Truth Podcast - Vivek Ramaswamy - Mike Rowe on Reshaping the Perception of Skilled Trades | The TRUTH Podcast #33

00:00:02.000 all right

00:00:23.000 well i'm joined today on the podcast by mike roe who i had a Great conversation with a number of weeks ago on his podcast.

00:00:34.000 And we had enough to talk about that we wanted to pick up where we left off.

00:00:39.000 And Mike, one of the things I wanted to talk to you about was, you know, where we left off last time, I think we talked about the virtue of hard work.

00:00:48.000 I think that meant something to us.

00:00:50.000 But we were just starting to talk off air and I just said, hey, let's just turn to the camera and do this.

00:00:56.000 How many times in doing this podcast, Vivek, have you realized some of the best stuff happens right before and right after you stop rolling?

00:01:05.000 All the time.

00:01:06.000 All the time.

00:01:07.000 And so I'm just like, why are we drawing the distinction?

00:01:11.000 That's kind of the whole point of the whole thing.

00:01:12.000 So let's honestly pick up where we left off.

00:01:15.000 I was asking what you're in the mood to talk about today.

00:01:19.000 And you started telling me.

00:01:20.000 I was like, wait a minute, let's just turn this thing on.

00:01:22.000 Well, yeah, thank you.

00:01:24.000 I run a foundation called Microworks, and it evolved very organically 15 years ago out of a show called Dirty Jobs, which I'm still working on, which has been around forever.

00:01:34.000 And the point of Microworks was to try and make a persuasive case for 2.3 million open jobs.

00:01:44.000 This is back in 2008. You'll remember in those days, the headlines were obsessed with the number of people who were unemployed.

00:01:52.000 And on my little show, Dirty Jobs, everywhere I went, at this time of record high unemployment, all we saw was help wanted signs.

00:02:00.000 And so that's when it first occurred to me that, you know what, there's another narrative going on in this country.

00:02:05.000 And it has to do not just with employment or unemployment, but with the very existence of opportunity.

00:02:12.000 A lot of people think that And thought, and I think still believe, that unemployment can be cured by creating more jobs.

00:02:20.000 But the skills gap shows us that that's really not the case at all.

00:02:25.000 And in fact, today, I think the latest numbers you'd probably know better out of BLS, but it's like 9.5 million open positions.

00:02:31.000 Most of those jobs don't require a four-year degree.

00:02:35.000 They require training.

00:02:36.000 They're the kinds of jobs that we featured on Dirty Jobs for decades.

00:02:39.000 And so I started a foundation called Microworks to try and shine a light on existing opportunity because so many people, Vivek, just were under the assumption that opportunity is dead.

00:02:52.000 And under the further misassumption that the way to fix it was just to create more jobs.

00:02:59.000 I've been doing this for about 15 years, and somewhere along the way, about 10 years ago, we started offering work ethic scholarships specifically for kids who didn't want to go to a four-year school, but who wanted to become steam fitters, pipe fitters, welders, technicians, and so forth.

00:03:16.000 Anyway, it's been a slow, steady increase.

00:03:22.000 We're moving the needle, right?

00:03:24.000 And it's really hard to prove that the ship is turning around when you're talking about debunking myths and misperceptions and stigmas and stereotypes.

00:03:33.000 It's hard to measure that.

00:03:35.000 But over 15 years, you can.

00:03:37.000 And so what I was telling you off air was that I'm finally kind of coming out of the closet with this thing in the sense that I've been beating up Congress for years.

00:03:47.000 I've gone to multiple committees and I've testified about the need for some kind of PR campaign on a national level to make a more persuasive case for all these jobs and to try and get shop class back in high schools and at the same time try and tell kids that the best path for the most people isn't necessarily a four-year degree.

00:04:08.000 That's been my priority on the foundation side.

00:04:12.000 It's starting to happen.

00:04:14.000 The headlines have caught up to my own smack.

00:04:17.000 I've decided rather than wait for the feds to do this campaign, we're just doing it ourselves.

00:04:22.000 We filmed dozens of testimonials with people who have gone through our program, welders primarily who are now making over six figures a year with no college and no debt.

00:04:34.000 Yeah, that's right.

00:04:35.000 So that's what I'm doing.

00:04:37.000 I'm taking the foundation to the next level.

00:04:40.000 I'm still working on a bunch of the shows I've been working on for the last few years.

00:04:44.000 But this thing that for a long time was a planet in my solar system, the Microworks Foundation, has become the sun.

