WEBVTT - Gen-Z with Evita Duffy 0:00:00.200 --> 0:00:04.200 Is jen Z a completely lost generation. We just saw 0:00:04.240 --> 0:00:07.560 them turn out and droves for Democrats in the midterm elections, 0:00:07.600 --> 0:00:11.280 fueled by issues like abortion and a fake climate crisis 0:00:11.280 --> 0:00:14.640 that doesn't exist. In this next episode, we'll talk to 0:00:14.680 --> 0:00:17.360 someone who gives us a little bit of hope that 0:00:17.520 --> 0:00:21.800 all is not lost with this TikTok generation. We'll also 0:00:21.840 --> 0:00:24.640 talk about how Justin Bieber is a terrible husband. Yes, 0:00:24.680 --> 0:00:27.320 you heard me right, Justin Bieber. Vita Duffy is the 0:00:27.440 --> 0:00:29.880 daughter of Rachel and Sean Duffy. You probably know them 0:00:29.880 --> 0:00:32.760 for Fox News. Sean obviously served in Congress as well. 0:00:32.880 --> 0:00:35.760 She's also the co founder of Thinker Chicago and a 0:00:35.800 --> 0:00:38.640 writer for The Federalist, and she joins me next stay 0:00:38.680 --> 0:00:46.280 with us, Vita. I'm so glad to have you on 0:00:46.360 --> 0:00:48.600 the show. You know, we've been able to talk offline 0:00:48.640 --> 0:00:51.400 about you know, life and the craziness of everything going 0:00:51.440 --> 0:00:53.440 on as well as you know, I've had the opportunity 0:00:53.440 --> 0:00:56.440 to interview you when I filled in on Fox and Friends, 0:00:56.600 --> 0:00:59.000 and you're a great writer. Always make a lot of sense, 0:00:59.040 --> 0:01:00.480 so I appreciate you taking the time. 0:01:00.760 --> 0:01:01.960 Yeah, thank you for having me. 0:01:02.200 --> 0:01:04.360 Obviously, the country's a mess, you know, When you look 0:01:04.400 --> 0:01:07.960 at how young people broke overwhelmingly for Democrats by a 0:01:08.000 --> 0:01:10.640 twenty eight point margin, it makes you worried. You know, 0:01:10.720 --> 0:01:13.480 why are young voters so drawn to Democrats. 0:01:14.080 --> 0:01:16.480 I think there's a lot of things going on. I 0:01:16.480 --> 0:01:19.560 think the school system is a huge deal, right. I mean, 0:01:19.680 --> 0:01:23.880 you have indoctrination machines at public universities and they've only 0:01:23.920 --> 0:01:27.920 gotten worse. I've noticed. I'm twenty three. I have siblings 0:01:27.920 --> 0:01:33.720 that are in elementary school and it's changed even the 0:01:33.800 --> 0:01:38.119 last you know, fifteen years, it's gotten much more radical. 0:01:38.160 --> 0:01:40.120 And then you have the teachers colleges, right, I mean 0:01:40.160 --> 0:01:42.959 that's a big deal too. I also think media comes 0:01:43.000 --> 0:01:46.319 into play. I think Democrats do an amazing job of 0:01:46.440 --> 0:01:50.680 messaging to young people on Instagram, on TikTok, on Snapchat. 0:01:51.200 --> 0:01:55.520 They're totally tech savvy and in a way that conservatives 0:01:55.600 --> 0:01:58.880 just aren't. And I think that also plays into it. 0:01:58.920 --> 0:02:03.720 And I also think there's the classic you're you're a 0:02:03.800 --> 0:02:06.240 liberal when you're older, when you're when you're younger, and 0:02:06.240 --> 0:02:09.160 then you become more conservative as you age. The problem 0:02:09.240 --> 0:02:13.120 is we're our starting point for leftism with young people 0:02:13.160 --> 0:02:18.440 today is radically worse than it was for liberals in 0:02:18.440 --> 0:02:21.760 say the nineteen sixties, because at least those those liberals, right, 0:02:21.800 --> 0:02:25.440 they believed in free speech and protest and all these 0:02:25.440 --> 0:02:29.440 different things that the modern leftists, which I saw firsthand 0:02:29.480 --> 0:02:33.840 at American universities completely reject, have gone in a really 0:02:34.200 --> 0:02:35.680 i would say fascist direction. 0:02:36.120 --> 0:02:38.280 Talk about the role of social media because you know, 0:02:38.280 --> 0:02:40.320 when I I mean social media didn't really get I 0:02:40.360 --> 0:02:42.800 don't think Facebook was around until I was in college, 0:02:42.919 --> 0:02:45.960 you know, so I didn't grow up with TikTok and 0:02:46.120 --> 0:02:49.720 Instagram and that whole How has that shaped young people 0:02:49.880 --> 0:02:51.840 in today's society psychologically? 