The Way I Heard It with Mike Rowe - 482: Xi Van Fleet— Don't Be a Shiny Little Screw

Episode Date: May 5, 2026

Mike sits down with author and Cultural Revolution survivor Xi Van Fleet for a conversation that's equal parts personal history and cautionary tale. Xi recounts her childhood under Mao Zedong's China, where conformity wasn't encouraged—it was enforced. As a schoolgirl, she watched teachers publicly humiliated, neighbors turn on each other, and young people mobilized as ideological foot soldiers. Education gave way to indoctrination, and individuality was crushed in favor of collective obedience—the kind that produces "shiny little screws." Drawing from her first book, Mao's America, Xi lays out how mass movements rooted in ideology often rely on dividing people into opposing groups—"good" versus "bad"—to consolidate power. She also comments on how youth are frequently weaponized to accelerate cultural upheaval and dismantle traditional institutions, often by encouraging them to reject established norms and embrace radical ideologies. These patterns, she argues, aren't relics of history—they're recurring tactics. And they are showing up in America today! The conversation then turns to her latest work, Made in America, where the focus shifts from warning signs to origin stories. The central theme: the rise of Communist China wasn't inevitable—it was, in part, enabled by decisions made in the United States. Xi explores how decades of policy, economic cooperation, and ideological blind spots helped transform China into a global superpower, creating what she sees as one of America's greatest modern challenges. It's a conversation less about politics and more about people, choices, and consequences where Xi ends with a warning to America and why resisting the urge to become a "shiny little screw" might be more important than ever. Big thanks to our awesome sponsors ZipRecruiter.com/Rowe to post a job for FREE. GoodRanchers.com Use code MIKE to get $40 off your first order and free meat for life. Pestie.com/Mike to get an extra 10% off your order. AuraFrames.com/Mike Use code MIKE to get $25 off their best-selling Carver Mat frame.

Well, it's the way I heard it, and I'm Mike Rowe, and my friend Xi Van Fleet has done it again, Chuck. She's written another book. Tell the folks about it. Well, it is called Made in America, and basically it's a warning to Americans not to be like those terrible Chinese. Not to be like the terrible. The Chinese are great. Wonderful people. It's the Chinese government. Awful people. That is horrible. Yes. She got kind of famous she did about five years ago when she mouthed off at a school board meeting in Loudon, Virginia, and basically offered a cautionary tale to those in attendance, specifically the alarming parallels between the cultural revolution that she survived and lived through in the 60s and 70s in communist China under Mao.

and what she believed was happening in our school systems and in our society at large. The parallels in her first book are incredible. It's called Mao's America. I recommend that and I recommend Made in America as well because this, to your point, is a deeper dive at the symbiotic, albeit sometimes enabling way that we here in the U.S. of A have made China. China. China, which she said, which just.

That was amazing when she said it that way. But yes, we're all guilty, I think, is what she said. Yeah. Well, you know what? We had Jan Yackelik on a couple of times now, and the feedback from that is always kind of voluminous. And people are alarmed to hear about things like organ harvesting. And look, it's a very uncomfortable reality, a relationship with these communists.

And look, I wanted to. to have Xi on because it sure feels to me, and we'll get into this in some detail. But it's just, I don't know, man. It's like the older I get, the more I realize Reagan was right, about a couple of things. But the big one being, we're a generation away. Oh, yeah, it could all go away. Our freedoms, our liberties. And that's what she is ringing the bell saying, hey, don't lose sight of this. And when you say she, you mean her. I mean, she, she, she. You mean, her. Her. The lady I'm about to hear. Her name is she. Not crawl, crawl.

Anyway, but listen, I want to say this. You know, the Nazis got off. The Nazis, you can't say you're a Nazi. You can't run for mayor of New York City and claim to be a Nazi. But the communists got off easy. Amazing. And they killed way more people. I didn't know where you were going with that.

Yeah, it sounded pretty weird. But now I get it. Yes, you can't. The stink is still on Nazism, deservedly so. Yes. Why in the world isn't it on Mao? Yeah. In the same way.

Why isn't it on the CCP? Why? Why? And the answer is we are not really in any way, shape, or form as a country or a culture, in business with the Nazi party. But we are absolutely in business. We are absolutely in business with the Chinese Communist Party. Yeah. And you don't have to look far to see that.

A lot of otherwise reasonable people walking around this country right now are open, open to the possibility. Let's give this communism thing a look. Let's give the socialism. They just got it wrong before. We're going to get it right. Yeah, it was an execution problem, not an ideological problem. And, yeah, execution in more ways than one.

Because how many people, 50 million people died in China? 50 million died in the famine. 20 million died in the cultural revolution. We'll learn all about that. In fact, Chuck wanted to call this episode, the horror. of communism, which is both a literal and accurate description of the conversation we're about to have. But she's such a delight. She really is. This woman, I didn't want to festoon the episode with such a heavy title because there's a lot of laughter in this conversation. Well, not a lot,

but more than I thought there was going to be. Yeah. And look, the truth is, the message and the messenger are both really important in all communicates. But in this case, the messenger is really important because she's been there. She did that. She lived through the cultural revolution. She was an eyewitness to a lot of things that are happening in our country right now. She's charming, passionate, and persuasive.

And she does at one point in the conversation say, we were all seen as shiny little screws, doing our mechanical part to hold together this giant edifice. You know, and the death of individuality and the warm embrace of collectivism and your role in that, what does it really mean? And I'd never heard that expression before. So when she refers to herself and to so many others who worked on the communes in the 60s and 70s as shiny little screws, I just think the appropriate advice to pass on to you are loyal and gentle listeners is don't be a shiny.

tiny little screw. And by all means, pick up Made in America and Mal's America by G. Van Fleet, who you're going to love right after this. Do do, do do do do do do. If buying a car that suited your needs and fit your budget required you to test drive 250 different vehicles, when would you find the time to buy a car? If buying a home that suited your needs and fit your budget required you to visit 200,000,000,000. 150 open houses, when would you find the time to buy a home? Happily, those situations are hypothetical, but this one is not.

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The smartest way to hire. So was that scarf made for you? Or did you actually buy that somewhere? I think my friend bought it for me in the, I think St. John's Church in Richmond, that's where Patrick Henry gave his famous speech. Yeah, I think that's the store. That was the Give Me Liberty or Give Me Death speech?

Yeah. So just for people who are listening and not watching, on the right side of your scarf, we have the Declaration of Independence. And on the left side, we have, was that the Constitution? What is that? I think is that. Oh, that's, okay, it's the other way around. Look at that.

Yeah, on our right shoulder is the declaration, and our left shoulder is the Constitution. But the Constitution can't be this short. Maybe it's the same. Maybe it's a- Maybe you got two Declaration of Independence. Oh, we can do that. I think it's Declaration of Independence. I think it's both sides.

Oh, both sides is the Declaration of Independence? I think so. I think it's just, yeah. Otherwise, the Constitution is too long. Yeah, yeah. You know what? You would need a whole, uh, you need a whole pantsuit for that. Now, your shirt is somewhat easier to decipher.

That just simply says America is good. I know. This is a message that we have to push out. I love America and people absolutely have to love it. Fall in love with it before I can save it. Well, let me tell you why I wanted to meet you. I loved your first book. Thank you.

Thank you. And don't take this the wrong way, but I think the message is really, really important, but I think the messenger sometimes is even more important. And normally I don't get very political on this show, but... Really? You don't? Not much. But when Mamdami was elected in New York, and when I see a pretty big chunk of this generation,

really not understanding. communism or socialism or America, both, either. Or America. Either. Yeah. Right? I just thought, I've seen you interviewed in a couple other venues. And I just really, I appreciate your message, but I appreciate your story.

So this is now what? Made in America is your second book? Yeah. But this is not, I put myself in it as much as I can, but this is not my story. Because this is a hundred years story. Yeah, but the first one was more personal, but I am just so surprised. I'm the only one that live through or the communist China that get to somehow picked by the media.

There's others talking, but they don't get the publicity. Yeah. And I believe that's God's work. I really feel like I have to do more. I was first introduced to you with a very short video. I guess it was, was in a Loudoun County. Yeah. And you went to some school board meeting and mouthed off at Yona, you're wearing a mask, you made all sorts of people burst into applause. What happened on that day? What was that all about?

