992: Royals | Skeptical Sunday

23:52And then it's just destroyed forever or not used for what it was before. It's hard to say. Somebody has done the legwork on this, but it's a little bit in the weeds. And I'm glad we're not going to cover that here. Okay. So the costs and benefits, tricky to balance. Then again, look, the U.S. has national parks. We don't need a king or royal family to make sure that those national parks don't go to crap overnight. So maybe I'm missing something there. Another thing that gets talked about a lot is fairness. And with more and more people struggling in the UK, in the US, the monarchy, which is all about privilege and wealth, it gets a lot of flack, and I kind of feel like they might deserve it.

24:25But how do you see the fairness issue? Yeah, I think this is what's making the royals more and more irrelevant and is probably their biggest challenge as a company. And that's essentially what they are, a family company. They're often known as the firm. It sounds all a bit mobster-y. They have a big cult leader, head of the company, and their role is to seem as relevant as possible so that they can continue to bring in money, live lavish lives and lead the Commonwealth. You know, if they lose popularity, people are going to start to look in more detail into the kinds of figures, the money that they are taking.

24:58So they've hit a bit of a snag with current culture because culture took a big move towards progressive politics in recent years. Just look at the way we are now reflecting on the bad behavior of actors and musicians and other celebrities from decades ago. We expect our celebrities to be more clean cut nowadays, to be fair, hardworking, decent individuals. And the same goes for our monarchs. Well, that doesn't work. You see these attempts by Charles to be, for example, an environmentalist. You see William and Harry doing work for mental health charities and asking that we talk more about our mental health.

25:32William is starting a new enterprise now to try to eradicate homelessness. and good on him. I think these are really good things. But the problem is that they're now trying to appeal to the progressive side of the political spectrum. And that's the very side in which a monarchy with a divine birthright and billions of dollars in assets, cash, can't exist. It can't work. So they're in a bit of a bind. If they remain snobbish and aloof, they appear less relevant and less likely to continue receiving funding and support. If they piggyback on the wave of progressive politics. They alienate the traditionalists who are the only ones who would support the idea of a royal family.

26:08That is a bind. That is an interesting point. So what can they do? Is this eventually going to be the end of the royal family? I just can't see how they stay relevant forever. I mean, so far so good, but still as an American, it's so tempting to want to just check the sell by date on concepts like divine birthright when we're essentially, again, we're talking about inbred Germans at the end of the day. I'm sure the traditionalists love it when I say things like that, too. That's probably deeply insulting, but whatever. I don't know, Harry. Yeah. Well, I don't know. Maybe even they can joke about that.

26:41I'm sure there are jokes about the German heritage and things like that. And maybe even, I don't know, I would love to be a fly on the wall, but I don't know if they're joking about the sort of rumors of incestuous lineage. I think that all royal families are slightly inbred because they aim to maintain that pure blood, not to get all Harry Potter or Nazi about it. but also to get the sort of tactical collusions between different countries, it was strategic. So all the royals were intermarrying. Prince Albert, who married Queen Victoria in the 1800s, was German, which is where a lot of the German talk comes from.

27:13And the late Prince Philip, who was married to the Queen, Queen Elizabeth II, was also part German, part Greek. So the whole German thing happened with that. And it's become a sort of running joke, I guess. I don't know how funny they find it, the royal family. A lot of people speculated that the whole thing would gradually disintegrate after the death of the Queen. She was such a figurehead and a symbol of constancy and longevity for people that even the most fervent anti-monarchists weren't too bothered about her being there, you know, at the end. They sort of had a respect for her. If you look at the obituaries of Queen Elizabeth II, well, very few knew very much about her personality, or if she even had one outside of what we projected onto her.

27:54People spoke all the time of her being very funny. She had this amazing sense of humor. But I think that was more out of surprise because she was so stern looking. She wasn't exactly Seinfeld. We grasped at personality traits that we wanted her to have. And I think that was deliberate, perhaps on her part. She knew she was a symbol, the head of a country, a figurehead that while the country was divided by politics and ever-changing political landscape and the fear of change and technology, she remained ever present. So her obituaries were all about her dedication, her duty, her longevity. She was simply there.

28:33Okay. I do have stuff to say about that, but how is that fair though? She was simply born into ridiculous money and went around in like a gold fricking chariot while many of her subjects struggle to put food on the table. I mean, it's a little gross. It just, it's a little gross. Yeah, you're absolutely right. And it's not fair. I agree with you. The monarchy is all about privilege. It's all about who you're born to. A lot of people see that as unfair, as you and I do. But I think that most people were patient and understanding of that, providing that the queen remained apolitical, kept herself to herself, performed her duties and held up this stiff upper lip in times of adversity.

29:13Then for a lot of Brits, she was a connection to history, a symbol of who they are as a nation. But for that to work, she had to remain stoic, a bit boring, a bit sullen and stern, as I say, and somehow otherworldly, like she's not a real person. She was this sort of grandma figure for the whole country, and she was always there. And then one day she wasn't. I think if you want to see how quickly that can turn, look to Prince Harry and Meghan Markle. Reports from polls recently showed Meghan at minus 47 points popularity and Harriet minus 36. For perspective, Princess Anne, who most people don't know who that is, is at plus 60.

29:53They love her. Prince William is at 57, plus 57. And his wife Kate is at plus 59. It's so funny. It's like, I just have no clue who most of these people are. I do know, of course, who Kate and William are, but Anne and some of the other folks, I just, I feel like I've never heard of them before this show. Meanwhile, Harry and Meghan are like the most talked about couple in the United States anyway, of the last year or two. I feel like a lot of the people think that maybe they're disliked because of racism, because I guess Meghan is mixed race, which, what do you say to that? By the way, I heard the term mixed race.

