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A few weeks ago, Drew and I talked about the Political Compass on the live and now I'm going to take the Political Compass test and see where I end up.
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The Political Compass test was first developed by a British news outlet all the way back in 2001 with the goal of expanding how we discuss political ideology. The test was designed to implement two separate axes, one for economic ideology and the other for social ideology. The aim of this was to begin dissecting the politics of any individual, utilizing a more in depth system rather than the simple left right spectrum we all colloquially understand. Today we are putting Tom through the test to find out where he really stands. First question if economic globalization is inevitable, it should primarily serve humanity rather than the interests of transnational corporations.
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Why is that? The dichotomy? That's a weird split. If economic globalism is inevitable, it's not. It should primarily serve humanity rather than the well yes, strongly agree. You definitely want to serve humanity. But let me tell you bro, that is going to get weird and how you define that will be strange.
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I always support my country whether it was right or wrong.
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Oh God, what do they mean by support? So yes, I'm not going to be a traitor to my country, but the real answer is that if my country is wrong, I'm going to speak up loudly. So I would say I strongly disagree.
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No one chooses their country of birth so it's foolish to be proud of it.
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Strongly disagree.
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Our race has many superior qualities compared with other races.
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Jesus Christ. Strongly disagree.
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I said R. So you know, okay, that helps. I guess the Enemy of my enemy is my friend.
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Disagree. But not strongly.
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Military action that defies international law is sometimes justified.
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Strongly agree.
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There is now a worrying fusion of information and entertainment.
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I strongly agree.
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That was a banger. That's a good question. People are ultimately divided more by class than by nationality.
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Disagreements.
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Controlling inflation is more important than controlling unemployment.
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Strongly agree.
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Because corporations cannot be trusted to voluntarily protect the environment. They require regulation.
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Agree.
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From each according to his ability, to each according to his need is a fundamentally good idea.
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Strongly disagree.
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The freer the market, the freer the people.
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Strongly agree.
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It's a sad reflection on how society. On our society that something as basic as drinking water is now a bottled, branded consumer product.
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Strongly disagreeable.
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Land shouldn't be a commodity to be bought and sold.
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Strongly disagree.
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It is regrettable that many personal forges are made by people who simply manipulate money and contribute nothing to their society.
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Disagree.
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Protectionism is sometimes necessary in trade.
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Strongly agree.
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The only social responsibility of a company should be to deliver a profit to its shareholders.
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Disagree.
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The rich are too highly taxed.
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Disagree.
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Those with the ability to pay should have access to higher standards of medical care.
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Strongly agree.
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Government should penalize businesses that mislead the public.
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Strongly agree.
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A genuine free market requires. Requires restriction on the ability of predator multinationals to create monopolies.
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A genuine free market requires restrictions. So you need to stop them from doing that. And I strongly agree.
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Abortion, when the woman's life is not threatened, should always be illegal.
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Strongly disagree.
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All authority should be questioned.
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Strongly agree.
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An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth.
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Strongly disagree.
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Taxpayers should not be expected to prop up any theaters or museums that cannot survive on a commercial basis.
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Disagree.
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Schools should not make classroom attendance compulsory.
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Schools. I mean, you should.
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Yes, and pause there. What's the hesitation?
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Yeah, it's one of those where I like that students have to be educated, but parents should be able to decide in what form that takes. So the schools shouldn't be in charge of it. But the ethos of making sure that our young are educated I do like. As a rule. I think that that's very important. But schools shouldn't be the ones to. Oh, God. This is going to be. Schools should not make classroom attendance compulsory. I'll go with agree, but not strongly.
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All people have their rights, but it is better for all of us that different sorts of people should keep to their own kind.
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Jesus. Strongly disagree.
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Good parents sometimes have to spank their children.
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Strongly agree.
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It's natural for children to keep some secrets from their parents. Oh.
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Agree.
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Possessing Marijuana for personal use should not be a criminal offense.
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Strongly agree.
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The prime function of schooling should be to equip the future generation to find jobs.
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To find jobs. I'm going to go with disagree. But it's not that it doesn't matter. It just shouldn't be the primary focus.
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If you can change something, what should be the primary focus?
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Problem solving and dealing with the real world. So how to deal with your emotions, understanding your biology, knowing how to invest. Like there are things that will prepare you for the world that have nothing to do with finding a job. But people should definitely think about being an ad to society. But you may want to create a company or something like that. I have a feeling what they mean by this is that the prime function of school should be to be a cog in the machine. That I disagree with. I'll say disagree, but hedge my bets a little bit because there's enough gray area in there. I'm not going to push all the way to. Strongly disagree.
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People with serious inheritable disabilities should not be allowed to reproduce.
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God damn. Strongly disagree. What the. Who wrote this?
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The most important thing for children to learn is to accept discipline.
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Strongly disagree.
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There are no savage and civilized peoples. There are only different cultures.
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Strongly disagree.
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Those who are able to work and refuse the opportunity should not expect society support.
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Strongly agree.
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When you are troubled, it's better not to think about it, but to keep busy with more cheerful things.
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Honestly. Yeah. Strongly agree.
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Yeah, I'm with you on that one. First generation immigrants can never be fully integrated within their new country.
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Strongly disagree.
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What's good for the most successful corporations is always ultimately good for all of us.
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Yeah, right. Strongly disagree.
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No broadcasting institution, however independent its content, should receive public funding these days.
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I strongly agree. There was a time where I wouldn't have. But the Internet is just so plentiful. Strongly agree.
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Our civil liberties are being excessively curbed in the name of counterterrorism. Ooh.
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Strongly agree.
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A significant advantage of a one party state is that it avoids all the arguments that delay progress in a democratically in the democratic political system.
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Strongly. Aggressively disagree.
