Transcript:

00:00:00

Michele Goodwin:

Welcome to On the Issues with Michelle Goodwin at Ms. Magazine. A show where we report, rebel, and we tell it just like it is. And on this show, we center your concerns about rebuilding our nation, and advancing the promise of equality. 

Join me as we tackle the most compelling issues of our times. On our show, history matters. We examine the past, as we think about the future. And in this very special episode, we’re talking about trad wives, and this trad wife movement. You’ve seen it on Instagram, on YouTube, in various places, where women want to make chocolate chip cookies, and they’re starting straight from the earth, churning the wheat, churning, creating the butter, and so much more. 

But behind the facade of what is the trad wifer, for those who are really living the trad wife reality, there is much to unpack. What’s real in this? What’s fake and false? What’s just influencers looking to gain a buck or two, or a lot of money, on selling a message about women’s roles, where they should be, what that means in terms of household, children, marriage, and family, and so much more. 

And to help us unpack this is Madeline Peltz, who’s a writer, a journalist, and a researcher, born in Chicago. And over the last decade, her reporting has appeared on Media Matters for America, MSNow, Newsweek, and many other spaces, helping us to understand what’s behind the trad wife movement, what’s good about it, what’s concerning, and how is this affecting American politics, reproductive freedom, and many other issues, in which I know you all have an interest in. 

So, sit back and take a very close listen.

Madeline. It’s such a pleasure to be with you, and I’m so pleased that you are joining us. You’re an independent writer, and you’ve been covering right wing media, and writing across a number of venues, so I want to start off with asking you about certain trends that are coming into your feeds. The things that you have been covering before we get to Turning Point USA. What are the kind of things that you’re picking up on?

00:02:40

Madeline Peltz:

So, I just finished my first book. It’s about, it’s called Good Girls and Alpha Males: How the Conservative Media Is Recruiting Gen Z, and I really have spent a lot of time, over the last couple of years, in the bowels of the internet, where you see the manosphere, and these trends that are attracting Gen Z to right wing ideology, which is kind of, you know, not what you would think of young people, that they might be attracted to the Trump movement. 

But on the margins, you’re seeing pretty significant movement that is influencing these young people. So, I have spent a lot of time covering the right-wing media. Before that, I covered Fox News for many years. I covered Steve Bannon for many years, and really got curious about conservative young people in the last couple of years.

00:03:39

Michele Goodwin:

That’s fascinating, and it’s a piece that, I think, probably fewer people pay attention to. Although with the last election, I think it gave the greatest level of attention, and most of that focused on males, not necessarily including young women. Any takes there?

00:03:56

Madeline Peltz: 

Yeah. So, in the book, I write about how, I think, a lot of this discourse around conservative young women can be traced back to the Dobbs decision. 

So, I think that Dobbs created a real psychic wound in the minds of women, and people who experienced pregnancy, that there was a real shrinking sphere of civil rights. This was a, this was a decision of fantasy to overturn Roe for 50 years, and then suddenly, it was a reality, and unwanted pregnancy doesn’t just happen to liberal women. 

So, what I saw was a right-wing movement that needed to come up with an explanation for how young women could move forward in the world, and in the conservative movement, post Dobbs. And what I really saw was the rise of the trad wife. Everybody’s talking about the trad wife. There’s the hit novel…

00:04:54 

Michele Goodwin:

It’s everywhere. It’s everybody’s feed, right. The homemade chocolate chip cookies, with the homemade chocolate chips, out with the cows to get the milk and cream, to you know, it’s the whole thing, cultivating the wheat and the flour.

00:05:12 

Madeline Peltz:

Yeah, absolutely. You know you see it in literature. You see it in movies. You see it in fashion. It’s everywhere, and I think what the right has really done is taken this trend and said, actually, this post-Dobb world works for you. It’s actually better for you to have less civil rights, because the trade-off is, you know, marriage and children, and the stability that comes with that. 

And of course, like that’s a fantasy and it’s a way of convincing young women to give up on this whole feminism thing. So, I’ve been really fascinated with the rising strain of anti-feminism in the last couple of years.

