Breitbart's Alana Bakari joins us as we talk about Nikki Haley's call for an end to online anonymity and the war on white people in Las Vegas. She and Citizen Kane discuss why they don't think this is a good idea.
00:00:53.000His spirit, his love of this country, he's done an amazing job building one of the most powerful youth organizations ever created, Turning Point USA.
00:01:02.000We will not embrace the ideas that have destroyed countries, destroyed lives, and we are going to fight for freedom on campuses across the country.
00:01:44.000Well, there could be no greater gift to cancel culture than ending online anonymity.
00:01:49.000It's extraordinary that this proposal came from a Republican candidate of all things.
00:01:55.000But think about what Nikki Haley is saying.
00:01:58.000You know, the founders of America used anonymity when they were writing the Federalist Papers.
00:02:02.000Alexander Hamilton, John Jay, Voltaire used anonymity when he was critiquing the regime in France in the 1700s.
00:02:12.000You know, anonymity has been used by dissidents throughout history.
00:02:16.000So for, you know, Nikki Haley to come out and say she supports ending it online, she's essentially saying she wants no dissidents to the present system to be able to have free speech.
00:02:26.000She wants them to be open to doxing, open to having their lives ruined by journalists whenever they challenge official narratives.
00:03:03.000And if you end online anonymity, if you make people use their real names online, which is ironic because Nikki Haley doesn't use her real name, then there'll be more civility.
00:03:13.000But, you know, you think a little deeper about what that means.
00:03:18.000What she means is people will be more civil because when they have their real names, they're afraid of the consequences to their reputation.
00:03:25.000But who's imposing consequences on speech in the modern era?
00:03:52.000I'm sure she knows what will happen if you end online anonymity.
00:03:56.000So when she says this is all about civility, I just don't believe her.
00:03:59.000I think she's an establishment candidate, and I think she wants the establishment to have more power.
00:04:03.000And she knows online anonymity is this huge forum that allows dissidents to critique the present establishment, the present status quo.
00:04:13.000It's just another reminder that Nikki Haley, perhaps more than any other Republican candidate, is a candidate off the status quo.
00:04:20.000So, some, not all, of our listeners have emailed us and they said, Look, I don't like Nikki Haley, but I don't understand why this is such a bad idea.
00:04:31.000Let's explain for people that might not be as well-versed in internet culture how important and vibrant the dissident Anon culture has been over the last six or seven years, especially with the rise of Donald Trump.
00:04:49.000We know that there are consequences, canceling, smear, and slandering that awaits, but talk about the community of creators, memes, images, videos, articles.
00:05:03.000This Bronze Age guy who is obviously very, very popular, who wants to remain anonymous, citizen free press, citizen Kane.
00:05:11.000Educate our audience on this that might not quite see it the way we do yet.
00:05:16.000Yeah, I can see how some people might see what Nikki Haley says as attractive because there are anonymous trolls on the internet who do nothing but abuse and harass people.
00:05:29.000But there's also, as you said, this huge vibrant culture of political speech that couldn't exist without online anonymity, political speech on the right, especially.
00:05:37.000You have to remember that not everyone, not everyone can be a professional political activist, especially if you're on the right wing.
00:05:44.000The left can afford to pay thousands and thousands of professional activists.
00:05:48.000But if you're a conservative, most likely you have a regular job.
00:05:52.000And if you're too out there on your political opinions online, eventually that will get back to your job if people know your name.
00:06:01.000So, by ending online anonymity, you're effectively eliminating the ability of regular, ordinary people with regular, ordinary jobs to be able to express their political viewpoints, which are suppressed now more than ever.
00:06:15.000It's also a great arena for creativity when you're not worried about consequences.
00:06:20.000We're not worried about your reputation being attacked, your career being attacked.
00:06:33.000And, you know, we've seen influential political philosophers, influential political writings that have emerged out of this anonymous spell.
00:06:41.000You mentioned Bronze Age Per, but there's also Mencius Moldbug, Curtis Yarbon.
00:06:45.000He's become extraordinarily influential, and he started off as an anon.
00:06:49.000So, you know, to characterize online anonymity as a place purely of trolling and frivolity and abuse is that's always been a massive mischaracterization, just as it ever was.
