Jon Lovett and the Donner Party

Jon Lovett is a prominent podcaster and political commentator -- and, a survivor. (Get it?). Today, Ed brings Jon along to help commentate on the ill-fated journey of another group who was simply trying to survive: The Donner Party. Subscribe to the SNAFU YouTube channel: www.youtube.com/@SNAFUPod Buy the SNAFU book: www.snafu-book.com http://www.snafu-book.com/ See omnystudio.com/listener https://omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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• 1:35Speaker 05

  I don't know that I'm made for ox work.

• 1:37Speaker 06

  I couldn't even be like a paralegal in the Old West.

• 1:41Speaker 05

  I struggle at a Best Western. So I can't imagine if I'm at the actual least Western. You know what I mean? The actual West.

• 1:48Speaker 06

  So, yeah, even a Best Western is too Western for you.

• 1:57Speaker 06

  Today, I am joined by former Obama speechwriter, current Pod Save America co-host, and a guy I consider to be a whip-smart, world-class communicator with a startling command of the issues and devastating comedic timing. He's also somehow turned crippling anxiety about the future of America into a wildly successful media empire. Please welcome the one and only John Lovett.

• 2:26Speaker 05

  Hi. What an intro. Thank you.

• 2:28Speaker 06

  Hey, yeah, that's what we do here. We honor our guests. We elevate them. And I've been on your shows over the years many times. I'm so glad to have you on here. So, in your job at Crooked Media, you basically spend a lot of time analyzing the daily horrors of American politics, particularly Trump world. And yet somehow you stay quick and clever and weirdly hopeful. What's your secret? Like, what's the... Like, are you... Is it just therapy? Or are you on black market ketamine? Like, how do you not collapse into despair all the time?

• 3:12Speaker 05

  I want you to know something. If I ever am on ketamine, it will be from a prestigious Los Angeles-based pill-pushing fancy doctor. I'm not going to do black market drugs. That's not why I moved to this city.

• 3:25Speaker 06

  And I should know better.

• 3:26Speaker 05

  But, um, so, it's interesting. The truth is, for me, I think hope's important. I think it's important that people feel it, because I think without it, they may not be as involved or invested. And it has real, genuine value. But it's never been my motivator, to be honest. I've always been motivated by anger. I really have. Like, what... Anger, not just anger at Republicans who I disagree with, but like, angry at the fact that these problems are solvable, right? Like, just, I like... I'm the kind of person where... I was at a buffet line, over the weekend, in fact. What a life I lead. And I'm at this buffet line, and there was, basically, it was a nachos buffet line, okay?

• 4:12Speaker 05

  And here's how it was organized. It went plates, chips, cheese, another bowl of chips, another bowl of cheese. There's a long fucking line behind me and in front of me. I see this and nobody's doing anything. And so I walk to the front of the line. I take half the stack of plates and I put it next to the other bowl of cheese and chips. So that a whole group of people aren't walking by and because that's where the logjam was.

• 4:42Speaker 06

  Two lines.

• 4:43Speaker 05

  That's where the holdup was.

• 4:45Speaker 06

  Okay.

• 4:45Speaker 05

  Look, I see that I'm becoming the old Jewish relatives I knew from my childhood.

• 4:49Speaker 06

  Yeah, you're Larry David all of a sudden.

• 4:51Speaker 05

  But in ways, large and small, that is my nature. I can't stand those things. And so maybe I was just always motivated by the kinds of like, I don't need to love or be inspired every day to be motivated to participate or make jokes or do whatever we need to do. So maybe that's my good fortune. I do think like in a serious way, there's a whole, whole media apparatus that wants people to feel cynical and negative and to view all politics as corrupt and all politicians as useless. And if you give into that, the, the people that want you to feel that way, when they really do.

• 5:31Speaker 05

  And as bad as things have gotten, as bad as they could continue to get, there are always places where we have agency. And if you're giving up, it's not because you can't make a difference or you can't be involved or you can't have an impact. It's because either you don't know the way to find it or you've decided it's too hard. And maybe that's okay. That's something people can decide, but like, I think there's a way in which people try to tell themselves things are worse than they seem or are irredeemable because it makes it easier. And the truth is, hope makes demands of us. It does, and it requires you to do things.

• 6:06Speaker 06

  Well said. Thank you for reflecting on that with me. I actually, I kind of only want to talk about this stuff with you. I just like how you communicate about these things. Just a quick question. You were on the show Survivor.

• 6:19Speaker 05

  That's right.

• 6:19Speaker 06

  Did you guys at any point on that show ever consider? Eating one another, just like casually, as a backup plan.

• 6:28Speaker 05

  The truth is, I was only, I was only surviving for three nights, which meant I only really missed three dinners, and eating a fellow person doesn't come up after three dinners.

• 6:37Speaker 06

  You're already taking this question too seriously.

• 6:40Speaker 05

  It's a, but, uh, so it never comes to that. The other thing too is there are coconuts strewn about.

• 6:46Speaker 06

  Sure.

• 6:46Speaker 05

  Right? You know, the exact number of coconuts one might need to survive happened to be randomly distributed by, I think, God.

