Will Cain Country - It Must Be Hard To Be A Leftist

Episode Date: October 2, 2023

Story #1: It must be hard for the far left. First, they had to pretend like they couldn't identify a woman. Now they have to pretend not be able to identify a fire alarm. Story #2: No government shutdown. The debate between populism and traditional conservatism. Story #3: The Rangers are in, the Cowboys are good, and the Longhorns are very good. Tell Will what you thought about this podcast by emailing [e-mail] Follow Will on Twitter: @WillCain Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

For a limited time at McDonald's, enjoy the tasty breakfast trio. Your choice of chicken or sausage McMuffin or McGrittles with a hash brown and a small iced coffee for $5.5 plus tax. Available until 11 a.m. at participating McDonald's restaurants. Price excludes flavored iced coffee and delivery. One. It must be hard for the far left. First, they had to pretend that they couldn't identify a woman. Now they have to pretend like they can't identify a fire alarm. Two, no government shut down.

A conversation on the difference between conservatism and populism. Three, the Rangers are in. The Cowboys are good. And the Longhorns are very good. It's the Will Cain podcast on Fox News podcast. What's up? And welcome to Monday. As always, I hope you will download rate and review this podcast.

wherever you get your audio entertainment at apple spotify or at fox news podcast you can watch the will cane podcast on rumble or on youtube i took the weekend off from fox and friends had a nice weekend back home in texas it was perfect in so many ways i took my sons to breakfast one each morning one on one one v one one one to one breakfast and conversation i saw at least three soccer games i watched the longhorns on my phone during one soccer game i watched the cowboys on my phone during another soccer game i went out with my wife had margaritas slept till 730 a m with social hung out with friends and then had just a quiet night on the couch.

And let me just tell you, as someone who for, well, for three years, hasn't really had any semblance of a weekend, here's what I miss. I miss little moments. I miss the small things. Everything I just said, I truly do miss. But I get windows where I get to go to a game, a JV football game, a random soccer game that ends up on a Wednesday. I get to go to practice.

I get to see my boys compete. And I drive them to and from games and practices all during the week. I love those drives. I will miss those drives where we get to talk about practice or school or their social life or just the world. But what I don't get is the little moments, the small moments. I got to thinking about my personality. They get me Monday through Friday seven days a week. You know who you are, you know.

on the workday, everything is always building to the next thing. You're on your way to work. You're on your way from homework to practice. You've got to get home from practice so you can get time to do your homework. Everything is driving, pushing towards the next thing. And then you never have that moment where you just relax and smile and be present. You don't have to be at that next thing that is somewhere in the near future. My favorite part of being home for the weekend was Friday afternoon, driving in my car on my way to nothing.

It was Saturday morning after breakfast saying to my son, you want to drive by the Ford or Toyota dealership. He's not far away from 16. You want to look at cars. it was just letting time pass and just being in the moment. It was just being present. None of the events of the weekend, all of which I loved, or what I'll look back next week when I'm in New York, and really now miss.

I knew that I missed those things. Those are what I thought that I missed. But I guess almost worse. Now what I know I'm missing is those little moments. And then by extension, that side of my personality, they get to smile more and have fun with them. Instead of being the dad that's pushing them, get your homework done, get to bed, get to practice.

Let's talk about how things went to practice. How was that test? It is truly the small things. There is a small thing that has gotten me. I talked about it on social media over the weekend. and that is zen nicotine packets look here's my quick backstory when it comes to nicotine it's the only drug that i've ever experienced that i've ever said who that one has got a hold of me i mean i like to have a drink but that's mostly about being social with other people nicotine is the only drug that

calls out says to me hey will it's time started when i was 15 me and all the other other guys back in Sherman, Texas, whether or not we played baseball or not, as a stupid right of manhood had to start with chewing tobacco. And it really started with chewing tobacco. We did Levi Garrett and Red Man, and we put big old wads of chaw in our mouth and our teeth turned brown and we spit out these huge streams of juice. It was awful. It was awful. And looking back on what we knew it was awful, but still we did it. And then we graduated to Skull Bandits and started doing those little packets of skull.

