Dave Rubin: Why the Culture War Is Escalating, the Left Abandoned Freedom & the Right Found Purpose | PT 1

Summary

Podcast Summary:

Impact Theory with Tom Bilyeu
Guest: Dave Rubin
Episode: Why the Culture War Is Escalating, the Left Abandoned Freedom & the Right Found Purpose | PT 1
Date: August 5, 2025

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Episode Overview

This episode of Impact Theory features political commentator Dave Rubin in a wide-ranging, candid discussion with host Tom Bilyeu. Together, they unpack the escalating culture war, the emergence of the so-called "woke right," the parallels and divergences with the "woke left," the business and ideological incentives fueling these movements, and why issues like anti-Semitism, historical revisionism, and deep economic uncertainty are intensifying ideological fractures in America. Both speakers aim to go beyond slogans and memes to deeply consider core motivations and societal consequences.

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Key Discussion Points & Insights

Cancel Culture, the Woke Right, and Tucker Carlson (01:00 – 04:47)

• Cancel Culture Has Surpassed McCarthyism
  Tom opens with sobering stats: Over 1,000 college professors faced attempted censure for speech from 2014–2023, with nearly 200 losing their jobs—surpassing the Red Scare purge. He frames America's political split as a "split personality disorder" where both sides see the other as existential threats.

• The Rise of the Woke Right
  Dave Rubin identifies Tucker Carlson as a key figure in shaping the “woke right,” criticizing the way Tucker “takes his audience on fantastical adventures in nonsense,” and contrasts genuine errors with pushing “conspiracy theories and fear” for profit and influence.

  “There’s a difference between just kind of getting something wrong and really taking your audience on what I would say are fantastical adventures in nonsense.” (Dave Rubin, 03:10)

• Business Decisions Driving Rhetoric
  Rubin notes that behind the increasingly extreme rhetoric is a calculated chase for “clicks, money, and fame” — internet ecosystems reward polarization, paranoia, and identity narratives.

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The Identity and Economics of the Woke Right (04:47 – 09:02)

• Race, Business, and Grievance
  The “woke right,” according to Rubin, merges identity politics and calculated business models. There is a racial/ethnic angle—anti-Semitism, obsessions with Jews and Israel, and resentment against non-white groups—but focusing only on that “misses the business opportunity that's being exploited.”

  “There is a shit ton of clicks and money and fame and all of that stuff as it relates to this. ... I'm not calling for anyone to lose a sponsor or be censored or anything else, but the idea that I'm just saying things that no one else can say while you're saying those things and making money and gaining popularity while doing it, I think is a little thin.” (Dave Rubin, 05:13)

• Purity Tests and Conformity
  Both the far-left and far-right are driving purity tests, demands for conformity, and social ostracism. Rubin is sympathetic to some grievances of “young white men,” arguing that years of being told they are “inherently bad” can send them to radical solutions, especially when mainstream institutions have crumbled.

  “You can understand why a certain set of people that probably would have been nominally nothing or largely apolitical … ends up in a weird right frame of that.” (Dave Rubin, 10:13)

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Horseshoe Theory & The Rise of Populism (14:13 – 20:34)

• Populism as Economic Reaction
  Tom draws on the “Thucydides trap” and horseshoe theory: populism is fueled by economic anxiety and uncertainty about the future. People “tribe up” to defend what they have and want control, leading to factional, defensive politics on both the left and the right.

  “Populism to me is born of economics. Economics makes people feel uncertain about the future being better than the present. And so they get into this like zero sum mentality. They tribe up.” (Podcast Host, 14:50)

• Wins of the Trump Administration / Economic Successes
  Rubin heralds six months of a Trump-led administration as full of “wins”—trade, border, military rebuilding, a hopeful Middle East, and “markets at all-time highs.” He argues these realities should “antidote” right-wing hysteria and break the cycle of negative narratives the left once employed.

  “What stops the crazy fringes? … It’s American success, it’s freedom, it’s economic and capitalist success. … We know who the president is. That’s pretty good.” (Dave Rubin, 16:27)

• Separation between Online and Real World
  Rubin sees a “huge disconnect” between online narratives (which amplify hysteria) and the experience of most Americans in daily life.

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Narrative Wars and Revisionist History (20:34 – 39:11)

• Narrative Control and Economic Anxiety
  Tom contends economically anxious people become “emotional,” look for enemies, and are susceptible to conspiracy. The inability to map complex structural problems onto reality causes them to seek scapegoats—often Jews, due to visible success and stereotypes in banking.

  “They have found an easy scapegoat. And now it’s like to get everybody to understand what's ‘really going on,’ they're just taking you down these constant rabbit holes, which are great for clicks…” (Podcast Host, 29:00)

• Dissension Within the Right
  Rubin notes attempts to bridge divides are often rebuffed:

  “Ben immediately agreed [to do a show with Tucker]. Tucker said, ‘we don't need you, Dave. And Ben's welcome anytime,’ but refuses to invite Ben. But he talks shit about Ben on every other episode, basically.” (Dave Rubin, 21:20)

  He further laments that if the right rejects people like Jordan Peterson and Douglas Murray, the movement is not truly “pro-America” but is morphing into something “radically anti-America.”

