Sarah Longwell and Pedro Gonzalez: Meet the Young MAGA Edgelords—and the One Who Got Away

0:00Hello and welcome to the Bollard Daily. I'm your host Tim Miller. We have a massive show for you today about redemption and rebirth, figuring out how to beat Maga. We're going to do an install, showered up feelings. You guys don't know what you're in for today. We're going to do an assignment to an ex-magas stall where to once attacked my jawline on Twitter it gives just a second interview since flipping. So there's going to be some interesting stuff there. But more importantly, in first, she's the publisher of the Bollard and she has a new book you may have heard of. It's called How to Eat an Elephant, One Voter at a Time Nom, Nom, Nom. It's out right now. Sarah Longwell. I've right here. Let's eat. Let's eat, brother. Ah, let's eat. Some announcements. You're the publishers. We got to do business really quick. We added a show in Dayton, a benefit show, a fundraiser for the Haitian community there. That is in two weeks, September 25th. So get your tickets. Come spend the weekend

1:04in Ohio. Everyone loves to spend use with the college in Ohio. You can find things to do there for a weekend, right? I'm going to be a Kenyan next week for the book tour. And I got to say, Dayton is lovely this time of year. There's a lot of you. If you live in Columbus, if you live in Cleveland, drive to Dayton. It's not that far. It's not that bad. There's some nice at Wilhotel's, a little boutique, the Bullard.com slash events. I'm going to go to Springfield and Saturday too. So come make a little weekend out of it. I'm also live tonight on YouTube watching JD Vance. And this is Sarah is paying me extra for it. It's at Sourpey. I've got to watch JD Vance tonight. So come hang out with us. And Subject on YouTube and Subject tonight. We're live. I didn't watch last night because that was at the chance of rapper concert. I was kind of getting blessed up. So Sarah, I got the best, I guess. It seemed long and rambly and Trump is bribing people. But do you have any big, big takeaways from last night before we get to the book? I mean, I don't, I'm in a bit of a, you know, book tour news vacuum. But I'll say, I'm, obviously, I'm still addicted to Twitter. So I've seen the clips. My main thing, I got

2:05to get Andrew Weisman on the phone. Is it legal? Tim, both of us very much not lawyers. We didn't even ace the LSATs like JBL. But I can't imagine that offering $5,000 to everybody who, if Republicans win, that feels illegal. And now, remember when Elon offered a million dollars, like he basically did a raffle, but that was for voter registration. Like it wasn't if Republicans win. Like if my team wins, everybody gets to go to the casino. So I just would be shocked if that is not a legal violation. Yeah, freebo messed it. Yeah. We don't, we don't, we don't, we're not going to play his voice. But $5,000, he said, if the Republicans win the House in the Senate, it's a little strange because Republicans have the House in the Senate now. But if they win it again, it's a bribe to vote for him $5,000. Also at this morning, offering a new $500 rebate check for people. I don't have the details on this yet. But something related to Obamacare being bad and you get 500 bucks. It's the subsidy replacement, I guess.

3:07And on top of those doge checks that are still in the mail, I think the, yeah, after pointed this out, Catherine Rapel, he had promised a $5,000 stimulus check via the doge dividend, $2,000 via a tear of dividend, $1,000 via savings from the expiring healthcare subsidies. So people lose their healthcare, but we save some money to people who go check for that. Another $5,000 dividend if the Republicans win the midterms and a new $500 rebate check. All of those has been preven promised. None have hit any mailboxes. And I love that called a dividend. It's like, ooh, if we call it a dividend, it's not socialism. You know, it's not all the things we attacked Obamacare for the stimulus 10 years ago, because it's a dividend now, you know? Yeah, Charlie. He said it's just like in a business, you get a great win fall in your country. And you give people bonuses, like he gave Natalie the human printer $45,000, just as a weird bonus. Hey, you said something on TV. You and I were both on a cold the other

4:09day. You said something on TV that I actually wanted to disagree with you about a little bit. And it goes, you weren't going to do it on cable. You wanted to do it here among friends. I just didn't get a chance if she'd given me another shot at it. I would have come for you, but you were talking about how it doesn't feel like Trump wants to win the midterms, right? It feels like he's doing everything in his power to just like screw Republicans. And I disagree with that. I just think he's unwilling to do the substantive things that would put him in a better position to win. Like he's unwilling to get rid of the tariffs because he wants to be in a trade war with Canada. He is unwilling to end the war in Iran, because he doesn't know how to get out. Now we're into deep. So the substantive things that would change the trajectory for Republicans, he's totally unwilling to do. What he is willing to do is he's willing to digerry mandor things to hell and be in a gerry mandor war because that was a mid-striker redistricting was a real move on his part. And he's willing to offer a $5,000 dividend and probably deploy ice to the streets. Like he does want to

5:11win. I do think he is afraid of the oversight that comes with a Democratic Congress and also with the idea that he's a loser. So that was the part I just kind of disagreed with. This is a classic Kenyan debate club note, which I like, which is, hey, I'm going to take this thing that you said the other day, characterize it unfavorably. And then I want to see my quote. Do you have the transcript? I want to defend myself from what I said. Because I don't, I think that maybe it was saying that his focus was out of what was wrong. And he's focused on these other things. He doesn't really care that much about winning the midterms. And that's, I think true. I think he cares about himself more than he cares about whether or not John Who Stead wins in Ohio. That's almost verbatim what you said, actually. I think you literally said who stayed at I guess. And this is why it is a, it's a threat. This is a friendly debate. Because I maybe you're not saying that he doesn't want to win. But I do think he's afraid of oversight. But I do agree with you also that like it's not because he cares if there were

6:13Republicans win because he's like on the team. He just doesn't want Democrats to now hold the gavel on anything. I have a little bit of a contrarian point that's related to this. And so I'll concede. It's your book launch week. So I'll concede that you have been on that one. I may be overstated by case because he also announced last night said that he's going to be traveling around a lot. And this I think goes against what a lot of the conventional wisdom was. I for me, for example, I thought God 80 years old, even get tired jet like I just figured he wasn't going to do it. But he's claiming he's going to do it. I do think like the talking point you see in kind of anti-dem circles is like we love that. Get out there. And I my feeling that is a little bit, I don't know. Isn't that the best thing you can do? I mean, he's dealt these Republicans a horrible hand. You know, he's he's at the bush line. The focus has not been on people's pocketbooks, right? But like in a midterm, isn't like trying to nag and conjule the people that are still tribally Republicans

7:18into voting like kind of the best thing that he can do. Yeah, I mean, it's probably different because he's president this time, but he also did this in 2022, you know, for his candidates. And it didn't work. And that to me is the big indicator is that I've always felt this way that Trump has to literally be on the ballot to turn out the people who are the Trump only voters. And I'm just going to slip in a little book anecdote here where right in in my introduction, I talk about that deal book summit when I we came and did a podcast right after it. But, you know, Kevin McCarthy was in the green room that day. And he was sort of preening around being like Trump is such a turnout machine like and he knew all the county level numbers for what Trump had done on turnout. And I went and looked back at like my hometown and how many voters Trump has added to the turnout. They don't turn out midterms. Like Trump can go hold the rallies. They might even go to the rally. But like when it comes to turning out to vote, they just like can't be bothered. And so that would be my argument. But also to your point of like, isn't that the best he could

8:20think he could do? Probably a little bit helpful to juice it. Especially just given the, you know, where the close elections are this time. I wouldn't ever seen this in 2022. It's like he's going out to try to help carry Lake or whatever in Arizona, which is a swing state. And it's like that might be backfiring. You know, going to, I don't know where he'll get Fort Worth and West Iowa and stuff to try to juice turnout. I don't think it's like really going to work. But on the margins, could it possibly help some of these shore up a couple of these red states where he won by 10 or 11 points and we got coin flip races? Maybe. And so I mean, I think it will cut both ways in some, in some I'll just say like he can go to Iowa. He's way underwater in Iowa. Like the farmers are getting cooked out there. And so like, I wonder what it will be like for him. I mean, I guess they're still, I'm sure there's Maga Faithful, who will turn out, but like he's not as popular. Like as even he might have been in 2022 when he was like, yeah, the election was stolen for me.