That lasted for maybe one or two years, but everyone knew that you wanted to graduate. Graduate school was Copenhagen, fine cut. And you had to get there. For me, that was in college. You worked your way through Skull-long-cut. You looked down on the guys that did Cherry Skull. Since I went to college in California, guys for some reason flirted with Codiac. That was their top of the mountain, not Copenhagen. I never did like Codiak. And to this

day, when I go to the store and get these zen nicotine packages, they have so many different flavors. I see guys, most guys out there tell me wintergreen's their favorite. I've never been a big wintergreen guy, more of a spear mint guy, peppermint, cool mint, chill. So now, Codyac was never the top of the mountain. You had to get to Copenhagen. And I got to Copenhagen, and I stayed at that top of the mountain for, I don't know, a good five, six, seven years. And then I quit because my wife, once I was married, asked me to quit. It was also gross. And you become aware that it's gross, you know, the cups sitting around the house, whatever it may be.

So I quit. And I quit pretty successfully several times. I quit probably for five years, let's call it five years. And then a friend of mine told me about. this Swedish tobacco that apparently isn't carcinogenic, doesn't cause cancer. There's a different way that they cure it, and it's called snooose. And the first brand was called General. And I lived in New York City at the time, and you could go to some specialty store and pick up a can of General.

So I tried it. I liked it. I kept trying it. Not long after that, Camel came out with a snooce, and you could find that at your local bodega or a grocery store. It's still around. Camel snooose. So I tried that. I tried it for several years.

you know, still in the testing phase. I wasn't sure if it was going to take for several years. And then I quit that probably about 2018. And so I have gone another five years without really any form of nicotine. Until I started seeing people about a year ago get these things called Zen, and it's not tobacco. It's just simply a packet of nicotine. And I was curious, and it always starts this way, like, I'm going to try that. And I did, but this time I just tried it.

It didn't start doing it until I'd say about four months ago. And then about a month ago, it's full on, like a lot. Burning through the Zen, numerous times a day. Any guy that's ever done tobacco always tells themselves the same thing. One after dinner sounds right. One after lunch and one after dinner. I'm on a long drive. This is a good time.

Now, I'm shaving. This is a perfect time to have a dip. But here's the thing. All I've ever learned, and I've read everything there is to learn, is that nicotine is not bad for you. And some proselytize the benefits of nicotine, that it increases focus, mental acuity, that nicotine is actually good for you with very few health downsides. Maybe some chance of increased blood pressure, but nicotine is not what causes cancer. It's tobacco that causes cancer.

It's the delivery vehicle. It's the cigarette, it's the cigar, it's the dip. That's what causes cancer. Now, I've read everything there is to read, and that appears to be somewhat true. I'm not here to pretend that nicotine has no downsides, but it's certainly different than the prospect of smoking or dipping. But still, there is something about this not being in control of this calling out to me at, I don't know, half a dozen times a day. Hey, it's time, chop, chop, come find me, I'm somewhere in the house. this little cylinder of Zinn that I know deep down, that's not right.

That's not good. That's a lack of control. But it's got me in a vice grip, a chokehold right now. And I'm going to have to sooner or later quit Zinn. But not yet. We'll be right back with more of the Will Kane podcast. Following Fox's initial donation to the Kerr County Flood Relief Fund, our generous viewers have answered the call to action across all Fox platforms

and have helped raise $7 million. Visit go dot Fox forward slash TX flood relief to support relief and rebuilding efforts. Fox News Audio presents unsolved with James Patterson. Every crime tells the story, but some stories are left unfinished. Somebody knows. Real cases, real people. Listen and follow now at foxtruecrime.com.

Story number one. First, Democrats had to convince themselves and you that they couldn't identify a woman. And now they have to convince themselves and you that they can't identify a fire alarm. Congressman Jamal Bowman, Democrat, from New York, late last week, while the House of Representatives was voting on continuing resolutions to avoid a government shutdown, was caught ultimately on video and camera, approaching a door, an emergency exit, and going up to the fire alarm to pull it. Why? What were his motivations? Delay the vote? Who knows? Because Jamal Bowman says it was a

mistake. That he thought it was how he operated an emergency door. There are photos of this emergency door. There are, you know, the bar, emergency exit only, a placard, like as you walk past it, another five feet, emergency exit beyond this point. Then there's big red signs on it. It says how to operate, like you have to push the bar, wait 30 seconds, an alarm will sound, and then the door was open. That has nothing to do with the little red box over on the side of the wall. The Bowman is caught on camera walking over to pull. That little red box clearly is marked fire.

