B (3:47)

No, not at all. Not at all. So when I wrote it, I wrote it because I figured gotta rush something out before the election, given the stakes of the election and also given sort of the cultural breakdown we were experiencing even back last year. And then after Covid hit, I figured it was gonna be completely irrelevant because the only thing anyone cares about is, you know, a global pandemic that is killing hundreds of thousands of people. And then over the last eight weeks, it was as though everybody who is in what I call the disintegrationist movement decided to unite at once and just burn things. So I thank them for their marketing aptitude, but I don't think that, you know, I don't think it was prophetic so much as describing something that just had not fully flowered until the last six or eight weeks or so.

A (4:25)

So I have to compliment you. It's a very organized book in the sense that it puts the thesis forward very simply and clearly at the beginning, unlike a Lot of political books where it's just like this meandering catch all of what's in the news when they're writing the book. So I think this is going to be as timely a couple years from now as it is today. And so you basically describe the divide in America of unionism, unionism versus disintegrationism. And I think that's very appropriate. I think that is the divide that is happening in our country. And then you can describe three very important, just say brackets, for lack of a better term, of how the disintegrationists are trying to destroy our country through philosophy, history and shared culture. And then you describe what the American philosophy is and how they're trying to destroy it, what the American history is and how they're trying to destroy it, and the American culture and how they're trying to destroy it. Can you just elaborate on that a little bit? I thought you did a very good job on that.

B (5:23)

Sure. Any nation, in order to continue existing, has to share a common philosophical framework, has to share a common culture and. And has to share a common history. And that's sort of the starting point for the book. And then I describe what exactly was that shared philosophy supposed to be, what was that shared culture supposed to be, and what was that shared history supposed to be? And then why are all three elements there being undermined? So the shared philosophy was the philosophy of the Declaration of Independence, which suggests essentially three key components. One, that all men are created equal, that we're all made in the image of God. And from that there are natural rights. Those natural rights adhere to you as a human being. And just by virtue of you being a human being, you have natural rights. And these natural rights are rights to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness, or life, liberty and property, as John Locke suggested. The second element is that these rights pre exist government. They do not come from government. Therefore, when you enter into a societal pact, when a government is formed, it was created in order to protect those rights, not in order to invade those rights. Which brings us to the third point, which is that if the government were to invade those rights, it would lose its reason for existing. So all of this is encapsulated in that fundamental paragraph in the Declaration of Independence, talking about the fact that we are given natural rights by nature, and nature is God, that we are, that we are all equal before the law, that all men are created equal, given certain inalienable rights, and that a government is duty bound to enforce those rights. So that is the American philosophy that has united us we haven't always lived up to it. Obviously, the story of American history is realizing those rights for broader and broader swathes of people. Which is why the great civil rights leader in American history, all of them universally cited the Declaration of Independence and its central contentions in as the themes of what they were trying to achieve more broadly, in practicality. This is why MLK called the Declaration of Independence a promissory note that had yet to be. That had yet to be fulfilled. It's why Frederick Douglass did a whole famous and wonderful speech on July 4th in 1852 when slavery was still legal, saying, why are we not included in the promises of the Declaration of Independence and Independence Day? Those who have invoked the promises of the Founding Fathers have been successful in increasing and broadening the protections of that philosophy for a broader and broader category of people in the United States. That's the founding philosophy, the philosophy we're all supposed to share. And that philosophy is also connected to a culture of rights. So we believe that rights are not just entitlements from government rights, again, preexist government, which means that you have a right against other people. You have a right to freedom of speech, you have a right to freedom of the press, you have a right to freedom of association, you have a right to freedom to practice your religion, you have a right to bear arms. All of these are embedded in that idea that there are natural rights. Then you get to the question of culture. So one of the big questions that's arisen now is the question is the question of cancel culture. And what people on the disintegrationist left very often say is, there is no cancel culture. After all, government is not cracking down on you. So what's the problem? Right? This is all just happening in the private sphere. The idea behind this is that culture is a different thing than just government. Culture is a sort of shared, shared set of attitudes that prevail across the United States. And that shared set of attitudes includes a few key components. One is the idea that you have to have tolerance for other people's exercise of their rights, even if you don't like how they're exercising their rights. So I may not agree with you religiously, but I agree you have the right to practice your religion. I may not agree with what you're saying, but you have a right to freedom of speech. Now, this sort of stuff used to be commonplace on the American left. The ACLU famously suggested that they would defend everybody's right to speech up to and including the kkk because the principle of Freedom of speech was just so necessary.

A (8:37)

Marching to the culture of right, literally.

B (8:39)

Yes, exactly. So the culture of rights, which is this tolerance for others. The culture of rights also suggests support for societal institutions outside of government to inculcate virtue. So we were all supposed to be members of our community. We were supposed to back churches and synagogues. We were supposed to back methods of education. We were supposed to believe that these institutions were responsible for inculcating virtue. We're supposed to believe in the fundamental unit of the American family so that this would inculcate virtue and a sense of responsibility. The culture of rights also presupposes that we are going to defend those rights and defend those rights militantly, which is one of the reasons why the Second Amendment is so important. The idea is that don't tread on us, right, meaning if you violate our rights, then we are going to fight back against that, either governmentally or culturally, or in last resort, even using the force of arms. And then finally, the culture of rights presupposes an industrious and entrepreneurial people, people who are adventure seeking, who are looking to embrace the adventure, embrace the journey, embrace. It wasn't about what was being given to you. It's about rights that you had as a human being and your vast capacity in exercising those rights, the ability to exercise your own free will and shape the world around you. That was this sort of optimistic American vision that spans the pioneers and the cowboys and the civil rights movement, by the way. So all of those were sort of the cultural hallmarks of the United States. Those have been undermined as well. And then finally, American history is a belief that American history is an attempt to fulfill the founding ideals, that we have fallen short in many cases, that we have striven and we've fallen down, but we've always gotten back up. We've stumbled forward toward the fulfillment of those ideals. And that is why the story of the United States is not an evil story or a story of 1619. It's a story of 1776 and the perfection of those principles. It's the story of the most powerful, free, prosperous nation in the history of the world rising from literally nothing to become that through the use of founding principle. So those are the traditional structures that bound us all. And by the way, again, there used to be broad agreement on a lot of this across the right and the left. The idea of patriotism was not anathema to people. When you said, America is a great country, there weren't a huge swath of Americans going, no, you know what? You're wrong. America sucks. That was not a thing that was really held in high esteem probably until the 60s, although there were earlier strains of that in American thought. When you said America's Declaration of Independence is the philosophy that binds us right, left and center, that was the document that was cited as the rationale for whatever your political program. And when you said we have to have a spirit of industriousness and entrepreneurialism, we have to tolerate each other's rights. Again, there are members of the left who believe this. So this is why instead of using the terms right and left, I use the terms unionist and disintegrationist. Because I really don't think that it has to be right and left. I think you can be on the left and believe all of the things that I'm talking about. But increasingly, unfortunately, the American left is moving in a more radical direction that looks to disintegrate the Union by fighting all three of these elements.

