00:00:30.700Hey everybody, how's it going? Thanks for joining me this afternoon. I've got a great stream with a great guest that I think you're really going to enjoy.
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00:01:07.360All right, guys, you are probably aware that birthright citizenship has come up as a critical
00:01:13.380issue, one of the most important issues facing our nation.
00:01:16.760And during the hearing for that issue, we heard some, let's just say, spurious reasoning
00:01:23.860when it came to what may constitute an American citizen, how we might apply this.
00:01:29.120And it really opens up a question because it's very clear that the intention as written in the 14th Amendment and the intention of the people who wrote the 14th Amendment that we can see in extra documents make it clear the 14th Amendment is supposed to be for the children of freed slaves.
00:01:46.960It is not a blanket invitation of anyone who is ever a foreigner to have a baby on United States soil and suddenly become a U.S. citizen.
00:01:55.180And yet it seems pretty clear that we're going to get exactly that interpretation out of a quote unquote conservative Supreme Court.
00:02:03.900So the question then becomes, has this legalistic understanding of the Constitution, this attempt to be a constitutional originalist, a Talmudic understanding of the Constitution, if you will, has that really benefited the right?
00:02:20.540Is that really what the conservative movement should be looking to do?
00:02:24.800Joining me today to talk about this is the leader of the Exit Group, Kevin Dolan.
00:02:32.100of course you had a fantastic piece in uh your your newsletter here recently that i think
00:02:38.560really laid this problem out very well so i encourage people to go read the original piece
00:02:43.360but i wanted to talk to you about it expand on it because i think it's so critical at this juncture
00:02:48.520i am somebody who has been trying to shift kind of the right-wing understanding of the constitution
00:02:56.200the conservative conception of the Constitution, because it's become this just kind of legal
00:03:02.940contract by which if we scour through it thoroughly enough and we are we are true enough to the words
00:03:09.540written on the paper, eventually it will produce the type of government and the type of situation
00:03:15.380for the nation that we hope for. But it seems more and more that even though we're going through
00:03:21.460like the Federalist Society and looking for these originalist judges and all of these things.
00:03:26.980When it comes down to brass tacks, Amy Coney Barrett seems more interested in whether or not
00:03:31.680it would be mean and messy to adjudicate citizenship as opposed to what the 14th Amendment,
00:03:37.120you know, like actually said originally what it really meant. And so if that's not the goal,
00:03:42.920if the goal to produce like these originalist judges is a failure, how should we be conceiving
00:03:49.060of the constitution because you know when you start talking about the constitution as anything
00:03:53.580other than this like completely dry exactly academic uh intellectual document legal document
00:04:01.140all of a sudden people start hearing things like living like a living constitution and and then
00:04:07.120you're woke and that's the scare you know what scares a lot of people so how should we be
00:04:11.480conceiving the constitution if not like this dry academic document well i think you you have
00:04:19.040to recognize that text itself not just the constitution but but human language uh doesn't
00:04:27.500work in this in this legalistic uh autistic talmudic way where like you can actually get to
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00:04:34.080the truth from the words themselves uh the words are not self-enforcing they're not self-interpreting
00:04:39.480they don't tell you what they mean and uh anytime you're trying to interpret a text you're bringing
00:04:45.460a context to the text and uh you basically the inside of the postmodernists uh uh most most
00:04:53.500famously derida who said there's nothing outside the text the truth that they were getting at
00:04:59.380was that there's basically uh there's infinite context that you can bring uh to a document and
00:05:07.400say like well this is what it actually means and what what originalists uh ostensibly are trying
00:05:14.560to do is to say well we really respect the founding fathers and we really respect and not
00:05:21.940only that but like if we don't if we don't respect the intent of the founders then we're all just
00:05:27.360playing calvin ball and that's that's what they're trying to do or what they say they're trying to do
00:05:32.580but really when you get right down to it amy coney barrett john roberts uh in particular
00:05:39.080the sort of like people who they seem like originalists they talk like originalists but
00:05:44.060in in the final and out like when when the rubber meets the road they're not the reason for that is
00:05:48.860there are so few conservatives who actually want to honor the intent of like a 1787 virginia planter
00:05:57.060yeah exactly exactly yeah and and you know like if you if and that's where progressives can just
00:06:03.500nail these people to the wall is like they talk about the specifics of like what 1787 virginia
00:06:10.960planters said and believed and they ask him like oh is that what we should uh is that we should
00:06:16.600honor is that we should be doing and of course the the the originalist folds like a cheap suit
00:06:22.180and so what i think we have to do is basically what what they're what they're doing in practice
00:06:28.880with originalism is they're just trying to dodge they're just trying to say like i don't want to
00:06:35.500decide so i'm going to find in the text and i'm going to say well the text says we have to do
00:06:40.800x y and z but again text can't tell you what to do text can't decide what it means and so uh they
00:06:49.440get just run circles around them by progressives who recognize that like actually a judge's job
00:06:55.580is to make judgments and like and like decide how things ought to be and there's really no escaping
00:07:01.540that and so um to answer your your specific question of how do we how do we handle the
00:07:08.840constitution with that understanding i think you have to treat it as a spirit you have to treat it
00:07:15.400as a guiding uh and and this is actually not that hard to do like if you talk to like almost any
00:07:22.380conservative there's not like huge diversity of interpretation about you know what the
00:07:31.040constitution ought to mean what rights you know americans ought to have and and who are who
00:07:35.500Americans ought to be. It's actually not that hard. It's only hard when you're trying to apply
00:07:41.700this Talmudic model and you're trying to dodge questions of power, questions of decision.