9:25Like what is he going to campaign on? I'm very excited for his entire campaign. Right. I mean, this is it. And he's going to talk about. Simultaneously, we are really scared about the socialists, the Muslim socialists, especially there's scared about the socialists. And also, I'm going to put mass spend in the street, round people up and then buy companies and give you the money back in a dividend. That's a cash bribe because that's not socialism at all because we're really scared of socialism. We don't want socialism. We definitely don't want. So I'm just going to give you Trump. I guess that's true. They will go on sort of the anti-socialism tour. Hey, one thing I wanted to ask you about because I did see this. I saw the 12-cut testimonial from John Federman. And I just wanted to bat this around with you a little bit because I look, I'm sort of been generally enraged by Federman. But I'm also like, I don't know. I said, Federman was a bad move, guys. This is like this kind of like dirt baggy, whatever, just because he fakes

10:27what looking like a working class, like the Downwardly Mobile guy. You know, I was a big Conner lamb person. So I've always just been like, yeah, Federman sucks. But him going and doing this glaze of McCormick Trump's Trumpopalusa for the midterms is a level of party betrayal. And like, I know he's got it in his head that this is like, well, this is country over party stuff that I'm doing. And he thinks he's a hero on it. That is the one good headline that Trump really got out of this Trumpopalusa. Like the whole rest of it. But being able to get a Democrat to show up and say, we've all got to come together. I know that people listening to this podcast will be like, who cares about Federman? No one will take him seriously. It's a real signal to people that, like, no, no, no, what Trump's doing is fine. Yeah. The Democrat that had a stroke and can barely talk is the one that really connects with Trump. He sounds terrible in that video. Terrible. And he always does sound terrible. I mean, he really, he should be getting himself help seriously. I think that Federman, I have two thoughts. One, it enrages me even more of that Tom Tillis

11:32and John Cornyn and Bill Cassidy. It's like, well, John Federman is just like having a tantrum with the Democrats. Like there's really nothing that substance that he disagrees with the one besides Israel, which I'm about to get to. But like, it's like the whole Trump era for 10 years. There's not been one Republican house or Senate person that does an active flip. I mean, some of them haven't been retired. But like, it's crazy that it's going the other way amidst all of these horrors. And the thing about Federman, I like a little moment of clarity last night, this kind of an obvious point, but I think that framed up like this, like explains just how petty it is. If like you asked him, like, what are his substantive complaints of the Democratic Party? He said this in the video. It's like, he does not believe in socialism and anti-Americanism, and he wants to support Israel. But like, his home state governor is the most emblematic Democrat in the country on those issues. Like Josh Shapiro is not a fan of socialism. Josh Shapiro is pro-Israel.

12:33He is about to win in a landslide as a Democrat from his home state. And instead of like siding up to Josh Shapiro and saying, Hey, we've got this tag team of pro-Israel, capitalist Democrats in Pennsylvania. Like, he's decided to tag up with Trump and McCormick because it's fucking petty and childish. He doesn't like Josh Shapiro personally. He doesn't like Josh Shapiro. That's right. They're like the people have been mean to him. That's what it's all about. That's right. I mean, this is, look, I've said this before and federalmen is clearly in a very narcissistic phase of his life. I very much doubt he runs again. He might flip just for like shits and giggles because it's about who's nice to him. Like, he is like so susceptible. And I don't know about people with strokes or anything like that. But when I watched that video, the 12 cuts and he still sounds that bad. Like for people who are at this, who don't know what that means. Like, so if you have a short video, you put up a politician or you'll notice this, I'll give you a little hint behind the curtain here. You'll notice this sometimes when I do a

13:34monologue at the beginning of this episode or we're going to have a podcast and like, it'll stop for a second and zoom in on me or zoom out. It's because I fucked up and said something wrong. Yeah. And so over the course, like yesterday, I had an eight or nine minute monologue. There were maybe two or three of those. Federer had talked for one minute and there were 12. Yeah. They're called jump cuts and they're used to cover mistakes and there were 12 of them. And then what they got out of him was still stilted and clearly like something is on, he's on well. And so you just think these Republicans like sidle up to him and love on him and man, hey, man, I love your sweatshirt and shorts. And now suddenly, like, they've got him in the palm of his hands. I was skeptical for a little bit of the flipping. I'm not anymore. It's interesting. So we'll get to see because I'm going a little bit the other way. He put out a statement about how he ran as a Democrat and he'll continue to be the 51st vote as a Democrat this morning. And I think that I think that John Federer may like desperately wants to be the 51st vote as a Democrat.

14:37Like, I think the thing that would make him give him the most joy. He wants the Joe mention. Yeah. As to annoy the Democrats. But I think if it's not that, if it ends up being 50, 50 or so, I do think a switch is very possible. But I think you had love to be the deciding vote on stuff. And boy, will people not like John Federer? And after that, all right, let's do some book stuff. How's it going? How's the book tour going? You're an author now. It's been two days. How are your vibes? Actually, the vibes are incredible. Are you reading all the reviews? And saying like, I read some before you go to bed. You know what I think, I think JVL put it in the triad to drop review because suddenly there's a lot of them and they're from our people and they're lovely. So they do make me happy. So yes, I've given them a look. See, look, I want feedback on the book. I'm excited about the book. I worked hard on the book and I feel like it's a good book. Like, I think it's a fun read and that there's a bunch of interesting stuff. And I think it was a good chance for me to expand as opposed to talking for one hour. Like, we do all the time. I news the day like my theory of the case. 90 Second Street, why JVL was awesome packed house.

15:41And we had to tell their security that they had to they couldn't stop people from yelling. Like, their security is really tight there. There's a lot of them and they're like, if somebody, you know, shouts out, we removed them immediately and we're like, oh, it's not going to work with our crowd. They're kind of they're into it. So they're shouting. They're shouting. And we love that. There was more a bulwark Sarah origin lore in the book than I expected, which I liked. I particularly liked the Sarah origin lore because I knew I knew most of it, but you know, it's nice to be refreshed. And there were some little nuggies I didn't know about, you know, high school Sarah. And then, you know, you did include how I was depressed when the bulwark got started, which I, which is nice. That's a nice thing to have you mentioned. That's an I love it when your one mentioned is in the book is about your depression. But, you know, that's, oh, that's all fun. Do you feel sad about that? Because I remember I asked you before I said it. I was like, I, like, was it fair to characterize? Because this was, you guys got to remember, like, I do want to tell you about Tim at this phase, right? Like, Trump had won you. It was really hard for you. And

16:46it was like hard to get you back in the game. Like, you didn't really want to get back in the game for a bit. Mel and I came. It's all your time. Yeah. It was like my buddy had moved to Ireland. You got law and hair. I like came to see you and I was like, oh, no, come on, man, you're in a dark place. But you found it's back. Look at you now. Look at you now. Look at me now. I want to talk about two things that are relevant to the next guest on the show. And we'll put links on that. Obviously, you just buy the book and read the whole thing. But you've discussed a lot of the kind of main, I think that listeners of this podcast know the gist of Sarah's theory of the case for the Democratic Party. So I think we can table that. I want to talk about the Trump's children's chapter and kind of how you see the future going. You know, because I think there is a lot of this out there right now. People are already, people like to get ahead of themselves are already talking about the post Trump future. And the book does have a section that

17:46kind of looks into where things are going and the young magas and even even mentioned kind of the Bernie Brode a megapi-pline and the next guest kind of fits that mold. So anyway, what did you come away with on on that? Yeah. I mean, look, a lot of the book is rooted in the focus groups. And so we do focus groups with young voters all the time and young Republican voters. And I think one of the things when I said with the chapter Trump's children is not about Don Jr. and Ivanka and Eric, it's about all of the young Republicans who don't remember politics before Trump. Like Trump showed up in their formative years and they think that that's what Republicans are about. And he's taught them all kinds of horrible lessons. Some of it is just like the vice signaling as a way to show you're on the team. You know, the things that come out from the young Republicans of so and so and it's all this Nazi talk and putting people in ovens and this edge lord anti-Semitic anti-black racist garbage is like the way that you show you're on the team now. And the people who

18:53are rising to prominence, like when you talk to these young voters and you say, okay, well, who do listen to Snick Fuentes, it's Tucker, it's Candace Owens all day long. They like gates when he was around. Gates was not going to come out. That's right. And so there's a when I say they're we're not going back to the older Republican Party. I see this to some of the to some of the olds, the people who their Democrats, but the party of Mitt Romney was a fair party and they were okay. And they're like, well, maybe we'll get back to that. There is still a lot of people who labor under the illusion that we might go back to something like the Mitt Romney, John. No, absolutely not in part of it is that this new generation is coming up and they have been taught by Trump how to behave and they're quite toxic. They're also not that ideal, I mean, they're ideological along the vectors of like immigration, race, gender, right, more than any of the kind of three-legged stool conservatism

19:53stuff that you write about the book for when you were coming up in ISI. You know, it's not, I mean, for better or worse in some places like they don't, there is obviously an evangelical element of it. But like the center of this is not family values and tax cuts and strong military. It's like completely different. It's completely different. And I will say one of the big overlaps, right? It's interesting when you talk to young voters, young Republicans and young progressive sound pretty similar on Israel. Like there's like almost no daylight about young people. Like if you look at the polling for both parties, it might look different, but among these, this new generation, it's not different at all. They are isolationist in their foreign policy and they're anti-Israel in their foreign policy or they have sort of the, they shouldn't control us mentality. And they're also oftentimes more populist in what they want. Like they're more economically populist and that is why there is the Bernie to Trump pipeline. Like the overlap there is real, especially among these young voters. And it's the reason that Trump wildly overperformed with, and I also have to say that the gender