00:04:53.000 And everything else I do, books, public speaking, podcasts, TV shows, endorsements, whatever it is, It's all revolving around that thing.

00:05:05.000 And so I'm excited to actually say that out loud and to keep pushing the rock up the hill.

00:05:14.000 Yeah, I was thinking about this.

00:05:16.000 I learned a little bit more about what you do after our last conversation.

00:05:19.000 And part of the reason I love it, Mike, is that there is this temptation.

00:05:26.000 Do people in my seat fall into it maybe all the time?

00:05:29.000 Maybe I fall into it sometimes.

00:05:30.000 I don't know.

00:05:31.000 Of thinking that there's a problem, and that it is government's job to solve that problem.

00:05:38.000 And then even further, that's not generally my impulse, but that there's a government created problem.

00:05:45.000 And therefore, it's government's job to solve that problem.

00:05:47.000 I think a part of what you described in the skills gap is Largely, I think a government-created, government-subsidized problem.

00:05:56.000 But even still, the thing I love about you is you didn't wait for government to come fix the government-created problem.

00:06:01.000 Actually, private action can still fix a lot of government-created problems sooner than government can fix the government-created problems.

00:06:08.000 And I appreciate that about you.

00:06:10.000 Well, thanks.

00:06:11.000 Look, I think that language is super important.

00:06:15.000 You're awfully good with it.

00:06:17.000 And I think the term you just used is kind of worth kicking around.

00:06:22.000 Problem, obviously, you look around and you can make a long list.

00:06:27.000 We seem to be beset with problems from every possible angle.

00:06:31.000 But I wonder sometimes how many things we see as problems are actually symptoms of some underlying thing.

00:06:40.000 Like the skills gap is a really interesting topic.

00:06:43.000 Many people, some economists, really believe it's a myth.

00:06:47.000 They just think it's not real and that it could be solved simply if these greedy, rapacious employers started offering more money.

00:06:57.000 And it's simply a matter of supply and demand and market forces and so forth.

00:07:02.000 Other people believe it's much, much worse than reported.

00:07:08.000 Personally, I... I've evolved a bit.

00:07:11.000 I absolutely think the skills gap is a real thing, but I think it's also a will gap.

00:07:17.000 And I think that it's not a great mystery why we have 9 million open jobs, $1.7 trillion in student loans, and 7.5 million able-bodied men affirmatively sitting out the workforce.

00:07:30.000 These are symptoms of I think, of a larger underlying belief.

00:07:37.000 It's a value system.

00:07:38.000 We've had our thumb on the scale for a very long time with regard to the kinds of jobs we deem to be aspirational, with regard to the types of education that we think...

00:07:50.000 Well, again, back to the language.

00:07:53.000 With education, you've got higher education and And then, presumably, you have everything else.

00:07:59.000 Now, we don't call it lower education.

00:08:02.000 Right, right, right, right.

00:08:03.000 But we treat it that way.

00:08:05.000 Yeah.

00:08:06.000 We actually do have a word for it.

00:08:09.000 It's alternative.

00:08:11.000 Alternative education.

00:08:12.000 And then you have subcategories of alternative education, like vocational.

00:08:17.000 But they all become these subordinate alternatives for people who seemingly weren't cut out for the best path for the most people.

00:08:30.000 I think that it's very difficult to talk about problems without talking about I think it's hard to talk about any of these things without being super mindful of the language that we're using and all of the preconceived nonsense and baggage that unfortunately comes along with it.

00:08:49.000 Yeah, a couple interesting thoughts there, just as you're talking.

00:08:55.000 Actually, I'm curious for your view on this.

00:08:59.000 You did make the point about somebody being able to get the job as a welder or plumber or whatnot, make six-figure salaries without debt.

00:09:09.000 That's an enticing economic proposition relative to somebody who's graduating with a four-year college degree and is saddled with debt that leaves them further behind in the workforce.

00:09:22.000 Kind of an interesting question if you were to make kind of a prediction now and roll this forward a few years.

00:09:30.000 Do you think that dynamic mostly changes the underlying problem, even beneath the symptom of bringing up between the lines of what you're saying, but the cultural cache and expectation, and then language is a expression of what your underlying cultural norms and values really are?

00:09:52.000 Do we see it?

00:09:54.000 Do you predict that change tracking the economics or And I could easily imagine it.

00:10:00.000 I'm not sure what I think about this.

00:10:01.000 Do you think that there's just more of a departure between cultural hierarchy that sort of departs from economic hierarchy as they've mapped onto each other for the last 20 years?

