Tracy Alloway and Jordan Ritter Conn: The Global Economic Shock from a Stupid War

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I'm your host Tim Miller, a few notes. We've got tickets on sale now for everybody. For our live events at California, May 20th in San Diego, May 21st in Los Angeles. I'm working on some fun stuff for you all. So please, if you're in Southern California, come hang out.

“If you want to make a trip to beautiful Southern California, what better time than May?”

I hope to see you all there. I've got a fun double-header for you today that are about a couple of niche topics. So if you just want straight politics, Trump porn, that's gross, but you know what I mean.

The next level, always out on Tuesday nights, or we're trying to make it always out on Tuesday nights.

So make sure to check that out in your podcast feed of choice. In segment two, we've got Jordan Rittercon, who's got a new book out American Men. It's talking about the Traveils of men in our culture right now. It's kind of bleak, but he's a great writer and it's really sweet. So we're going to hash that out in segment two.

But up first, she's the co-host of Bloomberg's AdLots podcast, which I have been binging on, because the news is horrible. And when the economic news is horrible, I always like to turn to my friends at AdLots. It's Tracy Alloy. How you doing, go? I'm good, thanks. That's fine, by the way.

We're used to people binge listening, AdLots episodes when the world is falling apart. So all good. I kind of want to talk about the men, though. You want to talk about the men? Let's just talk about the men.

Okay, what do you have thoughts about men and what's happening with the men? And it doesn't seem great.

“Yeah, a lot of men can always be improved. That's what I see.”

Yeah, men need to be improved. It feels like a lot of times away from doing things that are fulfilling to their life, and being in communion with other men, and instead replacing that with a lot of time bedding on... Listening to podcast.

You know, if I've guessed it's good, that's fulfilling, that's nourishing. I'm talking about maybe, I don't know, gambling on what Donald Trump is going to say on Squawkbox today. Whether Trump is going to use the word "hormous" on Squawkbox today, gambling on that, that doesn't seem less healthy. So that's just...

Yeah, I would say prediction markets are not a substitute for a viable social network. So men should work on those relationships. All right, they should. Thank you, Tracy. We're trying to model that here at the board podcast. Trump is on the Squawkbox this morning, and it's just like...

He does a call in at 830, right, before the market's open, and it is pretty wild. The extent to which I job on in the market is driving war and peace negotiations.

I've never really seen anything like it.

There's an old line about weekend wars. I don't think this is what they meant, which was just that we had fight literal wars while the markets were closed, but it seems to be working for him kind of on the margins. I don't know. What do you think? I mean, you're definitely seeing that sort of pattern of impact on the market,

where the expectation is that he announces something along the lines of, you know, talks or some sort of ceasefire agreement on a Friday before the weekend, and then over the weekend, the bad news actually hits, and then on Monday, the markets open lower. I guess the question is how long that pattern can continue without the talks,

actually materializing into a durable agreement of some sort. But yeah, the market moves have been crazy, so I was looking at a chart yesterday, apparently we've had three weeks now where the S&P 500 has rallied over three percent per week. That's something that's happened seven times since 1928. So this is really unusual, like the speed of the moves that we are seeing in markets are,

“I think what a lot of investors are struggling to get their heads around right now,”

because it used to be, if you were an investor, you were used to bad news comes out.

that hole and climb the proverbial wall of worry is what we used to call it.

Now, we're seeing markets just recover almost instantaneously. And so the velocity of those moves have been really unexpected for a lot of market participants.

“Well, how much of this do you think is manipulation versus just something different?”

Yeah. I mean, look, it's hard. We've all seen the same stats about what's going on in prediction markets, right? Big accounts that are putting on bets. You know, they don't like to call them bets. Putting on event contracts very close to news breaking. I'm sorry, I don't know. I just the books that made us do certain words. Now, now it's the prediction market bros that are doing politically correct language. We can't call it what it is.

I'm following CFTC regulations. The CFTC says these are event contracts. So I'm going with that language, but I've seen the same things you have. I mean, it's hard to know how much of this is deliberate sort of day-to-day manipulation versus how much of it is just part of a general Trump jaw-boning strategy where he's trying to manage what would otherwise be some serious market fallout from a kinetic war in the Middle East. JVL's theory on this, my colleague in the

“Triad last week was that we have a madman theory of the stock market that the madman theory of form,”

policy didn't really work because eventually, you know, people smell the bluffs, but it does work in the stock market for this reason. He says that the more intensely speculative a market is, the more it views chaos as an opportunity instead of a risk. When stability is the norm, chaos is an outlier, so it presents risk, but when chaos is the baseline, there's no apparent risk to it and any outbreak of normal secrets and opportunity for growth and optimism. I like that.

That's as theory of the case. I like that the other framing I've seen and it's sort of similar on those lines is you know how investors, when a company reports results, you'll get earnings before taxes and depreciation and interest and all of that. I've seen people talk about earnings

before the Trump factor, which is basically that chaos that you're talking about. Like, if the

chaos is so unpredictable and if the headlines are changing on a day-to-day, if not hour by hour, minute by minute basis, all you can kind of do is try to look through some of that and think about what earnings would look like without that cloud of chaos sort of obscuring them. There's a counterpoint from your colleague, the stall works, Joe Wyzenthall. He posted a meme that I liked. I'm sorry to compliment him when, you know, one more with you, but I'm going to read

something. I'm not to take it personally. I'm going to get from the thing, I don't know, do you? I don't know if you have that rivalry. Like, I would hurt my feelings if I was on someone else's podcast, they're like, you know, I want to tell you about something serolong well said recently that I really liked, but anyway, so I apologize, but a two good net to share. There's me about these people talking to party, one person is talking to the other and they say they don't know

the straightive formulas isn't actually open, that the prices on the screen don't represent the two situations in the commodity markets that even if the war comes to an end, we're looking at an environment where inflation is already higher than the Fed's target, meaning rate cuts are off the table. And this is before we get to the fact that deficits are rising when combined with increased trade fractions and we're creating a structurally greater inflationary picture.

