Look What You Made Me Redraw

Texas Republicans are trying to grab 5 extra seats, Gavin Newsom said “bet,” and I’m here to explain why map-rigging matters, and why your boyfriend’s media diet might be just as sus. 👀 Also featuring: a rant about Taylor Swift’s billionaire vinyl scam, and the Barbie Test™ for men.

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Transcript

Welcome back to Bad Bets, the podcast. Each week we make a really bad bet about something related to pop culture, politics, history. And the subsequent week, we reveal the outcome of that bet. If you want to join us on Patreon, you can vote on our topics and you can bet yourself. I really want to shout out the people that have been listening recently. Y'all are the opposite of the star rating on my t-shirt. Josh Hawley, one star. No good, very bad. Y'all are 10 out of 10.

Thank you so much for the love. Thank you for hyping me up. This has been really an exciting venture for me. We're gonna keep going. We're gonna keep vetting. We're gonna learn a little about a lot. All right. I hope y'all are doing better than the soldiers who had to roll out the red carpet for Putin this week. Not gonna talk about that in this episode. It's pretty self-explanatory and horrendous. But yeah, we're gonna do a little switch up, not talk about politics first thing, because someone wrote in and asked if y'all can ask me like life questions, dating and relationship questions, which is wild. I'm like, if you want me to bet on your love life, I am here for it. So we're gonna start doing a little advice segment next week. The irony of me giving life advice is not lost on me, all right? So this week I've been thinking about an article that's been in my Instagram ads and I think it's by the cut. It was saying, can men and women just be friends?

I have personal experience in my life as a pick me bitch, as someone who prioritizes men all the time. They're the only ones I like. No, I'm kidding. But I have experience in my life that this is very true. The caveat being that my male friends, the closest ones and I have never been each other's types and have felt very platonically towards one another. So that I think is part of the reason why it's worked for me. In other instances, there's always a little bit of like flirtation and a will they won't they. But some of my best friends are dudes who I would never touch while they're naked except for to like save them and they feel the same way. So I really think it can be true. And I'm sure there's like plenty of other examples of this. But then I was talking to a friend about this and they were reading an article that said men who don't like women, they just like sex with them, how to avoid these dating red flags. And I was like, oof, brother, I feel this deeply in my soul. And so what we need to come up with now, if you are single and out there in the wild, or even if you're with a guy who you feel like, is he my enemy? Or is he an ally? Is he part of the access powers?

It's not the Bechdel test anymore. Everyone knows about the Bechdel test or should, if you're a media literate at all. I think we need to start doing the Barbie movie test. Whether a man willingly saw Barbie in theaters. There are other examples of this probably. I don't think the notebook quite hits it. Brokeback Mountain is very male coded, but you could come up with other examples if you absolutely didn't want to see Barbie. But I think if like the guy thinks that Margot Robbie is hot but they refuse to sit through Greta Gerwig's Oscar-winning monologues. Congratulations, you're dating someone who is homosocial. Homosocial does not mean homosexual. Homosocial actually in my mind has a bit of a negative connotation whereas homosexual does not at all. The definition as I understand it of homosociality is when men build their intimacy and connection and interest through other men sports, gaming, work leaks, and then women only show up in their lives as sex objects or trophies or sort of like the Manic Pixie dream girl plot device. And I think that that is a really wild but important red flag detector, not whether a man likes women's bodies, but whether he actually likes women as people. And you may think like, Sophie, this is fucking...a ridiculous thing to be talking about, but sociologically and culturally, women are really taught to integrate in ways that men aren't. From childhood, we're raised to know men's worlds. We watch the movies that they like. We know their sports stats. We learn to laugh at their comedians. And if you really think about it, men aren't socialized the other way around. That's why films for movies are called chick flicks but films for men don't have the men codifier category attached to them. It's just standard, what is culture, what is in patriarchy. So men aren't socialized the other way around. 

A guy can get to 35 without ever seeing a movie directed by a woman and no one questions it. So it's not symmetrical. Women are expected to adapt to male culture and men aren't expected to adapt to women. And I think that creates this gap where men then interface with women more so as sexual objects, objects of desire, if they're straight men, because there aren't other avenues and expectations in culture and ways for them to connect. Like Saturdays are for the boys and that's it. And then the joke is like golf is to get away from your wife on Sunday. There's examples of this in comedy, you know, like we'll quote super bad, like it's scripture and then female comics will be tough for a lot of men to swallow.

