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Oct. 7, 2021 - Firebrand - Matt Gaetz
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Episode 10: Welcome to the Woketopia – Firebrand with Matt Gaetz
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The embattled Congressman Matt Gaetz.
Matt Gaetz was one of the very few members in the entire Congress who bothered to stand up against permanent Washington on behalf of his constituents.
Matt Gaetz right now, he's a problem in the Democratic Party.
He could cause a lot of hiccups in passing the laws.
So we're going to keep running those stories to keep hurting him.
If you stand for the flag and kneel in prayer, if you want to build America up and not burn her to the ground, then welcome, my fellow patriots!
You are in the right place!
This is the movement for you!
You ever watch this guy on television?
It's like a machine.
Matt Gaetz.
I'm a canceled man in some corners of the internet.
Many days I'm a marked man in Congress, a wanted man by the deep state.
They aren't really coming for me.
They're coming for you.
I'm just in the way.
Do us a favor while you're listening to the episode.
Give us that five-star rating on Apple iTunes if that's your listening platform of choice.
And if you're enjoying the video, make sure you've got those notifications turned on so that you get our episode each and every Thursday.
Now, this week's episode is going to attack the politics and policy and ethic of fashion, of all things, from my America First perspective.
You'll be surprised at the Dems I dunk on and praise in that segment.
But the main focus of the show is the Woketopia.
They have crazy rules and dangerous plans.
The hall monitors of the Woketopia are in Silicon Valley, of course.
And Senator Elizabeth Warren has a point on the dangers of big tech.
We need to break up these big tech companies.
Think, for example, Amazon.
You want to buy or sell goods on that platform, you pretty much have to go to Amazon.
And Amazon makes money doing that, but they also rake off all of the information that goes on in those transactions.
So Amazon then decides, huh, let's see what else is happening here.
Andy is running a pet food business and you had the idea and you had to do the proof of concept and you had to finance it and get out there and start it.
Amazon looks at that and says, we can see from Andy's numbers It's turned out real good.
So we'll just move Andy, the original guy, back to page 7 and just scoop up all the business.
Facebook, Apple, Amazon, Google.
I'd break them all up.
And I say that knowing full well that most of you are hearing or watching this podcast through one of these companies.
Whether we like it or not, they are the through point of access to the digital world.
Maybe that's why they should be regulated as common carriers to the extent that they do exist in any form.
Now, I've joined with Democrats in passing through the House Judiciary Committee legislation that would break them up.
Yes, I want to break up big tech so badly that I'm even willing to work with Elizabeth Warren and Hakeem Jeffries to do it.
I'm sure they have to hold their nose while working with me too.
If my adversary and I seek the same outcome on a particular matter, I'm willing to achieve it despite our different desires for doing so.
Big Tech Hates America.
It's a chapter title in my book, Firebrand, and it's true.
Just listen to what our bipartisan investigation uncovered regarding how Apple serves as an anti-competitive gatekeeper for those who want to innovate and enter the marketplace.
The App Store is a feature of the iPhone, much like the camera is and the chip is.
My point is, and I'm sorry to interrupt, but I want to get to the point.
Point is that Apple is the sole decision maker as to whether an app is made available to app users through the Apple Store.
Isn't that correct?
If it's a native app, yes, sir.
In 2010, Apple introduced an online bookstore called the iBookstore, where it offered eBooks.
And the only major publisher that didn't agree to join iBookstore was Random House.
Random House wanted to offer its own eBooks, Amidst continued negotiations between Apple and Random House, Senior VP Eddie Q said, and I'm quoting him, I'm quoting him when he said it prevented an app from Random House from going live in the App Store.
Q himself cited this app rejection as a factor in finally getting Random House to give in and join iBook Store.
Okay, alright.
So you were concerned about that the app basically undermined kids' privacy.
But another app that used this same tool was AppSure, an app owned by the Saudi Arabian government.
Do you recall What Apple's position was towards this app?
I'm not familiar with that app.
Okay.
Apple allowed this Saudi app to remain.
So there are two types of apps.
They use the same tool.
Apple kicks one out and said that one that was helping parents, but keeps the one owned by a powerful government.
If that is correct, Mr. Cook.
That abscess supposedly did the same thing.
Why do you, why would you keep the one owned by a powerful government?
I'd like to look into this and get back with your office.
It sounds like you applied different rules to the same apps.
