 And I'm with Matthew Cockrell. So, Matt, fascism is like the most evil thing ever. It's like the biggest threat to America, I hear. What is your understanding of fascism? What is fascism? Well, I think the first thing to do with your dog, the conversation about fascism, is to stow the moralism. I mean, I'm a liberal. So I am certainly no friend of fascism. But I think the moralism can obscure the historical meaning of the term. And I view fascism as a term bound to a certain time and place. I don't do it as a contemporary threat because I don't think it can exist in the contemporary era. I view it as a reaction in the early to mid-20th century against the rise of socialistic and communistic movements in Europe, essentially. That's what it is. And it took various forms under that broad guise of reaction. It took a, in the broad sense, though, I think you can say, it was a right-wing populist movement, an attempt to appropriate the methods of democracy, of mass media, of modernity for a right-wing cause. And that was a novel element of fascism because typically, if you look at the modern world, the Enlightenment world, the right had been before the fascist movements associated with certain social classes, not with mass politics. And that is a contribution in a sense of fascism. But it's an ideology that has certain characteristics that we see in all of its manifestations, idolization of the state. You could even say state worship, kind of a glamorization, romanticism of violence and militarism, a contempt for the left, and also a contempt for the bourgeois, the morality of the bourgeoisie, like their unwillingness to use violence to achieve their ends, their desire for a warm bed and a good social standing beyond anything else. So in this sense, it's different. It's different than the historical, right? But I think it's of the right. I agree with Paul Gottfried. And I think most other scholars of fascism have been saying it's of the right. It's a reaction against the rise of left-wing socialistic and communistic movements in Europe in the early to mid 20th century, particularly beginning in the interwar years between them. So why is the say the current Republican party not a fascist party? Well, they're not reacting against the socialistic or communistic movement in the traditional sense. You can talk about people like Bernie Sanders. You can talk about people like Alexander Ocasio-Cortez. These are bourgeois political figures or social Democrats. They may like to call themselves communists. They are not people who are going to break the law and anger power structures and engage in violence to get there, to meet their ends, right? This isn't, so the reaction, the reactive element isn't there. And also the contemporary Republican party for all of its flirtation with populism is not valorizing militarism. It's actually moving against militarism relative to where it was in the George W. Bush years. It is not attacking bourgeois values. There may be a whiff of some affinities, but I think right-wing populism is a much more, is a much more accurate term than fascism. This doesn't have the historical context of reacting against the revolutionary left movement. In fact, some people may say it does. That's an interesting point, but I think that Bernie Sanders and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez these are just totally different phenomena than the Communist Party of Germany, than Rosa Luxembourg, like truly revolutionary figures who threatened the existing social order. You know, Rosa Luxembourg threatened the existing social order in Germany, right? Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is invited to the Met. These are serious differences, you know? So I view fascism as, and I think Godfrey agrees with me, I think, or it's no takers, I think it was, I think, regardless of the preeminent theorists of fascism, that it's a secondary phenomenon. It's a reaction against the revolutionary left. And it uses populism. It uses some features we associate with democracy, like mass mobilization, patriotism, nationalism, some queer form of egalitarianism. I don't mean that as a cheap pun about the homosexuals and the fascist movements. It's that way. I mean queer is a different, distinct, and so on. But yeah, I view it as a reactive movement. It gets revolutionary communism, socialism. And we don't have revolutionary communism, socialism. We have internet larkers. So because the secondary phenomenon and the primary phenomenon doesn't exist, it can't exist. And also the other characteristics of militarism, of kind of a hyper focus on masculinity, these are not there either in the contemporary Republican party. And what about Richard Spencer? Is he a fascist? You know, he's a really hard figure to pin down because here's what's so paradoxical, at Richard Spencer, he's not stupid. You listen to the guy, he's intelligent, right? He's well read. But he engaged in ridiculously stupid behavior for a period of years. Whether it's telling, bake the laster, he has a deep connection to Byzantium. Whether it's saying everything he says is history, hail Trump, zig-hyle, salutes. He behaved like an internet larper who hasn't read a book, yet he has read and he's well spoken. So he's a paradox in that regard. Wouldn't you say, I mean, because the examples I cite are ridiculous. It's like somebody who misunderstands the past, trying to anachronistically role play as having a deep connection to it. But he's not, but so it would be very predictable if he were just a moron who's never read, but he has read, right? He's actually, he seems like something he'd be interested to talk with. Big reprehensible statements too. We call him for genocide of Turks and violence. I don't know what's wrong with him, but I think he'd be interesting to talk to and I'd be simple talking to him because I see him as an intelligent person, but I don't really know what to make of his prior statements because they're so absurd, you know? But no, he's not a fascist, whether he thinks he is or not. He doesn't have the populist, for all the, I argue you can't be a fascist today. It's a dead movement. It belongs to a certain time and place, but he has too much contempt for regular people to be a fascist too. Fascists at least have to publicly act as if they're connected to the people, you know? The populism is very important to it. It's a foundational characteristic. So inherent in nationalism is a certain kind of egalitarianism, right? If you're a nationalist, what comes along with that is a certain type of egalitarianism because you're all part of the same nation. Is that fair? So if somebody says that he's a white nationalist, that person is identifying with all white people. So if there's a white, so Baked Alaska is part of the folk, right? So you can't just say, oh, Baked Alaska is stupid. I don't identify with them. You have to say he's part of the folk. Same with like, if you're an American nationalist, you have to say, Rosie O'Donnell is part of the folk or whatever, you know? So you can't pick and choose. There isn't egalitarianism. And if you're an elitist, if you think, no, I just like smart people who've read books which I think Richard Spencer is what he feels if you listen to his recent comments. You can't really be a fascist or populist or nationalist because you're a non-egalitarian, right? You have contempt for the masses. You don't just have a paternalistic condescension. He has a real contempt. I understand that. But on the other hand, I don't really feel that way. But personally, but I don't think he really could be a fascist or a nationalist. Any of these movements that invoke a kind of populism. It can be like classical conservative actually that's bound to a certain social class because he's like an aristocrat because he just goes off of his, I don't want to get too personal, but he's like going off of his mother's, his inheritance from his mother, right? I mean, that's what he's doing. So he's kind of like a modern, a contemporary aristocrat, you know? Right? That would be his ideological predecessor more than fascism or, because if you look at the fascists, most of these guys come from either petty bourgeois or working class backgrounds, right? I mean, they're not, most of these people are not from the upper middle class or the aristocracy. Now these people, those factions support fascist movements but that's because they see them as a bulwark against the revolutionary left. But the kind of, the main energy is not from, is from like the lower middle classes and the working class in these movements. Are lockdowns a vaccine mandate? So they use fascist? I know, I mean, they're not, policies intended to form this part of an ideological reaction against the revolutionary left. They've got to do with fascism. We can debate whether their incursions on the liberties a liberal society should provide. We can certainly debate that, but they're not going to do with fascism or Nazism or this is just silliness. And Dr. Fauci is Dr. Fauci fascist. Is he Dr. Mendoza? No, he's made many false statements that having come to me is just public standing rightly, but he's not a fascist, no. What about the socialized medicine? It's not fascist. I'm sorry? Authoritarianism is not fascism. I wouldn't call the United States or any of these countries authoritarian either, but authoritarianism is not fascism either. Fascism belongs to certain time and place and has a, is a secondary phenomenon in the context of a burgeoning revolutionary left. And socialized medicine, are you telling me that's not inherently fascist? I certainly not, no. It's, you know, the, it's pushed by bourgeois, historically, socialized medicine programs, many of them are implemented by very bourgeois social democratic parties, like the Labor Party in, in, in Britain in 1946 was not fascist that implemented the NHS. So which regimes would you call fascist? I think fascist Italy is a prototypical example. It manifests all the qualities I talked about, the emerging in reaction to a revolutionary left, fetishizing violence, a militarism, a populism, a contempt for bourgeois ethics, Mussolini himself being a decreed veteran of the First World War, hypernationalism, an expansionist foreign policy, even you could say with the invasion of Ethiopia, but the Italian example is distinct from what I think many would call the prototypical fascist example, the Nazism, because it doesn't involve genocidal racism or really any systematic commitment to racism until the late 1930s. Mussolini does invade Ethiopia in the 1930s before his alliance, Hitler actually leads to his alliance with Hitler, but I agree with someone like Paul Gottfried that his invasion of Ethiopia, oh, we of course condemn it today, it's wrong, should be thought of more akin to British and French imperialism than like Nazi invasions of Poland. If you look at the justifications given, it's very much similar to the French Empire, they're going to bring civilization to these misbegotten lands. There's also in the context of fascist Italy, again, until the late 1930s where everything changes, there was significant levels of interracial marriage in colonial Italy between Italian men and black women and they had mixed race children, these children were given passports and they were accepted as Italian citizens. Certainly they caught episodes of racism, but there was no, whereas in Germany, there was great concern with mixed race children between German women and black African men, the Nazis were very concerned about this, the Italians were not particularly concerned about this phenomenon. In fact, there's an anecdote I read about a British traveler throughout colonial Italy who was shocked to see a proud fascist introduce just as proudly as he was of his fascism, he was, was he proud of his black son? So I mean, this is different than Nazi Germany. And I think this is conflated with, the conflation with Nazi Germany comes not just from the fact that Nazi Germany plays much more of a role in public consciousness in fascist Italy, but also because fascist Italy did become a racist state in the late 1930s, it did, when Mussolini aligns with Hitler, right? So it does become a racist state at some point. And there's no, there's no denying it. Although the Italians, interestingly, did not, like they tried to ban miscegenation, for example, in the colonial territories, Italians aren't dividing by that. I mean, there are Italians, if a black woman and Italian man fall in love, Italians aren't gonna listen to some German race doctrine. These are Mediterranean people, right? So, you know, that's how that went. But they formally became a racist state in the late 1930s and this had practical consequences for people, especially Jews in Italy who were, Jews were overrepresented, by the way, in the fascist party from 1922 through the late 1930s. But after Mussolini aligns with Hitler and adopts anti-Semitic laws to placate Hitler, Hitler was upset, he was an anti-Semitic conspiracy theorist, what we now call, so he was like, you can't ally with him if, you know, you're a Jew friendly, right? So, so Mussolini being a pragmatic, rather a moral character in my view, he adopts these laws, these anti-Semitic laws and Jews who are highly overrepresented in the fascist party are now all kicked out of it, right? Nevertheless, though, even after the alignment with Nazi Germany, it seems that the Italians hearts weren't really into these policies. I mentioned race mixing, people falling in love, black, white, whatever we wanna call it, Italians or they white, I'm not gonna get into that. But black, Italian couples, this continued and wasn't really policed. And also Jews were treated much better in the occupied zone of France, occupied by Italy, than they were treated in not only the German occupied zone of France but also the French occupied zone of France. Now, after the Italian state collapses in 1943 because of the Allied invasion, right? From North Africa to Southern Italy and the Nazis reconquer Northern Italy, right? Instead of a puppet state, then this puppet state does collaborate with the extermination of the Jews. So given this legacy and this alliance with Nazi Germany and this participation in the Holocaust, it is understandable to some extent the public kind of confusion on what fascism is a historical phenomenon. The idea that it was race, hatred was core to it the same way as Nazism, it's understandable. Nevertheless, this is a confused notion. Fascist Italy was an authoritarian, before the alliance with Nazism, Fascist Italy was an authoritarian regime. It was an imperial regime, but so were Britain and France. It wasn't systematically racist in a way that Britain and France weren't. It was much more comparable in its racial policies, if you will, in its imperial policies to other European powers than to Nazi Germany, the Big Bad. Rightly considered the Big Bad. I mean, if you're gonna behave like the Big Bad, I mean, it's only responsible that we regard you as such, right? There's some warning signs for parents that their children might be turning into fascists. Well, again, I think this is all arping. If they're on the internet, the children are not, if the children start marching with armbands, I