In this conversation, Karol talks with Charlie Cooke, Senior Editor at National Review and host of the Charles C.W. Cook Podcast. They discuss Charlie's podcast name, his journey from Britain to America, his book 'The Conservatarian Manifesto,' and his views on various topics. They touch on the importance of free speech, the dangers of the 1619 project, and the need to appreciate the opportunities and advantages of living in America. The Karol Markowicz Show is part of the Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Podcast Network - new episodes debut every Monday & Thursday.
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Speaker 1 (00:08):
Hi, and welcome back to the Carol Markowitz Show on iHeartRadio.
In my last monologue, I talked about kids being on
their screens too much and how that messes them up.
They expect to be entertained every minute of every day.
They don't know how to relate to other people. I
see it all the time. Then they grow up and
they still don't know how to connect.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
We see this everywhere.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
I think this is a big part of why dating
sucks so bad for everyone. I hear from single people
a lot that it's just terrible out there. There's this
meme that asks whether married millennials realize they have caught
the equivalent of the last chopper out of nam and
I do think married people happily married people. We do
(00:52):
feel very lucky to not have to date in this
insane environment. I'm going to say the most old lady
thing I can say, though it's supposed to be fun.
If it's not fun, something is very wrong. It's supposed
to be fun being young and meeting people and seeing
what you like and don't like in a potential partner.
(01:14):
And I can see that it's obviously not fun right now.
And this old lady thinks that it's the screens that
have done this. People treat dating like a video game.
The swiping, it just takes away that element of reality.
And I'm not even anti swiping. I'm really not. If
you're using it to meet people in real life, then
(01:35):
that's great, But the swiping sometimes becomes the whole ballgame.
And I see people fall into this all the time.
People swipe and chat online and they never actually meet,
and this is the problem. There was an article in
New York magazine recently about how terrible dating has become
and the explosion of women crying about their dating lives
(01:58):
on TikTok. So first of all, I would advise against
posting videos of yourself crying online. I get the argument that, oh,
other people who are sad can connect to you, and
the woman in the article the New York Magazine article
actually said that so many other women reached out to her,
But really, you become what you do, and if you're sad,
(02:22):
this sad, perpetually single person crying about your life on
the internet, it becomes far harder to get out of that.
The New York Magazine piece opens with a woman in
Austin who goes out alone trying to meet someone. She
goes to a bar, then she goes to a comedy show.
I thought this woman might be on vacation in Austin
(02:43):
or something, but no, she lives there. And the loneliness
of it all, going out alone to a comedy show,
having no one to laugh with, it's just really depressing.
I think step one, if you're in that situation, has
to be making a friend to do this way with.
It's crazy that it even needs to be said, but
(03:03):
that's exactly what breaks us with this constant screen usage.
It's us and our device, and who even needs someone else?
But we need other people. We need friends.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
You know, the.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
Idea of going out there and trying to meet someone
on your own, I can't even imagine how much more
difficult that is without a friend by your side. If
I could offer a piece of advice to single people,
it would be to try to have an analog summer.
Try no swiping, try no scrolling.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
It's hard.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
I know it's hard, but do two months July and
August with just trying to meet people in real life.
I'd love to hear from anyone who does this and
how it works out. I know it's hard to disconnect.
I find it incredibly difficult myself. But if you want
to meet someone, I really do think this is the way.
(03:58):
I'm not saying don't use social media at all or
don't use your phone at all, but limit it as
much as you can, and don't do any of the
dating apps. At the same time. Let your friends know
you're doing an analog dating summer and ask them to
set you up, especially older friends and yes, maybe even
your mom. Let the good people in your life know
(04:19):
you're looking to meet someone and go on the blind
dates they set up for you. Maybe that won't be
a love connection, but maybe it'll lead you to one
you really don't know. That's how life is supposed to go.
And I know we're old and we don't know anything
and everything has changed, but we new to catch that
last chopper out. So maybe give our advice to try
(04:40):
two months off no apps analog summer.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
Let me know how it goes.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
Coming up next and interview with Charles Cook. Join us
after the break. Hi, and welcome back to the Carol
Markowitz Show on iHeartRadio. My guest today is Charlie Cook.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
Senior editor at Nash Review and host of the Charles C. W.
Cook Podcast. Hi Charlie, so nice to have you on.
Thanks for having me so Charles C. W. Cook Podcast
very very formal with that podcast name.
Speaker 3 (05:12):
You know why, I can tell you the whole tell.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
Me the whole story. Let's go. Let's start here.
Speaker 3 (05:17):
Yeah. When I first moved to America, I wrote for
the third two or three months on the Charlie Duck Well,
the famous Charlie Duck Poulter.
Speaker 4 (05:25):
Oh, I was gonna say the soccer player, because I
googled to see what I was missing, you know, and
I discovered that there was a famous British.
Speaker 3 (05:34):
Soccer player that too, but I think he retired in
the seventies, so that one's less of a problem mom Google.
But the problem was that people would google Charlie Tuck.
And then I started giving the tema saying, hey, on
a minute, aren't you a polster? Why are you the
right wing? Now? Well it's the jefferent Charlie Cook. And
then he started getting eight mile intended for me. But
(05:54):
I thought, you know what I'll do? Are you birth
middle names at the natchel? And then no, and be confused?
And I had that we were with the podcast when
I launched it. I noted that people were googling Charity
w Cook podcast to find my old podcast, But I
love you.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
I'll give it to them people what they want. That's
exactly so you are. No, you were British and now
you're American. That's right, Still sound British?
Speaker 3 (06:28):
Yeah, very much there.
Speaker 4 (06:30):
So you know I'm an immigrant too, but I'm very
interested in people who leave normal places, like you know,
I left the Soviet Union like it wasn't really much
of a decision, but you you know, left Britain, came
to America and then became an American. What made you
take that leap? You could have just stayed a British
(06:52):
citizen living here, right.
Speaker 3 (06:54):
Yeah, I had made me that one you just made.
Often when I talked to audience is about it. For
a couple of reasons. First, because I don't want to
steal the valor of people who come from terrible place,
you know, to whom America is obviously paradise because they
were being killed or living under parity. So I always
(07:17):
want to separate myself from those people and make exactly
the point you just did it, which is that I
could stay where I was. I'm quite happy in say,
but I also think that it underscores how wonderful America is.
If you can come to America for a good factory
country that did great and democratic Britain or Fra or
(07:39):
Australia and still love it with a great passion. And
they had to say something about America, and that was
where I was. I like Britain. My family's there, my
friends are there. It's a good country. But I, for
some reason, long before I had any politics, always loves
(08:00):
America when we would come as a kid, there's just
something about America that appeels. Probably first this is the weather.
We went to Florida, California and Arizona, the three places
we used to visit. We had family friends in California
and Arizona and Florida, Disney World and your kids, and
(08:22):
I just liked the private with sunny and there were
palm trees. But it's also the dynamite. Before you get
to any political question, you can just feel it. It
is a much more open, friendly, dynamic place and it
just resonated with me for every since I was really young.
I think that was forbaby four years old and I said,
(08:44):
when I grow up, I want to live in America,
which course throw my parents. So but yeah, I always
been there, and I mean the political side of it.
I didn't respective politically, but that did come later.
Speaker 2 (08:56):
Interesting. So how old were you when you moved here?
Speaker 3 (08:59):
Twenty six?
