The Charlie Kirk Show - The Iron Law of Oligarchy with Pedro Gonzalez

00:00:00.000 Hey everybody, today on the Charlie Kirk show.

00:00:01.000 What is the Iron Law of Oligarchy?

00:00:03.000 A thoughtful philosophical conversation with the great patriot Pedro Gonzalez.

00:00:08.000 We go deep into the philosophy of power and why conservatives need to be serious about winning again, not just losing admirably.

00:00:16.000 Something I couldn't agree with more.

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00:00:50.000 Here we go.

00:00:52.000 Charlie, what you've done is incredible here.

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00:01:34.000 With us right now is Pedro Gonzalez from Chronicles Magazine, amongst many other wonderful publications.

00:01:40.000 Pedro, welcome back to the program.

00:01:42.000 What is the Iron Law of Oligarchy?

00:01:46.000 Thanks for having me back, Charlie.

00:01:48.000 So the Iron Law of Oligarchy was proposed by a German-born Italian sociologist named Robert Mikles.

00:01:55.000 And it's very ominous sounding, but really it's just kind of stating a fact, a fact of life.

00:02:03.000 And that is that when you look at political parties, because this theory is based on an examination of how political parties in democratic societies actually function, it doesn't matter if a political party calls itself a social democratic party.

00:02:22.000 In that political party, what will inevitably develop is a kind of hierarchy.

00:02:28.000 It's just a fact, right?

00:02:29.000 In any kind of organization, you have a leadership class.

00:02:34.000 So again, it doesn't matter if a political party calls itself socialist or democratic or whatever.

00:02:39.000 A leadership class will emerge that delegates tasks and makes decisions that affect the entire, the much larger group.

00:02:47.000 That is what this sociologist Michels called an oligarchy or in plainer terms, an elite, basically just a leadership class.

00:02:57.000 Now, this dynamic that he identified in the political party in any democratic society also applies to trade unions.

00:03:05.000 It applies to companies and yes, democratic society at large.

00:03:09.000 And the point of this theory, the point of the iron law of oligarchy, is to, I would say, to make people understand that, look, it doesn't matter if you live in a republic or a democracy, a constitutional republic, whatever label you want to use, there's always going to be a ruling class.

00:03:30.000 You just, you have to accept that.

00:03:32.000 Because once you accept that, then the task becomes, well, how do we ensure that our leaders are, on the one hand, competent and on the other hand, not abusing their control over key institutions the way a leader would a political party, not for the benefit of society, but for their own benefit.

00:03:52.000 Do we ensure that the ruling class, again in key economic, political and and and even military institutions, do not abuse their power, their control over these mechanisms to to basically just foist uh, what they want, their worldview or or their agenda, on on the masses?

00:04:12.000 That that is the iron law of oligarchy, in a nutshell, that elites are inevitable uh, and the best that we can do is just kind of face facts so that we can arm and protect ourselves from the worst and most autocratic kinds of elites.

00:04:28.000 And that ties into, kind of, the whole Elon Musk thing, right?

00:04:30.000 So is that in order to check power, you need power right, and and so?

00:04:35.000 So how should we think about the Elon thing as American conservatives, right?

00:04:41.000 So, I mean, I have a nuanced view of him as a person.

00:04:43.000 I don't really appreciate, you know, his China um production or his Neuralink stuff, but I certainly love the fact that he's willing to use resources a lot of them to do something what seems to be admirable.

00:04:57.000 How should we think about this?

00:04:58.000 Yeah no, that's exactly right.

00:05:00.000 I think it's important that we don't just become Musk cheerleaders and pretend that he's now, you know, based in right-wing I have I, I honestly know very little about his political views.

00:05:12.000 I think he's an interesting person, but but I here's what we know for sure, right, the reaction from the incumbent elites, the people who own most of the media and most social media platforms, already was almost entirely negative toward the idea of Elon Musk wresting control of a key institution and Twitter is, I mean, the.

00:05:37.000 The people that you know were yesterday saying Twitter is a private company.

00:05:41.000 Therefore, if Twitter wants to ban the president of the United States, they can do that.

00:05:45.000 And you know, now that Musk has taken over, it's like, well, hold on, it's not a private company.