mean, I guess we should be concerned, right? No, there's not a fascist movement coming in the United States. The Gropers, I think their views on women are reprehensible. They're not fascists, right? Trump is a buffoon. I don't think he's a fascist. Why is he a fascist? So I just see this as totally fake and silly, really. It's become a, as Paul Gottfried says, it's become associated with Nazism and then it's become associated with evil. So you're basically, when you're calling someone a fascist, you're saying, you're a bad person, you know? The term has been robbed of its historical meaning and context. It's become quite silly, really, I mean, the use of it. Jonah Goldberg's affirmative action is fascist. I mean, whatever one's views on affirmative action, first of all, there's nothing to do with fighting the revolutionary left, affirmative action. Second of all, if you're saying fascism is the same as Nazism, I don't agree with that. But if you are, it has nothing to do with exterminating Jews and putting them into concentration camps and develop believing in the protocols of the elders of Zion and ethnically cleansing Poles because Poles are not Aryan, they're Asians or whatever they thought, you know? What are signs that your children might be turning into Nazis? Well, again, I don't think, well, there are, look, I would say as they're anti-Semitic conspiracy theorists, right? That's the term I would use. That exists, right? But I don't think they're really Nazis. I mean, you know, Mike Enoch Serbian, the Nazi puppet state that Ustasha committed genocide against his ancestors, presumably, right? If any of them had remained in Serbia, right? I mean, he probably would have ended up in some kind of coal mine if Hitler had his way, you know? Just as a slave, essentially, with no freedom of movement and some nominal salary and no right to leave the job, right? So they're not, he says he may identify with Nazi regime, but it's all nonsense. It's people who don't understand what Nazism was, don't understand the historical context. I mean, you have to be German, you have to belong to a certain time and space, essentially. You can do an anti-Semitic conspiracy theorist, that's possible. Like those people exist today. I'm not saying that's a time-bound phenomenon. I don't think Nazism is a thing, really. You can say you're a neo-Nazi, I suppose. What does that mean, though, really? Does that just mean anti-Semitic conspiracy theorist? What do you think? What is a neo-Nazi? Oh, I... A very commonly silly person would be one definition. Right, but I mean, words are symbols for a reality. And so I'm just wondering, is there a useful reality in calling people neo-Nazis? So let's say... I don't think so, really, no. I think anti-Semitic conspiracy theorist is more descriptively accurate. Or you can say Nazi apologist is good, too. But they're not Nazis. I mean, again, that's a time-bound term, I think. Maybe neo-Nazi, I guess that's new Nazis. So maybe you say, okay, we like them even though they committed genocide against our grandpa's, if you're like a Ukrainian neo-Nazi, you know? So what about calling Richard Spencer a neo-Nazi? Are you going to his Wikipedia? I mean, I'm just gonna go right now. Richard B. Spencer. Richard B. Spencer. I've drank a little bit tonight. You can probably tell them. I hope you'll forgive me for that. Yeah, of course. It's American neo-Nazi, anti-Semitic conspiracy. I mean, it's basically like somewhere in between Jeffrey Epstein and Jeffrey Dahmer, the guy's public image and the white supremacist. So I mean, I view it as saying this is a really bad person and a ridiculous person. And with Spencer, it's sad because he actually has read books and is intelligent. I don't know why he went down this path. And I mean, they're probably being unfair by calling him that, but he brought it on himself to some extent too. Why would you say, why would you do this? Have you seen the video where they're all zig-hiling at the Charlottesville rally? Yes. Like, it's just ridiculous. There's also one guy in the corner who is like his arms are full. He's like, I can imagine him just thinking, oh, I just thought this was about Robert E. Lee, not zig-hiling. They also say it like C. They don't even pronounce it correctly, which is also funny. I don't know why he did it, because he's not dumb. The other people are all really stupid in this movement or hadn't read a book. Some of them aren't stupid, but they just made assumptions about where the Nazis were, like some universal white nationalist movement and didn't know that they ethnically cleanse polls and raised Warsaw. Like, they don't know this stuff, right? That he raised Warsaw and enslaved people, like kidnap polls to work in brutal conditions, slave labor type conditions. So they don't know it. And I don't understand why he did because he's actually read books. It doesn't make any sense to me. Why would you do that, behave like that? I don't know. Now, is fascism inherently violent? No, I don't think anyone is a Nazi today. I think there are people who engage in live action role-playing as Nazis, because they think Hugo Boss uniforms are cool and they wanna be the big bad. So it's like 12 year old level. I think there also are anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. That's the thing, like that exists in the contemporary world. Nazis don't. I mean, as horrible as a person as you might be, you can't really become, if you're some Slavic American with five ethnicities, you can't really become a Nazi in the historical sense of the term. Now, is fascism inherently violent? I think there is a cult of violence and fascism, and I think there is a contempt for bourgeois norms regarding violence being the worst thing ever, you know? I think they think action is necessary. Sometimes an action often means violence. So yeah, I do. I think it's a violent ideology. How violent is, of course, an important question. Mussolini's victims compared to Hitler before 1943, the Italian Social Republic, is essentially a German puppet state. It isn't even, Mussolini's not even doing anything at that point. But his victims are trivial in number compared to Hitler's at that point. What are some warning signs that your kids might be gripes? Well, actually, this is a movement that is less ridiculous than neo-Nazism, because it's rooted in the night. A movement to be successful has to be rooted. It's very simple. I'm not just claiming I'm great at politics, but clearly if you wanna be a successful political movement in the United States, you have to appeal to history and culture of the United States, right? Yes. You have to say we're going to be Germans from the 1930s. I mean, I don't think that when no one speaks German, no one speaks any other foreign language in the United States, except you and me. I don't think that'll be very productive. The Groyper movement is rooted in actual American culture. They like rap music. Young Americans, racist or not, why do not like rap, generally? They have a certain dialect of coal. They have a certain dialect developing gaming culture. That is the thing that relates to people's lived experience in the United States. They are pro-America, right? By the way, I have nothing but contempt for their political views. I think their views of women are ridiculous, but they're less on Syria. They're more of a threat politically, I'd say, than this neo-Nazi nonsense was, because the ideas they're advocating and the language they use is rooted in certain traditions in America and also in the contemporary American polity. So I think they're more serious politically than the neo-Nazis were. I mean, they're not doing book burnings for one. National Justice Party, another fascist party. I'd say live-action role-playing party. You don't think it's gonna win a lot of votes? We'll see. I would literally bet my life on that. And I would literally bet, again, the win is $20. So I win $20. And if I lose, I would burn it for all eternity that they will not achieve success at any kind of significant national level. Because it doesn't, again, it isn't about the ideas. The silliness is one thing, but it's just all anachronism. It doesn't relate to America, right? I mean, anti-Semitism has never, this has never been, the idea of Jews as a separate race has never been an American thing. It was a French thing, right? It was a German thing. This idea of this extreme anti-Semitism doesn't resonate in this country. There isn't a history of it. There's history of it. If you're talking about France or Germany or Austria or Russia or Poland, yeah, you have, there is something you can appeal to there that is organic. Here it's all kind of contrived because they want to be like the Hugo Boss people, right? Because they looked cool. So they kind of contrived this anti-Semitism that doesn't resonate with Americans. Let's even leave this other question when it's right or wrong. It doesn't resonate, you know? And they also are saying America has been horrible for, they're not just saying as the Gropers are that America has taken a bad, gone a bad way, right? In the last generation, but it was good, you know? Or the last two generations, they're saying liberalism is bad, right? Yes. So they're basically saying the founding ideology of the country's bad. The country's was wrong in World War II and destroyed the world by destroying the Nazis. The country, I think Stryker has said that most of American ideology is bad. So it's not gonna appeal to Americans if you're saying the country's bad. I mean, one example, the Nazis hated Christianity, most of them, but they publicly pretended to be Christian because they knew that you have to appeal to the traditions of the country. They can't just start larping as pagans. They knew they had to get power before they weeded out Christianity. Even when they came to power, Hitler became an extraordinarily popular dictator. He was hesitant about conflict with the churches and thought this had to be a gradual process and it has to wait till the end of the war. But these guys just declare all their ideology, no matter how alien it is to Americans or alienating. And no, of course it won't work, right? It'll appeal to a teeny number of anti-social people. I'm looking at the platform of the National Justice Party. Let's do it. Number 14 says, we will declare Israel a rogue state and exporter of terrorism. The national rights of the Palestinian people must be respected. So would you align with the- Well, you know, again, I don't think, you can have a very negative view of Israel and not believe in anti-Semitic conspiracy theories. I mean, there's two types of people. There's one that believes Harrison Ford, who's Jewish, is conspiring against white people. That's the third type of person. There's another person who says, I don't like Israel because of the Nekba where my Palestinian friends had their fathers ethnically clenched, right? So these are different issues, I think. I think my view is the United States should not be involved in picking any side in this conflict. Well, how about the United States? I think it's one of the less significant parts of their platform, actually. But I don't think the United States should be involved in this conflict when we were the other. I think maybe we should say as an abstract principle that we believe in self-determination for all people. We oppose ethnic cleansing. We believe in self-determination for the Palestinians. We believe in the Israelis. Also have a right to exist and so forth. You know, I think personally, the polity should be changed. I believe in a one-state solution where everybody of Palestinian and Jewish descent has a right to citizenship. So I'm actually pretty liberal and critical of Israel in this, but as a polity, I don't think we should be involved one way or another in demanding this is what's gonna happen. Yeah. I don't know what that has to do with. Well, I guess it's anti-Jewish, so yeah, it makes sense there under that. You could be construed as anti-Jewish, but I need not be. I mean, I'm anti-Israel as it's currently constituted, but I don't wanna ethnically cleanse Harrison Ford, right? Okay. And... Okay, so can one be anti-Israel and not anti-Jewish? Of course, yeah. So... There's a matter of... I think you can. There's a matter of practical. I think Jews have been a wonderful presence in the Western world. I think Israel is a state founded in ethnic cleansing and ridiculous kind of lark. I mean, the people are there now, so you can't really say it's all larking because they've been there for some time, but initially it was kind of larking. I mean, you're talking about, because you have ancient ancestry from regions, maybe, I mean, I think even that's debatable. I think they definitely have like the Near Eastern component, but it's not entirely clear where it's from. It could be closer to Lebanon. There are different kind of studies on this, but regardless, the idea of coming back after millennia, I find a bit ridiculous. Should the Gypsies get part of India? I mean, the Romani people, they're originally from the subcontinent, but they're there. You can't kick them all out. So I would have a one state solution where they have a right to be there. All Jews have a right to be there. All Palestinians have a right to be there. That's my view. I don't think this translates to hostility or Jews. I have no problem with Jewish people. I actually like the pre-Zionist Jews, Jewish culture. That's the Jewish culture that I find inspiring and compelling. This new like tough guy thing. I don't really resonate too. I think it's kind of not really true to the historical, at least Ashkenazi Jewish experience. But you know, I'm not just whom I say, but those are kind of my views. And I think it's these are different claims, Luke. I mean, whatever one's view of this state, it's different than saying, oh, like Harrison Ford secretly hates white people or the protocols the elders of Zion are true. The Jews started World War II. Right. I mean, they also believe Neville Chamberlain started World War II, I suppose. And though they think Churchill was the prime minister at the time the war began. They got this warmonger church. I agree. It was a war like personality. They got this guy because they're dealing with this lunatic. And they had like a civilized gentleman, kind of an un-interventionist, conservative balance of power guy, Neville Chamberlain. But the lunatic didn't take the concessions he got from Chamberlain, right? He wanted to conquer all of Czechoslovakia for no reason. And why does Germany get to rule over parts of Czechoslovakia that have no historical connection to Germany? You know, after being given the Sudetenland. Okay. Hang on. So you say you have no problem with Jews, but you also you say that you believe in national self-determination. I'm sorry, but if they are dumb, if they think I have a problem with them as an ethnic group, because I don't agree with the policy of ethnic cleansing that was clearly engaged in by the state that some that many Zionists, most Zionists deny absurdly, even though they passed laws after these people fled, they claim, or were ethnically cleansed. They passed laws saying they can't come back. So even if you believe they