• 6:54Speaker 06

  Oh, yeah. Well, today's NAFU does involve actual cannibalism.

• 6:58Speaker 05

  Okay.

• 6:58Speaker 06

  It's one of the most famous disasters in American history. We're talking about the Donner Party.

• 7:04Speaker 05

  Oh, yeah.

• 7:09Speaker 06

  The year is 1846, a time when Americans were charging westward under the banner of Manifest Destiny, which was basically the 19th century version of, "I want it, and God said I could have it, so gimme it." It was kind of a conveniently divined permission slip for land grabs, broken treaties, and some really creative definitions of morality, but we'll come back to all that. So, like today, 1846 is a time of deep uncertainty. Most of the people heading west, they're not thrill seekers, they're not adventurers, they're just families chasing stability and hoping for a fresh start. John, have you ever had the fantasy of just like leaving it all behind and walking away

• 7:54Speaker 06

  from everything for a fresh start, like just off somewhere new?

• 7:59Speaker 05

  I'll tell you, it's pretty embarrassing, but my friend Sam and I, when we were graduating college, we decided we really wanted to like, we're gonna, we wanna like go west. All right? We really did talk about this. And our, in unimaginative brains, we were like, we're gonna go to Alaska, we're gonna move to Alaska. But we were gonna become paralegals there. And I don't really understand.

• 8:21Speaker 06

  Wait, how old were you?

• 8:22Speaker 05

  We'd like 20, 21. And we thought, oh, we'll go become paralegals because we know we could get that job. And I just, there's something so embarrassing about imagining going all the way to Alaska as an experiment, but being only able to conceive of an office job once we got there. We could have gone fishing, we could have done a lot of different things, but that was what we imagined. That there's a Jewish pragmatism in the heart of even that adventure.

• 8:48Speaker 06

  But there's also like this Ken Kesey kind of like adventure spirit to Alaska that we all, we all crave. Kudos to you for that.

• 8:56Speaker 05

  Thank you.

• 8:57Speaker 06

  So it's 1846, the Oregon Trail was a well-worn path at this point. There were maps, guidebooks, and a pretty clear playbook for how to make it successfully as long as you leave on time, follow the route, and don't try to get too fancy, which makes what happened next all the more unbelievable. Because one group looked at that solid, proven plan, and they were just like, hold my beer, because we got better ideas. We're gonna do this our own way. What's your Donner Party knowledge?

• 9:27Speaker 05

  I've never done a full deep dive. There's some tiny part of my brain that remembers that at some point they get hoodwinked in some way.

• 9:38Speaker 06

  We'll get there, but you're right. Let's meet the partiers, shall we? First up, brothers George and Jacob Donner, who brought their entire families, kids, wives, kids from other wives, basically just a massive frontier Brady Bunch. They also hired a crew of Teamsters, not the Jimmy Hoffa kind. Back then, a Teamster was someone who drove a team of oxen. Today, of course, it means a union truck driver, so basically a similar vibe as today, just more hay and less honking. So you think you'd make a good Teamster back in the day? Or would you just tap out at the first blister?

• 10:13Speaker 05

  Oh, yeah. I don't, I don't know that I made for ox work.

• 10:16Speaker 06

  I couldn't even be like a paralegal in the Old West, to your earlier point.

• 10:22Speaker 05

  I struggle at a Best Western.

• 10:27Speaker 05

  Right.

• 10:27Speaker 06

  No matter, no matter if it's, if it's in the west or even if it's in the east.

• 10:33Speaker 05

  Yeah, along, along a highway upstate New York, I'm at a best western, I'm, I'm complaining.

• 10:38Speaker 06

  You're like.

• 10:38Speaker 05

  So I can't imagine if I'm at the actual least western, you know what I mean? The actual west.

• 10:43Speaker 06

  The actual, the worst western, which is the real old west. Okay. So, yeah, even a best western is too western for you.

• 10:52Speaker 05

  Right, right.

• 10:54Speaker 06

  All right, all right. Well, also joining the crew, James F. Reed, an Irish immigrant from Springfield, Illinois, whose business had just gone belly up. So he's looking for a fresh start. He brought along his wife, Margaret, their kids, and Grandma Keys, who is in her 70s. Uh, that's, that's gotta be a tough old broad, right?

• 11:13Speaker 05

  Yeah, I'm surprised the Donners would have allowed Irish people. I think that's probably where they, that was where they went wrong.

• 11:18Speaker 06

  Maybe. So at the start here, we're talking about roughly 31 people in the group. Now, I'm gonna throw out numbers this whole time, but historians kind of dispute the exact number, so, uh, there, these are rough numbers. About 31 people in the group. And according to Young Virginia, the Reeds had the nicest ride, what she called a two-story Pioneer Palace car, pulled by four oxen. Meanwhile, the Donners were apparently slumming it with just three oxen wagons. So even on the Oregon Trail, teenage girls are, they're gonna judge your ride.

• 11:55Speaker 05

  They're a double deckers?

• 11:56Speaker 06

  Yeah, I know. Quick little sidebar, John, love it. Any, like, disastrous road trips in your life? Cause this is about to go off the rails.

