Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 337 ｜ The Threat of the Chinese Communist Party & The Rise of Populism ｜ Guest： Saagar Enjeti

00:00:00.000 Hey guys, welcome to Relatable. I am so excited for you to listen to this episode. I am talking

00:00:14.660 to Sagar Injeti. He is a host of a few shows, actually, and he is going to talk to us about

00:00:21.860 the threat of China, how and why it has threatened us and what their actual goals are and what

00:00:29.680 our politicians in Washington are doing about it. We're also going to talk about this idea of

00:00:34.560 populism that is held by some people on the left and some people on the right and what that means

00:00:40.680 and whether or not we think that there is a possibility of populism becoming more popular

00:00:45.220 and maybe bringing the left and the right together on some issues. Sagar, thank you so much for joining

00:00:54.980 me. Hey, thanks for having me, Allie. Can you tell everyone who might not know who you are,

00:01:01.440 what you do, the shows you host and all that good stuff? Sure. I host the Realignment podcast with

00:01:07.400 my friend Marshall Kosloff. That's available everywhere. We talk a lot about basically

00:01:12.040 changing coalitions in American politics. So we've got, you know, working class Republican Party,

00:01:17.740 how the Democratic Party largely realigning, becoming the party of upper middle class

00:01:21.640 liberals. And I also host Rising on the Hill with Crystal Ball. She's a left wing populist. I 1.00

00:01:27.440 would consider myself more of a right wing populist. And we kind of analyze the political

00:01:31.320 news of the day. And that is available on YouTube. So those are the various things that I do during the

00:01:35.680 day. And can you describe what populism is for people who may have heard the term, but they don't

00:01:42.640 really know practically what it means? It's a great question. At its most core, it's actually just a

00:01:48.800 political vehicle. It's using, you know, misrepresentation of elite opinion relative

00:01:55.660 to the general population. So what am I mean by that? Because I think this is a key point, which is

00:02:00.460 that, look, what populism really is, is taking an idea which is not represented by in the elite class,

00:02:09.240 but which is held by the majority of the public. And I think that that's really key to kind of

00:02:13.660 understanding where we are right now in terms of our attitudes towards a whole bunch of different

00:02:19.260 things. So, for example, I would say that our attitudes towards China, our attitudes towards

00:02:25.120 trade, our attitudes towards how we view tax policy and so much more. I'm talking specifically

00:02:31.460 about the right foreign policy is another big one, the war in Iraq and many of these other

00:02:36.360 attitudes and how that doesn't line up with how where most Americans are. So that's probably the best

00:02:41.840 way to understand it. And can you give a specific policy or even position example where the elites

00:02:48.020 are holding one idea and most of the population is totally not on board with that idea?

00:02:54.740 I can't think of a better one than Afghanistan, right? I mean, so there is no space in American 1.00

00:03:01.260 elite culture to question the war in Afghanistan. And yet, I mean, we've had three or four separate

00:03:07.960 presidential elections now where people have voted in order to try and get troops out of Afghanistan.

00:03:13.620 It's one of the most majoritarian positions you can hold as a US politician. And yet, if you were

00:03:19.280 to go to the Pentagon or to talk to any of the think tank class or any of the incoming people,

00:03:24.240 unfortunately, that Joe Biden has tapped for his cabinet, they would look at you like you're a 1.00

00:03:29.480 crazy person. And they say, oh, we have to stay there for various reasons that are unexplainable, 0.59

00:03:33.960 which is why they don't even try to explain it. You know, we have a lot of politicians who've told

00:03:37.960 us now for years, we're going to get out eventually based upon X approach, but then it just never

00:03:43.340 happens. And now it's our longest running war in history. And it's been a total and complete failure

00:03:48.580 for our soldiers, for the Afghan people, and for, you know, our prestige and our military, really.

00:03:55.580 And what is the motivating factor as, you know, a non elite person from your perspective? What is the

00:04:03.820 motivating factor behind, you know, a policy like that, that is not supported by the majority of

00:04:09.320 the American people, and is nonetheless supported by bureaucrats in Washington? Why?

00:04:14.960 I try to be as charitable as I can. But the truth is money. I have tried to say that it was ideology.

00:04:22.940 I have tried to say, well, they just didn't know any better. But at this point, I cannot conclude

00:04:28.620 it as anything else, but money and the perpetuation of a system through which these people are enriching

00:04:34.460 themselves to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars, which is that there is just too much

00:04:39.180 money on the line. And this is a bipartisan group of elites. I want to make that clear to

00:04:44.080 who are just making so much money and perpetuating the system, donating to the think tanks, funding the

00:04:50.460 careers of the people who are pushing for war, and making sure that they then get placed in the

00:04:55.160 next administrations, that I believe that is the chief and motivating influence behind this.

00:05:00.200 Because at this point, there's just been so much contravening evidence about what how exactly we're

00:05:06.000 doing things in Afghanistan, or how exactly our relationship has worked out with China, how exactly

00:05:10.240 things have worked out in terms of tax policy, and so much more. But I can't help but conclude that

00:05:15.580 that is what is just drawing this. I used, like I said, I've tried to be like, maybe they legitimately

00:05:20.320 believe this. And maybe that's true. But it's engineered in such a way that financially benefits

00:05:26.800 a small but very select group of people. You mentioned tax policy. And I think about something

00:05:31.640 that is supported by the elites, that's probably not supported, I would think by most Americans,

00:05:36.120 is the continual efforts to give corporations as many breaks as possible, like tax breaks. I mean,

00:05:46.260 I think traditionally, conservatives are like, yeah, we should have we should lower the corporate

00:05:50.500 tax rate. But that seems like it's been prioritized by Republicans, especially at the expense of breaks

00:05:57.700 for the rest of the American people, or just other policies that benefit the rest of the American

00:06:01.660 people. I talked to Rachel Bovard, who I know that you've had on your podcast as well. And we talked

00:06:08.040 about that, how there has been a priority among Republican Democrats, especially in Washington,

00:06:13.300 to make sure that we are in the name of free markets, helping out these big businesses, but it's

00:06:18.740 actually hurt the American worker. Do you agree? Is that do you agree with that? And is that also another 0.68

00:06:23.940 populist position? I couldn't agree with you more. And I'm really glad that you said the word

00:06:29.560 priority, because this is the key part that I want people to understand, which is that I'm not

00:06:36.020 against big business. I'm not even against making sure that we take care of American corporations and

00:06:42.640 ensuring that we have competitive free enterprise. But that is not the only goal to be maximized.

