June 2, 2024 • 34 mins
Barkley and the big girls. The end of the alphabet and happiness.
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Bold, reverence, and occasionally random. The Sunday Hang with Playing
Buck podcast starts now. Charles Barkley is I think one
of the funniest people on television and he's gotten criticism
over the years because he just says exactly what he
thinks and whatever the reaction is, he handles it. And
(00:24):
Rush talked about this before. I think it's one of
the funniest feuds out there. A while back, Charles Barkley
said that San Antonio had a lot of big women
and there was a demand that he apologized because I
think he said fat women, and there were people out
there who said, this is totally unacceptable. And Rush actually
(00:45):
weighed in on this when the controversy began and the
crew went back and grabbed Rush talking about this. Here
was and then we've got an update on this that
I think you guys are going to get a good
laugh from. But here was Rush. This was a while
I think twenty fourteen, when there was a demand that
Charles Barkley apologized to the fat women of San Antonio
(01:07):
who were evidently outraged. Listen.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
The National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance wants Chuck to
apologize for his comments, which included saying there are some
quote big old women in San Antonio and that it's
a quote gold mine for weight watchers unquote. For whom
Chuck is a spokesperson, making slurs about body size is
(01:32):
just as offensive as making comments about body color. Since
spokesperson Peggy Howell to tm Z Sports, one would think
being a black man, he'd be more sensitive to having
his physical body criticized. Totally, totally on the line, Chuck
should absolutely apologize. Well, I just don't know that Chuck
(01:53):
is gonna have apologize that. People like Chuck don't have
to apologize. People like Chuck are celebrated when they do
stuff like this, courageous.
Speaker 3 (02:00):
Bone you tell him, Junck, Oh, he was just making
it joke. Come on, folks. Everybody knows Chuck.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
He didn't really mean anything.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
Okay, so he is not apologized. And I believe this
was last night. It might have been two nights ago. Chuck,
he made a joke. Buck, Your knicks, by the way,
are finally winning some basketball games like the nineteen nineties
all over again. They took over Philadelphia. I actually watched
the end of that game. There were so many Knicks
fans there. But he said that one of the teams
(02:32):
was playing so poorly they didn't even deserve to take
their postseason trip to can Kun. They should have to
go to Galveston instead. And we may have a lot
of listeners in Galveston, but it's not as nice as
can Kun. And so Beyonce's mom, who was from Galveston,
was upset and wanted Charles to apologize about that. He
(02:52):
took it to the next level. This is what he
said last night.
Speaker 3 (02:55):
So how do you like Galveston?
Speaker 2 (02:56):
Now?
Speaker 3 (02:57):
It's beautiful? We're not going there. Would you go on
to vacation you got to shale?
Speaker 1 (03:02):
No, I ain't going on Victor. You've got a chance
to wipe the slate clean.
Speaker 3 (03:06):
You got I wouldn't go to that. Want to do
that to san Antonio.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
I'm really going to san Antonio to.
Speaker 3 (03:13):
Big old women.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
No, No, I'm not going to gas And I mean
I want to go to the beach down and the
river walk and watch him walk.
Speaker 3 (03:23):
Chuck san Antonio.
Speaker 4 (03:25):
That's what they have been a Victoria's secret. Jack.
Speaker 3 (03:27):
Why is it seem because the dem women down and
they can't get in them cutela underwear, they wear bloomers
down in Santa Oh my god, somehow Victoria is.
Speaker 1 (03:36):
Secret down man. So he's now a decade later, continued
the feud. To me, this is one of the great
feuds out there in sports right now, Buck Charles Barkley
versus the fat women of San Antonio. Charles Barkley, of course,
not Trim himself. He's had his own battle of the
bulge over the years. But it's funny to me that
Rush pointed out rightly that he's not going to apologize,
(03:57):
and he I do respect as someone who regularly steers
into controversy that rather than apologize, he doubled and tripled
down on the controversy there, which I think most people
actually appreciate.
Speaker 5 (04:08):
They're they're very funny on that that panel. And I
don't watch a lot of sports, but I do see
a fair amount of their eclipse in commentary and USAT.
You know, when you see when you've got good TV commentary,
you know it right away. And there's a reason why
those guys are as popular as they are, you know,
Shaq Barkley, Kenny.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
Kenny Smith and uh and uh and Ernie Ernie.
Speaker 3 (04:32):
Yeah, yeah, they do. They do a very good job.
Speaker 5 (04:34):
I've actually never been to San Antonio, which this is,
which is I got to get there. I got a
bunch of reasons I gotta get down there. I've I've
honestly heard it's a great city. I know we have
a lot of listeners in San Antonio. I've heard that
when you add in quality of life and uh, you know,
safety and everything else, it's a it's a really great city.
I know people say it's their favorite city in Texas,
not Houston or Dallas.
Speaker 3 (04:56):
I'm just saying. I know people have said.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
That I went because I didn't realize this until I
had my own kids, how wacky this was. But when
I was a kid, I got obsessed with the Alamo.
And it's probably not a coincidence that we have Crockett
Coffee now Fruck, which is fantastic connected to the Alamo.
I knew everything there was to know about the Alamo.
(05:18):
I read every book. I knew every detail. I still
recall a lot of them. But for my sixth birthday
it was a big deal. At the time, I didn't travel,
you know, on airplanes very often. My dad took me
to the Alamo, and so we went to go tour
the Alamo, and I could answer every one of the
tour guide's questions and they were pretty detailed, and he
(05:40):
started peppering me with more and more questions. When you're
five or six and you're like that, it just seems
totally normal. Now that I've had my own kids, I
understand why all the adults that were on the tour
are like, who is this six year old who knows everything?
Lots of little kids will have something that they get
fascinated by, with me dinosaurs where they know way more
(06:01):
than anybody else would. And I bet some of your
kids are grandkids, you've experienced this where they just become
really kind of an expert in something.
Speaker 5 (06:09):
View knows more about. Like I think I'm pretty good.
I read Jurassic Park before it was a movie, and
I thought dinosaurs are interesting when I was a kid.
But he knows dinosaurs and can point them out. I've
never even heard of them before, so he's really into dinosaurs.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
It is amazing sometimes the level of knowledge when a
kid really finds something that he's obsessed with. It's also
super cool to see them get obsessed with learning in
that way. But that was my thing. San Antonio. I
remember at six, we need to We're on in San Antonio.
I think we've been number one in the marketplace. We
should make a trip down. Now that we got Crockett coffee,
we should deliver coffee for free to that entire Almo.
(06:45):
Let them hopefully make some money off of it, because
I'm sure that they could always use more money. And
I mean, I would love to toar the Alamo again.
I remember it's right in town, and it kind of
feels you feel like it shouldn't be like right in
the center of town. Remember that from being a kid,
because you feel, just based on the movies and everything else,
like it should be out with surrounded. But I always been.
Speaker 3 (07:05):
Told it's a little bit like the shootout at the
Ok Corral.
Speaker 5 (07:08):
If you go to where that where you go, if
you go to where that happened, you're shocked by how
small it is and how close quarters. But anybody who
knows anything about gunfighting, and especially with handguns, it's it's
close up.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
You've got to be pretty close.
Speaker 5 (07:22):
The stuff you see in these old Western movies where
guys are pulling a quick draw from what looks to
be like fifty yards away and hitting a guy square
in the chest. No, that's very, very hard and would
be very, very rare.
Speaker 1 (07:38):
Yeah, I think it's super h I want to go,
but that would be a one of those history lessons.
There's some places that I haven't been yet. I'd like
to go back as an adult and see what it's
actually like. Sunday Hang with Clay and Bucks.
Speaker 5 (07:54):
Isabelle Brown joins us now. She's a gen Z streamer
and author of the book The End of the Alphabet,
How gen Z Can Save America, comes out today.
Speaker 6 (08:03):
Isabelle, welcome, Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 5 (08:06):
Can you do you want to react just to what's
going on in general with the border in Texas before
we dive into gen Z in the book and we
had this breaking news. It just for a lot of
people seems like, shouldn't states be able to help with
the enforcement of federal immigration law? State law enforcement helps
federal law enforcement on a whole range of issues.
Speaker 4 (08:23):
Ah. Yes, but you're thinking logically, which sadly is not
a virtue of our current White House or most people
sitting in Congress.
Speaker 6 (08:30):
But look, this is a huge win.
