From the Kitchen Table: The Duffys - Teaching Socialism's Dark Truths

Episode Date: June 17, 2022

This week, Sean and Rachel are joined by Economist and Venezuelan freedom activist Daniel Di Martino to discuss the hidden truths of socialism and communism.   Daniel explains how socialism devastated Venezuela, how politicians in America are trying to implement socialist policies, and how American schools are indoctrinating kids to support socialist ideology. Later, Daniel talks about The Dissident Project, his new group that seeks to educate children about the realities of socialism and communism around the world. Follow Sean and Rachel on Twitter: @SeanDuffyWI & @RCamposDuffy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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BetMGM.com for terms and conditions. Must be 19 years of age or older to wager. Ontario only. Please play responsibly. If you have any questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact Connex Ontario at 1-866-531-2600 to speak to an advisor free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with iGaming Ontario. Hey everyone, welcome to From the Kitchen Table. I'm your host, Sean Duffy, along with my co-host for the podcast, but also partner in life, Rachel Campos Duffy.

Thank you, Sean. It's so good to be back at our podcast from the kitchen table with everybody who joins us every week at our kitchen table. And today we have a very special guest. Now I had this young man, Daniel DiMartino. I had him on Fox and Friends last week. And as soon as I did, I was like, oh my gosh, we got to have him back because he has the most amazing project going on to really address what's going on in our school system and the blackout on socialism. So we brought in Daniel on the podcast today to discuss the dangers of socialism, which he knows very well as a Venezuelan and the historical truths of socialism and communism. As I mentioned, Daniel is a Venezuelan. He's a freedom activist. He's an economist. And of course, he lived through

the consequences of socialism in Venezuela. And he's absolutely dedicated his life to not just helping America, but helping the world understand what happens to a country when they fall into this, you know, what I really think is an evil ideology because it's filled with lies. So with no further ado, let me welcome Daniel DiMartino. Daniel, welcome. Thank you for having me again, Rachel. Of course. It's good to have you on the podcast, Daniel. So listen, and again, I think it's so amazing to have people who have come from socialism or communism, people who have come from wealthy countries like Venezuela that have been destroyed by this ideology. And it's great that you recognize the fact that the truth of this cancer

of socialism and communism hasn't been taught to our kids, which means that when the AOCs and the Bernie Sanders or the social media companies want to push that on the youth of America, they have nothing to refute it with because it sounds actually really great. or the social media companies want to push that on the youth of America, they have nothing to refute it with because it sounds actually really great. Yeah. When I first came to the United States in 2016, I was in my freshman year of college, and the kids around me who were my age were all buying into the whole Bernie Sanders campaign. You know, we love these people.

We you know, they just want to give us all these free things. The system is so unfair to us. And from their ignorance and really just their good intentions and self-interest, they fell prey into this ideology. And millions of Americans voted for this individual. So many of these politicians are now elected and they're doing terrible things to our economy and to our country. Yeah, it's so true. And no one knows, of course, better than Venezuela.

And so when you were in class and you were saying, you know, or you were hearing your fellow classmates talk about how great socialism was and they were carrying their Bernie Sanders, you know, T-shirts or all their, you know, pro AOC stuff. What were you saying to them? Well, you know, one one girl who told me that she was not she wasn't just not proud of being an American. She hated being an American. She said that, you know, this was a terrible country. I don't know why, you know, it sucks

to have been born here. I you know, I was just totally shocked to hear that because I wish I had been born here. And I wasn't, you know, it's not your choice where you're born. And that's really the real privilege, right? It's not the white privilege, it's the American privilege. And I told her that, you know, if it was possible, I would 100% trade my citizenship with yours. And we should just exchange lives. But because that's not at all what I see having come here. Like in Venezuela, things are so terrible. And I feel like I've had so many opportunities here.

So I'm very confused by you saying that. And she, you know, didn't usually hear an immigrant say that. It happened to me here recently, New York in the gym. One of the gym employees asked me where I was from, said from Venezuela. And he said, oh, and how are things there? You know, how do you, how's your time here? Do you really like this? Is this, you know, is this a good country? Like, he was like shocked. And I'm like, yes, man, I love it. I love America. I'm having a great time. You know, look what I can can do i can come to the gym here i can pay for it myself this is not something i could do where i'm from right it's so interesting how little they

know i've always thought that what we should do when aoc became became so popular was just round up all these aoc supporters and send them to spring break in Caracas? Well, we should 100% have a program that sends people to countries to, you know, Caracas would be a little dangerous, but certainly people should have a good experience. But that's why we, because we can't send everyone to Venezuela, but we can send a lot of Venezuelans to everyone, right? That's right. Venezuela, but we can send a lot of Venezuelans to everyone, right? That's right. And that's exactly why I started the Dissident Project and why we want to send people who lived in socialist countries to high schools so that they can tell teenagers what they lived through and they hear

it from their first-hand experience. Yeah. So Daniel, walk us through the Dissident Project, what it is, what you're trying to accomplish, and who you're targeting? Yeah. Well, the Visiting Project is a nonprofit organization, part of a larger organization called Young Voices, which is a nonprofit PR firm. And what we are doing is that we recruit a group of eight people, including myself. From which countries? Tell us which countries. Yes. From Hong Kong, North Korea, Cuba, and Venezuela. And we are going to do a media training for them so that they're prepared to go to schools in August. And then they'll start, you know, traveling in the fall. And we're

sending us at no cost to high schools so that students, the teachers who want us, you know, or their students to hear our stories, they can hear firsthand from us what we lived through, why socialism doesn't work, and why it's something that is important to learn, right? This is U.S. history. This is American history. This is world history.