Well, that is when I went to the school board, because at that time, everything was so divided. And they were pushing all sorts of Marxist ideologies. And the Republic Committee, local committee, urged people to go there and speak. And by then, actually, my son was out of school. I feel like, you know, know you have to be parent they said no everyone can go so you had 60 seconds to address yes the school board yes and i did that and i i i thought i did my job and i thought everyone knew what i was talking about our cultural revolution of course we all know it no no no so you went there you're all right chuck yeah i was just trying to find it oh you should play it yeah but yeah it's only 60 seconds this was in 2020 one 2021 2020, that's right after the election. So this is the school board in Loudoun County.

It's only a minute long, folks. I'm going to play the whole thing, because this is how I met Xi. And I think this is how a lot of other people met you as well. And let's just give it a listen. What's going on in our school? You are now teaching training our children

to be social justice warrior and to lose our country and our history. Going up in most China, all this thing very familiar. The communist regime used the same critical theory to divide people. The only difference is they use class instead of race. During the Cultural Revolution, I witnessed students and teachers turn against each other.

We changed school names to be politically correct. We were taught to denounce our heritage. The red darts destroy anything that is not communist, old statues, books, and anything else. We are also encouraged to report on each other, just like the students. student equity ambassador program and a bias reporting system. This is indeed American version of the Chinese communist, the Chinese culture revolution.

The critical race theory has its roots in cultural Marxism. It should have no place in our school. So your point is you wanted to say what you said, but you assumed that everyone listening would understand what the Chinese cultural revolution was. I absolutely assumed. I was shocked. I was even more shocked later and see how little that people knew about communist China, cultural revolution and communism in general.

If you had written a book called Communism for Dummies, and you were just going to really simplify this, right, what do you wish every American understood about your lived experience back? Because that was in the 60s and 70s, right? that you grew up there. What do we need to know? I have to go back a little bit further because I did not choose communism. My parents did or their generation did because by the time I was born, I knew nothing. And I swam in the

water of communism. I did not know anything different. But my parents' generation, they choose communism. Why did they choose communism? Exactly the reason that the people choose communism here. They just did not know it's communism. Okay. For the poor, they want free land. Those are the peasants that made up up to 90% of the China's population back then. Free land. That sounds just wonderful. And for the others, like my parents, they were from our where to do family.

Actually, both my father's side, they own land. My mother's side, they're professional professors. They were to do. Why do they want to join the revolution? They want to save China. They want to help the poor. Does it sound like the white liberals? That's why communism is so attractive to so many people.

Because a promise also, they promised heaven on earth. And I've never met anyone, really, who looks at themselves in the mirror and thinks about the ideology that they support and sees themselves as a bad guy. Oh, no one sees themselves as a bad guy. And, you know, I mean, it's a very charitable way to look at the species. But I think, you know, both sides need to assume that the other side thinks they're correct. And they're doing this for the greater good. For the greater good. Always for the greater good.

Just like a professor or Dr. Jordan Peterson always says those people could not make their bed, live in the basement of their parents. Yet they want to go to the street and change the world. That's the communist That's really that's why Well it's not the whole story But that's why it can attract So many people and cross the ages In different countries

In different cultural environment Did your parents come to the conclusion eventually That they had chosen That they are not to come to any conclusion Because to come to a conclusion of your own It's anti the party And you're going to be taken care of like my father, especially my father, because his mother, his father died earlier on land.

And so the land was taken away, of course, confiscated. That's not it. And she was lucky enough not be killed or murdered and tortured because she already left the countryside and live in the city. Many people died. Two million landlords were killed for the crime of owning land and have more than their neighbors. That's not it. They're taking everything, they kill you, and your offspring inherit that sin. Sounds familiar?

Inherit the what? The sin. Oh, the sin. The sin of the parents, of the grandparents. So my father become, you know, everyone has to fail out forms, you know, like whatever forms. Your class background, either you're a proletarian that's considered red or you're. your landlord and black. So he was black, belonged to the black class, and I did too.

So the biggest separation in communist China in those days was not between race. It was between class. Class. That's Mao's identity politics. But that did not work. It would not work in the United States. That's why they went to race, gender, sexuality, and that goes on and all. Okay.

Yeah. We'll get to the similarities between the cultural revolution and whatever happened here over the last 10 years. But just so people really understand, what was it like to grow up, even though you didn't choose it? Did you ever feel comfortable with it, or did you always look around and go, no, no, this is not for me? I know. I'm glad you bring it back because I took a sidetracked. I was born in 1920. 20. Come on, she. 59.

It's the beginning of the great famine. But of course, I don't remember. But I was in first grader when the cultural revolution started. That I remember. And it lasted for 10 years. By the time it's over. When Mao died, I was 17. I remember every bit of it because I lived through it.

So people always ask me, Did you notice something wrong? Did you question? Of course, I noticed something wrong, but I never question it. And you said, why you can't question? To question, you have to have a critical mind. To have a critical mind, you have to have information. And I did not have any of this.

So anything that no matter how bad, it must be it. It must be because the party mouse it, that's the way it is. So it must be it. So I never questioned the whole system. I always found enemies. Was it love or fear? Fear, fear. Fear.

Fear is more motivational than love. And if there's something goes wrong, those people. There's plenty of those people to blame. And that is how I grew up. I never had an original thought in my mind. Never, ever growing up China. And I never questioned anything. And people say, how about home?

How about your parents? My parents? They're doing the same thing. And they also fear children. Because children were indoctrinated in school to watch out. Watch out for everyone. Watch out for the enemies. Watch out for your parents.

And there's just plenty of stories of parents being sold out by the kids. Because the kids are being taught that they're, number one loyalty is to the state. American ranchers compete against cheaper imported meat every day, often deceptively labeled. It's not a fair playing field. And over time, that affects whether those American ranches can keep going. That's why it matters where your meat comes from. And it's why I choose good ranchers.

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Yeah. The party and state in China is the same thing. And it is always the same thing. And that's why now we say government, but it is really the party, when they took power, when they take power, permanent power, it merged into one. I'm so curious about how did your parents think? I mean, I'm imagining, maybe not in the first grade,

but by the time you get to the seventh, eighth, ninth grade, you're a young woman. And do they like the fact that you were, more loyal to the state than to them? Yeah, they make sure I do that. I make sure because that's good. In school we have end of every semester we have like a computation who can be the loyalist student and who can be the one that read mouse little red book and apply it at the most. I got that award several times. Tell me about the little red book. What exactly was in it? Well, the little red book is a bunch of BS.

It's quotations from mouse works without context, just here and there, here and there, just everywhere. So it's all quotations. That's really, that's what it is. It makes no sense because the context was taken out, but it doesn't matter. You just read it. And in my book, the first book, I did say this. One of the quotation is, whatever you would love it, whatever our, our story. enemy against where for and vice versa. And I, you know, in my young mind, I was like, hey, I really

like candy. And what if our enemies like candy too? That means I have to against it. That's very dangerous, critical thinking. But I had a little one. That's just because that quotation makes no sense. And today, look today. And Trump said, don't drink your own urine. And the Others said we will drink it. Okay. We'll get to America. Help me understand even as much as you can what it was like to be in the middle of a revolution as it was happening. And when, if you remember, did you realize that something truly terrible?

Oh, yes. Yes. I know something is just, I had one semester of normal schooling. and from first grade. And then the second, as soon as the second one started, yeah, it's a revolution. All of a sudden, the older kids started to go after the teachers. I did not know. I was too young, hardly seven.

And all the principals were denounced. All the big character posters were everywhere. Do you know what that is? it's just a big papers and wrote in big letters. It's like Soviet art. It's an article. It's kind of like today's social media. You put it on the wall so everyone can read it.

So it's really the old-fashioned social media. The goal is to denounce someone. So it denounce teachers, principals, everyone. All the adults were enemies. And no schools. The school, like in the beginning, it's like today you have school. tomorrow no but eventually I saw a note on the blackboard the teacher said no school for the next

four days it turned to be two years no school that you know something's chaos you know something and I went home my parents are not home most of time because they're doing the same in their workplace to find out the enemies to write the big character posters to show that you are in for the revolution and you are against whoever the enemy So that's my question. Who are the enemies? You're revolting against landowners, teachers, academics. How do you get on the bad list? And when I talk about the landlord, that was phase one. That was an enemy that had land. And then the land was taken, right? All the people were labeled. Their children, grandchildren were labeled. So you can't continue to do the landlord. So you took the private property and a private property. you're done with it. So I want to say so they went out to people's mind,

the private property in your mind. We cannot allow that. There's no private property allowed in your mind. Everyone has to have the same thinking, the correct thinking, and then they had what they called thought reform movement. Everyone, especially intellectuals, have to clean your thought so that now you get rid of the old thinking and now you adapt. party thinking. So if you don't, then you're the new enemy. Yeah. Well, it just sounds like in

general terms, I get it, the divide is between classes, but it's really, Mao's appeal was to a massive people who had very little to lose, right? I mean, the enemies were people who owned property. Yeah. And who had some standing, maybe. I just... continue, this is very hard to understand. So the second movement is to get rid of the private property in your mind, and then the cultural revolution. What is cultural revolution? After I tell you this, I think it will make more sense.