20:57divide here though is so stark. Like it's the dudes. And like when you do young women, they're all like, yeah, I don't know that I'll get married because like the men are like off the chain. Like they're watching the, their young male peers do the Trump dance and they're like, get me out of here. You also talk about the travel go of doom and the conspiracism that these guys get to drug into. And I wonder, I'm about to talk to Pedro about this, but it's sort of just hard to know myself. You can say why you are the one that broke away, but life is complicated and that takes deep reflection and time. And so for you more as an analytical standpoint, do you have any thoughts on, you know, what is a, what would be useful strategies for kind of like pulling this type of demo out? Like obviously not, you know, somebody that's in a mega hat and is an activist and, you know, like they've, they've chosen a team, like they're playing a team sport, but kind of the broader demographic. Look, I think that life and, and our times are always, there's, there's

22:04back lashes and front lashes and, you know, you're, it's always churning. And so I don't think it stays static. And I think that you already see Trump's numbers. He overperformed with Hispanics. He over performed with black people. He overperformed with young people. Like they're the first ones to go. Like they're the last in first out voters. And I put young people as swing voters. They're one of my categories of swing voters because they're just not fully formed yet. And so I do think that if the Democratic Party starts putting forward people that young people can attach to who, where it's like they're not doing the woke stuff and they're funny, whatever, but they're also like yeah, and I think we should have universal health care. Like honestly, I can see Joe Rogan in a post Trump era floating back. That's certainly policy wise. And so I don't think that young people are lost. I do think though you have to deal with sort of the edge lordism and the racism that now is this like weird animating like in-group way of talking. You had one section that kind of

23:07alludes to this and then you said something that alarmed me, which is this is a topic for another book. And I don't I didn't like that you're already thinking about another book when you're writing about this topic. But I just meant I couldn't get into the whole thing. I'm not writing another book. Come on down. You're closing out A. I don't know. I'm just teasing you. It's about A. I certainly can't have you being on the best or less twice. I'm only on once. It's AI of it all. And this is like the thing that I am really obsessed with right now, but also the most flumixed by as far as like how to combat it. Like a lot of the advice you have of the book for Democrats are things in our wheelhouse. Right? How to communicate better. You know, how to reach out to different demographics and engage with them. This is a tougher animal, which is like how to reach people who are getting information where they don't know what's true and what's false and where the other side is more willing to play dirty with it. And I was wondering if you had any expanded thoughts on that. You got into it a little bit in the book. Yeah. I mean, I think that part of it is because I listen to voters all the time and

24:11they basically don't know how to arbitrate information already. Like the line of I don't know what to believe anymore. And like that's where the nihilism creeps in. They don't know where to get good information. They don't know what's true. And the AI of it all is about to come along and make the whole thing a lot worse. The reason I said, I don't want to write a whole other or I could write a whole other book about it or it's a whole other book is we don't know where it's going. Like I honestly could make. That was I did an event last night. Nick Thompson was there. And so he and I were talking about this. And the odds that AI is both like catastrophic like they the but they figure out how to launch a nuclear missile and we all end up, you know, in the rubble is a non-zero chance. There's also about 10 percent including some of the people working on it. Yeah. About 10 percent according to anthropics leadership. Hold on. Side note. Can I just tell you how crazy was that the end like normally when when you get somebody who comes out like that and says like we're all going to die. Whatever. The leadership thing comes out and says, ass, a junior employee,

25:15like you should ignore them, whatever. The leadership came out and they were like, yeah, there's a better than 10 percent chance. And we don't know what to do about it. And the next decade. Like you all should be an insane asylum. At least you shut down your company. That is too high. I don't know why anybody would be comfortable with this. But there's sort of this like in intermediary place actually where you could see some positive benefits of because it has this cumulative knowledge of everything when people are like, what is true? And they're asking AI, they're actually getting much better answers than they get from their neighbor on Facebook, which is the other place that they were looking. Right. So like it is it is a low bar. We do have a low baseline. We're starting from. But I also had a ton of fears. So like I was talking about this last night. Like I know listening to voters that they often say like that they're not that informed about a race. And the number of people who are going to start typing in who should I vote for to AI is about to be really high. And people are going to try to manipulate that. Right. Like if you're Elon's and our side is

26:19to try to be like actually totally we're entering into an entirely new information battle that like the terrain is still pretty unclear for everybody. I was thinking on the show the day somebody and read it. I was talking we were talking about Corey Lewandowski in the next level and I talked about his stank breath again. And then someone on Reddit started to thread this like is it true that he has bad breath. There's not just Tim Stick. Then another redditor answered yes. Tim one time got hit checked by Corey Lewandowski and his breath was really bad. And I'm wondering if that now gets into the AI system. You know now like for future whether now like Claude if ever asked about Corey Lewandowski's halitosis will probably start to say yes. So I think that might be true. You know I remember we got to put good information into the system is what I'm saying. Well when I was young you know I when I was on the road with Rick Santorum as I talk about in in the book he would get asked at every single book event he did because he was on his book tour about the Google bombing that got done where they defined Santorum in a very gross and graphic

27:22way like it became and it was like if you googled Santorum it gave you a definition that was related to the sex that two men have together when they're much in love. Well it's frothy. It was the word. It was the word. It was coined by our guy listener Dan Savage shout out Dan and check him out of Savage Love. All right you got to get through the train. I got there's so much good stuff in there. Everybody go get the book and you got anything else any other anything you want to leave people with? Only that you know in the early days when we didn't know what was going to happen it was like just think about where it all is now. Your fame a famous podcaster we got books JBL let's human beings be near him. I just I think I want to I'm your thriving man you're thriving. Thank you sir you are too a lot of personal growth all around we have a lot more work to do though there's still in charge of everything so you know the work continues. That is where one one bite at a time. The book is meant to be an optimistic pitch for how we get out of this mess.

28:25Let's do it together. All right I love you Sarah Long the up next something that's had a little less nice things to say about me Peter Gonzalo stick around for that. All right I got all my foreign travel out this summer. I'm in the potential impending end of democracy in a 10% chance for the end of the world. I'm unclear when I'm going to be able to visit another foreign country again but for you this should be a moment should be a moment for you to say hey let me plan my next trip. And while I'm planning hotels and airfare and what fun stuff I'm going to go do and see you should also be planning on how you're going to be able to speak to the locals work on a foreign language improve yourself and you can do it with our friends at Babel. Even just 10 minutes a day with Babel can help you start having real conversations in

29:28as little as three weeks instead of memorizing random vocabularies phrases you use ordering dinner asking for directions or talk in with the with the Frenchies or whatever you're going to visit the Germans in my case lessons are quick practical and built by more than 200 language experts have interactive dialogue personalized reviews and unlike cramming before trip Babel fits into your actual schedule coffee break commute or a few minutes before bed or my daughter and I've been doing it between the time when you order dinner and when dinner comes to go to a restaurant that's really nice when you go out to the restaurant something for us to do besides you know her watching TikTok Slop or annoying me. So if you've got travel coming up now's the time to start so you can actually use what you learned on the trip right now Babel is offering listeners up to 60% off go to babel.com slash bulwark that's b-a-b-b-e-l dot com slash bulwark for up to 60% off Babel rules and restrictions may applaud. Right and we are back he's a writer and editor you can find his work in Commonwealth

30:30the nation the spectator and his sub stack called Contra you might not be able to tell from that list that he's an X-magga. Do we do that now he's an X-magga writer it's Pedro Gonzalez what's up man. Hey Tim thanks for having me. I've been wanting to do this for a minute you know I've been on you I've been trying to get you to do it because you started liking my tweets and retweeting my tweets which was a departure from how you used to react to my tricks back in the old days. Yes. And I was like I want to learn about your kind of conversion and so for people who aren't familiar with your social media antics maybe just give us a little like speed date origin story of your kind of ideology and what you are doing in Mag world when you are involved. Well I used to say horrible things to you and basically everyone who was a perceived enemy of of Maga I guess the long and short of it is I kind of had a liberating face moment but not really. Why did I help you begin.

31:31Okay. Because a lot of times we have the people that have like if you look at us in the never trumpet world it's mostly people that were like moderate Rhino squishes initially anyway yeah if you look at the whoever you want to say the Joe Scarborough so the Coles or us of the Bullwork you know there's some exceptions to that but like for the most part it's going to be people that are in Republican politics world in the establishment and so it's like not that surprising that they would you know be unhappy with this assault on the establishment. Like your like story is different you're kind of more reflective of like the original Trump core as I've heard you explain it's like you are kind of Bernie Browish. Yeah I'm something about that. So I'm a little bit of this charm kind of then more appealing to like the paleo conservative you know side of things more like isolation is conservative and you're kind of a young guy that had some some anger and like the Trump thing resonated with you and like that's kind of the core of the type of person that Trump first appealed to and so the fact that like you've exhalered on it I think is is is notable.

