 Sunday nights are usually more casual, it misses you. They're usually more of an inspirational speech. We've got a fantastic speaker. I'm really thrilled that he agreed to join us. His name's Clifton Duncan. I've just met him in person today. I know I'm a little bit from online interactions in the past. He is a classically trained actor and singer. He's appeared off and on Broadway. He actually has a graduate degree from the Graduate School of Acting at NYU. We won't hold that against you tonight, Clifton, but it's a fact. Nonetheless, I first heard of him through our friend Tom Woods who had seen the British play, The Play That Goes Wrong, up on Broadway in New York City. And then, of course, this thing called COVID came along and basically wrecked an entire industry. So here to tell us his story and also to spend some time with us is Clifton Duncan. Please welcome him. Jeff with the stand-up routine. How about that inflation? You know, opinions are divided on this. Can everyone hear me OK? Oh, great. It costs a lot of money. That's why I got that degree to speak like this. But opinions are divided on this kind of a thing. But some think that it's a good idea when you're beginning public remarks to start off with a joke, to kind of break the ice and ingratiate yourselves to your audience. Now, I don't know how I feel about that. But what I will say is that Joe Biden is the greatest president that we've ever seen. Be serious, guys. His strong leadership combined with the razor-sharp mental acuity is truly inspirational. Anyway, it's truly an honor and a privilege to be speaking with you all today. But I have to say, I have to be honest with you, my first reaction when I was invited was, wait a minute. But I'm an actor. You know, what on earth could I possibly say to these brilliant young people that would have any sort of value or meaning to them or even sound reasonably intelligent? Fortunately, I was able to reassure myself with another thought, which was, wait a minute. I'm an actor. Nobody expects me to say anything reasonably intelligent at all. So now, with your expectations comfortably low, I have a little story to tell. So my name is Clifton Duncan. Hopefully you remember that from just minutes ago. My life makes no sense. I'm an army brat, the son of a single mother. I never knew my father. I grew up in Germany, Virginia, Belgium, and Virginia in that order. Now, it's actually a very shy and introverted child, if you can believe it. Someone of a loner who took a keen interest in solitary activities like drawing and illustration, but who also dabbled in music, poetry, and fiction writing. My senior year of high school, I dropped out of my French class, much of the chagrin of my teacher, to chase a girl into drama class. Pretty much the reason most straight guys end up doing theater anyway. It's true. There, I discovered an aptitude for performing, and I soon wound up playing a pivotal but supporting role in our school's production of the musical Bye Bye Birdie. Should have been the lead, whatever, it's fine. I'm not bitter at all. Anyway, friends and family alike were astounded that this seemingly shy kid seemingly had no fear of appearing in front of an audience and subsequently stealing the tragically few scenes that he was in. Now, later on, this shy, directionless young man would go on to earn an MFA from New York University's prestigious graduate acting program. It's also very expensive. It's a subsidiary of the Tisch School of the Arts, one of the world's most elite conservatory programs for young actors. It's considered on par with or often superior to America's other elite institutions, those being the Juilliard and the Yale School of Drama. Yale's OK. Just to give you an idea of how competitive this institution is, at that time they would audition a thousand young hopefuls from around the country, sometimes around the world. And out of that thousand, they would call back 50. Out of that 50, they ultimately offered spots to 18. Now, many of my classmates had to audition multiple times to get into the program. I got in on my very first try. I graduated in 2009, right in the midst of what was then called the Great Recession. I thought it was kind of mediocre. I didn't enjoy it that much. Over the next decade, I essentially lived out of a suitcase and some boxes, subletting tiny rooms and shoebox apartments all over the wonderfully pristine city of Manhattan, well, island of Manhattan. And I graduated from supporting to lead roles at many of America's top theaters. And eventually, after a bunch of near misses, I finally landed on Broadway in the hit comedy, The Play That Goes Wrong, which Tom Woods is very, very, very obsessed with and probably knows far more about the show than I do. And I was in it. So soon thereafter, I found myself working with renowned directors and starring opposite Tony-winning actors and actresses and doing television with guys like Jimmy Smiths and personal favorite of mine, Scott Bakula, who was awesome in Quantum Leap. And I was earning praise and effusion from legends, such as Joel Gray and the late Stephen Sondheim and even garnering award recognition for my work. After hearing me sing, there was one actress who quipped to me, incredulous. She goes, why on earth are you not famous? Are you an asshole or something? Maybe, Nancy. Maybe. Now, I don't say all of that to brag. I really don't. It may come as a surprise to many of you, but in many ways, I am still that shy boy that I referenced earlier, who, though comfortable in the spotlight, I don't like to draw too much attention to myself oddly enough. I don't actually talk that much about my acting career. I never did. And it's hard to do