Ezra Levant challenges the CDC’s dismissal of natural immunity after a January 2022 study revealed Delta survivors had 29x lower case rates in California and 14.7x lower in New York than vaccinated-only individuals, yet policies still favor vaccines over recovery. His cross-country truck convoy—documented by Mocha Bazir—aims to expose perceived government bias amid protests costing $3,500–$4,000, while Jeremy McClellan critiques cancel culture’s mob-driven speed, arguing comedy thrives on destabilizing illusions, not just "punching down." Both segments underscore systemic resistance to dissent, whether scientific or artistic. [Automatically generated summary]
Today I'm going to take you through a study from the Centers for Disease Control.
That's the big U.S. public health agencies, you know.
This study, I'm surprised they published it.
It shows that people who recovered from the Delta variant actually have stronger immunity than people who get vaxxed alone.
And it makes me ask, well, hang on, why aren't we allowing natural immunity to be recognized at a place of employment to fly for anything, really?
I'll take you through the study.
But first, let me invite you to become a subscriber to Rebel News Plus.
That's the video version of this podcast.
Go to rebelnewsplus.com.
It's eight bucks a month, half the price of Netflix.
In addition to my daily show, you also get weekly shows from Andrew Chapatos, Sheila Gunn Reed, David Menzies.
And in fact, we're debuting a new show soon, too.
So lots there.
It's more interesting than Netflix politically.
We have more diversity of opinion.
Stay with us.
here's today's podcast.
Tonight, a CDC study says what we already knew.
Natural immunity is better than a vaccine.
So why are they still acting like Pfizer salesmen?
It's January 21st, and this is the Ezra Levant show.
Why should others go to jail when you're a biggest carbon consumer I know?
There's 8,500 customers here, and you won't give them an answer.
The only thing I have to say is government go why I publish them is because it's my bloody right to do so.
Increased Protection: Previous Infection vs. Vaccination00:10:21
Do you see this study?
Look in the top left corner.
You see that's from the CDC, the Centers for Disease Control.
That's the public health deep state, the massive American health agency that has led the so-called science on the pandemic.
In truth, they have only exposed just how politicized science has become.
They have been very unscientific.
First, to do what was necessary to use the pandemic to get Donald Trump out of office, and then secondly, to sell Pfizer and Moderna vaccines, it seems.
I didn't think a lot about the CDC before the pandemic, but if I did, I'm sure I would have respected it and treated it as an authority.
Now I know that it and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration, the FDA, are just as political as any other government institutions.
I don't trust them.
And I think I'm not alone in that regard.
Every institution in our country has failed, and most American institutions have too.
But look at this new study for what it's worth.
I'll read the long title of it that doesn't quite tell you what it's about, but sort of.
COVID-19 Cases and Hospitalizations by COVID-19 vaccination status and previous COVID-19 diagnosis.
California, New York, Maine in November 2021.
And then right under that, you see the date, two days ago this was published.
And then you can see about 20 or so names of researchers with their credentials.
Now, it's obviously a study full of scientific terminology, but they have an official summary in plain English.
I'm going to read three lines slowly.
Ready?
During May to November 2021, case and hospitalization rates were highest among persons who were unvaccinated without a previous diagnosis.
Before Delta became the predominant variant in June, case rates were higher among persons who survived a previous infection than persons who were vaccinated alone.
By early October, persons who survived a previous infection had lower case rates than persons who were vaccinated alone.
Okay, did you understand that?
It used to be, says the CDC, that people who were unvaccinated and who didn't have COVID had a higher rate of infection and hospitalization, but then the new variant made its debut, Delta, and if you had natural immunity from that, or as they put it, if you survived a previous infection, you were actually less likely to get the virus after that than someone who was vaccinated.
I think I'm explaining what they said.
I read you their plain text.
Now, I think that sounds obvious, but it's quite an admission from the CDC.
In fact, immediately they jumped on their own study with this statement.
They said, although the epidemiology of COVID-19 might change as new variants emerge, vaccination remains the safest strategy for averting future SARS-CoV-2 infections, hospitalizations, long-term sequelae, and death.
Primary vaccination, additional doses, and booster doses are recommended for all eligible persons.
Additional future recommendations for vaccine doses might be warranted as the virus and immunity levels change.
Okay, got it.
So you just literally reported that once people were sick from the Delta and then had natural immunity, they actually do better than people with the vax only.
But you're still recommending vaccinations, additional doses, boosters, et cetera, ad infinitum.
You just told us natural immunity, people who recovered from Delta, was strong.
But you just can't stop serving your political masters.
Pitiful.
This is what I mean by you can't trust the CDC.
It's written so defensively in such a way to downplay what they found.
Previous SARS-CoV infection also confers protection against severe outcomes in the event of reinfection.
Now this study tracks the disease over time as different variants of the disease were dominant.
But let me read this to you slowly, okay?
By the week beginning October 3rd, compared with COVID-19 cases, case rates among unvaccinated persons without a previous COVID-19 diagnosis, case rates among vaccinated persons without a previous COVID-19 diagnosis were 6.2-fold in California and 4.5-fold in New York lower.
Okay, so what they're saying is that the vaccine reduces cases compared to unvaccinated people who haven't been sick with it yet.
Are you with me still?
But here's the key line.
Here's the center of this whole study.
Rates were substantially lower among both groups with previous COVID-19 diagnoses, including 29-fold in California and 14.7-fold lower in New York among unvaccinated persons with a previous diagnosis.
This is significantly stronger protection than the vaccine gives people who haven't been sick before.
