Trump's Second Term is the Worst in U.S. History? | DSH #2031

Summary

Podcast Summary

Podcast: Digital Social Hour
Host: Sean Kelly
Guest: Mason (One Hand Politics)
Episode: Trump's Second Term is the Worst in U.S. History? | DSH #2031
Date: June 24, 2026

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Episode Overview

This episode features Mason from One Hand Politics, a familiar face in online debates, as he candidly critiques Donald Trump's second term and delves into broad issues shaping American society, politics, and economics. The conversation traverses U.S. interventionism, political cultism, economic struggles, wealth inequality, education, AI, capitalism, and notable political figures. The tone is direct, analytical, and occasionally fiery, making for a rich exploration of themes affecting everyday Americans.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. Trump’s Second Term: "One of the Worst in U.S. History?"

• Critique of Administration:

  • Mason opens with a severe assessment:

    “We're not even two years in and this is one of the worst administrations in the United States history.” [00:00]

  • Points to economic struggles—minimum wage ($7.25) is less than the cost of a pretzel ($7.89).

• Cultish Support and Populism:

  • Discusses the unwavering loyalty among Trump supporters:

    “There seems to be like this cultish idea of whatever Donald Trump does is in the best interest of the United States.” [00:14]

  • Notes emerging cracks due to foreign policy (Iran war), with right-wing voices sowing doubt.

• Foreign Intervention and War:

  • Criticizes U.S. military engagement, particularly the new Iran war, as being for regime change or oil, not altruism:

    “…the Trump administration's explicitly said that...their biggest goal is either to get the oil refineries...or to do regime change war, and tackle the Ayatollah...” [01:31]

  • Warns of power vacuums, referencing Iraq and the rise of extremism after Saddam's fall.

• Strategic Failures:

  • Draws a historical parallel:

    “This is how empires fall...you stretch yourself out too thin and you don't build actually long term solutions within your nation.” [05:27]

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2. Political Culture: Loyalty, Accountability, and Cults

• Uncritical Partisanship:

  • Mason criticizes both Trump-era MAGA supporters and Democrats for forming personality cults around politicians (e.g., Gavin Newsom, Kamala Harris).

    “You're the exact same as the people that you're criticizing...if all of your support and energy goes to this hypothetical scenario that Gavin Newsom's already the nominee.” [08:07]

• Need for a Vision:

  • Argues successful politicians (like Zoron Mamdani) win over voters by actually addressing material needs rather than by adopting “high personality” approaches. [10:36]

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3. U.S. Domestic Policy: Economy, Inequality & Social Priorities

• Economic Hardship & Renter Nation:

  • Discusses the paradox of U.S. wealth vs. individual struggles:

    “...when we're considered to be the richest country in the world, but most people don't actually feel that in their wallets. Seems like an incongruence...” [01:05]

  • Points to surging living costs, rent, and the commodification of housing:

    “...real estate conglomerates...buying up so many houses...How are we supposed to allow that in a country where we say we want a meritocracy?” [27:29]

• Meritocracy and Capitalism:

  • Debates if the U.S. operates as a true meritocracy; challenges narratives about self-made millionaires and the ease of upward mobility given inherited advantages:

    “If I'm supposed to go up in a competition with somebody who inherits hundreds of millions of dollars...that's not an even playing field.” [27:36]

• Value of Work:

  “The average like pretzel at Wetzels pretzels is like $7.89 where the minimum wage is $7.25. They’re saying your labor is worth less than a pretzel for an hour of work.” [29:21]

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4. Education & Critical Thinking

• State of U.S. Education:

  • Mason laments a lack of prioritization and an anti-intellectual movement on the right. He advocates for expanding all forms of education—college and trade school alike:

    “...there's a movement specifically on the right that's anti education in a way...having a college degree makes you a shill...But I do think that there's value and there's use in expanding your horizons and learning more.” [06:50-07:04]

• Educational Solutions:

  • “We should be prioritizing ourselves to have the most educated citizenry out of any other nation...that is what sets up your country for success.” [07:32]

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5. Immigration & Policing

• Trump’s Immigration Policy:

  • Denounces ICE’s current focus under Trump:

    “...we've seen over 200 American citizens get detained by ICE. Fucking crazy.” [14:49]
    “82% of people being detained by ICE right now have zero criminal, violent record. That is absolutely unacceptable.” [17:28]

• Immigration Reform Ideas:

  • Supports Reagan-style amnesty to incentivize legal processes, expand documentation, and prioritize removal only for violent offenders:

    “We should make an amnesty program similar to Ronald Reagan, Republican President, actually increase these people's pathway to citizenships so they can be documented and pay into our tax pool.” [18:38]

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6. Wealth, Capitalism, and Systemic Critique

• On Billionaires:

  • Mason draws analogies between billionaires and monarchs, calling existing wealth accumulation “absolutely unethical”:

    “...the fact that we have some people in this country who can never spend their money...That is absolutely unethical. And that level of excess is just not something that should be encouraged in any society...” [36:02]

• Wealth Redistribution & Systemic Change:

  • Advocates for structural changes—tax reform, closing loopholes, worker co-ops, and de-commodifying necessities (housing, education, healthcare):

    “We should be creating a society that is more equitable and more safe...” [42:50]

• On Voluntary Charity vs. the State:

  • Criticizes billionaire philanthropy as often serving PR rather than real social change:

    “That does not lead or yield to good outcomes in most cases...they can increase their social capital because they view that as an investment.” [38:13]

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7. AI, Automation, and UBI

• Disruption of Labor Markets:

  • Mason notes:

    “AI right now is, is proving to be one of the largest disruptors...displacing people from their potential to get jobs...But instead we're using AI to do the creativity in the art. So all of us are just doing shitty jobs all the time.” [29:43-30:02]

• Universal Basic Income:

  • UBI is coming, but needs to be paired with non-commodified welfare to prevent price gouging (e.g., landlords raising rents):

    “If I have something like rent subsidized housing or I have housing that's non commodified and I get the extra dollars...that can really help both our economic growth and me as a consumer...” [31:48]

• On Housing as a Necessity:

  “Housing is one of those things where. This is why a lot of people are shocked when I say landlords aren't real jobs. Because it's not a job to make passive income off of necessity that people have to have in society.” [33:54]

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8. Debate Culture & Political Figures

• Debating Right-wing Figures:

  • Mason has engaged with major right commentators but finds most arguments familiar due to his extensive consumption of right-wing media:

    “It sounds arrogant when I say this, but no, like, I really don't feel like anybody's been too challenging. I consume a lot of political content and I probably watch more right wing media than I do left wing.” [23:54]

• Conversation with Patrick Bet-David (Valuetainment):

  “He was there to be like a cheerleader of capitalism. I'm like, hey, man...a nurse absolutely is more valuable than like an NBA athlete. And it's like, okay. He's like, but the market, unfortunately, the market just wants more of the NBA athlete. I was like, okay, well, that might be a perfect example of why our system is flawed.” [25:00]

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9. Media, Tucker Carlson, and Splintering on the Right

• Tucker Carlson and MAGA:

  • Mason sees MAGA loyalty as self-devouring; prominent voices like Tucker Carlson and Megyn Kelly are now pushed out for dissent:

    “Donald Trump and MAGA likes to cannibalize their own. Like, Tucker Carlson has been such a Trump loyalist for so long...for them to go after him...shows that Donald Trump is the end all be all voice.” [44:58]

• Tucker’s Criticisms and Limitations:

  • Mason welcomes Tucker's criticisms of foreign intervention, but is clear Tucker is no unifying centrist:

    “Tucker very clearly is still ideologically driven by. He said we should have no more non-white immigration...” [45:58]

• On Political Ambition:

  • Suggests Tucker will not run for office, prefers commentator status:

