We're back with another edition of the Federalist Radio Hour. I'm Emily Joshinski,
culture editor here at the Federalist. As always, you can email the show
at radio at the Federalist dot com, follow us on exit fdr LST,
make sure to subscribe wherever you download your podcasts, and of course to the
premium version of the Federalist dot com as well. I hope everyone had a
great weekend. We're joined today by Isabelle Brown. She's the author of a
new book called The End of the Alphabet, How gen Z Can Save America.
I'm jumping in here just with a little introduction because something interesting is this
was I blow behind the scenes. I pre record interviews a lot when people
have books coming out. That's because you know, most of these books are
evergreen and and we'll talk about the content of the book and all of that.
This is a really interesting one because Isabelle is an online influencer. Basically,
it's a great way to describe what she does, and she does a
lot of work on TikTok. So the reason I'm coming to you for an
introduction beforehand is because we actually taped this video before the recent explosion of TikTok
coverage based on the bill moving its way through first the Committee in the House,
then through the House itself, and now the ball is in the Senate's
court as we're talking right now. It's up to the Senate to take up
this bill decide what they want to do with this bill. There's been a
raging debate in conservative circles that's absolutely fascinating about what should be done. We
had that debate. We hosted that debate a little bit here with Nathan Lemur
and Christopher Bedford on last week's edition of the show. You know, I'm
sort of torn on this. Maybe that came through in the episode, but
as the bill has moved really quickly through some of these areas, you know,
something for me that's interesting is I'm quite suspicious that it is not targeted
just at TikTok. And there's a whole section B in this part of the
bill that deals with the sort of standard for what kind of company would be
subject to divestment or an outright ban based on the steps and the bill,
and you know, I hope when it gets to the Senate side that's something
that gets worked. One the question for me is whether that's a deal breaker
for the bill. So are we better off? Are we better off with
or without the bill if it is not targeted just to TikTok and then has
these sort of hurdles that lead off on you know, whether or that determine
whether a company qualifies for this forced divestment and then potential outright ban based on
what it decides to do with the divestment. So that is I think one
of the interesting questions going forward is the is it moral to pass the bill
if it has that in it when it gets through the Senate. That's one
of the things that I'm wrestling with right now. I think that can actually
be you know, I think Nathan Lemur and a lot of the people that
favor this bill, conservatives that failure this bill are absolutely correct. That is
unlikely, highly unlikely any other company that we can conceive of right now would
qualify based on the steps of the bill, which is, you know,
twenty percent foreign ownership owned by someone on the hostile foreign country list, and
you know, to get on the hostile foreign country list, that's a sort
of uphill climb in and of itself. You know, it's basically North Korea
or on Russia countries like that as of right now, and you know,
therefore it's highly unlikely another company, you know, even Telegram or x would
fall anywhere within that scope at the same time, So while I I agree
that's unlikely, I do also think we've seen the sort of national security apparatus
tell us that it's unlikely things like Section seven oh two would be used to
target American citizens without warrants before as well. We've kind of heard that in
the past, and we've seen how these powers, once codified, can easily
be abused, you know, for example, with seven oh two, which
we can't even convince on a bipartisan basis. Your reform, bipartisan reform has
been put forward very recently, Mike Lee, is you know, michae Lee,
Thomas Massey are sort of banging the drum about this every day and can't
get anyone to agree to take this reform initiative seriously in any of the funding
bills. Well, why is that? I mean, once you expand these
powers, it's it's very very difficult to curb them. And you have Inspector
General saying, you know Section seven oh two has been actually abused. You
have the intelligence agencies admitting that they have wrongfully tapped the seven oh two database,
however many times I mean of times, So I don't like expanding these
powers at all. I think people like Mike Lee and Thomas Massey and Rand
Paul have very legitimate arguments for not supporting the TikTok bill. I do also
think, and I've been very clear for years on the show, that I
think TikTok is a national security emergency. I think it's a public health emergency.
I think we should have treated it like a public health emergency. I
think we should treat all social media like a public health emergency, not just
TikTok. I don't like that this bill is not specific. I think it
could just say that this applies to TikTok, the sort of forced divestment to
an outright ban. If the forced devestment doesn't happen, it becomes an outright
ban. I think that it would be easy enough to just put in the
bill this applies to TikTok. I think senators don't want to, from what
I've heard, defend this would just apply to TikTok. I think they don't
want to defend a bill against people who say well, why are you singling
out this one company. It seems fairly easy to explain why you would single
how TikTok. I think it is in my colleague Sean Davis, may Hemingway
or absolutely John Daniel Davidson are absolutely correct to point out, you know,
it's somewhat amusing in a tragic way, how national security focused members of Congress
are so eager to, you know, have TikTok divest to an American corporation
that would then have all of the surveillance abilities of TikTok and all the abilities
to collude with the federal government with a pentagon because TikTok is now in their
hands. I think that explains why they're so eager to have this forced divestment.
I don't think any of that means that we shouldn't have a forced divestment.
But the one thing that does make me nervous about this bill is that
it is intentionally broader than TikTok. I don't see any reason why this bill
needs to be intentionally broader than TikTok, But I do think it's fair to
wrestle with the question of whether the cost benefit analysis of kind of take it
or leave it. Whether creating these powers is sufficient enough to say we shouldn't
pass the bill, I don't actually have a clear answer to that myself right
now. I'm really sympathetic to the Massy Lee Paul arguments. I also think
we desperately need to get TikTok out of the hands of American kids. So,
you know, I think it is even as bad as our technique tech
companies are. I think the latent threat of a hot war with China.
I think the latent threat of that hot conflict over Taiwan, which could come
at basically anytime. You know, it's almost to our benefit in a hot
conflict in some ways. Obviously it's a disadvantage in others. But the companies
like Google and Meta are essentially the defense contractors. You know that it is
the interest of you know, American men and women whose lives would be on
the line if we were in a hot conflict with China overtime one. You
know, that's having TikTok in the pockets of this huge second of American and
basically every young American. The propaganda capabilities of that, you know, we
know how they're used domestically as propaganda capabilities. But when another country has that
probability propaganda capacity and is actively trying to kill American servicemen and women, that's
I think reason enough that there's a should be a very serious effort to get
this the heck out of the pockets of everyone in this country at that point.
