From the Kitchen Table: The Duffys - The Dark Side Of The Stanley Cup Trend & Why Conservatives Didn't Really Win When Harvard "Fired" Their President

Episode Date: January 4, 2024

The Stanley Cup tumbler has taken the internet by storm in recent months, with kids and adults across the nation clamoring to get their hands on the expensive mugs. Sean and Rachel are joined by their daughter and writer at The Federalist Evita Duffy-Alfonso as they discuss the dark side of online trends.   Later, they weigh in on the resignation of Harvard President Claudine Gay, and why they feel the resignation is not a win in the battle against woke academics.   Follow Sean & Rachel on Twitter: @SeanDuffyWI & @RCamposDuffy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey everyone, welcome to From the Kitchen Table and Happy New Year. I'm Sean Duffy along with my co-host of the podcast, my partner in life and my wife, the one, the only, Rachel Campos Duffy. It's great to be back. By the way, we've been having some tech difficulties coming into this. I had to write Sean a note and he was turning into a sopful elf.

He's going to give it a check here. I was getting frustrated. He was getting frustrated. Okay, so this is going to be an interesting show. We're going to have Evita, who is also having some tech problems, but she's back. And so we got all the gremlins out of the podcast.

Or so we think. Or so we think. And we're going to talk with Evita and Sean here, both of all three of us here, about two things. We're going to talk about Claudine Gay getting fired at Harvard and why this isn't quite the victory that conservatives think it is. There was a great article by John David Danielson at The Federalist talking about it. Others, Evita's written a couple of pieces about it. So we're going to kind of break that down culturally. And at our kitchen table, on our couch, I've been saying the exact same thing.

It has been. So it's a feeling that we're all having about this. We're all having the same feeling, like, don't pop the champagne corks yet. They've had that for New Year's, not for Claudine Gay's fight. Yeah, this is a long battle that we had to fight. But there's some hope in it. We're going to get to that. Yes.

But before that, we're going to talk about this stanley cup trend because i think there's a real dark side of the stanley cup trend and just how social media and sort of social media influencer marketing is destroying childhood and actually pre get this actually prematurely aging young people. I'm going to age myself because you all might know what a Stanley Cup is. I did not until my kids came home and were like, we want a Stanley Cup. I'm like, what? NHL Stanley Cup? You want to go to the Stanley Cup?

What are you talking about? Is this a hockey thing? I had no idea what they were talking about. And so I've been brought into the Stanley Cup craze over the last year since our little girls. Actually, over the last few months, right? Yeah, last two months. Our 13-year-old and our 15-year-old

have been talking about the Stanley Cup. So if you don't know, it's like a Yeti, right? If you don't know what a Yeti, what is a Yeti? It's a coffee cup that will keep your stuff hot or cold it's like a little thermos cup okay that is stanley um and so now you know but it's gone crazy online and little kids love it and so well moms it actually started with moms evita we're gonna i'm gonna give you a little bit of the history of it it started the cold company started 109 years ago okay been. Been around for a while.

Been around for a while. And, you know, they were selling, they're fine. And then these social influencer moms started using it. And then they approached the company and said, we can make this a hot item. And somehow through social media influencers, starting with moms and then moving on down to your generation and younger

people have i really wanted it i noticed stanley thermoses we've had them in my house when i was like 12 if you went deer hunting you had the green stanley thermos like camping this is what you're camping thermos yes yes and then but but this is like this is an incredible like phenomenon that has happened to make it the cool thing to have. Yeah, it's really become, like you said, an influencer mom trend that now has been trickled down to a lot of younger girls who really I mean, if you eclipse this cup, it's kind of weird. It's giant. It doesn't fit in a cup holder. It's it's bulky to carry around. It's not like a water bottle where you bring it on a hike or something because you need a lot of water and it holds a lot. It's like this giant cup with an actual handle on it. So it's not something that you

could just like, it's not easily carryable or usable. But because of these influencers making it a thing, now all of a sudden, all these young people are obsessed with it. All these young girls who have no need for it are asking it for Christmas and for birthdays. And it's come really viral for no reason because it's not a really interesting or useful cup.

