LOOPcast Thanksgiving! The Digital Revolution And Women, And Year-Round School

And we're live. Welcome back to the LOOPcast. It's Tom, Erika, and Josh. Thanksgiving special. Thanksgiving tomorrow. Many of you may be traveling, hopefully, to spend some time with your family, to get into intense arguments with your relatives that disagree with you politically, to eat too much turkey, to watch the Lions destroy the Packers. So, whatever you may be doing on Thanksgiving, I'd like to just be the first to wish you a happy Thanksgiving. I love this holiday. Josh loves this holiday.

Erika loves this holiday. It's fantastic. Okay, so I'll start up up top. We're just going to be doing a Thanksgiving up top special. Look, there's news going on, but it's important to take the time to give thanks, to have debates about whether or not to wash the turkey, according to AP. So, we have a little bit of a Thanksgiving section up top. And for those joining us here live in the chat, Tell me what you are most thankful for this year.

Bring me up. Bring the thanks. Bring the giving. What are you most thankful for this year? What are you doing? Let me know. We can read some of those off, some good ones, and pray for our producer, actually. She's out today, so I'll be helping run the chat. Simon will be helping run the chat. She's actually overseas, so pray for her. I'm not sure I can reveal exactly where she is, but she's overseas. She's doing something important for us, so pray for her safety.

Please. That being said, we also had some interesting studies coming from Brad Wilcox on the digital revolution and how it affected young women, specifically in terms of happiness, in terms of children. Some good studies there. We also have some thoughts on the economy. Some retail numbers were released. We can get into that a little bit. We have good news. We have Twilight Zone. It is going to be a great Thanksgiving show, and at the very end, actually, a lot of people ask, you know, Erika, how do you raise such well-educated...

Aw, shucks. Smart children. You're not done yet. Like a good turkey, they're not quite fully roasted, but we're having a good time with our kids. I think about it often, and today, at the end of the episode, Thanksgiving special, we actually, Erika sat down with someone from Homeschool Connections, a great resource for people to use. If they're looking to homeschool their children, it's a great conversation. I will be playing that at the end of the episode, but before we get into our Thanksgiving fun, I got to talk about Charity Mobile.

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That is CharityMobile.com, promo code LOOPcast. Great for you, Charity Mobile. Awesome. Love it. Let us get into it. Yes. What were you thinking, Erika? For today's, I said, you said Thanksgiving special. What are you thinking for today? Yeah, so, I mean, I think a lot of us are looking at a Thanksgiving table where there may be differing political opinions, for example, or different religious convictions, to put it mildly, and things are a little hot. I mean, some of the, we've done a couple of episodes talking about the boomer generation and, you know, the no kings protest.

Are you expecting? Expecting a no-kings protester at your Thanksgiving table, and I think a lot of us get to Thanksgiving, and we're like, can we just have, can we just enjoy being together? Can we just enjoy that time? And there was this fantastic... The liberals are like, no! They're like, no, you may not. In fact, some of them aren't even going to show up, and that's really sad, the whole no-contact thing. Hey, can I say it? Can I say it? Some of the conservatives would say the same thing in reverse.

It's true. They'd be like, you know, I've got to give you a hard time. Josh is probably that conservative unk that's like, all right. No, I think Josh won't be still until asked, until provoked. I remember Thanksgiving Day 2000 at Grandma's house. This is, of course, in the midst of a 35-day election day because we didn't know who was going to be the winner. Remember that? I do remember that. Of course, Pogo was two years old. And I get to the dining room table, and all my liberal aunts, they're all sitting there, and the one says, feigning, hoping, hey, let's not talk about politics.

And I just go, oh. I didn't have to start this war. There was going to be words exchanged. New LOOPcast promotion. You could win a giveaway and eat a Thanksgiving dinner with Josh, and he can give you all of his spiciest political opinions. Let's do it. Off the record. I have to get put on the cutting room floor here, you know. Yeah, right. Exactly.

Oh, my gosh. But I think that, you know, there's a couple of approaches you can take to these situations, and... One can be, okay, we just won't talk politics. We're just going to, like, nothing important, no religion, no politics, which are really the only things worth talking about in my mind.

Very Chesterton of you. I know, right? You can also take the approach that it's all right if these topics come up, if we broach these topics, because there are proactive things you can do to prepare for these conversations so that they're actually fruitful instead of just everybody is finally just goes. For another beer to drown out their sorrows at the end of the night, because I think as well-intentioned Catholics, as morally serious people, we actually want to talk and connect on a deep level with our relatives, because it matters.

So, there was this fantastic thread from Matt Van Swole on Twitter that Josh pointed out to me, actually. Oh, Josh. Yeah, Josh sent this to me yesterday, and I love Matt because he's actually a cool conversion story, and he was the crazy diehard. Lib, like, you know, Trump is Hitler kind of talk, and he had a couple things happen in his life over the last five years, COVID being one of them, that really changed his mind, and so he just wrote down some of these ideas.

So, I don't know. I'm just going to read through what he puts out there. He's a kid. He's, like, returning to church. He has a young child, he and his wife. So, the number one thing he says, okay, what can you do? Do the dishes.

And I love this piece of advice. Be the person who volunteers to get up after the meal. Maybe it's between courses or between dessert and dinner. Be the person who gets up and just starts doing dishes. And there is not anything quite like offering to do the Thanksgiving dishes that builds goodwill. And that's really the bottom line here. We need to let Thanksgiving be a time of building goodwill, not increasing animosity. So, everyone's like, oh, thank God I don't have to do that.

For another year, right? If you want to score some brownie points with your in-laws, that is the play. Totally. Absolutely. Yeah, I love it. You know, as the humorist P.J. O'Rourke said, everyone wants to save the world. But no one wants to help mom with the dishes.

It's so true. I love it. I love it. But that, like, act of service. Oh, that's all he said. Okay, wait, wait. Okay, there's more. No, no, there's more. There's more. So, then, his second piece of advice to have these fruitful conversations tomorrow is choose the root of most empathy.

He's talking here about, I think, the Ben Shapiro sort of stereotype of conservatives that we come across as not being empathetic. Like, we have all the facts. I don't care about your feelings, right? Yo, I don't care about your feelings. He's been on a run as of late about things like caring about your feelings. Yeah, so he's just emphasizing here, if someone comes at you or someone drops a one-liner about, you know, I wish it was Kamala Harris, or like, you know, it's so tough right now to be an illegal immigrant in this country, you know, lead with the empathy and be like, yeah, I can't imagine all those poor kids who are just being trafficked over the border.

So, like, lead with the surprising thing for them. Right. I mean, something along those lines, you could say, would be like, I think it was a terrible system. We had this country for about 20-some years, both Democrat and Republican administrations, where we just left the border wide open, giving migrants, hey, come on in, and then to suddenly turn around and send them home can feel kind of abrupt. The fact of the matter is, having that door wide open for 20 years allowed them to be exploited by coyotes who were smuggling them across the border.

And that is not them either. So, yeah, you show you care. I mean, I think the CatholicVote had done a lot to try to help the right understand. We need to emphasize how this, you know, it's not like we hate immigrants. Like, we don't, but they deserve dignity just like everyone else, but like, you know, hey, chill the hell out. Like, it's not even good for them. Like, let's focus on that. I got a really good, I think about this a lot.

We should put this whole thing by, what's his name, Matt again? I forget his name. Matt Van Swole. Matt Van Swole. We should put the whole thread in the chat. I just feel like he goes through a lot of this stuff where he's just like, you know. It's not about saying the right thing and gotcha, and I proclaim the truth really loud and in your face. Don't treat your family. Like, someone on Fox News or CNN, like, you know, when you watch, like, CNN and all those people gather around the table, Abby Phillips, and they're all trying to dunk, and they're trying to score points.

That's not what the Thanksgiving dinner should be like. Exactly. And so, these are really helpful hints, I think. Somebody had done a video about a month or two ago, kind of breaking down. The great way in which Charlie Kirk would debate people on campus, they'd come in really hot, and he would just, like, try to find that Where was there a place where the two of them could find some sort of common agreement, and then kind of build from that, and then try to get the person to open their eyes to see a different point of view?

And I think this Matt fellow was along the same lines. Really, it's like, it almost has to be like, you know, de-escalation in some ways, you know, like, de-escalate. Because it's so much passion, right? Yeah, so many feelings come out. And in a lot, I think in a lot of situations I've been in with relatives, The feelings, like, just, that's what actually starts the conversation, is like, they're just sitting and sitting and sitting, and then all of a sudden, it's like, poof.

And this one line drops, and I think, Josh, you're right. The first approach has to be a de-escalation, like choosing the shared value, like trying to help them identify where you're on the same page, just to cool it off a little bit. And like you said, I think a lot of us who spend our time doom-scrolling on the phones, who are more interested in politics, we're going to have all these gotcha moments, like Michael Knowles at the bar fight, and we're like, oh, if only I could come up with that line.

But forgetting that the point of Thanksgiving with our relatives is to rebuild and reinforce those real human relationships that God has put in our lives. And when we go in with the goodwill, a lot of the people who are on the no-king side, who are on the blue hairs and all that, they don't experience a lot of goodwill or empathy or just people listening to them, like how they got to where they are. We tried to talk about this in the deep episode on why the boomers are all at the No Kings protests, that I think Thanksgiving is such a wonderful opportunity for us to sit and listen in many ways, and with these leading questions, or, but here's where I'm coming from, with empathy, this could be a really beautiful afternoon tomorrow.

