Relatable with Allie Beth Stuckey - Ep 458 | J.D. Vance on Faith, White Privilege & The Big Things Worth Fighting For | Guest: J.D. Vance

Episode Date: July 22, 2021

Today we're talking to author J.D. Vance. Vance is currently running to represent his state of Ohio in the U.S. Senate, and we talk a bit about his politics and how his opinion on Donald Trump changed from 2016 to 2020. Then, we discuss J.D.'s faith and how his views on God have shaped his goals throughout his life. We also touch on topics like abortion, Big Tech censorship, wokeness and white privilege, and how China's CCP is harming America. --- Today's Sponsors: Annie's Kit Clubs helps you relax & recharge by getting in touch with your creative side & making something beautiful with their Creative Woman Club. Go to AnniesKitClubs.com/ALLIE & save 50% on your first kit! Good Ranchers safely delivers American craft beef and better-than-organic chicken, right to your door! Go to GoodRanchers.com/ALLIE to get $20 off & free express shipping! Alliance Defending Freedom stands up for religious liberty, the sanctity of life, freedom of speech, marriage, & parental rights in America's highest courts — at NO COST to their clients & is completely funded by the generosity of patriots, like you! Learn more at ADFLegal.org/ALLIE. --- Buy Allie's book, You're Not Enough (& That's Okay): Escaping the Toxic Culture of Self-Love: https://alliebethstuckey.com/book Relatable merchandise: https://shop.blazemedia.com/collections/allie-stuckey

Hey, this is Steve Day. If you're listening to Allie, you already understand that the biggest issues facing our country aren't just political. They're moral, spiritual, and rooted in what we believe is true about God, humanity, and reality itself. On the Steve Day show, we take the news of the day and tested against first principles, faith, truth, and objective reality. We don't just chase narratives and we don't offer false comfort.

We ask the hard questions and follow the answers wherever they leave, even when it's unpopular. This is a show for people who want honesty over hype and clarity over chaos. If you're looking for commentary grounded in conviction and unwilling to lie to you about where we are or where we're headed, you can watch this D-Day show right here on Blaze TV or listen wherever you get podcasts. I hope you'll join us. Hey, guys, welcome to Relatable, super excited about today's interview with author and Senate candidate J.D. Vance. He is going to tell us why he's running the things that he cares about. He's going to give us some really insightful analysis about the state. of our country, the state of Middle America, the state of conservatism, and also a hopeful vision

of where he thinks that we can go if we stand up and speak up about the things that we really care about. And so I'm super, super excited for you to listen to this conversation. He is awesome. And I know that you're going to get a lot out of this. So without further ado, here is J.D. Vance. J.D., thank you so much for joining us. For those who are not familiar, can you tell us a little bit about where you come from? Yeah, so I grew up in Middletown, Ohio, which was a classic steel town in southwestern Ohio, and was raised by my working class grandparents who, you know, my grandfather worked in the steel mill.

My grandmother was a homemaker and, you know, was able to live the American dream, went from Middletown to the Marine Corps, to Ohio State, to Yale Law School, now have a business here in Cincinnati with my wife and two beautiful boys. And think about my life and where I came from and the circumstances that I came from. And I almost just can't believe that I've been able to live such an incredibly charmed and good life. But it happened because this country has just been really good to me and not just the country, but you know, the state of Ohio, the people in my community. And it was, you know, it was a good place.

It was a rough place to grow up in some ways. We didn't have everything handed to us. But it was a sort of place I think that taught really important traditional American values about hard work and perseverance and dedication. And I'm glad that I grew up in that town. I'm glad that it gave me the lessons it did. Yeah. both my husband and I have been fans of you for a long time and I loved your book. We both loved the movie. But when we finished the movie, we were really left with this very sad sense.

