How To Retake The Country From The Radical Left

Summary

Federalist Radio Hour – “How To Retake The Country From The Radical Left”
Host: Matt Kittle
Guest: John Tillman (Political Strategist, Policy Leader, Author of Political Vice: How the Radical Left Controls America and the Path to Regaining Our Liberty)
Date: March 10, 2026

Episode Overview

This episode features a wide-ranging conversation between host Matt Kittle and guest John Tillman, focusing on the influence and strategies of the “radical left” in American politics and culture, and the roadmap for conservatives to reclaim influence. Drawing heavily from Tillman’s new book, their dialogue explores how the left maintains power through media, activism, lawfare, and a coalition based on grievances and identity politics. The latter half of the episode pivots to hope, strategy, and what conservatives can do going forward.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

1. How the Radical Left Wins Even When Losing

• Building Pressure and Power ([02:18])
  • Tillman argues that the left’s dominance is built on orchestrated pressure through media, grassroots mobilization, and “elite influencers.”
  • “Power comes from media capacity… activating dormant or latent voters… and building elite influencers.” (Tillman, [02:18])
• Orchestrated Activism
  • Protests and so-called civil unrest are “orchestrated by nonprofits and political organizations” to craft narratives and apply pressure.
• Transformation of States
  • States like Illinois, New York, and California (now blue) once voted Republican, while states like Florida or Ohio shifted red—evidence, in Tillman’s view, of the effects of capacity-building and narrative control.

2. Lawfare as a Political Weapon

• Use Against Trump and Others ([03:51])
  • Lawfare—using the legal system against political enemies—has become central to leftist strategy, especially post-2016.
  • High-profile prosecutions (Trump, January 6 participants, Roger Stone) are combined with media coverage to shape public opinion.
  • “They are running campaigns… to persuade the American voter… that the subject of the law fair is guilty and unworthy of continued support.” (Tillman, [04:33])
• Trump’s Unique Response
  • Trump’s direct communication techniques (bypassing media) are cited as a reason these strategies have met resistance.

3. Identity Politics and the ‘Grievance Coalition’

• Shift from Affirmative to Grievance-Based Campaigns ([07:02])
  • Tillman describes a shift from persuasion campaigns to turnout and anger-based mobilization.
  • Key Democratic constituencies have expanded to include more finely segmented groups (single women, youth, minorities, LGBTQ, Asians, suburban moms).
  • These groups are united through “ever more slices of the grievance coalition.”
  • “All these protests… they need to gin up anger to maximize turnout of these different groups.” (Tillman, [09:40])

4. Role of the Media in Power Dynamics

• Media’s Control Over Narratives ([12:01])
  • A historical overview (1927–1997) of American mass media’s power to create national consensus and enforce elite viewpoints.
  • The decline of monolithic media due to cable and the Internet allows for narrative fragmentation and new opportunities for alternative voices.
  • “If you and I were in charge, Matt, of all the media... do you think that 10 years from now the culture would be different? …People of the left control those levers.” (Tillman, [13:52])

5. Big Tech, Censorship, and the Twitter Files

• State–Tech Collusion ([16:24])
  • The Biden administration’s pressure on social media companies to censor conservative content is discussed, with the “Twitter Files” seen as a pivotal exposure moment.
  • Elon Musk’s purchase of Twitter (now X) is credited for opening speech and undermining legacy media “gatekeepers.”
  • “They would still be getting away with it today… X is the rock into the middle of the pond.” (Tillman, [17:18])

6. Conservative Challenges with Media Reliance

• Messaging Failures and Direct Channels ([19:32])
  • Republicans often fail to use legacy media strategically and lack alternative communication infrastructures.
  • Trump’s pioneering use of direct outreach (email, text, Truth Social) is cited as a model.
  • “You need a two pronged strategy… use legacy media with your eyes wide open… [and] develop your own independent proprietary channels.” (Tillman, [19:32])

7. Disconnect Between Voter Sentiment and Coverage

• Immigration Example ([22:12])
  • Voter preferences for stricter immigration enforcement are contrasted with media portrayals, attributed to activist journalism.
  • The concept of “suicidal empathy” (Gaad Saad) is introduced: prioritizing empathy for criminal or destructive actors over citizen victims.
  • “They need these illegal aliens to be here and to vote… illegal immigrants are an instrumental part of it.” (Tillman, [22:12])

8. Virtue Signaling, Radical Empathy & Social Consequences

• Case Study: Des Moines School Board ([24:50], [27:51])

  • The hiring of an unvetted illegal immigrant, lauded for checking virtue boxes, backfired after his violent criminal background was exposed—a result of “radical empathy.”
  • White suburban Americans, driven by curated narratives, feel pressured to demonstrate virtue by supporting extreme or dangerous social policies.
  • “To be a virtuous person, you need to hire an unqualified... person to demonstrate... you are worthy of respect and admiration because you are so empathetic.” (Tillman, [27:51])

• Cultural Shift on Gender Issues ([27:51])

  • Genital mutilation in Africa was opposed by left and right, but similar procedures in the guise of “gender-affirming care” for children are now supported on the left.
  • “This of course is insanity… people who raised their hand... were shouted down by that corporate media and the political left.” (Tillman, [27:51])

