Vibes Only
The polls are broken. The stakes are unprecedented. And the future of democracy, like it or not, hinges on one thing – VIBES. Vibes Only is here to check the vibes of American politics and break down the need-to-know news of the week. And while one of the two major parties in the country has overwhelmingly embraced a right-wing movement whose whole vibe is undermining democracy and social progress, it’s clear we need voices that can meet voters where they are and clearly and effectively call that BS out for what it is.
Co-host Brian Derrick has earned a reputation for his ability to break down political news and define the stakes to his sizable and dedicated social media audience. Co-host Glennis Meagher is a digital media savant who has built platforms to encourage millennials and gen z to engage with politics, some for the first time. Even when the news of the week could easily kill the vibe, Brian and Glennis are like those needed friends that have the unique ability to keep it real AND pull us out of a doom spiral.
New episodes of Vibes Only are available on Wednesdays wherever you get your podcasts.
Vibes Only
Is It Too Early for a Full-Blown Freakout?
No burying obviously newsworthy stories. NO full-blown freakouts. Just Vibes. And the vibes this week:
- We learned this weekend that The Washington Post knew about nod to Stop the Steal at Justice Samuel Alito's house in January of 2021 but decided it...wasn't worth mentioning to the public.
- A number of media outlets, pundits and Dem strategists have been recently sounding the alarms - POLITICO saying Dems are in "full-blown freakout" mode over Biden's chances in '24.
- The New York Times wrote an article about the role that "tuned-out" Trump-curious voters will have on the election.
- And Dan Pfeiffer wrote in his newsletter, The Message Box, that TikTok is helping elect Donald Trump.
- Also, in a week that we could see the first criminal conviction of an American president, the New York Times published a story titled "Trump Leans Into an Outlaw Image as His Criminal Trial Concludes"
We get into all that before pulling up our group chat, playing an "it's giving" and leaving you with a good vibe. Don't forget to text us with your answer to our group chat question of the week!
CORRECTION: We were actually talking about the Columbia space shuttle disaster and erroneously referred to it as the Challenger.
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Glennis Meagher: [00:00:00] No burying, obviously newsworthy stories.
Brian Derrick: No full blown freakouts.
Glennis Meagher: Just vibes. This is Vibes Only, a podcast that promises to check the vibes of American politics every week. Brian, the vibes this week?
Brian Derrick: Well, we're going to start with an answer to a question that we asked last week about why we're just now learning about Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito's stop the steel flag.
More on that in a bit.
Glennis Meagher: We'll also talk about some media pundits and democratic strategists sounding the alarm bells as we creep closer to the 24 election.
Brian Derrick: Then we have to talk about Trump's public posture as we get closer to a verdict in the one criminal trial that we're going to get before the election.
Glennis Meagher: All of that before we pull up our group chat, play an It's Giving, and leave you with a good vibe. Let's get into it. Brian, we have some breaking news. Relatively. Breaking
Brian Derrick: news.
Glennis Meagher: It's kind of breaking. You texted it yesterday because last week on the pod, I had the question of if this [00:01:00] photo of Justice Alito's house with the upside down flag, which is a like hashtag trademark of being an insurrectionist was flying during January six post January six.
Shouldn't we have known about it three years ago when this photo was taken? Cut to Washington Post, they had the photo three years ago, and they decided that it was not worth reporting on.
Brian Derrick: Wild to me, how anyone could come to that conclusion. But yeah, apparently the entire staff of the Washington Post did just that.
When someone handed them this photo, they then went to Alito's house, spoke with Alito and his wife. They confirmed that it was their flag that they had been flying upside down. They had like a really sort of contentious interaction with them. And then they buried the story.
Glennis Meagher: Hmm. Interesting.
Brian Derrick: Yeah. And now we have it coming out, right, six months before the election, when the Supreme Court [00:02:00] has already been really put to the limit in terms of its legitimacy.
And we talked about that last week with Clarence Thomas wife, with overturning Roe, after the same justices had said that it was settled law during their confirmation hearings. Lots of scandals around, you know, I shouldn't call them bribes, but like functionally bribes with lots of money flowing into Clarence Thomas's world and network, like the RV, all of these things sort of cropping up at the same time.