Like we felt very heavy, not because your story isn't inspiring, but because it is. But both of our families come from rural working class, Arkansas, Louisiana, Middle Georgia. So even though our personal lives were different than your upbringing, we still felt like going generations back. We really related to your story. story. And I think what made us feel sad was just the antipathy, the animosity that we see from, I guess you could just say mainstream culture, you could say media elites, towards the white working class that also made us who we are, made you who you are. Can you talk about why you think that is? Why do you think that animosity exists, especially in a time we're talking about white

privilege and all of that? Can you give us just your analysis of where that seeming hatred comes from. Yeah, I've thought a lot about this. And I, you know, I've experienced it very personally, because when my book came out in 2016, there was this brief period where even liberals were picking it up and responding very favorably to it. And then when the movie came out, which of course is a dramatization, but it's pretty much the same story. There was this really intense liberal reaction, like how dare we tell a story about these white working class Americans? And I think that what it is, is that a lot of white working class folks, they don't fit the liberal narrative. You know, if you're a left-wing thinker today, you want to assume that every black person

is disadvantaged, every white person is privileged. And of course, there are a lot of black folks who are disadvantaged, but there are also a lot of white people who come from really tough circumstances. And instead of trying to understand those people, I think a lot of liberals want to put them into a box, they want to accuse them of having weird racial privilege, and they want to fundamentally ignore them and ignore the concerns that they have. I mean, look, my family, we're good people, we're hardworking Americans, but we've got problems. And I think if you're a liberal American or at least a liberal elite, you don't like to even think about the fact that there might be some problems that are unique to the white working class community.

You'd rather ignore them and have them shut up. And over the past four years, there has been an even bigger shift, I would say. Because like you said, when the book came out, it was very well received among, you know, left-leaning journalists, The first few pages of the book are, you know, praises from the Washington Post, from the New York Times, obviously, from Oprah. And then, like you said, the movie comes out and all of a sudden it's, oh, well, this is still white privilege. And there was just this backlash that I guess it didn't surprise me. I think what surprised me more was looking back at the praise that it received just a few years ago and how much that has changed. what do you think has changed in just the past five years alone to get those kind of disparate reactions?

Yeah, I think a lot of it is just politics, right? So in 2016, the world was shocked. Donald Trump was elected president of United States. And you had a lot of well-meaning liberals who were just for a couple of weeks and only a couple of weeks trying to ask themselves, what did we miss? What did we not understand about the rest of the country? And then what happened is it was, well, these people were racist. That's why they voted for Trump. Well, they were idiots. That's why they voted for Trump. or especially Russia, Russia, Russia, right? They were all tricked because Vladimir Putin bought $300,000 worth of Facebook ads. And that was, of course, really stupid. And there was no reason to think that people were motivated primarily by racism or by Vladimir Putin's Russia ads. But that almost became the narrative. And I think, you know, just for me personally, like you may know I was sort of a critic of Trump in 2016 and I became a more public supporter, not just of Trump the person, but of conservative politics more broadly over the last few years.

And I think a lot of liberals reacted negatively to me personally because maybe they didn't fully appreciate that I was not on their side politically. And so I think unfortunately a lot of the reaction to the book is all about politics. Even the praise from the book in 2016, people trying to be understanding to the criticism of the book in the movie in 2020. It was like, we don't care about these people. We hate them. They're bad people. Let's ignore them. And here's this guy saying, well, we shouldn't ignore these people.

These are American citizens. We should take them seriously. And you mentioned how your views on Trump have changed. You wrote a big article in the Atlantic. I think it was in 2016 talking about Trump and your negative views of him. Tell us what changed. We're talking about a lot of shifts in the past few years. Obviously, your views of Trump shifted a lot too. So tell us how that happened. You know, I think for me, it was actually seeing the inside of a lot of elite corridors and recognizing how corrupt the ruling class really was. You know, when Trump said, you know, you know, These people are all evil. They don't care about their country. My reaction was that doesn't make a ton of sense. Like maybe we should tone down the rhetoric a little bit.

I don't agree with what these people are doing, but are they actually bad people? And I think one of the things that just spending time in a lot of these elite circles made me realize is that when Trump says a lot of our leadership doesn't actually care about the country, they actually look down on the country. He was actually being right. And I saw it more from the inside. The more that I saw it from the inside, the more I recognize, look, I could be on the team of the people that I grew up. up around, I can defend their interests and defend their concerns, or I could be on the team of the liberal elites who are maybe going to bring a lot of money and prestige and power along with them, but they're always going to make me feel like I've sort of turned my back on my own

people. And so for me, it was the fact that Trump was really respecting, he cared for, and he tried to fight for. And I think he had a lot of successes on behalf of a lot of white working class Americans, whereas the people who hated Trump, they were just really vicious, not just to Trump personally, but it became almost about his voters too. And to me, it's like, look, Trump did a good job, right? I mean, I think thinking people should change their mind when the facts change. I think Trump had a lot of successes in policy. I think it did a lot of good things for the people that I cared about. And I'm not too big of a person to say, yep, I didn't fully see it. I didn't fully appreciate it. But I think he did a good job, but I changed my mind.

