Why Humor Is The Secret Weapon
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Have you ever spotted McDonald's hot, crispy fries right as they're being scooped into the carton? And time just stands still. Rise and shine, fever dreamers. Look alive, my friends. I'm V Spear. And I'm Sammy Sage. And this is American Fever Dream presented by Betches News. Where we explore the absurdities and oddities of our uniquely American experience.

Sure is. Greetings. Right now, you're listening on a Tuesday, but we are recording this on the Friday before. So just giving you an update about the context of the conversation, but we are going to have plenty to say up till now, and I'm sure it will all apply.

as well. I don't think anything's going to turn around significantly to you. I do. Are you kidding me? This is the nights and weekends administration. I feel like every day I get to like five or six when I would normally do the news. And then there's like, I have to do like a late night edition because they do weird stuff in the middle of the night or they do weird stuff on the weekend. So we're telling you we're recording this on Friday because it very well could be a different world by the time this airs. That's true. What I meant was I don't think things will turn for the better.

No, no. No, nothing major. Same old bullshit will be happening for sure. But we did want to do an episode that could be helpful going forward, regardless of when you listen to it, which is...

around the question of what should you do? Because everyone seems to be asking that question. And obviously, there's nothing revolutionary we could say about calling your representatives, though we encourage you to do that. And it has been helping. Lisa Murkowski actually tweeted that the call volume had been like 10 times more than it normally is. And she thanked her constituents for calling. So

Calling matters. The sheer volume of phone calls is very important. So add your voice to that. But we want to speak more about what you can do for yourself to kind of stay sane through it all because it's a lot. So...

I think it's a little like stop, drop and roll time. Yes, everything is on fire. No, you're not crazy. Yes, it's bad and unprecedented. You're not crazy. If you're feeling weird, we're all feeling weird. There's things like I like to say, when you can't make a big change, you can always make a tiny adjustment to give yourself a little bit more comfort. And that's kind of where we're at right now is like,

What can we do that's tangible that can give us a little breathing room or a little comfort as we're trying to resist, you know, what's happening with Trump? I will say I do think that the checks and balances are checking and balancing just a little bit, not quite to the overall level that we would wish for, you know, where each branch of government is operating autonomously and somehow in harmony with the other.

but I, I have been glad to see that Joe Biden's appointed federal judges have been blocking a lot of the most egregious and stupid things that Trump wants to do. Like it was a Biden federal judge that blocked the ending birthright citizenship. It's, you know, a Biden federal judge that's stopped the buyouts of federal employees contracts. So there's a little something going on. You know, that doesn't give me much, um,

This is the hopeful episode, Sammy. No, no, no, no, no. I'm not saying that to be like...

anti-hopeful, if you will. But what I feel is that to rely on these glimmers is not the way to go because you will have your hope crushed. If you rely on those things, you will have your hope crushed over and over and over again. Is this like when I was relying on that Iowa poll that said that Kamala Harris would win Iowa? Yeah.

I mean, I was too relying on it. We were all, yeah. You're right, Sammy. I'm falling into my Pollyanna ways and we can't afford that. It's not about, like, there's nothing wrong with feeling, you don't have to feel miserable to know the potential misery. And I think that that's where people, like, get caught up. It's like, you can know and be conscious of the horror without letting your joy be stolen all the time because you are still feeling

like an individual. So you have that control over yourself, at least for now. But to your point about the checks and balances or checking and balancing,

Okay. I mean, from how it looks now. But I don't feel comfortable relying on saying it's working because of how many of the jeopardy that federal employees are in and their programs. And we don't know what's happening behind the scenes. And the fact that they're already in the Treasury, I don't really get how you get them out once they've already...

had access to that information and weaken the defenses around it and also been able to deploy their own software or whatever it is within that context. So that's like really my concern. But again, that does not mean that in our own lives, we can't do other things to manage the

the situation. Can I tell you the two things that are petty but have given me hope and joy in the political news sphere? Tell me.

