The Daily Signal - Nick Freitas Talks Founding Principles, Fighting Socialism, and Life After Politics

Episode Date: July 2, 2025

As Independence Day approaches we sat down with Virginia’s new “Conservative Influencer” to talk about the founding of the nation, the struggles it’s had with socialism and how Nick Freitas’ life has changed since he announced that he was not going to seek re-election to focus on his “Making the Argument” podcast. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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We'd love to talk, business. Thanks for listening to this bonus episode of the Daily Signal podcast. I'm your host, Joe Thomas, Virginia correspondent for The Daily Signal. Before we dive into today's interview, I want to thank you for tuning in today. If you're a first-time listener, The Daily Signal, brings you fact-based reporting and conservative commentary on politics, policy, and culture. And I hope you join our band of regular listeners to our podcast. If you enjoy the show, please subscribe and also take a

moment to rate and review us wherever you get your podcast. You can find additional content at DailySignal.com. Now, let's get started with today's conversation right after this. Our only go-to social media influencer now, he is for the time being Nick Fratus of the Virginia House of Delegates, but soon to be upstream from the body politic and working in the in the societal world. Nick, how are you, sir? Doing well. How are you doing, sir? Excellent. So ever since, and I think we spoke to you right after you made the announcement that you weren't going to run for re-election, that you were going to work on,

you know, being on that upstream end of society, what has changed for you? Are different people calling you? Or does the sky look like it's a different color? or you tell me what it's like when you pull that string. Well, I get a lot more sleep at night. I mean, what I always tell people is, you know, like the plan was never to completely disengage or just kind of fade away or do anything like that. The plan was more to focus on certain areas that I thought I could do more good. And, you know, thankfully, I have some of it's a great replacement in the form of Karen Hamilton,

who I think is going to be an outstanding delegate. But in the meantime, we have gotten various offers with respect to the people that we're working with now. And a big part of it is trying to fight on that cultural side of all of this because, you know, it's become a cliche that politics is downstream from culture, but it's also true. And a lot of the work that we're doing on everything from, you know, homeschooling to our social media engagement. just to talking to young men about what does it mean to embrace like biblical masculinity as opposed to either kind of the feminist version of society, which tells men they're the root of all problem, or these other versions of masculinity,

which is basically just unbridled hedonism. So, you know, join the work in that area has been really fulfilling for both Tina and myself. We feel like we're doing some good there, and we look forward to being able to do even more of it next year. Did you find, and I've always found, especially after Andrew coined that phrase, that the real problems I have in the public square are when politicians try to move themselves north of society, culture. It's when that happens. That's when things really come off the rails, whether it's an AOC or a Bernie Sanders or, you know, even a conservative, you know, that tries to move themselves upstream from society and, and, force those things to change. I think that's really where a lot of Americans go, whoa, dude,

where are you going? Well, I think what we found, especially as Doge started to uncover things within USAID and other elements of the federal bureaucracy, is what we found is a lot of stuff that I think we might have assumed was organic things taking place with maybe our university or just within the grassroots was in reality stuff that was being kind of pushed down on us from the top down using our tax dollars to fund these ideologies and um and i think we you know we just talked about this today 20 20 changed a lot i think 2020 there was a lot of people that saw some of the problems that were taking place whether it was from critical theory or it was kind of this rise of neo-Marxism or socialism and it was manifesting itself and it was manifesting itself

in a lot of ways that we're not just up front or transparent, right? Nobody going around talking about critical race theory was going to sit there and advertise that, oh, yeah, a lot of this is rooted in neo-Marxism and the Frankfurt school and, you know, avowed communist. Right. But it was. And those of us that were pointing out got looked at as if we were, you know, just a new version of a McCarthy area going around screaming that everybody's a palmy. But in reality, we just saw what was working its way into our schools, through Hollywood,

through arts and entertainment, through social media. And 2020, I think, was this break where, no pun intended, but not taken off, ironically enough. And a lot of Americans, a lot of Americans who I think didn't realize how bad certain things had gotten, all of a sudden had a window into their kids' middle school, all of a sudden had a window into what happens when, you know, there's something like a pandemic, and all of a sudden the government is deplatement. forming people and shutting down dissent and shutting down your business and closing down your church, but allowing their government-run alcohols, liquor stores to stay open. And I think a lot of people just realize that something different is going on right now.

