TRIGGERnometry - Dan Crenshaw: Fortitude in the Era of Grievance

Episode Date: May 17, 2023

SPONSORED BY: easyDNS - domain name registrar provider and web host. Use special code: TRIGGERED for 50% off when you visit https://easydns.com/triggered/ Dan Crenshaw is an American Congressman and former US Navy SEAL officer who served in Afghanistan. Reaching the rank of lieutenant commander, Crenshaw was wounded in action during his third deployment, losing his right eye to an improvised explosive device. He is a member of the Republican Party and has been serving as the United States representative for Texas's 2nd congressional district since 2019. Join our exclusive TRIGGERnometry community on Locals! https://triggernometry.locals.com/ OR Support TRIGGERnometry Here: Bitcoin: bc1qm6vvhduc6s3rvy8u76sllmrfpynfv94qw8p8d5 Music by: Music by: Xentric | [e-mail] | https://www.xentricapc.com/ YouTube:  @xentricapc   Buy Merch Here: https://www.triggerpod.co.uk/shop/ Advertise on TRIGGERnometry: [e-mail] Join the Mailing List: https://www.triggerpod.co.uk/sign-up/ Find TRIGGERnometry on Social Media:  https://twitter.com/triggerpod https://www.facebook.com/triggerpod/ https://www.instagram.com/triggerpod/ About TRIGGERnometry:  Stand-up comedians Konstantin Kisin (@konstantinkisin) and Francis Foster (@francisjfoster) make sense of politics, economics, free speech, AI, drug policy and WW3 with the help of presidential advisors, renowned economists, award-winning journalists, controversial writers, leading scientists and notorious comedians. 00:00 Intro  01:19 Fortitude 04:49 How do We Give Perspective to People Living in Stability? 07:20 The Problem with Materialistic Culture  09:13 Outrage is Weakness 12:07 Left & Right Wing Populism  18:53 How Do You Deal with Your Own Political Group if they Go Too Far? 20:28 America's Self Interest in Ukraine 23:48 Should the US Use their Money Elsewhere? 24:52 Why Are Some of the Most Powerful Countries Unable to Control their Border? 32:33 The Public's Understanding of Congress 34:11 Sponsor Message: easyDNS 35:15 Is Trump Coming Back? 38:32 How Do You Heal the Rift Between the Left and Right? 41:32 What does Conservatism Mean to Dan? 44:46 Values Learned as a Navy SEAL in Contrast to Politics 50:35 What’s the One Thing We’re Not Talking About? Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

I'm saying learn unemotional. Stay. Keep your heart out of it. Because it's not developed. Put your head in it a little bit. I'll get some pushback sometimes. Kids will be like, how could I not be mad? I'm like, you're making my point for me. People have a real misunderstanding of basic civics.

Who holds power up here? What kind of powers we have as congressmen? They simultaneously want government out of their lives, while you also be a dictator and do what they want. And how do we heal the rift between left and right? Because the reality is, you need to work together in order to have a cohesive country, don't you? That's tough.

I do think objectively the left has moved way, way further off the spectrum than the right has. The right's gotten angrier, but I'm not so sure how our policies have shifted dramatically. You've noted before how victimhood and outrage has been elevated in our society, unfortunately on both sides. I think the right did it to match the left. He's got to fight fire with fire, right? I'm like, what fire have you ever put out with fucking fire? Hello and welcome to Trigonometry on the road from the USA.

I'm Francis Foster. I'm Constantine Kissen. And this is a show for you if you want honest conversations with fascinating people. A terrific guest today is Navy SEAL bestselling author and the congressman from the great state of Texas. I've always wanted to say that. Dan Crenshaw, welcome to Trigonometry. Thanks for having me. It's a real pleasure.

Thank you for letting us take over your office. I mentioned that you are a bestselling author. And actually your book, Fortitude, is one of the things we really wanted to talk about. You talk about the fact that you lost your mom when you were 10 years old, watched her pass away from cancer, then you skip forward, you become a Navy SEAL, you go out in deployment, you get injured. And the fortitude of dealing with all of that. And that contrasts so sharply with the culture that we now seem to live in. What is it like for you, with your life experience, watching people freak out and melt down over tiny little things all the time?

Yeah, geez, where do we begin? So one of the chapters in that book is called Perspectives from Darkness. And the whole point of that book is it's not like a political book. It's not even a book about Navy Seals. It's not even really a book about my life. I mean, there's a confluence of themes that sort of, you know, create this sort of multifactorial explanation of the mental sense of fortitude. But you've got to start somewhere.

I said, where do you start? Well, a little perspective might help. And people, I think, are objectively more upset just in general. He's angry and fragile and deeply fragile than years past. And maybe that's like the natural tendency of civilization. And to some extent that's okay. Like we don't need you to be hard as nails. It's kind of the point of civilizing.

But we have come to a point where maybe it's been overdone a little bit. And we complain a little too much about things that we shouldn't be complaining about. And so it's healthy. Just, I mean, you don't even have to look that far back in time. Maybe it's past generations. Maybe it's just a few years ago. Maybe it's just comparing yourself to somebody else's situation and think, you know what? Maybe it's comparing yourself to your own situation 10 years ago.

And you're like, you know what? I've been through something harder than this. Let me get through this too. I don't need to be triggered by this. Somebody else dealt with what I'm dealing with now. And they performed way better than I am now. That's like a key lesson in perspective. We hear it all time in buds.

They'll say, like, look, you guys are looking pretty miserable, but you know what? There's like 10,000 people who've done this before you. They did just fine. So either like sack up or just get the hell out. That should be a fortifying message. To a lot of young people these days, that's like an attack. You're attacking my sense of well-being, attacking my self-esteem. I was told that I'm perfect the way I am.

