The Eric Metaxas Show - #38 - James Lindsay

Episode Date: January 17, 2026

Today we cover a wide-ranging conversation with James Lindsay on the woke right, post liberal power politics, and the fight over the future of MAGA, plus a candid debate about religious liberty, the founders, and what happens when states stop respecting national cohesion. Sponsor: BlockTrustIRA — Smarter Crypto Investing for Your Retirement: https://metaxascrypto.com TIMESTAMPS(0:00) Intro(4:02) James Lindsay Joins (9:15) Did Tucker Change The Right? (13:46) Who Is Capturing The GOP? (19:26) Founders And Religious Liberty (24:23) Is Christian Nationalism Theocracy? (30:19) Why Did Adams Fear Catholicism? (35:27) Is The Common Good A Trap? (40:42) Are Blue States Ready To Rebel? (44:00) Could Secession Become Normal?

Hey there, folks. Welcome to the program. In a couple of minutes, I'm talking to one of the great minds of our time, James Lindsay. If you're unfamiliar with him, you're in for a treat. If you're familiar with him, turns out you're also in for a treat. I get to talk to him about all kinds of stuff. He is the man who popularized the term woke right. And I remember one year ago, one year ago, him talking about this and me not getting it. And he was speaking prophetically because what he was talking about, the emergence of, you know, strange voices claiming to be from within the conservative movement, he was absolutely right. And I didn't see it coming. And so we're going to talk about that. and get into what's behind it, because I think a lot of people are confused

as to what's behind it. So we won't, I think it's important that we understand or try to understand what it is that's actually going on. So we're talking to James Lindsay in a couple of moments. I want to ask you to support our sponsors on this program. If you don't follow me on X, please follow me on X. There's a lot that I hope. post on X that, you know, I don't get to talk about on this program. And if you are not yet signed up

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taxes.com. So when we come back, a super treat, James Lindsay, talking about the woke right phenomenon. We'll be right back. Hey there, folks. Welcome. I got to tell you, I'm excited right now because I'm going to talk to somebody. You might not be familiar with him or you might. It doesn't make any difference because you're going to be familiar with him if you haven't been right now. He is my friend James Lindsay. He is the man who popularized the term woke right. James Lindsay, welcome back. Hey, Eric, good to see you. I remember when you were talking about this,

I don't know, it's over a year ago when you were talking about the concept of the woke right and I was one of those people like, what? Like what? I'm having a hard time. Is this a thing? I don't see this as being a thing. Really?

Like anti-Semitism? I mean, there have always been like stupid lunatics. They've always existed, but you pretty much ignore. them. All the smart people, you know, the big influencers like our dearest friend, the late Charlie Kirk, would just ignore these people knowing that they're lunatics, they're vermin. You don't talk to them because if you talk to them, you dignify their position. So you ignore them. I think to some extent, apart from the murder of Charlie Kirk, I was mostly right,

because if Charlie were still around, his absence has opened the door for people like Tucker Carlson to say things, to interview people. I don't think he could have gotten away with that if Charlie were still with us. I think it's a very interesting conversation because Tucker was trying to get away with it.

I mean, he interviewed Daryl Cooper, who floated the idea that Churchill was the chief villain of World War II, that the Holocaust was kind of a humanitarian solution to prisoners of war and so on. That was a Tucker Carlson interview that came out in the fall or late summer of 2024 in the lead up to President Trump's election. And in fact, right after that episode aired on the Tucker Carlson show, Tucker Carlson did a show a, a, live show in Phoenix. Russell Brand was there. I'm not sure if Charlie Kirk was there. I happened to be in Phoenix for something completely unrelated, but I didn't have the opportunity to go to see this spectacle for myself.