0:02:51.840 --> 0:02:54.760 It's completely altered, and it's even altered their brain chemistry, right, 0:02:54.800 --> 0:02:57.880 I mean you have really short attention spans just from 0:02:57.919 --> 0:03:01.200 all of the scrolling and the short form content on 0:03:01.240 --> 0:03:04.840 a on a you know, a more on a level 0:03:04.840 --> 0:03:08.400 of of what kind of information that we're taking in, right, 0:03:08.480 --> 0:03:10.959 I Mean, it's not it's not very in depth. We 0:03:11.720 --> 0:03:14.400 people young people don't read anymore. It's something that I'm 0:03:14.440 --> 0:03:17.079 a writer for The Federalist. We talked about it at 0:03:17.080 --> 0:03:19.960 our last staff meeting, where I said, you know, unfortunately 0:03:20.680 --> 0:03:22.919 kids aren't going to come to our young people gen 0:03:23.040 --> 0:03:25.240 z Ers and even you know, the younger millennials are 0:03:25.240 --> 0:03:27.240 not going to come to our site because they literally 0:03:27.280 --> 0:03:31.040 just don't read. And and that plays a huge role 0:03:31.120 --> 0:03:34.000 into the indoctrination game, right, because if you don't have 0:03:34.080 --> 0:03:37.000 people that are thinking deeply, that are reading materials that 0:03:37.040 --> 0:03:41.160 are have you know, been in the classic literature for 0:03:41.200 --> 0:03:42.920 a long time, and they're getting all of their news 0:03:42.920 --> 0:03:45.600 from TikTok. I think it's a stounding number, like it's 0:03:45.640 --> 0:03:48.360 like seventy five percent of young people, so that they're 0:03:48.360 --> 0:03:52.160 getting their news from TikTok, that that means that they're 0:03:52.280 --> 0:03:57.240 very vulnerable to information warfare right and the left. As 0:03:57.280 --> 0:03:59.840 I said, they do a great job of messaging to 0:04:00.160 --> 0:04:02.360 people and in a way that conservatives just don't. 0:04:02.480 --> 0:04:05.800 To your point, it shortened attention spans, and so it 0:04:05.840 --> 0:04:08.760 does seem like everyone is so used to having things 0:04:08.760 --> 0:04:10.960 so easily that it has led to a lack of 0:04:11.000 --> 0:04:13.240 critical thinking, particularly among young people. 0:04:13.440 --> 0:04:17.560 It definitely has. I'll also say if you even look 0:04:17.560 --> 0:04:21.280 at public schools like how they teach these days, they 0:04:21.279 --> 0:04:25.400 can't assign you know, thirty pages of reading a night. 0:04:25.520 --> 0:04:28.640 Maybe maybe if you're in an ap class in your 0:04:28.720 --> 0:04:31.839 later years of high school, they might do that, you're 0:04:31.880 --> 0:04:34.680 seeing video content and that sort of thing come into 0:04:34.680 --> 0:04:38.680 the classroom all the time. It's a complete degradation of 0:04:38.720 --> 0:04:42.360 the American education system. That's why. And this is not 0:04:42.400 --> 0:04:44.680 just at public schools. This is happening at private schools 0:04:44.680 --> 0:04:47.479 as well. My parents have my siblings in a really 0:04:47.560 --> 0:04:53.080 wonderful classical education school, but when I was when I 0:04:53.120 --> 0:04:55.119 was in school in Wisconsin, I didn't have that also, 0:04:55.160 --> 0:04:56.680 so it was it's really and then I had to 0:04:56.680 --> 0:04:58.200 play catch up when I got to college. So they 0:04:58.200 --> 0:05:00.640 got into a really good college. But I think it's 0:05:00.680 --> 0:05:03.159 a problem across the board for young people. 