9. Education as a Battleground

• Schools and the Spread of Leftist Ideas ([32:00])
  • Tillman sees education as “core” to the left’s long-term strategy and an indoctrination ground.
  • Marxist class warfare has been replaced by identity and grievance politics; “help” and “equity” arguments are compelling to the victimized.
  • "We have to acknowledge that the other side has an appeal and talk about why it's not a good choice for you." (Tillman, [32:00])

10. Conservative Strategy and Hope for the Future

• What Needs to Be Done? ([41:31])
  • Grand strategy is required, modeled on Reagan’s victory in the Cold War: regaining the “commanding heights” of culture, not just electoral wins.
  • Building alternative media, investing in communication for different constituencies (students, parents, media consumers), and speaker variety is vital.
  • “The battle is at the headwaters… ideas and views and people's belief systems are being formed way earlier than election cycles.” (Tillman, [41:31])

Three-Part Conservative Action Plan:

• Invest in Cultural Capacity: Build right-leaning media, entertainment, and educational infrastructure.

• Make Moral Arguments: Seize the “moral high ground” with bold positions.

• Engage at the Headwaters: Focus on long-term formation of beliefs, not last-minute election messaging.

• Need for Sustained Engagement ([37:52])

  • Tillman warns against complacency after electoral wins: “We haven't even landed on the beaches of Normandy... the odds are still against us.”
  • “American greatness is not a birthright… every generation must earn it.” (Tillman, [38:25])

• Aspirations of the Left vs. the Reality ([36:24])

  • Attempts at “aspirational” campaigns by Democrats often fall flat, with American voters seeing through perceived nihilism/destruction.

11. Final Thoughts: The Nature of the Battle

• Optimism and Caution ([47:05])
  • It’s ultimately a contest between “persuasion and consent” (Western values) and “coercion and submission” (the radical left).
  • “If we build the right capacities, make the right arguments… persuasion, consent will prevail. And that's why I'm optimistic.” (Tillman, [47:05])
  • Host Kittle sums it up as “a battle between the saints and the insane… between rationality and irrationality.”

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Notable Quotes & Memorable Moments

• On Media Power:
  "If you and I were in charge, Matt, of all the media... do you think that 10 years from now the culture would be different? I think the answer is obviously yes." (Tillman, [13:52])

• On Lawfare:
  "Lawfare really engages every aspect of the political vice... [the left’s] friends in the corporate legacy media run the stories as those cases are brought." (Tillman, [04:33])

• On Identity Politics:
  "They're trying to create ever more slices of the grievance coalition based upon your identity, because economic differences no longer mattered as white voters broadly moved to the right." (Tillman, [09:40])

• On Messaging:
  "You need a two pronged strategy… use legacy media with your eyes wide open… [and] develop your own independent proprietary channels." (Tillman, [19:32])

• On Cultural Shifts:
  "It was not that long ago... the left and the right were unified in opposing... genital mutilation… And then just a few years later, you had the political left supporting the genital mutilation of children in America under the guise of gender affirming care." (Tillman, [27:51])

• On Hope and the Way Forward:
  "The battle is at the headwaters… ideas and views and people's belief systems are being formed way earlier than election cycles." (Tillman, [41:31])
  "We are nowhere near winning and we have to fight even harder." (Tillman, [40:18])
  "If we build the right capacities, make the right arguments… persuasion, consent will prevail. And that's why I'm optimistic." (Tillman, [47:05])

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Important Timestamps

• [02:18] — Tillman introduces the concept of political pressure and the “political vice.”
• [04:33] — Lawfare and manipulation through media/legal strategies.
• [07:02] — Expansion of the “grievance coalition” via identity politics.
• [12:01] — Overview of 20th-century and modern media control.
• [16:24] — Discussion of the Twitter Files and the impact of Elon Musk’s X.
• [19:32] — The need for a two-pronged conservative media strategy.
• [22:12] — Media disconnect on immigration, introduction of “suicidal empathy.”
• [27:51] — The societal need for radical empathy and virtue signaling.
• [32:00] — The role of education and indoctrination in leftist strategy.
• [37:52] — Warning against conservative complacency.
• [41:31] — Grand strategy: conservatives must invest in culture and ideas.
• [47:05] — Final words on optimism: persuasion vs. coercion.

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Tone and Style

• Candid, confrontational, and ideologically charged; Kittle and Tillman speak forcefully against left-wing strategies, often in urgent or dramatic terms (e.g., “saints vs. insane,” “existential fight”).
• Historically informed and strategic: Tillman draws from history and political science, as well as polling/data.
• Emphasis on action and hope: While focused on perceived threats, both speakers lay out concrete hope and pragmatic solutions.

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Summary for the Uninitiated

This episode offers a comprehensive critique of perceived leftist strategies in American governance and culture, especially media and academia. John Tillman argues that the left dominates by building a “grievance coalition,” mastering media, exploiting the legal system, and reshaping cultural and educational institutions. He urges conservatives to fight back with grand strategy: investing in alternative institutions, mastering direct communication, making bold moral arguments, and engaging continually, not just during elections. Despite current challenges, the hosts stress hope and see evidence that a cultural shift is possible if these strategies are pursued relentlessly.