00:05:50.000 You know, suddenly it's actually correct when they say that Twitter is because of its, the sheer size it has, because of the sheer size and the control that it has over information, it is actually correct to say Twitter is not just a company.

00:06:02.000 It is, in its own way, a kind of public institution at this point, just because of the size of it.

00:06:07.000 Right, and I think that the fact that Musk taking control of Twitter seemed to enrage all of these other elites.

00:06:16.000 You know, you've got the former CEO of Reddit writing an article in the Washington POST, which is owned by a billionaire, Jeff Bezos, saying, you know, we need more regulations to prevent rich people from owning the means of communication.

00:06:28.000 That should tell you that these people are afraid of losing control over a tool that allows them to control information the way Twitter does.

00:06:37.000 Yeah, so that already makes me think.

00:06:40.000 OK, look, Musk might not share my political views on things like immigration, abortion or foreign policy, but he seems to be making all the right people sweat.

00:06:52.000 And for that reason, his his hostile takeover of Twitter was disruptive.

00:06:58.000 And I, you know, I'm cautiously optimistic that he's going to take it in the right way, because, again, when you've got like guys like Max Boot squealing in the Washington Post that.

00:07:10.000 Musk's takeover of Twitter is a threat to democracy, you know, that tells you that again, the right people are sweating about this.

00:07:16.000 Yes, so this kind of enter National Review, where they're telling us this is somehow against our principles, which is hilarious because last year they were telling us that it's a private company, do whatever you want, but it's like a private transaction.

00:07:30.000 And again, it's not National Review as a company, but there's plenty of the chattering people.

00:07:34.000 Like, this is a dangerous precedent.

00:07:36.000 But isn't the question should be Pedro, do we want to win?

00:07:39.000 Right?

00:07:40.000 Do we actually?

00:07:40.000 And so walk us through that, right?

00:07:43.000 Yeah, no, that's exactly right.

00:07:45.000 Well, there's nothing principled, by the way, of allowing yourself to get plowed over by people who want to destroy your country and shred what remains of what we still call the American way of life.

00:08:01.000 There's actually, there's nothing principled about losing with what you think are your principles intact.

00:08:07.000 It's just a totally absurd argument to me.

00:08:11.000 Again, that's really the only thing I can say to these people is there's nothing principled about letting your family, your country, and your neighbors get plowed over by people who hate them. 0.98

00:08:22.000 Again, yeah, it just, so I mean, that argument just kind of goes and bounces off my head because it's so ridiculous.

00:08:29.000 And I think that ultimately, again, kind of going back to this idea of oligarchy and elites, we have to face facts.

00:08:38.000 We actually have to deal, because that's at the heart of the iron law of oligarchy, is we have to deal with the world with how it actually is, rather than how we would like to imagine it is.

00:08:50.000 In other words, the real versus the ideal.

00:08:53.000 And in the real world, you actually have to fight for what you believe in.

00:08:57.000 And I mean, there's several different kinds of battles playing out.

00:09:01.000 So on the one hand, you've got the whole Twitter thing with Elon Musk seeming to upset the right people.

00:09:08.000 And on the other hand, you've got this stuff going on in Florida where DeSantis is taking on Disney.

00:09:14.000 And on that front, it's similar in the sense that it's, you know, we're talking about a massive corporation that has influence over what the public thinks.

00:09:24.000 And in that case, specifically, you do actually have conservatives.

00:09:28.000 Like you, I think you were alluding to this at places like National Review, who are saying that, you know, the right needs to respect the sacred rights of corporations to, I don't know, push transgenderism on kids. 0.80

00:09:41.000 Yeah, abuse children. 0.67

00:09:43.000 Right. 0.95

00:09:44.000 Because I think that's really important. 0.78

00:09:46.000 This has been omitted from the conservative criticism in this case of what Republicans are doing in Florida has totally omitted that on the one hand, Disney vilified the bill that was proposed by Republicans in Florida, the parental rights and education bill, which was renamed as the Don't Say Gay Act or Don't Say Gay Law, which is obviously just ridiculous.

00:10:12.000 And it was a smear campaign.

00:10:14.000 But basically, Disney spearheaded a campaign to smear a good piece of legislation and by extension all of its supporters.

