WEBVTT

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Oh, I'm sorry. You got
this meeting room for Okay, the somebody

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came into the room ask not what
your country can do for you, as

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what you can do for your country, mister gerbachofw tear down this wall.

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It's the Ricochet Podcast with Peter Robinson
and Rob Long. I'm James Lylyx.

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Today we talk about what needs to
be done with Christopher Rufo, so let's

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efrasos a podcast. We also cannot
and do not discount the possibility that HAMAS

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or another foreign terrorist organization may exploit
the current conflict to conduct attacks here on

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our own soil. And so today
I am proud to announce the Biden Harris

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administration will develop our nation's first national
strategy to counter Islamophobia. Welcome everybody.

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This is the Ricochet Podcast. I'm
James Lylyx here in Minneapolis, recently graced

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by Joe Biden. Peter Robinson is
in California. Long, I believe is

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somewhere in the East Coast. We
got the whole country covered here, gentlemen,

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how are you today? Well,
I'm fine, James, thank you

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for asking well and Peter, Aside
from the disintegration of the entire of all

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that we cherish. I'm perfectly well, lovely sunny day here in California.

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We're expecting a high of seventy seven. It's amazing how pleasantly life this would

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it have been like this in about
the year four hundred three, Senators get

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together in Rome and say, well, shall we stroll? Oh? Yes,

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yes, the barbarians are proceeding down
the peninsula, but they've crossed the

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po But let's stroll over to the
baths of Caracul and have a nat or

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shall we? Yeah? Yeah,
well, yeah, on a cheerful note,

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we proceed. I mean, it's
a sort of incremental, small,

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little deconstruction of the world in which
we know, which has been going on

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a pace as long as I can
recall, with fits and starts, and

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with the spasmodic jerks back to the
proper directions, and probably who you call

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them, spasmodic jerk It was my
I was gonna introduce you thusly yeah,

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so yes, well, I do
well. I do not share Peter's Roman

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analogy completely. I understand it,
and it would have been you know,

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we always think that Rome fell in
a day, the whole thing just collapsed.

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No, I know, it took
an awful long time, and a

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choice survived for another thousand years over
in the Eastern part where they still had

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the arraignments of But there we go
again, there we go, bringing the

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Roman Empire back. Now, what's
going on? Which blinds us sometimes to

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the uniqueness of our situation? And
Rob wants to burst in, so well

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I just burst Yeah, sorry,
Oh but I see I think you said.

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Uh, I get it. I
don't disagree. I can't argue that

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anything that's going on right now is
good. But but things are still worldwide

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better than they've ever been. It
is the idea that we are I mean

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this is Look, people aren't better. People are still just evil little monsters

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who will do unspeakable things to each
other if given half a chance, and

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if like they're able to somehow be
coddled and encouraged to do so. Right,

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But they've always been that way.
It seems that I just feel,

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before we lapse into the decline of
the world and of the world despair,

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things are still pretty good now.
I'm not saying we should be sanguine about

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it and complacent, but things are
still pretty good. Go back to the

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last war in the Middle East in
seventy three, not the last, but

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go back to that one. Would
you rather be back in nineteen seventy three,

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with a complete with a demoralized domestic
political situation, with energy shocks,

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with the idea that we're going to
run out of oil in ten years,

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with the Soviet Union looming around the
globe? You want that? No,

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I was there in seventy three.
It was horrible, it was dreadful,

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and we are in so many better
ways today. I think it would were

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then. I mean, yes,
there's been a loss of lots of stuff,

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But no, I'm with rob and
that's one of the things that keeps

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you moving forward, and keeps you
optimistic, and keeps you fighting good always

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you just lie down and die.
Yeah, I'm not saying there's not a

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fight to be had. There's definitely
a fight to be had, and there

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will be many, many more fights. But it feels to me like there's

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I don't know, there's a lower
tolerance for blunder than there ever was.

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Lower tolerance meaning we respond to terrible
mistakes and terrible outrages much more quickly.

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So I don't know. I mean, look again, I'm not I'm not

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trying to be a polyanny here.
But I think when you face things like

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this, there are times when you
face a disasters like are unfolding in the

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world and you think, well,
whatever we've been doing, it must be

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wrong. We must change. But
there are also times when you face disasters

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like this in the world and you
think, well, look, people are

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still the same, and maybe we
just need to redouble our efforts to bring

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certain parts of the world back into
civilization, to redouble our efforts to connect

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people through commerce and trade, to
redouble our efforts to make sure that we

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have a very strong, safe,
powerful country that is a beacon to the

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world. All those things. I
don't know, but we're called to do

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those things rather than I think calls
a sort of you know, dig a

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hole and jump in it. Possibly, although that hole is looking very appealing.

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Yeah, how are you listening to
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Right? Okay? That's that's packets
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And you say, no, no, it's it's actually data. I don't

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care how you describe it. The
fact is is that there's data, and

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responsoring this the Ricaget podcast, May I

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rise to speak on behalf of disaster. Although I can't, I am convinced

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that I read it somewhere in Jacques
Maritain, the French philosopher and theologian,

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that because the world is fallen,
rob listen to this, because this will

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this is well. You can raise
this at the Yale Divinity School. Because

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we live in a fallen world.
But because the world has been redeemed and

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both of these are working there without
in history, things are getting better and

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worse at the same time. All
the time, I think I thought that

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was just a profound insight. But
I have never since been able to find

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it again, So I couldn't have
made it up in any of it.

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So nineteen seventy three, didn't we
have the feeling? Nixon gets forced out

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of office in seventy three, But
didn't we have the first of all,

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the American family was far more intact. Public schools still functioned relatively well.

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The number of people in the country
illegally was surely well below a million in

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those days. And I have the
h Well, you tell me what you

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think, what it felt like to
you, if you can remember it at

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all? What was I was?
I guess I was in junior high.

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But when Nixon resigned and Gerald Ford
took over, and Ford gave that speech

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in the East Room of the White
House, saying our long national nightmare is

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over, it did feel as though
the nightmare was over. It felt as

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though there was a strong, normal
country that suddenly awoke from the nightmare.

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We went back to normal, and
normal was really pretty solid, stable,

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reliable, and in all kinds of
ways. The things are. Economically,

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of course, we're all richer,
We're all dramatically richer. Communications tech all

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that has happened, But at the
same time, the American family is disintegrated.

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It feels to me as though the
most important things are weaker today than

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they were in nineteen seventy three.
Can I argue this in detail? No,

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I can't rebuttal while you're done.
I guess by rebuttal, I don't

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really have a rebuttal. I mean
all those indexes in disease you say are

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true. I mean things are getting
worse in a lot of ways. Overall

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in the globe, people are richer. I mean in the sense that they're

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not starving to death, which is
a which is not nothing after all,

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not nothing, And it is it. It was one hundred percent the cause

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or the effect of global capitalism,
without any doubt. And it was one

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hundred percent the pro capitalist, pro
growth policies of Ronald Reagan market Thatcher,

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without any doubt, buttressed by a
whole bunch of like smart eggheads, but

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essentially two very powerful political figures who
managed to marshal political coalitions in a you

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know, gwobbly way as they always
are, and to make these arguments like

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you know, I guess what I
would say is the problem with despair is

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it seems to suggest that this is
fate, And I don't think it's yes,

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no, no, I with you
there completely. We did not in

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nineteen seventy three have an example of
renewal as we would have in the eighties.

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What do you call, Jimmy Carter? Oh, no, I guess

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we did not. I mean,
the decline seemed to inevitable. The decline

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seemed permanent, it seemed manageable.
We would just slowly slide down into,

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you know, a state in which
we had less and things were less and

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things were uglier, but we'd muddle
along. The idea of triumphalism was out

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of the question, the idea of
beating the Soviet Union was out of the

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question. So we you know,
and and those were often criticized. Those

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of us who look back to the
healthy on days of Reaganist Maximus and think

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that we're you know, we're always
criticized for yes, I know, things

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are different. Ronald Reagan would probably
was not the perfect god that people are

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making him not to be. He
wouldn't win today, et cetera. I

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get that, I get that,
But the example is there, and the

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strings that he plucked are still waiting, you can still feel them resonating silently

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in the culture and vibrations you do
there. I agree, I also feel

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I also feel that that part of
the part of what I think, what

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we're experiencing. And the more I
look at it, and this is my

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lens, so everybody's got their own, right, but I look at it

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and I think a lot of these
problems that we face as a nation domestically

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are the product of a kind of
a lazy affluence. When you get really,

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really rich and you have a nine
nine thousand channels, like the schools

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are fine, what they can teach
where they want. Well, you when

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everybody sort of seems to be essentially
rich and indolent enough to be worried about

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their exquisite little mental health issues,
that naturally ends up being people doing some

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really bizarre things to their you know, hormonal systems and their genitalia. I

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mean, and I'm not approving of
it, but these seems this seems like

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the the what is the number one
the number one health issue in America right

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now is obesity? If you had
gone back to even to recently, is

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nineteen sixty and said to something answer
says, to guess what in the future

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poor people are gonna be fat?
Well, you would have thought, my

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god, this's fantastic, What an
amazing society you must have because poor people

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are fat. And so I don't
know. Some of this stuff feels like

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just wau redouble luxury beliefs, but
also just just decadence and richness. And

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you know that has to be corrected, and I think it's in a certain

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places it's going to be corrected.
And in certain I mean I think I

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think there's going to be a big
correction in what we expect from our major

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American venerable institutions, which are really
our higher our institutions of higher learning.

