From the Potomac River to the Atlantic Sea
DC Dispatch with James Kirchick
is a journalist and author of the NY Times bestseller "Secret City: The Hidden History of Gay Washington". You may know him from his work in Air Mail, The Washington Post, The Atlantic, and others. Follow Jamie on Twitter, read his excellent latest piece in the Atlantic about the importance of protecting free speech, and of course his exclusive interview with Armie Hammer.Questions? Send them to askajewpod@gmail.com
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In this episode we discuss:
Jamie's back story
How bad is it? Not too bad. But social media is.
The definition of Chutzpa
DC vs. NYC
Young people are still stupid
Defund Oakland
The mood in Israel + Bibi talk
On Berlin
On writing
The scary gays
Richie Torres for president
Tree B'Shvat
Where do you get your news
Listening now, but I wanted to say in regards to the White House interns and Congressional staffers. It sounds like that was unprecedented. From what I could tell ,it was a tiny minority who are signing these petitions. Which means the vast majority of young people in Democratic politics do not feel this way. But I do wonder why it's THIS conflict at THIS time that this happened.
I wonder if it's TikTok. I saw some youtube video by this yourber who was interviewing this man, who was talking about the scourge of Zionism, and the man was saying how journalists and the mainstream media are held in thrall to Zionism, but tikotkers and youtubers, they can tell the truth of what's going on, and I think that might be the main cause of what's going on.
As for young people, I think what's interesting that I don't think young Republicans think Israel is horrible, but definitely young Democrats are not fans. On the plus side, most of them think Israel and the Palestinians are equally bad.
Also, things change. People get older and their views get nuanced. I don't know that young people in the histroy of the world have ever been known for their nuanced view of things.
What HAS shocked me is how invested in "Palestine must be freed" rhetoric some people are. Like, October 6, you didn't care. Hamas definitely got people paying attention, if nothing else.
Jamie is great. I will be eternally grateful to him for his stance against “queer,” his episode on Uncertain Things is definitely in my top 5 favorite podcast listenings of all time. (For anyone who wants another couple hours of Jamie in their day: https://open.spotify.com/episode/3zSlO4WyZXThYtUJhyfX0x?si=h2GxzbvCRH6QCp1pWoyqCw)