Best of The Program | Guests: Vivek Ramaswamy, Seth Dillon, & Dave Isay | 2/17/23

Charlie Sheen is an icon of decadence.

I lit the fuse and my life turns into everything it wasn't supposed to be.

He's going the distance.

He was the highest paid TV star of all time.

When it started to change, it was quick.

He kept saying, no, no, no, I'm in the hospital now, but next week I'll be ready for the show.

Now, Charlie's sober.

He's gonna tell you the truth.

How do I present this with any class?

I think we're past that, Charlie.

We're past that, yeah.

Somebody call action.

Yeah.

AKA Charlie Sheen, only on Netflix, September 10th.

And all this AI stuff you've been talking about forever, and I think people are probably sick of it.

But

now it's actually turning into that point where people are becoming aware of it.

And we really are, I think, at the beginning of something that we have not contemplated at all.

We're sitting here like on day one of this, staring into the abyss with no idea what's coming and really no rules or foundations on how to deal with it.

It's like we're strapped to a chair and somebody spends on, you don't want to be strapped to this chair.

You really don't want to be strapped to this chair and then somebody's like I'm just going to count to 10 okay just going to count to 10 no big deal

10 9 8 7 and all of a sudden your chair starts to shake and you're being launched into space and you have no idea and no plan to return that is how dramatic this is.

People are seeing little things like we talk about in today's podcast and we will talk more about it on Monday

that the chair is starting to shake you're starting to go oh this is kind of weird what did the chat GPT say what is going on what

I'm telling you get out of the chair get out of the capsule this thing is launching and as a globe you know what's so crazy is

almost everything this week I think has been disinformation

you know look at the response for the train

but what was that?

Look at the response on the balloons.

We started the week with aliens.

We might have shot down an alien aircraft.

Can we point out that we're all in kindergarten?

Our entire week has been talking about trains and balloons.

Yeah, if the wheels of, and Kamala Harris with the wheels of the bus.

We're doing all of them at the station.

Yes, but Party City is not a threat that we know of at this point.

All right, our podcast coming up.

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Don't forget to subscribe to this podcast and policetv.com slash Glenn as well.

And you can use the promo code glenn to save yourself 10 bucks also i mentioned the youtube pages glenn has of course youtube page now over a million subscribers uh studios america youtube page a few less a few less than that but you can go and make that number a little higher if you would actually today i'm gonna be doing a special live broadcast because i feel like when i get in these moments and when you know hell is all around us the only way to make it better is to eat junk food so i'm gonna be trying a bunch of uh new uh on the market junk foods that just came out and i have not been invited you are totally invited would you like to try

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My gosh, he's been replaced by an alien.

Here's today's podcast.

You're listening to the best of the Blenbeck program.

I want to take you to now a guy who I have read is possibly, well, people are trying to draft him to run for president.

And I have to tell you, even if he

doesn't win or wouldn't run to try to win, but just try to get everybody to understand ESG, I support his candidacy.

Vivek Ramashwami is with us now.

He is an anti-ESG crusader

and

has really made a lot of inroads with Strive.com.

Check it out.

He's with with us now.

You're also an Ohio resident.

Any thoughts on what's happening?

I mean, it's very sad what's happened, Glenn.

And I watched Pete Buttigig effectively imply that this has gotten too much attention.

That's an affront, and I think it just reveals why people here and people across the country do not trust the establishment in Washington, D.C.

And you know, the funny thing is I've seen both sides of it, right?

I was born and raised in Ohio.

I'm talking to you from Ohio today.

I also went to school with Pete Buttigich.

We were at Harvard together.

We overlapped with each other.

And the dirty little secret is that if this had happened in Washington, D.C.

or in New York City, the response would have been dramatically different.

And the people here know it.

And that's what fuels this cycle of distrust.

And unfortunately, I'm sad to say the distrust exists for good reason.

We need to put new leaders in charge.

And it's just, you know, most importantly, I think that community has been as brave as they possibly can be, but it's also revealed the divide between the aristocracy in D.C.

and the rest of the country.

I mean, the Pete Buddhajudge comments, all of them, are just so dismissive.

And, you know,

let's say even that he's,

he's not, but let's just say he was right.

You still don't say that.

