Weirdness and Cultural Politics

In this thought-provoking video, Malcolm and Simone Collins explore the recent shift in political dynamics where conservatives are now being labeled as "weird" by their progressive opponents. They delve into the cultural implications of this change, discussing how the traditionally "cool" progressive movement has become the new establishment, while conservatives have embraced their outsider status. The video covers topics such as the evolution of political rhetoric, the impact of Trump and JD Vance on conservative identity, and the changing perceptions of what it means to be "weird" in modern American politics.

Key points discussed:

* The Democratic campaign's strategy of labeling conservatives as "weird"

* Trump and JD Vance's outsider appeal and its impact on conservative identity

* The shift in cultural dominance from conservatives to progressives

* The value of being "weird" and challenging societal norms

* Analysis of specific political incidents and their cultural implications

* The role of authenticity and relatability in modern politics

* The future of conservative and progressive political strategies

Whether you're interested in political analysis, cultural shifts, or the evolving nature of American conservatism, this video offers a fresh perspective on the current political landscape.

Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] What defines weirdness is a person's willingness to challenge the dominant cultural mores of a society with an alternate framework.

Democrats and the Harris campaign now deploying a new adjective to blast the Republican ticket. Some of what he and his running mate are saying, well, it's just plain weird. Get those nerds! I mean, on the other side, they're just weird. Nerds! It's not just a, a, a, a weird style that he brings. Nerds! Nerds!

Nerds! Nerds! Where are they? I think they're talking about us. No way. Oh no! Ah! Ah! Ah! Hello Simone! I am so excited to be here with you today. Today we are going to be talking about A wild shift that has happened in part because of the political realignment, the ongoing political realignment in this country.

But it also reminds me a lot of bemoaning I've seen from normal [00:01:00] conservatives or they're like of the, of the old GOP ink dates. They're like, I'm not weird, but Harris has been, uh, in her campaign and the democratic establishment and a lot of democratic power players have been putting this idea out there that JD Vance is weird.

And Trump is weird and I kind of love it because me, they come off like, you know, because they are the culturally dominant force in our society right now. And when weirdness is defined by cultural distance from the culturally dominant force. Yes, definitionally, they are weird, but it's shown that as soon as they became the culturally dominant force in our society, they immediately became the bullets.

You know, they became like the people shouting nerd in like the Revenge of the Nerds movie. I just wanted to say that I'm a nerd. I mean, uh, all our lives, we've been laughed at and made to feel [00:02:00] inferior. President Obama started mocking Trump mercilessly. He can finally get back to focusing. On the issues that matter.

Like, did we fake the moon landing? Obama didn't hide his utter disdain. Obviously, we all know about your credentials and breadth of experience. Um, for example, uh, No, seriously, just recently, in an episode of Celebrity Apprentice, You, Mr. Trump, recognized that the real problem was a lack of leadership. You fired Gary Busek.

And these are the kind of decisions that would keep me up at night. The insults didn't stop with the president. Listen to comedian Seth Meyers, the evening's guest host. Donald Trump has been saying that he will run for president as a Republican, which is surprising since I just assumed he was running as a joke.

And tonight, [00:03:00] those b******s, they trashed our franchises. Why? Why? Because we're smart. Because we look different. I'm a nerd. And I'm pretty proud of it. There's a lot more of us than are of you. You might have been called a spaz. Or a dork. Or a geek. Any of you that have ever felt stepped on, left out, picked on, put down, left Why don't you just come down here and join us, okay?

Okay. Come on. Come on.

You know, coach, I think I'm gonna let these boys live over at the house while you and your boys rebuild theirs. And where [00:04:00] the hell are we gonna live? Yeah. What about us? Huh? You're out of touch billionaires who live in your mansions. Nerd! Nerd! Nerd!

I cannot believe it's happening. I, I heard recently that, , rumors have been spread that J. D. Vance wears eyeliner, , journal Like, even photographers have been like, yeah, I just took a picture of him. Confirmed. No, you can see photos of him as a child. He's one of those people that just has really thick eyelashes.

, and, and also there was this, , rumor that there was a detailed account in his book, the ability elegy of him

Simone Collins: Getting sexually intimate with a couch which is not there. And that these things are just coming out like that. We have to attack him in this way. It's so odd to me as well, because. Aren't there plenty of policy attacks, you know, policy based attacks that we can make, you know, aren't there?

