Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 332 ｜ One Nation, Under Corporations？｜ Guest： Rachel Bovard

00:00:00.000 hey guys welcome to relatable happy monday hope everyone had a great thanksgiving today i am

00:00:15.020 talking to rachel bovard we are going to talk about big tech big corporations and we are going

00:00:19.520 to explore this question of are we really free if we live in a society where are uh the the major

00:00:26.440 channels of information and the corporations that control so much of our consumerism are cracking

00:00:34.060 down on the things that we consume on the things that we uh can think and say and do and she's going

00:00:41.740 to give us some solutions to what seems like um an infringement upon our liberty by big tech and

00:00:50.300 big business but before we get into that conversation i want to take a quick ad break

00:00:56.440 rachel thank you so much for joining me uh could you tell everyone who might not be familiar

00:01:09.060 who you are and what you do so thanks for having me my name is rachel bovard i'm the senior director

00:01:15.900 of policy at the conservative partnership institute which is a non-profit i started here in dc about

00:01:21.100 three years ago with senator jim de mint former senator from south carolina um and i teach a lot

00:01:26.760 of senate procedure house procedure but i also do a lot of writing and commentary on sort of where the

00:01:32.100 right is going um on issues like you know foreign wars corporate power and a lot has that has really

00:01:39.220 kind of come to the fore during the trump era and so i've been i've been writing and thinking a lot

00:01:43.080 about those things yeah and and you started at least in your political career

00:01:46.960 and the kind of libertarian movement correct i did yes i was the legislative director for senator

00:01:54.860 rand paul for a number of years in the senate um which has informed a lot of how i feel about

00:01:59.740 foreign incursion specifically right but interestingly has informed how i feel about big the big tech

00:02:04.760 corporations as well okay and how do you feel like your um your ideas have changed over time as you've

00:02:12.500 seen the the right shift or have you always kind of had the same views on big tech and big corporations

00:02:18.020 so with big tech and big corporations specifically you know one of the reasons i found myself drawn to

00:02:25.020 the libertarian movement was that it was skeptical of concentrations of power wherever they were in

00:02:30.880 the government you know massive corporate power but i think the dc libertarian movement has lost that

00:02:36.420 skepticism of corporate power that i actually think is pretty classically libertarian

00:02:40.400 and so i feel i've stayed true to the libertarian movement in that regard and the movement in dc at

00:02:46.560 least has left me a little bit because you see a lot of libertarians who are defending big tech and

00:02:51.060 saying well the government shouldn't get involved ignoring the fact that the government is very

00:02:55.360 involved already in these companies and they're benefiting from a lot of government subsidies provisions

00:03:00.300 and law that have helped them grow why is that why do you think there has been a shift not on your

00:03:05.120 end but on libertarians in uh in conservatism in dc well i think you know the establishment republican

00:03:14.100 party which includes a lot of libertarians has always had a really friendly relationship with

00:03:18.980 business we've we've looked at it you know as a way to support our views the diversity in the free

00:03:24.120 market you know free market innovation and all those things are things we as conservatives prize and want

00:03:29.200 to protect but i think to a great extent we've become uncritical about it we've just assumed that

00:03:35.700 well if it's private business it must be good and that has sort of become this it's ossified into this

00:03:41.300 sort of ideology that you're not allowed to question business because that means you're questioning the

00:03:45.220 free market and i reject that because again conservatism is a full you know an abundant philosophy you know

00:03:51.460 that allows you know you to question and to assume you know that things should be questioned when

00:03:58.580 circumstances change and that's i think the position that we find ourselves in with big tech you you have

00:04:03.780 these unprecedented uh companies with that have amassed so much power we've never seen this before

00:04:09.840 they're the most powerful companies the world has ever seen and i think they deserve a second look

00:04:13.960 from lawmakers because of the fact that they're not just private industry they're private industry

00:04:18.260 that's changing the way in which we live together and that is fundamentally a question for our self

00:04:23.700 government you know my stance whenever we start talking about okay there's obviously a problem with

