Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Hello, everyone, especially mom, because I know you're watching this one. Welcome to the 206th episode of the Atlas Society asks. My name is Jennifer Anju Grossman. Everyone calls me Jag. Sorry, born in peak Jennifer year, I am the CEO of the Atlas Society. We are the leading nonprofit engaging young people with the ideas of Ayn Rand in a lot of fun, creative ways. Graphic novels, animated videos, even musical collaborations. Today, we are joined by one of my absolute favorite writers, the very pregnant Nellie Bowles, which we are all the more grateful that she was able to make this time.
To join us.
I'm going to put the links in for you guys to ask questions. Just go to wherever you're watching us from. With a caveat that we're going to be a bit shorter today, so I will try to get to some of them, but I've got a lot of questions of my own. Nellie Bowles is a writer for the Free press and author of mourning after the revolution, dispatches from the wrong side of history. Hilarious. The Reverend romp through the sacred spaces of the new left, of which she was a part, at least until she began questioning whether the progressive movement she knew and loved was actually helping people. Now, my family and friends are devotees of Nelli's TGIF column for the Free Press, a news media company is building with her wife, Barry Weiss, that embraces the old fashioned journalistic ideals of objectivity and independence. Nellie previously worked as a correspondent for the New York Times. We're going to talk a little bit about that, where she won the Gerald Loeb award in investigations and the Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights Journalism Award. So, Nellie, thanks again for making the time to be here with us.
[00:02:00] Speaker B: I am so grateful to be here. Thank you so much for having me. And. And I am obscenely pregnant, so if I forget something, it just.
Or misspeak, just please blame it on that.
[00:02:12] Speaker A: Well, first, I want to thank you and Barry, first of all, by not just influencing and persuading people to come to their senses, but actually for producing actual non woke individuals with your womb. So that is an accomplishment.
[00:02:33] Speaker B: Well, we don't know. We don't know their politics. We just. We've got a toddler who knows.
I sometimes think, you know, when she grows up, she has. There's a good chance she'll cancel us from the left, maybe, but there's also a good chance she'd cancel us from the right. You never know.
[00:02:52] Speaker A: Well, at least you're willing to take the gamble, which has been more than I can say for myself.
So I also want to thank you, as I kind of alluded to in the intro, for the gift and the achievement that is the free press and TGIF in particular. You write about having conservative, pro Trump family members and you're not being willing to label them as fascists or Nazis. That being kind of part of your process? Well, for me, it's the opposite. As the only Republican in a family of Democrats, yet every one of our, every member of our family, even a sister in law who previously described herself as a communist, we come together over the free press and TGIF. I'm wondering if that is a story you hear from other families that, you know, political polarization of these times has been so traumatizing and searching for tools to find a way through it.
[00:03:57] Speaker B: Yeah, I think that a lot of people are wrestling with this, and most Americans live in politically mixed environments and have politically mixed families, and most Americans are themselves politically mixed. They have an idea that's left wing and an idea that's right wing.
People aren't so pinned down able and so flat as the mainstream media would have you believe.
But, yeah, I, yeah, it, to me, it's just obvious. And I think coming from California and not being in the sort of New York media scrum, I was a little baffled when I got there and realized how black and white everything outside of that scrum is seen as.
