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The Charlie Kirk Show
Stopping the Death of the American Middle Class with Entrepreneur Jeff Webb
00:39:30
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- [00:00]
A
Hey, everybody. Today on the Charlie Kirk Show, a conversation with my friend Jeff Webb, a great American entrepreneur. He wrote a really important book about the middle class. You're gonna love this conversation. If you want to support us and the work that our team is doing, go to charliekirk.comsupport. that's charliekirk.comsupport. jeff Webb is here. Buckle up, everybody. Here we go. Charlie, what you've done is incredible here.
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B
Maybe Charlie Kirk is on the college campus. I want you to know we are lucky to have Charlie Kirk. Charlie Kirk's running the White House, folks. I want to thank Charlie. He's an incred. His spirit, his love of this country. He's done an amazing job building one of the most powerful youth organizations ever created, Turning Point usa.
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A
We will not embrace the ideas that have destroyed countries, destroyed lives. And we are going to fight for freedom on campuses across the country. That's why we are here. Hey, everybody. Welcome to this episode of the Charlie Kirk Show. We are thrilled to be joined today by a friend of mine, Jeff Webb. A true American, a successful business owner, and he wrote a book that I really, really enjoy. And everyone listening should check it out. It's called American how to Unshackle the Great Middle Class. And when I first met Jeff, it was almost two or three years ago. And the first time we sat down, we were just. It's almost as if we knew each other for quite a long time. Cause we were on the same cadence of the same topics about how the middle class is getting crushed, about how corporations are really not acting in the interest of private markets, but really in the interests of the ruling class. And Jeff took a lot of our conversations. We worked together on a lot of different things and wrote this terrific book. Jeff, welcome to the Charlie Kirk Show.
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B
Hi. Great to be with you, my friend. Thank you for having me.
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A
You bet. And so Jeff gave a barn burner at our Student Action Summit. If you have not listened to it, you gotta check it out. An Only in America episode. Also, we did with Jeff talking about his amazing business career. But, Jeff, I really wanna get into your book here. Cause I think it's so applicable to what we're living through right now in our country. You talk about how we need to unshackle the great middle class. Can you talk about how important it is to have a robust middle class for our country's future?
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B
Well, you know, Charlie, one of the things that has separated our country from the rest of the world, frankly, for the last 60 years, has been the fact that we have this Large and relatively affluent middle class. Most countries are much more segmented. They have the great, great majority of the wealth at the top end than kind of everybody else. So, you know, our middle class has been a key to our economic, robust economic performance over all these years. And it's given us this great broad based society where people feel connected. Now, the middle class has been under assault for 30 to 40 years. And when you go all the way back to the period right after World War II when the GIs came home and they went back to work and back to school, started raising families, it created this incredible economic growth, built the greatest economy in the history of the world. But gradually, gradually that's being eroded. And what we're finding out is that there's such a squeeze on the middle class and that they don't have extra money to save, that they're being squeezed by high tuition, high health care costs, lack of job security. And of course, now you have the pandemic on top of that. And the middle class has probably been hurt more than anybody else in this pandemic. So it's going to be very interesting to see how we rebound. And to be honest with you, it's very troublesome. Some of the things I'm seeing that President Biden has come out with in the last couple of weeks don't exactly, you know, make me optimistic. We're going to have a robust economic recovery.
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A
And so I want to zero in on some of the specifics your book talks about. You have entire segments on ending political corruption, ending the endless foreign wars, which I definitely want to talk about, which is a passionate subject of mine, as you well know. I talk about it quite often. Efficient and effective defense spending, protecting American interests in foreign policy and sustainable economic expansion. You also have a part on Big Is Bad. And so, Jeff, in the last year, in the midst of the shutdowns, the lockdowns and the pandemic, billionaires have increased their wealth by $500 billion on average. Mark Zuckerberg has added $80 billion to his net worth. Elon Musk, who is probably my favorite of the bunch, I actually think he's kind of a creative genius, but still he has increased his net worth by over $80 billion. Bernard Allnott, who runs Louis Vuitton, another $90 billion. Jeff, middle class families are not able to celebrate the same amount of wealth expansion in the last year. What does this tell us? Are these trends sustainable? And what can we possibly do to address the almost Gilded Age era of wealth inequality really pressing our country?
