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Is Free Trade Good For Americans | Brad Polumbo
103 Plays2 months ago
Brad Polumbo recently debated Tim Pool on free trade—since Tim acted emotionally unhinged and unable to cope with reality, we thought it would be wise to invite Brad on the show to have the conversation he deserved. We discussed the topic "is free trade good for Americans?" with Max Marty playing the role of an emotionally stable, good-faith Tim Pool.
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Transcript
Introduction to the Podcast
00:00:00
Speaker
Welcome everyone to the latest episode of the Project Liberal podcast. My name is Josh Shuckle. I'm the president and co-founder of Project Liberal. Back again with co-host Max Marty from our steering committee. Max. Hello, hello.
00:00:13
Speaker
Thanks for taking the time.
Introducing Brad Palumbo
00:00:15
Speaker
And today um we have somebody who we're big fans of, who's out there in the world advocating for economically liberal ideas, liberal ideas in in in many cases in very combative environments.
00:00:29
Speaker
Brad Palumbo, who's the host of Brad vs. Everyone on YouTube, political commentator. Brad, thank you for taking the time to chat. Thanks for having me. Happy to be here. Absolutely. so The reason I reached out to you and why I thought it would be an interesting topic to have you on the show is because you just recently went on Tim Pulse Show.
Debating Free Trade and Tim Pool's Show
00:00:48
Speaker
I think at the time of this recording, was a little bit over a week, maybe two weeks ago. And you guys were allegedly supposed to have a conversation about free trade. In this conversation, I'll play a clip here just to give the audience some context.
00:01:02
Speaker
Tim Kuhl had what I can only describe as like a social justice warrior meltdown. I mean, I really can't think of a better term. he If I would have gone back into my college years in the 2010s when there was all this cancel culture happening on campus and there were all these people getting screamed out for their opinions,
00:01:20
Speaker
I could put Tim Pool in the same category as these crazy kind of far-left activists on college campuses trying to silence you, calling you evil. It was absolutely ridiculous. So I want to play a clip from the show, if that's okay, Brad. Just give comment. Go for it Okay.
00:01:35
Speaker
And then we'll come back and we'll talk about the idea that we had for this podcast. Let's watch the clip.
00:01:42
Speaker
I will look into the eyes of every voter right now and say, Brad is evil and accepts human sacrifice so that you can have a cheap iPhone. I'm evil because I disagree with you about trade policy. Because you think there's ah an acceptable degree of mass suicide and concentration camps so that your economy can improve.
00:01:58
Speaker
I don't think that. So think you finished by saying you were shadowboxing with a fictitious idea, effectively. And in your own words, I'll let you put it. So the idea that we had, Brad, was tim didn't give you a debate.
Good Faith Debate on Economic and Cultural Issues
00:02:12
Speaker
you You got shouted down. There wasn't a really intelligent conversation being had here. So when I was speaking with Max, we had the idea of actually trying to put on a good faith conversation for what we believe are the core of what Tim's arguments are.
00:02:27
Speaker
And to preface this. We don't think Tim's arguments center as much around economic issues, although we are going to try to touch on that. We want to kind of let Max it embody a good faith, non-SJW Tim Pool for this conversation and have an actual back and forth about the issues to give you a fair shake. So if that's good with you. Yeah, let's do it.
00:02:48
Speaker
Okay. So Max, I don't know if you want to transform into your Tim Pool self. Well, just ah just and just to be clear, um i'm sure I'm sure Tim Pool himself might not put things exactly this way because who knows what goes on in the mind of an individual.
00:03:03
Speaker
But I like to think of it as someone like a Tim Pool, right? Someone from that world, from from that space. But in the interest of doing this, trying my best to really embody the Tim Pool type of ethos,
00:03:18
Speaker
let's Let's fully go Tim Pool here. ah Yeah, that's there it is. the the you know It's my best. I got a hoodie now, you know black shirt, the big headphones, the the the beanie. i think the beanie is the prime piece of it, right? That's the most... yeah You know, I give him credit for sticking to the bit.
00:03:34
Speaker
I saw him a picture of him at Mar-a-Lago in the beanie. And you know what? I don't even hate on it. I think... it's brand It's effective branding. It works. I mean, you see a dude with a beanie, he roughly looks his his shape, and it's like, oh, that's Tim Pool. So, i yeah, you can't you can't fault that.
00:03:51
Speaker
So then why don't we, now that we have Tim Poole, Max here, why don't we start off with some of the good faith arguments? And I think, I don't know, Max, you could probably frame frame it up ah from, you know, I guess the good faith side. I think the one that I hear the most now is national security.
National Security vs. Free Trade
00:04:07
Speaker
So I don't know if you want to kick us off with that and and start from that angle. Yeah. So... um First thing I want to say is I think that the the there's an enormous value to steel manning arguments like this, um whether it's the national security argument, any other argument, um to try and put things in a way that they that some other group wishes they could have put it as clearly and succinctly and beautifully as as as this.
00:04:34
Speaker
And when you can do that really well, I think is when when those people themselves would say, I wish I would have put it as well as you just put it. So that's what I'm aspiring to. i'm i don't I don't know if i'm going to hit that target, but that that's what I'm aspiring to. So we'll start we'll start with the national security arguments, as you said.
00:04:49
Speaker
So... um Trading, generally speaking, trading with other countries, sure, you know it might improve our economic situation, but it also improves their economic situation. It makes them richer.
00:05:02
Speaker
It allows them to buy more stuff um and and sort of carry out more of of their own interests. Maybe those are economic interests. Maybe those are foreign policy interests. So um in many cases, that could lead to them doing things in the foreign policy stage that we wouldn't ah we wouldn't approve of.
00:05:20
Speaker
right So trading with China over the past decades, sure, it's gotten a lot of people in China out of poverty. Okay, it's great. But it's also empowered the Chinese Communist Party into being now one of our giant adversaries on the on the global stage and being able to shove the U.S. around and force us to do things we wouldn't otherwise do and generally just make the world a less...
00:05:42
Speaker
a less free, less wonderful place because of the power and dominance of that Chinese Communist Party. If we hadn't done that, they wouldn't be in this space and we wouldn't be in this predicament that we now are in with a kind with a country like China, not to mention other countries. i mean, look at what Russia is now unable to do because of the fact that they have...
00:06:02
Speaker
ah the financial prowess that they have because of the amount of oil and natural gas that they've been selling to Europe, et cetera, through through trade. So what is your response to that criticism?
00:06:13
Speaker
Yeah, I think the national security argument against free trade is one of the ones that has a grain of legitimacy but often kind of serves as a bit of a Trojan horse. So I don't think you can see it in the shot, but if you look behind me, you'll see Thomas Sowell and Milton Friedman books.
00:06:28
Speaker
Both of them will acknowledge in their chapters, you know, two esteemed free market economists. that there are very narrow legitimate exceptions where politically restrictions on trade are justified.
00:06:40
Speaker
There's not really any such thing as an economic argument against free trade, at least not a valid one, but there are narrow political circumstances that that justify restrictions on trade. I mean, nobody really argues we should have unrestricted laissez-faire trade of nuclear technology.
00:06:57
Speaker
Right. Nobody really argues that. So there's very narrow national security um instances where you can justify restrictions on trade. The problem is that that crack, when you leave that door open a crack, basically people who just don't like trade and who want to push protectionism try to just funnel everything through that. So if you look at all of the tariffs Trump has tried to do,
00:07:20
Speaker
including like steel tariffs on Canada, our close ally, or at least our ally until maybe until very recently. um There's no national security argument that we can't have Canadian steel as a small part of our of our steel industry because we can rely on them and we aren't overly relying on them. But that then becomes the excuse they use to shoehorn everything in.
