Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
One guy who has been working to move things in
the right direction at the American Culture Project is John Tilman,
and he joins us now to talk about the election
and the results that I just mentioned.
Speaker 2 (00:10):
Hi, John, Welcome to the show.
Speaker 3 (00:14):
Mandy. Great to be with you and your audience. Thank you.
Speaker 1 (00:18):
So let's start with what you see in this election
because the American Culture Project. For first of all, we'll
let you explain what the American Culture Project does, because
I think that's an interesting mission that you guys are on,
and then we'll talk about your view based on that
framework of what happened in the election. So what does
the American Culture Project actually do.
Speaker 3 (00:39):
Well this election cycle? We were very involved in Georgia
and voter engagement, helping people learn how to vote by mail,
request their ballot, turn in their ballot, early voting, and
then day of voting, so very much get off the
vote effort, and there was a lot of other people
working in Georgia. This is one of the elections where
we really saw all kinds of people from the conservative
infrastructure off you will, working really well together to get
(01:01):
voters out and educate voters. And I think what's interesting,
going back to your premise is what American culture does
is educate voters, And in particular, what we're focused on
is what the left puts into group identity Blacks, Hispanics,
single women, younger voters, l GGTQ, all those voters. The
question of what the left wants them to think is
(01:23):
that their identity is the most important part of their life.
What we want to say to them, and what President
Trump successfully said to significant portions of those audiences, is
your life situation is the most important thing. Who you
are overall is very important, and your identity is a
crucial part of that. It helps you define who you are.
But it shouldn't trump your life situation, the opportunities you seek,
(01:44):
the dreams that you have, how you want to build
your family and community. And I think that's the story
of this election. I'm hoping it is the beginning of
the depth of group identity politics, which is divisive. Instead,
we should all be talking about our common journey in
America to build our individual lives as part of a
common American dream.
Speaker 1 (02:03):
One of the things the analyzes I've seen coming from
the right side of the aisle is that this election
was as much a repudiation of identity politics and out
of control wokism as an election on the two candidates,
What are your thoughts on that?
Speaker 3 (02:21):
I totally agree with that, but with an additive. So
I've long said that elections are usually one of two things,
whether either repudiation elections or validation elections. So twenty sixteen
was actually a repudiation of the Obama administration in Hillary
twenty twenty was repudiation of Trump. Whatever you may think
about that election, that's essentially what it was. And this
(02:42):
was a repudiation of bignomics in the last four years,
which was a continuation of Obama. But I would add
that there's a significant Whi's unusual is there was a
significant portion of this electorate that is validating Trump's policies.
Part of the reason he won is because he presented
an alternative policy agenda lowering, lowering inflation, secure the border,
(03:03):
stop the unnecessary wars, and American security first, working with
allies well, but put American security first. It was very
clear what its policy agenda was. And in addition to that, frankly,
the social focism from transgender with issues with children, gender
dysphoria among children, whatever people do as adults, I think
we all agree adults should have complete control of their
(03:23):
lives and do as they wish, but this idea of
introducing these subjects among our children is crazy. And Trump
certainly spoke to that, no more men playing in women's sports,
those sort of things I think played as well. So
this was a little bit unusual in that it was
a little bit of a combination of pudiation and validation.
Speaker 1 (03:40):
Let me ask you this, and I'm going to use
the men and women's sports as an example because it's
such a great example of what I'm about to say.
I think that the Democrats overshot their or got out
in front of their skis by telling anyone who said, look,
you know what, maybe we shouldn't be giving life altering
drugs to children when they're four in five, because that's
(04:01):
not a good and immediately their response was not to
have a discussion about the rightness or the wrongness, or
the science or the not but to turn around and say,
you're transphobe, you hate It was so absurd on the
face of it, and I think for a lot of
people that issue in particular, it made so much sense
to say we wouldn't let a five.
Speaker 2 (04:20):
Year old get a face tattoo.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
Why are we going to let them make permanently life
altering decisions at five? How much do you think that
played into it, where people just said, I've had enough,
I'm not going to participate in this anymore, and I'm
voting in a different way to show that.
Speaker 3 (04:36):
I think that's spot on. I think what's really interesting
is when all this crazy stuff started wocalism in general,
people who were not super political. You know, people listen
to your show are probably much more political than the
average person, but most people kind of just live their lives.