00:07:47.620So there's a lot to unpack there that I think is really critical. So again, the first thing,
00:07:52.700because you mentioned the postmodernists and we're talking about world spirits and living
00:07:58.400constitution and it's just Hegel all over the place. It's a disaster of Hegelian proportions.
00:08:05.500uh but but what you're saying here i know people are going to grab those buzzwords and they're
00:08:11.060going to run it so somewhere james lindsey is cutting this interview like madly right now just
00:08:15.360like i've got them now i hope so yes please desperately please uh but uh i want to continue
00:08:22.000i want to put this in the full context of what you're saying here so it doesn't get pulled apart
00:08:26.800So, so often what conservatives say are saying are we want to continue the founding. We want to refer to the founders as this final authority over which kind of over our entire society that determine what we should be doing in this moment.
00:08:46.260When they make that appeal, as you point out, the problem is that what the founders really believed is so radically right wing as to be like basically like just this insane, you know, 1930s Germany revolution in the eyes of the average progressive.
00:09:06.080Right. Like what a what a founding father believed in 1790 was far more radically right wing than anything that national socialists were cooking up, you know, anywhere in mid century Germany.
00:09:19.160And so when you look at something like the, you know, Immigration Act of 1790, it's very clear who these founding fathers should thought should be coming to the United States.
00:09:31.240And there is not a single conservative who wants to appeal to the spirit of the founding fathers when it comes to determining citizenship.
00:09:39.900So we just kind of leave out John Jay and featherless number three, and we just leave out these immigration acts that are clear precedents that reveal the actual will of the founding fathers in this area.
00:09:51.860yeah however at the same time while conservatives are more or less embracing a progressive notion
00:09:58.980of the constitution and saying well yeah obviously we're not going to like literally do what they
00:10:04.640meant back in the 1790s they also don't want to completely unmoor the constitution from any
00:10:11.200tradition any understanding right right and so what we get is this well we should be originalists
00:10:16.840but that means we're kind of looking at the text and we're trying to pull it apart we're trying to
00:10:22.860argue about its different uh you know meanings and these kind of things without the actual
00:10:28.760context of the tradition because we can't we can't factor that back in because that's going to be a
00:10:32.960problem so we're just we're just claiming that the text itself is sufficient now the problem is as we
00:10:39.380have seen that the text itself is wildly insufficient as you pointed out even with people
00:10:44.120claim to be originalists they're not even coming close to this and so the only way you can truly
00:10:49.600understand the constitution is itself as a living tradition and i don't mean a tradition in which
00:10:55.920you can do whatever you want that's not what i mean by living tradition i mean a tradition that
00:11:00.400is well and alive and has continued on from the founding to this moment and if you only understand
00:11:07.340the constitution in this like dry procedural manner then you're making the same mistakes and
00:11:12.840this is why where the you know the actual title of this episode came from besides its obvious
00:11:18.260clickbait quality uh it uh the problem you run into is you become a jew in the first century
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00:11:26.420you become somebody who has become so obsessed with the letter of the law and attempts to follow
00:11:32.540the law to the t that you forgot that the sabbath is made for man and not the other way around and
00:11:38.720the constitution was made for americans americans were not made for or by the constitution and so
00:11:45.320in order to live just as the followers of christ would in the way of god we must actually be doing
00:11:51.840things we must be animated by this spirit we cannot simply be reading the text and hoping that
00:11:58.480if we get just the right argument at just the right time and just enough leverage inside the
00:12:03.520system we'll be able to force our interpretation on it no we need to actually be doing stuff that
00:12:09.960is in the spirit of the constitution and so then when we look at the constitution we can see what
00:12:16.960an american is we can see what america is it's a way of life that is take a snapshot of which is
00:12:23.880encapsulated in the constitution itself and it's a beautiful thing that it's there and it's important
00:12:28.160that it's there but it's not enough by itself so we're not arguing here for a completely unmoored
00:12:34.160completely relativistic understanding of the constitution far far different we're looking
00:12:39.580for the most grounded and most real understanding of a constitution which is the way it's actually
00:12:45.960carried out by the people at any given time yeah and you know uh art of war says uh you know give
00:12:54.180give your enemy a royal road or a golden road to, to, to retreat through. Um, the, the path they
00:13:01.120give conservatives to retreat through is they say, well, you know, there's the amendment process,
00:13:06.960there's judicial review. And if you think about it, the founding fathers were kind of the libtards
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00:13:12.400of their time. Like they were, uh, you know, heading in a direction. And so we should just
00:13:17.300keep following that arc that trajectory and uh and so of course it's it's like whoever is gonna
00:13:26.920like basically the progressives have have have embraced this idea that like there's a there's a
00:13:35.120a promise of america right there's something america is is aiming toward or ought to be
00:13:42.200which basically i mean it makes it entirely emotive it makes it entirely you know subjective
00:13:47.780and just you know it's it's whatever makes amy coney barrett feel less sad that's what uh that's
00:13:54.520what we ought to do and which is an incredibly like intoxicatingly powerful uh model of jurisprudence
00:14:00.560if you're amy coney barrett right like you just everything can be just exactly the way you think
00:14:04.660it ought to be and uh i guess what i would say like with with respect to you know what do we do
00:14:13.020about this i think the comparison to scripture is very very important because i think most people
