October 7, 2024 • 24 mins
Brad Polumbo, an independent journalist and host of the Brad vs. Everyone Podcast, discusses his approach to covering controversial topics and engaging with different viewpoints. He shares his experience of being in a left-wing environment at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and his concerns about growing intolerance in society. Brad also talks about his coverage of Gen Z interests, his opposition to woke culture, and his worries about the decline of limited government and free market capitalism. He reflects on his own success and ambition, and emphasizes the importance of exercise for improving one's life. The Karol Markowicz Show is part of the Clay Travis & Buck Sexton Podcast Network - new episodes debut every Monday & Thursday.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Hi, and welcome back to the Carol Markowitz Show on iHeartRadio.
I love hearing from you guys, and I feel like
the dating episodes in particular always get all kinds of feedback.
The email, by the way to write to me is
Carol Maarkowitz Show at gmail dot com. It's Ka R
O L M A. R kow I c As and
(00:23):
Charlie Zias and Zebra Show at gmail dot com. About
the recent one, a listener emails, Hi, Carol, I'm a
fan of your work, but think you don't know what
it's like in the dating scene right now. I want
to get married and have kids, but I've been cheated
on by every boyfriend I've had, even the good guy ones.
I'm thirty seven and have given up on meeting someone. Yes,
(00:46):
I have a situationship, but at least he's nice to
me and honest about what he wants. I don't want
someone to tell me they would like to marry me,
only for me to come to find out they've had
another girlfriend for the last six months. I'm over it. Quote.
It's so sad to read that it's not someone I
know personally, so I don't feel like I can offer
(01:07):
real advice, like, you know, maybe you're meeting the wrong guys,
or remember that guy that you dated, He was clearly
wrong for you. And here's why. If you wrote that
note and you're listening, turn to a good friend to
tell you honestly what you're doing wrong. And my guess
is you're probably choosing the wrong guys. But I hear
you that good guys can be bad guys too. I
(01:29):
also just want to add that cheating went on when
I was in a single scene. I can't say just
as much or more than now because I just don't know.
I do see a push and I've talked about it
on this show before for non monogamy or open relationships
in a way that didn't exist twenty years ago. The
(01:50):
New York Times, for example, is obsessed with open relationships,
and I do wonder if the college educated set has
come to believe that this is a normal to live.
Don't give up. Life is long, and thirty seven is
very young. You can meet him next year or next week.
You may know him already. I would say, internalize my
(02:13):
six tips for meeting someone. Top of the list is
cutting off your situationship and taking it from there. You
said you like the way your situationship is honest about
what he wants? Are you honest about what you want?
Do you tell guys upfront that you're looking for marriage
and family? If you don't, maybe try that. You may
(02:34):
weed out the people who aren't into that quicker and
it could lead to meeting the right person. If you've
got tips with this listener, drop me an email. I'll
read some on the air in future episodes. Carol Markowitz
Show at gmail dot com, KA R O L M A. R.
Kow i CZ Show at gmail dot com. Coming up
(02:58):
next and interview with Brad Plum. Join us after the break.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
Welcome back to the Carol Markowitz Show on iHeartRadio. My
guest today is Brad Palumbo. Brad is an independent journalist
and the host of the Brad Versus Everyone podcast, which
I enjoy very much, where he covers the craziest ideas
from across the Internet and across our politics.
Speaker 3 (03:21):
Hi Brad, Hey, thanks for having me.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
I have to say I think I like the segments
where I disagree with you the most. Whenever I'm like
you know on Instagram and I see you get it,
you get into your libertarian space a little bit and
I'm like, oh, Brad, you know I like.
Speaker 3 (03:36):
To poke in both directions. I think it's I think
it's boring if you're just agreeing with so sometimes I
specifically pick topics where I know the majority of my followers,
who do tend to be much more right wing than me.
I know this will disagree with me, partly because I
want to weed out not the people who disagree with me.
I don't want to read them out, the people who
aren't open to different views. I want them to unfollow me, right.
(03:59):
I want engaged followers who like the discourse, like the disagreement,
like the debate. If somebody is going to get upset
because I criticized Trump once, they're probably not the right
audience for me anyway that I'm trying to cultivate.
Speaker 2 (04:12):
Right, No, I am more thinking about that you do
take controversial positions and you sort of are poking us.
Speaker 3 (04:19):
I feel it, but I I do try to do it,
and maybe maybe I don't always succeed. I try to
do it in like a constructive way, not like a.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
No and fun, which I think is the most important part.
Speaker 3 (04:34):
But I have always liked a little bit of drama
and a little bit of attention seeking, and my mom
will tell you that that dates back to me in
the third grade wanting to be the star of Willy
Wonka had always been split up into three parts, and
I said three kids would play the role, and I said, no,
I'll do the whole thing myself. And did you get it? Oh? Yeah,
and I killed it.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
So how did you get into this world?
Speaker 2 (04:58):
What was your earliest like media experience?
Speaker 3 (05:02):
Yeah, so I went to college thinking that I wanted
to be a lawyer and go to law school, and
I kind of just as a lark because I was
doing a mock trial club, which I really enjoyed and
did continue even after I stopped wanting to be a lawyer.
I just wanted to sign up for something else extracurricular.
