In this episode of Trigonometry, Francis and Constantine talk with Dave Rubin, host of The Rubin Report and author of the new book, Don t Burn This Book, about why he left the left and why he decided to write Why I Left the Left.
00:00:09.720And this is the show for you if you want honest conversations with fascinating people.
00:00:15.160Our brilliant guest this week is the host of The Rubin Report. Dave Rubin, welcome to Trigonometry.
00:00:20.160It's good to be with you guys. You know, the alliteration in both of your names means that
00:00:24.460you will succeed as podcasters, radio people, YouTubers, whatever it is that we're all doing.
00:00:30.920Those are perfect names. I think we'll do very well. And I'm very fortunate that my middle name
00:00:36.040doesn't begin with a K because given the reputation you get for talking about any of the issues we're
00:00:41.100going to talk about, you don't want to have three K's in your name. It probably goes without saying
00:00:46.000that we're all white supremacists anyway. So let's just let it be. Well, let's get straight
00:00:50.880into the white supremacy then. Dave, I said you're the host of The Rubin Report, which of course is
00:00:55.600how people will know you, but you've got your new book out, which is right next to you behind your
00:01:00.060left shoulder. Don't burn this book. We've both read it. Fascinating stuff. Just tell everybody
00:01:04.800a little bit of why did you write the book, Dave? Yeah, well, as I mentioned in chapter one,
00:01:09.240when I signed the deal for the book, which is a couple of years ago already, I was originally
00:01:13.380going to write Why I Left the Left, and that's a title of a PragerU video that I did a couple
00:01:17.960years ago that has something like 20 million views. And, you know, I've become sort of the
00:01:23.020poster child for the people that are leaving the left, the people that are realizing that leftism
00:01:28.700as it stands, progressivism, democratic socialism, socialism, collectivism, whatever you want to
00:01:34.540call this new postmodern set of ideas that seems to have infected our democratic party and really
00:01:40.360worldwide lefty politics all over the place, that it has nothing to do with liberalism.
00:01:45.700And i've gone out of my way for the last couple years to try to separate those two ideas and i'm happy to discuss that
00:01:52.160Uh further with you guys, but basically that was the book I was going to write and after a couple weeks of writing it
00:01:57.200I was kind of like, you know, i've said all this before and I don't like
00:02:00.680I don't like the idea of writing a book that's about things that i'm against
00:02:04.800I want to write a book about things that i'm for so I went back to the guys at penguin random house and I said
00:02:10.180Hey, I know we signed this deal here, but i'd really rather do this
00:02:14.040talk about free thinking, talk about classically liberal principles, talk about why people are so
00:02:20.840afraid of saying what they think, you know, in a time like right now in 2020, where, you know,
00:02:26.020for America, for all her flaws, it's a pretty great, spectacular, free nation. It still is,
00:02:32.700as are most Western nations, by the way. And they immediately said, yeah, we want you to do what you
00:02:38.200want to do. And that's sort of what changed the book. And what's interesting for me right now is,
00:02:43.240we're taping this sort of beginning of June of 2020. I finished writing this book in July of
00:02:48.4202019, so 11 months ago. And then the publishing process just takes a long time. So you have to
00:02:54.220edit for a while. But basically, I stopped touching the book in terms of editing and everything else
00:02:59.140in November of last year. It didn't get released till April of this year. And yet everything that
00:03:04.920I write about in that book is exactly what we're all grappling with right now, watching the left
00:03:11.060go off the deep end, watching the last few liberals unable to sort of stop it from happening
00:03:17.060because they're either being silenced or logic and reason just doesn't play to this
00:03:20.940new lefty crew. Some interesting alliances happening on the right with sort of disaffected
00:03:26.180lefties and libertarians and conservatives. And maybe more than anything else, that good people
00:03:31.500are just afraid to say what they think. I mean, that really is the driving point of the book.
00:03:35.960And as we watch, you know, J.K. Rowling get attacked on Twitter in the last couple of days for basically saying that we should admit that there are biological sex differences, which we all know, or Drew Brees, who had to apologize for saying all lives matter, which, of course, all lives matter and police lives matter.
00:03:53.680And that's not to say black lives don't matter.
00:03:55.520I mean, things that we all know are true, and yet the mob comes and attacks these people, and that keeps good people silent. And I just don't want good people to be silent, even if you disagree with me, which is what I say at the end of the book.
00:04:06.440You don't have to agree with the 10 or 12 policy positions that I lay out in the book.
00:04:12.820But I hope you'll realize that I've thought them through thoroughly to get there.
00:04:16.440And then if you do the same, if you use logic and reason and facts and come to different
00:04:21.040conclusions, so for example, abortion is a big one that I hold a different position than
00:04:27.380But if you come to that position honestly and forthrightly, great.
00:04:31.720Let's live in a country with people that have different opinions.
00:04:34.300Do you know, Dave, when I see your journey and when I was reading the book and I'm seeing my own, we shared a lot of the same thing. So I form a school teacher, then became a comedian, lefty liberal all the way through. And slowly I've watched my own side degenerate into lunacy. When was the moment for you where you thought, you know what, I can't do this anymore?
00:04:57.000So I lay out three cases in the book or three moments in the book where I really saw like the craziness of the left.
00:05:08.540I'll do one of them for you now, because I think that'll probably get us into a lot of the things that are happening these days.
