The Eric Metaxas Show - Tho Bishop

Episode Date: August 16, 2023

Tho Bishop of the Mises Institute on "The United States vs. Donald J. Trump"

Folks, welcome to the Eric Metaxus show, sponsored by Legacy Precious Metals. There's never been a better time to invest in precious metals. Visit legacy p.m. Investments.com. That's legacy p.m. Investments.com. Welcome to the Eric Metaxis show. Did you ever see the movie The Blob, starring Steve McQueen? The Blood-Curdling threat of the Blob. Well, way back when Eric had a small part in that film, but they had to cut his scene because the blob was supposed to eat them. But he kept spitting him. Oh, the whole thing was just a disaster. Anyway, here's the guy who's not always that easy to digest. Eric the Texas!

I'm excited. We have a new guest coming up. His first name is T-H-O. And I ask him, is that short for something? And his answer is clever. He's really good. He's really good. You'll notice through the course of the interview,

I will resist a very strong temptation to say, throw us up, bra, or something like that. that, I will resist that. I will. Or throw me the ball. Throw it to me. You know, there's a lot you can do with it. Right.

And we will not do any of those things. Okay. Okay. So let's move on. So, okay. So I, we had Zmirich in hour one. And we've got these young bloods coming up. Young bloods like Tho Bishop, who's coming up in the next segment.

Because I want Zmirak to know, pal you better you know not coast on your laurels not rest on your laurels because these young bloods are coming up they want to take you down they want to be the next sumirac so we need everybody's a game it's all about the a game yeah it's all it's all about the a game on this show right um as of now so um i want to say uh we're doing a fundraiser for food for the poor folks some of you you're haunted like every time i bring this up you kind of this weird guilt feeling why don't you just get over with today and give a small amount because if everyone would give a small amount, believe me, that's fine with me as long as you give something, right? So you can give five or ten dollars.

On your phone, you can text Eric to 911-999. We would love for you to do that. You could do that right now, frankly. Text Eric to 911-999. We need your help. I didn't say it in the first segment. but food for the poor helps the poorest of the poor in our hemisphere. These are people who can't feed their kids. And the reason we're doing such a big push this month is because hurricane season is coming up. And they know that hurricanes will devastate and tropical storms will devastate this part of the world. We don't know exactly where, but we know it happens every single year. And we're going to need money to build new houses for these people who lose their homes.

homes, food for the pork, and build an entire home for $4,900. So there are people out there I know who can give $4,900. And actually to bait you, I always say this. We, you know, we don't have a staff to mail a lot of stuff, but I, one thing I can do is I can give my time to things that I believe in. So if you, if anybody out there or if you want to get a group of people can give $10,000, my time is so valuable these days. But I am willing to, you know, spend the evening with you, meet you for dinner. If you want to do this, you know, you pay for the dinner.

You pick the restaurant. You invite no one or everyone, whatever you want to do. I'm just giving you my time. that's what I can give. And if anybody wants to do that. Yeah, who's taking us up on the offer during this campaign. So that's really exciting. Well, it's fun for me to meet people who care about the things that I care about.

So it is fun for me to do. I like it. I've gotten to go to a couple of them and really meet some wonderful people. So it's really great. You know, I think it's an opportunity where, you know, you're basically making a new friend in the process. We've actually made, we've made some really amazing friends this way. It's kind of fun. because, well, when people listen to this program and care about the things that I do and are willing to give dramatically toward it, you know, it means a lot to me.

And anyway, I just put that out there. Now, to give today, you have to either go to metaxis talk.com. And again, like we need you to give today. I'm sorry, but there's kind of a pressure here. Metaxistalk.com is the easiest way you'll see the banner. If you prefer to text, just text the word Eric happens to be my first name, coincidence, you decide. But text Eric to 911, Eric to 911. Some of you do have a phone nearby right now.