00:04:28.800 big tech and their lopsided censorship censorship in general but also lopsided censorship as well as

00:04:35.340 as well as some other constitutional issues um but my stance has been traditionally until i would say

00:04:43.160 recently okay well i really don't want the government to get involved because i'm afraid of when

00:04:47.960 that when the power shifts when there is more democrat uh democratic control in dc that uh the power

00:04:56.040 that we give to the government to regulate or to interfere in big tech is going to be weaponized even

00:05:01.260 further against conservatives and so at the same time i haven't known what the solution is but now

00:05:07.320 i read your article not about big tech and american greatness about corporations uh corporate power

00:05:13.320 and the gramophone mind and how you talk about these different situations where people are getting

00:05:19.080 discriminated against just for their conservative views and it does kind of create some ire in me and i

00:05:25.700 think other conservatives to say okay this doesn't really seem like a problem that we can just let alone

00:05:30.960 whether it is target taking a book from its distribution list or whether it is big tech uh de-platforming

00:05:38.280 people based on their conservative views and so where have you kind of landed on that obviously not

00:05:44.360 wanting too much government encroachment but at the same time realizing this is a problem that we can't

00:05:49.700 just let alone in the name of loving free markets yeah and you know in the course of writing that essay

00:05:56.440 it really became clear to me how this is not just a big tech problem this is a corporate problem you

00:06:02.020 raise the example of target you know removing abigail schreier's book because one person complained on twitter

00:06:06.960 right but you also have banks now who are refusing to service certain customers who work with

00:06:13.020 immigration customs enforcement they won't you know process transactions for anyone that works in the

00:06:17.900 private prison industry i mean this is beyond you know just big tech it is now woke corporations

00:06:24.200 which are a lot of them and i take your point about not wanting to create a government bureaucracy

00:06:31.480 that has to meddle in these areas and i'm very much aligned with that because i think that it is a

00:06:36.520 real fear that as soon as the political winds change that same you know bureaucracy will be

00:06:41.160 weaponized against conservatives when we built it you know to sort of enforce our own views we cannot

00:06:45.900 go down that road but what i think we can do is recognize as conservatives that our policy choices

00:06:52.260 have benefited these corporations for years and we prioritize them in our policy making think about

00:06:58.600 the last four years of the republican controlled senate the biggest accomplishment they did

00:07:03.480 was a massive tax bill now that was great for the middle class that was good for working families 0.98

00:07:08.960 but it also contained tremendous amount of corporate tax cuts and that's something that we

00:07:12.800 prioritize you know we're always happy to hand out those tax cuts to big business we're always

00:07:17.220 happy to bail out massive corporate banks who'd crater the economy and not you know give them any

00:07:22.660 consequences we are happy to give big tech companies um and you know other big companies

00:07:27.800 every incentive to to you know operate in america i think that the conservative movement and the

00:07:35.180 republican party should be more skeptical right we are empowering these companies who hate us and so

00:07:41.220 i'm not saying to build a new bureaucracy to control them but i am saying maybe we should be skeptical

00:07:45.360 before we you know willy-nilly hand out all these carve-outs in in you know the law and in the tax code

00:07:50.820 to these companies who clearly are weaponizing them against conservatives so tangibly that's what you think

00:07:56.760 maybe going in the right direction looks like it's not necessarily a specific policy or a punitive

00:08:02.320 policy against these companies it's not always looking out for their interests sometimes at the

00:08:07.820 expense of the working class am i articulating that correctly you are and i think it's a matter of

00:08:14.600 emphasis right it's the fact that as a party we've always said well you know business first in many

00:08:19.740 right or our party leadership has said that essentially and we've neglected a lot of these social

00:08:24.960 issues we've neglected you know kitchen table economics for working families so maybe instead

00:08:29.960 of prioritizing big business constantly we look to these other issues and say look you know we tried

00:08:35.100 it with the corporations and they took the you know gifts we gave them and essentially turned their

00:08:40.200 back on us so you know what i'm sorry that this tax credit's expiring we have pro-life policies we're