• 12:05Speaker 05

  I'll tell you, I was the presidential speechwriter, and it was my job to be on the road with the president on a rural tour. He was doing a swing of rural areas, talking about rural issues. And something went wrong with my physical plant, with my corpus, no, my habeas.

• 12:25Speaker 06

  Okay, this is very cryptic, but it sounds like, sounds like you're sick, you're getting ill.

• 12:30Speaker 05

  You've never been going to the bathroom while a plane landed? That's not something you've ever done. No one has.

• 12:37Speaker 06

  You're right. It's illegal. You're not allowed to.

• 12:40Speaker 05

  And literally, I am having, I'm, I'll just, I'm shitting my brains out on Air Force One while it is physically landing. And I know that I have like 30 seconds after this plane stops to get to the van because the motorcade leaves when the president gets off the plane. And I spent that whole day wondering, am I gonna have to like fake some sort of a medical episode to get this van to pull over? Because I was in trouble that whole day.

• 13:10Speaker 06

  Oh my god.

• 13:12Speaker 05

  I am sick to my stomach.

• 13:13Speaker 06

  Where is this? Where city are you at at this point?

• 13:15Speaker 05

  Where is this? Mouth and butt. That's where it is.

• 13:20Speaker 06

  Geographically.

• 13:21Speaker 05

  I think we had flown maybe into Des Moines and we were doing a swing through Iowa.

• 13:25Speaker 06

  Okay.

• 13:27Speaker 05

  And it was an unbelievable nightmare. It was my secret nightmare. But I made it. I made it all the way through. Nobody was the wiser. I mean, just like, it was unbelievable. It was, it was, it was a high, high, low, low day.

• 13:42Speaker 06

  I do love that story.

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• 16:18Speaker 06

  Okay, we're jumping back in. The Donner Party officially departed Independence, Missouri, and headed to the Oregon Trail on May 12, 1846, having now ballooned to roughly 87 members. But it didn't take long for shit to hit the proverbial fan. Because May 12 is way late in the season. The best time to leave on a westward trek was early to mid-April. This was pretty much common knowledge, so shame on the Donner Party, right? Travelers relied on seasonal grass and flowers to feed their cattle, and also needed to avoid the rainy spring, which created crazy amounts of mud. Are you a big planner when you travel? Do you, are you in the guidebooks? Are you just kind of winging it? Like, what's your style?

• 17:03Speaker 05

  Yeah, I'm a planner. I'm a planner. The internet made travel worse because it used to be you went to a city to explore it. And now if you arrive unprepared, you feel as though you didn't explore it.

• 17:16Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 17:17Speaker 05

  You know what I'm saying? And so, but I like to know before I go.

• 17:20Speaker 06

  I agree. And also, cell phones have made travel really annoying because I found myself walking around Florence, like just staring at my map, like where, where am I going? And like scrolling, trying to just like orient myself as opposed to like, you know, 20 years ago, you'd just be looking for landmarks and finding your way around and just so much more in the space.

• 17:45Speaker 05

  Yeah. And it's like you, the risk of that is, oh, you didn't eat the right gelato. But the reward of that, the reward of that is maybe a discovery or an experience that you otherwise wouldn't have had.

• 17:56Speaker 06

  Yeah. Hot take, John Lovett. I think the internet might be bad.

• 18:01Speaker 05

  I know. I know. It's, it's, yeah, I agree.

• 18:04Speaker 06

  Well, needless to say, there was no internet back in the day. So despite the late start, the Donner Group was in high spirits. Initially, the party made fine progress, traveling from Missouri to Wyoming in about six weeks. For all you coastal elites, that's over 650 miles, which is pretty impressive in wagons. Okay, now we're getting to the part that you, you, you sort of knew a little bit about, or had an inkling of. In early July, the Donner Party arrived in Fort Laramie, Wyoming. While the party rested, they crossed paths with a man named Lansford Hastings, a westward expansion superfan with a name that sounds kind of supervillain-y. Hastings had big dreams of flooding California with settlers

• 18:46Speaker 06

  to spark a bloodless revolution against the Mexican government. Casual. He'd also written a guidebook promoting a shortcut through the Wasatch Mountains and the Great Salt Lake Desert, claiming it would shave 300 miles off the trip. Small catch, he had never actually taken this shortcut. And in reality, it added 125 brutal miles. But still in Laramie, the Donners took this terrible advice and turned on to the now infamous Hastings cutoff. What's the worst advice you ever got from a stranger, John Lovett? Was it the person who gave you that? Pad Thai on Air Force One or?

• 19:26Speaker 05

  Yeah, it was the night before. Someone said, "You gotta try the seafood special." "The oysters right out of the ocean, right out of the Hudson."

• 19:32Speaker 06

  Yeah. Oh, right. Oh, God. Hudson oysters. That would be it. All right. This so-called shortcut cost the Donner Party two grueling weeks just to get through the Wasatch Mountains. But at least the desert was next and Hastings had assured them it would only take two days. So they packed accordingly, but in reality, it took six days after which the families were exhausted, dehydrated and severely undernourished.

• 19:56Speaker 06

  You ever been screwed by a shortcut?