00:05:13.700So I was on air at the Young Turks. And as you guys know, the Young Turks is a progressive, I would say, far left socialist YouTube channel.
00:05:21.240I would say they've gone further in that direction since I left a couple of years ago.
00:05:24.620but I was on their channel. And remember, I was a Bernie supporter of the whole thing. You can
00:05:29.120find videos. I'm supporting Bernie Sanders, who I now know has basically the worst set of ideas
00:05:34.480possible. But we were on air and we were critiquing Fox News, which is what almost everyone on the
00:05:39.400left does all day long. Instead of coming up with their own good ideas, they watch Fox News all day
00:05:45.120and then they just sort of wait to find something that they said so that they can spend hours
00:05:49.580talking about it. And as I said earlier, I didn't want to write a book about things that I'm against.
00:05:53.260I want to write things that I'm for. Sadly, the left seems to always position itself,
00:05:56.960especially in a day of Trump. They're always positioning themselves on whatever it is,
00:06:01.180the reverse of Trump, that's what we're for. But that's not a position. That just means you're
00:06:05.680going to take almost any position. And by the way, I think that's Trump's greatest gift,
00:06:09.440is he can get all his opponents to take any position that he wants. If Trump said,
00:06:14.060open borders tomorrow, they'd all be for a wall. So in effect, we were watching a clip on Fox News,
00:06:19.820And there was a guy by the name of David Webb, who was, I believe, on Hannity.
00:06:26.020And David happens to be a black conservative.
00:06:29.000Now, I say happens to be because you're not going to believe this, but I believe black
00:06:32.440people can hold all sorts of political opinions, including black conservatives, there are black
00:06:38.900libertarians, there are black anarchists.
00:11:37.880And then we, again, kicked up a big fuss.
00:11:39.900Three days later, no acknowledgement from YouTube,
00:11:42.260no admission of guilt, anything like that.
00:11:44.360Video now is available for people to watch.
00:11:46.480you know let's talk about big tech censorship because if if twitter is now real life and and
00:11:53.280they are in charge of controlling our flow of information this is this is the issue of the
00:11:58.140future isn't it in many ways it is the biggest issue period and i say that knowing full well
00:12:05.180that we're in the midst of worldwide riots and at this point what i would say is a supposed pandemic
00:12:10.300it's hard to tell what's real related to the pandemic at this point although it'll be really
00:12:15.080interesting to see if because of all the riots now and the protests, if we suddenly have a spike
00:12:20.440on one hand, we know the media is going to somehow blame the Republican states for opening up early
00:12:25.820and they won't blame all the people who were, you know, protesting this whole time. You know,
00:12:30.360quickly though, on your specific case, well, first off, it doesn't surprise me, right? We know YouTube
00:12:35.960does these things all the time. But one of the tricks that they do is they suppress things and
00:12:42.720then only days later do they release them. But then at that point, A, your subscribers don't
00:12:47.880see it. It already is going to be suppressed in the algorithm and not show up in search and
00:12:51.840everything else. So they're in effect crushing your video. Do you have any paper trail of it
00:12:56.380or absolute proof? You don't because they're not stupid and that's what they're doing.
00:13:00.140So first, let's not forget also that Twitter has shadow banning in their terms of service.
00:13:07.020It is in their terms of service that they are allowed to throttle accounts, meaning certain
00:13:12.080counts can be seen more certain accounts can be seen less so in real life if this was if this was
00:13:17.120a basketball game or a cricket game or whatever else if one team was playing by one set of rules
00:13:22.880and the other team was playing by another set of rules and every time the score came in one team
00:13:27.200won and you didn't and you knew that the rules were fixed that yet you kept playing there would
00:13:31.180be something wrong with you and in many ways that's what we're all doing so we know so for
00:13:36.100example may on my youtube channel it was the best month we've ever had in terms of uh views watch
00:13:42.100time monetization the whole thing now i partly think that's because of good content and and
00:13:46.520people are home and they're watching more and we're doing a lot of relevant stuff and i had
00:13:50.100some big guests but i have no evidence that that's actually the case sometimes they're just kind of
00:13:54.880nicer to you i think i think possibly what happened was you know joe rogan left is leaving youtube at
00:14:00.300the end of the year and moving to spotify so i think they were like holy cow we can't screw over
00:14:04.900everybody right now. And, you know, I've been one of their most outspoken critics. So they're kind
00:14:09.060of like, all right, maybe we should, you know, release Ruben a little bit. And so that he sees
00:14:14.260a little more money coming in, he sees his numbers. I don't know if that's true, but it,
00:14:18.180but because we're only dealing with partial information all the time, it's like, we're all
00:14:21.620conspiracy theorists at some level. So I think what you're really asking here is, well, what do
00:14:27.220we do about it? Right? Like, what do we do about this? It is an incredible thing that we're able
00:14:31.540to do this on YouTube right now. It's incredible that we can release these podcasts. We can find
00:14:35.820ways to get our audiences. My preference is not to regulate big tech. I don't like the idea that
00:14:41.720you would take big tech and then take big government and somehow align them together.
