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Eleanor Clift was a groundbreaking journalist for publications such as Newsweek in its heyday—she is now a columnist at The Daily Beast—and who many will remember on TV’s The McLaughlin Group every Sunday in the 80s, 90s, and beyond. There she battled, often as the only woman and a liberal feminist, against Pat Buchanan and other conservative white men.

Clift comes on my SiriusXM program every Friday, and it’s her experience and knowledge of history that are so fascinating and interesting when we talk about the issues of today. She’s covered every presidential campaign and every presidential administration since 1976.

So on the anniversary of the Dobbs decision, she gave us the long view of how Roe v. Wade was handed down and how conservatives accepted it—including the Southern Baptist Convention. But she also remembers how evangelicals, coopted by Ronald Reagan from Jimmy Carter and making an alliance with conservative Catholics, soon began organizing fiercely to reverse it.

Listen in to the interview and let me know your thoughts. Below is a transcript edited for space and clarity.

Michelangelo Signorile: So on this day, the anniversary of the fall of Roe v. Wade, lots of discussion looking back on how things have changed in a year. 

And we now have 15 states that ban abortions completely. I wanted to ask you as a journalist who's covered this issue for many years and as a woman, about your experience looking back at the trajectory of this issue, going back to, of course, when Roe v. Wade was affirmed, was decided by the Supreme Court, and then, as you saw, that movement within the conservative movement and the Republican Party. And if you ever thought we'd come to this, this day that happened a year ago today.

Eleanor Clift: Well, to start at the beginning, I guess, when Roe v. Wade was passed, it was not all that controversial in the sense that you didn't have two very distinct camps that saw each other as enemies. You had the Catholic Church clearly opposed, but you had the governor of California, who was Ronald Reagan, sign a very progressive abortion rights law. New York also had legislation along those lines. And the Southern Baptist Church even put out a statement sort of acknowledging that. For some people, ending a pregnancy was the right thing to do, considering their circumstances. I don't remember exactly how it was phrased, but they basically gave a positive nod to the legislation. 

And there it was for some time until the conservative right recognized that they could bring Catholics and Southern evangelicals together on the issue of opposing abortion. And those were two powerful blocs of voters that were then politicized around this issue. Before that, the right had been campaigning against tax exemption, ending tax exemption for, in particular, Bob Jones University, the evangelical university that was getting huge tax breaks. And that came to an end, actually, when Gerald Ford was in the White House. But Jimmy Carter was kind of blamed for it. And when Carter ran for re-election in 1980, he realized that his whole base of evangelical voters had drifted away or been stolen away by the Reagan camp. And that became the beginning, in my mind, of the partisan right division on this issue.

MS: A lot of people don't know that Jimmy Carter was an evangelical Christian, and that evangelical Christians had not really been involved in politics much before that because they saw politics as, like, the devil's doing, right? And he brought them in, you know, because he was an evangelical Christian. And then the Reagan Republicans really saw them as an organizing force.

EC: That's right. And I think in 1984, when Reagan ran for re-election, the Republican platform was much clearer in its opposition to abortion rights than it had been before. And then in 1994—now we're sprinting ahead here in terms of politics—but when the Republicans took the House for the first time in 40 years, they elected a lot of women, or certainly compared to previous standards, and women who had been trained as activists in the anti-abortion movement. Before that, as a reporter covering these issues in Washington, there was kind of an assumption that the women who made it to the House of Representatives were generally liberal on what we call women's issues. The Republican women were pro-choice. 

And that began to change when you had pro-choice being on the Republican side, being challenged from the right. And so, you know, it was both gradual and it was sudden that this issue became incredibly partisan. But what you said at the beginning of our conversation here, there was an assumption that Roe v. Wade was here to stay, that it was nailed down into our constitutional rights.

And so Republicans could say the most outrageous things about abortion rights, knowing or believing that they would never be held accountable for those statements. 

And Democrats were nervous about shining too bright a light on the issue because they didn't want to lose more moderate voters. And they assumed again that Roe v. Wade was here to stay. So when Roe was overturned, I think that was an earthquake for both parties. And politically, it has benefited the Democrats. And I hope that continues into the next election. And certainly, Democrats are doing everything they can to highlight all the problems that these really draconian laws about abortion have brought upon women. 

And Republicans are trying to squirm their way out of the worst impact of the Roe decision. And politically, it's a problem for Republicans. But beyond the political problems, every day women really have to fight in some of these states to get basic health care because clinics have shut down, not only because they provide abortion care, but because when they're gone, they don't provide any other kind of care either. So it's really created a lot of health problems in certain areas of this country.

MS: I want to come back to what's happening now among Republicans, but I wanted to ask you again, as a journalist covering this and,  obviously, as a woman, did you believe that Roe v. Wade would be overturned? Did you think we'd ever meet this moment? And obviously, we saw it coming for some time. I guess my question is, at what point did you start to think, Wow, this could really happen?

EC: I think at the confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court and [Maine GOP Senator] Susan Collins’ really over the top half hour speech, insisting that she had gotten private assurances from him that he would not vote to overturn Roe because he was the fifth vote. Right. But that was not enough until Amy Barrett got on the court. And she, being a woman, kind of gave the male five some cover. And Justice Roberts tried strenuously to narrow the decision to keep it at 15 weeks and not completely uproot Roe. But anyway, you could see it coming with Kavanaugh. And I think Senator Collins later said she—used the word lie—that she was lied to. But looking at Kavanaugh's background, his religiosity, even the way he framed some of his responses, you could get a good sense of where he was going. And it seemed only a matter of time. And then getting the woman on the court, rushing her through in the wake of Justice Ginsburg's death, really, really set the stage for this court to take this lurching turn to the right. 

And in terms of just doing away with precedents, which they had all said they were committed to, you could say they were all lying or maybe we all should have known better because they were all on the lists provided by the Federalist Society. Right. Which was committed to fulfilling Donald Trump's pledge that anybody he put on the court would vote to overturn Roe. So you're right. It was right there written quite plainly, except it still seemed unbelievable to a lot of people that it could happen.

