Everything Has Changed – In the Tank #473
Download MP3Alright. We are live. You know, since election night, doesn't everything just feel different now? I mean, not just our politics, but the whole mood of the country. Yes, Some of our fellow Americans are in a very bad state.
Jim Lakely:Clips of people filming their misery and sharing it with the world are everywhere. But for the majority of the country, it feels like a major societal and cultural shift has occurred. And there are a lot of people, walking around now with a new spring in their step. And it sure looks like our media has also changed. They got a big wake up call on election day.
Jim Lakely:Their corruption has been, laid bare for all to see. Our pop culture feels like it's about to change as well, moving away from leftist moralizing and maybe getting back to producing entertainment with broad appeal. You know, it just feels like the politicization of everything is over, and we're waking up in a new era in which leftism is no longer going to be the dominant force in American life. We will talk about all of this and more on episode 473 of the In the Tank podcast.
Crazy Woman:It's
Crazy Woman:alright. It's alright. I feel that way too. It's alright. We feel that way together.
Crazy Woman:Okay? Let it out. Let it out.
Jim Lakely:Yes. Let it out, everybody. Election day is over. We are at election day plus, I guess, 8 or 10 days at this point. And it, it is time.
Jim Lakely:You know, I had that people who watched the podcast last week did see that little intro. We like to put a little a little, something a little special at the end of our usual intro video, and, we had that last week. We had it again this week. And, actually, I promise that'll be the last time I will play that because it is not time to scream. It is time to smile and to talk about how everything has changed.
Jim Lakely:I am not your regular host, Donnie Kendall. In fact, Donnie isn't here. Chris Talgo is not here. Justin Haskins isn't here. They're all off doing something else today.
Jim Lakely:And we almost canceled the show, but we would wanna do that to our loyal listeners. So we decided I decided independently that I was going to host the show myself and bring on 2 very special guests and friends. One of them is Linnea Luuken. You know her from the Climate Realism Show on Fridays. She's a, research fellow for energy policy and environment policy here at the Hartland Institute.
Jim Lakely:Welcome to In the Tank, Linnea.
Linnea Lueken:Thank you very much. I'm always happy to be on In the Tank, especially, on a week like this following, what is probably one of the most historic elections of my lifetime.
Jim Lakely:Yeah. Yeah. I mean and and the the the topic of this podcast said it's I just it just feels like it. Like, I I was talking to, to my wife the other day, and it just and I said, doesn't the even the air just feels different? You know?
Jim Lakely:I just feel like, you know, it just feels like there's a there's a big exhale that's been happening in the country. And, also, to talk to us about this kind of stuff and more is, Chris Martz. He is a, he works with, CFACT. He is a, he is a pretty famous guy on x slash Twitter, and, he is a, meteorology student, a senior now, would be soon graduating with a degree in meteorology, and he enjoys trolling the climate alarmist left on Twitter and by pounding them in the face with facts, and that's great to see. So, Chris, welcome to the In The Tank podcast.
Chris Martz:Oh, thanks for having me here. It's a pleasure to be on with the 2 of you.
Jim Lakely:Is there anything else anyone everyone should know about you? I don't wanna disclose where you go to school. You know? You should be in an undisclosed location for your own safety, but you know?
Chris Martz:Yeah. No. That's, you summed it up pretty well there, I think. So there's not much else to it. Just be a senior meteorology student and, control the climate alarmist on Twitter.
Chris Martz:It's fun.
Jim Lakely:Yeah. Yeah. And and it's not and you don't just deal with, with climate and and and, you know, climate issues and energy issues. You know, you're you're out there engaging in, the pop culture today and, you know, in social media today, I should say.
Chris Martz:Yeah. I try not to, but sometimes I just it's like I get so aggravated by the stupid stuff I see. So Yeah. I just gotta comment. I'm surrounded by it on a daily basis.
Linnea Lueken:So No shortage.
Jim Lakely:No shortage. Alright. Well, you know, I had a I have a list, if people can see the show notes if they're on our email list. And if you are not on our email list, go to heartland.org/subscribe so you can get, an email blast, for this show and the Climate Realism Show about 90 minutes before it goes on air to remind you and to give you the link. But I also just have to do a little bit of housekeeping that Donnie usually does because he's a very professional host of this show, and I am just filling in, temporarily.
Jim Lakely:And that is, a reminder to like, share, and subscribe. Like like this video. Leave comments underneath it. That helps, the algorithm smile upon this program. And, also, share with friends and subscribe and hit that bell because all those things are important because YouTube has demonetized the Heartless Institute's YouTube channel.
Jim Lakely:And so, we depend on, you, the listening audience, to, to help us break through that algorithm. And, also, we used to have, when it was monetized, you'd be able to leave a super chat, you know, for a couple couple bucks in the can to help the show out. Well, you can't, collect when you're demonetized, it means you can't collect money. So you can go to heartland.org/inthetank. That's heartland.org/inthetank, and you can, support the show in that way and support, the Heartland Institute.
Jim Lakely:We are a nonprofit 5 0 1c3, so it's actually a tax deductible donation. So with, the end of the year coming, now is a good time to donate, and we really appreciate, your help. Alright. So, going through, there's so many as you can see on the, on the the sidebar over here, that we have many aspects of how everything feels different, to go over. And, what we're gonna do first, I think, is, is I find the the button here.
Jim Lakely:We're gonna talk about how the media has changed. I mean, you guys are on a a podcast streaming on YouTube. A lot of people watching this, not just don't just watch this program. They watch a lot of other programs. Joe Rogan, got so big on YouTube that he went over to Spotify, and they started, you know, doing a video podcast for him there.
Jim Lakely:He's the most listened to, podcaster in the world. And, I think he was just on Spotify for, I don't know, was it 6 months or so? And they wouldn't allow him to put it on YouTube anymore. And I guess he convinced them. He was like, no.
Jim Lakely:You're actually throwing away audience by not letting me do it on YouTube as well. Let me go back on YouTube. And so now you see clips of him on YouTube or the entire show on YouTube. And Joe Rogan's interview with, with Donald Trump was seen across the two platforms, I would see easily more than 100,000,000 times. That's just amazing.
Jim Lakely:And so so the the legacy media is failing at the same time the new media is rising. Chris and Lenny, I'll start with you, Chris. Maybe you can you can share with the audience kind of what your media consumption habits might be because, this is one way that in which everything has changed, and it really only became crystal clear that people don't consume media the way they used to during and after this election.
Chris Martz:Oh, yeah. It's, it's very interesting. I think this election really, Trump won the popular vote by several, you know, several million votes, and, he lost the popular vote twice. He won the electoral college in 2016, and he, you know, he lost both the popular and electoral college in 2020. At this time, he won both electoral college and, the popular vote, and by a large by by a pretty decent margin.
Chris Martz:I mean, it's still a close election nonetheless, but I think what's different this time around is that people are starting to wake up to the idea that, you know, legacy media, the traditional formats of cable news, the the CNN, MSNBC, CBS, ABC. They're they're not serving the public in their best interest by being reporters, you know, reporting the facts. They have a hyperpartisan spin. So while something may be true, might be true, they have a very partisan take on, the facts. And even Fox does that to an extent, obviously, but especially in the prime time, the evening, the evening shows.
Chris Martz:Obviously, that's been the biggest bias is gonna be, but people are tuning that out. They realize they've they've they've realized that the media, does nothing, but they have an agenda. They they're they're they're being they're being paid, to sell a partisan partisan takes on things. They're gonna become these celebrity TV personalities, involved in political discourse. And people want factual information.
Chris Martz:People wanna hear directly from the candidates themselves, and they wanna hear more than just what the the same in the case like the the presidential debates or the vice presidential debates, people, they've asked the same questions over and over again. What are you gonna do for health care? What are you gonna do for the border? What are you gonna do for the economy? What are you gonna do about climate change?