You go to the town and comfort them and then give them some hard news, but they just are like, what is everybody looking at this for?

Why?

Keep driving.

Exactly.

And I think it's about self-protection because initially he was embarrassed that this was a bigger deal than expected.

He's just come off another crisis with respect to grounding flights because of software glitches.

So he thought this made him look bad, sweep it under the rug, even if the people are left to suffer as a consequence.

Now, as that refuses to happen, and thank you to the people in this town and across the country who have stood up to say this is a big deal.

Now it's actually almost implicitly blaming the people who are actually casting attention on what's an important situation.

I just see this as a symptom, Glenn, of a deeper problem in our country.

So

let me throw another log on this fire here.

I checked the ESG score of

Norfolk-Suffolk

Railway.

They have a higher ESG score than Tesla does, and their E

is a lower threat, according to their score, than their S is.

They're pretty good on the environment.

What?

This is laughable, Glenn.

And it reminds me exactly of FTX on one small ESG on an ESG scoring mechanism scoring better than ExxonMobil.

This is a farce.

And you put three-letter acronyms about it.

What's it designed to do?

It's designed to hide the essence of what's actually happening.

And these companies and working hand in glove with the government to do it are deflecting accountability from the topics they'd rather not be scrutinized for, instead talking about environmental and social issues instead.

By the way, using the money of everyday citizens to advance those agendas without their knowledge.

And you and I know that well.

That is the defining fraud of our time.

But that, too, Glenn, is just a symptom of a deeper cancer in this country where we've lost our national identity.

So people who are supposed to run the show are not the ones who elect to run the government, are not the ones actually running the show, running the actual government today.

That's a new bureaucracy combined with new titans to be in the private sector.

And that's the real problem we need to solve.

Okay, so tell tell me how you solve that, Vivek.

Well, so look, I think there's a top-down version of this, and there's a bottom-up version of it, Glenn.

The top-down version is we need to get the state and capitalism out of each other's hair.

That is fascism.

You combine state power with corporate power to do what neither can do on its own.

That is Mussolini's definition of fascism.

And that's the state of affairs in modern America today.

I'm sorry to say it.

So what I say is if it is state action in disguise, if the government is using private companies, either through the ESG agenda or through free speech regulation in Silicon Valley to do through the back door what government couldn't do directly, then those companies in those situations ought to be bound by the same constraints as the federal government itself.

That includes the First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States if you're a tech company, for example.

So I have a lot of ideas for top-down fixes here.

I think we should make political expression a civil right in this country so long as we have other protected classes as well.

But if we're honest with ourselves, Glenn, we also have to look ourselves in the mirror.

Each of us do.

You do.

I do.

Every person listening to this does, and ask ourselves, what is it within us that causes us to want to bend the knee to these new monarchs?

It's like the Israelites.

Why did they want to go back and be ruled by Pharaoh?

There's something innate in human nature about it.

And I just think we are so hungry for purpose right now in America that we need a conservative movement that fills that vacuum of purpose and identity with a vision of national identity that dilutes this poison to irrelevance.

And that's an important part of the conversation.

I will tell you the left just heard what you said and they would love.

They're going to call you absolutely a nationalist and a fascist.

I mean, you know, forget about the actual meaning of those words.

But

a nationalist identity, what are you talking about?

What is the vision we should all be working toward?

Revive the ideals that set this nation into motion.

Basic ideas, even like merit, that you get ahead in this country, not on the color of your skin, but as MLK said, on the content of your character and contributions.

I mean, that means getting rid of this national cancer of affirmative action.

Merit in government.

Making sure the people we elect to run the government are the ones who actually run the government, not this cancerous bureaucracy that multiplies itself like a metastasizing tumor.

I'd say meritocracy and ideas, Glenn.

The best ideas win when no ideas are censored.

Merit in who gets into this country.

I see this as a first generation American myself.

My parents were immigrants.

We should want more people like them, but not people whose first act of entering this country is a law-breaking one.

Those are just basic rules of the road.

They're not even Democratic ideas or Republican ideas.

They are American ideas.

And you call that nationalist?

Call it nationalist.

We then, if we shore up that vision, those basic ideas, Then and only then can we take on the actual threats we face externally, like communist China, which is not going going to be easy to address.