Okay, so the first one is that AOC's former chief of staff has officially filed to challenge Nancy Pelosi for the seat in San Francisco. And I think is seeing some pretty good support here. Now, historically, Nancy Pelosi has refused to debate or recognize any primary challengers. But I think in her advanced age and perhaps the point we're in as a Democratic Party right now –

We have a better chance than we ever have to get somebody potentially new into the seat whose last name is not Pelosi because we also think that there's a possibility old Nance is going to try and have Christine run, which is her daughter. But I'm excited. Why does she need this seat so badly? I don't know. I don't know. I mean, she's got plenty of money.

And you've had plenty of time. And I don't know why. I think because her dad was in politics and kind of handed her power. She thinks she can like hand it to her daughter. But her daughter is like, I believe in her 60s. Isn't she a documentary filmmaker? She has several children. Nancy has five children. Okay. One was Dianne Feinstein's like personal aide. Yeah. And one is this Christine who's a politician. And then she has a couple of sons too. I think one of the boys is maybe the documentary and...

But I just like, I don't know why she needs it. I'm not down for political families, which is why I was also not bummed that Jack Schlossberg deleted his accounts. Is that your other thing that makes you happy? This is still number one. This is my hopefully the end of political families having an outsized impact and getting a ton of opportunity over just regular folks. Well, R.P. Jr. is probably going to get confirmed. But if unless... He is, you know, and...

I like Jack Schlossberg. I think he's very funny, but I wasn't – people were freaking out that he deleted his account after he went after Megyn Kelly. And I was like, I think he was a really great gimmick and sort of hook for the campaign time. But this is a person who wasn't necessarily like politically engaged prior.

And now maybe he's doing something offline. He has a lot of power outside of his social media that he could be doing something with. We don't know. What did he say about Megyn Kelly? He pretended that he didn't know if she was a man or a woman.

And he went on like one of his little sassy rants that he does. Didn't he do that to like a ton of people? He did. And folks were like, you're kind of like, like, okay, Jack, like it was funny when you were making fun of J.D. Vance or where's J.D. Vance. But like pretending that you don't know cis women's genders isn't really like advancing us in the way that we – that's not –

So this is what he left social media for? That was his last post. That was the last thing he did. And then he said, I'm sorry, I was wrong. I was wrong about everything or something. And then he deleted his account. That is just so weird and concerning. And I...

I don't know. You know, maybe he's Selena Gomez-ing it. Maybe. I mean, I love a crash out. I think it's good to crash out every so often and let your accounts go on private. But I... Look, a quarter-life crisis is just what we need to watch right now. And he has enough Kennedy homes to visit to, you know, rehabilitate it. And I'm sure Jack will be back soon. Or this is part of the performance.

It could be part of the performance. Maybe this is what it is. Either way, it's a huge distraction. I always just assume it's always part of the performance. Mm-hmm. Right. No, the thing that brought me... But we're here for the fever dream. Look, this is like a real dream. You go into... You've seen Inception. You go into all these weird little holes and that's the fever dream.

Well, here's the one. TikTok is breaking. I don't know if anybody else has noticed this, but it is deteriorating. I'm seeing fewer videos. The FYP isn't quite as robust as it used to be. Didn't you say you had some good news? I do. This is my good news. So as TikTok is breaking, I'm getting a sort of diversified FYP that I never got before. And now I'm getting makeup tutorials. I'm getting a ton more makeup tutorials.

And one that I saw was from a creator named Suzanne Lambert. And I guess she used to be concerned. Do you know who this is? Of course. I like her. Yeah, of course. She made videos for Betches News. Did she? I love her. I think she's so funny. You saw her right after the election. She had a video that went very viral, which is like...

liberals have to get mean. You talked about this. Maybe you didn't realize it was her. I might not have realized it was her. This is not your broken algorithm. This is exactly what you should be being served. This is me in the Betches universe. So she was doing a video about how to do Republican makeup. And then people were like, well, she did something that I thought was, I watched it like nine times. You know how Donald Trump has like very orange makeup? No, I don't know what you're talking about.