A (11:18)

Totally correct on page 128. It's probably one of the best, I just think, rebuttals to the entire 1619 idea. And you go through very factually how we were actually founded on freedom and ending slavery, not a country that was founded on slavery. And I want to get into the new editor in chief of the New York Times, Nicole Hannah Jones. I'm half kidding, of course. She basically runs the place. And I think you aptly put that where this idea is now widespread, where you basically have half the country think that they think that there's nothing admirable, nothing righteous, nothing good about American history. And so I guess there's a lot I want to unpack there, but. So, Ben, in the book, you say Americans basically want a divorce. And one of my favorite parts of the intro is you say, if Trump wins, we're more likely to want an American divorce. If Trump loses, we're more likely to want an American divorce. Essentially saying we're headed for this no matter what. A lot of the book is very descriptive. It's about what's happening. Part of it is prescriptive about how what we actually can do. Are you optimistic that we can actually continue in this unionist form or the way you see things moving, especially since you've written the book in the last six months, I think things have definitely changed. Do you think that we're getting further and further away from each other, more likely to a national divorce?

B (12:36)

I mean, it does feel that way. And I think one of the reasons that it feels that way is because the left feels so empowered and so Mobilized. I mean, I was frankly shocked that there wasn't a fairly unified response on behalf of nearly everything that's happened in the last six months, from COVID to the George Floyd situation. There was no one on the right who was defending the officer in the George Floyd situation. Literally not a human being. And yet somehow this became a polarized political issue because it turned into a broader narrative about how America is crappy on every level and how the system of the United States is endemically racist and cruel. And that is not an argument that either needs to be made or should be made on the back of, of what is a horrible incident, which, by the way, even that incident, it's not clear as a racial incident, as opposed to just a pure incident of police cruelty and brutality. So the attempt to polarize America along these lines and then the willingness of so many in our institutional culture to go along with the absolute radicalism and insanity we've seen over the past six to eight weeks with people tearing down statues of not only Christopher Columbus, but George Washington, people who are, who are rioting in the streets and breaking into businesses, people like Alexander Ocasio Cortez suggesting that when people commit acts of violence, up to and including shootings, it really is just because they want bread. And the American system makes people want bread. Now, this kind of stuff is incredibly ugly. It didn't have to go in this direction. So on the one hand, I'm more pessimistic because there are more people than I thought, I think, who are disintegrationists. I used to believe it was a very small percentage of the population. Now I believe it's a sizable minority. I don't think it's quite a majority yet. I will say the one thing I find encouraging is that the radical left is so radical. Disintegrationists are really taking off the mask at this point that I think there's the real possibility of a backlash. Now, that backlash doesn't have to materialize as Trump gets reelected. It could materialize that way. It doesn't have to materialize that way. But I think the backlash is coming, and I think you're starting to see some of the early signs of that in things like Barry Weiss leaving the New York Times or Andrew Sullivan leaving New York Magazine, or that letter from Harper's Weekly, bunch of old school liberals saying this cancel culture stuff has got to stop.

A (14:27)

I think that's right, I guess. And part of it, and I'm a huge supporter of the president, is that the left is more unified on this Insane disintegration because of how much they hate Trump. So they use their. Use their pathological hatred of Trump as justification for something that they otherwise and independently never would have supported for. Oh, yeah, sure, 1619, sure, whatever. Because you hate Trump a lot. So you must be right. I mean, it's just a incredibly.

B (14:50)

That's right, that's right.

A (14:51)

Foolish way of.

B (14:52)

Because what the radical left has been able to do is make Trump the face of the country and then take whatever they can kind of pile onto Trump and say, well, everything about Trump that's bad is what's bad about the country and what has always been bad about the country. And, you know, they'll make up stuff about Trump in order to push that point forward. So this is why you saw the entire Democratic Party basically rally around the 1619 Project, which is a pseudo history ripped by four different Pulitzer Prize winning historians. Doesn't matter, Nikole. Hannah Jones wins the Pulitzer Prize and you end up with a bunch of Democratic nominees mirroring it. Why? Well, because President Trump says, make America great again. And the response, as I talk about in the book from the left is not, let's continue to make America great. Right. It was America was never great, which is a very different statement. Right. There is a halfway point between make America great again and America was never great. And that was America was always great. And it's getting better. Right. That is the halfway point. But instead what we end up with is America was never great. America always sucked. And it continues to suck until we continue to tear down the entire system.

A (15:46)

Yeah, it's a Woodrow Wilson movement that hasn't stopped over the last hundred years, which. So the founders are actually awful people and we have to get rid of them. And everything that they've done is evil and wrong. And they have a completely different philosophical approach of what the country should actually be. Legacy Box is a super simple mail in service to have all your videotapes, camcorder tapes, film reels and pictures digitally preserved on thumb drive, DVD or cloud. I love Legacy Bucks. All my family's archives, my ancestors that fought in the Civil War and that fought in the Revolutionary War. Now I have all their pictures of on Legacy Box. Are your family's memories trapped on an old camcorder, tape or film reels? Was your favorite childhood memory caught on film or videotape and maybe it disappeared and you're regretful for that? Well, do something about it by going to Legacy box. It's legacybox.com Charlie and get 40% off your first order. You just mail it in, they catalog it, send all of the originals back to you. And a digital file. Do you need to rescue your recorded memories but haven't had any time to know where to start? Do you want these irreplaceable moments forever? Have them digitally preserved so they stand the test of time and can be passed down for generations to come. Get back perfectly preserved digital copies on a thumb Drive. It's legacybox.com Charlie buy today to take advantage of this exclusive art offer. Send in when you're ready. Legacybox.com Charlie save 40% while supplies last. So I want to ask you a question about the three, the three categories that you describe. And I think it's well put. Philosophy, history and culture. But Ben, I travel the country a lot and so do you. And I've met people that are Trump supporters that do believe in the shared history, philosophy and culture of our country. But some of them, particularly middle class workers that work with their hands and they've had their jobs either shipped overseas or disappeared, they don't necessarily believe that America is currently in a position to benefit them. So here's my question is, can you believe in those three things and also basically say, economically, the country is not working for me. And this is a common argument that you've seen surface in the last couple years, right? Especially with the rise of Donald Trump and, you know, more white working class voters supporting the Republican Party. Is it enough just to have a shared philosophy, history and culture? But I guess my question is, do you think economics also can play a role in this? When you have, you know, where the question's going, I'd love your thoughts on it.