So that's sort of my thought on this. I actually don't have a
sort of black and white position on it. I wanted to introduce Isabelle's podcast
just with some thoughts on what's happening with this TikTok bill. I do think
it's usually important. I'm very sympathetic to the arguments of Glenn Greenwald, Massy
Paul, all those guys. I think they're really right. I think it
is though important to understand the latent threat of TikTok. I'd love to get
it out of everybody's pockets. So I wish I had a clear answer on
this. I wish I did, as I think about it more as I've
read the bill more closely and seeing the arguments for and against the sort of
where I am right now, I do hope the Senate. I think the
best thing the Senate could do is target this just to TikTok, take out
the language about any other companies that will qualify and just make it TikTok.
That is perfectly fine for the reasons that you know, from my perspective,
I just listed about it being a latent threat if there's a hot war.
So anyway, Isabelle does a lot of social media work. She promotes conservative
ideas and these social media channels. Personally, I disagree with, you know,
using TikTok for it, But again I'm sympathetics to the argument that everyone's
on TikTok. Kids are on TikTok, young adults are on TikTok, and
they're going to be on TikTok whether or not conservatives are on TikTok. They're
going to use it no matter what. So if that's the case, you
know, you might as well kind of be there. You know, it's
better to have a bunch of young adults on TikTok with other conservatives on TikTok
than it is just to have young adults on TikTok without any conservative voices on
TikTok. Totally sympathetics that argument. Another thing I've wrestled with myself and Isabelle
gets into that a little bit. I'm not sure that I agree fully with
it, but it's still a really interesting conversation about how these tools can be
used. Again, this was a conversation we had before that bill really got
serious consideration in the House. Obviously, there's been myriad efforts to ban TikTok,
some good, some bad over the last couple of years. But until
that bill really started moving through the House, this conversation that's sort of taken
a back burner, and that's where we were basically when we recorded this conversation
again as well as a new book out it is called the End of the
Alphabet, How jen Z Can Save America. Interesting conversation, and you know,
again radio at the Federals dot com for the conversation about TikTok. I
hope you enjoy this, and you know, I am trying to think through
some of these things myself right now. Again. It's these are not,
you know, the easiest questions to work through. And I just appreciate everyone
so much. You don't even know how much I appreciate everyone who listens it.
It really means a lot. It means the world to us. Thank
you very much. I hope you enjoyed this interview with Isabelle Brown. Isabelle,
Welcome to the show, Emily. Thank you so much for having me.
What a pleasure today. Yeah, of course. So you know,
the book is about gen Z, and you know you sort of use your
platform, particularly as a member of gen Z. You can talk about things
as a member of gen Z as somebody who was sort of who grew up
in a very specific era and was shaped by a very specific era. Just
talk to us a little bit about how you got into streaming and sort of
using these platforms to talk about politics and culture and all of that. Well,
I'll tell you one thing. It never was on my radar that this
was going to be my career. In fact, I self published my first
book in twenty twenty one called Frontlines, about my experience on the current American
college campus and just how crazy things have gotten. But as a college student
was pursuing biomedical sciences with the intention of going into medicine and eventually becoming a
trauma surgeon. I even got my graduate degree at Georgetown University after college in
biomedical sciences Policy and Advocacy, so essentially health care policy and how we handle
public health crises, which I'll tell you in twenty twenty was very eye opening
being in class with the top experts from the WHO and the CDC, being
told one thing one day and seeing the opposite on the news the next.
But through that process really was exposed to the reality that far greater than most
of the problems that we're experiencing culturally in America today, for our generation,
the root of all of those problems should terrify each and every one of us,
and that's that we no longer live in a society that values objective truth.
And as somebody who is obsessed with the pursuit of truth, that's why
I became a scientist to begin with. This was incredibly troubling for me in
my early teenage years in high school, but especially going into college in my
early twenties, and I wanted to be a part of the solution by facilitating
better dialogue with our generation and creating more ideological diversity on our college campuses.
Again, who knew that would be the job of a nineteen year old college
student at a big public university instead of her college administration. Right, But
sadly, as a common story these days, so really fell in love with
campus activism. Long story short, on campus working with groups like Turning Point
USA and Students for Life, did a few internships with the federal government in
college, with the US Senate and the White House for the Trump administration,
and realized that there was such a great opportunity today not to necessarily follow my
own prescribed path of what I thought my career would be, but continuing to
facilitate those dialogues and conversations that really matter about that pursuit of objective truth where
Generation Z is at and that happens to be on social media. So five
years later, I'm still posting silly videos of me talking about what's going on
in the world. On Instagram. We do a daily live stream unpacking political
and cultural issues, everything from dating to faith, to the environment and more.
And really have the dream job of a lifetime being to say that every
day I just have to get up and tell people the truth, quite literally,
the dream job. When you have polling showing that young people actually say
kind of the influencer lifestyle is one that they aspire to, and a lot
of folks you know, in different generations look at that and say, holy
smokes, be an astronaut be an engineer, be a lawyer or something like
that. But what you're saying is about is that there's a lot of power
in sort of subverting the popular narrative on some of these platforms, right exactly.
And you know, it's interesting. A lot of people will say that
this dream job of the influencer, I like to say content creator. Personally,
I despise the word influencer. I don't think you get to callier itself
an influencer. Other people can say that about you, for sure, But
really, content creator lifestyle is that, despite what most people think being mutually
exclusive from other career paths, it's kind of the first time in world history
where it can benefit your chosen career path right alongside anything else that you do.