So I thought it was because he wasn't matching his foundation, but she revealed to me that you gals use like a color corrector. She tracked down Donald Trump's makeup that he apparently imports from Sweden. He keeps two bottles of it and TRESemmé hairspray on him all the time. I also use TRESemmé hairspray. How did she find this out? I don't, she's incredible. Journalism. And she, so she got color corrector and was showing how like by not

using your undertones, that's how he ends up so orange. And it was a dead match for, because you can't figure out like, how does he end up so orange? And I was like, I love that the makeup girlies and the political girly has like somehow brought together this fascinating moment where I could just sort of like relax and remember that Donald Trump is,

is weird. That's a weird thing to do, to slather your face with color corrector and not use makeup that's available to you. And apparently he's done it for years. Right. And somebody could correct him, could color correct him. I feel like they must have tried, but this is his emotional support makeup. It's color corrector, not foundation. And I thought that that was so fascinating. That is.

Yeah, no, she's good with the mocking the makeup. She has a whole thing about Caroline Levitt. I watched the Caroline Levitt one. That was good. She's very, very funny. Everyone should follow Suzanne Lambert. Yeah, trying to do the lip thing.

And then she was showing me like about how they do the lip injection. Me, who's like not wearing any makeup right now. But she was like, you know, and then you smile. She's like, why is it when Republican women smile, they tuck their top lip? And I was like, oh, my God, they do. But it was giving me a laugh. And I was like, this is great. I need to look at that. I didn't see that one. I love that. She's like, it's like...

Yeah. Okay. Well, go follow her. Crack me up. I'm glad that there's some good things on the internet that we can talk about. We hear about Trump and we're like, oh my God, he's doing this terrible authoritarian thing. He's a, he's a monster. He's all these things. And then I'm like, ha ha. He's smearing color corrector all over his mug. And that's wrong. Like I learned. So I don't know why that gave me such a kick. Satire is resistance. It is. You know what? Another form of resistance is empathy. Ooh.

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I found this study out of a Denmark university.

that found that empathy is socially transmitted. So when you see people being empathic, you are more likely to actually behave that way as well. And they found this through like fMRI imaging about like part of your brain that is activated when you see someone doing something nice for somebody else in real life and that enhances social bonds and makes you more likely to do the same.

I was also reading something similar in Chris Hayes' book, The Siren's Call, which is all about how our attention has been monetized and stolen. And his book was pointing out how there's nothing that hurts people more than neglect and solitude and not getting attention. And there was a study in that book that basically said that people would rather...

like if they're put in a room and all they have is to be alone with their thoughts, rather than be alone with their thoughts, they would literally rather give themselves like electric shocks than just have nothing. Like then just like be in solitary confinement too. That's why it's like against the law to be in there more than 24 hours. Yeah. That's what he was trying to say. So basically like what I've been thinking is I've been like kind of reading about these things is like,

The reason that everyone's such an asshole now, for lack of a better word, and the reason that people are so like detached and mean to each other is because all people see now is people yelling at each other on social media and coming up with like the least charitable, empathic way of viewing someone. Like the most, you know, just...

The least, giving people the most call out forward, giving people the least benefit of the doubt. And it just like makes sense because that's what people see vastly more than they see people doing nice things for each other. You know, like because people are just on their phones more reading more comments than they are having human interactions. Yeah.

And when you look at the language and the ethos of the MAGA movement,

you see that they are very into like signaling anti-virtue signaling. I call it by signaling, signaling, like being mean, like this dope, like one of these doge teenagers was just had to resign because he, they found his tweets that said like, I was racist before it was cool. And like, I think Israel and Gaza should be wiped off the map. And so,

normalize Indian hate and just very, you know, it's not just about having the hatred. It's about signaling it just as much that is part of this culture. And when that's the dominant culture in America, when like trolling is the way to achieve things, trolling on the internet, especially, that's why people are so like poisoned to each other. And why I think it's a form of resistance is because

That is what makes up a society. The bonds between people and getting each other's backs and the trust that you have that you can just coexist freely and safely, that is what has made America quote-unquote great and not a war zone. One thing that I think has been funny is...

You know, my friend, Meghan McCain. Yeah. Not personally. She was saying a couple of weeks ago, she said this, and now I've seen a couple other conservative women say it, that, hey, it's cool to be conservative now. We are the counterculture. We are the trendsetters. We are the, you know, culture setters. And I'm like, no, you're not. No.

