Hey there, welcome to That Dang Dad, my name is Phil, and tonight I’m thinking about my old stomping grounds in Los Angeles. I’ve been really disturbed by footage of the fires because I’ve BEEN to so many of those places. I’ve partied out that way, gone on dates out that way, and spent a lot of my teens and 20s exploring the areas currently or recently on fire. And of course, I used to work in LA County as a police officer.

I spent nearly a decade in LA County as a cop and I was involved in hundreds of incidents involving LA County Fire as well as local EMT crews. We were so tight with our local fire department we used to watch UFC fights at the firehouse with them. I’ve been out with them on fatal car crashes, massive structure fires, gang shootings, and even injured officers. I was working the day a neighboring agency had an officer take a shotgun blast to the FACE and miraculously survive thanks to quick work from LA County fire.

I guess what I’m saying is, I know firefighters. I’ve worked with firefighters. I’ve been the middle of shit you wouldn’t believe with firefighters.

And that’s why it makes me so angry to see do-nothing losers like Chaya Raichik take time out of her busy schedule inspiring bomb threats at hospitals to complain about DEI hires at the Los Angeles Fire Department. In order to distract from the structural causes of wildfires, the right wing propaganda machine has been working overtime to somehow blame DEI for California’s descent into kindling.

But you’ll notice it’s always these lazy, talentless mopes who’ve never done anything valuable doing all this heckling from the sidelines. Chaya Raichik, Matt Walsh, Ben Shapiro, Chris Rufo… these are not doers. These are not hard workers. These people have never produced anything important and have never solved interesting problems. They are simply a boutique breed of lap dog for the ultra rich, little chihuahuas riding around in someone else’s Louis Vuitton bag performing for treats.

So, this isn’t going to be a 4 hour take down of Libs of Tiktok. I’m not going to meticulously debate right wing “points” with detailed, laser-focused research.

Why? Same reason I don’t make response videos when my dog insists she can have an oatmeal raisin cookie: i am not obligated to respect the arguments of self-serving liars who don’t know anything. I don’t need a Powerpoint presentation and 20 citations; I just need to point out that these people have never worked hard for anything and they simply don’t have enough life experience or education to have an opinion worth validating.

Let me ask you this: would you come to me for my opinion about how to design the plumbing inside nuclear power plants? You wouldn’t? Why not? Aren’t I entitled to my opinion, shouldn’t I be listened to? You would rightfully point out that not only do I not have an architecture degree or any kind of hard science degree, I’ve never even set foot inside a nuclear power plant, so no actually, there is absolutely no reason to listen to me on the topic.

You know what I do have experience with? Working alongside first responders on critical life-or-death incidents. I’ve worked with male and female cops and firefighters, queer first responders, Muslims and Sikhs and Christians and Jews, even a trans cop at one point. I’ve been on fires, stabbings, shootings, car crashes, and baby not breathing calls with a diverse variety of first responders and I can tell you this:

I have never once seen a “diversity hire” fail to do their job because of their gender, their race, or their religion. I have never once seen someone lose a life because a firefighter was a particular race, gender, or sexuality. I have never once seen a building burn down because the fire crew was too multicultural.

To the extent that diversity has any bearing whatsoever on critical incident response, I’ve only ever seen it help when people who don’t speak English can communicate easily with a bilingual responder or when female victims of sexual assault feel safer speaking with non-male officers. I’ve only ever seen diverse crews use their blend of unique life experiences to fill in each other’s gaps and perform more effectively.

I think one reason the conservative mind can’t get a grip on this reality is that, at its core, conservatism is an ideology of insecure self-absorption. The conservative mind is convinced of its own superiority while being simultaneously afraid of being dominated by others. Thus, the conservative mind cannot conceive that a team of people with diverse backgrounds and a shared goal can become greater than the sum of its parts. Deep down, conservatives are eaten away by fear and thus prefer to dominate rather than cooperate. Conservatives actually prefer worse performance as long as it flatters their ego.

And that right there explains why, even though they have captured nearly every institution in the US, they’re still miserable. Look at Chaya Raichik, look at Matt Walsh, do these people seem happy to you? Like they are savoring life? They live in piss-soaked fear everyday of their lives, they take it out on everyone around them, and no victory will ever be enough because late at night, in the hour of the wolf, they can never escape the event horizon of their own insecurity.

Now, I don’t know whether being a talentless dullard gave them the fear that pushed them into the right wing propaganda ecosystem or whether their lack of talent got them hired into that ecosystem first and then taught them to be afraid for pay. All I know is that they get a big fat paycheck for performing this fear so you really don’t have to respect it as an honest opinion.