00:06:49.040 And there are times when that goal becomes in direct conflict with taking care of our actual

00:06:55.300 populace and of our workers. So whenever you can see in our tax policy, if the chief and only aim of

00:07:01.500 getting something is a corporate tax rate cut, but not making sure, for example, the child tax credit

00:07:06.420 is higher. Well, I would say then that our priorities as a conservative, or even just as people

00:07:12.300 are out of whack. Because to me, the chief aim to be maximized in America is the amount of kids that

00:07:20.000 we're having. So we have more kids, so we can be a more competitive country, so that we can be a more

00:07:24.040 dynamic country, a more resilient country. And I think that that is, if there's any chief and

00:07:29.180 driving force behind my politics, that's what it is. You've talked about on your show how you don't,

00:07:34.680 you're not, you don't consider yourself a culture warrior. That's not necessarily where you focus.

00:07:39.800 And yet, one of the priorities that you just mentioned is very much a cultural issue. Yes,

00:07:44.980 it's a political economic issue, the formation and the strength of the family, but it's also a

00:07:49.220 cultural issue. And you've also talked about how you believe that a large portion of the population

00:07:54.280 actually votes based on these cultural issues. That in a lot of ways, speaking of dissonance

00:08:01.140 between the elites and most of the population, most of our cultural views, especially the working

00:08:06.820 class, are not shared by the elites, are not shared by these major corporations. So does populism

00:08:13.960 also include positions on these cultural issues, which I think you would agree with,

00:08:19.200 are very important for the well-being of the country? You are 100% correct. I actually think

00:08:24.780 a lot of what is driving populism today, especially right-wing populism, is culture. When I say I'm not

00:08:30.620 a culture warrior, what I'm more saying is that I am trying to find select groups and areas where I

00:08:36.420 actually think we might be able to make some progress. That does not mean, though, that I don't find

00:08:41.060 these things incredibly important, because you're correct. There is probably no greater disconnect

00:08:46.060 in America between the cultural positions held by the general population and those held by the elite

00:08:52.940 class. And I think that those held by the elite class are incredibly pernicious, if you look at some

00:08:58.160 of those forces, like critical race theory, which is now being shoved down all of our throats through

00:09:03.300 major corporations, Fortune 500 companies, and more. I mean, I've even declared it a top-down

00:09:10.760 revolution from the elite class upon the working class. And this is also why I consider myself 0.96

00:09:16.780 conservative, right? I'm not openly being like, I'm some centrist. No. Look, when push comes to shove,

00:09:22.520 I know who I'm with and who's with me. And because these are positions that I hold, which are also very

00:09:27.540 dear to me, and I think dear to a lot of people. So I want to be very clear that I do believe that the

00:09:33.140 greatest disconnect in America right there is the cultural positions of the American working class,

00:09:39.300 and not even just working class, of conservative Americans and their representation in elite

00:09:45.020 culture. You can't have a country where 75 million people vote for Trump. I mean, how many people voted

00:09:50.440 for Trump in elite institutions, right? Zero to maybe one, maybe 0.05%, something like that. How are

00:09:57.680 they supposed to represent the rest of us? Because that disconnect has implications across a whole wide

00:10:04.380 variety of things, culture, economics. I mean, how we even think about the country at large. It's just

00:10:10.080 so profoundly important. So politicians like AOC and Bernie Sanders, they campaign on this idea of

00:10:17.100 being representative of the working class, of working for the working class. AOC says that, you know,

00:10:22.360 uses the language working people a lot or workers a lot. And she does not represent, I would think,

00:10:30.260 the cultural, social values of the majority of the working class. So do you see that kind of,

00:10:36.260 I don't even know if it's called left-wing populism, but whatever it is that AOC and Bernie

00:10:41.540 Sanders represent, do you see that ever taking hold in the United States in at least anytime soon,

00:10:49.320 knowing that they are not culturally aligned with most of the working class that they say that they

00:10:53.400 represent? No, you're 100% correct. Something I point out that they get very angry about,

00:10:58.500 because they think they have a monopoly whenever it comes to talking about these economic issues.

00:11:02.720 You're 100% right, which is that, look, I mean, Bernie Sanders and AOC, what I've always said is

00:11:08.440 that the beating heart of the American left, and I truly believe this, is the culture war. And how you

00:11:13.880 found that out was during the Black Lives Matter protests recently with George Floyd, which is that

00:11:19.000 when AOC and Amazon are adopting the exact same positions on critical race theory, I think it tells you

00:11:26.080 pretty much everything you need to know about where they actually stand together. And when push comes

00:11:31.380 to shove, here's another good example. Right now they're campaigning against Rahm Emanuel and his

00:11:37.900 inclusion in Biden's cabinet, right? They have nothing to say about his tax positions. They have nothing

00:11:43.440 to say about any of the free trade policies that he pushed for decades while he was in the Clinton

00:11:48.380 administration. They're talking about a police shooting that he helped cover up. And I'm not saying

00:11:54.300 that isn't objectionable, but that's the only thing that they're going with. Do you see what I mean?

00:11:58.500 So like what their core objection is based upon identitarianism, which means, and I love saying 0.62

00:12:05.180 this, there is just no real space between AOC and your average Brown University Ivy League educated

00:12:13.280 liberal. There really isn't. I mean, they use the same language. If you go back and you look at that

00:12:18.320 speech that she gave at the DNC, it was filled with every buzzword you can think of, colonization.