Chris Martz:It's the same questions. So they don't get to explore other issues and they don't get to talk at length about things. And this is why people, especially my age, they love long form podcasts like Joe Rogan. And, another one I like is Theo Vaughn, is that they go on and they talk directly to the the candidates and the people, and they ask, you know, what their takes on things are. And, you know, I was listening to Theo Vaughn and he had Donald Trump on there at one time and had, like, 13,000,000 views.
Chris Martz:And then just a week before that, he had Senator Bernie Sanders. And while I don't agree with Bernie Sanders on a lot of things, it was interesting to hear his take, especially on big pharma, which I was largely in agreement with. So interesting to hear, Bernie talk about that because, you know, he's been vilified also by the Democrat Party. They they kind of forced him out of the primaries obviously in 2016 and 2020. And, so it was interesting essentially to hear what the candidates actually or candidates, whether it's for the presidential election or senate race or whatever, hear their positions on things and hear, and hear it directly from them and not somebody else's spin on it.
Chris Martz:It's not some fragmented clip that's taken out of context like CNN does with Trump all the time. So it was very, interesting to see. And, people like a lot of people my age listen to the, you know, Matt Walsh show. For example, Matt Walsh at Daily Wire is one of my favorite commentators. I like Jesse Kelly as well.
Chris Martz:It was interesting because, I was actually on the I was featured on the Matt Walsh show twice recently. And, one of my buddies, he's a meteorologist who, he was, he just graduated from where I go to school, this past year, and he now works full time job. He was on his way home from work, and he was listening to the show, and he heard my name mentioned, and he'd immediately text me and said, dude, you gotta check this out. Matt Walsh mentioned you. So a lot of people my age listen to these podcasts.
Chris Martz:They don't nobody my age watches the news. I mean, I I watch Greg Gutfeld every night, you know, if if I'm at home with my parents. I like that, but I don't watch I I don't watch the news. It's just kinda it's just kinda boring to me, and it's obviously very partisan. It's not factual.
Chris Martz:And so a lot of people I'm not sure Renee, I can speak to this as well. People listen people like scrolling people like Twitter, people like, you know, they like long form posts and short posts, and people like listening to podcasts. That's kind of their thing. They don't listen to TV and it's and or read newspapers, and it's a very it's dying out. Yeah.
Chris Martz:Yeah.
Jim Lakely:And I think that had
Chris Martz:a major influence on the election.
Linnea Lueken:Definitely. And, you know, Jim knows this about me. I'm the kind of person who will sit down and watch, like, a 3 hour podcast or will listen to a 3 hour podcast while I'm doing other stuff or, you know, doing yard work or cooking dinner or whatever. So, yeah, definitely. I can't remember the last time I sat down in my own home and turned on a news channel.
Linnea Lueken:Never when I'm living on my own. Maybe like what Chris said, you know, if I go over to visit my parents or something and they're watching, Newsmax or OAN or something like that, I'll watch a little bit of that just, like, passively while hanging out with them. But yeah. No. Why would I why would I watch a news channel that has commercials every 2 minutes that only give you, like, the briefest glimpse of any given, you know, interview when I can go and I can watch, as Chris mentioned, you know, Joe Rogan sit down with Donald Trump or Vance.
Linnea Lueken:JD Vance's interview was fascinating. I mean, what a great look into, like, the kind of person that he is And and sit and watch them, like, just shoot the breeze for 3 hours. You get such a better idea of who this person is and what's important to them, rather than, like, a 32nd clip on a news station that you know is gonna be, you know, edited like crazy even if it's something like 60 minutes or whatever. You know that they're it's not a live stream. You know, they record this stuff in advance, and everyone knows that they're deceptive.
Linnea Lueken:And that goes for everybody. I don't think that the the left holds the monopoly on deceptive editing in the news. So yeah. No. My generation does not watch the news.
Linnea Lueken:In short, legacy media is indeed cooked.
Jim Lakely:Yeah. Yeah. I mean, look. I'm I'm 54 years old, so I'm more than twice Chris's age. I'm probably twice your age, Linnea.
Jim Lakely:That's alright. And we just have one of our regular, viewers of the program who's always in the chat, Christian, Christine Laurel. She says she's over 60 years old, and she doesn't watch the mainstream media anymore either. I mean, I haven't I can't remember. I mean, I unplugged my cable box or, you know, stopped getting cable, around this time, actually, in 2020.
Jim Lakely:I just about had enough, and I said, you know what? I don't I don't need this. I won't. And it was amazing. You don't miss it.
Jim Lakely:Once you unplug from cable, I don't think you you people are not going back. It's the idea that you get this audience back is just false because you once you once you once you pull yourself out basically, once you wake up, and they unplug you from the matrix, you don't wanna go back in. If
Linnea Lueken:they didn't have the airports, I would love to see what their numbers looked like. You know?
Chris Martz:The Yes. CNN's always on at the airport.
Linnea Lueken:Yeah. CNN is the the airport channel. I you know, when you when you talk about, like, social media and stuff, yeah, it's pretty toxic in general. But think about the people that you know who are especially on the left, who just sit there watching MSNBC all day. What's their worldview like?
Linnea Lueken:I mean
Chris Martz:Toxic.
Linnea Lueken:It's totally warped. They you know? And and people on on these television channels are always going on and on about how the, you know, social media allows people to be misinformed. Well, I've never been more misinformed than when I watch mainstream news. I mean, I sit down and watch even just Fox News and the stuff that they say is just nonsense half the time.
Linnea Lueken:I don't know where they're getting their their, information from. Nowadays, though, it seems like some of them are getting their information from Twitter, which is your ex, which is pretty funny. Yeah. No. It's crazy.
Linnea Lueken:I mean, we have viewers in the UK and stuff, and their TV license thing is a whole other story. So they've got
Chris Martz:BBC, they have to pay a licensing fee, and most of them don't even watch it.
Jim Lakely:Yeah. Yeah. Well, you know, we have people here in the comments mentioning CNN. So let me get to a couple of stories in the show notes that are that are pretty interesting. So as I'm trying to host and, I'm trying to host and produce at the same time.
Linnea Lueken:While you while you look for that, I can say, do you guys remember, back in I think it was 2016, but it might have been 2020. These years have been weird. We've been stuck in some kinda, like, weird time loop for the last couple years. So who knows? With with it on MSNBC, maybe Morning Joe.
Linnea Lueken:I could be wrong. When one of the female anchors said, like, we don't want people fact checking things on their own or looking up information on their own. That's our job to tell them what to think.
Jim Lakely:That's right. Yeah. That was me. I saw that. I
Chris Martz:yep. Yep. It was her. Yep.
Jim Lakely:Yeah. It's so yeah. So the so it couldn't, you know, the destruction of an industry didn't happen to a more deserving industry than the mainstream media. And look. Look.
Jim Lakely:I was a reporter. I was, you know, I was a journalist. I was a reporter for, newspapers. You know? For the younger people, a newspaper, is something that's usually put into a plastic bag and thrown onto your driveway or at least was way back in the day.
Jim Lakely:They're pretty much extinct now. Is
Linnea Lueken:it that thing that they they give me in my town
Chris Martz:that I saw you paperboard.
Linnea Lueken:My fire in my fireplace?
Chris Martz:Is that
Jim Lakely:what that Yeah. They helped start fires, lined bird cages, you know, wrap fish in, and all that good good stuff. But, but yeah. So I I was I I was a journalist for most of my adult life. That was what I trained to be in college.
Jim Lakely:It was the only thing I was good at, actually. So it doesn't pay a lot, but it's very interesting, a lot of fun. And, I haven't gotten a newspaper since, 2006, I think. I stopped getting the Los Angeles Times when I lived out in Southern California. Haven't had any interest in the newspaper since, and I was in the business.