00:10:21.000 So that's strike one.

00:10:23.000 Strike two is when the bill got signed into law, Disney vowed to repeal it.

00:10:28.000 In other words, a corporation vowed to repeal a law that has tremendous amounts of popular support.

00:10:34.000 Yeah, but who's actually in charge here, right?

00:10:36.000 Like, I mean, the company comes in and they're like, yeah, we're going to override you.

00:10:42.000 It's really out of control.

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00:11:06.000 Literally, no longer allowed to use Bank of America because of his politics.

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00:13:18.000 So, Pedro, let me ask you: now we have this kind of more consequential fight happening, not in the halls of Congress, but now in corporate America.

00:13:28.000 In my 10 years of doing this, I can't remember a chapter of advocacy where what's happening in the corporate world gets more attention and honestly has more significance than actually what's happening in the legislative chambers.

00:13:41.000 What's your thoughts on that?

00:13:43.000 Well, before we went to break, I was getting to strike three with the Disney versus DeSantis feud.

00:13:50.000 Strike three was when Disney then threatened to withhold campaign contributions in Florida in retaliation to this law being passed.

00:14:00.000 So that has, again, see getting to your point.

00:14:03.000 You have a corporation that is basically trying to influence state legislatures.

00:14:10.000 Obviously, Obviously, they're doing that on the national level as well.

00:14:13.000 But yeah, this is a problem when corporations are, we all know that they do this, right?

00:14:20.000 But they typically, I think, do this in a more covert way.

00:14:24.000 We're talking about lobbying and doing things behind closed doors.

00:14:28.000 But yeah, I mean, we're really in the era of woke capital where corporations vary publicly in ways that are, maybe it just seems so insane because of the things that they're advocating for, like in the case of Disney, you know, transgenderism for kids and stuff like that.

00:14:46.000 But yeah, we've really entered new waters in the sense that you're now starting to see the historic allies of big business, which is the right, the conservative movement, whatever you want to call it, is now starting to actually realize, okay, these corporations are actually a huge problem.

00:15:05.000 And it's actually the corporations in many cases that are undermining our way of life.

00:15:12.000 These corporations that have what seem to be their own value systems that they're trying to forcibly impose on Americans.

00:15:20.000 And again, it's really weird to think about this, to think that Disney has a value system, but it does.

00:15:26.000 And it's telling you it does when it vilifies people who say, like, look, I don't want my kid learning about weird concepts about sex and gender in kindergarten.

00:15:37.000 And when Disney freaks out about that, I mean, that tells you that there's something significant going on here.

00:15:43.000 And I think that the most interesting development is that you're starting to see the right fight back and realize, again, okay, yeah, big government's a problem, but so is big business.

00:15:55.000 Yeah.

00:15:55.000 And it's also just the left has understood this game for much longer than we have.

00:16:01.000 And we're just starting to wake up to it.

00:16:03.000 And that's something I want to explore with you, which is they wrote openly about power dynamics post-70s and 80s, that if you do not have the institutions, you must capture them.

00:16:12.000 If you're able to control other people or actually have the power over a society, whether, you know, how people consume information, how people transport themselves, then you can actually control the entire society.

00:16:26.000 We as conservatives always felt as if we were kind of in this like neoliberal detente, like, oh, there are certain things that will kind of be off limits, like, you know, the production of child movies or, you know, whatever it might be.

00:16:38.000 And now the right is like, wait a second, all these institutions aren't just captured, but they're used as, they're used as just flagrant instruments of the regime.

00:16:49.000 And so how are we supposed to counter that?

00:16:52.000 How should we use power as conservatives?

00:16:56.000 Because it seems by our kind of default setting, we're really afraid to use power for understandable reasons.

00:17:02.000 We don't like totalitarianism, so we just kind of get away from it.

00:17:05.000 But is it time now to embrace it?

00:17:08.000 Well, I think what you're seeing in Florida is probably the best example that I've seen in recent history of basically rewarding friends and punishing enemies.

00:17:21.000 And again, that doesn't sound like a very innovative concept, you know, not helping people who want to hurt you.

00:17:29.000 But it seems to be that that actually is kind of a brand new way of thinking for Republicans and conservative intellectuals, yes.