Even worse, this week we had ELON MUSK talking shit about fire teams in California. Elon Musk, a man riddled with insecurity because he’s had to buy, bully, and bluff his way into every accomplishment he has. This is a guy so insecure, he pays people to level up his video game characters so that he looks like a pro. Is that not the saddest thing you’ve ever heard? A billionaire who never has to work again is too lazy to learn a video game but feels small if he doesn’t have a high level character.

Elon Musk is the most pathetic, embarrassing human being to have ever lived. You do not have to dignify him with a response. He wouldn’t understand it anyway, he’d just pay someone to summarize for him.

This is also why you don’t have to listen to these clowns when they claim to be “saving women’s sports” from trans people or whatever. Matt Walsh has never cared about women’s ANYthing his entire life, he sees women as broodmares, he doesn’t care about boxing. You think Elon Musk has valid opinions about women’s olympic sports? Again, he pays people to level up video game characters because he lacks the talent or the drive to do it himself. This is not a man passionately following women’s gymnastics (although Elon and Larry Nasser do have a lot of other things in common).

I, on the other hand, trained in martial arts for over ten years. I’ve trained in boxing, jiu jitsu, judo, aikido, and krav maga. I’ve trained alongside women in every combat sport I’ve ever done. In fact, I’ve done full contact sparring with women in krav and let me assure you: the ~biological differences~ that might exist between men and women suddenly feel vanishingly small when a women rockets her size 8s into your testacles. I’ve been twisted up and choked out by women 50 lbs lighter than me. The most terrifying instructor in my police academy was a female lieutenant who was famous for being able to out-PT the big bad ex-military dudes who thought they were hot shit. If she found out you were bragging about your “special forces training”, mama mia, you would soon find yourself in the middle of a very painful lesson in humility.

And look, don’t get me wrong, I’m not trying to do a yas queen girlboss feminism here, I’m not out here singing the praises of female drone operators or whatever. All I’m trying to say is that you do not have to respect the right wing outrage machine as any kind of sincere inquiry about female first responders or women’s sports. These people don’t know anything and they don’t want to know anything. Half of them don’t even believe what they’re saying. They show up to work and claim to hate immigrants, then they show up to church and claim to love Christ. These aren’t honest people and they don’t value integrity.

Cuz look, the fact of the matter is, when I think of the people who jeopardized my career and my life when I was a cop, it wasn’t so-called DEI hires, it was the older veteran male cops. It was male cops, most of them white, who frequently assaulted handcuffed suspects in the holding cells. It was male cops who get into bad shoots and needed to be cleaned up after, it was the male cops out getting laid on their shifts, and I knew two different male cops I worked with who were arrested for sexual assault in the same year, one on duty.

Facts don’t care about your feelings, folks, and the fact is that white male police officers were involved in the vast, vast, vast majority of police misconduct that I witnessed or participated in. This isn’t to say I never knew crooked Black, Hispanic, or female cops, it’s simply to say that if you think there’s a problem with a certain cohort of first responders, I know which one I’d focus on and it ain’t the lesbians.

But again, this presupposes curiosity and intellectual honesty on the part of the right wing media machine, two attributes they do not and have never possessed. These are not serious thinkers. They do not value truth. And you do not owe them respect or even courtesy.

This is my call to action for this video and for 2025: do not waste your precious moments in this life arguing with people who don’t value truth. If you have a cousin or a coworker with bad ideas about trans atheletes who nevertheless seems to want to understand why you don’t, great by all means walk him through it with gentle compassion. But these influencers and pundits and douchebags with substacks? You don’t owe them a hearing and you don’t owe them cordiality.

“Erm, debate me in the marketplace of ideas, may the best idea win!” Sorry, debates are only worthwhile if they involve people who care about truth and have integrity; the anti-DEI skidmarks haven’t cared about either in years. Not worth your time. You can’t logic someone out of something they didn’t logic themselves into and you will never dazzle a cocky liar with facts and figures. They do not care, they will not receive it.

“Erm, I’m entitled to my opinion just like anyone else!” Okay? You can believe the earth is flat and that vaccines contain cobra venom and interracial marriage caused 9/11, it doesn’t mean anyone has to validate that or pretend that these are opinions worth hearing. Should we hear you out about bloodletting and trepanation too?

Folks, 2024 clarified a lot of things for me, about this country and my fellow countrymen. I wouldn’t say I’m blackpilled but I’m definitely… over it in a brand new way. I have compassion for folks currently drowning themselves in right wing propaganda but I’m completely out of even basic politeness for the influencer ecosystem. They are liars and fools and I will not treat them as equals. You shouldn’t either.