If that's you, you can call 844-863 Hope, 844-8663 Hope right now, 844-8663, right now, 844-863 hope, or you can use that phone to text Eric to 911-999, or you can just go to Metaxistalk.com. But we need you to help because it's brutal what these folks go through. And if it weren't for food for the poor, most of us don't suffer in the way these people suffer. And I just want you to imagine that this were your family or your kids or someone you knew. And then you realize that they're these wonderful Christians.

out there listening to a radio program who want to help you and who do help you. And it all adds up, which is why I ask everybody to participate. Chris, before we go to our guest whose real name is Tho, T-H-O, I just want to say that if you're watching this program or if you see me on video or on Instagram or whatever, I'm very tan right now. And a lot of people say, Eric, is that an illusion? No, I'm really this tan. And then it brings up the philosophical question, which we're going to answer at some future Socrates in the city,

how tan is too tan? That's really the question. How tan... It's an age-old question. Is two-tan. It's an age-old question. Socrates failed to answer it. And it's also an old-age question.

And it's an old-age question, too, because tanning can... because ages your skin really badly. Speaking of answering questions that haven't yet been answered, Eric, what do you think of the new Wes Anderson film,

Asteroid City? Someone asked. And I have to tell you, I'm a big West Anderson fan. He has made like five of the greatest films ever, you know, which like, whatever, Moonrise Kingdom, the Grand Budapest Hotel,

the Life Aquatic with Steve Zissue, Rushmore, and then the one... The Royal Tenenbaum's. These are just genius films. So great. His last film was the French dispatch, and a friend of mine said to me,

oh yeah, it's really self-indulgent. And I thought, what are you talking about? And then I watched it. And you know, it was really... self-indulgent. And it was really disappointing because I expect so much from Wes Anderson that it was just wildly self-indulgent.

That's the French dispatch. So I can't recommend it. But then I thought his next film is sure to be awesome. And it certainly looked awesome. All the pre-publicity stuff. It's called Asteroid City. And here's the thing. It's not awesome.

And it's a pity because it makes me wonder like if you're as talented, this is kind of like if you're incredibly beautiful or incredibly rich, you're incredibly charming, incredibly talented, people tend to surround you that, that are not critical of you

because they're in awe of your talent or whatever it is. And his, and yeah, Asteroid City is, is hugely disappointing because Wes Anderson is so great that he could do something really great. And then when he doesn't, you think, Well, didn't you have anybody around you to tell you, excuse me, that's not funny?

So I think the answer to that would be no. I think sometimes when you get success early on for the thing that you do, you kind of listen to it and then, you know, maybe that gets in the way of the creative process. Well, that's exactly what didn't happen to me. Like I had so little success for so long that it humbled me severely up front. So I'm so grateful for anything that happens that goes well. I'm not kidding. I mean, it was like so many years of brutal struggle.

And I always worry about people who have early success because early success is, it can really be a curse. And when you have the kind of talent, he does, just amazing. But Asteroid City was just a huge disappointment. I cannot recommend it at all. And I'm very, very sorry to say that. I mean, there's great moments in it, but very few. Okay, food for the poor, in case I haven't mentioned it, you can text Eric to 911-999.

And I think you want to do that right now. Text Eric to 9-1-999. Go to metaxis talk.com. We need your help, and we'll be right back. Thank you. We're doing a campaign for food for the poor. Actually, I take that back. It begins today.

Monday, July 3rd. 31st. People who listen to this program know that we partner with Food for the Poor. They are total heroes. Food for the poor steps up because there is always, there are always hurricanes flooding other natural disasters at this time of year. So because of poverty or collapse infrastructure in a lot of these countries, by the way, in case you didn't know, America's an amazing country, these other countries do not have a lot of infrastructure. So we need to step up. Those of us who have the ability to step up. I want to encourage you to go to Metaxistock.com and give what you can. Let's get a good start. Go to metaxisotocot.com. Do what you can.

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That's LegacyPMinvestments.com. Folks, welcome back. I'm privileged to welcome a new guest to the program. His last name is Bishop. He's not a bishop. He's just a civilian. He's just a normal guy. His last name is Bishop.