32:33So anyway maybe just talk about kind of that trajectory. I think the anger part is like a big part of it like you know my entry into politics and political discourse was late in the sense that I was I think I was 2026 when I first got into it and it was also kind of unorthodox in the sense that it was something that I did because other doors had closed and I didn't know what I was going to do with my life. Basically I was at a point in my life where I was really frustrated with this one thing this one and only thing I'd have wanted to do right. And in the background you have this obviously this this growing populist sentiment in the United States culminates in the election of Donald Trump and you know for most of my life I'm kind of just like an ambient California liberal with like somewhat end coherent views because it didn't necessarily think too deeply about it. I liked the way that people like Bernie Sanders talked about Wall Street. I liked the way that he talked about you know main street being left behind.

33:38It made it very easy to naturally be like disgusted by someone like Hillary Clinton. And if not support Trump initially at least view him as kind of like this is a symptom of something that's been sort of bubbling beneath the surface like people in this country very angry they they feel like they haven't been listened to and this insane like demented clown person is sort of like their Tribune. So during this like really tumultuous transitional period in my personal life the country was kind of going through one too right. And I basically looked at writing as a way to do the thing that I was not able to do that I'd always wanted to do. And like the long and short of it is like I had spent most of my 20s trying to get into the military that was the only thing I'd ever wanted to do was to get a career in like this sounds really funny talking about it now but like something like special operations that's all I wanted to do right as a kid that was like I knew that that was the thing I wanted to do was to serve my country at like a high level somehow again you can't talk

34:42about that without sounding cringing embarrassing. Sure. But that was like the thing I wanted to do right but I was born with a benign medical condition that was it's a permanent decal for like all the armed services which means like you can get waivers for some things you can't get a waiver for what I have and it doesn't matter like if you could run fast or swim fast or do a lot of pull ups or pushups like Navy or you know Army bureaucracy whatever it's like on paper they just see this is a condition that's our list of permanent decals you're not getting a waiver. Why spent most of my 20s trying to get a waiver and like banging on whatever doors that could making whatever connections I could I was involved with like a different like recruiting pipelines that were designed to help people get into these these programs but then when that door was shut there's still this sense of like I somehow want to continue this like mass cause thing that I always wanted to do which is like defend this country that I feel really attached to you know and writing from a conservative political perspective naturally

35:46it seemed like like a natural thing to do again this is like the time to do this and be on the nose but you became a literal keyboard lawyer. I did you know that's why it's cringe and embarrassing to him no I I'm very self-aware about that and you know this is like in the 2010s so like at the peak of like the culture wars are starting to really take off and it was so easy to fall into like the angry right-wing popular space because it's and you can also see it in my early writing to you like it's very combative and very confrontational it fit the thing that I wanted to do and I believed in it obviously this is true I think for a lot of people on the populace right and it's why it's so hard for people to like you know you can call it the sunk cost fallacy but I think this is why it's so hard to get out it's because it's not just like you're you're part of like a party or whatever you like you're part of a movement you're part of something bigger than yourself you're part of something that's in an existential battle with not just political patterns but enemies who are not you know we're not debating

36:48of a policy we're debating over competing ways of life and so as you start writing your kit I mean you end up kind of getting deep in I guess what you'd call kind of mag a establishment world I mean you're a Claremont fellow you know you're kind of paling around with all these guys I mean you like you know would exchange texts with JD and Tucker's just kind of like talk about that process getting in scunds in that world you know after after Trump gets it it was it was weird because again like a friend described me once is like kind of like a forest gump on the right and I just kind of fell into a lot of these things without necessarily like seeking it out and so you know like how did I get on Tucker basically I tweeted something in like 2019 that he or one of his producers noticed and I got a DM from like someone who had been on the show and they asked for my number and then like next thing I know Tucker's calling me and asking me to come on a show to talk about immigration and you know very similar process with JD like one day like he just just reaches out of the blue and I don't

37:53think this is unique like this happens with a lot of people on the right and I've heard from people who like are more familiar with the left telling me that it's this is kind of a unique phenomenon with the pop of this right this sort of willingness to just sort of use the the internet in particular like Twitter as kind of like a networking platform and to into court influencers and kind of blurring the lines between professional you know I don't know consultant or whatever and and friend right especially when you're working in media I mean like that was how I got sucked into that world and it was starting with writing in conservative um public and magazines then getting picked up by a publication called American greatness from by Chris Buscar who's also very close to JD dance and then like just from spamming inboxes getting published in like the Washington examiner the daily caller you know doing this on my own just trying to get published and build my profile and then just like I said like little by little getting noticed and picked up maybe that's true

38:57that it's unique of the of the right the the new right anyways that it's willing to kind of take people and just elevate them based on I don't know they're there allegiance to the party line or Donald Trump it's a diffractors right and the left is a lot of sociology you can do on this but like sure left is more hierarchical right more and it's kind of funny that like the rights rhetoric is more about like meritocracy and all those but kind of like the left actually works more as a meritocracy and then there's more it's more competitive yeah like there's a long line of people with resumes you know that could be it could say liaries for these types of leaders and like there was a vacuum there on the right in 2016 to 2024 right and so a lot of people have to be able to kind of fill that yeah so I want to come back to your kind of solid of a mask story at the end but I want to just since now that that folks kind of understand your backstory I want to do a little bit more anthropology of what's happening in the movement first as he says like where we are now and it seems

39:57like you know who the hell knows what happens is Trump the next two years but there's this inflection point I do think that we're trying to tease out the like this question of like what is like the act or the actual earnest animating parts of mega like what is part of just a Trump personality cult you know like the example I gave on a pod recently was I think that it might have been reasonable in 2011 or 12 to say like the animating thing about the tea party was you know budget restraint and you know if you look back at that in 2018 that looks preposterous right and so kind of wondering is like we look ahead what are the central parts of the people that are going to not do it you did that are going to stay with stay and push it forward I can tell you what I see and what I think are some important features of the movement and I think the two most prominent ones that it's not hard for like the average person to recognize is one race and two maybe to a lesser

40:58degree thus sometimes it overlaps the sex and this is what I wrote about in the nation that a big part of the Trumpian rights self-conception a big part of how it justifies everything from abuse is of power to corruption to total allegiance to Trump or as you know presume success or advance the way that people are kept in mind is this this framing of politics is not just politics as you know we understood it in the past which is debates of a policy that sometimes get heated but again this kind of existential battle for the future of the country but but in his very specific sense and what I mean is and you kind of see this also with with the rise of people on the right using the term third-world ism it's this kind of marriage between anti-communism which weirdly enough has been revived you know like Trump is trying to kind of revive communism as like a threat ahead of

41:59the midterms but it's also being racialized what I mean by that is that the real enemy of the right is basically minorities and immigrants and their white allies and that's kind of how the right understands itself is like were it war for the future of the country but only in this very narrow sense which is this kind of like white it's so funny for me to say this stuff again because of my background is like you know like I was part of like the radical right and like I was basically part of the problem like that's that's the truth right like I was part of the problem I made these arguments I amplified them and you know fast forward now and I'm telling you like the right understands itself as as in kind of like a racial conflict with its enemies and that that also like I said that also includes whites that's why it's emphasis like its main issue is immigration but it's much more the intersection with communism is like this this word that is never a popular right of third-world ism right it's like well the third world ism and those type that types of communism

43:01kind of overlaps and then their American enables right or whatever but it goes beyond but I think it's important to understand that it goes way beyond like to you know illegal aliens whatever this is very much like a very specific kind of conception of the American nation as like a as like a purified white country against those who would stand in the way of that vision and it sounds insane it sounds like extreme to some extent you're like it this is what like you know like resist lives were sang in like 2016 turns out they were right but then you see like the the propaganda that's coming out of the white house you see like dhs making recruitment videos using like white nationalist songs like it's not it's not even up for debate like it's using propaganda that draws explicitly from white nationalist themes and and memes and things like and and basically winking at this crowd saying we are your allies and then obviously like you know every week there's like a report about some group chat or some individual who has like some like you know like

44:02Paul and Grasya who there's a report about him saying something like I have a Nazi streak like and that's like super common for the type of person that gets selected and promoted within the Trump administration I'm not saying that they're literally Nazis I don't know I'm sure that there are people that are but this is how they think of themselves and that's why this this idea of this like broad perpetual kind of racial conflict is central to the rights understanding and now a message from our sponsor the reading room as of this week Todd Blanche has officially been Trump's attorney general for a month and the full Epstein file still aren't public instead of waiting on government to stop its cover up the Donald J Trump and Jeffrey Epstein Memorial reading room has printed out three and a half million pages the DOJ has released and built a free traveling exhibit that puts the files on display the museum you can actually walk through to see the scale of the release files the timeline of Trump and Epstein's relationship and attribute to the survivors it's open now in Dallas and then heads out across the country for 20 plus stops