00:05:49 

Michele Goodwin:

I really appreciate your framing on that. So, before I get to this question about June meeting of Turning Point USA, I want to invite our listeners to find some of your writings, your book for sure, and also, your piece, Inside the Conference Recruiting Young Women to Be Trad Wives. A great piece. My Afternoon with the Street Vendors Outside of Trump’s UFC fight. Fascinating, absolutely fascinating. Dear Media, Is the Vaccine Skeptical Trojan Horse Targeting Millennial Women. Another fabulous piece, and then this one, Whores Get Married First. The Womanosphere Influencers Meltdown Over Alex Cooper’s Pregnancy.

Listeners, please take a look at Madeline’s writings. It’s absolutely great, and giving lots of information, lots of ______ 00:06:51. And I might turn back to that, but let’s think about Turning Point.

Madeline. Just as you’ve noted with your writing, and in our conversation so far, that after the Dobbs decision, there has been some significant pivoting to explain the lack of, and the constraints on reproductive health care, the lack of certain reproductive health care services, abortion being one, but much more in anti-abortion states, that that’s been countered with this narrative that this is an era that is even better for women. They just simply didn’t know it, right. And as you were mentioning, the whole trad wife phenomenon, and very recently, Turning Point hosted its annual, I think it’s 11th year, Women’s Leadership Summit in San Antonio. I’m wondering, it does this year’s convening strike somehow differently than, let’s say, 11 years ago?

00:07:55

Madeline Peltz: 

Oh, definitely. And I trace the history of this conference through my book. You know, when this conference started, you saw a lot of the language that you might describe as girl boss feminism. 

So, under the Trump admin, the first Trump administration, you had people like Sarah Huckabee Sanders and Kellyanne Conway who would come and talk about, you know, there’s a quote that’s like, we kept the job of first woman president open for one of you in the audience. Or you know, Charlie Kirk would even say, like, you know, we want to see you in positions of leadership in corporate America, or in politics. And in 2021, Charlie Kirk had an ideological change that has been associated with a new relationship he had with a megachurch pastor named Rob McCoy, that really turned his politics from the secular towards a Christian nationalist politics.

And with that transformation came a major shift in the messaging to young women. All of the sudden, the conversation with young women, which obviously, was always a priority for Turning Point, was about marriage. It was about family. It was about creating a life that is meant to optimize your chance of finding a husband. 

And then again, you know, starting in 2024, the anti-feminist strain started mixing with this Make America Healthy Again movement, and so this year was very interesting because, well, I’ll say in 2025, it was really like a victory lap for MAHA, and in the last year, the MAHA movement has really drifted from the administration, so you saw a lot less talk about that. And one thing that really came to the forefront in the absence of this Make America Healthy Again movement was these sort of tried-and-true attacks on reproductive rights.

00:09:55 

Michele Goodwin:

That’s pretty significant. And one of the things that you’re tying into is what we’ve seen in the administration, and what you’ve been writing about as well, right, the MAHA. So, not just the MAGA, but that which influences health. And your piece, recently, about Dear Media, Is the Vaccine Skeptical Trojan Horse Targeting Millennial Women, can you unpack, then, what this connection is between Turning Point USA, MAGA, MAHA, and what it’s meaning in terms of women’s health? Because I think that the question with regard to abortion, we see that, quite vividly, but there’s these undercurrents that affect other areas of health, too. 

So, I want to just touch on that before we go on.

00:10:44

Madeline Peltz:

Yeah, the MAHA coalition is very widespread. It ranges from anti-vaccine activists, hardcore committed fans of RFK, to you know, mothers and young women who are concerned about like consumer safety and public health. And there are a lot of reasons to be dissatisfied with the state of consumer safety and women’s health in this country. 

And you know, amazingly, given the party’s track record, the right-wing movement has been extraordinarily effective at capturing that public discontent with consumer culture, and what resulted was bringing together this group of, this diverse group of, you know, most, a lot of women to hold their nose and vote for Trump, you know who is like a virulent misogynist, and very crude, and otherwise would be put off by, you know, would put off this constituency. And so, Dear Media, which for your listeners who don’t know is like one of the biggest podcast networks in the country, they host Khloe Kardashian’s podcast. It’s run by this couple that, in a very sublimated way, launders sort of anti-vaccine, and health conspiracy-type content into their platform, and you’re taking an audience that is interested in things like mental health, or self-care and wellness, and very, very subtly leading them down the road towards supporting the Republican Party. And I see this, in many ways, as a failure of the Democratic Party to put forward a legitimate, credible, you know, counterweight to this clear public discontent with consumerism.