00:17:37.000 Right.

00:17:38.000 And in some sense, I'm being a little bit sarcastic, but it's understandable because I think what's at the back of these criticisms, if you want to take them in good faith, is, well, look, we need to respect and not incinerate what remains of a common ground.

00:17:54.000 But the existence of a common ground presupposes a shared value system, right?

00:18:00.000 We have to agree on fundamental things in order for there to be a common ground to which we can return to.

00:18:09.000 I don't think that's the case anymore.

00:18:11.000 That hasn't been the case for a while.

00:18:13.000 It hasn't been the case that there is really a kind of shared thing in America.

00:18:19.000 It really seems like there are basically at least two competing value systems.

00:18:25.000 And we're seeing on the level of on the level of, I guess, business and also politics what seem like kind of like back and forth on terms of legislation or back and forths between the governor of Florida and a corporation.

00:18:43.000 These are actually just kind of manifestations, I think, of basically two a battle between two competing world views, which I'm sorry to say kind of makes it that there actually isn't a middle ground anymore.

00:18:58.000 Hello, everybody.

00:18:59.000 Charlie Kirk here.

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00:19:59.000 We would all like there to be a kind of common ground to which we can return to, but for now, that just isn't the case.

00:20:09.000 I mean, this is really, we've really entered the era of Thunderdome here, where it's either someone like DeSantis stands up to people who are trying to essentially groom your kids, or that happens, or these people get to push like these bizarre ideas of sex and gender and even race on your children.

00:20:30.000 There is no middle ground to return to.

00:20:32.000 And I think that there are conservatives who I'll say are misguided and kind of still yearn for that common ground.

00:20:40.000 They just want to go to Disneyland and pretend that this isn't happening.

00:20:44.000 I kind of understand it, although I don't agree with it.

00:20:46.000 But then there are other conservatives who are, I would say that they're actually kind of actively undermining these meaningful efforts by people like DeSantis to basically fight for a real value system that is, in my view, much preferable than what woke corporations are.

00:21:06.000 Yeah, and I mean, it's just, I yearn for common ground.

00:21:10.000 Of course I do.

00:21:10.000 I want to live in the country I was raised in, but I'm also not as naive as I was five or 10 years ago to act as if these people are going to stop.

00:21:18.000 They do not respect our arguments.

00:21:20.000 This is not a debate.

00:21:22.000 This is a power struggle.

00:21:23.000 I don't want that.

00:21:24.000 Yeah, it's going to get a little bit nasty at times.

00:21:27.000 Like we're going to have to use political power and we're going to have to go take over companies and build new ones.

00:21:32.000 But like we didn't start this war, okay?

00:21:34.000 You're invading our country culturally.

00:21:36.000 And I don't like it.

00:21:37.000 I don't, I'm not enjoying it, but I'm also not going to lose.

00:21:41.000 So I want to play some tape here, Pedro, of this person here on the view, Sonny Huston, hosting or whatever, very obsessed about race.

00:21:52.000 I want your reaction to this.

00:21:53.000 Play Cut 57.

00:21:55.000 And in fact, on Twitter, it is predominantly straight white men.

00:22:00.000 So when Elon Musk says, wow, this is about free speech.

00:22:04.000 It seems to me that it's about free speech of straight white men. 0.61

00:22:09.000 And so let them have it.

00:22:11.000 Let them just go at it.

00:22:14.000 So Pedro Gonzalez, do you think it's just straight white men on Twitter?

00:22:18.000 I mean, but they immediately racialize it.

00:22:20.000 Again, I'm not exactly sure if we should take what she says seriously, but you're starting to kind of hear all these kind of other like racial abstractions now inserted into a conversation about what is obviously one of the most important social media companies out there.

00:22:36.000 No, I wouldn't take it seriously.

00:22:38.000 It's not worth actually entertaining arguments like that.

00:22:40.000 But it does show, to your point, that they actually don't take you seriously. 0.83

00:22:46.000 So in other words, there is a strong case to make that Twitter has basically been very oppressive, that it has, I mean, it's ridiculous.

00:22:57.000 We even have to, we still have to actually argue with people about this.

00:22:59.000 But yeah, like Twitter has actively taken a side.

