The Auron MacIntyre Show - America's Cultural Revolution ｜ Guest： Chris Rufo ｜ 7⧸18⧸23

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00:01:30.000 Hey everybody, how's it going?

00:01:37.260 Thanks for joining me this afternoon.

00:01:38.960 I've got a great stream with a great guest that I think you're really going to enjoy.

00:01:43.660 So I'm sure most of you are already familiar with Christopher Ruffo's work.

00:01:48.120 He is probably the most effective conservative political activist of my lifetime.

00:01:53.960 He's certainly one pushing the boundaries of what can get done in things like the fight against critical race theory and radical gender ideology.

00:02:01.920 And he's out with a new book now called America's culture and he's out with a new book now called America's cultural revolution.

00:02:05.680 Chris, thanks for joining me.

00:02:07.540 It's great to be with you.

00:02:08.520 Absolutely.

00:02:09.520 So Chris is going to be jumping into everything about America's cultural revolution.

00:02:13.520 We're going to look at some different questions about what is effective activism and how people can actually work against the system that we're now looking at.

00:02:20.980 But before we do that, guys, let's jump into a message from today's sponsor.

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00:03:43.620 All right.

00:03:45.520 So before we jump into the book and everything, Chris, I have to ask, you have a background as a PBS documentary maker.

00:03:53.140 That's not usually a pipeline that takes you directly to conservative activists.

00:03:57.340 What happened there?

00:03:58.180 No, yeah, no, not at all.

00:03:59.720 And I would say even on your sponsor, ISI is great.

00:04:03.820 And actually, one of the people that's working with me now is an ISI journalism fellow.

00:04:09.100 She's doing a great job.

00:04:10.280 And so, yeah, absolutely, ISI is an organization to support and to check out if you are a young person wanting to get into the mix.

00:04:16.900 And certainly, you know, building on that, don't follow my lead.

00:04:21.660 You know, don't make documentaries for PBS as a pipeline to working in conservative politics.

00:04:28.320 It's a kind of unique path that I took as my politics shifted, my career shifted.

00:04:33.960 You know, after I was 30, really, kind of took it in a political direction, burned all the bridges in the documentary world as I started to become more political.

00:04:42.340 And then fully made the jump in the early part of my 30s into doing journalism, think tank work, policy work, writing, reporting, documentary work.

00:04:53.560 And so one of the things that I would say that has been good about that is that in contrast to a lot of our peers in this side of the world that have, I would say, underdeveloped aesthetic and narrative sense working for so many years in the documentary world, which is, you know, uniformly and really extremely left wing.

00:05:18.200 I at least learned some of the really good techniques of the left as far as narrative aesthetics, you know, professional media production.

00:05:26.800 And so I brought a lot of those skills with me that I think has made me somewhat different and maybe stand out in some ways.

00:05:33.340 Yeah, I think that's going to be really essential and something that I definitely want to get into with you is the use of language, why the right is so bad at it, why narrative control is something that the left is so good at.

00:05:44.300 But we'll get deeper into that in just a second.

00:05:46.840 So your book, America's Cultural Revolution, it starts, you know, of course, you have a very good narrative, like you said, very narratively gifted in this.

00:05:55.260 And it starts with a guy named Herbert Marcuse.

00:05:58.440 Can you explain a little bit about who he is and why he's so central to this cultural revolution?

00:06:04.140 Yeah, the book is divided into four parts, looking at the four main categories or components of this, you know, 50 year long cultural revolution.

00:06:12.320 And I think Marcuse is the foundation of the book, the beginning section of the book, because in the late 1960s and early 1970s, he laid out all of the conceptual categories that we still live in today.

00:06:25.900 He really established that, which at that time was a countercultural left-wing narrative and philosophy.

00:06:31.880 And a lot of the key concepts that he developed in that time haven't really changed.

00:06:38.100 They've been kind of stuck in a static situation, although they have gained power.

00:06:42.240 And, you know, Marcuse was an interesting person.

00:06:44.980 He was a really erudite philosopher, a student of philosophy and the classics.

00:06:51.900 He was a devoted Marxist who then broke with the Soviet Union when he realized that it was a bureaucratic tyranny.

00:06:58.600 And his concept was to pioneer a new Marxism, a neo-Marxism that liberated human beings from repressive culture,

00:07:07.960 that liberated human beings from repressive sexual manners and mores,

00:07:12.480 and that really sought to bring revolution in the West using a high-low coalition of the predominantly white middle class student radicals,

00:07:22.740 the intelligentsia, and then the predominantly black lower class members in the inner cities

00:07:28.640 that provided almost a pincer movement or pincer movement that provided the ideology at a high level

00:07:36.200 and then provided the threat of violence and disruption at the lower level.

00:07:40.620 And so this is still kind of the left-wing coalition of today.

00:07:44.180 And so I think all of those concepts are really worth revisiting, really worth understanding

00:07:48.340 to really see how things have gotten to be the way that they are.

00:07:52.300 Now, in your book, you obviously talk about how Marcuse was pretty essential in getting this ideology into institutions.

00:08:01.120 But something I was thinking about as I was kind of reading this was that communist infiltrators in institutions were nothing new, right?

00:08:08.300 Like, we're very aware, of course, of Joseph McCarthy and, you know, the Un-American Activities Committee.

00:08:15.960 We're familiar, you know, James Burnham wrote a book, Web of Deception, about all of these different infiltrations,

00:08:21.200 not just in the government or not just in the places you would think, but throughout intelligence agencies and these things.

00:08:27.300 There was already a very active communist network throughout the United States in entertainment, in government and all of these things before he came on the scene.

00:08:37.080 So how is this different from what was already an ongoing communist infiltration of institutions?

00:08:42.060 It's different in one critical respect.

00:08:46.580 And the reason that the kind of old school kind of foreign intelligence operation, communist asset maneuvers didn't work is that they were, you know, of course,

00:08:57.680 they were aligned with a hostile foreign power.

00:09:00.660 And, you know, was it significant?

00:09:02.040 And, of course, as you mentioned, James Burnham, the great work of Richard Nixon in the House of Representatives when he was in Congress,

00:09:11.200 demonstrated the scope of this.

00:09:14.100 But the reason it ultimately failed is because it's actually pretty difficult to run a hostile foreign power,

00:09:21.600 to be running influence operations, to change the society fundamentally.

00:09:26.100 So there's a natural limit to what they can do, even though it's, of course, damaging.

00:09:30.120 The Long March of the Institutions, which is the corollary we're talking about, was different and more successful

00:09:36.420 because it was a domestic political movement that took, you know, American kids in this sense,

00:09:44.340 American young people who were going to be in the country for the rest of their lives. 0.99

00:09:49.780 They were going to be in the institutions for the rest of their lives.

00:09:52.600 And they were working together to bring their ideology in, in a way that was sustainable over the long term,

00:09:58.880 and in a way that could really, because it was rooted domestically, could deeply change the culture of these institutions over time.

00:10:07.760 And I like to explain to people in the book, if you look at the radical literature from the Weather Underground,

00:10:14.280 the Black Panther Party, the even more extreme Black Liberation Army,

00:10:18.220 they were assassinating police officers, planting and detonating bombs in police stations and government buildings.

00:10:24.800 They were, you know, hijacking airplanes and holding people hostage.

00:10:29.080 I mean, they were really going all out for violent guerrilla warfare-style revolution.

00:10:35.380 But if you look at their pamphlets and their propaganda materials, if you go into the archives and really dig through it,

00:10:41.060 and then you look at the K-12 curriculum in places like Buffalo, New York City, San Diego, California,

00:10:47.820 and other big city school districts, you find actually, with some differences in language, some euphemism,

00:10:55.620 you find essentially the same core set of ideas.

00:10:58.240 And so that really shows you how effective they were able to be over time, multi-generationally,

00:11:04.420 of getting those ideas from the furthest fringes all the way into your child's kindergarten classroom.

00:11:09.840 And to me, that was the most stunning revelation, to show how ideas can move, to show how ideas can conquer,

00:11:17.320 to show how ideas can embed themselves within institutions.

00:11:21.500 No, I think you're right that the shift to ideas over direct violence was a huge change.

00:11:26.880 Though I'm a little skeptical on the more domestic argument.

00:11:30.740 I think what it seems, and I mean, you do talk about this a fair bit in the book,

00:11:35.240 is that their shift moved from class politics to race politics, right?

00:11:39.280 That they discovered that the dividing line, that the revolutionary subject would not be poor or middle class,

00:11:46.460 working class whites, that they needed for that high-low kind of middle juvenileian approach. 0.95

00:11:55.180 They needed a different revolutionary subject.

00:11:57.680 And so that's when they moved to more of a racial divide strategy rather than a class divide strategy.

00:12:03.660 Yeah, that's right.

00:12:04.640 And Marcuse in particular is quite explicit about that.

00:12:07.420 He admits openly and with some disillusionment, some sadness you can sense in the writing.

00:12:14.980 He says that in the West, in the United States in particular,

00:12:18.900 the working class is not just non-revolutionary, but is actively anti-revolutionary. 0.95

00:12:25.400 Meaning that your factory workers, your laborers, your shop assistants,

00:12:30.480 your typists, people who go to the office every day, in the United States are actually satisfied with their lives.

00:12:37.300 They love the system.

00:12:38.620 They don't feel as if they're part of the oppressed.

00:12:41.080 They have, you know, what Marcuse kind of derisively dismisses.