00:14:23.160have come around to the understanding that like the text does not actually tell you exactly i mean
00:14:32.200there's just a million churches and they all many, many, many sincere people with very different
00:14:37.260interpretations. And, uh, you sort of have to bite the bullet and say like, yeah, there, there,
00:14:44.460there has to be something exogenous, whether it's the Holy spirit or what, like, or tradition or
00:14:48.820Catholics have tradition Protestants. And, and, and so I'm a Latter-day Saint. It's usually
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00:14:52.440something like the Holy spirit or revelation that tells you what the text means. Something
00:14:56.040that comes from the outside. And that's what I would say. Something similar, something living
00:15:31.260his right to decide, you know, he's the Lord of, of, of, of the Sabbath. And, uh, and like he's,
00:15:40.060he's the one who gets to decide, uh, the state of exception. It's, it's, it's his, uh, he's
00:15:45.200asserting sovereignty. And so, uh, what, what we have to do, and it's, it's, it's an embrace of
00:15:51.160this question of, of power that like people, people hide behind the text. And that's a lot
00:15:57.440of what the pharisees were doing right it's like the whole thing of corbin and you know it's an
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00:16:01.660offering and that's why i don't have to take care of my mom and dad you know uh people hide behind
00:16:07.560the text because uh it's it's self-serving and it allows them to dodge responsibility and we've got
00:16:12.640to just stop doing that and and we and and progressives have created this really elegant
00:16:17.960system for letting conservatives do that letting conservatives not be the ones to decide and they
00:16:24.700okay sure you know if you think the text ought to decide well uh here's our bonkers totally
00:16:31.300tendentious interpretation of the text and uh and and part of the problem there too with with
00:16:37.100judicial review and i mean even you talk about the 14th amendment like 14th amendment was
00:16:41.080rammed through by essentially military tribunals in the aftermath of the civil war like there's
00:16:46.720there's deep questions about the legitimacy of all the reconstruction amendments but like
00:16:51.260the process the problem that a strict autistic constitutional libertarian type person has
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00:16:59.640is that the procedure that the system ostensibly lays out or at least the the place the procedure
00:17:08.020has taken us is a place where you know four justices are basically overt gay race communists
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00:17:16.660and two of them are, uh, basically quizlings and all of those people that, that majority section
00:17:26.560of, of the court is really has no commitment to the text as such. They don't share your belief
00:17:35.080and your procedure got them here and put them in the chair to decide that your procedure doesn't
00:17:40.960matter. And so it's like, where do you go from here? It's like, well, you have to, you have to
00:17:45.620stop dodgy questions of accountability and power and that's really important because as you say
00:17:51.580this is the process that conservatives have functionally participated in to create their
00:17:57.700own political cul-de-sac right like whenever any kind of real energy or understanding of what's
00:18:03.660going on arises you can always redirect it into this proceduralism and say well guys if you go
00:18:09.640through the hoops and you get these justices nominated and you know they they somehow forget
00:18:14.600everything they learned at law school and all their progressive programming that came out of
00:18:18.420the university and all the incentive structures that were laid out both societally and academically
00:18:24.080for them to come to the progressive understanding and you somehow get a person in who has actually
00:18:29.580been stripped of all that stuff then maybe you do that like five more times over the course of 30
00:18:36.080years and you might if you're very lucky get the original understanding of the 14th amendment as it
00:18:41.740was written you know that if again like if you're as it was as it was presented to congress by
00:18:48.520thaddeus stevens who was like a nutcase like it's i mean it's like again it's like you have to go
00:18:54.240back and talk about like these people were not being careful right uh with with particularly
00:18:58.96014a like they were not being careful and so like if we're talking about original intent
00:19:03.020it's like what are we even doing like we you you have to go farther back than that
00:19:07.540When you're discussing the original intent of an amendment that was put into place after a extremely, you know, contentious civil war in which Abraham Lincoln basically threw the entire Constitution in the shredder, you're already in like a dicey area, right?
00:19:24.580like this this is we're already talking about the legitimacy of a project that was by its very
00:19:30.580definition constitutionally illegitimate and now we're you know arguing over the details of again
00:19:37.140the 14th amendment as i've said on twitter is a complete disaster it needs to be repealed like
00:19:41.780backwards in force the whole thing is just you know it get it the incorporation doctrine uh you
00:19:47.320know the birthright citizenship everything about it just completely destroys constitutional
00:19:51.300governance as we understood before 1865 it really makes a mockery of the idea that we live in a
00:19:56.340constitutional republic today like i'll just say this three or four times so we can beat this into
00:20:00.800the ground you do not live in a constitutional republic you do not live in a constitutional
00:20:05.280republic you have never lived in a constitutional republic your parents your grandparents your
00:20:10.300great-grandparents have never lived under the form of government that you keep telling me you have
00:20:14.520it does not exist you do not live inside it it is fake it is fake fake fake fake fake so now that
00:20:20.580we've covered the fakeness of the whole thing let's talk about what's real right so what is
00:20:26.700what does a real constitution look like and this is where your piece i think got interesting because
00:20:31.740we all know we're in a bad place with this originalist version at this point like we we are
00:20:38.380probably a month or so away from the supreme court saying that chinese and you know uh turkish
00:20:48.500birth scammers are entirely guaranteed the right to have their children here under the 14th
