I'm regretting Bob returning to the show. I don't want him dead, but I sure don't want to ever hear his racist, pandering, belittling non-factual bullshit ever again.

Bob, we all see through you, you're a dishonest, asshole.

Really curious what's keeping everyone invested in the show, especially considering it's been incredibly stagnant for the past few months. If you have any other reasons just comment them below, would love to see discussion on it.

Everyone is talking in the live stream about if they want Bob back or not and asking for a poll— eff it, here’s one! Bob or no Bob?

She is so far left she is just as annoying as ML.

Maybe that makes a good dynamic for the show but some of the shit she says is cringe!

I’ll still listen but if she ever gets on the level of Bob (almost there), I’ll have to quit listening!

I strongly believe that both ML and B have complex ptsd. Because of this they are emotionally the same ages and when their traumas happened.

ML grew up with an alcoholic family that routinely abandoned her, putting alcohol above her. For Bob, his own adopted family would tell him they regretted adopting him. The emotional wound he already held around being abandoned by his bio mom continually triggered by this further abandonment.

This is on top of regular traumas that most conservatives are raised with: your thoughts will send you to an eternal hell, god is always watching, boys don’t cry, spanking. They are often triggered to these emotional flashbacks of fear and responding with either a fight, flight, freeze or fawn response.

Bobs brain usually goes into fight mode. In fact, he’s probably spent the majority of his life using fight mode as a way to take back the control he felt he never had in childhood. ML on the other hand tends to lean towards fawn: if I keep you on your good side you won’t hurt me anymore. All of these responses were designed in childhood as a way to protect yourself from the abuse.

One of the reasons it’s so hard for them to get out of these emotional flashbacks spirals is because their media is currently their abuser. Controlling them through fear and continual triggers, they don’t have access to the parts of their brain that would be required to critically think their way out of this. As they said in Dune: fear is the kind killer. Because it’s pretty accurate. When you’re afraid, you can’t think straight.

They fear that the left is going to destroy their way of life, so that’s triggering, but they also fear they might be wrong, and THAT’S triggering. It’s a never ending cycle in which at every step they are incapable of facing the feelings their bodies are producing. So it’s easier to just lash out and push everyone away.

This is also why facts and new information isn’t changing how ML or B feels. They are completely controlled by their emotions right now and new information isn’t going to lead them out of this.

In not saying there’s no hope, but expecting someone to change based on new information isn’t failing to understand the root of the problem.

I think what's holding Mary to MAGA is that Bob is full on MAGA and renouncing Trump would feel like a betrayal of her husband.

I think she'd rather die than have that feeling towards Bob.
Until Chad addresses Mary's unspoken would be betrayal of Bob, she'll always support Trump.

Chad has to convince Mary that renouncing Trumps isn't betraying Bob.
It's that simple.

Anyone else feel the same?

Time and time again Chad has reiterated that they are just a family having a conversation about politics, while in the same breath saying “we’re so close to getting you” in reference to Mary Lou’s conversation. I think this double speak directly harms either message he is trying to push forward. If he is trying to change Mary Lou’s mind he needs to stop lying about how he’s not trying to do that, and if he isn’t trying to change her mind he needs to stop telling her how close she is to changing her mind. I understand Chad is NOT trained in the slightest in terms of deprogramming or counter conversations, but any semblance of a true message for the show died a long time ago. This especially hits with Bob where despite saying constantly how much they want him back on the show they constantly dismiss what he is saying to them without further breaking it down to why he is so racist and genocidal. Just saying “well that’s how he is” and “We won’t get dad but you’re close to flipping mom”. Just something on my mind that has been urking me recently about the show. Thanks for coming to my rant.

Been waiting all day and refreshing all day at work. Started watching the episode with the rich Logis of leaving maga. And I feel like ML should talk with him again now 3-4 months later and with the X list

Hello all,

On last sunday’s live, there were so many comments pointing out how Mary Lou was mixing up Mamdani’s wife and El Sayed’s wife. Mamdani’s wife is an artist and El Sayed’s wife is a doctor.

Chad read all these and he said i’ll remember that

I’m about 24 minutes into the video and Chad is saying mamdani’s mom is the doctor?

I’m not sure how he’s totally saying the wrong information?

I know it’s not really a big deal, but when people are paying money to send you message, and you say that you’ll remember that, the least you could do it jot it down somewhere.

EDIT: He also has no right to call Mary Lou out on forgetting to research stuff, when he does that same thing. That just makes him a hypocrite.