B (18:12)

Yes. I mean, I think that economics can play a role, but there's a difference between saying there are certain key industries that we want to protect because we think they're so important, and free trade itself is bad. Markets are bad. We have to chain up the market and make the market work for us. When we get to sort of the economic questions, the question is, what is a market? So obviously, Tucker Carlson is the most famous expositor of this idea that markets need to be chained up and work for us. And he's suggested that some of Elizabeth Warren's plans are good plans. And he's very big on government getting involved and sort of picking winners and losers in this particular arena. And he when he says that markets are just things that work for us, that's a failure of description. Markets are a recognition of fundamental human nature and human rights. You have the right to alienate your own Labor. You have the right to engage in the labor that you choose. You don't have the right to steal anybody else's labor from them through a majority vote. You don't have the right to do any of those things. Now, does that mean that there can't be any sort of industrial policy that is particularly a temporary stopgap, so, for example, a transition away from particular types of business or an acknowledgement that certain types of business are so important for, say, national defense that we shouldn't be giving them subsidies? Of course not. I mean, that's a question of policy that doesn't fundamentally attack the root of the market itself. Where you start to get into disintegrationist territory is where you say that it's the government's job to, to either inculcate virtue top down or to overall pick winners and losers in the American economy for no reason other than in some vague idea of yours. It, quote, unquote, benefits America. If by benefits America you mean I'm a member of a subgroup that I would like the government to act on behalf of, it's hard to make the argument that that is, quote, unquote, benefiting America, Especially because every economic policy has winners and losers. So if you're going to talk about curbing the free market in order to, for example, achieve some level of. Of social mobility for people who need to switch careers or who need to move from one arena to another, or more importantly, if you're talking about curbing economic freedom in order to shore up the national defense, which when it comes to China, I think is much more important, that's a different thing than saying that markets themselves are fundamentally of no value. Markets are of deep value. They're of deep and abiding value. They're a reflection of human nature, and they're a reflection of your individual human rights. Because the same government that is capable of suggesting that markets are merely a tool to achieve an outcome can rob you of all of your economic rights. And your economic rights are indeed right.

A (20:25)

So to kind of continue off that question, if you have a portion of the American population that does feel as if they've been disenfranchised economically, and they do share the philosophy, the history, the culture, and they think, they believe in unified language and all of that, and let's just play it out, all of a sudden their factory closes and goes halfway across the world. I agree with you that markets are generally very helpful towards human flourishing and prosperity. I guess my question is, over the last 30, 40 years, do you think that the children that have become disintegrationists, I gotta get better at pronouncing that. The disintegrationists, the parents might believe in the history and the philosophy and the culture, but their kids, they end up shipping them off to college and they see their parents are really kind of in debt and their wages haven't gone up a lot. I would argue that a big part of this reason why we have a climate where revolution feels more likely than not is because we do have kind of an uncertain and disintegrating middle class. Do you see it?

B (21:27)

No, I don't. I mean, I think a fundamental disagreement here and I think the polls sort of back the perspective that I'm about to explain, which is that the vast majority of disintegrationism among young white people is coming from college educated people. If you look at the polls, what you see is kids who are high school educated and growing up in the Midwest are not the source of, of the anti Americanism we're now seeing in America's streets. You're not seeing these riots happening in poor towns in Ohio, you're seeing them happen in Seattle and Portland. And it's upper class white liberal kids who are going to community college on the public dime who are really mimicking this sort of viewpoint. So I understand fully being dissatisfied with your economic circumstance and I understand thinking that our trade deals in the past have been skewed in ways that you don't like. I get all of that. I don't think that fundamentally the disintegration of the country is quite as materialist as it's sort of been made out to be. I don't think this is about just poor people rising up. I don't think it's a class war so much as it is an ideological war. And again, you're seeing this with all the college educated morons in Seattle and Portland who are running around burning crap. Right? Again, you're not seeing these riots in the middle of white Appalachia there. You're seeing people who are resistant to that kind of stuff. What you're actually seeing is these riots in places where people have been inculcated with a certain perspective on the United States. I don't think that there's a lot of ripe ground for like. I don't think the ripe ground for the, for the disintegration is left is to be found in dispossessed white working class towns. I think mostly that that fodder is to be found in upper class white enclaves and in minority neighborhoods. Where the, where the Democratic Party has made heavy inroads by essentially suggesting that every problem is due to the system of the United States as opposed to people making bad personal decisions.

A (23:02)

I think that's correct. However, I think what ends up happening though is those white working class towns become further radicalized and further want a national div. Right? So they only get, they only bracket themselves down further right. So they say whatever Portland is doing, we have to do the exact opposite. So I don't think I agree that you know, Akron, Ohio or Hubbard, Ohio is not going to be likely to have a BLM Inc. Protest anytime soon or at least tolerate that right. Or take down a statue. But I think whatever the opposite of what Portland and Seattle is doing, they're going to want to do that and they're only going to try to fasten themselves down further. And I think it's interesting, Ben, and I've done a lot of thinking about this. I'm not really sure where I land on this, but I do think that the cultural landscape is the most important part. But we as conservatives, I think have only focused on the cultural landscape. And I think we have to ask ourselves the question, are people more likely to continue to go to church and buy into the American ideal if they don't think the country is working for them economically? And I agree that we need to tell people to be more selfish, reliant and we have to tell them to have more individual initiative. I agree with all those things. But just looking materially and anecdotally, I'm afraid that we have, we're losing an entire portion of the American society that no longer thinks their kids are going to be as productive and prosperous as they were. And I'm very worried that that transition can quickly descend into an easy marketing opportunity for the disintegrationists. So I guess here's my question then just kind of continue it on and not continue in that same cycle, which is have we as conservatives have we done anything incorrectly politically and legislatively over the last 20, 30 years that has contributed to the cultural decline?

B (24:44)

So I think first of all the complete maintenance of a massive top down federal government which seeks winners and losers and then deliberately seems to pick certain types of winners and losers. That's been a major problem. A hands off policy that basically says it's a free country, fend for yourself and is a lot more evenhanded than a federal top down policy that creates benefits that are contingent upon economic class or race or area or anything like that. As far as the notion that this is going to be reversed by economic circumstance, that economic circumstances are really the great driver of the disintegration. The American middle class has not disintegrated. The American middle class, statistically speaking, turned into the upper middle class. The vast majority of people in the United States are vastly better off than they were in 1980. And all you have to do is check the stuff that's in their houses to recognize that this is the case. I think the kind of false narrative that America is falling apart, I know it was driven by President Trump in 2016. I fundamentally disagreed with him on it at the time. I think statistically it's not true. I know that there are many conservatives who disagree with me on this, ranging from Orrin Cass to Tucker, but I think that the idea that economics solves what is in essence a cultural problem is not correct. In the 1930s, people continued to go to church. In the 1960s, they stopped going to church. In the, in the 1930s, they were a lot poorer than they were in the 1960s. Tim Carney, in his book Alienated America, tries to sort of ferret out how much of this is economic and how much of this is just cultural decline and churches shutting down. And what he comes up with is basically that the decline of religion and the rise of secularism in America is the real problem. And here's the thing, people don't get paid more, so they go to church. And that's not the way this works. It's not as though, okay, you brought all the middle class jobs back, now everybody starts going back to church. The fact is that the, the collapse of cultural institutions at the behest of a cultural elite has been far more provocative in tearing down social institutions than merely people declining on the economic scale. In fact, there tends to be a pretty strong reverse correlation between how much money you earn and how often you go to church in this country. And the richer you are, the less you tend to go to church over time.