And therefore, we're facing the most lag-flationary environment over 50 years. There's more than that's suggest. The more I listen to your show, this is what I come away with. I'm like, I don't like Trump and so at some level, I do want things to go badly, but I'm not fishing for the economy to go bad, but I just, you just look at what is happening and I don't understand why that perspective, late school, which is like even if the straight gets opened right

after we get off this show and it's open for good, like there was still all of this disruption that is auguring poorly for the next few months, but the investing market doesn't seem to see

“it that way. Joe likes to make fun of rational takes on the market. I think the guy at the party”

has a very rational take on the market, like I'm all in favor of sincere basic analysis on Twitter and that is some sincere basic accurate analysis. I would argue, which is we haven't seen all of the impacts flow through into global markets just yet. I mean, just a week ago, we still had ships that had the last loads of Middle East oil that were making deliveries, right? So again, like we are waiting to see the full impact of this. We've already seen some demand destruction,

mostly in emerging market countries like Bangladesh, maybe Thailand that aren't necessarily going to resonate with Americans just yet, but it is an undeniable fact that 20% of the world's oil

and gas supply has been disrupted for the past six or seven weeks. We've seen critical damage

to a bunch of oil and gas facilities in the Middle East that in some cases is going to take years to fully repair. Qatar came out and talked about one of its oil and gas fields was going to take three to five years to actually fix. That is just inevitably going to have to translate into

going to see a bunch of drillers try to make up that lost production over here? We've been doing

“a bunch of episodes on this. I'm sure you've been listening. I hope you're listening. We spoke”

to Jack McClendon. He's the CEO of a small oil producer in the U.S. yesterday and he pointed out there's a fundamental tension here, which is number one, you don't know how long the Iran situation is going to last, so you could wake up tomorrow and if there's some sort of agreement reached then oil prices immediately plunge lower, which means that they don't have incentive to immediately ramp up production, and there's also a fundamental tension within the Trump administration itself,

which is they keep talking about how they want everyone to drill oil, but at the same time they want lower gas prices, and if the drillers don't see profit in encouraging that additional supply, they're just going to start those new projects, and so I'd have yet to see the administration really square those two goals. And all the stuff takes time to, like on the margins, you know, we could put out more oil here, but to the degree of what is being disrupted, like there's just

there's just basic supply chain limitations of, you know, sports capabilities, etc, you know, etc. You go down the list. Oh, absolutely, and this is another thing that came up with Jack McClendon,

“which is this idea that even if you want to start new oil rigs at the moment, a lot of the prices”

for the components to actually build those drills have gone up because of tariffs. And in fact, if you look at looking at it right now, the Baker Hughes oil and gas index on my trustee Bloomberg,

that thing has been moving sideways basically since mid 2025. And in recent weeks, when we've had

that big oil spike, and you might have expected some sort of supply response from U.S., drillers, it actually fell by three last week. So here we are. Another gap that you were pointing out is between the fertilizer inflation costs and kind of the lag and food inflation that we've seen. I learned about Eurea from your guys podcast, just going from the Middle East and how that impacts fertilizer and how fertilizer costs go up. The Secretary of Ag, I saw this was saying that like,

well, this isn't that big of a deal because 80% of the fertilizer for the season has already been bought, but then the farm bureau, which is pretty trunk friendly, I went out up to the survey that they put

“out publicly, I think, to pressure for bailout or something. And basically said that is wrong.”

Like in the Midwest, it's the 67% was the highest, but in other parts of the country,

like the majority had not bought fertilizer yet. And so you would assume that that increase is going to yield increase in grocery prices. Yeah, the fertilizer story, I find really interesting. And I've seen the same figures as you, and they seem kind of contradictory at times. I'm not entirely sure what to make of where exactly we are in the planting season. But again, even if you've set aside this particular planting season, there's a broader problem here,

which is America is not the only food-producing nation in the world. And there are a lot of other countries out there that have different planting seasons. And they're going to want the same fertilizer for their particular crops. And where are they going to get it if they can't get it from the middle east? Well, China, which is a big fertilizer producer, has tightened up its export controls, because it's concerned about keeping enough supply at home for its own food production. And meanwhile,

the US, if you look at US prices for fertilizer at the moment, they are trading at a huge discount to what normally comes out of the Middle East. So US fertilizer is really cheap at the moment. Compared to everything else available in the world, again, because most of the supply has been cut off because of the Iran situation. So a lot of those food producers are going to start coming to the US for their fertilizer needs. And there's actually a Reuters story out today talking about

US fertilizer companies selling more internationally. So even if the US has its own supply of fertilizer that is maybe keeping US farmers somewhat insulated from what's happening in the Middle East right now, that doesn't mean that prices aren't going to increase in the future as we see other countries scrambling to get supplies. One other interesting thing here, I got to say, I find all the corporate behavior in this particular environment really fascinating. There's a big US fertilizer producer

called CF Industries. And they actually put out a statement talking about everything they're trying to do in the context of this fertilizer crisis. And one of the things that explicitly said was, we are going to give up the ability to sell a bunch of US fertilizer at a huge, huge premium to international customers. We're going to keep it all at home for US farmers. So there's an element of politics that's coming into here. And like, it's also kind of similar to what you're

maybe greed, inflation is real. After all, I'm not feeling the greed, inflation was not real,

Well, we can talk about the exact motivations. I'm sure the win, like a bunch of fans from some

“US farmers, but like, what are their shareholders think if they're explicitly for going the ability”

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“and volunteer at peopleofho.us. Speaking of big corporate behavior, I want to ask you about two”

of the things look like. On Squawk Box, Andrews, we're also going to ask Trump about how some of the big companies, particularly big tech companies are not seeking reimbursements for the tariffs, even though they can get them because of the Supreme Court ruling. They said that they're not doing this because they're worried to offend Trump. Trump replied that the people doing that are very smart and he'll remember them. So he's thrilled if American companies aren't taking money that

that was wrongly garnishing from them back. It's a very weird style of political capitalism, isn't it? Yeah. Is it capitalism? Is that what capitalism? Politically tinge capitalism? I mean, he was also talking about spirit, right? And this idea that maybe the U.S. government would support

spirit in some way. It wouldn't be the first time that the U.S. government bailed out an airline.

