WEBVTT - How To Stop America’s Leftward Drift 0:00:06.400 --> 0:00:11.160 From the historic campus of Hillsdale College in Hillsdale, Michigan, 0:00:11.160 --> 0:00:14.960 where the good, the true and the beautiful are taught, 0:00:15.000 --> 0:00:19.800 nurtured and honored. This is the radio free Hillsdale Hour, 0:00:19.840 --> 0:00:23.680 bringing the activity and education of the college to listeners 0:00:23.680 --> 0:00:25.160 across the country. 0:00:25.200 --> 0:00:26.960 Car pulls up on the other side of the pump. 0:00:27.000 --> 0:00:30.080 Woman gets out. For 20 ish year old son gets 0:00:30.080 --> 0:00:32.720 out and takes a few steps to go pre-pay. And 0:00:32.720 --> 0:00:35.279 she stood there with stress. She looked at him and said, 0:00:35.280 --> 0:00:39.640 let's do $20. That's why we need greater supply of 0:00:40.000 --> 0:00:43.000 natural resources to lower the cost for that woman. And 0:00:43.000 --> 0:00:44.800 that's what we want to tell. The story is at 0:00:44.800 --> 0:00:45.560 the gas pump. 0:00:45.960 --> 0:00:49.520 This is your host, Scott Bertram. Welcome to the Radio 0:00:49.520 --> 0:00:54.320 Free Hillsdale Hour. Part of the Hillsdale College Podcast Network. 0:00:54.520 --> 0:00:57.240 That was John Tillman. He's the author of the new book. 0:00:57.240 --> 0:01:01.020 The Political Vice of the Radical left controls America and 0:01:01.020 --> 0:01:03.940 the path to regaining our liberty. We go in depth 0:01:03.940 --> 0:01:07.539 with John on today's program. Also later on, Luke Foster 0:01:07.540 --> 0:01:10.820 from Hillsdale in DC tells us all about the spirit 0:01:11.100 --> 0:01:15.180 of a gentleman first. We're joined now by John Tillman, 0:01:15.180 --> 0:01:18.100 who's CEO of the American Culture Project, one of the 0:01:18.100 --> 0:01:21.580 nation's most prominent leaders in the free market public policy area. 0:01:21.900 --> 0:01:24.660 And he's got a new book, The Political Vice How 0:01:24.660 --> 0:01:27.900 the Radical Left Controls America and the Path to Regaining 0:01:28.380 --> 0:01:31.179 Our Liberty. It's right there. John, thanks so much for 0:01:31.180 --> 0:01:31.860 joining us. 0:01:32.300 --> 0:01:33.940 Great to be with you, Scott. Thanks for having me. 0:01:33.940 --> 0:01:34.980 Good to talk to you again. 0:01:35.420 --> 0:01:40.500 The book attempts to answer this question. Why do all politicians, 0:01:40.500 --> 0:01:45.580 whether they be Democrat, Republican, conservative, liberal, move to the 0:01:45.580 --> 0:01:49.980 left once in office and there is a device. It's real. 0:01:50.380 --> 0:01:54.500 There are diagrams that you've designed called the Political Device 0:01:54.500 --> 0:01:57.820 to help us describe this. Let's sketch this out, because 0:01:57.920 --> 0:01:59.840 it will help provide the basis for a lot of 0:01:59.840 --> 0:02:02.960 the conversation to come. What's the political vice as you 0:02:02.960 --> 0:02:03.920 describe it? 0:02:03.960 --> 0:02:07.040 Well, the political vice, the politicians, the political decision makers, 0:02:07.040 --> 0:02:09.480 mostly we think of elected officials, but it applies to 0:02:09.480 --> 0:02:12.800 anybody that has political power to make policy decisions. They're 0:02:12.800 --> 0:02:14.720 in the middle of the vice, in the traditional sense 0:02:14.720 --> 0:02:17.080 of it. And then on one side of the vice, 0:02:17.080 --> 0:02:19.080 it's a three sided vice. Think of it as the 0:02:19.080 --> 0:02:21.799 letter U. In the middle of that, you are the politicians. 0:02:21.800 --> 0:02:24.480 As I've said. On one side is the media, on 0:02:24.480 --> 0:02:27.080 the other side is the people or the public. And 0:02:27.120 --> 0:02:29.360 on the bottom side, which is the most important side 0:02:29.360 --> 0:02:34.320 are elite influencers. And all three sides apply pressure squeeze 0:02:34.360 --> 0:02:36.960 like a vise. Think of the trash compactor scene in 0:02:36.960 --> 0:02:39.800 the original Star Wars movie, where they're getting squeezed from 0:02:39.800 --> 0:02:41.760 all sides, and there's terrible trash in there. It's a 0:02:41.760 --> 0:02:45.360 very good metaphor for politics, which is a trashy business. 0:02:45.840 --> 0:02:50.560 So anyhow, the point is that well, well thought, thoughtful 0:02:50.680 --> 0:02:54.000 conservatives often get elected. And the question I began my 0:02:54.000 --> 0:02:56.560 journey with is why is it conservatives who claim to 0:02:56.690 --> 0:02:59.570 be conservative and some of them are. Get into office 0:02:59.570 --> 0:03:02.570 and move left and start voting for big government programs 0:03:02.570 --> 0:03:04.209 and all the rest of it. And why does nobody 0:03:04.210 --> 0:03:06.210 ever move to the right? So I started on this 0:03:06.210 --> 0:03:09.010 journey to study it. I've interviewed hundreds and hundreds of 0:03:09.010 --> 0:03:12.370 elected officials and people in politics, and what I learned 0:03:12.370 --> 0:03:17.330 was that the incentive structures in politics all move you 0:03:17.330 --> 0:03:19.770 to the left. And in terms of policy decision making, 0:03:19.770 --> 0:03:23.330 because the way you win votes, even for your pet projects, 0:03:23.330 --> 0:03:26.970 are by voting for bigger and better and more extravagant 0:03:26.970 --> 0:03:30.290 government that will solve all our problems. And the influencers, 0:03:30.290 --> 0:03:32.290 by the way, Scott, are important because they not only 0:03:32.290 --> 0:03:35.530 apply direct pressure to the political decision makers, they run 0:03:35.570 --> 0:03:39.410 operations that create influence in the media, as well as 0:03:39.410 --> 0:03:41.730 with the American public. As we're seeing with these indictments 0:03:41.730 --> 0:03:44.050 that just came out from the Department of Justice on 0:03:44.050 --> 0:03:45.610 the Southern Poverty Law Center. 0:03:45.810 --> 0:03:49.890 Yeah. And influencers, we should sort of, uh, define because 0:03:49.890 --> 0:03:54.410 it's not influencers necessarily in the new social media definition 0:03:54.410 --> 0:03:58.430 of the term employers means those who have influence on politics. 0:03:58.430 --> 0:04:01.070 And as we'll talk later, one of the biggest employers 0:04:01.110 --> 0:04:05.230 are like unions, public and private sector unions. So it's 0:04:05.230 --> 0:04:08.030 not just social media stars, it's those who have an 0:04:08.030 --> 0:04:11.190 influence on politics. And one of the reasons that's important 0:04:11.190 --> 0:04:14.350 is because the lesson that you learned, too, is that 0:04:14.350 --> 0:04:19.870 pressure works when the vice surprise applies pressure, most of 0:04:19.870 --> 0:04:25.990 the time it works in pushing someone an entity, an organization, 0:04:25.990 --> 0:04:30.110 an individual, a politician towards an intended goal. Why is 0:04:30.110 --> 0:04:36.070 pressure so important in moving someone toward a prescribed policy goal? 0:04:36.870 --> 0:04:40.070 Well, the three motivators of a political actor are a 0:04:40.070 --> 0:04:48.630 political principle political fear, and political expediency. So most politicians, 60, 65% 0:04:48.630 --> 0:04:51.349 of the votes that they take, positions that they take, 0:04:51.510 --> 0:04:54.290 they're just doing an expedient thing. Insane. I'll vote for 0:04:54.290 --> 0:04:57.170 your bridge if you vote for my gazebo in my 0:04:57.170 --> 0:04:59.250 home district, or whatever the case might be. My new 0:04:59.250 --> 0:05:03.050 highway deal making of one sort or another. And most 0:05:03.050 --> 0:05:05.810 of those votes go under the radar of the influencers, 0:05:05.810 --> 0:05:07.650 the public, and the media. There's just a lot of 0:05:07.690 --> 0:05:09.330 that work that is done out of sight and out 0:05:09.330 --> 0:05:11.570 of mind, and people sort of go along and get along. 0:05:11.850 --> 0:05:15.370 And then there's fear. Political fear means I really don't 0:05:15.370 --> 0:05:17.890 want to take this vote because my constituents will be 0:05:17.890 --> 0:05:20.610 unhappy with me. My donors will be unhappy with me. 0:05:20.850 --> 0:05:23.850 The media may be unhappy with me, my community influencers, 0:05:23.850 --> 0:05:26.490 my leaders may be unhappy with me. Or if I 0:05:26.490 --> 0:05:29.289 do take it, this other set may be happy with me. 0:05:29.290 --> 0:05:32.730 And so fear is a big driver of what makes 0:05:32.770 --> 0:05:36.250 an elected official tick. And then I mentioned political principle, 0:05:36.290 --> 0:05:38.210 of course, when I got involved in all of this 0:05:38.210 --> 0:05:41.370 over 20 years ago, I was a very naive former 0:05:41.370 --> 0:05:45.170 political science minor who thought that all politicians operated out 0:05:45.170 --> 0:05:49.930 of principle. Uh, sadly, it's only about 5% of the votes, 30% fear, 0:05:49.930 --> 0:05:54.029 and about 65% expediency. And so the reason this pressure 0:05:54.029 --> 0:05:57.150 works is because politics is a pressurized system. He who 0:05:57.150 --> 0:06:02.150 can apply pressure has power and politicians don't like pressure, 0:06:02.150 --> 0:06:06.030 so they take votes to try to minimize or avoid pressure. 0:06:06.070 --> 0:06:08.670 I write in the book about the case with former 0:06:08.670 --> 0:06:12.590 Senator Jeff Flake from Arizona, who actually ran a libertarian 0:06:12.630 --> 0:06:15.309 think tank at one point, and he just crumbled under 0:06:15.310 --> 0:06:17.430 the pressure during the Kavanaugh hearings that we could see 0:06:17.470 --> 0:06:19.430 right there in front of our eyes in an elevator 0:06:19.430 --> 0:06:23.830 bay where these paid activists, fake influencers, if you will, 0:06:24.029 --> 0:06:27.270 were shouting at him to take a procedural vote to 0:06:27.310 --> 0:06:30.150 delay the Kavanaugh hearings further. And he crumbled under that 0:06:30.150 --> 0:06:33.150 and eventually left the Senate because he couldn't take the pressure. 