And then now we just get to add this to the top of the cake because WAPO didn't think that it was worth talking about. I don't know. I don't know how you come to that conclusion. The
Glennis Meagher: senior managing editor, Cameron Barr, related to Bill Barr? No, he's not related. That's misinformation. Conveniently, they have the same last name.
They felt they shouldn't do a single slice story about the flag because it seemed like the story was about Martha Ann, a. k. a. Mrs. Alito, and not her husband. And now they're saying, in retrospect, [00:03:00] he should have pushed harder for the story. And yeah, you shoulda. You shoulda,
Brian Derrick: Cameron Barr. I think that that really hits on something that we didn't go deep on last week, but that I got comments online about, which is we also just can't accept that all of these things being attributed to the wives are just the wives, right?
The idea that, Oh, because it was Mrs. Alito, it's actually not news is putting a whole lot of trust in the the guilty parties here who are flying the flag of like, Oh, well, they're telling me that she did it and that he wasn't involved. And it's like, well, of course, they're gonna say that, right? We have no way to know whether that's really true.
And so we honestly need to be treating this like crisis that it is. Because I think that this is worth broaching the subject of resignation. Like I, as an American, won't feel confident in decisions that Alito makes moving forward on [00:04:00] lots of different issues. And so do I think he's going to resign? No.
But should we be talking about it? Yeah, I think that we should.
Glennis Meagher: Also, it's just so naive. And like, we're not, the American people are not naive, especially married couples. Like, What you and your partner do, it's pretty intimate and you're pretty aware of what's going on in each other's lives. For the most part, I wouldn't know I'm not married, but my assumption is
Brian Derrick: Oh, I don't know her like that.
Glennis Meagher: Right. It's like, I don't know her. That woman that lives in my house and has for the last 30 years. No, I don't know her. Don't know her.
Brian Derrick: So we definitely can't let up the gas pedal on this one. I want answers and we need reporters who are going to be pushing for some transparency so that we don't have Alito deciding whether or not Trump is going to be held accountable for what he did on January 6th.
If Alito was like having FOMO that he wishes he was in horns inside the Capitol
instead
of in a robe at home.[00:05:00]
In addition to. The rage that I felt over this buried WAPO story. We also have quite a few stories causing some panic and maybe some brown shorts in the democratic party. Overall brown
Glennis Meagher: shorts as in people are pooping their pants.
Brian Derrick: Absolutely.
Glennis Meagher: Okay.
Brian Derrick: People are, people are shitting themselves. What's being referred to by Politico as a full blown freak out within the Biden ecosystem, because there's.
Really not been the shift in Joe Biden's favor that a lot of political strategists have been expecting to see over the last few months. And really, I mean, true. Right. And let's get into it, but I think it's creating just a lot of uncertainty and anxiety, a Among anyone who does not want to see Trump in office come November.
Glennis Meagher: Yeah. Cause by the way, that's the most uncool thing is to have Trump be reelected or elected in [00:06:00] November because you felt like it wasn't cool to care about reproductive rights, democracy, et cetera. Who, and you know, the candidate just happens to be a, at times cool, but pretty old guy, Joe Biden. So hopefully more people will come around to that as we get closer to the election.
And, you know, I'm sure as we get closer to the election, we will be talking about the Middle East and what's going on there and how a vote for Donald Trump or a not vote is essentially a vote for Netanyahu, which is not great for human rights. Period.
Brian Derrick: Totally. Then we had the New York times come in with this story about how voters are pretty tuned out at the moment and how that's actually benefiting Trump.
Glennis Meagher: Yeah. I read the article, uh, in the failing New York times and I, you know, what I will say, we're, we're both democratic strategists in our own way. There is good information in this article about how much education needs to be The winds of [00:07:00] the last three and a half years. And because so much information is happening online, like reaching voters where they're at to get them, that information is important.