00:12:46.120 Oh, their refrigerators, their cars, their television sets.

00:12:49.460 You know, he says that's part of their false consciousness and et cetera.

00:12:54.180 But he concludes nonetheless that the revolution cannot come from the working class in the West.

00:13:00.800 And therefore he wants to go with, again, the intelligentsia, the universities, the students,

00:13:06.140 and then what Marxists would have referred to traditionally as the lumpen proletariat,

00:13:14.200 the people at the very fringes of society, the dispossessed, the unemployed, 1.00

00:13:18.960 the dwellers of the kind of ghettos and slums of the society. 1.00

00:13:25.900 And I think that he knew in a sense that there was a risk with this strategy.

00:13:30.920 But at the same time, it seemed to be the only option available to them.

00:13:36.340 And then in the short term, certainly in the late 1960s, it felt as if they were gaining a lot of traction.

00:13:43.860 It felt as if their revolution was possible for a brief moment.

00:13:48.100 And certainly people were fearful to that effect.

00:13:51.700 So if the superstructure is Marxist in nature, right,

00:13:56.080 if the rhetoric on which this revolution is built is Marxist in nature,

00:14:00.260 but it seems that that doesn't actually animate any class divide,

00:14:05.380 is it really a Marxist revolution inside the United States?

00:14:10.480 I mean, I understand that the justifying rhetoric exists there,

00:14:13.320 but obviously that's not what animated what happened.

00:14:16.780 It was a very different division that ended up being the source of the revolutionary power, right?

00:14:22.040 Yeah, exactly.

00:14:23.580 And so is it Marxist?

00:14:26.020 I mean, yeah, and it's lineage in the sense that, you know,

00:14:29.860 if two people have children, the children can turn out quite differently than the parents,

00:14:34.280 although there is a lineage, there are similarities,

00:14:36.260 there is some transmission of genetics, of values, of culture, of environment.

00:14:43.360 And so I think that's the kind of same analogy here.

00:14:45.660 And so, yeah, is it orthodox Marxism?

00:14:47.500 No.

00:14:48.040 I mean, they say this explicitly.

00:14:49.660 But what they try to do is rescue the Marxist ideal.

00:14:54.920 So they say, hey, you know, the materialist dialectic, maybe not exactly right.

00:14:58.780 Okay, the labor theory of value, you know, not exactly.

00:15:02.600 Okay, you know, kind of orthodox, you know, Marxian Marxism doesn't quite apply.

00:15:09.740 But we still take that, the utopian impulse.

00:15:13.020 We still look for the classless society. 0.96

00:15:15.800 We still have the dialectic between oppressor and oppressed.

00:15:18.580 So the kind of rudimentary elements are there, but their methods, the revolutionary subject, right, is different.

00:15:27.420 The revolutionary object is the same.

00:15:30.140 And though there's another interesting wrinkle, though, that I think about and found really interesting,

00:15:35.760 is that then their relationship to the means of production changes.

00:15:41.240 So, you know, traditional Marxists and then the Leninists and Russia and then European communists for a large part of the early 20th century,

00:15:50.400 into the mid-20th century even, they really wanted to seize the means of production.

00:15:55.340 They wanted to take over the factories.

00:15:57.280 They wanted to, you know, build the cars themselves.

00:16:00.100 They wanted to, you know, staff the public hospitals.

00:16:02.840 And they wanted to run it from the bottom up.

00:16:06.900 And, but the Marxist, neo-Marxist revolutionaries of the 60s and then certainly our postmodern Marxist revolutionaries in BLM and other entities today,

00:16:18.500 they have no interest in doing that.

00:16:20.380 Could you imagine BLM activists taking over a Ford plant and trying to build cars? 0.98

00:16:25.300 I mean, not only do they have no capacity for that kind of thing.

00:16:28.280 These are, you know, gender studies and sociology graduates.

00:16:31.920 But they don't have the self-discipline.

00:16:33.620 They don't have the desire.

00:16:35.100 They don't want to produce anything.

00:16:36.480 They want to consume.

00:16:38.160 And so the redistribution is not in power over the means of production.

00:16:41.920 It's a pure materialist redistribution.

00:16:44.180 And they do that in two ways.

00:16:45.260 One is to say, well, we deserve to have all the stuff.

00:16:48.160 So you better give us, you know, universal basic income or reparations or tax and redistribution or free college or free this or free that.

00:16:58.740 Okay, there's that method.

00:17:00.360 But then the other method, and you see this in Marcuse, says, oh, we're on the verge of technological progress that is going to transcend anything before.

00:17:07.260 It's going to be a land of plenty.

00:17:08.920 The robots, and now they would say the AI, is going to create everything that we could possibly desire.

00:17:14.620 And therefore, no one is going to have to work.

00:17:16.540 And we can create, we can harness the technology, have public ownership over the self-generating wealth that then we can just, you know, kind of retire into.

00:17:26.420 I mean, it's so delusional.

00:17:30.100 It's so lazy.

00:17:31.700 It gives one actually some kind of sympathy and respect for orthodox Marxists to say, well, at least these people had a basic idea of how, you know, society works in its most elementary basis.

00:17:43.800 You have to work, you have to do things, you have to be creative.

00:17:48.280 You want to produce man's productive capacity.

00:17:53.120 His creative capacity is part of his essence.

00:17:56.180 Not just, like, sit back and, you know, smoke a blunt, play video games and collect your UBI.

00:18:02.040 I mean, that is like, you know, I think even Marx, frankly, would be disgusted by something like that.

00:18:06.860 If you really give him a charitable read.

00:18:09.260 Yeah, I mean, they were certainly assuming that the progress and the material largesse was automatic.

00:18:14.860 The only question was who would be the beneficiaries of it.

00:18:17.400 They didn't see it as the production of some kind of particular culture or nation or system.

00:18:23.080 They simply saw it as the common state.

00:18:26.120 And then the only thing to do is rearrange who would be the beneficiaries of it.

00:18:30.040 But this kind of brings me to the next question.

00:18:32.460 It feels like this is a coalition that isn't, as you pointed out, orthodox Marxists at all.

00:18:38.900 Instead, they seem to have a very different understanding of what they're doing.

00:18:43.220 It seems like a number of groups who all benefit from the rearranging of kind of already instantiated hierarchies inside the Western and particularly American system.

00:18:55.880 Less of a group of people with a true ideological alignment and more of those who feel like by dismantling what currently exists,

00:19:04.300 they'll be the new recipients of some particular material benefit.

00:19:09.140 Yeah, yeah.

00:19:09.640 I mean, certainly there's the material benefit, but I actually think even more importantly,

00:19:13.580 if you look at elite institutions, it's not a material benefit so much as that it is a social status benefit

00:19:19.720 or a prestige benefit or a reputational benefit.

00:19:23.160 Because, look, a lot of these positions in universities and, you know, DEI bureaucracies, even academic positions,

00:19:30.980 you know, these are smart people.

00:19:32.320 These are people that have the kind of self-discipline and the intelligence to complete higher education.

00:19:38.440 You know, whether that standard has declined, I'm sure we would both agree that it has.

00:19:42.420 But regardless, they've gone through that process and they're not making a ton of money.

00:19:47.280 I mean, it's not that they're, you know, raking it in as a humanities professor and, you know, whatever state university.

00:19:53.600 But what they do get is the redistribution of prestige and, in particular, a form of unearned prestige.

00:20:02.080 And that becomes the currency in that kind of occupation.

00:20:04.900 And so a lot of this you can see, like, in critical race theory, which is section four of the book,

00:20:10.940 about 100 pages on the origins and strategies of CRT.

00:20:15.160 I mean, they're very self-aware.

00:20:18.680 And while they preach revolution in their language, in their, you know, their exoteric language,

00:20:25.220 the words that they write, they say, oh, we need redistribution, we need material redistribution,

00:20:29.980 we need to suspend private property, we need to, you know, change the society in order to equalize group outcomes.

00:20:36.200 You actually look at their behavior, you look at their biographies, you analyze their work with a little bit of a skeptical eye,

00:20:43.820 and you see what they're doing is using that rhetoric in order to secure their own prestige,

00:20:51.100 their own position, their own self-interest, their own sinecures.

00:20:55.260 And so what you have at the end of the day is a very cynical elite game that uses the image of the oppressed

00:21:04.680 in order to achieve elite self-interest.

00:21:10.240 And so I just think that once you understand that, once you can read into the text

00:21:16.360 and start to ferret out some of those more human questions underneath the text,

00:21:21.820 you can really understand what's driving the movement.

00:21:24.600 Better than if you just kind of, you know, parrot their slogans and take them at face value.

00:21:31.880 So in the book, you reference that diversity, equity, inclusion is,

00:21:38.340 you kind of set it up as a parallel system to the civil rights movement,

00:21:42.460 something that kind of seeks to subvert it or take it along a different path.

00:21:47.820 I'm sure you're aware of Christopher Caldwell's book in The Age of Entitlement,

00:21:51.900 where he makes the argument that the civil rights movement is pretty much inextricable from

00:21:56.780 the type of bureaucracy that we're looking at now, that whenever it's well-intentioned beginnings,

00:22:03.640 it was always and inevitably because of its ability to create the shortcut around the constitution

00:22:09.460 going to result in a system that we're looking at now.

00:22:13.120 Do you think these are different and discreet things or is DEI based on many of the privileges

00:22:22.060 afforded by things like, you know, Griggs v. Duke Power?