It doesn't have to be this thing that we dread every year. Yeah, and his point was, like he said, the goal isn't to win. Right, yes. It's to plant one seed and to try to help them and see if they can't open their eyes a little bit and make them think anew about things. So, that's always been sort of my approach, too. It's like, I don't necessarily try to win someone over right on the spot, just to try to make them go, I hadn't thought of that.

I hadn't thought of it that way before. So, then you can build on that in future things. When it comes to conversions to the faith, I always think it is the Holy Spirit who is the author of all conversions, so it is not really up to me to make sure that this person is saved. You know what I mean? So, my only goal is to be a faithful witness to Jesus and to tell people what is going on and then allow the Holy Spirit to work in their hearts.

But actually, it is very similar on politics. Honestly, it is not necessarily my goal. ...to churn someone who's like, you know, like a hard, die-in-the-wool lefty. But the thing is, the left has radicalized their people in the last 25 years, and it is sort of like the frog in slowly boiling water. All of a sudden, we as conservatives have woken up and we're like, we haven't actually changed too much. I mean, a conservative in 2025 is really not... That different than 2005.

I mean, political things, like, we're less, don't focus too much on the foreign policy. The whole point is, like, for the most part, we're patriotic. We, you know. Yeah, I would disagree. Hold on a second. In some ways. I mean, I'm trying to get to a longer, like, 65, 85, 2005 to 2025. We are still patriotic. We still believe that, you know. If you committed a crime, you should be put in jail, you know, not given 30 times, you know, or 70 times slapped on the wrist, and you're given no probation.

But, like, the left has suddenly embraced so many things, like, you know, if a five-year-old suddenly wants to identify as a, you know, a boy who wants to be a girl, you know, if a 16-year-old boy wants to play girls' volleyball, they're starting to believe a lot of things, like, that truly, just 20 years ago, would have been thought of as extremely radical. Right. You know? Yeah, I think for, like, I observed that also on the abortion issue, right? So, I have, like, liberal, more liberal relatives and friends who, 30 years ago, they were all on the bandwagon for safe, legal, and rare, right?

They just, they're like, yeah, it's a horrible thing. It's a terrible tragedy. We just need these, like, little carve-outs for these horrible situations because we have so much empathy for these women. Whereas these same people who were saying that 30 years ago, they will, without... Any compunction, be like, no limits, abortion is good, and in fact, Jesus loves abortion. I'm like, how did you get here from there? So, I think what Josh is saying, on that alone, and also the trans stuff, like people who 30 years ago, if you'd said boys can turn into girls, they would have been like, what are you talking about?

Today, they come to visit, and they're like, yes, they can. Yeah, or like even free speech. I mean, like, you know, they would... Those are radical changes. They're the ones in the 1980s who were saying, like... You know, explicit pornography has to be considered free speech. We have to have free speech for everything, and then you're like, okay. And then today, they're like, oh, we should debank people who have inappropriate political positions. It's like, whoa.

Okay, yeah, I agree on your fundamental point. I agree on your fundamental point. The fundamental point I'm trying to get at is we just try to de-escalate. Yeah, but I think to combine both of those things, people don't care what you have to say if they don't like you. If they feel like you do not care about them, whatever you say is not going to matter. I agree. The Ben Shapiro effect perfectly put out here is like, it does not feel like he actually cares about me as an American.

It doesn't care about my shows. The thing about not being able to live where you grew up, it's like, why would you even say... I understand if you want to make an intellectual point or whatever. But the intellectual point is not going to land for people if they don't understand that you're coming from a place of empathy and that you care, and that's why I think the Trump thing was so crazy, like a revolutionary thought. Like, you come out and you say, what are you doing here, Josh?

Well, we have show and tell. I used to work at the Leadership Institute about 25 years ago for a man named Morton Blackwell, and he has this thing called laws of the public policy process, and some of them he literally just gets from, you know. Political, other political advisors, he has a quote from St. Augustine in here, you know. Nice. They're just, you know, and so he's like, never give a bureaucrat a chance to say no. That's one of his, that's number one.

I love that. He says, don't get mad except on purpose. Like, that's good. I should learn from that a little bit. Yeah, I could definitely learn from that. So, these are a lot of these things, like a well-run movement takes care of its own. Don't make the perfect the enemy of the good, you know. So, you can actually just Google this. Go, the laws of the public policy process by Morton Blackwell. And, like, at the end, the last one is literally St.

Augustine. It's pray as if it all depended on God, work as if it all depended on you. But one of those that I thought of as you started talking about this, Tom, was number 42 in the laws of the public policy process. Politics is of the heart as well as of the mind. Many people don't care how much you know until they know how much you care.

I think that's true, and I think this is like, this is like the... Stone cold, 180 degree opposite of Ben Shapiro. Ben Shapiro is the fact you don't care about your feelings. I detest that with every single fiber of my body, because we are... That's bad advice. I mean, it's like, it's very much Greek-informed and Jewish-informed, but it's not Christian-informed, and I'm not trying to make a religious fight, but it is a theological difference that we have with them, and the point is...

You know, God created us, body and soul. You know, like, we're not just, you know, we're not androids. We're not Commander Data here on Star Trek or whatever. Like, you know, just having the right answer alone isn't necessarily enough to get the job done, to wait your fellow countrymen to try to do something else. Sometimes you have to inspire. Sometimes you have to lead. Sometimes you have to be willing to sacrifice. Sometimes you have to show empathy, like you actually care for other people.

You know, it's hard because I don't really care for anyone, but, you know, this is the idea. I think, just briefly, to go back to the Trump point, what he did was so revolutionary. He just went to middle America and said, I care about you. I want to represent you. I love you. And I think, even with all of my issues, and as of recent, feel like some betrayals, his approval numbers are still sky high, way higher than Congress. And people are confused about that, and I still think the smartest thing he ever did was to Was just go to middle America, the people that had been totally tossed aside.

The forgotten man, you're saying? The forgotten man, and just said, I'm here to represent you. What do you want? And then they spoke, and that was the first time they'd been spoken to in so long. Okay, so the empathy question is a big deal, because if you look at the last several presidential elections, empathy is not always the only reason, but it is a major factor. Go back to 1992. A lot of people had a problem with Bill Clinton, because he was a draft dodger.

He seemed like he smoked pot. You know, and people still were wary about Democrats because they had destroyed the economy in the 70s, so like, I don't know about this guy, but he goes, I feel your pain, you know, so people are like, okay. He sounded like he did. And then there's Bobby Bush looking at his wristwatch, and everyone's like, ah, okay. You know, and then, so that made a difference. He won, you know, and I don't think Barack Obama was especially empathetic, but it was that, you know, John McCain and certainly Mitt Romney felt like.

Mitt Romney, look at the kind of guy who came in and shut down your factory, and you'd lose your job, because that was the kind of guy he was, literally. Empathy is a big thing, and people did not think that Hillary Clinton was a warm, fuzzy bear who cared for you, and Donald Trump... Never got those vibes from her.

It's more like Imperial March vibes. Yeah, I think the one thing I would add to Matt Vinswell's thing here, too, is this is... This is all really, really good advice for those four or five hours you're in the rooms together for Thanksgiving tomorrow, but a big part of empathy, too, and being genuine, not just being like, okay, I'm going to be empathetic for three hours. Here I go.

Is to also have like some kind of follow-up plan. So, you know, if you do get into a conversation, and it is invariably cut short by a vomiting child, for example, or like you have to leave, or it's time now to switch, or everyone else comes into the room and you get cut off, I would just really encourage everyone, if something like that does start, like follow up, maybe Sunday, and say, hey, I really enjoyed getting to see you. I liked, you know, our conversation.

Sorry, we got cut off. But I'd really like to hear more about where you're coming from, so let's get together, maybe over Christmas or something, and continue to rebuild and heal those relationships in that way. Yeah, no pressure, but just a thought to make your empathy truly genuine instead of like, I'm going to be empathetic on Thanksgiving. Well, part of it is that both sides right now think the other side is insane, and how could they have possibly gotten to the position that they think?

Yeah, right. And so, the fact of the matter is. Well, conservatives should at least have a little bit more humility and understanding. It's not actually that crazy that half the country would have followed the left, given that they control Hollywood, they control almost all of the mainstream media, they control academia. So, given that they have all this power at their disposal, the fact that we're actually competitive. That we exist. Josh, that's not true anymore because Trump jawboned Warner Brothers and they're making Rush Hour 4.

No way. Breaking news. You heard it right here. I think the grip has been broken on Hollywood. I think the spell has been broken. Trump is getting buddy cops back into Hollywood. Oh, my gosh. Yeah, but we do have more on the show. Okay, I have a little more. Just because I'm grateful for you guys, I wanted to give you the platform because I just want you to give me some good mansplaining going into Thanksgiving here, but I have a rapid fire.

Things you are most grateful for tomorrow. Two of my favorite guys on the planet. Todd, you are number one always and everywhere. Dad, you're always number two, and maybe you guys are in the top ten. But what are you most grateful for? So, I'm going to give you a topic, and I want you to give me your answer. Ready? All right, so thankful.