30:30That is polite in the US, but I've told it's racist to say that that way in the UK. Is that correct? I don't think so. Who told you that? Somebody was like, you can't say that. You have to say Hoff. And I'm like, what? But what if they're not half? What if they're like a quarter? That doesn't make any sense. No, no, you can't say half. You can't say half. The old word was half cast, which is now not allowed. That sounds not good. Okay, so this person just had it backwards completely because half sounds not right at all to me. They were trying to get you in trouble. I think so. I think so. Or maybe this is an Australian telling me that, not a UK.

31:00I don't know. Now I'm curious what Australians say. Good, I might. Although do we look to Australia as bastions of polite society? I don't know, I might. Yeah, yeah. Look, the racism thing is very possible. I'm just doing my Australian accent. Very possible. I think it is very possible. Plausible even. It's unusual to have ethnic minorities of any kind in the royal family. And it is something that the press have picked up on. In fact, in another poll, 50 % of British journalists said they believe there has been some racist coverage of Meghan. One example was a reference to her exotic DNA. Cringe.

31:35Another example often... Yeah, it's cringe. Cringe. Yeah, cringe and horrible. Another example often touted is journalist Sarah Vine in the Daily Mail, whose headline was, yes, they're joyfully in love. So why do I have a niggling feeling? Oh, niggling worry, I think it was about this in the picture. So deliberate. Yeah. Yikes. If it is, it's just like the worst thing ever. But maybe it's not. But maybe it is. And it's the worst thing ever. So I don't know. Yeah. Yeah. So another one, this one was a little bit awkward, right? It's going to sound bad at first, but this one was, I actually believe, the guy.

32:08It was a former BBC personality or presenter, Danny Baker, who tweeted a photo of royals holding a chimpanzee when baby Archie, that's Meghan and Harry's son, was born. But Danny had previously tweeted photos comparing all the members of the royals to zoo animals. He found it funny to suggest that royals were like chimps. He said the photo of a chimp dressed as a lord was a way of lampooning privilege and the racist elements hadn't crossed his mind. It's so bad that I almost believe him because otherwise it's so bad that he's... You've got a guy with like no history of saying particularly controversial things, particularly nothing like racist or anything like that, who suddenly tweets out this photo of the royal family with a chimp.

32:52So he said, like this is a quote, in attempting to lampoon privilege and the news cycle, I went to a file of goofy pictures and saw the chimp dressed as a lord and thought, that's the one. Had I kept searching, I might have chosen General Tom Thumb or even a baby in a crown, but I didn't. God knows I wish I had. Minutes later, I was alerted by followers that this royal baby was, of course, mixed race and waves of panic and revulsion washed over me. What had I done? It was a genuine, naive and catastrophic mistake. So I guess only he'll know what his intentions were. He instantly deleted the tweet and apologized, but was fired immediately by the BBC.

33:31Yeah, lost his job, never got back to the same standing. But vilified, because I think a lot of people just go, I don't care what he says. Yeah. But he does raise an interesting point because many people, including me, had no idea that Meghan was of mixed heritage until that tweet. It seems mad to think that now. It does. I honestly just, when I first saw her, I just thought she was like really tan, which I know could get me cancelled even saying that. She's beautiful. I didn't, but it didn't occur to me that I just don't pay enough attention. I just thought she was very, like Dan or dark skin, I have no, I had no idea.

34:03God. Oh my God. I agree. She's clearly a very beautiful woman. And I lived in South America for like eight years. Could be South America, could be Latina, could be Jewish. I got a lot of Jewish friends who look like that. And it turns out she's mixed race, you know, fine. But I believe this guy when he says that he didn't know. It's too awful. Why else would he do that? Yeah, it's just too awful to have been anything other than a mistake if he hasn't been like flirting with white nationalism his entire career. And this was the final step right then it's like okay buddy you got your just desserts but it sounds like he was just naive to the point of torpedoing his own career my goodness which some people would say is problematic which is a word i don't like to use i know some people would say well that's an issue then if you didn't know you need to be more connected you need to actively know that doing that has been done in the past and that megan is mixed right you need to know these things i wouldn't say that but i think some people would argue that point you know what i mean I do.

34:57I mean, he's a journalist, right? So it's almost like you shouldn't just be willy nilly. But then again, it's just really that was a minefield and he found himself in the middle of it and he didn't he made a misstep and he couldn't find his way out. That's what that was. I mean, I guess that's what it looks like from the context you've given me. Yeah. So I don't want people to be like, you're justified. I'm not. I'm just saying, holy crap. If it was an accident, which it looks like it might be, I really feel for the guy. The royals have the same issue, though. Like, they can't do anything at all without also having that same level of scrutiny applied to them in a very unfair and ridiculous way.

35:30Well, that is true. But then a lot of the other accusations of media racism revolve around comparisons between Meghan and Kate, who is, of course, white. And when Kate eats an avocado, it's like, look at this brilliant person who's eating an avocado. It's a fantastic new age idea. You should all eat avocados, too. And when Meghan eats an avocado, it's like, she's killing the rainforest. Boris, don't you know what? And there's like loads of pictures of that. So there definitely is some of that. But then then you've got to go, well, OK, is that racism or is that to do with the different behaviors of Kate and Meghan?