00:22:27.740 Yeah, it's really interesting.

00:22:29.140 And I think the kind of narrative or the story that I tell in the book is compatible with Caldwell's

00:22:35.420 analysis of civil rights law and more particularly civil rights bureaucracy.

00:22:39.020 And so it's kind of an all of the things simultaneous.

00:22:43.520 It's internally incoherent, but things don't have to be internally coherent in order to be effective.

00:22:48.740 That's one of the things you learn about society all the time.

00:22:51.340 You say, oh man, this doesn't make any sense.

00:22:53.440 This is not rational.

00:22:54.440 This is not a good argument.

00:22:55.540 This is not persuasive.

00:22:56.440 There's no evidence.

00:22:57.540 And yet they're extremely successful.

00:22:59.780 And so you say, all right, well, what is the adaptation required here?

00:23:02.220 Oh, maybe logical coherence is overrated when you look at things in terms of are they successful?

00:23:10.500 Are they gaining power in the institutions, for example?

00:23:13.540 How are they insulated from cost and benefit?

00:23:16.940 Or how are they insulated from adverse consequences?

00:23:21.380 And this is one of those examples where it's quite interesting.

00:23:24.680 The critical race theorists are explicitly disillusioned with the Civil Rights Act.

00:23:30.120 Derrick Bell, the father of critical race theory, the godfather of this movement,

00:23:34.720 by the end of his career at Harvard Law, was totally disgusted with civil rights law.

00:23:42.700 He said the 14th Amendment was a farce designed to advance corporate interests and keep minorities oppressed.

00:23:50.220 He said that the Civil Rights Act was a farce.

00:23:52.600 He said Brown v. Board of Education, the decision that led to the integration of schools,

00:23:57.620 was designed by, you know, by white society to further and invisibly entrench racial domination.

00:24:07.720 I mean, he said that the Constitution was roach powder towards the end of his career.

00:24:12.340 And so he had really extreme, he actually started as a civil rights movement lawyer,

00:24:19.660 desegregating schools in the Deep South.

00:24:21.460 He became disillusioned with that act.

00:24:24.780 He fought really against these American principles,

00:24:28.420 the 14th Amendment to the Declaration, to the 14th Amendment, to the Civil Rights Act.

00:24:32.540 And his students, of course, say, oh, no, we reject enlightenment rationalism altogether.

00:24:36.820 We reject the system of individual rights.

00:24:38.740 We reject colorblindness and meritocracy.

00:24:41.280 We reject diversity and equity and inclusion, even,

00:24:44.720 as an inferior substitute to wider material redistribution and the total evaporation of old American norms in favor of a utopian ideal.

00:24:54.800 And so that's their rhetoric.

00:24:56.880 But what do they do specifically?

00:24:59.080 They burrow into, you know, the disparate impact theory.

00:25:03.660 They burrow into the DEI bureaucracies.

00:25:05.960 They burrow into these frivolous lawsuits and this massive apparatus that kind of adjudicates the supposed civil rights violations,

00:25:16.520 which in many cases are just absurd.

00:25:18.920 And then they use that as the primary mechanism for them to spread their message,

00:25:24.220 for them to entrench their ideas.

00:25:26.160 And the idea of the long march to the institutions is that you march to the institutions

00:25:30.000 and install your ideology amorally, using whatever hook, using whatever mechanism you can,

00:25:36.020 in order to then grind up that system and destroy that system from within.

00:25:41.420 And so I think that their ideology is against the American principles and the progression of American principles,

00:25:48.560 let's say from the Declaration of the Constitution of the 14th Amendment to the Civil Rights Act,

00:25:52.600 using the strategies outlined by Caldwell in order to change the meaning of them

00:25:58.300 and eventually destroy, let's say, the original meaning of them.

00:26:02.520 So you've always been picky about your produce.

00:26:04.880 But now you find yourself checking every label to make sure it's Canadian.

00:26:09.060 So be it.

00:26:10.140 At Sobeys, we always pick guaranteed fresh Canadian produce first.

00:26:14.400 Restrictions apply.

00:26:15.360 See in-store or online for details.

00:26:17.080 So my only problem with that is, I guess, really the locality of something like Disparate Impact to the Civil Rights Act.

00:26:29.980 The Civil Rights Act has never operated in a colorblind fashion.

00:26:33.220 In fact, it makes colorblindness illegal through, you know, disparate impact.

00:26:39.220 It is illegal to ignore the color of people and judge them on, you know, say, their ability to pass an IQ test.

00:26:46.820 That is a core function of civil rights law.

00:26:50.020 And so I don't know that that really hangs together.

00:26:53.640 That, you know, yes, they were – they thought that the Civil Rights Act didn't go far enough, to be sure.

00:26:59.400 Like, they were – but that's revolutionaries complaining that the revolution is only halfway through, right?

00:27:04.300 I don't think they're actually rejecting many of the things that were instantiated through cases like Griggs.

00:27:11.220 Yeah, and, I mean, I would agree with your analysis there.

00:27:15.060 I think that Griggs is a disaster.

00:27:16.740 It's got to get overturned by the Supreme Court.

00:27:19.940 You know, and conservatives, Republicans, you know, you think Griggs is bad.

00:27:24.760 Well, what they did in the 1991 Civil Rights Act reforms was actually take that principle of disparate impact and codify it into federal law.

00:27:33.860 So taking it out of the realm of just the jurisprudence and interpretation into the actual law of the United States.

00:27:40.480 And so – and then you look at Lyndon Johnson's executive order underlying the affirmative action programs.

00:27:46.700 That was immediately in the 1960s.

00:27:48.960 Right.

00:27:49.580 So I'm just confused as to when this became colorblind.

00:27:52.860 Like, when was the civil rights reckoning, the revolution, colorblind?

00:27:59.480 And how is – how is the current thing a – a perversion of what I think was, at its very beginning, an act that was not in any way colorblind?

00:28:09.100 I think that it was sold to the public as a method of fulfilling the promise of a colorblind society, protecting people's individual rights, treating people equally as individuals regardless of their ancestry, which is a vision that I still support.

00:28:23.920 And I would agree with your critique in the sense that we don't have that.

00:28:28.520 We have affirmative action.

00:28:30.060 We have quotas.

00:28:30.760 We have disparate impact.

00:28:31.700 We have, you know, all of the, you know, civil rights lawsuits that incentivize this DEI bureaucracy.

00:28:38.660 We have these training programs that are explicitly divisive, hostile, treating people unequally as a matter of policy and a matter of culture.

00:28:46.800 You have rampant discrimination in hiring at private firms based on this kind of intersectional categorization.

00:28:53.140 And so you could make an argument to say, well, you know, have we ever had a totally colorblind society?

00:29:02.300 And so there's an argument that you could say perhaps no because you have all of these legal decisions and then the executive orders and then the legislation.

00:29:12.320 But does that mean that we then throw out the vision?

00:29:16.400 I don't think so.

00:29:17.200 I think that means that we need to fight for it.

00:29:19.540 And the good luck for us, for those of us who want to fight for that, is that we have, you know, 70% plus public support.

00:29:27.420 The public supports a colorblind system even in places like Washington State and California whenever it's put to voters in referenda.

00:29:34.960 And so conservatives were really, in a sense, sold a bill of goods in the 1990s certainly and then even before that.

00:29:44.320 And look, any conservative president could have wiped out Lyndon Johnson's executive order, which provided the basis for infertive action, could have been written out at any time in the last, you know, 60 years.

00:29:56.620 And so for whatever reason, multiple reasons, they didn't do that.

00:30:00.900 But I think it's time to do that and to say, hey, look, these executive orders were stopgap measures.

00:30:07.220 Griggs versus Duke power is an illegitimate method of settling these disputes.

00:30:12.760 Any kind of group identity-based public policy, for example, should be rejected in favor of an individual treatment of people under law.

00:30:23.900 And then we can fulfill that vision.

00:30:27.800 And there's opposition on the left, sure.

00:30:30.500 There's some opposition to that kind of idea on the right.

00:30:32.440 But I still think it's the right one.

00:30:34.220 I think it's totally feasible.

00:30:35.160 And I think with some legislative changes, with a couple of good Supreme Court rulings, we can get much closer to that.

00:30:41.780 So one thing that you focus on quite a bit and something that I'm also really interested in is the use of language, setting frames, understanding what's going on here.

00:30:50.940 And obviously, that's a big part of your book is explaining kind of how that language gets manufactured.

00:30:56.300 But just to break it down for people a little bit here, why are the left so much better at manufacturing language, controlling narratives?

00:31:04.500 Why are the right so bad at it?

00:31:07.460 I think it's a – honestly, I think I don't have any, you know, survey data to bag this up.

00:31:13.200 But I think it's a temperament question.

00:31:14.640 You know, having spent a lot of time in the kind of left-wing social scene and then in the more right-wing social scene, you have people on the left that are much more verbally adept, symbolically adept, narratively adept.

00:31:31.260 They have high skills, the kind of people that would score really high on, like, the SAT verbal section.

00:31:36.800 And I think on the right, you have more of the strong silent type is perhaps the traditional model and the archetypal personality.

00:31:46.280 You have people that are good at running businesses, that are good at, you know, leading families, that are good at making institutions work, good managers, that kind of thing,

00:31:56.980 that are less inclined for verbalism, which they probably think of instinctually as a form of sophistry.

