in the country. It inspired people to participate in their culture, politics, and communities and gave Americans a common narrative that supported our democracy.

Studio of Sir Joshua Reynolds, Edmund Burke, c. 1769. Oil on canvas. Image source: npg.org.uk, public domain

Today, Joey speaks with Joe Nepomuceno. Joe and Joey met through the National Journalism Center, an internship program they completed over the summer. They discuss the state of conservative journalism, the cults of “wokeness” and “anti-wokeness,” the politicization of universities, Christopher Rufo, the state of friendship, being “plugged in” all the time, conspiracy thinking, our response to COVID, democracy, the state of the right, the crisis of masculinity, identity, the impact of psychedelics on Christianity, and other topics.

Vilhelm Pedersen, The Emperor’s New Clothes, 1849. Illustration, Danish. Image source: wikipedia.com, public domain

Several weeks ago, I co-authored a piece for Upward News with Brandon Goldman titled Self-Segregating for Kamala about identity politics in her campaign. I am following up on the piece because I have more to say about the confusion in the media’s response to the allegation that she is a “DEI hire,” which was only lightly touched on in the piece.

The media firestorm that followed the accusation that Harris is a “DEI hire” is a recent example of the Neo-Victorian etiquette around DEI denialism common in left-leaning media outlets. The term was treated like a racial slur even though the accusation is obviously true. In 2020, Biden said he would “pick a woman to be vice president.” The media often asserts Biden’s VP pick had nothing to do with her race, fixating on his minced words in 2020, that black women were “among” the contenders.

However, her race did play a role in her selection. Biden won the South Carolina primary, saving his campaign, after House Majority Whip Jim Clyburn (D-SC) endorsed Biden. Before the endorsement, Clyburn pressured Biden to pick a black woman as his VP, and over 200 black female leaders signed a letter encouraging him to do the same. He almost certainly cut a deal with Clyburn. In July, the New York Times finally quoted Biden as saying in 2020, “I am going to pick a black woman” as VP. What more evidence does one need?

Regardless, the media decided that moral posturing is more important than a rigorous analysis of the accusation. MSNBC’s Joe Scarborough asked, “Is it 1951?” in response to Congressman Tim Burchett’s (R-TN) comments suggesting Harris is a “DEI hire.” The Congressman argued it was wrong for Biden to “skip over” other populations for VP consideration. CNN’s Jake Tapper shook his head in disappointment at the label, as though it was an intellectually dishonest thing to say.

Some House Democrats even considered censuring Burchett for labeling Harris a DEI hire. He also applied the label to former Secret Service head Kimberly Cheatle. There is some circumstantial evidence that Cheatle was placed in her position with her sex as a consideration.

When I argue with my progressive friends about affirmative action/DEI, I often hear uninformed arguments about feelings and one-off statements like “it’s about giving them a chance” and “I want ‘people of color’ to feel successful.” This is often followed by accusations of racism and strong, almost religious, denials that racial preferences are a part of affirmative action/DEI initiatives. These DEI defenders have difficulty defining what these programs do.

The media analyst and Dilbert comics creator Scott Adams calls this form of denial a “hallucination.” Such hallucinations about racial and sexual preferences are common among progressives. Progressives openly engage in these preferences, then pretend they do not exist and accuse those who accurately quote them or their policies of racism and sexism.

Instead of recognizing that then-candidate Biden did what many progressives do, consider race and sex in hiring decisions, the mainstream press engaged in linguistic gymnastics to deny the obvious because stating these facts was not in keeping with good manners. This rhetoric was accompanied by bad arguments about implicit bias and racism that were based on emotion, logical fallacies, and facts used out of context.

The perfect example of this poor reasoning is an article in Forbes called What it Might Mean When Critics Call Someone a DEI Hire? by Dr. Susan Harmeling, Professor of “Global Inclusive Leadership” (a fabricated discipline) at ASU. The article employs a false analogy by making overly broad claims about the impact of implicit bias on voters’ views of powerful black women. It should be noted that the Implicit Association Test does not accurately measure racial bias.

She appears unfamiliar with the robust scientific criticism of the Implicit Association Test. The test’s creator says he does not understand what the test measures and scientific analysis finds the test to be unreliable as a measure of real-world prejudice. She also takes studies on in-group preferences among children wearing different colored shirts and draws a straight line from them to attitudes about powerful black women.