We learned in this article that 20 percent of voters in battleground states said that Joe Biden was responsible for ending the constitutional right to abortion. Not true. Almost half of the country believes the unemployment rate is at a 50 year high. It's actually at a 50 year low. And there was a recent poll.
It was a political morning consult poll. Voters were divided over who had done more to promote infrastructure improvements and job creation. Lest we forget Joe Biden signed a 1 trillion. Like Dr. Evil pinky, like 1 trillion infrastructure built into law while Donald Trump repeatedly failed to advance the issue.
So that just shows a. Deep fissure in information that that's in the American electorate is something that Democrats need to get on [00:08:00]
Brian Derrick: for sure. And I we've talked about this before. It's the gap between what the data says and what the vibes are
right?
When you see these numbers, the economy as a whole is is good.
The macro trends are good. They're in the right direction. And so there is a lot to celebrate there, but that does not mean that every individual person is doing better than they were four years ago, or that there aren't still huge problems with inequality or affordability, because that doesn't mean that all of our problems have been solved.
It just means that for the most part, and in most parts of the country, if you want to find a job. You can probably find one that inflation is lower here than it is in other G7 countries. G7?
Glennis Meagher: Okay, go off G7.
Brian Derrick: And like, and it means that there is a tide. That should over time help lift people [00:09:00] up, even if you're not catching the wave that we're trying to ride right now, but that's not much of a consolation prize for people.
If you're struggling to afford your right and I get my rents gone up literally 25 percent in two years.
Glennis Meagher: No,
Brian Derrick: yes, yes. And so I fully get the frustration and I think that a lot of people are Just now, understanding that having three really great jobs reports in a row, or inflation ticked down to 3%, isn't going to magically solve all of Joe Biden's electability problems, and there's a ton of work to do between now and November to make sure that we, we avoided a second Trump administration.
Glennis Meagher: Yeah, the way the New York Times led this article was that politically disengaged Americans are increasingly Trump curious, and they had the caveat that President Biden has a shot at winning some of them back, and they continue to talk about the importance of TikTok and [00:10:00] digital media in full and reaching those voters where they're at.
So Dan Pfeiffer in his newsletter, the message box talked about how TikTok is helping to elect. Trump. I've seen it firsthand. I'm more on Tik TOK than you are. It is the wild west of disinformation. And there's some added layers to that. So Tik TOK users are disproportionately young. 62 percent of 18 to 29 year olds use Tik TOK.
I'm not 29, but I use Tik TOK and it's this voting block. These younger voters who will ultimately decide the election and Tik TOK users are more likely to be Biden defectors. So they're just like not. They're not riding with Biden. Let's just say that much.
Brian Derrick: Totally. So I feel like there's a confluence of a couple of things happening with TikTok.
As you mentioned, there's been a lot of analysis over what the political content on TikTok looks like. We've already talked about this as it pertains to like Israel and there's been a big [00:11:00] conversation there. We've talked a lot about the TikTok ban and how that legislation has been perceived on the platform.
But if you just zoom out to look broadly at Biden and Trump, Trump actually performs much, much better on the platform than you'd expect and much better than Biden. Lots of the largest political TikTok creators are conservative and are churning out a lot more content than their, like, liberal counterparts.
I see that as being a result of Two very timely challenges for Biden. One is that if you're running a policy heavy campaign, you are, you're already facing an uphill battle on getting people to understand what policy changes you have made, want to make, et cetera, right? That it's not, yes, we can from Obama, like that.
He's running like a pretty wonky. He's trying to run on his record, which is pretty wonky. And then number two. A good way to do that is to try to make it [00:12:00] cool to support your campaign and to like lean on cultural figures to sort of bridge the gap between the wonkiness of the platform and the everyday voter.
And right now, online, it is not cool. To support Joe Biden for any reason, particularly because of Israel. And so because on the platform, that issue is so dominant when it comes to like political content, I think that that's eroded a lot of. His to like creating sticky engagement. Yeah, exactly. Is that like, people don't really want to be seen as like supporting Biden and even if they are politically aligned and at the same time, the Biden campaign itself is going to have a hard time messaging.
Because some of the things that they're running on are relatively wonky.