• The Revisionism Surrounding Churchill
  Tom asks why Churchill is being targeted by revisionists on the right.
  Rubin connects Churchill’s demonization to World War II’s legacy:

  “If somehow Churchill … could somehow be the bad guy, then it kind of starts bringing some Hitler’s sort of good stuff around too, which they’ve also danced around.” (Dave Rubin, 39:23)

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Notable Quotes & Exchanges

• On Racial/Identity Motivations (07:11):
  “Anti-Semitism, it’s the oldest hatred. … There’s a jealousy attached to that. … Do you want to thrive and survive and be hated, or do you want to be dead and loved?” (Dave Rubin)

• On Media & Narrative (10:13):
  “The destruction, the self-destruction of the mainstream media that offered us so many lies and so little truth … we cannot be surprised [by extremism].” (Dave Rubin)

• On Economic Anxiety & Fiat Currency (25:23):
  “Any country that has stayed over 130% of debt to GDP ratio for a long period has ended up either in civil war or revolution. We're at 122% right now. … It’s only a question of how we respond.” (Podcast Host)

• On Why Conspiracy Sells (29:00):
  “They have found an easy scapegoat. … they're just taking you down these constant rabbit holes, which are great for clicks, gets people really hopped up.” (Podcast Host)

• On Revisionist History and Churchill (39:23):
  “If somehow Churchill ... could somehow be the bad guy, then it kind of starts bringing some Hitler's sort of good stuff around too, which they've also danced around.” (Dave Rubin)

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Key Segments & Timestamps

• Cancel Culture, the Split in America, and the Woke Right: 01:00 – 06:55
• Identity Politics and Business Models behind the ‘Woke Right’: 04:54 – 09:02
• Parallels between Woke Left and Right, Emerging White Grievance: 09:02 – 13:08
• Populism, Horseshoe Theory, and Divergent Narratives: 14:13 – 20:34
• Online Realities vs. Everyday America: 20:34 – 21:08
• Intra-Right Feuding & Pushback: 21:08 – 24:00
• Economic Fears, National Narrative, and Blame: 24:00 – 30:54
• Narrative Control, Scapegoating, Conspiracy Theories: 30:54 – 37:04
• Revisionist History & Churchill as a Target: 38:39 – 42:04

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Memorable Moments

• GI Joe Reference (34:26):
  Dave Rubin likens attempts to create the perfect leader out of ideological DNA to the cartoon villain Serpentor, a tongue-in-cheek moment highlighting the absurdity of seeking a perfect political savior.

• Jordan Peterson & James Lindsay Reference (22:39):
  Rubin points to their thoughtful refusal to name names:

  “He said he didn’t really want to name names because he didn’t think that was going to be fruitful. … But after that, that interview... so many people on the right [called] Jordan a fraud.”

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Tone & Language

Throughout, both speakers maintain a direct, urgent tone while aiming for thoughtful nuance and self-awareness—with occasional dark humor and pop culture references (GI Joe). The conversation makes frequent use of plain, accessible language even when dealing with complex themes.

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Conclusion

Part 1 of Tom Bilyeu and Dave Rubin’s conversation serves as a deep-dive into the cultural, psychological, and economic forces fracturing American politics. The episode exposes how populism, business incentives, social media algorithms, and discomfort with economic decline are feeding both left and right factions toward purity spirals, scapegoating, and revisionist narratives. Both host and guest agree on the need for open dialogue and resist facile label-slinging, urging more people to see beyond the online noise.

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Part 2 Preview:
The next episode will probe even deeper into the ideological battles shaping America's future, with strategies for maintaining sanity and civic health amidst ongoing polarization.

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For listeners who missed the episode, this summary captures the central arguments, colors in key personalities and their motives, and highlights the memorable lines and moments that define this honest, critical exchange.

Transcript

[Dave Rubin]

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[Podcast Host]

From 2014 to mid 2023, there were over 1,000 documented attempts to get college professors punished for their speech. Nearly 200 of them lost their jobs. That means Cancel Culture has now officially taken more jobs than McCarthyism did during the Red Scare in the 1950s. America is in trouble. What once looked like a phenomenon on the left now feels like a split personality disorder where each half of the country views the other half as an existential threat. They're both looking at the same thing and seeing something completely different. My guest today, Dave Rubin, warns that with the rise of the woke, right, American values are now being attacked from both sides, and that is a recipe for disaster. So what would we need to do in order to save ourselves? We're about to find out who is the single most influential figure that's driving the rise of the woke, right?

[Dave Rubin]