00:14:46.380I don't think government does virtually anything well. So the idea that government bureaucrats
00:14:51.700would be going to the offices of Google and YouTube to try to figure out what they're doing
00:14:56.020with the algorithm, I just don't think that's possible. I think the ship has sailed. I don't
00:15:00.620think government's functional enough. I think these companies are too big. Now, what Trump did
00:15:04.840a week or two ago was he did an executive action, which by the way, I don't love executive actions,
00:15:11.420right? Because that's not really how we're supposed to be governed. We're supposed to be
00:15:14.540governed, meaning that the legislative branch, Congress is supposed to pass laws. The president's
00:15:19.320just supposed to sign them, but all presidents do these executive actions. And what he basically
00:15:23.700said is, if you guys are going to act as a publisher, decide who can be seen and who can't
00:15:27.800be seen, well, then we're going to remove legal protections. I'm basically okay with that,
00:15:33.340because that's not regulating in a traditional sense. That's saying we're removing legal
00:15:37.420protections. So if you're going to be messing around, you're going to be more liable to lawsuits.
00:15:40.780So I'm basically okay with that. But for guys like us that are free speech people that
00:15:45.180want to exchange ideas, maybe talk to scary people sometimes or perceived scary people,
00:15:51.720there's a danger in that too, because if Twitter and YouTube suddenly go, oh,
00:15:56.040you know, our, our legal protections aren't here. Well then suddenly they may want to be censoring
00:16:02.400more things because they're not going to want certain conversations on board. So I think we
00:16:06.720all have to be very careful what we ask for. Uh, and I'll just say one other thing, which is I'm a
00:16:11.480man of my word and I don't just talk about these things. I actually put them into action. I started
00:16:15.720locals.com. We're building digital homes for creators where you own the video, you own the
00:16:20.580audio you own the user data uh you set your rules in your community and uh and the company's blowing
00:16:27.200up and we're getting tons of people on there and you guys should be on there and anyone that wants
00:16:32.120to own their future by being on youtube by being on twitter by being on facebook you're renting an
00:16:37.620apartment from a crazy landlord who's willing to rip up the lease at any moment you need to own
00:16:42.940your stuff and that that's what we're doing with locals.com so you wouldn't agree dave as in to
00:16:48.400take sort of the left-wing view, which is to come in and break these monopolies up. Why not?
00:16:55.480Because the idea that the government, well, first off, I don't think the government has any right
00:16:59.780to do that. No one's forcing us to be on Google, on YouTube, on Twitter. Now, you can argue that
00:17:04.600maybe they've become the new public utilities, like the phone company or the electric. Now,
00:17:09.860I think there is some argument for that. But I think it's a rather unimaginative argument.
00:17:16.000You know, there's so many interesting things happening in the world with decentralization
00:17:19.600and blockchain and so many cool ways to get your stuff out there that, yes, if Twitter
00:17:24.740banned me tomorrow, let's say tomorrow, they pulled an Alex Jones on me and they banned
00:17:29.420me from Twitter, YouTube, Facebook, the whole thing.
00:17:32.820Would that be awful and a seeming, let's say a seeming infringement on my rights?
00:17:40.220It seems like it would be, but they still are basically private companies.
00:17:45.400The idea that the government can come in and say, oh, we're going to break you up so that maybe more competition can arise, so that maybe more voices are in it.
00:17:54.720It's just like, I don't think the government's good at anything.
00:17:58.280I don't know anything that the government's good at.
00:18:08.100It's like, you know, Trump could lose the election in November.
00:18:10.600And let's say now you get, I'm not even sure it's going to be Biden, but let's just say it's Biden with Elizabeth Warren as VP, something like that. Well, congratulations. You just married the progressives who would love to silence all of us with the regulators, with big tech, with government. That is a nightmare scenario.
00:18:29.980Just try to imagine if the government had more power over big tech, and now we have
00:18:34.200President Joe Biden or Elizabeth Warren or something like that, or Kamala Harris, or
00:18:39.000God knows which one of these clowns they're going to select.
00:19:46.880You're never going to get it because either you have to have the government force them
00:19:51.100to be transparent, which once the government's involved, it's like nothing good will come of
00:19:56.200this. It will actually harm their ability to innovate and do what they want to do. Whether
00:20:02.900the things that they want to do are good or bad is almost irrelevant at that point. But yes,
00:20:08.200would we all like them to say, this is what our algorithm is? And if you talk about these things,
00:20:13.400you'll be exploding in views. And if you talk about these things, you're going to be depressed.
00:20:17.240They're never going to do it. I mean, the ship has sailed. The idea that they're going to do that
00:20:21.000You know why they also can't do it? Because they would completely expose themselves as publishers, not as platforms, which goes directly to what Trump's executive action was about, because then they would be open up to a gajillion lawsuits, which, by the way, I think is why we see these, you know, people like Jack, who's the CEO of Twitter, Jack Dorsey and Susan Wojcicki at YouTube.
00:20:42.880you know, they're always donating money to lefty causes and blah, blah, blah, because they're
00:20:47.600basically just buying protection because they want to be thought of as good guys while they do a lot
00:20:52.620of shady stuff. That's the simple truth, I think. See, my concern with, and we're exploring this
00:20:58.640issue with you, Dave, I don't have a fixed position on it. I'm happy to hear it. Yeah. I mean, my
00:21:03.260concern was something like Google is the idea that Google is, you know, just a private company.
00:21:07.580Look at what's happening in the streets of our countries right now. In my mind, that is the product of 50 years of progressive intersectionality ideology being indoctrinated into people on university campuses and college campuses in America that has been supported and enabled and guided by these big tech companies.
00:21:30.700So the reason black people are being shot in the streets of America right now, to some extent, is a product of the big tech companies doing what they're doing.