So what I did is I just went and signed
(05:24):
up for the student newspaper. And then I got to
the first meeting and they just needed more people for
the opinion section, so they just pushed me over there
because I didn't know what I wanted to do, and
I ended up getting a taste of it and really
enjoying it, really enjoying poking the bear, stirring up controversy,
having different viewpoints and I just had so happened to
go to one of the most left wing universities in America,
(05:47):
the University of Massachusetts Ammers. You merried, yes, And I
just went there because I graduated from high school in Massachusetts.
So you get a scholarship to Abigail Adams if you
have good grades or whatever, and you get in state tuition.
So that's why I went there. I didn't go there
because they have a Marxist economics department. I found that
out by surprise when I was in my economics class
(06:09):
and they start glowingly speaking about the Soviet Union, or
when I find out that one of the intro to
microeconomics professors literally wrote Bernie Sanders' campaign plans. I'm not kidding.
His name's Gerald Friedman. You can look him up. He
was his chief policy advisor in twenty sixteen. So I
ended up kind of tossed into this far left space,
(06:29):
both on policy and then also kind of the most
insufferable social justice warrior climate imaginable. So imagine the least
sense of humor, the most tone policing, the most speech policing.
I mean, do you remember that gorilla that I think
became a viral meme because Arombe. Course, some fratbro wrote
(06:52):
on the whiteboard outside his dorm dix out for Harambe,
and the RAS called the police to report a hate crime.
That's how insane and out of touch these people were.
And it was just a soul crushing, joy sucking environment
to be in. So I knew very quickly that wasn't
for me. And when I started to speak out against it,
(07:14):
I got a little bit addicted to the controversy and
the discourse, and then I started dipping it. Really is
dipping my toe into you know, actual professional media, not
just on campus. And actually and I'm I don't know
if I'm embarrassed to admit it or not. Maybe a
little embarrassed, but also, you know what, I do it again.
My first big hit was about care bears. All right,
(07:37):
so fine, on my college dorm where I was living
as a junior. It was for sophomores and juniors on
campus put up care bears that said remember to sleep
eight hours a night, Remember to brush your teeth, remember
to drink water. And at the time I just tweeted it,
I was like, is this a joke? This is so
(07:59):
infantil what And the tweet went viral, and then Fox
and Friends had me on a couple of days later,
and that was kind of like my big break or
my first thing into it, into all this space. But
now all the people at UMass, all the lefties, kind
of derisively described me as the care Bear kid for
the rest of my time there.
Speaker 2 (08:19):
I feel like that's not so bad, you know. I
would say, so, what do you like covering? What are
your what do you consider your beat?
Speaker 3 (08:27):
I cover a lot of what I would just say,
are like gen Z interests and topics, a lot of
what's going on on TikTok. A lot of my background.
My degree is in economics, so I do like to
push back on socialist, communist ideas. I'm a hardcore died
in the world capitalist and then I like to talk
about individual like individual liberty stuff. But I'm very anti
(08:49):
kind of woke culture. I find it insufferable and suffocating,
and I'm really concerned about a lot of the ideas
being propagated to gen Z. I spend a lot of
time on TikTok. It is really a dark place, but
millions of people are getting their information from these wildly
ideologically extreme and unreliable sources, and so I try to
(09:11):
do counter programming on that. So I pay a lot
of attention to what's happening with gen Z, what's happening
with kind of the latest woke insanity, and then a
fair amount of policy stuff that's usually related to economics
or capitalism in some way. And then I also just
cover some stuff that i'd put in the raw entertainment category,
viral videos, ridiculous tiktoks, that sort of thing, because I've
(09:33):
kind of realized that people are looking to be informed,
but they also want to be entertained, and so I'm
trying to do a little bit of both on my podcast.
Speaker 1 (09:42):
What do you worry about?
Speaker 2 (09:43):
Like, what do you think is our largest cultural problem?
Speaker 3 (09:47):
I think our largest cultural problem is growing intolerance, And
in the actual sense, not in the live laugh love
tolerant hate has no home signed type of tolerance, but
tolerance no, oh my god, I actually want the opposite
one that says, in this house, we believe it's like
(10:07):
trite slogans are no replacement for meaningful policy ideas or something.
Want that one. Yeah, it's something like that. It's like
a parody thing. But so what I actually worry about
is what I see as a decline of the traditional
American spirit of tolerance. So there used to be this idea,
even just among my parents' generation, who are I don't know,
(10:29):
fifty fifty five right, Well, I might disagree with you,
but i'll defend your right to have an opinion. I
really feel like that's evaporating in our country, and people
are trying to constantly cancel, crush, or destroy the people
they disagree with, even the people I critique sharply and
I disagree with. I don't think I have ever called
to be deplatformed or silenced or shouted down or demonetized
(10:54):
or anything like that. I've challenged them to debates, I've
debunked them, I've fact checked them. I've even written, cueled
or insulted them on occasion, although I try to avoid that.
Among us, right, Yeah, among us hasn't fallen to that temptation.
But I guess what I would say, I think is
the biggest And it started out as a woke thing,
very much a thing of the left, at least in
my lifetime. I know, if you're older than me, you'll
(11:15):
remember kind of decades ago. Maybe the more Christian right
canceling things and boycotting things. But now I also am
starting to see it pop up on the right again,
and sometimes the idea is turnabout is fair play right? Like,
they do this, so we need to cancel them back.
We need to start getting low level employees fired for
(11:38):
something they posted on the internet in reverse. And I
do understand that temptation. I really do, as somebody who's
been the target of the cancel mob, but I actually
think that it's essentially a form of escalation, tit for
tat that will only take us closer to this intolerant
kind of conflagration in our society that we're headed towards.
