June 18, 2025 • 8 mins
When billionaire investor Bill Ackman turned against DEI and broke ranks with the liberal elite, the backlash was immediate. But what triggered his transformation — and why did it take a massacre to wake him up? This episode unpacks how poetic truths and elite echo chambers blinded even the smartest people in the room — until reality shattered the narrative.
Stay sharp. Stay skeptical. #SpotTheGaslight
Read and reflect at Gaslight360.com/clarity
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Why does it take bloodshed to make people
question a story they were neverallowed to disagree with?
Not a metaphor, a real question.
Why did the massacre of 1,200Israelis, followed by a Harvard
student letter backing Hamas,have to be the thing that
finally made one of the world'smost successful investors say
(00:20):
hold on.
What exactly are we teaching?
And why didn't Bill Ackman,harvard alum, democratic
mega-donor, dei supporter ingood standing, ask those
questions sooner?
And if someone like himcouldn't see the problem, what
are the rest of us missing?
I'm Jim Detchen, host of ThinkFirst, and today we're talking
(00:42):
about echo chambers the softkind, the educated kind, the
kind that's usually followed bya New York Times op-ed and a TED
Talk.
Bill Ackman lived in one ofthose for decades, but in the
past year something broke Nothis bank account, not his ego,
his tolerance for polite lies.
A few questions worth asking.
(01:04):
What's the line betweeninclusion and indoctrination?
Can a good idea still causeharm if no one's allowed to
challenge it?
And are we seeing the cracksnow, because someone finally
dared to ask?
(01:25):
Ackman's unraveling beganpublicly on October 8, 2023.
Just 24 hours after the worstattack on Jews since the
Holocaust, 34 Harvard studentgroups signed a letter blaming
Israel, not Hamas, for thebloodshed.
Ackman didn't just find itoffensive, he found it revealing
.
The letter wasn't just a badtake, it was a moral inversion
(01:46):
and it made him ask the onething Harvard had trained him
not to ask how did we get here?
So he went to campus, talked tostudents, listened to faculty,
ran his usual due diligence, butthis time on ideology instead
of a balance sheet, and what hefound wasn't comforting.
At first he thoughtanti-Semitism was the core issue
(02:08):
, but soon he realized that wasjust the visible symptom, the
canary in the coal mine.
He called it the real problem,a worldview, one that sorted
people into clean categoriesOppressed or oppressor.
One that redefined racism sonarrowly it managed to exclude
actual racism, especially if itcame in the correct direction.
(02:30):
In that worldview, jews, asiansand white people are oppressors
, regardless of context Israel,colonizer, hamas, resistance.
And if you disagree, you're theproblem.
And if you disagree, you're theproblem.
This is the framework DEI wasbuilt on and Bill Ackman, to his
(02:51):
own surprise, had helped fundit, echo it and protect it for
years, not because he believedin hate, but because, like many
people, he believed in words.
Who doesn't want diversity,equity, inclusion?
They sound like HR-approvedmorality, something you'd put on
a tote bag at Davos.
(03:16):
But Ackman dug deeper and whathe found underneath the slogan
was something else entirely.
Dei in its modern form wasn'tabout creating opportunity, it
was about rebalancing outcomes.
It wasn't merit plus outreach,it was oppression.
Math, and as he put it bluntly,quote is racist, because
(03:41):
reverse racism is still racism,even if it's against white
people.
And it's remarkable that I evenneed to point this out.
End quote.
No qualifiers, no half measures.
Ackman didn't issue aclarification tweet.
He posted a 4,000 word essayinstead.
It read like Martin Luther KingJr meets shareholder letter
(04:02):
with a side of legal discovery.
Martin Luther King Jr meetsshareholder letter with a side
of legal discovery.
The backlash was instant.
He was accused of racism by theNAACP, protested outside his
New York office, mocked bylate-night hosts and quietly
unfollowed by the same class ofpolite donors who once praised
(04:23):
his philanthropy.
But here's the twist he didn'tflinch, not because he likes
conflict, but because, as he putit, I realized how ignorant I
had been.
This wasn't a stunt, it was ashattering.
There's a term for what Ackmanbelieved before Poetic truth.
(04:43):
Poetic truth is the story wetell ourselves that feels
emotionally correct, even if thefacts don't hold up.