MS: When I think back to the McLaughlin Group, and you on The McLaughlin Group with Pat Buchanan, if you were to say to me, okay, whose  political worldview is going to be the one that dominates and which one's going to shrink, I would have said yours would and Pat Buchanan's would shrink. Of course, yours has [dominated] in the sense that we know where the majority of people are. But Pat Buchanan's agenda has really, much of it, largely come into being a success, being successfully implemented.

EC: Now, as Pat has often said, I didn't make it to the White House, but my issues did. And on trade, on nationalism, on isolationism, and certainly on the issue of abortion. Yes. All of those issues made it to the White House in the body of Donald Trump, who in many ways was the most unlikely carrier of these issues. I mean, he didn't show any signs of being anti-choice when he was, you know, gallivanting around New York. And so there's that. And as an aggressive businessman, he didn't hold the views on international trade that he later exhibited. And who would have thought that he would end up being, you know, pro-Russia and that this would be a significant element of the Republican Party as it's newly constituted by Donald Trump? And I guess I would put Buchanan in that camp.

MS: Absolutely. But of course, as I said, your views are where the majority of Americans and certainly the majority of Democrats are today. And that gets to the problem that the abortion issue is for the GOP.

EC: And the only thing that changes it is if you can get the turnout of voters that is out there and just be mobilized.

MS: And we saw Republicans initially very afraid of this. The extremists now want a full abortion ban in the country, a federal abortion ban.

EC: Right. And the Susan B. Anthony group—you know, liberals feel like they have, you know, stolen her name and that she really wouldn't be where they think she was then and would be today. But they have been considered a kind of moderate, big umbrella group on the right. They are now really forcing the agenda further and further to the right with the apparent goal of virtually eliminating abortions in this country. 

Chris Christie, he's an anti-abortion Catholic from a pro-choice state. And he seems to think that a 15 week federal ban would work, but there's no way his party or the Democrats are going to get there anytime soon. Short of that, the safest position for Republicans is one that they have held on a variety of issues until they don't hold it: And that is to leave it up to the states. So I think those are the two positions that the candidates are going to hold, and they're going to be pushed towards the federal abortion ban by the anti-choice groups. They have a bigger problem on their hands.

They're divided, and anytime the opposition is divided, that's a good thing. Democrats are very united on this issue and just about every other issue because they realize that their strength comes from unity.

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In the wake of the killing of Jordan Neely, the homeless black man who was choked to death in a New York subway car, MAGA extremists online have not only made the killer, Daniel Penny, into a hero; They’ve also promoted vigilantism and violence.

And John Knefel, a writer who covers national security and writes for Media Matters, has been monitoring them, and reports that they’re deciding that certain people should actually be killed and are becoming increasingly open about it.

He joined me on my SiriusXM program to talk about it.

Listen in here. Below is a transcript slightly edited for space and clarity.

—-

Michelangelo Signorile: You did a lot of research, obviously listening to a lot of these people, these pundits who, as you say, they're very upfront about who they think should be killed.

And you point out that while there is seemingly more of it now, it's nothing new. Talk a little bit about some of these pundits, what they've done in the past and how it's kind of built to a head now.

John Knefel:  So the viciousness and sort of semi overt calls for violence from right wing media is nothing new. One of the standout historical examples, of course, was when Bill O’Reilly, when he was still at Fox News, went after abortion providers, especially Dr. Tiller.

But what we're seeing right now is really much more comfort with an open embrace with the vigilantism that we saw Daniel Penny enact against Jordan Neely.

But then in addition to that, there's another story that I think hasn't received quite as much attention that makes the point. [In May] Florida Governor Ron DeSantis signed a bill that would expand the death penalty as an available option to people who have been convicted of child sexual assault and child rape. And this new Florida bill was cheered on by many, many figures on the right. And so what I did was, I looked at the way that they were openly embracing this expansion of the death penalty. One of the pundits I looked at at The Daily Wire, Matt Walsh, said, "Just execute them all. This is the first right step. There's a lot more that needs to be done."

So you get that kind of rhetoric around this expansion of the death penalty. And it maps almost exactly alongside all of these right wing figures on Fox and The Wall Street Journal op-ed page and elsewhere who are calling Daniel Penny a hero for committing this homicide against Jordan Neely. And I think that what they both show together is a really, really dangerous escalation of the anti-LGBTQ and anti-Black rhetoric that is really always present in right wing media. But it's taking on an increasingly openly violent, and you could even say sort of murderous, angle to it.

MS: I want to talk about DeSantis and that law that he signed in a little bit, but I want to focus in first on Jordan Neely. Tell us some of the things they were saying, almost rationalizing or legitimizing what Daniel Penny did.

JK: Yeah, it’s really been quite astonishing to see and this kind of rhetoric was there both prior to Manhattan DA Alvin Bragg bringing charges against Penny and afterwards. It's accelerated. So early on you have Heather McDonald who frequently is an apologist for racist policing. She's of the conservative think tank, the Manhattan Institute. She was on Laura Ingraham's podcast. Laura Ingraham, of course, is the Fox News prime time host as well. And she said—I’m just going to read a quick quote here because I think it captures the overall tenor —McDonald said, "For these activists now to be playing the race card here is preposterous. The government is unwilling to protect its citizens. You are going to have a certain degree of vigilante justice, as far as I'm concerned. And from what we know, this guy is an urban hero."

And that is the kind of rhetoric that we saw on Fox News as well. A contributor named Leo Terrell said that the Marine is a hero. You have people like Charlie Kirk, who is the founder of Turning Point USA, which is this sort of youth outreach group, who called Penny a hero. And the list really just goes on and on.

The Wall Street Journal op ed page, after charges were brought, published a piece called “Free Daniel Penny” by William McGurn. The Wall Street Journal's editorial board wrote a separate piece referring to Penny as one of the good Samaritans, echoing DeSantis’ own tweet about Penny. And so it's essentially ubiquitous in right wing media right now that not only was Penny sort of like forced into what he was doing but that there is a full on endorsement of his actions.

You're not seeing very much hedging of it, like, "Well  this is a tragedy', or "Any loss of life is tragic." You're seeing, "We need more people to do exactly this kind of thing." And that, I think, is different than what we have seen in the recent past. And I think it's very alarming.