You have to get pretty deep into the verbiage to see this admission.
Importantly, infection-derived protection was higher after the Delta variant became predominant, a time when vaccine-induced immunity for many persons declined because of immune evasion and immunologic waning.
So not only was natural immunity better, but it didn't fade away as quickly as the Pfizer-Moderna vaccines did.
By the way, the CDC study here isn't the first to find this fact.
Let me quote, as was observed in the present study after July, recent international studies have also demonstrated increased protection in persons with previous infection, with or without vaccination, relative to vaccination alone.
Then, as usual, the study lists its possible limitations, and of course they all genuflect and pray to St. Fauci and the Church of Pfizer and say they really, really recommend vaccines and boosters.
But you can't avoid the fact that they found getting sick and naturally recovering from it gives you better protection than the vaccine alone.
They said it.
This is not some conspiracy theory.
This is the Centers for Disease Control, the public health deep state.
They said it.
So why isn't this natural immunity recognized anywhere in Canada or in the U.S. for that matter?
Why can employers, especially government employers, fire people who have literally stronger immunity to the disease than vaccinated people do?
Why can they force them to get vaxed when that brings the risks of an emergency use authorization vaccine to someone who's already immune?
We're still learning about more side effects from these vaccines all the time.
The latest one was about how vaccines change women's menstrual cycles.
Hey, no worries, ladies.
Trust Justin Trudeau.
He has your best interests at heart.
So if you're a nurse, let's say, and you had COVID-19 and you recovered from the disease, so you got strong antibodies, stronger than someone who is vaxed alone, you can be fired and demonized and banned from flying on planes and taking the train and banned from going to a store and banned from going to a restaurant.
But someone who is vaccinated and literally has less immunity than you is given a government pass.
Novak Djokovic, the Serbian tennis star, got COVID, became immune, told that to the Australian government, and they granted him a vaccine exemption because of his strong antibodies.
Then he arrived in Australia.
The government kicked him out, humiliating him, demonizing him, not because he was sick.
I think he's got to be one of the world's healthiest men.
Not because he was at risk from the vaccine, the disease, excuse me, either catching it himself or giving it to others.
This CDC study shows he was more immune than someone who was just vaxed.
But because they're not testing health, they're not testing immunity.
They're just, I don't know, full-time big pharma salesmen.
That's really it.
Literally, that same tennis tournament in Australia is allowing another player to play while he's sick with COVID because he happens to be vaxxed.
He's literally sick, but paid money to Pfizer, so everything's okay.
Don't even let them tell you this is about science.
You know, one last thing when I'm thinking about it, these abusive rulemakers.
Do you remember the faces of nurses and doctors that were posted last year on social media about how bruised faces were because they were wearing tight N95 masks and goggles all day?
They were quite dramatic, very sympathetic.
Just FYI, there are schools across Canada and the United States now requiring students, including young students, to wear industrial-style masks like that.
Children for hours at a time.
Sorry, that's not science.
Masks don't work in any real and meaningful way.
Children are not at any real and meaningful risk from the disease in any event.
This is abusive.
Mocha's Convoy Chronicles00:08:01
Never forget who is doing this to you.
And I don't know what you're made of, but for me, I'll never forgive them either.
Stay with us for more.
You will be driving with the convoy starting in Calgary.
Is that right?
Give me a detail of what you're doing and when you're starting and what your route is going to be.
So on Sunday night, there will be two different truck convoys coming to Calgary from different directions.
And they will meet in Calgary to stay overnight.
And on Monday, they will go towards Regina.
So on Sunday, I will be in Calgary.
I will drive around to capture footage.
And on Monday, I will drive with them to Regina and then all the way down to Ottawa, which will take a week.
And it will cross across a lot of towns, cities, and merge with other convoys.
It's very exciting.
What I will do is I'm charging my batteries right now, my camera, and I will bring the other side of the story, basically, interview the truckers, publish some Twitter reports, YouTube videos to give updates on the convoy, get some drone footage of the trucks.
Basically, I will try to bring Canada a world-class videography of the event.
Well, I believe that you will.
You are our chief videographer.
You've got great talent editing and also using the drone.
I think there'll be some wonderful footage of the convoy.
That's just going to look gorgeous.
I mean, Canada is truly a wonderful.
I mean, I know that you came to, you were born in Canada, you were raised in Turkey, you came back to Canada, so you're still sort of exploring the country.
And I think that there's no finer way to get to know this land than to drive across it.
And to drive with such a good group of people will be a wonderful experience for you.
And I know you're going to share that with us.
I think you're going to make a lot of friends on the trip.
You're going to meet friends who come out to meet the trucks.
I bet you're going to see people at truck stops with signs cheering them along.
And yes, go ahead.
Yeah, and my experience has been like that in other protests or events, or when I went to other places to bring the other side of the story, where I met with other fans.
All across the country, I have met with beautiful, wonderful people that I didn't even know existed.
I didn't even know that such beautiful people existed.
They were very kind, very compassionate.
And it's very interesting because I met with so many different in ideology, different in ethnicity, different in so many ways, religion, but they all welcomed me.
And such solidarity, such common ground is really valuable.
Well, I look forward to your report.
So I know that you mentioned you have a small car, but you're going to rent a more serious vehicle.
I mean, if you're going across the country, you don't want to have a teeny tiny tin can.
So we're going to rent a more serious vehicle for you, especially given that it's a winter time.
You're going to stay in motels along the way.
Yes.
Obviously, you got to stop for food along the way.
So, we mentioned the crowdfund.