00:08:45.540 focusing on right now you know we have you know family issues that we're working on so it's a matter of

00:08:50.440 policy emphasis i think going forward and the reason why a lot of conservatives and even some

00:08:57.260 libertarians have decided that they are going to legislate in a way that especially and disproportionately

00:09:03.360 helps these corporations is it is it because their pockets are getting lined or is it just because they

00:09:08.840 don't even realize that the industry has changed and corporations have changed and so this idea of

00:09:14.440 business is important has without them even realizing it empowered uh these tyrannical left-wing

00:09:22.960 corporations that use their views to then bludgeon the working class that the republicans say that they

00:09:28.860 are fighting for yeah i think part of it is just a lack of skepticism and curiosity from the republican

00:09:35.600 lawmakers we've just always assumed that the market is functioning and you know there's nothing bad that it

00:09:41.960 can do as long as it's a free market but we forget that a free market has to be protected and i think

00:09:48.220 part of that lack of skepticism from republicans is our our lack of antitrust enforcement we've allowed

00:09:54.200 these corporations to grow so large that in many cases the big tech companies are crushing small

00:10:00.200 business they're crushing innovation and what would other be a robust marketplace and so i do think

00:10:05.740 it's incumbent upon conservatives and republicans to say look you know a free market you know we prize

00:10:12.480 it and therefore we must protect it and so i think being a little bit more curious and skeptical about

00:10:17.640 these claims from corporations is important because we have to police the marketplace to make sure it's

00:10:22.860 competitive to make sure it's fair and to make sure our policies aren't overly advantaging the big

00:10:27.940 companies over the smaller ones yeah you know it's interesting how you phrase that in protecting the free

00:10:33.920 market by uh being skeptical of of these companies and i think the same thing is true of something like

00:10:42.920 the first amendment there are people who say okay we don't want to interfere at all in big tech and in

00:10:48.580 corporate america because they are private companies that are free to do and say the things that they

00:10:53.020 want to do if they want to censor if they want to discriminate you know against certain political views

00:10:57.740 that's fine but at a certain point the first amendment kind of becomes moot if our our only cultural

00:11:05.400 megaphones are saying you know this is the only right way to think this is the only right thing that

00:11:10.700 we are going to allow you to say these are the only books that we're going to distribute and you know

00:11:15.820 this is the only viewpoint that we will sell and that we will allow you to to consume and so

00:11:22.940 there almost is a need for governments to interfere on behalf of the first amendment because like i said

00:11:31.200 the first amendment doesn't really matter if you have a constitutional right to free speech

00:11:35.100 uh if your free speech isn't protected by the corporations and the people that are controlling

00:11:41.760 our means of information is that is that a correct concern yeah it's funny when we think about

00:11:48.640 you know this first amendment discussion as it relates to big tech it's always binary people

00:11:53.240 say well it's their first amendment right and so that's the end of the story but it's not that at

00:11:58.460 all because as you point out our first amendment rights are also sort of have are interplaying in

00:12:04.300 this space and you think about i call these the network effects of the big platforms right the content

00:12:09.780 moderation practices they engage in which is which is essentially i'm going to amplify this content

00:12:13.860 suppress other content doesn't exist in a vacuum and because these companies are so dominant it has

00:12:20.380 you know trickle down effects that impact independent thought you know free minds market access there's

00:12:26.000 a ton of other stuff that's going on downstream from these companies exercising you know what is their

00:12:32.400 first amendment right but i also think it ignores the fact that the companies are exercising their first

00:12:38.460 amendment right in a privileged manner right section 230 which is the provision of law that grants all

00:12:44.400 these big type of companies you know all kinds of immunities for content posted on their site but also the

00:12:49.540 ability to take down content without recourse that is a privilege afforded to them by the law that other

00:12:55.920 outlets don't have newspapers don't have that movie studios don't have that right other for other

00:13:01.080 first amendment actors are not protected in that way so it's not merely a question of i'm these companies

00:13:06.980 are just exercising their first amendment it's there's a whole lot of context that that statement