• 19:58Speaker 05

  Yeah, yes. Cliff Notes got me because Cliff Notes would get me often in high school. They got me pretty bad because the teachers caught wise. And look, I'm a sucker for a shortcut. I am. I am. You tell me that there's a better way, I'm gonna try it. I really will. Like Hastings would have gotten me.

• 20:13Speaker 06

  Yeah. Honestly, pretty compelling. Shave 300 miles off this epic journey.

• 20:18Speaker 05

  The one valuable thing about the internet is that if there was a Reddit forum in 18 whatever year this is, it would have said, "Do not do..." It would be under, you know, Oregon, r slash Oregon Trail.

• 20:30Speaker 06

  Yep.

• 20:30Speaker 05

  "Hastings, do not follow. This is bad. Don't believe him."

• 20:34Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 20:34Speaker 05

  There was a little bit more because, you know, nobody, how are you gonna check? How are you gonna check? There's nobody, you can't ask somebody in California when you're in Wyoming.

• 20:42Speaker 06

  No.

• 20:42Speaker 05

  If they took the Hastings cutoff.

• 20:44Speaker 06

  Yeah. And if he's got a really nice mustache, like, you're gonna trust him.

• 20:49Speaker 05

  Yeah, this is the era of the snake oil salesman.

• 20:51Speaker 06

  Yeah. Maybe the internet's not all bad.

• 20:56Speaker 05

  It's not all bad.

• 20:57Speaker 06

  I'm coming back around a little bit.

• 20:58Speaker 05

  I take creatine. How about that? That's my snake oil. And I don't know why, because a very husky, strong man on the internet said it was good for your bones or something.

• 21:06Speaker 06

  Yeah. It's still, like, knowing how much the internet is trying to manipulate us, it's still amazing how much we allow ourselves to be manipulated or just sort of like, don't catch it at first. We're very dumb creatures. We're very primal, John.

• 21:22Speaker 05

  That's right.

• 21:22Speaker 06

  It's just who we are. Alright, so by late September, the Donner Party had made it to the Sierra Nevada Mountains. Just in time for that classic road trip phase where the simmering tensions are so high, everyone's feeling one sarcastic comment away from a complete freak out. Sure enough, October 5th, tempers flared along the Humboldt River when James Reed's oxen got tangled with another wagon. How dare they? Words were exchanged and then blows. John Snyder, the driver of the Graves family wagon, struck Reed in the head with the butt of his whip. That's pretty badass. Margaret Reed tried to intervene. She caught a blow from the butt of that whip.

• 22:06Speaker 06

  That's when James Reed snapped. He pulled a knife and fatally stabbed Snyder. So after the stabbing, some in the group wanted to hang James Reed. He claimed self-defense. Tensions were high. One vocal member pushed for punishment of some kind. The group compromised. Reed was banished, sent into the wilderness alone with nothing but a horse. So, John, you've been voted off before.

• 22:34Speaker 05

  That's true.

• 22:35Speaker 06

  What does it feel like? What do you think's going through James Reed's head?

• 22:40Speaker 05

  Do you think they handed him a menu and let him choose whether he wanted a cheeseburger or a pizza?

• 22:45Speaker 06

  No.

• 22:45Speaker 05

  To make you feel better? Probably not. Probably not.

• 22:48Speaker 06

  Is that what you got on Survivor?

• 22:49Speaker 05

  Yeah, you walk off.

• 22:51Speaker 06

  Oh, right. There's a little like booby prize. Yeah.

• 22:53Speaker 05

  Yeah, well, no, it's more like, it's more like, okay, you've been out there. You know, you're kind of like still in shock and then they're very sweet because they know you're, you know, you're, you're just sort of stunned by what's happened. And then at some point they hand you a menu and they're like, hey, you're, you're out, but you get to eat whatever you want. So you get to eat like, you know, you could have a burger or a steak or a cheese or a pizza or wings or whatever. So that's a, that's a nice moment. You get to have that food again.

• 23:14Speaker 06

  Do you, when you're eating that meal of this, just like the most decadent junk food that's so delicious at that point, are you just like, I would imagine in your, in your mind, you're like, I think I just won. Like all those, they're the suckers. They're still in there.

• 23:29Speaker 05

  So much, you're still swirling and also you're not that hungry because you just haven't eaten for days. So you eat like a little bit of it and you're, you're already kind of starting to build the story of what happened that you're going to have to tell people.

• 23:41Speaker 06

  Oh, yeah.

• 23:41Speaker 05

  That's what you're kind of working, you're already kind of, you're working over, you're working over what happened in your head. Still fun though.

• 23:47Speaker 06

  So Reed had to leave his wife Margaret and their kids behind, but his daughter Virginia pulled off a stealthy act of love. With help from their teamster, she snuck out at night and caught up with her dad, smuggling him his rifle, some ammo, and what little food she could, she could find. Meanwhile, the Donner Party pushed forward, low on food, high on stress, and by Halloween, they were just 100 miles from their destination, which is pretty, pretty exciting. That's not like, it sounds like a lot, but like, like given how far they'd come, this is like a big deal. They're getting close. And Virginia kept spotting little notes her father left along the trail, as well as these little clusters of feathers from birds he had killed to eat. And he would leave these little symbols, kind

• 24:31Speaker 06

  of signs for his family to let them know he was alive and ahead of them on the trail and doing okay. But then, John, the snow hit, and it hit hard. And we're talking five feet right out of the gate. Those little signs from Reed to his family stopped. The Donner Party ground to a halt themselves. Provisions were dwindling. Morale was basically toast. They were stuck.

