Full Transcript for Midterm Fallout, Socialism vs. Capitalism & The Road Ahead with Hunter Dunn

also flipped blue. And can you imagine if Florida and Texas flipped blue in the same year? Like I think we'd the entire White House cabinet would be on suicide watch. It would be insane. So I think that we left a lot on the board, but also this was a pretty crazy showing, and we outperformed my personal expectations. So all in all, I'm pretty happy, but the work just got started. It's not over yet. We have so much more to do. Yeah. To totally. I think the Florida thing is very interesting. Florida seemed to be the only state that held on. and it held on barely by like a percentage point or two. And I think that you could in part attribute some of that success to Ron DeSantis' popularity, but I also think that you're right to acknowledge that not as much money, not as not as many resources were poured into Florida as a state like Texas. And I think that if you see the Democrat lose in Mississippi, people's heads are gonna be on the chopping block for that as well. If that guy ends up losing by five or six hundred votes, people are gonna be very upset that more money wasn't invested there. okay, Jake, I'm gonna hand it over to you. Your ninety seconds start now, your takeaways from the midterm elections. So fun ninety seconds. All right. No, I mean, I I think there are Some people talk about candidate quality. I don't think that's the case. I think there's there's some amount of that. Lindsay Graham's sister, I don't know what the heck that was. That there are some really, really bad candidates. Like Ken Paxton is just a terrible candidate. but the governor race in that same election was a pretty good candidate. He was a pretty popular, pretty, you know, as far as I can tell, pretty successful. Governor, people are talking about him possibly for president, within the Republican Party. he was a powerful guy. And he lost. We have a we have a blue governor of Texas now. And so I don't think the candidate quality is much as the thing. I think it really was Donald Trump said, vote like I'm on the ballot. And people said, Okay. careful what you wish for. You just might get it. People don't like him. And I think the left is is taking the wrong message in some ways. They think that people like their policies. And by a lot of like the individual ballot measures, where it's just a policy in Washington, in California, the Republicans did actually better on a lot of these things. It's the candidate selection where you're voting against Trump. And I think another thing that happened was the far right voted blue in this election. The sort of the young white Republican men. And I didn't. And I'm I'm friends with these people. And I told them, no, don't do that. And they did. And so I don't know what that means for 28. But I think this was a wacky election and the standard conclusions can't necessarily be drawn here. Yeah, yeah. I I'm one of those guys that that would have voted blue up and down the ballot. that's because you're a commie. Like you're not a far right person. I'm not really into Hold on, hold on. Hold on. Let me I I just wanna I wanna pitch something really briefly, because I've talked to people like this. I've talked to groupers who and I don't enjoy talking to them. They make me viscerally uncomfortable. But I think I have a very small fan base of them because I made fun of Patrick Bed David on a Jubilee show and they hate Patrick Bed David because Patrick Bet David brought Benjamin Nanyahoo on and gave him a softball interview. And they hate Israel for a variety of reasons. And I I also hate Israel, but for reasons I think are not anti-Semitic, unlike some of these scrapers. But if you genuinely believe if you maybe there's two. If you genuinely believe that you were trying to advance the interests of white people. Then you probably still vote Democrat. Richard Spencer has made this argument. Richard Spencer, the guy who gets punched in the Nazi GIF, there's a GIF of a Nazi guy getting punched. The Nazi in the GIF is Richard Spencer. And he has endorsed Democrats in the past several cycles because he's convinced that Democratic policies are less disastrous for white people than Republican policies, even if mass immigration is like a real thing. that's that's how bad this is. That's how bad Trump's war on Iran is. That's how bad some of the corruption we're seeing in the White House is. That you have Nazis voting for the pro-minority party because at least there's some economic policies that might help some white people somewhere. Like that that's the world we're in now. Yeah, I think white supremacists tend to be socialists. And I don't, you know, like you in some sense you have this, you know, like national socialism out of the Not all socialists are white supremacists, but I have found that white supremacists tend to be socialists. And that's been like a very odd phenomenon. I I'm I'm not sure you'd not socialist in the sense of wanting the workers to own the means of production. In the big government sense, sure, but big government isn't what socialism is. You can have a big liberal government, a big conservative government, you can have a big anything government except for libertarian. Well, I think the interesting thing about the white supremacy issue is that for me, I would say that we're very e we we have a very easy time on the right saying that where the right goes too far is white supremacy. White supremacy does live on the far right. And that is a place where we can very clearly see, say, that's where that's where we go too far. And what I'm curious, and I we'll get to this a little bit later, Hunter, is I don't think that that the left has as clear of an answer to that question, which is where's the place where the left goes too far? Because Republicans are very are very able to identify where our ideology goes off the rails. And where it goes too far. So I am curious to get your thoughts on that. But first, I'm just gonna give my my 90 second spiel and then we we'll get

into some more stuff. So I'm gonna start my own clock here. but essentially I'm feeling very optimistic about the state of the country after the election. And to be clear, it is not because I'm so thrilled about the Democrats. I think that the Democrats remain to be seen, whether or not they do a good job. But the reason why I feel optimistic is because I hate tribalism. And I think that there is a notion that has been propagated by the elites. pushed through our social media algorithms that Americans are hopelessly divided and we're entrenched in their respective camps and that discourse and progress and bipartisanship are completely impossible. And I think that what the election on Tuesday showed is that that is a myth. It is a myth propagated by the elites to keep us divided against each other so that we do not unite against them. And you know, most Americans from a farmer in Texas to a young girl in Mississippi to a PhD candidate in California All want the same or similar things, and we are united in our repudiation of the status quo. And you saw Democrats win in places that they haven't won in decades. We talked about Texas. We're gonna talk about Kansas, we're gonna talk about potentially Mississippi. you saw, Republicans lose every statewide election in Texas. And overall, I do think that is a positive sign for democracy. I think that people need to step outside of their ideological tribe. So I'm really happy and optimistic to see that happening. I think that you know the election. Was essentially a massive repudiation of Trump. And I think that one of the most damaging parts of the Trump reign, and one of the worst things he did to the country was the way that he pit people against each other. He played into our most tribal instincts that go back, all the way back to to the start of our evolution. and to to pit this country against each other, to to to foment that us versus them mentality. And I think that Tuesday's election essentially represents the beginning. of of a healing process for the damage that he's done to our culture over the last ten years. I think I went a little bit over there. Yeah. I think we all agreed the Iran war was bad. And everyone was like, we can't do more of that. Yeah. And the Iran war, that's one place that we could totally agree is that the Iran war is awful. I think another place that we can agree, all three of us, is that the Democrats need new leadership. I mean, d you know, Hunter, might have more insights into this than we do. I I think I want to spear here. Yeah, Chuck Schumer is horrible. Hakeem Jeffries is not the man for this moment. I don't know if anybody's going to challenge Schumer, but I would love to see a Chris Van Halen or a Chris Murphy or even a Brian Schatz from Haw Hawaii take over the majority leader position in the Senate. Do you think there's any chance of that? What's what's your sense of of that? So the insider info that I have, I don't currently work for a congressional Democrat or