But this was, you know, a year before Charlie was murdered. And Tucker was already raising this issue, this direction with some of his guests and some of his rhetoric. And this was putting a squeeze on Charlie for the last year of his life because he was having Tucker Carlson as a. major speaker at America Fest 24 and then at the Student Action Summit, SAS, 25, very controversially and, you know, other things in between. And Charlie was caught in a pincher. I agree with you that if Charlie had not been taken from us, that Tucker would have a much harder

job of what he's been doing and that the gates have been opened. But it's also true that he began this kind of crusade and of course Candace Owens began hers a solid year before that immediately I have to interrupt you. Yeah. Have the McRons finally successfully murdered Candace Owens or is she still with us? Last I saw she's still posting crazy stuff. So I think that they... So the Mcrons have not...

That's fascinating because I was so sure that working with Jewish money, the McRons would be able to rub her out. I'm pretty sure. Yeah. I'm pretty sure that's what she was saying, just 10 minutes ago, no? Did I get that wrong? Maybe it was the Israeli assassin wasn't as good as their reputation. I don't know, whatever it is.

But no, she seems to still be with us. That's shocking. Anyway, well, look, we're talking about a number of things here. And I just want to give context again for folks that maybe aren't so familiar here. It's one thing to raise questions. That's the whole thing, right? Like, well, I should be able to ask these questions. Yes, you should.

Yes, you should. if there are mitigating factors with the Holocaust, there are times you might want to bring that up. But, but once you buy into a narrative that says, the Holocaust was no big deal, Hitler was not a bad guy, the villain was Churchill, whatever. Churchill was not Jesus. So yes, there are things, even in my book on Bonhoeffer,

I'm clearly angry at Churchill for the way he dealt with Bonhofer, and the German resistance. Churchill was not perfect. But when you buy into a narrative that begins to say, you know what, I think the Jews are pretty bad and let's start focusing on that.

Something has happened. Now, I know that Charlie was dealing with this garbage in the last year of his life. I know that, not as well as you do, but I know that. But when Tucker Carlson platformed the man that Charlie called vermin, Nick Fuentes.

Now, Charlie didn't mean that literally, but almost. That was the moment that I thought, I don't think Tucker understands what he has unleashed. I don't think, I don't know what I think of Tucker, honestly. Like, I don't know how deluded he is, if he's taking money from, you know, Cutter or whatever. I don't know. I know is that for him to platform somebody as unbelievably vile as Nick Fuentes, he crossed the line.

And if Charlie were with us, I don't know that he could have done that. I think because one of the things Nick Fuentes is famous for is despising Charlie Kirk, whom I loved and many people loved and knew him. Charlie wasn't perfect either, right? but the point is that he was one of the greatest human beings I have ever had the privilege to know and Nick Fuentes despised him and was jealous of him. So for Tucker to do that, that to me was like, we're in a new day now. Like I couldn't, I simply couldn't believe that. And I still can't believe it. I don't know what to think of it. And then to have people who I think are naive like Megan Kelly or Russell Brand kind of

acting like, well, you know, and yeah, Candace has important stuff to say, I don't know what to make of them, but I certainly can't take them seriously because they are, you know, this is very important and they don't get it. Yeah, it's been a, it's been an interesting progression over the last few months because I think of Tucker deciding to platform, Nick Fuentes, we are now in a position where, like you said, whether it's Megan Kelly or Russell Brand or whoever else. Now, I have much more cynical guesses about them than you probably do, but that's beside the point. It is now to the point where their actions are defending something that's so broadly indefensible that it's damaging their reputation.

It's causing people to ask questions about them. They're just asking questions, you know, about what their motivations might be, why they're doing this, why they can't see the problem. And just to make the point, because it's very important for people, because you'll always get this stupid blowback. oh, what's the problem? Tucker Carlson can interview whomever he wants. And yes, of course, he can. But when you bring a character onto your program, who has, to put it mildly controversial views, but certainly who's expressed openly odious views, if you're going to do your journalistic due diligence, you're free to interview this character, however you want. But one would expect that there's going to be a degree of questioning them about their odious views and their controversial positions and there may be hatred of Turning Point USA, giving how long Charlie stood

for Tucker and stood with Tucker against other controversy. And that didn't happen. This wasn't an interview like he gave Ted Cruz, for example, or who we know he can give a challenging interview to a character that he doesn't like or doesn't trust. This was, to use the ugly word, platforming. This was a platforming. This was a profiling interview of Nick Funtas to introduce him to Tucker's much broader audience. And part of what it does is it humanizes these people and makes you say, well, he seems like an okay guy. You're doing tremendous damage.