00:07:01.000Anonymity is a forum for dissident political ideas that would be extremely difficult for people to express under their real names, exactly as it was in the founding of America when the founders used anonymous pen names to discuss their ideas for the Constitution.
00:07:19.000And also, a book of the Bible, Hebrews, who we don't know the author of.
00:07:23.000We speculate it's Paul, but it's largely anonymous.
00:07:28.000And so, if Nikki Haley got her way, this would effectively then give social media companies and the intel agencies and anyone who chooses a tickler list of any dissidents that might be accusing them.
00:07:48.000Talk about in the Chinese Communist Party, is anonymous speech protected in China?
00:07:54.000In many ways, this is step towards a social credit system in America.
00:08:00.000When you know everyone's real name, then you know that, then you know how to ruin them, how to track them down, who they are, where they are, what their job is.
00:08:12.000If you can track everyone down, then you can impose consequences on them for anything.
00:08:18.000And this is the ultimate end game of authoritarians everywhere, to know everything about you, to know who's saying what, to know where they are, to know who they are, to know what their jobs are.
00:09:40.000I'm sure they're going to make it harder and harder to speak anonymously online.
00:09:44.000Although it is still possible there to do it through VPNs and other privacy protecting software.
00:09:51.000But the thing to understand about this debate is if you're in favor of ending online anonymity, you're in favor of imposing more consequences on speech.
00:10:02.000Anonymous online speech is one of the few areas in the modern world where you aren't confronted with this massive fear of losing your job, losing your reputation, losing your career if you say the wrong thing, if you make the wrong joke, or if you express the wrong political opinion.
00:10:20.000And to support getting rid of that is just a massive gift for cancel culture.
00:10:28.000And plug your book, 20 seconds, plug your book or anything, please.
00:10:33.000Also, if you want to learn more about tech censorship and all these issues, I wrote a book in 2020 called Deleted Big Tech's Battle to Erase the Trump Movement and Steal the Election that came out before the election.
00:10:58.000America's colleges and universities today are less concerned with critical thinking than with indoctrination.
00:11:04.000It is no wonder why so many young Americans embrace cancel culture, deny free speech to conservatives, and even celebrate terrorism.
00:11:10.000But I'm happy to report there is one college where students debate ideas openly and honestly, where they pursue truth together with their professors, and where America's great heritage of liberty is studied and revered.
00:11:23.000As stated in Hillsdale's founding document in 1844, Hillsdale's original mission was to offer the kind of serious liberal arts education needed to preserve the blessings of civil and religious liberty across the land.
00:11:34.000And this mission continues to guide Hillsdale College today.
00:11:37.000You can learn more at my favorite college's website, charlieforhillsdale.com.
00:11:41.000There you will find a short video that's just over a minute long showing how Hillsdale's work, not only on its Michigan campus, not only in Washington, D.C. campus, but across the nation is effective in defending American liberty.
00:11:54.000Take some time to watch today at charlieforhillsdale.com.
00:12:10.000Hundreds of millions of dollars was spent on BLM racial reckoning causes.
00:12:14.000I'm very, very, very, very proud of this show.
00:12:17.000We did not fall for that crap for a second.
00:12:21.000How many Americans do you think know about what just recently happened in Las Vegas?
00:12:28.000By the way, we didn't even cover on this show the other Las Vegas story a couple weeks ago where the two teens were going on a joyride in a car and ran over a retired police officer and they laugh about it in court.
00:12:40.000Here's another story in Nevada that warrants our attention.
00:12:45.000NewYorkPost.com, eight teens arrested in fatal beating of Las Vegas 17-year-old Jonathan Lewis.
00:12:56.000So at a high school in Las Vegas, Nevada, there was a young white man by the name of Jonathan Lewis Jr.
00:13:05.000He decided to stand up to a mob who was bullying a smaller boy.
00:13:09.000The mob then goes around him and beats him relentlessly.
00:13:14.000An adult doesn't intervene because you can't discipline kids, especially black kids, right?
00:13:18.000They're allowed to do whatever they want.
00:13:20.000I think eventually some adults came in, but he died.
00:13:40.000They should rot in prison for the rest of their life.