Speaker 4 (08:31):
I think there's been a lot said generationally about this issue,
particularly with the death of Lake and Riley a few
days ago, that of course, our president messed up during
the State of the Union address and has since apologized
to her murderer, but not acknowledged the death of her
to her family, which is tragic, but I hope it
continues to spur the conversation for more wins like this
in Texas and the rest of the states bordering the South.
Speaker 1 (08:52):
All right, all Isabel, I have seen sorry Bucka. Also,
we've seen your stuff on Instagram. It does really, really well.
Your book is about how gen Z can save America.
A couple of questions here, tied together. How old are
gen Z people now? I think I've got two gen
Z members that I am in the process of raising
(09:13):
right now, so you obviously are are imagine the older
edge of gen Z? And how does gen Z save America? Why?
Speaker 6 (09:21):
Way to kick this off?
Speaker 4 (09:23):
Generally speaking, the consensus is that gen Z starts in
about nineteen ninety seven, the year that I was born,
and goes all the way down to Americans born in
twenty twelve. So when we're talking about gen Z, we're
looking at a huge group of seventy million Americans, from
pre teens to teenagers to college students and now those
of us in our mid twenties starting to really navigate
the perils of adulthood. Sadly, I've been really frustrated as
(09:47):
a token voice for our generation in politics and the media,
hearing so many people older than myself chastise gen Z
as this dreaded group, the boogeyman maybe who's destroying America
before our eyes, when in reality that's just not what's happening.
I often hear that gen Z is this overwhelmingly lazy, entitled, leftist,
(10:07):
scream at the sky socialist generation. But really, there are
several national polls and surveys proving that Gen Z is
the most conservative generation on an issue by issue basis
since World War Two. And that's exactly been my experience.
But I see it anecdotally with friends, my siblings, and
the community at large as well.
Speaker 5 (10:25):
But don't like twenty percent of Gen Z identify as
LBGTQ LBGTQIA plus and the number of trends within that
Isn't that like an order of magnitude higher than it
had ever been before? Or am I misreading that data?
Speaker 6 (10:43):
No, you're absolutely correct.
Speaker 4 (10:45):
There was even a crazier study that dropped a few
days ago saying thirty percent of Gen z women are
self identifying as LGBTQ plus. So I've been asked this often,
with the premise of my book being wait, aren't you
guys really secretly conservative? These numbers are inten intentionally skewed
to artificially inflate and manufacture outrage over how much grab
(11:05):
the pride community has with our generation.
Speaker 6 (11:08):
When you think.
Speaker 4 (11:08):
About that little plus sign at the end of LGBTQ, LMNOP,
and every other alphabet known to man, that is really
what we need to focus on here when we see
these twenty thirty percent figures included in that plus sign,
or identities like demisexual. I don't know if you've ever
heard of that clay And book, but to be demisexual
means to self identify as someone who's sexually attracted to
(11:30):
some people, but not all people, but especially people that
you have a romantic connection with, so literally every human
being in the history of the world. I think this
is a really intentional push to try to make it
seem like the Left is winning with our generation, and
there is certainly a cultural contagion happening, mostly with young women,
(11:50):
about this idea of changing your gender the exact same
way that eating disorders and suicide clusters were happening in
high schools in the nineteen nineties and early two thousands.
But I think it really is just that it's a trend.
It's a fat it's a contagion, and we're starting to
grow up and realize that the hollow emptiness the left
has to offer it to us on a silver platter
really isn't the type of America we're proud to call home.
Speaker 1 (12:13):
All right, I got a couple of things here. One,
I think the data reflects to Buck's points, because I
actually dove into this. A huge percentage of women now
identify as by because they think guys think that that
is hotter, which a lot of guys do. So I
think partly that's a little bit manufactured. So I think
to to to your point, Isabelle on this, But second part,
(12:36):
your videos often go viral, and I think to your
point about gen Z, I think what I see with
my kids and here in some of their conversations is
they're aware that they're being sold bs and and a
lot of this has to do with gender related issues.
So I'm curious. I think you recently got married, if
(12:58):
I'm if I'm not wrong, And you're on the upper edge.
As you said of gen Z, do you see and
hear a lot of your girlfriends and a lot of
the guys as well, saying, Hey, you know this whole
idea of men and women not being different that we've
been sold from the get go here in this whole
woke universe and culture. Then a lot of it's just
(13:20):
BS and they're starting to see through it.
Speaker 4 (13:22):
BS is the perfect characterization of what we're being fed
every single day. You know. It's kind of like when
you watch an ad on social media, and we watch
TikTok for all of our news these days. In commentary,
when you know something as a paid advertisement, our entire
generation will scroll right past it. We won't even spend
a full second watching the video because we're tired of
(13:43):
everything being so perfectly curated, edited, this glossy version of
what is supposed to be reality but very clearly isn't.
And with gender and gender ideology being maybe the most
important cultural issue of our time, the most fun, punk rock,
rebellious way to tickets to the people in power trying
to sell us this manufactured version of happiness is to
(14:05):
embrace your biological gender and gender roles I'm getting married
on June twenty ninth, which I'm super excited. Graduation, thank you,
And honestly, it's been the joy of a lifetime to
watch almost every single one of my friends already getting
married in their early twenties. Most are engaged summer, even
starting to have children. Women everywhere despite politically polling very
(14:25):
substantially with the Democrat Party. Although I would say there's
a caveat to that most gen Zers are still in
high school, so we still have to wait for them
to vote. They're starting to wake up, at least on
the cultural side of things that we feel very lied
to by modern feminism. We're tired of dating apps and
trying to swipe left and right for endless hookups that
don't lead to anything meaningful. We're tired of being told
(14:45):
having children is going to be a sacrifice for our
own careers, our own personal lives, or maybe even the environment,
because haven't you heard having kids is apparently detrimental to
AOC's Green New Deal, and maybe even just the idea
of being a woman itself. So while we have men
already overwhelmingly in gen Z defining themselves as conservative, a
recent poll set over seventy percent of high school senior
(15:08):
boys identify as extremely conservative. It's catching up that way
for women too, And we believe that politics is downstream
from culture. That phrase coined by the late great Andrew Breitbart.
I think that's only going to continue manifesting politically for
young women as well.
Speaker 5 (15:23):
So just real quick, because I mean, you know, every
generation likes to give the rough stuff to the other generations.
And you're sitting here and this is all sounding great
to me because I came as interview to day.
Speaker 1 (15:33):
Think Buck is a curmudgeon. By the way, if you
don't know Buck, like, you're way too optimistic and positive
for Buck here. So he's going to push them, Mike,
that's our es.
Speaker 5 (15:42):
This is the gen Z Communists seem to be running
the show for you guys. And I think the most
glaring example of this would be what's going on still
on the college campuses and what we've seen, for example,
with all the pro Haamas stuff and the anti Azrael
stuff on these campuses. Now, maybe that's not indicative of
(16:03):
what it is nationwide on campus, but it's certainly a
lot of them, the so called elite schools. Yeah, you
just said seventy percent of high school seniors view themselves
at mail. Sorry, I should say high school high schol
males view themselves as conservative. Do they all just abandon
ship when they go to college because they want a
date with some purple haired communists?
Speaker 1 (16:21):
Like what happened now?
Speaker 4 (16:22):
I think mostly what we're seeing on college campus is
as absolutely outrageous as it is, is substantially toned down
to a lot of what I experienced on campus. For example,
I was at Colorado State University from two thousand and
fifteen all the way through twenty nineteen, and then Georgetown
for graduate school for a year thereafter, right at the
height of the rise of Antifa, when people were lighting
(16:44):
UCLA on fire because Ben Shapiro went to go back
and speak there in southern California. It was a really
crazy reality. But for every insane story of a pro
Palestine protest you might see at Harvard, I really like
to point people in the direction.
Speaker 6 (16:58):
Of social media to expose the side of things.
Speaker 4 (17:01):
Street preachers like a guy named Cliff who goes viral
on TikTok every single day recently just held an event
at Mississippi State University.
Speaker 6 (17:09):
I believe.
Speaker 4 (17:09):
I think it was Mississippi State, with over a thousand
students packed into a tiny lecture hall room, they had
to open up three other additional rooms to let students
hear about God, which absolutely follows national trends too. In
twenty twenty one, less than a quarter of our generation
said that we believed in any higher power. By the
end of twenty twenty three, over a third of us
(17:30):
proudly say that we believe in God. And when you
break that down denominationally, we're even seeking further tradition and
structure than this half in half out cultural washed Christianity
that we've been living with for so long. Gen Z,
for example, is the most likely demographic in the American
Catholic Church to prefer the traditional Latin mass.