Senate Democrat, but I do exist in spaces where I can talk to these people and talk to a lot of their staffers. And I'm for context, I'm fifty fifty one's national press coordinator. I do some organizing for a number of different groups, mostly involved with No Kings. And I do some spokesperson work for that. So for our audience, like I'm more in like the movement space, but I also was a com staffer on the Angie Nixon Senate campaign. I've worked in various different campaigns. I'm also a very small influencer. Like, you know, like pretty pretty small. I I barely even mentioning that part. I think you're the biggest of the three of us though on influencing. Yeah, we're we're very small. So Hey, in Shulai, it will it will increase over time. Okay. regardless, Chuck Schumer, people want him gone. And Chris Van Holland seems like he's willing to take the lead there. And on top of it, A number of different progressive groups are already pushing for him to be unseated, or more accurately, to not be nominated as Senate Majority Leader. And a number of Senate candidates and current US senators have indicated either directly that they wouldn't vote for Chuck Schumer, that they would vote for Chris Van Hallen, or that they believe there needs to be new blood and leadership, without being specific on what they mean by that. So Chuck Schumer seems like his hold is pretty unstable. As we're filming this, Indivisible is currently holding a mass call with Chris Van Halen, which is totally not a launch party for Chris Van Halen's nomination for Senate Majority Leader. Definitely, 100%. Totally not that. That's not what it is, for sure. at the same time, I don't think Hakeem Jeffries is remotely removable. the Congressional Black Caucus is really excited about having their first ever black speaker, which i is a big deal. You know, like we don't whether Regardless of your opinions on the values of representation, it is crazy that this is one of the first non white speakers, period, and the first black speakers specifically. Yeah, but if he sucks? yeah, of course. I'm aware. I I don't want I don't want him to be speaker. I think that there's better options. Both people who are white, people are non white who would be better speakers than Akeem Jeffrey's. Would you rather a white man who was good? I would prefer a person who's good. I don't really care as much. Right. When it comes to but I also want to note like Chuck Schumer is genuinely bad at his job, and we've seen him be bad at it. Hakeem Jeffries is a good floor manager and he's good at whipping votes. He's not good at being like a public speaker at the front of the party, but that's not actually the most important part of a speaker. The most important part of the speaker is keeping the party in line and getting the party priorities done. So what matters the most for Jeffries is is he going to empower the committee chairs to be good at their jobs? And Robert Garcia, who is the congressman in the district right next to me, is out there. Currently out there just warning everyone to lawyer up. So it looks like the committee chairs are pulling out their knives. And if Hakeem Jeffries lets them use their knives, then Hakeem Jeffries is fine. I prefer someone better, but sometimes you can get someone who's good enough, and he could be good enough. Chuck Schumer's a disaster for the American people. And I think both Republicans and Democrats and also independents can all agree on that. Yeah. So can you just tell me a little bit more? You touched on it a little bit, but What do you do? I see you traveling all over, is this your job? Is this how you make money? Can you just prov just give me some context? Wha what do you do? Yeah. So I do the thing I mostly make money is I do press and media infrastructure. So I do a lot of work helping grassroots groups get media out there, like get information out there about what they're doing, what they're doing to try to make the world better, what they're doing to make a congressperson on either side of the aisle's life's hell. We do a lot of bird dogging on both sides of the aisle. You think we don't harass we harass Democrats almost as much as we harass Republicans, because Democrats we can get them to do what we want. Republicans were trying to harass them to mostly get them out of office. in these cases, a lot of that looks like, you know, press releases, media training, helping people like learn how to talk to press, how to pitch their ideas in a way that's beneficial to them, because a lot of people just don't know how to talk on a camera. They don't know how to talk to a reporter. on top of that, I do some organizing. I've helped organize the No Kings protests here in Los Angeles. I've helped organize different protests, different kinds, helped organize large mutual aid days where we got thousands of pounds of ready-made food, women's reproductive health supplies, and other important necessary items for people to food banks across the country. So there's a mix of some borderline charity work there. I also do some consulting for campaigns, like political campaigns, and I also have made a little bit of money off of social media. Not very much. Mena's given me a hundred bucks total from view revenue. and I've made a bit of money from like using there's a thing called Sway, which like has a voting guide website, and I got some money from like hosting my opinions on Sway. They didn't pay me for my opinions, they paid me to host it there. I would never take money to have an opinion, but I will take money to blast my opinion I already have out to people. That sounds great. Thank you. Thank you for paying me and giving me more of a platform. I'm very happy about that. While we talk about money, making money, I have to ask you about your socialist views. so you have the democratic establishment, which it sounds like you hate. Then you have a couple steps to the left of that where maybe we would put like an El Sayed

and the and an Elizabeth Warren, where where maybe they would, you know, they're self-described capitalists, but they believe in, you know, strong regulation and intervention. And then you have a couple more steps to the left from that, where maybe we would put somebody like a Bernie Sanders and AOC and a Zoran Mamdani. And then I think you could go in even even further and take a few more steps from that, and and and you can find some full-blown abolitionist candidates. so where where are you? you identify as a socialist. What does that mean? Because there's all sort of different versions and iterations. So give me some context into your political identity and particularly some of your economic positions. Yeah. So I think the easiest basis of this is that almost everyone in the United States is some type of liberal. And I don't mean that they're left wing. they are in the classical liberal today tradition, one way or another. There are some people who are fascists, there are some people who are socialists or anarchists or communists, but most people are within that liberal worldview. Not even intentionally, you just become one by living in this society most of the time. I see socialism as like an outgrowth and an expansion of liberalism. One of the issues with liberalism is the con seeming contradictions between democracy and capitalism, right? One person, one vote, versus the more money you have, the more of a say you have. Personally speaking, the way that I want to solve this is I want to help participate and continue the American experiment. I think that the things that we found in America on, even if we haven't made the upheld those promises to all people all the time are fundamentally good promises life, liberty, pursuit of happiness. And I think that by moving things in a first a more social democratic direction and then a more like libertarian market socialist direction, things like worker co ops, you're going to get a more free society that not only is more economically productive, but also has a higher quality of life for the people who now are both making more money and have more s say in how their life is run. And if that goes well, we can keep moving in that direction and we'll see where we end up. And if that doesn't go well, then we can find where the line is and we can stay there or even go backwards a bit if that's what's best for the people. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I experimental sense. Yeah, yeah. So yeah, I mean I think that, you know, you're right to say that pretty much all Americans are liberals. so you know, obviously liberalism, you know, tradition essentially starting with John Locke that emphasizes individual rights, it emphasizes equality before the law. And even we talked a little bit, Hunter, that I, identify as a classical Burke and conservative. And we're liberals too. we defend private property. We we we are big proponents of individual responsibility, freedom of speech, religious freedom. you know, all of these things are