Plot twist of the year. Looking back over the last year, was there a plot twist in your life, in politics, in the church, in sports, that you are so grateful for going into tomorrow? Plot twist. Plot twist of the year. I am thankful for, you know, the election of American Pope. That was a plot twist. Yeah, that was a plot twist. I was like, what? And I have to say, we really disappointed, you know, we'll see, but we disappointingly reacted live to that one.

If I look back, I'm like, I actually feel bad, but we kind of had the rug pulled on us because there was like that hit piece from New York. It felt like they were propping him up as the next, you know, liberal, whatever, and then he comes out, and I thought that the guy announcing it was the Pope, and that was wrong, and then it ended up being Pope Leo.

I don't think my initial assessment was way off. Okay. But it was a plot twist. That's the unfiltered Thanksgiving. That's a loop cast. That was my plot twist for the year. It was the American Pope. Pogo, what's up? Where did it all turn around for you? Plot twist.

All right, reverse. I think that many of the things that we're debating now... Are healthy, necessary, and even though may seem frustrating, I think do move us forward as a movement for, you know, what we want America to be.

Example. So, when I think about this show and, like, what we really were debating, it was, like, should we mutilate and... Pump kids full of drugs, and then punish people who think that that's wrong? Like, that was a serious, like, conversation not long ago under the Biden administration.

Like, the things we were debating then, I feel like, had already been so well established as, like, this is insane and evil, and I can't believe this is something that, like, the president would be doing. And we won. I mean, like, really, we won a true common-sense referendum election. That being said, you know, I think the Republican Party has found that it's harder to govern than run against something that evil and that, you know, that obvious, I think, to people. And I almost would say, like, that issues, those issues have been settled, and so I'm glad that we don't have to kind of re-litigate them over and over again.

I think it's just, it's done. I think we have real... Debates on the horizon for what we do with AI, how that affects the younger generation, our foreign policy going forward. Are we going to continue down this death spiral of just continuing to be involved in wars in the Middle East? Is that the future of conservatism? I'm happy we're having that debate now. I actually really am. I think that that's a really good and healthy thing for the country.

You know, a path forward for immigration in terms of H-1B visas, jobs, like, all those are very frustrating to me, but that's near and dear to my heart as a young American that wants to have, you know, a bright future, careers, be able to afford homes, affordability, that kind of thing. Like, these are the things we should be arguing about. It's like, we don't have to do these kind of obvious, you know, side, like, I'm always, abortion's evil, it's wrong. Up to the second of birth.

That's what Democrats are promising. That's wrong. It's almost nice we don't have to hash those out anymore. It's like, that's been settled. We're not even having that debate right now. It's at the states, Roe v. Wade, awesome. So, I actually have, as challenging as it's been to try to get my point of view across to this audience of people in my personal life, and a lot of them have been very confusing, upsetting, etc., I think it's really healthy for the country, and I'm happy that we're having these debates now.

I think it's long overdue. Yep. Awesome plot twist. Mine was something that actually kind of like started stewing about a year ago, but Brian Birch becoming ambassador to the Holy See. Oh, yeah. Oh, my gosh. That was just a plot twist in my whole life. I think all of us had a... Yeah, I never would have expected that. Pretty awesome. Okay. It didn't affect me much. No, you're fine, Josh. Josh is like, it's fine. We're all fine.

That was crazy. Yeah, I can't. That was crazy. Okay. Your favorite, we're most thankful for your favorite parasocial relationship. So, parasocial, that's where you like somebody, and they have no idea you exist. Yeah, like, I just, like, this isn't mine, but for example, the ladies always seem to say, Father Mike Schmitz, my favorite parasocial relationship. Uh-oh, you're going to be wading into controversy. Okay, so you're not saying that for sure. No, no, no, I'm not. All right.

So, someone you follow, someone you look up to and listen, but they don't know you exist. Oh, gosh. Well, I like the Vice President of the United States. I think he does a phenomenal job, and he articulates things so brilliantly and well, and he doesn't know who I am. He knows who Brian is, but he doesn't know who I am. I like it. J.D. Vance. All right, that's a good one. Pogo, you got one?

Oh, boy. I don't. I've never thought like that. That's interesting for me to... I mean, it's just like an admiration for public figures, kind of how I saw it. Admiration for a public figure? Yeah. The problem is you know who I am, so... Yeah, true. Josh Mercer.

Who does a good job? I'm trying to think. Oh, well... Not to sidestep, because I know there's a lot of polarizing figures out there. I really like Anthony Esselin. Yeah. Anthony Esselin is total, just like... The real deal. He's the real deal. He's articulate. I love how he engages on Twitter. Like, he doesn't use it how everyone else uses it. He just puts out really profound thoughts and doesn't play the game, and then we'll just write a banger article, you know?

So, I would say I definitely admire him, and I appreciate... Oh, there is this other guy, OWRoot on Twitter, and he lives in Michigan, and he writes for something called the Michigan Enjoyer, and he just takes cool film pictures. He talks about small things in life that he really appreciates, like walks on the beach with his kids, and it has kind of got a poetic vibe to him. I think as everything has gotten more rabid, I am appreciating people that are able to...

Not make that their whole personality and still kind of appreciate the beautiful things about life. And as a photographer, too. I'm like, wow, I think this guy's... Creative and poetic. So, O.W. Root, good follow on Twitter. Yeah, he's pretty awesome. Yeah, I was going to do... So, until a couple weeks ago, Katie Faust was like... I just loved watching her. I could watch any talk she gave, any interview she gave, but then I actually got to meet her virtually and do an interview with her.

So, super grateful for that parasocial relationship that turned into an actual interview. You can go check it out. Yeah, that was a really good one. Yeah, she's challenging Obergefell. I'm, like, here for that. Yeah, she's our girl. Very grateful for her. Okay, I'm going to skip ahead here. How about one book besides the Bible this year that you are grateful for? One book, could be a long-form essay, something that really made you stop and think this year, helped shape your... This year.

Yes. Yeah. Okay, Josh can go find it. I'll do it quick. He's looking at the shelf. Everyone in the show is aware when I'm reading a book because I talk about it all the time. I read an 800-page book about Theodore Roosevelt, The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt by Edmund Morris. Fantastic read.

It was just such an easy read. It was written so well. A lot came from his personal diary. Yeah, that is probably my favorite book of the year. Love it. Josh, you got one? He is like, there are so many.

I mean, I think I have just – my favorite of the last few years has just been Consecration of St. Joseph, but it is not just this year. Father – Calloway, he's a friend of mine, so he writes in a style I really just gel with.

That's great. Hey, if it's good, we're grateful for it. I love it. Erika, is it going to be something long and depressing? Yes, I am grateful. Dostoevsky wasn't out there. Yeah, right, exactly. Dostoevsky wasn't dark enough, so I picked up Against the Machine by Paul Kingsnorth.

Kingsnorth from England. Greatest name of all time, maybe? Yes, it is the greatest name of all time, and it was perfectly, is a perfect name for a guy. After Ross. Right? Is that the guy Ross interviewed? Yes, The Unmaking of Humanity. I loved the book, and in fact, one of the reasons I'm so grateful for it is because I think he went so dark on how bad... Things are and will be, and there's nothing you can do except rain dances in the woods.

That was literally the conclusion. I was grateful because I felt like, you know, I have a pretty sunny disposition. I'm pretty optimistic and hopeful about the future compared to Paul Kingsnorth, but I loved that book. He articulated a lot of different... He resurrected the Luddites in my thinking. Oh, yeah. I discovered the Luddites this year. That was sick. Yeah, totally. Okay, last one. The meme... That lives rent-free in your head, the meme you are grateful for, because when you are at a loss for words, this image, this meme, just captures all the feels.

Pogo, do you have a favorite? Do you have a favorite meme? The meme. Well, my favorite meme of all time has always been the one where the dudes, you know... Got the glasses. It's a cartoon. He's looking at you, and he's just saying, wow, I mean, I don't believe any of this Christian stuff, but I know what you do, so I'm hoping that by quoting the Bible, you'll agree with everything I believe and stand for.

That one's awesome, and it comes up a lot. I like, my favorite is Dana Carvey, church lady, just her face. It's like, well, isn't that special? And I just, I often paste that on my Twitter page. Isn't that special? The unpopular opinions one is good. Is that the Rockwell?

Stand up. I'm going to disappoint, because I have many that I enjoy, but I can't think of any. I did not sleep very much last night, but I'm grateful for the reason that I didn't sleep last night, because I love my kids, yeah.

Oh, I thought you went gambling at the casino. Yeah, yeah, right. I was smoking at the bar. All right. Okay, so that is it. That is our Thanksgiving special, and Tom's reason for his sleep deprivation status brings us perfectly to B-Block. Oh, yeah, but before we get into that, I would like to just say, I would like to brag about my family briefly. I am going back to my family, whom I love very much. My mom does listen to the podcast.

She might not be up to date. She listens to me, yeah. For Josh. So, we went from, in 2020... I have four brothers. Three of us got married. We now have nine grandchildren from my grandparents between 20 and 25, going back to my mom's house and my dad's house, and I do want to say this because I've been thinking a lot about how grateful I am, and we're doing a lot of discussions about affordability and how tough it is out there for young people coming up or whatever, and I think back on my life.