35:58Or is it somewhere in between? Yeah. Oh, God, it's hard to know which is just racism or just some bias held by the press or just whoever's polling that week is viewed with a rose colored glasses or vice versa. Oh, gosh, I don't envy these people at all. As rich as they are, I still don't I still would never want to be in their shoes, honestly. Yeah, well, so that's the thing, you know, going back to my point about the queen and duty and all of these things. It's the fact that we don't mind people having immense privilege, providing that they are aloof, otherworldly, distant, and you're just weird little things that don't seem like real people.

36:34Kate performs that role, you know, to perfection. She's almost inhuman. I don't think I'd want to be friends with Kate. I don't think you can. I mean, even if you were in that circle, I don't think, are they even allowed to have normal friendship and interaction? Wasn't that kind of the complaint? No, I think they do, but it's all like a little bit, the word incestuous keeps popping into my head now, but it's all just very Etonian, as in they went to Eton College, the poshest school in the world. I don't think Kate did, by the way. And she was called in the papers when she started, there was a lot about her family not being quite as posh, even though they're much posher than the vast majority of the country, but not as posh as the rest of the royals.

37:11So I think for her, it was about showing how posh and graceful she can look as though she was an Eton college whatever, whereas for Meghan, it was a whole different thing. So Kate turns up, she does all of her duties. These are charities, events, galas, whatever it is. And she smiles and curtsies and remains apolitical, stiff upper lip, and so on. She retained a dignified silence, even when the press invaded her privacy, as they did Many times I think there were photos of her naked sunbathing somewhere, and she didn't say anything. And I'm not saying that that's an admirable trait or a good way to act.

37:44I don't think we should encourage people to be so boring and just go, okay, well, I don't mind. I just think that people in general don't mind that privilege of the royals so much in those cases. William is the same. Harry, on the other hand, has for years been stumbling drunk out of parties. He dressed up as a Nazi. Oh, yeah, that was cute. He released a book now about his own victimhood. Now, these are things that if a friend of mine did it, it's like, oh, you, what have you done? But people don't then want to look at this super rich person who's born into wealth and see somebody claiming they're a victim.

38:16And I read that book, Spare, and it's full of scenes where he complains and moans about how hard things were for him. And they were hard. His mum died and the paparazzi were all over him. But it makes him seem more human and flawed. and that makes people realize how privileged he is. He's no longer this sort of ghostly queen character. He's like a real person who sees himself as a victim and is complaining. There's a scene in the book when he's at Eton College, the world's poshest high school, looking out the window and he's telling us, the reader, how lucky everyone outside that window was compared to him.

38:50Well, Eton is a beautiful college and a beautiful place, but it's surrounded by low-income areas such as Slough and Staines. That's where - Those just sound like low-income areas. Those have been low-income areas for centuries, but given the name, right? Those are unbeautiful names. Slough was the chosen location of the British office, the original sitcom, The Office, because it sounds so dull and boring. That's the whole point. It does. So that was Slough. And Staines, that was Ali G, Sacha Baron Cohen. His first character was Ali G, and he was from Staines. So again, these were places chosen for that.

39:22They're right outside Eton. People are sometimes struggling. By the way, I don't want to say that everybody in those places is difficult for them. It's just that they're not the same as Eton. So people are sometimes struggling to put food on the table for their families, and they're being told by the prince that they're lucky compared to him. That's like big let them eat cake vibes, hearing something like that. Are these places dangerous? Because Ali G, I remember that's when he had the do-rag and like the ridiculously loud clothes, and he used all these improper phrasing and didn't know what words meant, and was basically like super ghetto gangster talking and looking guy, but UK version.

39:58Yeah, I think they might have been some time ago. I don't know how it is right now. And also, I wouldn't want to. Your reach on the Jordan Harbinger show is so large that just saying that could actually reduce house prices further there. So I don't want to. Well, I just wonder, is it like South Central LA where it's like, do not even drive through there? Or is it like, yeah, you don't want to buy a house there, but you could go eat in the neighborhood and leave and it's fine. I think it's a second option there, but certainly people who Harry shouldn't be envying. He was envying them because they don't have police escorts everywhere.

40:27And I do understand that point. They can live their life without that privacy invasion. But I wish in the book he just at times, because I agree with him about that, I just wish that at times he said, however, I do understand that I was born with immense privilege and that it must be very difficult for these people in another way. And he doesn't say that. There's another scene in the book that frustrated me in a similar way where he was out in South Africa doing some press or something with his dad. And he hates the press because he thinks they killed his mom. And I get that as well. He happens to be with the Spice Girls because they were on the same sort of tour.

41:00I don't know why the Spice Girls and the Royals are touring together, but they just were in the nineties. And the Spice Girls, he sort of describes them, he sneers at them and he's like, oh, look at them, the way they were just fawning over the cameras and blah, blah, blah. But the Spice Girls were mostly working class women who had to work extremely hard by flaunting it, by dancing, by singing, and they were talented at what they did. And Harry, meanwhile, is this guy, obviously, he was a kid at the time when he was getting photographed with them. But now as an adult, he's looking back and he's unable to realize like the immense privilege he had compared to them.

41:31So that frustrated me a little bit. So with Meghan, it's a similar backlash for what is perceived as an attempt to play the victimhood card. That's what South Park was suggesting about her as well. And I think that inspires in the public a sense of competition. It's like, look, you can't compete with the queen or the king for status, money, and power. So you just see them as like some different league. But by making victimhood the key part of their strategy, Meghan and Harry brought themselves down to our level. And we can all compete for victimhood. We love to compete for victimhood, right? And we don't want to hear it from people with a combined wealth exceeding anything most of us can ever imagine earning.