    “He's in a very comfy position right now where he can criticize from the side...and not like, you know, targeted constantly.” [47:15]

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Imperial Overstretch:

  “This is how empires fall...you stretch yourself out too thin and you don't build actually long term solutions within your nation.” (Mason, [05:27])

• On U.S. Wealth Vs. Individual Struggle:

  “We're spending most of that money to bomb Iranian children? Makes no sense.” (Mason, [06:13])

• On Political Personality Cults:

  “You're the exact same as the people that you're criticizing...if all of your support and energy goes to this hypothetical scenario that Gavin Newsom's already the nominee.” (Mason, [08:07])

• ICE Detentions:

  “...now we're taking in six year old mothers who have been here for 10, 20 years. In what way is she a national security threat to the American people? It really makes no sense...” (Mason, [14:49])

• On Housing:

  “If your profit is based on the necessity for other people...that is not something that is a metric of somebody's success. That's just somebody being at the right place at the right time and they should not be rewarded for that.” (Mason, [33:18])

• On Billionaires:

  “The fact that we have some people in this country who can never spend their money...That is absolutely unethical.” (Mason, [36:02])

• On AI and the Economy:

  “AI could be such a good tool if used in the right way and with the right people in power. But has that ever been the case where people in positions of power use these tools in the right way?” (Mason, [29:43])

• On Systemic Change:

  “My...motto...comes from Michael Brooks, which is: you should be ruthless to systems and kind to people. I'm not, like, here to call out any one particular person. This is a bad guy. But I'm here to call it the system that allows that shit to happen.” (Mason, [43:50])

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Key Timestamps

• Trump’s Second Term Critique: [00:00-00:45], [01:05-02:21], [14:49-17:23]
• Cult of Trump & Loyalty: [00:14-00:33], [02:23-03:13], [08:04-08:07]
• Foreign Policy Failures: [01:05-06:13]
• Education in America: [06:48-08:04]
• Immigration Policy: [14:49-20:17]
• Wealth, Housing & Inequality: [27:26-34:45], [36:02-44:28]
• AI, UBI, Automation: [29:43-33:12]
• Debate Culture: [23:48-25:00]
• Tucker Carlson & Right-Wing Media: [44:50-47:15]

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Final Thoughts

This episode delivers a thorough and uncompromising examination of America's current political and economic landscape. Mason's diagnosis is blunt: systemic failures—exacerbated by cultish leadership, unrestrained capitalism, and an out-of-touch political class—are pushing the country toward greater inequality and instability. He calls for radical reforms, greater worker control, major investments in education and healthcare, and a break from both domestic and foreign policies driven by ego and narrow interests. The discussion is peppered with sharp analogies, passionate pleas for equity, and insightful critiques, making for a must-listen (or must-read) for anyone seeking to understand the challenges facing the U.S. in 2026.

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Find Mason at: One Hand Politics (Twitch, Twitter, Instagram, and beyond) [44:34]

Host Closing Invite:

“If you want to come on for a debate, I'd love to have you one day, man.” (Sean Kelly, [44:39])

Transcript

[Mason]

This second term, man, insane. We're not even two years in and this is one of the worst administrations in the United States history. The average like pretzel at Russell's pretzels is like $7.89 where the minimum wage is $7.25. Wow.

[Interviewer]

So it costs more.

[Mason]

They're saying that your labor is worth less than a pretzel. But if you talk to the average Trump supporter, they're still in the mindset of like, Donald Trump does it, then it must be right or trust in the plan. There seems to be like this cultish idea of whatever Donald Trump does is in the best interest of the United States.

[Interviewer]

Okay, guys, got Mason from One Hand Politics. You might have seen him on a debate on Jubilee wherever else you watch debates this man, a couple different debates. A debate machine. Good to see you, man. Good to see you, man. Good to meet you. Did you just come here from a debate you've been debating?

[Mason]

No, I have like a event later tonight though. It's just like a topic on Israel and Iran.

[Interviewer]

Oh yeah, you're doing a live on. Where are you doing that up?

[Mason]

It's with this group called. Well, I don't know if it's. If it's advertised yet maybe.

[Interviewer]

Okay, you can keep it safe.

[Mason]

Yeah, you can check out One Hand Politics and see all the debates.

[Interviewer]

Okay. Have you taken a strong stance on the Israel, Iran war?

[Mason]

Yeah, I mean, I've always been pretty critical of just the United States doing a lot of intervention in different nations. We've kind of seen where that's landed us specifically with like Libya, Afghanistan, Iraq and now Iran. Yeah, I think that us going to war for other countries interests just doesn't really help the United States or our citizens. And when we're considered to be the richest country in the world, but most people don't actually feel that in their wallets. Seems like an incongruence with what we prioritize as a country.

[Interviewer]

So you're pretty much against all wars, it sounds like.

[Mason]

I mean, I definitely think there are just wars, like obvious if, if there's a nation specifically that we're allied with that we want to hold a military pact for, we should be able to protect them against that type of intrusion. So like, I think Ukraine, Russia would count as like a justified war with us protecting their sovereignty and their borders over an aggressing nation. But with Iran, I don't think that we're going in for altruism for the Iranian people. And the Trump administration's explicitly said that when their Biggest goal is either to get the oil refineries, as we've done with Venezuela, or to do regime change, war, and tackle the Ayatollah, which really doesn't set up any successor. We're just creating a power vacuum in which more radical extremism can take place in that leadership. And that's exactly what happened with taking down Saddam Hussein in Iraq. And then you see ISIS and the formulation of other extremist groups that just focus on fundamentalist extremists.

[Interviewer]

Yeah, it made it worse, right?

[Mason]

Yeah, exactly.

[Interviewer]

It does seem a lot of his base is turning on him because of this war.

[Mason]

I don't know. I think that for sure, like, online, there's a lot of loud voices, but if you talk to the average Trump supporter, they're still in the mindset of, like, if Donald Trump does it, then it must be right or trust in the plan. There seems to be, like, this cultish idea of whatever Donald Trump does is in the best interest of the United States. And it creates this, like, feedback loop where you can never really criticize him if everything he does is for the United States. And he's like, a big patriot. But I definitely think that, like, fans of Tucker, fans of Megyn Kelly, or these other voices that are becoming more critical of Trump are starting to question that loyalty. And it's sowing those seeds of doubt that might make people eventually leave him in the future. I think that, like, he needs to have a populist successor that is going to try to adopt. I'm actually America first. I'm actually going to be fighting for American citizens. And so instead of Israel's interests, to actually get people to, like, move away from the Trump loyalty, I guess, like

[Interviewer]

a James Fishback, maybe?

[Mason]

I don't think James Fishback. No, man. Like, he's kind of weird where he poses himself as, like, this alpha dog. He's like a skinny little twink dude. Have you ever seen him in person?

[Interviewer]

He's been on the show.

[Mason]

Yeah, yeah, that's what I'm saying. Like, I don't think he's going to be this macho, like, alpha guy that the right wing wants. They want to, like, prop up, like, this Aryan Chad that they keep talking about. I don't know who that would be like. I think Josh Hawley maybe could be a good populist. He a senator from Missouri, but he's also kind of caved to Trump. He. He was one of the only people. It was. Him and Thom Tillis were two of the biggest Republican senators that actually tried to challenge Trump's unilateral decision in Venezuela. They're like, hey, let's actually follow the Constitution. Since Republicans pretend to care about that, maybe Donald Trump shouldn't just get to decide to invade any country he wants. He should be going through Congress for that. So they passed that War powers resolution. Trump tweeted at both of them, said, these are traitorous Republicans who hate our country. And then Josh Hawley went back on. He's like, you know What? You're right, Mr. President. I'm so sorry that I went against you, Daddy Trump, please do whatever you want. I'm like, okay, bro. You're such a loser. Yeah, he totally got a call. 100. Or he just saw the tweet. He didn't even need a call, bro. It's crazy.