That's for sure, but like it certainly has different political undertones in the current administration. Yeah. I guess I would just say that the government wrongfully seizing money from companies and then not giving it back to them because they're threatening the companies. I just, it doesn't really feel like free market capital. I mean, I feel like there's another

“word that a lot of the Wall Street Journal tonight. I think Joe Karnin would call that something else.”

It was Obama seizing money from companies and then threatening them. If they were going to take it back, just just my opinion. I don't know. I mean, I will just say I remember specifically paying a tariff on a vintage item that came from Spain. So it's not even something that I could necessarily buy in the U.S. It's an old item. Okay. And the mailman turns up at my door and says,

like, I need to check for 50 bucks or you can pay me in cash. That money is never coming back.

Are you going to get a bet on me specifically? How? I have no idea. It seems like they're not even instituting a system for individual payers to actually get any money back. I don't even think it's recorded as like paid probably. I can't even imagine what the systems look like for actually recording all of this stuff. I have three debates I want to. We also have in suck-up corporate world, Tim Cook stepped aside, an apple. The president put out a very lengthy statement

about how he's always been a big fan of Tim Cook about how excited he was at the head of apple calling to kiss my ass and how that was really smart of him and other CEO should do that and he's actually better than Steve Jobs. So that's an interesting valid victory for the president to Tim Cook. I assume that this is just a pretty standard transition with apple and Tim Cook wants to enjoy his time on yachts and stuff. I don't know if you have any takes on the apple transition.

I don't have any good takes on the apple transition but I mean when you read those sorts of statements and we talk about what capitalism actually is and what it looks like it does seem to evolve into something that looks a lot more like a patronage system than a pretty large capitalism. You guys do fun, niche stuff. Is there anything else out there you're watching? You're going to show coming up. We should look for or you know, something in the market. People should be keeping their

eye on. Oh well just going back to the sort of broad outline of the impacts of the straight of our moves closure. We have a great episode coming out with oil historian Dan Urgin a later this week. He's the guy that wrote the book on energy history called the prize and he does a really good job of explaining why even if the straight is opened tomorrow we're not really going back to the previous energy world. We just can't. This is sort of like

one of those you know, the toothpaste can't be put in the bottle kind of moments where every government on Earth has realized how unpredictable geopolitics is at the moment and every

of energy for future, unforeseeable, unpredictable events. So it does feel interesting.

Yeah, because right wing mag, a podcast or clay Travis challenged me to a $1 million bet

that gas prices will be lower next April than they were before the war started and I feel like I would win that. Yeah, I don't have a million dollars to throw around now. I don't know, maybe. Do you have any thoughts? I mean, I feel like there is there's going to be a longer term structural bid for oil going forward. I just don't see how they're can't be. You know, the US is using some of its strategic petroleum reserve through this crisis. China has built

this big strategic petroleum reserve as well. And again, they're using it during this crisis. They're going to want to top those up as soon as possible. I would imagine and the same for every other country that's, you know, gone through the shock. So this idea of governments really

“stockpiling crucial commodities and products. I don't think it's going away any time soon.”

We've had six years now of talking about unpredictable choke points first with the pandemic, where we all sort of woke up to these supply chain vulnerabilities. And now with the straight of Hormuz closure, I just don't think it's going away. And that's, you know, that's a long-term underpinning on stockpiling and it's a long-term upward pressure on inflation. All commodities products. Yeah. Yeah. The thing that worries me most about the bed is that we end up the the earnest

guy at the party. This thing comes true. And then we end up in stagflation. Then we end up in

a recession and then market crashes. And I lose the bet. I lose the million dollars because we're

in a recession. And that would really be a puric loss. And you know, in a lot of ways. So I don't know. I'm probably stick away. The funny listener wants to take the bet for me and they can't Tracy. I really appreciate you. I hope you don't feel guilty at all that bad news means your downloads go up. I hope that like you. I want you to free yourself of that if you have those feelings. Our download figures are correlated with the vix or at least they used to be because the vix isn't

actually moving that much anymore either. But yeah, it's a pattern that we've we've come to recognize and we're okay with it. You know, we're just happy that we're able to elucidate some of

“these hidden corners of the global economy during a crisis. And if that's what it takes to get people”

interested in things like urea and helium prices. That's all right with me. We appreciate your elucidation. All right. That's right. Yeah. Well, the podcast is odd lots of next Jordan Rittercon. A state planning. It's not something anybody's so excited to think about. And it can be a little intimidating. But I can tell you it's a relief to know your family's futures protected no matter what happens. And it's easier than ever. Thanks to our friends at trust and will. Trust and will

offers affordable attorney design to state plans online that you can create in as little as 30 minutes. I don't like paperwork. I get the question all the time. Tim. How are you content, Maxing? And I said, well, there's some things I'm not doing. I don't iron. That's why I'm sure it's all wrinkles. Okay. I don't like doing paperwork. Other people are carrying the load from the on on that and I just appreciate them. I'm not playing NBA 2K. I like it used to.