And, you know, my parents, their entire lives since having my older brother, Alex, revolved around, you know, what was best for their children. And my dad, I know in particular, made a lot of sacrifices so that he would be home with us when he was a teacher. And in the summer, he wasn't working another job, or my mom would pick up something extra to help afford stuff. And then, so I had a fantastic upbringing. They transferred their faith. Very well to me, something that I really cherish now.

I went to a college that I loved and felt was really formative, and I had a great experience at, and I realized, talking to people, that they didn't have that. And I met my wife there, who I'm super grateful for. I met her when I was 18. And love her very much, and then we have two beautiful children now, and I even think about, you know, my kind of launch into adulthood, even though COVID was my senior year of high school or senior year of college, my parents, like without the help of my parents or certain family members of just small financial things that really just can make or break, you know, whether something is possible or not possible.

You know, I work this job with my wife. My wife has an awesome wedding photography. She's super talented. I love working with her, but when we go to shoot weddings in Chicago or Detroit, my parents or her parents watch the kids, and then I look at how much they love on our kids, and my kids now really enjoy being with their cousins, and so I get fired up because I speak, I feel like, on behalf of people in my generation, but I do sit back and realize I'm in the 1% of 1% of some of the luckiest people in the world.

Like, I just, I have... Wonderful family on both sides of my family. Every time we get together for Thanksgiving, no matter the side, even if people politically disagree, I feel like there's so much more we do agree on than disagree on, and everyone is there because they love each other. And it makes me really sad to hear there's this phenomena of kind of quiet, what do they call it, quitting on your family or no contact or something like that, because I can't imagine.

You know, going through a holiday season without my wonderful family, and I'm proud of my brothers, who also are raising, you know, this beautiful Catholic family. It's open to life. My brother, Marcus, in particular, just graduated fire school in Detroit, and he had a long, winding path to where he is with four kids and his wife. He's a firefighter? Yeah, he's a firefighter now, and his wife is a nurse, so I appreciate both of them, you know, because I think I might see them, but they might have to work, and so I appreciate people that work during.

Thanksgiving. So, when I speak about these angry young men, I know some of them. I am very grateful that because I have such a wonderful family, I'm not one of them. I'm frustrated about certain things, but I'm just one of the luckiest guys in the world in so many different ways. So, I just feel like I have to say that, and hopefully people feel the same way. They can just sit back and think about how grateful they are. So, grateful for you guys, of course.

I mean, yeah. Grateful for you guys. Yeah. Great witness, Tom. Love that. It's not up to me. And then I also have the... Like, I'm also grateful for the ability to look and see about how it's so much bigger than myself, and how none of this is really due to any of my own efforts in any way. Like, so much of it is just through, like, the grace of God, and the faithfulness of my parents, and the faithfulness of my wife, and it's really humbling to, like, I'm happy that I have that perspective, because it just makes me, you know, appreciate it so much more.

Like, I just feel Yeah. So, grateful. So, happy Thanksgiving season to everyone on the show. Thanksgiving is such a humbling holiday. It is a humble holiday. I think that is why I love it so much. Yeah. Awesome. Okay. Well, I guess the opposite of this. You brought up this Brad Wilcox study, and I thought it was very interesting, to say the least. What are we looking at here? Yeah. So, the left has a family problem. We have been touching on these themes already today.

But this is a study that just came out from the Institute for Family Studies, and we're really witnessing here, to just quote from the article, really well written, a lot of banger lines, we're witnessing the real-world consequences of an ideological divide where the right prioritizes marriage and childbearing, and the left discounts them in fertility and population shifts across America. And you will see up on the screen... And therefore... Oh, and therefore...

Well, I mean, that's literally the graph. I mean, you can see it. Like, the states that have Trump voters have shown an increase by 7.3% in the number of children, and in blue states, that over the same 24-year period has gone down 7%. So, the number of children in those states.

Yeah, that's just astonishing. We talk about the K-shaped economy. This is like the K-shaped fertility phenomenon. And there's a couple more graphs here. It's a really fascinating article. So, they look at marriage rates, and they look at fertility rates. Marriage rates have declined for all Americans since the 1980s. That's the line that we hear a lot when we're talking about these studies, but this one breaks it out. So, we see the drop is far steeper among liberals than conservatives. So, we see the states up on the screen right now, but if you look at liberals versus conservatives nationwide, the same phenomenon occurs.

Among women ages 25 to 30, About 44% of liberals have ever married versus roughly 60% of conservatives. That is a 16-point gap. Again, same kind of case shape. Among men the same age, only about 35% of liberal men have ever married compared to 57% of conservative men. That is a 22-point gap. Parenthood has fallen sharply among liberal young adults. For women, the share who have had a child dropped from 60% in the 1980s. to roughly 40% today, but conservative women, we still remain around 71%.

All right, so why is all this happening? What is going on? I think we all have our theories about this. The authors of the study say that the bigger point, one of the reasons is that the new media on the right is continuing to build this family-first plausibility structure that now competes with the left's less-than-family-friendly messaging, to put it mildly, in the mainstream media, the ivory tower, online.

In the rights plausibility structure, family is idealized, and conservatives are exposed to values and virtues that are supposed to make marriages strong and stable, whereas on the other hand, we have what they call the Midas mindset of the left, which presents young people who are in that silo or that bubble with this prioritizing money, education, and career. Work is viewed as the source and summit of a meaningful and happy life. Focusing on love, marriage, and starting a family, by contrast, does not merit nearly the same devotion.

I would posit the money thing. I mean, it is only money insofar as it allows them to do the things that they want to do, like they are going on vacations or having independence. They are actually probably less, quote, greedy than you would think of people who are just trying to go for jobs. But the overall point, I am not going to nitpick.

Yeah, for sure. And I think that... That study that came out earlier this fall about Kamala Harris voters among women, that they ranked getting married and having children dead last. They had other goods above that that weren't necessarily just making money, but it was being able to do the things I want to do, having money so that I can do what I want to do, having a fulfilling job or career. We're well above marriage and family.

Because they want to be able to fly to Paris on a weekend or something like that. Can I ask a question? I mean, I get it. Seeing the percentages, it feels like there had to have been some defections, so people that maybe would have considered, because when I think liberal, I think progressive values, and maybe at the time.

20 years ago or something like that, progressive values weren't what progressive values are now. I guess that's kind of the danger of progressive as it keeps moving. And it feels like now, or at least for most of my life, I don't know what wave of feminism we're on now, but the entire message pushed was, you are the same as a man. You should go to college, you should compete for the best possible job, so you have the freedom to be promiscuous if you want to.

You could theoretically do whatever you want, but, you know. A lot of that stuff is still there, but it is just that overall, eventually, people would start to have families. So, if you look at the difference in fertility, you know, in 2000 between liberals and conservatives, it really isn't that much. It is really, but in the 20 years since then, that is where you have seen this divergence. Yeah. So, you know, I think part of it is that people look for, people also, you know, again, it's, I do think people like, well, wait a minute now, I can have a career, you know, these, I can date whoever wants to, but then if I don't get married and I don't have kids, then I have more independence and I can go on vacations and do all this other stuff.

So, there is that element of it. I also think part of it is that Sometimes, like, again, we had the climate crisis thing that kind of, you know, the talking point, right? So, the whole world is going to go, you know, completely defunct if we don't do something about it, which I think that got a lot of salience as a way, a lot of people like that because it sort of justifies their not wanting to have children. Like, why would I want to bring a kid into the world if, you know, the world is going to, you know, end in 25 years or whatever else?

So, again, it's some of that doomsday stuff. But here is by religion, too. Did they break this down by religion, Erika? Not in this study. They did not go into religious convictions, but you can correlate it with other studies of just religiosity in general being a more right-coded phenomenon right now. Right. You can sure do that. I mean, if you go down here, Tom, there is a link I have about making them miserable. This is where it really gets scary for me.

We have unmarried, childless, liberal women are increasingly... We know that the highest reports of happiness come from people who are married with children. Take a look at these lines. So, the top line on the graph, married with children, they report a 93% happy or exceptionally happy. That is a percentage of people who call them, say they are happy. That they are happy is 93% married with children, compared with 63% of unmarried and childless. And, of course, all the different conglomerations of...

Family and having children or not being married and all that, that falls somewhere in between the two. But that divergence alone, it is jaw-dropping, and it shows why this is so very important. I did want to just touch on Josh bringing up the climate doomsayers as part of this.

The reason we're seeing the K-shape infertility in marriage is because, contrary to some statements that I've heard, pregnancy is sort of contagious as a social contagion, right? If you're in a group where every message on every topic has some thread of hopefulness about the future, it has some sort of stability, some sort of contact with people who are happy with children, You're going to be more likely to make choices in that direction, and I think that the polarization in our country politically, the algorithms that feed that in our online lives, especially since 2008 with the advent of the smartphone, that's why we're seeing this sort of almost, it's not violent, but it's extreme divergence here in fertility as well.

It makes sense, right? I thought you were going to talk about physical location, though. Because I think that's also true. Think about if your entire social scene is New York City socialites, and having a child means basically divorcing yourself from said social scene, you're probably not going to do it, or you're not going to be as, you'll freeze your eggs, you'll do it later in life. I know plenty of people that are in this situation, but that's why I think the religiosity is...