00:12:23.240 And I mean, it was, it was, it was a ludicrous, you know, a seminar type language, which doesn't

00:12:28.800 connect whatsoever with the actual working voters, um, that they purport to represent. And I think

00:12:35.100 that Bernie Sanders, Bernie's a little bit better, you know, I think than AOC, but you know, he's,

00:12:41.060 he's come along this way. I always say this, there's only three positions that Bernie's ever changed

00:12:47.140 positions on ever, right? Which are guns, abortion and immigration. Yeah. And they're all cultural

00:12:53.660 values. And he's become a cultural leftist, um, which is very much in contrast to the economic

00:12:58.660 positions that he holds.

00:12:59.640 And I think Bernie Sanders at least understands that his economic positions and his stance on say

00:13:05.740 immigration are at odds. You can't simultaneously say you want even just any degree of open borders

00:13:13.060 borders or loose borders and say that you want, uh, you know, the kind of social programs that both

00:13:19.800 he and AOC advocate for. I don't know if AOC sees that incongruency or if she does and she just, um,

00:13:28.440 doesn't care. But I do think that the average American sees that, uh, those two goals are,

00:13:35.300 are just not aligned. I think the existence of Appalachia, Appalachian, Appalachian working class

00:13:42.960 people are very inconvenient to people like AOC who in her head has constructed this idea of a

00:13:50.160 coalition of left-wing culture warriors that represent the working class when that's not

00:13:55.600 actually representative of the working class. And I just think that the existence of the white 1.00

00:14:02.260 working class that's represented in something like hillbilly elegy, um, is an obstacle to her 1.00

00:14:08.140 accomplishing her agenda and in a lot of ways to her political success. Do you agree with that?

00:14:13.200 I completely agree with that. And, and look, I actually think right and left do this because

00:14:16.960 I think when the right talks about the work class, what they're talking about is a white working 0.81

00:14:20.200 class. And I think when the left talks about the working class, what they're talking about are like

00:14:23.220 the urban working class. Right. And, and I, and I think that's a fair critique that both sides

00:14:27.560 level against each other. So one of the things that I've tried to do is come up with a

00:14:32.000 more useful definition instead of race. Cause I truly believe that that is not the dividing line

00:14:37.060 in America today. And thank God for that. What I think it is, is education, which is that one of

00:14:42.660 the more clearest determinate, one of the most clear determining factors, whether you voted for

00:14:48.080 Trump or not is whether you had a four year college degree. It's the greatest split. But if you go and

00:14:53.440 you look at the county by county data about who's most represented on four year college degree and who's

00:14:58.620 not, and how they both donated to either Biden or Trump and how they voted. So that tells me,

00:15:05.480 and I, this is a good thing. I think if you're a Republican, 60% of this country did not go to

00:15:10.320 college, right? I mean, does not hold a four year college degree. So the dividing line is again,

00:15:15.520 actually cultural because the cultural values, which economics is largely downstream from culture

00:15:21.080 for most people become ingrained into you through the university educated system. That's how we're

00:15:27.460 talking about, you know, critical, critical race theory to anybody who has not even come into contact

00:15:32.460 with it. Sounds completely insane. It takes years of indoctrination of the university system of being

00:15:39.860 around like-minded folks in order to start believing some of the crazy things that they are putting forward.

00:15:45.080 And so where I see the future going is the educated class versus the uneducated. Now, you know,

00:15:52.860 the leftists love to be like, well, you know, we're the ones who are actually educated. I'm like,

00:15:56.520 okay, well, you know, you don't actually know how to actually build anything, which seems like kind

00:16:00.140 of a problem whenever it comes to running a country. You don't actually know how the rest of your entire

00:16:05.620 population actually votes. And that is how I see things trending. So instead of trying to think

00:16:11.420 things along race lines and more, I like to use education and education also shows them for what

00:16:17.040 a farce that they actually are. I mean, look, you can't even understand the things that she and

00:16:24.360 Bernie and many of the people, the way that they speak, if you haven't been through this like

00:16:29.500 propagandist four-year university system. So the longer that those things trend,

00:16:35.220 then I think it will be more obvious to all of us.

00:16:41.420 I want to talk about China and the threat that it poses in a lot of different ways. But since 0.99

00:16:53.500 we're talking about the working class, that in some ways, like you pointed out, both Republicans

00:16:58.980 and Democrats say that they represent, but actually sometimes mean two different things. But no matter

00:17:04.220 who they mean, the working class, people who maybe don't have a four-year degree, which I would think

00:17:10.080 there's a big overlap there, they have been in a lot of ways, they've gotten the short end of the

00:17:17.540 stick when it comes to our relationship with China and the effects that has had on our manufacturing and

00:17:24.040 our jobs here. And it doesn't seem like very many Republicans or Democrats really care about that

00:17:29.820 or interested in reversing course. Can you talk about what all that means, how we got there,

00:17:36.060 if there is any hope in changing course when it comes to our relationship with China?

00:17:42.100 Yeah, it's a really, there is no more instructive example than China and with NAFTA. These are two

00:17:47.740 things that were pushed by economic elites of both parties, which said would benefit working class

00:17:54.720 Americans and ended up completely screwing them over. We have to be totally honest about how we look at 0.97

00:18:01.420 this. You can see very clearly in manufacturing data, the decline in manufacturing jobs right after

00:18:08.420 the permanent normalization of trade relations with China. And this hurt people both across the

00:18:13.360 industrial Midwest, but really everywhere in terms of competition with cheap labor. It's the same thing

00:18:19.180 with NAFTA. I mean, Joe Biden, I remember he gave a, I went and looked and pulled the transcript

00:18:24.140 of a speech that he gave on the Senate floor when he was voting for NAFTA, talking about a Chrysler factory

00:18:30.500 in his own home state of Delaware, which was going to be supposedly benefited. And it closed in 2007.

00:18:36.220 Why? Because of NAFTA. And this is amazing. I mean, you can see this with so many different

00:18:40.820 politicians. I've even had like Newt Gingrich on my show where he was like, yeah, we made a huge

00:18:44.960 mistake. I should never have voted for this. I never should have pushed this. Our idea was that

00:18:50.080 what we could do is have better economic ties between us and China. And then China would become more 0.52

00:18:57.200 like a democracy. And the opposite happened, which is that they became more autocratic.