(12:01):
I worry that in my lifetime we may have some
sort of civil war or national divorce, and I really
don't want to see that for our country. But we're
forgetting how to live together. And that's the beautiful thing
about America has always been how people with radically different
values and beliefs and religions and faiths and ethnicities can
all live side by side and coexist. And America is
(12:24):
learning is forgetting how to coexist. That's what I think
our most deep cultural problem is.
Speaker 1 (12:29):
We'll be right back with more from Brad Palumbo. October
seventh was the one year mark of the worst massacre
of the Jewish people since the Holocaust. Twelve hundred Israelis
were murdered and more than two hundred and fifty taken hostage.
The war in Israel rages on today. Israel and the
Jewish people are facing attacks from enemies on all sides
(12:50):
seeking Israel's destruction. The International Fellowship of Christians and Jews
is on the ground providing food, shelter, and safety to
those in need during this crisis. Since the war started,
there are reservists every day Israeli citizens who have left
families behind to serve their country, soldiers who have been injured,
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(13:12):
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eight eight eight four eight eight IFCJ that's eight eight
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support IFCJ dot org. We'll be right back with more
from Brad Palumbo.
Speaker 2 (13:58):
It's interesting because I agree agree with you on a
lot of this right. I think that we have to
co exist and you're going to have people with different opinions,
and you know, we're just on a rock floating through space,
like get a grip. But if you only have people
on the right getting targeted and canceled and demonetized and
all of that, I don't think the left ever going
(14:20):
to learn the lesson. I don't think they're going to
stop doing it. Why would they if they get to
target only people on the right get to suffer under
this system that the left is created. I don't know
that it's ever going to end. So to me, if
we want to get to that happy place where we
don't do that kind of thing, I think the left
has to stuffer under it. We have to do it
to them otherwise, you know, it'll just never get to.
Speaker 3 (14:44):
A better spot. I understand that perspective, I really do.
I guess I would say is that I think the
more likely outcome is that rather than getting punched back
and saying, oh that hurts, we should stop fighting. I
think the more likely outcome is they punch back harder
and then and then we punch back even harder. So
(15:04):
I think it's more likely to end up in that
kind of escalation than it is in the geez. I
didn't like the way that felt I shouldn't make other
people feel that way. To me, seems like a slightly
naive view of how the left will respond to the
turnabout is fair play approach? And then I guess the
other thing too, is that I also feel that if
we do it, it somewhat compromises the principled ground we're
(15:27):
standing on to make this critique and appeal to people
in the middle. But if they see us as hypocrites,
I don't know that we can win the hearts and minds.
And I actually do think the tide is turning on
cancel culture and some of this stuff a little bit.
But if we kind of embrace it, I'm not it's
a tough one, right, but I'm not a big believer
(15:47):
in the idea that you can become what you hate
to then defeat the thing you hate, and then go
back to being what you were. I think it takes you.
Speaker 2 (15:55):
I think would say that this is my whole problem
with libertarianism. Like in a different world, I'm a libertarian,
but in this world, with the way things actually are,
I find that hard. You know, if we could start
from day one, I think I'm a libertarian. I mean,
I know I'm a libertarian, but with the way that
things are, I can't like. For example, tax policies, uh
(16:20):
are you know, are are designed in certain ways to
get preferred outcomes. I think that's wrong. I want a
flat text, but we already have that system. So what
am I not going to promote, you know, tax policies
for the outcomes that I personally would want. It's sort
of you know that this is where libertarianism loses me
and I you know, I've had nick lesbion here, We've
(16:40):
gotten We've gotten into stuff like this. I'm a libertarian
at heart.
Speaker 1 (16:44):
But not at head.
Speaker 3 (16:45):
Yeah, I'm more I would describe myself more as a
classical liberal these days, because I am more pragmatic than
most libertarians, and I'm not died in the wole in
the terms of you know, let babies purchase legal cocaine
or whatever. Obviously, okay, obviously I'm joking a little bad.
I mean to straw Man true libertarians, but I do
(17:06):
worry that the right is moving away from limited government,
from free market capitalism, from even the values of a
Ronald Reagan, and almost becoming a European style conservatism. And
one of the good things about America is that we've
had classically liberal founding principles and institutions like freedom of speech,
like a very limited federal government, like a free market
(17:28):
economic system that's made us the most prosperous and advanced,
large scale multicultural society, and human history. All of these
things are unique to America. And if I do worry
that if conservatives and Republicans become kind of like European
conservatives who just love big government in a different flavor,
(17:48):
we won't actually have a voice fighting to preserve those things.
And I also do think it's hard to put a
genie back in a bottle. So maybe we're going to
you know, well, we'll use the federal bureaucracy to enforce
our agenda. Well, if you make the federal bureaucracy more
This is the problem that the left fails to understand all
(18:08):
the time. But I do expect a little better of
the right. Like the left is like, well, we'll end
the filibuster to appoint more judges to the federal bench,
and then Mitch mcconna's like, all right, then we'll do
it to the Supreme Court, you owe. And then the
left is like, how dare he? And it's like, well,
you opened this, right, you opened this Pandora's box, and
so then of course it gets to be used by
(18:29):
the people against you. And I worry that some of
these new voices on the right who want to empower
government in new ways or seize control of the bureaucracy
rather than actually slash the bureaucracy, are going to end
up doing the same thing.
