Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 25 ｜ The Future Is... Socialism？

00:00:00.000 It's CRTV's Relatable with Allie Stuckey, where we talk culture, theology, and political news,

00:00:06.560 not necessarily in that order or all at once. Today, we're going to talk about democratic

00:00:11.660 socialism, what it is, why young people love it so much, and why, oh yeah, Jesus was not a

00:00:18.620 socialist. We're going to talk to Cabot Phillips of Campus Reform, who went out to Alexandria

00:00:24.220 Ocasio-Cortez's district in New York and asked her potential constituents questions about

00:00:30.400 socialism. Turns out they didn't understand very much. So first, why are we talking about this?

00:00:38.960 Because democratic socialism is becoming more mainstream on the political left and in the

00:00:45.080 Democratic Party. We've talked about Ocasio-Cortez and her openly socialist platform before on this

00:00:51.100 podcast. We all remember Bernie Sanders, who more millennials voted for in the primaries than for

00:00:57.060 Trump or Clinton combined. We've been hearing about the push for free health care coverage.

00:01:02.100 Of course, you know about Obamacare and free college for a long time. It's really no secret

00:01:07.100 that Democrats have been inching towards socialism for a while, and now they are just coming out and

00:01:13.840 fully embracing it. A Gallup poll back in 2016 cited that 55 percent of millennials

00:01:20.380 now support socialism. So let's define socialism and particularly democratic socialism, which is the

00:01:29.080 ideology du jour on the left. Well, we already know what democratic means. Hopefully it means

00:01:35.020 that the people have a say that you vote. So what is democratic socialism? Well, if you go to the

00:01:43.100 Democratic Socialists of America website, the organization that I believe Ocasio-Cortez is a part of,

00:01:48.440 you can see their constitution, which reads, we are socialists because we reject an economic order

00:01:56.240 based on private profit, alienated labor, gross inequalities of wealth and power, discrimination

00:02:02.120 based on race, sex, sexual orientation, gender expression, disability status, age, religion, and

00:02:09.240 national origin, and brutality and violence and defense of the status quo. We are socialists because

00:02:14.440 we share a vision of a humane social order based on popular control of resources and production,

00:02:20.000 economic planning, equitable distribution, feminism, racial equality, and non-oppressive relationships.

00:02:27.080 That was a lot of words, which didn't really, for me, make a whole lot of sense, have a whole lot

00:02:33.960 of meaning. So let me at least try to make this simpler. Socialists believe that a profit-driven

00:02:41.540 society, aka capitalism, creates inequality. I am going to explain this in a way that I truly think

00:02:48.300 that a socialist would agree with. So without my own spin, I'll give my opinion on this after.

00:02:54.780 Socialists believe in the immorality of a capitalistic society because a society that is

00:03:00.440 centered on and driven exclusively by profit fuels an unjust power structure where the rich get richer

00:03:06.800 and the poor get poorer. That power structure plays a role in all inequality, they say, including

00:03:12.320 racial inequality, with mostly white people holding wealth and minorities staying poor in this country.

00:03:18.820 Socialists believe that those who hold the power in this country are able to do so because of the

00:03:23.500 greed of capitalism. These in power happen to be rich white people who, through the hoarding of

00:03:29.580 their wealth and influence, keep racial, ethnic, sexual, religious minorities down. Socialism seeks

00:03:36.720 to uplift these minorities who are marginalized, making sure that they have access to everything

00:03:42.500 that a rich person has. So health care, education, a job, housing, etc. Socialism, so it says, seeks

00:03:49.840 complete and total equality. The only way to do that, they say, is to abolish capitalism,

00:03:57.980 which is founded on greed and perpetuates unjust power structures, which, as I explained, leads to

00:04:04.780 all kinds of unfair dynamics. Socialism believes in getting rid of private property. Maybe not the

00:04:12.000 democratic socialists of America, or at least they don't say that all the time, but socialism as a

00:04:17.240 rule believes that property should be communal. They also believe in outlawing things like inheritance.

00:04:22.120 Ocasio-Cortez has mentioned this herself. Money should not be passed down to your children. It should be

00:04:27.160 given back to the state and then distributed for the common good. So maybe that sounds great. And

00:04:33.340 socialists aren't lying when they say that they wish to lift up the oppressed, those who go without,

00:04:39.080 those who have nothing and no way of providing for themselves. They want to abolish poverty, they say.

00:04:44.840 That all sounds really nice and very Christian, might I add. But then you have to ask yourself a few

00:04:52.900 practical, practical, basic questions. The first question being, how is all of this accomplished?

00:05:00.640 Socialism claims to be for the people, a system that is controlled by the populace. No power

00:05:05.560 structures, everyone is equal. Well, how do you maintain this? Not a single aspect of socialism is

00:05:13.880 possible without the control of the government, because socialism goes against basic human nature,

00:05:20.000 the basic human nature to own and to cultivate property, to provide for families and to create

00:05:25.800 power structures based on ability. In order to keep the ambitious from obtaining more money than the

00:05:32.240 unambitious or the unable and create what socialists call an unfair power structure, someone has to

00:05:39.520 forcibly prevent that ambitious person from obtaining more money than the unambitious person.

