Florida's lieutenant governor seeks to supercharge accountability in wake of Kirk assassination
Florida's new lieutenant governor, Jay Collins, is no stranger to being on the front lines. Prior to entering politics, Collins served as a Green Beret in the Army Special Forces in places like Iraq and Afghanistan.
Now, his battles are in Florida and are political in nature, but it's a mission that he takes seriously in order to ensure the gains the state has made under Gov. Ron DeSantis (R) are not squandered. Collins was a state senator when DeSantis appointed him in August to replace former Lieutenant Gov. Jeanette Nuñez (R), who stepped down from the position in February to become president of Florida International University.
'People just crave leadership that just cares about them.'
Collins' preferred leadership style was put on display when he flew to California to oversee the transfer of the illegal alien truck driver who was taken into custody in Stockton after allegedly causing a fatal car crash in Florida by attempting to do an illegal U-turn.
"Those are three lives cut short that ended early because [of] this guy who couldn't read road signs, doesn't speak English. ... What are we going to do? Let Gavin Newsom play games? We had zero faith that he was going to follow through and do the right thing. So why would we not have leadership on the ground?" Collins told Blaze News regarding his reason for going to California.
"We believe in government that will not only hold people accountable, we will go to great measures to make sure that accountability happens," he continued.
Collins said the flight back to Florida with the suspect, Harjinder Singh, was "odd" and that he did not talk much other than to say he liked Chick-fil-A.
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Collins said he has not been too surprised with anything relating to the duties of lieutenant governor. "I'm a fan of measuring twice, maybe thrice before you cut," he said. However, he has noted how much people "want on-the-ground leadership."
"Everywhere we go ... people just crave leadership that just cares about them," Collins continued. "It's been exciting to see that."
Reacting to Turning Point USA co-founder Charlie Kirk being assassinated by a far-left suspect last week, Collins said that "there's so much at stake" for the direction of the country in the aftermath of such a tragic event.
"[Kirk's] approach to civil discourse and discussion and just confronting people with love, with curiosity, and curiosity, and conversation was amazing. To see somebody who believed in our American ideas ... to that degree being taken is heartbreaking," Collins explained, adding his concern with how the left has responded with violence to people like Kirk.
With DeSantis being term-limited, Collins could jump into the governor's race and has not ruled it out. If he decides to run for the top position, he would have to go against Rep. Byron Donalds (R), who already has the endorsement of President Donald Trump.
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America's last laugh: Talking shop with the founders of Flip City Magazine
Hannah Arendt famously said that the most effective method to subvert authority is to laugh. Political cartoonists have weaponized wit for centuries. As the influence of print media declined, meme-makers took up the challenge, waging ideological war far more swiftly and efficiently than any politician's speech.
The downside is that the elite frequently lack a sense of humor.
'It's the world that's vulgar. It's a dark, yucky world that has to be made fun of. But that's not our fault.'
During medieval and Tudor England, only the court jester was allowed to mock and insult the king; everyone else was imprisoned, branded, and mutilated, or worse, hung, drawn, and quartered. People in power have eliminated those who make fun of them for millennia, driven by narcissism and non-tolerance of criticism. Since the days of Aristotle and Aristophanes, attempts have been made to silence artists by arrest, torture, and death.
In our own time, the hangman, oubliette, and rack have given way to the digital horrors of deplatforming and cancellation. As effective as these have proven, there's a growing sense that "wokeness" is on the verge of extinction.
The linguistic straightjacket of political correctness is beginning to loosen, and artists are emerging from the shadows, taking a well-deserved breath of fresh air, and finally pushing back against what has become one of the most censorious periods in modern history. After being held down for so long, there’s a lot of work to be done. It’s time to Make America Laugh Again.™️
Flip City Magazine has been reporting for duty since its 2020 founding. And while memes may still reign supreme, the Southern California-based crew aims to skewer pretensions the old-fashioned way — with an honest-to-God paper-and-ink periodical "delivered begrudgingly to your door by your woke mailman."
Align recently corresponded via email with Flip City co-founders and editors Scott and Christy McKenzie, who submitted their replies jointly.
ALIGN: Could you tell us a little about yourself with everyone? Who you are, where you’re located, and what you do? How many people do you have working for you?