[Interviewer]

Let's be honest. These guys have dirt on everyone they need to.

[Mason]

Who's you guys? Are you talking about Israel?

[Interviewer]

Or you could take that how it is. I mean, with the Cash Patel leaks, you know what I mean? All that dirt, they probably already had that. Like, you're telling me Cash Patel got hacked by some random guy and all that got leaked?

[Mason]

Well, a lot of that was Iranian intelligence that specifically the DHS has said it's linked to. So, I mean, you can trust the DHS or not trust it. I mean, I'm pretty skeptical of a lot of things that they release. I mean, they've called, like, Alex Preddy and Renee Good domestic terrorists with no evidence of that. So it really doesn't make sense what their reporting is. But if we trust what they say, they're saying that Iranian intelligence is what led to those leaks. Which is another reason why us going into these countries is just not helping the interests of the United States. We're building enemies, like, across the board. And that's why even most of our allies in Europe are not backing us on this Iranian invasion is because they know what this is setting up the scale for as far as international global conflict. I mean, China is getting ready to potentially go in. Russia's having talks about prepping with Iran. None of this is in the best interest of the United States or even us having any international stability when it comes to our foreign policy.

[Interviewer]

Yeah, you're right. This isn't sustainable. Right?

[Mason]

No, man. I mean, like, you can't just fucking slap your dick around and bully people in order to get what you want. Like, that type of strongman policy never works.

[Interviewer]

And.

[Mason]

And people are like, oh, my God, Trump's doing things people have never done before. He captured Maduro In Venezuela, he might take Greenland. And it's like, bro, if you get those short term games, what is the long term stability of this project? We have the most weaponry out of the entire world. Our military budget surpasses the next 10 countries combined. So we have the fucking biggest military. But does that actually mean that we're going to lead to long term stability? This is how empires fall. When the Roman Empire was able to just tackle every nation they could, there was a reason why it eventually fell is because you stretch yourself out too thin and you don't build actually long term solutions within your nation. So unless you want to see like the collapse of the American civilization or the American empire, we need to take steps to actually build a unity with the rest of the world as opposed to just trampling every nation that we feel like we want to go after just because Donald Trump has like a hot flash in the middle of the night.

[Interviewer]

I saw we were spending like a billion a day right now on the.

[Mason]

Yeah, man, I think we're at like 200 billion already. But we, we can't afford to like give higher education for our citizens or like nationalize healthcare. It. It blows my mind that we see other nations and I love talking about this with conservatives because there's this sense of patriotism. I want America to be great. I want to be the best nation in the world. Why the do we have less education than other developed nations like Sweden or Norway or Denmark? Why are we letting them beat us when it comes to healthcare, education and medicine, when we're the richest nation to ever walk the face of the earth and we're spending most of that money to bomb Iranian children? Makes no sense.

[Interviewer]

Did the education system get to that point, you think?

[Mason]

I think a lot of it is just lack of priority. We don't really prioritize it a lot. And I think that there's a movement specifically on the right that's anti education in a way. And it's like, it's, it's better. Like having a college degree makes you a shill or you're just going in for the propaganda.

[Interviewer]

Right.

[Mason]

And I think that it sets up a lot of people who don't really know what they're doing to just go into college and they're just like, I'll get a degree because I was told to get a degree. I don't think that that's the best mindset to have when you're going into higher education. But I do think that there's value and there's use in expanding your Horizons and learning more. When you get critical thinking skills and you learn how to go over primary and secondary sources that can help you with any sort of fields that you have you want to go into.

[Interviewer]

Yeah, I, I actually agree with that. I think the question then becomes, is college the best way to learn those critical thinking skills at the moment?

[Mason]

Well, I think trade schools are great too. Um, I think there's, there's a lot of different avenues that people can go. And I don't think that college is like a necessary requirement of everybody, but we should be prioritizing ourselves to have the most educated citizenry out of any other nation. Just because that is what sets up your country for success.

[Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Mason]

Like, if you think about what is going to be the most successful version of a nation state, it's going to be one where people are able to critically reason and even challenge their government. We don't want a country full of sheeps that are just going to listen to whatever their politicians tell them. We want people that are actually going to hold people in positions of authority accountable. That's the only way you can get better.

[Interviewer]

That was the problem with MAGA for a while. Yeah, Everyone was scared to challenge them.

[Mason]

I think MAGA for sure. I mean, Donald Trump has solidified himself as like this again, like a cultish figure where whatever he says goes. And if you go against him, you are a traitor to the MAGA movement or the. Or America. But I think you see that a lot with liberals too, with like Democrat politicians, that they're just thinking that they are going to be the savior. Like, I know for a fact that was something huge with Kamala. And you're seeing that same thing with Gavin Newsom right now, where there's so many Democrats who are already solidifying, that's our guy. He's going to be the next president. That's 2028. And if you go against Gavin Newsom or challenge him in any way, that then you're helping the Republicans. I'm like, okay, when did you become like blue maga? Now you're. You are the exact same as the people that you're criticizing. If all of your support and energy goes to this hypothetical scenario that Gavin Newsom's already the nominee, we are like three years away from actually having a prime or I guess we're like a year and a half away now, we're getting closer, but we need to make sure that we're building an opposition party that actually represents the people that need this support instead of just these like, high personality figures like A Kamala Harris or like a Gavin Newsom who've already proven that they're not human here to actually help their people.

[Interviewer]

Yeah, you've been pretty critical of Gavin.

[Mason]

Yeah, I'm not the biggest fan of him. He's my governor. I've seen a lot of what he says, and then completely counteracting that the next time that he has a conversation. Yeah, I mentioned this earlier, but he reminds me a lot of just like a salesman, he changes his policy positions or his principles, depending on who he's having a conversation with. So you'll see that with Israel, he'll say, yes, I'm. I'll never take APAC money. Israel's an apartheid state. No, he has a conversation with the Zionist who's like, how could you say that? That's anti Semitic. And he's like, look, I just don't like the current Israeli regime, but I love the country of Israel. I revere it. It's our greatest ally. It's like, okay. Or the same thing with ice. He literally, on his social media, he's super hard against Trump. ICE is a domestic terrorist organization. They're killing our people. Ben Shapiro goes on his podcast and says, governor, can you really say that? And he's like, no, I guess you're right. Most ICE are good people. It's just a couple bad apples. Okay, what the fuck do you actually believe? No, I think he's trying to, like, toe that line because he wants it appeal to as many people as possible as he gears up for a 20, 28 run. But. But that is not how you build energy for your vision of the future. People want to know that you actually have principles. And I think even a lot of conservatives would respect him for standing on what he believes in instead of trying to make it, like, I'll agree with you guys, or I'll agree with you guys. Anybody, Just vote for me. I'll say whatever it is that you want me to say, because that's all bullshit. It's the same thing with Zoram Donnie. Like, you can ask the average Republican who's critical of Zoron, like, what was it you don't like about him? They're like, well, I don't really agree with this whole collectivism. Or maybe he seems like a communist, but. But most people will say, I think that he's telling the truth about what he believes, or I think that he does have a vision for the future that is respectable. And there's even the MAGA from Mamdani movement.

[Interviewer]

Did you see that?

[Mason]

In New York, I didn't see that. So New York had one of the largest shifts to the right in 2024 out of many, like, blue states. There's a lot of people who voted for Trump. And Mamdani got a majority of those electoral precincts who did vote for Trump to completely flip in his direction. And most people thought, well, you need someone like Andrew Cuomo or you need someone who's like, in the middle that can appeal to these Republicans who. Because you don't want to go too far left. No, people want, like, a vision for the future. And the people don't see Zoron advocating for affordability and actually building people's economic material conditions as far left. They view that as a leader who actually gives a shit about their living situations and wants to make sure that they can afford to live in this country.