our liberal tenets. So I think that that's definitely true. I do want to talk to you more about the the socialism aspect though. And I wanna ask you a question, then I I want Jake to jump in because he's he's great at this type of stuff. you know, so I'm not a socialist. despite what Jake will say many times on this podcast. I I I think we're taking I think we're converting you. I'll get you your DSA membership card, okay? It's this is so complicated. You know, Jake's trying to make me like an Austrian which like believes in like no government at all. And you markets fail sometimes, Jake. Markets are awesome. And and I know I pro market too. We agree on that. It's just markets But when they fail, you get just a natural boom bust cycle. They c the mal the malinvestment collapses and the people who made the poor investments lose. The problem is the government keeps bailing out the people who made bad investments. The state in fact. I'm with you there. We need to stop bailing out those people. But we have another point of agreement. I'm also you know massively. My issue with it is when we bail out the govern the companies that did it and then don't help the workers, because the workers also take on risk. And those people don't have infinite resources. So some of their families go hungry or die. And I think that's bad. So that's that's my main issue with Austrian economics. It's like I think we need to have a safety net for people, not for companies. I hate corporate socialism. I think it's interesting, I appreciate what you just said there, which is like you're just like, I just don't want people to go hungry. And this is a sentiment that I hear a lot from people on your side. And I have to say, I'm I'm like I'm not a socialist, but I'm sympathetic to that argument. I'm sympathetic of, w the the philosophy that underlies some of the positions of the DSA. And I'm I'm sympathetic to this idea that you are framing government responsibility as a duty, and a responsibility. And I appreciate that, but the question that I wanna ask, you know, is is that, you know, what if this idea that you can use government to guarantee people what you believe are fundamental rights, let's say housing and healthcare, and and things like that. what is what does that mean? Right, but right the healthcare but the the question I want to ask before that you before you elaborate on that, because I'm I really am curious, is what happens when you expand the notion of government obligation, you know, to provide rights, whether it's healthcare, whether it's housing. Do you recognize that when you expand Expand the panorama on government obligation, you also expand the panorama on government power. And if we give the government the power to determine our health care, for example, and we frame this as an obligation the government has to its people, we also give the government the power to determine what kind of care we receive. So that's my question. Is when you say the government has an obligation to provide housing to people, are we talking a four-bedroom colonial or a tent? When it comes to healthcare, are we talking, multi-million dollar, experimental cancer drugs, or are we talking emergency care? And, you know, as somebody who thinks a lot about, you know, the extent to which we sacrifice freedom to the state to balance order and liberty, the idea of sacrificing this level of power to the state under the guise of obligation, under the guise of helping people scares me. So, you know, Jake asked specifically about healthcare. Just talk to me about that. Talk to me about why you are comfortable. With expanding government power in that capacity. I'm I'm gonna do housing first and then healthcare if that's fine. on housing, I'm very much a I think that there needs to be both public and private solutions on housing. I want to build more housing, I want to slash red tape, cut down on the bureaucracy that is preventing the building of affordable housing, and build as much housing as possible. That was our biggest agreement because we're both yes bees. Yeah. I and I I am I am a true vulgar yimby. I want to build as much housing as humanly possible. And I really don't care who who who gets mad about it. on the other hand, I also do think that there is real value in having affordable housing that's built publicly. And this can be a public-private partnership, this can be done w working with nonprofits or even churches. yes, and God's backyard is a pretty great law that was passed here in California, which allows for churches and universities to build more housing on their property. regardless of what the local regulations say, and they were and they get some funding from the state to do it. I think that that's helpful. I I think housing is such a nasty crisis that as much as possible, we need to build more housing, regardless of what levers or mechanisms we pull to get there. like that that's kind of my thing. I'm just a housing maximalist at this point. There's not even like a real ideological bent behind this. This is there's a problem, and we need to fix the problem by building more housing. And the government can do it, your mom can do it. BlackRock can do it if they fucking want to, I don't care. Everyone's gonna just build more housing. On healthcare, I think that when it there's two conceptions of rights in the liberal tradition. One is that they are come from a higher power by God, and they're objectively there. It's plain to the entire world to see it. The Declaration of Independence talks about this. I don't think that's a good argument. I you can't prove that God gave you rights, unfortunately. What we can do as a society is we can experiment and develop American democracy over time. And figure out which rights are more or less beneficial to us over time. I'm a rules utilitarian. I think free speech is important because even though speech can be harmful sometimes, blocking speech, limiting expression, is much more

damaging to society than letting people say some dumb shit online. I think that's fair. I think most of us agree there. And I think that same basic principle applies to everything else. And in my case, with healthcare, when I look at it and I see the way that it is an in-a- it has inelastic demand. There is not a price you are willing to put that you will pay nothing above that to still be alive. Or even if you don't care about your life that much, what about your kid? How much money would you pay to keep your kid alive? How much debt would you take? I I think the number is basically infinite. If you're a good moral person, you would spend as much money as it possibly takes. And that creates a perverse incentive for healthcare companies to take things, to like put you in as much debt as humanly possible to make as much money as possible. And that's what I think the problem is. Now, I'm not someone who wants to ban private healthcare. I want to have everyone have a basic plan that covers things so that no one goes bankrupt because they got cancer. And then you can but you can still buy whatever healthcare you want on top of that. As much as you want. So you don't go bankrupt because you have cancer. Does that mean the basic plan has to include the multi-million dollar experimental thing? Because this is that's the idea would be that I have inelastic demand. And therefore I'll pay infinite amount to save my, 12 year old son who has can I don't have a son, but hypothetical my son. I would pay infinite amount of money. And there's this experimental drug that they say has, you know, a reasonable chance of saving him, but it's it's very new and it costs, you know, a million dollars. It's one of these like gene specific drugs where they like create a a particular to your son's DNA to target the cancer. And so it costs an obscene amount of money to to do. D do I have a basic right to that? Or is there some threshold of well, the state will only cover up to a hundred thousand dollars? Or what what are you what what are you actually talking about where you say I should shouldn't go bankrupt because I have cancer. Well, if my twelve year old son has that kind of cancer, someone's going bankrupt, and maybe it's the state. Yeah. first off, I states will really go like state bankruptcy is like a different conversation and there's no amount of health care for one person that could possibly In in the aggregate, if everyone developed super massive cancer and it costs ten billion dollars to treat everyone, sure, there's a different problem. But in most of these cases, the healthcare industry, we are currently spending more money through the private system than we would spend through the public system based on the best studies we have available to us. I can pull up some Yale studies for that, when it comes to Medicare for all. So have you applyed Or is your argument that we should cover everything? my argument is that we should cover the basics and also emergency care up to a certain point. The certain point is going to have to be developed by the actual people doing the policy, right? So I don't know where's the line on how likely a treatment is to help versus how much it costs, wherein it no longer becomes a reasonable gamble for people to take. Part of the reason why I still support having private healthcare on top of public health care is because if a billionaire wants to spend an ungodly amount of money on researching and developing some crazy new drug that might help people lose 50 pounds or or helps with future emergency care, having that innovation and development is still good. So trying to have the best parts of the system we have, which encourages innovation, while still covering like basics in emergency care for most people in most cases is the best possible situation. But you must see it's how it's never going to be perfect. It's never gonna be perfect. But just because it isn't perfect, doesn't mean it's not worthwhile. We might not be able to cover everyone in every case, but covering most people in most cases is a major step up from the system we currently have. And then we just go by vibes as to what most and what reasonable mean? Well, no. We would run studies, we would hire the best experts, and we would work this out as governments work this out in every other policy in every other case. How do we decide what what do we spend money on for the military? The same way. Right, but you spend way too much money to I'm You and I agree on military issues. I'm I'm fairly c you you talk about we need to have a military. we need to have a military though. And we need to spend a certain amount of money on our Yeah, but the objective metric on the military is we need to be able to fight anyone else. Not that we need to be able to go do regime change in, Ukraine or whatever, but that we need to have the ability to protect anyone else and enforce the rule of law. That the government is going to be a monopoly on violence. And if I want to do violence, the police and military will stop me. If China wants to do violence in America, the police and military will stop me. And that's the exact threshold you need. And so the the the the the but also there's no number. Like there's there's not a number at which China no longer invades you. Like that's not a real like that there's not like a real static number there. There's no is but it's a principle of a quarter trillion, they can't invade us. But you have a metric you're optimizing for, and you may optimize poorly for it, but I can tell you exactly what I'm optimizing for. The thing that you said was that everyone, no one should go bankrupt from medical care just because you got cancer. And then I asked about this hypermillion dollar system. And then you said, Well, it's not perfect, it's just for most people. And then I say, Okay, what's the most? And you say, Well, we'll just like trial and error it. And the issue is that my threshold. is a little bit