MS: Right, Because, as we've explored it and as has been reported in much of the media. Jordan Neely was loud. He suffered from mental illness. He was abrasive. He was saying a lot of things that obviously might have unnerved people. But he never raised a hand to anyone, from what any witness said, and never threatened any one person directly.

And Daniel Penny went up from behind him and took him down. And the fact that he died. The fact that he was killed—these people find that it's totally legitimate, that you don't need any due process. You shouldn't even have a trial to look at it. It's really quite alarming.

JK: Yeah, absolutely. And what you're seeing from some corners of the right is not only a defense of Penny, but actually celebrating the fact that Neely is dead. And just to give you one example, again, to cite Matt Walsh here, Walsh responded to Neely's death by calling him and I'm quoting here "a terrible person." And Walsh continued, "The community is better off without him. Everyone is safer without him."

This is an affirmation, an endorsement of a white ex-Marine killing a Black person and saying that society is better because of this act. And I think that opening the door to that kind of response is just incredibly dangerous.

And I think that one of the things that Matt Walsh has really been doing in the right wing media for the last year and a half or so is he's been leading the charge against LGBTQ people and has really defined a lot of that. And so hearing him say things like the community is better off without Neely I think may be a kind of preview of the kinds of things that we will hear more and more from other conservative pundits.

MS: And then DeSantis, with that bill that he signed, which, like some of the other bills he signed, is unconstitutional, according to legal scholars. But he admitted he wants to bring that back up to the Supreme Court—having the death penalty for sex offenders. And as you point out, several of these pundits, Alex Jones, Steven Crowder, Matt Walsh, Michael Knowles, they really glommed onto it. And my first thought when he signed that was how he spent the last two years demonizing LGBTQ people as pedophiles, as groomers. And so has Matt Walsh and the rest of them. And then you come to now—here's what should be done to these people. It's basically promoting open season on LGBTQ people.

JK: Absolutely. There's the long history of conservatives saying gay people are a threat to children that dates back decades but the more recent history, really in the last couple of years, is they have escalated so much, where you've seen openly fascist gangs disrupt pride events, threaten drag performers.

And DeSantis has been absolutely leading that charge from his seat in Florida. I think you're right in terms of signaling to the broader public that not only will the state attempt to carry out this violence, but as we've just been talking about, any vigilantes or fascist groups who, you know, take the law into their own hands, are also almost certainly going to be welcomed by the conservative movement. And so I think that's another absolutely crucial aspect to keep in mind.

MS: You point out, Alex Jones said to Steven Crowder: hang them in the public square as a deterrent because these damn predators are everywhere.

JK: Yeah. What you're seeing already from Jones is threat inflation. "These predators are everywhere.” Certainly wanting to kind of make a spectacle of this and targeting demonized populations.

It never stops with that. They always go after the most hated and maligned parts of the society first. And I think that's what also is important to remember here is that what DeSantis is doing runs absolutely contrary to what advocates who actually work in the best interest of of sexual abuse survivors want. You know this will make it much worse for children. It will make it much more likely that children wouldn't want to come forward. We know that the vast majority of sexual abuse happens either within the family or the friend of the family or somebody who's known to the family in the community. And it's already incredibly difficult for survivors to come forward. And the idea that somebody that their family knows could be potentially put to death because of them coming forward--it's completely contrary to what you would want to do if you were actually addressing the mental health of the children and of society at large.

It's purely about vengeance. And so I think that kind of gives up the whole game here.

MS: And the way they discuss it — you rape a child, you deserve to forfeit your right to life. Nothing about due process, the fact that there are often charges that aren't true and there are, you know, mistakes made and misidentifications. And we've certainly seen that with regard to rape and DNA evidence that comes back and shows that people have been completely innocent and put in prison.

JK: Right. The entire premise of the the DeSantis bill and of the right wing media response to it, I think is completely flawed and is based on an understanding of abuse of children that is essentially adjacent to the kind of QAnon conspiracy, the way that the  right wing media has defended this is that there's a kind of external evil that is out there that can be found and punished in this spectacular way as a deterrent. And that is that a cabal of child traffickers can be killed. And then that eliminates the problem.

And, that is a completely  incorrect assessment  of what actual child abuse is. It's this bizarre QAnon adjacent almost fantasy that externalizes the problem, that blames it on some liberal elites or something as opposed to understanding the actual dynamics here.

This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.signorile.com/subscribe

photo: Tyler Merbler

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Ruth Ben-Ghiat, New York University professor and author of "Strongmen: Mussolini to Present," is one of the most important scholars on autocracy and fascism and continually gives us a window into the authoritarian mindset. Her newsletter on Substack, Lucid, is always enlightening.

I invite her on my SiriusXM program often. And I spoke with her last week to help us make sense of what’s going on at this time as a MAGA-radicalized GOP holds the debt ceiling hostage while Donald Trump and his imitators like Florida’s Governor Ron DeSantis are running for president.

Listen to the full interview. Below is a transcript slightly edited for clarity and space.

Michelangelo Signorile: So we've been talking about the debt ceiling and what's going on, of course, and what Republicans are doing and how the president is interacting. And this is something that has a history going back to the Obama years. Previously, the debt ceiling was routinely raised. And it was routinely raised even under Trump. But in terms of Republicans using it in this way, that is about hostage taking. It's been something that's gone on back into the Obama administration. How does it fit into this authoritarian absolutist mindset that we're seeing, and how is it different now, perhaps than it was earlier?

Ruth Ben-Ghiat: Well, unfortunately, we're dealing with extremists and Trump, you know, most of all. And these are people who have no moral code. Trump himself does not care about mass hardship. If you recall when he was asked on camera about when COVID hit a death toll of 100,000, he just shrugged and said, "It is what it is." And he didn't care if Americans lived or died. 

So the kind of care, that they couldn't possibly do this because it would cause too much hardship, does not factor into the thinking of somebody like Trump and his extremist MAGA faction. So there's that. The other thing is extremists who already had a violent coup to try and step around the  system of democracy to get to power. These are people who will do anything, including crash the economy, to hurt Biden. And I firmly believe that. 