42:08Speaking of casual racism, How about a word from our sponsors? We'll be right back. Thank you for listening and supporting the show. It is your support of our sponsors that keeps us going. All the deals, discount codes, and ways to support the show are at jordanharbinger.com slash deals. You can search for any sponsor using the search box on the website as well. Please consider supporting those who support the show. Now for the rest of Skeptical Sunday. That's a really good point. You're either, yes, I exist in a completely different plane and that's the way it is and yada yada royal family or you play the victim card as they've chosen to do but it's really hard to do that credibly when you're hanging out with Oprah and you have your bodyguards flying you on private jets and stuff like that because of the paparazzi it's like you're not going to get in the weeds and win on that one when somebody's like yeah I'm a single mom with four kids that I can't really feed without food stamps and they didn't arrive in the mail or like whatever you're just never going to get there and do it in a credible way.

43:12And they're still being paid pretty damn good money too. I presume Harry's got some money already, as does Meghan from her acting, maybe not millions and millions, but probably. And then it's got to have just skyrocketed with their recent deals, right? They've had a Netflix thing. They had a podcast thing. Do you have the details on that? Yeah, yeah, that's right. And a big recent furore was around whether Harry could get the royals to pay for his security whenever he was in the UK. And his father, Charles, was like, we're not doing it. You left us and you've got to make your own way. They were paid$100 million in 2020 to produce series, documentaries, and children's shows for Netflix.

43:47They were also paid $20 million by Spotify to make podcasts. And Harry got$20 million for his book Spare, which I read so you don't have to, as I like saying. He made this whole thing about his privacy being invaded. And then he wrote this book, impinging upon the privacy of pretty much everyone he ever encountered in great detail. At least when it's the press doing it, it's like, okay, Harry can shut the door and ideally they're not going to hack his phones, which he's saying they did and they might have done. But this is like detail about the person he first had sex with and what was going on.

44:17Like only he could know that. And like details about his dad doing like handstands. He did these weird headstands or handstands just in his underwear in the house and stuff like that. And he's supposed to be this elderly statesman. And now we're reading this in Harry's book. So the impinging upon privacy stuff was just mad. Come on, Andrew. how's a brother supposed to get by on a measly 140 million dollars and plus whatever they'd saved from their previous careers as a-list celebrities slash royals pay for your own damn bodyguards look they're expensive but 140 million dollars yeah that can go a long way i feel like you could get by on the interest on that even if you needed millions of dollars worth of security it's ludicrous it's unfathomable yeah imagine that just a few millions done okay you don't have to worry about my life anymore.

45:03And he's got hundreds. It's ridiculous. And as for duty, that's the other thing about, God, I'm starting to rant a bit here. And I don't mean to because I want to be a neutral, skeptical Sunday person. But duty, obviously, that being important to the Queen and the King and Prince William, they were supposed to make several films, Harry and Meghan, for Netflix as part of the$100 million deal. And they made one. It's been three years. They've made one film. And it's not like they're the filmmakers who have to go and get the cameras and get the, how are we going to get the acoustic panels in the studio on the wall and stuff?

45:33It's just like sit on the sofa and talk for 20 minutes and somebody else will do all the work and make the documentary for you. Like show up is the thing you have to do. Show up vaguely knowing who you're about to talk to and try to make it interesting. That's it. Yeah. Just didn't do it. Right. They were supposed to make many podcasts as well and podcast episodes. They made like one series in three years again, and it had about 10 episodes. So again, you know, I look at what you've done, Jordan, and what I've done. We're in the hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of these episodes where, at least from the start, we're doing every single part of it.

46:07And this is why I'm bitter. I started to get bitter because we're doing every part of it. And then I'm being told that they're victims. It's rumored that Megan didn't even deign to interview the low-status individuals on her podcast. That was done by producers. That's alleged anyway. The podcast head of innovation at Spotify has come out incredibly and publicly stated that Harry and Megan are effing grif. Can we swear? This is Bill Simmons from The Ringer. So he's a well-known sports personality and he's like the head of development or something at Spotify and podcasting. I'm not exactly sure his position, but yeah, he said they're f***ing grifters.

46:44Yeah. But it wasn't like, oh, they're freaking grifters. He's like, there's a bunch of f***ing grifters. Like he was fired up. Yeah. Because they don't do any work. And it's like either stick with the royal family and just do your thing. Or if you want to be taken seriously, go out there and work really hard and people will respect it. She just got given the world's most famous people to be on her show. Any other podcaster, and I bet there are a lot of podcasters in your audience and a lot of people who are looking to make TV series and things like that. How difficult that is when you're starting the first episodes, trying to get guests to come on, stuff like that.

47:18Look, I'm not saying that Harry and Meghan are evil or bad people even, And I think they're actually right about a lot of the things that they're upset about. They have a cause to be upset. The point is that they've made it so that you can compare yourself with them. They brought themselves down to our level. And now it's like open season. We all feel like we didn't get these starts that they got and they call themselves victims. Whereas Kate, Williams Kate, for all I know, you know, she eats babies. I don't know what she does. She might murder whoever. But she lives on a different planet from me.

47:48She's not telling me that she's had it harder than me. I don't even care. You know, I don't know about her aspirations, ambitions. I wouldn't say I have a lot of respect for her or William or any of these people. And perhaps they don't have ambitions and aspirations. And that's probably a good thing. Yeah, there's no point. Why bother? Yeah, just you live your life. Do your thing. You're a princess or you're a prince. You're a king, a queen. Do your thing. Charles, William, you know, who are these people? Who cares? So I think that's why Meghan and Harry get so much bad press. They made it so that they're competing with the rest of us.