You know, just like people learn about fascism and about other authoritarian systems, they have to learn about socialism too. Yeah, I love that you're starting in high school because I think it's too late by the time you get to college. So I love how young you're starting. I almost would recommend junior high, but I absolutely love that idea. Tell me, let's just go back just a little bit because I just, Let's just go back just a little bit because I just I as a mom, I definitely saw this was a glaring omission that kids would hear that socialism is great. They would hear that capitalism was bad and that there was a literal historical blackout on the progressive movement. You know, when you go back to the history books for our kids about, you know, basically, you know, all the eugenics and all the things, bad things that were happening, the progressive movements were completely papered over. But also there was no talk about

the death and destruction that was caused by socialism and communism. In fact, Daniel, I'm sure you know, there was a, I can't remember her name, a young Asian girl who was running in. I believe her name was Elizabeth. She was running in a California district. She had a campaign ad that was pretty powerful. She was talking about, you know, what happened to her parents as I think when they left Cambodia. And and she had some pretty stark images in the ad and Facebook took it down because they said that it was too violent. And she was like, well, this is like the history of how my family came here, what they escaped. So tell me what kinds of story, I mean, you can start with your story or the story of the girl from North Korea, but maybe your story might be best.

Walk us through what people would be experiencing in Venezuela now? Like, what was it like for your family and for those that you know that are still there? So what was tough about Venezuela was how Venezuela went down from being a prosperous country. And it's different living in extreme poverty or your life from living well and then living in extreme poverty because you already

have a standard to compare it to, right? And that's what happened to my family because, you know, we had like a normal, I guess, middle-class American life in the early 2000s where you could have water in your house and electricity and internet. And, you know, you had a car, you had a home that you owned, really basic stuff. And we went from that to not having electricity many days per week, to not having water several weeks straight and having to carry it in containers up the stairs, being trapped in elevators all the time because blackouts would happen randomly, you know, losing your fridge and losing your food and lining up for food. You know, we would lose our fridge because blackouts damage the electrical devices.

And then that would be a total disaster in our home because that meant that we lose the food inside. And that means that we have to line up again. And it's a problem to find it all. inside and that means that we have to line up again and it's a problem to find it all. It's just very sad to go through those things. Crime, right? Crime in Venezuela shut up and became one of the most dangerous countries in the world. Tens of thousands of people get murdered in Venezuela every year between 20 and 30,000. And imagine that in the United States, the number of people who get murdered each year is about 10,000. And this is a country with 11 times the population.

It's the equivalent as if, you know, 100 to 150,000 Americans were killed each year. That's what's happening in Venezuela today. So all these things really made life very difficult, right? Hyperinflation, things became very difficult to afford. really made life very difficult, right? Hyperinflation, things we can very difficult to afford. You know, I used to go with my dad when I was a kid to the movies every weekend. And then we stopped, you know, like, we couldn't do things I had to if you I wanted to go to see some friends, it had to be during daylight, not during nighttime. It's, it's a total destruction of your quality of life.

So Daniel, when you look at the messages that were sold to the Venezuelans, the messages that took you from one of, if not the wealthiest countries in Central and South America to one of the poorest, what were they selling you to transform the system of wealth and prosperity to the system of wealth and prosperity to the system of poverty and despair today? Yeah. Well, they would promise a lot of free things, Sean. They would say that education and healthcare have to be free.

It's your right. Electricity is your right. Water is your right. Housing is your right. Food is your right. And everything they made a right is everything they disappeared. Right? Because when you make something free and there's no incentive to produce it

and there's a very large incentive to just take it at any point because it's worthless, right? It's free. Then there's a huge shortage. And that's what happened with food when the government took over factories that made food or when or the few factories that were private and stores they regulated the price that you could sell things to at a very low price so you know housing the government started building uh apartment buildings that looked horrible it's

in shambles, the whole infrastructure, and it's riddled with crime. So it's kind of like what the leftists are promoting in America, just in a much larger scale. That would happen here too if we allowed them to do it. We'll have more of this conversation after this. Oh, interrupting their playlist

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Yeah, that's what's so scary to hear you say that because when you describe that, I hear so many of the same messages that we hear here. So why don't you bring me back to how your family was able to leave Venezuela? Yeah, well, I was the first one to leave because I for school. That's right. I got a scholarship, a full right to come to college in America and I left in 2016. Then my parents left a year and a half later with my grandparents.

And then my uncle left, too. And they all went to. And they're living in Madrid, which, you know, Spain is also a quasi-socialist country, in my opinion. You know, it's so difficult to even find a job. 40% of young people are unemployed. People think that, especially in America, like they think that, oh, we should just be like Europe. Europe is amazing. Why don't you see so many Americans moving to Europe then? Because it's not really amazing. It's amazing to visit because it's beautiful, historic. That's right. It's you know, you can learn a lot of things. It's fun, but it's not fun to live in Europe. That's that's the big difference. I have family in Spain.