It's the kind of truth thatlets us chant slogans instead of
ask questions, that letsuniversities write mission
statements about belonging whilebanning speakers for
wrong-think.
It's what makes equity feelrighteous, even when it crushes
(05:07):
fairness.
And when someone like BillAckman breaks from that, it's
not a political pivot, it's abetrayal, at least to the people
who still believe the script.
Now here's where the storyflips.
Ackman didn't just pull awayfrom Harvard, he pulled away
from Biden.
In April 2024, he posted Foranyone still confused, I'm not
(05:30):
voting for Biden.
And for good measure he addedyes, I'm open to voting for
Trump.
No exclamation point, noqualifiers, just reality.
That's what happens when poetictruth breaks.
You don't rush to replace itwith another narrative.
You sit in the discomfort offacts.
You stop caring if youropinions are on-brand.
(05:52):
So here's your think.
First closer.
You don't have to agree withBill Ackman, you don't have to
like his tactics or his tweetsor the fact that he's doing all
this from a penthouse on ParkAvenue.
But you should ask yourselfwhat stories have you believed
just because everyone else did?
What ideas have you noddedalong to?
(06:15):
Not because they made sense,but because questioning them
felt dangerous.
And if someone like Ackman canbreak the spell.
What's stopping the rest of us?
They called him dangerous, abillionaire, a bully, a threat
to diversity, equity and decorum.
But maybe the real threat wasclarity, because once you see
(06:37):
the poetic truth for what it isa well-dressed lie dressed in
buzzwords and fear you can'tunsee it.
And when someone finally breaksfrom the script, the silence
that follows isn't awkward, it'scontagious.
We'll leave you with this.
You don't need all the answers,but you should question the
ones you're handed.
(06:58):
You don't need all the answers,but you should question the
ones you're handed.
You don't need all the answers,but you should question the
ones you're handed.
Want to go deeper?
Visit gaslight360.com slashclarity to learn how to spot
gaslighting and poetic truth inmedia, politics and history.
Empower yourself to dissectnarratives, uncover hidden
(07:21):
truths and challenge the tacticsthat keep us in the dark.
Light your flame and startseeing the world with sharper
eyes.
Follow us on X, where 20,000friends are connecting the dots
at.
Spot the Gaslight and keepasking the questions they don't
want you asking.
Thanks for listening and ifthis helped you think a little
(07:43):
differently today, leave us arating on Apple.
It helps more than you know.
Why does it take bloodshed to make people
question a story they were neverallowed to disagree with?
Not a metaphor, a real question.
Why did the massacre of 1,200Israelis, followed by a Harvard
student letter backing Hamas,have to be the thing that
finally made one of the world'smost successful investors say
(00:20):
hold on.
What exactly are we teaching?
And why didn't Bill Ackman,harvard alum, democratic
mega-donor, dei supporter ingood standing, ask those
questions sooner?
And if someone like himcouldn't see the problem, what
are the rest of us missing?
I'm Jim Detchen, host of ThinkFirst, and today we're talking
(00:42):
about echo chambers the softkind, the educated kind, the
kind that's usually followed bya New York Times op-ed and a TED
Talk.
Bill Ackman lived in one ofthose for decades, but in the
past year something broke Nothis bank account, not his ego,
his tolerance for polite lies.
A few questions worth asking.
(01:04):
What's the line betweeninclusion and indoctrination?
Can a good idea still causeharm if no one's allowed to
challenge it?
And are we seeing the cracksnow, because someone finally
dared to ask?
(01:25):
Ackman's unraveling beganpublicly on October 8, 2023.
Just 24 hours after the worstattack on Jews since the
Holocaust, 34 Harvard studentgroups signed a letter blaming
Israel, not Hamas, for thebloodshed.
Ackman didn't just find itoffensive, he found it revealing
.
The letter wasn't just a badtake, it was a moral inversion
(01:46):
and it made him ask the onething Harvard had trained him
not to ask how did we get here?
So he went to campus, talked tostudents, listened to faculty,
ran his usual due diligence, butthis time on ideology instead
of a balance sheet, and what hefound wasn't comforting.
At first he thoughtanti-Semitism was the core issue
(02:08):
, but soon he realized that wasjust the visible symptom, the
canary in the coal mine.
He called it the real problem,a worldview, one that sorted
people into clean categoriesOppressed or oppressor.