And the other thing is that there is a precedent for a Republican administration crashing a national economy to prevent socialism from taking hold. And that was in Chile in the 1970s. I write about it in my book, Strongmen. Nixon and Kissinger, they had a meeting, and they said, "make the economy scream." And so they used truck convoys disrupting supply chains. They used every possible economic warfare and political warfare, psychological warfare tool to create a system of a situation of crisis. And they crashed the economy. And these were Republicans not so long ago. Kissinger is still around. So think about that as well.

MS: I think hitting his 100th birthday as well. I saw you speaking about some of the hearings we've seen that have been all about the weaponization of the government supposedly, by the Republicans, you know, their point of view, against Donald Trump, against Republicans. And how much of this is about them trying to undo the history, the documentation, the facts of January 6th and the insurrection, and rewrite what happened. You talked about how important that is to strongmen to do that, to control that narrative.

RBG:  Yes. And one of the reasons the GOP is so dangerous right now is they are a party in damage control mode, in panic mode, and they're doing like this. Jim Jordan, Subcommittee on the Weaponization of the Federal Government —its purpose is to weaponize government, to shut down any exposure of secrets, any exposure, further exposure of complicity of the party in the coup attempt. And that's why they're going after the "deep state."

And Donald Trump has said, and I believe him, if he comes back to the White House, there are going to be massive purges. I'm writing about that today. I’m going to publish tomorrow for Lucid an essay about how intelligence agencies who have, you know, they have their own history of anti-democratic activity of course, but with the right or wrong leader, they can become targets because they are dedicated, dedicated to investigation and inquiry so they can become targets just like journalists and prosecutors. And so we saw this last week when they were trying to kind of taint the FBI and they consider it part of the deep state. 

So is just the start of all kinds of waste of taxpayers money and time. It's supposed to exhaust you. It's supposed to distract you from the GOP's corruption. And I call this garbage politics. And Jim Jordan is the perfect person to strew garbage. And by the way, these talking points are circulated all the way to Moscow. So it's a kind of a larger crusade to take down Biden's administration, to take down any non-loyalists of Trump that's going on.

MS: And people should go to lucid substack.com. They can read that piece but also subscribe to Lucid. 

Ron DeSantis is going to announce any day now his run for the presidency. We've talked about him before and you've talked about what motivates him and what he's doing. He just finished signing a slew of extremist bills worse than the previous batch. You know, a license to discriminate law that allows doctors to turn people away based on their moral beliefs. They can turn away gay people if they want. Of course, the six week abortion ban, the horrible bathroom bill, the anti-trans bill, the anti-drag queen bill, all of it. And a lot of people talk about whether he believes these things or not, if he's just posturing for the base of the party. But in terms of being an authoritarian, that doesn't really matter because he's willing to do it, right?

RBG: Yes. It doesn't matter. I've been writing about him since 2021. And one of the things that worried me is that I saw him as a kind of empty shell of a person who, in the classic strongman tradition, would become anything that he needs to become in order to get power. 

And Trump is like this too. Trump's a marketer by profession, among other things, as well as a money launderer, etcetera. And Trump kind of read the political marketplace, and he found he could, you know, kind of sell his product as white grievance, etcetera. And Ron DeSantis studied this very carefully. And he has made himself, of course, a mini Trump, but he has no moral scruples either. And so both of these people are letting themselves be led by the most extremist tendencies of the Republican voters. And once you go there, you see that. Trump’s become more and more extreme. He's now, you know, he always was soliciting, soliciting neo-Nazis, telling them they were good people. But now he's like exacerbated this. 

And that's what Ron DeSantis is doing, too. They double down even though it's unpopular what he's doing. And I think there's a whole kind of grassroots and lawmaker alliances that have come out in Florida. It's becoming actually a laboratory of interesting resistance, but they don't care. They'll do anything they need to do, no matter how how many people they demonize to get power.

MS: Well, and it's similar to what we're seeing in the states. And you said Florida is the laboratory. We've seen, of course, other states now pushing the same horrible don't say gay laws and anti-trans bills. And of course, we've seen anti-abortion bills and bans on abortion all through the states. And there's a lot of discussion about how Republicans, a lot of them know this is disastrous for them and they saw what happened in 2022 and how, you know, Roe v Wade being overturned really galvanized Democrats. 

And yet they still, at least in many of these states, in fact, even after some abortion bans were beaten back, South Carolina, North Carolina, Nebraska, they went back and they got it done, pushed it through, and used procedural moves. Talk about that. How even the environment and the political reality, at least how it seems, doesn't really matter to them.

RBG: Well, there's two things going on. One is their profound arrogance, and often authoritarians’ arrogance does them in. Not before they've, you know, caused enormous grief and often loss of life, unfortunately.  But they don't understand that or they think they can just have more and more repression, more criminalizing protest. 

They're not seeing; they're so blinded by their arrogance that they are causing an enormous army of resisters to come to the streets to be allying with lawmakers, as in Tennessee. They're sparking this whole countermovement.

The other reason they don't care is that they have doubled down on what we call electoral autocracy. Now, when you keep elections going, but you game the system in myriad ways, which the GOP has a long history of doing because of racialized voter suppression for many decades. And it's all about this trickery. And so they feel that—they don’t care if things are not popular because they're not depending on the vote anymore. That's where [Alabama Senator] Tommy Tuberville, when he said, well, we should just not have elections anymore. You know, he said the quiet part out loud because they're not depending on the popular vote anymore. 

They just become like autocrats, like in Turkey and in Hungary. So in that sense, they don't have to care either. So it's quite a fateful moment we're in.

MS: What should political leaders and Democrats be doing? I mean, certainly we see the movement and, as you said, the resistance. And we're seeing incredible people like Justin Pearson and, you know, Justin Jones, and people who are just galvanizing people across the country. But then you see President Biden, you know, going into these talks with McCarthy, still trying to talk about bipartisanship, negotiation, giving things up, give and take, compromise. Is that the way to do this?

RBG: I think it's not either/or. And he has a different role. He's been so strong on democratic ideals, both in terms of keeping the U.S.—he’s tried to repair the U.S.'s profile abroad. He has all these democracy summits, and I know that people will be like, okay, well what about us here? You know? But I think that it's not either or. I think he's doing what he has to do now as the head of state. 