00:05:45.120 So who does that? Well, the government has to. How? Through heavy taxation, through the confiscation

00:05:52.620 of private property, through the outline of inheritance, through, as the democratic socialists

00:05:57.360 openly admit, the abolition of profit. There is no way to abolish profit, the chief goal of socialism,

00:06:04.920 without all-encompassing government control. People don't freely give up the money they've earned.

00:06:10.700 People don't freely give up their private property. Socialism takes money from the wealthy and gives

00:06:17.440 it to the poor. It is called redistribution of wealth. And while for the sake of PR, socialists

00:06:23.200 highlight how wonderful it will be for the poor to have health care coverage and college and housing

00:06:27.720 for free, the means by which this is accomplished is always brutal. It always has been because it forces

00:06:34.120 out of our hands the money you and I have earned and gives it to someone who has it. And in order to do

00:06:40.340 that, the government has to have more power than the people do. The government has to be big enough

00:06:45.560 and strong enough to take away our property, our right to an inheritance, our ability to make a

00:06:51.060 profit. And if the government is big enough to do that, then there is no stopping its power to do

00:06:56.420 whatever else it wants to do. And here's the irony. A government can only ensure absolute equality

00:07:02.980 through oppression. Socialism doesn't guarantee equality of success or of freedom. It guarantees

00:07:09.660 equality of oppression and mediocrity. Yes, sure, everyone is equal. They're equally poor and miserable.

00:07:18.660 The other question is, in addition to how does this nonprofit equal utopia come about, is how has this

00:07:27.500 worked in other countries? And the answer is not well. Why do you think that socialism and communism,

00:07:34.000 which is the sister of socialism, has met violent in so many times in the past century in Cambodia,

00:07:40.140 in China, in Soviet Russia, in Germany, 100 million people dead from socialism and communism in the past

00:07:46.820 century? Why? Because both socialism and communism, while they claim to be different, both require

00:07:52.880 totalitarian governments to ensure that people don't have more power or resources than anyone

00:07:58.520 else. And what happens when a government takes total power, it becomes corrupt. You've heard the

00:08:04.160 saying, power corrupts, absolute power corrupts absolutely. That's a principle that has never

00:08:10.180 failed. Never has a government having complete power worked out well for the people that it's ruling.

00:08:16.580 This is exactly what has happened in Venezuela. The government took total control, promised free stuff for

00:08:22.400 citizens. And now people are eating dogs from the street and using grass for toilet paper.

00:08:26.780 Sounds great. This is why socialism hasn't even worked in the countries where socialists say that

00:08:33.740 it has worked, like Scandinavia, the Scandinavian countries, of course. Socialists all say, well,

00:08:40.740 don't look at Venezuela. Don't look at the Soviet Union. Don't think about all of the people who have

00:08:46.720 died at the hands of totalitarian regimes who have ruled in the name of ensuring free stuff and

00:08:51.460 equality. Look at socialist Scandinavia, who is doing so well. In 2015, at a democratic debate,

00:08:58.600 democratic socialist Bernie Sanders said, I think we should look to countries like Denmark, like Sweden

00:09:04.460 and Norway, he said, and learn from what they have accomplished for their working people.

00:09:10.620 First of all, these countries are nothing like America. They're nothing like America in makeup,

00:09:15.680 especially. They have been homogenous, cohesive societies with shared values,

00:09:20.020 more gethic for centuries. Very unlike the United States, which is now so fractured that

00:09:24.740 even comparing the two countries for any or these countries for any reason is stupid. But look at

00:09:31.340 Sweden for a specific example. Its success is not founded on socialism, but is really accredited to

00:09:38.880 the free market. It was a poor country in the late 1800s, then adopted capitalism, lowered its taxes.

00:09:45.020 It was lower than the U.S. and Europe for a period of time, and its economy boomed.

00:09:49.980 Then in the mid 20th century, Sweden adopted socialism. It raised taxes in some cases to 100%

00:09:56.820 in an effort to abolish corporate profits and entrepreneurism. Job creation plummeted. The

00:10:01.780 economy tanked. So what did Sweden do? They lowered taxes some and they readopted capitalism in a lot of

00:10:07.980 ways when it comes to business and free trade. They still have socialism in some forms, like heavy

00:10:13.000 welfare through pretty high taxes, but they make up for this through economic freedom, through the

00:10:17.420 encouragement of entrepreneurism. Same thing in Denmark. The New York Times reported in 2013 that

00:10:22.960 welfare dependency in Denmark had created a society, a society in which basically no one worked. Only

00:10:28.680 three of the 98 municipalities, wow, municipalities, that's a difficult word to say when you're talking

00:10:35.280 fast, had the majority of its residents working. Now Denmark is above the United States as far as

00:10:42.020 economic freedom goes, and that's according to the Heritage Foundation. So no, true socialism has not

00:10:48.500 worked. And socialists actually admit that. They say, well, socialism, real socialism has never truly

00:10:54.220 been implemented. But what we know from basic human nature is that people don't work very hard when the

00:11:01.580 reward they get for their work is the government taking over half of their money and redistributing it

00:11:07.500 redistributing it to other people. People also don't work very hard when they know they don't have to

00:11:14.260 work to get all of the things that people who do work get. And there is a serious moral problem with

00:11:20.220 this. As we've talked on the podcast before, work is a natural and a good part of the human makeup.