Speaker 2 (18:44):
I feel like that meme, like why not both? So you've,
you know, come a long way from being the care
beer guy. You have a very popular podcast. I think
you're in a really good relationship. I haven't heard any
other but Go and Strong. Do you feel like you've
made it?
Speaker 3 (19:05):
So when you asked it, when you sent you said
you were going to ask me this question, it actually
prompted a little bit of soul searching, because I don't
in one sense, yes, I have absolutely made it. I
wake up every day blessed beyond belief to spend my
time doing something I really enjoy, make more than enough
money to cover my expenses, and frankly, live a life
(19:26):
of a lot of comfort. I'm not doing physical labor.
I'm working. I do work a lot of hours sometimes,
but it's not you know, I just compared to how
most people have it in America. I just and I
did get here through my own hard work. But I
do have it pretty darn easy in that sense, right,
I have a lot of respect for people who do
hard jobs, who do hard labor, who keeps the lights running.
(19:46):
That is not me. I make YouTube videos and podcasts,
and that has its.
Speaker 2 (19:50):
Own its own struggle, you know does.
Speaker 3 (19:53):
But I'm always mindful of how grateful I need to be.
And in the same way, I have a good relationship,
I have, you know, a house, I have everything I
could want at this age. I'm remarkably advance it for
just twenty six. But in the other sense, I always
feel like I haven't made it because I'm constantly comparing
myself to the people at the top of whatever industry.
(20:14):
So I intend to become a Ben Shapiro level pundit
with that kind of influence, and of course I'm nowhere
near that. He's also, you know, like fifteen, maybe ten
or twelve years older than me, So in reality, I
should probably compare myself to the twenty six year old
version of him, where I think i'd be about similar
to where he was at. But I don't do that.
I'm constantly comparing myself to the best of the best,
(20:36):
to the people who I see thriving and killing it,
and that destroys complacency, so you always keep working harder,
but it also kind of makes you feel like you
never really have quite made it, even though a year ago,
if you told me where I'd be today, I'd be thrilled. Well,
now I'm already thinking about where I want to be
a year from now. So I passed one hundred thousand
subscribers on YouTube, all right, Well, this other person that
(20:58):
I follow, who I think I can match, she has
seven hundred thousand, Right, I'm constantly pushing myself, so simultaneously
I do feel I've made it in a lot of ways,
but also my own ambition and destruction of complacency is
fueled by never feeling quite like I've done enough.
Speaker 2 (21:14):
I think that's the way.
Speaker 1 (21:15):
To be though.
Speaker 2 (21:15):
I think that's really probably the best answer. I appreciate
what I have, but I always strive for the next thing.
I don't know. I like that question because it exposes
for people a lot of where they feel like they
stand in their own lives, and I get such a
range of answers on it that I always enjoy that.
I think you might be one of the younger, youngest
(21:37):
people I've had on the show, so it's extra interesting
to hear you know where you think you are and
where you want to be.
Speaker 3 (21:44):
Ben Shapiro, Huh, Yeah, a slightly different worldview, but the
kind of influence that he wields in the marketplace of ideas,
the mix of entertainment and information, the large media platforms,
that kind of approach. Maybe I'll some books someday. I
really would love to. But I just do worry that
nobody my age reads anything.
Speaker 2 (22:06):
Right, that's a tough thing. We have to teach the
twenty somethings to read.
Speaker 3 (22:12):
It's tough. Yeah, gotta start small. Maybe get them an
open an audio book, right, I feel like.
Speaker 2 (22:17):
The teenagers read, so maybe the generation directly.
Speaker 3 (22:21):
Beyond helping my experience. So I don't know.
Speaker 2 (22:24):
I have a fourteen year old who reads a lot,
and my eleven year old reads a lot.
Speaker 3 (22:27):
They're probably smarter than the elders read.
Speaker 2 (22:30):
I don't know. Yeah, you know, I think that they
would read a Brad Plumbo book.
Speaker 3 (22:33):
I think, well, maybe they'll be maybe there'll be one
on stores near them someday, but not right now.
Speaker 2 (22:40):
So and here with your best tip for my listeners
on how they can improve their lives.
Speaker 3 (22:47):
I am a huge advocate for just basic exercise, whether
it's a walk every single day, I go on the
treadmill and I walk on a sharp incline for thirty
minutes most days, and the benefits of cardiovascular exercise. It
doesn't have to be super hard, like I walk on
the treadmill uphill, so you sweat, but you don't. You're
not like gasping for air running like The benefits are
(23:10):
so extensively documented. But so many people live such sedentary lifestyles.
And you know, some people have tons sometimes yeah, some
people have tons of kids. Some people work fifteen hours
a day. I'm not talking to you, guys. I'm talking
to the people like me that work from home, find
the time, find the thirty minutes to go to the
gym and just walk up hill on the treadmill, or
(23:31):
go walk around the park near your house, or get
active somehow. It is such an underrated, non pharmaceutical cure
for so many of the ailments that we have today
from both physical, mental, and emotional exercise. I think is
criminally underrated in this country.
Speaker 2 (23:48):
I think that's a really wise suggestion for all of us.
I keep meaning to take people up on that. I
haven't quite done it yet, but any day now. Thank
you so much for coming on Red. Check out his show.
He's really great. He's all over YouTube, all over Instagram, TikTok.