0:05:03.360 --> 0:05:06.840 What role do colleges play in turning out the youth vote? 0:05:06.920 --> 0:05:09.080 You know, talk about some of the activism that goes 0:05:09.080 --> 0:05:11.919 on on college campuses and what people should know about that. 0:05:12.200 --> 0:05:16.200 They do a really interesting job with getting out the vote. 0:05:16.200 --> 0:05:18.840 When I was a freshman at the University of Chicago, 0:05:18.880 --> 0:05:22.559 which would have been in twenty eighteen, they had mass 0:05:22.600 --> 0:05:26.000 incentives to get the young people to vote. So they 0:05:26.040 --> 0:05:29.839 would say, you know, we'll have a free meal if 0:05:29.920 --> 0:05:34.000 everybody on your floor registers to vote right, And they 0:05:34.120 --> 0:05:36.920 do that because they know how young people are going 0:05:36.960 --> 0:05:39.640 to vote right. They know that they're all going to 0:05:39.680 --> 0:05:42.039 vote for whoever. The Democrat isn't off. I mean, if 0:05:42.279 --> 0:05:45.440 even my husband graduated from UW Madison, Wisconsin is a 0:05:45.520 --> 0:05:51.560 very fifty to fifty state, the campus of mostly left 0:05:51.600 --> 0:05:57.479 wing students completely sways the vote in Wisconsin because there's 0:05:57.480 --> 0:06:00.479 so many of them, and there's such a massive get 0:06:00.520 --> 0:06:03.800 out the vote effort for for these young people, and 0:06:03.839 --> 0:06:06.600 so I you know, it's it's you want you want 0:06:06.640 --> 0:06:09.440 young people to be engaged, you want them to vote. 0:06:09.640 --> 0:06:12.719 I I question the intentions sometimes of a lot of 0:06:12.760 --> 0:06:16.000 these college campuses. I think most of them are doing 0:06:16.000 --> 0:06:17.880 it because they know how they're going to vote, and 0:06:17.920 --> 0:06:23.120 so they they're giving cash or or or food incentives, 0:06:23.120 --> 0:06:25.440 which can be a little bit dicey, right, And there's 0:06:25.480 --> 0:06:29.400 there's some ethics that goes into that, but definitely there's 0:06:29.480 --> 0:06:32.400 there's a mass get out the vote effort on college campuses. 0:06:32.480 --> 0:06:36.320 And I don't believe it's for it's for altruistic, you know, 0:06:36.440 --> 0:06:38.600 reasons of we just want everybody to vote. I really 0:06:38.640 --> 0:06:42.800 think it's it's political. And I think Republicans probably don't 0:06:42.800 --> 0:06:45.440 message to these to these campuses as much as they 0:06:45.720 --> 0:06:50.240 they as as their counterparts do because you know, young 0:06:50.279 --> 0:06:51.640 students tend to vote one way. 0:06:51.960 --> 0:06:54.320 Now, you know you talk about sort of these you know, 0:06:54.400 --> 0:06:57.760 turnout operations more or less. Is there pressure to vote 0:06:57.760 --> 0:07:00.240 a certain way? Like do you feel that as a student. 0:07:00.720 --> 0:07:05.280 Yeah, well, I think it's not just about voting one way. 0:07:05.400 --> 0:07:08.719 I think it's just how you view the world in general. 0:07:08.880 --> 0:07:11.280 There's a lot of pressure. There's a lot of social pressure. 0:07:11.400 --> 0:07:15.560 So being a conservative on a college campus is never 0:07:15.800 --> 0:07:18.440 a popular choice. And I think some people will say, oh, well, 0:07:18.480 --> 0:07:23.240 there's you know, there's schools and red states, and that 0:07:23.280 --> 0:07:25.960 means nothing. Right if you go to if you go 0:07:26.080 --> 0:07:29.160 to a southern school, you go to all miss right, 0:07:29.240 --> 0:07:32.280 it's still going to be a mostly left wing campus 0:07:32.360 --> 0:07:35.800 just because of the way young people are these days. 0:07:36.600 --> 0:07:41.520 And there's massive social pressure to be a leftist and 0:07:41.600 --> 0:07:43.840 to vote a certain way, and if you don't, there's 0:07:44.080 --> 0:07:46.280 a ton of name calling that comes with it. And 0:07:46.280 --> 0:07:50.000 that's I think the power that leftists have over young people. 0:07:50.000 --> 0:07:53.400 And I'll also say specifically women. Nobody wants to be 0:07:53.440 --> 0:07:57.200 called a racist or a homophobic, or xenophobic or transphobic. 