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Robert Evans: The Joe Rogan Of The American Left

 Behind The Bastards is a podcast series about the worst people in history.  Hosted by Cracked alum Robert Evans (the Joe Rogan of the American Left), he goes into depth exploring the backgrounds and stories of dictators, cult leaders, grifters, and other terrible people.  As a Michigander though, especially one who writes articles about local events, I'm forced to wonder why the hell so many Michiganders are featured on BTB.

Starting from a broad perspective, while Josh Duggar doesn't directly have connections to Michigan, I've definitely known people who subscribed to his ATI "cult" teachings.  I had peers in high school who fit the descriptions in Evans' podcasts to a T.  As Evans described the abuses within that particular branch of conservative Christianity, I shuddered to think that I probably hung out with kids subject to those same abuses.

Battle Creek, MI, is known as Cereal City, USA.  That's just a hop, skip, and jump down the road from my very own Tulip City.  The Kellogg family, of breakfast cereal fame, put Battle Creek on the map.  Robert Evans put his own spin on the Kellogg Family while describing their weird fascination with the sexuality of adolescent boys.

I learned of James Dobson's connections to Muskegon, MI through Behind The Bastards.  Dobson is the noted Christian family counselor who preached things like "beat your kids if they don't get good grades," and "the man of the house should be the only one who knows the finances," which had some weird tie-ins with the ATI teachings a few paragraphs up.  There are some more tie-ins with megachurch evangalism, as detailed in The Rise And Fall Of Mars Hill (not an iHeart property, nor affiliated in any way with Behind The Bastards, but has a similar story arc).

Another Muskegon connection is Televangelist Jim Bakker.  Bakker is the grifter who sells Apocalypse Kits to unsuspecting viewers.

The one series that really got to me though, was the BTB series on Erik Prince.  Brother-in-law to Amway heir, Dick DeVos, the Prince surname is right there alongside DeVos and Van Andel on buildings scattered around West Michigan.  Hell, I've met Dick and Betsy before.  I can't confirm that I've ever actually met Erik, but it's not outside the realm of possibility.  Though, I will say that I'm surprised that there hasn't been a BTB episode about Amway/Alticore.

So, what is it about West Michigan that makes it such a beacon for "the worst people in history," although there are a lot of commonalities between the subjects:  Conservative Christian grifters and scam artists - the Mars Hill podcast had a comment about how people are drawn to narcissists, and I think that explains how so many people are drawn to grifters and the like.

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