you get a lot of pushback, a lot of backlash on Twitter is what I see. Does it ever get to you that some of the same people who praised your book just a few years ago and maybe even hoisted you up as some kind of, you know, working class hero now think that you have just spiraled into immorality and you are just as delusional as they think other Trump voters are. Does that ever bother you? Yeah, I know, because I made the horrible, horrible mistake. of supporting Donald Trump and speaking openly about it. No, it doesn't bother me. I mean, I think, look, politics is a game to these people, and it's a game they've been

winning, and I want to push back, and I want to win the game on behalf of people that actually deserve to win, not on behalf of the elites in this country who I think really have plundered the greatest country in the world and feel no sense of sorrow about it. They feel no sense of remorse. And I think the reason they hate me is because I'm a guy who's standing and saying, look, you guys have misgoverned this country. You have not served the people that you're supposed to serve very well. And I don't care that they hate me. In fact, I take it as a bit of a badge of honor. One of the things that was interesting about Trump is, and again, this is part of why my thinking on him changed,

is he made a lot of the right enemies. A lot of the people who are most responsible for screwing this country up hated Donald Trump. And I take a certain amount of pride in the fact that those same people also seem to hate me too. And I don't think they'd spend any, you know, any time or any words denouncing me and calling me a terrible person if they didn't actually fear what I represented it. And so I'm actually happy that a lot of these folks are turned against me. I don't let it bother me at all. Hey, this is Steve Day. If you're listening to Allie, you already understand that the biggest issues facing our country aren't just political. They're moral, spiritual, and rooted in what we believe is true about God, humanity, and reality itself. On the Steve Day show, we take the news of the day

and tested against first principles, faith, truth, and objective reality. We don't just chase narratives and we don't offer false comfort. We ask the hard questions and follow the answers wherever they leave, even when it's unpopular. This is a show for people who want honesty over hype and clarity over chaos. If you're looking for commentary grounded in conviction and unwilling to lie to you about where we are or where we're headed, you can watch this D-Day show right here on Blaze TV or listen wherever you get podcasts. I hope you'll join us. before we get into a conversation about some of the policies that you are advocating for as you're running for Senate, as we're talking about kind of an evolution and shifts and change, I want to hear a little bit about your faith journey. This is a Christian podcast. You are a professing Catholic, I believe. I'm reformed Protestant. So a lot of differences, but I'm sure a lot of similarities too. And I think my audience would be interested to hear just how you came from the background that you did to being a Catholic today. I know that you're not.

your grandmother had a big influence on you for faith in general. My grandmother did too, a very strong influence in my life in a variety of ways. Tell us a little bit more about that journey and how you came to profess the faith that you have today. Yeah, absolutely. So before I answer, I want to get a plug into the website. If folks are interested, go to jd.vance.com to follow what we're doing. But for me, I think I came, like you said, my grandma was a very devout Christian. she was a woman of contrast. She had a very foul mouth on her. She cursed like a sailor. But she was a deeply committed Christian, and that was an important part of the way that I grew up. I think like a lot of kids who go off to college, they sort of feel the pressure to conform a little bit.

And they recognize that people who take their faith seriously are themselves looked down upon, I think, by a lot of our elites in our university system and just in the liberal world more broadly. And I think I let that pressure, even though it wasn't explicit to me, I let that pressure get to me a little bit. And I started to internalize this idea that if I wanted to be a smart person, if I wanted to be the sort of person who could fit in with these crowds, that I had to cast my faith aside along with a lot of other things. And I think that that faith journey really was about recognizing that so many of the lessons that the Christian faith taught me and taught my grandma were really valuable as I started to think about, you know, getting married and having a family. And the big thing to me is that I recognize that, you know, elite America takes a kid like me from a working class background and it makes them obsessed with all of these things, with achievement, with what kind of job you work in, with what kind of college degree you have. You want your kids to get into the very most elite university that they can. And I started to think to myself, you know, are all of these obsessions, are all of these concerns about where I go to school and where I get a job at, are these actually making me

a good person? Are they making me a good, the type of man who's going to be a good husband and a good father? And I recognize that it wasn't actually. It was making me obsessed with credentials and outward markers of success, but it wasn't actually making me a better person. It wasn't giving me a whole lot of character. And the more than I thought about, I thought, well, you know, the philosophy that has taught me the most about character and about the things that really matter

is the Christian faith. And so maybe I should start taking this a little bit more seriously. And, you know, I converted to Catholicism a few years ago and it really aren't a whole lot of Catholics in my family. And I think for me it was really a few things. I really liked the oldness of the Catholic Church. I felt like the modern world is so constantly changing and in flux. And here was this church that was really committed to some of the old traditions. I liked that. I liked the oldness of the church, for lack of a better word.