I do find really interesting, you know, Nikki Freed, the chair of the Florida Democrats, who was recently arrested. It was very interesting to see her and the Florida state minority leader. They were arrested, and they were locking arms with activists. And this kind of optics of this lawmaker and grassroots activist alliance was very strong.

And we're seeing this in Tennessee, too. So I think that we know from studies of nonviolent protest, you have to ally with what's called the pillars of society. If you're a grassroots activist, you have to get people who have power, influence, and money involved, and you create a broad based coalition, and that's how you succeed. There's all kinds of research about this in different countries, and that's what's going on here slowly. So that's one thing. And what Biden is doing right now with the debt ceiling is another. It's a very specific and scary circumstance.

MS:What is your thought on these other candidates who are putting themselves out there? Tim Scott, the South Carolina senator, put his hat in the ring. Chris Christie is going to jump into the Republican primary. DeSantis has kind of deflated, but I don't know that anybody should rest on their laurels. And of course, Donald Trump is still there.

RBG: Yeah, it's really interesting. I think they're all quite deluded. Maybe for good reasons, because Trump is a is a cult leader. The thing about Trump, and I have an essay on this, and he's not a conventional politician. He's a cult leader. And everything that's going on in the GOP is because they are a party domesticated by this cult leader, and they became his personal tool. I mean, it's incredible. The guy hasn't been in office for a long time, and they're still taking orders from him. This is not normal. Except if you're a cult leader. 

Jim Jordan is like a total—these people are lackeys of the Trump cult, and they can't seem to find a way out. So it's really interesting that anybody at all is declaring, DeSantis aside, because DeSantis, you know, a long time ago, he already had like 40 or 50 billionaires backing him, and a few of them have left. But he's always had a big war chest. And so he's a little bit different than the others.

But Chris Christie etcetera, I don't know how they would go up against the Trump cult or the alternative of DeSantis, who somehow, some people, it makes me crazy this, they want so badly to have a, quote, normal politician that they want him to be like the moderate one. And you still see, like, even New York Times headlines that say, "Oh, he's he's very conservative." Well, there's nothing conservative about him. He's like demonizing, LGBTQ populations so that there will be violence against them. That's not conservative. That's extremist.

 So it's a very interesting dynamic field right now. But the cult leader dynamics show that it's very difficult for anybody else to prevail.

MS: And Trump certainly was able to just use CNN in that town hall, have a platform to cement that cult status even further and sort of set the terms of this Republican field and the nomination fight.

RBG: Yeah, and the thing is, if we look at everything he does, start with and being a cult leader. His campaign events have a different function than other politicians. His campaign events are radicalization venues for people to become radicalized. 

Since 2015, he's been telling people that they should be full of hatred, that they should hurt each other, that, you know, compassion is bad. So he's emotionally retraining them. He's radicalizing them. 

And he's circulating his propaganda. And they have to have loyalty to him. So those are what he uses his rallies for, as well as, you know, fleecing people, you know, ripping them off, of course. And that's a little different than other politicians. That's because he's a cult leader.

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In a discussion on my SiriusXM program about Florida Governor Ron DeSantis’ attack on civil rights and free speech—from criminalizing drag shows to his war with Disney over its criticism of his “don’t say gay” bill—John from North Carolin called in to say I have distorted the First Amendment.

But he had nothing — truly—and was a textbook example of the ignorance we’re dealing with.

John claimed I ignore part of the First Amendment when I discuss it:

Why is it that you always ignore the second part of the religion clause in the First Amendment, which is “nor restrict the free exercise thereof?..

..Every time that you talk about religion and government, you say there's a separation of religion. The First Amendment, when it was written—

I jumped in, stating, “Let’s be clear,” and paraphrasing the First Amendment:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion or prohibiting its free exercise. Right. That's the part you're saying that I'm ignoring?

Yes, he said, I do ignore it. I denied that, saying it was a given: Of course you can worship whoever you want in your church, synagogue, mosque, wherever. But you can’t force your religion on others and use it to pass laws, I told him.

Then he claimed that that I say “people can’t do anything with their faith in public” and that I “shout down anyone who mentions God.”

That is preposterous, since many people of faith are regular listeners to the show and call the program, including pastors of churches who embrace full equality and work on behalf of the poor and the sick, and who talk about their faith.

John gave no examples, even after I said, “You have to give me an example.”

I then asked if he agreed with the bill Ron DeSantis signed into law in recent days that allows doctors and all medical professionals to turn away any patient, even in an emergency, based on their religious or any other “moral” or “ethical” beliefs.

John replied:

I have to admit, I had not seen any of that.

“Well I’m telling you about it now,” I said. “He passed a law that allows doctors to turn away anybody who they believe is is against their religious faith. Could be an emergency. Someone needs a doctor. They can turn them away.”

John then just slunk away:

I come to take anything that you say with a grain of salt. I'll look it up. I will give you a call back. Okay.

This is a primary example of how most of what these people believe are distortions and conspiracies—and the rest is simply about not even knowing what it going on in the world.

Listen in and let me know your thoughts!

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photo: Tyler Merbler

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There’s a great mash up of Fox News hosts saying no one was charged with “insurrection” or “sedition” on January 6th, part of Fox News hosts’ attempts to say an insurrection never happened—before some of the major players were charged.

But then came the Oath Keepers leaders’ charge and conviction on seditious conspiracy, and then just recently four Proud Boys convicted of seditious conspiracy.

You have to watch the mash up to see how foolish the Fox News hosts look now—it’s on Twitter and I can’t embed it here as Twitter is fighting with Substack, so you just can go to this link to Twitter and watch it.

But what’s pathetic is that Trump followers still believe that the fact that no one was charged with “insurrection”—even though several have now been convicted of seditious conspiracy—proves there was no insurrection. What it actually proves, however, is how stupid they are!

And Mark in Kansas, who called SiriusXM program, thought he was engaging in a gotcha moment when he actually was showing his ignorance.

Insurrection is simply the act of overthrowing the government, even if spontaneously, while the charge of seditious conspiracy involved, well, a planned out conspiracy that is premeditated.

Seditious conspiracy is worse than insurrection:

Q2: Is it a federal crime to commit “sedition” and “insurrection”?