Glennis Meagher: Yeah, we have some stats here. Since November, twice as much pro Trump content as pro Biden content [00:13:00] lives on the platform. So that's 1. 29 million positive Trump videos, which equals 9. 1 billion views. Yikes. To 651, 000 positive Biden posts with 6.
15 billion views. So the Dems are behind. Big time. And We're going to see what happens, but I do know that I'm seeing more progressive messaging on digital, which is not necessarily overtly pro Biden, but is progressive, which we know the conservative movement is not. But to your point, you know, Charlie Kirk has 1.
1 million followers on TikTok. He's one of many because his organization, Turning Point USA, has been investing millions of dollars. Tens of millions of dollars in the conservative digital media ecosystem over the last, you know, six plus years, and they're seeing the receipts. It's working.
Brian Derrick: Totally. I think that the left relies on organic a lot more and thinks that people should just do this because [00:14:00] they believe in it.
And you and I live and breathe in this space. And that's just like not a sustainable strategy to scale a messaging operation on par with what conservatives have built. So it's tick tock now it could be a different platform in two years or four years or whatever, like no matter what, you need to have a bench of people who have audiences that trust them at a time when trust in media is super low.
Trust in businesses is low. Trust in government is non existent. Like that is a powerful thing. And if we're not lifting those kinds of voices up, then we're not setting ourselves up for success five years, 10 years down the line.
Glennis Meagher: We just talked about digital media, TikTok specifically, and how we need to be reaching voters there. Or you can be like the guy I'm about to talk about Donald Trump and create your entirely own social media platform and just reinvent yourself every week because he's reinventing himself right now.
Again, we are in [00:15:00] like the last Hopefully, two weeks of this trial, they had a little break over the holiday weekend, and we're hearing closing arguments this week, and the jury will go and deliberate, but Donald Trump is trying to reinvent himself as a outlaw. Like, what? This isn't the Wild West, even though you might think it is.
You're not an outlaw, you're just a criminal.
Brian Derrick: He watched Yellowstone. Truly,
Glennis Meagher: he's going to get it. horse and ride up, you know, Fulton Street.
Brian Derrick: Yeah. So he did have this unhinged post as this trial comes to a conclusion about how it's super unfair that the prosecution gets to make their closing argument as like the last thing.
And that's how literally all criminal trials work, which is just baffling. There was a really great quote. I think it was in Politico. A liberal is just a conservative who's been arrested. Because truly going through the criminal justice system and being in the criminal [00:16:00] justice system will wake you up so much to all of the, how broken it is, all of the injustices that exist and all of the disparities, etc.
And so I thought it was funny that like suddenly Trump is going to be so concerned with how our court system operates because of course it personally affects him. As you noted, he's trying to embrace, he's, really what he's doing is he's Trying to undercut what a conviction will do to his presidential campaign.
Which, Brian, he's
Glennis Meagher: been doing since day one. He's been trying to delegitimize this entire trial and process so that if and when he is convicted, people won't take it seriously.
Brian Derrick: Totally. And that's what Republicans have been doing, creating a circus outside of the courtroom, trying to politicize the whole thing.
And he's just leaning into that even further. So he's been having rallies with recently two rap artists who are accused of conspiracy to commit murder.
Glennis Meagher: Yeah. Sleepy Hollow and Chef G.
Brian Derrick: I don't know anything about [00:17:00] these individuals, nor do I know anything about the crimes that they're accused of. But what we can say is this is really.
out there behavior compared to most presidential campaigns who have really intense scrutiny on anyone who would appear with the candidate. I've literally been a part of campaigns or, or, um, been connected to campaigns that have turned people down because of like a single tweet. Right? That they couldn't have a photo with the candidate because of a single tweet they put out, let alone have, like, pending criminal charges against them for something as serious as that.
So it is really wild that he is fully embracing this strategy, and I don't know where that really ends, right?
Glennis Meagher: Here's my thing, Brian, is that He's playing, he's always played this like law and order card. And he said that he could shoot someone on fifth [00:18:00] Avenue and get away with it. The Supreme court trial, they're basically saying that he has full immunity, presidential immunity for January six or any crimes.
