April 6, 2018 - Rubin Report - Dave Rubin
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unidentified
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| Of all the polarizing issues in politics today, and yes, there are many, | ||
| the climate change debate is right at the top of the list. | ||
| Climate change seems to be one of the you're either with us or you're against us topics, usually debated by people immediately taking a partisan stance rather than a well thought out position. | ||
| This past year I actually lost a good friend who told me that she could no longer be associated with people who even debate climate change, and I'm someone who's had such conversations on this very show. | ||
| I think the most hate I ever got for a Rubin Report episode was when I had Alex Epstein, author of The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels, in for a sit down. | ||
| Alex's argument isn't against man-made climate change specifically, instead he's more focused on how to increase human prosperity with what we have now. | ||
| Essentially, his argument is although climate change could be real, fossil fuels still have many net benefits for our society. | ||
| After endless tweets, emails and messages from angry people, Alex did a follow up video on YouTube himself where he answered around 100 viewer questions. | ||
| Engaging with people who have different views is exactly what the battle of ideas is all about. | ||
| On the flip side of the debate, I've also sat down with Michael Mann, a climatologist and the author of the famous The Hockey Stick and the Climate Wars, who's a thought leader in the climate change debate. | ||
| I've discussed climate change to some degree or another with believers in man-made climate change like Sam Harris, Michael Shermer, and Richard Dawkins, as well as some with more skeptical views such as Andrew Klavan, Steven Crowder, and Ben Shapiro. | ||
| And for the record, not one of these guests believe the exact same thing as anyone else I just mentioned right there. | ||
| I find climate change to be a really interesting discussion because it often shows how one's thinking works in other areas as well. | ||
| Generally speaking, Democrats, or those on the left, see climate change as man made and believe that governmental action is the best, or in some cases the only way to reverse its negative effects. | ||
| Republicans, or those on the right, generally believe that something is happening to the environment, though there is some debate as to whether it's man made, but regardless believe that the private sector is better left to deal with these issues. | ||
| Of course there are outliers on each side, such as my former guest, California Democratic gubernatorial candidate Mike Schellenberger, who wants the private sector to be more involved in solving climate issues, and at the same time there are also Republicans and people on the right who deny man made climate change at all. | ||
| The science debate on climate change is an interesting one, and one in which I'm happy to have. | ||
| What interests me more, though, is how the government should or should not be part of the solution to whatever the problem may be. | ||
| You know my feelings on this, that the government is rarely the solution to anything. | ||
| Actually, at this point I think the government is usually the problem in the first place, and I'd always rather exhaust private options before turning to the government, especially the federal government. | ||
| Ironically, this should be the position of the people who hate Trump. | ||
| Why would you want to keep giving the government more power when you hate the guy in charge? | ||
| But at the end of the day, it's not governmental power that they have a problem with. | ||
| It's that they only have a problem with governmental power when it's not their guy in charge. | ||
| Fortunately, there does seem to be a younger generation that is tackling issues like climate change and the environment in a totally new way. | ||
| It seems to be based not only in scientific facts, but also in an understanding of how a limited government should work. | ||
| My guest this week is Benji Backer, president of the American Conservation Coalition. | ||
| The group is dedicated to finding new ways to look at old problems. | ||
| As its mantra states, they are committed to efficient, effective, conservative environmentalism. | ||
| As for me, I'm a believer in the science behind climate change, and the funny thing about science is that it doesn't care whether you believe in it or not. | ||
| For me, the real debate around climate change is how to go about finding solutions without giving more power and more money to the government. | ||
| Whether you believe in climate science or not, whether you want more government regulation or less, or whether you believe the private sector can find a solution or not, we're all stuck on this little rock together. | ||
| So, until Elon Musk, a private businessman, gets us all to Mars, let's try to figure out | ||
| how to solve some of our problems on this pale blue dot while we still have a chance. | ||
| Joining me today is the founder of the American Conservation Coalition, an organization committed | ||
| to efficient, effective, conservative environmentalism. | ||
| Hashtag GreenGOP. | ||
| Benji Backer, welcome to The Rubin Report. | ||
| It's great to be here. | ||
| I feel you are long overdue, even though... | ||
| Twenty years old. | ||
| You didn't have a lot of time to get here, but you got here. | ||
| We've met a couple times. | ||
| I kind of found out about you a couple years ago. | ||
| We're going to talk about what kind of put you on the map in the political world and got your activism going and all that. | ||
| But it's good to have you here. | ||
| I like that you dressed ready for the part. | ||
| Oh yeah, you gotta look good to feel good. | ||
| All right, so you have a really interesting story of what got you in this mix. | ||
| But first, I just thought I'd like to ask my guest, just kind of tell me a little bit about your upbringing, family, that kind of thing. | ||
| Yeah, so I grew up in a family of five, completely non-political, very close family. | ||
| We traveled a lot together. | ||
| Youngest, I had two older sisters. | ||
| My parents were actually entrepreneurs. | ||
| They started a business when I was I want to say 10, which was a software company based on | ||
| mortgages and it really started to take off. | ||
| But it was during the recession and it was a really bold move for that time. | ||
| And it really paid off and they're now retired and kind of live the American dream, which | ||
| is a really cool thing to be brought up by. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| What about the politics at home? | ||
| Were you guys always kind of conservative or didn't talk about it that much? | ||
| So actually we've got really differing views. | ||
| My sister is a liberal, one of them, and then one of them is more just not into it very much. | ||
| My parents are conservative, but they never told us really about their views. | ||
| They wanted us to decide for ourselves. | ||
| Obviously, their morals and values, I think, played into how I feel about things, but it was never forced upon us, or they were not adamant about politics, or volunteered, or donated, to my knowledge, to campaigns. | ||
| So, it really wasn't talked about in the House. | ||
| You know, they'd have the debates on, or they'd have the news on, but nothing really more than that. | ||
| So, I was able to figure out my opinions for myself when I was a little bit earlier than most people when I was ten, but yeah. | ||
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unidentified
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Ten? | |
| What kind of opinions does a ten-year-old have? | ||
| Well, I was watching the John McCain-Obama debates, which... At ten years old? | ||
| Yes, at ten years old, and I found it really interesting, and I wanted to figure out where I stood on the spectrum of would I support John McCain or would I support, I think, Senator Obama at the time. | ||
| And so I looked up online kind of just a basic outline of what each side believed in, and I figured out that I was conservative. | ||
| And so for the next couple years, I kind of, I forced my parents to put signs in our yard for John McCain. | ||
| I forced them to put bumper stickers on our cars. | ||
| I put bumper stickers on every stick. | ||
| What did your parents think about this, their ten-year-old? | ||
| They're like, alright, we'll support you in whatever you do! | ||
| But they were very, I mean, it's, it's, I think that they were surprised. | ||
| I mean, I don't know if any parent thinks that their 10-year-old kid is going to get super interested in politics, because it doesn't really affect you at 10 years old. | ||
| It doesn't really affect you until after college, really. | ||
| So that was kind of a surprise to them, but they were supportive. | ||
| They let me research as much as I wanted to, and again, they allowed me to put the signs in the yard, the bumper stickers on my ripstick, you know, that type of thing. | ||
| It was a pretty cool time, and then I got injured and decided to volunteer because I couldn't play sports. | ||
| Alright, so I want to get to that in a sec, but wait, I just want to picture this. | ||