And the argument is like, well, they only talk about women's issues. Have you ever watched male stand up? It's like about your dick and balls and chest hair half the time, right? Or men won't go see Barbie or bridesmaids, but women are expected to line up for every Marvel movie ever. Similarly on social media, like the feeds that men get of half naked women, but then they scroll past women-led podcasts, comedy or art. I wonder if you ask your male friends or your partners or even your fathers how much women-centric media made by women, created by women that isn't sexual, your partners listen to, your family listens to. And for women, it's just sort of an expectation. God, I had a fucking AI ad of an AI woman in laundry on TikTok this week. I'm gonna save that for another podcast, but I had a little mini crash out about that. think that We're in dangerous territory here. So I think the real question is, it's not does he like women, it's does he find women interesting? Does he like subscribe to the rich tapestry of their inner lives? I think that this week's bad bet is I will put $20 on the idea that if your man doesn't think women comedians are funny, he also doesn't think that women are worth listening to at all. Or if he is not interested in films by women, he feels similarly.

There's no way to prove that bet in the next episode. keep doing this. I need to figure out better bets. We're going to have like a drunk history segment on here and I can bet on that. All right. Speaking of women. Now this isn't going to be all male bashing. I promise we're moving on my tiny treat big take this week. If you have been living under a rock, you probably didn't hear that Taylor Swift went on the new heights podcast, Jason and Travis Kelsey's podcast to announce her 12th album, Go Girl, Give Us Nothing. I hate the album right so much. I mean, her body is tea, but it's like this weird collage that's almost like Britney Spears circus era, which come for me in the comments. I'm sure there's like a callback and reference to that, because Taylor Swift is the queen of the Easter eggs. The thing that I feel very frustrated about with her these days, like I think she's just like the classic white feminist and uses choice white feminism to her benefit.

When she likes, I will never forgive her for the like, look at my girl gang and it was all models, tropiness of a couple years ago. She also, I think didn't get into the political race early enough and use her platform or like leaned into it hard enough ever maybe, except for she like documented that in her Miss Americana thing. Like I need to be on the right side of history because the image matters to her. I think she should be speaking out more against what's happening in Gaza and what's happening with our democracy. But she's too busy on her world tour being a fucking billionaire. So yeah, what does this billionaire do? She has generated four different colored vinyl records for the release of her new album so she can just rake in the fucking cash. This woman has more money than God. 

I think that she convinced her fan base that it was a crisis, that she didn't own her masters as if she was like the person that represented struggling artists being taken advantage of in the music industry. Eventually after a lot of work and money, she got her rights back and she's essentially a billionaire. If she spoke so loudly about that issue, why doesn't she use her cultural influence for good instead of selling four different colors of her vinyl? I think there's, I asked my team mates at work because I was like, I'm gonna try. I'm gonna be open minded about this. Like, what albums do you recommend? And they gave me a few. I remember we were talking about like throwbacks in pop culture, the casual and deeply gutting and terribly romantic song that Robert Pattinson recorded for Twilight. And my opinion is better than anything Taylor Swift has ever written. But I'm going to try to listen to bond with my coworkers. I thought Lover was cute until the reference of like, can keep our Christmas lights up till January. 

I'm like, girl, you're not relatable. God damn. So yeah, if she instead chose to turn one of those albums into like, we're going to raise money for X, Y, or Z thing, I would be on board. I would even try to stream maybe girl. But yeah, that's my tiny treat big take. She is not the good queen that a lot of people think her to be. All right, the biggest segment today.

I really wanna talk about gerrymandering and the war that's happening right now in Texas, because this is just not nerdy political map stuff. It is a straight up cage match over who gets control of Congress. And I want my apathetic friends to understand really what is happening in America right now. So if you don't understand what gerrymandering is, because you're not a fucking wonkish nerd like me, that's okay, we're gonna talk about it. 

It's this really crazy practice of redrawing voting districts to give one political party an unfair advantage in elections. So instead of communities being represented fairly, equal representation, the maps are carved up so that opponents' are diluted while supporters' votes are concentrated. And this is essentially, this results in politicians choosing their voters rather than voters electing fairly their politicians. If you look at a state like Texas, Dan Crenshaw's district, It looks like Willy Wonka's dick. It's absolutely insane the way that Texas has been gerrymandered. So here's the play. Here's what's been happening lately. In Texas, Republicans under pressure from Trump, they called a special legislative session this summer to redraw the state's congressional maps mid decade. That is not usually how this works. These maps normally last until the next census, but.

Ding ding ding, what these fucking Republican traitors are gonna do is they're gunning for five extra GOP House seats in 2026 when the midterms roll around. Five seats could literally flip control of the House. That means a lot for executive power and Republican control, right? So Democrats in Texas saw what was happening and they actually decided to bolt. They literally fled the state because you need a quorum. You need them there to make this happen.