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00:20:53.540amendment and have them gain full access to you know the medicaid and medicare and the education
00:20:59.120system and and business development loans and oh by the way they get to choose the leader
00:21:04.000of the country so you know we're kind of in the uh ye old you know pledge your sacred owes
00:21:11.680you know a territory when it comes to like how do you fix this problem right like we're we're
00:21:16.400pretty hard up against it because it's very clear that not only does the democratic mechanism not
00:21:21.120work but we're literally interpreting the constitution to ensure in the future the
00:21:26.240democratic mechanism can never work that that's basically what's on the table we're going from
00:21:32.240yeah obviously this is a regime complete problem theoretically to we are formalizing that this is
00:21:38.120a regime complete problem so when you have a situation that dire and you have a situation
00:21:44.300where most of the conservative, you know, playbook has been poured into the strategy that is
00:21:51.060containment. How do we actually live out a constitution? How do we actually take constitutional
00:21:57.680action when the very mechanisms by which we're supposed to participate are being thoughtfully
00:22:03.540undermined by our opponents and sadly, in many cases, our allies? Yeah, so there's a couple
00:22:10.100things about the system that work in our favor that there are still some options number one
00:22:19.380uh basically the the genius of liberal democracy in the 20th century the reason that it beat
00:22:27.460all the other uh managerial systems namely fascism and communism is that it turns out
00:22:35.660that it's way more efficient to just capture the media and manufacture consent than it is to coerce
00:22:43.580consent uh given those given those technological tools it was just way easier to do it was people
00:22:50.220people in in liberal democracies felt freer they acted freer they were more productive they were
00:22:58.020and like all that stuff is true and and the way that that that uh things were coordinated was
00:23:04.240through the mass media. And that's, that's how you, uh, you got the story. Uh, and everybody
00:23:09.840got, you know, I lock on the same story. And as long as everybody got their news from three TV
00:23:17.220channels that worked really well. And basically the Trump phenomenon was the advent of social
00:23:23.760media breaking down that stasis. And so, uh, where that leads basically is that the, you know,
00:23:34.880the, the, the managerial system, liberal democracy has a legitimacy problem. And the way that they
00:23:39.500continue to launder that legitimacy is through the two-party system, through the Republican
00:23:44.760party, basically the Republican party playing the role of the Washington generals, uh, getting,
00:23:49.820you know uh getting stomped by by the the democrats at every turn and it it you know
00:23:57.620but but you're always like well i mean we can't have president aoc so we got to keep voting
00:24:02.520republican and that's like that's a legitimate decision like that's not a stupid decision like
00:24:08.120you have to actually do that um if you were to get a governor say who said i'm going to
00:24:19.800govern in accordance with my understanding of the constitution both both in terms of like its
00:24:28.340letter and its spirit like i'm going to insist on namely the 10th amendment the 10th amendment is
00:24:33.860the one that says basically if it's not enumerated in here it things devolve to the states or to the
00:24:38.960people if you got a governor who said basically i'm going to claim that authority my constitutionally
00:24:48.860mandated authority to run my state and we're going to do a bukele style transformation we are going
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00:24:56.140to clean up this state we're going to make it beautiful we're going to make it productive
00:24:59.900we're going to make it a place where families can can can grow up and thrive people want to live
00:25:04.940and uh if you do that and you just ignore all of the injunctions and all of the stays and all of
00:25:13.180of the lawfare and you basically it's it's what you would have to have as a leader who was willing
00:25:20.060to say you know i'm just gonna do this and you can come get me when i'm done and willing to uh
00:25:28.140go through the the lawsuits and the trial and but but but to stand in front of the country and
00:25:34.460basically say like this is what i'm on trial for i'm on trial for following my constitutional
00:25:40.940authority to save my state to make it a beautiful safe healthy place and uh and what that reveals
00:25:52.340essentially is it breaks that system of narrative control it breaks the illusion that all these
00:25:58.420problems are impossible and you know the the constitution won't let us do it and we just we
00:26:04.100have to go along with whatever the progressives are doing it basically uh totally humiliates and
00:26:09.240discredits the Republican party and, and neutralizes them as a tool of laundering this,
00:26:16.060this managerial power. And, you know, there's no, and I say this in the, in the podcast,
00:26:22.980like there's no one weird trick. There's no magic solution to do this risk-free. And like, you know,
00:26:29.480the, the, the progressives are going to respond to these things and, and, and, you know,
00:26:34.540Nothing is guaranteed, but if there's a thermal exhaust port in the system, if there's something, if there's a Death Star Trench, in my opinion, that's where it is. It's in breaking this narrative that change is impossible by following your constitutionally mandated authority to fix your jurisdiction. And I think it probably has to happen at the state level.
00:27:00.420No, I think it's excellent that you point that out. And part of that is because I laid out a precursor to this in my book, The Total State, about how essentially I think that power would eventually break down in the United States, how the total state itself would be rendered or useless or at least wounded.
00:27:22.200And that was basically the idea that as our central government becomes more unwieldy, more incapable of exerting control, uncapable of keeping up with just basic maintenance, like say, I don't know, flights don't land or you can't do basic travel across the United States, that kind of thing.
00:27:41.820As these complex systems break down, and it's very clear that our central government is incompetent, the ability of competent regional leaders to excel arises. And we already see this a little bit, right? People forget, and Greg Abbott has a lot of other problems, which I'm sure we'll get into in a second.