And I have views on how to do this, but I think we can make the sacrifices needed to address communist China, to declare independence from communist China, to do the kinds of things we're going to have to do if we shore up our national identity within.

And that's what I'm on a mission to do one way or another.

Vivek,

you know, you look at China.

I think we are marching.

toward war.

This is exactly what happened at World War I.

A group of Fabian socialists wanted to change all of Europe, get rid of the old structure.

They said it was going to be great.

They saw the potential for a war.

They went all in thinking that it could be short and it will be enough pain to cover the collapse and the restructuring of the world.

I think that's exactly what's happening.

And I think just like they were wrong in World War I, they're wrong this time.

This could be very catastrophic.

Just catastrophic.

It could be bad.

This This could be really bad, Glenn.

I have one note of optimism, and I think we're working within a short window here for that optimism.

Xi Jinping has shot himself in the foot through self-inflicted damage to get that third term last October when he took that unprecedented third term as leader of the CCP.

That opens up a short window for us, I believe, to defeat China economically so that we will never have to militarily.

I do not think that window is going to be open for long, but I call for total declaration of independence from China, total decoupling.

I think that that is the declaration of independence of the 21st century, because unlike the Soviet Union, in the last Cold War, they never provided the shoes on our feet or the phones in our pockets.

China powers our modern way of life.

But if we pull the economic rug from under them right now, they're in a vulnerable spot, Glenn.

And to me, that's one of, to the extent I pull the trigger and actually pursue this path, that would be one of the big reasons to do it is I think we're working within a short window where we can actually do that if we can get it right.

It will involve sacrifice.

I'm going to tell you that bluntly.

There's not a rosy picture.

There will be inconveniences involved for Americans.

But our moment demands, you used World War I analogy.

I'll use a World War II one.

We need Churchill, not Chamberlain.

And I think we have a short window where we don't have to go to war if we can defeat them economically by achieving independence.

Man, you sound like a guy who is going to run for president.

I'm thinking about it, Glenn.

I'm thinking about it.

And I'm thinking about it seriously.

But it's not about me.

It's not about the person.

It really shouldn't be.

It should be about the what and the why and i could care less who it is if it's a great person who doesn't have the right agenda it doesn't matter to me i think we need to define the agenda define why we're doing what we're doing that's what i care about you know you and i both care about i know that about both of us and the question of the who then just becomes a lot easier after we've defined those things that's what i'm most focused on i i have to tell you i i i support you 110

um you are outside the system you are very successful at what you've done you have identified all of the right problems You have worked to actually solve them yourself through the private sector.

I think you get it.

You know, I'm not endorsing anybody for president at all.

I think there's a lot of good people out there.

However,

the voice that you could bring to the table, even if you didn't win, you could shape the platforms.

of the party.

I think it's very important, actually, that you run.

Just wanted you to know.

I just say I appreciate that.

Let's rediscover what America is.

That's what I care about.

If we do that, I'm happy.

Vivek Ramaswamy, thank you so much, sir.

I appreciate it.

Appreciate it.

God bless.

You're listening to the best of the Glenn Beck program.

One of the guys who has been affected by

digital censorship is Seth Dillon from the Babylon B.

He's the CEO of of the Babylon B.

Hey, Seth, how are you?

I am good, Glenn.

It's good to be back with you.

Thank you.

You know, I think I ask you this every time you're on, but it gets worse between the interviews that we have.

How are you guys dealing with satire in a world where we're shooting $10 balloons down out of the sky?

It is getting worse, isn't it?

I mean,

we're tracking it in a sheet.

I may have mentioned this before on your program, but we're tracking in a sheet all of our jokes that come true.

And we call it, you know, like they're fulfilled prophecies instead of punchlines.

And we're up to almost 100.

I think we've hit 90 now.

So 10 more and we've hit 100.

Unbelievable.

Do you have that list in front of you?

Can you tick off some either from memory or?

Yeah, I can pull it up.

I have it on my

link on my link tree.

Everybody's like, The Simpsons, they're prophets.

No, they're not.

They're comedians.

They're just writing jokes.

We're becoming the joke.

It is an old problem, though.

You know, Shakespeare said jesters do ofts become prophets.