00:19:01.720 And we actually started importing Chinese autocracy to our country. When you see people 1.00

00:19:08.140 like LeBron James and our economic elites and our cultural elites were wholly sold out to the

00:19:13.740 Chinese Communist Party. Right. And how is it that those priorities have shifted so much that an

00:19:19.720 American organization like the NBA is more afraid of China than they then they're afraid of or care

00:19:29.700 about their American consumers? I know that China is giving them a lot of money, but America is, too.

00:19:35.400 So why is there a priority in acquiescing to China rather than to Americans?

00:19:41.400 Easy word. It's one word growth. They need to grow. They need a customer base. They've got a billion

00:19:46.540 customers. We've only got 300 million. And they think that we have a saturated market here and a

00:19:51.680 growth opportunity in China. So they're just willing to debase themselves completely. And, you know,

00:19:56.580 on an economic front, they're right. I mean, when James Harden and LeBron James, two people who

00:20:01.940 denounced Daryl Morey whenever he was talking about Hong Kong, both went on sneaker tours in China.

00:20:07.720 They both go over there in order to hawk and sell their products. It's a very simple answer here.

00:20:13.020 They want to make more money. And so there's only really one mediating force which can stop you from

00:20:18.260 doing that. And this is where I think some conservatives need to wake up. And that's

00:20:22.140 the government. Like, I know it's uncomfortable. I want the government to be a tool of last resort

00:20:27.160 whenever we're talking about this. But there's only one way to make sure that we don't get into these

00:20:31.900 economic entanglements. And that's how we have to say, hey, culturally important institutions are not

00:20:37.800 allowed to take money from China. And yes, it will hurt you economically. But as a country,

00:20:43.120 this is the way that things have to be. The way I kind of look at it is China is like Nazi Germany in 0.73

00:20:49.980 the 1930s. Right. And actually now, given what they're doing with Uyghur Muslims, maybe a little 1.00

00:20:54.940 bit longer ahead on that path, maybe something like 1936, 1937. And imagine, though, if Nazi Germany had 0.90

00:21:03.380 been a massive economic powerhouse, the number two economy in the world, and that you had major

00:21:10.620 institutions here in the United States actively taking their money and working on their behalf and

00:21:17.340 Wall Street banks who are you who are essentially lobbyists for that regime. That's the moral

00:21:23.700 equivalence that we have to be kind of begin being more comfortable talking about. And a lot of people

00:21:28.260 are uncomfortable with it. I was encouraged to see, though, that there was a bill. I don't have

00:21:33.360 it in front of me that just said, hey, if you're an American company, you can't be taking products

00:21:39.140 from China that are made by Uyghur slave labor. And the people who voted against it, there were very

00:21:46.360 few. I think there were only maybe three or four in the House who voted against it. But they were all

00:21:50.640 Republicans. They were libertarians. And I just I wonder, though, if that form of so-called

00:21:58.380 conservatism or libertarianism is finally dying out and realizing that, OK, in the name of the free

00:22:05.560 market, we can't sacrifice all of our morals and all of our values. Do you think that that the

00:22:12.980 popularity of that kind of ideology is waning? Well, I really hope so. But I don't want to kid

00:22:18.620 myself either, because, look, I mean, anybody can be against slave labor from China. And that's not a

00:22:23.880 morally courageous position. What if I told you this is one of those moments where I'm like,

00:22:28.460 if I were to go to the average Republican and say, what if I told you that everything you buy in

00:22:33.920 China feeds and kicks up to the Chinese Communist Party, which is actively complicit in using slave 0.80

00:22:40.780 labor and a whole host of other morally abhorrent crimes, then would you be against it? Like then

00:22:47.720 they'll be like, oh, well, you know, there's still some benefit to trading with them. And that's when

00:22:52.580 things become more ambiguous and they become more complicated. So I don't want people to take away

00:22:58.640 that there has been a total ideological victory here. Yes, it is a good thing that we have formally

00:23:03.540 banned slave labor goods from China. But that's the tip of the iceberg. You know, I mean, and again,

00:23:10.440 to use the Nazi analogy, that's like saying that we banned products that were just made in the 0.95

00:23:15.120 concentration camp. And I would say, yeah, OK, like that's great. But the regime itself is also bad.

00:23:22.280 And like we should have conversations here about how exactly we have a relationship here with that

00:23:29.300 regime. It seems like there are people in the media who carry water for the CCP, maybe not explicitly,

00:23:36.660 but they're afraid to criticize them. I think some of it in the most superficial sense and maybe even

00:23:42.340 the most generous sense. Some journalists didn't want to criticize China, at least for the past year,

00:23:47.760 because that meant agreeing with Donald Trump in some way. And so they always, you know,

00:23:51.920 they held to their obligation to oppose Donald Trump. But there seems to be probably a deeper

00:23:56.300 and more sinister thing going on there in American media in their refusal to criticize China in a way

00:24:03.480 that they, of course, in their heads, they would have never given a pass to Nazi Germany.

00:24:08.360 What is causing that hypocrisy there within the American media, do you think? 1.00

00:24:15.040 Stupidity and being brainwashed by identity politics. They think that any criticism of China 1.00

00:24:20.860 whatsoever is equivalent to racism against Asian Americans, which is obviously insane, 1.00

00:24:26.860 an incredibly stupid and reductive way to look at it. But that's how these people think. I mean, 1.00

00:24:32.440 look, look back at the coronavirus. I was one of the early people back in February talking,

00:24:37.080 warning about coronavirus. And I will never forget Vox and many of these other outlets,

00:24:43.060 Nancy Pelosi even, you know, turning concern about coronavirus and travel from China into a race 1.00

00:24:50.660 issue. I mean, it's completely crazy. I don't you know, it could have come from anywhere could have

00:24:56.000 come from Poland. And I would have been like ban Polish people from the United States. You know, 1.00

00:25:00.840 obviously, we should not allow these people to enter the country. It's the same thing with 1.00

00:25:06.860 China. But they're just because it's a minority group. That's the way that they have to look at

00:25:12.340 it. And they still continue to this day. But the Trump part is also key, what you said. They just

00:25:18.000 can't do anything which is seemingly agreeing with Trump like they are literally willing to side with

00:25:23.880 a communist authoritarian dictatorship if it means opposing Trump. And that's where the stupidity comes 1.00

00:25:30.660 in. I mean, I want like I was in the White House press corps. I know these people. Most of them are 1.00

00:25:36.560 not very smart. Like they don't really know anything about American history, American policy.