all fled by the nearest happenstance, the laws itself represented a definite cleansing policy because war refugees were not allowed to return. So you believe in self-determination for all people, but Jews, Jews are the one people who don't get to have their own state. No, in practice, I believe Israel should exist. And I believe a new state should be established, essentially, that where all Jews have the right to be there and all Palestinians have the right to be there, it should be codenominational along the lines of say Lebanon. I don't think such a state will be fanatically Islamic. I think that's a silly fantasy. The Levant has never had the kind of religious zealotry that you see in like the Gulf, for example. And the only reason you see that with Palestinian populations is how brutally they're mistreated. And they're resorting to this in a way Syrians don't, Jordanians don't, Lebanese Muslims don't. But they're resorting to a religious dialectic, an extremist dialectic in order to kind of account for and cope with their miserable material circumstances. Because this is not, this is alien from Levant in Islam in the last couple of centuries, the level of extremism you do see among Palestinian populations today. One state, who's the one people in the world who don't get to have their own state? They all get to go to Palestine if they want to. So they get to be a minority, maybe they want their own state. Who knows if they be a minority or not? Of course they'd be a minority in a one state. I mean, everyone around the world could come there. So why would they, they could go there if they wanted to. And your objection to Israel is that it was founded by ethnic cleansing. So could you name some nation states that were not founded by ethnic cleansing? I agree with you on this. That's why I don't have this obsession with Israel is the great evil. Yeah. The other nations have engaged in ethnic cleansing. I mean, that's, that's history, right? Yeah. Yeah. I don't think they're, they're demonic people. I get frustrated. I have, look, I lived in the Middle East for a couple of years. I mentioned last time I'm a maternal Egyptian ancestry. So I know Palestinians. I have, so I have some more personal stake on this in this and, you know, in other episodes of ethnic cleansing, right? But so that may be affecting my judgment and my, my outrage, but I don't think, I think that this is within modern memory. And there are people alive who, who went through the Nekba. So I don't really see why, like, I mean, to put it this way, my friend will lead, why should his father not be able to return to Yaffa, but Harrison Ford can go there. Doesn't that seem rather absurd? I mean, this is a full blood of Palestinian. I don't see why the Jewish state would be. Harrison Ford can go there. Let me finish my point. Let me finish my point. I don't see why, why the Jewish state would be enhanced by the presence of your friend. Why is Israel, the Jewish state stronger for the presence of your friend? I mean, it wouldn't be stronger if the definition of the state is an ethnic, an ethno state. Then of course it would be weakened by someone of another ethnic identity. Right. So every, every nation state has, has rules about who gets to move there and, and race and religion are key determinants of the social cohesion of the state. Sure. But not always. I mean, you have many examples. You have many examples of, of states with multiple ethnicities, not just in the Western world. You have Russia as a good, sorry, I'm going to turn off my phone loop for a second. Yeah, I got a sports center update. You know, I like sports. We'll talk about that maybe later. You have like the Russian Federation, for example, has many different ethnic groups and maintains a conservative patriotic culture. You have Tartars, you have Caucasians. You have Central Asians. And there's still, there, there still is a patriotic conservative national culture in Russia. Right. So I don't, I don't, I think that a state comprised of two ethnic groups that are, you know, I'm making the Harrison Ford point to kind of be polemical, but I don't think that there's a lot of ethnic groups that are Jewish, who look kind of near Eastern, certainly Ashkenazi, obviously the Mizrahi. So these are two people that have more in common than they, than they might think, you know, that's what I would argue. And there's this horrible history and all this hatred, but I don't see why they couldn't, if you go to Jordan or Lebanon, you see so many secular Palestinians. I don't see it as. You know, metaphysically impossible that they could reach. It accommodates both of them. It seems absurd now, but I don't see it as metaphysically impossible. I mean, you had, you had profound hatred between the Lebanese Christians and Muslims. But look at what a success Lebanon's turned into. Well, okay, it isn't a success in terms of, of the economy. It's a success though, in terms of reconciliation between the Christians and Muslims. There's not strong anti-Muslim or anti-Christian sentiment in that country right now. Well, that's because I mean, there's a very clear winner, the Muslims won. And so the Christians know their place. I think that's a, that's a questionable characterization of the conflict. You had Palestinian, Palestinian Christians, for example, were generally sympathetic to the so-called Muslim side in the, in the Lebanese civil war. There was certainly sectarian hatred, but look, they share power. The Christians, the Christians are get, get all the positions the Muslims do. There is not, it isn't a case like Egypt where Christians are oppressed. It's, there's power sharing essentially. And in fact, the power sharing dynamics prior to the civil war favor the Christians beyond their demographic numbers. And now it still favors the Christians slightly above their demographic numbers, but not, it was, it was essentially a Christian ruling class prior to the civil war in the country. And now it's more equitable to use the woke language. And, you know, I mentioned woke Lebanon, they kind of do abide by extreme political correctness when it comes to religion. Like you cannot criticize Islam or Christianity. If you criticize they're not Christianity, you're in trouble because they're, they are really seeking to have reconciliation, right? And banishing the sectarian divisions of the past. So they've become very politically correct on matters of religion. You cannot attack Christianity or Islam, but it isn't an Islamic society. I mean, there's, you can go get a beer there, you know, you can go fuck a girl there. There are, you know, I think even homosexuality is legal. I'm sure it isn't condoned, but it isn't condoned in the Eastern world generally. It isn't condoned in Armenia, you know. So it isn't under Islamic law, Lebanon. If you're a Muslim seeking to get married, that might be regulated by Islamic law, but it's not imposed on the population as such, nor is it in Jordan, by the way. And even though Christian minority there is quite small. So if fascism isn't something that's alive and well and a threat today, what price do we pay for having so many things described today as fascist? Well, it leads to a lot of stupidity, right? Yeah. So if you're someone who's read about this, it causes a certain type of headache when you hear people talk about fascism. Even the people who describe themselves as fascists, like the white nationalist, they don't know what it is, because this ideology was not synonymous with white nationalism, right? In the Nazi iteration, it kind of wasn't even there. Many of groups that are described as white are banished from the folk, you know, like sloths, namely. But yeah, it just isn't the one because it's really stupid and anachronistic and wrong. But I think like, look, what God treats as is correct. It means Nazism in the popular vernacular and Nazism means evil people, you know. So you're basically saying that's an evil person and you're using this term to sound, I suppose educated is the word, they're trying to sound that way. I don't know. Well, I think they use it for the power of the stigma that comes with that word. I really don't know if there's much of a stigma though because it's been over you so much that I think my point of view, Godford's point of view, I think your point of, I'm sure your point of view is becoming stronger. This is just a hate term. It doesn't mean anything, right? Because there's no idea of the historical phenomenon, which is rather interesting phenomenon of a failed political ideology that perverted itself through an alliance with Nazism, you know, in the late 1930s, right? Yeah. Let me read a little bit from Paul Gottfried's book, Anti-Fascism, the Course of the Crusade. Unlike generic fascism, Antifa is not patriotic. It seeks to destroy, not to reinforce, historic Western notions. There's also by far too irrational and nihilistic to be Marxist. Attempts by Republicans to treat Antifa as the latest distillation of Marxist socialism reject partisan opportunism, historical reek of partisan opportunism, historical ignorance or both, except for its efforts to identify with other forms of the left that operated at other times. Antifa, through violence and its ability to create extensive support systems, looks very much like early national socialism. What do you think? Well, I think the comparison of Antifa with national socialism, I think Gottfried knows better. But I agree with everything else he said, right? There isn't a comparison between Antifa and the revolutionary communists. Those people were much more intellectually serious. They had real humanistic traditions. I don't condone communism. I recognize it's horrible human costs. I see it as a largely failed political system, although it worked better in some places than others. But I think that the kind of boomer cliches of what communism, there's rough justice to them. I've said that in print. But I agree with what he said about Antifa. They're not, and also these people online, Hassan Piker, these are not communists. They're not Marxists. Those people had a humanistic tradition. They weren't allied to capital, right? They were the enemies of property classes, whereas these are people that are sponsored by Twitch, right? For example, Hassan Piker. So I don't know if you know this guy, Luke, but he's like the biggest Marxist social media personality. He's sponsored by a corporation, of course, right? I mean, it's just ridiculous. And AOC is welcome with open arms into the moneyed social life of Manhattan, right? So these are not Marxists. No, they're not, as Gottfried says, Marxists had a specific ideology, right? A pretty rigid logical ideology, you know, that has a certain theory of history and economics. And one example is you can say this is a reductionist. I agree, but Marxists believe that class struggle is the main principle of history. So they would try to understand this racial stuff that people are obsessed with in terms of class, right? They wouldn't try to understand woke in terms of class. That's what Marxists would do, you know? And they'd be highly suspicious of movements like Antifa that are funded by big capital, right? And Black Lives Matter, for that matter, is funded by large financial institutions. So no, these movements have nothing to do with Marxism. They have a radical chic to put on the Marxist ropes. Marxists were willing to use violence to advance their views, but they also had firm ideological viewpoints. And these Antifa people are just a bunch of thugs, right? Now, he mentions Nazism. He despises Nazism. His family was actually killed by Nazi conspiracy theorists. So I understand why he wants to associate things he hates with Nazism, but I don't think... There is a certain body of doctrine with Nazis, right, too. Again, anti-Semitic conspiracy theorists are very important, you know? German notion of German tradition and German militarism, and this is not to be found on Antifa. So that's why I said to you that last part is kind of... He knows better than that, because he's a very serious scholar. He's a really right-wing guy. I don't sympathize with his politics, but he's a serious scholar, and I think he knows better than to say on Tifa. And I think he wouldn't stand by that if I were to ask him about it. I interviewed him. I don't know if you saw that interview. Yeah, but there's only like eight minutes of the interview posted on your YouTube channel. Where's the rest of it? Yeah, I think there's more than eight minutes. There was like maybe... I don't know. I should post the rest of it. The problem there is they were like technological issues. Oh, okay. Yeah, I mean, I'm not going to get into more detail about that, but he's really a guy who's going to interview him again. And then there were also some... So there were technological issues that fucked up some parts of it. And then there were things that like, you know, someone would place me under arrest for being with him on, in other parts, you know? Yeah, so that had to be... He's a highly serious scholar. He's certainly a very right-wing. There's some views I think he... And politics I really disagree with. He believes the election was stolen, it seems to me. And I think that's absurd. Not a priori absurd, but absurd if you look at the facts, right? It isn't... Clearly there are people who had a mode who would... There are a lot of people in our country who think it would be justified to seal the election from Trump. So it isn't absurd a priori. But if you look at the facts, it's absurd. But as a historian, I got freed is... We can't afford to ignore him, I think. Now, how do you understand Antifa? I see them as thugs without a firm ideology. I think calling them fascists or even Nazis or communists is inaccurate. I think they're a bunch of thugs, more or less. I think they're perfectly happy to work with corporate America. In the summer of love, we saw that. I believe they were fun. I know Black Lives Matter was obviously a different group, but I think Antifa may have even been funded by Big Capital in the summer of love. I'm not sure of that. But maybe something we should fact check or viewers should. But the general point goes that Black Lives Matter was funded by corporate America and it wouldn't be surprising that parts of Antifa have been too. I mean, you had... I can't remember what position it is. I believe Keith Ellison's son was like a... He's a government official and was... Yeah, there were connections between money, elites, and Antifa. And then you have people like Hassan Piker, who I mentioned, who are apologists or supportive of Antifa, who are funded by corporations. No, I mean, the level of alienation and struggle between money interests and Marxists in the early 20th century, this opposition was stark and profound and violent. I mean, you had basically... German capitalists were willing to put Hitler into power. They underestimated him, to be sure, but they saw him as a buffoon and a Bulgarian, and they didn't like... They were anti-Semitic themselves most of them, but not in the crude conspiratorial way, right, he was. And they didn't like him, but they were willing to put him in power because they were so fearful of the communists and they wanted him to bonk