Speaker 1: Is jen Z a completely lost generation. We just saw
Speaker 1: them turn out and droves for Democrats in the midterm elections,
Speaker 1: fueled by issues like abortion and a fake climate crisis
Speaker 1: that doesn't exist. In this next episode, we'll talk to
Speaker 1: someone who gives us a little bit of hope that
Speaker 1: all is not lost with this TikTok generation. We'll also
Speaker 1: talk about how Justin Bieber is a terrible husband. Yes,
Speaker 1: you heard me right, Justin Bieber. Vita Duffy is the
Speaker 1: daughter of Rachel and Sean Duffy. You probably know them
Speaker 1: for Fox News. Sean obviously served in Congress as well.
Speaker 1: She's also the co founder of Thinker Chicago and a
Speaker 1: writer for The Federalist, and she joins me next stay
Speaker 1: with us, Vita. I'm so glad to have you on
Speaker 1: the show. You know, we've been able to talk offline
Speaker 1: about you know, life and the craziness of everything going
Speaker 1: on as well as you know, I've had the opportunity
Speaker 1: to interview you when I filled in on Fox and Friends,
Speaker 1: and you're a great writer. Always make a lot of sense,
Speaker 1: so I appreciate you taking the time.
Speaker 2: Yeah, thank you for having me.
Speaker 1: Obviously, the country's a mess, you know, When you look
Speaker 1: at how young people broke overwhelmingly for Democrats by a
Speaker 1: twenty eight point margin, it makes you worried. You know,
Speaker 1: why are young voters so drawn to Democrats.
Speaker 2: I think there's a lot of things going on. I
Speaker 2: think the school system is a huge deal, right. I mean,
Speaker 2: you have indoctrination machines at public universities and they've only
Speaker 2: gotten worse. I've noticed. I'm twenty three. I have siblings
Speaker 2: that are in elementary school and it's changed even the
Speaker 2: last you know, fifteen years, it's gotten much more radical.
Speaker 2: And then you have the teachers colleges, right, I mean
Speaker 2: that's a big deal too. I also think media comes
Speaker 2: into play. I think Democrats do an amazing job of
Speaker 2: messaging to young people on Instagram, on TikTok, on Snapchat.
Speaker 2: They're totally tech savvy and in a way that conservatives
Speaker 2: just aren't. And I think that also plays into it.
Speaker 2: And I also think there's the classic you're you're a
Speaker 2: liberal when you're older, when you're when you're younger, and
Speaker 2: then you become more conservative as you age. The problem
Speaker 2: is we're our starting point for leftism with young people
Speaker 2: today is radically worse than it was for liberals in
Speaker 2: say the nineteen sixties, because at least those those liberals, right,
Speaker 2: they believed in free speech and protest and all these
Speaker 2: different things that the modern leftists, which I saw firsthand
Speaker 2: at American universities completely reject, have gone in a really
Speaker 2: i would say fascist direction.
Speaker 1: Talk about the role of social media because you know,
Speaker 1: when I I mean social media didn't really get I
Speaker 1: don't think Facebook was around until I was in college,
Speaker 1: you know, so I didn't grow up with TikTok and
Speaker 1: Instagram and that whole How has that shaped young people
Speaker 1: in today's society psychologically?
Speaker 2: It's completely altered, and it's even altered their brain chemistry, right,
Speaker 2: I mean you have really short attention spans just from
Speaker 2: all of the scrolling and the short form content on
Speaker 2: a on a you know, a more on a level
Speaker 2: of of what kind of information that we're taking in, right,
Speaker 2: I Mean, it's not it's not very in depth. We
Speaker 2: people young people don't read anymore. It's something that I'm
Speaker 2: a writer for The Federalist. We talked about it at
Speaker 2: our last staff meeting, where I said, you know, unfortunately
Speaker 2: kids aren't going to come to our young people gen
Speaker 2: z Ers and even you know, the younger millennials are
Speaker 2: not going to come to our site because they literally
Speaker 2: just don't read. And and that plays a huge role
Speaker 2: into the indoctrination game, right, because if you don't have
Speaker 2: people that are thinking deeply, that are reading materials that
Speaker 2: are have you know, been in the classic literature for
Speaker 2: a long time, and they're getting all of their news
Speaker 2: from TikTok. I think it's a stounding number, like it's
Speaker 2: like seventy five percent of young people, so that they're
Speaker 2: getting their news from TikTok, that that means that they're
Speaker 2: very vulnerable to information warfare right and the left. As
Speaker 2: I said, they do a great job of messaging to
Speaker 2: people and in a way that conservatives just don't.
