Ben Franklin Was Probably as Annoying as Jordan Peterson

Editor’s note: This article has been updated to correct that Andy Levy’s question was about which Founding Father was the most annoying.

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Who is the most annoying Founding Father in American history?”

That’s a question that New Abnormal politics podcast co-host Andy Levy asks David Roth, editor at and co-owner of Defector and co-host of the Distraction Podcast, and Jeb Lund, a journalist whose writing has appeared in such places as The Guardian, Vice, Rolling Stone, Gawker, and The New Republic, during a fun game of “America 20 Questions” to ring in the July Fourth holiday.

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“Because I purposely frame the question as most annoying and not, you know, biggest asshole, I would actually go with Ben Franklin with his little sayings. I picture him on Twitter and just like, instant block,” jokes Andy.

“He‘s like [ring-wing psychologist] Jordan Peterson. He‘s like, ‘Well a bed made is a day earned,” laughs Lund.

Roth has a different answer, adding “I think like Ben Franklin might have been like personally annoying or whatever, but there was not anything in there where he enslaved hundreds of people and then like wrote a bunch of essays about how problematic it was when other people did stuff like that.” (Can you guess which president he’s talking about?)

We’ll Be Talking About Justice Jackson Dissents for Decades

Roth and Lund also have hilarious responses to questions like “What was the best year in American history?” and “How is Donald Trump celebrating the July Fourth holiday?”

Also on this episode: Andy and co-host Danielle Moodie discuss last week’s decisions made by a “grifting-ass” Supreme Court, including the student debt, anti-LGBTQ same-sex website, and affirmative action rulings—and they each make a strong case for students of color and poor white students filing a lawsuit against universities for their legacy student admission practices.

Then, on a serious note: Alí R. Bustamante, deputy director of the Worker Power and Economic Security Program at Roosevelt Institute, reveals a hard truth: The American economy isn’t functioning “in any Democratic way.”

Listen to this full episode of The New Abnormal on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Amazon and Stitcher.

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