But that's like the worst thing you can do to somebody. I would tell you you're perfect the way you are if I don't like you because then I don't want you to improve. I care about you, I want you to improve and seek self-improvement. So you can only do that if you have some kind of perspective. And the reason I bring my mom into this conversation is because I watched her truly suffer. But I'm not sure that I was really aware of how bad she was suffering at the time because she didn't, she hid it from us. I mean, all we saw was like my best friend and this, this humorous lady who made jokes and still looked after us. And like, so, you know, I'm sitting on my own kind of, not a deathbed.

That's a little too dramatic, but like a bed that I can't really move out of blind. It's like, well, you know what? I'm still not that lady in her late 30s dying from cancer. She manned up. Maybe I should too. That's the point there. And you mentioned perspective. It's something you talk about in the book when you went to Afghanistan on deployment and you would see people.

And you had the sense that they see the world differently. And for Francis and I, both living in the UK, very comfortable, very prosperous. I'm from Russia originally. I've seen the way that people live outside the West is. And mothers from Venezuela. You know, how do you give that perspective to young people who grow up in stability, who grew up in places that are better than humanity has ever experienced? How do we create perspective when there is none? The first I was just telling them to try learning about it.

I don't think it's that much more complicated than that. And I guess not you mentioned, I did have the advantage of, I grew up abroad too. So, you know, I lived in Cairo, Egypt before, like, those are my first basic memories as a toddler. Deep, deep poverty, obviously, in Cairo, Egypt. I went to high school in Bogota, Columbia. So, like, I know what bad can look like. Not that Columbia's bad. I actually love that place.

But as far as inequalities go, as far as problems in a country go, civil war, it's kind of a thing. And it's a real issue. So you appreciate it more. when you have, what you have here. So how do you get people to understand that? Just tell them. I don't think a lot of this is complicated. Say, hey, look, there are, you need to be knowledgeable about how people before you live,

what the truth is about, say, inequality. And before you guys walked in here, I actually just recorded a podcast with the economist and Senator Phil Graham about the myths of inequality. So this is like, what you're talking about is really fresh on my mind because we just had this conversation. People have really, people are just misinformed about. basic truths about how other people are living, about what our history is, about what the history of the world is, and what the truth is about economic disparities, discrimination versus

disparities. All of these things are just left as deeply misinformed people for their own political opportunism, right? Because it's people have to be, people have to believe there's a crisis in front of them if they're going to demand rapid change, right? Revolution never took place when people were like, I don't know, I think things are fine. Do we need the revolution? I kind of like, you know,

that you're not going to get your Bernie Sanders revolution if everyone thinks everything is fine. And frankly, obviously we're not getting the Bernie Sanders revolution. So to an extent, people do understand the truth here. But part of being a conservative is making sure we don't get there. Okay, so telling people, presenting the facts, I don't know that it's more complicated than that. Dan, do you think part of the problem as well is that America is such a materialistic

culture, that people go on social media, and then they see the people living these incredible lives, and they get angry and frustrated when their lives don't match up to what they say on the screen. Yeah. I do. I'm not sure if I have much to expand on it. I mean, I don't know it's America specific, but it's certainly true. It's almost, again, it's sort of a natural outcome of civilization, because in civilization,

really smart people get the opportunity to create really amazing things that make everybody's life better. The thing about making everybody's life better and easier is that it is a form of dependency. If I'm paying for your rent and paying for your school and paying for you, you are going to be dependent. You know, it's a natural human nature. Left doesn't quite understand that fact. It is true. It is a fundamental truth. But what we forget about, too, is some of the technological advances of our time have created that same kind of litheval.

And I don't want to reverse it. Don't get me wrong. It is what it is. But the easier it is for someone to live without it being actually productive. You're going to have more unproductive people and that will increase inequality. There's no escaping that set of truths. How do we deal with that as policymakers? I'm not sure. Our job really is to maintain what works. Again, that's the essence of being a I want to maintain the principles that work. There's economic foundations, cultural foundations, and political foundations. Maintain people's freedom within a set of rights and a set of policies that solve problems through a framework of limiting principles. That's conservatism. To the extent that we move away from that, it's a dangerous territory. In your book, you actually put the words in italics, which is outrage is weakness. And that really stuck with me.

Why do you think that, Dan? just because you're letting emotions get the best of you, you know. Just because, you know, it doesn't mean it's not justified, right? Like, my outrage is justified. Like, when I give talks to, I tell young students all the time, I'm like, look, I didn't have to deal with politics when I was your age. It wasn't a thing for us. Like, we divided up into friends groups based on, like,

who listened to country and who listened to, like, alternative rock. Like, you guys are dividing yourselves up based on political beliefs. That's insane. You always don't know anything. You're 16, 17, you don't know anything. You don't have a set of experiences that help frame what you're seeing on a day-to-based basis. So I'm not saying don't get involved. I'm saying learn unemotionally.

Stay. Keep your heart out of it because it's not developed. Put your head in it a little bit. I'll get some pushback sometimes. Kids will be like, how could I not be mad? I'm like, you're making my point for me. Because I'm like, look, the way you're reacting to me, whatever you want to tell me, I'm going to tune out. because it's just pure emotion.

And maybe you're mad about something, and maybe it is justified, right? Maybe there's a true injustice that you're truly upset about. I'm just saying, if you want to be productive about it, if you want to solve that problem, you're not going to get there with outrage.

People stop listening to you. It is not a practical solution. So you've got to learn to control it. In the SEAL teams, it's like we're not fearful, just like everyone else says. It's not like we're not outraged, just like everyone else says.

We just have an extreme ability to control our aggressive. and control our fear. That's all it is. It doesn't mean you're fearless. If you're fearless, you're a psychopath. So we tend to not have to like those guys. They actually don't actually mesh well.