Speaker 1: To your point, it shortened attention spans, and so it
Speaker 1: does seem like everyone is so used to having things
Speaker 1: so easily that it has led to a lack of
Speaker 1: critical thinking, particularly among young people.
Speaker 2: It definitely has. I'll also say if you even look
Speaker 2: at public schools like how they teach these days, they
Speaker 2: can't assign you know, thirty pages of reading a night.
Speaker 2: Maybe maybe if you're in an ap class in your
Speaker 2: later years of high school, they might do that, you're
Speaker 2: seeing video content and that sort of thing come into
Speaker 2: the classroom all the time. It's a complete degradation of
Speaker 2: the American education system. That's why. And this is not
Speaker 2: just at public schools. This is happening at private schools
Speaker 2: as well. My parents have my siblings in a really
Speaker 2: wonderful classical education school, but when I was when I
Speaker 2: was in school in Wisconsin, I didn't have that also,
Speaker 2: so it was it's really and then I had to
Speaker 2: play catch up when I got to college. So they
Speaker 2: got into a really good college. But I think it's
Speaker 2: a problem across the board for young people.
Speaker 1: What role do colleges play in turning out the youth vote?
Speaker 1: You know, talk about some of the activism that goes
Speaker 1: on on college campuses and what people should know about that.
Speaker 2: They do a really interesting job with getting out the vote.
Speaker 2: When I was a freshman at the University of Chicago,
Speaker 2: which would have been in twenty eighteen, they had mass
Speaker 2: incentives to get the young people to vote. So they
Speaker 2: would say, you know, we'll have a free meal if
Speaker 2: everybody on your floor registers to vote right, And they
Speaker 2: do that because they know how young people are going
Speaker 2: to vote right. They know that they're all going to
Speaker 2: vote for whoever. The Democrat isn't off. I mean, if
Speaker 2: even my husband graduated from UW Madison, Wisconsin is a
Speaker 2: very fifty to fifty state, the campus of mostly left
Speaker 2: wing students completely sways the vote in Wisconsin because there's
Speaker 2: so many of them, and there's such a massive get
Speaker 2: out the vote effort for for these young people, and
Speaker 2: so I you know, it's it's you want you want
Speaker 2: young people to be engaged, you want them to vote.
Speaker 2: I I question the intentions sometimes of a lot of
Speaker 2: these college campuses. I think most of them are doing
Speaker 2: it because they know how they're going to vote, and
Speaker 2: so they they're giving cash or or or food incentives,
Speaker 2: which can be a little bit dicey, right, And there's
Speaker 2: there's some ethics that goes into that, but definitely there's
Speaker 2: there's a mass get out the vote effort on college campuses.
Speaker 2: And I don't believe it's for it's for altruistic, you know,
Speaker 2: reasons of we just want everybody to vote. I really
Speaker 2: think it's it's political. And I think Republicans probably don't
Speaker 2: message to these to these campuses as much as they
Speaker 2: they as as their counterparts do because you know, young
Speaker 2: students tend to vote one way.
Speaker 1: Now, you know you talk about sort of these you know,
Speaker 1: turnout operations more or less. Is there pressure to vote
Speaker 1: a certain way? Like do you feel that as a student.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, I think it's not just about voting one way.
Speaker 2: I think it's just how you view the world in general.
Speaker 2: There's a lot of pressure. There's a lot of social pressure.
Speaker 2: So being a conservative on a college campus is never
Speaker 2: a popular choice. And I think some people will say, oh, well,
Speaker 2: there's you know, there's schools and red states, and that
Speaker 2: means nothing. Right if you go to if you go
Speaker 2: to a southern school, you go to all miss right,
Speaker 2: it's still going to be a mostly left wing campus
Speaker 2: just because of the way young people are these days.
Speaker 2: And there's massive social pressure to be a leftist and
Speaker 2: to vote a certain way, and if you don't, there's
Speaker 2: a ton of name calling that comes with it. And
Speaker 2: that's I think the power that leftists have over young people.
Speaker 2: And I'll also say specifically women. Nobody wants to be
Speaker 2: called a racist or a homophobic, or xenophobic or transphobic.
Speaker 2: They use these words as power over young people who
Speaker 2: want to fit in, who don't want to be seen
Speaker 2: as cruel or mean or insensitive. So they throw these
Speaker 2: words at you if you don't agree with them politically,
Speaker 2: and they use that to control you. And they also
Speaker 2: once you have these words come at you all the time, right,
Speaker 2: you feel bad about the way that you were raised
Speaker 2: or the values that you have. You start to self censor, right.
Speaker 2: And then after you self censor so many times, then
Speaker 2: you actually start to believe the stuff that people are
Speaker 2: saying around you. And that's when the indoctrination happens. And
Speaker 2: this is across the board, happening at all college campuses,
Speaker 2: whether in a red state or a blue state.