His first name is T-H-O pronounced Tho. And he is the editorial director of the Mezes Institute. And you're saying, what is the Mezes Institute? Some of you have heard of the Austrian Ludwig von Mezes. Tho, welcome. I'm assuming that the Mezes Institute has something to do with him. A very good guess right there. It's an honor to be here.

Tell us, it's good to have you. Tell us a little bit about who Ludwig von Mises was. Was he a friend with Friedrich Hayek? He was. He was a mentor for Hayek. They were... Just a guess. Yes, yes.

And they were both products of the University of Austria, which itself is very interesting. Because, you know, what we have right now is there's kind of a capture of what the economics discipline was, you know, became, right, during the 20th century of John Leonard Keynes and kind of the rise of econometrics and this became this very quantified sort of science. The Austrian school was very much a sort of throwback to viewing economics as a very logically deductive school of reasoning, understanding tradeoffs and these sort of dynamics founded by Carl Minger, who, uh, whose work inspired Louvon Mises, Mesa himself was, I think,

one of the greatest intellectuals of the 20th century. He wrote at a very young age, uh, theory of money and credit, which was a profound book on money and fiduciary media, kind of money substitutes and the way that creates business cycles. He had to serve in World War I after that as an officer. And what's interesting is that he kind of saw the world around him changed dramatically. You know, when the Nazis took over Austria, he had to flee. He went to Switzerland, worked on a great treatise there. He had to escape there because the Nazis were trying to assassinate him. It turns out Hitler was not a fan of free market Jewish economists and they really didn't like his work. Yeah. Really. And so then he escaped to the U.S. And even in the United States,

in spite of all of his great accomplishments, multiple books, you know, just this wonderfully respected economic thinker, he could not get a paid position teaching in FDR's America because of how wildly the economics profession had turned in favor of this sort of Keynesian Revolution. So he had a job at NYU. He was able to have a seminar there. He had students, but it was all paid for by outside parties. And because of him escaping the Nazis coming to the United States, the Austrian School of Economics, which originally was actually kind of a slur that the German historical school was kind of like, oh, those bumpkins in Austria, they're not, they're not us Germans, right? Like Paul Krugman talking to us about Alabama economics today, the Austrian School of Economics

has largely been a U.S.-based kind of school of thought since that move over there. inspired a number of great protegees in his own right, including Murray Rothbard, who was a founder that helped found the Mises Institute. And F.A. Hayek, of course, went on to win the Nobel Prize shortly after Mises's death, working on this business cycle theory that the two of them developed. And so it was great to see some recognition for understanding kind of the booms and bust, the way central banks play a role in there. But for the most part, sort of the Austrian school has always been on the outs of the way that most economic programs are, you know, what you learn in most American universities. But we, so we try to keep that tradition alive.

And just to just to sum up or to try to clarify for those who aren't clear, we're talking about the free market. We're talking about freedom. So I guess you would describe yourself as a conservative as far as that goes. I mean, I certainly would describe myself that way, but you would. Yes. And particularly, a lot of Austrian economists have been kind of associate with libertarianism, right? Kind of this very strong respect for limited government, free markets and the like.

But I think in this kind of current age, the respect for cultural tradition is very important. I think that Mises very much embodies that sort of old Europe appreciation for culture and tradition there. And so I'm a lot less comfortable with the L word based off some of the institutions out there using it. So I find myself completely increasingly comfortable with conservatism. Yeah. Well, and I want to be very clear, Ludwig von Mises is not to be confused with Mises van der Roe, who was an architect. Just want to be very clear. Okay, folks.

All right. So we're talking about economics, Austrian economics, conservatism. But ultimately, you wrote an article that I want to discuss with you about. kind of where we are in America today with regard to free speech and and Donald Trump. Where's the article, by the way, where did you publish the article that we're discussing? I've read the article, but where can be can it be found? And you can find it at mesis.org. That's M-I-S-E-S dot org.