Scott and Christy McKenzie: We are Scott and Christy McKenzie, editors of Flip City Magazine, an independent quarterly comics and satire print magazine (described by comics luminary Mike Baron as "funnier than MAD or Cracked"), which we have published out of our remote home office in the Southern California mountains since 2020.
Every issue is packed with TV and movie parodies, comics, stories, interviews that don't insult your intelligence. We've hosted and published over 40 writers and illustrators to date. While we bill ourselves as "America's Last Laugh," we have contributors from Sydney to Scotland to SAF.
A: What inspired the creation of the magazine?
S&C: We were coming off a D-list movie project that went sideways. I needed a project into which I could dump every nugget of gold (or, alternately, flaming turd) idea that passed through my head, and this was the best format.
Smart satire magazines had phased out by the early '90s in favor of men's lifestyle mags, leaving a void that nobody thought was worth filling. I don't think anybody has known what to do, with no reason to revive a passé format just to compete for crumbs with the remnants of MAD, publishing more lifeless corporate comedy and Trump hate.
But to resurrect it as a tool of counterculture, that has value. A free America has to have a satire magazine that's independent and essentially populist.
And it's only going to happen here from the looks of things. We are now, as Cracked editor Mort Todd put it, "the world's only satire magazine," for all "in tents and porpoises."
A: What were your influences?
S&C: Early on, Saturday morning cartoons and color Sunday funnies. Which if you missed out on those days, that was some good times, with your bowl of cereal. Later, Cracked Magazine and MAD, "The Dr. Demento Show" for the funniest songs, and in the 1990s, alternative comics publishers like Fantagraphics. "The Book of the Subgenius" might have radicalized me.
A: Can you explain a little bit about the ideas process? How long does it take to go from pen to page?
S&C: It might take a couple of days to write the better part of a feature or a parody once I've got an angle. "Joker 2" (Vol. 23) was a musical parody with five songs, and I took my time to get it right. Readers who expect to hate musicals said they were pleasantly surprised. A musical parody is a delicate thing that can go wrong in so many ways, much like "Joker 2." I'll pass it on to one of our tremendous illustrator talents like Ben Sullivan or Dangerous Dave MacDowell, and they'll reliably send back something that kills.
A: It’s pretty safe to say a more progressive element of the left has had something resembling ideological dominance over the entertainment industry for the last 10 years or so. Did you find it hard to find an audience?
S&C: We were fortunate enough to have a couple of YouTube advocates early on to get us going.
We initially offered Vol. 1 in digital format or in a short print run, and subscribers overwhelmingly chose print. So there is still plenty of demand for physical media.
However, there are plenty of platforms and influencers on the right who wouldn't touch us. And the reason is that they can't control our message, and many don't want to take any chances at upsetting their viewers or advertisers.
Most notably at the beginning was the Babylon Bee, who dubbed us "too edgy and vulgar" to advertise with them, which is entirely their prerogative. Although at the time, we were fairly clean. It's the world that's vulgar. It's a dark, yucky world that has to be made fun of. But that's not our fault.
People love to complain about the lack of alternative culture but Flip City is actually a solution. It heaps ridicule on people who deserve it, without being preachy. It's the kind of cultural thing that people are literally asking for all the time. And it can be a huge thing and sway hearts and minds if people get behind it, support it, and subscribe. It's just a good old-fashioned, all-American, funny mag, y'all.
A: As a Brit, I envy your First Amendment. My home country is awash with laws and regulations regarding the online regulation of speech. A recent investigation revealed that an average of 12,000 people are arrested each year for sending "grossly offensive" messages on the internet. Have you run into any problems or faced backlash over any controversial issues? Does the threat of cancel culture worry you guys?
S&C: Only subscription cancellations. They seem to peak when we poke the wrong sacred cow. I think our heritage subscribers have been conditioned by now to expect anything and trust us.
New readers aren't sure what they're going to get. They see a slick magazine and assume it must lean left because they've never seen anything else. And I think many are hesitant to believe it could be genuinely funny, despite praise from luminaries like Quite Frankly and James Corbett, because of the right's track record on comedy. So you can't blame them.
A: Do you consider yourself to be an equal-opportunity offender? Are there any targets on the right that you would think would be perfect to send up?