Speaker 6 (17:49):
So these are real.
Speaker 4 (17:50):
Things that are happening, and of course they're not as
flashy or sexy on a national news broadcast as a
bunch of students saying they want to blow up their
campus for Hamas, which does in fact happen. But that's
a very vocal minority that I think continues to cycle
this manufactured outrage that's keeping cable news going and in
business in a time that they desperately need to keep
(18:11):
as many eyes glued to the screen since we're all
watching TikTok videos and YouTube live streams to get our
news instead.
Speaker 1 (18:16):
Okay, this is certainly last question for you. My kids
go into YouTube. That's where they get all their news
unless they're watching sports with me. They do not go
into traditional media. I bet there's moms and grandmas listening
to us right now that love you, and a lot
of dads and granddads too. How can they find you?
How can they share your content so maybe their grandkids
(18:38):
will listen or their kids will listen to you more
than they would them. And also how can they get
the book? And this is now a trio of questions.
What should happen with TikTok?
Speaker 3 (18:48):
Su ban it?
Speaker 1 (18:49):
Based on your understanding of the app? And how did
your content do there?
Speaker 4 (18:53):
I wish we had three hours to talk about TikTok,
But short answer, no, I think it would be a
grave mistake to ban the platform. At what you're hearing
about security and data concerns really is manufactured to try
to generate news headlines here. If they were really serious
about that, we'd be talking about every social media platform
and several other national security issues. But if I can
say one last thing for why you should grab a country.
Speaker 5 (19:15):
Isabelle that analysis, which sounds like a very smart former
CIA officer that I know it was incredibly astute, and
I'm happy to hear Soon Bocks argument he's been making
for some time, yes, like.
Speaker 1 (19:25):
A year now.
Speaker 5 (19:26):
I'm happy to hear at least one person from the
purple haired communist generation understands what's really going on.
Speaker 6 (19:32):
Oh, we're going to keep fighting for TikTok, surely.
Speaker 4 (19:34):
But really I wrote this book because, now, more than
ever before, when we've never been so divided and angry
and miserable and pessimistic about the future of our country,
I think it's time for us to return to our
roots of what it means to be an American.
Speaker 6 (19:46):
And what do I mean by that?
Speaker 4 (19:47):
The people who built the foundation of this country were
not decrepit, falling apart, completely senile old men that make
up the entirety of the United States Congress and the
White House today, which is probably why we feel so pessimistic.
Our founding fathers on July fourth, seventeen seventy six, we're eighteen, nineteen,
twenty one years old. Even Thomas Jefferson, who wrote the
Declaration of Independence was only thirty three years old on
(20:09):
July fourth, seventeen seventy six. If we're serious about building
a path for our country that's based in objective truth, marriage,
taking back, entrepreneurship, and just the idea of freedom of expression,
it has to start with giving young people a seat
at the table.
Speaker 6 (20:24):
So if you're a gen Zer looking for hope, this
book is for you.
Speaker 4 (20:26):
If you have a gen Zer in your life that
you're looking to inspire and encourage to continue making a
difference in their community, this book is for you. And
I host a live stream every day across social media
platforms where we talk about every cultural issue from banning
TikTok to what the heck happened on social media or
in Hollywood last week from a gen Z perspective. Consider
checking it out across platforms at the Isabelle Brown.
Speaker 5 (20:48):
You ever have a bunch of old guys one who
talks about sports, either talks about random history books on
I'm just saying.
Speaker 6 (20:54):
Out, yeah, you guys should absolutely come on the live stream.
We have a great time.
Speaker 5 (20:58):
I won't even refer to them as the youth. They
know the to hello.
Speaker 1 (21:03):
Oldest, he's the oldest man on the planet who's not
actually that old?
Speaker 5 (21:08):
Is about last question for you? I know, I said
last question, No, a last question. You know, is Biden
going to be the nominee?
Speaker 1 (21:14):
Oh that's too serious.
Speaker 4 (21:15):
I've been saying for a year and a half that
he wasn't. But I think we're getting a little down
to the wire. I think the DNC in August will
be very telling.
Speaker 3 (21:23):
Do you agree with Buck across the board? Just want
to make sure Clay get all.
Speaker 1 (21:26):
Right, I said last kar this is the legit last question.
Have you ever dated a guy and told him he
needed to drive faster?
Speaker 6 (21:32):
Yeah? I mean I'm a fast driver. I'm a pedal
to the metal girl. I got places to be.
Speaker 4 (21:36):
My parents are probably rolling their eyes hearing that, because
I'm the only speeder in the family.
Speaker 1 (21:39):
But I just, yeah, I can't drive too slow. It's
his wife had to tell him to drive.
Speaker 5 (21:44):
A kidney shot right right after the bell. A kidney
shot right after the bell? All right, Isabelle Brown. Everybody
gen Z Streamer the book The End of the Alphabet,
How gen Z Can Save America?
Speaker 3 (21:54):
Isabelle. It has been most fun. We'll talk to you soon.
Speaker 6 (21:56):
Thanks for having me Sundays with Clay Fus.
Speaker 1 (22:01):
I saw this this morning. Both the New York Times
and the Wall Street Journal wrote about it. There is
a ranking of top twenty five countries by happiness. Basically,
how do people consider themselves? And I thought we talked
to Abigail Schreier earlier in the week, the United States
happiness is collapsing to the extent that life, liberty, the
(22:26):
pursuit of happiness is a by nature, I think, target
of this country. The fact that the United States would
now be twenty third overall in happiness ranking, that is
below the Slovenia, the United Arab Emirates, below the Czech Republic, Lithuania,
(22:48):
Costa Rica, Kuwait, Austria. I mean a lot of these
countries that are ostensibly happier than us are not necessarily
even anywhere near the geopolitical stratus that we are, right,
They don't have the economic wealth. And when you dive
into the numbers, Buck, it actually even gets more interesting.
And I'm curious for all of you out there listening
(23:09):
what your theories would be. I would actually like to
hear your theory, Buck. I mean, you can blow us
up at Clay and Buck at Clay Travis at buck
Sexton because I think this is such an interesting question.
The reason why the United States has a happiness deficit,
as it were, is not because of people sixty and older.
They are, according to this study, the eleventh happiest in
(23:33):
the entire world. So it's not crazy. If you're over
sixty and a lot of you are listening to us
right now, you tend to be fairly happy. But what's
going on here is if you're under thirty, so your kids,
your grandkids, if you're on the younger age of listenership
for this radio program, or you're listening on the podcast,
(23:53):
you rank sixty second, And that's the biggest gap in
any country, buck in the world. Now between people over
sixty and people under thirty. What's going on?
Speaker 5 (24:04):
So this is where my my generally salty demeanor I
think works in America's favor because the things that really
generally gauge happiness are ambition and expectation. Right for a
lot of people at least, ambition and expectation, what do
you want for your life now? If you've been raised
(24:27):
to just want to go as part of the system
and have your you know, your vacation and your time off.
Speaker 3 (24:33):
And you know, you don't want to really be in
the fight in any meaningful way.
Speaker 5 (24:39):
You want to live in Finland, okay, you want to
live in some of these places where you have not
socialism per se, but a huge welfare state and very
high taxation where you have and I'll also point out
these countries. It's not very well known, but even a
country like Sweden, which where is that on this Yeah,
Sweden's very.
Speaker 3 (24:58):
You know, for overall, very high.
Speaker 5 (25:01):
Sweden was very socialist I think in through the seventies
into the eighties, and then it started becoming a free
market economy or much more of a free market economy.
And now it just has high taxation and a very
large again very large, not just welfare.
Speaker 3 (25:14):
State but state services.
Speaker 5 (25:15):
Right, but the economy doesn't function as an actual socialist
state at all. But you look at these countries and
you know they're not changing the world. Individuals in them
are not changing the world. We grow up in a
society now where everybody is being constantly and this is
why I think the under thirty happiness to address this
issue is so low for America right now.
Speaker 1 (25:37):
Yeah, that's the key, I think.
