Pints With Aquinas - Christian Culture, Pro-Life Activism, & Male Escapism w/ JohnDoyle

Episode Date: March 14, 2024

John Doyle is a Gen-Z Catholic political commentator and activist. Boasting over 350K YouTube subscribers, his content decries the evils of Atheism, Feminism, and pornography, while emphasizing the importance of discipline, virtue, and community. Through his content he has lead thousands to Christ and to improve their lives, taking upon them the name of the Lord in the struggle for the soul of the nation. Support the Show: https://mattfradd.locals.com/support Sub to John:  @JohnDoyle  Show Sponsor: https://Strive21.com/matt  

Alright, you ready? Yeah. John Doyle. G'day. G'day. What is that? Oh, that's your, uh... This is some tobacco I got in Vienna. Okay.

The other week, and, uh... Do you smoke a pipe or anything? Uh, you know, I'll have a cigar occasionally. I think I got a pipe once. Give that a whiff, see if you like the smell. I wanted to LARP, like, uh, Thursday and pretend that I... Yeah. That's... I have no frame of reference.

Okay. You know, it's pleasant. Yeah, sure. But, uh... But it's pleasant. Yeah, sure. But it's nice to have you on the show. I saw your first, our first video of yours many years ago and I just thought, bloody hell, this guy's very intelligent and you phrase things really well

and so I'm glad we could finally do this. Yeah, yeah, I'm excited. So what's up? What's new? We've got two Red Bulls. I have a sugar-free Red Bull. Right, yeah, I was skeptical. You know, I walked in this morning and Thursday said there's a tradition where,

I guess when you tape the show, you drink as much liquid as possible and as much caffeine as possible. And there's like a sudden death dynamic with whoever has a heart attack or goes to the bathroom first loses. And that's how the show is done. Well, it does. I don't know. Caffeine probably has this effect on everybody, but I know if I have a lot of caffeine, I feel very just zeroed in. Yeah. You know, dialed in, I can work better.

Same thing with tobacco. Yeah, I've been trying to campaign that as sort of an antidote to the drug culture, because growing up, I always had a literally like just repulsion to all drugs. I thought that it was a way of coping and escaping from reality, and so it was very off-putting to me. So I never did drugs. But thought that it was a way of coping and escaping from reality, and so it was very off-putting to me.

So I never did drugs. But then as I got older, I realized that what that really meant was a repulsion towards this sort of sedation and sloth. And drugs that make you more focused, I actually am very in favor of. So caffeine, nicotine, anything like that, I think is great.

And so that's why, as you see more young men smoking or taking Zin, taking Zin, I don't even even know what I don't know what verb you would use for that Yeah, but I'm excited about that because you know disassociating from reality. I was talking about this with Thursday excuse me Bleep over that one aren't you? Because he goes by so many names I was speaking about this with with Thursday and it's almost like you're microdosing death. We take the edge off. You're like disassociating from consciousness, from reality, whereas if you're gonna take a drug,

I mean, you should be like dialed in. You should be more in tune with reality, more aware of your environment, focused on what you're doing. So I'm very much in favor of that. That's interesting. How old were you when you decided drugs were stupid and you don't want anything to do with them?

Maybe about 12. That's amazing. So you've been pretty passionate and thoughtful about things ever since a young age It was yeah, I'm not gonna I'm not gonna tell you that it was a really like convicted thing It was more seeing what people who use drugs how they're behaving and when I was 12 and maybe even to an extent now My biggest focus was like how do I I make my friends laugh and have fun? And I noticed that the kids who were getting involved in that and who thought that was cool, they weren't actually doing anything interesting or funny or cool.

Their whole thing was like, well, we're the kids that are gonna go, we're gonna smoke marijuana. And that's like lame, that's kind of stupid. You're not really doing anything cool or edgy. Maybe this was cool in our parents' generation or something. But- How funny. It but funny. Yeah, it's funny, right? Because I'm a boomer, essentially. So this is cool because we come from two different

perspectives. Because you're right. Like I think when I never smoke pot, I think I first smoked pot when I was 17. But I never liked people who smoked pot. And I mean, I'm not trying to shame anybody who does for medical reasons, if that's even a thing or whatever. I'm not trying to start a war here. It's just that for me, yeah, I never did it. My parents warned me against it. And then I remember one night I couldn't smoke pot when I was around 17 because I had to go to work. And so I sit with a bunch of friends and they were all smoking pot. And I saw how pathetic it looked. And when I wasn't high and I was like, I can't do this, this. Yeah. Yeah. But but it's funny because before that I guess there was a sense in which it was cool

So I love the fact that someone younger like yourself is like a new generation of people who are like no This is it was almost like an anti peer pressure dynamic where we had a group of guys in high school And half that group started doing stuff like that and we were you know, we would make fun of them occasionally But once that was when we were in the majority, and then once more of our brothers fell and started smoking, then now we were in the minority, and so we understood that our job was like, we'll still hang out with you or whatever,

but we're not gonna participate, obviously. But then they stopped inviting us to things. Not even because we were there, like killing the vibe or whatever. They would just wanna get high and watch Big Mouth on Netflix, and we would just be kinda there, just like doing doing what and it was almost as though our sobriety was disrupting their Experience of being able to smoke pot and watch Netflix and so they stopped hanging out with us

And so we went in two different directions. It's funny how different generations demonize different things So when I grew up my parents were and God bless them but fine with me watching friends Hmm and Seinfeld even though it would glorify fornication and yeah all this sort of stuff But they were extremely strict about don't you ever smoke cigarettes? Mm-hmm. Whereas today if my 16 year old was smoking a pipe, I'm like, ah, all right. Well, just go easy But yeah, of course, you're not gonna watch friends. Yeah Because you know they grew up with all the the anti smoking propaganda because they they didn't want Young men to be consuming nicotine because they understood the power behind it. And so they demonized

Smoking tobacco which is so interesting because you think about like the average American how unhealthy we are how fat we are and still I mean People literally now when they see like Jenna Ortega, for example was caught a cigarette. I think somewhere in europe and she almost like got cancelled for this I mean people were so upset because she's smoking a cigarette. She's promoting these unhealthy lifestyles She like got cancelled or whatever for a brief period because of that Whereas you have plenty of celebrities who glorify all sorts of unhealthy lifestyles far more unhealthy than smoking tobacco I mean i've even heard uh, there's a friend of mine on twitter His name is Ben Braddock, and he told me this one time,

I haven't looked into it, but he's smart, so it's probably true, that smoking tobacco isn't in itself bad for you in the way that we understand. I mean, obviously anything that you inhale that's not oxygen is not gonna be great in a long enough timeline, but it's the way that we use fertilizers

and the type of pesticides that we use that specifically there's something about a bio-retention in a certain chemical that causes the cancers to develop. And in Japan, Southeast Asia, where they smoke like chimneys, they never had issues like we have here with the development of these cancers until the markets opened up

and then the American cigarette brands became the most popular. Now you're starting to see those rates of cancers increase because of that. So my tinfoil hat on it is that they specifically wage war on tobacco and nicotine because it's something that's always been a part of male culture. You know, guys need to get together and we need to do activities. We need to smoke, drink whiskey, do whatever. We can't just hang around and talk all day like an episode of Friends.

You know, we need these sort of things that we can do. And there's another guy who had an interesting take on it where he's like, the reason that a war was declared on cigarettes is because the smoke break was too powerful of an institution for men to get together, complain about their boss, complain about politicians, complain about maybe their wives or something like that in itself was too powerful. And whether it's the Boy Scouts, all male colleges, all male athletic organizations, social clubs, even the smoke break was not allowed to be had. And so that had to go away. So now you can't smoke, people look at you like you're crazy. Well, Thursday just told me for legal reasons that neither of us are medical doctors and don't necessarily stand by everything we might say during this episode. Yeah, true.

So, but you are okay with alcohol? Mm-hmm. Okay, so alcohol seems different, right? To nicotine or caffeine, they get you dialed in, so why would you be okay with alcohol and presumably not pot? I don't know your opinion on all right. I'm gonna say my exact opinion and we'll see what happens all right I think that's uh No one has ever smoked weed and done anything like you know Interesting I understand people have you know gotten high and created wonderful albums No one has ever like smoked weed and committed a hate crime for example people drink though and do something like that I don't mean a hate crime like an actual act of hate

But if you drink and you get drunk you become like a version of yourself that is more Extroverted and just willing to engage, you know life as it is whereas you smoke weed You just become much more chilled out. So the metric I would use is anything that makes you more chilled out I think I'm principally opposed to where's anything that makes you more animated, I think I'm in favor of. Now, I don't support binge drinking at all. I think that, you know, social drinking is okay. I know a lot of Christians have an aversion to that, not so much Catholics, but I actually, I think that vice as an idea is something that shouldn't be completely shut out.

I think that when guys tend to try to shut everything out, it doesn't actually make them more disciplined. I think it makes them more fragile. I've seen cases where you've got young guys who try to keep themselves there. I'm never gonna smoke, never gonna drink anything, but then once they get a taste of it, then they lose themselves completely.

So it's almost like you have to be able to hold it in your hand and not get burned by it. Responsibly engage in smoking a pipe or having a glass of whiskey at the end of the day, but not losing yourself and not get burned by it, you know, responsibly engage in smoking a pipe or having a glass of whiskey at the end of the day, but not losing yourself and not going completely crazy and becoming a degenerate. I think tobacco kind of both relaxes me and kind of zones me in more intellectually, I suppose.

I feel more kind of sharp and awake. Yeah, that's interesting, man. Hot is a big thing today and it's it's very difficult when you try to look at the studies you just wade your way into something that at least for me I can't begin to figure out this it seems to be very politicized and I don't know what's right what's wrong and I don't really know how to read scientific studies and what they're drawing from anyway so there's a lot of people who seem like they know one way or the other but there's a lot of

research actually that's coming out in just the last few years showing that it induces Especially in the strains now because it's so much stronger It induces psychosis and schizophrenia and people who consume it regularly And there's a few great books on this one of them is a they're titled sort of clickbaity, but I assure you they're good books There's one that's called um like donarn Your Kids or Tell Your Kids or something, it's by I think Alex Berenson or something and it's all the medical literature about what smoking marijuana regularly does to you.

Because it's like your parents would say to you, it's like in the 70s what we were smoking is nothing like now because it can be crossed with different things or mixed with different things and you don't know what you're smoking, it was like synthesized in a lab. But it is true that it does lower our children yes yes that's the book the truth about marijuana mental illness and violence yeah there's a there's a lot of

stuff and I think that was even published maybe six seven years ago and recently I've seen even from more objective medical journals studies and articles reaching these same conclusions and again that's like my tin foil hat why specifically marijuana has been so pushed. Even in my home state now, they have recreational marijuana use, and you can't go on any major highway, this is Michigan, without seeing advertisements

for marijuana dispensaries. We'll deliver it to your house. It's like why would, because the government decides to do certain things, why would they decide that we should go really hard against tobacco and promote and incentivize the use of marijuana.

And I think it's because it makes people sedated, placated, they're willing to go along with whatever the regularly scheduled programming is. It doesn't make them tuned into life. It makes them completely just disassociated from it. Mm. Yeah. Like if you wanted to control someone, having them eating Uber Eats, smoking pot and watching porn would be great.

Absolutely. That's like, you could not think of a better formula actually to make someone just completely apathetic. Yeah, bread and circuses. Exactly. Just delivered to your door. Yeah, I don't have a good argument against pot. I guess I would say two things.

One was like yours and another one I think's bad, but I'm sticking with it. The first one is I agree with you, at least in my own experience, it tends to absorb me in myself the times I had done it. And whereas with alcohol, it sort of brought me out of myself provided I was drinking in moderation. And that's kind of what you said.

The second reason, which again, I don't think is a good argument, but I'm sticking with it is we live in a society where we all seem to want to tear down taboos and I don't want to be a part of that. So even if I don't have a good argument against it, I'd rather just hold back and not be part of that. Yeah.

And a lot of people too who are in favor of it, like libertarians, conservatarians, I think that they misunderstand human nature and the lengths to which people will go to access something. So when I speak about being against marijuana, people hear that as John Doyle is gonna send the Doyle Youth door to doordoor knocking and if you have any marijuana We're gonna like execute you on your front lawn. That's not exactly what I mean

Maybe it's approximating that's not exactly what I mean But it's more to say if you are going by the way This is why it was legalized people think with everything that happens politically in terms of social change people think it's always some bottom-up Movement of the people and the government just gave us something that we want It's never how the reason marijuana was legalized is because white collar professionals wanted to smoke up in Colorado, Ann Arbor, Michigan, parts of Washington state without having to worry about

police and things like that. And so now we think it's because minorities were getting picked on for just possessing marijuana. That's not, there was an organized movement because of that class of person. But people tend to think of it like that. Whereas it's to say that if you want to be that guy,

you wanna be in your garage and you're smoking after work, you think maybe it has medical benefits, I don't care, do your thing. But the problem is that you are willing to go to a certain length to access that drug because you believe in it, you enjoy it that much, that's fine. But if it is legalized and it's promoted,

because now that it's legalized, it's a business, and I get to advertise my business like any other business, why not? Well now somebody who maybe was more on the fence didn't really have an interest, maybe not, but now they're seeing everything in the media saying it's like this miracle drug. They're driving home from work on I-94

and they see a billboard, it can get delivered to my house? Sure, I'll try it out. And so it does increase the prevalence of use overall, which I think is bad. Same thing with pornography. I want to ban pornography and people are like, well, there's always going to be a black market. Sure. But if I can reduce consumption by 90%, am I going to be losing sleep at night staring at my ceiling fan? Absolutely not. Like it's about being pragmatic, taking victories where we can. It doesn't have to be perfect, but it's that large proportion of people

who otherwise wouldn't be consuming it, who now are because of those incentives that we're trying to correct for. Yeah, I'm in agreement with you. So what do you then say to those who would claim to be more libertarian, who would say we should just let people do what they want, and it's wrong to try to prevent them

from accessing pornography? That's a system of government and thought that works really well when you have like a commune of like a hundred intelligent people. When you have a country of, think about it, I mean if we all get together and we're in this city, I mean that works pretty well because I can trust reasonably like, well if Matt wants to do what Matt wants to do, probably not going to step on my toes too much. But when you live in a country of 350 million people and you have all these different cultures

and interest groups and backgrounds, well not everyone's going to subscribe to a tradition that was bred out of like Anglo-Saxon culture that goes back a thousand years. People are going to come from cultures where they're more community-based, more collective. And so if you are back here saying, well, I think you should be able to do whatever you want so long as it doesn't infringe upon my rights, that's great. It's a very mature opinion, but they don't agree and you can want them to agree but they don't so they're going to vote in a way that reflects their Disagreement of that and it's going to inevitably infringe upon your rights And I think libertarians know I went through my libertarian phase when I was in high school

I think it is a stepping stone to sort of mature political development because you do arrive at that conclusion like well Why should I get to tell other people how to live their life? but as you understand how power works and political power works and human nature works, I think the conclusion that people tend to arrive at is that it's not enough to say we have to sort of leave this power vacuum because someone's going to occupy it. And it can either be you or it can be the bad guys. And what we've seen in our country is that the bad guys are occupying it.

And it's not enough to say, okay, well, we have whoever is in charge of this country and they're promoting all of this nonsense, all of this sinful behavior. Well my answer to that is I'm going to ask it to go away. I'm going to say, excuse me, state, you're infringing upon my rights and I don't even think you should exist as a concept. I believe in small government. The state says that's cute and then they continue with their business.

Whereas actual organized opposition to that, something like a more classically right-wing government like you'd have seen in this country 100 years ago, they crush that opposition because that's actually a threat. And that right-wing opposition doesn't actually want to have some sort of totalitarian state, they just want the communists to go away. And so because the communists understand that the only threat to that

is an organized right-wing opposition as opposed to just libertarians who want to masturbate and smoke weed and say, hey man, don't tread on me. They're like, okay, they don't care. What are you going to do? You're not going to organize from your garage. So that's why they have to go after actual, you know, political organizations who have teeth and want to challenge that totalitarianism and that authoritarianism as opposed to just this idea of libertarianism, which claims to win the argument in the short term because

it is more in favor of smaller government or whatever, but they have no plans to actually implement that or reduce that power. Yeah, I haven't thought about this a lot, but it seems to me that it's usually the one or the group who believes themselves to be threatened that gets excited about libertarianism because they just want to be left alone. So it seems to me like a lot of conservatives talk like that. Like, they live, you can do what you want to be left alone right so it seems to me like a lot of conservatives talk like that Yeah, I live you can do what you want to do and you even hear people say that in regards to people mutilating themselves Yeah, yeah, it's a very weak position

And I think it's indicative of how much we've lost like if you're in a fight for example And you're in a fight with let's say we man remember we man from the jackass movies No, he's a gentleman of will say low y-axis value He is a shorter gentleman, and if you're in a fight with him He's you know starting a fight with you outside of a cigar lounge or something You're probably gonna just be like what are you doing? You know if he gives you a hard time you'll like knock him out and go about your day But if you are being attacked by Shaquille O'Neal you're probably gonna be like just leave me alone. Just leave me alone

I just want to be left alone It's almost like rationalizing your own inability to fight back as some sort of virtue. Like, what if we both leave each other alone? And so we're coming at it from a position of being already on the defense. And people do not like that sort of weakness. You know, if there's a strong horse and a weak horse,

people are gonna like the strong horse. And there's a great example of this rhetorically that we've seen in just the last few years where you had the Black Lives Matter protesters in the summer of 2020. They were going along in these downtown areas and they were breaking up private dinner gatherings and they had their signs and they said,

silence is violence, white silence is violence. What that means is if you do not enthusiastically support our cause, not even just you agree with it, you don't have a problem with it, if you are not on board marching with us that is actually equal to violence that sounds like very Morally confident messaging yeah versus what is the rallying cry of conservatives that you're likely to find on a pickup truck Don't tread on me. What does that say? I'll leave you alone. You leave me alone. Everything's fine. That's not really attractive messaging I mean your big battle cry is leave me alone or else I'm gonna fight back well

They haven't left you alone Have you fought back? No, you've been masturbating and smoking weed and like voting for you know The Libertarian Party who doesn't believe in driver's licenses like that is what you are doing That's your opposition And so if you have confident messaging messaging that believes in itself, that's gonna be more attractive to people than just messaging That's like look what if we all just leave each other alone? We can all figure it out by ourselves It's like we were discussing actually before we started taping With how the right can only exist in opposition to the left it can only identify itself

By being in opposition to whatever the left is doing that's not strong You know it should be able to stand on its own two feet Yeah, people understand what it's about without it simply being outraged to Dylan Mulvaney or Bud Light or whatever the clickbait issue is of the day. Yeah, yeah. I think a common question people want to know is what is conservatism and what is it that you're actually conserving? Because it is kind of weird that we seem to think that people like Dave Rubin and maybe Joe Rogan and all these different people who I wouldn't consider close to being Christian

are conservative. So what do you say when people ask what conservatism is? I agree with you. Do you identify as a conservative? Sure. What is that thing that you're identifying with? The problem is the label has become so polluted that when I say that, people hear that and think that, oh, you're in the same club as like a Dave Rubin or a Joe Rogan or something

like that. The technical term would be like a paleo-conservative, meaning I'm an old school conservative from like the early 20th century. That whole school of thought was co-opted after World War II in the latter half of the 20th century by the neo-conservatives. And the neo-conservatives were basically just liberals

who did not like so much the progressive social trends of the Democrat party and who also really liked going to war with other countries. And so those were the neo-conservatives. much the progressive social trends of the Democrat Party and who also really liked going to war with other countries. And so those were the neoconservatives, but they weren't really separate from the Democrats. They just had those two issues that they wanted to reorient. So you had guys like Bill Buckley with the National Review, who was really guiding a lot of this. And they, by the way, speaking of cancel culture, they invented that to a certain extent on the right, purging these formerly just old schoolschool conservative guys from these organizations, from these editorials, and

creating this sort of neo-conservative consensus that's lasted from the end of World War II until basically Donald Trump's election. So when I say I'm a conservative, I don't mean that necessarily that I'm totally pro capitalism, total pro freedom and liberty and everything like that. I believe in a more classical understanding of those things, you know, an economic nationalism. Not freedom, but liberty understood in a classic sense, meaning like I am not free to do whatever I please because what that tends to mean is like I'm just free to pursue my preferred method of self-destruction, but I'm free in the sense that I have control over my body,

I have control over my desires, and so I can go through life without being attacked by these various temptations because I am myself and I don't have to worry about that sort of thing. So I mean it in a very old school sense, which is honestly just the opinions of any normal man until maybe about 10, 20 years ago. So it's not as attractive to people as some guy in a bow tie who's got a book about these esoteric economic treatises and political theories. It's very normal, just putting America first, allowing for normal people to be able to raise families without going into debt for a college degree.