Apple has sole control over who they allow to market their apps in their app store, enabling them to eliminate opportunity for anti-competitive reasons or really for no reason at all.
But it's not the quality of apps that they seek to ensure.
It is the quantity of their profit.
Those that pose a viable threat, or really any threat, to Apple-developed software, will they seem to suddenly be taken out of the market?
For the children, of course.
We were concerned, Congresswoman, about the privacy and security of kids.
The technology that was being used at that time was called MDM, and it had the ability to sort of take over the kids' screen and a third party could see it.
And so we were worried about their safety.
The same technologies that were unacceptable for outside competition were just as swiftly snatched up by Apple and rebranded as their own as soon as they were taken off the Apple Store.
Sure is a win for companies like Apple.
No longer do they need to come up with ideas of their own.
They just have to wait for the competition to plant the newest seed in the ever-growing apple tree so that they can pluck and harvest.
When you see evidence of this anti-competitive behavior, you have to wonder, why isn't the Department of Justice taking stronger action against Apple or really anyone else cheating the economy to kill innovation and competition?
The truth is that at the Department of Justice, the intensity of antitrust litigation is all about the jobs these DOJ officials want when they leave government service.
DOJ doesn't want to do nothing about big tech.
After all, if you want to sell the antidote, first you have to sell the virus.
But they don't want to do anything to actually hurt big tech in any real way.
Those are their future employers, after all.
There is a revolving door between the DOJ and big tech, as I laid bare here during debate in the House Judiciary Committee.
There is a final piece of evidence here, Mr. Chairman, and I did not expect to obtain this when we had our transcribed interview of the former U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of New York, Mr. Berman.
But in the inquiry of Mr. Berman, the majority asked a number of questions about why Attorney General Barr was asking him to leave the Southern District of New York.
And take over as head of the Civil Division.
And Mr. Berman explicitly says that the reason that the Attorney General is trying to coax him into the acceptance of that assignment is that it would be, and I'm quoting direct from the transcript here, a good resume builder.
Mr. Berman testifies, he said that I should want to create a book of business once I return to the private sector Which that role would help to achieve.
How improper for Attorney General Barr to be attempting to lure the US Attorney from the Southern District of New York to the Civil Division of the Department of Justice for the explicit purpose of building a business and then engaging in the revolving door back to the private sector to be able to leverage those contacts.
I was struck by To be honest, it's going to be very difficult for Congress to pass these breakup big tech bills.
They eked out of committee with Republicans and Democrats on both sides.
It's complex and messy to say the least.
And as you can see from the Barr-Berman fiasco, the DOJ is in on the big tech employment grift.
So outgunned, outfunded, small companies are having to go at it alone in the courtroom.
They're suing for their lives, for injunctions, to just open slivers of the marketplace for competition.
Usually they lose.
But a company called Epic Games just won.
And you better believe Apple felt it.
Previously, Apple required all transactions within the $100 billion mobile games market to go through their payment system.
And they take a hefty mandatory 30% commission for all transactions.
You can't escape it.
It generated nearly $20 billion per year for Apple with a 75% profit margin.
And now, they can't do that anymore.
Epic Games just got a federal judge to say that Apple must allow game developers to push purchasers to payment processors outside the Apple system.
This is huge.
In the days following the ruling, Apple lost $85 billion in valuation because now the marketplace has more choice.
Choice empowers consumers and it drives innovation and I'm for it.
It isn't just Apple who tries to scrub out its competition.
We have large conglomerates like Facebook who are more than willing to throw their elbows in the face of any competitor that comes their way.
You can see me here questioning Facebook's very own Mark Zuckerberg defending the acquisition of anyone that might pose a threat to their market dominance.
Mr. Zuckerberg, what is a digital land grab?
Congressman, I'm not sure what you're referring to.
Well, in the emails that your company produced to the committee, there's one from David Wehner in 2014, where he's describing under the mergers and acquisitions advice within the company that you need to engage in a land grab.
And he says, I hate the word land grab, but I think that's the best convincing argument, and we should own that.
And it goes on to describe a strategy wherein Facebook would spend 5 to 10 percent of its market cap each year to shore up its market position.
Does that refresh your recollection?
Yes, Congressman, thanks for the opportunity to address this and, frankly, to correct the record, because I believe that what he was referring to was a question that was incoming from investors about whether we would continue to acquire different companies.
I don't think that that wasn't referring to an internal strategy.