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I mean, nobody, nobody comes
to the United States to go to high

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school, but everybody wants to come
to United States go to college, and

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that that's a reason for that.
And if we want to continue that brand

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excellence, we're going to have to
work harder at it. And we've seen

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the revelation of a large amount of
cultural row at the universities over the events

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transpiring in the Middle East. Talked
about this last week, But it'd be

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fun to talk to somebody who really
is on this subject a lot more than

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us who makes it a part of
his work and his Uh, he's with

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us. Christopher Rufo. Yeah,
we finally got him, isn't that?

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Great? Senior fellow at the Manhattan
Institute, contributing editor for City Journal to

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write some pieces that are just cracking
Good Reads, board member for the New

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College of Florida, and author of
the New York Times bestseller America's Cultural Revolution,

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The Radical Left Conquered Everything. Chris, thanks for joining us today.

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Hey, good morning, good morning. Great to have you the podcast.

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Followed you on Twitter for long time, read your stuff in City Journal,

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and don't know really where to start
before we get all of the media issues,

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which I'm sure Rob and Peter want
to do a little background on you.

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You were a documentary filmmaker before you
do what you did. Now,

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explain how you made that a little
transition and what kind of documentaries you were

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doing. Yeah, that's right.
I spent more than ten years as a

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documentary film producer and director. I
did three films for PBS. I sold

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the film to Netflix now about ten
years ago, and so that was the

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beginning of my career. Kind of
looking back, it was a good way

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to travel around the world, have
a wide range of experiences. But when

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I hit thirty, in my kind
of mid early to mid thirties, I

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was looking for something a bit different
and found myself wanting to get into politics.

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And the skills of a documentary filmmaker
are not transferable everywhere, but they

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are transferable to doing writing and reporting, and especially some kind of on the

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ground reporting. And that's how I
got into my foot in the door in

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the political world. Good thing you
did that, because otherwise you would have

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ended up like Rob Long. Yeah, exactly, Chris, you are the

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first person I have ever encountered who
wanted to go from filmmaking to writing.

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I yeah, really writers who constantly
dream of Hollywood making movies. All right,

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Hey, well yeah, I'll explain
that. Yeah. I mean,

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you know the problem with the problem
with filmmaking, And I don't know if

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Rob feels the same way, but
for me, it was I found myself

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spending so much time worrying about financing, distribution, marketing, business management,

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you know, payroll. I mean, I found myself really functioning more in

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business capacity to the vast majority of
my time, and less and less in

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a creative capacity. And then you
have a huge overhead just to get projects

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off the ground. Whereas you can
send a tweet, you can send a

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substack, you can write a piece
for City Journal quickly, you don't have

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to take three years to do it, and you can get involved in a

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very immediate way and see kind of
a direct cause and effect. And so

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for me it was I got to
focus more on the actual substance of the

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work. There was an immediate impact. And I also felt less lonely because

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making a documentary you dig yourself into
a hole for a few years, and

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it's I think psychologically quite quite challenging
for someone like me who's more extroverted by

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nature. Hey, Chris, I
could everybody wants to talk to you.

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I'm talking fast just to jam in
My one question here the question of questions

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in education, in higher education that
Rob said just a moment before you came

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on. Nobody comes to this country
to go to high school, but even

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now all the world wants to come
here to go to American universities. So

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here are the questions. One,
how can the great universities be all that

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bad if all the world is still
trying to get into them? Two?

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Among US conservatives, the debate goes
back and forth and back and forth,

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smash and destroy and burn and salt
the earth with the great institutions and create

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entirely new ones. Joe Lonzil's attempting
this with the University of Texas at Austin,

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or reform the institutions that we already
have. And you are right in

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the middle of a spectacularly interesting story
to me, which is taking place in

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Florida. And there you are with
an established public university, which means,

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of course that it has all the
pathologies. And you're on the board saying

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you, you, you, and
you you're fired. Here's what we're going

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to do with this play. So
tell us about that, and tell us

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what conclusions what you've learned about higher
education more generally. Sure, yeah,

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so yeah, I'll take your questions
in order. I mean, look,

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how is it that the American universities
have seemingly gone insane and yet they maintain

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their status, their prestige, and
their competitiness globally. Part of that is

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just because they are established brands.
I mean, these universities are three four

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hundred years old. They have,
especially in the nineteenth century the twentieth century,

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these enormous reputations they've accumulated a massive
amount of capital, and they still

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serve the basic function of the post
war elite university, which is to give

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you a calling card that will get
you in the door anywhere. And so

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Harvard can still do that even if
they have a large number of professors who

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are cheering on Hamas. However,
over time the reputation degrades, and I

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think we're seeing that slowly. And
the other thing is, look, we

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have the same number of elite East
Coast universities as we did two hundred years

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ago, but we have three hundred
and fifty million people in our country now.

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So so in a sense, the
supply has stayed more or less the

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same, while the demand has increased
many folds. So they're in a very

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enviable position. So the question of
well, what do we do about it?

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Do we this the kind of smash
and burn or reform? You know,

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I hear conservatives say, oh,
don't go to college, you know,

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raise the ivy leagues, et cetera, et cetera. This is such

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a fatalistic position. It's a it's
a pure cope as we're as we say

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now, because you cannot you know, you cannot get rid of these institutions

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that have, you know, one
hundred billion dollar endowments. They're not going

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anywhere, and so it's pure fantasy
to think that you could get rid of

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them. And it's pure fatalism to
say don't go to college. The fact

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is is that college degree is more
important than ever. You can't have a

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modern political movement without a high number
of lawyers, a high number of humanities

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experts, a high number of people
who are verbally fluent and have the credentials

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that are required in a modern technological
society. So I think the idea that

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somehow will become a nation ruled by
electricians and plumbers and pipefitters might be attractive

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in the abstract, but it's totally
unrealistic. And so what we have,

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what we're faced with is either to
build and compete or to kind of capture

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and reform. I think we need
to do both. I'm involved, of

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course, in this recapturing effort at
the University of Florida, and the basic

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premise there is public universe. Cities
and conservative states should not be domains of

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total lunatic left wing hegemony, and
we should use political power to make sure

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that public institutions reflect the values of
the public. That's the simple rule.

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It's in total alignment with the founder's
vision. It's in total alignment with Jefferson's

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vision that he established University of Virginia
with. And it is, and it

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is unfortunately at odds with even conservatives, who, by a libertarian style delusion,

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have come to the conclusion that any
interference with the government by the people

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is illegitimate, this inversion of our
true principles. And so I'm fighting against

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the left on this, obviously,
because they're very mad that we've gotten rid

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of gender studies and we're booting out
all of these left wing idelogs. But

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I'm also in the fight with the
right, with some elements of the right

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00:21:52.400 --> 00:21:56.640
that have bought into these kind of
neutral fantasies that don't ever materialize in the

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real world. Hey, Chris,
thanks for joining us. But you're also

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00:22:00.400 --> 00:22:06.039
in a big fight with the market
place. I mean, here's my example.

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I walked down Fifth Avenue or along
Canal Street, and people are spread

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out blankets and is selling fake Gucci
handbags and fake Louis Wutan whatever tote bags.

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And everybody knows they're fake, but
they look good, so you give

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00:22:18.079 --> 00:22:21.880
them the guy twenty bucks and you
walk down the street with a fancy brand

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00:22:22.240 --> 00:22:25.640
and people like that right, and
nobody really says, let me see that

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00:22:25.680 --> 00:22:29.319
bag. The stitching isn't really right, right, So aren't you? Isn't

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your biggest problem? Not the politics, and not the not the state governments,

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and not even woe culture, But
isn't your problem that people up for

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00:22:38.160 --> 00:22:42.960
a good while from now, despite
my prediction, despite what's happening on the

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00:22:42.960 --> 00:22:48.480
campus, in relationship and in response
to Hamas attacks in Israel, despite all

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that, they still want that juicy, juicy brand. They still want to

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have a Stanford diploma or a Yale
diploma or Harvard diploma or Prince diploma or

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some other prestigious university. And they
don't really care, right. I mean,

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I just won't take the woke classes, but I still want that Harvard

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degree. I still want to walk
down the street with my Gucci handbag,

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even though I know it's meaning full
disclosure. Rob is speaking to you from

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New Haven, Connecticut. Yeah,
so I'm here the belly of the beast.

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So I'm but isn't that your biggest
the biggest mountain for you to climb?

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How are you going to do that. I think it's an inevitability though,

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and I think we have to take
it as at least in the short

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and medium term, how it's going
to be. And so, look,

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you know, if your child gets
into Harvard, even if you're a conservative,

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you send your child to Harvard because
you know that's going to be an

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entry way for his or her life
going forward. You know, I have

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some of some of the fancy degrees. You know, certainly it's my miliu

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as well. And so I think
that, look, there's going to be

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a kind of hierarchy of status and
prestige. It's going to be dominated by

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the oldest, most established brands.
And so we have to do one of

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two things either or rather one of
two things, or maybe both of two

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things. You have to steadily put
pressure on the brand and and threaten the

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brand and degrade the brand through strategic
attacks on these institutions, while at the

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same time you enter those institutions you
you you, and then you force changes

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on those institutions from within. And
so look, hey, that's Marxism.

