Rebel News Podcast - Conservatives are using a losing strategy ｜ Andrew Lawton on Andrew Says

00:00:00.160 Hey guys, it's Andrew. This week on Andrew Says, we have Andrew Lawton from True North,

00:00:04.640 and he had a lot to say about the Conservative Party kicking Derek Sloan out of caucus.

00:00:08.140 He also didn't mix words about the party adopting a losing strategy, where the Liberals dictate

00:00:12.520 all the rules, set the Overton windows, and they just run scared and fire everyone.

00:00:16.840 We also talked about mainstream media narratives and how to battle them, labeling everyone

00:00:20.420 far-right, alt-right, you know how it goes.

00:00:23.400 Exclusively on Rebel News Plus, also, you can also see Andrew Lawton talk about cancel

00:00:27.140 culture, how people have tried to cancel him, in fact, when he ran for office, and he does

00:00:31.820 give good advice also on what young Conservatives can do to take part in the culture war.

00:00:36.600 It really is an info war, you guys.

00:00:39.580 So go to rebelnewsplus.com, sign up.

00:00:41.680 It's only $8 a month.

00:00:43.040 You get this show, you get the Ezra Levant show, you get all the shows, is what I'm trying

00:00:46.680 to say, and for my show, every week you get exclusive content that you won't see on YouTube.

00:00:51.240 That's rebelnewsplus.com.

00:00:53.040 Remember, I wouldn't lie to you, except for maybe this once.

00:00:57.140 The mainstream media did not know who I was, being the undocumented foreigner in this

00:01:21.480 land, and they were speaking a little candidly.

00:01:25.640 Would you like to hear what they've said?

00:01:30.080 What can I say?

00:01:31.000 I keep thinking I can't be surprised by what happens in this country, and then we get another

00:01:34.500 big surprise.

00:01:35.120 I followed this case, I was here at the last hearing in the Old Valley, when Tommy gave

00:01:40.120 a submission to the judge, where it was obvious that no offence had been committed.

00:01:45.140 They have a bunch of anonymous sources in policing and banking saying that the fact that the killer

00:01:51.340 was able to withdraw $475,000 in cash from Brinks Banking, which does not at all serve consumers

00:02:00.460 directly, is typical of how the RCMP would pay informants or agents.

00:02:06.120 Andrew Lawton is a podcaster, writer, and political commentator with True North.

00:02:16.160 You can find him on Twitter at AndrewLawton, on AndrewLawton.ca, and of course, TNC.news.

00:02:21.940 Now, Andrew, thanks for joining me.

00:02:23.380 How are you doing today?

00:02:24.900 Hey, good to be with you, Andrew.

00:02:26.120 I'm well.

00:02:26.440 How about yourself?

00:02:27.280 I'm doing well, thank you.

00:02:28.480 Now, I first think I saw you for the first time on your own podcast, and as I suspected,

00:02:33.420 all Andrews have great ideas, why don't you tell the people who don't know how you first

00:02:38.140 got involved at True North?

00:02:39.620 I know you have a strong broadcasting and writing background.

00:02:43.180 Tell everybody what got you involved in politics in the first place and how you got to be with

00:02:47.340 True North.

00:02:48.480 Well, that's a big, big, long question, but I'll try to give the interesting summation

00:02:52.000 of it all.

00:02:52.580 I was working for a mainstream media company, actually, doing a talk radio show for several

00:02:58.540 years.

00:02:58.940 And after I left that, I took a little bit of a brief foray into politics, and it didn't

00:03:05.160 end particularly well as I lost, but looking back on it, I am actually fairly grateful for

00:03:10.320 that in many ways.

00:03:11.860 And I wanted to do something that was a lot more fun and really giving me a lot more of

00:03:17.800 an ability to talk about the issues that I care about and follow the stories that I

00:03:21.620 wanted.

00:03:21.920 So I kind of decided to chart a path in independent media, and I was very grateful that my friend

00:03:27.880 Candice Malcolm had started at the time this small upstart movement called True North.

00:03:33.140 And she had asked if I wanted to do something previously, and it didn't really work out at

00:03:37.420 the time.

00:03:38.300 But this time around, I thought it would actually be a lot of fun, and it was a growing organization.