0:07:57.640 --> 0:08:01.560 They use these words as power over young people who 0:08:01.640 --> 0:08:03.280 want to fit in, who don't want to be seen 0:08:03.320 --> 0:08:06.360 as cruel or mean or insensitive. So they throw these 0:08:06.400 --> 0:08:09.280 words at you if you don't agree with them politically, 0:08:09.720 --> 0:08:12.280 and they use that to control you. And they also 0:08:12.640 --> 0:08:15.080 once you have these words come at you all the time, right, 0:08:15.120 --> 0:08:17.080 you feel bad about the way that you were raised 0:08:17.120 --> 0:08:21.680 or the values that you have. You start to self censor, right. 0:08:21.800 --> 0:08:24.800 And then after you self censor so many times, then 0:08:24.840 --> 0:08:27.320 you actually start to believe the stuff that people are 0:08:27.360 --> 0:08:30.400 saying around you. And that's when the indoctrination happens. And 0:08:31.240 --> 0:08:33.840 this is across the board, happening at all college campuses, 0:08:34.040 --> 0:08:35.839 whether in a red state or a blue state. 0:08:36.000 --> 0:08:39.360 How was mail in balloting impacted the youth vote or 0:08:39.400 --> 0:08:41.160 even particularly on college campuses. 0:08:41.480 --> 0:08:43.960 Yeah, that's an interesting one. I think a lot of 0:08:44.360 --> 0:08:47.240 young so a lot of young people they like convenience, right, 0:08:47.520 --> 0:08:50.240 if you ask that, there's tons of polls about if 0:08:50.280 --> 0:08:52.679 they want to work remotely, if they want to come 0:08:52.720 --> 0:08:58.040 into the office. Overwhelmingly kids want to work remotely. When 0:08:58.080 --> 0:09:00.880 cod when COVID hit, right and they said they wanted 0:09:00.920 --> 0:09:04.120 to come back to campus, at least the administrations did. 0:09:04.120 --> 0:09:07.439 There was petitions from the students saying no, we want 0:09:07.480 --> 0:09:12.880 to stay remote, which not conducive for working remote jobs 0:09:12.920 --> 0:09:16.480 are not. Productivity is significantly lower if you don't come 0:09:16.480 --> 0:09:19.440 into office, and the same goes for remote classes. I 0:09:19.480 --> 0:09:23.040 think the mail in balloting has just come in with 0:09:23.080 --> 0:09:26.079 this convenience culture for gen Z, right, They just they 0:09:26.120 --> 0:09:28.960 see it as a way to make things easier, And 0:09:29.000 --> 0:09:33.640 the problem is it's degradating our voting system. Right. We 0:09:33.760 --> 0:09:38.000 know that these mail and ballots are susceptible to fraud 0:09:38.120 --> 0:09:41.080 in a way that the in person voting wasn't. So 0:09:41.679 --> 0:09:44.160 I think it's an easy sell for gen Zers with 0:09:44.240 --> 0:09:48.080 the convenience culture, but ultimately a really bad thing for 0:09:48.160 --> 0:09:48.720 our country. 0:09:48.960 --> 0:09:50.560 You know, you wrote in one of your columns about 0:09:50.559 --> 0:09:53.680 the midterms this election cycle was a lost opportunity for 0:09:53.760 --> 0:09:56.840 Republicans who had a chance to remind young voters the 0:09:56.880 --> 0:10:00.800 Democrats violated their bodily autonomy and mentally lave them for 0:10:00.880 --> 0:10:05.560 two years. How impactful were COVID policies on college students 0:10:05.600 --> 0:10:07.360 and what do you think the message should have been 0:10:07.360 --> 0:10:07.720 to them? 0:10:08.000 --> 0:10:12.600 COVID was unprecedented on college campuses, right, And like this 0:10:12.679 --> 0:10:15.840 is something that we had in the nineteen sixties, right, 0:10:15.880 --> 0:10:19.160 you had this revolt to say, get out of our lives. 0:10:19.200 --> 0:10:21.600 The administration doesn't tell us what to do. They don't 0:10:21.600 --> 0:10:25.000 give us curfews, specifically for women. Right they had women 0:10:25.040 --> 0:10:27.280 were allowed to go to leave campus, they had to 0:10:27.320 --> 0:10:31.240 get signed permissionships from their parents. Suddenly we saw this 0:10:31.600 --> 0:10:37.560 massive overreach of the campus administration during COVID, controlling every 0:10:37.679 --> 0:10:40.560 aspect of young people's lives. And when it was the 0:10:40.640 --> 0:10:43.640 leftist in the nineteen sixties saying get out of our lives, 0:10:43.800 --> 0:10:47.160 suddenly the leftists in twenty twenty to twenty twenty two 0:10:47.520 --> 0:10:51.160 