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Aug. 5, 2021 - The Michael Knowles Show

31:37

The Attack on Super Heroes | Eric July

Eric July Joins the show to discuss the radical changes being made to the comic book heroes and why that matters so much in the culture today. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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	I'm Michael Knowles, and this is The Michael Knowles Show.
	Everywhere I go lately, people tell me that I need to interview Eric July.
	It doesn't matter what state I'm in.
	It doesn't matter what we're talking about.
	I was at Tim Pool's place not so long ago.
	He said, you got to talk to Eric July.
	I said, okay, I got to learn about this guy.
	So I look up Eric July, also known as YoungRipa59.
	I had already reserved YoungRipa58, which is why he had to go to 59.
	He's got some really, really terrific commentary, in particular on the entertainment media and specifically about comic books.
	But this guy is a man of many, many talents.
	You also may have seen him in the Thomas Sowell documentary, which is really terrific.
	Thomas Sowell, common sense in a senseless world.
	So we're going to try to make sense of this senseless world.
	Eric, thank you for coming on.
	I appreciate you having me, Michael.
	Thank you so much.
	So I need you to educate me about a topic on which I am entirely ignorant.
	And this is the topic of comic books.
	I won't say that I'm entirely ignorant.
	Here is what I know.
	I only know what I read in the news that all of a sudden comic books, which I thought was just a fun thing that people, you know, either people with a very specific interest or, you know, people growing up, they read them.
	They keep hiring I'm the guy who wrote a book without any words, and I think that this guy is way, way overrated.
	So tell me, I mean, is this just some strange coincidence?
	I mean, what is going on behind the scenes in the comic books?
	Yeah, it's not a coincidence at all.
	It seems like within the last decade, I would say more so in the middle of the 2010s, you started to see this big time cultural shift in terms of who were writing these books.
	Now, often you'd get people that were already part of the comic book culture, like you mentioned, it is niche.
	It takes a certain kind of person to even write and be knowledgeable on these characters, definitely of the Marvels and the DCs and mainstream comics.
	And at some point, like the 2010s, they shifted and rather seemed to focus on hiring people that were more so fitting a particular social or political view.
	And this is why you got guys like Ta-Nehisi Coates writing, unfortunately, Black Panther, one of my favorite characters, and he had no business being anything near that project, that intergalactic Wakanda or whatever weird thing he called himself doing.
	To me, it's the worst run of Black Panther that we've ever got.
	But you can check the receipts on that.
	Ta-Nehisi Coates, there's no evidence even that he was even into comic books prior to being hired as a writer for Marvel Comics.
	So those are the types of hires that we're getting.
	Guys like Ta-Nehisi Coates gets a literal award with the Harriet Beecher Stowe Award for Social Justice.
	I'm pretty sure that has something to do with why he fit that position.
	And they seem to try to cater to people and bringing people on to write their projects, writing for people that don't read books.
	Right.
	It does have a specific demographic, an already established demographic, and their sales are really, really hurting.
	And you're seeing that because of that, because they have focused on social views and political views as opposed to actually entertaining their audience.
	And this is why right now, for example, in America, in the West, for the first time, I believe ever.
	The MBD book scans read that the Japanese comics, the mangas, had the top 20 were all mangas in America.
	The top 20 sales were all manga because that's where people are going to get their more like kind of comic book hero based sort of material.
	They have just completely dumped a Marvel and they should be embarrassed, but it doesn't seem like they are because they keep doubling down.
	Well, this is one of the problems that I think conservatives are grappling with right now.
	So you look at the numbers, you look at book scan.
	Americans are not buying the American comics anymore.
	They're buying the Japanese comics.
	So what I think a lot of conservatives, what we've told ourselves for the past few decades of insane leftist aggression on the culture wars is we'll say, look, eventually the almighty dollar is going to win out.
	They're going to put out really bad stories and eventually because they're not going to have any sales, they're going to be forced to go back to producing entertaining normal content.
	And I keep waiting.
	And I keep waiting for it from the movies.