It's really sad. It's lost time. And so when it comes to something like this, it's like, I'm sorry, trust and will this falls into the I don't do paperwork bucket. But it's so easy. So it's barely paperwork. 30 minutes. You can get it done, secured. If you're like me, and you're not doing this because you don't like paperwork, that's dumb. Go to trust and well, they're making it as easy as possible. Trust and will affordable state plans,

price was peace of mind. Go to trust and will.com/bullwork and get 20% off. That's trust and will.com/bullwork to get your 20% off. Trust and will.com/bullwork. All right. He's a features writer for the ringer. As 2021 book, The Road from Rocka, about two Syrian brothers. This was one of my favorite pandemic reads in my bed in Oakland. And now he's the author of a brand new book. American men out today. It's Jordan Rittercon.

What's up, bro? How's it going, man? Thanks for having me. American men, all right. You've entered

the podcast arena. The book is up today. This is your first day of podcasting about it.

“And so I feel compelled to ask you about your book, American men. What is a man?”

A big question that doesn't have an easy answer. And one that I more wanted to kind of explore rather than trying to answer explicitly. What this book is is a book that weaves together the stories of a four men who are very, very different. It's come from different parts of the country,

as they wrestle with that specific question of who they are as men, what it means to be a man,

“and kind of come up against kind of their own feelings of inadequacy against that definition”

and try to navigate that feeling of inadequacy and ways to work for them. The four men you picked, those interesting to see how kind of weaves through the themes of kind of the challenges facing men right now through these four stories. We'd get in with West Point graduate, leaving the military and doing with that. We had a poor under employed black trans man, Nate, in Ohio, and thinking about what his story is like and what manhood and fatherhood

eventually has for him, the Nied Ryan, a gay, Native American, the like to get in bar fights. Obviously, my favorite character and Joseph married, law student from Alabama, who moved to Civic Northwest,

and had all these emotional problems. And I guess I'm just wondering, you talked to a bunch of

people for this. You're trying to tease out certain themes. What was it about that interconnected these four stories for you? Yeah. So, you know, I set out to kind of write something that was

“really, really intimate into several, several men's lives. And so I wanted to find a men that”

were willing to kind of open up in the ways that that would require. But be men whose stories would really compliment each other. I did kind of have the belief and still do have the belief that everyone's story is really, really interesting. If they're willing to kind of look at some of the uglier pieces of it, some of the pieces of it that they might be a bit afraid of. And so it was finding about finding men who are willing to do that, but also who kind of fit together. And so there

were a few different themes that I feel like kind of touch on conversations around masculinity in this country that I wanted to make sure were kind of present in their stories. I wanted someone with some sort of relationship to violence. I mean, that's so often what comes up quickly when we talk about men in this country. And like you mentioned, Ryan is a gay man who, a lot of his story, he's kind of struggling to kind of come to terms with his sexuality with who he is and also

“dealing with the fact that he really likes to be people up. He'd been bullied a lot as a kid. And”

he snaps it as an adult outside of bar one night and likes it. And so he's kind of both trying to find kind of a romantic partnership, trying to find a relationship with men that is tender, loving, caring, while also wanting to, you know, craving that kind of violence at times. I want to men who had been in the military. I mean, that's so, you know, such a big part of how we kind of talk about masculinity in this country. And so one of them, Gideon, is a West Point graduate. It's another

Joseph serves in Iraq as an enlistee. I wanted to tell the story of a trans man and I wanted to tell the story of a trans man in a pocket of the US where you might expect trans people to not really find love and care and acceptance. And the Nate is a trans man in Youngstown, Ohio, a town outside Youngstown. And in the story kind of follows him as he goes through his, his transition and as he kind of tries to find economic security there. I wanted to story of someone who had some sort of relationship

to the evangelical church, because that's another way in which masculinity is, I don't know, just on full display in a very particular kind of way. And Joseph, the man who's kind of dealing with the effects of childhood sexual trauma is also someone who's kind of coming out of the world of evangelicalism and trying to figure out his relationship to that world. It's impossible to take four lives and really fully survey masculinity in this country, but I wanted to do the best I

could, um, with four stories that were very different. Let's talk with the eventals in part of it or even jealous of it. You started the book like this. This is part of your story and background as well. I opened it up in the airplane on the way to Coachella with my husband, another story of masculinity who sat next to him on the plane, opened the book and up against us every Saturday night when I was in high school, I sat in a room with a half dozen other teenage boys and I announced

whether I'd made it through the week without masturbating. I was like, all right, we're diving right in. I also left it out in the rain. So it's kind of, it's already a beat-up copy of it. It's weather, but it's clear that you kind of started there to frame this up also with kind of your experience and kind of thinking about manhood through that Christian right frame and you've, you want to school at a, you know, Christian university and I'm just going wondering like how, you know,

much that trajectory like intersects with like where we are now. Yeah, um, a lot. All right, so you know, I grew up in kind of an evangelical Christian context, like you mentioned, my parents were both from the Church of God, which is this pinocostal denomination, and so I grew up around a lot of a lot of speaking and tongues, a lot of running the aisles, a lot of people fainting at the altar call. That's sort of thing. Have you spoken in tongues? I have not, I've attempted. You know,

I've hoped the spirit would overtake me as a 12 year old kind of yearning to be a yearning for

that experience that didn't happen, didn't happen. But um, I will say you never know. Yeah, as an adult,

methodist churches, like more kind of lefty progressive churches, and I've also as a journalist spend time in a snake handling church, and that felt much more familiar to me as in terms of my my childhood experiences than than any of the night nice crunchy lefty churches that that I've been happy to be at to be a member of and now. But one thing I'll say about the evangelical experiences, is like, you see men talking in some ways with vulnerability about their lives. It's under the

guys of like, trying not to sin. And for me, as a teenager, as I write about in that book, like, I was in this Bible study where we would go around the room announcing ways in which we had sined

that week and trying to to be better the next week. And the first question every single week was,

did you masturbate? That led to a lot of kind of shame around sex that that I've spent some time on packing. But it also, you'll put me in this place where like, I was really open and vulnerable with, you know, other, other guys as a teenage boy. And I've kind of followed that into adulthood. And I think like paired with that is just this kind of often bombastic performance of kind of

