In this week’s Brief: We round up the top stories dominating the headlines, including the latest in peace negotiations in the Ukraine-Russia war, the tragic attack near the White House and its implications for U.S. immigration policy, and controversy around drone strikes on drug vessels in the Caribbean.
We also zoom out for a 250-year look at the American worker: how wages, conditions, and protections have changed over time, and how emerging technologies like AI might reshape the future of work once again.
And because culture includes the fun stuff too, we give our take on the wild college-football coaching carousel and celebrate a massive week at the box office.
Through it all, we highlight why a Christian worldview matters in staying grounded, grateful, and wise as we navigate a noisy and complex world.
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Topics
- (00:00): Introduction
- (01:05): Foreign policy roundup: Ukraine and Russia
- (05:15): Domestic tragedy: attack near the White House
- (10:24): Military actions in the Caribbean and Venezuela
- (18:22): The evolution of the American worker
- (27:52): Gratitude and faith in changing times
- (34:19): A listener’s powerful immigration story
- (39:02): Box office report
- (41:22): College football chaos
Resources
- Send us your thoughts, questions, and topic ideas: [email protected]
- Culture Brief Instagram
- Watch on Youtube!
- Sign-up for Denison Forum’s daily newsletter: DenisonForum.org/subscribe
Links mentioned in this episode:
Other articles on this week’s top headlines:
- Denison Forum: Has Pete Hegseth committed war crimes?
- Denison Forum: National Guard soldier dies a day after DC attack
- Denison Forum: Zelensky wants to finalize a deal with Trump over Thanksgiving
- Denison Forum: US sends Ukraine detailed plan to end the war with Russia
- NYT: Lawmakers Suggest Follow-Up Boat Strike Could Be a War Crime
- BBC: US halts all asylum claim decisions after National Guard shooting
- X: Secretary Kristi Noem
- Politico: What Trump didn’t say
- CNN: Pentagon playbook problems
- Washington Post: Hegseth, with White House help, tries to distance himself from boat strike fallout
- Wall Street Journal: 250 Years of Work in America
- US Bureau of Labor Statistics Report 1
- US Bureau of Labor Statistics Report 2
- US Census Bureau Report
About Conner Jones
Conner Jones is the Director of Performance Marketing at Denison Ministries and Co-Hosts Denison Forum’s “Culture Brief” podcast. He graduated from Dallas Baptist University in 2019 with a degree in Business Management. Conner passionately follows politics, sports, pop-culture, entertainment, and current events. He enjoys fishing, movie-going, and traveling the world with his wife and son.
About Micah Tomasella
Micah Tomasella is the Director of Advancement at Denison Ministries and co-hosts Denison Forum’s “Culture Brief” podcast. A graduate of Dallas Baptist University, Micah is married to Emily, and together they are the proud parents of two daughters. With an extensive background in nonprofit work, finance, and real estate, Micah also brings experience from his years in pastoral church ministry.
About Denison Forum
Denison Forum exists to thoughtfully engage the issues of the day from a biblical perspective through The Daily Article email newsletter and podcast, the Faith & Clarity podcast, as well as many books and additional resources.
EPISODE TRANSCRIPT
NOTE: This transcript was AI-generated and has not been fully edited.
Conner: [00:00:00] Hi, I’m Conner Jones.
Micah: I’m Micah Tomasella,
Conner: and this is Culture Brief, a Denison Forum podcast where we navigate the constant stream of top stories and news. Politics, sports, pop culture, technology and everything else happening in culture. And we’re doing it all from a Christian perspective. And Micah, we’ve been off for two weeks.
It’s good to be back. A lot has happened since then. I mean, you know, Stranger Things is back Lane kiffin at LSU now. That’s right. There’s so much that’s happened. And politically too. You wanna just give us a breakdown on kind of what we’re gonna be covering?
Micah: Absolutely. Conner, it is great to be back.
We have missed you, our loyal culture, brief audience, so we’re gonna be doing a foreign policy roundup today. Conner’s gonna take us through that. Just a lot of different things and internationally, abroad and here stateside. And then I’m gonna take us through how the American worker has evolved over the last 250 years.
You know, next year we’re coming up on 250 years as a country, and so we’re gonna. Talk about that. And then we also got a really compelling message from one of our listeners that we’re gonna share with you. [00:01:00] We’ve got all those things and so much more. So let’s jump into the brief.
Conner: The brief. Okay. Micah, you mentioned it.
Let’s start up top with some foreign policy stuff. There’s so much happening around the globe and the US specifically has its fingers in all of it. They are somewhat a part of some of these stories. They’re trying to negotiate peace deals, all that. And this has been the case, and we’ve talked about this all year, 2025, whether it’s Israel.
Thailand and Cambodia, but specifically the big one right now that’s gaining a lot of attention is obviously Ukraine to Russia. Yeah. We’ve talked about this all year long. It’s been like peace talks here, peace talks here, Trump and Putin meeting, and it doesn’t feel like anything has really ever come out that’s been concrete.
So we’re now at the closest position to that. Over the last few weeks there’s been plans presented, plans leak to the media that. You know, we’re showing maybe the US is leaning more pro-Russia, so Europe, Europe was mad. Ukraine was kind of mad. Zelensky president of Ukraine was kind of saying, Hey, we might lose a.
Strategic partner here in the US over this whole plan? It was all kind of, you know, working through the media [00:02:00] to try to get their position advanced. And we’re now at a point where the US is presenting a plan to Russia. Steve Witkoff is the US Envoy and Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner also kind of an envoy.
They worked in the Israel peace deal to secure that with Gaza. They are in Moscow currently as we’re speaking. I think by the time this episode releases, they’ll be back in Ukraine presenting what they found out in Moscow, what they landed on with the Russians out there in Moscow. They spoke with Moscow not Dr, not with Putin directly, but with his advisors, and it sounds like they presented a 19 point deal.