A (26:41)

Yeah, I think it's. This is where the conservative debate is heading. And again, I'm open minded because I see it. I have a lot of respect for Orrin Cass and what he's researched. And his argument is that the middle class is disappearing quickly and evaporating. And one of the statistics he contributes, he's a really smart guy, as you know.

B (26:58)

Oh, yeah, he is.

A (26:59)

He contributes that in 1985, about 36 weeks of labor could support a family of four, you know, throughout the entire year, 36 weeks. Now it takes 53 weeks of labor and he just that's only looking at labor and not the price of goods. And I understand it's not exactly a holistic view. And I think that you're correct in the sense that just because you're going to have, let's just say, manufacturing plants reopening, doesn't necessarily mean that the local Episcopalian church is going to be, you know, completely busting at the seams because of that. I do think that there is something to say, though, that you have almost a dispiriting aspect of it, especially in rural America where they feel as if the entire system has just been about trading cards on their communities and they almost feel like it's rigged against those parts of America. And that might be true, it might be somewhat true, it might be completely true, but that's at least the sentiment, right?

B (27:55)

Well, the problem I have with this argument, generally speaking, is that it applies. It either applies to everyone or it applies to no one. So if you are going to apply it to small town white communities where people are losing jobs and therefore the community is falling apart and they feel disintegrationist, then this is exactly the argument that the quasi Marxist left has made about minority communities in the United States, which is the reason that these communities are not doing better is because of economic shortcomings. And if we would just spend a lot more money on those communities or rig the business community in a particular way, or require rent control and building controls and increase taxation and redistribution and slavery reparations, well, then that would fix all of the problems. I'm not enough of a materialist to believe that economic circumstance really explains the collapse of the ideological strength of the country, because again, overall, Oren can say that 36 weeks of labor supported a family of four in 1980, in 1985, and it's now 53 weeks that supports a family of four. But what is the stuff that you are getting? I mean, you can't, you mentioned it briefly, but you can't elide the difference that the house that you are living in now is significantly bigger than the house you were living in 1985. The fridge you have now is much better than the fridge you had in 1985. You probably have two cars instead of one. You probably have a flat screen TV instead of a piece of crap old, old giant box like you're comparing apples to oranges. In a certain way, the price of the exact same goods from 1980 you could probably buy with three weeks worth of labor, given how crappy the stuff was in 1980. So that's not really recognizing how much markets work as opposed to, it is recognizing that products and services develop over time and that if you want nicer things, it's going to cost more money. Now, it doesn't mean that there aren't areas where we can bring costs down. Obviously, like, if you're going to talk about deregulating the health insurance industry, if you're going to talk about bringing down the cost of health care by allowing more competition, if you're going to talk about school vouchers that alleviate the cost of education for a lot of people, well, I'm all in favor of all of those things. I'm just, I'm deeply, I don't think there's a limiting principle to the idea that the collapse of the country can be blamed on people exercising independent economic decision making. Because once you start down that path, I literally do not know where that path ends. And it seems to me there's very little division between what Tucker is saying and what Elizabeth Warren is saying. And when I say that, I mean, like Tucker himself has said, there's very little division between himself and Elizabeth Warren on a lot of these issues. I don't like Elizabeth Warren's agenda very much.

A (30:08)

And I, when I look at this. So I do see, though that it's Is there a sustainability question where eventually you are going to have, you know, let's just say demagogue politicians like Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders prey on the haves and haves not and say, hey, look how rich this person is and therefore give me all this power. And you get into this in the book a little bit and I encourage everyone to check it out, just how to destroy America in three Easy Steps where it's hard to have liberty. Because then the and Mark Levin mentioned this in his interview with you. One of the great puzzling, one of the great most perplexing parts about liberty is if you allow people to speak freely and allow all of this freedom of thought, eventually will that be used to destroy liberty itself? And soand this is the old, you know, William F. Buckley quote, which they say, well, what would happen if you won the election? He would say, well, I demand a recount. Right? So it's do you think that the American ideal, as you put forth, pioneer spirit, individual initiative, one that is around natural rights, do you actually think that it's inevitable that a majority of the country will want to embrace that?

B (31:19)

I don't think it's inevitable by any stretch of the imagination. In fact, I think that we have people who are pretty motivated to push against that the idea of entrepreneurship being bad and that you have a right from government to basically stay where you are and not switch industries and all this. I think that there are a lot of demagogues who absolutely can make hay out of that. But I think this is one of the great failures of the Republican Party and their spirit of communication is that they very much oriented themselves toward the idea that they're now in the competition business with the Democrats. As far as what we can give you and what we can guarantee you, and saying to folks, listen, the thing that you are guaranteed in this country is adventure. The thing that you are guaranteed is the ability to use your own labor in a way that you see fit. The thing that you are. No one's guaranteeing you anything. First of all, this sort of tough love message, actually, I think has a fairly heavy constituency because I think that most people take that as a more optimistic message than your life blows. Let me give you a thing. Your life blows. Let me give you a thing. Let me give you a thing is very attractive. Let's not underestimate. Let me give you a thing is very attractive, particularly if you don't want to make decisions. But your life blows, therefore, let me give you a thing. Or you have no agency, therefore let me give you a thing. That's actually a pretty depressing message. So it depends which half of the message you lead with. I think that the Democrats have led with let me give you a thing and then sotto voce, because you have no control over your own life. And Republicans have basically said, well, what you're saying is that you have no control over your life and therefore let them give you a thing. And castigated people who are taking the things when the actual message should be the converse, which is you do have agency and the only thing that you're guaranteed is adventure. So buck up and go out there and fight for it. That doesn't mean that there aren't great and generous and virtuous people who are willing to give you a chance and help you out. We all need those great and virtuous and generous people. And I think America is filled with those people. But the notion that government is going to redistribute from some and give to others and pick winners and losers and treat the market as merely a tool to achieve certain policy ends, that's very dangerous thinking. And again, there is no limiting principle. And I think that that is dangerous. In the book, I talk pretty openly about this. I talk about sort of the differences between traditional classical liberalism and the sort of Patrick Deneen, Tucker Carlson, Marco Rubio, wing of the party, or in Cass, about the sort of attempt to chain the market to particular end goals that they think are going to uphold the system. And yeah, I think that one of the big problems that we've seen over and over is that, number one, every time you go to the government, it ends up in the hands of the left. I think you gotta be real careful about what exactly you are doing when you make the size of the sword larger, because you're probably not gonna be the one who wields the sword. I know in this context, there've been a lot of people who have argued about, you know, Drag Queen Story Hour sort of become the buzzword for this is, well, you know, you're in favor of free speech and the First Amendment and so what are you gonna do about the local Drag Queen Story Hour? A couple of things. One, I also believe in subsidiarity. I believe that local communities get to take a lot different action than the federal government because they're a lot more homogenous. And if you don't like it, you move out of the community. Just on a general federalist level, but beyond that, on, like, a federal level. Do I think that there should be legislation against Drag Queen Story Hour on a federal level with absent a showing of any harm? I'm hesitant to do that because I think that it is much more likely, given the cultural direction of the moment, that that sort of legislation is used to ban prayer service than I think it's likely to ban Drag Queen Story Hour. I think the left has shown an almost insatiable willingness to use the power of government to crack down on viewpoints that it doesn't like. And I think that you're kind of spitting into the wind if you give the government more power to do that in the assumption that it's never going to come back and bite you on the ass. It works for both sides. By the way, when Harry Reid got rid of the judicial filibuster, he never thought that was going to come back to haunt Democrats. And within four years, it was coming back to haunt Democrats. Just be careful of what you wish for. Politics is the monkey's law.