00:07:45
Speaker
Now, that's obviously just one context, but the context you raised is a little bit different. And that's about trading with foreign adversaries who you know are hostile to liberal values, to Western society.
Trade with Adversaries: Challenges and Opportunities
00:07:56
Speaker
And I definitely think that gets more complicated. But what I will say is, first and foremost, when we're pushing back when we're when we're talking about the current pushback to trade, it's not just that.
00:08:07
Speaker
It's not just tariffs on China. It's not just decoupling from Russia. with whom we have a very sanctioned relationship at this point. It's so much more than that.
00:08:17
Speaker
That's kind of where it started. But it's now just, you know, Trump campaigned on maybe 10, maybe 20, maybe 25, maybe percent general tariff. So it is a little bit convenient for advocates of protectionism to sometimes kind of motten Bailey, like, oh, well, we're just concerned about trade with China. And then, well, hang on, you're actually trying to restrict trade with everybody.
00:08:41
Speaker
My number one answer to that is that, for example... We should not be reliant on China for essential things. We can't ah because that does give them leverage over us.
00:08:52
Speaker
But the answer to that is not to try to reshore things to the United States at exorbitant cost or try to put a genie back in the bottle. The answer is a more free trade agreements with India, with Vietnam, with South Korea, with all the other places that can produce things.
00:09:09
Speaker
right It's to expand our options through more trade so that we're not overly reliant. ah An example you brought up was Russia. right It is absolutely a problem.
00:09:20
Speaker
that the EU was so dependent on Russian energy. But the answer to that is not that they shouldn't buy energy from other countries. It's to diversify their imports.
00:09:30
Speaker
But then I also I guess I do disagree with the framing of your question slightly. I'm not sure we can say for sure in an alternate history where we don't trade with China.
00:09:42
Speaker
that the CCP isn't in still in power today, isn't still the way that it is, or that something worse hasn't emerged. Because simply cutting off rogue regimes from international trade or from the global economy doesn't make them more liberal, doesn't make them more friendly to the West. Look at like an isolated nation like North Korea, totally cut off from the global economy,
00:10:06
Speaker
But that hasn't made them somehow come back from the brink or less authoritarian. You could argue we're less reliant on them for sure. But that's also because they're a tiny country with very minimal um assets or economic outputs the world relies on.
00:10:21
Speaker
I don't know that there's ever a globalized economy with billions of people in China where they don't have enormous economic weight and leverage. And to be clear, it's not just – poverty in China that's been reduced because of trade with China.
00:10:37
Speaker
It's poverty in America. It's living standards in America and the West. And when I talk about when when I talk with trade restrictionists about decoupling trade with China, Tim Pool did this in our conversation.
Trade's Impact on Living Standards and Peace
00:10:49
Speaker
They're so quick to dismiss it as like cheap bubble gum from Walmart or whatever. And it's such a caricature of affordable standard of living. The fact that Every single thing, basically, American families rely on and have been struggling to afford the last few years in the telling of people like Tim Poole, all because of Joe Biden. In reality, it's more complicated than that, though I certainly think Biden made it worse.
00:11:13
Speaker
um Everything would get more expensive. Families can't afford more expensive electronics, clothes. ah Basically, everything has some form. Everything is so interconnected in the global supply chain that impoverishing Americans to decouple with these regimes is to me ill-advised at this point. It's an open question, Max, whether if we were to redo history, should we have avoided getting this closely entangled with China?
00:11:41
Speaker
Maybe the answer to that is yes, but to me the answer would have been then to entangle with other people, not to have this kind of um protectionist, make everything here, no matter what is how unaffordable or inefficient it may be. It would have been to Closely entangled with India or another nation that's more aligned with our values and our economy and our political system.
00:12:04
Speaker
But now we are where we are. And there there is something to be said for having global interconnectedness in the economies, even with adversaries, because to some extent it.
00:12:17
Speaker
prevents countries from going to war not perfectly we've seen this with russia ah but but for a long time the theory was that when goods cross borders soldiers don't that theory has not proven to be 100 true but i would i guess i'd say this if in a scenario where tomorrow the us and china completely economically extricate from each other do you think war becomes more or less likely between the US and China.
00:12:45
Speaker
I would say it has to be more because now neither side, leaders on neither side really want a hot conflict. One, just for the reasons you don't want a hot conflict, such as, you know, um mutually assured destruction in the case of nuclear escalation, but also because of the massive economic disruption.
00:13:03
Speaker
that it would cause for their citizens. If you take away that massive hurdle to a conflict, I think that makes war more likely with our adversaries, not less. So I guess kind of in summation, Max, it's not that there's no legitimate national security argument.
00:13:18
Speaker
It's that the answer to me is usually not less trade, but different trade, and that it's so often exploited as kind of a loophole.
00:13:28
Speaker
When they really just don't like trade. I mean, so many of Trump's tariffs that have nothing to do with the national security have been formally and legally done in the name of national security because it unlocks executive authority.
00:13:40
Speaker
And that's the problem with loopholes. You leave ah the door cracked an inch and they kick it wide open. So is your is your argument that we should have trade with our adversaries because it prevents them from wanting to disrupt us or like brings them closer to our agenda in some way?
00:14:00
Speaker
And if that's your argument, would you want to then open up trade to countries like North Korea, Cuba, places like that, that are you know clearly pretty terrible places?
00:14:12
Speaker
I think it gets complicated. um i think north korea North Korea is a little bit of a unique case. um I would say with Cuba, i I'm skeptical of the embargo, but that's kind of ah a whole – has its own deep historical and unique context there as well.
00:14:30
Speaker
I generally think though, yes, that trading with countries, even adversaries – not becoming dependent on them, and that's the problem. You need to diversify supply chains.
00:14:41
Speaker
But trading with them to some extent, yes, I do think makes hot conflicts less likely because then the hot conflict entails economic disruption for your citizens, which leaders certainly don't want to cause.
00:14:53
Speaker
doesn't mean that it – It prevents it for certain, but I think it does kind of push towards making it less likely. And then two, I think it fosters – it can foster goodwill. I mean I think when you have goods flowing between countries, you have culture flowing between countries and you have things that are made in America that people love or things that are made in China that people love and ah culture starts crossing and then you have people becoming – Anime viewers here and soccer being the fastest growing sport. And all of a sudden you have more in common with those scary people abroad that speak a different language because they watch the NFL too, right? they Or they watch the NBA.
00:15:32
Speaker
I think it's the NBA that plays games in Europe. that All of that, I think... um lends itself towards less global conflict, not more. But all of it is is complicated.
00:15:46
Speaker
But I guess that yeah, I would say I'm just deeply skeptical of the idea that severing ties and distancing yourselves from foreign adversaries entirely makes you less likely to cross over into a conflict.
00:15:59
Speaker
I think it may make you more. No, i was gonna I wanted to frame it up on culture because he touched on something that I think is the center of what I actually believe is the true argument that these these protectionists are trying to make, although they don't often articulate it very well.
00:16:16
Speaker
And in a way, i kind of think their entire argument is is, and again, this is me not being a neutral moderator, just prefacing that. it's based in ah It's actually conservative impulse. It's based in a fear of change.
00:16:30
Speaker
It's based on a concern, i like this ah this this this this hard to describe anxiety around the import of different cultures and different ideas and the people around you changing.
00:16:42
Speaker
And so, you know, maybe Max can, can good faith articulate some of the culture arguments here, because I think at the center, this is one of the reasons why I think liberals aren't clicking as much in this moment when we make economic arguments, ah because actually I think some of the arguments that are being made right now are all centered around just fear and cultural concerns.