That was shrunk down from a 28 point deal from two weeks ago, right? Trump had initially said, I want that 28 point deal to be agreed upon with Ukraine before Thanksgiving. Ukraine did not agree upon that 28 point deal because they were saying it was not. Remotely close enough to what they were willing to, to, to give in on, which was, you know, it was saying that Russia gets quite a bit of Ukrainian territory.
It was gonna shrink the Ukrainian military, but what it would do is [00:03:00] require Russia to take $100 billion of, of their frozen assets and give it to Ukraine for rebuilding reconstruction of Ukraine. So there was some back and forth there. Ultimately. It kind of all happened at a really bad time for Ukraine.
At least for vol. Vladimir Zelinsky the president because his chief of staff at the same time these negotiations were going on basically had to resign due to corruption charges, which got a lot of people just talking. And a lot of Americans upset ’cause it felt like maybe, you know, were, were helping this corrupt country.
This is the number two guy in Ukraine had to resign because he was. Caught up in this embezzlement scheme, or he’s alleged to have been caught up in it, but he had to resign because it was just in the middle of all these big, big negotiations for peace. And, you know, he was considered like a power broker and was one of the top negotiators for zelensky in these talks.
Yeah. Yeah, Micah, it just feels like we’re still at a stalemate. We’re hopefully getting closer, but I don’t know if you have any other thoughts on kind of what’s going on there. But so far we’ve been talking about this for months and nothing has really advanced.
Micah: Yeah, I mean, you know, we’re just kind of in wait and see mode.
You know, we’ve talked a [00:04:00] lot about, you know, Trump’s promises on the campaign trail to bring peace and, you know, to give him credit where it’s due. There, there have been a lot of peace deals put in place, definitely like in a lot of smaller countries, but also what’s going on in Gaza right now seems to be humming along.
Not perfectly, but it’s still in place. And but really the biggest domino. Is the war against Russia and Ukraine. This thing’s been going on for nearly four years. And so it’s, it’s, it’s truly, it would be a very tall task. And I think, I mean, it seems like they’re close, but it just seems, you know, like we’re, we’re in wait and see mode, but so far I have no reason to believe that there, there, there isn’t going to be something figured out and everybody’s gonna have to compromise something.
Conner: Correct. Yeah, I, I would say the Russians are very much so adamant that they don’t have to compromise much. ’cause they believe that they’re winning the war. They have taken this territory, it belongs to them. And the Ukrainians would say no, you, you entered our sovereign territory. And Europe would say the same.
And the Europeans are mad ’cause they think that the US is kind of siding more so with Russia in that. And [00:05:00] I don’t know, there’s a lot there, so keep tabs on that. We’ll obviously keep tabs and if we get a deal landed, we will come back with all the details on that. And we are praying for hoping for a deal there.
I mean, the, the death and destruction just continues to rage on. Yeah. A as you said, Micah, almost four years in. Okay. Here’s state side. On top of all of that. We’ve had quite a few stories as well. Obviously the very tragic story of the attack just two blocks from the White House on November 26th. The day before Thanksgiving, uh uh, an Afghani man came and attacked.
Two National Guard members shot them and ambushed them. One of those specialists, Sarah Beckstrom, she was age 20, did unfortunately pass away on Thanksgiving Day. And then the other man staff Sergeant Andrew Wolf, who is age 24, is still in critical condition in the hospital, but is apparently on the road to recovery, which is really good news.
And we’re praying that he does fully recover. That has just sparked so much obviously just mourning for, for our lost soldier. Yeah. Sad. And her sacrifice. Which is really sad. And just two blocks from the White House right in our capitol. It, it’s just not great. But it’s also caused a lot of [00:06:00] backlash ’cause people are like, okay, this guy came over from Afghanistan right after the fall of Kabul when the US pulled out.
This was in 2021 under Joe Biden. He pulled out all the US forces. It was kind of a disastrous pull out, but they did. Yeah, that was the one that was
Micah: like terrible, right? Terrible. Probably. Yeah.
Conner: Yeah. Reminiscent of Saigon in the seventies, that that happened. But what they did, what the US did was they op they launched Operation Allies welcome, which brought a lot of Afghani people with the US to our states because they, they helped them.
Helped the US during the war in Afghanistan. Whether they were translators or operatives, whatever it was, that was about 190,000 Afghani refugees came over during that operation. I didn’t realize it
Micah: was that much. Wow.
Conner: It is a lot of people. And because of that. Now there’s people on the right and even really honestly just in the government who are saying we need to send a lot of them back, we need to deport these people.
Were not properly vetted. They came over in this like emergency situation because they would’ve been killed by the Taliban, had it been found out they were helping the [00:07:00] us. So there are reasons to bring them over. But now a lot of government officials are saying they were not properly vetted.
And that includes Christy Noam, the US Department of Homeland Security Secretary. She has even recommended a full travel ban on other countries that are similar to Afghanistan. She’s calling them third world countries. Obviously that’s a popular term. I don’t know what we, we classify in the US government as third world.
I think they’re releasing a list of what these countries will be, but they have stopped all immigration from Afghanistan because of this. I just wanna point out one thing. I read this great article from the Free Press by an author named Elliot Ackerman. It was titled, I served in the CIA’s zero units in Afghanistan.
So did the Afghan man accuse of savagely shooting two National Guard members the day before Thanksgiving. We cannot use this horrific act to malign all of our Afghan allies and he’s right. I, I think a lot of people are upset because there have been. Four to five Afghani nationals that have been arrested since just last October with terroristic threats.
And then this guy actually pulled off the [00:08:00] terrorist attack on these National Guard members. And so yeah, that caused a wave of just questioning, do we want these people here in this country? And I, I think this guy brings up a good point. You cannot pin all Afghanis. As the same kind of mentality or radical Islamic ideology as this guy had that attack, these National Guard members.