I also like the fact that I felt like the Catholic Church hadn't compromised on a couple of key moral issues. You know, the Catholic Church had stayed really committed on this idea that marriage is an important foundational, civilizational value. You can't just discard your husband or your wife like they're a dirty pair of laundry. And I think that recognition that the Catholic Church had stayed very true. on a couple of those key moral issues made me really attracted to it. But it's also just, you know, a lot of this stuff we try to overthink it and over-intellectualize it. I had a lot

of good friends who were Catholics. I met a couple of good Catholic priests who really, I think, understood where I was coming from in my faith journey. And so I don't want to pretend that I overthought it too much because really it was just, I felt at home in the Catholic Church. We found a good parish here in Cincinnati. It's been a good church home for us. And it's been the best decision I ever made is not just returning to the faith. but taking it seriously and letting it influence how I think about, you know, morality and character and virtue and how do you treat people and what's really matters and what are you going to be remembered for when you die? It's not where you went to school. It's the people that you met in your life and whether you can actually make an influence in their lives and have a real impact on your community. That stuff matters a whole lot more than I think what the elites often tell kids like me to worry about. Yeah. One of those moral issues that a lot of Catholics have been very strong on. And I would say just the Catholic Church in general has been very strong on. And the evangelical church has also been strong on is abortion. That is one of the moral issues that we talk

about a lot on this podcast. Can you tell us your position on that personally, morally, and also just policy-wise? Yeah. So, you know, I'm a pretty down-the-life, pro-life conservative. I really always have been. Even when I drifted away from the church, I always just cared about the abortion issue a great deal. I think those Christian morals were still influencing me. You know, so I, I, I, I, I, I'm not a fan of, you know, the various exceptions that are placed in. I think obviously, there are situations where maybe the life of the mother is threatened where, look, we've obviously got to recognize that there are tough circumstances and tough decisions to be made. But I really think that from the moment of conception, we should be protecting the life of the unborn.

And we should be doing that, not just because it's important for the unborn, obviously. I think it's obviously a moral, a grave moral sin to take the life of an innocent person. That's one reason I care about the abortion issue, but I also think that abortion has really taken something from us as a society. And that thing is the recognition that babies are blessings to be cherished and nurtured and not inconveniences to be discarded. And when I think about the culture, the cultural effect of abortion on our society, what I worry the most about is that we've become almost an anti-family and anti-baby culture. You know, we sort of, we get annoyed at the loud baby who cries at a restaurant or on an airplane. We don't actually honor the people who bring

life into the world. We tend to tell young women that it's more important and young men that it's more important that they go and achieve at the workforce instead of raising and supporting great American families. And I really think that's the consequence of abortion. The wages of abortion is that it's taught our society not to value human life and not to see babies as something that we need to cherish and nurture. And that to me is the most damaging effectiveness. I really care about the life of the unborn, but I think it's actually, it's not just harmed the unborn. It's actually harmed our whole society and how we think about questions of life and questions of family. Yeah. You alluded to the disintegration of the family, which I agree is a big problem seems to be

an increasing problem. Do you think the government has a place and providing solutions to that problem. Obviously, I believe it's a spiritual and cultural and moral problem primarily, but does the government have any place in incentivizing the cohesiveness of families, starting a family? Where do you think the government plays a role, if any? Yeah, I think that there are some, you know, there are some countries actually in Eastern Europe that take the right approach to this to recognize that we need to support families in this country. It's the most important to the bedrock of our entire civilization and society. And so, you know, look at America, we actually penalize people.

We make them pay a higher marriage penalty when they get married than when they're single. And we make it harder for people to start and form families. I'm a big believer that, look, if you have two or three kids in this country, maybe you should pay a lower income tax rate than people who have no children. Maybe we should actually actively encourage the formation of families. I think that's a good idea. And by the way, if you don't have babies, you don't have families, you're not going going to have a country after 30 or 40 years. Western Europe is learning this the hard way.

