Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 142 ｜ Dave Rubin

00:00:00.040 Hey guys, welcome to Relatable. Today I am talking to my friend Dave Rubin. We are going to talk about

00:00:07.080 his political positions, what he thinks about what's going on with the state of our dialogue

00:00:13.240 in political media, and we are going to learn from him as he is an expert on how to talk to people

00:00:19.780 that you disagree with. Dave, thanks so much for joining me. Allie, it's good to be with you.

00:00:25.000 Okay, so for the few of those out there who might not be completely familiar with where you came from,

00:00:32.120 but just have seen maybe over the past few months especially that you are almost constantly

00:00:37.100 in the spotlight or you're almost constantly getting some kind of hate on social media,

00:00:42.020 and they don't know that you've actually been in this game for a really long time,

00:00:45.860 just tell everyone your background and how you came to kind of fill this space.

00:00:49.740 Well, if you listen to Vox or Media Matters or BuzzFeed, I'm some sort of alt-right extremist

00:00:57.480 and I'm trying to destroy America. Yes.

00:01:01.820 And if you listen to sort of average, sane, decent thinking people, I host my show called

00:01:09.980 The Rubin Report where we do long form conversation, sort of old school Larry King-esque conversation,

00:01:16.100 and I try to have an honest conversation with somebody about ideas and what they think,

00:01:22.340 and I try to talk to people all over the political map, the social map. I'm really willing to talk to

00:01:28.000 anyone that doesn't attack motives, doesn't attack people personally. That can really be tough these

00:01:33.820 days, especially the way social media is. But before that, I did stand-up comedy in New York for 12

00:01:39.020 years. I had a show on SiriusXM. I do the same things as you. I go out and I talk to college kids.

00:01:44.760 I toured for a year last year with Jordan Peterson. So, you know, I'm just out there doing

00:01:48.800 my thing. I like what I'm doing. I think I'm doing something decent. And I really, what I enjoy more

00:01:54.100 than anything else in the last six or eight months is that I have bridged a lot of the divide with

00:01:58.980 people like you. And, you know, you guys, the scary conservatives, are always getting, you know,

00:02:06.060 attacked by mainstream media and lied about all these things. And now I see the way it's kind of

00:02:10.020 turned on me just because I'm remotely pleasant to you guys. So there's a real interesting alignment

00:02:15.360 happening or realignment, I should say. And I'm just trying to navigate my way through it.

00:02:20.020 How do you describe yourself politically?

00:02:23.380 Well, I'm a classical liberal. I believe that we should have individual rights. I believe in logic

00:02:28.540 and reason. I believe in limited government, laissez-faire economics. And I would always prefer

00:02:34.740 that the private market deal with whatever your problems are. That doesn't mean that there is no

00:02:41.360 answer for government. So people always ask me, well, Dave, it sounds like you're a libertarian.

00:02:45.560 Now, I don't mind if someone said to me, Dave, you're a libertarian. It doesn't bother me. If

00:02:50.880 someone says you're all right, now there's a racial connotation and all sorts of things they're trying

00:02:55.780 to destroy your career. In effect, they're trying to destroy your career, but it's also they're trying

00:03:01.460 to destroy you as a human and all those things. So, okay, that's one thing. But if someone said

00:03:04.920 to me, you're a libertarian, I basically, I believe in individual liberty. I believe in limited

00:03:09.100 government. I believe in states' rights, all of those things. What I would say the little difference

00:03:14.380 between a classical liberal and a libertarian is, is that we do see a little more utility for the

00:03:21.040 state. Now, intellectually, I love exploring the ideas of how much of the state could be disassembled

00:03:26.560 and what could we do privately that we currently do publicly. But I do think that there are some

00:03:32.280 legitimate reasons for the state. I think most people do. So I, I basically would just, I think

00:03:36.320 most people at heart actually are classical liberals if they really understood what the ideas are.

00:03:42.740 And then we could have, you know, differences on the margins when it comes to certain issues and

00:03:46.640 that that's just fine. But if you believe that it is your life to live, the government did not give

00:03:51.500 you freedom, but, but it could take it away. And you want to do what you, you want to work hard and

00:03:57.440 earn and keep what you earn and all of those things. And you want to respect differences and live and

00:04:02.040 let live. Then you're basically a classical liberal. And that's what I would say that I am.

00:04:05.180 Have you always considered yourself that, or was there some, at some point, did you consider yourself

00:04:11.140 firmly on the left side of the political aisle?

00:04:14.160 Yeah. Well, well, look, leftism and liberalism have really been conflated. And I think one of the reasons

00:04:19.900 that I'm sort of on the map now is because I was one of the first people about five years ago to say

00:04:24.340 the left is no longer acting liberally. Right. I mean, I did that video, I did that video on Prager

00:04:31.120 U, which now you've toppled me as I think the number one Prager U video, but it's got about 10

00:04:36.440 million views. Last I saw why I left the left. And the point is that I, look, I grew up in a family

00:04:43.520 of liberal Democrats, liberal in the best sense of it, in, in the sense of JFK liberals, ask not what your

00:04:48.880 country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country. Uh, that, that liberal, uh, JFK cut

00:04:54.920 taxes. He was anti-war. I mean, that liberal really has been gone. And what it's been replaced by is

00:05:00.840 the democratic socialist who will just drop democratic soon enough once they're in power.