Well, no, [00:05:00] there's

Malcolm Collins: all vibe with progressives. They're like unthinking masses. They're like vibe, vibe, vibe. But yeah, it's, it's,

Simone Collins: it's Kamala's Brad Summer. It's, they're weird. It's, there's no substance to it. And I don't, but also I kind of get it because here's what has me concerned is it's that same sentiment, Ascetic wave that I think got Trump elected in 2016.

It wasn't policy stances. It wasn't concrete elements of his character. It was the feeling. It was this groundswell of a mood. But here's the thing,

Malcolm Collins: actually, Trump and J. D. Vance have tried to push back against the weird accusations. I don't think they should. You think they should lean in? Weird is how you get things done.

Only a weirdo can really change things because they're the only ones willing to think outside the box. This is the thing about nerds and it's an accurate attack to be honest. Daddy [00:06:00] Vance is a nerd. Like he's a classic nerd growing up. It's clear from his diary that in, yeah, he grew up a hillbilly, but he was a nerd among the hillbillies.

You look at Trump. I guess he

Simone Collins: apparently didn't know what tentacle porn was. Which,

Malcolm Collins: come on, Vance. Yeah, he's pretending. Was Trump, was Trump ever no, to pretend you don't know must mean you have it on your computer. Because that is like a cultural millstone there, man. But, but with Trump, you look at this guy, this is a guy.

Who until the MAGA movement was never really accepted by elite New York culture, which is what he always strived for. He always

Simone Collins: He was the outcast. Totally. He was the bullied kid who really wanted

Malcolm Collins: to be a part of the fun. And he spent his entire life being bullied by these people. You saw this when he first won.

You saw the president of the United States when he was roasting people. And I'll put the clip here from the press dinner, literally go up there and And roast a sovereign [00:07:00] citizen, right? Roast Trump. If any people are like, they have this meme where it's like, that's when he decides he's going to run.

Like that was the birth of the Trump movement with him being roasted and being like, I'll show you, I'll show you all.

Donald Trump is here tonight. Just recently, in an episode of Celebrity Apprentice, the men's cooking team, , Did not impress the judges and there was a lot of blame to go around, but you, Mr. Trump, recognized that the real problem was a lack of leadership. And so,

you fired Gary Busey.

Say what you will about it. Not funny. Bigly not funny. Oh, I'll get you a birth certificate, Obama. We'll see who's laughing then. I'm not a loser. It's okay, Trump. They probably already forgot about the jokes. [00:08:00] Let's just see what's on the teletype. Donald Trump, humiliated by the leader of the free world tonight at the White House correspondent's dinner. Yes, Wolf, it was very clear who was the President of the United States and who was the buffoon.

AHHHHHHHHHH! NGYAHHH! Welcome 7 coverage of the utter humiliation of Donald Trump. Say what you will about, uh, Mr. Trump, he certainly would bring some change to the White House. Let's see what we've got up there. We will again.

Malcolm Collins: But that, that is who he was. He was this nerd who, who took over for the rest of us. Right. And I think that so many people feel that it with the urban monoculture, the [00:09:00] force of wokeness that the progressives represent being the dominant force in our society.

So many of us now know that feeling of being kicked out of a club because you're not Progressive enough being losing a job because you're not progressive enough being pushed around in college because you're not progressive enough. Having people play little tricks on you because you're not progressive enough.

We all know this feeling, and in whatever way, you're not progressive enough because progressivism is a monolith, you know, we were just well, it, it,

Simone Collins: it is what is normative. It used to be that. Being a little bit more conservative leaning, you know, being a jock or a cheerleader meant being normative and mainstream but now to be normative and mainstream is to be progressive So well, you are not you're going to be weird You're going to be the nerd and you're going to be bullied

Malcolm Collins: but back when the conservatives ran the country That was when you had You know, an evangelical Protestant majority that could be the dominant culture in this country, which you just [00:10:00] don't have anymore.