48:16Yeah, I can't imagine starting a podcast and they're like, oh, who do you want to interview? Barack Obama, Oprah, maybe you could have like Jay-Z to spice things up a little bit. I don't know. What about The Rock? Yeah, I don't know. Just name whoever you want, Elton John or something like that, and they'll drop everything and they'll make it work for your podcast. We're going to pay you$20 million. Maybe you do like 36 episodes and you do - 10. Yeah. And they're like, nah, we'll do 10, but we're going to like mail it in. And then I don't know if I want to write these TV shows. And by right, I mean, sit in a room while other people flip ideas at me and I approve them and then do some voiceover or whatever.

48:57It's crazy. Who was your first guest? Do you remember? Oh gosh, like 16 years ago. No, I don't remember. You don't remember your first ever guest? No, no, no, no. On this new show, it was Frank Abagnale from Catch Me If You Can. Oh wow. But I'd already been podcasting for 11 years by then. So it's not like I just called Frank abagnale who turned out to be a scammer by the way like his whole story is a lie it was a scammer pretending to be frank open no no so frank abagnale of catch me if you can but that movie right he's that big scammer and he goes through that whole thing and now he's like a consultant turns out none of that ever happened he just lied about it he was like a petty criminal and it's all bullshit that's amazing though isn't it that's almost better it should be the final scene when leo climbs out of the airplane toilet and it's just like by the way none of this happened There's a director's cut waiting to happen where at the end he's like, hey, that whole thing you just saw never happened.

49:47Yeah, so the whole thing, he never worked the FBI. Like, it's all bullshit. It's just all bullshit. The whole thing about him being this prolific scammer is also just a scam. He was in jail for check fraud during most of the time that he said all of these other things happened. Wow, that's amazing. And he won't talk about it. I'm not surprised. My first guest was Nate Phelps, who was the son of Gramps Phelps from the Westbro Baptist Church. Oh, well, I mean, that's a decent one, too. It's no Oprah. No, it's about finding people, I suppose, who are not like super famous, but the things they've done are pretty like insane.

50:20And everyone knows the things they've done are famous, but they're not famous. And those people are who you can get at the very beginning. There you go. OK, so all this controversy nonsense, has that been good for the monarchy? Because it looks bad if you're in the monarchy and you're old and you're like, we want everything to be completely stayed and tried and true. but also they thrive on the drama and publicity. So because people have been so put off by the showiness of Meghan and Harry, have they sided maybe more with the royal family? And it's like, oh, I'm more sympathetic towards these people who maybe I didn't like so much before.

50:53Could there be a resurgence in public goodwill towards the royals in life even beyond the queen? Basically, they're almost like a foil character now that puts the other one where you're like, God, I just missed when they were boring and not embarrassing the crap out of everybody. Yeah, yeah. I think that's definitely true. And I definitely have, whenever I've criticized Meghan and Harry, I've definitely had people going, oh, right. And you think the Royals are perfect. And it's like, what? No. Cool straw man. You know, it's become this real tribal thing. You've got to be one or the other instead of thinking the whole thing is just bananas, which I do think.

51:23So I think so. And I don't know if it's necessarily a good thing for the Royals, the whole Meghan. And, you know, my enemy's enemy is my friend, that kind of thing. It's hard to know how that's going to play out in the long term. People see Charles perhaps as a victim of a deserting son, that could help, rather than the short-tempered mean man, which he appears to be. He's also, you know, he's meddlesome, having gotten involved with former Prime Minister Tony Blair, writing secret letters to one another. It's a huge faux pas for the royals, and he doesn't come across, King Charles III this is, he doesn't come across well in the Netflix series The Crown, where he is portrayed as this cold, conniving antagonist.

52:01So Megxit or the exit of Meghan and Harry might have helped Charles and taken the attention away from that portrayal of him in The Crown. But whether The Crown can continue, I mean, the real life royals, not the TV series, remains to be seen. I just have to slow clap for the term Megxit. That is chef's kiss perfect. That's so funny. I've never heard that before. Yeah, it wasn't mine. I think it's been talked about a lot in the UK papers and stuff after Brexit. Man, that's hysterical. God, that's funny. We do that with words, don't we? Like, you know, Watergate or whatever. Suddenly everything's a gate.

52:34Now everything in England is a zit. Yeah. Well, you remember when the iPhone, the new iPhones were bendable, if you put them in your back pocket and sat down, they would sometimes bend and they called it Bendghazi. And it was like, it's still just so tragic, but funny. The actual Bendghazi was tragic. Like anyone gives a crap about the iPhone design. It's like, this is such a big deal. We have to name it. Yeah, that's it. That's it. Look, Some really value the tradition and heritage that the monarchy stands for, and for them, it's a key part of being British. Others see the monarchy as something old-fashioned, something that doesn't fit with today's democratic values.

53:10They'd rather the UK was a republic. What the public thinks can also change depending on how popular different members of the royal family are. Personally, I'm not one way or the other. To me, they're just sort of their existing. It doesn't bother me, although it is mildly ridiculous. One thing I'll always remember is the comedian and public intellectual Stephen Fry, of whom I'm a great fan, speaking about the royals. He always has something interesting to say at a different angle or outlook. Countries, that's how he talks, countries that have kings and queens, I won't do the whole impression, which are rationally stupid, weird ideas, are empirically freer and more socially just than countries that don't.