00:03:42.920 So for starters, it wasn't something that is like it is now with a bigger team and with

00:03:47.940 full-length shows.

00:03:49.060 So the role has morphed, but I wanted to get to a return to broadcasting, and I had actually

00:03:55.060 gotten my start in podcasting before I worked for a radio station.

00:03:58.820 So it's been good to get back to it.

00:04:00.940 For sure.

00:04:01.760 And let's jump right into this stuff here that's been going on.

00:04:05.240 Canadian politics is hot right now.

00:04:07.100 We know it always isn't always.

00:04:09.580 But the Canadian Conservative Party is all over the map right now.

00:04:13.100 They're all over the news, so to speak.

00:04:15.060 They seem to be in damage control weekly, if not daily.

00:04:19.060 And for the past year, it's sort of been, you know, giving people the boot, being on

00:04:23.640 the defensive really quickly.

00:04:25.060 The recent examples, of course, are Roman Baber and now Derek Sloan.

00:04:29.380 Do you think in general it's a good move for the Conservative Party to be on such a defensive

00:04:33.980 right now?

00:04:35.840 No, and it never is.

00:04:37.300 And I'd say one of the biggest failings of Conservative parties in Canada, and even more

00:04:42.140 broadly, you can see this around the world, is not setting out their own game and their

00:04:46.980 own rules on their own field.

00:04:48.400 It is rather playing the left's game on the left's field by the left's rules.

00:04:52.480 And it's never going to work out particularly well.

00:04:55.000 We saw this with Andrew Scheer, where instead of sticking to the principles he had long held

00:05:00.500 throughout most of his time in politics, he was very equivocal in a lot of things when

00:05:04.680 he was asked about them.

00:05:05.680 Instead of just planting his feet and saying, this is what I believe, this is what I stand

00:05:09.780 for, take it or leave it.

00:05:10.880 And I think there's a big lesson that the right needs to take from this, which is that

00:05:15.380 you're always going to be called far right.

00:05:17.780 You're always going to be called racist, homophobic, this and that.

00:05:21.140 So trying to bend yourself into knots to make it so that you aren't called those things isn't

00:05:27.040 actually going to work.

00:05:28.560 Now, obviously, no one should be any of those things.

00:05:31.120 But the point is that the accusation is always going to be there.

00:05:34.820 One of the things before Derek Sloan was kicked out of the Conservative caucus that really

00:05:40.140 jumped out at me was Aaron O'Toole last week putting out this long statement disavowing

00:05:45.060 the far right.

00:05:46.760 Now, what does the far right mean?

00:05:48.680 I know what the left thinks it means.

00:05:50.360 The left thinks that you're far right and I'm far right and Aaron O'Toole is far right.

00:05:54.340 The left, I think, thinks Michael Chong is far right.

00:05:56.420 But when someone in Aaron O'Toole's spot says, you know what, we have no place for the far

00:06:01.400 right, all he's really doing is talking about his movement and his party in the terms of

00:06:08.380 the left.

00:06:08.920 And it doesn't actually advance anything.

00:06:11.280 It doesn't advance anywhere.

00:06:12.860 One thing that Stephen Harper did very well is he actually wanted to push the line down

00:06:17.820 the road.

00:06:18.220 He didn't want to just reclaim lost ground.

00:06:20.540 He wanted to gain ground.

00:06:21.680 And there were a lot of areas where I think people could say he could have done more and

00:06:25.560 should have done more.

00:06:26.520 But Conservatives since then have only been in catch up and defense mode.

00:06:31.420 It's very confusing to me where the line and you mentioned playing, setting their own

00:06:36.260 rules.

00:06:36.560 Of course, I do agree with you there.

00:06:38.460 I'm wondering where the line actually is for somebody like O'Toole, because in the case

00:06:44.040 of Derek Sloan, what you have is a guy who's known as not a good guy, a white supremacist.

00:06:49.620 I don't know much about him.

00:06:50.480 I didn't hear about him until somebody took a picture with him at the Adamson barbecue

00:06:55.640 fiasco.

00:06:56.600 So you've got a guy donating a hundred something dollars under a name that most people probably

00:07:01.520 wouldn't be familiar with right off the top of their head.