00:17:02
Speaker
Max, you feel free to laugh. I'll give it a shot. Brad, you mentioned um the export of things like the m NBA playing in other parts of the world.
Globalization's Effect on Hollywood
00:17:13
Speaker
And that reminds me of the ah the the way that I think it was the NBA had to kind of kowtow to the Chinese Communist Party when they were involved in some stuff at some stuff out there in China.
00:17:25
Speaker
um But i want to I want to talk about, similarly, I want to talk about Hollywood. So I think a lot of people... rightfully so, complain that Hollywood movies have been kind of dumbed down, that that they're focused on big explosions and simple simple narratives.
00:17:45
Speaker
The kind of of of nuance that you would see in filmmakers decades ago has greatly been lost. And a lot of it has gone to the TV side. But but even that, I think, is is suffering from a lot of the same problem.
00:18:01
Speaker
The problem being... When you create a a movie and you you spend a big bucks on it and you want it to do well, you realize you're sending it to an international audience. And in order for it to do well, it has to have themes that play well all around the world.
00:18:16
Speaker
So you can't get into the cultural nuances that that you could if you were making a movie for people who are in in the Anglo-Saxon world, for example, people whose first language is English.
00:18:28
Speaker
Or people in the U.S. who can talk about apple pie and and and whatever and and and pickups and and like they understand that culture. But, you know, if you put that into your movie, it's not going to translate. So your movie is not going to do well.
00:18:40
Speaker
So you've had this dumbing down of Hollywood in order to accommodate what ist what is in effect trade from Hollywood, from the things that Hollywood's creating out into the broader world.
00:18:52
Speaker
And isn't arent aren't we losing something? like I don't just mean that we're losing that kind of ability to experience something other than like J.J. Abrams blowing explosion you know blowing up things and explosions and simple narratives.
00:19:04
Speaker
But we're losing... something that makes movies wonderful and great and we can connect with. We're we're we're kind of dumbing down society by allowing by encouraging, by almost forcing Hollywood to play the game this way.
00:19:19
Speaker
don't you like wouldn't Don't you think that some... some restrictions on this stuff. And I mean, this is not new. The Canadians do this, the French do this, right? There's a lot of work there's a lot of countries that have these kind of like um sort of foster, what you would call it, like local industries or infant industry arguments when it comes to but the production of culture, specifically because they don't want their culture to just become this sort of thing that flows out into the masses all around the world and becomes dumbed down.
00:19:48
Speaker
What is your response to that?
Cultural Exchanges vs. Protectionism
00:19:50
Speaker
Yeah, I think the the first thing I'd point out is that there are two sides to every ledger. And so to the same extent that some things happen like Hollywood censoring their own films so that they get approved to show in Chinese markets.
00:20:05
Speaker
i Look, I think that's – in many ways morally reprehensible. um But I ultimately think, I mean, it's their film, it's their company. if they If they choose to do that, the correct response would be to boycott them, right, to punish them in the American market.
00:20:18
Speaker
But I guess what I would say, Max, is the same forces that enable that enable Americans to enjoy... Film and TV from around the world. I mean, my partner and I have watched ah Norwegian shows. We've we've watched German shows. We've watched Spanish shows, Italian shows, Australian shows.
00:20:40
Speaker
I don't think we've watched Japanese shows. I don't think we've watched anything Chinese. But war I guess that may have something to do with the subject areas that we're interested in.
00:20:50
Speaker
But ah so to the same extent that this kind of torquil approach to made in America culture might allow some more of this pandering to U.S. interests and culture and tastes, it also cuts people off from accessing everything else that they like. So maybe you don't get that from Marvel movies, but where they just blow. I'm personally a superhero movie hater with rare exception.
00:21:16
Speaker
i think they just like do special effects and blow shit up. and It's all boring to me because it has no substance. But one, i I have to question the assertion that that's being done because of foreign audiences.
00:21:28
Speaker
I think to some extent that's being done because U.S. audiences are dumbed down and are demanding oo bomb blow up, like exciting thing.
00:21:39
Speaker
They are not demanding in indie movies with like interesting cultural ethos. And there are some, like I just saw the Bob Dylan flick with Timothee Chalamet. That is not made for global appeal. You know, it has all sorts of political messaging.
00:21:54
Speaker
I guess I still think there's this wide diversity of film and culture being created. And I think that on net, you probably get more than you lose. I'm not saying there's no trade-offs.
00:22:05
Speaker
That's the difference is people who believe in free trade, don't think it's unambiguously positive and good for everyone in all things. They think it is a net good and that the world is going to change, cultures are going to change and intermingle, and that more innovations and creations will come out of that than restrictions will emerge from it because of things like kowtowing to the Chinese marketplace or what have you.
00:22:34
Speaker
ah But I don't pretend for a second those drawbacks don't exist. But i'm also I also question whether and there are more films that get to be produced because of the massive and ah influx of revenue that they get from foreign markets. So some of these movies might never have been made if there wasn't foreign markets to also sell.
00:22:55
Speaker
Billions more dollars coming in. And now um ah you have... There's wide variety of TV and film. I there's too many streaming services to count. And some of them are doing lowbrow things, but some of them are doing very highbrow things.
00:23:08
Speaker
Some of them are doing um lots of things that don't have any sort of, I mean, the number of LGBTQ cultural TV shows and series, those are not exporting to China in mass market.
00:23:21
Speaker
right Those are not exporting to the Middle East, but they're still being made because there's a huge interest in them. And so I think that you can have a lot of things and you will have some things being made to the biggest common denominator.
00:23:36
Speaker
But you also, the more you open up the pool, the bigger the niches out there are for the people who are interested in biopics about niche figures. Well, if you if you have a whole globe... ah The portion of people that's interested in that that could be a consumer base for a filmmaker is bigger than if it's just America or just English speaking countries only.
00:23:56
Speaker
So I think a lot of this rests on what Josh said, which is fear of change. But I believe change is basically inevitable when it comes to something as ethereal as culture.
00:24:06
Speaker
And so you can either resist the change or you can lean into it and try to get ahead of the curve. And I think that's what America needs to do. but if you're So are you saying, Brad, that you're are you conceding that if I don't care very much about
00:24:24
Speaker
culture from other countries, you know i'm I'm not interested in Japanese anime and I don't care what you know what's being produced in Denmark and and and you know the the latest ah K-pop sensation, I just don't care.
00:24:36
Speaker
I'm interested in American culture and I'm interested in stuff that that I can connect with deeply in my American roots, then are you conceding that I just have to like live with the fact that American stuff is... is ah You know, these big companies and these big and the big Hollywood industries and everything else that used to produce stuff that was focused on um the needs and interests of of Americans is now going to be producing stuff focused on the needs and interests of a global audience. Like, is that just something I have to live with?
00:25:11
Speaker
Well, I think there's a couple things there, but one is that I guess I'm not sure i accept the premise that the reason these things are being dumbed down is because of global audiences. I think, again, American audiences are dumbed down.
00:25:23
Speaker
And I also think there's still a lot of culture in film that panders to explicitly American audiences. I mean, if you look at the Super Bowl halftime show last night, had a lot of messages in it, but it wasn't structured for a global audience. Right. It was about America. It was about a critique of America from a certain perspective. It was heavy on black culture.
00:25:45
Speaker
It made a lot of people upset. It was not palatable. It was not as palatable as possible. It was not anodyne and stripped of all its connotations and pushback.
00:25:55
Speaker
But the Super Bowl is becoming a global product. Right. and And you could just as easily say that, oh, and I think you've seen that a little bit more with the NBA. They're going to have to pare it down. But I guess I'd also say it's like, why should your preferences dictate other people's freedoms?