0:06:33.710 --> 0:06:36.190 John Tillman with us. His book, The Political Vise How 0:06:36.190 --> 0:06:39.109 the Radical Left Controls America and the Path to Regaining 0:06:39.110 --> 0:06:43.190 Our Liberty. So why why is the left so much 0:06:43.190 --> 0:06:47.070 better than the right in operating? The political vise? 0:06:48.029 --> 0:06:50.510 A bunch of reasons, but the biggest one is the 0:06:50.570 --> 0:06:55.890 left loves government power. They actually believe in expanding the 0:06:55.930 --> 0:06:59.929 purview of government to to regulate and tax every aspect 0:06:59.930 --> 0:07:03.010 of our lives. They believe they have the moral and 0:07:03.010 --> 0:07:06.570 intellectual high ground on how society should be organized. And 0:07:06.570 --> 0:07:09.489 they think that the American people are just dumb rubes 0:07:09.490 --> 0:07:12.330 who vote the wrong way all too often, and make 0:07:12.330 --> 0:07:14.810 bad choices for what's good for America and good for 0:07:14.810 --> 0:07:18.850 our various communities, and good particularly for subsets within group 0:07:18.850 --> 0:07:22.690 identity politics. And so they really think that government power 0:07:22.690 --> 0:07:26.170 is the only way to overcome rapacious capitalism or free 0:07:26.170 --> 0:07:29.650 enterprise system. That, in their view, is, is a flawed 0:07:29.890 --> 0:07:33.210 entrepreneurs become super successful and take advantage of the system 0:07:33.210 --> 0:07:35.090 and don't pay their fair share. They believe in all 0:07:35.090 --> 0:07:37.170 of that, and they believe only the government can come 0:07:37.170 --> 0:07:39.890 in and put its foot on the scale to right 0:07:39.890 --> 0:07:45.410 those wrongs and create fairness and quote unquote, equity for 0:07:45.410 --> 0:07:49.540 their agreed coalition within their voting bloc. So they love 0:07:49.580 --> 0:07:51.820 government power. So what happens is, even though you have 0:07:51.820 --> 0:07:54.620 somewhat of a diverse coalition of the left, the one 0:07:54.620 --> 0:07:56.660 thing that unifies them is for all of them to 0:07:56.660 --> 0:07:59.500 be successful, they have to work together because they all 0:07:59.540 --> 0:08:02.700 require government power. And going back to the influencers, you 0:08:02.700 --> 0:08:08.780 mentioned government unions, private sector unions, the trial bar, nonprofits 0:08:08.780 --> 0:08:10.500 that get most of their money from government that we've 0:08:10.500 --> 0:08:12.340 learned through Doge and much of what's been going on 0:08:12.340 --> 0:08:15.380 during the second Trump administration. They all have one thing 0:08:15.380 --> 0:08:17.820 in common as well, which is that their business models, 0:08:17.820 --> 0:08:22.300 their revenue models, require government tax and regulatory efforts and 0:08:22.300 --> 0:08:25.700 policies in order for them to have a business model 0:08:25.700 --> 0:08:29.500 that works and creates revenue. A union, whether private or public, 0:08:29.500 --> 0:08:33.340 relies on government regulations, and the government unions directly extract 0:08:33.340 --> 0:08:36.860 money from taxpayers to pay union dues and to pay 0:08:36.860 --> 0:08:40.580 union members. Trial bar relies on government regulations to allow 0:08:40.580 --> 0:08:43.380 them to sue people in the private sector. And then 0:08:43.380 --> 0:08:45.700 going back to the other side, in the private sector, 0:08:45.940 --> 0:08:48.120 most of the people just kind of want to be 0:08:48.120 --> 0:08:50.280 left alone who are conservative. They want the government to 0:08:50.280 --> 0:08:53.200 protect our rights as enshrined in the Constitution and the 0:08:53.200 --> 0:08:55.280 Bill of rights. Other than that, they want a light 0:08:55.320 --> 0:08:57.559 hand and just let's go live our lives. And so 0:08:57.559 --> 0:08:59.760 we don't really like power as much. We want to 0:08:59.800 --> 0:09:02.960 actually devolve power. And so you don't attract the power 0:09:03.000 --> 0:09:05.480 hungry people into politics on the right as much as 0:09:05.480 --> 0:09:07.400 you do on the left. And when we do, sometimes 0:09:07.400 --> 0:09:09.800 they're big government Republicans, which is also not good. 0:09:10.040 --> 0:09:13.760 John. Sometimes it does work for those on the right. 0:09:13.760 --> 0:09:16.120 And one of those examples is prominent in the book 0:09:16.160 --> 0:09:19.080 and one that you were involved in the Supreme Court case, 0:09:19.080 --> 0:09:23.480 Janus versus AFSCME, which was which was a victory for 0:09:23.480 --> 0:09:26.480 for freedom. And this is an example of the right 0:09:26.480 --> 0:09:30.480 using the vice, uh, squeezing people toward a desired outcome 0:09:30.480 --> 0:09:34.880 and defeating even the powerful public sector unions in this case. 0:09:34.880 --> 0:09:36.319 How did that all come together? 0:09:37.160 --> 0:09:40.199 It was one of the greatest experiences of my life. 0:09:40.200 --> 0:09:43.520 I founded the Liberty Justice Center in 2011. And then 0:09:43.520 --> 0:09:45.240 you might recall that there was going to be a 0:09:45.240 --> 0:09:47.980 case called Friedrichs That was going to bring this issue 0:09:47.980 --> 0:09:52.180 of forced union fees in government workers to a head. 0:09:52.179 --> 0:09:55.380 But then then Supreme Court Justice Scalia died in the 0:09:55.380 --> 0:09:58.860 Friedrichs case was deadlocked at 4 to 4. We happen 0:09:58.860 --> 0:10:01.339 to have the next case in the docket right behind it. 0:10:01.340 --> 0:10:05.060 Ours would have become would have become, become irrelevant if 0:10:05.059 --> 0:10:07.260 the Friedrichs case had gone forward in Scalia had lived 0:10:07.260 --> 0:10:10.219 and assumed that he voted with what was later a majority. 0:10:10.620 --> 0:10:15.260 So the basic point there was that a 1977 case 0:10:15.260 --> 0:10:19.340 called Abood, uh, split the baby. When it came to 0:10:19.380 --> 0:10:24.459 union dues, the court said that, uh, mandating dues from 0:10:24.460 --> 0:10:27.860 a union worker who's opted out of the union for 0:10:27.860 --> 0:10:31.819 collective bargaining was reasonable. And you can do that, but, um, 0:10:31.980 --> 0:10:35.260 union fees are if you opted out, you couldn't do 0:10:35.260 --> 0:10:38.100 the collective bargaining, but then you still had to pay agency, 0:10:38.140 --> 0:10:41.420 what we called agency fees. And basically our case, Janice 0:10:41.460 --> 0:10:44.380 versus we said that everything the union does is political 0:10:44.380 --> 0:10:48.240 by its nature. Therefore, no money should come out of 0:10:48.280 --> 0:10:51.720 somebody who has opted out of out of the union's membership. 0:10:51.720 --> 0:10:55.640 And that's what the ruling was. Justice Alito wrote the ruling. 0:10:55.679 --> 0:10:59.720 A great jurist when it came to worker freedom. And 0:10:59.720 --> 0:11:04.079 it came about because a court's respond to politics, too. 0:11:04.400 --> 0:11:08.439 And there was a really, uh, anybody who's a political 0:11:08.440 --> 0:11:11.160 watcher knows that courts respond. Politics just go back to 0:11:11.200 --> 0:11:14.040 Justice Roberts and the Obama care case. And you know 0:11:14.040 --> 0:11:18.240 how that works, right? But nevertheless, in this case, we 0:11:18.240 --> 0:11:21.559 really had a coalition of people on the right. And 0:11:21.559 --> 0:11:23.960 I think the best illustration of why we won that 0:11:23.960 --> 0:11:27.240 fight is because during the protest, when the case was 0:11:27.240 --> 0:11:30.920 heard in February of 2018, I was one of the 0:11:30.920 --> 0:11:33.200 leaders of the protest in front of the Capitol, and 0:11:33.240 --> 0:11:35.160 we were having a good old time with our signs 0:11:35.160 --> 0:11:37.720 and right next door, where the government unions and they 0:11:37.720 --> 0:11:40.920 were protesting, too. And the irony was we we all 0:11:41.200 --> 0:11:45.380 had the same size signs, rather workers rights were for 0:11:45.380 --> 0:11:48.699 the worker. Empower the worker. And eventually, as I write 0:11:48.700 --> 0:11:50.740 in the book, these women came over to try to 0:11:50.740 --> 0:11:53.220 infiltrate our protest and disrupt us. And I got to 0:11:53.220 --> 0:11:54.820 talking to him and I said, so what are you 0:11:54.820 --> 0:11:57.059 protesting for? And she said, workers rights. And I said, 0:11:57.059 --> 0:12:00.140 that's what we're protesting for. I said, let me ask you, 0:12:00.340 --> 0:12:02.460 you know, who do you think should control your relationship 0:12:02.460 --> 0:12:05.380 with your union, you or the union boss? And she 0:12:05.420 --> 0:12:07.260 kind of gave me that look like, oh, no, this 0:12:07.260 --> 0:12:09.500 is a trick question. But she goes, I think I should. 0:12:09.540 --> 0:12:12.020 I said, you should be over here with us. And 0:12:12.059 --> 0:12:14.260 she kind of walked away with her friend sheepishly. And 0:12:14.260 --> 0:12:16.340 I realized that that was the point, right? Who should 0:12:16.340 --> 0:12:18.820 control your destiny? We believe in the workers, and that's 0:12:18.820 --> 0:12:20.420 what that case was about. So we had a great 0:12:20.420 --> 0:12:23.780 coalition of people from the State Policy Network, the D.C. 0:12:23.820 --> 0:12:26.700 think tanks all around the country, the state think tanks, 0:12:27.140 --> 0:12:30.620 all publicizing this case for many, many months and frankly, 0:12:30.620 --> 0:12:33.060 years in advance of it. And that really helped, I think, 0:12:33.059 --> 0:12:34.860 give the justices the courage they needed. 