00:32:06.080 And they may be right in some ways.

00:32:09.100 But we have a society where there are really rich rewards for people with high levels of verbal sophistication.

00:32:18.180 And we have a media ecosystem that the manipulation of words and symbols actually changes how people think in a dramatic way and then can persuade people one way or the other if done successfully.

00:32:30.260 And so I think people with high verbal skills that are able to use those verbal skills for political purposes gives our opponents,

00:32:42.480 the people who we're kind of doing the battle with every day, a big advantage.

00:32:48.560 And we have to try to eliminate or at least narrow that deficit if we want to be successful in the future.

00:32:54.680 Is part of this problem also that conservatives are really bought into the idea that politics is all about kind of a debate?

00:33:03.120 It's a big debate club and it's all about getting in there and meeting your opponent on the ground that they create and then convincing them that they're wrong,

00:33:11.500 as opposed to kind of understanding that actually your opponents are not acting in good faith and the language they've already chosen is loaded

00:33:18.580 and that meeting them there will mean your dismemberment in public?

00:33:22.420 Yes, it is absolutely that.

00:33:25.520 And that's really one of the most frustrating things that I see over and over.

00:33:28.920 And again, I think overweighting rational argument.

00:33:33.740 I think rational argument is important.

00:33:35.260 I think good arguments should be rational in a sense.

00:33:38.240 I think that good arguments should have a certain logic to them.

00:33:42.660 But, you know, if you think that you could persuade people logically and that's how you win in politics,

00:33:49.100 you haven't been paying attention since the beginning of society, since we emerged from the wilderness as human beings

00:33:57.360 and had the first, you know, teepees or whatever.

00:34:01.600 I mean, you know, that's not how politics works.

00:34:04.060 That's not how it's ever worked.

00:34:05.340 That's not how it's going to work in the future.

00:34:07.360 Politics is not a debating society.

00:34:09.340 I love debates.

00:34:10.680 I participate in debates.

00:34:11.900 I find it to be very fun.

00:34:14.940 But I'm not under the illusion that, you know, if you win the debate, then you win in politics.

00:34:21.420 The often case, it's often not true.

00:34:24.420 The opposite is often true.

00:34:26.920 And I kind of think about it in this way.

00:34:29.160 If you are on a street corner and something happens, some conflict happens,

00:34:34.600 and you try to rationally persuade the person next to you,

00:34:37.720 you make a great argument, and then he just punches you in the face,

00:34:41.900 who has won the exchange.

00:34:44.560 Well, you're sitting there with a bloody face.

00:34:47.080 This person is not persuaded.

00:34:49.160 You know, you have a problem here.

00:34:50.700 And I think that that's oftentimes what is happening with us.

00:34:54.120 You know, the left has a stranglehold on the institutions.

00:34:57.740 It's punching you in the face over and over.

00:35:00.140 And then you're going to say, excuse me, sir, you know,

00:35:03.620 have you considered this brilliant point from Edmund Burke?

00:35:06.140 It's like, come on.

00:35:07.700 You know, you have to actually fight the fight in a real way using rhetoric, using debate, of course,

00:35:16.440 using all of those tools.

00:35:18.360 But to think that those tools are sufficient in and of themselves,

00:35:21.920 I mean, I just, I just, and I think it bothers me in particular because some of the people on the old kind of, 0.88

00:35:31.920 you know, neoliberal, libertarian right, whatever you want, never Trump right,

00:35:36.320 whatever you want to call those folks, object to what I'm doing.

00:35:39.280 Because they're like, well, you're racking up significant political victories,

00:35:42.040 but, you know, we don't actually use political power to achieve our objectives.

00:35:47.100 And it's like, well, what the hell have you been doing?

00:35:49.740 Why are you in politics?

00:35:50.940 I mean, what?

00:35:52.620 What do you mean?

00:35:53.640 What are you competing for?

00:35:55.000 And I realized, actually, when you talk to, like, even some of the Republican governors,

00:36:00.560 not the great ones that you and I support, but some of the, some of the ones that are in red states,

00:36:05.620 70% Republican, you talk to them and you realize, oh, my God,

00:36:10.060 these people don't actually care about, they don't even think about governing.

00:36:14.040 They don't think about wielding power.

00:36:15.540 They don't think about reshaping institutions.

00:36:17.860 They think that they're like the Queen of England,

00:36:20.100 a nice little old lady that is a symbolic power that doesn't actually do anything 1.00

00:36:23.700 and takes the nice pictures and has a, you know, tea party every once in a while.

00:36:28.120 I mean, it's like, these people are out to lunch.

00:36:30.760 They don't understand how politics functions.

00:36:32.760 And that's why I think Republican voters are often so frustrated and confused by their own leaders

00:36:38.060 who should be using their large majorities to actually govern. 0.84

00:36:43.720 So there's been a lot of debate, and I've even gotten into this a little bit

00:36:49.060 with one of your research partners, Vocal Distance, who I like talking to quite a bit,

00:36:55.140 but we butt heads on a few things.

00:36:58.120 And I'm certainly not going to ask you to hold up any of his arguments here,

00:37:01.220 but I'm just going to ask you about it.

00:37:02.460 So a lot of people have noticed, because it's a little difficult to not notice,

00:37:07.780 that all of these DEI efforts, that all of these attempts that are theoretically Marxist

00:37:13.720 to like remake all this stuff, all kind of have one thing in common. 0.94

00:37:18.240 They really don't like white people, like a lot. 0.93

00:37:22.300 Everything is about, you know, everything that happens in society is implicitly white. 0.99

00:37:27.100 It's all white supremacy. 0.98

00:37:28.860 Anything that makes society work is white, and whiteness needs to be destroyed. 1.00

00:37:34.220 There seems to be a very particular on-the-nose focus on one particular group 0.98

00:37:41.260 and the need to, like, make sure that they don't have power or exist in any cultural

00:37:46.080 or any other meaningful way inside society.

00:37:49.400 And many people have noticed that, hey, this seems a little anti-white.

00:37:52.700 But that phrase seems to have stirred up some controversy.

00:37:56.920 Maybe you can help clarify, is that a fair way to characterize what's happening here?

00:38:01.480 So it's an interesting point and an interesting question.

00:38:05.040 And I think that there's a couple ways of looking at it.

00:38:08.580 And if you look at the literature, and it's something that I explore quite deeply,

00:38:13.320 you know, they call it the problem of whiteness.

00:38:16.000 Right.

00:38:16.240 Meaning that there is a, I mean, that's the literature.

00:38:18.320 They say it. 1.00

00:38:19.180 All white people are racist. 1.00

00:38:20.600 All white people are beneficiaries of privilege. 1.00

00:38:23.300 All white people participate in the system of white supremacy by virtue of their ancestry, 0.95

00:38:28.560 is the argument.

00:38:29.720 And so is it racism towards people who are either European in Europe or Americans of European descent?

00:38:38.820 Obviously, yes.

00:38:39.820 Of course it is.

00:38:40.580 I mean, some of the stuff that's profiled in the book, I mean, is really hideous

00:38:44.740 and really filled with the worst kind of rhetoric imaginable that is specifically targeted,

00:38:52.860 as you say, towards people who are, you know, representatives of whiteness.

00:38:58.820 You know, they never define it, though.

00:39:00.200 That's the one interesting thing.

00:39:01.060 They never define the essence of whiteness. 0.81

00:39:02.640 What is it?

00:39:03.080 Well, it's just kind of a fancy word for saying white people, right?

00:39:07.060 I mean, that's the kind of intellectualization of what they're saying.

00:39:10.600 And that's been, sorry, go ahead.

00:39:12.600 But what I would say, and where I probably come down on the side with local distance,

00:39:18.320 is I think it is rhetorically unwise to frame this as, okay, this is, you know, anti-white racism.

00:39:28.780 I think for a couple reasons.

00:39:31.040 One is because I think it's not exclusively anti-white.

00:39:33.740 It's certainly anti-Asian racism that is very explicit in things like call it omissions and et cetera.

00:39:40.540 But I think more importantly is because then you enter into a frame that they have already set, you know,

00:39:46.780 and an argument between which is worse, you know, anti-black racism or anti-white racism,

00:39:52.840 is an argument that it's like, you know, they have an advantage because they've been setting the frame for decades

00:40:01.800 with critical race theory on this, and you're baited into being a part of their dialectic.

00:40:06.700 And if you are on the positive side of their dialectic, they're going to chew you up.

00:40:11.040 And I think the better response to that is not to engage in a tit-for-tat on their terms,

00:40:16.220 to say, you know, nuh-uh you, but to actually go to a higher level of education.

00:40:22.840 A higher level of abstraction, a higher level of analysis, a higher level of rhetoric.

00:40:27.200 And, and, and to say that, you know, um, you know, this is what we're for.

00:40:32.020 We're for a society that is colorblind, that treats people equally.

00:40:35.620 Then you say the programs at such and such DEI condemn people on the basis of their ancestry.

00:40:42.600 They promote, uh, racial scapegoating.

00:40:45.080 They declare, declare that all, you know, whites are racist by virtue of their ancestry. 0.75

00:40:49.260 We need to absolutely stop anything like that.

00:40:52.320 Uh, and protect everyone, uh, equally as an individual.

00:40:56.360 I, I just think that that's what most people, uh, believe.

00:40:59.400 I think that that's the most successful rhetorically, rhetorically. 0.97

00:41:02.420 And I just think that fighting over, you know, you're racist, nuh-uh, you're racist.

