 So let's speed back ten years to the beginning, the end of 2009, the beginning of 2010, and in my mind a number of things jump out in terms of what I remember of what happened back then. 2009 and to some extent 2010 were really years of the Tea Party politically. They were the years that saw the rise of the Tea Party, the establishment of the Tea Party as a major what seemed like it was going to be a major force in American politics, a major force in American culture, the Tea Party was everywhere, everybody was talking about it, it was it was active, it was noisy, it was engaged, it articulated a position that could be called at least seemed at the time to be a position pro-limited government, a return to the founding principles of the United States, a kind of classical liberalism of limited government, less government involvement in the economy, reduction in government spending, a reduction in debt, no details, no overarching philosophy maybe, but suddenly a certain spirit of American individualism, you remember the big signs of don't tread on me, at the same time Atlas Shrug had seen in 2009 and continued into 10 and really through 2013 with the Tea Party, with the energy around this idea of limited government, around the idea at least in spirit of individualism and a return to a certain spirit of Americanism, you also saw a significant increase in the sales of Atlas Shrug. Atlas Shrug sold more books in those few years than in any other period in all of history since it was published, including the year it was published when it was a New York Times, number one New York Times best-selling book in 9, 10, 11, 12, 13 Atlas Shrug went through the roof in terms of sales and again it seemed to be having a real impact, the Tea Party seemed to be impacted by Atlas Shrug, there were lots of who is John Galt signs out there, you know I spoke at the big Tea Party rally in 2009 where there were several hundreds of thousands of people, I spoke in front of many, many, many Tea Party groups all over the country, mostly to very positive responses, it really seemed like there was a change, a shift in a positive direction to where the country was heading, to where the country was going, to the debate, the debate seemed to be a substantive debate, it seems to be a more philosophical debate about the nature of government where we're heading and there seemed to be interest in that debate. Now at the time it was clear that in spite of that the Tea Party was primarily unintellectual, non-intellectual, maybe even anti-intellectual and we talked a lot during that time about the fact that it was a question of who would capture, who would capture the Tea Party, who would engage with them and who would spark their interest and who would they ultimately listen to and the reason that I spent so much time during those years in the Tea Party, many people criticized that decision at the time and many people I think still criticized that decision, was that I hoped that we would have some positive impact on the direction that the Tea Party would take and that better ideas, the ideas of Iron Man, the ideas of individualism, of capitalism, of reason would impact them in spite of the low odds that that would happen, it was always a risk, it was always a low probability outcome, but I figured it was a once in a lifetime chance, there was actually a grassroots movement that seemed to want to talk about ideas at the foundation of a limited government and I believe that it was incumbent and those of us who represented Iron Man's ideas to be at the forefront of presenting those ideas to this grassroots movement, give them a shot at least, that I think that idea lasted at least through 2012, 2012 of course was the 2010 represented politically the Tea Party election where the Tea Party basically elected congressmen and senators and basically took the House and the Senate, found the Democrats and handed them to the Republicans and many of the congressmen and senators who elected that year were Tea Party representatives who supposedly were going to bring this view of limited government, of pro markets, of free markets, of trimming government to Congress, to the Senate and would change the direction of American politics. I think by 2012 with the reelection of Obama, much of that energy, much of that you know confidence that there would be a permanent real change in American politics dissipated and to some extent started to disappear and we'll talk in a minute about I think what replaced it but there was that point in time from 2010 to 2012, 2008, 2009, really 2012 where this seemed to be the possibility of real change, this seemed to be the possibility of a reason to be optimistic about the future, about a real shift potentially in Americans thinking about politics about the world and about the rule of government. Now unfortunately I was wrong or I don't know if I was wrong, I wouldn't even say I was wrong because I don't think I was. It turned out that what I believed was a low probability event indeed was a low probability event and the more likely probability that is that the Tea Party would be captured by other forces, that the Tea Party would listen to other people, that the Tea Party ultimately would not be interested in a secular philosophy of reason but maybe interested in other ideas turned out to be true that the low probability event that we would have a real impact was low probability and that's how it turned out so I don't regret anything we did with the Tea Party in those days. I think when you have opportunities like that you have to engage, you cannot stay on the sidelines and I've seen a lot of positive things come of that engagement including a lot of people who came to be supporters of our ideas because of our engagement at that point in time but the fact is that it was a low probability event and the high probabilities worked out, turned out to have more influence and the Tea Party was indeed captured if you will by the religious right, by the cynical right, by the skeptical right and by the you know moderate mixed economy insignificant right that had stood for nothing. That the Tea Party in the end