It's honestly very uninteresting because it seems so common sense, but there's been so much effort to subvert that and redirect it into so much nonsense to destroy the country, honestly, that now when you say, I'm a conservative, they're like, oh, what are your new ideas? And someone's not really a new idea, but we have to bring it back because it's what's worked. I mean, it's what built this country. And so I heard of some big conservative conference, you'd know more than me,

that had tried to get a porn performer to come and speak. Or even if you don't know that specific example, you know that sort of stuff is happening, right? It's almost like these conservatives are trying to ban with whoever will agree with them. So, oh, yeah, transgenders, but they're for us on this. So we're going to link arms with them. And I suppose there's something to be said with with trying to fight a common enemy.

But where does that go wrong? When do you want to stop? Well, it seems to me you should never have a porn performer advocating for your positions. But yeah, the it's sort of this like big tent mindset. And the big tent is good because it allows for more of it's sort of this like big tent mindset. That's it. And the big tent is good because it allows for more of our people to be in the big tent. The big tent is not good when it just lets anybody in

because then it's like, what's the point of even having the big tent, you know? If you're going to concede on issues like sexual morality, pornography, things like that, which I mean, would have been repulsive to even George Bush or something, but now like our A-list conservative conferences, this is where the serious organizing is, we've got the movers and shakers here,

we're gonna figure out how to beat the bad guys, and then you've got porn stars there. It's like, what are you doing? Especially too, you know, you've got young men who are interested in politics, you're showing them that this is okay, like this lifestyle, this type of content is okay. And that's like a lot of the problem too

with conservatism is they worship capitalism, they worship the GDP. As long as the number goes up, that must mean that the standard of living is going up. That must mean that the country's doing better. But you have to have some sort of moral system in place where you can't monetize vice. You cannot profit off the degradation of your fellow countrymen by selling them pornography,

selling them drugs, things like that. That is completely immoral Yeah, yeah, you did a debate on pornography recently. I did I did tell me about that. Well there so this was sort of like Like when you when you conquer an enemy and then you just as a humiliation ritual ten years later You go through and you like execute all the old generals like just to like totally magan the conquered people so there is a a transgender a transgender individual whose name is bryanna woo and this person was involved as a fella yes this person was involved in a phenomenon called gamer gate okay 10 11 years ago which is where i and

a lot of other young men first got involved in politics because we just wanted to play Our video games and all of a sudden you had these feminists coming in and telling us that you need to be nicer to women These are devolvable. So there's all these things going on. And so this person was heavily involved in that so it goes on It's over. But now I find out that there's a debate being put together between me and this person So I was like, yes, I'll do I'll pay you to do it. You have history with this guy. Yes This is like this would be like, what's a good example? Did you see the Northmen?

No. Or Red Dead Redemption, maybe the video game? I've heard of it. It's like, if your father were executed and you grow up and you see it happen and you grow up now and this guy's old and decrepit and now you're the strapping young man and you go and you find him at his homestead

and say, it's like, my name is Inigo Montor, or whatever it's like, and killed my father. So is that sort of dynamic? So we were debating the issue of pornography and I was approaching it from the position that we should completely ban it And this person didn't really have any opposition to that their entire argument was simply well I work in policy and this would be so complicated. They wouldn't even concede like okay ignoring the logistics of it The resolution of this debate is should we? It's an ought question. And can you at least meet me there? And they refuse to do that. Not is it possible? Is it even possible in the Democratic Republic where the vast majority

of people are open to it? That's not the question. Exactly. Yeah, should we? Yeah, ideally. And yeah, he completely refused to even acknowledge or concede that. And then even later on, there were arguments that were made about how children are using it. And then even later on, there were arguments that were made about how children are using it and the percentage of children who are being exposed to this at younger and younger ages each year

who are making it more a part of their daily lives. And even then it was like, well, it's super complicated. And that's what they love to do. They love to make issues that should be so clear cut into these labyrinths where it's like, well, it's so impossible. It's like we arguably put a man on the moon. We created the interstate highway system.

Like we have done things far more ambitious than making it so you can't just pull out your iPhone as a seven year old and watch people have sex. We have done so many more impressive things than that. It's certainly possible. And they know that too, but they are representing a side that is largely addicted to this content.

They like this content because it's subversive, they enjoy that it makes Christians upset, and so they have to represent that position because of that almost by its own virtue alone. Forgive me if this is too personal, no need to answer it, but is this something that you've had in your history that you then decided was evil and tried to overcome, or is it something that from a young age, you were like, I know why porn's evil,

I don't wanna get involved in it? I, you know, it's like, if you're a young guy with internet access, you're gonna, at some point, watch this stuff, especially growing up, you know, you go to middle school, high school, and your friends are like, did you know that you can just see this? And it's like, wow, that's interesting. But it was never like a huge problem,

and honestly, when I first started speaking out against it, it was for two reasons. One, I noticed that my friends weren't dating women. They weren't talking to women. They were like totally just, and they're not weird guys by the way, like the guys that went to high school, they were like normal funny guys, but they weren't going on dates, they weren't talking to women and they would talk about some of the stuff that they were watching on the internet and so I sort of like blamed that. And then also, it was partially like a content thing, because I noticed that no one was talking about this.

I was like, shoot, if I can get in ahead of the curve, maybe we can make this into a bigger thing. And I don't wanna take full credit, but after I made my first video about it, and I think it was fall 2019, there were a lot of larger conservative YouTube channels who came out and they made videos about it. Because I know that they have producers who watch my stuff

and so maybe they're like, hey, we should talk about this. So I can't take credit, I don't want to take credit, but it was good that we sort of went out there and jumped in ahead of time. But you look at what it does, and these are the arguments I tend to make, because I know that there are arguments about how it affects marriage and how it affects

how we are perceiving women as men that are negative. But the arguments that I think resonate the most with just like normal guys are what it does to you as a man and how it makes you weak and placated and you're draining your life force into a screen for nothing, for ad revenue. And it's just this very humiliating and debasing thing that you're doing to yourself.

And for what? For like a temporary dopamine hit. And so I've made the, and then after I made those videos, I started getting emails from guys telling me like how bad it actually is so I didn't even know the extent of the problem I assumed okay guys are watching this they probably shouldn't it's probably having a negative effect on their spirituality on their mental state but then I found out about how deep the iceberg actually goes with like what guys are doing and how often they're watching it like some

guys who are really addicted to it, it's crazy. And they need to be told, because they know it's wrong, and they probably know what it does to them, but they almost needed to be told in a concise piece of content, just stop. This is what you're doing to yourself. And I was kind of mean, honestly, in some of it. I was calling them names,

I was picking on them a little bit. I want you to do that now, because there's fellas who are watching this. I love that you're doing this because there's younger men They've been they've been I mean, it's a religious propaganda in a sense Yeah I get this stuff gets thrust upon them in an early age and their passions are all Disordered and they need someone to speak to them like that

I agree with you saying because often what we do is we we can get very philosophical about pornography Which I tend to do, you know the problem with there's thwarts at the end of the sexual act, is it intrinsically evil because of this? It's like, yeah, yeah, oh, that's true. But also it can make your penis not work. You know, like appealing to what people, their buy-in and then leading them from there. So I'd love you to do that, get mean.

There's been like a thousand percent increase, I think, in the last 15 years of erectile dysfunction because of that. And there's also things where it's like, look, if you're a guy and presumably you want to be the guy on the screen having sex with a girl and you're not, you're just like in your room by yourself. It's like, you're kind of a cuck actually is the word that typically tends to be thrown around in these circles. And then also it's just like totally weak. I mean,

you're draining your life force. Like I said, for nothing, you're getting nothing and returning your life force. You know, there are some right wing theorists who would say that like a man's semen is draining your life force, like I said, for nothing. You're getting nothing in return. What does that mean draining your life force? There are some right-wing theorists who would say that a man's semen is literally his life force. Boxers, for example, famously, will not have sex two weeks before a fight because they retain that and they want that sort of, because as a man,

your testosterone goes up, you're more in tune with life, you're more dialed in, whereas if you're just in your room jerking off three, four times a day, you're like weak, you have no motivation to do anything because it fries your dopamine receptors and your dopamine receptors, dopamine as a hormone, that is what makes you go out and do things and chase achievement and accomplishment.

And if you're just draining that for, you know, pixels on a screen, it's like, what are you doing? Yeah, I think men like to be talked to like that. They like to be, I like to be talked to like that. I like to be talked to like that if I believe that other person has my best interest in mind. There's a difference between just making fun of me, which I don't appreciate, and someone being like, you could be way better than you're being.

You're actually being pathetic and you don't need to, so you could choose to stop being pathetic. Right, there's even, someone did a control F on male self-help books versus female self-help books and they found that if you take any off the shelf just self-help books versus female self-help books and they found that if you take like any off the shelf just self-help book for women, a lot of it is very much like, you deserve this, this and this.

You need to be honest with yourself about what you deserve. You need to be understood. Exactly, and male are like, you need to do this, coward. You need to do this, you're fat, you're a loser and guys are reading this like so true. Like you need to be barked at. That's why men love movies that depict, you're fat, you're a loser, and guys are reading this like so true, like you need to be barked at.

That's why men love movies that depict, you know, drill instructors like in Full Metal Jacket. Like you go back and you watch, no one even knows what that movie is about. The only thing they remember from that movie is the sequence. It's like 45 minutes where you've got Gunnery Sergeant Hardman or whatever his name is, and he's like yelling at private pile and everyone like guys love stuff like that. You want to be almost like just a monkey waiting to be shot into space in a uniform with a bunch of other guys going through like some terrible Experience like in the moment if you're doing like conditioning workouts in high school

You're like carrying, you know 60 pounds of tent equipment up a hill and Boy Scouts. It sucks. It's the worst thing ever but you look back It's kind of like do you remember when we had to do that? Like it's a great experience and yeah, so guys they need to be talked to like that and that's one of the problems too is nowadays fathers if they're even involved they largely have adopted this sort of well I'm gonna be rational I'm gonna explain to them and get down to their eye level and tell them things and mothers too who we love but they are not equipped to raise young men by

themselves obviously because their instinct is going to want to predispose them towards being nurturing and being protective. And I can remember my mom, even, you know, I would do something really bad and my dad would want to yell at me and he would want to, you know, spank me or whatever. And my mom would shield me. And at the time I thought, oh, mommy's my savior or whatever. But I needed that actually. I was, I was doing some pretty stupid stuff.

So it was good to have that sort of balance, of course. And I think that as men are sort of chasing that father figure because maybe their parents are divorced, because their father, for whatever reason, is just like weak and just wants to sit in the Lazy Boy and watch the Dallas Cowboys or something, they seek that in guys like Jordan Peterson or Joe Rogan. What does Jordan Peterson do?

Jordan Peterson takes fatherly advice and explains it through the lens of like union psychology. Does that need to happen? For some people it does, sure. It's like great content. That's why it resonated so much with so many millions of men who maybe weren't told that, maybe didn't have that communicated to them sufficiently, but it's like it worked. And so the interesting thing about content like that isn't so much like, oh, this is

a model that works. It's like, well, why does it work? What is happening within our culture where young men need to be told these things that would have been so self-evident to guys even maybe in your generation. Yeah. Yeah, what's switched? Because it feels like when I was a kid growing up, you would hear about people talking about the exploits, sex outside of marriage, porn, and that was even kind of joked about, like

the protagonist in the funny movie you're watching is addicted to porn or sleeping around. Whereas now, like how, I mean, I don't think, I don't know if Jordan Peterson could have been popular back in the eighties or nineties if he came out swinging the way he has. No. So do you know what flipped? Was it just that we ate too much of the junk food and now we're throwing up and we know it's not healthy anymore? That could be it.

I think you're right though, he would have been laughed at. But your generation is famously very cynical, I think. Are you Gen X technically or you're an older millennial? Am I Gen X Thursday? Yeah. It's funny, these generation things mean a lot more to you and him than people like me. Yes, yes. And he tells me it's because of the technology divide that happens between you.

That is true to an extent, especially with my generation, Gen Z. It's almost the first generation to have like a micro generation where I, as someone who grew up, I was born in 1999. Late X, early millennial, he's telling me. All right. I was born in 1999, and so my experience in technology was very ornamented. It was like, okay, well, we have a family desktop.

I'll go on, I'll go to cool math games, or addictinggames.com, I'll play little computer games. But it was not a necessary component of my existence, whereas, I call them the post-911 zoomers, these kids who were born after 9-11, they grew up and you know by the age they were six when the iPhone came out I remember when my dad got an iPhone it was like whoa. This is like crazy It's like but now they're just so used to it and there is a huge divide between you know guys that were born between say 97 in 2001 versus guys that were born after 2001 in the way that we

experience culture in the way that we experience the world around us, our attitudes towards things. And typically that is what defined the generation. But now it seems as there's almost literally the microgenerations on either side of that with Gen Z. And I think that you're probably going to see the same way that there's the microgenerations in Gen Z with Gen Alpha or Gen Beta, I think, following. You're going to see that same divide, this sort of like bimodal distribution,

but it's going to be between parents who raised their kids just going along with the trends, oh, it's easier to give them an iPad than to interact with them and play with them, versus parents who observed what happened in my generation and were like, okay, we need to actually overcorrect and limit that technology access because we're seeing what's happening with these kids,

with the kids that were in Gen Z. And so they're going to regulate that technology access because we're seeing what's happening with these kids, with the kids that were in Gen Z. And so they're going to regulate that technology to almost be maybe at the level that it would have naturally been at for me, just like, oh, we have a family computer or something like that. But it wouldn't be an instrumental part of their day to day. Totally. No, everyone here in Steubenville, I mean, almost everyone is like that. I think what's important too is if I'm going to withhold technology as we talk about it

today, iPads, computers and phones from our children, you really, if you can, want to somehow embed yourself into a community of others who are also doing this. So the kid doesn't feel weird. I think if you send a kid to a school today, public or Catholic, and don't give him a phone or an iPad, he'll feel like a leper by the time, a social leper by the time he's eight or nine. So we made the decision to homeschool and implant ourselves in a community of other people who are just normal and happy. And yeah.

That's absolutely true. And that's another thing that I get into it with libertarians because it's the same thing where you'll have kids going to school and they're showing each other pornography or they're getting each other into drugs and parents will say to me, well, the state shouldn't get involved. I will just raise my kids different and those other kids will be good examples of, you know, what's and it's like, that's true, but there has

to be, like you said, an economy of children. Your child needs to be able to go outside and see these little clusters of bikes at various houses throughout the neighborhood. That's what I had. That's what my dad certainly had, but I don't see that anymore when I drive around whether it's in Michigan or in Texas. You don't see those bike clusters because everyone's inside, they're you know on their phones, they're scrolling, and even when they do hang out, if you've ever observed a Gen Z hangout, they're just like on their phones or like doing drugs. They don't really do anything mischievous, you know. I think that's very

important for young men to get into, mischievous like completely agree and they just don't they're just totally Disinterested in that kind of stuff. Did you do any cool mischievous stuff when you were a kid or I am? unironically of the opinion that between the years 2014 and 2018 my trio and I Had the most fun of anybody breathing We just the stuff we would get into like it was to the point where people at our school like would observe us Almost as if and I know that sounds by the way so Just the stuff we would get into like it was to the point where people at our school like would observe us almost as it And I know that sounds by the way so Narcissistic and like get over yourself

I swear it's true because we would just like get into these Activities and just like do things that people thought were funny like we used to play this game where this is like totally illegal and wrong But we would go and we would try to steal wet floor signs from local businesses Yeah, and just it was a competition like, okay, this week. How many can you get? Yeah, literally. In the boot, in the trunk. And so it was just like so stupid because like we could do it in a very sneaky way or

we could just straight up do it. And business would be like, what are they, is that the wet floor sign? And they wouldn't really care. But it was funny because you develop a sort of skill when you do things a number of times. And so I remember one time my two buddies and I, we went to go see a movie downtown, and we saw, maybe it had just rained or something, it was over the summer, there were like three or four wet floor signs in the lobby.