their heads, right? So you don't have that... You don't have that today. If anything, they're kind of... They're commingling together the Antifa types in the corporate America. At the very least, there isn't the same level of conflict, right? Maybe they're not... Maybe I exaggerate their connection, but there isn't the same level of conflict. I think there was a bunch of dogs. I don't think they have an ideology, a well-formed ideology of any kind. And Franco's Spain, was that fascist? I've read much more about fascist Italy than Franco's Spain. Paul Gottfried doesn't believe it was fascist. I would have to just pass on this, because I don't know enough about Franco's regime to assess whether it meets these characteristics in terms of the... I mean, it certainly was formed as a reaction against the revolutionary left. We look at Republican Spain, so that element. That element is satisfied. But does the ideology have this incessant nationalism, this fetishization of violence, this contempt for the bourgeoisie in terms of its inaction and weakness? I'd have to read more about it before I say. There are other regimes I think I could talk about that, whether they're fascists or not, like Vichy France, Antonesca's Romania, and so on. Was Vichy France fascist? No, certainly not. I mean, Vichy France was populated by monarchists who were essentially anti-Republicanism. They wanted to undo the French Revolution. They wanted to restore political Catholicism. They were not fascists. They were essentially from a French tradition that was not fascistic. Vichy France was from a different strain than the kind of people who populated the leadership of Vichy France. Now, Vichy France does collaborate with the Holocaust, which is obviously horrible, but they're not a fascist regime. And I think Robert Paxton, I don't know if you're familiar with him or no. I'm not sure. Okay. He wrote a very famous book about Vichy France, where he shows that Vichy France, because the kind of post-war cope was that these were a bunch of fascists who didn't represent France. In fact, that wasn't just, you know, that was De Gaulle's position, right? I mean, that Vichy France is not responsible for Vichy France, because that wasn't France, essentially. Marine Le Pen believes this, too. That's what she says. She's not like her dad. She's not an anti-Semitic conspiracy theorist, but she's trying to revive the position of De Gaulle, which is kind of falling under favor in French politics that we're not responsible for what happened in Vichy France, because this wasn't France. This was a German public state with fascists who I know who are not part of our tradition, right? But no, I mean, Paxton's famous book, Vichy France, Old Garden, New Order. We probably guess in the title shows that the people who populated the bureaucracy, the political ideas, you know, kind of state-detained, all of this was founded in French traditions and in the anti-monarchist tradition, right? Pardon me, the anti-Republican tradition. So the collaboration with the Nazis was utterly reprehensible and opportunistic, but the actual ideology, to the extent there was one, which there certainly was in the first couple of years, at least, and the personnel and the style of governance, this was from a French tradition, not fascism. A monarchist tradition. It's interesting how, you know, I always saw it interesting how the French could retain, because the French right, pardon me, anti-Republicanism was endemic in the French right. I mean, Republicanism was pretty marginal in the French right before the Nazis, right? In the 1930s, opposition to the Third Republic was widespread among the right. I always found that fascinating that you can, really, a century and a half later, after the overthrow of the monarchy, that monarchism could be so endemic that it was, so. Okay, I'm going to play that David Irving clip about three minutes, 40 seconds, where he talks about the Holocaust, anything you want to say prior to my beginning? Yeah, okay, so there have been people on the internet, neo-Nazis, anti-Semitic conspiracy, there is these people who have said, I misrepresented Irving in our last conversation by saying he effectively acknowledges the Holocaust. And this is my response. So let's, as Bill Raleigh would say, let's roll the tape. Okay, so just stay muted for a few minutes. Yes, hello. May I ask you what your current view of what's called the Holocaust is, to the extent of it? Very tricky question, because it's kind of a question that the enemy would like to get on tape, and my answer. But I will tell you very briefly, I'm in the back of your hand, where I have this present. If you break up what is called the Holocaust into three or four separate elements, then you have the original element, which is the three operations on the eastern front and in Poland, which are regular three operations, so you don't have any military conflicts. And then you have the second phase, which is the more ethnic cleansing kind of operation, being carried out by Henri Cheminotour, to tackle the problem of Judea, which is what I've described to either to call it in my biography. It's the original problem to go into the Germans in 1933, with the famous headline, Sunday Express, Judea declared war on Germany, and this is basically the German response. They're getting rid of the problem once and for all, with Henri Cheminot on various guises, liquidating the Jews, both the enemy Jews and the German Jews throughout 1942 and 1943. I know that went on because of the intercepted messages, the intercepted messages of the SS, and even though doubt at all that very large numbers were dealt with, it's possible that certain people in the SS may have been exaggerating, but not significantly. And in 1942 and 1943, in the four camps operation right now on the eastern front, on the river Boog, named the camps, and then it's the river Boog, Bilsetsch, Meiteneck, and Treblinka, the British chief in the river, called Odilo Gloroshnik, who deserves far more attention from the history books than that of Eichmann and small characters like that, where he was liquidating a total of 1.25 million in 1942 and probably about the same number in 1943, so they got about 2.8 million in those two operations. And to that, the shootings on the eastern front and in Poland in the previous years, and finally the declaration of the Jews in Slovakia and Hungary in 1944, and you come to a figure that's, give or take, close to the figure that the Jews themselves now spout. I think it's interesting that they don't like anybody who tries to suggest the Jews had it coming to them as a counter-operation to the boycott operation, which they started in 1933 and everything since then. The assassination of the top Nazis and so on. You've never heard them talking about the causes of the Holocaust. They only ever talk about the numbers, the figures, the places, the locations. But beyond that, I won't say anything. Okay, Matt, you're going to have to mute yourself. I'm not able to mute you. Sure. Okay. So, yeah, I was playing Donkey Kong, but I know this clip well. The reason that this clip corroborates Irving's belief in the full Holocaust story, including Auschwitz, I think he mentions specifically the first two elements of the Holocaust signs that scripted mass shootings and the exterminations in the Reinhardt camps, but he also refers to the liquidation of the Hungarian Jews in 1944. And that happened in the gas chambers of Auschwitz according to the mainstream story. So if you're denying that they were killed in Auschwitz, that's where these people were sent, then pardon me, if you're denying that, then Auschwitz was an extermination camp and these people weren't killed, right? David Coltonized that he doesn't believe they were killed, even though he accepts the rest of the Holocaust. So here Irving is acknowledging, and also mentions that a number of Jews killed is more or less the same as what the Jews spout, is what he says. You can believe the conspiracy theory that he's being coerced or whatever, but it doesn't sound like it, because he's saying that Jews brought it on themselves, so he's certainly not being politically correct, but he's acknowledging that the mainstream story is essentially accurate here, including Auschwitz implicitly. So that's what I mean by that. Okay, great. Let me go through some of the National Justice Party. Let's see if they're fascist. Let's do it. United States of America will be declared a fascist population. Is that fascist? No, I don't really know what it means. What does that mean? I wouldn't say it's fascist, no. It's a state dedicated to its European heritage population and their posterity. So are all ethno-states fascist? No, of course not. I mean, the United States was a limited immigration to whites before fascism existed, so that wouldn't be fascist, no. It's not going to happen. It's not going to be defined. The demographics make this impossible and politics make this impossible, so it's kind of silly to talk about, but you could call for a prohibition on immigration, but you can't make this a white ethno-state. We need to take passports away from Mexicans. What is the implication of this? Now, if Israel has an immigration policy... I'm not talking about taking passports away from Jewish people in Israel. I'm talking about giving them to Palestinians. That's different. Let me make my point. So if Israel draws up policies to ensure that Israel remains a Jewish-majority state, is that fascist? No, no. Neither is fascist. It's not going to happen in the United States. I mean, the thing like the... The Gropers don't actually advocate the America. They don't advocate white nationalism, right? They may want it, but Nick Fuentes is sophisticated politically enough to know that that is impossible, given current demographics and given all of the... People have too many loved ones in their family that are not white. Even whites who may be racist or inclined to racism aren't going to morally accept and take the passports away from every Korean American or whatever it is. I'm not saying it calls for this, by the way. I don't know what that means, but it's not going to be defined... I mean, in the sense of Western culture, of course this is a Western country in the sense that it's English-speaking and liberal. Of course it's a Western country, but it's not defined by a racial type either. I mean, we're just... We're way too... Generations too late for something like that. And more from the National Justice Party here. It will be the policy of the state of the United States of America to set immigration and NATO policy that will ensure a permanent European majority. The rights of historic minority populations will be respected. So, doesn't sound... So, again, what is a historical minority population? It's just African-Americans, Native Americans like... The implication there is is that non-historic minority populations will not be respected. Which, again, is... We can virtue-signal how bad this is, but it's just not going to happen. There are too many families with a Korean or a Sudanese or... It's just not going to happen. This is not supported by the American right. It isn't supported by Southern races now, Obama. This ship has sailed. Now, you're talking about prohibiting immigration or NATO policy. Sure, that's possible. Why not, right? I mean, there have been periods where immigration has been frozen in this country. That wouldn't be alien to the history of the country. It would be highly controversial, but that's possible. But you're not going to have some special rights for people of European descent that's not going to happen. So, the National Justice Party seems to me so disconnected from reality in America that I have to understand it as some kind of self-destruction, wish fulfillment. These are people who already feel alienated from the rest of America, and they want to virtue-signal how different they are from America. So, this strikes me... It's less on their identity or philosophy, I think. I don't think they actually... For example, I don't think I'm not going to be unkind to people I do think are dumb. I don't think Mike Enoch is actually dumb. I think he's actually talented. He's got ridiculous things, right? Ridiculous. But I think he's actually gifted at being a gregarious radio personality, and that's why he's been successful, right? Yeah. I mean, when he's not expressing these just... I don't want to virtue-signal because it's lame, but when he's not saying unpleasant, vulgar things, he can be quite gregarious of the show, right? Yes. But nevertheless, they're saying ridiculous things. So, I think he must, at some level, know this isn't going to happen. Americans are not going to vote for this, because it doesn't resonate with American history at all. Right. And you were recently in Turkey, so are the Turks as bad as Richard Spencer says? No, they're... I actually think more people should go to Istanbul. I think Turks are great people. And I think that Erdogan... Again, we're all slaves to our history. So, Erdogan, he may want Islamic law, but they've had 100 years of secularism in Turkey, right? They've had Mustafa Kemal as their great hero, and he still is. So, yeah, Erdogan can get... Here's an example of a policy he got, he implemented. It used to be the case that if you wanted to be a civil servant in Turkey and you were a woman, you had to have... I know hijab. You could not wear the hijab while you're working. You'd be fired. If you wanted to attend public university, you could not wear the hijab. And this was kind of aggressive Turkish secularism, right? Yeah. Now, Erdogan has moderated that. So you can wear the hijab. It's a choice. But he's not going to be able to prohibit alcohol or criminalize homosexuality or require people to pray. This is not going to happen. I mean, he just... We're all slaves to history. He probably wants that. He can virtually say, no, but he's aware that you can't undo a century of history, of Adatürk. You can't say Adatürk, man, bad. It isn't going to work, you know? And there even are polls like... I think this Pew poll, Sam Harris loved... Do you remember these Pew polls of Muslims wanting Sharia law or whatever? Yes. Yeah. Okay, Turkey, I think, was 10% they wanted it. I believe the poll said 10%. Many countries, it was in the majority, but I think Turkey was 10%. Let me get the link for you. It was very low. I'm certain it was very low. It was either 10% or 15%. And you could get in America 5% who want Christian theocracy. Maybe more, you know, if you ask the poll. So it is quite marginal support for Islamic law in Turkey. It's not... People don't understand what he represents. Now, is he an authoritarian leader? Yes. But he's much more along the lines of a Vladimir Putin than, you know, like a traditional... Khilaf al-Islami, like an Islamic caliphate, you know? Like, he's not... He's not going to introduce Islamic law. And Istanbul still remains a very free, cosmopolitan and interesting city. I don't know why. Actually, I'm a flabbergast. I think the one reason he may have hated is the one thing that is true is the Hagia Sophia is fucked up. Everyone has fucked up. Because he turned it into a mosque and like has covered up the