Find Out: How Democrats can fight back

Speaker 1 Hi everybody and welcome back to the Find Out podcast. This is episode three.
I can't believe we've already done or we're about to do the third one of these.

Speaker 1 We're going to be tackling a pretty pretty controversial topic tonight and that is how do we actually bring more men back into

Speaker 1 the democratic fold? Obviously we all know that the men are the worst demographic, white men in particular.

Speaker 1 And in order to win elections moving forward, we are going to have to build a coalition which includes more of them.

Speaker 1 So, who better to talk about how to bring more men back in than six white dudes on this podcast? So, guys,

Speaker 1 I think we're going to probably ruffle some feathers with this one, but we're here to talk about difficult things and make change and make sure that we win elections moving forward.

Speaker 1 So, I don't know who wants to be the first person to dive into this topic, but how about if I ruffle all of your favors, your feathers? You know what, Nick? Go for it.

Speaker 1 All right. So, I've been bugged all week long with something that we we were saying and doing last week in my view we were talking about um

Speaker 1 aoc as a possible candidate and women in general and on one hand i totally get the argument about you know look we had two women candidates and they lost and there's this this aura of oh women can't win and stuff but when we were talking about all that that question can a woman win along with what would the military think has been bugging me all week.

Speaker 1 Because when we do that, what are we doing? We're doing the

Speaker 1 right-wing work form. We're setting up the excuses.
We're pre-loading it. And I think we have to take accountability for that.
That's fair.

Speaker 1 You're not the only one who lost sleep over that one. I thought about that.
And I was like, I think we, I think we fucked up a little bit on that.

Speaker 1 But that's a good opportunity.

Speaker 2 I mean, I think, like, I want to, I'll clarify because I'm the one who brought up the military aspect of things.

Speaker 1 I didn't say your name.

Speaker 1 It was you. Fuck us.
I think it's just like

Speaker 1 you can complain to me.

Speaker 2 That's fine. It wasn't, for me, it's not a comment on a female.
It was a comment specifically about AOC and her background being so far from the military.

Speaker 2 I personally think I, you know, I've made this argument a lot of times because I've gotten a ton of comments from people, you know, followers of mine thinking that, oh, Harris lost because she's a woman.

Speaker 2 I completely disagree. I don't think she lost because she's a woman, but I think a woman can win.

Speaker 2 I know maybe some people here don't agree with that necessarily, but I don't think it's so much a female problem.

Speaker 2 But again, the military thing, I don't think it's also a female being commander-in-chief. I think it's the specific background of that particular female we're talking about.

Speaker 2 I'm like, I don't think people are going to be super keen on her specifically being leader.

Speaker 2 But like, Hillary Clinton would have been an amazing commander-in-chief, like, Kamala Harris would have been an amazing one, too. That wouldn't have concerned me at all.

Speaker 2 It's really just about the, you know, the resume.

Speaker 1 So, so I want to push on that a little bit because, you know, I think that

Speaker 1 when we have had leaders in charge with a military background, how has that worked out for us? And the answer is it hasn't worked out very well.

Speaker 1 George W. Bush had a military background, I mean, when he showed up,

Speaker 1 you know, and he lied us into what I would say is the worst foreign policy disaster in at least 50 years. He had military experience.

Speaker 1 You know, I mean, the generals that

Speaker 1 Trump has put in military experience, none of that went particularly well.

Speaker 1 You know, I think that when we put military leaders in charge, I don't think that I have necessarily seen a better success rate than when we've had civilian presidents with no background.

Speaker 1 Like I give you an example, Bill Clinton waged an air campaign in Bosnia, which was successful and we didn't lose a single person.

Speaker 1 That doesn't mean that like everything he did in foreign policy was right. But the reality is like when we put military leaders in charge of the military, I am not seeing a success rate that

Speaker 1 lends to this credence that, let's say, AOC couldn't be in charge because the experience is. There's a reason why the founders set it up so that the civilians ran the military or were bosses.
Yeah.

Speaker 2 I mean, for me, it's not so like I'm not advocating for a military, you know, somebody with a military background to be the president.

Speaker 2 It was really just like in that last three weeks of the election, when you have people who don't really pay close attention coming in, their value system is different from the ones who are paying attention now, right?

Speaker 2 And it was, that was really the context of the argument of AOC even being a candidate, which is like right now, anybody who is really activated on the left really likes AOC because she represents the vision of what the left sees as the right way forward.

Speaker 2 But the middle of the country will look at somebody like that and go, she's what, 40 and has never had anything even close to something high stakes in terms of what has been in her purview when it comes to things like that that are national security concerns.

Speaker 2 That is really more of the framing that, you know, contextualizes.

Speaker 1 But my whole point is we don't ask that same question or have that same critique over any, we don't ask those questions for a male candidate. True.
That's my point. That's true.
fair.

Speaker 1 Like,

Speaker 1 this was a conversation, and this is Chris for people who don't know my voice. This was a conversation between me and Zach last week.
And

Speaker 1 I think he's right, because we're not talking about who is actually qualified. We're talking about who is the person who votes for Trump twice in a row.

Speaker 1 Who do they think is, and their vote matters as much as mine.

Speaker 1 I am a combat veteran. I am someone who grew up blue collar, went to a great high school.
You know,

Speaker 1 I got a degree from Columbia University. I've been working in veterans organizations on DOD and VA policy my entire life.

Speaker 1 I think that Hillary Clinton would have been an incredibly effective commander in chief. However,

Speaker 1 Back in 2016, everybody cared about fucking emails.

Speaker 1 And those same people who were obsessed with emails right now are like, no, it's totally okay for Pete Hegseth, this fucking part-time major, you know, who served in the army, kind of sorta.

Speaker 1 Like, it's okay if he's using signal to broadcast troop movements and attacks against our foreign enemies with the vice president of the United States and Tulsi Gabbard, two other veterans who I knew, who I served in Iraq the same time that J.D.

Speaker 1 Vance was there. Like we were a few miles from each other.
Fucking Tulsi Gabbard, like she's been a member of Congress.