No, you're not. I don't know that it is cool necessarily. No, I know what she's saying. She's right. No, she's right. What she's saying is correct. I mean, it's,

What does cool mean? I mean, you want to redefine... We want to go into the etymology of cool. What she's saying reflects a truth, which is that that is the dominant culture now. Right. But they're trying to make it seem like they're the niche counterculture. No, they're not. You can't be the counterculture and the dominant culture. Right. But I was like, I don't know if... There is no counterculture right now because the culture was...

cancellation and virtue signaling and like, you know, shut up and white women suck and whatever. But now that's the, the culture is MAGA. It is. Sorry. Hate to say it, but a historian would tell you and they look back. That is what it is. And the counterculture doesn't exist yet. We're going to see what it becomes. Hmm.

I think the thing that has the biggest potential for being the counterculture is like the pro, like the Luigi thing. But, but I actually, but, and right. And if wealth, wealth signaling is the culture, then that would be probably, that's what I think will become the like,

idea behind the counterculture, especially because that's also a deeply antisocial way of thinking that you should just shoot people you don't like. Right. I was at two schools this past week. I was at Harvard for my fellowship and got to interact with students. And then I was at Lehigh University and got to interact with students. Wow. Phenomenal. Greatest kids. Like so smart. Are the kids the future?

These kids are, the Lehigh kids in particular, but I was really treated because it was the journalism and the theater majors. And so I really think I saw like a very specific subsect of the college experience and definitely the most friendly to me subsect of that. So I had a great time because these are my, these are dust bunnies.

But one of the things that we got to talking about was like journalism and activism and like holding people accountable and building culture and building community. They're like, oh, we here is build community. But, you know, I don't I don't know that we know how. And I was like, I also don't know that that Gen Z part of Gen Z knows how exactly. And we were talking about how.

Like who is going to be that brave person who like comes forward and is this next round? Who's the next AOC? Who's the next, you know, whatever freedom fighter person? Because Gen Z is so averse to conflict, so averse to tension, so group thinky, very afraid of cancellation. And it's kind of like, I mean, we've seen this online at least.

When one of them does rise up, then they are attacked by the mass for no longer being a part of the group. It's called popular syndrome. Yeah, it will be interesting to see how counterculture develops and who does it because I'm concerned about Gen Z's ability with such rugged individualism that they exemplify for themselves even with micro labels and neo pronouns and all this stuff.

What are neo-pronouns? Excuse me? Neo-pronouns are like the ones that aren't he, she, her. They're like different words. But there was like a whole created new language that –

Probably would have been a good exercise in like exploring yourself but was never going to be like necessarily adapted by the full public as like completely normalized. Like that would have taken centuries. And so with that in mind, I'm not sure how you coerce the general public into –

being anti-MAGA or being, choosing different. You don't coerce anything. You don't coerce anything. What happens is events occur that changes the way people, people's circumstances, the way they see things. And they, what needs to happen is that there needs to be like an actual counterculture available for people to then identify with. The thing is, I don't,

you know, really see one, at least that's like promising. And to your point about Gen Z, I do think that is why they like kind of went pretty pro Luigi, but I, I don't want to say like that they're fixed because no generation is fixed in the way that they go about things because they'll have new experiences and,

We all will. And that might change. I think part of the issue is that they did grow up on phones. Because if you think about all the years that we got as millennials and every generation before us, and now maybe even the younger kids are getting because their parents or will get because their parents are now aware of like, this is...

we can't just let them be free on this. I think that that's possibly like they just got really messed up. But I think it's going to depend on...

what happens? Well, they were asking me what was like the defining moment of millennials that made me like how I am. And I'm like, you need to know, like my first week of college was nine 11. That's what I'm going to say. Nine 11 is the defining for the millennials. Like is in terms of when we became adults, like that's what happened to us. And then the recession, but we had a patriotic moment where the country actually came together and, uh,

A great number of millennials ended up joining the military and fighting a war that didn't turn out the way – turns out the way all war turns out, not great. And they were like, well, that wouldn't happen to us because if anything happened, like we wouldn't – I don't see my generation falling for that. And I was like, well, you know what? I actually –

Maybe you agree. I don't know. That's my thing is like, what event would it take? We had a global pandemic that actually made them more MAGA. If we were to have a patriotic moment, what would it be? If they blew up New York, then you get the red states going, well, that was just the liberals and not us. Like, I don't know that this country can come together around a major event again. Well, it's maybe it's not in the event. It's in the way people respond to the event.