S&C: We've done bits about Dennis Prager and Charlie Kirk, and recently a Conservative Blowhard mini-magazine with columns by Tim Poolboy and Jack Poachposobiec. It's clearly a goof on establishment gatekeepers and "Conservative, Incorporated," as many call it. But it probably cost us some readers.
Sometimes, people don't get the joke and think you're the enemy. Everybody's looking for a tell that you don't agree with them about everything. We don't mind shedding readers, to a point. We want the best and the brightest readers.
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A: I’ve read a bunch of your spoof pieces, and I have to say, your parodies special edition had me laughing so much — it was hilarious! With all the endless political pandering and progressive messages crowbarred into mainstream culture, would you say Hollywood has become a parody of itself?
S&C: Thanks! Ben Sullivan is a parody illustrator on par with the greats and really deserves to be recognized. Hopefully, our upcoming print edition of the Parodies will get him more attention.
The industry may be a self-parody, but that doesn't make it beyond parody. As long as it sucks, there will be a way to goof on it. A satire-proof utopia is unlikely in our lifetimes.
A: It's been 10 years since the 2015 Charlie Hebdo massacre in France, when Islamic terrorists shot and killed 12 people for publishing a cartoon depicting the prophet Muhammed. Is there any subject matter off limits?
S&C: We're not looking for that kind of action, though we do make fun of Antifa quite a bit, so we shouldn't let our guard down.
Nobody wants to hear this, but the limits are determined by what people are willing to pay to read. There is no monolithic block of free-speech absolutists. People will weaponize their dollars against you if your hot takes start to annoy them, and they'll go spend that money on Sydney Sweeney jeans just to show you. You could even make the argument that Flip City is being held hostage by the very readers we sought to entertain! For which the only remedy is more subscribers, to loosen the chokehold of these elitists over our content. And now you see how a print subscription is basically a win for democracy.
A: Comedy is a powerful medium with which to challenge elite power. The ruling class doesn't like to be mocked. It is claimed that Stalin sent 200,000 people in the USSR to the Gulag for making jokes about him and the communist regime. In a recent episode, "South Park" turned its attention to Republican Kristi Noem. How do you think leading politicians should react?
S&C: I think a zero-tolerance policy would yield the best results. We're talking FBI raids, enhanced interrogation methods. Find out who they are really working for. Possible ballistic missile strikes on their Culver City studio. Matt and Trey go to CECOT.
Also Stephen Colbert, he should be crushed under our regime's iron fist and his bones ground into powder to fertilize our crops.
A: What can we expect to see for the rest of 2025?
S&C: Our Best of the Parodies 80-page special edition goes on pre-sale starting September 1 on our website, featuring the brilliant work of Ben Sullivan and our send-ups of "The Walking Dead," "Stranger Things," "Star Trek: Picard," "The Mandalorian," "Guardians of the Galaxy," and more! We're also working on new animated cartoons based on our parodies for 2026.
Pistol-packing rabbi targets anti-Semitism in action flick 'Guns & Moses'
Director Salvador Litvak brought "Guns & Moses" to a Jewish film festival in Atlanta earlier this year, and an audience member gave him an earful.
The film follows Rabbi Mo Zaltzman (Mark Feuerstein), who becomes proficient in using firearms after a gunman targets his synagogue.
'Now, in the Jewish community, the term "survivor" has a new meaning on top of the Holocaust — survivors of those kibbutzim on the border [of Israel].'
"I don't have a question. I have a statement. ... This is not what we need. This is not how we fight — with guns. We fight with a pen," Litvak recalls the woman telling him during a post-screening Q&A.
"Ma'am, I 100% agree with you. Articles, editorials, speeches. We need to be doing that the best that we can to fight anti-Semitism and to build alliances with our friends and supporters," Litvak told her.
"But when a bad guy enters a synagogue intent on killing people, then you need a guy like me and a guy like Rabbi Mo ... to stand between you and that would-be murderer," he continued.
Protect and serve
Litvak, an Orthodox Jew, is part of Magen Am, a volunteer security organization that trains Jews to protect their communities.
"The crowd applaude. ... You could see it was so difficult for her," the "Saving Lincoln" filmmaker said about the exchange.