00:41:08.060 I, I, I just don't see that being, um, uh, politically successful.

00:41:11.800 I don't see that.

00:41:12.940 And, and I see that, you know, honestly, people falling into too many of those rhetorical traps,

00:41:17.300 uh, using that, uh, strategy.

00:41:19.960 I do think you're right that the word racism is a rhetorical trap.

00:41:23.080 I don't, I don't think there's any, there's really any use for that word on either side

00:41:26.960 of this, no matter what, uh, stepping to that frame.

00:41:29.460 Though I do, I do wonder, I mean, to your credit in the book, you do, like you said, you,

00:41:34.560 you outline some of the most explicit, um, attacks that many of these radicals are talking 0.51

00:41:40.320 about, uh, how it's their duty to rape white women, how, uh, you know, the, the different 0.97

00:41:45.120 radicals sitting around and talking about how, uh, they need to contemplate when and 1.00

00:41:49.260 where they'll kill a white baby to keep it from entering into, I mean, you, you, you lay 1.00

00:41:52.840 that out. 0.98

00:41:53.360 Like it's, it's all right there at the core of the movement.

00:41:56.340 I guess here's the problem.

00:41:58.680 I understand what you're saying.

00:41:59.980 You don't want to step into the left's frame, but when there's a group that's been targeted

00:42:04.600 for a particular reason, I feel like avoiding noticing that tells something to

00:42:10.200 that group, for instance, if a bunch of people were getting together and saying that Jewishness

00:42:15.100 was a problem and that everything about a society was a function of Jewishness and that

00:42:20.340 you had a duty to do things that I'm not going to say now on air because someone will clip

00:42:24.120 it, you know, inverting all of the things we just talked about and applied that to that

00:42:29.020 racial group or that, that, that ethno-religious group, I think you would have zero problem calling 0.98

00:42:35.580 it antisemitic, right?

00:42:36.840 Yeah.

00:42:37.840 Yeah.

00:42:38.840 Yeah.

00:42:39.840 Of, of, of course.

00:42:40.840 And, and look, I mean, I don't have a problem to say that some of these ideologies, some

00:42:44.420 of these programs, um, are, are, are anti white.

00:42:47.840 I mean, they're explicitly so you, you've mentioned some of the examples from the book.

00:42:51.840 It's not, it doesn't take a genius of, of analysis to say that, but I think that that

00:42:56.000 can't be the main argument for, for, for, for two reasons.

00:42:59.140 The reason that I outlined, uh, you know, just now before, um, but also because you have to

00:43:04.280 provide a vision of the kind of society that you want and by, by framing it in those terms,

00:43:09.280 I think that you miss the actual point.

00:43:11.280 It's like, look, the people, my neighbors, you know, my own family, my friends, it's a

00:43:16.280 wide variety of people, um, you know, and, and, and certainly we want a society that is,

00:43:21.280 look, our, our society, you can have a debate about immigration.

00:43:23.280 You can have data about, debate about demographics, but we have a complex and, and, and multi-ethnic,

00:43:29.280 multi-racial society.

00:43:30.280 And I think that we should have a system in which everyone can participate, um, a system

00:43:35.280 of principles and values that is not, uh, reinforcing a kind of tribal or an ethnic or

00:43:41.280 a racial, uh, division or an opposition, but trying to provide a vision that can unify

00:43:46.280 people.

00:43:47.280 And I think that even if you look at the American founding, they were very conscious that these

00:43:50.280 were all very different, uh, Europeans, uh, that had different languages, different customs,

00:43:55.280 different homelands, English, Dutch, uh, German, et cetera.

00:43:59.280 Um, and so, while of course it's a totally different composition today, I think we still

00:44:05.280 have to strive for creating a unifying vision.

00:44:08.280 Um, and, and, and I just don't think that, that participating in a kind of tit for tat is

00:44:13.280 the way to do it.

00:44:14.280 And I think that the difference, part of the difference why you can say, well, if, if someone

00:44:17.280 says something anti-Semitic, everyone piles on.

00:44:20.280 If someone, if someone says something anti-white, people kind of say, well, you know, they're

00:44:23.280 less upset or disturbed about it.

00:44:25.280 And I think part of that is a simple fact that, that, uh, Europeans, uh, people from

00:44:30.280 European ancestry are still a significant majority in the United States.

00:44:34.280 Um, and so when Derrick Bell, the grandfather of CRT, rants and raves about, you know, um, you

00:44:40.280 know, uh, potential, uh, what he calls a, you know, black genocide, you can dismiss it.

00:44:46.280 You can, you can, um, you can, you know, I mean, you can say that it's paranoia.

00:44:51.280 He even admits, you know, in his verbal tics that it's part of a paranoia that he has.

00:44:56.280 Um, but there's something because of the statistical distribution that is less ridiculous than the 0.93

00:45:02.280 really absurd and, and I think, uh, insane idea, oh, there's going to be a, a white genocide 0.93

00:45:09.280 that you see in some, uh, fringes of the, it's like, this is ridiculous. 0.78

00:45:12.280 That's not gonna, that's not, uh, even from a practical perspective, you can point out the

00:45:17.280 ideology, you can point out the weather underground, you can point out, uh, you know, Robin D'Angelo,

00:45:21.280 whatever.

00:45:22.280 We can criticize that, but let's not, um, let's not delude ourselves into thinking that they're

00:45:26.280 the same thing, even just on the very basic, uh, uh, weight of distribution in the population.

00:45:32.280 So that might not be popular.

00:45:34.280 People might not like that, but I, I think that it's absolutely something that is true.

00:45:37.280 And I think that's the reason that a lot of people are more, um, uh, hesitant or maybe

00:45:42.280 more permissive or maybe more or less, less, um, feeling less need to speak, um, is because

00:45:49.280 the simple fact is, you know, uh, there's a large majority of the population that is descended

00:45:53.280 from, from Europeans.

00:45:55.280 But here's, I think it makes a difference.

00:45:56.280 Sure.

00:45:57.280 Here's the problem, Chris, though.

00:45:58.280 Like you can't say, I want a colorblind society where we ignore this stuff.

00:46:01.280 And by the way, actually all these people have a free pass on this rhetoric because, right?

00:46:05.280 Like it's either one thing or the other, right?

00:46:07.280 So either you're, either you're for a consistent standard of these things being completely irrelevant

00:46:12.280 or you're not, but, and you're not justifying that rhetoric or you're justifying that rhetoric

00:46:18.280 and you're then just specifically excluding it from different groups.

00:46:21.280 I'm with you.

00:46:22.280 I would agree.

00:46:23.280 And I, and I would say that, um, you know, I, I mean, I'm certainly of all, of all the people,

00:46:27.280 I, I think that I've, I've, I've done, you know, quite a bit and maybe more, maybe more

00:46:32.280 than anyone else, uh, to expose that kind of ideology, um, to, to go into its intricacies,

00:46:38.280 to fight against its main proponents.

00:46:40.280 But I think that what I've found to be successful and the reason that I have been, um, successful

00:46:46.280 in some of these activism campaigns is because I try to have, I try to level up the vision.

00:46:51.280 I try to level up the, um, uh, the, the, the principle to say, this is what we're striving

00:46:58.280 for.

00:46:59.280 And I try to get above that kind of, uh, without of course, excusing any of it.

00:47:03.280 I mean, I attack it explicitly.

00:47:05.280 Um, you, I, I, I try to get out of that frame of thinking because I think that it is,

00:47:10.280 it's not good even for the person who is making that line of argument.

00:47:14.280 I think that it actually is, um, uh, it, it's kind of unhealthy.

00:47:18.280 It's, it's disintegrative.

00:47:19.280 You, you can get, um, trapped in that much in the way our opponents have been trapped

00:47:23.280 in that.

00:47:24.280 I mean, I do not want to have the mirror image of critical race theory be my ideology. 0.94

00:47:29.280 I mean, these people are lunatics and fanatics and cynics and, and, um, and filled with fears 0.93

00:47:37.280 and paranoias and, and revenge fantasies and hatreds. 0.83

00:47:40.280 Um, I want to have a philosophy and, and, and, and a, and a political argument that, that,

00:47:46.280 that, that, that goes so far above that, that I don't actually then find myself a victim

00:47:51.280 to those kinds of feelings in a, in a mirror image.

00:47:54.280 And, and unfortunately, um, and I, I, I do see that in certain elements of the political right.

00:47:59.280 I mean, I see people that are prey to the same temptations that the critical race theorists are, are, are, are, are, have been prey to.

00:48:08.280 And I think it's personally as, as a, as a person, I think it's a mistake.

00:48:13.280 I think it's actually, you know, not, not, not good for those people.

00:48:16.280 And I think also politically and socially, it's a mistake as well.

00:48:20.280 I think it is a mistake for some people on the right to say that, uh, that they're, that they're going to have basically their identity politics exactly the same as the left.

00:48:28.280 I don't think that in the end, that is a good goal.

00:48:31.280 I just think that there is a certain acknowledgement that has to take place.

00:48:35.280 If you want people to take us kind of seriously on these issues.

00:48:38.280 And part of it is speaking truth about how different groups are treated.

00:48:42.280 There's also an issue of course, that even when we move to a colorblind society, if that's a thing that, that can happen.

00:48:49.280 If different groups continue to perform differently than like disparate impact has noticed, people will try to take corrective action, right?