00:10:13.000 Maybe they come apart, but we have two different kinds of sort of social structures and honor hierarchies.

00:10:18.000 I'm curious for your take on which way you see it breaking.

00:10:21.000 Yeah, look, I think you didn't intend it to be a trick question, but it is because it presupposes the idea that I'm going to be able to say something that applies evenly to a lot of people.

00:10:34.000 And I don't think I can.

00:10:35.000 I used to think I could.

00:10:37.000 The temptation to try and sum up, as you know, in politics, it seems to me that you're in the business of saying a thing that resonates with the fat part of the bat.

00:10:51.000 To get your show renewed, to get elected, to get your product sold, you have to say things that apply to large numbers of people.

00:11:00.000 But when it comes to things like job satisfaction and educational efficacy and so forth and so on, so many things impact it that I think the best we can hope to do is be mindful that of all the things we can't control, one of the things that we can is the prevailing definition of a good job.

00:11:22.000 That's actually in our collective ability to shape and argue about As attitudes change and as language evolves, I think tech plays another role as well.

00:11:36.000 And full disclosure, I went to a community college for a couple of years and then I went to work and then I went to a university and then I got a bachelor of science degree, of course, in communication and speech with a little bit of English and a touch of philosophy.

00:11:50.000 Great.

00:11:51.000 That served me really well.

00:11:54.000 It didn't get me a job.

00:11:56.000 By any means.

00:11:57.000 But it served me really well.

00:11:59.000 And I still recommend a liberal arts degree to people in general because it makes you, I think, a more interesting person.

00:12:07.000 But look, Vivek, I got this thing in my hand right now.

00:12:10.000 I don't know if we're videotaping this.

00:12:11.000 Yeah, yeah.

00:12:12.000 All right.

00:12:13.000 So my smartphone with my internet connection now gives me something I didn't have in 1984 when I graduated from Towson.

00:12:21.000 It gives me access to 98% of the known information in the history of the world.

00:12:26.000 I just watched a lecture at MIT two weeks ago for free.

00:12:33.000 The same exact lecture that people are paying an awful lot of money for.

00:12:38.000 So, you know, is an online course, is it really fair to compare that?

00:12:43.000 You know, probably not head-to-head.

00:12:47.000 But you have to at least acknowledge the fact that the access to everything that I learned, anyway, in school is now available for free.

00:12:57.000 And so to me, that changes the proposition a little bit.

00:13:01.000 If you want your kid to have something to fall back on, well, by all means, learn a skill that's in demand first.

00:13:09.000 And then, if you can afford some sort of four-year degree or some sort of liberal arts pursuit, by all means, do it.

00:13:17.000 But if you can't, don't despair.

00:13:19.000 Look around.

00:13:20.000 Wondrium.

00:13:21.000 Great courses.

00:13:23.000 The internet itself.

00:13:24.000 So, I just think, for anybody with a curious mind that has access to the available tech and is willing to To learn a skill that's in demand.

00:13:34.000 I don't think there's ever been a better time for that person to be entering the workforce because they have at their disposal an arsenal of tools that I certainly didn't have growing up, and I bet you didn't either.

00:13:49.000 Yeah, I didn't.

00:13:50.000 You make me think about some particulars here.

00:13:55.000 I'm sure you've thought about this, what you're doing through your nonprofit work.

00:14:03.000 The thing I love about the way you're talking about this, Mike, is that there's a lot of people who have adopted your punchline.

00:14:12.000 Right.

00:14:13.000 But without the nuance that you just drew.

00:14:16.000 And actually, what you said speaks to me because I actually did take a lot away from my liberal arts education as well.

00:14:23.000 It was the right path for me even though I recognize as a policy matter the fact that we have wrongfully created financial incentives to skew people in that direction and to take debt while they're at it that creates exactly the pragmatic worker shortage that we face in this country and the opportunity that somebody could have to actually take a different path If we just didn't distort their incentives to see it.

00:14:44.000 I see both sides of...

00:14:46.000 I see both of those things as being true at once.

00:14:48.000 And what I worry about a little bit is people in what I will call our movement, right?

00:14:52.000 So this provocational movement latching on to a anti-intellectualism that is unnecessary because it's not really what motivates what we're saying or why.

00:15:08.000 But you think about like Thomas Jefferson, right?

00:15:12.000 He invented – I'm sitting on a swivel chair right now.

00:15:14.000 You can see me swiveling one way or another.

00:15:16.000 He invented it.

00:15:16.000 I was wondering what you were doing there.

