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Entry 4: Woke Madrassahs and Liberal Overreach

Last week I was a hypocrite. I listened to something which I already opined was full of shit: yes, those fellas from the All-In Podcast. You know, where these ‘besties’, Chamath, Jason and the two Davids, talk about rich people’s problems and try to assess life through the lens of an aging Silicon Valley tech bro. If you read my previous article on these guys, you might assume I gave up listening, but alas, I did not. Whether I like it or not, these guys are thought leaders. People listen to them and what they say is boomed around the information space. Therefore, I still listen, keeping in mind that these guys are more often than not, full of shit.

This time I listened to their take on the evil incursions of Hamas terrorists into Israel on October 7^th, Israel’s somewhat lopsided response, and now what appears to be a possible regional war brewing. I was searching to hear what folks might be thinking, and the All-In besties delivered. They focused almost their entire podcast on this terrible situation. They were quick to add they were not experts, but just guys trying to make sense of it. They didn’t come to any real conclusions or groundbreaking ways of understanding the situation in Palestine outside what we don’t already now, but I noted something they kept saying, a new term for me: woke madrasahs.

The term was in reference to what they saw happening on many of the most notable institutions of higher learning in America – from Harvard to Columbia to Stanford, and numerous others, where student groups made pro-Palestine/anti-Israel statements within hours of the Hamas incursions (and still do) and with what appeared to alarming insensitivity to the innocent lives lost, people injured and those taken hostage. Many of which were not even Israelis.

At first, I was all in (pun intended) on the term. And then I hesitated.

I’ve been accused of being woke, mainly because I believe in social programs for people, healthcare, diversity, etc. However, the term in recent years has moved into something more nefarious, almost militant. ‘Woke’ now defines the extreme of the liberal left – whether the left wants it to or not (many on the far left embrace the radical concept of woke). As far as madrasahs are concerned, having spent time in Afghanistan, where I studied the so-called ‘madrasahs’ of the Taliban, that groomed young men only on the Quran and only to be fighters in their war of Jihad I thought the term made sense, but realized, madrasahs as places of learning are generally similar to Christian seminaries. The large majority of them are where good, peaceful people go to learn and study their faith.

This in mind, the idea of Harvard being a ‘woke madrasah’ suddenly didn’t sit well with me.  

The fact is, the term doesn’t fit, and we shouldn’t accept it. In by that I mean we shouldn’t accept these definitions of ‘woke’ and ‘madrasahs’ alone or lumped together. I get where the besties are coming from – those institutions are full of young impressionable kids, their minds being single-handedly molded by liberal and ‘woke’ professors and campus organizers, pushing them into some bizarre idea of what some call woke in some learning curriculum that appears to play favorites to people of Islamic background.

Reject this. These aren’t woke madrasahs, but they are the result of liberal overreach.

What is liberal overreach? It’s the antithesis of the MAGA movement, or the right wing touted ‘tradition values’ pushed by groups like ‘Moms for Liberty.’  It’s allowing transgender people to use bathrooms different from their birth gender in communities that aren’t ready for it. It’s making abortion so available it feels encouraged. It’s teaching men that displaying even a little masculinity is toxic, or and yes, I’ll say it, creating policies that make it’s very easy for children to get gender affirming care. (author’s note: I offer no opinion one way or the other on these issues, aside to point out their effect on conservative populations).

In last week’s case it was the liberal overreach du jour – the culmination of two decades of pro-Palestine propaganda shoveled at kids across our nation’s most important universities. We saw in horror how going too far can turn you from a person who cares about life and humanity to someone who spits on it. Without fully understanding this situation, many of these young adults, most no more than 21, seemed to applaud the horrific acts committed by Hamas. And to make matters worse, many of the institutions they attend said or did little in reply. All but making them complicit.

This article isn’t about the conflict, and I won’t pretend to offer answers. I too am no expert in the problems of this region, few are. I think it’s clear Israel has done terrible things in recent years, but so has Hamas, Hezbollah, many of Israel’s neighbors – many of whom either now or at some point vowed to destroy Israel and push them into the sea. Denying them any right to self-determination. Israel has responded in kind through near apartheid-like policies.

Our response, as freedom loving people in the United States, is a tough one. We’re long-time allies of Israel, but we think of ourselves as the good guys, the ones that obey and enforce the law of war, the ones who do everything we can to avoid civilian casualties and preserve human rights. Our vow to help Israel is often rooted in the agreement that Israel will do all it can to avoid unnecessary casualties. But war is war. And people die.

That aside, we as Americans must be vigilant. We cannot let terms like ‘woke madrasahs’ be used to describe liberal universities or the extremist groups held within. It devalues the idea of what it means to be woke and jades us into thinking madrasahs by their nature are places of evil. A label for these places shouldn’t be applied, but a concept. A concept that isn’t new.