00:13:43.000Jonathan's father claims on GoFundMe that, quote, one of Jonathan's smaller friends had something stolen by this group of 15, and they threw the small boy in the trash can, and our son confronted them and he was attacked by them.
00:13:56.000The killers whooped in triumph and joy while jumping and stomping on Lewis's helpless, limp body.
00:14:19.000The fight was allegedly over a pair of stolen headphones and possibly a vape pen, which were taken from the friends of the victim.
00:14:27.000According to police, all parties agreed to meet in the alley to fight, but as soon as the first punch was thrown, Jonathan was swarmed and murdered.
00:18:46.000You know, if anybody wants to know, actually, I think about it really quickly.
00:18:50.000If you want to know the importance of anonymity, look at Steve Bannon and getting swatted three or four times in a month earlier this summer.
00:18:59.000It's one of the huge reasons that Citizen Free Press was, you know, I never get the chance to sort of talk about what Citizen Free Press, what the name means, but it's a lot about citizens doing the work.
00:19:11.000But the whole idea was anonymous from the beginning because I knew that with the type of headlines that I had planned to write, you know, as you know, Charlie, I didn't expect anyone to ever read this website.
00:19:22.000I thought it was just going to be a cathartic thing where I could write headlines about how I really felt.
00:19:28.000And so I knew that those would piss off groups from media matters to, you know, your standard leftists.
00:19:35.000So, you know, to answer your question, anonymity is enshrined in this country going back 200 years.
00:20:04.000Yeah, I've got a couple of headlines up there.
00:20:06.000I put them up in sort of honor of you.
00:20:08.000You know, you were the first one to get me thinking and hopefully getting thousands of others thinking about why the billionaire donor class who hates Trump hasn't set aside $100 million to sort of for grassroots efforts.
00:20:25.000Yesterday, we heard that Ken Griffin is approaching his decision on whether to drop his support for Governor DeSantis and switch it to Nikki Haley.
00:20:37.000And in addition to that, Jamie Dimon, the CEO of Chase Bank, came out and said he's been holding some secret economic meetings with Nikki Haley and believes she's the only one who can save the economy.
00:20:50.000And it's, you know, my headlines for these are: you know, why are they chasing a loser?
00:21:29.000So where I was going was just second place doesn't mean anything in this primary.
00:21:37.000Trump is such a dominant force that second place doesn't mean anything.
00:21:40.000In fact, outside of Vivek, I was going to say who I do consider MAGA, outside of Vivek and DeSantis, who, you know, and we all know his issues.
00:21:51.000Outside of them, the rest of these candidates tend to be more anti-Trump.
00:21:56.000And so being in second place means nothing.
00:21:59.000So the fact that Ken Griffin is going to throw tens of millions more at Nikki Haley, it's like burning, you know, sending your money, putting it in a huge fire and setting it and just burning it into oblivion.
00:22:11.000It's not going to help us win in 2024.
00:22:13.000What will help us win is grassroots efforts like the Democrats announced last night, $25 million to help them take state legislatures.
00:22:22.000And I've got a headline on that in the stack.
00:22:25.000So it's the, you know, you're the one who brought this to the forefront.
00:22:28.000It's this idea of wasting money on candidates who have no chance of winning instead of ensuring that the Republican Party wins in 2024.
00:24:11.000I'll be honest, I have not been able to find a person. that supports her that is not part of the 168.
00:24:17.000Kane, this is going to significantly impact our ability to win coming into next 2000, coming in 2024.
00:24:28.000If the RNC is not making the investments, which they're not, if the RNC is not trusted by the grassroots, and at the very least, Kane, it would be one thing if she was just raking in money.
00:24:37.000It'd be one thing if she was raising a ton of money.
00:25:06.000And he endorsed Harmit and he endorsed Rana.
00:25:11.000You know, you talked about the fact that she's not even that great at her job.
00:25:14.000A huge reason that she's probably not raising big money is because 70% of the voter base supports Trump, who she obviously doesn't support and hasn't supported.
00:25:26.000And there's a huge amount of donors that go along with that base.
00:25:29.000So people, I mean, I've got threads, mini threads that start every day where people say, send your money directly to candidates only or directly to President Trump only, completely bypass the RNC.