Christian symbols and much of it has fallen to the dispute. Because I have turned it into a museum and everyone has kind of a symbol of, you know, a virtue signal, if you will, of Islam is back, bro. He turned it into a mosque. It looks really shitty. So maybe that triggered Spencer. But I don't get like, you know, the people are friendly. You don't see... You probably see a higher... I mean, I may be exaggerating a little bit. The percentage of hijabs in Istanbul is probably lower than London. So I don't understand what triggered him so much about Turkey, really. But I think people should visit and they'd be surprised. They wouldn't like the Hagia Sophia. But I think otherwise they'd like Istanbul. Wait, what is Hagia Sophia? Okay. So Hagia Sophia is a cathedral. And that was a principal representation of the state church of the Roman Empire in Byzantium, you know? Like, I remember... You remember Richard Spencer said, white people in Bakelask specifically have a deep connection to Byzantium. He's really a Byzantium. So it was the largest interior space in the world. It's this incredible dome and kind of the epitome of Byzantine architecture, you know? So this was when the Turks conquered Constantinople, right? They turned it into a mosque. And when Mustafa Kemal came to power after the fall of the Islamic caliphate, the Ottoman Empire, essentially, he turned it into a museum as a representation of how, no, we're secular now, you know? We're no longer... We're no longer... It was at one point a Christian cathedral, then it was a mosque, and now it's a museum, right? And I don't... Pardon me. Erdogan has turned it back into a mosque. That's one of his like re-Islamizing things, you know? Otherwise I've argued it's rather superficial to re-Islamizing. So if you go to the beach in Turkey, are there women in bikinis? Oh, of course, of course, yeah. Of course. Yeah, I mean, yeah. If you go to Istanbul, you'll find you'll realize how ridiculous these questions are, honestly. I think people are just assumed that the re-Islamization of Turkey is much more visceral than it has been, you know? And you had a perfectly pleasant time there. Yeah, I was with my girlfriend. Yeah, there's no... There's no one staring at you for having a Russian girlfriend in Turkey. It's just whatever. They're much more modern than people think. I don't understand why Spencer wants to commit genocide against them. Maybe he doesn't anymore, but... He's the great paradox, really. He's the great paradox. I don't understand that, man. And what do you make of this Russia-Ukraine crisis? Well, look, I think that... I will just say this. I think that Russia has very compelling historical and contemporary foreign policy interests. I also think that these interests do not come close to justifying any kind of invasion. And it would be tragic if it happened and it would alienate Russia from the world and confirm many of the negative stereotypes about Putin. And I hope it doesn't happen because I have... I very much hope it doesn't happen because I consider myself somewhat of a defender of Russia. Now, I haven't defended Russia in print. I've certainly defended Russian history and the claim that... Again, argued against Sean McMacon's absurd claim that Russia started the Second World War, but for those of us who have a more sympathetic line to the Kremlin, it would be a tragic episode and it can be spun however you want, but the legitimate interests of Russia in that region with a very large population, especially in the East, that want to be part of Russia and consider themselves Russian, absolutely. I think with the large story that people in the country do not want to be part of Russia, though. Despite the historical ties of Ukraine to Russia and the view of many... Really, probably almost all Russian nationalists and, again, a lot of people living in Ukraine with Ukrainian passports, that Ukraine is not a real country, right? And also the legitimate concerns about military build-ups in Ukraine's candidacy for NATO, I think it would be a tragedy for Russia if there was an invasion and it would damage Russia standing in the world gravely and would lead to sanctions and I hope they don't do it and I pray they don't do it because it'll have implications for people I care about as well, honestly. And how was your conversation with this denying history guy? We did a long, long video with him. Oh, it was great. It was a little bit... I think we should have had more specific subjects. By we, I mean me. I'm just denying my own responsibility since I set it up. But he's a brilliant guy. He has an encyclopedic knowledge of a number of these historical genocides. I disagree with some of his views, but he's a compelling figure and just somebody who reads compulsively. You know, I'm a PhD student at a prestigious school in history and he knows more than I do about most of these historical tragedies. I kind of feel shame-faced throughout it. So I do recommend if you're interested in an online personality. He does have his own points of view, though, right? And I think I kind of bring out his views in that interview by challenging him on what his definition of genocide is, why do you characterize this as a genocide? Are you just being a bit of a normie by characterizing that as a genocide, et cetera? But we certainly had a rigorous conversation too about Holocaust denial, where I think we both have quite a bit of knowledge. Yeah. So is denying history Amy Stanley? Is that who it is? You talk about the literal person? Yes. I don't know who this is. Oh, okay. I don't know who it is. Okay. This isn't... Yeah, I don't know who it is. He's actually rather coy about his identity. He clearly is a highly literate man. I don't know who he is. Okay. And do you think the best team won the Super Bowl? Oh, you know. I... Well, the best team is obviously the Detroit Lions, and they were somehow not allowed to play, right? That's my team. I think of the two teams, yeah, the best team won. I do wonder whether the Bucks would have been the best team if Antonio Brown hadn't left. I don't know if you had this feeling. I had the feeling that these are two very good teams, but they're not like up to the level of Chief Spucks last year in terms of the... I think that was a blowout, but in terms of the personnel and so forth. Did you feel that way? Yeah, that makes sense. I mean, there's so deeply flawed, but the Rams and the Bengals, that it was hard to think of. I actually played very poorly too. And I actually am... You know, this is more embarrassing than anything I've publicly said, but I actually like... As a Lions fan, I like Jared Goff quite a bit. And I'm happy for Stafford, who played a very good year, but I don't like all the ridicule Goff has gotten as a response. I don't think it's fair. Goff played very poorly the first three quarters of the season with Lions. He came on the last quarter of the year with the development of St. Brown as a great slot receiver. Josh Reynolds was signed, Deandre Swift. I think the Lions are going to be good next year. And I'm not saying they're going to win the division, but I think they'll be a serious team, maybe around 500, maybe a little better. They got the offensive tackles there. They developed a great rookie wide receiver. They signed a good wide receiver. And the final quarter of the year was just a different team. People don't remember it well, but Goff went three and one in his last four starts, including a blowout win over Arizona playoff team, trying to win the division. Win over Minnesota, who was contender. Right? So... And the Packers win. I mean, they rested their starters for half the game, but the first half they didn't rest their starters and the Lions were still winning. So, you know... What did Matt Stafford have that Jared Goff doesn't have? Stafford has a better quarterback than Goff. I would never claim that Goff. I think Goff is a good quarterback. I defend Goff. I think he'll surprise people next year. He isn't an elite quarterback. Stafford has, I think, more... a better arm than Goff. I think Stafford is also less easily rattled than Goff. He is able to throw into tight corners more, whereas Goff, if the windows are tight, he'll sometimes check it down too much. And that makes a big difference. If you look at Stafford's charisma with Cooper Cup, Goff had great charisma with them too, but it was just a different level with Stafford. And I'm happy for Stafford. I think Stafford is an elite quarterback who played for a lot of bad teams, and it's bad Lions teams and elevated them. And the fact that he never won a playoff game held against him and certainly won't be anymore. Now, you've got a book review coming up on Aftermath, Life in the Fallout of the Third Reich. This is a highly rated, awarded new book. What's your reaction to this book? It's a very good book. It suffers from one poisonous flaw, the Zunderweg view, which we've talked about. He uncritically swallows the view that German... This is a book about Germany in the immediate aftermath of the war. So the first 10 years of the war, pardon me, the first 10 years after the war. And he deserves great credit for talking about, for doing the unthinkable, and talking about Nazis and ex-Nazis as human beings, which they were, of course. And trying to describe how this society, which more or less consciously engaged in genocide and war of aggression, tried to cope with that legacy and tried to survive and build a new social order. And there are many interesting things in the book. One thing that didn't surprise me, I don't think it will surprise you either, but would surprise the average reasonably educated reader is that the Holocaust was scarcely mentioned in the first 10 years after the war. The Americans briefly, there was a brief flurry of outrage and with the Nuremberg trials, and we've seen famous videos and newspaper articles of your guilty Germans and people being dragged to camps, this ended quite quickly. The Americans wanted to... who were, of course, occupying parts of what we would later call West Germany. The Americans didn't want to demoralize the Germans too much. They wanted to be a strong, conservative, even nationalistic nation, tamed, but still not without nationalism and conservatism and the military culture as a buffer against the Soviet Union. And you see a fairly conservative society does emerge with the Adenauer regime and the Christian Democrats and so on. And so the Americans didn't want to emphasize this. The Russians didn't either because the Russians didn't want the war to be about the Jews. They wanted it to be about the Great Patriotic War and the suffering of the Soviets. So they didn't emphasize this in their propaganda. They were also occupying East Germany, what became the DDR. And so this wasn't emphasized in German culture either. That's an interesting thing. In German internal dialogues or in the propaganda they were being fed by their occupiers. That's one interesting thing. Also sociologically, it's interesting that Germans were coping with the destruction of marriages. Women were coupling their men left and right because they realized, first of all, you lost and second of all, your service wasn't honorable. So why should I show sexual fidelity? I mean, there was, if you look at women's magazines at the time he mentions this, like adultery is in some sense celebrated. Men are treated with contempt. It isn't feminist. It's kind of contemptuous of men. And also women are starting to realize that they can do a lot of these jobs that seem to be magically like man or zacha, you know, like male things, right? They can do a lot of this stuff because so many of their men are mentally crippled from serving in these crazy wars, you know, which they lost and the demoralized, they're not working or they're barely working and the women are working and they're realizing we can work. So it's kind of, I would say more anti-male than pro-feminist or anything like that and kind of a way for the women to assert their responsibility as well for supporting Hitler, as someone he did because they kind of wanted to blame the war on men and it was a type of sexual experimentation, disintegration of marriages. This is the, I'm talking about the late 40s now. They're embracing like Western music, black music, jazz. There's also a big social disruptor is a lot of Germans, as you probably know, as I'm sure you know, look, actually, I'll give you the cramps. I'm sure you know, Germans were ethnically cleansed following the war. Not just German. So there are two types of Germans who were ethnically cleansed. First Germans who, because of Hitler's crack racial theories, they ethnically cleansed polls from traditional Polish land. And they were so-called German settlers who went to, like Zamosk and, you know, I don't speak Polish, so I'm sure I'm saying this to be wrong, but they went to a traditional Polish land. So these people were ethnically cleansed. Also Germans from East Prussia and traditional German areas in Poland and so forth, people who'd lived there, you know, for many, many, many generations were ethnically cleansed too because they wanted to create a homogenous, homogenous Eastern European states without Germans because the Germans were hated in Eastern Europe, obviously, as the invaders and slavers of these people. But still, you have innocent people who had, in many cases, nothing to do with Nazism, being ethnically cleansed from their traditional communities, and they were coming back to Germany. And this caused massive social disruption. You also had displaced persons. So like they enslaved a bunch of, not just Jews, but they enslaved a lot of Poles and other Eastern Europeans, Germans during the war. And these people were then released when the Allies came and some of them were repatriated. A lot of, held a lot of them were actually, but many of them couldn't be because the Germans had just destroyed, for example, they raised Warsaw. So if you're a Pole, many Poles had their houses destroyed, right? So the repatriation process still was undertaken, but it was slower because you needed to find housing for these people, right? And in the meantime, they were actually accommodated in Germany and sometimes with the homes of Germans, you know? So you had all of these foreigners in Germany at the time, which isn't really known. I don't think that well. And also newly arrived Germans who were often treated very badly. They ethnically cleansed Germans were, they were called Polaks or Gypsies for some, these are Germans now who had arrived in Germany. They were called, they were treated very badly by the Germans. So you had a bunch of social frictions, but this eventually leads to a reestablishment of a conservative, moderately nationalistic society by the 1950s, West Germany. And also the establishment of the, you know, an oppressive but stable East German regime. So it's kind of the story of these chaotic years leading up to the establishments of the Western East German Polities, which were, you know, which were obviously different than this anarchic environment where marriages are disintegrating. All these foreigners and other new Germans are coming in and out, you know, you have occupiers running the show to a great