00:05:05.340 I mean, basically socialists who believe that the government should do everything. So this is

00:05:09.880 Elizabeth Warren. This is obviously Bernie. I mean, basically the whole crew on the, on the left

00:05:15.440 right now are just trying to outwoke themselves and it's going to be real bizarre what they do

00:05:19.060 to Joe Biden. I mean, just wait till you see what they try to do to him because he is a little bit

00:05:23.740 of a, of an old school Democrat at least, but he's going to have to go bananas to get the base

00:05:28.080 and they're going to destroy him for it, by the way. Um, but wait, what was the question again?

00:05:34.380 I went off. I went off. No, I, you were answering the question. The question was whether or not you

00:05:39.800 considered yourself on the left and it sounds like you did when leftism meant something differently

00:05:44.740 than it does today. But something that I've heard you talk about, and I think that we agree with is

00:05:49.960 that, okay, it's not just that I disagree with some people on the left, their thoughts about welfare

00:05:55.080 and things like that. That would be an interesting conversation to have. It's that they're so dogmatic

00:06:01.700 about if you disagree with me on policy or how big the government should be, or if you don't believe

00:06:06.940 in Medicare for all, you're a terrible person that doesn't have any compassion in your heart.

00:06:11.940 And then, then we just can't have, we can't have any kind of discussion. So is that part of why you

00:06:18.140 found yourself saying, whoa, whoa, whoa, I don't think that I can associate with this side anymore.

00:06:23.260 Yeah. So now to, to now link it to the previous question. So I was part of that. Look, I was on the

00:06:28.180 Young Turks. They're a far left progressive network. I did buy into a lot of that stuff. Now I,

00:06:32.980 you can watch old videos of me. I never was fully doing the all Republicans are racist,

00:06:38.540 all white men are evil, Christians are awful, all that. Did I do some of it because of lazy thinking? 0.99

00:06:44.480 I'm sure I did. I honestly don't even really remember at a certain level. I don't think back

00:06:48.740 on it that often, but I was part of that, that thing. And what I started realizing was,

00:06:55.040 wait a minute, it can't be possible that everyone that they disagree with is a bigot, 0.98

00:06:59.860 is a racist, is a homophobe, is a transphobe, all these things. I never heard arguments. All I ever 0.94

00:07:04.680 heard was that everyone that they disagreed with was awful. And then once you start waking up to

00:07:11.000 what that really is, I mean, all it is, is lazy thinking. You know, their answer to everything

00:07:16.060 is, well, more taxes and it's more, throw more money at this and government should do this and

00:07:20.600 this should be free and all these things. All these things sound good. If you're not really

00:07:24.220 thinking about things, it sounds good to give more money to poor people. It sounds good to give free

00:07:29.140 everyone. It doesn't mean that any of it works. It doesn't mean that any of it's even right or

00:07:33.160 based in law or anything else. Um, but it all sounds good. And once you start really thinking

00:07:38.620 about the issues, you realize it crumbles pretty quickly, which by the way, is exactly why they

00:07:43.120 call everybody these labels because they genuinely do not want to debate. This is a very sad thing for

00:07:50.180 me to say, by the way. And this doesn't mean that everyone on the left, look, I have guys,

00:07:54.220 some of my favorite guests on my show have been the Weinstein brothers, you know, Brett,

00:07:58.780 the biologist and Eric, the economist, Sam Harris, uh, I think still thinks he's on the left. I mean,

00:08:04.080 there's plenty of these people that, that they're, what I would say they are just old school liberals

00:08:08.620 who are basically struggling right now because they understand that the left as it stands has

00:08:14.020 really gone bananas. Um, but I think certain people, and I don't even mean this as a knock to

00:08:19.260 these guys, but I think they're a little more afraid of building bridges to people like you,

00:08:23.360 where I personally have just seen nothing but tolerance and decency out of conservatives and

00:08:30.160 libertarians. And I go, I go to these college gigs. I talk about all my differences with them

00:08:34.440 and I get standing ovations and people come up to me respectfully after, and I never see anything

00:08:39.880 negative associated with any of it. Uh, so it's, it's just a fascinating time if you're paying

00:08:44.620 attention to politics, if you see what's going on right now. Do you think that it's possible

00:08:49.500 for us to get to a place to where we can, an average conservative can sit down with an average

00:08:56.540 liberal or with maybe even someone on the far left who is a socialist, who loves Bernie Sanders,

00:09:02.520 AOC, all of that. Do you think that we can get to a place to where we can sit down,

00:09:06.300 have a conversation about ideas and policy? And if you do think that's possible,

00:09:10.820 how do we get there on either side? In that I've done it, I think it is possible,

00:09:17.700 but I would say it's becoming increasingly improbable. Um, if you paint your political

00:09:24.100 opponents as Nazis, I mean, you can watch videos from before Trump was president, where I kept

00:09:28.600 saying I was giving people all sorts of reasons not to vote for Trump and I did not like Trump,

00:09:32.900 but I kept saying, you know, if you keep saying that this guy, that all his supporters are Nazis

00:09:37.560 and that he's Hitler, what you're doing is you're painting yourself into an intellectual corner

00:09:43.000 where you can't get out of that. Because then if it's two years later and it's, I mean,

00:09:47.120 I sort of predicted it because it's like now we're two and a half years later, let's say

00:09:50.540 the economy is doing pretty well. We're not in any extra wars. Um, he's done a lot of good when it

00:09:56.380 comes to the United Nations and cutting taxes and deregulation, all of these things. Well,

00:10:00.800 you can't suddenly be like, you know, that Hitler guy, remember that guy I was calling Hitler all the time?