I mean, because this can be done with every evil figure. Louis Farrakhan, Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, really people that are so wicked that you better be careful if you're going to give them a platform because God is a judge. God will judge you, folks. You better be careful. And I guess I do want to ask you because I can be naive and I have been naive. And so when you say that you suspect that Megan Kelly and others have, well, I mean, what do you suppose is behind it? Because I would love to understand what's behind it.

I really don't get it. I would like to. I've never thought very much of Megan Kelly. I don't hate her, but I've never particularly thought much of her. So I don't know what to think of what's going on right now. So I don't have evidence for the claims that I would like to make, so I won't make them. But I do believe that what's happening is much more coordinated than a bunch of influencers who all just kind of have each other's back in public because they've known each other for a long time. I think that these people are running a deliberate play against the conservative movement and against the Republican Party and against Donald Trump in particular.

and Trump's legacy. The big picture is that I think there's actually a war going on for the future of the Republican Party and conservative movement. And there is a faction that is they describe themselves as post-liberal that is, I guess, in some sense, partially spearheaded by J.D. Vance. They seem to really favor him, at least. And he's expressed a lot of post-liberal views and openly has called himself a post-liberal in the past, to be clear. There's a vision there that's a different model for, and he's expressed. for the conservative movement in Republican Party than it has followed for at least the last 30 to 40 years. That is based more on acquiring power and wielding power than it has been about protecting principle and being a shining city on a hill, as Reagan put it. While the corrupt federal elites have been quietly building wealth through cryptocurrency, hardworking American patriots have been left behind. Today, I want to tell you about metaxis crypto.com. They're bringing access to cryptocurrency well. to real Americans. Crypto is supercharging President Trump's America First economic miracle, and now you can be a part of it. I partnered with Block Trust IRA because their mission perfectly aligns with President Trump's Make America Great Again agenda, smashing down the barriers

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Visit metaxiscrypto.com. That's metaxiscrypto.com making retirement great again. Now, hang on because we're going to, if I'm confused, I'm assuming my audience is confused. The MAGA movement differs from the conservative movement up until Donald Trump. We have to be clear, what are we talking about, right? Because when you say JD Vance is post-liberal, how does that differ from a Trump MAGA worldview? Where is there daylight between the MAGA movement of Trump and what you would see as the post-liberal conservative movement of a JD-A? Vance. Sure. I mean, to me at least, and maybe I'm the one who's out of touch, the MAGA movement represents a

vibrant return to a pro-America-Americanist philosophy that loves the Constitution. It believes in the promises of the Declaration of Independence, its statement of self-evident truths that we're all created equal and endowed by our creator with certain inalienable rights. And among these are life, liberty, pursued happiness. This is a very America, America, America movement. And at least so it appears to me. The post-liberal movement, however, has become skeptical in their own words. They've become very skeptical of this idea of a classically liberal constitutional order. For example, one of Vice President Vance's friends, Patrick Deneen, wrote a book in 2018, if I'm not mistaken, plus or minus one, called Why Liberalism Failed.

And then he wrote a second book in 2023 called Regime Change that the Vice President has endorsed. And in that book, the second one in regime change, Denin openly calls for a new social, political, and economic order that he calls a mixed constitution that is based off a partial monarchy, partial aristocracy, and limited democracy, which is effectively upending and disposing of the constitution. You'll hear this rhetoric from the vice president where he says that the economy should work for the people, which means that they have. a strong vested interest in fusing the state and the economy into a more cohesive object, which to me is anathema to the freedom-loving America movement. What is called Catholic integralism? Yes, absolutely. All right, so let's talk about this, because John Zemirik and I have discussed this.