Japan is learning this the hard way. So I agree with you. It is a spiritual, a moral, a cultural problem. But I think the government can send a signal to people to say, look, we honor families, we honor children. We want people to have successful, healthy families. And if there are ways that we can help out financially to make it easier to do that and to send a signal that we're a pro-family society in the process, I'm all for it. One of the big issues that I see you talk about a lot is big tech. Tell us why this is something that you care about so much and why other people should care about it. Sure. Yeah, so I've seen the inside of the technology industry. I've worked in the technology industry for much of my professional life. And I just think these companies are

too powerful. They're too powerful economically. I think they suck a lot of talent and a lot of money away from more productive, more important sectors of their society. Just to take an example, there are neuroscientists at Facebook right now who make a ton of money literally figuring out how to make our children more addicted to their applications. Well, those neuroscientists could be working on solving out Alzheimer's or curing brain disease. And I think what Silicon Valley has become is such an economic behemoth that it's sucked away a lot of the talent away from more important sectors of our economy. The bigger and the bigger thing I worry the most about is that Silicon Valley has turned into

the total monopolist in the flow of information in our country. You cannot say anything. You cannot even think the wrong thoughts without the approval of Silicon Valley. And if you think about what happened after January 6th, Twitter, Facebook, all of these platforms kick the sitting president of United States off their platforms. I mean, how is it acceptable that in the world's oldest constitutional republic, we're not allowing the president of the United States access to his people, his citizens, citizens, he can't communicate with them directly because of something four or five monopolists in Silicon Valley have decided they want to do. That to me is just totally unacceptable. And it's, of course, not just the President of the United States. It's, you know, the crazy conspiracy theory

that maybe the Chinese coronavirus came from a Wuhan lab. You were allowed to talk about that a year ago. There are a lot of my friends who put in Facebook jail for circulating basic conservative viewpoints, but they're not allowed to share those viewpoints with their friends and family. We just have to decide, do the people in this country control the flow of information? Do we have a First Amendment or does the First Amendment take a need to Silicon Valley? I think the First Amendment shouldn't take a need to anybody or to any platform or any company. And so to do that, to really give effect to the First Amendment, I think we have to break up these companies. We have to reduce the power they have in our whole country.

I think this represents a real evolution in the thoughts of a lot of conservatives, myself included, who was definitely the person a couple years ago who was saying, you know what, private companies do what they want to do, I'm a conservative, I don't believe the government should step in. It's not a violation of the First Amendment unless it's the government. But I've seen a lot of people kind of change their minds on that, myself included. And I almost just wonder if that is representative of a bigger shift in general for conservatism, that we're starting to think about how we actually use the government, rather than only thinking about limiting the government. we're thinking, okay, well, the government might actually play a role here and in other ways that we didn't previously think about. And I'm curious to know if you agree. I think you do because I think I heard you recently say that the right is terrified of using power. Do you think people are

waking up to that and are starting to shift their thinking about the role of the government from a conservative perspective? Yeah, I do agree with that. And I think that, you know, look, the government exists. And very often the government is not going to take a neutral position. see this, for example, with critical race theory, which is really coming from two government-funded institutions, our public schools and our university. That's what's driving this movement to teach American children that they come from a racist and terrible country. I think conservative is too often. We don't want to get involved in what the government should be doing. We don't want to talk about what our children should actually be learning in schools. And so we kind of disconnect ourselves

from it. And we say, well, look, these are private decisions. These are not government decisions. But at the same time, the government is making these decisions whether we like it or not. Tech is another great example. We saw just last week, I believe, Biden and the White House Press Secretary, Jin Pasaki, basically threatening the social media companies with censorship unless those companies did what the government wanted them to do. So very often what's going on is the government is an actor, the private sector is an actor, and there's an unholy alliance between the two of them, where if we don't recognize that and we're not willing to use the government to accomplish conservative ends, we find ourselves just abandoning the playing field and letting our enemies control everything, not just the corporations in the private sector, but the government too.

