How I Saved the World

Jesse Watters

• Publisher: Broadside e-books
• Year: 2021
• ISBN:
  9780063049147
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Social Science Biographies
• Index: Social Sciences

The conservative political commentator shares his story—and his outlook on America's future—in this #1 New York Times bestseller. In How I Saved the World, Jesse Watters takes readers on a tour of his life from basement-dwelling Fox minion to pampered champion of right-thinking Americans. He has divined great truths about the nature of our country while stumbling across beaches asking oblivious college students basic political questions and while stumbling out of Air Force One with the President. Interspersed are his thoughtful suggestions for overcoming left-wing radicalism, maintaining American democracy, moving beyond aging hippies (like his long-suffering, loving parents), saving the world from social justice warriors and the deep state—all while smirking his way through life in only the nicest way. Watters outlines the stark choice ahead of us between all-American hamburgers and leftist Green New Deal breadlines (okay, maybe that one is a no-brainer) and shows the way for order and fairness to be restored. A manifesto and a call-to-arms from a man for all seasons, How I Saved the World is a hilarious, enlightening, entertaining book with a reasonable chance of winning a Nobel Prize in every category, even chemistry.

Chapter One

How I Saved the Great Outdoors

People consider me the Teddy Roosevelt of Fox News. When I say “people,” I mean me. I’m a conservationist who can live off the land . . . I just choose not to. I have a healthy respect for the environment. I have so much respect that I try to never go near it. I’ve weathered that storm and now appreciate modern technologies like air-conditioning. The phrase “central air” turns me on. A lot.

Roosevelt said, “There is a delight in the hardy life of the open. There are no words that can tell the hidden spirit of the wilderness.” Well, I have lived the hardy life of the open, and have found the words.

I had just turned eighteen. It was the summer before I went off to college, and all I wanted to do was hang out at the pool, play Ping-Pong, and get into trouble with my friends. But my liberal parents had a different idea.

As I sat in the living room opening birthday presents, I kept wondering what the big present was in the corner. My parents never showered me with expensive presents. In our house, presents were seen as “materialistic.” In fact, expensive presents were borderline “hedonistic.” Plus, they cost money, and my parents were frugal. The other kids who got expensive presents from their parents were “spoiled.” My parents had different “values.” I only got presents on my birthday and Christmas. Never in between. If I really wanted something badly, I’d have to pay my dad back—in cash or in chores. Every time I opened a present, it was either a new book, an old book, or a turn-of-the-century farm tool that you’d find at a New England flea market. Dusty. Wooden. Always wooden. Some iron involved. A little rusty. Like a butter churner or a corkscrew. Extremely utilitarian. If I lived alone in a cabin with no electricity, my parents would be great gift givers. My mother would make a big deal about these presents, which she referred to as “family heirlooms.” My mom would tell me how special this clay jug was to our ancestors. When I mentioned it smelled like gasoline, she announced that it was an “antique” that must be cherished and coveted. If I complained, my father would say, “You can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, you just might find you get what you need.” Later on, I learned these were lyrics to a Rolling Stones song. Mick Jagger never wanted all that money, fame, and cocaine. He just needed it, I guess.

The worst presents my parents got me were “experiences.” Things you can’t touch, such as play tickets or museum passes. Every kid likes that, right? But the big box in the corner couldn’t be that. It was too big. You have to pretend you don’t see the big present sitting in the corner while you opened your smaller presents. Classic birthday-present-opening protocol. You can’t stare at it. You can’t even acknowledge it. You just open book after book after book, waiting for the big-ticket item in the corner. You have to act surprised when your parents hand you the big present, even though everyone in the room knew it was there the whole time.

“Oh my gosh! What is this!? I thought we were all finished!” Great performance by me.

I started tearing open the wrapping paper, then tearing open the box, getting closer and closer to the big eighteenth-birthday present. Finally, I see it. But confusion sets in.

“A duffle bag?”

“Happy Birthday, Jesse! We’re sending you to NOLS.”