So it's really that simple because it means that you've allowed yourself to give in to a completely unproductive path. And it's really interesting. You say that because we now celebrate emotion. If somebody's offended, it's celebrated. If they're outraged, if they're outraged, it's celebrated. If they're angry, it's seen as righteous. But the point that you make is that we can't change anything just with emotion alone. Yeah, that's very typical if you're kind of far right and left, like, spectrums.

You know, like the biggest indicator of being extremely left or extremely right is their tendency for its outrage. And also the preference, frankly, for a set of ideas maybe that are unsolved. Because they prefer the outrage. They feed off of it. So they don't really want to solve a problem. That's very clear to me after being in politics for almost five years now. So if you want to solve problems, you've got to keep the emotions out of it. I mean, it's just really that simple.

And you know, you're obviously a Republican, so the fact that you would take a couple of swipes at the left makes sense. Francis and I are somewhere in the center. We have a lot of center-right guest on like you. And one of the things I'm thinking about increasingly is that, yes, the left started all this emotional stuff. But, you know, we're sitting here not very far from the Capitol where we saw what happens when the right does the same thing. Are you concerned that both sides are now at this?

Yeah, I talk about it all the time. That's why I take so much flack from some of those audiences. Because I call it out, when you start acting like, the populist right, the populism to me is a left-wing sensation. Okay, because what is populism? It's me telling you what you want to hear, right? for popularity's sake. Well, look, yes, it is popular.

If I just promise the population, $3,000 checks every month for free. Of course, that's popular. Does that make it a solid policy? Of course not. Right? The left is really good at that kind of stuff. I want to buy your vote. I'm going to pay for your school.

I'm going to cancel your student debt. I'm going to pay for this. I'm going to pay for that. I'm going to tax the rich to do it. Oh, yeah, that's popular. I mean, it's buying your votes. The right wing populace have given into that nonsense to some extent. that concerns me a great deal.

But what do you make of their argument, Dan, because what they would say is, look, the corrupt elite right here in Washington is ruining the country. It's rhinos like Dan Crenshaw. You know, Republicans in name only, they don't want to change anything. They want to sit there and profit off, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. What do you say to people like that? I say, give me specifics. I'm like, you can go through your list of sort of talking points that we can all read on Twitter.

They've been recycled a million times. What does it mean? Like, what the hell do you mean by that? You know, like, let's get down to the actual brass tax. Like, what do you mean? And it becomes this sort of whirlwind of answers once we get to that point. You know, you want a profit. You're in everybody's pocket.

I'm like, what does that mean? People have a real misunderstanding of basic civics. Who holds power up here? What kind of powers we have as congressmen? I mean, people want you to solve that. They simultaneously want government out of their lives, while you also be a dictator and do what they want. I know this because I read the comments.

So, like, why are you posting? You should be doing this? Like, why do you do this? You know, it's like, well, this is just how our government works. I mean, you're a constitutionalist, right? So you have to follow the constitution and the parameters that sets out. I think people say those things, too, because they've been conditioned to hear those things and then repeat those things by political campaign after political campaign on the left and the right.

It's just become this popular sentiment. And yeah, I guess you can define populism that way, too. Just counter elites. Well, but again, like, what the hell does that mean? You know, what is it? Which elites? Why? Let's get specific and then address that problem

within a set of principles that we all adhere to. That what I thought we agreed upon. Not just resentment for resentment's sake. Well, I suppose what people mean is that there is a big disconnect between what happens in this city and the lives of ordinary people out there. the values of the people who are here are very different. Their way of looking at the world is different. And for a lot of people, I think the reason that they're tempted by populism is they feel

unheard. They feel unseen. They feel like politicians don't respond to their needs and what they want. Yeah, I mean, I just, what I would tell people then, again, I want specifics. Like, you know, I know, I'm not sure you're in that category, so it's hard for you to come out with specifics because you're not the one yelling at me about it. Yeah. But I have had these conversations, and I always try to say, like, what, that's fine, but what do you mean?

Like, give me, give me an example of a policy. And it'll give me a policy, and I'll be like, okay, well, just so you know, like, that policy pulls 60% with the American people. So are we not listening to the American people? Okay. Just because you know, and they're like, I am the people. I'm like, well, you're not, though. Okay, there's actually a lot of you. And if you go to dinner.

Is this what the internet does? Yes. One hundred percent. Their own little silo and in my own little silo, I'm the king of the world. I represent the people and therefore I represent everybody. And actually, you're about 3% of society. I hear it all the time. We, the people, want you to do this.

I'm like, well, you want me to, but if you go and poll your own neighbors, you're going to get a lot of different opinions, man. So, like, that's just, that's life. And I will say this, too, that most of the normal people just going to work, like, they're actually not paying attention to my political post. They actually do just talk about kitchen table issues. So you've got, social media has done this, right? it's elevated very fringe issues in our politics that actually most people don't really care

about. So you do have to use scientific polling to really get what people care about. Then it starts to make more sense. It's like it starts to be like inflation, like basic economics, the border, things that you should expect people to care about. It's it becomes a little less of the kind of lightning rod issues. Not that light or not broad issues don't matter on day to day. But there's there's like social media world like, you know, Twitter is. real life doesn't necessarily translate to how people are feeling. And I always do feel better when I actually, and I do this a lot, when I'm just taking questions from at my events, like back home. Now I'm hearing from the people. Like now I'm actually hearing from the people,

especially when I go to, there's two different kinds of events. Okay, there's one where I advertise it. So who's going to show up to that? Political people. People are really interested in politics. So you have to do other kinds of events. Like I'll do like a town hall, but I'll go to like a specific company and like get to talk to all their workers. These are all people who would not take the time to go to some random political event. I don't blame them. But now I get now I get to hear what regular people are asking. And it's it's very different from what your political entertainment industry wants you to think they're asking about.