Yeah. And what... Who emerges as a leading voice out of that and what they offer. Because...

This is what I also feel about Gen Z is that they have been deeply disadvantaged as a generation because A, they were like groomed for a world that is no longer. B, they were not actually taught how to properly socialize. And then I think especially, I also think there's like two Gen Zs. Like there's the upper Gen Z, which- Right, closer to millennial. Which is closer to millennial. And they're sort of like the-

You know, like the silly tropes, like the no side part or, you know, like that kind of like making fun of millennial parts and their genes and shit. But then there's like the lower Gen Z, which is the MAGA types or just like more like they're just more, I would say, like negative. I think they're mean because they're my YouTube commenters and they have a mean streak in them that I'm like, wow. Do you get why? Because the truth is they were fucked.

Yeah. They were fucked by their college experience. They were fucked by the financial experience. And they are manipulated in everything they see on the internet that just encourages terrible antisocial behavior and nothing ever conciliatory. And even us being like, you should be friendly to your neighbors. And I saw...

I saw Charlie Clymer tweet something or thread something about how when...

People realize that they've been screwed by MAGA in some way. We should welcome them and not be like, I told you so, fuck you. And the comments are mixed. And my guess is that some of the comments just have to do with where someone comes from. If you're like me and you're very privileged, it's easy for me to say like, oh, I can have common ground. And so that should probably be my job.

But if you're just been fucked all the ways from Sunday by this administration and this country, you don't want to reconcile with people who would happily see you dead. So I understand that.

And I just don't think it's everyone's job to do everything. And certain people do need to be more protected from that. I agree. And that is why I like your book, Sammy, because there's a little something for everybody and how you can show up and when you can show up.

And I think folks are realizing that they can't hold all the water for everybody all the time. And it does sort of take a targeted approach where we say, like, I'm all in on gay rights and women's bodily autonomy, right? That's what I've been. I'm 42. I've been that my whole life. And so when a new issue comes up, I might not be able to jump in and hold water for that too, but you can and I can be your audience member.

So how do we support people? How do we tackle this without everyone feeling like we all have to do the same thing at the same time, which has kind of been the internet's option. Every single person sign on to this petition and we'll save the world. And then we can give your email to everybody. Yeah. If everyone would have eyes on this bill that's happening in Kansas, then we would save national abortion bans. And it's like,

It's not, there's no like a finish to the work ever. And I don't know that we're, that's hard to wrestle with when you're already wrestling with, well, I just, I need there to be a finish because I need to know when I can rest. I can't live in this state of heightened anxiety forever. Yeah, yeah, exactly. It's really, you have to give yourself an off switch.

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Can I tell you an exercise I do with myself? Please. When I hear something just so fucking terrible that they just announced and I feel myself like getting panicked about it, what I do is I pretend for a second that I am a Trump supporter. I know I pick a different one at each time. I'm like, what are they thinking? And I try to channel their just

just feeling of like, this isn't going to change the way they feel about their future, you know, probably. And try to think like, okay, my experience comes in my own head. And my, whether I panic about this or whether I rejoice over it does not actually change it. And I need to, because we're sharing in the news every day. I mean, I think if I were not, that would be different. Like, okay, I just need to

take the feeling and I just need to do my job. Right. And I know how I feel about it. You know, I know what the implications are, but it's like, that's how I just, that's how I get to the next thing. I am hopeful that they start fighting with each other because these, this is a group of people who has such a scarcity mindset and such a paranoid mindset and

And something that happened today, because again, recording on Friday, that I think is brave and interesting and I might go buy a copy of was Elon Musk on the cover of Time magazine sitting at the Resolute desk with the American flag and the presidential flag behind him, sort of casually positioned with a cocky face and a cup of coffee. I do think that this could potentially be the end of Elon Musk if...

It's certainly a big chip in the iceberg that he and Trump built together because Trump is such a deeply insecure person that I wonder how this plays out. See, that's what everyone's betting on.