And I think it's important at the same time that we have a political response to that, we have a very robust cultural response because the unique thing about the United States is I think our system of government and our constitution are special and unique, but they're only defended by people who think that way. And that's created by families that have a commitment to it, by people that are dedicated to not only building strong families, but raising kids to understand the importance of these ideas and to understand the danger of other ideas.

And so that's where I think the problem is, I think a lot of this, you know, again, it was astro-turf. It was astro-turf. And now people, because the media, the legacy media is not controlling everything, because they have outlets like yours, because we have outlets on social media where we can actually present a differing viewpoint, people are realizing that, A, they're not alone,

and that, B, what they thought was just this overwhelming cultural trend was little more than, you know, select politicians and bureaucrats tipping their scale in favor of one direction as opposed to another. And so I think we're starting to see something of a, there's definitely a cultural fight that's taking place. It needs to. That's not about being divisive. It just is when we have diametrically opposed worldviews,

that has to be settled. And so I'm actually encouraged to see the number of young people in this country that are saying, you know what, I don't buy into radical feminism. I don't buy into this radical gender ideology. I think that men should be strong and honorable and noble and take care of their families and that women should be also strong and honorable and noble and that, you know what, we're not supposed to compete with one another. We're supposed to cooperate with one another. And, you know, so I just, again, I look at all that.

I'm encouraged on what's going on the cultural front, but it needs constant engagement. Well, it needs tending. I think you're right, like a garden. But I've noticed this. I talk to friends of mine in the faith. community and they're seeing such an upsurge in young people coming around and saying, do anyone have any answers to this stuff? I was told maybe there'd be something here. I went on Google and Google didn't have an answer. So I came here. Do you see that as well?

Well, they got some really bad answers. Oh, yeah. No, we're seeing that overwhelmingly. So, like, within what's going on right now is that there had been this gradual decline and people identifying as Christian within the United States. So if you were a Gen X, it was like 63. percent of the population. If you were in the it was like 49 and then it had dropped off with 43 percent and then it

held and now it's starting to grow back in the other direction. And I think a big part of that is that people have kind of woken up to the fact that like this baseline secular humanism doesn't answer a lot of the deeper questions they have about things like meaning and

purpose and what is objectively true. Right? You know, these kids got told that there is no, there is no objective truth. If you feel like you're a woman, you're a woman, if you feel like you're a man, you're a man. And look and I go, this doesn't work. This is, this is not correspond with reality. And they started to look at once again at those foundational institutions that actually, you know, are trying to give answers on what is meaning, purpose, truth, morality. And I think young men more than ever want something to fight for that doesn't feel like quicksand. And so I'm very, I'm very encouraged about

the places that they're actually going to find it, at least for the most part. He is Nick Freitas for at least a little while longer, a member of the Virginia House of Delegates, but in the social media world at Nick J. Freitas, F-R-E-I-T-A-S, is his Instagram page. The podcast is making the argument with Nick Freitas. And Nick, you talked about families before. and my whole life consumed under the awning of the great society, which has even as far back as Reagan's time for choosing speech had become patently obvious, they were subsidizing, breaking up the family in exchange for government assistance.