Jim Lakely:And we have one of our commenters here saying, he used to be a TV newsman, and he doesn't watch the TV news anymore. And it's because, media has gotten out of the business for a long time of informing the public. Their job now, whether it's print, online, or broadcast, or radio, or anything, their job now is to be a propagandist for, leftist ideology and, specifically, specifically, the Democrat Party. And the American people have woken up to that fact, and they are leaving in droves, and they are choosing their own and seeking out their own media, including podcasts like this, like Chris said, like Theo Von, like Joe Rogan. They'll watch the Daily Wire's production or the Matt Walsh show or, you know, Michael Knowles.
Jim Lakely:They'll watch Glenn Beck. I mean, there's also there's infinite number of of of options. And if they're only successful because they're giving people an alternative to the, basically, the propaganda they're getting everywhere else. Megyn Kelly, actually, I've been finding myself watching her show a lot more Same. Recently, and it's just, I saw somebody on x call her, like, a washed up failed TV news host.
Jim Lakely:It's like, see, again, you guys are to get it. She is her own show now, and she's making you know, I don't know if she's making what she made as a, what, $20,000,000 a year host for NBC and Fox News. But, you know, it is the people that are stuck in the legacy media that are still in the matrix that cannot they can't even really understand what's happening. And I wanna bring up an example of CNN here. And we'll talk about this.
Jim Lakely:CNN is is a garbage network. Oops. I hit the wrong button. There you go. CNN is a is a garbage network, and now we will, have some schwodenfratic fun on their demise.
Jim Lakely:It says here from the, Daily Mail, CNN is planning to wield the ax on some of its high paid staff after dismal election ratings that cap off a disastrous period for the cable network. According to an exclusive new report from Puck, network executives will unleash sweeping layoffs in a bid to save the network's flailing reputation. This comes after the departure of a stalwart Chris Wallace and amid reports stars senior stars like Wolf Blitzer and Jake Tapper have both been denied raises. Oh my goodness. Can you believe it?
Jim Lakely:At the time, CNN had averaged 13,300,000 viewers in prime time. Today
Chris Martz:prayers go out to them.
Jim Lakely:Oh, I know. Right? Today, it's only around, 800,000 viewers in prime time. However, following the Trump presidency and a term from the Biden administration, it lost on election night to MSNBC in terms of ratings, nothing that that ever ever been seen before, as it drew in only 5,100,000, television sets with eyes on them on election night. And MSNBC had 6,000,000, and Fox News had 10,300,000.
Jim Lakely:But those numbers, actually, guys, are way below what they were in 2020, not to mention how they were in the nineties and the, early 2000 when it would be, you know, all the whole country would be watching their televisions for, election returns, and they don't, they don't do that anymore. They they watch they they they scan x. They watch podcasts. I watched, should've watched Megan Kelly's coverage of the election night because I I just forgot. And it said, I watched the Blaze, which was also awesome.
Jim Lakely:But CNN has high paid stars like Anderson Cooper, who makes $20,000,000 a year, on that on CNN, for, a show that nobody watches. So, and then we heard news this week that, MSNBC is, apparently on the on the chopping block or it's it's gonna they wanna sell it, and, I heard a rumor that Elon Musk might buy it.
Chris Martz:That would be hilarious if he actually did.
Jim Lakely:Yeah. So so he's he's watching these these legacy media outlets, you know, spiral into the drain, I think is is fun. And as as we say here in the in the little sidebar there, the the legacy media is cooked. They don't they don't know it yet. They should know it now.
Jim Lakely:I mean, it's been it's been 10 days since since the election. They've seen the ratings. Fewer people are watching any of these shows. In fact, MSNBC, I am convinced, only won one election night, for the cable news networks, or or beat CNN because millions of conservatives switched over to MSNBC to watch the liberal tears flow and watch them lose their minds with the winning.
Chris Martz:I saw that MSNBC that. I saw that MSNBC lost, like, half their prime time audience after election night.
Jim Lakely:Yeah. It's gone. It's yeah. They they they watched the election night. 4%.
Chris Martz:Yeah. Of their viewership gone.
Jim Lakely:Yeah. It's it's crazy. It's crazy.
Chris Martz:I we tuned in actually, and I was so sad because, Richard Matt Rachel Maddow, my bad. She was not melting down like I was hoping. I was hoping to see tears, and I just was they were being very calm and collected. And I gotta say I was disappointed because I we tuned in for entertainment, and I did not get that.
Jim Lakely:Oh, it was pretty entertaining. I was entertained by it. Yeah. Let's I'm gonna bring up on screen here, yeah, that that story about this is from OutKick. Again, an alternative media outlet that is succeeding Clay Travis.
Jim Lakely:About additional yeah. Clay Travis, a an alternative media outlet that is succeeding while the while the legacy media fails. And, Yeah. MSNBC's and CNN's ratings tank after Trump's steam Trump steamrolls Kamala Harris. Mediaite obtained viewership from Thursday to highlight the concerns both channels face.
Jim Lakely:For the day, MSNBC averaged 596,000 viewers, while CNN recorded just 419,000 viewers, a decline of 23% for MSNBC and 40% for CNN over the year. And then year over year, MSNBC's, ratings are down 54%, and CNN's are down, 30%. Guys, that that 596,000 viewers, I know that, you know, we're gonna talk a little bit about how the how maybe woke Hollywood the era of woke Hollywood is also over. But, 596,000 viewers? I mean I
Chris Martz:can get that on a tweet.
Jim Lakely:You get out you can get that on a tweet. Right. Joe Rogan Joe Rogan was getting a 1000000 viewers, like, every 30 minutes when he posted that, that interview with Donald Trump. A a channel I really enjoy, the critical drinker, he'll drop a a a an 8 minute video reviewing a movie or talking about pop culture, and it'll get it'll grab a 1000000 views within 2 hours. A million.
Jim Lakely:So it'll double all that stuff. So Why
Linnea Lueken:do you think groups like, you know, CNN and MSNBC and and whatnot work with media matters to shut down conservative channels on YouTube and stuff? I mean, and they work to shut down some leftist channels too if they're getting too popular. They're trying to, like, in the background, crush alternative media. It's never gonna work. You know?
Linnea Lueken:It's it's way too late for that. But it is it is funny to watch. And, like you said, these these organizations are dropping off. You know? Couldn't happen to better people.
Linnea Lueken:Couldn't happen to more talented hosts.
Chris Martz:Yeah. Actually, get them to get well soon card from Hallmark.
Jim Lakely:Well, I mean, you look at, you know, sign
Chris Martz:it like this.
Jim Lakely:Yeah. Yeah. Well well, Chris Chris
Chris Martz:Wallace Rudy.
Jim Lakely:Chris Wallace said that, he wants to now that he's he was fired. Come on. They they offered him probably 1 5th of his previous salary when he came in thinking, I think, making, like, 6,000,000 or 7,000,000 a year, maybe 10,000,000 a year. They're like, you got no ratings. You no.
Jim Lakely:You have no audience. We'll give you 3,000,000 if you wanna have a new contract. So they pushed him out. He says he wants to get into maybe some podcasting on his own. I think that's actually gonna be one of the funnier things.
Jim Lakely:It's having yeah. Wide eyed. It's having this happen. You know? The idea that Chris Wallace can actually attract an audience on his own He
Chris Martz:talks like that.
Linnea Lueken:Yeah. I yeah. I that that will be the the interesting thing to see when a lot of these hosts try to make their own way. And because what I was observing is I was looking at the pictures of those guys on that CNN article. The the quality of of intelligence and in presentation, from these, like, random podcasters is so much better than prime time television anchors right now.
Linnea Lueken:It's unbelievable how how much these, frankly, talentless hacks get paid, when they have no viewership also.
Jim Lakely:Well, that's gonna end. I mean, it can it it can't it's not sustainable. Eventually, you know, as as, Margaret Thatcher famously said in the eighties, the problem with socialism is that eventually you run out of other people's money. And, the problem with woke leftist media is that, eventually, you run out of viewers and you run out of, advertising money, and you can't pay these people anymore, these these salaries. And, yeah, that's what's actually I think is really gonna be fascinating is, alright.