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Although the electronic age makes official surveillance easier, only wrongdoers need to be worried.
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Get out of here. Strongly disagree.
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The death penalty should be an option for the most serious crimes.
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Strongly agree.
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In a civilized society, one must always have people above to be obeyed and people below to be commanded.
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One must always have no. Strongly disagree.
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Abstract art that doesn't represent anything shouldn't be considered art at all.
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Strongly disagree.
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In criminal justice, punishment should be more Important than rehabilitation.
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Ooh, interesting. More important than rehabilitation. If I knew that they could be rehabilitated, I would be much more into the rehabilitation.
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Make it a policy.
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What's the make it a policy, Drew? Very well said. Very well said. I don't think we know how to rehabilitate, so I'm going to go with punishment should be more important. I'll go with agree, but not strongly.
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It is a. Time is a waste of time to try to rehabilitate some criminals.
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Agree.
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The business person and the manufacturer are more important than the writer and the artist.
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Ooh.
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I feel like you just. These are both of your identities. I know.
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They are both very meaningful. But, y', all, I'll agree that if you could have a bunch of artists but nobody doing business, you have a problem. If you have a bunch of business people with no writers and artists, it's sad. It's a bad day, but you can still have a functioning economy.
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Mothers may have careers, but their first duty is to be homemakers.
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God, no. Strongly disagree, but I highly advise. Dear mothers, I highly advise you to prioritize your children as much as you can. That would be very good for them, but same for dads, by the way. So this is why. Yeah, Dear parents. Well said, Drew. This is exactly why I didn't have kids, because I knew that I would prioritize my career way too much. So, yeah, that's not a uniquely mom thing, but if you're gonna have kids while I feel you're doing all of us a great service, and so I feel terrible asking a little bit more of you, if you're gonna do it, do it well. That would be my advice.
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Almost all politicians promise economic growth, but we should heed the warnings of climate science that growth is detrimental to our efforts to curb global warming.
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I mean, yes, but I'm going to go with dis. Wait. I'll say agree, but certainly not strongly agree. I feel I need a neutral one on this one.
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Yeah, this is interesting. I thought you were going to say disagree.
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Well, here's the thing. You do need to listen. Climate change is real. But you don't need to act like a European psychopath where it's like, no matter what, you just. More green. More green. Even if it's economically disadvantageous. That's stupid. However, pretending like Beijing could just be Beijing, like they were, you know, 15, 20 years ago, where it was like breathing one big cigarette your entire life, that's also an atrocity. So, yeah, I'll leave it there. This one needs a neutral Button.
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But yeah, this is about to say this is the first one that surprised me. Like your answer but having that lack of neutral but I guess where it breaks. Making peace with the establishment is an important aspect of maturity.
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Yes, the iron law of oligarchy. So I'll agree, but not strongly.
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Astrology accurately explains many things.
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Strongly disagree.
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You cannot be moral without being religious.
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Strongly disagree.
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Charity is better than Social Security as a means of helping the genuinely disadvantaged.
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Yeah, I'll go with agree but not strongly. There's nuance, but the reason that I say agree is that charity tends to be more at the local level. They're more likely to know the person and whether they actually need it or not. A big part of the problem with social systems is that it becomes anonymous. The bureaucracy then wants its own survival. And so you fund and fund and fund homelessness only to get more homelessness because that organization needs the more homeless people to grow. And so it ends up not solving the problem. But again, going back to what I was saying earlier, having no social safety net is brutal. There are times where people are going to have a legitimate need and we as people trying to build an awesome society would do well to catch them. But you do need means testing.
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Some people are very are naturally unlucky.
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I mean, sure, in a random universe, but I'm going to say strongly disagree. Because I don't think while luck is a real thing, it's not like ah ha ha ha, that person is chronically unlucky. It's not like that.
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It is important that my child school instills religious values.
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Strongly disagree.
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Sex outside of marriage is hugely immoral.
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Strongly disagree.
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A same sex couple in a stable, loving relationship should not be excluded from the possibility of child adoption.
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Strongly agree.
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Pornography depicting consenting adults should be legal for the adult population.
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Strongly agree.
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What goes in, what goes on in a private bedroom between consenting adults is no business of the state.
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Strongly agree.
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No one can feel naturally homosexual.
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The reports do not indicate that that is true. Strongly disagree.
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These days openness about sex has gone too far.
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I agree.
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Ooh, yeah, that's a, that's another.
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I don't think it should be curbed. Like I don't think the government should get involved. But if you want to know if I think that Bonnie Blue is on the right track, I do not. I, I think that is gonna be a bad day for her.
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Now let's see where you stand.
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So I'm super far from authoritarian. That is absolutely true. And I am ever so slightly to the right this Is pretty accurate for me.
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Center, right?
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Yeah. But also just to be very clear, I would like the record to reflect how far away from authoritarian I am.
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On the economic. We have usual suspects. AOCs over here. Jeremy Corbyn, Bernie Sanders, Zoram Hamdani.
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Whoa, whoa, whoa. Those guys are the most authoritarian and how dare you?
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This is on the world map. So, you know, world authoritarian is different than us.
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And anybody who's a democratic socialist is ultra authoritarian.
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But when you look up here, there's actual dictators. Kim Jong Un, super left, super authoritarian.
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Yes.
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Xi Jinping, Vladimir Putin. I thought that was.
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Guys don't like, max that out.
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Then of course, on the authoritarian right, we have Donald Trump, J.D. vance, Benjamin Netanyahu, Victor Orban, who just got voted out. Marine Le Pen. Yeah. Yeah, this is interesting.
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Pretty accurate.
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Yeah.
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Well, to me that feels very on point. There were some of the questions that I was pushed in one direction or the other that didn't feel quite right. But overall, the rating of where they put me, I think feels pretty real. I am from a temperament perspective, ever so slightly right. In terms of like classic old school evolution type, personal responsibility versus communal, if you will.