Speaker 1: How was mail in balloting impacted the youth vote or
Speaker 1: even particularly on college campuses.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's an interesting one. I think a lot of
Speaker 2: young so a lot of young people they like convenience, right,
Speaker 2: if you ask that, there's tons of polls about if
Speaker 2: they want to work remotely, if they want to come
Speaker 2: into the office. Overwhelmingly kids want to work remotely. When
Speaker 2: cod when COVID hit, right and they said they wanted
Speaker 2: to come back to campus, at least the administrations did.
Speaker 2: There was petitions from the students saying no, we want
Speaker 2: to stay remote, which not conducive for working remote jobs
Speaker 2: are not. Productivity is significantly lower if you don't come
Speaker 2: into office, and the same goes for remote classes. I
Speaker 2: think the mail in balloting has just come in with
Speaker 2: this convenience culture for gen Z, right, They just they
Speaker 2: see it as a way to make things easier, And
Speaker 2: the problem is it's degradating our voting system. Right. We
Speaker 2: know that these mail and ballots are susceptible to fraud
Speaker 2: in a way that the in person voting wasn't. So
Speaker 2: I think it's an easy sell for gen Zers with
Speaker 2: the convenience culture, but ultimately a really bad thing for
Speaker 2: our country.
Speaker 1: You know, you wrote in one of your columns about
Speaker 1: the midterms this election cycle was a lost opportunity for
Speaker 1: Republicans who had a chance to remind young voters the
Speaker 1: Democrats violated their bodily autonomy and mentally lave them for
Speaker 1: two years. How impactful were COVID policies on college students
Speaker 1: and what do you think the message should have been
Speaker 1: to them?
Speaker 2: COVID was unprecedented on college campuses, right, And like this
Speaker 2: is something that we had in the nineteen sixties, right,
Speaker 2: you had this revolt to say, get out of our lives.
Speaker 2: The administration doesn't tell us what to do. They don't
Speaker 2: give us curfews, specifically for women. Right they had women
Speaker 2: were allowed to go to leave campus, they had to
Speaker 2: get signed permissionships from their parents. Suddenly we saw this
Speaker 2: massive overreach of the campus administration during COVID, controlling every
Speaker 2: aspect of young people's lives. And when it was the
Speaker 2: leftist in the nineteen sixties saying get out of our lives,
Speaker 2: suddenly the leftists in twenty twenty to twenty twenty two
Speaker 2: were saying, we want the administration to put more precautions
Speaker 2: and regulations on us in a really sort of bizarre way.
Speaker 2: And this has been prepped for a long time. Right,
Speaker 2: there's at most schools there are as many, if not
Speaker 2: more administrators than there are professors. The administrations used to
Speaker 2: be much smaller. Now they're massive. And what they what
Speaker 2: they did was they would say you have to wear
Speaker 2: a mask at all times. You have to. You know,
Speaker 2: you have to. If you're unvaccinated, you can't come to class,
Speaker 2: or you have to eat in a separate area. You
Speaker 2: have to get a vaccine if you wanted not if
Speaker 2: you want to exempt yourself from the vaccine. You have
Speaker 2: to get a permission sent from a doctor or religious
Speaker 2: or your religious pastor or of some sort, and oftentimes
Speaker 2: they would deny those things, so some students were even
Speaker 2: expelled for not taking the vaccine. They implemented these communist
Speaker 2: reporting systems where they had students report their classmates or
Speaker 2: their teachers for breaking COVID rules. So one example is
Speaker 2: I had friends who took a picture that they posted
Speaker 2: on Instagram in a group setting. They were wearing masks,
Speaker 2: but they weren't six feet apart in the photo that
Speaker 2: they posted on Instagram, and they got reported and threatened
Speaker 2: with being kicked out of student housing. And the reason
Speaker 2: that they were actually reported is because leftist students knew
Speaker 2: that these students were part of our conservative school paper.
Speaker 2: So it was actually targeting of people that you didn't like.
Speaker 2: It was extremely communist and disturbing, and the schools actually
Speaker 2: made you sign forms when you came on to campus
Speaker 2: saying I promised that if I see someone breaking COVID rules,
Speaker 2: I will report them to the COVID reporting system. I
Speaker 2: will turn them in. Really bizarre and in my opinion,
Speaker 2: communist policies from these university administrations totally communists.
Speaker 1: Also, snitches end up in ditches, is what I've learned
Speaker 1: to growing up. You know, why do you think these
Speaker 1: colleges and universities were even forcing students to get vaccinated
Speaker 1: or isolate in the first place. I mean, we know
Speaker 1: statistically young people are just not at risk from COVID.