It was referring to an external question that we were facing about how investors should expect us to act going forward.
And I think he was discussing the fact that as mobile phones were growing in popularity, there were a lot of new ways that people could connect and communicate that were part of this overall broader space and market around humanity.
It seems to be both internal and external because then in an email from you in 2012 we see a similar sentiment expressed.
You write, we can likely always just buy any competitive startups.
So is your desire to limit competition by purchasing your competitors consistent with The message to your investors that the way you'll run your company is through digital land grabs.
Congressman, I'm not sure I agree with the characterization of how we communicated with investors.
But I think the broader point is that there were a lot of new ways that people can connect that were created by smartphones.
This is about your merger and acquisition strategy.
You went on to say one thing about startups is you can often acquire them.
So, I mean, I'm not interested in how people connect.
I'm interested in how you acquire businesses to limit competition.
The gentleman at the time has expired, but the witness may answer the question.
Congressman, in order to serve people better and help people connect in all the ways they would want, we innovated and built a lot of new use cases internally, and we acquired others.
And that, I think, has been a very successful strategy at serving people well.
And a lot of the companies that we've been able to acquire have gone on to reach and help connect many more people than they would have been able to on their own.
You've grabbed a lot of land.
I would say I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
Not only are big tech companies willing to spend their money to remove those who seek to compete against them, they are willing to lose money to do so.
$200 million worth, in fact.
Take a listen.
We saw one of your profit and loss statements and it appears that in one month alone, Amazon was willing to bleed over $200 million in diaper profit losses.
Mr. Bezos, how much money was Amazon ultimately willing to lose on this campaign to undermine diapers.com?
Thank you for the question.
I don't know the direct answer to your question.
This is going back in time, I think, maybe 10 or 11 years or so.
Normally, I view the government as a last resort to solve just about any problem.
But this is the last resort.
American innovators should not be shut out of a marketplace just because there's a bigger company willing to snuff them out for the monopoly with anti-competitive practices.
This is why I support the antitrust legislation that is currently being put forth in Congress.
Specifically, bills like the American Innovation and Choice Online Act would prevent companies like Apple and Amazon from giving preference to their own products and stifling those who would compete for the digital space.
It is bills like this that will put American innovators first, allowing them the opportunity to prosper and grow American technology.
I urge others to support these bills, as does our friend Tucker Carlson.
Well, the House Judiciary Committee just passed six bipartisan antitrust bills today that could finally in the end lead to breaking up the big tech companies and saving the nation.
One bill, it's called the American Choice Innovation Online Act, prohibits big tech companies from giving preference to their own products on their platforms.
That's a typical piece of antitrust legislation.
It also prevents them from discriminating against their competitors.
Another bill is called Ending Platform Monopolies Act, and that bill could force tech companies to break up in the end and sell their assets.
That bill passed by a single vote, in part thanks to two Republicans, Matt Gaetz and Ken Buck.
Republicans have talked about big tech censorship for years.
Ooh, we're against censorship.
Yet only a handful supported these bills.
In fact, most Republicans on the committee opposed them.
Why?
Well, let's see.
Big tech companies like Google, Facebook, and Amazon and Apple lobbied heavily against these bills.
Apple CEO Tim Cook even called Nancy Pelosi personally to complain about them.
Who else took the side of big tech to oppose these antitrust efforts?
Well, let's see.
House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy did that.
He said these bills would give government antitrust agencies too much power.
Really?
More power than Google has?
Probably not!
We don't know where he got that talking point.
Maybe from Jeff Miller, his old friend.
Who's Jeff Miller?
Well, he's a Republican consultant and fundraiser.
He's been close to McCarthy for decades.
He also, not incidentally, is a lobbyist for Apple and Amazon.
Those two companies have paid his firm more than a million dollars combined since he began representing them two years ago.
So these bills are out of committee.
They still need to be voted on in the House and the Senate.
And by the way, they are not perfect.
No bill is perfect.
But this may be the best chance to pass antitrust legislation that will curb the power of big tech that is strangling our democracy.
And so, of course, we're rooting for Congress to do just that.
Back in June, the House Judiciary Committee undertook the task of considering this legislation.
The Ending Platform Monopolies Act was reported out of committee by a vote of 21 to 20. I'm proud to have been the 21st vote in favor of it.
But Nancy Pelosi hasn't signaled that these bills are coming to the floor for a full vote.
We must wonder why.