00:15:17.000 I thought you were levitating.

00:15:18.000 I wanted to clarify that for the record.

00:15:21.000 But the swivel chair was invented by Thomas Jefferson, actually, while he was writing the Declaration of Independence.

00:15:28.000 You know, Benjamin Franklin, the Franklin stove was invented by Benjamin Franklin as he was ideating the vision for a great nation who gave us the freedoms that you and I enjoy.

00:15:37.000 And I just think part of the American way is that there is an element of both of that that is at our nation's heart, that daring, ambitious quality of what we make and what we create through our own hard work, but through a level of curiosity that abounds.

00:15:52.000 And I would be ashamed to sort of see The pro-work, pro-skills training-based mentality that folks like you and I would like to bring to bear in our culture, to have a casualty of that be that any intellectualism that sometimes, if we're not careful, kind of goes right along with it.

00:16:12.000 I think you may see what I'm saying here because you just said it.

00:16:16.000 Look, it's such a problem, Vivek, because it's not – that's a self-inflicted wound.

00:16:21.000 That's an unforced error.

00:16:23.000 Yeah.

00:16:23.000 It's an own goal.

00:16:24.000 Yep.

00:16:25.000 We did that, right?

00:16:26.000 And so it's kind of like – I never really understood why the Republican Party and conservatives in general sat back and watched as – Call it kindness, was arbitraged out of their platform.

00:16:44.000 Somehow or another, they accepted the idea that, okay, you're cold, you're uncaring, you're ruthless, you don't have a heart, right?

00:16:55.000 All of that stuff...

00:16:57.000 That's a branding proposition, and it was foisted upon one side by the other, right?

00:17:04.000 So the same thing happens here.

00:17:05.000 If you talk about the PR that surrounds skilled workers, or blue-collar and or both, right?

00:17:16.000 Then, you know, we get pulled into this weird, false binary world where it's like, okay, so if we're skilled...

00:17:24.000 In work, that means we're not entrepreneurial or that means we're not fundamentally curious the way our white-collar counterpart might be.

00:17:36.000 So we can't let those things go.

00:17:39.000 It's not like the skilled labor movement or the unions or anybody who sees themselves as fundamentally skilled wanted to divest themselves of traits like entrepreneurship, individuality, and curiosity, but we let it happen.

00:18:00.000 And so, you know, there was a moment, you might remember this in 2016 during the Republican debates, where Marco Rubio had a huge applause line.

00:18:15.000 I forget what the setup was, but he basically said, you know, what this country needs is not more philosophers, we need more welders.

00:18:24.000 And the crowd goes crazy.

00:18:26.000 And the next day on my social channels, I've got thousands of people saying, hey man, this Rubio guy, he's really singing your song.

00:18:34.000 And I had to say to people, you know, people who follow me and people who support my foundation...

00:18:41.000 I have to say, look, he's actually not singing my song.

00:18:46.000 I don't have anything against philosophers.

00:18:49.000 In fact, I think it's kind of important.

00:18:52.000 I think what our country needs are more philosophers who can run a straight and even bead with a welding torch and more welders who might be able to contribute to a conversation around Nietzsche or Descartes or...

00:19:07.000 Or whomever, you know?

00:19:08.000 So the idea of being a well-rounded, curious person who just happens to make $150,000 a year welding or looking after your pipes, that's an image we have to get back.

00:19:23.000 That it's just critical.

00:19:25.000 Otherwise, we're just going to be left with these one-dimensional notions of hardworking people possessed of some level of skill, but who are really not very well-read and who, frankly, need to be taken care of by some, either their employer or their union or somebody, right?

00:19:44.000 And I just hate to see us...

00:19:48.000 Give up the entirety of who we can be in service of some platitude.

00:19:55.000 Yeah, exactly.

00:19:56.000 I mean, it's a reductionist – I mean, frankly, Mike, before you and I met the way you're – I'm like having my head in the sand at times.

00:20:05.000 And so there's various parts of popular culture that just never found their way to me because whatever.

00:20:10.000 But I didn't know Dirty Jobs until it was in the context of the first time you and I were set up to chat and then I learned about it.

00:20:18.000 But my impression was that you would be the caricatured face of that Marco Rubio punchline, which I still think is like making a valid enough point.

00:20:32.000 So I want to engage with it, but it's not really the whole story.

00:20:34.000 But there's a depth and nuance to your perspective that's sometimes lost in the Twitterification of it.