Okay, why there is a cultural revolution? So now, after he get rid of the landlord and the people who have wrong thinking, no one there not to say anything that's honest. Then they know if they do that, they will end up in the black class. the enemy of the revolution. So no one posed him.

See, he started all sorts of crazy, crazy policies. One of them is called Great Leap Forward. He's going to bring China into a modern world by what? By having everyone make steel. Everyone, I mean peasant, teachers, kids, cadre, whatever, to make steel. Why steel? He believed that's how you're modern. China to make weapons, whatever. So everyone was making steel. This is so crazy. And a furnace,

backyard furnace, rise up everywhere in China. And of course it failed. Not only failed, the crop failed. So that led to the starvation. The three-year famine killed more than 50 million people. How old were you when this happened? I was born. You were just born. So the famine really started around 60, 1960. No, 1959. And my mother told me a lot of stories. But anyway, even in a country like China, that was a big deal. That's a big deal, right?

So the first three years of your life, 50 million of your countrymen starved to death. Yes, died. And then so he was a forced to admit that he... Who was in charge then before Mao? Mao was in charge. Mao was then? Was it Shanghai Czech? That's another government that overthrow.

and drive them out to Taiwan. But he was in charge for a long time. And in the 30s, in late 30s. He was already... When did Mao come to power? When? Yeah. It's about mid-30s.

Mao was around from the mid-30s? Yeah. Good grief. 40, 50, 60. So he had been in power three decades. Yeah. By the time the cultural revolution starts. But here is the...

important than why he started Cultural Revolution. Okay, so with this many people died in the peace time, it's a big deal, even under communist country. So he was a force to admit that he made a mistake. Wow. And he was forced to be sidelined a little bit, a little bit, just gave more power to his, there are two guys to recover, really recover from the famine.

He did not like it. Even from outside the party, people still think he was in total control. The cultural revolution was to, this is so important, was to take down his party, to take down his government because he felt like

all those people are not loyal to him, those people are against him. So he wanted to destroy his party and his support government. By using what? The young people, the kids. They didn't know nothing. Those are the kids

that called Red Guards. I was just about to ask, how did one become a Red Guard? It's not even organized. You just, because Mao threw, there's a lot to unpack, but there's no social media, there's not even television.

So he allowed the kids to come to Beijing, free of charge. Free of charge, you can take the train, and once you get to a place, the government will take care of your lodging and food to meet Mao in Tiananmen Square. You probably, many people probably saw the picture of Mao in uniform on Tiananmen Square and a wave to the Red Guards,

millions of them. He did it eight times and then mobilized. When was the famous photo in Tiananmen Square of the guy in front of the tank? Oh, that was after he died. Yeah. But this is during the culture, that's how he mobilized the kids.

By allowing them, encouraged them to come to Beijing. Their travel was so scarce back then. Travel is a luxury. Now free. Everything is free. The kids came. They had a great time.

They went back home. They carried out the revolution. They took their teachers and started with teachers. That's how I saw in my school. And then the principals, and then the governors, and then mayors, everyone. Everyone eventually Mao took down his number one enemy, the guy in charge of China's economy. And the red guards took him out, gave him a struggle session, and then he was in prison, died afterwards.

So this was really a big sort of internal coup. Thank you. But it's a coup that is not a coup, right? It's a people's will. And here is something that's really, really sinister, that mal understood the psychology. By then, the people are fed up with those people in power. They're fed up with the mayors, the men. mayor's assistant, they hate the Communist Party members. So they went after them, mercilessly.

And then the governors in my state, in my province, I witnessed that struggle session of the governor being struggled against. So now they become the landowners. So people understand. They become, do you see what I mean? They become the landlord. And then the other people become the peasants. This is the vicious cycle that goes around and round and round and in the end, everyone is a victim. I just want to make sure that. No, I got it. Look, that's very Nietzsche, right? We who fight monsters must be careful not to become monsters ourselves. It becomes like everyone. It's just amazing. And after the cultural revolution, those people who are denounced back in power, and then they persecuted the former Red Guards.

How many died? 20 million. That's the estimate. But in China, you never get the real number because they controls. In the three-year famine, and there's no one single, where maybe a few photos survived.

They all burned. They all absolute burned, not hide. Not, they did not hide it. They burned it. Do you think that 50 million, is a real number? Absolutely. Here's a true but troubling story.

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Cultural Revolution. During the Cultural Revolution, how did they die, typically? Oh, my God. That is all sorts of ways. that's really, really people killing people. That is another thing that I think that make Chinese communism so sinister. A lot of the killing were not like at midnight,

please knock at your door and drag you out and you never sing again. It's people. It's the neighbor killing the neighbor, students killing the teacher, parents, I mean, even children killing the parents. friends, co-workers,

most people died that way. And what kind of law or justice or anything existed? What's your recourse? I mean, people must have known that this was mass murder on a colossal scale happening in their own neighborhoods.

Well, Mike, don't dwell on the past. Let's just move on. That's what they say. Move on. Yeah. Move on. It's not the great leap backward. Yeah.

And then there's a, okay, there's a story, and that's a very interesting story. So she was a young girl. She was a leader for her girls' high school. They killed their principal. And then nothing happened. Not only nothing happened. She came to America, and she got a PhD in MIT. And she worked the rest of her life for the Massachusetts state government,

and she died a few years ago. And she was part of a group of girls who physically killed the principal. And she was the leader of the group of girls. Talking about vetting? There's no vetting. Americans do not understand China. Do not understand communism.

They let murderers, they let all sorts of people coming in, and now we're talking about no vetting. No vetting went back, way back. And there's no responsibility. There's just no consequences. So if you were just, Just to sum it up in a sentence or two, what was the Cultural Revolution?

The Cultural Revolution, like you used, that's a cool. It's a Mao's way to use young people and to take down his political enemies. And in the process, he destroyed China, destroyed our heritage, destroyed, oh my God, destroyed so much. Our art, artifact, temples, sculptures, everything. What was the ruling ideology prior to communism? Confucianism. Okay, everybody, let's get together and be nice to each other. The only thing is that if you are a father, if you're a male and a father, you should play your role the best.

You'd be a best father, you'd be best husband, and we all kind of, it didn't that work? Kind of, you know, people do think that's the best way of living. How did the Falun Gong evolve? Well, Falun Gong is a spiritual movement. I think it becomes so popular in China is because after a cultural revolution, and there's like a vacuum, all the tradition was destroyed. Communism, they were disillusioned. There was just nothing, but people are spiritual beings.

We are spiritual beings. So someone come up and come with this idea, and everyone just jumped in. My mother became a Falun Gong practitioner. And she practiced all sorts of things. Her health was so improved. So that's how it started. People looking for meaning. I think it's people looking for meaning.

Absolutely. So how did communism start? I mean, I'm so interested because you said your parents chose it. which means there were other options. There were other things to do. And for whatever reason, how did it get sold in such a... To China, to the Chinese people. Several things.

One of them is what I said is a promise. They land to the dealers. You know, everyone should have land. That's very appealing in a country that 90% were peasants, right? The other is nationalism. nationalism was really weaponized to push communism into China. That we have to, you know, China was a, they call it a semi-colonial, semi-colonity, because there's a lot of people, a lot of powers had cut off places around the coast, mostly around the coast.

Britain, Hong Kong. Yeah, Britain, Hong Kong, and Germany, Sandong province. They're not totally, totally colonized. But people don't like it. And you can see why. So that is one major reason that Communists push it. How did the cultural revolution end? Mao died.

That's it. That was it. That's it. How did he die? He just died in his, what is? Died in his sleep? Somebody shoot him and what happened? He died.

Yeah, in his sleep. It should be something else. But yeah, he died. Yeah. It should be much worse than that. That's exactly. But how soon after his death did the country sort of just shake this off? They did not shake it off.

They never shook it out. Please, they never shook it off. Mao's portrait still hanging there in the Tiananmen Square tower. Never showed off because Mao is CCP and CCP's now never separated. But Mao is just somehow brought China to such ruins that they have to find another way. Can you think of any other leader of any other country at any other time? I mean, Stalin, Attila the Hun, is there anyone who wreaked more havoc and did more damage?