Of course, he's a serious Catholic, but he is an enemy of Catholic-enemy of Catholic- integralism, which has been pushed in the pages of magazines like First Things, which is very sad, used to be a good magazine. So to me, let me see if I can lay it out and then you can help me. When I understand the founders, the founders vision for America, I'm finishing a book on the American Revolution, so I've really been steeped in this particularly lately. And the Founders' vision for America, it's so beautiful. And I would say it is true Christianity played out in government and political structures. And what I mean by that is that if you are a really devout Christian, you believe in religious liberty. You believe that part of my devout faith says

that I can't force my devout faith on other people. So religious liberty. I, allowing people to believe nothing, to believe whatever they want, is a Christian value. In other words, it doesn't mean that I don't believe what I believe and that those beliefs aren't important, but part of that belief means that other people are free, we call it religious liberty, to believe whatever they like. Then you have people, you see it with any kind of a theocracy, you see it with Sharia law, radical Islam, you see it, you know, in the European Christianity before the Reformation and even after the Reformation, because Luther was not a devotee of religious liberty. But the point is the idea is that we've got to

figure out and we're going to use the government to force you to get in step. We don't believe in that kind of freedom. And so it's kind of like when they accused JFK, when he was running in 1960, see, it's like, well, he's going to be faithful to the Pope and to the Vatican, not to the Constitution. Now, we all know that was ridiculous because JFK was a fake Catholic. He was bringing prostitutes into the White House on a weekly basis. So we can push that away. But the idea was that there were people, there were Christians in America who said, you know what, I'm worried about that aspect of the Catholic faith. Is he going to feel a fundamental ultimate fidelity to the teachings of the Vatican or to the Constitution.

So is that part of what we're talking about, that there's a freedom that the founders felt free to put forth, to trust, that people who are part of the post-liberal view don't buy into that? And is this mostly a Catholic phenomenon? Yes, to the first. part and the rest gets a little murky. It is certainly that there's a distrust of people using their freedom. The belief is that too much freedom allows people to do things and believe things that are ultimately deleterious to social cohesion. And so the goal is to get people kind of on the

same moral page, which means the same religious page in many respects. Well, some of that is true, though. This is where it gets so complicated. Some of that is true. That's right. Because we're not talking about, you know, to be a libertarian is to say everybody can do drugs and we can have porn and none of it matters. It's like, no, no, no, no, those things do matter. We have to have a culture where we have some kind of a consensus that doesn't open the door to every kind of evil. So to some extent, I get that concept. But the question is exactly where do you draw these lines? How do you draw these lines? That seems to me the issue. Yeah, I think the, not just where, but especially how the lines are drawn, is the state drawing the lines? And where does the state have authority to draw those lines is, I think, the issue. Because at the end of the day, what it comes down to is if you're willing to enact state power to do this, not to sound like a crazy libertarian, but you are inviting somebody that's been granted monopoly of force to show up with a gun to tell you you're not allowed to do something, which, you know, if it's something pornographic, perhaps that's one domain of thought. But if it's, you know, that you happen to believe that, you're not allowed to do something.