The conservative culture now is too diverse, right? So the progressivism is not diverse. We're just talking with Razim Zuma. We had an interview with him right before this. And what we were saying was if you get like two ultra conservatives of the same denomination, They will usually have more theological differences between each other than an extremist progressive, you know, Protestant minister versus a extremist progressive Muslim minister.

They really are just one culture that is using their cultural dominance to bully everyone else. And I think that many people who originally were drawn to the conservative movement back when the conservative movement represented the culturally dominant force, were not drawn. For theological or ideological reasons, they were drawn because it was the powerful group in society the way they saw it.

It was the cheerleaders. It was the jobs. And now that it's not, they're experiencing serious cognitive dissonance. And I've seen this when I've talked to the number of them. They're like, well, [00:11:00] Yeah, but I'm not weird. Like conservatives aren't weird. The Sweden was like, you were ruining it. I was like, you're fricking candidate is Trump and Vance.

Simone Collins: Come on. This is, this is even something that we found as early as a year ago, if not earlier, that when media coverage would talk about our pronatalism, people on Twitter would call us freaks. Which just, and they would, they would use words like, you know, that freaks is something that I think an eighties jock villain would say to a protagonist.

Do you really want to be partners with that freak?

Simone Collins: And one of the

Malcolm Collins: freaks,

Simone Collins: you know what I mean? It's so weird. Why would you say that to someone when it? Just seems so stereotypically.

Malcolm Collins: Well, it's the way that the dominant culture often reacts to anyone who is challenging it.

Simone Collins: Yeah. But why would, like, would you ever call someone a freak? Wouldn't that make you feel like you were the bad guy?[00:12:00]

Malcolm Collins: Well, no, because I grew up and this is also, I think, a different thing. Like, like these people who are now drawn to progressivism because they have power in previous. Oh, they would have

Simone Collins: been the evangelical Christians in their time, if that was They wouldn't

Malcolm Collins: be. They absolutely wouldn't be. They're just doing it because it gives them power and the power to, they're like, I have a lived a life according to what society has told me to do.

And now they're like, and you are doing something different and seem happy. I must shame that. Like that's how the culture works, right? It maintains internal consistently, consistency by reacting reactively to anybody who you know, There seems to be successful with an alternate cultural model. I mean, that's why they had to do this hit piece on like ballerina farms, for example.

And then it came out that the reporter because it turned out and we did an episode on this, but we didn't mention in the episode of the turned out that she had released. Recordings of the in person interviews and she like directly [00:13:00] lied in the article to try to make them look bad And she had released these on previous podcasts when she was talking about writing the article and it's like, oh But another thing I'd note is when people are like conservatives are not nerds I'm like, okay, so not just like the main top conservatives again.

We were just talking with We're we're green zoomer And look at this guy. He's got like a bowtie, a button down shirt. This has been conservatives for a long time. They have been the nerds for a long time, like at least a decade and a half at this point. And I love the dissonance I see. When I went on Blaze TV, I was doing this interview as like John Popobopolis or something, anyway.

So he was like, yeah, but aren't you tired? of being the rebels. Like, aren't you tired of being the resistance? And I'm like, tired of being the resistance? What? That's awesome! That's like, the best [00:14:00] life! And I realize it might be that, like, I'm genetically coded differently. You know, I'm like, a descendant of the original.

American patriots, because what does patriot mean? A lot of people think patriot means like, you love your country. No, patriot was a term that meant like, terrorist, originally. You were the resistance against the evil tyranny. You were the rebels, being on a righteous rebel team. What is better than that?

No retreat! Hold the line! [00:15:00]

Malcolm Collins: Like, I can't imagine anything from like, my cultural framing's perspective that would be A more enjoyable or fulfilling life than this. Like I love this generation of conservatism. And I think that a lot of these people, because like the guy who was interviewing me, he got into conservatism when they were the dominant faction.

And I, and I realized. he just wanted to be in the dominant faction.

Simone Collins: He

Malcolm Collins: didn't believe all of this. He didn't, you know, he, he doesn't, or maybe it's that he doesn't like fighting for justice for the sake of fighting for justice. Like maybe that doesn't fill him with a righteous passion every morning, like when I wake up every morning, I'm like, I am on the good guy side and we are on the back nines, but we are gonna win this thing by golly.

And, and that inspires me. And I realized that for [00:16:00] a portion of people that does it, they want to be the ones who control everything and can bully other people.