During the 2020 election cycle, Google's parent company, Alphabet, contributed 80% of its $21 million to Democrats.
In the same time, Microsoft, through their employees, contributed 75% of its $17 million in donations to Democrats.
Furthermore, Amazon contributed roughly 86% of its $8.9 million in individual donations to Democrat candidates.
Facebook, 80% of its 6 million to Democrats.
Apple donated 5.7 million, of which nearly 80% went to Democrats.
Now, there are other packs and vehicles that these big tech companies move many more millions of dollars through, but this just gives you a sense of the ratios and where their minds and hearts truly are.
Sometimes, the best government money can buy is a government that you know won't litigate against you from the DOJ or legislate against you from the DCCC. I recently went on a fact-finding mission to Portland, Oregon.
How is life in the Woketopia?
Portland is basically Antifa's Batcave.
Portlandia, the show, it reminds us that this is the place millennials go to retire.
A liberal paradise embodied in a city.
They're defunding police, embracing taxpayer-funded needle exchange.
Water and food are put out for the homeless.
The rich are heavily taxed, like a neo-modern reparations of sorts.
Social services abound, but I have to use the term service rather loosely.
All bathrooms are gender-neutral, but for customers only, of course.
And there are far fewer of those.
It's easy to tear down.
Harder to build.
This has been the hallmark of the left since Marx moved into his friend's basement and started writing.
As is tradition, development in Portland is absent.
Destruction is everywhere.
They have to fence and barbed wire their storefronts and streets like it's Sarajevo in the 90s.
Here in America, today, in 2021...
And if you ask a Portlander why their storefronts are boarded up like Florida anticipating a hurricane, they tell you it's for a good cause.
BLM and the oppression and senseless shooting of black Americans by police.
When walking the streets of Portland, I can tell you it's not the police you're afraid of.
It's the zombies who just got done chasing the dragon.
By the way, I guess somebody ought to tell the 15,000 Haitians camped at the southern border in Del Rio, Texas to turn around and go home, least they be subjected to our evil, irredeemable country and its systemic racism.
Having said this, we did meet some pretty great folks in Portland, especially in law enforcement.
But at times, I had to remember that this wasn't a foreign trip to Haiti or Syria.
Every day, people in America's cities are living in filth and squalor, often because the utopian-sounding policies pushed by the left result in chaos and failure.
I wonder if they named this place Outrage before or after the riots.
It would seem that there would be reasonable basis for both.
I came across a comic book store that undoubtedly serves as some sort of underworld meeting place in the dark hours.
Nothing like friendly ladies from the Women and Women First bookstore.
Hi, welcome to Women and Women First.
What happened to your pants?
They're frayed.
Um, the PSU bookstore sent me here.
I'm actually just, like, getting a bunch of books for class, for my learning studies class.
Do you have, like, a computer system where I can just look it up?
No, no, we're that computer.
Okay, um, different daughters, vaginas and owner's manual.
Hold on, slow down.
Different daughters.
If we could order that for you, it'll take a year to get here.
It has to be written.
They had this amazing poster in the front window.
198 methods of non-violent action.
Many of these methods we support strongly.
Like 1. Public speeches.
9. Books.
20. Prayer and worship.
38. Marches.
47. Assembly of protest or support.
Now, the left would be wise to support these principles without selective abandon.
After all, they tried to cancel Josh Hawley's book because they didn't like his viewpoint.
California venues canceled political assemblies of support for Marjorie Taylor Greene and me because they're triggered by America First content.
I covered in an earlier episode that the Democrat governor of New Jersey has me under criminal investigation for giving a political speech.
Hundreds of our fellow Americans have been targeted by the FBI for participation in nonviolent activities on January 6th.
But if this 198 Methods for Nonviolent Action is a playbook, it's various parts incoherent, contradictory, weird, downright grisly, and yes, violent, meaning perfectly Portland.
Let's detail the plan the left has devised in their Portland paradise for the rest of us to resolve conflicts for society.
Mock awards, 14. Mock elections, 17. And even mock funerals, 43. It sounds quirky to start.
Until you get to protest disrobings at 22, please know, can you imagine a society where when we get mad at each other, one advantage we have to get our way is to be so physically disgusting that the thought of us taking our clothes off would force the other side to relent?
If the left is serious about number 22, Republicans maybe have to nominate like Chris Christie just for deterrence.
Actually, of those two options, seeing him as the nominee would be worse.