"Guns & Moses" — co-starring Neal McDonough, Dermot Mulroney, and Christopher Lloyd — offers a timely look at Jews fighting back via the Second Amendment. Litvak, who co-wrote the film with wife Nina Litvak, wrapped production before the Oct. 7 attacks.
The Jewish community already understood all too well the threats against it. Post-October 7, the film's sobering message hits harder.
'Good and meaningful'
Litvak says he decided to make a thriller as his next feature back in 2019. He began watching a classic thriller every day to study the best of the best. Then he read about a California synagogue shooting that killed member Lori Gilbert-Kaye.
Rabbi Yisroel Goldstein survived the assault but lost two fingers in the melee. Litvak later interviewed the rabbi.
Goldstein had asked people to make something “good and meaningful” from the tragedy, the director recalls.
"I was very moved by that," he said, and "Guns & Moses" was born.
Fear of faith
The director assembled a sturdy cast, including veteran thesp Lloyd, who plays a Holocaust survivor. Litvak landed on the "Back to the Future" alum — who hired a dialect coach to get his Eastern European accent just right — after being rejected by a series of "very big names of a certain age."
"This older Hollywood [community] is very afraid of faith. ... It's like a peanut allergy for them," said Litvak, whose mother and grandmother survived the Holocaust.
He faced more roadblocks while sharing the rough cut around Hollywood. He recalls screening the footage for a "big agent" who predicted the film would clean up on streaming platforms.
Litvak gently told him he saw the title as a theatrical release, adding that the film's audience will be not just Jewish patrons but Christians and conservatives.
"What are you talking about? Those people hate Jews," he recalls the agent saying.
"My jaw was on the floor. ... Have you ever met the people you fly over? Obviously, you don't know them. I know they support the Jewish people. I don't think this is news."
Shattering stereotypes
The exchange stuck with Litvak.
"This guy is so out of touch. Hollywood in general is so out of touch with half of America," he said.
He hopes "Guns & Moses," which opens in cinemas today, shows the power of self-defense in uncertain times. He also wants the movie to shatter Jewish stereotypes.
"It's a faith-based movie. It's an action thriller, which isn't a typical genre within the faith-based [genre]. It's about an orthodox rabbi who takes his faith seriously. ... It's not about a nebbishy or neurotic Jew,' he said.
"[Judaism] is a beautiful tradition that has so much to share. It's very important to us to smash those stereotypes."
"Guns & Moses" takes firearm training seriously. It's not a matter of showing the hero knocking over a few tin cans in a slick montage.
"In the real world — God forbid you're ever under pressure and in danger and you have to draw a firearm and use it — to hit the bad guy and not hit innocent people ... takes not just skill but muscle memory," he said.
'Never again,' again
The film's subject matter meant Litvak's team had to work around the Hollywood system, not benefit from it.
"We knew that no studio was going to make this movie," he said. What he couldn't foresee was a massacre on the scale that Hamas committed two years ago.
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"We always thought [the topic] would be relevant. ... Now, in the Jewish community, the term 'survivor' has a new meaning on top of the Holocaust — survivors of those kibbutzim on the border [of Israel]," he says.
That, plus the "overt" anti-Semitism on college campuses nationwide, rocked him.
"It was at least considered inappropriate or impolite to call for the death of Jews on national TV," he said. "Democrats will not walk back support for 'globalize the intifada,'" he added, alluding to New York City mayoral hopeful Zohran Mamdani.
"We're living in such times," he said. "'Never again' means we have to take responsibility for our safety."
Dean Cain scores with family-friendly sports flick 'Little Angels'
Dean Cain’s father gave his son valuable advice at the dawn of his Hollywood career.
“Don’t tell too much about yourself in interviews. Let them watch you on screen,” Cain recalls his father, veteran director Christopher Cain (“Young Guns,” “Pure Country”), sharing with him at the start of his Hollywood career.
'My closest friends are teammates from Princeton,' he says. 'I know what they’re made of. ... You learn so much about people by being teammates with them.'
Dean Cain heeded Dad’s wisdom … to a point.
Cain learned firsthand the inequities of the nation’s divorce laws while fighting for joint custody of his then-young son. Later, he traveled the globe and gained perspective on his home country’s woes.
It’s why he started speaking up on important issues and sharing his right-leaning views. It also explains his pivot to independent film projects over the past decade.