00:20:42.000 And I think it's important that we celebrate the totality of what it means to be a contributing, thinking, independent-minded, functioning worker in an economy or even citizen of a nation of which part of it is being a productive functioning worker in an economy or even citizen of a nation You know, I might even go one step further.

00:21:09.000 Further than you in terms of – you made two different lanes.

00:21:11.000 I might make four, actually, which is – I agree with 100% of what you said.

00:21:17.000 Welders who have at the tip – like all of us do now, fortunately, at our fingertips in the internet that opens up a knowledge base that – actually, some of the most intellectually curious people I've met.

00:21:29.000 Surprise is some of my old classmates and neighbors in Manhattan when I say this is – People that show up at our campaign events in Iowa or New Hampshire or Michigan as we travel this country, many of whom did not have more than a high school degree, but often know more about central bank digital currencies than my former colleagues on Wall Street.

00:21:52.000 And that's not a dig at the Wall Street.

00:21:53.000 It's just an interesting fact.

00:21:55.000 It's just true because curious, hungry people Independent-minded people armed with an internet can secure knowledge for themselves.

00:22:05.000 But welders who happen to know something about philosophy and philosophers who know how to make something with their hands.

00:22:11.000 And then there will be people who are philosophers that literally you couldn't make them particularly good at doing things with their hands.

00:22:18.000 And that's okay.

00:22:19.000 I know people who fall in this category.

00:22:21.000 There's part of me that falls in this category.

00:22:23.000 I'm not going to pretend to be something I'm not either.

00:22:28.000 And then there's also people who might just be exceptional at making things with their hands that just don't have an innate interest in philosophy.

00:22:37.000 And that's okay too.

00:22:38.000 But the plurality of each person being able to achieve their own fullest potential, for some people that will be a well-rounded potential.

00:22:49.000 For some people, it will be actually a particularly salient, unidimensional skill that they just want to cultivate and make the best version of themselves.

00:22:58.000 That's what we need to provide more space for such that My path today is really, or at least maybe not today, but for much of the last 20 years has been the only path to living your American dream.

00:23:11.000 But in fact, true pluralism is my path can't be the only path, but my path still can be a path, but it's one among many available for self-actualization.

00:23:20.000 Well, you can see why it's such a conundrum for people who are trying to cut through and say a thing that resonates with the masses.

00:23:31.000 We've entered into the era, I think, of specialities.

00:23:38.000 I think that's what you're saying.

00:23:40.000 There was a time, not so long ago, a generation or two, when you really had to be a generalist.

00:23:47.000 Most people needed to be way more well-rounded than they are today.

00:23:54.000 Certainly that came out of the agrarian movement in this country back when 90% of us lived on farms.

00:24:02.000 A farmer then, as today, needs to be a weatherman and a veterinarian.

00:24:10.000 They need to be an economist.

00:24:12.000 They need to be a horse trader.

00:24:14.000 They need to be really good at a whole lot of different things.

00:24:18.000 And so, because of that, I think there was a time when we really did hold the Renaissance man or woman...

00:24:27.000 In a state of reverence.

00:24:30.000 That's what we...

00:24:31.000 We loved that.

00:24:32.000 That's Harold Rourke, right?

00:24:34.000 From the Fountainhead.

00:24:35.000 That's Ayn Rand.

00:24:37.000 Being a whole person requires you to be able to change a tire, fix your brakes, balance a checkbook, pay your taxes, maybe offer some useful advice to your kids.

00:24:51.000 You just have to be able to do all that.

00:24:53.000 When we get into this other...

00:24:58.000 I think we run the risk.

00:25:00.000 If we all become specialists, what kind of world does that mean?

00:25:05.000 You can look around and you can see how that's impacted the trades.

00:25:09.000 You can see how it's impacted everything.

00:25:11.000 I did a campaign a couple of years ago for a company.

00:25:14.000 I pitched them this idea that they actually ran with called, I got a guy for that.

00:25:20.000 Right?

00:25:20.000 Because that's kind of where we are now.

00:25:22.000 Yep, yep, yep.

00:25:23.000 I've got a guy for that.

00:25:23.000 You got a carpet guy?

00:25:24.000 You got a, you know, you got a roof guy?

00:25:27.000 You got a gutter guy?

00:25:28.000 You know, who's your guy for that?

00:25:30.000 You got a tax guy?

00:25:31.000 Right?

00:25:31.000 Who's your guy?

00:25:32.000 Oh, you got a vet guy?

00:25:33.000 Who's that?

00:25:34.000 And so our Rolodexes are like these giant thick things now.