They skimmed politics and dipping and out every two years
as elections roll up. What they suddenly discovered is they're
(04:58):
being drawn into these issues no matter what. And people
were koutout and scared to even bring up their disagreement
with some of the insanity. Well, what you've seen over
the last several years and really peaking during this election cycle,
is people are tired of being cooutout. They're speaking up,
they're standing up, they're going to the school board meetings,
they're speaking up online, and they're rebelling. And I think
this Trump was this election with Trump was a bit
(05:20):
of a rebellion on these particular topics. People know that
the idea of having meant biological men play in women's
sports is insanity. People know that gender mutilation of children
that is permanent for gender dysphoria is insanity. There are
alternative ways to try to address the mental health issues
that somebody is going through. We had union empty in
this country, across our entire spectrum of politics, left right, middle,
(05:43):
that the gender mutilation going on in young women in Africa.
We all agreed that was a bad idea, and suddenly
we're doing these things now. It shows you how crazy
the radicals on this have become. They are the radicals,
they are the intolerant ones, and as you pointed out,
they are actually the bigots against people who's end up
against them.
Speaker 2 (06:02):
So I'd like to ask you.
Speaker 1 (06:04):
I've spent the last two days consuming CNN and MSNBC,
not because I want to, but because I wanted to
see if there was any self awareness coming from the
left media. I wanted to see if there was any
light bulb moments where they went the same conversation we're
having out. Maybe we went too far, but boy, they
are doubling down. They're blaming uneducated women misogynistic Latino men,
(06:29):
self hating black men. I mean it is still are
they capable of moving beyond identity politics? Because I'm increasingly
believing that they're so married to it, and it's so
enmeshed in who the party is and honestly who how
their social structures are built. I don't know if they
can turn it off. And if they can't, do they
(06:49):
ever win an election again.
Speaker 3 (06:52):
Well, I think that if President Trump and the Republicans
do a good job during this term, they will have
a hard time again because the electora is being reformed.
Middle class and working class people, the people that feel disempowered,
not from an elite university, not from the East or
West coast or a major city. Those people are all
coming together, whether they're black light or brown, whether they're urban. On, John,
(07:16):
they're coming here.
Speaker 1 (07:17):
You're hang on one second. You are super garbled right now.
So maybe turn off your camera and see if we
can get that again. You might not have enough bandwidth there,
So just turn your camera off and try again. Yeah, yeah,
see if that works.
Speaker 2 (07:28):
I'm saying, ooh, no, no, I don't know what is happening.
Speaker 1 (07:33):
Yeah, I don't know what's going on, John, You are
super super garbled a rod. Are you hearing that too?
Okay's gonna call him. Something is going on here with
our zoom, So he's going to give him a call
because I want to continue this conversation. You would think
they would learn, right, You would think that there would
be some kind of learning curve, but apparently there's not.
Speaker 2 (07:55):
Absolutely not.
Speaker 1 (07:58):
A friend of mine just texts me and said, Joe
Biden showed up in all perfect Let me get John Tilman.
Speaker 2 (08:03):
Let me go back. I was just vamping right there.
So John, go ahead and answer that question.
Speaker 1 (08:07):
If the media learns or if they haven't learned, do
they ever get elected again?
Speaker 2 (08:11):
Go ahead and give me that answer.
Speaker 3 (08:12):
I think they're going to be challenged to be elected again.
If the Trump administration in this Congress does a good
job of passing the legislative agenda that helps working class
people and middle class people and the disaffected people that
elected them live better lies, if they bring down inflation,
bring down crime, secure the border. I think we're seeing
a generational change in the way people vote because what
the coalition is middle class, working class people, black, brown,
(08:34):
and white alike. As I alluded to earlier, as the
destruction it can be the destruction of group identity politics,
and those numbers aggregate bigger than the elite educated East Coast,
West Coast, high income and to some degree, those still
voting based on group identity politics. So I think this
could be a seminal restructuring of the electorate, which I
(08:55):
think is very exciting for the country because it's actually
unifying to see each other as individs. Yes, your group
identity and what makes sure you unique, yes, but it's
your life situation, living your life here in America with
your family and your community that actually trumps them.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
I was going to ask you specifically about that.
Speaker 1 (09:12):
What is the messaging that Republicans or people need to
adopt and.