Jim Lakely:We'll see how talented these people really are, see if they can build an audience on their own. You know you know who can do that? Well, Gutfeld probably could for sure, although he's gonna stick at Fox, but Megyn Kelly has proven she can do that. Joe Rogan created an created an audience out of nothing. Theo Vonn, created an audience out of nothing and because of the talent and the and and they're interesting.
Jim Lakely:You know? But that that's what I find so fascinating about
Chris Martz:Dan Bongino.
Jim Lakely:Yeah. Dan Bongino can build his own audience. You know? Dave Rubin can build his own audience. Obviously, Matt Walsh and and guys at daily at Daily Wire can build their own audience.
Jim Lakely:In fact, they build their own network, and build an audience for that as well as each individual star. And so we're gonna find out what these guys and gals are made of. We're gonna find that they're not made of anything. They're made of propaganda, and nobody's gonna wanna wanna wanna voluntarily consume that.
Chris Martz:I think Joy Reid's gonna get the get the, was it the pink slip soon from MSNBC? She is coming unhinged. Our TikTok.
Jim Lakely:She is coming unhinged. So before we get into out of the media criticism here and get into maybe some Hollywood and talk in other ways that everything has feels different now, it's a story from, Sema 4, which, again, is another kinda new start up, alternative media, site that's supposed to try to be sent oh, here we go. Supposed to, be centrist. But this is a story, about I'll just leave it on the top because I have I have it in my notes here. Basically, how old media old media is grappling with its new limits.
Jim Lakely:And part of the story here, it says, to some media executives, it's a sign that the quality of news offered to Americans is not satisfying them, a view that Axios founder, Jim Vande Hei, described as, quote, gut check time for traditional media. Quote, the verdict is not debatable. Half the country thinks traditional media is biased and often useless. They feel reporters treat Republicans like a crime beat and Democrats like friends in need. I don't think this is usually the case, but it happens enough to give critics pause.
Jim Lakely:And so even the people inside the, you know, inside the media bubble are seeing that, you know, they see the writing on the wall. I mean, I I, actually, I know I I knew Jim BandeHei back when I covered, George w Bush's reelection campaign in 2004 and the 1st year of his president in his 2nd term in 2005. I'd be on the press planes with people. And so I knew Jim Bandehi and, his friend, Mike Allen. They left to create something called Politico.
Jim Lakely:And Politico was something absolutely brand new. I know this was you guys were so tiny. You might have been alive for all I know. But back in 2 back in 2005, it was considered if you had an online publication, if you were just online, that was considered, you know, cheap, and just not reputable, and you can't succeed. You know?
Jim Lakely:If you were just a dotcom, you stunk. But Politico was really, I think, the first, you know, real journalism project that covered politics that was online only, and it succeeded. So that's so he was a Jim BandeHei was a kind of a revolutionary in that regard long ago. I mean, gosh, it's 20 years ago now. And here he is today showing that for all that work and all that time, people don't trust the media anymore, and people are leaving, and it's falling apart.
Jim Lakely:And it seems that very few people that are in the business recognize that it's happening and, importantly, why it's happening.
Chris Martz:It's actually interesting because you I wanted to point out that, we're talking about earlier that you're talking about people that and, like, one of the guys in the YouTube comments who used to be on TV who left. I know a lot of meteorologists who have worked in as broadcast, you know, weather presenters or meteorologists on air on TV who are who have left, the news industry in the last couple of years and have pursued jobs in the private sector or with, you know, the government. One guy that I know quit TV in Houston and he's now at, he's now working for the state government in Texas as a meteorologist. And a lot of them just cannot take. And I I know some of them are still on air that have realized how partisan the news has become and how irrelevant it has become.
Chris Martz:And they're looking for their way out, why they why they can. So they don't get stuck in these contracts and that they can look for better, more prosperous, paying careers. Yeah. Lynae, anything to,
Jim Lakely:to go to maybe wrap a bow on this media is dying, it's cooked Kinda
Linnea Lueken:feel I think we I think we pretty well stomp them for for a good bit here. I think we can move on.
Jim Lakely:We will move on. Yeah. And so, again, the the theme today is that, you know, it just seems that everything just feels different. You know, there was a lot of relief. You know, I'd my, friends would ask me, gosh.
Jim Lakely:You must be so happy that that Trump won. And I was like, I'm not feeling happy yet. I just feel relieved. I just feel I just feel like we avoided something something very, very terrible. And the and the idea that Donald Trump got the, you know, he's gonna win the popular vote by perhaps a bit of a narrow margin, but a narrow margin being a few million people out of a a country of 330 and, you know, what, a 100 and probably is gonna be a 150,000,000 votes.
Jim Lakely:So, you know, but that that still matters. A republican let's just say it this way. A nondemocrat has not won the majority of votes for president since
Chris Martz:2004.
Jim Lakely:2004. And, before that, the last time it happened was, 1988. So it's it's only been twice in the last 30 years or so that Republicans have won the majority. And so this is a resounding rejection. You know, I believe this is why I wanna get into kind of a cultural examination because I'm convinced that on Tuesday, 2 Tuesdays ago, the American people just said, enough.
Jim Lakely:Enough. I am tired of it. I'm tired of the leftist agenda being in everything in my life. It's everywhere. It there's there's a stink.
Jim Lakely:It it it hangs on the drapes. It's in our sports. You know, you have to look at the back of a of a football helmet that says, you know, leftist messages on it, you know, supposedly to stop racism. You know? And and I I just I, you know, I'm just projecting, I suppose.
Jim Lakely:But I was fed up with having every single bit of our life infused with leftist politics, from Hollywood to public schools, to newspapers, to billboards, to sports. You know, the idea that if you are not celebrating the latest leftist, you know, cause du jour, that you are an enemy, you know, you need to be an ally of every single thing a leftist wants the world to look like. And I think you guys can tell me if I'm if I'm overreading this. But to me, I thought in in all of those aspects of life and including in Hollywood, America just said, enough. I don't want it anymore.
Jim Lakely:I'm rejecting all of it. I want you out of everything. And that's why I think I feel like everything feels different. Am I wrong?
Chris Martz:No. You said you it got the guy right.
Linnea Lueken:Trump is the Trump is the burn it all down candidate, in my opinion. At least that's what he is to me. So yeah. No. Definitely.
Linnea Lueken:Everyone everyone is pretty well fed up. And, you know, not to mention I mean, Kamala is just not appealing, for different reasons than Hillary Clinton was not appealing. But, yeah, we're just maybe Democrats could get a candidate that people like. That that would be interesting to see. You know, people kinda like Are
Chris Martz:you saying that Cardi B and Beyonce, it didn't spoil your opinion?
Linnea Lueken:No. No. Somehow. I don't know how.
Chris Martz:Not Stephen King either. Stephen King, he's just he's a mastermind.
Linnea Lueken:Oh, well, and, you know, he's he's very stable, very sane, and also definitely isn't haunted by his passive getting hit by a van. But he's no. That's been every new every new celebrity, endorsement, especially when they were known paid endorsements, it's just yeah. That's that's utterly unconvincing. And in fact, it actually makes me like a candidate even less when they're doing that stuff.
Chris Martz:Another thing I wanted to touch on, I wanted to add is that, and I just thought of it, is that, you know, you know, like Trump or not, he came across as very relatable to people. You know, he did the McDonald's publicity stunt, and he did a lot of, different things here and there. He went to he went to football, he went to different pod and it actually if you watch the Theo Vonn podcast, the one that he did a few weeks ago for the election, he that podcast was very wholesome. It was a whole different side of him. It was kind of sort of like that speech he gave at the RNC after he got shot.
Chris Martz:He was reflecting on that. It was very personal. He was talking about his father and his brother, and the entire podcast. It was just more personal about him and his life, and it was an interesting side to see. He came across as more relatable.
