The Dumb Zone FREE - Business Wednesday - Tony Ortiz of Current Revolt

Episode Date: July 15, 2026

Jake is joined by Tony Ortiz, founder of Current Revolt. CR is a right-leaning publication that primarily covers Texas politics. They discuss a myriad (bingo!) of topics, including: why being compared to TMZ is a good thing, what it's like to be a "political influencer," and Tony's recent meeting with representatives of a foreign government. ★ Support this podcast on Patreon ★

All right, welcome into another business Wednesday, politics edition. We are speaking today with a guy that I took an interest with over the last couple of years on social media. As many of you know, I have started to fill my timeline with right-wing politics, particularly as I've gotten more involved in like local stuff, school boards, this sort of thing. And a lot of these people are entertaining. They're, you know, interesting. but I don't think there's a lot of like substance behind them. And I think that's initially probably what I thought our guest today,

Tony Ortiz, was he is the founder of current revolt.com. And Tony, thanks for being here today. I screwed up the recording yesterday. So he's kind enough to do this again. How about that? Round two. Hey, the second time will be better, right? Sure.

Maybe we can at least trim the fat a little bit here. So yeah, so like I said, I first became aware of, of your work, but sort of alongside all this other stuff where people are sitting in their car yelling about Indian people. There doesn't seem to be a lot of critical thought behind it. There's no original reporting.

And I think I, you know, erroneously grouped you and your operation in with that. While I don't agree with you, you know, politically on whatever, the work that you guys do is really impressive to me, especially given that you yourself lean right and most of what you're doing if you're in Texas is covering right versus right. So you do a lot of reporting that doesn't seem to come from anywhere else in the state. So I just wanted to have you on to talk about how you got to where you

are and why you do it. Yeah, I appreciate it. You know, I say this a lot because people, even my readers get kind of frustrated that we write a lot about the mishapening and whatnot between on the right, right, the Republicans and whatnot. So a lot of our, a lot of our stories are about sometimes bad behavior in the Republican Party or Republicans. The fact of the matter is if you live in Texas and something goes wrong or you don't like your tax situation or whatever it is, any kind of policy, generally it's a Republican's fault because Republicans run the state, at least right now, they run the state.

It's kind of like living in California being upset at Republicans for bad California policies. It doesn't make any sense. So, yeah, you know, we write a lot about Republicans, and we started off in 2020. Actually, I think our one-year anniversary is either today or tomorrow. It might be tomorrow. Or I'm sorry, our six-year anniversary is today or tomorrow. And, you know, we started off during COVID, and we started just writing editorials.

And we were a little wheels off, self-mitting that. We were very wheels off. And we kind of evolved into journalism from there. but we've been going at it for six years and still learning a lot. Did you go to school for journalism? Never really enjoyed writing or even reading, to be honest. But we're still hammering away. Okay, so 2020 comes around, and that's interesting because I didn't pick up on this yesterday at that time.

You know, obviously it's COVID. You probably were locked up at home. Everybody's super upset regardless of where you're coming from politically. So when you say that you guys started out. off wheels off. I think it's important to just remember how wheels off everything was at that time. But I guess what makes you unique is you stuck with it and put the wheels on. And most people did not like come out of that and think this is a serious thing that I'd like to do. And you know, you do real reporting now. Yeah, I mean, I'm still still learning a lot, right? I've got a lot of

mentors that I talk to almost daily, that I talk to that range in the political spectrum, everything from very far left to very, very far right, that kind of give me feedback and keep my ego in check, right, and just kind of give me ideas and tell me what they think I'm doing wrong and could do better. But yeah, we started in 2020 just writing editorials, and admittedly, it was a lot of propaganda. There's a lot of right-being propaganda. We were, we started out of pure frustration. Everybody was, I've got a staff of about six. We're all frustrated about the lockdowns and, you know, the work situation and all of these restrictions and the mask wearing, you know, their stereotypical COVID anger over policy. And so yeah, we wrote a lot of editorials of being

critical of the Republican Party or the Republican politicians who were pushing and backing a lot of these restrictions. And as time went by, we kind of evolved to pushing out, being a lot less editorialized in our reporting and more factual or at least more interesting. Was there a, has the growth been gradual to where you could, I mean, obviously at some point you decided to do this as a full-time job if it's not what you were doing before? Growth gradual? Was there a moment that you guys have like a, for us, we got sued when we left our company. That's a good one.

If you can get sued, which, who knows, maybe you're in the lane where that could happen. Yeah. So what was what's the trajectory been like? Was there a big story? Yeah. You know, so for the first, I want to say four and a half years, four and a half, wow. The first four and a half, five years,

I ran Kernerville while working a full time. I called a normie job. I worked a tech sales job. And I had to keep my head low. I worked for a very lefty company. I'm talking extremely, lefty company so the if it had come out that I was running you know a right ring or right tween rag putting out news and and whatnot I would have definitely

have lost probably just out of just out of frustration you know but I kept my numbers up I worked in the Commission sales so I was always hitting target I was always number one in sales department and so working for current revolt or doing current revolt never conflicted with that But, but yeah, now, but as far as what was the hit off, we, we had a couple stories within the last year, two years that were really like the trigger point for me being able to do this full time. Also, you know, there was a, there's a, there's a line where you can only grow so much. If you, if you, in a business, if you don't give it, you're 100% like your full attention and your heart, right? And I was constantly divided between 50, 50 or even sometimes, you know, 80, 20 on being able to work on current revolt.

So yeah, there was a couple articles that we wrote that kind of allowed me to, with enough subscribers, to be able to really focus on this full time and had the grace, the blessing of my wife that she was fine with, you know, me doing this full time too. I've been able to really focus on that. So were these stories that you guys published? I mean, obviously I know since we did this yesterday, but I've been thinking about them. So I'd like you to kind of break that down as far as because, you know, again, to me, the interesting thing here is, and we'll get into the politics of it and how you arrive at where you are. But to me, it's just that it's an independent media story first. And my frustration in the state of Texas is, you know, obviously I am a real, what I would call lefty. and there just doesn't exist in Texas.

Most of the newspapers are thought of to be left-leaning. I would say they are not. I would say they're business, pro-business, you know, so nobody covers, it doesn't feel like to me outside of like, and you're not going to like this, like the Tribune. But there's just not a lot of like, these people get to do whatever the fuck they want. It feels like it feels like that's been the case my whole life,

is that for better or worse, Republicans kind of can do whatever they want in the state of Texas. you know, you hear all these stories of this guy's voting against this, but he does this and that. He just sits whispers, but you guys actually print that stuff. Yeah, I mean, there was definitely a vacuum, right, for, you know, kind of talk, a rag that talked about this stuff. You know, when we, when we started, there was a character on the right. I think you're familiar with her. And many in Texas politics would be familiar with your true Texas project.

They're a done-funded organization that pushes out right-wing policy. It's like a right-wing club, right? I think it was respond from the, what's it called? Well, the Tea Party then became. Yeah, and then her husband made some comments after the shooting in El Paso, I want to say. Yeah, something along the lines of like, I understand where they're coming from. Yeah, because they live in. They're from Grapevine where I live.