[Interviewer]

Yeah. Sneako was one of those names.

[Mason]

Was he really?

[Interviewer]

Yeah, he. He was pretty maga.

[Mason]

I don't follow too much of Sneako, but he was a zoron guy.

[Interviewer]

He was. He voted for his own.

[Mason]

Yeah. Interesting.

[Interviewer]

He was a very big Trump supporter. Even in the Manosphere documentary, he announced he was a Trump supporter, like full on maga wearing the hat. Okay. And that you voted for Madani. Wow. That's a big shift.

[Mason]

That's what I'm saying, man. And I, I really think that that type of economic populism is what's going to get a lot of people to move over to the Democrats, because that's the Democrats big priority right now is how are we going to appeal to the independents that we lost in 2024. They lost every single swing state. They. It was a complete blowout electorally. Well, you can get into like the popular vote. It wasn't. It was actually a lot closer than a lot of people say. But she lost every swing vote. So it doesn't really matter how close it is if you're losing all the states that you actually need to win. Right. Like, you lost every single one.

[Interviewer]

Yeah. I've never seen a, a race where this. All the swing states went one.

[Mason]

That's what I'm saying. And it was a close margin within the swing states, but it doesn't really matter. Like, you can't say it was a ODIS, it's a 0 and 7. But a. It was a close race. Like, you've lost zero to seven. Like, you can't really talk shit. But I think that if Democrats do want to actually get people over to their side, they have to appeal to what matters most to People, which is affordability right now. And that's why you're seeing politicians like Zoron, people like Ray Juan here in LA running for mayor, people who actually give a shit about helping people's material conditions.

[Interviewer]

What are the odds Trump gets impeached, do you think?

[Mason]

I mean, he'll probably get impeached when Dems take power again. I think he's going to get acquitted again. It's really hard to actually remove a president from office unless you do something like the 25th Amendment. And there's actually. So the American Conservative is a conservative publication. One of the founders of that has called on J.D. vance to. To try to remove Trump with the 25th amendment in order to get J.D. vance in a position of power.

[Interviewer]

Right. 25th amendment. I don't know.

[Mason]

So the 25th amendment basically says that the current leader of the country or in the executive branch is not mentally fit enough to actually do his job. So a lot of conservatives said that we needed to do that for Biden, 100%. Now a lot of people are saying that we need to do that for Trump. I mean, he's going up in front of world leaders and saying things I don't know if you saw last night. He's like, you guys can ask me any question. Ask me about sex. I don't care. What are we doing? Like, if Biden said some like this, I know every single conservative publication would be like, this guy's lost it. He's insane. He's trying to be a comedian up there. He's the President of the United States. Now Donald Trump's doing that exact same thing. Like, I, I just. I think it's wild to me that we allow either party to put up people who clearly should be in, like, senior living homes. As President of the United States. That's crazy to me.

[Interviewer]

Will you concede Biden should have been considered for that?

[Mason]

Oh, I. I think that Biden absolutely was not a good communicator. I don't think that he took a lot of, like, the same drastic measures as Trump did as far as, like, unilaterally controlling the executive branch. Like, there wasn't the consolidation with the Department of Justice. He wasn't these executive orders that were completely against most of our judicial systems. But what I will say is, man cannot speak for. And that's embarrassing as a country, if the leader of your nation cannot articulate more than three sentences without, like, anyway, I got to move on. That is embarrassing, man. And I think that absolutely Biden should have said that he wasn't going to run sooner or dropped out eventually when it was just. It was very clear that he was not supposed to be there.

[Interviewer]

I think Kamala might have had a better chance if he had not.

[Mason]

Yeah, well, yeah. She only had, like, 107 days to win. Like, if she would have started campaigning two years earlier, I don't know what have happened. But even with her, like, I criticize Kamala's campaign a lot because I think it lacked that vision that we were speaking about earlier. She didn't really speak to people's affordability needs or how to actually change the country.

[Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Mason]

When she was pressed on it, someone asked her, what what does your campaign look like in respect to Biden's? Like, how do you differ? And she said, virtually nothing. And, like, that is not inspiring to people that actually want to see some sort of change if they're already pissed with the Biden administration. He had record low disapproval ratings. They're not going to vote for someone who says, I'm basically the same as the other guy. Like, it just was not helpful being

[Interviewer]

objective, because I know you don't like Trump, but what would you grade him so far in his second term?

[Mason]

A through F, dude. F. 100%. Just 100% being objective. I think that when we could talk about literally any issue, foreign policy, just, again, no lack of strategic vision, completely going into other nations, destabling our relationships, even with our allies, trying to go after Greenland, like, he's dropped that whole thing again. There's, like, hypocritical instances where he says, this is the most important thing our country can do, then completely drops it. A couple weeks later, he dropped it because he. He actually met with the Netherlands leaders and many European allies, and they said, what are you doing? Why are you going after our allies when you're saying you're trying to go after our America's biggest adversaries, like China, Russia, Iran, all of these other nations, and yet you're saying you want to invade and AC annex Greenland. Like, in what ways is this helpful to United States? All it does is build up tensions with the Netherlands, who we have a military strategic ally with as part of NATO. Like, that is not helping the United States to set itself on the stage as being a serious actor. It shows that we are only going in for the ambitions of an older man who wants to establish his legacy. And that really is what defines Trump's second term. I used to say this all the time, and I told Charlie Kirk this, that Donald Trump's first term, this was when Biden was president. I said, donald Trump is the best Republican president of my lifetime. I've been around since 1999. I don't say that because Trump was good. I said that because that's how terrible George W. Bush's campaign or administration was. He was one of the worst presidents in American history. And I was like, you know what? Donald Trump, he says some crazy shit, he has some crazy tweets. It is weird how he hires people and then two months later says, this guy's terrible. We need to get him out of office. Just shows bad leadership. But his first term really didn't do a whole lot as far as completely changing the fabric of this country as George W. Bush did this second term. Man. Fucking insane. And we're not even two years in and this is one of the worst administrations in the United States history when it comes to dividing the American people. When it comes to utilizing ICE and other national law enforcement to tackle American citizens, we've seen over 200American citizens get detained by ICE. Fucking crazy. When that's an. An agency that was only meant for tackling the most violent offenders that came in without documentation, and now we're taking in six year old mothers who have been here for 10, 20 years. In what way is she a national security threat to the American people? It really makes no sense on international policy. Again, just not even respecting any of our international allies or any of the strategic partnerships that we've made when it comes to energy policy. Just completely getting rid of even the smallest amount of regulations that tried to help our environment. Most Republicans, you look back before 1950, even Richard Nixon, he's the one who made the EPA, the Environmental Protection Agency, because Republicans said, we want to conserve the Earth. Going into the religious argument, if we actually have a God who created this Earth, don't you want to make sure that the Earth is protected in any way possible? And for Donald Trump to just completely throw that away because all he cares about is fossil fuel industries, it's kind of bullshit.

[Interviewer]

Yeah, immigration's been a shit show, but what about actually closing the border? Would you give them that at least?

[Mason]

Well, it depends on, like, what it is that you're speaking about. Right? So if you're talking about tackling crime and tackling people that are coming over here to like, bring harm to America, that's not really what we're seeing as far as ISIS protection or ISIS priorities and what he's trying to go after. Biden absolutely had more people coming over, but many of that was people taking advantage of the asylum process. So we clearly need immigration reform. I just don't think it's, again, going into communities ripping out people who present no criminal, violent threat to people. 82% of people being detained by ICE right now have zero criminal, criminal, violent record. That is absolutely unacceptable. And that's, that's not something that we should consider ourselves a free country for. If we actually care about liberty and we want to respect the foundation of this country, was the best people coming over here to actually create a cohesive society, we shouldn't be going after those who actually are economic contributors, who have community roots in the places that they live, and who have families here that are citizens and produce for the economy. That is not people that we should be removing just to score some political points or say, hey, I removed the most amount of undocumented immigrants in U.S. history. All of that is based on legacy, which again is ego for Donald Trump. It's not actually results driven.