“What’s NOLS?” I asked. And why were they acting like luggage was so generous?

“It’s the National Outdoor Leadership School. You’re going rock climbing in Wyoming for the whole month of August!”

I felt something huge building in the pit of my stomach.

“It’s like the Outward Bound trip in Oregon you went on last summer, except it’s more of a survival school. You’ll learn what it takes to be a leader. You leave in a few weeks! Aren’t you excited!?”

I couldn’t speak. This was an experience. The worst kind of experience. My parents had been sending me to these wilderness adventure camps every summer for the past five years. The last three in Wyoming, Oregon, and finally Tennessee (in the Smoky Mountains) were brutal. I hated them. They said it “builds character.” It built me into a character, all right. A character on TV.

The Oregon Outward Bound trip the summer before had been a nightmare. I got off on the wrong foot with my counselor and it was downhill from there. It was probably my fault. He warned me that Class V whitewater rafting was serious. He warned me that we had to properly balance all the bodies by weight from bow to stern. The rapids were intense, and we could easily be launched overboard. I’d done some pretty hard-core whitewater canoeing and kayaking the summer before . . . so I was cocky. I was also falling in love. That first day in Oregon I’d met a girl. Lauren. She was now in my raft. I threw my new $200 wraparound Ray-Ban sunglasses on and smiled across the seat at her.

“Don’t wear those sunglasses without croakies, Jesse!” my counselor Dan lectured. “You’ll lose them in the water.”

“I’ll be fine Dan, don’t worry.” I didn’t pack them. I didn’t like the look. It didn’t give off the I’d-rather-not-be-here-but-I’m-ready-for-love look.

We launched two rafts, seven in a raft. We’re floating along. I’m sitting toward the back, behind Lauren, looking good in my new sunglasses. All of a sudden—boom!—I’m bounced in the air, off the raft, and into the water.

“We got a swimmer!!!” Dan yells. I sense Dan relished yelling this as I bobbed along with the cold current.

He guides the raft toward me and reaches his hand out to pull me in. But I see my Ray-Bans in the water. I can easily grab them first and hop back on the raft, so I take a few strokes upstream. Dan sees what I’m doing, but he has to teach me a lesson. Right before I grasp the glasses, he yanks me back into the raft empty-handed.

“What did I tell you!?” Dan screams at me. I’m soaking wet, and I’ve lost my new sunglasses. It’s also a little embarrassing to go overboard in front of your soon-to-be girlfriend.

Dan looks smug. “Next time, listen to me, Jesse.” I can tell he’s happy I was thrown overboard and lost my sunglasses. He wanted me to lose them. Because they looked really good on me.

Dan hates me already. I’m very good at sensing when someone hates me. Everyone loves me, so when someone hates me, it’s very easy to notice. Usually, adults love me the most. The older they are, the stronger the affection. Because I’m so polite and charming and respectful. So for this counselor to hate me this passionately, this early in the trip, was concerning.

My sophomore summer camp counselor loved me. Mostly because I didn’t accuse him of being a Nazi. One of the other campers did. So I probably just looked good in comparison. This camper Jacob just flat-out didn’t want to be there, and he took extreme measures to get out.

When I’d arrived at base camp that last summer, I began to wonder if this was a camp for “at-risk” youth. My parents had just dropped me off. I was unpacking my canvas Abercrombie & Fitch bag, lining up my new REI hiking boots and fleece vests—looking good as always—when two other kids arrived on a bus without their parents. They carried big garbage bags over their shoulders, the kind you raked leaves into. They plopped the garbage bags down and unpacked sneakers, some mesh shorts, and some sweatshirts. And knives. Interesting. I hadn’t seen knives on the packing checklist we’d received in the mail. It was a two-week hiking trip through the Smoky Mountains of Tennessee. What were the knives for?