45:07in the next eight weeks you won't be surprised here that moving 17,000 pounds of evidence and the bookshelves needed to hold it across the country is in chief and the reading room runs entirely on donations so this is something you want more people to see you can learn more and chip in to fund the tour at Trump Epstein readingroom.com slash bullwork or checkout our morning shots newsletter with more details. I want to come back to the sex part of it but let's just like sit on the racial and globalized conflict a little bit because you wrote this really sharp take down we're talking about this earlier about how your your harsher to Mike Pence and the bullwork was I think when his book came out and one of the key points you make in that review is basically that like Pence was arguing that Trump became fully uprooted in Trump 2.0 and that you know there was some break between the real conservatism of what he was you know working with Trump on and what this new popular sponsor is and in term two and you you know say that that's basically self soothing. You're saying it that sounds kind of insane to argue that the animating issue here is racialized

46:12conflict. Like was that not kind of clear in 20 like when he came down the escalator was it not kind of clear from day one like talking about the Mexican's bringing the rapists and the murders. I think there are elements of it there obviously and it sounds like in retrospect silly to even say like you know it's it's not it's tough I think that basically he was restrained by people around him. I think that his worst tendencies were restrained I think that he was bad then in a sense and he got much worse over time and also the fact that he surrounded himself with loyalists and the kind of person that those loyalists tend to be the ones who are kind of obsessed with this like you know like Stephen Miller and giving them more power in the second term. I think it's kind of like a witch's brew that amplifies all of the worst tendencies not just in Trump put in the movement. So in some sense like I wrote yes that was it was always to some degree even if it was a lesser degree present than and it only got worse over time but the point that I was making there is you know

47:19and again this is like for you know Richard whatever for me to say is that for people like Pence it's like yeah I mean like it's it's not a surprise that Trump was never truly a conservative like all you had to do was listen to him talk there were other things I want to include in that piece as well they kind of make this point you know there was a debate that between him and Ted Cruz were Ted Cruz like slammed him for endorsing like European healthcare systems are think in particular Germany and Trump basically said yeah like I do think that we could learn from from you know healthcare systems in countries like Germany and Ted Cruz's response was like see he's not a real conservative what people like Cruz in understand then is that was part of Trump's appeal that he was willing to kind of break the mold on the GOP orthodoxy it's economic orthodoxy it's immigration orthodoxy and I didn't include that point I think is over an order to space but basic the point that I was trying to make there is like for Pence to say like well we didn't know he was too conservative like it's just ridiculous like that was part of why he won in the first place in 2016 and I think that for Pence it's a combination of him like lying to himself or being misleading your dishonest

48:24for political reasons but maybe also there's like guilt there that's like unresolved because like I noted in that piece Pence's whole thing was kind of to be like a fig leaf to to conventional conservatives right like look you're right this guy's you know he's got weird ideas but economics he's he says horrible things but immigrants but Mike Pence is there you know and if Mike Pence is there and maybe to some extent this is true like he'll be restrained you know like Mike Pence would not sign on to this if the guy was terrible and I think maybe for Pence deep down there's like there's something that he hasn't worked through there and like can't bring himself to confront which I think a more contemplative person could have written a much better book for that reason and I mean like I know it's hard by the way I can you know I'm speaking from experience so I mean Pence I think by going as far as you have gone it's basically an admission that it was all I was about to say that it was all for not but actually worse than that that's a great addition admission that you're an enabler of this thing that you now identify as this great threat yes and it's much easier to you know kind of constitute a fantasy path where like those the moment

49:30that they set up the gallows on the wall that like Trump broke from true conservatism and everything that Pence was involved with before that was was a different thing not even there by the way I mentioned this in that piece like I had to read the passage like twice because basically Pence not only sort of downplays January 6 as just an event you know there was the consequence of Trump's most passionate supporters as he calls them but he basically frames Biden as much worse in the sense that Biden's policies like his attempts to cancel student loan debt were a much creative assault on the constitutional order then what happened on January 6 which is why he writes that like people that wanted to return to order with the election of Biden were basically robbed of that hope and then Biden does like crazy socialist stuff and then order was restored in 2024 when Trump won so what are you saying Pence you know it's like make up your mind when

50:32it was Trump bad was he bad on January 6 was he bad in 2024 was he bad on the campaign trail was he bad after he won it's not coherent and I really think that apart from the obvious answer which is just you know I think he launched a think tank and there's he's obviously trying to kind of stage like a recon key sort of donors yeah you know it's easier I know this crowd I mean there's plenty of these rich conservative donors that hate us at the ball works it's like is because they just want to focus all their anger on the left's excess yes that's what the book does yeah and you go back to your word soothing you're like that's the soothing thing to do yeah it's it prevents you from having to kind of look in internally all right I got to tell you that I am starting to get jealous of my visitors some of you who are watching the baller takes feed may have seen that my buddy camcansky was down here visiting me a couple weeks ago and well we're not going to get into his personal issues but he needs comfortable mattress all right

51:34these 24 going on 60 and you got into the guest room the next morning woke up was like damn bro that he looks mattress that is comfy and I'm starting to think boy I need to be sleeping in the guest room more I might need to get a couple tips with my husband just so I can get a really good night's sleep over there our helix mattress came I don't know a few months ago and I have to tell you we are super excited about it everybody's come to visit that is excited my parents are coming to visit their podcast listeners now they're going to know that they're going to have a comfy mattress why are you denying yourself this jvl liked the helix mattress so much that he gave it to his favorite child you're not supposed to have a favorite child but he does and he gave them the helix mattress what more do you need to know you get free shipping and seamless delivery 120 night sleep trial and a limited lifetime warranty and it's a happy with helix guarantee rest easy with seamless returns and exchanges so go to helixleap.com slash the bulwark for 27% off site wide

52:38exclusive for listeners of this show that's the labor day sale that's helixleap.com slash the bulwark for 27% off site wide for their labor day best of the web sale make sure you enter our show name after checkout so that know we sent you helixleap.com slash the bulwark. I want to go back to what we were on the you know kind of core elements of of MAGA this kind of I guess the sure steel man I get for them like the more you know winning the poo in the tuxedo version of this would be like this the fight for western civilization which doesn't include a lot of the elements of the founding when it comes to liberal principles but like is really more just about white white ethnic and and religious elements of western civilization so that's part of it that fight and then the other element you mentioned was the was the sex talk about what you meant by that are you talking about trans or women's roles or the right has this like weird relationship with women where on the one hand you know for the longest time it's been this this movement that conceives itself as upholding

53:43the family as like the building block of of any healthy society but on the other hand in the era of Trump like I guess you could argue that there was a kind of like chivalrous element to that position right that it's a kind of benevolent form of patriarchy in other words with reciprocal rights and duties or excuse me duties and obligations between men and women and of course if you're a feminist you're like well that's already bad enough like that's already implicitly very sexist and intolerable well the right in the era of Trump I think makes that look looks very tame by comparison because it's not just like you know the woman's true role as to be a mother but there's there's a kind of like women are part of the problem when you look at like how they vote they vote with their feelings basically betray us on issues like immigration because they have too much empathy and therefore women are to the degree that is possible they need to be deprived of agency they need to be kept at a politics they need to be pushed out of a movement they need to have his little

54:46influence over public life as possible and any woman who disagrees with that is implicitly somehow like contaminated by feminism in part of the problem and I guess you could say it's like not really surprised that that would happen in the era of Trump right like this is not particularly a guy who's down for yeah women's empowerment right yes yes and but it's just remarkable the how ugly it's gotten in I guess a second term like how openly the right like distains women like there was this report about the growth and like basically most of the jobs I think over the last year have gone to women and yeah I saw this today just let me just give the back straight to this for people who've not like seen it online so a report came out basically that like an economic sport that said a lot of the job growth this year has gone to women Ken Paxton sent this tweet he goes thanks to President Trump's leadership American women are leading the way in our economic comeback then there was this like huge backlash against him for that of all the things we met at Ken Paxton

55:50about like a ton of right wing accounts one guy Joel Levin lost my vote another you know Megan Bashman fellow talks about how he doesn't get it you know this is all part of the feminist plan to make women work and you know this is a huge disaster huge just see I just a ton of backlash against him for praising the idea that women are going back to the workplace well and if you take a closer look at the data it's like it's not really like when I saw it I was like well yeah I mean like they tend to gravitate toward some of the only fields that are consistently growing like healthcare so it's like this this makes sense but the reaction from the right I think is it that in that particular instance it gets it what I'm talking about this like psychotic in co-aid anger directed at women and I think like digging a little deeper there is kind of a philosophical element to that which is what I alluded to that women are kind of seen as like on the one hand the one the people that are sort of oppressing men and subjecting them to the long house basically