I really can think so because Gingas can. Yeah. Okay. Hey, I kill. Hey, I kill. My mom said, I kill for your own good. I kill you today because it's good for you. And that's what makes them so, so, so evil.

And so what's your question? Well, I'm just wondering if I'm just trying to find the ultimate bad guy in the history of the species. I think Mao will be absolutely one of them. That's what I said. He killed you because it's good for you. That's, you know, like a Hitler. He killed other, so-called other people, right? They, you know, the Jews and whatever.

Mao specializes in killing his own people. And that, to me, is more evil. Okay. now we're getting somewhere. Now we can talk about Loudoun County. Yeah. Now we can talk about... We'll have to talk about the book, too.

We'll get to your book. You settle down there. Made in America by Xi Van Fleet for a second book. It's very good. And your co-author, who's that? Yuji, he is... It's very important. I collaborate with a dissident author.

He came from China. I lived through the Cultural Revolution. He lived through Tianmen's... He did not live, he was too young for Kemp. But he lives through the current... tyranny. Okay. So, and this book basically argues that our country, the United States, helped make China China, current day China. We enabled a lot of the current problems. And if we can, I know you want, we'll probably will not to spend too much time on the book. And then the one thing I

really want to emphasize is that Trump is our first president. I mean, the only president who understand the danger of Chinese communism. And he said something that's very important. He said, I don't blame the communist China taking advantage of us. I blame the people here, the political leaders that allow it. And that summarized my book. That is absolutely we allow. Why?

Good questions. Why? Because we never, we never understand communism. We never even try. When did you come to this country? 1986. 86. 40 years this year.

Okay. And so you had been living in Loudoun County? I started in Kentucky and then later moved to 1990s. How do you get to Kentucky? Why Kentucky? I know. It's a beautiful story. I was in China.

And then there are some Americans come to teach in my college. And I was a teacher there. and one of the ladies is from Kentucky, and we become friends. And she said she wants to help me to go to study in America. I say, sure, she will forget as long as she leave. Because it's a summer kind of program. She did not. She did not forget.

She helped me to get assistancehip. What a good friend. What a good friend. And now I say, her name is Pat Neve. She brought me here so that I can fight communism in America. Can you believe it? Is Pat still around? No, she's gone.

And I just, I wish she knew. And I wish I knew. I did not know. But this is just amazing that I came here. Thought thinking, I escaped communism. To what, Louisville? Bowling Green, Kentucky. And Bowling Green, Kentucky.

And what town in China was home? Chengdu. Chengdu. Yeah. And people, if, if, They know anything. It's a panda bear. What do you mean it's a panda bear? It's where you go see panda bear.

A city of panda bears. You don't live in a panda bear. Okay. Man, I read that there are something like 10 Chinese cities with over 100 million people. It's not even on a map. Like the cities aren't even on a map. I know, I know. But not anymore. No.

You go to cities? No. people's first of all the economy is so bad and people no longer have jobs a lot of them just just left forgive me it's kind of a sidebar because I want to stay on your journey but what's it due to a country all right the first question is the countryside I want you to talk about what it meant to be sent to the countryside I know when you were a girl but I also want to understand what it means like in the last 15 years for a hundred

of millions of people to come to the cities. Like, what does that do to a country internally? We have to remember. Don't forget the second part. I tell my first part. Okay, I'll remember. So, leaving, because, you know, sometimes you're talking. This is why I have a pen and pencil here.

I got to remind myself, ask her about internal migration. Why people go to the cities. Got it. Yeah, yeah. Okay, go ahead. But my story, I think it is interesting. And when I grew up, and everyone was told that we are part of the collective. Collective is the goal.

Individualism is bourgeois. It has to be eliminated. So that means you don't have a personal dream. What is a dream? Explain the bourgeoisie. Yeah. But bourgeois is, I don't know what bourgeois was. What a word when I...

Again, side track is so easy. When I started to learn English, that is my first grade, no, not first English textbook, bourgeois. It's so hard to pronounce. Bourgeois, I don't know. It means bad. That's it. Well, another Mother's Day is upon us,

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That's the one I gave my mom. By using code Mike when you check out at A-U-R-A-Frames.com. Promocode Mike, terms and conditions apply at auraframes.com. James.com slash mic But it really is a word from, you know, car marks. Bourgeois means nothing than middle class. But later in a country that has no middle class,

bourgeois just means bad. That's it. And that's how I understood. And so where I was, bourgeois, you should not have anything that's individual. including dream of being something. Our dream is being a shiny little screw that the party will be happy

wherever party put us in this giant socialist machine. A shiny little screw. Shiny, yeah, you'd be happy. You can't be unhappy. If the party puts you in a shithole, you should be happy. And that's what they did. They sent me to the countryside

like all the Chinese young people because there's no jobs. You've eaten the bugs and you've liked it. Exactly. So I listen to the countryside. And when I say that, I have to tell Americans, it's not the countryside you drive here in the weekend. It's not town.

It's not horseback rides and Walden Pond. It's a shithole. Why? Because it is really, really filled. It's Gulux. That's the best way to describe it. And communes, I would think, right? A commune.

I lived in a commune. It was dissolved. I think in the late, after I came here, so probably late 1980s. I live in the commune. When nobody owns anything, when all we work is for the state, and we get a little points. So you work for a day, you get points. Same. If you work and I work, if you work hard, I don't worry, same same.

We all get five points or ten points and whatever. I think they are a little bit to sexist. Men get ten points, women get eight points. My favorite poet Robert Frost said, The world is filled with people who are willing to work and the rest who are willing to let them. I think I was in the middle.

I never worked that hard because it's hard work. It's hard work. It's really filled with no basic... The two is the most basic. I have to tell the story in my book, in my first book, that one day we have to, spread the manure. And what is the manure?

It's poops. Sure. Yeah. Human and the pigs and the chicken or whatever. All the poop mixed together. All together. That's where we get the word, poop-per-re. Don't.

It's not true, but it's possible. It's plausible. Sounds good. It's plausible. And then they mix with ashes, like a wood, you know, from the kitchen and whatever. And then we spread. without gloves. No gloves. There's no such thing as gloves. So that was your job in the countryside, mixing up poo from every species and with some ash and then spreading it around?

One of the jobs. So we spread. By the time I finished, my hands smell like the feces from every species? Yeah. And you can't wash it no matter how hard. And I can't. I was hungry, but I can't. I could not eat. I just couldn't. So I found some towel. And just wrap up, and I managed to eat my dinner. How old were you when you were on the coming? 16. 16. Yeah. Okay.

So all of this, I just, I can't imagine being you living over here and just hearing, what's his name, Mom Dami, talk about. How warm. Letting go of all that individuality. Warmness of a collective. Embrace the warmth of collectivism. Did you scream? Did you throw.

your own poop at the TV when you heard it. Actually, I was mad at myself. I said, because we were taught you have to toughen up to be a revolutionary, to be a good communist. You have to toughen up. I said, why I'm so weak? Why I'm so bourgeois, even though I have no idea what bourgeois is. That means bourgeois means you're not tough.

You know, you are just too western, too like... Too soft. Too soft. That's worth. Thank you. Yeah. You wanted to be the proletariat, right? You wanted to be a part of the...

I blame myself. I actually blame myself. I just feel like I'm just not cut for the revolution, even though whatever revolution, I have no idea. And that is how bad, you know, you can't think critically. You don't even think why I'm here. Why should I be doing this shit? Yeah, but to see so many Americans today, right here in 2026,

to see them open to the warm embrace of collectivism, that surely must make you want to scream. Of course, they have no idea. They think collective means we take care of each other. No. When you become a collective, you lost yourself, and then the whole thing was run by the party. The collective basically is a way of control.

Everyone thinks the same way. They had this slogan. It's not that they are doing it under kind of heightened their agenda. They tell you, we have to unify our thought. We have to unify our actions. It's all from Mao's instruction. So collective means we all do the same thing. We all think the same way.

We act the same way. We do whatever. If you do differently, individualism, it has to be crushed. You conform. Yeah. Conformity is collectivism. Interesting. Okay.

So back to Loudoun County. I know I'm sorry I'm bouncing around, but since we started there with that video, there you stood in front of the school board, warning people that you had seen a lot of things happening in the school that were reminiscent of the cultural revolution. Right. And then you realized people don't know what the cultural revolution was,

so they just kind of heard this nice lady behind a mask, yell at him for 60 seconds, and they're not sure why. No, they're proud, but they're probably clueless. Yeah. They know that they kind of figured, I'm comparing with something bad in communist or Chinese. What happened after that speech? Yeah, I thought my job was down.