In a similar confabulatory fashion to the charlatans of anti-racism, she created something called the “All Things Being Equal Test” to combat implicit bias. I imagined this test was scientific and clicked on a link, thinking I would take a survey. Instead, it linked to another Forbes article she wrote. It explained that test takers should assess if they would judge a woman “of color” or LGBT person differently than a white man in the same position (I assessed my past judgments – never). This is a clear example of intellectual snake oil.

It is common for figures on the identity left to connect the dots between the hazy concept of “implicit bias” to racial inequality – with poor evidence. This is the same broken reasoning embraced by the cult of “anti-wokeness,” which sees a negative outcome in proximity to a DEI initiative and a priori assumes that outcome to be caused by DEI, often stringing together bad arguments and flimsy evidence to justify the claim.

Many arguments against Vice President Harris being labeled a “DEI hire” are straw-men that misrepresent what critics of racial and sexual preferences believe — and how those preferences are implemented. Critics of DEI are not attacking Harris’ race and sex. Instead, we disagree with considering those qualities when selecting candidates for employment.

Only an ignoramus would believe Biden picked his VP by selecting a random black woman off the street, just so happening to select a Senator. Like SCOTUS Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson, Harris was chosen from a pool of qualified candidates exclusive to certain identity groups to ensure the pick went to someone with intersectional credentials.

In fact, Harmeling engages in this same type of irrational thinking, saying, “...the term ‘DEI hire’ actually implies that only heterosexual, white men are qualified for such high leadership positions.” She also places the term meritocracy in quotations, implying that those who use the term do so disingenuously. These are more examples of straw-man arguments. Critics of DEI overwhelmingly hold genuine convictions around meritocracy, just as supporters of DEI genuinely believe in social justice.

The popularity of Michelle Obama puts a nail in the coffin of the argument that black women are automatically perceived negatively in politics. A Reuters/Isops poll found that Mrs. Obama was the only potential candidate definitively beating Trump in the polls before Biden dropped out of the race. Harris trailed her by 8 points. Still, both black women were the top Democratic favorites in the poll.

The dishonesty from the media surrounding this controversy reinforces the mistrust many Americans have in journalism. That mistrust is bred when every time politically correct etiquette is violated, the manners police in the mainstream media come swooping in to remind us that politeness is more important than the truth and an honest appraisal of other people’s opinions.

Unknown Artist, Frederick Douglass (detail), c. 1845. Oil on canvas. Image source: npg.si.edu, public domain

Today, Joey speaks with Professor Erec Smith. Smith is a Fellow at the Cato Institute, a Professor of Rhetoric at York College, and the President of Free Black Thought.

Joey and Erec discuss his past role as a DEI officer, Free Black Thought, the ideological stranglehold of “wokeness” on academia, gender and transgenderism, political tolerance, rhetoric, the impact of “wokeness” and “anti-wokeness” on epistemology, political correctness, ghetto culture, the welfare state, Robin DeAngelo, Robert Putnam, the crises of masculinity and loneliness, superordinate goals, political polarization, and other topics.

George Frederic Watts, John Stuart Mill, 1873. Oil on canvas. Image source: wikipedia.com, public domain

A note from Joey concerning the controversial nature of today’s guest:

I have the right to have anyone I want on my podcast.

-Joey

Today, Joey speaks with Professor Amy Wax. Wax is an American lawyer, legal scholar, and neurologist. She graduated from Harvard, Yale, and Columbia. She is the Robert Mundheim Professor of Law at the University of Pennsylvania Law School. Her work deals with social welfare law and policy, and the relationship of the family, the workplace, and labor markets. Wax is the paragon of a conservative professor being persecuted by her university, which recommends she receive major sanctions for “traumatizing” her students.

Joey and Amy discuss her struggle against UPenn’s fascist bureaucrats who seek to silence her with Orwellian punishments. We agree about the broken border but disagree about mass immigration. We disagree about “race realism” but agree about the need for granular local reform in impoverished minority communities. We also discuss cancellation attempts, the DEI fraud, Hillbilly Elegy and the tragedy of the ghetto, the state of fine arts education, public schools, sex-ed and LGBT, the state of the family, Andrew Tate, the state of misogyny, and other topics.

Max Ernst, Attirement of the Bride (La Toilette de la mariée), 1940. Oil on canvas, German Surrealism. Image source: guggenheim.org, public domain

Liberal Values

Last month brought up annual feelings about why I do not celebrate Pride. I am not proud of my sexual orientation, nor do I feel at home in the LGBT movement.

Homosexuality and transgenderism are not qualities to be proud of but qualities that have no moral significance whatsoever. They are morally irrelevant for the same reason as “race,” ethnicity, sex, eye & hair color, disability status, intelligence, height, and a whole host of other qualities a person cannot control. They have nothing to do with one’s character. That’s liberalism.