00:13:11.940 has to be couched in to fully understand you know both the practicality and the sort of magnitude of

00:13:18.140 the issue that we're dealing with do you think there are some republican lawmakers that are waking up to

00:13:22.560 this i mean it seems like people like ted cruz and josh hawley have at least attempted to go after

00:13:28.260 these companies and maybe it's because they're younger than some of the other lawmakers they they seem to

00:13:34.500 understand what's going on a little bit more do you think those those efforts will ultimately make any

00:13:41.200 difference i think that what josh hawley and ted cruz have done is really is helpful um and i think

00:13:48.940 everybody's sorting out right now the best way to go about addressing what the type of problem that we've

00:13:54.820 never seen before we've never seen corporations have this much control over our thought yeah our speech

00:14:00.540 you know over you know what we can buy and what we can say and who can say it and so i think they're

00:14:05.680 all sort of a little bit struggling with how to address that without to the point that you raised

00:14:09.600 earlier growing the government but this is the legislative process this is it's iterative right

00:14:14.280 people just don't wake up with the perfect solution yeah you sort of work toward it and i think that's the

00:14:19.060 effort that they're engaged in but there's a very clear line between what republicans want to do and

00:14:24.040 what democrats want to do because when you listen to democrats talk about addressing these tech companies

00:14:28.020 you know they they want to censor all kinds of speech any speech they disagree with they want

00:14:32.340 removed and republicans by and large take the opposite approach that says no the answer to bad

00:14:37.160 speech is not less it's more speech and so i think that they are trying to you know find the best way to

00:14:44.060 address that question and again it a lot of them focus on section 230 reform i think that they should

00:14:50.320 also be focused on antitrust enforcement because i think a lot of these speech concerns are downstream

00:14:56.000 from the fact that there's only three major platforms in america that control kind of how

00:15:01.120 our speech and what we can see and that's facebook google and twitter yeah that's a problem and i think

00:15:06.360 we should be more curious as to why there's only three major platforms right right and it does seem

00:15:11.480 like you said that there are some lawmakers now who are at least curious about that i think that

00:15:16.940 you know some lawmakers just don't understand not to be condescending but they don't really

00:15:21.700 understand social media it's hard for them maybe to think about how this really does have an effect

00:15:28.000 on working class families like how does this really affect the populace but as you've explained so well

00:15:33.820 it does um i want to go through some of the examples in this article that you wrote for american

00:15:39.100 greatness that some of them i didn't know about i had seen some murmurings about mailchimp but i didn't

00:15:45.200 realize what it was about they banned the northern virginia tea party from its platform for trying to

00:15:50.800 organize a recount rally in support of president trump uh substack has been attacked by the

00:15:56.580 columbia journalism review you said uh for perpet quote perpetuating racism for platforming people like

00:16:03.920 andrew sullivan and glenn greenwald a video game website paper rock shotgun fired one of its uh

00:16:11.540 contributing writers banned them for saying that hey maybe we should have a debate about whether or not

00:16:17.960 biological males should be competing against women in sports not even saying whether or not it should 1.00

00:16:24.520 you know whether or not it's good or bad but just saying there should be a debate he was banned

00:16:28.920 abby al schreier as we talked about earlier her book was taken from distribution because of a random

00:16:34.280 person with 1200 followers complaining about it uh to target and then the american civil liberties union

00:16:40.980 you noted said yes taking taking away books is actually a good a good thing for a democratic

00:16:47.220 society amazon recently banned books contradicting the popular narrative about covid and a documentary

00:16:53.140 from shelby steel um and then citibank will not process some gun sales by their own customers

00:17:00.100 wells fargo jp morgan chase us bank will no longer provide services to the private prison industry and

00:17:06.580 the list goes on and on laura loomer who you know neither of us politically align with but her story i mean

00:17:13.900 what's happened to her is crazy uh how she's been deplatformed from twitter periscope facebook instagram

00:17:19.660 medium gofundme venmo mgm resorts paypal lyft uber i mean that is that is crazy and you make this point

00:17:26.540 which i think is a great point that yes we can say that well she really is bad like we really don't agree