So, you know, this has a long history,

but it's happening with us really frequently.

We did a joke about how horrified Satan distances self from Grammys after that crazy Sam Smith performance.

And then the Church of Satan came out two days later with a statement saying that

the performance was underwhelming and meh, and it didn't represent the Church of status

i mean this kind of stuff is happening all the time we did one expert say they don't know what's causing everyone to suddenly collapse but it's definitely not that one thing and then you see a story that says something has been killing american young people in sharply rising numbers but it's not vaccines i mean

they're jokes jokes unbelievable and then they're meet the media makes them come true i do say all the time you know imagine if your job was to write jokes that are funnier than what democrats are doing in real life i mean that's a challenging job i know really really challenging.

So what is your take on just the news of the week?

I mean, can you deal with something like,

did we blow up the Nord Stream pipeline?

I mean, we talk about this.

We've had deep, deep conversations in my producing meetings every day this week.

Do we want to know?

Is the world and the population of the world served by knowing the truth what does it mean is there is there any place that

is off limits

um for for comedy for what we joke yeah for comedy we've decided there is no limit for us

Honestly, I think, you know,

in the conversations about what you should and shouldn't joke about, the people that are usually telling you, oh, there's these things that you shouldn't make jokes about, those are their sacred cows that they want to protect.

And that is the funniest stuff to joke about.

Those are the things that you have to joke about.

Oh, yeah, I know.

Someone doesn't want you to joke about them.

So the comedians know that and they leverage that.

It's the reason Dave Chappelle is more popular than ever is because he knows that if he touches on some of these things that people are clutching tightly as their sacred cows, he's going to get laughs.

People like to laugh at what you don't want to be joked about.

So

we generally have a rule that, you know, if there's anything that we're feeling like we shouldn't joke about it, well, maybe that's the thing we should be joking about

the most.

It is.

It is.

It absolutely is.

And I can't thank you enough for being there when no one else was joking about anything.

Thank you for keeping that alive.

Are you seeing a difference?

Do you think we've hit a tipping point on, because if we haven't hit it yet, we're very close on this woke nonsense and people just starting to go, you know what?

This is enough.

You know, I think we may be close to the tipping point because it's gotten so insane.

The fact, you know, you know that once you start involving kids in this stuff and you start pushing this stuff on kids and they're doing it so aggressively,

you know, the fact that initially it was all denied that there were drag shows happening for kids.

Now they're just openly promoting them all over the place.

You've got the denials that there's gender affirming care, I'm putting that in scare quotes, gender affirming care happening in these hospitals for minors.

And now that, you know, well, no, it is happening and it's good and you want to harm kids if you want to try to stop it, that kind of stuff going on.

There are so many people people who are now realizing how crazy and out of control this has gotten.

It's not just about respecting the freedom of other adults.

It's about protecting kids from being purposefully confused.

We're cultivating confusion and then treating it with irreversible damage to their bodies.

I mean, this kind of stuff has gotten so wild that I think there is

a lot of pushback now and a lot of understanding that there needs to be something done to mitigate it.

The pendulum has to swing back the other way.

And I think maybe we're at that point where it's going to start to do that.

You're starting to see stories in the New York Times that sound more reasonable.

Really?

Because I haven't spotted a lot of those.

But

they just did one on transgender stuff.

And I think it was about gender affirming care for kids or something.

And the whole trans community is up in arms about how transphobic the New York Times is.

That's a good sign.

That's a good sign.

And I do think that I think, what was it, like 150 people that work for the New York Times walked out in protest.

And I think the New New York Times said, we're not going to be held hostage.

Yep.

What?

So you're right on that.

Yeah.

What a great statement to put up.

When it comes to what's being done to our children,

you are really

clear.

You've put some posts up about Chelsea Handler, and she did a video about, you know, the day in the life of a childless woman and how great it is.

And you wrote, she left out the part where she cries alone at night from the realization that her freedom came at the cost of true fulfillment.

Actually, it came at the cost of the lives of her children.

I didn't realize she bragged about having murdered multiple babies.

Wow.

Yeah.

You know, there's this kind of, there's this, this.

callous celebration that's happening so much now.

You know, we're so far from that, you know, abortion should be safe, legal, and rare type of thing.