00:25:42.200 It's stunning. The vapidity of these of and the lack of depth, the lack of education, the lack of

00:25:48.780 familiarity with American policy that many of the people who cover the White House and politics day in

00:25:54.580 day in and day out have. It's really depressing. And even just the lack of curiosity. And I think

00:26:00.740 that lack of intellectual and journalistic curiosity creates a vacuum for not just alternative

00:26:08.220 viewpoints, but in some cases, conspiracy theories to come in because people are seeking truth. People

00:26:13.100 are seeking the people in power to be held accountable. And they're looking for some kind of counter

00:26:19.000 narrative to the mainstream narrative, which they know is tinged by partisanship, which they know is

00:26:25.740 being delivered by people who are not very smart. And unfortunately, that can lead people into these

00:26:31.500 rabbit holes of conspiracy theories that aren't actually offering them a truthful alternative viewpoint,

00:26:36.440 but are, you know, they're sucking them into this black hole of of untruth, basically, 0.73

00:26:46.700 about what's really going on in the world. And that does create a lot of chaos. And then

00:26:50.520 all you get from journalists is that, you know, you people are crazy for thinking about China or 0.75

00:26:56.880 for questioning China when it comes to this virus or you people are crazy for questioning the integrity 0.89

00:27:01.820 of our election. But people are looking for different sources of information to try to

00:27:06.580 understand what's really going on. And it has real effects in people's lives when they can't look to

00:27:11.700 the media to give them that kind of truthful information. Would you agree?

00:27:14.940 It's it's such a damaging phenomena in American politics in the way that the media has covered

00:27:21.500 this stuff is just they've lost so much credibility. And that does a real damage to American society.

00:27:28.020 Whenever you have people who are saying, I do not believe what people are putting in front of me 0.99

00:27:32.980 and on China, it's again, it's look, Americans are not stupid. They can see LeBron James and most 0.96

00:27:40.420 people sit and say, you know what? That's shameful. That is shameful. And they know that whenever it

00:27:45.680 comes to James Harden, when they see the NBA issue statements, this is America. The NBA is American

00:27:51.660 and they better stay that way. And I think there's nothing wrong with saying that. I think we can see

00:27:56.940 that, too, with our institutions, our Wall Street banks. One of the memes, so to speak, that I see

00:28:03.600 liberals often put out there is they're like, when are Trump supporters or conservatives going to come

00:28:09.300 up to New York City and try and understand us? Right. They're like, when are they going to do

00:28:14.720 these profile? And what they don't get is we understand them well. Yeah. You know, you can't

00:28:20.460 watch a movie. Right. You can't turn on the news. You can't live in American society without being

00:28:26.520 dominated by left wing culture. We know who you are. We see you every day. Yeah. We just don't like

00:28:33.380 you. And that's the part that I think they really can't get their heads around. Yeah. OK, explain to

00:28:40.320 us if you could just if you had a minute to tell someone who has no idea what the threat of China is

00:28:49.540 militarily, when it comes to our intelligence, when it comes to economically,

00:28:53.700 all the threats that China poses to this country. And then I have another question to follow up on 1.00

00:29:01.500 that. But if you just had a minute to explain why China really is the biggest threat that America

00:29:06.320 faces, what would you tell that person? America is founded upon freedom. Being free requires America,

00:29:13.940 which is a country which has ideals and leadership aspirations and more in order to have its ability

00:29:20.780 to be free to conduct its trade, to be free to have its own culture, free of molestation and to

00:29:27.320 be free in order to do what it believes it is best for its people across the world. And China

00:29:33.380 threatens American freedom on all three of those vital, important ways to American life. That's the

00:29:40.080 easiest, most based way I would explain it. And how exactly are they doing that in ways that we

00:29:44.360 probably can't see? I think most people probably don't even know that a lot of our manufacturing jobs have

00:29:48.980 been outsourced. Right. And so manufacturing jobs is one of they, you know, destroy the livelihood of

00:29:55.280 American citizens with the complicity of the American elite on culture. Look, I mean, I don't want to see 0.84

00:30:00.680 a Mr. Roger movies, Mr. Rogers movie, which is funded by Tencent Pictures, which is a Chinese government

00:30:06.520 controlled entity. I think that's wrong. I think it's wrong when Tom Cruise's jacket in Top Gun 2 has to be

00:30:13.000 changed. And maybe you think I'm stupid for thinking that. But you know what? That's Tom Cruise. He's an 0.99

00:30:18.040 American and Top Gun is an American film. And we need to make movies for our audience. I'm so sick

00:30:23.860 of going and watching these stupid superhero remakes over and over again because Hollywood just wants to 1.00

00:30:29.540 make more money in China. Or, for example, whenever they change a character in a movie from Tibetan to 1.00

00:30:36.820 like a black woman. And the reason they did that was in order for identity purposes. But they also did it 0.99

00:30:42.020 because they know that that way the movie won't get banned in China. That's our culture. And on the

00:30:47.240 economy, I mean, the way that they have infiltrated our largest financial institutions,

00:30:52.560 they have bought minority stakes in critical industries, they have put millions of Americans

00:30:58.500 out of work. And on the global front, when I talk about American freedom, look, the American-led

00:31:05.200 world order is basically what protects us and our ability to live our lives as we see fit.