	I don't read comic books, but I would be waiting for it from the comic books.
	And it just doesn't happen.
	So are they just willing to take the financial loss to push the woke ideology?
	I think that's exactly what it is.
	And I think, look, they did cater to a really flaky audience.
	think that stuff kind of works a little more for the, like the, I guess the movies, film, TV shows, way more than it works for something like the comic books.
	But they are more, I guess maybe it's Twitter, maybe it's the Instagrams of the world.
	And they're more like signaling to that kind of weird, bizarre audience, which does not even represent a significant portion of the population, at least not of actual customers.
	And yeah, just when you think they can't get worse, you see again, and I was believe that was April top 20.
	You think these comic pros would be looking at that?
	Like, okay, we got to pivot.
	We have to pivot.
	We cannot just keep putting out this dog crap.
	And then I was just reading the other day, they put, for one odd reason, they made Elektra Daredevil now.
	Daredevil's no longer a guy.
	Elektra's Daredevil, and she's being lectured by some trans person about Other bullcrap.
	It's so out of character for not only Elektra, but just that's what they're doing is Pride Month.
	They're trying to signal and do all of that stuff.
	So yeah, they keep doubling down.
	So I do think at some point the pendulum's going to swing, but what will it take?
	It's hard to say.
	But things like DC, and this was what a lot of comic book fans feared, not myself necessarily, people that are way smarter than me, They feared once it went mainstream, mainstream, I use that in quotes, and I guess they got tied to these mega corporate entities.
	They could take that loss a lot more than what they could back in the past, so they're willing to take it.
	Probably guys at the top aren't even seeing it.
	We know they're not making money, but you know how Disney works.
	Disney can do 10 projects.
	One of them can succeed, and it'll fund the rest of everything it is that they do.
	That they do so they can take the hit because they're not necessarily answering directly to the customers Like other, like more smaller entities have to.
	So that's the one benefit that they have.
	They can continue to take those losses because they're able to make up for the losses elsewhere.
	But it'll be interesting to see.
	There's been plenty of rumors that maybe, you know, AT&T, I believe, owns DC. Now they're talking about selling that stuff off.
	And we'll see how long Disney keeps a hold of it because the only thing that they can make money off of it is maybe the movies.
	And even those are starting to take a downturn in the merchandise.
	But that's about it.
	As far as the books, Don't be surprised if at some point even Disney or AT&T say, you know, we're not even going to put these out.
	We're going to do reprints or something like that.
	But you guys aren't making any money.
	But it doesn't sound like they're in the business of actually making money.
	This is a problem throughout the corporate media.
	It's true in the news media.
	It's true in the movies.
	These entities are very often owned by much larger corporate entities who don't really care.
	You know, if the wokesters in the executive suites want to push a message, they just don't really care about the relatively small amount of money they're going to lose.
	And I do think it's been a big problem that conservatives basically have thought that the most important issue to people, they wake up in a cold sweat in the middle of the night thinking about some marginal tax cut and an occupational licensing reform.
	I'm not against them.
	I'm just saying other impulses move men's hearts and minds.
	So I'm totally on board for fighting in the culture, taking back the culture, using our political power to do it.
	The thing I can't get that into...
	Is the comic books?
	Just as a personal, Matt, it's just a preference thing.
	Do I need to pay attention?
	Is the fact that these comic book characters are going totally woke, is that actually going to have tangible effects on our society?
	Or is that one area that I can just ignore?
	It's a niche interest and I'll focus elsewhere.
	That's a great question.
	I think when you look at, for example, what Like, for example, Hollywood in the last 10 years, I think you can't really ignore it because you look at the Marvel Cinematic Universe.
	For example, they were just pumping out billion-dollar films like it was going out of style.
	And that's influential.
	And you're right in terms of conservatives, libertarians.
	This is something I've been trying to shake their shoulders on, not necessarily with the comic books, but also with the other...
	Things that I do, whether it be with the music stuff and everything else, I'm saying, yeah, we have the arguments on our side, but is that good enough?