Kind of telling because if you go to a church, there's lots of kids in it. That's your social scene. Right, you're like, oh, we can do this too. Right, and it's something that like, oh, this is a normal thing to do. Most studies show that women who aspire to have children, they want to have three. They want to have three or even more. This was in Hannah's Children by Pakaluk, and most women never achieve that because obviously our average birth rate is 1.6.

And I think a big part of that divergence, the discrepancy between the desired family size and actual family size, is we just don't see that as being, a lot of communities don't see that as plausible anymore. And so, they don't have it, or they marry later, etc., etc. Those divergences happen on the conservative side of things, too. My wife wanted 10 and ended up with 6, so, I mean. I know, it's so disappointing.

Shoot for the stars. Yeah, that's right. You miss you land on the moon. That was beautiful, Pogo. Thank you. I got bars on deck for that. That would be my Thanksgiving dinner, just speaking like a fortune cookie. Yeah, so bring all your kids to Thanksgiving and hand the baby to the young Gen X guys, or Gen X, oh my gosh, that's you, Josh. Okay, here's the thing, though. Gen Z guys who are there who want kids, yeah. And again, people are on me about my wedding take, my wedding take about children, which I'm not even against children at weddings.

I was making a very niche point, but people did not understand that. I'm okay, you're okay, whatever you want for your wedding is okay. Yes, I think the way you design your wedding is up to you. So, my other thing, until I had children of my own, I was not comfortable holding other people's kids. I don't know if that is a dude thing, but I was like, it is not me. Even my brothers had kids before me, and I was like.

I'm not going out of my way to, like, hold this child. No, I'm not. I'm like, I just didn't feel, I didn't grow up around toddlers or anything like that, so I was like, oh, what if I break it? You still feel that way about other people's kids? No, not, well, no, but. So now you're just like, I'm the man. I can do the baby thing. Well, I had kids. I had kids of my own, so I was like, it felt immediately natural when I had my own kids, and I'm like, okay.

But before, I was kind of a little bit like, ah, you know, it's all good, because women, like, will fight over, can I hold your baby? I'm like, it's all good. I can be from afar. In a joy? I don't know. That's a cute baby. Josh is looking at me like he's like, I hold all the children.

Yeah, exactly. You're big. I love old kids, yeah. They love me. Big teddy bear. Oh, wait, did I even know? That's not true. Someone's trying to get on me about the fortune cookie line. It said, shoot for the moon, and even if you miss, you'll be among the stars. That's not true. If you shoot for the stars, because the stars are farther than the moon, then you land on the moon. That's just astronomy. Okay, good news, Erika. You're up. All right, well, I had to do it.

We have great news for two turkeys here. Trump's just so cute. He's adorbs. But it got a little spicy at the turkey pardoning this year. There's been a lot of seditious, like, hanging talk. Seditious sex, yeah. Yeah, a lot of murder talk lately. The turkeys being pardoned today go by the names of Gobble and Waddle.

When I first saw their pictures, I thought we should send them, well, I shouldn't say this. I was going to call them Chuck and Nancy. But then I realized I wouldn't be pardoning them. I would never pardon those two people. Oh, my gosh.

I wouldn't pardon them. I wouldn't care what Melania told me. Darling, I think it would be a nice thing to do. I won't do it, darling. Darling. Oh, my gosh. I just, you know, I got to say it. I say it every year. Harry Truman started doing this. He pardoned the turkeys. I'm like, no! Don't pardon the turkeys.

The highest end of a turkey is to end up on a big Thanksgiving spread. That is the telos of the turkey. Do not deprive the turkey of its final end. Yes, come on. It would be so on the nose if one of these years you just did it. You know, fry them!

Yeah. Are you a fried, smoked, or roasted kind of guy, Josh? I love smoked, but my wife does not like it. Now we're getting Josh cooking. Oh, wow. It's a big sacrifice for you. It is. Do you do two? Some people do two, like, different ways, you know.

Like, I would love that. But, yeah, so, you know, her... You know, I'm eating with the in-laws, and so my father-in-law's wonderful wife is a great cook, and I love it. So, I have no complaints. Okay. That's a good attitude. I hope she's listening and appreciates that. And strong thoughts on, I brought it up earlier, but the AP released a video saying that per the CDC or whatever, you should not wash your turkey.

I don't give a rip about anything the AP says. Yeah. So, people do wash their turkeys, and that's why this blew up on Twitter. You rinse it in a nice little cold bath, and you pat it dry. Then you stick it in brine for three days. My turkey is taking a nice warm bath right now in apple cider, beer. AP, AP. It's so good. AP, not thrilled with what Erika's got going on. And when it comes to turkey, when it comes to chicken, I always prefer the dark meat.

Oh, that's, I mean, that's just a, I mean, I'd be, I would be skeptical of you if you're saying light meat is better. It's obviously dark meat. But most Americans, the opposite. I don't understand. What? No, of course. Did you get that from the AP? No, no, no. Honestly, you look at the numbers. People out here prefer. I don't understand it. I could see if you do a little bit of both. That's what I'd do. Because you want, you know, you know what I'm saying, you get a little bit of both.

Yeah, yeah, I like a little bit of both. On the same side on this one. But to prefer white is crazy. I mean, certainly for chicken. People pretending to be healthy, they don't really, like, you can't really prefer the white. They do, though, so I can't understand it. Like, for example, you go to KFC, and they'll charge you, it's cheaper to get dark meat.

Yeah, because isn't it, like, not as high quality of a cut or something like that? There's something to it. I'll take it. But no one cares. Who cares? Right, that's what I'm saying. Who cares? Do you have any controversial Thanksgiving food takes?

Me? Yep. I mean, I just like it traditional. You know, like... The thing that drives me crazy is when people are like, why don't we do wild rice, you know, all these other weird things, and it's like my mom. She likes to do weird stuff. And so, when my mom, she always would bake stuff, and so my other relatives, I actually kind of respected them. They would smuggle in the other stuff. My mom would be like, you don't have to make anything.

Smuggle. They're like, no, because they can't imagine Thanksgiving dinner without, like, potatoes, and she's like, my mom would use that as an experience to try to tell people, there's other things you can eat. My mom, mom, you're ruining Thanksgiving. What are you doing?

There are 364 other dinners a year for that. No, no, no, no. My quick take is I think that stuffing is like french fries. If you try to make it too fancy, it's no longer good. I'm talking like out of the box.

The cheaper, the better. People try to do too much. Just run the damn ball. Keep it simple. But to the stuffing out of the bag, you must add a little sausage, and if you're like a hot and spicy, a little hot Italian sausage, a little sweet Italian sausage, throw it in there. Love it. And a little fresh sage, just a little fresh. Josh's real favorite meme. I'll allow it of the teacher from community. He uses that all the time internally. I can't believe he didn't say that.

I just thought of it now. I'll allow it. The Asian guy from community, Leslie Chow in The Hangover. Okay, Josh, do you have good news? Nah. I mean, I passed. No, no, it's all good. I got one. You can pass. I got one.

People are saying they're Googling the quote on the moon, and this is now making me mad. I know. The chat is really into this fortune cookie. If that is the quote according to Google, it is wrong, and then you can create a new quote and then change my wiki or whatever, and then that can become the new quote when people put it out there because it is wrong. All right? It is. Yeah, Dan Campbell, your Thanksgiving. Thank you. Someone appreciates my love for the Lions.

Good news is, well, actually, I don't know if it's good news. We'll see how they play. I'm nervous about Thursday. Anyway, my good news is Jonathan Haidt's suggestion for Thanksgiving, turn your phone off. Just turn your phone off. There is no reason for it to be on. You do not need to see anyone else. You are with your family. No one needs to get to you. Shut your phone off. So, he released these studies. It is a reminder that the person in front of you, in the room with you, is made in the image of God.

Let us go, people. So, two studies came out. When young people quit or reduce social media for as little as one week, their anxiety and depression drops. One with no control group was written up in the New York Times, but this other, much more rigorous, was conducted by Meta and then buried under what is called Project Mercury, and here is a passage.

In 2020, research project codenamed Project Mercury, meta-scientists worked with a survey firm, Nielsen, to gauge the effect of deactivating Facebook, according to meta-documents obtained via discovery, to the company's disappointment. People who stopped using Facebook for a week reported lower feelings of depression.

anxiety, loneliness, and social comparison, which is like the least shocking news of all time, right? We need to study for this. Rather than publishing these findings or pursuing additional research, the filing states Medic called off further work and internally declared that the negative study findings were tainted by the existing media narrative around the company. Oh my gosh. Of course. Why am I not surprised? Okay, so my wife will send me something occasionally. She's like, Check out this thing I saw on Facebook, and so she sends it to me as a text message, and I said, I deleted Facebook.

I deleted Instagram from my phone. I don't want this stuff. Now, I have X or Twitter or whatever just to follow the news, but even then, when I'm done with work, I want to watch a show with my kids or exercise or do something like read a book or something. I'm on the computer all day anyway. I don't need to be on it.

So, I try. I'm not perfect, but, you know. Good news is, it's exactly what you thought, and all you have to do is gain the self-discipline. So, to think about what... So, think about what Meta just did there. They basically just discovered the equivalent of cigarettes are bad for you, and then they're like, but we're not going to tell people that. They know, and their entire business model is they work with psychologists to try to use gambling technology to keep you hooked on negative feedback.