00:21:40.440So this idea that it's just a private company doing business, I don't buy that.
00:21:45.380Well, that's why I said I'm completely OK with hitting this in many different ways.
00:21:50.080So Prager using the legal means, me using the means of the market, et cetera, et cetera.
00:21:56.440And I'm not even making the argument that they are purely private.
00:21:59.220we know that these companies have all sorts of relationships with the government. We know that
00:22:02.960there are back doors. They've talked about this in Congress, where they can see data through the
00:22:07.760back door that's not publicly available. But again, I think that my overriding feeling on this
00:22:14.460would be, okay, so let's break up Google. Google has to be seven different companies.
00:22:21.640Those companies will be regulated in strange ways by the government. But then remember,
00:22:26.180let's say you guys are somewhat friendly i sense you guys are somewhat right-leaning so you're
00:22:31.340somewhat friendly to either the the trump administration i'm saying that i'm trying to
00:22:36.300have a career in comedy mate come on by right-leaning even you are even you are putting
00:22:43.440us in the box this is terrible oh dave mate i'm trying i've got my bookings when i get back come
00:22:48.840on i probably screwed both you guys but what i was but all right all right let's deal with that
00:22:53.320quick. But when I say right-leaning at this point, what I mean is you're probably old school liberals.
00:22:58.840I mean, you're probably just decent free speech people who don't want the government to do
00:23:03.800everything. That's become basically a right-leaning position. I know that sounds scary and a lot of
00:23:08.920people freak out, but that just sadly is. The right-left thing is all screwy anyway.
00:23:14.740But whatever it is that we all are, let's just say people who are open and want free speech and
00:23:21.120some liberal principles, something like that. We just need to be really wary about what we ask for
00:23:26.660because imagine giving the power of big tech and then marrying it with government if you don't
00:23:33.920like who's in charge of the government. And this is what, this is the, in many ways, the key flaw
00:23:38.720of all of the lefties. The lefties and then the Bernie crew and all of these people, they rail
00:23:43.680against government all the time. Government's evil, politicians are evil, corporations are evil,
00:23:48.460everything's giant and evil and their answer is oh if we could only give it more money raise taxes
00:23:53.780on people make the state bigger and it's like you know what i would prefer to do is i think you're
00:23:58.240right about some of the things big government is evil there are there are problems with central
00:24:02.640planning above us i like i like bottom up growth my answer would be okay so you starve the beast
00:24:08.540you let people keep more of what they earn i want you guys to keep absolutely as much money
00:24:14.260as you earn as possible. And then I'm not a complete anarchist or a total libertarian that
00:24:19.460I think taxes are theft. I think, I mean, this would be the classical liberal position. You need
00:24:24.400some government, unfortunately, to keep the guardrails on society. But I can tell you this,
00:24:30.200I live in California. We have insanely high property taxes and income tax and everything
00:24:36.260else. There are potholes all over the street. There are homeless people everywhere.
00:24:39.640uh texas florida they have no state income taxes they have a balanced budget we've got
00:24:45.080massive deficits so everyone looks at all of these things backwards and uh when i say right
00:24:50.840leaning i usually mean decent human being it's very much the opposite and we're in the industry
00:24:56.880that we operate in dave officially i'm a centrist and francis is an old school lefty and nobody can
00:25:02.960tell us otherwise hey listen if you guys lose your gig after this you can come work for me how about
00:25:08.220but dave we're looking at society now and i don't know about you but i'm incredibly worried like we
00:25:18.140started off as you intimated before that the culture will always started off as this online
00:25:22.140thing it's now bled into reality how bad do you think things are at the moment and do you think
00:25:28.620it's going to get worse yeah well it is going to get worse i'll do that part first we have not hit
00:25:34.140the bottom of this thing for sure. Uh, that's number one. We can explore that a little more
00:25:39.080in a sec. Um, look, there was a bunch of us, I would say about 40 or 50 people, maybe even less
00:25:45.020actually online over the last five years that we're talking about these issues, right? Uh,
00:25:50.240Brett Weinstein and Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Majid Nawaz and Sam Harris and Douglas Murray and, uh,
00:25:58.120and a series of people that were talking about all of these things. That's really what put my show
00:26:02.600on the map, that there was something wrong with leftism and liberalism was being destroyed. I
00:26:07.940don't know if you guys are Star Wars guys, but I always make the analogy that the lefties,
00:26:11.780the progressives basically executed Order 66 on the liberals. They just decided to assassinate
00:26:17.280everybody. And now we've got a couple liberals scattered throughout the galaxy, but they don't
00:26:21.380have much power and they don't know how to communicate and they don't know what to do
00:26:24.080with each other. That's sort of the situation we're in right now. Now, this idea of intersectionality,
00:26:30.120of collectivism, of postmodernism, that nothing is true anymore. And history is actually just
00:26:36.920something that was taught to us by the white man. So history is not even history. And in the UK,
00:26:41.620we should be tearing down monuments to Winston Churchill, who literally stopped the Nazis.
00:26:46.520And we should be tearing down our monuments here and all these things. We really need to understand
00:26:51.780that destroying things is very easy. You guys, me, everyone watching this could commit our lives
00:27:35.200Everyone that stays, it doesn't mean you get everything you want, right?
00:27:38.680But it means most likely, almost without exception, that you will pass a better life to your children and then their children and so on than anywhere in the world.