That's just for the truckers.
So, we don't get that big truck convoy money.
That's for the truckers.
But we are going to crowdfund for your journey, our own crowdfund.
So, we got a we're going to rent a car for you.
I think we should get something with maybe four-wheel drive because if there's a snowfall, if there's a blizzard, you want to have a serious car for the highways, especially.
I mean, you're still a fairly young driver.
Motels along the way, there's no fancy accommodations, but staying in, and you really are just going to use it to edit your video and sleep.
Obviously, food and gas along the way.
And so, about a week there, and then you're going to come back, probably about maybe almost two weeks in total.
What do you think the total cost is going to be?
Just sketching on the back of a napkin.
I'm guessing that's $3,500 to $4,000 in out-of-pocket costs.
Does that sound about right?
Well, actually, it will probably be more given our operational costs.
We have writers in the background, we have video editors in the background, social media people, and these people are not doing that for free.
They also need to get paid.
So, when you add all these costs up, it's going to go a little higher.
But at the end of the day, we will bring the best quality coverage that no other media will be able to bring, despite their millions of dollars from Justin Trudeau.
Well, I agree with you on that.
I'd encourage people who want to get Mocha on the road to go to convoyreports.com.
So, at convoyreports.com, that's where you're going to post all your videos from the journey.
And that's where people can go and get updated on where you are.
And if they like your work as much as I'm sure they will, they can chip in 50 bucks or 100 bucks.
Chip in to fill up the gas tank.
You know, gas is pretty expensive these days.
Chip in to buy Mocha lunch or dinner.
We'd appreciate the help.
That's convoyreports.com.
I think you're going to do some beautiful journalism and just brainstorming here for a bit, besides the daily updates, maybe there's a little documentary here.
Like, if you were following this story every day for a week, that's quite a and to watch the crowds grow and the excitement of coming to Ottawa and what happens to Ottawa.
Maybe there's a little movie, like maybe a half-hour or 45-minute documentary that comes out the other side in addition to the little daily updates.
The reason I say that, Mocha, is it's important that we document this journey because I'm sure it won't be long before Justin Trudeau condemns these truckers as racists or misogynists or whatever names he calls.
They're going to try and demonize these truckers if they haven't already.
Your mission is to tell the other side of the story, to tell the trucker's side of the story, to be honest and to push back against the lies.
I think a documentary may be the best way to do that long term.
Absolutely.
That could only be done after I come back to Calgary to put together all the footage and all the create script and voiceover.
If anyone has watched our vaccine clinic expose video, I'm sure we can leave a link in the description.
They could see what we are capable of creating when it comes to documentaries.
And I will make sure to bring a high-quality, compelling, wonderful documentary for the other side of the story.
All right.
Well, there you heard from our chief videographer himself.
There's his promise.
If you chip into convoyreports.com, not only are you going to get updates every day, but when he comes back to Calgary, he's going to put it together into a compelling documentary.
I believe you'll do that, Mocha.
Thanks very much for joining us today, my friend.
Safe journeys out there.
Let's talk to make sure you get a good vehicle.
I want to make sure you got something that's going to do well on those highways if it's snowing.
And you're in for a heck of a journey.
I'm sort of jealous, to be honest, because that's going to be a wonderful journey that you're going to look back on fondly for many years to come.
Thanks for being here today.
Thank you, and thank you to our supporters.
Right on.
There you have it.
Mocha Bazir again, chief videographer of Rebel News.
What a good egg.
He's up for any adventure, as you can see, and I think he's going to do a great job of it.
Well, stay with us.
Your letters to me are next.
Hey, welcome back.
Your feedback on Joe Biden's press conference.
Paying Professions Joke Risk00:10:36
Mike Bruning says, depending on the day, he might not even know where Ukraine is on a map.
Well, I don't know about him, but his son sure does.
Of course, his son, Hunter Biden, taking millions of dollars from Ukraine, from the wife of the former mayor of Moscow.
Like he's getting paid from all sorts.
I don't think it's helping anyone.
I mean, really, I think by the time we're back here on Monday, half of Ukraine will be devoured by Vladimir Putin.
And I don't even know what side Joe Biden's on.
I don't know if he is.
I don't know which side is paying his son more, but just his sheer fecklessness.
I think Ukraine's going to be devoured again.
John Smethers says the Democrats will never be forgiven for foisting this man on the free world.
You know, bad things happen when weak presidents.
I mean, think of Jimmy Carter and how Afghanistan and Iran and all these other things happened on his watch.
Same thing with Barack Obama.
He signaled weakness.
It was Obama and Biden who stood by and twiddled their thumbs when Putin marched into Ukraine the first time.
And I'm afraid that we're just one year into it and the world has his measure.
I think it's bad news.
I'm going to leave you with a video of the day.
And it's Adam Sosa's interview with a comedian, Jeremy McCollum.
Bit of a change of pace.
So hopefully that'll raise your spirits.
Until I see you on Monday, on behalf of all of us here at Rubber World Headquarters, to you at home, good night and keep fighting for freedom.
Democrats argue that banning abortion would endanger women's lives, violate the right to privacy, and send everyone who works at Planned Parenthood to prison.
Although, to be fair, we don't like to use the word prison.
It's more of a clump of cells.
The other day we got into an argument because she was saying that women still make 77 cents for every dollar that a man makes, right?
But like, I explained to her that's just because men naturally gravitate towards higher paying professions, like doctor or engineer or CEO.
Whereas women, this is true, just naturally gravitate towards lower paying professions, like female doctor and female engineer and female CEO.