That was, you know, the kind of the mantra of the 90s.

We've come so far from that now that we have people like Chelsea out there bragging about how happy and free they are,

with really no mention of like what,

if there is any mention of what allowed them to have that freedom, it's done in this, not in this somber, like sad sense, like, you know, I made sacrifices, I made hard choices to get here.

No, they celebrate what they did

to get this freedom.

And she's talking about the freedom to just wake up when she pleases and do what she pleases at night and go out with friends.

And it's like, life is more meaningful than that.

Life, you know, the lives of children matter and there's so much more fulfillment to be found in having a family and raising a family and being surrounded by loved ones and growing old with the ones that you love.

And

I do think it's the case that a lot of people who think that they're finding true freedom are in fact sacrificing true fulfillment to get it.

and they will regret it later in life.

And

I don't think it's mean to call that out.

No, I don't either.

I mean,

if you're murdering your children to do that, I think that's fair to call out.

But I know that I didn't, I was a guy who didn't want any children, and I have four.

And now I'm 59.

I wish I had 10.

I mean,

the only thing that I have done in my life that truly matters

has happened inside the walls of my house.

I mean, it's all about my children.

And you don't really get that until you start to get a perspective of a life lived, you know?

Well, yeah, and the kind of fulfillment that can come from living sacrificially in the sense that you're serving the needs of others, there is so much fulfillment to be found.

And it sounds like to this, when you're being selfish and self-consumed, it sounds so burdensome to think, oh, I might have to sacrifice some of my time or money or attention to take care of somebody else or care for somebody else.

But

there's really nothing more fulfilling.

Like, God made us to

be in that role.

You know, God made women to be mothers, He made men to be fathers.

That's why we're here.

And so, you know, there is real true fulfillment, deep satisfaction that comes from that, even though it's a harder life in many senses.

Wow, listen to the hate coming from you.

One of the stories that I'm following that is really disturbing is how fast Canada has collapsed on its protection of life at any age, at any age.

Are you following what's happening up there with euthanasia and everything?

Yeah, I've been hearing some things.

I think I heard something recently about a story about, you know, about how we need to have a cutoff time, I guess, after a certain age, just put everybody down.

Is that where you think that?

I haven't heard that, but I know that they are putting people down.

You know,

now for if you're a kid, a teenager, and you are depressed, you can go to a doctor in Canada and get end-of-life medication.

Wow.

Yeah.

Wow.

Hello.

Yeah.

That's just no, no regard whatsoever for the value of life.

And there's so much, you know, there are so many people.

There's so many great stories.

If you talk to people who've been suicidal, have gone through depression or alcoholism, drug addiction, and they've come out on the other side of it.

And their lives have been redeemed.

And so much good has come from that.

Why are we so quick to give up on people?

I know.

I don't understand that.

I know.

I am a guy who is addicted to all those things and led a really bad life and alcoholic and changed my life.

I'd like to think that my life had been redeemed, but I know there's a lot of people who are like, he should have died a long time ago.

But

I am living testimony that whatever you think you've done or whatever your problems are,

there are solutions and there is a meaningful and happy life ahead of you Should you choose it?

It's not going to be easy, but if you choose it, it's there.

It's there.

Thank you so much.

Thank you so much, Seth, for everything that you guys do at the Babylon Bee.

And as always, anything we can do to help, you just let us know.

Thanks.

Thank you, Glenn.

You bet.

Bye-bye.

You're listening to the best of the Glen Beck program.

Hello, America.

Welcome to the Glenbeck program.

It's Friday.

I want to give you some hope here today that a country is not as divided as you might think it is.

We just don't talk to each other, and we all live on social media and mainstream media, and everybody is incentivized to keep dividing.

While there are real issues, I am more and more convinced every day that it is the governments of the world that are going in one direction, and the people are looking at each other going, wait, why would we go to war?

Wait, what are we doing here?

Less than half of the country is for sending arms to the Ukrainians.

I'm kind of at the beginning,

okay, I want to help the Ukrainians.

I don't want to go to war over it.

But it seems like there's a disconnect between not only each other because of left and right, but also up and down, the people who are just working for a living and the people who are the ruling elites.

How do we solve this?