It's no better than, like dad said, whatever the other brand is that you mentioned. The Yeti brand. So Evita, to your point, so our daughters got one. And so I thought, okay, I want to figure out like, why is this so great? And so when I get up in the morning on the weekends, I get up at 2.45 in the morning, I'm in my car by, you know, 3.15. And I always bring a bottle of like water with electrolytes so I'm hydrating. One of us has to actually do the night before get the water ready but sometimes they don't sometimes Sean doesn't do it and sometimes I have to get it myself so I made my water bottle and instead

of putting it in like a yeti or a normal water bottle, insulated thermos. I said, I'm going to try the girl Stanley cup. There's so much talk about it. I still been hating it. It was like falling and it spills like unlike, you know, a tight, um, maybe I was using the Stanley cup or maybe I need directions for the Stanley cup, but I flipping needed, it was so bulky. It was spilling my water. I couldn't put as much water as I actually wanted. Cause if I had a big thermos, I can fit more. It was spilling my water. I couldn't put as much water as I actually wanted because I've had a big thermos. I can fit more. I was not into it. But here is the deal.

It was great. So you took it to work. And one of the kids were like, I can't find my Stanley cup. One of the older girls must have stole it. And then finally, Rachel heard this after 24 hours, heard the debate. It was like, oh, no, no, I took it to work. I took it to work. I'll bring it back. You can have it. I don't want it.

So, yeah, so that's it. But it's interesting because I read another article about how there's this interesting division between the generation. So you have the millennials who are, Vito, what would you say a millennial age gap? 1998? Yes. But what age are they right now? Oh, I mean, they're in their 30s, early 40s, late 20s. Correct. Late 20s. They're born before 1998. So they're 26 and older to 40. Correct. And then there's Gen Z, which is your generation, Evita. And then and then you have the alphas, right? Who are even younger. And so the millennials are sort of known as the wellness generation. So they're very, they look really good. They're into self-care. They have a lot more disposable income because a lot of them are working but not married. They have time for self-care.

And so they look really good. They're probably shopping organically. Yeah. So think like Taylor Swift. She looks darn, you know, she looks good, right? Taylor Swift. AOC, another person who takes good care of herself and looks really good.

She does. And you may not like her politics. I don't either. She's a communist, but she looks good. So that sort of exemplifies that. But what's interesting is Gen Z and now even some of the alpha generations, alpha generation. They seem to look older, like they're aging, like we used to see people who are in their early 20s, 19, 18, 22, they looked fresh faced and like everybody was older wanting to look like them, but they look older. And the reason is, and this is, there's been a lot of thought about this.

Why is this the case? Part of the analysis around this is that this Stanley Cup trend, right? This was completely social media driven, is also driving beauty products and beauty procedures and pushing them on girls who would never dream or even think about wanting or need, let alone needing any of these things. And so you're seeing girls who and by the way it's also the makeup right so so some of them are getting fillers in their 20s even their teens um and then they're using this this makeup that's like super clammed up they're also vaping a little more a

little more nicotine so so gen z i'm glad you brought that up. Gen Z is the highest number or highest percentage of vapors is in that generation. So there are some things that they're actually aging more because of their vaping and some other things. to these beauty trends that either through makeup make them look older or in some cases um these these beauty procedures that will ultimately alter their look abita am i am i on to something here yeah and it's i can make it a little more clear the the connection between stanley cup and and this these makeup trends do yeah so when i i mean when i was growing up there was social media, there was Instagram, there was Snapchat, but it wasn't the force that it is today.

It didn't dictate every part of our lives or every social trend that we had. And for millennials, there was no social media. I mean, the people that they looked up to that they wanted to emulate was, you know, the girl next door, the best friend of my older sister, you know, that was sort of the person that a young person, a young millennial would, a young millennial woman would idolize. In my generation, there was some more social media, there was Kendall Jenner

and Kylie Jenner, but it really wasn't to what it's become now. Social media has transformed marketing. People don't spend money on ads for television, frankly, anymore. They're not spending money on billboards. They're putting all of their money into curated social media empire influencers and having them push their products on young people in a way that then creates viral products like the Stanley Cup, which isn't any better than the Yeti. But because all of these highly influential millions of followers, young people are now pushing them. We see this movement around the Stanley Cup and these influencers, most of them aren't the girl next door and they're not other young people, other middle schoolers or even other high schoolers. They're mostly girls like me