• 24:57Speaker 05

  They're so close.

• 24:59Speaker 06

  They're so close. And winter had just begun.

• 25:03Speaker 05

  When is this? What, what, what is the date roughly when this is happening?

• 25:06Speaker 06

  A little bit after Halloween at this point.

• 25:07Speaker 05

  Wow. So they also got unlucky. Cause you know, that's early.

• 25:11Speaker 06

  They started late.

• 25:12Speaker 05

  They started late, but it was.

• 25:13Speaker 06

  That's a big snow. That's a big snow to come, come in November. The stranded families hunkered down around Truckee Lake, building makeshift cabins. That would later become Donner Lake, in, in today's, for today's cartographers. Building makeshift cabins and praying for a break in the weather. After eight straight days of relentless snow, they started to suspect they might be in over their heads, quite literally, because the snow's getting really deep, you get it?

• 25:40Speaker 05

  Yeah, because of the height of the snow, they're in over their heads physically and metaphorically. The metaphor being being in over your head.

• 25:49Speaker 06

  That's good.

• 25:49Speaker 05

  With snow or water.

• 25:50Speaker 06

  That's good. That's good storytelling right there.

• 25:52Speaker 05

  Yeah, it's really good.

• 25:53Speaker 06

  Desperate for help, a group of 10 men and five women strapped together homemade snowshoes and set out on foot. The rest of the party gave them a name that sounds kind of like a badass heavy metal band, The Forlorn Hope. So The Forlorn Hope just sets off on their homemade snowshoes. And back at camp, things are really falling apart. Adults are getting delirious, kids were starving, and the cold was sinking in deep. One by one, people started to die. Now, there are a lot of myths that swirl around the Donner Party, but desperate times do call for desperate measures. John, real talk, do you think they actually ate each other?

• 26:36Speaker 05

  Um, yes, I do. I do. I mean, I don't, I don't, I, I mean, I guess it could just be lore.

• 26:45Speaker 06

  All right. Well, you're right.

• 26:45Speaker 05

  I don't know.

• 26:46Speaker 06

  They did.

• 26:46Speaker 05

  They did do it. They did. Okay.

• 26:47Speaker 06

  They did, but it's also, it's been sort of like, I think, spun up into, you know, like, was it this violent cataclysm where they attacked each other and ate? Well, according to historian Michael Wallace, they did eat each other. And he even interviewed descendants who confirmed it, but it wasn't quite the, um...

• 27:09Speaker 05

  Schmorgasbord.

• 27:10Speaker 06

  Yeah, it wasn't, it wasn't quite the sort of like violent, like attacking each other in order to eat one another. It was more analogous to like the alive story of the, um, the soccer team in the Andes.

• 27:22Speaker 05

  People who died of natural cause, well, you know, died of exposure.

• 27:25Speaker 06

  Sure.

• 27:26Speaker 05

  They're, they're eating those people.

• 27:28Speaker 06

  Became fair game.

• 27:29Speaker 05

  Sure.

• 27:30Speaker 06

  Shall we say. One of my favorite Monty Python sketches of all time is like these, it's, it's from one of their, uh, records, one of, from one of their audio albums. And it's just, you hear the creaking of a lifeboat in the ocean, and they start debating... Uh, who looks more delicious? And it's so perfectly done. He's like, well, I, I, he looks like, uh, he's got a gummy leg. I'd rather have Richard. And they just start debating.

• 27:58Speaker 05

  I think, I think it's a nice thing to do to say, hey, go for it.

• 28:02Speaker 06

  Just wait till I'm dead.

• 28:04Speaker 05

  Yeah, don't kill me. Wait till I'm dead. And then I would just say, you know, wings and drumsticks first.

• 28:10Speaker 06

  Yeah. Sure.

• 28:12Speaker 05

  I think.

• 28:13Speaker 06

  That's fair. That's a, honestly, that's a fair, I would honor that. If you and I were in this situation and you said that to me, I'd be like, fair, totally fair.

• 28:22Speaker 05

  As you, as you turn into the Road Runner and you, and you picture me and you, uh, your, your, your lips are watering and then you look over and I become a turkey?

• 28:29Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 28:30Speaker 05

  You know, with a head, I'm like, what's Ed? What are you, what are you looking at me weird for?

• 28:33Speaker 06

  Because you look like a cartoon turkey with the, with those little chef hats on your,

• 28:38Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 28:38Speaker 06

  On the bottom of your.

• 28:39Speaker 05

  Right, exactly, exactly.

• 28:43Speaker 06

  So according to Wallace, this, uh, this historian, what's really accurate is that as the crew died, their bodies were stored in snowbanks, becoming viable sources of nutrition. Who precisely, among the various party members participated in this cannibalism is not clear. That has not been, uh, that has not been all verified.

• 29:06Speaker 05

  But who's putting that in their diary? You know, you're gonna,

• 29:08Speaker 06

  Right.