56:52this this idea of like a social and cultural panopticon in which women prevent men from really being men and you know are sort of a feminizing boys from from early age and on the other hand that women are kind of seen as like the carriers of empathy which is a weakness obviously if you're trying to cultivate like a hard right movement well you can't have women around who are like making us reconsider our positions based on our feelings right because then you won't be cruel to like immigrants you won't be cruel to minorities and I think that's that's really fascinating important and under explore part of the right is this idea of of like we need to reduce the influence of women as much as possible for these reasons so if you expand that out and you're projecting ahead politically and let's we're just assuming that Donald Trump has an either like decided he wants to try to stay or you know like some of the more crazy tail outcomes but like there's a normal succession race what you would say which I think feels right is as long as

57:56the next standard bear from the party is willing to wage this war on foreign immigrants black and brown immigrants and their domestic white allies and as long as they you know are you know going to push for traditional gender roles and engage in a culture war on these fights where they prop out whether it be WNBA or Lindsey Clancy or whatever like as long as the right as long as they do those two things and they say Trump has been good like that's probably sufficient like that's mega right like they can probably drop everything basically like tariffs and whatever whatever other like land of Trump thing you want to say as long as those three boxes are checks they're probably fine and that takes us to JD Vance and it seems like he's a good fit to me for that I mean the child with cat ladies you know he is at this cutting edge of this the eating the dogs and cats he's at the cutting edge of that he's decided that the true Catholic faith is anti-immigrant because Jesus meant like love your literal neighbor right like your next door neighbor was the only person you had

58:59to love yeah and you know so he's got the family issue I guess but besides that I don't know that makes me kind of feel like he's a better fit as a as a successor than some like pundits laugh people believe what what do you make of that like Rubio yeah absolutely look back at the killings of Renee good and Alex Freddie you know and especially in the case of Renee good you saw these these two things come together race and sex like I don't know if you recall the vicious terms in which Renee good was attacked after she was killed like these are not fringe figures it's like Matt Walsh basically saying that you know this this woman was like a disgusting lesbian and you know she could deserve what she got and like and again like fairly mainstream figures all saying the same thing like if she had been like a true and proper woman she would have been home with the kids and this would have never happened but you know she was like an upedy person of course it wasn't even true right she was dropping her kid off at school go back and revisit those tweets and

1:00:01you can see how psychotic it was like every aspect of her life was just like blown up and made into a sort of like a poster child for everything the right hates and then it happened again with Alex Freddie you know not not a female but a white guy basically and seen more importantly as an ally of immigrants and therefore deserved what he got because he got in the way of law enforcement none of that was true like in both cases the Renee good and Alex Freddie stories and the right were completely wrong like detach from reality but in particular the Alex Freddie case Vance was one of the people who helped promote this false picture of him as an assassin right if you remember uh Stephen Miller referred to him as a would be assassin I believe and Vance boosted that and then when he was confronted about it by reporter uh who asked him like would you like to like issue like an apology or like a statement to the Freddie family and Vance smirked and said for what when I saw that clip I was like this is going to blow up on the right because it's him demonstrating that he just did he's a cold blooded killer right that he's cruel that he's willing

1:01:08to bear witness to violence so that the right can get what it wants and then smirk at like the stupid reporter who asks him if he feels any sense of contrition like when I saw that I was like one it's going to go viral into like Vance knows exactly what he's doing he knows what crowd he's playing to and like I can see someone like him being a much better fit as a successor to Trump than Marco Rubio like like I don't like Rubio either but whatever you want to say about Rubio it's hard to see Rubio stooping as low as Vance's morally and more importantly trying to wink at this particular crowd of people you know that includes individuals on the right who look down on his his wife and his children because his wife is Indian is in laws or immigrants and his kids are mixed like you have to think about what kind of a person like Vance is willing to try to court that part of the right that sort of looks down on your family because they're not purely white and you're thinking to yourself like I need to make sure that I'm sending the signals out that these people

1:02:12know I'm on their side and that they can trust me to be like the based torch bearer for Donald you know I told you I was going to make you come on here to do burn book but obviously as you were kind of coming out of this JD you know are all navigating this right and and JD was like one of me and then he becomes one of you right and then you know so he's moving different directions you know and then Tucker ends up having to leave Fox like it's your communicating with them like what's your sense like the way in which they're processing all this and like the path that they're taking to try to appeal to the audience and to go to Tucker is very difficult to to get a read on when you're talking to him it's never clear that you're talking to like a real person is the best way I can put it it's like he's always sort of wearing a mask there there are some features of Tucker that are like consistent but then there are other aspects of him that are really slippery I think it's true that he's probably like unwell psychologically like I did this is like

1:03:13I hate to sound like an armchair psychologist whatever but like do I really need to you know like you just had a guest on whether you're talking about how like Algebra is like fake and like Jewish nonsense and that it's not a real math you know and Tucker is like giggling as his guest is saying this stuff like okay so I guess it's not that outrageous to suggest that he's unwell I think it's gotten certainly worse since he left Fox if he was effective rhetorically Fox is because of his writers and the people around him that like hammed him in and controlled him and once those guard rails were moved like Trump he just you know went insane or rather revealed that he was always kind of like out there and he's just very dishonest and very slippery Tucker I'll get to dance like in one moment you know he's like I love Chop at the next moment he says I hate Chop and this was him before he becomes a big surrogate for for Trump in 2024 he's he's telling people in private he's saying in public that he's like well not actually much less on public but in private he's like he hates Chop you know he's like done with Chop yeah he's like he's telling you know he's like anybody who's

1:04:17had a private conversation with Tucker myself included about Trump during that period will tell you he like he hated him he got the guy was a joke and then all of a sudden like after leaving Fox he gets in bed with the Trump family by Trump family I mean like his biggest advertising deal after leaving Fox I think his first and biggest one was with a company tied to Don Jr. it's called I believe it's called public square and then he you know goes to the campaign trail he tells Russell Brand like you know I love Donald Trump and you know he's also he's the peace president and then you know he gets elected and then he's just back and forth right now he's off the Trump train but importantly he's promoting Vance now you know he's like guys shucks I was wrong about Trump he's a liar I could never I never saw that coming however you should trust me when I say that Vance is like the real deal and Vance is very similar to Tucker in that he's very slippery like I remember conversations with him about about this type of character on the right who years ago was was scrutinizing him precisely because of his family background like you know your

1:05:21wife is not white kids or mix you know can you really be trusted to be like an ally to like the hardcore immigration restrictionists who for them immigration is not again merely a policy issue it's an existential it's whether or not this country will be more or less white can we really trust you JD and I remember him like just talking to him about this particular type of person I basically just characterized him it's like racist libertarians basically this faction of the right that thinks like there actually there's no real issues with like the economy there's no real issues with anything there's just too many brown people on America and like if we just have fewer brown people like everything would be fine and I remember like he was receptive to that this is like you're the subject of the critique you wasn't receptive to be no to what I was to that framing and then yeah I mean that was like three years ago and now he's he basically you know like he occasionally like when he's for like absolutely forced to we'll say something like I hate Nick Fuentes whatever and that's it he's he's very reluctant to criticize that part of the right which

1:06:27just a few years ago was attacking him he's very reluctant to criticize them because he understands that on the right it's called counter signaling like he he knows that counter signaling could expose him as someone who's not really on board with the program I want to kind of go over that because that's an interesting journey because like you can see great vans and you we can see this publicly and you're just like having a handful of conversations privately but like kind of grasping at like you know how can I ingratiate myself into this mega edge like through influencers that are like you like just not outside the bounds of acceptability right like what are the ways that we can kind of you know how can I court them one of the ways that I can talk about this like it's a strategic thing like it's a little sociopathic I guess a strategic effort you know and it's like he goes through that effort and then kind of comes out the other side being like you know the only way to do this is actually just to go ahead and fully body up to the most race as far to the right because like there's unless you abide by the no enemies to the right posture like I'm gonna end up

1:07:31being you know Mike Pence to for somebody else yeah you'll you'll become suspect you will not be viewed as like a reliable ally who's willing to do what needs to be done and I mean there's this slogan that briefly became popular on the right it was hard in your heart it's funny like I think a bit often I think it was maybe right after Trump got elected it's sort of making the rounds online people just random influencers saying like hard in your heart kind of like get ready for what's coming and Trump 2.0 and I think that that's one way to understand is that he that's that's what he has done in a very cynical way because he knows that if I want to be like the undisputed air like if I want to cast out any doubt that I am the the true and only like air at the Trump this is what I have to do the one other thing advanced on to get your pick your brain on is this kind of alignment with the pro tech side of things kind of AI accelerationists and and teal again like was trying to parse out what mega is and ends up being like you could