You're addicted, right? You are playing against the odds if you're engaging in that, and then to think about that's in your pocket all the time is insane. So, some very common sense things you can do. We're not sponsored. Please go get a sponsor by this. Brick is fantastic. It's a physical brick you can put on your fridge, and if you tap your phone to it, it will lock stuff that you don't want access to. You could also just delete it, but brick is nice because it allows you to kind of customize.

So, then your phone still operates if someone wants to call you. Phone still operates what you want it to operate. So, like, when I brick, it's just phone, text, I think I have Spotify, FaceTime, and like, you know, just a couple notes app, just a couple things. And it just helps you build up self-discipline, because a lot of us are already addicted. And I go in phases. I'll be good for three months, and then something will happen. I want something on Facebook Marketplace, and I get sucked in again.

And you need these little props to help you. Facebook Marketplace. What is with it? I do love Facebook Marketplace. I will say that. It's awesome. But then you get to be hooked into the whole app, which I don't want. Anyway. So, that's my second recommendation, because it should just be off your phone. That should just be table stakes. The second, of course, is with your computer, because you have to work and everything. There are a couple great extensions I started to use.

One is called Unhook. It takes away the algorithmic feeds from YouTube, so you can use YouTube for research, and which I do for the show. And then there's another one. It's called Unhook. It's a browser extension. I use it all the time now. And then there's one called Distractify. I believe it's Distractify. I will find that and get it to you guys, but it basically allows you to take away all of the algorithmic feeds from Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, Reddit, Netflix, LinkedIn, Instagram, Pinterest, and what was that other one?

It is Distractify, I think. Nice. Let me see. Oh, no, it's undistracted. Undistracted. Undistracted. Okay, because now I'm seeing Nicki Minaj when I Google that. No, undistracted. It's fantastic. It just allows you to use things as tools, as you should want, say Facebook Marketplace, because all the algorithmic feeds are designed to distract you from what you're trying to do. So, it's been very helpful to me. Thank you. Yes, that's my good news. Let's go on to Twilight Zone now. Josh, you're up.

Well, I was just, sorry, give me a second to get to where, okay, so, I'm convinced, as I always am, that you don't hate the media enough. Look at this headline from the New York Times. What do we got?

This is a wild article. I did read this. The link there is the image, so that people can see it if they want. Two men, one identity, they both paid the price. Oh, yeah. Thousands of undocumented workers rely on fraudulent Social Security numbers, one of them belonged to Don Kluver. I love just how they, everything about how they frame this is just despicable. Undocumented workers, so of course, they're in this country illegally, rely on fraud. They rely on fraud. So, I mean, you know, this just drives me crazy.

Two people in this article, one of them is a blue-collar American from Rural Minnesota, who lived in the same town his whole life, and he works at the same factory his father worked at. He has never been arrested. He coaches baseball. He teaches Sunday school on the weekends. I am getting this from 30 World. The other is an illegal alien from Guatemala who stole his social security number and his identity so he could work in the United States.

This person who entered our country illegally has three prior deportations, multiple arrests for DUI, four anchor babies, and was once in a car accident that killed a 68-year-old man. But the New York Times wants to make it seem like he's a victim. Right, that's morally equivalent. You know how long it took in the article to get to the fact that he killed someone?

And then it hung it on Don Culver. It was like at the very end. You had to read the entire thing before... Yeah, it was like 11 out of 13 minutes before you even knew he had any kind of record, and you're like, this... Yeah. But of course, you heard about his wife and his children, and like, that of course is... Right, that of course is the problem. That's why... People miss the plot on this, too. Like, the chain migration system and the anchor baby system is just bad for everyone, because this person stole the, the Don Culver guy had the, he was, it was saying that he made more money than he actually did.

I think he, I can't remember his factory wage, say it was like 60K or something like that. The government thought he made like 120K. Because of the social security number, right. Right, exactly, and so, and they were like, well, you know, he's in these different states, he's working these different jobs, it didn't make sense, so he kept getting fined by the IRS.

And he had to pay that money, and it affected his credit score, like he couldn't do anything, and he's trying to get this solved, and it keeps getting stonewalled by the IRS or other government agencies, and then he also learns, okay, this guy killed someone, even if it was an accident, and now that's on my name. My number, right. My number, yeah.

It's insane that we allow this system to continue. Like, if you come in three times and... You fraudulently use a social security number to work, and that's provided to you on a black market, as it wasn't here. You are a criminal. I do not. It's hard to feel bad for you. This got the attention of the vice president, and I just would hope this would be a perfect thing for Donald Trump to champion and fix this, and to rescue, you know, Donald Trump, you're in charge of the IRS.

You know, fix this guy's life in Minnesota, and then crack down on people illegally using social security numbers. I mean, the subtitle said it. There are. Thousands of these cases. This is just one of thousands, and it's, yeah. Just to me, it's all, I mean, honestly, if you were like a hardcore anti-immigrant and totally against illegal immigration, you would almost think to do an article like this, so on the nose, you know what I mean? It's almost, I mean, like, is the New York Times like secretly trying to get people to be in favor of mass deportations?

Because you write an article like this. Where the guy murdered somebody else with his car, and he committed all sorts of horrific crimes, and he's in the country illegally, and he committed fraud, and someone else across the country in Minnesota is being harmed because he stole his number, and you're trying to pretend like he's a victim? Absolute despicable. I mean, I can't even begin.

And now, of course, you're putting an impossible problem, because he has to go back to a country he hasn't been in forever. His family's here because of our current immigration system. It is terrible. Everything about this is the most impossible problem.

Very frustrating. No one voted for all this. No. All these policies that we have on immigration, no one voted for it. It was never a campaign. I want a senator who's going to make sure that, you know, people can use fraudulent, you know, social security numbers and that people can go in here and they can, you know, now, no one voted for this. No one. No, no, no, no. All right, Erika. All right, well, we have Nick Fuentes on the right and on the left coming up strong.

Bad boy Hassan Piker. If you scroll down there, we can just play a little bit of this interview he did with Konstantin Kisin, who grew up in the Soviet Union, actually, so this was interesting. Go ahead. Wearing a Dungeon of Democracy shirt?

You said something interesting, because, you know, I was born in the Soviet Union, so we both have direct experience of socialism in various shapes and forms. You talked about, well, there's positives and there's negatives. So, is there a country that's done socialism the way that you like?

I would say that I am hypercritical of all forms of governance, including the American one. I think that's not... A surprise to you guys, right? And in that same vein, I think there is critiques to apply to all forms of governance, even socialist ones. And as far as getting closer to what I think has been relatively successful, because if ultimately the point of government is to improve the material conditions of all people to the best of your ability, it's not always going to be perfect, but...

When you are getting, I don't know, the poorest people, the poorest of the dispossessed masses, out of a situation where they were servile, the landed gentry, or they were peasants from an agrarian society, or they were dominated by the landlords, but then ultimately they were able to come into modernity and become like a powerhouse, an industrial powerhouse that is competitive with the largest superpower on the planet, I would say if that's the point of good governance, And I think you guys might agree with me on that.

I would say China is probably the closest, and there are still plenty of failures within. All right, first, I have a few things to point out. It took him a minute 30 to get to actually answering the question, and he got the China?

China is a shining beacon of socialism on the hill. It has lifted the peasants out of servility. Erika, did you catch this too, though? His definition of a good government is just literally the lowest hanging fruit, improving the material conditions of as many people. No, no, no. On that measure, I think what he's trying to say is getting people out of the most destitute poverty, that would be the best thing to do for governments.

Giving him the best possible interpretation on it. Sure, that's terrible. I think that's like the lowest hanging fruit. That's not a definition of a country. And so that's why he would say China has done so much to get people out of absolute, abject, material poverty, but it's precisely because China moved away from communism.

It is still not a free country, but they have shifted from being a communist country to being actually in a fascist economy, where the government allows some market trends, but every business ultimately has to kowtow to the central state. So, China, for the last 25 years, is more of a fascist economy, like Mussolini had in Italy.

Hitler actually had in Germany. I'm not even getting into the Nazi stuff. I'm just comparing economies. It's still government controlling the economy, but the government isn't trying to own everything. Right. They're happy to allow someone who's really successful in business to enrich themselves, because they know ultimately it will come back to China. So, they're willing to allow it. Do you know what they did to their business leaders that were too financialized?

Oh, well, they executed them. Yeah, they execute the really... They execute parts of their economy, or they just throw them in jail. They can just wipe like a trillion dollars of... We don't like the direction this is going. If you go look at financial leaders in China, they literally disappeared six months ago because they're like, we need to focus more on infrastructure and everything else, which is, Josh, what you're saying, I mean, that's fascist. In some ways, we all argue about these AI overlords that are doing insane stuff and lobbying or whatever.

We don't kill them in America. Some people might wish we could or something, but that, I would say, is the strength of America. You can't just be murdered or removed from business, Jack Wah, Alibaba, because you... I don't know if that's really a hot take, but that's my point. I've long felt that China stopped being communist about 25, 30 years ago. They entered the World Trade Organization. Maybe it wasn't a good idea for us. They used slave labor to undercut things.