| Ten years old, you're watching, I assume you're watching with your folks probably. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| You go online to figure out the issues. | ||
| What mattered to you at ten years old that you said at the end of it, okay, I'm a conservative or I'm going to vote for McCain? | ||
| Well, my parents were always really fiscally conservative with just how they spent money. | ||
| You know, we were never, like, in a really, really tough position when I was super young, but we always were saying, you know, buy the cheapest product you can, save as much money as you can, and that was something that I was brought up with, so that really mattered to me. | ||
| And knowing that the government could take away my parents' hard-earned money and knowing that the government could come in and harm my dad's business by putting a ton of restrictions, that kind of struck me pretty harshly. | ||
| And then also, my family, we were raised on family values, right? | ||
| You know, close-knit family, it kind of happens that way. | ||
| So those two things were kind of the main drivers, I would say. | ||
| Yeah, it's just hard to imagine a 10-year-old thinking these things, but it's pretty cool and it explains why you're here right now. | ||
| So, okay, we'll put you on the map, and when I found out about you, and I think nationally when people found out about you, and now this makes sense now that I know that this was brewing at 10 years old, 2013, you're 15 years old, what happens? | ||
| Yeah, so I had been active in politics for three years before that. | ||
| And what does that even mean? | ||
| I was volunteering on Scott Walker's campaign, Senator Ron Johnson's campaign, I helped out Mitt Romney as well in 2012, and... Could people believe it? | ||
| Sorry to interrupt, but could people even believe it? | ||
| Like, here's this 12-year-old kid, 11-year-old kid, working on these campaigns? | ||
| It was actually really funny, the first campaign I ever worked on didn't let me use the phones at first, because they could, you know, when you're talking to a 12-year-old on the phone, You can tell it's like, "Hi, is Michael here?" | ||
| And they're like, "Uh, yeah, but like, who are you and why are you 12 and why are you | ||
| calling me from a congressional office?" | ||
| A congressional campaign. | ||
| And so people were actually really surprised. | ||
| Conservatives were really supportive. | ||
| They're like, "Whoa, look at this 12-year-old kid who's volunteering for us." | ||
| And the left is like, why is this 12-year-old kid volunteering for them? | ||
| So it was pretty funny. | ||
| Again, I was injured, so I needed something to do. | ||
| And like any 12-year-old, I decided to volunteer for politics. | ||
| Very normal. | ||
| Yes, yes, very normal. | ||
| So, yeah, it was a very interesting dynamic. | ||
| Wait, this is also hilarious that an injury got you into politics. | ||
| What kind of injury? | ||
| It was an ankle injury that the doctors couldn't figure out. | ||
| I was on crutches for a year and a half. | ||
| Gained a lot of weight. | ||
| It was during middle school, which does not help, because those were the worst years for that anyways. | ||
| And so then, again, I went into the congressional office and they didn't want me to do the phones, they didn't want me to go door-to-door, because imagine a 12-year-old coming to your door and being like, hey, you should vote for X, Y, or Z, and you're like, why should I trust a 12-year-old, right? | ||
| So it was a very interesting dynamic at that age. | ||
| So, all right, so now what puts you on the map? | ||
| 2013, you're 15 years old, something happens. | ||
| Yes, so in high school, early on in high school and middle school, teachers had really come after me for my political views, because I was starting to make local headlines for my activism, especially in the recall election for Scott Walker in 2012. | ||
| Tell me a little bit about what your opinions were and what your teachers were. | ||
| Yeah, so I was a really pro-Scott Walker guy. | ||
| I actually ended up becoming close with his family and a great guy, and even better policies. | ||
| You know, I talked to a lot of teachers who were sick of being forced to join unions and sick of starting out with $30,000 base pay when Senior teachers were making $100,000 with benefits. | ||
| And it took them 40 years to get to that level, even if they were a better teacher. | ||
| So people were really kind of sick of that. | ||
| But it was a very small minority, because the unions really had a lot of brainwashing in the state, and I'm sure in other states as well. | ||
| And so my view is that Scott Walker is really helping out the state, because he helped balance the budget, and he kind of freed the teachers up and helped their pay become more of a fair shake. | ||
| But the teachers did not like that, the majority of them. | ||
| I mean, most people know of the huge uprising that happened, the protests, hundreds of thousands of people, death threats to every Republican in the state legislature and the governor. | ||
| And so the teachers would leave school, they protested, they'd take leave, they would cry in class. | ||
| I mean, it was pretty insane. | ||
| And then, you know, you have me over here, bold little Benji, going out there and saying, rah, rah, Scott Walker. | ||
| They did not like that at all. | ||
| So they would say pretty disparaging things to me in class in front of my fellow students. | ||
| Like what kind of things would they say to you? | ||
| They would attack my family for being business owners and saying that they were lazy and saying that I was racist. | ||
| Oh yeah, a lot of lazy business owners. | ||
| That's the key to business, isn't it? | ||
| They assume that my parents golf every Friday. | ||
| By the way, my parents don't know how to golf, so that's not true. | ||
| I don't even know how to golf. | ||
| So that was one thing that they would always say. | ||
| They would call me racist or weird for being in politics at such a young age. | ||
| What's that like for a kid of that age to be dealing with that? | ||
| It's one thing to be outspoken, but now your teachers, your authority figures, are attacking you publicly in school. | ||
| I can't imagine. | ||
| It actually strengthened me because At first I was pretty taken aback and I was kind of sad about it, but my parents really pushed me on and said, you're doing the right thing and just kind of block out, as the Millennials say, block out the haters. | ||
| So I didn't really care that much as long as it didn't affect my grades or how my classmates viewed me, because I do care about the people that I am friends with. | ||
| So that was kind of Frustrating, but after a while I just kind of got used to it because it would happen in a class every single quarter of every single semester of every single year from seventh grade until I started coming out nationally about this issue. | ||
| Did it ever affect your grades? | ||
| Because I could see a teacher in a subjective class, maybe not math where it would be tough to screw with your grades, but a social studies teacher where you're writing an essay or an English teacher or something actually harming your grades. | ||
| It did actually. | ||
| My lowest grade ever was in a social studies class in middle school. | ||
| I've never gotten anything really below like a high B level and I got a D plus in that social studies class. | ||
| It's middle school, so at that point it was middle school, so it didn't really matter per se, but you could see that there was a trend going and that I'd be worried in future years whether or not that would affect me. | ||
| And in other classes I don't think it did as much, which is good, but in that class I did see, I mean, it's a pretty obvious correlation between me getting good grades in every class since then and every class before then and then getting a D plus in that class, which is kind of weird. | ||
| And also probably not a coincidence that social studies is the class that you were probably talking about this stuff the most, right? | ||
| Did you try to fight the teacher on that? | ||
| Did your folks get involved or anything? | ||
| I actually ended up switching schools. | ||
| Wow, I mean, it's incredible. | ||
| Yeah, so that was a big change. | ||
| It actually ended up being for the better because the school I switched to is the feeder school to the high school that I was going to, so I ended up making better connections there, but it was an annoying change that shouldn't have So it's interesting because you were fighting the unions, which in your estimation was actually pro-teacher because you felt the unions were too powerful. | ||
| Meanwhile you have teachers fighting you, which is really only feeding your initial premise in the first place. | ||
| Yeah, so it really enhanced my opinion on the subject. | ||
| It made me really want to push further because I could tell that some of these teachers were really worried about their job or their job security because they knew that they could actually be held accountable now. | ||
| And some of the senior teachers knew that, oh, I actually have to perform well to get paid well. | ||
| My age isn't just the deciding factor. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| So I think that that's why people came out so strongly in certain areas. | ||