00:31:12.560 With China and their expansion across the world, their use of hundreds of billions of dollars in 0.76

00:31:18.940 capital in order to sway different nations to their side, they threaten our ability to have

00:31:24.500 unfettered access to the seas, to markets, and to more. And so if you care about being able to live

00:31:31.440 your life unmolested by any larger force, then you have to care about China because that's what its 1.00

00:31:37.040 global aspiration is. And by the way, it shouldn't just be conservatives who care about those things,

00:31:42.440 but it also shouldn't just be conservatives. And I don't think it necessarily is, but it does seem like

00:31:47.880 conservatives are the loudest when it comes to China. But all of the things that the new cultural

00:31:55.600 left says that they care about, colonization, imperialism, slavery, which is something that we all care

00:32:02.760 about, racism, xenophobia, exploitation, classism, elitism, all of these things that the cultural

00:32:11.360 left cares about and says that they prioritize when it comes to criticizing the United States,

00:32:16.960 they are pretty quiet about it when it comes to the biggest perpetrator of these things or

00:32:21.500 the contributing to pollution and the environment, all of these things that they care about.

00:32:27.680 China is the greatest perpetrator of that, and yet they're quiet on it. Do you think that that is

00:32:32.380 just for the average leftist American, do you think it's just ignorance? Do you think maybe

00:32:37.440 they've been indoctrinated by academia to say, you know, it's actually very sophisticated and

00:32:43.380 intellectual to just criticize the United States in the West? And we don't even look at the sins of

00:32:50.280 the non-white world because it's not posh to do so. 0.99

00:32:54.140 It's academia. There is a deep strain of the academic left, which just loves to self-flagellate on

00:33:00.480 America. And it's like you said, look, if they claim to care about the environment, we could go

00:33:05.400 to zero carbon emissions tomorrow. And it wouldn't matter because China and India are producing the 0.99

00:33:11.280 vast majority of CO2 emissions across the globe. So unless you have a plan in order to get China to 0.91

00:33:17.960 actually reduce its emissions, then you are not a serious person whenever it comes to caring about

00:33:23.660 the environment. And it's the same thing across the board. But this is, again, where their moral

00:33:29.580 relativism is so insulting to the United States. And I talked a lot about this during the Black Lives 0.66

00:33:35.680 Matter protests. People would get angry for me when I would be like, there is no country on earth which

00:33:40.660 has done more to atone for its racial sins than the United States of America. That's an empirically

00:33:46.040 true fact. I mean, my family moved here, lived here. I have lived a prosperous life. And I'm not saying

00:33:52.320 things are perfect, but we fought an entire war in order to free slaves. I mean, I don't see a lot

00:33:58.440 of other countries doing that. I'm sorry. Yeah. And I go and I look at China. And this is this is 0.64

00:34:04.100 where, again, they're so imbued with an ideology in which America is like a patriarchal, horrific,

00:34:11.620 white, identitarian nation that they think we have to fix, quote unquote, those problems before we can 0.97

00:34:18.840 even begin to talk about China. And so it leads to this ridiculous moral relativism where you would 0.91

00:34:25.520 compare the United States of America, which is the greatest country on earth to China. And you would 0.68

00:34:33.040 say, oh, well, there's somehow moral equivalence between like caring about whether you have a hard

00:34:39.100 border between the US and Mexico and three million people locked in camps in Xinjiang. And it's just this

00:34:47.780 is they have no even language in order to tell you why that isn't ridiculous.

00:34:54.060 And you see how critical race theory kind of helps sanction their moral relativism. They don't see it

00:34:59.060 as moral relativism because critical race theory tells you white people, bad, non-white people,

00:35:04.760 good. And your innocence is in guilt is ascribed to you according to these racial identity groups.

00:35:12.160 And if that is the lens through which you see the world, you feel totally righteous and justified in

00:35:17.200 saying America and the West and the white world are bad because they're either active in racism or

00:35:23.780 they're complicit in racism. But the non-white world isn't because you can't actually be given any guilt 0.95

00:35:30.040 unless you are white. That is why also critical race theory leads to the kind of absurdity that it does,

00:35:36.760 that it doesn't allow us to view people as individuals. It doesn't allow us to view regimes rightly

00:35:44.120 and through an actual moral lens of what is right and wrong, no matter what your skin color is,

00:35:49.280 because right and wrong is actually defined by what your skin color is, which is the exact opposite

00:35:54.880 of what something like Martin Luther King wanted. And so I've also been trying to explain to people

00:36:00.000 that the current identitarian movement that we're seeing from the left in the form of things like

00:36:04.640 Black Lives Matter is not the same as the civil rights movement that we saw in the 1960s.

00:36:09.680 They actually share common cause with leftists across the world, no matter how terrible their

00:36:14.680 regime is because of some of the goals that they have. China is also very ethnocentric and

00:36:20.820 identitarian in their views as well, which is why people in Black Lives Matter have nothing bad to say

00:36:28.180 about the regime that is actually colonizing, that is actually imperialistic, that is actually enslaving

00:36:33.500 people and kicking out Africans, by the way, in the name of public health. I would say that's probably 1.00

00:36:39.300 where the hypocrisy comes from in a lot of ways. Would you agree?

00:36:43.840 I completely agree. I mean, I try to talk about this in a way that really can people can understand,

00:36:49.480 which is that one of the things critical race theorists love to talk about is like the racial

00:36:53.380 wealth gap, right? Well, I looked at it. The racial wealth gap in America between white and blacks,

00:36:58.700 if you look at it and the pure dollar figure, it looks immense. What it really is, is there's a

00:37:04.720 huge wealth gap between the top 10% of wealthiest white Americans and the top 10% of wealthiest black

00:37:10.680 Americans, but both of those groups are in the top 1%, right? And so you're like, wait a second.