00:27:51.360America is just an idea, the idea that we can all come here and figure it out.
00:27:54.900America is not based on an ethnicity or religion or anything. It's based on individual rights and
00:28:01.760the pursuit of happiness. This is a beautiful thing. But the set of ideas now that are bursting
00:28:06.580forth, that we're going to have white people bowing to black people and we're going to ban
00:28:11.280police departments and we're going to basically be this lawless state. And meanwhile, the reaction
00:28:17.400to that is what's happening? Gun sales are absolutely through the roof. Almost everyone
00:28:20.940I know now is buying a gun. Yeah, almost everyone I know is buying a gun. People that were always
00:28:26.880against guns, lefties in California, are suddenly buying guns. You know, this is what the left has
00:28:33.700wrought. We warn them. But will it get worse? It absolutely will get worse because we have an
00:28:37.880election coming in November. The left didn't accept the Trump election the first time and
00:28:43.260then ran with Russian collusion and Ukraine and a whole bunch of other stuff. So there's no way
00:28:48.880they're going to accept the election this time. And I do think Trump's going to win most likely
00:28:52.900in a landslide short of something really crazy. But not only that, we could have a bump in Corona.
00:28:59.520We don't know. Listen to some of the crazy things coming out of these rioters. They're saying that
00:29:04.920destroying property is not violence. Really? If someone came and burned down my house, I would
00:29:10.260consider that a violent act. But they're literally trying to change the meaning of words. These are
00:29:15.560not good people at the top of this thing. I think the average protester and the average
00:29:20.440confused young person, the road to hell is paved with good intentions. I don't think they're out
00:29:24.860there trying to be evil necessarily. I don't think they know the statistics. I don't think
00:29:28.940they know the statistics related to police brutality or related to racial incidences or
00:29:34.500any of these things. And the left is really great at manipulating people's emotions. So I think it
00:29:41.140is unfortunately going to get worse. We don't have a lot of adults in the room. I'm trying to
00:29:45.440be one of them, but we need way more people than me. Well, there's three of us hopefully trying,
00:29:49.680at least in this conversation. But this is what I wanted to explore with you, Dave, because
00:29:54.120Lou Perez from We the Internet, who's a friend of ours, has been on the show. He posted something
00:29:58.740the other day saying, it's 2020, so silence is violence, words are violence, but violence isn't
00:30:05.560violence. Yeah, he's right. I mean, literally, they're telling us violence isn't violence.
00:30:11.540But words are, and so is silence. Right. So silence is violence, because then that means
00:30:18.120you're acquiescing to the evil system. I mean, that's just bananas. You might just not agree.
00:30:22.620It rhymes. Right. It rhymes. So thus, it must be true and good. But silence is not violence.
00:30:30.780You know, the idea that words are violence is also completely crazy. It's completely counter
00:30:35.100to the First Amendment, and anyone that cares about free speech should understand that. But
00:30:39.340this next idea that violence is not violence, that tearing down monuments, that destroying
00:30:47.280cop cars, literally burning down buildings, looting stores, these are not violent acts.
00:30:53.540Well, first off, a lot of people have been killed in these riots. I think about six black
00:30:57.240people, including David Dorn, who was a 77-year-old retired police chief, I think.
00:31:02.340um you know so people are being killed so that would count as violence but again when someone
00:31:07.660says attacking property is not violence i wonder if they would think if someone put their house to
00:31:15.120fire while they were in it would that be a violent act or not and we all know it's true but the left
00:31:19.640is really good about manipulating language and words and it's it's deeply deeply dangerous and
00:31:26.160it's not also the fact that they're very good at manipulating words and i've seen it because my
00:31:31.840mothers from venezuela and what they're exceptionally good at is making you scared
00:31:37.680like there are aspects of the black lives matter movement and you know that defunding the police
00:31:44.660and everyone's going let's defund the police i'm like what do you mean defund the police that's
00:31:49.680insanity if you have a crime problem then would you want more police or less police now that
00:31:55.860doesn't mean that you want an unending police state that doesn't mean you want you know to
00:32:00.760be fearful of the, you know, living in a community where the police are patrolling all the time and
00:32:06.500they're just randomly grabbing people and putting them in black bags and driving away. But generally
00:32:11.020we know that when we put more policing in certain neighborhoods, that things do get cleaned up. Now
00:32:16.560that doesn't mean there aren't some bad apples. This is how you have an honest discussion about
00:32:20.620this stuff. But the idea of defund the police in the midst of all of this, look, the simple thing
00:32:26.280is this. Anyone watching this, clip this and let's listen to it a year from now. And in a year from
00:32:31.340now, if Minnesota or Minneapolis has defunded the police, I will bet everything that it is going to
00:32:37.240be more violent and scary. And if it isn't, it will only be because people either won't report
00:32:42.560things or people will basically be trapped in their houses or just a huge population transfer.
00:32:48.040I mean, if you're just an average, decent person living in Minneapolis right now,
00:32:52.100and you like rule of law, basic law and order, you thought life was pretty decent before all this,
00:32:57.160would it make sense to stay in Minneapolis? You better get the hell out of there.
00:33:01.040So they're really good at taking bad ideas and making them sound just.
00:33:06.540And I think one of the things that conservatives have failed at for a long time
00:33:10.460is that it takes more effort and more intellectual heft to explain things, to say, well, actually
00:33:18.820look at the studies. In 2019, only nine unarmed black men were shot by police. That's infinitesimal.