So I'm not sure the disconnect is that big. I will say, this is the other thing I tell people is, whether you like it or not, the Congress represents you a lot better than you think it's wild up here there's a lot of different types of people they do represent very very different ideas and demographies and parts of the country you know and then it's messy because nobody agrees and you don't like that nothing gets done and I'm like well what exactly is that you want to get done what does that mean and how do you and tell you what go have dinner with like six of your neighbors and and you find a kind of a simple problem and I want you all to agree on a solution like really think

think through it. You tell me that all six that you agree. Yeah, and now try to get 435 people to all agree. It's a, you know, it just, when you actually start doing it, it's a little more complicated than people realize. Dan, how do you, because the left went nuts, and I'm from someone who was on the left quite a while ago with the embracing of wokeism, which to me is a conspiracy theory, but now I've seen the right go just as nuts about things like Ukraine and QAnon. How do you deal with your own side when they are quite frankly losing the plot on the far right? Well, good news is Q&ON's kind of bunk, I guess. But, you know, the people who follow Q&N, the way they think hasn't changed.

It'll happen again. Obviously, I am where I am on Ukraine. It's not super secretive, like, how I feel about how we should support Ukraine. One of the main problems there is it's a partisan reaction. It's Biden's war, so I'm against it. It's honestly that simple. And also, like, there's some, it's not really spoken about, but it's like, well, Zelensky, it was Zelensky's fault that Trump got impeached.

You know, so there's that. It really is like these simplistic partisan thing. There is an isolationist wing to the right. It always has been kind of goes like up and down like this. It's extremely strong at the moment. because nobody's speaking to them. I try to, but you've got to listen. You got to actually download my podcast to hear what I'm saying about it.

I can promise you I can convince you. Because I'm not making these like Nancy Pelosi-esque arguments of like, we have to fight for democracy. What the hell does that mean? No, that's not why we're doing it. We're doing this out of complete self-interest. And what is that? I'm with you, by the way, on this issue.

But educate us, please. Right. So there's a few lines of self-interest. one is strategic deterrence, right? You do not fundamentally want a world where everyone is invading everyone. We lived in that world for like thousands of years. And how was that world, everyone? It sucked. It was not good. Your life expectancy was like 28. You had gray hair. So it was not a good world to live in. You will not have the same lifestyle you have if you allow that world to happen. China's watching the Russian invasion. They're like, when can we invade Taiwan? How long will the Americans actually last for

their friends. And this is just payments, by the way. This doesn't even like lives. We're not we're not spending a single American life. We're saying, I want to avoid the following scenario. Because for those, those who don't want to support Ukraine, you by definition have to support Russia winning. People are like, no, no, no, no, I just don't want to stay out of it. Well, like, no, no, no, you're supporting Russia winning because that's, that's the other scenario. Like, if you start kicking his ass right now, I have a choice right now. No, you're not. Either I stop. I stop. I do. I can. stop you. And I have the ability to stop you. So, you know, because I'm just stronger than you. So

I can stop you or I can let it happen. By definition, if I let it happen, I'm choosing that. And so what does that mean in the Ukraine sense? It means that you want an intact Russian military that's been emboldened and hyper-aggressive. Probably has way more support amongst the Russian population because Russians like one thing. They like winning. They like winning and they love strength. And now you're on four more NATO countries' borders. How is that a better, how is that a good thing? What the hell is wrong with you? And you're telling me that all I have to do is write a check to Ukrainians and then they'll stop that from happening. That's a good deal. So strategic returns is a big deal. A world without chaos is a really big deal.

And two large countries warring is chaos. And it turns out if you bother to look at history at all, European wars tend to spread. It's just Europeans. You guys explain it to me. I don't know. And they draw us in. So on the other hand, it's like, and then they kind of diminish Ukraine as this like economic backwater, which is crazy. It's like 50% of the world's neon, a ton of iron ore that we use in our steel, like 13, 15% of of the world's food supply. Like, you haven't felt those effects because it is, the economy is still working and

they're still exporting a bunch of that. It's not nothing. Neon, by the way, is used for semiconductors. So it gets to the Taiwan, the situation. Like, everything is connected. Like, you can't build a freaking pencil these days. your country. You can't. It just not, not without it costing, like, way more than it should. I've had that conversation with, like, really conservative high school students who have, like,

been kind of captured by this, like, an emotional way, like, by this kind of right-wing Bernie Sanders ism. And I'm like, dude, like, the iPhone you have, you can't make it here. You just can't. You'll never make it here, unless you want to pay $10,000 for it. Like, and even then, I'm not so sure you can make it here. So it's like, yes, we can. I'm like, who told you? You. You're not. You're you that. I don't have time. I can't teach you basic economics and the history, more importantly, the history of trade and economics in 30 seconds, but I promise you it's not true. So, look, I think that's a succinctive explanation as I can give you real quick on Ukraine. Absolutely. But Dan, what would you say to those people who go, look, we're in real economic

trouble in this country. You go into the city centers of places like L.A., the homelessness population, is exploding. There's a fentanyl crisis. This money could be used to help Americans in America, not in some far-off country. Yeah, it's disappointing when that kind of argument comes from the right, which is, it does come from the right all the time, because I'm like, are you, well, you can join the Democrat Party if you want, because that is a Democrat argument, like, where money just solves everything. If we can spend a billion dollars and solve poverty in downtown in Houston in general, like we would have spent it by now, that's not what solves the problem. A more compelling argument is the border.

Like, why are we worried about their border, if not our border? Totally fair. We should, but it's like, it's a false choice. You don't know if it's not an either or situation. We should do both. People who know me know I've been pretty hardcore. I don't really talk about Ukraine. I talk about fighting the Mexican drug cartels.