	I don't think so, and this is what a lot of the left, I have to give them credit, they played the long game, and there was nothing off-limits for them.
	Nothing.
	The more influential that it was, they were like, all right, let's get a hold of it, and they played the long game, and I think what you're seeing now is the The effects, especially over the last year when you can't turn on...
	I can't even turn on a video game without seeing Black Lives Matter on a freaking soccer game or FIFA. It's nonsense.
	I don't play video.
	I'm supposed to get away with that.
	But I think the left had benefited from both libertarians and conservatives thinking that those are trivial things.
	People don't care about that type of thing, but it's a very influential thing, especially when it comes to younger generations.
	That's stuff that they have their nose in, so often that's something that they're intrigued by.
	And I'm like you in the sense that there are other subject matters that I simply do not care about, but...
	I can't deny if they are important and if they are influential.
	Definitely if someone is able to be more like they can communicate in whatever subculture it is that they are in.
	And I think that's if there's going to ever be a tide shift towards liberty, people that actually value liberty and private property rights, that's where it's going to happen.
	It's not necessarily, I believe, politics.
	I believe that's more so on the downstream.
	You change this and people's minds and hearts starts to change.
	And then maybe that manifests itself in other ways.
	Maybe it is in a political sphere.
	Maybe it's somewhere else.
	But the left, they have everything because for a very long time, both libertarians and conservatives We neglected a lot of that, and we just simply didn't think it was as important as what it actually was.
	And this is why so many of these younger folk, they got them in.
	I mean, it doesn't matter what it is that they pump out.
	They walk right hand in hand with them, and yeah, they listen to them.
	That's right.
	You may not care about the culture, but the culture cares about you.
	People do this a lot with the pronoun issue.
	They'll say, should I call Bruce Jenner he or she?
	Everyone gets into big debates about this.
	Some of the more squishy conservatives, they'll often say...
	Who cares?
	It's the same thing on the comic books.
	It's the same thing on all these aspects of the culture.
	Oh, who cares?
	The left cares.
	The left seems to care quite a lot, which is why they're losing a lot of money pushing these messages.
	They're hiring these radicals like Ta-Nehisi Coates.
	They're really focused on it because they know that the culture can carry whole premises through to it.
	But I wonder if part of it is conservatives and libertarians have just ignored it and they just don't really care that much.
	But also...
	What would we do with the power if we actually knew to wield it?
	By that I mean the left has a very specific vision of society.
	America is evil, racist, sexist, whatever.
	It's all sort of terrible stuff.
	We've got to tear it down and pull down statues of Washington.
	What is the conservative response?
	What is our substantive view of things?
	Do we have one?
	Or is it just that we can't really agree on anything, so the only thing we do when we have power is temporarily cut taxes a little bit?
	Yeah, see, that's always the question that I think is very difficult for people that, again, no matter what it is you call yourself, it's just if you value liberty, like what's next?
	Obviously, you brought it, I mean, I believe that stems from obviously the Marxism it is that they advocate, whereas there's anything that exists.
	They want to make sure they tear it down and build it up in a way or build it back up in a way that they envision it, this sort of anti-property rights, more radical, I use that term loosely, egalitarian sort of approach where we're all like equal robots when we know that's absolutely not the case, but let them tell that that's what they believe.
	I think This is why I always focus so much on decentralization so much, because if anything, if there's anything else to focus on, because you're right, I do believe that there's a lot of people that value liberty that are on different sides of just different subject matters.
	They differ so much and it's like, okay, I just want to be left alone, right?
	The left doesn't want to leave you alone and this is why they get the power and they're like, look, we're here to destroy and they're pretty blatant and pretty honest about it.
	We just want to be left alone and we want other people to just be able to go about their life without being able to either be aggressed upon and obviously them not having the right to use aggression upon peaceful people.
	And this is why that has to stay at the top if you are in any sort of I mean, I get it.
	But is that actually going to work us towards a more freer, a more prosperous society?
	Right.
	And this is why decentralization is such a focus of mine, because it's like we're not going to agree on how this power needs to be willed.