00:28:02.060but you know there was that moment with eagle pass where the federal government told greg abbott
00:28:08.000we're sending you know national guard troops in to to snip the barbed wire and let uh you know
00:28:15.000let these illegals in and he said no you aren't and guess what nothing happened like they're not
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00:28:21.080gonna go after greg abbott for that they never did now again greg abbott's a disaster in a thousand
00:28:25.560other ways so you can realize why they probably didn't feel the need to push that but you also
00:28:30.120look at someone like my governor ron desantis who in several areas from covid to dei told the
00:28:37.720government go pound sand right like sorry we're not doing that here and you can go pound sand and
00:28:43.720i'm gonna do what's right for my state for my people and then you know whatever wherever the
00:28:50.460chips fall they fall right and because he did that not only was the quality of life in florida
00:28:55.700significantly better during times like covid and not only the children not get you know lessons
00:29:00.780about how their body parts should be chopped off in public schools but also they never did anything
00:29:06.880it cost him nothing like that they never came after him with big lawsuits no one ever came to
00:29:12.120arrest florida you know florida politicians ron de santo's setting up florida guard outside the
00:29:18.940florida you know they're outside the national guard can't be touched by the american military
00:29:22.540can't be compelled by the american president nothing's happening nobody's coming after him
00:29:27.560nothing happened it doesn't matter like they did nothing and only did it do nothing it generated
00:29:32.960so much buzz around ron de santis that he became a credible threat to donald trump in a presidential
00:29:39.700primary now i famously warned quite loudly don't do that don't walk into that trap don't do it but
00:29:45.160But that's how that's how, you know, important his leadership was in that moment and how much buzz it generated and how much interest it generated.
00:29:54.420And so, Kevin, the question quickly becomes, and I might be teeing you up for an easy answer here.
00:29:59.340But when we see a guy like Ron DeSantis simply take two steps off of first base, he's not stealing second.
00:30:06.020He's just got he's just got enough to where he might be able to run at some point.
00:30:09.460when a guy takes two steps off first base and basically immediately gains the respect
00:30:14.980and admiration of the republican party or at least its base and all of his voters become die
00:30:21.740hard fans when you have that level of success with literally zero cost why isn't everybody doing
00:30:28.440this like why isn't that just obvious like you're laying out basically this is what a governor should
00:30:33.320do. And we have actual evidence that this is successful and will gain you notoriety and power
00:30:40.120and everything else. You think the incentive structure would be lined up a hundred percent
00:30:44.020for a thousand governor DeSantis is the bloom and yet nothing. What's going on here?
00:30:49.560Yeah. I mean, it's almost a stronger case than like Yarvin makes because Yarvin seems to think
00:30:53.740that like you have to do it all at once. I think that there's yeah, like DeSantis and Abbott are
00:31:02.080evidence that even short of that there's so much that can happen that's not happening um
00:31:09.180and i guess i would say i think a lot of these people are in office because they like being
00:31:14.100taken out to lunch like i think you know if you apply for a position with the washington generals
00:31:21.560you know you know the job you know the assignment and it's it selects for a type right yeah you're
00:31:27.440not looking for guys who are slammed who are gonna you know be launching a lot of slam dunks out there
00:31:31.600yeah no right right and uh and so i think that's part of it i think it is so important
00:31:38.780to i mean you you saw the spasm in 2020 2021 uh that the whole system went through
00:31:49.200with the elections and with and with covid and all these things because they felt narrative
00:31:56.400control slipping and there's like nothing behind that like they don't like all of the machinery of
00:32:04.240explicit coercive force is in the hands of guys who are much more like you and me than they are
00:32:10.320like our enemies yeah in terms of their worldview and the things they believe in and so it is so
00:32:15.460so so important to the survival of that system that those people maintain the perception of
00:32:21.400legitimacy that they stay asleep that they it stays business as usual and yeah i i think there
00:32:31.060is a real sense that like they're not gonna test that like arresting arresting desantis or or
00:32:37.580hauling him into court or trying to have a standoff with the national guard that's gonna test
00:32:42.160that and i don't think they want to test that like you know and you saw something uh similar with like
00:32:48.560the the the biden with the with the navy in in the red sea with the houthis where it was like
00:32:56.560i don't think biden wanted to figure out how it would go with the houthis and uh even though you
00:33:04.180know probably could win probably could win but like didn't want to figure it out didn't want to
00:33:08.420test it and i think we're seeing something very very similar with uh with uh conservatives and
00:33:14.800and and and the right in general i mean like with the save act it just couldn't be more obvious like
00:33:19.120these people don't want election transparency either like that they are definitely part of
00:33:25.280the system and so you yeah you you have to uh so what we're proposing basically with the with
00:33:31.400the constitutional action society is essentially a shadow political party so not a third party
00:33:37.760But this would be a group that is working inside the Republican Party with a platform, with a set of things that we test candidates on, with resources to raise money and knock doors and phone bank, all for the purpose of identifying the set of politicians who do have a little bit of courage.