“I’m sure it affected my career,” Cain tells Align of his political views. It’s a risk he was willing to take. “Not speaking up is crazy to me. … If you have something to say, speak the truth and hopefully make the world a better place.”
From Superman to soccer coach
Cain continues to work steadily on film and TV projects, from faith-kissed stories (“God’s Not Dead: In God We Trust”) to his latest feature, an underdog sports story he wrote and directed.
“Little Angels" opened nationwide earlier this month and continues to expand to new theaters — thanks to a feature on its website allowing users to request a screening in their area.
The movie finds Cain playing a disgraced football coach forced to oversee a girls' soccer team. It’s the ultimate indignity for his character until he sets his mind to turning this ragtag bunch of athletes into winners.
Cain’s fans may find his foray into screenwriting surprising, but he’s been telling stories ever since he was a boy. The “Lois & Clark: The New Adventures of Superman” alum recalls his father nudging him to tap his creative side.
A writer at heart
“My dad started me as a writer,” Cain recalls, and he warmed to the task. “We’d go on vacation at our ranch house, and when it was raining, instead of watching TV I’d make up stories about our family.”
He later wrote episodes of “Lois & Clark,” but his bustling acting career took precedence. “The demands on my time were intense,” he recalls.
“Little Angels” allowed him to tap into that skill set, and along the way he leaned on the classic writing maxim.
Write what you know.
Team player
Cain was a first-team All-American and two-time first-team All-Ivy for Princeton in the late 1980s and had a brief NFL career with the Buffalo Bills before a knee injury ended his gridiron dreams. He also ran track at Princeton and was its volleyball captain.
He assembled his youthful cast amid pandemic restrictions, forcing him to skip chemistry reads and trust his instincts. The young girls bonded on the set, becoming faux teammates and real friends along the way.
Cain knows the feeling.
“My closest friends are teammates from Princeton,” he says. “I know what they’re made of, what they’re like in stressful situations. I know what their characters are like. You learn so much about people by being teammates with them.”
“It’s akin to what happens in the movie. They learn to stick up for each other,” he adds.
'Truth, justice, and the American way'
Cain’s “Superman” days remain an indelible part of his legacy, and he remains invested in the character. He’s hoping James Gunn’s “Superman,” opening July 11, captures the Man of Steel he modeled his own performance on — the "aw, shucks" Christopher Reeve version seen in four films.
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“He’s my Superman,” he says of the late actor, who captured the essence of the DC Comics superhero, a fictional character who means plenty to Cain. “He is truth and justice and the American way. That is really important. Hard work. Dedication. Being honorable. … I know it’s cynical now, but it still plays and resonates with many.”
“Little Angels” marks Cain’s feature-length directorial debut, but he’s been soaking up information from film sets for decades.
“I watched [my dad] go through his process as a director. He’d have to make his movies on a shoestring budget,” he says, adding that family members helped flesh out scenes along the way. He recalls his uncle holding a boom mic to make some scenes possible.
“I’ve always been around it,” he says of the filmmaking craft. Now, he can’t wait to do it again.
“I’m hooked. I want to keep doing it,” he says. “I like the process. It didn’t feel much like work.”
'Naked Gun' creator David Zucker offers 'Crash' course in comedy
David Zucker helped invent the kitchen-sink approach to film satire.
The co-writer/director of 1980’s “Airplane!” hurled gag after gag at audiences until they couldn’t help but howl. Puns. Sight gags. Pop culture Easter eggs.
He recalls a female studio executive objecting to a bit about a female officer getting a breast reduction to fit into her Kevlar vest.
If one joke didn’t land, the next three would.
Ted Striker: Surely you can’t be serious.
Rumack: I am serious … and don’t call me Shirley.
Zucker added to his legacy with “Top Secret!” (1984), the “Naked Gun” trilogy, and more satirical smashes. Even a rare failure, the six-run episode of 1982’s “Police Squad!” is considered a TV classic following its cruel cancellation.
Now, he wants to share the blueprint behind those laugh-a-minute romps.
'Gun' grabbers
The upcoming “MasterCrash: A Crash Course in Spoof Comedy” lets the comedy legend expound on the tricks of his hilarious trade.
“One thing we learned ... is it starts with the characters. The audience has to be invested in your characters,” Zucker says.