And so I know exactly what you're talking about. And what's interesting, too, is when you have 40% of your youth population that doesn't work or can't find a job, they literally don't end up learning how to work. So I have cousins who are now my age, you know, middle aged, and they never learned to work and they're kind of useless. And they kind of feed off the system and they just sort of learn to live with less. And yeah, and that's exactly what happened with Spain. That's exactly what happened with Italy. And then these, the leftist politicians in America tell American kids that, no, you know,

we want to be like Denmark. We want to be like Norway. Something I explain in my talks in schools and to every event I go is what are the Nordic countries doing versus what are the socialists in America proposing? The Nordic countries don't have a minimum wage. The Nordic countries don't have the same environmental or any other type of regulation, building regulations. They have school choice, which we don't. They have lower corporate taxes than we do. They really finance their generous welfare state with what? Very large sales taxes and payroll taxes that everybody, the poor especially, pay. And that's not what Bernie Sanders proposed in America. pay. And that's not what Bernie Sanders proposed in America.

That's right. So Daniel, I'm fascinated by this insight that you might have to offer. So in Venezuela, obviously very wealthy, and it's now gone to extreme poverty. And obviously now the message and you're like, well, all that I was promised was a lie, right? Just like all the promises of Bernie Sanders and AOC, they're all lies. But once people realize, hey, these promises don't work, I want to go back to the system that I used to have. Why hasn't that happened? Why haven't people said, well, we want to go back to a free enterprise system. We want to go back to capitalism. We hate socialism because of the results. Is it because the government is not now allowing that to happen because they have so much power? Or do you still have a whole segment of people, a majority that go, no, no, we love this. This is amazing. What's going on? Well, at the beginning, there was a huge base of support

for the regime. That's why they got elected in Venezuela. But that support was eroded over time. And right now, there's no basis support for the regime. The difference is that now the elections are rigged, and the government has a very powerful control. There's no gun rights or anything. There's no way to challenge them. Every time there's approaches, they just kill or torture a bunch of people, and everybody else runs. And there's no way to overthrow them peacefully, or at least no way to overthrow them from the civilian population. And the military is so in cahoots with the with the regime, the military is the regime, right? The people who manage the state enterprises are generals, the people who manage, you know, the drug trafficking that's

happening in Venezuela are the generals, and the other generals and the other commanders in the military. So they don't have an incentive for Venezuela to become a democratic country because they know if they did, of course, no democratically elected government would tolerate the military being involved in illegal activity. So you're saying that once through a democratic process, you elect the socialists, that democracy then goes away. They stay in power. Once they have the power and the socialism is rooted in the system, you can't get rid of them. Is that your point?

Yes. My point is that once socialists are able to get into power, they have no intention of living it. power. They have no intention of living it. And even if the initial people who were elected were well-intentioned, all the power that government starts concentrating as a result of socialist policies of, say, nationalization or regulation or so much money coming to the state from taxation, that creates a very big lure for corrupt people to join the government because it's a very big incentive to just steal money or, you know, be corrupt some other way with contracts and procurement, whatever. And once you are profiting from the regime that you put in place, then you don't want the regime to fall. And so you'll do anything to stay in power. Then you commit some crimes, you do some illegal things, you know that if you leave power, you're going to go to fall. And so you'll do anything to stay in power. Then you commit some crimes, you do some

illegal things, you know that if you leave power, you're going to go to jail and therefore you don't ever want to lose power. So I have a question about gun rights. So you mentioned that the people don't have guns. The gun rights have been taken away from them. And in America, we're having a gun debate right now. And some people are like, you don't need a firearm for hunting, hunting purpose. I believe our founders had a different view of our second amendment, that you have the right of the citizenry to possess firearms, because actually it gives the citizenry power. And I think if you look across Cuba and Venezuela and other countries around the world that have taken away their gun rights and they've willingly given up the gun rights, then you've given all the power to the government who actually has guns.

And the balance between the citizenry and the government all of a sudden shifts. And again, that's not a debate that we're having, and it seems maybe a little bit extreme, but I don't think that our founders envisioned hunting. I think they envisioned the balance of power between people and government. Am I wrong? What's your view on Venezuela and the seizing of guns and gun rights? I mean, you just have to read the Second Amendment, right? A well-regulated militia being necessary for the security of a free state, or I believe, you know, I don't remember if there's another word in addition to security. Pretty close. You know, the right of the people to bear arms, to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed. And so the pre-ambulatory clause is the reason for the right to bear arms.

And that clause means that the reason to have the right to bear arms is that you need weapons to protect your freedom and to protect yourself against, you know, foreign or domestic threats. And so it is not really about hunting. It's not really even about crime. It's all about being able to fight against government tyranny. And I'm monopolizing all this time from Rachel. She's going to get in a second. Is one of the ways that they stay in power is the fact that the citizenry can fight back? Is that one of the detriments of people to go, listen, I want to actually fight back for for freedom and for liberty and for free enterprise. But I can't do it because I have all the guns, the ability to fight back. Yeah, that's what happens. There's been thousands and thousands of mass protests in Venezuela.