00:10:04.480 He's not that bad. He's actually, that Hitler, he's pretty good. I mean, and, and that, because of 1.00

00:10:11.280 that, because that concept of, of using these labels to silence people and then de-platform people

00:10:16.720 and all of these things, because that has become such a integral part of leftist thinking, it's

00:10:22.940 making it increasingly hard to talk to these people. So for example, uh, you know, I reach out

00:10:28.940 to all sorts of lefties, politicians, Democrats, progressives on Twitter. And then suddenly the

00:10:34.300 mob jumps in and goes, Oh, you're going to talk to alt-right Rubin and blah, blah. And then they get,

00:10:37.900 they get scared regardless of what they may or may not think of me. And then they won't come on the

00:10:42.060 show. And I would just say one other thing, which is there are occasionally some more like trolly

00:10:46.700 YouTuber types on the left who, you know, endlessly talk crap about me and then demand debate me.

00:10:52.060 And it's like, I'm not in that game. I'm really not like, I have a certain, I think this is

00:10:56.980 probably very similar for you. I have a certain set of rules that I try to live by. Do I always

00:11:01.280 do it? No. Do I fail sometimes? Yes. But I have a certain set of rules. I really try not to attack

00:11:06.640 people's motives. I try not to attack people personally. I mean, hear what we've done for

00:11:10.600 these few minutes. I've tried to talk about ideas. Yes. Occasionally you're going to muddle some of

00:11:15.340 that stuff. We're just human, you know? Um, but I'm just not, I'm not interested in talking to

00:11:21.680 people just for the sake of clicks or to make a little more money or any of that stuff. I'm,

00:11:25.820 I'm just simply not. Yeah. You think that it's going to be a productive conversation and that

00:11:31.520 you, them, and the people watching are actually going to get something out of it. And I think

00:11:36.340 that engaging, like you said, a lot of the YouTube trolls or whatever, who say debate me, there's just

00:11:41.540 nothing, there's nothing to be that that's productive out of that. So what about on a, what about on a

00:11:47.760 personal basis? I get the question a lot from people who say, you know, my cousin or my best

00:11:52.380 friend or my mom, whoever, they disagree with me. And every time I try to bring up abortion or

00:11:57.640 politics, whatever, they just shut down and they won't have a conversation with me, but they want

00:12:03.280 to. These are people who really want to engage their friends and family on these things. Do you have

00:12:07.420 any advice for them just on a personal level, how they can engage the people that they love in a way

00:12:15.260 that is productive? So I think there's a couple of tricks you can use. And I get this question a

00:12:19.640 lot of colleges. And one of them is that a, just be a little bit better than they are. You know,

00:12:25.600 often they're preaching about tolerance and they're preaching about acceptance, but they very rarely

00:12:30.160 actually do it. So for, for anyone that asks you this question, it's like, you might say you're for

00:12:34.160 low taxes and what do they say? They'll say you're racist. And you'll go, what? And they'll go,

00:12:38.360 well, if you're for low taxes, that means you don't want to help poor people. And if you don't want

00:12:41.500 to help poor people, that means you don't want to help black people. And that means you're racist. 0.98

00:12:44.360 And you could say to them, no, but actually there's, there's more poor white people than 0.98

00:12:48.480 poor black people. And that these social programs actually have hurt the black family. And you could 0.93

00:12:53.840 go into a litany of those things, but it's hard to really, that policy stuff doesn't wake people up.

00:12:58.720 What I find is that if you can do, you have to do something very personal, especially if it's a

00:13:03.540 friend or a family member, you really have to get that. I mean, get in their face, get two feet away

00:13:09.240 from them and say, look me in the eye and tell me that you think I'm racist because I'm for low taxes

00:13:14.840 or I'm for state's rights or, or, or, um, you know, pro-life or whatever it may be. I mean,

00:13:20.840 really tell me that you think I'm racist or I'm a homophobe. I have an irrational fear of gay people 1.00

00:13:26.640 or a transphobe because I don't want the government to tell me which pronouns I can and cannot use, 0.87

00:13:31.760 uh, without the threat of fine or jail. I mean, really crazy stuff. So you really have to

00:13:35.980 get them to really say it to you because they really won't because that forces them to have

00:13:40.340 to think for a second. I would say that one. And the one that I really use on college campuses all

00:13:45.000 the time that I find very effective is I say to them, does anyone in this room have it worse than

00:13:52.040 their grandparents? You know, because you've got a set of people that tell you America's this evil

00:13:56.300 patriarchy and you know, we're, we, it's true. We've done some things wrong over time. We had slavery.