Speaker 1 She served in the military. She's, I think, a lieutenant colonel, right? Like

Speaker 1 these people

Speaker 1 who ultimately decided that, no, Hillary Clinton's too much of a risk went and were like, I'm going to vote for that fucking idiot I saw on TV because I just consume late night television and think that anyone I see on TV is brilliant.

Speaker 1 So Zach is not talking about AOC and her qualifications and what we think is right.

Speaker 1 Zach is talking about what these fucking morons who think that Pete Hegseth is a genius and who think that anything that Elon Musk does is like manna from heaven.

Speaker 2 That's who we're talking about.

Speaker 1 We're not talking about AOC. And up, sorry, Tim,

Speaker 1 up a click from there is the same thing we were talking about last week, which is we're always fighting their battle. We're always refuting their message.

Speaker 1 This is, it's not about tax cuts and the deficit and the debt. It's not about military leadership because 700-year-old Captain Bonespurs, who

Speaker 1 actively despises military service. He despises all service and he pities it.
He doesn't, pity is not the right word. He looks down on it and he thinks people who serve are just suckers.

Speaker 1 I mean, I know there's the suckers and losers and there's the controversy around that.

Speaker 1 I believe it, but you don't have to believe that he said those words to look at his actions and just very clearly understand that it's not just military service, it's service.

Speaker 1 anyone who serves anyone is a sucker and probably getting taken advantage of and that's why he didn't serve then that's why he doesn't serve he doesn't compromise he doesn't do anything for anybody else so so the the hard question that i think we have to grapple with here is like, we all know this, right?

Speaker 1 And I think all of these are good points, but how do we start to actually combat that and bring some of those people back?

Speaker 1 Because the reality is, and we've talked about this in the first two episodes, like we can't win elections moving forward unless we get some of those guys back. It is, it is mathematically impossible.

Speaker 1 We cannot do it. So

Speaker 1 what is it going to take? Like what are some tactics that we can take to try to bring these people back?

Speaker 1 I'm just going to throw throw it out there. Me calling these people fucking idiots is probably not going to work.

Speaker 1 So I'm just going to

Speaker 1 say that.

Speaker 1 Me ranting about how they're fucking morons for like caring about emails and then suddenly, you know, troop movements before an attack is, yeah, you know, they are idiots.

Speaker 1 That's what

Speaker 1 they're using the like Trump creates chaos and it keeps people on their heels and it creates this environment where they're afraid to mess with him. Would you pick a fight right now?

Speaker 1 Would any of the six of us pick a fight right now with Jasmine Crockett or AOC? Oh, hell no. Who would annihilate all six of us at the same time? And

Speaker 1 if you want to lean into those sexist Republican stereotypes of the chaos and all of that,

Speaker 1 they can go there with their own heads. I'm not going to because I trust AOC and Jasmine Crockett's judgment more than I I trust Donald Trump's judgment.

Speaker 1 But if they think that picking a fight with somebody like AOC is

Speaker 1 less risky and chaotic than

Speaker 1 picking a fight with somebody like Trump, I could make a pretty good argument either way. Yeah, that's what Luke think.
He's the young one. Well, first, I'd like to

Speaker 1 RFK. I was going to say, we should have introduced him as RFK Jr.

Speaker 3 Yeah, I've been sick the last couple days.

Speaker 1 He's the third, right? RFK the third. Yeah.

Speaker 3 But first, I'd like to push on what Chris said, which was that calling them fucking idiots doesn't work. And I disagree.

Speaker 1 Because, like, right now,

Speaker 3 there's this stereotype that, like, if you're on the left and you're a guy, you're a fucking loser. Like, you're not a man.

Speaker 3 If you make the stereotype that if you're on the right, you're a fucking idiot and you don't understand anything that's going on.

Speaker 3 There's this like then you have to pick between which stereotype you want to choose. And I'd sooner be the fucking soy boy than the idiot who doesn't understand anything.

Speaker 1 Thank God it's hard to take myself seriously like this. No, it's good.

Speaker 2 I think the hard part is that they don't see themselves as idiots because they live in a different realm of reality, right?

Speaker 2 Like the right builds a different reality where it doesn't matter if you're right or wrong, as long as you follow what they say is right, then you're right, even if you could be factually disproven.

Speaker 2 So like, I kind of don't, I, I, look, I, I think going back to episode one, we talked about this a lot, which was there is a segment of this country we're never going to get.

Speaker 1 And I think we're talking about that segment right now. Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 2 Yeah, that's the challenge. It's like, we're not going to be able to get these guys who are entrenched.

Speaker 2 The group I'm talking about, even in relation to the AOC conversation, is the group in the middle that just kind of makes a gut call.

Speaker 2 And I think that the gut call comes quite a bit from what they feel coming from the party. And the thing that really pisses me off is that the authenticity of the right, as we know, is dog shit.

Speaker 2 But to them, it's real. They think that they're an authentic party because they're just saying what the fuck is on their mind.

Speaker 2 And I think that is the biggest hindrance the left faces right now, because the left has tried to be very inclusive and thoughtful about how they talk and trying to make everybody feel like they're included.

Speaker 2 But in that endeavor, I think they've gone too far. And now the left is in a position where people don't feel like they can say what they think.

Speaker 2 And that is making them come off as inauthentic, even though they're not. So to me, changing the way we talk and what we're willing to hear, I think that's a huge thing.

Speaker 1 So we're kind of talking about, I want to hear what everybody has to say about this, but we're kind kind of saying two things at once, because we've got Luke saying, call them fucking idiots.

Speaker 1 And we've got Zach saying essentially like the opposite.

Speaker 1 So

Speaker 1 where do we think that, where's the middle ground here? Because I agree with you both. It depends on the audience.
But like that middle group, right?

Speaker 1 Calling the middle group fucking idiots is probably not the right answer, right?

Speaker 1 But go ahead, Luke. Go ahead.

Speaker 3 I try not to call the middle group the fucking idiots. They're the chronically misinformed people who don't understand what's going on.