It's the one you've seen in every schoolhouse and every office building. You know, little white plunger you pull down underneath the words, the letters in white, on a red box, F-I-R-E. Bowman would have us believe that he believed that was how you opened an emergency door. So if you're a constituent in New York right now, and Jamal Bowman is your congressman, you really have one of two ways you can go with this. Either my congressman is so dumb that he doesn't understand what a fire alarm is, or my congressman is such a liar that he has no problem disrupting an official government proceeding. which, according to many courts in Washington, D.C., is a highly, highly punishable offense, as applied to January 6th, writers and protesters, disrupting a government proceeding,

and lying about it to your face as to what he did. Either he is a criminal and a liar, or he is so dumb he cannot identify a fire alarm. Now, Bowman should be able to rest fairly easily at night because, of course, the mainstream media is running cover for him. MSNBC ran a press release from Jamal Bowman saying, point of clarification here, he made a mistake. Various headlines from news agencies insist on using the word allegedly, even though now it's been proven. and now some are trying to explain this way as an easily explainable mistake. This is the media and political ecosphere that for the last couple of years has tried to convince themselves and you that they can no longer identify a woman. Here's the thing about that issue.

They know very well how to define a woman. They know very well the difference. biologically between men and women. No one truly believes that men can be women. Everyone pretends to believe that men can turn into women. They do this for a couple of reasons. To cloak themselves as the crusader, the civil rights oppressed crusader of the modern day.

They're trying to live out the Freedom Riders scenario of the 1960s in 2023, under the banner of LGBTQIA Plus. They are using it as an ego boost for their own self-worth, for how they

view themselves. Champions of the minority, champions of the oppressed, and in that way, it's a virtue signal. It's the ability to put on a piece of flare on your vest.

to show that you are a champion, that you are a modern-day Martin Luther King, Jr. It is selfish. It is using people, in most cases, people with mental illnesses, because that's what gender dysphoria has been up until now defined as. Interesting note on that, the psychiatry DSM, the book that defines mental illnesses, has very clearly marked gender dysphoria as a mental illness. Because of that, by the way, transgender surgeries and treatments are covered under insurance premiums. But now there's a modern movement to say, what are you talking about?

In fact, I think PolitiFact has checked this, done a fact check on this. It's not a mental illness. And when doing that, they actually use the DSM, so which is super weird, which says clearly it's a mental illness, but no, transgender people aren't people with mental illnesses. have to walk this weird line where they're saying A and B at the same time, because if it isn't a mental illness, why would it be covered under insurance? If it's not a condition, why would all the therapies and surgeries be covered under your insurance premiums? It's an elective surgery, right? Like plastic surgery. That's the only way to make it a legit claim on your

insurance if it remains as gender dysphoria as a mental illness, which it clearly is. So those people are being used by those who want to paint themselves as modern-day freedom writers. They also do this as a political play. It's a new constituency. Politicians do this. They pretend to believe they don't know how to define a woman so that they can curry political votes as, again, the champions of the oppressed. But nobody truly believes it. Deep down, they don't believe it. Not the person at your school board meeting, not the person you see at dinner, and not the politician. Because they don't truly believe that men can be women and women can be men.

Just like they don't truly believe the Jabal Moban was incapable of identifying a fire alarm. They're just now all the way invested in lying to not only you, but lying to themselves. Because like with COVID and the lies and propaganda they didn't believe either at that time, they believe in a greater moral truth with COVID that greater moral truth was saving lives from a pandemic even if it meant you had to lie they were wrong about that and it metastasize into a virtue signal after that what is the moral truth in pretending that you don't know what a woman is how to define a woman well it's to create some society not full of equality but now full of equity where it's always on the hunt for the next oppressed and there'll be some other constituency after trans that will be the new in vogue oppressed to champion for the greater pursuit of equity but the real moral truth even for the pursuit of equity and is reflected in the i don't know how to define a fire alarm is stop republicans that's the moral truth no matter what lie no matter what propaganda