Chris Martz:Meanwhile, you have, vice president Harris who campaigned, and she had all these celebrity endorsements from Cardi b, and you had Jon Bon Jovi up there. I guess he gave Harris a bad name and said I love a bad name, but he was he was up there just it it had all these celebrities' endorsements and, you know, this the the Democrat party has become the party of MSNBC and the party of Hollywood. And I see all these people on Twitter are calling everybody stupid. I'll repel like, 75,000,000 Americans say, oh, you're stupid. They're uneducated.
Chris Martz:But last time I checked, these 75,000,000 people know the difference between a man and a woman. So, I wouldn't really I wouldn't really go down that route for those people if I were them because it it kind of looks embarrassing. If you go in a corner and pout with her tail tucked between her legs. But, you know, Paris, she she posted a a picture with her and I think her step nieces or nieces or some some family you know, some some young kids in her family. And she came across in that picture, you know, despite the the glass of wine or champagne or whatever she was drinking, it was very relatable.
Chris Martz:And I think had she done that more, during the campaign instead of, oh, I got, I got, Mark Hamill to endorse me or I got Tom Hanks to endorse me. Like, who cares? Relate to the American people because they don't have these celebrity connections. And she was there with the whole party has become completely out of touch with everyday Americans. So keep calling them stupid, keep calling them uneducated.
Chris Martz:But again, they used to know basic biology and, you know, they are the working class people of this country. They are your farmers. They are our policemen. They are our firefighters. They are our skilled workers, our mill workers.
Chris Martz:They are our landscapers. They keep this they are mechanics. They turn wrenches. They keep this country going. These people that are these these white credential people that, think that they're so smart, if if if stuff suddenly hit the fan and we were back in the stone age, they would their jobs would become completely irrelevant because they they don't know how to tie their shoe.
Chris Martz:And they have no I'm in academia, so I'm surrounded by people that are brilliant, you know, smart people when it comes to academics and stem. But when it comes to common sense and real world applications and real world skills, they're sorely lacking.
Jim Lakely:Yeah.
Chris Martz:So if you call it 1 educated and you're gonna be well onto losing in 2028. That's my message to the left.
Linnea Lueken:But, Chris, she came from a middle class family. Therefore therefore, everything she does is in that context, you know, unburdened.
Chris Martz:In a middle class family.
Jim Lakely:Yep. Well, I wanted to hit a rim shot for your, for your Bon Jovi joke, Chris, but I couldn't find it within 2 within 2 minutes of you making the joke. It took forever. So but very good. Yeah.
Jim Lakely:I just just well, actually, I wanna share one more thing that I that I came across this week while while thinking about what's going on here, in the world, and that is this tweet from, from John Bern Murdoch. And he says, just to clarify, this isn't just the first time actually, it's a chart here, that shows from, Financial Times. Every governing party facing election in a developed country this year lost vote share. The first time that's ever happened, ever, and since since I started tracking this in the beginning of 20th century. And you can see on this chart right here, oop, that, yeah, this is this is real that every election in the developing world is kicking out the ruling class, their so called ruling class, and and rejecting them.
Jim Lakely:And and, that that's where I think everything feels different because it's not just in the United States. It's everywhere. We have one of our commenters right here on this, on this chat say that, your MAGA's coming to Europe. The the Heartland Institute, we had Nigel Farage as our guest at our benefit dinner in September, and then we got to spend, a good bit of the afternoon morning and afternoon with him the next day on Saturday. And we did an interview with him in a cigar lounge, which actually you can find at go to heartland.org.
Jim Lakely:You'll see the video right there on our front page. But so I got to actually, I had the honor of driving Nigel Farage around. And if you don't know who Nigel Farage is, he's basically the, well, some people call him the Donald Trump of of Great Britain, but he is a, long time principal conservative who who stands up for real conservatism in the UK instead of what's increasingly, you know, kind of squishy conservatism among the boys. And so I like squishy. Just kidding.
Jim Lakely:Yeah. And so and, anyway, so I when I was driving around, I asked him, I said, you know, when Brexit happened, it came from out of nowhere like a lightning bolt. People thought all the polls show that it was gonna fail, that, UK would not vote to get out of the EU. All the polls were wrong. The British people said, Brexit, yes.
Jim Lakely:And then after that, it was in 2016. Few months after that, Donald Trump was elected president. A few weeks before, our president or a couple months before our our election here in the United States, again, the United the United Kingdom had an election, and Nigel Nigel Farage's conservative upstart party went gangbusters, did great, had a fantastic election day. And I asked him, I said, do you think the same thing's gonna happen in the United States? And he says, I do.
Jim Lakely:And I really hope it does, because if it doesn't, we're all in big trouble. So I think there is really, a sense again that everything feels different, not just United States, but overseas because the ruling I think the the ruling class is in trouble. And the American people, instead of taking up arms and setting things on fire, having an endless summer of love in our streets in United States, where we light fires to, to celebrate our love. Because
Chris Martz:So, yeah,
Jim Lakely:they they go into the ballot box, and they're doing it and they're doing it the old fashioned way and the and the peaceful way, and I think it's fantastic.
Linnea Lueken:Sorry. My dog is kinda barking, so I'm trying to nod the dog. I think she stopped. Yeah. No.
Linnea Lueken:And and I'm looking forward to seeing it. It's not just, the UK. You know, we've got friends that are trying to or that are gaining popularity for a kind of, like, populist or at least center right conservative kind of movements in Poland and Austria and Hungary and all sorts of places. I think even I could be totally off base on this, but I think that I heard that there's even a little bit of a of a movement happening in places like the Netherlands and, Sweden and Norway getting rid of some of their more extreme leftist and government. I could be off on that.
Linnea Lueken:Yeah. South America is a big one. Yeah. So it's it's going it's going very interesting for everybody. We'll we'll see we'll see how it is.
Chris Martz:The I think I also wanted to go ahead, Finneal.
Linnea Lueken:No. You go ahead. I I didn't really have all that much.
Chris Martz:So I think I wanna point out that, you know, we're gonna and as as I figure as we transition into the last part is that, you know, the feeling last. I think, that it's important to note that it's not just the presidency that matters. And people in this election, they really turned up for Trump. And I think that Scott Pressler died, did a really good job in registering people, helping flip, Pennsylvania red. And I think he's gonna now he's going to be ready to do Jersey to probably do the same thing for the midterm.
Chris Martz:So we'll see how that that works out. And maybe Virginia for 2028. So we'll see my home state. But one thing I wanna point out is that it's not just the press release that matters, we need to have this sort of voter enthusiasm and, you know, conservatives need to in the Senate and the House race and also their local government, your sheriff, your district attorneys, your local judges, your, your state representatives, your your state legislatures in general, your city council, town council, county board of supervisors. All of those things matter and probably more so, than the presidency, leaving the chief executive.
Chris Martz:You know, people are complaining about the, the the house or not the house, the senate majority leader and, the people the voters themselves are sort of to blame for this. The GOP primary very vulnerable vote for just whoever they see on maybe Fox News, or they'll vote for name familiarity rather than voting for look, doing the research to figure out who the best candidate it probably is.
Jim Lakely:Yeah. Hey, Chris. Chris, your your audio keep coming in and out. I was wondering if it was me or if it was somebody else. I don't know.
Jim Lakely:You you kept telling me that I think you're doing wireless, and I think the connection is is breaking there. So we'll have to see. Okay.
Chris Martz:I don't know. It's like our audio is here.
Jim Lakely:Yeah. It's it's not coming in it's not coming in very strong, so we'll see if we can figure it out how to fix that, as we go along. Alright. Maybe you can come back. Maybe you can, no.
Jim Lakely:You might not do that. Leave and come back. I don't know. We'll figure it out. Thanks, audience, for noticing.
Jim Lakely:Sometimes my, sometimes I think it's me. You know? Maybe my computer's wrong, but it wasn't. It was it was Chris. There's something something, going on there.
Jim Lakely:It's breaking up. So, anyway, we'll get that fixed. Not a problem. Let's see. Yeah.