And we've, we've talked to like ad nauseum about like what those crimes are that like his lawyer said that he could do. Like Assassinate someone literally. And now he's getting into this outlaw image and also like selling merchandise with his mugshot on it. So it's like, what, what are you, what are you doing?
Truly? What are you doing?
Brian Derrick: It would be great if this experience turned Donald Trump into a justice reform advocate who like wanted to push for like all, all sorts of, uh, really important changes that, that our justice system desperately needs, but that you hit the nail on the head. Like. It's not going to do that.
He's not actually for meaningful, substantive improvements to the system. He's for anything that benefits him. And so this is about what benefits him politically, what benefits him financially and how he can [00:19:00] use this entire thing to try to enrich himself and put himself back in office.
Glennis Meagher: Yeah, let's see what happens.
I don't know how long the jury is going to deliberate. They start this week. Ideally by Friday end of day, we're good to go. We know what's going on and we can move on with our lives either way and like pick up the pieces. But I don't know. I don't know how long it's going to take. It's
Brian Derrick: really crazy that It doesn't feel like it's that big of news that we could have a conviction in the next day or two, potentially, of the, for the first time in American history of a former president.
And that's a really big deal.
Glennis Meagher: I don't think he's going to get convicted.
Brian Derrick: In this case. Oh, let's talk about that. Okay. Wait, rewind.
Glennis Meagher: Okay. This is, I'm not a lawyer. I did take the LSAT as far as I got to NPR this morning. And. They were really, I think the defense was really able to poke holes in Michael Cohen in a way that might ultimately benefit Trump.
And remember, [00:20:00] it's 34 felonies, so my gut was like, there's no way he's convicted for the umbrella of 34 felonies. I hope to be wrong, but my aura was like, mm, maybe one or two or three. I think it's like, it's really hard to prove without a reasonable doubt that someone did something.
Brian Derrick: I do not think he will be convicted on all charges, but I also do not think that he will be acquitted of them all either.
There are several charges there that do not, you do not need to hinge on Michael Cohen, um, in order to believe that they've. been proven beyond a reasonable doubt. The numbers are all there. No one's disputing, sort of like, that the payments happened. I think that enough of the evidence is like empirical that I,
Glennis Meagher: yeah,
Brian Derrick: yeah, that I, I do believe they will be able to.
to convict on several counts. If he is acquitted on all charges, I [00:21:00] think that we should expect there to be a huge political backlash that all of the cases against him will be politically like weakened as a argument as to why he should not be president. And he will look like a victim, which is. At the very core of his campaign and has been since 2015 is victimhood and we should be really concerned we should like like I will be very concerned about what polling and and what like direction voters are moving in next week if he is acquitted on all charges.
Glennis Meagher: Giving
Brian Derrick: is giving. It's giving.
So, Another big political event happened this weekend with maybe not so big of ramifications, and that was the Libertarian Party Convention, where they selected the Libertarian nominee for president.
Glennis Meagher: Did you see their logo, by the way?
Brian Derrick: I don't think I do know what the Libertarian logo is.
Glennis Meagher: But it looks like Hot Topic [00:22:00] designed it.
Brian Derrick: Well, they did have one very special guest at the Libertarian Party Convention, Donald Trump, who was Apparently, not receiving the warmest welcome.
Donald Trump: The Libertarian Party should nominate Trump for President of the United States! Whoa! That's nice. That's nice. Only do that if you want to win.
If you want to lose, don't do that. Keep getting your 3 percent every four years.
RSBN Anchor: We saw a lot of applause for the president. Some people who were, uh, offering a couple of boos for the policies, not directly at going towards President
Glennis Meagher: Trump.
Brian Derrick: Spin Doctor!
Glennis Meagher: Yeah, it's giving their logo, which is, become ungovernable.
And they're just like booing everything he says and are all wearing MAGA hats, which is by definition ungovernable if you're [00:23:00] like, fully disagreeing with all the person who supports platforms.