Yeah. And they've been super involved in the school boards. And I actually emailed to, and I don't know, you can tell me what you think about this. But I came in way too hot when I first started trying to talk to right-wing people. Yeah. Because one of them I genuinely don't like Chris Putnam. But I emailed her, softened the tone. And I'm like, hey, would you be willing to sit down with me?

Like, your name is constantly coming up in these conversations. and she was like, we'll only do print exchanges, we won't do a recorded interview because we don't want you to take anything out of context. And in my mind, it's like, that is the opposite.

Like, I will roll this tape, provided I remember to hit record, and you can just have the file. Yeah. And then she wouldn't talk to me, and they got their clocks cleaned. But anyways,

yeah, they're big players and they're from down the street. Yeah, yeah. And down the street from me, too, I'm hearing Carrollton. And Greenbinds was 15 minutes west of me, or 10 minutes west of me. But, you know, she was one of the ones that was really critical of my rag initially. She's like, they're a TMZ. They just put out gossip and drama and blah, blah, blah.

I think she was upset about an article. Because, again, we read a lot about bad behavior and Republicans. I just leaned into it. I'm like, yeah, we are like a TMZ. We are like a national inquire. I'm fine with them. There's a total vacuum for it. And to your point about what you said, like all these media outlets kind of being,

I don't know, like, maybe you didn't say this, but they're kind of controlled or they do, you know, pro-business stuff. I disagree with some of that, but, you know, they are these, a lot of the mainstream or legacy media in Texas. They do have their hands tied as far as what they publish. A lot of the stuff they know is true or they won't publish it for certain reasons or because it affects certain relationships. And I don't care about that. I don't care about any of that. We put out the truth, where we put out stuff and provided it's true, we put out happenings that are happening across the state,

and we don't care if it's done by a Republican or whatnot. We put it out. You know, there's this, in politics, especially Texas politics, it's very popular nowadays to glorify these pop politicians as like many celebrities. People line up to take photos with them and do photo ops with them, and they become, like, good friends with them, and they kind of worship them. I would say there's quite a few politicians,

now that are worshipped. Like, Ken Paxson's a big example of apologists who's quite literally worshipped in the Republican Party. The guy can do no wrong. And we, we, I think, I think our reporting kind of puts them in their ego, at least their egos in check, for sure. What's, you have any interactions with him? Well, you couldn't tell me if you had. Well, you know, I've never interacted with him directly. His, you know, I've had to talk to his staff or comments on story. They're, they're very nice, very intelligent staff, you know, but, but I was, you know, I remember specifically on Memorial Day, I'd gotten a tip that he was at a hotel in the Fort Worth Stockyards and at like one in the morning.

And I drove up there one in the morning just trying to get information. And sure enough, some hotel staff had confirmed he was in that hotel, which is kind of interesting. But yeah, you know, we've reported on his bad behavior of his affairs and mis-hapenings with him. but, you know, I wrote an article about it this morning. Like, and it was, it actually, I think the Tribune had interviewed a, uh, a Texas political consultant. And he said the Republican Party does not care about, or the Republican voters in Texas do not care about the affairs or misappenings of Kent Paxon. They're more concerned about getting him elected. And I, I, I 100% agree with them.

They don't care. I was like, yeah, I told somebody this the other day, it can come out that he had had five, he had funded five abortions. and people won't care, they'll vote for him. You can argue, there's a debate as to whether that's a good thing or about them. Yeah, and I think in a way to me, and I want to say that I don't say this as some sort of like a flex or like a talking down to because I hate when people do this to me and they've been doing it to me forever. But I'm at almost 41 now, like somewhat of an old head in the politics game. Like this is what I've been doing somewhat my whole life, like since college. At the same time, so like I don't say that to say like, oh, because people would always say to me like when you get older, you're going to get you'll get more conservative.

Well, that actually hasn't happened to me. I used to be fairly centrist Democrat and it just didn't work. Like you can only lose for so long without being like I feel like there's got to be another way to do this. And so just giving you my background. I, and I think it is interesting when it gets to how your publication has succeeded as well. I'm of the mind that it is, it's tougher to build progressive coalitions and government. By the very nature that you are consolidating several disparate groups to try to take on usually one or more smaller number of consolidated groups, right?

Usually the conservative in any society is going to be the people, it's the people who want to but the same relatively. So you've got all of these other different groups trying to form one group to try to take these people on. So to me, what the outflow of that is, is that the people in the conservative movement, the solid movement, they will stay solid. They will stay together. And it doesn't matter if the person who's representing the herd acts one way.

as long as they vote in the interest of the herd, those people will stick the fuck together. If you flip that and look over to the center and to the left of the aisle, you can see it with what's happening with Graham Platner right now, whether this is right or wrong. I know that if Graham Platner got elected, he would vote the way that I wanted to vote. That is immaterially affected by whether or not he sexually assaulted someone. Do you know what I mean? Like with Republicans in it, and to me, that's kind of how. I ended up moving further away from centrist politics was because it's like, dude, look what they're doing.

It's fucking working. Like, you may not like it, but the fact that they don't, you know, Al Franken had to quit the Senate for like putting his hands over a woman's chest in a pretend photo, his friend, right? Like, he was a good senator. But if you're, I think that's part of the problem on with, with building on our side is that it's, They would never, Ken Paxson would have been an excommunicado 10 years ago, you know? Like there's no chance he survives that on the left.

And I think that's a real problem. I don't love it. But at some point you have to stomach it if you want to have any chance of power or controlling like the narrative to me. Yeah. There's constantly this narrative that or this talking point that what people do behind their closed doors doesn't matter. And I actually disagree with that. I think what people do in their day-to-day lives do affect how they govern or how they run their district. or their office and how they treat people.

So I do think it's an issue that these politicians, whoever is not just Kim Paxson, have these little affairs or do these, what people would call it bad things, right? But as you said, like, it's becoming more and more. And it's a quality of the far right and maybe a quality of the far left that they stick together no matter what. They don't, you know, provided this person's going to vote the way I like it,

if they're a far left or right, far right person. I say, if this person's going to vote the way I like it, I don't care what he does. I don't care if he gets caught with escorts or prostitutes or whatever. As long as he's voting the way I want, this is totally fine with me. And I think a lot of people have made that distinction now, especially as politics has become like a red versus blue type game now, more like sports than it is about ideology or behavior or whatever it is the case.

