The Fifth Column

The lads are all around the same table in New York City! And LA Times journalist Gustavo Arellano calls in at the top of the show to explain why the President is calling on four local politicians in L.A. to resign. * Gustavo explains Spanish racial slurs* Gustavo explains the racism of the LA City Council* This is the logical endpoint for dumb identity politics* We obsess over the race stuff at the expense of the naked corruption* Punching dogs for social justice* Matt is a cop-adjacent apologist* Berlin is bad, but not is bad as it was in 1945* A revolution with no solutions* What the WaPo forgot to tell you * Like almost everyone else in American politics, Hershel Walker believes in nothing* Dear lord does Matt hate Margaret Sullivan’s book* Adjectiving your way out of trouble* The U.N. slaps down the Kremlin * Reporting on Fetterman’s stroke is violence* Also: subscribe to the Substack, you freeloader…. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wethefifth.com/subscribe

I am usually among the most allergic to broad, immutable-characteristic-based analyses along the lines of “The Crisis of Men and Boys.” Some of this is the usual self-loathing—Screw guys, especially if they’re 54-year-old baseball fanatics from California!, etc. But also, probably due to the extended influence of the man formerly known as Casanova Brown, I have seen too often the fact-bending, anti-individualist and too often punitive ideological temptations of sorting humans into various pens and making grand statements about the resulting statistics.However! When tasked during a recent media appearance to have comments on The Trouble With Males, I stumbled across a stunning (to me) chart at the Bureau of Labor Statistics, showing that the employment rate for dudes between 2001 and 2021 was down in every age bracket younger than 55, and up in every cohort after 55. Dramatic numbers, too—16-19-year-old males went from 50% to 36%; 20-24s from 82% to 73%, and so on. If we’re getting to the point where half of men have never worked before the age of 25, that’s a profoundly different America than some of us old farts grew up in.So when I received a publicist email saying that the Bradley Prize-winning American Enterprise Institute economist Nicholas Eberstadt had just come out with a brand new post-pandemic edition of his groundbreaking 2016 study Men Without Work, I leaped at the chance to talk to him about this subject that I cared not at all about just one month ago. Hoo-ray for the on-the-job learning!Eberstadt, as you will soon hear, has a more interesting pedigree than your average math professor, with a wife who writes about the sexual revolution and identity politics, a sister who was in Warhol’s Factory, one grandfather who was Ogden Nash, and another who co-founded the CIA. And don’t worry, we also talk a bit about commies.-- The myth of “full employment”-- NILFs-- “There is absolutely nothing good that comes out of this trend”-- “Uncannily, weirdly, eerily regular”-- “There's no country in the rich world that has had such a steep radical and continuing drop as the U.S.A.”-- The Lost Decade, and the New Misery-- Wealth without growth-- The populist reaction-- “They don’t do civil society”-- Immigrants get the job done-- California vs. Texas on immigrant welfare-- Schmancy Bobbleman vs. the feminists-- The ex-felon factor-- They’re all on disability-- We just did a national UBI experiment-- Get a job, teens!-- Does this also explain woke/cancel stuff?-- We weren’t gonna let that Warhol connection slide-- Nor the CIA grandpa-- Charles Murray, Tim Carney, J.D. Vance-- North Korea’s role in Russia’s failing war This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wethefifth.com/subscribe

* Only Fans is for Justice* Internet Experts* Not Even Not Fascism* Right Wing Extremists Everywhere* Blame The EU* What You’re Really Afraid Of* The Beyonce of Journalism* Call of the Wild* Lil Baby Offends* Democratic Illiberalism * Not That Big Lie* Don’t Call It a “Ban” (Even If It’s A Ban)* They Were Watching BaseballRecorded: 9.28.22Published: 9.29.22 This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wethefifth.com/subscribe

* Toddler Pestilence* Death Defying Drives* Naked Pool Slide (are you “The Big Guy”* Russia, Ukraine, A wildly outdated PBX systems* Trump’s Devolving Legal Situationship* This Isn’t Political; Trust Me 🤞🏼* Russia Hacked the Women’s March?* Buses, Planes, and “Kidnapping” Stunts* Maybe Build that Wall Now?Recorded: 9.22.22Published: 9.23.22 This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wethefifth.com/subscribe