And my guess is like, okay, he, Trump sees it. He's like, well, I've been on, I've been on the cover like 25 times. So it's fine. It's fine. 35 times. There's 45 times even. And then it'll like eat at him and it'll start to come out in him trying to like assert his dominance. But Donald Trump, like I've said, this is a power thing.

When there's no rule of law, there's only power. And that applies to Donald Trump. And when Elon Musk has all the information, including information on Donald Trump, I would bet,

Who has the power? Is Donald Trump, who can't even send a text message, going to go in the Treasury and take the information back from him? Right. Because it will come to that. It's going to have to. That's what I think people are not getting, that Elon Musk now has leverage on the president. Right. It's so much bigger leverage.

than just, oh, they're just fucking around the government. Like they actually, there might come a time when you need to root for Donald Trump against Elon Musk for the sake of just- Democracy and American experience. Not even democracy, just security. Because maybe he doesn't want to give something to someone who Elon does. So like, that's what I-

Like, we're past. I'm convinced that people will look back on right now and be like, how didn't we realize that it had already happened? It was already gone. Well, I do wonder, and some of the commentary I've seen about the Time magazine post is that Time did this with Steve Bannon, and it did put distance between Steve Bannon and Trump.

Also, Saturday Night Live was making Steve Bannon Trump's puppet master in a skit. And so there are ways in which the media is interfering in the bromance. And Steve Bannon is not as close to Trump as he once was.

Steve Bannon got a pardon from Trump. He did. So many people got a pardon from Trump. Okay, but, like, my point, like, yes, yes. And these are good things because you have to be sand in the gears. That's all you have. Right. But the... So, yes, satire is one of the best ways to counter this. But, like, he's back in office. It didn't stop him. It didn't stop this whole thing. So, yeah, I mean, it's...

I think we'll see. I mean, I'm like, I do think their own infighting and their own egos are always going to be their downfalls. Elon has never kept a job truly though. I mean, he, he's CEO of Tesla. Now Tesla's stock is dropping and the Tesla board owns like a certain amount of control over Elon. SpaceX is whatever, doing whatever it's doing. But like when he got into PayPal, they kicked him out. When he got into several of his other companies, they kicked him out. He's extradited.

extremely annoying. And at some point, people push him out of the way. And I just...

Some part of me hopes that Trump deports him, which I'm not sure. I don't think it'll happen, but I'm just saying at some point, maybe he'll just pay for his liability. Maybe he'll pay for his Mars mission. But the truth is he has the access already. Oh, I know that. Like, that's why I'm like, okay, what could you do to him? He has this whole platform. He has, you know, he drives the conversation through Twitter. He puts his own things at the top. He, he,

He then, now he has actual, he's the one in charge of paying the bills. Can't he, isn't he girl bossing a little too close to the sun? Is there any hope for a David? This man? Do we have an Icarus story? Maybe. Look, I don't know. I, I'm,

I don't know. Maybe eventually, but the point is, yes, I do believe this man wants all dominance, all powerful, like world ruling shit. And perfect union. Actually, if you go to their YouTube posted a great summary, I think it's only like 20 ish minutes of Elon Musk's career and how he basically built his own mythology. And the truth is, is that he did not found, uh,

most of these companies that he claims he founded and that he legally was able to wrestle control away from the real founders of, particularly with Tesla. So yeah, it's definitely an interesting dynamic that we're going to continue to watch. But I feel like we're looking at like a Game of Thrones situation and we're just the rope in the middle.

So the other thing I've been seeing a lot are like the political psychology takes about the behaviors of these people. So like stripping it back even further to what their motivations are. And the idea that, you know, Donald Trump is a narcissist and what narcissists do is isolate you from your allies, your friends and neighbors, as he was trying to do with China and Mexico. And they will sell you out to the highest bidder. But narcissistic injuries are oftentimes the only way to stop them. And I've

I've found some comfort in that also.