00:25:41.000And I think that mindset has taken over almost all of the MAGA base.
00:25:45.000They all know that the RNC just burns the money on $100 million conventions in Milwaukee and, you know, and doesn't do the work to win.
00:25:55.000And that's what you and Raheem and Bannon and others have been pointing out now for going back to before 2020 is the way you win this is on the ground.
00:26:06.000You don't win this with big parties and television ads.
00:26:10.000That's not how 2024 is going to be won.
00:26:12.000It's going to be won on the ground and we need efforts like what Scott Pressler is doing with your help at TP action and what he's attempting to do in Wisconsin.
00:27:37.000Is reshaping itself as a solely digital political strategy operation, the culmination of years-long transition from its supporting role in presidential campaigns to a full-service communications research and training behemoth for Democrats up and down the ballot.
00:27:52.000$75 million is the amount priorities USA will spend only on digital efforts, no more television.
00:28:00.000You have to wonder: will Republicans follow suit?
00:28:05.000Herzog Foundation, for years, I've been talking about our nation's public schools and how they've been captured by progressive ideologues, teaching things that directly contradict the values of American families.
00:28:17.000That's especially true if you are a Christian family.
00:28:21.000For those of you worried about the best educational path for your kids and grandkids, I'm pleased to announce our new partnership with the folks at the Herzog Foundation.
00:28:29.000They are the trusted source on American K-12 private education with a remarkable suite of resources for parents and grandparents thinking about making the switch from public schools to a Christian education.
00:28:41.000They have an online publication called The Lion to their new podcast, Making the Leap.
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00:28:55.000To learn more about how your family, faith, and community can flourish through a quality Christian education, go to Herzogfoundation.com.
00:29:40.000So I may be sort of incognito, part anonymous, roaming the halls of, I assume, Phoenix.
00:29:48.000By the way, we have some serious Anons that come to Anfest.
00:29:52.000We have billionaires that come dressed in full camouflage.
00:29:56.000We have some of the richest people that you know, I'm not kidding.
00:29:59.000We have some anons that we have bloggers, we have authors.
00:30:02.000Andrew would tell you, we have a whole like process of getting anons in because look, these savages, these vermin that call themselves reporters, they want to destroy these people's lives.
00:30:46.000It's not that because I care about the police showing up in my door.
00:30:50.000It's because I can't handle an hour break in the snack, in the stack, or an hour and a half.
00:30:56.000This is a site that I literally run from my office, my home office that I've done every single day for six and a half years, quickly for readers who have never heard of it.
00:31:05.000It's essentially just a headline RSS feed that I personally aggregate and I write all the headlines for.
00:31:12.000And it updates from about eight in the morning until about midnight or 1 a.m. every night.
00:31:18.000So this is essentially my life and anything that gets in the way of my productivity, like a SWAT team at my door wondering about some, you know, some fake phone call that was dialed in.
00:31:29.000Anything that sort of takes away my focus screws up the site.
00:31:32.000You know, I barely sort of, I eat, I sleep, and I run the site.
00:31:36.000And I sleep about five and a half hours at night.
00:31:39.000And so I like to get a nap in the later afternoon.
00:31:43.000So people can essentially time my life by the breaks that they will, that they see in the, you know, in the stack and in terms of headlines updating.
00:31:52.000But back to your sort of original point about the freedom.
00:32:13.000They're the ones who deserve the credit.
00:32:15.000I'm just a voice that's helping put things out there.
00:32:19.000But certainly, you know, I have a, yeah, it's unbelievable.
00:32:25.000It shows, in my opinion, shows unbelievable naivete and out of touchness that Nikki Haley doesn't understand how important the anonymous base is.
00:32:36.000Not only the Federalist Papers, but the one that we haven't mentioned or I haven't seen is Silence Do Good, Benjamin Franklin.
00:33:08.000Well, you know, Benjamin Franklin had to be anonymous because the British would have hanged him.
00:33:15.000And Nikki Haley doesn't understand now that though we may not have actual lynchings, you know, unless you're a Jewish student on, let's say, Columbia University's campus, that though we don't have actual lynchings, we have virtual lynchings.