1:08:37imagine a version of mega that is like in a lot of ways Ron Paul was kind of proto mega more than some of this other stuff and there's some differences of course but like you could imagine a version of it that is like a little more libertarian and it's kind of hostile to the surveillance state uh maybe an air Alex Jones type of more of an Alex Jones version of mega like still has the racism still has some of the other you know the conspiracy theorizing but like is more hostile to you know big tech and that doesn't seem to be what's developing with this crew they seem to be accommodating themselves quite well to the kind of volunteer flock AI world part of my like introduction to the right was unusual in that I started by reading a lot of paleoconservative thinkers and there are a few things that I think anybody is familiar with the paleos know off the bat one is they're typically a lot smarter than like the contemporary right winger whether you disagree with or not like a lot of these guys have PhDs they're more cerebral and one is also very

1:09:41paranoid and so you know pick your paleo made a lot of influence on people who don't like know the philosophical side of this on on patty can and on Ron Paul like in different ways but like that that's sort of the part of the part of the movement yeah and paleos matter because a lot of the a lot of paleo ideas and rhetoric influenced the the new right in the age of magga I think David Brooks published an essay in the New York Times uh in which he said that like Sam Francis anticipated a very controversial paleo thinker anticipated everything that Donald Trump would say and do like decades before it happened but again you read the paleos and you'll find deep skepticism and and basically paranoia about everything but more importantly the federal government and you can see it also in the language that you it's regime leviathan never government again this is important because like after trump wins and trump 1.0 even although trump is one like this

1:10:44kind of rhetoric is still very popular on the right like you look at the books that were being written at the time like trump versus the leviathan right because like the deep states all still in there they're still doing all these machinations even though we won yeah and like I remember when I was a Claremont fellow you know they had this table where they had like free books and shirts and I think this is like 2021 and the books all had names like that you know dismantling the administrative state but then there were these shirts in the middle of the table that said hot gulag summer and it was like an inside joke the idea that like oh raw rebels involved and end up in the gulag whatever I think it's remarkable that that has all completely gone away and trump 2.0 there is like no sense of like maybe the the thing that we're calling a regime leviathan is going to be turned on us at some point it's like no give palantir the keys to the kingdom give you know Elon Musk access to like all the federal government's data let him run wild like we have nothing to worry about our guys are in control if you're afraid of the government in the era of trump 2.0 it's

1:11:47because your you know your your brown as the right would say I'm not joking like that's actually the language they use to frame these issues like like hating palantir is brown coded like that's actually what these people say or that you're like insufficiently hardened to what must be done or the third is that you're like you know subversive in in some way or I get in the fourth to be that you're like you're leftist basically and and therefore you should be scared because we're in control now right and it's just this complete inversion of the rights moved toward the government in trump 1.0 and trump 2.0 and then again like you said like this this also this complete reversal and how the the right and and and how it conceived itself in terms of its relationship with the government going back to these like influential palios who like like I said like although they're obscure and forgotten I think most most of them are even dead like we're very influential on the magma movement it's interesting it's kind of like rand now is the person that's like speaking out against this as sort of the whatever like actual ideological successor of that kind of part of the palios um

1:12:52okay we could do a whole hour on that and let's see commenters let us know if you want to we do have to close on patreon and I I couldn't have you on without doing this so so get excited oh no we want to talk about your you know you falling off the horse and all that here's the distance that we've gone to spend this 45 minutes together are you ready here's an exchange of tweets you know I have five years ago you criticized a young gay youngkin staffer for having pronouns it is bio I replied defending him saying he seems like he's doing a good job I don't know what's wrong why you're making fun of the gay youngkin staffer it escalates from there you replied oh no I've upset the jawless guy from the bulwark I replied congratulating you on your conversion therapy you said you're actually married with kids and I'm an androgynous creep adjacent to pedophiles I said your kids will read this someday in cringe bro you said I won't have to explain to my kids how I couldn't find a better job than being Bill crystals housecock oh my god you went on to talk about my mutant genes and and I learned a word that I've stolen actually after that you you made

1:13:54thought of my fizzy on me yeah my undecernable male characteristics and then you went for the jaw line again so that's not great I mean you know there's definitely some some homophobia there and then there's the famous or at this point you reference it a little bit at the beginning on the leprosy eating face mel with the hat or like the bright bar people turned against you because you're for a de Santas and link some texts in which you said semantic somatic stuff use the word negris yes like that's kind of a long journey from that in 2021 to this in 2026 being here and saying like the main issue with these guys is that they're like in a race war like I do you how do you explain that journey to people how much time do I have as much as you know just kid man I don't I don't want to make light of this stuff that I said back I think it was disgusting and like I'm not just saying that because I feel like I need to like I don't know it it's so difficult when you're like in any capacity like a public person that says things that public you know that are

1:14:56public or like as you said my kids will someday read because when you decide to go a different way it's always kind of viewed as like face saving or like ass saving or like instance here but for me like for me and again this this sounds funny in retrospect supporting de Santas was an expression of my dissatisfaction with with Maga and not just Trump but with Maga and in some ways I was as delusional as Mike Pence and that I thought maybe there's a different way we can take you know maybe like whatever you might think of de Santas he wasn't Trump and and his movement I don't think would be his his he wouldn't enable people the way that Trump does maybe I don't know maybe again maybe this is residual delusion but that was why I supported him in other words I was already very disaffected and looking around myself and just being like what you know what have I been part of for the last however many years and that became a lot realer for me when people that I knew started to

1:16:03amplify these attacks on de Santas and his wife like the Santas was a pedophile that he like she did on his wife when she had cancer like I remember sort of just being again sounds so funny but like shocked that people that I knew is like fellow travelers like wait a whole lot like okay I get it it's a primary but like really like you're gonna call him a pedophile you're gonna say these like horrible things about his wife and again it's like yes because he said that he did that with Ted Cruz right and it's all Trump so that's when I became like even more outspokenly not just Trump and anti-magga which is why I I came under the crosshairs and I got obliterated I remember the day that that happened I was giving a talk to some like I don't they were like hill staffers like young hill staffers about basically how to try to do good under an evil empire and then like as I'm like giving that talk I'm like my phone is like blowing up evil empire is like a dramatic you know way of looking at like DC right okay and then my phone's like blowing up and the

1:17:06Blackboard story has dropped in in that moment like Arthur Schwartz Don Jr. like there's a coordinated push to just get this out there and you know and the Tucker calls me and like he tells me like basically why it happened and who is responsible for it and it's just like who am I to become you know like public enemy number one from aga right it was just so bizarre that they decided to just single me out and destroy me and like I that's the question that people ask me is like why did they do this to you like not like you didn't deserve it but like no offense but you're not a big deal like so why did they decide to crucify you in a very public way I don't know maybe the most obvious answer or the clearest answer would be to make an example out of somebody like this is what happens if you if you step out a line and try to leave that will do this to you too like this disproportionate response like my wife who's not political at all was at home with our son she was pregnant at the time with her second and she like held it together when I got until I got home from that trip

1:18:09and then she just like broke down because she was like for someone who's not political at all like not interested in politics and and she's like you know what are people telling me about you like like I don't understand why is this happening and this period of like introspection that I was already going through intensifies and the attacks continue by the way they didn't just stop at the bipart and by the time that trump gets re-elected I'm like I'm off like I'm I mean I was already off but like I'm I'm really off to the point where I'm like starting to turn not just on like obvious bad actors but like starting to be more critical of people that were formally like fellow traveler like Claremont basically like now I like I think Claremont is a terrible organization I think they have no principles at all I'm saying this is a form of fellow like I think they've completely sold their souls to to trump and trumpism but what got me to that point was trump's re-election and then the way that the right tried to get people to revel and cruelty like it's not just we're doing mass deportations but we want you to partake in it at a distance

1:19:13with like you know ASMR deportation videos and it was like very clear to me that it was always intended to dehumanize people but like in a really unusually sick way even for for trump people right and then the killings of Renee Good and Alex pretty happened and it just sort of like hit me that if that were me like if I were driving home and some like untrained like more on who works for the federal government were like told me over because of the way I look and you know like drag me out of my car because he doesn't like a response that I make and then just executes me right there all those people that were cheering for Renee Good and Alex ready to be killed would do the same for me or for anybody like this is a mindless dangerous movement that is enabled by you know the president of the United States and I mean at that at that point for me it was like I'm not just going to limit like criticism to like people that again are like obvious bad actors but like the entire conservative movement that I've been part of and I don't think can can be saved in

1:20:16foreseeable future I think people would hear that and go though okay but like would you have gotten to this point if you had not I had forced introspection via like text message doxing I mean like you're participating in a lot of the cruel stuff I mean like I said it started already with DeSantis I was already kind of like slowly reevaluating everything including like the the nasty rhetoric that I've undertaken and what I will say is that being like thrown out of the window of a 10th story building which is what that felt like was necessary like it was one of the worst things that happened to me it's really like hard to um to I don't know if you've never been there it's hard to explain with that what that feels like yeah it's a I still haven't I only have gotten but at the same time it was good in the sense that it like it guaranteed the funny thing is I probably still cutting on back like this is the important thing about Maga is like you can actually

