—
Kevin and Benedict are colleagues. We have written and worked together. They have a podcast called This Week in News with Kevin and Benedict. I like them. Here’s their story. Kevin grew up in Sacramento California, where he conquered his enemies and saved the city from annihilation multiple times. He currently attends UC Berkeley as a Political Science major. He also worked as a heavy equipment mechanic for 5 years before college. He enjoys cigars, hockey (Go Sharks), politics, and saltwater fish tanks. Benedict is a Brit living in the US. Just for you, part 1.
Scott Douglas Jacobsen: I wanted to interview each of you together because you’re friends and do some decent work through a podcast. I wanted to explore some of that. You both agreed. What is your brief background?
Kevin: I first want talk about the statement where you said we are friends. We are acquaintances at best. How dare you put my name in with his, interview over!
Jacobsen: [Laughing]
Benedict: Now, we’re going to answer your question. I am originally from the UK. I studied at Oxford University, Spanish and Portuguese. I decided I didn’t want to do anything with that. I wanted to be a journalist or pundit, whatever I am now.
I have done a lot of writing for people for free to get my name out there. I stumbled upon Kevin. Now, we have a podcast. That’s how we got there today.
Kevin: I am from Sacramento, California. I took two semesters of Spanish [Laughing]. I worked as a heavy equipment mechanic a few years after high school. I radically changed my life from being a Right-wing dirt bag to leaning heavily to the Left.
It was a dual change of coming to atheism and realizing everything I ever believed was basically wrong. I was re-examining things and searching for the truth. This brought me there. I was a mechanic for 5 years.
I went back to community college, then got into UC Berkeley, where I am now. Then all three of us were working for an outlet, writing online. We met through there. Benedict was doing a podcast there at the time. It was terrible, I must say. Your form was off.
For a quick moment, can I critique your old podcast?
Benedict: You can if you want.
Kevin: I always wanted to do a podcast, but it was a matter of finding a partner. It is a matter of British accents. I thought, “This is a perfect podcast partner, who can make me sound better.”
Benedict: [Laughing].
Jacobsen: Kevin, you noted the transition from a Right-wing social and political, and so cultural, perspective. Was it all-at-once or slow transition? What was the feeling?
Kevin: It wasn’t all-at-once. It was a gradual thing. It started with some things I believed being chipped away at, starting with climate change. I was a climate change denier. People would introduce me to the facts.
It became more and more apparent that I am wrong here. That something else was going on here. In my mind, and the way I was raised, I had to look for myself and examine things. Once you can do that with one issue, it becomes easier with other things. It was looking at the bottom of it rather than what the Right-wing commentators had been saying all of my life such as the guy who ran The Blaze, Glenn Beck.
I had more Glenn Beck books that anyone should ever have. I had two.
Jacobsen: [Laughing].
Kevin: Five years ago, if Donald Trump ran for president, I would have voted for him. That’s how far gone I was.
Jacobsen: What about you, Benedict?
Benedict: I have left-wing tendencies growing up. I go through occasional center leaning wobbles, especially in high school. That kind of time because of the people I was surrounded by at the time. When I went to university, I solidified in left-wing and liberal thinking. At the same time, I came across atheism and being skeptical of stuff and trying to question everything.
I do not think I have changed much. I haven’t had a radical right-to-left swing like Kevin, but I have become more left-wing as I study politics more. Europeans tend to be more left-wing anyway, so definitely in the American sense – maybe for a European perspective too. If anything, I have become more left-wing with time, but probably more centrist than leftist.
Kevin: Was high school your Tory years?
Benedict: Yes, when I write my autobiography, I will become famous and those will be the “Tory Years.”
Jacobsen: [Laughing].
Kevin: You had a picture of Margaret Thatcher up on your wall.
Jacobsen: [Laughing].
Benedict: Yes, it was when we went through the recession and had a left-wing government, so we felt there must have been some reason for this to be wrong and a change must be necessary away from the established way of thinking. But you could more left-wing than the Labour government had been to that point, I assumed the natural change was to be Right-wing.
It wasn’t necessarily the “Tory Years,” but more like the “We need change” years – from the status quo. An obvious change at the time was to lean more Tory, though I don’t think I’d agree with myself now.
Jacobsen: You founded TWIN or This Week in News with Kevin and Benedict. What was the inspiration for it?
Benedict: I am a very grumpy person. I like to complain the news. I spend too much time thinking other people are dumb [Laughing].
Jacobsen: [Laughing].
Benedict: We spend a lot of time critiquing the Trump administration because that’s who is in power. I like to think we’d be critiquing whoever else might be in power. We simply have a lot more to talk about with the Trump administration because they are in power. Do you agree with that Kevin? We are both democrats, but we wouldn’t not critique Democrats simply because they are of our party.
Kevin: I asked, “What will we do when Donald Trump is out of office?” Well, then is the time to start looking at more of the mundane issues, I feel like right now we are in crisis mode. I feel there are many bad and dangerous things. It is important to focus on them. I believe other things are worth focusing on our side when our people do wrong, but there is a limited amount time. It is more important with constraints to focus on Donald Trump and the administration.
It is important to critique people on our side when it is appropriate. We do try to get those smaller stories and criticize people on our side when it is appropriate to do so. We made a point of critiquing Kathy Griffin, people on our side, and say stupid things. In the show recorded today, we talked about how the new Democratic Party slogan is stupid [Laughing]. It is not just news. We try to keep things light and entertaining too.
As a news consumer myself, I like nice and dense news, but I want it to be entertaining as well.
—
Get the best stories from The Good Men Project delivered straight to your inbox, here.
The post This Week In News, A Kevin and Benedict Story appeared first on The Good Men Project.