in their mid-20s or even girls in their 30s. Those are the people that are influencing young girls who are in their teen or pre-teen years. So they're being influenced to try products or use things that are beyond their year. So a Stanley Cup is dumb. Why does a little girl in middle school need a giant Stanley Cup to school? Frankly, why does anybody need it? But then also, why do they need high-end makeup products? I mean, frankly, why does anybody need it? But then also, why do they need high-end makeup products? I mean, they have Drunk Elephant, Fenty Beauty, and things that I might be into or an older woman might be into, but certainly it has no use for a child who should be wearing probably no makeup or, if anything, just lip gloss. So it's gotten completely out of control because of social media. You know, it's interesting. First off, you mentioned the change in advertising.

And again, there was radio, television, billboards. Fashion magazines. Yeah, fashion magazines. That's where a lot of beauty was so non-existent. And so you might, it was sterilized, it seems like, right? So I might see someone, might be a famous person that I know on television or a famous person in the app, but I don't have a relationship with that famous person. And I'm asking you this question, it seems like that the social media influencers, these young people feel like they have a

relationship with them because they've experienced, you know, some intimate parts of their life on social media. They've gone through different difficulties or they've seen different products in that relationship that the average kid has with the social media influencer makes it that much more powerful when the influencer says this product the LaCroix water lemon is the best and you got to drink it because it's so refreshing whatever they're saying it makes it that much more powerful for these kids to go I need that I want that because I know someone who's told me how great it is. Am I wrong on that, Evita? Or is this what's driving the trend? I think that's a great analysis. I mean, I feel like if you're not on social media all the time

or even have an algorithm that's suited to a young person, you don't even understand how intimate things will get. I mean, they have like outfit of the days but it's not just the outfit of the day it's the you know getting ready in the morning and then putting on each article of clothing and then the necklace and then telling you where it's from so if you idolize that person if you look up to them you know exactly what they're wearing in the morning as they go off to school they'll you know put their lunches together and you'll be in their kitchen with them as they're putting their lunch together with, you know, HelloFresh or some other kind of curated food company that will send it to you. Every part of an influencer's life is open to their followers and every piece of their life is used to push a product, which in

turn makes them money. And it's actually, and what I think a lot of people don't understand is it can be kind of dicey to know when somebody is getting a commission from a company and when not. So a lot of times they'll be pushing a product on you really subliminally and you have no idea that they're actually getting paid to do that. You just think that they're giving you a nice recommendation. And especially young people who aren't really even thinking about that. You're a middle schooler, you're even in elementary school. They have no idea. They just think this person that I look up to as this product, I should get it too, not knowing that they're getting paid for it. Yeah. And it also speaks to how many young kids are on social media all the time. I mean, we wouldn't be able to access them unless they were on social media. And then they start to idolize these these influencers. You know, you're right that some

of these influencers are in their 20s, Evita. But what I'm also noticing is probably the two most powerful alpha generation influencers are Kanye West and Kim Kardashian's daughter, are Kanye West and Kim Kardashian's daughter, Northwest, and then Kourtney Kardashian's daughter as well. Those two young girls are also sort of past, you know, pushing products as well and getting that younger generation. I mean, those girls are 10 and 11, 10 or 12 years old. I mean, this thing is very, very powerful.

Candice, another point here, I think it's interesting. So the two kids that we're talking about, our 13 and 15 year old, they don't have phones, right? So they're not actually on social media on their phones. We do have computers in the house and once in a while- And I know they get on Instagram that way. They'll grab a laptop and they might go to their room and try to squirrel away and get on social media and on Instagram. And they have snuck accounts and we've had to take them down. Right.