Speaker 3 They are not fucking idiots they're people that have this short-term memory of a goldfish who don't understand

Speaker 1 like

Speaker 3 these things take time so like saying oh i'm better off than i or i'm worse now than i was four years ago isn't an effective way to vote like you have to speak to them differently than you speak to the entrenched idiots yep so luke is getting at uh like the guy that i was talking to you guys about before we we hit record today who are reaching out and and saying

Speaker 1 uh and you know the feedback that i'm getting i respect a lot and guys like listen you know people call me an extremist because i just want people to leave me the fuck alone i i just want to you know protect my family i want to make sure that my kids aren't getting indoctrinated at school and because of that you know the left calls me an extremist and i

Speaker 1 uh this is a guy who listened to our first two episodes and that's that's the the feedback he's getting he's saying he's like listen, you guys are like, I'm listening, I'm trying, but you're not giving me.

Speaker 1 Sorry, I hope he's I hope he's listening because

Speaker 1 I feel that same way, and all six of us feel that same way sometimes.

Speaker 1 And it's a reflection, and I hate to say the P word, but it's a reflection of the privilege of being born in a world where your default position is not under attack.

Speaker 1 We can just, it's the libertarian dream, it's the libertarian default state, which is I wake up every day and everything is fine.

Speaker 1 Why are you guys telling me I'm shit for not changing my behaviors to try to accommodate somebody else who I don't even know and I don't necessarily have to care about what they do and

Speaker 1 what they do in their own home and who they are? That is no concern to me. But that doesn't hold up at a social level, at a community level, at a national level.

Speaker 1 And so I would just ask that individual to to think: does everyone else have the right to have the same perspective as you and still have a thriving country?

Speaker 1 Or is maybe there a little bit of earned pressure or just natural pressure that comes along with the fact that you are not under attack right now?

Speaker 1 Well, and I think one of the challenges I think that we're facing in this country, because I agree 100% with everything you said, but like for those people,

Speaker 1 let's just, let's go with white men, for example, right? Like the reality in this country is that white men have a leg up on everybody else. But that doesn't mean that life is easy.

Speaker 1 And I think that the part of the problem has been, at least from the perception perspective, is that the

Speaker 1 position is white, you white person, you've had it easy, get out of the way and let, like, give somebody else a chance. And the reality is for that person who maybe like, you know, grew up poor, like

Speaker 1 you telling them that they have privilege is just, it's going to fall on deaf ears because they've had a hard life. And I think we have done a bad job there of saying,

Speaker 1 we're not saying your life is easy. We're saying that somebody else, a person of color, a woman, has it harder, but you both have it hard.
And I think that is where we have failed.

Speaker 1 And I think that is what has driven people into this right-wing fever swamp where basically you can say whatever you want and there are no consequences, but it's a community and they're welcomed.

Speaker 1 We don't do that. And some of that is because some of those people say

Speaker 1 really like cruel things to other people. And so then we react to that.
But in a lot of cases, a lot of these people just want to have a job. They want to get married.

Speaker 1 They want to have two and a half kids. And they want to be able to retire before they're 95 years old.

Speaker 1 And I feel like the Democratic Party's positions and policies line up perfectly with that, but we are swinging and missing at about 100 million Americans who just think all we want to do is turn everyone trans and basically like

Speaker 1 turn the country into like

Speaker 1 a china russia north korea death spiral of

Speaker 1 what i want to know is i i wanted i want to know what led young vic into the military i i want to know like how you felt when you were that age because i can tell you what i felt when i was 18 to 21 21.

Speaker 1 And I was

Speaker 1 one of those.

Speaker 1 I was right-wing. I was libertarian.
Vic, what were you like at that age? What led you to the military? How do you feel around that age? I've always been left-wing.

Speaker 1 My dad was always, I even did it, talked about it one of my videos. When I was like 12 years old, I asked my dad what's the difference between a Republican and a Democrat.
And he said, a Republican.

Speaker 1 fights for the company and a Democrat fights for the working guy. And I became a Democrat.

Speaker 1 I can't argue that they're doing a good job of it but that was back then and as far as why i went into the military it my family it hasn't been a your grandfather was in the military so you will be too it wasn't like that but military service in my family is just something that we do

Speaker 1 so when i turned 18 i was like i want to serve in the military and that's that's how i ended up there another example of a Sorry. Go ahead, Rich.
Go ahead.

Speaker 1 I was just going to say another example of a simple, salient message.

Speaker 1 You know, you fight, are you going to fight for the people in your community, or are you going to fight for the billionaires, the oligarch, or

Speaker 1 the other, you know? And they've done a good job of flipping that script on us. Oh, 100%.

Speaker 2 Like, if you send that message out today, people are going to go, Democrats don't fight for the working man at all.

Speaker 2 And that's, I mean, it's incorrect if you just look at policy, but in terms of how they position themselves, it's terrible. And it actually, it even can get spiraled out to other things.

Speaker 2 Like the most, you know, I live in a swing state. So I, during the election, I just saw a thousand ads.

Speaker 2 And the ad that played the most was the trans stuff where they're going, they're not for you, they're for they, them.

Speaker 2 And it's just the way that they take it away from like, Democrats don't care about the regular person. They care about this niche group or that niche group.

Speaker 2 And it's like, it's the most inaccurate thing humanly possible, yet somehow it's resonating with so many people because it's simple and they just buy it.

Speaker 1 But how do we, how do we reverse that, right? Like, I mean, this is, this is the problem. We all like know the problem, right?

Speaker 1 We know that our policies, like, even look at 2024, like Kamala lost by a fair amount and our policies across the nation passed in states.

Speaker 1 Even in Missouri, there were like laws, very progressive laws. Lucas Koontz lost by like 25 points in that Senate race.

Speaker 1 How do we reach out to these guys? And I really, I'm going to lean on Chris and Vic here.

Speaker 1 Partially just because you both of your military background, which tends to be dominated by the right.

Speaker 1 how, how, and, but like, I'm also sure you have tons of friends on the right. Like, well, Vic, you've been a left for a long time, so maybe, but Chris, you know,

Speaker 1 what is it,

Speaker 1 how do we even start?

Speaker 1 Well, we start.

Speaker 1 I mean, one thing that we haven't talked about in this conversation yet, we talked about the idea, in my opinion, that the left is always telling people how to think and what words to use and things like that.