Okay. By Tho Bishop, T-H-O. Okay, so talk about that article. Let's get into it. Well, I think that the current political environment is very interesting because very obvious things are becoming a lot less obvious. And one of the things that Louis von Mises wrote about, he was a defender of democracy. And the importance of democracy in his mind was that it was a way of elevating kind of political legitimacy. You had the ability to engage freely within the political process, that this helped for allowing for a change in ideas, a change of ideologies.

If the public started rejecting, you know, the doctrines of the king or whatever, you don't need a revolution to have a change of the ideology of the government itself. And yet what we have right now is it's a very illicit. liberal system. It's a weaponization of democracy. It is, it is a situation where more and more, kind of the ideology of Washington, D.C. is kind of imposed by the Fiat on the people. It is not reflecting, I think, the real political sentiment up there. And you can, of where the nation is, and I think you particularly see this on the culture dynamics. And so I think what the Trump dynamic is, and, you know, find myself being exhausted by by Trump at times, or just the spectacle around him.

But the most recent indictment, I thought, was a very important illustration of how, you know, I think the regime is maybe overplaying its hand. It's relying too much. Oh, you think? You think they're overplaying their hand? This is to me the delight of it, is that they're overplaying their hand.

Look, I think that the left is so dramatically overplaying its various hands that normal people who've never heard of Ludwig von Mises, they've never thought of themselves as having to think about the deeper stuff. But they say, wait a minute, what I know, something is wrong in America. Something fundamental is wrong because maybe I was never too far left. But I didn't think that they would go this far. And where they're going on the transgender ideology, where they're going on wanting to

abolish borders, abolish police, abolish transparency in elections, abolish free speech, generally speaking, it's horrifying to your average American. In other words, they're getting the attention of average Americans who normally wouldn't be paying attention to this. And when they go after Donald Trump, the way they've gone after him recently, it's almost as though they were calculating that they wanted to drive people toward him because you can't help but say there's something wrong here. There's something wrong in the way they're going after him, the aggressive. The aggressive because they could go after me if they're doing this to him. Well, I think there is a dynamic there where, you know, I have no doubt there are some

Democrat operatives out there that much prefer to run against Donald Trump than Iran to Santa's because of some of the approval ratings and things like that. But I think ultimately the reason why they're going so strong after Donald Trump is because he threatens the legitimacy of the entire apparatus, right? Going out there and accusing elections of being rigged. And again, one does not have to agree with every claim that Sidney Powell made to understand that when you change the rules of the game during the game, right, when you have these executive orders changing the way the elections are run outside of constitutional orders within the state,

when you have the mass cartel, cartelized censorship of information with big tech platforms involving the 100 Biden laptop story, when you have this influx of funded and various groups doing ballot harvesting and the like, that is not the way that a serious country runs elections. And much the same way that we take the custody dynamics. of a criminal case, right, where you don't allow criminal evidence to be transported to the mail. You know, you do that because ultimately we're dealing with the use of the state to punish people. It's the same exact way with elections, right? And so the entire integrity of the entire situation that Donald Trump refuses to, to Ches go along with the script on,

that is the biggest threat that any state has is the removal of the perception of legitimacy, which, again, if you looked at it after the election, was two-thirds of the Trump voters that thought the election was illegitimate. when you add that with all the other chaos, when you add it with the COVID lockdowns and you add it with the cultural insanity, the people that are seeing the regime is something that is not represent them, that is a direct threat to them,

if there is a way to translate and to turn the 2024 election away from a referendum on whether you like Donald Trump, yes or no, and onto a referendum on the system that exists right now, I think that creates a very important opportunity for political change in this country. Now, whether or not that happens, the media, we obviously know what direction they're going to go.