And are you seeing a trend towards people even realizing it's going on? Yes. Yes. for the last 40 year or for I would say that you know for the 20th century the great society was marketed as you know sometimes men do the wrong things right and they're abusive and women have to leave and they have to leave with their families and so the state the state is going to come in and they're going to provide a safety net for those people when in reality what you just said was what was going on as they were actually creating perverse incentives it wasn't just it wasn't just

the person in bad circumstances. It was actively encouraging certain activities and behaviors that were destructive to the very communities that they claimed to be helping. But the marketing changed in the 21st century. And it went from the government is here to fill in the gap when something goes wrong. And the messaging started to become that, no, the government is here to protect you from the patriarchy. Men are just bad. Men are the problem. And the government is going to give you, you know, special, you know, standing within society in order to give you better access to

opportunities, whether it be professional or educational. And, you know, you're never going to have to rely on a man anymore, a husband or a father or any of these things because the state is now going to fulfill, you know, this role within society. And instead of it being pitched, as we're going to come in, instead of being pitched as this kind of like sympathetic help for people that we could all be sympathetic to, it ended up becoming just overtly hostile porn men. And you started to see this attitude reflected

within the general culture. And what's happening now is young men are fed up with it. Young men are going around going, what are you talking about privilege? I don't have the same advantages when it comes to getting a job or getting into a university or I'm constantly being told that I'm the problem. I'm not witnessing any sort of advantage that's supposed to be conveyed to me in society.

I'm putting up with this anymore. And it needs to happen, right? It needs to happen. Young men need to be rejecting this narrative that has been pushed on them. But you're absolutely right. The great society was one of the mechanisms that was utilized. It was sold under the auspices of one thing, but it was utilized to push a very, very radical left-wing view, not just of the government's role in society, but really the purpose

of the family, the purpose of the home. And it's important to remember that you think Karl Marx hated capitalism. Wait till you read what he said about the traditional family, and he despised it. Yeah. And so we shouldn't be surprised when the same people like, you know, Mom Donnie up in New York City

want to seize the means of production, we shouldn't be surprised that all of that includes kind of this dismantling of what we would call the traditional family. And again, there's a rejection-taker. place which is long overdue. What does it say? And I feel like there's starting to become enough data points to not make me just sound loony when I start seeing these tea leaves, Nick. Yeah, we watched Terry McCallough commit political Harry Carey on the altar of, well, you know,

I spoke out about, you know, about parents and their role in their kids' upbringing. And I can't backtrack it, even though I knew I was hemorrhury. voting because there was power in that. And Mandami is in much in the same way. He's staked a claim on the intifada and on Marxist ideology of government grocery stores and tax the rich out of existence. And he won't backwalk that, even if it costs them the election. Why do you think that is? Because Terry McCallough, Charlie McCallough found himself caught up

in political circumstances that got away from him. Terry McCalloch is not some deep, I mean, he's a lefty, but he's not some deep-seated, you know, communist that, you know, ideal that's not him. Mondani is. Maldi is a true believer. He believes in this

stuff. You know, he believes that the wrong guys won the Cold War. And that doesn't mean that, you know, that doesn't mean he was in favor of Soviet gulags, he just believes that Marxism is the superior sociological, economic, and political philosophy. And so when McCulloch says certain things, he might make a mistake here and there, or he may say something that is controversial because he's trying to balance, you know, appealing to his base while not trying to alienate moderate voters. I really Donnie is as

interested in that. I think he is a true believer. He's an ideologue. He was pushing for a particular agenda. I think he believes that agenda's time has come. But even if he, even if he fails, I think he will believe that he will have advanced the cause. And let's face it, when it comes to that sort of ideology, this merging of Marxism and critical theory, the issue is never the issue. The issue is the revolution. And if this was, if this was his small part to play, well, then I think he's fine for it. But you know what? God bless him for being honest. You know, I get, not hiding it. I get tired of the leftist who will vote in line with a guy like Mom Dani every day of the week,

but not be honest about what they want. If nothing else, this guy will actually tell you what he's after. And people, and what the other side needs to do, what we need to do is carefully or carefully explain what exactly he's talking about because it's only a matter of time before he shifts from saying politically stupid things, like seizing the means of production, right? And focuses a lot more on just, you know, socialists always do this. They will take desirable in states.