So we were like, okay, we gotta get those when we leave. So we're walking out, and there's theater employees, there's a concession stand, and one of my friends is a really tall guy, and he had a hoodie on. He walked by, and there was an employee standing in front of the sign, but he was facing away from it, and then there was a door at the front.

So we were gonna go out the side door and go back to our car, and so I had mine, my other friend had his, and we were like, leave it, leave it, it's too risky. This guy, in one stride, without even, he just goes and he managed to scoop up the wet floor sign, embed it under his hoodie, and exit, and the guy had no idea that it even happened and it was

Like that's like the most impressive thing I've ever seen in my life And so one time we set them all up because we didn't know how many we had we would just go back to my house Throw them in the attic my mom. What are you doing up there? I was like, it's fine I was like, let's see how many we have so we set them all up on our driver We had like a hundred we had like a hundred of these wet floor signs just in our driveway side We were like taking pictures. Yeah, like these are our hunting trophies And then I remember my mom like went up there to get Christmas decorations or something. She's like Johnny What is all this? I was like, I don't know what those are. What do you mean?

I don't know what floor signs but like things like that where it's probably wrong You probably shouldn't steal your local wet floor sign, right? But ultimately there's also a virtue again harmless, you know you know? It's just... The coolest thing I did, and by cool, I mean, again, objectively wrong. And yet there's virtue in the adventure and the camaraderie and the excitement of it, right? We would go around my little town and we stole all of the garden gnomes that we could find. And then we went to some random person's house and we set up a gigantic garden gnome party. The next day it was on the front of our local newspaper.

And even the newspaper thought it was kind of funny. But yeah, we'd knock on doors and run away, throw eggs at teachers houses and things like that. But what was beautiful about it isn't defacing people's property. It's that I'm with my guys and we're doing something dangerous. And we feel alive and where there's a bond here. And as you said, I hope that young people are doing stuff like that today. Unfortunately, my son timestamps these videos, but he should know that if he did something like that, I would punish him. Right. But I'd say, good job.

I don't know. Like, there's a sense in which I'd be proud of him for doing something more interesting than playing Minecraft. That was something I really enjoy about growing up is that my dad grew up literally in the house next door to the house that I grew up in because my grandma lived there since 1965 and my mom bought the house next door. She introduced my dad. My dad rizzed her up and you know, I popped out a few years later, I guess. But it was interesting because I would tell my dad like, I'm afraid to ask what rizzed

her up means. Uh, it is the act of romance and romancing. All right. Continue. It is the act of romance in the romance thing. I like it continue, but he would I he would tell me like If I said, oh, yeah, you know, we were biking down so and so and then so and so got chased by this pit bull So we had to jump up on the brick wall. He's like, oh the brick wall behind the McDonald's Yeah, me and my buddies to go push each other off and fall into backyards and dogs would be bite It's like stuff like that being able to share that same geography

Literally go to the same middle school and high school that he went to, walk the same hallways, get involved in similar types of mischief, trading stories, like, that's probably my favorite thing about growing up as a young man nowadays, was being able to sort of, not necessarily walk in the same path, but it's almost parallel in a way, because it was the same area, and that's something

that is very unique, I think, and I don't know anybody else that can kind of say that and so I'm very grateful that I have that sort of upbringing that was just so rooted and so parallel. What's your opinion of video games for young men? I'm culturally a gamer in the sense that I like to say things that are not nice but I quit playing video games. So you're gonna have to explain all this to me. What does that mean? I'm culturally a gamer in that I like to say things that aren't nice, but I quit playing video games. So you have to explain all this to me. What does that mean? I'm culturally a gamer in that I like to say things that aren't nice. What does that mean?

You want me to say? Well, but what does gaming have to do with saying things that aren't nice, I guess? What's that connection? Yeah, like you need to get in a lobby and you're with the guys and you're saying things to them that if like your mother heard, she would probably go drink turpentine. Like it's just like the worst things that could Ever come out of your mouth. Well. This is what gamers do I don't know absolutely you get to like a like a lobby

You know whether you're playing like Call of Duty back in the day this shows that this shows the cultural Oh, yeah, this shows the divide because when you said lobby, I'm imagining a lobby in a hotel No, no, no, no, no, I mean now. I'm realizing you mean yes Yeah, you just guys get together and you just trash talk You just you know how guys communicate right and you happen to be playing a video game But the video game isn't the most fun the most fun is like Yeah, just going back and forth with the guys and just saying like the most ridiculous stuff So stuff like that. It's like so I'm culturally a gamer

I say that in the sense that I used to play a lot of video games I still retain that sort of mentality I like video games But I gave it up pretty much after maybe 10th, 11th grade, because it's just time consuming, you know, there are other things I wanted to do that were more productive, and so I quit playing, but then I recently got back into it,

because my mom got me an Xbox for Christmas two years ago, and I said, mom, I don't wanna open this, because if I start, you know, I can't, that's gonna get sucked back in, and she was like, well, you should enjoy yourself, and you get to have fun, too I'm like I agree, but I like where's my dad I need him to smash right right so I opened it up a few months ago because my buddy started playing fortnight because the og map came back And so I was like I'll play I never played back in the day

So I got really into fortnight because they got Peter Griffin in there so I can play as Peter Griffin from family I can go around kill people and it's it's addicting it you know why it's addicting it's because it's like a casino It's it's a scratch off. It's a slot machine because every time you play fortnight You're dropped and the winner is the last man standing So the whole game is you're going around collecting loot killing people and you've got to be the last man standing So it's not like Call of Duty where you're just running around Indefinitely in this religious ecstasy just dying being reborn. So it's not like Call of Duty where you're just running around indefinitely in this religious ecstasy, just dying, being reborn, dying. It's consistent. Fortnite is you're building up your portfolio of loot and maybe I'm going to get to be the last

guy. And so you get close, close, and then you just, your entire reality shatters. You get killed and it's like, I need to chase that again. So it's like every time you're rolling the dice. And so, yes, it's very addictive. I love that you're getting to know me because you just explained who Peter Griffin was and what Fortnite was without being condescending. It was very kind of you. I didn't want to step on your toes. No, it was very kind of you.

Okay, yeah. So that's interesting that in 11th grade you decided to quit. I mean, that takes a lot of maturity for someone who's like, I want to focus on other things. Was that a difficult decision? No, not really. Because at that point, you know,

I hadn't gotten an updated console, so I begged my parents to get me an Xbox 360 in 2012. So that console came out, I believe, in like 2006 or seven. So I was already behind. I got into middle school and all the guys had Xboxes. They were all playing Call of Duty. So I've never begged for anything in my life harder than I did the Xbox.

I made a chart and everything. I was like, okay, if I can be good for 35 days, I get an Xbox. That was the rule. So my dad was like, I don't know that I agree to this, but I'm sure, I mean, I guess. And so I got one, it was great. But then, you know, years go by,

and now I'm not even playing online anymore. It's just like, I'll go downstairs and I'll just like play a game or something just for my own amusement. Because at that point now I'm like working, I've got a job, I've got, you know, classes in high school that are more difficult. And so if've got a job, I've got classes in high school that are more difficult.

And so if I'm having fun, I wanna go be out with my friends or do whatever, I don't wanna go and play a game by myself. And nobody that I was really cool with still played online a lot, so there's not even that social system. So I just sort of fell out of it. But it wasn't something where I had to cold turkey and I'm eyeing it every time I walk by the basement.

I'm like, I can play a game really quick or something. It was it's pretty simple Yeah, I'm trying to find where's the medium because on one side you got people who only talk about gaming That's all they ever do they they stream their gaming they you know And then the other side you got people who are like it's gay to game and men shouldn't be doing that and yeah I don't know I would certainly wouldn't be on that side and I wouldn't be doing that. And I don't know, I would certainly wouldn't be on that side. And I wouldn't be on that side either. It seems to me that if you can engage in this entertaining game in a way that's appropriate and isn't too time consuming, and if you do find it restorative, then that's okay. Age of Empires 2 was big. I don't know if you

ever heard of that when I was a kid. And I recently replayed a skirmish and I just I put it I shut the laptop lid on it. I feel fantastic that was a really good time. I feel good but it's addictive it is it's not like a movie in the sense that a movie kind of comes to an end and of course you can binge things on Netflix so I suppose maybe it is similar to gaming but what do you think Is gaming more deleterious than watching television? No, I think that's a, I think you're right that there is something to be said about the middle where you'll have guys who are angry at themselves because maybe they have addictive personalities and they've wasted so many hours playing video games. Maybe they see what they could have been if not for their hours on, you know, Counter-Strike

or something. And so they kind of lash out and they prescribe this very like no video games. If you play video games You're gay Sure, like I get that However, you need to have scheduled blocks of times where you can enjoy yourself because if you don't do that I think it's like we said with a vice I think it bleeds in and I think that everything you do tends to be more miserable less productive and I found that myself

You know, I used to be very strict about like, you know I should always be like reading a book or doing something I noticed that made me, in aggregate, less productive. And I'm much more productive if I can schedule, like okay, I'm just gonna go play a game for a couple hours, I'm gonna go out with my friends for a couple hours, rather than sort of always be trying to do these different things and then it's not exactly coming, if I can just actually schedule it and make it more blocked.

Not to say that you're like, okay, six o'clock, here's my fun hour, you you're like, you know, on a completely strict schedule, but you should be able to do things that you enjoy and not lose yourself in it. And if you lose yourself in it, that's of course a problem, take a step back. But I think that guys are very strict in these circles

about doing things that they enjoy because they're afraid of what that may lead to. And I think that that is ultimately more destructive than if they were just able to consume in moderation and Really just you know enjoy themselves allow that to be fun But you know don't become an addict don't like become a gamer where you know you're racking up like 60 hours a week in some Some games yeah, it's interesting if I if I met a fella and we got into a conversation I didn't find him terribly interesting and then I found out he was a gamer.

But yeah, that's very unimpressive. But if you told me that someone like Dr. Scott Hahn, who's this great theologian, biblical scholar here, is like, Oh, yeah, actually play occasionally. That's so cool. Isn't that interesting? Yeah. So it's like, if it's not somehow retarding your ability to crush it and to, you know, then maybe then maybe it's maybe it's a fun thing to do on the side.

Yeah, it's like, you know, Donald Trump tweeted in like 2012 or 13, it was like, make sure you take time to enjoy the weekend. It'll help you be more productive in the upcoming week. And so whenever I have something and it's like, oh, dude, I gotta get this done, but it's, you know, it's a Saturday, I always think to the Trump tweet, what would Trump do in this situation?

He would take time to crack a Diet Coke open, enjoy the weekend, and then it does tend to help me be more productive in the upcoming week. Two things I find impressive about Trump, one is that he doesn't drink. I mean, that's very impressive when people have that kind of standard, they're gonna drink alcohol. The other thing I found impressive for all of his foibles

is the dude never seems to get rattled. People always would talk about how bad his temperament was, but whenever he was put on the spot or cornered, he never, I've had, maybe he has and I haven't seen it, he never would lash out or get or fumble over his words. Yeah. Do you know what I mean? Yeah, he's literally like a lion. I mean the guy is just truly larger than life and I'm a big Trump fan.

Okay. Anybody who knows me will tell you that, but it's not because I am just fascinated by like the aura and I'm buying into something It's because I know these things about him and that is personally inspiring to me Like the way that this guy has always just been like a machine and totally willing to commit to projects and get the job done And you know be this sort of like larger-than-life Cultural figure who stumbled his way into being truly in my opinion a man of history He's always just been very inspiring and in the the way that, I mean, everything that he's gone through, people forget that like George Bush was called

a mean name here and there. Ronald Reagan was, you know, compared to Adolf Hitler. But having assets seized, being indicted federally, this is unprecedented. And the reason for that is because he challenged American political orthodoxies, which were the consensus, undebatably, for 50 years. And he came in and he challenged those successfully and he resonated with normal

Americans, middle Americans, and that's why they can't stand him. So any baggage that Trump may have is manufactured in the minds of the public. And what that means is anybody who's involved at a high level in politics, they're going to be making money on the side. They're going to have some skeletons in their closet. The reason you hear about it with Trump specifically is because it is decided that you will hear about that. They had stories about George Bush, I'm sure. Anybody who seeks office, there's gonna be some hit pieces

or something like that. But in terms of consensus media coverage, even on the channels that are supposed to be in your court or in your corner, like Fox News, being what they were to him in 2015. People forget that, but they were very critical of Trump in 2015. They were saying that he wasn't actually a conservative.

They were saying that he used to give money to Hillary Clinton. People were saying that he was actually a plant from the Democrats to stop rising conservative star, Marco Rubio. Like these were all theories. And so there's all this opposition towards Trump. And like the guy just fires off a tweet and you're gonna sit there and think that you get to say that his temperament is bad

I mean you couldn't imagine the stuff that this this guy's had to gone to go through and even compared to the Opportunity cost he could have retired at the top of skyscrapers that are golden with his name at the top and all the greatest cities in the world Supermodel wife whatever he wants to do for the rest of his life And if he had have just praised the Democratic establishment they would have he preys on him and he would have been the good guy In the media, there's no rational motive to put all of that aside because he wants to save his country Like the only explanation that makes sense is that he actually does love his country He loves the life that it's provided for him

He loves the people in the country and he hates the people who have destroyed it and profited from that. And I think he's always felt a sense of resentment because he doesn't speak like an educated. He went to, I think, UPenn. He went to an Ivy. But he doesn't speak like he's Ivy League educated. He never really was involved in an industry that was really, I guess you'd say, respected by those

circles. You know, they knew Donald Trump, they knew he was a celebrity and they invited him to things, but he was never truly like a traditional elite in the sense. He seemed like a more blue collar guy who just found a way to brand himself and make a lot of money. And so I think he's always felt a little resentful towards them because of that. And then when they see the way, or when he sees the way that they've destroyed the country, I mean, you can go back and watch his interviews on the Oprah Winfrey show in the 1980 that. And then when they see the way or when he sees the way that they've destroyed the country, I mean, you can go back and watch his interviews on the Oprah Winfrey show in the 1980s. And it sounds like a Trump rally in 2024.

And that's why they were able to say he's not really conservative because like we were discussing at the beginning in a real conservative policy platform, like he doesn't really care about these sort of intricacies. He's just like a normal American patriot. And that is really closer to what conservatism used to be than what it has devolved into

now. And so because of that, they were trying to, you know, hit him from all these angles and tank him and get in, you know, Ted Cruz or Marco Rubio. But yeah, his ability and his stamina to just keep going and keep persevere, persevering is just like, he's truly peerless, in my opinion. How do you then admire him without kind of becoming a sycophant? You know what you presumably as a Catholic you would want to criticize him for his views on in vitro fertilization abortion Transgenderism like these things seem like disgusting immoral things sure not to mention how he's treated women in the past

So it's like how do you not just become play defense to those who are coming at him? Yeah and overlook the things Yeah, it's a great question, and this is something that a lot of good Christians will ask me, because they have problems with these things, obviously, and I have problems with these things too. But I'll say that I've never come out and said, I love Donald Trump because he's such a good husband, and he inspires me to be a great husband.

What I like about Trump is that he is able to create this political force that I believe creates opportunity for change that otherwise we wouldn't have. And so for example, Trump was hosting I think gay weddings or something at Mar-a-Lago maybe a year ago and this was when Kanye West was running for president. So Kanye West was running for president and he was gonna be the Christian candidate who comes in and installs theocracy and we're gonna have Christ first, that was great. So I got a lot of flack from the time

from the people who wanted Kanye West, because I was basically running defense for Trump about some of the more socially liberal things that he was doing, and I was saying, look, we have to meet people where we are. If we're involved in politics, I mean, that's the name of the game, is you have to understand the conditions that you're in,

and you have to find out how to make your policies get down the field, given those conditions. So I was saying that nationalism is going to breed the conditions necessary for social conservatism, for more Christian policies, rather than the opposite. So it's to say that if we wanted to have a candidate running for political office who is just the most Christian, well, we would have had President Mike Huckabee by now,

but we haven't because people in America have become so calloused and they've become so polluted by sin that when they hear messaging like that that wants to compel them legally to be more virtuous, it almost repulses them and they won't vote for it. I wish that weren't the case, but it is. But if you have someone like Donald Trump who can get in there and say,

well, I wanna close the border, I wanna bring back jobs, I wanna do this, and he makes things like abortion an accessory to his campaign, it's like, oh, and I'm gonna appoint pro-life justices, but he really didn't speak about that that much Well he gets an office and now all of a sudden he appoints justices and that leads to the conditions that overturned Roe v Wade yeah, 50 years of pro-life activism the crown jewel was we have to overturn Roe v. Wade and the guy that ultimately Facilitated that not to discredit the work that the pro-life organizations have done But it was the guy who frankly they were attacking in 2015 because they were like, well he used to be pro-choice, he's probably paid for abortions, but it's like

that's true, but we need to get a guy in there who can move the ball down the field. And because we tend to be a more virtuous group of people, I think we have problems playing the game the way that the Democrats play the game, which is to say Democrats will still say, I'm not in favor of that, I'm not gonna do that. They will be creative with their presentation of what they intend to do, and then they get into office

and they govern in complete opposition to how they said. Is it wrong as, say someone running for president or running for Senate or whatever, as a Republican, to say, well, my position on abortion is that I want to give it back to the states. I'm more moderate, maybe, you know, whatever. And then you get into office and now all of a sudden you staff your administration with radical pro-lifers

and you govern like it's the Handmaid's Tale or something. You're saving lives. On the net, you are saving lives. And the problem with the pro-life organizations is that there's a lot of money to be made by getting up in front of a crowd of people and saying, I think killing babies is wrong, and everyone claps. So true.