| Some people just didn't really understand the full scope of the situation and calmed down once they figured that out. | ||
| But some I think were really worried about their future pay because they had kind of just been relaxed for the last 20 years since their pay had gone up. | ||
| Right, so basically they weren't doing a great job, and this isn't just unique to Wisconsin. | ||
| This has happened all over America, where you have these teachers that have been at it forever, have kind of given up or are not working that hard anymore, but they're protected by the unions, their salaries keep going up, they get great benefits, etc., etc. | ||
| That's what you're fighting, and you're seeing the fruits of what happens with that as they're cracking down on you. | ||
| So what actually put you on? | ||
| What was the specific incident that put this all in motion? | ||
| Yeah, so I kind of I took all the information that I had of all the experiences that I had gone through and wrote it up in a blog for FreedomWorks. | ||
| It ended up going to Drudge, and then Todd Starnes at Fox wrote something up about it, Town Hall had something, it started to get in that space, and then eventually Megyn Kelly's show reached out to ask me to come on and talk about it. | ||
| So that kind of put me on the map there and then I started to be invited to conferences to speak about my experience and kind of how other young conservatives shouldn't be scared to speak out in the classroom even if their teachers or other fellow students come after them. | ||
| It wasn't easy because it was my sophomore year of high school, actually the end of my freshman year of high school and After that Fox News interview, I received death threats. | ||
| People were threatening me at school because some of the teachers that I had called out, which I never named their names, but I called them out. | ||
| They were popular with the students, so people weren't happy about it. | ||
| So it was not an easy time for my family either. | ||
| Yeah, I want to focus on that a little bit because I think because everyone gets this these days and this is one of the themes of what we do here is everyone's just like afraid to say anything because they don't want to deal they don't want to deal with just the hate they get on Twitter and you got plenty of that and that's how I found you after this but but the other stuff like you had to go to school the next day so literally what what is that like? | ||
| Well, I don't know if I've ever said this publicly, but I carried a knife to school, because I was so scared with my life, and I didn't tell my parents. | ||
| I had a friend give it to me that was worried about my safety. | ||
| It was a pretty hard time because no matter if people think I was doing something right | ||
| or wrong, I think part of the problem with our culture, and it was the same way four | ||
| years ago or five years ago, is that if someone's doing something that you don't agree with, | ||
| you're just going to completely attack them wholeheartedly without any respect for what | ||
| they're doing or their opinions or anything like that. | ||
| And so I was honestly scared for my life. | ||
| I couldn't go anywhere. | ||
| I got my bike stolen when I biked to an ice cream shop. | ||
| And I live in a very safe place and it was somebody from my high school that just really | ||
| didn't like me. | ||
| I'd be walking my dogs and someone would flip me off and say, "F you, Benji Backer, | ||
| you know, sucka, whatever." | ||
| What about your family at that time? | ||
| Because I know you said your folks were always backing you and telling you to do what you believe in. | ||
| Was there any repercussions for them or their business or anything like that? | ||
| No, their business was fine. | ||
| I think most adults who knew what was going on treated me with a lot of respect. | ||
| I think it was mostly the young people who were a little bit ignorant about what was going on. | ||
| So my parents didn't have any negative repercussions that I know of. | ||
| Again, they might have been not telling me because they didn't want to make it any worse for me because they know that I care about them. | ||
| So that was a tough time for them though because they live through their kids and having something like that be constantly going after, | ||
| or people constantly going after your son is not the greatest thing in the world, | ||
| especially when they know that what you're doing is right. | ||
| So, they were kind of my biggest supporters at the time, telling me to keep pushing on and, you know, again, block | ||
| out the haters and just kind of, and do what you think is right, | ||
| because at the end of the day, people are going to realize it eventually. | ||
| I had tons of people come up to me years afterwards and apologize, and realize that what they did was immature. | ||
| People who said the worst things to me, or told me to kill myself, or whatever, those people would come up to me and say, I'm really sorry. | ||
| As people mature, they start to realize that that's not okay dialogue, even if you totally disagree with someone. | ||
| Sadly, we have a lot of people who don't mature these days, but that is nice to hear, though. | ||
| What about the support you got from your friends? | ||
| I mean, were your friends that supported you willing to publicly support you? | ||
| See, that's another, there are certain things, that's why I think this is so interesting, there are certain trends with all of these, whether it's you taking an unpopular but principled position, or it's a guy like Brett Weinstein at Evergreen, just all these different people that come out, I mean, it's a coming out, in a way, That the same tactics happen every time, and in this case, the idea that your friends or whatever won't back you publicly, but privately probably, had no problem doing it. | ||
| Yeah, I had friends who came up to me or would text me saying, I support you and I feel terrible for what you're going through, but I can't associate myself with you. | ||
| And those friends ended up trying to associate with me later on. | ||
| In a way, those are the worst ones, right? | ||
| Because it's like, if someone just tells you to go F yourself, it's like, big deal, okay, whatever. | ||
| But the friends, it's like, am I your shield? | ||
| You know what I mean? | ||
| Like, am I the guy that's supposed to just be out there while you sit quietly and do nothing? | ||
| You're not helping me. | ||
| Yeah, I had one really good friend named Brandon who supported me through it all and would come over every day. | ||
| This death threat stuff started to happen right as summer started, which was the worst time, | ||
| because in high school as a freshman, you don't really do anything during the summer, | ||
| so you're just at home sitting, looking at your Twitter, thinking, oh, all these people want to kill me, | ||
| or they think I'm the worst person in the world. | ||
| So it's really nice to have one friend who I could rely on, plus my family. | ||
| And I actually took a little bit of a break from the town that I lived in. | ||
| My dad even said if things got worse, that we couldn't move if that was necessary, | ||
| which I never thought it was gonna be necessary, and it never was. | ||
| But I took a little bit of a break, and went to my grandparents' house for a while, | ||
| just to get away from it all. | ||
| Because there was one time actually at my house, when, well, two times, once when someone called | ||
| and said they were gonna come to my house and kill me, - Jesus. - on an anonymous line | ||
| to my home phone, and then a second time when I was watching a movie, | ||
| and it was actually Ted, and I was trying to like, have a fun night after all this stuff had been going on, | ||
| and someone knocked on the window and was like flipping me off, | ||
| and this was like in the middle of the night, as I was sitting in my living room. | ||
| So I was pretty scared to be at home for a little while, and so I went away for a little bit. | ||
| Yeah, and it's interesting because I don't want to belabor the point with you, and there's a lot of other obviously important stuff I want to talk about, but I think that it's worth mentioning just because so many people go through this, and more importantly, you're on the other side now. | ||
| You made it, you're doing cool stuff, and you survived, and it's just worth showing people that, yeah, Yeah, and I think, you know, what was really big for me is that it takes a strong person to go through that, but there are tons of people going through the exact same thing nationwide, and I would even say that there are some people on the left side who go through the exact same thing, because it's not just people on the left who have this nasty attitude, it's people on the right as well, and I think | ||
| It's sickening, because even if you disagree with someone wholeheartedly, just stay quiet. | ||
| If you really are going to be that rude and that upset about it, be respectful or be quiet. | ||
| That's kind of how I would like to view things. | ||
| And so I think to other people who are in similar situations, Persevering through this is the best thing that you can go through. | ||
| I mean, I feel like I matured into a 45 or 50 year old when I was like 14 or 15 years old, and so I was able to really progress, and I think it actually might be one of the best experiences of my life, even though it was one of the worst experiences of my life. | ||