00:33:59.620and and you know frankly a lot of these like a lot of these politicians having met a few of them
00:34:06.060they're actually in terms of their their their desire they're not bad people a lot of them are
00:34:13.940just older and so they are still in the paradigm of like i cannot do this because nbc abc cbs will
00:34:24.600destroy me and then what will i have accomplished i will just be eliminated from the system like
00:34:29.640there's a real logic to that yeah i think they don't recognize the extent to which uh those
00:34:38.260institutions power is now fake especially with their base and how much people would follow them
00:34:44.940if they would lead and so we're going to be fielding our own candidates we're also going
00:34:49.600to be supporting some existing candidates but like that's that's the vision all right i want
00:34:54.920to go back there and once again unpack some of the things that you said because there's a lot
00:34:58.960of important stuff in there so first as you say the security apparatus of the united states as
00:35:04.240fast as you know the powers that be are trying to unravel it are trying to put in the hands of
00:35:09.880people who will betray you who do hate you ultimately the majority of the security apparatus
00:35:14.540of the united states remains in the hands of the chud it is it is the it is the thin chud line
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00:35:19.340between uh complete chaos and order in the united states that is still true and yes these guys will
00:35:26.720often fold on you you saw this during covid you know that that better is the case however there
00:35:32.120is as you say the question of how far can you push the chuds before ultimately they say no and the
0.92
00:35:39.040and while they will not ever lay that out while progressives will never actually lay out that
00:35:45.500dynamic it is always in the back of their minds which by the way is why they were really really
00:35:50.860scared during jan 6 like they the fear is real kids like they know if things get kinetic they
00:35:57.940don't have control of the situation they know that don't let them do anything else and i do think
00:36:03.600that like yarvin's more or less right when he says like there's not some break point there's not
00:36:09.520some you know the signal goes out and we all know that it's time you know all true patriots whatever
00:36:16.020like that's not going to happen right but um legitimacy in terms of the reliability and
00:36:23.880credibility of enforcement and in terms of like their personal safety and security like all of
00:36:28.720this stuff, it's a float, not a binary. It, it, it, it creates chaos in the system and volatility
00:36:35.920that they don't want. And, and I, one of the reasons why I think it's so important to do this
00:36:41.700through the political process, you know, I'm not, I'm talking about a governor. I'm not talking
00:36:46.060about a warlord. The reason to talk about a governor is because you want to create a situation
00:36:51.520where you are on the side of people's intuitive understanding of what makes American government
00:36:58.700legitimate. And that's why this can't just be, even if I thought it were morally right from a
00:37:06.700practical perspective, I don't think it's either practically or morally right. You can't discard
00:37:10.480the constitution. All of these things about the right to property and neutral enforcement of
00:37:16.740contract and the basic concept of an even playing field and fairness, like these are things that
00:37:22.540are built into that structure for a reason, because we actually believe in them. And like
00:37:27.760that that legitimacy is tremendously important and so you have to create a sit like what what
00:37:33.100de santis is doing basically is he's created a situation where he's on the side of his people's
00:37:39.280intuitive understanding of what uh of what like governance should be and and for them to come and
00:37:46.880just as a matter of raw power tell him no you can't that's very different than if if it's reversed
00:37:54.580And you're on the side of like sort of I'm going to go, you know, just exercise naked force. You have to put them in a situation where where they are attacking this permission structure, attacking this, this, this apparatus of legitimacy that they totally depend on.
00:38:12.580a hundred percent yes that that's critical and this is again why we're not saying here
00:38:18.060oh well abandon the constitution abandon american norms throw it all out dictatorship now all this
00:38:25.400stuff what is being said here is very clear the the if you are in a scenario where you are acting
00:38:33.660in the real spirit of the constitution you are acting in the way that people believe the
00:38:38.380constitution to actually inform you know their their lives and their values then it becomes more
00:38:44.940harder and harder to bring force against you and that's kind of where i was going is you know
00:38:49.800yarvin i think correctly at this point has said that look there is this you know no moment where
00:38:55.540everything gets bad enough and we all just snap back and there's this popular revolution in the
00:39:00.120west like that's just not happening like i'm sorry alex jones but 1776 is probably not going to
00:39:05.420commence that said if they're afraid to apply uh if you're on if people have become uh so unwilling
00:39:14.220to apply violence that they will not rebel when the government is very clearly violating every
00:39:19.920single norm and procedure and principle then there's actually a a reverse to that which means
00:39:26.880the state is probably not willing to large scale enforce a artificial understanding of that through
00:39:33.160violence like they are probably not willing to go around and take their loose false completely
00:39:39.040manipulative understanding of the constitution and enforce it at gunpoint they'll do it through
00:39:43.340soft power they'll do it through manipulation they'll shame you they'll sue you that kind of
00:39:47.340thing but when we're talking on about guys kicking through you know kicking down doors and swinging
00:39:51.940through windows that's not going to happen they're just not sending the you know an expeditionary
00:39:57.240unit to go snap black bag ron de santis and take him you know for violations of gay race communism
0.72
00:40:03.240like that is not going to happen and so that means that if you have a guy acting with legitimate
00:40:08.840authority under what people believe to be the actual way that the constitution is meant to be
00:40:14.240understood you can violate a lot of procedures you can violate a lot of the garbage we surround
00:40:21.120the constitution with all these fake understandings all these manipulations all these cul-de-sacs that
00:40:26.940they force politics into you can start ignoring that and just do what your constituents expect
00:40:32.820you to do and then when someone says oh well we're going you're going to get in trouble we're going
00:40:37.900to come arrest you as you say in the piece well for what explain it to the people explain why you
00:40:44.160need to come black bag ron de santis for saying actually we're just going to expel illegal
00:40:49.340immigrants from our state by ourselves because it's what's safe for the united states and you
00:40:54.540guys can figure it out okay yeah you're you marching the the 82nd airborne in you know you
00:41:00.500dropping them in to to to get the you know the the governor of florida i doubt it so here you know
00:41:06.900there we go now all of a sudden there's a crisis of sovereignty and that crisis hinges exactly on
00:41:11.660who is really has fidelity to the constitution and the more importantly i think the tradition
00:41:17.140that underlies it yeah yeah yeah and and to be clear like i don't have illusions like i think
00:41:23.360some of that conversation may have to take
00:41:52.660they are telling you over and over and over again when we get in power this guy's going to prison
00:41:59.620yep over and over and over but they're not uh sending you know an ambitious colonel to arrest
00:42:07.300him right right like that's there there's there's there's tactical there's operating space
00:42:14.500in that distinction like you have to see what they're doing and what they're not doing
00:42:18.520right and i think i think there's a there's a in our effort to be realistic and our effort to
00:42:25.320acknowledge the reality of our situation there's a tendency toward you know fatalism they're guarding
00:42:31.980all the doors are holding all the keys but they don't act like that they don't act as if they have
00:42:37.800absolute authority to do whatever they want they're acting as if they are subject to constraints and
00:42:42.740And the more you like study those constraints, the more avenues of action become apparent.