subjective, but the thing I'm optimizing for is objective. The thing you're actually optimizing for is also subjective. You're ups optimizing for a most, whereas I'm optimizing for a not invaded by China. Right. So Hunter, I think what what he's trying to get at is like I I I I guess the case for that is like I don't think I think that a reasonable standard is that no one should go bankrupt from chemotherapy. Specifically, chemotherapy and the normal routine treatments we do for most forms of cancer, right? And I'm not a medical doctor, so I'm not being like maximally precise on this. But those things, the basic care that you would expect anyone to get from a reasonable plan when it comes to cancer and when it comes to other unforeseen emergencies, and when it comes to general basic wellness, that should be covered. You can get private insurance to cover it better, to cover it more efficiently, to cover it at a higher level. Or to get those crazy treatments you get to get all the steroids or whatnot. You can have private insurance for that. But everyone has the basic plan. And that would be what the basic plan would be under the system that I'm proposing. But I'm also recognizing I'm not an expert, so I'm not going to say exactly which treatment does or doesn't go through the line, because that's why we have people who do policy, right? Or I do, for example, so I would trust his healthcare plan more than mine. But our plans, I have the general moral bent in the same direction that he has. So I'm talking about. It it got better and then it got worse after Obamacare and the state got involved and things got bad. but free markets make things better and the state tends to make things worse. And so you have this that's complication. Well, it it's you're not okay, but you're not nationalizing the entire industry. You're nationalizing the healthcare industry, like the healthcare insurance industry. And you're not gonna nationalize the all it's but but your threshold for what reasonable should be done is based on where the market set it. And then the issue is I can always walk A drug that's 10% more expensive, a drug that's 10% more expensive, a drug like there's there is no line. The market can't right, but this is the issue with the current system because there is no objective standard for how much life-saving medical care is worth. So when you have one person, you can keep pushing the line up as high as you can possibly get it. But when everyone's coverage, everyone's basic coverage is under one plan and you want to make money doing healthcare. Then you have to negotiate with the world that is, and when the government can't no, it's it's worse to negotiate under one plan than it is under many plans. If there are many potential plans, because the issue is yes, I may pay an obscene amount of the but if I could pay an obscene amount to company A or to company B, now company A and B have to compete for which one I'm going to pay. And so even if my demand

may be highly inelastic, if there are lots of different plan options, the price will have to tend down. All right, Hunter, one last thought on this, and then we do have to move on because we have a lot else to go through. Hunters are a guest, you get the last thought. But go ahead. But Hunt yeah, hunt and Hunter, I think that, for this last thought, what I want you to integrate is I think that if we could zoom out a little bit from the healthcare conversation, I think that what we're trying to circle circle here is what is your limiting principle for what the government ought to do? Where does the government's obligations to its citizens and by power the And by proxy, the power the government holds over its citizens end and our personal freedom begin. That's really that's really what we're trying to get at here. Yeah. Look, okay, quickly just to address the thing. The the goal there with having everyone under the basic plan is that now companies are negotiating to get access to this pool. So they're competing and it's pushing the pricing down because they're bidding against each other to have the lowest of lowest possible price where they can still make money. For the healthcare. That's the goal of it. Just to explain the basics of what's going on there from the inelastic demand. Because you can't negotiate effectively when you're stuck in an inelastic demand space, but when everyone's plan is what we're talking about here, the demand's no longer inelastic, because you can collectively bargain around it. but when it comes to the broader purpose with the broader goal of rights and when it comes to the obligations of the government, which is what we're talking about here, I think it goes back to the life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness, right? The best way the government can enable and allow for human life to flourish without stepping on those basic fundamental negative rights like freedom of speech, freedom of movement, the right to, live your own life and moving on from there, right? We have the Bill of Rights to protect, to limit the government's ability to infringe upon our daily lives. But we also have the government which is created to allow us to exercise those freedoms as well. And Healthcare and to some degree housing, but I also think markets gonna solve most of the problem there. The government being involved in healthcare, the government being involved in defense spending, the government being involved in providing you a fire department allows for you to exercise your life, your rights to life and liberty. So that's the goal there. It's the best circumstance under which to exercise your rights as much as possible. I see. Jake, do you wanna give your, know, three or four line answer. What what's your limiting principle for what government ought to do from your prism? yeah. I think some days I feel more libertarian. Other days I feel more conservative. When I'm feeling more libertarian, my answer is life, liberty, property. and I certainly wouldn't have a freedom of movement or anything like that. I don't even think that exists as a negative right. life, liberty, property. And then when I'm feeling more conservative, I tend to sometimes suspect the state also has some c some some measure in in upholding order in some sense. You know, this is where I I get more sketchy on things like marijuana or on other so sometimes I I think that the state should be involved in protecting marriage just for the sake of like upholding a tr a traditional conservative ordered society. And I really I go back and forth on that. And I talk to libertarians and they say, you're just as bad as the damn socialist trying to use the state to force their policies on them. And sometimes I go, yeah, I might be just as bad as the damn socialist trying to force my my policies on people. And so I'm I'm I'm I really I waffle back and forth on whether or not the state has any interest in upholding order. I certainly think the state has an interest in upholding negative rights. I don't know if I've heard you waffle too much on that, Jake. I think that you're leaning more towards the it definitely does have an obligation to maintain order side of the waffling, would you say? I at least recently. I think in the last like three weeks or so, I've been I I've I've been moving more libertarian. I've I've been Well, I haven't talked to you in a while, so Yeah, you and I we've been out of we've been out of out of the work on this. We've been out of commission. Yeah. I've I've been feeling a little more libertarian lately. And then so And sometimes people accuse me of being stubborn or obstinate or incapable of changing my views. My views change all the time. Like that's basically free market libertarian like free market capitalist views. But my thoughts on abortion changed pretty radically about two years ago, maybe three years ago now. My my thoughts on marijuana go back and forth. My I became a lot more cap I don't I'm tending in a more libertarian direction on a lot of issues. I'll give I'll give my answer and then we can move on. I want I want to ask you, Hunter, some questions about the future of the Democratic Party. for me, Jake is very good at pushing back on having this optimizing principle, which is something that has really pushed the limits to my beliefs in an exciting way. And he kinda gave you a little bit of that treatment too there, Hunter. And it is interesting to think about. for me, I I think that you know, my my answer to to what government ought to do is it is it it it should secure equality of opportunity. I think that the government ought to intervene when necessary to effectively secure the conditions for human flourishing, but it should not do anything that, individuals, communities, families can do for themselves. so so that is sort of my general answer to that question, secure equality of opportunity and egalitarianism. See, that's why I think you're in some ways more socialist than