Speaker 1 To me, that's an idea. And we talked about how

Speaker 1 young white men are being told about how being left is weak and all that stuff. But what we haven't talked about, and it goes to the

Speaker 1 how do we get them back, we have to start putting water on the fire that they're using to light these guys up. We got to start exposing the Charlie Kirks and the Joe Rogans and all those idiots.

Speaker 1 who don't believe anything they say.

Speaker 1 They're only doing it to make money. We got to start exposing those guys.

Speaker 1 I can't tell you how painful it was to listen to all those episodes of that idiot just to get ready for this tonight.

Speaker 1 I think,

Speaker 1 you know, to pull around to messaging and how they've exploited generations,

Speaker 1 they've started with young men now.

Speaker 1 They understood this, and they started with a message that's as simple as, Vic, the one you just called out, which is being a boy is not bad.

Speaker 1 Being a man is not bad. Masculinity is not toxic.
And they flicked that directly on us when we called out. their toxic behaviors.
And they said, all masculinity is all of our behaviors.

Speaker 1 We are masculinity. And so if you're attacking any of those things, you're attacking all of us and you're attacking the entire community of men.
And they hate men. And it was that simple.

Speaker 1 And they don't have the burden of truth in right-wing messaging. And that is the most suffocating reality to deal with when you're the one saying, well, there are shades of gray in this conversation.

Speaker 1 And they go, well, that's actually interesting because there are not shades of gray. You either hate men or you are a man and you believe that men should run the world.

Speaker 1 And that is when you're 12 and 13 and 14.

Speaker 1 a much simpler, much more attractive message than, well, maybe you have all of these layers of responsibility to people you've never met.

Speaker 1 Well, I was actually going to go to Chris because like I wanted to ask him because like he has self-proclaimed said that he was right-wing. I think you said all-right, but obviously in the mid-2000s.

Speaker 1 I didn't say all-right. No, no, no.
Or far right. Far right.
You say far right. Sorry.
But like a very different description 15 years ago. Yeah.

Speaker 1 So you were all the way over there at one point and you are now with us on this journey. So what was the flip? What did it take? Yeah.
So

Speaker 1 people nowadays, like who know me, follow me on TikTok, it's likely because of the white dudes for Harris thing, where I did like one super viral TikTok video.

Speaker 1 Uh, the closest thing that I have ever done to getting involved in a presidential campaign is in 2008, when I was, you know, six months, less than a year, uh, out of the military, was running around

Speaker 1 my hometown spray painting Ron Paul Revolution on the train station. Wow.
And that is the type of Republican that I was. And I gravitated towards Ron Paul for the singular reason that he was anti-war.

Speaker 1 And the thing that broke me of that right-wing fever, of this belief in like Ron Paul preached all sorts of stuff. He gave me a reading list, which radicalized me further.

Speaker 1 I was like, yeah, let's go back on the gold standard, not knowing shit about economics.

Speaker 1 Right?

Speaker 1 That's who ron paul's followers are that newsletter right that was that thing that yeah yeah yeah

Speaker 1 so

Speaker 1 the thing that broke me out of it was i got involved in the anti-war movement uh the peace movement and i got involved with an anti-war activist i was a young woman uh who was a refugee from iraq and her family previous generation had been refugees from Palestine.

Speaker 1 And she and I were polar opposites. I was watching Glenn Beck on Fox News, and feminism was a bad word to me.
I'm not exaggerating, right? And I met this self-described hardcore feminist.

Speaker 1 And because we had the mutual experience of like

Speaker 1 real, real deep military related or Iraq-related trauma,

Speaker 1 we bonded over that. And that those polar opposite

Speaker 1 political beliefs kind of, I think, blended together a bit. And that, that's what broke me.
Otherwise, I literally would probably have been an oath keeper.

Speaker 1 The Ron Paul campaign is where the oath keepers came from. I was right there.

Speaker 2 I mean, it's exposure to something you weren't being exposed to. That's really what it is.

Speaker 2 Like, so much of this is just like, these people need to hear something else and they need to hear the conversation.

Speaker 2 If you had, and it's not, it's not, I don't, the hard part is like, even hearing us, if you could agree with a lot of these things, the reason it worked for you is because you had a personal connection with this person.

Speaker 2 It's like that is a huge element of this.

Speaker 2 And I think, you know, given the fact that Democrats do much better with women, the women in the lives of these men, I think, is a huge element that is, you know, unfortunately not tapped into, but it's not so much we can do about

Speaker 2 that particular element of it, unfortunately.

Speaker 1 But I, but I think like what we're doing here, and not to pat ourselves on the back, but I'm going to pat ourselves on the back, is that

Speaker 1 there are not places on the left that they can come and get this type of information from people who look and sound like them.

Speaker 1 And I'll be honest, like, I think this is, we are in a very precarious situation because the right is also, and Taylor of the Wrens, the online reporter has covered this a lot, that they're now starting, these right-wing people are now starting to talk about

Speaker 1 gossip, like the whole situation with, oh, God, what's her face?

Speaker 1 Ryan Reynolds' wife, Blake Lively, and the whole thing with that movie, like the Megan Kelly's of the world and all of these and like libs of TikTok, I think maybe even like are talking about this as a way to pull more people in to indoctrinate them.

Speaker 1 Like this is only getting worse.

Speaker 1 And that's why like, I mean, look, like no one was doing it and we stepped up and did this, but like the reality is like we need like 50 of these across different demographics.

Speaker 1 It's really concerning because they are like, they're really smart about it. And like, that's why like shows like this matter and we need to get like more people out there.

Speaker 1 But it is, it's really concerning because it's, it's continuing. Yeah.
I mean, I, I just, I don't know. It's just like a real

Speaker 1 problem yeah i i want to i want to i want to play off what was what chris was saying chris i don't know if you've thought of it this way um and i'm sorry for throwing this out on a live mic but

Speaker 1 you were i i took the ass ass fab right i'm wildly out of my out of my depth here but i took it and i i too scored fairly well and um

Speaker 1 the the recruiter at the time told me oh don't worry you won't be up on the shore with the bullet sponges

Speaker 1 He tried to appeal to me

Speaker 1 in a way that did not resonate. And I was so disgusted by that pitch that

Speaker 1 he thought that I would be so callous to the lives of others that, well, don't worry, you're safe.