extent, etc. A fascinating book really, and debunks a lot of misconceptions. I think people would be inclined to have about the era. Like Germans were not, this is another dumb neo-Nazi narrative. Germans were not stowing in guilt over the Holocaust to the extent that they felt guilt. It was over starting the war. The Holocaust was a marginal issue. Very seldom talked about the big issue held against the Germans was you started this world war that killed tens of millions. That was the big issue held against them. So the neo-Nazi view is that first of all, they don't just say Germans, they say white people. They say the Holocaust was made up and then white people were so ashamed so they stopped being nationalists. So no, that's just absurd. No, that's true. The Germans were not fixated in the Holocaust to the extent they felt guilty was over starting the war. Okay, I have a tangential point. So one of the lame arguments against the legitimacy of the 2020 American presidential vote is that you don't see anyone who is enthusiastic for Joe Biden. But to vote for Joe Biden, you didn't need to have any enthusiasm for him. You simply rationally had to prefer him to Donald Trump. And there's a 2% swing in the suburbs against Trump and towards Biden. But voting for Biden had nothing to do with loving Biden. Right. And the media said Trump was a neo-Nazi. So if you believe he's Hitler, then you're enthusiastic of him. If I believe Hitler were actually... I guess I'd have to be 30 IQ points lower, or maybe 70 if you have a... You know, maybe I have to have a hundred, maybe I have to have like a 20 IQ, I don't know. Okay, let me finish my point. So, same too. Most of the people who voted for the Nazis in Germany were not Nazis. They were voting because the situation, they voted for the Nazi party because it was the least likely to lead to civil war. It basically came down to two total parties. It was either Nazis or communists. If the people that elected communists, the German army would have gone to war against that. The only way you could vote a party into power by the early 30s without a civil war was to vote for the Nazis. So most of the people who voted for the Nazis weren't Nazi. They were voting for the best of the alternatives as they saw them. So it just makes me think or wonder out loud how Nazi was Nazi Germany. It may have been a dedicated 5% of the population was able to Nazify Nazi Germany. Any thoughts? I think this is a brilliant question. I'm going to credit you for that. I'm going to first talk about the Nazi stuff. Then we'll go back to the 2020 election. So in 1933, you have a large plurality for the Nazis never a majority. Certainly most of these people are not anti-Semitic conspiracy. There is hardcore ideological Nazis. In fact, the Nazis are suppressing this part of their propaganda in their public presentation because they know it isn't popular beyond a small fringe. However, however, I think the point stands that they're willing to tolerate these elements because people knew what they were all about. The people who voted for them knew what they were all about and they were willing to tolerate it because they may not have had these weird theories about Jews running everything in the world, but they view Jews as less patriotic, as more left-wing, as somewhat subversive. It was a more, if you will, moderate and less intellectually ridiculous anti-Semitism. This kind of bourgeois anti-Semitism. So because they had the bourgeois anti-Semitism, they were willing to tolerate someone coming to power or the extreme anti-Semitism, if that makes sense. People voting for Hitler were not people who were concerned about discrimination against Jews or people who were even view Jews as equal. They generally were anti-Semitic. They just weren't to nearly the extent Hitler was. The other thing that's important is, again, going back to our conversation about fascism, and I would argue that I think disagreement got through that Nazism is a very eclectic and extremely brutal form of fascism, but still kind of falls under the fascist tradition. I think that's debatable. But I would differentiate in the abstract but I mean, I don't know. It's a close call. I don't even know what I think of this to be honest. Maybe I'm drinking and I'm being too declarative. So actually, let's leave that aside. It's too complicated, but it certainly is related to fascism in the sense that it is a reaction against left-wing revolutionary movements. Let's leave aside whether it's fascism or not too complicated for drunk Matthew, but it certainly is related insofar as it is a reaction against left-wing revolutionary movements. So you had a lot of fear among the property classes of a communist coming to power, and the bourgeois conservative parties were not viable. They did not have the popular energy of the Nazi state, right? So they voted for the viable anti-communist party essentially, yeah. Yeah. And so if the viable non-communist party was something different, they would have voted for that. Remember, people did not win a majority, so he didn't come to power democratically. He had a large, he kind of did. He had a big democratic base of support, but he was appointed by Hindenburg, the German president, right? Who was, didn't like Hitler was, again, a bourgeois nationalistic conservative, didn't like vulgar anti-Semitism, actually intervened on behalf of Jewish war veterans, but he was, again, he's a perfect example. He's willing to allow this to happen. He is anti-Semitic, just nodding his cookie away, right? In the way I described earlier, and he's willing to appoint Hitler because he sees Hitler as the only way to prevent a communist, the communist coming to power, right? Yeah. But eventually, Luke, I have to say, I completely disagree with that. I think through the propaganda apparatus of Goebbels, through indoctrination of the youth, through the institution of a, you know, what I would argue is that the totalitarian, this is actually debatable, was Nazi Germany totalitarian before the war. I would say it was. It was the totalitarian, but let's leave that aside for now. But through the institution, certainly, of a propagandistic society, and also through apparent victories of Hitler, right? Culminating with the fall of France, but diplomatic victories, the Anschluss, right? The taking of the Sudetenland. Hitler was surely one of the most popular leaders in Europe by 1940, let's say, surely, maybe the most popular. Well, not once they invaded Poland. Like Germany was quiet. There was no mass celebration once they invaded Poland. But after they won, after they won, they were happy. They won with, they appeared to have won the war after they had defeated France. There's no viable way for Britain to defeat them. And remember Russia is not in the war at this point, nor is America. So they appear to have won the war with relatively low casualties and won essentially their place under the sun, right? At that point, Hitler was extraordinarily popular. No, you're right at the beginning. When war broke out, there was not enthusiasm. It was quiet, right? Now, I've read books such as that. When Hitler returned to France in 19, pardon me, when Hitler returned to Germany after they signed the armistice with the French in 1940, the reception was ecstatic by all accounts, including foreign accounts that are not sympathetic to Hitler. So I think, I think there was a lot of support for the regime because it seemed to be working, if you will, you know, how many were hardcore Nazis is an interesting question. But again, these people knew their neighbors were being deported. They're Jewish neighbors, right? During the war, they didn't do anything for the most part. They also knew about the mass shooting in the East. That was just widely known. Maybe they didn't know about gassing in the camps, but they knew about the mass shootings of Eastern Jews. And this was, you know, there's too many people who saw this for this to be suppressed, right? Whereas the gas chamber matter could be suppressed. And actually there was more of a reason to do that because there was more sensitivity to the murder of Western European Jews than the Eastern intravention, you know? And then did you want to say something about Joe Biden just because people vote for Joe Biden doesn't mean... Yeah, I mean, it's like, look, John Kerry got very... I think it was for decades, the highest amount of Democratic turnout came out for John Kerry in 2004. It wasn't because John Kerry was so... Obama got a higher turnout in 2008, but actually lower in 2012. So it was a historically high level of turnout for Kerry in 2004. Is that because Kerry is so inspiring? No, it's because people despise... On the left despise George W. Bush, right? And I was a kid. I remember this when I was like 13. I remember how much hatred there was for George W. Bush, you know? And that's why they came out. And they came out in 2020 because of hatred for Trump. And the widespread belief that he was some kind of proto-fascist. I mean, if you believed that, why wouldn't you vote against Trump if you're a regular American, you know? Leave aside whether that belief is intellectually viable. I suppose you believe that it makes perfect sense you take, you know, 50 seconds to vote. So I was reading this book called Not Born Yesterday, The Science of Who We Trust and What We Believe by a French neuroscientist Hugo Mercier. And he presents evidence that all attempts at mass persuasion, whether by religious leaders or politicians or advertisers, fail miserably and that the propaganda operations of a Nazi Germany or of communist states have also failed to change hearts and minds. You thought that Göring's propaganda operation was changing hearts and minds. Yeah, so how sure are you? And what do you think of the idea that it doesn't change hearts and minds? I'm not morally certain. But, you know, if you look at reporters, foreign correspondents who are in Germany and, you know, despised fascists, and most famously William Scheider, you probably have heard of the rise of fascism. Yes, of course. Yeah, I mean, the idea, the notion of Hitler's popularity following the fall of France was, I mean, universal. I mean, people, people said that there's widespread adoration, relief and a sense that we're about to become a world power. And because, I mean, the Germans, if you were in a mainstream German social democrat or conservative, you hated the Treaty of Versailles. This was, you know, almost universal. And it appeared that Germany was kind of undoing, it certainly appeared that Germany was undoing the Treaty of Versailles following the fall of France. And also going to incorporate other German-speaking people into Germany and establish an empire. So, yeah, some people may have had moralistic objections, but those are kind of left-wing ideologues, you know, or liberal ideologues. The mainstream of society that regular people saw, Germany's winning, Germany's undoing its disgrace, Germany's wealthy, everything seems to be working, you know? And so it makes sense kind of intuitively, and it corresponds to what observers are saying at a time. Another source of this is the Reich Security Home Office had reports about public opinion in Germany. And this was a German source, but they reported, by the end of the war, that everyone fucking hates Hitler. They were candid. In 1940, they were, and in 1939, they were reporting apprehension about the outbreak of war, nervousness, lack of enthusiasm. But 1940 after the fall of France, also in other high periods, like after the Anschluss before the war, or after the Sudan land, they reported broad popularity, right? And broad appreciation for Hitler, you know? So I think that you could never know, if you don't have a scientific poll, you could never know with a capital K what the consensus of people in society thought. But I think you can know with any reasonable doubt that Hitler was a highly popular leader in 1940. Curious, what does this book argue? What is its methodology? Why does it argue that propaganda? Okay, yeah, yeah. This is my influential book I've read in years, and I read several books a week. So it argues that we did not evolve to be gullible. That's the essence of it. If we were highly persuadable, that would not be evolutionarily replicable. That evolution, you know, programs us through natural selection to not be gullible. And so we may believe crazy things about space aliens or any particular theological belief, but that has no effect on how we make decisions in daily life. So when it comes to decisions in our daily life of repercussions on our life, we don't tend to be gullible. And that advertising and mass persuasion techniques, to the extent they work, they shore up and strengthen people who already hold those beliefs. And maybe they nudge some people on the margins, but that effectively mass persuasion techniques don't work very much. Well, I think, look, this seems rather abstract. What I would say is people, the views of people evolve over time through a gradual process of socialization. People are not going to be persuaded, unless they're on the fence, right? They're not going to be persuaded by, so let's say a Holocaust denial debate, right? If the Holocaust, I mean, they're not, but let's hypothetically say the Holocaust denier had a brilliant argument that no one will be persuaded who believes in the Holocaust, or more realistically, the person who believes in the history of the Holocaust demonstrates this clearly happened. The denier won't be persuaded. So people who have strong emotional commitments aren't going to abandon them overnight. On the spot conversions are the thing. But I think over time through socialization, through emotional alienation from certain sets of experiences or people associated with an ideology, through social pressure, and also through, to some extent, the accumulating weight of thinking through something over time. I don't think there's any evidence not on the spot, but over time I do think people can be persuaded and change their ideology. And I think that happened in two phases. I think from 1933 and 1940, Germans went from being reluctantly willing to bring Hitler to power to stop the communists to broadly supportive of Hitler to in 1944, 45 despising Hitler and basically being terrorized by the Nazi state into submission. There was very little interest in Hitler's death, for example, by the Germans. You've probably read this, but Hitler died like the soldiers were indifferent, like arms folded, his nose. There were, of course, some die hard to commit suicide and women through themselves out of the building. Of course, not most women, some fanatical Nazi women, but the vast majority of German society was not engaged with the Fuhrer at that point. But I just agree with the thesis of that book. I think over time we can change our views, but it's a complicated socialization process. Maybe propaganda isn't that effective though. I mean, that might be true. It may more be socialization than propaganda. I don't think propaganda persuades people on the spot. If it's intended to do that, it probably isn't very effective. So just thinking off the top of my head, something like same-sex marriage. So I assume that 20 years