00:23:03.000 It has suppressed stories that undermine certain narratives.

00:23:08.000 And I think one of the most obvious and flagrant examples of this is the Hunter Biden story.

00:23:14.000 The New York Post getting locked out of its Twitter account for like two weeks.

00:23:19.000 And then afterwards, Jack Dorsey admitting, okay, that was a mistake to basically suppress a story about Biden family corruption ahead of the 2020 election, right?

00:23:29.000 Like, oops, that was a small mistake that we made.

00:23:33.000 So there's actually like a legitimate case to make that Twitter has kind of lost its mandate and does not deserve public trust.

00:23:41.000 But the person that you just played, that clip, they'll never take your argument seriously.

00:23:46.000 That's exactly what it is. 0.90

00:23:47.000 They'll just throw it back to you and say, well, you're just a racist. 0.98

00:23:50.000 Yeah. 0.89

00:23:50.000 So like that's that's important. 0.89

00:23:51.000 So let me ask you a question.

00:23:52.000 So we have a bunch of these, you know, like race hustlers like her and other people that are just the fanatics, right?

00:23:58.000 They're no different than the Islamic theocratic fanatics. 0.98

00:24:01.000 There's no dialogue, right?

00:24:03.000 It's just they believe this fervently and that's it.

00:24:06.000 How do we so then how do we use power to win against people like her, right? 1.00

00:24:13.000 Can you help build that out?

00:24:15.000 Yeah, well, I think ultimately what the only thing you can do is just to protect yourself from them.

00:24:20.000 I mean, you have to basically marginalize their political influence over you.

00:24:25.000 And well, how do you do that?

00:24:26.000 Taking on corporations that represent or corporations that share their values or taking over them, which I think we would like to hope is what we're going to see out of Musk's takeover of Twitter, that people are not going to be locked out of their accounts for saying that ex-transgender person is actually a male or female, right? 0.56

00:24:49.000 I think that's really all you can do is try to reduce their influence in the institutions that express their influence over society as much as possible.

00:25:01.000 That mean that we're talking about a kind of a wide battlefield that takes place over the arenas of culture, over the over economic fields, over political ones.

00:25:15.000 I mean, this is this is not only is this like a huge fight in terms of scope, but it's also a long one.

00:25:21.000 This is not something that is going to be won in the upcoming elections or something like that.

00:25:25.000 We're in this for the long haul, but so are they.

00:25:28.000 I think you had referenced earlier, you know, going back to like the 70s and stuff.

00:25:33.000 I mean, yeah, this is going to be a long fight.

00:25:36.000 It's going to take time.

00:25:38.000 It's going to take resources and it's going to take commitment.

00:25:41.000 Things that I think, again, the conservative movement has, it's not really, it seems like it's kind of reluctant to commit itself to that.

00:25:49.000 Like we basically want to imagine that if we can just, you know, get more Republicans in office without actually looking at who those Republicans are, things are going to be fine.

00:25:59.000 And I think this is an important point because Democrats seem scheduled for some pretty serious losses.

00:26:05.000 But when you look at the state of the GOP as it is right now with leadership like Kevin McCarthy and Mitch McConnell, I mean, do these guys seem like they're going to lead us on a successful march to the institutions?

00:26:18.000 No.

00:26:18.000 Like we have some serious soul searching to do if we're going to take on the institutions that share the value systems of the people that you call race hustlers.

00:26:30.000 Yeah.

00:26:30.000 And the long march to the institutions, I think was Grammichian in its core, but it was this guy, Rudy, can never pronounce his name, Dutchke, who came up with this idea that we must patiently walk through all the institutions.

00:26:45.000 And to answer your question, no, the establishment Republicans aren't going to be the ones that lead us there.

00:26:49.000 So is the era of neutrality over?

00:26:52.000 Because this is something that I think a lot of older Americans and people that are more neoliberal are uncomfortable with, where is it possible?

00:27:01.000 Because there was this belief, and I think it was falsely rooted in a mirage, that we could have neutral institutions, right?

00:27:11.000 That you might say what you want to say and we could all be kind of agreed upon agree to disagree, right?

00:27:17.000 This is kind of the ideal of the neoliberal West.

00:27:21.000 While that might be possible in pockets, given where we are in America, is that just kind of unrealistic?