Actually, I left soon after because I took time out from work, working at home. What were you doing for money then? I was trained as an information specialist, like a library type of work, but not working in a library, just work managing the data. So, yeah. So you thought your job was in trouble, but did the media reach out? No, no, no. What I'm saying is that I still working. So I rushed back and thinking, I did my job.

You know, I volunteered. I went there. And that's it. And so the following day, Fox News called. That was really scary. It's scary because, first of all, what a big deal. I just said whatever. But actually, the following day, I heard myself on all sorts of podcasts like Charlie Kirk.

I listen to every day. I heard myself. I said, oh my God, this is, but everyone knew, you know, what cultural revolution was. But when Fox News called, that was really the decision time that I had to say yes. If I say yes, I know that I no longer, I become a public figure, you know, go on Hannity. Yeah, and I'm worried about everything. I worry about people at home. All my family is still in China and people here, my job, everything.

Had you written a book yet? Oh, book. I have to think about never in my mind and never even entering in my mind that I would write a book. I'm just a librarian and just someone who is shy, you know, typical Chinese immigrant, right? I never participated in anything political. And I just want looking forward to retirement. I'm looking for what I do when I retired and, you know, those kind of thing.

No, no. You were just minding your own business. doing your job. Now suddenly, suddenly we're locked down, right? The BLM had happened. The George Floyd thing had happened. And you're essentially warning people that the things you saw in the 60s and 70s in China were happening right here in our country, right under our nose. What specifically were some of those things that alarmed you the most? Actually, it's not true that I paid no attention. to politics. I think before 2020, I have already paid attention to what's going on. Racism, you know, racism. Everyone is racist, racist. And it kind of remind me of China and 2020.

2020 is absolutely the turning point. Not only the BMM, but the lockdown, everything. I just said, this is not the America that I remember coming here, you know, in the 80s. Yeah, 2020 is the point. What scared you the most? And what scared me first is seeing visually, seeing what's going on in the street in Minneapolis, you know, Los Angeles, and Washington, D.C. It's remind me of the Cultural Revolution.

And I would say it's not as bad as a cultural revolution was not as bad because there's no car to burn. At least they have no cars, there's no cars, period. So at least it's a smokeless destruction. Mostly peaceful. Mostly smokeless. Smokless. And then I saw the lockdown.

And I have to tell you, I was like, really Americans, this are you, the free, you know, the freedom fighter, you complied, and you just gave in, just like this. And that really, really bothered me. I am one of the two people that refuse to get vaccinated at work. Why? I don't want a vaccine. And I don't want someone to force me to take vaccine. And I have come up with all sorts of ideas, excuses, and then they say, you know,

I said, religious reason. What religion? My own religion. But I have, I know I have a little bit protection of the, of the DEI, right? They cannot go too hard. Oh, right. Look at you playing the DEI card. Yeah, yeah. I said, no, I'm not going to take it. I'm just not going to. And, uh, but if, seriously, if I were, I have to say, you know, you probably agree. If I were white, and if I were white male, I don't think they were back down. Then you'll resign today and leave.

Okay, did I disappoint you that I did play the card? It is important in a way because... No, she said, did she disappoint you that she played the card? And I think the answer is no, right. No. Yeah. No, good grit. Look, well, first of all, I don't know what the rules were then.

I know. I know? Everywhere I looked, I saw acronyms. I saw CRT. Mm-hmm. I saw DEI. I saw ESG. I saw BLM.

I saw a lot of posters. You talked about the posters. All these things seemed, it felt like they were happening at once. No, it came out all together. That's why they were everywhere. But now they came together in 2020. That's why it's like a tsunami. It's really like the tsunami.

Well, that is the collective. The pressure to conform and fall in line. Yeah. And I don't look. Reasonable people might disagree about this. specific vaccine but I think a lot of other people get uncomfortable when you're talking about a mandate and that's what it sounds you know it's it's it's one thing to have a choice it's another thing not to have a choice and I said to I'm working at home at home why should I take that vaccine

I'm not going to work and endanger any other people it's just there's no reason reason out of the window and they demand that you comply And that's communist. That's just, oh my God, that reminds me of communist China so much. And I said, no, I'm not going to do it. Is part of where you're coming from, I mean, I would be, if I had lived your life, very suspicious of authority. I'd be very suspicious of people in uniforms, whether it's a white coat or an army uniform, telling me what to do.

And I think maybe a lot of. of people in this country who didn't share anything close to your experience don't have that suspicion yet every new generation kind of has to figure it out for themselves i guess so i guess so and it's all for your own good that's the same and that's why they can push it so so so bad that's why communism is so deceptive and that's why i feel like that's my i have this obligation to tell american people Yeah, Chinese people bought the same deception. They thought it was good for them. They said they can get something and then nothing.

And not only that, many of them perished. But the story is not told because we don't have control of our educational system. Where does it start? I mean, you can't just flip the switch and have a whole people immediately singing out of the same hymn book. Like, does it start with language? does it start, like, where does the manipulation? Where does the pressure? We're here in China.

Both places. Because that was your point, right? I remember one day, I was traveling, and so I didn't quite understand what was happening on social media, but within 48 hours prior, everybody was putting this black box next to their name. Oh, yeah, yeah. It was for Black Lives,

matter and it was on Facebook and I you know I've got six or seven million people who are on that page and many of them wanted to know why I hadn't blacked out my face I said well I don't understand why would I and suddenly for me it was a moment where I felt like oh you know what this is a lot of pressure to send a signal that you're with us and I remember thinking oh you know what that isn't good, that kind of manipulation, that kind of pressure to fall in line, to comply, to conform, right? That's a step closer to the collective. Anyway, that bugged me.

What bugged you? Well, by then, it's obvious. You probably the first time you experienced that, right? That kind of a pressure. Well, I've felt, I know when I feel manipulated, I like to think I'm immune to it because I work in advertising. I understand how... Oh, okay.

I understand how persuasion works. But this wasn't advertising. No, no, no. This was the real world. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And this was like a lot of people putting a lot of pressure on millions of others to check a box. Okay, in China's different because the Chinese Communist Party took over power by violence,

by armed struggle. They use weapons. They use military force to take over. But that would not work. in America. I don't think it will ever work in America that we have a coup from the military. And yeah. We got 380 million guns. I know, yeah, no. But here they have to go through this deception. And this is little by little. Just thinking back, just the way I experienced, I came here in 1980s, and that was the tail end of the America's first cultural revolution,

which is the counterculture that ended when the Vietnam War ended. But that was the beginning. So this is the continuation. This is BMM and the Walk. This is American Cultural Revolution 2.0. But I can remember going to school, university, in 1989. Yeah, I went to a Western Kentucky University to study English. I did not experience anything that is remind me something, China.

But then I went to Florida. And so one of the classes I remember so vividly. And it's a class about special education. And that was the time when the act, I can't remember the whole bill or a disability. No, no, no. Yeah. Americans with Disabilities Act.

Yes. And then they have all this, you know, special ed and whatever. So we had that class, and then the teacher said, so now we have to do this in school, you know, we have to all this fun. But we have to be careful that we have to watch what we say. We cannot see blind. We have to see people with vision impaired, whatever. I was so impressed.

I'm serious. I said, American people are really nice people. They want to be nice, right? Compli. That's the first step. Blind is blind. It's been used for centuries. Now we can't.

Can't do it anymore. Yep. And then and then we have to do this and then change. You know what is the, this is my favorite story. Do you know what is the correct term for people have eye trouble? Okay, vision trouble. Blind. According to Stanford University, this is now the correct way, the correct terminology.

Did you ever watch George Carlin when you came over here? Do you know that name? No. He was a very famous comedian, and he talks a lot about language. He talks about what today we would call post-traumatic stress disorder, and then they took the disorder off. But prior to that, I think it was, what was it in the Second World War? Combat fatigue.

Combat fatigue syndrome. But. Oh, comeback. In World War I. when it really became a phenomenon, they called it what it was. Shell shock. Yeah, yeah. You were shell shock.

Exactly. It just seems like on the journey to the warm embrace of collectivism, we have to go through some rituals. You comply, right? We must comply in many different ways. Oh, vision impaired or whatever. Okay, I do it. Homeless. No, no, not homeless anymore.

Un housed. I know. I said harmless, but unhoused. Home means something. You know, that's the same. You talk funny. You listen funny. What I'm saying is that you comply, right?