Hunter. Like I actually I personally liked Hunter's answer better than yours. That's fascinating. Well, our ours are more similar, except for his is both more and less of a nanny state than mine is at the same time. His is more because he's like, the the parent is the head of the household, the denada is the government is the head of the family. And the like we're doing Kim Jong-un shit over there. At the same time, I'm also like, I'm I'm do I'm doing the wonkest on Elizabeth Warren, democratic socialist stuff. She's a social democrat, mom Donnie does the same thing too. Where we're like, how do we optimize the 88th percentile healthcare thing, right? Which at one hand that's like that's super nanny state in some ways, but in another way it's like trying to maximize the minimum infringement upon rights to maximize the presumption of the the exercise of rights. So it's a who's more socialist? Hard to say. I deeply despise the idea of equality of opportunity. I think when Republicans say that I cringe. I believe in equality under the law, but like some people like are taller and some people are smarter. And some people had richer parents. And some people, you know, got lucky. Sure. And like all of these different features are like makes it for a different opportunity. It hold on. No, no, check, hold on. You you you're in the libertarian direction. Is a man not entitled to the sweat of his own brow? If so, why is a man entitled to the sweat of the brow of his parents? Like if you're if you're trying to like a maximum libertarian thing, like the the strong will survive, the weak will do what they must, right? If you're trying to like maximize people's ability to enterprise and thrive, why are you allowed to get any handouts from your parents? if you're getting this goes to the answer. You ready? Because my parents Jake doesn't believe in any estate tax under. So that goes the answer is that I'm not entitled to it, but my parents are entitled to give me it. I I think that that is the ideology of people who can't become rich on their own. I I think I think if we're trying to do any sort of libertarian system, I think we have to have a one hundred percent estate tax to force people to truly prove whether or not they deserve to have the wealth that was otherwise handled. Yeah, I don't believe in deserve. I don't care what anyone deserves. I think that my parents are entitled to the sweat of their own brow, and then they can do what they wish with that. And if they wish to donate it to charity or they wish to bury it in a hole or they wish to give it to their children, I I I think this idea that you're that you you lose ownership of your stuff like eight seconds before you die, like they have the right to transfer it to me. And whether they're poor and they have nothing, or they're billionaires and they have everything. Like like I I I know Michael sometimes says he hates dynastic wealth. I love dynastic wealth. 'Cause dynastic just means family. And I love family. I think that you have the right to transfer. But these people got the wealth not all cases, but in many cases, they got it s like anti system. But they got it a lot of these people that have dynastic wealth had dynastic wealth since monarchical times. They did not get it ethically. This money was not in in America, almost no wealth lasts past three to four generations in America. It's it's it's rare to last alon that many generations in America. Europe's got its own thing going on, that's fair. and you want to talk about like aristocracy in Europe. But America's been it hasn't had that problem. Okay. Yeah, sure. I I believe the stats are like what, ninety percent of like generational wealth doesn't make it past the third or fourth generation. Yeah. There's still that ten percent that does. And that ten percent has a pretty outsized say on how our government functions 'cause the amount of money that they're allowed to put into a All of the people who have an outsized say on the elections are are Zuckerberg and Gates, whose parents were wealthy and now they're cent billionaires. Gates people always talk about how Gates got a leg up because his mom helped him get the like IBM contract or something. And it's like, yeah, like he came from a somewhat well connected family. But he came from like an upper middle class, like his mom was like a a top manager kind of person. And now he's worth like what, two hundred billion dollars? Elon's the better example because he's actually fine. I I think David Ellison is a great example of this. You know, David Ellison is Larry Ellison's son. And it's like, who the fuck is this guy? Well, like, he's the guy, you know, who's the new CEO of you know the warm the Warner Bros. Paramount merger, which is now by far the most powerful media player in the world, which controls CBS News, CNN, HBO, HBO Max, TNT. And it's like, who is this guy? Who is David Ellison? Well, the answer is who the fuck knows, except when you do a quick Google search, you realize that he's actually Larry Ellison's son. And so we're entering what I like to call an inheritocracy, where we are transitioning from a world in which rich people get, the money and the houses of their parents, to they actually get the power. They actually inherit power. We've had that for a very long time. Like Rockefeller's son became vice president. Like we've had We've we've had s but but the current of matters still, but not as much. You know, you had this the the the Kennedys where like you have this like political dynasty kind of thing. Like we've always had to some degree like dynasties are natural and inheritance is is order. And so the the the question is whether or not the state is is is Well, hold on no no no no we're not doing the naturalistic fallacy. No no you can't just sneak a naturalistic fallacy in through this conversation just because it's natural as and it happens in some species sometimes does it make it good or actually it's good because

of that but I'm I'm disagreeing with Michael's idea that we're entering an inheritocracy and I'm saying that we've had you there for a very long time. And so I'm not it's not natur it's not good because it's natural, but it's definitely not new because it's natural. Yes. Well it's not new in the world. England used to be ruled by kings. But it's not new in America either. They intained power. Well I got and that became more. it it did this. It horseshoe. Yeah, I and and I would make the argument that an aritocracy is a uniquely non-American idea. Like that I would argue that America was founded not to have an aritocracy. Like soon after establishing independence, the founding fathers took great pains to prevent this. Thomas Jefferson led Virginia to abolish both, you know. what what what's that what's that law? Intel and and there's another one. But basically these laws that preserved large estates and then handed them to their eldest son. you know, Congress passed the estate tax for this very reason. you know, I think by the nineteen forties or in the nineteen fifties, the top tax rate on the largest fortunes in America was like ninety percent. And we were okay with this. What was that? It wasn't that rate. Like I get that like they like the sticker label price was that, but it wasn't. Wha what do mean by that? I mean no one ever paid ninety percent tax. Okay, not literally no one. Like at least one person did, but like just it just didn't happen. Well hold on, hold on. I actually my my my whole tax rule is the average American pays, effectively speaking, 11% of their net worth in taxes every year. By average I mean median. The median American pays, effectively speaking, 11% of their net worth. I At a certain point, I think we should just be taxing a percent of net worth every year rather than taxing wealth. we could make allowances for when someone's old I I hate the boomeraucracy. I hate the gerontocracy. But I I agree when someone's retired, we probably need to like lower the tax burden on them. But like genuinely speaking, I agree. No one has ever paid ninety percent, but they paid close to fifty percent, and they don't pay close to fifty percent now. Some of them pay like lawyers and doctors do. Well, it's a I this gets The ultra wealthy. I'm not talking about lawyers and doctor. We're not yeah. It's not people who generate their money through income, but it's when your your money is not labor. Tax well, not labor, tax well, not labor. So all right neither. How about we just No. I was memeing with the estate tax, but I would prefer a hundred percent atta estate tax to no tax at all. I don't lay value tax. Land value tax talks this. All right, all right, all right. Let's let's let's pivot. I want to add land value. I think that's actually very reasonable. I I wanted to the future of the Democratic Party because obviously you guys just had major victories. Hunter, you don't identify as a Democrat, but you you know, kind of do it like a Bernie

Sanders-esque way, I feel like we're like, yes, that that's a good comparison. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. So so look. I think that you and I share some agreement. We also obviously share some disagreement. I'm gonna tell you what I'd like to see. Jake would just like to see the Democratic Party just turn into Austrians. he kinda has a very he has his thing and that's just what he believes is right. I'm rich. If you guys did. If you guys became Austrian economics, I would vote blue. Yeah. Whereas like I have homework for you, Jake, actually. I got I got a I got a Democrat for you, the Mississippi Senator, if he wins. He's the closest to an Austrian economics guy I've ever seen run for Senate, period. Is he really? Is he He wants to cut the income tax for everyone. It's crazy. he's gen he's a full-on slopulist. He seriously? I gotta listen to him. No taxes on cops. No taxes on firefighters, doctors, and like cops. It's crazy. it's actually nonsense. there's no way any of this happens. But it makes me laugh. He aired an ad that was in Chinese. Thanking Cindy Hyde Smith for letting Chinese the Chinese government buy up farmland. Th this this was insane. this was the Democrats did like xenophobia and it worked. Right. Well, that's Mississippi for you. You know, you you you should have known there was something spicy going on with the Democrat who's poised to win there. okay. So yeah, Jake the future of your party, like xenophobic. No, but that's the future of Mississippi apparently. You should I I I encourage you to read into it and see if you like Let's let's keep getting the ball rolling. so yeah, back to the future of the Democratic Party. You know, it's funny because if you were to ask me what I would want the future of the Democratic Party to be, it would be different than what I would want the future of the Republican Party to be. Like I'm very much of this belief that I want two kind of steel manned, healthy political parties. That can joust back and forth and debate ideas to make our system better. So, when you were asking me my political ideology, for example, it's a complicated question because, for me, I want to see a a diverse marketplace of ideas, and I want to take and pick and choose from all different places. So I'll tell you what I think the steel manned, most healthy version of the Democratic Party is from my prism. And then I want to hear about where you agree, where you disagree, and I want you to flesh out your version for what you want to see. the Democratic Party become in the wake of these massive victories. that sound good? Yeah. Okay. All right. Fantastic. Fantastic. so I would say, you know, in in my view, the Republicans obviously lost on Tuesday. but the Democrats did not win. Like you saw Americans resoundingly reject the incumbent party in 2024. And you're again seeing Americans resoundingly reject the incumbent party here in 2026. And I think that the message is very clear, which is neither approach is working. we are upset with