And hey, I’m not going to sit here and pretend that being mean to The Quartering on Twitter is praxis and I’m not advocating for you to become a Jeff Tiedrich-style reply guy picking fights in the comments of the rich and putrid. All I want to do is free you from the burden of feeling like you owe these dipshits the dignity of a rebuttal.

If someone you care about asks you to answer one of their objections, great, give your loved one an answer, but otherwise, dismiss these influencers with prejudice. Ya say: “You don’t know what you’re talking about, you do not have the education, life experience, or personal stake in this topic to warrant an opinion. Hit me back when you’ve done the homework, you’re too far behind to participate in this conversation.”

Chaya Raichik, Matt Walsh, Ben Shapiro, Elon Musk… these are empty, rotten husks. They produce nothing of value, they get paid to lie to you, and they aren’t even that good at it. These goobers wouldn’t survive a St Patrick’s Day shift at a TGI Friday’s, much less a fire academy.

That’s why they hide behind Koch brothers money and Gish Gallops. Without other people’s money and loud arrogance, everyone would see them for the cavernous voids that they are. It’s like the Emperor’s New Clothes except these sadsacks aren’t even emperors, just dweebs with blogs. Why are we letting them pretend we can’t see their unwashed asses?

There is one argument against this train of thought that I anticipate: that being that we give them answer because some unknown third party might be scrolling by who doesn’t know much about the topic either way and thus we want to make sure any strangers passing by hear some sort of plausible counterargument.

If you feel that way, I can’t tell you’re wrong or that you shouldn’t do it. There are times I feel the pull of that impulse too. But for me personally, here in 2025, that’s not a factor for me anymore.

I have seen how desperate and frustrated the MAGA influencer ecosystem gets when it doesn’t have opponents to argue with. They have Gab and Parler and Rumble but it doesn’t make them happy because what they want is to make YOU miserable. When you don’t play ball, when you deny them access to you, they get left alone with their thoughts and they turn on each other, like what’s happening now on Twitter. Let them feed on each other, you go be free.

For as militant as I am entering 2025, I still believe in the Michael Brooks maxim of being kind to individuals and ruthless towards systems. By all means, show compassion to the people you directly touch in your life even if they wouldn’t show the same to you. But the MAGA mediasphere is a system and influencers encrusted within it are not individuals. You owe them nothing. Give them nothing.

I know this isn’t my usual posture on this channel and yes, eagle-eyed viewers may notice that I am kind of doing the thing I’m telling you not to do. But for me, this is a statement of intent for 2025, for the future Trump administration, for a future Gavin Newsom administration god forbid, for as long as I have left around here.

I reject any claims of prestige or honor belonging to any president, congresscreep, supreme court ghoul, media hack, and I damn sure ain’t giving the time of day to anyone mad about woke video games.

As I see it, we have two important jobs in 2025:

1. Create, bolster, and maintain networks of mutual aid to make sure we’re caring for unhoused neighbors, disabled people in the community, trans people fleeing MAGA violence, racialized and indigenous folks who’ve been displaced from their homes or had them polluted all to hell, and incarcerated people trying to survive a barbaric institution.
   
   And, if we have time,

2. Spit on every single person in power and make them absolutely miserable and afraid until they meet our demands for a more just and equitable world or they quit out of pure exhaustion. Humans evolved as persistence hunters, it’s time to return to our roots.

Do I believe 2) can lead to incremental reforms under the current system? No I do not. Not anymore. But hopefully if 2) happens enough, it will keep people focused on 1) as the true antidote to an unjust world instead of waiting for that mythical Blue Wave that ain’t never coming. And besides, they all deserve it.

Sorry if this wasn’t my usual happy go lucky video. I’m in a season of grief and anger for the world and I’m trying really hard to sit with it, ponder it, examine it, process it, and synthesize it into something useful. I’m trying Ringo, tryin’ real hard to be the shepherd right now. But I’m not wasting another kCal arguing with these pricks or pretending they have a valid place in the wider conversation. If you feel that’s your calling though, may the Lord bless you and keep you on your dark errand, and I mean that sincerely.

Here’s to a volatile 2025; may you become an intolerable nuisance to those in power and may you starve their lapdogs until they turn. Have a good night!

DEI Under Attack in 2024 by Candace McDuffie

Audre Lorde's Intersectionality by Kaitlin Smith

...Until Everyone Is Free by SURJ Toronto

Learn More From:

Doublewrong by Innuendo Studios

Diversity in STEM by Dr. Fatima

We Need To Be More Tech Critical by Andrewism (this isn't about DEI per se, but it shows how valuable a diverse approach to technology is)