- [05:09]
B
Well, Is this sustainable? I don't think so. Now, a lot of people think that, well, America can't go broke or America can't go out of business, if you will. It can. I mean, the problems we have with the extreme division of wealth, as you talked about, and you add the national debt that has ballooned. I mean, we are knocking on the door at $30 trillion in the national debt equal to 100% of our GDP. We are in a territory that we haven't been in since the end of World War II. And how we're going to get out of it is going to be very interesting. And when you end up with these problems, who always seems to take it on the chin in our country? The middle class? Is this sustainable? I don't think it is. And that's really why I've gotten involved and created this movement, if you will, to really help people understand that the middle class is so important to our country and making sure that people have an opportunity to do well and provide, provide for their families and have a hopeful future. We all need to be committed to this if we're gonna have the kind of country we wanna have.
- [06:16]
A
And so, Jeff, let's talk in specifics. I think some of these companies have assumed way too much power as people that are definitely not socialists or liberals, but a lot of people are watching, and they're not a conservative, they're not a liberal, they're just American. Is it okay for us to challenge some of these entrenched corporate interests? Is it okay for us to push back and say, hey, Amazon, maybe you should pay your workers a little bit more. Maybe you should pay some corporate income tax. Is that a healthy discussion to have?
- [06:45]
B
It's totally healthy. And something that has to happen. And so you have those kinds of, those kinds of issues that people need to speak up about. Then you also have the kind of. The kind of things that are being done by these countries, these companies, to the rest of our citizens? And that's the topic I'm sure we're going to get into here in a little bit as well.
- [07:05]
A
Yeah, no doubt. And you know, we've talked at length here about how these companies are no longer acting in the best interest of their workers in the American people. And it's a small group of companies, but they're a powerful group of companies. So can you. And wealthy. The whole part on big is bad. What do you mean by that in the book?
- [07:25]
B
Well, if you look at big government, you have this kind of unholy alliance. Now that's gotten more and more pronounced over the last 10 years, the last five years. I mean, look at the difference in size of Amazon and Facebook, Google, Twitter from where they are right now and five years ago. The growth and the expansion of their power is profound and it's having a profound impact. And the book was written before the election, obviously, and before some of the things that have happened in deplatforming and suppression of speech over the last couple of months. There was already, we were already headed down a bad, a bad path. But you have this, you have this kind of developing, I call it an unholy alliance in the book, as you see, between big business, big corporations, the wealthiest, as you talked about earlier among us, and the government ruling class. And big companies have gotten better and better through lobbyists in gaming the system and getting unfair advantages. They have the advantage of scale in the competitive market against mom and pop or smaller businesses. But then they also get these special carve outs through their lobbyists and the legislation and then how the legislation is actually enforced by our bureaucrats. It is not a level playing field. And it's leading to a lot of what you talked about earlier, where you've got this shift to the big companies and the smaller companies and the middle class getting squeezed. So that type of relationship and that type of concentration of power in things that are very important to our democracy into our way of life are frightening. And they have to be addressed. And it's not going to be easy. You can see what these companies do to people that contest what they're doing. They're brutal. They're brutal. And it takes a lot of courage. And it's going to take people standing up and making sure that we get things back on the right track.
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A
A lot of you guys have had Mike Lindell's back. I know a lot of you guys want to continue to have his back. And the amazing company that you guys are supporting is MyPillow. The inventor and CEO of MyPillow. Mike Lindell is fighting very, very hard. And a lot of you guys say I want to reward courage. If you go to mypillow.com and use the promo code, Kirk, you guys can basically get this amazing pillow that they sent me. You guys can get Giza dream seats, you guys can get Toppers robes, you name it. If you want to support the good guys, support people with courage. I know a lot of you guys do. MyPillow.com promo code, Kirk. Remember, all my pillow products come with a 60 day money back guarantee and a 10 year warranty and you can get the Giza dream seats, you can get the whole thing. Go to MyPillow.com promo code Kirk. MyPillow.com, promo code Kirk. So conservatives are generally very reluctant to ever criticize private companies. I know that you and I don't like the labels of conservative at times because it could be used. It's too general. However, for as a filler word, that's what I use to describe myself generally.