Stop Republicans. Most notably, most importantly, stop Donald Trump. Save our democracy. So lie. Pretend. Lie to yourself. And lie to everyone else. Because the moral truth is more power for me. More power for the politician. More power for those with right think. The greater moral truth is where we started. And selfishness, the same reason that Jabal Mowman pulled a fire alarm. We're going to step aside here for a moment. Stay tuned. Why just survive back to school when you can thrive by creating a space that does it all for you, no matter the size. Whether you're taking over your parents' basement or moving to campus,

IKEA has hundreds of design ideas and affordable options to complement any budget. After all, you're in your small space era. It's time to own it. Up now at IKEA.ca. Story number two. No government shutdown. A conversation on conservatism versus populism. The government over the weekend extended their budget for another 45 days, a continuing resolution to put off their budget woes for another 45 days into mid-November.

As part of this budget fight, there's been a huge schism, a divide. within the Republican Party. It's best symbolized, I guess, by House Speaker Kevin McCarthy versus Florida Congressman Matt Gates. Gates believes that McCarthy has sold out conservatism or the right by making deals with Democrats. Gates want some things, by the way, that I think are good for our government to continue operating forward.

Single item voting on spending. We don't need to have these massive omnibuses where, where we vote on thousands of pages worth of material, and they can bury all types of not just pork in there, but who knows what, once Ukraine voted on separately, wants the border insured as a funding item. McCarthy says he fought for all of these things,

and he got what he could. Gates wants to remove McCarthy as Speaker of the House. You know, the thing is, why I get so turned off about politics is it's all so much and so often a show and I don't really know to be honest here who is who is part of the show here's a couple of things that I think are absolutely true are look at interest rates right now look at your home look what happens if you have to renegotiate your mortgage rate right now what would happen it's insane your monthly mortgage for your home is going to

multiply I don't know how many fold it's probably a unsustainable. And that's why it's so hard to buy a home right now. You want to pay 7, 8% on your mortgage? Well, that's not, I mean, the same thing is happening to our national government. And we have an incredible amount of debt, an incredible amount of debt. And how long can we continue to service debt at this kind of interest rate, much less cut down on spending. And so it may just take something absolutely radical to change our government spending. But the thing is, there's another party. There's always two parties at a minimum. I mean, it's almost always just two parties in the States of America, but, you know, there's flanks within each party.

And the other part of the Democratic Party has no interest whatsoever in entertaining any idea of spending cuts or getting spending under control. They believe the way that you get rid of debt and deficit is by spending more. Truly, like you could listen to the Paul Krugman's of the world who's in New York Times, economic columnist, and so forth. they believe, if you spend more than your economy goes up, then your tax base goes up more, and you've got to tax people more, and they believe that's how you get rid of it. It's totally counterintuitive and it's hard to wrap your mind around. Spend more, I guess they believe make more, than you can retire more debt, along with inflation. You can inflate yourself out of debt.

But perhaps more commonsensical in what many people understand both from their individual budgets, and a government, we've thought this to be the case in America, for over 100 years that we don't have to operate like a household budget. We can operate because we're the world's reserve currency and the number one economy in the world. We can print and spend into eternity. But you keep pushing interest rates like this and you keep pushing spending like this and we're going to find the truth.

We're going to find out. Can we truly as every entitlement buckles under the pressure of spending? So what do we have to do? Something radical austerity. And so we have to have a cutback. So are gates in the far right, whatever that means, far right, correct in pushing for this brinksmanship, this moment? Let me talk about that for just a moment, far right. Every once in a while, I indulge, I try to do it so rarely, like, I don't know, trolls, people that come at me.

I mean, honestly, I do it very rarely. I had this guy come at me earlier this week on Twitter. I can't even remember what I even tweeted that kind of provoked his response. Oh, it was about Zen. I was tweeting about Zen. He says, hey, remember when you sucked at sports radio for two years? And I responded, I remember having the most successfully rated show on ESPN radio. It's hard for me to forget because virtually every sports network, except for one,

has tried to hire me or hire me back. In response to that, which is just set up, to be honest, there was a guy who tweeted the following. And it just kind of, I don't know. It bothered me on this note of what is far right. He said that I had changed. He said that over time, I'm not who I was on ESPN Radio. Here's what he said. His name is, by the way, Dallas Di Giovanni.