00:07:03.460 It's not a significant amount.

00:07:04.620 And I would say it was probably very hasty, the Conservative Party, to immediately say,

00:07:10.700 you know, we can't have any of this.

00:07:12.100 This is racism.

00:07:13.640 This person donating.

00:07:15.040 Am I going crazy here?

00:07:16.000 What is the line?

00:07:16.860 Where is the line where we can draw, where we actually defend?

00:07:19.640 If you're Aaron O'Toole, defend people in our party.

00:07:22.800 Look, I've been involved in politics for a while.

00:07:25.480 And this is from the get go, something that reeks of they wanted to get him out.

00:07:30.560 And this was the first available, quote unquote, excuse they could use.

00:07:34.240 You don't turf someone for this when you could easily defend this in the way that Derek Sloan

00:07:39.740 has by saying, first off, we had 13,000 donors.

00:07:43.180 I wasn't looking at every single one of them.

00:07:45.300 Secondly, I don't know this guy's name.

00:07:47.500 Thirdly, he wasn't even using his real name and so on and so forth.

00:07:51.400 So this is the situation where the Conservatives acted so quickly because they clearly wanted

00:07:57.360 him out.

00:07:58.160 And this was the first thing they saw that they could kind of use as a cudgel to achieve

00:08:02.980 that.

00:08:03.440 And then you have to ask the question of why, because if you're someone who has been anti

00:08:08.060 Derek Sloan and a lot of criticism about Derek Sloan has been put towards Aaron O'Toole.

00:08:13.520 If you're one of those people, you're not satisfied by this because Aaron O'Toole still

00:08:18.420 refused to kick Derek Sloan out on this policy or that policy or this statement or that tweet.

00:08:23.960 So you don't actually, again, win anything.

00:08:26.840 You don't win any of your critics over by doing this.

00:08:29.520 That's a good point.

00:08:30.920 And what I want to point out now is a few people, not many, but a few people have been asking

00:08:35.980 myself and to a larger extent Rebel News, if you will, how come you guys are going after

00:08:42.140 this?

00:08:42.440 How come you're not focusing more on what Trudeau is or is not doing?

00:08:45.640 And to that I say, Trudeau isn't doing anything right now.

00:08:48.660 He's sitting back.

00:08:49.480 I mean, his last public statement was him, among other things, of course, saying that he doesn't

00:08:53.660 want a vaccine passport, whereas the last few weeks we have O'Toole saying this is racist.

00:08:58.940 We condemn the far right.

00:09:00.700 Don't question political Islam. 0.62

00:09:02.780 What do you think Trudeau, his plan is?

00:09:05.560 What do you think he's gaining by sitting back and watching?

00:09:07.920 Is it just let them burn their own house to the ground?

00:09:11.260 I think in a lot of cases, yes.

00:09:12.960 I mean, right now, the opposition, whose job it is to oppose, isn't really able to oppose

00:09:19.000 the Liberals because the opposition's too busy opposing itself.

00:09:21.980 So for Justin Trudeau, why would you get in right now?

00:09:24.820 When the attention is on what looks like a conservative implosion, you just sit back and

00:09:29.240 let it unfold.

00:09:30.660 Yeah.

00:09:31.140 And when we speak about people who were no longer in the party, who've been ousted, I

00:09:35.360 think of the Karahalioses who started their own party, the New Blue Party.

00:09:39.160 And then, of course, I think of the PPC.

00:09:41.560 Now, in your personal opinion, do you think any of these people should be the Babers, the 1.00

00:09:46.680 Sloans?

00:09:47.140 Do you think any of these people should be starting their own parties?

00:09:49.160 Should they be joining the New Blue or PPC?

00:09:52.100 What do you think is the next move for them?

00:09:54.500 Well, I mean, the problem with starting new parties is that you see fracturing take place.

00:09:59.780 And I think a great example of this is right now at the federal level.

00:10:04.000 You've had the Libertarian Party, which is a longtime party that's been in Canada.

00:10:08.340 You have the PPC, which is formed.

00:10:10.580 If someone forms a new party on top of that, it's going to completely make it so that everyone

00:10:16.220 just looks like they're running a vanity project.

