RESTOCK ALERT: Just in time for your summer vacation, the Banned Books tote is back in stock.

Alt. title: Katie finally bites off more than she can chew and attempts a nuanced exploration of the Lean In, Girlboss cultural era.

13 years ago, Sheryl Sandberg published Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead. The following year, Sophia Amoruso published #GIRLBOSS.

The broad understanding of this period was that—for a few solid years—we widely embraced the edicts of “corporate feminism” or “Lean In feminism” or “Girlboss feminism,” so named for a societal shift that saw a recognition and celebration of women’s career ambition as a decidedly positive thing worthy of support and encouragement or, at the very least, a collection of sassy poly-blend T-shirts.

We tried it, and it didn’t work.

…but did we?

Diabolical Lies investigates.

All citations and references can be found at https://www.diabolicalliespod.com.

NEW SWAG ALERT 🚨 The Small Government line is back & better than ever. Get yours here.

Katie’s back on her metaphoric “What’s Charlie Kirk up to these days?” editorial grind—checking in with one of the hottest new Gen Z Lady Voices taking the middle-aged men of the center-right by storm.

In this episode, we check in with a writer we haven’t discussed since one of our very first episodes:

Freya India, also known as three Jonathan Haidts in a very hot 26-year-old trenchcoat, just published her first book, Girls®—an excoriation of the modern world and its effects on The Youth (or, more specifically, the pathologies of liberal teen girls, as she often puts it).

To hear India tell it, young girls have been Filtered, Diagnosed, Documented, Disconnected, Detached, and ‘Empowered,’ all thanks to the increasingly rapacious incentive structure of a pyramid-shaped economic system that necessitates a constantly growing consumer base wait, sorry, no. That’s not it. Actually, we’re not really sure why. You know what? It’s not important. Let’s move on.

What Girls® lacks in explanatory mechanisms, it makes up for in solutions: Logging off, finding God, and starting a family.

The ideological project underway here should be obvious to anyone whose brain hasn’t been marinated in a dutch oven full of expired bath salts, so why has this book been endorsed by a gaggle of high-profile, putatively left-wing men?

Diabolical Lies investigates.

All citations and references can be found at www.diabolicalliespod.com.

Order Yesteryear if you like nice things, have good taste, or don’t want Katie to show up in the middle of the night at your house with a strongly worded remonstration.

What does it feel like to spend 10 years of your life pursuing an uncertain dream when the chances of breakthrough success are one in a million?

What does it feel like to—finally, at long last—be “the one”?

Caro Claire Burke, one-half of your favorite podcast, is publishing her debut novel this Tuesday, April 7. Yesteryear is mouthy, thrilling, important, ambitious, and, as one of my favorite reviews said, “moves like a freight train.”

Sound like anyone else you know?

Today, I finally get the opportunity to talk to caro claire burke about:

* whether publishing your debut novel is a dream come true or a nightmare

* who she was before she wrote Yesteryear

* her seemingly endless years writing clickbait for a paycheck in the content coal mines of various aggregators

* how she felt when we met 🥰

* how I felt when we met 👹

* the psychological experience of feeling like everyone’s looking at you (Professionally™️) and knowing the precise dates and times when your life’s work will be dissected for sport in public lol

* to what extent it’s fair to infer someone’s politics from their fiction (a la this piece)

* her Official Stance on separating the art from the artist (compelling tbh)

* a spoiler-frenzied discussion of the Next Great American Novel

* and a very personal, very special update for Caro

If you pay attention to political commentary, you’ll often hear a few pieces of conventional wisdom:

— America is “too polarized”

— “Both sides” are “too extreme”

— Or, most innocuously, that politicians should simply do that which is “popular,” which is itself code for policies that are considered “moderate”

But do voters really punish candidates for being extreme? Are most “popular” ideas the “moderate” ones? And, moderate or not, does popularity necessarily indicate merit?

The supposed antidote to this handwringing about political polarization is, more often than not, the mythical “centrist” candidate who will appeal to the even-more-mythical “ordinary American.” Centrism is, as the name implies, an ideology that lacks an ideology.

Today, Diabolical Lies investigates the myth of centrism.

[Full references and citations can be found in the show notes at www.diabolicalliespod.com.]