Transcript

[A]

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[B]

And we are back with another edition of the Federalist Radio Hour. I'm Matt Kittle, senior elections correspondent at the Federalist and your experience Sherpa on today's quest for knowledge. As always, you can email the show at radio@the federalist.com follow us on x@fdrlst. Make sure to subscribe wherever you download your podcast and of course to the premium version of our website as well. Our guest today is political strategist and policy leader John Tillman, author of the new book Political Vice, how the Radical Left Controls America, the and the Path to Regaining Our Liberty. John, thank you so much for joining us in this edition of the Federalist Radio Hour.

[C]

Great to be with you, Matt. Thanks for having me on.

[B]

Absolutely. You have seen a lot of the left in Illinois, where you have covered politics and policy for a long time. And I think the left is the the dominant feature. The radical left is the dominant feature in Illinois under Governor J.B. pritzker. Give us a little sense of how all of this domination from the left started, because you ask a very interesting question. How does the radical left keep winning even when it's losing?

[C]

The radical left understands that politics is about pressure. And in order to apply pressure to politicians and the political system, you have to gain power. And where does power come from? Power comes from media capacity. Power comes from being able to activate normally dormant or latent voters into taking action. And there's two kinds of that. There's orchestrated, and we're seeing a lot of that on the political left now. All the riots and protests that you see in the streets, these are all orchestrated by nonprofits and political organizations that are fomenting the discord to try to create a narrative and apply pressure to the political system and politicians in it. And then elite influencers are the third part. And elite influencers are the most important part in the traditional political vice because they apply direct pressure to political actors and they also apply and manipulate the media and the public. And so the reason that Illinois is The way it is, or California or New York is part of it, is just the belief systems that exist there. But don't forget that both those states, all three of those states at one time voted reliably Republic Republican. So what makes it change? And also don't forget that Florida, Missouri, Ohio, Indiana, these are all one time blue and or purple states have now become reliably red. So the question is, what happens in each of these cases to change it and what I believe my theory of the political vice is that there's a specific kind of capacity you have to build in the media, in grassroots and people engagement, if you will, and building elite influencers in order to apply pressure and thus have power in the political system.

[B]

Lawfare plays a significant role in all of this. And the left has made Lawfare one of their leading vices. We saw all of that, of course, employed after President Trump got out of office. They did everything they could to stop him from being a candidate from president again, of everything from impeachments to indictments to prosecutions on bogus charges in very deep blue jurisdictions. How much does lawfare play into the left strategy?

[C]

It's a huge part of it, and it's a part that has really emerged over the last 10 years with the emergence of Donald Trump. And so lawfare really engages every aspect of the political vice it's brought. The lawsuits are brought by elite influencers, often attorneys general, prosecutors in these Democrat localities where they have control of the system. And then they run media campaigns and have their friends in the corporate legacy media run the stories as those cases are brought. And those stories and the contextualization of those stories, of course, have a negative slant in terms of their treatment of the subject of the law firm in the case. You're talking about Donald Trump, but not just Donald Trump. All the J6ers that were prosecuted viciously. Roger Stone, I mean, pick anybody you want who's been prosecuted by the lawfare strategy of the left. And then, of course, simultaneously, they're running campaigns to try to persuade the American voter, American citizens, that the subject of the law fair is guilty and unworthy of continued support. And in that case, they were trying to essentially preempt Trump not only legally from being able to run, but they wanted to destroy his brand loyalty among voters. I think it failed in spectacular fashion because of the unique nature of Trump. And also Trump is one of the, perhaps the very best politician in the history of the world to build his own direct marketing channels to voters and really bypass corporate media's ability to control the narrative.

[B]

Yeah, absolutely. And you think about what's happened over the better part of the last 10 years, and it's breathtaking, to say the very least. How do? I guess the question is, as we've seen, the disorder in the streets with the protest against ice, again, as you mentioned, all performative. And isn't it curious that you see all of this stuff happening in a midterm election year, just as we saw in 2020 with the black Lives Matter movement? But the left does so many things that are truly appalling to much of America, a majority of America. How do, how are they able to continue to do these sorts of things and have electoral success?

[C]