| In terms of furthering myself, it was one of the best, and I also think just knowing that if I can persevere through it, anyone can, and anyone should, and Standing up for your viewpoints isn't going to be easy, but it's totally worth it. | ||
| Well said. | ||
| You know, I think we talked about this. | ||
| We had lunch a couple weeks ago, and I think we talked about this, but I told you that I think my best professional moment is also my worst professional moment, and it was when Larry Elder just bludgeoned me over the head with facts, and it was my worst because I wasn't prepared, and it was my best because it opened me up. | ||
| And then I was like, oh, new information, new facts, let's explore that. | ||
| So yeah, getting through something is pretty beautiful. | ||
| Not that I'm comparing that moment with Larry to everything that you went through. | ||
| No, but it's all related. | ||
| And I think what I found is that it actually, what I did, opened up the eyes of a lot of the people who attacked me, right? | ||
| They eventually apologized. | ||
| And if they wouldn't have attacked me and apologized, they wouldn't have opened their minds either. | ||
| A couple years later, they're probably thinking back like, oh wow, that was really terrible of me. | ||
| But would they ever have thought about that if that wouldn't have happened? | ||
| They might have done the same thing five years later, which would be way worse than doing it in high school. | ||
| So I think that going through those experiences, no matter what side you're on, and I don't think that it should happen, | ||
| but it does help you persevere. | ||
| Yeah, so that moment puts you on the map. | ||
| Now, I started following you on Twitter, all these people are following you, | ||
| suddenly your voice is being heard. | ||
| Were you immediately involved in more activism after that? | ||
| 'Cause then you had an interesting phase of like, sort of, I could tell you were very frustrated | ||
| with politics at times, and you were pissed at your own side a lot, and Trump and all that, | ||
| flashing forward a little bit later. | ||
| But what was the next step? | ||
| Let's just get us to to where you're at now. | ||
| Yes, I think I dealt with so much negative political experiences that there's so many negative political experiences that I wanted to do something positive. | ||
| And I was sick of the partisan bickering on both sides. | ||
| You know, I have not really changed any of my beliefs. | ||
| I think both sides have just gone further and further away from the middle, which is frustrating. | ||
| So I actually took a year hiatus in high school, my senior year, just to enjoy school and enjoy my friends and kind of graduate with a fun last experience. | ||
| But I couldn't really stay away as long as I had hoped. | ||
| I was thinking that I could probably stay away through college as well. | ||
| But I had seen so many negative things that there needed to be something done that was | ||
| positive and I was so, again, sick of the partisan bickering that I wanted to get involved | ||
| in something that would benefit society and have a decent dialogue and wouldn't generate | ||
| complete hate from both sides. | ||
| And I think that we need more of that in politics, a decent dialogue. | ||
| And if it has to happen on an easy issue like the environment, which is what I focus on, | ||
| Then so be it, but I would hope that that could transfer over to really hotly contested issues, too, like gun control or immigration, right? | ||
| By the way, I would argue that actually talking about the environment can be perhaps the most hotly contested, because any time I've done anything on climate on this show, the amount of hate is bananas on both sides. | ||
| Of course it shouldn't be, right? | ||
| We are all living on this planet Earth. | ||
| I think we all care about it, at least I hope, the vast majority of us. | ||
| It's a matter of what you think is the best way to care about it, but okay, so we're gonna get to all your work on that in just a minute. | ||
| And that's what The Dialogue should be about, is how we all care about it, but let's talk about the different solutions. | ||
| Yeah, okay, so before we get to the solutions and what you're doing now, what else, I think when people see a young conservative, there's still a piece of them that they don't know what to make sense of that. | ||
| How would you describe conservatism in 2018? | ||
| You gave me a little bit of sort of what your initial thoughts on it were when you were 10, but right now, what do you make of just sort of the state of conservatism? | ||
| I think that it's in a pretty tough spot. | ||
| I think that what we've done as a movement is just gone to everything that's anti-left, and I don't think that that's how it should be, and I don't think that it's conservative. | ||
| I think a lot of the principles, I could go issue by issue, but there are a lot of principles that I don't think are necessarily conservative that are being pushed forward now. | ||
| I think that there are some things that Ronald Reagan wouldn't support in today's time, and I actually don't think that he'd be successful As a conservative in today's world, I think people would see him as too moderate, too wishy-washy, when actually he's the token conservative, right? | ||
| And I think that that is frustrating, and I think on the environment and every other issue, the conservative goal is to be anti-Hillary, anti-Bernie, anti-left. | ||
| And sometimes we forget to do our own solution, and sometimes we just go to the exact opposite end of the spectrum, which is just as dangerous as whatever the far left is proposing. | ||
| So I think that that's where conservatism is now. | ||
| And I think that is dangerous because if it keeps going down that path, I think the first | ||
| party to start realizing that they're just going further and further away from the truth | ||
| and the middle, the first one to realize that and change course is going to have a lot of | ||
| success. | ||
| And I hope that conservatives can realize that and start to come back to what conservatism | ||
| truly is, which is free markets, limited government. | ||
| It's not just bashing the left. | ||
| It's trying to work with them if you can. | ||
| And it's not always a far-right policy that's going to be the answer. | ||
| And I think that what conservatism was in 2008 or 2012 isn't exactly ideal, but it's | ||
| closer to where it should be than it is today. | ||
| And I'm not saying Trump's to blame. | ||
| I think it's just a huge movement that has been sick of the left for so long and sick of the radicalism of the left that they've done the exact same. | ||
| And I think if we could just actually stay true to our morals and take the higher ground, I think that it would be a lot better for the country. | ||
| Yeah, it's interesting the way you describe that, that whichever one stops first. | ||
| Because in my view, and it's funny, because we come at this from different places, right? | ||
| Like I was a card-carrying, lefty, progressive liberal. | ||
| I'm obviously a little older than you, but you came at it from the other side. | ||
| And it's like, for me, the stuff that I focus on, I've just seen the left implode. | ||
| And if anything, I would say it's basically like a train that the brakes are off. | ||
| They know the cliff is coming, but they're just gonna keep going and going and going and keep pouring coal on it, and let's go off the cliff and see what happens. | ||
| Don't mention coal to the left. | ||
| Yeah, exactly. | ||
| But to me, that's what I've seen there, and I've really spent a lot of my life, at least these last couple of years, trying to correct that. | ||
| Okay, what I do see, and I think maybe you agree but maybe not, is I do see more fertile ground on the right for ideas. | ||
| That I can now go to libertarian events and conservative events, and they hear my differences, and they're willing to hear them out, where I see virtually none of that on the left. | ||
| Do you think that's a fair estimation, even though I know you're concerned, obviously, about what's happening on the fringes of the right? | ||
| I do to a certain degree. | ||
| I think that there is more, and I think it's a relative statement. | ||
| I don't think that it's enough. | ||
| I don't think it's anywhere near enough. | ||
| I think the perfect example is that any conservative that doesn't agree with Trump 100% of the time is kind of shunned. | ||
| You look at an event like CPAC or how the RNC looks at things or something like that and I think that what they should be doing is embracing people of all ideologies that come from the conservative perspective. | ||
| And I think when it comes to young people, not every young person is gung-ho for Trump. | ||
| Not every young person is gung-ho for a wall or whatever it may be. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yeah. | |
| And I think that conservatives need to embrace the diversity more on a leadership level. | ||
| I think, like, on college campuses, like, the college Republicans tend to be more open. | ||
| And I think even, like, a county party would be more open to different views. | ||
| Obviously, I don't know every county party in the millions of counties that we have here. | ||