00:25:38.000 And they're filled with people who are really good at one thing.

00:25:42.000 Which is partially why I think, you know, Rubio said what he said.

00:25:47.000 He, I don't know if he was pandering intentionally.

00:25:50.000 I think it might have been.

00:25:51.000 I wasn't there, but the debates, it seems like.

00:25:55.000 It's a great moment.

00:25:56.000 It's set up for that, yeah.

00:25:58.000 I'm sure not a day goes by where you don't see these things, and you're going to see it a lot more in the next couple of months as you do your thing.

00:26:05.000 But it just feels like in a rush to cut through, in a rush to be heard, we frame things in this, what Gutfeld calls it, a prison of two ideas, right?

00:26:17.000 It's just everything is black or white, blue collar or white collar, this or that.

00:26:22.000 You know?

00:26:23.000 And that's a trap.

00:26:25.000 And it's part of the trap that has fueled the underlying causes that have led to a great many of these symptoms that I think we now see as problems.

00:26:36.000 It's well said.

00:26:37.000 I mean, on a practical level, as it relates to your work, through the nonprofit at least, how does that make you think about whether, even if you're training someone in a skills-based role, whether there's some room for...

00:26:56.000 I don't know, 10% to be actually completely outside of that.

00:27:01.000 Oh, I only bring that up because yes, there is this internet thing that can be a portal to so much knowledge, but just in my own journey, maybe a lot of us go through this.

00:27:12.000 I'll speak from my own experience.

00:27:13.000 There is this thing of habituation too, right?

00:27:16.000 Which is Like, curiosity, part of it's innate, and part of it's inborn, but like most things, like virtue, you only gain it through practicing it, too.

00:27:27.000 It's a muscle, right?

00:27:29.000 And so it starts as a really tiny muscle, but it atrophies if you don't flex it early.

00:27:34.000 And so, like, I wonder, to make sure we don't fall into this prison of two ideas, even in terms of what we practice here, like, maybe liberal arts colleges need a few more classes in being a mechanic or need a carpentry class.

00:27:47.000 But let's say the person training to be a carpenter maybe has like a course on, you know, Nietzsche.

00:27:53.000 And maybe if that's not his speed, then maybe on World War II. Or maybe Frederick Hayek.

00:27:58.000 Maybe let's take him down economics.

00:27:59.000 Yeah, exactly.

00:28:01.000 It's so true. 0.84

00:28:03.000 Right.

00:28:03.000 But look, we kind of had it for a while, right?

00:28:07.000 We had shop class in high schools for a very long time.

00:28:10.000 And we had them there even though we knew that maybe a majority, certainly a plurality of the kids there weren't going to be predisposed for a career in the trades.

00:28:21.000 But we kept those classes present because we wanted everybody in that high school to at least see some optical proof that there was another part of the workforce that didn't require a suit and a tie and a cubicle and so forth.

00:28:40.000 When we took shop class out of high school, we unleashed the Kraken.

00:28:47.000 I can't think of anything that's led to more unintended consequences, both to our workforce and to our educational system in general, than that one harebrained, hopelessly misguided decision.

00:29:01.000 Was that a decision?

00:29:03.000 I'm actually curious now that you say that.

00:29:05.000 How did it happen?

00:29:06.000 I don't think some evil, wicked puppeteer was, you know, sitting in a corner twirling his mustache and laughing maniacally as he implemented his master plan to screw up millions and millions of kids.

00:29:19.000 I think it came in part from budgetary issues, but mostly I think it came from a concerted PR campaign to elevate every other form of education.

00:29:33.000 I think this makes sense.

00:29:36.000 In the 50s and 60s, I think people sat down in power and said, look, we need more of our citizens pursuing what we'll call higher ed.

00:29:47.000 We need more engineers.

00:29:49.000 We need more Accountants, everything.

00:29:54.000 Hell, back then we needed more lawyers too. 0.55

00:29:56.000 And so there was a big push for that kind of credentialing.

00:30:01.000 And I'm going to come back to PR again and again with this because it matters.

00:30:06.000 It gets dismissed all the time, but it really matters.

00:30:10.000 And college got the PR campaign it needed for about five years.

00:30:16.000 And then...

00:30:18.000 We doubled down on it.

00:30:20.000 We weren't content to simply say that, hey, this path to higher education is really, really good.

00:30:28.000 We had to say it's so good, everybody has to take it.

00:30:33.000 And then we said, it's so good that if you don't take it, you're going to have to settle for something beneath you.