There's been so many times where we've gotten so close, but nothing can be done. And the great thing about America, though, is that we already have the Second Amendment, right? And the population is already well armed, the most well armed in the world. And so that's a huge, you know, barrier for a tyranny to ever be implemented here, not even because we would need to use them to fight back, but because just the fact that we already have them will stop them from doing things that will make them afraid that need to use them to fight back. But because just the fact that we already have them will stop them from doing things that will make them afraid that we will use them against them. When you see American politics and the way our politics revolves around, you know,

the Second Amendment in particular, the way that the response to say shootings and especially mass shootings, school shootings and the reaction by the left, which is always, you know, to go after the private use of guns and your rights to use guns. Do you do you feel like I mean, look, I'm not trying to say that there aren't good people who say that who honestly believe that, you know, I mean, look, I'm not trying to say that there aren't good people who say that, who honestly believe that controlling guns, people's ability to own guns might actually make a difference in these cases. Or do you see the politicians, especially those on the left who are for this, do you see that there's something bigger going on here that they're trying to- Do they have a sinister plan? Do they have a sinister plan and take it away? Or are they just like, they're good natured and like,

oh no, we're just going to be safer and happier without you having any guns. And by the way, as you know, they take away guns from law-abiding citizens and never get the guns of the criminals. That's the problem. I think that there's a big portion

of Americans and an even bigger portion of members of Congress and elected officials who don't want anybody to have any guns in the United States. Or the reason that you're saying in Venezuela that they don't control the population? Well, I think that most of them just simply are ignorant, maybe, or maybe just think that it's possible to stop guns from existing.

Guns exist. And given that guns exist and they're already in circulation, I think it's totally unrealistic, even if you shared their goal, that's never going to happen. So why would someone want to disarm the populace? That's my question. I think that's maybe for Bernie Sanders or for Lehan Omar or for AOC, I do think it's a question of control. And to weaken the population from fighting back, they're afraid that that could happen.

But I do think that for most politicians, it's really they're just, they're too idealistic. And idealistic in, you know, very different from the American ideal, for sure. You know, like if they really like that, they shouldn't live in America. Right. There's other countries. And so, Daniel, I want to get back to this project because so often in our schools and you mentioned this earlier, our people, our kids are taught to hate America. They are they're taught a skewed history of America. They're taught that socialism is good and fair and free and freedom and democracy and free enterprise and capitalism are bad. And so when you go to schools, and again, I want you to talk to, if someone's on a school board,

that's listening to our podcast, someone is a community activist or just a parent who says, you know what? Go to a parent-teacher conference. That's right. They can advocate for you guys to come into the school. Walk me through, what are they going to learn? What kind of presentation do you give? And will they get the nuts and bolts of what it's like to live in a socialist country and why you say as a Venezuelan, I love America. This is the most amazing place on earth. What are they going to get?

And maybe what can an advocate in the school district who's listening to the podcast use to get your group to come in and speak to their students? Yes. Well, we're a nonpartisan group. We are a nonprofit, 501c3, part of Young Voices. So, you know, people shouldn't be concerned that we're going to go to the school and just give a talk about the elections or anything, you know, that is happening currently in politics. We are going there to tell our stories,

like my name is Annali Martino. I come from Venezuela. And this is where I live through with pictures. You know, I even bring Venezuelan cash for the kids to check out. And it's really, you know, a hands-on experience. And they can ask questions and they do ask questions. Tell them what my life was like, pictures of my family, how things changed, how I left Venezuela, how the other dissidents, you know, how, for example, Grace escaped North Korea or Felix escaped Cuba, and then connected to what's happening in America, right? We say, and this is what socialism is. And socialism is not, you know, this, what they tell you about the Nordic countries, this is the difference between what you're being told

socialism is and what socialism actually is, its consequences and socialism has killed so many people and this is the other countries that have suffered it so really i view this as world history which is what it is right uh and it's part it should be part of the curriculum everywhere because it's not enough to stop teaching bad things to American kids. We have to start teaching them good things. And that includes the reality of what happens in the rest of the world and how America compares to that and how great America is and how they should love their country. That's a good thing.

And a school should teach kids to love their country. Especially if the country is as great as this one. But even if it wasn't great rachel venezuela is not a great country anymore but i love venezuela i mean it's okay to love your country that's that's fine and people need to understand especially leftists even if they think that america you know has so many problems and you know surely every place has problems but even if they think they're fundamental problems they should still love america yeah no no i agree i i i i totally understand what you're saying one of the things i like about you um is how optimistic you are so

when i interviewed you on fox and friends um you know i've been really concerned about the direction we're going in and we sort of got talked a little bit about that. But you reminded me, you know, just this week in San Francisco of all cities, they threw out Chesa Boudin, this, you know, communist former translator for Hugo Chavez, of all things, you know, out of office. And they're taking back their city, at least from a crime perspective. So so we hope or so we hope to bring someone better than that. Yeah, the bar is pretty low. The bar is pretty low. He's the son of weather underground domestic terrorists. He was raised by Bill Ayers. He was Hugo Chavez's translator.

I don't think you could have asked for a worse resume for a DA. But in any case, they were able to get together and throw them out. And I think that's the hope that you have for America, that you believe that if the people want this, and if the people are informed enough, that they can make change. And that's something that sadly hasn't been able to happen in Venezuela. Yeah. And look, I also am hopeful because I think that there's so many things that when conservatives have the power to again, to to take actions that we can take action. Right. I think that at the end of the Trump administration with, for example, the 1776 commission that started too late.