Talking about my radio show on ESPN. It was the best program on ESPN radio after Mike and Mike entered their program. I was sad to see you go, until you decided the money was too big and completely started playing, in quotation marks, far-right political pundit that contradicts the well-reasoned positions you took on ESPN. Far-right versus previously, well-reasoned. Well, somebody went back at him, Sandy, Sheehe said, talking about me, he's true to himself and the country. If that makes him far right, so be it. Kid is smart.

You, not so much. To that Dallas-Dia Giovanni says, Will was either acting like a reasoned conservative when he was on ESPN radio or is acting like a far-right pundit on Fox News. Either way, he's exposed himself as someone acting how they think they should act depending on their employer. He changes beliefs depending upon who's paying him. And that bothered me.

I'm not going to lie, because it is so false. If anything, I have been consistently with my audience either here or on ESPN authentic. I have been real. A couple of things are different and have changed since I was on ESPN radio. Number one, I am now openly speaking about politics. That gives me the freedom to speak more directly to political issues, like the ones we're talking about today here on this podcast, or whatever it may be, that I wouldn't have been free to talk about, nor for what it's worth would I have considered it responsible to

talk about on sports radio. I was very aware of why an audience went to sports talk radio. They did not go to hear me talk about Jabal Bowman, not understanding a fire alarm. They went to hear me talk about Lamar Jackson, scoring at least, what do you end up with, two or three rushing touchdowns against the Cleveland Browns? To the extent that sports and culture intersected, I had those conversations, but I wasn't doing politics. And that's hard, Dallas, for many people to understand, because you're surrounded by those

that don't know the difference. You're surrounded by many, many ESPN radio hosts who think that the presence of a microphone, regardless of format, means people are there to hear whatever you have to say. But it's not. It's like walking into a party, Dallas. I don't know if you ever do this.

Do you walk into a party? And the first thing you say is, hey, everybody, want to hear my take on AOC? No, you don't. Okay? And so I don't walk into a party, ESPN, and start dropping political turns into the punch bowl. I just do what my job is to do, and I try to do it as reasoned authentic as possible.

Now my job is different, and I'm free to do both. One of the reasons I left ESPN, because I could continue talking about sports and I continue talking about politics. I get to do both. Unfettered, free, unleashed. Now, you may not like, as it turns out, hearing my political opinion, unencumbered. Maybe you don't like that party that I'm now hosting, and that's cool and that's fine. I don't ask you. You don't have to be hostage. You don't have to come to this. But this is why it's important. I've got two points to make on why this is important.

The country has changed from when I was on ESPN radio. I left in 2020. In that time, we have had BLM, COVID, which totally changed everything we understand about the fabric of our country, the nature of human nature, and how we're driven by fear. And the way that those in power will capitalize upon those moments to commandeer for themselves more power. Everybody lost their minds. They lost their minds for both of those things. Now everything was racist and everything in the world had to be chalked up to black and white. Now everything is fear-based and everything is, you know, whether or not you are a science believer and wear a stupid mask outdoors. And then we had an incredibly contested election surrounded by unimpeachable propaganda.

Whatever. You don't believe it was a, you don't believe the election was in any way. odd COVID voting changes, the way the new cycle handled everything from Hunter Biden to every scandal around Donald Trump. The world changed in those three years. And in my estimation, my humble, authentic, being real with you estimation, I didn't move. The world moved. The world moved far, far left. The Overton window shifted far, far left. to the point that we're having a serious conversation about whether or not boys can be girls. I am sorry, there's no centrist position.

Okay, so whatever you think is well-reasoned, the truth is, what you're hearing today and this program and other places that I appear is well-reasoned. It's just uncompromising, and you don't like it because you think the safe space to be in society is always in the middle. Well, there's no middle, okay? There's no middle on the nature of a fire alarm. It ain't debatable, okay? The well-reasoned position on someone pulling a fire alarm is you're a idiot or you're a criminal liar. There's no, uh-uh, there's no like, well, let me see, you know, maybe in certain circumstances, I could think that if I pull this fire alarm, the door releases.