Some of the most effective content creators out there are also entrepreneurs. They're
doctors and veterinarians, their lawyers. They're engaging in culture from an upfront personal
perspective every day and getting to share what their ordinary life is like. And
perhaps my favorite part about being a content creator is just getting a peek behind
the curtain into that authenticity piece that I think gen Z values so so much
in the content that we're consuming you know, there's a reason we're not watching
cable news anymore to get information, or reading the newspaper or even listening to
the radio. Sometimes we're looking for this sense of real life connection with someone
that can empathize with us and that we can see ourselves in, which is
why I think platforms like TikTok have become so so effective in the last several
years. Somebody can tell you what's going on in the news, or who's
running for president, and why something matters to global geopolitics while they're putting their
makeup on in the morning in the bathroom. We're sitting in the passenger seat
of their car coming home from a date, and breaking down that fourth wall,
so to speak. Has been so incredibly cool to facilitate these conversations with
our generation. You've probably noticed volatility in the market lately. The stock market
has seen unprecedented fluctuations over the last three years, and silver has historically been
considered a safe haven asset during times like this of market volatility. When that
uncertainty rises, investors will often turn to precious metals like silver to preserve wealth
and to hedge against economic instability. One of the reasons is because silver is
a tangible asset, Owning physical silver coins provides you with that tangible you can
hold it in your hand, and in times of economic uncertainty, having tangible
assets can provide that sense of security and peace of mind. Don't forget that
coins hold both intrinsic and numismatic value. While you're stacking silver in the form
of bars or rounds, it holds that intrinsic value. Of metal coins,
and especially those certified coins, hold the additional numismatic value of being a historic
collectible. Now. CSN Mint has been providing US mint collectible coins and precious
metals for over twenty years. They're one of the most trusted names in numismatics.
You can explore CSN Mint's extensive catalog of bullion, bars, coins and
numismatic collectibles. Whether you're a seasoned investor or a passionate collector, you will
find a diverse range of products to suit your needs and your preferences. At
CSN Mint, trust is paramount rest assured that every product you purchase includes the
original certificate of authenticity or is actually certified and graded by a third party grader
to ensure origin and purity. So with CSM mint. You can build your
collection with confidence. You can experience that world class customer service and support with
csn mint too. Their team of knowledgeable professionals is there to assist you every
step of the way, from product selection all the way to order form and
even beyond. So if you're going to collect something, it might as well
be money. Go to csnmint dot com slash Federalist and use promo code Federalist
at checkout to get a free silver American Eagle over thirty dollars in value with
your purchase of seventy five dollars or more. Well, and that actually TikTok
really gets to the heart of the moral dilemma. That's you know, I
know, I'm sure that you've grappled with it, this question of if you're
somebody who seeks truth and you know, is aware of some of the harms
and the detrimental conduct of these social media companies, you know, whether it's
Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, Meta or TikTok, there's some very real moral
questions about whether contributing to those companies helping their bottom line using their platforms is
a net benefit morally if it's okay because it, you know, spreads the
word and a place where people will not hear it otherwise, you know,
if they're if there aren't conservatives on TikTok, kids are still going to use
TikTok, and they're just going to have a lot more liberal perspectives zipped into
their algorithm. Can you talk to us as well, just a little bit
about how you think through some of those tough questions. Oh? Absolutely,
And I'm glad we're able to have these conversations now because I think for so
long the right and right of center politicians in particular have written off social media
for the last several years. They think that it's somehow unprofessional or not important,
or even just assesspool of insane leftist indoctrination. And there's absolutely no saving
grace or hope for anybody else to be on these platforms. For me,
the moral question of social media at large is really quite simple, and you
alluded to it right there in the question if we are not present where culture
is in fighting for objective truth even larger than conservative principles, but the idea
that there is a concept of objective truth, then unfortunately our peers may never
encounter that now radical idea, and I see this all the time, and
high school campuses, on college campuses, but especially when having conversations through screens.
We've seen this almost abandonment of our opportunity to change culture from the inside
out for far too long, and now it is a bit of an uphill
battle, But those battles are happening and winning for the right every single day
on comment sections and in dms and in live streams, in a far more
effective way than anything that we could possibly do in the political sphere outside of
social media. TikTok's an interesting one, especially because there's a lot of information
and I would argue misinformation out there that's very targeted and calculated to make you
believe that it is inherently a national security issue or a data security issue.
Heck, I was even on Fox News talking about this last night and rampantly
this idea, this narrative is continuing to be repeated that you are insecure and
you are somehow unsafe if you are using this platform. Yet if you do
just very little research on the subject, there's actually not one die documented example
ever of TikTok giving your data to the CCP. There are countless documented examples
of meta selling your data to the CCP, who owns Facebook and Instagram and
WhatsApp. There are examples of the FBI purchasing your data under the table,
behind the scenes from Twitter before Elon Musk took on the platform, and he
declassified some of that for us in the last several months. Heck, even
Airbnb has been known to sell your data to the CCP. So when I
see this bipartisan which in and of itself is a rare enough occurrence these days,
we can't agree on what a woman is, but all of a sudden,
we can agree on a bipartisan attack on TikTok, it really makes me
stop in my tracks and think, why is there such an attack on social
media today? And I think so much of that is because we are sharing
unfiltered, authentic, unscripted information with one another, and that's happening more and
more in this authentic, grassroots way on TikTok that I'm seeing on any other
platform. As to the moral question with the content on all of these platforms,
are they just this cesspool of leftist indoctrination garbage or do we have a
moral responsibility to be there? I would argue the latter, because we always
like to say, as conservatives, the phrase coined by the late great Andrew
Breitbart, politics is always downstream from culture. And we believe this about the
entertainment industry. We believe this about education, We believe this about the church.
We believe this about dating and marriage. But for whatever reason, conservatives
often neglect the opportunity to change culture where it's happening, and that happens to
be on social media today. I can't tell you how many minds I have
seen changed about abortion, about who's running for president, about the border,
about freedom of expression and speech, even radical conversions of faith and really crazy
stories in that realm because of what somebody saw in a silly fifteen second TikTok
video, or talking to each other back and forth in Instagram comment sections.
And I think if we abandon the call for social media truly, we won't
have an opportunity to change gen Z's minds moving forward. Though, I will
say, as a journalist, they the CCP has definitely accessed. Forbes had
a great report on journalists TikTok data that SAFC being got his hands on.
But yes, the companies are all doing this. It's it's it's absolutely true.
American companies. Everybody's having fun with the data, that's for sure.