00:17:32.940 with her so it's fine but the window moves over and over more and more to where saying hey you know

00:17:40.460 what i think biology matters and you know i'm a christian so i have a biblical view of marriage well

00:17:45.980 that is going to be one day seen as extreme and worthy of basically exiling uh from polite society so

00:17:55.100 i just wanted to list those examples that you gave for anyone who's listening thinking okay you know that's

00:18:00.780 not really happening that's just in the imagination of conservatives that they're being discriminated

00:18:05.980 against do you fear that we are going to see this more and more and that that line will keep moving

00:18:14.140 towards the center well i think that's the lesson of the last five or six years is that that line

00:18:20.220 is moving and it's moving incredibly fast and you know going back to sort of my libertarian roots this

00:18:27.660 should scare anyone who cares about liberty because this isn't the government enforcing its views

00:18:33.660 on you this is the collusion of woke corporate power that has the ability to cut you off from from

00:18:39.900 all mechanisms of society you know again i don't raise the laura loomer example because i endorse her

00:18:44.700 views i raise it because it's instructive she used to be an outlier she's not anymore she's almost

00:18:50.140 a warning for how easily all of these corporations can cut you off from doing business you know with

00:18:55.740 society and i think it's it's not just a matter of well just build your own right that's what we've

00:19:01.100 heard for the last decade right if you don't like google build your own google if you don't like your

00:19:04.540 bank switch to another but increasingly all of these corporations are on the same page about you know

00:19:11.340 their sort of progressive agenda and will shut you down from having a not even an opposing view but

00:19:18.060 even suggesting that there are opposing views right this i think is one of the biggest threats to

00:19:22.780 conservatives conservatives conservatives in the culture that we're not talking about and we need

00:19:26.940 to be yeah i think you're absolutely right and i think the and this you know would have been my

00:19:33.020 traditional response to that hey the market corrects itself and at the end of the day these

00:19:40.460 companies care about green and so they're not going to ostracize you know half of their customer base but

00:19:46.620 what we see continually is that they very much will who they're kowtowing to and these social justice

00:19:52.700 statements and supporting even blm and organizations like that is a very small percentage of the country

00:19:59.500 i believe that in general we're still a center right country even with joe biden winning i think that

00:20:05.980 actually shows that we are still center right of center most of the populace why don't companies care

00:20:12.620 about ostracizing what is presumably the largest portion of their customer base target amazon probably

00:20:21.580 most of the people that use those services aren't in line with a lot of the radical left views and

00:20:28.540 organizations that they are endorsing i mean if these are really capitalist uh you know companies who

00:20:35.100 just care about money why are they okay with you know sacrificing or offending so many of their

00:20:40.940 customers who don't align with them well i think there are two reasons for this the first is that

00:20:46.460 when it comes to the really big corporations like amazon even target um google they know that their

00:20:52.620 customers don't have anywhere else to go i mean amazon it's is it's one of its kind right we can start

00:20:58.220 ordering online just from the retailers themselves but it's such a convenient fact of life for so many

00:21:03.820 people that they're not i mean republicans are notoriously bad at boycotts yeah we talk about it

00:21:09.020 right we just keep shopping yeah so they know they're not going to lose us because we're a

00:21:12.380 captured audience but i think the second fact is that again republicans will not republicans in

00:21:19.260 washington will not use political power against these companies and again i'm not speaking about

00:21:23.980 constructing new bureaucracies to punish specific corporations i'm talking about the fact that these

00:21:28.220 companies know republicans will always line up to cut their corporate tax rate they will line up to

00:21:33.100 give them every advantage possible because you know that we believe they in the free market

00:21:37.500 um and so they will never face a penalty politically or at you know in their wallets and so they keep

00:21:43.740 doing what they want now democrats on the other hand will punish them politically and that's why i

00:21:47.900 think you see a lot of these corporations cozying up to democrats you're seeing big tech now you know

00:21:53.180 get hired by joe biden with all these advisors that formerly worked for facebook they're not they're