Within the first hour, a lightning storm forced us to scatter. We tossed any metals we were carrying and crouched facedown under trees. Chavez, the one with a knife, was crouching next to me. “I’m not getting rid of my blade,” he whispered. “Me neither,” I lied. I didn’t have a blade, but I didn’t want him to know I was unarmed. I did know that our chances of getting struck by lightning had just gone up. Big decision to make. Should I rat out Chavez for carrying a knife, so our chances of surviving the lightning storm would go down? Or does snitching on Chavez put me in greater danger later? I decided not to narc. Luckily, we survived the storm, and Chavez and I became friends.

We marched around carrying sixty-pound backpacks, almost got trapped spelunking through pitch-black caves (Chavez was a little hefty), and got stung by wasps. Jenny, a blonde with tattoos, broke her leg falling down a rocky trail. We had to build a stretcher out of tree limbs and carry her down a mountain to safety. She got medically evacuated by helicopter. A sad turn of events, but it gave Jacob an idea. Jacob wasn’t enjoying the food, the wasps, or the slap-boxing fights with Chavez. He found inspiration in Jenny’s tragedy. Jacob began fake-falling down the trails to injure himself.

“I just need to sprain my ankle, then I’m outta here,” he confided in me. After a few “falls,” our counselor was onto him and told him to knock it off. Our counselor, John, was a solid guy. Athlete, military background. His head was shaved. That gave Jacob another idea. Jacob was Jewish and started claiming John was “discriminating” against him. Jacob began calling John a Nazi. This went on for days. Jacob hurtling himself against the rocky ground, grabbing his ankle in pain, John inspecting his ankle, telling Jacob it wasn’t sprained, and Jacob calling him a Nazi. Eventually Jacob wore John down. John hiked us miles out of the way until we found a cabin in a clearing. John and Jacob approached the cabin, made contact with the outside world somehow, and Jacob was taken back to base camp. His parents picked him up.

I’m sure Jacob and the camp settled their lawsuit, but I was thinking about filing a claim myself: child abuse based on malnourishment. The food on the trip was powder based. We just carried around sacks of powder. At meals, we’d put the powder bags atop boiling water, and the steam would expand the powder bags into bigger bags of cornmeal or mashed potatoes or whatever the powder was derived from. But my personal pot system was damaged. So my water never really came to a full boil. So my bag of powder never expanded into the bigger, warmer, fluffier bag of starch-like “meal” that everyone ate. It barely grew into anything, just a semi-warm ball of undercooked yeast. When I complained to John that everyone else had a large feast and I was stuck with a golf-ball-sized “dinner,” he didn’t care. “It still has the same amount of nutrients as everyone else’s,” he explained.

I starved in them thar hills. Was this a camp for disadvantaged youth and fat kids? Because everyone was hungry and losing weight. I was just the hungriest. As we walked the trails for hours every day, our entire conversation was about food. We all discussed in great detail our favorite meals: lasagna, fried chicken, bacon, tacos.

When the camp was over, my parents picked me up and said I looked “scary skinny.” My mom asked what I wanted to eat. I said, “Shrimp.” They say you are what you eat, I guess. After a long drive, we stopped for peel-and-eat shrimp in a basket. I sat down and started gorging myself. After a few shrimp, I threw up. Apparently, because I’d been eating golf-ball-sized meals in the mountains, my stomach had shrunk significantly. Did my parents see this as a sign? That perhaps maybe we should stop shipping me off to survival camps for underprivileged kids with emotional and/or eating disorders? No. It got more extreme.

Back to Outward Bound in Oregon’s Cascade Mountains. In Oregon, we ate what we caught. Spearfishing is challenging. Due to the refraction, you can’t stab the fish directly. It must be stabbed ahead of where it appears in the water. It’s very frustrating. For a starving seventeen-year-old with zero spearfishing experience, it’s torture. My counselor Dan was tormenting us. Outward Bound felt like Gitmo for privileged white kids. I was kept away from my family and yelled at, and we prayed five times a day. For food.