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That's a that's a that's a page
right out of Marx. It's a page

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00:24:26.440 --> 00:24:30.680
out of gram She absolutely who I
think that the right should read. I

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00:24:30.799 --> 00:24:37.000
just actually finished some some reviewing of
notes of Graham she yesterday, and uh,

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00:24:37.079 --> 00:24:40.200
there's a lot to learn, and
uh, and and how economy and

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culture work, how institutions function,
how values are transmitted. Uh, could

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could you know kind of kind of
orthodox libertarian postwar conservatism is not enough,

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And so we have to understand how
culture works, how status works, how

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rank works, how institutions work.
And and I think that for better or

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00:25:00.839 --> 00:25:07.400
worse. And I think actually for
better, because look, I mean the

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other argument of well, why can't
we just get rid of these universities is

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00:25:10.640 --> 00:25:15.799
because we're conservatives. The universities are
the crowning achievements of the West. We've

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00:25:15.799 --> 00:25:19.240
had a thousand years of modern universities
in Europe and the United States. We

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00:25:19.319 --> 00:25:22.960
need to make them. Reorient them
back towards the true, the good,

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00:25:23.000 --> 00:25:29.240
and the beautiful. Reorient them towards
producing great citizens and great statesmen. I

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00:25:29.319 --> 00:25:36.319
think it's still too early to abandon
hope. Well, I agree, But

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00:25:36.599 --> 00:25:40.000
when you were speaking, it occurred
to me that the institute of the big

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academic institutions are like cruise ships in
the middle of the ocean with three thousand

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00:25:45.559 --> 00:25:48.720
people toiling away down in the steerage
in the rest, and then the elites

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00:25:48.759 --> 00:25:52.319
up at the top driving the whole
thing. And changing the direction of that

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00:25:52.359 --> 00:25:56.079
cruise ship consists of infiltrating it somehow, like in the middle of the Pacific

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Ocean, getting our people into the
positions to be able to turn it into

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the opposite direction, which is impossible
without some sort of you know, armed

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00:26:03.559 --> 00:26:11.359
paratrop things. How do you get
into the levels of institutions and make the

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00:26:11.480 --> 00:26:15.960
change, because they seem to be
staffed with people who are institutionally and intellectually

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and dispositionally disinclined to do anything but
push a particular viewpoint of Western civilization.

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I mean, it's incremental, it
has to be. But I mean we're

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00:26:26.319 --> 00:26:30.240
talking a fifty year project, a
long march to the institutions as they had.

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00:26:30.279 --> 00:26:33.359
It seems that that's the only way
to do it, and it doesn't

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00:26:33.359 --> 00:26:36.960
seem like we have fifty years.
Yeah, I mean, look, it's

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00:26:37.079 --> 00:26:38.720
very difficult. Yes, it's a
long term project. I think in the

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00:26:38.799 --> 00:26:42.839
short term what we want to do
is put extreme pressure on these institutions,

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00:26:42.920 --> 00:26:48.119
and so I think we can do
that reputationally. Certainly, they're self immolating

357
00:26:48.200 --> 00:26:51.519
right now. In that regard with
the support for the most I think you

358
00:26:51.559 --> 00:26:56.799
can also put political pressure. You
restrict the flow of government back dollars and

359
00:26:56.880 --> 00:27:00.200
student loans to universities, put them
into a financial crisis where they have to

360
00:27:00.279 --> 00:27:04.720
start making decisions that are in conformity
with reality. I think you also have

361
00:27:04.799 --> 00:27:12.839
a conservative Department of Justice in a
future administration launch an investigation on a violation

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00:27:12.960 --> 00:27:18.759
of civil rights for affirmative action,
and every Ivy League university embarrass them,

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00:27:18.039 --> 00:27:25.599
shame them, put pressure on them, find them, exert massive amounts of

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00:27:25.640 --> 00:27:30.759
reputational damage as necessary and as possible. And then at the same time we

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00:27:30.160 --> 00:27:36.880
we actually retreat back to institutions that
we can control. And so this means

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00:27:37.200 --> 00:27:41.200
the great private colleges like Hillsdale College
with which I'm affiliated, But it also

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means having state legislatures recapture small state
universities and red states and turn them into

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00:27:48.119 --> 00:27:51.680
a recruiting ground. To do two
things which will eventually feed into you know,

369
00:27:51.759 --> 00:27:56.279
kind of the Harvardales and Princes of
the world is get great conservative professors.

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00:27:56.359 --> 00:27:59.559
So conservatives want to go into academia
and have a job at the end

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of it and have those professors recruit
conservative graduate students who can produce academic work

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00:28:04.359 --> 00:28:07.960
and who can be prepared to enter
academia at a higher level over time.

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You know, my own personal goal
is to create the conditions where we can

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00:28:11.640 --> 00:28:18.799
hire one hundred tenure track conservative professors
in state universities around the country. I

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00:28:18.839 --> 00:28:26.680
think a thousand of these professors will
make an enormous difference, and it's certainly

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00:28:26.720 --> 00:28:30.960
something that is achievable in the next
ten years. If I can just interrupt

377
00:28:32.000 --> 00:28:36.759
here for a second and tell you
how tired I am really, neighbor was

378
00:28:36.880 --> 00:28:41.440
doing yardwork at seven thirty in the
morning, IMD gas blowers, putting the

379
00:28:41.519 --> 00:28:45.079
leaves around. It was extraordinary.
I had a bad night sleep. I

380
00:28:45.119 --> 00:28:48.240
don't like that because you know what
poor sleep does. It gives you weight

381
00:28:48.319 --> 00:28:52.559
gain and mood issues and poor mental
health and lower productivity. It's all linked

382
00:28:52.599 --> 00:28:56.920
to poor sleep. A sleeping less
than six or seven hours per night is

383
00:28:56.920 --> 00:29:00.640
linked to reduced white blood cell count
as well. White blood cells protect our

384
00:29:00.680 --> 00:29:03.279
body against illness and disease, fighting
viruses and bacteria. More so, the

385
00:29:03.279 --> 00:29:07.960
guy out there blowing the yard and
waking me up is reducing my white blood

386
00:29:07.960 --> 00:29:11.519
cell count. Sleep. We need
it. It's the foundation of our mental

387
00:29:11.519 --> 00:29:15.480
and our physical health and performance in
our days. Having a consistent nighttime routine

388
00:29:15.519 --> 00:29:18.920
is non negotiable. Now, I
can't do anything aout the guy who wake

389
00:29:18.960 --> 00:29:19.960
me up in the morning, but
I can do something about getting to bed

390
00:29:21.039 --> 00:29:29.720
and sleeping well the night before.
That's because I know about beam Dream dream.

391
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392
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399
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little uh agitating device. It's just
it's just great battery. Are Ferry put

400
00:30:07.359 --> 00:30:10.599
it in there, Z and it's
perfectly mixed so you don't have you know,

401
00:30:10.680 --> 00:30:12.160
that glass with a bunch of crystals
at the bottom. Anyway, I

402
00:30:12.359 --> 00:30:17.559
just like that part. And I
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403
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And we thank being for sponsoring this
the Ricochet Podcast. I Chris,

415
00:31:08.279 --> 00:31:11.559
I just told the guys I had
one question on our slack Chat, but

416
00:31:11.640 --> 00:31:17.119
I really have three, but the
two ones are small. I just want

417
00:31:17.119 --> 00:31:19.799
to say about Hillsdale. Hills is
a really good example. Every every student

418
00:31:19.839 --> 00:31:25.039
we've ever talked to from Hillsdale either
an in turn help us out here at

419
00:31:25.079 --> 00:31:30.720
Ricoget. They're all to the to
a person, incredibly bright but also incredibly

420
00:31:30.759 --> 00:31:34.039
worldly and sophisticated. So the idea
sort of the idea that like a conservative

421
00:31:34.039 --> 00:31:37.920
place is sort of like a kind
of a backwater Bible college where the kids

422
00:31:37.920 --> 00:31:41.839
don't know anything, and are you
protest against Beatles lyrics? It's just not.

423
00:31:41.680 --> 00:31:45.880
It's just the kind of a caricature
of the left media. It has

424
00:31:45.960 --> 00:31:48.599
never been our experience. And I
would just say, if anybody's looking to

425
00:31:48.680 --> 00:31:52.279
hire somebody in media and the Hillsdale
students in front of you hired that person

426
00:31:52.319 --> 00:31:56.359
because I uniformed me, they're great. The second thing I would just say

427
00:31:56.400 --> 00:32:01.480
is I ask a question, ten
years now, what do you think is

428
00:32:01.519 --> 00:32:04.680
going to be? What do you
think we'll look back on and think this

429
00:32:04.839 --> 00:32:08.039
was the most damaging thing that happened
to the brand prestige of these fancy places.