You get it, Dallas? There's no middle ground on a 240-pound dude joining the girl's soccer team, embodying everybody on the field from the center back position. There's no middle ground. There's no well... This is the well-reason position. You're hearing it right now. You see, the world changed.

I didn't change. May I offer a few pieces of evidence? Did Bill Maher become far right? Did Joe Rogan become far right? Did Russell Brand become far right? Did any of these people? Did Glenn Greenwald become far right? Because what I think might be going on

is your boat has sailed to the left with the rest of society. And you think anything that tax slightly to your right, but unthreateningly to your right, will be accepted as well-reasoned. But anything that says, I'm not moving. I'm not moving. Where four years ago you thought I was well-reasoned, now you've flanked me so far to the left, you think I'm far right, I'm not moving. I don't know, Dallas, what's for.

far right. I don't know. I'd love for you to define it. Is opposition to a foreign war in Ukraine far right? Is concern about an endless check of aid, military, and humanitarian aid to Ukraine? Far right? While we have our own economic problems at home? I'm just curious. Is that far right? Is suggesting that we should deal with disaster zones like East Palestine, Ohio, or anything that happens multiple times a year in Florida, or Lahaina, Maui, Hawaii, that we ought to prioritize American citizens' needs in those places before we do

for an aid to, you name your country across the globe. Is that far right? I'm just curious. Is gender and biology far right? I don't know what is far right. Let's go back to the government shutdown. I told you I understand the position. this someone like a guy like Matt Gates will be trying to push for, to fight.

I also don't understand the nature of politics. Look, here's the thing. If you get into politics, this is the game on politics. It's the art of compromise. Nobody likes it. You know, for much of my career, I would have described myself as an ideologue. What I meant by that, what somebody used to, would have said I was well-reasoned conservative. I was honestly more ideological at that time.

What I meant by that was, I understand what I believe and I understand why I believe it. I understand the philosophical principles, the first principles, and the constitutional principles behind what I believe. And I don't diverge from these principles. I still consider myself very principled. I'm going to come back to that in a minute when we talk about populism versus conservatism. But I do know this. When it comes to politics and governance, it is compromise. No one gets there away.

It's not built that way, not constitutional. not by the founder's vision it's not built that way it's built to make deals and honestly in that way again he's not far right but take this guy on twitter dallas i guarantee he would describe donald trump is far right donald trump is the furthest he is the least far right president that we have had i think in my lifetime i'd have to go back and really study gerald for But I think in my lifetime, name the issue. He's even doing it now. Do you think he sounds far right in abortion?

He's not as far right as Ron DeSantis. I bet he's not as far right as Glenn Yonkin. He's not as far right as Mike Pence. I don't know where he is on trans issues, actually. Donald Trump seems to be tacting kind of weird. He's like he's sailing his boat around trans. I mean, I think I'm much more hardcore on trans issues than Donald Trump. He's not hard right on economics.

He wants to put in trade tariffs on China. Doesn't think it's equal playing field. that would have been a pivot to the left from the conservative libertarian Paul Ryan wing of republicanism for several decades. He's more dovish on foreign wars than most of the Republican party for the past. Again, 30 years, 40 years? Is that far right? I don't know what's far right, but I guarantee somebody like Dallas would describe Donald Trump as far right. What Donald Trump is? And look, when I talk about Donald Trump, I want everybody to understand. You can have your opinions about his character, about certain, about his personality traits, about his business

deals, you can have your opinions, about all this stuff. You have to understand, he's become such a caricature in our minds that we can't separate anything when it comes to Donald Trump. It's like, it's like Rocky Road ice cream. She's like, this is what it tastes like, yeah, but what about the different things in it, the flavor? What I'm about to tell you is, I hope you can understand this separate from how you feel about him as a person. Donald Trump's a dealmaker. He's a compromiser. That's what he does. Who was it that told this story recently?