People are so like divisive, right?
Like every day I hear things like real Catholics can't be Democrats, right?
Real Catholics can't be Democrats.
And like, when you say that, like, guess what?
You're talking about my devout grandmother in Georgia, okay, who voted for Biden, goes to mass every day, and would be so upset to hear those words if she hadn't died in 1974.
Okay.
She voted for Biden anyway.
But South Carolina actually has a very rich progressive history.
I don't know if you guys know this, but South Carolina actually started the war that ended slavery.
Warning, censorship.
Warning.
Censorship.
Adam Sos here for Rebel News.
With everyone being locked down over the past two years, people have been consuming more media than ever.
Whether it be online, in person, occasionally, or on Netflix, comedy specials have become the talking point, the buzz for many.
And very often, the headlines are not positive.
People who dare utter unpopular or undogmatic opinions due to the current progressive environment we are living in are very often dragged on Twitter, as Dave Chappelle said.
Comedy was once a relative safe space where you could say things.
And as long as you weren't being overtly bigoted or hateful, it was understood that it was a joke.
It was meant to make people laugh.
Well, it seems that those days are long gone, or are they?
To discuss this topic and to delve more into the world of comedy, I'm joined by comedian Jeremy McClellan.
So I'm, in addition to being a stand-up comic, I'm a fellow at Word on Fire with Robert Barron, and I recorded a course on comedy that's coming out soon on comedy and Catholicism and religion and stuff.
And, you know, I think that there's a lot that one can say about political correctness.
I mean, comedy has always been, there's always been political comedians who, and, you know, comedians are people like anybody else.
We have political views.
We, I think what's different now than in the past is that audiences and comedians are sort of, you can almost like, if you're watching like Stephen Colbert on the late show, you can tell that the jokes are, here's a point I want to make.
And then I'm going to try and make that funny.
And that's a terrible way to write material.
It makes you where, yeah, it's just, it's not, it's not, it's just straight up not a good way to write or to think of things that are funny.
And the audiences don't like it.
And, but what, but what I have found recently is people sort of insist on that.
So if you have a joke about something, people will try to retro, not retrofit, what's it called, where you break something down.
No, like reverse, reverse engineer the joke to find out what you believe.
So if you tell a joke about Pope Francis, then it can't just be silly.
It can't just be a funny thing.
It has to be, there has to be a sneaky sort of thing underlying that.
And once you find out what that is, then you can judge the comedian as on your side or not.
And God forbid you make a silly joke that makes your own side angry because then you're sort of hurting the war effort almost.
People get mad at you for that.
The other day we got into an argument because she was saying that women still make 77 cents for every dollar that a man makes, right?
But like I explained to her, that's just because men naturally gravitate towards higher paying professions, like doctor or engineer or CEO.
Whereas women, this is true, just naturally gravitate towards lower paying professions, like female doctor and female engineer and female CEO.
So the only rules that I have in terms of political correctness or what I will and won't say, besides just like moral ones, I'm not going to blaspheme the Virgin Mary on stage, right?
But like, is that you can make a joke about any group of people, but it has to be done in front of that group.
It doesn't have to be done in front of that group.
You got to be willing to do it in front of that group of people.
And, you know, like I'm a white comic.
If I have a joke, if I come up with a joke about black people, that's fine.
I got to go do it, you know, in a black room and see how it goes.
And if it sucks, like, or if I'm like nervous and like, oh, I don't think, you know, then there's something wrong with the joke.
It, not in the not in the sense that it would make people mad, but in the sense that it's not getting at something true uh, which I think is is sort of part of the essence of comedy.
Comedy is uh being um surprised by something good.
I think um starts when you're a baby and your mom's playing peekaboo with you.
It's something that's surprising, but it's a good thing instead of instead of horror, which is kind of being surprised by something bad.
So there's lots of surprising things you can say.
Um, if you're doing terrible material that uh people have heard before uh, then it's not going to go well and and you can't sort of be like well, it was edgy and like, but the problem is that it wasn't.
It was, it was edgy to you, but it's something that they've heard every day for the last you know um.
So that's sort of my take on political correctness.
Um, I I don't think it's ruining comedy, like in in the sense that you can't say certain things.
I think it's ruining comedy in the sense that you have to make it clear now uh, what you believe and what your joke is trying to convey, which is terrible, for I mean sort of it would ruin every poem, every you know musical piece, every song if, if it was all just propaganda where, where you are trying to slip something in.
Yeah, so i'm talking about a girl here, not the government.
Yeah yeah um, so that's right right yeah, it's really interesting then.
So, like on the sort of threshold of comedians, um there, there are comedians back in the day, for example, like George Carlin, who their entire thing was just making a political point.
But the way they make it funny, you can't even get a decent hamburger anymore.
They cook the out of everything now because everybody's afraid of food poisoning.
Hey, where's your sense of adventure?
Take a chance, will you?
You know how many people die in this country from food poisoning every year?
9 000, that's all.
It's a minor risk.
On the opposite spectrum, you might have someone like Anthony Jeselnik, where it is crude, but really, I mean, the joke is ultimately in the wit and the twist.
Like about a month ago, some kids in my neighborhood are playing hide and go seek and one of them ended up in an abandoned refrigerator.
It's all anybody talked about for weeks.
I said, who cares how many kids you know get to die?
A winner those are.
Those are kind of polar opposites.
I mean, they're both a little bit crude, but um, so so you're saying that that we've kind of gone between that threshold um, and we've stepped aside from that, and now you can't even make a joke, you can't uh, do anything because it all has to be transparent.