0:12:34.900 --> 0:12:37.620 My old friend John Tillman will continue with us in 0:12:37.620 --> 0:12:40.939 just a moment. His new book is The Political Vice. First, 0:12:40.940 --> 0:12:43.880 take a moment now to make your plans for May 31st, 0:12:43.920 --> 0:12:48.280 June 1st or June 2nd, or maybe all three dates. 0:12:48.440 --> 0:12:53.040 That's when Hillsdale College's big screen debut is in theaters. 0:12:53.040 --> 0:12:58.280 It's Revolutionary America, the first documentary about the revolution you 0:12:58.280 --> 0:13:05.200 can trust from Hillsdale College, America's 250th anniversary is approaching, 0:13:05.400 --> 0:13:07.640 and you can find out more about what happened all 0:13:07.640 --> 0:13:16.040 those years ago with Revolutionary America. hillsdale.edu/film. FIL. Don't let 0:13:16.040 --> 0:13:19.440 the anniversary pass without seeing the film. That shows what 0:13:19.480 --> 0:13:24.640 our founding fathers risked their lives, their fortunes, and their 0:13:24.640 --> 0:13:29.560 sacred honors. Tickets available now for a limited run. Find 0:13:29.559 --> 0:13:38.400 a theater near you and find your tickets@hillsdale.edu. For Revolutionary America. 0:13:39.770 --> 0:13:45.490 Edu slash film. We continue with John Tillman, CEO of 0:13:45.490 --> 0:13:49.810 the American Culture Project. Find him on X John M Tillman. 0:13:50.090 --> 0:13:53.730 His book The Political Vice How the Radical Left Controls 0:13:53.730 --> 0:13:58.010 America and the Path to Regaining Our Liberty. John. Discussion 0:13:58.010 --> 0:14:00.650 about those different sides of the vice. One of them 0:14:00.650 --> 0:14:04.809 is the media. And there's portions of the right that 0:14:04.809 --> 0:14:08.850 would say, why ever go on CNN? Why ever talk 0:14:08.850 --> 0:14:12.930 to NBC? Why try to have an op ed placed 0:14:12.929 --> 0:14:15.490 in the New York Times? They're biased. They don't care 0:14:15.490 --> 0:14:18.130 about our voters. They're going to twist your message. There's 0:14:18.130 --> 0:14:21.330 an argument in the political vice that says, well, there's 0:14:21.370 --> 0:14:24.410 value to that for a couple of reasons. Why should 0:14:24.410 --> 0:14:29.290 the right conservatives still consider legacy media opportunities? 0:14:29.650 --> 0:14:32.130 It's a great question. And the point I make in 0:14:32.130 --> 0:14:34.170 the book is that the reason you want to go 0:14:34.170 --> 0:14:38.410 on the legacy players is there are persuadable, soft Democrats 0:14:38.610 --> 0:14:41.350 who are open to moving to our side, and that 0:14:41.350 --> 0:14:43.470 is the place where you can reach them. And if 0:14:43.510 --> 0:14:46.950 you come across as a reasonable communicator, you make a 0:14:46.950 --> 0:14:50.350 moral high ground argument about why our ideas are better 0:14:50.350 --> 0:14:53.550 for all people, and especially the poor and disadvantaged. You 0:14:53.550 --> 0:14:56.430 can move some of those people over. I would be cautious, 0:14:56.710 --> 0:14:59.630 for example, with a long form interview with the New 0:14:59.670 --> 0:15:02.550 York Times reporter who's going to do a print interview 0:15:02.550 --> 0:15:05.310 because they will twist your words. I prefer, in those 0:15:05.310 --> 0:15:08.430 cases to use email and or keep my own recording 0:15:08.470 --> 0:15:11.870 of it, but live or even taped events. I highly 0:15:11.870 --> 0:15:14.670 recommend people engage because you can win people over. And 0:15:14.670 --> 0:15:16.710 the other reason is that even if you don't get 0:15:16.710 --> 0:15:19.750 the greatest message out, you can edit yourself, edit it yourself, 0:15:19.790 --> 0:15:21.790 put it in the framework that you want, and then 0:15:21.790 --> 0:15:26.190 redistribute your version of that interview that's favorable to your argument, 0:15:26.190 --> 0:15:29.310 to the target audiences using digital tools. And you can 0:15:29.310 --> 0:15:31.750 target the very people I just described. You can just 0:15:31.750 --> 0:15:34.630 target soft lefties who are open minded on issues and 0:15:34.630 --> 0:15:37.310 would hear that message on CNN because they're hearing it 0:15:37.310 --> 0:15:40.210 on CNN. They see you on CNN. They'll give you 0:15:40.210 --> 0:15:42.450 a listen. Or as you did, the same exact verbiage 0:15:42.610 --> 0:15:46.170 on Fox News, that soft lefty Democrat won't give you 0:15:46.170 --> 0:15:48.090 a listen. And that's why you should take advantage of 0:15:48.090 --> 0:15:49.250 all types of media. 0:15:49.410 --> 0:15:52.650 Also inside that chapter is a portion on on cancel 0:15:52.650 --> 0:15:55.250 culture and how to resist cancel culture. And I found 0:15:55.250 --> 0:15:59.770 this very interesting, this advice that to, to, to, to 0:15:59.810 --> 0:16:02.690 beat back and to defeat cancel culture, you need the 0:16:02.690 --> 0:16:06.570 ability to deploy your own media. You call it a 0:16:06.570 --> 0:16:12.050 marketing machine, you help to build this inside Illinois Policy Institute, 0:16:12.050 --> 0:16:14.130 which is one of the reasons why the Janice fight 0:16:14.130 --> 0:16:17.250 was so successful. So for I don't know if it's 0:16:17.250 --> 0:16:20.530 possible for individuals, but for organizations or for those who 0:16:20.530 --> 0:16:22.810 might be in the crosshairs of cancel culture, what does 0:16:22.810 --> 0:16:25.250 it mean? And how can you deploy your own media 0:16:25.250 --> 0:16:27.690 to fight back against those allegations? 0:16:28.010 --> 0:16:31.410 Uh, we deployed what we call the continued use across 0:16:31.410 --> 0:16:33.650 all the organizations. I'm involved with what we call an 0:16:33.650 --> 0:16:37.070 owned audience strategy. So the strategy is twofold. One is 0:16:37.070 --> 0:16:39.910 you have content that you create, that you want to disseminate, 0:16:39.910 --> 0:16:43.350 and that content should be customized for the different audiences 0:16:43.350 --> 0:16:46.710 that you're after. So if you're after parents and suburban schools, 0:16:46.710 --> 0:16:50.070 that's one audience. If you're after African American men living 0:16:50.070 --> 0:16:52.510 in urban America who are fed up with the crazy 0:16:52.510 --> 0:16:54.550 progressive agenda, and they might be open to voting the 0:16:54.550 --> 0:16:57.030 other way, that's a different audience and so forth. So 0:16:57.030 --> 0:16:58.590 you first start with your message, but then there's a 0:16:58.590 --> 0:17:02.070 distribution strategy. And the distribution strategy, as we just talked 0:17:02.070 --> 0:17:05.030 about a moment ago, is taking advantage of third party 0:17:05.070 --> 0:17:07.949 channels such as legacy media. The other way to do 0:17:07.950 --> 0:17:11.030 it is to try to build a channels of communication 0:17:11.030 --> 0:17:14.270 that you largely control. And with an owned audience strategy, 0:17:14.270 --> 0:17:16.350 what you do is you use third party channels such 0:17:16.350 --> 0:17:20.870 as Facebook, Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, etc. and you put content 0:17:20.869 --> 0:17:23.990 out there that is compelling. And all of your listeners 0:17:23.990 --> 0:17:26.590 have certainly seen this, where they see something on one 0:17:26.590 --> 0:17:28.630 of the social media platforms, and there's a little button 0:17:28.630 --> 0:17:31.150 there that says, learn More. Well, we do the same 0:17:31.150 --> 0:17:34.430 thing in our issue, uh, ads on those platforms when 0:17:34.430 --> 0:17:37.490 you click Learn More, you're given the opportunity to provide 0:17:37.490 --> 0:17:39.929 your first name, last name, zip code, and email address. 0:17:40.090 --> 0:17:42.810 From that point on, that person has opted in to 0:17:42.810 --> 0:17:45.290 our content stream that we can now directly go to 0:17:45.330 --> 0:17:48.090 them with through email, and then we often get their 0:17:48.090 --> 0:17:50.810 cell phone number and can directly go to them with 0:17:50.810 --> 0:17:53.410 text messaging. And the key, of course, is to not 0:17:53.410 --> 0:17:57.050 abuse that privilege, but always to have interesting, compelling content 0:17:57.250 --> 0:17:59.970 that is given at a proper pace and proper cadence. 0:17:59.970 --> 0:18:03.850 That is where they're receptive to it. And then over time, 0:18:04.290 --> 0:18:07.930 with a really thoughtful strategy of messaging, you can develop 0:18:07.930 --> 0:18:11.410 a relationship with all those folks, educate them on various 0:18:11.410 --> 0:18:14.970 issues long before an election happens, and then when election 0:18:14.970 --> 0:18:17.810 time comes along, turn them out. So this is something 0:18:17.810 --> 0:18:20.090 that anybody can do at any scale. If you're a 0:18:20.090 --> 0:18:23.250 city council member, if you have just a very modest budget, 0:18:23.250 --> 0:18:25.290 it's not as expensive as you think to do this. 0:18:25.330 --> 0:18:27.730 If you're doing it in a statewide or national effort, 0:18:27.730 --> 0:18:29.010 you're going to have to spend a lot more money 0:18:29.010 --> 0:18:31.970 and have a material budget. But what I highly recommend 0:18:32.010 --> 0:18:35.780 is starting somewhere with a social media strategy. Thinking through 0:18:35.820 --> 0:18:39.260 your brand identity, whether you're an individual activist or whether 0:18:39.260 --> 0:18:41.220 you're running a small or mid-sized or even a large 0:18:41.220 --> 0:18:42.220 size nonprofit. 