430
00:32:08.759 --> 00:32:19.119
Was it the slow creeping outrage from
out minority groups against affirmative action and

431
00:32:19.160 --> 00:32:25.279
their slow legal battles, or was
it this white hot insanity we've seen for

432
00:32:25.319 --> 00:32:30.079
the past two or three weeks.
Which one do you think is gonna end

433
00:32:30.160 --> 00:32:32.119
up? I mean, we're not
looking for the headshot. It won't be

434
00:32:32.119 --> 00:32:35.279
one. Which one do you think
is really going to be really going to

435
00:32:35.400 --> 00:32:39.680
hurt? You know? I think
that I think that what we've seen the

436
00:32:39.759 --> 00:32:45.759
last few weeks is a news cycle
that may or may not sustain over the

437
00:32:45.799 --> 00:32:51.240
long term. I think that the
kind of racial discrimination affirmative action questions is

438
00:32:51.359 --> 00:32:57.519
a huge problem that has a kind
of structural power, It has legs that

439
00:32:57.640 --> 00:33:00.160
will be a burden for them over
the long term. And I think that

440
00:33:00.680 --> 00:33:07.519
you know, look, I think
that the general decline in merit in quality

441
00:33:07.640 --> 00:33:13.160
in scholarship is something that we have
to continuously highlight over time, because you

442
00:33:13.200 --> 00:33:16.559
know, they don't make Harvard professors
like they used to. You know,

443
00:33:17.400 --> 00:33:22.759
you know, we don't have the
Man's fields and the band field retire and

444
00:33:23.240 --> 00:33:29.960
the greats at our universities like we
did in the ivys in the mid century,

445
00:33:30.039 --> 00:33:32.000
or even even the James Burnhams,
who is a course a professor at

446
00:33:32.119 --> 00:33:37.079
NYU. I mean I think that
it provides us, though, an opportunity

447
00:33:37.359 --> 00:33:45.599
to take the greatest minds of rising
generations and train them in alternative institutions and

448
00:33:45.640 --> 00:33:51.759
then try to create mechanisms of legitimation
and prestige for those individuals, because look,

449
00:33:52.079 --> 00:33:58.160
an open conservative is unlikely to get
a spot in the graduate program at

450
00:33:58.519 --> 00:34:02.720
Yale or well, well that's not
actually true. Uh, Yale's slightly different.

451
00:34:02.759 --> 00:34:06.799
We've had some we've had some folks
there, but you know, we're

452
00:34:06.839 --> 00:34:10.480
not gonna get Yeah, we're gonna
get not gonna get big numbers in many

453
00:34:10.519 --> 00:34:17.599
programs. But that actually provides a
market opportunity for these other institutions because there

454
00:34:17.599 --> 00:34:22.039
are a lot of a lot of
young people who are are are academically inclined,

455
00:34:22.159 --> 00:34:25.320
are brilliant, have high potential,
that don't see a pathway. And

456
00:34:25.400 --> 00:34:30.639
so to the extent that we can
create an alternative pathway and then we can

457
00:34:30.679 --> 00:34:36.920
see things that that that actually uh
that that these that these individuals actually exceed

458
00:34:37.079 --> 00:34:40.440
the scholars at their peer institutions,
or rather their their superior institutions. I

459
00:34:40.480 --> 00:34:44.000
think that's a good thing. Chris, Chris, you're talking, you're talking

460
00:34:44.039 --> 00:34:49.320
about pathways and culture and academic excellence, nonsense. Here's what it comes down

461
00:34:49.400 --> 00:34:54.559
to. Money. Money. During
the Cold War, the federal government began

462
00:34:54.920 --> 00:35:00.000
funding research at universities. Look at
any major Universe city, including those with

463
00:35:00.119 --> 00:35:07.760
gigantic endowments of five to forty billion
dollars, federal money is a major part

464
00:35:08.480 --> 00:35:14.159
of their budget, every single one
of them. The Cold War is long

465
00:35:14.239 --> 00:35:20.000
gone. Universities are at odds with
well, at least there are at odds

466
00:35:20.079 --> 00:35:23.800
with what Republicans with what half the
country, with the values and interests and

467
00:35:23.840 --> 00:35:30.199
aims and ideals of half of the
country. Dude, you need to get

468
00:35:30.719 --> 00:35:37.639
a Republican administration elected with backing in
the House and Senate and change this game.

469
00:35:37.960 --> 00:35:46.559
They no longer get to rely on
vast outlays of research money automatically right,

470
00:35:47.639 --> 00:35:51.480
one hundred percent. Actually, In
fact, I just tweeted yesterday that

471
00:35:52.039 --> 00:35:57.960
the one goal for the right must
be to severely reduce the flow of government

472
00:35:58.039 --> 00:36:02.599
backed money to these universities, whether
they're through direct expenditures, whether they're through

473
00:36:04.119 --> 00:36:08.199
research grants, or whether they're through
federally guaranteed student loans, and put them

474
00:36:08.239 --> 00:36:14.679
into an economic crisis where they actually
have to make these decisions and retrench on

475
00:36:14.679 --> 00:36:17.800
some of the ideological programs in the
interest of more substance programs. And you

476
00:36:17.800 --> 00:36:22.960
know, none other than Elon Musk
jumped in the comments agreeing with this idea.

477
00:36:22.039 --> 00:36:27.559
And so I think that's exactly right. And you know, in many

478
00:36:27.599 --> 00:36:31.320
ways, Peter in at least one
important way America lost the Cold War.

479
00:36:32.360 --> 00:36:37.519
And I know people don't like to
hear that, but we adopted some of

480
00:36:37.599 --> 00:36:40.519
the kind of other side of the
coin, of the kind of materialist conception

481
00:36:40.639 --> 00:36:47.880
of society, as are Marxist enemies
with this kind of purely economic libertarian theory

482
00:36:47.960 --> 00:36:53.519
on our side, but both are
reducible to a kind of crude materialistic view

483
00:36:53.599 --> 00:36:58.119
of the world. And so yes, I think you're right. We cannot

484
00:36:58.239 --> 00:37:02.880
merely just funnel keep funneling money into
institutions that that are are against the kind

485
00:37:02.920 --> 00:37:07.239
of common enterprise in the United States. But I think it also is going

486
00:37:07.280 --> 00:37:10.360
to require some change in thinking on
the right where we have to kind of

487
00:37:10.880 --> 00:37:17.599
rebalance our philosophical portfolio, our categories
of ideas to say that, actually,

488
00:37:17.639 --> 00:37:23.920
you know, what culture matters,
and we cannot just rely on, you

489
00:37:24.000 --> 00:37:28.920
know, Austrian economics as a solution
to cultural problems. I have one one

490
00:37:29.079 --> 00:37:34.880
one agenda item for you for the
next administration. First, put Rob Long

491
00:37:35.000 --> 00:37:38.360
in charge of the National Endowment for
the Arts. Yeah, and that will

492
00:37:38.519 --> 00:37:43.800
instantly cause such outrage that the administration
will be able to abolish the whole damn

493
00:37:43.920 --> 00:37:47.239
thing. I give you that one
for free, Chris. That is one

494
00:37:47.360 --> 00:37:51.280
Senate hearing. I would like to
I guess I would like to attend.

495
00:37:51.280 --> 00:37:52.960
I like to watch. I don't
know how i'd watch it, can I

496
00:37:53.079 --> 00:37:55.639
can? I I s just be
a little because what the different talk about

497
00:37:55.639 --> 00:37:58.960
the right and what the right strategy
should be, and you shout of you

498
00:37:59.039 --> 00:38:05.920
mapped out a strategy that seemed extremely
extremely Marxist to me, which is which

499
00:38:06.000 --> 00:38:10.840
is not, by the way,
criticism of it. I remember when Obama

500
00:38:12.000 --> 00:38:15.239
was president, the people would like
sneer, people in the right with sneer

501
00:38:15.280 --> 00:38:19.280
and say, oh yeah, community
organizer in chief like that. Like he

502
00:38:19.360 --> 00:38:22.679
didn't win fifty three percent of the
popular vote and a smashing popular vote victory

503
00:38:22.760 --> 00:38:27.000
and wasn't a popular president and didn't
have I mean he squandered it, but

504
00:38:27.079 --> 00:38:30.239
he thank god, but he didn't. The guy was a successful politician.

505
00:38:30.320 --> 00:38:32.599
He won two terms. Right,
and so the idea of like sneering at

506
00:38:32.679 --> 00:38:35.639
him, is like, well,
why don't you actually pay attention to what

507
00:38:35.679 --> 00:38:38.119
he did and see if there's something
that we can do on our side to

508
00:38:38.239 --> 00:38:40.840
follow that playbook? Right, I
mean, everybody's playing the same game.

509
00:38:44.079 --> 00:38:52.360
The right seems to have adopted the
worst aspects and the most futile and infantile

510
00:38:52.519 --> 00:38:58.039
aspects of the left. You know, the victimhood, crying victimhood all the

511
00:38:58.119 --> 00:39:02.960
time, all the whining, and
the nutty, elaborate conspiracy theories that unify

512
00:39:04.039 --> 00:39:07.280
the world against us, all that
nonsense that people on the left have been

513
00:39:08.119 --> 00:39:13.360
pumping into their directly into their veins
for thirty forty fifty years, instead of

514
00:39:13.599 --> 00:39:22.360
the more disciplined slow march, you
know, bit by bit by bit movement.