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Was there any questions that keeping you up at night that ones that stuck out to you that you're still like.
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The honest answer is there were a lot of them where you could really get nitpicky about what they mean by a given word. Ones that like stood out. And I really felt uncomfortable with my answer. There's nothing that like sticks in my craw, if you will. Finding out exactly where you stand on something like that, I think is incredibly useful. Know thyself is the first rule. And I think so often people mistake the way that they think for being objectively right. And I have learned very aggressively in my marriage that it isn't that I'm right, it's just that there are things that I want to do my way and that I reduce dramatically the friction in my life once I realized, oh, I have a way that I like to do things, it is not objectively right. And if you can learn to work with other people who are also trying to do things their way isn't objectively right, but it is their way. And if you can come together with that and find out what that compromise is, where you guys can actually share values, then we could get some momentum and moving forward. Right now, everybody is so hell bent to be on a team that if somebody doesn't end up in your quadrant, you want to throw feces and so be very careful about focusing on the things that make you different and really, really try to find a way to come together in the middle. That is when the world has always been at its best, is when we're choosing between two sides that are relatively close to each other in the middle. We're very much not there. Right now. We're hitting pause for a moment, but there's plenty more ahead, so don't go anywhere. Nine out of the ten largest banks get it. They get advantagescore. The Modern Credit Score is the leader in predictive power, improving mortgage default predictions and saving lenders billions better predictions. Better for your business with VantageScore if you work in university maintenance, Grainger considers you an MVP because your playbook ensures your arena is always ready for tip off, and Grainger is your trusted partner, offering the products you need all in one place, from H Vac and plumbing supplies to lighting and more, and all delivered with plenty of time left on the clock so your team always gets the win. Call 1-800-GRAINGER visit grainger.com or just stop by Grainger for the ones who get it done. If you work in university maintenance, Grainger considers you an MVP because your playbook ensures your arena is always ready for tip off and Grainger is your trusted partner, offering the products you need all in one place, from H Vac and plumbing supplies to lighting and more. And all delivered with plenty of time left on the clock, so your team always gets the win. Call 1-800-GRAINGER visit grainger.com or just stop by Grainger for the ones who get it done. All right, let's dive right back in. Here are the five books you must read if you want to last in the New World. 1. Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin 2. The Gulag Archipelago by Alexander Solzhenitsyn. That is a must. Mao the Unknown Story by Zheng Cheng the Red Famine by Anne Applebaum and the Machiavellians Defenders of Freedom by James Burnham who is the book?
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Who are these books for? What is Tom Pre these books and Tom Post these books? And what are some of the changes you found with each individual one? Or you could group them together.
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The reason that I picked these five books is we are in this incredibly tumultuous time and I want people to be able to navigate it well. And by that I mean on the other side of this, we have to pick the right politicians and we have to invest our money wisely. If you do those two things, you're gonna have a much better shot at coming out the other side, no matter what happens. Well, but to do that, you have to look at the way the world and not be lost in your frame of reference. Like if you want to understand who I was before I read these books and then understand who I am after, it was I had one frame of reference. That the world is a good just place where it's pretty rare, that things go wrong, that prosperity is a natural force of nature, that things tend towards the good and it doesn't require any effort from us. That inflation for instance, is a natural law, that it's not man made. And then on the other side of all that, I realized, oh, the way that societies are structured, there always is this small group of elites at the top that are making decisions for all of us. They want to control what we see and believe. So they are intentionally leveraging the fact that we all get trapped inside of a frame of reference. It's necessary. But the smaller they can keep that frame of reference, the more they can control you. And that if you can get outside of your frame of reference and start tracking cause and effect now, you can avoid being manipulated and you can pick an endpoint on the horizon that you want to get to. Whether I can economically, emotionally, in your career, whatever, you can actually get there because you can step outside of what you've been taught to believe and actually see how things connect.
A
Okay, you went from extreme ownership to literally a first person narrative of the Holocaust. All those books have in common.
B
Okay, so right now we're living in certainly the most tumultuous time in anybody who's alive life. We've never had this kind of disruption. The last time that anything was this dramatic was World War II. The first step is going to be for people to take ownership of their circumstances. There is a hard reality to be faced about the fact that your life is a reflection of your choices. We live in a deterministic universe, so everything is cause and effect. But we have raised two generations of people to believe that the world is just always replete with success. It's an abundant world and the reality is it's not. And to have a moment like this is exceptionally rare and very difficult. And if people don't start going, oh, I can make different choices and get a different outcome, they're not going to walk down the right path. The reason that I include the three books, the Gulag Archipelago, the Red Famine and Mao the Unknown Story is we are about to re ask the question, what economic system serves people the best? Because we've come out of the longest stretch of unprecedented economic growth for the middle class. We are now forgetting that we made a really hard choice between communism and capitalism, and we've been eroding capitalism here in the West. Is something you and I argue about a lot, But I think we're about to have to re answer that question. And I think the consequences are dire. And it is something I just really can't get people to hear me. And you're such a good barometer for me. You're smart, you're super well meaning, you just want the right answer. You have a child, you love her the most, and it's like, I know you just want what's good for her. But if you haven't read those three books to understand how wrong things go with humans. And the one notion that I think people really miss is to get equal outcomes, you have to do it by force. And those three books show three real examples in the 20th century. Man, this is not like a long time ago. Mao was alive when I was alive. For people to understand those three examples of how evil you have to be to get people to relinquish what they have fought to earn. Even if it starts in a good place, it ends up with murder. And those three books, because I think people believe I'm being hyperbolic. Keep in mind I didn't start with this worldview. I, maybe more than most, I used to get made fun of by my business partners for being Pollyanna. And reading those books and many, many more about the atrocities of the 20th century, about economics, quite frankly, I really came to understand how bloody and sinister communism is. We've been able to communicate how evil Nazism is, but we were not able to get that same message across about communism. And so those three books really paint a terrifying picture from the inside of what it was like to live through those systems.