One that redefined racism sonarrowly it managed to exclude
actual racism, especially if itcame in the correct direction.
(02:30):
In that worldview, jews, asiansand white people are oppressors
, regardless of context Israel,colonizer, hamas, resistance.
And if you disagree, you're theproblem.
And if you disagree, you're theproblem.
This is the framework DEI wasbuilt on and Bill Ackman, to his
(02:51):
own surprise, had helped fundit, echo it and protect it for
years, not because he believedin hate, but because, like many
people, he believed in words.
Who doesn't want diversity,equity, inclusion?
They sound like HR-approvedmorality, something you'd put on
a tote bag at Davos.
(03:16):
But Ackman dug deeper and whathe found underneath the slogan
was something else entirely.
Dei in its modern form wasn'tabout creating opportunity, it
was about rebalancing outcomes.
It wasn't merit plus outreach,it was oppression.
Math, and as he put it bluntly,quote is racist, because
(03:41):
reverse racism is still racism,even if it's against white
people.
And it's remarkable that I evenneed to point this out.
End quote.
No qualifiers, no half measures.
Ackman didn't issue aclarification tweet.
He posted a 4,000 word essayinstead.
It read like Martin Luther KingJr meets shareholder letter
(04:02):
with a side of legal discovery.
Martin Luther King Jr meetsshareholder letter with a side
of legal discovery.
The backlash was instant.
He was accused of racism by theNAACP, protested outside his
New York office, mocked bylate-night hosts and quietly
unfollowed by the same class ofpolite donors who once praised
(04:23):
his philanthropy.
But here's the twist he didn'tflinch, not because he likes
conflict, but because, as he putit, I realized how ignorant I
had been.
This wasn't a stunt, it was ashattering.
There's a term for what Ackmanbelieved before Poetic truth.
(04:43):
Poetic truth is the story wetell ourselves that feels
emotionally correct, even if thefacts don't hold up.
It's the kind of truth thatlets us chant slogans instead of
ask questions, that letsuniversities write mission
statements about belonging whilebanning speakers for
wrong-think.
It's what makes equity feelrighteous, even when it crushes
(05:07):
fairness.
And when someone like BillAckman breaks from that, it's
not a political pivot, it's abetrayal, at least to the people
who still believe the script.
Now here's where the storyflips.
Ackman didn't just pull awayfrom Harvard, he pulled away
from Biden.
In April 2024, he posted Foranyone still confused, I'm not
(05:30):
voting for Biden.
And for good measure he addedyes, I'm open to voting for
Trump.
No exclamation point, noqualifiers, just reality.
That's what happens when poetictruth breaks.
You don't rush to replace itwith another narrative.
You sit in the discomfort offacts.
You stop caring if youropinions are on-brand.
(05:52):
So here's your think.
First closer.
You don't have to agree withBill Ackman, you don't have to
like his tactics or his tweetsor the fact that he's doing all
this from a penthouse on ParkAvenue.
But you should ask yourselfwhat stories have you believed
just because everyone else did?
What ideas have you noddedalong to?
(06:15):
Not because they made sense,but because questioning them
felt dangerous.
And if someone like Ackman canbreak the spell.
What's stopping the rest of us?
They called him dangerous, abillionaire, a bully, a threat
to diversity, equity and decorum.
But maybe the real threat wasclarity, because once you see
(06:37):
the poetic truth for what it isa well-dressed lie dressed in
buzzwords and fear you can'tunsee it.
And when someone finally breaksfrom the script, the silence
that follows isn't awkward, it'scontagious.
We'll leave you with this.
You don't need all the answers,but you should question the
ones you're handed.
(06:58):
You don't need all the answers,but you should question the
ones you're handed.
You don't need all the answers,but you should question the
ones you're handed.
Want to go deeper?
Visit gaslight360.com slashclarity to learn how to spot
gaslighting and poetic truth inmedia, politics and history.
Empower yourself to dissectnarratives, uncover hidden
(07:21):
truths and challenge the tacticsthat keep us in the dark.
Light your flame and startseeing the world with sharper
eyes.
Follow us on X, where 20,000friends are connecting the dots
at.
Spot the Gaslight and keepasking the questions they don't
want you asking.
Thanks for listening and ifthis helped you think a little
(07:43):
differently today, leave us arating on Apple.
It helps more than you know.
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