[Interviewer]

Yeah. So do you want to pause immigration when you say reform? What would that look like?

[Mason]

I guess so. I think that right now we have a great opportunity to actually extend the window to give documentation status to people who currently live here. That would not only one, help people go through the legal process. Because if Republicans actually care about people coming here the legal way, they, they should want them to be going to court systems to actually get their documentation. They should want to announce what are their motivations and reasoning for to come here. They should pay taxes just like every citizen. They can't do that if they don't have proper documentation. And the way Donald Trump is handling things where you're threatening to remove people and send them to countries, oftentimes they haven't been in five, six, 10 years, that is not going to incentivize anybody to go to the court system, especially if there's an ICE agent waiting there for them to actually remove them. Like, that makes no sense. When you have ICE agents going to places like Home Depot Depot or places where people are trying to get work to remove them or threaten those types of immigrants, why would we expect any immigrant to want to go through the legal way they're going to be hiding for to keep themselves here and be with their families, like, that is not incentivizing at all. So I think that we should make an amnesty program similar to Ronald Reagan, Republican President, actually increase these people's pathway to citizenships so they can be documented and pay into our tax pool. And then those that do commit crimes, we can remove them that commit crimes, or we hold them Accountable. There is not a single leftist person in this country who. Who thinks that rapists or murderers should just get, like, you get one free murder, and then you. And then, like, the next time, we'll. We'll. We'll hold you accountable. No, people think that people who commit crimes here, especially violent crimes, should be held accountable. But if you look at the data, those are not a majority of the people that ICE are detaining. ICE are just detaining people who don't have their paperwork. And if the difference between you and me is you have a piece of paper, I don't think that means that federal agents should come in and violently remove me from my house, where my family and kids live.

[Interviewer]

Did you debate Charlie on this issue, or was it another topic?

[Mason]

No, I debated Charlie on two issues. We talked about trans rights, and then we talked about. We talked about whether or not that Kamala Harris is a DEI candidate.

[Interviewer]

Oh, DEI was a hot dog in the day.

[Mason]

It was.

[Interviewer]

I feel like no one talks about anymore.

[Mason]

Well, it's just because it's one of the things where Donald Trump wrote an executive order saying, we have no more di. Nothing changed.

[Interviewer]

Really?

[Mason]

Like, nothing changed. DI is diversity, equity, and inclusion, which is like a slogan for a lot of the hiring practices that goes into most places, or just, like, basic accommodations that both workplaces and places like public institutions, like schools, government, actually provide for people. So, like, handicap stall in the bathroom. You've seen, like, the bigger ones that are in the bathroom. Obviously, that's part of dei. It's making sure that we have places that are actually accommodating to people of different backgrounds or different groups. There are, like, certain things with hiring practices that people debate on, like affirmative action, whether or not companies should take in, like, historical backgrounds or people ethnicity as, like, a reason for difference in worldview or difference in life opinion.

[Interviewer]

That's always what I thought of it,

[Mason]

because that's how Charlie debates, because that's how most people focus on it, because it's very divisive. But the other things, like, you know, talking about disability accommodations or talking about women going into higher education, nobody ever really talks about that because they never had a problem with it. But that's all dei. And so for me, it's like, I think that making sure that your hiring practices are open as possible should not be a thing that's discouraged. And I think most Americans would agree with that, as long as it's framed in that way.

[Interviewer]

I agree.

[Mason]

But if you frame it like how Charlie did, which is like, they're giving our white jobs to all these black people who don't deserve it. Like, obviously people are going to be like, wait, that's crazy. If that's actually happening, Spoiler alert. It's not actually happening. And those people, like the black pilots is a great example. They still had to get their pilot's license. Like, we're not just giving random black people on the street the ability to fly a commercial plane. These are people that are getting their licenses. And if we only have like, 1% of the population that are black pilots because they're, they're just like, you know, they're, they're not getting the same opportunities, then we're going to try to extend that opportunity or we'll have certain federal grants that give them to those folks. But it's not choosing, like, an unqualified black person over a qualified white person. It's just like, oh, both these people have the exact same resume. This person came from a lower economic experience or a different worldview. Yeah, let's, let's, let's try to get them in the mix.

[Interviewer]

Let's kind of. With college application, like when you apply to college and basically they ask for your ethnicity. Right. And, yeah, obvious. Obviously Asians have, like, the highest SAT scores and GPA and stuff. So if you say you're Asian, but you have like, let's say a 3.5, you're. You're considered not in the top percentile for Asians.

[Mason]

Yeah. I think that there's a difference with schools that are trying to see what their demographics look like in order to, like, create like a, A more inclusive environment for people that are studying there. I, I think the Supreme Court has already ruled against affirmative action, so I don't know how well that applies right now in certain college.

[Interviewer]

What I should say it, it was still in effect.

[Mason]

Yeah.

[Interviewer]

Ten years ago.

[Mason]

Yeah. I just really think that the goal of affirmative action should always be like, how are we able to make this as fair of a playing field as possible? I don't think that we should discriminate against people specifically because, like, they're part of a demographic that's higher achieving. I think that that can create, like, a disparity when it comes to what those folks are allowed to do. So I just think that that should be paired with intention. And I think most instances of affirmative action were done so in that way, you want somebody to still be a good interpreter of the applications that they receive. And I just, I don't think it's as substantial as a problem as a lot of right wingers try to make it seem. It just. It really just does depend on how it's applied and how those people in those admissions fields are actually, you know, vetting who's coming into their schools.

[Interviewer]

That makes sense. You've debated against some of the top people. Do you have someone that's been your most formidable? That comes to mind.

[Mason]

Dude. It sounds arrogant when I say this, but no, like, I really don't feel like anybody's been too challenging. I consume a lot of political content and I probably watch more right wing media than I do left wing. Wow. So I'm already privy to a lot of conversations and arguments that those people will bring to the table. And most of those times when I have debated really big people, it's been in those short types of formats. Right. It's like the jubilee surrounded where I have about five minutes to say what I want to say before the next person comes up. So it's not like I've gotten to be able to talk to someone for a substantial amount of time. I'd love to do that more.

[Interviewer]

I'll set some up for you.

[Mason]

Yeah, that'd be cool.

[Interviewer]

Yeah. That's when I feel like you really get tested in a one on one format.

[Mason]

An hour, two hours, 100%. Yeah. And I, I really like those longer conversations where you're actually able to delve deeper into issues because otherwise, like the surrounded formats, you're mostly just trying to get like quick jabs and gotchas because that's all you can really do in like the short amount of time that you're given.

[Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Mason]

Like, I talked to. I think the longest conversation I had was with Patrick by David of valuetainment. I saw that we talked for about like 15 to 20 minutes.

[Interviewer]

Wow.

[Mason]

Just uninterrupted. And even that felt a little bit too small. But yeah, that was a fun conversation. I like to.

[Interviewer]

What did you press him on?