The online course came to him after he got rejected by Hollywood, Inc. for his “Naked Gun 4” script.
“Paramount liked it ... but suddenly we didn’t hear anything,” Zucker tells Align about the project. “I woke up [one day] to read Seth [MacFarlane of ‘Family Guy’ fame] had come and taken over the franchise.”
The results? “The Naked Gun,” starring Liam Neeson as the son of the character played by Leslie Nielsen in the original trilogy. The reboot/sequel hits theaters in August.
'There’s a discipline behind it'
Zucker is skeptical of the upcoming film, and that’s putting it mildly.
“[MacFarlane] doesn’t know how to do it. He can do ‘Ted’ and ‘Family Guy,’” Zucker said, cautioning that his signature style (along with collaborators like Pat Proft, the late Jim Abrahams, brother Jerry Zucker, and Mike McManus) is harder than it looks. “It may seem like we’re zany and crazy, but there’s a discipline behind it.”
The course might even inspire the next generation of satirists, assuming they take copious notes.
“You can’t teach people how to write comedy, but you can stop them from wasting time thinking they know how to do it,” he says.
Zucker can laugh about the Paramount snub now. His legacy is secure, and he has faith in his approach to humor. His films age well, including Val Kilmer’s lead turn in “Top Secret!” He doesn’t like being a victim, either.
“I don’t take it myself seriously,” he adds.
Joke police
Zucker recalls the dawn of his satirical approach.
“We’d watch serious B movies and dub in our own voices,” he says of his formative years, captured in the ‘70s-era “Kentucky Fried Theater Show” in L.A.
“That stage show was a live laboratory for us to develop our style,” he says of his comic companions. The showcase became 1977’s cult hit “The Kentucky Fried Movie,” helmed by a then-unknown director named John Landis (“Animal House,” “An American Werewolf in London”).
Zucker’s brand of comedy might dabble in blue bits, but he eschews profanity and often works below the R-rated radar. He still ran afoul of the woke mind virus in recent years, particularly while pitching his “Naked Gun 4” script.
The screenplay spoofs the “Bourne” films and “Mission: Impossible” saga far more than police procedurals. It’s his chance to acknowledge the “Naked Gun” legacy while moving on to fresh satirical targets.
He recalls a female studio executive objecting to a bit about a female officer getting a breast reduction to fit into her Kevlar vest.
“It was such a mild joke, and she said, ‘I don’t know if you can do that.’ We just rolled our eyes,” Zucker recalls.
He says audiences are ready, willing, and able to laugh at big-screen comedies again as woke fades to black. Studio boardrooms aren’t on the same page, he adds.
“These are frightened people beholden to stockholders or big-time owners,” he says. It’s one reason he’s going the independent route for his next big-screen comedy, a film noir spoof, “The Star of Malta,” that he hopes to begin shooting in the fall.
Nakedly conservative
He’s also keen on reviving a repurposed “Naked Gun 4” script as his follow-up project.
Zucker’s inimitable style, seen most recently in the “Scary Movie” franchise, isn’t all that sets him apart from his peers.
The 77-year-old is one of the rare openly conservative artists working in Hollywood. He’s hardly as vocal as a George Clooney or Jon Voight on Beltway matters, but he leaned into his political views for the 2008 comedy “An American Carol.” The satire poked fun at Michael Moore and liberal sacred cows.
Hollywood often punishes artists for embracing the right, but Zucker isn’t sure if his views ever dampened his career.
Zucker recalls working with producer Bob Weinstein (Harvey's younger brother), whom he jokingly describes as “to the left of Castro,” on three “Scary Movie” sequels. (Zucker directed numbers 3 and 4 and co-wrote number 5).
“When it came to hiring a director, he knew that I was able to do it and I could do it well,” he says. “Bob has always been very supportive and always had faith in me. He didn’t care about the politics.”
'Generation COVID' bears witness to devastating toll of school closings
Jennifer Sey is an ex-gymnast, but she spent years swimming against the tide.
The former national champion once blew the whistle on abuse within the sport, a position she says drew plenty of internal fire. Powerful gymnastic voices dubbed her a “grifter and a liar,” Sey recalls to Align, long before the general public learned of horrifying cases like convicted predator Larry Nassar.