00:21:59.020 more scared of democrats than they are of republicans because democrats are the party that will use political

00:22:03.820 power and republicans will just keep cutting corporate tax rates no questions asked so for

00:22:10.140 individuals just your average person who is frustrated by this but feels exactly what you

00:22:16.540 just explained that okay i want to take my business elsewhere my husband and i for example have said okay

00:22:22.220 we gotta stop shopping at amazon especially during this you know during this lockdown period where so much

00:22:28.860 capital has been shifted to these big businesses away from small businesses we want to do we want

00:22:33.660 to do our part to support small businesses and it's sad to say i mean it's shameful to say that

00:22:39.820 convenience so often wins us over that our account is already set up our credit card information is

00:22:47.100 already in there our address is already in there and we know that we're going to be able to find

00:22:52.140 whatever we need but what does the individual do who doesn't want to support these big businesses or

00:23:01.020 the corporations that truly resent us and resent our way of life and resent our views what what power do we

00:23:08.620 have well i don't underestimate you know walking the walk um i was a dedicated amazon purchaser until i

00:23:17.340 actually started looking into amazon and it is not easy but i think you know we as consumers have to

00:23:23.260 take that next step but i think the difference is i don't see that as completely solving the problem

00:23:28.780 i think in addition to doing those steps we also have to you know push our lawmakers to stop

00:23:33.980 politically advantaging these companies at every possible opportunity you know they have done it they

00:23:39.420 have advantaged these companies so much that it actually limits our consumer choice for instance i also

00:23:44.700 think google is an infamously bad company i don't support the practices it engages in i don't want

00:23:50.140 to use google but because of the policy choices our lawmakers have made i cannot opt out of google google's

00:23:56.700 on every app i use on my phone you know it tracks me across the web through its digital advertising i'm

00:24:02.140 using google whether i want to or not and so i think we have to push on our lawmakers to say no

00:24:06.860 you've advantaged these corporations above my consumer choice in many ways above small businesses

00:24:11.740 focus um and you've done so thoughtlessly you know without sort of critical thinking that i think

00:24:17.180 would be necessary so whether it's you know transfer politicians transferring their focus away from big

00:24:23.500 the big corporations and on the small business or on to god forbid pro-life issues or you know family

00:24:29.020 economic issues or things like that or it's you know not reflexively supporting business every time

00:24:34.780 it comes with its handout i think that could go a long way one thing that i was happy to see is that

00:24:40.860 overwhelmingly at least in the house the um gosh i forgot the title of the bill but it was basically

00:24:47.740 saying look we're not gonna we're not going to be taking products that are created by uh

00:24:53.580 by uh the uighur muslims that are in these chinese concentration camps which i thought was a great thing 1.00

00:24:59.500 and the people who voted against it were libertarians and i understand the argument that okay we're not

00:25:06.060 going to tell businesses what they can and can't do but do you think that that kind of form of

00:25:12.620 libertarianism do you think that that is dying i personally when i look at something like that i

00:25:18.780 think it i think it needs to some things have to be restricted that some things have to be done

00:25:23.500 in order to protect liberties would you agree with that yeah i do and i think it's it's a sort of free

00:25:29.580 market fundamentalism that exists within some libertarians who you know prize the market above

00:25:35.500 it's it's a reductive way of looking at the market right which is to say the transaction of goods is

00:25:39.820 all that matters when in reality we know it doesn't and conservatives have been saying this for

00:25:43.420 generations which is the market is a part of our social order and it is incumbent on our our self

00:25:48.860 government so our we the people acting through our representatives to say this is acceptable and this

00:25:54.380 is not and that is oftentimes not a question of economics it's a question of what we as a

00:25:59.020 people cherish you know what what principles we prize in our society and that vote on uyghur muslim 1.00

00:26:05.660 slave labor was exactly that it was us as a country saying there's some things that are bigger than the

00:26:11.820 market there's some things that are bigger than corporate profits and the stock market and that is

00:26:16.140 you know human dignity uh and that is something that we as a country want to stand for and i wonder if