so without feeling like I'm bragging and I find bragging highly distasteful. I want you to teach or tell me I could use some more arrogance as a matter of fact. But the thing is, on a deeper level, I am bringing up these achievements. To do so is actually a source of great pain and resentment for me right now. Because it reminds me of a life that I've spent the past two years trying desperately to forget. I've been trying to forget it because the contrast between what my life was and what it is now to be completely candid often drives me to despair. So now I'm staring down the barrel of 40 years of age. I no longer reside in the city formerly known as New York, a place I called home for a decade and a half. I wait tables for a living, something I hadn't had to do since I was 22 years old. I no longer have a powerful manager sending me auditions for lucrative high-profile life-changing projects and I no longer have the prospect of earning a five-figure weekly salary, working in TV or on Broadway. And so now the prospect of paying off all those NYU loans, maybe even starting a family, have become even more distant dreams. I'm now shut out of the entertainment industry. I have few marketable skills because I never needed them. The few skills I did work on centered around acting and singing skills which are highly valued in New York and Los Angeles, I imagine have very little value outside of the arts and entertainment sector. I feel as though I'm starting over from scratch and must learn things that most adults my age, many of whom have families and other weighty responsibilities, have mastered. And so you may be asking yourself, well, what the hell happened? Why have I gone from having a billboard with my likeness on it in the middle of Times Square when I stand out notices in the New York Times and guest-starring on network television to where I am now? Well, it's quite simple. I refuse to allow any employer or by extension the government to act as my healthcare provider and to dictate what I inject into my body. I refuse to be bullied or coerced or shamed into taking a medical product that I neither want nor need. I've been extraordinarily vocal in my opposition to what I view as grotesque and egregious state overreach into private affairs and personal freedoms. Indeed, even if things were to magically return to normal tomorrow, I'm greatly disturbed by the precedent which has been set wherein government officials and bureaucrats can take it upon themselves to determine who is essential and who is not. To decide who gets to operate their business and who does not. And in some cases decide who's allowed to travel and who is not. I mean, we're still winning tennis tournaments so, you know, what are you going to do about that? Now, part of the mission of the Mises Institute is to promote individual freedom. As an actor, I was trained to be a conduit and a vessel for both the splendor and the tragedy of the human condition. And as such, I'm also a staunch advocate for the freedom of expression and a firm believer in and champion of the irrepressible fire and vitality of the human spirit. As an artist, well, I can appreciate form and structure. I also value non-conformity, especially when it challenges an increasingly square and constrictive status quo. And so, although I've paid a price, I'll never regret standing up and forcefully saying no to a repressive, nonsensical, unethical, and ultimately unnecessary encroachment on our freedoms. I'll always enjoy denouncing short-sighted, inept, or corrupt elites. I don't really call them elites, but for the sake of simplicity, I'll refrain from calling them what I normally do, which is garbage people. Their arrogance has diluted them into thinking their credentials or their position qualify them to dictate to me what is for my own good, as if they know and care for me better than I could know and care for myself. I mean, honestly, I don't want to throw any stones, but does anyone in here look at, I don't know, I like Michelle Walensky and it's just like, now that lady knows what she's talking about. I don't. You know, I'm not going to lecture you on the importance of things like telling the truth and standing for your principle. Sorry, Jeff, that was sort of the agreement. But the fact that all of you are here right now signals to me that you also share those values. I mean, it's not like I have any great insight into economic or social theory. I'm at the beginning of my intellectual journey in that regard, but what I can offer you is a little encouragement and some optimism. Now, it's no great secret that things in the world don't seem to be going so great right now with forecasts of difficult, all-steered times ahead or even worse. Such predictions are rampant. The past two years have demonstrated that with the frightening ease with which masses of people can be manipulated, either driven to destructive protests or terrified into compliance with nonsensical and deleterious rules and policies. They've also shown us the dangers in giving a small pseudo-clergy, both elected and unelected, the ability to exercise influence and control over our lives and our livelihoods. Supply chain disruptions, warnings of bad harvests and food shortages and mass starvation, concerns about conflict overseas, worries about what seems to be an ever-deteriorating social and political fabric here in the United States. But I do have some good news. I'm a pot-smoking pro-choice atheist. That's not the good news. I promise. Don't do drugs. Don't do drugs, guys. Just don't do it. I like battle-wrap, Broadway, Shakespeare and Judy Garland. The point is there's really no reason I feel like I should be here right now. And