Well, I mean, Tucker is the obvious answer to that. You know, there's no doubt, you know, the Tucker thing, I don't like talking about people that I've considered friends over the years or colleagues to some extent, or even former guests. You know, I really try not to do that. This has come up a couple times, obviously, lately. It really genuinely gives me no great pleasure to talk about whatever has happened with Tucker. I wish it had not happened. The sort of hysteria that he's offering people the rabbit holes. He's pushing his audience down. The big. The big things that he's missing, you know, all of us, you, me, everybody in this biz that talks for a living. You're gonna get things wrong. You absolutely are gonna get things wrong. I Get things wrong on my show while we're doing it live. I love it when my guys fact check me. Or I'll say something. I'll be like, I don't know if that's quite right. Can you remind me? And I'll. I have no problem issuing a correction or anything like that. There's a difference between just kind of getting something wrong and really taking your audience on what I would say are fantastical adventures in nonsense. And that really is unfortunate. Look, you could even just look at just one of the recent ones with this Iran thing. He was telling his audience that this was going to bring on thermonuclear World War Three and America would likely lose and there would be thousands and thousands of deaths and all sorts of sleeper cells would be woken up and all things. Now, look, you can get stuff wrong, but where's the apology? Why is it that you can look at my tweets? You're welcome to find them if you want. You know, even weeks before the Iran thing, when it started to feel like it was something was going to happen, I was tweeting out basically, like, I think Israel is going to do it in a couple days. Maybe, maybe America is going to have to drop a few bombs at the end, but that'll be it. There could be some sleeper cell stuff. Like, I think partly what's happened with what you referred to as the woke, right? Because I don't go to everyone' awful motives all the time. Right? So the easy way to do this would be to imply that everyone's racist or everyone's anti Semitic or everyone, whatever. But you and I, we've played this game long enough. I've been in the Internet long enough. The label thing doesn't really work and it's too lazy. You have to really. And you're very good at this, actually one of the best really try to engage with what people are doing, where they're at in some sense. I think a lot of what they're doing is not necessarily because it's all born out of hate. Like, that would just be an easy version of it. And I'm not saying there's nothing there, but I think a lot of it is just. It's. It's a cold, calculated business decision. You can take your audience wherever you want to. If you want to fill your audience up full of fear and paranoia and conspiracy theories and everything. The Internet is rife with opportunities to do that. I. I try not to do that,

[Podcast Host]

though, as like, the cornerstone of the woke, right, is just the wwe, the theatrics, or is there something more going on?

[Dave Rubin]

No. So it's, it's two things at once, right? So there is a strange racial element happening. There's a lot of weird stuff with their obsession with the Jews and obsession with Israel for sure. There's also a lot of obsession with people that aren't white. That's just a fact. Some of the things they say about Indians and blacks when it rates, you know, Indians as it pertains to taking white jobs, let's say, or black people when it pertains to IQ or whatever. So there is some racial element too, but I think, I think just focusing on that is actually a little myopic. I think what, what rides next to that, if you're kind of looking at two rails going in the same direction, is just the business opportunity that relates to that. There is a shit ton of clicks and money and fame and all of that stuff as it relates to this. You know, the big thing that they're always saying, this whole set of people. Well, I'm just saying the thing you can't say except they're all saying it. Nobody's paying the price for it. They're being algorithmically boosted and all sorts of things and they're getting clicks. They're making money on all of these things. It's not like they're losing sponsors. I'm not calling for anyone to lose a sponsor or be censored or anything else, but the idea that I'm just saying things that no one else can say while you're saying those things and making money and gaining popularity while doing it, I think is a little thin. I would also say it's a pure, in some sense. Look at it this way, someone like Tucker, and again, I don't really like making this about Tucker, but he has his own network, I suppose, the Tucker Carlson Network. I'm not aware of any other shows that are on it. But he's going for a network, right? Well, if you're going for, let's say a right leaning network, right leaning digital network, who do you have to go for? You have to go for number one. Who's number one? Daily Wire. Who's the, who's the avatar of Daily Wire? It's Ben Shapiro. Ben who's the number one sort of orthodox Jew in America? It's Ben Shapiro. So there's like a through line that I don't think is just purely based on ethnicity or skin color or religion as much as like some, some cold hard business decisions that go with that, and, and that's a tough thing on that.

[Podcast Host]

So the, the rise of anti Semitism I found very strange and worthy of consideration. Do you think that this is them leading that pack or them recognizing this is where the pack is going and so I better step out front?

[Dave Rubin]

Well, look, I can't speak to what's in anyone's heart or mind. You know, I can only speak to what I see as the action. So when you say them, you're talking about broadly, like whoever the leaders are, the thought leaders on this woke right thing. It's probably a little bit of both, right. So maybe they have a little, you know, anti Semitism, it's the oldest hatred. Because at the end it's like, wait a minute, why is this tiny minority of people, how have they existed for so long despite being pogrommed and holocausted and inquisitioned throughout history? How did they not only survive but thrive amongst that and become successful and maintain their traditions and blah, blah? And I think there's a jealousy attached to that. You know, Thomas Sowell was once asked about, you know, why is there all this hatred of the Jews? And he's like, well, look, they're successful. It's not much more complicated than that. If they were unsuccessful, if they didn't thrive, if they didn't hold on to any culture or any history or any of those things, nobody would give a shit about the Jews. It's as simple as that. So the question is, do you want to thrive and survive and be hated, or do you want to be dead and loved? I think the answer to that is fairly obvious.

[Podcast Host]

There's obviously a reason that people are using the idea of the woke right. So you've got a parallel to the woke left. When people first started saying the woke right, I actually couldn't wrap my, my head around what they meant. What's going on on the woke left? What are they attempting to do? Is it about. It's from where I'm sitting, it seemed like people were trying to say, look, this is a power grab. They're using purity tests and censorship as a way to get people to conform. And so when I first started hearing people say the woke right, I had not yet encountered online what they were talking about. But as you start looking at, okay, there is a version of the right that is also about purity tests, censorship, conformity of thought. Is that what you think the parallel is, or is there something else going on here?