Like, honestly, it's a form of virtue signaling on the right is to say, killing babies is wrong and everyone claps. Yes. So true. Like it's honestly, it's a form of virtue signaling on the right is to say, killing babies is wrong and everyone claps and they give you money. Yes, but do you want to save lives? Cause if you want to save lives, you got to kind of get in the mud and work your way through that system. And so my problem with Trump is a personal sort of,

I wish that he, you know, maybe had more Christian positions on these things, but ultimately like I'm not looking at him as a sort of avatar of,-like behavior. I'm looking at him as a guy who can get into the system and create opportunities for guys who maybe are more inclined to be convicted and have deep convictions on these things, so then get in and move the ball down the field. That's why I like Trump, is because he's able to create those coalitions and to do that.

Will you like that from the very beginning? Did you that, did you speak so strongly in favor of him when he first started running back in 2016? Yes, but it wasn't exactly like that. It was more so instinctually like that in the sense that I was like, okay, this is a guy who is saying things that need to be said. He could actually disrupt the Washington political establishment.

Back then I was more naive. I thought that he would get in there and be able to, you know, blow things up. And then you sort of naive I thought that he would get in there and be able to you know blow things up And then you sort of see the way that politics actually works and you know from day one Paul Ryan's Congress was impeding him They basically viewed Donald Trump to be an irritant. This is a guy that damn it. He got in Okay, we're gonna have to put up with this guy for four years But we're not actually gonna let him do anything and people view that and we're like, oh he didn't get anything done And it's like you don't understand the project that this guy was assigned.

It's not like you know he's a Republican president and he's just keeping the trains running on time I mean he did sustain a tremendous economy he did start the border wall he cut immigration he didn't start any new foreign conflicts so just viewing it like that successful relatively but his project was so much more ambitious so it's almost like you can't even compare it because his project was to drain the swamp okay swamp status undrained so now what Trump is a failure it's like you have to understand how deep the rot is in the system who's gonna win Trump I it's funny I heard you say that in one of your videos back when I don't even I think it was before DeSantis said he was gonna run for president and when I heard you say that like that's obviously not gonna happen

Yeah, first. I said the same thing. I know trouble win. Yes. I'm like, okay I mean, what do I know and it's wild to see that he's now the You know, it takes all of us. We all trust the planet different speeds some trusted a little bit sooner Some trusted a little bit later, but eventually we will all be on board the Trump train So hey happy to have you on board. Thank you Well, I said to you in a text. I said I have a very low bar I'm gonna vote for who I think hates me less. Yeah, and I kind of mean that I do mean that I I feel like if I had Trump over for dinner and I

Explained to him about my family and my community that he wouldn't resent me true I feel like Biden these his people hate me. I mean, cause you look at Trump and obviously, and you know, you have to sort of, we view sympathy and empathy very like one way sort of. We think that that can only flow down. Like I have to be sympathetic and feel empathy for people who are lower than me.

You kind of have to do it both ways, right? You have to be sympathetic. I mean, imagine being Donald Trump, not only to say all the opposition, all the negative press, but when you're a man and now all of a sudden you have billions of dollars and you have opportunities to explore vice that no average man will explore with, you know, supermodels, with different kinds of drugs and alcohol. And it's like, if this guy has indulged in women or done whatever, it's like,

do I personally have a problem with that? Sure. Will he be held accountable for that? Sure. But ultimately, what do I want from Donald Trump? I want Donald Trump to make it easier for my friends and I to grow up in this country, to have families of our own. Can he do that?

Sure. And that's really the bottom line, I think, in terms of viewing him as a political political actor and we can pray for him We can pray for him to you know develop a more intimate relationship with Christ But I think that's we do more harm than good by kind of sitting back and just you know Knit-picking everything he does or everything he says. So how's it gonna play out? What are the next several months look like up to the elections? You know, I would hope that he gets an office and everything runs smoothly

months look like up to the elections. You know I would hope that he gets an office and everything runs smoothly but it just seems almost too far-fetched because he is putting together an administration that is far more competent and far more loyal than the one that he had initially. The organizations that he's putting together, the guys that he's putting together, bringing back new people, it is like it almost brings a tear to my eye like actually like thinking about what is possible with the organization that he's putting together. How do you, how are you aware of this? I, I know inside baseball, a little bit. I know

some people in Trump world and you know, you hear things and so it's, it's very good on the basis of that alone. And so you almost have to wonder like, is this actually possible? I mean, is the system, whatever that may be going to allow this guy to get into office and actually create the change and so I don't think I think the reason they've waged such aggressive lawfare against him Is because they are trying to legally prevent him from taking office again I don't think that they think they can just you know The word they use is fortify the election again in a way that would convince people that Joe Biden actually won again

I mean he is so insanely unpopular. The economy is in the toilet. The border is wide open. I mean, people are reflecting a lot of anxiety about this and Trump's polling numbers are better than they were in 2020, better than they were at this time in 2016. Like people love him. I mean, there's there's no way looking at it now at least that he doesn't get in. And so it's makes you wonder, are they going to do something more extreme to take him out? Are they going to perhaps just trust that they can do what they did in 2016 and just impede his administration so successfully?

Again, if he gets back in, I don't know. I don't know what's going to happen. I think he will if, you know, God forbid something terrible happens, but I think that he will be sworn in again. And I think he will be the president again. Wow. What do you think the Democrats best strategy is right now? Is it to have Biden resign and put someone new and fresh in his place?

Shoot, you know, it's interesting you say right now. A few months ago, I would have said it would have been more intelligent to pivot to somebody like Gavin Newsom. But now, I mean, they're so far into it with Biden, it's like you almost have to commit to it. And I think that people like Biden more than conservative media give credit for. Because if you are a puppeteer and you are rinsing, you are picking at the bones of the American civilization and you're giving money to all your friends at the expense of the American taxpayer, if you have someone in office like Barack Obama,

say what you will about him. The guy is like an ideologue. He does have a worldview. And he famously didn't get along with certain people that you have to get along with if you want to be an American president. And so, you know, if you want to run the presidency as a basically wealth transfer, power transfer, or whatever,

if you've got someone in there like Obama, that makes your job a little bit more difficult because he has things he wants to do. He has friends that he wants to give patronage to. You have someone like Joe Biden. The guy's not there. He's old. You don't have to exactly guarantee him

speaking tours and book deals or whatever. He's very happy to retire to Martha's Vineyard and drive Corvettes and eat ice cream for the rest of his life. Do you think that's true that he is? I mean, I would think that if he was content with that, he wouldn't have run the first time and he might resign now.

I'm sure there is an ego thing. I don't think that he wants to step down, but it's to say like looking forward, say he wins the presidency again. After that, what is he guaranteed? Barack Obama gets book deals, he gets whatever. $500,000 speaking fees. Like Biden, he's made his money

as long as they don't prosecute his family. Like I'm sure he's fine with that. But when you're dealing with somebody who has political ambitions beyond even the White House, they're trying to set themselves up, set their friends up, set their family up for a future, it's more difficult if you're dealing with somebody who has political ambitions beyond even the White House They're trying to set themselves up set their friends upset their family up for a future It's more difficult, you know, if you're dealing with like a maybe a Gavin Newsom or Barack Obama So it's almost more advantageous in a way to keep Biden in office because then obviously he's not running anything And so things are allowed to just flow as they will you don't have to deal with him being like well

I said this and I want this it's like he's there. And it's considered a win in his administration. If he can go out and give a state of the union address and not literally like collapse or disintegrate, like the wicked witch or something, it's considered a win for his administration. If he can just present himself as semi competent for an evening, for an hour. Yeah. And the fact that everyone seems to be tripling down on just how cognitively aware Biden is,

you know? He's so sharp, so smart, so in control. That seems to indicate to me that they definitely want him in. They're not going to go back on that. They're not going to have him retire. Yeah. It's a level of propaganda that would make like a Soviet Commissar blush. Yeah, it really is.

You watch these people speaking and you're lying. And you're even saying things like, I wouldn't say it's not true Yes, you would that's a lie. Yeah, I've read there's a Schultz an instant quote, which I'll butcher because it's too layered But it was something like they they know we they were lying We knew they were lying They knew that we knew that they were lying and we knew that they knew that we knew that they were lying But they were still lying and it's like the same thing it's like they know everyone understands the game that's being played but it continues and we're just

impotent to do anything about it. Are we far too boring and fat for civil war or will there be some kind of civil war? No way. Tell me about it what's what do you think which of course we're not advocating but what might what might result ten years from now five years from now it would be would you know, we like there's a great American political tradition Of course of you know, Civil War secession things like that. I think that's uh Men are so starved of like actual masculine activities that we almost have this like ultimate fantasy of just like a Civil War Something popping off. I think that's why media like, you know, the Walking Dead, the sort of like post-apocalyptic media is so popular. As Americans, we almost still crave the frontier.

We want the wasteland. We want to conquer the unknown. So I think that's part of the reason why it's so quick to just like, oh, Biden said he's gonna raise taxes. Let's have a civil war or something like that. But the reason it won't happen is because when the Civil War happened, when the War of Northern Aggression happened,

you had parallel institutions on both sides. You had institutions in the South, you had elites in the South. It was truly the sort of like different cultures that were under the same flag. And so it was much easier to sort of form that divide and understand what's happening. Whereas now the divide is like what?

Suburban rural areas versus cities. There's no like clean line. Also, like what are we even gonna fight the civil war over? I mean, typically when we have that rhetoric, it's because like they took Aunt Jemima off the syrup bottle or they said Mr. Potato Head's gonna be gender neutral. Like people have 401Ks, people have money, they have houses. They're not willing to take up arms, especially too,

because what are you gonna be, you know, 45 years old and you're gonna go clear neighborhoods with your friends. No, I mean people are out of shape. They're fat They're not proficient marksmen. It's just fantasizing But it's not actually a real thing that could happen especially too because we don't have like I said any power There's no leadership. There's no organization. There's no institutional power If something like that happened, it would either be crushed by There's no institutional power if something like that happened It would either be crushed by Washington or perhaps like some other power would come in and fill the vacuum But it would certainly not be advantageous for us things would only get worse because like j6 It would give them an excuse to do what they fantasize in private conversation about doing which is putting people in jail

You know droning neighborhoods or whatever It would not be good at all and that's's not to say like, don't do anything, just keep voting, but it's to say like, just be smart. Don't advocate for something that's gonna get you killed. Like for example, that guy, I think in Utah or Montana or something, he was his baby boomer, blowing off steam on his Facebook a few months ago, saying, I'm gonna get Joe Biden.

And they no knock raid him at like 4 a.m., they kill him. Because there's no shortage of that. I mean, if you tell the FBI like, I'm going to get Joe Biden." And they no knock rate him at like 4 a.m. They kill him. Because you know, there's no shortage of that. I mean, if you tell the FBI like, hey, you can go like kill white Christians in the middle of the country, you're going to, I mean, lines out the door for that kind of mission. So it's not a serious solution to the problems that we have. And so generally, I think it's a waste of time to discuss, but there's of course an incentive to discuss it because it's edgy, sexy, talking about overthrowing the government. And it's edgy. It's sexy. We're talking about overthrowing the government.

It's like, sure. So how does this end then? I know you're not a prophet, but. Well, I would think that either we successfully take control of the government again, which is possible. People think it's impossible. It is possible. Or you could see a sort of de facto Balkanization.

Look at what happened, for example, a few weeks ago at the border where? SCOTUS said that you can't remove or you can't stop the feds from removing the razor wire or something like that Or you can't stop them from putting it down there And everyone thought that Greg Abbott was openly defying a SCOTUS order and then you had some you know nerds come out And they were like well actually technically it's not that so it's okay But they believe that it's in defiance Greg Abbott ostensibly believes that it's in defiance. And power is all about perception. So if people are perceiving, wait a minute, there's a conflict here between this state,

which is a border state, and the Supreme Court. What's going to happen? And you saw all these other governors signing on to it. Now it seems like it was all just theater, of course. And, you know, they're still busing illegal aliens into the country. But that is an interesting sort of peek into what the future could look like,

where you've got governors who are saying, I'm just not gonna listen. We have people pouring into the country. I have the ability to secure the border. You are not meeting your constitutional requirement to seal the border, and so I will just do that for you. And if you want to send troops in to try to stop my state troops from enforcing what you should be enforcing,

good luck with that PR crisis, especially in an election. Got Joe Biden coming up for reelection. He's already very unpopular. You really want to like risk those optics. And so maybe they'll back down. And so that could be a situation where regions in the country, which are governed by Republicans, begin to exercise more autonomy over the state, over the regions. And the federal government is still nominally the one in charge, but in terms of who's actually making the decisions, it becomes more transferred to those local and to those state levels. And then maybe in a long enough timeline that would lead to, you know, secession, but that

sort of, you know, balkanization or something. What would you say you have a podcast, Heck Off Commie, we'll put a link below to it. Yes. What's your mission? What's your hope with that podcast? I want total communist heck-offing. I want all communists to go away, to heck off, to go back to the pits that spawned them, never to bother well-meaning American patriots again.

Okay. I don't know. No, it's, you know, I don't know. I don't know no it's you know, I don't know I Don't know I am trying to I was looking at the way that the media sphere existed and it did not meet my standards I'm very high maintenance and I thought maybe I could add something to this discussion Maybe I could take young guys and get them in a direction that is more correct more virtuous more disciplined And if I can do that then that's great and we've been largely successful at that. And so it's been- How have you decided that you're successful? The people I meet.

Yeah, what are they saying? Oh, it's incredible. I mean, you meet these people and they, sometimes they'll have tears in their eyes because you told them something as simple as, like, stop watching porn, go to the gym, be like normal, pick up the bike. Like I've had so many guys tell me that I was able to,

like I did a two-part series, for example, illustrating the philosophical and practical overlap between Satanism and liberalism and Christianity and conservatism. And that was the first time a lot of guys who started watching my channel because they wanted to hear about why, you know, libtards are silly. But now all of a sudden they're hearing like intelligent Christian commentary and so maybe I should check this out. So we've brought a lot of guys to Christianity, to Catholicism in particular, because of that. And so the strategy with it has always been, understand the conditions of the sphere.

Cast a very wide net, silly name, heck off, commie, black and white intro. This guy's a total dork, fine. Then I am allowed to exist on the platform, I get the young guys watching, and I can pull them kicking and screaming into how they should think about the world. And it's been very successful.

We've had a lot of guys go on, you know, they move on and they end up working in politics, you know, working with local community organizations and just doing great things. And it's not because of me, but I consider myself the toy maker. My job is not to make content that, you know, you can not along to everyday and be like,

oh so true, the people I disagree with are so stupid or whatever, but it's to take young men and pick them up, you just wind them up and you just set them off. And where they go is so beautiful. Who knows if they go that way or this way, but where they're going is somewhere more positive and it's because you gave them those seeds, that information that they needed to sort of correct

their path in life, and then they go and they do something great. There was a friend of mine who's a, actually a speech writer for Trump, who told me he was teaching at Duke University for a while in the poli-sci department. And he said that he arrived at a sobering conclusion, but it was ultimately inspiring,

where he said that you have to kind of be comfortable with maybe the fact that you won't necessarily yourself do something great one day, but you can sort of through butterfly effect Influence somebody who maybe will and so I see little little instances of that where someone will reach out to me And they're in a position that's very good Maybe even better than you know my position is an internet bigot where they're now doing something great They're moving the ball down the field and they say hey, you know because I saw this video

It's like I can kind of cool think of that as like a micro win for myself And that really is what motivates me, you know, because I saw this video, it's like, I can kinda think of that as like a micro win for myself. And that really is what motivates me. Initially, it was because I wanted to dunk on everyone I went to high school with who were liberals and didn't like me, and I was like, oh yeah, well, remember all those things you used to say about me? Well, now I do it for a living, just like, get owned. But now it's much more like the people I meet

at these events, you know, you'll have like, I'll give like 24 hours notice. It's some random part in the country. Like we did one a few months ago in like some city in Northern Georgia. Not even like at a political conference, not even in like a big city, just some random organization that invites me.

I'll post on my Instagram, hey, I'm gonna speak here tomorrow, and I'll get a room of like 100 guys. It's like, this is cool, this is power. Like this is what it looks like, you know? It's these instances and they add up and we can get guys going in a good direction because the, you asked me what my most offensive opinion is.

This isn't offensive, it's just true. History has only changed when a group of guys decide that it's time for that to happen. And I think that's why, you know, like we said with tobacco, male organizations, there has been such an effort to destroy those because whoever is in charge, they enjoy their power. And power obviously is going to destroy anything that challenges it. And I think young men getting together,

being allowed to exercise, male behavior, being themselves, boys being boys, when that happens, things tend to happen. That is when history changes. That is when real serious events occur that could make the country and everyone's life better. And so insofar as I can facilitate that or encourage that in any capacity, like that's my job. You had Andrew Willard Jones here the other day and he said the beautiful thing about communities is you can't be gaslit. If you have this small group of men who care for each other and are bettering themselves, when someone starts speaking lies, it's like, no,

we all, we all, that's wrong, right? That's crazy, good, okay. Yeah, that's the importance of being able to call each other gay too. That has been stripped away from young men. It's making a comeback, but the ability of men to call each other gay, that's a way of checking and regulating male behavior.

It doesn't mean that you're a homosexual. It doesn't mean that you're a bad person. You're just doing something that all the other guys in the community understand is weird wrong Yeah, stop being gay and you're like, oh, excuse me and then you you know act normally and Now like when I was growing up If you said that you would have to go speak to the school guidance counselor about how this is not inclusive language And it's like does that guidance counselor have some evil plot where they're like, haha

Now they're gonna grow up and they're not going to be properly masculine? No, but I'm sure that somebody at some point is like enjoying that that is a byproduct of that. That men no longer have the tools to articulate how they ought to behave. The sort of instinct where it's like, you're doing something wrong. Stop being gay. Now you can't say that. And it's like, yeah, well, you're right.

It is coming back. I wonder why that's the case. Maybe it's because the elites in the establishment aren't so interested in quote unquote gay rights anymore. They've moved on to other things that are more and more insane. Yes, they left their flank open and now we're coming back and we're taking back the power of the word gay. Well, I love that you're seeking to better the lives of men because of course it's easy to sit back and sneer at people think you're better than them criticize from a distance But we do live in this soft environment where it's very conducive to becoming as you say just sort of fat and useless and addicted

And what we really did the only control I have for the primary control I have is to better myself through prayer through the sacraments Through trying to better my body trying to be a better husband trying to be a better friend Apologizing when I screw up like I can't control who wins the next election. I'm like a, somebody said, you're like a, your vote is like a flea hanging on the hair of a donkey or a horse and you're trying to prevent it. Pull it from the cliff it's about to gallop over. But the things that I do have control of is I want to be a good man.