the status quo, whether if that is the Democrats or the Republicans. And I think that so far what the Democrats' brand has been has been an abject total failure and deeply unpopular. And I would cite open borders policy, I would cite reckless and tyrannical COVID policy. I would I would cite the attempt to destroy the culture with wokeism, minimal substantive policy wins. I think the Democrats need a real rebrand there. They have been handed an enormous amount of power. They have the most diverse coalition they've ever had, and I think that they will destroy it if they go back to their standard playbook. so I want to see a wholesale rejection of 80-20 culture war issues, wokeism. And identity politics. No more tearing down statues of American heroes. No more land acknowledgments. No more erroneously claiming white supremacy is at all-time highs. No more defund the police. No more soft on crime rhetoric. No more saying border enforcement is racist. No more advocating for giving communism another shot. No. I want the Democrats to be laser focused on the message and agenda of affordability. I want them to. ban members from holding and trading individual stocks. I want them to gradually raise the minimum wage and then have it automatically indexed to inflation and productivity, which by the way, we already do for Social Security. I want to see campaign finance reform. I want to get money out of politics. I want to pass a bill denouncing the tariffs. I want to normalize capital gains and income tax. I want to pass legislation, increase funding for the IRS to increase audits on billionaires so that we close the 700 billion dollar D the $700 billion delta between taxes owed and taxes collected. I then want to use that additional revenue that we get there to abolish federal income tax for anybody making under $100,000. I want to talk about the national debt in a way that is serious. and I would do that by start with a pledge that all new spending requires an offset. And I want to have a coherent and unified position on foreign policy, particularly as it rates to is as it relates to Israel. I don't think you could talk about affordability or the national debt without talking about health care, which is something that we got into. So I want to pass all of these bills. I want to watch Trump veto them, and I want Democrats to show the American people what you would do with the presidency. You will not open the borders, you will not let criminals roam free, you will not destroy our our culture, you will deliver. For working class families. so that's what I want. I want the Democrats to stick to what works and stop with the bullshit. Hunter, you spend a lot of time on your page, I in my opinion, talking about cultural issues, advocating for wokeism, transgenderism, things that I think have been disastrous for the Democratic Party. So I'm curious what what part of what I said do you agree with? What part do you not agree with? And where do you think I don't go

farther far enough? Well, I think in most cases you're not going far enough. I I should address the trans stuff first and foremost. the thing I've been most horrified by, and this is something that both Democratic and Republican states are doing, is passing mandatory genital inspections for trans kids in sports and also for anyone who they say is trans. And I'm sorry, that incentivizes sexual predators to try to be the ones who are doing genital inspections on twelve year olds. This should not be happening. I don't care what gender a 12-year-old is playing in 12-year-old sports, and everyone who says they care doesn't really care. This whole thing seems like a pedophile grift to me. And I think that outside of that, I think you have a right to live your life the way that you want to. Obviously there needs to be some reasonable restrictions on what you can do at a certain age, etc, etc. But once you're an adult, I think you have an ultimate right to bodily autonomy. within reason, if you commit a crime, you should go to prison. So I guess I have some limits on bodily autonomy. And But when it actually comes to jail and prosecution for the Republican Democratic Party, I'll start with something that Angie Nixon, the candidate I worked for, said. I don't want to abolish prison. That's where I want to put Ashley Moody. Because Ashley Moody stole ten million dollars from Floridians and used it to fund a campaign against legal marijuana. Which was millions of types of illegal. Many different laws were broken in that act. It's called the Hope Florida scandal. You should read into it. I think that the best way to save both the Republican and Democratic Party is to get the Democratic Party to focus on prosecutions first, in doing hearings investigations right now, rooting out all the corruption, and then in twenty twenty nine, when we have the power, putting all the people who committed crimes in prison. That's the first thing. And that will make the Republican Party better too, because you guys have been taken over by a bunch of corrupt cultists. And until we arrest and imprison those people who agree with that. Your party will never be saved. So we for the good of the Republican Party and for the good of America, we have to lock some people up. That's step one. The other step is I agree. I think that focusing on culture war issues that divide people Are a bad metric. I also don't think that you should abandon your basic principles and basic values. I don't think we should sacrifice anyone's individual rights in the goal of electoral victories. And that's what I'm normally criticizing. And I'm also usually criticizing bad policy decisions. People care more about having reasonable rules in sports than they care about having genital inspections, which is why I was criticizing Josh Turek for being in favor of that kind of transport span. People that care about rules and fairness? Totally fair. If it's unfair for someone who is trans based on the medical research to be in a certain sport, then we should ban it. And that should be handled on the local level, that should be handled on the sports level. Otherwise, I don't see how it's the government's problem. The government should not be focused on legislating individual people's lives, and it should be focused on those policies that make our society materially better and help end the decline of American society that we're seeing right now. Getting us out of Iran, getting us out of stupid foreign wars in Israel, including genocide. I'm pro-Ukraine, but that's specifically because I think people have a right to defend themselves against oppressors, including in this case Russia, which is kidnapping Ukrainian children in trying to make them Russian, which is an act of cultural genocide. In addition to this, they're also doing a drone strike on Kersin. So I think we need to be strong in favor of Ukraine, but outside of that, I think we need to pull back internationally and focus on just providing aid, which makes US more popular anyways. Capital gains tax, income tax, Medicare for all. I do think we need to abolish ICE, which to be clear, does not mean no more immigration enforcement. It means that these people who are terrorists should go to prison, and we separate civil enforcement and criminal immigration enforcement separately. And the DOJ handles criminal enforcement. Treat immigrant criminals the way you treat every other type of criminal, but then just support them instead of sending them to jail. That's the difference. Or put them in jail and then deport them. That's like that's the immigration enforcement that we want to see. We don't want to see an open border, but we want to see a reasonable path to citizenship, a reasonable path to building a better life here. Because if not, our population is going to go down, and that is national suicide. We want to agree that a slow control I appreciate everything that you said about the rampant corrup corruption within the Republican Party. I hope that the Democratic Party too. I Bill Clinton. Yeah. I Bill Clinton in chains. Yeah, but it pales in comparison, unfortunately, to what we've seen in in Trump administration. so I want those people to go to jail as well. But I want to ask you specifically about a different kind of crime. So I was recently visiting a friend in Oakland and San Francisco. and there's tent cities that line the waterfront there. the place has become a little bit like the walking dead. there's you I don't even even the natives won't take Bart the public transportation there. And I think that if Democrats want to have a make a compelling case to run this country, they need to be able to run their cities. And I think that you hear all too often this soft on crime rhetoric that somehow prosecuting crime is racist or it's you know ineffective or it's anti woke or all of these things. So I I want you to talk a little bit about specifically inner city crime, its effects on marginalized