Speaker 1 And

Speaker 1 that that was going to sell me on it.

Speaker 1 At that point, it took me 10 years to come back around on the idea of the military not being a terrible force in the United States. And I think this, this like

Speaker 1 taking young men, I mean, this may have been intentional or not, but taking young men and selling them a false bill and getting them on board with something they weren't fully on.

Speaker 1 I mean, you are the poster child for what we're trying to do with this country. And

Speaker 1 Tim, with your permission, if I can hard pivot to a topic that's very dear to me very recently,

Speaker 1 It just, it has me thinking about adolescence, which is a show I just watched, I just finished, and I won't spoil anything if anybody hasn't finished it yet.

Speaker 1 But for dads, for men who were raised in a similar environment where masculinity is maybe narrowly and

Speaker 1 maliciously defined,

Speaker 1 it was a bucket of ice water over our heads. And

Speaker 1 it caused a lot of, I think, parents and a lot of maybe teenage boys and girls, if they've watched it, to do a lot of soul searching.

Speaker 1 And, and, and part of that comes back to in the show a heavy dose of alt-right, internet-led content creator, uh, you know, this hyper-masculine alpha bro movement telling little boys that there's only a very, very narrow way to be a boy or to be a man, and that only if you become that thing

Speaker 1 will women be attracted to you. And they, they call out something in the show called the 80-20 rule, which is that 80% of women are attracted to 20% of men.

Speaker 1 And they use that to then box you in and say, if you want to be part of that 20% of men, you have to do this thing and you have to do this thing and you have to say this thing and you have to act this way.

Speaker 1 And this is what our opposition is up with.

Speaker 1 This is what our opposition is doing right now, which is saying you have to be jacked, you have to be healthy, you have to be financially well off. And

Speaker 1 if not a millionaire. Yeah.

Speaker 1 And you have to be all of these things. Otherwise, you are somebody who will go extinct.
You will not have a girlfriend. You will not hook up with anybody.
You'll not get attention.

Speaker 1 And then they all dogpile on top of that person and create a victim. And when you're a kid, that's a real thing.

Speaker 1 When you're an adult, you grow out of that a little bit and you can just be like, you know what, fuck you guys. Like, I got a wife and she's awesome, which is where I'm at in my life.

Speaker 1 But when you're, when you're impressionable, which is exactly when the right wing goes after you, whether it's military recruitment, as I found out and Chris found out, or whether it's

Speaker 1 just a kid in America or a kid in the world these days,

Speaker 1 that's when they go after you. And we have to do something about that.

Speaker 1 So, Luke, as the youngest person here who is the closest to teenage years, even though you're not there,

Speaker 1 you're hearing all of this conversation from people who have been probably out of the dating scene for quite a while and um probably decades for some of us and um what what like uh

Speaker 1 how does this resonate with you does this does this sound like your friends and you like walk us through like what a what a 21 year old is thinking about masculinity and all of these things in 2025 and what he's hearing yeah exactly yeah

Speaker 3 there's a guy at my gym who

Speaker 3 we're we go about the same time every day

Speaker 3 and just about every fucking day, we end up in the sauna at the same time. And this guy,

Speaker 3 every fucking day, is listening to either Joe Rogan, Ben Shapiro, or Charlie Kirk.

Speaker 3 And since your phone will fucking explode if you take it in the sauna, he's got that shit set outside full blast so you can hear it through the door.

Speaker 1 Oh, God.

Speaker 3 It's fucking insufferable.

Speaker 3 But, you know, for the first like two weeks, I was like, fine, whatever. I'll just fucking, I'll wear my headphones in and I won't listen to it.

Speaker 3 And then eventually it got to the point where I was like, I don't want to listen to it at all. And so he was listening to it.
I came in and I said, The fuck are you listening to that for? Like,

Speaker 3 not everybody wants to listen to that because I had been approached by other guys who are like, yeah, can't fucking stand that.

Speaker 1 Is he your age, Luke?

Speaker 3 Yeah, he's my age.

Speaker 1 Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 3 And he goes, well, it's the best way to get truth.

Speaker 1 And I said, really?

Speaker 3 I was like, that is the best way to get truth. He goes, yeah, they tell how it is.

Speaker 3 And I said, well, funny you should say that. I said, it's my great shame to admit that when I was like, nah, 14

Speaker 3 and 100 pounds lighter, the only thing I had going for me was that I was pretty smart. And I was a big fucking Ben Shapiro and Steven Crowder fan because what I would watch.

Speaker 3 is those videos where he goes on a you know a fucking college campus and he's got he sounds really smart He's got all these sources and shit and people come up and he fucking oh he owned that lib and I thought that was just a cat's ass

Speaker 1 And then

Speaker 1 I think it's supposed to be a good thing.

Speaker 3 My dad says it all the time.

Speaker 1 I'll tell my cat

Speaker 1 but like

Speaker 3 I probably watched that shit for like a year and I thought it was just awesome.

Speaker 3 And then suddenly I watched one video where he where i think it was steven crowder went after this trans lady like real hard and was calling her all kinds of just terrible i was like

Speaker 3 see that's not what i'm in this for like i like the intellectual side of it even though it was complete pseudo like pseudo intellectualism but i was not in it for the fucking bigotry but i don't think everybody gets that far so the cruelty actually got you out of it Yes, but I don't think most people get that far.

Speaker 1 The cruelty is a feature. Yeah.
It's just the Adam Server piece that was like, the cruelty is the point, is one of the best, I think, to this day pieces on Trumpism.

Speaker 1 Like, the reality, I keep saying reality in every episode. I got to stay in that word.
But they, but, like, that's, that's a feature. It's not a bug.

Speaker 1 So I think the so yes, it, I, I believe it, it is a feature. And, and I study the far right, and that's my

Speaker 1 opinion based on

Speaker 1 you know my studies. But

Speaker 1 the

Speaker 1 perception for the listener is that the listener is constantly being attacked.

Speaker 1 It is that the listener is on defense, and that it is the Ben Shapiros and the Charlie Kirks, the Stephen Crowders who are going out there into hostile territory and who are staking, you know, planting a flag in the ground and saying, you know, I can be here too.