00:26:12
Speaker
If you like this kind of thing and there's other people like you, it will still exist. Supply meets an unmet demand. But if You're somebody who's very concerned about American culture and doesn't like that all this stuff is changing because other people out there are consuming things from around the world and other companies are are building things for global products.
00:26:34
Speaker
It's like that meme where people are exchanging and things that that are benefiting both of them. And then over there, far away, somebody is like, I object. And I just don't think that any beanie-wearing nationalist gets a say in who I make my movies for if I'm a filmmaker or what other people get to enjoy. And if you're – when you live in a a market, a market is a democratized economy where people vote for their dollar.
00:27:03
Speaker
And the nice thing about a hyper-globalized advanced economy is that even the smallest niches get catered to. But if you are ah tiny minority and most people don't have your preferences,
00:27:14
Speaker
it's not reasonable for you to expect everything to accommodate to you or cat cater to your tastes. In fact, that's kind of you expecting affirmative action or DEI for your unique cultural interests and ethos.
00:27:27
Speaker
But Brad, would you would you extend this same line of thinking to other cultures? Like if I was ah if i was a French Canadian and I really wanted...
00:27:39
Speaker
Canada to try and and and encourage financially, you know, through subsidies or through preventing other things from coming into French, ah different to Quebec and all such. um should Should I be allowed?
00:27:52
Speaker
Should that be encouraged? Should I, should that okay? Is it okay that, let's say i I was in French Canada and I got all my my my brethren to to vote for the guy who would, who said he's going to impose these kinds of restrictions or grant these kinds of subsidies.
00:28:07
Speaker
Would you be in favor of that or are you against that? Are you saying that none of these cultures should be allowed, none of the individuals in these cultures should be allowed to get together and ah politically stop the influx of um foreign culture, foreign ideas into their into their area or or to encourage the local creation of foreign culture?
00:28:30
Speaker
Well, I think they're free to encourage it. I mean, they they want to specifically patronize, crowdfund, demand. if you that's That's, I think, the thing that's not clicking for me about what you're saying, is that if you have 70% of the Canadian public ready to go for a ballot initiative to ban foreign films and only watch made-in-Canada films...
00:28:50
Speaker
you've already got 70% of the Canadian public. You guys can just stop watching foreign films and they're not gonna keep bringing them and forcing them on you, right? You can already start specifically going. In fact, I've seen, i have no idea if it's widespread or not, but I've seen some TikTok videos of Canadians saying, I'm not buying anything made in America now because I'm pissed at Trump and his trade war stuff. And and they have every right to do that. Same with the Buy American people here in in America.
00:29:17
Speaker
If you want to buy American, nobody is stopping you from buying American. That's why the products are labeled like that. And if you already have 70% of your society, you don't need a law. You don't need the government to come and stop that 20%. The market will naturally reflect the majority's interest.
00:29:35
Speaker
So that's the part that's not clicking for me. One, I don't personally concern myself all that much with Canadians. If they want to hamstring their own culture and their own economy, I would I'd mind if I was a Canadian.
00:29:46
Speaker
I don't care so much over here. But secondly, it's like that's the piece that's missing for me is why you need the government to come in and stop that minority from doing things you don't like. If you already got this big majority that could go to the polls and 70 percent pass this ballot initiative, you've already got the minority, the majority to move the market in favor of your demands.
00:30:09
Speaker
What really seems to happen is that a small, activated minority will specifically push for this stuff, and most people are just apathetic to it, and then try to use the government to get it done, not actually having a majority who truly are passionate about this and care about it, but there's just a specific interest group or political niche subgroup that really cares about this, and everyone else is somewhat disengaged.
00:30:34
Speaker
And so then they hijack the government to kind of impose that as if they had a majority that they can't achieve organically and then execute through the market. Yeah. And sorry, I just just to tag onto that and be a non neutral moderator, I couldn't I think that argument in of itself really addresses the core of both the cultural and economic side, because that in and of itself is exactly the root of the problem. They can't take personal responsibility and what they spend their money on.
00:30:58
Speaker
and what they engage with. So they want to shove those taxes and those tariffs down everyone's throats in order to achieve that as an act of funding. Oh I say one quick thing? It was funny to me, I didn't verify this, but a bunch of people went through Tim's studio and flagged all the equipment that was made in China.
00:31:14
Speaker
I think that was our I think we we posted something about that, too. So I don't know if there was somebody else that did that. But that's not to me what gave the game away, because if you are so passionate about free trade being horrible between America and China, that you would scream at a guest who traveled out of their way across the country to come up appear on your podcast unpaid and call them evil for supporting free trade.
00:31:37
Speaker
But you don't care enough. to buy a made in America microphone, you either don't care at all, or just don't take any due diligence, or it's all an act. Because yeah for me, if I want to support certain kinds of businesses and not support others, I act that out.
00:31:55
Speaker
And if you aren't willing to do so, you certainly don't care about that cause enough to even come close to justifying forcing other people to do it against their will. Yeah, and I'll hand it back to good faith Tim Pool in a second, but like that ah that in and of itself, I think, is the argument that people of our political persuasion should tag to these individuals. he because I mean, you're you're sitting there in that studio with him and you could point out individually, piece by piece, how I'm not familiar with that kind of thing off the top of my head. I wish I had been it's written in retrospect, but you could do it in the future. This is OK. I'm going to going to be the temple here.
00:32:28
Speaker
But isn't this like when libertarians ah people say you're you're a libertarian. How come you're taking Social Security and Medicare checks? um You should stop that because you are ideologically against that. And you say, no, no, no, no. OK, look, I am ideologically against that.
00:32:43
Speaker
But this is the world I currently live in. I'm i'm trying to make it better. I'm trying to improve things. I, Tim Pool, I'm trying to stop us from doing as much trade, especially with China, because they're so evil and and and and all these Chinese products are terrible.
00:32:58
Speaker
But I have to inhabit the world in which I currently live while I try to change it. but Those are different, right? Because Social Security is forcibly taken out of every paycheck your whole life. And then so then if you want to collect the benefits at the end of your life, even if you ideologically don't believe in Social Security, that's just taking the money that was taken from you back. Now, it's not actually your money. It's kind of a pyramid scheme.
00:33:21
Speaker
But it's not really comparable to being unwilling to buy a microphone for $25 more that's made in America in China. Because one, first of all, it's not like you've already had the money taken for ah for um for microphones to be made in China. And then in order to not purchase one, you'd have to go buy your own microphone after and double pay for it. like That would be a more comparable example This is you not even being willing to take a minor cost to yourself or a minor inconvenience to actually live out your values with your purchases. I mean, I do this.
00:33:58
Speaker
I pass up opportunities that don't align with my values with some regularity that involve money or a platform to plug my stuff. But I'm like, oh, I wouldn't feel good about that or, Oh, I can't promote that product because I don't want to promote something. That's a scam to my loyal followers. Ah, but, but the fact that we have trade and the fact that we've been trading with a country like China for so long and they produce, they've been producing all of these electronics and all these things around my office here.
00:34:26
Speaker
Um, If only we had restricted trade from the very beginning, then this would not have been a thing from the very beginning, right? So the reason I'm forced to buy this junk that I hate and I don't want to wear it and I don't want to use it because you're right and it's Chinese and it's evil and it's wrong is because of people like you who've been arguing this whole time that we should do this trade stuff. So you have destroyed this. the valuable, wonderful American industries that were you know located in the Dakotas or in Idaho or in some very American part of the country, and you, because of this trade, have destroyed them. That is why i cannot buy a good, decent, high-end pair of headphones from here built by Americans in America.