Liberal overreach has been around for centuries, always triggering action on the far right, often paving the way for the rise of authoritarians or violence (one could characterize the reformation and birth an anabaptists and Calvinist as liberal overreach, which led to the bloodiest war in European history until the 20^th century).

This isn’t a uniquely American problem. Across the world nationalism and fascism have made headway in the face of this overreach. And in their wake bringing hate and societal reversals that attempt to rebuked what was become accepted (LGBTQ rights, access to women’s healthcare, sexual freedom).

I get it. Liberals say: “we must push forth, we must ensure all people are allowed the freedom to be who they are, worship who they want. Whether the luddites like or not. Change is ugly.” And that’s all well and good. But change also takes time. Liberals who think of themselves as woke must understand their communities. Leaders and institutions must set the example and draw the line between acceptable and unacceptable. They must say things like, yes, it is acceptable to disagree with Israel’s policies, but it’s not acceptable to cheer Hamas after they kill babies.

If the left doesn’t stop overreaching. If we don’t police ourselves, work for gradual change in some places, abrupt change in other place, then the Right will come for us. They are disgusted at the actions, or inactions, and words of the left. And they have a right to be. For them the faces of those kids cheering Hamas are the Democrats and the liberals of America. For them there is no point in trying to work with or compromise with people who say and do such things.

They won’t just sit and watch. They will come. And when they do, we will wonder, why did we reach so far?

Entry 3 – October 3, 2023 – Meet Matt Walsh: Christian Grifter. Er…I mean Theocratic Fascist.

If you haven’t heard of Matt Walsh, seen his twitter (ugh, I guess X) or blog or YouTube channel, well, you’re lucky. Stop reading now and just stay away from him.

If you have heard of him, then you either love him, because everything he says is music to your ears, or can’t stand him, because he’s a hypocrite against any form of social progress and a nerd who doesn’t like fun. But love or hate, if you’re a rational person, then I argue there’s something about him that you just can’t put your finger on. Something that feels…off.

To catch you up, here’s the basics of Mr. Walsh: He’s a flannel wearing right-wing commentator who began his career in ‘journalism’ doing radio in Delaware. His radio comments paired nicely with his blog, and…boy did he blog. Walsh wrote many, perhaps hundreds, of ridiculously long articles explaining why abortion was bad, sex outside of marriage was awful, why Hollywood sucked, why you shouldn’t treat animals like people, why porn destroys your wife’s self-worth, or feminism was a plight upon the land. You get it.

These articles, maybe he’d prefer, essays, tried hard to mimic the essays written by former intelligencia. Maybe Walsh fashioned himself a modern-day Hamilton or Jefferson. Or a conservative Marx or Lenin (he’d hate being compared to them). Writing what he saw as a new wave of conservative thinking. All his essays were well-written and even sounded intelligent on the surface, but unlike those previous writers, they brake down with real analysis. But that’s ok, his essays were not for the educated, but for the mildly literate.

It’s unclear, but seems he was not welcome in Delaware and soon packed up his brood (he now has six kids because of course he does) and relocated to a place he where could be seen in public – Kentucky.

Here’s the thing, even 10 years ago, when I first read one of Matt Walsh’s ridiculously long, intellectually sounding essays, I knew he was a fraud. He remains a fraud to this day, albeit for different reasons that I’ll get into, but at that time I saw one bright shining thing: This man was no Christian. But what I termed an American Evangelical.

I coined this term to myself and some family members in 2010 or so, having spent the better part of the 2000s in that world, getting sick of their nonsense and moving on. Perhaps others used it first, I don’t know, so I don’t claim to have invented it. I do know at the time when I termed it, I was questioned: ‘what is an American Evangelical? Just a conservative Christian, right? A Christian Nationalist?’ My response? No. Not even close.

At the time, many didn’t see it, didn’t see this was a unique religious faction that grew out of the ‘moral majority’ and anti-abortion and anti-segregation reactionaries. For me though, these people were not Christian. Sure, they claimed to be. They used elements of the Bible, went to church and talked about Jesus and such. But their faith was founded on some ideal of what they thought America was or should be. Rooted in gun rights, mixed with elements of Puritanical thought, and some delusional fantasy of what the 1950s, that glorious time just after WWII, were. They yearned for America to reset to those ideals. But if you paid attention, they also don’t stay set on anything, their values changed and fluxed based on one thing, how to gain power, and how to gain wealth. In the end, it became apparent, the American Evangelical is a nihilist.

Matt Walsh as a standard bearer for this movement. Back then, if people asked what an American Evangelical was, I’d say, read anything by him. He defines it. Or did. He’d drop the name of Jesus here and there, claim “I’m a Christian” on various occasions, and pedaled his world view of conservative values, shaped by long debunked ideas about how people truly operate and shaded by willful ignorance to the world. He never shows interest in charity or love for others. If he does it’s clearly pandering. He stayed on his focus, pushing rules about how we should all live based on his interpretation of not scripture, but what he thinks America should be.