Speaker 1 So I don't think that the average listener, and I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt as best I can, just for the sake of the show.

Speaker 1 I don't think that the average listener

Speaker 1 recognizes that they're being infantilized by these people.

Speaker 1 That is what it is, is Charlie Kirk thinks that all of his listeners are little defenseless babies. And he is feeding them the information that they need to

Speaker 1 reinforce that.

Speaker 1 It is not, they don't believe that they're attacking people, they believe that they're standing up for themselves. Right, I wish he had our listeners who are the smartest, kindest,

Speaker 1 true, best people. I mean, they're the best people on our

Speaker 1 thank you for listening. If they could have listeners like our listeners, if people are listening right now, or I mean, they're next level, and uh, we'd live in utopia, right?

Speaker 2 You know what?

Speaker 1 I'm so glad that I got to hear all that from Luke because I grew up in a day where there was no internet and AM radio was still a little bit balanced.

Speaker 1 So I often wonder, as I'm listening to Charlie Kirk, only for the purposes of tonight,

Speaker 1 as I'm listening to that crap, I'm sitting here thinking, how in the fudge do people

Speaker 1 not see through this?

Speaker 1 How do they listen to this and think there's any credibility at all?

Speaker 1 So, I'm glad to hear that perspective from Luke.

Speaker 2 I think they're not looking to challenge its validity.

Speaker 2 That's the thing. It's like the right, the left is always on defense right now, trying to like poke holes in what the right is saying.
And the right is just going forward, like, no, this is it.

Speaker 2 This is right. It's literally presentation.
Their presentation style is incredible.

Speaker 2 Like, you know, as much as I hate the right in all of their policy, I admire their ability to market and their ability to present because they could give a fuck fuck about if they're right or wrong.

Speaker 1 They're right.

Speaker 2 That's it. They just they are gonna stick it in your face and go, this is the answer.
And there isn't a world where it's not.

Speaker 2 The left is much more context, like Rich said earlier, the left is open to gray in conversations. It's not just black and white.

Speaker 2 And that's challenging for a lot of people who are just looking for clarity.

Speaker 2 And when there's no clarity in a situation and then somebody shows up and goes, no, here it is, right in front of your face. It's an easy win.

Speaker 2 And the left is missing that opportunity because we are more thoughtful about how we approach things. And that's a good thing.

Speaker 2 But at the same time, if we want to figure out how we can restructure messaging to be in a position to actually change people's minds, we have to meet them where they are.

Speaker 2 And where they are is that they want a simple conversation. They want a simple, they don't want to feel like they're being preached at.

Speaker 2 They want to feel like they're being told information that's true. And right now, the left just comes off like we're just waffling around and trying to give all this context.

Speaker 2 It's just a waste of time.

Speaker 2 And like, and this is me saying this, most of my content is like contextualizing stuff with, with data, but which is interesting because like, I, you know, my channel does well because people do want to know the information.

Speaker 2 Like, it's an important thing, but the presentation style of most of the party is fucking terrible. And they just need to understand, like, just go right at them, attack, be on offense.

Speaker 2 It's enough with the fucking defense. It's pathetic.

Speaker 1 Well, you know, I think that they have built an ecosystem in which you can literally go through your life and never actually listen to a Democrat.

Speaker 1 So you are constantly constantly hearing right-wing misinformation on Fox News,

Speaker 1 in the gym,

Speaker 1 on your way home, AM radio, TV. Now we're talking about like the celebrity gossip stuff.
Like they have built a world. I mean, I have friends that like, they are perplexed.
as to why I'm a Democrat.

Speaker 1 They're like, those people hate freedom. They hate everything about America.
And I'm sitting here being like, I mean, I was on, in DC on 9-11.

Speaker 1 I was on 701 Pennsylvania Avenue between the White House and the Capitol. And like, like, I was in the, I mean, I wasn't like in the middle of it, but like, I was 22 and I was scared out of my mind.

Speaker 1 And like, the next day when all the American flags went up, I was like, fuck yeah. And, you know, like, so I'm like, I know, I'm somebody who loves this country.
There's no, like, we all do.

Speaker 1 And it's, we just, we do have a horribly miserable job of like explaining that.

Speaker 1 And I think because we're always trying to talk about policy, I mean, last, I just laughed, was last week we talked a little bit about Medicare for all.

Speaker 1 And like, you know, Zach Vic and I, we're sort of like, well, you know, you can't do it in two years or three years. Imagine a Republican saying that.
They're just like, you know, you want this.

Speaker 1 Shut the fuck up. And like, the reality is like, we have to do more of that.
Like, it just like stop selling pieces and sell a brand, really. It's, it's two to three times the work.
Right.

Speaker 1 You have to do the marketing and the messaging and the PR and the comms, and you have to do the 90% of the work that is the policies that are logically and mathematically defensible.

Speaker 1 They skip that entire part.

Speaker 1 They just say, everything will be fine.

Speaker 1 You deserve this because you're great.

Speaker 1 If we just were either dumb or reckless or gutsy enough to just go out and say, you as Americans deserve $50 an hour in free health care and I will make it happen, period.

Speaker 1 People would go, I don't know how that's possible, but they are so confident in their pitch that they must know something I don't know.

Speaker 1 And all I have to do is say, Trust me, we know all of the smartest people. We will deliver on that shit.
Don't even worry about it.

Speaker 1 Just go to the park with your kids and we will take care of the mess. And people, that is all they want government to do, which is solve problems and go away.
Right.

Speaker 2 And that's the thing is: like, when you get, I completely agree with that. And Trump did it more so in this election than ever, where he just didn't even try to substantiate what he's claiming.

Speaker 2 He just said, this is what I'm going to do.

Speaker 1 It doesn't matter how it worked the first time. So right.

Speaker 2 And it worked even better this time.

Speaker 1 But like concepts of a plan. Right, right exactly it doesn't matter

Speaker 2 but the whole premise of this is like democrats are in a position now where if you're able to do what rich is saying then you're able to just go one-to-one of what is actually being promised and if democrats are coming out and promising we're going to give you free health care we're going to give you free child care and you're going to get the minimum wage to a living wage It's a home fucking run.