• 29:08Speaker 05

  There's no one's being like, and then they ate a person and they, I, I didn't, but everybody else did. I get that. That's, that's for, like, you know, there's that, um, there's that tradition. There's that like French tradition where there's a tiny delicate bird. They eat whole. Do you know what I'm talking about?

• 29:22Speaker 06

  Yes.

• 29:23Speaker 05

  It's called the ortolan. It's called the ortolan. And, and, and it's considered a, uh, such a garish thing to do that you don't want God to see. So before you eat the ortolan, you put a towel over your head and you eat it under the towel with your hands. Because it's, uh,

• 29:38Speaker 06

  God can't see under towels.

• 29:40Speaker 05

  Yeah. God can't see under the towels. It's a sort of an apology for this depraved and decadent act. In the same way, I think people aren't writing in their journals that they just ate the reeds.

• 29:49Speaker 06

  I mean, you just can't, you can't hold someone in that situation to like normal standards.

• 29:54Speaker 05

  No.

• 29:55Speaker 06

  Back on the other side of the mountains, across the California border, the forlorn Hope Rescue Crew was still doing all right. Sure, eight of them had died along the way, but the rest had made it. And at this point, dozens still remain trapped at the lake camp.

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• 31:11Speaker 01

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  Oh, boy, this is tight. I knew I shouldn't have had that extra helping of mashed potatoes last night.

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  Uh-oh.

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  It could be a lead on a very big job.

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  I better get that.

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• 31:39Speaker 07

  Oh.

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  Oh.

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• 32:11Speaker 01

  The Halloween party is at my place this year. It's my favorite party to host. With the lowest prices and the huge selection, Total Wine & More is my first stop. A bottle of wine for me while I'm preparing the snacks, ready to drink cocktails for the party, and beer for the friends who always end up on the couch. Between hosting and grabbing something to bring, I love getting the lowest prices. Now I'm ready for Halloween. Are you? Get the fun.

• 32:34Speaker 06

  Started at Total Wine & More. Spirits are not sold in Virginia and North Carolina. Drink responsibly. B21.

• 32:46Speaker 06

  Back in California, in a town called Yerba Buena, which is now known as San Francisco. A crazy man was running around town telling anyone who would listen about a party of travelers trapped in the mountains. That man was James Reed. He had survived. After being banished and going ahead on the trail, he survived and he made it. And of course, he's now worried about his family and all of the other people. And he's telling everyone he can about it. And amazingly, the remainder of the forlorn Hope Rescue Group also arrived in town shortly after Reed. Together, they managed to organize a relief effort for those who were still trapped. And it worked. The first rescue crew traveled up over the mountains and arrived at the camps on February

• 33:31Speaker 06

  19th, 1847. They took 23 of the starving party members back with them in that first wave, including Margaret and Virginia back to California. James Reed was actually part of the crew's caboose, reuniting with Margaret, Virginia, and most, though not all, of his family. Because of the 40 people who remained at the camp, this included two of Reed's smaller children who weren't strong enough to make the journey easily. Margaret, of course, fought, leaving her kids behind, tooth and nail, but finally gave in for the greater good. That's a tough one. Oof. I don't know. I don't know if I'd be leaving my two youngest behind in a group that's already eating people. They're like starting to eat people.

• 34:15Speaker 05

  Right, right, right. Yeah, you know, sometimes the smaller pieces do fall to the bottom of the bucket at KFC, but it's only a matter of time before you get down there.

• 34:23Speaker 06

  You're gonna get there. You don't throw like any little fried crispy thing at the bottom. You're coming for it. Even if it's going in the fridge for a day or two, you're gonna get there.

• 34:33Speaker 05

  You're gonna get, you're gonna get there.

• 34:35Speaker 06

  Oh boy, oh boy. There were three more waves of rescue attempts, but the snow made it like truly impossible. They could only travel through the pass over the mountains with so many supplies and/or people in tow, having to carry many of the children or adults who were too weak. More people perished during each round of waiting, including George and Jacob Donner. George unfortunately had injured his hand during the snow in which became gangrenous and ultimately killed him. It is said that Jacob died of starvation and was cannibalized.

• 35:07Speaker 05

  Here's a question I have for you.

• 35:08Speaker 06

  Okay.

• 35:09Speaker 05

  Okay. Uh, you're in this circumstance, all right? The plane has crashed, the, the, the, you're in the Donner, but whatever, you're in a cannibalistic situation. You have spices, okay?

• 35:22Speaker 06

  Okay.

• 35:22Speaker 05

  You have salt and pepper and garlic powder and onion powder, you have paprika.

• 35:25Speaker 06

  Mm-hmm.

• 35:26Speaker 05

  Okay? You are going to eat someone.

• 35:28Speaker 06

  Italian seasoning?

• 35:29Speaker 05

  Is it more respectful to eat this human flesh unseasoned so that the aesthetic experience matches the kind of moral experience, which is one of desperation? Or is it more respectful to the deceased to flavor it, cook it well, make it as tasty as possible, uh, so that you get the best experience from this food?