Everybody has access to health care. And then they will switch socialism as if it's the same thing. It's like, no, socialism is not Medicaid, socialism is not even Medicaid or Medicare. Socialism is the abolition of the private ownership of the means of production, right? It is seizing these things and confiscating them on behalf of the government. Now, if that's what you want, and if you think that's a good idea,

well, then by all means, go for that. But what I will tell you is, it's not like this has not been tried before. Yeah, we have some examples. The greatest argument against what Donnie wants is not what he says in favor of it or what I say against it. The greatest argument is go look at the people who are living in the countries, but we're doing the sort of things, instituting the sort of policies, the Mandani wants, and ask yourself,

Were they happy with their situation, or are they trying to desperately flee into another country that did things very differently? And the answer is obvious to anybody that's willing to pick up a history book. But here we are. Nick Freed is on with us and talking about, well, just America as an abstract, but we seem to have gone into the anti-America for a little bit, which is the government top-down in Marxism, and you talk about Marxism, and you talk about the necessity to have a class on class warfare, not being successfully able to do that in the 60s. They went after race, and it really becomes the root of critical theory, which is that rather than class versus class, it becomes

race versus race. Well, it became race versus race, and then the war between the sexes, and then it became gender ideology. And the thing to keep in mind is the reason why they were able get some traction, especially with the civil rights movement, is because there was a legitimate grievance there. The concepts of slavery and of Jim Crow are actually betrayals of the principles laid out

in the Declaration of Independence. And people will talk about all day long as like, well, what a contradiction, a slave over, wrote. Yes, it was a contradiction. That's why it wasn't sustainable. One of two things was going to change. Either we were going to abandon the principles and the Declaration of Independence, or we were going to

abolish slavery. And we chose to abolish slavery because we recognize the contradiction. Frederick Douglass used to talk about that contradiction. Douglas made the argument that a genuine appeal to civil rights is rooted in the principles of the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution because those documents focused on this concept of individual liberty. But if you look at the left-wing kind of takeover of the civil rights movement, or I should say, aspects of the civil rights movement, it was not rooted in this idea of equality before the law or the or the or the, or the, or the, or the, even the concept that all of us are created in the image of God,

and so therefore entitled to a certain degree of having inherent worth and entitled to a certain degree of respect as human beings. No, the argument was about class structural and racial structures. It was all about how do we utilize the civil rights movement? How do we utilize a legitimate grievance in order to turn it into a call for greater centralized control and socialism? And to the extent they were able to willing to get away with it, it was largely because of that legitimate grievance in the form of slavery and Jim Crow. But then you saw when a lot of those problems, regardless of what Democrats would like to claim,

when a lot of those problems were very effectively addressed, whether it's the abolition of slavery or the abolition of Jim Crow or integration or whatever else, they had to move on to something else, right? There always has to be a grieving. There always has to be a victim culture to exploit in order to advance a political ideology. And you'll notice that in generally speaking, in conservatism, we don't require a victim class in order to maintain or justify our ideology. The Democrats have to have one. That's true.

It always has to be somebody to, and much of it, and I say this to folks who vote that way. I get it. They're looking as their vote is their community service rather than. actual community service. Well, I voted for the guy who said he was going to end poverty, and that it's what the politicians tell them. Nick, you... It's altruism by proxy.

Yes, exactly, as opposed to Munchausen's by government syndrome, which is what I call. Yeah. But so you mentioned McCarthy a little while ago, and I brought him up on the show with some controversy when the George Clooney Broadway play was getting its CNN run. And, you know, Edward Armoreau is a saint, sanctified in my industry, but he was wrong. And he really set the standard for the kind of sloppy, shallow journalism that we see all over the place now, because he was mad that McCarthy was. throwing people in jail. And maybe Roy Cohn convinced McCarthy this was the way to stop communism

was to arrest it and throw it in jail. But Murrow never stopped and said, well, is there anything else here? And then, you know, as guys like Brezmanoff come in and we realize, hold it, do the math, McCarthy was right. He was just wrong about how you combat communism. You don't throw it in prison because that turns it into a victim class. Yeah, no, I think the important thing to remember is that, you know, again, the left, because McCarthy went after the aspects of communism that was in Hollywood, Hollywood obviously ended up getting the final laugh and writing the story about McCarthy. And I think when you actually look at McCarthy, it's a lot more of a tragic figure than the left would have you believe,