Speaker 1: So why was it a test of submission or why
Speaker 1: do you think they forced students to subscribe to policies
Speaker 1: they never needed to.
Speaker 2: It's interesting that you asked that because I would have thought, right,
Speaker 2: if this is an experimental vaccine, we don't know what
Speaker 2: the side effects are going to be. We know that
Speaker 2: the students aren't at risk, Why would we take that
Speaker 2: chance of having a vaccine mandate when we could be
Speaker 2: slapped with lawsuits? Right if students get vaccine injured? And
Speaker 2: by the way, I know of students who have been
Speaker 2: vaccine injured who were forced to get the vaccine because
Speaker 2: of the mandate. What I think happened is they all
Speaker 2: take cues from each other. They're not really independent institutions.
Speaker 2: They're not really free thinkers, which makes sense because they
Speaker 2: don't they don't produce free thinkers, so they are all taking
Speaker 2: cues from each other. So, for example, U Chicago follows
Speaker 2: Harvard all the time. Whatever Harvard does, U Chicago does,
Speaker 2: So we knew the second that Harvard said we're locking down,
Speaker 2: we're going to we're going to shut down classes and
Speaker 2: go remote, or we're going to have a vaccine mandate,
Speaker 2: or we're going to have a booster mandate. Within a
Speaker 2: couple of days, and even within you know, a few hours,
Speaker 2: U Chicago did the same thing. So they all sort
Speaker 2: of took cues. Nobody wanted to be the one school
Speaker 2: that didn't shut down, that didn't you know, that that
Speaker 2: didn't have a vaccine mandate, because they're all sort of
Speaker 2: virtue signaling to each other. Nobody wants to be the
Speaker 2: one that's insensitive or the outlier or not taking allegedly
Speaker 2: not taking the pandemic seriously. And I think really it's
Speaker 2: a testament to how bad these universities have gotten. They're
Speaker 2: really not free institutions, and the students that they produce
Speaker 2: aren't free either. It seems like.
Speaker 1: There is an increasing herd mentality among young people. Is
Speaker 1: that social media that's reinforcing that, the fear of you know,
Speaker 1: standing out or being ostracized from the crowd.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I think social media reinforces it. But
Speaker 2: I think this has been this is more of a
Speaker 2: cultural thing that has been happening for a few a
Speaker 2: few years now. Is this this herd mentality and you're
Speaker 2: in your right when you when you describe it that way.
Speaker 2: And I think when I when I brought up the
Speaker 2: name calling, right, I think that's huge deal. I think
Speaker 2: it's the I think it's the virtue signaling. I think
Speaker 2: all of it sort of plays plays into it, and
Speaker 2: it is reinforcing this your right herd mentality and not
Speaker 2: being free to say what you think because of not
Speaker 2: just what your peers will say about you, but what
Speaker 2: your future holds. So there were a lot of young
Speaker 2: people who during COVID didn't like the vaccine mandates, didn't
Speaker 2: like the mask mandates, knew that they were ineffective, but
Speaker 2: they said, you know what, We're going to comply because
Speaker 2: if I get written up, if I get something on
Speaker 2: my school record and it gets back to my future employer,
Speaker 2: I'm not going to get that Goldmen Sax internship. I'm
Speaker 2: not going to go to JP Morgan, I'm not going
Speaker 2: to be There is a a social credit system that
Speaker 2: is not as official as it is in China, but
Speaker 2: it's definitely here, and young people feel it way more
Speaker 2: than the older generations do because it's with them since
Speaker 2: they're in elementary school, right, all of the virtue signaling,
Speaker 2: all of the herd mentality is always there, and they
Speaker 2: know that there will be consequences if they step out
Speaker 2: of the norm.
Speaker 1: Take a quick break more on gen Z. We're seeing
Speaker 1: rates of depression go up in young people. I mean,
Speaker 1: there was a recent report that showed almost sixty percent
Speaker 1: of US girls reported persistent sadness and hopelessness, and rates
Speaker 1: are up for boys as well. Why do you think
Speaker 1: so many young people are so depressed.
Speaker 2: I don't like to be the one that says like
Speaker 2: social media is like the cause of everything, right, it's
Speaker 2: the bane of civilization. But I do think social media
Speaker 2: plays a role in it. Right, there's like a big
Speaker 2: there's a lot of comparisons that have been Right, if
Speaker 2: you're on TikTok and Instagram and you see all these
Speaker 2: airbrush photos of these girls who look perfect and they're
Speaker 2: getting millions of views and you don't look like that,
Speaker 2: that can be really depressing. But I think it's just
Speaker 2: not being present in general is the problem. I think
Speaker 2: you're consumed by your phones. I don't think young people
Speaker 2: have human human interaction, and this was especially true during COVID.