You can’t put that on all 190,000. But, you know, a lot of people would say, why, why risk it at all? Why not? Why have them here? Or we, do we need to do a deeper vetting process? Do they all need to go through interviews? All of that. Micah, any thoughts there?
Micah: Yeah, I mean, when it comes to the Afghan nationals and, and those that helped us abroad, I can definitely understand the argument that, you know, if they helped us, I’m sure from the beginning they were assured some sort of asylum if they were to help.
‘Cause obviously if they would’ve stayed, they would’ve been in engraved danger. Sure. I’m not sure if I, if I totally agree with that author’s point from the free press because it isn’t that author an American. [00:09:00]
Conner: Yep.
Micah: You know, hey, I served in this unit and I’m an American. I served in this unit and I’m from Afghanistan.
I just don’t believe that it’s a one for one. Argument of, oh, I served in this I’m good. Oh, this person, they’re from Afghanistan. They served in this, so they’re good. I’m not sure if it’s a one for one, because you know that they grew up in that environment and then you have this author who is an American themselves.
I just think it’s important that, that we draw a line and we don’t throw the baby out with the bath water per se and say. All, all Afghan nationals are dangerous, and so they must all be deported. I definitely think that that’s too far. But I, I definitely would agree with there should be more proper vetting of anybody who comes here, specifically from places that tend to have popular ideologies of.
N not loving America so much. I mean, I think, I think it is a government’s duty to protect its citizens too. So it is, it is a balance.
Conner: Yeah. Yeah. It’s a very tough balance. How do you protect your citizens? How do you also protect the people who helped [00:10:00] your nation and would be killed in that country if they found, you know, if the enemy found out that had served with the United States?
There’s a lot of questions there. But something happened between that guy coming over from Afghanistan and today. That radicalized him. And it sounds like it’s happening with others as well. So hopefully that stops. We’ll continue to pray for just that situation in the family that lost.
Yeah. A loved one. Sure. And the man who is still in the hospital recovering. Also on top of all of this, we still have a massive military buildup going on in the Caribbean. They’re sending more and more aircraft to Puerto Rico to station up. We’ve got an aircraft carrier. The SS Gerald Ford is now in the Caribbean.
All of this is placing pressure on Venezuela, but it’s also part of these drone strikes that are happening on drug vessels. We’ve been talking about this since September, September 2nd was the first attack, and since then we have seen 21 strikes on drug vessels that have killed 82 people that are considered by the US government narco terrorists because they’re, you know, saying that they’re bringing all these drugs, cocaine, fentanyl, anything up to the [00:11:00] United States.
Now, a lot of people would say it’s mostly fentanyl. But a lot of reporters are also starting to dig into this, and they’re discovering that these drug boats are mostly carrying cocaine, which the US has said that they are aiming for fentanyl deliveries. ’cause fentanyl is so deadly and has killed hundreds of thousands of Americans over the last decade.
So that’s kind of the justification behind these strikes. But if they’re not taking out fentanyl, it brings up questions. Congress is getting involved in all this, and now they’re really starting to take a look at this because the Washington Post had an article last week about Pete Hegseth, the Secretary of Defense.
He calls himself the Secretary of War. He apparently had a strike ordered the very first one on September 2nd. It did, they did strike the boat, but then there were two survivors of the initial strike on that boat, and then a second strike hit the boat to kill the two remaining survivors. Now, there’s been arguments about who ordered that second strike to kill the survivors.
Is it a war crime to kill survivors who had no weapons and were rendered? Defenseless. Pete Hegseth has said it’s not a war crime. He also has said that he did [00:12:00] not order the second strike, and the White House has said that it was an admiral who ordered the second strike. Admiral Frank Bradley, they said, gave the order and they declared at the White House that he worked well within his authority and the law directing the engagement to ensure the boat was destroyed.
Yeah, so
Micah: so they’re pinning it on that Admiral. On the Admiral. On the Admiral. But they’re also. Not backing away from it. It’s oh, the Admiral did it, but we didn’t do anything wrong.
Conner: Yeah. A lot of people would say it’s, but they, they’re opinion on him. Just
Micah: in case. Just in case it goes sideways.
The Admiral did it. I think I saw something that, like Pete had said, he had walked out the room. You right whenever that second strike was happening? No, I couldn’t have ordered it. I’d already walked outta the room. So
Conner: this is what, this is what, yeah, you’re right. This is what Hegseth said. He said he did not personally see any survivors after the initial strike on a purported drug vessel, and that he watched the first strike live, but left before learning hours later that Bradley had made the call to sink the boat.
He also said that [00:13:00] this is called the fog of war. And he, you know, he’s you, you couldn’t see much in these. These video streams, like it’s flames, smoke. Oh, the literal fog of war. I and, and the, the metaphorical fog of war. Yeah. There’s just things like this that happened is kind of what he’s saying.
This is, this is what happens in war. We’re in war, but problem with that statement, war. That’s the, that’s the problem with the statement. According to Congress, I, I’m not giving my opinion on whether war at war or not, but Congress is questioning okay, if we’re war, I’m not sure at war or not.
Micah: I, I don’t know.
Conner: And Congress says they, they, you know, all these lawmakers are like, it has to be Congressional Declaration of War. To be a war. So then the
Micah: White House is gonna say, we’re at war, but we’re not really at war because if we’re really at war, you gotta get congressional approval to be actually officially at war.
So we’re about, as at war as you can be without congressional approval. I guess I, I,
Conner: I suppose, this is the lifelong of like, how far can a president ing. Yeah, direct military orders. I mean, this is, these drone strikes. They’re being at the direction of obviously Hegseth, but more specifically Donald Trump has given [00:14:00] the orders to take these boats out.