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B
Understand.
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A
And I don't have a better one, but yeah, exactly. And populist and all this. But I'm an American first and foremost. However, Jeff, can you talk about how you've had a lot of business experience, 45 years in the business world, you've built some of the most amazing businesses that we know. Can you talk about what you've learned about how some of the people that are quote unquote running these big corporations might not actually always have America's best interest at heart or the middle class's best interest at heart?
- [11:05]
B
Well, I think if you look at these companies, it's obvious. Look at where they're doing their manufacturing. Look at the jobs that have been taken offshore and out of our, especially our small towns, our good paying manufacturing jobs. Look at what the result has been. Look at the squeeze on the middle class, the opioid crisis, the suicide, all these that have negatively affected working Americans. And more and more, you see even anything about patriotism, anything about our own American citizens that's looked down upon by a lot of these big companies. They don't want to hear that. They don't want that part of their vernacular. They don't want to hear it. And you're right, they're putting their own personal interest and the interest of their companies. Their companies have almost become countries to them. They're more important than their country, it seems to me. So, and we're seeing the result of that. You know, I will say this about you take people like Mark Zuckerberg and you take the all the Apple executives, Microsoft, my hat's off to them from a business standpoint, they built an incredible business and many of them from pretty meager means, frankly. And so you have to take your hat off to them for what they have done. From a business standpoint, however, what nobody expected was that through technology these companies would become so powerful and have such a direct impact on our daily lives, our ability to communicate with each other, our ability to exercise rights of free speech and free expression. So they've been successful to a fault. And They've become companies and they've gotten into things that nobody envisioned. And it can't go on like this. It has to be addressed.
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A
And so I want to talk about one entity in particular that I have been a vocal critic of, which is the United States Chamber of Commerce. And we get a lot of emails from our listeners. And our listeners can email us freedomarliekirk.com of people that say, well, Charlie, the local chamber does a good job. And I always differentiate between the local chamber and the national chamber. And usually the more territory the chamber represents, the more corrupt they end up being. So a statewide chamber is gonna be a little bit more wishy washy than just like the local chamber of Tulsa, Oklahoma, which represents local businesses. But let's talk about the United States Chamber of Commerce. The, the big daddy. What is wrong with the Chamber? I have been a critic of them. I believe you share my views of that. Who do they actually represent?
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B
They represent those same big corporations that have accumulated all that power and all that money and a lot of that. And some of that money goes to help support the chamber. So again, you have kind of this almost call it legal corruption. You've got this big bureaucracy that's able to work between big government and big companies and exercise power and influence. And people in small business and the general public should understand, in my opinion, and I know you should share this, the US Chamber of Commerce is not the friend of small business and everyday Americans. They are the friend of big business. The wealthiest among us in big government. That's who they are. They're part of that establishment.
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A
And Jeff, I'm so glad you've said that because a lot of our listeners are confused because they say, well, the local Chamber of Commerce in Billings, Montana does a nice job. And that might be, but that's not the National Chamber of Commerce.
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B
No, that Chamber of Commerce, Billings, Montana is working on getting new jobs for Billings, Montana and expanding the economy and supporting the local businesses. In most cases, these local chambers of commerce do a great job. But that should not be confused with
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A
the U.S. chamber and the U.S. no, you're right. And the U.S. chamber controls a lot of the legislative priorities on Capitol Hill. They control a lot of political donations. It's not just a loose collection of groups that are affiliated. They have a lot of power and they dictate immigration policy, they dictate policy when it comes to corporate governance, all sorts of different issues. And so I want to go to another specific year book, and I'm going to say the book again, American Restoration how to Unshackle the Great Middle Class. Go buy it, but don't buy it on Amazon.com, i'm kidding. You might have to, because we're all.
- [15:29]
B
It's on Amazon. It's an Amazon bestseller. Thank goodness. We really.