00:30:40.000 And then we said, if we don't make it free for everybody, then we're bad and evil, right?

00:30:47.000 And so this push for college got every rhetorical advantage imaginable for decades.

00:30:54.000 And most of it came at the expense of every other form of education.

00:30:59.000 And consequently, the A long list of jobs that, surprise, surprise, are now really on the ropes.

00:31:09.000 When was that five years?

00:31:10.000 When was – you said – now I'm just interested in the history.

00:31:13.000 I'm just guessing, but I'd say the sweet spot for an honest push for college probably happened in the early to mid-70s.

00:31:22.000 Yep.

00:31:23.000 Sounds about right to me.

00:31:24.000 Yep.

00:31:24.000 By 1979, I was a senior in high school, and I was called down to the guidance counselor's office before graduation to have a chat with Mr. Dunbar about my future.

00:31:37.000 And Mr. Dunbar...

00:31:40.000 I'd seen my test.

00:31:41.000 I'd say taken all the normal battery of tests that everybody had to take back then.

00:31:45.000 And I did pretty well on them, apparently.

00:31:47.000 And he was excited for me and wanted to walk me through the application process to University of Maryland, James Madison, and Penn.

00:31:57.000 And I swear this is true, Vivek.

00:31:59.000 I was sitting there just like, you can't be serious.

00:32:04.000 A, I have no idea what I want to do.

00:32:06.000 B, the only four-letter word in my family growing up that was really off-limits was debt.

00:32:11.000 And there was no way I was going to borrow money to go to any of those schools.

00:32:14.000 I didn't have two nickels to rub together.

00:32:17.000 So I said, look, my plan, Mr. Dunbar, is to go about two miles down the road to Essex Community College and take every class I can.

00:32:27.000 Because at 26 bucks a credit, I could afford to be wrong about a lot.

00:32:31.000 And of course I was, but by the time I got done...

00:32:35.000 I had a much, much better idea of the direction I wanted to go in.

00:32:41.000 And so I did.

00:32:43.000 And a year later, I did go back and I got my degree.

00:32:48.000 But that moment in Mr. Dunbar's office was really important.

00:32:53.000 And I use it a lot in my foundation today because he had a poster on his wall that was part of the new push for college.

00:33:00.000 And on this poster were two images.

00:33:03.000 On the left-hand side was a college graduate, cap and gown, mortar board, the whole thing.

00:33:09.000 The sun is in his face.

00:33:11.000 Everything's beautifully lit.

00:33:13.000 And his horizon is just a thing of opportunity and hope.

00:33:18.000 Next to him is a guy who's holding a wrench.

00:33:22.000 And he looks like he's standing in the fifth level of hell.

00:33:25.000 And he's kind of looking down at his feet like he had won some vocational consolation prize.

00:33:30.000 And the caption, the caption on this thing said, work smart, not hard.

00:33:37.000 And if you Google that today, you will see the power of a trope.

00:33:42.000 That bromide is everywhere.

00:33:44.000 I've spoken at conferences that are dedicated to that little bit of mis... 1.00

00:33:51.000 Well, terrible, terrible wisdom.

00:33:56.000 Conventional wisdom.

00:33:57.000 Bad wisdom.

00:33:58.000 That's what it is.

00:33:59.000 That's what it is.

00:34:00.000 So anyway, sorry to take the sidebar, but...

00:34:04.000 In that moment when my guidance counselor pointed to that poster and said, which one of those guys do you want to be?

00:34:14.000 I didn't realize it at that moment, but when I look back, I can see what happened very clearly.

00:34:20.000 Thousands of guidance counselors were asking tens of thousands of other kids the same question.

00:34:26.000 Their thumb was on the scale.

00:34:28.000 And to this day, guidance counselors are bonused, not on their ability to get kids into trade school, but in their ability to get kids into a four-year school. 0.98

00:34:36.000 We're making the same goddamn mistake over and over and over. 0.97

00:34:42.000 We're stuck. 0.98

00:34:43.000 You know, I think you've persuaded me over the course of this conversation alone that language might actually matter on this debate.

00:34:57.000 And I'm not sure how I feel about even the use of the word trades.

00:35:03.000 What does that mean, actually?

00:35:05.000 Yeah.

00:35:06.000 You know, the trade school versus professional school.

00:35:10.000 Why this distinction between a trade and a profession?

00:35:13.000 What does it mean to sort of have intellectual curiosity if you're in a profession versus a trade?

00:35:19.000 Maybe there is no profession versus a trade.

00:35:21.000 Maybe that's a prison of two ideas in its own right.