I'll say, I'm okay, it's okay. I don't say blind. I just say vision impaired. And you comply. Step one. And then you comply. And then you comply until that's what you're leading to what you're talking about. And homeless, I know.

It's unhoused. It's unhoused. But look, all of that. that, you know, I think a lot of people just kind of get, listen, it's well-intended people. I know, good intention. Trying to be mannerly. But then you take it into the next level. Like, the homeless thing is another level because there's many billions of dollars being

spent to correct the problem. And it's failing. So now everybody's got money in this and the language is shifting under our feet. Then, of course, you get to the real sensitive thing, which was the whole. transgender movement and pronouns. And now we have these giant struggle sessions in this country over, you know, Jordan Peterson mouthed off a couple years ago. Right.

So that's what I'm getting at. When you look at those linguistic gymnastics that we're putting ourselves through really quickly, like just in the period of a couple of years, words don't mean what they used to mean anymore. That is there a lesson from your youth in that? Was there something similar in the cultural revolution? The cultural revolution, it's not quite, you have to understand. When the American communists, they're not in total control yet. They don't have total power yet.

They're in the process of citizen power. In China, they have power. So they don't have to be so subtle. They don't have to be, you know, working so hard to manipulate a term. They do, but not as much, because they can tell you. You just have to believe. And most people just, most people, majority of them comply, because if you don't, you're arrested or you're in prison or sent to the labor camp,

that's one major difference that I think the Marxists, the communists here in the West, they are 10 times sophisticated. They have to. Well, and there's a difference between a cancel culture where you lose your status or maybe privileges. You were in the ultimate cancel culture. Yeah. Where they just walk you behind the barn and put one in your ears.

Exactly. You don't have to argue. You can't argue. So that is a big difference. I think that because they are not in total control yet, they are still in the process of getting power, they have to be so many manipulative. manipulative. They have to. Manipulative.

Yeah. By the way, when did you learn English? Oh, I, okay. When I was in the countryside, I have no hope. I don't know one day I would get, I never knew what one day I would go back to the city and live a city life in comparison. When you were mixing the poop with the ashes,

that's when you learned English? Yeah, you have, no, no, no. I never gave up one dream, even though I know I have no dream, you know. I was dreaming that one day, I thought it's so funny, one day I will become an interpreter and go to Albania. Do you know why? No. No, because in our international news back then, there were three countries, North Korea, North Vietnam, and Albania.

And to me, the most exotic country was Albania. But I never gave up that dream of going somewhere. And then after the cultural revolution, I could go to college. It's the hell with Albania. You know, I want to go to America. That's that title, The Hell with Albania. I have a dream to translate English to Chinese in Albania. So I...

But you wound up in Bowling Green. Yeah, but I studied English in college. And then I taught English in a teacher streaming college. That's why I met my friend who brought me here. What's name? Pat. Pat. Yeah. She's a great lady.

We'll dedicate this episode to her. Because really, you know what? We're talking about the biggest ideas in the world, gee, right? We're talking about 50 million dead, 20 million dead over here. We're talking about the wealth of nations and the fate of countries. But in the end, what is this life but a friend putting her hand on your shoulder and saying, come. Change the destiny. Try it over here.

It's not Albania, but it's not. That's why I can sit here and talk to you because of her, but she left too early. Where's gratitude on your list of virtues? I think this is something that is so lacking here in this culture now. I'm so grateful that I'm here. I can't, I don't know, just don't bring me into tears. I'm so grateful I'm here. And I'm just like, because of this,

I will do everything I can to save this country. And when I say people say this, to what, to restore it? That's what it is. To restore it. To really not like my shirt, America is good. I want to make that dream alive for future generations.

It has been so good to me. And I want that dream to live on. Can China be good? Can China be saved? China can be without CCP. without CCP. I don't even know my own culture because I grew up in a CCP's culture.

I learned the Chinese character simplified by the damn Chinese Communist Party. I could not even write the original script, which is still in practice in Taiwan or Hong Kong. I don't know anything about Chinese culture. I did not read Chinese classics. I read Mao's little book. back and forth and back and forth in every line.

And that is, they robbed me of being Chinese. That is how bad it is. And today, a lot of people go there and then they think they'd experience Chinese culture. No, you go to Taiwan if you want to experience Chinese culture. You go to Japan, if you want to experience the culture that originated from China. When I went to Japan, I went to Japan, I want to experience. I went to Japan, I was like, oh, my God, they really took care of the heritage. And even though it's modified, but it's, the root is in China. What is your favorite place in the world? Oh, my favorite place. Yeah, your favorite place to be.

America. More specific. Oh, I don't know. I love Virginia. Virginia has been my home for so long. It is a state of funding fathers, land of funding fathers, now we are undercoming this rule. Do you really think it's that bad, or are you just trying to say stuff to agitate me? It's so bad that as soon as the new governor, Spamberger, in power, within the 24 hours, she wants to wipe out everything, and she wants to restart everything. Be specific. What's your gripe with her? Okay, her tag on the Second Amendment, especially. And then there's a lot of bills that they try to enact.

I don't get everything. But the one thing is now, if you complain about Islam, it's criminal. That's communism. That's absolutely communism. And they really want to destroy the Second Amendment. And I think they go after Second Amendment, even before the First, is because they know you can't have First without the Second. What do you think the most important Amendment is? I think I think second.

How many? They kill so many Chinese. Okay, this is what I have to say. The Chinese starved to death in front of the, what do you call the warehouse of? greens back in the 50 and 60s. Why? Why can't they just go there and storm the warehouse? Take the food. Take the food. But they didn't. No guns. No guns. No guns. Okay. So you're a Second Amendment kind of gal. You're a First Amendment kind of gal. You've got the declaration. Yeah. On your show. And if you can ask me, yes, please see this. And there's something else I have

tell you, and I think one of the things that I did not even think much until I have to say in the past, maybe past 10 years, I did not understand what makes America so great, where our liberty is from. I did not dwell on it, because I was busy getting a job, you know, buying a house, a bigger house and bigger house, whatever. Why if we have the liberty? It's because it's said in our Declaration of Independence that our liberty is from our creator, is from, from God, our rights from there. And that is why I think that I never even thought about it. That's why we're free.

If we can, of course, we can keep it. In China, it's all government. Government tell you whatever, you'll just do it. You don't argue, you just do it. And so we all become like we talk about one of the collective. That's why here is individual, because each of us were made in the God's image. What did you think these last couple days? I assume you flip around the TV, you watch the news channels.

No, I don't watch TV anymore. It's an X. Just, oh, you're just on X? Just X. Formerly known as Twitter? Yeah. Okay. Yeah.

Did you see the Kings? The King? No Kings rally. Did you see that? Eight million people all over the world. What do you make of that? It's discouraging when you think about there are so many people being indoctrinated. I think the real people.

real problem. I think the real problem is the church. I think if I blame on anything, the first thing I blame is on the church. Yeah, because they lost their way a long time ago. And because of them, and then the second, I think we lost our roots get pulled out and it's educational system. That educational system has been under control by Marxists as early as 1920s. It's a century, 1920s. And if you go back to the person, you know, Jiang Dewey might be probably before him as or others. That is how they got the public education and now private, now Christian educational system, Catholic church, schools, they all become the tools for Marxism.

They indoctrinate generations, generations of Americans. And through this, you heard that, a long march through institutions. And where are those people going? Where did they go? They're now in charge of all our institutions. You know, that's worth just explaining a little more so people understand.

The long march wasn't a long walk. It was an attempt to essentially infiltrate. Yeah. Actually, there's more story. The Long March was a long march by the communist CCP to escape the encirclement by the nationalist. They were driven out of their base in southern China, and they have to go west. They have like a five thousand miles march in order to escape. So is that? It's from China. It's from CCP. But that's what they're referring to is a long physical march. But this was because the Western Communists love it so much. A German

Marxists used this in this now famous phrase. Long March is little by little. Infiltration. Yes. Infiltration little by... That's how I always understood. I know. But they used that term that's originated from the CCP. That's very telling. They're all the same. They're all Marxists. They're all communists.

If you were queen of the world, aside from flicking your fingers and filling everyone's brain with what you've filled both your books with what would you want everyone to take from your lived experience,

your life. What's the big, big lesson to this country right now in 2026? Yeah, we're talking about people here. This, my book is not for the Chinese. No. Yeah, it's... You guys do heck with them. It's us right now.

We'll save America. Save us. Exactly. I think, okay, that's a big question. How can I formulate so that, okay, I really want people to know. There's no utopia. There's no heaven on earth. No.