Self-exposure to the elements at 158 seems intense.
You've got to be all in for that, to say the least.
At a MAGA rally, the only thing you have to do to expose yourself to the elements might be enduring a little bit of rain.
Rude gestures at 30 or taunting at 32 seem an unlikely way to make America great or kind again.
Meanness won't be the way to achieve number 33, fraternization.
Is this encouraging sleeping with the enemy?
Naughty naughty Portland.
54 is turning one's back.
We've actually seen that successful before when police turned their back on failed New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio.
De Blasio embraced the anti-police Portland agenda.
Say what you will about Michael Bloomberg, but New York City was a more vibrant place with him in charge.
He may have taken away your guns and super gulps, but he didn't surrender the streets like de Blasio.
De Blasio went full Portland and it shows.
Never go full Portland.
They support embargoes 92-96 and severing diplomatic relations 154. But not with communist countries like Cuba.
Black Lives Matter opposes that blacklisting.
The fact that 11.3 million predominantly non-white people are being truly oppressed 90 miles from the United States is less significant to the woketopia than supporting a communist ideology.
For the tyrannical left, politics runs deeper than blood or color.
Excommunication is method 58. They welcome people pooping on their streets.
I observed a man pick up an abandoned half sandwich and then pee into a mailbox.
He might be elected the next mayor.
A young activist actually approached me to sign a petition recalling the current mayor, Wimpy Ted Wheeler.
So it might happen sooner than you think.
Bad news for Wheeler.
I'm sure he thought that he would be big man on campus by standing with and supporting the rioters during the destructive summer of love.
I stand with you no matter what.
And if they launch the tear gas against you, they are launching the tear gas against me.
So you can do all of these destructive things.
You can even agree with the people who are being destructive.
But disagree politically?
Excommunication.
It's the Portland way, it seems.
It's not just that the woketopians would excommunicate you.
I think they'll excommunicate themselves if you give them time.
60, 61, 64, and 65 call for ending sports and social gatherings, withdrawing from social affairs and institution, refusal to leave home, and total personal non-cooperation.
Was the Woke playbook co-authored by Ted Kaczynski or something?
Sounds like the pandemic lockdowns are a catalyst for this paradise.
But it all seems so sad and lonely.
The list now starts to get explicit.
119 calls for economic shutdown.
They seem to have achieved much of this already in Portland.
Businesses can't survive this.
But is your family better off with a shutdown of the American economy, all for the sake of woke Marxist control?
Would shutdown be good for you?
I say we shut down bad ideas, not the American way of life.
And we should get the chance to do so if they follow the left's plan dutifully.
123-131 call for boycotts of elections and government service.
Tell you what, I suggest the left follow these commandments first.
And don't forget 121, refusal of public support.
Nothing will stick it to the man like you tearing up that government welfare check right in our faces.
Portland, be true to your Nike identity on this one.
Just do it.
Boycott the elections.
Tear up the government support.
Actually, that might lead to better life in Portland.
Now things get spooky at number 69. Collective disappearance?
Is this some sort of cult death pact like Jim Jones and the Kool-Aid stuff?
Real grim.
If the woke mob collectively disappeared, just how would the rest of us cope?
The list goes on to showcase the real goal.
And it's not disappearing.
Social disobedience, 63. Non-obedience, 134. Disobedience of laws, 141. Blocking lines of command, 143. Obstruction, 144. Ignoring court orders, 146. You see, they are playing for keeps.
Are you paying attention?
It starts to feel more like I'm walking into shocking art supplies.
Haunting.
31.
Haunting officials.
Inviting people into a political movement predicated on using haunting as a force for change.
Does a voodoo doll come with membership in this political group?
148. Mutiny.
On the 198 methods for non-violent change, number 148 is mutiny.
Mutiny isn't a term we traditionally associate with non-violence.
Catch the signal here, not the noise.
They also put the word nonviolent in front of a bunch of stuff that would typically ignite violence, and they know it.
Harassment, 161. Raids, 168. Air raids, 169. What in the world is a nonviolent air raid?
I could see that escalating quickly.
Land seizure, 183. Not typically a non-violent act.
Occupation, 173. An invasion, 170. Just another run-of-the-mill, non-violent invasion.
178 is guerilla theater.
This could just be confusing to people.
Now the list rounds out with the express objective, overload administrative systems, seeking imprisonment, and number 198, setting up a parallel government.