00:14:02.480 Uh, we, so, you know, obviously black people couldn't vote. Women couldn't vote. I mean, 1.00

00:14:06.560 that we've gone to wars that we shouldn't have gone to. There's no doubt that we've made mistakes

00:14:09.940 along the way, but virtually everyone in America, I mean, I've asked this question now probably of

00:14:15.320 hundreds of thousands of people. One guy once raised his hand, literally one guy, this was

00:14:21.240 actually at my last, uh, talk. I think this was university of Delaware. This guy says, well,

00:14:25.860 actually I did have it worse than my, uh, my grandparents because they grew up in China 1.00

00:14:30.780 and the communists took away all their stuff. And I was like, that's, that's actually a beautiful

00:14:34.660 example of what I'm talking about here. Everyone in America, we all come basically from the same

00:14:39.920 story of immigrants. It doesn't matter if you're first generation or fourth generation, nobody was 1.00

00:14:44.200 given anything here. And were, were people prejudiced towards people? Yes. Were people mean towards

00:14:50.200 people? Yes. Did everyone have everything equally? No, but the arc of justice always bent towards more

00:14:55.880 goodness. And that's why everyone still wants to come here. Nobody wants to leave. And the same

00:15:00.420 people who are screaming about what an evil, racist, patriarchal society we are, they want open

00:15:05.160 borders, which it's like, well, why would you want everyone to share in the horror that you're

00:15:09.280 constantly talking about? So I think if you, if you say that to people and you say, do you have it

00:15:13.620 better than your grandparents? And everyone will say yes. You know, you might've been an oil, 1.00

00:15:17.960 maybe your grandparents were oil barons that lost all the money. I mean, and then, then the left would

00:15:21.500 love it because they don't like accumulated wealth either, but I have yet to meet that. I have yet to

00:15:25.180 meet that person too. But the point is if you can get people to really think for a second, think,

00:15:29.420 picture it. I mean, I stopped them. I say, picture your grandparents, picture what they had to go

00:15:34.060 through. Both my grandfathers fought in world war two. I didn't fight in a war. I didn't have to fight

00:15:38.260 in a war. Um, all of these things that everyone knows are self-evident. I think you really have to

00:15:43.860 get people to think, where would you like to go? That is better than America. Yeah. And sometimes

00:15:49.120 they'll say Sweden and Sweden's got a whole slew of problems that it's not worth getting into now.

00:15:52.700 Um, but it's like, all right, if you can choose one tiny, uh, Scandinavian country,

00:15:57.320 even if I grant you that one, although I wouldn't really grant you it, it's like,

00:16:00.760 well, then I think we're still kind of doing something good here. So really get people to

00:16:04.200 understand how great it is here, how great freedom is here that anyone can come here and do whatever

00:16:10.780 they want with their life. Look what you and I do with our, with our life. We share ideas. How cool is

00:16:17.120 that? We're able to spread the things that we care about and, and hopefully make a decent living for

00:16:21.400 ourselves while we do it. And it's up to our, our fans and our audience to decide if what we're

00:16:26.160 saying has value and is worth putting money into or whatever else. It's like, you have an opportunity

00:16:30.580 in America to do anything and it does not, no one cares. I mean, this is the thing they've tricked

00:16:34.580 everyone into thinking that we all care what gender you are and what sexuality you are and what skin

00:16:38.740 color you are. I just traveled the country. I mean, I, I went to some, I had about 120 stops,

00:16:44.700 about a hundred in the, in the United States in the last year. And I met great, decent people

00:16:49.800 everywhere. I went, whether it was New York city or whether it was Des Moines or Los Angeles.

00:16:55.180 And we're just, we just have to strengthen those voices. That's it.

00:16:59.040 And I think that we have to start, which we've already said in this conversation,

00:17:02.920 we have to start in a place of realizing that the person you're talking to probably,

00:17:07.580 probably wants essentially and ultimately the same things that you do. They probably want what's

00:17:14.500 good for the country. They probably care about poor people. They probably say they care about

00:17:18.480 the vulnerable, but the methods we disagree on. But if we can start with assuming that the person

00:17:25.060 on the other side has good motives, um, that's not always the case, but a lot of times it is that

00:17:30.880 I think that we can have probably a more productive conversation, but man, it's hard to get there,

00:17:36.040 especially with the whole social media world. We've dehumanized the other side to the point to

00:17:40.420 where we'll say anything that we would not say to their face, by the way.

00:17:44.220 No, no. And I really try not to do that. I really almost, you're, you're pretty good at it too,

00:17:50.060 where you don't, I see you don't attack people's motives. You always sort of come back with a sort

00:17:54.200 of factual response to people to the best of your ability, right? I mean, this is where we're just

00:17:58.800 people. We're just people. And sometimes you can get caught in that loop of craziness,

00:18:03.300 you know, just in the last couple of days, I I've been getting a ton of, a ton of hate online.

00:18:07.340 And sometimes, you know, usually I just brush it off and I don't think about it. And if anything,

00:18:10.880 I think, Oh, I'm actually doing something relevant. And that's why I have haters. I mean,

00:18:14.840 that's just, that's how it is. Anyone in the course of time, you're doing anything good. Kobe Bryant,

00:18:19.680 a lot of people hated Kobe Bryant. He was a pretty good basketball player. You know what I mean?

00:18:22.940 So I try to brush most of it off. Um, but this is getting increasingly hard to do.

00:18:27.640 And I would say what, what this, uh, another way you could frame this is sort of what Dennis Prager said

00:18:31.860 often, which is that the right thinks that the left is wrong, but the left thinks that the right

00:18:36.980 is evil. And that's a problem because look at what you just said there. You made clear,

00:18:40.840 you don't think these people are evil. You don't think that they're bigots and racist and blah,

00:18:44.500 blah, blah. Now I think a lot of their ideas actually are bigoted and racist and they don't

00:18:48.780 realize it. I think that a lot of their solutions are wrong. I think that they don't understand what

00:18:53.880 freedom is. They don't understand the basic founding documents of this country. They actually resent

00:18:58.280 them, but I don't think it's because they're evil. I think they're seriously misguided because of,

00:19:03.500 at this point, I would say generations of brainwashing through academia and media.