00:26:21.900 that vote which was so largely bipartisan and if you look at the people who sponsored the bill you've got

00:26:26.220 ilhan omar and aoc and you've also got republicans who are sponsoring the bill and i was really happy to see that i wonder

00:26:32.860 in a time where it truly feels like we are living in two different realities sometimes on the right and the left

00:26:39.020 um i wonder if this feeling that hey the elites and these people who are giving into corporations

00:26:46.940 they're not for the working class they're not for the common good of america let's fight against that i 0.87

00:26:53.580 wonder if that is an issue that can bring together the right and the left we're not going to come together

00:26:58.380 obviously on a lot but you do wonder if there is this bipartisan populism that seems to be bubbling up

00:27:06.140 and would be able to bring the two sides together at least when it comes to this because the left also says

00:27:12.140 they hate these big corporations doesn't even matter what their social views are and that they

00:27:16.860 vouch for black lives matter they also say that they they don't like them and then the right there 1.00

00:27:21.980 are now people on the right saying hey hey these corporations hate my way of life they hate my views

00:27:27.260 it feels like they hate me and i don't feel free living under this corporatist oligarchy is there a way

00:27:33.420 for us to come together and to fight against that do you foresee that happening so that was a really

00:27:39.580 interesting development in the trump era is that you did start to see that sort of populist left and a

00:27:45.180 populist right coalesce on certain issues i am actually hopeful that it that it can on on it

00:27:52.540 certain issues we're never going to agree on the sort of the broad sort of cultural issues i think but

00:27:58.460 on case-by-case basis when it comes to addressing corporate power i think there are actually broad areas

00:28:04.380 of agreement that are starting to generate um it's a question of whether our leaders i think

00:28:09.180 politically will allow us to agree uh because i think a lot of this partisanship is driven from

00:28:14.860 our top-down leadership who doesn't want to give an inch you know doesn't want to be seen as agreeing

00:28:19.180 with the other side on anything right and it's going to be difficult because even if both the right and

00:28:24.060 the left agree that some regulation and some whipping into shape is in order when it comes to big tech

00:28:30.940 which i think there is some agreement there there is such a disparate view of what that should look like

00:28:37.820 i mean i think the left would very much like to say yeah look you can't have conservative views on

00:28:42.780 on these platforms because that's harmful and that you know causes violence or or whatever it is well

00:28:49.180 that's not how the right views reining in the power of big tech and so both sides want to reign in these

00:28:56.780 big companies but in very different ways so i think you're right i think it would be it's going to be

00:29:02.700 interesting to see um if the right and the left can come together on this issue how they hash out

00:29:09.100 those differences of of what it actually what it actually looks like um can you give me just to end

00:29:17.580 on a kind of optimistic picture of people who are feeling like you know i'm powerless here and i really

00:29:24.060 feel like my freedoms are being taken from me every direction that i look i thought i could trust in the

00:29:28.940 free market and now it's obvious that i can't do you have optimism for the future and can things change

00:29:37.580 for the better in the way of liberty you know one thing i found really positive about the 2020 election

00:29:46.380 was that there was a big rejection i felt of this sort of woke identity politics narrative the fact that

00:29:53.900 you know trump made gains with minority voters across the board after democrats in a mainstream

00:29:59.740 media for four years told them trump was hitler and hated them i think speaks to a broad rejection in

00:30:06.140 the country of these woke narratives that these corporations are embracing now i'm i i think we need

00:30:12.940 to act quickly but i'm hopeful that there is something of a groundswell of support you know for members

00:30:18.460 of congress to say no you know what i'm not prioritizing corporations that you know so this

00:30:23.660 kind of divisiveness um and insanity you know in america so i actually think that americans do prize their

00:30:31.100 liberty from corporations and from the government much more broadly than sometimes i think people in

00:30:35.580 washington give them credit for and that does give me hope um that this will be reflected in our

00:30:42.140 policies in the next couple of years i agree i i hope so anyway um can you tell everyone where they

00:30:48.540 can find you so you can find uh conservative partnership online at conservative partnership