Brian Derrick: I'm really shook by his response to their boos.
Glennis Meagher: I loved it. That's nice. He didn't care, by the way.
Brian Derrick: He said,
Speaker 6: go ahead and get your 3 percent every, every four years.
Oof! No
Brian Derrick: filter. No filter. He was
Glennis Meagher: giving when Donald Trump was on the phone with like the eight year olds for Christmas and he was like, do you still believe in Santa? And he's like, how old are you? Seven, eight. Oh, it's marginal at best. And I'm like, he's not wrong.
Speaker 6: Oh my God. No, not that. No, that was, that was, that was wrong.
I don't think
Glennis Meagher: it's wrong. I think it's marginal at best. So to seven or eight. Year old or eight or nine year old still believes in Santa.
Brian Derrick: No, it's just not his decision to make.
Glennis Meagher: Oh no, but that's Trump's M. O. It's Trump just doing Donald Trump and not his decision to make. He extends that into women's bodies, gay marriage, like
Brian Derrick: that's his
Glennis Meagher: whole M.
O.
Brian Derrick: That's true. Yeah, the whole thing [00:24:00] is giving veep. I feel like there's probably a veep clip that I'm not thinking of that. She receives a similar reception to that
thing. What's that? I hear it's your group chat. Well, we got a few notes in from listeners from last week's episode. We got somebody giving us the heads up that the Larry Hogan campaign running for US Senate in Maryland has been campaigning to independence with a text campaign. about how he supports women's reproductive rights when as governor he actually vetoed legislation that would have supported reproductive rights.
So please flag for us all of the crazy texts that you're getting from friends on what these candidates are up to and we can call them out.
Glennis Meagher: The pope, did you see this? The pope basically said
Brian Derrick: The f word!
Glennis Meagher: F slur in a closed door meeting! I did see this. And I had to publicly apologize for [00:25:00] it. It's like, not funny, but it's like, what?
Brian Derrick: I know, the, the, the allegedly pro LGBT or at least LGBT neutral pope, yeah, is throwing around the f word. Other f word, everyone. I think that the Vatican's apology was also a non apology. I don't think that there was Yeah,
Glennis Meagher: they were like, just in case this leaks, we just want to
Brian Derrick: let you know that the Pope is sorry.
You know that apologies are really legit when they come out after something leaks. That's how you know it's
Glennis Meagher: Yeah, sorry. It's
Brian Derrick: authentic.
Glennis Meagher: Wait, we have a, we have a real reason to talk about Survivor this week.
Speaker 3: Finally! I know. So Tell them the good
Brian Derrick: news.
Glennis Meagher: John Lovett of Love It or Leave It, which is a Crooked Media podcast, is on Survivor next season.
Brian Derrick: I was shook
Glennis Meagher: when I saw that. He's in like the intro being like, I don't know how to camp. I want to like have a vibes only like, we need to have a bracket for next survivor, and we need to see how far we think John can make it. [00:26:00] I think his social game will be really good. But it just takes one person knowing who he is to like,
Brian Derrick: Oh, he will definitely, they'll know who he is for sure.
No question. Oh, no question. I've, I truly, I truly think that he will be outed. I don't think the show is going to focus on it because they don't want to make the show political. And so my guess is that they're going to be like, he's a political speech writer. Um, is like how the,
Glennis Meagher: yeah,
Brian Derrick: right, right. Is like my guess as to how it all be framed.
I cannot wait. I have flirted with the idea of auditioning myself for survivor. I'm an idea. Survivor contestant as a super fan, um, and this feels like a proxy of like, I think that
Glennis Meagher: I didn't want to burst your bubble, but I wanted to text you and be like, you'll never make it now.
Brian Derrick: Well, that's true. Yeah, they would never cast.
I mean, I was not about to audition, but why not?
Glennis Meagher: I think you would do really well and survivor.
Brian Derrick: Oh, I would kill it. I'd be a [00:27:00] challenge beast and I'm a social threat. So like, and I know their show. So, so you, so you would know
Glennis Meagher: an immunity aisle. I'd always flush that there'd be one back at camp. Yeah.