[Dave Rubin]

Well, I think it's that with a dash of ethnic stuff mixed in. Right. So the, the ethnic Stuff on the left has been very obvious for a while because they believe in identity politics, right? So if you're this color, you should believe this. If you're, you know, white, you're at the lowest end of the totem pole. All the stuff that you and your audience know, very obviously like the woke left stuff, clearly everyone grasps what, what I think surprised people on the right was there really was going to be an element of that too that was going turn into, I guess what you could like kind of broadly call like a white grievance thing. Now I'm. In some sense, this is gonna sound weird, but in some sense I am sympathetic to some of that. If you say to a set of people, particularly young white men, if the entire culture for the last decade says you are awful by definition, it's gonna be harder for you actually to get into that college because of your skin color and your gender and potentially your sexuality. It's gonna be harder for you to get that company. Everything that we show you in media, you're bad. And everyone else is inherently good because they're, they're the other skin. They're the other in essence, but always about skin color and sexuality particularly. Well, then you can understand why a certain set of people that probably would have been nominally nothing or largely apolitical. You could see why a 15 year old, 15 year old kid who's getting blasted with those messages sort of ends up in a weird right frame of that. So you could potentially the two ways you could go. So let's just say you're a normal kid growing up in the culture that we've been part of for the last 10 years. A lot of them went left, meaning they, they just chose their, you know, they said, okay, my identity means everything. And if I'm a white kid in this, well, I'm really low on the totem pole, but I will bow to it. And we see a lot of that, right? We see this all the time actually. Or you see what has become like the really psychotic version of it, which is the trans version where young girls, 15 year old girls have now the social contagion where they think that they're boys and that's their entry into it because otherwise they're just year old girls with all the problems that an adolescent girl would have. The boys, I think the white boys and girls are boys are, are biologically and psychologically different. A lot of the boys, it seems, were pushed the other way where they were like, okay, now I'm not part of that thing, but I will make my identity, you know, my outward identity is now going to become part of my politics. And then that got mixed up with, with say some of these influencers, I think, taking them down places that are, I would say largely dark places. I would also say a lot of this again because I try not to give you the easy answer on everything. A lot of this is because of the absolute destruction, the self destruction of the mainstream media that offered us so many lies and so little truth. So many people, so many institutions were so blown apart and Covid and all the rest of it that everybody failed to so many tests over the last couple years that we cannot be surprised. Like the thing is, I'm not surprised by this. You may have seen the clip and I know you, you love him as much as I do. Jordan Peterson. There's a clip of him on Rogan from about could be seven years ago talking about wokeness, you know, sort of at the beginning of when we were calling it woke. And Jordan says, man, if you think this is bad, wait till you see the reaction on the right. And that's what Jordan was predicting. The thing that you're now calling the woke. Right. Which I also, you know, I haven't called it woke right many times on my show. I think I've maybe tweeted that phrase once. I kind of liked retard, right. I like alliteration and I've had, you know, James Lindsay's the one that really came up with the phrase originally. You know, it's tough because you start coming up with these phrases and then we don't wanna, you don't want it to be a catch all for just everyone you disagree with. But I think we discussed this once or twice before. You know, sometimes you need these labels just not because it's such the perfect label. But otherwise we all will just get lost in definitions all the time. So it's a tricky thing taking a

[Podcast Host]

short break, but there's more impact theory after.

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[Podcast Host]

Thanks for staying tuned. Now let's get back to it. Yeah, it's interesting, I think that people do get labels to the point where they're so facile that you're, you're just cramming everything and oh, I know what that is. I don't have to think about it. But there is something fascinating about the way that the right now is diverging from having a cohesive narrative. I think about this a lot because my obsession is the Thucydides trap that's set between the US and China. And I look at China and look, it's top down enforced rule in a way that I would not want to be a part of. But it certainly has advantages in, of getting everybody to march in the same direction, not having to worry about reelection, just pushing everybody in one maniacally focused direction. And now in the right, you've got this rise of something which I'm only just now beginning to really wrap my head around. It's the first time I think I've ever talked about it out loud. I think it's an echo of populism. Populism to me is born of economics. Economics makes people feel uncertain about the future being better than the present. And so they get into this like zero sum mentality. They're very defensive. They tribe up. And so now it's about are you on my team? Are you not on my team? And they want control because they believe that the stakes are extremely high and that if they're going to get you where they want to get you, meaning the whole country so that everybody can live the, you know, just and right way that they're going to have to manhandle you a bit to get you there. And so it is wildly ironic to me that when the left was doing it, they were having an absolute seizure, as they should have because they were being so censorious. So wanting everybody to think in the same way but to now see them do the exact same thing is it's very troubling in terms of I don't yet understand the principle they're operating under.