Zero. If you want heaven, that's the God's kingdom. That's over there. It's not here. If you give up that idea. Because that's the idea that the communist push on people. We're going to make this a fair world. We're going to make this world that's good for everyone.

That everyone's at the table, you heard that all the time. There's no such thing. That is the way to lure you into this idea of collectivism. So you gave up your individual rights, you gave up your thoughts, you become part of it because you thought you're going to be in the same. in that world. And that is kind of hard to tell everyone, but I want them to read my book

to learn the real history. The real history that the Chinese thought the same way and what they end up with. See, somewhere between blindness and vision impaired, we have this other thing called willful blindness. Yeah. That's the decision. You know, when I think about your mom and dad,

deciding, choosing. Yeah. Communism. You know, it's... You can't blame them. They really, really want to do something good for people. They do. They did.

Yeah. They did. Then later. And then the question becomes, what do you do when you find out? Once the scales fall from your eyes. I know. Okay. Thank you.

You're the ostrich. You got your head out of the sand. Yeah. Now what? Okay. Now we have this option. And that's why I bothered to even write two books. I may get another one because I want people to understand so that we do something now.

Or you find out yourself. By then, it will be too late. Like my parents, when they found out this revolution is not what they're thinking, what they had, what they understood. Too late. Too late. Okay. That, to me, that's the big lesson.

it's like you ever lean back on your chair a little too far like and then you feel like you're going to go back and you can't you know like you pass the tipping point your gravity that's now a charge you're you're going to fall I think the most poignant poetic and horrifying time to be alive is in that moment we are there when you start to fall but you haven't hit the floor yet but it might be too late yeah it might be too late That's scary. Is it, okay, and that's my last question, I think we're there. You think we're there. We are there. But is it too late? Nothing can be too late.

Okay, so this is how I understood that, yeah, I may be wrong. I think we fell off the cliff already. We are looking for a soft landing. No matter what we do, even if today we switch, make the switch, and then we come back into normal, into the 1980s that when I came here, when everything, my memory seems to be just kind of normal, it's no longer there.

We cannot be. So many things has fundamentally been changed, altered in this country. And so soft landing is what we're hopeful. If we want to restore America completely, that will take our decades. But now we're just hoping for, soft landing. But that save America, it is, because we have been, I mean, conservative, sorry, we're being in sleep for so long. I have been asleep for so long. I did not speak up until,

until it's so late, right? Because I was just taking like an autopilot, just doing things because nothing can go wrong in this country. So I take responsibility. I did not tell my, tell my, son, the horrors of communism, because I want to forget about it, because it's over there. And I did not tell my friends. I did not take my coworkers about the horror of communism. Maybe you should have. I should have. Because I did not think that this is America. Nothing can go wrong. Well, look, as humans, in the interest of self-preservation, we need to forget the times that brought us the most pain. We can't wallow in the past. But if we forget, then somebody else gets to write our history. This show you're on right now is called the way I heard it. It should be called the way I remember

it because so much of what I wind up talking to people about is how they, how do you remember your girlhood, right? And then how do you talk about it today and how do your memories, you know, conflict maybe from time to time? Maybe your neighbor remembered it differently. and lived through the same thing. It just seems to me right now that in this country, so many people, everybody's armed with the same cell phone, the same social platforms. You know, we all have the way we heard it, the way we remember it. And we're all pretty sure we're right.

And we're all really loud. And we're all marching around and talking about kings and collectivism and everything else. And here you are in all of it. I mean, is it that your real, honest hope, the best case scenario is a soft landing. For now, yes, for now. I think it would take so long for us to go back almost the same time. It took them almost a century to get us here.

And it were decades to go back to where this country is supposed to be, where the funding father designed it to be. And I know it's not that same. simple. You know, it's not like the funding father say, one, two, three, we go to one, two, three. But closer to the original funding, I think we'll take a long time. Last question, maybe. I hope it's not. And I'm hopeful. I fight this fight because I believe in it. But I know for sure it's not something we can turn around overnight.

But you've seen what happens to a culture that tears down its statues, that changes the names on its schools, and that crosses out big chunks of its history. That's what Mao did, right? Yes. And you're watching that happen here, too. Yeah. So I can understand why you're not totally hopeful all the time. I mean, it's got to be, it must be very, very chilling.

Yes. And this book, my second book, is really want people to focus. I think more and more because of Trump, I think more and more people realize that CCP is our, really, while we're no longer competitor, it's our adversary. I say enemy, just get it out, enemy. It's our enemy because that's how they teach the Chinese people. And so it's a good thing that we consider that a threat. But this book is not about that. It's how we get here.

How we get here is the story. of Americans never understood communism. And because we never understood communism, now we create a monster overseas, and we create a monster here, which is the woke ideology. So how are we... What are we doing wrong right now

in terms of emboldening or enabling China to be the worst version of itself? Or the worst version of a evil empire? much more so worse than Soviet Union. What's your question? How did we get here? Well, I'm just thinking, did you see my interview with Jan Yacalli? Okay.

So, you know, the word seems to be getting out that there's a $9 billion trade going on with human organs. Yes. And that the CCP is essentially organizing it. Now, back to my earlier point, it's one thing to think it. It's another thing to see it and then know it. Yeah. So now, like, once you know that's happening, whether it's the Uyghurs or whether it's the Falling Gong or whether, now you know. But other people don't know. That's the thing. And why they don't know, I think it's both the communists here, try to just either water down or just hide it and the CCP. So most people don't know. Most people do not know. It's not like they all. Oh, no, they don't care.

They don't know. And a lot of them don't even want to understand because it's just too much. That's a difference. Yeah. It's one thing to be ignorant because you don't know. It's another thing to be willfully blind. Because it's just, they'd rather, it's just too much for them to even to dwell on it. But here's something else I want to say that they don't understand.

We don't understand communism. When I say, wait, because I'm American now. Yeah. Otherwise, I say they, you. But there's something I think. it's very important. I don't want to name names, but I want to name this name because I was like, what? Okay, Bill O'Reilly. Now, he's a conservative, and I watch his show, and I like a lot of his political analysis. He wrote a book. I don't know, you're aware. He had a new book called Confronting

Evil. And it's in the cover, it's basically Hitler, Stalin. Stalin. Stalin, Mao, and Alitoa Hulami, confronting evil. Yeah. So the other thing I want to say is that most Americans don't understand there is a evil out there. They just somehow has trouble, I understand. Okay. So in his conclusion of his book, he said, we need allies to fight against evils,

and we need to ally with CCP. And you think he's wrong. I think this is just this actually showed why I should have this book and people should read this book. Even today, we're not talking about Democrats, we're not talking about leftists, we're talking about conservatives, we're talking about conservatives still don't understand. But we have Trump. We have Trump. You're a fan. He absolutely understands.

He understands. and he understands how to take it down, not to have a war with China, but he understand how to undermine it and take down indirectly. And I think we have a much better chance today than ever that we might just be able, if not take it down, weaken it so that it's no longer a threat, direct threat to the free world. What do you say then to the argument, and I know we're out of time? It's all good. I'm just so, I mean, she's so, I get it. She's so sassy. I know.

She's so interesting. And she's got such great, uh, shirt, sartorial splendor. You've got to listen better. She's a great fashion choice. I don't know. What do you say? Never mind O'Reilly. I mean, he's sold millions and millions of books, you know, and he does have an audience.

And good for you for speaking candidly about it. But I know there's an argument in this. country that says, look, we don't want to have a war with China. And, you know, yes, they're an adversary. And yes, we're not aligned. But, you know, Nixon opened it up. And they're a huge trading partner. And the NBA is exporting their right. Hollywood, too. Hollywood. So the argument is we keep the glass-nosed. We keep a perestroika and we do it through these social channels. We make them more like us by exporting America. That's what Clinton tried to convince us.

Yes. You know, I have to say, I thought for a short while, I believe it too. I went to China, you know, in the late 90s and early 2000. It was amazing. People were able to talk openly, you know, about cultural revolution, about the problem with the government. It only lasted just shortly, and it's all gone. Now, I talk to my friends in China in cold.

You can't just, yeah, you have to. So we use words so that we kind of get there, so we kind of understand because surveillance, yeah. So the government is surveilling all the, all of them. Yeah, especially We chat. That's the, they provide this great tool that you can talk to your family and friends in China free. Everything is. Everything's listened to.

Yeah. What about TikTok? You got that? I don't know about now. I think I did not follow it. I just don't trust it because it's a Chinese product. I don't trust it. What do you trust?