00:12:39 

Michele Goodwin:

So, let’s unpack the Turning Point, and the summit even more, because there’s so much that’s there. 

So, you know it’s been said, and I think you might have said that if there’s a ground zero for the pink pill, it’s Turning Point USA’s Women’s Leadership Summit, because every year the right-wing MAGA group brings together 1000s of young women and girls from across the country. Any idea about the numbers this year? How many were there?

00:13:09

Madeline Peltz:

Usually, this event is between 2 and 3000 young women and girls.

00:13:15 

Michele Goodwin:

All right, so we’re talking about a couple 1000, at least. Does it surprise you, Madeline? I think that some people might think that it’s even more. How do we understand these numbers? Because Turning Point certainly does give the impression that it’s giving big, big numbers. And some people have been pointing out that actually, if you lift under the hood, you kick the tires, it turns out it’s a car that doesn’t have a big engine at all. It may be a very big car, but what’s inside is kind of Barbie dollhouse-size equipment.

00:13:45 

Madeline Peltz:

Yeah, I think that there’s a lot of different ways to look at Turning Point’s influence. They really rely on their chapter numbers, which is, you know, Turning Point USA is a conservative student organization that has chapters in high schools, churches, and college campuses, and that’s how they engage their members on an ongoing 365 basis. 

And through conversations I’ve had on the ground with people who are involved in Turning Point, and also, some research I’ve seen floating around online, a lot of these chapters are really just chapters on paper, and I think there’s a big question of like how legitimate these numbers are. 

I think that Turning Point’s power really comes from its digital communications activism. So, what you saw, especially during the 2024 election, was Charlie Kirk was on the road in swing states, on these college campuses, doing these debate events where students would come up to the mic, they would prioritize people who disagreed with him, and he would have these really viral moments that would get millions and millions of views. And I think that really in 2024, was when Charlie Kirk found a true audience of young people. I think that they were sort of faking it till you make it, until they really found this successful vehicle for them in 2024. 

And so, I think that it shouldn’t be overstated how many young people are conservative. Like the vast majority of young women are progressive, but it’s really along the margins that these conferences are won and lost. And I think that young people voting for Trump was one of, if not the most, critical, you know, tipping point for the Trump to win the election.

00:15:38 

Michele Goodwin:

And this is a great point that you make, which is that it’s an Instagramable esthetic that we see coming through this, and that the convening has been described, you describe it as selfie stations. That it’s booming hype music between speakers, vendors hall that’s selling right wing Christian lip tints and bracelets. Tell me about that, right? Like, can you walk, I mean, our listeners, through what that all looks like. I had no idea about the right-wing Christian lip tints. That’s interesting.

00:16:16 

Madeline Peltz:

Yeah, there’s a whole cottage industry around Make America Healthy Again, and like appealing to young women evangelical voters. These events are maximized around the fun factor, and this is actually how I, sort of, I first got interested in Turning Point, was these events are themed. So, when I started covering it in 2022, the theme Was Pretty Fed Up, which ostensibly was like an emo hot topic-type theme. 

The face of this conference, Alex Clark, came out in like a motorcycle leather mini dress, and like, it was, I mean, it’s like a place to like go and dress up. So, the first time I attended this conference was the next year, and the theme was, like the 1970s, because they were taking back the decade from the feminist movement, and all of these girls and women were dressed in, like you know, star spangled flight suits, and mini power, flower power dresses. And so, and in the last couple of years, of course, this conference has consistently hit on this like prairie trad wife, you know, homemaker esthetic. 

So, it’s really, it’s a place to go meet likeminded young women, take pictures for Instagram, and it’s fun. I mean, I’ve been there twice. I’ve been to, you know, other Turning Point events, as well, and they just are really well practiced at stage production.