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A
Amazon bestseller. Congratulations.
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B
It's also, it's also available on middleclasswarriors.com
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A
that's my preferred way for people to buy it. Middleclasswarriors.com and the doctrine is so important, everybody, because this articulates in this book and it goes through different parts of it. It goes through what Jeff's take is. It's called what's my take? Then the challenges we face. But now I want to transition Jeff into solutions. I like to be a solution oriented person. I know you do too. I think it's what makes our radio program a little bit different than most. We don't just complain, we do plenty of that. But then we also then offer solutions and we offer concrete ideas to be able to proceed forward. And so I wanna focus our conversation now on the ideas and support of the middle class, which shares your specific recommendations. So, Jeff, what is the agenda right now? What would you tell President Biden what to do? What should senators be doing, what should Congress people be doing specifically when it comes to public policy measures?
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B
First of all, let me say this. I think Joe Biden missed the biggest opportunity a political leader has seen in 50 years. He won. We can debate whether it was fair or not. He's the president, all right? He talked about unity, all right, in his inauguration speech. If he would have walked the talk, if he would have come in and said, you know what, I know people are angry on the left at Donald Trump, it's over, okay, let's move forward. And if he had come in and said, I really do want to work with Republicans because by the way, nearly 50% of the people voted against me or for the other side. And instead he came in and started immediately, as we've seen in the first two weeks, all of these strictly partisan, heavy handed regulations. And all of a sudden the wind has gone out of the sails and now we're right back to where we were. So let me just start out with that. I think it was a huge miss. The people around him, we keep hearing about that. There's one group of people that are more moderate, more traditional, his background, frankly. But then we've got the other set of people who are much more progressive, if you will, much, much a little more extreme. And we're trying to see who's really going to have the influence? It doesn't look good right now. Doesn't look good right now. But I think that there's so much to be done. And you know, in our company, as I was building the company, one of our tenets was, the first one was do no harm. Right. Like for the doctors, do no harm. And I think if President Biden had come in and taken that approach right off the bat and been patient, I think he would have ultimately been more successful. We will see over the next few years. There's so much to be done. The number one, the number, the overarching issue is political corruption. I talk about this in the book. It affects everything.
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A
Yes.
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B
And this is not just people getting paid off. It's lobbying money, it's foreign money, it's, you know, campaign contributions. It's just, it's part of the entire fabric of our country now and in our, in our commerce. So I think that's the most important thing then, or it's the overarching issue, if you will.
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A
Yes.
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B
I think the second one, frankly has to do with big Tech. I think that has vaulted itself to the very, to the very forefront. Not only because, not only because of monopoly, not only because what these countries, companies are doing to their competitors and crushing them. And also people don't realize that these companies have huge lobbying arms. They are contributing to every candidate. And by the way, it's both sides of the aisle. It's both sides of the aisle. But then when you add on that onto that, again, the suppression of free speech, how they're canceling people, how they're de platforming people is absolutely frightening. We cannot have a dynamic economy, a growing middle class, just a growing, again, a growing economy without the kinds of freedoms that we've enjoyed in this country for over 200 years. You can't separate those two. When you do, who are we? Who are. We're just another one of these countries. So there's so much to be done.
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A
So you wrote a piece recently@humanvents.com where you talked about the federalist response to big Tech. Can you help build that out about how the states are might actually present themselves an opportunity to be middle class warriors? So let's just take Washington D.C. out of the equation. What can Ron DeSantis do, what can Governor Kristi Noem do to advance the middle class agenda that you've articulated in this book?
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B
Yeah, well, with a little bit of the setup, I've gotta start out saying this. Ron DeSantis has emerged as A star.
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A
I agree. I did a whole podcast on him,
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B
his handling of the COVID crisis. And then what he's done now to address these issues. I mean, head on, unemotional, but very, very pragmatic, very rational, very intelligent.
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A
I totally agree.