I'm going to show you somebody who's working on it and is actually making a difference in 60 seconds.

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Welcome to the Glenn Beck program.

We have Dave Isse in.

He is the founder of StoryCorps.

If you've never heard of StoryCorps, you should.

It's really a, it's a great

capturing of history in real people's worlds.

It is, honestly, you're not going to need Ken Burns to document this time in history and have some star read a letter from somebody because StoryCorps exists.

And what they've done is they have talked to almost three quarters of a million people over the years and gotten their story from them.

What was important?

What are they thinking about?

And it's all in the National Archives.

It's a great, great thing that he has done.

Dave is with us now, but he started

another extension of StoryCorps.

How long ago, Dave?

Three, four, five?

You were one of the first conversations I had.

It was just kind of a twinkle in my eye about four years ago.

Four years ago.

Yeah, we started thinking about it, but we launched it about a year and a half ago.

Yeah, okay.

So you did one small step.

Yeah.

And one small step is what exactly?

So,

you know, as you were talking about before, there are these divisions in the country.

And most people in the country are really sick of this and like worried about where this is going to take us and want to find a way that we can see our neighbors again as our neighbors.

And

obviously, all the fear that we feel is this is not healthy.

This is like a public health emergency in the country.

So with StoryCorps, the big Story Corps that you were talking about, we've had, as you said, about three quarters of a million people interview their grandma, their parents, about their lives.

And each of these go to the Library of Congress.

So your great-great-great-grandkids get to know your grandmother through her voice and story.

So essentially, what we're doing is collecting the wisdom of humanity for, you know,

and it's about, you know, the fact that there's poetry, as you all know, and grace and beauty and the stories just hiding in plain sight all around us.

We just have to take the time to listen.

Oh, yeah.

As opposed to what we're kind of bombarded with 24 hours a day.

So those 750,000 people have known and loved each other.

And I came and talked to you about this like four or five years ago, that

we have a big problem in this country that

more and more polls show that

we see the biggest threat in our country as our neighbors, not the Chinese.

That's really bad.

Yeah, it's really bad.

More than half the country thinks we're going to see a civil war in our lifetime.

So the question is, we're a nonprofit in every possible way in the human connection business.

So the question is,

what could we do?

So we started experimenting with putting strangers for the first time across the political divide together, not to talk about politics, just to get to know each other as human beings, called it one small step, and have, and tested and tested and tested it.

Because, you know, our Hippocratic oath is to do no harm to people.

And we've come up with something that is.

frighteningly powerful.

Because when you put just regular people together and you let them talk, you figure out, you know, you have a lot in common.

and people come out of these conversations, friends.

So

there's two clips that I want to play.

And it's pretty interesting.

What you've done is you've, you've pre-interviewed people and got to know them a little bit and then put their sheet together of who they are.

And then the other person, you switch with the other person you haven't met yet.

And what I found in listening just to these two clips is

they came in with different expectations, which I think all of us would.

Yeah.

So let's play the first clip, please.

What was the thing that stuck with you after our previous conversation, Drew?

Based on your military background, based on your upbringing, it was interesting to me that you saw people for their character more so than anything else.

You know, you looked at how we kind of...

damage each other in society and that we need to talk about it and stop that.

And then we kind of said, let's talk to each other.

Let's go to dinner and lunch.

And I was like, oh, that sounds great

we hit it off right away we have the same ideas about how to improve our country our country is so divided now we can do better and i think that's what one small step is doing yeah is allowing people to have those conversations to talk about our

similarities instead of our differences As far as our relationship is concerned, I feel as though I've known you forever.

You are a dear, dear friend.

And I cannot imagine you not being in my life at this point.

Well, it's been a reciprocal.

We're going to have lunch together maybe next week or so.

We'll get you to come here to the cottage and we'll sit down and talk politics and sports and whatever you want to talk about.

Sounds good.

Sounds good.

And this is a

relatively old guy and in relation.

He's a white guy and in relation, he's talking to a much younger black man.

And what did they go in expecting?

So this is, so this is a, this is what you're actually hearing in that interview are two people who came to do one small step.

And we don't pre-interview people.

People sign up.

Oh, they fill out all of this stuff.

They fill out all the stuff.