I want to be a good husband. I really want to love my wife well. I want to take my kids seriously. I want to apologize when I husband. I really want to love my wife well. I want to take my kids seriously. I want to apologize when I screw up. You know, like these are things we can do. And it's difficult to do that in an environment with, as we just said, Uber Eats, Porn Hub, et cetera. Yeah.

Yeah, it's a completely just disgusting and isolated lifestyle. And nobody enjoys it either, but it's almost like there's a temporary discomfort in pursuing the alternative, pursuing something that's better So they would rather just sit back and order the uber eats You know the drive-through food at like 300% markup and just get high and whatever like the only socialization They get is like going to work

Maybe if they're not working remote and you know we left the cigar lounge last night I was like this is awesome you guys have like a social night. I was like, this is awesome. You guys have like a social club. Because I was like, it is a cigar lounge. Anybody can come from the street and come in and smoke, but it's yours. You go in there and it's the same rotation of guys and they understand like this is sort of our, it reminds me, have you seen a Bronx Tale? It was a great forgotten about though,

but a great like sort of mob movie from the 1990s. I think Brian De Palma maybe. But there's a scene where the guy, he's growing up in an Italian neighborhood and he and his buddies, they finally get their own social club. And it's, you know, they got a little building, you can get drinks, you can get cigars, whatever.

But the reason they got it is because it's a third place. It's not home, it's not work, they can just sit outside and hang out, smoke cigarettes, do whatever. And it's like, you need to have that, you need the third place. And Thursday said that, that's what I was thinking of was that vocab term. And he was like, yeah, it's a third place. And Thursday said that, that's what I was thinking of was that vocab term. And he was like, yeah, it's a third place.

And I was like, we understand, we understand the necessity of these sort of social institutions. Yeah, and what I love about Chesterton's is we intentionally, I'm one of the owners, we intentionally had no televisions, we intentionally had no music. We wanted, and if we do have music,

some will come and they'll play an accordion, there'll be folk music, we'll be singing. We're having an arm wrestling tournament next Friday. Of course. And what's been wild is I know of two men that have converted to Catholicism. There's a fella there who, I won't give his name away, but I don't think he'd mind,

but he hasn't been to confession, I think he said 38 years. And I was with him when he went to, I was in the same church when I saw him going to confession. And no one's proselytizing. No one's being weird about it. Yeah, it's just good men Probably talking about how they love their families love their wives Having fun conversations and these men Oh, wow, okay So Thursday just said for those at home that some fellas at the cigar lounge are someone to leave because he was speaking poorly about his wife

That's really cool. So again, it's not it's not weird. It's not proselytizing. It's just men coming together and being human Yeah, that's it I really I've said it before but I love what I love about a cigar is when you light it up You've you're committing to an hour hour and a half and to a human engaging conversation Yeah, whereas you go to some of these cigar lounges and God bless them, but just watching football. The vibe, so to speak, is totally off. You know, they even I mentioned this to you last night where where I live in Fort Worth.

They just recently expanded a speakeasy into a cigar lounge. And so they bought out the upper level of the building, this whole library. And so now they've got a cigar lounge up there. And it's beautifully furnished, I mean they've got this great leather furniture and it's just exactly what you would want it to look like, but then they've accented it with these paintings, which are, I would say, very Reddit tier.

Like they've got a picture of Jack Nicholson smoking a cigar. And it's like, this is sort of disrupting my experience, honestly, you should have a nice painting nice painting or like see what we had Yeah, like okay. There's paintings. We've had commissioned maybe you know, the average patron isn't gonna know who those people but something That's not just like oh my gosh, that's the actor I like and he's smoking and I'm smoking what it's like It's like ruining the experience. It's like very like, you know Lois common denominator kind of like it, it went the,

the effort, it went the extra mile to make itself look endearing and classy and sophisticated. And then it almost like tainted it with sort of like, I know exactly what you're talking about. It laid half awake in my consciousness until you said it. Like, that's it. That is it. It's like, he's an actor. I'm doing what he's doing.

I must be cool. Yeah. So things like that, maybe I'll, they just opened it up. So maybe it hasn't metastasized too much. Maybe I can just say, Hey, by the way, I'll supply the, that's what I should, I should offer it. I've got these old paintings and I'll put up Chesterton and Tolkien and all these other guys. And they'll be like, who's, there's just some old guy smoking a cigar. I'll be like, yeah, it is just some old guy. And what's cool about Chesterton's too, I'm going to keep talking about my own company, is that we'll have poetry reading nights. So you might think of men in a cigar lounge carrying on

swearing. It's actually, it's like men reading Chesterton out loud or Lord of the Rings or arm wrestling. It's really cool. Yeah. And there needs to be that because I think a lot of the reason that men aren't involved in church or even going to church is because they don't feel like it's a natural environment to them. Yeah. I think it's largely just because women are so involved. Yeah. Doesn't mean that there's anything wrong with women necessarily. It's just that they're holding the church together. These old Filipino women are convinced of it.

Yeah. It's like what is most feminine is necessarily going to be the least masculine. And men just aren't going to be interested in that Yeah, just like putting on little dresses on the statue of the infinite Prague I've never met a man who's into that and even you know with a lot of things that we've done for example I don't know what sort of bat signal I put up in in my audience, but Recently there's been a trend where I'll do an event We've got a room full of guys, and then there will be a handful of these women It's great come Come see me talk, whatever. But then they try to police my speech and

police my behavior and be like, you said this, that's not very Christian. You said that you want this immigration policy. That's not Christian because God says there's no Greek nor Jew. And I was like, what are you doing right now? Like why are you showing up to this event and thinking that you can police my speech? Like do you understand this is like a male environment and guys are trying to get together and figure out how we can make the country a better place. Do you think maybe there's a time and a place for this? Like, you wanna come and make your little point or whatever.

It's like very disruptive or even after the event, like, yeah, we're gonna go to a cigar lounge, we're gonna go get cigars. That's degenerate. It's like, that's not trad, that's not traditional. And so what I found is a lot of these more traditional Christian women Sort of just slap that bumper sticker on to what they really desire Which is just controlling male behavior and being a mom and being like you can't do that

Naughty boys do that You have to be a good boy who doesn't smoke cigars with your friends or drink whiskey with your friends and what that means Is just like stay home with me and cuddle and watch friends reruns or something like that I gotta say that's just not been my experience in Steubenville. Right, Thursday? Like the women we know are just boss monsters. That's what I've heard that. I was happy to hear that. Yeah. The married women I know in this town, you know, they're all like, I'm thinking of Imam's wife and my bride and they're all just good, beautiful. That's why they're married these are the single ones you know that's uh.

But why would they come to an event because presumably they they like you and they heard that you're going to be somewhere. They're trying to uh distract my audience in a lot of cases. They're trying to go there and they're trying to you know wear their little trad wife dress and they're trying to get guys to talk to them and things like that. It's actually frankly it's disgusting I like hate it because I'm trying to get guys to focus and women tend to disrupt that environment, not because it's their fault necessarily, but because men are. Yes. I mean, it's exactly right. I mean, if women were having a women's Bible study and a dude just showed up, that obviously interferes with the dynamic. Yeah.

I mean, women are different. And when we, it's like why same sex schools, right? There's benefits to them. Yeah. So it's sort of the same thing. So that's why I have been very careful with what I am saying now because I don't want people to feel as though they get to just show up and nag me when I'm giving

a speech to a room full of guys, for example. I really just cannot stand that. What's your opinion? I've seen more and more of this, again, as an outsider looking in on these trad wife Instagram reels. I don't want to accuse these women because in a sense it feels like they're trying to present something that's actually beautiful to the world. But it does sometimes to me and maybe that's just the nature of YouTube and trying to get clicks, it's going

to seem disingenuous to some degree, but it does feel a little disingenuous, especially when you'll see them like there's like a camera and it's filming them walking out onto their porch and sipping their coffee. You're like, I know you just set up a camera to do that. So it can't be as peaceful and calming as it looks. It's all vanity, but that's not necessarily an indictment. It is good for that. Like you said, something beautiful to be presented to the world It's a lot better than you know girls doing these tik-tok dances or whatever But you know, we do kind of have to call a spade a spade and be like you're not doing that every morning

The reason they're doing that and maybe this is a more cynical view But I think it's true is because traditionally women who are like, you know Stay at home mothers who are wives and they don't have to work busy. I got stuff. They're not running a YouTube account They also, they are, that is the ideal. I mean, most women don't really want to be dependent on an income. If they're passionate about their profession, they have a business that they like, sure, they'll do it.

But women who are able to exercise that autonomy and be the stay-at-home trad wife, when they're posting about that, I'm sure that they believe it is a good lifestyle, but there is of course an element of it that is signaling to other women that like, it is a flex. It is like, I get to do this, this is great for me.

It is about that like social media sort of validation to a large extent. Because you know that every time, you know, oh, my husband wanted this, so I made it from scratch. They're not taking two hours to make, you know, cookies every day. It's just not happening. They have other things that they should be doing.

They're editing a video. Right. you know cookies every day. It's just not happening Yeah, they have other things that they should be editing a video, right? So a lot of it is vanity and I also think a lot of the the sort of trad movement is like an Overcorrection for what the results of the social degradation have become and it sort of caricaturizes What traditional relationships traditional lifestyles are and it turns them into this like costume that can be presented for social media. And I think that that's like really sort of stupid in a lot of ways because now like I've got young guys who are like, my greatest ambition is that I want to go marry some woman and go homestead and have a bunch of kids.

And it's like, that's great. But you should probably also maybe do something great. Just you want to be able to tell your sons like this is what I built, this is my empire, this is what my mission was. And of course, your mission can also be your family, but they don't have to be mutually exclusive. And I think a lot of young guys are honestly just like despondent.

They don't see a path forward for themselves in the world, and so they kind of tell themselves, shoot, well, I'll just get married and have a bunch of kids, and they can figure it out. They can go do something great. And I just think that that's a negative mentality for guys. For me, I wanna just get married and have a bunch of kids and they can figure it out. They can go do something great. And I just think that that's a negative mentality for guys. For me, I want to bring my wife and children along the adventure that I feel called to. Right.

And I don't think a woman wants to be made the adventure because she knows that she's not Eve. She's wretched like you are and that you'll discover that sooner or later. Yeah. I want to take my wife along with me on this adventure and something much larger. Yeah. And that's what I think we ought to be doing. Yeah. I think it's almost like men are in a way becoming women. Um, and we're becoming so emasculated and domesticated to where, you know,

a few years ago, there was a popular meme where you would have a feminist and she would say, well, I'm a scientist. And then you would have like a trad wife and the trad wife would say, well, I raised five scientists. And it's to say like you think you're great. Whatever Well, I was a mother to these five boys and they became scientists or whatever's of my contribution Through nurturing these boys having these boys if we're gonna measure it like on paper is probably better But now it's like you're seeing guys embody the role of like the traditional woman where you know You've got a guy who's like I built you know, this great thing

I own a law firm and I do well, I'm a dad to five a guy who's like, I built this great thing, I own a law firm, and I do, well, I'm a dad to five lawyers, and it's like, okay, well, you should also be doing something great too. You want your kids to be able to think, my dad did that, that's awesome. He took the time from that to raise me, I must be pretty special and loved. That must contribute to the self-confidence of the children

and their feeling of being protected by their fathers. Another example of that too is, you know, maybe in my mom's generation, my grandmother's generation, women would say, well, I need to find a man who was ready to settle down and have a family. Now you have men saying that where they're like, I wish I could just find a woman who wants to settle down and have a family, please stop going to parties.

And it's like totally inverted. It's weird, you need to be like a man of power. Thursday, can you find that ad that Pope Benedict XVI's dad put out in the paper? Oh yeah. And I'm gonna read it. It's wild. It's so good.

Yeah, that's really interesting. Okay, so what where people need to understand that we're trying to be nuanced here. So like women who want traditional families, beautiful, awesome. There's something good about presenting that to the world. It also feels like laughing a little bit maybe. Okay, so if that's the kind of negative side

in that we're reacting to a degraded culture, how do men go wrong when they're reacting to a degenerate culture? I think they overcorrect. So we were speaking about earlier with, I will not allow myself to do anything that might be perceived to be a vice. I'm not gonna, you know, smoke a cigar,

I'm not gonna drink any alcohol, I'm not gonna play video games, like anything that might be something that isn't being totally dialed in, totally productive, disciplined all the time. And I think they almost make themselves, in a way, a slave to perfection as opposed to a slave to desire. It's like they don't really want to,

because I mean true discipline would be maybe being able to exercise in moderation and understanding like okay, I can have a cigar with my friends and that doesn't mean that I'm gonna be like Rush Limbaugh or something, just chain-smoking cigars all day. But it's being able to do things like that

without falling necessarily into either camp, either trap where you're like, I have to fit this model perfectly or else I'm gonna be this and this is completely wrong. And a lot of people, I think, just fear that they're, they don't want to be perceived as maybe being a total degenerate or something, because people are going to be like, oh, you had a glass of whiskey, you're like literally an alcoholic, something like that. Yeah, like literally. No, that's look up the word. All right, so check this out. This is what Pope Benedict XVI dad put out in a newspaper looking for a woman. Middle ranking civil servant, single Catholic, 43, immaculate past, we know what that means,

from the country is looking for a Catholic, pure girl who can cook well, tackle all household chores with a talent for sewing and homemaking, with a view to marriage as soon as possible. Fortune desirable, but not precondition. There you go. That's one way to do it. Couldn't have said it better myself. as soon as possible. Fortune desirable, but not precondition. There you go. That's one way to do it. Couldn't have said it better myself.

So then what is your advice for those men who are like, I just want to get married, but these women don't seem to want to get married. You're saying, well, just what? Go out, build something, do something interesting. Just go talk to her, bro. Just go talk to her and be yourself, man. That's all you have to do.

No, it's to say like, I can't say, was that sarcastic? Is that what that was? Okay. Because in a sense, I'm like, well, yeah, I guess that's right. But is that sarcastic because that's what people always say and that's why you're making fun of it? Yeah, it's because a lot of times,

guys in my generation will complain about the dynamics with dating and everything. And older guys who have already found a wife, they'll be like, me, bro, just go talk to her. And you don't understand how bad it is out there nowadays. But it's to say, when you become a husband and you become a father, you necessarily have to devote more of yourself to your wife and to your children.

Because if not, you're a bad father. And so your ability to build something, get something off the ground is going to necessarily be lesser than. And it's to say, like you said, sometimes you can come along for the ride. I'm assuming you maybe had this off the ground a little bit to a certain extent.

Your mission, your calling before. 1000%. Started multiplying, but it's difficult to do. I know couples who have done this, where they build something together themselves from square one, and that works. But in my experience, for example, dating, I have had to be a real jerk sometimes,

because it's like, look, I cannot give you what you need right now, because I experience, for example, dating, I have had to be a real jerk sometimes, because it's like, look, I just, I cannot give you what you need right now, because I just, I can't. I'm too focused on what I am doing, and it's unfair to tell you and sort of string you along and make you feel as though you're not getting what you need out of a relationship, because I'm so focused on my work,

and I'm sure at a certain point, it'll get to a level where I'm ready for that. But it's just, you know, you have to be mature enough to understand that, shoot, yeah, I would like to get married and have kids now. I want, you know, my parents to have more time with my kids. I want to be, you know, a younger dad, be able to do more stuff so that when I'm 45, I can still go on hikes with them or something, but I'm just like not there. I am too committed to what I am doing.

And I'm sure at a certain point that'll slow down. If it doesn't, maybe I'll have an honest conversation with myself and reprioritize, but you just really have to understand, you know, what your mission is, what God's plan is for you, and trust that, and not try to put yourself into a box necessarily. We're like, well, people on Twitter say it's really cool if I get married young and have eight kids and go be on a homestead. But then these other people say never get married until I'm 40, and you know, by the Andrew Tate course, it's like, what am I supposed to do? Just like, you know, just calm down, figure it out. It's not, you don't have to follow anyone's model necessarily. Just, you know, don't do anything stupid.

Be patient. Grow in virtue. Try to be a good man. Yeah, it's like when when men came into existence, they are in utero and dependent on the woman's body. Yeah. After birth, they're still dependent on the woman's body as a source of comfort. So when I feel agitated, there's mum. I go back on the woman's body as a source of comfort. So when I feel agitated there's mum I go back to the woman's body and there is this trap where we never break out of that so you get a little older and you feel agitated and you go to porn you're going to a woman's body to kind of regulate your emotional affect and I would imagine in your teenage years I

think growing older it's like I need a woman to make things okay and it sounds like you're saying is go after what you feel the Lord's called you to and don't be dependent on the woman for comfort. That might not be exactly what you're saying. I think that is true to a large extent. And when I speak, I'm not speaking to every man in the world. I'm speaking to your audience or to my audience, guys who presumably get it a little bit more, maybe have a little bit more introspection, understand the world more than just the average guy. And the reason I say that is because the average guy is very willing to just sort of like get married, have kids, just kind of go through life, cruise control, not really pursue anything

great, just sort of aspire to having a family. And of course, having a family, I mean, that is what you'll be thinking about in your death bed. I mean, no matter what you'll be thinking about in your deathbed. No matter what you accomplish for yourself, you're not gonna wanna be surrounded by your degrees or your investment portfolio. Or your employees or your coworkers. Exactly.