Here's what i'm trying to get at right right, so you have to and and, and I don't know how how much this is like what you really have to do, because you know, Anthony Jeselnik has lots of jokes about topics and you can't tell what he thinks from the jokes.
You can't uh it's, it's not super, super obvious.
I mean, you he's a basic liberal like, and he's a sweet guy, but like he's, he's not uh um like, yeah so, but so maybe you can tell that, but you can't tell, you know, when he jokes about like a city, what he like really thinks about About the city.
I mean, it's just, it's a joke.
And the purpose of jokes is to is to surprise you and make you laugh.
Jokes That Surprise00:15:24
And if you laugh with a group of people, that's really good for solidarity with other people and with sort of group group group cohesion.
And it's really good for your mental health because you don't feel as lonely.
And yeah, I mean, it's great.
What I find in the like Twitter sort of canceling comedians kind of thing is it's usually a group of people who punch way above their weight.
It's not a very large group of people.
It's not most people.
It's a group of people that can make you feel.
They're really good at this.
They make you feel like everyone hates you right now.
And the way that they write is like, you have been canceled.
You have been, and like there's no, there's no like boss, there's no CEO of comedy who's going to fire you.
So you can just keep talking unless Twitter bans your account or something.
But like, so, but, but they make you feel like you've really screwed up now.
And then you start apologizing.
And that's when you, that's when careers get over is when you start apologizing just to just to placate the mom.
Because it's a lot like a hostage situation where at first their demands are reasonable.
You know, they're like, I want a pizza, right?
And they're like holding a bank hostage.
I want a pizza.
I want like, you know, some a drink.
And then later on, they're like, I want a helicopter and a passport.
And they're like, yeah, you're not getting a helicopter.
And, but no matter what happens with these people, they will always shoot the hostage at the end.
There's no, there's no like, okay, thank you for apologizing.
We are now your fans.
What's when's your next show?
We're going to come.
So meanwhile, by apologizing, you've just insulted all of the people that thought it was funny.
Right.
So, and so now you have nobody.
And it's like, I'm all for like apologizing if you really think independently, which is hard to know, but like really independently think that you've messed up.
Then by all means, apologize to people one-on-one.
Like if someone ever came up to me and was really angry, it hasn't happened, like really angry at something I said, you know, I'll talk to them and I'll, you know, if I really offended them, I'd be like, I'm really sorry that happened.
But like when someone does that in public, you're not their audience, not actually talking to you.
It's very rare that you get sent a message by someone on social media and they're like, hey, just want to, I want to Matthew 18 this.
I want to talk to you like one-on-one first and like and address this.
Just for internal correction.
You really, yeah, no one does that.
No one, no one takes you aside and does that.
And so that that's really all you need to know about like the sincerity of it.
And I mean, this is what, this is what Bill Burr always says.
It's like, if you really think that, oh, this is a huge problem, just stay away from Twitter and go to the clubs because like the test of material is whether it does well live.
Because one thing that I think a lot about is that when you make someone laugh, it's a pre-rational, it's not irrational, but it's a pre-rational reaction where like they don't think about it first and they're like, oh, haha, like no one does that.
But on Twitter, social media, people do think about it first and then they decide whether to like it or not.
So you can have a joke that crushes in person, that's always does well in person, but that you'll get dragged for and nobody will like on Twitter because they have to think about it first.
But there's always that thing what happens where people laugh a lot and then they're like, oh, that was horrible.
And it's like, no, too late.
It's too late.
You already laughed.
I already got what I wanted.
Right.
So, you know, as a comedian, you have to pay attention to that.
You have to pay attention to people's actual in-person reactions and don't take much stock in the sort of Twitter algorithm and the technology that sort of has you think about something.
Exactly.
Well, there is a natural segue here to Dave Chappelle.
Dave Chappelle said they dragged me on Twitter because I don't care.
That's not a real place.
When Sticks and Stones came out, a lot of people in the trans community were furious with me.
And apparently they dragged me on Twitter.
I don't give a because Twitter's not a real place.
But Dave Chappelle has been the focus and the brunt of a great deal of these cancellation efforts.
And kind of along the vein of South Park, he seems uncancelable no matter what he does.
I don't know if you imagine you watched all the latest specials, but for anyone who did watch or who paid attention.
No, I've seen all of them.
Yeah.
You use the language about not punching down.
And the point that Dave Chappelle is making throughout all these series is simply, and he states this bluntly, that he is envious of the LGBTQ progressive activist movement, because in a very short amount of time, they've surpassed the black community.
We blacks, we look at the gay community, we go, God damn it, look how well that movement is going.
Look how well you are doing.
And we've been trapped in this predicament for hundreds of years.
How the fuck are you making that kind of progress?
The point he's making throughout all these specials is not to bash on or discriminate or to persecute the trans community.
He's simply making jokes at the expense of his own community, basically, because he's suffering from envious for what's going on there.
But they seemed to miss that nuance.
They seem to not be able to accept that it was a joke, a joke.
He speaks very sort of lovingly about his friend who happens to be trans.
But what do you make of this massive concerted effort to destroy him, to drag him on Twitter, to do all of this stuff when he's clearly in comedy very much for its original intention to speak from a place of hurt for a community?
Right.
And he's, I mean, I think what he is, and this is what I've always told sort of Christian artists in general, is their one advice.
And I'm like, just be like undeniably good at it.
I mean, Dave Chappelle is undeniably good.
If anyone says that he's not funny, like they're, they're just wrong.