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B
And what he's done with regard to big tech is amazing. And it's like if we think the way things are now, if we're going to get anything done with regard to big tech and their heavy handedness through Washington for the next four years, we're wrong. The Democrats are benefiting from what's happening. They are. In the short term. They are in the short term. My prediction is it will come back to haunt them, just like changing how we nominate judges. But what DeSantis has done is said, you know what? I'm not waiting for the federal government. You know, I'm going to represent the citizens of my state and these companies all operate in my state and for my citizens, they utilize their services. I'm going to protect these citizens from bad behavior from these companies. And by going in and making it illegal for, for these companies to filter content, to decide what people can and can't see, to say to somebody, I'm sorry, I don't like what you said, we're going to take you off, we're going to take you down, we're going to deplatform you to get involved in politics to help determine what the elections are by using their algorithms and what comes on to the various screens of people who use these devices. He said we're not going to let it happen and we're going to make it illegal and we're going to allow individuals and political organizations or companies that are treated this way to actually sue these companies now. So it's going to put some bite into it. The great, the brilliant thing here is this, is, this should be the tip of the spear. You know, we have, we have, I think it's 27 states where the Republicans control both houses of Congress. And in 23 of those we have Republican governors.
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A
That's right.
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B
Every one of the governors and every one of these state legislatures should be following suit. Think about the pressure that puts on these companies. These big tech companies have operated in this way, Charlie, with impunity.
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A
That's right.
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B
They felt no bite. So I think DeSantis has given us a way to level the playing field. He's given us a roadmap. Now it's up to these other governors and these state legislatures to follow suit, and it's up to our citizens to put pressure on them to do it.
- [23:22]
A
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B
Right, exactly.
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A
It's not a war. But how is it not something that could be endless? Those are state delegated troops. Ron DeSantis said, Send them home. And by the way, Jeff, that National Guard deployment cost taxpayers $500 million to bring 25,000 National Guard troops to Washington, D.C. you talk about ending political corruption. States could pass robust ethics reform where none of the Members that are in their delegation could be receiving certain types of corporate money or foreign money. Jeff, can you build out this idea of how states can now help implement this agenda then? I want to get even more specific.
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B
Yeah, well, I think you can look at almost every single thing that's happening with the federal government and the overreach, and there should be a state reaction. And you are right. And I think, again, it could be that this issue with what Governor DeSantis has done, because everybody is so sensitive to it right now, Charlie, this could open the eyes of people that this is the way, this is what we need to get back to. Everybody is looking at the federal government for everything. And so this is a way for the kind of our system of federalism, again, to begin to take hold and have more influence. But you can see it in almost every aspect of commerce. You can see, again, this is the perfect example. But you're right, the state legislatures, we can do things to make them more responsive. You see what's being done in Texas, by the way, with regard to the wall and the lawsuits that the state of Texas is bringing against federal government that they're affected. I mean, you've been to the border a number of times. I've spent some time there. And you see the impact of just this unrestricted immigration. You see where the impact is. They don't feel it immediately in Illinois. They do feel it in Texas and Arizona and New Mexico. And so what the state of Texas is doing is like, this is hurting our citizens, it's hurting our economies. We're going to react and we're going to take the lead. We'll see how that one plays out. But I think you're going to see more and more of that in the next two years. In particular, as I think the Biden administration tries to really put the pedal to the metal on these, on regulation.
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A
I agree with that. So let's get to a couple specific policies that you talk about in your book around ensuring our children's future. Jeff, the topic that no one wants to talk about that gives more American families anxiety, especially American families that are 45 and older, is the topic of healthcare. It is a topic that drives people into debt. Medical debt is the least talked about, but most economically catastrophic form of debt, where the interest is just sometimes insurmountable. The. The. Not invoices, but the bills you get are inexplicable at times where you say, I was only there for a couple hours and now I have to pay. How much can you talk about? You in your book you talk about affordable and accessible health care. How do we do that? Jeff? That is something that every American could get behind. But how do we accomplish.