I've never been on there, but I assume you're on there.
(24:09):
Check him out.
Speaker 1 (24:10):
Brad Palombo, thanks, thanks so much for joining us on
the Carol Markowitz Show. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
Hi, and welcome back to the Carol Markowitz Show on iHeartRadio.
I love hearing from you guys, and I feel like
the dating episodes in particular always get all kinds of feedback.
The email, by the way to write to me is
Carol Maarkowitz Show at gmail dot com. It's Ka R
O L M A. R kow I c As and
(00:23):
Charlie Zias and Zebra Show at gmail dot com. About
the recent one, a listener emails, Hi, Carol, I'm a
fan of your work, but think you don't know what
it's like in the dating scene right now. I want
to get married and have kids, but I've been cheated
on by every boyfriend I've had, even the good guy ones.
I'm thirty seven and have given up on meeting someone. Yes,
(00:46):
I have a situationship, but at least he's nice to
me and honest about what he wants. I don't want
someone to tell me they would like to marry me,
only for me to come to find out they've had
another girlfriend for the last six months. I'm over it. Quote.
It's so sad to read that it's not someone I
know personally, so I don't feel like I can offer
(01:07):
real advice, like, you know, maybe you're meeting the wrong guys,
or remember that guy that you dated, He was clearly
wrong for you. And here's why. If you wrote that
note and you're listening, turn to a good friend to
tell you honestly what you're doing wrong. And my guess
is you're probably choosing the wrong guys. But I hear
you that good guys can be bad guys too. I
(01:29):
also just want to add that cheating went on when
I was in a single scene. I can't say just
as much or more than now because I just don't know.
I do see a push and I've talked about it
on this show before for non monogamy or open relationships
in a way that didn't exist twenty years ago. The
(01:50):
New York Times, for example, is obsessed with open relationships,
and I do wonder if the college educated set has
come to believe that this is a normal to live.
Don't give up. Life is long, and thirty seven is
very young. You can meet him next year or next week.
You may know him already. I would say, internalize my
(02:13):
six tips for meeting someone. Top of the list is
cutting off your situationship and taking it from there. You
said you like the way your situationship is honest about
what he wants? Are you honest about what you want?
Do you tell guys upfront that you're looking for marriage
and family? If you don't, maybe try that. You may
(02:34):
weed out the people who aren't into that quicker and
it could lead to meeting the right person. If you've
got tips with this listener, drop me an email. I'll
read some on the air in future episodes. Carol Markowitz
Show at gmail dot com, KA R O L M A. R.
Kow i CZ Show at gmail dot com. Coming up
(02:58):
next and interview with Brad Plum. Join us after the break.
Speaker 2 (03:04):
Welcome back to the Carol Markowitz Show on iHeartRadio. My
guest today is Brad Palumbo. Brad is an independent journalist
and the host of the Brad Versus Everyone podcast, which
I enjoy very much, where he covers the craziest ideas
from across the Internet and across our politics.
Speaker 3 (03:21):
Hi Brad, Hey, thanks for having me.
Speaker 2 (03:24):
I have to say I think I like the segments
where I disagree with you the most. Whenever I'm like
you know on Instagram and I see you get it,
you get into your libertarian space a little bit and
I'm like, oh, Brad, you know I like.
Speaker 3 (03:36):
To poke in both directions. I think it's I think
it's boring if you're just agreeing with so sometimes I
specifically pick topics where I know the majority of my followers,
who do tend to be much more right wing than me.
I know this will disagree with me, partly because I
want to weed out not the people who disagree with me.
I don't want to read them out, the people who
aren't open to different views. I want them to unfollow me, right.
(03:59):
I want engaged followers who like the discourse, like the disagreement,
like the debate. If somebody is going to get upset
because I criticized Trump once, they're probably not the right
audience for me anyway that I'm trying to cultivate.
Speaker 2 (04:12):
Right, No, I am more thinking about that you do
take controversial positions and you sort of are poking us.
Speaker 3 (04:19):
I feel it, but I I do try to do it,
and maybe maybe I don't always succeed. I try to
do it in like a constructive way, not like a.
Speaker 2 (04:30):
No and fun, which I think is the most important part.
Speaker 3 (04:34):
But I have always liked a little bit of drama
and a little bit of attention seeking, and my mom
will tell you that that dates back to me in
the third grade wanting to be the star of Willy
Wonka had always been split up into three parts, and
I said three kids would play the role, and I said, no,
I'll do the whole thing myself. And did you get it? Oh? Yeah,
and I killed it.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
So how did you get into this world?
Speaker 2 (04:58):
What was your earliest like media experience?
Speaker 3 (05:02):
Yeah, so I went to college thinking that I wanted
to be a lawyer and go to law school, and
I kind of just as a lark because I was
doing a mock trial club, which I really enjoyed and
did continue even after I stopped wanting to be a lawyer.
I just wanted to sign up for something else extracurricular.
So what I did is I just went and signed
(05:24):
up for the student newspaper. And then I got to
the first meeting and they just needed more people for
the opinion section, so they just pushed me over there
because I didn't know what I wanted to do, and
I ended up getting a taste of it and really
enjoying it, really enjoying poking the bear, stirring up controversy,
having different viewpoints and I just had so happened to
go to one of the most left wing universities in America,
(05:47):
the University of Massachusetts Ammers. You merried, yes, And I
just went there because I graduated from high school in Massachusetts.