Jim Lakely:So I wanna get into a little bit of the Hollywood stuff, and I think because, I know let me let's try let's test you. Go ahead.
Chris Martz:Can you hear me?
Jim Lakely:We could a little bit. Talk say something. Longer as I can hear me.
Chris Martz:Better now than I'm
Jim Lakely:No. It's the same. It's actually bad. Oh, come on. Go ahead.
Chris Martz:Let me come back. Yeah. I'll come back. Yeah.
Jim Lakely:It's crackling. Yeah. Leave him come back.
Linnea Lueken:Okay. Sorry about that, everybody.
Jim Lakely:Sorry about that, folks. That's fine. We'll we'll get him back in a minute. So that that gives me a chance to bring up this story. You know, Linnea and I, as colleagues and and, and friends, we talk a lot about kind of the things we like to watch, you know, the pop culture that we consume.
Jim Lakely:And, you know, and we've noticed as and we and we actually watch some of the same pop culture channels, like NerdRoddick, Gary Beakler's channel. Friday night tights is a fantastic livestream that I try to catch. I definitely catch it over the weekend, not live if I don't catch it live on a Friday afternoon. You know, the critical drinker is another one. Geeks and gamers.
Jim Lakely:There's lots of there's lots of these these, you know, so called YouTube stars who have become YouTube stars because they have been pushing back against the wokeness of Hollywood. And it seems let's see if you can get Chris back in here. It seems that, Hollywood people in Hollywood themselves are now realizing that they have gone too far with the woke stuff. And, it's time to start maybe entertaining audiences again, make that your primary job and not indoctrinating them. So there's a story here called Hollywood Braces for a Woke Backlash in the Wake of Trump's election.
Jim Lakely:I will just I actually, I pulled an excerpt here that I'll read, and then maybe we'll see if Chris's audio is good. It says Hollywood, overwhelmingly liberal, is weighing the potential backlash to its business of a second Donald Trump presidency and a right leaning electorate. A right leaning electorate, by the way, that was always there, but it just, expressed itself more strongly on Tuesday than ever before. Reading getting back to it. After many years of embracing left wing values, diversity and inclusion in Marvel and Star Wars storylines, empowering women in superhero movies and animated kids fair, Hollywood may find itself tipping rightward as the winds of change blow through the country.
Jim Lakely:It's a shift away from wokeness that was already underway. I don't think so. I don't think there was a shift away from wokeness already underway, but whatever. The story goes that some in the industry are clearly concerned. Quote, we know that Hollywood loves to follow, not lead, Evan Shapiro, a film and television producer, told TheWrap.
Jim Lakely:It's very likely you'll see more of Jake Paul, more of Joe Rogan, more of Zachary Levi, and more of Roseanne Barr. More of the right leaning, conservative leaning creator economy will get more airtime, because, clearly, that s works. And then finally here on Friday, a producer and former talent manager, Cassian Elways, noted on x that the experience of putting together a new movie, quote, has been painful because of the current environment in Hollywood where fear is rampant. But I'm a filmmaker. I need to lead by example.
Jim Lakely:The audience is out there. We just need to figure out a way to reach them. I'm hoping there are distribute distribution innovators dreaming of new paths. The the theme of this of this story, guys, seems to be that, you know, we there there there's suddenly a new audience out there. They've suddenly all turned to the right, and, now we need to to relate to them.
Jim Lakely:And the and the whole idea that, you know, a liberal has to worry about his job in Hollywood seems a little crazy to me.
Chris Martz:That is kinda crazy.
Linnea Lueken:Yeah. Well, we we touched on it a little bit with the, you know, all these celebrities coming out to endorse, Kamala Harris. And and they have to know that, you know, at least half of the country. I mean, maybe they really don't because they're in their little bubbles. But they have to know that about half the country disagrees with them and and is gonna be left with kind of a bad taste in their mouth after all this stuff.
Linnea Lueken:But it just occurred to me too. You know, she had the entire cast of the Avengers, I guess, come and do, like, a video for her. Normally, that's not a good sign when the entire cast of the avengers shows up to to help you out and to congratulate you for being a good person or whatever. That's that's like make a wish level stuff, and we did see that happen to our campaign, after, after election day last week. But, now it's I I think I think, you know, you mentioned, critical drinker earlier.
Linnea Lueken:But then the other day, I think he posted a video talking about how, where he mentioned that, like, stardom isn't what it used to be and how people just don't have this, like, celebrity worship that they used to have. I mean, maybe with, like, Taylor Swift or something, but even that obviously didn't have an impact on this election. And if it did, you know, it wasn't enough to push them over the edge. I think because all of these celebrities are on, like, social media and we hear from them and their political opinions and stuff way more than anyone and at any time ever. You know, you had, like, Jane Fonda or whatever back in the, sixties, seventies, eighties doing political stuff then.
Linnea Lueken:But that was kind of, like, outside of the norm, I think. But now it's like they all have an opinion, and it turns out that they all have vacuous stupid opinions. So it's, it's it's not endearing to them. And so between that and between the fact that, like, most of what Hollywood puts out is utter trash, and probably is only going to get worse with AI moving in. It's it's it's looking bad for them, and once again, couldn't happen to better people.
Jim Lakely:Oh, You're you're muted, Chris, but you're
Chris Martz:I know. I was just agreeing. I was just agreeing.
Jim Lakely:You're messing with me.
Chris Martz:That's what I do to people. If you actually know me in person, I live to mess with people. I'm like a big prankster. But, anyway, I'm not really focused.
Jim Lakely:No. It it just seems to me that that, you know, that Hollywood is going to have to react. I mean, finally snapped out of their, you know, out of their mind control stupor. I don't know. I don't even know how to describe it.
Jim Lakely:But, you know, Hollywood is what?
Chris Martz:A trance.
Jim Lakely:A trance. Yeah. And and Hollywood seem to think that, you know, if we just you know, you we'll race and gender swap every we'll redo everything, and we'll just make the hero. Instead of a man, we'll make it a woman. Instead of we'll make sure that a person of color is now the hero instead of, you know, the sidekick and all, you know and they did it.
Jim Lakely:And they do it over and over and over again, and they and they inject, woke leftist agenda into all of the products. And I think they really believed for a long time, and they're snapping out of it. But they believe that it doesn't you know, we have the power to control the minds of American of of the world, actually. And if we can put the messaging into the entertainment, they will be reeducated, and the we will make the world a better place because we will change the way people think. And what they actually found out is that people don't want that.
Jim Lakely:The audience doesn't want that. They want to be entertained. They don't wanna be talked down to. And maybe Hollywood is is starting to realize now that that's what the that's the the actual business they're involved in because just like the media, eventually, you start running out of other people's money. In this in this regard, investors who are losing 1,000,000,000 with these studios.
Jim Lakely:I mean, what do you think, Chris? I mean, am I am I over am I watching too much critical drinker and nerd Roddick that I I have now been brainwashed to think that I'm trying to that they're trying to brainwash me in Hollywood, or do you see it too?
Chris Martz:No. I see it too. You know, I I most of the movies I watch are, like, more than, like, 30 years old. I mean, I watch Smokey and the Bandit with, you know, Burt Reynolds and all of them, you know. And I watch, you know, I watch all the classic movies, you know, some of those old, I have, was it Phil Murphy?
Chris Martz:Definitely a little cop, you know it's movies like that. I watch all them old old classic, movies and stuff because they're more entertaining, they're more fun, they're not always you know politically correct and they would they didn't have, like, a lecturing underlying political message that they're trying to, you know, get you to sway your vote some way. Like, a lot of these new movies are. I barely go to the movie theater anymore to watch movies. There's good movies that are made.
Chris Martz:I mean, the Elvis movie that came out recently, you know, 2022 or 23 was really, really well done. You know, Top Gun Maverick was really well done. But most of the other movies that seem to be coming out are just they have this a political message to them that's is condescending to everyday Americans and lecturing us with some cultural cultural message, and these and and you can see it in TV shows. You see it with, you know, my grandma, for example. She's obsessed with law and order special victims unit, And there's a lot of, you know, underlying messaging and that show that didn't used to be there when the show first came on in 1999.
