My Dad Is Obsessed With Identity Politics

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My dad is the kind of person that, if he were right circumstance, would be a devoted scientologist. He happened to be in the right place at the right time where the story he was being sold was the republican party. And as the party involved, my dad went from a ragan ite when he first moved to the united states and then got radicalized by wrightwing radio and the fox news. So for your brother, he recognized the flaws and trump, it's a holdor nose, pull the handle, because i can't vote democrat, hilary or byy, terrible candidates. But for your dad, i'm a sort of occult follower. I don

Shermer speaks with Ravi Gupta, the Founder and CEO of Lost Debate, a new non-profit media company that launched in October 2021 to fight polarization and misinformation online. The company has seed funding of over $7 million dollars, with the largest investment coming from Netflix founder Reed Hastings. Before launching Lost Debate, Ravi founded Arena, where he led a team that helped elect over a hundred candidates and launched the largest campaign staffer training academy in the history of the Democratic Party — an effort that’s trained over 2500 political operatives over the past three years. He was a critical leader in Democrats’ efforts to retake the U.S. House of Representatives in 2018 and numerous state houses, including the New York State Senate and Virginia House of Delegates.

Shermer and Gupta discuss: growing up with a Democrat mother and a Republican father; the rise of polarized politics in association with political talk radio, TV, and social media; why Republicans supported (and still support) Trump; what’s in store for our democracy in 2022 and 2024; what it was like working on the Obama campaign from the inside; why freed felons should regain their right to vote after serving their time; education inequality; Joe Rogan, Whoopi Goldberg, and censorship; the moralization motivation behind cancel culture; Critical Race Theory and race relations in America.