And I do think that that's a quality of the far left and the far, right? that they stick together no matter what. And again, that's debatable whether it's a good thing or a bad thing. Yeah, and the only pushback I would give is just that I don't even know what far right means anymore. Like I grew up in a time where, and it's funny because the more I think about this, the funnier it is to me. But I had an uncle that worked in Republican politics. And now that my family was super Republican, I'm from, it's their country, you know, like my parents were self-employed and my mom self-employed like I'm not I didn't I see all this stuff now

especially with Grant Platner and like DSA stuff on social media like every every lefty like this you know they're their their trust fund kids and their parents get I'm like man come talk to me but in any case uh to me it's when I say when you say far right I don't even even know really what that is because it i mean obviously you've got your like this blowhard who shows up at frisco city council meetings but it just seems to me like the the republican party has done a really good job of deciding we're all sticking with one idea here whereas the democrats have no fucking clue right like that talarico crockett race should not have turned into what it did there's no neither one of them are going to win like this whole thing should have been about it like

advancing the party. And I wake up today and it's just a clip of her saying, this is racist. And I'm like, we're fucked. You would just never see something like that in the Republican Party. And you know, she's not, I mean, maybe she's to some people far left. But I get what you're saying far left, far right. I just think it's that Republican, right, to me, from my view, Republicans do a great job of sticking together. And them and quote unquote Democrats don't. But, you know. I say that there, there is like, a schism in the Republican Party, right? Like, and you can tell just based off the recent election, like, Cornyn got his amount

of votes and Paxton got his. So clearly there is a section of people in the Republican Party that don't agree with the other part of the Republican Party. And I don't even think it's a half. It's probably more than half. So there is like a group, right? But I do think that the Republican Party, at least in Texas, has shifted more to the right for sure. And again, I would argue, you know, as a Republican and news conservative,

myself, I'd argue this is a good thing. And with the left, you know, at least as an outsider looking in, you're right. You see stuff like, you know, like yesterday, that clip that came out where she comes out and she says that, you know, that, yeah, he's a racist. The campaign was a racist. The race was racist. It was a racist race. It was a racist race. And, you know, she's clearly not helping, Crocett's clearly not helping Talarico. You know, she's more concerned about the down ballot. And, yeah, there's an opportunity.

Democrats are going to screw it up in Texas. They're going to figure out some way to screw it up. And, yeah, they're not getting, you can argue that comes from, like, jealousy or just bitterness from her loss, right? But I do think that Democrats do a good job of, like, at least it seems. And again, maybe, maybe, again, this is outsider looking. And they do do do a decent job of, like, sticking together.

They don't really, you know, at least outwardly show problems within the Democrat Party. You know, I went to the Democrat convention. What was it, two, three weeks ago. Yeah, I saw her pictures. That was sad. Well, you know, I mean, it's a blue convention in a blue state. It kind of makes sense that it would be a little low energy or blue convention in a red state. But, you know, it seemed like there was relatively good cohesion. Everybody kind of seemed on this, at least on the same page, you know.

Yeah. I may be, it's tricky when you live online and who knows how much of that translates to real life. You know, I guess the ballots are really the only way to find out. And speaking of the ballot, Jasmine Crockett may say she's concerned about down ballot. She's concerned about herself. She's concerned about her own self-image. And I don't know if that's more of a problem with progressive politicians than conservative ones. Typically, I think in the past would have said yes that progressive politicians get more high on their own farts.

but Trump came along and kind of like rewrote the yeah so so speaking on like the point of how you build like groups and uh coalitions I I uh I work with a guy who used to work at the blaze a couple guys who worked there for a while and uh like I grew up listening to conservative talk radio and all that sort of stuff but it seems to me like right wing media out of the outlets a lot of times, and I mentioned the blaze because they're different. A lot of times right wing media outlets, if you really were able to pop the hood, they're just getting funding. Like they're not doing, like their subscribers are almost non-existent, right?

Their ad revenue is almost non-existent. And they don't want to talk about that. But, you know, if you know enough people, you can figure it out. Whereas like, and again, that goes back to a lot of times, conservatives are pro business. It's in their interests a lot of times to be like, you know, and, The other thing is, correctly, as I'm sure you would point out, most people who go into media are left of center. So conservatives have like an incentive to try to like foster a conservative media movement with funds, right?

But it seems to me part and parcel of the fact that you're doing the type of reporting you are, I would be surprised if you're getting like a ton of money from non-subscribers. Yeah, it's actually a really good point. So the majority of right-wing media outlets are funded by, you know, big names, right, big people. Like Scorecard funded by, which was formerly in Power, Texas, funded by Tim Dunn, who's who's a multimillionaire. And a lot of these groups are... The Express. Yeah, I'll say it.

Yeah, Monty Bennett, right? So a lot of these media outlets are funded. And, you know, the left, like the Tribune and all that, they're founded by Hearst, or they're funded by Hearst, or they're all kind of the same media outlet just with different names on it. Um, there's not a lot of money to be made in media, but with the right, like, you're right. There is, there's so little right wing media that there's a lot of people willing to throw money at it. Um, and even other countries that are willing to throw money at right wing actors,

uh, and promoters, right, and influencers, uh, with us. You ever taking a call from Vlad? Uh, no, I did, I did get, you know, this is going to be funny. I did get approached by Israel. recently talked about it with some people privately. But I did get approached by kind of like an Israeli group recently. And I took that meeting. It was interesting.

Nothing exchanged hands. Nothing happened. Nothing. But it was an interesting. It was a little weird. It was a little weird. I'll say that. I just want the record to show that the internet cut out the second you said the I word for like two seconds.

And you can tell me whatever you're willing to tell me. And then you save it for your own content, for your own purposes. But how does that come about? Like you just, I just got a phone call or like an email. I just got an email. Somebody wanted to meet, discuss, discuss things, have a conversation. Well, because like I know that that's not like a few months ago. And all this shit, you can find it online if you want.

They had filed a bunch of paperwork for like influencer campaigns, right? Yeah, yeah. Churches and things like. that so you know I don't know what I would have I don't know how I consider where you fit into all that but it would make sense I guess that they would they would come to you yeah I mean you've got Brad Parscale right who just came out recently and he's like a foreign actor right so a lot of these other countries do like I've got I got a friend who's a Gen Z influencer makes YouTube shorts and TikTok videos and puts out what I

call slop on the internet and he's he's being being funded by the state of Israel or the country or whatever. So he just closed that to any degree like because I don't even know that people would care. No, no, no, a lot of these guys and that's actually, you know, a chip on my shoulder for a lot of reporting. I do it, but the people that don't disclose. But no, they don't disclose that. Of course not. I would. That's crazy.

You've got like Russia was funding tenant media, right? Like that was a big right wing, you know, media out. One of my close friends, Lauren Southern, she was part of that, you know, and she didn't know about. about it, but they got taken down, right? But as far as us, getting back to the original question, like, yeah, getting funding is incredibly hard because we don't really push an agenda. Like I'm not here to prop up the Republican Party.

I'm a right-leaning guy, a right-leaning views, and I think that does come out in my writing. My staff's all right-leaning too. So yeah, when something right-leaning or conservative happens, we do celebrate it in our writing, that does translate into the, to the stories we put out. But we don't pull punches for politicians.

We don't do any of that. So yeah, we don't, I found in the six years I've been doing this, if somebody's willing to write you a donation or a check, and it has a comma, they generally want something, or they don't want you to do something. I've been offered money to write hit pieces. I've been offered money to kill stories, you know, and we don't take those.