1:21:19go like and there are examples of this but you say guaranteed internally guaranteed within you that you couldn't do it again because like frankly they would have been excited to have you back probably the late text yes made more based I know right right for how they understand themselves no but for me it was like I'm done for good there's no going back burn whatever remaining bridges they are but but also like a huge part of it that was not political was how I understood myself as a father you know again going back to what you said I kind of just like was able to step out of myself I thought like what my kids be proud of their dad looking back on like what I had done with like Maga and if I continue doing that any answers probably like no I don't think so and I've only spoken about this like twice one was with the the nice people from the Know Your Enemy Potter now with you which is why it's kind of like disjointed and like it's like pulling you know out of my guts but this will sound very sentimental which by the way I think

1:22:24is good and I think there's there's a real reason why the right hates like empathy but it was focusing on being a father like focusing a lot more on my kids on my relationship with my wife and this sounds very funny but I read the road during this time it's a book by Kormat McCarthy it made it tremendous like if I were to say that that book contributed to like saving my life I would not be exaggerating as funny as that sounds but it really made a huge impact on me and just impressed upon me that there was like there was no going back and the only thing that mattered was was what I do from this point on and a big part of that is again doing what I think would make my kids proud so I don't think that's false sentimental at all I when I wrote about kind of the people from the first term and why we did it um Elisofera who was in there and took quite after January 6 like I I didn't know her at all and we sat together for like hours just kind of drinking wine and

1:23:29like talking about why you know she went in and why she flipped and like this is where like she ended in the exact same place and I was moved by that but like it leaves me feeling a little bit like I don't know how do I put it I was I was moved enough by it to use it as an insult for other people in hopes that it would shake them as evidence by our exchange but like at least me wondering like why there isn't more of that I don't you know I don't know yeah because I think that a lot of you're listening and like a big part of what our project here is it's like how do you pull people out and it's like I don't know you know if some at some level you hear the advice what it's like well if you shine the mirror in their face and if you tell them you know if you call them names like that just makes them dig in deeper but then like what's the alternative I don't know do you have any any deep thoughts on that like how to get other people to kind of reckon with the ugliness of it I don't think there's a formula that you can reliably apply to shaking someone out of it I think everyone's different and like I said there are examples of people that were

1:24:31DeSantis partisans and were defenisated and then basically apologized to mega and were allowed back into Trump world and got jobs in the Trump administration it all comes down to the the individual it depends on your character it depends on you know your your situation in life are you a father how do you understand yourself as a father initially for me like being a dad in a in a weird way like made me more conservative but in the wrong way because I was you know caught up with um like culture war stuff and it's funny like I was actually talking to a somebody recently who said who like who had his first kid and he said having a child radicalize me and I said stop it's very important that you understand that like that you that you separate politics from being a father because I like I'll tell you right now that it can make you miss what actually matters and and what what you should be focusing on is like not protecting your kid from like the laughter whatever or like liberals but actually just being a father and being there for your kid

1:25:37as opposed to it becoming sort of like part of your overall political aesthetic of personality which I think the right does and I think this contributes to to why some people when they're attacked double down um but I don't I don't like I don't think there is a formula so you have no advice for us on how to make new paydress no I mean I don't know I mean I think shame is is a pretty powerful motivator so like I mean the things that you said at the time they didn't bother me but looking back I mean when you're confronted with all these statements like that it's like yes that they were right and so it helps I think in that sense but there also has to be kind of like a something that triggers there I think there's a there's a neo conservative maybe Ergen crystal who said um that a liberal I'm not sure if it's Ergen crystal but yes yes yes it's very similar to that like you have to be kind of mugged by reality as as a member of MAGA in order to realize that you were wrong and okay

1:26:38this is not a complaint because like I deserved it but I see cases where this is a type of story you see unfortunately pretty frequently it's like someone who voted for Trump and then like someone they love gets deported you're right they say like I didn't think you would happen to me and the response we laugh at them yeah yeah it's hard for me not to do that Pedro I know it is hard for me to do that you can you could try to shame me though maybe I'll think about my behavior too that's fine I'm open to that but like okay he also ran three times on this fucking thing I don't know it's part of the way it was it wasn't gonna be on my topics for you it was gonna be part of my things it's like you're a spanic like I get was obvious from the start that he was gonna be targeting you know a spanic immigrants and who knows how that ends and I don't know you know it's not good to rub it in their face but isn't it also like okay hello well I can I can try to address that question I don't I don't think it's I don't think it's below the belt but the thing about like how to respond to these cases of people basically getting what they voted for good and hard it's like I think it's okay to not it's a funny term to use

1:27:39you're okay it's understandable for people to do that to say like well you got what you voted for yeah I think as long as the possibility of them being allowed back into the like in the other side is not closed off because ultimately like you want to convert those people into allies into people who will help you vote you know this stuff out otherwise like what what's the point of all this right that's what I do and conservative is privately complained to me by like I can't I this is this is really the final straw for me I can't I can't take it anymore I'm always like are you gonna vote Democrat are you are you going to actually put that frustration into practice and like encourage someone else to get out get yourself out or like vote dam or whatever and if the answer is no then I'll just tell them then like I'm sorry then like you I don't I don't think you you're basically just venting to me like I'm not a I'm not a therapist it's understandable to kind of like

1:28:39do the you know liberate your face thing but at the same time like I think there should still be a path for people like that to to to come back in and and help you somehow to be part of like the opposition but on the question of like identity I don't think it's unusual that it's it's actually not unusual at all but there's there's been a large constituency of like Hispanic man who supported Trump and in particular because of his not just despite but because of his immigration platform and there's different reasons for that well first his Hispanics Latinos are not a monolith you know like Cubans have different concerns and like Mexicans and Venezuelans and stuff Cubans are getting that good though right now yeah yeah they are yeah but I think for for my part it's this idea of like I don't think of myself as Mexican American I think of myself as American my parents are immigrants from Mexico but I grew up very Americanized I've never actually thought of myself as anything other than American and some of like my earliest experiences and people that are like leftists

1:29:42like campus leftists and becoming really angry with them was them basically telling me like you'll never actually be fully American and that you're kind of suffering from like a false consciousness and you've been whitewashed and like you know like you you've been brainwashed into loving a society that hates you and this is like the like the 2010s basically leading up to like the election of Donald Trump and that very much influenced like how I looked at identity not just identity politics but identity as a whole and then also like immigration policy because you you think to yourself like there's a difference between me and these this other type of person who's coming from like even the the same country that my parents came from you know that there's some kind of a dividing line there and I think that as when you're conservative it's easy to believe that it is that simple that that line is so easily drawn but it's not and I think the Trump era has really just kind of driven

1:30:47that home like ultimately I mean it is true like this is part of why like even on immigration like I have my views of moderated dramatically I think because if you believe that you can deprive like a human of their rights of their dignity that doesn't stop with their immigration status right like the way the Trump administration treats and views immigrants it obviously doesn't stop with them like again look at Renee good and Alex pretty look at basically anyone who they view as obstacles to their agenda so it's complicated but it wasn't just like I don't know at least for me like it was not just sort of like well it's not going to affect me you know I'm one of the good ones whatever it was an actual thought process about the idea of identity and how identity is basically a series of layers you know and I think this is also really important because for the people on the right and the left that are just basically trying to destroy you know anything like a kind of

1:31:47civic nationalism or a common conception of what it means to be American I think that's really dangerous because you don't get rid of identity you just scratch off one identity and the one that's beneath it rises to the surface and I think the most obvious one is like racial and ethnic identities which is what the right is doing which is what it's done more and more and what it's arrived at now is like it's not enough to be an American it'd be a heritage American what does that mean well it's a very specific kind of white American you know and basically from there there's a kind of hierarchy of you know who is truly American so we'll do another hour on identity ideology in the tech right another time if the people of the people allow it we'll see what they say in the comments about about the Pedro Gonzalez upside I really appreciate it though I want to close I just want to do like could we just have a little jaw comparison to see what the I like for the viewers on YouTube did just comment on who's jawline I think is better or worse you have a good jawline too we

1:32:49can just not like I haven't been thinking about that for five years or anything we all have live cocks have feelings too okay um that's better because I was reading him his uh his sub-stack is called contra and I hope we'll get to checking with you again soon all right brother yeah thank you I will see you I'm in line to my body camera and I'm a soap and I'm a light boy daily is brought to you thanks to the work of lead producer Katie Cooper associate producer Anzali Skipper and with video editing by Dante DeCicco and audio engineering and editing by Jason Brown