0:18:42.740 --> 0:18:45.900 John Tillman is with us, whose book, The Political Vice. 0:18:46.260 --> 0:18:49.659 How do we turn that vise toward liberty? Perhaps we 0:18:49.660 --> 0:18:52.580 look at another example of school choice and the fight 0:18:52.580 --> 0:18:56.220 for school choice in areas all across the country. It's 0:18:56.220 --> 0:18:59.100 one of the issues on which I think the right 0:18:59.100 --> 0:19:02.580 has been most successful over the past decade or so. 0:19:02.820 --> 0:19:06.780 What lessons can we learn from the successful campaigns for 0:19:06.780 --> 0:19:09.300 school choice and school options across the country that can 0:19:09.300 --> 0:19:12.580 be applied toward other issues of freedom and liberty? 0:19:12.980 --> 0:19:15.379 It's a great question. So briefly, there are three types 0:19:15.380 --> 0:19:17.820 of vices the political vice. There's the traditional one in 0:19:17.820 --> 0:19:20.060 which I described earlier. There's the one we're in the 0:19:20.060 --> 0:19:22.660 middle of, where the political left is trying to restructure 0:19:22.660 --> 0:19:24.820 the vice and put the American people in the middle 0:19:24.820 --> 0:19:28.380 of the vice, and then partnering with liberal media, liberal 0:19:28.380 --> 0:19:32.720 politicians and elite influencers of the left, force us to comply. 0:19:32.880 --> 0:19:36.399 They are really into coercion and submission. And the trial 0:19:36.400 --> 0:19:39.239 run of that, of course, was the pandemic. And they 0:19:39.280 --> 0:19:41.600 watched and saw how many people were much more worried 0:19:41.600 --> 0:19:44.600 about their security and were willing to submit to those 0:19:44.600 --> 0:19:48.440 pressures and start to comply with the government mandated behavior 0:19:48.840 --> 0:19:52.600 instead of those who really want to preserve their freedom. 0:19:52.600 --> 0:19:55.480 So we got a real experiment there. To answer your question, 0:19:55.480 --> 0:19:58.639 we have to create a liberty focused political advice. And 0:19:58.640 --> 0:20:00.880 what we have to do there is move the American 0:20:00.880 --> 0:20:03.080 people to the bottom of the vice, which is the 0:20:03.080 --> 0:20:06.119 leveraged position. Put the politicians back in the middle. And 0:20:06.119 --> 0:20:10.440 then through our work and how we follow people in 0:20:10.480 --> 0:20:15.440 media and which elite influencers we choose to follow, restructure 0:20:15.440 --> 0:20:17.280 the other two sides of the vice. There's a lot 0:20:17.280 --> 0:20:19.920 of really good work and great investing going on right now. 0:20:19.920 --> 0:20:23.800 On the media side, there's a great burgeoning media infrastructure 0:20:23.800 --> 0:20:26.080 that's been going on now for well over ten years 0:20:26.080 --> 0:20:29.160 that needs to continue and expand into popular entertainment, in 0:20:29.160 --> 0:20:31.580 my view. And then on the other side, we're watching 0:20:31.580 --> 0:20:34.980 right before our eyes, different elites being chosen. The election 0:20:34.980 --> 0:20:37.220 of President Trump is the choice of an elite, and 0:20:37.220 --> 0:20:39.260 all that he has done to put different people into 0:20:39.260 --> 0:20:42.980 the cabinet positions in the various agencies, the governors that 0:20:42.980 --> 0:20:47.179 were endorsed and supported when they started to reject the lockdowns. 0:20:47.180 --> 0:20:52.180 Governor DeSantis in Florida, um, all the governors that, you know, 0:20:52.180 --> 0:20:55.020 around the country, Governor Kemp in Georgia and elsewhere, who 0:20:55.020 --> 0:20:58.580 did right by the people and stopped the lockdowns. So 0:20:58.619 --> 0:21:00.540 we get to choose who the elites are by who 0:21:00.540 --> 0:21:02.980 we choose to follow. And we get to choose who 0:21:03.020 --> 0:21:06.140 the media, which media has power by, who we choose 0:21:06.140 --> 0:21:08.780 to pay and subscribe to. That's how we begin to 0:21:08.820 --> 0:21:12.020 put the liberty focus back into the political device and 0:21:12.020 --> 0:21:15.060 put the politicians under the pressure of the people once again, 0:21:15.460 --> 0:21:16.459 the way it should be. 0:21:16.740 --> 0:21:20.260 One additional hurdle that you identify inside the political device 0:21:20.260 --> 0:21:23.740 for the right is that we fracture often, more often 0:21:23.740 --> 0:21:27.580 than we unify. It seemed like the Trump 24 campaign 0:21:27.580 --> 0:21:30.560 was one instance in which that didn't happen. And that's 0:21:30.560 --> 0:21:32.919 how we ended up with people like RFK and Tulsi 0:21:32.960 --> 0:21:37.080 Gabbard and Lori Chavez Dreamer in the cabinet, because those 0:21:37.119 --> 0:21:41.000 those different portions of the voter base all came toward 0:21:41.000 --> 0:21:44.480 Donald Trump in 2024. So is that a singular event 0:21:44.520 --> 0:21:47.160 due to a singular candidate, or is there a lesson 0:21:47.160 --> 0:21:48.560 learned on the right? 0:21:48.600 --> 0:21:50.600 No, I think this is a this is a really 0:21:50.600 --> 0:21:53.480 important discussion point because I think we're in the middle, 0:21:53.720 --> 0:21:55.760 maybe not the middle. I forget exactly where I would 0:21:56.000 --> 0:21:57.960 or I haven't thought too much lately about where I'd 0:21:57.960 --> 0:22:00.080 say we are in this process that I'm about to describe, 0:22:00.080 --> 0:22:02.960 but I've been talking really since the advent of the 0:22:02.960 --> 0:22:05.600 Tea Party back in 2009, and I'll call the Tea 0:22:05.600 --> 0:22:09.800 Party area two era, 2009 to 2014. That that was 0:22:09.800 --> 0:22:12.720 the beginning, that the public became aware of a complete 0:22:12.720 --> 0:22:17.960 political restructuring. And the Trump candidacy that was publicly launched 0:22:17.960 --> 0:22:21.719 in 2015 picked up the reins of the now falling 0:22:21.720 --> 0:22:24.720 behind or, you know, sort of going dormant Tea Party movement, 0:22:24.720 --> 0:22:28.060 but took the energy that was still there, uh, had 0:22:28.140 --> 0:22:30.380 had gone dormant, dormant because of a lack of leadership. 0:22:30.380 --> 0:22:32.900 And he rebuilt it into what we now call Maga. 0:22:33.060 --> 0:22:37.100 And this movement is not about partisan politics. This movement, 0:22:37.100 --> 0:22:40.140 and the reason you got this coalition that you just described, 0:22:40.140 --> 0:22:44.460 which is across partisan divides, is because it's really a 0:22:44.460 --> 0:22:49.220 rejection of the duopoly in politics between Republicans and Democrats, 0:22:49.260 --> 0:22:51.660 of sort of a settled wisdom about how things should 0:22:51.660 --> 0:22:54.620 be run in America with this bipartisan consensus on big 0:22:54.619 --> 0:23:00.860 government ever expanding spending deficits and the insiders, the privileged, 0:23:00.900 --> 0:23:06.340 the the connected, always getting the the favoritism and average people, 0:23:06.380 --> 0:23:08.620 middle class people and even affluent people. And of course, 0:23:08.619 --> 0:23:11.780 the poor and disadvantaged always being left on the outside in. 0:23:11.820 --> 0:23:15.660 There's been great discontent for decades with the establishment of 0:23:15.660 --> 0:23:18.220 both parties. That's what the Tea Party was about. That's 0:23:18.220 --> 0:23:20.659 why Donald Trump got a lot of Bernie Sanders votes 0:23:20.660 --> 0:23:24.780 in 2016, because the Occupy Wall Street movement, which was 0:23:24.780 --> 0:23:27.550 part of the left during the Tea Party movement, there 0:23:27.550 --> 0:23:30.470 was a Venn diagram overlap with the grievances, such as 0:23:30.470 --> 0:23:34.230 corporate bailouts and corporate welfare by government. So the reason 0:23:34.590 --> 0:23:37.469 I think that this is going to continue is because 0:23:37.470 --> 0:23:40.630 those structural problems are going to continue. And people who 0:23:40.630 --> 0:23:44.030 think Maga is going to die when Donald Trump's presidency ends, 0:23:44.030 --> 0:23:46.470 I think, are sadly mistaken. There is a great awakening 0:23:46.510 --> 0:23:49.909 among the American people that is rejecting the bipartisan consensus 0:23:49.910 --> 0:23:51.630 since the end of World War Two era. 0:23:52.350 --> 0:23:55.470 John Tillman, one of my favorite portions of the political 0:23:55.470 --> 0:24:00.430 advice is when you begin talking about group identity politics. Wokeism. 0:24:00.430 --> 0:24:03.190 But this idea that you lay out the progressive left 0:24:03.190 --> 0:24:07.389 that insists that government institutions are responsible for providing their 0:24:07.390 --> 0:24:10.830 sense of purpose and fulfillment, and later that they are 0:24:10.830 --> 0:24:16.429 seducing the American people into a mindset of learned helplessness, dependency, grievance, 0:24:16.670 --> 0:24:21.710 and fear. Uh, these are, uh, these it is seductive, uh, 0:24:21.710 --> 0:24:25.330 when you hear those messages to believe them and believe 0:24:25.330 --> 0:24:27.090 the deck is stacked against you and there's nothing you 0:24:27.090 --> 0:24:29.970 can do to overcome. You need someone, something the government 0:24:29.970 --> 0:24:31.969 in this instance to come in and lend you a 0:24:31.970 --> 0:24:35.010 hand and help you out and punish someone else to 0:24:35.050 --> 0:24:39.090 help you rise. All right. What do we have in 0:24:39.090 --> 0:24:42.530 our in our weapons? What? What weapons do we have 0:24:42.650 --> 0:24:45.170 to fight against that kind of message? 0:24:45.369 --> 0:24:49.129 Yeah. You're talking about the fact that every human being, uh, 0:24:49.250 --> 0:24:52.570 experiences calamity in their lives. We all experience disappointments. We 0:24:52.570 --> 0:24:54.850 didn't get the job. We thought we should get the promotion. 