Brian Derrick: I am not going home with an idol in my pocket.
I will tell you that much. I did have a lot of people in my group chat freaking out about whether or not Biden is going to be on the ballot in November. And let me just reassure everyone, we don't have to get into the details, but like, He will. So don't freak out. He will be on the ballot in Ohio. And then the other thing that really blew up my group chat was China took one of these robot dogs that we've all seen by now, very dark mirror, and put a huge gun on it so that they can run a robot dog around and shoot people?
Question mark? Spooky. Spooky. All of the component parts are here for an apocalyptic movie, dystopian nightmare that I or Pay money to watch in theaters, we have robot dogs, we have a I that's like kind of out of control and [00:28:00] suggesting crazy things to people. And now we're just weaponizing it all. So I'm sure nothing could go wrong.
Glennis Meagher: You know, it was big in my group chat, which I will leave with the vibes only audience to think about and potentially text us because I want to know your answers was we. Pose a question to one another of what historical event, if you could time travel, what historical event would you go back to, to stop?
Brian Derrick: I mean, kill Hitler.
Glennis Meagher: That was one person's someone else's. I had just reached me recently watched a CNN documentary on the challenger. I just, I said, I would go to NASA and I would say, we got to take these foam issues seriously.
Brian Derrick: I would pay I would give all of my money to watch that conversation happen
Glennis Meagher: as a time traveler, I
Brian Derrick: would give literally anything to listen to you convince NASA rocket scientists.
Glennis Meagher: Yeah,
Speaker 6: that would be so iconic. [00:29:00] Oh, no, I
Glennis Meagher: would convince them. Another friend had like, I would, I would tell this was actually funny. She said, I would tell the settlers that the British were coming. And I was like, well, if someone already did that, Paul Revere. What?! Yeah, so Vibes Only, have that thing, because it's a really, it's a really interesting thought.
Experiment of like, if you could intervene, knowing that like, you know, there's some like controls of like the world wouldn't explode or you wouldn't like end civilization as we know it. But like, if you could, what would you do?
Brian Derrick: Okay, Gladys, I like this. This can be our group chat question of the week. Go to the show notes, click the link, send us your answer.
And I would love to hear. non Hitler or similar answers because it is very noble to try to stop an individual who would kill a large number of people. But I'm really curious as to what other use cases there might be for this sudden technological development in our group chat. So click the link, send us a [00:30:00] note and we'll report our favorite answers next week.
Glennis Meagher: Foam strikes.
Are you ready for a good vibe?
Brian Derrick: I'm very ready for a good vibe. This is a great vibe. Actually,
Glennis Meagher: this is a really exciting vibe based on a lot of different discussions we've had on the pod about the importance of Federal judges, the Biden administration has appointed 200 federal judges, lifetime appointments, federal judges.
So he's appointed 201, 201, boosting diversity in the federal courts, 64 percent of those confirmed judges are women. 127 women are confirmed. That's nearly 2. 5 times the number of women appointed by Trump. Are we surprised? No. And 62 percent of those confirmed judges are people of color.
Brian Derrick: Super exciting. A total ideological shift of, uh, a bunch of courts, which is hugely needed after the damage that Trump did.
And this will seriously outlast, [00:31:00] Survivor reference, the Biden administration and how long he'll actually serve in office. So this could be one of the most important things that he does.
Glennis Meagher: Those are all the vibes for today. Thanks again for listening. Are you having any full blown freak outs as we get closer to election day? Let us know. Send us a text by clicking the link at the top of this episode description, or email us at vibes at courier newsroom. com. We'd love to help you channel that energy into something productive.
If we don't chat before then we'll be back again next week with more vibes.
Brian Derrick: Vibes Only is a production of Courier, a civic media company that protects and strengthens our democracy through credible fact based journalism. and seeks to create a more informed, engaged, and representative America. Vibes Only is produced by Devin Maroney, with support from Courier's Kyle Tharp, Arcee DiMezzo, and Daniel Strasberger.
Tara McGowan is founder and publisher of Courier.[00:32:00]