I mean, like, it's, yeah, you're not, you don't know what you're talking about.
And so when you do that, then I think it's really hard to cancel you like full time.
So I think that one, one kind of thing, like no one complains when they go viral and they get famous really fast.
And that's a bunch of people that that's basically the mob loving you for something.
And then they, and then when you say something that the mob doesn't like and they move on or they say they don't like you anymore, that's not like being persecuted.
You know what I mean?
Like that's not like you can't, you can't complain about that if you're not going to, you know, that's what you signed up for is sort of the like what I don't like on either end is because getting famous really fast can mess you up because now you're stuck in that in that mode and you tell one joke about like, I don't know, rice.
And then now you're like the rice comedian and you're like, oh, but I really want to talk about all this other stuff.
I like rice.
Rice is great when you're hungry and you want 2,000 of something.
Well, like, so it is the speed at which this happens, especially where people get fired for their employers.
I mean, like by their employers for, I mean, and at that point, it's almost like it's a labor issue where you like the mob should not be able to put so much pressure on you on your boss so that they will fire you within 24 hours with zero investigation because the mob's going to forget about you in a week.
Like they're not going to even remember what you, I mean, it's like, that's why Facebook had to invent the memories part is just to remind you what you were mad about a year ago because you're not going to remember.
And I know Neil Brennan's great comedian, he had this great thing.
He was on comedians getting in cars with coffee with Jerry Seinfeld.
And he said, just wait two weeks.
Just if you're still mad about this in two weeks, like I'll talk about you.
And I have heard of a lot of Silicon Valley people putting in their contracts now when they get hired, like a cooling off period where there's like a month where if something happens, like they have a month and then like reassess that.
And I think that's the crux of it because you can't, especially if you sort of agree to be in the public eye.
I mean, if you're a comedian and you're saying stuff in public, the goal is to change people's opinion.
The goal is sometimes to make people angry.
And, you know, there's, it's kind of like getting in the boxing ring.
There's, there's a certain amount of like, okay, I'm signing up for this.
When I think of cancel culture, I think of the speed at which it happens.
And I think of going after regular people where someone gets caught on tape or something and they get fired and they get fired in 24 hours, right?
That I think is just fundamentally unjust.
Like it's not what we've signed up for.
It's not what the average person has signed up for.
So yeah.
It's interesting.
And you talked about sort of there is this democratization of comedy, of entertainment with YouTube, Twitter and all this stuff.
But one of the things we lose with that is you don't have the sort of editorial oversight of a corporation.
So someone is maybe willing to take that dangerous extra step to potentially get famous.
They're willing to rush to the next stunt to get famous.
And then the substance isn't necessarily there to make something that will last.
So they're always sort of reaching for those next things.
So very much we see people going to those extremes for both the audience outreach, but then someone who's willing to go to those extremes is inevitably likely to make a mistake by going to an extreme again.
So it's almost like this self-repeating vicious prophecy or a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Right.
And there is a paradox where hierarchical institutions can allow for a lot of weirdness within them.
And whereas like very decentralized systems can promote conformity because all you have is the mob and you have to appeal to the mob.
And whereas like if you have a patron, for example, like who buys your stuff, then you can do whatever.
So yeah, there is a paradox there where the more that we become decentralized and the fewer gatekeepers there are, which there's a lot of benefit to that, especially if you're part of a group that is being shut out of the main system.
But it's not like it used to be where you were trying to impress these group of people.
And then now it's you try to reach as many people as possible.
And then you go to those groups, those people and be like, hey, I have 500,000 fans.
I want to book this theater.
And they're like, great.
Proof of concept.
Yeah, it's really interesting you say that, though.
In Canada, it is almost like back in the day to many extents, because almost all, like our media company does not accept any, our news organization does not accept any money from the government, but almost every news organization does.
So even if something seems blatantly false or inaccurate, but it's what the government is currently stating, all media organizations will push that.
Canada being generally very progressive as well, the mob very often, even if it's that small group of people exerting an inordinate influence, they're pushing very often those same sort of talking points and taking the government at face value.
So in our case, it's interesting because almost all of the pressures are unilateral.
There's no surprise, very few.
We're one of the few voices telling the other side of the story alongside a couple of other outlets.
How one of the things that I'd like to sort of ask you is not to say that a comedian has to have a distinct political bent, but I think there is a general sort of progressive or liberal lean throughout comedy.
And there are very, very few voices sort of speaking to that or countering that.
Right.
You know, I think, yeah, I mean, that's very true, obviously.
You know, you go to comedy shows and there's, but, you know, there's like, there's nothing about the like the art form of comedy other than you want to surprise people.
I mean, part of just comedy, you know, being, it has to surprise you, you're surprising people with words.
Okay.
And I'm trying to think of how I explain to my daughter what I do for a living and like what jokes are.
She's three and I'm like, you're surprising people with words, saying something funny and it surprises people and they laugh.
And so because of that, you know, you're not just going to say things that they already know to be true.
Like instead, you are sort of, I mean, as a comedian, you are a destabilizing force when you're performing.
I mean, you're unsettling people.
South Carolina actually has a very rich progressive history.
I don't know if you guys know this, but South Carolina actually started the war that ended slavery.
And so perhaps there is something sort of inherently like non-hierarchical or leftist about it that sort of appeals to people who want to change things and shock people.
But, you know, I know conservative comedians that are just not, they don't tell people they're conservative.
But I really think that it has to be, you have to have a worldview that sort of grounds your voice as a comic.