Speaker 2: I think religion plays a big role into it, what
Speaker 2: brings you purpose in life, And the truth is most
Speaker 2: young people are atheist or agnostic, or if they are
Speaker 2: identifying as a religion, they're not very practicing. These are
Speaker 2: things that give people grounding and give them purpose, and
Speaker 2: when you take that away from them, they get depressed.
Speaker 2: So I'm not surprised by the numbers at all.
Speaker 1: Do you think the reason you turned out so normal
Speaker 1: is because of your parents? Because you certainly stand out
Speaker 1: in a sea of sheet people and a sea of
Speaker 1: a broken generation.
Speaker 2: It seems I appreciate that. It's very nice of you
Speaker 2: to say that. Yeah, I mean, my parents are wonderful,
Speaker 2: something that I always because I didn't go to a
Speaker 2: super conservative school. Actually I went to for most of
Speaker 2: elementary school, actually for all of the elementsentry school, I
Speaker 2: went to a very left wing school. So my dad
Speaker 2: was running for Congress. I was coming into class and
Speaker 2: people would bring in literature against him, right, making fun
Speaker 2: of him. My teacher, my teacher would come and try
Speaker 2: to debate me. I'm like a little fifth grader, and
Speaker 2: she would try to debate me on what terrible things
Speaker 2: my parents are saying or trying to run on. But
Speaker 2: I think what was different about me is that I
Speaker 2: really was energized by that kind of you know, the
Speaker 2: politics and the battle of ideas. I thought it was
Speaker 2: really fun. I had a situation I don't know if
Speaker 2: you remember, but during the Scott Walker protests in Wisconsin,
Speaker 2: because he had taken away public sector union, so the
Speaker 2: teachers were very angry. They occupied the capitol in Wisconsin.
Speaker 2: It was a massive, these massive protests. My dad did
Speaker 2: a fundraiser with Scott Walker in twenty ten, and at
Speaker 2: the protest I saw my fifth grade teacher and two
Speaker 2: of my best friends protesting against us as we were
Speaker 2: going into this fundraiser. And I think most people would
Speaker 2: like be really traumatized by that situation, but I just
Speaker 2: was very energized by it. And I noticed that in
Speaker 2: my own family, right, there are some like some kids
Speaker 2: are really excited by you know, this battle of ideas,
Speaker 2: and some kids, some kids in our families say I
Speaker 2: just I'd rather just you know, not not not be
Speaker 2: in the battle all the time. But I think the
Speaker 2: most important thing growing up was that my parents always
Speaker 2: had conversations at the dinner table. So any time that
Speaker 2: something was came up at school or came up in
Speaker 2: girl Scouts, and they would always we would always come
Speaker 2: home and we always talked politics and about our culture
Speaker 2: and values at a very very young age. And they
Speaker 2: were and they didn't talk to us like children either.
Speaker 2: They were they never talked down. They always explained things
Speaker 2: like we were, you know, that we were real people.
Speaker 2: And I thought that was really helpful. You know.
Speaker 1: I had a similar upbringing because my first word was no,
Speaker 1: and then why came shortly after, which makes lot I
Speaker 1: love that. Yeah, but but right dad, you know, but
Speaker 1: my parents took time to like debate me and tell
Speaker 1: me why, and explain things and have conversations and really
Speaker 1: fostered that environment like you're describing, of debate, conversation, critical thinking,
Speaker 1: you know, desiring to stand alone, and that it was
Speaker 1: okay to not be a part of the crowd.
Speaker 2: You know.
Speaker 1: So I really do think a lot of that, you know,
Speaker 1: a lot of those conversations, and that upbringing comes into
Speaker 1: play obviously now as adults that we both are It's
Speaker 1: interesting that we kind of had, uh, you know, similar
Speaker 1: upbringings in that way. Are these younger generations lost or
Speaker 1: as conservatives? You know, how do we message them? Can
Speaker 1: we reach them? What does that messaging? What should that
Speaker 1: look like?
Speaker 2: I have a good example there. Now I'm forgetting his name.
Speaker 2: I'm going to look. I'm going to look it up.