I mean, that happens. So even with the effort that we've put in to limiting their access, and we're not militant about it. We know they're going to have some access, but they're not on their phone day and night on social media. And they get on their older sister's phone sometimes. Listen, they find a way because they know that this is part of their culture. And what happens is, even with that limitation, the movement from their friends who do have phones

that are seeing this social media movement will be like, do you have a Stanley Cup? I've got a Stanley Cup. Do you want to get a Stanley same? Like there's this whole social pressure that comes in around it as well, which I've, I find really fascinating. This made me think about the craze around cabbage patch kids as I, as I date myself. That's so interesting that you brought that up because when I was our daughter's age, that's what I want. I mean, I still wanted at nine or 10 years old, I wanted a cabbage patch doll. I mean mean that's something i can actually use that that i was it was a toy but a stanley cup a stanley cup is like a it's like honestly it was pushed by a bunch of utah mom influencers yeah but more moms huh yeah like my mom and they

could they would have their stanley cup and maybe it's not they had water but they probably had like wine or a margarita and um mommy's a little helper right um so but but but it maybe it's not they had water, but they probably had like wine or a margarita. Mommy's a little helper, right? So, but it's so interesting. By the way, Stanley Cup Tumblr TikTok videos have now surpassed 10 million with that tag. So it's interesting. The world is changing, right? The world is changing. And again, I think we're using the point of the Stanley Cup. Yeah, it's just an example. You make the really good point that these kids are being forced all kinds of products that they don't need, number one, and they spend money on things they don't need. But the second part is that they're buying things that could be harmful to them. They could think that this is the

right thing for me, whether it's a makeup treatment, like you mentioned, whether it's Botox or facials or whatever it is, that's a huge problem, which again, I think the problem or the challenge that we have as parents is far different than the challenge that our parents had with us because of all these influences. And it makes our job that much more challenging. And you have to pay attention to that much more challenging and yet pay attention that much more to it because they're getting inundated with their friends which are actually not their friends or influencers pushing these products that may not be the best and we start we start to see weird things coming to the house like i want this or we should get that i'm like what are you talking like where's this coming from because we don't we don't have we don't we're not i don't know

stanley cove i wasn't a wine model with the Stanley Cups. It wasn't coming from me. But to this, this is the God. I was going to say the part that really concerns me, Evita. What concerns me isn't that, you know, look, consumerism that's happened forever, right? We've been complaining about our consumerist materialistic culture forever. I'm concerned about how social media and we see it probably more acutely through the beauty product push, how it's just really ruining childhood for them. It's really destroying childhood. most wonderful things about being a young kid for me was that I never thought about, like I never had the anxiety or the pressure of competing or not feeling good enough or pretty enough. There's a period of time when you're young where you can just be you. And, you know,

I just feel like the pressures of fitting in, of being super gorgeous and made up and these things that maybe happened to girls when they're in their 20s is happening at 9 and 10. And we're absolutely destroying childhoods for them. Yeah, I think to add to that, because that was the point I was going to make. It's also stifling on just creativity. When you're a kid and you're allowed to be bored and not have distractions from your phone or things preoccupying you that shouldn't be at such a young age you have the mental space and freedom to like you said be a kid but also you

know just cultivate creativity which i think is really important for human development. Just playing is really important. And a lot of like, have you ever heard the phrase of iPad kids? But I mean, the Gen Alpha iPad kid who is heavily influenced doesn't play in the way that I used to growing up or millennials used to or you guys used to. There was once an event that we had gone to with a lot of other parents who had young kids. This was a couple of years ago. And obviously none of the kids have phones, at least the younger ones in our family,

and especially the youngest of them. So Patrick was probably four or five at this time, maybe like six, probably four or five. And he was playing with a lot of young boys who were his age. And I looked over at them and well, actually, first, he came to me and he said, Avita, I need your phone. And I said, well, why do you need my phone? He's like, because they all have phones. And I looked over and all the boys were on two or three iPads. There was like seven of them. They were all surrounded by these three iPads watching one another play some game on the iPad. And to be part of the group and to be with them,

he wanted to have a phone. So he'd be like, look, I'm going to play a game too next to you guys. So we're not playing. We're going to play a game on our phones next to one another. And that's how they're, it was completely bizarre. It made me really depressed, actually,

that he felt like he needed a phone to play with the boys because they were so consumed in technology. I just think that there's something really, really backwards about that. And there's also, there's a really interesting C.S. Lewis quote that I saw recently, where it was just, and he obviously didn't have phones and computers back in his day,

but he said, you know, the only, the way to separate yourself from God, if you want to avoid him, is to, you know, keep the radio on all the time. Meaning like keep the distractions with you all the time. And there's something really anti-spiritual about all of the distractions that we have in our life. But especially for young people growing up and not being comfortable in silence. Well, and I love what you talked, when you talked about creativity. I just remember, you know, when you were growing up,

there were no faults. And we lived out in a house in Ashland, Wisconsin, that had 12 acres of land between our house and the neighbors. And I would look outside and you guys were constantly making, you made forts and you guys play pirates and, and, and explorers. And you would, you know, hike over to the neighbor's house and, you know, encounter animals along the way.