They embrace major factors of the market economy, but it's all done in a way that enriches the central government. It has to go along with all of their goals, and so that, to me, is more of a fascist government. Sounds like a paradise so far, Hassan.

Yep, good pick, Hassan. Yeah, what was the comment that you had on this, Erika, was don't allow homelessness, execute drug dealers, close borders, restrict corporations so they don't poison Americans, create a strong sense of national identity, stop immigration, clean the streets, and raise the standards of sophistication. Hassan would oppose nearly any measure taken that would actually achieve these goals by calling them fascist and a violation of rights. It says that's a good take. That's about right. Yep. Not right. And I do notice, like, Hassan is just being, you know, embraced, bear-hugged by the New York Times and, you know, Trigonometry, and, like, the stuff he's saying is just as extreme.

They were pretty hard on him in that interview, I will say. Like, if you watch the whole thing, they're very skeptical of him, and their, like, debrief interview with just the two of them after that conversation, they're not big fans.

Sure, but the whole platforming hysteria. Like that we went through over the last three months, which of course was just a proxy over foreign policy, is so stupid and immature, and I can't get over it, because you're just bringing this guy on who's just as insane.

Yeah, but don't ignore him, because you'll hear about him again. Go ahead. No. Okay, mine is actually, okay, speaking of things that we argue about. So, I do not know who is running Vivek Ramaswamy's campaign in Ohio. I forgot about it. I've never, I have not seen a campaign in a while where the other, so the other person running just reposts stuff that. The other candidate posts, and it's like a win. It's a dunk. So, there's a little bit of a controversy brewing, and part of it is because, for vague, I'll get into more context on this.

He's running for governor of Ohio. He flamed out of the Trump administration, got kicked out of Doge, and he had a huge crash out over H-1B visas and basically insulted all of Americans. So, this video was posted by Dr. Amy Acton. She's the Democrat running for governor of Ohio, really like kind of an unknown entity.

To hammer your point to the audience a little bit better, so what Todd is pointing at is the Democrat running against Vivek is able to succeed and gain points simply by reposting videos of dumb things he's saying. Is that what you're saying? Yes, correct. And I'll post the one that went around, and it was so bad that people thought it was AI, and so now there's a debate over whether it's AI, and it turns out it wasn't AI. So, here's the video.

Make parenting more affordable by making school year-round. Oh, my gosh. No. Let me play this again. No. Make parenting more affordable by making school year-round and going till 4 o'clock instead of 3 o'clock so you don't have to pay for childcare.

That is horrifying. I'm not exaggerating a part of a larger video in which he said we need to make America more affordable for Americans. His solution to make parroting more affordable was to go year-round and then to four o'clock instead. That is awful. And people thought it was so bad that it was AI. They're like, someone made an AI video of him saying he wouldn't say this. They're taking advantage of the fact that he had the big H-1B crash out. This is so crazy.

No, he actually said this. And Amy Acton, running against him, just reposted it, and was like, this is who I'm running against. I'm telling you, who is running this campaign? I really wish another Republican in Ohio would actively campaign against, you know, run for governor. Door's wide open. So we don't have to have Vivek as the nominee. He's just, he's going to lose it at this rate. He is someone who started out so promising, like tore up, what's her name, the one that you hate, Nikki Haley, tore up Nikki Haley on a debate stage, and like, wow, it's kind of like rising star, and I've, like, the crash and burn on him.

I've never seen, like, such a, you know... He's not a conservative. This is not... So, here's the other... First, I'm not a conservative idea. It's a horrible idea. Why would we give the state our kids for more time than they already have them in schools that we're frustrated about to, quote, bring down costs as if we're somehow just interchangeable economic units? Is that what he does with his kids? No, so here's the thing. So, here's the crash out that happened, if people don't remember.

This is back in, I think, around Christmas last year. The recent top tech companies... Right. The reason top tech companies often hire foreign-born and first-generation engineers over Native Americans isn't because of an innate American IQ deficit, a lazy and wrong explanation. A key part of it comes down to the C word, culture. Tough questions demand answers, and if we're really serious about fixing the problem, we have to confront the truth. Our American culture has venerated mediocrity over excellence for way too long, at least since the 90s and likely longer.

That doesn't start in college, it starts young. A culture that celebrates the prom queen over the math Olympiad champ. Or the jock over the valedictorian will not produce the best engineers. A culture that venerates Corey from Boy Meets World and Zack and Slater over Screech and Saved by the Bell. I mean, talk about the total, like, the three-finger meme of, like, you do not know what you're talking about. Over Steve Urkel and Family Matters will not produce the best engineers. In fact, I know multiple sets of immigrant parents in the 90s.

What the heck is this guy getting at? He's getting at the Americans are lazy. We don't need Steve Urkels, you know? Sorry. More movies like Whiplash, fewer returns of friends, more math tutoring, fewer sleepovers, more weekend science competitions, fewer Saturday morning cartoons, more books, less TV, more creating, less chilling, more extracurriculars, less hanging out at the mall. Most American parents look skeptically at those kind of parents. More normal American kids view such those kind of kids with scorn. If you grow up aspiring to normalcy, normalcy is what you will achieve.

Yeah, I mean, it just gets worse and worse. It was like the longest. It has 125.6 million views. He was quickly booted from Doge after this. And I go to Dr. Amy Acton, who's running against him. She just quote tweets this. As the H-1B debate came up again, and he's still on the side of the H-1B, which is a total scam and replaces American workers, which we're completely getting rid of. Vivek Ramaswamy told us how he really feels when he said that Ohioans aren't succeeding because they're lazy and mediocre and watching too much TV.

That couldn't be further from what I'm seeing on the ground every day. Ohioans are working harder than ever, they're doing everything right, and they just can't get enough breathing room. Ohio needs a governor who listens, understands, and who is ready to bring down costs on day one. She sounds like J.D. Vance, and he sounds like every Asian tiger mom stereotype that I've ever had in my head, and it's just... And just a warning to all Republicans in Ohio.

Yes, yes, she actually could get elected just by dunking on Vivek. This can't happen. Right. Don't be surprised. We need a better option. I mean, I wouldn't vote for him. And then if you look any deeper into his past, snake oil salesman. He made all his money off of rug pulling a pharma. He had like a pharma business that went bankrupt because they would take drugs that got approved and then put them up.

So, you kind of came up that way, and then the whole, like, the culture thing was just an insane fight to pick with the American people. It's becoming more insane by the day. Yeah. And, um... We have Ohioans on our staff. Can't one of them run? Can Logan Church run, please? Yeah, I don't know. I'm like, at minimum, you have to just be like, you know this isn't going to go over well. It would be really fun. And in defense of the, uh, of hanging out in malls and sleepovers and chilling, it's almost like...

Some of America's most impressive citizens were jocks, were athletes. They enjoyed their leisure time. These are the people that won World War II, that built the country we have today. And the tiger mom attitude, I do not want a replacement of, say, the situation going on in Korea, in Japan, in China, where everyone's just almost to the point of ending their life because they're so stressed about where they get placed in society. Well, yeah, you think we have a suicide problem here?

Go look at the rates in Japan. Holy cow. Right. No, I would not like to replace that. I would not like more school hours, and in government schools, that is not the solution. I would actually like a lot less. I think it would be better for American people. When we say make parenting affordable, I want I want it to be more affordable for me to spend more time with my children. Like, that's the point. I want more parenting. That's actually the whole point.

That's why we're engaging in politics, so that we can actually have that. And it was possible at one point, I promise. It was. And I don't know, who would even make an argument that this culture of, like, insane stress over AP classes and SAT, ACT prep, like, that just feels wrong to me. It's so much of this credentialism stuff. It's terrible, and I want nothing to do with it. I don't know what, who is telling me this is a good idea?

I have nothing to do with it. We need creativity. We need spontaneity. We need ingenuity. That's more helpful than just like, let me see if I can max out on taking a thousand classes plus being in band and doing all these extra characters and everything. It's like, you know what? You still actually have to live.

Yep. Amen. Amen. Okay, so, and I hope you guys have a fantastic Thanksgiving. We're going to end our prayer here, and then we are going to go to Erika's interview, speaking of getting outside the school system. Yeah, homeschool. Homeschool connections. It was a great interview. Thank you. If you want to help us out, go ahead and subscribe on YouTube. Leave a review, Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Thank you to our champions and Charity Mobile for sponsoring today's episode.

Can't do without our champions, CatholicVote.org slash champions. If you'd like to join them, and just, you know, I can't say it enough. I'm grateful for you. I'm grateful for the audience. I'm grateful for the people that tune in, that email, that comment, subscribe, that allow us to do what we do now. For all the loopers.

You know, I'm just so grateful to have this community of people that really care about the things that we care about and support us. Completely impossible without, and actually would be all for nothing if you guys weren't here. So, okay, on to the daily prayer now, and I'm going to go right into the interview. In the Father, Son, Holy Spirit, Amen.

O merciful God, take pity on those souls who have no particular friends and intercessors to recommend them to thee, who, either through the negligence of those who are alive or through length of time, are forgotten by their friends and by all. Spare them, O Lord, and remember thine own mercy. When others forget to appeal it, let not the souls which thou hast created be parted from thee, their creator. May the souls of all the faithful departed through the mercy of God rest in peace.