Yeah. I write a chapter in the book about canceling a friend. And basically the gist of the book is, I was a very good soldier of the progressive left. I never questioned my place in it. I got to the New York Times at 29. It was the only job I'd ever dreamed of having. And actually, I was eight maybe when I started again. This is my pregnancy brain. It was the only job I ever dreamed of having. The year I know was 2017, and I fit in really well. And then as 2020 and 2021 came and what we could write about grew more and more constrained, I started to question the movement for the first time. I started to kind of question a lot of my role in it. And so, like, I, and so I write about in the book a time when I very happily canceled a friend, and I write about the pleasure of it. And I think I come off kind of like a not great. I mean, Barrett, my wife read it, and she was like, are you sure you want to put this in text, reveal this? Yeah, this makes you sound crazy. And I was like, I think it's important because, because I wanted to present in the book, obviously, it's a send up of the american progressive movement. And it's funny, and it's sort of making fun of a lot of the excesses of it, but I didn't want to make it a flat thing that's just like, this is just dumb and bad, because it's not just dumb and bad, and there's complexity, and there's complexity even in the experience of canceling someone. But for me, as I fell in love with someone whose politics were not in, with the good of the, of the movement I was in, as I started reporting on things that were not in, with the good of the movement I was in, I just, I couldn't keep ignoring the complexity. And I, there came a day, and it was really the end of my time in the movement and the end of my time at the times when I couldn't cancel someone. We were all supposed to tweet the same tweet that day. Literally every staffer, and I think almost every staffer did tweet it, and I just couldn't. I just couldn't do it. And by not being able to cancel on that day, one young editor, I got a lot of messages from colleagues and from good friends saying, basically, you have to us or you're on the outs. I'm serious. It's like a club. It was like I was so shocked by the social pressure of it. And I kept thinking about my family members. I'm not naming names because they're beloved family members. I don't want them to get hounded. But my family members, who I had watched the 2016 election debates with, and I was so mad when Hillary lost, and they were pretty happy that Trump won. And I literally couldn't go over to their house for a few months after that because I was so mad. But there was nothing I could do. I couldn't cancel them. I couldn't like, and I realized the only solution is basically to, like, pull myself slightly out of the control of the movement. And not to say to go to the right, but just to say, you know what? I don't need to be a good soldier of anything.
I have to just step back from this because otherwise it can consume me.
[00:08:18] Speaker A: Well, I think you're sharing a very raw and vulnerable story that, you know, doesn't, as you say, necessarily put you in the best light, but at the same time, this bridge building factor of sharing your evolution, and then it also maybe allows people a window into what that mindset is because, I mean, it's so easy to say, oh, they're dumb or they're stupid or they're crazy. But to understand what this impulse is and also just the nature of the movement, I recently started reading Michael Malus's book White Pill, and it's about kind of the history of the Soviet Union. And what I'm struck was the sort of totalitarian, authoritarian environment in which everything became political and even relationships became political. And I can see that, you know, even you couldn't help it. You fell in love and with somebody who wasn't politically correct according to one kind of extreme definition.
And yet that made you suspect.
[00:09:39] Speaker B: Yeah, I had a college friend on, I forget who reached out, I don't put this in the book, but who reached out to me and said, listen, if you want to stay friends, you have to disavow her. You have to disavow your girlfriend. Now my wife. And I was like, what are you talking about? I mean, this is crazy. This is not, this isn't, these are crazy demands, puts demands on individuals who are part of it that are not human. An expectation of purity that's not normal. And that's kind of, like, just ridiculous.
And when you're on the outside, when you're inside of it, it's the most important thing. And staying pure and staying in the good is like, it's not funny, but when you're on the outside of it, it's kind of funny. It's like you're watching elite America just drive itself crazy a little bit with these, with these constant purity tests.
[00:10:39] Speaker A: Constant.
[00:10:40] Speaker B: You have to be with the most extreme faction or you're out. You have to be with the furthest plank of every political conversation of the day, or you're out. It's like, it's boring. It's a boring way to live, and it's a boring way to write, most relevantly to me at the times and for a lot of reporters at, like, let's say, NPR, the Washington Post, any of these places that most of the successful reporters in those places don't like this movement, they don't want it to be in such control over their lives, even as it wins.
The little sort of enforcers within these newsrooms tend to not be the most talented members of the organization.
[00:11:24] Speaker A: In terms of the enforcers. You write a little bit about the increasing power of the, quote, disinformation specialists at the New York Times. So are those the enforcers, and how did they kind of get their target put on your back?