00:11:27.060 We are made to work, to grow, to cultivate, to make better. Whether that's writing novels and giving

00:11:32.780 speeches or being an electrician, it doesn't matter. There is something inside all of us that urges us

00:11:38.120 to do something, to make something. There is a reason why one of the main reasons listed for

00:11:43.840 depression is purposelessness. When people feel that they're not attached to something bigger than

00:11:48.920 themselves, when they're not moving a ball forward, when they have nothing and no one to take care of,

00:11:54.420 when they are unnecessary, they grow very depressed and in some cases suicidal.

00:11:58.760 That is what socialism does. It makes people and their work unnecessary because the government

00:12:05.060 compensates for people's laziness. So from a Christian perspective, there is absolutely nothing

00:12:11.420 virtuous about socialism. We know from Genesis that God made work before the fall, which means work

00:12:17.780 is inherently good. A system that punishes hard work and disincentivizes hard work is therefore not

00:12:24.500 good. Furthermore, God calls Christians to be cheerful givers. As 2 Corinthians 9, 7 says,

00:12:30.680 cheerful giving and any kind of generosity is impossible in a society in which what you earn

00:12:36.160 is forced from you and given to people and causes that the government sees fit. People who say that

00:12:43.180 Jesus was a socialist must have missed the description of the early church and acts when people are freely

00:12:49.140 giving their goods to others out of their own goodwill. If you are a Christian and you are worried about

00:12:55.100 people who don't have anything or if you are concerned about the plight of the poor, get a job,

00:13:04.520 make a lot of money and help them yourself. Give everything you have to the poor. Start a non-profit or go

00:13:11.240 work for one. Get involved in your church and go feed the homeless. Hear me when I say this.

00:13:19.220 If you care about the poor, you should be a capitalist. Do you know what has reduced abject

00:13:28.220 poverty by 80% since the 1970s? Capitalism, global trade, free markets, entrepreneurship. Do you know

00:13:35.480 what has done more to cure world hunger than anything else? Capitalism, people learning trades

00:13:41.240 and making money for themselves? Do you know what has been the greatest driver of innovation ever?

00:13:48.820 Capitalism, profit and people's motivation to earn it. Why do you think America is the home to the

00:13:55.640 world's greatest technological advances? Why do you think people come here to start their companies,

00:14:01.260 to build businesses, to manifest their ideas? Why do you think that we are the leader in technology

00:14:06.760 in medicine and education and entertainment? Because of capitalism. Now, I don't think that

00:14:13.240 people should be motivated by profit alone. I think that there's a really big problem in that. I think

00:14:18.320 they should be motivated by a purpose, whether it be making it easier for people to get to point A

00:14:23.800 to point B via Uber, whether it be to give people easy access to entertainment via Netflix,

00:14:30.280 or whether it's helping people in Africa have jobs like Noonday Collection. But,

00:14:35.260 but, big but, people eventually stop pursuing their purpose if they are not making a profit.

00:14:42.720 They have to. They have to provide for their families themselves. They have bills to pay.

00:14:47.560 If you're making no profit, you don't have the freedom to pursue a purpose. That's exactly why

00:14:53.780 capitalism has been so effective in pulling people up from the dregs of poverty.

00:14:58.920 That is a huge reason why America is the best country in the world. That's a huge reason for

00:15:05.620 the unprecedented economic and entrepreneurial success of this country that has made us the

00:15:11.180 brightest beacon of liberty this world has ever seen. America and the free market have done more

00:15:17.880 to alleviate hunger, suffering, oppression than bureaucracy ever has. If you have compassion and

00:15:25.940 empathy, great. Go out there and show it yourself. Don't wait for the government to do it. And you know

00:15:33.800 what gives you the freedom to do that? To go out and show that compassion? Not socialism, capitalism.

00:15:40.660 Of course, we do have parts of socialism in American society. We already have aspects of

00:15:48.020 wealth redistribution. We have welfare programs, social security. Socialists seek to make these

00:15:53.620 things universal, though. They believe everything should be given. But like I said, that denies basic

00:16:00.320 human nature and comes to a cruel end when fully implemented. It always has. It always does.