[Dave Rubin]

So first off, you just said something very important, which I should have got to earlier, which that the populism part of this, particularly as it pertains to economics is extremely important because AOC and Tucker are becoming increasingly alike actually, in a certain sense. And that's a very weird thing. That's what people call the political horseshoe theory. You know, if you go one side too many ways, you're going to end up over here where you're basically together. Look, if you look at the last Trump's been president now for, you know, six plus months, there are an incredible amount of wins, right. There are trade winds. Absolutely. Look what's happened with the EU in the last couple days. On top of a series of other trade wins. There's absolutely a border win and a deportation win. Now, now these, I'm saying I consider these things win and the people who elected Trump consider them win. Maybe not all of America, but you can point to an awful lot. We've, we've removed wokeness from of our institutions, we've started to rebuild the military. I think we've, although we're not there yet, I think actual something approximating peace is heading towards the Middle East. The Russia, Ukraine thing. We keep getting close and then it gets further away. But like there's movement, right? We at the very least, like lowest common denominator stuff, we know who the president is. That's pretty good. You know, Donald Trump, his, his staff and his press secretary, Caroline Levitt, they take questions. Again, we have done an incredible amount of good things and we, I mean the Trump administration, they have competent people. You may not agree with all the things, but if you don't think Marco Rubio is competent, if you don't think JD Is competent, CAROLINE Levitt, RFK all the things we've done with food and Maha, so the white pill here, what I would give you is in the last six months, I do my show every day and it's very easy for me to talk about a lot of good things because these good things are happening right in front of our eyes now. There's bad things too. They're shooting in New York City, there'll be a riot here or a mob there or whatever. There's always that stuff. But there's a lot of good things happening right now. And I would say, particularly economically, the markets are at basically all time highs right now. We completely rebounded from those couple bad days after the tariffs were announced. I did not freak out over the tariffs. It happened exactly like I thought it was a negotiating point. The reason I'm mentioning all of this is because the only way you get the people on the right to join the people on the left is if they think everything's falling apart part. And Trump actually is the antidote to all of that. What stops the crazy fringes? You know what stops it? It's goodness, it's success, it's America, it's freedom, it's economic and capitalist success. And actually, we're righting the ship right now. So the strange thing to me, for Tucker and some of these people, if you were to go, you could do it right now if you want. If you were to go and look at Tucker's last 30 episodes, has he done anything that seems pro America or pro Trump even? There's a ton of stuff that's wildly anti Trump, actually, and a bunch of stuff he does all these now, I would say, historically revisionist kind of things. But why isn't he, if he likes Trump and if he's for Trump and supported Trump, why isn't he doing what I do every day, which is talking about all of the great opportunity that's happening in America or talking about the exciting horizon that we're on with AI and how it's going to expand human flourishing or any of those things. But in a weird way, and this is why I honestly think Tucker will end up allying with AOC by 2028. There will be some weird coalition around that he's using the same methods that she used. In essence, they're against you. Capitalism doesn't work for you, blah, blah, blah. Where actually, Tucker, you should be completely for. What else do you want Donald Trump to do right now? I don't know what else he could be doing to make America better. Look, I would like the interest rates to go down. He's trying to get Powell to do it right now, but by and large, there's so many good things out there. But if you keep people thinking this is what the Left's done forever, AOC, 12 years ago said we had, what was it, six years ago, had said we had 12 years to go, you know, before. Before the climate was going to collapse. Of course it was nonsense. They're really good at, oh, systemic racism is going to kill everybody, or America's fundamentally evil. They're really good at all the hysteria. Baba. And now that's popping up on the right. There's no reason for it. But I'll give you one other white pill on all of this. Not only is America the big white pill, the other white pill on all of this is that in reality, not online reality, but in reality, reality, I don't think a lot of this is actually hitting people. I see a very different world out on the streets than I see online. And that's a challenge for us, I would say, because of the algorithms and everything else. But do you see that? I mean, I see a huge disconnect,

[Podcast Host]

you know, but I have a shovel full of black pills that I'm gonna be feeding you throughout the episode. But I actually think you asked the right question, which is, why is he doing it? And I think to avoid the madness that will inevitably ensue if we have a bunch of Pied Pipers that are leading people down a path of either entertainment or a desire for control without at least having the check of saying, let me explain that phenomenon. And then the people that want to avail themselves of it at least have. Going back to this idea of categories can say, oh, I get the category. Why is he doing it?

[Dave Rubin]

I can't exactly speak to what's in his heart or in his mind. I know him. I would say vaguely, by the way. You know, before this all really exploded over the last, like, two months, I was trying privately and publicly to bridge some of the gap. I was texting with Tucker to try to get him and Ben Shapiro to do a show together. I said I'd be happy to moderate it. You don't need me. That's fine. I'm just trying to do this. I was doing it privately on text, and Ben immediately agreed to do it. And Tucker said that. He said. He said to me, we don't need you, Dave. And then he said, and Ben's welcome anytime, but refuses to invite Ben. But he talks shit about Ben on every other episode, basically. So, again, I don't know exactly what's driving him, but I would say this. If I was Donald Trump, I would be pretty damn pissed at him right now. And I think Trump is actually. I think you can sort of see this with a little bit of what's happened with Trump over the last couple months. Like, everyone on the right, you're getting all of the things you've asked for. What. What could you possibly want out of Donald Trump? Everyone can figure out, like, whittle it down to, like, one little thing or something, but you are. Trump has so righted the ship. And if your goal now as an influencer on the right is to destroy that or tell people how horrible everything is, or to focus on something that happened 50 years ago, or to suddenly tell me Hitler was a good guy, I just think your aim is just completely off. So, again, I can't speak to that. But I would also say this. I mentioned Jordan before. Do you remember when Jordan had James Lindsay on and they discussed this a little bit about two months ago,

[Podcast Host]

I saw one that they did maybe a year ago, but I didn't see one a couple months ago.