'I think there are a lot of young people who look at that time and see the course of their lives were altered forever. Democrats did that.'
She recalls receiving threatening voicemails at work from the head of USA Gymnastics, too.
“The sporting community really attacked me, teammates [did, too] … even the head of Gymnastics Australia tried to take me down,” Sey recalls of abuses chronicled in her memoir, “Chalked Up.”
The experience “strengthened my resolve,” she says.
From Levis exec to 'radical'
Years later, Sey sat in a comfortable position as a Levi’s executive when another injustice forced her to speak out. She watched with alarm as leaders kept kids locked out of school during the COVID-19 pandemic.
That stance eventually forced her exit from Levi’s corporate team and branded her a radical in the eyes of some pandemic hardliners. Years later, Sey’s position has been more than vindicated. Legacy media outlets confirm the damage done to students who couldn’t participate in school during the pandemic.
The cost of quarantine
Except she’s not willing to forgive and forget. She’s the driving force behind an upcoming documentary “Generation COVID,” focused on the innocents caught in the bureaucratic crossfire.
The film lets children share what they endured during the pandemic. Suicide attempts. Lost collegiate scholarships. Drug overdoses. Scholastic declines. Weight gain. Loneliness.
“It’s heartbreaking and devastating,” she says of those on-camera revelations. “I can’t tell you how many of the interviews I ended up crying and needed to collect myself.”
Sey’s children suffered, too.
“It’s why we moved to Colorado from San Francisco,” she says, recalling how one of her children went from being a boisterous kid to one who was “distant and lethargic.”
“I want him to establish a love of learning ... it broke my heart,” she says.
Rewriting history
She’s furious to see some who helped shutter schools attempt to rewrite history on the subject, like Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers.
“They’re such liars ... it’s all so well-documented,” she says. “How do they have the gall to lie about their role?”
“Nobody was fighting for the children,” she adds.
“Generation COVID” features sizable input from Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, now the Director of the National Institutes of Health. The film also eschews partisan politics, featuring voices across the political spectrum with a focus on the facts.
“It’s not at all meant to be political but document what happened and hear from the kids directly,” he says.
Distributor wanted
The film still needs a distributor, a complication that plays into our political divide.
“Right-wing conservative platforms talked about COVID for a while, but it’s played out. Mainstream left-leaning platforms aren’t ready for this ... it puts us in a difficult spot,” she says.
The film’s message may be more relevant than many realize. She name-checks bird flu woes and housing “migrants” in public schools as examples of modern-day school concerns.
“The ‘Closed Schools’ [approach] is now a tool in the tool box. We close them at the bat of an eye,” she says. “There’s a portion of the left and the community that says if we just did it better and locked down harder, it would have worked out better.”
Sey acknowledges one political fallout from the lockdowns — a higher number of young voters flocked to President Donald Trump in the last election. She says one of the young men featured in “Generation COVID” “will not forgive and forget” how the lockdowns impacted his life, including extreme weight gain and the possible loss of a football scholarship.
He's not alone.
“I think there are a lot of young people who look at that time and see the course of their lives were altered forever. Democrats did that,” she says.
Built for the fight
Sey isn’t done fighting. Last year, she created the XX-XY Athletics brand, dedicated to defending women’s sports. The case of trans swimmer Lia Thomas versus Riley Gaines made national headlines in recent years and epitomizes Sey's battle.
She’s pleased by President Trump’s executive orders protecting women’s sports but understands more work needs to be done. Consider the recent case of Natalie Daniels, a five-time marathon winner and mom who got kicked out of her running club on the dawn of the Boston Marathon for speaking out against trans women in women’s sports.
“She’s the kindest, sweetest, most gentle human,” Sey says of Daniels, who was targeted by activists who Sey says tried to track her whereabouts during the imbroglio. “It’s a reminder of how far we have to go … she was bullied to the point of almost retracting her comments.”
“That’s what we’re up against. I’m not gonna let an unhinged, screaming minority intimidate me,” she says. “Eighty percent of Americans agree [with me].”
Few fights are harder than what Sey already endured as a young athlete.
“The physical pain and suffering inflicted on me, eating 300 calories and working out eight hours a day ... call me any names you want, I can take it,” she says. “Nothing will ever be that hard.”
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