And you know that's kind of a big question that I wanted to ask as
well. It's just about my My problem is is less even the security and
the privacy and the data and the bias. It's more than anything, how
using these apps basically on smartphones has created. You know, there's there's pretty
decent evidence coming from Jonathan Height and others now that it's the correlation is increasingly
clear that these apps are are reflected in increased rates of mental illness and all
of that. And we can get into that because I'm curious. You know,
when when I first got on Facebook, there weren't smartphones, so it
was like you were you were like, I'm a millennial, but not to
you know, I'm not ancient, that's for sure, but you know,
we had to like email if we wanted to like post on someone's wall during
high school or something like that. But it's very different when it's in your
pocket and they've you know, sort of hacked the brainstem with red notifications and
all that good stuff. So how do you think about that moral question of
just like, you know, being part of that machine again, I think
it's I don't mean to put words in your mouth, but I imagine it's
it's similar that if if nobody's there, if kids are going to be scrolling
TikTok no matter what, and if they're only getting one side, that's that's
just as scary, arguably not even just scary. I think that's what's causing
a lot of these mental health issues. There, of course, are very
important conversations to be had about the science behind this, with screen time and
social media in particular being considered addictive, and there are incredible experts out there
researching this stuff about neuron behaviors and hormone release that actually mimic drug addiction.
And I think there's a lot to be said about why we need to address
this problem now. But the truth is at the root cause social media is
nothing more than a tool. And of course there's algorithm transparency issues and what
content is being pushed and all of that, But social media today, our
Facebook feeds, our Instagram videos, our TikTok for you pages, YouTube live
streams are today the modern public square. When you want to share a statement
or a value, when you want to debate with somebody, when you want
to challenge your own beliefs. You're not doing that by standing on a street
corner, on an apple box anymore, shouting into the void or through a
homemade megaphone. You happen to be doing it in two hundred eighty characters,
through a tweet, or in a fifteen second TikTok video. And when we
have this opportunity to use a tool, it can be used nefariously or it
can be used for very very good, altruistic purposes in society as well.
TikTok is a prime example of this. You see the del and Mulvaney's of
the World, or Jeffrey marsh who's quite a controversial character on TikTok, and
older gentlemen who identifies as non binary and is encouraging children to cut ties with
their families over their gender identity. Very controversial and difficult stuff that's obviously contributing
to the mental health crisis this generation is facing. But you also see movements
and organizations like Stay Here, which is an organization dedicated to making gen Z
suicide free, and for the first time ever last year, gen Z has
actually decreased dramatically our generational suicide rate. So there's a lot to be said
about the data out there and the concern and confusion that people have, but
these tools really are just that, their tools, and I hope that more
and more people see not just the opportunity, but the obligation to fill our
feeds, to fill these videos and algorithms, to fill comment sections and dms
with truth based content. That's going to bring back what's morally good, true,
and beautiful to society again, because otherwise we just throw the pack of
wolves to the next generation. You say Gen Z probably will never interact with
any other content, and that's actually true. We say this hyperbolically sometimes that
every single Gen Z will never engage with conservative ideas. But if you break
down the math with who's on TikTok in particular, there are one hundred and
fifty million Americans who use TikTok at least monthly as a regular social media platform,
and about seventy percent of those on TikTok in America are Generation Z.
Well, there's only about seventy million Gen Zers total in America today, So
when we're talking about seventy percent of one hundred and fifty million people, that's
almost every single member of Generation Z. Who not only is getting our favorite
social media content through TikTok, but interestingly, TikTok has become our number one
search engine as a generation, more than Google. So if you're looking up
where to go, make a dinner reservation tomorrow night, what to do on
vacation, or even who to vote for for President of the United States,
we tend to be looking that up on TikTok. And I hope that that
tool can continue to be used by more and more people every day for good
purposes. So I mean big news on this front. Two, with some
polling showing this is both New York Times poll and an Axios poll just in
the last couple of months showing Donald Trump making huge gains with young voters.
And something I think is interesting about that is it's not going to translate,
likely immediately to a bunch of other Republican candidates. You know, we didn't
see a huge youth bump for DeSantis, but what we're seeing with Donald Trump.
For some reason, part of it is the binary choice with Joe Biden,
and you know, the sort of youth opposition to Israel and Dionism and
just all of that. And I'm sure you have thoughts as a book,
because you're in this every single day and you've seen some of the insanity.
But it's crazy the inroads that Donald Trump in the polling appears to have made
with black voters, Hispanic voters, and young voters. How much of that
do you think from the old gatekeepers New York Times, Washington Post, whomever,
being totally subverted an undercut with social media, with TikTok, with people
basically sharing information that otherwise wouldn't find major mainstream platforms. But if you're on
TikTok, the algorithm will still feed it to you, or if you're on
Instagram, the algorithm will still feed it to you in certain circumstances. I
think it has everything to do with the undercut of traditional media. You know,
Generation Z is not watching cable news, They're not reading the New York
Times. They might see a headline or a link to something from the New
York Times on social media, or a screenshot of one paragraph, but they're
not engaging in traditional media. And more importantly, the length of traditional media
that I think has been required for the past several decades. You can get
the same exact information in a thirty second SoundBite. On an Instagram reel than
you could get for watching two hours of MSNBC. And so this constant circulation
of information, not to mention, having all of the information and history of
the world at your fingertips at every given moment, with these smartphones in our
pockets, has given this generation an opportunity not to be uneducated like most people
who come before us believe that we are, but actually to be hyper educated
about what's going on in the world, not through the quote unquote approved media
sources or even state sponsored media sources, but through authentic, boots on the
ground citizen journalism in a way that the world has never seen. I am
so excited about this polling related to Donald Trump, and this is actually what
I just shared with Fox News last night. I don't think it's a new
phenomenon, this shift towards conservative values and policies, and a lot of people
might be surprised to hear me say that, But the truth is, even
though Generation Z voted overwhelmingly for Democrat candidates in twenty twenty, if you look
at exit polling for Gen Z voter behavior from twenty eighteen to twenty twenty to
twenty twenty two, all the way up to twenty twenty four, are you
actually see what looks like a straight line slope. If you remember elementary school
math, the Y equals MX plus B classic graph that probably come up and
comes up in your mind. That's the type of trend that we are seeing
positively for more conservative candidates and more conservative policies on an issue by issue basis.