[00:11:44] Speaker B: Well, across american media, you saw NBC has a bunch of this movement across american media. There rose in the last five years the disinformation beat, the disinformation editors, the disinformation that became kind of a major part of news media in the same way as there's a business section or a science section, and the role of the disinformation editor, it could be politically neutral. It could be someone who's just actually going out there and saying, this viral rhetoric is false, or this viral rhetoric is false. But how it's actually done is they basically call anything that's not like it's so crude, anything that's not literally, specifically helpful to Biden in that moment or helpful to a progressive cause in that moment is fake. News, is false, is disinformation. And what do you do with disinformation? Well, it should be deplatformed. It should be banned.
So, like, in my case, how I encountered the disinformation movement or how I came on the wrong side of it, was I did a story about Prageru, which is a conservative viral video maker.
They'd been getting some really viral videos about stuff going on, on campus at the time. It was 2019. It's forever ago, but there's still wacky stuff. And I thought, that's a great story. I'll write it. I wrote it.
Normally, my stories were sort of sailing through the system, but that one, there was a lot of editorial oversight. All of a sudden, all of these different people were sort of leaning to look at it. And the feedback I got was that I needed to add more about the disinformation angle of Prageru.
And it was so strange because I couldn't figure out what did they mean. The disinformation is just conservative. And I found myself explaining to people within the times, like, just because they might be pro life and you and I are pro choice doesn't mean that they're lying or it's fake. That's just different. It was so surreal to be saying this like grown ups. And. And eventually, I met with the disinformation, I think, in the book, I call him the disinformation czar, and he was the consultant brought in to the paper to help with issues such as this. And he told me that I had to quote the Southern Poverty Law center, and the Southern Poverty Law Center's assessment of Prageru was that Prageru is dangerous, because if you watch viral videos on YouTube from Prager, you might then be algorithmically connected to content that is more right wing and then more right wing, and the algorithm might then lead you to disinformation. So it's like disinformation adjacent through the algorithm. And I was like, oh, okay, okay. I just gave up. I was like, fine. I called up a Berkeley professor, too. I threw in a quote that I knew he'd give me that was like Prager, you plays around with false ideas, you know, something, whatever. And I refiled, and the story goes on the front page, and I kind of move on. But something didn't sit right with me about doing that. It was just weird. It was just really weird to me that I had to do that. Because calling something disinformation is the step, then, to get it deplatformed and kicked off.
Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, all of it, eventually. Not Google able. Right? And, yeah, and that's how it works. And that's how censorship works within these institutions. That's kind of the. It's an ecosystem. So, like, Biden then appointed a disinformation czar. And where was her office run out of? The Department of Homeland Security. So. And the disinformation czar was, of course, very lovingly embraced by the mainstream media. All these beautiful profiles of her, as though this isn't a bureau of censorship. As though people can be so short sighted that they can't imagine, what if Trump appointed a disinformation czar? Would you feel the same way? And it's like, people are so short sighted when they're talking about this kind of stuff. It's like, you would be apoplectic if Trump appointed this type of person.
[00:16:07] Speaker A: So there's the actual gatekeepers, the sort of disinformation slash gateway to censorship czars.
But you also felt there was an increasing partisanship kind of going into the 2020 election, and that reflected not just the content of what was being written, but even what could be reported on. So you describe wanting to getting curious about what was happening in Seattle, in the autonomous zone, and what was happening in Kenosha.
What inspired your desire to report on those stories and any pushback from the Times? Were you surprised at what you found there? Because it's really pretty heartbreaking, particularly. Yeah.
[00:16:57] Speaker B: And I think most reporters have a similar story. But I got into journalism in part because I'm a suspicious person. I don't like authority figures. I read Ayn Rand as a kid.
The fountainhead was like an extremely formative and mind blowing book to me when I was a teenager, when your mind is really getting formed by every book you read, and I didn't, that was a trait that had guided me and that had served me very well. And journalism was actually, the only place that I think that that sort of distrust of authority is rewarded.