But it is to say you should still be able to pursue something and create a great condition for your family and something to pass down to them, make their lives easier. And I think that a lot of guys are very willing to pass down to them, make their lives easier. And I think that a lot of guys are very willing to just sort of get married. And when they get married, you hear this all the time, like, my buddy, he got married and he like died. Now he has to ask his wife permission to do anything. He never hangs out. We never see

him anymore because he's just at home and he's got his wife and he comes home from work and he drinks a couple of beers. He goes to bed on the weekends, maybe they go have brunch or something, but he stops existing in the way that he did prior. And you've seen that, is that like your experience here? It's literally the Vince McMahon meme where he's like, don't. Well, let me see if we're in agreement because I know that after I had kids, I would have not just single men friends,

but like married male friends without kids. And they didn't understand the amount of me that was required to love my wife and my kid. Like there's a lot going on once you have kids. Like you're a bit, your free time gets eaten up a lot. Yeah. Sounds like that you're taking. Yeah. It's not to say like, you know, dude, can you believe Brandon is not coming to drink with us when he's got an infant at home? Okay. Shouldn't he just like put his wife in check and tell her to change all the time? That's not what I'm saying. It's like they get married and before they even have kids, they become controlled by

their wives. It's not that they are doing their due diligence as a husband, being there for her, supporting her, providing for her, being her rock. They are now just not even autonomous. They're not men anymore. It's like they are completely controlled by their wives And typically these wives tend to be not as you described where they're very good women understand They tend to be very overbearing they tend to view these men almost not as husbands, but as little boys

And their husbands friends as threats to their to them was precisely yes And I think that's a very negative dynamic, and I don't think these guys are happy by the way I think they're just kind of coasting through life. They're like, well, I've got it figured out because I got married or whatever. And it's like, do you feel as though you are in charge of the situation? Do you feel as though this is what God wants for you is to be in this situation where you're effectively obedient to your wife? And maybe you have kids, but are you having kids because you want to have kids or because she's like demanding it? And you're just like, okay, I guess I'll have kids or whatever. One thing I've heard people like yourself,

your generation say to me is, you have no idea how bad it is out there, right? Yeah. And that's probably the case and I'd love you to tell me why it's bad out there. But then I also think, well, how do you know what it was like when I was dating? And is this just a cope because you're not married yet?

That could be the case. I assume that, you know, the reason I would guess is because there are certain statistics about like, you know, prior partners to marriage, sex partners before marriage. And I think the stat is like, the amount of women who were virgins prior to marriage in like the 1970s is now the same amount,

I think it's like 25% or something. It's not the same amount of women who have had over 10 sexual partners before marriage. So it's like inverted. And then the amount that was 10, it was like 5% in the 70s. Now that is like 25% or something. It's like completely switched. And so there's that.

And also you look at the way people spoke back then, they seem to be more intelligent. They seem to be able to speak about the world around them in a way that was more insightful and understanding than they do now. Whereas like now, you know, you go on a date with a young lady and she tends to speak in like TikTok or whatever. And it's like, it's giving red flags. They're just like, I'm just a girl. Or like speaking in a way that makes you want to become a danger to yourself basically.

And it's like very annoying. And so it's, I think more difficult. And by the way, I'm not saying this like as if the guys are any better. I'm sure the average guy is in a similar state of degradation But it's just to say if you're a young guy who's relatively virtuous Relatively put together and you're trying to find a woman who could match. Yeah, it's probably more difficult to find each other

Maybe the proportions have decreased, you know relatively Equally to each other, but it's more difficult to sort of find each other in that dynamic It's more clouded you have to kind of get through a more difficult difficult sort of labyrinth to meet people that are sort of at that level. I love your opinion on this. I'm trying to think this through. It's not terribly insightful, but I'm not terribly intelligent. So maybe you can help me with it. People go where the money is. That's always been the case. The money is online right now. So it's a lot easier to start a YouTube account or start a streaming service or something and start making money

because people aren't looking for tradesmen necessarily. Well, they might be, but it seems like it's quicker to make money this way. And so it bothers me as someone who is running a YouTube channel and has very little skills, God have mercy, that we're all becoming like that, increasingly skillless.

The only skill we have is to stream and to say based things. Yeah, absolutely. What do we do about this? Especially if it's understandable that people wanna go where the money is. You know, a lot of that, this is something like politics,

the Department of Education, I think in the 70s or 80s or something, they like removed all the shop classes or something. So like in the middle school I went to, my dad would tell me, we used to have like full shops and you know, kids would learn how to do woodworking and like welding even, I think.

There were welding classes and now, you know, no one has any practical knowledge. People have to Google how to change their oil, how to change a headlight. And I'm not one of these guys who will tell you like, if you're a real man, you have to do all that work yourself. Like sometimes if you're working a very, you know, strenuous job, maybe it is a better use of your time,

literally, to just pay someone else to do it rather than you yourself do it to prove that you're a man or something. But people don't know how to do basic woodworking, basic carpentry, home maintenance. And yeah, by the way, I'm not saying that like I know, but I have made time to learn how to do those things. And there's a book that I forget the title of it,

but it is like a handbook of things that you should know how to do around the house, things like that. Because I don but it is like a Handbook of things that you should know how to do around the house things like that Because I don't want to be like a slave You know if like I don't know how to do something now I have to Google it or pay some contractor to do it It's all very easy and you feel better when you do it like I remember when I got my first car my dad showed Me you know here's how you change a headlight here's how you change the oil

And I would do that because I don't have anything else better to do and I always felt good like I'm working on my car I changed the brakes on my car like I can do something or even like the first time I think I patch drywall because you know, you're a young white guy Sometimes you and the drywall have an iffy relationship something you got to patch it It's like I feel I feel good after doing that. I did something, you know I want to tell you about a course that I have created for men to overcome pornography. It is called strive for men to overcome pornography. It is called Strive21.com slash Matt. You go there right now or if you text STRIVE to 66866 we'll send you the link. It's a hundred percent free and it's a course I've created to help men to give them

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You won't regret it. G'day everybody, I want to let you, nope, start again. If you become a new annual supporter over at mattfrad.locals.com, this month only we are going to send you a free Pints with Aquinas Crystal Whiskey Glass. We're very proud of them. They're very beautiful. We try to raise extra money from time to time over on Locals because we have a lot of big plans, which are going to require a lot of money, to be honest with you. And so we'd really appreciate it. We just ask that you pay for shipping, but we can these crystal whiskey glasses to anywhere in the world. Again, that's just for people who sign up, who are new supporters this month, who are annual supporters, and we'll send that to you. But you should know, because this is my favorite thing and I wish I talked about this more because I think it's amazing.

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God bless you. Did you see the State of the Union address? I did Yeah, and I imagine you have thoughts. I tuned in, you know, with, I almost have to, by virtue of being, you know, a Republican voter, I have to display my membership card and say I didn't like it. But I loved it. It was still especially bad,

even considering that I sort of have to dislike it. I mean, it didn't seem coherent. He seemed very angry. The presentation was off. But even that considered, the win condition, kind of like we said earlier for Democrats, was we needed him to get up there and give a speech and not collapse and not have a gaffe,

or too many gaffes at least. And that was more or less accomplished. He said everything he needed to say to vilify the opposition, to justify any persecution of the opposition, compared them literally within the first 60 seconds to Adolf Hitler in Nazi Germany. And so for the Democrats, that was like a win for the country is obviously not so positive.

Marjorie Taylor Greene, is that a name? Yeah. What happened there? I haven't watched the she she yelled out, you know, say her name because there was a young lady who was murdered by an illegal alien. And then Joe Biden said her name, but he got it wrong. And then I think the people on Twitter, Democrats, and even some congressmen were upset because he used the term illegal to describe the person who murdered her. So is Democrats pushed back against that publicly?

Because yeah, you're not supposed to call them illegal because no human being is illegal. I don't know if you know that, but that is- I don't know, man. I got fired on my birthday a month before my wedding and thereby became illegal. You would think. I was illegal. That's what happened man. And so they were upset, but she basically, you know, yelled out.

She tried to have her own version of the you lie moment from the Obama State of the Union when he was speaking about the Affordable Care Act sort of. And so on the one hand I don't like that sort of conduct in politics. You know, I would fantasize more about the days of the past I don't like that sort of conduct in politics. I would fantasize more about the days of the past when people were just more professional, more classy. However, even then, that was still going on. So it's not completely unheard of in American politics. It's always been very rambunctious.

People used to get into fights on the floor of that building where that speech was delivered. Oh yeah, beat each other with canes. You almost would rather have that than this sort of bickering back and forth. Just go at each other. If you hate each other, let's just do this it's not a halfway but it was good that she disrupted it because it does throw him off you know this guy is on some unprecedented

concoction of uppers adderall god knows what just focusing reading the teleprompters and then when he's got some young lady or not young but some woman in the audience relative to yeah yeah who's yelling out at him. Now his train of thought is completely derailed. And so it allowed for her to show the world that this guy is not sharp. Maybe Joe Biden in 2008 would have a quip. Trump is always still very good at this.

Obama was. Even Hillary Clinton, when they would ask her in 2016, like, did you wipe your server? She would say, what, like with a cloth? People would laugh at that. And it's a good way of sort of disarming the fact that she had this server with these emails and she deleted them and they weren't able to investigate the conduct

and whatever, so it's very just casual. You have to be able to do that as a politician, and he, because of his age, and I almost feel guilty, I'm not relishing in this, it's just if you have family you understand, as you get older, you get dementia, Alzheimer's, this is what tends to happen. Unfortunately, that man is the chief executive of the nation.

Are you not afraid that the same might happen to Trump given his age? I'm sure could. I would not like to see that. I don't think it is happening right now. I mean, certainly he's not the Trump that he was in 2016, where he was giving rallies and he's very animated and New Yorker.

He's much more relaxed now, but I don't see him sort of declining in the way that Biden has. But what's also important is when you have a president, they're not, you know, working all the time and making all the decisions. You're voting for their administration. And the administration that Biden brings in is far different from the administration that Trump brings in. And so Trump himself maybe is going to reach a state where he's not as sharp as he used to be, but he's got, you know, a thousand young guys who are there with him, who understand what has to

happen from a policy perspective, or able to implement the agenda to where, if you weren't watching his speeches in comparison to 2016, you'd think that he's even improved because of his ability to execute on what he wants to happen in the country. Now, people thought DeSantis was a shoo-in. Yeah. You didn't. Why do you think his campaign failed? Well, there was no there. There's just it was never I almost feel as though the argument

should have to be made why it was going to succeed. Like it just seems so obvious that it was going to fail because there was no appeal. He was trying to be Trump, but better than Trump. But then he was failing at that because he was like, you know, getting into bed with these neocons and these never Trump donors. And he also himself is not like a really charismatic guy. So it was almost like, well, we wanna do Trump, but more right wing, but then also we're not really

more right wing than Trump because we're trying to be the guy that's actually electable because Trump is too polarizing. So there's really nothing there. But the reason I knew it was gonna fail, actually I predicted that this was going to happen in 2021 because I started seeing all of this media coverage about Ron DeSantis coming from all the media outlets,

which formerly were the NeverTrump media outlets. So these are people who are principally opposed to Donald Trump and everything that he represents. They make a living because of the sort of regularly scheduled GOP programming that Trump has been trying to disrupt. So they have a personal incentive and economic incentive to hate this guy. Then they understand that they've lost. They have to kind of buy their time, retreat back into the shadows, cover his presidency fairly, whatever. But then they started covering this guy DeSantis very favorably and they started saying DeSantis owns reporter, DeSantis takes on big tech. And I was like, wait a minute, there's something going on here because I'm reading the bill I'm looking at the press conference. This guy isn't taking on big tech

He passed a bill saying that Florida has to like legally define what a social media company is that doesn't help me at the time I was banned on Twitter or you know, he's telling a reporter who's asking him a stupid question, you know Get with the programming. It's like that's not really Donald Trump said like, you know He told people that they were gonna like put his he literally said on national television We're gonna put Hillary Clinton in jail and like that is where the bar is and you think DeSantis telling a reporter to get with The programming is like at that level. So it's like why are these people? Covering him like this. Why are they trying to make him into this sort of figure? I thought damn it They're gonna try to run this guy aren't they they're setting him up to try to Prematurely take the torch away from Trump. So why would they do that?

Of course, we know because these are the the neo never Trumpers So to speak people who always hated Trump see an opportunity to perhaps take the torch away from him Return it to somebody who can you know because Trump he's not gonna run again after 24. He's too old It's it is what it is. Yeah, so this is like his last shot And so it makes you wonder, why would DeSantis try to run now? I mean, he had it, he could have been the successor to Trump's movement, he could have been vice president,

he was the guy, so why go at that prematurely? And it's because all of his donors, all of his consultants, these are the remnants of the Jeb Bush class, these are the remnants of the John McCain, the neocons who don't like Trump, who want things to continue as they have been And so they saw an opportunity in Ron DeSantis to take that to put him in and install him Which is why they spent I think 100 or 200 million dollars on that campaign, which could have gone to

registering voters in swing states Advertising for Trump's campaign anything else, but they just wasted that money. It went down the drain It's like it didn't even exist simply to try to stop Trump's campaign, anything else, but they just wasted that money. It went down the drain. It's like it didn't even exist simply to try to stop Trump's operation. And a lot of that was, you know, a personal incentive because, you know, they rack up a lot of money in consulting fees and, you know, they give money to their friends and whatever. But at the end of the day, there was a serious attempt made by the remnants of, like, the GOP swamp to artificially stop what I call the Trump revolution. And they did that because they don't want that irritant.

They want things to continue as they have been, and they saw that opportunity in DeSantis. And DeSantis, I personally, I mean, I don't know if I'll ever trust him again, because he was willing to go along with that. And if he were really truly like this America first guy, he would understand, well, why are Karl Rove and these Jeb Bush donors cozying up to me

and giving me money because they want me to do this? Why am I coming out and saying, well, I don't really think America should be involved in the Russia-Ukraine war? Then my donors have a call with me. Now all of a sudden I'm walking that position back and I'm saying we should support Ukraine and things like that. It's like, is this really the guy who's going to get in there and disrupt the swamp? I mean, when you're governing as a governor, that's a totally different ball game. I mean, you've got majority of your party in both chambers of state congress. You can basically do whatever you want. That's why he's been so effective.

If you're a president, you're in DC, you're dealing with the bureaucracy, you're dealing with thousands and thousands of bureaucrats and agencies and the swamp. I mean, it's like a totally different operation. So it was offensive to me that they thought that they could just throw in this guy who's by all measures a career politician and he would somehow be more effective than Trump just because he was able to run a state, you know, it's a totally different operation. So we knew it was gonna fail from the beginning. We knew it was going to happen even before because we saw the writing on the walls and

it seems now that he's like completely hell-bent on self-destruction because even with some of the responses he's given, you know about like a perspective VP, where you've had people like, what if Trump picks you to be his vice president? He could have said, well, I appreciate the compliment, but I'd prefer to finish out my term as governor in Florida. But instead he gets on and he's like leaking phone calls to MSNBC saying, well, Trump's gonna pick his pick based on identity politics,

because he's talking about like a Ben Carson or a Tim Scott or something. And it's like, what are you doing, dude? Like it's over for him politically I mean the base doesn't trust him they view him as to say it doesn't also People are off put by him because they see these clips of him and he's doing weird things like the boots He's like getting there was that ever he's wearing like the the lifts was he's were ever decided It doesn't matter the public thinks it's real because they saw these clips of him or you know

They did an interview on Fox I think with Jesse waters where they're eating pizza and like the waitress puts the pizza in front of him and he goes like Mmm yummy and it's like this is not this is off-putting whereas you know clips of Trump tend to make people like him more because He's like one of these lights. They're so bright get him off and people like yeah like Trump in his natural environment is is Energizing and he's like captivating and when De Like, Trump in his natural environment is energizing and he's like captivating. And when DeSantis is in a natural environment, he tends to be kind of weird and off-putting. And that's fine.

If you're gonna be a governor, you're gonna be an executive, you don't need to be charismatic. But don't go with the guy who is because Jeb Bush's donors told you to, because now his political prospects are bad. And you know, I went pretty hard on him for a while because I saw him as that threat.

But then I saw the first round of the GOP debates and I saw who else we have, Nikki Haley, Tim Scott, whoever, then I was like, okay, I need to go a little bit softer on DeSantis, because he's actually pretty good compared to some of these other people. But I wish you would understand what his role is, to be that executive, to be the guy who gets things done behind the scenes and not try to have these almost

MacBethian grand political aspirations where you're gonna go with the king and take the throne away from him. So you could've waited four years, you're in your 40s, you have your whole life, why do it now? You must either agree at least with the swamp and think that you could be Trump but better or you're okay with getting into bed with these people

and being, I mean literally their puppet, they tell you to change your position on this, you walk it back, because you think that what you're gonna get out in the swamp and outsmart them, it's like, it's just totally delusional. So yeah, I was not happy to see that from start to finish,

because I wanted him to be successful. I have no personal grudge against DeSantis as much as I speak favorably of Trump, people forget in 2020, I was going so hard on this guy on Twitter, calling him all sorts of names because I wanted him to do better and he was fumbling on the riots. He was fumbling on COVID and I was like, you get, what are you doing?

You have an election coming up and you are placating, you are listening to Jared Kushner. You are looking weak right now. And I think, you know, that cost a lot of his, you know, core voters to not show out for him, even though, you know, we had the fortification. I think there was still, you know, statistically speaking, he did have a lower turnout for some of his core demographics, because a lot of what he was doing was just uninspiring. You know, he's placating to pander to the black voter to the Hispanic vote or to, you know, whatever.

And it's like, look, we elected you to build the wall to do this. Why are you spending time on these other projects? So I think that did affect it. But I went so hard on him in 2020. And people, you're a grifter, you're pro Trump.Trump, but now that it's unpopular, it's like, I've been so, when he's running an election, I am pro-Trump, I'm a cheerleader, get this guy in office. And then when he's in office and he's not doing his job,

then I'm the critic. Like you have to kind of understand how the dynamics play. And so I've been very consistent with how I view Trump, what I expect of him, and people who have an incentive to, because it's fresh, jump on the DeSantis train, because it's fresh, jump on the Vivek Ramaswamy train. This was very popular for some of these influencers when this was going on.

But it wasn't so popular to say, look, I know it's the same guy that we ran in 16 and 20, but trust me, he's still the guy. Here's a two hour video explaining why. That's not very popular. You don't get money for doing that. You know, it's not, because it's not attractive, and I understand that. You know, it's not because it's not attractive and I understand that It's not attractive to say look. I know this guy lost in 2020, but he's still a pick in 24

Here's why it's like now people want something fresh They want a younger guy with more energy fresh ideas or whatever And so it was ultimately like a principled stance even though it appeared to just be this sort of like Trump grift or whatever But the grifting momentum shifts because it's a grift, you know, it's reading the writing on the walls and saying, the Santas is a hot commodity now, or this Vivek guy, he's a hot commodity. It's going and, you know, joining him or joining the Santas or wherever. So the the true Trump fans, the true Trump patriots, you know, staying on the Trump train,

there was a lot of room in the car, I'll tell you a lot of elbow room for a while there. Whenever you try to be like someone but better, you often come off as artificial because you're not being yourself Yeah, and you think I saw the way Mike Pence spoke and he just sounded like a computer. Yeah, it's almost like Trump is to Mike Pence what? Podcasts are to news anchors There's a there's an honesty in podcasts that you don't find on mainstream There's a there's an honesty in podcasts that you don't find on mainstream News shows and there's an honesty about Trump whether you like him or hate him He just seems like he's being authentic

Absolutely when people try to take a page out of his playbook and pretend like they're Trump. It's just very cringy Yeah, and to you know Trump when he gives a speech at a rally He goes up there with like a three by five note card and he just riffs for like two hours And it's like the greatest I mean, some of the funny, people play the Reagan clip, which by the way was staged where the balloon pops and he goes, missed me, and people think he's the funniest president ever.