were saying, we want the administration to put more precautions 0:10:51.559 --> 0:10:55.240 and regulations on us in a really sort of bizarre way. 0:10:55.280 --> 0:10:57.600 And this has been prepped for a long time. Right, 0:10:57.679 --> 0:11:01.800 there's at most schools there are as many, if not 0:11:01.960 --> 0:11:05.360 more administrators than there are professors. The administrations used to 0:11:05.400 --> 0:11:07.880 be much smaller. Now they're massive. And what they what 0:11:07.960 --> 0:11:10.400 they did was they would say you have to wear 0:11:10.400 --> 0:11:13.000 a mask at all times. You have to. You know, 0:11:13.160 --> 0:11:16.320 you have to. If you're unvaccinated, you can't come to class, 0:11:16.440 --> 0:11:19.199 or you have to eat in a separate area. You 0:11:19.520 --> 0:11:22.280 have to get a vaccine if you wanted not if 0:11:22.320 --> 0:11:23.960 you want to exempt yourself from the vaccine. You have 0:11:24.000 --> 0:11:26.800 to get a permission sent from a doctor or religious 0:11:27.679 --> 0:11:31.520 or your religious pastor or of some sort, and oftentimes 0:11:31.520 --> 0:11:33.560 they would deny those things, so some students were even 0:11:33.640 --> 0:11:37.640 expelled for not taking the vaccine. They implemented these communist 0:11:37.679 --> 0:11:41.880 reporting systems where they had students report their classmates or 0:11:41.920 --> 0:11:45.200 their teachers for breaking COVID rules. So one example is 0:11:45.200 --> 0:11:48.200 I had friends who took a picture that they posted 0:11:48.200 --> 0:11:52.920 on Instagram in a group setting. They were wearing masks, 0:11:53.240 --> 0:11:55.920 but they weren't six feet apart in the photo that 0:11:55.920 --> 0:11:59.480 they posted on Instagram, and they got reported and threatened 0:11:59.520 --> 0:12:02.880 with being kicked out of student housing. And the reason 0:12:02.880 --> 0:12:06.640 that they were actually reported is because leftist students knew 0:12:06.640 --> 0:12:09.760 that these students were part of our conservative school paper. 0:12:10.080 --> 0:12:13.120 So it was actually targeting of people that you didn't like. 0:12:13.600 --> 0:12:18.080 It was extremely communist and disturbing, and the schools actually 0:12:18.080 --> 0:12:21.040 made you sign forms when you came on to campus 0:12:21.280 --> 0:12:25.319 saying I promised that if I see someone breaking COVID rules, 0:12:25.360 --> 0:12:29.120 I will report them to the COVID reporting system. I 0:12:29.160 --> 0:12:33.480 will turn them in. Really bizarre and in my opinion, 0:12:33.640 --> 0:12:38.400 communist policies from these university administrations totally communists. 0:12:38.400 --> 0:12:41.079 Also, snitches end up in ditches, is what I've learned 0:12:41.120 --> 0:12:43.480 to growing up. You know, why do you think these 0:12:43.520 --> 0:12:47.520 colleges and universities were even forcing students to get vaccinated 0:12:47.559 --> 0:12:49.559 or isolate in the first place. I mean, we know 0:12:49.720 --> 0:12:52.960 statistically young people are just not at risk from COVID. 0:12:53.040 --> 0:12:55.959 So why was it a test of submission or why 0:12:55.960 --> 0:12:59.960 do you think they forced students to subscribe to policies 0:13:00.040 --> 0:13:00.760 they never needed to. 0:13:01.160 --> 0:13:05.000 It's interesting that you asked that because I would have thought, right, 0:13:05.080 --> 0:13:07.280 if this is an experimental vaccine, we don't know what 0:13:07.280 --> 0:13:08.920 the side effects are going to be. We know that 0:13:08.960 --> 0:13:11.600 the students aren't at risk, Why would we take that 0:13:11.800 --> 0:13:13.840 chance of having a vaccine mandate when we could be 0:13:13.880 --> 0:13:16.719 slapped with lawsuits? Right if students get vaccine injured? And 0:13:16.880 --> 0:13:18.640 by the way, I know of students who have been 0:13:18.679 --> 0:13:21.200 vaccine injured who were forced to get the vaccine because 0:13:21.200 --> 0:13:24.560 of the mandate. What I think happened is they all 0:13:24.600 --> 0:13:28.560 take cues from each other. They're not really independent institutions. 