Chris Bennett Returns! Out of control Feral Pigs! Freedom and a Jerusalem Artichoke Scandal

About this episode

Ag journalist Chris Bennett returns to the podcast for a conversation that opens on feral hog ecology (a fascinating cold-open about America's 5+ million invasive wild pigs, traceable to Spanish conquistador DeSoto, now eating everything from frogs to fawns, requiring a 70%-per-year cull rate that no toxin or bullet campaign has achieved) before pivoting hard into cultural and political territory. Bennett argues the country is being pulled away from its constitutional "moorings" by an expanding list of unchallengeable "sacred cows," singling out the asymmetric treatment of racial slurs versus other insults, and drawing a parallel between anti-racism curricula being pushed into Catholic schools and the way children were used to propagate the Nazi and Maoist regimes. He and Vance discuss whether fleeing to another country (New Zealand, Australia) would escape the trend, concluding it wouldn't — citing Europe's demographic shifts as a preview of what's coming. The conversation moves through media distrust (comparing news anchors to actors reading scripts, and the media's abdication of its watchdog role, illustrated by an unwillingness to criticize George Soros on air), a robust argument for embracing constant social "offense" and mockery as psychologically healthy (contrasting Monty Python's Life of Brian's impossibility today with a defense of edgy comedians like Ryan Long who use algorithm-evading sarcasm), and Bennett's view — which he says he no longer laughs off — that some form of civil conflict, more likely a "whimper" than a "bang," is plausible if trust in institutions like the justice system continues eroding (drawing an explicit parallel to why Afghans "welcomed the Taliban in" once their courts became too corrupt to deliver justice). They discuss COVID mask mandates as revealing a segment of the population that craves government control ("avuncular warmth"), and Bitcoin/crypto as a "privatization of money" parallel to media privatization and Vance's own emphasis on owning direct distribution channels (email lists, RSS) rather than depending on platforms that can "blink out" content. The episode closes on a lengthy, unverified claim-heavy segment about Chinese Communist Party infiltration of US universities via the ~360,000 Chinese students studying in America, referencing the Fang Fang/Eric Swalwell case and ag-seed theft cases, framed as further evidence of institutional vulnerability. They end on the "Jerusalem Artichoke scandal" — a $25-30M early-1980s Minnesota Ponzi scheme that used revival-tent religious theater (two church organs, an unread leather Bible) to defraud desperate farmers.

“You have two options. You're either moving towards something better or something worse. And at present, I feel like we are moving away from the moorings of our constitution... a chain of sacred cows... the list has gotten so long you literally can't ride it out.”

“When you unleash the beast and you allow people to participate in mob rule, you are headed to hell. No other destination.”

“It's not complicated. They know which way those votes will go... you can't run a country like this... if I lived in the Congo or I lived in Guatemala, I would be here in a second with my family. I don't blame these people at all. But the truth is, you simply can't allow the entire world to shift.”

Key moments

• ~2-11%: Feral hog ecology cold open — DeSoto's pigs, cannibalism among hogs, toads found alive inside a hog's stomach, the 70%-per-year cull requirement.
• ~25-30%: The "sacred cows" thesis — asymmetric treatment of slurs vs. other offenses, anti-racism curricula in Catholic schools compared to Nazi/Maoist child indoctrination.
• ~33-38%: Media-as-actors framing; the George Soros on-air taboo as evidence of media's abdicated watchdog role; Bitcoin/crypto as "privatization of money."
• ~40-46%: The case for embracing constant social "offense" as psychologically healthy; Monty Python's Life of Brian couldn't be made today.
• ~47-52%: Civil conflict prediction — "whimper, not a bang" — and the Afghanistan/Taliban justice-vacuum parallel.
• ~57-59%: Mask mandates as revealing a segment craving government "avuncular warmth" / control.
• ~67-73%: Chinese Communist Party university infiltration claims and the Fang Fang/Eric Swalwell case.
• ~87-92%: The Jerusalem Artichoke Ponzi scheme — $25-30M fraud using revival-tent religious theater to target desperate 1980s farmers.

Notable quotes

“The, the anecdotes... you've got a lot of guys that claim... they find other hogs engaged in cannibalism... [a hog eating] 40, 50 toads.”

“Maybe that'll happen with a whimper... I think if anything happens, it'll happen with a whimper.”

“In the headquarters... they had not one but two church organs that would play... get the mood going.”