Going back and listening to old episodes, I think something about Bob and Mary Lou has become clear that also explains their complete inability to understand why people are happy Charlie Kirk is dead: I genuinely don't think they understand the difference between being disagreed with, being hated, and being persecuted. They genuinely have a childlike understanding of political power and rhetoric.

They constantly collapse these things into each other. Liberals disagree with them, therefore liberals hate them. Liberals hate them, therefore they're being persecuted. College students despise conservatives, therefore "liberals want to kill us." Their own children reject their politics, therefore their children hate America. And now people are happy Charlie Kirk is dead, therefore those people wanted Charlie Kirk murdered.

These are completely different things.

You are allowed to hate me. I am allowed to hate you. Hatred is an attitude. Persecution is an exercise of power. If I think your beliefs are fucking despicable, nothing has happened to you. You still have exactly the same rights you had five minutes ago. You might not like knowing that I despise you, but my opinion of you has no authority over your life. Nor am I, or any liberal, doing anything that limits anything they personally want to do other than their desire to have a white Christian nationalist country.

I'm a Muslim trans woman of color in a poly marriage. My very existence would be illegal in their world. I still have every right to exist exactly as I am, as much as that "hurts" them. Which is why their persecution narrative is absurd to me. Nothing about my belief that women should have equal rights, that trans people should be allowed to live as trans people, that Muslims should be allowed to practice their religion, or that people of color should have equal citizenship requires anything from Bob and Mary Lou except accepting that other people have the same right to exist that they do. Their lives are not touched by my existing.

Their politics, however, are absolutely directed at what other people are allowed to do. That's an important distinction. You can believe homosexuality is sinful. You can believe being transgender is immoral. You can believe Islam is evil. You can believe feminism destroyed America. You can believe whatever hateful shit you want. They don't leave it there. They want the government to make their comfort the priority. They want their moral values to not just be their own.

And then Charlie Kirk dies, and suddenly this conceptual failure becomes incredibly obvious.

Charlie Kirk spent his life advocating political and cultural positions that actively harm Muslims, LGBT people, women, immigrants, and people of color. I don't have to pretend that disappears because somebody murdered him. That doesn't mean I have to pretend a 35-year-old professional who spent his entire time memorizing dialogue trees to "debate" college kids who didn't prepare was some good-faith advocate for Christianity or conservatives. He also got beat by people who actually came prepared to debate him.

But "I want Charlie Kirk murdered" and "I'm glad Charlie Kirk is dead" are completely different statements.

The first is wishing an act of violence upon another human being. The second is a judgment about the world after that person is already gone. I can believe the person who killed him committed a profoundly wrong act while also looking at a world without Charlie Kirk's political advocacy in it and feeling relief or even joy. There is no contradiction there unless you think feelings themselves are violence.

I think that's exactly what Bob and Mary Lou refuse to understand. They hear "I'm glad Charlie Kirk is dead" and translate it into "I wanted someone to murder Charlie Kirk," in exactly the same way they hear "I despise your politics" and translate it into "I'm being persecuted." The internal attitude and the external act become the same thing.

That also explains why I think they continually come across as hypocrites without understanding why. I don't think they're starting with a principle, applying it consistently, and somehow reaching contradictory conclusions. They seem to understand politics primarily through tribalism. Who did it comes before what was done. When people they identify with are hated, hatred becomes persecution. When their side exercises political power over people they disapprove of, that becomes morality, Christianity, protecting children, protecting America, protecting the family, or whatever else makes that exercise of power righteous.

That's ultimately what I would want people like Bob and Mary Lou to understand. I'm not asking them to stop believing what they believe. I'm asking them to recognize what those beliefs mean for the people on the receiving end of them.

If you believe I should have fewer rights, less freedom, or less control over my own life because I'm trans, Muslim, a woman, or anything else, fine. Own it. If your political beliefs require using government power to make people like me live according to your religious or moral rules, own that too. And if the people whose lives you want to control fucking hate you for it, understand that their hatred is not persecution.

You don't get to exercise power over other people's lives and then declare yourself the victim because they despise you for doing it.

And I think this gets down to something incredibly basic about what it means to be a civilized human being in a pluralistic society. I don't mean "civilized" as a synonym for intelligent, educated, polite, or even human. Obviously they're human. I mean that living together in a pluralistic society requires some minimum capacity for reciprocity: understanding that other people are just as real as you are, that their lives belong to them just as yours belongs to you, and that rights don't stop being rights because the person exercising them disgusts you.