We have to do those things again and we'll have to make a bigger push in education as conservatives. Yes. At the federal level, some but really at the state level and too many state governments, you know, forgive me, are very squishy and they're not doing at all anything. You know, you are, you are a hundred percent right. And by the way, I think the, the most missed opportunity, there were two massively missed opportunities in the Trump administration. The two top ones that I see. One was Donald Trump should have done transportation first and infrastructure first. I'm sorry. And then, you know, deal with health care because we ended up losing on health care.

And he was the perfect person to do infrastructure. He understood it. He knew what needed to be streamlined in order to get that going. And now infrastructure was basically done by the Democrats and used as a way to to get through the Green New Deal in all kinds of forms. And the second was in education. I think that Betsy DeVos was largely a huge disappointment. This should have been she had come from the school choice, you know, vein of our movement and didn't really do what could have been done, I think, with Trump behind her to make school choice a thing in America everywhere. And not just that, there's so many things colleges, public colleges are doing to indoctrinate kids. Look, I got a Columbia, I'm doing a PhD here, you know, they're not going to indoctrinate me and grad school is very different from undergrad. But at the undergrad level, it's very dire the situation what teachers or college professors are telling kids,

what the is and not just the professors, the staff, the orientation that freshmen go through. the professors, the staff, the orientation that freshmen go through. Even I'm a public university in Indiana, Republican state. I had to do a walk of privilege. They do pronoun trainings for state employees in Indiana University. Pronoun trainings. How is the state government of Indiana not doing anything about these things? They did a drag show in the residences sponsored by the university in my freshman year. I didn't even know what a drag show was. I didn't know that word. You're raised well. Yeah. I don't even know how you translate that into Spanish, even like I never heard of it. You know, but I think what's important to note, and we've kind of unpacked this a little bit in the conversation and to Rachel's kind of comment and question is these radical progressive socialists.

They've infiltrated the deep state of our of our government. And so even though you get a new president with a new secretary, all of these people inside the agency that you can't fire are working against the elected representative of the president who was elected by the people. You have now corporate America that's now shifting to this leftism, which is horrible for business. Schools, K through 12, but beyond, as you mentioned, we also have social media, which is feeding this narrative of leftism to the kids. And I think if parents are willing to stand up and say, listen, let's bring in Daniel's organization. If we have governors that say, you know what, this program is great. We should be teaching, and Ron DeSantis is doing this now in Florida, and other governors should do the same thing.

We're going to teach about communism and socialism. The education of a child on the horse of what the left and the business community are trying to push to them is that little seed that can allow them to grow and push back into freedom loving, American loving children and then adults. Yeah. And I think that the personal experience, I mean, you're someone who can, I mean, this isn't like going back and telling them a story that happened a hundred years ago. This is a current event. This is happening right now. This is happening not far from our own shores and our own hemisphere. And so at least in the case of Cuba and Venezuela.

So I think these personal stories that you're telling, the fact that you're making it interactive, that you're going to bring in, you know, the currency and pictures and your family and show what you lived like before and what life was like after. And I just think it's powerful. And I think it's going to make a big difference. I also heard that there are a lot of states are now taking up, you know, I don't know what they're calling it exactly. Maybe, you know, Daniel, it's like like a day to observe the day for the victims of communism. Yeah, it's it's November 7th, which is the day when the Soviet Union began in 1917. Right. And it's kind of like commemorating all of that. Yeah. So, you know, that's a good thing. I don't think it's enough.

You know, like, yeah, sure, a day is nice. I don't care that much about the day as much about the content of the curricular. President Trump used to declare, and I was there for the declaration of November 7th as the day for the victims of communism at the federal level. Biden stopped doing that declaration and stopped dealing with victims of communist regimes.

And look, this is a fight that's been happening for many years. I was reading recently an encyclical of Pope Leo XIII, Quod Apostolici Muneris, which was back from 1878. which was back from 1878. And that is the Catholic Church's encyclical on socialism. In 1878, before any socialist regime ever happened, the Soviet Union didn't exist until 40 years later. And there he talks about the wickedness of socialism, how the church reaffirms the right to property against the false promises of riches and wealth of socialists.

It's incredible. And I encourage, you know, especially if you're a Catholic and you read this, I love what you're reading. Yeah. It's a light reading. Yeah, it's incredible. You know, it's very strong. Like the pope was using incredibly strong language against socialists he i i can tell you a little bit here you know we speak of that sect of men who under various and almost barbarous names are called socialists

communists or nihilists and who spread over all the world and are bound together by the closest ties in a wicked confederacy you You know, it's like very strong. It's very, very clear. Can I just mention one thing? Because this came, I saw this in the Daily. Maybe Francis needs to read that. I know, I think Pope Francis needs to do some of this light reading that you're doing.

I saw in the Daily Mail that Michelle Obama was, you know, she had this very expensive girls trip to New York. As you know, the Obamas have multiple giant homes, even though they only have two girls. They have their mansion in Martha's Vineyard. Then they have this giant mansion in Hawaii where, you know, their their neighbors are all upset because they built walls that aren't environmentally, you know, their neighbors are all upset because they built walls that aren't environmentally, you know, sound for the environment, which is kind of ironic as well. But, you know, he's constantly taking all these elaborate trips on yachts. And so as someone who came from Latin America, haven't you seen this before?