0:13:28.600 --> 0:13:31.959 They're not really free thinkers, which makes sense because they 0:13:32.000 --> 0:13:35.000 don't they don't produce free thinkers, so they are all taking 0:13:35.040 --> 0:13:38.920 cues from each other. So, for example, U Chicago follows 0:13:38.960 --> 0:13:43.000 Harvard all the time. Whatever Harvard does, U Chicago does, 0:13:43.080 --> 0:13:46.840 So we knew the second that Harvard said we're locking down, 0:13:46.880 --> 0:13:48.640 we're going to we're going to shut down classes and 0:13:48.640 --> 0:13:50.839 go remote, or we're going to have a vaccine mandate, 0:13:50.920 --> 0:13:53.040 or we're going to have a booster mandate. Within a 0:13:53.040 --> 0:13:56.520 couple of days, and even within you know, a few hours, 0:13:56.760 --> 0:13:59.160 U Chicago did the same thing. So they all sort 0:13:59.200 --> 0:14:02.160 of took cues. Nobody wanted to be the one school 0:14:02.440 --> 0:14:06.880 that didn't shut down, that didn't you know, that that 0:14:06.960 --> 0:14:09.000 didn't have a vaccine mandate, because they're all sort of 0:14:09.080 --> 0:14:11.720 virtue signaling to each other. Nobody wants to be the 0:14:11.720 --> 0:14:15.840 one that's insensitive or the outlier or not taking allegedly 0:14:15.920 --> 0:14:19.640 not taking the pandemic seriously. And I think really it's 0:14:19.680 --> 0:14:23.800 a testament to how bad these universities have gotten. They're 0:14:23.840 --> 0:14:26.320 really not free institutions, and the students that they produce 0:14:26.360 --> 0:14:28.080 aren't free either. It seems like. 0:14:28.040 --> 0:14:32.600 There is an increasing herd mentality among young people. Is 0:14:32.640 --> 0:14:36.680 that social media that's reinforcing that, the fear of you know, 0:14:36.720 --> 0:14:38.920 standing out or being ostracized from the crowd. 0:14:39.200 --> 0:14:42.680 Yeah, I mean I think social media reinforces it. But 0:14:42.720 --> 0:14:45.560 I think this has been this is more of a 0:14:46.040 --> 0:14:48.480 cultural thing that has been happening for a few a 0:14:48.520 --> 0:14:52.440 few years now. Is this this herd mentality and you're 0:14:52.480 --> 0:14:55.440 in your right when you when you describe it that way. 0:14:56.520 --> 0:14:58.160 And I think when I when I brought up the 0:14:58.240 --> 0:15:02.600 name calling, right, I think that's huge deal. I think 0:15:02.640 --> 0:15:05.080 it's the I think it's the virtue signaling. I think 0:15:05.120 --> 0:15:09.680 all of it sort of plays plays into it, and 0:15:09.720 --> 0:15:15.160 it is reinforcing this your right herd mentality and not 0:15:15.320 --> 0:15:19.280 being free to say what you think because of not 0:15:19.480 --> 0:15:22.400 just what your peers will say about you, but what 0:15:22.480 --> 0:15:24.800 your future holds. So there were a lot of young 0:15:24.840 --> 0:15:29.560 people who during COVID didn't like the vaccine mandates, didn't 0:15:29.680 --> 0:15:33.160 like the mask mandates, knew that they were ineffective, but 0:15:33.240 --> 0:15:36.000 they said, you know what, We're going to comply because 0:15:36.040 --> 0:15:38.200 if I get written up, if I get something on 0:15:38.200 --> 0:15:41.680 my school record and it gets back to my future employer, 0:15:42.000 --> 0:15:44.440 I'm not going to get that Goldmen Sax internship. I'm 0:15:44.480 --> 0:15:46.520 not going to go to JP Morgan, I'm not going 0:15:46.560 --> 0:15:50.720 to be There is a a social credit system that 0:15:50.880 --> 0:15:53.680 is not as official as it is in China, but 0:15:54.040 --> 0:15:58.640 it's definitely here, and young people feel it way more 0:15:58.680 --> 0:16:01.800 than the older generations do because it's with them since 0:16:01.960 --> 0:16:05.120 they're in elementary school, right, all of the virtue signaling, 0:16:05.520 --> 0:16:08.240 all of the herd mentality is always there, and they 0:16:08.320 --> 0:16:11.480 know that there will be consequences if they step out 0:16:11.520 --> 0:16:11.920 of the norm. 0:16:12.080 --> 0:16:17.520 Take a quick break more on gen Z. We're seeing 0:16:17.960 --> 0:16:21.200 rates of depression go up in young people. I mean, 0:16:21.280 --> 0:16:24.200 there was a recent report that showed almost sixty percent 0:16:24.280 --> 0:16:28.280 of US girls reported persistent sadness and hopelessness, and rates 0:16:28.800 --> 0:16:31.480 are up for boys as well. Why do you think 0:16:31.600 --> 0:16:33.960 so many young people are so depressed. 