Donald Trump says things every day that are funnier than that. And I'm not trying to mog Reagan, but the things, the way that he speaks, I mean, when we had the hurricane and Trump is doing a promotion talking about the disaster and he's like They're saying it's one of the the wettest we've ever seen from the standpoint of water just like things like that What does that even mean from from what other standpoint would you be evaluating the hurricane?

Or one time I saw him he was at CPAC in 2021 He was speaking about like he's talking to some aircraft mechanic or something and he was like, yeah They're talking about they're regulating the steam and now he's saying mr. President We have so much steam that we don't even know what to do with it It's like what kind of a sentence is that just like the way he speaks is so funny but yeah, he'll go up there and he'll just riff and DeSantis was trying to capture that sort of energy and so he'd have his note card But his note card had the pre-written one-liners on it,

which were, you know, lines that he could say to get those viral moments so that the reporters could write to Santus, owns, you know, Gavin Newsom or whatever. And it's like when he was debating Gavin Newsom, I think, he had a line where, you know, Gavin Newsom was like, are you gonna run? Are you planning to run?

And he was like, the only old donkey that I'm gonna be taking out is like you or something. Maybe it wasn't, he was debating some Democrat and he had that line about old donkey I'm taking out as you. And that was supposed to be his big moment, but the delivery was off. You could see him glance down and read it.

And it's like, you just don't have it. And that's fine. You don't have to have it to be an effective political actor, but you have to understand that Trump is the guy right now, and maybe you want to wait that out and you want to go be Trump but more effective later on, but there's no reason to try to prematurely subvert that unless it's malicious, either because of your ambitions or because you're getting into bed with these people who are

whispering into your ear, telling you that you could be the president, or you just have to take this position and accept money from these people or whatever. And it's just like, it was a bad idea. It's very poor judgment. And honestly, that he would have that poor judgment to even do that to himself is almost an indictment of his presidential efficacy in itself. Because it's like, if you have that judgment, I mean, kind of judgment, are you going to exercise, you know, when you're in charge of the nation? You know, anyone who's in the public spotlight at all or has a substantial social media following knows what it's like to get in trouble with the internet and have the internet like fall

on your head and hate you. And at first, I remember when the first few times that happened to me, I was very overwhelming. Yeah. Lately, it's happened. I do not care. Yeah. In fact, I just press into it. Something changed.

But I don't know what it must be like to be one of these people who's running for president and to have all these smear campaigns and then you lose and then you just go about your life. Yeah. And in a way, they're right to go about their life because everyone forgets about it five minutes later anyway. Yeah. But it must be a really bizarre experience. Yeah. You sort of just view people as like pixels on your on your phone. It's like, yeah, okay, this is so real right now.

I'm on Twitter and everyone's calling me names, but I can put my phone down and all of a sudden life goes on. And my dad calls me and he doesn't know anything about people calling me gay on Twitter or something. It's like life just continues and everything is fine. So it's very artificial. You get locked into like these virtual worlds. You know, people hate on you for whatever reason.

But how do you think Gay Month is going to go this year? It felt like last year there was significant pushback against it. Yeah, I think it'll probably continue You know a lot of conservatives for example are really excited Because of Target because there was a boycott or something where you had people upset because of the pride month displays for children Right at Target and so they were saying see look conservatives can organize we can boycott just like with Bud Light But I think that these were anomalies. I don't think that it's a replicable course of action and my prediction is that it's gonna continue.

Like you'll see it still at Target, the Pride Month displays. I think it'll be dialed back significantly, don't you? I would hope. I hope that you're right. I just, maybe I'm more pessimistic because I just don't see an incentive for that because the pushback to Bud Light Wasn't because of social media organizing

It wasn't because you know conservatives found a way to be effective and I'm hesitant to use that as a verb now I see people all the time like we need to give them the Bud Light treatment Okay, how do you plan to do that? The reason that Bud Light was effective is because it's a light beer Nobody's married to that. You've got a thousand options and what it became was a way to call each other gay. If you're at a bar and you're ordering a Bud Light, hey, I didn't chew it, oh, I don't want it, no. And it's like it was very easy to make that switch or whatever, you know, you've got this company shoving

this Dylan Mulvaney character in your face, and you're like, screw you, I don't wanna deal with that. But that's a light beer. Target sells a lot more than beer and clothes. A lot of people go to Target, people like Target, it's convenient. Where are they going to go? Walmart, some other, I don't even know if you call that department store, retail store, whatever. Even like Amazon. I'll see people like, we need to give Amazon the Bud Light treatment. Good luck. Good luck with that. So I assume it'll return. I don't think the conservatives have the power that

we would like in terms of like these mass boycotting organization and you know, things like that. I wish that we did, but I think it'll probably return. Maybe if dialed back a little bit, maybe they'll just have pride stuff for adults, but not pride stuff for kids. And we'll say, okay, well, this is a victory. And it's like something even five years ago, that would have been unthinkable.

Yeah, I think that that rainbow flag has no place in civilized society. It's disgusting. And it's disgusting because of what it promotes. It's satanic. And it's so interesting. You know, people think that we're beyond a cult symbolism, like we're too smart or sophisticated for that. That isn't a cult symbol because you notice like the rainbow, which God created as a

promise to Noah, never to flood the earth again, to cleanse it of wickedness. They take that rainbow, which is a promise of God's mercy, and they wave that God's face and they say say we're mocking you We're saying we are going to be prideful We're going to do abominable Abominable behavior and we're daring you to basically bring the fire and that's why the flag too if you count the stripes on it It has six stripes not seven like the rainbow the rainbow seven colors seven Of course God's number six of course being Lucifer's number

So it's of course it's an occult symbol and that's why they wave and that's why that is the flag of the American Empire That is what that flag represents when you see, you know, the pride flag flying overseas at our embassies That's a display of American power because even though you know Muslims are worshiping, you know, just a different demon They see that power and that is a symbol of American imperialism because it says we're here We will militantly enforce feminism and gluttony and anal sex and all the things that represent the just disgusting American culture and you can't do anything about it.

It's like you go into London 30 years ago and you see, you know, Great Britain's flag flying everywhere, you know, literally blanketing streets. See that now in America during Pride Month and pretty much throughout the year on people's balconies displayed wherever, that's what that flag means.

That flag means perversion, inversion, just complete rejection of what is natural in pursuit of simply what feels good, do what thou wilt. Yeah. So did you grow up Christian? Were you Catholic? Catholic, yeah. Did you ever come to a point

where you accepted it intentionally for yourself or were you always just adherent to the faith? I call it my edgy atheist phase when I was maybe like 12, 13, because I would have to go to, now I have friends who are converting and they're going through RCIA and it's like an hour a week for like nine months. I had to go an hour a week for like nine years every Monday and I did not enjoy it because I'd go to school all day and I'd have a little bit of a break and then I would, you know,

have to go to catechism for an hour and a half, and I did not enjoy it. Why, for confirmation or something? Why did you have to go? So I thought, is that not the process for most people? I guess growing up raised Catholic, you have to go to catechism, right? You have to go to-

Yeah, I mean, I think people have different parishes, have different programs. Those who get confirmed later tend to have some sort of course, and it might be like that, yeah. So ours was, you start in first grade, you're confirmed in eighth grade. Okay, all my kids were confirmed as babies. We're Eastern Catholic and I'm not joking.

That sounds nice. So they don't have to go through one of those courses. But I'd actually want to. It's funny, we're in Austria right now and they're actually doing courses for confirmation, even though they've all been charisma to confirmed. They wanna go, but anyway. I think it's almost better.

And maybe I'm just trying to do my past self a favor, but it's almost better, I think, to wait because I wasn't retaining it and I wasn't appreciating it the same way that, you know, in second grade we did a course on Michigan history. I don't remember that. I'm eight years old. So I almost would have preferred to have waited because then, you know, coming back to the faith, I now have to do all of that reading again to supplement just because my brain was so plastic and it was not retaining these things. Now, you said 12 or 13, I'm wondering how old you are.

That would have been about six years past the new atheist craze, I suppose, since you were born in 99. You know what? So when did that, because my understanding of that was like 2010s or earlier. Yeah, you're right. It's probably around that time. Yeah. So you know, you're seeing like you're 12, 13 and you're looking for any reason to not go to catechism. And so you start having theological arguments with your mom. And your mom is a great woman, but she's not, you know, Mother Teresa.

She's not gonna debate with you. So if there were very simple arguments that I was making and she's like unable to answer the- Why do bad things happen? Literally, if God real, why bad? And she's like, just get in the car. What are you doing right now? So that gave me permission to sort of be like,

well, me, me, me, guys, not real, because bad things happen, you know, you have no proof. Well, if Jesus is real, then why does this Indian guy think that Hindus are real? It's like these very like sort of easy, no regard for any like intellectual tradition, just like literally I'm 12 and I don't wanna go

and I will find any ad hoc reason why. And so that gave me permission to then see, like, you know, George Carlin did a stand up bit one time when he was making fun of Christians, and this guy seems really edgy and whatever. And that sort of actually, the whole George Carlin, it is a whole genre of content where people, the atheists, liberals, wherever, they view Christians as still having power in America.

And so they create this like false power and they think they're being so edgy and so subversive by making fun of Christ, by denouncing Christianity, mocking Christian morality. They think they're being so edgy and so bad, but they're not, you don't get in any trouble. In fact, you are celebrated if you go at Christ, if you make content that is degenerate and subversive.

So I remember watching content, I'm, this George Carlin guy is super edgy. Now I look at him, that guy is such a, he's just a loser dork. I mean, this is a guy, if he were still alive, he'd be doing bits like, just get the mask or get the vaccine. You know, he'd be like, totally like pro the regularly scheduled programming, not at all edgy, not at all subversive, not challenging anything. But because he was popular in a time where Christianity had more influence in society,

people look back and they're like, oh yeah, he was really speaking truth to power. No, he wasn't. The guy was like a total libtard. But you see stuff like that or you read some argument that's like, yeah, if God real, why bad? And you present that. And if your mother is, your sort of spiritual guy doesn't have an answer to that, then it's like it gives you permission to sort of become agn that, then it's like, it gives you permission

to sort of become agnostic and it's like, okay. And same thing, I didn't wanna go to mass on Sunday morning, I wanted to sleep in and it's like, okay, well maybe I can argue my way out of this. Didn't work, but I tried. And so, you get to be like 15, 16 and then, I remember I had this, it's not a crucifix, it's just a cross. My dad got me this chain when I was eight. and then I was wearing, I think, an American

flag on it, and then I was wearing a Celtic cross because we're half Irish, and then I just got the like stainless steel regular one. And I was wearing that because I understood by like the time I was 14 or 15, I agree with the teachings of Christ, even if I personally can't feel that presence and maybe I don't have faith, but I agree at least Practically speaking this is correct. And so I want to wear this as a sort of reminder to myself And so I liked that because this is sort of an heirloom now where it's like my firstborn son when he's 18 I'll give him this and it's like I've worn this on my body since I was 13 years old 23 hours a day except for like when I shower go swimmingly this, like this has been there. And so I will give this to you

and anything you encounter in your life, your dad, you know, you don't even know what I have encountered or gone through, but you will have that as a reminder of not only like the struggles that your father's gone through, but also like Christ's presence in your life. So I'm wearing this as sort of an investment for that reason, but also because I arrived at that conclusion

sort of independently and I was like, okay, maybe I'm agnostic or whatever. You know, it's like, well, I can't prove it either way, so I guess, I don't know. Then I got to be 18, 19, and then I started doing YouTube. And I started speaking about politics, speaking about what I believed is right, and then things started going really well for me.

And I was like, this doesn't make sense. I thought this would maybe go well, but it's going really well, suspiciously well. This doesn't make sense. And so I started reading more and I was like, maybe I am a vehicle for some greater plan. Maybe I am actually an instrument that is being used to communicate these things.

Maybe this isn't my work because I had a plan, I had an idea, but there's no reason it should have worked. It could have so easily failed. So maybe there is something greater than myself going on. So I started reading some books by Matt Walsh, I think I read one of his books. I read this. Church of Cowards is a great book. I'd recommend the people.

So before that, I read The Unholy Trinity that he put out, and that was a good summary of issues of sexuality, gender, and marriage. Then I read Church of Cowards. I was reading C.S. Lewis, and I was like, okay, this is actually true. This is actually real. And so that gave me permission to come back. And then I remember it was maybe March of 2019,

or maybe 2020, I went back to confession at my parish. I hadn't gone in maybe six, eight years. And yeah, how long has it been since your last confession? I was like, man, probably like half my life ago, honestly. I don't know, so it had been a while, but since then I've kept a pretty regimented prayer schedule and church schedule. And so I've been more involved in it,

because a lot of times people turn to faith when things go bad, but it's sort of, like we said earlier, with sympathy or viewing things, when things go good, you have to kind of wonder why. It's very easy to say, I did this, I worked really hard and I deserve this, but there is pride in that. You have to wonder, wait a minute,

the universe is so chaotic and accidental, there must have been some higher order that decided this was going to happen Why why did that happen? And so that sort of gave me permission to I think come back to it, right? So you had more of an intellectual conversion when you were 18 or 19 which credibility because it's one thing to say like a philosophical System works. Yeah, and maybe the people who adopt this philosophical system tend to be more sane than other people and so you get in Their club. Yeah, you can get in their club without believing the sort of metaphysical underpinnings for that system.

But when you start to go, okay, no, this is plausibly true and atheism, I'm not buying the arguments, I get it emotionally. Why, you know, evil, you think about evil, how could a loving God allow that? I get that emotionally, but I don't think that works. And then you invest in it, yeah. Yeah, and two, it's like, when you really think about it,

everything you experience in life, like all of the joy that you experience, when all's said and done, that either means something or it means nothing. And not even in human beings, like, you know, you think about the times that you've laughed so hard with your friends, like you're physically in pain, or, you know, your mother gives you a card

on your birthday or something. Those moments mean something, and we all feel that. And you can make it this very materialist argument with well that's because your neurons are firing and you're secreting this hormone and it feels good. Shut up dude. Like is that really what you believe that this is all accidental and it means nothing?

If it means nothing, honestly, then why not just like kill yourself? Like why not just like if you're ever upset, just blow your brains out? Because like that's the same thing Physically as if you know when you handed me the the sparkling water and it exploded it's all just matter moving around Yeah, so okay my brain matters now on you know the whiskey bottle But it's like what even is the difference if it's all meaningless at all means nothing It's just matter and so you have to make that choice like does it mean something or does it mean nothing?

And the experiences that I've had that are just very great, very not great, seeing the way even animals interact in nature, the way that they play with each other, the way that, you know, bears will frolic around or dance in a stream. Why do they do that? What is the evolutionary argument for why a bear is more able to pass down his seed if he has fun in a river? Maybe beauty in the world exists because God made the world beautiful and God wants humans to Enjoy life and be happy and follow his teaching that makes more sense to my rational faculties Than it just being a total accident that that is Incomprehensible to me and I'm even willing to just roll those dice

Maybe I'm wrong and then you know when I die everything just goes black and it's like okay It's like Pascal's wager you know maybe atheists have like two two hour video essays about why that's illogical. I don't care It's like too long not watching I'm gonna go enjoy life have fun with my friends and be a Bosco is to know as our friend Thursday says I will have fun and not sin and that will guide my life, you know Yeah, no amen. Yeah, if we've merely been coughed into existence by a blind cosmic process that didn't have us in mind If we've merely been coughed into existence by a blind cosmic process that didn't have us in mind, since there is no objective mind-independent meaning to the universe that follows inescapably, there is no objective purpose to your life.

And that's the thing we really hope to be true. We would like ourselves to have a purpose. It seems to me if God doesn't exist then, then you're left with subjective purposes. You kind of tell yourself you have this grand mission, but at the end of the day, you'll be dead. Everyone you love will be dead. The universe will end in what they call the heat death, and there'll be nothing. So that might be true, right? It might be the case that there's no God, but why think that? And I'm with you. It seems to me that if I look at the arguments for theism and for atheism,

and even if I were to find them on par equal, such that I can't decide, right? Which is not the case. I actually think the arguments for theism are far better. But if it were the case, then it seems to me that I'm sort of within my rights, not that there is such a thing, to sort of go along with whatever I want to be true. And if you say, well, aren't you lying to yourself? You say, well, why would it be wrong to lie to yourself? Where do you get this idea of objective morality anyway?

Yeah. And one of the things too that was very compelling is, and I don't believe in viewing Christianity as a sort of like utilitarian, you know, I should follow it because it's better for me. But you notice that when you do what God wants you to do, things just get better. Things in your life improve. And when you do what God says you to do, things just get better. Things in your life improve, and when you do what God says not to do, things actually get a lot worse, and you feel that sort of corrosion on your spirit. And so that has to mean something. That has to be a vindication of something. I mean, that can't just be a coincidence.

It would be like if you had before you a nice red steak and a glass of wine, and then over here you've got turkeys and Mountain Dew. Turkeys, that's what you call them in America, don't you? This I don't know some bad Doritos, let's say. Right. And you're not sure which one's better for you. And suppose these are the only two options you have to eat for the rest of your life. And what you find is, well, when I go with the Doritos and the Mountain Dew constantly all the time, I feel really gross.

And when I go with the with the water, let's say, or the steak, I feel really great. Well, I'm going to go with that. Even if I can't tell you scientifically why this is better than that, my experience tells me that this makes me healthy. So I'm going to go with that. So too with Christianity. I mean, I was a fornicator. I even told my girlfriend once that she should get an abortion if she was pregnant. And I said it so flippantly, like, and I was shocked that she was shocked. I was just evangelized by friends and Cosmo and the culture of death. And it was gross and looking at pornography and masturbating and what a gross, effeminate, cream puff life to live.