So they did that to deny Republicans quorum they needed to vote. It's like political hide and seek, but with democracy on the line. What has happened this week is Democrats came back. They're still trying to fight this thing. They were forced to sign up for essentially what is like police security oversight of their whereabouts. The Texas Republicans forced this on them. Imagine if this fucking scenario were reversed. It would be really insane.

And so there is one Democratic Texas representative, Nicole Collier, I think is her name. She's a black representative. She's a badass. She's a Democrat. And she said, fuck, no, I'm from Fort Worth. You're not going to be able to do this to me. She's the former chair of the Texas Legislative Black Caucus. She refused to sign the paper because she didn't want a fucking police escort, just creepy, creepy motherfuckers following her around to make sure what she doesn't flee the state again to stop this from happening. So she spent the night in the Capitol. She was essentially locked inside. She was not allowed to leave because she did not sign this paper protesting a police monitor requirement tied to this redistricting fight. So she vowed to remain until Democratic lawmakers are no longer subjected to security shadowing. A lot of people have gone to the Capitol to help protest and it's become a national conversation. And what is...

Particularly interesting and what my friends and listeners locally should be paying attention to is California, what the world's eighth largest economy, welcome, welcome to the beautiful gold coast. We're not just watching this from the sidelines. Gavin Newsom has already said, fine, you know what, you wanna cheat, we're gonna fucking cheat too. So he's actually pushing a ballot initiative to override.

We have a independent redistricting commission from my understanding in California to let the legislature redraw the map here, which could potentially hand Democrats up to five seats of their own, maybe even more. California stepping in is a defensive maneuver, if anything. And now before those of you who I fucking love and adore Michelle Obama, when they go low, we go high. Before you come and say, this is bad, it's adding fire to fire.

Essentially what the Democrats are doing right now, and this is what lot of leftists and progressives have accused us of doing for years, is we're walking up to a gunfight with little practice batons. We have our arms tied behind our back. We are in a bar brawl and we're refusing to engage. So we're going to get the shit knocked out of us repeatedly by people that are going to make it harder for poor people, immigrants, women, people of color essentially everyone who isn't a piece of shit to live and thrive in this country. I, you can say what you want about Gavin Newsom. I support the man in doing this because if the GOP rigs Texas, Florida and Ohio and the Democrats just shrug and say, but the norms, the more is you're basically handing them the house forever. So instead of what Newsom is saying is no, if you weaponize redistricting will match you, bitch. We're not going to let you redraw the field.

While we keep playing in 2010's etiquette. And yes, independent redistricting commissions are good in theory. I love fairness. As much as the next person, I am a Libra. The blight of my life. But unilateral disarmament doesn't save democracy. If California adds five seats, it just neutralizes the five Texas store. That's not corruption, in my opinion. That's fucking balance.

Let's think of it less like breaking the rules and more like re-stabilizing the playing field after the other side fucking flipped the table like Teresa Gucci or whatever her fuck her name is. These stakes are huge. This isn't just about who represents Austin or Fresno. It's about who runs the House of Representatives and sets the country's agenda going into 2026. I think that sometimes protecting democracy doesn't look polite. It looks like fighting fire with fire.

And we are in a whole new realm of politics now. The Republicans have let us down this dark, dark road. I do not want to be part of the party that watches it happen like a car wreck in slow motion and goes, no, what shall we do? They're cheating. We can't cheat too. We have entered a grim new game of who gets to pick their voters. Mid decade map drawing is the political equivalent of, you know, moving the goal posts at halftime.

Both sides are doing it now. mean, hopefully we do legally and the casualty is fair representation, but at least with Newsom's move, Democrats are not walking into this fight unarmed. That's my take for this week. My guess is that other, this is the bet for the week actually. Let's make it more realistic. Other Republican controlled States are going to attempt to do this.

So we're gonna see how this plays out. Yeah, scary times, my friend, scary times. Our fucking pig of a president met with Vladimir Putin this week, rolled out the red fucking carpet. For him, pretty pissed, if you can't tell. But the best thing that you should know about what happened in politics this week is Gavin Newsom's press team is led by a Hispanic woman, I think she's 29 years old. They have been fucking in it to win it.

I do not think that Gavin Newsom is the only person that should be running as a Democrat in our next election, but she is he positioning himself. We need someone who matches Trump's speech, the way he conducts with people. People respond to a big brass man, even though Trump is cosplaying as all of this. So the most iconic tweet that Gavin Newsom's press team has released, it said,

Hey DT, I know you like them young. enemy of my enemy is my friend, okay? Yeah, that's it for Bad Bets this week. Thank you for tuning in. Join us on Patreon, leave us a comment, submit your likes, ideas, bets. We're gonna do a relationship segment and PowerPoint segment next week. Okay, have a beautiful day, bye.