00:10:18.680 Provincially, you have the Freedom Party, you've got the Libertarian, and now you've

00:10:21.600 got Jim and Belinda Karahalios with the New Blue Party.

00:10:24.240 If someone else were to form a new provincial party again, it would look like each person

00:10:28.940 has their own vanity project.

00:10:30.920 My concern is less with parties and more with a movement.

00:10:34.360 I mean, if you believe that politicians are cowards or you believe that politicians are

00:10:39.140 mushy or you believe whatever, the answer to that is to make a climate that either gives

00:10:44.980 politicians the ability to stand up for something or to at least create a climate that elects

00:10:50.220 politicians that aren't like that.

00:10:51.980 Now, I think there are good people that believe the right things and advocate for the right

00:10:55.760 things in office in Ontario and at the federal level.

00:10:59.020 But the whole point is, is that we have a climate now that makes it very easy for people

00:11:03.440 to get ousted, for people to get cancelled.

00:11:05.480 As you've talked about in the past and as I've covered on my show extensively.

00:11:10.120 So yes, I mean, new parties might solve a short-term need, but creating a new party doesn't deal

00:11:15.560 with the underlying cause of that problem, which is that mainstream parties are apparently

00:11:21.380 not actually open to the big tent of opinions that's always been taken for granted.

00:11:27.220 Yeah, and I'd have to agree.

00:11:28.860 If putting out a two-page document or having a random person donate to you is the marker

00:11:34.780 for getting kicked out of a caucus or a party, I'd say that's pretty low.

00:11:38.140 And as you said, they probably didn't want them there in the first place.

00:11:41.500 And even if they're making good points, apparently we can't have that in the moderate conservative

00:11:45.920 party.

00:11:46.300 And that's concerning to me, because like you said, what's going to happen in a snap election

00:11:51.280 that happens?

00:11:52.840 Liberals are going to gain a little bit more, probably.

00:11:55.160 Conservatives are going to get a little bit less.

00:11:57.020 NDP will continue to lose.

00:11:58.460 But I don't know how this progresses anyone forward in the type of ideas that someone

00:12:04.080 like you or I or somebody who's a viewer of ours might prefer to go.

00:12:10.320 And if they start creating new parties, you're right, it's going to fracture a lot more.

00:12:15.040 It's going to be way more hard.

00:12:16.460 It's going to be a lot harder to get proper messaging.

00:12:19.300 So in my personal opinion, I'm thinking that maybe they should try to start a coalition in

00:12:23.240 the PPC or in one of these existing parties and really hammer home the messaging.

00:12:27.920 But I do recognize that on the other side, they're going to say Maxime Bernier and Derek

00:12:32.060 Sloan on the same team. 0.55

00:12:33.120 This is just a racist party.

00:12:34.400 So it's hard to win in a political climate like this.

00:12:37.180 You mentioned cancel culture.

00:12:39.540 A lot of people are saying that's what O'Toole is doing.

00:12:41.980 He's taking part in this.

00:12:43.200 It's not a very conservative thing to do.

00:12:45.320 Has anyone ever tried to cancel you, Andrew Lawton?

00:12:47.640 Have you experienced this personally?

00:12:49.800 Oh, like seven times by lunch usually on most days, I think.

00:12:52.680 No, I've been through it.

00:12:54.340 Look, I ran for office.

00:12:55.800 And when you're running for office, everyone throws everything they've got at you.

00:12:59.100 And I'm someone who came of age in an era where social media was a thing.

00:13:03.440 So I had inopportune tweets and Facebook posts that, of course, have been screenshotted and

00:13:08.300 reposted years after they were deleted.

00:13:11.080 I mean, this is a common occurrence in politics right now and in media and in many other sectors.

00:13:16.440 And to the point that I made on the last question about how we need to create a culture here,

00:13:22.680 politics is downstream of culture.

00:13:24.600 That's the axiom that was made famous by Andrew Breitbart.

00:13:27.660 And it's truer than ever now, which means that the answer is not going to come through

00:13:32.200 just, you know, electing this person or that person.

00:13:34.820 We have to start winning over hearts and minds in culture.

00:13:37.920 And cancel culture is a huge example of this, because if we don't resist the cancellation

00:13:44.160 of others in our own lives, we're only going to fuel a culture that will eventually come

00:13:49.080 for most of us.