So, yeah, getting funding is a little rough, right? We recently, you know, we do have like, people can subscribe and then give us six books a month to read our news. And then we just recently started doing ad campaigns. So Kalshi, the prediction market company is a big sponsor of us. So we do disclose that very, very, we're very transparent that by Kalshi a little bit. So, but yeah, it's hard to get donors and funders because of the fact that we don't tow the line. We don't have had situations where this is quite real. Guy gives me $300 like, oh, I love your work.

And then two weeks later, I have to write a story about his escorts that he left in his Venmo payments. Like, it just happens. And, you know, we don't, we just don't pull our punches. You know, I like, I like doing business like that. It makes, I can sleep well night. So, I'll move on from this after this. But do you think that it would be, if you took that, relationship, would they, would they have wanted you to write specific stories or?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I've been offered money to. Like the Israel thing. Well, you know, for the record, like the meeting I had with somebody like Israeli, Israeli adjacent was not, there was nothing asked. It was just questions.

But, but I have had situations where people, you know, have offered me a pretty big chunk of change, but they want, you know, certain things written or not. written, certain topics talked about consistently. And I, this is like life changing money that's being offered. And I'm just, I just, I just won't do it because it's just, you know, eventually this stuff comes out. That's the thing. Eventually doesn't matter who you work for, how you do business or how secretive you are. Eventually, it like comes in like, it could be within a year or a decade later, like people find out who funds what and why. And I just, I don't do business like that. I don't want to do business like that.

It's worked out pretty well so far for me. Well, yeah, and I think obviously your main goal is to get interviewed on an offshoot podcast from people who got fired by radio. We didn't actually get fired. I shouldn't say that because if you say that, people will repeat it. Yeah, I don't believe it. So now I want to get to a little bit of like how you got to where you are. As you said, prior to 2020, you weren't really.

writing, doing a sales job, kept that job for a couple years into current revolt. So you're of Mexican heritage. Are you from DFW? Let's give me somewhat of the timeline up to 2020 and include if you want, like the political pathway as well. Yeah, I guess I'm a second generation American. My father was born in Chicago. My grandparents or great grandparents were original Texans, right, before I guess like Texas.

was part of the U.S. And so, yeah, that's kind of like my heritage to say. I grew up in a very lefty household. The majority of my family works in the public sector in Chicago, and so they lean left or at some case, I would argue, a lot of them are very progressive, incredibly progressive left. My father was the only one that was really conservative. And growing up, he listened to a lot of talk radio.

As I'm sure you're aware, like right-wing politics is very strong. strong in talk radio politics. Oh yeah, man. I'm old enough to have not only lived through, but at like 19 years old when I saw the promos for Air America, was like, that's going to fucking fail. And it did. It was like Janine Garofalo,

possibly the aforementioned Dal Franken, Chuck D from Public Enemy, and several other lesbians. It was fucking terrible. It was on for about a year. Oh, okay. You know, because if you look at it now, like, there is a market for, it's Rogan, right? Like, there's other shit besides just yelling conservative invective that works.

Yeah, I mean, there's a left tribe back then. It sucked. There's progressive, like, shows, right? You look at the young Turks, right? Or, uh, there's a way to do it. There's a way to do it. Um, but, uh, yeah, grew up in that and wasn't really into politics until I started making money. I would have, actually, I would have identified probably as, I did identify as like a Democrat

as a young, as a very young person, not because, because, you know, especially especially back then, anybody who identified as a Republican is old and, you know, white. And I was, I was young and brown. So, you know, and, you know, especially if you want to fit in with your groups, you don't really, you don't really try to get outside the lines, right, drawn into. And so, yeah, like, with friend groups especially especially my very early 20s I identified as a Democrat I was you know but but in 20 in 2016 is when or 2015 era is when I started to make a lot of money in my sales job and I remember um closing some really big deals that I was expecting like I think it was like 12,000 commission check and I was really excited to stay to to to see that that money come in so I remember

even staying up really late at night just to see the direct deposit hit my bank account and it did I think it was around three in the morning and hit and I remember it was it was it was very very short of 12,000 and I was I was very frustrated was pissed and I remember waiting for 9 a.m. to hit so call each artist what the heck's going on what is this and they're like there's like honey that's your that's your taxes welcome welcome to America like welcome to welcome to how things work right and I was just like what the hell where's taxes for what like what I live in an apartment I have a home like what tax what am I paying for like I lived in Louisville at the time I was like the road suck public transport sucks you know my car got broken into the other day like everything everything sucks like what are these taxes covered and so like that was my first like a foray into like I guess what people describe like being right making it and then you know 20 2015 comes along and Trump gets off that escalator gets at the top of that scale or whatever it was and he's like you know Mexico's not sending their best or something. sending rapists, criminals, and bad people, and some I assume are nice people.

And I was like, you know what? Yeah, I agree with them. Everything sucks. And, like, there's these crappy people you've got to deal with. And I hate it. And I agree. You know, I had read Trump's book, like Art of the Deal, which he didn't write, right? I think it was written by the way.

But I had written, I had read Art of the Deal. I'd never watched his shows. I never watched any of his stuff. But I was like, oh, this guy's likable. And I remember having a conversation with my dad. And he asked me, he's like, oh, who are you supporting for this race? Like, you're probably a Bernie guy. And I'm like, actually, I like Donald Trump.

And I was like, what about you? And he's like, I effing love Donald Trump. And so it was the first time my dad and I had like agreed politically. And I was a further along with the introduction to me from Ben Shapiro. Ben Shapiro did a lot of these debates. They were very bad faith debates where you'd had Ben Shapiro arguing with like stupid, low IQ college but at the time it looked really cool you were like oh he's

owning the lips like and you had a lot of these memes and clips of like Ben Shapiro like you'd have like liberal college students as something stupid and Ben Shapiro just totally takes a intellectual dump on them and it was so needed interesting at the time right and so I

ate that crap up and then the right had introduced or the very first I call them e-girls like almost political influencers that are girls that are attracted the Wright had created their first, like, E-girl out of Lauren Southern at the time. And I think she was, like, 1920. And she, no, she was 21, sorry.

And she was this very attractive, beautiful blonde girl that was, like, anti-feminism, pro-right stuff. And she would show up to, like, feminist rallies. And she'd be, like, this hot blonde girl holding up a sign that says, like, rape culture's not real. And people would, like, throw crap at her. And I think her, her career hit off when, like, a, a feminist threw a bottle of pee on her. And, you know, I was like, oh, like, I love this girl.