And, and you would, you and your brother and your sister would, you know, get these packs on and, and pretend you were explorers and do all this fun stuff and and i think that this whole social media thing that there's these false fault like we talked about the influencers these false relationships that you talked about sean how they're more influenced because they feel like they have a relationship but do they really have a relationship with these people of course they don't these are these are people who are selling stuff to them and and are accessing children that shouldn't be they shouldn't be able to access and they're selling stuff that they don't need and they're being very duplicitous about it because as you said avita they're not going buy a stanley cup

a lot of it is just like using the stanley cup and you know yeah and anyway it's, it's just an interesting new moment. And I think the more aware we are of how big this is, how much money is being made off of this new way of living and how it's impacting kids in their brains, the better parents we can be. And I'm not trying to like, you know, sit here and whine about what's happened to our culture. Although I liked you on some level, but I also just think it's about raising awareness and going, this is what they're doing. To that point. So when automobiles came into play, we could have yearned for the days of the horse and buggy. Well, you're not going back to horse and buggies. You now have automobiles. And this is the way that we're going to live moving forward.

And I think to your point, Rachel, it's- And that changed youth culture as well. Because if you had a car, you could go farther than you could biking, you'd get away from your parents. Well, the biggest debate was when they actually had bikes, they were like, a lot of the parents were like, oh my goodness, the kids can actually ride their bikes across town. And the freedom that they had, parents were outraged or really concerned about it because before the bike, you could go as far as your horse or you didn't have a horse, you just go as far as you can walk. And now bikes gave these kids freedoms.

This is the same. This is in the same vein. We got to go. Culture changed. This technology is here to stay. Now, as parents, how do we manage the use of this technology with our kids? And I don't think we quite have unpacked that yet. One of the right, you know, roles and restrictions.

And we're going to figure that out as this develops, but we're at the forefront of this, this new technology and its impact on our kids. And again, it was easy to keep a kid away from a TV. It was easy to keep them away from a radio. It's really hard with phones now to keep them away from social media or even from computers in your house or their friends' phones to keep them protected and away from this. And we're going to have to develop a whole new set of strategies to make that happen. So this is fascinating. And again, we dealt with this over Christmas. I'm not sure if you're a parent or you yourself are like the Stanley craze is real, but it's bigger than Stanley.

It's about all these products being pushed by our best friends, our influencers on social media. We'll have more of this conversation after this. The world of business moves fast. Stay on top of it with the Fox Business Rundown. Listen to the Fox Business Rundown every Monday and Friday at foxbusinesspodcasts.com or wherever you download your favorite podcasts. You mentioned at the start, we're going to talk about Claudine Kay. I want to talk about her firing and what you think this means, because she's the president of Harvard. There was a congressional hearing where MIT, Harvard, and UPenn presidents testified.

This was on anti-Semitism on campus. They did a horrible job answering questions about protecting Jewish students on campus. And there was national kind of outrage about it and a lot of pressure for these presidents to resign. The president of UPenn did resign, Claudine Gay, an African-American female, said she wasn't going too well. On Tuesday of this week, she actually stepped down and resigned. By the way, it's interesting. She hasn't been fired. She's going to go back to her teaching position. And she's, it's been reported, she's going to keep her salary of almost $900,000 a year.

Wow, I didn't know that part. Wow. And be a teacher. So she's not making, you know, you know, nickels and dimes. She's making real money and she's going to keep that job. And by the way, she was she was one of the great purveyors of diversity, equity and inclusion on campus, you know, pushing this philosophy onto the campus? Setting up a whole sort of industrial complex of it on campus and making sure that they were able to monitor the speech and the hirings, which I think is probably one of the most important parts of the university and really enforcing this, this notorious racial, racist environment at Harvard. I think what's interesting, Evita, is,

let's be clear, she was fired. She was fired for plagiarism, not for racism, which I think she was engaged in, and not just on the Jewish front. It was an anti-white agenda that I think she was pushing as well. Anti-Western civilization. And anti-Western civilization. And so that's why I say that John David Danielson and Sean Duffy, who has been saying this for a while as well, are both right that this is not the victory that conservatives think it is. And there are some things that we can do with this momentum to get to victory. She's not being fired for the right reason.