00:35:04
Speaker
But you can literally buy one. i actually imagine you can. um it might That's your imagination, i don't know, Mike. I don't know if you can. i i That's kind of niche industry level knowledge. You can certainly buy one that's made in Vietnam or South Korea or India or manufactured somewhere else in the world. and maybe Maybe I will.
00:35:22
Speaker
Maybe I will. But you know but that's only because but I still would think that the right thing to do is to have that stuff built right here in America by Americans. and We have to give those good jobs back to Americans so that they themselves can can experience what it's like to put these pieces together and to really, you know, the whole value chain, the whole the whole thing from the bottom, from the mining, all the way to being able to build these headphones.
00:35:47
Speaker
you are trying to alienate people from the ability to be able to do this to participate in that. Well, actually, you're trying to alienate people from the ability to be able to own that thing in the first place. Because if if it was actually built every single step of the way in America,
00:36:04
Speaker
it would probably be an inferior product, but even if it was a great product, it would be much more expensive. And so then, say that instead of $250, that product is now $450, there's an entire category of Americans that's now priced out from even owning it or accessing it in the first place. So congratulations.
00:36:24
Speaker
The words on the back say, made in America instead of made in Vietnam, But now millions more Americans don't get to enjoy this product at all. A great example of this is the iPhone. The iPhone isn't cheap exactly, but it's gotten, except for the supercomputer that it is, it's cheap, right? It's incredibly accessible.
00:36:43
Speaker
The amount of Americans that can afford and access an iPhone or a similar smartphone is extremely high. Now, if that iPhone... Every one, there's elements in it. I'm not even sure you could get inside the United States, but say you could.
00:36:58
Speaker
If that were to be built and entirely constructed every step of the way in America with American labor laws, with American regulations and environmental policies, for most of which, many of which go far beyond just like don't dump pollution in the river and are extremely expensive and time consuming.
00:37:19
Speaker
that thing Our board Trump will fix all of that. Don't worry. Yeah. That instead of costing $1,000, it might cost $3,000. It might cost $5,000. And most Americans, the ones who get it might be able to feel great about the fact this was made in America, but far fewer would get to get it at all.
00:37:35
Speaker
And if you ask me, that's far more important. I'll concede. I'll totally concede because you know i'm i'm really into ah I'm really into skateboards.
Cultural Significance of Domestic Manufacturing
00:37:42
Speaker
you know So i'll I'll totally concede that ah there would be fewer people buying skateboards Here in the United States, if they were if we had a trade, a restriction on them, we had quotas on them, whatever, tariffs, and yeah, you're right, there would be fewer people doing the sport. But...
00:38:02
Speaker
um there would be a lot more people who now, because you and you're you're rightfully so, that there would be fewer people who can kind of access that end of the sport. But think about how many more people will be able to fully access the whole entirety of that culture because they themselves were the ones who know This wood for this skateboard was got what what was was was harvested from trees in you know in in Ohio, and those trees went to a guy in ah South Dakota who ended up you know being the one who like like milled it into the proper shape, and that got shipped somewhere else in the country.
00:38:39
Speaker
But just think about how much more um valuable it is to be able to fully experience a the culture and the and the the the the manufacture of this thing is integral to the culture and the entire experience of skateboarding. don't think it because the the question is for someone like Tim who's very concerned about skateboarding, which personally is not my thing, but is like, oh, well, not enough people are becoming interested in this.
00:39:05
Speaker
I don't think that... A single 10-year-old boy who's considering whether to try skateboarding gives a shit where the lumber was sourced from, right? The reason that they're not going out and skateboarding is because they have endless entertainment on their phone or on their Xbox or it's not cool or kids aren't doing it anymore. It's not because of where skateboards are made.
00:39:29
Speaker
Um... First of all, I think we still make some skateboards here. And regardless, there are affordable skateboards accessible at stores around the country. There's a lack of interest.
00:39:40
Speaker
And that's because they have failed in the skateboarding community for whatever reason to convince people to like skateboarding. And that is not the fault of the global economy. And there shouldn't be affirmative action for skateboarders that their culture and their hobby gets protected from having to convince people that it's interesting and entertaining.
00:40:01
Speaker
Every sport does. If a new generation, soccer is my favorite sport, and it's the world's favorite sport. But if kids grow up and don't like soccer anymore, soccer culture will suffer.
00:40:14
Speaker
The leagues will decline. The standard of play will get worse. The the stadiums will get worse. the fia Everything will decline because they won't have the same demand. Will the problem be that a new sport emerged that and that it's because of free trade and innovation and now everyone's playing, you know, Pokemon ball or whatever the new thing is? No. The problem would be that soccer didn't adapt and make itself interesting and...
00:40:42
Speaker
enticing to new people. And I think that's that seems to be the real problem with skateboarding. it's It failed to adapt and actually get a modern audience continued interest in the sport while people had other options. And and that's that's on them. That's not on the fact that other options were presented to people.
00:41:03
Speaker
But you said it yourself. The the the the the thing that we have, these these devices that we have everywhere, you know, the the the iPhones and iPads and everything else, they're ubiquitous. And they're a lot cheaper, much cheaper, of course, than if we were producing, trying to produce them entirely domestically, where they would probably cost 10 times as much.
00:41:22
Speaker
But... If that hadn't been the case, and we had been restricting trade on all of these kinds of items, then yes, we would be able to have a skateboard industry because there would be far more Americans interested in that kind of sport because they wouldn't be sitting there scrolling on their phones or watching people like us debate this on their phone while instead they would be out on their skateboards built by Americans going down the street and being able to feel like, to your point, well, maybe they wouldn't care, but they would care if they feel like, well, my dad's involved in that industry.
00:41:53
Speaker
you know I know people who themselves put this together. Like they're able to have that deeper connection to something. But to your point, I mean, I'm not willing to impoverish or an economy or a society or freeze into sandstone technological progress to preserve interest in certain people's hobbies.
00:42:15
Speaker
I mean, that's what progress is. When we introduce the automobile into the United States economy, people who drove horse-drawn buggies were decimated. Their industry and their culture was destroyed, I'm sure.
00:42:30
Speaker
It's still good, right, just, and necessary. That the United States introduced automobiles and exponential amounts of growth and progress have emerged from that development, but you could have blocked it.
00:42:42
Speaker
You could have enshrined it in stone. In fact, cars, there's an argument and so some intellectuals that I know, conservative um intellectuals kind of trad cons make this argument that cars have been harmful to society, right? Because yeah You used to be able to walk to everything. People used to live closer to each other. Now everyone's spread out and maybe cars are worsening social isolation.
00:43:03
Speaker
The answer to that is to find a new way for people to be connected, not to go back to horse-drawn buggies. And the same way is, it's the same way that I feel about the argument that you're making.
00:43:15
Speaker
The answer is to adapt skateboarding and your culture to this new era. Where are the skateboarding influencers doing skateboarding tricks on TikTok to sounds, making it cool with the young people again?
00:43:28
Speaker
And if you fail to do that, that's on you, and nobody is entitled to reverse or block social progress to enshrine their own interests and interests and cultural preferences into stone.
00:43:44
Speaker
I didn't realize that the Tradcons had gone back, there was a whole subset of Tradcons that had gone back from the to return to the eighteen ninety s That's wild. Although makes sense with protection. but to be fair, like these aren't even people saying like, they're not saying ban cars. They're just talking about how it changed social. i actually think it's interesting to think about, but it's it's a good example also because even if there are significant consequences of cars, again, the answer is not to ban cars. It's not to try to undo the automobile revolution.