That's what I talk about. So, like, I'm all, you know, it's not really a money problem. Our border issue is not a money problem. Can you explain this to us, Dan? Because we have a very similar problem in the UK, where we have tens of thousands of people coming to the country, country on small boats, in our case, illegally. They don't get checked. They get put up by the government in a hotel. Why are we in the position where some of the most powerful countries in the history

of the world are unable to enforce what every other country in the world does, which is a controlled border? Yeah, because the left has become just hostage to their own sense of compassion, I guess. you know um i was people asked about this like why why can't democrats see it our way and i'm like there's a couple things there's probably political incentives at least in america there's probably some political incentives they think they'll vote for them eventually i it's not a really good strategy so i'm not i'm not sure that's true but anyway but but i think fundamentally they they they have different moral reasoning than conservatives and so so they they don't even conservatives think that like loyalty to your group i'm referencing like jonathan heights work

here. It lays this out really well. It explains a lot of policy differences between the left and the right. It does. You know, conservatives have pretty even keeled on all sort of the moral frameworks that we might point out, like a sense of authority, sanctity, a sense of in-group loyalty, which is important when you're talking about a border and compassion, loyalty, things like that. So the left really only cares about compassion and equity. That's their whole thing. And so everyone should have the same thing, which means everyone should have access to all of America's benefits. And I just feel for someone. Like, they're always a victim.

Right. So this is kind of where victimhood culture probably comes from because, you know, it's, you noted before how victimhood and outrage has been elevated in our society. Unfortunately, on both sides, I think the right did it. It's going to match the left. So you got to fight fire with fire, right? I'm like, what fire have you ever put out with fucking fire? That's the point I always make.

It's like when the fire brigade turn up at your house, they're not turning up with lighters and fuel. That's not what they do, right? No. Could you imagine? Just burn it all down. Just do it faster. But don't you worry that's the political attitude in America at the moment? In both sides, drain the swamp or whatever else.

You know, abolish capitalism. That seems to be the solution from both sides. Again, that's what populism is, right? It's based in emotions, based in outrage. And it's like blame someone else and burn it. all down, right? That's real dangerous. And the left does it because they're utopianists. So like when you can't, when you envision utopian and you're not quite there, what do you do? You get mad and you like want to burn it all down. The problem is, it's like they're

literally, you know, I always, I tell people, look, envision a librarian and she's like standing on a bunch of books and she's almost at the top shelf. That's utopia, but she can't really reach it. This really frustrates her. And so her reaction instead of, instead of adding more books to her foundations and those foundations might be like, you know, Christianity. or, you know, a sense of meritocracy. Like, I'm talking about really basic foundations, capitalism. She just burns them all down, right? And boom, they named the French Revolution.

That went really well. So, and on the right, like, it's, I don't think the right are utopiness, but it's just mad. Like, people are just mad. And, like, you know, and our job as leaders is to be like, I understand why you're mad.

So here's the truth about, first let me, like, let me give you the truth about what you think is true, whether it's Washington or this policy, whatever it is. First let me do that. Let me walk you realistically, like how we get to the solution I think you'd be happy with. That's what a leader's job is. What a lot of leaders do instead is be like, what is it you think again? Huh. I agree with you. Totally. Like, that's populism because I'm like, I'm just mirroring your emotions so that I can manipulate you. That's what populism is.

But let's come back to the immigration, because if it was as simple as the right taking power, I'd be, you know, I'm not on the right, but I would. support the right if that's what I thought. In the UK, we've had a conservative government, well, conservative government since 2010. And in this country, only until very recently, you had a Republican president who did not solve this problem. So why is it that our countries, because I feel like it's almost like it's not just about the individual circumstances, it's almost a cultural phenomenon where even the right has actually swallowed a lot of these leftist ideas of utopia, all things to all men, et cetera. Do you think there's,

some truth to that? No, it's just the politics of it got messy probably. So I will say Trump's policies did make it a lot better, right? And it's a simple disincentive to come across the border illegally by saying, look, you can come across, fine, but you're going to, you can claim asylum, but you're just going to wait in Mexico while we adjudicate that. And so what that did fundamentally was stop the abuse of the asylum system. That's the fundamental problem in our country.

You guys have a different problem, I think. So it's hard to compare the two. You guys are actively bringing them in. We're allowing them to come in. Yeah. So I guess we are too, but Trump wasn't necessarily, he was looking for ways. He'd eventually found ways. It took him a long time to get to that point.

We didn't have 60 votes in the Senate. Honestly, the answer is as simple as that. You've got to have serious majorities here to make that policy change. We're going to pass something out of the House here soon. that's going to be a really solid border security, and it's not going to go anywhere. Maybe we'll get one. You need 60 votes in the Senate. So that's the simple explanation.

I don't think that there's a single Republican out there who would be like, yeah, I mean, we should just keep letting them across. Like, it's pretty well-in-granned in our base to believe the opposite. I know. The reason I bring up the cultural point, though, is I talk about this in my book. You know, the Barack Obama's, the, I mean, Hillary Clintons, the Bill Clintons, they all sounded to the right of Donald Trump on immigration in their own time. Recently, too. And recently too.

So something has changed in the mindset of the country on these issues. Yeah, that's true. That's fascinating. And I've never figured it out. I mean, I think they might be as simple as them pandering politically to their Latin base. Now it's backfired, and now they have no way out. You have to understand, too, that the people say all the time, the politicians of Washington don't want to solve the immigration problem

because they benefit from it being like a lightning rod issue all the time. I actually don't think that's true even for Democrats, because we all have plenty of lightning rod issues and political footballs that we can throw around. And I'd be really happy to just solve this one. It's the outside groups. It's the groups that literally make money off of this. People are like, again, it's like going back to the, you just line your pockets. What the fuck does that mean?