Because it at least gives you something to remind yourself. And I've been doing it in the news at night saying like, he is a liar and a showman. He's a liar and a showman. Just because he says it doesn't mean it's true. That's why laughter and joking and humor and satire are some of the most effective means against an autocrat or someone of that nature. And if you think about it, and we actually wrote this in Democracy in Retrograde,

how to make changes big and small in our country and our lives, that there's a reason that the regime wants to ban books and ban art and limit the subjects that you can discuss within art. That's why they're making a council, a task force to eliminate anti-Christian bias. My guess is that they're going to try to control what is...

expressed in some forms of art. And there's a reason that autocratic regimes want to do that because humor and art create connection. They present a way of breaking through to people that does not necessarily come through politics or through reading the news. And art has the power to really change people and the way they see things.

in sort of a stealth manner without having to use logic to convince people, which can ultimately be much more convincing and help people see like a new side of something.

you think that's why they hate that. Like, that's why right-wingers hate that, you know, they show so many gay relationships or people who are trans on TV because they think that that is, they don't want to see that. And to be fair, there's had been so much media that's like stupid, annoying, like check the box, woken it wokeness. And I get that, but there's a difference between not between disliking that and

as in it's bad art and like banning certain identities from art. Because they don't want their mind to be changed. They want to hate gay and trans people and they know when they meet us and they see us, they don't. It's like why I hear so often, well, not you though. Well, not you. Like I'm a good one or something. Like, you know, it,

Like, what if you didn't know me? There's so many other good ones, too. You just have to expect if you like me, you probably like other gay people, too. Like, yeah. Also, like, who are the bad ones? Like, they're hypothetical. They're, like, they're just made up from what you've been...

indoctrinated with. Well, from your own freakish little imagination, which is also like now we're seeing them try to justify getting rid of USAID by claiming that we gave $50 million to Gaza for condoms. Now there's another one. Oh, it's $100 million now? There's a Tim Burchette. That is like 50 condoms.

50,000 condoms per person? It's so stupid. And then the other thing was like, now they're saying we gave $16 million worth of condoms to the Taliban. And I think part of that is any time that they talk about sex, conservatives shut down because of their shame around the topic. And so they just hear something like that and they're like, I could go with that. That's easy to hate. That's easy to think is a waste. Well, you would think they would want

to control the births of these people, if you're asking me. I know. So then there are some accounts out there and a lot of the MAGA content creators, like Older Millennial or whoever, just they don't stop to think about what they've read and if it makes sense. And then they fire off a video that says...

$600 million was used to do gender assignment surgeries in Serbia. And it's like, no, it wasn't. It just straight up never happened. And obviously we could trace it back to the tweet that's not Elon Musk saying crazy stuff and you're reporting it as if it was like a real thing, you know? Yeah. But again, this is why it's so problematic that there is cultural control now because

That is what becomes natural to people. That becomes the norm, the default. And why I think coming back to making fun and using humor and satire so important because it has the opposite effect of what autocrats want, which is to disconnect people. When you laugh with someone, that's like kind of the peak of connection with them. And that creates a bond and an understanding and a shared language that...

The people in control don't want you to have. They don't want you in a dialogue and in a conversation with each other because then you would stop seeing people as the enemy and stop seeing the state as the be all and end all to direct your thinking. So I encourage people to look for laughter, look for reasons to laugh, look for people who are...

who are handling this in a funny way and seek enjoyment. Be more in person has been, yeah, seek joy. And my thing has been be in person in smaller groups, however you can, because you'll come to realize that what you see online is not nearly as bad as it is in practice in the real world. You just get a concentration of bad stuff online sometimes. And then when I'm going in, that's why I do in-person events because you go and you're like, oh, like this is,

It's all still here. I remember after my brother passed away, I thought that the world should have ended. And I do attribute the way I feel now to the survival or trauma that I felt during that time where you're like, I just feel out of control and I don't know what's coming next. And I feel a constant barrage of unknowns and overwhelming feeling. And then one day I just went out for a walk and I was like, wow, it's all still here. Everything is still here.