00:13:50.600 Yeah.

00:13:51.140 And to your point there, I was going to ask you next of combining the culture and the

00:13:57.080 politics to where it's more of a, I don't want to say mainstream, because that sounds

00:14:00.420 like one thing.

00:14:01.420 But where it's top of mind, it's not hard for people to talk about certain political

00:14:04.940 issues or not specifically shun anything that they may not have heard of aside immediately

00:14:10.960 when they hear them.

00:14:11.860 So my question was going to be, what's your advice for younger conservatives in Canada

00:14:15.420 who aren't sure where to turn?

00:14:18.200 They turn on their Snapchat stories or their Instagram stories and see what's trending.

00:14:23.000 And it's all probably completely opposite to what they see as the correct answer to

00:14:27.860 things.

00:14:28.120 What's your advice to a young conservative who has everything thrown at them?

00:14:31.420 And if they were to come out with their own opinions and speak what their mind, let's

00:14:36.420 say in front of a classroom of their peers, they would get completely cancelled as much

00:14:40.700 as you can as a teenager, maybe.

00:14:42.280 What's your advice to them when it looks like maybe from their own point of view that there's

00:14:46.100 nowhere to turn to hear people that they agree with?

00:14:49.260 That's a really, really good question.

00:14:51.880 And I mean, the one thing I will say is that you're going to have a tough few years.

00:14:55.960 That's my advice to anyone in that.

00:14:57.580 I mean, it's not going to be easy if you have two options.

00:15:00.700 One is to speak out.

00:15:01.880 You're going to risk being pilloried and mocked and potentially reprimanded for that.

00:15:06.380 And if you keep quiet, you're also dealing with another set of problems, which is not

00:15:10.000 being able to be yourself and talk about these things.

00:15:13.000 So I think that except that neither one is perfect.

00:15:16.060 And then the question is, which do you think is better in the long run?

00:15:19.720 And if you take a stand for something, I'm a firm believer in the fact that you can never

00:15:23.380 look back on that and regret it if you've taken a stand.

00:15:26.620 Now, that doesn't always mean picking fights.

00:15:28.700 I think as a culture, what we have to get better at doing is bringing back the art of

00:15:33.580 disagreement.

00:15:34.560 This used to be something that anyone could do, that I could say something that I think,

00:15:38.280 you could say something you think.

00:15:39.560 We disagree.

00:15:40.460 We have at it.

00:15:41.240 No one punches each other.

00:15:42.520 And that's that.

00:15:43.480 And, you know, maybe we end on a note where we agree with each other.

00:15:46.980 Maybe we don't.

00:15:48.160 Right now, no one has that.

00:15:50.420 No one wants to do that.

00:15:51.700 And I'd say this is mostly coming from the left, as we well know, where they just don't

00:15:56.800 want to have my side and your side.

00:15:58.940 They want only one side to be on the table.

00:16:02.120 And that's the problem we see in politics.

00:16:04.560 And to bring it back to politicians and partisan politics, we can't accept that.

00:16:09.840 We can't eat at the table that the left has set for us.

00:16:13.340 Now, what's your opinion on the culture and climate in university and colleges?

00:16:17.540 I went to broadcasting school at Humber College, for anyone who's interested.

00:16:21.860 And even there, in a broadcasting setting, I was exposed to new music, new people's opinions,

00:16:29.340 people who are from different parts of the country who believe different things.

00:16:33.280 A dairy farmer, shout out to dairy farmer Alex that I haven't spoken to in 10 years.

00:16:37.860 What do you think is the solution now to reversing course, which appears to be almost

00:16:43.180 more of a...

00:16:44.140 It's like they're digressing into more of like a childlike behavior in university and

00:16:48.380 campuses.

00:16:48.840 We've seen it all, of course, with Jordan Peterson, if you want to go back a few years.

00:16:52.220 How do we reverse course on that?

00:16:53.640 Is it a matter of mandating politics from professors?

00:16:58.540 Is it cutting out some courses?

00:17:00.380 Is it simply trying to encourage more school groups?

00:17:02.680 There are so many in the United States, Young America for Freedom, Turning Point USA.