And I think all of that for gen Z has to do with that
same idea I mentioned earlier that politics is downstream from culture when you zoom out
to the cultural level for our generation today, and this is what I really
talk about in my book What's Happening culturally and how this will correlate politically later
on down the line. You see the radical revolutionary authoritarian left controlling almost every
pillar, arguably every single pillar of American culture and society today, certainly education,
the entertainment industry. You see this in our favorite TV shows and movies
and music influencer culture and what's happening on social media. You see this in
the American church today overwhelmingly, which is crazy that your pastor likely is subscribing
to something like the Sparkle Creed instead of saying that the Bible is the word
of God. We certainly see this in corporate America with these massive woke companies
in San Francisco and New York, and obviously politics as well. But if
you look throughout human history, cyclically, every young generation basically wants to do
the same thing when it's their turn to come into adulthood and adolescence, and
that is to rebel against the people who came before you, to be different,
to challenge the status quo, to be a little bit punk rock and
edgy. And while that historically might have looked like actual punk rock, metal
music and bands, spiky hair, body tattoos and piercings all over and literally
looking different and challenging things from a very literal perspective, today, to be
radically countercultural. To be punk rock is to be a patriotic conservative American is
to believe that men are men and women are women. Is to want to
get mayor and have children. Is to believe in God instead of belief solely
in yourself or worship of the government. And that's exactly culturally the trends that
we've been seeing with gen Z over the last several years. I know this
is a very long winded answer, But it's just fascinating to me that gen
Z is starting to overwhelmingly reject the idea that you need to spend two hundred
and fifty thousand dollars on a liberal arts degree in something like I don't know
underwater lesbian basket weaving, right, because we know that's not going to give
us any meaning despite being the prescribed pathway to success. We are told that
the only way to be successful at a company in corporate America is to be
an unpaid intern and prove your loyalty to your woke company for forty or fifty
years and maybe you'll get promoted in the process. We're saying no, thank
you, and sixty two percent of us have already started our own businesses,
skipping to the role of CEO on day one. A recent survey from College
Campus has found that ninety three percent of gen Zers want to get married today,
which which is astounding when you consider the fact that we have the lowest
marriage rate in America since we began recording marriage rates in eighteen sixty seven and
one of the highest divorce rates of all time. Currently, it is not
a societal norm to want a monogamous marriage for the rest of your life.
But that's what we're seeking overwhelmingly, and there's a ton of other anecdotal evidence.
We're throwing away our birth control, we're deleting our dating apps, We're
challenging the status quo of cancel culture by actually offering redemption and forgiveness in society.
But if we know all of these things are happening culturally eventually downstream,
that's going to impact how we behave politically. And when you look at the
options in front of us right now, lockstep, rigid leftist authoritarianism, or
the opportunity to live your own life on your terms offered by the relatively sane
people left in American politics, I think the options are pretty clear, and
we're very cleverly sorting out which way makes the most sense for us. Today's
episode is to you buy surf Shark. Surf Shark is a cybersecurity product that
improves your online privacy and protects you from hackers. How well, Their main
product, VPN, basically acts as a shield and hides your IP address,
so everything you do online actually stays private, whether it's reading the news,
maybe googling some dodgy info, which as a journalist you have to do all
the time streaming some shows, listening to podcasts, or honestly anything else.
Plus, if you use a VPN, you can virtually travel the world from
the comfort of your own home, and surf Shark gives you over one hundred
countries to choose from. Once you change your virtual location, you'll be able
to bypass censorship and restrictions. You can find your favorites on Netflix or Hulu
or other streaming services, and even access new libraries to watch even more content.
So maybe you can't see a YouTube video because of your location, just
use surf Shark VPN. Maybe you can't access that one website to buy let's
say limited edition sneakers, use Shark VPN. Try surf Shark today totally risk
free with a thirty day money back guarantee. Get surf Shark VPN at surf
shark dot deals slash Federalist enter promo code Federalist for three extra months for free.
And you heard me right, that's three extra months for free. So
surf shark dot deals slash Federalist. It's interesting because when I was in the
sort of college, in the college conservatism space, I heard the same thing
all the time, like conservatives. Literally, I hosted event on my campus
within this is hilarious at the time se Cup that was called like conservatives of
the New rock Stars or rebels. I think it was something like that.
But what's interesting about the difference between millennials and gen Z is that with gen
Z, it's it's almost like what people saw happening with millennials actually is happening
with gen Z. So like what people predicted about my millennials when the technology
advanced, it actually did happen with gen Z, meaning the gatekeepers are totally
gone. And I think a lot of this is a well, I'm curious
for your perspective. I feel like you agree based on what you've said so
far, comes from that question about moral clarity that when you are a generation
Generation Z, you literally did not grow up in the age of gatekeepers,
like you did not grow up really with cable news being all powerful, with
people getting the New York Times on their doorstep, and even with just like
you know, the democratization of what it means to be a journalist, like
so much shitis in journalism. Smartphones in everyone's pocket, meaning there are pictures
everywhere, there's memes, there's a like fake pictures, photoshop, like everything
is out there and it's really really hard, even you know, for me
right now sometimes to figure out what's true and what's not. It's hard for
anyone to figure out what's true and what's not. And in an environment like
that, you crave moral and once you realize that what you're craving is moral
clarity, it leads you in an interesting direction. And that seems to me
what's happening to be what's happening with gen Z, especially in an era.
I love how you phrased this with moral clarity. In this era of moral
ambiguity and subjectivity, not only has truth become subjective, but obviously we believe
morals and values have as well, to the point that in America today,
you can make a moral argument for my truth being better than your truth,
that in my world you are a better person. Anecdotally speaking, if you
encourage a twelve year old girl to castrate herself chemically or physically, literally chopping
off body parts so that she can feel more secure in her own skin,
rendering the rest of her life very very difficult, maybe even increasing her rate
of suicide, than if you were to protect the innocence of children. That's
a literal moral argument that you can make today. Are moral arguments happening today
that it is more compassionate to end the life of your preborn child because you
theoretically don't want them to suffer in poverty or with mental health issues or bullying.