His ignorance was astounding really – he seemed to have read just parts of the Bible, parts of American history, parts of philosophy. To only see those parts through his lens of should be America. Not the world or humanity as a whole with its wonderous diversity of thought and faith. He displays zero regard or empathy for those who might have been brought up in or live in completely different circumstances than he had known, of which he showed no interest in learning about. For him, there is only America, and American culture and society, one that needs fixing according to his world view. He was, the definition of an American Evangelical.

Nowadays of course we all know what this is. American Evangelicals went into overdrive when Donald Trump arrived on the scene. Their decades of work to shove their ideals on the nation, leverage the electoral and court systems, invade conservative media, all culminated with a fascist conman at the helm. We all watched as they gave up any sense of morality or legitimacy to support the man who would force their long-held beliefs on the rest of us. Even if that man was the opposite of everything they wanted to impose on us.

For years this movement was loud, but not listened to, not unless you were in their world. And then, as if overnight, we all knew who they were and realized, these people, who claim Christ as the central part of their ethos, were far from it. Most of them rarely display Christ-like values, they ignore most of the parts of the gospel that focus on giving up wealth, helping the poor, the stranger, the disenfranchised. All while promoting their concept of ‘family’ values. That nuclear families are the only right path, that feminism has made life worse for women and men, that gay rights shouldn’t be a thing, trans-people aren’t real. I could go on. Everything is in misinformed absolutes, no shades of gray allowed.

But I digress. This article isn’t about the transformation of these ‘Christians’ into American Evangelicals. Or their hypocrisy. It’s about Matt Walsh. Who, always a leader, has now morphed into a full-fledged Christian Grifter. Although, if we’re being honest, he was always a grifter.

Now, instead of making observations about the world and sharing his deranged ideas he jumps on the outrage du jour. Some feminist is happy she’s childfree and makes a Tiktok – jump! A court deals a blow to trans rights, Jump! A woman plays in a men’s football game, Jump! I’m not going to break down the validity of these things, but only point out that Matt is now in the business of jumping on the whatever issue will get him likes, reposts, reshares, engagement and…dollar bills. Something happens that he and his following are or should be against, he puts on his best flannel (as mentioned, the dude loves flannel) and hops on his YouTube vlog or takes to the computer to write and speak about why his ideas are right and everyone is wrong and then he lets the money flow. He’s now a millionaire off pushing his hot air.

But I said he’s a leader. How? Well, he was blazing the way for this non-Christian movement well ahead of others – while others still tried very hard to keep Christ close, he relegated him to lip service from the beginning. And now, he doesn’t even do that. Just look at his work – Christ is hardly mentioned. He has fully dropped the idea he is a Christian, turning now to what he claims to be in his own X profile: a Theocratic Fascist.

This is a man who now pedals false narratives and morals not based on Christianity, but on some other god, a warped form of American-centered conservativism. There is not Jesus, but strict social rules; not forgiveness, but vitriol towards anyone who has done wrong or has immigrated from afar; not acceptance but the enforcement of archaic gender roles; not love but and quelling individualism. This is a man who wants America to turn into Iran, or Geneva under John Calvin, or the dystopia described in a Handmaid’s Tale.

Now, does he really want this? I don’t know. Perhaps. He already lives in his own dystopia. He homeschools and has created his micro-verse. A world he wants for America existing as its own ecosystem for himself and his family. He’s allowed to live as he wants, while accusing the left that people like him are being forced to live according to their rules. That the left has been imposing its way on him, even as it’s clear it’s not. He acts and writes as if he’s adrift in some left-wing dystopia, forcing him to have sex with many women, to give up his guns, and let transgender people into his home.

But he’s not. And he’s smart enough to know he’s not. I doubt he really wants theocratic fascism to be instituted across the land because he knows that eventually those in control would come for him, for some reason. He’s too opinionated to simply step in line.

But even if they didn’t come for him, who’d he sell his grift to?

Entry 2 – 28 September, 2023 – Why the All-In Podcast Besties are full of shit.

When I discovered the All-In Podcast, I was amazed. Here were 4 guys who seemed to have figured it out. Leaders in tech who didn’t seem like dicks. Each came from humble beginnings, each brilliant, hardworking, thoughtful and now super rich – three of them billionaires. I was entranced, I dove into the backlog of episodes with excitement.

These men have been major leaders in the tech industry in the recent decades. They are demigods in the start-up culture, venture capital, even climate research. They are the modern captains of industry, perhaps not on the Henry Ford or Rockefeller or Elon Musk level – but one step removed. Prime movers and drivers of modern wealth in our generation.