Well, they do it for a number of reasons. First of all, let's go back a little bit, because what's happening over the last 20 plus years is not the way it used to be. It used to be that you ran affirmative campaigns, tried to persuade the persuadable middle voters and win a majority. And you had your base coalition, the Democrats had working class union households, rural households, southern whites primarily, who were, who were all Democrats back in the day. And then you had suburban and affluent, the country club Republicans, if you will, and then independents and everybody in between. And it was a persuasion game. What started to happen, and I'll use it started before this, I'd say it started really in the 2000 election, but we really came to be able to see it in the 2012 election when Obama was reelected. The hidden story during that period of time is that people always talked about how Republicans have a gender gap problem and they don't do well with minority voters, all of which was true. But the other side of that coin was over time, the Democrat Party had a white voter problem. So in 2012, Barack Obama beat Mitt Romney, as you may recall. And he got, Obama got 60% of the 18 to 29 year old vote. He got 67% of single women, he got 71% of Hispanic voters, and he got 93% of black voters. So huge super majorities across the spectrum. And those were crucial to him winning because he only got about 39% of white voters. And if you took out white millennials and white single women, he was probably down around 32, 33% of white voters. And that really brought to the fore the problem was the Democrat Party had a problem with white voters because their policies were creating division and alienating people. And so group identity politics as an electoral strategy really went full force from that point on. And that is why all the protests that you see all the writing, you see dei, esg, these are all designed gender transitioning. You know, I think there's a consensus in America about gay marriage. But some of the other things going on in the more crazy stuff, you know, transvestites dancing for children in elementary schools, all these crazy things, people saying, wow, what the heck happened? I thought we just wanted to have gay marriage be legal and everybody can move along. How's all this is happening? It's because they're trying to create ever more slices of the grievance coalition based upon your identity, because economic differences no longer mattered as white voters broadly moved to the right. And so all these things that you see going on that don't make any sense are part of the left's strategy to knit together a grievance coalition. And so all the other things that you just asked about in terms of why do they do these protests and all these things that they're fomenting in the public, in the media, and through politics, is because they need to gin up anger to maximize turnout of these different groups and get those super majorities. So we've gone from those big four I mentioned in 2012, single women, Hispanics, African Americans, and 18 to 29 year olds, then called Millennials. Those groups now have been supplemented by the LGBTQ coalition, Asians, suburban moms who have empathy for children, who may be having mental health problems, and they decided that gender transitioning is the solution. And on and on. And of course, on top of all that, Trump derangement syndrome helps feed it all.

[B]

Yeah, indeed. And a lot of that going on in America today. No, I thought, as I look back at 2012, I thought Mitt Romney lost because he put his dog on the top of his car as he was on a family vacation and he had binders of women. I say all of this, John, of course, by way of noting the corporate accomplice media. You cannot do what the left has done in this country. All of the crazy stuff that you just laid out, without a complicit media, and I do mean a complicit media. You take a look at the numbers of, you know, the, the negative coverage on Donald Trump at 92%. You have late night talk shows, although, you know, fewer and fewer people are actually tuning into these. But, but they are just, you know, talking points for the, the Democrat party in this country. How much has the media played in all of this over the, the last, you know, 15 years or so? And that said is their hold on the, the control of the message Loosening with the, you know, with the. The changing of media in America.

[C]

Yeah, this is a great question. I think it's instrumental for your listeners to understand what is going on in the country. And it's a fairly big topic. And I'll try to dial it down a little bit. And I write about this in the book. The 20th century was an anomaly in human history. It was the first time in human history where you had mass communication. So it really started about 1927 I use as the beginning of this period and then really started to end in 1997. That's when you had the first. 27 is when you had the first national rad broadcasts eventually got all consolidated with television after the war. By the time you got into the 60s, 70s and on through the rest of the century, you had three broadcast networks, their associated radio networks, two news weeklies and about a dozen daily newspapers with the New York Times and Washington Post being the two most important who really controlled the content and news that the American people got. And they controlled distribution. So if you were General Motors or Ford or whoever you were, Procter and Gamble, you could reach 97% of the American audience with a singular message about your soap or your automobile by buying those three networks, those news weeklies and those daily newspapers. And it was an amazing thing. It created a shared experience from the assassination of Kennedy and the other things that went on in the 60s, to the riots in the 60s and 70s, to the challenger crisis, to football and baseball. We had national shared experiences because we're all watching basically three or four channels and consuming a monolithic news feed. And so in some ways it was good, but the bad part of it was, is that the content was and distribution were controlled by about 50 people. And they all had a similar worldview. Man. I make the argument that the Civil rights movement succeeded and the Civil Rights act passed in the 1960s because the elites controlling the media finally decided it was time. All the predicates to have had that happen in the 50s were present in the 50s.

[B]

They all.

[C]

If you go back and look at what was going on in the 50s, the Civil Rights act could have passed in the 50s when Eisenhower was president. But the elite media didn't flip the script in the 50s. If you look at the news coverage, they were still somewhat sympathetic to the state's rights. And what was going on in the Democrat controlled south by the 60s that completely flipped. And that's why it happened then. And that's how important the control of narrative in corporate media is. So now you roll to the 21st century and all that started to fragment because of full maturation of cable penetration and the Internet. So you roll forward and we look at what just has happened over the last 10 years. Everybody wonders why did we get into the censorship complex? The reason that all happened is because those corporate media legacy players wanted to put the genie back in the bottle and they wanted to continue to control both content and distribution. And they still have a large degree of control over narrative. But the beauty of it is because of the Federalist and everybody else on the center right media landscape, tape is they can't control. And thank God that Elon Musk bought what is now the X platform. All of these things continue to erode their ability to control the narrative. The the My final comment on this subject for now is that if you and I were in charge, Matt, of all the media in the United States, do you think that 10 years from now the culture would be different? I think the answer is obviously yes. And people of the left control those levers. Obviously that has an effect on what people believe because of what they consume and how they learn

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[B]

And they worked alongside the government as we know. Certainly the Biden administration was a perfect example. It's happened before, of course, but the Biden administration and Covid really brought this to the front. And as you noted, thankfully Elon Musk did purchase Twitter, which is now X. And we were able to get those Twitter files part of a a massive collusion effort between The Biden administration and the major social media networks to suppress the, the conservative right point of view. You, you studied this. How, how impactful was that? And you know, to put it in Scooby Doo terms, would they have gotten away with it if it hadn't been for that meddling musk?