ago, most people were opposed to it, and now most people are fine with it. Not just most people were opposed to it. It was a fringe view in 20 years ago. I mean, like, for example, an interesting point on that is, in 1992, Bill Clinton, the person who signed the Defensive Marriage Act, was considered fairly radical in his, in so far as he was willing to publicly advocate for gays shouldn't be fired from their job for being gay and civil rights for gays is a thing, right? He was considered quite, even though he was generally kind of a center-right, centrist, Democrat, he was considered quite left on that. And that was the Republicans went on, attacked him for it, right? Yeah. And now if you look at his legacy and you're kind of a contemporary liberal, you see him as quite anti-gay. So that's an example of where public opinion has changed radically, you know? So do you think it's public opinions change radically or people are reacting to incentives and suppressing what they really think? I think people's views change. Again, I don't think it's, I think it's a complicated process. It's gradual and does not involve much of, or any really of debating, if you will. Like I'm providing a rational argument and you read a book and you change your view. I think that doesn't, I think only intellectuals are susceptible to that and even intellectuals aren't all that susceptible because we have our emotions and our pride and our vanity. Try to be susceptible, but even I am quite limited and even you are quite limited. In this audience, we're talking about the smartest people in the world now, right? We're quite limited. So you started writing for the American conservative in 2010 and then you didn't publish anything there for another 11 years. What happened? Well, I was actually an intern there. And this is when I was a teenager. So I kind of just dropped out of, so I was actually, let me tell the story properly. I was a libertarian in college, one of those people, right? Quite obnoxiously libertarian in college. And at that time, TAC was oriented with the kind of right wing libertarians, the Ron Paul movie, if you will. That wasn't their only orientation is that they were certainly one of the groups to which TAC was appealing. And those were my views then. So for ideological reasons, it seemed like a good fit. And I was a smart kid. So they took me on even though I was quite young. I did most of my work there was, a lot of it was of a clerical matter, like delivering mail and so forth. But I did get some good life advice and mentorship and writing from Daniel McCarthy. Are you familiar with him? A little bit. Yeah, he, he now, I think he writes for a conservative British publication that's who's slipping my mind right now. Also Kira Hopkins who is kind of funny because she's writing for a libertarian publication and she went on to join the FBI. She's now quite obscure. I don't, it'd be hard to find her name on the internet. You'd find her for writing for TAC, but she was actually like one of these people that under the radar everyone knew. And while she was friend, you know, she, she had breakfast every morning with a raw style that I remember. Oh, and back in the day, Ron uns was our funder. So I talked to that guy all the time. And I never thought he'd go completely. Wow. Wow. You had no, because TAC was never oriented with, right. You know, like it's like this kind of the views he promotes like conspiracy theories about Jews. And in fact, he wasn't oriented like that back in the day. I don't know what happened with him. Well, what's your theory? Well, I mean, his stuff is nuts. Yeah. He's totally crazy. He publishes like striker, I think. Yeah. And Andrew England, but it's not even that. I can, I can understand that, but the things that he publishes himself. Who has, I think a doctor from Harvard. Yeah. I remember, I mean, again, I was a teenager. I was intellectually quite intimidated. Yeah. By him. And I would have never thought. I actually delivered his article. This is funny. He wrote. Well, he wasn't his art. Actually, he did write it. He wrote either he wrote or commissioned. I'm going to say either. Because I don't remember. He wrote or commissioned an article. Questioning. Both questioning elements of John McCain's narrative. Being a POW. And also John, whether John McCain had done everything he needed to have done everything to help POWs that were languishing in Vietnam, allegedly. This is, of course, it was highly controversial. And it's, I remember reading at the time thinking, you know, this is very controversial. It could be false, but this is serious work. It's serious journalism. The question's being posed or serious. I actually handed it as a, as a kid on the Capitol. I handed the magazine to John McCain. And then he was, he was, he didn't see it, but he was the cover story. So I do remember that. Because, you know, back in the day, maybe now you can't with the, with the, um, January 6th business, but back in the day, you could just troll around the Capitol. And if you were young, you know, people would often take it. Sounds like I'm talking about like, you know, period interest, but certainly McCain was just, he was, look, he's kind of a shit. Live and so on. In the brain. In the brain. In the brain. In the brain. In the brain. In the brain. In the brain. In the brain. He had a shit. Live and so on in the broad since that term. But he was a, he was a friendly guy, right? He, he just saw me walking around with a bunch of magazines. He said, Hi. You know, the other guy who said, Hi, to me was Alan Gray, because they told me to distribute these because they wanted to get out the alleged truth that. POW is the disappearance of POWs have been covered up by McCain and other people. Um, but I remember handing McCain that magazine. moving his arms because of his ordeals of POW but he he grabbed it and moving his arms like vertically you know did any of the politicians actually harass you no certainly not I just I just was joking about the period because there there has been a problem with that I was I was pretty good you're looking kid back then though so I have to say though if I don't know like I don't want to repeat stories that I don't have any confirmation of actually that's okay okay I went the politicians I met I met Ron Paul of course but that's you know we were like he was like our god and then the other two I met were McCain and Grayson I don't remember interacting with any others but I may have been I can't remember Grayson actually talked to me for a while because he read pack I remember that I do remember Alan Grayson you know yes yes he was he was a he was a he was like a paleo liberal yeah like he was he was one of those liberals in like the vein of Ralph Nagy or that was and like Bernie Sanders used to be that was cool interacting with the politically incorrect right wingers he was like cool you know but he's banned he seemed a bit weird too I mean he's got was weird yeah he was weird he was really weird like the fact that he was talking he talked to me for like half an hour it was fucking I got that's weird I mean what no he was interested though in the POW issue and completely scurrilous look if you're going to that that's completely baseless he just was being weird and talking to me about issue he wasn't like what's your personal life he was he was like I hand him this magazine that we talked about like politics and I'm a smart young person so presumably it's interesting to him but a teenager has somebody of knowledge and I talked to him about eyeing the federal reserve by the way the anti-Jewish conspiracy theorists they have that's actually a trouble point for them because he he and Ron Paul were the people behind they claim the Jew the federal reserve is like a Jewish plot or whatever but he Grayson who was Jewish and Paul of course were the two principal people behind the move to the Federal Reserve I remember that was a big deal back then we were we thought like that would I mean because we were ideologically libertarian and thought that was a big deal I don't really know what came of that but I believe the bill was passed you know so how would you describe your worldview today oh I am just a conservative liberal that's what I would say I'd no longer libertarian I discard that many years ago actually with my first girl from me both banded libertarianism for a serious girlfriend you know I had high school girlfriends I'm cool so of course I did the first serious relationship we abandoned libertarianism together and then I bounced around from various ideologies and now I'm kind of just conservative I know I I know I guess to the woke the rise of the woke stuff has made me realize how much I appreciate liberalism you know because they're so illiberal they want to shut everything down and it's made me realize how much I appreciate liberalism but also maybe realize the importance of institutions and some respect for traditional liberal institutions and that's why in the broad sense of character as myself is a conservative liberal because you need to classical you're a classic I'd say conservative look here's what I mean by that I'm conservative in the sense that I want to go back to the free speech norms of the 1970s I mean that's half a century ago that is conservative in the modern American context I want to go back to the days where the liberal I want I'm a kind of liberal that thinks the Nazis have the right or the anti-Semitic conspiracy there's it's very important to protect their right to speak I'm that kind of liberal and these days that is a old-fashioned point of view right very old-fashioned point of view and he doesn't even have to be dignified with a with a philosophical predatory like classical liberalism about King John Locke and John Stuart Mill it's like no I want to go back to what people were on the left liberals were saying on the left but liberals were saying in the 1970s about free speech right and what do you like or dislike about living in England um I hate the weather I'm used to I haven't gotten any sun for you probably if you if you compare my complexion with this video in the last one you'll see the the the sad effects of that like I haven't gotten any sun for for many months so that's great I hate the weather there's something quaint and beautiful about London though and I the architecture I don't find particularly striking but there is something here there is something beautiful here and it's I'm not the point where I'm able to articulate it in a compelling way but the city has a soul in an identity in the way that many American cities do not but you can you can feel history here you can feel uh history is speaking in a tone above and beyond what people are doing in the contemporary world there is an identity here I like the fact that I block by schools that have been open you know since long before America was was conceived of even you know right you can feel history here it's a historic city I also like there's still our old-fashioned British intellectuals of a sort who I enjoy corresponding with I'll I'll leave it at that people who aren't who have who they have certain intellectual humanistic traditions that are being kept alive for these geezers let's say you know despite the woke assault which is very real here it isn't as bad here as in America I'll say you had Nathan Coffness he was a doctoral student if he's with if he had if he had been in the states he probably wouldn't expel with stuff he wrote right but he finished a doctorate in Oxford so it is better here than the states I think I can say that with confidence but it still is a is a real power right and is there anything you miss miss about living in the states I do um I miss I miss the son for one I miss my family my dog my parents dog I miss my grandpa quite a bit just opening up here a little sauce um but you know um ultimately I am glad to be here and I feel like this I need to be in Europe in the stage of my career I think I'll keep going further east actually I think I'll go I'll be in continental Europe when I finish my doctor to be working there in part because the woke the further east you go the weaker woke us you know what I mean yes yeah so it's it's it's very strong in Britain but it's weaker than in the states and if you go like if you're in France and Germany gets a lot weaker I mean Germany has the whole zunderbeg stuff but that's different than well kind of it's there it's a it's it's a different phenomenon and then if you get to eastern Europe it's just zero this doesn't exist you know and what about the American freedoms do you miss miss freedom oh yeah yeah I really miss freedom right yeah I mean oh my goodness you know I mean I love look I love the United States but it's it's been gravely damaged by this woke stuff look I am a liberal call me a shit live all you want neo-nazis but I like a diverse country I I like the mixture of cultures I think America's very interesting I think that this notion of equity this notion of political correctness and censorship has gravely damaged United States and I want to try to preserve it and I think that the best way I could do that is as an intellectual who is insulated from the pressures of a totalitarian ideology which dominates American academia which is to say a professor in France or Germany or Finland or maybe even fucking east of that I mean look I need to have intellectual freedom in the United States right now you have a totalitarian ideology rules academia and it's it sounds like hyperbole but it is United States not a totalitarian country because there still is institutional freedom the government doesn't lock you up I would never claim that I'd be way over the top but the ideology that is preeminent in academia and in other many other very important parts of the country the mainstream media institutions for example is totalitarian and you can't be an intellectual in a totalitarian climate serious intellectual that's what I aspire to be so I love the United States and I realize when you're gone how much you miss it but it is also a sense of relief that I'm away from this craziness this is insane like they say you hate black people and fuck them for saying that like look African Americans are a core part of the United States period and you cannot hate African Americans and love America you just can't right like it is so it's again we talk about history they're tied up with American identity period like they are a part of the story of the country the music the culture period it's just you cannot if you disavow them you disavow the United States essentially but they say in the United States now everything is construed as anti-black hatred every like opinion it is this bizarre trick that they play and it's so effective and it's creating a totalitarian society and I find it quite tragic and I hope the American people rise up against it and I hope to play a small part in that although I also want to be an intellectual historian and to some extent you have to set aside your biases even against this totalitarian ideology when you write in history and I would do that but I despise ideology Luke I mean I don't know how do you deal with it you have to deal with it yes of course I guess some days it probably affects