00:30:54.700 dot org and i post all of my essays on twitter at rachel bovard thank you so much rachel i really

00:31:00.780 appreciate you taking the time to talk to us my pleasure

00:31:04.060 okay guys hope you enjoyed that conversation there was one thing that i wanted to say that i

00:31:12.940 didn't get to say one part of corporate america that just bothers me so much in addition to the

00:31:18.540 censorship in addition to uh the lopsided discrimination against people that hold views

00:31:25.020 and purport views that they don't like is that while they are doing that in the name of virtue they're

00:31:29.500 saying look we're discriminating against these people because we're so virtuous and we're on the right

00:31:33.500 side of history here in america most of them are making billions of dollars not just from the chinese

00:31:38.460 communist party which is arguably the most corrupt regime in the world right up there with the terrorist

00:31:45.260 regimes in the middle east but they are also depending on slave labor like for example apple a left-leaning

00:31:53.740 company that i think in general sometimes does a pretty good job of not discriminating but you know

00:31:59.900 they're this woke corporation that uh says that they are virtuous by espousing these left-wing views

00:32:08.220 they actually lobbied against the bill that was passed in the house to say hey we are not going we're not

00:32:15.260 going to take these products that are created by slave labor in these uyghur concentration camps in china 0.99

00:32:23.180 uh the if you don't know the there are about a million uyghur muslims in concentration camps that

00:32:29.340 are being used as slave labor the organs are being harvested they're being tortured they're being maimed

00:32:34.220 they're being killed uh because of their religion because of their faith and there are companies here in the 0.87

00:32:41.660 united states using the slave labor in those concentration camps to get cheap products so they can have a

00:32:47.180 big profit margin and apparently even though apple denies this uh they are apple is actually benefiting

00:32:55.340 from that and yet they want to come here and pretend like they are virtuous there are so many companies

00:33:00.460 like that same thing with the nba here saying we're fighting for racial justice we're fighting for equality

00:33:06.540 we're fighting for all of these good things meanwhile they are making billions of dollars from the

00:33:11.500 regime that spies on its own citizens that doesn't allow allow free speech that doesn't allow religious 0.99

00:33:17.580 liberty uh that has uh engaged in intellectual property theft has enslaved their own people has

00:33:27.900 tortured their own people has arbitrarily imprisoned their own people has taken away uh taken away the

00:33:32.940 liberties of their own people and yet companies here kowtow to them while pretending to be social justice

00:33:38.700 advocates here and it's because they know that they can get away with making money from terroristic

00:33:44.380 evil regimes uh if they play it right in the united states because they know that the people who have

00:33:50.540 cultural power in the united states are the left so if they repeat the right talking points say the right

00:33:55.260 things partner with black lives matter they can do all their evil sketchy business with countries uh like 1.00

00:34:02.460 china and the and the ccp and they're still going to be fine here that you know we on 0.98

00:34:08.540 the right that we can say whatever we want we can complain however we want to that it's not really

00:34:14.060 going to matter because they've got the virtue points here in the united states uh with the leftist

00:34:19.820 cultural powers that be and so it doesn't it doesn't matter it doesn't matter what other behavior they

00:34:25.740 have throughout the world and so um if those are the people that hate you and hate your views and

00:34:32.460 are discriminating against you while it's terrible and while it's dangerous and while it's

00:34:37.260 absolutely awful and it's scary in a lot of ways um i would say that that's okay that's a good that's

00:34:43.020 a good at least in god's eyes that's a good enemy to have judgment is not going to be light for the

00:34:49.420 people who allow these policies and uh this hypocrisy to go on okay that's all i wanted to say i will be back

00:34:57.820 here on wednesday

Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - November 30, 2020

Ep 332 ｜ One Nation, Under Corporations？｜ Guest： Rachel Bovard

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript

Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - November 30, 2020

Ep 332 ｜ One Nation, Under Corporations？ ｜ Guest： Rachel Bovard

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript

Ep 332 ｜ One Nation, Under Corporations？｜ Guest： Rachel Bovard