Speaker 2 And you just have to do it in a way where it makes like you're confident in the pitch.

Speaker 2 But Democrats never have confidence in this stuff they come out flat as shit and they go well we're going to do it by cutting this tax and they and like i'll just say this last thing the worst thing that democrats do is attack billionaires it's the stupidest thing they do all the time they always bring it back to as long as we tax the billionaires nobody's buying it it's a loser argument people have just fallen it falls on deaf ears you have to just ignore how and just say we're gonna do it don't demonize a whole class of successful people because that turns off a lot of men.

Speaker 2 Men look at billionaires differently than people in this call look at billionaires on the whole. They look at them and go, those are successful people.
Why are you trying to attack them?

Speaker 2 We're attacking success in America. It's a huge mistake.
Don't make a person a victim. Just tell me the fucking plan.

Speaker 1 Naturally, I disagree with Zach on all of that last part.

Speaker 1 Well, remember, if you're not, if you don't like the message, you might not be the audience. Right.

Speaker 2 No, I mean, Vic, look, I'm not saying that we shouldn't go after billionaires. I'm saying stop talking about it.

Speaker 2 It's like, I think this polarization of like, there's the working class people and the billionaires, it's a, we've tried that message for what, 10 years, hasn't worked.

Speaker 1 It's just

Speaker 1 then we don't do it because the billionaires and the consultants are running too much shit.

Speaker 1 Yeah. I'm not sure we've ever really done that, to be perfectly honest.
Like, I mean, we, we, we, we talk about it, right?

Speaker 1 But, like, you know, we have plenty of billionaires on our side, not as many as the Republicans, and we really don't go into that. Yeah.

Speaker 1 And the fact that like the Trump administration has more billionaires in positions of power than ever. How are these people supposed to be helping the American public? They have no idea.

Speaker 1 Most of these people got in these positions because their daddy gave them something, which is what Donald Trump got. He got $400 million when his dad died.
Like,

Speaker 1 I have no problem with success in this country. And like, Mark Cuban's a perfect example.
And he is actually the one that is the most articulate about this. He's like, tax me.

Speaker 1 Like, I have more money. than I could ever spend.
I'll send you my check. And like, that's the patriotic thing to do.
Not these people who are like ditching, like they want their tax cuts.

Speaker 1 And so they're willing to just like melt down everything else so that they get a little bit more. So they can, like, maybe Elon could be the first trillionaire.
Like, it's just madness.

Speaker 1 And so I, I get what you're saying.

Speaker 1 And like, we should not like criticize success, but there's a fine line here with that and also just serving one group of people because they fund everything that you do. Oh, for sure.

Speaker 2 I'm not saying we serve them. I'm just saying like the democratic messaging structure in this is not working.
We need a new one.

Speaker 1 That's my, that's my point. I think, I think, I mean, I 100% agree that you're on to something, Zach.
And I think it's because when you look at who does the right demonize, they demonize immigrants.

Speaker 1 They demonize, you know, trans people. They demonize people you never want to be.
Yep.

Speaker 1 And if we demonize millionaires and billionaires, I had a friend 25 years ago and it was the most beautiful statement ever. He said, every Republican is a temporarily inconvenienced millionaire.

Speaker 1 And now I think it would be a temporarily inconvenienced billionaire. But the point is, we are attacking their aspirational state when we go after the wealthy.

Speaker 1 And what Republicans would do is say, why do Democrats hate the middle class?

Speaker 1 Why do they hate working people when they attack a $50 an hour minimum wage and they attack universal health care for everybody?

Speaker 1 Instead of getting, to your point, Zach, caught up in, well, we're going to offset this marginal tax rate to pay for it. Nobody gives a shit.
Nobody even, I don't even know what that means.

Speaker 1 And I just said it. And, and let alone the average American voter.

Speaker 1 So if you have to keep it very sharp and very pointed, and that is not a thing that Democrats are good at when it comes to messaging, because we just always want to, we're excited by the details.

Speaker 1 We'd like the details. We'd love to be in the weeds.
But the average voter just goes, tell me what you're doing for me and tell me that it's not going to be a problem for me. Yes, exactly.

Speaker 1 Maybe the message should be, hey, dummy, you're never going to be a billionaire under their policies.

Speaker 1 But you could still win the lottery. And then at that point, you don't want the death tax and the estate tax.

Speaker 1 They will always

Speaker 1 don't even get me started on that one. They will always come back around to defending wealth.

Speaker 2 Yeah. I mean, this, it's really, it's like going back to earlier in the conversation when we look at like, why are men drawn to this? It's because they're drawn to success.

Speaker 2 A lot of these younger men are drawn to what success. That's why they like Elon Musk because he's a self-made.
He's not really self-made, but they see him as this self-made guy.

Speaker 2 They think that Democrats don't like success.

Speaker 2 And then they draw the conclusion down to like, Democrats enjoy people who need, like, they only give a shit about people need to be pulled up. It's like, that's bullshit.

Speaker 2 We care about everybody, including the people need to be pulled up and the people who are, you know, doing fine. Like, everybody matters.
It's not just about that.

Speaker 1 I also want to inherit $400 million.

Speaker 1 Sure.

Speaker 1 100%. Right now, if Donald Trump's dad said, here's $400 million, I'd go, sweet.

Speaker 1 I'm going to fix things. I'm not going to break things, but I would take all of the money.
Shame. 100%.

Speaker 1 I told my wife I was going to marry her for her money and she said, okay, but I'm broke. And And I said, Oh, shit.
I guess I'll marry you anyway.

Speaker 1 You'd already given the ring. So you're just like, Well, this is it.

Speaker 2 Yeah, it's a tough one, man.

Speaker 2 I mean, it's one of those things where, like, I just don't like my big, when we get through these conversations, my big question is, how do we get out of the hole we're in with this stuff?

Speaker 2 Like, we've identified all the problems, but what's the solution, right? Like, that's the thing that's so annoying is like they're killing us right now. Right.