00:17:52 

Michele Goodwin:

Tell us a bit about the kind of speakers that come to the events. What’s the messaging that goes on? So, lots of fun, booming music, Christian lip tint, but when it comes down to the messaging of the speakers, what’s being conveyed?

00:18:09

Madeline Peltz:

A lot of what goes down at this conference is around like lifestyle advice, and about how to find a husband. That is like, really, the guiding light of this leadership summit, is how to, one thing that they say all of the time is, how to have a God honoring single season. And so, they describe being a single woman. 

00:18:37 

Michele Goodwin:

Yeah, what does that mean? What what does that mean?

00:18:40 

Madeline Peltz:

Yeah. I mean, they describe being a single woman as like a a temporary state of like diminished existence, basically. Like you…and and you have to understand, like these. the audience is like high school and college age girls. They’re single. They’re childless. So, like they’re telling them that the key to young adulthood is finding a man. 

And last year, in 2025, Charlie Kirk, you know, said, how many of you, your number one priority every single day is finding a husband? And he said, every single hand should go up. You know, last year also, a girl who is 14 years old, embraces, during a question-and-answer session, asked him, like I’m interested in political journalism, like what advice do you have, and he said only go to college if you’re interested in an MRS degree. You know this is the, like imagine that’s your 14-year-old.

00:19:37

Michele Goodwin:

What is an MRS degree?

00:19:40

Madeline Peltz:

MRS is like Mrs., like to find a husband.

00:19:43 

Oh, and yes, the miss. 

00:19:46 

Madeline Peltz:

Yes, it’s like an anti, it’s like a very like antiquated term.

00:19:50 

Michele Goodwin:

I’m like, did I miss the masters, and I mean, I okay, yes that.

00:19:56 

Madeline Peltz:

So, like, I mean, it’s just like I, like, if that was my 14-year-old, like it would be on. That is, I would not let a grown man talk to my daughter like that. So, you know, it was, it’s a very radical message that has really proliferated out into the conservative movement.

00:20:15 

Michele Goodwin:

So then, I want to turn to thinking about some of the questions that you’ve been asking, that’s part of your reporting, part of your your book. You see this evolution that goes from, as you were talking about early on, girl boss messaging, there, which could have been, I suppose, sliding into a space that was not conservative, you know, indistinguishable except that conservative was labeled over it 11 years ago. 

But now, definitely different. But one of the issues that has been a sticking point, so, abortion was Dobbs’s is resulted in blowback. But voting. So, I’m curious about how the folks that are at Turning Point, and I know you’ve been asking these questions, how they perceive the right to vote and the 19th Amendment.

00:21:12 

Madeline Peltz:

So, there’s this up-and-coming influencer. There’s two strains to this. There’s this influencer culture of young women who are on Instagram speaking like direct camera, and making a case for so-called household voting, wherein only a husband is allowed to vote on behalf of the entire family. There’s a number of different reasons that has really popped up. 

Number one, it really is the final manifestation of this vision of traditional marriage that they have. And number two, it you know, if women couldn’t vote, you wouldn’t be, you wouldn’t be having to contend with anything that looks like a left wing in this country. 

The other strain of this is this, you know, rise in Christian nationalism. There are a number of these pastors that are, again, on social media, having podcasts, that are openly anti-enfranchisement of women. One of these pastors is Doug Wilson, who is the head of this church that Pete Hegseth is connected with. I’ve actually been to that church. I went to a service there one Sunday, and there’s a lot of young, I mean, it was mostly young people. It was mostly young families with young children.

00:22:37 

Michele Goodwin:

That’s fascinating. Large church, how many? Hundreds, 1000s? 

00:22:44 

Madeline Peltz:

Okay. So, no, nothing like that. It was probably like less than 200 people. You’re not going to believe this, but this church is on Capitol Hill. So, they opened an outpost in DC after the second administration came in. It’s called Christ Church, is on Capitol Hill, like on, like above all the like fast casual restaurants that Hill staffers go to. The Heritage Foundation has an outpost on Capitol Hill. The church is above that. In like, it’s a small room above that. They had a giant American flag overhead, and then, in the like reception area, they had, you know, a tread on me flag. They had an appeal to heaven flag, which is a flag associated with the Christian nationalist movement, and another flag, another American flag. 