0:24:54.850 --> 0:24:57.449 The girl married my neighbor instead of me. Whatever the 0:24:57.450 --> 0:25:00.290 case might be, we all we all suffer. And as 0:25:00.290 --> 0:25:04.609 a result of that, the American tradition has long been that. Geez, 0:25:04.609 --> 0:25:06.330 I'm so sorry that happened to you. And a little 0:25:06.330 --> 0:25:08.889 pat on the butt from your your parent or your 0:25:08.930 --> 0:25:11.490 your coach and get back out there, pick yourself up 0:25:11.490 --> 0:25:13.450 and go at it again. And we had to lift 0:25:13.450 --> 0:25:16.890 ourselves up and overcome that. The left's message is different. Now. 0:25:16.930 --> 0:25:18.570 Not only do you not get a pat on the butt, 0:25:18.570 --> 0:25:20.890 you actually get a pad that's patronizing on the head 0:25:20.890 --> 0:25:23.150 and saying, yes, it's so terrible. These awful things have 0:25:23.150 --> 0:25:24.869 happened to you, and you need to you need to 0:25:24.910 --> 0:25:27.830 marinate in your grievance. You need to marinate in your 0:25:27.830 --> 0:25:30.470 resentment of these terrible things and these specific people that 0:25:30.470 --> 0:25:33.910 cause this problem. And as a result of that, you 0:25:33.910 --> 0:25:36.629 need to come and join us in our political coalition 0:25:36.630 --> 0:25:40.470 because we are dedicated to alleviating and mitigating your grievances 0:25:40.510 --> 0:25:43.150 against the man. And the man is often a white, 0:25:43.150 --> 0:25:45.830 middle aged dude like me. I won't put you in 0:25:45.869 --> 0:25:49.710 that category. Uh, but, um, you're too young. But the, um, 0:25:50.109 --> 0:25:53.030 but the point is that they, they sell the idea 0:25:53.430 --> 0:25:56.510 that is very seductive, that every calamity that befalls you 0:25:56.510 --> 0:25:59.109 is not your fault. You're a victim. And as a 0:25:59.109 --> 0:26:00.910 result of that, you need to join with us. And 0:26:00.910 --> 0:26:02.950 you can be on the righteous side of history when 0:26:02.950 --> 0:26:05.670 we all come together to solve these problems and fix 0:26:05.670 --> 0:26:08.670 these problems for those that have been aggrieved by unjust society, 0:26:08.670 --> 0:26:11.510 and particularly a free enterprise system that is broken and 0:26:11.510 --> 0:26:15.310 doesn't work, founding principles that were never noble and don't work, 0:26:15.310 --> 0:26:17.710 and they particularly don't work for people of color. They 0:26:17.710 --> 0:26:20.350 particularly don't work for anybody that's different and unique. And 0:26:20.350 --> 0:26:23.690 that's why the Grievance coalition of identity politics is an 0:26:23.690 --> 0:26:27.730 ever expanding group? The only people left standing are basically 0:26:27.730 --> 0:26:30.090 white men who are not allowed in to the grievance 0:26:30.090 --> 0:26:33.770 coalition because they're the oppressors. I write in the book, Scott, 0:26:33.770 --> 0:26:36.490 as you probably remember, that one of the reasons young 0:26:36.490 --> 0:26:39.530 men are turning to faith more than ever is because 0:26:39.570 --> 0:26:42.770 I really believe it's because everywhere else they turn, they 0:26:42.810 --> 0:26:47.090 are seen as the villain, and they're looking for support 0:26:47.090 --> 0:26:49.570 and hope and redemption in a wonderful place, and I 0:26:49.570 --> 0:26:52.490 think that's actually a good thing. Our antidote to this, 0:26:52.490 --> 0:26:55.050 by the way, is what I just described about grievances. 0:26:55.050 --> 0:26:57.770 One side of the human condition that we all face, 0:26:57.770 --> 0:27:00.370 that the other side of the human condition, what we 0:27:00.369 --> 0:27:05.689 must gravitate to and sell is that human beings, by 0:27:05.690 --> 0:27:10.570 their nature, are builders. We, by our nature, our collaborators, 0:27:10.970 --> 0:27:13.290 we like to think of how we can make tomorrow 0:27:13.290 --> 0:27:17.010 better than today for ourselves, our families, our communities, our friends. 0:27:17.210 --> 0:27:20.869 And so we like to build. We are creative beasts. 0:27:20.910 --> 0:27:24.590 We're a gathering species. And when you look at the 0:27:24.590 --> 0:27:28.149 places in this world where that part of the human 0:27:28.150 --> 0:27:32.070 spirit is most unleashed, the greatest achievements have been created. 0:27:32.070 --> 0:27:34.830 And that, of course, is America and the American miracle. 0:27:34.830 --> 0:27:36.469 And that's what we have to focus on as the 0:27:36.510 --> 0:27:38.190 antidote to the grievance culture. 0:27:38.230 --> 0:27:41.710 John Tillman, the end of the political vice, lays out 0:27:41.710 --> 0:27:46.389 a grand strategy to help take back the vice and 0:27:46.390 --> 0:27:51.350 to take away power and control from the left. So again, 0:27:51.670 --> 0:27:53.909 how do we do that? What's the grand strategy behind 0:27:53.950 --> 0:27:57.030 taking back the turning the screws on that vice? 0:27:57.710 --> 0:28:01.070 Well, I'll try to summarize it briefly. Number one is 0:28:01.109 --> 0:28:04.109 we have to build more capacity to compete for the 0:28:04.109 --> 0:28:09.510 commanding heights of American cultural narratives. The late, great Andrew 0:28:09.510 --> 0:28:13.110 Breitbart popularized the idea that politics is downstream of culture. 0:28:13.109 --> 0:28:15.710 That's true. The point I'm always trying to make to 0:28:15.750 --> 0:28:17.949 everyone that's involved is that means we have to be 0:28:17.990 --> 0:28:21.850 at the headwaters of the river, engaging in competition for 0:28:21.890 --> 0:28:25.970 mindshare of the American people and thus the American cultural narrative. 0:28:26.210 --> 0:28:29.129 For example, in Virginia, the very narrow laws on the 0:28:29.130 --> 0:28:33.570 ballot measure that did the Democrat favor and gerrymander that 0:28:33.570 --> 0:28:36.690 battle was being fought months and months and months and 0:28:36.690 --> 0:28:39.370 months before the actual voting. And I was involved. One 0:28:39.370 --> 0:28:43.370 of my organizations was very involved in Virginia directly and indirectly. 0:28:43.930 --> 0:28:48.770 And the Democrats were on the ground long before the election, socializing, 0:28:48.770 --> 0:28:51.210 if you will, this idea and trying to get the 0:28:51.250 --> 0:28:54.090 yes votes and the only one very, very narrowly. Our 0:28:54.090 --> 0:28:57.690 side waits too long. We do not go in early. 0:28:57.730 --> 0:29:00.850 Our donor class and some to some degree, our consultancy 0:29:00.850 --> 0:29:04.450 class has a blind spot to perpetual investment and we 0:29:04.450 --> 0:29:07.370 have to get to those headwaters. So that's number one. 0:29:07.410 --> 0:29:11.290 Number two, we have to really build capacity in message 0:29:11.650 --> 0:29:14.050 creating messages. And it has to be done in a 0:29:14.050 --> 0:29:17.700 data driven way and tested relentlessly. One of the things 0:29:17.700 --> 0:29:20.340 that various teams I've been involved with over the years, 0:29:20.340 --> 0:29:22.620 we have capacity to do data analysis. We have a 0:29:22.620 --> 0:29:25.300 whole data science team at the marketing agency I co-founded, 0:29:25.340 --> 0:29:30.060 Ion Light, and we analyze constantly on a daily basis 0:29:30.060 --> 0:29:32.580 different segments of the audience that we're after. We slice 0:29:32.580 --> 0:29:35.060 and dice it into very fine pieces, and then we 0:29:35.060 --> 0:29:37.900 test different messages with them to see which one resonates 0:29:37.900 --> 0:29:40.100 and which one. You can test a proxy call to 0:29:40.140 --> 0:29:42.540 action in voting so that by the time we get 0:29:42.540 --> 0:29:44.940 to elections many months later, we have a pretty good 0:29:44.940 --> 0:29:47.540 feel for what's going to move voters to a call 0:29:47.540 --> 0:29:50.980 to action. Um, unfortunately, there's not enough people investing in 0:29:51.020 --> 0:29:54.060 that work between elections. We have to do more of that. 0:29:54.340 --> 0:29:55.660 The third thing we have to do when it comes 0:29:55.660 --> 0:29:57.820 to messaging is we have to take the moral high 0:29:57.820 --> 0:30:00.460 ground back. One of the things that Trump administration and 0:30:00.460 --> 0:30:03.100 all of its spokespeople have been particularly good at, and 0:30:03.100 --> 0:30:06.100 Marco Rubio is perhaps the best at it, is not 0:30:06.100 --> 0:30:09.420 accepting the premise, the narrative premise of the media and 0:30:09.420 --> 0:30:11.700 the left. They always reject it, and they pivot and 0:30:11.700 --> 0:30:13.940 reestablish a premise where we are on the moral high 0:30:13.980 --> 0:30:16.960 ground of the argument, and that is why they've been 0:30:16.960 --> 0:30:21.080 so effective in persuading. Despite the media onslaught of negativity. 0:30:21.480 --> 0:30:23.200 So taking the moral high ground back and all the 0:30:23.200 --> 0:30:25.440 arguments is important, and then we have to continue to 0:30:25.440 --> 0:30:29.240 invest in building distribution. We need distribution across the board. 0:30:29.400 --> 0:30:31.640 As I mentioned earlier, we have excellent investments going on 0:30:31.640 --> 0:30:34.640 in conservative media, but we've got to compete in podcasting, 0:30:34.640 --> 0:30:36.280 which we have good advantages there, but we have to 0:30:36.320 --> 0:30:40.320 keep doing that. A popular film and entertainment streamers and 0:30:40.320 --> 0:30:43.240 all the content that comes out of the streaming programs. 