you know, the Bible is very clear on such and such issue. So you're going to split from your church and start a new one. Well, now we're in a completely different domain of state, you know, influence over people's beliefs and behaviors. And so the how, I think, is very important. Now, this is not purely a Catholic issue. They've got a lot of Protestants who are running along with it, although integralism in its original form was a Catholic social and political doctrine. Okay, so hang on. So you've seen you say this on X because obviously I follow you on an X on Twitter. that Christian nationalism, those people who are actually advocates of Christian nationalism, that's Protestant Catholic integralism. And both of those things are basically, quote, unquote, Christian Sharia law. It's called theocracy. It's where do you draw the line with regard to theocracy? I mean, I believe Jesus rose from the grave. He was resurrected. But I don't believe that a government can force people to believe that or to assent to it. So some people say, well, then you don't really believe it. Well, yes, I do. I just don't believe that my Christian faith, which rests on the resurrection, would support me forcing people to believe that. I simply don't believe that is the

proper role of government. But are you saying that there are people like Tucker or J.D. Vance who do believe that or how it just it's hard for me to believe that jd vance would be behind anything leaning toward theocracy so how far where are we on this path well i'm less clear about that a specific beliefs of tucker who most of the time doesn't even appear to sincerely be a christian and jd vance with regard to this but there are certain people like patrick denine and adrian vermuel at harvard university and so on who have written directly in favor of catholic integralism Even Marco Rubio in 2019 gave a address at Catholic University explaining an integralist economy as kind of a vision for America, which I find very concerning. And so whether or not they're in favor of a theocracy or something softer, these specific individuals, I don't know.

Adrian V. Mule is an integralist. There's no question about that. He says so. Some of these Protestants in the Christian nationalist movement actually called what they were doing for a while. they got gun-shy on the word a couple of years ago, but they were openly calling it either Protestant integralism or ecumenical integralism. So they are certainly in line with this. And this is a doctrine that dates just for people to know. This is not like ancient Catholicism. This dates to the late 19th century, the late 1800s. You have Pope Leo the 13th writing Rarum Novarum, and he writes out this new doctrine that's geared specifically around a concept that we're all familiar with now called social justice. And the goal of goal was to reintegrate, hence being called integralism, the church, the state, and the economy into a single functional unit that is kind of this kind of two-headed eagle of church and state leadership. And so that's where the term comes from. And I'm glad you brought up, by the way, that your friend John Meershack is a Catholic who's not an integralist, who's an enemy of integralism, because I think it's very important for people to realize that this is a particular

Catholic social doctrine and political doctrine and economic doctrine that we're was put forth in the late 19th century that is not universally subscribed to by Catholics. It is not specifically a thing that all Catholics are believing or expect to believe. There's a huge debate there. And so this isn't, if you disagree with integralism, you don't necessarily disagree with Catholicism is kind of a big important point. But the goal, like I said, was to reintegrate church and state as a leading body that would then control the economy. and one of the key objectives of this project was to create what the Catholics called social justice, which is a term that they, by the way, invented. It was a Jesuit term in the first place before the crazy woke people picked it up and ran bonkers with it over the last half of the 20th century.

So this is a policy where the church and state fuse and they're going to leverage a, in their own words, common good economy that is managed by the church state fusion in order to create a more socially just society. So if it sounds like tyranny, it probably is tyranny. Well, but it doesn't even make any sense. I mean, the idea of fusing the church in the state, which church? The whole thing is so preposterous. It's not a question with the Catholics. We know which church with the Catholic. No, but I'm saying, but it's so unrealistic.

It's just a joke. I mean, the idea that the Catholic Church is going to take over the American government, that's not going to happen. We know that's not going to happen. It's utterly preposterous. So I just, I simply don't understand why they would even be talking about this as though this could happen. I'm not entirely sure either, except that it makes for one heck of a wedge issue. And so I feel very much like these media apparatus like Tucker Carlson and maybe Megan Kelly are actually working to so divisive narratives and divisive positions within the conservative movement so that it's not operating as the cohesive coalition that put Trump across the line.