So, it’s a very small thing, but like these people are serious about turning America into an exclusively Christian nationalist nation, and you see the seriousness of that project by opening a church in DC, just to be close to the government.

00:23:54 

Michele Goodwin:

That is absolutely fascinating, and raises very significant questions with regard to the separation of church and state, and the interest in influencing lawmakers, and lawmakers, potentially, being influenced. 

Certainly, with the passing of Charlie Kirk, it became a part of national discourse in a way in which I think some people may have been surprised. So, I want to ask you a little bit about Charlie Kirk and also Erika Kirk, given that you’ve been covering this movement, these people for for some time. So, the first is, you know, under Erika Kirk’s leadership, has Turning Point USA changed in any ways from, that are visible to you, than the way in which Charlie Kirk led it?

00:24:40 

Madeline Peltz:

Yeah, I think that Turning Point is really in a crisis, right now. I think that they’re really, the ascendant energy in the right wing is with people like Candice Owens, who, if your listeners don’t know, is a very popular conspiracy podcaster, and also Nick Fuentes, who is really the leader of Holocaust denial, and refashioning Nazism into a modern American cultural phenomenon. 

And Turning Point doesn’t really know where it falls in this divide that’s happening in MAGA, right now, as the administration has faltered. And Charlie Kirk was really, you know, first of all, his work ethic was absolutely relentless. Like he was always working, he was always building, and you just can’t really replace that. And he was the founder, you know, and a lot of organizations don’t survive the exit of a founder, not to mention the way in which he left the organization, and the turning, the ascendancy of Erika Kirk has been extremely problematic for the organization. 

First of all, there’s the fact that…

00:26:01

Michele Goodwin:

Yeah, unpack it. Yeah, what have been some of the the things that, perhaps, people don’t know that’s made it problematic?

00:26:07

Madeline Peltz:

I mean, the right doesn’t want to see a woman in position of leadership. Like that’s probably the most obvious thing. The other thing is that just the noise on social media is drowning out, is drowning out Turning Point’s messaging. I think they made like a number of mistakes in really capitalizing on the assassination of their founder. Candace Owens claims to have been Charlie Kirk’s best friend. I think that they were they were…

00:26:38 

Michele Goodwin:

She’s posted photos of them, and videos of them, laughing to the, sort of laughing together, listening to the same music in cars, and other places to show a closeness that she had with him.

00:26:51 

Madeline Peltz:

Yeah, she definitely at one point was very close with Charlie Kirk. It seems like that relationship may have really stumbled in the last years of his life, but regardless, like there is this fight over Charlie Kirk’s legacy. What did he believe about all of these hot button issues? About Trump? About the war? You know, these the conflict in the Middle East, about Israel? 

And Erika Kirk is really not well positioned to be the final authority on that legacy, and I think that one of the biggest challenges she has is like Charlie Kirk’s thing was that he was a debater. Like you saw Ezra Klein, you know, write that column at the end of Charlie’s life, that Charlie Kirk was doing politics the right way. That’s what Ezra Klein said, and you know, the idea was, and of course, this wasn’t an accurate idea, but the idea was that he would debate anyone. He would have a respectful conversation with anyone, and like Erika Kirk has turned into this sort of like black widow villain at the hands of Candace Owens, and she, you know, won’t…she’s not capable of debating students, and you know, as stepping into the public life, you are going to get pushback, no matter who you are. And she’s not capable of dealing with that. And like she went through a very traumatic experience, obviously. So, it’s…

00:28:21 

Michele Goodwin:

Do you think that people…oh, I’m sorry. Go go ahead. I had another question I wanted to ask…

00:28:23 

Madeline Peltz:

I think there’s, I think a lot is up in the air with Turning Point, right now, and you know that’s going to be the focus of my work, over the next few years, is where does Turning Point go from here? I think it’s sort of the white rabbit of what’s going to happen to the conservative youth movement. But I think there’s a lot of questions that are sort of open, right now.

00:28:43 

Michele Goodwin:

Are there people in that sphere who thought that it was just too soon, her taking the podium, rubbing JD Vance’s hair, the fireworks, and things like that right after Charlie Kirk’s death?