00:44:15
Speaker
It's to try to adapt to the social consequences and find other ways to connect. i want to I want to also touch upon this this. We're talking about kind of alienation here um and and how we feel about these cultural products.
00:44:32
Speaker
um The U.S. is a very large, very diverse economy. very It produces all kinds of different things at all kinds of different levels. It's very different from a place like Denmark or or you know korea or South Korea or or whatever.
00:44:48
Speaker
And yet we trade so much that a lot of the the value chain of a lot of these products, and I don't just mean skateboards, but all these kinds of things. Yeah, look at look at the iPhone. Right. So we do the design right on the back of those things designed in Cupertino, right in in California.
Alienation from Global Production Chains
00:45:04
Speaker
But we don't we do virtually none of the manufacturing of these products, um let alone the mining and everything else that goes into actually getting it into the hands of a consumer. so You want Americans to to be mining instead of coding? i don't. Well, I want to give Americans the opportunity to be able to do that kind of life and have that kind of life, even if...
00:45:25
Speaker
they there are A lot of other people around them may not want that life. But there's something valuable, talking about choice, talking about freedom, talking about liberty, there's something valuable about a country that, you're right, maybe accepts a slightly lower economic standard of living, but which gives people the freedom and the opportunity to be able to participate in the manufacture and construction and production of all these different things and all these different services at every level.
00:45:52
Speaker
And there's something, you know, when when people start to to lose track, when the culture starts to lose its connection with those kinds of of elements, with those aspects of creating something, you become very distant and very alienated from the products in your own hands because your culture and your society have no connection with it. I mean, just ah just think of farming, right? We do still farm a lot in this country, but if we decided to outsource all of our farming,
00:46:21
Speaker
um people would have would would be much less connected to the idea of what goes into their mouths. And that's important. We should be connected to this thing.
00:46:32
Speaker
We should feel like people in our culture, in our society, are involved in the creation of these things. And sometimes that means you're right. We have to restrict the trade of these things a little bit. And we have to take some economic hit a little bit in order to safeguard our ability to have all of this freedom and opportunity to participate in it. We were want along that value chain.
00:46:55
Speaker
Yeah, I just don't I don't really think any of that's a thing. i mean, to be honest, um for example, I grew up in Rhode Island, which is the smallest state in America.
00:47:06
Speaker
Almost nothing that we ate was made in Rhode Island or like was – almost nothing we wore was made manufactured in Rhode Island. But I never had the thought that I feel socially disconnected from this mac and cheese that I'm making because it wasn't – somehow like produced in a factory in the state and the culture that I live in where they drank coffee milk and ate clam cakes and did other weird shit, ate frozen lemonade and other things that are like Rhode Island culture.
00:47:39
Speaker
I'm not sure that I think most people care about that, especially when so many people are struggling to get by. I think what they care about is affordability and accessibility and whether they can buy their kids Christmas presents, not wear those presents. where those presents were made and whether it's on this side of the US Mexico border or a couple 100 miles past it.
00:48:02
Speaker
I just think that's a kind of a misnomer. And I'm also not convinced you can put the genie back in the bottle on a lot of this stuff. You couldn't, you couldn't go back to producing everything here if you wanted to because economies change whether you like them or not. I mean,
00:48:19
Speaker
Trump tried to artificially, he wants u s steel production up, right? He wants to bring back steel manufacturing to the U.S. He tried by putting on tariffs, right? Because his whole goal is to boost manufacturing. He put tariffs on steel imports from other countries.
00:48:36
Speaker
And U.S. steel manufacturing employment went up a little bit as a result of those tariffs. Overall, manufacturing employment went down because more manufacturing ah actually relies on steel as an input that saw a big increase in costs and had to reduce jobs.
00:48:54
Speaker
So his attempt to do what you're saying and kind of jerry-rig manufacturing back so more Americans can be involved in producing things, actually made Americans produce less things. But wait wait wait wait, wait, wait, wait. But what about the example of the Chips Act? for for we We are now actually bringing ah silicon production, semiconductor production, back into the United States, which hadn't been hasn't been here for decades.
00:49:18
Speaker
Right. And now we have these these new plants coming up that are going to be working at like two or three nanometer or whatever. Like they're actually going to be producing. It looks like they're going to be producing some some high quality stuff, not just junk that you put in. like The Chips Act is actually a good example, because even its proponents have admitted that it's turned into a massive boondoggle and grab bag where different corporations and companies have lobbied for massive tax breaks and and subsidies.
00:49:43
Speaker
And who knows how well it will really work out. and We've seen a lot of promises. um But even even then, super the supercomputer chips and that kind of thing, it's a unique circumstance because we're relying on Taiwan. And if China were to take Taiwan, we would then be kind of at a standstill. So I think that's a narrow sub case where there may be some argument that we need to specifically have not be reliant on an an adversary who's For something as important as chips.
The Chips Act and Domestic Production
00:50:14
Speaker
But the answer, but that is not applicable to most goods and services. That is not applicable to clothes and food and electronics and all the things we're talking about when we're talking about trade. That's a niche micro example of a highly specialized product that's only made in a couple places and the attempt to onshore it.
00:50:33
Speaker
has been incredibly costly and expensive and turned into a boondoggle. And maybe it will be worth it. But I'm skeptical in the long run that those things turn out. I mean, look at how many times corporations have promised after some trade deal, we're going to open a plant with 1,000 jobs, and then it ends up being 50 jobs 10 years later.
00:50:54
Speaker
And the tax subsidy that was given out by the local government ends up coming out to 500K per job or something crazy. I think we're going to see a lot of that with the chipset. Didn't we do this for cars too, though? I mean, look look how many cars, Toyota and Honda, all these companies like Toyota, I think it's Kentucky where they manufacture.
00:51:12
Speaker
I think BMW now manufactures cars in South Carolina. I mean, we're doing this we're we're doing this all over the place, right? we have and And every single one of these, I mean, you maybe you would justify a lot of these industries by saying, well...
00:51:25
Speaker
Chips Act, okay, maybe there's a justification there. Even there's a boondoggle. So if there's a justification it's justification for the semiconductors, might there not also be a justification for cars? No. If justification for cars, might there not also be a justification for skateboards?
00:51:38
Speaker
No. Well, first off, no. Skateboards have no relevance to national security. Only to you. To me, they have lots of relevance. But um cars, absolutely not. I mean, is Japan – are we going to be going to war with Japan anytime soon?
00:51:54
Speaker
Well, we'll see. If our boy Trump puts some tariffs on them, it might mean that you know there was something there we should have been paying attention to because he knows. ah by sco He's got the inside scoop. He's watching those Japanese. With automobiles, the places that we can get them from are not direct foreign adversaries.
00:52:10
Speaker
Many automobiles are produced in Mexico, not an adversary. would they're not We're not going to be going to war with Mexico unless we start it. I can't stop us from invading places. Yeah.
00:52:23
Speaker
So that's the thing is the inter, there's nothing. Denmark is next on the list, actually. Well, not Denmark, Greenland. And I think. Right. Well, Denmark over Greenland, right Because they're the thing. They own Greenland, right? It's it's Denmark. I think it's Denmark. who They think they own Greenland.
00:52:37
Speaker
But does Greenland want to be owned by them? That's my question. Now we're on to another debate topic. yeah No, I'm i'm kidding. though i Actually, Loki, if and this is an if. I have no idea what the polling is. If a supermajority of Greenlanders wanted to become the united part of the United States and we could get Denmark or or to accept an offer to buy it, I think it could be an interesting idea. I do not want to take it by force. think there was actually a legitimate poll that came out that showed that it was – The other way, like it they had was like 70 or 80% was just one in independence.