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Okay, so we have the first one, extreme ownership. It's important for the individual to know that you can change the decisions that. And you can change your life based on those decisions.
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Yes. Life is not random. It's a deterministic universe. You're in control of your actions. You can change your outcomes.
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Then the next three. Mao, Gulag and Red Famine. This is what happens when the human race breaks bad. That's a very shorthanded way.
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The economic system you choose will have massive consequences. And if we go down the socialist communist route, it is the bloodiest path imaginable.
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And these are three examples of that.
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Yes, to get people on the inside of that so they understand the massive consequences. And if nothing else, to. To understand the brutality required to get people to willingly give up what they have fought to earn.
A
Okay. And then to round us out now with Machiavelli and defenders of freedom.
B
So we're. We're in the middle of an era where the way the world works is becoming apparent to us and it's going to have a deranging effect. The Machiavelli was a real person in Italy. He writes this book called the Prince. The Prince was meant to teach basically world affairs to the rulers of Italy. And it's this no holds barred. It was like literally the 48 laws of power by Robert Greener, based largely on the Prince. And so he was just trying to lay out the first book on politics, like how it actually works, not how we wish it worked or the. The veneer of civility, but underneath the. The power games, the manipulation, the fact that we're always going to be run by an elite group of people, which in the book he refers to as the iron law of oligarchy. And so in a world where social media is going to make everything hyper visible, the way that it works, the way that politicians lie, all the sex scandals, all of the secret cabals that really do gather behind the scenes and create things like a. And that central bank sounds lovely, but it's absolutely sinister and just manipulative of the people. Things like Epstein, like, it's just all going to come out and we're going to look at that and it's really going to be deranging. And if we don't have somebody that can help us make sense of the way that humans interact as a political animal, we won't have a way to anchor and understand the moment. And so conspiracy theories will reign. People are going to run in a thousand different directions. Narratives are going to split into these tiny little fragments and we're not going to have any shared understanding of what the world is. And so Machiavellian defenders of freedom. It was really James Burnham saying, okay, let's take a really hard look at this thing, because people are trying to dismiss Machiavelli by saying he was evil or by saying that he was promoting the way that man is as a political animal, which is really grotesque. He wasn't trying to say this is good and as it should be. He's simply saying it is. This is how the human mind works. And when you take all these books together, it is the most raw look at what the human animal actually is. And I think if we don't have that understanding we will be deranged by algorithms because the algorithm feeds into our emotions. We won't share a narrative about what is true and how people really are with each other. We won't be able to point at where we want to end up. We'll just get lost in the sauce of like, the lies, the manipulation and all of that. And so when you take all these books together, you've got a really hard look at how much you can own your own decisions and how powerful it is to see yourself as a structure of power. You've got a really brutal look at the fact this is a line from the Gulag archipelago, which most people will know the line, but they won't know where it came from, which is the line between good and evil runs through every human heart. And that was a guy who was locked into the Russian Gulag system who knew that there were stories like there was one guy, they just could not break him. And so they brought in his 16 year old daughter and raped her in front of him to finally break him. And so he's living through that system and he comes out and says, you would do well to remember that you would probably be one of the guards, not one of the people that, you know, tries to maintain your integrity. The prisoners in the system massively outnumbered the guards, but they never tried to overwhelm them because they used other prisoners. By giving them perks, they got them to hold down every everybody else. And so he realized it is far better for me to look at myself as weak and likely to break and not as some hero. And that this line really any one of us can break to the truly evil. And those three books show it across time and space and different places where people who think that they are so right and so just, and if you just give them power, they'll make everything good. And universally, they kill untold millions of people. And so that's really tough. And then the, the final one gives us that meta understanding of the good and the bad of humans and that if we want to be defenders of freedom, we have to look really hard at man in the gear of political animal can be incredibly manipulative and disgusting. And if we're not aware of that, we'll be manipulative. We're hitting pause for a moment, but there's plenty more ahead, so don't go anywhere.
A
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B
All right, let's dive right back in. I'm Tom Bilyu and I'm president for a day. And let me tell you right now, I'm running on one thing. We are going to balance the budget and we're going to get this economy humming. Full stop. Period. End of story.
A
All right, the floor is yours. A rare quiet month. No crises competing for attention. What is your policy statement? Executive action.
B
So we are focused on balancing the budget via cutting. Like, we're going to balance the budget right now, today. So we are going to make hard choices about what has to go and what's going to stay. Then after that, the focus is on growing the economy. Those are going to be pillars one and two.
A
All right, let's submit this policy and see what happens. There's a threat assessment. Oh, I like this. The president has made the following policy announcement. We are focused on balancing the budget via cutting. We are going to make hard choices. But what needs to go, what is going to stay? After that, I will shift my focus to growing the economy. Treasury cost is low. Estimated expenditures. Potential savings of 500 to a trillion dollars annually in spending. That's better than Doge was able to get to. Key risk is political backlash from affected constituencies and interest groups, potentially stalling cuts in the divided Congress. Some of the headlines. Bill U Taxes, acts to waste. Bill U outlines plan to balance. To balance budget via spending cuts. Bill U's austerity push threatens vital social programs.
B
Yeah. Yes, aggressively. That is 100% true.
A
So so far so good. Everybody's green. Everybody still likes you. You didn't break anything. Some of the focus group responses. Texas Tom says from where I sit, finally a present. Talking sense about cutting the fat out of the bloated Washington budget. Iowa. Martha. My view was on this final year, present, taking sense. Talking sense about balancing the budget. Everybody loves it, even Miami. Maria. Let me see if we get any.