00:19:08.480 And that's why, by the way, people like you and I and Shapiro and Crowder and a whole slew of other

00:19:13.360 people are doing well on YouTube where it's a meritocracy. Well, you know, short of what the

00:19:19.040 algorithm's doing to us on any given day, but where people can actually find content. There's a reason

00:19:23.780 our ideas are working because young people are so indoctrinated with sort of postmodern nonsense

00:19:29.460 that then they hear somebody talking about freedom and it's your life to live. And I don't want to

00:19:34.140 take from you. And I just don't want you to come on my property and do anything. And, you know,

00:19:38.260 and then these, these basic truths that we know to be self-evident, we say them, they, then young

00:19:44.480 people watch, they go, holy cow, that's true, but I don't learn that in school. And then Vox and media

00:19:48.820 matters and everyone else calls us all right for saying it. And then it just creates this endless

00:19:53.340 sort of my, what I would describe as really in a, this isn't the right hand motion. I'm doing a

00:19:58.020 little Peterson right now, but it's more of a, it's an amorphous monster that everyone's fighting,

00:20:03.500 but we don't even know where its head is. You know, if it's a video game, you'd have to go for

00:20:06.400 the eye or go for the head, but we can't even find it because it's this ever changing set of rules

00:20:11.280 that they don't even hold by themselves. And that's why our work is cut out for us. But you know,

00:20:17.300 yeah, but like you said, I think that the left underestimates how hungry people are,

00:20:22.880 and especially young people. I found in my experience, how hungry they are for something

00:20:26.920 different, something substantive, not just in conversations, but also just in philosophies

00:20:32.480 and ideologies. They want something that is, uh, has some gravitas to it. I think that that's why

00:20:38.820 they like you. They like Jordan Peterson. Uh, they like Ben Shapiro. They like when I talk about

00:20:44.140 Christianity and the Bible and purpose that is bigger than yourself, because really, if you go

00:20:49.320 over to the left and especially the far left nowadays, all you're getting is this kind of

00:20:54.160 doctrine of self, this doctrine of you define your own truth. You define everything. You define your

00:21:00.400 own morality. There is no higher purpose outside of you. And that's how we get all of these are this

00:21:06.140 idea that the government exists for you, that everyone exists for you, that any kind of inconvenience

00:21:11.440 is injustice. And I do think there's a lot of people that watch our stuff that are like,

00:21:16.640 there's got to be something more than that. There's got to be something bigger than that.

00:21:20.580 You've hit a lot of stuff there. Look, it is a very nihilistic ideology to say that,

00:21:25.160 that you some, I mean, a lot of them, they truly believe at this point that all of their ancestors 1.00

00:21:30.580 were racist, that everyone before them was somehow an idiot. Yet they, they in 2019, 0.99

00:21:36.600 because of Snapchat and Twitter are so enlightened and so brilliant. And if only they could use the

00:21:42.420 state power the way they wanted, they wouldn't make all the mistakes of the past. They could

00:21:47.120 bring us to utopia, which of course really just brings us to, to dystopia. Um, but this is also

00:21:53.120 where one of the things that, that is, is problem problematic, which is the word I hate, but it's

00:21:57.840 actually problematic about progressivism is that they think that progress for the sake of progress is

00:22:02.800 good, but there are things from the past that are good. I mean, this is where, um, you know,

00:22:08.460 Jordan Peterson has, has helped people, I think through talking about big issues related to purpose

00:22:14.820 and truth through a biblical lens, I think has, has been deeply impactful for quite literally millions

00:22:20.900 of people all over the world, but you could take an issue like, so for you and I, for example,

00:22:25.260 you have a more traditional biblical definition of marriage. Now that was basically the definition of

00:22:30.600 marriage that everyone worldwide had for thousands of years, Barack Obama, you know, the progressive

00:22:36.640 hero, uh, ran at first term against gay marriage. Uh, you know, Hillary Clinton was against gay

00:22:43.840 marriage. Bill Clinton served two presidencies against gay marriage, all of these things.

00:22:47.060 Donald Trump actually is the first president ever to serve who came into office basically for gay

00:22:51.620 marriage. I mean, that's, that's just reality. Now I know we have a different biblical approach to it.

00:22:56.900 And as I say to Ben Shapiro, because although, uh, you know, he's coming from an Orthodox Jewish 0.75

00:23:02.080 tradition, which is different than your tradition. Uh, but it's the same sort of biblical route,

00:23:06.400 let's say I've said to Ben many times, and I've had this debate with him many times to me, as long

00:23:11.980 as you guys basically take the libertarian approach that two adults can enter into any contract that

00:23:16.540 they want, then that that's all I care about that. The fact that you have a different belief,

00:23:21.280 um, the fact that you have a different belief system than I do, what, how crazy would it be

00:23:26.900 for me to try to impart as I'm supposed to be tolerant, but I'm also supposed to force you to

00:23:31.480 believe exactly what I believe the second that I believe it. And that's one of the problems that

00:23:35.840 progressives have. The second they believe something to be true, if you don't change the

00:23:40.640 day they change, then you're a bigot, then you're a homophobe, then you're all of those things.

00:23:44.920 And what the real danger of that is, is that over time they will keep going further and further.