515
00:39:22.440 --> 00:39:25.360
I mean, if you look at
the culture in America and political culture

516
00:39:25.360 --> 00:39:30.840
in America since Lyndon Johnson's victory in
sixty four, it has moved steadily right

517
00:39:30.920 --> 00:39:32.280
now. You know, Reagan slowed
it down, but it was I'm sorry,

518
00:39:32.360 --> 00:39:35.760
steadily left. I mean, Reagan
slowed it down, but it kept

519
00:39:35.840 --> 00:39:39.400
kind of moving left. Whatever plan
they were marching under, it was a

520
00:39:39.639 --> 00:39:46.159
very effective plan. And our side
seems to be obsessed with Twitter and h

521
00:39:46.760 --> 00:39:54.760
trolling and trivial, the worst,
most trivial and least effective and efficient aspects

522
00:39:54.800 --> 00:39:58.920
of the left. I mean,
am I just being mean? No,

523
00:39:59.159 --> 00:40:01.000
it's it's a huge problem. And
I think that there are a number of

524
00:40:01.159 --> 00:40:06.400
dead ends on the right that I'm
seeing more and more. You have a

525
00:40:06.519 --> 00:40:09.800
kind of right wing right wing racialism, which is a kind of inverse of

526
00:40:09.840 --> 00:40:14.559
the left wing identity politics that is
gaining some traction. You have a right

527
00:40:14.599 --> 00:40:21.239
wing conspiratorialism. This is kind of
the Alex Jones fantasyland QAnon that draws a

528
00:40:21.320 --> 00:40:24.239
kind of actually a significant amount of
energy. And then you have this kind

529
00:40:24.239 --> 00:40:28.800
of general inferiority complex on the right, which is, you know, don't

530
00:40:28.840 --> 00:40:31.199
go to college, don't do X, Y and z, it's totally hopeless,

531
00:40:31.719 --> 00:40:35.400
that the deck is stacked against us, and all of it, the

532
00:40:35.480 --> 00:40:39.599
common denominator is a sense of inferiority, a lack of a sense of agency,

533
00:40:40.079 --> 00:40:45.440
and then really a an abdication of
responsibility. And so the right that

534
00:40:45.559 --> 00:40:49.800
I would like to see is an
elite right. It's a highly educated right.

535
00:40:49.880 --> 00:40:54.760
It's a professional managerial right, a
right wing political movement that can actually

536
00:40:54.880 --> 00:41:01.119
get into offices of power and responsibly
wield power to advance the overall philosophical project.

537
00:41:01.199 --> 00:41:06.280
And you know, I've worked with
Governor DeSantis over the last few years

538
00:41:06.320 --> 00:41:08.880
on a number of initiatives in Florida, and it's like, we have we

539
00:41:09.000 --> 00:41:14.159
have the guy. You know,
it's like this guy is I mean,

540
00:41:14.159 --> 00:41:15.960
I'll tell you you know, I
was on the plane with him the first

541
00:41:15.960 --> 00:41:19.119
time I met him, and I
was trying to make small talk with him,

542
00:41:20.360 --> 00:41:22.920
and I was just getting no response. Like you know, you talk

543
00:41:22.960 --> 00:41:24.239
to people, you try oh yeah, blah blah blah blah. And it's

544
00:41:24.280 --> 00:41:27.320
like, oh man, I got
to change tac here. This guy is

545
00:41:27.360 --> 00:41:30.159
not interested in the small talk.
And so we started talking about policy and

546
00:41:30.280 --> 00:41:35.760
he lit up started talking a mile
a minute about this is how we changed

547
00:41:35.760 --> 00:41:38.840
the institutions, the laws, the
appointment procedures, this is the kind of

548
00:41:39.159 --> 00:41:42.880
programs we need, this is the
law that has to change. We got

549
00:41:42.960 --> 00:41:46.039
to talk to these legislators. I
mean, he had the entire playbook in

550
00:41:46.159 --> 00:41:50.719
his mind, and he knew how
to ruthlessly pursue it. He knew how

551
00:41:50.760 --> 00:41:54.440
to change laws and institutions, he
knew what the goal was. He efficiently

552
00:41:54.519 --> 00:41:58.440
got it done. And so I
think he you know, for me,

553
00:41:58.599 --> 00:42:00.920
for whatever limitations he had, we
are all human, we have limitations.

554
00:42:01.679 --> 00:42:07.480
He's a model of a ruthlessly effective
operator, who knows the goal, who

555
00:42:07.559 --> 00:42:10.159
knows the means, who knows how
to get it done. And so the

556
00:42:12.119 --> 00:42:15.760
question is really for Republican primary vowners, do you want that or do you

557
00:42:15.840 --> 00:42:21.880
want the guy, the other guy
and the Unfortunately, and I kind of

558
00:42:22.559 --> 00:42:24.079
I struggle with this. I try
not to get too involved in the partisan

559
00:42:24.119 --> 00:42:29.719
politics, but it looks like they
don't want that, and I think that

560
00:42:29.840 --> 00:42:35.559
it's a huge problem that we're facing. And so, you know, I

561
00:42:35.599 --> 00:42:38.679
don't know. You guys told me
you have more kind of a longer arc

562
00:42:38.719 --> 00:42:44.039
of observation, but this to me
no right way of putting it. That's

563
00:42:44.119 --> 00:42:46.840
a very point. You missed it
the beginning at the top of the podcast

564
00:42:47.440 --> 00:42:51.760
arc at the top of the podcast. You missed the fact that we were

565
00:42:52.440 --> 00:42:54.239
on balance. We said, yes, the world is crumbling, but it's

566
00:42:54.239 --> 00:42:58.760
still got another thousand years, So
we do take the long view of it,

567
00:42:58.840 --> 00:43:00.360
that's for sure. The question is
in getting it all back. I

568
00:43:00.400 --> 00:43:05.559
mean, I agree with what Peter
was saying earlier about defunding these things,

569
00:43:05.599 --> 00:43:07.119
and if I was a politician,
I would make a point of point out

570
00:43:07.559 --> 00:43:12.679
that I am defunding the social services
and social science SORR, the social sciences

571
00:43:12.719 --> 00:43:15.400
which are neither, and that we're
not going to spend an awful lot of

572
00:43:15.480 --> 00:43:20.800
money crafting and conjuring ridiculous theories of
intersectional behavior in order to explain humanity.

573
00:43:21.199 --> 00:43:22.119
Did that you know you want to
pay for that? Go right ahead.

574
00:43:22.679 --> 00:43:27.639
But I would also find that it
was not just necessary to restore the university.

575
00:43:28.239 --> 00:43:31.280
It was necessary to restore the cities. And that seemed that would seem

576
00:43:31.280 --> 00:43:37.440
to be a big part of a
substantial Republican agenda. And it's hard to

577
00:43:37.480 --> 00:43:39.800
sell to some people because they don't
live there. They live in the burbs,

578
00:43:39.840 --> 00:43:42.719
they never go into the cities.
They don't like the cities, they

579
00:43:42.719 --> 00:43:45.199
don't like the people who are there, so why should they care? But

580
00:43:45.320 --> 00:43:47.840
we all should care because the health
and strength of our core cities is one

581
00:43:47.880 --> 00:43:51.559
of those things that carries the country
forward. And we all remember that we

582
00:43:51.719 --> 00:43:54.880
reclaimed them, we we won,
we got New York back. I live

583
00:43:54.920 --> 00:44:00.920
in a city here that would that
bounced back before the riots. Is that

584
00:44:00.320 --> 00:44:04.960
something that that the right should actually
make a point of or should we just

585
00:44:05.079 --> 00:44:08.480
say nope, you guys, you
major problem. You you you lie in

586
00:44:08.559 --> 00:44:15.039
your burning feces soaked, needle strewn
bed. Well, I think a bit

587
00:44:15.079 --> 00:44:17.000
of both. I mean, in
a kind of immediate rhetorical sense, the

588
00:44:17.119 --> 00:44:23.280
images from America's major cities, the
kind of collapse of of urban life is

589
00:44:23.800 --> 00:44:30.039
kind of rhetorically effective for motivating suburban
voters along the axis of fear. But

590
00:44:30.239 --> 00:44:37.880
I think ultimately the responsible kind of
governing strategy has to be to present an

591
00:44:37.920 --> 00:44:43.719
opportunity to restore our great cities,
because, as you say, you know

592
00:44:43.760 --> 00:44:46.480
the great cities are. It's our
country, it's our shared shared enterprise.

593
00:44:46.559 --> 00:44:53.320
And so look, I think we
need to reopen and dramatically expand the asylums

594
00:44:53.719 --> 00:44:59.920
or what we're once called the asylums, kind of psychiatric impatient lockdown facilities.

595
00:45:00.679 --> 00:45:05.400
We reduce the capacity by about ninety
five percent since the mid nineteen fifties.