communities and low income people, and the message you think the Democratic Party ought to take around that issue. Well I think that there's basically two different problems and that have two different solutions. Well, one of them has two solutions. The first one is there is an overcriminalization of certain types of crimes that I don't think are crimes. For example, I just Don't think it should be a crime. I know Jake goes back and forth on this. I think that black and white people smoke marijuana at basically the same rate. Black people are almost four times more likely to be arrested and convicted for it. That is not only systemic racism, it's just a waste of government funds. and we should just stop doing that. And that is also like tearing apart families. It is causing people to have a one parent or no parent household. And that leads to a whole bunch of bad outcomes. Right? The overcriminalization of poverty, not just race based, but poverty in general, is an issue. the other problem though is I don't think it's a crime to be homeless. I do think it's a crime to commit crimes. you don't have a right to defecate or pee on a subway. And if someone's doing that, then we need to if for no other reason put them in like a ment have them be in a mental institution to help them recover from whatever problem made them do that. And if someone continues to do it willfully, then obviously then we talk about prison. But a mixture of having better social services, like tiny homes for people to live in. So get back on their feet, making it easier for people to who have previously been convicted of a crime or who are homeless to get a job, getting them a library card so that they can apply to a job, get them a suit so that they can apply to a job, and work with charities and n non-governmental organizations that are doing a good job in inner cities already to address these problems, give them the funding to actually tackle the problem, and then cut the bloat with the the nonprofits that are underperforming and the city services that are underperforming. Right? You can you can do both One of the careful people the cities Seattle hates them. My brother builds tiny homes in Seattle. Seattle hates them. Like the Seattle Some people just hate those people. Yeah, so from Seattle. And they literally like the blue government is been is full of like all this bullshit red tape and they have basically regulated tiny homes out of existence. Like it's it's insane it's disastrous. Yeah. I'm not my my brother he's in high school right now, but he works volun he volunteers a lot. I think he just started getting a he has some leadership position now. He's like one of the younger people who's like coach teaching people how to build them now. And he's done like an obscene number of hours built like literally like building these homes. And the Seattle government has fought them tooth and nail about every I think they're shipping them off to like Spokane now or something because they have all these homes that they've built that the government won't let them use. And so Spokane, which has a much smaller homelessness problem. Is like getting solved because of these tiny homes. Yeah. I I guess like basically my stance is like that's also an issue. We have so much nimby democrats, we have so many corrupt democrats at the local and state level, people like Karen Bass, who, and I I know you guys are both tough on crime, but I want to emphasize the LEPD are actually criminals. I have I I was at a protest, we were on the sidewalk, and a LEPD officer gets out of his car. Points at three people, gets back in his car and accelerates at them, running one of them over. that guy should be in prison. I I just I don't that guy should be in jail. That LEPD officer should be in jail. And Karen Bass knows about the hired a guy who had issues with sexual abuse under his custody, with domestic violence from his cops, had personal allegations of abuse, increased incidents of police brutality over every single place that he had control over, and then hired him anyways. Because it was politically expedient and because her donors liked him. And now we're removing her and replacing her with the one city council member who actually showed an issue, who actually had an issue with the LEPD, but at the same time, one of the only council members who actually decreased the amount of homelessness in her district because she helped cut red tape and build more homes. I I understand that there's a lot of institutional pushback against Democratic socialism, against people who seem like mega woke. But the Democratic Socialists are the ones who have actually taken Ezra Klein's words to heart about the abundance agenda, about cutting red tape, about Slashing issues, allowing for more permits for businesses, making it easier to run a business, making it more affordable to be a worker, allowing for more worker co-ops so people can run the business they want to run their business. Those are the steps we need to take. So it's interesting to me that despite the moderate Democrats seeming more appealing on first glance, the ones that are more appealing to people are the more populist, lefter seeming Democrats. Like Mam Dani, Victor Rahman, Katie Wilson, people who are trying to slash that red tape. Well, this is why I'd love to see a Democratic Party that combined Ezra Klein and Bill Clinton, where you could be tough on crime, balance the budget, you know, have a more reasonable foreign policy. Do a lot of like reason I I think some of the NATO expansion stuff was bad. So maybe not foreign policy. But you know, regardless, you know bomb bombing Serbia was war warranted. Yeah, yeah, I'll give you I'll give you that one. that that's what I was thinking at first. The first thing I thought of was the Serbia thing. Which I support the bombing of Serbia. But then I from there I'm more about the the NATO expansion and everything. I and even the Serbia one, some of

the stuff that we did there, our government is a little sketchy sometimes in the military. sure. Yeah, yeah. That's fair. we should always be skeptical of US intervention, even when it's like totally warranted. Yeah. But so ig ignoring the foreign policy, talking domestic for now. Yeah, we should. I think that a combination of Ezra Klein and Bill Clinton could be an excellent party. And I think that if you guys s dropped this twenty-five dollar minimum wage, you stopped doing like the wealth taxes, if you I think that some of the economic, the socialist part of DSA and some of the woke stuff of, banning comedy or just culturally feeling very restrictive. And by the way, when Trump went after Kimmel, I thought was disgusting. I I lost my shit when Trump did that. And so both sides do this. But just very Kimmel. I mean it was bad. I defended him, but like it was just dumb. It was stupid. Yeah. No, I agree. Yeah, yeah. But so the the cult I think as Michael was saying, the cultural control stuff and then some of the the the socialist stuff. But as you're talking about, it turned some cop who's like beat running people over, I don't know the details of this, but if if a cop tried to run people over, that guy should go to prison. And that's something that I would agree with. And you know, if you're just trying to like like the fact that they won't let them build tiny homes in Seattle, it's like, what are you doing? Like Let them build the tiny homes in Seattle. why? And so if I would like to see a Democrat my answer this question, I would like to see a Democratic Party that was dis 90s Democrats with some Ezra Klein Yembyism. I think that's a party that I I would s you know who are like redistributionist and you know trying to like s fight for the poor in these kind of ways and Things that I agree we should fight for the poor. I just actually don't think those are effective policies for the poor. But I I get where they come from on that. And I have a lot of sympathy for these kinds of positions. And I really like, you know, Bill Clinton's personal life, he's probably a criminal, sent him to prison. but a lot of the policies of this administration, I actually think were very solid. And if they had a Democratic Party that was that, I wouldn't feel so terrified when they take office. I just I'm just much more concerned with our modern Dems. And for the record, I'm no fan of the modern Republicans. I might be the most anti Trump Republican like on Princeton's campus. And, you know, I'm I I very, very outspoken against that too. And so if I could see an ideal party, I'd like to see the twenty twenty eight election be like Bill Clinton resurrected versus Thomas Massey. That's that's what I want. I think we're circling two things, which is the cultural stuff, which I want to get to But wokeism and we should define that and talk about it. But the economic stuff. So it's funny, Hunter. It's like Jake and I are hearing you talk, and you were right to point out