Chris Martz:And it's beginning it makes that show kind of unwatchable because there's always some kind of left wing undertone to it. And so it's it's it's starting to, I think, change a little bit, I mean, especially with movies like Top Gun being made. But, the last 10 years or so, I mean, it's just been or it's probably more than that. It's been just, like, just shoved down our throats constantly, and people are tuning it out. They're losing money at the box office.
Chris Martz:People don't wanna listen to it. And people are tuning out of those cable TV shows, and they're going over to Netflix or they're going over to Daily Wire, which has a whole bunch of interesting movies and TV shows that they've made that are just movies that are not even conservative messaging. It's just movies and entertainment, which is what the Hollywood industry should be. I think that Ricky Gervais, at the was it the Golden Globes? Gervais.
Chris Martz:Yeah. Yeah. The people I think more celebrities should listen to him and that messaging and that come up, accept your award, and sit down. You're not you're not you're not, qualified to give the public a lecture when most of you didn't, spend any more time in school than Greta Thunberg. So
Jim Lakely:Right. Yeah.
Chris Martz:That's kind of my take on it. I agree with you. I think it's starting to change. The culture is starting to change. Americans are fed up, but, it's gonna it's it's a it's gonna it's gonna, I think, linger.
Chris Martz:I think we're gonna see the downfall of the media before we see the downfall of, like, Hollywood entertainment. And I think it's gonna be a slower transition there because there's more money involved in that.
Linnea Lueken:Yeah. Well, I mean, you're right. I would rather watch Animal House like a 100 times than watch any of the top movies that have come out in the last, couple of years pretty much, except for maybe the ones that you mentioned. I I have a bit more of a cynical opinion on this. I think it's not going to stop until it's absolutely forced to stop.
Linnea Lueken:I think that like with the comic books industry, which, you know, I was into comics when I was in, like, high school and stuff, they they they're still doing it. They sell, you know, a tenth of what they used to sell in comic books because of the, social justice mesh, messaging that they've jammed into everything, and they're still doing it. They have not reversed course. They've doubled down, and it's killing them, and they don't care probably because they are making money elsewhere as in they are getting covered, by, like, BlackRock or or some other kind of funding source that doesn't have to be necessarily directly tied to sales. I think the same thing is gonna keep happening with Hollywood.
Linnea Lueken:I think that there will be some movies that come out that are better, and they'll do really, really well. But most of it is going to continue to be utter slop until they are forced to change. And I'm not sure that they're going to. I think they're just gonna run themselves into the ground, and I think there will be alternatives that will come up to Hollywood.
Chris Martz:That's a fair assessment. I I can I can actually agree with that sentiment and and see where I might be wrong in my my reasoning? I also wanted to point out as an aside, it was Eddie Murphy, not Phil Murphy's the governor of New Jersey. I was it's Eddie Murphy. It was a Murphy in Beverly Hill cup.
Chris Martz:So that was embarrassing, but we're gonna continue on.
Linnea Lueken:Phil Murphy is a joke. The same person.
Jim Lakely:It's a joke. Phil Murphy is a joke, but he's not a comedian. So alright. Alright. Yeah.
Jim Lakely:And and I just wanted to and I think you're right. I mean, again, the the theme of this is that everything feels different. And then, obviously, it's too early to know and to feel anything different from Hollywood. But seeing a story like that where, this election has been a wake up call to the world, really, I think, in in many ways. And that for Hollywood to actually run a story like this, where producers are saying, gosh, half the country, doesn't like our messaging.
Jim Lakely:Maybe we should consider entertaining them, and and, you know, making them happy customers and consumers of our product. And it's not and, again, it's not the idea that, you know, leftists haven't tried to infuse messaging in their entertainment. It was just done a lot more subtly, and it was actually entertaining when it when it happened. You know, Norman Lear, the great legendary television producer, I think died just a few months ago at the age of a 100, I think it was, or close to a 100. Anyway, of course, he he was responsible for the show all in the family.
Jim Lakely:And, you know, you guys are too young for this, Linnea and Chris, to watch that live. You may have seen a rerun or 2, and I but I know a lot in our audience are very familiar with all in the family. You know, the the butt of every joke was Archie Bunker, who was a bigot. And what was, I think the Carroll O'Connor who played him in Norman Lear started to get a little worried and resentful that he was the most popular character in the show and that the audience loved him, and he was a bigot. And it was because you know, and that horrified them.
Jim Lakely:And then another show I remember was, was Family Ties. You guys might remember that. I know a lot of people in the audience probably Yeah. Yeah. So that was Michael that was Michael j Fox's big star turn as a TV star.
Jim Lakely:He became a movie star. But the premise of the show, the but the the source of the comedy and the conflict and the fun, actually, on that show was the fact that his parents were 2 sixties hippie liberals, who were trying to impose leftist hippie values into their children. But Michael j Fox rejected it all. He was a Reagan republican. He was in the republican club at high school.
Jim Lakely:He was a big time conservative. And so it was so there was a message there. There was a message that they were trying to get through. They actually wanted to promote the liberal message and make its and make, Michael j Fox look like a buffoon. But Michael j Fox played that role so well, and he made such good points that the opposite had happened.
Jim Lakely:So, you know, Hollywood can get a message across as long as it's entertaining, it's handled fairly, and, and risk and, frankly, just respects the other side. And I think that's I think what we're hopefully going to see and where everything may feel different is that our media and our and our culture and, hopefully, now our schools will start treating a lot of people that don't agree with them with a lot more respect.
Linnea Lueken:Yeah. Well and I I'm you know, you won't when you watch old, especially old comedy, you tend to just be struck by how much more intelligent it is than comedy George Carlin. Come out now. Sorry?
Chris Martz:George Carlin comes to mind.
Linnea Lueken:Oh, yeah. Not so I've never been much of a fan, but, I'm I'm thinking more along the lines of, like, Caddyshack. Yeah. Here's to, like you know, it's just it's just more intelligently, intelligently written comedy than now. And I think part of the reason why that's the case is because when you're when you're trying really, really hard to give a message that does not get misconstrued or misinterpreted in any way.
Linnea Lueken:Like, the the left right now cannot bear the thought of someone coming away with the wrong message from something that they are putting effort into. So instead of, like, trying to subtly weave it into the story in an intelligent way, they club you over the head with it about a dozen times per scene, in order to make sure that you understand exactly what's going on and exactly what they want you to believe about this character, about whatever. This is some of the reason why you have the dialogue now in these movies where, characters are telling other characters what their personality traits are. And you're like, yeah. This is a visual medium.
Linnea Lueken:You can show us this. You don't have to you don't have to talk us through it this way. It's it's all it's very, very, very painful to watch. I think they're hiring, like, the lowest in very low intelligence and very low experience people, like, right out of Cal Arts or something, to write a lot of this stuff. And they're all just, like, deeply, deeply inculcated in the, the super far left messaging.
Chris Martz:Yeah.
Jim Lakely:Yeah. So, you know, there's our there's our Tom Cruise. As we're talking Hollywood, there's our Tom Cruise GIF that's going to help you to smash that like button and to like and subscribe to this to this podcast. There you go. Put your thumbs around, Tom.
Jim Lakely:If anyone knows where that where I got that clip, if anyone recognizes that clip, and you put it in the chat, I'll send you a free Heartland T shirt. Alright. I don't think anyone will get it, but we'll see. So, actually, I wanted to wrap up here. I I think, you know, everything feels different.
Jim Lakely:The legacy media is cooked. Walt Hollywood era might be over. And, I think I wanna wrap it up by asking, both of you guys whether you think that this feeling will last. And by that, I mean that, is do you think this is a real and perhaps nothing's permanent in life, but as permanent as it gets culture and political shift in this country that that my thesis that Americans just said on every level, enough, We're going back. Kamala's what a Kamala's slogan says, we're not going back.