I'm okay. I'm going through a horrible thing. Bad stuff has happened. I can't anchor myself, but it's all still here. The trees are here. I could stop and just like focus on the air for a second and grounding yourself in that way is how we get through it. Even though it sounds kind of corny or whatever, when you're surviving something, that's all you're doing is surviving it. So giving ourself grace and knowing that like,

It's okay to take a nap if you're tired. It's okay to shut off the TV if you can't anymore. We're not giving up or turning a blind eye or giving in. It's just a matter of like you could only take in so much before you need to re-acclimate yourself to the room. It's like the way they do the tapping therapy when you're having PTSD. Oh, yeah. Because you have to like wake your body up to be like, no, no, no, I'm in this room, not in the room before.

that I go to in my hallucinations when I'm having a PTSD problem. They also want you to be tired, exhausted, overwhelmed, think it's impossible. That is why it's coming how it's coming. And this is planned to happen this way. Steve Bannon spoke about it. He calls it muzzle velocity. And they want that. So think about it like this. You are not in Congress. Yes, you can make your calls. You can do whatever you want. But

every minute that you feel joy and you do not allow yourself to be your, your, your mind to be stolen, you are doing a form of resistance. Anytime you are showing empathy to people and understanding and not getting in that internet fight because the one, you know, you shouldn't get into, it's okay to get into some, but, um, sometimes there, you just have to

You know, I don't know. You can choose your internet. Whatever. Maybe I'm not that good at this at these days, but whatever. Regardless, my point is every minute that you are in connection and community with people, you are doing a form of resistance. So don't feel guilty if you...

want to enjoy your life at some moments, the horrors will be there when you get back. And stick with us. Something I've talked to trans folks about, in particular trans young people, is it's not hopeless. They're not going to take away what you have. It might feel ugly and weird, but we've been in ugly and weird before. We've dealt with that before. There's a creator, Cyrus, who said,

If people could just listen for one quick second, trans and non-binary people are not trying to make your kids like us. We're trying to show your kids what...

trans and non-binary looks like alive older. Because for me, with the AIDS crisis, we didn't see a lot of older gay men in my life growing up in Connecticut, in New York, in the gay world, to the point that when I was a speaker at an event in Colorado and I was talking about AIDS and I looked up and I saw a room full of older gay men, I was physically shocked because I've never seen that. I've never seen that many older gay men in a room at one time. And it's the same for like

kids in general, right? We're not trying to change anybody. We just, you don't know how valuable it is to a person who may not even be out yet or may not even know who they are yet to just see somebody alive at 42 because they'd never seen that before. And that keeps them alive. And so my thing has been like, just stick with me, stick with us. You know what I mean? Don't give up. We got to see how it shakes out, right? If you feel like it couldn't get worse, then it won't get worse. It could only get better. So just stick it out with me, you know?

Yeah, I mean, just, yeah, exactly. You wanna be able to,

Say we got through this. People want you to be there for them. That too. Yeah, you're loved. Even if your government, quote, hates you, there are people that love you. And that's all you have to worry about. You don't have to worry about that. Yeah. And it feels probably like it's the whole world because it is the culture. But Kamala only lost by a few million votes. And then a third of the country didn't vote at all. That doesn't mean those people hate you. They just...

America doesn't have very high turnout. Only 22% of America voted for Donald Trump. That's not a lot. That's not even a quarter. It's 22% based on like however much it was. Yeah. Okay. Well, so it's not that bad. And honestly, a lot of them were lied to, right? So let's say the 22% of that, I'll say a quarter of the 22% voted for me. And I'll say 70% of them voted for eggs.

Right. And now eggs are $12 a carton and shit's crazy. Eggs and the algorithm. Yeah, that's why they. So, you know, keep in mind, keep in mind what's true and what's not true and recognize that you cannot stop progress in all of human history. We have not been able to stop progress. It's it goes, you know, two step forward, one step back sometimes. But at the end of the day, you cannot stop evolution. Yep.

Exactly. And that's what I know about biology. All right. Thank you for being here with us. This has been a wonderful Evergreen episode. And to everyone listening, thank you for being here with us. That is also really meaningful. So thank you. I appreciate you. And if anything weird happens, you know, since we're recording this on Friday, you'll just have to look to the morning announcements or Under the Desk News. We'll have it for you there.

Send us your emails at AmericanFeverDream at Betches.com if you've got something to say or something you want us to cover. And cover each other. You know, we're a big community here. There's tens of thousands of people who listen to this show. So even though you might feel alone when you're listening, you're actually not. You're in a group activity and it is the best group chat. So I love us. I do. Until next time, I'm V Spear. And I'm Sammy Sage. And this is American Fever Dream. Good night. Good night.

Betches