00:17:07.280 What's the reversal of that?

00:17:09.780 And how do we accomplish that?

00:17:10.860 I do think those sorts of groups are valuable because they make you feel like you're not

00:17:16.260 as much of an outcast as you might feel if you pipe up in your gender studies class about

00:17:20.560 your belief on whatever.

00:17:22.660 But I would also caution against siloing, which I think is only furthering that inability for

00:17:28.100 people to have respectful disagreement.

00:17:30.400 If everyone has their own little bubble and they don't go outside of it, I think expose

00:17:34.960 yourself to new experiences.

00:17:36.620 Maybe it's new music.

00:17:37.620 Maybe it's a different conversation.

00:17:38.920 I would say don't actually treat the left the way the left treats the right, because

00:17:44.380 we tend to, I think, as conservatives close down when we hear people talking about, you

00:17:49.280 know, these little buzzwords that we all know are associated with left wing ideology, where

00:17:53.340 I'd say I don't actually be afraid of engaging because some people and again, it may be a minority,

00:17:58.520 but some people, if you catch them as an individual, not in a group, as an individual, you can have

00:18:03.740 that dialogue.

00:18:04.420 The problem is that group speak is a product of group think, and you're never going to get

00:18:09.220 anywhere if you've got the conservative group talking to the liberal group.

00:18:12.300 But one conservative talking to one liberal, I have hope it's possible to have a dialogue

00:18:16.640 in some cases.

00:18:18.220 My colleague Dave says 30 minutes alone with that person, and I can change their mind.

00:18:22.280 So this new wave of tech censorship we're seeing, and I'm sure you've come across it, don't

00:18:30.520 mention election fraud.

00:18:32.120 You can't question anything to do with coronavirus.

00:18:34.580 Have you had any pushbacks or warnings at your company with your show where you've had to,

00:18:38.920 you know, self-censor?

00:18:40.260 Is this a problem you're facing at your company?

00:18:42.260 It's not a huge deal.

00:18:45.080 I mean, True North has a very open approach to speech, but like anyone else, we get concerned

00:18:50.300 about what's happening with the platforms that we're on, and we try to diversify.

00:18:54.660 We're on Facebook, we're on Twitter, we're on YouTube, we have our own website, we were

00:18:59.260 on Parler while Parler was around, and I personally have that approach as well.

00:19:03.940 And we've also had, on a couple of occasions, our Facebook page vanish overnight.

00:19:07.920 Both times, Facebook will bring it back and say, oh, you know, we're sorry, it's a misunderstanding.

00:19:13.340 But each time, it feels like, is there someone at a switch here that decides, you know what,

00:19:18.480 your time is up?

00:19:19.560 I've had, in my own Twitter profile over the last few weeks, very fastly dwindling follower

00:19:25.540 counts.

00:19:26.100 And at some points, I'm like, okay, is Twitter messing around with the number?

00:19:29.760 Are conservatives that are following me just quitting Twitter?

00:19:32.340 Or is this part of this mass purge of right-wing accounts?

00:19:35.520 And I think it's probably a combination of all three, or certainly the latter two.

00:19:40.220 So it is still an issue.

00:19:41.880 And I mean, the challenge with this is that if you are using a social media platform, you

00:19:47.680 are a guest on that platform.

00:19:49.080 You're not paying for it.

00:19:50.200 If I use Facebook and Twitter and YouTube and I have a Gmail account, I mean, that's

00:19:53.880 all because those companies have decided to offer a product in that way.

00:19:57.520 So I don't like entitlement about these things, but we also have structured our world around

00:20:03.220 them.

00:20:03.480 And that's, I feel, is the big risk with big tech.

00:20:05.960 We've become far too reliant on these, which if you are in part of a cancelable group, which

00:20:11.060 is what conservatives on social media platforms are, there's a big risk there.

00:20:16.000 Well, I want to point out that it's going even further.

00:20:19.440 And my question is going to be, to play devil's advocate, I always think of my one friend who

00:20:22.780 sort of has establishment opinions.

00:20:24.400 The libertarian argument of build your own social media platform, build your own web

00:20:31.100 hosting, build your own video platform.

00:20:33.300 Where does this end up?