“man as leader, man as like the hat you have to be the head of the household. And every”

possible way I was certainly taught from from a young age, not really by my parents just by the waters I was kind of swimming in. That's you have to lead your household someday that that you have to be a man who other people will follow. You know, I think that often sets us up for relationships

structures that are not really great for us and not really great for the other people we're in

relationship with. And it certainly sets us up for a sense of kind of entitlement as to where our place should be kind of in any sort of hierarchy. Yeah, kind of wondering how you see that you can that tension and that change developing over time from like when we are growing up like we're both kind of elder millennials versus like now. And like what you're seeing in the younger Christian right church. And I got a bunch of TPSA conference about a year ago now. And I was struck by,

you know, on the main stage it was all this like political speech, all the stuff that you would expect from, you know, the Charlie Kirk crowd. But then they had like side sessions like breakout sessions that were about faith. And I can't went and sat through a couple of those. You would sit in them and that that tension that you talk about is just undisplay so intensely. It's like half of the conversation is about being a better person and, you know, being in service to others

and, you know, taking responsibility. And then like the other half of it is a lot of the culture war, masculine, bravado, you know, being the man of the hat. I, you know, all the stuff that, and then, you know, obviously negative and hateful attitude towards LGBT people or immigrants or whatever. I can't say like those two elements living together. I remember I would be sitting in there and feeling moments of, I'm kind of, there's like an kernel of something here that could maybe be

he positive for the people in the room. But it's sort of overshadowed by the culture war element.

And I kind of feel like that has been exacerbated recently. I feel like that tension was always

there, but it's like particularly acute now. But you kind of lived it. How do you, do you kind of agree with that or no? Yeah, you know, I know a lot of kind of ex-evengellicals like in my social circles these days. And sometimes we're so traumatized by certain the negative pieces of that experience that we don't want to kind of remember what we at one point were really connected to and it's we don't want to kind of admit out loud the ways in which that their pieces of it that are

“really not only appealing but also nurturing. You know, I think we are at this moment and our culture”

kind of starved for structures that foster, you know, pushing each other, being in community with other people, pushing them to try to be the best version of themselves. And at its best, that is what what religion can do and often does. And that's present in those settings. It's present in settings where, you know, there are sermons being preached in the pulpit that I would find you're pretty apparent. But there's still this, you know, that there is someone trying to hold you accountable to

be the best version of yourself. And I do think, you know, we're seeing data showing young men kind of making a turn back toward toward religion after kind of years of religious activity kind of being being in decline. And I think that that's a huge reason why that there is something there is a craving for kind of structures of community structures of accountability and, you know, going to a place once a week where you're trying to tell each other or work on being a better person, you know,

“it's really appealing. Talk to you about those XEV and Jelco communities because I think about”

this and it's like on the one hand, you see the benefit of that. And you talk about this book about loneliness. Obviously there's this epidemic of loneliness that's showing up in the data and

positive structure force for, you know, men, young men to get together and kind of work through

all this stuff. But that's, that's kind of not really very visible in the culture of that, you know, like what you instead have are, you know, gatherings that are, you know, have a lot more of the, you know, pernicious elements to it, whether it's the right wing evangelical crowd or patriotism or groypherism, you know, what do you feel like is the disconnect there? Like it is, is it just that the, the lips are too soft and there's like kind of nothing we can do about it,

or how do we find positive nurturing structural masculine organizational outfits? You know, my general sense is that, you know, there's people talk a lot about whether we're in like a crisis of masculinity. I think we're kind of in a crisis period of people being increasingly

dislocated and isolated and disconnected from one another and we're kind of siloed off in,

in a culture that makes us less empathetic, less eager to engage with kind of the full humanity of other people. And what comes out is what is, what has often come out, which is men kind of grasping for toward their sort of basic impulses, grasping toward things that are kind of dehumanizing to other people, toward that are subjugating other people. You know, when you have a sense

“that you should be powerful that you should be on top and you have moments where you feel disempowered,”

often men grasp for something that's, you know, really awful and gross. And so I do think that a lot of what we're talking about is kind of as much a technological problem as anything. It's just the fact that there are these companies that's benefit from these kinds of images and messages that the draw a strong reaction kind of being deemed around the world and everyone's pocket all the time. You know, it's not good for anyone, but I think we're talking about very old

problems mapped onto new technologies. Yeah, I think that's right. I mean, another change in addition to the technology is just the way the American economy has developed as often like a lot of more opportunity for women. Like the cultural, you know, manner in which it's been a good thing, like the way that the culture has changed, you know, more women going to college, more women going to the workforce before, you know, finding out like all this sort of stuff. And now as we get into,

the types of industries where people are succeeding, you know, in the white collar, parts of the economy, you have a lot more women college grads and a lot more men struggling economically. And I do think that in the past, a lot of men were finding this kind of structure that we're talking about in community in a way that is, you know, fulfilling in the workplace, right, in their job. And when you write about this in the book, I mean, like a lot of these folks are struggling.

Obviously, made is is really struggling economically. Joseph goes from Alabama to to Washington and goes to a period where there's huge economic strain that I've been really all of them.

“I go through periods with huge economic strain. And, you know, I think that navigating the modern”

economy has sort of layered on particularly in certain demographics and kind of like exacerbated these problems. Yeah. I mean, we hear a lot talk a lot about how men are falling behind, but really a lot of big part of that story is just advances that women have made over a period of decades. And so you have that paired with still so many people hanging on to, you know, this image of being the provider that this desire to be a provider. There's kind of a simplicity to that.

There's like a clarity of if I feel this role, I am a person who has worth. It's a very simple way just to feel like you matter. And as, you know, families have been come structured in ways that where that's not really the case, as the economy, you know, wages aren't keeping up with inflation. That's story that's been continuing for, for decades now, jobs like manufacturing. That sort of thing have been in decline for a long time.