00:27:28.000 And if so, then how do we respond to that?

00:27:32.000 Yeah, no, I think unfortunately that time is past.

00:27:37.000 But I think calling it something like an illusion is actually right because that kind of what we're talking about, that way of life, it was only really possible for as long as conservatives had control over institutions.

00:27:56.000 That's the most important point.

00:27:57.000 Yes.

00:27:59.000 Yes.

00:27:59.000 Which we don't really think about because maybe we've, I guess the change is so recent and so radical that we've never had to think about, well, what happens when we lose really, really, you know, what does it look like when you actually have lost control of the institutions?

00:28:16.000 This is what it looks like.

00:28:18.000 So ultimately, what you're just kind of dealing with is this problem where conservatives, like I should say, older conservatives, are kind of longing for a world that doesn't exist anymore because they've lost control of the institutions.

00:28:35.000 So now it's our job to take them back.

00:28:38.000 And that is just the reality that we live in.

00:28:41.000 So again, wanting to return to this kind of neutrality is impossible because the people who hate you control the institutions.

00:28:49.000 So I asked a group of people the other day.

00:28:53.000 I said, would you rather control the United States House of Representatives or Google, Harvard, and the New York Times for 10 years?

00:29:01.000 And the room was split.

00:29:04.000 And some people said, oh, Congress is much more important.

00:29:07.000 I said, I mean, obviously, we're not going to control Google, New York Times, or Harvard, but the equivalent of, right?

00:29:12.000 The number one college, the paper of record, and the place where people go to find information.

00:29:17.000 Why is it that conservatives don't all of a sudden say, well, it's obvious which one I'd rather control?

00:29:22.000 How do we change that?

00:29:24.000 I think this is very difficult because it's also, it gets at this problem of how conservatives view institutions.

00:29:35.000 There's a good study by Richard Hanania on this exact problem.

00:29:39.000 Like even when we look at like administrations, presidential administrations, Democrats seem to more aggressively staff other Democrats versus Republicans.

00:29:50.000 Like if you look at the difference between Obama's administration and Trump's administration, Obama largely only staffed with Democrats, right?

00:29:58.000 Trump's administration was actually more mixed.

00:30:00.000 In other words, there was more of a mixture between Republicans and Democrat staffers.

00:30:04.000 But yeah, let me tell you, like, what the justification was, and I don't agree with it at all.

00:30:09.000 Is that like, we're the better person, though?

00:30:11.000 Like, we're trying to build a bridge.

00:30:12.000 Like, we're magnanimous. 0.99

00:30:15.000 Why is that foolish? 0.99

00:30:16.000 Because it totally undermines you. 0.99

00:30:19.000 Personnel is policy, right?

00:30:22.000 Who you delegate tasks to will determine whether or not that task actually gets done.

00:30:28.000 And also, what you've introduced into the mixture is a disunity of vision.

00:30:34.000 That's exactly.

00:30:34.000 And so, again, there's nothing noble about that, in my view.

00:30:37.000 There's nothing noble about bringing your enemies into the fold so that they can undermine you. 0.97

00:30:42.000 It just, it's ridiculous.

00:30:43.000 And but basically, Hanania's study boiled down to liberals care more about being engaged and taking control of institutions and then filling them with their friends and excluding their enemies.

00:30:58.000 That is, again, this is a difficult thing.

00:31:01.000 But let me ask you: do you support that?

00:31:03.000 Should we do that?

00:31:04.000 Yes.

00:31:04.000 Okay.

00:31:04.000 Yeah, I agree.

00:31:05.000 Absolutely.

00:31:05.000 Yes.

00:31:06.000 But I don't understand.

00:31:08.000 Actually, I guess I do.

00:31:09.000 I understand the excuse.

00:31:11.000 I don't understand the reason when you really think about it why conservatives aren't doing that ruthlessly.

00:31:16.000 I think it, I mean, you could say it speaks to the good nature of a lot of conservatives.

00:31:21.000 And it's true. 0.56

00:31:22.000 I mean, there is something admirable about that.

00:31:24.000 But, I mean, we're basically talking about the difference between peacetime and wartime.

00:31:28.000 That's exactly this is wartime.