Jim Lakely:America said, yes. We are. We're going back to normalcy. So do you do you think this this is going to last, political politically and culturally in America? Lynette, you start.
Jim Lakely:Sure.
Linnea Lueken:It's gonna depend on a lot of things. I don't think that there is such thing as, like, really going back because once we've seen what the left is willing to do, how they're willing to weaponize every single department of the government in order to go after political enemies, in order to go after you know, keep in mind, Donald Trump has become more conservative since he got into office the first time, but he has always been like a classical New York Democrat, basically. And they went after him and turned him into, like, mega Hitler, right, in their eyes, which is insane. He's he's like a very central it's like centrist kind of individual, compared to, you know, more rock solid conservatives, that we have in government. So the fact that they're willing to do that, I think, now that everyone has seen it, it's going to be much, much harder for them to, regain the level of social control that they had.
Linnea Lueken:And if, like, if the department of what is it? Government efficiency. If Doge is successful in its mandate over the next 2 years to, absolutely obliterate, half of the federal bureaucracy, I think that we will see lasting change. The media is, like like our sidebar says, cooked. They're not going to learn, I don't think.
Linnea Lueken:Over the last week and a half, I have seen them double down on, their that's the exact reasons that they lost in the first place. I don't think they are going to come around. So it's going we're going to continue to fight those guys until they are just gone. I I think it can last, but but it's gonna take us maintaining the momentum that we have now, and not fumbling it.
Jim Lakely:Yeah. I mean, Chris, you're you're of the age that I was a little younger than you when, you know, basically, the Reagan revolution happened, you know, in 1980. Actually, I was I was 10 years old. But I remember the first election I really remember, obviously, was when I was 14 and the 1984 election, and Ronald Reagan sweeping the country, losing only Minnesota and Washington, DC to, Walter Mondale, who in many ways, was very much like a Kamala Harris, in that he was very much out of step with the mood of the country, and his party got, got destroyed and, it would be out in the wilderness for quite a while. I get the same kind of feeling that that's what this election was about, and that that's what the American people have done.
Jim Lakely:Chris, you're you're you're a you're younger than both me and Linnea. It's gonna be your generation that is coming into their political power, in in in more than any other. So what is your view on all that?
Chris Martz:Well, I agree, man. It sort of felt feels like 1988 I mean, probably probably, you know, obviously a smaller scale because Reagan, it was a, like, almost a complete wipe out, but or 1980 rather. But, it's also you know, we need to keep in mind conservatives need to keep in mind that, you know, in 1928, Herbert Hoover swept almost the entire country. And then 4 years later okay. Why is this doing this?
Chris Martz:Be back in a second. But I was saying that Herbert Hoover swept the country.
Jim Lakely:That's great. There you go. Lights are back on. There we go. Oops.
Jim Lakely:It's got a grace.
Chris Martz:Herbert Hoover swept the country in 28, and then in 32, we had FDR obliterate Hoover. Because obviously a lot of that had to do with the Great Depression, obviously. But a lot can change in 4 years. So, we need to keep that in mind. And I actually got a comment on my Twitter or X x page that conservatives need to stop gloating and beating their chest about this and rubbing it in because what that's going to do, just like they've been doing to us for the last 4 years and for pretty much last 30 years, if you really think about it other than 2016 and 2 1,004.
Chris Martz:We they've been gloating about their wins, and we finally had enough, and we fought back. But as as Linnea said, it's gonna take keeping that momentum, and we have we have we have a the fight's not over. It's really only just begun. You know, we got the victory. We've we've we've won the battle, but we haven't lost the war.
Chris Martz:And, using winter. Okay. That's funny comment. Anyway, back to what I was saying is that, you know, we we may have won the battle. We haven't lost the war.
Chris Martz:We have a big war ahead of us. It's going to take take a lot of eliminating useless, you know, cutting deficit spending down. Trump did not do that in his first term. I'm hoping that he's gonna do that this time. I'm optimistic, with Elon Musk and and looking into this and Vivek.
Chris Martz:But, you know, that that remains to be seeming. I mean, obviously, he hasn't taken office yet, so I'm optimistic, but we need to keep that in mind. We need to eliminate bureaucracy. There's a lot of a lot of the problems we have are the bureaucracy. And also, as I was trying to mention earlier about audio, we have a, we have a war to win on not only the, you know, with the presidential front, which we have, but also in Congress.
Chris Martz:And yeah, we had the Republicans had the majority in the senate and the house, but, there's not a whole lot of hardcore principled conservatives, out there, that are in our government. And so people are a lot of voters, a lot of conservatives are complaining about the senate majority leader. A lot of this has to it rests on the fault the fault rests on not the politicians in the office, but the people who are voting for them in the primaries. A lot of voters on both sides of the aisle are lazy and they'll vote, you know, Democrats will vote for whoever they see. They'll they see name familiarity.
Chris Martz:They're going to vote for whoever they see on CNN or MSNBC. It's a popular popularity contest in the primaries and you're going to see if the conservatives vote for whoever they see you on Fox News getting airtime. They're not going to take the time to do research into the candidates to see where they stand on particular issues. They just see an r or a d next to their name, and they vote them in. The straight draining the swamp in congress starts with the voters being informed.
Chris Martz:And a lot of conservative voters, I hate to say it, are not informed when it comes when it comes to what's going on at the senate and the house of representatives, like, on that level in in congress. And then you also have local elections, your mayor, your city council, county board of supervisors, district attorneys, judges, sheriffs. All of those have much more influence on your day to day life than anything in congress and especially the presidency. And so people need to get involved in local elections. Taking our country back and getting on course of our finding fathers more or less wanted, which what conservatives want, it starts from the bottom up, not from the top down, in my opinion.
Chris Martz:And we have a lot of we gotta we have we have momentum right now. We need to keep it going. We cannot drop. We cannot fumble the ball, this early. We gotta keep it going into the midterms into 2028.
Chris Martz:And hopefully, Trump's cabinet picks are are good. Hopefully, we get the the they're able to get stuff done in this administration, especially for the midterms while Republicans have control. I'm optimistic, but I'm hoping that we can keep this momentum going because that's what we need because, again, it's a long long drawn out battle a a war. We've only just won a battle.
Jim Lakely:Yeah. And I would just add to that. I mean, I think the left, controls so much of our institutions. They've they've spent decades infiltrating academia, Hollywood, media, everywhere that they convinced themselves that they had won, that they actually do run everything, and now they're going to exert their power. They're going to, try to convince the public things that aren't true, that there are 57 different genders, that a boy playing a girl sport is actually a boy if he says so.
Jim Lakely:They thought that they could recreate reality into their own image And the world and America said you can't. You've abused our tolerance. You've abused our trust of you as an institution, and we see you now. And I think that's where I I think this feeling will last a long time because, not, you know, as you were warning, Chris, not to overplay your hand, not to not to spike the football in their face over and over again, but to keep your head down and do the real hard work that's necessary, to save the country in the way it needs to be saved. What's gonna help with that is the fact that the left, I think, still doesn't realize what has happened.
Jim Lakely:They don't realize that the world of their imagination is not the world of reality, and it's gonna take them a while to get their feet around feet under them. So we'll steam ahead for normalcy, conservatism, common sense, and hopefully, a sunny economic world in the future. So I wanna thank everyone for being on this kind of special free form edition of the In The Tang podcast. I wanna thank Linnea Lukin, for being on the show. Tune in tomorrow at 1 PM EST where I will be hosting her and 2 other climate experts on the Climate Realism Show.
Jim Lakely:Thank you, Chris Martz, for being on the show, from Pennsylvania That's right, Mike. And your your ex audience. We really appreciate it. We will have you on again. That's all for now, and we will see you next week.
Jim Lakely:Bye bye. As soon as I find the outro button. There it is.
Linnea Lueken:Turn that off.
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