And so, yeah, when 2020 was coming around and 2021, and basically the whole mainstream media decided to handcuff themselves and to say, we're not going to report on the most interesting stories that are unfolding right in front of our eyes. We're not going to look into Covid's origins. We're not going to look into pediatric gender medicine and what to do there. We're not going to look. It was just like all of the hot button topics that were so fun to talk and think and wrestle with and read about. The Times, the Washington Post, all these places basically decided that's off limits. And so in my case, the thing that I really wanted to report on was the Chaz encampment in Seattle, which was where a group of antifa had taken over a neighborhood of Seattle and declared it an autonomous zone. And the mayor had gotten really into it and used city funds to help build their borders. She put porta potties in with city funds. Needless to say, after this all ended, her texts mysteriously all disappeared as well. They were just, how could they have been deleted? We don't know. And I thought that was a really fun story. I got to get up there.
I'm telling stories basically from the intro of the book. So it's not all just me, like, complaining about the times, but by wanting to go up there, I also got a lot of pushback. And when I came back into that.
[00:19:12] Speaker A: Story, people were, why were you curious about this? Was it kind of like, why are you asking?
[00:19:18] Speaker B: Or why are you. It was like, why are you asking? I mean, that's. That's so much of the reporting that we do at the free press is reporting that. If you tried to do at a mainstream american media company, you would be asked, why are you so curious about that? You'd get a similar response. It's, why do you want to know?
Why does it matter? There's a chapter about Black Lives Matter, the nonprofit, the organization. And for a long time, people refused to write about how curious their spending patterns were. And really, a lot of it was a scam, and the money was used improperly and they didn't want to write about it. And it's sort of like, we're not scared to write about these things. And I also don't think it's conservative right wing to write about that. I think it's actually liberal to write about that because if you like the movement for racial justice, you should want the organizations that say that they're promoting that you should want them to not be corrupt. You should want them to be effectively doing their job and actually improving racial justice in America or improving. I mean, it's so, it became so important to not look at things that it ends up hurting the cause, even if you like the cause.
[00:20:45] Speaker A: Right. That reminds me of another of my favorite quotes by Ayn Rand, which is, you can evade reality, but you can't evade the consequences of evading reality. And I think that goes to sort of some of this short term thinking. Right. We don't want to help the critics of Biden or the critics of Black lives Matter in the interim. So we're not going to report on the story.
[00:21:14] Speaker B: Exactly.
[00:21:15] Speaker A: It's not like the story doesn't go away. It's not like somebody else isn't going to report on it. You know, and eventually that once it's been out there, it needs to be. It needs to be addressed.
[00:21:27] Speaker B: But, yeah, and in the interim, your cause is hurt by this. Like, your cause is damaged by this. I mean, it does the opposite of your intention. Right. By shutting down dissent, by shutting down investigative reporting, by shutting that down.
If you want something to happen or an organization to succeed, you should also want it to be honestly, like, ruthlessly efficient, and you should want people to be looking at it and keeping it in line.
I think that the organizations I really like, I love various animal rights groups, and I always am looking at, like, charity monitor and charity watch, seeing which ones I donate to and what their ratings are, because I want to. I want them to be, like, ruthlessly efficient.
And I would love for an investigative reporter to look into them all and tell me which one is the best.
[00:22:21] Speaker A: Well, you know, you have that privilege now. You can sign that to someone.
I bet that one, that story would definitely go viral.
[00:22:30] Speaker B: I don't know. There's only a few freaks like me who are obsessed with animal rights.
[00:22:34] Speaker A: I don't think so. I don't think so, honestly. You know, I know people on our staff that's like their big cause that they donate to that they, you know, make the, you know, their Amazon default for their donations go to that. So we would be interested. All right, we only have about six minutes left.
I'm going to let you go for your pregnancy nap.
I'm going to pull some family privilege here, because my mother did send me this question, which I do think she's read your book, and you do cover it towards the end in the book. And she asked, what, if anything, made America fertile ground for the moment in history that you describe in the book, was it lack of critical thinking and ignorance of history and a desire for an idealistic cause, white guilt? Or was it Trump and his brashness and rudeness contributing to a me against them? Anything goes. But I think you write that we could trace this to Foucault and repressive toleration and all of that, but in some sense, it's just part of human nature.