Look, the Constitution gives the people the power in this country. I do not want an overbearing government. I think limited government principles are very important. But if four tech monopolies are controlling what the President of the United States is allowed to say, it's time for the government to do something about that. That's what's the Constitution gives the people the power through our Constitutional Republic to do, is to break these companies up to control them so that they don't control us. Yeah. I am wondering what you think about the debate that I saw happening on Twitter this week, kind of between people who would probably identify as libertarians and then social conservatives

about kind of what conservatism actually is or what the future of the Republican Party is, what the future of conservatism is. There's kind of one side who thinks that, okay, it's just small government constitutionalism, the government not really doing anything. And we just allow people to, you know, there's not really a moral foundation for conservatism. It's just whatever you want to do, do it. That's basically the basis of conservatism. Then you've got another side, which I would say I represent,

that there are moral parameters and there's a moral foundation that is necessitated by the argument that conservatism makes that we are endowed by a creator with certain inalienable rights, and therefore the government can't arbitrarily give them or take them away. What do you see the future of conservatism being? what do you think better represents just the average person who identifies as a conservative, that kind of socially liberal libertarianism or the kind of social conservatism that might actually be a little bit more populist when it comes to economic issues? Yeah, I think it's a very perceptive question.

I mean, I personally believe that, look, I got into politics because I care a lot about the social and cultural issues, right? I do not care if Amazon pays a 9% tax rate over a 12% tax rate. In fact, I'd probably prefer, given its role in destroying our country, I'd prefer it to pay a higher tax rate. What I really care about is whether we're protecting life, whether we're protecting people's and encouraging people's families. And I care about whether you can live a traditional American conservative set of values in your own life without being fired from your job or without being attacked by mainstream culture.

And if you actually care about those things, you've got to be willing to take a stand on some of these questions. You can't just say, well, we're going to let people do whatever they want to do. Because while we say people are going to do whatever they want to do, we just want to have a hands-off approach. The left is actively promoting their vision of society. They're funding the things that they care about. They're punishing people for living a conservative way. I mean, you cannot look at what's going on with, you know, the cake baker in Colorado, who's had multiple big lawsuits come against him because he refuses to bend the need to the social justice mob. They are not going to leave us alone. Like, this is a fantasy that we can be left alone. We can do our own thing in the culture. The liberals

can do their thing in the culture and the best ideas are going to win. The liberals are using the state actively against conservatives. We have to be willing to push back against that, but we're not just going to lose a political battle, we're going to lose the entire culture. And I think that's what so many of these fights are really about is whether conservatives are willing to use the power afforded us in the Constitution to push back against liberal overreach. If we're not, we might as well just give up now. Yep, I agree with you. Neutrality is a myth. Certainly at this point, maybe it has been for a long time, but definitely right now there is, there's just no neutral ground. I also want to know what you think. And this might seem disconnected.

but it's actually not, and I think you know this. I'm curious what you think the role China is playing in all of this, not just in the disintegration of our culture, but also in things like critical race theory and the self-loathing that we seem to be pushing upon Americans, the exporting of jobs that has really hurt our middle class. I see them playing a huge role in really all of these economic and social and cultural issues, and it doesn't seem that we're talking about it quite enough. What's your take on that?

Yeah, we know that when the Chinese stole a lot of manufacturing jobs, from the United States that they built their middle class in some ways on the backs of the American middle class. And we saw what happened in communities like mine. Opioid addiction moved in. Family breakdown moves in. And I think it goes to show that you can't totally disconnect the Chinese economic war against our country from some of these deep cultural problems that we have, the breakdown of the family, the opioid epidemic, and so forth. I happen to think that China is really excited about the cultural decay they see in the United States. I mean, you watch, let's say, an advertisement for the Chinese military, and it's about the motherland.

It's about defending your country. It's about being a representative of China. You watch a military ad in the United States these days, and it's about almost diversity, equity, and inclusion, the corporate buzzwords. It's not about being proud of defending your country. And there are all of these ways in which the Chinese have effectively infected American society using a lot of their economic. power. So just one example. You cannot make a movie in Hollywood right now that is explicitly critical of China because then the Chinese won't let that film have access to their markets. So the Hollywood studios won't make as much money. Well, what that's basically meant is that the

Chinese censorship regime is now infecting Hollywood movie studios here in the United States. When we said we were going to have free trade with the Chinese, what we really thought is that we were going to export American values to the Chinese. What is actually happening is we're importing Chinese values in the United States. It's a disaster for our people. Yes. I mean, one of my favorite presidents, I haven't quoted in my studio, Ronald Reagan, I would say played a huge part in this. Like if you read his autobiography from the 90s, he really thought still that we were going to export capitalism. We're going to export democracy and freedom. And like you said, the exact opposite has happened, both under Republican and Democratic leadership. Do you, you?