yet, here I am. Given my background, there is very little reason why someone like myself should ever come into contact with Mr. Jeff Deist, and yet I have. In fact, over the past two years I've developed relationships with all kinds of fascinating people from across the sociopolitical spectrum, across various professions and across the world. And while I mourn the loss of many friends and former colleagues and grieve, but at least for now appears to be the end of an exciting and cherished career, I've now found a new venture as I explore this whole content creator and influencer thing. Once I, in Germany, a university teacher who wrote to me and he told me that he uses my podcast as a part of his syllabi, I think that's the word, and that his students actually ask him if they've seen the latest episodes, which is pretty awesome. I mean, I was born in Germany so it's pretty cool that somebody out there is showing some love and sharing my stuff with others. And simply put, once I began saying what I really think, my reach quickly exploded far beyond what I'd achieved chasing a career as an actor. And I found new relationship with some truly incredible and interesting people and so here's the good news. The good news is that we are all seeing and discussing the same problems and issues. Scientists, economists, scholars, writers, journalists, gamers, comic book enthusiasts, truckers, farmers around the world, people from all walks of life are seeing the same things and rebelling against the same things. And now, while you are just entering the prime of your lives, you're living through a major paradigm shift in which humanity across the globe has awakened to the importance of preserving independence to the importance of standing up to would-be despotism, the need for robust and lively debate and wide-ranging discussion, I believe that that awareness and that desire is growing. Additionally, selfishly speaking, what I've discovered is that there is a massive appetite for beauty and for meaning and transcendence, a thirst for the awe and the wonder that great works of art can generate. And I've discovered that, believe it or not, the people of New York and Los Angeles in fact do not have a monopoly on sophistication and culture. More people than ever now have access to and can stake their claim in the vaunted marketplace of ideas that we hear so much about. More people than ever are discovering with the help of technology the works of great thinkers like Hayek and Mises as I have done. More people than ever can and are speaking up against corruption and shining a light on areas that those in power would rather conceal. And we're living at a time where it appears that people are discovering folly and overly centralized power and that perhaps those who have anointed themselves as our betters, the garbage people, excuse me, the experts, let's say, are far from infallible to be diplomatic about it. Despite what the so-called artists and hip, urban, exorbitantly expensive metros might believe, it's people like us who are pushing back against and forging a new status quo. It's people like you who are challenging the regime and helping to keep the rest of us honest. And I believe it will be people like you with your intuition and your innovation who will ultimately win out over the Covidians and the critical theorists and the climate catastrophists. It's you who choosing to color outside of the ideological lines prescribed to you who are the future. So I suppose in short that I wish to impress upon you that the idea that all is not doom and gloom. And I encourage you to push back against the cynicism and nihilism of the age. You may suffer consequences in the short term, but I'm an example that over time things kind of tend to work themselves out and you never know what kind of company you'll be keeping. And I must say that as someone who was an actor for over 20 years I've never been more appreciative and admiring of my audience. So thanks for listening to me run my mouth end of speech turn page. Clifton agreed to take some questions from the audience. So I know we have a mic we have just the one mic. So let me ask an opening question. Can you just tell us what's the current state of Broadway both for the actors themselves and for audiences attending. I don't know what the covid status is of Broadway. Well it's funny I actually not to do a shameless self-plug but my latest podcast right now is about it's the thumbnail says how Covidians are killing Broadway. So it's not just that you have to have gotten the vaccine and boost it in some instances in order to work as an actor. There's also a cultural kind of ship that's happened. I think people really understand that the shots are not the sort of silver bullet that they were made out to be. You still have shows closing either earlier going on hiatus on Broadway off Broadway is really really struggling right now. There are some institutions like the Lincoln Center for instance that are requiring audiences to be boosted still. Meanwhile in Atlanta Georgia I mean you know you can go get a lap dance in Magic City and you've been able to do so for like a year while you can't but you can't go to see a Broadway play. So it's my big problem is that nobody really says anything. You know like people can see what's going on and what's even more egregious about it is that as actors unless you're super super famous you really have no leverage for somebody there to take your place. For every person there's like a hundred people behind them that are you know and it's even practical things like not just wanting money but you know you need insurance weeks like many other professions your how many weeks you work