But I also think there's an interesting parallel with our friends down in Brazil. Because you saw the same exact situation with the Brazilian elections where they have prevented the former president, Javiera Bolsonaro, for running for office

for the last eight years because his followers didn't believe in the credit of the election. You had the Biden regime going down there and saying, oh, this is the most secure and stable election of all time while a socialist rights to power

with the help of drug cartels. And so you have this dynamic or in the case of Brazil was the Supreme Court actively censoring information prior to the election. And us, it was the big tech cartel. But I think the parallels between the playbook that went on the U.S. and what we've seen going on in Brazil, this is something I think you're going to see continue to grow globally again as this, this Western neoliberal regime is threatened.

We will be right back. I'm talking to Tho Bishop, T-H-O Bishop. You can find him at mezes.org. M-I-S-E-S-D-Rog. We'll be right back. Every day we hear about another familiar brand selling out their customers and going woke. Americans are sick and tired of having leftist propaganda jammed into every product they can. consume. Woke mobile companies are no different. For years, they've been dumping millions into liberal causes, and we've had to take it because you need a cell phone and probably thought there was no alternative. I've got news to you. There is, and I want you to make the switch today. Patriot Mobile is America's only Christian conservative wireless provider offering dependable nationwide coverage on all three major networks so you can get the best possible service in your area,

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It has worked for about 70% of the half a million people who've tried it and have ordered more. I'm one of them. Go to Relieffactor.com or call 800 for relief to find out about this offer. Feel the difference. Welcome back, folks. I'm talking to the editorial head of mesas.org or the Mises Institute. forgive me, you can find them at mezes.org, M-I-S-E-S-E-S-D-org. And his name is Tho Bishop, and he is talking about a lot of things,

but we're talking about the article, though, that you wrote, about how they are coming after Trump right now. I can't remember the title of the article. I hope you will. Yes, I believe it was Donald Trump versus the United States of America. Okay, so that's the actual court case? Yes, yes. That says a lot.

Yes. Think of the irony, because what, when they say the United States, States of America, it is not the United States of America. It's the United States of America, in quotes. They dare call the people going after Donald Trump, the United States of America, as though that represented the United States of America. Ironically, it is Donald Trump who represents the United States of America far more than the bad actors, including Jack Smith, who are going after him. But talk about what you say in the article. Yeah, so it was a breakdown on the court case and the absurdity of the court case itself, right?

where basically Trump is guilty of not listening to government officials and the opinion of Mike Pence about the credibility of the election. And again, this has tremendous free speech consequences. The entire idea of crimes against democracy is ridiculous on its notion. And the fact that they were having to pull out from 1871 Ku Klux Klan legislation as a way of justifying this case. I think, I mean, it's a beautiful story for your average New York Times listeners. Exactly what they want, of course.

Oh, it's their wet. dream. And let's be honest, think of the irony. The KKK was Democrats. Ladies and gentlemen, in case he didn't know, the KKK was Democrats. The racists who were pro-slavery and pro-Jim Crow were almost all Democrats in the Democratic Party. So they've tried to flip that script, obviously, since LBJ, they pretend that they've always been about civil rights. And the reality is that that's not the case, but, but, but the idea that they would, would have KKK legislation as part of how they go after Donald Trump, it fits their narrative because according to their narrative, if you're Trump voter, you are a racist. Uh, that's kind of all they have and they bring it every time. Right. And I mean, there's another delicious irony where the one, the most prominent stolen election was directly by the New York Times with the 1876.

And so the New York Times, not very self-aware out there. But, you know, it does, again, I think it reflects, as we were talking about on the other segment, it's the people in power. Again, this ideological minority that have captured the institutions of D.C., the various mechanisms that create the political ruling class. They're so out of touch with, again, I think even a large percentage of even rank and foul Democrats. You're seeing massive voting changes, particularly with Hispanic voters, Asian voters. Because, again, this, this woke ideology, this religious jihad. that is propelling where the modern political left is in the halls of power is completely out of step with what normal people want.