These people that speak socialism haven't really had much of a job outside of government and somehow seem to end up really, really, really wealthy. I mean, Chavez used to say being rich is bad while he was wearing a Rolex watch. Right. Like this is real. And people, some people, you know, imagine some people believing that that's the saddest part, I think real. And people, some people, you know, imagine some people believe in that. That's the saddest part, I think. I mean, what did Obama do? I mean, Obama said you didn't build that. Right. Well, what did Obama do? I mean, Obama never had a business. Are you kidding me?

This man became multimillionaire just by speaking after becoming president, being a politician all his life, working for the government. And he became a multimillionaire. i'm very happy for him nothing he did is illegal that i know of um but then you can't criticize people who actually build businesses and become rich that's a good thing i mean he became rich kind of like in a parasitic way you know he didn't really build anything uh but businesses do and that's what we need to that's something we should also encourage in schools not just about education and socialism we need to educate kids about entrepreneurial skills right i just heard this

story recently about some private schools in egypt that uh just yesterday um that they kicked out this uh black man who was teaching about entrepreneurial skills and family values in these predominantly black private schools in Harlem and the Bronx. And why? Because that is racist. Those are white values, family and entrepreneurial skills. You know what's racist? It's racist to say that family and entrepreneurial values are something of white people, because that's a universal value. And to try to deprive kids of certain races of good things, that's what's racist. Yeah, well, I think it goes back to what we all know about socialists, which is that they want to create this kind of dependency because that gives them more power. If you are entrepreneurial, if you have a sense of agency and personal responsibility, then obviously you don't need them. And they want you to need them and they want you dependent on them and they want you to be satisfied with some crumbs off

the government table that they offer you. That's really what it's about. Wait right there. We're going to have more of that conversation next. At Desjardins, we speak business. We speak equipment modernization. We're fluent in data digitization and expansion into foreign markets. And we can talk all day about streamlining manufacturing processes. Because at Desjardins Business, we speak the same language you do, business. So join the more than 400,000 Canadian entrepreneurs who already count

on us and contact Desjardins today. We'd love to talk business. Daniel, we're heading towards the end here of this podcast. Give us a final message, both about your organization and then about, you know, socialism as you experience it and where we are in America right now. Yeah. Well, my message is that America is under threat from people who want to implement a socialist regime in this country and who are going to try to do it by dividing us not just by class, but really by race, by gender. And that's why we see all these what I call cultural Marxism in our schools, and that's what we see in our universities. And that's why we're starting to see it in our workplaces, and the cancellation that's happening for people expressing dissenting views. That's their goal. Their goal is to control us culturally and then politically,

ultimately to destroy our economy, get in power, become rich, and after having deceived a large enough portion of the population who are just being deceived. That's important to know. But we also have a lot of things going as Americans and residents, immigrants that we live here, because we have our constitution, we have the Second Amendment, which other countries don't have. We have a huge movement of conservatives, libertarians, people, moderates, people who believe in freedom and are not deceived,

which Venezuela didn't have. Many more people were deceived and there weren't programs like this or TV shows or anything against Chavez like that. So we have a lot of things in our favor and we are on time. We can act. You can send people to, you know, that's why we start. I started a dissident project because I felt the need to act. It's my duty as an immigrant in this country who came from a socialist regime to teach people to not believe in socialism and to preserve the freedom that I was so generously granted by coming to America, right? And so I think that it's also the duty of all Americans to try to preserve the freedoms that we were given and that we have. And I think that a good way to do it is

to teach young kids about socialism and what to avoid and why they should love their country. And that's all we do. We're nonpartisan. If you want to book us, if you're a teacher, if you're a principal, you're a school board member, you are a parent, and you want to tell someone or your students, go to the dissident or go to dissidentproject.org. Just dissidentproject.org. Dissidentproject.org. Dissidentproject.org. And they can sign up and- Get more information and figure out how to come in how to book them to come in fantastic stuff um i'm actually going to go to that site uh daniel to get my own kids schools to book you guys for next year because my kids go to a

classical academy i think that will welcome um that kind of personal story that you all have to give. So we have materials there too, videos of us, fact sheets, a lot of other things too. That's great. That's great. Well, you are an amazing young man. One of these days, I'm going to have to meet your parents because we're just thoroughly impressed with you. Thank you so much. I'm going to give you a fatherly compliment. The progression that you've had, Daniel, in your ability to communicate has grown immensely. I saw you six months ago, eight months ago, and what you've done and the power of your ability to communicate on these issues has really grown. And I think it's amazing. And you're a strong voice to help fight back and push back. I think every generation has a fight. World

War II generation had theirs. We had the fight against the Soviet Union and the communists there. But this is the fight of our generation. Can we preserve what's great about America historically for the next generation? Because we're at the cusp of losing it. Can we preserve what's great about America historically for the next generation? Because we're at the cusp of losing it. And it's going to be powerful voices like yours who have lived through the horrors of socialism that remind Americans that we don't want to go down that path. And so, again, the power of your ability to communicate is only grown and it's going to continue to grow.