[C]

They would still be getting away with it today. We'd be in a very different world. Because what happens now with X being an open platform where free speech still reigns, is they cannot. And even though, you know, the number of people on X on any given day is not that large, but it has a ripple effect. X is the rock into the middle of the pond and those ripples affect the entire population and all of the narratives. But I'm still stunned by how many people who are not on X and are just consuming the legacy media really believe things that are untrue. You know, that just. I have, I live in an affluent suburban community. My, one of my. I have a home in Naples and in Chicago. I'm now a Florida resident. But I have to say that for the IRS and the state of Illinois tax auditors, but my home up in Chicago rivaled for many years. You know, it's a fairly affluent, largely Republican, moderate Republican community. Most of my neighbors think ICE is horrible. Most of my neighbors think Donald Trump is a terrible person and that his presidency hasn't had any successes because they consumed the Washington Post, the New York Times and cnn, among others. And so we still have a long way to go to get and penetrate with those voters who are gettable, but they just are being indoctrinated and propagandized by the corporate media.

[B]

It is very frustrating. And one of the most frustrating points that I have seen play over and over again, and my longer than I want to acknowledge career in journalism, is that you have a lot of Republicans who have been beaten and bruised and battered over and over again by the same corporate media, by this complicit monolith media all pumping out the same message, anti conservative, anti Republican, obviously anti Trump. And yet they keep going back to these sources because they, I think it's like the, you know, the, the abused spouse or, you know, in, in that vein, they just. That they say they can change them. They think they can change these people. That is not the case.

[C]

It is absolutely not the case. I am not opposed. I have, my philosophy on media, especially for activists, advocates, politicians, campaigns, is that you need a two pronged strategy. And I think Donald Trump has been the greatest example of this. And that is the first strategy is use the legacy media, what I call third party channels. Use them with your eyes wide open, but use them in a way that fits into your strategy. And you have to have a strategy. What is your strategy? I think too often the people you're talking about don't have a strategy. They just think tactically or ad hoc, and somebody comes to them and says, says, do you want to come on cnn or do you want to be interviewed by the New York Times? Well, you should see. Okay, well, how should I do that? How does that fit my strategy? What's my goal? Okay, tactically, how am I going to approach it? If you actually do it that way, half the time you'll turn those down because they don't fit. Other times you'll do it because it does fit. And Trump, he hasn't been perfect, but he's been really good at that. But the second strategy is to develop your own independent proprietary channels to reach your target audience. Trump has done this brilliantly by developing a massive list so you can text direct, developing a massive list so he can email directly, can phone directly. And then, of course, he's now built his platforms with true social and so forth. And all of that shows that what we have to do as believers in liberty and classical liberals who, who want to see the country return to an American consensus of our nobility as a nation, that our free enterprise system is noble, that entrepreneurs are noble, capitalism is noble. How do we create, once again, an American consensus on that? We have to build alternative channels, not just to the right, but to the middle and the guttable soft left, and reach them and then persuade.

[B]

I think that is so critical because as you mentioned before, there's so many issues, myriad issues, ICE and budget, cutting waste out of government and fraud. Trump campaigned on these kinds of things and he was very successful. Americans wanted, and they still support the removal certainly of violent, criminal, illegal immigrants specifically. But in the main, they support the deportation policies going on right now that Trump promised he would deliver. Why is there such a disconnect, though, between what the voters said and say they want and how they are polled in the corporate media?

[C]

I think the disc. Well, there's. There's no disconnect among the voters. The voters have reliably wanted those policies you just articulated. There is a total disconnect between how the media portrays these actions in keeping with the public's interest. And the reason for that is that the corporate media are. They are not objective observers, as you well know and most your listeners know. They are political activists, masquerading as journalists. And they understand the point I made earlier, which is for the Democrats to continue to win and compete in elections, they need these illegal aliens to be here and to vote. And the, you know, it's a myth that, first of all, that they don't vote. They do vote in significant numbers and eventually they'll all vote if they're here long enough, as we've seen. And so that grievance coalition that I talked about earlier, these voters aren't. These illegal immigrants are an instrumental part of it. So that's part of why they're reporting and handling it the way they way they do. The second reason is because of what I don't know if I'm pronouncing his name correctly, but he's brilliant on the X platform. God. Sad. Gaad S A D. You probably know.

[B]

I know who you're talking about, but pronunciation is a problem for yours truly.

[C]

Yeah, well, anyway, most of your listeners probably know who he is anyway. A brilliant thinker. And he, he has developed this term. I don't know if he invented it or not, but certainly popularized it about suicidal empathy. You know, it's interesting to me that the left has chosen to be extremely empathetic to criminals who come into this country, some of them violent, over American citizens who've been victimized by those violent criminals. It's very bizarre. And the only explanation of it is they think political power comes through this policy. And that is an absolute appalling commentary on where the political left has gone. And I think this is one of the, you know, there's that, that cartoon you've probably seen about the moderate conservative who's standing still, but the left or even moderate liberal who's standing still. And suddenly they look like the right wing because the left has moved so far to the left and become so extreme.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

And whereas people on the right have generally not changed their views and you know, Elon Musk and many others. Bill Maher. Bill Maher is still a liberal, but when it comes to to speech, he is hardcore a free speecher. And to some that makes him conservative, which of course he is not. But thankfully he's a pro free speech guy. And that's good for the country that you have people on the left. There are others, Glenn Greenwald, who are for free speech even though they're of the left. But there's a doctrinaire thinking now on the left that you really can't be for free speech anymore. It's wild.