as an actor and determines how much insurance you get. So there's all kinds of practical factors that go into why people are deciding to either lie or go ahead and get the shots. So there's economic turmoil they're trying to convince themselves that things are going well but it's not I think something is broken I think people realize but people are afraid to say it and I have a friend who I'm kind of on the outs with because you know she's still kind of in the machine and you know she got the Johnson and Johnson I think but she said well I don't want to I didn't want to commit career suicide. I'm like well that's the problem. I don't know who are just who are allowing this regime to continue even though everyone knows or has some inkling that it's just it's wrong and it's not working so that's the long-winded way of saying that it's effed up I don't know if it's going to be repaired anytime soon but that's the state state of things as I as I see it all right well thank you for your great speech and my question is fairly simple to be honest in Hollywood and in Broadway I are promoted in that kind of culture of obedience to the government and to big corporations I've been trying excuse me so the question was was it why are woke why is the industry in Broadway specifically as bad as it is in Hollywood it's like 10 times more concentrated in the theater why they're sort of supporting these big corporations now in terms like pharmaceutical industries well my guest tonight is this dancer named Pamela Goodman who said something that really shocked me she said well you think about commercials right you get the initial payment for shooting the commercial your agents get a commission off of when you work and so if you turn on TV what do you see all the time as pharmaceutical ads so you have these agents these actors and agents who are making all of this money off of these pharmaceutical ads and pushing these shots and the agents are getting commissions on it as well so if we talk about incentives incentives and how people respond to them well you're incentivizing this sort of behavior so you don't have these representatives who are going to go out of the way to say well my client needs an exemption another thing is that the industry tends to really attract people who are strictly this may be a shocker to you but they're anti-capitalist yet at the same time they they're deeply deeply feeling people right there's a reason they call them bleeding heart liberals and they have this idea of themselves as citizens of the world as very open very compassionate so when they've been convinced over the last couple of years because you know they get their news from Jimmy Kimmel and Stephen Colbert that they are you know on the side of good no matter what the cause is it can be a cause completely diametrically opposed to what it was a week before but they'll go along with it a partly because it makes themselves feel better they get social points for them from their friends but also it's a very reputational industry that's built on relationships and nobody wants to say the wrong thing nobody wants to rock the boat I mean I've had phone calls from directors saying you know I want to work with this actor but how is it like that people talk and it's about who you know just as much as it is about your talent so there's a lot of factors that go into why people are kind of pushing this thing now even though from the outside we can see that it's completely nonsensical and ridiculous thanks for the talk so my question is I wonder if you had the same passion that you have now towards liberty if you were liberty oriented pre-covid and if you had the similar outlook on life and if not then what was the catalyst what was the moment that made you become aware of how crucial this is that's a good question I think that you know I was always kind of easygoing you know I never really thought that much about things but I will say I've been thinking about this back in so in August of 2009 while Barack Obama was publicly stumping for whatever single pair whatever it was like you know government healthcare there was an article buried deep in the New York Times in their A-section about how he was meeting secretly behind closed doors of these pharmaceutical or maybe insurance companies I forgot it was such a long time ago insurance companies like he knows and so I'm like well they're sort of helping craft this bill you know but the term government mandate immediately I said I don't want it and so I wonder if constitutionally that's just sort of how I'm built I'm hard headed always kind of a loner in many ways and I've always had this streak of like don't tell me what to do and even in my skepticism of say government was created by ironically listening to like left-wing journalists like Glenn Greenwald who was consistent in his criticisms of the Bush administration and the Obama administration in terms of how they reacted to the war on terror or 9-11 I should say so this idea of a creeping state and of government overreach they've always kind of been in the back of my mind as things to look out for but I would say that during Covid what really really disturbed me in my capacity as you know one of these sensitive feeling artists was that everything that we're asking people to do to save lives seems to fly right in the face of anything that resembles being remotely human and I said this is not right I didn't believe on top of that that you had all these people in one of the cultural arts centers of the universe allowing themselves to be rendered as less essential than like liquor store operators it was very strange to me so but again you know people just they don't want to say