00:20:34.560 Do we end up with, you know, take the Taco Bell Road on this highway or take KFC Avenue?

00:20:40.920 What's the end game here for these companies?

00:20:43.220 And where do you think that this all ends up?

00:20:45.300 Do you think it just ends up with a ton of different platforms?

00:20:48.200 Do you think it ends up with people being silenced?

00:20:50.020 What's the end game here?

00:20:50.860 Well, I mean, this is something that I've had to reckon with in the last couple of weeks,

00:20:55.240 because I am a libertarian, especially on this issue.

00:20:57.940 So I have always been an advocate of build your own.

00:21:00.480 And it becomes very difficult when it's, well, now you've got to build your own app store

00:21:03.800 and build your own internet and build your own smartphone and not just build your own app.

00:21:08.020 Because Parler, for whatever its technical faults, was conservatives doing that.

00:21:12.760 It was, you don't like Facebook and Twitter?

00:21:14.140 Fine, build your own.

00:21:15.260 And then that becomes, of course, its own cancelable platform.

00:21:18.340 And you don't have the ability to have that hosted on a website and all of these situations

00:21:22.720 that we've seen.

00:21:24.000 So my view on this, again, and I hate sounding like a broken record, but there is a cultural

00:21:29.040 aspect on this, because the problem is not going to be solved by technological infrastructure.

00:21:34.340 It's not going to be solved by having a conservative internet, because it's just not practical to do

00:21:39.320 that.

00:21:39.940 We have to get to a point where we're not succumbing to these boycott campaigns that are becoming

00:21:44.940 so ubiquitous and so commonplace.

00:21:46.760 You know, the reason that these things have so much success is because companies give

00:21:50.960 into them.

00:21:52.040 If a company turns away a boycott, the boycott campaign tends to just move on.

00:21:59.140 Now, a question I asked Michaela Peterson was around sort of like, you know, everybody has

00:22:05.440 the red pill moment.

00:22:06.920 And she mentioned that it was about Jordan Peterson's daughter, by the way.

00:22:11.440 She had a moment where she was really into medicine and medical advice with her diet.

00:22:19.760 And she realized at some point that she couldn't trust, along with the news, she couldn't trust,

00:22:25.460 let's call it political science or the medical industry being propped up by big businesses.

00:22:32.580 What was Andrew Lawton's realization?

00:22:34.620 As far back as you can remember, maybe it was yesterday.

00:22:38.600 What was the spark that caused you to think, maybe I can't trust everything the news is

00:22:44.240 putting out there.

00:22:45.340 Maybe I can't trust everything this one person says.

00:22:48.740 Because I think people are still going through that.

00:22:50.440 I ask people a lot now, do you think there's still red pilling going on?

00:22:53.400 And I think people are starting to realize that even with things like coronavirus, you can't

00:22:57.560 trust that just because the government says it or because the WHO says it, that it's actually

00:23:02.740 the best thing out there.

00:23:04.040 You need alternative opinions.

00:23:06.600 So with that, I ask you, what was there a moment in your life where you had a realization

00:23:10.960 where maybe you can't believe everything you're reading?

00:23:13.480 Or were you just raised that way?

00:23:15.000 Because I certainly wasn't.

00:23:17.060 Yeah, I wasn't raised that way.

00:23:19.540 But I also don't think that I've consciously had, and that's a great question, by the way.

00:23:23.440 I don't think I've consciously had that red pill moment because I've been conservative

00:23:29.300 as long as I've been political.

00:23:31.500 And there always has been a bit of a countercultural approach to conservatism, to being on the right.

00:23:38.140 And I mean, it's not to say in my younger teenage years, I think I had my socialistic idealism.

00:23:42.720 But as long as I've actually consciously tried to understand politics, I've been on the right.

00:23:48.220 And I think coming up in that, not from family upbringing, but just from my own, I guess,

00:23:53.320 intellectual upbringing, if you will, I've always been aware of the fact that there is

00:23:59.680 this side of the story that's not being told.

00:24:01.960 Now, I think when I got my start doing blogging and podcasting, that wasn't a revelation per se,

00:24:09.060 but I think it was an acknowledgement of the mainstream media is not getting it right.