[B]

It is interesting to see folks like Bill Maher looking at, at the modern left today and let's face it, he has been liberal and has made no bones about that. That's where his, you know, political philosophy is. But he's looking at the craziness, the insanity on the left and calling it out because you get to a certain point and the, as you said, the, the left, the radical left in this country keeps pushing the, the, the liberals forward in this in insane agenda. Our guest today is political strategist and policy leader John Tillman, author of the new book Political how the Radical Left Controls America and the Path to Regaining Our Liberty. We're going to talk about that path in just a moment. But you had mentioned before about the suicidal empathy. It does remind me of a situation playing out in, in Des Moines, Iowa that drew national headlines and that was the hiring by the, the very progressive Des Moines school board of an illegal immigrant who turns out had a, a very violent criminal background. This was the guy who was hired because he was black, because he checked off the boxes of the liberals on this board. So you have this sort of stuff going on in communities across this country where they are trying to virtue signal and do all of the things that the social justice so called left wants to do. And then they find out this guy has been apprehended by ICE because indeed he is an illegal immigrant. And we find out his, his record and you have people in, in on that board saying what this guy sold them. It was the concept they called radical empathy. And that kind of stuff has gotten this country in a lot of trouble. You know, a lot of people in Des Moines woke up to the fact hey, we got duped here. But why are we, why are we at this point?

[A]

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[C]

the controllers of our narrative, the ones who currently have and have long had the commanding heights of the American cultural narrative, create the among whites in particular and especially suburban whites, this idea that to be a virtuous person you need to hire an unqualified or perhaps in this case dangerous person to demonstrate to the world that you are worthy of respect and admiration because you are so empathetic. It's a very, very strange idea, but I think it's what's going on and I can see it because I remember when I'm still in shock about this. This is a really weird topic, but I think it's important because it goes to the core of how the left controls narrat, how they curtail critical thinking and speaking out against this insanity. It was not that long ago, Matt, that I'm sure remember, that the left and the right were unified in opposing, I believe it was in Africa, the genital mutilation of young women. It was a ritual that was going on then and everybody was protesting and trying to bring attention to it. And then just a few years later, you had the political left supporting the genital mutilation of children in America under the guise of gender affirming care. One of the most bizarre transitions I've ever heard. And when that happened, I remember thinking that you're transitioning children and they're being given. We want to listen to the children and hear them out. When we can't even have somebody who's younger than 11 years old legally babysit in this country, but we're going to have the 8 year old choose their gender. This of course is insanity. But people who raised their hand and said this is insanity were shouted down by that corporate media and the political left. And I remember the first time, I certainly wasn't early, I would, I was earlier than most, but I was not one of the first. But I remember the first time on a radio interview when I decided to use the term gender mutilate, genital mutilation of children as part of gender affirming care and speak out against it. I was terrified, Matt, because the power of the woke mindset and the power to cancel was very, very real. And thank God enough people have spoken out against that, have spoken out against men and women's sports courts that I do think the tide is turning. But all of it is rooted in this radical or extreme suicidal empathy that we're talking about as a way for white people in particular to demonstrate virtue. It's sick and wrong.

[B]

I think the line that drove home all of that to Americans even more so Americans have, you know, really. But many, many Americans have really rebelled, if you will, against this, this insanity. At the State of the Union address, the president says we are going to make sure that kids are not mutilated through these so called gender affirming surgeries and chemical castrations and whatever. And he called upon Congress, all of Congress to stand up in support of that. And the left side of the aisle could not bring themselves to do that. And he, he called it like he saw it, and I think like the majority of Americans definitely see it. He said these people are crazy. And he's right. Yet they keep doubling down and doubling down on this. And one of the areas that I'm very interested in and how this happened to be is the Marxist leftist movement for so many different areas in our public schools, on our college campuses. This has been going on for many, many years. It's been a training ground, an indoctrination camp. How much is this movement, this leftist, radical, leftist movement, counting on that to continue moving forward?

[C]