	So at minimum, if we can try to, like, get I don't know, get rid of it.
	So where we don't have Nancy Pelosi and these other quacks out of that there in Washington, I've made this argument on the blaze every day that I'm there.
	I'm less about arguing with Nancy Pelosi about who should be in her position.
	I want to pull the rug from up under her so she doesn't have any sort of influence so they can't make the decisions that it is that more so impacts our lives.
	This is why we get so up in arms.
	So maybe we have to change that part of the power structure as opposed to just wielding it and just focusing on...
	Yeah, we may get a tax cut here.
	We may get a tax cut there, but it has to come with mountains of corporate welfare and all sorts of things that we're funding.
	They compromise.
	Definitely, we see this with a lot of leaving the conservatives.
	They'll compromise on, or with Republicans, compromise on certain things.
	Okay, we'll give you this, this, and that.
	Portfield bill, $2 trillion.
	Let's devalue your money in the first place.
	And we don't really...
	Work towards liberty, and that's what has to be kept in mind.
	I would love to hear or see, rather, Republicans actually keeping that at the forefront of what their advocacy actually is.
	The term that I like to use is that they tend to campaign like libertarians and then govern like Democrats.
	I would love to change that.
	Well, there's this strange paradigm.
	I don't know if it's really a paradox, but it is a strange circumstance that at least since Reagan, at least since Republicans have really embraced, as you say, the kind of libertarian language on the campaign trail, they actually have put forward some policies in that direction. they actually have put forward some policies in that direction.
	They've focused a lot on economic deregulation.
	And the Democrats, I find, since around the same time, maybe a little earlier, have focused a lot on social deregulation.
	You can sleep with whoever you want, you can kill a baby in the womb, you can do whatever you want.
	And so, in a weird way, they've both kind of deregulated, and yet, as you rightly point out, We seem to be in the most centralized, powerful government, you know, maybe in the history of the world.
	So how does that happen?
	I mean, how has a process that I don't think is just totally disingenuous, I think they actually have deregulated in certain pretty noticeable ways, but how has that deregulation then led to a more powerful, centralized government?
	I can't make sense of it.
	Right, and I think it's because they're not focusing on the, I guess, the power more so in itself.
	It's more so, okay...
	I'll take this slight victory here.
	It's more topic to topic.
	And I'm not against single issues or focusing on.
	People have their expertise and stuff that they actually value.
	And I think that's a valuable thing that people focus on, whatever it is that they find as the strength or something that it is that they care about.
	But what happens is they lose sight of what the actual core principle is, and that's liberty.
	For example, this is why I don't take leftists serious when they complain about, let's say, things like police brutality.
	That is not anything to take serious from them because they have no problem with the cops whooping up on you in the event, in the event that it's for something that they want to to advocate for, which is why they're like nonexistent in the event.
	Or they'll be like contradict themselves like we saw with the whole January 6th thing.
	They're doing vigils and all of this for that lie of Brian Sicknick being beat over the head with a fire extinguisher, which was, of course, turned out to not even be true.
	But that's the type of stuff that they do, because for them, it's it's less it's not necessarily about the deregulation.
	It's more about what can we do to destabilize, let's say, what exists right now so we can actually capture that power.
	So this is why even though they claim to be OK, like even with the drugs, they like to think that they're the party against the war on drugs, which is bullcrap.
	But they like to think that.
	But it seems to always lead, like to what you said, more centralization.
	That's because liberty isn't really on their focus.
	It's more single issue, single issue.
	What do I have to do or what do I have to advocate to become prominent and to get the power?
	And when you don't focus on the private property right element of what it is that we're We're discussing, then yeah, you're going to lose sight of that and this is what we have right now.
	Big, bloated, centralized And unfortunately, it's ruining a lot of people's lives.
	And you've totally hit the nail on the head on this power struggle.
	I notice even on the issues where they talk about liberty, you'll notice they never really mean liberty in the way that a conservative person would talk about it.
	They mean licentiousness.