00:48:58.280 They that's built into our civil rights structure. 0.97

00:49:02.280 And so I think there also has to be an explicit understanding.

00:49:05.280 If you're going to attempt to kind of re understand that vision that you're talking about to say,

00:49:11.280 even if there are noticeable statistical differences that emerge over time, once we have applied a merit based program, that is no longer something that is of concern to people.

00:49:23.280 That is not something that can be or should be addressed by the law or culture.

00:49:27.280 Yeah, I mean, I agree with that.

00:49:28.280 I think we should have a pure kind of colorblind society in the sense that we treat people as individuals.

00:49:36.280 And then if there are group disparities at the end of that process, as long as they've been treated fairly and equally during the process,

00:49:44.280 let the cards, you know, fall where the cards fall.

00:49:47.280 And so, for example, if Asians are dominating in college admissions and SAT scores, the solution is not to say, hey, let's penalize the Asians.

00:49:57.280 The solution is for other groups to figure out, well, you know, what are they doing?

00:50:01.280 Is there any way that we can improve our own performance, have, you know, higher test scores, strive harder, figure out other ways to succeed?

00:50:10.280 And I think that if you look at group disparities, there's group disparities everywhere.

00:50:16.280 I mean, there's group disparities in every human endeavor.

00:50:18.280 And it's not even exclusively on, we focus on race because it's like a monomania.

00:50:23.280 But it's not even exclusively there because, of course, within, you know, European Americans, within American whites,

00:50:30.280 you have massive group disparities between different ethnicities or different nations of origin.

00:50:36.280 You know, your Scots-Irish Appalachians are performing very differently than your Swedish-American people in the suburbs in the Midwest.

00:50:44.280 And so these kind of disparities, we have to make an argument, and what I would agree with you on, is if we get to a colorblind legal regime

00:50:56.280 in which you have to prove active discrimination in order to have any kind of legal claim in your specific case,

00:51:04.280 which again is, I mean, it's fair.

00:51:07.280 If you're, you know, if someone is saying, you know, you, not you, much as the Harvard Asians case that was before the Supreme Court,

00:51:13.280 they have a justification.

00:51:16.280 But we have to have a better argument as conservatives to say, okay, colorblind society produces unequal outcomes of groups in many different ways.

00:51:27.280 How do you explain that?

00:51:31.280 How do you rationalize that?

00:51:33.280 How do you make a persuasive argument that that is not a legitimate basis for then changing the entire system upstream?

00:51:42.280 That's a very complex question.

00:51:44.280 It's a very difficult question.

00:51:46.280 But I think that most people, most normal people, don't spend all day obsessing over these questions,

00:51:57.280 thinking about these questions, don't particularly care.

00:52:00.280 They're not particularly conscious of it in their daily life where they're focused on their own families and needs and interests and professions and institutions.

00:52:11.280 And I think that if we can devise a strong argument, if we can devise a strong system of law, if we can devise something that has buy-in from people of all different backgrounds,

00:52:23.280 that is fair, that is just, I think that people will eventually come to the conclusion that, one, it's their responsibility.

00:52:37.280 They'll take on more responsibility without the ability to just blame the system or demand unequal treatment from the system.

00:52:45.280 And then I think, look, I think that, you know, the society that results will not be perfect, but I think it will be much better than what we have today,

00:52:55.280 which is a system of legalized discrimination, which is a system of these kind of farcical DEI bureaucracies that degrade all of our institutions.

00:53:05.280 And then the really elevation of some of these very hostile ideologies that I outline in the book that do damage, not just to people, you know, not just to this group or that group,

00:53:19.280 but actually to the entire society fundamentally.

00:53:21.280 Yeah, I think there's a larger discussion to be said on kind of the top down versus bottom up nature and those kind of things.

00:53:29.280 But I want to ask you one more question.

00:53:31.280 We're kind of running up of time and I don't want to miss the opportunity to ask it before we go.

00:53:35.280 So Curtis Yarvin was on this program.

00:53:37.280 He kind of had some pushback against your work in Florida with Governor DeSantis and New College.

00:53:45.280 He after kind of giving that speech on this program, he kind of wrote a piece about it.

00:53:51.280 You kind of retorted back.

00:53:53.280 So just for people who aren't aware, basically without using, you know, colorful language as much as Yarvin did on the show,

00:54:01.280 he said basically forcing people into like like flexing force and using this to kind of push people in this activist direction by taking over these public institutions

00:54:12.280 and forcing them into a particular mold kind of sets you as the villain.

00:54:16.280 It activates all the defense mechanisms of the regime and it causes them to kind of have a new and vital energy

00:54:22.280 because they're back again fighting the evil of the mid-century Germans once more as opposed to wooing them,

00:54:30.280 you know, making it more of a soft power peddling of ideas, slow transformational thing.

00:54:35.280 Once their kind of ideology burns out is more his approach.

00:54:40.280 What do you have to say to kind of Yarvin's thought that your aggressive nature towards the denizens of New College is something that's kind of a losing strategy?

00:54:51.280 Well, you know, I love Curtis and I enjoy, you know, talking to Curtis and I've spent a little time with him at some conferences and such.

00:54:59.280 And I find Curtis to be really interesting and refreshing and obviously very intelligent.

00:55:05.280 But I just think that he's wrong on this.

00:55:07.280 And I think that, again, it's almost a temperamental thing.

00:55:09.280 He talks about, I remember in some interview or maybe I talked to him personally about it.

00:55:14.280 He's like, oh, you know, I kind of adopt the posture of a prey animal so that no one really tries to bother me or cancel me.

00:55:19.280 And I think that his philosophy is, in a sense, a kind of prey animal philosophy where, you know, if we could just kind of avoid danger for long enough, things will shift in our direction.

00:55:30.280 And maybe if we can just get the predators to like us a little bit, we can, you know, change how they think.

00:55:35.280 And then kind of, you know, flash, bang, bam, at some point then we'll have the conditions if everything really degrades and degenerates for some dramatic Napoleonic figure to come in.

00:55:49.280 And it's like, I mean, A, which is it?

00:55:52.280 You know, B, you know, kind of how is this going to work?

00:55:56.280 And then C, well, look, I mean, this is the political regime we have today.

00:56:01.280 We have a constitutional republic.

00:56:03.280 I believe we still have a constitutional republic.

00:56:06.280 And so we have to use the mechanisms of power that we have available to us.

00:56:10.280 And I think that beyond the theoretical question where, again, I disagree with him.

00:56:16.280 It's like, wait a minute, you're not going to, you know, it's this kind of this mistaken idea of, well, if I can only get, you know, the New York Times op-ed page to agree with me.

00:56:24.280 No, the New York Times op-ed page will publish, like, the maybe DEI is not so great after all as a pressure release, you know, not because there's actually any material or significant administrative change in the institutions.

00:56:39.280 I think that you have to use politics and try to create prototypes for recapture, for transformation.

00:56:46.280 And I think that we've seen it.

00:56:49.280 And the record, I think, is the ultimate disproof of Curtis's argument.

00:56:53.280 At New College of Florida, where we've kind of recaptured the institution, I think we've made tremendous progress.

00:57:01.280 All of those, you know, those alarm bells were on the left, went off.

00:57:07.280 They tried to come.

00:57:08.280 They tried to stop it.

00:57:09.280 They protested.

00:57:10.280 They did 100 hysterical op-eds.

00:57:12.280 Gavin Newsom flew into town, onto the campus, and he was part of some drum circle or something.

00:57:18.280 I don't even really know what he was doing, but he was dancing to a drum circle.

00:57:23.280 But then, you know, as Governor DeSantis told us explicitly before we engaged in this campaign, he says, the media's going to come after you.

00:57:32.280 Sit tight.

00:57:33.280 If they're not coming after you hard, you're not doing your job.

00:57:35.280 And then watch.

00:57:36.280 If you can outlast them, if you can outlast their attention span, they'll start to disappear.

00:57:40.280 That's exactly what's happened.

00:57:42.280 We've recruited the largest incoming class in the college's history.

00:57:45.280 We have the college's budget is in better shape than it's ever been since it was established in the 1960s.

00:57:52.280 We had 30 of the most kind of anti-liberal, smaller liberal, the most left-wing, you know, gender studies professors, you know, ideological professors, self-select out.

00:58:07.280 They've left.

00:58:09.280 We're bringing in, you know, 30 new, very smart, kind of classical liberal education aligned professors.

00:58:15.280 You know, you might consider them even more conservative professors.

00:58:18.280 We're giving them now a home to do their scholarship, to do their teaching.

00:58:22.280 And so that's how institutions change.

00:58:25.280 That's how we make progress.

00:58:27.280 We also do this through mechanisms like universal school choice, giving parents cash to take to any school of their choice to rebuild their own local institutions.

00:58:36.280 And I look at this in a way in my own experience, not just the kind of abstract experience in writing and politics, but what do I do with my kids?

00:58:46.280 What choices do I actually make?

00:58:48.280 What do I actually really at the end of the day believe is the right thing to do as revealed through my choices?

00:58:53.280 And, you know, you find a good church.

00:58:57.280 You find a good school that promotes a curriculum that affirms and reflects your values.

00:59:02.280 You find good friends.

00:59:03.280 You find a good city to live in.

00:59:05.280 All of those things are still possible in our country.

00:59:10.280 And I think that what it takes is not a kind of doom and gloom, but it takes decisive action.

00:59:16.280 It takes real reform.