[00:23:51] Speaker B: Yeah. Deconstructionism, the idea that there's no truth.
I think about that a lot, and I think that one thread that to me is very american, is the embrace of anarchism a little bit. The embrace of nihilism. Yeah, nihilism.
Let's say the drug problem in San Francisco.
Traditional liberal instincts would say, we got to house these people, we got to fund rehab centers, and we have to get them into the rehab center, maybe by force, and improve their lives. We can't just leave them on the street to die. And that, I think, would be the typical european response. Again, it's not to put them in jail, but you can't just let someone die on the street and bring them food and bring them new needles. That's. That is crazy. But in american liberal spaces, we, with the new progressive movement, that's kind of the dominant mode in our cities.
Instead, the answer has been a strange mix of enormous amounts of government funding and government subsidizing of the people on the street with a sort of nihilistic view that, like, they can never get better. We shouldn't force them to get better. We can't demand that the sidewalk be clear. We can't demand that the park be clear. Like, if there's fentanyl addicts in the park and your kid stumbles on a needle, that's just city living. And that attitude is very american. And I don't. I don't.
I don't know. I think of it as, because I'm on the west and writing a lot about the American West. I think of it as sort of a Wild west ethos. But I don't think you have a similar movement, or at least one that's as powerful in London or Paris or Lisbon, even as they have lots of liberal and interesting policies around what to do about drug addicts. You don't see that response.
[00:26:00] Speaker A: Speaking of the drug epidemic, homelessness.
[00:26:06] Speaker B: Being.
[00:26:07] Speaker A: Out west, having gone through this personal journey, professional journey, being a part of something that is just a real movement. It's beyond just a journalistic outlet. It's a culture.
Do you feel optimistic about solving some of these intractable problems or, you know, since you're reporting on problems, do you. Do you. Are you somewhere in between?
[00:26:40] Speaker B: I'm somewhere in between. If I'm being honest. I think a note of optimism is obviously, like, a better thing to end with. But I.
There's definitely reasons to be optimistic. Like, in San Francisco, we saw a moderate backlash. That was really amazing. I mean, it was led by the asian parents who were sick of being called white supremacists by the school board. And they kind of rose up and said, enough is enough. And they.
Their rage led to the school board recall, led to Chesa Boudin's recall. Like, it was really amazing and quite inspiring in terms as someone who is biased now towards more sensible policies. But, um, I I don't know. Well, the stuff our country does.
Yes.
[00:27:35] Speaker A: Yes. And certainly what we've seen on campus, this has been shocking, frightening.
[00:27:42] Speaker B: I'm optimistic about America versus the rest of the world. I think we're in a much better position than basically all of western Europe, and I don't think there's anyone. I mean, the american economy is great. Like, I'm optimistic about America versus anywhere else, but I don't know about the entire endeavor.
[00:28:05] Speaker A: Well, as we all formulate our independent opinions on that, I want to highly recommend Nellie's book and the wonderful audio version as well. I usually don't like when authors read their own books, but I liked it in your case.
[00:28:26] Speaker B: You have a thank you so much.
[00:28:28] Speaker A: Not just for journalism, but for narration. And so if this thing doesn't, you know, pan out at free press, you know, you could always turn to.
[00:28:40] Speaker B: I was born with a very weirdly low voice, which I think is, I worry that the audiobook sounds a little bit like a funeral dirge, but I made peace with this.
[00:28:49] Speaker A: I think it's great. So we're going to put links on all the platforms to the book, also links to the Free press. Again, you won't regret it if you sign up. I've already given away two of my three gift subscriptions, but if there's anybody out there that is listening and wants one, then hit me up. And apologies to everyone that we couldn't get to more questions today, but I hope that you will join me next week when we are going to be talking to Professor Brian Wansink about his book Mindless, why we eat more than we think. And again, Nellie, thank you so much for joining us and looking forward to someday meeting you. And not just, I know I can't wait.
All right, well, thanks, everyone. We'll see you next week.