A2: It is a serious federal crime to commit seditious conspiracy or to participate in an insurrection against the government.

Under 18 U.S.C. § 2384, “seditious conspiracy” occurs when two or more persons:

conspire to overthrow, put down, or to destroy by force the Government of the United States, or to levy war against them, or to oppose by force the authority thereof, or by force to prevent, hinder, or delay the execution of any law of the United States, or by force to seize, take, or possess any property of the United States contrary to the authority thereof.

Individuals charged with seditious conspiracy can be fined and could serve up to 20 years in prison.

It’s the part about preventing or hindering the execution of any law—in this case the certification of an election—that is also a serious part. Seditious conspiracy includes insurrection, but conspiring to do it.

Insurrection alone, however, is a lessor offense:

Insurrection is captured by 18 U.S.C. § 2383 and applies to “[w]hoever incites, sets on foot, assists, or engages in any rebellion or insurrection against the authority of the United States or the law there, or gives aid or comfort thereto.” Charges of insurrection, or the incitement of insurrection, involves fines and imprisonment of up to 10 years. Individuals charged with insurrection are also ineligible to hold public office in the United States.

Anyway, listen to MAGA Mark and my response and let me know your thoughts!

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In a discussion about President Biden’s announcement that he is running for re-election, Joy from California called in to my SiriusXM program.

She declared that as a "lifelong Democrat," she would not be voting for Biden because "age is an issue." She said she didn’t vote for Diane Feinstein for re-election to the Senate—and "left it blank"—and she won’t vote for Biden because "the 80-year-olds are a bit selfish" and "won’t turn over power" to a younger generation.

Whatever you think of the issue, it’s just idiotic to say you won’t vote for Biden for this reason — not when the stakes are so high and we could have Donald Trump back in power, Ron DeSantis, or another extremist.

Readers here and listeners to my show know my stand: Biden has done a great job, continues to do so, and showed his energy by going toe-to-toe with Marjorie Taylor Greene at the State of the Union. So, no, this is not an issue regarding Biden— and besides, we have a qualified vice president who can fill the job immediately should something happen to him.

Dianne Feinstein, on the other hand, has shown signs that she cannot fulfill her duties and shouldn’t have run for re-election. And if she’s going to hold up the appointment of judges because she's been out sick for weeks, she should resign.

But to say that Biden is "selfish" when he has in fact earned the right to be re-elected, having accomplished so much, just because you don’t like his age, is stupid. And saying you won’t vote for him for that reason makes you the one who is selfish.

And that’s what I told Joy. Actually, I called her “f*****g selfish,” to be precise. I was glad she at least didn’t live in Wisconsin or another battleground state where her vote would matter greatly and where it would be profoundly destructive not to vote for Biden.

Joy later confronted me on social media, distorting what I said and claiming I attacked her for no reason. So here it is for everyone to hear. Listen in and let me know your thoughts!

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In a discussion about gun violence—and the shootings last week across the country in which people mistakenly went to the wrong house, opened the wrong car door, or drove up the wrong driveway and were shot—Anthony from Albany called in to my SiriusXM program.

He said he lived not far from where a 20-year-old woman who killed recently when she and her friends mistakenly drove into the driveway of a man who came out with a gun and shot at the car. He also said he was a gun owner.

At first I didn’t know where he was coming from, but soon it became clear: We were too focused on these shootings, he said, and not focused on urban crime.

Of course, the Kansas City shooting of 16-year-old Ralph Yarl, who mistakenly went to the wrong house to pick up his brothers, occurred in a city.

But we know what Anthony was really trying to focus on:

… Sadly, we start cherry picking the the incidents that kind of meet certain areas. I'll give you an example. What happened in Washington County [New York], which is like 20 minutes from me, was horrific with that teenager who was turning around in the driveway right through the area very well.

Horrific. So was the young man who was going in the wrong house. Both of them were tragic, but equally tragic. Look what happens in our city streets each and every weekend at proportions far greater than those of these two individuals. And I'm not dismissing their deaths. They're all horrible. But we don't like to talk about the other ones. The children get mowed down by gang activity every single week.

I had to jump in at that point and explain that statistically, there’s more crime and higher murder rates in red states than blue states, both in rural areas and in cities.

"Well, actually, Anthony, proportionately, it's just not true," I responded. "It's not happening at the same rate. It is much more dangerous to live in rural Oklahoma than in New York City. Do you know that? It is much more dangerous to be living in rural Oklahoma or in Columbus, Ohio, or Cincinnati than New York City."

He then asked me for statistics, as he couldn’t believe that to be true, and I just had to tell him, "Google it," since, "I don’t have time for you."

I know—it was harsh.

I should, as a radio host, give a caller the facts. It’s just that I’ve spent weeks going over the statistics and they’re now all over the place and he could find them.

And in truth, I did eventually send him in the direction of some sites, which are easy to find, that show that the 25 states Trump won have higher murder rates than the 25 states Biden won for 20 years. But it does become tiring. And even after I told him of a site to go to, he still didn’t believe me:

But what you're doing is you're comparing New York State to certain cities. Well, New York State land mass is huge. New York City, when you start looking at their crime, you are 100% incorrect in saying there's a dramatic drop in crime, crime and violent crime in almost every category in the last two years in New York City is up.

Um, no. You can compare New York City to any city or rural area in Oklahoma or Ohio, and New York City is safer.

I eventually just had to tell him: "I have the facts and you don't. You just admitted you don't have the facts. I've given you websites. Go and play Google. I don't have time for you now."

Too hard? Listen in and let me know your thoughts!

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During a discussion on my SiriusXM program about the expulsion of two Black legislators—Justin Jones and Justin Pearson—Kevin from Bowling Green, Kentucky called my program to make a comparison between the peaceful protests by students inside the Tennessee Capitol and January 6th.

This was something we saw the Tennessee Speaker of the House, Cameron Sexton, outlandishly claim following the protest by thousands marching on the Tennesee State Capitol—and he rightly got a lot of pushback.