They do a little biography of themselves.

Okay.

And then we match them or we have a computer match them.

And they get to see each other's biography, first name, city only.

You can't Google the person.

And then the interview starts and you read your, you know, you read your partner's biography to them.

They read your biography to you.

And then you just talk about your life.

So what we're just hearing actually are two guys who didn't interview, became friends, and then came back to talk about the impact on their lives.

And actually,

after meeting, both of them are working on a big project now in

Richmond, where this was recorded, restoring the first African-American school in Richmond, the Moore Street School.

So, you know, the crazy thing,

One Small Step is built on a theory,

a theory that's one of the most studied theories in psychology called contact theory that says under very specific circumstances, if you put people who think they're enemies together and they have a conversation, they can come out of it with that hate having melted away.

And the highest possible result is friendship.

And we see friendship coming out of these conversations all the time.

I have to tell you,

I know that to be true.

I know you do.

In my own personal life, but also when you look at extremes, the thing that I found in doing research on the Holocaust was the Christians that saved Jews, they all pretty much said the same thing.

They were not necessarily trying to save all Jews.

Many of them said, well, this Jew is different.

And the only difference was they knew them.

They believed the stereotype.

But they thought, well, this one's not like them.

And I hear that all the time across the divide.

People will say, well, yeah, but you're not, or that person's not like them.

Well, no, yeah, they're very much like that.

You just have this cartoon figure.

Right.

And the question is, if we can get this to scale, and I have to say, your show is the number one referrer for conservatives to one small step.

You're kidding me.

Wow.

And we have barely scratched the surface.

We're having a meeting today, aren't we?

Yeah, we are.

Yeah.

I really would like to talk to you because I think

you're coming from the

nonprofit world, and

you're surrounded in, you know, NPR and all of that with people who think differently than I do.

And I think we can make a bigger impact if

we really put both sides together.

If it's not 50-50, contact theory is based.

I mean, we at StoryCorps, you know,

we believe that there's a flame of good in everybody.

And that's and that.

And our job is to fan that flame until it's a roaring fire.

You know, and as you said,

it's that idea of generalizing.

Yeah, you have a conversation, you think, but the truth is there's nuance in everybody.

And if we just pound on this, if we do it over and over and over again, and you're right, this is not going to come from the government.

It's not going to come from,

you know, it has to come from the people.

And it's time for us to say, enough.

You know, people, there are so many people who worked so hard and sweated and

bled so that we could have this life that we have today.

What are we going to leave for our children?

And if we, you know, a democracy cannot survive if we hate each other.

We have to stop this.

And, you know, I just saw the news.

The Idaho House has just approved a greater Idaho, which means

the people in Oregon have voted and said they wanted to join.

Now the House, it'll have to go to the Senate, but then it goes to Oregon.

There's a lot of steps before that happens.

But

that seems like a very logical thing to, I don't have enough in common with you that I have to split.

That's a really bad thing.

And that's coming because

I think

there are

a very small number on both sides that are so extreme.

And those are the only ones that are really being heard.

And the rest of us are standing around in our neighborhoods and with our friends and going,

what is happening here?

But I don't know if that's entirely true Dave because we look at things like what's happening in our schools now these are all things 10 years ago every American would have said no I'm not having transgender or you know regular strippers in we're not doing that we don't do that

and

you know I see it across the country that parents of all stripes are standing up against it but there's a lot of people who are regular people who are now standing up and saying

well, no, wait a minute,

I'm for this.

And you're like, I haven't, how did you change?

What new information did you get?

Well, I, you know, I think that I think that there's, there is so much nuance in what people believe.

And all nuance has been wiped away.

Everything is black or white.

True.

And when you actually sit together and you actually talk, you find out that, you know, people have,

first of all,

the great lesson of the big story core.

And, you know, this is a show.

First time I saw you,

and we talked about your audience, you said they're patriots, you know, and this is a show about people who love America.

Like I, after doing, I've spent 20 years on the road, you know, I haven't personally been on the road, but you know, these hundreds of thousands of interviews.

This is a great country.

It is.

And every facilitator, we've had a thousand kids, mostly young people who travel the country listening to the stories of America.

And they all come back.

And if you ask them what they've learned, it's a version of the Frank quote.