Speaker 5 (25:39):
Because I think people that are older have more perspective
on America still kicks ass. Like we talked about the
problems here, but America is actually still number one. And
I'd also point out what happens to find them Without America,
they start speaking a lot of Russian everybody, okay, a
lot of these other countries without us. Without you know,
you who listen to this, who have served your country
(26:01):
and the armed forces, or or you know, will serve
in the armed forces, depending on how old you are, these
other countries can't even exist in their little changri la.
You know, they're Nirvana of Oh, college is paid for it,
healthcare is paid for Yeah, that's because what are you
spending on your defense? But put all that aside, Clay,
And just to get us back into the focus here,
which is the under thirties in America. Yeah, under thirties
(26:21):
are unhappy because we are constantly now bombarded with not
just excellence within America, but global excellence because of I
do think social media plays a big role in this.
We are constantly being compared to the richest, best athlete,
best looking, best entrepreneur, go down the list in the
(26:42):
world in America because we have such a concentration of
them here in America, but also in some other places.
And I think that that's where people have lost a
bit of context and don't understand that. You know, I've
been in some really crappy countries for long stretches of time.
If you do that, you really start to realize how
amazing this place is.
Speaker 1 (27:03):
My theory is maybe a little bit different. I do
think social media plays in. I think that if you're
under thirty in this country, you've been conditioned with the
idea that America is a profoundly racist and force for evil.
And if you see the overall decline in religious rates,
and you've hit on this too, that climate change is
(27:24):
a religion for people who don't believe in religion. I
think that wokeism is a religion for people that don't
believe in religion. And if you are constantly being marinated
in the idea that because America had slavery in eighteen sixty,
you can never atone for the ills of this country,
(27:47):
and if you're not being taught about the true history
of the nation. What stands out to me is not
necessarily that young people are unhappy. It's why is the
gap between young and old in a America higher than
any country in the world right now. And I think
it's because if you're over sixty, you were raised in
(28:08):
America is a force for good. Look at what we
did in World War Two, look at the overall history
of America. You live through the Civil rights movement. You've
seen America, I think, be a force innately for good.
And people who are young have no real struggles, right
They didn't get drafted to fight in Vietnam. They haven't
and I'm talking about real life struggles. They haven't had
(28:29):
to go fight the Nazis, they haven't dealt with the
Great Depression, and they are buying into this idea. I
think social media works in on it, but that America
is not a force for good. And with an absence
of religion, to your point on ambition and what you
strive for, they're profoundly lost and there's a void that
(28:51):
is being filled by things that are making them less happy.
And I think a lot of them buck. This is
why I thought our conversation with Isabelle Brown yesterday was
so interesting, because I see it in my own kids.
A lot of them are aware that what they're being
told is not true and that it's not working for them,
and they're desperately seeking answers and they don't know how
to find them. Does that make sense. It's not uncommon
(29:12):
for young people. I think it's worse for them psychologically
today than it might have been for other generations.
Speaker 5 (29:18):
I think every generation of young people thinks that they're
you know, go back. I mean, if you talk about
our parents' generation, you know, the sixties and the seventies,
oh man, you know, the.
Speaker 3 (29:29):
World was so bleak and the oil embargo and.
Speaker 1 (29:32):
No, but they they were forces for good. In the
Baby boomers, right, the Baby Boomers are the most self entitled,
like obsessed generation, in my opinion, that believes that they
made the world a better place, Like does I feel you're.
Speaker 3 (29:46):
Talking about Americans? And I don't think.
Speaker 5 (29:48):
I don't think that the Baby Boom American generation thought that.
I think that they were riddled with a lot of
guilt over Vietnam and.
Speaker 1 (29:55):
You know, anyway, but I feel like a lot of
them stood up and felt like they were engaged. I
don't know that people under the age of thirty feel
like they really are involved in the choices that are
being made in the I don't know there is one
answer I'm curious for people out there listening. The gap
that doesn't exist anywhere else in the world is certainly there,
(30:15):
and it's open and right for explanation.
Speaker 5 (30:18):
America, Germany, New Zealand, Canada are the countries that all
have really low numbers.
Speaker 3 (30:25):
In the under thirty index.
Speaker 5 (30:27):
Now, far be it for me to be able to
analyze the contemporary German psyche like I don't know, you know,
I don't know what's going on over there. Like every
German I've met, you know, they're nice people, but I
don't know what they're thinking. But in terms of Canada
and the US, I mean, I do think that this
is Look, there are some things. We do have a
structural debt problem. We have had the massive transfer of
(30:49):
wealth from young too old, but which is still occurring.
And people don't like this, but that is what entitlements
actually are. People say, I pay into them, will you
take out twice what you put into them over the
course of your earnings on average, So you're actually burdening
future generations with And you know, just like when we're
hopefully off, Medicare is still there for us.
Speaker 3 (31:06):
We'll see what ends up happening. But I think that's
part of it.
Speaker 5 (31:10):
Clay, and I also think that people, yes, there's an
ideology of wokeness. Little Isabel yesterday was telling us that
a lot of gen z are not woke. I don't know,
I mean.
Speaker 1 (31:19):
Or that some of them are rejecting it.
Speaker 5 (31:22):
Yeah, I mean, I'm everyone I meet under thirty like
lives in an alternate universe except for the ones who
listened to this show.
Speaker 3 (31:28):
Thank you very much, we appreciate you.
Speaker 5 (31:30):
But everybody else who's in that generation, I think, to
be fair, how much interaction do we really have with
people under thirty on a day to day basis. I mean,
I you know, yeah, I don't know about your I
don't know about your world. I just see them on
TikTok and social media stuff and I'm like, okay, so
they know nothing.
Speaker 1 (31:45):
I mean, I'm around my kids.
Speaker 5 (31:46):
But yes, yeah, you have a you have a much
better line into you, like you understand, like you know
what what high school.
Speaker 3 (31:52):
Kids are thinking about.
Speaker 5 (31:53):
I don't know anything, but I will say this also,
and I hot tip my friend at David Harsanyi, who
wrote a book about this. You know, people will say, oh,
They're like, oh, it's so great, you know, everyone has
a grass is greener phenomenon with other countries.
Speaker 3 (32:07):
I mean, you know, and I have you ever been
to Sweden. I'm just gonna tell you, Yeah, Sweden, nice
people whatever. Go to Sweden in January and tell me
that you want to live there.
Speaker 5 (32:14):
That's what I was in Sweden and January. There's a
lot of stuff about this that. And go there and
try to start a business, go there and try to
do something that really changes the world. You know that
the if England, this is what I was saying about
Harsanyi's point.
Speaker 3 (32:27):
If England were a US.
Speaker 5 (32:28):
State, play it would be the poorest state per capita
in the United States. It would be poorer than Mississippi.
No offense to Mississippi, but I'm just saying it would
be the poorest state in the Union. And yet we
think of the English as fancy and having free healthcare. No,
actually they're kind of beaten down by an enormous state
in the National Health Service. And so you know, part
(32:50):
of this is with age comes wisdom. And I can't
believe I'm minding this. This clays older than I am,
as we know, by many years. Though I guess he
has something I.
Speaker 1 (32:58):
Will say this too a so we go to break here.
Here are the two countries that under thirty year olds
are the most happy, in Lithuania and Israel. How many
American under thirties would like to live in Lithuania. I'm
just raising it as an issue. Like everything, to your
point is relative. One of my favorite stats is if
(33:18):
you're one of the poorest in I think ten percent
in America, you would be one of the twenty percent
wealthiest it in India. So I don't know it's about money,
but it's certainly not understanding economics factors.
Speaker 5 (33:30):
If you're twenty five in Lithuania, you're still hearing stories
from your parents about standing in breadlines when it was
the Soviet Union.
Speaker 3 (33:36):
So I totally get why.
Speaker 5 (33:37):
Lithuania is so happy in that age group. But there's
very clear reasons for that, because it is as I said,
it's about expectation and ambition. What do you think about
your situation compared to other relevant situations. By the way,
it's also part of the anatomy of a revolution. For example,
it's not that people are so poor. There are a
lot of poor countries where there's no revolutions. Revolution comes. Well,
(33:59):
there's an number of things, but one of them is
when people think that their expectations are being unmet by
their society and by the state. So a lot of
it is, you know, Clay, you want to be happy,
lower your expectations. There you go, that's going a bumper sticker.