And I want to thank you for all you're doing with your time and your energy and your education and your voice to make sure Americans wake up and make sure we preserve what is so great about freedom and democracy and free enterprise. Yeah, you're a freedom fighter. And I don't think I don't think we've heard the end of you. I mean, there's there's you have a long, long, long road ahead of you office in your future. I see that, too.. I do too. Thank you so much. I'm honored and always grateful for people like you and for the opportunity to speak to your audience and for your advice and for your kind words. I really appreciate it. Keep on keeping on, Daniel. We think you're great. Wonderful. Thanks. All right. How inspiring, right? To hear someone like Daniel.

Yeah, we'll tell this. us daniel listen you can jump off this and you're awesome as always um and just i've watched you in the different interviews and the the you're getting so good at this um you're just going to continue to get better the more you do it so um this was an awesome podcast thank you thank you so much sean yes and let's keep in touch maybe one day we can meet in person i'd love to meet you if you're around town. I live here in New York City, so we're close. We'd love that. Maybe even, like I said, we'll have you come to my kid's school up here in Jersey. It'd be awesome. So it's an amazing viewpoint from someone who has come from a socialist communist country that has lived through the horrors of communism.

And again, I think it's amazing, Rachel, that in America, we're actually having to have this debate. And it shows how powerful the left has been in infiltrating our institutions and promoting while we were asleep, conservatives were asleep, just good Americans were asleep as they were doing their nasty work to undermine institutions. And all of a sudden we've woken up and we realized they've taken so much ground that to be a freedom loving American who still believes in free speech and free enterprise, doesn't believe in a lot of the things the left pushes, we're demonized for it. And I think we're shocked at how fast this happened. And again, we have to rally together as a movement of left and right, independent. And there's Democrats who aren't AOC.

A lot of Democrats don't believe. Not a lot of them. Well, I think there are. There still are a lot of them. And it's going to be everyone who rallies together around the principles that have made the country great if we're going to save it. And if we think that someone else is going to do it, if someone else is riding in on a cavalry to save you, if Elon Musk is going to save you, he's not. You are the cavalry. You are the people who are going to rise up and push back

and save America for the next generation. No one else is behind you. No one else is coming if you don't do it. I love what you said about that we were kind of asleep. I mean, I think we were all fighting. Conservatives were fighting about tax rates, and they were taking over just massive amounts of cultural territory, as you said, from Hollywood to the education system. They took over corporate boards. They just took it all over. I got a letter the other day from a friend of ours, a mutual friend of ours in Wisconsin, who works at a congressional office and said that she got a letter from a young girl who was going to agricultural school in, I'm not going to remember which UW it was. River Falls. UW River Falls. Which is right south of the western side of my district it was. River Falls. UW River Falls. Which is right south of the western side of my district when I was in Congress.

That's right. And she went to orientation. It was like a pre-orientation where you go in the spring to kind of get oriented before you go in the fall. And the entire orientation with her and her parents, everybody else there, for an agricultural program in the middle and the entire orientation with her and her parents everybody else there for an agricultural program in the middle of wisconsin was all transgender stuff they were literally kind of from the letter sound like they were actually kind of confused like where are we like what's going on i mean we just wanted to know like what classes we're going to have what's it like to be a freshman where's the gym i mean and the entire how many times you eat a day are there going to be cool

activities on the you know dorm floors and who's my ra and the entire thing was about sex and gender and and transgenderism and pronouns and they just felt like just not only that, just she was so you could tell from the letter she was so dejected. She just felt like where what has happened. And and so if that's happening in the middle of Wisconsin for an agricultural program, you can imagine what Daniel is saying is happening to freshmen at Columbia and all these other institutions. He said it happened to me in Indiana. And I think so. So in Wisconsin, Republicans at Columbia now as a PhD. That's right. Republicans have the legislature in Wisconsin, but they don't have the governorship. And I did. They did. I've said this before. The governors are the most powerful positions in America. If you're going to change America, if you're going to fix America, governors are going to do it. And if you look at Indiana, where you have Republicans in power and they're allowing this to happen, use taxpayer money.

The taxpayers of Indiana and Wisconsin and every other state fund their public institutions. And that that money, your money is being used to promote this garbage. I would say a different word, but I can't because I've got to be cleaner than that. There should be an uprising and shame on governors, shame on legislatures that don't go, you know what? I'm going to take a note out of Ron DeSantis' book. No more. You are not going to use one red cent of any of our money or you can't use anybody else's money to promote this. This is math, science, English, agriculture, history, history. But again, this is this is bold action that governors have to take to get this to get this stank out of the school system. And so many of them, I think you made this point, are so weak and so soft, they don't realize that someone's charging at them and they're going to completely run them over or knife them in the neck and they're going to bleed out. They better pick up their armaments and fight back with whatever tools. I'm not talking literally.

I'm talking figuratively. Fight back against this crazy sickness and cancer that's in our communities. And if they do it, Ron DeSantis has been rewarded remarkably well by standing up and being strong and being very clear about what he's fighting for. And Ron DeSantis isn't radical. These are common American beliefs that he's standing up for, but it sounds radical because the left has become so radical. And he's just saying, no, every governor can do that. He's very common sense. You know who Ron DeSantis is by knowing who his enemies are, and you have to be able to

withstand that. And not everyone's going to love you, and you've got to vote for the right governor who's willing to stand up and be tough and take on the root problems in the states. And I think the education system is top of line. I'm really proud of Daniel Demartino. You're right. We've known him for a while now. And his growth, his sense of duty to take what he's experienced and inform young people about it.