00:33:26.30019 were shot by white men. Now, you're going to have to really grapple with that and think. And
00:33:31.140then what they'll say to you is, well, that doesn't matter. The facts of the case don't
00:33:34.440matter. We just feel America is racist and America was founded on racism and the rest of it. And
00:33:40.460again, it's very easy to destroy. It is very difficult to create. Well, it's exactly the
00:33:45.600same thing that we have in the uk you know we for we had a massive furore over a government advisor
00:33:51.420who traveled to somewhere to be with his parents so they could look up like a non-story basically
00:33:59.060for weeks it was covered like it was a it was like our 9-11 that that was the level of coverage
00:34:04.340q this week we have massive protests on the streets thousands of people gathering now it's
00:34:10.720okay and now it's fine and and like no one's talking about it the media have just stopped
00:34:16.120talking about it and not only not only is it fine now but we've had we've had new york city officials
00:34:22.400one of them i think is like the deputy health official of new york city is i think his name
00:34:26.160is mark levine he said that if there is a spike because of the protest that it won't be because
00:34:32.500of the protest it'll be because of racism i mean think how profoundly ridiculous that is like
00:34:40.060that's idiocracy on steroids absolutely on steroids so there are so many and that's why
00:34:47.740to get to your earlier question about will this get worse in many ways the the entropy of it the
00:34:52.260energy of it has to get worse because it hasn't burned out yet uh but you guys might remember on
00:34:57.660january 1st first day of the year i always tweet out a thread about what i think is going to happen
00:35:02.260in the year and i kind of look back at whether my predictions over the last couple years have
00:35:05.980right. And I've been pretty good in this game. And my feeling was that intersectionality and
00:35:10.380all of the stuff we're talking about right now was going to collapse this year because
00:35:13.640the competing interests of it would be too much to bear in an election year. I still think there
00:35:19.680is a chance it collapses. Now, it won't go away quietly and it will lash out in horribly violent
00:35:25.960ways. I mean, I think they're just beginning to show you how violent they are. This won't be just
00:35:31.620about blowing up buildings. I mean, I think we're going to see a different level of terrorism with
00:35:35.840them and all sorts of stuff. I'm talking about Antifa specifically. I just don't think we realize
00:35:41.620what level they're willing to go to to cause chaos. But what I think is a Trump re-election
00:35:49.080in November would be another absolute just foot on the face of this thing. But imagine if Trump
00:35:58.220loses. Now, this doesn't mean you have to be the biggest Trump supporter in the world. I didn't
00:36:01.500even vote for Trump. I'm basically okay with Trump. And yes, would I like him to tweet a
00:36:05.800little bit differently? Sure. We've been, everyone's been through that already. But
00:36:09.600imagine if Trump loses and then, you know, I, again, I don't know that Biden's even going to
00:36:13.560be the nominee, but if, but if the Democrats who really stand for nothing, but you know,
00:36:17.320they're all, I saw it today, Chuck Schumer's bowing and Nancy Pelosi's bowing and the rest
00:36:21.640of them, all of the worst ideas of society will be, will be empowered in the scariest possible
00:36:28.420ways and then when we when we all joke that the gulag is coming it won't be a joke well hey man
00:36:34.320i'm from russia so i've been warning people it's been coming for a long time and you know you talk
00:36:38.880about antifa we had andy no on the show last time he was in london so our viewers aren't under any
00:36:44.520illusions about who these people are at all um but i want to talk to you about the media because
00:36:49.960you know you had you and joe rogan i guess are probably the two biggest shows on these kind of
00:36:54.600issues in the US. We are probably the biggest show in the UK talking about this stuff. And what
00:37:00.220I see with the media is that feelings world that you've been talking about, where if you feel
00:37:07.760something's right, then that's fine. That seems to have completely infected the mainstream media
00:37:13.360as well, to the point where large sections of the media in this country, the BBC included,
00:37:18.280simply refuse to cover the facts. And they present a picture that's completely inaccurate.
00:37:23.860it. The BBC is complete and utter nonsense. Every headline at this point that I see from the BBC,
00:37:28.960I've had the BBC run hit pieces on me where they don't even put the author's name. They literally
00:37:34.120just write a piece with uncredited to an author. That's what cowardice and lack of journalistic
00:37:39.680standards is happening at the BBC. Well, Dave, you're a great success. I hope one day to get
00:37:43.820to the level where they get the same shit for us, man. Yeah. I've only had a vice article, mate.
00:37:49.120Listen, I truly hope you guys get there. It will be a pleasure. That will be a great sign.
00:37:58.460But I'm sure you guys saw the headline. I'm going to slightly butcher it. But just in the last
00:38:01.640couple of days, there was a headline in the BBC about the largely peaceful rallies. What was it?