No, we don't. Like, we literally don't. But you know who does make a lot of money, activists that run these organizations who take donations from you and tell you that you're fighting for them and all that. So on the left, those are very, very powerful pro-immigrant groups. And I think they're really scared of them. I think that's a fundamental truth. We have them on the right, too.

Like, they will try to prevent us from, like, coming up with a compromise. that would, because a compromise would be something like, okay, let's figure out what to do with, like, better legal immigration, but, like, really get the border secured. I could foresee a lot of those far-right anti-immigrant groups torpedoing that. I could see that happening because they don't really want a solution.

So I don't think it's the politicians up here. Do you think part of the problem is as well, Dan, is that people don't know how Congress works. They don't know anything about how policy is passed. So that creates conspiracy theories. Yeah. And is that some of you find yourself battling all the time then? Yeah, yeah, for sure.

It's just all the time. Like I said before, people think you're a dictator pretty consistently. When you do something about it, Dan, I'm like, we'll just lay it out. Like, what is the action? Like, I mean, I'm that, you know, it's, yeah, I would make everybody a little less unhappy. if I think they understood the system a little bit better. Sounds like a very frustrating job. Yeah.

Yeah, it's politics. So it's extremely frustrating. You do it because it's important. Not because it's enjoyable. My last job was pretty enjoyable. Even if I lose an eye every once in a while, like I was very enjoyable. Politics, you do it because it's important because you need leaders who are actually willing to tell people the truth. The truth makes people really mad.

There's a lot of emotional attachment to falseness. narratives that are comfortable, whether that's how the government works, whether that's the nature of inequality and what's true about it, whether that's climate alarmism, I don't know. Like, there's plenty of comfortable false narratives that people, like, really enjoy holding on to. It makes them really mad, especially if you tell your own side, like, that's not right. What you just say, it's not true. Because then you're like a traitor.

Like, no, no, just say the thing we saw on Twitter. It's like, no, I can't say the thing because it's not true. What do you do when you're in a system that actively rewards that kind of behavior? How do you navigate that? And how do you maintain a sense of integrity? Yeah, well, I guess you just got to hope that integrity and truth wins out in the end. I think it tends to. It's not obvious to me that in the long run, it doesn't.

But you're going to have your battles in between. That's for sure. You don't have any other choice. So that's, never said it was easy. Things that are easier, usually not very worthwhile. And Trump is, he's on the comeback trail. Do you think he's what America needs at this point, Dan? Well, he's on the comeback trail for sure.

I'm not going to get into the politics of the primary, staying out of that one. But, you know, we definitely don't need Biden. Republicans need to figure out how to win. and beating Democrats is really easy. I find it to be the easiest thing in the world. I had a barely Republican district. I got redistricted now.

I'm super Republican, but barely Republican before. Trump barely won, like a point. He won, one at five. But I want like 14 points. So it's not hard to beat Democrats, even when they're spending a ton of money on me, even when Beto's coming in to campaign against me and all this nonsense, it's not hard to beat them.

Really isn't. you just got to be somewhat like like how do you win an election get enough people to know who you are and be somewhat likable more likable than the other guy that's winning so this is not a hard thing to do I mean Democrats are trying to ruin women's sports they're trying to tax your business out of existence

they've literally Biden is making a deal you said you were going to ask to what I would think people should know about well here's one thing they should know that Biden has made a deal with the OECD with maybe like 180 countries signatories that if he's able to raise corporate taxes here in America, then everybody else should raise taxes on our American companies in their country. What the hell, man? I don't care what side of the aisle

you're on. That's like, that's like treason. It's nuts. It's the global corporate minimum tax, right? So, holy crap, this shouldn't be that hard to beat these folks. Like, most people do not want an open border, like a vast, vast majority. Most people think you shouldn't have an abortion past 12 weeks. How are we losing this debate? It's not even most people. It's like 60, 70% of people don't think you should have abortion past 12 weeks. Like, it loses a debate by pushing the extreme. Yeah. That's how you lose the debate. Yeah. And doing it in an angry way. Yeah. Like, like, you got to be like, look, I'm a conservative. I'm just not angry about it. That's like a funny lie, a lot of people say. Because it's so true. And it's like, look, just, just fire and brimson. I know it, like, and they do it

because it rouse up their base and they're only interested in talking to their base. I'm like, look, I'm interested in actually fighting for my base. And for me to fight for my base, you need to give me the space to actually do it. Like, you need to give me the space to persuade other people to slowly to come over, which means I can't go be an asshole like you want me to be, you know? And look, I think most people get that. I guess the only point I'm making here is it's easy to be Democrats, we just got to want to do it.

And how do we heal the rift between left and right? because the reality is you need to work together in order to have a cohesive country, don't you? That's tough. I do think objectively the left has moved way, way further off the spectrum than the right has. The right's gotten angrier, but I'm not so sure how our policies have shifted dramatically. I mean, you can point to some things, right, like some things that are good, like a skepticism of trade with China. I think it's a good skepticism to have. There's nothing in conservative philosophy that says we just have to let Chinese do whatever they want, free trade for all.

Like, it's actually not a conservative philosophy. Domestically speaking economically, yeah, it is. But international trade, like, you've got to negotiate. So there's some healthy aspects to the so-called, I wouldn't even call that populist. It's just smart policy. Anyway, people point to things like that, but I'm like, well, we haven't really moved out the deep end. That's the whole point of conservatism. It kind of stays in a box.

And, like, I'm trying to keep it there. The left has moved way far. You know, how do you solve that? It does come from the top, right? There's probably room for some more things to happen. I will say, too, like, it's not that hard for me to work with Democrats. I was just working some Democrats on a bill just now on improving our health care system, right? I'm working on direct primary care.