B
I have a feeling we're gonna. We're gonna have some people.
A
College Chloe.
B
Yes. College Chloe is going to hate me.
A
My reaction is, ugh, this is such a co. Budgets when we need massive investment in climate action, student debt relief and healthcare.
B
Here we go.
A
All right. Gospel, Gloria. Gospel is crazy. Here's how I see it. This Republican talk of balancing the budget by cutting programs sounds like they're coming for the safety nets that keep our folks from falling through the cracks. Brooklyn Jamal says, here's what I think. Another Republican president out here. Talk about balancing a budget by slashing the programs that actually help people like me. All right, so all the dissent is still there. All right, so Wall Street. You gain in Wall street, you gain in Chamber of commerce, you gain in small business. All right, so far, nothing too crazy. First policy over. Well, cool. Let's play February 2025 now. All right, now let's make a policy. What's our first policy?
B
So we are going to extend the retirement age, but it will extend over the next 15 years. And then what else would we actually have to do if we wanted to balance the budget? We don't give states federal dollars that they don't have a balanced budget.
A
Yeah. And no state funding for states with unbalanced budgets.
B
Yeah.
A
Increase the retirement age of 69 over the next 15 years. And no state funding for states that do not have a balanced budget.
B
We're going to dramatically reduce regulation on housing to increase housing supply. I don't know what the federal government can do at the local level to outlaw rent control, but whatever the federal government can do to influence rent control,
A
we want to do for the sake of this. Let's say you want to extend the retirement age to 69 over the next 50 years. Years. No state funding for states that do not have a balanced budget. Dramatically reduce regulation to promote builders to build more houses. And using the extent of our federal powers to remove all rent control nationally.
B
Yep. And one more. I would create economic incentives for people to create jobs in America, especially in manufacturing.
A
Treasury cost is medium. Estimated expenditure approximately 20 to 40 billion dollars annually in manufacturing. Incentives offset by long term entitlement savings. Growth potential positive. So a your demand of growth is grow bill. Use radical overhaul. Punishes workers, crushes renters.
B
What?
A
The American Herald. Tom Bilyeu proposes sweeping reforms on retirement housing and manufacturing. Bill use bold boom plan. Ditch rent rip offs, build houses, supercharged factories.
B
Okay, that's much better. Who was the one on the left? The first one? I want to know. These guys are liars.
A
They're the fake news.
B
They are the fake news, man.
A
Low iq, Congressional. You've been blocked by Congress on all
B
of them as introduced.
A
And then the stripped down version got passed through the House but then got filibustered in the Senate.
B
Jesus Christ.
A
You got blocked.
B
This is why I'm not A politician. And then so, so basically nothing has happened so far.
A
You're, you're doing great as a politician.
B
You're doing great all blocks.
A
You do great as a politician.
B
Where are my executive orders? I heard that works.
A
Miami. Maria said. My thought on this. Finally a president who gets it. Cutting regulations and killing rent control is exactly what we need. We know we love Brooklyn. Jamal. Here's where I land. This is straight up trash, man. Forcing folks to grind to 69 while corporations get free pass to jack up rents by killing rent control.
B
What you guys do understand when you eliminate rent control, rent gets cheaper, right? More people build.
A
Now you understand why Trump tweets at 3am in the morning. You start to start to understand. You start to embody. Wall street doesn't like you. You dropped two points on Wall street, so you lost two points.
B
Yeah, well wait till they hear me trying to abolish the, the Federal Reserve. They're really going to hate that right now.
A
The national Debt ticked up 0.15 trillion. Didn't even get nothing that got done.
B
That's because they, they're like, oh yeah, you want to reduce taxes, no problem. That go other things that gets blocked.
A
All right, here's an immediate crisis that popped up. There's a mass shooting at Michigan factory. Kills 12, injured 20. A gunman opened fire at a Detroit auto parts factory today, killing 12 workers and wounding 20 others. The shooter, a 34 year old layoff employee, used a legally purchased AR15 style rifle. The incident marks the deadliest mass shooting of 2025 so far. Local union leaders demanding immediate federal action on workplace safety and reforms. What is your response?
B
Well, first of all, obviously I'm completely devastated that somebody was able to take this many lives. I mean it's absolutely tr. There's going to be plenty of people talking about the gun control aspect, which I'm going to not touch at all. But the thing that I would focus people on is this is almost certainly, I mean look, this guy could be mentally ill, there's no doubt about that. So if I had more information that might change my assessment. But if this person isn't mentally ill, my immediate assumption is that this is a economic problem, that you have somebody that is just overwhelmed, stressed to the gills because they are being hollowed out by inflation and money printing. So I would try to get everybody to focus on. Listen, if you make it impossible for people to make ends meet and they have nothing left to lose, then they're going to start doing crazy stuff like this. And if you think that Just by taking guns away, you're going to stop the violence. You're not, as Europe is learning the hard way, you'll just hack somebody to death with machetes. So rather than try to lower the body count, what I would be focused on is making sure that people don't have the impulse to walk in and shoot something up. That's going to be a very complex issue. Everything from mental illness, SSRIs on through the economic side of this. I would need more information to actually tell you what you need to do to solve this problem. If I were legitimately president, the thing that people would absolutely get bored to death of is this is a deterministic universe. There is cause and effect. We need to identify in this particular instance what actually happened. And so if this is mental illness, then you have that conversation. If this is a drug thing, whether like hard drugs or SSRIs, you have that conversation. If this is economic because this is somebody who was struggling and he went to this workplace because he's been completely iced out and is basically, this is a death of despair by cop, then you have to look at that. And so the one thing that my constituents can count on is no matter what the punchline is, I care only about cause and effect. The odds of me being anything other than a one term president are effectively zero. And so in the one term that I have, I'm just going to try to say, this is where we're going. This is the cause and effect to get there. And so we're going to do those things and whatever that means, whoever that pisses off, it pisses off. It just. It's the only way that I could do it.