Speaker 2 (09:02):
And no regrets. Never I thought like.
Speaker 3 (09:07):
Now, it's funny that I met my now wife within
about four months of moving. Yeah. And sometimes people say,
all right, so you just married her because you wanted
to be in America. No, hey, you.
Speaker 2 (09:21):
Were did the green card?
Speaker 3 (09:22):
Now I know I didn't get my green card brunner.
I got it through work. But to be honest with you,
I actually wanted the which was I had this great
opportunity to write a national review. It's an intern and
the last thing that I wanted to do is get
into a serious like so I wanted to work right,
and so you know when it happened to happen, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
You don't have a lot of control.
Speaker 4 (09:44):
What are you going to do?
Speaker 3 (09:45):
No? No, but yeah, day I regretted it. And now
it's a funny question because occasionally people say, well, will
you go back? And not only do I not want to,
but my job is to my kids are here, that
school is here, my house is it to me, is
now one of the things that that hit at that.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
Yeah, I agree.
Speaker 4 (10:04):
Now, I mean, despite your accent, I see you as
very American. So I you know, in thinking about this interview,
I went back and looked through your book, The Conservatorian
is So is it like a decade old actually didn't
look up.
Speaker 3 (10:19):
When we were nine?
Speaker 2 (10:21):
Yeah, nine years old?
Speaker 4 (10:23):
Do you like, do you still hear yourself in it?
Do you still feel like it represents you?
Speaker 3 (10:29):
Yeah? I think the book is interesting because there are
some predictions in it that were wrong, and then there
is some predictions in that that they're not only right,
but that and nailed.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
Yeah, immigrate and I think you now, yeah.
Speaker 3 (10:51):
But also the rise of than isolating the streak in
the Republican Party. The thing that I obviously got wrong,
and I don't think that even fault me for half
of it, but you can forever the thing that I
obviously got wrong was it was written in twenty fourteen,
and so it doesn't in any way and fit the
page shocks right. And so if you look at the
(11:14):
predictions for the future of politics in America over the
next decade, so something, and you just can't reconcile that
with reality it created EFL creates this fantasy world. But
so I don't did. That's my fault because who knew that, right?
Speaker 2 (11:31):
Right?
Speaker 3 (11:32):
I do think though what I've missed, and maybe I
got a the sideways with the immigrats and chapter and
the chapter on foreign policy. But what I admit and
didn't see coming with the populist turn, I thought that
that populism would continue in the vein that it had
(11:56):
been in at that point for four years and would
continue to be the especially in winter twenty fourteen at
the tea party. But that's not what happened. That movement
got consumed into Trump and Magnar.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
Right, doan know when he did? I don't think that
was I'm pay it all.
Speaker 3 (12:16):
But yeah, I still I still think I'm we think
what in there? I don't really think I've changed. I'm
probably And then a little bit. Let's have a layer
about drug legalizations in my wall same.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
Actually, so I didn't reread it, but I read it
at the time and I.
Speaker 4 (12:30):
Just flipped through it, you know, in preparation for this,
and I was like, oh, yeah, I've changed on the
drug thing.
Speaker 3 (12:36):
Now.
Speaker 2 (12:36):
I wonder if you had.
Speaker 4 (12:38):
As well, But yeah, you immigration, I think you really
nailed in it. You were like, you know, you're not
supposed to be a drain on the system, and if
we continue this path, like it's going to get very bad.
Speaker 3 (12:50):
So yeah, yeah, And I was right asadly get marriage
because I said that would just a pair of people
would still care about abortion, and that was I think
that's probably crue. The drupping is an eighty one because
I still think that I'm balance. I don't want the
lord that where I was wrong.
Speaker 4 (13:07):
I.
Speaker 3 (13:10):
Considered that to be left social downside to drugs that
I now think that there is. I didn't know that
Neil could be everywhere, would start a weak and fentannel
hadn't yet entered my vocabulary. And it's not a perfect analogy.
(13:33):
But if you analogize that with hard drugs like heroin,
which I say in the book shouldn't be illegal, and
there really is an enormous social cast to it, that
I've underestimated. The last thing.
Speaker 2 (13:48):
No, to be fair to.
Speaker 4 (13:51):
You and to me, because I also held those kind
of similar ideas. I never said, like, let's make weed
smoking legal in the streets of New York City. You know,
I was just saying because I grew up in Brooklyn.
You know, everybody smoked weed in our teen years, and
like police used to like chase us down, and you know,
(14:11):
we'd be like in somebody's backyard, and I just it
was all kinds of like you know, police activity around
pot smoking in Brooklyn that was completely unnecessary. And so
I saw stuff like that, like, okay, don't invest these kids,
who are you know, smoking on private property or you know,
even like in a empty park or whatever, but not
(14:33):
like walking down Fifth Avenue.
Speaker 2 (14:35):
I never said that we should do that. So and similarly,
even the hard stuff.
Speaker 4 (14:40):
You know, if somebody's an attict, I don't necessarily think
they should be arrested. But I also don't think that
Portland should be you know, handing out heroin.
Speaker 2 (14:48):
I didn't, you know, I have there might.
Speaker 4 (14:50):
Be like a happy medium here that we did not try.
So you know, I don't feel a lot of responsibility
for how far they took it, but I do feel
responsibility that I of course, you know, kind of argued
ideas that they then took way too far.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
And I feel.
Speaker 4 (15:07):
Similarly about like bail, Like I thought bail was too
high in New York City, but I never said it
should be zero, like that's crazy.
Speaker 3 (15:15):
Yeah, yeah, well the public won't be one. Is a
great point, be coach. You're not allowed to walk down
Fifth Avenue with.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
A cocktail or a beer or anything.
Speaker 3 (15:24):
Right. The difference, and this is where propretivism just becoming
inscrutable to me. The difference in the way that tobacco,
cigarette and weed are treated across the country, especially in
blue jurisdictions where they go much further than in red days.
(15:45):
There are all manner of laws about where you can smoke.
They don't apply to weed, and that I guess I
just didn't think about because to me it would be
all be. If you're going to prevent people from smoking
at someone, you would prevent them from smoking weed. If
you're going to prevent them from drinking somewhere you were
prevalent from spoken way, but we haven't. So it's had
(16:06):
these strange confer I thought that you're right, it's not
our faults to stay summer.
Speaker 2 (16:13):
I fully don't you know. I don't blame us. I
just want to have that on her book. So what
kind of stuff do you like to write about? What
is your like, what would you consider your beat? Right now?
Speaker 3 (16:26):
Well, what is not My beat right now is the
election is coming out because they just find it depressing.
And I'm not really sure at this point is how
much more to write about the two people who are involved.
I like writing about law I think I'm a frustrated lawyer.
I don't want to be a lawyer, because every lawyer
(16:46):
I know that they don't want to be a lawyer. Yeah.
I quite like to have a law degree so that
people wouldn't shout at me, you don't have a law degree.
Rather the read what I've.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
Written, so they're going to shout it anyway.