You have a lot of men who are kind of grasping for ways to feel like they have worth. Grasping for ways to feel like they matter when the simplest, easiest way to do that is not really

“as easy to obtain as as it once was. And so I think there's a sense of often just being”

being a bit of drift. I mean, you know, there are times when like, I care about that stuff. Like, as much as I try to tell myself that it's not like, I want to be making sure that I'm providing for a family. And there's the man in this book, Gideon, who is kind of like the tall handsome

West Point grad baseball star, he's married twice in the book. But in his second marriage,

it takes him years to kind of come to realize that his wife married him for the fact that he's kind, curious, empathetic, good listener, caring of their children. He just doesn't want to believe it. He thinks that he kind of exists as someone who's supposed to achieve as someone who's supposed

complicated thing to find your way to being in people's lives in a way that contributes to them

“through kind of who you are as a person, not just what you provide. The things are all in connection”

to each other in the sense of, so if you don't have that confidence that comes from being a provider or if you're that feeling of worth, right? And the other thing you write about in the book is a lot of men have fewer and fewer friendships as they get older. You see this in the data, too. I mean, Gideon is the character you just talked about at one point is having suicidal thoughts and like only as two good friends and he calls both of them and neither the mancer and kind of realises

that they just, you know, don't talk that much anymore. And so if you, if you have these, this crisis of self-worth, if you don't have community or fellowship to lean on and then you're relying on devices of whatever it is in your phone, whether that be the porn or the gambling apps, or your

drink it, right? Like it's just the cycle that people get into. I guess the one one question for you

is kind of how living the lives of all these men, you feel like that is like, how can that be intercepted, right? Like in what ways can that be resolved? I could see you be like, well, if you get a good job and start feeling self confidence or you go out and join a softball team and meet friends, you know, it's kind of like, but at one of, in one of those areas, I feel like something has to be

“remediated or the things just spiral. You know, I think like a lot of what we talked about”

with when it comes to like these larger structures that have kind of upheld those relationships, the decline of those has been just a really big problem. You know, religion has certainly filled that role, but like you said, the workplace like just being in person with your co-workers, a huge piece of that. The military functions that way for, for two of them in this book at times, you know, sports teams, you know, things like just a beer league softball team like you mentioned,

and I'm kind of curious to hear what you think about this because you strike me as someone who is

really, really good. It's kind of making and maintaining friendships and that's just always

been kind of natural for you. But often a lot of problems. Often we're just not good at it. Like we're just not. And like, you know, it's largely, I guess, the ways that we're socialized, but like this simple like dumb vulnerability that comes from just reaching out to a person saying, like, I'd like to like to meet up for a drink or like to, you know, go play around the golf or do do whatever that thing is that you do. We often just struggle to do that struggle to kind of check

back in with that person we haven't heard from in a long while. The number of men who will say things, like, you know, I saw so and so for the first time and 15 years and we just picked up right where we left off. It was like, no time and past. And it's like, well, what have you been doing over those 15 years? Like, you couldn't just have that feeling, you know, a few more times over the course of that period of time. Like, I do think that some of it is just like kind of

interpersonally, like not not on like a kind of a structural or policy level, just interpersonally, like trying to work our way toward reaching out to each other, toward like treating this part of our lives like it matters. I think we're we can be good at treating our jobs like they matter, our marriages and families like they matter, even like our physical health like they matter. I mean, you Gen Z, like very much as is prioritizing kind of physical health, but we don't treat

this part of our lives like it matters. And it's a huge, huge piece of having a well-rounded meaningful life. Yeah, so just feel bad. And I give advice in this stuff because I am so I can extrovert and this is easy for me. I understand that it's harder for some people. But what I want people to know is that other people want to hang out with you. Other people are in your boat and want socialization. Like humans want socialization. And you like get in your head like,

ugh, it's going to be a hassle. I'm going to ask that and it's like, I don't know, I think back to my grandparents and on both sides, like, both my grandparents just like had a poker club.

“And they met every week or every other week. And it was just like, that's what we did on Thursday”

nights. And I don't know, for some people at some reason, I think people feel like that is an imposition now to like schedule that sort of thing, which I don't understand why. I don't know one of those laughing with one of my friends in town this weekend about this, where he's like, he's like, other people work to tell me that it seems like I go out a lot. And then like, how do you do that? And he's like, I just do it. Like, what do you do between eight and 10 o'clock at night?

And then like, well, it's growing on my phone and doing laundry. And it's like, well, maybe you go me to friend instead, you know? And I think that like actually, it's like a lot of things in life. Like you say like prioritizing it and trying it, like really matters. But it's, I think it becomes hard once it's lost to regain. And now I see this in my life. Like once you stop doing it and get into your interior life, like on your phone in your apartment, and you get sad, then it becomes

harder and harder to break out of it. And I think that that is, like I was saying, I think that there's kind of this intersecting issue. And I, you see it with people who feel unfulfilled in their work life, feel unfulfilled in their marriage, or if they don't have one, don't have friends. And then,

time I was working on this book, I also, you know, I work full-time at the ringer. I also had a child

I have a son who's almost three, you know, I kind of looked up at the end of it and realized that a lot of my friendships had kind of atrophied. And it was entirely my fault. I'd just been kind of consumed by other things. You know, I was kind of like, well, I'm about to be putting out this book about masculinity. There's a lot of talk about loneliness among men. Like I should probably do some fucking work to make sure that I'm not one of the lonely men. Yeah. And so I spend a lot of time kind of just

doing that stuff. Just reaching back out to people I hadn't talked to in a long time. You know, when I would meet someone, someone new, like, you know, there's the dad, like playground circuit, which, you know, it's not my natural kind of kind of place. Yeah, I don't do great there.