	They're not really interested in the liberty to tamp down your appetites and govern yourself and exert political control.
	They only talk about liberty in shooting up dope or something.
	Liberty is to kind of degrade us and take us out of our heads.
	What degenerate?
	Intercede in anything.
	That's right, yeah.
	And these are things, by the way, the Founding Fathers explicitly said.
	They said, do not abuse liberty to licentiousness.
	It's a bad idea.
	You're going to lose your self-government if you do that.
	So they do this all the time.
	But then I wonder, do conservatives need, and I wonder this, you know, this is sort of a thesis that I've put out there.
	I know it's very controversial.
	But do conservatives need a substantive vision?
	Meaning, What we've tried to do, I think, with the best of intentions is nothing.
	And what I mean by that is, you know, you get power and you say, I'm not going to regulate.
	I'm not going to do this.
	I'm not going to...
	We're going to let people make their own decisions, leave them alone.
	And then the left won't leave anybody alone.
	And the left won't let anybody be left alone.
	And it's just not going to happen.
	So, you know, a Republican wins and we basically freeze the culture.
	And we say, okay, we've got sort of a break for the next two or four years.
	And then the Democrats win and they push the culture to the left.
	And then maybe a Republican wins and we freeze it again.
	And so, you know, if you follow that process, we're going to be over the cliff on the left and not too far into the future.
	So how do we reverse it?
	How do we go in the other direction?
	Right.
	And this is why, you know, I know Malice and other guys use the whole, well, this is what they're like, progressives going to speed limit is more so what it is that you're saying.
	And this is what frustrates me so much, probably the most, About a lot of Republicans that are in the positions of power.
	Because often they're never on the offense.
	Right.
	Always on the defense.
	They're always on the defense.
	And even when it comes to something as fundamental, like which is where libertarians, conservatives, we all agree, we value the gun ownership, gun rights, the Second Amendment.
	They only get on the offense when they think that a Democrat is taking it to them.
	So we got, for example, I'm out in Texas and we got Governor Abbott who calls himself trying to basically make Texas...
	A sanctuary city in terms of the Second Amendment.
	What took you so long?
	Why all of a sudden are you now on the offense and we've seen it?
	It's more so when, like I said, they're more about owning the libs.
	It's more so taking it to them and being against them.
	And this is what I called about the election.
	I said, don't be so frightened to really think that they're just going to get this power and do whatever it is that they'll attempt to do.
	But what you're going to see is a more offensive Republican Party Or at least the ones that semi-value liberty.
	You're going to see a more offensive Republican Party because now they can at least make the excuse that we're trying to stop them or we're trying to take it to them in some way.
	So what people that, if you desire any sort of political power or whatever it is, you have to be on the absolute offense.
	But just sitting there and thinking, well, I'm in this position, we'll be on the defense for as long as my term is, isn't an effective thing.
	You've seen that leftists get in power and they're like, I'm implementing whatever it is that I can.
	Maybe this conversation, maybe it won't happen right now, but I at least get the conversation started in four or five years from now.
	Something gets implemented and we're moving.
	It's not moving towards liberty.
	It's moving to the absolute opposite way.
	They have to get on the offense and stop More so being reactionary and waiting for them to do something, the leftists do something, and then people that are in power, libertarians or conservatives or whoever, they're like, okay, now I'm going to do something.
	How about do something all the time?
	You know, you've hit the nail on the head here, especially with this pun, offensive.
	And I think of Trump, who goes on the offense, and he is offensive.
	He says offensive things.
	But it is important.
	I'm not saying people need to be impolite.
	I'm not saying they need to be cruel or anything like that.
	But Trump calls it like he sees it.
	And he doesn't engage in these sort of abstract, ideological things at a think tank somewhere.
	And he, crucially, doesn't accept the left's premises.
	He launches his campaign.
	What does he do?
	He comes down the escalator and he says, look, we've got foreign nationals pouring into our country with crime and drugs and it's ruining communities and people hate this country now and I'm not going to let you do it.
	I'm going to hug the American flag.
	He literally would hug it.