Speaker 3 (16:57):
Yeah, exactly. So I like covering the Supreme Court and
then associated legal political questions, separation of power, the Bill
of Rights, the federal system. I'm incident speech, speech and
(17:17):
culture just the biggest issue of our time. I think
that the paradox in American life at the moment is
that we have the most robust free feet protection legally
in the world. It's not even closed. And they are
more robustly protected by the Court than they have been
(17:41):
at any point in American history. And if you were
to look at it continuum and say pen legally, the
best point of the speech in the history of the
United States, you just have to put now, you know,
one hundred years ago we had the Wilson Eiro, the
Tradition Act as PI in our dad. Before that, they
(18:02):
were all manner of restrictions on what you could say
about slavery. Federally, we had the gag rules, but in
the States you could be arrested. But emancipation talk. And
then up until the seventies there were a lot of
rules as well the federal level, and in the States
they've gone. But at the moment that we've done that,
(18:22):
we have this culture that horrendously censorious and try to
redefine these words like diverse and inclusive and tolerant to
me the opposite of what they actually need. So, I mean,
this is a perennial issue, but this is something I
like to write about for a while. And then then
(18:43):
the Second Amendments is a big topic of mind because
I find the idea that the Second Amendments that doesn't
protected individual right to be the equivalent of Landing truth
or ism. It's just absolutely stupid. It's not I think
that Americans think on average America for the individual rights
and tempertation, but our elite cloud is the death of
(19:05):
the stupid idea. So that needs to be written about
a lot. But you know that, I think, and then
day to day politics when it's left earlier.
Speaker 4 (19:13):
You know, I have to tell you, I think you
had a major influence on my fairly apolitical husband on
the Second Amendment. He heard you speak a long time ago.
Speaker 2 (19:24):
Now, he was pretty not anti gun, but we grew
up in New York City. Like guns are bad is the.
Speaker 4 (19:30):
You know, default position even among kind of right leaning people.
Speaker 2 (19:34):
But yeah, you you were definitely like the gateway drug
for him. He carries every day now, so he's he's
made a shift night.
Speaker 3 (19:44):
That's a huge shift. Yeah. So it's in Florida that
I've made that as easy as possible.
Speaker 2 (19:48):
Right, So you also led the way on Florida.
Speaker 4 (19:52):
You were an early adopter on the whole free state
of Florida thing.
Speaker 2 (19:56):
You moved down? When did you move to Florida?
Speaker 3 (19:58):
Trank of seventeen head?
Speaker 2 (20:00):
You really are You were the early the pioneer. And
so what have you enjoyed it? What do you think?
Speaker 3 (20:09):
Well? I love it. I love it. It's a wonderful
place to live. And the people who hate it should
continue to do so and say, well they said, we
moved down into a different state in some sense than
it is now. In another sense, Florida is the same
if it ever was, because so much of what is
(20:30):
good about Florida is now permanent. It's in the constitution. No,
he comes back the way that the state works fundamentally,
as it has for a long time. But we were
down twenty seventeen because we couldn't afford to live in
the northeast anymore, and we were just about to have
a second tart and we wanted to weather. It affected
(20:52):
me that I didn't really need to be up in
the northeast because they're the writer, okay, And so we
moved down. But at the time in Florida was the
fifty to fifty stay and Trump could won it, but
Obama won it twice. And the most recent subernatorial election
(21:12):
has been one twenty fourteen, and it Republican wait by
one point. And I had to turn out that the
third election we voted in twenty eighteen would also be
very close. Rick got one by tenthout vote one by
thirty and the Democrats had a registration advantage, although a
lot of those Democrats were really Republican traditionally been Democrats,
(21:37):
and we came down here and we loved it for
the weather and the environment and how friendly everyone was
and so on, and we thought, well, it's a frinth day.
It's better than where we were in the northeast, and
then told it and then you suddenly had this separation
(21:59):
between Florida and a few other days. Georgia is another one,
and where we had come from. And after a while,
the descriptions of daily life that we would hear from
our friends back in Connecticut in New York, which is dailien,
it's supplicated, we didn't have any descriptions in Florida. There
was a real four months period where life is a
(22:21):
bit weird and then the way yeah, and we said, Mike,
goodness me were we lucky? And it looks touch wood
I did a lot of the consequences of that have
changed Florida in the long run, because now that there
were a million Republican voter advanceages here and there is
an attitude here that is informed by a lot of
(22:43):
people who moved in from other places. And I said, well, no,
I like my refuge. You're not changing it back, We're
not losing.
Speaker 2 (22:50):
It, right, Yeah, I think a lot of the people,
I mean not a lot.
Speaker 4 (22:55):
I think that the majority, the great majority of the
people that moved during this COVID time came here for
the ideology.
Speaker 2 (23:02):
It wasn't the taxes or the weather or any of that.
Speaker 4 (23:06):
It was very much, I want to be part of
this free thing that's going on.
Speaker 3 (23:11):
Right. No, I agree, And it's a tangible I mean
either word ideology. There is that, but it's tangible for people.
The number of friends we have who came down and
then their kids were back in school and they were
sitting in Philadelphia, unable to take their children to school,
unable to go out. One of our friends told me
(23:32):
that the moment where they said, you know what we've done,
we have to move, was that they took the kid
there to Kick fil A and got drive through Kick
fil A, and one of their three sons said that
this was the best day of the year, right because
(23:54):
they'd just been pitting at home and everyone was marked
up if they was at school, and and he said,
well that that's just no way to have a top. Yeah,
I love kick, but say not the best daily going
through the drive through window until we moved two weeks later.
And you try and try what Florida wasn't is away
(24:16):
from those people, and you'll be.
Speaker 4 (24:18):
Exactly right, I think, especially I you know, I mean,
I'm obviously an evangelist for the state, but even all
the people that I've met are just so passionate about
the state and maintaining it as this like beacon of
freedom and not letting it change. I think it's it's
kind of it feels, you know, like a movement, like
a revolution or something.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
It definitely feels like you're part of something here.
Speaker 3 (24:42):
Very much there, very much there, and people who lived
here a long time before COVID, which I didn't to
say that. It is true that the state for the
third time helped dive left an identity, not that it
(25:04):
was a more food before, but you know, Hexta has
an identity, you know what that is? Right? I mean,
I would think it's when I go to Fra that
and speak to the friend. The friends think that America.
Speaker 2 (25:19):
Yeah, I wish, but it's not. It's not.
Speaker 3 (25:23):
New York have an identity. New York knows what it is.
And it seems to me now that Florida has that too.
Speaker 2 (25:29):
It's great, right, I absolutely agree.
Speaker 4 (25:32):
I think that other Florida didn't have an identity before,
but it has a very strong identity now.
Speaker 2 (25:38):
And it's me so good.
Speaker 1 (25:40):
We're going to take a quick break and be right
back on the Carol Marcowitch Show.
Speaker 4 (25:47):
So you write about, you know, all this different stuff.
What do you think is our largest cultural issue? Like
what what do you what are you most worried about?
Speaker 3 (25:56):
I am most worried about whose things that are probably related?
The first I had am raced in ten minutes ago,
which is the notion that speeches violence or that it
needs to be it needs to be glued to action
when it's not. And the second is the development of
(26:21):
the ideology that you see encapsulated in the sixteen nineteen projects.
And what that does is poisoned America. The advocates of
the sixty nineteen project here you say that and say
you just don't want to accept the downside of American history,
and that's absolutely nonsense. I're right about them all the time.
(26:44):
America has the most beautiful founding method, which he felt
to live up to the United States was hypocritical. The
abomination that with slavery will always be a stained on
its story. And the consequence of this slavery were not
equally as bad. We're also terrible segregations in redlining, prevative racism,
(27:08):
and the rest. I have no problem talking about that.