A
Bill, use heartless dismissal of mass shooting tragedy, guns off limits, workers pain ignored.
B
That. That, that gets a 3am tweet. I'm not going to lie. That gets a 3am tweet. You did not listen to a word I just said.
A
I feel bad because this is literally how it is. I was like, I empathize. Now this is crazy. Bill, you respond to Detroit factory shooting rules out gun measures. Bill, you nails it. No gun grabs fix mental health and despair instead. Ooh, okay, now we have some starting.
B
We're starting to see the first signs.
A
So in you lost some support in D.C. you actually lost a lot of support. That's surprising. The least favorable is Washington, D.C. maryland, New York, Massachusetts, Connecticut. Most favorable, South Dakota, North Dakota, Wyoming, Idaho, Montana. Focus group. Let's go to the same people we've been talking to. President Bilyeu isn't jumping on this tragedy to push more gun control like the Democrats always do. This dude just saw 12 people get slaughtered with the AR15 and his big plan is. Nah, not touching guns.
B
Yeah, I mean, here's the great news. This stuff is very predictable. So that's, that's the great news of human nature.
A
Teachers union signals willingness to back budget cuts for school choice reforms. The aft, the teacher American Federal Federation of Teachers issued a statement today expressing openness to cooperation if the administration advance nationwide school choice incentives as part of its economic reform package.
B
Man, if they. First of all, they would never come with this. But I love school choice. Let's go. Now I'm very sensitive to the fact that America has spent more money on education than virtually anybody else and we're middle of the pack in terms of results. So I've got a ton of beef with the teachers union, but anybody that comes with a good idea, I'm going to be super open. What I like about school choice is it lets people basically put the bad schools out of business. So yeah, I'm totally here for that.
A
I'm going to have your policy kill the teachers union and increase school choice nationally.
B
Yeah, I would say. How are you going to say that? In a way, because if you're going to say get rid of the teachers union, it would have to be something like make the teachers union charter contingent on educational output like accomplishments, benchmarks, something like that. You can't just keep funding the Department of Education and have it not get results.
A
Bill, you school choice gambit threatens public education funding.
B
Yes, that is true.
A
Bill, you proposes performance based education funding nationwide School choice bill use schools. Teachers union empowers parents with choice revolution. Yes.
B
Hey, look. So even if they were trying to be mean with the national standard, that is accurate.
A
Hey, you got a stripped version passed through congressional. The Department of Education funding.
B
I will say it's not that. So the schools are going to be public funded more aggressively under president Billy than anybody else. But I'm not going to fund schools
A
more than they ever seen it.
B
The most aggressive, the most funding. But it won't. You won't keep getting funded if you're not delivering results. That is true.
A
So the Department of Education funding would now be partially tied to a basic to basic educational performance metrics in public schools. There you go.
B
I think that's a win modification. All right. That's a step in the right direction anyway.
A
All right, everything is still net green green. The haters are still hating, so that's good.
B
Wait, wait. Brooklyn Jamal Hated that one.
A
I tell you what, the school choice nonsense is just a sneaky way to gut public schools and leave black and poor kids behind in underfunded.
B
Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. Brooklyn Jamal as an archetype doesn't like school choice. What?
A
Brooklyn Jamal not having it. He not here for you. He's not here for you. BS president Bill you he's not falling for it.
B
I thought Brooklyn would be all for this.
A
Chinese hackers they leaked the Billy admin diplomatic cables on EU trade talks. The FBI under director Eric Medina revealed that Chinese state sponsored hackers access leaked classified State department cables from security Valentina's cruise Valentina Cruz's office exposing US negotiation strategies aimed at strengthening EU rash relations amid ongoing tensions with Beijing over manufacturing incentives.
B
Well, I mean the only thing that you really can do so one you have a diplomatic meeting but there's not going to be a lot that you can do unless you can prove that they did it. You need to be beefing up your ability to protect against that for sure. And then we're already in a cold war with China so I'm not sure what exactly we can do there but if knew that it was a state hack then there would be economic sanctions. We would have to do something because you absolutely cannot let that go for the game.
A
Let's. Let's say that we have it proven. We got it and it was proven that it was state sponsored like Iran state sponsored which they funded a group that the bills went back to his gzing but he wasn't in the. He wasn't pressing the button.
B
Yeah. So we would have to find some equivalent of tariffs. I don't know if I would use tariffs but it would be an economic penalty of some kind. So for now for simplicity you can just say that we sanction them.
A
National standard bill use sanctions on China risk escalating trade war after hack leak the American Herald Bill you order cybersecurity upgrades sanctions on China following diplomatic cable hack Bill you hits hard cyber boost and China sanctions after commie hack job.
B
It is funny seeing the left center right responses to all this.
A
Key risk is Chinese retaliation through escalated cyberattacks or trade disruptions potentially worsening bilateral relations and current trench amid current tensions.
B
America loves me.
A
America.
B
America loves me. Wow. Let's go. Wow, they're here. For a strong China, that was your highest favorability.
A
Okay, this is, this is this been your best policy so far? I like it. All right, we're not going to go through each month. Let's just do like some Quick hits of your favorite policies. We'll add them and kind of see what the sentiment is. You cool with that?
B
Yeah.
A
Is there any sweeping things that you could think of other than that we
B
haven't already talked about? Finding a way to phase out the Federal Reserve over the next 10 years? You lose everybody with that one because you'd have to phase it out. Try phase out the Fed with 10 years and see if it changes. No, they still hate it.