A (34:50)

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B (37:26)

I definitely talk about the hijacking of corporate America toward particular leftist ends. And it's something that is deeply troubling. It's also incredibly shortsighted. One of the great lies of modern American politics is the idea that corporations are right wing, that because they're profit seeking, this means that they're conservative. This is absolute nonsense. I challenge you to find 10 corporate CEOs who would openly identify as Trump supporters. They're probably a few. There are very. They're not many. And the reason they're not many is because. Exactly. Is because if you're a Goya, you get boycotted. I mean, that's why you won't openly identify. Whereas if you tweet out a black square, then all of a sudden you're inured to the vicissitudes of the multitudes, at least in the moment. So that. That's very dangerous. I mean, these, these companies, because they're profit seeking, because they're risk averse, tend to cave to whoever the squeakiest wheel is. And that's exactly what you've seen happening. Do I think that that calls for regulation, whether in the tech sphere or anywhere else? No, I think what that calls for is what's eventually going to happen. I think it's unfortunate, but I think it will happen. And that is there'll be right wing companies, left wing companies. I think the incessant willingness to politicize every single thing that the left seems to want to do is going to lead to just two parallel companies. You see this, for example, in the coffee world. So Starbucks is a lefty company. And my friends over black Rifle Coffee, they're like, you know what? We're tired of this nonsense. They started Black Rifle Coffee. They are raking in the money because there are a lot of people who don't want to be associated with the far leftism that Starbucks is pushing. You're gonna see this with shoes, you're gonna see this with food, you're gonna see this with pretty much everything. All of this accelerates the national divorce. And I'm not blaming people who respond to left wing monopolization of corporate halls of power for creating competitors. I'm saying that the disintegrationist tendency to politicize every single thing and turn every single thing into A political football ends with a predictable response, which is people on the other side going, okay, well, I don't feel like patronizing your business. And I got all sorts of crap for suggesting that I'm less likely to watch the NBA this year if I have to watch Black Lives Matter throwing up an alley oop to 1619 project. But, you know, let's be real about this. I would not really want to watch that very much. I like basketball, but I don't like basketball enough to be propagandized to while I'm watching basketball. So in the end, what there will be is probably some sort of competitive league that doesn't do any of those sorts of things. So the acceleration of this is due to the left. And a right wing response to it is not necessarily wrong. I think that that's truer in the culture than it is in the government. Just because, again, with the government, there is only one gun on the table in culture. There are a lot of guns on the table. And that means that, you know, we can. There are a couple of ways we can go. We can either all go weapons down, which is my preference, which is we all sort of leave each other alone and go back to normal and shop at each other's businesses and stop being general jackasses, or we can all go weapons up and we'll all have our own sets of businesses that conflict with each other ideologically and we'll silo ourselves off into our own cultural cubbyholes which innately will lead to the sort of national divorce that we're talking about both culturally and governmentally.

A (40:08)

I want to ask you about the national divorce, and what does that actually look like? And is it inevitable? But I want to finish on the tech issue, which is I argue that Google in some ways is more powerful than the Pentagon. I mean, they track our behavior. They can topple a government. At what point? Ben, as someone who defends the free market and in your history chapter, you're very, let's say, critical of Teddy Roosevelt. And I think some of that is warranted. I think that we can learn some things from Teddy Roosevelt. I actually love some of the stuff he did. But is there ever a point where you say, Sherman Antitrust act, you go after Google, or do you think that in today's time should not be needed?

B (40:44)

So it depends. I mean, really, I tend to believe when it comes to antitrust, in the Robert Bork antitrust paradox, which is very often people say that they are against a particular business because of its. There are really two ways of approaching antitrust. One is the size of the company and the other is the danger to consumers in the company. And if you get to the point where Google is literally the only monopoly search engine on the Internet and it is impossible for anyone else to start a search engine and Google monopolizes information with such alacrity that only one side of the political aisle can get out there and they essentially start rigging markets, then you could theoretically bring antitrust to bear. I don't think that we're at that point yet, although I do believe that Google is getting a lot closer to that than some of the other outlets. Their monopoly on search traffic is absolutely insane. But I'm also old enough to, yeah, I'm also old enough to remember when AltaVista and Yahoo are a thing. So I think that the possibility of turnover in these industries remains serious. MySpace used to be valued at more than $1.97. There's a tendency when we look at business or when we look at tech to, to think how it is, is how it always will be. And I would just urge you to look at the history of IBM and Apple to realize that that isn't necessarily the case.

A (41:56)

And I think there is a lot of disruption in the tech sphere. I think what's different about Google is they seem that they're just getting started with a lot of their, let's just say social profiling and how left wing they are. So you mentioned national divorce. Do you think it's inevitable?

B (42:12)

I think that a sort of natural dissolution will probably is at this point. I think it's inevitable. I wouldn't write in the book if I thought it was inevitable, but I think that it is at least a 50, 50 shot then. When I say a national divorce, I don't mean that the United States, you know, has an all out bloody civil war. I think that it starts to look more like the Articles of Confederation than it did like the Constitution of the United States. Instead of a unified country, you have all of these states basically running themselves because of the possibility that states will actually resist a more powerful federal government. And so the United States kind of goes back to the Continental army version where the states sort of run themselves, which would be quite tragic. I mean we are the most powerful, prosperous and free country in the history of the world and done more good for the world than any other country, bar none. Not close. And so for California and Texas to not really be part of the same country anymore would be quite terrible. But you know, it may be inevitable. I mean the EU came apart. I don't see a reason why. If the values that hold us together come apart, you won't see an increasing willingness to divorce from either Texas or California. If Donald Trump wins reelection, there'll be people in California calling for California to secede. And if Joe Biden wins election and then leaves his presidency to Elizabeth Warren, I think there'll be some pretty heavy calls from, from Wyoming to leave. So there, there's some pretty significant distances right here to travel in order to bridge this gap. And that's really what the book is about, is trying to remind us why we should be part of the same country. I think increasingly most Americans are like, I'm not sure we should. And that's a dangerous thing.