[Dave Rubin]

So they did remembering, but yeah, so they did one a few months ago where they talked loosely about the woke. Right. And Jordan. Jordan actually did something that I respect, which is what I've tried to do. Probably failed here a little bit. But he said he didn't really want to name names because he didn't think that that was going to be fruitful. Like, let's just try to talk about the ideas or whatever. So here we've talked about Tucker. Okay. It is what it is. But, you know, after that, that interview, and it was done with the same exact class and thoughtfulness and deep knowledge that Jordan does with everything. And I think James is brilliant, too. James is a little bit more of a troll online or whatever, but it was a wonderful conversation. But after that conversation, I saw so many people on the right going after Jordan. Jordan's a fraud. Jordan's a fake. He's not a conservative. I don't want him part of this. These are the same people that were going after Douglas Murray when he went on Joe Rogan. Rogan. And it's like, if you don't want Jordan Peterson as part of your movement, if you don't want Douglas Murray as part of your movement, if you don't want Ben Shapiro as part of your movement, if you don't want me as part of your movement, well, good luck. I would say good luck. And I don't think you're a pro America movement at that point. And perhaps they're not. If this thing is what you fear it might be, well, maybe it's just a radically anti America movement and it just happens to be coming on the right. But I would also say, don't you sense this? There is way better, better pushback on the right on this than there was on the left last time?

[Podcast Host]

Yeah, I'll definitely give you that. I think that the right doesn't have a problem with disagreeing with each other. They certainly there is a contingent of the right that is so die hard, free speech. I would count myself among them that you're going to have a very hard time getting people that either find themselves in the center where I like to believe I sit, or find themselves leaning to the right, that they're just not going to conform to anything that asks them to be quiet or to align with a narrative. But it, it is very revealing to me that the revisionist history is taking place. So let me. I'm going to give you my sense of what's going on and then please correct me where you think that this goes crazy. But, but when I try to map, and like you, I, I can't see inside anybody's heart, but I can draw conclusions based on the things that they do. And when I look at what's happening in a populist moment where people have deep uncertainty about what the future is going to hold economically, they become very emotional because they are scared once they're in their emotions.

[Dave Rubin]

Can I, can I pause you there for a second? Do you think we're in that moment? Do you think we're in the moment? Because I think that's a key piece of this. Because if aggressive, okay, so you aggressively think we are in as scary an economic moment as they are purporting to

[Podcast Host]

believe we are probably in a worse economic moment than most people will tell you. I do these things called deep dives now every Monday where I go in and just look at stats, figures about it could be mom dummy promises to freeze rents. So I'll go in and look at, okay, what's the reality of the history of rent freezes? What do they do? Looking at books like the Creature from Jekyll island and going in which parts are true, like, what's provably true, what's more or less false. So anyway, going through and you look at all the stats and it's like, hey, there's a way back out of this. But it isn't going to be easy. And if people do not wake up to the fact that we are full throttle right now headed towards a fiscal cliff, that you get into a debt spiral that is so devastating and it's played out so many times over the last 500 years is just. There's no question about where this goes. It's only a question of how we respond. Any country that has stayed over 130% of debt to GDP ratio for a long period of time has ended up either in civil war or a revolution. So we're at 122% right now. So one country has avoided it. That's Japan. Japan is a very unique culture. It's not impossible and there is something that you can do to back out of it. But anyway, I don't, I don't think that's where we're at. I think, though, that we have the setup that is very bad.

[Dave Rubin]

Okay, so you think we're in a very tenuous position regardless we are in a horrible situation.

[Podcast Host]

And that, that has, it is literally a loop in history that repeats based on fiat currencies. It. It is. Ray Dalio has done such a phenomenal job of mapping out the six phases of that cycle. The big debt cycle, man, it's really crazy when you start walking through it, you're like, oh, I see we're in, in phase, literally 5.5. And phase six is total collapse. People don't think that it can happen. It happens all the time. It's happened all over the world. It happened in Argentina, which is one of the most fascinating ones because they're now finally backing out of it. But it lasted for a hundred years. Anyway, I say all of that to say I think we are in a very difficult economic position. Our debt is so outrageous, we have continually borrowed from the future. And the only way to make the payments on the interest is money printing. Money printing steals from everybody, but only benefits bankers and people with assets. So that means 40% of Americans don't own assets at all. And the top 10% of Americans own 95% of all assets. It might be the top 1%. I, I always forget. So we'll just say the top 10%. That means 90% only own 5% of the assets. And that's why the rich are getting richer and the poor are getting poorer. That's the setup. But now with that, what I think is happening is it pushes people into this emotional thinking. Once they're fearful and thinking emotionally, now they believe, okay, I'm fighting for my life, the other team is the enemy. And it starts being about, I need to get control of this narrative. Now the bad news is they're right. And there's this book called On Xi Jinping about how know. He has talked privately about the. If we're going to make it as China, if we're really going to push forward and become the country, we have to control the propaganda. We have to give people a national narrative. I mean, this is like a tale as old as time. And so we're watching China do it to tremendous effect. The US has completely lost belief in itself. And you have the left and the right both trying to cement a narrative to get people to believe in. But when I look at that, I look at, oh, they think they have the narrative that the part of the reason they're always going down the rabbit holes of conspiracy, part of the reason that they're blaming the Jews is they don't understand the economics. And so when they go to try to figure out, okay, I can tell the future is set up poorly for me and my kids. Who the hell is doing this? And so instead of understanding as a structural thing, that I won't bother getting into right now, right. But instead of recognizing as a structural thing, they want to point to a person, a boogeyman, whatever. And as Thomas Soul said, you have a successful minority, very easy to point to them. And P.S. you, if you look into banking, you will find a lot of Jewish people. So that doesn't help their cause. So now it's like people have mismapped the problem. They have found an easy scapegoat. And now it's like to get everybody to understand what's quote, unquote really going on, they're just taking you down these constant rabbit holes, which are great for clicks, gets people really hopped up. Even I find conspiracy theories fun. So there's something like they really do juice you, but really like what's going on, whether they're doing it consciously or not, to me is about defining a new narrative about what America is so that we can all get on the same page. We're hitting pause for a moment, but there's plenty more ahead, so don't go anywhere.