other than electing a few people to Congress, people who mostly mostly ultimately turned their back on the original ideas of the Tea Party, the Tea Party ultimately dissipated and went into nothing or not really into nothing. What happens when an ideological or a group of people who advocate for an ideal that's incomplete, that's really floating, that's not real to them, that is not grounded solidly, what happens when they realize they have failed, what happens when they realize that they're not going to have the impact that they thought they're going to have, that their ideal maybe is either impossible to seek in their minds or just not possible given the nature of politics, they become cynical, they become angry, they become afraid, they become hateful and what the turn Tea Party morphed into post-2012 was a morphed into a movement of hate, a hate focused on one target primarily and that is the left, a hatred of Obamacare, a hatred of Obama, a hatred of anything smacking of the left. Since the positive values could not be realized and would not be realized, they turned to at least making sure that the values of those who they viewed as their enemy would not be realized. And a movement that was built on positive, on change, now reverted on a positive vision, a vision of the founders, a vision of the constitution, a vision that supposedly loved the constitution, a vision of limited government, a vision of shrinking the role of government, the movement shifted to a hatred of the left for being the left, for being antagonistic to all those ideals, which it really was. I mean, I'm not saying that the hatred of the left was unjustified, it was completely justified, but it was a hatred of the left with no content left behind, with no positive values to fight for anymore, a hatred of the left for good reason, because both culturally, politically, economically, morally, in every aspect, the left is personified by the left on campuses, by the university professors, by the attacks on free speech, by the attacks of America, by Obama's administration, which viewed America as as unexceptional, a second-rate, as a follower, not a leader, resentment for Obamacare, although I think at the end, most of the people who resent Obamacare actually support Obamacare today, but at the time, it seemed like this was a massive infringement on the American way of life, a massive infringement on the idea of limited government, again, inconsistently, completely. But they felt like the left was hijacking American culture, divorcing it from principles, from American principles, not really understanding or knowing what American principles were, this was very much a sense of life response, and a mixed sense of life at that, because, again, the positives that dissipated, the Tea Party was gone, the longing for limited government and the Constitution was gone, all that remained was the will and the wish to slam the left, and to hate Obama, and to hate everything he touched and everything the left touched, again, with lots of good reasons for that. So the Tea Party morphed into an anti-left entity, and more than just anti-left, anti-left, anti-immigration, a fear-filled movement, a movement that feared the fact that they were losing America to the left, that they feared that they were losing America to the so-called invaders who were coming across the border and replacing them, a fear that they were losing America to China, which was gaining an economic power, and everybody feared it, filled with fear, resentment, and anger, that's what happened to the Tea Party, the same people I knew, who in the Tea Party were optimistic, positive, excited, motivated around a vision for America, not an exactly right vision, but some kind of vision, had now turned into angry, malevolent haters, and that's what elected Donald Trump, it's what got Donald Trump elected, that fear, that anger, that frustration, that emptiness, that void, where there were no positive ideas, no positive ideas worth fighting for anymore, because they had failed, they had gone, they had given up on them, and they never really had them, is the point, they were always kind of slippery ideas, I remember those signs at the Tea Party that were being held, keep your hands off of my Medicare, we were unlimited government, but don't touch Medicare, don't touch the biggest social program, the biggest socialist program in the world, so it was always completely, unequivocally inconsistent, but it had that positive sense of life, and so many people rallied around that positive sense of life, so many people encouraged that positive sense of life, and I think a lot of objectivists, justifiably got involved because they thought this was a rebirth of the American sense of life, it turned out that it might have been, sadly, the last gasps, at least for a while, of the American sense of life, because that sense of life very quickly turned on itself, and turned itself into fear and hatred, fear and hatred, and the fact that they were intellectually conventional, uninteresting, unsophisticated, and Trump, I think, there's a consequence of all that. What we need today, what I call the new intellectual, would be any man or woman who is willing to think, meaning any man or woman who knows that man's life must be guided by reason, by the intellect, not by feelings, wishes, whims, or mystic revelations. Any man or woman who values his life and who does not want to give in to today's cult of despair, cynicism, and impotence, and does not intend to give up the world to the dark ages and to the role of the collectivist. Using the super chat, and I noticed yesterday when I appealed for support for the show, many of you stepped forward and actually supported the show for the first time, so I'll do it again. Maybe we'll get some more today. If you like what you're hearing, if you appreciate what I'm doing, then I appreciate your support. Those of you who don't yet support the show, please take this opportunity, go to youronbrookshow.com, slash support, or go to subscribestar.com, your onbrookshow, and make a kind of a monthly contribution to keep this going. I'm not sure when the next...