So you get a scholarship to Abigail Adams if you
have good grades or whatever, and you get in state tuition.
So that's why I went there. I didn't go there
because they have a Marxist economics department. I found that
out by surprise when I was in my economics class
(06:09):
and they start glowingly speaking about the Soviet Union, or
when I find out that one of the intro to
microeconomics professors literally wrote Bernie Sanders' campaign plans. I'm not kidding.
His name's Gerald Friedman. You can look him up. He
was his chief policy advisor in twenty sixteen. So I
ended up kind of tossed into this far left space,
(06:29):
both on policy and then also kind of the most
insufferable social justice warrior climate imaginable. So imagine the least
sense of humor, the most tone policing, the most speech policing.
I mean, do you remember that gorilla that I think
became a viral meme because Arombe. Course, some fratbro wrote
(06:52):
on the whiteboard outside his dorm dix out for Harambe,
and the RAS called the police to report a hate crime.
That's how insane and out of touch these people were.
And it was just a soul crushing, joy sucking environment
to be in. So I knew very quickly that wasn't
for me. And when I started to speak out against it,
(07:14):
I got a little bit addicted to the controversy and
the discourse, and then I started dipping it. Really is
dipping my toe into you know, actual professional media, not
just on campus. And actually and I'm I don't know
if I'm embarrassed to admit it or not. Maybe a
little embarrassed, but also, you know what, I do it again.
My first big hit was about care bears. All right,
(07:37):
so fine, on my college dorm where I was living
as a junior. It was for sophomores and juniors on
campus put up care bears that said remember to sleep
eight hours a night, Remember to brush your teeth, remember
to drink water. And at the time I just tweeted it,
I was like, is this a joke? This is so
(07:59):
infantil what And the tweet went viral, and then Fox
and Friends had me on a couple of days later,
and that was kind of like my big break or
my first thing into it, into all this space. But
now all the people at UMass, all the lefties, kind
of derisively described me as the care Bear kid for
the rest of my time there.
Speaker 2 (08:19):
I feel like that's not so bad, you know. I
would say, so, what do you like covering? What are
your what do you consider your beat?
Speaker 3 (08:27):
I cover a lot of what I would just say,
are like gen Z interests and topics, a lot of
what's going on on TikTok. A lot of my background.
My degree is in economics, so I do like to
push back on socialist, communist ideas. I'm a hardcore died
in the world capitalist and then I like to talk
about individual like individual liberty stuff. But I'm very anti
(08:49):
kind of woke culture. I find it insufferable and suffocating,
and I'm really concerned about a lot of the ideas
being propagated to gen Z. I spend a lot of
time on TikTok. It is really a dark place, but
millions of people are getting their information from these wildly
ideologically extreme and unreliable sources, and so I try to
(09:11):
do counter programming on that. So I pay a lot
of attention to what's happening with gen Z, what's happening
with kind of the latest woke insanity, and then a
fair amount of policy stuff that's usually related to economics
or capitalism in some way. And then I also just
cover some stuff that i'd put in the raw entertainment category,
viral videos, ridiculous tiktoks, that sort of thing, because I've
(09:33):
kind of realized that people are looking to be informed,
but they also want to be entertained, and so I'm
trying to do a little bit of both on my podcast.
Speaker 1 (09:42):
What do you worry about?
Speaker 2 (09:43):
Like, what do you think is our largest cultural problem?
Speaker 3 (09:47):
I think our largest cultural problem is growing intolerance, And
in the actual sense, not in the live laugh love
tolerant hate has no home signed type of tolerance, but
tolerance no, oh my god, I actually want the opposite
one that says, in this house, we believe it's like
(10:07):
trite slogans are no replacement for meaningful policy ideas or something.
Want that one. Yeah, it's something like that. It's like
a parody thing. But so what I actually worry about
is what I see as a decline of the traditional
American spirit of tolerance. So there used to be this idea,
even just among my parents' generation, who are I don't know,
(10:29):
fifty fifty five right, Well, I might disagree with you,
but i'll defend your right to have an opinion. I
really feel like that's evaporating in our country, and people
are trying to constantly cancel, crush, or destroy the people
they disagree with, even the people I critique sharply and
I disagree with. I don't think I have ever called
to be deplatformed or silenced or shouted down or demonetized
(10:54):
or anything like that. I've challenged them to debates, I've
debunked them, I've fact checked them. I've even written, cueled
or insulted them on occasion, although I try to avoid that.
Among us, right, Yeah, among us hasn't fallen to that temptation.
But I guess what I would say, I think is
the biggest And it started out as a woke thing,
very much a thing of the left, at least in
my lifetime. I know, if you're older than me, you'll
(11:15):
remember kind of decades ago. Maybe the more Christian right
canceling things and boycotting things. But now I also am
starting to see it pop up on the right again,
and sometimes the idea is turnabout is fair play right? Like,
they do this, so we need to cancel them back.
We need to start getting low level employees fired for
(11:38):
something they posted on the internet in reverse. And I
do understand that temptation. I really do, as somebody who's
been the target of the cancel mob, but I actually
think that it's essentially a form of escalation, tit for
tat that will only take us closer to this intolerant
kind of conflagration in our society that we're headed towards.