53:49Look at social justice, happiness, and equality in the world, and you're thinking Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Britain, and Holland. I'm not saying, therefore, you must have a king or queen in order to be free. Having one doesn't stop you from being freer, from being opener. These are very open societies, Denmark and Sweden and Norway in particular. And so similarly, I'm not necessarily in favour of separation of church and state. I come from a country, the UK, where church and state are absolutely like that, and it's the most secular society I've ever experienced. It has the highest level of atheism anywhere.

54:25In America, they have separation of church and state, and 74 % of Americans think angels walk on the earth. Wow. Okay. I didn't know that. I wonder if that, is that stat true, 74 %? Because that's a lot, that's high. That's too high. That's what Stephen said. And it's a bit of a dig in America, but I suppose what Fry is saying is that the monarchy might be considered one of those mad, irrational things that actually helps in some ways. Have you given much thought as to why that might be? Yeah, well, firstly, we have to consider that it might be a coincidence that these free or so-called free democratic secular societies all have royalty.

55:01Perhaps it says something about the age of the countries that have had centuries to work out what their ideals and philosophies are. Maybe due to the tribal nature of humans, having a head of state who is essentially powerless, but nonetheless a symbol, one we can't choose but are just sort of stuck with, just sort of works. It can be said to take some symbolic power away from politicians. The head of state in, say, the US is Biden or Trump or George W. Bush or Clinton. And these are all divisive figures, but also revered figures. I'm just thinking about how, like, road street signs are named after presidents and things like that.

55:38They can sometimes be celebrated and hated in equal measure just for being these elected figures. Whereas I think we're more likely in the UK to have a royal family member, you know, King George Avenue or something like that. We would never have a prime minister's name in a street sign. It sort of takes away that symbolic power of the politicians. Again, pointing to our tribal nature, it's possible that if you have a president, so a head of state who appears to be particularly conservative, you might then in response become a bit more liberal and vice versa. But you don't need to respond to the Queen, because nobody knew what she supported anyway.

56:13She was this empty slate onto which we projected our own desires. This is just conjecture. But with church and state, the reality is that religious beliefs have a very limited effect on laws in real life in the UK, where things like abortion are legal and not even questioned, really, even by the religious right. But the head of state is King Charles III, and he is the head of the Church of England. So there's no getting away from that. It's weird. The Church of England even has 26 bishops in the House of Lords. So they do have a vote on certain policies. It gets complicated because the Church of England's role is limited to England.

56:49So there are different heads of churches in Scotland, for example. And they sort of invented the Church of England, right? Take us through that little bit of history with Henry VIII, he kind of literally made up a religion so he could get divorced from the sound of it. That's right. In that sense, I suppose he was an old-fashioned L. Ron Hubbard, the science fiction writer who made up Scientology. Henry VIII did make up the Church of England to get out of his marriage to annul it with Catherine of Aragon, which sounds like a Lord of the Rings character. It definitely does. That's some Game of Thrones nomenclature there.

57:23Catherine of Aragon. I'll take you back, Jordan, to the roaring 20s, the 1520s. Everybody smelled bad, had rotting teeth, which is also like Scientology founder L1 Hubbard. As he hated and feared dentists, his teeth rotted into his face. That's why he talks funny, huh? I knew he, because he talks a little bit like, and I was like, why does he do that with his teeth? Yuck. That's also like an old worldy thing, because that's like Marlon Brando in The Godfather with the stuff in his, he put stuff in his face, didn't he, like a chipmunk. So he would talk like. Yeah, that's right. He did talk funny, but I don't know if, maybe, but was it because his teeth were rotting into his face because he didn't go to the dentist?

57:58I don't know. I'm going to make you a proposition. Yeah, something like that. But yeah, the 1520s, Henry VIII has been married at that time for 20 years, which is a long time actually, to Catherine of Aragon, and she's just not giving him a male heir at all. She's just not done it. And also he fancies Anne Boleyn. So Henry sought the Pope's permission to annul his marriage or Catherine, arguing that their marriage had been invalid from the start because Catherine had previously been married to his late older brother, Arthur. There we get all the inbred stuff as well. However, the Pope refused to grant the annulment.

58:35In response, Henry decided to break with the Catholic Church. He pursued a series of acts known as the Acts of Supremacy, which were passed by Parliament in 1534 and declared Henry to be the supreme head on earth of the Church of England, and lovely big Scientology kind of name as well. This effectively created a separate Church of England and severed its ties to the Pope and the Catholic Church. Henry was then able to get his marriage to Catherine annulled by the newly independent Church of England, and he married Anne Boleyn. This move had far-reaching consequences and marked the beginning of the English Reformation.

59:11Wow. I mean, wow. He must have had a hell of a crush on Annie B. Also, the Pope lost a ton, T-O-N-N-E, of power by refusing to bend the rules for this one. I have to say, I think I almost admire that level of conviction from the Pope. And I'm a little surprised by it because he had to be like, huh, this entire country and royal family is going to leave if I don't let him slide on this one thing. Nope. These are the rules. Yeah. Good on him. He's thinking the same thing. I want to get a divorce. I'm not doing it. I don't know if the Pope can get married. I doubt it. Seems like a priest thing. Oh, yeah.

59:46It's worth noting, though, that while Henry's desire to divorce Catherine was a major catalyst for these events, I'm talking about the English Reformation that it sparked, there were other factors at play, including political considerations and wider dissatisfaction with the Catholic Church at that time. But this all led to the English Civil War. And the only time that England didn't have a monarchy from 1649 to 1660. Anyway, they're back, maybe for good. And so for the moment, England, the monarchy and the religion are intrinsically linked, and you can't have one without the other two. So was that the only time ever that England was a republic?