00:38:07.220Something like only like 19 police officers? 27. Only 27 police officers injured in largely
00:38:15.160peaceful protest. And in the picture, you see a horse being attacked. There's an officer on the
00:38:20.640floor. I mean, it's complete chaos. And in my book, by the way, I write about, there's a chapter
00:38:26.760on how to spot fake news. And what we all think, I think what a lot of people think is that fake
00:38:32.620news is just fabrications. It's just like a completely fake story. But that's not really
00:38:37.640what the scariest type of fake news is. In many ways, fake news is a headline that doesn't match
00:38:43.000the story because you, because most people just look at the headline, they don't read the article
00:38:46.400or another, another really dangerous type of fake news is when the media purposely ignores a story
00:38:54.520because it doesn't fit their narrative. So if the media had been dealing with any of the things that
00:38:59.820we're talking about, honestly, here, then we wouldn't be in this situation because if the
00:39:04.660media had been saying for the last couple of years, you know, there really is a problem at the
00:39:08.600academic level. And there really are some problems related to how we're talking about
00:39:14.960trans issues or racial issues or everything else. But instead, the media ran everywhere in the UK
00:39:20.500and here and in most Western places that all of our societies are evil and racist,
00:39:25.420no matter how much proof we have that they're not. There are no laws in the UK that stop anyone
00:39:31.380from doing anything based on the color of their skin. And if you guys can point me to a law that
00:39:36.240says if you're black or you're a new immigrant or something like that, you can't do this, well,
00:39:41.440then I will gladly fight that law with you. And by the way, there are no laws in the United States
00:39:46.480that stop you from doing something based on the color of your skin or your sexuality or your
00:39:51.480gender or any of those things. But they have lied to everybody for so long to make it seem like
00:39:56.620that's how society operates that now we wonder why young people are burning down buildings.
00:40:02.660And then, of course, the ultimate irony of this is that these buffoon newscasters who are cheering it on on CNN and these idiot, really awful celebrities, you know, Seth Rogen and Steve Carell and these ridiculous celebrities who live in multi, multi-million dollar mansions in the Hollywood Hills with security and gates and never have to go shopping for themselves because they have other people do it at the stores that are burning down, although the stores burning down aren't even in their neighborhoods.
00:40:29.580it's like you guys are the ones you think this is going to save you you fools like seth rogan
00:40:34.940they're going to burn down your house and there will be those smell of weed will be all over
00:40:39.200los angeles right but they will burn down your house because no matter how much money you give
00:40:44.900them no matter how many times you bow to them or put out your crappy movies uh you will still be a
00:40:50.980rich white guy at the end seth rogan so you're gonna get what's coming to you not by my law
00:40:55.820by their law so you heard it here first guys uh dave rubin doesn't like seth rogan movies anyway
00:41:01.580i mean a 40 year old virgin well that was that a seth rogan movie yeah i'm not a huge fan of
00:41:07.360i don't know he smokes pot and mumbles okay great but it's it's really interesting what you're
00:41:13.740saying because there was a radio show host or somebody who worked in radio here who got in
00:41:19.760problems because he didn't agree with white privilege or he said that he didn't agree with
00:41:24.700the concept. It's now becoming the case where if you say that you disagree with certain political
00:41:30.860statements, you're done. Look, let's talk about the white privilege thing for a second. First off,
00:41:37.320I would say that in America, there's no privilege other than American privilege. Yes, some people
00:41:41.900are born with money. Some people are born poor. Some people are born with great physical attributes.
00:41:45.960Some people are born handicapped. Some people are born smarter. Some people aren't that bright.
00:41:50.820Those are all the things that's the good word.
00:41:52.820I'm going to give you the gestalt of life.
00:42:17.920Well, that means you're going to have to punish white people.
00:42:20.820Now, should an 18-year-old white kid who's busted his butt, played by the rules, worked hard in school, did after-curricular activities, did athletics and everything else, should he be punished as he's trying to get into college?
00:42:35.560Should he be punished and treated differently based on the color of his skin through no fault of his own to let in somebody else?
00:44:01.080And he said that his first job was for a quarter, a quarter an hour.
00:44:05.700And he grew up in a bedroom with six brothers and sisters.
00:44:09.820His father died when he was two years old.
00:44:11.520I mean, the things that the people before us have been through and that we're going to sit here in 2020 and be willing to throw that away or to watch just in the last day, you know, people in the UK tearing down statues of people and writing Winston Churchill was a Nazi, the guy who literally, you know, helped us defeat Hitler.
00:44:29.240I mean, there is no greater hero, a flawed man for sure.
00:44:33.220But in many ways, there is no greater hero of the last hundred years than Churchill.
00:44:37.560He's at least in that Parthenon of people.
00:44:41.680So we've done almost everything backwards, and we need people to start getting braver.
