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Katie’s back on her metaphoric “What’s Charlie Kirk up to these days?” editorial grind—checking in with one of the hottest new Gen Z Lady Voices taking the middle-aged men of the center-right by storm.

In this episode, we check in with a writer we haven’t discussed since one of our very first episodes:

Freya India, also known as three Jonathan Haidts in a very hot 26-year-old trenchcoat, just published her first book, Girls®—an excoriation of the modern world and its effects on The Youth (or, more specifically, the pathologies of liberal teen girls, as she often puts it).

To hear India tell it, young girls have been Filtered, Diagnosed, Documented, Disconnected, Detached, and ‘Empowered,’ all thanks to the increasingly rapacious incentive structure of a pyramid-shaped economic system that necessitates a constantly growing consumer base wait, sorry, no. That’s not it. Actually, we’re not really sure why. You know what? It’s not important. Let’s move on.

What Girls® lacks in explanatory mechanisms, it makes up for in solutions: Logging off, finding God, and starting a family.

The ideological project underway here should be obvious to anyone whose brain hasn’t been marinated in a dutch oven full of expired bath salts, so why has this book been endorsed by a gaggle of high-profile, putatively left-wing men?

Diabolical Lies investigates.

All citations and references can be found at www.diabolicalliespod.com.

Order Yesteryear if you like nice things, have good taste, or don’t want Katie to show up in the middle of the night at your house with a strongly worded remonstration.

What does it feel like to spend 10 years of your life pursuing an uncertain dream when the chances of breakthrough success are one in a million?

What does it feel like to—finally, at long last—be “the one”?

Caro Claire Burke, one-half of your favorite podcast, is publishing her debut novel this Tuesday, April 7. Yesteryear is mouthy, thrilling, important, ambitious, and, as one of my favorite reviews said, “moves like a freight train.”

Sound like anyone else you know?

Today, I finally get the opportunity to talk to caro claire burke about:

* whether publishing your debut novel is a dream come true or a nightmare

* who she was before she wrote Yesteryear

* her seemingly endless years writing clickbait for a paycheck in the content coal mines of various aggregators

* how she felt when we met 🥰

* how I felt when we met 👹

* the psychological experience of feeling like everyone’s looking at you (Professionally™️) and knowing the precise dates and times when your life’s work will be dissected for sport in public lol

* to what extent it’s fair to infer someone’s politics from their fiction (a la this piece)

* her Official Stance on separating the art from the artist (compelling tbh)

* a spoiler-frenzied discussion of the Next Great American Novel

* and a very personal, very special update for Caro

If you pay attention to political commentary, you’ll often hear a few pieces of conventional wisdom:

— America is “too polarized”

— “Both sides” are “too extreme”

— Or, most innocuously, that politicians should simply do that which is “popular,” which is itself code for policies that are considered “moderate”

But do voters really punish candidates for being extreme? Are most “popular” ideas the “moderate” ones? And, moderate or not, does popularity necessarily indicate merit?

The supposed antidote to this handwringing about political polarization is, more often than not, the mythical “centrist” candidate who will appeal to the even-more-mythical “ordinary American.” Centrism is, as the name implies, an ideology that lacks an ideology.

Today, Diabolical Lies investigates the myth of centrism.

[Full references and citations can be found in the show notes at www.diabolicalliespod.com.]

Little bit of a heterosexual smackdown taking place today!

But first, some housekeeping:

As a reminder: Caro’s debut novel, YESTERYEAR, is coming out this spring (April 7th, to be exact), and she would love to see you all at the evening launch event in NYC. One can reasonably assume there will be laughter, tears, a book signing, and Caro on a stage looking incredibly sweaty while she talks about all things America, womanhood, tradwives, writing sex scenes in fiction, etc. She’ll be joined on stage by the famed pod duo Claire Parker and Ashley Hamilton as moderators for the evening, which essentially means we have finagled this book launch into a pseudo Good Noticings/Diabolical Lies crossover event. Ur welcome.

Also, we’d be so grateful if you humored us with a little anthropological insight by letting us know how you found the pod. Quick survey here.

Now, onto the show notes.

The Usha-Verse

“What Is Usha Vance Thinking?,” by Irin Carmon for The Cut

“From Yale to Newsmax, Usha Vance Has Helped J.D. Vance Chart His Path,” by Joseph Bernstein and Katherine Rosman for The New York Times

“Usha Vance Tries to Defend her Husband’s ‘Childless Cat Ladies’ Comment,” by Eric McDaniel for NPR

“The One Thing You Need to Know to Understand Usha Vance,” by Susan Matthews for Slate

…and of course, If Books Could Kill’s Coverage of Hillbilly Elegy

The Rama-Verse

“The Artist in Gracie Mansion,” by Danya Issawi for The Cut

“Artist Spotlight of Rama Duwaji,” by Nasri Atallah for YUNG

“Mamdani Names an All-Woman Transition Team,” by Nandika Chatterjee for TIME

The Tragedy of Heterosexuality

Read the book

“The invention of ‘heterosexuality’,” by Brandon Ambrosino for the BBC

Note: This episode was filmed on Monday, January 19 and the edit was finalized early on Saturday, January 24, before news broke about the second (known) ICE execution in Minneapolis of 37-year-old Minneapolis resident Alex Pretti.

Today, we’re talking about a beloved American pastime: killing civilians in the name of public safety.

On the right, you’ll watch JD Vance and his trademark charmless sneer explain that this is only happening because civilians are being disorderly. Kristi Noem will tell you—straight from her lying bitch face—that ICE agents are being assaulted every day.

And on the liberal side of the aisle, you’re more likely to hear that the problem is that these agents aren’t “trained” to “follow the law.”

This conversation examines how media has traditionally been used to manufacture consent, and where new media might be used to undermine its efficacy; where individual identity does and does not matter when it comes to state violence; and what “public safety” and “order” really mean, and what these concepts serve to justify.

Strap in.