(12:01):
I worry that in my lifetime we may have some
sort of civil war or national divorce, and I really
don't want to see that for our country. But we're
forgetting how to live together. And that's the beautiful thing
about America has always been how people with radically different
values and beliefs and religions and faiths and ethnicities can
all live side by side and coexist. And America is
(12:24):
learning is forgetting how to coexist. That's what I think
our most deep cultural problem is.
Speaker 1 (12:29):
We'll be right back with more from Brad Palumbo. October
seventh was the one year mark of the worst massacre
of the Jewish people since the Holocaust. Twelve hundred Israelis
were murdered and more than two hundred and fifty taken hostage.
The war in Israel rages on today. Israel and the
Jewish people are facing attacks from enemies on all sides
(12:50):
seeking Israel's destruction. The International Fellowship of Christians and Jews
is on the ground providing food, shelter, and safety to
those in need during this crisis. Since the war started,
there are reservists every day Israeli citizens who have left
families behind to serve their country, soldiers who have been injured,
and their families need support. Your gift of one hundred
(13:12):
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(13:34):
eight eight eight four eight eight IFCJ that's eight eight
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support IFCJ dot org. We'll be right back with more
from Brad Palumbo.
Speaker 2 (13:58):
It's interesting because I agree agree with you on a
lot of this right. I think that we have to
co exist and you're going to have people with different opinions,
and you know, we're just on a rock floating through space,
like get a grip. But if you only have people
on the right getting targeted and canceled and demonetized and
all of that, I don't think the left ever going
(14:20):
to learn the lesson. I don't think they're going to
stop doing it. Why would they if they get to
target only people on the right get to suffer under
this system that the left is created. I don't know
that it's ever going to end. So to me, if
we want to get to that happy place where we
don't do that kind of thing, I think the left
has to stuffer under it. We have to do it
to them otherwise, you know, it'll just never get to.
Speaker 3 (14:44):
A better spot. I understand that perspective, I really do.
I guess I would say is that I think the
more likely outcome is that rather than getting punched back
and saying, oh that hurts, we should stop fighting. I
think the more likely outcome is they punch back harder
and then and then we punch back even harder. So
(15:04):
I think it's more likely to end up in that
kind of escalation than it is in the geez. I
didn't like the way that felt I shouldn't make other
people feel that way. To me, seems like a slightly
naive view of how the left will respond to the
turnabout is fair play approach? And then I guess the
other thing too, is that I also feel that if
we do it, it somewhat compromises the principled ground we're
(15:27):
standing on to make this critique and appeal to people
in the middle. But if they see us as hypocrites,
I don't know that we can win the hearts and minds.
And I actually do think the tide is turning on
cancel culture and some of this stuff a little bit.
But if we kind of embrace it, I'm not it's
a tough one, right, but I'm not a big believer
(15:47):
in the idea that you can become what you hate
to then defeat the thing you hate, and then go
back to being what you were. I think it takes you.
Speaker 2 (15:55):
I think would say that this is my whole problem
with libertarianism. Like in a different world, I'm a libertarian,
but in this world, with the way things actually are,
I find that hard. You know, if we could start
from day one, I think I'm a libertarian. I mean,
I know I'm a libertarian, but with the way that
things are, I can't like. For example, tax policies, uh
(16:20):
are you know, are are designed in certain ways to
get preferred outcomes. I think that's wrong. I want a
flat text, but we already have that system. So what
am I not going to promote, you know, tax policies
for the outcomes that I personally would want. It's sort
of you know that this is where libertarianism loses me
and I you know, I've had nick lesbion here, We've
(16:40):
gotten We've gotten into stuff like this. I'm a libertarian
at heart.
Speaker 1 (16:44):
But not at head.
Speaker 3 (16:45):
Yeah, I'm more I would describe myself more as a
classical liberal these days, because I am more pragmatic than
most libertarians, and I'm not died in the wole in
the terms of you know, let babies purchase legal cocaine
or whatever. Obviously, okay, obviously I'm joking a little bad.
I mean to straw Man true libertarians, but I do
(17:06):
worry that the right is moving away from limited government,
from free market capitalism, from even the values of a
Ronald Reagan, and almost becoming a European style conservatism. And
one of the good things about America is that we've
had classically liberal founding principles and institutions like freedom of speech,
like a very limited federal government, like a free market
(17:28):
economic system that's made us the most prosperous and advanced,
large scale multicultural society, and human history. All of these
things are unique to America. And if I do worry
that if conservatives and Republicans become kind of like European
conservatives who just love big government in a different flavor,
(17:48):
we won't actually have a voice fighting to preserve those things.
And I also do think it's hard to put a
genie back in a bottle. So maybe we're going to
you know, well, we'll use the federal bureaucracy to enforce
our agenda. Well, if you make the federal bureaucracy more
This is the problem that the left fails to understand all
(18:08):
the time. But I do expect a little better of
the right. Like the left is like, well, we'll end
the filibuster to appoint more judges to the federal bench,
and then Mitch mcconna's like, all right, then we'll do
it to the Supreme Court, you owe. And then the
left is like, how dare he? And it's like, well,
you opened this, right, you opened this Pandora's box, and
so then of course it gets to be used by
(18:29):
the people against you. And I worry that some of
these new voices on the right who want to empower
government in new ways or seize control of the bureaucracy
rather than actually slash the bureaucracy, are going to end
up doing the same thing.
Speaker 2 (18:44):
I feel like that meme, like why not both? So you've,
you know, come a long way from being the care
beer guy. You have a very popular podcast. I think
you're in a really good relationship. I haven't heard any
other but Go and Strong. Do you feel like you've
made it?