| But the fact of the matter is, I think that the national landscape, or at least the national leaders, are currently unlikely to care about what moderates think or what even a typical conservative thinks | ||
| if they're not on a hundred percent agreement | ||
| uh... and again i think conferences kind of show that like that the c_ pac | ||
| conference and i think | ||
| it has been an issue going on for years and a lot of cabin republicans were banned | ||
| from c_ pac for i don't know how many years six years uh... | ||
| and i think that we just need to diversify the party and that's gonna | ||
| include non-christians skin include l_g_b_t_ q people it's gonna include minorities and it's it's gonna include | ||
| women And that's gonna be the future of the Conservative Party, along with the support that we have now. | ||
| Otherwise, we're gonna be going down a very wrong track record, and if we keep shaming all those people, it's gonna be tough. | ||
| What part of you doesn't say you're a libertarian? | ||
| Because I think I know so much about what your ideas are, and you're trying to build all those bridges. | ||
| I can give you a libertarian reason for why all of those people, obviously, should be included in a conservative party or any party. | ||
| Is there anything about libertarian, or do you just not, or you're just doing a little political realism, which I hear from a lot of people. | ||
| It's like, I'm a libertarian, but the conservatives and the Republicans are the party that I can work with most to get those ideas. | ||
| I think that's what you just said is probably the best answer I have. | ||
| The other thing that I would say is I disagree with libertarians sometimes on the level of government that should be involved. | ||
| I'm still a limited government person. | ||
| I also think of myself as a Reagan conservative, but Reagan wasn't anti-government in a lot of ways. | ||
| He increased spending sometimes. | ||
| He did taxes when it was necessary. | ||
| Again, I'm limited government, and when spending's not possible, we should never pursue spending if it can be avoided. | ||
| Same with taxes and everything like that. | ||
| But I also don't think that it's completely off the table, which some libertarians do, not all. | ||
| But I think that I probably, issues-wise, agree more with libertarians, especially on social things, maybe even immigration. | ||
| But I think on some of the, just the overarching government involvement, I think the government does have a place in some things, but it should be trying to help the people instead of push things on the people. | ||
| Which I think is something that maybe makes me a little bit more moderate. | ||
| You've decided to put your stop, if the Republican or the right conservative train is going off that way, you've decided to put your stake in the ground and say, we're going to talk about environment. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yep. | |
| Now even just hashtag green GOP. | ||
| I mean, people think the Republicans, the general consensus out there, if you ask the average person walking down the street, Republicans either hate the environment or they want endless pollution and they believe in industry more than I mean, just all of this stuff that really, generally, I find not to be true. | ||
| But they haven't done a great job on answers. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yep. | |
| So first off, how much do you think people your age generally care about the environment? | ||
| Yeah, so I think, you know, millennials, according to some recent polling, have showed that that's the most important issue, the environment is, in terms of when they go to the voting booth. | ||
| The University of Texas and Pew Research polls have shown that. | ||
| So I think that that's a huge wake-up call to conservatives, that this is something that an important voter base is interested in tackling. | ||
| I know that most conservatives are behind clean energy, especially when they're young. | ||
| Millennials especially, and then obviously the left is as well, independents. | ||
| So I think clean energy, sustainability, and just the general environmental issues are very important to young people. | ||
| And then a recent poll just came out that showed that climate change, 57% of conservatives, millennials want action on it, which is a pretty big amount. | ||
| And then you've got 77% of independents and 84% of liberals. | ||
| So climate change is also a very important issue to millennials. | ||
| So I think that all those together kind of showcase why it's important that conservatives start to talk about these issues. | ||
| Yeah. | ||
| How much of this do you think is about belief, whether people actually believe the science on this, of whether man-made climate change is real, versus just what the answers are? | ||
| So I know you're focusing on the answers, which I want to get into, but that basically meaning it's either you have some set of people that believe or don't believe, but then you have This other subset of people that either think the government is the answer or that the private sector is the answer. | ||
| How do you even get those things to meet in some way? | ||
| So I think that the private sector and limited government is the answer for these issues, no matter if you believe the science or don't believe the science. | ||
| I think that we all, like we said earlier, can agree that these issues do matter, that protecting the Earth does matter. | ||
| No matter if climate change is real or not, we still have a duty to protect the land that we've been given by God. | ||
| And so I think that that's something that can gel with most conservatives. | ||
| And then with people on the left or even independents, if they're kind of convinced that big government is the answer, which has been kind of the only solution proposed so far, it's our job as conservatives to showcase why one, that doesn't work, which is what we do focus on. | ||
| But two is... Let's focus on one for a minute. | ||
| Why doesn't that work? | ||
| Because I think most people, because most people don't think critically about these things, they go, okay, I believe in climate change, the meme is out there, you believe in climate change, they always look to the government. | ||
| So they go, well, I believe in climate change, what's the government doing about it? | ||
| As opposed to the alternatives that you're offering. | ||
| So first, how do you disconnect those two things? | ||
| Well, the first problem is that most people have only seen that as the only answer, so that's all they can associate with environmental progress, which is a problem in itself. | ||
| But why they haven't worked, why the big government hasn't worked on these issues and some examples of that is the Endangered Species Act, which has only taken 1% of the listings off the list Since 1982, and there have been a ton of new species added. | ||
| And the reason that is, is because private landowners don't have any rights on their land if they have an endangered species that's residing on their land. | ||
| The government can come in and take it, control it, which is really frustrating to landowners. | ||
| So what they try to do is either move it off their land, or they just shoot it and bury it so they can keep their land. | ||
| Which is, again, people just trying to avoid big government from coming in and taking their private property, because private property is one of the most Inherent rights that we have, and something that people really like to protect. | ||
| Just pause there, because what a whacked out situation that is. | ||
| So if you have some private land that has something that's on this endangered species list, you might go ahead and kill it, so that the government won't know that it's there, so that they, even if you don't want to, you might love animals, you might love nature. | ||
| Which is usually the case. | ||
| Right, I would assume most of these people, it probably is the case, you might literally be killing endangered animals just so the government won't take your land. | ||
| That's how warped this whole thing is. | ||
| Yeah, and the mantra is, shoot, bury, shut up. | ||
| That is a common thread when it comes to endangered species and kind of how private landowners look at it, which is really sad because, like you said, most of them do care about animals. | ||
| They have farms, they just have private property, and they love nature. | ||
| That's why they have a place in nature. | ||
| They don't want to shoot these animals, but they also don't want to give up their land | ||
| and have it controlled by the government until whatever date they deem fit. | ||
| And that would be really frustrating as a private landowner who worked hard | ||
| and purchased the land. | ||
| It's just not a good way to approach it. | ||
| And that is the same problem that we've had with tons of other issues, | ||
| is that when there's big government involved, there's always a loophole to get around it. | ||
| There's always a loophole to get around the punishment. | ||
| And usually that loophole hurts the environment. | ||
| is people don't respond well to punishments. | ||
| They respond well to incentives. | ||
| They respond well to doing things on their own for moral good or economic well-being. | ||
| And so I think that's where the policies need to shift. | ||