[Mason]

He was there to be like a cheerleader of capitalism. I'm like, I'm like, hey, man. Like, I think even you can recognize a lot of the failures within our system. Like the way that we prioritize like a professional basketball player as opposed to a nurse. And he flat out said, yeah, a nurse absolutely is more valuable than like an NBA athlete. And it's like, okay. He's like, but the market, unfortunately, the market just wants more of the NBA athlete. I was like, okay, well, that might be a perfect example of why our system is flawed. Because these people that are saving lives and putting their own lives on the line working 12 hour shifts in order to make sure that our weakest are, are people that are suffering actually get back into society. Maybe we should be prioritizing those folks and making sure that they can at least afford to pay their rent. There's so many nurses right now in this country who are barely making ends meet, doing one of the most altruistic position that they can do. While we have NBA basketball players, you know, who are literally living like kings because they're good at a sport. Like, I'm not saying that those people deserve to like suffer, but I'm just saying, like, there's a way that we can make our society more equitable to where again, we're the richest nation that's ever walked the face of the earth. Most people should actually feel that when it comes to their affordability.

[Interviewer]

So what would. So are you a fan of capitalism or no?

[Mason]

No. I think that there's a lot of problems within our structure. I think that you compare like monarchism and feudalism to capitalism. You can see that capitalism has a lot of benefits like private investment and making sure that we, we lower the hierarchy to ensure that some people have access to luxury goods. But there's a lot that we can work from that. Like, I don't think anybody probably yourself would say that capitalism is the final solution, but the rest, like, if you look 10,000 years down the line, do you think we'll still be doing things the same way we're doing now? I think most people will say no, because there's things that we can always improve. And so I think that a lot of the improvements that we can see right now are being done in other nations. So you look at Vienna and socialized housing, that's a great way to actually ensure that we have affordable living situations that are quality. We don't want government housing that are like, you know, projects or these slums. Like, obviously we've seen what it looks like in the past that's bad, but we've been able to adapt from that and learn from our mistakes. So to actually make affordable or affordable housing that is good quality that people want to live in, as opposed to making housing such a commodity, where for a lot of people that's their largest investment property is their, their own living situation. And that can create a lot of insecurity, especially if the housing market dips like it did in 2008, where most people lose their entire life savings just because they thought if I buy a house and I listen to what all the economists are saying, I'll Be in the clear. It's not going to happen when the housing bubble crashes again. And Donald Trump's already saying that's one of his priorities. He wants housing to be even more expensive because he wants to prioritize people who already own houses instead of people like me who are trying to enter the housing market.

[Interviewer]

We're becoming a renters nation.

[Mason]

Exactly.

[Interviewer]

Becoming unattainable.

[Mason]

100% for Gen Z. Yeah. And that's a large part is because you have these large real estate conglomerates who are buying up so many houses.

[Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Mason]

How are we supposed to allow that to happen in a country where we say we want a meritocracy? That's another issue I have with people like PBD who love capitalism. They say that this is a meritocracy where the people who are the best at what they do are. Are the most successful. Absolutely not true. If I'm supposed to go up in a competition with somebody who inherits hundreds of millions of dollars from their wealthy family, in what way is that a meritocracy? Like, that's not an even playing field. We're actually going to be able to race to success like that. That is not something that is fruitful for actually encouraging that type of competition.

[Interviewer]

You know, I see that argument. There's also some stats on what percentage of millionaires are self made though and which.

[Mason]

What's the stat?

[Interviewer]

I'll look it up. I believe it's close to 70%.

[Mason]

But is that through just not having investment in the beginning? Like do they also factor into networking and connections that those people have? That's true because that's a big part of it, even if it's not monetary. If I have a daddy that's a CEO and he has a bunch of, you know, wealthy businessmen that he can connect me to for my small business that I'm self made and starting up, that can have a lot of impacts in how successful those people are as well.

[Interviewer]

Yeah. Who knows that that's definitely a factor. It does say 79 to 80% of millionaires are self made, meaning they did not inherit their wealth and built their fortunes through consistent savings, smart investing and entrepreneurship. 86. Wow.

[Mason]

Yeah, I'd love to see that methodology on who it was that compiled that data. But again, it's like we can see certain neighborhoods that stay below the poverty line. And there's only two explanations for that. Those people are either genetically predisposed to continue to be poor or we see cyclical poverty where most people, the money that they generate are going right Back into their everyday life. Necessities and the transfer of wealth between my employer and my landlord is absolutely insane. When most people in this country are paying more than a third of their income on their rent, that is crazy.

[Interviewer]

A third of their.

[Mason]

Wow, that's crazy.

[Interviewer]

Yeah. That's why a lot of the population's living paycheck to paycheck.

[Mason]

Yeah. And you see places like Philadelphia where like a Wetzel's pretzels employee. The stat is insane. The average like pretzel at Wetzels pretzels is like $7.89, where the minimum wage is $7.25. Wow.

[Interviewer]

So it costs more.

[Mason]

They're saying that your labor is worth less than a pretzel for an hour of work. That is crazy when you think about that.

[Interviewer]

I mean, I only see this getting worse with AI, to be honest.

[Mason]

Oh, 100. I mean, AI right now is, is proving to be one of the largest disruptors at the, the labor pool as far as displacing people from their potential to get jobs. Like AI could be such a good tool if used in the right way and with the right people in power. But has that ever been the case where people in positions of power use these tools in the right way? Typically not the right way.

[Interviewer]

What do you mean?

[Mason]

I guess so, like, I could take a lot of the tedious jobs and a lot of the manual labor out of like our society. Right. Like, if we were able to use AI in a way to especially a lot of the dangerous jobs that they were able to do, that would be great for society. But that's not really where it's going towards. It's going towards a lot of the menial labor. So you see like large conglomerates and corporations who are just laying off like thousands of their employees. Because Claude, AI can do all of those jobs a lot better. Or we're seeing it even like art, where a lot of these, like big media conglomerates like Netflix are going to use AI in order to make like, animations and like short form content. Like, that's wild to me that we have AI that's supposed to take the bad job so we have more time to do art and creativity. But instead we're using AI to do the creativity in the art. So all of us are just doing shitty jobs all the time. Like it's really backwards when you think of it in that way.

[Interviewer]

Universal basic income.

[Mason]

No 100% coming. I absolutely agree. But the thing is, will we actually implement that is the real question. Because a lot of Republicans, if you Bring up that idea, they'll say, well no, you want to be a sickle like from the government. You don't want to take these handouts. You want to earn your money yourself. How dare you use ubi?

[Interviewer]

But I mean, not under a Republican, I think. I don't think you think so I don't think will happen unless it gets like drastic.

[Mason]

Well, you know, UBI was actually developed by Milton Friedman, who was a libertarian. Yeah. And that's a very right wing economist. I in the 1970s saw it as left thing.

[Interviewer]

But that's interesting.

[Mason]

Yeah, a lot of people think that because it's like money coming from the government. But Milton Friedman described it as like capitalism but just not starting at zero. So it's kind of like monopoly where you take $200 every time you pass go so you can reinvest that back in the economy. So I don't think UBI actually is a good program unless you pair it with other non commodified welfare programs. So like if my landlord knows I'm getting an extra thousand dollars a month, like what Andrew Yang proposed, my landlord is just going to increase my rent. Like that's not really going to help me a whole lot if I'm just going to have to pay more because they know they can get away with charging me more.

[Interviewer]

Interesting.

[Mason]

But if I have something like rent subsidized housing or I have housing that's non commodified and I get the extra dollars, extra thousand dollars in to actually reinvest in the economy, that can really help both our economic growth and me as a consumer to be able to actually buy more. So you need to like do the things that are. Do you know the difference between inelastic and elastic goods? No. So an elastic good is something where the price is dependent on how much you need it in your society. So like if you went to the grocery store and an apple cost $1,000, but a banana costs like $2, you're going to go with the banana, you're going to change your consuming methods based on how much that price is. But something like healthcare, if you're a diabetic and you need insulin, you're going to pay however much that insulin is, regardless of what the cost is, because you need that to survive. So things that are inelastic goods, think of it like housing, education, healthcare, those are things that we should be working, however, in our power to make sure is not based on profit incentive. Because if somebody has the incentive to make profits, like the pharmaceutical industry charging life saving Drugs, thousands and thousands of dollars just to make profits. They know these people have to buy. That is a perverse incentive structure that ruins the foundation of our country. Whereas, like, things that are more elastic goods like luxury cars or like, you know, luxury items like tech products, those are things that, like, they can be more expensive and just people who can't afford them, they'll just be like, I just, I don't need that in my life. But the things that people need, education, housing, health care, those should absolutely be prioritized to ensure that the maximum amount of people are able to get access to those things.