Speaker 1 (34:13):
That's why, that's why my wife is so happy in
our marriage. But
Bold, reverence, and occasionally random. The Sunday Hang with Playing
Buck podcast starts now. Charles Barkley is I think one
of the funniest people on television and he's gotten criticism
over the years because he just says exactly what he
thinks and whatever the reaction is, he handles it. And
(00:24):
Rush talked about this before. I think it's one of
the funniest feuds out there. A while back, Charles Barkley
said that San Antonio had a lot of big women
and there was a demand that he apologized because I
think he said fat women, and there were people out
there who said, this is totally unacceptable. And Rush actually
(00:45):
weighed in on this when the controversy began and the
crew went back and grabbed Rush talking about this. Here
was and then we've got an update on this that
I think you guys are going to get a good
laugh from. But here was Rush. This was a while
I think twenty fourteen, when there was a demand that
Charles Barkley apologized to the fat women of San Antonio
(01:07):
who were evidently outraged. Listen.
Speaker 2 (01:09):
The National Association to Advance Fat Acceptance wants Chuck to
apologize for his comments, which included saying there are some
quote big old women in San Antonio and that it's
a quote gold mine for weight watchers unquote. For whom
Chuck is a spokesperson, making slurs about body size is
(01:32):
just as offensive as making comments about body color. Since
spokesperson Peggy Howell to tm Z Sports, one would think
being a black man, he'd be more sensitive to having
his physical body criticized. Totally, totally on the line, Chuck
should absolutely apologize. Well, I just don't know that Chuck
(01:53):
is gonna have apologize that. People like Chuck don't have
to apologize. People like Chuck are celebrated when they do
stuff like this, courageous.
Speaker 3 (02:00):
Bone you tell him, Junck, Oh, he was just making
it joke. Come on, folks. Everybody knows Chuck.
Speaker 2 (02:07):
He didn't really mean anything.
Speaker 1 (02:10):
Okay, so he is not apologized. And I believe this
was last night. It might have been two nights ago. Chuck,
he made a joke. Buck, Your knicks, by the way,
are finally winning some basketball games like the nineteen nineties
all over again. They took over Philadelphia. I actually watched
the end of that game. There were so many Knicks
fans there. But he said that one of the teams
(02:32):
was playing so poorly they didn't even deserve to take
their postseason trip to can Kun. They should have to
go to Galveston instead. And we may have a lot
of listeners in Galveston, but it's not as nice as
can Kun. And so Beyonce's mom, who was from Galveston,
was upset and wanted Charles to apologize about that. He
(02:52):
took it to the next level. This is what he
said last night.
Speaker 3 (02:55):
So how do you like Galveston?
Speaker 2 (02:56):
Now?
Speaker 3 (02:57):
It's beautiful? We're not going there. Would you go on
to vacation you got to shale?
Speaker 1 (03:02):
No, I ain't going on Victor. You've got a chance
to wipe the slate clean.
Speaker 3 (03:06):
You got I wouldn't go to that. Want to do
that to san Antonio.
Speaker 1 (03:11):
I'm really going to san Antonio to.
Speaker 3 (03:13):
Big old women.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
No, No, I'm not going to gas And I mean
I want to go to the beach down and the
river walk and watch him walk.
Speaker 3 (03:23):
Chuck san Antonio.
Speaker 4 (03:25):
That's what they have been a Victoria's secret. Jack.
Speaker 3 (03:27):
Why is it seem because the dem women down and
they can't get in them cutela underwear, they wear bloomers
down in Santa Oh my god, somehow Victoria is.
Speaker 1 (03:36):
Secret down man. So he's now a decade later, continued
the feud. To me, this is one of the great
feuds out there in sports right now, Buck Charles Barkley
versus the fat women of San Antonio. Charles Barkley, of course,
not Trim himself. He's had his own battle of the
bulge over the years. But it's funny to me that
Rush pointed out rightly that he's not going to apologize,
(03:57):
and he I do respect as someone who regularly steers
into controversy that rather than apologize, he doubled and tripled
down on the controversy there, which I think most people
actually appreciate.
Speaker 5 (04:08):
They're they're very funny on that that panel. And I
don't watch a lot of sports, but I do see
a fair amount of their eclipse in commentary and USAT.
You know, when you see when you've got good TV commentary,
you know it right away. And there's a reason why
those guys are as popular as they are, you know,
Shaq Barkley, Kenny.
Speaker 1 (04:27):
Kenny Smith and uh and uh and Ernie Ernie.
Speaker 3 (04:32):
Yeah, yeah, they do. They do a very good job.
Speaker 5 (04:34):
I've actually never been to San Antonio, which this is,
which is I got to get there. I got a
bunch of reasons I gotta get down there. I've I've
honestly heard it's a great city. I know we have
a lot of listeners in San Antonio. I've heard that
when you add in quality of life and uh, you know,
safety and everything else, it's a it's a really great city.
I know people say it's their favorite city in Texas,
not Houston or Dallas.
Speaker 3 (04:56):
I'm just saying. I know people have said.
Speaker 1 (04:58):
That I went because I didn't realize this until I
had my own kids, how wacky this was. But when
I was a kid, I got obsessed with the Alamo.
And it's probably not a coincidence that we have Crockett
Coffee now Fruck, which is fantastic connected to the Alamo.
I knew everything there was to know about the Alamo.
(05:18):
I read every book. I knew every detail. I still
recall a lot of them. But for my sixth birthday
it was a big deal. At the time, I didn't travel,
you know, on airplanes very often. My dad took me
to the Alamo, and so we went to go tour
the Alamo, and I could answer every one of the
tour guide's questions and they were pretty detailed, and he
(05:40):
started peppering me with more and more questions. When you're
five or six and you're like that, it just seems
totally normal. Now that I've had my own kids, I
understand why all the adults that were on the tour
are like, who is this six year old who knows everything?
Lots of little kids will have something that they get
fascinated by, with me dinosaurs where they know way more
(06:01):
than anybody else would. And I bet some of your
kids are grandkids, you've experienced this where they just become
really kind of an expert in something.
Speaker 5 (06:09):
View knows more about. Like I think I'm pretty good.
I read Jurassic Park before it was a movie, and
I thought dinosaurs are interesting when I was a kid.
But he knows dinosaurs and can point them out. I've
never even heard of them before, so he's really into dinosaurs.
Speaker 1 (06:21):
It is amazing sometimes the level of knowledge when a
kid really finds something that he's obsessed with. It's also
super cool to see them get obsessed with learning in
that way. But that was my thing. San Antonio. I
remember at six, we need to We're on in San Antonio.
I think we've been number one in the marketplace. We
should make a trip down. Now that we got Crockett coffee,
we should deliver coffee for free to that entire Almo.
(06:45):
Let them hopefully make some money off of it, because
I'm sure that they could always use more money. And
I mean, I would love to toar the Alamo again.
I remember it's right in town, and it kind of
feels you feel like it shouldn't be like right in
the center of town. Remember that from being a kid,
because you feel, just based on the movies and everything else,
like it should be out with surrounded. But I always been.
Speaker 3 (07:05):
Told it's a little bit like the shootout at the
Ok Corral.
Speaker 5 (07:08):
If you go to where that where you go, if
you go to where that happened, you're shocked by how
small it is and how close quarters. But anybody who
knows anything about gunfighting, and especially with handguns, it's it's
close up.
Speaker 1 (07:21):
You've got to be pretty close.
Speaker 5 (07:22):
The stuff you see in these old Western movies where
guys are pulling a quick draw from what looks to
be like fifty yards away and hitting a guy square
in the chest. No, that's very, very hard and would
be very, very rare.
Speaker 1 (07:38):
Yeah, I think it's super h I want to go,
but that would be a one of those history lessons.
There's some places that I haven't been yet. I'd like
to go back as an adult and see what it's
actually like. Sunday Hang with Clay and Bucks.
Speaker 5 (07:54):
Isabelle Brown joins us now. She's a gen Z streamer
and author of the book The End of the Alphabet,
How gen Z Can Save America, comes out today.
Speaker 6 (08:03):
Isabelle, welcome, Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 5 (08:06):
Can you do you want to react just to what's
going on in general with the border in Texas before
we dive into gen Z in the book and we
had this breaking news. It just for a lot of
people seems like, shouldn't states be able to help with
the enforcement of federal immigration law? State law enforcement helps
federal law enforcement on a whole range of issues.
Speaker 4 (08:23):
Ah. Yes, but you're thinking logically, which sadly is not
a virtue of our current White House or most people
sitting in Congress.