00:53:12
Speaker
But i I want to throw a flag something real quick, because I think this is actually ah something that really needs to be featured both to our audience and to the temple lovers that might be watching this. The argument that you you made, Max, around the, you know, the the consumer, the worker being alienated from their from their culture.
00:53:32
Speaker
i mean Read this quote from Marx. The alienation of the worker and his product means not only that his labor becomes an object, an external existence, but that it exists outside of him, independently, as something alien to him, and that it becomes a power on its own confronting him.
00:53:49
Speaker
It's almost like the far right and the new right have gone full circle into making what would be construed in many cases as Marxist-type arguments when it comes to this situation. Yeah, I had the same thought. That is a Marxist argument, but I just didn't want to say that's Marxism because that's not actually proving it's wrong unless you're somebody who already thinks Marxism is wrong, which I do, but not necessarily everyone out there might.
00:54:12
Speaker
I just think it's interesting that that's where we're at culturally now. Yes, it is interesting. And to people like us, deeply depressing. but But I think it is validly where people and that side of the culture really are coming from.
00:54:23
Speaker
Like, it just sounds like they're digging those arguments those arguments out of the Marxist playbook. But they'd be horrified if they knew that, I think. Well, yeah, I mean, you can tell them the cult from Marx and they'll call it fake news, I'm sure. But...
00:54:36
Speaker
Or they'll say, you know, well, whatever, even, you know, even a broken c clock can be right twice a day or whatever it is right? though they'll They'll say something like that. Yeah, yeah it's kind of like when you see Josh Hawley teaming up with Bernie Sanders for legislation. For me, that should be a red flag if Bernie Sanders is agreeing with you about the economy. But...
00:54:54
Speaker
This is horseshoe theory, I'm telling you. um And the other thing I'll flag to this, and before we go to the last argument, is really when you think about it, a tariff is not only a tax, but it's also a subsidy,
Subsidies vs. Tariffs Debate
00:55:04
Speaker
right? Because it raises domestic costs, raises prices intentionally.
00:55:09
Speaker
You know, the CHIPS Act was in and of itself a subsidy. So, I mean, at least in that case, you're not getting the taxed. in the same way that you do if you have a tariff, which actually hurts you in both ways.
00:55:22
Speaker
So I think that's another argument for it. i mean, if you're really, really, really wanting to go into making it manufactured in the United States, just subsidize it. Why are we taxing consumers?
00:55:32
Speaker
It makes no sense. Sorry, I'm the moderator. Well, the subsidy has to come from somewhere, right? So it's going to come from the taxpayer one way or the other. Well, yeah, of course. It's a different dynamic. interesting because the Drain the Swamp community...
00:55:46
Speaker
ter you know from the drain the swamp community um to be supporting tariffs is interesting because each time Trump has imposed tariffs, it's led to a stampede on Washington by lobbyists from different associations and and representing different businesses trying to get exemptions because almost all of these tariff programs have waivers.
00:56:07
Speaker
And so you've seen an explosion in lobbying and certain companies getting waivers for them and certain ones not, not based on the actual like economics of the company, but based on their lobbying ability and their lobbying capacity.
00:56:21
Speaker
And to me, a Trump supporter who's on board with with tariffs might not realize that they actually, they're like fertilizer for the swamp. They grow the swamp. yes They feed the lobbyists. Lobbyists, I mean, complexity and these kinds of things are a form of subsidy, but they're a subsidy to the powerful and the people who can hire armies of lobbyists who can get them exemptions. And it it kicks off a whole cycle of favor currying that I think a lot of these people would be mortified to know that they're enabling.
00:56:51
Speaker
um I posted about this the other day. I'm convinced that that's part of the reason why Trump is so ah likes tariffs so much is because it is a power tool that he individually can control the lever of. He doesn't have to go to Congress.
00:57:03
Speaker
He doesn't have to through – part of the problem. That need should be revoked. Yeah, I agree with that 100%. And if you could just go to Trump and give him a handout, and then he can carve you out of place and boom, he's enriching himself on the back of everyone paying more taxes.
00:57:18
Speaker
I'm sorry to tell you. what What you don't understand, Josh, is that Trump is so judicious in how and who he doles his favors out to. That's right. Because he he cares so much about this country. he He loves this country so much that he understands who really needs those subsidies and who doesn't.
00:57:34
Speaker
And look, we it is not for us to judge. We don't have with all the information. We can't understand this stuff. He gets all these reports on the back end. So you know we just have to trust that Papa Trump is doing the right thing for the country because we know how much he loves us. I know you're kind of joking, but I saw – and i um I forget the context. But I saw a Republican congressman on television and basically said like, well, we just trust – he was confronted with Trump doing something that this congressman over and over again had opposed and was like, well, we just trust Trump's judgment. So if he thinks that's right, we'll do it. And I'm like,
00:58:09
Speaker
OK. That's not really how policymakers are supposed to do their job. I can understand why a normal person out there might feel that way, but people with deeply held beliefs don't tend to have that approach to political leaders. Yeah, it's disturbing. It's just like, let's get rid of my brain and insert Trump brain. into but we We trust the American people, and the American people put Trump in that position.
00:58:31
Speaker
are you saying you don't trust the American people? Yes. 49%? No. Well, I mean, i so i I think there's lots of great, the joking aside, think there's lots of great things about the American people.
00:58:42
Speaker
I am not amazed by their level of civic, economic, or political um education. Agreed. Hey, by the way, we're about at time.
00:58:53
Speaker
Good faith, Tim Pool, do you want to throw another question before we close? I mean, I think i think we addressed, ah I mean, if so the infant industry argument, but I think we kind of touched upon the and infant industry argument when it comes to trade. So, I mean, we could also, you know, I have a whole other section. We can get into immigration, although I do feel like that's sort sort of a big can of worms. Yeah, that's a huge topic. Let's not open that this time. Yeah, that might be a little too, I feel like we'd be here another hour and we would just start to touch upon all those things.
00:59:21
Speaker
Do you want to transform back into Mac so we can close this out? Yeah. Yeah. All right. That's I feel i feel i feel back to more myself now. um ah Yeah. So then let's let's open it up. You've you have a history, Brad, of going on confrontational media. Yeah.
00:59:40
Speaker
you know, it's getting more confrontational by the day,
Engaging with Opposing Views for Ideological Growth
00:59:43
Speaker
right? I'm sure you've probably seen this get worse. What do you think? Do you think it's a good idea to go talk to the Tims of the world? Is it productive? Is it worth your time? Should people do it?
00:59:53
Speaker
What your thoughts? Yes, yes, and yes. I mean, i don't just debate kind of far-right people. I've debated Michael Knowles, Tim Pool, others. also just went on CNN and debated a bunch of mainstream woke journalists, basically,
01:00:07
Speaker
And I think there's a couple problems with the idea of, oh, I won't engage with so-and-so, especially when it comes from a libertarian or classically liberal type. There's basically not ah anyone with a fraction of the platform of Tim Pool in our ideological space. So I have, I don't know, 175,000 YouTube subscribers.
01:00:29
Speaker
He, across all his channels, has like four or five million. So I would be, I think... kidding myself if I said, oh, how dare I platform Tim Pool or engage with him?
01:00:42
Speaker
No, if anything, he's platforming me and I'm getting the opportunity to siphon off some of his audience because of the millions of people that tune into him, A portion are full Kool-Aid drinkers who are not going to be open to anything I have to say, but a portion of them are normal Americans who just like to turn him on while they're driving ah their truck across the country for their job because it's entertaining and they need something to fill the noise.