00:23:49.820 I'm going, we're using my right hand here. They'll keep going further and further left,

00:23:53.080 which ultimately will, will have to destroy history. This is, this is why Rashida Taleb right

00:23:59.460 now is absolutely making up. Not only is she using true cultural appropriation by using the Holocaust

00:24:05.940 the way she is, uh, that it gives her a sense of peace or something, but she's absolutely lying about

00:24:11.500 what happened during the founding of Israel and, and removing, removing thousands of years of history,

00:24:16.160 but forget the thousands, she's removing just the last 72 years of history and just absolute lying. 1.00

00:24:21.100 But they have to lie to get their goals in place. But what they don't realize along the way is

00:24:26.280 that one day, the further that gets, it will come eat all of them because one day they will have a

00:24:31.320 traditional value. They'll have a 2019 traditional value. That'll be thought of as bigoted. They ate meat.

00:24:36.760 And one day the radical leftists will say, they'll look back and they'll say, you barbarians,

00:24:40.960 you ate meat. We're going to take your statues down and the rest of it. And that's why I guarantee

00:24:44.980 you, if I had a crystal ball, it's 2062. The Barack Obama library is going to be burned down

00:24:50.660 in Chicago by leftists because he was against gay marriage. And it's just a, it's a sad race to the

00:24:57.880 bottom. And I'm glad that I've, if I've done anything right on this planet, it's that I've helped

00:25:02.080 wake some people up to this. Yeah, I think so too. Even if someone doesn't necessarily become a

00:25:07.160 conservative from listening to your podcast or my podcast, at least at the very least, someone might

00:25:12.700 say, okay, well, this can be a conversation of ideas and not necessarily a conversation of bashing

00:25:19.960 someone's character because they disagree with me. Uh, has there been one subject or one issue that you

00:25:26.580 can think of off the top of your head that you have changed your mind on over the past few years?

00:25:30.920 Well, I mean the, the most famous one is a couple of years ago. It's about three and a half years

00:25:37.760 ago. Now, Larry Elder was on my show for the first time and millions of people have now seen many

00:25:42.540 versions of this clip. Larry Elder destroys Dave Rubin, Larry Elder owns Dave Rubin. I mean, this is when

00:25:47.420 I was just, I was still waking up to a lot of the, the sort of pre-programmed leftist dogma because

00:25:52.980 that's what it is. It's not that people are really thinking about these things. It's not like everything

00:25:56.980 starts equal. People think about things and then leftist ideas rise quickly. What happens is all

00:26:02.320 the indoctrination is leftist indoctrination. So the, the right or conservatives, you guys are always

00:26:07.440 playing. And, and, and I don't even mean to say you guys in this regard, anyone that cares about

00:26:10.760 freedom is always catching up because those, you have to think about those things where one is just

00:26:16.800 handed to you as the default position. So in my interview with Larry Elder from about three and a

00:26:21.400 half years ago, when I was still, I still considered myself part of the left. I hadn't done that Prager

00:26:25.500 You video yet. Um, and I said something about systemic racism because it was just the default

00:26:32.860 position. America is a systemically racist country, meaning it's in the system. There are laws that

00:26:37.220 are racist. Larry absolutely bludgeoned me with facts. I mean, he beat me senseless and I, and I've

00:26:43.260 talked about it many times, but I view it as, I view it as simultaneously the best and worst moment of

00:26:49.200 my career. It was the worst moment of my career because I wasn't armed with facts. I said something that I

00:26:53.840 just believed because it just comes through the ether. America is racist. We're systemically 0.97

00:26:58.380 racist. That's not to say there aren't individual racists. Of course there are, and there always

00:27:02.560 will be by the way. Um, but, but that the system itself is not racist, that the system has laws

00:27:08.640 that treat everyone equally. Could we do more things on prison reform? Could other things, things,

00:27:13.300 ancillary things that can be done? Sure. But anyway, he beat me senseless. And I would say it was my

00:27:16.660 worst moment because I wasn't armed with facts. It was my best moment because when I went into the

00:27:20.480 control room after the show and we were at OROTB at the time and we had a big staff, I had several

00:27:25.040 people say to me, you know, you got to take that out. We got to edit that out. That can't be in

00:27:29.160 there. And I said, no, it's not my best moment. It's embarrassing. It's actually pretty awful,

00:27:34.440 but it's real. And in retrospect, I think it's one of the best things that I've ever done because

00:27:39.580 by that clip showing, going around, it showed people, you know, we watch CNN, we watch all these

00:27:45.140 awful shows. I mean, I don't watch them, but I assume somebody watches them. And all it is,

00:27:49.540 is people yelling at each other and destroying each other. And, you know, people that have never

00:27:52.580 accomplished anything, but if only they had the power, they could do everything. And it's so

00:27:55.920 stupid, but there's never a learning moment. There's never a learning moment for you as an 1.00

00:28:00.100 audience member. And there's never a learning moment that happens to someone on screen. So

00:28:03.680 the fact that I, I allowed a learning moment to, to just be, uh, I think was, was pretty impactful to

00:28:09.800 people. And, uh, and it did, you know, change my mind on things. And Larry's now a good friend and

00:28:15.280 I'm very proud of that. I think probably a lot of people don't appreciate the fact that you

00:28:19.080 actually deliberately allowed that to go public. Probably think some people probably think that

00:28:23.960 it just kind of leaked out there and that you're all embarrassed about it. But I think that that's

00:28:28.020 a good lesson for a lot of people. Um, okay. Final thing. If you can just give an optimistic

00:28:33.520 piece of advice to people who may be in a, in a smaller, less public position than you,

00:28:38.920 but they feel like they are constantly, uh, dealing with the onslaught of you're a bigot,

00:28:44.740 you are a racist because you're a conservative or because you think differently of me than me, 0.84

00:28:49.720 whether it's college campus work, whatever it is, I get these messages all the time. I'm sure you do. 0.96

00:28:54.620 What is, uh, what is your advice to them? What should they, what should they do?