not because he got everything right, as you mentioned. But, you know, when we had, I think it was the declassification of the Verona papers. And then again, comments and then again, revelations through people like Yuri Besmanov, who eventually left the Soviet Union to come over and talk about what did the actual propaganda machine and the infiltration look like. You find out that a lot of what McCarthy was talking about was correct. And that part gets completely left out of the narrative. Because they didn't like his tactics. They're now ignoring his claims.

And I'm sorry, but that's not. not a fair rendition. If we really want to understand why that was going on and why it had support in the United States, it was not simply because, as the left likes to suggest, we were all a bunch of red baiting, you know, fascists. It's because there was a real problem and continues to be a real problem. At that point, it was with Soviet infiltration into high levels of government, high levels of academia, unions, you know, Hollywood and entertainment.

because they were doing culturally shaping operations. And the bottom line is the Soviet Union fell, but their shaping operations did it. And you can talk to guys like Tom DeLorenzo, who was a economics professor. I can't remember what university is in Southern California, I believe. And he was talking about, you know, when the Berlin Wall fell, the Soviet Union collapsed,

he was looking at his, you know, died in the wool, socialist economics colleague. And he said, well, what are you going to do now? And the professor looked at him, he goes, oh, this is going to be great for us because now our philosophy and ideology is no longer tied to the bad guys. We can essentially rehabilitate it. And lo and behold, that's what they did. And so, you know, the shaping operations that Uri Besmanov talked about essentially outlived the Soviet Union that instigated many, if not all of them. Nick, it is Independence Day. And I wanted to really focus on what was done 249 years.

ago. And as we ramp into 250, we've certainly outlived most attempts at humanity at democratic government there, even as we fumble the ball on the five-yard line here. You mentioned slavery and the compromise that lifted out that eloquent treaties on slavery that everyone should read, everyone who thinks that Jefferson was a racist who loved slaves, maybe not in the way that he did, that should read what he wrote about slavery and the excorable commerce and understand that, especially in the light of the we watch, the rangling of, you know, the voterama in the Senate this week. I was reminded, you know, at the same time 249 years ago, the representatives of South Carolina were saying, you don't get our vote. If you

have this piece in here about slavery. This is why, I believe, after the declaration was written, and certainly that legal filing and the philosophy of it, Madison's attempt to write a rulebook, a toolkit to make that workable was important because it took away that kind of, you know, that kind of all or nothing brinksmanship that he saw do in that slavery piece in the Declaration. And it limited the power of these congresses and these executives. And come by the 1930s, we had started to buy our way around those. Can we get back to where we were 249 years ago? I think the important thing to understand about the Declaration of Independence is you had

imperfect people writing a nearly perfect political document when it comes to laying out a moral foundation, a philosophical structure for a country and for what constitutes a just nation, as well as the various reasons why people would separate the political ties between them in order to go different directions. And it's never been this case of we are not capable of attaining perfection, but man, it is hard to look at that document and not just be in awe of a very young Thomas Jefferson writing it and laying it out. not because, not because we were perfectly living up to those principles at the time, but because he gave his principles worth living up to. And when you look at the Constitution and you have to read the Constitution within the moral and philosophical framework of the Declaration,

and it says in order to create a more perfect union, there was the understanding from the very beginning that we're not perfect. We never will be, but it's a worthy goal. And these are the goals that we're going to shoot for. And there are times when we lose our, way because that happens human beings are fallible but man the underlying structure and principles are so good and so beautiful and and worth fighting for and i think what we need to recognize amidst all of our frustration with with politics and the current culture and whatnot is that one of the most

beautiful things about this country is not just our system of government it's the fact that we never intended to put the government at the central place within the equation right god the individual the family, the right of self-determination, within the framework of personal responsibility. That is what made this country the sort of place that people wanted to flee to. It wasn't a government program. It wasn't the right to vote every two to four or six years. It was that ability to be able to carve something out of the wilderness that was uniquely yours that no one was going to take from you, provided that you could stand up and fight and build it and defend it. And so I still believe we are that people.