00:35:25.000 Or a distinction without a difference.

00:35:27.000 A distinction without a difference, which is to say that they're just words and they don't mean anything and they don't have – they only – We only make them mean something by making real mistakes in the real world as a retrofitted way of trying to make otherwise meaningless words mean something and maybe the words should just stay meaningless.

00:35:46.000 There's one other moment where this thing hit me like a ton of bricks.

00:35:50.000 There was just so much clarity.

00:35:52.000 I was backstage at a big convention center in Indianapolis.

00:35:57.000 This was 2008 and I was speaking to the Future Farmers of America, right?

00:36:02.000 It's their big annual convention.

00:36:05.000 19,000 kids in this giant arena.

00:36:08.000 And I'm standing backstage kind of preparing my thoughts and one of the organizers walks up to me and hands me a typical brief, you know, just kind of put together on the organization, current thinking, best practices and so forth.

00:36:20.000 And on the front page, it says, as a matter of officialdom, We no longer refer to ourselves and would prefer not to be referred to as the future Farmers of America.

00:36:32.000 We are now the FFA. And I said, why?

00:36:38.000 And incredibly, the word farmer...

00:36:42.000 To your point, in much the same way the word trades has become somewhat of an obstacle, the word farmer had become an impediment to their prime directive, which is to recruit kids into this organization to prepare the next generation of folks who grow our food.

00:37:01.000 So, these are two houses on the same street.

00:37:05.000 You know, the future of the trades and the future of farming.

00:37:08.000 And, you know, our country relies so incredibly on skilled tradespeople And the modern farmer.

00:37:18.000 And both of these cohorts are struggling with language, myths, misperceptions, stigmas, and stereotypes that are making it difficult for them to swell their ranks.

00:37:30.000 And we are all paying the price for it.

00:37:33.000 And you can walk it right back to language.

00:37:35.000 If we're living in a time, and we are, where farmer has become a bad word to farmers...

00:37:44.000 Then we got to get the wheels back on the bus.

00:37:48.000 Amen.

00:37:48.000 I love it.

00:37:49.000 And I love that you also kind of can speak from your own experience, Mike, in seeing this journey.

00:37:53.000 It's why I love talking to you.

00:37:56.000 Hopefully...

00:37:57.000 This is the second of many more to come.

00:37:58.000 I'm looking forward to that.

00:37:59.000 I'm at your disposal.

00:38:00.000 And good luck in your future adventure.

00:38:03.000 How's it going, by the way?

00:38:04.000 Last time we chatted, you said you were going to be remarkably transparent, never deliver a speech from prepared notes, and document this whole hot mess you Forrest Gumped your way into.

00:38:15.000 Yeah, I think we're doing that.

00:38:17.000 So I haven't given a prepared speech yet.

00:38:20.000 The only time I've looked in a teleprompter is when I'm looking at a camera of someone like you and your face is on it, not some words.

00:38:28.000 And...

00:38:29.000 By any measure, we're – and to be really honest with you, ahead of where we wanted to be from a campaign strategy.

00:38:34.000 We wanted to be in third place by the end of the year.

00:38:36.000 I think we're looking at inching into third place in most of the national polling now, if not soon.

00:38:42.000 I'll be at the debate stage in August.

00:38:44.000 I think that turns the race upside down and we're going to – My view is I'd rather speak truth, to your point about transparency, I'd rather speak truth at every step of the way and lose an election rather than to play some political snakes and ladders and win.

00:38:59.000 My gut instinct from traveling the country right now at least is, actually that is the winning strategy, but we're going to find out.

00:39:07.000 And I'm curious.

00:39:08.000 I think it is.

00:39:10.000 But that's what we're doing.

00:39:11.000 That's what I'm doing.

00:39:12.000 And that's what I'm going to keep doing.

00:39:13.000 And we'll see how far it gets us.

00:39:15.000 Well, all you're talking about is, what is that word?

00:39:19.000 Integrity, I think it is.

00:39:21.000 Yeah, what is that word?

00:39:22.000 See if it's still for sale.

00:39:25.000 Yeah, we'll find out.

00:39:29.000 That's the experiment we're running.

00:39:31.000 Love it.

00:39:32.000 I appreciate it, Mike.

00:39:33.000 I'm Vivek Ramaswamy, candidate for president, and I approve this message.

Truth Podcast - Vivek Ramaswamy - June 20, 2023

Mike Rowe on Reshaping the Perception of Skilled Trades | The TRUTH Podcast #33

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