00:29:00.380 My advice is be brave. That is all you can do. Be brave. What kind of person are you really?

00:29:08.940 Are you the type of person that bows to the mob? Are you the type of person who doesn't speak up?

00:29:13.260 Are you the type of person who doesn't fight for what you believe? Or are you someone who will try

00:29:18.600 to create a world that you want to live in? And I understand all of the social pressures and the

00:29:24.180 financial pressures and the familial pressures of just kind of going with the flow and never really

00:29:30.600 pushing anything one way or another. And what that will do is create a situation where you will be

00:29:35.440 the frog in that slowly boiling pot. Yeah. One day, one day, all of your freedoms will be gone.

00:29:41.320 All of the things that you care about, uh, will be, will be removed. Humor will be killed. I mean,

00:29:48.200 really everything that makes us human, our ability to agree to disagree, our ability to create all of

00:29:53.580 these things will slowly be taken away. If people self-censor themselves because they think that

00:29:59.780 will keep the, the, the mob at bay for another day. So I think, I mean, this is something that really

00:30:05.440 in the last year by being with Jordan on tour, it really did hit me. I mean, I think I've,

00:30:10.100 I've tried to live my life this way. Um, and, and definitely failed at it sometimes, but

00:30:14.600 it is your life. And if you don't speak up for yourself, then why should anyone else speak up

00:30:22.060 for you? And it's like, for people like you, Ali and me, and for, you know, let's say the 30 or 40,

00:30:28.460 uh, you know, YouTube podcast types that are talking about similar issues. It's like,

00:30:33.660 I can say this for myself. I don't think I'm special. I think for whatever reason, I'm okay

00:30:38.700 with talking about these ideas. I wonder about it sometimes. And I'm like, man, is this doing,

00:30:43.480 you know, when I get a certain amount of hate or whatever, it's like, is this really worth it?

00:30:47.980 But I know that I could not live another way. Uh, so fight for what you believe in because the

00:30:54.380 people who would love to take things from you, they're fighting pretty damn hard. So don't just

00:30:58.800 think it's all going to remain good forever. Cause it won't. Yeah, I agree with you. I think

00:31:03.060 that's a great piece of advice to end on. Um, if you could just tell everyone, uh, where to find

00:31:08.920 you social media and your awesome podcast. Yes. Well, for now I'm still on all social media

00:31:15.080 platforms, Facebook and Twitter. Uh, it's at Rubin report on all of them and you can, uh, check out

00:31:21.660 Dave Rubin.com and, uh, you know, podcasts, Apple, Spotify, blah, blah, blah, blah. And you hit a

00:31:27.120 million subscribers not too long ago on YouTube. Big deal. Yeah. We hit a million subscribers and

00:31:32.100 they're just crushing us in the algorithm now. I mean, it's just, that's a, that's a whole other

00:31:36.960 mess that we should talk about some other time, but you know, dealing with the tech companies and

00:31:40.660 what, I mean, if you want to do it for two minutes, maybe we should just real quick, but, uh, you know,

00:31:46.440 where, if you're a limited government person right now, it's like, they've really pushed my

00:31:50.480 libertarian ideas to the end, to the end of the road, because they could kill all of us.

00:31:55.520 They could digitally assassinate all of us right now. And we're just hanging on by their good graces

00:32:00.700 and who knows what's going to happen before the election. And it's like, do I want the government

00:32:04.420 to come and take control or regulate these things? I mean, I live in California.

00:32:07.780 What do you think? Well, I paid my property taxes on a California state website. It looks like

00:32:12.580 prodigy in 1983, in 1993. I mean, it's a nightmare. So, but at the same time, there is the platform

00:32:18.520 versus publisher debate. And it's very clear that they've become publishers more than just

00:32:22.560 platforms. And as someone that's on the wrong side of this, in that I do see that, you know,

00:32:29.180 my, I get emails every day. People are unsubscribed. They don't see my videos. I know Twitter is messing

00:32:33.620 with me now. We know that they do all of these things. It's not that we're conspiracy theorists.

00:32:38.560 It's like, maybe something does have to happen here as much as I don't want to give any extra power

00:32:43.900 to the state. I'm still conflicted by it. I know. And the more that they label someone like you

00:32:48.440 alt-right, the more of a justification they have to lump you in with the people that they have

00:32:54.020 already banned. So they can say, well, you're the exact same as Alex Jones. You're the exact same as

00:32:59.980 anyone else. That's kind of what they're priming the pump for. It seems like, um, and you can say

00:33:05.600 all you want to, I'm not all right, but it's kind of like, if you're a crazy person or you've been

00:33:10.440 accused of being crazy and you say, I'm not crazy, I'm not crazy. People just think that you're

00:33:14.420 crazy. And so you almost feel powerless. And so I totally, I understand that I don't want the

00:33:20.700 government to get involved because the government is rarely on the side of conservatives. Um, but