Like, she's so attractive. And I'm like, I was watching and like consuming her content. And so like all of that kind of got me into the right sphere. And then from there, my my views kind of like change and develop over time. And a lot of that's like, you know, after you get into the party and realize like a lot of this is like smoking ears and BS and a lot of BS talking points. but yeah that was kind of like my foray into republican or conservative politics okay so yeah that that is very interesting to me you've kind of speed run like years of of political involvement it feels like because you know it seems like you know when you're

reporting very much what you're talking about you're super plugged in and I'm not like here to try to like convert you or convince you or anything like that but I did hear your appearance on Will Kane show another local dude used to be a huge listener to the radio station where I worked and I would I would hear him like use our language on Fox News and be like oh that's cool even if I can't stand this guy but so I know that the word socialism is going to be used a lot for the next five six months and and I'm not like blaming you for for this or whatever but the clip of like talking about socialist policies and like being light on policing and open borders this kind of goes back to the coalition building thing i guess a

little bit because you're having to consider all these different causes as you try to build a political movement but first of all um if you wanted to do the confusing communism and socialism thing which people often do the democrats do it because we can't stand our own. Communist country is not known for light policing. So that's the first one. But no, to your point, to me, I just wish when we talked about socialism, we talked about the economy. I wish we talked about how taxes are collected, who pays what, how they're administered, you know, how public funding and services work. But instead, when you guys talk about socialism, you end up talking about, like, oh, they've got blue hair and they cut their dicks off. And I'm like, whoa, I don't have

anything to do with that. There's nothing social about that. Like, but that doesn't, that's not the message. And I, I, I tell you this because I genuinely believe that if people understood what the, the, the mechanics of something like socialism were, I feel like it would be a lot more popular. Like you see Gina Hinoosa right now throwing the Hail Mary of like, what if I gave each one of you $1,500 the week I was elected?

And she wants to do this from the Rainy Day Fund, right? Well, that sounds like for some reason everyone in Texas immediately, fucking, that's just skin crawl, socialism. That's disgusting. You're just going to hand out free money. It is our

money. They have our money. We pay, into this rainy day fund, this investment fund is cat. It can't grow anymore. But even getting our own money back, now I will accuse you and your people of making us feel like that's bad. Like we pay for it. Like yes, some people who don't pay as much as you are also going to get money. But I feel like that becoming a hindrance to the people who need it, getting it, that's where I get jammed up. Yeah, it's kind of funny how messaging works, right? Like if I think if if you were a Republican, let me tell you how she would pitch this.

She would say, you know what, there's this, all this money that's like left over and ready to fund. I want to give it back to the people. We're going to do property tax. We're going to give it back to you in your property tax. We're $1,500 off for every home in the state of Texas. It's the same thing, right? Like giving me, it's essentially not, not 100 percent, but it's essentially kind of thing.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like, I'm giving it back as a property tax, like refund or I'm giving you a $1,500 check. It's kind, kind of the same thing, right? Although, you know, a property tax thing doesn't really get to the people who run or own apartments or rent, right? But, yeah, I mean, you know, I think what Republicans view is like the problem with, like, socialism or quote unquote, free money is, as you describe, it's not free money, it's our money, right? So it's not free. It came from something. It came off the us working our butts off, you know, whether it's an office job or hard labor.

Like, it's our tax. It's our work. and we're giving it back, we're giving it to the state, and then they're turning around and giving it to us. It's not free. But we want it, I think as Republicans, and I'm speaking as a Republican, we want it to direct it in a positive, good way. Like, for example, with me, like I don't, I don't, like the SNAP program. I had a bunch of problems with the SNAP program, and this was something they fixed recently where they, they, they wanted to, when I say they, Republicans wanted to pass something that would stop SNAP payments to sugary drinks and candy.

And I think that that's a phenomenal idea. Snap stands for what supplemental nutrition and something program. Like, there's nothing nutritional out of Coca-Cola or a bag of potato chips. Like, there's not a lot of nutrients there, right? And so, you know, Republicans were very important this. And Democrats are like, no, no, no, like we got, like, we got to give them all. this is bad, like this is bad, we should let them buy their soda. And I'm like, no, like, you know, this, a lot, good chunk of, like,

I think Coca-Cola's like revenue actually comes from, snap. And so, like, these programs are just propping up these billionaires, right, that are poisoning us with, like, this bad food. The health in America is horrible. I remember reading a statistic, and I only know, unfortunately, I know women right now, we were just talking about recently in our Discord chat. But I think, like, the average American woman weighs like 150, 160 pounds. I weigh 160 pounds.

like that's that's that's that's that's clearly like not a good thing right and so like yeah we have to do something about the health in our country but going back to like taxes all that like yeah i don't want i don't want my taxes funding this right and so like when it comes to like programs and stuff like i i think i think republicans are concerned of how the money is spent versus just like throwing money at people and letting them do whatever they want with it it's the same with uh education like and i i I think I disagree with a lot of my Republican people in Texas where, like, I don't support the vouchers. I think the school choice thing is a total scam. We've said this on record for years, right?

Like, this is just a scam. I think it, I don't have children, but I pay, I pay taxes and I pay for, I'm happy to pay for funding that promotes, you know, public education. I think it's patriotic that you want to fund better education for your fellow Americans in Americans that are growing up in American society. But I do have a problem with like these leftist teachers that are pushing like propaganda, right? Just like I would have with Republicans pushing right-wing propaganda on students.

Like I don't, I want children to grow up and develop their own opinions on things. But, you know, these Republicans are really keen on passing this voucher stuff and how they direct the money. And so, so yeah, I'm not, I'm not against like funding things provided it's funded in a good positive way. I just don't, you know, I think Republicans just have a problem with like giving away free checks and letting people do whatever they want. Yeah, and I think that obviously that is the rub right there. And for me, I think what has been the turning, well, it's hard to talk about this without sounding like an asshole because at some point you just start to say, you start to be like,

well, maybe I'm just a kinder person. And that's really not it. It is that I think there's a lot of research out there that shows that when you add those sorts, I mean, we already have like pretty hardcore means testing. Like it's not there's so much, and this is the Democrat thing, I think. Well, I guess it's a Democrat's capitulating, but they make you fill out a lot of fucking paperwork to be poor. Right. Like it's not, there's a significant amount of administrative bullshit, which comes with administrative costs involved in these programs. And more requirements and restrictions you put on them, the less likely they are to achieve any positive outcome. So to me, it seems like a lot of times you end up like, hey, it would cost us,

you know, whatever to administer this program, let's say 75 cents a person and put these, these restrictions on here. But when you do that, it's actually not going to, nobody's going to use it. So we're just wasting the entire 75 cents. Like, what if we made it? or a dollar, right? Like, you have to, I understand that's a very poor analogy, but my point is, I think it becomes more expensive and less effective. The more, like on the COLA thing, for example, and the percentage of Coca-Cola's profit margin coming from this is a compelling point,

because they're 100% just lobbying to keep this going in the form that it is. But I think what you find is that, to use that word fungible again, they're just going to use their money on that and not grow, you know what I mean? Like they'll buy it. They're still going to buy it. Like they're still going to use different money. Yeah.