00:57:25.780I mean, all of these things are up for debate right now. And I think if you have your head on
00:57:30.380straight, I think there's incredible opportunity in the future. So I'm actually very bullish that
00:57:37.360we will get out of this and get out of it well. But to bring it back to your earlier question,
00:57:40.780yes, it's still going to get worse before then. All right. Well, we're going to wrap up in a
00:57:44.560couple of minutes. But actually, you talk about reassessing a life. One of the great things for
00:57:48.260us doing the show is we do it full time now. It's become awesome. Which is brilliant. And what I
00:57:54.820was thinking about earlier today is the the most precious thing i think you can have in this society
00:58:01.580that we have right now is being uncancellable because once you get to that that's when you
00:58:09.420can actually you know you can say what you think you you can be free to have your opinions you
00:58:16.040don't have to answer to anybody and uh you know i want to thank you from both of us because you
00:58:21.560and joe rogan have led the way in allowing people like us to go oh but that's possible you can do
00:58:27.920that you can build something for yourself and you don't have to be afraid of the people around you
00:58:33.140you know francis was joking with you about comedy but he doesn't need it anymore because of of you
00:58:37.680because us doing the show he turned us into nazis dave thank you mate hey it's my pleasure guys but
00:58:44.440that's a beautiful thing but wait a minute i want to understand something so how if you guys are now
00:58:48.260free and and somewhat uncancellable i i tend to think you're probably still more cancelable than
00:58:54.060you think how are you guys generating most of your rev for the show right now so it would be
00:58:58.700through through youtube and ad ad revenue and then people supporting us through patreon subscribe
00:59:04.320star paypal etc now obviously there's a level of cancellation that's possible you know with all of
00:59:10.580those things but i'm talking about more more like you know getting fired or not being booked for
00:59:16.560comedy clubs but yeah i mean i can see where you're going yeah yeah yeah yeah so what you
00:59:21.500want to do is uh and if if my example has helped you guys in any way that's great so let my example
00:59:27.880light the way a little bit further the next step for you guys is don't be so reliant on youtube
00:59:34.440don't be so certainly on patreon patreon could boot you tomorrow let's get you guys on locals
00:59:39.420i mean nobody's gonna boot you uh and you'll have a much more robust tech backing than anything the
00:59:45.500Patreon is going to give you. And I'm not saying that as a salesman. I'm saying that as purely
00:59:49.580if you guys truly want to be independent, Locals is not a giant platform. What Locals is doing is
00:59:55.900building digital homes. We're a tech company that gives you the tools to build whatever it is you
01:00:00.940want. But in terms of uncancelable, it's ironic because where did we start this conversation with
01:00:06.400your videos that have been shadow banned, which then, of course, hurts your views. And what
01:00:11.400happens? Well, now your views are hurt. Now your monetization is hurt. So you're not quite out of
01:00:15.620the woods. And by the way, I'm not quite out of the woods because there's still other things that
01:00:18.700they can do to get you. But I think if you just keep going in that direction, and we're working
01:00:26.380on a lot of really cool things with locals right now on the decentralization side and blockchain
01:00:30.380and the rest of it, it's if you keep moving in the direction to free yourself, you guys will
01:00:34.760free yourselves. But you ain't uncancelable yet, my Nazi friends. All right. Well, you gave us the
01:00:43.140hard sell date, but actually, I think we applied some time ago and we haven't heard back from
01:00:47.340locals. So please expedite that process. We've been overloaded, but right when we get off here,
01:00:51.660I'll make sure that they bump you up. We have thousands and thousands of communities that are
01:00:56.540trying to be created right now. But it's a good problem when you have too many people trying to
01:01:01.120get on it one of course it is but they thank you so much for coming on keep please keep doing what
01:01:06.040you're doing we're big fans of yours and you know people like you and people like us we're making
01:01:10.460a positive difference in the world and the more people are inspired by your example the better
01:01:15.360we recommend everybody gets the book don't burn this book it is really really good i've got to
01:01:19.960be honest i don't know why but you know a lot of people have that same sense with us sometimes where
01:01:24.700like they come to watch our show and it's mainly about the person we're interviewing because that's
01:01:29.180how we do it. So when I was reading your book, I thought it would be maybe kind of a rehashing of
01:01:34.420the stuff that some of your guests have said or whatever, but it's really a fascinating read and
01:01:38.460a look into your life and the things that have inspired you to, you know, to take a big risk
01:01:43.040and to create something very special. But Dave, thank you for coming on. We've got one more
01:01:47.280question for you. And the question we always end with is what's the one thing we're not talking
01:01:51.640about as a society that we really should be? Well, in many ways, I think we actually just
01:01:57.760hit it, which is that there is opportunity coming. I know it feels scary. I know people are freaking
01:02:03.980out. I know people, every one of us is thinking, wow, should I live where I live? Do I, do I need
01:02:09.320to protect myself in a different way? Um, you know, even think of lockdown itself. It's like,
01:02:14.360am I in, am I trapped in a house with a boyfriend or girlfriend or husband or wife or roommate who
01:02:19.660I like? Am I trapped in a house with someone I hate? Like literally, you know, do I, am I too
01:02:23.860reliant on the systems that deliver me food should i have a garden in the back or should i have some
01:02:29.380wow dave i'm sorry to interrupt but your research researchers are so good you hit straight up france's
01:02:34.360life story right there yeah you got chickens no i don't dave but uh but no carry on no you should
01:02:44.360have some chickens um ironically we used to have chickens here and then our our dog was was elderly
01:02:51.440and had cancer and we were spending so much time focused on her we don't have the chickens anymore
01:02:55.120which i would love to have chickens right now because i'd be getting eggs but putting that
01:02:58.720aside i think i really believe this there's incredible opportunity on the horizon you know
01:03:03.800speaking of winston churchill the uk has had darker days than it's having right now and it
01:03:09.160may seem scary and all that stuff um but but leaders appear good people stand up um i think
01:03:16.680you guys are doing your part you're not alone in the uk you've got douglas murray who i think is
01:03:21.260like the the best of the best we had him on the show like three or four times now yeah did you
01:03:26.080i mean i think douglas is basically the clearest thinker we've got going right now uh you've got
01:03:31.400you've got great people like andrew doyle and you've got majid nawaz and and a slew of other
01:03:37.280people uh that are fighting these battles alongside of you guys and we will get through it
01:03:42.680And when we get through it, be one of the people that blazes the trail to the new world because there is a new world on the horizon. Think about it this way. February, so four months ago basically, seems like an awful long time ago.
01:03:59.360Remember when you could just go out with your friends and you thought everything was