0:30:43.280 --> 0:30:48.160 Taylor Sheridan, the creator of Land Men and Yellowstone and 0:30:48.160 --> 0:30:50.680 the one I just started watching the Madison. I mean 0:30:50.720 --> 0:30:53.400 that if we could clone Taylor Sheridan, we would have 0:30:53.400 --> 0:30:55.960 some really good content because he is putting out content 0:30:55.960 --> 0:30:58.880 that is pro liberty and not just in a, in 0:30:58.960 --> 0:31:02.840 a perfunctory or, uh, pandering way at all. I mean, 0:31:02.880 --> 0:31:05.120 he is doing it in a challenging and interesting and 0:31:05.120 --> 0:31:08.160 compelling way. One of the problems, Scott, with content on 0:31:08.160 --> 0:31:11.080 the right is our creatives tend to want to beat 0:31:11.080 --> 0:31:13.720 people over the head with the message. And what we 0:31:13.720 --> 0:31:17.580 want to do is actually create compelling characters and compelling story, 0:31:17.580 --> 0:31:19.940 and the message is an underlying part of it and 0:31:19.940 --> 0:31:22.820 not the thing that you drive home in the face. 0:31:22.860 --> 0:31:25.820 Well, this is something that Illinois policy did and does 0:31:25.820 --> 0:31:30.140 so well. Um, is, is, is telling the story and 0:31:30.140 --> 0:31:34.740 not just using facts, figures and graphs, identifying people who 0:31:34.740 --> 0:31:38.460 will really be affected by the policy change and how 0:31:38.460 --> 0:31:42.100 their lives will be different and how it will affect 0:31:42.100 --> 0:31:45.900 the difference or affect the lives of people around you, friends, families, 0:31:45.900 --> 0:31:49.420 loved ones. Uh, the right has to get better at 0:31:49.460 --> 0:31:54.980 telling those stories and in that way, influencing voters minds 0:31:54.980 --> 0:31:56.020 and activities. 0:31:56.340 --> 0:31:58.100 The easiest way to think about how to do that, 0:31:58.100 --> 0:32:00.100 because it's not easy, and especially for people that come 0:32:00.100 --> 0:32:02.220 out of the policy side who are a little academic. 0:32:02.780 --> 0:32:04.620 It's very hard to think about how to do that. 0:32:04.620 --> 0:32:06.900 But here's the way I've taught people this over the years, 0:32:06.940 --> 0:32:09.460 is you want to tell the story about public policy 0:32:09.700 --> 0:32:15.280 at the point it intersects an individual's life. So, for example, 0:32:15.320 --> 0:32:18.080 high gas prices, when you want to talk about that, 0:32:18.080 --> 0:32:19.560 you don't talk about the fact that we need to 0:32:19.600 --> 0:32:23.560 expand fracking. We need to drill offshore, we need to 0:32:23.600 --> 0:32:26.120 open up Anwar and all the other places and all 0:32:26.160 --> 0:32:29.000 the national lands. That's that's the way policy people talk 0:32:29.040 --> 0:32:32.800 about it. So we need to talk about is, you know, 0:32:32.840 --> 0:32:35.120 I was at a gas station recently and I pulled up, 0:32:35.160 --> 0:32:36.560 pulled out my credit card and put it in there. 0:32:36.560 --> 0:32:38.080 I was going to fill up my tank. I can 0:32:38.080 --> 0:32:40.480 afford to fill up my tank. Every time a car 0:32:40.480 --> 0:32:42.400 pulls up on the other side of the pump, woman 0:32:42.400 --> 0:32:45.360 gets out. Her 20 ish year old son gets out 0:32:45.360 --> 0:32:48.000 and takes a few steps to go pre-pay, and he 0:32:48.000 --> 0:32:50.360 turns back and looked at her and said, mom, how much? 0:32:50.840 --> 0:32:53.400 And she stood there with stress and tension in her 0:32:53.400 --> 0:32:56.280 face and did some calculations in her head. She looked 0:32:56.280 --> 0:32:59.800 at him and said, let's do $20. That's why we 0:32:59.800 --> 0:33:04.280 need greater supply of natural resources to lower the cost 0:33:04.280 --> 0:33:06.040 for that woman. And that's what we want to tell. 0:33:06.040 --> 0:33:07.720 The story is at the gas pump. 0:33:08.280 --> 0:33:11.540 John Tillman is CEO of the American Culture project. You 0:33:11.540 --> 0:33:13.980 can find them on X as well. The brand new book, 0:33:13.980 --> 0:33:17.580 The Political Vice How the Radical Left Controls America and 0:33:17.580 --> 0:33:21.180 the Path to Regaining Our Liberty. John Tillman, thanks so 0:33:21.180 --> 0:33:24.180 much for joining us here on the Radio Free Hillsdale Hour. 0:33:24.620 --> 0:33:25.780 Thanks for having me, Scott. 0:33:26.220 --> 0:33:29.500 Up next, Luke Foster from Hillsdale in DC tells us 0:33:29.500 --> 0:33:32.860 all about the spirit of a gentleman. I'm Scott Bertram. 0:33:32.900 --> 0:33:52.020 This is the radio free Hillsdale Hour. Welcome back to 0:33:52.060 --> 0:33:56.300 the radio free Hillsdale Hour. I'm Scott Bertram. Go ahead 0:33:56.300 --> 0:34:01.420 and follow us on Spotify at YouTube or Apple Podcasts. 0:34:01.620 --> 0:34:04.780 Never miss an episode of the Radio Free Hillsdale Hour. 0:34:04.780 --> 0:34:08.820 When you subscribe, we're joined by Doctor Luke Foster. He's 0:34:08.820 --> 0:34:13.030 assistant professor of government at Hillsdale College in Washington, D.C.. 0:34:13.350 --> 0:34:14.990 Doctor foster, thanks for joining us. 0:34:15.830 --> 0:34:17.350 Thanks for having me. It's great to be here. 0:34:17.350 --> 0:34:20.310 Talking today about an essay you wrote over at Modern Age. 0:34:20.310 --> 0:34:23.870 People can find it there. It's called The Spirit of 0:34:23.870 --> 0:34:28.150 a gentleman. For those who haven't caught this piece, what 0:34:28.150 --> 0:34:29.710 do you mean by that? What do you mean by 0:34:29.710 --> 0:34:31.589 the spirit of a gentleman? 0:34:33.030 --> 0:34:36.750 Thank you. Um, so the the inspiration is a famous 0:34:36.750 --> 0:34:39.230 line from Edmund Burke and the reflections on the revolution 0:34:39.230 --> 0:34:42.270 in France, where he's trying to articulate what the sources 0:34:42.270 --> 0:34:47.469 of liberty, self-government in the Western world were and how 0:34:47.469 --> 0:34:52.109 they're threatened by the new revolutionary ideological tyranny coming out 0:34:52.110 --> 0:34:58.069 of France. Um, so he says, uh, everything good about 0:34:58.070 --> 0:35:01.149 our civilization is dependent for ages upon two principles and 0:35:01.150 --> 0:35:02.989 were the result of both combined combined. I mean, the 0:35:03.230 --> 0:35:05.230 the spirit of a gentleman and the spirit of religion. 0:35:05.870 --> 0:35:08.649 What I think he's trying to say there is we 0:35:08.650 --> 0:35:13.810 used to know how to civilize and gentle men literally. Right. 0:35:14.010 --> 0:35:20.089 The the harshness, the the aggressiveness, the even the cruelty 0:35:20.130 --> 0:35:26.010 of other human beings. And I think men specifically have 0:35:26.010 --> 0:35:33.050 to be refined and polished into something, um, that uses 0:35:33.050 --> 0:35:35.850 the raw materials, but is, is better and more finished 0:35:35.850 --> 0:35:41.410 than those raw materials. And if we don't have um, education, 0:35:41.570 --> 0:35:45.089 social practices, customs and institutions, political institutions that, that know 0:35:45.090 --> 0:35:47.850 how to do that gentling work, we really can only 0:35:47.850 --> 0:35:52.330 be governed by force and fear basically. So constitutional self-government 0:35:52.330 --> 0:35:54.210 and all the good things that go with that require 0:35:54.210 --> 0:35:57.770 this gentlemanly attitude and spirit. And part of why I 0:35:57.810 --> 0:36:00.049 wrote the piece is to say, this is not just 0:36:00.050 --> 0:36:02.730 a quaint argument from Burke, but is actually just a 0:36:02.730 --> 0:36:06.770 human principle, which our civilization has understood for a long time. 0:36:07.270 --> 0:36:09.630 And even when things are very disordered in the world, 0:36:09.630 --> 0:36:12.950 you can work to cultivate it in yourself, to foster 0:36:12.950 --> 0:36:17.110 in others, to, to create expectations, to behave this way. 0:36:17.550 --> 0:36:21.030 So it's a concrete good that we can seek as well. 0:36:21.390 --> 0:36:23.910 How would you how would you explain the way that 0:36:23.910 --> 0:36:28.069 people perhaps think about Gentlemanliness today? And how does that 0:36:28.070 --> 0:36:30.190 compare to what we've just explained? 0:36:30.590 --> 0:36:33.430 Yeah. So this is part of the problem is meaning 0:36:33.430 --> 0:36:35.670 of a word shift over time. And sometimes that's a 0:36:35.670 --> 0:36:38.790 neutral thing and sometimes things get lost. I think to 0:36:38.830 --> 0:36:41.989 the extent people think about gentlemanliness, typically in our in 0:36:41.989 --> 0:36:45.470 our society today, what we mean is holding doors for ladies, 0:36:45.469 --> 0:36:51.589 taking off your hat indoors, a sort of superficial derivation 0:36:51.590 --> 0:36:56.310 of maybe like mid-century classic Hollywood ethos. And there's all 0:36:56.350 --> 0:36:58.509 that stuff is good, right? All that stuff is part 0:36:58.510 --> 0:37:02.030 of Gentlemanliness, and it's in its true and fuller sense, 0:37:02.190 --> 0:37:06.890 but it's not, um, it's not essential to it. And 0:37:06.890 --> 0:37:10.890 there's a danger, I think, of superficial politeness, almost kind 0:37:10.890 --> 0:37:17.529 of prissiness being, uh, be becoming held in contempt, uh, 0:37:17.530 --> 0:37:21.890 and therefore getting dismissed. Right. So, um, what I'm trying 0:37:21.890 --> 0:37:24.290 to do is point people to the deeper philosophical sources. 