That's the problem. There it is. Who do we trust? Trust God. That's the only thing, I think. There you go. Anything you wish I would ask you that I didn't? We never talk about that, by the way it's too late to talk about.

No, no, no, no. We talk about the past. Oh, what did I write down? Hold on. I don't know. I wrote soft landing. Why people are migrating to the cities. Yes.

No, it's not too late. Okay. No, it's my show. You do it very long. Give me five minutes and let me explain. Five minutes in a row? Okay. Remember I talk about the peasants?

I want people to understand the question you're answering since I asked it an hour ago. Yeah. But this came out. I saw a guy from the Brookings Institute, big think tank. And he was giving a lecture. This is like nine years ago. And the question was the topic was China rising. And everybody in the audience was very concerned about its military might

and what that might portend for us. And this guy said, look, sure, we think about it at the highest levels all of the time. But China's busy. China's got 400 million people moving to the cities. That's 100 million more people than we have living. living here. So it's very difficult for me to get my head around what that would do to a country, to have the whole countryside. It's just mind-boggling. Okay. All right, go ahead. Okay. The story I have to go back to the beginning. That was the land reform, that peasants were happy.

Make it interesting, make it interesting. They got land and five years later, it's all taken away. Okay? And then they all got into the people's commune. Yeah. Commune means you work for the people. What people? The government. Yeah, the government. Okay, so they were so poor and many of them died of starvation, but even when I was in the countryside, they have so, so, so poor. They are desperately poor. Those are the people that were talking about that go into cities, but they are not just going to cities. Mao did something else that was so sinister. He implemented a system called the who-co system, household registration. You register where you were at the time.

If you're a peasant, you register as a peasant, you will be peasant forever, ever, meaning ever. And if you're a city, a resident of one city, you cannot move to another. I can't just, when I was in China, I can't just say, I don't go to Beijing. I want to live in Bay. You can.

Okay, that system is still in effect. So when the China market start to open up, when the American business went to China, do you know the hourly rate? For wages? For wages? 47 cents an hour. That's what they're paying for the Chinese labor.

And that's what the peasants. But for the peasants, that's heaven. Because they could not have anything. They could not keep anything for themselves. So that was heaven. So they all poured in. First is people with a little scale. But a lot of the jobs, first of all, were jobs with low scale.

So they could not. They went to the city, but they could not stay. They can stay, but they are not part of the city. Their children cannot go to school. They can't enjoy any services the city provides. If the kids go to school, they have to, pay. So that is one thing that most of them overlook. So what happened to the peasant class is that the family separated. The young people, husband or even parents went to the city, work in the

factory for very little, but for them, that's money that they can keep in the pocket. And their parents and older parents take care of the kids. That is destruction of Chinese families. And so there is a thing that is, you can even, there is a BBC documentary about this unique phenomenon that's only happened in China that billions of trips were made around the Chinese New Year. Chinese New Year is, you know, every year's different. But it's a... Gong'i far choice. That's right. Exactly.

But that's when people that worked for a whole year, they went back to home. to, you know, reunion with the family. And then that is like hundreds of millions people on the move for about a month. They go there and then they come back. And these people are the cheap labors, the backbone for the Chinese rise, and they get very little.

Today, you know, Team Cook said, oh, we're still in China. Well, he moves some of the operations out. It's not because of the wage. Sure. Do you know today's wage? Like less than $5 an hour. You tell me it's not about the wage. That is what the Chinese government together with the Western American capitalism, they got rich because of those peasants. The peasants live in the subhuman environment. They have like a huge place with raw beds. Like I know someone who made Christmas trees for America. They live in like 10 people per room. They have no bathroom with hot water.

It's just like a door. They're making like a whatever $2 back then. She quit $2 an hour. And this is really, we participated in it. We, you and I, because we bought the cheap stuff. That's my next question. including this table, okay? Yeah.

I mean, and so look, what's the solution? I mean, Bill O'Reilly is going over there to say, we ought to partner with them to make the world a better place. It seems like on the other side, we've got to get the NBA out, we got to raise hell about the Uyghurs, we got to stop the Oregon harvesting, we have to stop, like, we have to back away from,

would you support a movement that just said, we just got to get off the Chinese tit, pardon me, but I mean that's- Absolutely. Absolutely. And not only that, they make awful products. They make shit. When I go to, I love this. I can curse you in California.

When I went to a Chinese or Asian grocery store, I make sure the food that buy is not made in China. Why? It's not safe. It's just not safe. They make the worst thing for profit. But it's not. them. The problem, again, is not them. It's us. Now today, American people, American citizens,

become consumers. Right? They become consumers. Before they become citizens. Before they come, they only care about their bottom line. I just think that I would pay more if we can get something made here. I will. Absolutely. I understand. That's how we sold America, that we not, did not enraged the American the Chinese people that who really made it all this possible they were still impoverished we made the CCP rich that make me so mad before I thank you and say goodbye just one more question was I'm glad we covered that yeah we know no we got it we got it was I was I like was it racist of me to be pretty sure that the virus came from a lab called China virus Like Trump.

It is from China. It is from the lab. From China. China. And it's not by accident. I guess. I don't know, but I think that's what it is. That's how we're going to close this to our conversation.

You're going to leave that hanging out there? You know what that's called? That's called book number three, book number three. Oh, me. That's what, because nothing is accidental in China. Nothing. How many is China? And look at it.

the timing, look at everything. You think it's just accidentally just escaped the lab? No, I don't. I don't. I don't. But you know what? It was a good way to lose a lot of friends here five years ago, start mouthing off, that kind of thought. It's so scary that so many people just shut up because they're scared. I know. We have been fallen so far, so far. Yes. I'll close with what I opened with. I've heard this message before, but I haven't heard it so persuasively articulated by somebody who's lived it.

Your first book is called Mal's America. Your most recent book is called Made in America, which of course is an explanation of how China continues to be China with our help. A lot of inconvenient truths in here. You're a jagged little pill, as we say. You've probably upset a lot of people. Gee, but I'm so glad you're not.

But that's how you wake them up. You don't just pat them. You say, come here. Yeah. Give them a smack. Would you autograph this book for me? Yeah. Would you do that?

Absolutely with honor, yes. Okay, here, God, sign it right there for me. Chuck, I know this is a topic near and dear to your heart. You have any final questions for our guest before I send her on her way? Well, you asked it about TikTok, and she gave me the answer that I expected. You know, that's the thing that I was really worried about. but I believe this message is very important, and people need to listen to it, read the book, and be aware. I'm being more and more careful myself about where I buy stuff.

Your handwriting is terrible. What language is this? Wait a minute. I never signed anything in China because there's nothing to sign. And I have to learn to... Wait, what does it say? Can you say? No, I can't read it. I think it's her name. I don't know. It's my name. You said sign. I didn't say sign. I didn't say put an electrocardi or you say. I tried to be fancy, and it took me a long time to get there. I'm telling you, I can only print

when I got here. Can you write your name in Chinese? Yeah, I was just going to say can you write my name in Mandarin? Mike. Yeah. Yeah, go ahead. Give me that. Now? Yeah, right now. Just that? Well, I don't know, whatever you want. I have to say something. Let me say. Think about it afterwards. We're still on the air? Yeah, we're on the air. I want this to happen on camera. Don't put me on the spot. I have to think a message. How about something like that? like for Mike, the most insightful interviewer, I've ever had the pleasure to chat with, P.S. You're no Bill O'Reilly. Something like that.

Let me do it later. All right, you do it later. All right, that's a She Van Fleet. But she never finished his story. It wasn't going anywhere. All right, good, Chuck. Go ahead. Chuck gets the last word on this one. Okay, yeah, if you can buy American, buy American. And if you can buy from anywhere else other than China, buy from anywhere else other than China. I'm trying to do that in my life. And I've been for a while. That's what we all should do. Absolutely. Even though it's very difficult. Yes, it is difficult. And if you need a human organ, don't go to China. Don't do it. That's a bad move. And this shirt, by the way, made by our friends, an American giant.

Yes. Proud sponsor of this program. And that is amazing. Yeah, the made in America. America is good. We the people. Be the people. Be the people. That's right. That's right. That's better. Not bad. All right. Thank you for coming by. What a pleasure. Thank you so much. This is not just a player. It's so much fun. Thank you. Well, look, if you're not laughing the joke's on you, right? I know. I know. Amen. When you leave a review, only five stars will do, not just one or just two or just three. We were hoping. Four more. As in a one more. The four. Just a quick review. You with five stars too

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