00:37:16.120 So the bottom 75% of whites and blacks actually make the exact same income in America. So any sort of

00:37:24.300 policy which were to address income distribution would naturally be better for black Americans and

00:37:31.280 for white Americans. The trend that I want people to understand is that if you really want to help

00:37:37.120 black Americans and you really want to help white Americans and you really want to help Latino

00:37:41.700 Americans, then going and looking at the structural inequities in our economic system and in our class

00:37:47.900 system that we have deeply embedded in America is the best way to do that. The most quote unquote

00:37:53.620 anti-racist work that you can do is to alleviate poverty in the United States. That is the easiest way

00:38:00.720 to address racial and structural inequities in America, but they don't want to talk about that

00:38:06.500 because that would require actually doing something that challenges power. That's why Amazon and the

00:38:14.580 largest corporations in America are all in on Black Lives Matter. Because as long as we are divided by 0.92

00:38:20.240 race, then we are not going to ask different and tough questions about class in America, which would

00:38:26.400 directly target the bottom line of somebody like Jeff Bezos and of Amazon Corporation.

00:38:32.860 Do you see a shift optimistically if you were to put your most optimistic glasses on and look at the

00:38:39.320 future? Do you see there becoming a common cause between the right and the left in the form of some

00:38:46.280 sort of populism that says, hang on, we are being put upon by these elites who don't share a lot of the

00:38:52.780 same goals as we do. Let's come together and try to change things. Or do you think that our cultural

00:38:59.600 values between the right and the left, even if we are both populist in, say, economics, that is going

00:39:06.660 to drive us apart so much to where the right and the left can't come together in common cause against

00:39:12.200 the Jeff Bezos's and the Washington bureaucrats of the world?

00:39:17.180 I thought about this question a lot. And I can give you an optimistic view and I can give you the

00:39:23.880 pessimistic view. OK, the optimistic view were to be to point to where we are right now in the

00:39:28.540 stimulus negotiations on Capitol Hill. Josh Hawley and Bernie Sanders are working together in order

00:39:34.040 to try to get Americans twelve hundred dollar stimulus checks. That is an example of left right wing

00:39:40.260 populace coming together on an empirical, I think, good. I will argue very strongly in favor of those

00:39:46.000 stimulus checks for American families and American workers. But in the long run, there is no substantive

00:39:52.940 strategy which is going to bring either side together, because as you point out, look, when the

00:39:58.220 left talks about like, let's say health care, right, that's always one that they like to they like to

00:40:03.220 discuss. There is no world where Bernie Sanders or AOC or any of them are willing to compromise and say

00:40:10.200 we're only going to give Medicare for all to American citizens. For them, it has to include 1.00

00:40:15.340 illegal immigrants and it would have to cover abortion. Right. Right. Because that they think 1.00

00:40:20.120 abortion is health care. And there's no right winger on the in the world who even if, let's say,

00:40:25.200 universal health care was a good idea. And, you know, that's something we can argue about a lot,

00:40:29.980 which is that even if you would, they're like, no, like, I'm not going to cover, you know, like the

00:40:34.780 murdering of children in my health care policy. So that's where things began to diverge. Same thing

00:40:41.740 whenever we come to stimulus checks. I think it tells you everything back in. What was it in March

00:40:46.580 after we passed the CARES Act? The first thing that AOC and Rashida Tlaib and all those people

00:40:52.080 were arguing for is, oh, we got to get checks out to illegal immigrants. And I'm like, really,

00:40:57.060 like this is what you're worried about right now, like your own countrymen and citizens are being left

00:41:02.740 in the dust and you want to help out people who are here illegally. That's their like I said, 1.00

00:41:08.260 the beating heart of the left is cultural liberalism. All of their economic populist

00:41:13.480 ends go towards helping, you know, you know, even non-citizens and covering cultural leftist

00:41:20.280 causes like abortion. That's never going to fly for people who are conservatives. And I would say

00:41:25.780 on the conservative side, we probably hold a more structural advantage because I think there are a

00:41:31.140 lot of conservatives who are like, yeah, I could see the merits and, you know, in checks, but like

00:41:36.720 sending something to illegal immigrants is obviously completely insane or using taxpayer 1.00

00:41:41.780 dollars in order to cover. You know, I mean, I can't believe that it's a controversial position

00:41:46.240 to say that taxpayer dollars shouldn't cover abortion. I mean, if the country is split 50 50

00:41:51.260 on something, you can't just unilaterally endorse it through government policy. But that's what they

00:41:56.800 want to do through a lot of their ends. Yeah. I mean, I'm just sitting here thinking that even if,

00:42:01.720 you know, exactly what you just said, if AOC and I could agree on a certain economic policy,

00:42:06.940 I'm never going to waver on abortion. I'm never going to waver on that. And I'm never going to

00:42:11.860 waver on like you talked about, you know, single payer health care covering abortion. I also don't

00:42:17.880 want it to cover, you know, gender reassignment for kids. Like, I'm never going to change on that 0.83

00:42:23.820 because that value is never going to change. And they probably aren't going to change on that

00:42:28.620 either. If you believe, as some people do on the left, that abortion is a moral good,

00:42:33.820 that it's actually, you know, it's good for the woman to have that, you know, so-called bodily

00:42:37.860 autonomy, then I don't really see how we are ever going to come together on economic issues. And I

00:42:44.120 think some people wrongly believe that people only vote with their pocketbooks. I can't, even if I was

00:42:51.500 destitute, I could not vote for funding abortion. And I think there are a lot of people that are exactly 0.93

00:42:56.780 like that. And so I'm not sure if we- And there's nothing wrong with that,

00:43:00.440 Allie. I want people to understand that. There's nothing wrong with that. There's nothing wrong

00:43:04.500 with voting your conscience on an issue. And, but that's just why I don't think it's ever going to

00:43:09.880 happen. And I don't think it should happen. I don't think people should compromise on these

00:43:13.500 things, left or right, if you really believe in them. And so that's why I just think one side has

00:43:18.800 to win. And that's just how it goes. I was about to say, I don't think we ever got to the

00:43:22.240 optimistic view of it. I think it's just going to be, it's going to be a power structure, a power

00:43:27.640 struggle. Now, I do think that some of these cultural issues that are being pushed, like, for

00:43:32.100 example, that kids can transition without really any consent of their parents, which I think a lot 0.95

00:43:38.520 of some people on the left would like, that has real life implications and consequences that only

00:43:46.080 time will tell. And if we are allowed access to the information of the consequences of that,

00:43:50.480 the consequences that that has on a person's body and a person's mental health, then I do think that

00:43:56.620 at some point they're going to have to backtrack. I mean, we've seen cultural issues kind of like that

00:44:01.360 throughout, throughout history that, okay, we thought that that was true, or we thought that that was

00:44:06.280 good, but it actually really wasn't. And we had to go back on it. So maybe there's a little bit of

00:44:10.800 optimism there that the most ridiculous and unscientific positions of the left will just because of human 0.93

00:44:17.380 nature have to be reversed upon. But I guess that's the only bit of optimism I have when it comes to 0.64

00:44:24.560 when it comes to unity. Can you leave people with any bit of encouragement or optimism?