00:59:18.280 And it all can be done through the normal democratic process.

00:59:22.280 All right, Chris.

00:59:23.280 Well, I think everyone should check out the book.

00:59:25.280 Obviously, we do disagree on a few things, but I think overall it is a great book.

00:59:29.280 It is a great book.

00:59:30.280 It lays out a very compelling case, has a lot of excellent information for people who need to understand what happened in it.

00:59:36.280 So, guys, make sure that you're checking out the American Cultural Revolution.

00:59:41.280 We do have a few.

00:59:43.280 I know your time is tight with the book tour and everything.

00:59:45.280 We do have a few questions from the audience.

00:59:47.280 Do you have time to look at those or do you have to go?

00:59:49.280 Either one's fine.

00:59:50.280 I think I do.

00:59:51.280 I think I have a minute.

00:59:52.280 So, yeah, let's let's take a few, maybe go.

00:59:54.280 OK, 10.

00:59:55.280 We probably won't be able to get them all, guys, but we'll try to at least get a few of the super chats in here.

01:00:00.280 All right.

01:00:01.280 So we'll just start at the beginning here.

01:00:03.280 Deuce Boogaloo for $10.

01:00:05.280 Thank you very much, sir.

01:00:06.280 Hey, Mr. Rufo, thanks for all you've done in my state of Florida.

01:00:09.280 Do you still support DeSantis for president of the United States?

01:00:13.280 And can you make the case he'd be more likely to get rid of these federal racial laws than Trump?

01:00:19.280 Yeah.

01:00:21.280 Yes, of course.

01:00:22.280 I appreciate that.

01:00:23.280 And I do.

01:00:24.280 I still support DeSantis for exactly that reason because when I look at candidates, it's a little bit different than other people.

01:00:31.280 But I always think, hey, what am I working on?

01:00:34.280 What are my policy priorities?

01:00:35.280 What are the ideas that I'd like to advance?

01:00:37.280 And who is the most likely to actually bring them to fruition?

01:00:41.280 And having worked with the governor on some of these issues in the last couple years, I've seen him work and I've seen his, I mean, really unique talent.

01:00:52.280 And one of the things that he has a talent for is understanding complex institutions, understanding how the law works, understanding the levers of power in the bureaucracy.

01:01:02.280 And what he's done is really an astonishing transformation in Florida.

01:01:06.280 I think he could absolutely do the same thing in Washington, D.C.

01:01:09.280 He's got experience in Congress.

01:01:10.280 He has intelligence, self-discipline, follow through, really good management skills.

01:01:18.280 He's delegated to a very high, very talented team within his administration in Tallahassee.

01:01:25.280 And, you know, he has this remarkable vision where he says, all right, here are the boards, here are the laws, here are the reforms, here's the budget.

01:01:33.280 Here are all the different components of how to run an institution as an executive.

01:01:37.280 And I just think that he could do it.

01:01:41.280 I think, I feel confident that he would, I would hope, and I'll be coming out with a paper soon to outline this,

01:01:47.280 but rescind Lyndon Johnson's executive order on colorblindness, re-ban CRT throughout the federal government,

01:01:55.280 defund left-wing ideological programs and grant-making from the federal government going outside the government,

01:02:01.280 and then start to, through executive orders and then hopefully some legislation, to reform civil rights laws,

01:02:07.280 to get rid of disparate impact, to get rid of affirmative action, to get rid of a kind of DEI-style ideology,

01:02:14.280 and to reform these outrageous kind of fake lawsuits that have incentivized them.

01:02:20.280 So I think he could do it, if anyone can do it, and that's why he has my support.

01:02:25.280 So just to follow up on that one.

01:02:27.280 So we know Trump banned, you know, DEI with executive orders in the executive branch, obviously.

01:02:35.280 And then a lot of these people just completely ignored him.

01:02:38.280 They did nothing.

01:02:39.280 Even though he has the constitutional power and authority to make that order, he was just entirely ignored.

01:02:47.280 What would be different with DeSantis?

01:02:50.280 What would he do differently that would actually cause that order to be reinforced?

01:02:56.280 Well, you know, I actually read it quite differently, and I was involved with it, and I actually don't think it was ignored.

01:03:02.280 In fact, I think they were actually pretty good and actually very good at enforcing the order.

01:03:08.280 And it was really run by Russ Vogt out of the Office of Management and Budget.

01:03:12.280 He put together this really incredible team that was fielding tips from federal employees who said,

01:03:17.280 hey, I think they're in violation of the order.

01:03:19.280 And then he would just squash them one by one if anyone was in violation.

01:03:23.280 And not only that, but it actually had kind of a chilling effect, and because it extended to corporate America,

01:03:31.280 that actually corporations were starting to cancel some of these trainings.

01:03:34.280 And so I actually think that, you know, under Russ's leadership at OMB,

01:03:40.280 I actually think they did a really good job at enforcing the executive order and a really good job at monitoring and cracking down as necessary.

01:03:49.280 All right. Thuggo here for $7. Thank you very much, sir.

01:03:53.280 Issues like trans kids are just battles fought on our turf. 1.00

01:03:57.280 Once they lose, all their power will be intact.

01:04:00.280 What are their core issues?

01:04:02.280 So very interesting. Yeah, a lot of strength right now, I think, for the right,

01:04:06.280 because they're standing on pretty firm ground fighting back against the trans issue.

01:04:11.280 But what would be some of the core issues that we would know that, you know, we are now moving into their territory, making gains in that direction?

01:04:20.280 Yeah, I mean, I think, in my view, the best way to look at that is administratively or institutionally.

01:04:27.280 And so what I found to be true in the political work, policy work, and then also the higher education work is that you have to actually start doing significant work that disrupts the bureaucracy administratively,

01:04:42.280 which means inevitably, you know, terminating the employment of people who are doing the wrong things that are employed in departments that should no longer exist,

01:04:53.280 much as a private corporation would do downsizing or layoffs, that's really what it's going to take at a deep level.

01:05:01.280 And so that is much harder, right, because when people lose their jobs, the media finds some sympathetic story and runs it and you get beat up on it.

01:05:09.280 But I think that's when we know that we're stretching.

01:05:13.280 You know, certainly at New College, we've done that.

01:05:17.280 You know, we fired the president, the provost left.

01:05:20.280 We shut down the DEI office.

01:05:22.280 We fired the DEI director.

01:05:24.280 We've, I guess, incentivized about a third of the faculty to leave.

01:05:29.280 Some contracts weren't renewed.

01:05:31.280 Others chose to leave voluntarily.

01:05:33.280 I think, like, most of the gender professors are gone.

01:05:36.280 I saw some numbers come in.

01:05:37.280 I think about eight of them.

01:05:39.280 And so that's high-stakes stuff.

01:05:42.280 You have to be really tough.

01:05:44.280 You have to be really principled.

01:05:45.280 You have to have a real big, you know, real strong spine.

01:05:48.280 But that's what it's going to take to change institutions.

01:05:52.280 You know, people have to know that there's a standard.

01:05:56.280 And if you don't meet that standard, you know, there are going to be consequences.

01:06:01.280 Cooper Weirdo here for $5.

01:06:03.280 Hey, guys.

01:06:04.280 Do you have any thoughts on this Kennedy guy that is making some noise on the left?

01:06:08.280 Is the cathedral trying to make a Trump?

01:06:10.280 Interesting.

01:06:11.280 Yeah, I mean, Kennedy obviously now getting canceled for a whole new set of statements.

01:06:17.280 But I certainly don't think that the left wanted him in place of Biden.

01:06:21.280 What are your thoughts on Kennedy and his possibly disruptive kind of status on the left?

01:06:26.280 No.

01:06:27.280 I mean, it's like Ralph Nader or Andrew Yang or whatever, Tulsi Gabbard.

01:06:31.280 And I really, it's like these are novelty candidates that are, for the most part, engaged in personal brand-building exercises.

01:06:41.280 And so I hate to see my friends on the right, you know, kind of fall for these things.

01:06:46.280 They're not real.

01:06:47.280 They have no chance.

01:06:48.280 You know, and whatever their personal motivations are, keep your eye on the ball.

01:06:56.280 And that said, of course, like if there's an opening or an opportunity like the Nader campaign in 2000, I mean, exploit it, use it as a tool in the political fight.

01:07:07.280 But, you know, I will take many bets at good odds that, you know, RFK Jr. does not become president of the United States.

01:07:17.280 Yeah, I hope no one was under that illusion.

01:07:20.280 I think you're right.

01:07:21.280 Like, to the point, to the extent in which he does damage to the left and to Biden, he's useful.

01:07:26.280 But outside of that is not going to be a thing.

01:07:30.280 All right.

01:07:31.280 So interesting dynamic here from Ronald McNuggets.

01:07:33.280 $50.

01:07:34.280 Thank you very much.

01:07:35.280 Very generous.

01:07:36.280 If certain people are less ethnocentric and rule following, judging as individuals and others are ethnocentric, which are which you can never really fully catch.

01:07:46.280 And won't the people following your merit based rules unfairly lose resources and political power in a diverse society?

01:07:56.280 Yeah, so the question, if I can maybe rephrase it and make sure I understand it correctly, is if there are certain people that want to reward others who share the same background instead of merit or in addition to merit, that's where I'm kind of confused.

01:08:12.280 Yeah. So basically, I think what he's trying to say is, look, if most people are following the rules and they're trying to do the colorblind thing and they're going by merit.