00:31:30.000 This is wartime.

00:31:32.000 We're talking about competing value systems, competing worldviews.

00:31:36.000 It's just impossible to have that kind of perspective right now.

00:31:42.000 Where, like, I mean, there's a common saying, right?

00:31:46.000 I don't, you know, I don't have to agree with you, but I'll fight to the death.

00:31:51.000 It's that unnauseating Voltaire line.

00:31:53.000 I'm not going to fight to the death for Disney's right to brainwash my kids.

00:31:57.000 I'm not.

00:31:59.000 And I don't care what that makes me.

00:32:00.000 I don't care if that makes me, if you want to call me a Marxist or whatever.

00:32:03.000 I don't care.

00:32:06.000 In America, the people are sovereign.

00:32:09.000 You know that when you study the Constitution.

00:32:11.000 You don't have to study it.

00:32:12.000 You just look at it.

00:32:13.000 And my go-to place for the news, my go-to place for what's happening at a deeper level is Hillsdale College.

00:32:20.000 Look, it's no secret that Americans are more divided than ever.

00:32:22.000 It's not just over policies, but what will improve our beautiful country?

00:32:27.000 Now, people are debating whether America is great at all.

00:32:29.000 And look, I got to say, Hillsdale, they go right into it.

00:32:32.000 They have Imprimus, and they send it to you, and it's unbelievable.

00:32:37.000 We get it sent here to our office.

00:32:39.000 I read every single word.

00:32:40.000 Hillsdale College, run by the great Dr. Larry Arn, and they have Imprimus, which is a digest of liberty, and it's so important.

00:32:48.000 Imprimus looks at the issues of the day from a constitutional perspective, reminding citizens always of our great heritage of liberty.

00:32:56.000 For 50 years, Imprimus has featured speeches given at Hillsdale events by the smartest conservative thinkers and writers.

00:33:02.000 These days, Hillsdale publishes people like Victor Davis Hansen, Molly Hemingway, Mark Stein, and Christopher Ruffo.

00:33:08.000 Over 6.2 million American households and businesses receive Imprimus absolutely for free.

00:33:14.000 And I know a lot of you are saying, How do I make sense of all the news?

00:33:17.000 How do I make sense of all this nonsense?

00:33:19.000 Well, Imprimus is the way to do that.

00:33:22.000 And I always look forward to receiving Emprimus, my friends at Hillsdale College.

00:33:25.000 And I want you to get a free subscription.

00:33:27.000 It is free.

00:33:27.000 They send it to your house.

00:33:29.000 So you just go to charlie4hillsdale.com.

00:33:32.000 Maybe you've been to charlieforhillsdale.com.

00:33:34.000 What looks different right now is just a sign up for Imprimus landing page.

00:33:39.000 That's charlie4hillsdale.com, charlieforhillsdale.com.

00:33:45.000 I can't say enough good things about Hillsdale College.

00:33:47.000 They are a special institution.

00:33:50.000 Go to charlie4hillsdale.com.

00:33:55.000 Saul Linsky famously said, Pedro, that a true radical does not go in the streets and throw a Molotov cocktail at buildings or whatever.

00:34:04.000 It wasn't that explicit, but a radical will wear a three-piece suit, slick back his hair, and work patiently to pretend to be somebody he isn't.

00:34:12.000 Do you think, just from a tactical standpoint, the left or the degenerative forces of the West, if you will, the neoliberal kind of union of these different forces, do you think they're making a tactical error by now no longer disguising or camouflaging some of the radicalism, but instead now they're leading with it? 0.89

00:34:33.000 I wish I could say confidently yes, but it does seem like it, I mean, there's a kind of there's a real genuine anti-Americanism that has become so mainstream where you're actually rewarded for kind of flamboyantly hating this country and saying things about like that clip you played earlier, that woman who's talking about how straight white men are awful.

00:35:00.000 So on the one hand, I would like to think that there's still a, you know, a sizable part of the population that does still recoil at that kind of stuff, that is appalled by that when it's so in your face.

00:35:12.000 But on the other hand, I think that we really have entered this era where more people than ever actually reward this kind of behavior and actually do appreciate it.

00:35:22.000 So I don't know if the Alinsky thing applies so neatly as it does.