A
Yeah. You got more red.
B
Interesting. It's so necessary. Okay, so let's see. What would be a specific policy that might not be as widely triggering? Put forward a bill that would make any member of Congress uneligible ineligible for reelection if the budget is more than 3% over GDP. In the red. Let's go.
A
Nice. 83%. Oh, that's. That's green across the board. Everybody loves that. And College Chloe said, all right, this is kind of the pull of radical accountability we need. There you go. You got a purple hair.
B
That's what I'm talking about. Now, College Chloe, if we're on the same page with that. Yeah, I. I respect it.
A
Brooklyn Jamal's at 85%. You even sold him, man.
B
Come on, now.
A
You're the president.
B
If people really understand, like, what's going on, I think what that tell us is people like politicians being held accountable. There is an element of, like, anything I do that somebody reads is like, oh, somebody's not being held accountable. They're going to hate anything I do where they're like, yeah, yeah, like, that person's being held accountable. I think that's a big part of why the taxing is so enticing to people is they feel like, yes, they're being penalized for their greedy ways, and so get that tax money. So it's interesting. Accountability, I think, might be a big trick trigger for getting everybody on the same page. So it becomes a good question of what are other things that we could do where all of us politicians are being held accountable. Like, no insider trading. Let's see what that looks like. Another.
A
Another 84 green.
B
Yeah, another one.
A
Yeah. So everybody likes to hold Congress accountable.
B
Yeah. Listen, these are good things. What are other things? Oh, term limits. Term limits. Eight years for Congress, 12 for Senate. Do we want to do 12 for Senate? Yeah, why not? We'll be. Be nice and chill. Let's go. Let's go. Okay, man, I'm getting the country behind me here.
A
There it is. There it is. Okay.
B
What else would be good that everyone would love?
A
How do we fix affordable like housing. Let's attack housing.
B
Well, so you've got, you've got to reduce regulation so they're not going to feel like anybody's being held accountable. That's the problem. So deregulate the housing market to stimulate growth. If you say it like that, then people are going to. It's going to split.
A
Yeah, yeah.
B
Still.
A
We'll take it, we'll take it. It's still green.
B
Okay.
A
Still green. We're starting to see some.
B
That one's very important. What can we do on anti fraud law and order? Tight borders like these are all, ooh, here's one that's really going to be divisive but is nonetheless, I think, important. We want an H1B visa program that is conservative in, in terms of total numbers, but gives business the ability to like grab the best and the brightest from all over the world. I expect this one to be split.
A
Oh, yeah, 50%.
B
The funny thing I was going to say that that one's like a 50, 50.
A
And middle America hates it.
B
Yes.
A
The coastal cities are more favorable.
B
Yes, of course. Because they're the ones that want to do the hiring.
A
We talked about housing. We talked about H1. So immigration. Immigration policy.
B
Yes. Well, so generalized immigration policy would be strict borders. I don't know how else to say that. 0 illeg. Legal immigrants and sensible, broad, broad immigration policy. It's a little vague, but we'll see.
A
I was just thinking that, I was like, the AI is going to be
B
like, okay, not bad, not bad. We got trending green again.
A
Yeah, there it is.
B
Bad. Now, our map is not cumulative though, right? This is just per policy.
A
Yeah, yeah. Per policy. We're doing each individual one by itself.
B
Okay. I mean, that gives you an idea of the kind of things that I'd be doing. I'm really trying to, to look at, okay, you've got a broad basket of Americans and ultimately everybody's happy when the economy is booming. And I think that there are really basic things that operate in my brain that lead to my decision making. There's a certain amount of regulation that you need to make sure that workers aren't being taken advantage of, which we know from the early 1900s and every time before that they will get taken advantage of if you don't have protections. So you want to make sure that you have those. But then what ends up happening is those regulations just grow and grow and grow and grow and grow and they begin to choke out business. It actually ends up being bad for the tax base because you're not able to grow at the level that you want to grow. If your mental model is every regulation is me, the individual worker being fought for, you're not going to like it. But the reality is, what I think history shows just unequivocally, is that regulatory capture is always about the corporations, and it's never about the individual. And so people have come to confuse government stepping in and regulating with protecting me. But the reality is, I think we can all agree there's more regulations now than there has ever been. And let's say prior to Trump, there's more regulations than there's ever been. And the economy is an absolute disaster. So all of those regulations have not helped us. And so if you look at the way that the economic system works is people go to the government and as a business, they've got the money to lobby, and they're going to lobby for things that are in their favor. And so once you realize, oh, the people, people that are going, getting people's ear, getting them, they're. They're the ones drafting the legislation. So you've got the companies drafting the legislation, begging for the industry to be regulated. And the reason that they will ask for the industry to be regulated or the specific way in which they will ask the industry to be regulated will be beneficial to them. And will I sell other people that? That is how it always works. If you look at housing, you'll see it clear as day. You get places like Houston that have just deregulated the life out of it.
A
It.
B
And houses are. They're not. Not an asset, but they're not an asset that just goes up. Rents stay relatively flat, home prices stay relatively flat. That's incredible. That's what people should want. Now, I understand if you have a house, you want the it to go up, up, up, up, up, up. But it creates the distortion that we're seeing now where it's like, if you got in. Yeah, then you're winning, you're laughing, you're loving life. If you didn't get in, it gets farther out of reach, Farther out of reach, farther out of reach. It's happening right now. And you don't have to look very far in the past. If you ice them out of the economic system, they will eventually turn violent. And even before they turn violent, they start, like, living lives of misery. You get deaths of despair, start skyrocketing. So that one, to me is just. It's grotesque that people don't look at that and say, ooh, we can't do this. I understand how hard Life is. And so I don't want to make this sound easy, but if everybody thinks of life in terms of policy rather than what helps me, then it's like, okay, cool, yeah, I'm willing to compete in this system and I'm looking for everybody else to compete. But when you start trying to do things that give you an edge, like they're specific to your circumstance, that's where I'm like, it's evil.