00:44:31.360 What I would say is this, look, the last four years have shown us that the elites have no clothes.

00:44:38.340 Somebody told me today that they believe that Trump was like an earthquake and that he just knocked

00:44:42.480 everything down. And as somebody who's been wanting to knock that stuff down, that's amazing.

00:44:46.660 We have the greatest opportunity in a century in America to remake American life and we cannot

00:44:53.540 waste it. You know, there is a crisis going on in this country and it is a time and a final

00:44:59.420 opportunity in order to redress some of the problems with China, some of the problems with

00:45:04.300 our American families, some of the problems with so much of the way that we run this country on a

00:45:09.380 day to day basis and quote unquote normal times that there's never been a better time. If you're

00:45:14.160 somebody like me who wants to see something really good happen in America, that this is the time to do

00:45:18.900 it. Oh, you know, I meant to ask you two questions and I was about to end this, but I just quickly

00:45:24.460 want to hear you rant and rave about Pete Buttigieg being floated about the being floated as the

00:45:32.420 potential ambassador to China. You just talked about addressing our issues to China. It seems like this

00:45:37.520 administration and the people they are putting in place are the worst possible picks that we could

00:45:43.560 select if we're talking about taking a strong stance against China.

00:45:47.800 Buttigieg is a complete and total joke. I mean, this is a guy who is the former South Bend mayor who

00:45:53.440 we're about to send over to China. Look, our last two U.S. ambassadors to China, Terry Branstad was

00:45:59.000 Trump's ambassador to China. He knew Xi Jinping for 30 years. He was governor of Iowa because Iowa and

00:46:05.780 Xi Jinping's province, he's the president of China, had like a sister relationship. That seems like

00:46:11.640 somebody you want negotiating with Xi Jinping. And the one before that, I'll even give Obama credit,

00:46:17.020 was John Huntsman. I don't really like John Huntsman in a lot of his politics, but he spoke

00:46:21.420 fluent Mandarin. That seems like somebody that you would probably want in China. This man has had no 0.92

00:46:27.100 diplomatic experience whatsoever to the extent that he has any thoughts on China. It is largely the

00:46:34.100 ideology of the people who sold us out to that country in the first place. And the most important

00:46:39.720 diplomatic position in the world in terms of ambassadorship should not be going to the former

00:46:45.600 mayor of a small town in Indiana. No offense to South Bend. It's a great town, but I'm sorry. This is

00:46:52.460 not something where literally the course of the free world can be left up to somebody like him.

00:46:57.460 Yeah, I think you're absolutely right. And it seems also that the Biden administration,

00:47:01.220 I think you agree. Like there is some people that despite their flaws, they're just the person for

00:47:07.260 the moment. I mean, conservatives and liberals all have problems with someone like George W. Bush.

00:47:12.000 But I think a lot of us would agree that I'm so glad that he was there on 9-11 and not Al Gore.

00:47:16.280 And obviously some mistakes were made after that. But you kind of feel like, OK, he was the person for

00:47:20.640 that specific moment, despite some flaws. Same thing with Trump. He was the man for specific

00:47:25.460 challenges in America over the past four years, despite some of his flaws. FDR was the man for 0.66

00:47:31.820 some specific moments then, despite some of his policy flaws. The exact opposite of that is Joe

00:47:37.160 Biden when we're looking at some of the challenges that we face, especially in relation to China.

00:47:41.920 Like I couldn't think of a worse man for the moment, a swampier man for the moment when we're looking

00:47:47.420 at, OK, prioritizing the American worker and not to these international elites. It seems like,

00:47:55.580 I mean, that Joe Biden's going to take us in the exact opposite direction. What do you think?

00:48:00.760 I agree with you. And proud of the problem in America is we only like to talk about our wins.

00:48:04.960 We don't like to think about our losses. Well, we've had plenty of presidents which were needed in

00:48:09.380 the moment and they did not show up. People like Buchanan, people like Andrew Johnson after

00:48:15.720 Abraham Lincoln. We just won the Civil War and then we completely bungled Reconstruction,

00:48:19.320 right? I mean, I can point Rutherford B. Hayes. There are a lot of different times

00:48:23.260 in American history or Calvin. I would say Calvin Coolidge. That one makes the conservatives upset

00:48:28.120 with me, but that's OK. Yeah. There are a lot of people who needed to show up in a very specific

00:48:33.700 moment and could have prevented the crises which forged great presidents. And I believe that Joe Biden

00:48:39.540 is going to be in the category of that man. Yeah, I agree with you. OK, can you tell everyone

00:48:44.600 where they can find you again, where they can listen to you and watch you?

00:48:49.100 Well, I'm at eSager on Twitter and you can check me out on the Realignment podcast,

00:48:54.300 which is available wherever you get your podcast and The Hill Rising Show. It's on YouTube every

00:48:59.300 morning, posted 1030 a.m. Eastern Standard Time. So I'll be there.

00:49:02.760 Awesome. Thank you so much, Sager. Thanks, Ali. Appreciate it.

00:49:06.000 Bye.

00:49:17.500 Woo! 0.99

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Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - December 11, 2020

Ep 337 ｜ The Threat of the Chinese Communist Party & The Rise of Populism ｜ Guest： Saagar Enjeti

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