00:35:26.000 Well, yeah, the Alinsky had another part, though.

00:35:29.000 And so this is the question, which is Alinsky did not believe that a political movement would be sustainable if you waged war on its history and its cultural institutions.

00:35:38.000 He believed that a left-wing movement should take the flag and make it their own.

00:35:44.000 Does that make sense?

00:35:45.000 And so they're almost, they're kind of putting that aside.

00:35:48.000 Yeah, I think there is some truth to that still.

00:35:51.000 But I guess what I'm getting at is that, you know, the level of hatred for this country that is rewarded by the popular culture, I think that's we're at a time where that's unprecedented.

00:36:02.000 But I do think that all the signs right now show that the left might be kind of overplaying its hand.

00:36:12.000 But on the one hand, that does certainly owe to them attacking the history, the traditions of this country.

00:36:18.000 But on the other hand, I think it has a lot to do with the fact that they're actually going directly for people's kids.

00:36:24.000 Like I know I keep coming back.

00:36:26.000 No, I think that is the Rubicon, though, right?

00:36:28.000 I think that as soon as that is crossed, it is metaphorical war, right?

00:36:32.000 I mean, it's tribal at that point.

00:36:33.000 I don't like saying that, but like something sets in that's more than just like lower taxes.

00:36:39.000 Reptilian brain activates.

00:36:40.000 Yeah.

00:36:41.000 No, I mean, it's totally true.

00:36:42.000 I like the grassroots parents' rights movement, where you're seeing parents going to school boards and throwing out administrators, getting teachers fired, that I have never seen that in my lifetime.

00:36:57.000 And that is, I think, the most formidable movement in this country right now.

00:37:03.000 And it is based on parents basically acting to protect their children from threats.

00:37:10.000 And I think that is where the left has really, really overplayed its hand, is thinking, we're going to take your kids from you.

00:37:16.000 And we're going to, and not only like brainwash them, because I think this is really important.

00:37:20.000 A lot of what the left is doing to kids is turning them against their parents.

00:37:26.000 So, I mean, it's more primal than tribal, but both the words work.

00:37:29.000 This is what you're talking about, though.

00:37:30.000 When parents see videos like this of a gay men's choir say, we're going to convert your children, it tends to trigger something that's beyond reason, actually. 0.72

00:37:39.000 Play cut 44. 0.82

00:38:00.000 It's an all men's gay choir saying they're going to convert your children. 1.00

00:38:03.000 Yeah, yeah. 0.97

00:38:04.000 Yeah, it's that certainly triggers something primal.

00:38:09.000 But I think that that's really important, right?

00:38:11.000 So not only are they coming for your kids, but they're also turning them against you.

00:38:15.000 Like I've interviewed parents who have told me about school staff basically encouraging their kids in private behind their backs.

00:38:25.000 So you drop your kid off, you go to work, and then with, you know, you don't know this is happening, but the teacher is encouraging your daughter to transition into a boy, but also telling them, your parents don't understand, but I do.

00:38:39.000 And basically kind of insinuating themselves into the role of a parent, of the trusted person, the most trusted person in their life over their mother and father.

00:38:50.000 And I think that is, again, I mean, like this, this really provokes something in people that, like you said, is like sub-rational, but that's a good thing.

00:38:59.000 Well, it's actually spiritual, I believe.

00:39:01.000 I believe it's spiritual.

00:39:02.000 Pedro Gonzalez, you're a great American.

00:39:03.000 Got to have you back.

00:39:04.000 Chronicles Magazine.

00:39:05.000 Follow him on Substack Contra.

00:39:06.000 Thank you, Pedro.

00:39:07.000 Talk to you soon.

00:39:08.000 Thank you.

00:39:12.000 Thank you so much for listening, everybody.

00:39:13.000 Email me directly, freedom at charliekirk.com.

00:39:15.000 Support the Charlie Kirk Show at charliekirk.com/slash support.

00:39:19.000 Thank you so much for listening.

00:39:20.000 God bless.

00:39:24.000 For more on many of these stories and news you can trust, go to CharlieKirk. com.

The Charlie Kirk Show - April 28, 2022

The Iron Law of Oligarchy with Pedro Gonzalez

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