But each generation, Reagan said it back. when he said the freedom is not passed on to future generations in the bloodstream. It has to be divended and cultured and passed on to future generations to do the same. And so every Fourth of July, what we should be doing is asking ourselves, are we worthy of everyone that came before us? And if the answer is no, then the wonderful thing is we have the option. We have the ability to choose to be worthy of the people that came before us and to create something that is worth passing on to future generations.

And I think as long as we continue to focus in on that, that this is all not happening to us. We have a say. So go out and have it. No, and that is the point is we have to say and we have to see. And I think you mentioned 2020 is that a year that we saw kind of what was going on behind the curtain. And I think it continues to grow, Nick. And you're a big part of that, the Thomas Payne of a new generation.

I prefer Patrick Henry. Thomas is a little too atheist for me. Okay, well, I'm just saying, you know, Patrick Henry was still in government. Patrick Henry still held elected office. Yeah. No, Thomas made some very important work on that. But, yeah, the bottom line is this. It was an absolute honor to serve in the Virginia House of Delegates,

especially in James Madison's district. And I will always consider one of the greatest honors of my professional or political career. but ultimately again what makes america special is that we have the right just as citizens to engage in the areas for which we think we can do the most good and and one of the things that both war and politics taught me is that ultimately my obligation is to be obedient to the purpose god has put in front of me to do so to the best of my ability and i have a new i have a new role to play now and i'm very excited about it i'm very excited about but but ultimately that's that's our That's our job.

Our job is to be obedient to that purpose. So give us a peek into what, you know, Nick Fratis looks like in the social media world. Is it the shorts? Because everyone wants to know how many coffee mugs you actually have. And do people send you coffee mugs say, could you use this? They do. And usually they send me really funny ones that I'm able to use every once in a while. They send me really funny ones that I can't use on a friendly,

I imagine. Look, we'll continue to do the shorts because it's fun and it has a way of being informative and accessible without being overly long-winded, which I sometimes am guilty of. But we have to do a little bit of some times, you know, two, three hours where we really, we delve into kind of the specifics on pressing issues or current events. We're going to continue to do a lot more with respect to the homeschool environment. We want people to understand that whether they

choose to homeschool or whether they just want to take more control over their child's education, we believe that parents should never stop being seen as educators by their children. And so we want to create resources where they're able to do that. And then, of course, we'll continue to work with the White House when we're invited to go up there and interview members of the executive branch and to talk about what's going on in the Trump administration. And we're also very happy to also very happy to be working with Young America's Foundation now. Oh, are you?

Young America's Fund. Yeah, they have a song where one of their featured speakers for their events coming up in D.C. here in July and again in August. Excellent, excellent. Is Kate Obenstein still with them? I don't think so. I don't. I haven't. I think she left a while back, but they've got a lot of great people at Young America's Foundation. It's a great organization I work with. And please keep doing that. And if the White House has any extra space, don't. Don't forget your buddy Joe, okay? Because, you know, certainly. I'm a pretty good interviewer myself.

They tell me anyway. He is Nick Fradis. And remind us, so where do people find making the argument? Is it on all the distribution networks, Apple, et cetera? Yeah, Apple, Spotify. I believe we're back on Rumble, YouTube. But if you just type in Nick J. Freitas, that'll generally take you to everything that we have out there. but we're pretty much on all of the social media platforms

and I'm looking to expand our presence there here very shortly. That'll do it for today's show. Don't forget to hit that subscribe button so you never miss out on new episodes from The Daily Signal. Every weekday you can catch top news in 10 to keep up with the day's top headlines in just 10 minutes. And every weekday afternoon catch Victor Davis Hansen's thoughtful analysis for the Daily Signal.

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