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[Podcast Host]

Thanks for sticking around. Let's get right back into the action.

[Dave Rubin]

Right. So there's a lot there. I really like that analysis, by the way. And again, it actually, I think you gave me a nice piece of color. I would say there for when I come back on the grid. And obviously this issue is not going away. If anything, it gives me more of a reason to. To do what I presented earlier, which is be for Trump and for America. I'm not. You're more of an economic expert than I am, so. And I don't purport to be an economic expert. I think I'm, if, if anything, I'm probably a media expert or something. So I like the narrative stuff more than like the, the specific economic stuff that you could point to here. But what I would say is Trump as someone that is trying to reinvigorate the United States economy, trying to bring manufacturing here. I week at the all in AI Crypto Con AI conference that Trump and JD spoke at. JD was unbelievable. Unbelievably knowledgeable about this stuff. Trump was great too. It seems to me that Trump, whether you liked exactly all of the things of the big beautiful bill or not, and Elon didn't, cuz he's worried about some of the things that you addressed. Yeah, it seems that Trump is trying to do all of the right things to right the shit ship. Now maybe you disagree with that premise, maybe he's not. Maybe we just don't have a freaking clue.

[Podcast Host]

Trump has one bet grow. That's it. He's perfectly willing to drag us into more debt, which was very black pilling for me. But yeah, his whole bet is growth, right?

[Dave Rubin]

His bet is growth that eventually that will overcome the debt. In essence, you know, something like that. That would be like the most easy version to say it to me. I just don't see any other alternative. But I would also say Trump deserves, I think, I think he deserves some leeway on this. The guy has been right about so many things way before anyone else. He's fought the entire system, he's brought in competent people. They're doing a million things that I already laid out here. So I'm not saying he's gonna do it. All right? But what I would rather, it seems to me that if you were Tucker or any of these other people right now, unless you had the magic bullet that I don't think you or I seem to have, unless you had the antidote to all of this, you might be like, you know what? We got the President we wanted. We actually are fighting the deep state. We are cutting government, we are doing better trade deals. We aren't going to be in endless wars. We're going to exert American exceptionalism again. I thought Trump's speech in Saudi Arabia was one of the most incredible speeches I have ever heard. He said, we are not here to bomb you or tell you how to live, but if you want to be part of America's success, then join us in that. If you don't, that's okay too. To me, these are all the things that any of us could have possibly ever asked for. So why, if you are an influencer on the right, would you not be part of that? Doesn't mean you can't be critical when there are things to be critical of. Right. When he took the plane from Qatar, like I question that, you know, that seemed a little, if for no other reason than optics it seemed kind of strange, but it seems to me that the, The. The bulk of everything, and I mean the, the massive. Bulk of everything is so in the favor of Trump that to be on the right and get the pre. Like, who else do you want? Unless you think that you can, you know, basically pull off a. I think I can make this reference with you. If we're in 1985 and, you know, everybody's had it with COBRA Commander and Dr. Mindbender says, okay, we're going to take DNA from six of the most evil people and create Serpentor and he'll lead us. Well, maybe you could do that and create the greatest leader of all time, but that didn't work out well for Cobra either. By.

[Podcast Host]

By the way, shocking. Yeah, I, I have a slightly different take on he. It's by the way, deep cut GI Joe references will get you everywhere. With me, I have a different take on Trump, so I think that he is the only person that could be elected in this moment. Because both sides are weaponizing the doj. Both sides are going after their political opponents. We are in full populist mode. Again, if people really believe the other side is an existential threat, which they both do, then they're gonna go after them. And so you try to shoot him, you try to arrest him, imprison him. Like, you need somebody that has that tenacity that's gonna push through all of that. You're right that this moment isn't going to call forward a. Or it's not even the right way to think about it. This moment isn't going to elevate the kind of person that we would. I. That I would. Let me speak for myself, that I would want to lead us. That has the. The ability to go, you know what, they came after me, but I'm not gonna return fire. This is where we have to unite, we have to come together and we have to move forward. That's just not going to happen in a populist moment. In a populist moment, you're gonna get the guy that's willing to fight, that wants to slap the other side in the mouth so that you feel, yeah, yeah, like, get those guys, they suck. And that's why I keep coming back to. This is about narrative control. And when I see the right. The woke right. Going after Trump, it's because Trump does not validate their narrative. Their narrative is very much what you were saying, that. That whites have been hard done by, and we were being taken advantage of by this cabal behind the scenes. Which, by the way, isn't untrue. It's just not the cabal that they think, like, you can really round this to politicians and bankers. And you were, you're not going to get all the way there, but boy, oh boy, are you going to get close. And once you realize that bailouts are the point and that that is ultimately how we've created this wild runaway inequality. And it's really the inequality that's creating the problems. Like, if I could just people on board with that, I think a lot of these pieces begin to fall into place. And so if I'm right, that Tucker and other people on the woke, right, they simply can't map the economics of it. And so they get to, okay, I've got a narrative. It's cohesive. It allows me to understand myself, how to move forward. It allows me to rally my base. And now it's like, cool, I've got the package narrative that I need. But if Trump or anybody else is going to collide with my narrative, narrative, that's an existential threat to the leadership that I'm trying to deliver to the right. And so now you've got all these factions that are trying to like, lead the way forward, but they're having a war of narratives.