And maybe you don't know what that is yet when you start doing comedy.
You're just talking about things that you think are funny.
But then you start thinking about why you think those things are funny and what your purpose is and stuff.
Pressure To Tell A Certain Story00:02:38
And I do think that there's the industry part of it where there's pressure on you.
And there's pressure to tell a certain kind of story.
I do a lot of shows.
I was in the UK.
I was doing a tour with a bunch of Muslims and I do a lot of comedy, like I've toured Pakistan and stuff.
And I've done a lot of comedy for Muslim audiences.
And even though I'm a like pretty conservative Catholic, and I think that's why is that I take religion seriously instead of just not, you know, being secular.
But I think that there is, I've like, I've talked to Muslim comics about this too, where there is a certain story that you're allowed to tell about yourself in order to be accepted into Hollywood, whatever.
And it is so as a Catholic, you're allowed to be born Catholic.
Okay.
You're allowed to, like, and like not believe it anymore, right?
That's always great.
And you're allowed to maybe still be Catholic, but like, like, they want to see that you are going where history is.
Biden Trudeau, Catholic.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But like you are, your life story is to should be in the trajectory of like Whig history.
Like you are supposed to be moving from traditionalism to the city on the hill of Hollywood, right?
And that's also true of me as a southerner.
I'm from Charleston, South Carolina.
I still live here, born and raised.
And whenever like Southerners perform, we're supposed to talk about how racist our parents were and how like we were super homophobic, but then we met a gay guy in college and everything changed, whatever.
And if you're Muslim, especially, you're supposed to be like, well, it's the same story, but it's like, you have to talk about like your parents back in Pakistan, you know, who are like stupid, right?
Yeah.
And because they're from traditional cultures where people get married and have kids, right?
And you're supposed to move to that.
And there's plenty of Muslim comics where like they, that that's the pinch of incense they do.
And that's the story they tell.
What you can't be ever is someone who was raised regular or just raised like anybody else and has become more traditional over time.
Yeah.
Like that is that is the worst thing you can possibly you can never like convert to Catholicism, which is what I did like two years ago, because you're moving in the wrong direction.
Like that's not the way history's going.
You're investing in Enron, you know, right now.
Insults And Encounter00:12:41
Like it's a terrible idea.
And sometimes it does feel that way.
But like that, that I think is the price of admission, where you can be a member of any group as long as you basically have the same story.
It's really interesting.
I want to jump back before we move too much.
It's interesting how you said like comedy is sort of this counterpoint or at least this like stirring agent within society.
Yeah.
Is it just me or like if you look back at the 90s where every family was basically full house, I'm joking, but it was more sort of traditional.
Then I, in my opinion, many of the best sort of comics were progressive and they were a counterpoint towards homogenous society.
Now society is extremely homogenized, but it shifted towards progressivism and non-nuclear families and all this sort of stuff.
And the comedians, like there's lots of comedians out there that they want to push and want to be popular, but the ones who are extremely popular are like Dave Chappelle, Bill Burr, people who are saying things that are destabilizing.
I think people want to some extent to be mildly offended because society is so counter offense that they want to be shaken out of their sort of stagnant, this is the way it is.
Would you agree?
Yes.
And that's important.
I think that that's what's important is that people have a desire, I think, to know the truth.
And I think that, like, I say this in my word on fire course, but I very much think that comedy is within the art, the art is the art form of the apophatic tradition in Catholicism where it works by negation.
So you're like pseudo-Dionysius type.
I don't want to get too weird with it, but well, comedy clears the way.
Like you are calling people, you are calling people out.
You are destroying people's illusions.
You are showing the contradictions and, you know, even just a pun, right?
A dumb pun.
where like you're showing that words are that the connection that people have between words and their meaning is unstable.
Like words can mean two things.
Even something like that.
Democrats argue that banning abortion would endanger women's lives, violate the right to privacy, and send everyone who works at Planned Parenthood to prison.
Although, to be fair, we don't like to use the word prison.
It's more of a clump of cells.
It surprises you sometimes.
And so I think that properly speaking, it clears the way for a genuine encounter with reality.
And ultimately, I think with God, where even comedians who are atheists, when they trash God, are they trashing God or are they trashing this image that we have of God, which I think is the biggest problem that we have is we imagine God as another person, like some guy in the sky and he's doing things.
And so when Tignotaro got cancer and she did a set on it and she was joking about people saying, well, you know, God never gives you more than you can handle.
As if God is up there looking at her and being like, she can handle a little more, right?
And then just, you know, give like God is jigsaw, like from Saul, just coming up with elaborate torture devices to people.
And so when an atheist makes those kind of critiques and makes those jokes, it's easy for religious people to get offended.
But properly understood, atheists just, they don't believe in a God that we also don't believe in.
And so that can be really helpful.
And like thinking about me, I'm married.
I've been married for almost seven years now.
And one thing that's great about friendships, including spouses, is that you insult each other, you make fun of each other and you tell jokes about each other.
And that, I think, does sort of clear the way for a genuine encounter with the other person.
And so I think, whereas, you know, comedians who only tell you what you want to hear or make jokes that sort of soothe you, like they don't get genuine laughs.
They get claps.
And right.
Or they get laughs because in the studio, there's a big sign that says laughter and you have to laugh.
And or it's a Netflix special and they literally fill the seats with people who laugh really well.
And so that I think is a lot of what's going on with comedians who think their job is just soothe people's illusions.
But I think that comedians, and maybe this goes to most comedians struggles with mental health, where there is a kind of joker mentality that we have where we want to get at the truth.