I hear all of these arguments on college campuses all the time. Then
to give your child a chance at life, that's the type of moral question
that's in front of us in America today. And when everything has become subjective,
we really threw the baby out with the bathwater on the foundation of our
country. Of course, there's opportunities for subjectivity in society and nuance matters.
I think we're realizing that now more than ever. But everything has become so
unbelievably nuanced that ironically there's no room for it anymore, and we just can't
have any sense of moral objectivity whatsoever in society today. So that sense of
a moral ambiguity and lacking a greater purpose in society, I believe is very
much driving the direction and the values of my generation. Preparing for my book
and doing a lot of research, it was fascinating for me to read one
study that seventy five percent of Gen Z genuinely believes we can and will change
the world for the better. And I found that fascinating because I think generally
people associate apathy with the millennial generation, this idea of I give up,
I can't control anything, woe is me, scream at the sky. I
think when you hear the word millennial and politics, you automatically associate the video
of that young woman wearing the construction vest after the twenty sixteen election, screaming
what the sky after Donald Trump was elected, And this sense of a lack
of control over the things around you in society has really hallmarked millennial's approach towards
culture, activism, and politics, whereas the opposite is becoming true for Generation
Z. We're getting involved in the process. We're not waiting for permission to
embrace leadership. We're starting activism organizations, We're having these conversations on social media.
We're taking to the streets with protests or even running for office ourselves,
even when most people tell us we're too young or too inexperienced to make much
of a difference. I really believe it goes back to that seventy five percent
that the vast majority of us genuinely believe we can and will change the world.
And this speaks volumes to me in terms of bringing back moral clarity to
society rooted an objective truth and what's good and true and beautiful. When you
look at one study talking about Generation z's belief in something larger than ourselves,
in twenty twenty one, only about twenty five percent of my generation said that
we believed in a higher power at all, no sense of objective movement towards
faith in society. At that time, the trends were very much towards atheism
and moving away from faith and traditional religious values. But by twenty twenty three,
over one third of Gen Z now says we proudly believe in God and
are regularly attending church. So talk about a huge upswing from less than twenty
five percent to over thirty three percent in just two years. In American culture,
there's a hunger and a desire and a thirst that really can't be quenched.
For these questions of what is my purpose? How can I serve my
community? Why am I here? It has to be bigger than the empty,
hollow facade, of meaningless virtue signaling that the left continuously tries to offer
to us in all of those pillars of culture I mentioned earlier, education,
entertainment, et cetera. And I think we're finding it in really meaningful ways
and putting it into action. Something I tell my friends on the left is
that this when people realize that the left narrative is being depicted as the sort
of the true capital T narrative, it's so powerful when they realize A,
you know, that's being forced on them, and B they're all kinds of
cracks in the foundation. It actually reminds me of like when people used to
pick up you know, a people's history of the United States Howard Zinn or
Noam Chomsky, and you know, those guys tell stories that are different than
sort of the mainstream narrative, and that is so so powerful, except now
it's going in the other direction. But as well, I'm curious for your
thoughts on how this can It can go in some pretty dark places too.
And so it's also the job of conservatives to come prepare to sort of embrace
people with good arguments that are persuasive and don't send people down, you know,
taking black pills every day, for example, or down conspiracy rabbit holes,
because that's the other thing, you know, when you when you can't
tell what's true from what's false, I mean, sometimes you just give up
and say we live in a simulation and I'm gonna, you know, smoke
weed and play Xbox. You're right, and it's funny, this black pill
notion. I've heard more and more people talking about it lately. I even
had to, as a content creator myself, look in the mirror the last
couple of weeks and say, you know, we've been covering a lot of
really negative conspiratorial issues lately. Let's do something positive on my livestream today.
And I think people are just looking for that breath of fresh air and change
of pace. That really, what we're talking about today isn't as politically divided
as the people in power would like for you to believe that it is.
Right. We talk all the time about how we live in the most divided
time in modern history. We live in two different Americas. We have completely
different values. If somebody votes differently or thinks differently from myself, I hear
a lot of people say that person is demonic or evil. Today we take
things to this hyperbolic, insane rhetoric that often really doesn't need to be the
forefront of this conversation. Yesterday or two days ago, rather, I was
actually sitting at a roundtable discussion in Los Angeles with the Schwarzenegger Institute with former
Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and the American Conservation Coalition. They are a right of center
conservative environmental group and have done some really great work in exposing those in politics
to the fact that young conservatives really care about the environment. And I was
sitting across the table from people who dramatically would vote differently than myself. They're
very big supporters of AOC. They believe in democratic socialism for whatever that is
supposed to mean. We can argue about that later. The names of their
organizations were like Queer, Brown, Vegan, and I'm kind of chuckling to
myself how differently we approach this issue. But the way we sit down at
the table and we're all starting to use the same language for the things that
we care about. You know, I want to do what I want to
do and take personal responsibility for my own life. I want the opportunity to
care for my community. I want to give a voice to people who have
been silenced by the mainstream media for far too long. I fear authoritarianism.
Was actually something that one of these young leftists said that young leftists everywhere are
terrified of authoritarianism should the right continue to have political power. And I laughed
and actually said to this young man, you know, believe it or not,
that's the number one fear from young conservatives too. We fear leftists entrenched
bureaucracy, authoritarianism with the continued direction that our government has been going. And
I think, for the most part, if you're able to strip away the
labels for young people with the connotations and the weight that words like republican or
democrat or whatever word you want to throw in there, have carried the last
several years, young people everywhere are honestly just tired. We're exhausted of a
system that frankly looks a whole lot more like a uniparty than actual political discourse
in Washington. We're tired of politicians who've been serving in Congress longer than twice
the time we've been alive, who keep promising to do the same things every
two, four or six years, and we keep sending them back and they
insist they're the only people that can solve the problem. But they can't solve
the problem or they'd be out of a job, right So that's a really
frustrating reality for us to be in. We're really tired of everything boiling down
to a political statement in America today, down to the underwear brand that you're
wearing right now or the toothbrush that you used this morning on pomatically associating you
with one extreme side or the other of the political spectrum. And we're hungry
for something different, And obviously there's a lot of people who have been indoctrinated
and brainwashed to believe that the something different is actually just the status quo in
radical leftism, Which just a spoiler for you, if you're listening to this,
if you happen to be following the exact same talking points of every single
entrenched cultural institution, of every corporation, of every CEO, and every politician,
you probably aren't. The resistance is just a little thought to throw out
there for you. But we're looking for a change, and it's really telling
to me that fifty two percent of newly registered voters in our generation are choosing
to register as independent. This is far beyond party label. This is far
beyond which guy you want to sit in the beautiful chair in the Oval office.