They want to take what we have, ignore it, overload it, attack it, destroy it, and replace it.
They want to build a parallel society under these crazy rules.
God help us, it may look something like Portland.
The truth is, as barking mad as all of this is, we shouldn't take it lightly.
If all we do is mock them and go back to work, we'll end up living under these rules.
The political left is gaining ground in America today.
So calling out their lunacy and hypocrisy is not enough.
The left makes gains and establishment Republicans just complain about it on far too many days.
We have to fight this.
The left controls the executive and legislative branches of our government.
They're scheduling and scheming to pack the Supreme Court.
The only thing stopping the left's Portlandia dream or nightmare is us.
America first conservatives.
And if you want to see how they would operate if they had supreme unchecked power to take over and control our country, look no further than the microstates they control now.
From Portland to California to Chicago, Baltimore, DC, New York City.
This isn't the country I want for our great people, but great Americans live in those places under this terrible rule.
If we're going to stop this dystopic future in its tracks, we are going to have to get real tough, real fast.
The future is up for grabs, and we have no choice but to win it.
For there is no distant land to run to, no place to go, should we fail in saving America.
Fashion.
It's very political.
Sometimes it's destructive and deadly.
A fashion faux pas has killed many a career on the runway.
Politics is the runway for ugly people.
And fashion can be weaponized.
Who could forget George H.W. Bush's socks?
We make fast calls on people's fashion all the time, whether we realize it or not.
In an article published in the March 2020 issue of Nature Human Behavior, authors O, Shafir, and Todorov of New York University and Princeton conclude that a clothing's quality defines how others perceive competence.
After all, for many, why do good when you can look good?
Image as a metric of competence is a rising trend.
The generation that did it all for the gram is very visual.
They didn't sit up at night talking on the landline for hours like Gen X or on AIM Instant Messenger with four friends at once chatting like me and all the fellow zennials out there.
Conservative media went nuts when AOC wore a Tax the Rich dress to the Met Gala.
I loved it.
First, she looked great.
In an era when Victoria's Secret cancels fashion shows and surrenders to wokeness, it's nice for people to lean in and look good.
Second, and perhaps more importantly, the troll is epic.
Most people would do everything at the Met to fit in amongst the elite.
She knew what she was doing, getting attention on her terms on their turf.
Bravo!
Other strong female figures have used fashion in politics as well.
Kimberly Guilfoyle has a look.
It says power, control, achievement, excellence, success.
These reinforce MAGA political themes.
Men get in on it too.
Tucker had the bow tie forever, a wasp and brace for sure, even if he hasn't worn it for years.
The best dressed congressman is Congressman Jeff Van Drew.
He's a really good person, actually.
Just take a moment and ask yourself, what district do you think he represents?
Of course it's the Jersey Shore.
Van Drew was elected a Democrat, switched to become a Republican, and won re-election anyway.
That is a boss Nucky Thompson move if there ever was one, and the wardrobe is there to drive home the point.
But if there is a political figure I want to commend for using fashion to make a point that should be front of mind to American consumers...
It's Jill Biden.
Jill Biden is the first First Lady to have the courage and resolve and power to outfit repeat.
While she changed up her mask and accessories to freshen the look, Jill Biden wore this classy and stylish Narcisco Rodriguez piece to the Tokyo Olympics.
And in Florida with well-known American tyrant Dr. Anthony Fauci.
This wasn't the first lady economizing choices to accommodate a carry-on.
She isn't budget-restricted.
She was making a point, and it's one America-first nationalists, populist localists, and woke environmentalists alike need to hear.
Fast fashion sucks.
There's nothing chic about waste.
A culture which throws away its things will itself be tossed away.
The average piece of clothing in America is worn seven times and discarded.
Seven times!
And I know that some of you must be wearing things once and throwing them away because I have worn this Dewey Destin's tank top over 700 times.
We haven't made the clothes we actually wear in our country for a long time.
The price is lower, the quality lower, and when we're done wearing trendy, cheap, crappy stuff, We pollute the third world with it while patting ourselves on the back for donating to charity and destroying domestic industry.
America is the largest importer of garments in the world.
Nearly 40% of apparel products that are sold here are imported from China.
Fast fashion.
This is the research that startled me most.
Discarded textile products are the second largest industrial polluter on planet Earth, behind only oil, according to Forbes.
Aside from the buy once, wear once, throw away culture of detached consumerism, many people have falsely woven this lifestyle into a charitable cause.