Featuring:Thomas Chatterton Williams - Contributing Writer @ The Atlantic, Visiting Professor and Senior Fellow Hannah Arendt Center @ Bard College Adam Davidson - Co-Founder @ Planet Money, Contributing Writer @ The New Yorker*** “It amazes me that any straight, white dudes don't see the privilege we have. It's not subtle.” - Adam Davidson - via Twitter (8/20/22)Not a long tweet. And in the grand scheme of things, hardly an unusual opinion to encounter. Ordinarily, I fire off a reply —maybe there’s some pithy back and forth, but things more or less end up about where they began— until the next (pointless?) social media drama.But maybe we agree to talk instead? Probe a bit further. Perhaps even learn a few things in the process? This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wethefifth.com/subscribe

So I broke into the Palace with a sponge and a rusty spannerWith the Right Honorable Matt Welch ensconced in a posh Beverly Hills hotel, prepping to shock and sicken America with yet another appearance on Real Time, Kmele and Moynihan got on the horn to discuss the death of corgi-loving colonialist Queen Elizabeth II, moronic “anti-colonialist” Twitter, Bannon’s perp strut, Moynihan’s unwitting mentor, phantom racist volleyball fans, and an unarmed man shot in the back who wasn’t unarmed or shot in the back. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wethefifth.com/subscribe

Against a blood-red backdrop, President Biden gives an urgent campaign speech, warning that America is becoming semi-Nazi Germany, Donald Trump is partial Hitler, and our almost democracy is on the precipice of kinda revolution. The lads watch the speech and say lots of really smart things. But before they discuss the end of America, Kmele forces a conversation about Michael Jackson’s Thriller. He has a theory. Moynihan and Welch are…skeptical. This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wethefifth.com/subscribe

* Zuck Talks w/ Rogan* Student Loan Forgiveness* Who Cares if It’s Democratic* WashPo: “It’s Regressive!”* The Redbox Test* Student Debt is immoral * Moynihan in an elevator w/ Harry Styles* Oh, my god, they fired Brian (You bastards!)* The Jim Jones of Journalism* NBC “News”* The Many Papers of Donald Trump* That NPR Voice* Ben Shapiro Goes to a Conference (Hilarity Ensues) This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wethefifth.com/subscribe

A few weeks ago, with Matt Welch bleeding out of his ears and supposedly forbidden from flying, Kmele and Moynihan hopped a plane to a post-apocalyptic hellscape called “San Francisco” to kibizt with their new benevolent overlords at Substack. Unlike the boring prigs at Patreon (whose “Trust and Safety” commissars never even returned our calls), Substack rather generously hosted the Fifth crew for drinks, drinks, some more drinks, and a live show at company HQ. In Matt’s stead, the lads called up FOTF (Friend of the Fifth - ed.) Lara “Che” Bazelon, a local law professor and communist revolutionary, and Substack co-founder* Hamish McKenzie, a reactionary publisher of fake news. They discuss San Francisco, the state of the media, the future of free speech, and much, much more. Enjoy.*Note: We previously referred to Hamish as CEO of Substack. He is, we are reliably informed, the "chief writing officer," which sounds to us like a fake job. As such, we now have significant doubts he even works at Substack and suspect he's never even been to New Zealand (which he told us “is the country where Kyle Minogue and Yahoo Serious are from”). This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wethefifth.com/subscribe

Many urgent matters loom large in this dispatch.How did boxes full of TOP SECRET documents turn up a Trump’s Mar-a-lago compound?!Could be an honest mistake… Few moving labels get mixed up; nuclear secrets turn up in a Florida man’s safe. Maybe a box full of Melania’s bawdiest intimates gets serendipitously misdirected to the National Archives.Could America be so lucky?Could Trump be selling state secrets to the highest bidder?Could the “Deep State” be up to no good?Is there a clearance sale at the Banana Republic?We’ve got margaritas, Sativa, a burning desire to sort this 💩 out — and Eli Lake is a responsible adult whose laptop definitely won’t run out of power mid-podcast.Recorded: Aug 11, 2022Published: NOW This is a public episode. If you'd like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit www.wethefifth.com/subscribe