00:24:14.160 And I saw, this is going back to like 2010, 2011, that there was an avenue for independent

00:24:20.580 voices before podcasting was industrialized in the way it is now, before blogging could

00:24:25.940 be a full-time job.

00:24:27.020 I was doing it alongside other conservatives, including your boss, Ezra, just because we

00:24:31.740 wanted to, because we liked it and believed in what we were saying.

00:24:35.040 So again, it's not a single moment with a flip switch, but I'd say that was part of the

00:24:39.800 journey right there.

00:24:40.680 When I was looking at this and saying, you know what, I think I need to be a part of this

00:24:44.520 other story that needs to be told.

00:24:46.840 For sure.

00:24:47.160 I completely get that.

00:24:48.040 I wish my worldview was as consistent for as long as yours has been.

00:24:53.920 Well, I mean, let me, I certainly, the ideological journey has changed in that time, I will say.

00:24:59.040 I would not say at all I was as consistent or had the intellectual depth behind my beliefs,

00:25:05.260 but that did come along while I was on that path.

00:25:08.620 Sure.

00:25:09.220 Now, the last question I want to ask you before I let you go, and it's not David Menzies related,

00:25:14.000 I promise, we all have our goals and we all have the point that we're trying to make or

00:25:19.480 the change that we're trying to make.

00:25:21.000 What is Andrew Lawton personally trying to accomplish?

00:25:24.320 What is your goal in this political world?

00:25:26.460 Can you quantify that in some way?

00:25:29.100 Can you put it down to an idea?

00:25:30.960 Yeah, I hope it's not too much of a cop-out to say free speech, because that has been,

00:25:37.840 I'd say, the defining value that I tend to always come back to.

00:25:42.960 And sure, I talk about firearms rights, and I talk about taxes, and I talk about cancel

00:25:47.540 culture and social media and stuff like that.

00:25:49.660 But ultimately, the one that I always come back to is free speech.

00:25:53.880 The one that fires me up more than anything else is reading a story about government wanting

00:25:58.620 to create a bureaucracy to regulate social media content or someone being censored.

00:26:04.600 So I'd say that's the issue.

00:26:06.140 But it's not just about catching up to really bring it full circle to how we started.

00:26:11.260 It isn't just about not wanting to lose ground.

00:26:14.340 I actually want to take a step forward on this issue and have more free speech enshrined

00:26:19.960 in law, but also enshrined in cultural attitudes than we've ever had before.

00:26:23.960 No, I completely agree, and I'm right there with you.

00:26:26.240 And when I talk about number one issues, for me, freedom of speech is right at the top.

00:26:30.420 So you can find Andrew Lawton, Andrew Lawton on Twitter, andrewlawton.ca, and of course,

00:26:35.160 tnc.news.

00:26:36.420 And if you're watching this behind the paywall, which of course I know you are, go to rebelnewsstore.com

00:26:40.940 and use code ANDREW10 for a discount.

00:26:44.280 Andrew Lawton, final words?

00:26:46.740 I just say thank you to all of the subscribers for supporting independent media, and thanks

00:26:50.960 to you, Andrew, for having me on.

00:26:52.360 All right.

00:26:52.720 Thanks a lot.

00:26:53.180 Have a good day.

00:26:53.640 Have a good day.

00:27:10.940 Be sure.

00:27:11.940 Bye.

00:27:12.160 Bye.

00:27:18.740 Bye.

00:27:19.040 Bye.

00:27:20.700 Bye.

00:27:20.760 Bye.

00:27:22.060 Bye.

00:27:22.720 Bye.

00:27:22.860 Bye.

00:27:23.220 Bye.

00:27:24.120 Bye.

00:27:25.220 Bye.

00:27:25.380 Bye.

00:27:26.200 Bye.

00:27:26.360 Bye.

00:27:29.720 Bye.

00:27:30.200 Bye.

00:27:30.620 Bye.

00:27:33.380 Bye.

00:27:33.860 Bye.

00:27:38.600 Bye.

00:27:38.700 Bye.

00:27:39.200 Bye.

00:27:39.680 Bye.

00:27:40.140 Bye.

Rebel News Podcast - January 22, 2021

Conservatives are using a losing strategy ｜ Andrew Lawton on Andrew Says

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