0:37:24.290 --> 0:37:27.170 Much of the piece is really, you know, extended quotations 0:37:27.170 --> 0:37:33.969 from canonical thinkers. Yes. Burke. But also Aristotle, Cicero, um, 0:37:34.010 --> 0:37:38.370 John Henry Newman. I want, I want to put people 0:37:38.370 --> 0:37:41.610 in touch with the deeper tradition that I'm just riffing 0:37:41.610 --> 0:37:43.770 off of, uh, to show them where they can go 0:37:43.770 --> 0:37:44.650 to learn about this. 0:37:44.690 --> 0:37:48.010 Mhm. So, yeah, you trace this back to Aristotle, Cicero, 0:37:48.050 --> 0:37:50.490 this idea of the spirit of a gentleman as well. 0:37:50.610 --> 0:37:54.450 What what did they understand about human formation that perhaps 0:37:54.450 --> 0:37:56.250 we've we've forgotten a little. 0:37:56.770 --> 0:38:02.690 Right. So the core notion, along with this insight that aggression, strength, 0:38:03.210 --> 0:38:08.630 masculinity is in a way easy but manly. Refined, um, 0:38:08.630 --> 0:38:13.109 civilized habits are difficult. The other core principle they they 0:38:13.150 --> 0:38:18.350 share is the notion that nature needs to be perfected 0:38:18.350 --> 0:38:23.950 and fulfilled by what, what, what Burke calls art. Um, 0:38:24.510 --> 0:38:29.509 convention social practices, how we, how we live together. Um, 0:38:29.590 --> 0:38:32.350 so human beings are a strange kind of animal because we, 0:38:32.950 --> 0:38:38.029 we have a nature. The classical thinkers argue, we, we 0:38:38.070 --> 0:38:41.870 develop and flourish in certain characteristic ways that are given 0:38:41.870 --> 0:38:44.990 and not chosen. But at the same time, you know, we're, 0:38:45.030 --> 0:38:48.469 we're born, um, unable to walk, unable to, unable to 0:38:48.510 --> 0:38:53.110 talk minutes away from death without proper care. Right. So 0:38:53.750 --> 0:38:58.230 the human being, the human nature to be fulfilled requires 0:38:58.230 --> 0:39:00.989 an awful lot of work by other human beings. But 0:39:00.989 --> 0:39:03.839 that work isn't arbitrary as well. And so part of 0:39:03.880 --> 0:39:07.120 Gentlemanliness in this tradition thinks about what are the customs 0:39:07.120 --> 0:39:11.640 and and conventions that are build out what nature intends 0:39:11.640 --> 0:39:13.439 and what are, what are things that would thwart it. 0:39:13.880 --> 0:39:16.280 So eating with a, with a knife and fork is 0:39:16.680 --> 0:39:21.279 good and, and proper. And one way to, to make 0:39:21.320 --> 0:39:25.600 out our eating together, not just barbaric, but there are 0:39:25.600 --> 0:39:27.960 other possible ways, right. You could eat with chopsticks or 0:39:27.960 --> 0:39:29.520 there are even ways of eating with your hands, which 0:39:29.520 --> 0:39:33.520 are which are manually. Right. So culture doesn't necessarily culture 0:39:33.520 --> 0:39:37.000 is not arbitrary, but it's also quite flexible. And so 0:39:37.000 --> 0:39:42.320 different contexts are going to develop different rules, different practices. Um, 0:39:42.320 --> 0:39:44.200 and there's legitimate variation as well. 0:39:44.560 --> 0:39:48.520 So is the rejection of the gentleman really a deeper 0:39:48.520 --> 0:39:52.280 rejection of, of tradition and inheritance over the years? 0:39:52.719 --> 0:39:55.480 Yes. So in the piece, I kind of finger Russo 0:39:55.480 --> 0:39:58.320 for this. You could point to other people, but Rousseau 0:39:58.360 --> 0:40:02.420 in the 18th century is the the a very beautiful, articulate, 0:40:02.420 --> 0:40:07.260 poetic argument for saying, no, no. Our real nature is 0:40:07.260 --> 0:40:11.500 the raw, primitive thing down beneath. It's not it doesn't 0:40:11.500 --> 0:40:15.259 have anything to do with convention or society. And in fact, 0:40:15.260 --> 0:40:18.540 society should be suspect, because that's how his version of 0:40:18.540 --> 0:40:23.300 the fall is socialization. So this has a tendency to 0:40:23.540 --> 0:40:27.740 move people to think in terms of year zero, blank slate, start, 0:40:27.780 --> 0:40:30.660 start all over again in each generation. Um, we can 0:40:30.660 --> 0:40:32.580 undo all the sins and failings of our ancestors. We 0:40:32.580 --> 0:40:36.620 don't inherit anything from them necessarily. Um, and that unfortunately 0:40:36.620 --> 0:40:40.900 means a lot of, a lot of gentlemanly codes become 0:40:41.980 --> 0:40:45.739 unintelligible because they require generations and even sometimes centuries of 0:40:45.739 --> 0:40:47.060 practice to build up. 0:40:47.739 --> 0:40:50.219 So in this piece over at modern age called the 0:40:50.219 --> 0:40:52.660 spirit of a gentleman, we talked with Luke Foster here 0:40:52.660 --> 0:40:55.899 on the program. You describe the gentleman as someone who 0:40:55.900 --> 0:41:01.680 recognizes unearned advantages but responds with magnanimity rather than guilt. 0:41:01.719 --> 0:41:04.160 Why is that distinction so important? 0:41:04.600 --> 0:41:06.520 Right. So I think this brings us to one of 0:41:06.520 --> 0:41:12.040 the most important things about this argument today. In a way, 0:41:12.080 --> 0:41:16.839 what you have from the left, the very powerful kind 0:41:16.840 --> 0:41:20.040 of philosophical, poetic move on the left is to say 0:41:20.719 --> 0:41:26.640 any hierarchy, any inequality, is necessarily oppressive and well, at 0:41:26.640 --> 0:41:29.520 the very least, suspect. Right? Maybe it can be dealt with, 0:41:29.520 --> 0:41:34.160 but it's a problem. Um, and so this means that, um, 0:41:35.000 --> 0:41:38.800 of course things like family name and inherited wealth, we know, 0:41:38.840 --> 0:41:43.399 fall in this category, but increasingly things like, um, someone's race, 0:41:43.400 --> 0:41:48.799 someone's sex, um, you know, even even increasingly, right. Citizenship, 0:41:48.800 --> 0:41:51.080 the very idea of being born an American citizen, which 0:41:51.080 --> 0:41:52.960 is not open to everybody in the world. All these 0:41:52.960 --> 0:41:57.680 things are problematic because, because they're unearned, right? They're not 0:41:57.820 --> 0:42:00.980 directly the products of our own labor. And there's a 0:42:00.980 --> 0:42:03.859 certain kind of, I think, shallow response on the right 0:42:03.860 --> 0:42:06.300 which plays into the hands of this right, which says, well, 0:42:06.300 --> 0:42:11.100 I'm just defending merit. I'm defending earned success. But the 0:42:11.100 --> 0:42:16.379 reality is that if we are as if human beings 0:42:16.380 --> 0:42:20.500 are natural and artifactual in this complicated combined way that 0:42:20.500 --> 0:42:23.779 the classics, the classic thinkers articulate, there's going to be 0:42:23.780 --> 0:42:26.339 a lot of things, um, we have which are good 0:42:26.340 --> 0:42:30.899 and we value that we haven't created for ourselves, going 0:42:30.900 --> 0:42:32.620 all the way down to our nature ultimately, which is 0:42:32.620 --> 0:42:34.900 a gift of God. We can't, we can't make that happen. 0:42:35.300 --> 0:42:38.580 So they're basically, you know, the response on offer today 0:42:38.580 --> 0:42:43.339 from the left is guilt tripping, right? And, and that, 0:42:43.380 --> 0:42:45.899 you know, we know about how this gets, you know, 0:42:45.940 --> 0:42:50.820 our public arguments about reparations or about structural injustice. But 0:42:50.820 --> 0:42:54.379 on a personal level, I think what this leads down 0:42:54.380 --> 0:42:59.239 to a lot of people feel guilty and ashamed about 0:42:59.640 --> 0:43:02.920 their advantages in life. And my argument is to say 0:43:03.920 --> 0:43:06.080 I'm very worried about people who want to respond to that. 0:43:06.080 --> 0:43:10.600 Also by just saying, yeah, let the let the great 0:43:10.600 --> 0:43:12.399 do what they will and the weak suffer what they must, right? 0:43:12.400 --> 0:43:15.040 Just to kind of doubling down on, you know, sort 0:43:15.040 --> 0:43:21.000 of Nietzsche and spirit power, um, domination, success, as if 0:43:21.000 --> 0:43:23.480 that's all there is to, to, to the moral life. 0:43:23.960 --> 0:43:27.759 And I'm trying to say gentlemanliness is part of actually 0:43:28.360 --> 0:43:31.400 the missing piece there, which is you can be great 0:43:31.400 --> 0:43:33.680 and magnanimous. You can use your greatness in a way 0:43:33.680 --> 0:43:36.879 that's gentlemanly, generous, and builds up others. And this is 0:43:36.880 --> 0:43:40.200 core to the gentleman's understanding, right? His, his gifts and 0:43:40.200 --> 0:43:44.120 his powers are not for himself alone, but are actually to, uh, 0:43:44.120 --> 0:43:49.920 make for a richer, more beautiful, more enjoyable social and 0:43:49.920 --> 0:43:53.080 political life for everyone. Um, so in a certain way, 0:43:53.080 --> 0:43:55.780 the most gentlemanly thing to do is to actually is 0:43:55.780 --> 0:43:58.860 to raise others up to your level. If you genuinely 0:43:58.860 --> 0:44:01.700 are better and greater than others, right? And this, I think, 0:44:01.700 --> 0:44:03.779 was the attitude of, of our of our founders. This 0:44:03.780 --> 0:44:06.100 was the attitude of this is, in a way, the 0:44:06.100 --> 0:44:09.939 attitude of God himself, right? Who's who, who comes down 0:44:09.940 --> 0:44:13.260 to us, but in the process raises us up. Mhm. Um, 0:44:13.380 --> 0:44:17.700 so it actually has very, very rich philosophical resources, but 0:44:17.700 --> 0:44:19.740 practical resources to think this way as well. 0:44:20.300 --> 0:44:22.620 All right. Let's get to that, which is how can 0:44:22.660 --> 0:44:28.500 we revive this spirit of gentlemanliness in this day and age? 0:44:28.500 --> 0:44:31.220 What does it look like in practice? And perhaps are 0:44:31.219 --> 0:44:35.459 there figures from your historical overview who might be beneficial 0:44:35.460 --> 0:44:38.020 for the challenges we face in our time? 0:44:38.660 --> 0:44:41.259 Thank you. Um, this is yeah, something that's dear to 0:44:41.260 --> 0:44:47.779 me and, and genuinely difficult, right? In the historical overview, um, 