| And then another example of the big government not working is the Paris Climate Accords, right? | ||
| It would be, in theory, having every country come together to try to help the environment is a great idea, right? | ||
| That just sounds nice and peachy. | ||
| I'm with you so far. | ||
| Sounds good. | ||
| Okay. | ||
| But then when you're making the people who aren't polluting pay for it, and the people who are polluting go off scotch-free, and no countries are meeting their goals, and there's just a ton of money being thrown around that's going to no benefit, or it has no benefit on the environment. | ||
| And it's non-binding. | ||
| There was literally no mechanism to force anyone to do anything, so the U.S. | ||
| could do the bulk of the payments But we don't have any mechanism to check whether anyone's doing anything. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Right. | |
| And we're doing those things in terms of cutting emissions on our own. | ||
| It's technology, it's innovation, it's hybrid cars, which the left loves to paint, but where did it come from? | ||
| The free market. | ||
| Where did the electric cars come from? | ||
| The free market. | ||
| Where have Microsoft and Apple and all these companies who have started to cut their emissions? | ||
| They're doing it because of the market. | ||
| They're doing it not because the government is telling them to, not because the Paris Climate Accords are telling them to, but because they know it's the right thing to do, the sensible thing to do on an economic level, and even Oil and gas companies are cleaning up their acts because they know it's necessary for PR, but they also know that being more environmentally sustainable is going to be better in the long run economically. | ||
| So it's not going to be some huge accord that changes these things, especially when they're not Pressuring the right countries like China to actually act and do something about it. | ||
| It's going to be countries deciding on their own level what's going to be right and how they're going to fix it. | ||
| And if countries want to come together and create an actually cohesive plan that works and gets things done and gives some flexibility and doesn't just do nothing, then that's great. | ||
| That should be something that happens and something that President Trump should actually encourage. | ||
| A beneficial accords. | ||
| The Paris Climate Accords doesn't do that, and that's an example of the government failing. | ||
| Yeah, I like that you're linking this directly to technology, because it also, it's sort of like, you know, 20 years ago, if there was an oil spill somewhere in some remote area of Antarctica, most likely we wouldn't have heard about it, you know, unless it was just a massive one like the Exxon Valdez or something. | ||
| But like, a lot, you could get away with a lot. | ||
| But these days, literally Everyone in the Western world, at least, has a cell phone. | ||
| Workers at these places, if there's a leak, can videotape it anonymously, upload it to Twitter, and then everyone finds out. | ||
| So it's so obvious to me that technology is the answer here. | ||
| Because everyone's always afraid. | ||
| If you get rid of any of these laws, this is what I hear from the left all the time. | ||
| I even hear this from Bill Maher all the time. | ||
| If you get rid of these laws, they're gonna start polluting the lake right next to the factory. | ||
| And it's like, Actually, no. | ||
| Not anymore. | ||
| People hold people accountable. | ||
| And that's just the truth. | ||
| And something that I love to point out is that technology is the reason why emissions have started to go down. | ||
| Technology is the reason why we have so many amazing opportunities to fix the environment. | ||
| There's no big government regulation that's able to cut emissions like technology can. | ||
| And one thing that's really amazingly pointed out by one of our board members, Todd Myers, | ||
| is that think about how much the iPhone itself can do. | ||
| In conservation and climate, you are able to control your heating and energy costs from your | ||
| phone. | ||
| Turn off the energy when you don't use it, and control it completely from your phone, | ||
| instead of having to run back to your house before you go on a long vacation or whatever, | ||
| and then just saying, oh, OK, screw it. | ||
| I'll just leave on my lights or whatever it is. | ||
| That's helping the environment a ton. | ||
| And each year, more effective cars come out with, you know, more miles per the gallon, or electric and hybrid, or electric is starting to really start to take over, which is really exciting. | ||
| That's technology, that's not the government. | ||
| And technology and environmental progress go hand in hand. | ||
| And you look at oil spills, or you look at Nuclear waste or whatever. | ||
| All those have improved dramatically over the past couple decades because these companies know that that has to happen. | ||
| People will find out about it and never give them business again and basically shut down their business if more accidents start to happen. | ||
| I mean look at what BP went through. | ||
| BP is one of the best stewards on the environment out of gas companies ever since then because they know that they can't have that type of a situation again. | ||
| Yeah, they can't. | ||
| How many days was that thing leaking and there was the live camera on it? | ||
| It's terrible. | ||
| Right. | ||
| Everyone knew about it. | ||
| I mean, if you ask any American, they would know about the BP oil spill. | ||
| Where do you guys stand on nuclear? | ||
| Just a couple weeks ago, I had Mike Schellenberger in here. | ||
| I love Mike Schellenberger. | ||
| Ah, okay, cool. | ||
| So this is interesting then. | ||
| So you are a conservative with some libertarian leanings. | ||
|
unidentified
|
Yep. | |
| He's running for governor of California as a Democrat. | ||
| You know, he started as an independent, but I think just because of a little political realism, he's running as a Democrat. | ||
| Democrat, but obviously for nuclear power, and he's trying to erase some of the stigma to it, | ||
| which there's obviously a tremendous amount, you know, just Fukushima was just a couple years ago, right? | ||
| So that's interesting, so you like this guy. | ||
| Yeah, Michael Schellenberger is a perfect example of what Democrats need to aspire to be, | ||
| and that is common sense, able to work with both sides, isn't afraid to just stray away from the talking points | ||
| of the left, which are usually incorrect, especially on like nuclear. | ||
| Nuclear is supposed to be the most dangerous and harmful, when in reality it's kind of the future, | ||
| and Michael Schellenberger knows that. | ||
| So Michael Schellenberger is great, and I think that California would be much improved | ||
| by having a governor as moderate as him. | ||
| You know we're gonna get Gavin Newsom. | ||
| Right, but. | ||
| What can you do? | ||
| I may have to move to Wisconsin, I think. | ||
| Scott Walker is great, and I think he'll be there for another four years, hopefully, after this year. | ||
| But yeah, I think nuclear is an important part of an all-of-the-above energy strategy that America needs to start adopting. | ||
| And nuclear is the least amount of accidents out of any energy sector. | ||
| They're really improving a technology. | ||
| I mean, there's only been like three nuclear accidents in history. | ||
| Everyone knows about them because they're terrible, but there haven't been any since | ||
| Japan and all of them were avoidable. | ||
| None of them have happened in the United States because the United States has been careful about it and these companies are careful. | ||
| And it's almost become impossible with recent technology to have an accident like that unless you were like deliberately trying to hurt the area around you and trying to release the waste. | ||
| Is it partly because of government regulation that our nuclear plants haven't had problems? | ||
| Can you give any credit in that way? | ||
| I don't know enough about how those regulations have worked, but all I know is that regulations from the government have shut down nuclear progress, because right now they're discouraging nuclear plants from being built, and I don't think any are being built currently. | ||
| Because the United States government is trying to phase it out, when really it's clean, it's effective, it cuts emissions, and it's very powerful. | ||
| And I know that I think the vast majority of the changes have come from these companies realizing that there's no way for them to succeed if they aren't careful with their operations. | ||
| And they also know that, I mean, unless you're a terrible human being, you don't want to put nuclear waste, I mean, you don't want to to give everyone cancer and have them die. | ||
| I mean, unless you're a terrible human being. | ||
| So I think that that's also just part of the thing and new technology is making nuclear more effective | ||
| and less dangerous. | ||
| And I think it's safe to say that nuclear is almost 100% foolproof at this point in time. | ||
| But you can't always go on the best intentions of these people 'cause yes, I agree, | ||
| most people don't want people to have cancer and do all that stuff. | ||
| But business owners, just like government regulators, often do shady things. | ||