And I'm fine with that, right? Like it's like use your money how you want to use it. But if you're using my money, which is the taxes that this program is funded for, then I should have a say in how you spend it. Like absolutely. Like I just, you know, it's, it's. Can I say one thing about that too is that like when we get money. back like middle class people if you get like a refund or something like that nobody's there's

obviously no strings attached to that right like they're not so i guess the distinction is you paid in right you paid the government that's the only reason we get generally generally not always but that's generally the reason we get money back is because we we gave the government too much money right as opposed to somebody who's net negative sure right like like you know but if like uh for example like you're giving all these like all these uh big billionaire corporations are getting tax discounts or abatements or whatever you want to call them and they're being able to do whatever they want with it like i disagree that like uh for example you know we talked about this yesterday but like chase chase bank uh is is relocating their headquarters it believes from dallas to up to plano

and i'm sure and i don't know for a fact so i could be wrong here but i'm sure the city of plano is doing something or did something to make it more attractive for them to move to plano whether that's tax discounts or whatever and then it comes out that they laid off like a substantial number of people and they have applied for a substantial number of H-1B applicants. And that, that, that, like, pisses me off. Like, if you're going to get these tax discounts or if you're going to get any sort of discounts or assistance as a billion, a billion dollar company or a rich company, like, you should be forced to do stuff that benefits our community.

When I say community, it's kind of like a lefty word, but like Americans, right? Like if you are a corporation that's getting tax right offs or discounts from the government, then you should be required to not have any age one or a certain lower percentage, right? Because you should be giving back to your community, giving back to your country, your state. But you're seeing a lot of Americans now, especially Gen Ziers that are getting displaced in the job market because these billion dollar companies are bringing in a slave labor class to work for very, very cheap. and so yeah to kind of reiterate again like I I just I and I think a lot of Republicans feel this way I don't think it's intelligent to just throw money at people just say hey go do whatever you want or you saw this with like a what was it during COVID there was like a mean going around I don't know if it's true but like

they gave people these free checks these COVID checks and then like they were out buying like nikes and shoes and and BS like instead of like doing something like really productive with it and you can argue like whatever like but I think it I think it does matter, you know, how our money is being spent. Well, let me just try to ask it pointedly. If you were, if someone were able to prove to you that, I don't know, you need, there are studies on this, but they're not big enough, right, I guess. And the tricky thing is, is a lot of these cases are not America, right?

And there's a special set of circumstances in America. I don't know if you're much of a sports guy, but I always like to say America has a very hard schedule. Like we really got some tough teams here. There's, you know, people, you like to point out, like Nordic models of economics. They're very homogenous societies. They didn't have slavery 200 years ago, like race-based. It's very hard for America to implement some of these programs. Like, it just, we have a different set of circumstances. Like that being said, my position is that it is proven that as much as it sucks to see people buying nikes and the um chapel sketch coming to life that it just is the case that you get better outcomes in getting people out of poverty if you just give them money like i know that's my

i i have a buddy who's a he's a big christian um but he is a lefty he lives in uh greensboro south carolina and he runs an organization called held heldd and their scale and their scale it and and the caveat is they only give the money to people who have been sort of filtered to them through like goodwill. I think that's some other agencies, but if you're like a significant number of people who are homeless are like right on the edge, they're frankly people like us who've got, you know what I mean? Like a bad situation. They're not they're not giving money to drug addicts. They're not giving money to people who are don't have a job, don't want to work. But if you do, they just straight up give you, I think it's like two grand to get an apartment, but they don't tell you you have to get an apartment.

And then they give you $750 a month after that for a year. And they have like a really high success rate. But I think the problem is, you know this from working in media. Human nature is that the negative stick out in our mind. And we're like, fuck, I hate that shit. I don't want you buying cigarettes. And I think that social media hurts that. Like I truly believe that if we were able to just give people money, we would have to give them less.

That's the point I was trying to make with the 50 and 75 cents thing is I think at the end of the day, it's like more cost effective even though it's like, wait, trust me, dude. It's fucking, I got up at 2 a.m. in Hawaii. You know, like this is all I do. My mom is here. My mom's in self-employed and she was 17. Like, I'm a fucking grinder, right? Like, I know that you are too if you're going to Kent Pax's hotel at one. I don't like being around people who don't want to work, and I don't like people expecting me to give them something.

But I'm also a rational, try to be a rational person. And at some point, I'm like, look, if this is what's going to, if it's cheaper for me to bite down and just give you money than it is for me to make it more expensive and put restrictions on it, then at some point I'm just like, fuck, dude. Like, just give them the money. And you know, the problem for me too is like I don't, I think you and I probably have different opinions about like sexuality and alternate versions of, you know, human sexual relations. But that's not like a huge issue for me necessarily. And the trans thing is definitely not. Like I know way more poor people than trans people. And that's like kind of why when we start to try to build out like the platform, I'm like,

I don't know that we can have the guys and the thongs, like on the march, on the billboard, like, you're scaring the hose. Yeah, yeah, yeah. See, I think. Yeah. I also just want to say that I'm not telling you how to, like, I, my, again, my mom is here. My mom, the idea to my mom of, like, writing somebody at check every month who doesn't work, like she would, their skin, girl, right? Yeah. Like, I get it.

There's some people you're just not going to be able. And that's why I try to make it more of a, it's more effective argument than a, hey, look, it's not, it's not, because it sucks. I hate watching people not work. Yeah, I think, but I think they can. I think there is motivation that spawns out of struggle. I'm not saying that people should struggle. But like, I'll give an example. Like, I was so broke at one point in my life that I specifically remember driving to work almost on E

and having to pull into a gas station and use the change out of my cup hole. to get like $1.25 gas. That's how broke I was at one point in my life. And my motivation to work hard and to get promoted at work and do better and blah, blah, blah, was never having that happen again. Right? Does that sort of inspiration become less if you're just giving people free money and saying, here you go, do whatever you want with it?

I think so. I think it's a valid concern. And like also like I don't have faith. faith in people. Like, I just generally don't. Like, if you, if we were to come out tomorrow that we do UBI, right, and everybody's getting $500 a month, just no questions asked, like, here's a $500 check every month. I guarantee you these landlords, apartment complexes, H-OAs would all raise their prices to offset this. Like, you're not going to see, I guarantee you an apartment complex is immediately going to make their rent an extra $250 to $300 a month. I guarantee you, because they're like, everybody's got all this supplemental income that they're not, I want, I want that. I want that. I want them. I want, I want, that for me now. I want that check of me. So I don't, I don't have faith in people to not abuse that availability for people. So I do, but again, I do think that there's like some, some beauty and some, some good things that can spawn out of, like, serious struggle in one's life. I, I, and I think people need that as, like, a motivator to failure, failure spawns creativity and, and, and promotes, like, work

hard work just like it's like the dating world like you you get you get shit on by a girl you ask out and you maybe maybe she like dumps on you for the way you look or for what you do or what you have and that motivates you to like work out or work harder or better yourself so that you that doesn't happen to you again right like you can't just like expect things to fall into your lap you know you have to you have to struggle no i mean listen that's a compelling point for me because i've like you know i'm less about this now but i've built like my whole self-identity out of a grind culture. Like, oh, I come from workers.

I'm going to work. But, and so I get it. By the way, I do, before I forget this, since you mentioned women again, if I had to imagine what was happening in the current revolt Discord server, it would be people being like, look how fucking big women.