00:33:26.440 you know, platform versus publisher, all of that, it's really hard to know what exactly the solution

00:33:31.100 is because it is scary. It's our livelihoods. Yeah. I would say one other thing, which is that I

00:33:36.720 think perhaps if we treat these things like utilities, I don't really love the idea because

00:33:42.000 again, that has some sort of then government control over what they're doing, but this is

00:33:46.240 the way we communicate in, in 2019 in modern times. And if everyone should be allowed to have a

00:33:53.260 telephone, then I think everyone should have access to this. Now, if you're breaking the laws of the

00:33:58.340 United States, meaning directly threatening violence or yelling fire in a crowded theater, or we have

00:34:02.260 extremely stringent slander and libel laws. I mean, if you're breaking laws, you know, you're

00:34:06.840 planning a terrorist attack or something, then fine. But without, you know, within, within that

00:34:11.140 framework, I would have everybody be on here. Um, because once you start handing that stuff off,

00:34:17.200 yes, are there bad people out there? There are, but who are the people in charge and do you trust

00:34:22.240 them? I don't. Yeah, I know. It's a really interesting debate. We'll have to talk about it more,

00:34:27.620 another, uh, another time, but thank you so much for taking the time to come on. I really appreciate

00:34:32.140 it. Yeah, my pleasure. I'll talk to you soon. So I did want to say one thing after the conversation

00:34:40.200 that I had with Dave, he brought up something that, uh, I wanted to talk a little bit more about. So

00:34:45.180 I'm just going to mention it now. He asked a really interesting question. And that question was,

00:34:49.900 is your life better than your grandparents, than your grandparents and, uh, than your grandparents' 0.81

00:34:55.600 lives were. And you might have different, you might have a different answer to that than I do.

00:35:00.240 My answer is undeniably. Yes. My grandmother, uh, was raised on a cotton farm. My parents were poor

00:35:07.340 when they first got married. My life is much better than my grandmother's was, uh, when she was my age

00:35:14.440 and when she was growing up. And I think that the other question that I would ask someone in that

00:35:20.860 from a conservative perspective, I would want to say, what makes your life better than your

00:35:27.700 grandparents? What happens, uh, what went on that created a better life for you? Because I don't think

00:35:34.580 it's just the circumstances surrounding all Americans. Yes. America is much richer. We have 0.73

00:35:40.460 more opportunities. We have more freedom, more flexibility than we ever have, uh, in human history.

00:35:45.380 But I would be interested to know what choices were made, uh, in your grandparents' lives and in

00:35:53.220 your parents' lives that led to where you are now, or if your life is worse than your parents' life,

00:35:59.500 or if your life is worse than your grandparents' life, can you point to what happened? Um, because

00:36:05.480 the fact of the matter is a lot of people on the left will tell you that you are where you are because

00:36:09.860 of circumstances beyond anyone's control. And that might be true for a lot of people. People fall on

00:36:15.260 hard times through no fault of their own. But many times, I would say most times where we are,

00:36:20.960 are a product of either our choices or someone's choices. And for me, I can say without a doubt that

00:36:26.660 the reason my life is better than my grandparents' lives when they were my age, or my parents' lives

00:36:32.160 when they were my age is because of the choices that my grandmother made as a young woman in the 1950s

00:36:38.960 to make sure she was the first person to graduate from high school, the first person to graduate from

00:36:43.820 college in her family to go on to get her master's and work full time as a teacher. She was raising

00:36:47.960 four kids. My dad's decision to work for 10 years while he was going to school. I'm going off on a

00:36:53.940 tangent here, but, and my mom's decision too, to make sure that she didn't get pregnant until she got

00:36:59.320 married. All of these decisions that made my grandparents or my grandmother and my parents

00:37:04.260 stand out among their families. I can point to those decisions and say, that is why my life is so much

00:37:10.340 better. And I think that would be true for a lot of us. If we looked at the trajectory of the

00:37:15.120 generations before us in our own lives, it's, uh, I would say by and large, a product of choices.

00:37:21.260 And that is a part of the American dream. And that is a part of why I'm a conservative because I

00:37:25.800 believe in the power of the individual more than I believe in the power, at least in this country

00:37:30.820 of circumstances, uh, beyond our control. So anyway, I just wanted to make sure I mentioned that

00:37:36.480 because I didn't want to go off on a tangent with Dave, didn't want to take up all this time,

00:37:39.780 but I did want to make sure that I left you with that thought. And one more thing, um,

00:37:45.860 Dave and I have talked before. And the reason why we didn't get into a lot of our differences today,

00:37:50.860 like obviously we differ on gay marriage. He brought that up. We have gone in depth on our

00:37:55.500 differences, uh, uh, particularly our theological differences and our differences on gay marriage

00:38:00.540 and things like that in an episode that he posted on his channel. So I've been on his podcast

00:38:05.720 before. So you can go to the Rubin report YouTube channel. You can see our long, more than an hour

00:38:10.900 long conversation about all of that, where I really talk about, uh, my theology and my religious

00:38:15.660 perspective on all of that. So I didn't want you to think that we kind of just brushed over that it's

00:38:21.460 because we've had this conversation in depth before. So you can go check that out if you would

00:38:26.080 like, and that's it for today. Hope you guys enjoyed the episode and I will see you again soon.

00:38:35.720 Bye.

Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - July 26, 2019

Ep 142 ｜ Dave Rubin

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