People are good.

People are basically good.

And we've lost that.

And I think these kind of arguments,

people have been driven crazy by

Twitter,

the dopamine hits you get by putting out the most radical.

But when you actually sit down with people, I mean, I think that's what we try to do.

That's what you try to do, just shake people on the shoulder and say, you know,

wake up.

Yeah, wake up.

Wake up.

We can do better than this, and we have to.

It's up to us.

Let me play the next next cut, and I don't want you to reveal anything about this cut until the end.

I want you to listen to this and see if you haven't either experienced or heard somebody firsthand that have experienced this very thing.

Listen.

Let me ask you this.

When you read my bio,

what did you think?

And please be as honest as you feel comfortable because nothing

bother me.

So the first part, my mind kicked into stereotype, which is probably Diden a wolf, Democrat,

end of story.

Second part was intriguing because you said something along the lines of an open mind.

I thought, well, this would be interesting.

When I read your bio, I just thought you were a white man.

I thought I was going to come in here and just

remember what it was.

And that's what's so interesting to me is that I'm just like,

that's exactly right.

So I have to admit it.

And I appreciate you receiving that and allowing me to admit my stereotype because when you walked in the door and you stood up and introduced myself, I was like,

oops, oops, oops.

I don't feel threatened.

I hope you don't feel threatened.

Once we leave this conversation,

I hope, I believe we'll have other conversations with others, maybe visit, maybe your wife and my husband and four of us can get together and continue a conversation.

But my point is that, what are we afraid of?

Fascinating.

David and Cassandra, both African-American.

So, Dave,

what are you doing next?

Where do you go next with this?

Well, so now it's time.

So basically, we've done a ton of research.

We've had thousands of people participate.

And now we have to scale it.

And we want, so right now we're in,

first of all, if you're a Glenn Beck listener, you go, we have thousands and thousands and thousands of people on waiting lists waiting to do this, Glenn Beck listeners, right to the top.

So take onesmallstep.org to sign up and

join us.

We are focused on three cities now, Richmond, Fresno, and Wichita.

And we're just going to add cities and add cities and add cities and eventually have this go across the country.

It feels like a race against time.

And at the end of those videos,

we are coming into the home stretch of something.

2024 is not going to be pretty.

And at the end of the video, it says, you know, our mission is to

convince the country it's our patriotic duty to see the human in people we disagree with.

And we know it's a moonshot.

We know that there are lots of, there are a billion different forces that are trying to trip this up.

But, you know, the people can win.

I mean, that's been your, that's what you've believed all the way.

can, we just have to come together and just say, stop.

And I think that is the biggest problem, I think, with politicians of any stripe.

They don't necessarily believe in the people.

You know, Jefferson said, trust the American people.

They may get it wrong from time to time, but they will correct their mistake.

And so many people don't give us information or they're doing something else.

They'll say one thing, do another.

Just trust the American people, you know?

And I think that comes from a lack of doing what you do and what I do.

And that is just listen to people all over the country.

And you'll realize these are good people.

Yeah.

Well, and I think that's part of the problem.

And, you know, a big problem that's got us to this place is that people don't feel hurt.

People just want to be heard.

I know.

And they want to be treated with dignity and

they want to be treated with respect.

No one has ever changed their mind in the history of the world by being called a name, by being threatened.

They just want to be listened to.

And again, if we could just assume the good in others, I mean, what a country this would be.

I mean, it's such a country.

I mean, imagine if one small step could take hold.

Imagine if we could just be neighbors again.

And if politics wasn't stopped up by the insanity and we could just get things done for the good of the country and the good of people.

I mean,

it's just beyond comprehension

how amazing this could be.

And then there's the other road, which we don't want to talk about.

And you know where that leads.

Yeah.

I'm proud to know you.

You're a good man.

I'm proud to call you a friend, and I appreciate you.

You're a really good man.

How do people get in touch and if they want to sign up?

So just go to takeonesmallstep.org.

It takes about five minutes to sign up.

And

we're drinking from a fire hose, but we want you to be part of that fire hose and we want that fire hose to turn into a wave that overtakes this country and shows us a different way.

Good.

Thank you.

Thank you, Dave.

Thank you.

All right.