Speaker 2 (09:17):
Believe in to break through?
Speaker 1 (09:19):
And my hope is this election is the beginning of
the end of woke identity politics, because if it's not working,
one thing I know about politicians and political classes, if
something isn't working, they're willing to throw it overboard in
a New York minute. They won't even give it a
second thought. So I'm hoping this is the end of wokeness.
So what messaging needs to happen to break through that
(09:44):
and so we can get more and more people to
fully reject the notion that your immutable characteristics that you
had nothing to do with are the most important thing
about you.
Speaker 3 (09:54):
I think what has to happen is that the conservative
right has to continue to build tools communication into those
communities and express what we believe. The conservative community is
a loving community. It believes in individual empowerment. It believes
in persuasion and collaboration on the voluntary basis to build communities,
build businesses, build families, and come together. It doesn't care
(10:18):
how rich you are, how poor you are, whether you're black, brown,
or white, whether you just got here legally or you're
descended from the Mayflower. We all love to work together
and build. That's who we are as a community. And
that goes for people who are African American, Hispanic descended
from the Mayflowers, I said, or Southeastern Europe like I was.
That's who we are. The problem has been that we've
(10:38):
not been very good at making that argument. And Trump
has broken through. And I think Elon Musk, Tulca Gabbard
and RFK all coming out and Joe Rogan show all
coming out those channels of communication to these audiences, because
those audiences are listening to them. One of the most
common things you hear African Americans say is they're totally
different than I thought they were. I didn't realize Trump
(11:00):
actually cared about me. I went to a rally and
people were so nice to me because they've been propagandized.
And you know, if we were who as conservatives that
the left says we are, I wouldn't want to hang
out with me either. But we're not who they are.
We are actually loving, kind and generous people, and people
are finally finding that out because they don't have monopoly
control over the communications anymore. We have these memes now
(11:22):
through shows like yours, through podcasts, through the X platform,
X platform, thank god he brought it. All of them
is breaking down their ability to control the narrative. And
that's what American Culture Project is all about, by the way,
as we want to break down these channels that they
control and build new channels to communicate with all people
about what we have in common and how we love
(11:43):
one another.
Speaker 1 (11:44):
Elon Musk posted something on X the day after the
election that just said, you are the media to followers
or you know, people participating on X because X was
a better reflection of what the electorate was thinking and
was going to do, than any of the polling, than
any of the punitry that happened on television, because it
(12:06):
was real people having real conversations with other people. So
what do you want us to do from this point forward?
What do we need to do to continue to bring
these people around? I mean, do we need to just
check off all of the insane things that some of
these poor brainwash people on the left really think are
going to happen.
Speaker 3 (12:25):
I think the most important way we have found to
engage with people who maybe are not well versed on
the issues, they have a surface giving knowledge is to
ask questions. The best way to help people come to
see the world differently is not to lecture them and
tell them why you're right about your ideas. The best
way to simply ask questions. Well, tell me who do
(12:45):
you think should be in charge of the children? Do
you think the schools should be in charge of how
the children live their lives? Do you think the government
should be in charge or do you think the parents
are best qualified? Almost anybody that's a reasonable person, even
if they're from the political left, is going to see
the parents should be properly in that role, and those
are the kind of questions that we want. Who do
you think should be in charge of making the decisions
(13:06):
and where to invest tax payer money or to people's money.
Should the government be in charge of which businesses should
be invested in? Or do you think individuals coming together
should be in charge of how to invest to build businesses.
Look at for example, SpaceX and those private investments and
how it's absolutely transformed space The government invested in buying
and they stranded astronauts on the space station and SpaceX
(13:30):
had to go rescue them. One was privately run with
private investments with an entrepreneur approach. One was completely government
subsidized in a dominating way and directed by the government.
So asking questions is the best way I think to
help people find the truth because we are we do
live in a propaganda war environment.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
The American Culture Project can be found at amamculture dot org.
Speaker 2 (13:53):
I put a link on my blog today.
Speaker 1 (13:54):
John, I'd love to continue this conversation with you in
the future, so let's make that happen.
Speaker 3 (13:58):
I love it, I love being with you. Thanks so
much for the opportunity.
Speaker 1 (14:02):
All right, that's John Tillman with the American Culture Project,