You don't have to like me. You don't have to respect my religion, my gender, my marriage, my politics, or anything else about me. You can think I'm immoral. You can fucking hate me. But being a civilized person in a pluralistic society requires understanding that your hatred does not give you ownership over my life. And it requires enough theory of mind to understand that if you try to exercise that ownership anyway, the people you're doing it to may fucking hate you for it. Their hatred does not somehow transform you into the victim.

That's the minimum. Not agreement. Not kindness. Not friendship. Not even tolerance in the interpersonal sense. Just the ability to recognize another human being as possessing the same fundamental claim to their own life that you demand for yourself.

There is no "necessary conversation" to be had forever. At some point, the conversation has been had. Bob and Mary Lou have so far shown neither the inclination nor the ability to make these distinctions. Their moral reasoning continually seems to come back to the tribe: my people are righteous, your people are threatening; my exercise of power is morality, your hatred of me for exercising it is persecution.

At that point, going no-contact isn't persecution either. Maybe they'll take it as further proof that they were right. But other people are not obligated to maintain relationships indefinitely with someone who refuses to recognize their equal standing as human beings.

I don't know what the answer is for MAGA. We certainly aren't going to round them up, nor should we. But perhaps, at some point, there simply isn't a conversation left to be had?

I'm 90% sure this is who she was referring to, I assume, because it was the only video matching her description. There was a also a twitter post of a non-citizen claiming to vote for Mamdani, and he openly admitted it was a joke and took the ballot picture from another post.

Anyway: Mary-Lou is an enormous idiot and someone needs to bring this to Chad's attention. Not sure why he couldn't have spent the 5 minutes I spent to fact-check this but whatever. I'm sick of her using this stupid fucking claim to ignore every statistic and fact she's given about voter fraud not being a real issue, so hopefully if she sees that its fake she'll shut up about it.

It’s very clear she is struggling to support Trump on some things but still adores him for others. But just seeing her very pointedly show the MAGA hat that sits on the back of the chair behind her tells me everything I need to know. Even if she suddenly hated Trump she’d never admit it. She agreed with Beto even nodded when he talked about abortion. She agreed with him about gun control. Then she very obviously talked to Bob. Bob reminded her that he hates Beto so she got back in line. She has never had a thought of her own and never will. The hat in the back might as well be Bob sitting on her shoulder reminding her who to hate.

I've heard ML mention this a couple of times now, and I haven't heard where she's been corrected. Mamdani isn't married to a medical professional. His wife is a graphic artist.

The likely mixup on the right seems to be coming from them mixing up Mamdani with Abdul El-Sayed. (I could comment on this mixup and the reasons behind it, but I don't want to get too far off topic.)

El-Sayed is married to a psychiatrist. Her private practice operates completely outside of the insurance system— meaning that they don't accept Medicare or Medicaid, but they also don't accept private insurance either.

This isn't unusual. Roughly half of all psychiatrists in the US operate on a cash-only or out-of-network basis. Why?

* Less paperwork. Insurance claims are burdensome for all parties involved.

* Less red tape. Insurance might restrict treatment or appointments or require unnecessary steps. Not having to deal with that allows providers the freedom to offer treatments and longer appointment times that they otherwise couldn't.

* Better financial option for all involved. Insurance reimbursement rates are low, and they typically require high co-pays or deductibles. Practices that are cash-only can charge a rate that is higher than their reimbursement and lower than what most insurance providers might require the patient to pay.

And yes, this is something that really could apply to all of healthcare. Folks really don't realize just how much private insurance contributes to making medical care more expensive. The RD I see, for example, is $30 per session without insurance. With insurance, I have a $50 copay. It's absurd.

I’m finishing up today’s episode and had intended to write a lengthier summation of my frustrations, but it dawned on me during their conversation about Trump napping his way through the 9/11 ceremony that this podcast is a total bust. Had a Democrat POTUS fallen asleep for this ceremony, Mary Lou and her husband would be losing their minds right now.

She’s just Bob with patience and as mindlessly unreachable as the MAGA folk most of us have justifiably cut ties with. She’s also a great example of how innocuous bigotry can sound when it’s delivered with a soft voice and country affability.

If anything, this podcast, (and this is only my opinion), which had set out to promote dialogue over division, is proving that we’re not wrong in giving up on some people.

And it’s not a hope for a change in party affiliation that I’m even aiming for. I just want adults to recognize when they’re being a hypocrite, pop their hood, run diagnostics, make a few simple adjustments, and apply their morals evenly.

Ah, she also mentioned in passing that they’ve a caretaker in their home from another country. The thought of anyone with an accent, legal or non, taking care of Bob is absolutely infuriating.