1:00:24How did they get rid of the monarchy for a decade? I have my suspicions. It sounds like somebody got the axe, literally. Yes. Well, I love this story, actually, because even British people, we grow up and we hear about the American Civil War, And we don't even know there's a British one or an English one or whatever it is that most people don't realize. And it was a big part of our history. So it was the parliamentarians, which is a bit of a mouthful. They fought against the royalists. You can imagine on what side they were on. And the parliamentarians executed King Charles I in 1649, at which point Lord Protector, that's a name he gave himself, Oliver Cromwell, took charge.

1:01:03Charles II, the son of Charles I, after Charles I was executed, famously hid in an oak tree to avoid capture by the parliamentarians and fled to France and then the Spanish Netherlands, which sounds like a made-up country, and then the Dutch Republic. They all sound like... I don't know if you ever had that when you went to restaurants when you were a kid and you could get the cup and put Sprite and Coke and all the different drinks all together in one drink. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, because you control the fountain. That's the Spanish... That's the Spanish Netherlands in my mind. But yeah, that all happened.

1:01:37Is it a giant oak tree or was this like a little boy at the time? I don't think he was that young at the time. It's a big old oak tree. So that was in 1651. It was the Battle of Worcester, which I challenge any American to pronounce, to spell, I should say, because it's spelled like Worcester. W-O-R-C-E-S-T-E-R. You know it. You know it. We have Worcestershire sauce. Ah, right. So. Exactly. okay so you do know that and it was a big thing with Leicester City which is the soccer team who won the Premier League a few years ago and it was a similar spelling you mean Leicester is what it looks like exactly exactly so Charles II was 21 years old so it was a big oak tree yeah big oak although back then 1649 21 years old he could have been like four foot two and been quite a normal yeah size for that era I would imagine maybe trees were also shorter who knows yeah I don't know if that's how trees work, but definitely how people work for sure.

1:02:34All right. So those do sound like, by the way, the Spanish Netherlands definitely sounds like a made up. It sounds like me bullshitting a geography test in high school. Ah, yes, the Canadian Mexicalifornians and their revolution back in Swedish Denmark. I know it well. Yeah, I love that. Well, it's funny because, you know, since it's so far back in history, this civil war and the parliamentary uprising is seen as, you know, just a time without a king, time as a republic. But it was really a military dictatorship of sorts, sparked by a military coup. When Oliver Cromwell, that was the Lord Protector, remember, when he died, his son Richard took over, and he didn't have much of a passion for the whole thing.

1:03:16So Parliament reconvened, and they decided, like, hey, we need a monarch to unite the country again and gain stability. And they invited Charles II back to the throne. Interesting that they tried what sounds a little bit like democracy and they were like, oh, this is a mess. What we need is one guy just telling everybody what to do. That would be a lot easier. It seems like you, it's hard to put that toothpaste back in the tube, I guess. If I'm Charles II though, I would assume it's a trick. I'd be a little suspicious if I barely survived by hiding in an oak tree after they killed my dad. And it's like, no, really come back.

1:03:50Look, that whole thing with us killing your dad, that was just politics, mate. You know how it is. All right. So in a sense, the whole of modern England today and Stephen Fry and you and all those people, you owe a great debt to an oak tree. So that's what it, obviously that story seems apocryphal and never really happened. Who knows? Who knows what might've happened though, if Charles II had been killed by the parliamentarians, maybe you'd still be a Republic. And maybe that would have been a less objectionable government to the American colonies because it's, I don't know, sort of democracy-ish and well, maybe we would have had the same colour passport.

1:04:25Where did all the king stuff start anyway? Who was the first king of England? The title of first king of England is typically attributed, or attributed, I should say, to Alfred the Great, king of Wessex, who reigned from 871 or 871 to 899, so the late 9th century. Although Alfred never formally held the title of king of England, his defense of his kingdom against the Viking invasion led him to become the dominant ruler of England or ruler in England, I should say. He was the dominant ruler because at the time it was lots of kingdoms. So it was actually Athelstan, Alfred's grandson. And that A at the beginning of Athelstan is spelt with like a capital A with an E joined onto it for some reason.

1:05:13That looks Old English-y to me. Yeah, I want people who are listening to be able to hear the Old Englishness of that. You guys still use that in the word encyclopedia, don't you? We don't use it. We drop that. We do. It's that E sound. And you're right, but it's not joint like that. Or maybe it is in capital letters, and that's why it looks so old-worldy to me. I've never seen them joint. It's just a hemoglobin or whatever. And, well, pedophilia in English is pedophilia. It's that E sound that you guys do an E for, like pedophile, pedophile. I'll stop saying that word now. Oh, you use that in the word pedophile?

1:05:43So it's like pedophile or like encyclopedia? It's like a way of signifying that it's an E sound for us, I guess. It's weird. Huh. It's probably like from Germanic. I'm going with Greek. I bet it comes with the two dots over it in other languages, right? It's probably the A with the two dots over it. Possibly, but the German A with two dots on it is an E sound. Yeah. But it could be like another thing. Someone's listening right now who's a linguist going, you idiots, how do you not know? Yeah, tearing their freaking hair out. And they're like, this guy says he speaks German. It's not E, it's E.