Though I was an avid supporter of gay rights as a child — and predicted the trans movement years before it became a national phenomenon — these social changes were always, to me, about achieving political goals like gay marriage and anti-discrimination laws for LGBT people, as well as breaking down social stigma so sexual minorities can be themselves in public. That is what I am proud of: the progress we made, and continue to make, toward political and social equality. Essentially — normalization. That’s liberalism.

Instead, Pride celebrates queerness, a movement that deliberately subverts norms and seeks to overturn the very concept of normalcy. I believe the point of the LGBT movement should be for LGBT people to be able to be normal instead of queer.

Where I Disagree with “Queerness”

The central quest of the queer movement, to undermine “normativity,” is impossible. I recently re-read Dr. Jonathan Haidt’s book The Righteous Mind. He explains that evolution caused human communities to include, or “bind,” people together around a common social code. This is inherently exclusionary, and it cannot be any other way.

A society in which there are no in-groups and out-groups is as distant from us as the communist utopia was from the Russians, and for the same reason. It is incompatible with human nature. This is not to argue that transgender and homosexual people should not be included in the broad “in-group” in Western culture. I emphatically believe they should.

Bizarrely, Queer Theory, the “academic” discipline that began the queer movement, views human sexuality and gender as entirely arbitrary. According to the “theory,” a hetero-normative society is one that promotes heterosexuality through social conditioning and oppression of queer sexualities. Similarly, a cis-normative society is one that promotes cisgender identities over transgender identities.

One of the most troubling assertions of Queer Theory is the idea that so long as heterosexuality and cisgenderism are normative (and given Queer Theory’s presumptions about the causes of sexuality, a majority), queers are oppressed. The belief that queer people are inherently oppressed by the presence of a cis-straight majority is not only wrong; it is a bigoted thing to think.

Heterosexuality is as natural as homosexuality. Human sexuality is not a social construct — but an innate quality that interacts with culture — producing some variation. There has never been a society in which the vast majority of people are not opposite-sex attracted. It’s in our DNA. It’s in our nature. And it’s not oppressing anyone.

I do not say with certainty that gender, the social consequences of sex, is a universally rigid binary. It is clear that gender has some degree of fluidity and that not all men are masculine, nor are all women feminine. Where I disagree with Queer Theory’s goals is the idea that a space for gender non-conforming people must exist in opposition to “cis-normativity” to carve out a place for trans people in society.

Conformity & Dogma

Pride is intellectually regressive and conventional, becoming so popular it is now a fad — seemingly contrary to queerness. Many young people clamor to become LGBT by adopting new gender identities they only feel on the inside or by declaring themselves marginally bisexual. 22.3% of Gen-Z now identifies as LGBT.

Queerness may see itself as inherently non-conformist and subversive, but it is actually a form of conformity in disguise. To be queer, one is expected to be in step with a radical movement to tear down the pillars of Western civilization. Capitalism, “the patriarchy,” hetero, and cis-normativity must be constantly undermined.

I want the space to be different, but not if it means dismantling the very foundation of our culture. Social freedom can only exist in a stable and orderly society.

The people who most enthusiastically celebrate Pride are the people I often feel the greatest need to censor myself around. LGBT spaces and Pride celebrations, which are increasingly radical, are a place where someone like me, a moderate bi man (yes, I am a real one) with a strong distaste for dogma, is not able to express himself.

During a Pride event in the early 2020s that a former lover (and continuing friend) brought me to, I made a joke about how liberals are often late to events. I was immediately told to be quiet, lest his more progressive friends find out that we were less than socialists.

My transgender friends and acquaintances vary in their viewpoints and sensitivities. Among some, I have become particularly careful not to express dissenting opinions while quietly listening to their beliefs in the way I listen to a religious person I disagree with — by simply saying nothing. A very close friend who is transsexual shares a similar irritation with how dissent is treated in the LGBT community.

Most horrifying is the treatment of people who publicly speak about trans issues in an all but obsequious manner. Katie Herzog is a journalist who wrote a very compassionate and balanced piece on de-transitioners in 2017. She was sent violent threats, copies of the paper the piece was published in were burned, and pictures of her were pasted around town, labeling her a bigot. She eventually moved out of Portland, OR over the controversy.