And one way you get at the truth is by making fun of stuff.
And like, and when you go to like, you know, punching down, like that whole thing, I think that's, that's just people trying to create moral codes where there's no tradition, where they're like, well, we don't have a belief system at all.
So let's create a moral code that's just about like, don't hurt people who have X amount of power, whatever.
But like, it's a, it's a real gift to someone to, to destroy an illusion they have.
It's that's a really beautiful thing to do to somebody.
And so if you make fun of someone's belief system, uh, and then it resonates like, heaven forbid.
Yeah, maybe they're down, but you've just, I mean, maybe it sets them free of, you know, from that.
If it's done well and done properly and like, and you're really good at that, then if you're bad at it, then you can't just do it and suck and then be like, I only suck because they don't like what I have to say.
But yeah, I mean, so I don't like the whole punching down, punching up rule because there's plenty of people who are up who deserve to be up and they're honorable people.
And, you know, like trying to destroy them is sort of a way of like if you if you trash a bishop, for example, and he doesn't deserve it at all, but you're just filthily destroying.
Are you punching up at that point?
Like, I mean, he's a bishop, okay.
But like, yes, you're punching up, but like, it's, it's also, so I mean, I think all of this is just a way of trying, trying to, trying to create a code that sort of will guide comedians, but comedians as a group don't share the same worldview with each other.
And there's also, I mean, it's like, it's part of the sort of victimhood Olympics where everyone's, everyone is saying that they're down, but then they're the ones dragging you on Twitter.
Right.
So in what sphere, who is up?
You look at someone like Robin Williams, who for many would have been way up there.
And then clearly in his personal life, he was dealing with some extreme sort of emotional issues.
So what we perceive is up, they might be down.
This whole arbitrary metric of determining who is up and who is down, I think is extremely falsified.
It's like, I mean, I guess it's a decent rule of thumb, maybe.
Like, but like, again, it's just a way of sort of like, you know, now, now that like, we don't, we're like, we're part of a global society and none of us share the same worldview, even though we act like we do.
We act like there's a like, I was, I think Liz Brunick said that liberals always are talking to an invisible referee.
Like, like, there's nobody there who's going to actually do what they're like, I'm going to tell, I'm going to tell him what you said.
And you're like, okay.
But like, it's just in that situation where no one has a shared worldview.
And even among like the comics that I'm friends with in Charleston, like, we're all funny, we're all friends, but like some of them deeply immoral people that are like, I don't agree with.
And so when like, there's no rule that's going to like guide what I say that's, that they're going to accept.
Right.
And yeah, so a lot of that I think is just, it's just hopeless.
And I think a big part of that too is I think to experience comedy as comedy is intended versus this just propping up of your values, you actually need to some extent love or respect the person on stage.
To the extent of saying, well, I'm interested in their opinion.
And when Dave Chappelle talks about his trans friend laughing the loudest and being in the front row while he's making jokes about that community, we as Catholics endure the brunt of a ton of jokes.
We're prime candidates.
And you can always tell.
I mean, I think that, I mean, one thing, I mentioned this in my course, but like, because it's there's like seven courses.
Each one's like one of the virtues and like how comedy relates to it.
And last one is love.
And insults are an act of love, I think, but they sort of rely on loving the person.
They only work if you love the person.
And that's true of roasts, where when you do a comedy roast, which I've done a bunch of them, like the person being roasted is someone that you love.
When we were looking for a roastmaster, we called Jamie Foxx, Chris Rock, and they both couldn't do it.
Then I had a great idea.
Let's call Kevin Hart and see if he has Dave Chappelle's number.
No, I have huge.
And if a comedian does get invited to do the roast who doesn't love the person, like they hate him, it ruins it because you can always tell.
And like growing up, you're bullied by people.
But the bully is always making fun of things that your friends also make fun of you for.
So you can't have like a list of things that you can't make fun of.
Like your friends are also calling you fat.
And but like when the bully does it, he's doing it to like exclude you from his like group.
Like he can't, and like the bully can't play.
The bully is incapable of playing.
He's trying to establish himself above you in a hierarchy.
Whereas your friends are, they love you and they're calling you fat, which if you take that to heart, means that being fat doesn't make you unlovable, which is a really important thing to know.
And that's one thing that insults can teach you.
But so, yeah, so you have to love the people that you are making fun of and you have to love the audience.
You have to be doing it.
You have to be rooting for them.
Whereas if you just want to destroy them, I think it also hurts your material because you're not interested in liberating someone from their illusions.
Instead, you're interested in, in fact, you might even get mad if they change, right?
That's one thing.
Like if you make fun of somebody or you, you sort of sort of like Jonah getting mad that like Nineveh converted.
I always think of that when like there's this, there's this moment where someone that you don't like becomes a better person and you're like, dang it, right?
Like you have to hope.
You have to hope that the people that you are against, your enemies will become your friends.
Not that you don't have enemies, but you're hoping that they will become your friends.
You know, Jeremy, I want to thank you so much for sitting down and having a lot of people.
Oh, yeah.
Anytime.
Where can folks find you?
You mentioned the word on fire course, but where can folks check you out?
Yeah.
And just look him up on social media, Jeremy McClellan, for and just follow me on social media for tour dates and, you know, when I'm going to be in your city and stuff.
So.
Well, I want to thank Jeremy for his inside perspective into the world of comedy.
Truly some meaningful and substantial insights from him.
And for everyone out there, I hope you enjoyed our conversation for Rebel News.
Rebel News Shirts Comedy00:00:54
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