He was a really fascinating story. It's Bill O'Reilly. Bill O'Reilly talking about Donald Trump making a deal with the president of Mexico over the southern border. He didn't get the wall or Mexico paying for the wall. But he threatened the Mexican governor. I came here with what it was. I think it may have been trade tariffs. Bill O'Rey's telling the story to the extent that he got Mexico's cooperation to agree to

stop Central American illegal immigrants going into the southern border of Mexico and from flooding and coalescing at the southern border of the United States. He got that. Oh, I know what he told the Mexican government he's going to do. He told me he was going to put the cartels on the terrorist watch list. That's what it was.

And then Amlo was like, no, no, no, no. Please don't do that. You can't do that. And I think he threatened to send the special forces in as well. They got all these concessions. And Donald Trump's takeaway from that, according to Bill O'Reilly was, hey, I got a good deal. I got a deal. The point is government and politics is compromise in dealmaking.

And in that way, in many ways, Donald Trump is the perfect solution to the need to make a compromise in government. Most of my life I would have described myself as an ideologue. I would like to think over the past five or six years, I've become more pragmatist. And that's for a couple of reasons. And this gets to the conversation of conservatism versus populism. Conservatism is ideology. It is principle, and I believe it is grounded in those principles I talked about earlier. First principles, philosophical principles, natural law, constitutional principles, the founder's vision of America.

These are all principles that help define, like in our old conversation, is someone a true conservative. Do they adhere to those principles? I think that we need to look back on history, and you could say that most nations and tragedies, that matter, were driven by ideologues. Now, again, most of all I describe myself as an ideologue. I don't have anything against ideologues. I think they're very interesting. I want to hang out with ideologues. I want to hear their ideas. But there is a point in your ideology where you have to ask yourself, have you become so uncompromising that you don't care about the outcome of your ideas? In a way, that's the ideology of Marxism. Regardless of how many eggs are broken, there

is at the end of the rainbow a better omelet. And it allows them to ignore the effects of their ideas, the practical world effects of their ideas, into eternity. If given the long arc of history, Marxism could create any number of atrocities in its name while still believing itself to have good moral intentions. You have to look at the practical effect of your policies. Now, what I think I've seen over the last 10 years or so is that conservatism's fealty to its principles, free markets and capitalism in many ways, created corporatism in the United States. Now, you can say that's a diversion from its principles that left behind the middle class and certainly the lower class of much in America. That's not grievance or victimhood mongering. That is looking at a society and saying, for better or worse, human nature is beholden to the devil of comparison.

It's kind of interesting because I think competitiveness is so important. It helps push us to our best. But comparison is the root of envy. Comparison is the destruction of self-worth. You can't always look at your neighbor. What does he have? What do I have? In the sports field, you do want to look at your neighbor, the guy you're competing against.

I've got to be better. I can be better than him. But like anything in the world, there's got to be some practicality and some moderation on things. And I think that conservatism has been too cold-hearted. towards many of those that it has left behind for the past decade. And therein comes populism. Mike Pence, after the last Republican presidential primary debate, said on Fox Nation to Pete Hague said, the question for us in this election is whether or not we're going to give in to the siren song of populism or remain steadfast with the principles of conservatism.

Weird thing for Mike Pence to say, because he was second in command of Donald Trump in one of the most popular. populist presidencies in American history. I think you have to be able to listen to your electorate here, not grievance, but real problems. I actually think that Republicans, with their free market principles, ignored illegal immigration at their own demise for many years and didn't listen to the populous sentiment among the people that you have to seal our border. I think that as we ship jobs overseas, hollowed out America's middle class, small towns across America, filled not with jobs, but with fentanyl, that we have stopped listening to many of the people here at home in America. Is that a product of corporatism? Is that fealty to ideology and principles without practical effects? or is a betrayal of principles and effects?

I don't know. But here's what I'm telling you. I believe I have appreciated some of the populist movement of America. The Republican Party can't just be the party of the rich and those that do well. I still believe in bootstraps, pull yourself up. You can be anything. And that's ultimately, by the way, why conservatism is a better ideology than, for example, progressivism. Because ultimately, its ideology is self-defeating.