• 35:55Speaker 06

  So, from the comfort of our respective recording studios, uh, I'm gonna say two things. One is I'm spicing the hell out of it, because it probably is so hard going down.

• 36:13Speaker 05

  Right, it's gamy too.

• 36:14Speaker 06

  It's like, I don't even, I don't know what human tastes like, but I don't wanna know, and even if it's, even if it's delicious, I don't want it to taste like what it is.

• 36:22Speaker 05

  Right.

• 36:23Speaker 06

  Because I don't wanna just be thinking about this, so I'm spicing the ever-loving hell out of it. But number two, I also am pretty sure that these debates did not happen on the day.

• 36:39Speaker 06

  That they got anything to make it go down easier.

• 36:42Speaker 05

  Yeah, you're using it.

• 36:42Speaker 06

  That's what they're, you're using it.

• 36:43Speaker 05

  Of course, you're using it.

• 36:44Speaker 06

  All right, there was a fourth and final rescue mission, and when they arrived, they found only one last survivor, reportedly found hovering over a cauldron of quote, "cooked flesh and discarded bones."

• 36:56Speaker 05

  Sure.

• 36:57Speaker 06

  So, to your point, maybe there's probably some broth happening in general.

• 37:01Speaker 05

  Yeah, if it's just you, if it's just you, you know.

• 37:04Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 37:04Speaker 05

  You're just there by yourself.

• 37:06Speaker 06

  Oh.

• 37:06Speaker 05

  You throw a little bit of.

• 37:07Speaker 06

  And you're not, you're not leaving.

• 37:09Speaker 05

  Yeah, it's like you're doing a kind of cannibal version of like Mamba Number Five, you know, like a little bit of, a little bit of Andrew, a little bit of Jessica.

• 37:17Speaker 06

  Oh, boy.

• 37:17Speaker 05

  You know, you're mixing, you know what I mean? You're sort of make, you're just, you're, you're kind of, I just think like, you've crossed some kind of moral plane.

• 37:25Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 37:25Speaker 05

  And now you're alone in the woods, like, what if when they showed up these weeks later, this person had ballooned by like a hundred pounds?

• 37:32Speaker 06

  Oh, wow.

• 37:34Speaker 05

  I'm gonna do a little swan to go, does anybody want me to put any of this in to go? I'm gonna make up, you know, like, I'm gonna make it nice. This heats up, here's the thing about human flesh, it reheats well.

• 37:46Speaker 06

  Hmm.

• 37:46Speaker 05

  That's the thing about it.

• 37:47Speaker 06

  Right.

• 37:47Speaker 05

  You know, some food doesn't, doesn't travel.

• 37:50Speaker 06

  It makes a good jerky.

• 37:51Speaker 05

  Yeah, that's, yeah, dry it out.

• 37:53Speaker 06

  Oh, boy.

• 37:53Speaker 05

  Dry it out. Bring some back to San Francisco.

• 37:55Speaker 06

  This is making me sick, this whole thing.

• 37:57Speaker 05

  Really? Is it making me hungry? What's fucked up about me?

• 37:59Speaker 06

  This is so upsetting.

• 38:01Speaker 05

  I did this before lunch.

• 38:02Speaker 06

  Well, according to Virginia Reed, out of the 83 people who were snowed in at Donner Lake, only 41 survived. And of the 31 family members and teamsters of the original Donner Party family from Springfield, only 18 lived to reach California. Historians dispute these exact numbers, but that's the neighborhood. So, the story of the Donner Party soon gained notoriety, but it weirdly didn't really deter people from the Oregon Trail. The younger daughter Patty Reed even wrote a letter to her cousin in Illinois stating, "Don't let this letter dishearten anybody. Never take no cutoffs and hurry along as fast as you can." Which, I mean, understatement of the century?

• 38:46Speaker 06

  Or, like, still do what we did, just don't take no cutoffs.

• 38:50Speaker 05

  Yeah, you know, no such thing as a free lunch.

• 38:53Speaker 06

  The survivors of the Donner Party got up to various things after their rescue and settled into California. Do you think anyone, like, found success in California?

• 39:05Speaker 05

  I'm gonna say yes. I just, I'm sure somebody must have made something of themselves.

• 39:09Speaker 06

  A guy named John Breen got rich in the California Gold Rush of 1849, taking home over $12,000 in gold, which is almost $500,000 in today's money. So, maybe karma's legit. I don't know. Also, how old do you think the oldest survivor lived to?

• 39:29Speaker 05

  Oh, well, I mean, I think once you get through that, uh, 90.

• 39:33Speaker 06

  89.

• 39:35Speaker 05

  Wow.

• 39:35Speaker 06

  Good guess, John. Really good.

• 39:37Speaker 05

  Okay, thanks. Yeah, okay.

• 39:37Speaker 06

  Yeah. John Breen's youngest sister, Isabella, who was one year old at the start of the journey, was the last living survivor of the Donner Party when she died in 1935 at the age of 89. Whatever happened to Lansford Hastings, our scammy snake oil salesman who convinced them to take the shortcut?

• 39:58Speaker 05

  Oh, I assume he goes on to some other kind of scam, gets, he's the kind of guy that dies in a bar fight or gets killed because he's stealing somebody's goat?