1:06:17Come on. Yeah, read a bloody encyclopedia, if you're idiots. Exactly. Numb skulls. Anyway, Athelstan, Alfred's grandson, who is generally considered the first king to rule over a united England. His reign began in 924, and by 927, he had secured control over all the English kingdoms of his time, which often included regions not part of modern England, like parts of southern Scotland. Scotland. This is why Athelstan is often referred to as the first king of England He reigned until his death in 939 I love all this stuff Under Athelstan's rule, England began to take the shape of a unified, coherent nation With its own discrete identity As opposed to a loosely related collection of different regional kingdoms Historians consider him really pretentious Because all sorts of coins and things give him titles Like from the time, give him titles He didn't have like King of Britain and there were a few other like mad ones.

1:07:17I thought, you know, savior of the universe, I made that one up. But before him and before his grandfather, it was just a sort of bunch of Vikings and Scots and Anglo-Saxons and other tribes messing about really. And here we are more than a thousand years later with the royal family intact, save for a brief 11 year period as a republic. That's kind of amazing. And even without Elizabeth II, it doesn't show any signs of slowing down, at least nothing overt or of people losing interest, certainly. They still take up lines and lines of gossip columns in a way that other monarchies really don't. I mean, I couldn't tell you the last time I read anything about other kings.

1:07:55I guess Mohammed bin Salman in Saudi Arabia for different reasons. I'm not like curious what he wore to the Met Gala or on vacation. It's more like, oh, he murdered these people or is not delivering petroleum anymore. It's more like that stuff. So why do you think that is? How does the British monarchy compared to other royal families? Yeah, that's an interesting question. I mean, the British royal family is definitely one of the most well-known, probably the most well-known, but there are monarchies all over the world, each with their own level of power and influence. Some, like in Japan, are mostly symbolic, a link to their country's past.

1:08:29In other places like Monaco, or as you say, you know, Saudi Arabia, but Monaco's got quite a famous one as well, the monarchy there. These monarchies are sort of in charge. And maybe the British monarchy is sort of right in between that, where they still have enough influence to be somehow socio-politically relevant, but aren't scary enough to actually make a tangible difference. History plays a part too. Remember that the British Empire was the largest empire of all time, I believe. And one of the first things it indoctrinated its new subjects with were God save the king, God save the queen, all that royal stuff.

1:09:05Combine that with the fact that the English language is so well spoken across the globe, partly because of you guys. And then there are the big sensationalist characters like Henry VIII, the Queen, as in the Queen, which was Queen Elizabeth II for us, Queen Victoria, Charles and Diana, Harry and Meghan. They're also one of the longest, almost continuous outside of that English Civil War time, monarchies in the world. And they know how to put on a good show with pomp and ceremony. And the occasional dramatic disaster, I suppose. And I'm not making light of that. Actually, they've dealt with quite a bit of tragedy.

1:09:40And it is sad to see that happen in public when there are kids involved and things like that, especially with Diana. That was just awful. And I assume part of Harry's rationale for wanting out. Well, there you have it. You may not agree with the concept of the royal family. You may not like them or their ridiculous hats, but they and the hats are here for some time still. and people seem to be happy enough with it. Thanks, Andrew, for explaining something so quintessentially British to the rest of us. And I hope y 'all listeners have a deeper understanding of what the monarchy means to its subjects and the role it plays in today's society.

1:10:14All right, see you next time on Skeptical Sunday. Thank you all for listening. Topic suggestions for future episodes of Skeptical Sunday. Send them right to me, jordan at jordanharbinger.com. A lot of these are fan suggestions. Keep them coming, we love it. Outsource that brain power to you guys. Always does help a little bit. show notes at jordanharbinger.com. Those include the transcripts as well. Advertisers, deals, discounts, ways to support this show. And we do need your support to keep doing what we're doing here. All on one page, jordanharbinger.com slash deals. I'm at jordanharbinger on both Twitter and Instagram.

1:10:47You can also connect with me on LinkedIn. You can find Andrew Gold on his podcast, On the Edge with Andrew Gold, anywhere you get your podcasts. This show is created in association with Podcast One. My team is Jen Harbinger, Jace Sanderson, Robert Fogerty, Ian Baird, Millie Ocampo, and Gabriel Mizrahi. Our advice and opinions are our own, and I'm a lawyer, but I'm not your lawyer. Do your own research before implementing anything you hear on the show. And remember, we rise by lifting others. Share the show with those you love, and if you found this episode useful, please share it with somebody else who can use a good dose of the skepticism that we doled out here today.

1:11:21In the meantime, I hope you apply what you hear on the show so you can live what you learn. We'll see you next time. And God save the king. You're about to hear a preview of the Jordan Harbinger Show with a black man that befriends members of the Ku Klux Klan. I don't support the KKK at all. I don't support that ideology. But I support people having the right to believe as they want to believe, as long as they don't cross the line and hurt people. And to show, to prove, that I will stick up for somebody else's rights. has also led to people just like that sticking up for mine. I know I didn't convert anybody.

1:11:59I am the impetus for over 200 to make up their own minds to convert themselves because I've given them reason to think about other things, you know, that make more sense than what they're currently doing. It bothers me a great deal that we call ourselves the greatest nation on the face of this earth. You know, we have to admit that there are some flaws here. I don't adhere to that statement that we are the greatest. Maybe I would bend and say that perhaps technologically we are the greatest. So how is it that we as Americans can talk to people as far away as the moon or anywhere on the face of this earth, but yet there's so many of us who have difficulty talking to the person who lives right next door?

1:12:45This is the 21st century. This racist nonsense does not belong in any century, let alone the 21st. We are living in space-age times, but there's still too many of us thinking with Stone Age minds. For more on how Daryl Davis convinced 200 KKK members to give up their robes, check out episode 540 on The Jordan Harbinger Show.

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