It's humble and it's very nature. nature. Self-defeating in terms of most ideologies feed their own power. It ultimately disperses power, if done correctly. It's not self-reinforcing. It's not the self-licking ice cream cone, if done correctly. But it's not done correctly, thus the nature of the beast, because of the need to compromise, because of the ever-growing federal government, because of corporatism. And that's where I think the conscience, the voice of the people, populism plays a role. I do think populism is a fire

that you've got to be careful with that can burn out of control. I mean, it can end up French Revolution-style stuff, you know, with gallows and you've got to be careful with populism. It's a dangerous fire. But I actually think it's also a pilot light

in the stove. It's a fire that needs to remain lit. But under control. Because what you do, like, I mean, it's very base. Progressism uses populism. individual grievances, factions. That's what the founders warned about.

Factions as excuses for more self-licking ice cream cone, commandeering of power. You get to listen to it. Factor it in like any good debate, like any good compromise. Listen to every voice. Honor it. It's worthy. That dude on the porch in East Texas.

That lady, downtown in Detroit. their voices are worthy and their complaints are real and they need to be heard that doesn't mean they're always catered to to whatever someone's individual wishes may be but when you're building your system you can't just be an ideologue you have to also listen to the people story number three the rangers are in the cowboys are good the longhorns are better the texas rangers made the playoffs on saturday nine i was terrified that it wasn't going to happen. I told you I'm baseball now. I'm baseball. The Texas Rangers made the playoffs. And if you had told me on Friday night, that would be the case. That would be the deal. I probably would have taken it. I thought they were going to choke themselves out of the playoffs. They won on Saturday against the Seattle Mariners and secured a wild card spot. Sadly on Sunday, they lost the last game of the season to the Mariners. The Astros won. The Astros have won the AL West.

That means the Rangers have to play in the wild card round with the playoffs. But nothing's been easy this year anyway. Nothing's been easy. So, might as well take the hard road. We've lost three of our four starting pitchers, the one that's back, four best. Of our four best starting pitchers, three are gone. DeGrom, Scherzer, and Gray. Yvaldi missed a month.

It's not quite back to being who he was before, but he's back at least. But a team that lost 90 games, did they lose 100 games last year, year before? is now in the playoffs, that's a huge win. I get to enjoy playoff baseball, and I'm going to. I'm going all in on playoff baseball for the next couple of weeks. I hope it lasts a long time. Let's go Rangers. The Texas Longhorns dominated Kansas on Saturday,

and now people are talking about the Longhorns as a legit number one team in the country. I think the Longhorns are really good. I wouldn't put them at number one. You know who I think is good? Georgia's struggle with Auburn. You know who I think's really good? And one of the producers on this podcast, Patrick Hatton, loves Florida State. You know who I'm impressed with?

Michigan. I think right now, I would not argue for my Texas Longhorns at number one over Michigan, even though I know the argument. Had a better strength of schedule, beat more ranked teams, higher margin of victory, average margin of victory, the lowest being 10, which was to Alabama. Texas has a hell of a resume. I just have a little few concerns. If they get past OU, they dominate OU?

Oh boy, number one team in the country. Which brings this up, it's Texas OU week. Hook them, let's go all week long. I will be watching it in New York with Pete Hegg-Seth. It's part due. It's the sequel of last year, which we were a total mess in New York City, as the Longhorns beat the Sooners, 49 to nothing. We can only hope for something as beautiful again this year.

And the Dallas Cowboys are back. Our defense is back. Cowboys smoked the New England Patriots and Bill Belichick. I guess it was Brady. It wasn't Belichick. If you had to pick, if you had to pick in the year 2000, you pick Brady over Belichick. That's clear. That's clear.

But they needed each other. They needed each other. I believe they were both perfect in that scenario at that time. Brady showed his worth when he won a Super Bowl with Tampa Bay. You pick Brady over Belichick. but they need each other. As evidenced by the Cowboys' defense, once you get two more defensive touchdowns,

Cowboys are back, I'm back, I got the Cowboys, I got the Longhorns, I got the Rangers, I got you, and I got some Zen. Let's go. I'll see you next time. Listen ad-free with a Fox News podcast plus subscription on Apple Podcast, and Amazon Prime members,

you can listen to this show, ad-free on the Amazon Music app. This is Jimmy Phala, to get to join me for Fox Across America where we'll discuss every single one of the Democrats' dumb ideas. Just kidding. It's only a three-hour show. Listen live at noon Eastern or get the podcast at fox acrossamerica.com.