00:29:02 

Madeline Peltz:

I mean, Turning Point went into their standard fundraising mode after their founder was assassinated, which is really not an appropriate way to handle. 

You know, they wanted to grow their email list, they wanted to maximize donations, and it just wasn’t…you know, it was not well received by the public. 

The other thing is that Erika Kirk’s public profile is really divided against itself. On the one hand, you have her profile as a a widow. You know, the ultimate victim of woke culture is what she, you know, how she made sense of the assassination of her husband. And on the other hand, you have her in this role of political leadership that she is really not equipped to do, and so like she tries to, you know, those two things are in tension with each other, and I think that that is really an irresolvable crisis for the organization.

00:30:03 

Michele Goodwin:

So, as you mentioned, the next few years will be your unpacking where the organization goes for your next book. Do you think it’ll survive the next few years?

00:30:13 

Madeline Peltz:

Well, Candace Owens says that Turn, and again, it’s Candace Owens, but she says that Turning Point is sitting on a billion dollars, and that may not be the correct number, but certainly, they raised an absolutely astronomical amount of money. 

So, it will be impenetrable in many ways, for that reason, but it is really out of step with the direction that the conservative youth movement is moving, and whether they are able to course correct or not, I don’t think they’re going to be able to. They have a lot of problems with leadership. 

And Candice Owens, like if you just look at the data, like her followers, her views are going up. Turning Point’s views, without Charlie, have like totally collapsed, and this fight for attention is real, is really the real currency of this fight. So, I, you know, I think in many ways, it may become like a zombie organization, but it’s definitely not going away.

00:31:17 

Michele Goodwin:

We always ask on our podcast what’s a silver lining? It’s very interesting in the intersection of what it is that you’ve been covering, what silver lining actually looks like? So, I’ll let you take that in whatever direction you wish to.

00:31:32 

Madeline Peltz:

So, I talked to a lot of conservative young people in the last couple of months. My sources for the book were heavily female, and I, in the last couple of months, as I think about my next project, I’ve tried to recruit young male sources. This is where a lot of the conversation about conservative young people lies, and I have found that many of these men, including ones who express extreme views, are actually highly persuadable. 

They are looking for a leader to validate their grievances, and the options they have, right now, are not good. So, if you give them better options, if you give them leadership who are speaking to their grievances while, also, you know, redirecting this underlying bigotry, I think you can build a coalition much more powerful than the current base of the Democratic Party. 

So, that’s what I’ve found. I think that that is not well understood, and I really believe it’s possible to bring some of these young men back from the brink.

00:32:38 

Michele Goodwin:

This is fascinating, Madeline Peltz. It’s just been a true pleasure spending time with you. Thank you for your research. I want our readers to spend time, and read your book, and your other writings. The book, Good Girls and Alpha Males: How the Conservative Media Is Targeting Gen Z. Also, the article, some of which I mentioned earlier, Inside the Conference Recruiting Young Women to Be Trad Wives. My Afternoon with the Street Vendors Outside Trump’s UFC Fight. Dear Media, Is the Vaccine Skeptical Trojan Horse Targeting Millennial Women. And and there’s so much more than this, and also Whores Get Married First, Womanosphere Influencers Meltdown Over Alex Cooper’s Pregnancy, and so much more. 

Thank you so much, Madeline Peltz. Thank you for joining us.

00:33:36 

Madeline Peltz:

Thank you.

00:33:38 

Michele Goodwin:

I thank you for tuning in for the full story. We hope that you’ll join us again for our next episode, where we will be reporting, rebelling, and telling it just like it is. 

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This has been your host Michele Goodwin reporting, rebelling, and telling it just like it is. On The Issues with Michele Goodwin is a Ms. Magazine joint production. Michele Goodwin is our executive producer. Our producers for this episode are Roxy Szal, Allison Whelan, Oliver Haug. We thank Mariah Lindsay and Emerson Panigrahi for research and digital assistance. The creative vision behind our work includes art and design by Brandi Phipps, editing by Natalie Paredes and Emerson Panigrahi, and music by Chris J Lee. Jeremy Alexander provides executive assistance.