anything they don't want to speak out and I just said I'm tired of doing like someone has to say something and no one's doing it and you know I don't know I just maybe have to sort of build like that people are built different as they say hope that answers your question I'm sorry I kind of ranted there for a little bit hello there so when word went out that you weren't taking the vaccine like socially what were the effects like were you brought in to do like struggle sessions or things like this or asked to explain yourself or was it more that people just simply stopped talking to you were you interrogated on your other views or like were you known as being as you say like a pro-choice atheist or and people did people take that as given or did this like you must have been a reactionary the whole time how did that go well my manager sent me I don't have any hard feelings against her but she sent me this email which is basically like I can't submit you for anything and so then like I said if you're not working they're not getting paid and so eventually I was just a very little use to her I got into it with some people you know on Twitter which is always a great place for a nuanced discussion and debate like there was an actor named Steven Pascual it's very successful in the New York sector sphere and you know he made this tweet about how people who are unvaccinated should their lives should be made hard and all these kinds of things and I just said you know I worked with this I defended him you know on several occasions you know he's not the easiest person to get along with or to work with but I never had any problems with him and I was just like well you know Steven you're talking about now mind you this is an industry now which has gone full on anti-racist right and I'm sure people in here are appraised of the statistics about the you know vaccine uptake disparities in various communities and demographics right so I was like okay well you're you're advocating for a majority of people who look like myself at a time in the industry where we're trying where we're diversity hiring like mad and you're making life disproportionately difficult for these groups of people is this what you want? Is this the kind of society or industry that you want and you just shot back with this stupid you know if you're looking at the data people who want to end the pandemic I'm like if you're looking at the data you would understand you know age stratification you would understand who's most at risk you would understand comorbidities you would understand all these things that you clearly don't know anything about but you're speaking about with such confidence and so I would see all these people that I used to work with this Broadway show closed early oh if only more people have worn masks oh it wasn't the third shot they should have got seven you know there's this complete monoculture in groupthink that's almost impenetrable and if you say something about it then you either get clapped back on social media which is the worst thing in the world people treat it as if it's the worst thing in the world that people say mean things about you on twitter I mean why people are getting shot in the subway in New York you know what I mean but that's what it is so it's it's this weird culture of conformity and people will just it doesn't matter what you ever did you know before that they'll question you and thankfully I have some cool people who are like alright I understand it but you know the industry needs you man you know you need to be able to share your gifts I'm like okay that's cool but I'm not going to be coerced into taking something I don't need and that I don't trust and that I mean I already got the disease you know and if I were to book a movie where they were like hey you gotta go travel over here and get the yellow fever vaccine but I already had COVID but no one seems to really care about any of that so I don't know my shot in Florida is sort of high right now I'm like you know I hope not anything bad happens but at some point something the dam has to break they have to see something that something is wrong but again long-winded but I hope that answers sort of your question in a way one of the things we talked about is kind of need to build new institutions to give you know to kind of break away from a lot of the tyranny of the past do you see any opportunities where it's the future of Broadway or Orlando right is there the opportunity for development within the arts in a way that we've seen in some other industries breaking away and perhaps trying to cultivate talent in culture and for your states yeah it's a very exciting time right now I'm slowly collecting people who are in the industry I was just telling some new friends of mine that you know there are people that I went to conservatory with who have the same sort of aesthetic and standard and training that I do and we're all seeing the same things and saying this is not right so you have people for instance who are in the comic book industry right now who are really doing their own launching their own lines which is really amazing to see musicians have been doing this for a long time so now the difficult part is to get more artists and filmmakers and playwrights and actors and directors and so forth to come together and I mean my dream is to try to broadcast great work to people across the nation so that theater can become more of a cultural a popular cultural American institution like it was like back in the 50s and I think with the technology that we have we can do that today and also there's people around the world now there's these systems in place where people can say you know well I'm on