Yeah, it, it was a question when Barack Obama used to order drone strikes in men, right? Who does he have the authority to do that or does Congress have to get involved? There’s all those questions. And Congress, of course, always wants to be involved in everything. And now they’re even potentially bringing up war crimes as a, as a phrase that they’re saying with this whole strike.
Yeah, they’re, they’re trying to suggest that this was potentially a war crime which, if it is, could lead to an impeachment of Hegseth. In fact, one Democratic congressman is already putting together articles of impeachment against Hegseth. We’ll see if that goes through. I doubt it will. It’s still a Republican.
Congress, so we’ll see. It’s unlikely. All of this to say this whole thing is also just boiling up towards Venezuela. We’re on the precipice of apparently imminent attacks, potentially on land in Venezuela to take out drug facilities. Maybe even the dictator Nicholas Maduro himself. But they’ve been talking with the White House.
I don’t know if they’re gonna make a deal of some sort to avoid getting military strikes on their land or to save Maduro’s life, but right now it’s kind of at a stalemate. It’s kind of at. [00:15:00] High tensions and the, the US Navy is just sitting right off the coast of Venezuela. The, the pressure is on Venezuela for sure.
So we’ll see what happens there. Micah? It’s a lot going on. Yeah, there’s a lot to be concerned about. There’s a lot to think about, a lot to be frustrated about. And if you’re listening to this and you find yourself frustrated just with all these stories, you’re probably not alone. Or if you’re confused or you’re just angered you could be angered by injustices across the globe to National Guardsmen.
Just walking the streets, patrolling. Yeah. Getting ambushed. That’s angering, right? That’s frustrating. Yeah. People innocently being killed in Ukraine and Russia. Maybe you’re even angered by drug boats being struck by the US military. I don’t know. Whatever it is, it, it’s all reasonable, right? It’s also what drives attention anger.
That’s what the media focuses on. They’re always trying to drive attention through trying to anger people. In fact, the Oxford University’s word of the year. They just announced this week was rage bait. Yeah. Which I guess is two words, but that’s the word of the year. Rage bait. Yeah. They say that rage bait is the most culturally significant [00:16:00] expression of 2025 with the phrases usage tripling in the last 12 months, they say, before the internet was focused on grabbing our attention by sparking curiosity in exchange for clicks.
But now we’ve seen a dramatic shift to hijacking and influencing. Our emotions, I would say that’s very accurate. Seems accurate, right?
Micah: It’s been wait for a while, not just this year.
Conner: It’s not, but for whatever reason it has just really taken off this year. Yeah. I, I, I think he’s been building up and then this year we just saw it absolutely at its catalyst, rage baiting.
It, it makes me question, have I been rage baited this year? Have you been. Micah, our listeners. Have y’all been rage bated this year on certain things? This doesn’t just have to be politics. This can be all the way down to sports teams. This can be theology. Maybe you’ve been rage bated in a theological discussion.
Things where people are trying to rise in emotion out of you. And it can be all these foreign policies and wars and immigration, all of that. When we are rage bated, or when we are discussing all of these big stories, I think it’s crucial to remember that we have to give it all to God, [00:17:00] and we have to remind ourself that in all of that chaos, God is still a God of order.
One Corinthians 1433 says, for God is not a God of disorder. But of peace, which I think is a great reminder. And we see it even Micah in the universe, which God made so orderly, like he created the sun and the moon and the stars to perfectly align the time and the seasons. Yeah. And we read that in Psalm 1 0 4, 19.
So he made us in an orderly fashion and he did it with our bodies. Our bodies do incredible things. It’s, it’s truly a miracle that we operate every day. And in Isaiah one 18, he says, come now. Let us reason together. Says the Lord though your sins are like scarlet, they shall be as white as snow.
Amen. And that right there is the true order that humans, we are not orderly. But we sure can strive to be and it’s and so let’s pray that there will be order in our world, that the gospel will be heard and that everybody will be wiped as white as snow. That that’s the [00:18:00] only hope we can have for full order.
Until then, we can’t expect fallen man to, to have order in foreign policy and in immigration and wars, all of that, right? ‘Cause unless he’s in it, unless God is in it. US fallen humans will only continue to sow disorder. So let’s pray for order today.
Micah: Love it Conner. Yes. Thanks for taking us through that.
There was a ton of subjects to cover. You did a great job. Okay, so now I wanna talk about the American worker in 250 years of change. We are coming up on our 250th birthday as a country next year. So the Wall Street Journal recently laid out a 250. Picture of the American worker. And honestly I, I think it gives needed perspective.
You know, God’s given us this platform here and I just wanted to share it. It just really hit me as I was reading through this work feels tough today. There’s a lot of complaints about the job that people have. They don’t like, it’s tough, it’s hard. People are working a lot. You’re, you’re having a hard time finding the exact job in marketing that you’re looking for, right?
[00:19:00] But many people feel stretched and they feel pressed. But when you zoom out, the long story of American labor is. Nothing short of remarkable. It is nothing short of remarkable. There is an American excellence that we have experienced and America has changed the world, and now we’re the strongest, most prosperous nation in the world.
And I just don’t want that to get, I just don’t want, I just do not want that to get lost. And I think this is a very timely time to talk about it with all the labor numbers coming out and, and all of the bad news that we see about the labor market and the economy. But. Before we jump into this, I just wanna give you a quick disclaimer ’cause I’m gonna take you from start to finish.
I’m gonna try to be quick. These numbers are from real sources, like the Wall Street Journal, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, and like historical economic data. I was on OSHA’s website. Nice. I was on I, I was on the bureau, the, the Bureau of Labor Statistics. I was looking at census data. So any so anything from the 18 hundreds is obviously more of an estimate since record keeping wasn’t.
What it is today, but the [00:20:00] big picture is solid and well supported. So any inferences, I draw smarter people than me already drew these inferences, and I’m giving credit to them in the show notes. So from fields to factories, this is how it started. 250 years ago, almost everyone in America worked on a farm.