00:16:06.700 There is nothing kind or loving or compassionate about that. Democratic socialism is just socialism

00:16:14.440 that you choose. There's nothing better about it. The Democratic Socialists of America have Karl

00:16:19.680 Marx, the author of the Communist Manifesto, by the way, on all of their suggested reading lists. So

00:16:25.360 don't be fooled by this word democratic. It just makes it sound more Western. It's not.

00:16:30.320 OK, so that's my long spiel. You can tell how much I just love socialism. But I want to get into what

00:16:39.980 other people think about it. You guys are much smarter than most people in the world. But

00:16:45.900 unfortunately, most people and American young people especially don't know anything about socialism,

00:16:49.860 even though who even those who say that they are socialists. Cabot Phillips of Campus Reform does

00:16:55.540 these man on the street interviews. And he went to, like I said, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's district to

00:17:01.140 see how much her to see how much her would be constituents know about her ideology. And here is

00:17:09.440 that. I'm Cabot Phillips with Campus Reform. Today, we're in Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's congressional

00:17:14.340 district talking to her supporters about democratic socialism. Is it any different from regular

00:17:19.260 socialism? And who's going to pay for all this free stuff? Let's see what they have to say.

00:17:22.600 Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, just elected, 28 years old, self-proclaimed democratic socialist,

00:17:27.920 which has a lot of people talking. What are your views on her so far?

00:17:31.340 I mean, I've heard only positive things.

00:17:33.720 We love her.

00:17:34.720 Yeah, we do love her. I voted for her because I'm from Queens.

00:17:37.600 It was great. It's a breath of fresh air, and I hope it follows through into November.

00:17:40.900 I like her spirit and that she's very different.

00:17:44.400 People tend to freak out when they hear the word socialism, like, apply to anything.

00:17:49.140 Why do you think that is?

00:17:50.080 I think there's this old way of thinking about it.

00:17:52.720 What do you think the government should be subsidizing?

00:17:55.180 So her platform includes free health care, college tuition, minimum living wage, housing

00:18:00.260 as a human right. Are those things that you think the government should be providing for

00:18:03.000 people?

00:18:03.760 Absolutely.

00:18:04.600 Are those things that you would support?

00:18:06.580 Yes, it is.

00:18:07.280 Are those all things that you would support the government subsidizing?

00:18:10.360 100%.

00:18:10.800 I feel like everyone should have, like, free education and health care.

00:18:16.700 How are we going to pay for those?

00:18:17.660 Oh, God. I mean, us.

00:18:22.080 Us, I guess.

00:18:23.240 Who, in your mind, should pay for all of the free things?

00:18:26.040 All of the free things? Well, some of it should come from taxes, but the government

00:18:30.420 should pay for it.

00:18:31.540 But the government is funded by taxes.

00:18:33.360 Yeah.

00:18:33.800 I don't know where the money would come from, but they can figure it out.

00:18:37.520 Okay.

00:18:38.540 More taxes on the rich people.

00:18:40.100 Yeah, for sure, man. Like, they can afford it.

00:18:42.720 Tax corporations, let's tax the 1% and find a way to support a living wage.

00:18:47.760 The people with a good idea and a good reason to spend their tax money wouldn't mind actually

00:18:52.240 paying more taxes.

00:18:53.700 There are so many of these countries out there that are employing a lot more socialism in

00:18:58.040 their government and into their politics, and they're doing really well.

00:19:01.400 Is Venezuela doing that?

00:19:03.820 Ooh, I don't know too much about Venezuela, honey.

00:19:06.660 I think they need to... I mean, are they still communists right now?

00:19:10.700 So they're technically socialists.

00:19:11.940 Okay, okay.

00:19:13.060 Look at other countries. It works.

00:19:15.060 Like other countries, you pay higher taxes, but your government takes care of you.

00:19:18.700 So when you see the social system failing in Venezuela, does that concern you?

00:19:23.200 I mean, yes.

00:19:25.320 Obviously.

00:19:25.720 My family's Cuban, and like I've seen the downfall of like extreme leftism, but also

00:19:30.960 like I see how it like boosts the community and like it has its ups and downs, and I think

00:19:35.900 we can definitely learn from history on that terms.

00:19:38.400 Our country needs change, and if it has to be on the opposite side, on the extreme polar

00:19:43.240 opposite side, maybe it's what we need.

00:19:45.160 Privatized healthcare is a huge issue, and if it was a government-funded thing, that would

00:19:52.040 be, you know, when there aren't...

00:19:54.120 Do you think the government would run it more efficiently?

00:19:56.940 In a perfect world?

00:19:58.220 Sure.

00:19:58.760 I'm literally exactly like where I'd stand, but I know like democratic socialists is better

00:20:05.220 than conservative.

00:20:06.540 It's just better than...

00:20:07.880 It's the better option.

00:20:09.040 In what way?

00:20:11.340 When I think of it, I just think of like more open-minded people, people that aren't

00:20:15.580 like as economically conserved.

00:20:19.980 Wow, that is really sad.

00:20:22.200 That's really sad.