596
00:45:06.039 --> 00:45:09.920
We need to increase the capacity by
an order of magnitude. You can't have

597
00:45:10.199 --> 00:45:16.519
people suffering from schizophrenia, drug addiction, alcoholism just on the streets. And

598
00:45:16.639 --> 00:45:22.000
that's a federal policy that needs to
change. And you have to support law

599
00:45:22.079 --> 00:45:25.639
enforcement. You have to remind people
of the broken Windows theory that of course

600
00:45:25.800 --> 00:45:30.159
was essential in bringing back New York. And so I think to the extent

601
00:45:30.239 --> 00:45:35.079
that, you know, local policy
makers have a tougher time, but federal

602
00:45:35.119 --> 00:45:38.400
policy makers even there is intersection here. And so yeah, I think,

603
00:45:38.559 --> 00:45:43.000
you know, nobody likes to see
this. It's demoralize in you know,

604
00:45:43.320 --> 00:45:50.360
they used to run Soviet propaganda about
the nasty inner cities and you know,

605
00:45:50.440 --> 00:45:53.000
the homeless and the tents in places. I mean, it's a kind of

606
00:45:53.079 --> 00:45:58.639
mark of national shame and embarrassment.
And so while in the short term it

607
00:45:58.719 --> 00:46:01.880
may be rhetorically advantags is to point
out who's the responsible for it, in

608
00:46:01.960 --> 00:46:05.559
the long term, what I think
we really need to do is actually have

609
00:46:05.800 --> 00:46:10.840
the kind of restoration of authority,
meaning kind of the restoration of the archetypal

610
00:46:10.960 --> 00:46:16.320
father figure. That's what seems to
me to be lacking in public life at

611
00:46:16.360 --> 00:46:20.880
all levels. It will be done. It has to be done. We

612
00:46:21.039 --> 00:46:22.519
know what needs to be done.
It's just that we lack the will to

613
00:46:22.599 --> 00:46:27.280
do it. Or in an addition, we have an ideological cohort that is

614
00:46:27.320 --> 00:46:30.719
determined not to do anything either because
they like the example of failed capitalism,

615
00:46:30.800 --> 00:46:36.320
healthscape or because they have a financial
stake in the institutions that supposedly served these

616
00:46:36.360 --> 00:46:38.880
people, or both. But it
can't go on forever. Anything that can't

617
00:46:38.880 --> 00:46:43.199
go on forever won't as they say, so it will happen. The question

618
00:46:43.320 --> 00:46:45.599
is whether it's a draconian purge or
whether it's a compassionate one. But the

619
00:46:45.679 --> 00:46:49.159
last thing I want to ask you
is, when we were talking before about

620
00:46:49.639 --> 00:46:53.239
coming up with the institutions producing voices
intellectual spirits that can animate the age,

621
00:46:53.800 --> 00:46:58.280
do we still have the position of
the public and intellectual anymore? Or has

622
00:46:58.320 --> 00:47:01.480
that been just distributed to Twitter and
or or worse yet, eclipsed by TikTok,

623
00:47:01.559 --> 00:47:07.480
which uses ingenious, chattiest algorithms to
shape the American mind. Is that

624
00:47:07.559 --> 00:47:12.239
where the public intellectual eventually ends up? Because I mean, your work on

625
00:47:12.519 --> 00:47:16.039
Twitter, and I don't mean to
demean it, but it's it's great,

626
00:47:16.559 --> 00:47:22.559
and I think you accomplish more there
than you would showing up on a Sunday

627
00:47:22.639 --> 00:47:25.440
chat show or you know, the
dreaded Saturday afternoon local access show where somebody

628
00:47:25.679 --> 00:47:29.480
tells us what needs to be done. Has happened with television back in the

629
00:47:29.599 --> 00:47:32.840
fifties and sixties, that is that. Where is that the new intellectual battlefield?

630
00:47:32.880 --> 00:47:37.599
Then yeah, it absolutely, it
absolutely is. I think that in

631
00:47:37.719 --> 00:47:40.800
my experience, having done you know, prestige shows, having been you know,

632
00:47:40.880 --> 00:47:45.280
profiled, and all the you know
big you know, big glossy magazines,

633
00:47:45.400 --> 00:47:49.079
having done cable news, having done
social media, having done YouTube,

634
00:47:49.119 --> 00:47:51.880
I mean, I have kind of
experimented with all the different media. I

635
00:47:51.920 --> 00:47:55.679
think Twitter is right now the most
important and shaping the narrative of kind of

636
00:47:55.760 --> 00:48:02.559
public life and proposing ideas, in
persuading people and especially people in media,

637
00:48:02.760 --> 00:48:07.960
politics, people in positions of power. I found it to be an extraordinarily

638
00:48:07.039 --> 00:48:12.559
powerful tool. But I wouldn't despair
about that. I mean, I think

639
00:48:12.840 --> 00:48:15.079
it is the reality, so we
deal with it. But I actually think

640
00:48:15.440 --> 00:48:20.199
it's a net benefit for the right. And in my experience, the left

641
00:48:20.360 --> 00:48:25.159
dominates high cost of production, high
prestige media, but the right has an

642
00:48:25.280 --> 00:48:31.400
enormous advantage in low cost, low
cost of production media. So you know,

643
00:48:31.519 --> 00:48:36.239
the radio was dominated by the right, and similarly, I think social

644
00:48:36.320 --> 00:48:43.639
media is it actually favors the right, and it distributes, it distributes the

645
00:48:43.719 --> 00:48:47.679
means of communication to a wider base. And I think it also of course

646
00:48:47.760 --> 00:48:52.800
allows a demogogic kind of element,
right, I mean, Trump was the

647
00:48:52.880 --> 00:48:57.840
great tweeter in a very demogogic kind
of kind of ancient Greek kind of way.

648
00:48:59.000 --> 00:49:05.320
But that's not necessarily bad because the
political rights only advantage institutionally is that

649
00:49:05.440 --> 00:49:08.199
we have political power. We don't
have cultural power, we don't have institutional

650
00:49:08.280 --> 00:49:12.800
power, we don't have academic power. But what do we have, Well,

651
00:49:12.880 --> 00:49:16.039
we have the chance at political power
in states and occasionally in the federal

652
00:49:16.079 --> 00:49:22.519
government. And so I think that
it is a way to directly translate public

653
00:49:22.639 --> 00:49:28.679
sentiment where we can actually mobilize seventy
percent majorities on an issue by issue basis

654
00:49:29.320 --> 00:49:32.519
and then turn that into an actual
concrete political program. That's how I try

655
00:49:32.559 --> 00:49:38.000
to use it. And it's been
successful, you know, you know,

656
00:49:38.159 --> 00:49:40.480
very successful. It's like, you
know, even the beginning of the year

657
00:49:40.519 --> 00:49:46.079
in January, I said, I'm
going to try to abolish DEI bureaucracies in

658
00:49:46.159 --> 00:49:51.320
the public universities in Florida and Texas. Okay. Then I met with the

659
00:49:51.400 --> 00:49:54.320
leaders in those states. Then I
released a series of investigative reports showing the

660
00:49:54.360 --> 00:49:58.519
public what the problem was, starting
on Twitter, going to Fox News,

661
00:49:58.920 --> 00:50:02.239
and then by the summertime, both
states had abolished all their DEI bureaucracies in

662
00:50:02.280 --> 00:50:07.719
every public university. And so I
think that there is a playbook that we

663
00:50:07.800 --> 00:50:14.119
can use that does not go into
the rabbit hole of the fever swamp,

664
00:50:14.480 --> 00:50:19.559
you know, QAnon kind of trash
that you see, unfortunately, but that

665
00:50:19.679 --> 00:50:24.440
appeals to an elite audience and uses
Twitter's power to achieve actual tangible outcomes.

666
00:50:24.960 --> 00:50:28.760
Hey, Chris in the slack channel, have been told to ask you a

667
00:50:28.800 --> 00:50:30.519
closer. Good luck. I'm going
to ask you a big of it.

668
00:50:30.559 --> 00:50:34.440
But first of all, a compliment. First of all, a compliment.

669
00:50:34.880 --> 00:50:38.400
You're good on Twitter, and you're
good on Fox News. But I wasn't

670
00:50:38.599 --> 00:50:43.920
sure you knew enough or were articulate
or poised enough to speak at length?

671
00:50:44.880 --> 00:50:49.960
Was I ever mistaken? You're good
at length too, And I can tell

672
00:50:50.400 --> 00:50:52.119
speaking of long arc because Rob and
I have known each other a long time,

673
00:50:52.199 --> 00:50:55.000
I can tell that you've impressed Rob
as much as you've impressed me.

674
00:50:55.599 --> 00:51:01.719
That actually is not a good sign. No, so somehow, Yeah,

675
00:51:01.719 --> 00:51:04.920
so you gotta go back, you
gotta figure this out. That's a mistake.

676
00:51:05.079 --> 00:51:12.159
Here's my attempt at a closer Speaking
of long arcs Ross Dow that uses

677
00:51:12.239 --> 00:51:20.199
the term zombie Reaganism. Kevin Roberts
tod AEI said, we we what was

678
00:51:20.280 --> 00:51:22.800
it that AI something about we need
to know what time it is in America?

679
00:51:22.960 --> 00:51:28.079
This is now the new catch a
new catchphrase, Vivec said in one

680
00:51:28.119 --> 00:51:30.800
of the debates too. I think
it was to Mike Pence. He said,

681
00:51:30.840 --> 00:51:35.400
in effect, you're too old,
fair enough, that's a line of

682
00:51:35.400 --> 00:51:39.039
attack. But he also said,
it's not mourning again in America. So

683
00:51:39.159 --> 00:51:45.400
you've got this kind of attack on
Reagan and on the eighties on our side.