Speaker 2: But there's this Democrat representative who is doing the most amazing. Okay,
Speaker 2: so I'll go back for a second. I did say
Speaker 2: that there's an issue with young people in attention spans
Speaker 2: on social media. The problem is if you boycott social
Speaker 2: media as a conservative because you say, oh, well it's
Speaker 2: not you know, it's not good for kids. I'm not
Speaker 2: going to be messaging on there. I'm going to do
Speaker 2: press releases instead or write off eds in the New
Speaker 2: York Times or the Wall Street Journal. You're not going
Speaker 2: to reach them. You have to go into the belly
Speaker 2: of the beast because you don't have an option. That's
Speaker 2: where people are. So as much as we don't like TikTok,
Speaker 2: we could talk about, you know, the CCP influence campaigns
Speaker 2: on it and whatnot, but the point is there's one
Speaker 2: hundred and fifty million Americans on the app. You have
Speaker 2: to be there. Democrats are there, Republicans aren't. Republicans could
Speaker 2: at least be doing the same thing on Instagram, right,
Speaker 2: but they're not. Democrats are the only ones that are
Speaker 2: doing real messaging. I think AOC does a great job.
Speaker 2: She does live streams all the time. If something's happening
Speaker 2: in Congress, it's getting a lot of traction. She's up
Speaker 2: in front of her camera, her camera talking about the
Speaker 2: issues in a really straightforward, seamless way, so that young
Speaker 2: people know what she's talking about, and it feels very conversational,
Speaker 2: it feels very real. Republicans don't do that. I think
Speaker 2: Kevin McCarthy is. I mean, he should be doing that
Speaker 2: every day. He should have four or five videos about
Speaker 2: what's going on in Congress. That's the way to refute
Speaker 2: the left slides when they come on social media and
Speaker 2: they say, look what Republicans are doing. They're trying to
Speaker 2: take away insulin for people with diabetes. Right. They'll say
Speaker 2: that kind of stuff, and when Republicans aren't responding to
Speaker 2: it on these platforms in a meaningful way, Democrats control
Speaker 2: the conversation. And this happens over and over again with
Speaker 2: every single issue. Because I'm on social media, I see
Speaker 2: it and it's so so frustrating.
Speaker 1: No, it's such a good point. I mean, obviously, you know,
Speaker 1: we criticize TikTok rightfully so because it's you know, basically
Speaker 1: controlled by the Communist Party of China. But to your point,
Speaker 1: you know, this is where young people are, you know,
Speaker 1: and so if you want to reach them and message
Speaker 1: to them, perhaps you know, we have to go into
Speaker 1: the belly of the bat, so to speak. You know,
Speaker 1: you wrote not bed recently about how Facebook, Instagram, and Twitter,
Speaker 1: YouTube and snapchat pose a far greater risk than TikTok.
Speaker 1: Explain yourself, young lady.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, And it's just a controversial piece. Within my
Speaker 2: own staff at the Federalists, there were some people saying,
Speaker 2: I don't I don't even know if we should run
Speaker 2: this article because they didn't want to undermine the risks
Speaker 2: of TikTok. And I'm not going to say that TikTok
Speaker 2: is not a risk. I've written about Chinese influence campaigns
Speaker 2: being waged on TikTok against young people. I understand. What
Speaker 2: I'm saying is I think our social media companies are worse.
Speaker 2: I mean, you have we know from the Twitter files,
Speaker 2: that Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, all of these companies are
Speaker 2: in collusion with the deep state to interfere in our elections.
Speaker 2: They suppress the Hunter Biden laptop story. They silenced doctors
Speaker 2: during COVID, they promoted the Russian collusion hooks. They're shadow
Speaker 2: banding conservatives. These are in these the collusion between big
Speaker 2: tech and the deep state, American big tech and the
Speaker 2: deep state is an immediate threat to conservatives specifically, but
Speaker 2: in general Americans freedom and our and our ability to
Speaker 2: effectively have a free speech public square. Right on TikTok,
Speaker 2: there's actually comparatively more freedom than there is on American
Speaker 2: social media companies. For example, there's Alila Rose video where
Speaker 2: she says it's never medically necessary to have an abortion.
Speaker 2: That video was slapped with the fact check on Instagram,
Speaker 2: but was untouched on TikTok. The exact same video untouched
Speaker 2: on TikTok. And there could be reasons for TikTok to
Speaker 2: want to do that, right. They could say, you know,
Speaker 2: we want we want to sew discord on America and
Speaker 2: among Americans, and so we're going to allow anybody to
Speaker 2: say what they want politically on our app. Okay, we
Speaker 2: can acknowledge the bad intentions of TikTok while also saying
Speaker 2: it's a good thing that TikTok is actually allowing conservatives
Speaker 2: to say what they think. And I think for conservatives
Speaker 2: to try to get rid of apps that are actually
Speaker 2: platforming our ideas is in disservice to ourselves, right. I
Speaker 2: think our own companies are much more hostile to us.
Speaker 2: And I also think it's on American to be banning
Speaker 2: apps China bands apps. I don't think we need a
Speaker 2: big I don't think we need to be banning apps.