And perhaps the reason is that that coalition still being cohesive would demand of its next leader, whether that's J.D. Vance or somebody else, that they continue the Maga Doctrine. And for example, we know that Tucker Carlson is a Pat Buchanan-style paleo-conservative who does not like the Maga doctrine. No wants a conservative movement to go in a different direction. This isn't speculation. He says these things. And so we know that there's this direction shift that some people are interested in. And you can't get a massive, successful, positive energy, momentum building movement to change directions without causing some division and fragmentation within it. And I think some of these integralists like Adrian Vermeel really believe it and really want it and do actually want a Catholic order, which is funny because it's in direct opposition to speaking of the founders, John Adams. Did you come across John Adams' opinions, by the way, about Catholicism in the United States? He is very concerned about. funny you bring this up because I have been fascinated. One of the things that is central to my book on

the revolution, which I guess will come out in June, has to do with the deep anti-Catholicism at the heart of the Patriot movement, particularly in Boston. It's so fascinating. In fact, I have a very long chapter on an essay that John Adams wrote. He was 30 years of old in 1765. Most people don't know anything about it. And I was astonished when I discovered it. It's called a dissertation on the feudal and canon law. Have you heard about that?

I have. Of course you have. I haven't read it to be fair. Well, let me tell you, it was published in four parts in the Boston Gazette, which was the Whig Patriot paper in Boston. And he published it, of course. under a preposterous pseudonym Humphrey Plow Jogger. And so nobody's heard of this.

And he wrote some fragments that didn't make it into the four parts that he put into the, he wrote some preamble, some some thoughts, kind of a preamble that never got published. But it really is fascinating because what he is doing and what Samuel Adams was doing and so many of the Puritan and congregationalist preachers in Boston were doing all through the 18th century and into the 17th century, of course, because that's when we got here. It really was a complete realignment of everything. It was the best of the Puritan ethic, this idea that we have to think for ourselves. We're not going to let some sacerdotal elites in the Vatican or wherever, tell us what to think. We're going to read the Bible for ourselves. We're going to

think it through for ourselves. That's, of course, the best of the Reformation. And it is fascinating to me as I write my book that I see where John Adams stood. And I would say, and I think you're probably already there, you could never have gotten independence and the United States of America apart from those thinkers. They were the ones that pushed it. And it is, it's just one of the most fascinating things to me about the whole of the story of my book is exactly this issue. Hey there, folks. As hard as it may be for us to believe, especially for in America, there are people in other parts of the world who have literally been enslaved because of their faith in Jesus Christ. Some of them for decades. Hundreds of thousands of them have been persecuted and enslaved in the Sudan. Together, right now, we can literally buy their freedom and save the lives of some precious brothers and sisters, give them the joy and hope we celebrate so freely.

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Click on the banner. Please give someone. the gift of getting their life back. Provide life and freedom for someone right now. God bless you. Hey there, folks. Quick word from today's sponsor. When you hear about rockets, drones, missiles,

or a terror attack in Israel, somebody has to rush in after the sirens. That is Magin David Adom, Israel's National Emergency Medical Service, basically Israel's 911. They dispatch every ambulance in the country, take thousands of emergency calls every day, and they also collect, process, and distribute the nation's blood supply for civilians and the IDF.

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talking about the common good economy back in at least 2019, where he is now, I don't know, is this belief that too much economic freedom has, in fact, betrayed the American worker, has betrayed the American moral fabric, and therefore it wasn't such a good idea. And so now maybe we need to wheel back on some of that freedom, especially in the economic domain, by imposing a moral order that is supervening upon it. Like I said, whether or not J.D. Vance is actually an integralist, you know, openly or not, is sort of an open question, but he certainly hangs out with them. He certainly takes them as advisors.

He has other advisors as well. And this is a movement that has informed a lot of this kind of radicalism on the right. Tucker Carlson's by no means of Catholic. Help me understand this now, because part of this, I feel like I would agree with. So this is why I want to make sure I understand exactly what we're talking about. the pure free market people, to me, they've made an idol of the free market and they don't understand that there is a moral component. Now, that was, if I do business with China, which is murdering political prisoners,

harvesting their organs and selling them to sheikhs in Saudi Arabia and making a ton of money, I would want to say, well, I don't want to do business with those people any more than I want to do business with the Nazis. that I do have a moral obligation. I can't just say freedom is freedom, and I will trade with whomever and free market. Everybody's going to get rich and American values are just going to become part of it because that didn't happen in China when we gave them most favored nation status. They didn't suddenly start thinking like Benjamin Franklin and John Adams.