It didn't work. I wasn't satisfied. And, you know, and now I very much am. And it's not that it's without the cross, without pain, without sadness, without suffering, but there's meaning in it. Exactly, you're gonna be suffering, and it's like, okay, I'm suffering because raising children is hard.

Being a husband is difficult. I mean, that's why there's nobility in it. But if you're still suffering, but what, so you can eat Doritos and drink Mountain Dew? I mean, well, to that I would say, embrace the third position and have the steak with the Mountain Dew. I think that is actually the optimal combination

for the man in America. But no, you're absolutely right because people actually aren't irreligious. I mean, there are no real atheists. They outsource their meaning to something. They have religious beliefs. You know, there's a saying online that every state has blasphemy laws.

It just depends on what those are. Like in this country, you know, like with George Carlin, it's very easy to get on stage and monetize and make money by making fun of Christ. But you can't do that with someone like George Floyd. If you do that, you'll probably be arrested, maybe even killed. That is something that's sacred in this country,

is these social causes to which these people dedicate their lives. So they'll say, there is no God, existence has no purpose. What that means is I just want to do whatever I want and be a slob and have promiscuous sex and just do whatever I want, just be lazy and be like totally just of nothing. But then they dedicate themselves to those social causes

and when they hear someone speak poorly of one of their martyrs, Trayvon Martin, George Floyd, that evokes in them the same response as would someone in this town if you spoke poorly of one of their martyrs, Trayvon Martin, George Floyd, that evokes in them the same response as would someone in this town if you spoke poorly of the Blessed Mother. Exactly. Exactly. I was looking on my phone here, I was looking up a scripture verse.

It seems to me that as a Christian conservative, we ought to be tempered by Holy Scripture and the teachings of the church. Just like there's the kind of woke Olympics, you know, you see it spiraling and it becomes crazier and crazier and a sign that you're really woke and enlightened as you keep saying increasingly crazy things and you keep looking back at the people who haven't reached how crazy you are yet and you call them backwards. Yeah. Well, there's the temptation to do the same thing on the right where you become red-pilled and increasingly weird and calling everyone a beta male who's to the other side of you.

But here's a scripture I read today, if you hate your brother, you have no light within you. Like we have to allow the scriptures to temper and to rebuke and to reform our passions, especially in a politically angry environment like this, where we are tempted to hate Joe Biden. We're tempted to hate those who are promoting abortion rather than seeing them as our brothers and sisters within a spiritual battle who will spend all eternity in hell or heaven and for whom Christ died. Yeah. No, I think you're absolutely right. You cannot allow yourself to lose your smile

and lose your spirit. You have to have a love of mankind and a love of life and an appreciation for it because a lot of people, they fall into, even our circles, out of bitterness, out of a desire for revenge against those who they perceived have wronged them. It's one thing to pray for the deliverance of your enemies, but it's another thing to truly almost get off

on their downfall and bad things happening to them. And you can't view Christ as the sort of big brother who's going to come to the playground and like beat up the kid who threw sand in your eye. You know, you have to pray for the well-being, obviously, but you don't want to view religion as a sort of tool where it's like, okay, well, you know, I can't get a girlfriend because feminism or whatever. Well, just you wait because God's going to send you all to hell. And then I win.

And it's like, that's a negative way of viewing it, because it's just like viewing it as a sort of a tool for revenge against those who have wronged you instead of something that is that it really transcends our even comprehension of justice. Cynicism seems to me to be an easy way out because nothing's required of me except to essentially give up, give up on the world, I give up on the future. I give up on the future I give up on hope and then anyone who disagrees with me and has hope I call naive and so I'm both lazy and superior Right. You seem like a very hopeful man. You seem like You said you've said you've you're rather cynical you said maybe more cynical to me in certain

But you but you talk a great deal about the hope you see in these young men, you know, that you encounter, you know, the hope to reform things in the United States. Could you talk to that? Sure. I guess when I say I'm cynical, it's more so in a lot of the political processes, which I've seen because I've read a lot about, you know, what has happened and I've seen a lot. I think I have a pretty good timeline of events. And so when I see somebody come along and present something that they swear is a new idea and you have to listen to them, that I am more cynical towards because I've read about it, I've seen it, I know why that's probably not gonna play out. And that doesn't mean that I'm like back in the armchair,

like I'm so much smarter than everyone. It's just you see enough and you sort of understand how these things tend to play out. But the other side of that coin is I know what has worked throughout history. I know what has been a vehicle to advance Christ's word. And it is the spirit of these young guys. And so seriously, I'm sure you've seen it

a million times too. And they come up to you and you talk to them and you can see it in their eyes, they have this life and they truly believe that they can be a force for good in the world and they can change the world. And it almost makes you literally wanna cry because you just see these young men and they believe that they can do these things

and they can't and it's true. And there's been so much in the world that has been designed to beat them down and to take that force and redirect it into nothing, whether it's alcohol or sports betting or pornography or marijuana, and to take that light in their eye and just kill it and crush it.

And insofar as we can preserve that and protect it and channel it into something good, that is the highest calling, I think. And making young men more able to actualize God's plan for them is the greatest thing we can do because that is how things tend to happen. I mean, again, we love women and women have an important role,

but when men decide that history has to change and the trajectory of things has to change, that is when it happens. Yeah, the strength of men is indispensable. If a street, if a neighborhood is safe, it's because of the men. Yeah. If a country is safe, it's because of the men. We need the strength of men.

And so how sad it is to try to rob men of their strength, which is what pornography does, essentially, it emasculates men, robbing them of the ability to be masculine. If masculine in its genius is my strength on you for the sake of you, for the sake of my wife, for the sake of my community. Pornography says the opposite. It's like, I take your strength. Like I rob you of your dignity for my lower passions. And then when a man tries to come out of that,

he's called toxic. Yes, exactly. And that's why too, it's such a tell when states are trying to pass age verification laws. Like, okay, we're not gonna ban pornography, but if you wanna access it, you need to verify your age with an ID or something, or a credit card. And these companies are now shutting down servers

in those states, because they're saying, well, we're not gonna, so what does that mean if you're a company who is distributing pornography, and you find out that children are no longer going to be able to access your product, and you shut the whole state down? You're like, fine, we're not gonna do business. What does that mean about your intentions as a company?

I mean, think about it. If you're selling cigarettes, you probably want people to get addicted to cigarettes so you can sell more cigarettes. These companies are selling pornography, sex, ad revenue. And when a young man's brain is most plastic is when he's most susceptible to literally crystallizing these neural pathways,

neurochemically in his brain, which we did a whole two hour video on that on my channel, which goes through all the science behind that. But the average age of exposure being 11, and again, that's average, meaning 50% is even lower than that. And that number, by the way, that average gets lower every year

with when boys are being exposed to this content. So of course they have an incentive to have their product accessible to boys at a younger age, people at a younger age. And so it's just so pernicious and evil because of that and there is something too about you know Meeting the average man where he is where the people who built this country, you know The Christian political tradition the Anglo-Saxon political tradition They understood that the average man is not going to be this hyper vigilant, looking for temptation around every corner, always on guard.

They understood that. And so they had to create a society that protected against people being able to profit off the degradation of their fellow man, such as by selling pornography. It's one thing if you've got a theater, you've got guys who wanna go to the theater and watch like people have sex on a big screen or whatever.

Those theaters like that have existed, theaters like that have existed, theaters like that have existed, ever since there have been theaters. Big shows, things like that. It's contained. But the democratization to where any child can access this with a simple Google search, that's absolutely unacceptable because if I see a billboard for marijuana,

I can acknowledge that's a product or maybe I want McDonald's. But the second you see pornography, and honestly in many cases even hear about it, the male brain is wired a certain way to want to pursue that content that's enticed by it. So you are no longer the same rational consumer like in a marketplace where you're like,

my options are to watch porn or not watch porn, and then you see porn, you're not evaluating, should I make this decision? You're like a dog smelling steak. It's already pursuing or pushing you in that direction. And so it has to be regulated because of that, knowing how men are, how human beings are, and frankly, how evil the people are

who are profiting off it. So I mean, they know exactly what they're doing. They know what they're doing to the family structure. These people get off on that subversion. That's why the two most popular porn categories right now, if you go on these websites, are like incest, where they've got families having sex with each other which is in the young man's mind Sexualizing his relationship with his sister and with his mother and that develops or they have like interracial stuff

They want like young white Christian boys to see black guys having sex with white women as a form of I believe Demoralization we have to wonder why are they pushing that in particular so hard this kind of pornography black guys white women I mean you see it even in advertisements. Why are they doing that? I think it's because they want to demoralize young American boys who predominantly are white and see that sort of imagery You know their families are being sexualized the idea of them being bred out of existence is something that they're now getting off to It's like a very humiliating and debasing kind of content, which of course would be produced by people who hate American Christians. Mason Hickman Yeah. So a lot of things you've said today, you've changed how I think, because I think you talked about weed like this. You said

we were given this lie, or many of us come to think that, well, the government's allowing us to have pot because it's grassroots. But you're saying a lot of it's top down. Jason Krook Oh, it's all, there has never, I promise you this, there has never been anything that's happened politically for the most part that has happened because of a top down. If it is, or excuse me. Bottom up. Bottom up, if it is bottom up,

it is because people have gotten together and they have organized and they have worked their way through institutions and accumulated power, which is then used to implement their agenda. All of the biggest accomplishments in the latter half of the 20th century of social liberalism happened because of court rulings, because of lawyers, because of these NGOs. It wasn't because of protests, the civil rights movement even. The civil rights movement had the backing of cultural elites, Hollywood elites, financiers,

people who wanted to enshrine equality as the governing point of the nation rather than a meritocracy as the founders envisioned. And they write the history books such that everyone just woke up one day and were like, wait a minute, why are we picking on these people for looking different than us? That's so stupid. We know better than our grandparents. It's not actually what happened. Same thing with the gay rights movement.

It literally started in bars, gay bars. They were organizing, they had activists, they had psychologists. It started in 1973. They had a group of psychologists who called themselves the gay PA, as opposed to the APA, the American Psychological Psychiatric Association, who infiltrated the organization

and put pressure on them politically to take homosexuality out of the DSM, which is like their Bible for mental illness, to say it's not a pathology, it's not something that's weird, it's actually totally normal, because they knew that in order to gain acceptance of this in the mind of the American public,

they were gonna need to take away the ability of people to say, wait a minute, isn't that like a mental illness or something? So the research they submitted to disprove the pathology, which by the way, I spent a couple of Thanksgivings ago doing this. If you go through the literature medically on homosexuality, it is fascinating

what actually causes this because people think it's genetic, people think it's maybe, that research has been shelved away like the ending scene of Raiders of the Lost Ark, literally, like just in a warehouse gone, no one touches it, everyone thinks it was like crazy. The piece of research that they submitted to get this taken out of the DSM was they did a study

where they had a group of heterosexuals interpret Rorschach tests, you know, like inkblots. Write down your interpretations. And they had a group of gay people do the same thing. Write down what you interpret. Then they had a random group of people compare these two groups of interpretations. Say, do you see any difference between these?

Said, no, not really. It's not a pathology, it's the same thing. They got that, that's how they got that taken out. And now there's a podcast that was recorded on NPR, your tax dollars, called The 81 Words, where they celebrate that this happened, that these gay activists came in, infiltrated the APA, got it removed,

and then now there's transsexuality has been removed, all these other things, that's how it happens. And they write the history books to say, everyone just woke up and realized, wait a minute, love is love, why are we picking on these people? It's never how it happens. It's always these hyper organized groups of people who infiltrate these organizations

and decide what is going to happen. And then they write the history to say that we all actually disagreed with this. And if your neighbor or your uncle at Thanksgiving doesn't, he's out of touch because that's better messaging, right? If we accomplish something, I don't want to write that like, oh yeah, we did this because the people are going to know that's kind of illegitimate. I'm going to write actually, we, that's kind of illegitimate. I'm going to write, actually, we all just sort of woke up one day and realized this.

We had a mass movement. You could do anything if you just put your mind to it. It's like, true, but that doesn't mean go wave a sign outside of a Capitol building. You have to be disciplined and it takes decades, but it can happen. So we have to do the same thing, but in the opposite direction, we have to crawl back up the slippery slope the same way that they threw our country off the cliff. This is why I think it's important that we don't allow our children to watch movies that would make a trans character, or be sympathetic to a trans character or a gay character, because

that's how they did it with Will and Grace and these sorts of things. They start putting that in your face. You start laughing about it. I forget what it was. Is it a man who was Otto, or the man named Otto or something? Tom Hanks. It was watching this with my wife.

It seemed like a lovely, decent movie or whatever. And then here's the trans character, and don't you feel bad for them? And you know, it's propaganda. Absolutely. And I am so tired of spending, you know, whenever I condemn sodomy, say, or talk about mutilating your body

as something despicable and disgusting. I'm so tired of having to spend 99% of the time reminding everybody, I don't hate you, I don't hate you. And then I'm so tired of doing that. And I don't think we should do that. I think we should be on the offensive. Oh, absolutely. Yeah, now look, I mean, there's situations

where you do need to be nuanced. If someone came to me and they believe that they were born in the wrong body, I would nothing. I would have nothing but sympathy and love for them. Yeah. You know, if somebody told me they have same sex attraction, I would love them. I wouldn't be weirded out. Whatever. Yeah. But it's it's the propaganda from the media and elsewhere that tells tells us that we hate them. Yeah. That it always puts us on the defensive. Yeah. And it's very convenient too

because they feel a sense of despair because of the lifestyles that they choose to live. And if they can blame that on this imaginary Christian power structure, then it's easier to vilify that and finally crush it into where it doesn't even exist anymore. But it's interesting the point you bring up about propaganda because we don't know how to make good propaganda

on the rights. We think it has to be this sort of like like in the video for example that you're watching about Conservatives making culture. We think it has to be very self-aware over the top, you know I'm Ronald Reagan riding a dinosaur firing off an Uzi like this is right wing propaganda One of the best examples of right wing propaganda Can you guess there's a movie that came out in 2006? I believe was it I was gonna say a quiet place It's our friend Mel Gibson's Apocalypto. Oh, okay.

He made that- I gotta go back and watch that. He made that movie, which you've seen it. Oh my gosh, 2000, you know, definitely not A Quiet Place, 2006. I think it was 2006 or 2007, and that was the first horror- I watched it, but I don't remember it. I'd like to go back and watch it. That was the first rated-R movie I ever saw.

I only got to see it in segments. My dad and my grandpa were watching, and my dad was like, look at this. And he made me put my face in a pillow for most of the movie, honestly. But for those of you who don't even know why I'm here. Yeah, it's about the Mayans, the Aztecs, one of those. And it's a story which is basically a very basic story

about redemption and sort of the struggle against a rival tribe. But what you see is an accurate depiction of how these people lived. And the closing of the film is he escapes and he gets to a shoreline and he sees the conquistadors. He sees the Spaniards on the coast and he's like, oh, what is this?

What are these ships? And he decides, I think, to like go away. And the others are, of course, going to have to deal with the conquistadors. And what that movie does is it leaves you walking away like maybe they were kind of justified. I mean, you think about what they were doing, the human sacrifice, the child sacrifice, these rituals.

Maybe it was actually good that that civilization was extinguished. It definitely was good. And that's one of the greatest indictments. And this is like a prelude to the Blessed Mother revealing herself in Guadalupe. And that's one of the greatest indictments of the Church, one of the greatest things that people are like, what about the Crusades? What about the Conquistadors? Whatever. And it's like, maybe that was justified actually. Yeah. Yeah, because you can spend the majority of your time apologizing and

nuancing such that no one understands what you've said. Yeah. Christianity historically has been at its peak when it was allowed to impose itself and in spread You know not necessarily just through pros to the pros to Lizing But by saying well the human sacrifice is going to stop actually we're actually not going to permit this anymore I'm sorry if this is culturally insensitive, but we're no longer going to admit these sorts of practices and now we do with abortion Yeah What do you got coming up on your channel? Not a whole lot. I don't know. I'm bad at making content. What do you do? Do you have

like a schedule? Is this your full-time thing now? I mean, you got a big channel. It is my full-time thing, but I don't, you know, I'll sit down, I'll try to make a video and I overthink serially. I'll open up a Google doc and I'll try to put every idea I have and different articles and research, and then it becomes this monster, which I then become afraid of and try to work on something else So I right now I have about 12 of those and just unfinished projects I was telling Thursday this like if I have an honest conversation with myself if I can Conceive of a possibility that there might be content creators out there who can't manage themselves If I can concede that that's probably true. 1000%.

Maybe I am one of those. And maybe I need some sort of schedule or something to keep myself more consistent because if I have total control then I'll just put out something when I want to, when I think it's good. And as proud as I am of the work I've done the last few years, what I don't like is being lapped by people who are less interesting, less intelligent,

and who promote things that are bad, ultimately. So I can be like, well, I'm putting out stuff that's better, what is it, quality over quantity. Okay, but at the end of the day, you gotta play the game. I might think it's cringe to really try to promote myself everywhere I go and always be posting reels and clips and everywhere I go, I'm posting pictures on Instagram. But then you've got people who are leading people

in bad directions and they're lapping me. And so that's not good. So it's like, if you're gonna play the game, you gotta go all the way, you know? Yeah. Now, did you learn how to do all that videography and editing on your own? Do you do that?

Do you have someone else who does that? Yeah, you know, this was actually a really great inflection point between my interest and skills growing up. My sister and I used to make these like home movies. And so she actually taught me like how to edit on our old like Windows computer. And so that

Translated well over to Final Cut which is the the software I use and different things like that So yeah, I was all self-taught which by the way video editing is not difficult at least for what I do You know just cutting things together if you want to be a good video editor like that actually takes some skill But it was easy to sort of teach myself how to do a lot of that stuff. Yeah Well, well done. You're very good I I did a couple of times I've watched you just kind of give a monologue and I'm like, how is he not reading from a teleprompter? It's you got a gift, man.

Thank you. Keep going. Thank you. Thanks for being on the show. Of course, this is a great time. All right. I got a question for you now.