social security but I like what you do so I'll give you this two bucks and I'll contribute to what you do or you know I'm a truck driver I don't have that much money or I'm a broke high school kid or something like five bucks to you know for your to help put on your concert and pay your musicians and stuff like that so it takes a lot of organization which a lot of artists just don't have unfortunately but slowly we're coming together and figuring it out and I think we talk a lot about decentralization and parallel societies and I think you know people are reacting really positively so again more good news more good news for all of you Firstly I admire the honesty and radical transparency in your speech I listened to one of your recent podcasts in which you were discussing contemporary stereotypes about libertarians in your opinion what is the most annoying contemporary stereotype about libertarians It's hard for me to answer that question because I feel bad because like when I had Jeff on the show I was just like so sometimes you do these talk batches actors where people ask stuff like those lines and you're just like okay it's like the most basic you know shit ever but um sorry for my language but so I had to ask Jeff like what you know can you explain sort of the libertarian ethos so it's tough for me to answer that question to be honest because I don't know enough about libertarians libertarianism to have formulated a stereotype in my mind I will say that I mean you know there's guys like Tom Woods you know I've never seen you and I saw that I saw you on that show I saw it a million times and I think it was just you know it's this and that and that and so there's no kind of there's no stereo I've never done that before by the way this is the first time so there's no it doesn't really there's no stereotype for me and I keep meeting people who break whatever stereotype there might be you know I mean I'm looking around this room at you people right now there's no sort of conformity they're all kind of dorks you know but but there's no sort of I don't see any sort of singular trait about any of you which is a great thing to see it's almost like real diversity who knows I mean within this sphere but you know what I mean so sorry I can't answer your question so first of all your Tom Woods impression was spot on and you should totally play him in a movie or something so how important is it for actors and celebrities to come out for the cause of liberty as opposed to just like nerdy academics like us um I don't know if it's that important because we're not the smartest people to be honest with you what I what I want is a world where an actor can come out you know and and say an actor can say like I spoke at the Mises Institute and I did a podcast with Douglas Murray and Jeff Deist and not have people say that I'm some kind of Nazi um and I do think it is so there's actually a group I'm not going to name who they are but it's like it's a more conservative leading actors group it was started by Gary Sinise and um it's kind of like Fight Club you can't talk about it it's like invite only and they take their secrecy and anonymity very very seriously and you're not supposed to like talk about it at all and because nobody wants to lose work and again it annoys me because I'm like guys this is part of the problem where you have these actors and I could name people that it's obvious that you're not on this this whole like woke train but they don't they kind of stay out of it and I know they're staying out of it for self-preservation and um so I mean it is important just in terms of breaking you know sort of jamming the culture and breaking it up and saying you know look there's there's more of us here and I think what it also does what it would also do so yeah I guess it is important because then you have more and more people who will be drawn to what it is and what we do and you know we're not just sort of these these freaky show ponies with these ridiculous opinions um who are just saying things that we you know I mean I love Mark Ruffalo but if you tweet all this crap about capitalism I'm like we don't know we wouldn't know who you are if it weren't for capitalism you know what I mean and um so my hope is that more people would speak up just to say like look we're we're more like you because our job ultimately is to serve you you know your audience you are our ticket buyers our customers and it's my job to deliver um like indelible just compelling experiences that you won't forget that's the whole point of what we do you know that's that's that's the service that we provide to you and when you have people who continually say like you know more than half the country is a bunch of again racist Nazis um that really doesn't ingratiate people you know I see people all the time we're checking out they're saying you know I don't go to movies anymore I don't you know play I don't read comics anymore I don't do this I don't do that and I said no that's not we're we're moving people further and further away from each other and really one of the magic things about what we do is a bunch of people can come in the dark room who don't know each other and have this communal experience together and then maybe after where they talk about it you know and that's that's what I would like um I would hope that more people speak up and say like you know there's a there's a broad diversity of thought and range of opinion and it reflect and it's more reflective of the audience that we're serving as opposed to this tiny clustered minority of just um crazy stupid Marxist radicals so that's my answer so everybody please a big round of applause for Dr. Dixon thank you guys