	He'd kiss the American flag.
	He'd say, look, I don't care about your kooky theories.
	We're going to stand up.
	We're going to get better trade deals.
	We're going to bring manufacturing back.
	You think we can't?
	I think we can.
	Looks like we can.
	And, you know, it's such a...
	He always had the Democrats on the back foot.
	He always had them reacting to whatever he tweeted.
	That's why they had to kick him off Twitter, because he was setting the narrative.
	And I guess this actually brings us right back to our first topic.
	The left, with few exceptions, maybe Trump is the one exception, the left sets the narrative, right?
	The left decides the terms of what we can say, of how we behave, of even what we think.
	And we're all left just living in their world.
	That's a...
	I mean, you put it...
	about as perfectly as it could be.
	And that's why I've said about the Trump phenomenon, it's less about the policies with him.
	Whether you feel like, you know, obviously me not being a fan of him or others, I said that doesn't matter.
	The thing to focus on with him that anybody that is in a political sphere can take from that is the fact that he at least controlled the conversation probably for the first time.
	If we want to be realistic, you mentioned since Reagan, maybe since then.
	That they actually control the conversation.
	So the leftists were reacting based upon everything it is that he did as opposed to what they had been doing classically and back to really what they're doing right now.
	And that's being on the complete defense.
	So that's something that people can learn from.
	What I love for those policies to be at, Top.
	Liberty.
	More than everything?
	Of course.
	That's what it is that we want.
	And that's the perfect storm or rather the perfect world.
	We have someone that 100% values liberty.
	I'll take 90.
	90% values liberty, but is also on the offense in trying to bring about that in our world and really within our lifetime because this is something that we want.
	So we have to stop reacting based upon what the left is doing.
	This is what I've been saying For example, people that value liberty, like say in the cultural space.
	The number I've thrown out there is 51%.
	51% is all I ask of people to go out of their way and search for people that are in these subcultures because we're here.
	We're here.
	Any subcultures and use 50% of your time, money, the good stuff, not the corny stuff that, yeah, there's people that are making alternatives that aren't really good but think they should be supported just because they create an alternative.
	No, there are people that actually do good stuff.
	And I think with 51% of people just going out their way looking, instead of being reactionary, go out of your way and look for this material that's out there And then you'll start to see the pendulum swings because right now, really, they're able to get away with what it is because, well, in everything it is that we do, we accept them as like the norm.
	That's why they have the entertainment sector.
	And we accept it has to be Star Wars.
	It has to be DC. It has to be Marvel.
	It has to be Star Trek.
	And they've ran all of those into the ground and they control them.
	And we have to, unfortunately, we got to say, look, they got them.
	They have them.
	Maybe we should be looking to certain alternatives to try to get the pendulum to swing back.
	That's great.
	I love your point that we can't make corny stuff.
	There's so much corny stuff on the right.
	I can't watch it, man.
	We're here at Daily Wire, moved to Nashville basically to make movies because there was so much less regulation.
	Taxes were a lot lower.
	It would really give us the freedom to make stuff.
	I think so many of us just want the freedom to make stuff.
	You've reminded me in your discussion of Liberty.
	The left always redefines the words, right?
	They always pervert the language.
	That's how they redefine the culture.
	And nowhere is that truer than on liberty.
	They define liberty.
	You know, the founding fathers had a pretty decent definition of liberty.
	And people, John Locke, for that matter, had a real...
	It was a lit...
	His liberty, you know, you had Locke, you had John Milton, sure, and Burke, I think, expressed it the best, you know, this kind of ordered liberty that lets everybody flourish, and it's just a really civilized, great way to live.
	And the left has just totally perverted that, flipped it on its head, as they have so much of our language, as they have so much of our culture.
	And so, okay, we've thoroughly depressed everybody.
	Is there any hope?
	I mean, in a really nuts and bolts way, how do I walk into Marvel or DC tomorrow and I say, hey, I have no idea what your product is, but I want to write it now.
	I want to take it back.
	How do we reclaim these institutions that the left has taken from us?