0:16:34.280 --> 0:16:35.720 I don't like to be the one that says like 0:16:35.760 --> 0:16:38.760 social media is like the cause of everything, right, it's 0:16:38.800 --> 0:16:41.280 the bane of civilization. But I do think social media 0:16:41.320 --> 0:16:44.080 plays a role in it. Right, there's like a big 0:16:44.240 --> 0:16:46.400 there's a lot of comparisons that have been Right, if 0:16:46.440 --> 0:16:49.480 you're on TikTok and Instagram and you see all these 0:16:49.520 --> 0:16:51.960 airbrush photos of these girls who look perfect and they're 0:16:51.960 --> 0:16:54.400 getting millions of views and you don't look like that, 0:16:54.400 --> 0:16:56.400 that can be really depressing. But I think it's just 0:16:57.040 --> 0:17:01.360 not being present in general is the problem. I think 0:17:01.400 --> 0:17:04.679 you're consumed by your phones. I don't think young people 0:17:05.080 --> 0:17:08.800 have human human interaction, and this was especially true during COVID. 0:17:09.200 --> 0:17:11.280 I think religion plays a big role into it, what 0:17:11.720 --> 0:17:15.440 brings you purpose in life, And the truth is most 0:17:15.480 --> 0:17:19.760 young people are atheist or agnostic, or if they are 0:17:19.920 --> 0:17:23.119 identifying as a religion, they're not very practicing. These are 0:17:23.240 --> 0:17:26.960 things that give people grounding and give them purpose, and 0:17:27.000 --> 0:17:29.600 when you take that away from them, they get depressed. 0:17:29.960 --> 0:17:31.800 So I'm not surprised by the numbers at all. 0:17:32.200 --> 0:17:34.240 Do you think the reason you turned out so normal 0:17:34.320 --> 0:17:39.000 is because of your parents? Because you certainly stand out 0:17:39.040 --> 0:17:42.680 in a sea of sheet people and a sea of 0:17:42.720 --> 0:17:43.720 a broken generation. 0:17:43.840 --> 0:17:46.560 It seems I appreciate that. It's very nice of you 0:17:46.640 --> 0:17:48.600 to say that. Yeah, I mean, my parents are wonderful, 0:17:49.600 --> 0:17:52.760 something that I always because I didn't go to a 0:17:52.880 --> 0:17:56.919 super conservative school. Actually I went to for most of 0:17:57.080 --> 0:18:00.800 elementary school, actually for all of the elementsentry school, I 0:18:00.880 --> 0:18:03.600 went to a very left wing school. So my dad 0:18:03.640 --> 0:18:08.240 was running for Congress. I was coming into class and 0:18:08.280 --> 0:18:12.520 people would bring in literature against him, right, making fun 0:18:12.560 --> 0:18:15.480 of him. My teacher, my teacher would come and try 0:18:15.480 --> 0:18:17.679 to debate me. I'm like a little fifth grader, and 0:18:17.720 --> 0:18:21.800 she would try to debate me on what terrible things 0:18:21.840 --> 0:18:26.280 my parents are saying or trying to run on. But 0:18:26.400 --> 0:18:29.520 I think what was different about me is that I 0:18:30.520 --> 0:18:33.960 really was energized by that kind of you know, the 0:18:34.400 --> 0:18:38.760 politics and the battle of ideas. I thought it was 0:18:38.800 --> 0:18:41.160 really fun. I had a situation I don't know if 0:18:41.160 --> 0:18:45.920 you remember, but during the Scott Walker protests in Wisconsin, 0:18:46.240 --> 0:18:51.040 because he had taken away public sector union, so the 0:18:51.119 --> 0:18:54.440 teachers were very angry. They occupied the capitol in Wisconsin. 