Almost every job was agricultural. The average workday lasted from sunrise to sunset. There was no clock watching. Okay? There were no weekends. There were no labor laws whatsoever and there was no real concept of just time off. Survival was the job. You do what you do, what you had to do to survive. The goal was to survive and to have your family survive.
Then came the industrial revolutions. We’re gonna jump straight to that. Millions moved into factor factories. The work was exhausting. It was dangerous. 10 to 12 hour days, high injury rates. One in five kids were working full-time. Crazy. Okay. Full-time jobs. Alright. In 1913, more than 23,000 workers died on the job.
In, in a year alone, 23,000 workers [00:21:00] died Today, even with a much larger workforce, a much larger nation, that number is just around 5,000, 5,000 work related deaths. It was a hard life, but America kept growing through it, kept adapting through it, and so did the pressure to make work feel safer and fairer.
So then let’s get into the fight. For fairness, the early 19 hundreds really changed everything. The early 19 hundreds really set up the type of work that we see today. So workers, organized unions happened, and out of that came the building blocks of what we see in modern labor, the eight hour workday the weekend.
Okay. Saturdays are for the boys. You know, going to church on Sunday, you know what I mean? Like that, that started in the early 19 hundreds of people were actually starting to get time off. Child labor laws were an enact in the early, early 19 hundreds. I’m, I dunno about you Conner, I’m a big proponent of child labor laws.
I don’t, I don it. Don’t think children should, should be working dangerous, full-time jobs. But, you know, I don’t wanna suppose how you feel about that subject. I
Conner: absolutely am happy there’s no child. You feel [00:22:00] the same. There’s some countries in this world that do not have child labor laws. No many, and I wish they would enact them.
Many
Micah: don’t. Many do not. Yeah. We’re very blessed to live in this country. A federal minimum wage was enacted. Safety standards were enacted that, you know, all these, all these large companies had to actually start to do things to ensure their workers were safe. And the 1830s factory workers average 70 hours a week.
By the 1890s, it was closer to 60. Today the national average is around 34. So the national average all across the board, the hours worked as 34 hours a week. This is a 50% drop in work hours over time, and it did not happen overnight. But the trajectory is clear, right? We’ve been getting better at this. So is any of this surprising to you so far, Conner?
Conner: No. Not I, I guess. I’m just always amazed by American ingenuity. First off, the fact that people had the audacity to work as long and hard as they did. Yep. In the 17 hundreds, 18 hundreds. Industrial revolution. Bless. And you, you, you watch these documentaries, you see a movie kind of based in that time period, and you’re [00:23:00] just amazed by what people are pulling off back then.
And then it just kind of changes over time. And I’m still amazed by what we pull off. And then, you know, I, I think one of the things that is so interesting about this last century was World War II and what happened there with the way that changed the work life and the amount of stuff that Americans got together and just created and built and made happen.
Basically no time to, to, to go towards the war effort. And that changed American work for the future as well. Yeah. So I’m not entirely surprised, but I’m amazed.
Micah: We are so focused on the here and now and I think sometimes we need to zoom out and have perspective, and I think perspective changes things.
I think it can change the way that you, we view people in situations. We are in a much better spot now than the average American was in the 18 hundreds. Okay. Alright, let’s talk about wages, living standards and the American Middle class. So now here is where the Wall Street Journal data hit the hardest in my opinion and laid it out the most clearly.
The typical worker today earns dramatically more than previous. [00:24:00] Generations, even after adjusting for inflation. I want to give that context. In 1820, the average income was barely over a thousand dollars in today’s dollars. Okay? By 1950 it was around 16,000. I’m talking about yearly income, okay? 18, 20.
Around a thousand dollars in today’s income, 1950, around 16,000 in today’s income. Today it’s over $70,000. Okay. Housing, childcare, healthcare are expensive today. So I want to acknowledge that everyone feels that. But the long-term rise in living standards is real. Food used to swallow 40% of a family’s income.
Now it’s around now it’s around three per excuse me. FA today it’s around 10, sorry. It’s around 10% clothing. Used to take 15%. Now it’s around three homes that once lacked plumbing and heating, and having climate control and refrigeration and clean water and more safety features than early Americans could imagine.
Life expectancy has doubled. Education rates [00:25:00] exploded. Labor productivity climbed more than 400% since 1950. That does not erase the pressures of modern life and the inflation and the crunch that we all feel, but it does remind us how far we’ve come and change doesn’t happen just like that. It’s, it’s, it’s slow.
It’s gradual. But here’s the modern shift. Today, only one in 10 Americans work in manufacturing. Okay? But most do work in healthcare, education, tech, retail, or just office-based jobs. Work is less physical. More mental. And more digital than ever before. We have more flexibility, but there is more stress that comes with there.
The modern American worker is asked to juggle multiple things when it used to be you did this one job in this one way and it was very labor intensive and it was a lot of hours. So it has shifted. It’s just a different kind of difficult remote work. And AI may reshape things again. We might be standing at another turning point right now.
Just like a shift from farms to factories, work changes, it [00:26:00] always has. So in American history, we’re just focusing on that. Work has always changed and Americans have always adapted to it and thrived. So Conner, let’s talk about what is work gonna look like in the next 50 years. I was just curious about that.
With what we’re seeing with AI right now, what is work gonna look like in 50 years? This is where the future gets interesting. If history is a guide work in 50 years, we’ll probably look as different from today as it looked from like 1925. That’s the capability that AI has to change so many things crazy.
Here are a few likely shifts and I’m not. I’m not going too crazy with this. More automation and AI doing our repetitive tasks, more flexibility in where people work. I think that we’re gonna keep seeing that longer healthy lifespans, which could extend working years. I think you’re gonna see people working longer and longer.