[Dave Rubin]

Yeah, that's good. That's good. I think it's true. And then I think if you. Again, the thing that I don't like to do is automatically go to their inherently racist or anti Semitic or something. But then if you take the portion of that that is real, because obviously there are actual racists there, actual anti Semites, there are actual people who hate people based on creed and religion or whatever. If you take a dash of that and then you take what you said. So there's like this map that they can't map to the, to the reality map. Right. So these things are not finding themselves. And then the, the racial element probably just puts this thing on steroids. So as the maps are trying to. Now, I'm definitely doing a Jordan Peterson here, but as the maps are trying to come together so you could sort of Indiana Jones and be like, oh, my God, that is the thing. I just needed to step back and see it. Well, now this map is kind of shaking because this map now has the racial element into it and it has sort of like an actual hatred element. And that's not going to work from an American perspective. I mean, we are a country that is here for everybody whether you like it or not. And, you know, unfortunately, that comes with a lot of things because we now do seem to have certain groups that don't want to assimilate, that don't want to do what your grandparents did and my grandparents did and don't want to be part of the melting pot and seem to want to turn our country into the countries from whence they came, which is an unbelievable disaster. And we know that the newer generations then become more radical than the grandparents who survived all the stuff. So there's a cacophony of issues that we're trying to deal with here. And I think this is the only way we're going to get anywhere with them.

[Podcast Host]

I mean, we'll see. I am haunted by the quote that the moderates, the elite moderates, are the first ones to get killed in a revolution. So I am so hyper aware of that. But the part that I have not yet come up with a compelling hypothesis for is why the rewrite of history as it relates to Churchill? What. What is it about Churchill that makes him a cornerstone figure that they have to like, re imagine?

[Dave Rubin]

Okay, so let's slightly remove all of the specifics from the conversation that you're talking about. That was obviously when Tucker had Daryl Cooper on. So I don't want to, because we're not going to quote him perfectly. And that's where the Internet will grab us. So let's just try to talk about the idea that you're talking about. Why rewrite versions of history? And why does so much of it seem to be around Winston Churchill? I think there's a couple kind of fairly obvious reasons, actually. First off, World War II, if we're to connect it to the racial element of everything we're talking about here. Right. It was the war, in essence, that started, unfortunately, to exterminate the Jews. So there's a weird racial element around World War II. It exterminated or attempted to exterminate or otherwise killed an awful lot of other people. Ask the Russians about that. So it's not just about that, but when most people think of World War II, you think of the fact that 6 million Jews were killed. So there's some element of focusing on that. And if somehow Churchill, the guy that really turned the war around for Europe, could somehow be the bad guy, then it kind of starts bringing some Hitler's sort of good stuff around too, which they've also danced around. I mean, Daryl Cooper, somebody tweeted at him, him something about the national. What was it? The nationalists, the National Socialists were right. And he posted that, you know, that image of what's his name as The Joker from the great Batman movie, Not Christian Bale. Heath Ledger as the Joker. And what does he say? You know, I'm just ahead of the curve. Something like that. Like, that's kind of like basically saying, I am a Nazi, pretty much. And that's the guy that, you know, Tucker says is the best historian in the country or something. So I think there's a weird racial element to it, but I would say the better version of that is that Winston Churchill was a man who, whether you like him or not, whether you like everything he did or not or anything else, he stood up for his country. And that damn well is the truth. And as the Nazis were marching through Europe and did have a plan to take all of Europe and wanted more living space and everything else, he stood up for his country. This is post Chamberlain basically cutting a deal with Hitler and thinking that if you just put something on a piece of paper, that they'll be nice. Which obviously, obviously Churchill believed in peace through strength. And he stood up and he stopped an invasion of his country and Europe at large. And in some sense, connected to what you said earlier. If you don't really like the Western world now, if you don't like what America's turned into, well, then you kind of have to start back there. You can always go back further and further and further. That's a pretty good one. Because it loomed World War II, there's still people that are alone alive that lived through World War II. So I think going after Churchill, the guy who, you know, helped stop the invasion of Europe, to say the least, is a pretty good one to go after. It helps. It helps rewrite all of the history around all of this.

[Podcast Host]

That's it for part one of my conversation with Dave Rubin tomorrow. In part two, we push even deeper into the ideological battles shaping the future and what it's going to take to. To survive them with your sanity intact. So if you're not already following the show, make sure you do. It's the best way to make sure you never miss a drop. And it helps us bring these conversations to the people who actually need them. All right, guys, until next time, be legendary. Take care. Peace.