684
00:51:47.360 --> 00:51:51.800
And to me, it could be
one of two things, maybe some

685
00:51:52.239 --> 00:51:55.119
combination. But I remember back when
I was close, closer to close to

686
00:51:55.239 --> 00:52:01.719
your age, young Democrats were sick
of here about FDR and part of it,

687
00:52:01.840 --> 00:52:05.639
and it was just generational. It
was come on, it's our turn

688
00:52:05.800 --> 00:52:08.119
now, it's that that we need, we need new heroes. Let's move

689
00:52:08.159 --> 00:52:12.719
on to the next year. So
that could be what's happening that just that

690
00:52:13.840 --> 00:52:19.920
ross now that you've it's just time
for a new generation to take its place.

691
00:52:20.000 --> 00:52:23.679
And talking about Reagan doesn't help that
I can get under completely. But

692
00:52:23.840 --> 00:52:34.079
the notion that somehow Reagan was mistaken
or adapting the ideals and principles of limited

693
00:52:34.159 --> 00:52:39.320
government. A strong America is no, would would not would not fit,

694
00:52:39.480 --> 00:52:44.159
would not do that. We need
new policies, we need we need to

695
00:52:44.280 --> 00:52:47.599
begin with an industrial policy. Uh, free markets are not are no longer

696
00:52:47.760 --> 00:52:52.360
adequate. We need to take the
government and use it for our side,

697
00:52:52.480 --> 00:52:55.800
just the way the Democrats use it
for their side. So can you explain

698
00:52:55.880 --> 00:53:00.719
this to me to at your generation, among your friends, that bright guys

699
00:53:00.800 --> 00:53:08.840
with whom you move, does Reagan
need to be recaptured or forgotten? Well,

700
00:53:09.599 --> 00:53:13.159
that's a great question. It's quite
interesting. You know, I'm an

701
00:53:13.159 --> 00:53:16.960
admirer of Ronald Reagan's. One of
my most important mentors is George Gilder,

702
00:53:17.159 --> 00:53:24.239
the great writer, who was of
course influential during Reagan's presidency. But there's

703
00:53:24.280 --> 00:53:28.719
two things happening. One is that
you know, Reagan was an outsider.

704
00:53:28.920 --> 00:53:32.800
Reagan was very much a disruptor within
the conservative movement. And so I think

705
00:53:32.840 --> 00:53:40.199
that as Reaganism has become an ossified
ideology that I think actually is not representative

706
00:53:40.239 --> 00:53:45.679
of actual Reagan's spirit, which was
very much in line with with with what

707
00:53:45.800 --> 00:53:49.199
I believe. I think that's part
of it. But I think the biggest,

708
00:53:49.920 --> 00:53:53.159
the biggest dynamic that that can explain
this for me, and and and

709
00:53:53.880 --> 00:53:58.800
I take a slightly different view.
I don't trash Reagan. I think Reagan

710
00:53:58.960 --> 00:54:02.119
was the perfect man for the job, perfect man for the time, and

711
00:54:02.199 --> 00:54:07.199
an inspiration to this day. But
what's happened is that conservatives for about one

712
00:54:07.320 --> 00:54:13.880
hundred years have promised to reduce the
size of government so small that it could

713
00:54:13.920 --> 00:54:17.280
be drowned in a bathtub and in
the words of Grover Norquist. But in

714
00:54:17.400 --> 00:54:22.639
fact today we have a larger state
sector on a on a percentage of GDP

715
00:54:22.760 --> 00:54:30.559
basis than communist China. And so
that promise has failed for now a full

716
00:54:30.719 --> 00:54:37.199
century. And so my interpretation is
it is naive to say we need to

717
00:54:37.280 --> 00:54:40.599
get back to, you know,
a tiny state, night watchman state.

718
00:54:42.159 --> 00:54:46.719
Uh and and and and any meddling
with the apparatus of government is leftist,

719
00:54:46.920 --> 00:54:51.800
is Marxist, as socialist. We
don't do that. And so to me

720
00:54:52.360 --> 00:54:57.880
it is a an actual abdication of
responsibility because we have a massive state.

721
00:54:58.639 --> 00:55:02.519
We have a public K through twelve
schools ninety percent market dominance, we have

722
00:55:02.639 --> 00:55:07.960
public universities seventy five percent market dominance. We have an actual, you know,

723
00:55:08.119 --> 00:55:12.840
government sector that is about you know, forty percent of our economy.

724
00:55:13.440 --> 00:55:16.239
And so the question is not do
we agree that we should reduce the size

725
00:55:16.239 --> 00:55:19.960
of government. I agree with that. I would love to see it in

726
00:55:20.840 --> 00:55:22.679
half, in quarter. I mean, I'd love to see it reduced significantly.

727
00:55:23.440 --> 00:55:27.480
But until we do that, I
think we have a responsibility to govern,

728
00:55:28.079 --> 00:55:31.199
and so we cannot merely say,
you know, we're giving up a

729
00:55:31.320 --> 00:55:36.559
governing public schools, public universities,
the institutions of culture and knowledge formation,

730
00:55:37.800 --> 00:55:42.519
and so limited government is in a
way a cop out argument at this point.

731
00:55:42.679 --> 00:55:46.599
It doesn't actually address the real status
quo and the real crisis right now.

732
00:55:47.119 --> 00:55:51.599
And so I think we have and
I think it's consistent with the founders.

733
00:55:51.639 --> 00:55:57.039
The Founders, you know, said
very very very clearly the state has

734
00:55:57.119 --> 00:56:00.159
a role in shaping the manners and
morals of society, and I think that

735
00:56:00.320 --> 00:56:04.920
we need to do it prudently.
We need to do it with an eye

736
00:56:04.960 --> 00:56:07.559
towards, of course, reducing the
size of government. But we actually have

737
00:56:07.719 --> 00:56:14.800
to take ownership of our institutions.
And it is totally well within the constitutional

738
00:56:14.840 --> 00:56:17.440
tradition as well as the conservative tradition
to say that if we're going to have

739
00:56:17.960 --> 00:56:22.280
public schools, public universities, and
public sector. We should have them represent,

740
00:56:22.480 --> 00:56:29.519
reflect and promote our values. I
don't think that's a transgression of Reaganism.

741
00:56:29.559 --> 00:56:32.280
I don't think that's a transgression of
our culture. More broadly, No,

742
00:56:32.440 --> 00:56:36.719
it's very pragmatic, and in the
sense of the universities and those elements

743
00:56:36.719 --> 00:56:39.960
where the government intersects with people in
a formative fashion, I would say yes,

744
00:56:40.599 --> 00:56:44.360
But also part of me wants to
say, hold on a second.

745
00:56:44.400 --> 00:56:46.360
Here. It's like saying, well, we've built this vast and intrusive,

746
00:56:46.480 --> 00:56:52.559
tentacular state. The problem is that
the wrong people are running it. I

747
00:56:52.599 --> 00:56:55.599
think it's possible to do both.
It's possible to say that in the social

748
00:56:55.679 --> 00:57:00.639
aspects where government interacts with people,
we can be more instructive and uplifting in

749
00:57:00.679 --> 00:57:02.360
Pro America and the rest of it. But in the areas where the government

750
00:57:02.480 --> 00:57:07.320
is constantly peaking and peering and inserting
itself and fixing and regulating and funding or

751
00:57:07.400 --> 00:57:13.719
not funding, that we should still
be saying this needs to be less of

752
00:57:14.159 --> 00:57:15.280
I mean, it's the Augustine thing. I know it make me pure,

753
00:57:15.360 --> 00:57:20.960
but not yet. But we can
say both. We can pitch both messages,

754
00:57:21.039 --> 00:57:22.599
I think, without losing a new
audience, and we tell people,

755
00:57:22.719 --> 00:57:25.800
yeah, I agree, I believe
in both. But I think that Look,

756
00:57:25.880 --> 00:57:30.920
the status quo right now is a
tragic one. We are inheriting a

757
00:57:31.039 --> 00:57:36.679
state and society that is not ideal
that we don't know how to fix.