So there is a component here, and that's what I want to understand. Yeah, I mean, this is how it always is. There's elements of truth or truths that they're pointing out. there are excesses of the, which you might call, they often call the neoliberal economic regime, this kind of, as you phrased it, idolatry of the free market. And that meaning the global free market, by the way, there are some elements here where there are moral obligations that are being ignored in the pursuit of money. There are open questions, actually, about what the limits of decency are, you know, when you get to things like pornography and only fans and so on.

So there are these questions, but we already kind of touched on the issue as like, okay, so how do we deal with them? Where are the lines? What kind of a state do we want to empower? And where the state starts to get heavy hand in the moral direction and it has embraced a explicit doctrine of, you know, whatever religion, but in this case it's Catholic social teaching, that might go outside of the beautiful vision that the founders had and start to. threatened freedom in the other direction. And so this is a lot of matter of how is this to be implemented and realizing that some of the people pushing it are not just arguing on a point by point basis, but they have a cohesive vision that they actually want to implement. I mean, like I said, Danine, who is an integralist, Denin's 2003 book was titled Regime Change. He did an interview about this and said that he's proposing something far more radical. This was his own words, far more radical than overthrowing the existing government, like some massive J6 or whatever.

What he's talking about is fundamentally changing the philosophical bedrock upon which the United States has been founded to be a completely different common good oriented social political and moral order. And so we're not talking about, you know, this kind of a la carte, okay, this issue, that issue with the people that are forwarding these complaints. We're now saying, you know, we're not asking, is it wrong to trade with the organ harvesters of China? We're asking, do we upend the American system in order to be able to have the authority to say we're not going to trade with the organ harvesters of China? Or can we, the question is, can we make those determinations some other way? And I think that that's the key piece here. It's like sometimes, it's not all that often, but Marxists occasionally make good points about something being unjust. But does that mean we should implement Marxism as a solution? Or, you know, Hitler occasionally makes interesting or good points when you read Mein Kampf, but should we implement a cohesive system of Nazism and replace American freedom with it? So it's not enough that there are points where they are correct. It's we must understand the integralism like Nazism, like communism, like other systems, is a coherent and cohesive system. And in this case, openly anticipates upending the American experiment for a new one.

And that's what's actually on the people. It seems so impractical that it's, it seems laughable to me. The idea that they would think that they could do this. It seems so silly that it's fascinating to me. But it is clear that they had, they're at war with the American vision of the founders. And to me, you know, I think God's hand was with the founders in giving us that original founders vision, folks. This is not just something that happened in history.

It is a gift from God to the world and it's something we need to understand and cherish and love. So this is very, very important stuff. I don't know how much time we have left. I'm looking at my producer here. We've got a few minutes left. I want to talk to you about everything, James,

so it's difficult. What is your sense? I mean, when we talk about America, we are right now undoubtedly in some kind of sense. Civil War. When you have people across this country in blue states and blue cities really very radically and forcefully pushing against the will of we the people. We the people elected Donald Trump. These people don't seem to care. In other words, we used to live in an America or we have to

live in an America. There is no America unless everyone says that we abide by our elections. Elections matter. We elected Donald Trump, so we're going to have to let him do his thing for four years. We can push back to some extent, but we also have to respect the will of we, the people. And then we get to have another election and another election, another election, and that's how it works. Right now, we're dealing with a lot of people. I mean, they said this in 2016. He's not my president. And you think, well, we have a problem. Because if you don't buy into this social contract that we have elections and we abide by the results of those elections, that's a sacred thing. What, where do you think this goes? In other words, I don't know if you have any sense of it,

but it is a hard thing because, you know, you have, it's kind of like saying, well, Lincoln could have let the South secede. Why didn't he do that? I guess Trump could say, well, Minnesota can go to hell, let it go to hell. Or does he have an obligation to the union that supersedes the freedom of people in in Minnesota to effectively commit suicide. Well, I mean, Donald Trump does have that obligation. It's written into the Constitution. It's known as the supremacy clause that the federal law is supreme to state law where they come into conflict. So he does have this obligation.