This is disgusting. I'm sorry, I had to say it. You said like, hey, it was in a Discord server. I'm like, that's what I would expect. That's, I, the dumb zone group chat is exactly how people think it would be as well. I guess like and as I'm thinking this out like you know I'm kind of having trying to have it both ways but there are countries that do this like in my ideal society people like you and me if we wanted more would be able to get more and that's what we're doing but if you don't and you don't have whatever I think that I have and you think that you have you won't get more but you also won't like die if you're sick. Now, to your point, if I would argue with myself, maybe, you know, that I'm going to die

if I get sick is what motivates you to go to work. But I think overall, like social cohesion wise, I think that produces worse outcomes on whole just because there's just too many poor people. Like there's just too many people and that becomes a drain on society. So, you know, even if people like you and me are successful at some point, it's like, fuck like there's a lot of poor people this is not as fun as if there were no less poor people so yeah um yeah it's tricky um i don't know i know that i think there's always going to be a poor class right like no matter what and it's everywhere in society but what we do need to do is a better job of um is making the middle class grow right as time has gone on the middle class is shrunk in america and middle class is like

that's the american dream is like the middle class right that like you can what even if you just like immigrate here. People immigrate here, not for the freedom of speech or for gun rights. They immigrate here for opportunity. And generally it's economic, generally it's economic opportunity. And that is how glorious the middle classes in America. But that is shrinking. And it's shrinking for a lot of reasons. But we talked about this yesterday. It used to be, there was a show called Married with Children. And you had Al Bundy, who was a shoe salesman, okay? A shoe salesman. And he had, had like I think two or three kids, stay-at-home wife, and he was able to send in the college and I think it was a two-story house. And he did all this on a shoe salesman step us out.

And you cannot do that now. Like if you were to work at a shoe store or a clothing store and you were a young person, you could not live in an even an apartment by yourself. You'd probably have to pick up a sidekick job like doing Uber. eats or something they deliver roommate like the middle class is like really dying in america and i feel really really bad for gen z years because we're we're millennials but like the gen z generation the gen z generation's generation's generation's totally screwed they're not going to have access they don't have access to american dream if they want if you're a jen zier you want to buy a house now you either have to inherit it uh take in some sort of supplemental income from your parents or be part of the upper

5, 10% that just like really, really, really hit it off somehow, whether it's in work or whatever. As a middle class, like pulling in 60, 70K a year as a Zoomer that wants to just like buy a home, it's going to be a lot harder than it was for people like us or especially the ones before us, the Gen Xers of the baby boomers. Yeah. And obviously, we've reached different conclusions on that. To me, that is the lean into turbo capitalism and neoliberalism. And I think a lot of times when people hear someone like me say that,

they think it's like, oh, it's Republicans. It's not. It's the Democratic Party is run by Wall Street. It's run by the healthcare industry. Like, you know, I brought this up to you yesterday, but the lady got primaried in Colorado. And they're like, well, she was a reliable vote. Why did you guys come for her?

It's like because her entire campaign is funded by people that prevent us from changing things like housing laws. which are a big part of the reason why you know you box an entire generation out before we go a couple things i think that point you made about the h1bs is is interesting because i think it's illustrative um i can't stand the the tax abatement thing the more i've learned about it it's it's crazy to me it just i don't understand how they think the math is going to work right and i particularly become aware of these things with sports arenas because they don't find They don't pay anything.

Like they pay nothing. And they end up all the businesses around the arena that were there. Get up closing because the owners own all the property now and open all their own shit. It just doesn't, they don't pay their fair share. And so to me, a lot of people on the left, if you were to say, hey, you've got to hire Americans as a part of this, they would fucking vomit. Like, there's just no, that's racist. But to me, like, that goes back to my thing on just giving money away. To me, it's just a basic, this is economically sensible.

Like, you can't let people pay nothing and also hire from without your community because the fact that they're paying nothing is already impacting the community. Right. This is a very simple math equation to me. And it doesn't really have anything to do with xenophobia or anything like that. Yeah, I mean, like American, American's not a race, right? Like, I don't care. And I think most even Republicans, it's for this way.

I don't give a shit if cheese comes in and gets these tax, I'd be higher 500 black people. Like, as long as they're American. Like, just give back to the community, right? Like, I don't look at American as a race and look at it as, like, my people. You know, I was talking to one of these right-wing influencers the other day, and they are funded by another country right now. now and they're also from that country.

And I said, let me give you a hypothetical scenario. I said, you've got to launch a nuclear weapon no matter what. And you have two choices. You can nuke the state of California or you can nuke this country. Which do you nuke? And he goes, oh, I knew California. It's filled with Libthards. And then I said, that is so effing stupid.

I said, I feel the exact opposite. Like if you were, because I'm Mexican, I'm Hispanic, said, if you gave me the option of nuking Mexico, or nuking L.A. When would I choose? I would nuke Mexico any day of the week. Like, yeah, L.A. is filled with quote unquote libtards,

but those are my libtards. Those are Americans. Like, those are my people. I am not going to hurt my people. I don't care if they disagree with me politically. Like, Mexico's never done anything. I've never gotten a check from Mexico. I don't give a crap what happens since Mexico.

Like, so yeah, like, there's a problem with, and I think the left suffers from this lot. I think there was a survey done recently that proves this, that there's no patriotism, there's no pride in America from the left. They're very, and actually hate America. And I think that that's a problem that the left needs to address for sure is like this, this growing hate for the country that has done so much for them. You can hate what America is now as far as like if you hate Donald Trump or what it

represents or what it does with the wars it gets in. I often feel upset with American policy. but at the same time, I still love it. It's still like done so much. It allows us to do what we're doing right now, right? If we were in China, like we wouldn't be able to talk about this freely because we have a social credit system that we have to worry about, right? And so, yeah, just going back to my point, like, yeah, I just, I think if we were,

if we were able to kind of come together, I think a lot of times, like, it's a horseshoe theory. We're like, we all agree with what we want at the end of day. We want a growing middle class. We want to feel safe. We want to be able to take care of. and to be healthy, whatever that looks like. But we disagree how we get there. And I think that that's the big problem right now.

So you brought up the, there's definitely something to the like self-hating liberal. But for me, it wasn't, it's not like it's, I don't feel like it's self-hating as much as, you know, this really popped off during like 2017 to 2021. But like, are you aware of like Howard Zinn? Howard Zinn, no He's a historian Who wrote like the people's history of the United States So this is like your

I mean even you would you would have to I would say concede That the version of history that And I'm not even necessarily talking about this is a bad thing yet But the version of history that you get in school Is one version But there's obviously A lot of stuff that's papered over there

Yeah, it's right history right Of course, right? And so to me, I don't think it's self-hating to bring some of these things up. Like there was the Tulsa Massacre had like a year where everybody was talking about that. We're like in 1921, there was a neighborhood of Tulsa called Black Wall Street. And it was a thriving like black neighborhood. And it was bombed from the air. The only time in American city has been bombed by American planes from the air incinerated the, you know. And nobody talked about it for like 100 years.