- [28:45]
B
Took us a long time to get here. It won't be easy to get out of it. Right, but you have to get started, you know. And so if you can sit there and go that this is, oh my God, this is such an incredible problem. How do we ever do this? The answer is you have to get started. And I think you start with the smallest, the smallest chunks. You know, the take the easy wins if you can. Competition between, in between states. You know that that's a good one to start out with. But I think that you and I have talked about this before. The Republicans have been late to the switch here. Because you can't just be against something, you have to offer alternatives. I think finding ways to get the relationship between the actual physician and the patient back into the picture is absolutely critical. I mean there are so many physicians now that work for a hospital system, work for a big company that, that more and more the patient's right to know what's happening, not only what treatment they're getting, but how much it's costing as they go along, what their alternatives are. As you're saying, a lot of times these are not even presented to the patient. And people need to be able to be in control of their own decisions about their health and make those decisions. There has to be so much more transparency, which we just don't have.
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A
And our entire system is basically a debt financed system. A lot of our education is financed by debt. Our obviously housing is, but that's more of a healthy form of debt. Cause you actually build equity that long term should go up in value and our tax code is built into that. Credit card debt, personal debt, and you even talk about the national debt now. Jeff, I am a fiscal hawk. I feel like I'm the only one left anymore that talks about cutting spending and balancing the budget. I'm all alone out here and I know where this brings us. The laws of nature have gone unchanged, Jeff, since a decade ago when we used to talk about the debt robustly. We're headed for inflation, we are headed for the deterioration of purchasing power. And you write in this book that we must address out of control federal spending and reduce the debt. Can you convince some of our listeners and viewers that might have been up to you at this point. And they say, ah, deficits don't matter. I'm with you on the middle class thing, but I actually don't really care that much, cuz I don't wanna see a spending cut. Why should middle class families want our national debt under control?
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B
Yeah. And when you say it's $30 trillion, who can comprehend that?
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A
People are like, so what? Like it might as well be 40, right?
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B
Yeah, yeah. And by the way, my life is not a lot different now at 30 trillion than it was at 10 trillion.
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A
That's right.
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B
Right. So you know, I talk about this in the book, Charlie, where that, you know, you're right, the day of reckoning is coming. The day it's not, it's not if, it's when and how, but it is coming.
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A
That's exactly right.
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B
This is unsustainable. And I tell people, here's the easy way to look, here's a kind of a simple way to look at this. So let's take your family and your budget. You've got your income, your salary or whatever, you've got to operate within a budget. So you start operating, you start spending more than more than you make. So you start building up a debt, right? And then you keep doing that every month. And then it gets to be pretty significant. But you look at it and go, wait a minute, my life hasn't changed. You know, I still have food, I've still got my job, I've still got my car, still go, you know, go to the movies, whatever. It's not changing. And you just keep getting more and more debt and then all of a sudden you hit the wall and something stops. And all of a sudden you can't get that money. And by the way, the wolf is at the door for you to pay back right now. Your life is going to change. And it's the same way an American family, we are living beyond our means, is going to have to be paid back. And this is one thing, I work with a lot of young people, as you know, through my company, college kids and millennials. And you know, one of the things I hear them saying is that you're leaving us a big debt. You know, the people that are really politically aware and involved, they realize that we are doing this to them. Shame on us. Shame on us. But it will come home to roost. It will. And we better start doing something about it. But I don't see. I see. I'm with you. We are lone voices in the dark right now, right? Both sides of the aisle.
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A
I know.
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B
Well, it doesn't really matter. The interest rates are so low, it doesn't make any difference. Yes, it does, because you've got principal that's building up that eventually you're going to have to pay back. And by the way, when interest rates go up, it's going to be harder to pay back.
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A
Well, and people say we have no inflation. That is a bunch of nonsense. I can prove inflation exists. Just go to the local restaurant here in Arizona and year over year prices are up 12%. For what reason? I don't know. A great other example is look at Starbucks.
- [33:40]
B
College tuition. Try college tuition.