It's like a very fundamental conservative philosophy, but, like, some Democrats are into it. So it's not totally crazy. We work together on our national security committees, too. Like, I'm on the Intelligence Committee. That's a very bipartisan committee. I see in this argue in there. It's helpful when there's no cameras. And Armed Services Committee is usually pretty bipartisan as well.

There's most bills that pass, by far the majority are bipartisan, passed with a lot of support. They're not like changing the world. We're always going to disagree on fundamental things. By the way, that's the whole point of having a left and right. I do think America does seem to me like the last place where it's like truly 50-50. It doesn't seem that way anywhere else. I mean, I'm sure you maybe argue with me on that. But, you know, we need to, it's healthy.

There's something about that that's healthy. I think it'll be like that for the next thousand years. And it was like this a thousand years ago. I think that's naturally wired within the human race to see things in sort of the Thomas Soul conflict of visions framework, right? It'll always be that way. It's like that everywhere. You guys have different names for it.

We call them Republicans, Democrats. you'll call it labor and conservative. You need a few more conservatives, I think. We absolutely do. Just a balance. It balance is good. Balance is very good. What does conservatism mean to you, Dan?

Because people, you ask conservatives what it means to them, and you get a million different answers. Yeah, that's a problem. Most people don't know. I said it earlier. So it's a conservation of Western values fundamentally, and I would categorize that three ways. Cultural, political, and economic.

So cultural just means, like, like Judeo-Christian values. I'm just saying you have even fine. You can be an atheist, but you still adhere to the same values that Judeo-Christian morality teaches. Whether you like it or not, you do. And you agree with it. So that's one, a meritocracy.

Like, there are cultural issues, a personal responsibility, like a sense of personal responsibility, a sense of fortitude. Like, I should be strong. Like, that's a real important cultural thing. And like, we actually do have to say it because, like you said earlier, people are celebrating weakness, victimhood. Like that'll destroy a civilization from within. So, you know, conservatism has to actually fight for these basic values.

I could go on and on, I guess, on cultural issues, but economic issues. What is that? It's just a market, like a free market society, property rights protected, your basics, right? Like a sensible tax system that incentivizes proper behavior, disincentivizes negative behavior. I don't know. This isn't complicated stuff, but we do find ourselves in disagreement with the left on. it so like um and political so small are a republican that's what we're preserving as conservatives you know we're preserving federalism states rights we're preserving the idea that if you have a problem

it's likely that the local people will kind of know how to solve the problem better than somebody in washington so um you know preserving checks and balances are preserving the the the nature of the court system and and it's it's insulation from congress right like it's really basic stuff that is actually in sharp disagreement with how the left wants to operate. Like, what do they say? They want to pack the courts. They want to remove the filibuster. Like, they want to remove these really basic political institutions.

So when I, like, describe all that, you're like, well, isn't that just normal stuff? And I'm like, yeah, that's the point. Like, it's just normal stuff. And then, you know, and then we look at new problems. Conservatism means having a framework with which to solve the problem. Too many conservatives thinks it means don't ever solve a problem. That's a problem. Like, that's not what it means.

It means I approach a problem with a certain framework in mind. And generally that framework is limiting principles. So I ask questions like, okay, if I want to give you a benefit, like, what do I have to take from him? That's an important question. If I want to give you free health care, but he's a doctor. So, like, do I, like, say you just, do I pay him? Do I decide how much he gets paid? How does that work?

This is a real, these are real questions that, like, liberals are just like, no, you just have it. But how do you have it? You know, you didn't work for it. How does that work? Maybe we'll try and get to that point. I'm not saying we don't, but you've got to think about his rights as well. If I want to take your guns away, just to make him feel safe. But now you can't protect yourself, but he feels safer.

Well, how would have been, what? You know, it's like, what principle are you going back to? Feelings? This is the principle of feelings? So, if only conservatives ask these, and I can keep going, right? like ask these questions. This is best solved at the local level. Is it best solved by just civil society? We ask those questions and that's like a test for how we solve a problem. And conservatives can internally disagree on like, well, it does infringe on somebody's rights.

Well, no, it doesn't. Let's have that discussion, but at least we're asking the questions. Dan, in your book, moving on a little bit, you talk about the values that were instilled in you as a Navy seal on a stepping up when, you know, when there's no one in charge, you take charge, all of that sort of stuff. And they're really. beautiful values for people to get and to aspire to. What's the contrast like going from that to politics, where at least from the outside, it seems that the principles are upside down. If you can screw somebody you do, if you can throw someone on the bus you will,

if you can avoid being at the front and taking the bullet, et cetera. What's the contrast like? I don't know. You put that really well. It's exactly like that. Yeah, because I have been, people ask me, what have it surprised you? And I'm like, well, I'm not, if somebody comes up here and they're super surprised about everything, you shouldn't have elected them. It means they don't know what the hell they're doing.

And there's a lot of people like, I can't believe it's like this. Why did you run? Like, geez. So you thought it would be a bit of a shit sandwich when you got the job? I just understood basic civics. Like, I'm like, yeah. I mean, you know, you don't get to rule the world when you become a congressman. A lot of people are like legitimately frustrated by, by, you know, how slow the system can be.

And I'm like, you really don't understand. what it's for, what your powers are, like what, what people are very uneducated on basic policy. So that's, that's a problem. And the SEAL teams, you like, you do have to meet certain standards before you deploy. And I ain't the case in a democracy, electoral politics. So that's all I'm saying. But the thing that actually truly surprised me was, was the extent people were willing to

throw someone under the bus and, like, betray a friend or me, like multiple cases like this, for almost nothing in return. I mean, just for a little, just for a quick glimpse, just for a quick, like, highlight on Twitter. Like, just for almost nothing. I'm like, wow, you stab me in the back for another. At least do it for something, man. I've had multiple stories like this or I could name people. But I'm like, geez.