“My wife is so good at it. I'm just, I'm just not. And I think that's that's a pretty common”

dynamic too. But, you know, I did things like, you know, I started a book club with some other guys. Like, I just like, we're going to get together once a month. We're going to read this book. And we're going to talk about it. And that pretty quickly, it was guys who I knew individually,

but they'd never met each other. And it pretty quickly became like talked about pretty intimate

stuff. Just because like, when you have like kind of the structure and proximity of like, we are going to be together once a month. And we're, and talking about books leads to talking out of the stuff. Like, it's that really helps. But it does, it does come back to just like telling yourself, like, I just, it's got to do it. Like the stuff matters to try to prioritize that. Like, you try other stuff. Yeah. I mean, you, I feel like you're putting a lot of pressure on people,

by making them talk about intimate stuff. And you work at the ring or broken. You just, you can just talk about, like, the walls. You can just talk about, you can start with sports, or whatever. You know, don't don't intimidate people.

So you started this book when you said many years ago, and there's been a lot of stuff that's

changed since these characters were kind of coming of age, right? And I'm just wondering, how do you think the book intersects with some of the things that you've got to do? So, you know, you've got a lot of things that you've got to do, and you've got a lot of things that you've got to do, and you've got a lot of things that you've got to do, and you've got to do, and you've got a lot of things that you've got to do, and you've got to do, and you've got to do,

but some of the things that are new is now, particularly I'm thinking of the production market boom, crypto, and now, like the looks maxing trends that you are referencing earlier with the young men that are, you know, bone smashing their faces in order to looking at some of our so-that girls like them, or maybe not even girls like them. It's on level, like, as all of the stuff is popping up, you've got to be like, man, like, the book, you could, you know, almost have

a full post book that covers, like how the themes of it are echoing, and what's happening now.

“Yeah, you know, I think the, I don't know, the looks maxing thing to me is like,”

kind of intersects with some of the stuff we've already been talking about. It's on one hand, it's another way to answer this kind of very old problem, which is just men feeling an adequate not knowing what to do with it. You know, feeling like we all kind of inherit this idea of who we're supposed to be, we all at some point kind of fall short of that, and how we kind of navigate that in some ways, kind of defines our relationship to masculinity, and the looks maxing thing is,

like, one way to attempt to bridge that gap. I think a lot of the messaging online to young men is telling them different ways in which they can kind of bridge that gap. If you just work harder in the gym, if you work harder in your career, if you work harder at learning how to talk to women, then your inadequacies will be erased, and you will have everything that you want. And I think it's great to work harder. You know, I think men respond to messaging that has like emphasizes kind of an

internal locus of control, like the sense that like you have some some agency, some some power

“or kind of the future of your life. I think that's important. But also, like,”

that feeling is not going to just like vanish because you're, you're the like optimize version of yourself or you're the hottest possible version of yourself. But I also think that looks maxing thing connects to like the provider conversation. Like the fact that there was kind of historically this very simple way to feel like you have worth to feel like you're going to be attractive to a potential partner. And as as the economy has changed in ways that have made that a bit more

difficult to obtain, it's like, what are the other ways? Now, some of those ways could be, you know, become someone who's a bit easier to get along with, become someone who's a bit more considerate, a bit more thoughtful. But it could also just be get hotter and so I think that's where a lot of guys are trying. For somebody who's went through midlife crisis therapy, I would just like to say bluntly that, you know, you have to, let's the root Paul line. If you don't love yourself, how

for resolving those feelings of inadequacy. You've got to, you've got to be happy with yourself.

And I do think that that's something that curricula is going to end up having to find out. I wonder what you say, the ringer's a little lib code it. We can say, you've already mentioned Jiren, Axe, Evangelical Circles, which is pretty lib code it, based on some of your other writing. What do you say to kind of the intersectional libs in your life that say, oh, poor man, there are all these other groups that have dealt with, you know, this for generations and, you know,

marginalized groups of all these challenges and men go through a slightly rockier period and now everybody is talking about their needs again. How do you kind of address that the mindset,

“which I know that you've heard? Yeah, I mean, I think, for one, you know, we're half the population.”

Like, we're, we're pretty big group of people. Like, it's, it's probably worth kind of considering our inner lives. I also think kind of, you know, this book talks about a lot of things that men, ourselves don't really like to talk about. So it's less kind of demanding more attention from others than it is like digging into stuff that we are often kind of the reason why it's not really discussed. Over the years I've been working on this as I told people what I was doing. The kind of

demographic that was most likely to be excited and interested were millennial and Gen X women, usually if they have kids, especially if they have sons. Because I see it. Yeah, yeah, with men, it was kind of all over the map. It kind of how they would respond. Some were very, very

skeptical and like it was kind of the first time that they'd ever like thought about the idea of

masculinity. Others are really interested. Gen X women for the most part, when when it has come up or just like, I'm very happy for you. I will not be reading this book. Which, which I get. But, you know, it's, you're a big sense. It's moms. Yeah. As a, as a, as a, as a boy, see it. Like they see it. Right? Because they've grown up and they've left through it and they've seen the frail teas of men already in their lives, but like to see the ways in which things are getting worse.

Right. I hear it. Yeah. And I just think like everyone in their lives knows a boy who has no little boy. And like it's hard to kind of imagine the little boy that you know in your life alongside, you know, some of the more negative feelings that you might have to wear toward men.

And, and so like wanting to imagine a world in which that boy that you know and care about can

can grow up and be kind of the, the, the fullest, you know, kind of most human, like, was like

“socially connected, caring version of himself. I think is something that, you know, people want.”

I'll talk about one of the other stories recently. It's kind of over sex. It intersects least one of the characters as a man. I'd like to tell you a little bit more about which is Daniel you wrote for the ringer inside the hidden network of resistance of Minneapolis. Obviously, we're covering this a bunch on the pod at the time. But I was starting to work too good by this one story of Daniel who's from Venezuela. He spent 36 days in detention, some of the wipple building.