[Interviewer]

Education, healthcare. I agree. Housing. I guess it gets tricky because, like, I know a lot of people that became millionaires through real estate, right?

[Mason]

But, but even then, it's like if your profit is based on the necessity for other people, because everybody needs a house, right? As part of your hierarchy. Needs. It's one of the most foundational aspects of you being able to be a successful person. You can't be a successful person if you're out living on the street with no shelter. You can't be a successful person if you're living in like an enclosure where a bunch of people are living. You have no privacy. You need to make sure that you are able to be a productive member of society by having those basic needs met. So housing is one of those things where. This is why a lot of people are shocked when I say landlords aren't real jobs. Because it's not a job to make passive income off of necessity that people have to have in society.

[Interviewer]

Wow.

[Mason]

If I'm, if I'm someone, this goes back to our earlier conversation. If I'm a mega conglomerate or I'm a landlord who owns 20 properties and my only job is just collecting the passive income from all of these people who need to live. I'm not producing anything for society. I'm just an owner. It's the same thing as kings. Like, if you ask most people, should we have kings in this country? They'd be like, fuck no. That's why we had an American Revolution. Because we recognize these people don't deserve this power that they say God has given them. Okay, well, what about landlords who their only a lot of these people are making hella, hella money. Like you said, real estate's a huge investment tool in this country and all they're providing is what they're owning that piece of property. Like, sure, they'll send like a maintenance personnel to make sure that that property is maintained, but a lot of those People have property managers for that.

[Interviewer]

Yeah.

[Mason]

And literally their only job was they, they were able to buy this property when it was low on the market. Like, to me, that is not something that is a metric of somebody's success. That's just somebody being at the right place at the right time and they should not be rewarded for that.

[Interviewer]

But wouldn't you say they risk their own capital to reap the rewards of it?

[Mason]

But if we're, if we're talking about, should they take on that risk? I don't think so. And I don't think that they could have invested most of their time or their money in other ways that are more productive for society in order to actually grow then take on that risk. It's the same thing with like the billionaire argument. A lot of people say, well, billionaires risk so much by starting these companies. It's like, okay, well, I don't think that people should have to take that risk in the future. If we create something like a worker co op where a majority of the people who actually make that firm successful are co owners and they actually reap the benefits of those profits of the company, that's something where not only is the company more sustainable because there's a lot of empirical data that shows worker co ops sustain economic turmoil a lot more than just individually private owned firms, but they also motivate people and they give them proper incentive for people to work hard in those firms. If I'm a co owner and I'm seeing more of the profits come from whatever firm that I work at, I'm going to be much more incentivized to make that successful than if I'm just a wage slave and I'm just there to make a certain amount per hour. I'm trying to like, not work as much as I can so I can go home and then repeat that cycle nine to five, day after day until I get laid off. Like, that's just not something that inspires people to actually make their company better. It just, you know, makes people want to do their job, collect their paycheck and go home.

[Interviewer]

Do you have an issue with billionaires, say like an Elon Musk, for example.

[Mason]

How do you wealth? Yeah, I think that it's, it's the exact same way that I have a distrust and a disgust of billionaires that most people do for kings. Like most people here, like other countries have kings. Like, how is that so backwards? We should be a democracy because that lowers the amount of power that people have. So that way we have like a representative Republic or a government that works for all. That's the same thing that I feel about billionaires. I think that the fact that we have some people in this country who can never spend their money, if they spent as much money as they could day after day, could never fully spend it. That is absolutely unethical. And that level of excess is just not something that should be advertised or not something that should be encouraged in any society that actually cares about progress. Because we have so many people in this country that are dying. We have people that are literally oding on the street. A lot of that money could be utilized to make this country stronger, as opposed to just the small hands of a couple few.

[Interviewer]

But do you think it could be utilized through the government? Because there's government programs trying to fix homelessness and this drug issue, and it doesn't seem to be working in California.

[Mason]

So California is a great example because a lot of the money that's geared towards homelessness solutions are going to NGOs who don't actually solve these issues. So these are nonprofits that work within the government apparatus that get this money and then either do it for these Virtue Signal programs, or they. They just are too slow to actually make sure that this type of stuff changes. So if you want to solve homelessness, you need more things like socialized housing. You need more things like harm reduction centers that actually make sure that people aren't ODing on the street. And you need transition zones to where people are able to move from a life on the street where they're not contributing to society, to actually moving towards a place where they can be an economic producer. And that can't happen by just either one jailing homeless people like a lot of Republicans advocate for, or like people like Gavin Newsom and California Democrats who just kind of allow the problem to happen, but just push it off to certain parts of the state, like skid row here in Southern California or the Tenderloin in San Francisco. That's not helping people. It's just creating this, like, pool where all of the crime and all of the OD and all of the. The badness of society is happening. So that way the rich people don't have to think about it that live outside there. Neither of those solutions work. You have to have a government that actually prioritizes getting these people off the street into housing and transitioning them to where they can be a producer of the economy.

[Interviewer]

So in the future, hypothetically, if you make a ton of money, are you going to be donating a lot of it?

[Mason]

Well, so it's the thing about individual volunteering versus like a mandate from the state. Right. Those are very two different things. So I think that like a lot of billionaires right now, if they just donated their money, that's what we call like philanthropism, billionaire philanthropy. That does not lead or yield to good outcomes in most cases. And most billionaires do that for pr. Think of the Bill Gates foundation or the Clinton Foundation. A lot of these billionaires do it so that way they can increase their social capital because they view that as an investment. Right. They see, see, this is why billionaires should be justified. Because we do a lot of good and we, we give our money away to a lot of people, which just perpetuates them able to keep more of their own money. Yeah, exactly. So that's not something that I think is sustainable. I think that you have to create an economy that's actually people driven instead of billionaire or wealthy driven. We don't want to be an oligarchy, we want to advocate against that. The only way to do that is to put caps on what it is that people are able to generate. And I think that's helpful and healthy too because like I said, a lot of these people can't actually spend all of their money that they've been able to generate. So the only point of doing that is you have this like, you know, worker culture where all you're thinking about is your business and what you're able to produce, as opposed to like, you know, investing that time in your family. Like Elon Musk is a great example of that. People say, wow, this guy's a revolutionary. He's changing everything. First of all, it's his teams that are ones that are developing a lot of technology. People at SpaceX and people at Tesla. It's not him that's actually inventing it. He's just the guy that's giving money to those programs that actually makes those programs able to function and able to have that money. But that could easily be done through a public owned investment firm or it can be done through the people that are actually driving it to these places.

[Interviewer]

Well, I would say he's more of the visionary too. He has the ideas and he hires a team to execute, you know what I mean?

[Mason]

But he, it's not his ideas. He's not in the lab that's actually generating like what, what the, the change in, like the rockets are able to do. A lot of those are the actual scientists and the people that specialize in rocket science. He's the guy who has an interest in rocket science very clearly. And I'm sure he has a knowledge that's bigger than the average like, undergraduate who goes into astrophysics. But he's not the one that's actually designing how these are implemented. But he gets all the credit. Why? Because his name is on the foundation. His name is on the checks that are going to those people who actually come up with the ideas. And that's why he has most of the money. A lot of people don't understand, like, how billionaires wealth is actually counted. It's not in liquidated cash. It's not like Elon has like a treasure chest full of, you know, hundreds of billions of dollars. But it's in the stock that he has in these companies that have, have actually risen.