00:20:23.340 Okay, so now we're going to talk to the man himself and hear what he thinks is going on

00:20:29.220 in all of this.

00:20:30.180 Cabot, thanks for joining us.

00:20:32.840 Happy to be on.

00:20:33.820 Thanks so much, Allie.

00:20:34.580 Yeah.

00:20:35.240 So you've been everywhere recently doing your MOS packages or man on the street packages

00:20:40.160 that you've done a lot.

00:20:41.260 And this past timer, one of the most recent ones that I've seen is you asking people in

00:20:47.140 Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's district what they think about socialism.

00:20:51.880 So can you just kind of break down what people know and what they don't?

00:20:56.440 Yeah.

00:20:56.620 So we went to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's district and spoke to a lot of young people there who

00:21:01.480 supported her.

00:21:02.320 And across the board, they were incredibly proud.

00:21:04.500 They said that she represented them well.

00:21:06.020 They loved her ideas.

00:21:07.660 They loved that she was willing to come out with a democratic socialist platform.

00:21:11.840 And so I just started asking them basic questions about what they wanted the government to provide.

00:21:16.600 Everyone across the board said health care, education, a minimum living wage.

00:21:20.600 They wanted free housing for people that were struggling across the board.

00:21:23.060 And I just started asking them who's going to pay for it, person after person, slowly

00:21:27.400 either came to the realization of, well, I guess we're going to have to pay for it.

00:21:31.960 Or they just had the same prepackaged answers of the 1%.

00:21:35.500 We can keep having them pay for it.

00:21:37.020 They have too much money anyway.

00:21:38.760 And then I started to ask people afterwards, hey, have you seen what's going on in Venezuela?

00:21:42.980 Or can you give me examples of socialist countries in the past that have worked?

00:21:46.100 And people slowly, I think, got a little embarrassed when they realized that they couldn't give

00:21:51.580 examples of socialism working.

00:21:52.800 And also they realized that there's not really a feasible answer for who's going to pay for

00:21:57.400 all this free stuff.

00:21:58.700 And so if nothing else, we had some aha moments.

00:22:01.420 I think there were some people that maybe had a light bulb come on and they realized how

00:22:05.740 socialist ideas are really not tenable and indefensible in many cases.

00:22:09.820 But there were a lot of people that were just repeating these same talking points we hear

00:22:14.140 from the left.

00:22:15.180 And so that was discouraging to see how people just felt, hey, I'm young.

00:22:18.720 I have to support all these things.

00:22:20.120 And I think that that peer pressure and that pressure from society to support these socialist

00:22:24.740 leftist ideas is also something to note.

00:22:27.720 Do you think it's more Alexandria herself that these potential constituents of hers are

00:22:34.720 attracted to?

00:22:35.760 Or do you think it's actually the ideas that she's putting forth, free health care, free

00:22:40.660 education, things like that?

00:22:42.200 Or do you just like her as a person?

00:22:44.480 I think it's a mixture of two.

00:22:45.680 If it was just her because she's young and exciting and has this cool story.

00:22:50.560 Yeah, she does have a cool story.

00:22:52.320 But how do you explain Bernie Sanders then?

00:22:54.160 He's like an old, boring white guy.

00:22:56.220 And still young people were able to relate with him.

00:22:58.300 And so I think it's not necessarily the story and the personality of Ocasio-Cortez.

00:23:02.680 I really do think it's the ideas.

00:23:04.660 And put yourself in the position of like an average college student.

00:23:08.060 You're not really paying attention to politics.

00:23:09.520 You start tuning in and listening to a few politicians and you gravitate towards the person

00:23:13.980 that's saying, I'm going to do all this for you.

00:23:16.040 Here's what I'm going to do for you.

00:23:17.080 Here's what I'm going to do for you.

00:23:17.960 Here's what the government will do for you.

00:23:19.120 Here's what rich people will do for you.

00:23:20.880 And it's a lot easier to sell that message many times than to sell the message of here

00:23:25.160 are the opportunities that we will open up for you.

00:23:27.440 We are going to get the government out of your way so that you can do these things for

00:23:30.860 yourselves.

00:23:31.860 And so that idea of free things is really easy to sell.

00:23:35.640 And also the left is winning the messaging battle right now on socialism.

00:23:38.820 If you say that you support free markets or capitalism on a college campus or really just

00:23:44.000 in any segment of society, many times you're told that it's evil, that you don't care about

00:23:48.800 poor people, that it's not compassionate.

00:23:51.180 And socialism has been sold as compassionate.

00:23:53.380 It's been sold as tolerant, as wanting to help poor people.

00:23:57.300 And so that messaging battle has been won by the left.

00:23:59.340 And if you can convince people, support these ideas, and you'll be open-minded and tolerant,

00:24:03.440 then it's going to be a lot easier to get them on board.

00:24:05.280 And I think that's what the left has been doing very well.