Kevin, right out of the gate, called the protest something that "turned into a semi-riot." I had to stop him in its tracks on that one, as it wasn’t anything near a semi-riot, just a peaceful protest. He continued:

But the policemen were there. They let some people get through so they didn't get injured. But on our beliefs of January 6th — and what if a couple Republicans went with those insurgents, quote unquote —What would have happened to them because of their beliefs?

"Wait," I interjected. "Are you really making a comparison between this and January 6th? Seriously? ‘We have our beliefs. You have your beliefs.’ Wait a minute…"

“…January 6th was an insurrection against this country. People came armed and people came with plans. White supremacist groups like the Proud Boys and the Oath Keepers had a plan to bring guns up the river and hold hostage members of Congress."

I went on, schooling him on exactly what happened on January 6th.

He managed to mumble out:

Some were bad, don't get me wrong.

Oh wow. I then just had to ask if he was "that insane" or just watches Tucker Carlson.

Kevin had nothing more to say, or he realized he was not going to get anywhere, and said, "Thank you for your time," before hanging up.

You have to hear this one to get the full sense of it.

Listen in and let me know your thoughts!

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Shortly after a caller to my SiriusXM program lambasted evangelicals as hypocrites, Mike from Pennsylvania called in.

He was outraged at the previous caller attacking “all” evangelicals, though the caller had been referring to Christian nationalist leaders.

When Mike didn’t win that argument, he switched to another topic — after accusing me of not letting him speak, which is a common tactic among the Trumpers who call in, not wanting me to respond to their crazy statements — and claimed Trump was the victim of a “witch hunt” by the Manhattan district attorney, parroting Trump’s claims.

First of all, yeah, it is a witch hunt on him with the Stormy Daniels thing. It's BS when they do that. Why do they do that to Bill Clinton? Why didn't they do that to Dick Morris?

When I explained that they did do it to Bill Clinton — they impeached him — though he didn’t commit any crime, and surely didn’t pay Monika Lewinsky, and do so by funneling it through his business to cover it up, violating New York business law, Mike switched to another topic: How does Joe Biden supposedly have so many homes (he has two, one of which he bought many years about for $350,000) and supposed wealth?

The point is Donald Trump. Okay. He has a business and he feeds people now. Oh, now how did Joe Biden get all the money that he had? He's just a politician. How does he got all these homes at all? How did he do that? How did he do that, Mike?

I then explained that he could go and look at precisely how Joe Biden earned his income, as a politician, a consultant, an author, a speaker and whatever else, by looking online because Joe Biden has released all of his tax returns for many years. Unlike Donald Trump, who has refused to release his tax returns, Biden is not a shady businessman who has tried to cover it his sources of income.

Lost on that one, Mike then meandered into another direction, and it was like swatting flies.

The point here is that Trumpers who actually do engage — most of them just rant — have nothing but distortions, conspiracy theories and untruths, and when you expose them they have absolutely nothing to say. So they change the subject, only to have the next lie exposed.

Listen in and let me know your thoughts!

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How extreme has the “manosphere” become, and why should you know all about it?

Justin Horowitz, a researcher at Media Matters, took a deep dive into it, reporting back on the misogynistic “micro-influencers” who are proliferating. He came on my SiriusXM program to share more of his reporting and insights, and explained why it’s something we need to keep a sharp eye on.

These micro-influencers are taking forward the message of mega-influencer Andrew Tate, notorious for promoting ugly and vicious attacks on women to millions of followers on social media platforms, some of which he was eventually banned from. Tate was arrested and detained in prison last December in Romania for alleged rape and human trafficking, and he’s still being held in jail. But that doesn't mean that what he’s promoted is gone from the Internet, as an army of young men take up the cause and bring in many more.

Listen in to my conversation with Justin Horowitz on my SiriusXM show. Below is a slightly condensed transcript that is also slightly edited for clarity.

Michelangelo Signorile:  So you wrote all about the misogynistic “manosphere.” And before we get into that, [tell us] about Andrew Tate, who I think a lot of people know about, but a lot of people probably don't know about him. For a lot of people, they first heard about him, in fact, when he was arrested, because that really got a lot of news. And there was that great moment with Greta Thunberg that just became a viral phenomenon. So talk a little bit about him first for our listeners who may not know much about him.

Justin Horowitz:  Sure. So Andrew Tate is a former former professional kickboxer. I'd say he's a British media personality. And I think most people started to really hear his name when [he] started to show up on their social media accounts. So what Tate was doing was he was paying this army of young men to to repost his content. He was banned on pretty much all social media. And he had all of these young men reposting his content, whether that on be TikTok, YouTube, anything like that. So people started to realize who he was once they were hearing all of the vitriol and misogynistic rhetoric that was coming from him.

MS:  And he was arrested. As I said, it became quite a big news moment. And there was some discussion about whether or not he actually set a trap for himself because of the pizza box that was there and the address. Whatever happened, the Romanian authorities closed in on him for human trafficking. Talk a little bit about that.

JH:  So he was arrested by Romanian authorities for alleged rape, human trafficking and organized crime. He and his brother are currently sitting in a Romanian jail waiting to face trial. 

MS: And obviously he can't be online. But as you discuss the army of people who have been promoting and spreading this hate are out there and in the manosphere. These influencers who are proliferating across social media. Tell us a bit about that and Andrew Tate's influence on these young men.

JH: So the manosphere is kind of this umbrella term to understand this online community of right wing websites, bloggers, influencers that sort of cultivate a worldview based on conservative and outdated gender politics, kind of repackaged for the Internet age. It valorizes pickup artists, violent misogynists, incels men's rights advocates. What the group really focuses on is that they blame women for all sorts of societal woes, and they treat them as this inferior sex. They believe that men have the right to own and berate and be horrible to women because that's their worldview. And Andrew Tate is kind of like the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the manosphere. There are a bunch of micro-influencers across social media that are sort of repackaging his violent misogyny for their own profit and social media fame. I feel that Andrew Tate is the one that most people know when it comes to someone in the manosphere. But there are other right wing pundits, people like Matt Walsh or Mike Cernovich, who have been part of the manosphere for years. But Andrew Tate has really been the one that's been in the news most recently as kind of a manosphere influencer.

MS: Some of our listeners will be familiar with Matt Walsh and Cernovich, but tell us a bit about what they're doing now, what they're promoting and what you're seeing as obviously Andrew Tate is no longer able to be online.