I have no problem teaching my children. Now. What I
will not be teaching my children, and what I do
not want my children to be told, is that the
United States and the life, that the people who wrote
the Decoration of Independent didn't believe it, and that Frederick
Douglas with a Jews, that the Confederacy ultimately was right,
(27:32):
which is where you end up with right if you
take that view, that the United States was indeed found
on the principle that men are not equal, and that
the natural condition of non white people is at slade,
that is fault. And the reason America got better over
(27:53):
time was because this north Star, the founding, was accepted
to all. I am worried that the sixteen nineteen project
view of the world is pervadive in any circle that
it did, because to me, what that does when it prevails,
it takes away the means of improvement and it leaves
(28:17):
people with nothing. It's just pure nighs. And I don't
believe that. I mean, I believe in all the Americans
stuff you can't fit. But over the other side of
the rim, above my desk, I have a copy of
the Decorations of Independence. When I became a citizen. You know,
we all put up our right hand, or twenty eight
of us in the real all from different places. I
was the only bread we had Japan, Cuba and Italy
(28:41):
and Australia and Ghana, and we all put up our hands,
and we all waved up flags. Will recited those and yeah,
we haven't believed a word of it. It would have
been chemical and dangerous. But I did, and so did
everyone else far as I can see. So that friends,
And of course the obstit of it on a practical
(29:03):
level is to teach people to hate each other, not
to see each other as peers, but to see each
other if race rival, this has to be stamped out.
Lie has to be stacked out.
Speaker 2 (29:19):
Do you have hope that it will be well?
Speaker 3 (29:21):
I do, because I think people hate it. I just
worry about its influence in our elite levels, or I
think it's very popular, But I think the average American
hates it. If you look for example of the affirmative
action case, it was eighty percent popular. It was more
popular than social security that affirmative action case. Yeah, people
(29:44):
just don't like the idea of dividing us up into
groups of discrimination and website. They do believe that affirmative
action is wrong because the women have created equal and
that that's what the Constitution, at least in three construction
is football. No, I don't think it's going to be
a problem to convince Americans a bit, but it is
(30:05):
really deep seated now in our academic institution to treating
the incorporation and government, especially in the bureaucracy. That's where
we need to get rid of it.
Speaker 2 (30:19):
Yeah, I think it's going to take a while. I
just I do.
Speaker 4 (30:22):
I'm also optimistic that it ends, but it's like all
the people who I just the pendulum is swinging, but
it's going to take quite a bit to get that
elite kind of mindset out of their positions of power.
Speaker 2 (30:37):
And so I'm hopeful sometimes about it.
Speaker 4 (30:40):
Other other days I'm like, this is all going to
go really badly for a while.
Speaker 2 (30:46):
But ultimately, I mean, you know, America, I just see
it as like the last great hope.
Speaker 4 (30:52):
So if we can't fix it here, the rest of
the world in trouble too.
Speaker 2 (30:59):
So you have this, you know, great purch at the
National Review.
Speaker 4 (31:05):
You are an American by choice, You get to be
a Floridian, I mean best you know of all.
Speaker 2 (31:10):
You have this amazing family. We didn't get to talk
enough about that. Do you feel like you've made it?
Speaker 3 (31:16):
Yeah? How sad it would it be? That they knows? Right?
And if you if you think about I have all
these things, but even if I didn't have a lot,
just think about how fortunate it is to have been
(31:37):
born at this point in history and then been it
fitted in off Britain and then the United States. I mean,
my great grandfather was so poor to still coal so
they have a fire and I'm sitting here in my
(31:58):
little studio hating for a job. So yeah, absolutely, And
then the rest of it is I think on the cake,
I love it, but we're just so fortunate and it
and and that gratitude is something I worry about a
little bit too, that people aren't aware of that. You
(32:22):
see a lot of it on social media. It's probably
not at the defective that we think of it, but
you see a lot of it on social media. People
with the third expectations that what their life will be like, Well,
what life was like one hundred years, right.
Speaker 2 (32:36):
Yeah, or what they think everybody else is doing.
Speaker 4 (32:38):
I think so many people on social media think that
everybody else is like flying around on private planes.
Speaker 2 (32:45):
Eating cavia or I don't know, I just think they
have no perspective. So yeah, it's it's all related.
Speaker 3 (32:52):
Though.
Speaker 4 (32:52):
I think the elite, elite opinions being all you know,
kind of negative and people thinking that their lives aren't good.
Speaker 2 (33:00):
I think all of that is is one thing, and
I hope that we I hope that we beat it back.
Speaker 4 (33:06):
I hope our kids get to be raised in a
different way and understand that all the positives that they
have here.
Speaker 3 (33:13):
I agree. I agree, my kids have been bullion doctrinnches
into how lucky they are to live. In fact, they
often go over the top and I have to dial
it back at it. So, you know, they they they
think that America might be superlative in every single way.
So it has to be the physically biggest topic, right
of course. Yeah, I mean what that is?
Speaker 2 (33:36):
What difference does it make?
Speaker 4 (33:37):
You know?
Speaker 3 (33:38):
Right? And it has to have the cold winter, and
it has to have the heartiest dead and has to
have the trolls tree, you know, and I sort of
that's the that's the moment in the bar app movie
where he's trying to convince the American lady that Kesa's
done is better because it's done with five and nine
ore at four, I'm saying, and she keeps saying, no, no, no,
(33:59):
you don't understand the reason our country is the best constitution.
And it did yet but we have you know, we
do much cheaper mango import you know, and that my
kids have got votes, which is good, but they're still
at the faith where they are. We don't have to
burd want.
Speaker 2 (34:21):
I say, let them believe it. We have the cheapest
mango too, you know.
Speaker 3 (34:24):
There you go.
Speaker 2 (34:26):
So I've loved talking to Charlie. This has been really great.
Speaker 4 (34:29):
And here with your best tip for my listeners on
how they can improve their lives.
Speaker 3 (34:36):
Well, I think in part we just covered it, really,
which is I think the corstin in life at beIN
partic is always that opposed to walk. And there are
people who will be listening who really do have problems
when they shouldn't be ignored. You know, you can't just say, oh, well,
how lucky you are, all right, but they are. There
are things that you app but most of life isn't like.
(34:56):
Most of life is pretty easy for all people in
the country. And the best part of that is that
most of us did absolutely nothing to make it that way.
And I think about my grandfather who was on an
apple chid in Devon in England and had never left
his county, and suddenly he's fighting the Nazis and Italians
(35:19):
in North Africa and southern Italy. And I'm sitting here
with all of my great you know, I advantage it
because he did that. I didn't do that. I didn't
write with that question. I didn't fight the Civil War.
I didn't invent it the toothbrush.
Speaker 2 (35:37):
But he did it for you, you know right, No,
he did.
Speaker 3 (35:40):
He did. And I just find that reflecting on that
every day is the best thing that I can do
for happiness.
Speaker 2 (35:51):
I love that. Thank you so much for coming on
here is Charlie Cook. Check out his Charles C. W.
Cook podcast and read him at AshEL Review.
Speaker 3 (35:58):
Thank you, Charlie, thanks for having me the pleasure.
Speaker 1 (36:01):
Thanks so much for joining us on the Carol Marcowitch Show.
Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
Hi, and welcome back to the Carol Markowitz Show on iHeartRadio.
In my last monologue, I talked about kids being on
their screens too much and how that messes them up.
They expect to be entertained every minute of every day.
They don't know how to relate to other people. I
see it all the time. Then they grow up and
they still don't know how to connect.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
We see this everywhere.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
I think this is a big part of why dating
sucks so bad for everyone. I hear from single people
a lot that it's just terrible out there. There's this
meme that asks whether married millennials realize they have caught
the equivalent of the last chopper out of nam and
I do think married people happily married people. We do
(00:52):
feel very lucky to not have to date in this
insane environment. I'm going to say the most old lady
thing I can say, though it's supposed to be fun.
If it's not fun, something is very wrong. It's supposed
to be fun being young and meeting people and seeing
what you like and don't like in a potential partner.
(01:14):
And I can see that it's obviously not fun right now.
And this old lady thinks that it's the screens that
have done this. People treat dating like a video game.
The swiping, it just takes away that element of reality.
And I'm not even anti swiping. I'm really not. If
you're using it to meet people in real life, then
(01:35):
that's great, But the swiping sometimes becomes the whole ballgame.
And I see people fall into this all the time.
People swipe and chat online and they never actually meet,
and this is the problem. There was an article in
New York magazine recently about how terrible dating has become
and the explosion of women crying about their dating lives
(01:58):
on TikTok. So first of all, I would advise against
posting videos of yourself crying online. I get the argument that, oh,
other people who are sad can connect to you, and
the woman in the article the New York Magazine article
actually said that so many other women reached out to her,
But really, you become what you do, and if you're sad,
(02:22):
this sad, perpetually single person crying about your life on
the internet, it becomes far harder to get out of that.
The New York Magazine piece opens with a woman in
Austin who goes out alone trying to meet someone. She
goes to a bar, then she goes to a comedy show.
I thought this woman might be on vacation in Austin
(02:43):
or something, but no, she lives there. And the loneliness
of it all, going out alone to a comedy show,
having no one to laugh with, it's just really depressing.
I think step one, if you're in that situation, has
to be making a friend to do this way with.
It's crazy that it even needs to be said, but
(03:03):
that's exactly what breaks us with this constant screen usage.
It's us and our device, and who even needs someone else?
But we need other people. We need friends.
Speaker 2 (03:14):
You know, the.
Speaker 1 (03:15):
Idea of going out there and trying to meet someone
on your own, I can't even imagine how much more
difficult that is without a friend by your side. If
I could offer a piece of advice to single people,
it would be to try to have an analog summer.
Try no swiping, try no scrolling.
Speaker 2 (03:36):
It's hard.
Speaker 1 (03:37):
I know it's hard, but do two months July and
August with just trying to meet people in real life.
I'd love to hear from anyone who does this and
how it works out. I know it's hard to disconnect.
I find it incredibly difficult myself. But if you want
to meet someone, I really do think this is the way.
(03:58):
I'm not saying don't use social media at all or
don't use your phone at all, but limit it as
much as you can, and don't do any of the
dating apps. At the same time. Let your friends know
you're doing an analog dating summer and ask them to
set you up, especially older friends and yes, maybe even
your mom. Let the good people in your life know
(04:19):
you're looking to meet someone and go on the blind
dates they set up for you. Maybe that won't be
a love connection, but maybe it'll lead you to one
you really don't know. That's how life is supposed to go.
And I know we're old and we don't know anything
and everything has changed, but we new to catch that
last chopper out. So maybe give our advice to try
(04:40):
two months off no apps analog summer.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
Let me know how it goes.
Speaker 1 (04:46):
Coming up next and interview with Charles Cook. Join us
after the break. Hi, and welcome back to the Carol
Markowitz Show on iHeartRadio. My guest today is Charlie Cook.
Speaker 2 (04:58):
Senior editor at Nash Review and host of the Charles C. W.
Cook Podcast. Hi Charlie, so nice to have you on.
Thanks for having me so Charles C. W. Cook Podcast
very very formal with that podcast name.
Speaker 3 (05:12):
You know why, I can tell you the whole tell.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
Me the whole story. Let's go. Let's start here.
Speaker 3 (05:17):
Yeah. When I first moved to America, I wrote for
the third two or three months on the Charlie Duck Well,
the famous Charlie Duck Poulter.
Speaker 4 (05:25):
Oh, I was gonna say the soccer player, because I
googled to see what I was missing, you know, and
I discovered that there was a famous British.
Speaker 3 (05:34):
Soccer player that too, but I think he retired in
the seventies, so that one's less of a problem mom Google.
But the problem was that people would google Charlie Tuck.
And then I started giving the tema saying, hey, on
a minute, aren't you a polster? Why are you the
right wing? Now? Well it's the jefferent Charlie Cook. And
then he started getting eight mile intended for me. But
(05:54):
I thought, you know what I'll do? Are you birth
middle names at the natchel? And then no, and be confused?
And I had that we were with the podcast when
I launched it. I noted that people were googling Charity
w Cook podcast to find my old podcast, But I
love you.
Speaker 2 (06:14):
I'll give it to them people what they want. That's
exactly so you are. No, you were British and now
you're American. That's right, Still sound British?
Speaker 3 (06:28):
Yeah, very much there.
Speaker 4 (06:30):
So you know I'm an immigrant too, but I'm very
interested in people who leave normal places, like you know,
I left the Soviet Union like it wasn't really much
of a decision, but you you know, left Britain, came
to America and then became an American. What made you
take that leap? You could have just stayed a British
(06:52):
citizen living here, right.
Speaker 3 (06:54):
Yeah, I had made me that one you just made.
Often when I talked to audience is about it. For
a couple of reasons. First, because I don't want to
steal the valor of people who come from terrible place,
you know, to whom America is obviously paradise because they
were being killed or living under parity. So I always
(07:17):
want to separate myself from those people and make exactly
the point you just did it, which is that I
could stay where I was. I'm quite happy in say,
but I also think that it underscores how wonderful America is.
If you can come to America for a good factory
country that did great and democratic Britain or Fra or
(07:39):
Australia and still love it with a great passion. And
they had to say something about America, and that was
where I was. I like Britain. My family's there, my
friends are there. It's a good country. But I, for
some reason, long before I had any politics, always loves
(08:00):
America when we would come as a kid, there's just
something about America that appeels. Probably first this is the weather.
We went to Florida, California and Arizona, the three places
we used to visit. We had family friends in California
and Arizona and Florida, Disney World and your kids, and
(08:22):
I just liked the private with sunny and there were
palm trees. But it's also the dynamite. Before you get
to any political question, you can just feel it. It
is a much more open, friendly, dynamic place and it
just resonated with me for every since I was really young.
I think that was forbaby four years old and I said,
(08:44):
when I grow up, I want to live in America,
which course throw my parents. So but yeah, I always
been there, and I mean the political side of it.
I didn't respective politically, but that did come later.
Speaker 2 (08:56):
Interesting. So how old were you when you moved here?
Speaker 3 (08:59):
Twenty six?
Speaker 2 (09:02):
And no regrets. Never I thought like.
Speaker 3 (09:07):
Now, it's funny that I met my now wife within
about four months of moving. Yeah. And sometimes people say,
all right, so you just married her because you wanted
to be in America. No, hey, you.