00:24:07.280 And the right really does need to improve on messaging, free market, you know, limited

00:24:11.740 government, conservative ideas.

00:24:14.120 So is it the messaging that has made socialism so successful right now in this moment?

00:24:20.020 Because socialism has been around for a long time.

00:24:25.500 Marxist, Leninist have been purporting, you know, the successes of their ideologies, despite

00:24:31.140 all of the failures that it's had for the past century.

00:24:33.840 Why does it seem like young people today are more okay with socialism and maybe even communism

00:24:41.380 than young people, say, 50 years ago?

00:24:45.040 Why this generation?

00:24:46.700 I think a lot of it has to do with people are wanting to take away personal responsibilities

00:24:51.880 from themselves.

00:24:53.240 So anytime someone is not successful, it's a very powerful message to come to them and say,

00:24:58.560 hey, if you aren't where you want to be in life, it's not your fault.

00:25:02.680 It is the fault of wealthy people.

00:25:04.400 It is the fault of the top 1% or government officials.

00:25:08.180 And so that message radiates and resonates with people because young people, they like

00:25:12.700 that message.

00:25:13.200 Or anyone that is, you know, not emotionally or economically where they want to be, they

00:25:17.620 can say, yeah, you know what?

00:25:18.640 It's not my fault.

00:25:19.560 It's got to be someone else's fault.

00:25:21.280 And I think that's one reason it's working.

00:25:22.880 And also, I think it's important to look at the way class warfare has really taken off

00:25:29.040 in the last eight years under President Obama.

00:25:30.800 His entire presidency, he was telling people, if you were successful, you didn't really

00:25:35.240 build that yourself.

00:25:36.220 It was the government and it was that helped you.

00:25:38.600 And also, I think a lot of young people grew up, came of age in a time where wealth was demonized.

00:25:45.380 If you were economically successful, it had to be at someone else's expense.

00:25:49.360 It was a zero-sum game where people think, well, if you got rich, you had to be pushing

00:25:53.080 down the little guy to do that, not realizing you can become rich and also help a lot of

00:25:57.300 poor people along the way.

00:25:58.800 And so I think demonizing that success has made wealth not as attractive as it used to

00:26:04.540 be.

00:26:04.820 And so people would rather pull down that top 1% to their levels than to try to climb up

00:26:09.700 to where they are.

00:26:10.360 And I think that mindset cripples people in an early age.

00:26:12.700 And that's why socialism is so dangerous.

00:26:14.660 Yeah.

00:26:14.840 And I also think specifically to our generation, because I think every generation or, yeah,

00:26:19.840 every generation when they're young kind of goes through the stage of being politically

00:26:23.040 rebellious.

00:26:23.860 It was obviously true in the 1960s.

00:26:26.420 They were rejecting traditional mores of the 1940s and 50s.

00:26:30.600 Everyone was very, you know, anti-war, hippie, whatever.

00:26:33.700 And maybe we can even see that mirroring today.

00:26:36.280 But I do think millennials are different, even the baby boomers and the silent generation when

00:26:41.380 they were young, um, because in large part, and I don't mean to be a typical millennial

00:26:46.020 and blame everything on our parents.

00:26:47.580 I'm not, but you do have to look at how we were raised.

00:26:50.880 Baby boomers were the first generation since the great depression to have disposable income.

00:26:55.200 So you and I probably had a lot more luxuries than our parents had.

00:26:59.580 And our parents had really good intentions in that.

00:27:01.960 They wanted to make sure that we had a better education, more fun, even, even more things,

00:27:06.840 uh, than they had growing up.

00:27:08.940 And we did.

00:27:09.480 My life was a lot easier than my grandma's life when she was living on a farm than my

00:27:15.060 parents' life when they were growing up really poor, got married at 19, lived in a trailer.

00:27:19.180 They wanted to make sure that my life was really different than that.

00:27:22.460 And I think a lot of millennials experienced that, that I didn't have to run the same risks

00:27:28.180 in my life that my parents did.

00:27:30.300 And I was raised probably just as much as anyone else in this, everybody gets a trophy,

00:27:36.920 uh, you're completely special helicopter parenting culture that previous generations just weren't.

00:27:43.020 And so this feeling of entitlement, I think unintentionally was kind of passed down to us

00:27:49.240 and then saturated with the past eight years of Obama and the progressive revolution that's

00:27:55.220 happened in the 21st century.

00:27:56.620 I think it was all just kind of a, a perfect storm.

00:28:00.300 Yeah.

00:28:01.100 Let's be honest though, Alan, you may have grown up in the culture where everyone gets

00:28:03.820 a trophy, but you were, you were winning first place.

00:28:05.920 You were getting trophies anyway.

00:28:07.060 Come on.

00:28:07.520 Not, not in track Cabot in track.

00:28:10.620 I was getting honorable mention.

00:28:12.780 And so I probably thought that I was decent at running the 400, but really I got last place

00:28:17.820 every time.