I think it's core and it goes back to what we, what we've been talking about is the reason all this is happening, the reason you have a grievance coalition based upon identity and identity politics, resentment, etc, is because class warfare, the Marxist original theory of Marxism was class warfare. That the working class, class and poor, would rise up against the oligarchs, as Bernie Sanders is fond of saying, and take power and have a, have a government of the people. And the reason that failed Marxism, failed with that construct is because working class and poor people thrived in a capitalist society and rose to become the bourgeoisie. Where I grew up in rural Michigan, the auto workers from down in Detroit, they all union members, you know, they largely all had homes, summer homes, lake homes up in our neck of the woods with. And some of them skied, some of them had snowmobiles, they went fishing, they were living a great life. So the grievance didn't work very well with them. So group identity politics as a replacement for class warfare, and part of that is this suicidal empathy is what brings you into that coalition. You know, part of it is, you know, it's really very brilliant what they have done because. Because we on the right really at our own peril, don't understand the appeal of their arguments. And their appeal is quite compelling. And their appeal is this. First of all, there's two sides in this context to the human condition. The one side is that we all at some point face a calamity in our lives or many calamities in our lives, and something doesn't go right. We didn't get the job we wanted, we got fired from the job. Our daughter didn't get into the school we'd hoped she'd get into. The girl that I wanted to marry, married Decided I wasn't worthy. On and on we had these calamities. And the construct in America had long been that when you have. When you fall down, you get up, you dust yourself off, and you go back at it. And that had been our construct. What the Marxists are doing and what the political left is doing is saying, no, no, no, you've been knocked down, and the way we will help you get up. But in order to help you and to create equity and fairness in your life and to write this terrible wrong that these rapacious capitalists and exploiters of you and your identity have done, you must vote for us and give the government power. And then we will put our foot on the scale and create equity and fairness for you and create opportunity for you that is very compelling when you're victimized and you feel like something hasn't gone right for you, which happens to all people. The other side of the coin that we have to appeal to is that the other side of the natural human condition is that we aspire, we hope, we dream, we want to have a better tomorrow than we have today. We like achievement in feeling of achievement, and in particular, we love collaboration. We're a gathering species. We like to work with other people to create great things. And that is our appeal. And the problem is that we don't understand that that is part of what we have to sell and always be selling. That there will be setbacks and challenges as you go down this journey of pursuing the American dream. And it's the journey itself that is more important than the destination as you try to build and collaborate and build your family in your community. And we have to acknowledge that the other side has an appeal and talk about why it's not a good choice for you. Because basically, once you choose the left's idea, you've conceded you created an artificial ceiling on your upside potential. There's a reason Europe is continuing to fall behind, because they have gone all in on this. And there's, you know, Mississippi is more wealthy, as has now been well known, than all of Europe. How can that happen? It happens because they have chosen the state as their benefactor. And when the moment you do that, you limit your upside potential and you limit your aspiration.

[B]

Yes, but remember, John, aspirations were. I mean, that was what the message of a Kamala Harris Vibes campaign is all about. If you recall, in 2024, she kept trying to sell would be voters on her aspirations of aspirational thought. I mean, it was, you know, I guess I'm, I'm, you know, talking about this tongue in cheek. But I mean that's what the message they were trying to communicate. Unfortunately I think a majority of them for at least, unfortunately for the Democrats, a majority of Americans were getting a full understanding that the Democrat parties aspirations were aspirations to nihilism, destruction.

[C]

Yeah.

[B]

And so you know, so here we are now at 2026 and in, in 2020 were, in November of 2024, there were a lot of people writing the obituary of the Democratic Party in this country. And we have seen this happen many times before. The Democrats and to the Republicans it was a bit premature. But all of that said, you have, you know, this battle really for the soul of America and for the soul of just basic morality going on. Will people on the right, or let me put it this way, will rational human beings of all kinds continue to engage in, in this fight?

[A]

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[C]

Oh, I think there's going to be a lot. Yes, I do believe there will be a lot of engagement. I have been, you're touching on a subject that I'm so glad you're very brought up because I have been stunned by how many people that are running organizations, practitioners on the right, running nonprofits or political organizations, advocacy organizations, as well as the donor class. Kind of like dust off their hands if you can hear me doing that and say, oh my God. You know, we have majorities in both the House and the Senate and Trump is one. We're in the driver's seat. It's all good now. We don't have to fight anymore.

[B]

Yeah.

[C]

Is insanity. We are, we, we haven't even landed on the beaches of Normand. We, you know, where we're at right now is we're steaming toward Midway and we still don't know if we're going to prevail and the odds are still against us. It really is frightening to me how many people on the right don't understand just how existential this fight is. You know, one of the things I talk about a lot is that American greatness is not a birthright. You know, every generation must earn it. And by fighting for these principles we're talking about, about and the fact that, you know, European greatness of post World War II is not a birthright. And we're watching them commit national suicide right before our eyes. And so we must reject that. We must have pride in the Western canon. We must have pride in the American unique application of the Western canon. We must understand that we're noble and fight for and we must make moral arguments. And what moral. When you make a moral argument, what that means is sometimes I'm not going to have empathy for you or I might have empathy, but I am going to reject your position, though I feel empathetic towards you, because you are wrong. It is wrong to side with the criminals who come here illegally. It is wrong to allow too much immigration from people who have a faith that wants to destroy the west and destroy the United States. And of course I'm talking about Islam. The fact that the vast majority of Muslims are peaceful is irrelevant when you have somewhere north of 200 million who want to destroy the West. So you have to manage all of this with a pride in the west and Western thinking. The judo Christian ethic which I had trouble getting out. So we, we are nowhere near winning and we have to fight even harder.

[B]

You mentioned before at the outset of this conversation that there certainly is a lot of hope. And you lay that out in this book. I mean, take a look at Florida. How long had Florida been not just a. A blue state, but a deep blue state? Republicans have absolutely turned that around and it is, has become a reliable red state. I will note that having come from Wisconsin, I can tell you that that was a long time a blue state, certainly a union and government union state. Scott Walker came in and changed that dynamic along with the Republican Revolution in 2010. And it was swing state certainly, but definitely red leaning red and now it is leaning back black blue. So all of these things are subject to change. What is the secret sauce for the right in as you mentioned, not just, not just getting elected, but saving this republic.