| So part of the issue here is that you can't always control the business owner, the industrialist, but you also can't always control the government. | ||
| So there isn't a perfect answer here, right? | ||
| No, there's not. | ||
| And I think that there are... It is the duty of the government to protect the people to a certain degree. | ||
| I mean, they have to ban murder, and they have to ban certain things, so that's not lawful. | ||
| And I think that certain basic protections can be put in place on nuclear to make sure that these companies are making sure that it's safe. | ||
| They shouldn't be so stringent that you can't start one up, or that you get punished for You know, X, Y, or Z, unless it's a terrible breach of knowledge. | ||
| So I think that that's something that the government can play into, but I think it's going to be more up to the technology and the business owners to have the answers to make nuclear better with a couple basic nuclear government regulations. | ||
| What kind of traction are you guys getting sort of with mainstream Republicans and with people that are in office right now? | ||
| Because these seem to be the answers that I would love these guys to take, but they've been very hesitant to take. | ||
| Yeah, so one thing before we even launched this organization, I met with a lot of congressmen and women on the Republican side, and they said that they cared about these issues, they wanted to tackle them, but the only reason they didn't was because they didn't hear from their base. | ||
| They only heard from the Sierra Club and the League of Conservation Voters. | ||
| And the fact of the matter is those people are never going to be their voters, no matter how they come out on environmental issues. | ||
| So we think that there is a latent base of support, not only at the base, but with legislators | ||
| who want to lead on these issues, but they just need some pushing. | ||
| So I think that that's something that the conservative movement | ||
| is ready for. | ||
| And there are a good handful of 20 to 25 current Republican congressmen and women who are already | ||
| leading on these issues. | ||
| It's just a matter of getting that number up and starting to have those legislators hear | ||
| from their base. | ||
| Talking about the base, the base is totally ready, especially millennials. | ||
| Like I was talking about earlier with some of the polling that's | ||
| been done, basically all young conservatives care about the environment one way or the other, | ||
| no matter if it's climate change related or not. | ||
| They're ready for clean energy. | ||
| They're ready for all the above energy. | ||
| They're ready for common sense conservation practices. | ||
| And so, we have had such success with the base that we have 37 out of 50 college Republican state chairs on board with what we're doing, with more to come in the next few months. | ||
| We are working with Countless College Republican and Turning Point USA and Young Americans for Freedom chapters across the country to spread some of these things. | ||
| We have the support of all the youth leaders on the right, Charlie Kirk, Chandler Thornton of the College Republicans, Grant Strobel of Young Americans for Freedom. | ||
| It's really been welcoming and we haven't really gotten too much flack from the right because they're so ready for something like this with common sense solutions. | ||
| It's interesting, does this feel like a little bit of a perfect storm right now for you guys with what's going on on college campuses? | ||
| I mean, you know, I had Charlie in here from Turning Point a couple weeks ago and the guy is just knocking it out of the park. | ||
| Every day what they're doing is just incredible to me, even for the things that I disagree with them on. | ||
| It's like you've really built this grassroots thing. | ||
| I was just at the Student for Liberty Conference a couple weeks ago. | ||
| I thought what they were doing is great. | ||
| I think what you're doing is great. | ||
| That suddenly it seems like there's this backlash against the hysteria of the left, and what you would say is also the hysteria, or at least in environmental terms, the backward thinking of the right, that it's kind of led to a nice moment here where, whoa, maybe there are some other answers. | ||
| Yeah, and I think college students are so sick of being painted as anti-environment, And they don't really know what the answer is. | ||
| And Conservatives haven't really provided the answer. | ||
| They just go on and go after the left, which is great. | ||
| We need to criticize the left on their environmental policies that haven't worked, but we also have to provide our own answers. | ||
| And I think you hit on something perfectly in that college students are always looking for more knowledge and to be more active in issues that they care about. | ||
| Turning Point USA has done that. | ||
| A ton of other organizations have begun to really activate young people. | ||
| And the environment is something that's been kind of left out so far, and that's why Turning Point and College Republicans are so supportive, is because they realize that that's an important part of their mission, is to garner attention and activism from people that may really care about the environment and may be a little bit hesitant to be active unless the conservatives are more active on that issue. | ||
| So, I think that it is a perfect storm, and there's no other group like us out there, there's no group advocating for conservative environmental solutions. | ||
| We're doing it, focusing on millennials, but there's nobody doing it for any age group. | ||
| And so we're happy to work with anybody, but I think that it's perfect. | ||
| And then also, conservatives are looking for a way to talk to liberals on some issues on college campuses. | ||
| College campuses are so divided that, you know, you bring in a speaker, even if they're the most moderate speaker, and there's protests, you know, up the wazoo. | ||
| There's no end to it. | ||
| Even if you bring in John Kasich, you're going to get half of your school out there protesting, saying he's a white nationalist, right? | ||
| So, even though most people would say that maybe he identifies more with the Democratic Party now. | ||
| I think he does. | ||
| Sometimes they do it when that Dave Rubin guy shows up. | ||
| It's very bizarre. | ||
| Yeah, he's crazy though. | ||
| No, that guy is crazy. | ||
| He's off the wall. | ||
| He's off the deep end. | ||
| So I understand that one. | ||
| But I think if we can have a dialogue with people on the left and showcase that we actually do care about the environment. | ||
| We're not anti-left. | ||
| On everything, we just want to work with you guys on actual common sense solutions, not what you guys are pushing, but something that maybe both sides can agree on. | ||
| What I found at my own college campus, because I go to the University of Washington in Seattle, is that I've talked to a bunch of typical people who would show up to a protest, maybe even Antifa, And they've found that, OK, this is kind of fun. | ||
| There's a conservative who cares about the environment. | ||
| That's cool. | ||
| I didn't know they existed. | ||
| And I'm like, well, they're everywhere. | ||
| Almost every conservative that you've ever talked to or protested against cares about the environment. | ||
| But we need to start having that dialogue. | ||
| And I think that slowly it can sort of start to bring together some of the divide on college Yeah, I would imagine that in a place like University of Washington, look, you got Seattle there that's obviously progressive palooza, but I would imagine there's so many people there that live suburban lives and out there in nature and all those things where they have this strange dichotomy now. | ||
| They've been told that the Republicans hate the environment. | ||
| They love the environment, but they also love freedom because they want to be on their own land and all that. | ||
| So to me, that's very fertile ground. | ||
| I would imagine that the Pacific Northwest is probably the perfect place to start using this as the incubator. | ||
| It is, and some of the conservative leaders in Washington State were pioneers for environmental progress nationally. | ||
| You've got former Governor Dan Evans, who created the Department of the Ecology, which was what the EPA was founded after, which was supposed to be a limited government but important agency that only stepped in when necessary. | ||
| It's gone far past those bounds. | ||
| But that's what he had done, and he was a conservative. | ||
| A lot of the public land has been named after him because of all his contribution to Conservation in the state. | ||
| You've got a lot of former senators and congressmen and women, even some current ones, who are leading on these issues from the Republican side, because they realize they live on this land, they're in the mountains, they're in the Cascades or the Olympics, and they really care. | ||
| And I think that it's a different state for that. | ||
| And then, if you take away Seattle, it's a very conservative state. | ||
| I mean, you can say that about a lot of states, and they're big cities. | ||