[Interviewer]

Sometimes that's liquid too, though. Like for in his situation, Tesla's pretty liquid.

[Mason]

Yeah. And it also depends on when he wants to liquidate it, because he can do it at any time. That's another excuse that a lot of right wingers give is like, well, you can't tax the billionaires more because they don't actually have that money. It's in their equity. It's like, okay, well if Elon can take out $40 billion to buy Twitter at the snap of a finger, it's very clear that these people have access to that money and we can ensure that we're able to get that capital gains if we actually cared about making an equitable society. Elon should want that too. Like, you think about it. I think a lot of people think these billionaires are going to be so mad if we take some of their money and make our society better because we're just like, we're punishing them for their success. Right? That's the common like, mantra or motto that you hear from people. That's not true. If I'm a rich person and I'm living in a city like la, where there's parts of the city I don't want to go in because it's too dangerous, why the hell would I be glad to live in that city? Why would I have to go up to the highest point of the hill on my gated community to feel safe? In what way is that like a country that I should be proud of or proud to be American? I should want my country to be no matter what my income bracket is. I can walk down in downtown or I can walk in places, feel comfortable, feel safe, and love my country for the culture that it has. And we don't have that Right now, because billionaires only care about increasing their own personal wealth. Why? So they can buy their. Create their gated community, house their family there, and live behind the pearly gates. Like, we should have a society that's cohesive to where everybody is able to feel comfortable. Especially, again, if we are the richest nation that's ever walked the face of the earth.

[Interviewer]

Wow. So you really put the blame on the billionaires for the wealth gap.

[Mason]

Like, yeah, of course. I think that we live in an oligarchic system right now that prioritizes the consolidation of power in a very small group of people. You see that in the media, where six conglomerates own all of the media. Comcast, Viacom, Sony, Fox Corp. All of these conglomerate organizations that only care about further perpetuating their own capital and profit incentives over the actual needs of what this country requires. And that's also creating a lot of instability. You see, all over social media, all these people are like, I'm ready to kill billionaires. Am I allowed to say that?

[Interviewer]

Yeah. I mean, someone killed a United Health Care guy.

[Mason]

That's what I'm saying. Like, people are getting pissed off, and it's building this class consciousness where there's so much animosity against those in high positions of power. If I was a billionaire right now, I would want a higher tax structure. I want to calm the shit down. Like, I don't want people to be wanting to kill me.

[Interviewer]

The thing is, even if they raise the tax structure, there's loopholes. Doesn't matter.

[Mason]

Exactly. What we should try be creating an economy that actually closes those loopholes. There's a reason why most of the wealthiest people in the world want to live in the United States. And again, it's not because our infrastructure is the best or because you can walk around and feel completely safe all the time. A lot of billionaires are trying their best, you know, to stay in the shadows. They go from their home, they get their private jets to go to. To other places where they can actually spend their money. We want to create a society that is more equitable and more safe. And if we have other developed nations, you're thinking like the Nordic nations, the Scandinavian ones, who can close a lot of these loopholes and ensure that, sure, you can have rich people. I'm not saying all rich people are bad. I don't know like what Jeff Bezos, his own moral character is, but what I'm saying is a system that allows him to accumulate that much money. Will you have people that are dying on the street or who can't afford their insulin, who can't afford to send their kids to school, who might be the next great doctor or the great scientist or the great inventor. That is a perverse society. And I want to make sure that our society actually prioritizes making it as equitable as possible, as opposed to just more and more people continuing to grow money.

[Interviewer]

Yeah. So you feel like it's on them, though, to give back all the wealth they earned?

[Mason]

No, no, no. Again, it shouldn't be voluntary. I think that there's a lot of people who give a lot of their money away. There's some who don't give it at all. I don't really care about the individual. I'm my. A big motto that I have comes from Michael Brooks, which is, you should be ruthless to systems and kind to people. I'm not, like, here to call out any one particular person. This is a bad guy. But I'm here to call it the system that allows that shit to happen. So we need to change the system from within with a higher regulatory state. We need to have to ensure that we have more closed loopholes so people aren't able to continue to push their money as other people are dying on the street. We should be creating a society that. That actually prioritizes people and workers as opposed to those that are owners and oligarchs.

[Interviewer]

This was a really interesting episode, man.

[Mason]

Yeah.

[Interviewer]

Thanks for coming. Where could people find. You said one hand politics as.

[Mason]

Yeah, you can follow me. One hand politics on everywhere. I'm mostly on Twitch and Twitter, but Instagram everywhere else as well.

[Interviewer]

And if you want to come on for a debate, I'd love to have you one day, man.

[Mason]

Yeah, I'd love to be on. Do we have time to get into Tucker, even if it's like a six off with Clucker?

[Interviewer]

Tucker, I said Cucker. No, you're good.

[Mason]

We can, like, splice it after. That was a good.

[Interviewer]

Yeah. So Tucker, you know, he announced last week CIA is investigating him. I don't know if you saw that. He just had Joe Kent on. What do you think about Tucker these days?

[Mason]

You know, I think that this is like a great showing of how Donald Trump and MAGA likes to cannibalize their own. Like, Tucker Carlson has been such a Trump loyalist for so long, he's helped push the MAGA movement into prominent spaces. And for them to go after him kind of just shows that Donald Trump is the end all be all voice. And if anyone goes against Trump, they're going to be demonized and Think of Megan Kelly, think of Tucker Carlson. A lot of these people who were strong MAGA supporters are now being criticized just because they're calling what's very clear, the American people don't want more endless wars. They don't want to invade Iran, they don't want to help capitulate to Israel's special interests. And that's really important. I'm glad that there's a voice like that that's trying to push people on the right. But I think that a lot of people on the left are mistaking that as like, Tucker is the central figure who's able to like bridge the gap between both sides. Tucker very clearly is still ideologically driven by. He said we should have no more non white immigration, we should try to close our regulatory states. That way we're not helping people who actually need a leg up to get into the economy. So he's not someone that's going to be like bridging the gap between both. But I am glad that he's calling out specifically how our country is so loyal to Israel for no reason. It doesn't provide a strategic benefit for us. All it does is further piss off the people in this country who can't afford basic living. And they see the billions and billions of dollars that we're giving to Israel so they can continue their expansion in the Middle East. That is absolutely not in the interest of any person that lives in this country.

[Interviewer]

You're not a fan? To say the least?

[Mason]

No, I'm not.

[Interviewer]

What if he was to leave Trump's party and just go on his own?

[Mason]

I mean, that would split up the right wing vote. So, sure, I'm in favor of that, but I don't think he'll be successful. I think Tucker absolutely could run in a Republican primary and I think he'd be president, but I don't. I think that Tucker's too smart to want to go into politics. He's in a very comfy position right now where he can criticize from the side, he can live in his luxury mansion and, you know, he doesn't have to take on that political responsibility. Donald Trump did that. And a lot of people are like, wow, Donald Trump, he took such a worse life because he could have been this billionaire, but now he's like this politician who's scrutinized constantly and criticizing the media. Trump did it because he wants his name out there. He cares about this narcissist ego. He cares about making sure that he builds a legacy. He doesn't really give a shit what the costs are. And I don't think that Tucker's there. I don't think Tucker cares more about what his political legacy could be, as opposed to just being a critic and a commentator who's also able to be on the complete outside and not like, you know, targeted constantly.

[Interviewer]

Definitely. We'll check them out, guys. We'll link your stuff below. Thanks, man. Appreciate it. Thanks for watching all the way to the end, guys. It means a lot. Please click here if you want to watch the next episode and please subscribe to the show. It helps us get more guests and helps grow the brand.