01:01:08
Speaker
And every time I do an appearance like that, I get message after message after message of people who say something to the effect of, I discovered you on Tim Pool. I've been watching him for a long time, but I don't like him as much anymore. He's gotten really angry and hostile and kind of closed-minded. I'm going to check out more of your content every single time I do any sort of media appearance like that.
01:01:29
Speaker
I get two types of feedback. I get the the diehard fans send me hate and that's fine. I accept that. um I had a woman look me up on on and find my page and send me like a long paragraph about how terrible I was after she watched me on CNN.
01:01:45
Speaker
But I also get people who come discover me and then stick around for more of my content. And frankly, I don't think that people of our ideological persuasion, classical liberals, have enough platform or an audience or relevance to say that they're just going to silo themselves off and not engage. And maybe if you already have 60% of the public, you can do that. But when you have 3% of the public, or or I don't know what it may be, depending how you categorize it, you may have more, but when you have...
01:02:17
Speaker
not a majority of any kind, engaging with people who have big audiences is worth it because a lot of those people are gettables. I will never believe the kind of Hillary Clinton basket of deplorables view of people who have views that we view as toxic or harmful.
01:02:34
Speaker
A lot of them are – there is going to be a portion – that are not gettable, that are beyond reach. But like Daryl Davis, who is African-American activist who's literally befriended members of the KKK, has brought them back from being literal clans members.
01:02:56
Speaker
And you're telling me I can't convince a Tim Pool fan that maybe they shouldn't ah support KKK? na nationalism, I find that hard to believe.
01:03:07
Speaker
And I've just one, it personally benefits me every time these kinds of exchanges are my most viral and engaged with content because people like to see confrontation, it grows my audience, and then I can introduce them to my beliefs and values.
01:03:22
Speaker
And does it like enable the the the host to get views or or whatever? Sure, but they're going to do that with someone. and Is it going to be me or is it going to be a worse advocate of my views or somebody with different views?
01:03:36
Speaker
I find the whole argument against engaging with people, um frankly, arrogant. And I don't think anybody in our so in our camp really is in the position where they can comfortably take that position.
01:03:51
Speaker
yeah i think that a lot of just to add punch to that. i don't you know I don't think a lot of people look at the way individuals move through their like ideological growth in a realistic way. like People's worldview changes.
01:04:06
Speaker
It changes over time. People react to things that they see. And i mean, i've seen my I've had a trajectory through my life where my worldview has shifted as I've kind of come to realize that the people that I was were following were not moving in the right direction.
01:04:22
Speaker
And I think that if we as as liberals, as people that care about discourse, that people care about free speech, the people that care about, you know, making sure our society can prosper and flourish, if we can engage with people and kind of meet them where they are and take them along on the journey,
01:04:39
Speaker
then we're going to fail. And but so I appreciate you doing that. I appreciate you going out and having those conversations because I do think that's important. I think that's a really good way to end it. Do you worry about – I just want to push back a little bit, Brad. Do you worry that you – are kind of lending legitimacy to to people like Tim and his approach and his like, you know, emotionally laden, bloviate, whatever you whatever you want to call it, right? But like, you're right, it gets some clicks, it it it gets some virality, and and obviously it it improves your audience, and that's good.
01:05:11
Speaker
But at the same time, it's feeding him what he needs to be able to continue doing this. Whereas if, if to your point, if he ended up with somebody who wasn't as good of a defender of this stuff, um You know, he he it wouldn't be as big of a deal as like, oh, you know, I got Brad. Brad is Brad is somebody people respect and think actually knows his stuff and watch me beat him down with with a mallet for, you know, two hours.
01:05:34
Speaker
Yeah, I think I don't think that highly of myself. i And I also think that you're begging the question. Whether we like it or not, he is legitimate. People with that, he has an audience. he Like these people, almost all of these people have huge platforms and audiences. And whether we want to legitimize them or not, they are legitimate already, or at least they are highly relevant already. And burying our heads in the sand in protest of that fact does not change that fact.
01:06:05
Speaker
And I also think what you're saying is I get what you're saying about like, oh, well, letting him beat up on somebody who actually knows something. ah One, i don't take myself that seriously. i don't like, I just view myself as a ah normal person, but two, he would just be able to beat up more effectively.
01:06:23
Speaker
And with, uh, less successful pushback on somebody else, in my view, at least. I think I'm pretty good in those situations. So, like, if he put on some TikToker instead, who's maybe 20, and bashed him around, I think he'd get a better clip out of it. with with out I mean, even in his own comment section, people were being like...
01:06:47
Speaker
Tim freaked out. why Tim needs to calm down. Like, this guy had some point. Like, even in his environment, 4v1 or whatever, I was still able to get through in a way that other people who maybe don't have quite so much experience. experience in those kinds of hostile environments wouldn't be. So by, by opting out, I would not only be hurting my myself because obviously doing these kinds of things grows my brand and my audience, which I'm not embarrassed about caring about wanting to grow my own audience and success.
01:07:18
Speaker
I I'm open and proud about that, but also, I think if anything, I'd be innate helping him by not doing it and letting him beat up on somebody who can't fight back as well. I think he'd just get a better clip and and fewer of his audience members might wake up to the fact that he's not really engaging in conversation or debate.
01:07:41
Speaker
Yeah, well, in the tune of, ah like I was going to say, I mean, I would say the only distinction I'd make is maybe if you were like a way bigger, ah way bigger audience, like you don't want to reach super down and platform people. Yeah, but that would be a different story. In my case, I'm oh basically when I'm debating these right wing people.
01:07:59
Speaker
they almost always have much bigger platforms than I do. Yep. Yeah. And, and so in the tune of, uh, thanking people who have bigger platforms, Brad, thanks for coming on our show. Of course. Yeah.
01:08:10
Speaker
I, we really appreciate it. And Max, I just want to say, ah you are scary good at arguing in favor of things that you disagree with. It's kind of creepy. Yeah. it's good That's a sign of intelligence. i'm happy to happy to try to do it. you know um and and ah Because I think if the more that people learn to do that and can do that, the better that your arguments, Brad, can get at at actually you know dealing with somebody who who's articulate on the subject. So, yeah, i I'm happy to do it. i'll I'll try to do it again anytime I can.
01:08:39
Speaker
Yeah, maybe make model out of it. I've always wanted to, one of the things I'd like to do is teach community college someday. And I've always thought that if I, if I did like opinion journalism or column writing or debate or rhetoric or taught a class and something like that, I would have people prep an assignment where they had to argue for something. And then when they show up, make them improvise and actually they have to do the opposite of what they prepared.
01:09:01
Speaker
That's a good, so that's a good Brad. Brad, if our audience wants to learn more about you, where do they go? Just check out the Brad versus everyone podcast. That's my daily show five or sometimes six days a week. My take on politics, media and Internet culture. It's a bit of entertainment, but also hopefully a little bit informative and educational as well.
01:09:20
Speaker
Awesome. Okay, check out Brad on YouTube, on Twitter, and all the other platforms, on TikTok, wherever you wherever you wherever you find yourself. If you want to get more involved with Project Liberal, you can check out our website, projectliberal.org.
01:09:32
Speaker
We are a political action organization focusing on advancing the cause of a free and open society and fighting against the rise of authoritarianism in American society and abroad.
01:09:43
Speaker
Check us out, projectliberal.org. Become a member, $25 a month or more, and you get a series of perks, projectliberal.org slash member. We'll be back probably within a week. We've got a bunch of episodes that we've got on the back burner that we're going dropping. So, yeah, definitely subscribe to YouTube channel, hit the notification bell, and we'll see you guys again soon.
01:10:01
Speaker
Thanks, everyone.