A
Yeah.
B
And I don't think everybody does it to be evil. I think most people do it because they don't understand it. Getting people to think, how do you make the system work when it doesn't know who's going to be the person in the system? That's the right way to approach it.
A
Tom, you made a mediocre president. Brooklyn Jamal.
B
How dare you.
A
Brooklyn Jamal hates you. Maria. Miami loves you.
B
America loves me. America loves me. Every one of those is green, green, green. Let the record reflect, once you understand what people want, people want things that are going to work and that hold people accountable. And it's the accountability part that's really interesting. There is such a desire to see people punished right now that if you can come up with a policy that is both good for the American public or perceived as good for the American public. But I actually only put other than the flower saying, yeah, I actually only put forward things that I actually think would be useful. But the ones where we really got it was where some the of somebody got jabbed a little bit. Whether it's China getting their sanctions or whether it's the Congress and Senate being held accountable for their budget proposals. They want to know like, oh yeah, like this guy, he's. He's got an eye on people.
A
Give us a 32nd state of the Union address. Your constituents. How would you talk to your voting base now that you had it? You stepped in the, in the chair for a second, you held the nuclear football. How do you feel about being the president? Is there any nuance that it added to you? Any like closing thoughts, stuff like that?
B
To my fellow Americans, it was an absolute honor to serve you. I know that I am going to be a one term president. Not doing things that based on what's popular. But man, we really can do a lot together if we can stay focused on cause and effect and get this done. So I appreciate all your support on all my green initiatives that sounded like like energy thing. I appreciate all your support. I the dish it. Wow. I appreciate all your support on the different initiatives that I put forward. And I look forward to seeing what is in store for all of us in the future. It is bright days ahead, I assure you.
A
We need to play like the dun dun dun dun under it as you close out.
B
Thanks for watching this clip from the Tom Bilyeu Show. If you haven't already, be sure to subscribe so you never miss one of these in the future. And if you want to catch us live, you can join us Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 7:00am Pacific Time. I hope to see you there.
Podcast: Impact Theory with Tom Bilyeu
Episode: {BONUS EPISODE} Tom Becomes President For The Day, Gives You 5 ESSENTIAL Books To Read, & He Takes The Political Compass Test
Date: April 30, 2026
Host: Tom Bilyeu
In this bonus "Tom Bilyeu Show Live" episode, Tom Bilyeu invites listeners into an interactive and thought-provoking experience:
The episode is a dynamic exploration of political philosophy, leadership responsibility, and practical governance—all in Tom’s signature direct, analytical, and sometimes contrarian style.
(01:00 – 13:19)
Tom tackles the Political Compass Test live, commenting openly on each provocative question and unpacking his rationale.
Notable Quote:
“Know thyself is the first rule. And I think so often people mistake the way that they think for being objectively right… Find out what that compromise is, where you guys can share values; then we get momentum.” (13:24)
Test result: Far from authoritarian, slightly right-leaning; “very on point” for Tom, who values classic personal responsibility over collectivism.
(16:34 – 26:44)
Tom's book recommendations reflect themes of personal responsibility, historical warning against totalitarianism, and the reality of political power.
Tom’s List:
Key Takeaways:
Notable Quote:
“To get equal outcomes, you have to do it by force… Even if it starts in a good place, it ends up with murder.” (18:24)
(27:21 – 49:32)
Tom’s presidency simulation unfolds in a rapid-fire series of policy choices, simulated headlines, and mock public reactions and crises.
Balance the Federal Budget—Hard Cuts, Not Higher Taxes
Raise the Retirement Age (to 69 over 15 years)
Remove Federal Funding from States Without Balanced Budgets
Housing Deregulation, Remove Rent Control
Incentivize Domestic Manufacturing
Mixed Response: Applause from business, backlash from social welfare advocates (29:02).
College-age, progressive, and minority focus group members criticize “austerity” and pro-business slant.
School Reform:
Crisis Response:
Foreign Policy Reaction:
Popular Reforms:
“We are going to balance the budget and get this economy humming. Full stop. Period. End of story.” (27:27)
“The odds of me being anything other than a one term president are effectively zero. And so in the one term that I have, I'm just going to try to say, this is where we're going. This is the cause and effect to get there...It just. It's the only way that I could do it.” (34:04)
“Regulatory capture is always about the corporations, and it's never about the individual...The people that are drafting the legislation are the companies.” (45:38)
| Segment | Timestamp | |---------------------------------------------------|----------------| | Political Compass Test (Full Discussion) | 01:00 - 13:19 | | Results & Reflection on Political Identity | 12:03 - 13:56 | | The 5 Essential Books and Their Lessons | 16:34 - 26:44 | | Tom’s "President for a Day" Role-Play Begins | 27:21 | | Budget, Retirement, Housing Policy Simulations | 27:40 - 31:45 | | Mass Shooting Crisis Response | 33:00 - 36:07 | | Navigating School Choice & Teacher's Union | 36:15 - 38:11 | | Foreign Policy Sim—China Cyberattack | 38:35 - 40:21 | | Popular Bipartisan Reforms (Congress term limits, accountability) | 40:47 - 43:32 | | Governance Philosophy & Policy Synthesis | 44:21 - 48:38 | | Final Reflections & Tom’s State of the Union | 48:53 - 49:32 |
“We really can do a lot together if we can stay focused on cause and effect and get this done.” (48:53)
Jump to:
This summary captures Tom Bilyeu’s direct, analytical approach—challenging listeners to think deeply, read voraciously, and stay focused on reality rather than wishful thinking or partisanship.