• 40:08Speaker 06

  Yes, close. All right. In fact, he later died while leading a group of Confederates trying to colonize Brazil. Yeah.

• 40:17Speaker 05

  Terrific.

• 40:18Speaker 06

  Yes, Lansford was-

• 40:19Speaker 05

  The guy thought big.

• 40:20Speaker 06

  Yeah. He was a Confederate during the Civil War and he actually opted to emigrate to Brazil, pulling many disgruntled Southerners along with him. And that's where he died.

• 40:32Speaker 05

  Well, you know, uh, too bad for him.

• 40:35Speaker 06

  You know what? Not, I don't have a lot of sympathy for him.

• 40:38Speaker 05

  No.

• 40:39Speaker 06

  The Donner Party, kind of a grim reminder of how far people will go when their soul to dream. Ignore the warning signs and follow bad advice deep into the wilderness, which kind of feels like America right now in a nutshell.

• 40:53Speaker 05

  Little bit.

• 40:54Speaker 06

  Desperate people promised easy shortcuts. Left starving in the cold while the guy who gave them the map is nowhere to be found. Thoughts, reflections, takeaways from the Donner Party?

• 41:05Speaker 05

  I would say, based on that analogy, it's also a reminder that we shouldn't really stay put. That we gotta keep moving. And uh, uh, nobody's coming that we have to save ourselves, I would say.

• 41:18Speaker 06

  Soldier on.

• 41:19Speaker 05

  Yeah.

• 41:20Speaker 06

  Also eat each other.

• 41:21Speaker 05

  Yeah, and I just think, don't start. Start in the flank. Start with the big muscles. All right? Start, start where you'd start at a restaurant. You don't get, don't get creative. Don't get, don't get, don't get adventurous.

• 41:35Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 41:35Speaker 05

  If, if, picture that little placemat you get at the restaurant, at the steak place when you were, that has like the cow on it.

• 41:42Speaker 06

  The cuts of the cow, yeah.

• 41:44Speaker 05

  Every, look at that group of meats. Every single one of those basically has an equivalent on the human body.

• 41:52Speaker 06

  There you go. So take with you, take with you a Peter Luger's placemat is, is the, is the lesson.

• 42:00Speaker 05

  By the way, don't sleep on the cheeks.

• 42:02Speaker 06

  Yeah.

• 42:02Speaker 05

  All right. I haven't been going to Pilates all this time to have you not eat my ass.

• 42:06Speaker 06

  What? Okay. John Lovett, this has been an utter delight. I'm so grateful to have you on the show. Is there anything you can tell us about where we'll see you in the coming days, months? What's, what else is going on for you?

• 42:18Speaker 05

  Everybody, do me a favor. Subscribe to Pod Save America, Love It or Leave It. Otherwise, you know, I'll see you on the internet. Posting and posting.

• 42:25Speaker 06

  Keep up the great work. Thanks so much for being on, John.

• 42:28Speaker 05

  Thanks, Ed. So good to see you. This was fun.

• 42:29Speaker 06

  Always. Cheers. Snafu is a production of iHeart Podcasts and Snafu Media, a partnership between Film Nation Entertainment and Pacific Electric Picture Company. Our post-production studio is Gilded Audio. Our executive producers are me, Ed Helms, Mike Falbo, Glenn Basner, Andy Kim, Whitney Donaldson, and Dylan Fagan. This episode was produced by Alyssa Martino and Tori Smith. Our video editor is Jared Smith. Technical direction and engineering from Nick Dooley. Our creative executive is Brett Harris. Logo and branding by The Collected Works. Legal review from Dan Welsh, Megan Halson, and Caroline Johnson. Special thanks to Isaac Dunham, Adam Horn, Lane Klein, and

• 43:13Speaker 06

  everyone at iHeart Podcasts, but especially Will Pearson, Carrie Lieberman, Nikki Etor, Nathan Otowski, and Alan While I have you, don't forget to pick up a copy of my book, Snafu: The Definitive Guide to History's Greatest Screw-Ups. It's available now from any book retailer. Just go to snafu-book.com. Thanks for listening and see you next week.

• 43:49Speaker 02

  Pumpkin carving sounds fun, until you're elbow-deep in pumpkin guts. There's an easier pumpkin tradition: Reese's Pumpkins. No seeds, no giant kitchen knife, no pressure to create a masterpiece that's just gonna shrivel up on the front porch three days later. And if something goes wrong, just eat it. Every mistake is still pretty delicious. So this Halloween, skip the mess of pumpkin carving and stock up on Reese's Pumpkins.

• 44:18Speaker 01

  The Halloween party is at my place this year. It's my favorite party to host. With the lowest prices and the huge selection, Total Wine & More is my first stop. A bottle of wine for me while I'm preparing the snacks, ready-to-drink cocktails for the party, and beer for the friends who always end up on the couch. Between hosting and grabbing something to bring, I love getting the lowest prices. Now I'm ready for Halloween. Are you? Get the fun started at Total Wine & More. Spirits are not sold in Virginia and North Carolina. Drink responsibly. B21.

• 44:48Speaker 00

  This is an iHeart Podcast. Guaranteed human.