Speaker 2: I really think that that's communist behavior.
Speaker 1: You could argue about the fact that you know, byte
Speaker 1: Edance is obviously based out of Beijing, so it's slightly
Speaker 1: different just in the sense of obviously they can access
Speaker 1: all of our data in a way that you know
Speaker 1: they can't with some of these other social media companies,
Speaker 1: but you know, fair point in terms of them not
Speaker 1: censoring conservatives as much. Let's take a quick commercial break.
Speaker 1: More as a Vita Duffy on the other side, you
Speaker 1: had mentioned the issue of abortion. Why do you think
Speaker 1: so many young people are driven by that issue?
Speaker 2: I think that it's not just young people people. I
Speaker 2: think our whole country is driven by that issue. I
Speaker 2: really believe. I think it's been the number one issue
Speaker 2: and divider in America for decades now, and I think
Speaker 2: it's it's been a way for Democrats to really animate
Speaker 2: people and for Republicans to really animate people. For gen zers,
Speaker 2: I know that there it might seem like they have
Speaker 2: there's a lot of loud voices, right, they're super you know,
Speaker 2: pro choice, and I think probably the majority of there
Speaker 2: is the majority of them are pro choice, but there
Speaker 2: is a growing number of pro lifers and even left
Speaker 2: wing pro lifers, because the science stands in the way
Speaker 2: of radical pro abortion ideology. You can see ultrasounds, you
Speaker 2: know there's a heartbeat, you know they have pain receptors,
Speaker 2: like there are so many things that we're faced with,
Speaker 2: especially if you're faced with right an ultrasound where you
Speaker 2: actually see your child before you have to have an abortion. Right,
Speaker 2: these are things that have really been changing the whole debate.
Speaker 2: When when there were pro choicers during the time of
Speaker 2: Roe v. Wade, they didn't they didn't really know you
Speaker 2: couldn't really see your baby's fingers and toes on a screen.
Speaker 2: Now you can I can get these really amazing three
Speaker 2: D pictures that are are just incredible. And so I
Speaker 2: think there's a lot of disillusion from conservatives among like
Speaker 2: the young people are super pro choice. I wouldn't be
Speaker 2: as I'm not as freaked out as they are. I
Speaker 2: think that there's actually a lot of hope just because
Speaker 2: of how amazing science has evolved.
Speaker 1: Well, I certainly hope. So because you know, abortion is murder,
Speaker 1: I believe you. You know, you share that idea as well,
Speaker 1: that mentality. You know, So Justin Bieber and Haley Bieber,
Speaker 1: Selena Gomez, we've got to talk about this. You know,
Speaker 1: you wrote a column that Justin Bieber is to blame
Speaker 1: obviously for those who don't pay attention to the pop
Speaker 1: culture stuff I do, because you know what, sometimes the
Speaker 1: news is so depressing you just need escapism, a break
Speaker 1: from everything that's going on. But it's basically, you know,
Speaker 1: Selena Gomez used to date Justin Bieber. Hailey Bieber is
Speaker 1: now married to Justin and there's this ongoing, you know,
Speaker 1: sort of online stuff that they're at odds. Haley and Selena,
Speaker 1: you know, talk about why Justin is actually to blame
Speaker 1: in the drama, not Selena or Haley.
Speaker 2: The Selena Hailey drama has been going on for a
Speaker 2: really long time. They dated Justin Bieber on it off
Speaker 2: and so then Haley actually ended up with Justin and
Speaker 2: now they're married. But the Selena fans are still really
Speaker 2: upset and think that Haley stole Justin from Selena. Really
Speaker 2: kind of bizarre fad behavior, to be honest, kind of
Speaker 2: creepy fan behavior.
Speaker 1: And like booling too, Like they're like constantly trying to
Speaker 1: bully Haley. All right, so go ahead, No, you're totally right.
Speaker 2: So they're constantly trying to bully Haley. There's a video
Speaker 2: where they say that Haley was making fun of Selena.
Speaker 2: There's another one where people say Selena was making fun
Speaker 2: of Haley. The point is people extrapolated from one of
Speaker 2: these videos and just when after Hailey for months and months,
Speaker 2: literally it was like two and a half months where
Speaker 2: it was like just constant hatred, attacking, comparing her to Putin,
Speaker 2: like saying she looks like Putin, saying she looks like
Speaker 2: an ear, saying she looks horrible, and that she's a
Speaker 2: boyfriend stealer and all of this craziness. And at the
Speaker 2: heart of this issue is really not whether Haley was
Speaker 2: mean to Selena or Selena was mean to Haley. What
Speaker 2: it is is who deserves Justin. That's what the fans
Speaker 2: are really arguing over, is that. And that's what they
Speaker 2: were saying, is that Justin does not actually support Haley
Speaker 2: because he had been silent through all this. They're saying
Speaker 2: Justin is still in love with Selena. And what Justin
Speaker 2: should have done when things escalated to this level is
Speaker 2: he should have stood up for his wife. He should
Speaker 2: have said, you know what, Hailey Bieber is my wife,
Speaker 2: I'm in love with her. I'm not in love with
Speaker 2: my ex girlfriend. Everybody back off. But he didn't do that.