Entirely new industries built around tech that we don’t even know yet, like AI is going to create industries for jobs that we do not even understand or know yet. And a continued move towards skills, specific skills over degrees. [00:27:00] Small side note, right? People who work in trades, there are so many good paying trades jobs.
You know, being a mechanic working as a plumber, working as a welder. There are so many jobs open right now that I’ve been reading that pay very, very well, and there’s just not enough skilled labor yet in the market. I think that we’re gonna start seeing that too. I think this, this especially with ai, you’re gonna start seeing people move more towards skill and trade related jobs.
As opposed to getting another marketing degree or a communications degree, not knocking those things. I have a type of degree like that too. Okay. So just like before, there will be fears, growing pains and real challenges, but if the last 250 years have shown us anything so far, Conner, it is that American workers adapt, build, innovate.
We move forward. The future is going to bring change, but change has always been a part of our story. It’s always been a part of our story. Yep. Any thoughts before I jump into the spiritual application of this Conor?
Conner: I just think it’s interesting ’cause you, you said AI’s gonna create industries we didn’t even know about and it’s hard [00:28:00] to envision right now, but I’m thinking like five years ago, if you said there’d be an entire like AI industry, people would think you’re crazy.
Totally. And now there are so many AI companies that are hiring up tech people all around. So you just, it’s hard to predict what’s gonna come, you know, five years from now there could be an industry we can’t even comprehend sitting here in this moment, but we’ll be talking about it five years from now.
Micah: I mean, there was just so many things in our, in our nation’s history, like you think about, you know, people thought the internet, the creation of the internet would destroy the world. You know, the whole Y 2K stuff when the car was first invented and people stopped riding horses, you know, people were, oh, the end is near, you know, all day.
We’re not gonna figure this thing out. When you move from farm to factories, that’s a huge deal. When you move from factories to more tech related jobs office, that’s a big change too. I just. W why not view things glass half full? And why not say, Hey, if you look at our history, we’ve gone through a lot of big changes and there’s something special about this country and the the way that people are incentivized and able to [00:29:00] risk to create a better life for themselves.
I’m gonna beat this American excellence drum as long as I possibly can because I don’t believe it really helps anything much. If we’re just so negative about the place that we live. You can acknowledge its difficulties.
But if there isn’t an underlying gratitude and a perspective that we live in a, a, a very safe, sovereign, prosperous nation, no matter where you’re from, you can go out and make a better life for yourself.
I, obviously, there are some exceptions, but by and large, the only thing that stops you from accomplishing what you wanna accomplish is you, it’s not a system. It’s not, you know, and again, what I’m saying is probably pretty controversial, but I know that Conner and I are on the same page on this. I, I, I just, I will beat that drum of why not be grateful.
I think a heart of gratitude pushes us to do greater things.
Conner: We’re very blessed to live here, and there’s a reason so many people around the world try to get into this nation still. Still. I mean, every day. Yes. Thousands of people are trying to get across our borders or fly into our [00:30:00] nation to come work here, study here.
Yep. Start a business in a life here. It’s, it’s incredible.
Micah: Yep, absolutely. So this all hits differently I think for me after Thanksgiving, Conner, it’s so easy to look at our current situation and assume this is how life will always be. If things are difficult, we think it’s gonna stay difficult. If something feels uncertain, we imagine that uncertainty stretching out forever.
We’re, we’re a prisoner of our emotions, whether, if we realize it or not, you can just kind of be in this mindset of, of angst and really not even personally recognize it, to be able to pray and pull yourself out of it. But history tells us that seasons. Do not stay the same. The American worker has lived through massive change like I just covered, through progress and setbacks, through good years and hard ones.
Yes, there were many bad, hard years, but in aggregate over time, we’re moving up and up and up and God has been faithful through all of it. In the mountaintops and in the valleys. Your God, my God, he is faithful. Philippians four 11 says, I have learned in whatever [00:31:00] situation I am to be content. Amen. Psalm 100, verse five, the Lord is good.
His steadfast love endures forever. Amen. Hebrews 13, eight, Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever. Work changes. Yeah, life changes, circumstances change, but God stays the course. He stays steady on our behalf. He carries people through every season, even the ones that feel confusing or frustrating in the moment.
So here’s the challenge for me, for you, for everybody listening for you two, Conner. Okay. Instead of assuming the grass is green. Somewhere else or letting today’s pressures define tomorrow. Choose gratitude. Why not trust that God is working even when the path is not straight or even when you feel like you can’t see it.
Growth is rarely linear, but his faithfulness is, he has been faithful in the past. He’s faithful today and he will, that’s a promise he will be faithful in the future.
Conner: [00:32:00] Mm. To that he’s always faithful. And that includes in work, that includes in. You know, everything we’ve talked about in the first part of this podcast, everything, again, he’s a God of order and he’s such a, he’s also been faithful to
Micah: our nation.
He’s been faithful, faithful to our country, you know? And I, I just, I pray and hope and believe that’s gonna keep happening no matter all the, all the difficulties we’re experiencing right now.
Conner: Yeah, for sure. And of course we always pray for revival in our nation, right? That’s the most important thing, a massive spiritual revival here.
’cause that’s what puts a lot of things in the right direction. That’s really
Micah: what would change things. That’s really what would change things. Yeah.
Conner: Which, you know, we’re seeing signs of something doubt happening. Doubt something’s in the water. So continue to pray. Yeah. We’ve covered that extensively and speak into
Micah: that.
And we still, and we will keep covering that we’re praying every day and the ministry that, that we get to serve out. We, we want to. Be a part of a revival taking place. It’s, it’s in, in our founding documents as a For sure. It is. Yeah. You know, as we wanna leverage digital technology and this digital world, ai, all [00:33:00] these different things to, to bring about revival, true repentant revival, and turning to Jesus.