His family founded attorney taken his case, but he heard nothing for weeks. He sat in a cell, only one small window facing the hallway. He felt like a criminal. He's not criminal. He'd been here as a legal resident with a work permit. Just, you know, I'm talking about that story. And everything else that you saw when he was reporting this out in Minneapolis. So I was in Minneapolis for about 10 days during kind of the height of everything that was going

“on immediately after Alex pretty shooting. I went there. And I wrote mostly about kind of the”

lives of people who were hiding, who were kind of sheltering in their homes away from ice. And the thing that, I don't know, the thing about it that most struck me was just the sense of interconnectedness among the people in that community. We've talked a lot in this conversation about kind of social isolation and lack of community. And I haven't seen a more robust expression of community than I did when I was there. Well, so this is what I was going to ask you next. We'll

come back to Daniel, but I just because I felt that way too. There was this tension between the book that I was reading in that story that you read. And I'm just wondering what your observation was on that. Is it something about how JBL says this? You hear people sometimes say that a lot of this, these problems that we're talking about, about loneliness and addiction, etc., are kind of related to societal decadence. But things are going so well that you have time for these other

problems. Versus past era is where it's like, you want to work every day, you're fucking tired, when you went home, you know, your kids go to bed, you know, you clean the house, then you did it to get, right? And like life and that kind of this societal decadence is led to some of these problems. And it's an interesting data point for that in Minneapolis that you see a city going through this crisis, like really coming together and not, you know, not isolating or turning on one another.

you did. You know, I think that what you said about societal decadence is really interesting because

“I do think that, you know, the crisis pulls people together, obviously. I don't know. I think”

like the lesson I took away is that people really want to care about each other. People really want to, you know, to be together to do something for someone else and to find ways to kind of be more connected to the people around them and sometimes like some sort of intense strain, whether it be interpersonal or societal, can be the thing that kind of forces you into into that kind of action. And right now, like you said, it's so easy to be disconnected. It's so easy to not be relying on anyone

else. It's so easy to get like a facsimile of the things that we actually need and care about.

And you know, something that feels like community, that feels like connection, but isn't really

that thing, something that feels like sex, but isn't really that thing. And you know, what what happened in Minneapolis is like people needed that thing. They needed to like show up for other people in real and meaningful ways and they did so. I don't know. It was just like incredibly

“moving. Like honestly, it was like frigid, like freezing fucking cold. And I'm just walking around”

that city, going and meeting these people, you know, and in homes and churches and, you know, out of protest everywhere and just like constantly moved by some random story that I'm hearing of the way that, you know, a mom is kind of checking on the mothers of like her kids classmates who are hiding in their homes of kind of a retiree who's driving around groceries and taking people to the hospital and I don't know. It was just a kind of remarkable reminder of kind of what humans and

Americans are capable of. I hate that it takes something so monstrous and so kind of craving on the part of our government to bring that out. But I hope that it's something that we can kind of find our way toward in settings that don't feel quite as dire as it did there. And Daniel, who we mentioned had been detention, I was just stuck by the scene where he's speaking to Teresa's local pastor about how to rebuild his life and how to move forward and you have

his story, haven't been having been wrongfully detained for a month and a half and then you have Teresa who has sharpied under her arm, her, like legal resident number and her lawyer's phone number, both of which she had memorized but she put them on her arm for fear that if she was incapacitated or knocked out or something during a protest that people would be able to contact representation form from her and it's just crazy. It feels like something that's not even from this country.

Yeah, really dystopian. I mean, like you said, like not the sort of thing that's you imagine happening in the United States of America. When I was there, I was there with a friend, a photo-journalist, who mostly covers wars, who had last seen in southern Turkey and we were reporting on things related to Syria. And I couldn't believe that she was in Minneapolis because that was where the story that most needed her skill set was happening in the world. It was pretty shocking to see

up close and I'm still to be honest a little shaken by some of the members from my time there.

Then, just finally, in the Syria point, I was curious and so much has happened there. Obviously,

there's been another coup and other regime change. Now, we've got some Syrian billionaires from Qatar who are trying to do buy Syria and where they're working with Jared Kushner, our president's son-in-law, slash lead negotiator on all, on all war matters. And they're talking about putting a Trump golf course in Syria. I'm just sorry. It's such a strange role. In your story, you follow these two brothers, like one of the states or one of the come to America,

just wondering if you have any post script for us from your time there and what you're seeing in the region now. So again, someone who's not really a Syria or Middle East expert, but has a lot of people from there and is written about their lives. What I hear is just so much relief that Assad has gone and cautious optimism and patience for what might come next, certainly not all the way bought in. The infrastructure there is still totally destroyed. I mean, there's a reason why it's being

discussed for this kind of development, because right now there's just nothing there. A lot of places are still pretty uninhabitable. But the fact that this family, the detourement to so many people

“for so long is no longer empower that the fact that, you know, I think that the president seemed a bit”

more, like their impression of him is a bit more pragmatic than they imagined. He would be a little bit less of an ideology. And so I think there's patience and cautious optimism while very much feeling

It's a really beautiful book. Folks should go read it. They should get both of them. The road from Rocka

“from 2021 and then American men, which I have right here, all mangled from the New Orleans rainstorm”

out today. Jordan, I appreciate your brother. Good luck in the book tour. We'll be talking to you again soon.

Thank you so much. Thanks so much to Tracy Alloway and to Jordan RitterCon. We will be back tomorrow,

“still working out who we're going to be talking to, but it's going to be good. It's always good.”

Bangers only here. We'll see y'all then. Appreciate you. Peace.

The board podcast is brought to you. Thanks to the work of lead producer Katie Cooper,

“associate producer Ansley Skipper and with video editing by Katie Lutz and audio engineering”

and editing by Jason Brown.