00:42:49.520And so, yeah, so that's that's what we're doing with the with the society is trying to trying to build that kind of courage and organization.
00:42:58.540We're starting in Utah because that's where we have like the most depth currently, but it's, you know, it's a nationwide problem.
00:43:04.080And and exit, too, is about is about building this kind of sovereignty, this kind of practical liberty.
00:43:10.300so uh getting guys in a situation where they're just harder to push uh it really like i think so
00:43:17.020much of the work that we have to do is about creating courage yep well you know and also
00:43:22.520victory is its own argument you know it's contagious when when you see somebody win
00:43:27.880when you see someone succeed when you see someone able to step out of the system and survive it uh
00:43:32.940you learn something and the you know the courage grows you know that's why doxing has lost a lot
00:43:39.540of its power right i mean you're a guy who was in that position where you know your job came up and
00:43:44.800you had to figure something out but the fact that guys like you and jonathan keeperman and so many
00:43:49.560other guys have had high profile docs and are just fine or better off than you were beforehand
00:43:56.080means yeah it's a painful process to go through but now it's no longer a death sentence on the
00:44:00.940other side of this thing there's a very real future in fact maybe even a better future in
00:44:06.380which you're not lashed to a corporate HR department and you actually do work towards
00:44:12.080something you believe in. And actually, maybe it's okay if this ends up coming for me because
00:44:17.440it just forces my hand into doing something I wanted to do anyway. And that kind of success
00:44:24.180is ultimately contagious and it encourages other people to take those actions. And I want to talk
00:44:30.520a little bit about the political project because I have so many people come to me and say, all
00:44:36.280right or and we know democracy's fake you've been through all this but you still tell me to vote for
00:44:41.100the republican party and i see what's happening with with greg abbott and and and now even trump
00:44:46.700with the war and all this stuff and i've been betrayed and they're all lying to me and it
00:44:50.840doesn't matter anyway so why don't i just vote democrat or if we are going to do our own thing
00:44:56.120like why don't why not start a third party but you said explicitly actually we're not going to
00:45:00.440start a third party it's better to have the shadow party and i've said this many times over we need
00:45:04.620to destroy the GOP but what I mean by that is we need to skin suit it right like we why are we
00:45:10.700focusing on this idea of taking over the GOP rather than just forging a third party right
00:45:16.840like why not just do what they did in in Britain and zero seats the conservatives and then launch
00:45:21.660launch a looper a Rupert Lowe movement to take over right yeah well we don't have parliamentary
00:45:27.320system is the main reason we're not doing what the UK yeah I mean it's it's uh yeah you sort of
00:45:32.480you're going to have two parties right right and uh you know maybe it becomes uh and that's that's
00:45:38.400that's a really that's a a serious administrative challenge for like the bipartisan system is
00:45:44.440robust um it it the purpose of that is to uh kind of shave off the uh the fringes and make it so
00:45:53.620they have to form coalitions with the moderates which you know if you're a moderate type of
00:45:57.140person that sounds good but um but basically yeah you have to now i mean one of the things that i
00:46:03.760observe in in state of utah is that it's like the third most republican and the second least democrat
00:46:12.220state in the union um but what has happened is is basically just democrats have changed their
00:46:19.660party affiliation and they vote as republicans and like there's actually like a a profile in
00:46:24.340the salt lake advocate which is like this downtown uh commie rag and they they they talk about like
00:46:31.120these are profiles of these uh uh brilliant democrats who've discovered this new strategy
00:46:36.740of lying like what like what if we just lied and said we were republicans and um and and some of
00:46:44.200these people are like put in positions of like uh assessing judges and like real positions of
00:46:49.700political power in the state that are all about this manipulation of procedural outcomes
00:46:53.860and um i did a whole thing about like why utah is the way it is that you may find interesting
00:47:00.280check it out later but but basically there's immense power in the republican brand in utah
00:47:07.480and the democrats have figured that out and uh we we can do that too you know like if
00:47:14.800people you know one of the things we found out with this was repealing this proposition
00:47:19.780there's this big campaign to repeal the uh the redistricting that created this like bolshevik
00:47:24.540district in the middle of salt lake city and one of the things we found out is like tons of people
00:47:30.080signed for the repeal having no idea what they signed and tons of people signed the original
00:47:35.000proposition to create the redistricting having no idea what they signed and like it's this huge
00:47:39.220back and forth of just like can we get people to take their signatures off so bottom line uh
00:47:46.500this is not a an unstormable fortress like this is uh this is a very porous uh it's the field is
00:47:55.360wide open and but you do have you basically do have to declare republican because that's what
00:47:59.800everybody's used to that's sort of how democracy works um so yeah it's uh it's it's we're going to
00:48:05.120be working within that system in communities across canada hourly amazon employees earn an
00:48:12.240average of over $24.50 an hour. Employees also have the opportunity to grow their skills
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00:48:31.700yeah again i think this is a fairly obvious thing but it's still very tactically difficult for people
00:48:43.940and i think this is what happens when you treat your vote as some like kind of sacred oath rather
00:48:49.280than like a weapon you're deploying in any given battle you know the idea is well if i had to if i
00:48:55.500if i checked a box for an r at some point and they did something i didn't like i'm betraying
00:49:00.140my principles in some way. And the answer is no, unfortunately, you're just making the best
00:49:05.500decision in a bad situation. Now that said, it doesn't then absolve you of action. And this is
00:49:11.640the problem is that a lot of Republicans say, well, I know the Republicans are bad, but who
00:49:15.780else are going to vote for? So they check for the wrong guy. And then they never look at politics
00:49:21.020again for another year. That's not what this is. It's not, oh, well, check the box for Republican
00:49:26.020and then just check out and watch the new Netflix or whatever.