Dr. Hillary Cass, a transsexual woman and British Pediatrician, was sent violent threats and was unable to use public transportation after releasing her Review of transgender youth healthcare in the UK earlier this year. Dr. Cass agrees with me that the divisive discourse around this subject must stop. Where much of the LGBT community and I part ways is willful blindness to incidents like these. They either pretend they don’t exist, don’t matter, support them, or say nothing.

LGBT staleness also impacts institutions. It is regressive to assume LGBT people are so childish in their relationship to other ideas that institutions must create spaces where criticism of reigning left-wing LGBT thought is stigmatized, yet this is commonplace.

My alma mater, Pratt Institute, is the perfect example of a school gone so woke that not even Fox News could make it up.

One evening, I walked past the school’s safe space, the Center for Equity & Inclusion, and eavesdropped on a talk about trans issues. The guest lecturer criticized a study on the neurological causes of transgenderism for its supposedly implicit assumption that a person without those neurological differences cannot be trans (the study did not say that), referred to the scientists who wrote the study as “enemies,” and gave students an approved reading list for trans topics, telling them not to read other literature about trans issues.

Several years ago, I attended a meditation class at a Zen Buddhist center in Brooklyn, NY. Aside from being traditional and stuffy, the center adopted rigid and self-castigating identity politics. The heads of meditators nodded in smug consensus during a dharma talk that shamed white people.

The center also offered a very creepy “LGBT Tea Time.” Reminiscent of a safe space, I never went. From a picture of attendees and the monk who led the tea time, I could tell the exercise was a tense performance meant to enforce ideological orthodoxy and send a virtue signal to center members.

Spiritual Emptiness

LGBT identity politics is no substitute for a religious or spiritual life. People in the LGBT community may benefit from a sense of belonging and social connections, but the deeper core of spiritual experience is about moving on from identity, not growing closer to it.

Some people identify with a culture or ethnicity. There is at least substance there, even if the egoic self that every mystic tradition teaches us to depart from is still present. In identifying with gender or sexuality — there is nothing substantive. There may be an LGBT culture, but central to that culture is the assertion that a sexual identity should be a significant part of one’s sense of self. I do not mean that the act of sex is not substantive. I mean, identifying with sexual orientation is vacuous and will lead to nihilism.

In Sum

I find the current LGBT movement distasteful because it is censorious, ideological, utopian, and empty. It is not a place where I can find meaning or belonging because the LGBT “community” is rigid in how its members are expected not to conform to social norms. I find joy in speaking and writing openly and without fear. Taking a step outside the expected boundaries of LGBT ideology is considered unmannered — something Queen Victoria would not approve of. As a moderate Democrat, I am more welcomed to share my opinions among Republicans and the conservative news outlet I work for than among queers.

Carl G. Jung, The Tree of Life from The Red Book, 1922. Illuminated manuscript, Swiss. Image source: theguardian.com, the Carl Jung Foundation/WW Norton & Co.

Today, Joey speaks with Chloe Valdary. Valdary is an American writer, entrepreneur, and diversity & inclusion educator. She graduated magna cum laude from the University of New Orleans in 2015 with a BA in International Studies. She runs the DEI program Theory of Enchantment and her new app, Dojo. She has also contributed to The New York Times and The Atlantic. Joey and Chloe discuss Theory of Enchantment, Dojo, Sam Harris, Jordan Peterson, Carl Jung, race, what is wrong with Critical Theory, Chloe’s criticism of Western thought as being mind-body separated, the difference between abstract and participatory knowledge, Joey’s experience with the New York Young Republican Club, the books Debt: The First 5,000 Years & The Dawn of Everything by David Graeber, Andrew Tate, the Red-Pill, Joey’s work with The Borgen Project, metta (or loving-kindness) meditation, and other topics. Valdary can be found on X @cvaldary, Instagram @cvaldary, Substack at , and her website.

Claude Monet, From the Water Lillies Series, 1915. Oil on canvas, French Impressionism. Image source: openartimages.com, public domain

Today, Joey speaks with Dr. Stephen Hicks. Hicks is a Canadian-American philosopher and professor of Philosophy at Rockford University in Illinois. Hicks is also the Director of his university’s Center for Ethics and Entrepreneurship. Hicks has written several books, including Nietzsche and the Nazis and Explaining Postmodernism. Joey and Stephen discuss the purpose of art, the state of fine arts education and the art world, the relationship between art and philosophy, 20th-century art, the triad of Marx, Freud, and Darwin, the relationship between Postmodernism and Marxism and their impact on art & culture, Diversity, Equity, & Inclusion, political tolerance, and other topics. Hicks can be found on X @SRCHicks and his website.