me but but generally speaking you lie all day or pretend you don't have a YouTube channel what's your strategy no I I don't talk about my opinions where it's inappropriate and so you know sometimes it's just not appropriate and so I let people I mean I have plenty of genuine conversations so and I also have YouTube channel and a blog so I have plenty of ways to express myself but yeah other times I just keep my mouth shut or you know I'm 55 I'm not going to be out there fighting I have no interest in arguing with people so I don't choose to hang out with the woke but when I have to interact with them I'm just perfectly pleasant yeah yeah I think I think strategy is is interesting as I've come become more committed to fighting these people you have to think of what is an effective strategy right because of course I look I'm a utilitarian I want to win I don't care about you know what the brave thing to do is right I want to do the smart thing and the effective thing so I think about all these things and you know some are some are friends some are good people right they have they just because they've been poisoned by this italica and ideology doesn't mean I don't love their mothers right right and there are plenty of ways you can not all hate yeah yeah it is it is evil you're like the neo-nazis if you hate if you hate woke right well they hate they hate people but you shouldn't hate anybody really that's actually a controversial view I have I don't think even criminals violent criminals you should hate because I don't believe in free will I think they should be punished maybe even executed if they're incorrigible but I don't think I don't believe in like moral responsibility in a profound sense I believe in it in a pragmatic sense that's kind of not a hearing or that I wouldn't go on a tangent like this if we were if I hadn't worked a bit soft you know yeah well it's really important to me to be happy happy in a long-term sense not just in short-term gratification and so for me avoiding arguments and avoiding conflict and having the best possible relations I can have with everyone I interact with is of premium importance to me so I want to get along with everyone to the extent that I can and if someone's got you know hard left ideology I'll bond with them on sports or on culture or on literature or some some area where we can bond I would rather hang out with a left winger who's smart than a right winger who has my type of views but is 25 IQ points lower or literally 25 IQ I mean yeah some of the right wing discourse sounds like people with 50 IQs yeah I mean my favorite newspaper is the New York Times I don't know how to deal with those people but I think that to the extent that I want to participate in this pushback against well it is difficult to to deal with people who think inoculation is poison and yeah I don't really know what to do with that and it's another thing is they're obviously falling for a distraction from a totalitarian ideology that hates them yeah and they're obsessed with the vaccine has Bill Gates in it you know yeah yeah I mean there are a lot of I feel bad I feel I feel bad for those people because the anti-vaxxers you're talking about people with a need for meaning so extreme that they buy into crazy beliefs and other people have a need for streaming so so so extreme that they become you know religious nuts or but they just need normal human connection once people have normal I know for me once I have normal human connection I'm fine when I don't have normal levels of human connection then I just go off on all sorts of odd tangents so it's a matter of like people's nervous systems just calming down and then they don't have this this need for for you know extreme extreme amounts of meaning that that you know makes sense of the crappy world around them because they're happy and they're building something the jewish conspiracy theories I think are we're speculating here because we can't know of course but but if if the audience will indulge me in speculation and I'm not the first to say this of course but I think that they are to some extent a way of explaining the world right a way of being mystifying because you know human knowledge that even for great geniuses and we're ants compared to the great you and I look at everyone listening we're ants compared to the to the great geniuses who've made history work in a sense but you know almost everybody our knowledge level is pretty perfect right yes and and our knowledge of economic forces of social forces of what's going to happen every week and if you say it's a jew as well you've overcome an existential problem that human that is endemic to human beings right yes if you say it's the jewish wire pullers who've made a society who've reoriented society for example talk about sexual more is radically changed right it just rat homosexuality it's radical change in 30 years if you say that's the jews then it's hard to explain why that is because 30 years ago is that we're really that different how can something go from being universally viewed as reprehensible even you have like a third of americans want i think to criminalize homosexuality if you look at polls then maybe even more than that um but how do you go from that to 80 to most alabamas want gay marriage now right how does that happen alabamas for fucking christ's but um we don't really know right we can have theories we can even if you study this for a living you probably still have a ton of doubt and yet the anti-semitic explanation is comprehensive and internally as absurd as it is it is internally consistent some level you know yeah so it provides like a clean framework for understanding the world and why it is changed in ways that you don't care for you know so again i speculate but i speculate that the part of the attraction of this in addition do they get to larpas the people in the hugo last uniforms and also get to position themselves as the as the most edgy of edgy you know because they're nazis and it's an intoxicating power of the magic key so a lot of religions believe that you know the magic key is that jesus died for our sins other people believe the magic key is that jews are responsible for all evil in the world a lot of people believe in magic keys and there aren't any magic keys there are magic keys in very narrow circumstances so for a quarterback he may need to see where the safety is lined up and that's the magic key for where he's going to go with the ball but even there may break down sometimes right but you could you could there are magic keys in certain limited situations right if if i if i look at someone i can get a sense of what's going on with their physiology whether in an intense place whether in a happy place whether in a sad place whether in an angry place and i can get a magic key read on their physiology but uh it doesn't you know it doesn't tell me their bank account right right okay i'm gonna wrap it up there i gotta move on with my day well can i ask you a couple of questions for five minutes or any guy right no no i got i got a few minutes okay okay so i want to just ask about your father so your father was a was a prominent pastor in australia right yes yes so how did this i'm interested in two things so were you as someone who himself is is rather spoiled i must confess were you spoiled by virtue of his growing up by virtue of his financial presumably financial success and second of all how did his fame impact your psyche okay so my dad was was never rich so we're always kind of lower middle class okay because i assume pastors are rich because i'm american yeah some of the adventist pastors are not rich but i was spoiled in that my father had a lot of fans and and people who love my father were were good to me and kind to me and helped me uh they like they take me to a football game they take me out to eat they uh i mean some people who've loved my father have donated to my show and so i've been spoiled that way and also people who hated my father would frequently bend over backwards to be nice to me so i got a lot of a lot of spoiling from having a famous influential charismatic father and so out of that i tend to prefer the easy way out i tend to try to get by with the least effort possible i really like being spoiled uh and i if i can get away with cheating i've gotten away with cheating in the past so it probably did not help the development of my character yeah in terms of cheating i have to say i had no compunction about cheating i must say this brought vaguely when i was much younger when i started to develop a passion for for academic work that i that i belatedly view cheating as reprehensible but if i were to go talk to a teenager or a condemned treating it would be a high of hypocrisy um it went up so actually i and many of my friends still the state friends we broke in high school we broke into the school and stole all the exams for the upcoming uh semester i didn't feel a wealth of guilt but i mean i started like a weekly newsletter when i was 15 and i had no problem like soliciting my father's friends and he hated that he was ashamed and embarrassed by what i was doing he didn't like it at all but i was i was brazen enough to to do that you just use your contacts that you had yeah yeah and so yeah i was quite happy to leverage everything that came with being desmond ford's son nice you find that your your judaism has moderated your selfishness because um i i feel like i my selfishness has been moderated by a number of influences including my my current girlfriend who's a lovely human being but but do you feel um like your judaism no it has not at all there there's one thing and one thing only i think that moderates someone's selfishness is when they become happy if you're a happy person you naturally want to help other people and when you're an unhappy person all efforts to make yourself less selfish and not going to work happy people just naturally overflow with helping other people so because i become a very happy person the last few years then i naturally volunteer and actually help people out moderately so i volunteer about 10 to 15 hours a week and and that's natural and it's and it's very you know fits fits congruent with with my life but when i was an unhappy person like forcing myself to do volunteer things and to help people out was just pure agony yeah so this restates with me so much that i'll let you go because i think it's time for you to but um when i was uh so i have uh ocd obsessive compulsive disorder and i now know how to treat it so it used to be agonizing so imagine luke ever before it was treated so imagine that every second think of that unpleasant feeling where you're driving if you're driving if you're driving on the road and you want to switch lanes and you're not sure is there somebody in my blind side could i be hit it's an unpleasant feeling you switch lanes and presumably it's fine and you don't care like if you have severe ocd you have that shit all day it's like fucking fortress and you get it treated and there are brilliant treatments called exposure response therapy where basically you accept the fear right you come to accept engage with and accept the fear instead trying to argue with it which is the natural instinct is no this isn't actually a fear my house isn't going to burn down whatever um you know whatever the fear is but um but since i've dealt with it and now it's doesn't really affect me that much because the therapy is so effective i'm much less selfish i was just a selfish piece of shit that was just human excrement yeah when i when it wasn't fair when i was just suffering i was just completely selfish so yeah and when you cured that and and i if you're a happy person now then you naturally will spend some time helping other people that naturally flows from being happy you don't find happy you know nastily selfish people like every happy person you know is helping other people on a fairly regular basis and it's not because they're not happy because they're helping others they're helping others because that flows from happiness and so a big component of my worldview is that psychology best answers psychological questions biology best answers biological questions so someone's got ocd or narcissistic personality disorder as i have had then the the best answers for these sort of things are not religion or they're things that come from you know some sort of transformational inner transformational work psychological or 12 step or meditation or something like that what you have to but i may ask one question if you have to go no no i don't i i honestly don't care but i'm interested so do you think that there's a level of narcissism that is because the richard spencer for example how do we explain how somebody who is who does have in who nature hasn't doubted this man with intellectual gifts right he's red and he also has read books and he did this ridiculously stupid shit what we talked about like said ridiculous things and anti-social things do you think yeah someone narcissistic you think the cause of that is narcissism yeah or something like that i think part of it part of it is simply situational there's a problem with the e-personality that once you go online and do what we're doing right now people be inherently become more reckless so more self-involved they have a more grandiose sense of their own abilities they increase lose touch with reality and they will share dark things that they wouldn't normally share interpersonally one-to-one so these are the perils of the e-personality i've suffered from it and richard spencer suffered from it he was a bigger e-personality and so the price that he has to pay for being a big e-personality has been much larger than me so i think a lot of it a lot of what ruined richard spencer is situational that many people would be fascinating to interview him because he isn't the typical he he did the neo-nazi thing to be honest he did he zig-hiled he dog he talked about the triumph trump's victory is a triumph of the will come on right but he isn't stupid so at least i want to resolve the paradox right and maybe you could interview him look it'll be interesting yeah i've interviewed him i think he's being respectfully yeah i've interviewed him just not that's just like we made fun of him a bit but we also compliment him and no one wants to be mocked so it would be interesting to do a respectable interview with him i have interviewed him twice okay and carried on private conversations since he kind of collapsed though like because now the right wing hates him and basically he's universally labeled a neo-nazi he's incredibly resilient in that he's still putting his face out there i i know for me when i have setbacks it's very hard for me to come on and do a show when i'm struggling with some things or dealing with some things doing a show like this requires a certain brash confidence bordering on recklessness and so given the amount of things that he's he's gone through the past few years it's amazing that he's still doing shows but when we started our show today he was doing another live show at the same time so it's a triumph of the will luke it's a triumph of the will triumph of this villains yeah all right i should let you go okay