Speaker 2 (09:21):
Were did the green card?
Speaker 3 (09:22):
Now I know I didn't get my green card brunner.
I got it through work. But to be honest with you,
I actually wanted the which was I had this great
opportunity to write a national review. It's an intern and
the last thing that I wanted to do is get
into a serious like so I wanted to work right,
and so you know when it happened to happen, Yeah.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
You don't have a lot of control.
Speaker 4 (09:44):
What are you going to do?
Speaker 3 (09:45):
No? No, but yeah, day I regretted it. And now
it's a funny question because occasionally people say, well, will
you go back? And not only do I not want to,
but my job is to my kids are here, that
school is here, my house is it to me, is
now one of the things that that hit at that.
Speaker 2 (10:03):
Yeah, I agree.
Speaker 4 (10:04):
Now, I mean, despite your accent, I see you as
very American. So I you know, in thinking about this interview,
I went back and looked through your book, The Conservatorian
is So is it like a decade old actually didn't
look up.
Speaker 3 (10:19):
When we were nine?
Speaker 2 (10:21):
Yeah, nine years old?
Speaker 4 (10:23):
Do you like, do you still hear yourself in it?
Do you still feel like it represents you?
Speaker 3 (10:29):
Yeah? I think the book is interesting because there are
some predictions in it that were wrong, and then there
is some predictions in that that they're not only right,
but that and nailed.
Speaker 2 (10:47):
Yeah, immigrate and I think you now, yeah.
Speaker 3 (10:51):
But also the rise of than isolating the streak in
the Republican Party. The thing that I obviously got wrong,
and I don't think that even fault me for half
of it, but you can forever the thing that I
obviously got wrong was it was written in twenty fourteen,
and so it doesn't in any way and fit the
page shocks right. And so if you look at the
(11:14):
predictions for the future of politics in America over the
next decade, so something, and you just can't reconcile that
with reality it created EFL creates this fantasy world. But
so I don't did. That's my fault because who knew that, right?
Speaker 2 (11:31):
Right?
Speaker 3 (11:32):
I do think though what I've missed, and maybe I
got a the sideways with the immigrats and chapter and
the chapter on foreign policy. But what I admit and
didn't see coming with the populist turn, I thought that
that populism would continue in the vein that it had
(11:56):
been in at that point for four years and would
continue to be the especially in winter twenty fourteen at
the tea party. But that's not what happened. That movement
got consumed into Trump and Magnar.
Speaker 2 (12:11):
Right, doan know when he did? I don't think that
was I'm pay it all.
Speaker 3 (12:16):
But yeah, I still I still think I'm we think
what in there? I don't really think I've changed. I'm
probably And then a little bit. Let's have a layer
about drug legalizations in my wall same.
Speaker 2 (12:27):
Actually, so I didn't reread it, but I read it
at the time and I.
Speaker 4 (12:30):
Just flipped through it, you know, in preparation for this,
and I was like, oh, yeah, I've changed on the
drug thing.
Speaker 3 (12:36):
Now.
Speaker 2 (12:36):
I wonder if you had.
Speaker 4 (12:38):
As well, But yeah, you immigration, I think you really
nailed in it. You were like, you know, you're not
supposed to be a drain on the system, and if
we continue this path, like it's going to get very bad.
Speaker 3 (12:50):
So yeah, yeah, And I was right asadly get marriage
because I said that would just a pair of people
would still care about abortion, and that was I think
that's probably crue. The drupping is an eighty one because
I still think that I'm balance. I don't want the
lord that where I was wrong.
Speaker 4 (13:07):
I.
Speaker 3 (13:10):
Considered that to be left social downside to drugs that
I now think that there is. I didn't know that
Neil could be everywhere, would start a weak and fentannel
hadn't yet entered my vocabulary. And it's not a perfect analogy.
(13:33):
But if you analogize that with hard drugs like heroin,
which I say in the book shouldn't be illegal, and
there really is an enormous social cast to it, that
I've underestimated. The last thing.
Speaker 2 (13:48):
No, to be fair to.
Speaker 4 (13:51):
You and to me, because I also held those kind
of similar ideas. I never said, like, let's make weed
smoking legal in the streets of New York City. You know,
I was just saying because I grew up in Brooklyn.
You know, everybody smoked weed in our teen years, and
like police used to like chase us down, and you know,
(14:11):
we'd be like in somebody's backyard, and I just it
was all kinds of like you know, police activity around
pot smoking in Brooklyn that was completely unnecessary. And so
I saw stuff like that, like, okay, don't invest these kids,
who are you know, smoking on private property or you know,
even like in a empty park or whatever, but not
(14:33):
like walking down Fifth Avenue.
Speaker 2 (14:35):
I never said that we should do that. So and similarly,
even the hard stuff.
Speaker 4 (14:40):
You know, if somebody's an attict, I don't necessarily think
they should be arrested. But I also don't think that
Portland should be you know, handing out heroin.
Speaker 2 (14:48):
I didn't, you know, I have there might.
Speaker 4 (14:50):
Be like a happy medium here that we did not try.
So you know, I don't feel a lot of responsibility
for how far they took it, but I do feel
responsibility that I of course, you know, kind of argued
ideas that they then took way too far.
Speaker 2 (15:06):
And I feel.
Speaker 4 (15:07):
Similarly about like bail, Like I thought bail was too
high in New York City, but I never said it
should be zero, like that's crazy.
Speaker 3 (15:15):
Yeah, yeah, well the public won't be one. Is a
great point, be coach. You're not allowed to walk down
Fifth Avenue with.
Speaker 2 (15:22):
A cocktail or a beer or anything.
Speaker 3 (15:24):
Right. The difference, and this is where propretivism just becoming
inscrutable to me. The difference in the way that tobacco,
cigarette and weed are treated across the country, especially in
blue jurisdictions where they go much further than in red days.
(15:45):
There are all manner of laws about where you can smoke.
They don't apply to weed, and that I guess I
just didn't think about because to me it would be
all be. If you're going to prevent people from smoking
at someone, you would prevent them from smoking weed. If
you're going to prevent them from drinking somewhere you were
prevalent from spoken way, but we haven't. So it's had
(16:06):
these strange confer I thought that you're right, it's not
our faults to stay summer.
Speaker 2 (16:13):
I fully don't you know. I don't blame us. I
just want to have that on her book. So what
kind of stuff do you like to write about? What
is your like, what would you consider your beat? Right now?
Speaker 3 (16:26):
Well, what is not My beat right now is the
election is coming out because they just find it depressing.
And I'm not really sure at this point is how
much more to write about the two people who are involved.
I like writing about law I think I'm a frustrated lawyer.
I don't want to be a lawyer, because every lawyer
(16:46):
I know that they don't want to be a lawyer. Yeah.
I quite like to have a law degree so that
people wouldn't shout at me, you don't have a law degree.
Rather the read what I've.
Speaker 2 (16:55):
Written, so they're going to shout it anyway.