Amen. In the name of the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen. Have a great Thanksgiving, guys. On to homeschool connections. I am so excited for our conversation. Today, I'm talking to Maureen Whitman, founder and director of Homeschool Connections at homeschoolconnections.com. Maureen is wife and mother of seven children, and she's been homeschooling since before it was cool. So, I'm really excited. You're one of my heroes. Homeschool Connections has been great for our family, and I can't wait to hear about your journey.

But first, Tell us about homeschooling in the 90s. What was that like? I made the decision to homeschool in the early 80s when I was in college because I had met a homeschooler, and I had had back surgery as a kid, and I was out of school for a year, and I had a tutor come to my house for... Two hours a day, four days a week, and she had to keep me back because I was getting ahead of the fellow students, right?

And I thought, this is crazy. Why am I going to school all day long? So, I heard about, when I met this homeschool kid in college, I'm like, I'm going to do that. So, in the 90s, you know, when I began homeschooling, yeah, no one else was doing it. You know, what about socialization? What about academics? You don't have a teaching degree. How are you going to teach that kid?

And today, we're so overwhelmed. There are so many resources out there for us, right? We can pick and choose whatever we need and want, but sometimes it's overwhelming. Back then, we didn't have that problem. You went to the library and got some books, and you read real books, and just really focused on...

Learning as a family. For me, I always said I could have had the best Catholic homeschool next door, walking distance, and I'd still homeschool because I just loved the family life that it afforded it and the ability to give my kids a fun childhood. Yeah, I remember my mom was homeschooling us. I was homeschooled for just five years of my education, and it was in the late 80s, early 90s, and I remember she had one catalog. She would order everything from Christian book distributors.

We were Protestant at the time. And there just weren't a lot of options, and I loved homeschooling. I'm so glad I was, but I did find it kind of isolating because we were in a rural area, and we were the only ones really in the town who were doing it. And so, something like Homeschool Connections would have been an amazing tool for someone like my mom back in the day. So, I wanted to ask you, what inspired you to found Homeschool Connections, and what exactly do you do?

What's your mission? So, that's a really great question, because Homeschool Connections has evolved a great deal. We started in 2008, and what happened was, you know, I saw a good 50% of our homeschool moms putting their kids into school when they got it to high school. Which is great, if that's what you want to do, right? But most of these moms wanted to keep homeschooling, but they just didn't feel equipped. You know, the big question I always hear from homeschool moms, am I enough?

Am I enough? And they just felt they weren't for homeschooling high school. So, Walter Crawford, who's my co-founder and my co-director, had reached out to me about doing a webinar series. He used that technology in his business. And he wanted to find a way to help homeschool parents. So, we were doing these free webinars for homeschool parents, and we had done some polling, and several parents came back to us and said, instead of doing these free webinars, could you just do classes?

Yeah, my high schooler needs you more than I do. The Protestants have been doing it for 10 years, and the Catholics are nowhere to be found. So, you know, we are a little behind in everything. The Catholic Church moves slowly. We do, we do. And, right, like back in the 80s and 90s, most of the homeschoolers were Protestant homeschoolers. The Catholics were late to the game because we had great Catholic schools.

So, we said, yes, let us do that because I did have this experience of all these moms who really wanted to keep homeschooling. So, we thought, you know, we are going to offer four, maybe five, get crazy, offer five courses on the hard things.

Calculus, and physics, and Latin, you know, the things that moms struggle with. But people went crazy for it, and next thing we knew, we were offering middle school, then grade school, and today we have, I think, 220 live courses per semester, and over 750 recorded self-taught courses. Yeah, it's an amazing catalog now, and like I mentioned, my own kids have done some of the literature classes, and you have some big names. I mean, my kids were taking a course with Joseph Pierce, and he's teaching them the Iliad and the Odyssey, and this is an amazing infrastructure that you've built now, and like you said, it goes from very young years to later years.

Tell me a little bit about some of your favorite courses that you... That you offer. Yeah. Oh, gosh, there are so many. I love the out-of-the-box stuff, you know? Yeah. So, you know, first, I should say that the Holy Spirit is our CEO. So, when you talk about people like Joseph Pierce, how did Joseph Pierce come to teach for us? You know, I knew him from going to conferences as a fellow speaker, and one day, I just said, hey, you should do this.

And, you know, or one day, Gary Machuda called me up out of the blue and said, I hear you're doing these classes, you know, the great Catholic apologist. So, my favorite courses are going to be like Joseph's. These little six-week courses on one book, we can just focus on one book, you know, or Gary Machuda doing Catholic apologetics and teaching children how to listen and be kind as well as defend their faith. And, of course, we offer the typical biology and physics and calculus and algebra and all that.

One of my children is taking the high school environmental science course, and I love, as a Catholic, like you said, there's the standard, like, here's the sciences you need to qualify for college, and so you want to make sure you get them. But I love how it is infused with Catholic theology, and so she's reading a letter of John Paul II on the environment while she's studying this. So, instead of getting this like Malthusian, we hate humanity environmental science, she's getting human beings are the ingenuity that God has put on the earth to have dominion and to care for creation.

So, it's a completely different worldview that you're offering from what someone might pick up at a public high school. But I really want to get to the heart of why you homeschool, why you want to make this gift possible for other families. What do you say to young families who are looking at homeschooling as a lifestyle around which they can build their family? Part of Homeschool Connection's mission is not just...

Selling online courses, right? The whole reason we were founded was because we wanted to help our fellow homeschoolers. So, when I first started homeschooling all those years ago, and I didn't know what I was doing, there weren't a lot of resources, and I saw an ad in the news, you know, back in the old days when you read a newspaper, like the actual paper, and there was an ad, Catholic homeschoolers meet on first Fridays at St. Thomas in East Lansing. And, you know, so I went, and I came out.

And someone walked up to me and said, are you a homeschooler? And next thing I knew, I had all these women who were supporting me and helping me and walking me through it and helping me get started. So, that's a big part of my motivation at Homeschool Connections. So, in addition to offering online classes, we have... The blog, which we keep pretty active, we still do those webinars that we started with. We're doing, you know, online conferences. We have the podcast.

And so all those things are geared for homeschoolers, Catholic homeschoolers in general, not just homeschool connections, families. So we may even have guests on our podcast who work for Colby Academy or Mother Divine Grace or, you know, Seaton Home Study or whatever, because we recognize that.

There are many different ways to homeschool, and we're here to support all of those ways. So, for example, we have a lot of seat-and-home study families who want to take, say, computer science or something that's not offered there, and they might just do one or two courses with us. We're different than everyone else in that we're not a full curriculum. So, that's where we come from. We also have our We have a Homeschool Connections Facebook group. We have a Mighty Networks group.

We have the Student Cafe. Now, you do have to be a Homeschool Connections student to be in the cafe. That's for high school students, and it's monitored by adults. So those are the opportunities we offer to help homeschool moms really be successful. So tell me about your upcoming Speakers series, and there's a conference in the winter.

Right. So, I am really excited about this speaker series. We are starting with Joseph Pierce, who we have already mentioned, and Philip Campbell, the Catholic historian. So, it is brand new. It is still in the planning phases, but it is coming up very soon. So, the idea is, you know, these guys teach our young people. And so many times we have parents say, I want to learn that too. So, the idea is that we offer this series where parents are learning something too about literature, history, etc.

That's neat, and that's one of my favorite parts of homeschooling. I learned how to do long division. I was so bad at division in grade school, I thought I was a bad math student. But as a parent, you have so many opportunities to continue learning with your children. I love with each child, Revisiting historical periods with them or concepts of the faith, because every child who I go through, say, eighth grade Baltimore catechism with, each of my kids has had different questions about the faith.

They've had different interests or saints' lives that speak to them. And so I feel as I walk through, for example, eighth grade catechism with each new child that God's given to us, my eyes are opened to new dimensions of our faith. And so, I love that Homeschool Connections has these opportunities for parents. You also have something for parents, which every mother needs right around February, called the Refresh Conference. So, tell me about that. So, that came out of, February is known as Burnout Month.

Right? So, whether you're teaching in public school, Catholic school, homeschool, February is a rough time. We always tell parents, don't change up your curriculum in February. Never make a decision in February or postpartum. That's my, like, mantra. Exactly, exactly. No changes postpartum or in February. We've just come out of all the holidays, and it's still cold, and it's dark, and we're ready for spring, and spring's still far away. And so, February is just a rough month for us.

One of the very first things we did back in 2008 was the Refresh Conference. It's not so much a how-to conference as an encouragement conference, so really just help moms. Maybe talk a little bit about self-care, talk about why we homeschool, revisit those things, letting parents know, you know, tools are out there to help them, etc. So, that's what that was born of. Yeah, I love that conference.

I think everyone who's been to one does. It's funny, we have parents who reach out to us and say that that conference is a lifesaver, you know, because at one point we talked about, do we keep doing it? And we had so many moms reach out and said, do not.

Don't take away my confidence. I need that one. Yeah, I would encourage everyone listening to make sure you're on the Homeschool Connections email list so that you know when that's coming up, and you'll send out registration and everything every year. Also, for the speaker series, make sure you go to homeschoolconnections.com and put your email address in. They don't spam you either. You guys are really good about not overwhelming with the emails, but great resources coming. Through that there.