And the dangerous thing, the purpose is the silver lining to it is not only are they so out of step culturally. They're also intellectually, I think far more mediocre than kingmakers of the past. Right. If this was LBJ, for all the sins that LBJ had, he was not a dumb man. They would have, he would have found a way to nip this in the bud, right? He wouldn't have kept rubbing people's face in this to continue to make this an ulcer. that continues to show the public just how little their concerns are considered.

For example, the easiest way to have preventing like a January 6th was what Senator Holly and Senator Cruz wanted to do and having a commission at the national level talking about all the irregularities with voting laws and like. But we can't have those conversations. We can't treat as honest discussions the concerns of, you know, the deplorable class that so loves Trump. And I think the way to look at politics in the last, you know, eight years or so, is that Trump elevated the table deplorables, giving them a voice.

And in response, the Democrats have unleashed their own deplorables of the antifal, the BLM-type rioters. The problem is those are actual deplorables. Yes. Unemployed, unhinged adolescents versus, or even if they're not adolescents, people who behave in emotionally unhinged ways, versus hardworking middle Americans who have been, you know, tagged by Hillary Clinton.

and others as deplorable. So it really is the heartland of America. It is the patriots versus people that are at war with the whole system. And I think the reason I personally became so pro-Trump was the way they went after his voters. I thought that's really despicable. That's my mother and my father. That's all the people that I grew up with. These are good people.

These are not racists. These are the backbone of this country. They love this country. Many of them fought for this country. And so the way the elites in a sense have outed themselves as who they are. This is a recent development because they always talked a good game about being, you know, for the people, for the poor. But in a sense, they really have, they've shown themselves for who they are. And there was something about Trump that made them do that.

I don't think he did that intentionally. I just think it's who he was. And as you say, he's such a threat to everything. George W. Bush was not a threat. John McCain was not a threat. Mitt Romney was not a threat. Bob Dole was not a threat. Ronald Reagan was something of a threat.

But we haven't seen a threat like the threat of Donald Trump. And this scares them to death. And they have no boundaries. They will do and say anything, including go after a former president of the United States in nakedly political terms the way they've done. And you write about it in this article, Trump versus the United States of America. Folks, we'll be right back.

I'm talking to Tho Bishop. It's spelled THO. Bishop, you know how to spell. He's the editorial director at the Mises Institute, and that's M-I-S-E-S-D-Og. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. Just a little monkey compared to my love for you.

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Mypillow.com, use the promo code, Eric. Welcome back. I'm talking to Tho Bishop with the Mezes Institute. Tho, talk more about this article that you've written that people can find at mezes.org. Yeah, we're going to, you know, the breaking point here between the class of, it's the politically connected class versus everyone else with Trump as their figure that must be destroyed by these folks.

You know, again, this is, I think, the core of this is very important populist moment that is not only existing in America, but it can go broader. And, you know, I think the important dynamic is looking at, you know, how can we strike at the roots of this? The regime is making itself weaker by overplaying its hand. But we also need to understand why the. regime has the power that it has. The biggest thing is that, you know, they enrich themselves directly off the back of, you know, the American patriots that you were discussing in the last

segment, right? You know, not only but the way that, you know, a taxation policy and all of the incredible spending that we have in D.C. creating debt that generations are going to have to pay off. But one of the big focuses of the Mises Institute is the aspect of the Federal Reserve and monetary policy, the way that inflation doesn't only diminish our paychecks, but the money that is created goes directly into the pockets of, you know, wherever the Treasury wants it to go, into the banks, into all these different financial classes, again, like the extent to which big tech, which had played a major censorship aspect in the 2020 campaign, the extent to which their debt was made cheaper because of what the Fed was doing, right?

We have this entire class right now of fiat elites, people that are directly benefiting from not only the political power they have, but the economic system. that has been built towards enriching them and everyone else. And, you know, this, this political environment they have that can the campaign of 2024, yeah, I'm here in Florida. I have a great deal of respect for Governor of Santos. You know, it's exhausting to see some of the primary rhetoric that is going on right now as a result of this is what elections do.