00:28:18.880 My go-to trophy every year was the most improved because I would set the bar really, really low

00:28:24.160 like swim team when I was eight.

00:28:26.480 You were doggy paddling.

00:28:27.640 All I had to do was just not drown the whole season.

00:28:30.520 I'd be the most improved because I basically drowned the first go around.

00:28:33.420 But I do agree with you.

00:28:34.360 I think looking at kind of the bigger scope of, of what are the deeper reasons for socialism's

00:28:39.820 rise?

00:28:40.100 I think a lot of it, you cannot ignore the role of higher education in the rise of socialism.

00:28:45.600 Yeah.

00:28:45.800 It used to be not to say, oh, back and I'm back in the, you know, everything was, I think

00:28:50.000 we idealized how things were in the past.

00:28:52.320 True.

00:28:52.640 I think so too.

00:28:53.820 But I do think that when it comes to higher education, we did used to place a higher emphasis

00:28:58.320 on civics courses, history courses, economics courses, and those, those things which used

00:29:03.520 to be mandatory for every incoming student.

00:29:06.080 More and more universities are not making them mandatory.

00:29:08.300 Instead, they're replacing them with social justice initiatives, courses in humanities, arts,

00:29:12.540 things like that, which aren't in of themselves bad things, but when they're taking precedent

00:29:16.520 over things that are more important, and most Americans would agree, history and economics,

00:29:20.500 people don't have a broader context for what they're supporting.

00:29:23.740 And if people were taught history, they would realize the impact that, that Marxist-Leninist

00:29:28.480 ideas and socialist ideas have had throughout history.

00:29:31.140 If they were taught more current events, they would see what's going on right now and the

00:29:34.660 evil that socialism is bringing throughout the globe.

00:29:37.160 And so I do think that's an important aspect of it is our higher education system, no matter

00:29:40.980 how well-intentioned it is dropping the ball and leaving people uninformed and lacking context.

00:29:46.860 Yeah.

00:29:47.220 And I want to go back to messaging, because you said that the left is winning the messaging

00:29:52.860 battle on that, and the right isn't.

00:29:55.300 I say the same thing, but sometimes, sometimes I'm kind of at a loss when people ask me, okay,

00:30:02.540 well, what do we do differently?

00:30:04.440 Specifically, concretely, what should conservatives be doing differently to change the narrative of

00:30:10.460 capitalism?

00:30:11.240 What do you think?

00:30:12.440 I think, first off, it starts with telling a better story.

00:30:14.920 It's something you and I agree on.

00:30:16.000 We've had conversations like this in the past.

00:30:18.060 And for those of you guys who think that Allie just speaks this way on her show, I can

00:30:22.060 assure you that even when she's just hanging out, she's still, like, I'm just trying to

00:30:25.820 talk about, you know, casual things and catching up and hear about what her husband's up to.

00:30:29.460 And she's just like, let's talk about political philosophy.

00:30:31.620 Let's just get to this.

00:30:31.980 Oh my gosh, whatever.

00:30:33.820 Here's what we need to do better.

00:30:35.180 So she's at least consistent in that regard.

00:30:37.500 But one thing that you said that I completely agree with is I think conservatives need to

00:30:41.320 get better about making a case and telling stories about how our ideas are going to help

00:30:46.520 people.

00:30:47.400 And not just saying, hey, here's what free market and free enterprise system will do for

00:30:51.660 people.

00:30:52.420 And then just giving off a bunch of statistics.

00:30:54.360 Statistics are powerful only if they are tied to emotion.

00:30:57.820 A person, yeah.

00:30:58.600 They're saying, hey, here's an example of where the government got out of the way, where

00:31:02.560 the government, you know, enacted policies, actually helped people.

00:31:05.440 Let me tell you a few stories of people that were successful.

00:31:07.820 Giving personal experiences.

00:31:09.100 Saying, hey, Obamacare is bad.

00:31:11.960 It's government-run healthcare.

00:31:13.200 And here's how it's impacted my family.

00:31:15.240 Here's the personal impact it had on me.

00:31:17.040 Telling stories that you, you know, have had experiences.

00:31:19.920 I think that's one of the quickest ways to really make people remember a point is by tying

00:31:25.300 it to emotion, tying it to a story, and in your own personal experiences.

00:31:28.600 Yeah, I think so.

00:31:29.800 You're right.

00:31:30.360 That was a very good point that I brought up, if I do say so myself.

00:31:34.280 But it's, if you look at like Ronald Reagan, how he changed his political ideology, it was

00:31:39.420 all because for General Electric, he was going around and he was talking to people.

00:31:43.520 He thought that he knew everything about politics.

00:31:46.480 He was a hardcore leftist until he actually started talking to people and realizing how bureaucracy

00:31:51.340 can really ruin people's lives and stifle business.

00:31:54.200 And I think that's true, but there's such a, there's such a bubble of information with

00:31:58.980 social media, academia, even mainstream media, that it's very hard and takes a lot of effort

00:32:04.560 for people and especially young people to get out of that.