Speaker 3 (19:05):
So when you asked it, when you sent you said
you were going to ask me this question, it actually
prompted a little bit of soul searching, because I don't
in one sense, yes, I have absolutely made it. I
wake up every day blessed beyond belief to spend my
time doing something I really enjoy, make more than enough
money to cover my expenses, and frankly, live a life
(19:26):
of a lot of comfort. I'm not doing physical labor.
I'm working. I do work a lot of hours sometimes,
but it's not you know, I just compared to how
most people have it in America. I just and I
did get here through my own hard work. But I
do have it pretty darn easy in that sense, right,
I have a lot of respect for people who do
hard jobs, who do hard labor, who keeps the lights running.
(19:46):
That is not me. I make YouTube videos and podcasts,
and that has its.
Speaker 2 (19:50):
Own its own struggle, you know does.
Speaker 3 (19:53):
But I'm always mindful of how grateful I need to be.
And in the same way, I have a good relationship,
I have, you know, a house, I have everything I
could want at this age. I'm remarkably advance it for
just twenty six. But in the other sense, I always
feel like I haven't made it because I'm constantly comparing
myself to the people at the top of whatever industry.
(20:14):
So I intend to become a Ben Shapiro level pundit
with that kind of influence, and of course I'm nowhere
near that. He's also, you know, like fifteen, maybe ten
or twelve years older than me, So in reality, I
should probably compare myself to the twenty six year old
version of him, where I think i'd be about similar
to where he was at. But I don't do that.
I'm constantly comparing myself to the best of the best,
(20:36):
to the people who I see thriving and killing it,
and that destroys complacency, so you always keep working harder,
but it also kind of makes you feel like you
never really have quite made it, even though a year ago,
if you told me where I'd be today, I'd be thrilled. Well,
now I'm already thinking about where I want to be
a year from now. So I passed one hundred thousand
subscribers on YouTube, all right, Well, this other person that
(20:58):
I follow, who I think I can match, she has
seven hundred thousand, Right, I'm constantly pushing myself, so simultaneously
I do feel I've made it in a lot of ways,
but also my own ambition and destruction of complacency is
fueled by never feeling quite like I've done enough.
Speaker 2 (21:14):
I think that's the way.
Speaker 1 (21:15):
To be though.
Speaker 2 (21:15):
I think that's really probably the best answer. I appreciate
what I have, but I always strive for the next thing.
I don't know. I like that question because it exposes
for people a lot of where they feel like they
stand in their own lives, and I get such a
range of answers on it that I always enjoy that.
I think you might be one of the younger, youngest
(21:37):
people I've had on the show, so it's extra interesting
to hear you know where you think you are and
where you want to be.
Speaker 3 (21:44):
Ben Shapiro, Huh, Yeah, a slightly different worldview, but the
kind of influence that he wields in the marketplace of ideas,
the mix of entertainment and information, the large media platforms,
that kind of approach. Maybe I'll some books someday. I
really would love to. But I just do worry that
nobody my age reads anything.
Speaker 2 (22:06):
Right, that's a tough thing. We have to teach the
twenty somethings to read.
Speaker 3 (22:12):
It's tough. Yeah, gotta start small. Maybe get them an
open an audio book, right, I feel like.
Speaker 2 (22:17):
The teenagers read, so maybe the generation directly.
Speaker 3 (22:21):
Beyond helping my experience. So I don't know.
Speaker 2 (22:24):
I have a fourteen year old who reads a lot,
and my eleven year old reads a lot.
Speaker 3 (22:27):
They're probably smarter than the elders read.
Speaker 2 (22:30):
I don't know. Yeah, you know, I think that they
would read a Brad Plumbo book.
Speaker 3 (22:33):
I think, well, maybe they'll be maybe there'll be one
on stores near them someday, but not right now.
Speaker 2 (22:40):
So and here with your best tip for my listeners
on how they can improve their lives.
Speaker 3 (22:47):
I am a huge advocate for just basic exercise, whether
it's a walk every single day, I go on the
treadmill and I walk on a sharp incline for thirty
minutes most days, and the benefits of cardiovascular exercise. It
doesn't have to be super hard, like I walk on
the treadmill uphill, so you sweat, but you don't. You're
not like gasping for air running like The benefits are
(23:10):
so extensively documented. But so many people live such sedentary lifestyles.
And you know, some people have tons sometimes yeah, some
people have tons of kids. Some people work fifteen hours
a day. I'm not talking to you, guys. I'm talking
to the people like me that work from home, find
the time, find the thirty minutes to go to the
gym and just walk up hill on the treadmill, or
(23:31):
go walk around the park near your house, or get
active somehow. It is such an underrated, non pharmaceutical cure
for so many of the ailments that we have today
from both physical, mental, and emotional exercise. I think is
criminally underrated in this country.
Speaker 2 (23:48):
I think that's a really wise suggestion for all of us.
I keep meaning to take people up on that. I
haven't quite done it yet, but any day now. Thank
you so much for coming on Red. Check out his show.
He's really great. He's all over YouTube, all over Instagram, TikTok.
I've never been on there, but I assume you're on there.
(24:09):
Check him out.
Speaker 1 (24:10):
Brad Palombo, thanks, thanks so much for joining us on
the Carol Markowitz Show. Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.
Host
Karol Markowicz
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