you sense that there are maybe politicians on both sides who see this problem and are willing to actually push back on this? Or are you kind of hopeless, especially under the Biden administration, that we're going to stand up in any kind of substantive way to the CCP? Look, I'm not happy about what I'm seeing for the Biden administration. I do think they showed a fair amount of weakness in the last six months. And I'm sure the Chinese are looking to take advantage of that. I mean, who didn't notice the really embarrassing meeting between our Secretary of State and the Chinese leadership. It made us look just like a weak country, and I'm sure the Chinese took it that way. But I'm actually optimistic over the long term.

The reason I'm optimistic is because there are a lot of good conservatives who recognize that you cannot defend the American nation unless you're willing to push back against the Chinese. Push back against the Chinese cultural censorship. Push back against the Chinese economic warfare that's making it impossible for good Americans to work in the middle class. This is, to me, the fight of the next 30 or 40 years in this country. And I'm actually really hopeful, Allie, because I think a lot of folks, you, me, a lot of others are woken up to how crazy this is that we're going to let China control what kind of country we live in.

The final point I got to make on this China issue is the Chinese have completely control, not just the middle class manufacturing jobs, but the manufacturing of goods that we rely on. You can't buy a car right now because the cars all rely on components. chips and so forth that are manufactured in China. You can't buy dishwashers, refrigerators, a lot of critical appliances that we need in our homes. And importantly, I've got a four-year-old and a one-year-old boy. You increasingly are not going to be able to get pharmaceutical ingredients unless the Chinese are willing to give us the components because we've allowed them to make all the drugs. Drugs that were invented in the United States are being made over in

China. And the Chinese during COVID last year even threatened us with a loss of critical pharmaceutical ingredients unless we bent the knee to them. Now imagine having a four-year-old boy who has an ear infection and you can't get antibiotics for that kid, even though the antibiotics were made in your country because the Chinese won't give you the critical ingredients. That's not freedom. That's not the free market. And that's certainly not a life that I want to lead where I have to have our president bend the knee to China so that my kids can get drugs that they need. Yeah. And I want to hear what you think, some of the solutions. are. You mentioned a few of them, but what solutions do you think that there are, not just in the political realm, but for people listening to this, you just feel powerless. They feel like, okay, these powers are beyond me. There's nothing that I can do to change these institutions. In the past year, we've certainly seen just how power hungry, so many of the politicians are and really, truly do not have the best interest of their constituents at heart at all. And people who have woken up to this, like you said, they still feel like,

Well, there's nothing I can do. Who am I? I'm just one person. I care about my family and I want to help them. But, you know, I don't have the influence to be able to do anything. What's your encouragement to them? Well, I still, my encouragement is we still live in the greatest country in the world and we still really can affect change as people. I'll put another plug for myself. I'm trying to run for the U.S. Senate for the state of Ohio so that I can better represent Ohioans on all the issues that we're talking about. Go to jd.vance.com if you want to help us out. But look, you're seeing even at the local level people really getting involved and engaged. And I talked to people, even yesterday, a woman who's thinking about running for a local school board in Chilacothe, Ohio, because she doesn't want her children to be taught that she comes from a racist country. And she doesn't want her children to be taught that there's no difference between boys and girls. So she's thinking about running for school board to change that. I met a few other people yesterday who they're not going to run for school board, but they're maybe going to help her out. They're going to go knock on some doors.

They're going to get some literature out there so that people know what she stands for. They're going to host a fundraiser so that she can actually resource that campaign. Look, there's a lot of work to do. But I don't want people to be discouraged by that. I want people to feel invigorated by that because what an honor and what a blessing it is to live in the greatest country in the world at a time when we actually need patriots to stand up and push the levers of power to make this a country that's worth giving on to our children and grandchildren. You know, there's a lot to do. And sometimes I know that people get discouraged by it. But I look at everything that's going on. I look at the way that the conservative movement is waking up to how powerful, not just the government, but some of these big corporations are. I see people taking over school boards

so that their children aren't indoctrinated from a very young age. And I see a real beginning of a movement that I think can save this country. So my message to people is, don't get discouraged, get involved. And there are a lot of ways to get involved out there. organizations, national campaigns do not get discouraged. Yeah, and don't take for granted either how much influence you can have by supporting people who are running to represent you like you are, and I know that you would say that every little bit of support of your campaign helps. So can you tell people just a little bit more about your campaign? Like, give us your pitch, give us your top priorities, and then again tell us how we can best support you.