Speaker 6 (08:30):
But look, this is a huge win.
Speaker 4 (08:31):
I think there's been a lot said generationally about this issue,
particularly with the death of Lake and Riley a few
days ago, that of course, our president messed up during
the State of the Union address and has since apologized
to her murderer, but not acknowledged the death of her
to her family, which is tragic, but I hope it
continues to spur the conversation for more wins like this
in Texas and the rest of the states bordering the South.
Speaker 1 (08:52):
All right, all Isabel, I have seen sorry Bucka. Also,
we've seen your stuff on Instagram. It does really, really well.
Your book is about how gen Z can save America.
A couple of questions here, tied together. How old are
gen Z people now? I think I've got two gen
Z members that I am in the process of raising
(09:13):
right now, so you obviously are are imagine the older
edge of gen Z? And how does gen Z save America? Why?
Speaker 6 (09:21):
Way to kick this off?
Speaker 4 (09:23):
Generally speaking, the consensus is that gen Z starts in
about nineteen ninety seven, the year that I was born,
and goes all the way down to Americans born in
twenty twelve. So when we're talking about gen Z, we're
looking at a huge group of seventy million Americans, from
pre teens to teenagers to college students and now those
of us in our mid twenties starting to really navigate
the perils of adulthood. Sadly, I've been really frustrated as
(09:47):
a token voice for our generation in politics and the media,
hearing so many people older than myself chastise gen Z
as this dreaded group, the boogeyman maybe who's destroying America
before our eyes, when in reality that's just not what's happening.
I often hear that gen Z is this overwhelmingly lazy, entitled, leftist,
(10:07):
scream at the sky socialist generation. But really, there are
several national polls and surveys proving that Gen Z is
the most conservative generation on an issue by issue basis
since World War Two. And that's exactly been my experience.
But I see it anecdotally with friends, my siblings, and
the community at large as well.
Speaker 5 (10:25):
But don't like twenty percent of Gen Z identify as
LBGTQ LBGTQIA plus and the number of trends within that
Isn't that like an order of magnitude higher than it
had ever been before? Or am I misreading that data?
Speaker 6 (10:43):
No, you're absolutely correct.
Speaker 4 (10:45):
There was even a crazier study that dropped a few
days ago saying thirty percent of Gen z women are
self identifying as LGBTQ plus. So I've been asked this often,
with the premise of my book being wait, aren't you
guys really secretly conservative? These numbers are inten intentionally skewed
to artificially inflate and manufacture outrage over how much grab
(11:05):
the pride community has with our generation.
Speaker 6 (11:08):
When you think.
Speaker 4 (11:08):
About that little plus sign at the end of LGBTQ, LMNOP,
and every other alphabet known to man, that is really
what we need to focus on here when we see
these twenty thirty percent figures included in that plus sign,
or identities like demisexual. I don't know if you've ever
heard of that clay And book, but to be demisexual
means to self identify as someone who's sexually attracted to
(11:30):
some people, but not all people, but especially people that
you have a romantic connection with, so literally every human
being in the history of the world. I think this
is a really intentional push to try to make it
seem like the Left is winning with our generation, and
there is certainly a cultural contagion happening, mostly with young women,
(11:50):
about this idea of changing your gender the exact same
way that eating disorders and suicide clusters were happening in
high schools in the nineteen nineties and early two thousands.
But I think it really is just that it's a trend.
It's a fat it's a contagion, and we're starting to
grow up and realize that the hollow emptiness the left
has to offer it to us on a silver platter
really isn't the type of America we're proud to call home.
Speaker 1 (12:13):
All right, I got a couple of things here. One,
I think the data reflects to Buck's points, because I
actually dove into this. A huge percentage of women now
identify as by because they think guys think that that
is hotter, which a lot of guys do. So I
think partly that's a little bit manufactured. So I think
to to to your point, Isabelle on this, But second part,
(12:36):
your videos often go viral, and I think to your
point about gen Z, I think what I see with
my kids and here in some of their conversations is
they're aware that they're being sold bs and and a
lot of this has to do with gender related issues.
So I'm curious. I think you recently got married, if
(12:58):
I'm if I'm not wrong, And you're on the upper edge.
As you said of gen Z, do you see and
hear a lot of your girlfriends and a lot of
the guys as well, saying, Hey, you know this whole
idea of men and women not being different that we've
been sold from the get go here in this whole
woke universe and culture. Then a lot of it's just
(13:20):
BS and they're starting to see through it.
Speaker 4 (13:22):
BS is the perfect characterization of what we're being fed
every single day. You know. It's kind of like when
you watch an ad on social media, and we watch
TikTok for all of our news these days. In commentary,
when you know something as a paid advertisement, our entire
generation will scroll right past it. We won't even spend
a full second watching the video because we're tired of
(13:43):
everything being so perfectly curated, edited, this glossy version of
what is supposed to be reality but very clearly isn't.
And with gender and gender ideology being maybe the most
important cultural issue of our time, the most fun, punk rock,
rebellious way to tickets to the people in power trying
to sell us this manufactured version of happiness is to
(14:05):
embrace your biological gender and gender roles I'm getting married
on June twenty ninth, which I'm super excited. Graduation, thank you,
And honestly, it's been the joy of a lifetime to
watch almost every single one of my friends already getting
married in their early twenties. Most are engaged summer, even
starting to have children. Women everywhere despite politically polling very
(14:25):
substantially with the Democrat Party. Although I would say there's
a caveat to that most gen Zers are still in
high school, so we still have to wait for them
to vote. They're starting to wake up, at least on
the cultural side of things that we feel very lied
to by modern feminism. We're tired of dating apps and
trying to swipe left and right for endless hookups that
don't lead to anything meaningful. We're tired of being told
(14:45):
having children is going to be a sacrifice for our
own careers, our own personal lives, or maybe even the environment,
because haven't you heard having kids is apparently detrimental to
AOC's Green New Deal, and maybe even just the idea
of being a woman itself. So while we have men
already overwhelmingly in gen Z defining themselves as conservative, a
recent poll set over seventy percent of high school senior
(15:08):
boys identify as extremely conservative. It's catching up that way
for women too, And we believe that politics is downstream
from culture. That phrase coined by the late great Andrew Breitbart.
I think that's only going to continue manifesting politically for
young women as well.
Speaker 5 (15:23):
So just real quick, because I mean, you know, every
generation likes to give the rough stuff to the other generations.
And you're sitting here and this is all sounding great
to me because I came as interview to day.
Speaker 1 (15:33):
Think Buck is a curmudgeon. By the way, if you
don't know Buck, like, you're way too optimistic and positive
for Buck here. So he's going to push them, Mike,
that's our es.
Speaker 5 (15:42):
This is the gen Z Communists seem to be running
the show for you guys. And I think the most
glaring example of this would be what's going on still
on the college campuses and what we've seen, for example,
with all the pro Haamas stuff and the anti Azrael
stuff on these campuses. Now, maybe that's not indicative of
(16:03):
what it is nationwide on campus, but it's certainly a
lot of them, the so called elite schools. Yeah, you
just said seventy percent of high school seniors view themselves
at mail. Sorry, I should say high school high schol
males view themselves as conservative. Do they all just abandon
ship when they go to college because they want a
date with some purple haired communists?
Speaker 1 (16:21):
Like what happened now?
Speaker 4 (16:22):
I think mostly what we're seeing on college campus is
as absolutely outrageous as it is, is substantially toned down
to a lot of what I experienced on campus. For example,
I was at Colorado State University from two thousand and
fifteen all the way through twenty nineteen, and then Georgetown
for graduate school for a year thereafter, right at the
height of the rise of Antifa, when people were lighting
(16:44):
UCLA on fire because Ben Shapiro went to go back
and speak there in southern California. It was a really
crazy reality. But for every insane story of a pro
Palestine protest you might see at Harvard, I really like
to point people in the direction.
Speaker 6 (16:58):
Of social media to expose the side of things.
Speaker 4 (17:01):
Street preachers like a guy named Cliff who goes viral
on TikTok every single day recently just held an event
at Mississippi State University.
Speaker 6 (17:09):
I believe.