00:32:07.900 So do you think it's, it's through social media that, that we conservative millennials

00:32:13.180 and conservative young people can primarily be breaking, breaking through that, that kind

00:32:18.720 of shield, that progressive shield, or do you think it's talking to our friends or

00:32:22.900 what is it?

00:32:24.200 I think it's not one thing in specific.

00:32:26.420 I do think it's, you know, things, but I would say that social media and new age media

00:32:30.660 is where it starts.

00:32:31.420 You know, we have a special opportunity.

00:32:34.220 We live in a special time in history where if you turn the TV on and you don't see content

00:32:38.120 you want to see, guess what?

00:32:39.880 We now have, every person has a phone, every person has a computer where they can go out

00:32:43.480 and make the content they want to reach people with.

00:32:45.680 And that's, you know, I think this podcast is an example of that.

00:32:47.900 All the new age media going on social media is an example of that.

00:32:50.700 And if you look at studies, the majority of people now under the age of 30 admit to forming

00:32:56.060 the majority of their political opinions on Facebook or Twitter or YouTube.

00:33:00.660 That's where they're forming the majority of their opinions.

00:33:02.720 And as, you know, people that are active in politics, we can either, you know, disagree

00:33:06.660 with that and we can complain and say, oh, you know, it sucks that our generation isn't,

00:33:10.460 you know, reading the Wall Street Journal every day or reading history books.

00:33:12.800 Or, and we can wash our hands of it, or we can say, no, we're going to fill that space.

00:33:17.480 We're going to treat it like a vacuum.

00:33:18.720 Realize that someone is going to fill that space with content.

00:33:21.820 I think it's our duty, if we believe our ideas are right, to fill that void and realize this

00:33:26.480 is how people are forming their opinions.

00:33:27.940 So go out, start a YouTube channel, start a podcast, you know, do a weekly Facebook live

00:33:32.780 with your friends, get people talking about ideas.

00:33:35.000 I think there's a misconception that you have to start out with 100,000 Twitter followers

00:33:38.820 to begin to make an impact, and that's just not the case.

00:33:41.620 Slowly realizing, you know, you can reach people in your own sphere, your sphere will

00:33:45.500 start to grow the more you do that consistently and the more you show yourself willing to have

00:33:50.480 tough conversations, willing to be proven wrong, have a debate.

00:33:53.280 I think those are all meaningful, impactful ways to reach people.

00:33:57.060 But technology is a good thing.

00:33:58.820 We shouldn't just complain, oh, everyone's on their phones all day.

00:34:01.180 And yeah, maybe I wish people would pick up a history book more often, but let's realize

00:34:04.840 also this is an incredibly unique opportunity we have in this space.

00:34:08.100 It's time to reach people.

00:34:09.700 Definitely.

00:34:10.400 Okay, speaking of social media and the internet, where can everyone find you?

00:34:15.440 I am at Cabot, C-A-B-O-T underscore Phillips.

00:34:20.080 Phillips with two L's.

00:34:21.180 Would love to connect with people on there.

00:34:23.860 On Twitter, right?

00:34:25.620 What's that?

00:34:26.880 Was that Twitter?

00:34:28.180 Yes, that's Twitter, Instagram.

00:34:30.720 Don't add me on Facebook.

00:34:31.780 It's just a bunch of pictures of my family and my pets, so don't do that, unless you are

00:34:36.060 into that kind of thing.

00:34:36.860 But yeah, we'd love to connect with everybody on there.

00:34:39.400 And I'm just, I'm waiting to see how the evil Ali Stuckey is going to edit this interview

00:34:44.060 to make me look horrible the way you did to poor little Alexander Ocasio.

00:34:48.040 And I'll claim it, I'll claim it was satire after the fact, but it's really just to make

00:34:52.640 you look bad because that's my goal.

00:34:55.300 Well, you want to try too hard.

00:34:56.380 So thanks for having me on.

00:34:57.460 Very true.

00:34:58.320 Thanks, Cabot.

00:34:59.740 Appreciate it.

00:35:00.320 Okay, there you have it.

00:35:02.740 So I hope that this gave you guys some insight into this really, I think, scary trend and

00:35:09.560 also gave you maybe some talking points to tell to your socialist friends.

00:35:14.200 Thanks for listening.

00:35:15.540 Please give me a positive rating on this podcast if you so desire.

00:35:19.620 Um, follow me on social media, Twitter, Instagram, Facebook.

00:35:24.400 Facebook is, um, Ali on CRTV.

00:35:27.600 You can just look up Ali B. Stuckey everywhere else.

00:35:30.340 Thank you guys so much for listening.

00:35:32.160 I really appreciate it.

00:35:33.100 I love being here with you guys every week.

00:35:35.360 And I will see you next Tuesday.

00:35:37.620 Have a good weekend.

Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - August 03, 2018

Ep 25 ｜ The Future Is... Socialism？

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