But ultimately, you know, nothing should distract from, you know, the power of either, the real battleground here is not Santos versus Trump. It's the elites versus us. And again, the way that they keep punching at Trump, you know, it shows exactly, you know, there's something about him that makes him that figure. And so, you know, we are in a potential period of real political realignment. Hopefully we can capitalize on it because this energy, all of this, you know, they've made themselves clear.

It has to be, we need follow through. That's going to require action at the state level. I'm a big fan of what Chris Rufo's been doing in higher education here. It's going to require people getting up to vote. It's going to require people that have never voted a. Republican saying, I'm tired of this system that's ripped me off. I'm even going to go in Trump, going with Trump this next time, but it's going to require a collective effort to take down this very dangerous, sinister ruling class. That's right. And I want to ask you, I don't know if you want

to comment on national review, but I have to say that a lot of the folks that have been never Trump, that, you know, I was a big fan of Buckley, got to meet him a few times. And he famously said that I would rather be governed by, you know, the first 300 names in the ball. Austin phone book than by the faculty of Harvard University. In other words, he came out as a populist. This is, you know, I guess it was in the 60s when he made that comment, basically saying that I trust the average American because he has common sense, because he has to raise a family and pay taxes and work at a job, whereas the Harvard faculty, the elites, they don't. And I don't trust them. And that seems to have been a fundamental conservative value, at least as Buckley framed it so famously.

But now it really seems that many in the conservative movement who don't like Trump have drifted to be part of this kind of ruling elite class that was once decried by William F. Buckley. You're absolutely correct. And then Meza themselves has a quote about how, you know, the average housewife that, handles the family budget has a better sense of economics than the PhD economists out there. So that very much is, I think, an important part of conservative wisdom of respect for common sense that gets drilled out of your head the more times you go to college. But you're right, there has been this baked in hostility. And I think this goes even beyond Trump, right? There's always this sort of preference for reform within the system.

you know, there's, you can talk about the networks, you know, the different, you know, collegiate connections there, the different, the preference for respect within D.C. I mean, I myself was a Capitol Hill staff or I served the House Financial Services Committee for three years. And the amount of disdain that your average Republican staff or had for your average Republican voter was something that made it only a three-year stay rather than anything much longer. And that I think has been a constant problem with the American right broadly is that in order

to really challenge the current American regime. And we can go back to the progressive era and between the Roosevelt's and build up the state there. We can talk about the 1960s and the various changes that LBJ made. We have created a system far beyond any sort of constitutional roots, anything away from the vision of the founding fathers. If you're going to be a conservative, if you're going to actually try to restore things back to what America was supposed to be, its promise, then it requires you to be a radical on the perspective of, what Washington is. And people in Washington, they don't want radicals.

Now, I think one of the promising things is that while, you know, you have seen pushback between the National Review and dispatch and Doug French and that class of, you know, conservative intellectuals that's so, so the longest time really kind of relied upon, like Fox News is a way of propping up their standing right there. If Bill Crystal wasn't on Fox News, the relevance of Bill Crystal, even in the 2000s with average Republicans, when very, very low. You're seeing a change. Now, maybe not so much for Fox News ever since they got rid of Tucker Carlson,

but I think the institutions, the organizations around it, I think her heritage is much better now than it was several years ago. I think that you've seen the creation of a variety of conservative organizations. You've seen funding go into important legal firms. You've seen changes being made at the state policy strategy level. So I think finally, because of Trump, and again, the fact that Trump sparked this intellectual change within the right is quite funny. because I don't, I take him to be more of a transactional guy than some sort of ideologue. But the intellectual revolution that has followed this populist moment is one of the reasons I have optimism because ultimately the left has been able to win because they don't simply win elections, but they've got a plan afterwards.

They've got, you know, well-funded political groups to put operatives in there. You know, it wasn't until, you know, 2019 until the Trump administration's really started getting serious on the hiring side of things within the White House. So should you get Trump 2.0, whatever conservative victory is going to. in the future, I think you now have organizations prepared to govern. And hopefully we'll have not only simply a reaction to whatever the craziest thing left is seeing right now, but a positive vision forward. And I think recognizing that we need strong, they'll be able to fight the culture war, not simply kind of take a hands off you.