- [33:42]
A
Yeah, college tuition. Or Starbucks is a start. How is Starbucks able to get away with $4.50 for a Grande coffee? The reason is because Starbucks, either consciously or unconsciously, while looking at the price model, realizes that their cost of production, to keep their profit margins, they have to adjust their prices, meaning that they're, they're adjusting to inflation, whether or not a macro economist tells them that. And inflation destroys the middle class. Vladimir Lenin famously said that I will crush the middle class through taxation and inflation. And inflation is a tax. Inflation is a tax without you realizing it. It's the silent killer. It's your dollar that's not worth a dollar again tomorrow. And so Jeff, I want to also talk about you talking about quality and student centered education. What do you mean by that?
- [34:32]
B
Well, you know the, again, you know how they, you know the saying that crises accelerate trends.
- [34:40]
A
That's right.
- [34:41]
B
We're seeing that right now and I think we already have, we've already had a crisis in education and we're seeing right now what's happened to students across the country who've been unable to go to school, who are trying to die or trying to, you know, use their computer at home. And it's not working. Everything that we're seeing, it's not working. Yes, you've got some Catholic schools and some private schools and frankly some public systems that have gone back, but across the country we're seeing just this deterioration in the quality of education. Now having said that, the other part of this is that we are losing the opportunity. We started making some progress and, and now there's a movement to push back on people being able to make their own choices about where they go to school and what they do, what teachers they have that there being competition result that does not affect the wealthiest among us because guess what, their kids are going to go to the best private schools. They're going to get tutors to have their kids take their SATs and ACTs and college entrance exam, all these kinds of entrance exams, how to get in the best colleges, how to interview, how to build your resume. And then they get in the best colleges and then they get the best jobs. So we just got this circular move toward the wealthy getting wealthier and everybody else staying the same or going down. Education is the way out of that. Education is the great equalizer, the grade equalizer. We have got to be committed to putting students first. We've got to be committed to letting parents decide what's best for their kids, where their kids can get the best education. And if we can get going down that path, we have a chance. But these kids were stuck in these bad schools. And these kids who come from disadvantaged neighborhoods or disadvantaged families, they don't have a chance to get out with that education. So it's something that affects all of us. People who think that I'm not, you know, I've got a pretty good school. I'm not affected. We are all affected by what happens to our society.
- [36:57]
A
Amen. I totally agree. So, Jeff, can you now talk about what people can do about this? They agree with your agenda. They want to fight for the middle class. What are some action steps people can take?
- [37:07]
B
You know, we have no choice but for people to be involved. You can't. We can't sit back and just watch anymore. People have to get involved. They have to look at these various causes, the things that I have in my book. There are organizations that are designed out there for every one of them that people can go and get involved and help. But it's got to get back to citizen involvement. Charlie. I mean, you're the perfect example of someone who's gotten involved and built this amazing organization. And people out there that are, you know, you know, doing something, you know, taking action, that's. That's exactly what it's going to take. And I hope. Just look, look at a cause, go on the Internet. Find the organizations that, that you can. That you can be a part of, and you can help move the cause in the right way.
- [37:56]
A
I think that's really well said. The book is American Restoration, how to Unshackle the Great Middle Class. Jeff, any closing thoughts or any topics that we wanted to cover that I might not have hit?
- [38:09]
B
Well, you know, when I started writing this book, it was just as the pandemic began, if you will, and I had a lot of time to really reflect and talk about so many of the issues that I'd pondered and talk to people like you about and put them together. But in that short period of time from then, from last April until now, you know, the plight of the middle classes, that nothing would get worse. And there is no easy way out of this. It's going to take people getting involved and working hard. The good news is if we do that, it also creates this great connection of people working together, working for the right things and I think that we can make a big difference. I remain optimistic but it's going to take everybody. Nobody can sit on the sidelines anymore.
- [38:54]
A
Well said. Middleclasswarriors.com, jeff. Thank you for this great conversation and hope to see you soon my friend.
- [39:00]
B
Sounds great. Thanks Charlie.
- [39:02]
A
Thanks Jeff. Thanks so much for listening everybody. If you want to get involved with Turning Point USA where we play offense with a sense of urgency to win America's culture war, go to tpusa.com, that's tpusa.com, start a high school group, start a college group@tpusa.com email us your questions freedomarliekirk.com and if you'd like to support us, go to charliekirk.com support thanks so much for listening everybody. God bless.