Speaker 2: He stayed completely silent while his wife was being torn
Speaker 2: to shreds by these horrendous Selena fans. Meanwhile, Selena is
Speaker 2: actually encouraging her fans to attack Hailey. Now she said stop,
Speaker 2: but at a time, at one point she was doing that.
Speaker 2: And I just think the real villain, like I said
Speaker 2: in my article, is it's not Haley or Selena or
Speaker 2: all of this drama. It's really Justin because he should
Speaker 2: have stood up for his wife and put an end
Speaker 2: to all of this a long time ago.
Speaker 1: Yeah, man up, Justin Bieber, if you're listening, be a manta.
Speaker 1: Is there anything else you'd like to exactly Vida, Is
Speaker 1: there anything else you'd like to leave us with before
Speaker 1: we go?
Speaker 2: I think gen Z gets a bad rap. I think
Speaker 2: we're talking. We talked a lot about gen Z issues
Speaker 2: and voting rights and things like that, and there's a
Speaker 2: lot of really good things about my generation. They are
Speaker 2: super entrepreneurial. I don't know if you know that, but
Speaker 2: there's so many studies that show, like over I think
Speaker 2: it's like sixty or seventy percent want to start a
Speaker 2: small business. They don't want to work for someone which
Speaker 2: you know, can play what itcause. I think that's a
Speaker 2: really good thing to have people that are really are
Speaker 2: motivated to create and to be innovative. I think that's
Speaker 2: a wonderful thing. I also think, like I said, I
Speaker 2: think science is on our side when it comes to abortion.
Speaker 2: I think a lot of young people are pro life,
Speaker 2: and I think even more will be pro life as
Speaker 2: they get older. And I also think that part of
Speaker 2: the failures that we're seeing with this generation, it can
Speaker 2: be easy to blame them for everything and say, oh,
Speaker 2: they're so dumb and they have these low attention spans
Speaker 2: and you know they're all indoctrinated. Well, the reason they're
Speaker 2: indoctrinated is because we have indoctrination machines in our school system.
Speaker 2: And that's not the fault of kids, that's the fault
Speaker 2: of adults who have allowed universities to turn out horrible
Speaker 2: teachers from these teachers' colleges right, and degradate our education system.
Speaker 2: So it's not based in God, but it's instead completely irreligious.
Speaker 2: And there are so many things that are the cause
Speaker 2: of gen Z and the issues that they're having and
Speaker 2: the depression that they're facing. COVID being one, right, putting
Speaker 2: somebody in lockdown for two years so they can't socialize,
Speaker 2: that takes a toll. So I'd ask a lot of
Speaker 2: people to also look inward and to think about how
Speaker 2: can we really message them and how can we fix
Speaker 2: the problems that they're facing. Because they didn't just they
Speaker 2: didn't just pop out of the womb a bunch of
Speaker 2: crazy communist leftists, right, It happened for a reason. I
Speaker 2: think adults need to take some responsibility there too.
Speaker 1: Well, you know, as millennial as we can't blame ourselves,
Speaker 1: so we have to blame you guys. You know right right,
Speaker 1: that's the way it works. In Vita. You'll do the
Speaker 1: same to the generations below you. But you give me
Speaker 1: hope of Vida. You do great work. Everybody, go check
Speaker 1: out a Vida's work on the Federalists, Go follow her
Speaker 1: on Twitter. What's your Twitter handle again?
Speaker 2: It's a Vita Duffy underscore one.
Speaker 1: All right, well everyone go check a Vida's workout. You
Speaker 1: give me hope. I appreciate you taking the time to
Speaker 1: join the show.
Speaker 2: Thank you for having me.
Speaker 1: That was a Vita Duffy Alfonso. Appreciate her taking the
Speaker 1: time to join the show bring us a little insight
Speaker 1: into what seems like a crazy generation gen Z. Appreciate
Speaker 1: you guys at home for listening every Monday and Thursday,
Speaker 1: but you can listen throughout the week. Please leave us
Speaker 1: a review on Apple Podcast, give us a rating. Love
Speaker 1: reading those. I want to thank John Cassio, my producer,
Speaker 1: for putting the show together. Until next time,