Speaker 4 (17:09):
I think it was Mississippi State, with over a thousand
students packed into a tiny lecture hall room, they had
to open up three other additional rooms to let students
hear about God, which absolutely follows national trends too. In
twenty twenty one, less than a quarter of our generation
said that we believed in any higher power. By the
end of twenty twenty three, over a third of us
(17:30):
proudly say that we believe in God. And when you
break that down denominationally, we're even seeking further tradition and
structure than this half in half out cultural washed Christianity
that we've been living with for so long. Gen Z,
for example, is the most likely demographic in the American
Catholic Church to prefer the traditional Latin mass.
Speaker 6 (17:49):
So these are real.
Speaker 4 (17:50):
Things that are happening, and of course they're not as
flashy or sexy on a national news broadcast as a
bunch of students saying they want to blow up their
campus for Hamas, which does in fact happen. But that's
a very vocal minority that I think continues to cycle
this manufactured outrage that's keeping cable news going and in
business in a time that they desperately need to keep
(18:11):
as many eyes glued to the screen since we're all
watching TikTok videos and YouTube live streams to get our
news instead.
Speaker 1 (18:16):
Okay, this is certainly last question for you. My kids
go into YouTube. That's where they get all their news
unless they're watching sports with me. They do not go
into traditional media. I bet there's moms and grandmas listening
to us right now that love you, and a lot
of dads and granddads too. How can they find you?
How can they share your content so maybe their grandkids
(18:38):
will listen or their kids will listen to you more
than they would them. And also how can they get
the book? And this is now a trio of questions.
What should happen with TikTok?
Speaker 3 (18:48):
Su ban it?
Speaker 1 (18:49):
Based on your understanding of the app? And how did
your content do there?
Speaker 4 (18:53):
I wish we had three hours to talk about TikTok,
But short answer, no, I think it would be a
grave mistake to ban the platform. At what you're hearing
about security and data concerns really is manufactured to try
to generate news headlines here. If they were really serious
about that, we'd be talking about every social media platform
and several other national security issues. But if I can
say one last thing for why you should grab a country.
Speaker 5 (19:15):
Isabelle that analysis, which sounds like a very smart former
CIA officer that I know it was incredibly astute, and
I'm happy to hear Soon Bocks argument he's been making
for some time, yes, like.
Speaker 1 (19:25):
A year now.
Speaker 5 (19:26):
I'm happy to hear at least one person from the
purple haired communist generation understands what's really going on.
Speaker 6 (19:32):
Oh, we're going to keep fighting for TikTok, surely.
Speaker 4 (19:34):
But really I wrote this book because, now, more than
ever before, when we've never been so divided and angry
and miserable and pessimistic about the future of our country,
I think it's time for us to return to our
roots of what it means to be an American.
Speaker 6 (19:46):
And what do I mean by that?
Speaker 4 (19:47):
The people who built the foundation of this country were
not decrepit, falling apart, completely senile old men that make
up the entirety of the United States Congress and the
White House today, which is probably why we feel so pessimistic.
Our founding fathers on July fourth, seventeen seventy six, we're eighteen, nineteen,
twenty one years old. Even Thomas Jefferson, who wrote the
Declaration of Independence was only thirty three years old on
(20:09):
July fourth, seventeen seventy six. If we're serious about building
a path for our country that's based in objective truth, marriage,
taking back, entrepreneurship, and just the idea of freedom of expression,
it has to start with giving young people a seat
at the table.
Speaker 6 (20:24):
So if you're a gen Zer looking for hope, this
book is for you.
Speaker 4 (20:26):
If you have a gen Zer in your life that
you're looking to inspire and encourage to continue making a
difference in their community, this book is for you. And
I host a live stream every day across social media
platforms where we talk about every cultural issue from banning
TikTok to what the heck happened on social media or
in Hollywood last week from a gen Z perspective. Consider
checking it out across platforms at the Isabelle Brown.
Speaker 5 (20:48):
You ever have a bunch of old guys one who
talks about sports, either talks about random history books on
I'm just saying.
Speaker 6 (20:54):
Out, yeah, you guys should absolutely come on the live stream.
We have a great time.
Speaker 5 (20:58):
I won't even refer to them as the youth. They
know the to hello.
Speaker 1 (21:03):
Oldest, he's the oldest man on the planet who's not
actually that old?
Speaker 5 (21:08):
Is about last question for you? I know, I said
last question, No, a last question. You know, is Biden
going to be the nominee?
Speaker 1 (21:14):
Oh that's too serious.
Speaker 4 (21:15):
I've been saying for a year and a half that
he wasn't. But I think we're getting a little down
to the wire. I think the DNC in August will
be very telling.
Speaker 3 (21:23):
Do you agree with Buck across the board? Just want
to make sure Clay get all.
Speaker 1 (21:26):
Right, I said last kar this is the legit last question.
Have you ever dated a guy and told him he
needed to drive faster?
Speaker 6 (21:32):
Yeah? I mean I'm a fast driver. I'm a pedal
to the metal girl. I got places to be.
Speaker 4 (21:36):
My parents are probably rolling their eyes hearing that, because
I'm the only speeder in the family.
Speaker 1 (21:39):
But I just, yeah, I can't drive too slow. It's
his wife had to tell him to drive.
Speaker 5 (21:44):
A kidney shot right right after the bell. A kidney
shot right after the bell? All right, Isabelle Brown. Everybody
gen Z Streamer the book The End of the Alphabet,
How gen Z Can Save America?
Speaker 3 (21:54):
Isabelle. It has been most fun. We'll talk to you soon.
Speaker 6 (21:56):
Thanks for having me Sundays with Clay Fus.
Speaker 1 (22:01):
I saw this this morning. Both the New York Times
and the Wall Street Journal wrote about it. There is
a ranking of top twenty five countries by happiness. Basically,
how do people consider themselves? And I thought we talked
to Abigail Schreier earlier in the week, the United States
happiness is collapsing to the extent that life, liberty, the
(22:26):
pursuit of happiness is a by nature, I think, target
of this country. The fact that the United States would
now be twenty third overall in happiness ranking, that is
below the Slovenia, the United Arab Emirates, below the Czech Republic, Lithuania,
(22:48):
Costa Rica, Kuwait, Austria. I mean a lot of these
countries that are ostensibly happier than us are not necessarily
even anywhere near the geopolitical stratus that we are, right,
They don't have the economic wealth. And when you dive
into the numbers, Buck, it actually even gets more interesting.
And I'm curious for all of you out there listening
(23:09):
what your theories would be. I would actually like to
hear your theory, Buck. I mean, you can blow us
up at Clay and Buck at Clay Travis at buck
Sexton because I think this is such an interesting question.
The reason why the United States has a happiness deficit,
as it were, is not because of people sixty and older.
They are, according to this study, the eleventh happiest in
(23:33):
the entire world. So it's not crazy. If you're over
sixty and a lot of you are listening to us
right now, you tend to be fairly happy. But what's
going on here is if you're under thirty, so your kids,
your grandkids, if you're on the younger age of listenership
for this radio program, or you're listening on the podcast,
(23:53):
you rank sixty second, And that's the biggest gap in
any country, buck in the world. Now between people over
sixty and people under thirty. What's going on?
Speaker 5 (24:04):
So this is where my my generally salty demeanor I
think works in America's favor because the things that really
generally gauge happiness are ambition and expectation. Right for a
lot of people at least, ambition and expectation, what do
you want for your life now? If you've been raised
(24:27):
to just want to go as part of the system
and have your you know, your vacation and your time off.
Speaker 3 (24:33):
And you know, you don't want to really be in
the fight in any meaningful way.
Speaker 5 (24:39):
You want to live in Finland, okay, you want to
live in some of these places where you have not
socialism per se, but a huge welfare state and very
high taxation where you have and I'll also point out
these countries. It's not very well known, but even a
country like Sweden, which where is that on this Yeah,
Sweden's very.
Speaker 3 (24:58):
You know, for overall, very high.
Speaker 5 (25:01):
Sweden was very socialist I think in through the seventies
into the eighties, and then it started becoming a free
market economy or much more of a free market economy.
And now it just has high taxation and a very
large again very large, not just welfare.
Speaker 3 (25:14):
State but state services.
Speaker 5 (25:15):
Right, but the economy doesn't function as an actual socialist
state at all. But you look at these countries and
you know they're not changing the world. Individuals in them
are not changing the world. We grow up in a
society now where everybody is being constantly and this is
why I think the under thirty happiness to address this
issue is so low for America right now.
Speaker 1 (25:37):
Yeah, that's the key, I think.