758
00:57:36.800 --> 00:57:39.679
And you know, James Burnham has
been writing about this or not anymore,

759
00:57:40.159 --> 00:57:44.519
but James Burrem had been writing about
this many many years ago. The problem

760
00:57:44.559 --> 00:57:50.760
has not changed. And so we
live in this tragic condition where we're inheriting

761
00:57:50.960 --> 00:57:54.599
a system of government that is a
vast departure from our founding, a vast

762
00:57:54.679 --> 00:58:00.760
departure from our ideals. And yet
I think we are required summoned to what

763
00:58:00.960 --> 00:58:05.239
Maxidaber called an ethic of responsibility.
We have to choose among these all these

764
00:58:05.440 --> 00:58:07.960
you know, kind of terrible uh, these kind of terrible choices, and

765
00:58:08.440 --> 00:58:15.199
use the kind of prudent calculation based
on what is the best outcome given an

766
00:58:15.239 --> 00:58:19.360
imperfect set of means available. That's
kind of the best that I think we

767
00:58:19.440 --> 00:58:22.920
can do. I hope my microphone
is picking up the sirens that wailed past

768
00:58:22.960 --> 00:58:25.400
my building as you said that,
because it adds no divergency. Christ it

769
00:58:25.400 --> 00:58:30.360
has been great to talk to you. Good luck, good hunting, good

770
00:58:30.480 --> 00:58:31.880
victories to come, and you know
we'd like to talk to you again a

771
00:58:31.920 --> 00:58:35.800
little bit further down anytime. Thank
you so much, Thank you so much,

772
00:58:35.920 --> 00:58:39.000
thanks for showing up. All Right, as I mentioned it before,

773
00:58:39.199 --> 00:58:43.800
you are on the internet. What
does that mean? Well, that means

774
00:58:43.840 --> 00:58:46.079
that if you're trying to do business
on the internet, you are constantly pulling

775
00:58:46.119 --> 00:58:51.039
your hair out because the digital world
is full of hurdles. But with persist

776
00:58:51.400 --> 00:58:55.239
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guide. Are you feeling overshadowed online shine

777
00:58:55.280 --> 00:58:59.920
brighter with their digital marketing expertise.
Are you competing with a big player,

778
00:59:00.199 --> 00:59:04.599
Well, let persist seo be your
secret weapon. If leads are trickling in

779
00:59:04.800 --> 00:59:08.599
or they're non existent, let their
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780
00:59:08.760 --> 00:59:13.159
to digital marketing and let your website
do the heavy lifting. Are you lost

781
00:59:13.239 --> 00:59:15.679
in the vastness of search engines,
Well, persist seo will put you on

782
00:59:15.800 --> 00:59:20.880
the map. Navigating Google feels like
a chore, Well hand over the reins

783
00:59:20.920 --> 00:59:25.599
to persist Seoh and of costs are
spiraling their Google ads management. It's the

784
00:59:25.679 --> 00:59:30.920
remedy you need. Your digital success
story is just around the corner. Reach

785
00:59:30.000 --> 00:59:32.679
out, pen and paper, because
you know I'm going to give you a

786
00:59:32.760 --> 00:59:38.440
number here seven seven zero five eight
zero three seven three six, No need

787
00:59:38.480 --> 00:59:43.000
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788
00:59:43.159 --> 00:59:46.800
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789
00:59:46.880 --> 00:59:52.559
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790
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for sponsoring this the Ricochet podcast. Well

791
00:59:58.840 --> 01:00:05.159
that was grand. You guys feel
revived? Do you feel hopeful looking at

792
01:00:05.679 --> 01:00:08.559
hearing voices and perspectives such as that
coming from somebody who's not from our generation

793
01:00:08.639 --> 01:00:15.079
or my generation. Yeah, look
he's in the fight. Yes, that's

794
01:00:15.159 --> 01:00:19.320
exactly you know, in a way, we don't have to You don't have

795
01:00:19.400 --> 01:00:30.480
to accept everyone's global strategy to accept
their choice. They're on the ground tactics

796
01:00:30.800 --> 01:00:34.519
right if you start, I mean, because you can never really if this.

797
01:00:34.679 --> 01:00:39.719
If you start a school or reform
a school in Florida and it works,

798
01:00:42.039 --> 01:00:45.719
you may not have to worry about
the larger issue. Those other people

799
01:00:45.800 --> 01:00:50.079
will also get in the boat and
row with you. You know, small

800
01:00:50.159 --> 01:00:52.000
change. Small successes sort of lead
people to sort of copycap, which I

801
01:00:52.000 --> 01:00:57.639
think is always a good thing.
So I mean being in the fight,

802
01:00:57.760 --> 01:00:59.639
though, I think is important and
I think what I like about it.

803
01:00:59.679 --> 01:01:00.800
We said, so you have to
be in the pool in order to fight.

804
01:01:00.840 --> 01:01:07.320
You can't just stand outside of it
and cavel and point. You have

805
01:01:07.440 --> 01:01:13.719
to actually do some heavy lifting.
So yep, yeah, and that's why

806
01:01:13.760 --> 01:01:16.719
we're here every week talking. Yeah, I like to say so. I

807
01:01:16.760 --> 01:01:20.719
feel the phrase you're not allowed to
say is that there's too many chiefs,

808
01:01:20.800 --> 01:01:22.920
not enough Indians. There's too many
pundits and commentators, and there are not

809
01:01:23.079 --> 01:01:30.079
enough people doing starting schools. That's
true. Well before we go, and

810
01:01:30.199 --> 01:01:35.559
we are going to go because I
we have things to do. One last

811
01:01:35.559 --> 01:01:39.400
exit question. Ron DeSantis has banned
PHAMAS groups from Florida campuses. Do you

812
01:01:39.559 --> 01:01:43.280
think that this is an overreach?
If you think this is a sign of

813
01:01:43.400 --> 01:01:47.639
the First Amendment violations, of being
First Amendment rights being violated, of freedom

814
01:01:47.679 --> 01:01:51.480
of association being put on the trash
ep of history, et cetera, et

815
01:01:51.559 --> 01:01:59.360
cetera, or is this a reminder
that perhaps this is going to come whether

816
01:01:59.400 --> 01:02:02.840
we like it or not. I
don't know, I remember that. I'm

817
01:02:02.880 --> 01:02:07.440
just throwing it out to you.
I just I haven't read that story,

818
01:02:07.599 --> 01:02:10.639
so I don't know. I mean, clearly, he's not saying you're not

819
01:02:12.000 --> 01:02:15.360
allowed to express certain points of views
on Florida campuses, because that would be

820
01:02:15.400 --> 01:02:20.079
a direct violation of the First Amendment. But what I have noticed, it's

821
01:02:20.159 --> 01:02:23.800
not going reported particularly, but I've
noticed it in part here at Stanford that

822
01:02:24.000 --> 01:02:29.559
the pro Hamas groups tend to attract
a lot of people from outside the campus.

823
01:02:30.400 --> 01:02:32.079
People are showing up from outside.
Now again, I don't know what

824
01:02:32.159 --> 01:02:37.639
the law is in Florida, but
if what he's saying is under certain circumstances,

825
01:02:37.679 --> 01:02:44.079
outsiders are not permitted on the University
of Florida. You can't send money,

826
01:02:44.360 --> 01:02:47.800
you can't fundraise for Hamas, which
I think is probably a reasonable thing

827
01:02:47.880 --> 01:02:52.159
to do. Okay, a lawyer, but it would seem to me that

828
01:02:52.440 --> 01:02:55.000
being able to fundraise for a group
that has been designated as a terrorist organization

829
01:02:55.280 --> 01:03:00.119
is probably not something you have to
be doing when you're in college that way.

830
01:03:01.280 --> 01:03:04.920
But when it comes to fundraising for
a good organization, we are all

831
01:03:05.000 --> 01:03:08.559
about that, and that's why ricochet
dot Com is here to serve you by

832
01:03:08.599 --> 01:03:10.920
fundraising. I mean, yeah,
if you want to read the front page,

833
01:03:10.960 --> 01:03:14.800
it's free. Listen to podcast is
free, but if you want to

834
01:03:15.559 --> 01:03:19.400
comment, I got a little bit, a little bit every month, and

835
01:03:19.440 --> 01:03:21.880
it's not very much, but it's
enough to make sure that we have a

836
01:03:22.000 --> 01:03:25.400
sane, civil community that is bounded
by a code of conduct, so that

837
01:03:25.480 --> 01:03:30.079
the conversations are fascinating and civil amongst
people who know what's going on, as

838
01:03:30.119 --> 01:03:32.119
opposed to the usual pots and pans
and bricks and badge thrown at each other's

839
01:03:32.159 --> 01:03:36.039
heads on Facebook and the rest of
it. Join ricochet dot com, won't

840
01:03:36.079 --> 01:03:39.079
you. You'll love it and you'll
be wondering where was this all the time

841
01:03:39.119 --> 01:03:42.920
I was on the internet. We
would also like to advise you that express

842
01:03:42.960 --> 01:03:45.800
feepn Beam, that delicious stuff that
puts you to sleep and persist. SEO

843
01:03:46.000 --> 01:03:50.199
are here to help you as well. They have sponsored this podcast and you

844
01:03:50.320 --> 01:03:53.880
can thank them for that by availing
yourselves as their fine services. And of

845
01:03:54.000 --> 01:03:59.039
course, do they even have five
star reviews on Apple anymore? Of course

846
01:03:59.079 --> 01:04:00.519
they do, and you should go
there and you should give us five stars

847
01:04:00.559 --> 01:04:04.280
and more people discovered the podcast and
find out why exactly. Peter and Rob

848
01:04:04.360 --> 01:04:10.960
were so smart. Six sixty five
podcasts Ago plugs this whole years ago.

849
01:04:11.000 --> 01:04:15.440
It feels like, gentlemen, have
a great week, and we'll convene here

850
01:04:15.719 --> 01:04:19.599
next with with more and haven't.
I have no idea what we'll be talking

851
01:04:19.639 --> 01:04:23.679
about, only that I'm going to
enjoy listening to what you guys and our

852
01:04:23.679 --> 01:04:29.039
guests have to say next week,
next week, next week. Fellas Ricochet

853
01:04:30.800 --> 01:04:31.719
join the conversation.