What are your thoughts, Evita? Well, I mean, first of all, she wasn't actually fired. She was allowed to resign on her own terms. And in her statement of resignation, she never admitted to the plagiarism, nor did she apologize to the people that she plagiarized and actually said that she was resigning due to racial turmoil, that it was racism that caused her to resign. So, I mean, she is a total hack. And Harvard allowed her to basically get away with the plagiarism. And not only did Harvard do that, but also after it happened, all of the corporate media outlets and a bunch of left-wing activists and politicians like Barack Obama have all come out and supported her and said,

you know, that this is this is the fault of conservatives who are, you know, running a defamation campaign against her, not because they care about plagiarism, but because, you know, they want to destroy a black scholar. And in reality, it's actually the reverse, that Democrats don't care about plagiarism and about, you know, academic ethics until and when it is detrimental to them, when it's detrimental to an institution like Harvard or or an academic like Cloud and Gay, who is supportive of everything that the left stands for, which is in itself unethical. Right. Affirmative action is really wrong. The diversity, equity and inclusion is inherently wrong. The way that Claudine Gay was able to rise in the ranks, despite having a really unremarkable academic career and actually plagiarizing in this academic career, it all speaks to how unethical I think the left is and really what they will excuse and do for their political pursuits.

Yeah, you know, I look at this and we got to look at why was she more than likely forced to resign? And it's because a lot of wealthy daughters to Harvard said, listen, we are going to hold back our contributions to your university unless you do something about this, in which many of them were Jewish who had made those statements. And Bill Ackman was one of them. Bill Ackman now wants to make sure that anyone on the board of trustees at Harvard, that they too have to resign and are fired. But I'm a little disappointed because I think the anti-Semitism on campus was just a symptom of a much larger problem. And that these donors aren't saying, hold on a second, just if you get rid of Claudia and Gay, that has not fixed the problem on campus. You have a rot that has infiltrated not just Harvard

and Princeton and the rest of the Ivy League, it's all, most all of universities have this rot. And by the way, we are not going to contribute to you until you reform your whole structure, that you actually want diversity of thought. You want different opinions. You want an exchange of ideas that actually the adults on campus, whether it's the administrators or really good professors, they run the campus. It's not the crazy kids that come in that run campuses. And if they think they do, we're going to actually kick them out. You're going to have to go somewhere else. We're not going to tolerate this crazy behavior that is anti-Western civilization. They haven't done that. And

that for me says nothing is going to change. i i think the rot of all of culture the the center of uh of this whole movement is on college campuses that congress isn't doing more now jd vance has a bill uh where he wants to tax the endowments over 10 billion dollars at universities at 35 but right now they're being taxed at like 1%. So it would go all the way up to 35%. That's a great start. But the amount of control, the amount of money that comes from the federal government to college campuses is huge. And how we tax them is a massive issue. Republicans should recognize this threat to our country, which it is.

These campuses are a threat to the country. Because they're turning out crazies. They're not turning out people who love America with an allegiance to the Constitution and the way we govern. They're completely warping the minds to make little Marxists, little communists come out of these universities. That is a threat to the country. We should address that threat. We should recognize and address the threat. And every member of Congress should be outraged by what's happened and going, this is a moment to push legislation to fix the problem. And again, I look at them, I'm like, what are you guys doing? So what would fix the problem? So J.D. Vance said, let's not pretend like they're good for society and give them the advantage of, you know, basically zero taxes on their massive endowments, which, by the way, they sat on those endowments during COVID and offered no grace in terms of financial discounts to students.

They defrauded us out of our tuition dollars by sending us off. Exactly, Exactly. They could have, they sat on those endowments. They could have said, you know, we're not offering real classes. You know, we are doing it through Zoom. It's, it's half, you know, that's not really what, how an education works. And we're going to give you, or you can't get into your gym. So you were paying for a gym that you're not allowed to get into. They didn't offer any discounts. They sat on those endowments.