that, at least in my opinion, like some of the stuff that you're saying is actually resonating with me more than something that, you know, an establishment, you know, pro red tape middle of the road Democrat might say. And yet, you guys have this reputation for being Totally unreasonable and radical. So where do you think that comes from? And you know what what do you think is sort of going on there? Talk talk just talk more about that. It I think it is I genuinely agree with this, Tay, from New York City Councilman Shi Ose, who is a socialist, by the way, that woke one was crazy. That people that woke one understood that there was real issues with the way society is currently structured and who has power and how that power is used. in a way that enriches people at the expense of the broader public. but they had a disordered relationship to power, and that some people were convinced that the owners of a lesbian bar in Massachusetts were like the oppressors, and that the therapist who they brought in to mediate between community members was an agent of the carceral state. And that's just fucking ridiculous. I'm sorry. Like I we we I can only think step one is to stop presenting like those people are serious people. In step two is to, and I know you mentioned the nineties Democrats positively, Jake, but I actually have the exact opposite take. I think the nineties Democrats were the beginning of this sort of neoliberal rot inside of the Democratic Party that put that put power in cynically using identity, cynically using edge case policies as a way to try to stop genuine progress from happening. Like, I there's a famous example where Bernie Sanders was speaking in 2016, and then a bunch of people took the mic to accuse him of being sexist. People are doing this to mom dying now. Because he dared to run against a woman. Which, like, no, the person who is sexist is the person who is against policies that will make women's lives better. The person who cares the most about a marginalized community is the person who is trying to legislate to make their lives better, to make societies better as a whole, not people who are trying to cynically use identity to benefit themselves at the cost of everyone else. Right? If you just if you get into power by saying girl power. And then you slap girl power onto a bunch of bombs that you drop in a foreign country, and then you also steal a bunch of money from the government, you're not a feminist. You're just a corrupt piece of shit. if you actually believe in feminism, which I would argue is, gender equality, right? The right of people to not be discriminated against on the virtue of their gender, which is the typical definition, although obviously like I'm sure. And that's like a first wave definition that yeah, I think everybody would have Well, it's still a third wave definition. Third wave third wave feminism is supposed to be intersectional feminism, recognizing that like Different people's struggles are combined, regardless of who you are. Even understand that, the way that society is structured actually hurts men in a lot of ways by devaluing male lives and by pushing male people towards suicide. there's like it's supposed to be, when you actually read the theorists, the people who are doing the best work on the subject, people like Judith Butler, it's supposed to be a liberatory framework for everyone. It's not supposed to be like a gender war. And it turns into a gender war online for a number of reasons, including grifters and psyops. And unfortunately, the people who play into it, it seems like it's the lokist people, but it's not. It's actually the people who have the most to gain from holding on to power, which is the democratic establishment, which is interesting, I think. Karen Bass cynically used her being Karen Bass accused Nithya Ram Rahman of being racist. Even though she launched racist attacks against Nithya Rahman in the Democratic primary and in the general election as well. It's like you are You like they're cry bullies. That's what some of these the the establishment are. They're cry bullies. If you someone just challenged their power, you're insert bigotry here. But meanwhile they can like actually make people's lives worse and that's fine. So let's just you know, we'll end on this sort of wokeism thing. so that I think that you're touching on Hunter, and it sounds like that you're more anti woke than I thought. Like I from your Instagram I thought that you were like, you know I mean you just posted a video like an hour ago about like, you wokeism three point which I think maybe was a little more dumb than cheek. That was you know silly. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, I didn't watch the whole thing, I just saw it and I was like, god. but now talk. Yeah, see the satire so much shit is satire. Like that the people on both sides don't understand comedy. Like genuinely. It was a promotion for a group I work with, and like halfway through the video I say this is the only part that's not a joke, and it was referring to the congressman who I think will smoke weed on the congressional floor. Richard Oheda, he actually might do that by the way. Look into what he's fascinating. But like the rest of that was all a meme. Yeah. Yeah. So like, you know, I I mean, think that, you know, we're pretty much at the end. You know, I I there's so much more to say about, you know, wokeism and and and and what it is and the different ways to define it. you know, but I think that, you know, we kind of colloquially define wokeism as like DEI, men in women's bathrooms, this concept of microaggression. But all of these things I think are an example Of what wokeism really is at its core, which is a system that devalues the sacredness of the individual as the primary category and replaces it with group identity. And a system that replaces objective truth with moral relativism and competence hierarchy with power hierarchy. And I No, I I I'm gonna disagree on

both both those fronts. I think wokeism is two different phenomena. One of them is a cynical power play by people who have power to use to use the advancements of rights of minorities as a cudgel against people trying to actually improve society, including improving society for the minority groups that they're cynically using, right? Like I think it's the example of that is the establishment attacking Bernie Sanders. And then on the other side, it's also people who have a disordered relationship to power. It's people who understand broadly speaking, I the right way society needs to go, but then they completely ruin the whole thing by going after people who don't actually have power. And instead going after whatever the social media craze is these days. I I think DEI just means diversity, equity, and inclusion, right? it means, in theory, at its best, and I think there are real issues with how affirmative action was handled, was that just on the basic level, if you have two people who both scored a 1450 on the SAT, and one of them grew up in Huntington Beach, California, like the rich part of Huntington Beach. They had all the AP classes, all the tutors, access to generational wealth, every resource afforded to them. And then the other person that got a 1450 was a poor white kid who lived in Flint, Michigan, who didn't have access to clean drinking water, had maybe one AP class at the school, couldn't go to school some of the days because the school was shut down because of lack of clean water, and that kid also got a 1450. Which kid do you think is going to do which kid is probably smarter? Which kid probably deserves the opportunity to prove their medal at the highest level. I think it's the kid from Flint, Michigan. I think it's the kid who overcame more more adversity and scored just as well as the kid who had less adversity. And like factoring in adversity into the hiring process, into the academic process, I don't think is a bad thing. You just don't want to penalize people. I think the issue is when you're penalizing people for not going through adversity. But if you're accounting for the adversity someone went through, especially what zip code they come from and what their life looked like, I I don't think that's a bad thing. But I think the way that we talk about it on both sides is unproductive and socially cancerous. So just to end on the point of agreement, there's some I agree with there, but there's a lot that I disagree with. Obviously, I hate the just we we don't have enough time, but we'll end on the point of agreement, which is that, wokeism, interest in wokeism, you really saw it explode right around 2008 after the Occupy Wall Street stuff. And I do think that there's a great argument to make, which it sounds like is what you're saying, that wokeism is a tool of the elites. That is used to distract working people from the real problems in this country. And I think that there's a lot of good good evidence to support that. So I think that you know, if if to to adopt part of your definition into mine that you know wokeism is a tool of the wealthy and well connected to distract the rest of us from the real issues, I think is a compelling one. I think there's a good argument to make for that. Hunter, this was great. I learned that. Yeah, Hunter and I kept trying to pitch this to Jubilee that we do and unfortunately they they ghosted us on all our emails. But we wanted to do a 2v2 debate of Hunter and I together versus an establishment damn and establishment Republican. And then we would just like attack the status quo like vigorously. And it would be it would be so funny because we would be attacking the status quo for almost opposite reasons at certain points. But we would team up and be like, what y'all are doing is wrong. And just goes. the moment where the Democrat gets with us on the Epstein files, but get a true party shill. Get someone who's more pro party than Harry Sisson. And then the moment they're like, Yeah, the Democrats need to remove every Republican with the Epstein files. So and Jake turns around and I crack my neck and Jake says, So how about Bill Clinton and Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries? And then the guy starts backpedaling and the people jump in. Well it's like the thing is the Democrats are gonna take Congress now. And Massey has been pushing for more bills to fight the Epstein things. Once Democrats have control, let's see if they pass any of those bills. Let's see if bills pass. I would I'm if they do, I'll eat my pants. I'll be like, My bad, my bad, Dems Racks were better on this than I thought. I don't think they're going to. I don't think I'm calling it right now. I do not think we see mass transparency on Epstein. I don't think the Democrats are gonna try to pass these bills. And that what they should do is they should try to pass these bills and see what Trump does, because Trump sucks. Calling it right now, they're not going to All right. Well, this is great. It was great. It really was. Hunter, I hope that you come back. there's so so much more to talk about. I think I really do think you're fascinating and and and really, really smart and articulate, and I had a great time. Hey, I I we gotta read up more on the antitrust and healthcare stuff so Jake and I can actually spar instead of talking on just moral principles this next time. Yeah, right, right. Be like, it's four percent increase here, all that get into it. Yeah, yeah. Like all right, let's get let's get the numbers. Did Lena Khan do a good job or not at Antitrust? All right, see you guys. Cheers.