Like, it's just, like, it's almost psychotic. Like, it's so irrational to me. I'm like, man, you would have been better off just saying nothing. It's like, now you just made an enemy. And so it's very irrational. Maybe that's poor judgment. Maybe it's just like the snake pit of nature of this game that everybody's playing and everybody's so used to. There's no loyalties whatsoever.

It's like, again, in the SEAL teams, I'm like, I have a platoon member who's, you know, who is an enemy. I don't know. This enemy is always trying to hurt this guy. I'm not going to go have drinks with his enemy. Like, I'm just not going to do it. But in politics, it's like, oh, no, I mean, we didn't talk about you. Like, what the hell? It's like, okay, well, noted, we're not friends.

Like, it's just that, yeah, the idea of friendship is almost non-existent. It seems like the sense of loyalty, yeah, the sense of honor. Don't get me wrong. It certainly exists with a lot of people. Most of the people you probably never heard about and never get credit for it. But there's a lot of them, and like, it does need to be noted that there is. But you do have to, you do become cynical sometimes because you begin to wonder, is that what the people even want?

You know, or do you want the snake oil salesman? Because sometimes it seems like you do. You know, and so this is why, like, I find it incumbent on myself to tell truth about the left and the right. And, like, who's just selling you a bag of goods and who isn't? Like, am I telling you it sounds good? Is you been conditioned to hear it? Or am I telling you the truth?

You know, it's, people got to, people got to sniff that out. Well, I kind of, when I was reading your book and I was thinking about the attitude, and I heard your conversation with Joe Rogan as well. Did you ever watch Game of Thrones? Yeah. I sort of had a sense you might be a bit of a Ned Stark. Yeah, probably. You come here, turn up, old, idealistic,

and then before you know it, you're getting your head chopped off. I haven't had my head chopped off yet. But, yeah, the Game of Thrones isn't kind to him, but isn't his son went out in the end? Right? Isn't that a son that's a kid in the wheelchair or his son? Yeah. It's not actually his blood son, but yeah, yeah.

All right. John Snow. We're giving all the spoilers away here. We're ruining it. It's a terrible ending, by the way. But like, I guess, but, but, you know, but the reality is, is that in Game of Thrones, the, the, quote, unquote, truth, like the right path,

though extremely difficult and with much sacrifice, still won out in the end. It has to. So, it might be different characters at the end, but it still wins. And so, yeah, you can't let go of that. I mean, what do you have? if you do let go of that.

You have nothing. So it's not worth it. It's not worth selling your soul. Some people sell their souls up here because they can't. They probably can't do anything else. Let's be honest. I can do plenty of other things. So it's not worth selling up the soul.

And do you sometimes feel that that's a problem that the characters' politics attracts, the people who want to be sent to stage, the people who want to be revered? That's kind of a side effect. Do you think that might be the case? It depends on the district, right? You definitely see that in some places.

You see that character get demolished in some districts, right? And like a much more like normal person gets elected. It really, really depends. That's why I tell people all the time, I'm like, look, man, the Congress represents you. It's just fine, trust me. You can find your person up here. It might not be your representative, but it is your person. Like, you've got somebody voting for you.

Like, there's a lot of different characters up here. It's, you know, the average IQ up here is 100. What a great note to wrap up on that. A couple more questions, and we'll ask you some questions for our locals. Well, in fact, not a couple. Our final question is always the same. We did warn you about it. Why is the SAS better than the Navy Seals?

Oh. Okay. I'm leaving. I don't want to get choked out by a servant congressman. We like them very much, honestly. What's the one thing we're not talking about as a society that you think we should be? Well, I gave you one answer. you know, we probably got to talk more about this AI thing.

Remember when I spoke to you earlier, when I said earlier about how inequality is inevitable, even with all the policy, meddling that you want, just because, first of all, people naturally produce differently, naturally have different skill sets, naturally, are taller, shorter, uglier, more beautiful, whatever. There's all that, but also the fact that, and this is really only, it feels like a very recent phenomenon in the last 50 years where massive innovation has allowed a lot of people to remain completely unproductive and live like kings of the future without knowing anything, like anything.

And what is AI going to do? It can make it even easier. So now you don't even have to know how to write essays. Like you just have to write an essay on this. You don't have to know how to, it seems like, how is the legal profession going to move forward? If a legal contract that used to cost millions to write, you got to hire a firm. to do a corporate merger can now be written by AI. Is that a good thing or bad thing?

We just have to talk about it. I'm not sure. You know, you've got really Elon Musk just announced a new AI company. And again, like I can't, you could say, look, we're just have to make certain services that have to be done by a human. You could do that. Well, now we just, now we completely stop our own AI development and let China run around us, and run circles around us.

So that's not an option either. We've got to think about this. I haven't really thought a lot about it. I haven't not come to any conclusions, but these last few months have moved really, really, really fast. Didn't Joe Rogan, like, release an episode that wasn't him? Yeah, there was an AI. How was that?

How long ago was that? That was a, I think Joe released it a couple of weeks ago. Okay, so this is moving very fast. It's all pretty recent. I don't know, man. Something to keep an eye on. Well, Congressman, thank you very much for giving us your time. It's been an absolute pleasure to chat with you.

We're going to ask you a couple of questions for our supporters that they've already submitted. But for now, thank you guys for watching and listening. We'll see you very soon with another brilliant episode like this one, or Rosh. All of them go at 7pm UK time. And for those of you who like your trigonometry on the go, it's also available as a podcast. Come on over to Locke's. We'll see you there. So this is Benita C. And she says,

what can be done in America about shady media practices in a way that holds our journalists more accountable without impacting the freedom of the press?