A (43:37)

Yeah, I mean, I just spent time in Rapid City, South Dakota, and before that, Los Angeles. When I fly into Los Angeles, I feel like I have to get my passport stamped. I feel like I'm going to another country. And I mean, the three things that you articulate shared philosophy, shared histories, shared culture. Not to be pessimistic, but just to be honest, I mean, most of the kids in the LA Unified School District right now learning on a zoom call by some overpaid cartel member, teacher, union individual, they're learning philosophy that is Rossoian in nature and is against everything that we believe in as Americans. They're learning history that is written by Nikole Hannah Jones. And they're believing in a culture of victimology and oppression Olympics. And so then I go to Rapid City, South Dakota, and it's actually everything our country's supposed to believe in. And there is that kind of commonality. And so I do see, as you articulated as we're going to have right wing companies and left wing companies. I don't think that's healthy at all. And I think it's incredibly unsustainable. And I ask myself the question, what does the person in LA that believes in all this opposite philosophy, history and culture, and actually wants to judge people on skin color, not on character, they have very little in common with the person in Rapid City, South Dakota. And until there is that kind of unionist mindset, or at least an agreeable nature that we want to go for it as a country, then I don't even know if it's inevitable that we will. In fact, I think it's more likely at the current trajectory that we will hit national divorce. And I don't even know what that would look like. I would hope that it would. If that were to happen, God forbid, it would be something that Wouldn't be tragically. Let's just say I'm struggling for the words. Yeah, that's exactly right.

B (45:16)

Yeah, that's right. Hopefully, if there's a divorce, it's a divorce and not anything terrible. But, yeah, it's. You know, these are serious questions to be asked. And I think that before we are sanguine about the possibility of national divorce, everybody should think to themselves, okay, you know, I say, I don't really like that guy from California. Okay, I say I don't like that guy from Texas. I say, I hate the Democrats or I say I hate the Republicans. Do we really want to split up the country over this? And for a lot of people, if the answer is yes, then eventually that number will become a majority. And that's when things get pretty, pretty dire. Especially if in the meantime, in a quest to get what we want done, we've overridden all the checks and balances of government. If we've empowered the federal government and we've gotten used to the idea that 51% of the American population can cram down whatever they damn well please on the other 49% of the American population, then when somebody says, listen, I just don't wanna do this anymore, there's a good shot that things do get really ugly.

A (46:06)

Well, and the book is so clairvoyant because, I mean, again, it reads like an essay you just spent a long weekend writing in the last two weeks, not something that you wrote back in December. I want to get into current events. And again, I encourage everyone to check out the book. Please go buy how to Destroy America in Three Easy Steps by Ben Shapiro. Let's talk more just modern politics. So President Trump is down on the polls. That's nothing new. We've seen him come back from that. The President has been on this podcast before and he watches our Twitter feed. If he were listening to you directly, what advice would you give to him and his campaign?

B (46:39)

So, two pieces of advice. One is look focused. Look focused. I know this is difficult, but the Twitter account is not helpful. Everybody knows this. The polls show that even a plurality of Republicans don't believe the Twitter account is always helpful. The president. We're living through some pretty grave times. And so a focused and concerted attempt to focus on two issues. Unifying the country and fighting Covid. That's what he needs to be campaigning on. And what that means is, in practical political terms, I do not, for the life of me understand why the Trump campaign has not yet cut an ad that is just clips of the Various Democratic governors saying that Trump gave them what they needed on Covid, because they all said this. They literally all said this. I've played the clips on my show. I mean, everybody from, from Whitmer to Newsom to Cuomo said he gave us that. We asked him for this and he gave it to us. And yet now they're out there saying, well, he's completely insufficient in his approach to this problem. So why not cut that out and say, listen, if it was good enough for all these Democrats, and it should be good enough for you, the fact is that our actual material response to this thing has been good. So that would be point number one. He has to look focused. He has to look like he's taking things seriously. Because in a time when things are pretty serious, Democrats are making a mint politically off the idea that Trump is just dilettanting around. It doesn't take this thing seriously enough so that, like, I think it was a strategic error, for example, to try and hold that rally in Tulsa in the middle of this, because the Democrats had just made the massive strategic blunder of saying, you can go out in the streets and willy nilly protest whatever you want in the middle of a pandemic. That to me, politically speaking, that would have been the point where for Trump to say, listen, we got to take this thing seriously. I'm putting on a mask, and I cannot believe, frankly, that so many of my Democratic colleagues are suggesting that protesting by the hundreds of thousands publicly in the street is a good idea. And whatever happens next, let's recall what exactly just happened in all of America's major cities where they're backing rioting, looting, and mass protests in a time of pandemic. Right. Like that would have been a much better. Just forget the policy for a second on a political attack. That would been much better. With regard to Covid. The second thing is that we're all sort of waiting for Godot here, which is for. For Biden to choose a vp. It's gonna be difficult to attack Biden. Biden is not the easiest guy to tear down. The reason it's not easy to tear him down is because he's not alive. So it's very, very difficult to beat a dead horse and what that would be.

A (48:43)

Or a dead candidate.

B (48:44)

Right, Exactly. It's Weekend at Bernie's. But what we actually need is for Biden to choose his vp and then all Trump has to do is cut an ad in which Biden says openly. Right. I mean, there's tape of him talking about how he's a transitional candidate. Right. He's not meant to be the guy. And then make the real issue Kamala Harris. Because guess what? The choice between Trump and Biden right now is basically the choice for most Americans between volatility and what they think of as a certain level of stability. The stability coming not from Joe Biden being particularly stable, but from the fact that he's not alive. Again, assuming room temperature means that you are a little more stable than somebody who's kind of running around doing whatever he wants. But the same is not gonna hold true for his vp. His vp Biden is fairly well liked in a way that Hillary Clinton was not. Biden is considered non threatening in a way that Hillary was not. And so it's very difficult to simultaneously paint somebody as deeply threatening and malevolent. And also if they were sitting in this room being interviewed right now, they would be screaming for their mother. That's a very difficult simultaneous pitch. And so I think that that pitch gets easier if you pick somebody who is actively threatening to a lot of Republicans. Somebody like a Kamala Harris, which I think is his probable pick.

A (49:50)

Yeah. And especially for suburban voters where they think Biden is a flight to safety. And I made this recommendation privately, I'm gonna say it publicly. President Trump should do Joe Rogan's podcast for three hours for two reasons. It would be the greatest piece of interview I think we could possibly imagine. President Trump could also, I think, do really well in it. Cuz he actually answers questions and he's super entertaining. But also it would force Joe Biden to possibly go do an interview. And I said this to the campaign, I said it publicly. The best part of the Chris Wallace interview, as turbulent as that was, the best part of the whole interview, and even Chris Wallace agreed, was I do interviews, Joe Biden doesn't. I do interviews. Joe Biden doesn't. The American people are not gonna tolerate that. That's the number one. I think they will not tolerate the fact that one candidate is out there doing interviews and the other isn't.