0:44:47.780 --> 0:44:50.779 one of the people I talk about I is, is 0:44:50.780 --> 0:44:53.620 John Henry Newman who wrote this wonderful book, the idea 0:44:53.620 --> 0:44:56.310 of University in the middle of 19th century. And Newman 0:44:56.310 --> 0:44:59.150 was worried that, you know, because he's a he's a 0:44:59.150 --> 0:45:04.710 Victorian Englishman. Uh, he's worried that gentleness is in the 0:45:04.710 --> 0:45:08.029 process of decaying because it's disconnected from what Burke called 0:45:08.030 --> 0:45:10.310 the spirit of, of, of religion. Right. Gentleman is just 0:45:10.310 --> 0:45:15.350 becoming mere social convention, mere mere niceness, mere politeness. Um, 0:45:15.550 --> 0:45:18.550 you know, he says, he says it's almost the definition 0:45:18.550 --> 0:45:20.469 of a gentleman to make all feel at home, to 0:45:20.510 --> 0:45:26.509 never give offense. But when there are real evils or 0:45:26.550 --> 0:45:30.190 errors being promoted in society, you need people to not 0:45:30.190 --> 0:45:31.629 just go along to get along, but you need people 0:45:31.630 --> 0:45:36.149 to actually stand up and object and argue back. And so, um, 0:45:36.590 --> 0:45:39.270 I think Newman's warning is really salient, right? If we 0:45:39.270 --> 0:45:43.190 try to revive Gentlemanliness, it can't just be mere conformity 0:45:43.510 --> 0:45:45.550 because that would get to that would get us to 0:45:46.469 --> 0:45:50.830 acquiescing with the Di regime, with, uh, giving your pronouns 0:45:50.830 --> 0:45:55.210 before every, every board meeting, right? It can be corrupted 0:45:55.210 --> 0:45:58.290 very easily. So I think it has to start with 0:45:58.890 --> 0:46:05.770 with religion, with philosophy, right? With higher transcendent standards of 0:46:05.770 --> 0:46:09.370 justice and goodness that aren't just mere convention. Right? But 0:46:09.370 --> 0:46:11.810 then we have to work out, you know, in our 0:46:11.810 --> 0:46:14.450 particular day and age, what are the forms these things 0:46:14.450 --> 0:46:16.970 should take? You know, I think one really important area 0:46:16.969 --> 0:46:22.129 today is social media and electronics in general, right? We 0:46:22.130 --> 0:46:25.250 probably should shame people more in more social settings, right, 0:46:26.170 --> 0:46:29.569 for being glued to their phones. Right. It ought to 0:46:29.570 --> 0:46:31.089 be normal in a nice restaurant that you put your 0:46:31.090 --> 0:46:33.810 phone away. It ought to be normal. Thankfully, in a 0:46:33.850 --> 0:46:35.650 Hillsdale classroom, it is normal that you that you put 0:46:35.650 --> 0:46:38.210 your phone away in class, right? Yes. Not everywhere. Right. 0:46:38.969 --> 0:46:43.970 Some institutions are struggling with the kind of the selfie narcissism, 0:46:43.969 --> 0:46:47.850 narcissistic age intruding on everything. Um, and we have to 0:46:47.850 --> 0:46:51.670 fight that. But I also think especially, you know, in 0:46:51.670 --> 0:46:54.790 a context like Hillsdale, we can teach these virtues explicitly. 0:46:54.790 --> 0:46:57.750 We can exhort people to see why they matter, to 0:46:57.790 --> 0:47:01.710 think about their positional duties based on where they are 0:47:01.710 --> 0:47:05.750 in a, in an institutional hierarchy and how they can best, 0:47:06.390 --> 0:47:10.870 how they can best reflect their their rights and duties. 0:47:11.270 --> 0:47:14.310 I mean, I'll give you a little example from the 0:47:14.350 --> 0:47:17.510 from the office, right. There are certain privileges that faculty 0:47:17.510 --> 0:47:20.790 have that are different from, from staff privileges, right? Like 0:47:20.830 --> 0:47:24.870 we have better parking. I think it's really important, therefore, 0:47:24.910 --> 0:47:27.589 that I don't leave my dirty dishes in the sink, 0:47:27.590 --> 0:47:29.390 but I wash them up after myself because if I 0:47:29.390 --> 0:47:31.510 don't do that, it means de facto, I'm assuming somebody 0:47:31.510 --> 0:47:32.350 from the staff has to do. 0:47:32.350 --> 0:47:32.509 It. 0:47:33.150 --> 0:47:37.669 Right there. That principle should percolate into all our social 0:47:37.670 --> 0:47:42.670 interactions of the more we have privilege, the more responsible 0:47:42.670 --> 0:47:45.150 we are. And that's the core of the ethos. 0:47:45.870 --> 0:47:48.110 Luke Foster has piece at modern age the spirit of 0:47:48.110 --> 0:47:52.850 a gentleman. One final question. Is there a female equivalent 0:47:52.850 --> 0:47:55.970 to this ideal, or is the spirit of a gentleman 0:47:55.969 --> 0:47:58.970 pointing to something that is specifically masculine? 0:48:00.050 --> 0:48:04.689 Excellent and difficult question. Um, which I in the piece 0:48:04.690 --> 0:48:08.250 I mostly speak to young men because that's the, that's 0:48:08.250 --> 0:48:11.810 the experience. That's the context I know best. So I 0:48:11.810 --> 0:48:15.930 think unfortunately, it's a slightly complicated answer, but let me, 0:48:15.969 --> 0:48:19.089 let me try to take it on two levels. A 0:48:19.090 --> 0:48:23.450 large part of this gentleman, the ethos is just, um. 0:48:25.530 --> 0:48:28.210 What the conduct of a noble person. Right. That's how 0:48:28.210 --> 0:48:31.689 the classic authors think of it. Aristotle, Cicero, primarily they're 0:48:31.690 --> 0:48:34.170 saying this is what it is for virtuous human being 0:48:34.210 --> 0:48:36.250 to be like. And you even have equivalents in the 0:48:36.250 --> 0:48:40.609 Confucian tradition, like the Junzi in East Asia is, is 0:48:40.610 --> 0:48:46.690 really meant to be the excellent virtuous person of both sexes. However, 0:48:46.690 --> 0:48:50.670 I think there are. two things which make it gender 0:48:50.670 --> 0:48:54.790 to an extent. One is one, as I mentioned, aggression. Warfare, right. 0:48:54.950 --> 0:48:58.430 Men need to be gentled as part of their civilizing 0:48:58.430 --> 0:49:01.670 socializing process in a way that women do not as much. 0:49:01.750 --> 0:49:02.310 Mhm. 0:49:02.750 --> 0:49:05.670 Um, so that does mean historically there is an emphasis 0:49:05.670 --> 0:49:11.070 on um, self restraint on, on learning how to value 0:49:11.070 --> 0:49:14.069 persuasion and friendship rather than force and fear. Uh, for 0:49:14.070 --> 0:49:17.350 men particularly. And then I think there's another layer, which 0:49:17.350 --> 0:49:20.270 is the, the Christian Middle Ages with the codes of 0:49:20.270 --> 0:49:25.390 chivalry and the poetry around chivalry, um, make many of 0:49:25.390 --> 0:49:29.029 the things of the gentlemanly duties specifically have to do 0:49:29.030 --> 0:49:33.870 with his treatment of ladies. Right. So the superficial courtesies 0:49:33.870 --> 0:49:35.950 I talked about earlier are, you know, holding doors, taking 0:49:35.950 --> 0:49:39.270 off hats. Those are remnants of, of, of that code, 0:49:39.550 --> 0:49:43.110 which is just distinctively Christian because the assumption is you're, 0:49:43.390 --> 0:49:47.040 you're trying to civilize people into the marriage of free 0:49:47.040 --> 0:49:49.480 and equal spouses who can, who can commit freely to 0:49:49.480 --> 0:49:52.240 each other for life. Um, so there's a much actually 0:49:52.280 --> 0:49:56.080 higher view of womanhood and therefore of what a man 0:49:56.080 --> 0:49:57.400 has to do to become worthy of a woman to 0:49:57.440 --> 0:50:00.600 win her. Um, so that's where again, there's, there's specific, 0:50:00.600 --> 0:50:03.040 I think different duties for, for each sex, but, but 0:50:03.080 --> 0:50:05.560 it's called lady likeness for, for women and there are 0:50:05.600 --> 0:50:09.640 concomitant duties, I think of, you know, knowing, uh, one 0:50:09.640 --> 0:50:12.040 of the great sources on this is, is Jane Austen, right? 0:50:12.239 --> 0:50:14.880 How does a woman discern, well, when a man is 0:50:14.880 --> 0:50:19.800 worthy of her trust, how does she learn to inspire 0:50:19.800 --> 0:50:23.480 and motivate the best in him without making him feel 0:50:23.880 --> 0:50:29.120 mothered or stifled? Right. These are really rich and complicated 0:50:29.120 --> 0:50:32.040 themes of wisdom and tradition, which, if we cut ourselves 0:50:32.040 --> 0:50:33.759 off from them, I you know, I think it's not 0:50:33.760 --> 0:50:37.040 surprising that young men and women are increasingly having a 0:50:37.040 --> 0:50:40.640 really hard time forming couples and forming families. Um, because 0:50:40.680 --> 0:50:42.720 because the internet alone won't civilize you. 0:50:43.080 --> 0:50:46.860 Doctor Luke Foster is assistant professor of government at Hillsdale 0:50:46.860 --> 0:50:49.859 College in Washington, D.C. you can read his piece at 0:50:49.860 --> 0:50:54.180 Modern Age. It's the spirit of a gentleman. Doctor foster, 0:50:54.180 --> 0:50:56.060 thanks so much for joining us here on the Radio 0:50:56.060 --> 0:50:57.580 Free Hillsdale Hour. 0:50:57.620 --> 0:50:58.979 Thanks for having me. It's a real honor. 0:50:59.140 --> 0:51:02.020 That will wrap up this edition of the Radio Free 0:51:02.060 --> 0:51:05.020 Hillsdale Hour. Our thanks to John Tillman, his book, The 0:51:05.020 --> 0:51:09.420 Political Vise, and Luke Foster from Hillsdale in D.C. remember, 0:51:09.420 --> 0:51:12.180 you can hear new episodes every week on this station. 0:51:12.340 --> 0:51:15.459 You also can find extended versions of some of our interviews, 0:51:15.460 --> 0:51:21.460 or listen any time to the podcast, podcast.hillsdale.edu, or wherever 0:51:21.460 --> 0:51:25.700 you get your audio. Until next week. I'm Scott Bertram, 0:51:25.700 --> 0:51:29.500 and this has been the radio free Hillsdale Hour.