Do you know what a solo is? I wish I didn’t. Your solo is when the counselor makes you survive in the wilderness alone for three days. Counselor Dan gave me three things: a book of matches, some rations, and a dirty look. Three days without any human contact. I missed Lauren. We’d really gotten closer after the sunglasses scandal. We paddled and hiked and stayed up late together. She was a great listener. She always nodded her head in agreement when I declared Dan hated me.

Our hiking teams had separated during our solos, so I wouldn’t see Lauren for a while. So I wrote her a love poem. That took about twenty minutes. Then I practiced handstands. Another twenty minutes. I thought a lot about why my parents were doing this to me. They’d sent me to lacrosse camps and camps with sailing and tennis and wrestling. Camps I liked. But each summer, they’d gotten more extreme. Each summer, I played fewer sports at camp and went farther into the wilderness for longer periods of time. Was I being trained for a mission that I’d learn about later? Were my parents preppers? I had a lot of time to think about these things. I also thought a lot about mosquitoes. They were everywhere. The camp actually made you wear mosquito-netted helmets that tied around your entire head. Not one single inch of my skin was exposed. My skin was already sunburned because I didn’t listen to Dan. He’d told me to wear sunscreen, but I wanted to be tan for Lauren. I probably stank from not showering for weeks, but I had a nice bronze going.

My friends got high that summer. So did I. Eleven thousand feet high. After the solo, we hiked to the top of Mount Hood. It was snow-capped, and we used pickaxes to climb higher. Just a normal summer day building character with a massive backpack on my shoulders and a pickax in my hand.

How did we go to the bathroom on a snowcapped mountain range? Good question. We found privacy and squatted. We didn’t carry toilet paper because there was nowhere to dispose of it. So we wiped with what nature gave us. Atop this particular peak, nature gave us snow. Yes, we wiped with snow. In the woods, we wiped with leaves mostly. Sometimes stones. Or sticks. Anything with smooth surfaces. Occasionally pinecones. With the grain, never against the grain.

My face was now bright red. Not from fatigue, dehydration, or poop-snowball humiliation. Serious sunburn. That’s when Dan whipped out some zinc oxide. The white gooey stuff. He ordered me to put it all over my face. I refused and only put it on my nose. I looked like a lifeguard from the early eighties. But at that elevation, the sun was reflecting off the snow and onto my face at “dangerous levels.” When we’d descended, my entire face was scorched. Blisters were forming. Dan was furious. He said something about “second-degree burns,” and I started getting anxious because we were supposed to reunite with our full team (Lauren!) the next day. Of course, Dan had to ruin my reunion. He forced me to put the zinc oxide all over my entire face, not just the nose. I looked like a total idiot. Like my face was covered in frosting. But it got worse. While I was hiking, mosquitoes started sticking to my face. Lots of them. So by the time we reunited with Lauren, she was shocked. I was a gooey-headed monster with dozens of black mosquitoes stuck to my once-beautiful face. Some of the mosquitoes were still alive and could be seen struggling to unstick themselves from my face. Other campers had thought it was funny and had thrown some small twigs onto my zinc oxide face. It was a game to them. Pieces of bark, small berries, anything that would stick. A medley of ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Dedication
• Contents
• Introduction
• Chapter One: How I Saved the Great Outdoors
• Chapter Two: How I Saved Hard Work
• Chapter Three: How I Saved the Children
• Chapter Four: How I Saved Journalism
• Chapter Five: How I Saved Prime Time
• Chapter Six: How I Saved the Internet
• Chapter Seven: How I Saved DC Nightlife
• Chapter Eight: How I Saved Nude Beaches
• Chapter Nine: How I Saved Christmas
• Chapter Ten: How I Saved Hollywood
• Chapter Eleven: How I Saved America’s Cities
• Chapter Twelve: How I Saved the Environment
• Chapter Thirteen: How I Saved My Mom’s Texts
• Chapter Fourteen: How I Saved the Primaries
• Chapter Fifteen: How I Saved 2016
• Chapter Sixteen: How I Saved the Election
• Epilogue
• Acknowledgments
• About the Author
• Copyright
• About the Publisher