That is a very important change. And it's being reflected at the state level, hopefully we've reflected nationally in the future. And it's going to take what we call draining the swamp, which is a monumental Herculean labor. It is, it's cleaning out the Augian stables. It's a big thing. And you need real fighters, people who get it. We'll be right back. We're talking to Tho Bishop. Don't go away. Welcome back. Talking to Tho Bishop, T-H-O Bishop. He's the editorial head at the Mises Institute, mezes.org. You can read his articles there. And I was just saying, though, that we have, the reason I would put my money on Trump is because the work that has to be done is so huge.

We have to tear out the deep state bureaucracy root and branch. This is not, you know, oh, we're going to fix our, you know, we're going to change some economic policies, whatever. There's an entrenched group of bureaucrats who are at war with, the United States of America with we the people. And Donald Trump is a threat to them. And I think that because of the hell they put him through, he has the willingness to do what needs to be done, not to worry about who he's going to upset as he does it. And you know, when you said you see him sometimes not as an ideologue, but as idealogue in the positive sense, the way Reagan was, but but as somebody who's transactional, I think we've come to a place where if you're pro reality,

if you're pro-business, pro-common sense, you are an ideologue. In other words, the ideology that I'm for truth, I'm for what works versus what doesn't work. Trump really represents that and sees things fairly clearly in that sense. And that's a staggering thing if you're an ideologue on the left. Well, I know one of the presidents that Trump likes to see himself as the model of Andrew Jackson, who I'm a big fan of, I think the Jacksonian period of politics is one of America's best. And one of the things that Jackson was so good at was, again, himself, you know, kind of a man of action, much like Trump is, is that, you know, he understood the importance

of circulation of elites. And it's funny, you read your classic high school textbook today, right? And it decries the spoil system as sort of his era of political corruption and like, oh, how, how dare a president actually appoint his own people into positions of power after he wins elections? We can't allow that to happen, right? And I think that that is a dynamic where Trump, with all the reports about his interest in, you know, firing 50,000 bureaucrats day one replacing it, that's circulation of elites bringing in people that actually want to work and actually build towards restoring that sort of truth and normality and getting business back on the table. That ultimately, again, that's a blueprint for future success.

And that's where I think Trump 2.0 could be far more potent from a policy standpoint than Trump 1.0. And again, I think the overreach of elites is creating a dynamic where that's very well can happen. Well, I really do think that he scares them to death as well he should because he is the only one, effectively, to call a spade a spade. I think that previous Republicans and many of the Republicans in Congress and in the Senate today, they are not willing to fight or to lose anything. They kind of want to go along. They want to play patty cake with evil. I say in my most recent book letter to the American Church, I talk about how Reagan was not that kind of a guy. He wanted to win the Cold War.

He was not interested in detente if it was possible actually to defeat this evil empire of the Soviet Union. I think you see something like that in Trump. And if he wasn't there before, he's there now because the way they've treated him and his family. I think he gets it and he would not hire people that he hired in the past. 30 seconds left, final word. Speaking about the Republican Congress, just the same way we need a rotation of elites within the bureaucracy. We need a lot of rotation, I think, and who is representing the Republican Party in D.C. Because most of them do not have a Trump spirit of fighting.

And so hopefully we need to change the party from within, I think, as well from the representation standpoint, because we need some real fighters. The stakes are too high. And I'd like to start with Mitch McConnell's head on a pike. I don't know if that's just too obvious because that's what everybody always says. But fun to talk to you, Tho Bishop. Thank you for being my guest. We'll have you back.

And ladies and gentlemen, check out mezes.org. It's M-I-S-E-S-D-org. And you can read more of what Tho Bishop has to say. Thanks for listening to this program. And again, Tho, thank you for being with us. Been an honor.