Joe Hack spent 12 years as a senior advisor in both the U.S. Senate and U.S. House of Representatives, including more than six years as Chief of Staff to U.S. Senator Deb Fischer (NE).

Prior to that, he worked for Senate Whip Jon Kyl as Communications Director and chief spokesman. Joe is also a veteran of the U.S. House of Representatives, where he served as Press Secretary and Legislative Assistant for Rep. J. Randy Forbes (VA-04). He began his career in the office of Senator George Voinovich (OH)

During this episode of Joey Squared, we talk about The Alphabet People, our beloved LGBTQ+ community, and why they are not a monolith, nor should they be treated as one.

We then talked at length about one of my favorite journalists, Nellie Bowles and her new book, Morning After the Revolution: Dispatches from the Wrong Side of History - and why it was such a romping good read.

Nellie’s collections of stories proved to be a wickedly funny treatise about the ideological capture of her former colleagues and editors at The New York Times. And Joey and I use her witty and engaging stories as a cursor to our discussions about the fringe left of my party, and how their narratives and messaging are being widely rejected by the majority of Americans today.

I hope you enjoy this episode as much as we did.

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Nick Quested is a British filmmaker and producer of documentary films, music videos, and TV commercials. He is the executive director and owner of Goldcrest Films.

Quested has produced over 40 films, including several war documentaries directed by Sebastian Junger. Prior to producing, he was an award-winning music video director. Quested directed more than 100 music videos and commercials, working with artists including Dr. Dre, Jay-Z and Sting.

Nick has won two Emmys and a DuPont-Columbia Award, and has been nominated for an Oscar and a PGA Award. His company, Goldcrest Films, has won the Academy Award for Best Picture twice.

Leading up to and during the 2021 United States Capitol Attack, Nick had been embedded with the Proud Boys, a far-right organization involved in the attack. In June of 2022 Nick testified – under subpoena on live television – to the US House of Representatives January 6 committee. As part of his testimony, Nick revealed that his crew had filmed a garage meeting between Proud Boys leader Enrique Tarrio and Oath Keepers founder and leader Stewart Rhodes on January 5, 2021, the night before the attack.

During our chat, we talked about why Nick chose to live his life behind a camera, how he pivoted from shooting hip hop music videos to war documentaries, where he literally put his life on the line.

We then discussed how he found his way into the inner sanctum of The Proud Boys – and how and why Enrique Tarrio allowed him to film the illegal activity of his Boys, and how this footage in his new film, 64 Days, helped put many of these Jan 6th rioters behind bars.

I hope you enjoy this interview as much as I did.

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Check out 64 Days:

Website: www.64daysfilm.com

IG: @64daysfilm

Stream the film: https://vimeo.com/ondemand/64days

Brad Berens wears a few different hats: he's a strategic advisor and senior fellow at the Center for the Digital Future at USC Annenberg, Principal at Big Digital Idea Consulting, serves on a variety of boards, and has spent many years working in digital media. He's also a science fiction novelist and writes a weekly newsletter, The Brad Berens Weekly Dispatch on Substack, and also on LinkedIn. He has a Ph.D. in Shakespeare studies from U.C. Berkeley, where he was an award-winning teacher.

Brad joined me to discuss Dr. Jonathan Haidt’s newest book, The Anxious Generation, How the Great Rewiring of Childhood is Causing an Epidemic of Mental Illness.

Brad is a longtime friend and colleague from my time in the world of advertising. And over the years, he has made it clear that he is “Less than impressed” with Dr. Haidt’s many books and conclusions in the field of social psychology.

In today’s chat, Brad quickly points out that Dr. Haidt’s title alone is flawed - because there is no “Epidemic of Mental Illness” nor is there any causal data to back up this very controversial claim.

During our time together, I admit my biases… and do my best to defend my years-long intellectual crush on Dr. Haidt…in spite of Brad’s cogent and valid concerns about the book’s lack of unidirectional causality, specific to its title and theoretical positioning in the field of social psychology.

As usual with my time with Brad, I had a blast, and learned a ton. I hope you enjoy this episode, too.

Brad Berens’ Socials:

https://www.linkedin.com/in/bradberens/

And The Brad Berens Weekly Dispatch: