Rise of Populism: Tom Bilyeu and Michael Malice Debate America’s Economic Crisis Part 1

In this gripping two-part episode of Impact Theory, Tom Bilyeu welcomes back the ever-provocative Michael Malice—author, podcaster, and noted cultural commentator—for a wide-ranging and sharp-witted exploration of American decline, political polarization, and the state of the nation. Malice, renowned for his contrarian takes and deep dives into political history, brings his brand of irreverent insight to dissect the narratives of collapse and ascension in today's America. In Part 1, Tom and Michael confront the popular notion of America's “decline,” argue over metrics and historical context, and investigate whether we're truly on the verge of societal unraveling. The conversation journeys through economic pressures facing young people, the dangers of polarization and “soft secession,” and the historical parallels with past national struggles. With cutting banter and hard-hitting questions, they provide listeners with fresh perspectives on the culture wars, economic stagnation, and the rise of populism—all while refusing to shy away from uncomfortable truths. 00:00 – Intro 00:34 – anatomy of collapse 05:56 – Soft secession: State vs. federal power games 07:27 – Trade-offs, Trump derangement, and costs of polarization 08:39 – Paths ahead: Civil War, Argentina, or revolution? 10:46 – Revolution mechanics: Is another 1860s-style war possible? 13:12 – Violence, political unrest, and expanding executive power 16:06 – Economic crushing of young people and the rise of populism 17:58 – Housing, inflation, and the struggle for the American Dream 20:08 – Currency as a store of value: Societal ruin and a lack of political will 23:10 – The Japan counterargument and the threshold for crisis 26:07 – What drives people to “blink” in political standoffs? 28:24 – Party priorities, empty rhetoric, and pivoting for power 32:00 – Economic disenfranchisement, the myth of moderate politics 34:23 – Passing on generational wealth: Consequences of deficit spending 36:56 – Populism vs. establishment: Energies within parties 39:03 – Political novelty, enthusiasm gaps, and voter turnout 41:38 – Global leftward drift: Authoritarianism in Canada, UK, and beyond 44:01 – Free speech vs. soft totalitarianism: Censorship through crisis 46:13 – “The time for talk is over”—what this actually means FOLLOW MICHAEL MALICE: Twitter:⁠https://twitter.com/michaelmalice⁠ https://twitter.com/michaelmalice Instagram:⁠https://www.instagram.com/michaelmalice/⁠ https://www.instagram.com/michaelmalice/ Locals:⁠https://malice.locals.com/⁠ https://malice.locals.com/ Linkedin: Post your job free at⁠https://linkedin.com/impacttheory⁠ https://linkedin.com/impacttheory Netsuite: Download the new e-book Navigating Global Trade: 3 Insights for Leaders at⁠http://NetSuite.com/Theory⁠ http://netsuite.com/Theory Shopify: Sign up for your one-dollar-per-month trial period at⁠https://shopify.com/impact⁠ https://shopify.com/impact Connectteam: 14 day free trial at⁠https://connecteam.cc/46GxoTF⁠ https://connecteam.cc/46GxoTF Tailor Brands: 35% off⁠https://tailorbrands.com/podcast35⁠ https://tailorbrands.com/podcast35 What's up, everybody? 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Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.

• 0:00Tom Bilyeu?

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• 0:45Tom Bilyeu?

  Their dashboard tracks what comes next based on what your business actually needs. So EIN number, registered agent, licenses and permits, bookkeeping, business banking. I tell every founder the same thing. Just make it official. Click the link in the show notes to check out Tailor Brands and get started on your business today. This is a paid advertisement. I'm looking at America and I'm saying that we're really going through something. We are in decline. I would use even more dramatic words than that, but I don't want to get trapped in a linguistic game. Okay. So I'll just ask, do you think America is declining on any measure, any meaningful measurements?

• 1:22Speaker 01

  I would push back very heavily against that word.

• 1:25Tom Bilyeu?

  Okay, I avoided collapse because I know you hate that word.

• 1:27Speaker 01

  It's not collapse.

• 1:28Tom Bilyeu?

  So how do you think of it?

• 1:29Speaker 01

  First of all, it's not collapse because if you can get bread, it's not collapse. Like right away, that's like the first metric. And we go start freaking out, America is destroyed, can you readily get bread? Yes, then it's not destroyed. Like, because we've seen countries where you can't get bread.

• 1:41Tom Bilyeu?

  Yeah, no, it's real.

• 1:43Speaker 01

  And we're not even close to that, like.

• 1:44Tom Bilyeu?

  Okay, are we?

• 1:45Speaker 01

  Hold on, hold on. In fact, it might be a good thing if some people had a little less bread in this country than, than more. Uh, well, go ahead, I interrupt you.

• 1:51Tom Bilyeu?

  So is there a metric by which you would say we are declining? You don't like the word decline, but.

• 1:55Speaker 01

  There are several metrics, but I think we are in ascension. I am a big fan of, broadly speaking, of this sort of Pax Americana. This idea that the world is largely.

• 2:10Speaker 01

  Aware at all times, all countries of America's power and American values and at least pay some sort of lip service to it. And I think that is in the ascension right now.

• 2:22Tom Bilyeu?

  Really? The you think the world is paying closer attention to American values now than, say, 15 years ago?

• 2:28Speaker 01

  No, than say, four years ago. I'm just talking about, you know.

• 2:31Tom Bilyeu?

  Is this a regional ascension? Meaning it was high, it dipped, and now to some extent, we're going back up? Or you think on an all time high basis?

• 2:40Speaker 01

  Hold on, hold on. I got you. I got. There's a lot to say here. Hold on. I didn't say all time high, but I think it's very clear that people are responding to better for worse to Trump's shows of strength than they were to Biden. I think we see this with NATO and various European countries where on the one hand, it's pretty obvious that most of these prime ministers think Trump is a loon or a bully or so on and so forth, but they're still meeting with him and engaging with him and treating him with a lot more respect, at least publicly than they did in the first term. I think there's less space to be like taking a dump on whoever happens to be the American president. I think this, the fact

• 3:19Speaker 01

  that he tentatively has, this was regarded as a joke in 2015. In 2015, in the debate stage, when Trump said, oh, you know, what are you going to do with the Middle East? He goes, oh, it'd be like the mother of all deals. Like, no one would ever say anything like it. It'd be tough. And everyone's like, yeah, okay. So the fact that we even have a potential deal on the table where Iran has tentatively signed on board and Qatar and Saudi Arabia and Hamas and Israel, that it's even in that direction is something I think is unprecedented and something I'm sure everyone else listening to this is very

• 3:56Speaker 01

  hopeful about. The fact that I think Americanism as a way of life is in the ascension. People are more patriotic. I was just in the UK and it was controversial to put up the Union Jack, the British flag, which is crazy. So I think in that sense, America is in the ascension. So and economically, I don't know what's going to happen as a result of these tariffs. I've heard two wildly different points of view, and I am of the wait and see persuasion. So in all those senses, I think America is in the ascension. Where we are in a decline.

• 4:37Speaker 01

  And I don't know that the reason I hate the word decline, this is me being irrational. In 1978, when Margaret Thatcher was head of the Conservatives and they were the minority party, the opposition party in the UK, and the idea was Britain is in a managed decline. And during the seventies, as I wrote about my book, The White Pill, people don't realize this, they didn't even have electricity. So at one point, it could be fairly said that the sun never set in the British Empire because they had colonies literally all around the world. And the seventies, they had electricity rationing. They had, you couldn't get power because things were so bad with the strikes and inflation and so on and so forth. And

• 5:18Speaker 01

  the idea was, we've had our day, that time has passed, and now we're like the old men of Europe. And Thatcher said, I can't bear the idea of Britain decline. I just can't. We who once stood alone against Hitler, well, he had all of Europe, and look at us now. And she was the last, I think, PM who loved Great Britain. To an embarrassing degree, I heard these stories of, you know, there were these international meetings, and she's shoving like crappy British candy, and people say, oh, it's so great. And they're like, yeah, but I want that in a leader. I want a president or a PM who is so irrationally patriotic that they're forcing you to take this crappy candy, and you're just like,

• 5:57Speaker 01

  thanks, Margaret. But where I think we are in decline is as this siloization that, you know, many people have discussed in terms of politics, has increased exponentially. I think the space for discourse has, is decreasing at a very fast rate. I think people are not interested in talking to each other. I don't know if that's a bad thing, but it's certainly not something that is all upside. So that is the one space I think we are very much in decline. We're, I mean, as we record, there is a brinksmanship between Governor

• 6:39Speaker 01

  Pritzker of Illinois, Gavin Newsom of California, and the governor of Oregon, whose name escapes me. I forget her name. And right now in the articles, they're just this morning, as I was in the card here, they were talking about this concept of soft secession, which is Illinois won't cooperate with federal government to the point of withholding, handing over tax revenues. So, yeah, and you know, Trump sending in the troops to these different states, these are all escalations. Is somebody gonna blink? I think yes. But I don't think the person who blinks is gonna be like, well, all right, they got us, boys. It's a wrap. We're gonna go home and change, give up.

• 7:20Speaker 01

  So I don't know where this ends. And I had Tim Poole on my show this week, and he and I kind of disagreed a bit. And I think you're a business person, something that people don't understand is trade offs, right? And if you have a benefit, you have a cost often, right? You get married, you don't get to cheat, you have kids, it takes a lot of your time, right? That's a pay, it's a cost, doesn't mean the benefit's not worth it. And I think Trump, and I don't know this is unnecessary. I think it's funny how much Trump has made his opponents lose their minds. I mean, we had highly educated women walking around with pussy hats and putting on their social media without any sense of shame. And it's just like, do you even see yourself? They are proud of this.

• 8:04Speaker 01

  But I think when you make people crazy, uh, crazy things happen.

• 8:10Tom Bilyeu?

  Yeah, I'll agree with that. So it doesn't matter what you look at, it matters what you see. You and I are looking at the same thing, but we draw very different conclusions. So, uh, the analogy that I always use is when you look up in the night sky, all you actually see are stars, but then we draw constellations on them. Those constellations are fake, but they actually do help you steer at sea in the middle of the night. Uh, so they have utility even if they're off. When I build the constellations in the sky of all the different things that are happening, I see something when put into historical context are all the cues that we are on a road that has a branch ahead of us. One of those branches is Civil War Revolution.

• 8:51Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 8:52Tom Bilyeu?

  And because we're on that road, I am screaming from the rooftops. Trying to get people to understand, okay, up ahead of us, there's a fork. And if we don't take the correct fork, we are going to end in revolution or civil war. For me, I'll oversimplify it often to the economy. It is an oversimplification, but it really is. You can talk about diabetes as we need to manage the neuropathy in your eyes and your feet. Or we can say it's, this is what you're eating. What you're eating is the problem here. And exercise. So I'm saying, let's talk about the eating and exercise versus managing the symptoms.

• 9:32Tom Bilyeu?

  And because we're not doing that, and because I literally see exactly zero indications that we will do that, I can see the fork in the road coming up. We're admittedly not too far gone. We could still change course, but I don't see any indication that we will. And if we don't fix the economy, we will end in revolution. So for me, I'm like, when somebody says, America is collapsing, I'm like, yes, very clearly.

• 9:54Speaker 01

  I don't know how a civil war or revolution in a literal sense would happen. Because when you had the American Civil War, you had half of the country all or heavily militarily trained and armed, ready to take up arms, right? When you had the Revolutionary War against Great Britain, all the soldiers were here. We had all the land. They had to send in, I don't know how long it took, a month, you send in their troops. So it's, it's, it's, there's a capacity to take up a stand. And we bear, you know, Washington kept retreating. He, we kept getting ass handed to us because the American patriots didn't even have shoes. They were wrapping their feet in newspaper. Let's walk this through. Let's suppose right now, I don't know that Pritzker and Newsom or these blue states

• 10:37Speaker 01

  have the capacity, you could have massive civil unrest. But if that's the case, I don't think they have much of a chance against the federal government. Conversely, if you had a president, you know, Pritzker, and you had these red states revolting, I don't know that he would necessarily have the military behind him to do anything about it. What, so it's, to me, it's much more likely that you would have this sort of, you know, God help us, like Napoleon coming in and just putting a stop and like, the buck stops here. Here's gonna, here it's gonna land. But in terms of a protracted revolution or civil war, I don't think there's a parity between two sides that would allow this to be sustained in any kind of duration.

• 11:20Tom Bilyeu?

  Yeah, so we agree with that. And the last thing I want to get bogged down in is like word choice, but. We'll be back in a moment.

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• 12:14Tom Bilyeu?

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• 13:39Tom Bilyeu?

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• 13:52Tom Bilyeu?

  All right, let's pick up where we left off. The way that I see this is either French Revolution, so you have pockets of violence, it's not some sustained thing, it's just, hey, we take a few thousand people, we round them up, we either gulag them or execute them in the streets. A new government takes power based on a strong man who understands, once people get a taste for blood, you have to aim it at something, you're not gonna stop it. So, to your point, this is how Napoleon comes to power, he realizes, oh, I'll just aim these at every other country, we'll go conquer Europe, 3 million people die across Europe. But, hey, you, you end up getting a total transformation, not for the better, but a total transformation of French society.

• 14:37Speaker 01

  Right.

• 14:37Tom Bilyeu?

  Or, and I think this is the most likely version, we become Argentina. And so Argentina in the 1920s, 19 teens attracts more immigrants than America, literally at the same time. They were the real land of opportunity. And then they end up getting to the point where they do all the classic things of inflating their currency, trying to keep the prosperity train running, but if you're not doing innovative things and you're just trying to flood the government with money, it just never ends up working, and so then it starts declining, but people are getting used to all the government money, and so you can't talk people out of it. You end up marching towards socialism, or at least socialist policies, where the government's taking care of where too many people and the economy collapses.

• 15:21Tom Bilyeu?

  You lose all of the government defaults, always, and so then you can't get investments in the country, and you end up with this 100-year period. It's like, played out so many times, over and over and over, in history. So, that to me, with the rise of someone like Mam Dany, is exactly the direction that we're heading. We have made it impossible for young people to get ahead economically. The second you do that, you guarantee the rise of populism, because people are afraid. Fear sucks, so it translates into anger. Anger feels a lot better. Populism rises, because you get... Figures that go, don't worry, I'm gonna go slap around the other team. I'm gonna get you all the cool stuff that you want. But because there is no such thing as giving people things for free without a huge cost,

• 16:05Tom Bilyeu?

  you end up collapsing the economy, the government is forced to default on its debt, and then all of the investments go away. So is it going to be 1860s and that classic style civil war? No, but we already have pockets of violence. We already have political assassinations. I think that will ratchet up. Someone will come into the government and say, we have to clamp down on this just to like bring back stability. And then the executive powers begin to expand and you're in a very weakened state.

• 16:42Speaker 01

  As someone who's a lot more comfortable with political violence than the layman.

• 16:48Tom Bilyeu?

  Because it's useful?

• 16:50Speaker 01

  Well, I don't really know how much of this conversation I've allowed to have.

• 16:54Tom Bilyeu?

  I mean, with me as much as you want.

• 16:55Speaker 01

  Well, with the internet because.

• 16:56Tom Bilyeu?

  Yeah, that becomes how much pain do you want to go through?

• 16:59Speaker 01

  Right, so.

• 17:03Speaker 01

  I, I, I see what you're saying, but I don't think we are Argentina because Americans have a very different view of America than the Argentine city of Argentina. And if you had, I, I, a couple of points. First of all, Pelosi and Biden and Hillary did a lot more to stop like AOC and Bernie Sanders than the Republicans did. So I still think that, that wing, that corporate hack wing of the Democratic Party is still quite powerful, even though on social media, the energy is in the kind of DSA kind of wing of the Democratic Party. And for decades, Republicans have.

• 17:44Speaker 01

  Complained, not unfairly, that Rhino, you know, they they run as the base and then when they're elected, they have to watch in the Rhinos, Republicans name only, and the Republican, the base doesn't get anything they want. This is the first time, I think, in quite some time, that the Republican base is actually getting results from the presidency. Even during Trump's first term, he delivered in terms of doing things that are funny, like when Pelosi and the congressional delegation were trying to go overseas, and they're on the bus going to the airport and he canceled their flights, and they had to circle the bus as they wanted what to do, because they didn't have the permission slip from the president. That was funny, but like, what did that really accomplish? Now, he's, he's, he's hitting them where it hurts and putting points on the, on the board.

• 18:25Speaker 01

  So I think that is something that is a little bit unprecedented. So the question is, is the Mumdani wing going to take over the Democratic Party? If they do, it's kind of like, well, what happens? It's like kind of dog chasing the car. When it catches the car, what's it going to do with it? Because a lot of the Democratic Party is funded by corporate America, right? And when you have a socialist kind of party, they're not going to be necessarily, yes, sir, and just continues pouring that money. They're going to start funding some kind of, you know, New England Rockefeller Republican types. They're going to go somewhere. So that's one thing. Two is-

• 19:08Tom Bilyeu?

  I think that only works, though, if you actually start fixing the economy. Young people really are in a dire situation. If they can't get on the property ladder, literally all hope is lost.

• 19:19Speaker 01

  It's not all hope is not lost.

• 19:20Tom Bilyeu?

  No, it really is. So I'll, I'll give a super speed run of this.

• 19:24Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 19:25Tom Bilyeu?

  So the way, because the government deficit spends, you're, you have to print money, and as you're printing money-

• 19:32Speaker 01

  Sure, of course.

• 19:33Tom Bilyeu?

  -you're causing inflation.

• 19:34Speaker 01

  Right.

• 19:35Tom Bilyeu?

  If you don't own assets, then you take the full brunt of that. So in the last five years, inflation's been roughly 25%.

• 19:41Speaker 01

  And it hurts the poorest the most, yes.

• 19:43Tom Bilyeu?

  And real wages haven't gone up in like three decades or more. And so people's wages have stagnated, prices are going up, they can't get on the property ladder. Now, why does property matter so much? It is the only asset that people understand intuitively, and it's the only asset you can live inside of. So, and to really icing on the cake, it's the only asset that for, certainly for a heterosexual couple, that you're going to get massive pressure from your wife to get you a house.

• 20:09Speaker 01

  Absolutely.

• 20:09Tom Bilyeu?

  So there's a reason that the house has become the focal point of like the American dream and all of that.

• 20:13Speaker 01

  Right.

• 20:13Tom Bilyeu?

  And it's just completely out of reach. So if you continue deficit spending and don't allow young people to get into a house, you will make them increasingly desperate over time, and they'll vote for anything that's changed. And right now, the promise that sounds the most awesome is I'm going to get you a bunch of free stuff, which is socialism.

• 20:33Speaker 01

  I think, first of all, one of the reasons housing was such a big thing in America was this post-World War II fetishization of suburbia. And this idea of like, oh, if you just move out of the city, which was kind of a new thing, the invention of the suburb, you get to have a be a homeowner, and that's kind of the American dream. So, number one. Number two is, I don't know that housing is necessarily going to be as, first of all, by all accounts, everyone's saying the housing market's on a bubble that's about to burst, and housing is going to come a lot more cheaper. I know here in Austin specifically, the house I was looking at went from, I moved here in 2021, it's 2025. When I looked at it, it was 1.1 million, and now it's like 875.

• 21:18Speaker 01

  So that's in a couple of years. So housing prices are going down in certain areas. I think people are, maybe New York and LA, I think they're still going up. I don't understand the economics there at all. Maybe it's foreign investment, and they're just sitting on those apartments and not actually living them. Is one of the things I heard, but I'm not an authority on that whatsoever. Point being, I don't know this idea that the demand of housing being static or close to static is true. Because what you might see very easily is, you know, Booms in Dayton or like cities that you and I aren't on our periphery, but they can become new hubs, especially with the rise of social media and the internet. You don't need to live in New York City anymore. So there's no reason why you can't have a hundred cities that are prospering as like Austin,

• 22:01Speaker 01

  being one example, it kind of came out of not nowhere, but a mid-tier city. And then it became a cultural hotspot. So that's something I would push back again against as well. But I agree with you completely broadly speaking, even without the housing. If the currency loses its ability to store value, if I don't have any savings, it's kind of a rap because then you're Zimbabwe. Then it's like, I need to be spending. All the incentives is for me to spend my money today and get these goods. Because if I leave in the bank, I'm losing a quarter of the value every year. I shouldn't be saving. And when you have a society that's incentivized against saving, that's a side that's incentivized against investment, that's a society that's kind of eating the the seed that you're going to plant next year. That's that's a deadly spiral.

• 22:45Speaker 01

  But I don't, and there's no, this is what's amazing. There's like no appetite in Washington to cut spending like one iota. I remember a few months ago, Trump had the big beautiful bill. And many conservatives online correctly, and a few in Congress were like, this is insane. What are we doing? And then it's like, oh, look over here. They're like, oh, wait, what? And they they all completely forgot about it. This continuing resolution right now that they're debating, the government shutdown. It's, I mean, if President Trump right now said, I want to go back to my first budget, you know, 2017, when he became president for the first time, it would be like, you're a crazy person, you're a radical, blah, blah, blah. So that is something that concerns me enormously.

• 23:30Speaker 01

  But as you and I both know, there is a great deal of ruin in a nation. The US dollar still is disproportionately powerful worldwide. And many of these other countries have GDPs, excuse me, national debts that are far higher proportionally than ours. And they're not doing great, but they're not at collapse. Now, I'm not saying it's good. I'm not saying it's not a problem, but I'm saying they're not in civil war either. Japan being like one prime example of this.

• 23:59Tom Bilyeu?

  Yeah, so Japan is always, you hear about Japan, you hear about the Nordic countries. When I bring these arguments out. So I'll give a quick sort of.

• 24:11Tom Bilyeu?

  Renunciation of Japan and why that does not help us.

• 24:14Speaker 01

  Renunciation?

• 24:15Tom Bilyeu?

  Denunciation, I'll take it down as an argument.

• 24:17Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 24:18Tom Bilyeu?

  Uh, whatever the right word is. Uh, so Japan is like hyper hegemonic. It's just Japanese as far as the eye can see. They have a very specific culture. I mean, you come here, it's, that's not true.

• 24:30Speaker 01

  I thought that was like a racist eye joke.

• 24:32Tom Bilyeu?

  It is very funny. Nice. No, but I like it. I'll take it. Uh, so having that kind of cultural, um, uniformity is when the culture is collectivist and very polite and well, I want to make sure that you have something as well. Uh, you can get away with that more. So the reason Japan comes up a lot is any country that's ever crossed the 130% debt to GDP ratio for more than like 18 months has gone into, um, open violence. And so.

• 25:05Speaker 01

  Where are we at now?

• 25:06Tom Bilyeu?

  Uh, we're at 122. So the reason.

• 25:10Speaker 01

  Sorry, I have to interrupt because this is really key.

• 25:12Tom Bilyeu?

  Yeah.

• 25:12Speaker 01

  When do we hit 130?

• 25:14Tom Bilyeu?

  Uh, it's like 10 years.

• 25:15Speaker 01

  Okay. So, so if we are on this track, according to all these kinds of charts, open violence.

• 25:21Tom Bilyeu?

  Yes.

• 25:21Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 25:22Tom Bilyeu?

  Yeah, yeah. So.

• 25:23Speaker 01

  I agree. Yeah. Okay.

• 25:24Tom Bilyeu?

  Japan is the only country that bucks that trend. And I think they do that. Like if you paid attention to the World Cup, they cleaned the stadium after people left. It's just a different.

• 25:34Speaker 01

  I'm going to interrupt you because we're on the same page. I didn't realize you meant in 10 years. I thought you're meaning like in the next two or three years.

• 25:40Tom Bilyeu?

  No, no, no.

• 25:41Speaker 01

  In 10 years, yes, I can easily see us going to open violence.

• 25:44Tom Bilyeu?

  Yeah. So, and I don't see it as a binary. I see it as like, it will just continue to escalate. So I think we're already in a very sort of controlled pockets of violence right now. I think it will get worse. I don't think it's toppled the government. It's going to take 10 or more years to get to that stage. But my thing is if you don't start putting in the fix now, then it becomes unavoidable because you're adding a hundred, uh, trillion dollars to the national debt every 100 days. So it's like this becomes a bigger and bigger problem every day. And you don't want to be in like year nine going, okay, now we really need to do something about it. So anyway, I don't think it's a nothing burger. I also don't think panicking is the right answer.

• 26:27Tom Bilyeu?

  So panic is not going to get us anywhere, uh, but taking evasive action is going to be important.

• 26:33Speaker 01

  Um, I don't know that I'm so, um.

• 26:42Speaker 01

  Opposed to seeing my enemies crushed and kinda just destroyed. But the question-

• 26:49Tom Bilyeu?

  Who are your enemies in this?

• 26:52Speaker 01

  I think-

• 26:53Tom Bilyeu?

  The American government?

• 26:54Speaker 01

  Not the American government. I think there are schools of thought that are so malevolent and nefarious that unless they are completely kind of annihilated, they're gonna kind of exist in perpetuity. That said, everyone thinks they're gonna be the guy driving the tank and not the guy under the treads, right? So that's why I'm very careful to be like, "Oh, this is gonna be fine." You know, whenever people light a match, they're like, "What? My house on fire? I just wanted to have a little..." You know? That's not how it works. And I'm very, I'm very doubtful that the people in those tanks would be people I would consider friends, or people who I would approve of, certainly. I've said repeatedly that the enemy class is not going down without

• 27:39Speaker 01

  a fight. My buddy Jesse had this great point. He's like, "It's not like they're gonna say, 'Well, good job. You won that argument. I guess I'm gonna go home.'" That's not a thing. And I think people have this, there was this 80s conception that you are sure familiar with, which was very much a part of this American ethos, how Reagan and Tip O'Neill, who was Speaker of the House, Democratic Speaker of the House, you know, would argue vociferously during the day and then go home and play golf together, and isn't that great? And I think now there's this idea that like, "Why am I playing golf with people who want to kill my kids?" Right? And I think both hardcore Republicans, hardcore Democrats would say, "Yeah, the other people want to kill my kids." And I don't even know that

• 28:23Speaker 01

  they're necessarily, it's either or both or neither or wrong. So I don't see any kind of, kind of reprimand between two violently, literally violently opposed worldviews. I don't, what do you see as the incentive for anyone to blink?

• 28:43Tom Bilyeu?

  Hold tight, we're going to take a quick break.

• 28:47Tom Bilyeu?

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• 29:30Tom Bilyeu?

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• 29:51Tom Bilyeu?

  All right, we're back. Let's get into it. The incentive to blink is always going to be if I blink, then my life tomorrow is better and my kids' lives are better. That's what I'm saying. This has to come back to the economy. Like, people all of a sudden will change their tune instantly when money's involved. If people believe like, oh, wait, this isn't profitable anymore. I'm going to stop doing this. I'm going to start doing this new thing. This was part of the JK Rowling, when she went after Emma Watson. She was like, I think a big part of this is Emma realizes it's not as, I think she even used the word profitable. It's not as profitable to dunk on me as it once was.

• 30:25Speaker 01

  Meaning Rowling.

• 30:27Tom Bilyeu?

  Yeah, so Emma Watson was basically anti-JK and now all of a sudden is changing her tune and saying, no, I still love her. And JK was like, what is happening right now? So she was like, this is the same woman that once mouthed to a crowd, I love all those people except the one, meaning JK Rowling. And she's like-

• 30:46Speaker 01

  When you say profit, you don't mean just financially. You mean like status and other stuff?

• 30:49Tom Bilyeu?

  Emma's talking about status, for sure. JK Rowling, sorry, she's talking about status. But if people really believe that they- Can get ahead, whatever that means, either status, power, money. Then they'll change their tune.

• 31:02Speaker 01

  Yes, I agree.

• 31:03Tom Bilyeu?

  Fixing the economy to me is that, like, you have to get people to believe and understand that there is a way out of this. There is a way for you to participate in the economy. There is a way for your kids' lives to be even better than yours. There's a way for your life to be better in 10 years than it is today. And it's not the path that you're on. Now, are you going to get the average person there? No, the average person is caught up in emotions. They ration emotionally or reason emotionally. And so it, that's a lost cause. You just have to get the tide to shift from grievance to opportunity. Now, that's going to be extremely hard, but to answer the question directly, that's what will get someone.

• 31:38Speaker 01

  I don't think it's going to be extremely hard at all. Because, um, and I'm glad you clarified what you, what you, what you were thinking, because I agree with almost everything you just said. I don't think it's going to be hard at all, and I know, I know, I can hear right now the mousetraps going off in people's heads in the audience. There's this, people have this Schrodinger's cat view of, uh, first of all, I hate the term the left. Because even if Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders would vote the same on every single bill in front of Congress. If either of them were president, God help us, they would not have the same priorities.

• 32:11Tom Bilyeu?

  Sure.

• 32:11Speaker 01

  They would not have the same things on the agenda first, second and third. They would not cut deals with the same people, maybe in the Republicans or the countries in the same way, right? So when you say, people understand that Mitt Romney and Jeb Bush are not the same as, you know, Donald Trump or Marjorie Taylor Greene. But when they look at their opponents, oh, they're all basically the same. And this Schrodinger's cat, they have this view of that Democrats are the, or the left. Let's just pick for Democrat politicians are ideological zealots who are, you know, some version of Marxism and are obsessed with kind of this Marxist hegemony. At the same time, they're like, these are soulless, amoral, power hungry creatures who'll do anything to maintain their hold on power. It's not both, right?

• 32:54Speaker 01

  So do they have this, now, maybe this is their vision that they have in the back. But the point is, there's time and time again, when a great example of this is the UK, the Labour Party. The party. Is called labor, right? It's not that it's not the Democrats, it's labor. And as soon as people in unions started voting for the Tories, like with Boris Johnson's campaign, they're all white supremacists. So labor turned on the labor unions, right? So in America, people are like, oh, they're never going to turn on this group, that group, that group. It was Bill Clinton who pushed forth DACA, the Defense, the DOMA, the Defense of Marriage Act and fought against gay marriage. In fact, in 2004, when John Kerry was running against George W. Bush, he called Bill Clinton and asked for advice.

• 33:38Speaker 01

  And Bill Clinton said, campaign against gay marriage. And John Kerry said, I'm not going to do that. And he lost in a very close election. And if he listened to Bill Clinton, he probably would have won because it was just very few votes in a few states that carried their election. So if people think that Democrats won't start pivoting, it's already happened. If Pete Buttigieg is talking about not having trans athletes, Gavin Newsom's openly talked about not having trans athletes. This was a thing five minutes, like five minutes ago, we all had this consensus. The Democrats, you know, bought into what the base was saying, but they don't. In the same way that BLM was a huge thing in the spring and summer of 2020. And then as soon as Biden and Officer Harris got to the White House, BLM was complaining publicly.

• 34:23Speaker 01

  They're not returning our calls. They didn't even send some kind of like random low level staffer to have a big kind of photo up at the White House. Be like, oh, BLM's here, let's discuss. They didn't care. They didn't pretend to care. So I think it would be very easy, and I know people are digging their heels hearing this, for the Democrats to pivot and be like in 1992, it's the economy, stupid. There are enough old school Democrats, and more importantly, Democrats who only care about seizing power, who could be like, it's the economy, it's the economy, economy. They can campaign very easily on this kind of fiscal conservatism, just like Republicans do, because Republicans don't ever have to deliver it. And if you have a binary system and it's like Trump's crazy and he's focusing on illegal immigrants,

• 35:04Speaker 01

  while you can't put food on the table, you know, I'm, I kind of worked my way up and my dad was a postal worker, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. That will resonate with Karen and Karen is the swing voter.

• 35:15Tom Bilyeu?

  Yes, I definitely think politicians say whatever they need to say in order to get elected. So I, from that perspective, I don't think any of the parties are carved in stone. Having said that, when I look at what the energy is in the party, the energy very much seems to be moving in the M'Doni way, which, and I'm very empathetic to it because if we have broken the economic system for young people, like it is just absolutely smashed to pieces. And given that, they are going to need a clear message.

• 35:46Speaker 01

  What's unemployment with young people? You keep saying smashed to pieces, like I have no idea how bad it actually is.

• 35:50Tom Bilyeu?

  Okay, so unemployment is bad. It's, I think in ages like, what do they call, prime working age? So 21 to 42 or something like that. It's, I want to say 12%.

• 36:06Speaker 01

  That's bad.

• 36:07Tom Bilyeu?

  Horrific.

• 36:07Speaker 01

  That's bad.

• 36:09Tom Bilyeu?

  And.

• 36:10Speaker 01

  And I saw rents in New York are like three grand for a studio?

• 36:14Tom Bilyeu?

  It's wild. It's wild. But the, I don't even need people to get that far because now we're starting to get into like the nitty gritty of it all. The two facts, just to get people to understand, 10% of Americans own 93% of the assets. And the only way to avoid the deficit spending, the punishment that we will all receive of that, is to own assets. So 10% are protected and the, take the 10%, it's like going to be most of them own a miniscule amount. And then the top 2% or whatever own the 93% of the 93%. So most people will never do the very thing they need to do to protect themselves from the government, which is to master, or as close as you can, owning assets.

• 36:58Tom Bilyeu?

  And it's a complicated game and it's a game that carries a lot of risk. And so I know people are never going to do it. So you've got to get.

• 37:05Speaker 01

  They're incentivized to it.

• 37:06Tom Bilyeu?

  Who's not incentivized?

• 37:08Speaker 01

  People to save and kind of get assets.

• 37:11Tom Bilyeu?

  Well, no, you're not, you're not incentivized to save. You're punished for saving, but you are a thousand percent incentivized to own assets. If you don't, you're going to get punished into a.

• 37:20Speaker 01

  I meant the media, I meant the culture. There's not this idea of like be responsible. That's what I'm saying.

• 37:25Tom Bilyeu?

  A thousand percent. And this is a big part of like the rallying cry that I'm trying to do is get people to make that a thing. But like the one that always baffles my mind is I'm like, hold on a second. So people will be up in arms about redlining. And saying this is a great evil that we did to African Americans and it echoes through the generations that they're not able to pass on the wealth that you can put into a house. And I'm like, uh, but I don't see that same energy around the fact that we are deficit spending and making impossible for people to buy a house. So it's like, you're literally obliterating multiple generations of people. I'm like, this ends so horrifically and it compounds. That's the part like it just compounds and compounds and compounds.

• 38:07Tom Bilyeu?

  Because they can't get into that asset, they are more devastated by inflation and it just gets worse and worse, worse. Anyway, so that's where I'm like, we have battered the life out of young people economically. They're, they're not able to start generating that money. So when somebody comes along and promises not like, hey, we're going to be fiscally conservative. Instead, they say, all of these guys are corrupt. You know it, you feel it. They are the reason, they probably don't even have to define they, they are the reason that you're not able to afford rent. We're going to cap rents. We're going to get you free bus rides. We're going to have state run grocery stores. And people are like, yeah,

• 38:46Tom Bilyeu?

  that sounds a lot better than what I have. But they're so economically illiterate, they don't realize that that experiment has been run over and over and over. And there is like a reason that is super easy to explain as to why that doesn't work, can't work, won't work, hasn't worked. But it sounds awesome. And so they go for it.

• 39:03Speaker 01

  Sure. But I don't think that Mumdani's appeal in that primary was largely kind of economic. I think it was more this kind of, he's saying things that no one else is, he's not a corporate party hack like Cuomo was. It's very hard to get enthusiasm among the base for a Cuomo figure. It's like if Jeb Bush like ran, you know, for, for mayor of some of Florida cities, even though he was regarded, people are shocked to hear this, widely regarded as a very successful governor, he won. His reelection by this huge margin against his opponent, I forget what year it was after crushing the guy in the debate. It was close before that. So I think there's, yeah, I think something else

• 39:47Speaker 01

  that, you know, you and I haven't touched on is social media encourages and just our culture in general encourages novelty. So if something has been around for like 20, 30 years, it's inherently bad, right? I want that shiny new thing. I want that new app. I want that new whatever. So this is something weighed very heavily in favor of Trump in 2016. It worked against Hillary Clinton. So I think that is part of his appeal. Also, you know, him, Curtis Lee was, his Republican opponent ran in four years ago, is regarded as kind of like a clown figure in New York. Cuomo, you know, is a mass murderer. So it's kind of, are you going to vote for the guy who did the mass

• 40:32Speaker 01

  murders in the past or the one who's going to do them in the future? It's kind of a Hobson's choice, if I'm using that term correctly. But yeah, that AOC wing is in the ascension. But I think you're also, there's just this kind of vacillation, and the Republicans did this too, where it's like, there's this myth in politics that moderates are better at winning elections than the people on the edge. And one great example of this, you hear this all the time, is Christie Whitman. She ran for governor in New Jersey. She won, Republican, ran in 93, won again 97. And she's like, look, I'm the moderate. If you look at her elections, she won

• 41:13Speaker 01

  by like one point over the Democrat. Whereas Chris Christie, who at the time was widely regarded as clearly a hardcore conservative, won by far bigger margins than her. The reason is, vote, the election isn't won by the populace, it's won by who gets, who turns out. And you might have someone who is really, really hated by the opponents, but he riles up people on your side. And if you get people excited, that might tip the scale. So it's an enthusiasm gap, not just a numbers gap. So the moderates like, yeah, I might prefer Mitt Romney over Obama. I'm not getting off my ass to vote for him. Whereas if it's Trump, it's people like, hell yeah, I want to do this because this means something to me as a signifier. So they'll do one. And then when that doesn't work, they run, oh, should have been the moderate. Then they run the moderate,

• 41:58Speaker 01

  and it just goes back and forth. You see this in both parties all the time. So I don't At the same time, you know, on the third hand, as an octopus, although they have arms and not hands, if you look at Europe and where the left is going, it is going in this kind of, I would say Maoist hardcore authoritarian direction. You see this in Canada, you see this in the UK. I mean, talk about political violence. If the cops are arresting you for, I don't know if you saw this, or maybe people watching this, maybe you have people watch this haven't, there was a woman or a guy, I forget who it was, knock on the door in the middle of the night from the cops in the UK. I'm not here to arrest you. I'm here to warn you about a Facebook

• 42:41Speaker 01

  post you had. Now, I agree that people shouldn't be wasting their time on Facebook because that's for boomers, but it doesn't, shouldn't involve the cops.

• 42:49Tom Bilyeu?

  Dude, they arrest 30 people a day in the UK for things that people-

• 42:53Speaker 01

  And this is after 14 years of conservative rule and what, four, four, four different PMs?

• 42:57Tom Bilyeu?

  Yeah, it's wild. I, I, I am aghast. It is the most Orwellian thing I've ever seen from the land of Orwell, like-

• 43:04Speaker 01

  It's not the most Orwellian.

• 43:06Tom Bilyeu?

  Oh, give me, give me more.

• 43:07Speaker 01

  I mean, come on, it gets more Orwellian than that.

• 43:10Tom Bilyeu?

  In the, in the West?

• 43:13Speaker 01

  Yes.

• 43:13Tom Bilyeu?

  Okay, examples?

• 43:16Speaker 01

  Woodrow Wilson, I know this preceded Orwell, obviously, but what he did during World War I, and you had kind of mass censorship of the males and, and the-

• 43:24Tom Bilyeu?

  Yeah, but that's wartime. Horrible, horrible.

• 43:27Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 43:28Tom Bilyeu?

  But at least you've got-

• 43:30Speaker 01

  But the war wasn't here.

• 43:31Tom Bilyeu?

  People die, yeah, fair.

• 43:33Speaker 01

  The war, it didn't need to happen here. It was just there because they'd had their excuse, never let a good crisis go to waste, and it wasn't even a crisis. This was their opportunity, like to flex their muscles, like now we have a pretext to kind of have mass censorship and totalitarianism. And they got away with it. This is what I'm concerned about as a student of history. Everything that happened during World War I, we have in American shores, look, we're doing it, the Great War, blah, blah, blah. When FDR comes in, in 1933, and he could say it with a straight face, all these measures that we took during wartime, just 12, 13 years ago- Um, we have a great depression, which is really a bigger threat to America like the Kaiser? Or what is happening when you have 25% unemployment?

• 44:15Speaker 01

  And of course, the answer is the Great Depression is far greater threat to the average American, America as a whole, than the Germans during World War One ever were. So then they could just have that same totalitarianism again. Point being, COVID was the biggest psy-op in American history. A lot of very, very nefarious people by accident or design got some very useful information about what the limits are of American submission, what it would take for Americans to kind of reach that violent point, and whether that violence we regard as legitimate. And I think now they are going to be cashing that in.

• 44:49Tom Bilyeu?

  It's one of those things, you said that so calmly that I think a lot of people are going to miss how terrifying that statement is. But yeah.

• 44:57Speaker 01

  Sure, yeah.

• 44:59Tom Bilyeu?

  All right, you've said that the time for talk is over. What do you mean by that?

• 45:04Speaker 01

  When people are totalitarians, they use language not to communicate, but to manipulate. It is not done in good faith. It's just, what do I need to say to get you to do what I want? A great example of this was when it was discovered that Mumdani, when he applied to Columbia, marked his race off as black. Not as African American, it said black. And several Democrats, including former New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio, says, he was born Uganda. Of course, he's African American. It's like, you know, you're lying. I know you're lying. It didn't even say African American. That's not what that means. We all know this. But the time for talk is over. There's not a conversation we had there. And I think things like the trans debate.

• 45:49Speaker 01

  We talked about trade-offs earlier. We can make the argument, let's make, we can still make this argument very easily. I've gender dysphoria. I need to take cross-gender hormones to look and feel like I'm supposed to be. You're telling me there's no cost to take even the same gender hormones? You're telling me if a woman takes estrogen or a man takes testosterone, it's all upside? So you laugh, but it's, people understand that that's ridiculous. Women know perfectly well during their cycle or when they're pregnant, when their estrogen's spiking. It has consequences. It's part of being human. But in this debate, nope. You take the testosterone or the estrogen respectively, it's all upside. It's insane. And any question like, okay, maybe.

• 46:31Speaker 01

  I can make this argument, the benefits outweigh the costs, but the pretense is there's no costs. So that's another example of how it's just not done in good faith and there's no really space for talking.

• 46:43Tom Bilyeu?

  Yeah, okay, so if we're not able to have good faith conversations, what is the alternative? Because you're very optimistic. It is, I consider myself-

• 46:53Speaker 01

  I'm hopeful and optimistic, it's not the same. I hate that word. That's always-

• 46:57Tom Bilyeu?

  Optimistic?

• 46:57Speaker 01

  Interesting. It's always like a passive aggressive judgment word.

• 47:02Tom Bilyeu?

  It's my filler word.

• 47:03Speaker 01

  I know, but it's such a waspy thing.

• 47:05Tom Bilyeu?

  I don't know why that would be waspy.

• 47:07Speaker 01

  Because wasps don't say, "Oh, you suck." They go, "Oh, that's interesting."

• 47:09Tom Bilyeu?

  No, no, no, I don't think you suck. When I say, when I say that's interesting, I basically mean that has made me feel something that I don't yet know how to categorize. So I'm gonna say interesting to give myself time to find its box, which may be tomorrow.

• 47:23Speaker 01

  But I'm just saying, like, in, in, I understand, but this word has, especially like publishing, has a certain connotation.

• 47:30Tom Bilyeu?

  I don't mean it in that way.

• 47:31Speaker 01

  I know you don't.

• 47:32Tom Bilyeu?

  So without using it in a way that bothers you.

• 47:35Speaker 01

  It doesn't bother me, I'm just clarifying what you're, I think you're putting out something you're not trying to. I'm just being a stickler.

• 47:40Tom Bilyeu?

  Fair. Okay, so now, give me hope versus optimism. Why draw a distinction?

• 47:47Speaker 01

  I'm hopeful this conversation will go well, but I'm not optimistic it will. So-

• 47:54Tom Bilyeu?

  That's clear. That's clear. Okay, so.

• 48:00Speaker 01

  I've had that line queued up for weeks, and thank you for giving me the chance to play it.

• 48:04Tom Bilyeu?

  Very glad that you got a chance. Okay, so, America, you are hopeful, but not necessarily optimistic. That makes sense. So if we are, we're no longer talking, what do you see as the alternative? Most people will use the quip that once you can't persuade, or once you're not allowed to speak, then violence is the only other option. But I don't imagine that's your punchline.

• 48:30Speaker 01

  You have that free speech or free violence. Those are the two choices, right? There are, I don't think violence is necessarily the alternative. But if you disempower, you know, populations or groups or whatever, then you have victory in that regard. I am gladdened, and one of the ways I am hopeful is that Trump is going head on with the universities, who are really the great villains of our time. And I think the fact that, to your point, and this is something I know you are extremely passionate about, there is so much more space for young people to make something of themselves without going to university

• 49:12Speaker 01

  or having that credentialist approach, that I think is what would save America. Because the once you take care of them, whether it's figuratively or, you know, lamposty, I think a lot of the other issues would be resolved.

• 49:28Tom Bilyeu?

  I'm going to say that in my own words. I'm not attempting to put these words in your mouth, but I do want to see if this feels right to you. So conversation isn't going to be the way forward. Changing the indoctrination machine will be, because I think we need to indoctrinate young people. I just think the things we're choosing to indoctrinate them with are horrible.

• 49:47Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 49:48Tom Bilyeu?

  Does that?

• 49:48Speaker 01

  I don't love that we, but they are indoctrinating them with things that are horrible. I'm not indoctrinating them with horrible things.

• 49:54Tom Bilyeu?

  Okay.

• 49:55Speaker 01

  Yeah, I think that's fair, what you just said, yeah.

• 49:57Tom Bilyeu?

  Okay.

• 49:58Speaker 01

  But it's not just an indoctrination problem. It's that it's both, it's not the message is bad. It's that they are important and powerful. So if someone who's important and powerful puts out a bad message, you have to pay attention to it to some extent.

• 50:11Tom Bilyeu?

  Walk me through why they're the villain of our time and how, because I think it would be counterintuitive for most people to think of universities as powerful.

• 50:18Speaker 01

  Really?

• 50:19Tom Bilyeu?

  Yeah.

• 50:19Speaker 01

  Wait, it's counterintuitive?

• 50:21Tom Bilyeu?

  Yes, until I heard you talk about it, I was like, oh, yeah, that really is true. But it didn't hit me immediately as like, oh, yeah, that is true.

• 50:31Speaker 01

  So the point of our universities is and has been to create the next generation of elites, right? And if you read James Burnham's superb book, The Machiavellians, where he looks at Pareto and Engels and Robert Michel and, not Engels, sorry, it's Pareto, Moscow, Sorrel and Michel, he talks about one of the things is the circulation of the elites. And Emma Goldman had this great essays about majorities, minorities, and the point she makes, and you touched on it earlier, is the majority cannot reason. The majority in any society is ballast, and I know people might roll their eyes at this, but again, George Carlin's line, think of the average person, half the people are dumber than that. How many people have an original thought ever in their life?

• 51:16Speaker 01

  Doesn't mean they're bad people, it's just they're just there for the ride, right? So the elites are kind of the ones that, we all need leaders, that's not even a question to some extent, depending on what context. So if you are the one who is, I'm using this word very advisedly, grooming the next generation of leaders, and you know, post-World War II and the GI Bill, you know, this was the great middle American dream. It's that, you know, my kid is the first one in our family to go to college, and you know, this status, this means something, like it's a very clear credential that shows that you are on the ascension, you know, economically and socially and all these other regards. So it's become, this is, I think, the biggest bifurcation in American society, or at least

• 52:01Speaker 01

  it was the last time I checked, literally the last time I checked. It's not gender, it's not race, it is, did you go to college or did you not go to college? Maybe that's decreased since the last time I checked. But if you, what happens is you have these, you know, healthy, beautiful, young high school kids going to school, and then they return at Thanksgiving dinner like a swamp walrus, unable to talk to mom and dad. And that is strictly and entirely the result of the universities, who have been, I mean, since the 30s, heavily, literally Marxist. And Marxism is synonymous with the complete annihilation of any society where it takes hold, as I discuss in my book, The White Pill.

• 52:40Tom Bilyeu?

  Why? What's the foundational problem that it introduces?

• 52:43Speaker 01

  The Marxism is violently, literally violently egalitarian. So if your most important goal is equality, well, you can't all be, well, you can all be equally rich if the term rich has no meaning. But it's much easier to build, uh, it's much easier to tear down all the skyscrapers than to build a hundred of them to the level of the Empire State Building. You could do the former in a day, just a hundred bombs, you're done. If you want to build a hundred Empire State Buildings, uh, good luck, right? So that, and also it teaches these kids correctly that you are the leaders of tomorrow. You get to meet fellow travelers and kind of have those social connections.

• 53:24Speaker 01

  And you know, it's very aristocratic, you're the ones who are going to be ruling in 10, 15, 20 years from now. And you're told it is your duty and kind of like, this is why you're in this earth. So there's no sense of humility, there's no sense of, well, maybe that guy who didn't go to college, he knows a lot of things I don't in his areas. Or maybe his feelings and his views should be respected or heard. It's, it's not a thing. It's they're there, we're here, they are there, and they're annoying when they don't know their place. Because I thought we all understood, I went to college, you didn't, so therefore I'm up here, you're down here, shut up. It's so, it's not just that they're given this sense of elitism, it's that they're fed this, you know, violently toxic ideology. So that combination is horrific.

• 54:07Speaker 01

  Um, it's why you see corporate journalists being so absolutely and shamelessly malevolent and dishonest, which is part and parcel of Marxism. Cause leftism, Tom, you and I are no spring chickens. And I say this and people kind of roll their eyes and scoff. When we were kids, there were a lot of bleeding heart leftists. These were older, like maybe former hippies who really were concerned about poor people. And they volunteered in soup kitchens and they're like, you know what? It's not right that this family, you know, doesn't have healthcare because mom got sick. And that's coming not from a bad place. And now that kind of, and people say, oh, that was never real. It was real, you and I knew people like this, it was absolutely real.

• 54:48Speaker 01

  You roll their eyes because like, you're so kind of like earnest, but that's not a thing. Now it's just very much kind of the revolution and, and control and domination. Um, and there's no reason that that former brand of leftism can't be resurrected. Long term.

• 55:06Tom Bilyeu?

  The earnest version of it.

• 55:09Speaker 01

  Okay. Worried about poor people.

• 55:10Tom Bilyeu?

  Right. So I'm gonna read into your thoughts and say that's where the hopefulness comes from. Because as I hear you describe the universities as the villains of our time, break down Marxism and exactly mechanistically why it ends up being a problem. I do admittedly get confused by how strongly you push the ah, the hopeful version of where we're headed. Um, because we've been doing the university thing to your point from the 30s. I'll clock it more from the 60s in terms of it feeling like the engine is really revving up.

• 55:45Speaker 01

  Sure.

• 55:46Tom Bilyeu?

  Um, and I think it was Lenin that said, like, give me one generation of kids and I'll change the future.

• 55:53Speaker 01

  That is, yeah, I'll, yes, that's quoted in my book, The White Pill. I think that's a scribe to Lenin. I don't know if he actually said it.

• 55:58Tom Bilyeu?

  Fair.

• 55:58Speaker 01

  Yeah.

• 55:59Tom Bilyeu?

  But the kind of thing that you could certainly see a guy like him believing, given his actions. Hitler, obviously ran the same playbook, Hitler Youth, like, give me the kids, I'll train them how to think. Uh, so given that we've trained so many generations of kids to think like that, and the, that Marxist tainted version of the left has now gained so much steam and popularity. How?

• 56:24Speaker 01

  I don't have popularity, steam.

• 56:26Tom Bilyeu?

  Okay. So.

• 56:28Speaker 01

  I don't think it's.

• 56:28Tom Bilyeu?

  Momentum, size.

• 56:29Speaker 01

  I don't think it's popular in gen pop at all. I think gen pop's just following suit.

• 56:36Tom Bilyeu?

  I'll throw out, my take on that would be that when you shift the Overton window, a thing that people just take as whatever, like it, it just is.

• 56:44Speaker 01

  Yeah, sure.

• 56:45Tom Bilyeu?

  There's no longer an allergic reaction to it, not to the extent that I would expect.

• 56:49Speaker 01

  I, I, I agree. So I think people, especially on right of center circles, underestimate how social left wing America is. So, um, if, the fact that the trans thing happened almost overnight.

• 57:03Tom Bilyeu?

  Yeah.

• 57:03Speaker 01

  And even now, it's hard to stop people from operating on children is something that is so, um, I think people need to have that data point and realize, and I think there is. This cope among right of center circles that, okay, this is just the crazies and Karen doesn't believe this. A lot more Karens believe it than you think. And a great example of how you know this is there are plenty of people, and let's suppose you believe in the whole entire COVID narrative. It's very clear that if you're a child, it is not a problem, right? It strikes the obese and the elderly, people have weakened immune system, so on and so forth. If you're a kid, it's not a thing, right? And they would still tell you, these kids have to get shots.

• 57:48Speaker 01

  Kid, I didn't like getting a needle in me as a kid. I'm sure you didn't either.

• 57:51Tom Bilyeu?

  No, I'm fine.

• 57:51Speaker 01

  Have to get a shot every six months in perpetuity. For why? There's even in their framework, there's no reason for this. So, and if you see how exciting awfuls are affluent white female liberals, that their boy-

• 58:04Tom Bilyeu?

  Awfuls? I've never heard that before.

• 58:06Speaker 01

  Yeah, affluent white female liberals, if their son, God forbid, touches that pink crayon, it's off to the races because now they've got a girl, right? So, I remember, do you remember-

• 58:16Tom Bilyeu?

  It's so horrifying.

• 58:17Speaker 01

  When we were kids, there was Toys R Us, right?

• 58:19Tom Bilyeu?

  Of course.

• 58:19Speaker 01

  And this is illegal now in California. I don't know if you know this. You cannot have the aisles in the toy stores segregated by gender.

• 58:26Tom Bilyeu?

  What?

• 58:27Speaker 01

  You didn't know that?

• 58:27Tom Bilyeu?

  No!

• 58:28Speaker 01

  It's illegal.

• 58:29Tom Bilyeu?

  What? That is the most moronic thing I've heard in a long time.

• 58:33Speaker 01

  It's not the most. It's up there. And I remember as a kid, this probably happened to you, that you're looking at the GoBots and you turn the corner and you're in pink Barbie land and you panic because if someone sees me in the pink Barbie land aisle, it's game over. I don't know what I thought was gonna happen, but I'm like, ah, you know, it's like being in North Korea. I shouldn't be here. So, the point is, there is a huge percentage of population that will eat this up like slop. It's not this tiny, they'll just go with where the wind goes.

• 59:00Tom Bilyeu?

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