So then when we start bringing this back up and it's like, hey, I feel like this is something people should know about. And honestly, I don't even know why I feel like that. I feel like people should know about it. But when you do that, conservatives are like, what the fuck? Like, what do you, let's just move on from that. And I get that. Because I, like I said, I don't even really know why I want people to acknowledge that happen. But it's almost like, you know, redlining, right?

Like how the ghettos were created by banks and housing companies. I feel like if you drive to the ghetto today, right? Like you're Chris Putnam and you'll post a video of you going to Deep L. I'm at 1.30 in the morning and being like, look, there's crackheads everywhere. To me, I feel like understanding how those neighborhoods were created would help you understand how to get out of it. But it seems to me like when you do bring up like, oh, slate, whatever, it makes conservative people will say, well, do you hate America? get why it comes off that way. So I've just always wondered if there was a way

where you could teach this history and be like, this is bad and we should avoid it without making it feel like you're being indoctrinated, because I do get that. I think teaching attracts a lot of a certain type of person, frankly. Yeah, I think if you're a teacher, like you generally have a bleeding heart. I don't mean that in an offensive way. I think you have to have a heart for children,

for education, and for things. And so generally, bleeding hearts tend to lean liberal. And again, I don't mean that offensively. You just do a little more of the, maybe more ruthless or cutthroat or maybe as people call a black pill type person or more conservative or rightly. Things like slavery and all that and all that. There should, of course, still be talked about in school. I think what people have a problem, at least on the right, people on the right have a problem with is like when you, when you associate like guilt with it. Like I, even if I was white, like I shouldn't feel guilty for slavery.

Like I didn't do that. I didn't decide this. Like, why should I feel bad by it? it why why why should a why should a protester be spitting and yelling in my face and calling me like a colonizer where it's like dude i just got here like 20 years ago right like i don't know i didn't colonize shit like why are you mad at me you know that's that's that's what people have a problem with like yeah this this very very horrible thing happened that that our country did to a certain group of people and it's bad and we should we should like we should remember it we should

talk about it, but like as an individual, I'm not going to, I shouldn't and I'm not going to feel feel bad about it. I didn't do it, you know? And it gets to a point where like, it's like, it's like, it's like get over it. I feel like, I feel the same with the Jan Sixers. Like, on both sides. You have, you have the left who's, who won't shut up about Jan Six because it's like the biggest atrocity in the history of all mankind. And then you have the Jan Sixers who committed, who were part of Jan Sixth and they won't shut up about it either. It's like, oh, it was a Jan Sixers. It's like, I don't care, bro. You broke into a building. Where's my book deal?

You got to, you wrote it to a building, and now you get to do, like, a speaking gig where you cry about being, you know, but you cry about getting in trouble for what you did that was wrong. Like, it was wrong. Like, if I were to go to the public library right now, or if it was two in the morning, I'd go to a public library, and I would have break in and just sit in there. Should I go to jail? Absolutely. Now, I disagree with, like, how the JN. Sixers were really treated.

Like, they were treated horribly, of course. Like, they were really cracked down on, and their lives were destroyed. But you could say that a lot about a lot of people across America who commit other crimes that are being mistreated by the police or by the government, right? Like these things happen. But, but yeah, like I don't think, I think anyway, getting back to my point, like, people, people find like there is, there is definitely a lot of people get, have something to gain in feeling in this victim mentality. Like they can profit off of it or they can they can become influencers off of it, right? The Jans are a great example. Like this thing happened.

They did something illegal. And now they're like doing speaking gigs or they're a quasi internet celebrity, right? Yeah, it's a weird world out there. Listeners to this will know that we've had Jenna Ryan on twice. That was a wild experience both times. Before I let you get out of here, I talked to Lynn Davenport a few months ago. Yeah. And she, fascinating person.

She, speaking of horseshoe theory, she had the theory that because like GCISD, obviously there was an entire podcast done by NBC about great fire. Like it got really caught up into the into the culture wars about what's happening in classrooms and stuff we were just talking about. Although oddly to me, like they always end up getting very mad about the sexual stuff they're talking about. I'm like, that's not even fucking, I wish that we were getting pissed about the teacher telling you about like how Helen Keller was actually. a socialist, right? Doesn't need to do what are the fucking, they read a gay book and now the, anyways. But Lynn's point or opinion

is that like all of that stuff was sort of planted. Like almost sci-op style that like the people that wanted to get to vouchers knew that they could do it by introducing like this insane thing of like book bands because I don't know if you don't have kids. I don't even know

this you know how book ends up at a library people fucking drop them off like there's no like formal process that i've seen we're donating books the library is not going to go through all of them but if you then come in later and tell that bleeding heart library and actually we want to get that book out of the library now they're pissed and now we have a fight and now we get the board and now we get you know so i don't know i sure i thought that was a really have you heard anything about i think what's a lady's name, Bonnie something? Who? There's a lady named Bonnie something who like shows up at these school board meetings and

she actually recently sued the governor. Hmm. Yeah, I'm not familiar with her. I mean, I know, I know Lynn, of course, Davenport, of course. She announced that she's voting for the Democrat for governor. I saw that. Which is kind of funny. I think, I think she's kind of a closet liberal.

She just won't, you know, whatever. But of course, that's the right. We're talking for it, right? Like, everybody left. It's a plausible. It's a stereotype and I just walked right into it. But as far as like sciops go, like I can tell you from the fact that these things happen. And I'm not talking specifically about like the stuff in GCISD.

I'm just saying in general. Like I have seen the people organizing these sciops and both left and right winged siops, right? There are countries. There are people that pay to push out certain things. and have influencers push out certain things or have bad things happen to somebody in order to be like, oh, look at this happen. Like, we need to pass this policy so it doesn't happen again.

Boy, you're in it. You're in the shit. Yeah, people eat that shit up, man. They love it. Like, I, you know, not to go back and talk about something, but like, do you, back when there was this, that bill to ban the sugary drinks for snap, like all of a sudden you had a little handful of these right-wing influencers

talking about, they had a conservative spin on how to justify taxpayer-funded soda. They were like, the government should not have say in how I spend my money. They should not have say, we should leave. The conservatives should be about small government, not big government. Why are we promoting big government? We should allow this.

And it's so funny because you had all of these influencers saying the exact same copy-pasted line, And you knew. And yeah, I knew. And anybody who, like, looks into it knows. Like, it was a funded campaign. Like, somebody had paid them. And they later admitted to it.

You actually had some that came out and they were like, yeah, like, we were paid to say this and regret it. They were paid to promote taxpayer-funded soda. And these people are all shills. And I, they, current law has not caught up with. Right. Yeah. Regulating this form of. of paid speech and disclosure.

And it's a big problem right now. Well, I think I recorded this one. I'll let you get on about your day. We should do this again sometime. Yeah, anytime. It was good. It was good. Thanks for having me on.

Currentrevolte.com is the website. Go check it out. Thank you, Tony. Thank you.