Conner: Yeah, definitely. Micah, as you were talking through this whole thing, I was thinking about an article, I think I saw it yesterday or two days ago. Wall Street Journal, New York Times somewhere was talking about how dress and work attire has changed over the last, really it was during the last century.
Oh, that’s interesting. And, and everything to just talk about It was very interesting. It was talking about, you know, it was very formal especially post World War ii. Everybody came in in suits. A men used to be required to wear hats to the office in the, like 1920s and thirties is we always with hats, which is because now
Micah: wearing a hat is viewed as not as professional.
Not as professional or it flipped more,
Conner: just more, but, and, and, and that’s where it went. It was like, it was very formal. You wore suit and tie women, you wore very formal dresses to work. And then over the decades it got less formal. And now we’re, wherever we are now, which is just, you know, some people wear very casually up to the office.
Basically
Micah: just, just wear clothes is where we are right now. That,
Conner: yeah, it’s kind of, it’s kind of funny but it’s just one of those things that is a telltale sign of where our culture has gone [00:34:00] and how work has changed. Which part of that’s just a lot of people’s work sits at a computer now, so you wanna be more comfortable.
It’s a part of. Yeah. Part of evolving. Okay. Michael, we love, as we always say, hearing from our listeners. We love it when you guys send us stuff. You can always email us at Culture [email protected] or shoot us a message on Instagram at Culture Brief Podcast. Wanted to read this incredible message we got from Brian, and I’m gonna keep that just his first name.
Brian sent us a message on Instagram and I thought, this is great. He was very open with us and shared and said we could share this on this show. I think it’s a good perspective. Brian said, I have an interesting background. Immigration topics have been tough to hear on channels like CNN or Fox. I immigrated illegally to the US at age four and was raised by loving immigrant parents who are devout Christians.
At 16, I got a deferred action for Childhood Arrivals residency, which let me work in study. I earned my undergraduate degree and master’s degree at a Christian university, and I now work in banking. I wanted to share my story to convey my main [00:35:00] message, which is. To say thank you for encouraging compassion and empathy in the immigration discussion.
It’s been hard recently to hear how people talk about immigrants, even those who don’t know my background. I lean conservative, but feel politically homeless, but thankfully my identity is in Jesus. Oh, amen, man. Yeah. Brian, thank you for sending that.
Micah: Yeah, Brian, that means a lot to us, man. That has, I think Conner and I would both agree that that has been, you know, obviously we started this podcast nearly a year ago, and it’s been such a blessing.
But I mean, ever since Trump has come into office, immigration has been one of the top two or three things that we’re gonna talk about when it comes to anything political. And that is consistently the most difficult discussion that Conner and I have. Not like disagreeing with each other or whatever, but just trying to handle that of understanding though, a, a, a nation needs rules and laws and borders.
We believe that, and we believe there’s biblical context for that, but at the same time, every single person is created in the image of God. And so [00:36:00] as a believer, there is an American versus somebody from another country. We are the same. We are all created and in a way that, that allows us to magnify and glorify God.
We’ve been gifted in specific ways, and so we have to remember that, that as believers, we can’t just let the political part of it, the rule of law, part of it. Dictate exactly what we believe on this subject because every person is created the image of God. Therefore they have dignity and they’re worthy of respect.
And we will keep banging that drum. But it has been a difficult topic to cover. And so Brian, we really thank you man. That means a lot to us because we really have tried to balance it and handle it with grace.
Conner: Yeah, we have, and I, I, I’m grateful he sent this in too. ’cause I think it gives perspective to the stories of so many immigrants who, yeah.
You know, I, it, the news is always focusing on people who came here illegally and do crimes or crossing the border at an age that they understand. But I mean, Brian came here as a child, I would say, you know, that that’s just something that a lot of people forget is stories like this [00:37:00] where Brian, you’re doing great work, man.
It’s awesome. It’s cool to see that you have really. You got a solid job. You’ve got your degrees. That’s, that’s awesome. Yeah, man. And I think there’s a lot of people in similar, similar shoes like that. And we have to remember those types of stories too when we talk about immigration. Yeah. So thanks Brian for sending that and we’ll continue to talk about that and just see where, you know, there’s Trump administration and government goes with all the immigration stuff going down the road.
Okay, Michael, let’s jump into check in real fast. We got several things that have been happening. One, I know you wanna give an update on the Dells.
Micah: I do. I do. Yeah. So the Dell family gave $6.25 billion to US children. Lemme break that down a little bit. So they, they gave a gift and it’ll give about 25 million US children, roughly a $250 deposit into a new investment account for each child with the program launching July 4th.
2026, July 4th, 2026 is the 250th anniversary of our nation’s founding. God Bless America. Children born from 2025 through 2028 will also receive an additional $1,000 in [00:38:00] government funded deposits. We’ve talked about this. These are the trump’s the Trump accounts. The money stays invested until each child turns 18 when it can be used for education, A first home.
Or starting a business and you know, the Dell family kind of put out this statement about, you know, how, how each child just needs a seed and needs the ability to build something for the future. I think this is incredible. I think this is so cool that extreme wealth like this, that. You know, some people are like, why do you need all that money?
It’s actually being leveraged for something that’s not selfish. It’s, it’s being leveraged for the future of the future of this country. I just thought that was really cool that they did that. To just spend every, I mean this is gonna impact, you know. 25 million children. That’s a whole lot of kids.
That’s, that’s our future. That’s amazing. This is,
Conner: One of the biggest donations ever made, I believe. Definitely towards a government funded thing. The Dell’s, of course, Dell technology, Dell computers. That’s where that wealth comes from. Michael Dell is worth, I think, $150 billion. So this is very cool, man.
Kind of a, a drop in the bucket for him, but also with large amount of money. So just props to the Dell
Micah: family, [00:39:00] man. Yeah, love it. It’s cool.