B (50:35)

And I think that Covid is cutting. No, you're right. I mean Covid is cutting very much in Biden's favor in this way right now. Because everybody, like Trump's main asset as a campaigner is his energy level. Right. He's in like with the help of God, I should have his energy level. When I'm his age, I have to stop exercising for the next 30, 40 years and really save up that life essence. And then I can have the energy level. The president has the problem is that that's of no avail when you can't do rallies and when you can't really get out of the House. Joe Biden has been handed the easiest election battle of his, of anybody's lifetime, because his campaign strategy, namely to hide in a basement is also what Covid sort of dictates, which is to hide in a basement. I mean, the man's nearly 80 years old, and who knows if he's in great health. So that means that it's really cut in Trump's favor. It's cut in Biden's favor a lot. But you're right, I mean, Trump being open and out there and Biden not being open and out there, as we can all hope, the economy starts to open up and people start to go out again, that will pick up in his favor at least a little bit.

A (51:30)

And provoking him and provoking Biden and saying, come on out. Why are you, why are you hiding the American people?

B (51:36)

I think Biden's not gonna debate him. I think Biden's not gonna debate him.

A (51:39)

Talk about that more.

B (51:39)

Yeah, yeah. So, you know, Thomas Friedman sort of floated this trial balloon in the New York Times saying that Biden should just say, if you're not gonna release your tax returns, I'm not gonna debate you. If Biden is up, that's a great red herring.

A (51:50)

Like, yeah, you're not gonna do. Therefore. What are you talking about? It's a presidential election.

B (51:54)

But Biden, it would be clever only in the sense that if you got a big lead, you sit on it. I mean, actually, Donald Trump, you know, who knew this Donald Trump, back in 2016 when he was in the lead after, after Iowa, he had just come in second to Cruz and he had good polling going to New Hampshire. And there was another debate where Megyn Kelly was supposed to be the moderator and he didn't want to do it, so he just dumped out. He just said, I'm not doing it. I'm gonna go hold my, my pro veteran rally that night. And that's what he did. Right. So I could certainly see Joe Biden trying to pull that with, with Donald Trump. And again, given the fact that Covid is out there, it doesn't look as much like hiding in the basement as it normally does. So I would not be surprised. Listen, Biden is playing a very risk averse strategy right here, which is why he's basically all things to all people. He said he's smart enough to wreck. I will say this about Biden. He is with it enough not to make the giant boo boo. Right. He's not made the giant boo boo yet. Every time he's asked to side with Bernie publicly, he just doesn't. He does secretly. He does behind closed doors. He does it when it's the platform. But when he's asked about tearing down statues, he says yes on the Confederate statues, no on Columbus, Washington and Jefferson. Right. That's the smart thing to say. Right. That's avoiding the big boo boo. When he's asked about defund the police, he says, I don't want to defund the police. Then of course, he goes on to explain how he wants to take funds from the police and give it to social workers. But that's smart to avoid the big boo boo. The campaign has almost been crafted for him in terms of time and in terms of limitation to access to whatever is going on upstairs, whatever is left in the attic. That's a real disadvantage for President Trump, which is why I say he's going to have a lot more to play with when Biden selects a running mate, because my guess is that he's not going to select somebody who is. Who's particularly moderate. That's what Biden should do. By the way, if Biden were smart, what he would do is he would go and select somebody who comes off as quasi moderate. But I don't think he's going to do it. I think he's going to go for broke.

A (53:31)

The person that will be hardest to run against would be Tammy Duckworth, and I'm from Illinois. I think that she's a military background and she comes across as a moderate even though she isn't. And the media loves her, just loves her and especially suburban voters. So to kind of tie the election together in the couple minutes we have remaining if we want to see America succeed. I know that, you know, I'm a very big Trump supporter and, you know, you've been critical of Trump and also support of Trump. You do good, bad, you know, good Trump, bad Trump.

B (53:56)

Yeah. And I plan on voting for him.

A (53:57)

You do?

B (53:57)

In 2020.

A (53:58)

Okay.

B (53:58)

I've said this plenty of times. Yep.

A (54:00)

And so. But you believe that it's good for the republic and good for not destroying, but saving America, that Donald Trump gets four more years. Can you elaborate on that?

B (54:07)

Well, right now, I think that I do talk about this in the book a little bit, that what people on the left have to understand about people on the right supporting Trump is that just because you support Trump doesn't mean that you agree with all of his foibles or all of the myriad sillinesses or any of that kind of stuff. What it does mean is that you look at Trump and you say, this guy is going to be a bulwark against the people who actually want to disintegrate all of these common ties. And I don't think that Joe Biden is going to be that bulwark. In fact, I think that Joe Biden is going to hand over the party to a lot of those people after campaigning as a bulwark against some of this stuff. Right. He won because he was the anti Bernie in the race, the most prominent anti Bernie in the race. But I have very little faith that Joe Biden, pushed by his left flank, wouldn't do exactly what Nancy Pelosi has done and just hand over the keys to the. The car to that disintegrationist wing of the Democratic Party. I'm not sure he would love to do it, but I think that he would do it. And I think that President Trump militantly opposes a lot of those things. You can see this in the way that both Biden and, for example, Tammy Duckworth responded to Trump's Mount Rushmore address, which was very much on this theme. Right. The theme of the Mount Rushmore address was America was always great America. Our founders were heroes. The American story is a story of heroism and adventure and greatness. And people were like, he's pro Confederacy. Okay. Well, if I have to make that choice between people who think that saying that patriotic things are good and people who say that patriotic things are pro Confederacy, that's not a hard choice for me. And whatever personality is baked into the cake here, and it's all, We've been through it a thousand times. It ain't gonna change. It is what it is. The question right now is, who's the person who's gonna hold back what appears to be this encroaching high tide of disintegrationism. And if I think that that's Trump, then I'll vote for Trump. And so I think a lot of other people feel that way, too. And I'm hoping that it's enough to swing the election. It would help if the president would make himself a more, I would say, concerted voice of that message as opposed to sort of just reacting. Trump's a counterpuncher, but we actually need right now is a laser pointer, and that's going to take a little bit of a difference in strategy and a bit of a change.

A (55:58)

Well, one of the reasons, I also think that we're losing on the philosophical, historical and cultural landscape is we have such weak Republicans that have no idea how to fight on that landscape at all whatsoever. They ran for Congress because they knew how to fix one specific part of the tax code. And they have no real understanding that the left cares more about destroying our history than actually fighting corporate taxes. Like, for them, that's just, that's just street theater. I mean, basically for them in the Senate, what they really care about is trying to get 8, 9 and 10 year olds to hate the country that they live in. And I think a lot of these Republicans just, they run to the hills when these debates happen. They're like, I don't want anything to do with this. Like, just.