| But in Washington, a lot of those Mountainous rural areas that are constantly impacted by the environment or they live in the environment itself are conservative people who want to have leadership on this issue, but just don't really know where to find it and only know, like you said, of the big government interactions that can happen. | ||
| And you've got the Seattle mayor and the Washington governor who claim to care about the environment, but nothing ever happens. | ||
| And I think that a lot of people are sick of those things, especially in a state like Washington where the environment matters. | ||
| Yeah, so where are you at with Trump on all this? | ||
| Because, okay, we talked about Paris Climate Accords, he got us out of that, so I sense you're happy about that. | ||
| His regulation situation, I think they're cutting something, it changes all the time, but they're cutting a ton of regulation for every new one that they pass. | ||
| I think you're generally for that, but I know you're not a big Trump guy, that's probably putting it mildly, right? | ||
| Yes. | ||
| So where do you think he falls on the environmental stuff? | ||
| I think I actually haven't been as annoyed with his environmental policies as I would have thought before he was elected or even right after he was elected, which I think is a good thing. | ||
| But I think part of the problem that he falls into, which is what most conservatives fall into, is that they criticize the left, they might deregulate, they might remove some protections or whatever. | ||
| But what are they going to do as an answer? | ||
| What's going to be their solution that isn't anti-left, or that, you know, whatever the solution is that they're cutting, what are they going to replace that with? | ||
| And I think that Trump hasn't done a good enough job, just like most conservatives recently, of doing that swap of policy in terms of, if you're going to remove the protection here, how are you going to protect it on the other side? | ||
| So what is that answer that you'd like to see? | ||
| Well, I would like to see an all-of-the-above energy policy that is not focused on subsidies or tax breaks. | ||
| We need to remove those from the energy sector in general. | ||
| I was actually not a fan of Trump's tariff on solar. | ||
| While they have a ton of tax breaks, so does oil and coal, and we need to just put them all on an even level playing field, because conservatives care about the free market. | ||
| Let's have the free market compete, and if solar is the worst thing in the world, and it's just being propped up by subsidies, let's have the free market take it out. | ||
| If coal is done, let's have coal get taken out. | ||
| The free market needs to just dominate on the energy sector, and I think that the president needs to focus on that. | ||
| Would you leave a lot of that to the states? | ||
| So, for example, a place like California where the sun is shining, you know, 367 days a year, you'd be for California's doing whatever it feels is right related to solar. | ||
| Yeah, exactly. | ||
| Exactly. | ||
| I think it should be up to the states, and there are different states that need different things, right? | ||
| Like, Iowa and different states in the Midwest get a lot of wind, so, you know, wind energy makes a ton of sense. | ||
| There are states like Washington that have a lot of water and hydropower makes a lot of sense. | ||
| Arizona and Texas are two of the leading states on solar. | ||
| They're conservative states and usually solar is identified as a liberal thing, but those governors have totally implemented solar because they know it works and they know it's effective in their states. | ||
| Solar would not really work that well in Seattle, right? | ||
| So it just depends on the state and I think that unless the free market can decide that and have different states figure out what they need, it's going to be really frustrating because It's going to be really frustrating for states like Texas and Arizona and California who now are going to have to pay a premium for solar when it's been really effective there and now there's a tariff on it, an unnecessary tariff. | ||
| And then, you know, what are they going to do? | ||
| They're going to have to figure out a different way to get their energy for those areas that they're losing the solar from. | ||
| So in solar panels, it's not like the ones that are already there can just stay there. | ||
| They have like a 10-year lifespan a lot of the time. | ||
| Yeah, so a couple minutes ago you mentioned that the EPA has gone well past its mandate. | ||
| So I think that it just needs to be left up to the states and I think it also needs to be a lot of deregulation, | ||
| less subsidies, less tax breaks on the energy side. | ||
| Yeah, so a couple minutes ago you mentioned that the EPA has gone well past its mandate. | ||
| I think this is an interesting one to sort of end on because I think it's a good place to start | ||
| when you're talking to people. | ||
| 'Cause everyone, I think if you talk to the average person that wants to do good by the environment, | ||
| they automatically think the EPA is good, right? | ||
| It's just Environmental Protection Agency, it sounds good. | ||
| How could that possibly be bad? | ||
| What does that actually mean that they've gone beyond their original mandate, and why does it keep growing and growing and growing? | ||
| They're supposed to enforce the law, not create the law. | ||
| And the EPA has gone to the point where they are creating their own laws and they have been incredibly, incredibly regulatory and have not helped the environment at all. | ||
| What they're supposed to do is enforce what Congress passes and what the American people | ||
| want on environmental protection. | ||
| For example, some Republicans put together a really amazing coastal barrier resiliency | ||
| act while Reagan was president, and the EPA enforces that. | ||
| That's what the EPA is supposed to do, not create their own regulations that says, "You | ||
| can't do this, you can't do this, you can't do this." | ||
| Let that be up to the states and the local areas, and if it needs to happen on the national | ||
| level, let's have a vote on it. | ||
| And I think the EPA has become more of a punishment organization rather than a, "Let's help the | ||
| environment, get people to do the right thing, and only enforce the law." | ||
| That's really what it's supposed to be, and it's not become that at all. | ||
| That being said, they enforce the law, so those things need to stay in place. | ||
| You can't just remove that, but they have created their own really unnecessary regulatory reforms that have just not worked. | ||
| Is that just the best argument for small government in general, that we just create these things, these entities, that are well-intentioned usually, I think usually most of them are well, you know, Department of Education, sounds good, we're gonna educate people, Environmental Protection, we're gonna protect the environment, that these are usually well-intentioned, but then just because of the way the government works, because of gridlock in Washington, because of all the money poured in, they become these albatrosses that they've pretty much never were intended to be. | ||
| Yeah, I think that that kind of leads into a bigger issue as of how do we keep that from happening. | ||
| Because I think most people will agree that there needs to be some sort of government. | ||
| We're not just going to be governed by ourselves. | ||
| We need to have some sort of government. | ||
| But it needs to be held accountable. | ||
| So I don't know how often they need to look at where these agencies have been going, but obviously a lot of them have gone way past what they need to be doing. | ||
| The Department of Education is a perfect example of really actually ruining the education system in the United | ||
| States. | ||
| And EPA has gone way past what it needs to be doing. | ||
| We need to have a way to check on these areas frequently and make sure that they're sticking to what they were | ||
| created to do and not going past that and being held accountable for it. | ||
| And I'm sure that happens. It definitely happens with with every new administration, but nothing really ever | ||
| changes. | ||
| And I think that it's Trump and every president from here on out that needs to analyze, when they get into office, where these agencies are at, how we can cut down or increase if that's necessary, what they're doing. | ||
| And I think that that could be a really good answer. | ||
| But a bigger answer is to have state governments and local leaders and local governments, as well as businesses, Do their own thing on these issues to prove to the government, the federal government, that we don't need restrictions, we don't need regulations, we can do it ourselves, and we're far more effective. | ||
| And I think that that's the answer, rather than waiting on Congress to do something. | ||
| Well, that is a great closing statement, my friend, but I gotta ask you one more because it's so obvious to me you've become a master at what you care about and you're trying to do good work and that you actually are affecting people. | ||
| So what year are you running for office? | ||
| Just give me a ballpark here. | ||
| Maybe 2036. | ||
| Wow. | ||
| Usually when I've asked a few people this, they punt the question. | ||
| You did not punt. | ||
| I didn't. |
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