Speaker 3 (16:57):
Yeah, exactly. So I like covering the Supreme Court and
then associated legal political questions, separation of power, the Bill
of Rights, the federal system. I'm incident speech, speech and
(17:17):
culture just the biggest issue of our time. I think
that the paradox in American life at the moment is
that we have the most robust free feet protection legally
in the world. It's not even closed. And they are
more robustly protected by the Court than they have been
(17:41):
at any point in American history. And if you were
to look at it continuum and say pen legally, the
best point of the speech in the history of the
United States, you just have to put now, you know,
one hundred years ago we had the Wilson Eiro, the
Tradition Act as PI in our dad. Before that, they
(18:02):
were all manner of restrictions on what you could say
about slavery. Federally, we had the gag rules, but in
the States you could be arrested. But emancipation talk. And
then up until the seventies there were a lot of
rules as well the federal level, and in the States
they've gone. But at the moment that we've done that,
(18:22):
we have this culture that horrendously censorious and try to
redefine these words like diverse and inclusive and tolerant to
me the opposite of what they actually need. So, I mean,
this is a perennial issue, but this is something I
like to write about for a while. And then then
(18:43):
the Second Amendments is a big topic of mind because
I find the idea that the Second Amendments that doesn't
protected individual right to be the equivalent of Landing truth
or ism. It's just absolutely stupid. It's not I think
that Americans think on average America for the individual rights
and tempertation, but our elite cloud is the death of
(19:05):
the stupid idea. So that needs to be written about
a lot. But you know that, I think, and then
day to day politics when it's left earlier.
Speaker 4 (19:13):
You know, I have to tell you, I think you
had a major influence on my fairly apolitical husband on
the Second Amendment. He heard you speak a long time ago.
Speaker 2 (19:24):
Now, he was pretty not anti gun, but we grew
up in New York City. Like guns are bad is the.
Speaker 4 (19:30):
You know, default position even among kind of right leaning people.
Speaker 2 (19:34):
But yeah, you you were definitely like the gateway drug
for him. He carries every day now, so he's he's
made a shift night.
Speaker 3 (19:44):
That's a huge shift. Yeah. So it's in Florida that
I've made that as easy as possible.
Speaker 2 (19:48):
Right, So you also led the way on Florida.
Speaker 4 (19:52):
You were an early adopter on the whole free state
of Florida thing.
Speaker 2 (19:56):
You moved down? When did you move to Florida?
Speaker 3 (19:58):
Trank of seventeen head?
Speaker 2 (20:00):
You really are You were the early the pioneer. And
so what have you enjoyed it? What do you think?
Speaker 3 (20:09):
Well? I love it. I love it. It's a wonderful
place to live. And the people who hate it should
continue to do so and say, well they said, we
moved down into a different state in some sense than
it is now. In another sense, Florida is the same
if it ever was, because so much of what is
(20:30):
good about Florida is now permanent. It's in the constitution. No,
he comes back the way that the state works fundamentally,
as it has for a long time. But we were
down twenty seventeen because we couldn't afford to live in
the northeast anymore, and we were just about to have
a second tart and we wanted to weather. It affected
(20:52):
me that I didn't really need to be up in
the northeast because they're the writer, okay, And so we
moved down. But at the time in Florida was the
fifty to fifty stay and Trump could won it, but
Obama won it twice. And the most recent subernatorial election
(21:12):
has been one twenty fourteen, and it Republican wait by
one point. And I had to turn out that the
third election we voted in twenty eighteen would also be
very close. Rick got one by tenthout vote one by
thirty and the Democrats had a registration advantage, although a
lot of those Democrats were really Republican traditionally been Democrats,
(21:37):
and we came down here and we loved it for
the weather and the environment and how friendly everyone was
and so on, and we thought, well, it's a frinth day.
It's better than where we were in the northeast, and
then told it and then you suddenly had this separation
(21:59):
between Florida and a few other days. Georgia is another one,
and where we had come from. And after a while,
the descriptions of daily life that we would hear from
our friends back in Connecticut in New York, which is dailien,
it's supplicated, we didn't have any descriptions in Florida. There
was a real four months period where life is a
(22:21):
bit weird and then the way yeah, and we said, Mike,
goodness me were we lucky? And it looks touch wood
I did a lot of the consequences of that have
changed Florida in the long run, because now that there
were a million Republican voter advanceages here and there is
an attitude here that is informed by a lot of
(22:43):
people who moved in from other places. And I said, well, no,
I like my refuge. You're not changing it back, We're
not losing.
Speaker 2 (22:50):
It, right, Yeah, I think a lot of the people,
I mean not a lot.
Speaker 4 (22:55):
I think that the majority, the great majority of the
people that moved during this COVID time came here for
the ideology.
Speaker 2 (23:02):
It wasn't the taxes or the weather or any of that.
Speaker 4 (23:06):
It was very much, I want to be part of
this free thing that's going on.
Speaker 3 (23:11):
Right. No, I agree, And it's a tangible I mean
either word ideology. There is that, but it's tangible for people.
The number of friends we have who came down and
then their kids were back in school and they were
sitting in Philadelphia, unable to take their children to school,
unable to go out. One of our friends told me
(23:32):
that the moment where they said, you know what we've done,
we have to move, was that they took the kid
there to Kick fil A and got drive through Kick
fil A, and one of their three sons said that
this was the best day of the year, right because
(23:54):
they'd just been pitting at home and everyone was marked
up if they was at school, and and he said,
well that that's just no way to have a top. Yeah,
I love kick, but say not the best daily going
through the drive through window until we moved two weeks later.
And you try and try what Florida wasn't is away
(24:16):
from those people, and you'll be.
Speaker 4 (24:18):
Exactly right, I think, especially I you know, I mean,
I'm obviously an evangelist for the state, but even all
the people that I've met are just so passionate about
the state and maintaining it as this like beacon of
freedom and not letting it change. I think it's it's
kind of it feels, you know, like a movement, like
a revolution or something.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
It definitely feels like you're part of something here.
Speaker 3 (24:42):
Very much there, very much there, and people who lived
here a long time before COVID, which I didn't to
say that. It is true that the state for the
third time helped dive left an identity, not that it
(25:04):
was a more food before, but you know, Hexta has
an identity, you know what that is? Right? I mean,
I would think it's when I go to Fra that
and speak to the friend. The friends think that America.
Speaker 2 (25:19):
Yeah, I wish, but it's not. It's not.
Speaker 3 (25:23):
New York have an identity. New York knows what it is.
And it seems to me now that Florida has that too.
Speaker 2 (25:29):
It's great, right, I absolutely agree.
Speaker 4 (25:32):
I think that other Florida didn't have an identity before,
but it has a very strong identity now.
Speaker 2 (25:38):
And it's me so good.
Speaker 1 (25:40):
We're going to take a quick break and be right
back on the Carol Marcowitch Show.
Speaker 4 (25:47):
So you write about, you know, all this different stuff.
What do you think is our largest cultural issue? Like
what what do you what are you most worried about?
Speaker 3 (25:56):
I am most worried about whose things that are probably related?
The first I had am raced in ten minutes ago,
which is the notion that speeches violence or that it
needs to be it needs to be glued to action
when it's not. And the second is the development of
(26:21):
the ideology that you see encapsulated in the sixteen nineteen projects.
And what that does is poisoned America. The advocates of
the sixty nineteen project here you say that and say
you just don't want to accept the downside of American history,
and that's absolutely nonsense. I're right about them all the time.
(26:44):
America has the most beautiful founding method, which he felt
to live up to the United States was hypocritical. The
abomination that with slavery will always be a stained on
its story. And the consequence of this slavery were not
equally as bad. We're also terrible segregations in redlining, prevative racism,
(27:08):
and the rest. I have no problem talking about that.