B (56:35)

Well, you can see this. I mean, the amount of Republican support that existed for the police reform bill, right, from Senator Tim Scott, overwhelming support from Republicans for that. It was an attempt to battle the problem that supposedly Democrats cared about. And Democrats trashed him. I mean, they suggested that Tim Scott was a sellout, and they suggested that there's something wrong with Tim Scott because they don't actually want a solution to this problem. They would like to instead attribute ever increasingly grave problems to the United States more broadly. And, you know, I think that Republicans tend to be solutions oriented in a time when they need to be culture fight oriented. Trump is culture fight oriented and not solutions oriented. But he needs to be very concerted about the culture fights that he picks, and he needs to be more exact about all of that. And this is why, again, I know it cuts against his nature. Go back on the teleprompter. Seriously, go back on the teleprompter. The Mount Rushmore speech was excellent. Right? His speech in Poland was excellent. He's given several great. His State of the Unions are excellent. There's nothing wrong with just using what works. If it weren't for Trump's Twitter account, he probably would still be down some in the polls because of COVID He wouldn't be down 10 points in the polls because of COVID I mean, the fact is that it is the feeling of volatility that is hurting him more than even his politics, more than anything that's going on. The feeling of volatility in a time when everybody feels the chaos is surrounding them is one of the reasons why he's suffering right now. So a feeling of stability and durability is what he needs to go for.

A (57:52)

And he should do a State of the Union every night where he shows up to put on a show for the country and he has testimonials, and he's willing to be magnanimous. I think that. That from now to the election and actually doing that publicly, unlike Biden. So, Ben, I want to ask you a question. I ask a lot of my guests this have you changed your mind about anything lately? And if so, why

B (58:15)

lately? Maybe I went from a little more optimistic about the country to a little more pessimistic about the country.

A (58:21)

How about more broadly in the last couple years or even the last five to. I ask this question a lot, especially young conservatives say, is it okay if I change my mind on something? I say, of course it is. I mean, I think it's healthy. And so is there anything big that you've changed your mind on since you've entered politics?

B (58:36)

I would say that I've generally become more libertarian, not less libertarian over time, which I know is sort of counter the prevailing sentiment these days. I've become more libertarian specifically because there are so many people who seem like they are perfectly willing to use the tools of government at their disposal. So I would say I've become probably less friendly toward government intrusion. I was never friendly toward government intrusion in markets, but I've become even less friendly toward that. I've become more friendly toward the idea of less federal regulation on a wide variety of issues simply because I want more authority delegated back to the states. I think that I can't think of any major policy thing that I've changed in the last couple of years. Maybe the one thing that I've changed is just my feeling that, I mean, here's the thing that I've changed, right? I mean, I said I wouldn't vote for Trump in 2016, I'm going to vote for him in 2020. So obviously that's a thing that changed. I will say that instead of me changing, I think that the circumstances changed because I think that that is more accurate. I don't think that I've changed my perspective on Trump very much. I think I've changed my perspective on him as far as his conservative governance. But I don't think that I've changed on, you know, sort of character and personality. What has changed is everything else. I mean, as circumstances change, your opinions change. And I think that when the Flight 93 election came out in 2016, I thought to myself, I'm not sure this is a Flight 93 election. Like Hillary Clinton as president is going to suck, but Mitch McConnell will be the Senate majority leader, so how much is it actually going to suck? And I don't know what the other pathway looks like. And this is starting to look a lot more like a Flight 93 election to me, given the fact that it could be Joe Biden plus a Democratic majority in the Senate, plus a Democratic majority in the House, and given the fact that Joe Biden is on his last legs and could nominate somebody incredibly radical. So the urgency of this election is, I think a lot of people took 2016 as incredibly urgent. This one seems a lot more urgent to me, frankly, especially with people rioting in the streets.

A (60:24)

So, last question. I get this all the time. I'm sure you do, too. Lots of emails of people that just pour in and they say, what can I do? What can I do? What can I do? You know, I love watching your show. I love doing this, and a lot of people support your show. Let's talk just in closing, prescriptively. What can a human being do to help save their country?

B (60:42)

I mean, the most important things that you can do are forge social ties with others. And I know it sounds trite, but here's the thing. It's an actual thing you can do, right? Very often people will say, you know, you go out and you fight or you go out and you campaign, run for Congress. It's kind of, how many people are going to actually run for Congress? How many people are actually going to dedicate their spare time to phone banking? But how many people are actually going to lead better lives, nicer lives with other people, inform themselves by reading a couple of books a year and then informing their children on the proper values and interacting well with friends, generously with friends, such that they see you as a human being and not just as a political stand in that is the way that people change their politics in this country. It's not because the politicians change their minds. It's because the people around them change theirs. So influence the people around you, lead a good and virtuous life, and you'll be doing a lot more than even people in the public sphere do to help change the nature of the country. I can rail against the wind as much as I want, and hopefully people listen and use it as a guide. But I think that the number of individuals who are converting voters on an individual level and converting people in their hearts and minds on an individual level is far greater and far more important than anything I'm doing.

A (61:42)

The book is how to Destroy America in Three Easy Steps. Any closing thoughts, Ben, that you want our audience to be aware of things you're working on?

B (61:49)

Well, all I would say is that it is preventable when we say how to destroy America in three easy steps. That's what the left is trying to do. That's what the disintegrationists are trying to do. It is preventable, but it's going to require some actual re education of ourselves and and reinculcation and founding principle and a new sort of patriotic fervor that drives us all together instead of apart

A (62:07)

and the commitment to fight. Well, Ben, thank you for everything. I've considered you a friend and I read almost everything you put out. I've learned a lot from you. So everyone, check out how to Destroy America in three Easy steps. It's very well written, very organized and very thoughtful. So Ben, thanks for coming back on the Charlie Kirk Show.

B (62:23)

Thanks so much, Charlie.

A (62:24)

You bet. See you soon. Man. What a great conversation that was with Ben Shapiro. Please email me your questions freedomarliekirk.com, freedomarliekirk.com Please type in Charlie Kirk show to your podcast provider. Hit subscribe, give us a 5 star review, screenshot it and email us. If you want to win a signed copy of the MAGA doctrine, please get involved with TurningPoint USA at tpusa.com that is tpusa.com Check out divestu.com if you want to divest some of your dollars from the sinister, backwards, malevolent higher education cartel. Check out our professor watch list@professor watchlist.org professorwatchlist.org we have some incredible new additions that you do not want to miss of radicals that are teaching your children right now to hate America. It's professorwatchlist.org email me directly freedomarliekirk.com your ideas and questions you want me to ask our guests here on the Charlie Kirk Show. Thank you guys so much for listening. Till next time. God bless.