Yeah, so, look, the campaign is pretty simple and straightforward. It's oriented around this very basic idea that you should be able to live a good life in this country. And that's an economic thing. You should be able to have a good job if you work hard and play by the roles. But you should also be able to raise your children in the values that you hold dear. You should not have them go to school and learn that the country you were taught to love is actually an evil place. You should not have them taught, have your children taught that they're not allowed to speak their mind. allowed to profess their faith without having consequences at their college, at their schools,

at their jobs, their workplaces, and so forth. And so our campaign is oriented around the idea that we can actually take this country back. We can push back against the ideologues who are making it impossible for people to live their dreams, but also to speak their mind. And that's the simple, that's the simple idea behind this campaign. So look, we're going to break up the big tech companies that are making it hard for people to speak their mind. We're going to fight back against the crisis is at the southern border. We're going to double the number of border enforcement agents that we have there so that we don't have thousands of pounds of fentanyl and heroin coming in our communities. We're going to fight the Chinese from poaching our manufacturing jobs. And we're going to fight

the universities that are indoctrinating our children, our university students, who then go on and indoctrinate our public school children after they get out, teaching them that their country is fundamentally a bad place and that it was founded by terrible racist people. Like we're going to do all these things. And to your point earlier, we're actually going to pass legislation. We're going to use the power of the constitutional republic to defund the institutions that are making it harder for people to live their dreams, to fund new institutions that are making it easier for people to live their dreams. And we're going to actually fight the governments and the tech monopolies that are making hard for normal people to live a good life in this country. They call their own. Yeah. You know, Republicans have been a big disappointment. to a lot of conservatives. Not every, not every Republican. Of course, I, you know, I vote Republican. I think most of the people that listen to my podcast do, but we are continually disappointed by them just being unwilling to actually advocate for the people that they say that they're representing. I really hope, and I truly do pray,

that you are a part of this new generation, new class of politicians who changes that, who actually wants to get in and get stuff done. I know what's easier, sad than done, for sure. But I believe you. And I think that the agenda that you've set forth represents the cares and the concerns of a lot of people, myself included. So thank you for, you know, for taking this up, taking this responsibility. Courage begets courage. And you have a lot of courage for doing this. You've got a lot of pushback. People out there are scared to be called a racist, to be called a bigot, to be called all different kinds of names that they don't, that they know don't represent them. And they have to see people standing up in the midst of that pushback anyway and to double down on the things that you believe

in and you're doing that. So I appreciate that. Can you tell us one more time how we can support you? Absolutely. So the easiest place to go to is jdvance.com because we need two things. We need financial support and everything matters. $5, $10. These things really, really matter and show that we're getting some momentum. But we also need volunteers, inside the state of Ohio especially, but all across the country, people who are willing to talk to their friends about us, to knock on doors for us, to do some phone banking for us. Again, there are real ways to get involved. And if you want to get involved in this campaign, go to jdvance.com and we can use all the help we can get. Thank you so much, J.D. I really appreciate you taking the time to talk to us. Thanks, Sally. Appreciate it.

Thank you guys so much for listening to that episode. If you guys love this podcast, it would mean so much to me if you could leave a five-star review on Apple Podcasts. Make sure that you also subscribe on YouTube. And as always, if you guys have suggestions, suggested topics, guests, please send those my way. I really appreciate you guys so much. You've got the best audience in the world. We will be back here on Monday to talk about some important and controversial topics. Have a great weekend.

Hey, this is Steve Dase. If you're listening to Allie, you already understand that the biggest issues facing our country aren't just political. They're moral, spiritual, and rooted in what we believe is true about God, humanity, and reality itself. On the Steve Day show, we take the news of the day and tested against first principles, faith, truth, and objective reality. We don't just chase narratives and we don't offer false comfort. We ask the hard questions and follow the answers wherever they leave, even when it's unpopular. This is a show for people who want honesty over hype and clarity over chaos. If you're looking for commentary grounded in conviction and unwilling to lie to you about where we are or where

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