Conner: Something else. The box office, man. It was tough in, in the fall, man. October was. Really bad. Lowest October in history, besides the COVID year 2020, only $445 million was collected.
And so people were freaking out in Hollywood. But, and the, but then came the Thanksgiving holiday. Yeah. And we saw two massive movies come in. I’m sure many of you listeners went and saw these films. I don’t know Micah, if you took your girls to see either Wicked for Good or Zootopia too. But those movies, man, they blew everything up.
We could For Good. Brought in 200. I’m part of the problem.
Micah: I haven’t seen a movie in a while. When the new Top Gun comes out, I’ll go see that. Well that’s,
Conner: that’s probably five, six years away from now.
Micah: I’ll go, I’ll go eventually. Hopefully theater still exists
Conner: by then. If there’s, if there’s weeks like this, it’ll, it’ll continue.
’cause we could forget. Brought in $270 million and Zootopia two has brought in $156 million just since the last Wednesday. So that’s good news as I, I thought this was interesting. The New York Times Hollywood reporter, Brooks Barnes wrote. That the message film goer, sorry. Film goers seem to be sending to [00:40:00] studios is once again saying, give us energetic fantasies that allow us to escape the challenges of the real world, and we will come.
They need to focus on movies like this that allow people to go and have fun in the theater. Not just Good point. Like Top Gun, right? Enjoy the movies, not just feel like a Debbie Downer every time you go see a film.
Micah: It’s a, it’s a good point, especially from the New York Times too. You know, you saw, and we’ve covered this extensively, there has just been.
Such a, like a left word shift in all media created for a while where you felt like you couldn’t see a movie or watch a TV show without being preached at for some political opinion. And I think that that was just kind of grinding on people. And yeah, I mean that’s kind of what movies are like. They, especially when you go to a theater, it provides an escape, gives you a couple hours where you’re thrust into a completely different world and not thinking about your problems.
And you know, I think escaping too much is a problem, but I don’t think there’s anything wrong with just. Taking a brain break. I think it’s great. Yeah.
Conner: Seeing Jason Bateman voice a rabbit. Just doing his thing in Zootopia. That’s right. What in Zootopia? Yeah, that’s, that’s Bateman bro. Oh, [00:41:00] I do love Jason Bateman.
That’s great. You know, maybe a little Disney Plus action. Wait a minute. Something else you said
Micah: Jason Bateman.
Conner: Yeah.
Micah: Okay. For first, at first I thought you said Jason Statham. See, don’t you think that would be weird if Jason Statham was in? Yeah, that
Conner: would be a little weird, but honestly, because he, Jason makes more sense probably.
He, he’d play the bad guy in the Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But just,
Micah: oh dude, Jason Statham in a cartoon. Okay. That’d be crazy.
Conner: Something else. College football, dude. Lane Kiffin, we mentioned at, at the top. He’s at LSU. The coaching carousel is crazy. The playoffs are down the road. We got the conference championships this weekend.
If you’re a big college football fan, I know you’ll be watching those a lot still at play with trying to get the last few seeds in that college football playoff bracket. But man, Micah, any, any just initial thoughts on just the chaos down there in the South and Mississippi? Man, it’s been wild in Louisiana.
Micah: You know what I’ve been paying most attention to is just all the coaching hires. It’s just been a carousel. Like so many big jobs have been open. Like SEC, like larger jobs, LSU, Auburn Penn State. Broken Kentucky. Yeah, Kentucky was open. Now [00:42:00] it’s filled Oklahoma State. Penn State, Virginia Tech. What else?
What else I am I
Conner: missing? Right before we hopped on this, I saw the Kansas State coaches retiring. Oh, so there’s another big one. Oh, I can’t even see that. UCLA Ole Miss was
Micah: open because Lane Kiffin left Ole Miss for, for LS u So just Florida just crazy. And we’re seeing, we’re seeing how money plays into this like Lane Khan’s reason that he gave, like he’s kind of known as being somewhat of a selfish guy.
But he operates well in this NIL world and I do think he’s a good coach. You know, he, he basically was like, it wasn’t about the salary for me. I mean, he’s. The salary difference between Ole Miss and LSU is very little, but he, he was given a promise and has a better understanding that I will have more money to spend on players at LSU than at Ole Ms.
Cash is king in order to build a better team. And you know, as, as you know, when we have covered in IL that is, that is going to become more prominent in college sports. And you can say, I mean, that really kind of feels like that’s like ruining the good thing about college athletics, but it’s too late.
We’re already too deep. Hopefully there’s some changes in some legislation that takes place that can stop a coach [00:43:00] from leaving a team when they’re about to go to the college football playoff, thus, almost ruining that team’s chances. I don’t know, man. That was, that was a weird situation with Lane Kiffin, but we could talk about that for a while.
Let’s jump into tune in real quick. So just have one update for you here. So make sure to listen to this week’s Faith and Clarity episode. So that is our Big Brother podcast in the Denon Forum Podcast Network, faith and Clarity with Dr. Mark Turman. He’s been so gracious to us. We love working with Mark.
He’s a very wise person. He hosts a podcast. So Conner joined Dr. Mark Turman and Josh Miller to discuss cloning and gene editing. Holiday loneliness and the rising church attendance among younger generations. They covered all that and a lot more. So all these things will be linked in the show notes or just search for the Faith and Clarity Podcast on Apple, Spotify, or YouTube.
Conner: Thanks, Mike. That was a fun conversation. It was wide ranging and yeah, gene editing is crazy, so go listen to that.
Micah: Yeah.
Conner: And guys, thank y’all so much for joining us on Culture Brief, a Denison Forum [00:44:00] podcast, and all articles, videos, anything that we mentioned will be posted in the show notes, even the link to that podcast episode.
Anything else that we mentioned. And if you enjoyed today’s episode, please subscribe and rate or review the show and share it with a friend, and we will see you next Thursday.
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