JH: So these micro-influencers are repackaging Andrew Tate's violent misogyny for their own audiences. And what they’re doing is they're really kind of speaking to the fears and the real lives of young men. So things like rejection, alienation, economic failure, loneliness, all of these worries that young men usually don't talk about in person. They're looking for influencers to look up to. That kind of speaks to those issues. And there aren't a lot of influencers that can speak to young men in the way that these young men also respect. So whether it's talking about picking up women, monogamy, non-monogamy, how to make money or make a name for yourself online, these are the sort of topics these manosphere influencers are really pushing. And they oftentimes draw in these viewers and these audiences because they'll start talking about things like weightlifting or working out. It's a really good way for these influencers to really draw in an audience of young men.

MS:  Talk a little bit more about that, because I think it's quite fascinating and I think not something a lot of people really get in terms how these young men are almost indoctrinated into something that is is filling a void, some sort of need, something that went on maybe in their own lives, something that's missing that they can't fill. And it kind of puts them into a different direction. 

JH: So it's kind of similar to the way that people fall into conspiracy theories. I wouldn't say that they're the same, but when there's a hole missing in the information that someone is trying to learn about, sometimes it's easier to lean on something like a conspiracy theory where there's a straightforward answer to why something is the way it is. Obviously, things usually have more nuance to them, but this feels the same in a way.

Oftentimes when people are thinking about like, why am I getting rejected by women? Like why? Why can't I be as social as the other people I see around me? Why can't I be as strong or as motivated to work out as some of these other people, these influencers? They're really giving these young men an answer to their problems and the answer to their problems that they're telling them is that women are the problem. They have this phrase in the manosphere called the “red pill.” I'm sure that some of your audience has heard of the red pill before. And the idea of taking the red pill means you're going further to the right. But in the manosphere particularly, it means that you come to this understanding that women are the root of all problems and all evil. If you take the red pill, it's a way for you to kind of understand life from the point of view of women are the reason that I'm not getting laid or women are the reason that I'm not getting paid more at my job. So it's just a really easy way for men to see the world through a really, really misogynistic lens.

MS: And a lot of them are lonely or, as you said, maybe they felt rejection. Something happened. A lot of these podcasts will focus in on fitness and how to remake your body and obviously homing in on masculinity. This is a major part of what's going on here, an insecurity about masculinity and how to somehow repackage themselves while still blaming, of course, others.

JH: Yes, it's definitely a way to completely rebrand yourself. I think that men that are looking up to these influencers, they see it as a really easy fix for a lot of different problems in their life, whether that be physical or mental or emotional.

MS: One of the ones you mentioned, Fresh and Fit podcast, sounds like something, you know, innocuous, right? But how is it something that draws people in to something more nefarious?

JH: So the they call themselves the number one men's podcast in the world. And they say that their show is about females, fitness and finances. But it's not to say that they don't talk about those things. They do. But I think that why people go to them and listen to their podcast is because it's for this insane misogyny. I mean, after listening to hours of this podcast, I don't think I've heard another show that is, I would say mainstream like this, that has such vitriol. I think that a big part of it is that it's very edgy. You're not finding a lot of podcasts like this out there, so when you're able to kind of bring people in, like we're going to talk about fitness, we're going to talk about finances. And the other thing is they have a lot of women on their show. A lot of women volunteer to go on this show, which may make you think that there's a possibility that they will be able to, like, speak their truth as well and be able to hold their own. 

But a lot of these episodes, they’re the hosts just berating and belittling these women. And I can't really wrap my head around why some of these women would want to go on the show. But it happens. And I feel like it kind of seems like a way for some people to say, well, women are going on the show, so it can't be that bad. But actually listening to it and taking the time, it's pretty disgusting.

MS: Well, among some of the podcasts that you talk about and some of the people who are hosts of the podcasts, is a female misogynist. H. Pearl Davis. Tell us a bit about H. Pearl Davis.

JH: Yeah. So she's actually a really interesting influencer among these manosphere influencers. She, I think, is a unique case because her rhetoric is the same kind of rhetoric you would find on the Fresh and Fit podcast, as you said, or some of these other extremist platforms. I mean, she recently invited someone like white nationalist Nick Fuentes on her show where she let him ramble on and on about, you know, his vision for an ethnostate and his anti-Semitic views. And she agreed with some of them. And it's just interesting because it almost doesn't matter that she's a woman. The fact is that she's pushing the same toxic anti-feminist men's rights rhetoric, like I said, with the women that go on the Fresh and Fit podcast. Maybe it seems like it would be different because she is a female, but it's really, really the same kind of rhetoric you'll find on the other platforms as well.

MS:  After listening to these and just seeing the reach of these audiences, what what do you kind of take from it in terms of what can be done about it?  What do we as a society do?

JH:  So I would say one of the most important aspects that's it’s going to come down to is, these people are using social media to further their message. So the social media platforms have a responsibility to not have this violent misogyny on their platforms. A lot of them have policies against hateful content or violent content speaking about violence. And a lot of them are just — they're not doing their due diligence, for example.

MS: This is beyond the ones that are on Telegram, which allows all this. You're saying the social media platforms that claim to have all of these policies like Twitter, like Facebook, like others.

JH: Yes. And I would say TikTok in particular is one that is the easiest for young people to be radicalized into these manosphere spaces. For example, like to the Fresh nd Fit podcast and another influencer I wrote about, Nico. They are both banned on the platform, yet there are so many burner accounts and fan accounts that will continuously repost the content. And that's what Andrew Tate did after he was banned from all these platforms.

 Like I said, he had an army of young men reposting his content. So when you have people like Fresh and Fit podcast and there's, you know, billions of views on TikTok under hashtag fresh and fit podcast, TikTok has a responsibility to flag these things and understand you banned the fresh and fit official account.

 And then I would also say for young kids, I would say parents have to do their due diligence as well to make sure that their kids aren’t listening to and watching these influencers that can lead to really toxic rhetoric. I know that I linked to one story in my report about how a kid as young as 11 years old was repeating rhetoric from Andrew Tate. So  parents really need to know what their kids are listening to, especially on platforms like TikTok.

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