Speaker 2 And that's what I think what we need to get at is like, how do we attack, right because our attacks so far haven't worked so like what's the right attack to go after they're you know really entrenched with a lot of these groups we need to unentrench them how do we do that let's remember the pendulum will do a lot of work for us let's never forget that it's hot right now it feels insurmountable but the the the mountain will drop itself by about 90

Speaker 1 and in in four years I don't want it to be this way. I don't want people to suffer, but in four years, I don't think it's going to be great.
I agree.

Speaker 1 all we need to be is the person, the candidate, the party with a message saying, you always deserved better and we can let bygones be bygones. We have to move on because this is our values.

Speaker 1 Hopefully, we will remind you of this and we will all remember this. So we don't have to go through this over and over and over, even though we always say that.
It can't be.

Speaker 1 Hopefully, we have to make sure it is. Right.
That's the thing. Well, that's the, you know, I think about the guy that I brought up before.

Speaker 1 He, he's a Long Islander, right? Lives. I think he lives in Nassau County.
It's where I was born and raised, which

Speaker 1 has a Republican, like MAGA county executive.

Speaker 1 Long Island has become kind of like Trump country outside of New York City. So the perception and the reality there are two different things.

Speaker 1 Like the crime rate in Nassau County, it's one of the most wealthy places in the country. It's also also one of the safest places in the country.

Speaker 1 But the perception is that, like, there are gangs running rampant, right? Like, the, the like, MS-13 is going to get your daughter thing is, is, it's like real there.

Speaker 1 I thought that was a rating on Netflix, by the way. I was like, MS-13, that's appropriate for my kid, right? Is that

Speaker 1 so? Like, you know, I, and I'm, you know, I want to be thoughtful and respectful. Like,

Speaker 1 what does this person want to hear from the Democrats?

Speaker 1 Like, if we believe the data says that crime is just simply not bad and that the police there are paid more than any other police, and that they have a per capita higher rate of policing than just about anywhere in the country, like it is safe, but you don't believe it.

Speaker 1 What do we say?

Speaker 1 How do we fix that?

Speaker 2 Yeah, that's a very difficult thing to do because it's like, again, to complement their ability to message, they find like these little instances of like, we arrested an MS-13 guy in this county that's really safe.

Speaker 2 The county is now super dangerous. Like, no, it's not.
It's one.

Speaker 2 It's like, you know, all the different times that one little thing happens, they amplify to sound like it's happening all the time because they're very good at fear-mongering.

Speaker 2 And it's like, Democrats, I don't think Democrats should soup to that level because it's just not them.

Speaker 2 But it's just a hard, like, what, you know, it's so hard to push back against that because they only tell you the shitty story when 99% of it is good and the 1% is bad. It seems like 100% shit.

Speaker 1 We need the Democrats and especially the left-leaning media to stop saying things like, well, what he said might not have been accurate and say he's a fucking liar. He lied to you.

Speaker 1 Nobody says Trump lied. Nobody says Hegseth lied.
They say, well, what he said wasn't actually true. Yeah, misstatements.
It's a goddamn

Speaker 1 false notes. Well,

Speaker 1 when those guys were up on the hill the other day talking about Signal, they all lied.

Speaker 1 They knew that was classified i mean like any idiot on like would know when you looked at that stuff that that was classified information and it's like i don't recall and blah dah dah you know they lied and like it is like i think they're getting a lot of for it but the reality the media does not say they lied no they

Speaker 1 there's not going to be any consequence for this anyway yeah no no no none at all Well, they'll just pardon any, they'll pardon anybody who does anything, so it doesn't, it doesn't make a difference.

Speaker 1 I just did a video about this the other day. Like, I think that what I want to hear from Democrats,

Speaker 1 and maybe this is like the aggressive testosterone man side of me, right?

Speaker 1 I want to hear, not lock them up. I want to hear, that's a fucking felony.
Like, here's the law. Here is what happened.
That is a felony.

Speaker 1 And when we get into power, we will absolutely make sure that we prosecute felonies, not lock him up, not let, I don't want them to simplify it.

Speaker 1 The shit that Democrats were doing at Harris campaigns, not all the time, but at some of those arenas, they were chanting lock him up.

Speaker 1 That dumbing down of prosecution of the law really fucking bothers me as an investigator, as someone who is involved in making sure that hate crimes get prosecuted. I really hate when people

Speaker 1 treat justice like that.

Speaker 1 But I want you know, for Democrats running in 2026, in 2028, to be talking about impeachment, indictments, prosecution, preservation of evidence, because we know that Pam Bondi is not going to

Speaker 1 hold anyone responsible. We know that

Speaker 1 Cash Patel, leader leading the FBI, is FBI director. We know he's going to hold the FBI back.

Speaker 1 But I want to make sure that

Speaker 1 that prosecutors, that investigators, anyone with the legal, the statutory authority to be engaging in investigations right now that they're doing it and that they're preserving evidence and that these people are held accountable and they they get a fair trial that's what i want to hear perfect message what chris is saying yep and i think we are going to wrap it up there because we have been over an hour for the first two episodes and we are going to cut it just short so i want to thank everybody for listening tonight um we want to hear from you please go to our sub stack at findout findoutpodcast.substack.com.

Speaker 1 Tell us what you think about this.

Speaker 1 We've got lots of things to talk about coming up. So make sure that you're following us on Substack and all of our social channels.
I want to thank my five buds here for

Speaker 1 doing this tonight. We're doing this on a Friday night to tell us what kind of lives we lead

Speaker 1 sitting online at eight o'clock. I had two beers, so I don't know about you.
That's why it's okay that we're doing this. I know everybody, everybody had a little bit of a drink, I think.
And,

Speaker 1 you know, well, yeah, Luke.

Speaker 1 Guys, we're not making a sacrifice. It's all Luke.
Luke is the only one sacrificing to hang out with us. That's true.
So thank you, Luke.

Speaker 1 Thank you. And to your half a million followers who are listening to the show.

Speaker 1 That's a weird thing to say.

Speaker 1 I know. Six months ago, I had zero.
Damn. You'll lose half of them with that voice.
You got to lose it with it.

Speaker 1 I almost made a video about it.

Speaker 1 You should do a video about it. But anyways, we got to wrap because we got to cut this off before an hour.

Speaker 1 Anyways, thank you, everybody. We will be back next week.