You can indulge your vanity while virtue signaling.
You can have it all.
Cheap goods make cheap men, and cheap fashion cheapens us.
And our crap tends to end up in Africa, not to clothe the naked, but to clog the rivers, smother the beaches, and billow over the landfills.
If you donate your clothes to people in need, they aren't going to build a statue to you unless it is made out of unwanted, discarded clothes.
Over 15 million articles of clothing arrive in Ghana every week, probably about half of it bought at H&M. This is an indictment of globalism and its dysfunctionality.
This crap comes from China and ends up in Africa.
We wear it, I guess, once or twice in between.
Child labor and slave labor in China, that is the manufacturing force behind the poorly made Chinese garments that last two or three washes before disintegrating against your office chair.
China makes more than seven times as many textiles as the second largest producer, which is India.
Is there something wrong with a society that destroys our businesses in the name of tolerance, but won't tolerate an outfit repeat?
America at her golden age had people wearing their Sunday best every Sunday.
People had two pair of shoes, one for the work week and one for church.
Now people are keen on hoarding shoes, clothes, accessories.
That's mental.
America once manufactured well-made, lasting fabrics and garments that can still be found as relics in respectable vintage establishments across the country.
So let's bring classic back, not just as a look, but as a way to think about how we appoint ourselves.
I know it's the 21st century and Instagram's outfit of the day hashtag obsession is all the rage.
But fast fashion is ruining our planet with rampant pollution.
Are cheap, crappy, trendy clothes a good trade for soulless mercantilism?
I know it's hard to resist buying that skimpy summer dress for $7.99 that you'll wear once before realizing it makes you look like a rectangle.
My female staff wrote that last line.
I wrote this one.
We know clothes make the man, but do they make Earth worse?
There's a lot we can disagree on as Americans, but we should all agree as a nation we are better than the sale rack at Express.
Instead, invest in timeless pieces, knowing that you'll feel powerful in them.
And you also can hold on to those pieces, taking care of them and respecting our planet in doing so.
By resisting the urge to fast fashion, you're not only helping save the planet from endless trash, you're also contributing to a world where laborers aren't exploited for profit.
The evils of fast fashion are greatly on display in globalism's ugly underbelly.
Not all of us can be like elite AOC who wore a dress once and then never likely will wear it again.
You know, everyone talks about how courageous it was for her to wear that dress initially, and maybe it was.
Again, like I said, I'm not dunking on the move, but she should wear it again.
Shows she's not in for the fast fashion trend.
Now most of us don't even have gala events to attend, much less opportunities to design our own outfits, but we all can do our part in helping preserve the planet.
And the people in Africa who have to deal with our crap, and the people in Asia who are underpaid and enslaved, they'll thank you.
Even if they can't thank you directly, it'll certainly be a better life for them.
And hopefully one day, America First will prevail on trade, on globalism, in our hearts and in our lives.
And we will go back to making great American garments again.
Now, disclaimer, I've bought inexpensive clothing made from faraway lands for seemingly trendy looks with very negative results.
I thought the 90s were coming back.
I may have missed that by a few years and went full 1985 Miami Vice.
My wife still asks me, what were you thinking?
I think that entire outfit didn't cost a hundred bucks.
I know.
It shows.
I should be better.
The research for this episode has inspired me to be better.
Legislatively, we could look at alternatives to the international free trade system that doesn't seem to be free at all or fair.
For example, we've made progress in the National Defense Authorization Act that's being considered and hopefully will be sent to President Biden.
Namely, the Berry and Kissel amendments require certain goods to be purchased right here from American entities manufacturing them.
And we agree with those Buy American provisions.
But let's extend that.
So much of our clothing is bought online.
We should encourage major companies to be transparent regarding their supply lines.
I mean, in food, we've gotten so much healthier with labeling and transparency.
In fashion, we could learn a lot about what food labeling taught us about the supply chain.
Who wants to buy the cheapest thing if it comes at the price of our nation?
I'd like to know what I'm buying, where it comes from, and who made it.
If we can't break up Amazon, we should certainly clean up Amazon's supply chain.
We should tax Chinese goods for the environmental harms they cause and focus closer to home.
We might even find that our neighbors make for better trading partners.
They're more like us and part of a united front.
Friends don't let friends ruin the planet.
Sometimes we just need to slow down and think about the best way to look our best with what's nearest.
Thanks so much for listening to Firebrand.
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