So let's put that aside. So if it's not just taxing those endowments, what else can Congress do, Sean? So it's Congress and it's state legislatures, right? So a lot of state legislatures in states fund their state university systems. And you have to have really good people. If you could multiply the Chris Rufos of the world and put them in charge of all these state universities, all of these universities and go, we are going to have diversity of thought, diversity of ideas. We're not going to teach that America is the great evil in the world. We're going to talk about the differences in capitalism and some of the problems with capitalism. And we're going to talk about communism and the problems with communism. How many people have died under capitalism? How many people have died under

communism? Making sure these discussions, this free thought like they used to have in the 40s and 50s and 60s is alive and well on campus. And if not, you take away their money. Legislatures can take away, they fund the university with every budget that they pass. They can pull that money back. At the federal level, the Congress can limit institutions who don't follow some basic guidelines of being pro-America and pro-freedom. You can start pulling back their ability to- What about the hiring though? The student loans. Or if you

don't hire a diversity, you don't have a diverse faculty, you can hold back. I mean, diverse thoughts. Right. Diverse thoughts. Yes. Diverse thoughts. You can hold back student financial aid. And if you don't give... And if you also do one last point on these endowments, Democrats aren't clamoring to tax these endowments at 38%. And there's not a tax that they don't love. They love taxes. I wonder why don't they want to tax these endowments? Because it's a slush fund. Because it's a slush fund to push their radical ideas that Democrats love through the college

campuses out into the culture, which means more voters for them. That's why they don't want to tax universities. Again, they want to tax the average Joe to death, but not these rich universities, because that's how they take over the country with this radical set of ideas. Yeah. It's like a super PAC. It's the most powerful super PAC that's ever existed, an entire education system that basically bars anybody with a different point of view who's not a radical liberal. You will not you will not get a job. You certainly won't advance. Evita, yes.

Yeah, I just I I want to point out that I thought the anti-Semitism hearings were were pretty annoying, frankly, from Elise Stefanik and a lot of other representatives, because it's super wrong of those students to condone things that Hamas has done and condone terrorism. And we all know that that's rooted in Marxism. But we actually saw anti-white racism happen during the BLM riots in 2020 and the universities sending out statements from the top down saying that they're allowed to um oh i'm sorry saying that george flade was murdered before it had been talked about in a court of law saying things like america is a systemically racist country and nobody nobody in congress did anything about that in fact they created a fake holiday called juneteenth in response to it instead of actually

standing up for american values principles the integrity of our country and then of course the brazen anti-white racism that was happening on campus. So I'm glad that they are kind of starting to catch on to the problems of DEI and Marxism and diversity hires and diversity admissions processes with this anti-Semitism story. But I think that because they didn't understand it in 2020, that's probably an indication that they don't know what's going on right now. And actually, Bill Ackman came out with a whole op-ed yesterday, I believe it was last night, where he critiqued DEI. But he essentially said that DEI can be reformed in some way so that it can work for everybody. And if you think that, then that means you don't really understand.

He doesn't care about it, because he only cared when it hit his particular background, right? Right. But none of these people stood up for conservatives over the last 10, 15 years. I think it's a really good point, Avita. And I guess the reason I was given some pushback is I do think money talks, and it's kind of like pornography. And I think it was the Supreme Court who said, I can't give a definition, but I do think money talks and it's kind of like pornography. And I think it

was the Supreme Court who said, I can't give a definition, but I know it when I see it. I know diversity of thought on campus when I see it. Maybe it's a board of conservatives and liberals that manage the university. They come together to go, this is what we need for our faculty and our management on campus. That's important. But this conversation is definitely going to continue. It's a problem that's going to exist into the future. Republicans better wake up to it. And they got to tear down the entire DEI industrial complex. And I think Evita is right about getting back to disciplines that we can all agree are not based on ideology. They're actually based on academic thought. I agree with that.

That's, Evita, that point I do agree with as well. So maybe we can combine our ideas and be winners. Listen, thanks for joining us, Evita. We appreciate it. Great conversation about Stanley Cupps, social media, and the problems on college campuses. Listen, if you like a podcast, you can rate, review, subscribe,

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