01:08:22.280 A group of people who say, I'm just not going to do that.

01:08:25.280 I don't care that much about it and I'm in a position of power, so I'm going to ignore that.

01:08:29.280 And that can be difficult to detect over, you know, if they're doing that, if they're putting the thumb on the scale slowly and surely over time.

01:08:36.280 Won't the people who follow the rules eventually lose to the people who don't follow the rules?

01:08:42.280 I don't think so. No, I don't think so, because I think that, you know, firms that would do that, I mean, it'd be very difficult to do something like that in a large corporation, right?

01:08:56.280 I mean, that's kind of an obvious truism. It's much more difficult and that's why they have all these lawsuits in companies, but I don't know.

01:09:05.280 I mean, if it's a flagrant violation, if it's, you know, outright kind of discrimination motivated by animus or whatever in this example, obviously there's some remedy to that.

01:09:16.280 But I look, I just think of people that I work with every day, people that I engage with every day, they want to find the most capable person.

01:09:23.280 They want to find the most competent person. And yeah, are there going to be people that try to reward friends and not others? Yeah, fine.

01:09:31.280 There's going to be some of that around the edges, but I think at the end of the day, most people are pretty fair. Most people treat others equally.

01:09:39.280 And so, you know, I just think that in the larger scheme of things, if that is true, it's a kind of relatively minor negative consequence for an overall improvement in the system as a whole.

01:09:52.280 And guys, we're going to make this last one because I did. Chris does have to get going here, but I will read the rest of your super chats.

01:10:00.280 Just I do want to respect his time here. So Ronald McNuggets again for $10. Chris, do you support the right of private property owners to allow or exclude anyone for any reason or no reason from their private property?

01:10:12.280 Per Caldwell, this seems like how we got men in women's bathrooms. 1.00

01:10:16.280 Yeah, I mean, look, I mean, obviously don't support men in women's bathrooms. And that is an example, I think, of the kind of Caldwell thesis on Title IX grounds of the civil rights, you know, Title IX grounds on sex.

01:10:34.280 But look, I mean, you know, no. And I think conservatives have to be a lot harder on that issue. I mean, they have to say, look, you know, men cannot be in women's bathrooms.

01:10:45.280 Because a lot of times what we find, surprise, surprise, is that these are just straight men with, you know, kind of illicit or, you know, harmful desires.

01:10:57.280 And so we have to stop that. We have to protect people. And then I guess the question, though, is on this question, the interesting question is, well, what if it's a person who is trans that successfully passes as a woman?

01:11:09.280 Or, you know, let's say, okay, well, okay, is that, then they're going to be, you know, it's like, well, I think you have to have a standard.

01:11:16.280 And then if someone passes, they pass. I mean, literally, definitely, they pass. And they go and no one bothers them because they're not bothering anyone.

01:11:27.280 They're not, they're with bad intentions. They pass. I guess, like, that's kind of the risk that people run.

01:11:33.280 But it's a dynamic that can be too easily hijacked. And I think we've seen that over and over, whether it's in prisons with rapists or just the kind of garden variety creeper in the ladies' room. 0.99

01:11:45.280 All right, guys. Well, I'm going to go ahead and let Chris go. He's been very generous with his time.

01:11:50.280 Mr. Rufo, thank you for coming by, guys. Make sure to check out his book.

01:11:54.280 I'll continue the stream here and make sure that all the Super Chats get read. But Chris, thank you for coming on.

01:11:59.280 Thank you so much.

01:12:00.280 Absolutely.

01:12:03.280 All right. So let's go ahead and jump into our remaining Super Chats.

01:12:08.280 Oh, I'm sorry, CreeperWeird. Okay, yours was specifically for Chris.

01:12:12.280 But he said, okay, Chris, but it's okay to be white. I mean, I'm pretty sure, you know, I would hope Chris would be fine with that. 1.00

01:12:21.280 Of course, he has children. I'm sure he'd want them to be okay saying that, too.

01:12:26.280 So let's see. The Elite Elite for $10. Thank you, sir. By downplaying anti-white crap and pretending it's somehow different from other group stuff, you leave the door open to racial identitarians who will speak the truth to be disaffected whites.

01:12:42.280 Yeah, so that's a really good point. And I think kind of what I was getting at there is, if you're not willing to say something that's kind of obvious, then other people, especially people that, you know, probably Chris does not agree with, are going to say the truth. 0.97

01:12:57.280 And then you leave an unopened door there. And so I think it when there is a lot of Chris makes a really good point that you don't want to step into your opponent's frame.

01:13:07.380 I think that's an entirely valid and good point of strategy. However, there is, at some point, a scenario where you are simply ignoring true and obvious things in an attempt to just not touch an issue that you think you're going to lose on or something.

01:13:21.920 And that reeks of weakness, right? That reeks of kind of weakness and deceit. And so this is something that I have, you know, that's what I was trying to kind of explain to Woka. 1.00

01:13:32.660 But when we had the conversation, and obviously, you know, Chris is separate, they have, you know, they're not the same person, obviously. So he might have different approaches on this.

01:13:41.980 But I just do think it's important to acknowledge that that doesn't mean he needs to become the central thing of everything you talk about doesn't mean you're, you're, you know, fully embracing some kind of identitarian ideology.

01:13:53.060 But pretending like this is not real, it's not pervasive, it's not out there. Excuse me. I think does set people the wrong way people can observe this, they understand what's going on.

01:14:04.900 And they just don't like this. It starts to feel dishonest at some point when it's too obvious, and people kind of won't say it, which is, you know, people like Tucker Carlson have pointed it out.

01:14:14.940 I think it's relatively in a mainstream position at this point. I don't think you're saying anything particularly radical by just acknowledging that that's kind of the situation.

01:14:23.440 Let's see here. Torin McCabe for $10. What is Chris's opinion on Eric Kaufman's white shift? Should people be allowed to have an attachment to historical, ethnic, racial makeup of their nation and make policy decisions based on this?

01:14:40.980 Yeah, unfortunately, I'm sorry. I know that, you know, Chris isn't here to kind of respond to that. So I don't know what his response would be.

01:14:50.180 I think that a lot of people are kind of looking at that situation. Does that attach to things like America, the way it attaches to places in Europe, which, you know, in which you can definitively say the population was, the native population was ethnically, you know, Caucasian?

01:15:10.180 I think that's the wrong mix of turns, but you guys know what I mean. I think that those are kind of very difficult and sticky debates, unfortunately, to have in kind of our current moment, but ones that will eventually kind of become necessary as people kind of look at this issue, you know, kind of going forward.

01:15:29.740 But sorry that Chris couldn't respond to that. Let's see another one here. Life of Brian for $5. We have a situation where everyone knows the emperor has no clothes, but the nudist colony holds all lovers of power.

01:15:43.120 Yeah, that's exactly right. I mean, it's difficult. I mean, don't get me wrong. A lot of these people are kind of true believers, to be sure.

01:15:50.020 But it's kind of hard to ignore the fact that, you know, that these things are ridiculous, that they're out of control, that they are insane.

01:15:58.520 However, that noticing that is not in itself, you know, that's kind of a joke amongst a lot of people. The left has gone insane. The left has gone crazy. 0.96

01:16:06.260 That noticing that in and of itself is kind of not sufficient. So you're right that a lot of people, you know, are just kind of incapable of making any changes because those who have kind of decided to go down this path hold all the levers of power.

01:16:20.760 And I think that's why, you know, Chris is right. Whether you agree or disagree on some of his rhetorical lines, he's absolutely right that the acquisition of power is kind of a key thing to make any kind of changes.

01:16:32.440 Simply pointing and sputtering at hypocrisy or insanity is just not going to get the job done.

01:16:38.580 And then Adam E. here for $5. How do you, how do you on, or Mr. DeSantis, ensure your work continues, is not undone once you to retire?

01:16:48.560 Yeah, Adam, again, sorry that Chris isn't here to answer that question directly. But yeah, the line of succession is a big problem.

01:16:56.640 We unfortunately have a system in which, you know, you don't obviously just hand that legacy off to someone else.

01:17:03.280 So as long as you're moving, you know, kind of working inside a democratic paradigm, then you kind of have to have a very tight control over the ideological levers kind of your movement.

01:17:16.920 If, let's say, that Rufo and DeSantis were able to make significant headway, they were able to perform these institutions, they were able to move things in the direction that they wanted them to,

01:17:28.500 they would need to establish control over institutions that would continue to instill these principles, that would raise up leaders, that would continue to push these forward.

01:17:38.480 That's why control over the institutions are so important, especially those that credential high-skill leadership type people, because if you don't have those kinds of ideas and values kind of put forward in those institutions, it's very easy for all of that work to get undone.

01:17:55.360 All right, guys. Well, I want to thank everybody for coming by. I really appreciate it.

01:17:59.480 We had lots of very good and thought-provoking questions, so I really appreciate everybody who joined the stream today.

01:18:06.800 Of course, if this is your first time on the channel, make sure that you go ahead and subscribe to the channel.

01:18:14.020 And please, also, if you'd like to get these broadcasts as podcasts, make sure that you subscribe to The Oren McIntyre Show on your favorite podcast network.

01:18:23.440 Thanks for coming by, guys, and as always, I will talk to you next time.

The Auron MacIntyre Show - July 18, 2023

America's Cultural Revolution ｜ Guest： Chris Rufo ｜ 7⧸18⧸23

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