	I think there's two ways to attack this.
	Great question.
	First and foremost, there are a lot of people who reach out to me, definitely because comic books are the main thing that I cover.
	I cannot tell you the amounts of Of artists, writers, who have reached out to me.
	A lot of the prints that you see, one's on my wall.
	I won't even point to which one it is.
	But a lot of the prints that I get are directly from the artist.
	It's like, I love that poster that is of this.
	What did you get that?
	It was signed and everything.
	The artist sent it to me.
	The artist sent it to me.
	And they're like, well, this is more like an undercover thing because they don't want to end up like Gina Carano.
	And it's like, well, I agree with a lot of what you say.
	It's crazy, this industry, but I can't see it.
	I get that with music.
	My band, Backwards, we go on tour.
	We see drummers and whatever of other bands.
	Man, we love what it is that you guys say.
	We can't say that.
	Uh-huh.
	Yeah, you can't.
	And until y'all do it, nothing changes.
	Now, the other side is, I guess, on the customer because we got people that valued Liberty got too comfortable and we neglected it and we were just like, okay, if I like it, I see it.
	I'm not even going to be mindful of who's creating it.
	I don't care.
	Unfortunately, they make money off of the people that value liberty because of that, and then they win awards, and then they get on an award show and tell you how much they hated you because you didn't vote for the right person.
	So this is why I'm not, though I know I talk about the bad a lot, I'm not necessarily pessimistic because just as quick as it got bad, it can get better.
	But what it does require is a conscious effort for people to go out of their way and seek this information instead of just relying Upon what the people that have already gained their control, what they put out there.
	We talked about Twitter and the trending topics.
	All of those are fake, bought, all of that stuff.
	It's not organic or anything like that, but they'll put it in your face and have you thinking that it's legitimate.
	So what people have to do is go out of their way.
	This is why I said 51%.
	I can't expect you to just stop talking.
	All together.
	Wouldn't that be nice if people just said, okay, if his own body is crazy leftist, I'm not even going to support it.
	That'd be fantastic.
	But I think that's a little unrealistic.
	This is why I just say just slightly over half of your money, time and effort and revenue investments going towards people that are involved in these subcultures.
	It's not about them, let's say, being a libertarian, being a conservative or something like that.
	It's more of them, I don't know, not hating you, you know, instead of supporting the ones that do.
	So just as quick as it did get bad, it can get better, but it just requires the customers to think differently.
	And I know because we have the ideas on our side, we'd love to be in a perfect world where that didn't matter, but they have already drew the line in the sand and it is what it is.
	They've made it abundantly clear That they will take your money and investments and then tell you how much you suck.
	So let's try to change that and go seek out those people who are the actual creatives and the people that are the creatives that are already, let's say, maybe with those mega entities, out yourself.
	Out yourself and it's got to be on the customers to go catch them.
	That's right.
	That's the key.
	It's not enough to say, hey, Eric, hey, I like what you said, but I can't.
	I don't want to.
	No.
	You know what is even better than getting invited to the fun party or getting the promotion at your woke corporation?
	You know what's even better than that?
	Integrity.
	Having integrity is good and having a good, thriving, flourishing, free country with a good way of life.
	That's important, too.
	Eric, where can people find you?
	You can find me, of course, YouTube, YoungRipper59.
	Also, Eric D. July, if you want to get links to everything.
	I know I do a million things at once.
	So you can catch me, of course, over there.
	And we do 4Canon Sake, let's say, every day, 12 p.m. on the channel.
	You can catch that as well.
	And obviously doing News and Why It Matters and everything over at Blaze.
	This has been awesome, by the way, Michael.
	And I appreciate you having me on.
	Like I said, we crossed paths.
	A lot.
	And I think it's important that we do have these conversations so they know that we're locked in.
	Oh, pleasure is all mine.
	I'm so glad you could come on.
	Don't forget, you can find me at YoungRipa58.
	And then because that one was already taken, you can find Eric July at YoungRipa59.
	Eric, talk to you next time.
	All right, man.

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