This speaks to values and a radical transformation and frankly revolution for what it
means to be an American today. I titled my book The End of the
Alphabet as somewhat a note to this idea that those older than us always keep
saying. Gen z is the end of America. It's the end of life
as we know it. And I always laugh at how hyperbolic that sounds.
But the more I wrote this book and thought about what I wanted to put
into it, the more I started thinking about what life as we know it
actually means. If life as we know it means that we should be encouraging
twelve year olds to change their gender and to be separated from custody from their
parents as some sort of liberation, then I have no problem saying that we
should end life as we know it. If life as we know it means
the death of millions of innocent children before they even have the chance to be
born, packaged in this beautiful pink bow of women's empowerment and feminism, then
I have no problem saying that there probably should be an end to life as
we know it if it means radical division, if it means the sixteen nineteen
project or pornographic books in elementary school, or even just this idea that objective
truth doesn't have a place in society anymore. I think it's time for us
to create a revolution for a difference in life as we know it. And
Generation Z is doing just that by reinventing the wheel culturally and politically every day
with this sense of hope and optimism that we can and will change the world
for the better in the process, something I think people I guess underappreciate,
especially older generations, because technology was changing really really quickly for the Boomers,
even for greatest gen you know, you think of people who lived through a
world before the automobile and then died in the era of planes. I mean,
it's just remarkable how quickly this has all been moving. But the reason
these different generations now feel so so much more calcified is the rate of technological
change means that if you grew up in the nineties versus the Oughts, you
grew up in a completely different world, different country, different world, different
culture, different politics, different lifestyle. All of that is just so different.
So on that note, it's perfectly kuth, and Jermaine is about to
ask what year you were born. I was born in nineteen ninety seven,
so I'll bok twenty seven or sorry, twenty yeah, twenty seven this year,
which is crazy. So you're like early gen Z, right, so
I am the first Yeah. Depending on who you ask, the definition has
changed, but the generally accepted definition is that gen Z was starting in nineteen
ninety seven. So those of us that'll be turning twenty seven this year,
all the way down to about twenty twelve after that is a whole crop of
kids called jen Alpha, and they started the Elpha get over they did.
They are the children of millennials, so I always say give them a few
extra prayers because they're probably gonna need it. Okay, so do you?
So you probably don't remember nine to eleven very well, if at all.
I have a very vague, fuzzy memory of nine to eleven. I love
this question, actually because I wrote a whole chapter of my book about different
stages of gen Z and what we remember versus don't. The oldest among us
have a fuzzy memory of the world before nine to eleven, but not really.
I mean that was part of our earliest memory building, and really after
that. Look at people like my youngest sister who's twenty one, she doesn't
really remember watching movies on VHS or having to go to Blockbuster to rent things.
You know, there's this whole difference in the term digital natives that a
lot of people in the journalism space are using for the younger cohorts of gen
Z than those of us who remember landline phones and when YouTube was Charlie bit
my finger or Unicorn dancing around on your screen rather than your favorite news source.
Yeah, I was actually gonna just ask about that. I think,
you know, a lot of people use nine eleven as the dividing line,
as you discuss in the book, and it's definitely an important I mean Euphoria,
for example, the first episode starts with you know being born in the
hospital as her parents and Euphoria are watching news of what's happening on nine to
eleven, So it is important. One of the things I think might actually
even be more important, though, is if you don't remember a world before
Wi Fi because Wi Fi's art phones, maybe at the same time. But
Wi Fi is what sort of made everything. It was like you used to
always be on a leash. It was the same thing with phones, you
know, when phones went wireless. I think that was probably like in seventies
or eighties something like that. But when when phones went wireless, you didn't
have to stand by the phone, you didn't have to have it on your
lap, in a chair or be you know, have one of those long,
stretchy chords that you could, you know, maybe put the phone in
the kitchen and walk the living room something like that. That's a huge difference
in how you use a phone. But when it all just came off the
leash, that was Wi Fi. That was you know, being able to
be on the Internet in the car, being able to you know, watch
YouTube videos, being like it just put everything mobile, the entire power of
the Internet everywhere. And I feel like a lot of gen z not in
a bad way, but just naturally takes that for granted because they did not
see what the world was like before that. And maybe the same thing with
smartphones. Those I'm curious for your perspective. Those are the two things I
think really like in terms of people's daily lives dramatically changed the world, and
some people in your generation in gen Z like genuinely are on the other side
of that and don't know what life was like before you carried the entire knowledge,
the sum total of human knowledge, in your pocket and can access it
at any given point in time. I will forever remember, Emily. I
was in sixth grade when a girl in my class got the very first iPhone,
and she was the only person in our school that had an iPhone,
and everyone was obsessed with seeing what this thing could do. Really, at
the time, the most revolutionary app on the iPhone was the zip, a
lighter app that you could hold up at a concert and act like you had
a lighter in your pocket, but it was on your phone, and the
games were very rudimentary. It was mostly for gaming and entertainment more than anything.
But I will forever remember everyone just being completely enthralled with this little brick
in your pocket that was going to change everything. Sold heartedly agree. I
think smartphones and Wi Fi, coupled with the rise of social media, have
really changed how we interact with the world and how we consume information. There
was a comedian and for the life of me, I can't remember who said
this, but doing a roundtable on a podcast a few months ago that said
something so earth shattering to me about this subject. He said, you know,
gen Z, for the first time ever in human experience, every single
night is having to make a decision between the sum total of all of the
information and the history of the universe and oblivion. When they go to sleep
every night, they have to tear themselves away from this magic machine that can
give you the answers to any question in all of human history, or help
you imagine any possible future for the rest of human history, and closing your
eyes and seeing the back of your eyelids and no wonder. We're struggling with
how to balance that no wonder that's become such an addictive force in our lives.