Speaker 5 (25:39):
Because I think people that are older have more perspective
on America still kicks ass. Like we talked about the
problems here, but America is actually still number one. And
I'd also point out what happens to find them Without America,
they start speaking a lot of Russian everybody, okay, a
lot of these other countries without us. Without you know,
you who listen to this, who have served your country
(26:01):
and the armed forces, or or you know, will serve
in the armed forces, depending on how old you are, these
other countries can't even exist in their little changri la.
You know, they're Nirvana of Oh, college is paid for it,
healthcare is paid for Yeah, that's because what are you
spending on your defense? But put all that aside, Clay,
And just to get us back into the focus here,
which is the under thirties in America. Yeah, under thirties
(26:21):
are unhappy because we are constantly now bombarded with not
just excellence within America, but global excellence because of I
do think social media plays a big role in this.
We are constantly being compared to the richest, best athlete,
best looking, best entrepreneur, go down the list in the
(26:42):
world in America because we have such a concentration of
them here in America, but also in some other places.
And I think that that's where people have lost a
bit of context and don't understand that. You know, I've
been in some really crappy countries for long stretches of time.
If you do that, you really start to realize how
amazing this place is.
Speaker 1 (27:03):
My theory is maybe a little bit different. I do
think social media plays in. I think that if you're
under thirty in this country, you've been conditioned with the
idea that America is a profoundly racist and force for evil.
And if you see the overall decline in religious rates,
and you've hit on this too, that climate change is
(27:24):
a religion for people who don't believe in religion. I
think that wokeism is a religion for people that don't
believe in religion. And if you are constantly being marinated
in the idea that because America had slavery in eighteen sixty,
you can never atone for the ills of this country,
(27:47):
and if you're not being taught about the true history
of the nation. What stands out to me is not
necessarily that young people are unhappy. It's why is the
gap between young and old in a America higher than
any country in the world right now. And I think
it's because if you're over sixty, you were raised in
(28:08):
America is a force for good. Look at what we
did in World War Two, look at the overall history
of America. You live through the Civil rights movement. You've
seen America, I think, be a force innately for good.
And people who are young have no real struggles, right
They didn't get drafted to fight in Vietnam. They haven't
and I'm talking about real life struggles. They haven't had
(28:29):
to go fight the Nazis, they haven't dealt with the
Great Depression, and they are buying into this idea. I
think social media works in on it, but that America
is not a force for good. And with an absence
of religion, to your point on ambition and what you
strive for, they're profoundly lost and there's a void that
(28:51):
is being filled by things that are making them less happy.
And I think a lot of them buck. This is
why I thought our conversation with Isabelle Brown yesterday was
so interesting, because I see it in my own kids.
A lot of them are aware that what they're being
told is not true and that it's not working for them,
and they're desperately seeking answers and they don't know how
to find them. Does that make sense. It's not uncommon
(29:12):
for young people. I think it's worse for them psychologically
today than it might have been for other generations.
Speaker 5 (29:18):
I think every generation of young people thinks that they're
you know, go back. I mean, if you talk about
our parents' generation, you know, the sixties and the seventies,
oh man, you know, the.
Speaker 3 (29:29):
World was so bleak and the oil embargo and.
Speaker 1 (29:32):
No, but they they were forces for good. In the
Baby boomers, right, the Baby Boomers are the most self entitled,
like obsessed generation, in my opinion, that believes that they
made the world a better place, Like does I feel you're.
Speaker 3 (29:46):
Talking about Americans? And I don't think.
Speaker 5 (29:48):
I don't think that the Baby Boom American generation thought that.
I think that they were riddled with a lot of
guilt over Vietnam and.
Speaker 1 (29:55):
You know, anyway, but I feel like a lot of
them stood up and felt like they were engaged. I
don't know that people under the age of thirty feel
like they really are involved in the choices that are
being made in the I don't know there is one
answer I'm curious for people out there listening. The gap
that doesn't exist anywhere else in the world is certainly there,
(30:15):
and it's open and right for explanation.
Speaker 5 (30:18):
America, Germany, New Zealand, Canada are the countries that all
have really low numbers.
Speaker 3 (30:25):
In the under thirty index.
Speaker 5 (30:27):
Now, far be it for me to be able to
analyze the contemporary German psyche like I don't know, you know,
I don't know what's going on over there. Like every
German I've met, you know, they're nice people, but I
don't know what they're thinking. But in terms of Canada
and the US, I mean, I do think that this
is Look, there are some things. We do have a
structural debt problem. We have had the massive transfer of
(30:49):
wealth from young too old, but which is still occurring.
And people don't like this, but that is what entitlements
actually are. People say, I pay into them, will you
take out twice what you put into them over the
course of your earnings on average, So you're actually burdening
future generations with And you know, just like when we're
hopefully off, Medicare is still there for us.
Speaker 3 (31:06):
We'll see what ends up happening. But I think that's
part of it.
Speaker 5 (31:10):
Clay, and I also think that people, yes, there's an
ideology of wokeness. Little Isabel yesterday was telling us that
a lot of gen z are not woke. I don't know,
I mean.
Speaker 1 (31:19):
Or that some of them are rejecting it.
Speaker 5 (31:22):
Yeah, I mean, I'm everyone I meet under thirty like
lives in an alternate universe except for the ones who
listened to this show.
Speaker 3 (31:28):
Thank you very much, we appreciate you.
Speaker 5 (31:30):
But everybody else who's in that generation, I think, to
be fair, how much interaction do we really have with
people under thirty on a day to day basis. I mean,
I you know, yeah, I don't know about your I
don't know about your world. I just see them on
TikTok and social media stuff and I'm like, okay, so
they know nothing.
Speaker 1 (31:45):
I mean, I'm around my kids.
Speaker 5 (31:46):
But yes, yeah, you have a you have a much
better line into you, like you understand, like you know
what what high school.
Speaker 3 (31:52):
Kids are thinking about.
Speaker 5 (31:53):
I don't know anything, but I will say this also,
and I hot tip my friend at David Harsanyi, who
wrote a book about this. You know, people will say, oh,
They're like, oh, it's so great, you know, everyone has
a grass is greener phenomenon with other countries.
Speaker 3 (32:07):
I mean, you know, and I have you ever been
to Sweden. I'm just gonna tell you, Yeah, Sweden, nice
people whatever. Go to Sweden in January and tell me
that you want to live there.
Speaker 5 (32:14):
That's what I was in Sweden and January. There's a
lot of stuff about this that. And go there and
try to start a business, go there and try to
do something that really changes the world. You know that
the if England, this is what I was saying about
Harsanyi's point.
Speaker 3 (32:27):
If England were a US.
Speaker 5 (32:28):
State, play it would be the poorest state per capita
in the United States. It would be poorer than Mississippi.
No offense to Mississippi, but I'm just saying it would
be the poorest state in the Union. And yet we
think of the English as fancy and having free healthcare. No,
actually they're kind of beaten down by an enormous state
in the National Health Service. And so you know, part
(32:50):
of this is with age comes wisdom. And I can't
believe I'm minding this. This clays older than I am,
as we know, by many years. Though I guess he
has something I.
Speaker 1 (32:58):
Will say this too a so we go to break here.
Here are the two countries that under thirty year olds
are the most happy, in Lithuania and Israel. How many
American under thirties would like to live in Lithuania. I'm
just raising it as an issue. Like everything, to your
point is relative. One of my favorite stats is if
(33:18):
you're one of the poorest in I think ten percent
in America, you would be one of the twenty percent
wealthiest it in India. So I don't know it's about money,
but it's certainly not understanding economics factors.
Speaker 5 (33:30):
If you're twenty five in Lithuania, you're still hearing stories
from your parents about standing in breadlines when it was
the Soviet Union.
Speaker 3 (33:36):
So I totally get why.
Speaker 5 (33:37):
Lithuania is so happy in that age group. But there's
very clear reasons for that, because it is as I said,
it's about expectation and ambition. What do you think about
your situation compared to other relevant situations. By the way,
it's also part of the anatomy of a revolution. For example,
it's not that people are so poor. There are a
lot of poor countries where there's no revolutions. Revolution comes. Well,
(33:59):
there's an number of things, but one of them is
when people think that their expectations are being unmet by
their society and by the state. So a lot of
it is, you know, Clay, you want to be happy,
lower your expectations. There you go, that's going a bumper sticker.
Speaker 1 (34:13):
That's why, that's why my wife is so happy in
our marriage. But
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