All Episodes
Previous Next
Plain Text
Nov. 5, 2021 - Rubin Report - Dave Rubin
07:06
Is Wokeness Pushing More Liberals to the Right? | Sohrab Ahmari | POLITICS | Rubin Report
# zohra amari wokeism virginia gubernatorial election children targeting corporate power critical race theory gender ideology human flourishing liberalism critique national conservatives new right coalition new york post secular reason trumpian populists virginia election

Sohrab Ahmari and Zohra Amari discuss the rise of a "new right" coalition uniting conservatives, nationalists, and exiled leftists to critique systemic dystopia. They argue that liberalism's rejection of moral authority creates darkness, whereas engaging reason with classical human understanding offers common ground between secularists and religious conservatives. The conversation highlights the Virginia gubernatorial election as a crucial bellwether against critical race theory targeting children, suggesting that widespread misery will eventually awaken people to seek better social arrangements rather than accepting elite-driven narratives. [Automatically generated summary]

Participants
Appearances
d
dave rubin
blaze 01:40
|

Speaker Time Text
New Coalition Emerges 00:04:38
unidentified
[MUSIC PLAYING]
dave rubin ▲ ● ▼
I'm Zohra Amari, who has left, officially, the New York Post after about a decade.
He's building his own media empire.
unidentified
How's that going, building the media empire?
I've never had to do payroll before.
I've always been an employee, now this new reality, but it's enjoyable.
It's very exciting.
dave rubin ▲ ● ▼
Yeah, so what exactly are you working on?
unidentified
Sure, so I'm doing it with two other partners.
Some of us come from the right, and some of us come from a more leftist milieu.
And we want to critique both the existing left and right, because I think they've both failed, and to maybe try to forge a new fusion.
dave rubin ▲ ● ▼
And what this conference is about is trying to piece this thing together.
So I guess in the broadest sense, do you think it's even possible to do it?
unidentified
I think a new kind of coalition has to emerge.
I've used the term the new right, and that includes traditional conservatives.
It includes nationalists and national conservatives.
It includes a kind of pure Trumpian populist as well.
And I would even add various people exiled from the left.
All of these people, you know, we're not going to agree on everything, but we share a critique.
isn't working.
There is a dystopian quality to life in the United States and across the West.
And I think it tends to work for an elite.
It increasingly doesn't work for ordinary people.
They want economic stability.
They want a measure of cultural normality, I would say.
And I think out of that, it is possible.
You can, you know, ferociously disagree about what comes next.
And out of that, engagement possible to forge a new coalition.
So the elements are there.
dave rubin ▲ ● ▼
As someone that comes from the more religious side of this, how do you say to the purely secular people,
you can fit in?
unidentified
I think it's something that you said, Dave, at your remarks here earlier,
where you said that freedom without ends, in a sense, what are we fighting for, has left us here.
An idea of the kind of liberalism that rejects any kind of moral authority,
or any account of what makes people happy.
What it means to build a society where people flourish.
If you reject that, you go down a dark place.
And ideologies like wokeism, in a way, are prepared to It has a moral account.
Now, you and I think it's a correct account, but it is a moral vision, and so it cannot be met with mere individual rights type discourse.
It has to be met with a truer account of who the human person is, and religious conservatives play a role in that.
Um, and they can play well with that, not spray drawing on revelation, but just reason alone, right?
Reason as the classical understood it has a much bigger account.
Okay, who's the human person?
How does he fit into a cosmos?
That sort of stuff, I think.
Again, without bringing the Bible into the picture, is where, you know, seculars can meet conservatives like me, religious conservatives like me.
dave rubin ▲ ● ▼
Yeah.
Are you shocked that it's happening?
It seems like it really is happening.
unidentified
I mean, the fact that you and I find common cause in all of this.
People would ask me this a few years ago when things look especially, well, things continue to look great.
But what's going to happen?
Do you have any optimism?
And the answer I would give is that the very miserableness of our current social economic arrangement, that will awaken people.
They have to ask themselves, there must be something more to our common life together.
It can't just be this.
With the particular formation that it took?
No.
I didn't know.
I couldn't predict that.
But a sense that some liberals, some leftists would break.
I thought I saw that coming.
dave rubin ▲ ● ▼
So, you live in New York.
Yeah.
I live, at least for now, in California.
unidentified
We are here in the free state of Florida.
dave rubin ▲ ● ▼
Do you sense that, regardless of whether we can put this coalition together or not, that the states are just going to keep drifting apart?
Defending National Power 00:02:42
dave rubin ▲ ● ▼
Which, in many ways, is sort of how it's supposed to be.
That's sort of what the founders wanted, in some sense.
unidentified
See, I don't like that.
I don't like any kind of pseudo-secessionist thoughts, I think.
dave rubin ▲ ● ▼
I didn't say I like it.
unidentified
No, I know.
It just sort of is what it is.
Well, we have to aim...
For national power.
They're not going to leave us alone in states where, for example, the regime is more sane.
They can muscle through what their will, both at the federal level, but also because often their power is corporate power.
It's private power.
And so as long as they have that, we don't have a countervailing power.
So I just say, you know, it's not going to last.
Either they're going to take over the whole or we're going to take over the whole.
Right.
dave rubin ▲ ● ▼
What do you make of this Virginia situation tomorrow?
I see this as a huge bellwether moment.
Like, it's crazy that I have to care about a Virginia gubernatorial election.
It shouldn't be that way.
But for the purposes you're talking about, it's sort of all or nothing in a weird way.
I think this is huge, huge.
It's like, if we can get a win here, it signals to people we're going to really push back against critical race theory.
We're going to start caring about, you know, parents are allowed to care about their kids again.
And if we don't win, it's just more ash on the heap right now.
unidentified
I think it's a very crucial race because it will confirm this theory or not, which is that liberals in their aggression went...
Pick one too many battles and pick the battle where it's things are very very sensitive and that is people's children.
dave rubin ▲ ● ▼
Yeah.
unidentified
Even people who don't think like me don't like the thought of their kids being targeted for gender ideology and transitioning without them having a say in it or being told that because of the color of their skin they're inherently either a victim or a permanent oppressor class.
People don't like that and I think it is a good bet to think You know, this is where the fight back begins.
And it's so appropriate because family, children are the fundamental unit of political community.
And so in defending it, you're defending the whole as it were.
So do you want to make an official prediction?
No, I'm not.
I don't follow polls.
I have no idea.
dave rubin ▲ ● ▼
All right.
Well, I think we should leave it there because we're going to pick this up tonight for a good half hour or so.
unidentified
Previewed our discussion.
dave rubin ▲ ● ▼
If you're looking for more honest and thoughtful conversations about politics instead of nonstop yelling, check out our politics playlist.
And if you want to watch full interviews on a variety of topics, watch our full episode playlist all right over here.
Export Selection