Now, I think we really face the question culturally and ethically, how
do we continue to navigate technology as a tool for good, as a force
for change, because obviously, with the rise of AI and a lot of
these technological advances, we're concerned about what that looks like for those who come
after us. So as annoyed as everybody is with gen Z always having our
nose in a phone and having a hard time tearing ourselves away from screens.
I think it really is going to fall into the lapse of our generation to
create this sense of responsible navigation for technological advances, for Gen Alpha, for
our children later on, and for every generation to come. Well, is
there anything else you think is misunderstood about gen Z? Is there anything you
think that when people maybe rage against gen Z? We've covered a lot of
ground, and I know you cover a lot of ground in the book,
but is there anything else that we haven't touched on that you just think people
should know as they consider, you know, where gen Z could be going
with their politics, and even as they vote, you're sort of in the
culture war with their daily lives, getting married, having kids. What don't
people get? The generational disconnect and frankly, just complete misunderstanding that I see
about gen Z is astounding. Every day I'm often asked to represent the voice
of our generation and traditional media doing radio and TV and print media as well,
and the questions that I get from a lot of these older hosts and
particularly TV personalities are fascinating because it shows me that there really is this complete
alter ego image that I think has been imposed on gen Z versus who we
actually are. I asked my followers a few months ago, if you're not
gen Z, use a word to describe who our generation is, like what
immediately comes to mind, And if you are a gen Zer, do the
exact same thing. And the answers were just shocking to me. Those older
than us said that we were anxious, doomed, weak, delusional, immature,
immoral, egocentric, and self obsessed countless others, whereas gen z Is
called ourselves motivated, curious, entrepreneurial, worthy, ready, passionate, chosen.
And I think there's just such a stark optimism difference between those older than
us in the faith that they have and the change we can make in the
world, versus the call to action that we see from within our own generation
to try to take back the driver's seat of American culture. Again. It's
really uncomfortable, I think for a lot of people in American politics, particularly
on the right to seed, to giving the stage to the next generation,
or even sharing the microphone with the next generation. And I think that's because
at least within the last several generations, there's been this preconceived notion in Washington
that frankly, I encountered quite frequently working at the US Senate and the White
House in college, that if you're young, you have to quote unquote do
your time and prove your loyalty and your worth to American politics. If you
work on the hill or spend any time on the hill, there's this assumption
that you have to be an unpaid intern first, and then maybe, if
you're lucky, you'll be an assistant somewhere in somebody's office. And then maybe
you'll get to be a legislative aid and start writing bills. And if you're
really lucky and you really stick it out, making thirty thousand dollars a year,
you might be able to be a chief of staff. And then if
you get the blessing of the party, you can run for office yourself.
And we think that that's the way it's always been done, and that's what's
culturally acceptable in American politics, that those older automatically are wiser because age equals
wisdom. But I would actually argue that life experience equals wisdom, not inherently
age. I mean, for goodness sakes, look at our old president of
the United States. In American history today, there's not a lot of wisdom
happening there. But actually, when I started doing research about the foundation of
our country and really where young voices have always played a part, I was
astounded to have my preconceived notions about the role of young patriots in American culture
challenged. When I ask high schoolers and college students to describe what the founding
fathers looked like when I speak on campus, the answer is almost always invariably
in unison robotic, old white men. And I think we get this image
from the illustrations in our APUs history textbooks, are paintings that we see at
art galleries in Washington, d C. Marble busts of the most important figures
in our nation's history, and we assume that they're these sagging, geriatric,
completely culturally out of touch individuals who couldn't possibly understand building a society to stand
the test of time rather than just for the time that they were living in.
But if you actually do a little bit of research, one Google search
is all it takes, or perhaps I should say TikTok search these days.
On July fourth, seventeen seventy six, James Monroe was only eighteen years old.
Aaron Burr was only twenty. John Marshall was twenty, Nathan Hale was
twenty one before becoming the smash star of a Broadway hit musical. Alexander Hamilton
was only twenty one years old on July fourth, seventeen seventy six. Betsy
Ross was twenty four, James Madison was younger than I was at twenty five,
and Thomas Jefferson, who wrote the Declaration of Independence, was only thirty
three years old on July fourth, seventeen seventy six. These weren't these entrenched,
powerful bureaucrats building the radical idea of the American experiment when we declared our
independence from Great Britain. These were ragtag, punk rock, counter cultural young
patriots who were literally sticking it to the man of those older than them in
power, demanding a better change for the future generations who would come after us.
Vivek Ramaswami had said throughout his presidential campaign before he suspended it, that
we're in a seventeen seventy six moment in twenty twenty four, and I think
when we use these burbiages like culture war or revolution or even seventeen seventy six
moment, people think we're being hyperbolic, but quite literally. It was Thomas
Jefferson who, in the Declaration of Independence reminded us it is the obligation and
right of the people to challenge to change, or at least alter, a
government that is no longer securing your God given rights in society. And I
think that's exactly what we're seeing play out today. But I hope that those
older than us can see a glimmer of opportunity and a return to our roots
of true American traditionalism, to bring young voices to the table again, because
even before we were formally a country, that's exactly who was fighting for us
to get here in the first place. Isabel Brown, the book once again
is called The End of the Alphabet, How gen Z Can Save America?
Where can people find you again? On social media as well? I am
across platforms at the Isabelle Brown, and tune into our livestream if you want
to hear what's going on in culture from a gen Z perspective every day at
three pm Eastern. Awesome. Well, thank you so much for joining the
show. Thank you for having me. I appreciate it. Of course,
you have been listening to another edition of the Federalist Radio Hour. I'm Emily
Dashinsky, culture editor here at the Federalist. We'll be back soon with more.
Until then, be lovers of freedom and anxious