I have no problem teaching my children. Now. What I
will not be teaching my children, and what I do
not want my children to be told, is that the
United States and the life, that the people who wrote
the Decoration of Independent didn't believe it, and that Frederick
Douglas with a Jews, that the Confederacy ultimately was right,
(27:32):
which is where you end up with right if you
take that view, that the United States was indeed found
on the principle that men are not equal, and that
the natural condition of non white people is at slade,
that is fault. And the reason America got better over
(27:53):
time was because this north Star, the founding, was accepted
to all. I am worried that the sixteen nineteen project
view of the world is pervadive in any circle that
it did, because to me, what that does when it prevails,
it takes away the means of improvement and it leaves
(28:17):
people with nothing. It's just pure nighs. And I don't
believe that. I mean, I believe in all the Americans
stuff you can't fit. But over the other side of
the rim, above my desk, I have a copy of
the Decorations of Independence. When I became a citizen. You know,
we all put up our right hand, or twenty eight
of us in the real all from different places. I
was the only bread we had Japan, Cuba and Italy
(28:41):
and Australia and Ghana, and we all put up our hands,
and we all waved up flags. Will recited those and yeah,
we haven't believed a word of it. It would have
been chemical and dangerous. But I did, and so did
everyone else far as I can see. So that friends,
And of course the obstit of it on a practical
(29:03):
level is to teach people to hate each other, not
to see each other as peers, but to see each
other if race rival, this has to be stamped out.
Lie has to be stacked out.
Speaker 2 (29:19):
Do you have hope that it will be well?
Speaker 3 (29:21):
I do, because I think people hate it. I just
worry about its influence in our elite levels, or I
think it's very popular, But I think the average American
hates it. If you look for example of the affirmative
action case, it was eighty percent popular. It was more
popular than social security that affirmative action case. Yeah, people
(29:44):
just don't like the idea of dividing us up into
groups of discrimination and website. They do believe that affirmative
action is wrong because the women have created equal and
that that's what the Constitution, at least in three construction
is football. No, I don't think it's going to be
a problem to convince Americans a bit, but it is
(30:05):
really deep seated now in our academic institution to treating
the incorporation and government, especially in the bureaucracy. That's where
we need to get rid of it.
Speaker 2 (30:19):
Yeah, I think it's going to take a while. I
just I do.
Speaker 4 (30:22):
I'm also optimistic that it ends, but it's like all
the people who I just the pendulum is swinging, but
it's going to take quite a bit to get that
elite kind of mindset out of their positions of power.
Speaker 2 (30:37):
And so I'm hopeful sometimes about it.
Speaker 4 (30:40):
Other other days I'm like, this is all going to
go really badly for a while.
Speaker 2 (30:46):
But ultimately, I mean, you know, America, I just see
it as like the last great hope.
Speaker 4 (30:52):
So if we can't fix it here, the rest of
the world in trouble too.
Speaker 2 (30:59):
So you have this, you know, great purch at the
National Review.
Speaker 4 (31:05):
You are an American by choice, You get to be
a Floridian, I mean best you know of all.
Speaker 2 (31:10):
You have this amazing family. We didn't get to talk
enough about that. Do you feel like you've made it?
Speaker 3 (31:16):
Yeah? How sad it would it be? That they knows? Right?
And if you if you think about I have all
these things, but even if I didn't have a lot,
just think about how fortunate it is to have been
(31:37):
born at this point in history and then been it
fitted in off Britain and then the United States. I mean,
my great grandfather was so poor to still coal so
they have a fire and I'm sitting here in my
(31:58):
little studio hating for a job. So yeah, absolutely, And
then the rest of it is I think on the cake,
I love it, but we're just so fortunate and it
and and that gratitude is something I worry about a
little bit too, that people aren't aware of that. You
(32:22):
see a lot of it on social media. It's probably
not at the defective that we think of it, but
you see a lot of it on social media. People
with the third expectations that what their life will be like, Well,
what life was like one hundred years, right.
Speaker 2 (32:36):
Yeah, or what they think everybody else is doing.
Speaker 4 (32:38):
I think so many people on social media think that
everybody else is like flying around on private planes.
Speaker 2 (32:45):
Eating cavia or I don't know, I just think they
have no perspective. So yeah, it's it's all related.
Speaker 3 (32:52):
Though.
Speaker 4 (32:52):
I think the elite, elite opinions being all you know,
kind of negative and people thinking that their lives aren't good.
Speaker 2 (33:00):
I think all of that is is one thing, and
I hope that we I hope that we beat it back.
Speaker 4 (33:06):
I hope our kids get to be raised in a
different way and understand that all the positives that they
have here.
Speaker 3 (33:13):
I agree. I agree, my kids have been bullion doctrinnches
into how lucky they are to live. In fact, they
often go over the top and I have to dial
it back at it. So, you know, they they they
think that America might be superlative in every single way.
So it has to be the physically biggest topic, right
of course. Yeah, I mean what that is?
Speaker 2 (33:36):
What difference does it make?
Speaker 4 (33:37):
You know?
Speaker 3 (33:38):
Right? And it has to have the cold winter, and
it has to have the heartiest dead and has to
have the trolls tree, you know, and I sort of
that's the that's the moment in the bar app movie
where he's trying to convince the American lady that Kesa's
done is better because it's done with five and nine
ore at four, I'm saying, and she keeps saying, no, no, no,
(33:59):
you don't understand the reason our country is the best constitution.
And it did yet but we have you know, we
do much cheaper mango import you know, and that my
kids have got votes, which is good, but they're still
at the faith where they are. We don't have to
burd want.
Speaker 2 (34:21):
I say, let them believe it. We have the cheapest
mango too, you know.
Speaker 3 (34:24):
There you go.
Speaker 2 (34:26):
So I've loved talking to Charlie. This has been really great.
Speaker 4 (34:29):
And here with your best tip for my listeners on
how they can improve their lives.
Speaker 3 (34:36):
Well, I think in part we just covered it, really,
which is I think the corstin in life at beIN
partic is always that opposed to walk. And there are
people who will be listening who really do have problems
when they shouldn't be ignored. You know, you can't just say, oh, well,
how lucky you are, all right, but they are. There
are things that you app but most of life isn't like.
(34:56):
Most of life is pretty easy for all people in
the country. And the best part of that is that
most of us did absolutely nothing to make it that way.
And I think about my grandfather who was on an
apple chid in Devon in England and had never left
his county, and suddenly he's fighting the Nazis and Italians
(35:19):
in North Africa and southern Italy. And I'm sitting here
with all of my great you know, I advantage it
because he did that. I didn't do that. I didn't
write with that question. I didn't fight the Civil War.
I didn't invent it the toothbrush.
Speaker 2 (35:37):
But he did it for you, you know right, No,
he did.
Speaker 3 (35:40):
He did. And I just find that reflecting on that
every day is the best thing that I can do
for happiness.
Speaker 2 (35:51):
I love that. Thank you so much for coming on
here is Charlie Cook. Check out his Charles C. W.
Cook podcast and read him at AshEL Review.
Speaker 3 (35:58):
Thank you, Charlie, thanks for having me the pleasure.
Speaker 1 (36:01):
Thanks so much for joining us on the Carol Marcowitch Show.
Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
Host
Karol Markowicz
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