And I mean, I think Lincoln reaffirmed that this obligation exists that if we are to be considered a union, if we were to accept the idea of federalism, that all 50 of the states have their own variations but need to basically be on the same page and that page is called the United States Constitution. And what's happening in these states is that, and it's really in all of them, but especially these deeply blue states, is that we have an unbelievable amount of communist infiltration that does not see the U.S. government is legitimate, that wishes to have its own regime changed to overthrow the U.S. government. And this has become massively endemic. Now, where we go from here, I think, largely depends on, to be completely frank with you, the democratic political apparatus and its media appendages. I think that should they start to message with more sanity and calmness and clarity rather than escalating rather than the city of Philadelphia, recommending anti-ice training to its citizens and so on, if they were to affirm the American vision, you're going to. going to have some percentage of that population still be pretty wild and crazy because they're, you know, pretty deeply committed. But on the other hand, you're going to see a lot of that kind of moral authority they draw from a broadly left center of the country evaporate very quickly. So when

you see Tim Walts respond to what's going on the crazy illegal activities that are going on in Minnesota, this Jacob Fry and all these others coming out saying ICE has to get out, of Minnesota, no federal authority, et cetera, that what you actually have is them mimicking what we saw in South Carolina in 1860, in 1861. What you see is them introducing the concept of insurrection and possibly even, you know, a divorce from the United States. And sadly, that doesn't, we don't have the luxury, so to speak, of living in the middle of the 19th century where the oceans that separate us from the rest of the world are as consequential as they once were. We live in a much smaller world in some sense.

And so we have to understand that, you know, well, if we were to be plunged into a civil war by these blue states deciding to do this, who's that going to help? Well, it is going to help China, for example. It is going to help Russia and our other global enemies right now who are not having the best year, you know, between Venezuela, what's going on in Iran. They're not having the best year, and it would help them tremendously. So we know there are ties with Tim Walts to China. They were very well popularized during his campaign for vice president, which is insane to even contemplate now just a year and a half ago. And we have to wonder what he's doing. Why are they pushing the left half of America over the brink in alignment with a relatively small proportion of hardened radical lunatics?

So I think that where we go from here depends a lot on. demanding responsibility, which will have to happen in an electoral way, honestly, in many cases, which doesn't seem to be forthcoming. But we're going to have to start demanding responsibility out of democratic politicians and their media appendages, or else this just continues to escalate or at least kind of circle in kind of a, you know, like a hurricane of social and political conflict. at this point, my blame lands almost entirely squarely on these Democratic politicians and their media appendages that continue to escalate the temperature, escalate the tension, and to make out as though the Republican Party and its, you know, power base in Donald Trump's presidency are fundamentally illegitimate and to be resisted as though we're resisting the Nazis or like Gestapo or something of that or the Czech or whatever. which is not the case. And so where we go depends on the behavior of Democrats, frankly, and that doesn't seem very promising.

James Lindsay, my friend, thank you very much. Folks, if you want to watch this video, this interview, I have a YouTube channel or go to Ericmetaxis.com. Sign up for the newsletter and we'll send this out to you because we'd love you to share these conversations, which we think are sometimes important with your friends and family. God bless you. And James, thank you so much. Thanks, Eric. Hi, everyone. If you were injured in an accident, listen up. We have legal professionals standing by to answer your questions. You can find out if you have a case and how much it's potentially worth. I'm Gina Bellich, along with Super Bowl champ and two-time pro-bowler Vernon

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