[C]

There are several factors. I've looked at it deeply, as you note, I write about it in the book as to why do some places go red that had once been blue and vice versa? And how does that apply to the country? Country. And the key is. Let me just kind of go back for a second to discuss a larger point, which is what the term grand strategy and the Cold War ended because Ronald Reagan along with Margaret Thatcher and the help of the Pope. But Reagan in particular implemented a grand strategy to defeat Soviet communism. And grand strategy. The word strategy simply means to create a plan. Grand strategy is an overarching plan that governs governance. Everything you're trying to do to accomplish a very big goal. So what we're trying to do is restore faith and belief in American nobility, the American way, and all the things that we're talking about here. And in order to do that, you have to control the commanding heights of culture. When I first got involved in this world after selling a business in 2004, I asked two very sophisticated players, names that your listeners might know. Why is it that we've given up on fighting and culture? And I was told that it's all politics as a now an all inside game. We can get done what we want, what we want by playing on the inside. The left controls too much, it's too big. It's a giant elephant. We can't do it. The beauty of the 21st century is we can bite off hunks of culture. The Federalist is biting off a hunk of culture. The right of center media is biting off a hunk of culture. The Harmon Brothers and Angel Studios is biting off a hunk of culture. What we have to do is continue to build capacity. And our donor and investor class has to invest in building capacity to compete for those commanding heights. So we have to compete for mindshare, in podcasting, in news, in film and entertainment, in the high schools, in corporate communications, and build capacity one step at a time. Don't try to bite the whole thing off. And if you look at where we are in media today, conservative media today, versus where it was when I got involved 22 years years ago, it's night and day. We are so much better off. And that is why we're actually on the rise. And that is why we're winning despite the left dominance of culture. And when you look at the way we're winning back mindshare on all these issues, we've been talking about gender affirming care with children, which is one of the worst phrases I've ever heard in my life. It's a children destroying care. We are winning these arguments. And part of the reason so that part one is investing in these capacities, part two is making moral arguments and taking the moral high ground. You talked about President Trump during the State of the Union asking people to stand. He also did that with respect to immigration. Do you stand protecting American citizens as the primary purpose of the federal government? And they refuse to stand for that. He is making moral arguments that Cast the decision, the issue in stark terms. That is what we have to do. We have to be absolutely fearless in making moral arguments. And the third thing we have to do is understand where the battle really is, is we tend to think the battle is in the election season. And of course, there is a battle during the election season, but the real battle is at the headwaters of the river. And what do I mean by that? Andrew Breitbart was very famous for having popularized the term that politics is downstream of culture. That's true. That's why one of my organizations is called the American Culture Project and one of my others is called the Commanding Heights, because it's about gaining the commanding heights of American culture. And so these battles are actually at the headwaters of the river. And yes, politics is downstream, but ideas and views and people's belief systems are being formed way earlier than election cycles. They're being formed in the years, months and years prior to a given election. And that is why. So when Donald Trump won in 2016, it was years of disaffection that preceded him that allowed him to win.

[B]

Win, yes.

[C]

And what we have to do is. And what we have to convince our investor class, our billionaire class, and our center millionaire class that we need to be investing in capacities to compete for mindshare at the headwaters. And I'm very encouraged that that is happening, but we need far more of it, and we need. We need deeper investments across that spectrum. And the other thing I'll just add to this is that part of the problem in the donor class is they're all generally very successful business people. Of course. Course. And they want to rationalize our capacities. Well, let's just have one group that appeals to young color. Let's have one group that appeals to high school students. Let's have one digital marketing agency over here. That is not how the world works. We need many different kinds of deodorant, and we need many different kinds of practitioners and activists appealing to all kinds of people and let you know, we're venture investing in freedom and we need to do that liberally.

[B]

Yeah. One of the great successes is the diffusion, of course, of media and communications over the last, particularly 20, 25 years in this country. And we saw the results in 2024 definitely play out, definitely have an impact. At the end of the day, this is, for me, as I see it, a battle between the saints and the insane. It is a battle between rationality and irrationality. And I. You sound like you're encouraged that sanity will again win the day on that final thought. How encouraged are you?

[C]

I I'm very encouraged, but it is not inevitable. And I'll add one more framework for you. It is a battle between those who believe in persuasion and consent versus those who believe in coercion and submission. The Western canon is in essence about persuasion and consent because individuals have agency. I believe if we build the right capacities, make the right arguments that humanize these principles in a compelling fashion, that persuasion, consent will prevail. And that's why I'm optimistic.

[B]

Well, he lays it all out in the book and it is available everywhere you find your books today. Thanks to my guest John Tillman, CEO of the American Culture Project and the founder and CEO of the hall of Giants. I will have to have you on again to talk about those projects. You are involved in a lot of different things, so he's also the author of of the new book Political Vice, how the Radical Left Controls America and the Path of Regaining Our Liberty. You've been listening to another edition of the Federalist Radio Hour. I'm Matt Kittle, senior elections correspondent at the Federalist. We'll be back soon with more. Until then, stay lovers of freedom and anxious for the FR.

[A]

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