0:18:54.480 --> 0:18:57.560 It was a massive, these massive protests. My dad did 0:18:57.560 --> 0:19:00.360 a fundraiser with Scott Walker in twenty ten, and at 0:19:00.359 --> 0:19:03.560 the protest I saw my fifth grade teacher and two 0:19:03.600 --> 0:19:07.160 of my best friends protesting against us as we were 0:19:07.160 --> 0:19:10.840 going into this fundraiser. And I think most people would 0:19:10.880 --> 0:19:13.840 like be really traumatized by that situation, but I just 0:19:14.200 --> 0:19:16.760 was very energized by it. And I noticed that in 0:19:16.800 --> 0:19:19.040 my own family, right, there are some like some kids 0:19:19.080 --> 0:19:22.280 are really excited by you know, this battle of ideas, 0:19:22.320 --> 0:19:24.720 and some kids, some kids in our families say I 0:19:24.920 --> 0:19:28.600 just I'd rather just you know, not not not be 0:19:28.680 --> 0:19:30.399 in the battle all the time. But I think the 0:19:30.440 --> 0:19:33.080 most important thing growing up was that my parents always 0:19:33.119 --> 0:19:35.600 had conversations at the dinner table. So any time that 0:19:35.840 --> 0:19:37.919 something was came up at school or came up in 0:19:38.000 --> 0:19:40.399 girl Scouts, and they would always we would always come 0:19:40.480 --> 0:19:45.120 home and we always talked politics and about our culture 0:19:45.160 --> 0:19:49.159 and values at a very very young age. And they 0:19:49.160 --> 0:19:51.280 were and they didn't talk to us like children either. 0:19:51.359 --> 0:19:54.000 They were they never talked down. They always explained things 0:19:54.000 --> 0:19:56.479 like we were, you know, that we were real people. 0:19:56.880 --> 0:19:59.000 And I thought that was really helpful. You know. 0:19:59.040 --> 0:20:02.080 I had a similar upbringing because my first word was no, 0:20:02.720 --> 0:20:07.600 and then why came shortly after, which makes lot I 0:20:07.600 --> 0:20:10.040 love that. Yeah, but but right dad, you know, but 0:20:10.040 --> 0:20:12.640 my parents took time to like debate me and tell 0:20:12.680 --> 0:20:16.000 me why, and explain things and have conversations and really 0:20:16.040 --> 0:20:21.399 fostered that environment like you're describing, of debate, conversation, critical thinking, 0:20:21.560 --> 0:20:24.560 you know, desiring to stand alone, and that it was 0:20:24.600 --> 0:20:26.159 okay to not be a part of the crowd. 0:20:26.200 --> 0:20:26.359 You know. 0:20:26.440 --> 0:20:28.320 So I really do think a lot of that, you know, 0:20:28.359 --> 0:20:30.840 a lot of those conversations, and that upbringing comes into 0:20:30.840 --> 0:20:33.440 play obviously now as adults that we both are It's 0:20:33.640 --> 0:20:36.160 interesting that we kind of had, uh, you know, similar 0:20:36.240 --> 0:20:40.000 upbringings in that way. Are these younger generations lost or 0:20:40.040 --> 0:20:42.920 as conservatives? You know, how do we message them? Can 0:20:42.960 --> 0:20:45.639 we reach them? What does that messaging? What should that 0:20:45.680 --> 0:20:46.080 look like? 0:20:46.400 --> 0:20:50.400 I have a good example there. Now I'm forgetting his name. 0:20:50.760 --> 0:20:52.080 I'm going to look. I'm going to look it up. 0:20:52.119 --> 0:20:57.840 But there's this Democrat representative who is doing the most amazing. Okay, 0:20:57.840 --> 0:21:01.240 so I'll go back for a second. I did say 0:21:01.240 --> 0:21:04.240 that there's an issue with young people in attention spans 0:21:04.240 --> 0:21:07.879 on social media. The problem is if you boycott social 0:21:07.960 --> 0:21:10.160 media as a conservative because you say, oh, well it's 0:21:10.200 --> 0:21:12.240 not you know, it's not good for kids. I'm not 0:21:12.280 --> 0:21:14.119 going to be messaging on there. I'm going to do 0:21:14.160 --> 0:21:16.280 press releases instead or write off eds in the New 0:21:16.359 --> 0:21:20.199 York Times or the Wall Street Journal. You're not going 0:21:20.280 --> 0:21:22.359 to reach them. You have to go into the belly 0:21:22.359 --> 0:21:24.680 of the beast because you don't have an option. That's 0:21:24.720 --> 0:21:27.920 where people are. So as much as we don't like TikTok, 0:21:28.320 --> 0:21:32.240