Who are they – the besties, as they call themselves? Well, taking a tip from them I used BARD AI and got this:

• Chamath Palihapitiya, a former Facebook executive and venture capitalist – worth about 1.2 billion.
• Jason Calacanis, the founder of several tech companies and a popular startup podcaster- worth around 60 million (he’s the poor one)
• David Sacks, a venture capitalist and former COO of Yammer and Paypal – worth approximately 1.5 billion.
• David Friedberg, a former Googler and venture capitalist – worth about 1 billion.

If you dive deeper into their backgrounds – beyond just BARD – you see years of significant work and contributions to some of the more important trends and technologies of the 21st century. And there is no denying they have more than just monetary wealth, but a great deal of cognitive wealth. And while I knew I couldn’t be them (I didn’t want to be them) I did find myself interested in them. In how they thought. How they approached life. What made them so successful? I listened for weeks, enamored with it all.

Somewhere along the line my fascination began to falter. It began when one of the guys mentioned how he took a flight on Southwest airlines, and the rest poked fun at him for slumming it. One asked if there wasn’t room on someone else’s private jet for whatever event they were attending. Then they did an episode, or several, where one of them was in Italy, in the lake district, talking about the fine dining and minor inconveniences of being uber rich on Lago Maggiore or wherever he was. That tingled my spidey senses a bit more.

They would talk about Elon Musk, but never anything negative, as though Elon was a god among them, someone to be revered, idolized, never to be criticized. When Elon renamed Twitter, they didn’t miss a beat, all jumping to call it X without delay. When Elon’s rocket failed, all they had were excuses for him. This is how innovation worked. They claimed.

That one hit me. While Elon certainly has changed things, he deserves at least some criticism. And his handling of X has been universally noted as opening pathways for the far right. His opinions about the war in Ukraine deeply flawed. The evidence clear he is stepping way outside of his area of expertise. Yet the Besties didn’t seem to care.

Then came the ‘All In’ summit. The announcement, the constant talking about it, the extreme costs, how they were almost immediately booked out – presumably by thousands of minions, all clamoring to be just like them. It began to feel like a grift.

And it hit me. These guys are full of shit.

If it’s not David Sacks whining about the Ukraine conflict, of which he initially had some good points, until I realized this man is tech guy who knows little about the world of international relations or hegemonic theory or appeasement of tyranny. Then it’s Chamath and Freidberg taking turns to see who can jerk off RFK Jr first, or Jason subtly hinting how much a resents his uber rich buddies.

Regardless, when you listen to it, I mean really listen to it, to these guys drone on and on and you start to see it for what it is: A weekly 90 minute mutual high-five and shared hand job fest where rich dudes, who seem to grow ever more disconnected from real life, congratualte themselves how smart they are and how if only they were in charge America would be righted.

But nevertheless, I listened – now and then they touch on interesting topics, when they weren’t talking about their fancy clothes or travel, or how much they totally understand what to invest in or to avoid. Their ideas about AI and quantum computing were tops.

But then came the final straw – when they decided that presidential candidate Vivek Ramaswamy (having dumped RFK Jr I guess) was indeed, the best one out there, for the moment. Why? Well, because he wants to cut the federal government by 75%.

Because of course he does. Vivek is cut from the same cloth as these guys – similar age, well, perhaps one generation younger, similar path to his wealth, similar hustle mentality. Hell, any of these guys (except for Jason) could see themselves in Vivek’s shoes. I’m positive David Sacks would love to run for president if he hadn’t been born in South Africa.

Of course these wealthy Tech VC bros have a natural instinct to hate the government. Never mind the over 2 million doctors, lawyers, scientists, engineers, secretaries, garbage men, you name it – most with families who are employed by the federal government. People who maybe aren’t willing to work 90-hour workweeks, grinding to be billionaires like them, but are willing to take low pay, and still long work hours in service to America and something greater than just accumulating wealth.

These men don’t care about that. They think, well, as far as jobs go, these people should be willing to work in the corporate world, like they did. And the services? The free market will take care of it. For them the world the government helps provide in a modern country like ours can mostly be done by businesses or ‘innovators’ like them. Never mind these guys never need or think they need to use the services of the government. Never mind if those services were taken on by business it wouldn’t matter, they could afford it. Hell, perhaps they even convinced themselves they were never beneficiaries of the government. And now it can be assumed they live in gated communities, fly in private jets, send their kids to the best private schools, hangout with Elon Musk, interview leading politicians simply because they’re rich. All things that the federal government likes to stick its nose in as far as they’re concerned.

Here’s the thing. The federal government is bloated. And there are many federal employees and agencies who do not need to exist, where laziness and redundancy are rampant. Reform is needed. But to nod your head and say, ‘Vivek has my vote because he wants to cut the FED by 75%,’ without thought or concern for all the government does to make this country great. For all whom it employs. And for all it serves. Well, that’s a sign that these guys are in fact, full of shit.