And, and, you know, he's a little older than he looks. He's very baby faced. So I think he's, I think kids might, might actually think he's closer to their age than he actually is, but I think it will be powerful. I think I imagine my own kids hearing those stories. I don't think they would ever forget that. And by the way, Sean, he talked about blackouts. We're getting blackouts already in America. We talked about crime. We're getting this high level crime. There's all kinds of problems going on with infrastructure and just the degradation of everyday, our quality of life.

It's going down. It's going down. And so these things happen. And he's a living proof that you're not guaranteed because you're the number one richest country in Latin America. You're not guaranteed to stay there. And there is no guarantee. You're the freest country in the world. That's right.

There's no guarantee that we're going to be here. And Ronald Reagan was the best at saying that. None of this is passed on in the world. That's right. There's no guarantee that we're going to be here. And Ronald Reagan was the best at saying that, you know, none of this is passed on in the pledge stream. It is not your birthright to be free. It is something you have to fight for. And every generation will. And you said it right, Sean, when you told Daniel that this is the fight for our generation. And he's a freedom fighter and he's doing his part. You know, I listen to most of Fox and Friends on the weekend when you're on.

Not all of it, but most of it. I imagine you sleep through most probably three quarters. Well, I might start late, but I'll go back and start watching it because I record it. And I don't remember a lot of things that are said on the show. I know I enjoy watching it, but I can't quote things. I know I enjoy watching it, but I can't quote things. The one guy that I can quote that really struck me is, I think it was on Memorial Day, you had Joey Jones on. And I think he said, what can we do to honor the men and women who have made the ultimate sacrifice in their families? Yeah, he did.

And he made a comment about being American worth dying for. Being American. That's worth that sacrifice that he made worth sacrificing my legs for. My legs for, my life for, be that American. And when I think about all of the sacrifices that have been made for the freedom that we have and the threat that I might be canceled or someone might call me a dirty, nasty name. They might lie about me. That's nothing compared to giving your life for what we have or giving your legs to the point of Joey or your son or what you have or your son or your daughter that lost their lives.

And that's why for me, I'm like, you know, this, this is, this is worth it. And again, I always say this a lot, but it, I start with my own kids. I start with my own kids. I start with my own family. And what kind of job am I doing raising them? Because that's the most power that we have. And if every family says my duty as an American is to raise great kids. And I know so many parents who are like, I thought I had great kids and they're still great, but I sent them off to college and they came back and they're like, they've lost

their minds. They're like, woke beyond woke. but I sent them off to college and they came back and they're like, they've lost their minds. They're like, well, beyond woke. Well,

if that happened to you, you probably didn't have the conversations. We might talk about football and hockey and baseball. We have to have those conversations. I think you got to have those conversations at the kitchen table and still end up with a kid, but you're less likely to have it. If you really dive into these issues, I always say,

if you're not talking to your kids about socialism somebody else is and so i love that dan that daniel de martino is going to be part of that conversation for millions of kids hopefully in this country bring them to your school yeah you should bring them to your school you should but i don't want to underestimate what you just said sean because that's really powerful. You should be having dinner with your family around the table. And when you're having those dinners, that idea that there are things you can't talk about, religion, politics, current events, those are the things you should be talking about around the kitchen table and around the dinner table. And so you should be talking about politics. You should be talking about what happens if you own a business. You should be talking to your kids about what

happens in businesses and how policies are affecting your businesses. Or if you have a job, how policy is affecting your ability to put food on the table. What's inflation? You should be talking about socialism and communism and what's happening to the poor people in Hong Kong andong and in china and the uyghurs all of these are things conversations you should be having with your kids and can you still lose your child you can you can but i'm gonna i want to sleep well and i had to go i did everything i could to make sure i didn't raise the patriot sent them out into the world great conversation rachel and i have again a great guest in daniel and yeah he's amazing kid it's appropriate. Kudos to his parents. Good raising there.

Great parents. And he's sitting around reading encyclicals. Wow. Great Catholic, too. So wonderful conversation. And again, I think this conversation has to continue, not just on the podcast, but continue in homes and in schools. Bring them in. It doesn't cost anything, which the sponsors there

that are helping bring this group in, it'd be great for your kids to hear the horrors of communism and socialism. And as they go off to college, they might think back to the presentation they heard from Daniel or one of the other seven that work with him about what it was like. And they might go, yeah, I don't think I want that. I think I want to go a different direction. Well, crazy liberal communist. Or when they leave high school and go to college and hear that Marxist professor tell them how wonderful things are in Venezuela. Well, guess what? They might remember what Daniel said.

Or North Korea or Cuba or China or wherever else. So anyway, so great talking with him and being with all of you around the kitchen table. If you like this podcast, we ask you to rate and review it wherever you rate and review. You can even subscribe. Yep. And absolutely, you should subscribe. Thanks for joining us at the kitchen table. Heavy topic, but an important topic. So thank you again. Good to talk to you, Rachel. Start those conversations around the kitchen table. Goodbye, everybody. Bye-bye. editor of the transom.com daily newsletter. And I'm inviting you to join a conversation every week.

It's the Ben Domenech podcast. Subscribe and listen now by going to foxnewspodcast.com.