00:49:30.240It's no, great, you check the box for the lesser of two evils.
00:49:33.540Now you've got to make sure there's a better than two evils option.
00:49:37.600It is now your personal responsibility to get involved
00:49:40.900and ensure that next time that ballot shows up,
00:49:43.920there's somebody you can support on that ballot
00:49:46.380who will be notably better for your community,
00:49:50.060for your family, for the people around you.
00:49:52.300And the only way that works is by getting involved
00:49:55.360in a very direct way so i'm very glad to see that you are looking at an organization that
00:50:00.460ultimately is going to be pushing towards this i think about uh you know people like the free
00:50:05.280state project um in new hampshire and you know i have my problems with libertarians except for
00:50:10.000those libertarians because they're libertarians who are actually living it out they're really
00:50:14.680doing it they're taking power they're getting people elected they're building coalitions
00:50:19.160while i might you know quibble with them on doctrine they are way better than the vast
00:50:24.300majority of republicans because they're actually doing the thing they're actually making the thing
00:50:28.760happen they're not libertarians organizing for power it's crazy it's a crazy idea yes yes and so
00:50:35.680i i think that it's critical that people understand that this is not a blank check that we hand to the
00:50:40.760republican party this is not a oh well but it's also not a well i completely i'm just giving my
00:50:47.400power over to the democrats or i'm gonna you know have this fantasy of starting some third
0.83
00:50:51.560you know morally a pure party guys last time we got a serious party switch was literally the civil
00:50:56.900war so call me when that one pops off but otherwise we're gonna have to skin suit one of the two major
00:51:02.620parties it's pretty clear that the republican party is the one that we should be aiming for
00:51:07.400if for no other reason than as you say our arguments already made there they just don't
00:51:11.720mean them right like we already believe in the constitution and we actually believe in the
00:51:17.260things of the constitution in a way that they don't so it's easy to mog them it's easy to
00:51:22.160embarrass them i've been in these rooms guys i've been in the room you know for major you know gop
00:51:28.560organization in states and i have literally embarrassed the people running them in front
00:51:33.580of their audience because i tell them what we actually believe and they agree with me and not
00:51:38.780the corrupt guy running the party thing but the only way you do that is to get into the room
00:51:43.380you got to be in the room yes i went to caucus night and uh they asked me to be the one to read
00:51:49.100the the republican party platform and it was like it's like 95 awesome like and there were a couple
00:51:57.040there's a little bit of squish on like one or two issues everything else i was like base base base
00:52:01.640very good and it was like man and i i i didn't like say this you know in these terms in that room
00:52:11.000but i was thinking like man if we actually did half of this stuff like i'd be so thrilled
00:52:17.480be so incredible it is it is the uh it's the meta it's the it's the what procedural steps
00:52:24.140are appropriate to obtain the things we want that's where the argument needs to happen and
00:52:29.300that's where you like i really don't think like i've had this conversation with all kinds of just
00:52:34.020very very baseline ordinary kind of checked out conservatives like do you think that ketanji
00:52:43.540brown jackson is like a qualified and be like is is her is her interpretation of constitutional law
00:52:52.180legitimate should that be the basis on which we decide these things right and everybody's like
00:52:57.280well no and it's like okay so then what and and that's where all of this you know all these
00:53:05.240cul-de-sacs start to kind of crumble and fall apart and that's how you kind of break through
00:53:08.940and like yeah if you're if you're having this conversation as as as a delegate with with other
00:53:15.660delegates in your in your local party system or in talking to the candidates like that's where
00:53:22.700the power is. And, you know, if you're, if you're one delegate, you know, even then your vote is
00:53:29.720small, but like, I've been viewing the process of, of, of getting involved with the party as,
00:53:35.300uh, almost journalistic. Like I need, I need these representatives to talk to me and I need
00:53:42.500to understand the scope of how the voting is going so that I can field candidates that, that
00:53:49.840a have the right orientation, but B can win. And like it, you have to basically, I think,
00:53:57.140I think so many of us who are like, we've read the right books and we'll listen to the right
00:54:02.240podcasts, but we've been basically total keyboard warriors for a long time. It's like, we're going
00:54:10.260to have to go through this learning process, a huge part of this, this phone banking and knocking
00:54:16.000doors and things that we're trying to do yes it's partly by getting our message out but it's also
00:54:21.220like oh man we gotta we gotta like understand these voters we gotta understand where people
00:54:25.700are coming from so that we can get our messaging right and uh anyway i'm real i'm just really
00:54:31.560excited to do it we're gonna have we're gonna have uh meetings going on this because like the
00:54:35.360primaries for us are like i think in june so there's tons of work to do we've got candidates
00:54:41.100that we're going to be supporting over the next couple of months and i'm just i'm pumped about it
00:54:44.600Well, and guys also remember that organization and the exercise of power are things you must practice. They're things that you must go through the steps to do. It sounds simple, but if you've ever tried to actually organize people politically, you know that it's like horrible and thankless and ugly.
00:55:04.600And that's why only the most terrible, most power-obsessed people in the world do it for nickels, because that's what it takes to get it done.