Simone Collins: What would be your answer to someone who was on the normative side who counters that with, well, what makes you think that just being weird is better?

Why, why would being normative being, be bad? And why do you think it's inherently good to be the one who resists the mainstream? The mainstream might be mainstream for a reason because it's correct.

Malcolm Collins: So there's two things here. There is the mainstream versus tradition. And then there is why is weird always good?

And it is always good. Always good. No, no, no. Actually, I should say weird is also always bad. There are different ways you can be weird. What defines weirdness is a person's willingness to challenge the dominant cultural mores of a society with an alternate framework. Now that alternate framework can be dumb, but we know that we [00:17:00] are not at a moral nexus of history.

Okay, humanity. Find ways to improve over time. If you even look at any of the mainstream Christian theologies, it has improved over time or it's degraded over time, in which case you need to go back to the original church, which looks nothing like any of the existing churches. Like, if you're like, well.

You know, Christian theology has degraded over time and Catholicism is the right choice. And it's like, well, then you need to go back to the, what the original Catholics believed, which is that life doesn't begin at conception. And they're like, Oh, I don't want to do that. And then it's like, well, then you think it's improved over time because that's a fairly new Catholic belief.

Like 200 years ago, it was a Pope Pius IX. You know, so, so we all believe that things are, you know, to some extent, improve over time. And, and that being the case, knowing that we're not at the moral nexus in history, we are challenged to look for where even within conservative cultural frameworks or more right cultural frameworks, where are they getting things wrong that we can push things forward.

I mean, fundamentally, that's what [00:18:00] based is. Based is weird. People, like, think based means conservative. Based doesn't mean conservative. Based means saying what you believe is true, even when you will be shamed by it. Yeah, I always

Simone Collins: thought of based as being unapologetically authentic.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah and, and so a lot of people are like, Well, that doesn't align with a conservative mindset.

Therefore, you're not being based. And it's like, no. We're just saying what we believe is true from the evidence, from what we read, from the Bible, and that's may go against what the mainstream conservative influencers say, or what was mainstream and conservative culture in the 1950s, but that doesn't mean that it goes against any sort of absolute truth.

So I wanted to make that point, but what was the other one I was really excited to make here? Oh yes, I mentioned traditionalism. Versus uh, uh, normative. Okay? So I love it when people are like, Why would this tradition have value? Why would you put any weight on traditionalism? Right? And it's like, that is the, the collective wisdom [00:19:00] of thousands of generations of humanity.

Right? That's not like your parents opinions, man. That is an idea that has been, honed and improved and worked on over and over and over and over again, generation to generation to generation. And then it finally got you to where we are today. It's, it's not like just an old person's out of touch idea about reality.

But what is culturally normative when, what is culturally normative isn't traditionalism. It's uniquely stupid.

Simone Collins: Okay,

Malcolm Collins: so we need to say that traditionalism definitely has more value than what's culturally normative But the process that brings us traditionalism Is also one of iterative generational improvement the traditions we have aren't in stone They changed and evolved over time to become better.

That is the way we are meant to be To relate to traditions, we take the traditions that are handed to us with [00:20:00] care and we work to improve them for a new era, for new context. And so I think that that's also the thing to, to, to differentiate there is traditionalism versus culturally normative, non traditional values.

Simone Collins: Yeah. I also think of the Winston Churchill quote about someone being angry at you, meaning that you actually stood up for something. And that's something that I think is running hand in hand with the concept of being weird. That you won't, if everyone agrees with you, or if you were not controversial in any way, if people aren't mad at you, you aren't fighting for anything substantive and you're not making a difference and something that we discussed early in our careers was.

Where we could actually make a difference in life. And if you are this was in the context of whether you should work with Google or not. And my argument to you was that in Google, if you do not take your position where you would make the most [00:21:00] optimal decision for whatever department you were put in.

Someone else with equal intelligence and credentials to you, roughly speaking would make the same optimal decisions. There, there would be no difference in the world depending on who was in that role, because it was going to be a role in which whoever was there was going to make roughly the same optimal decision.

And what really mattered was where we. Would have an impact. We would be a Delta and you're not going to in society make that impact. If, if you're just doing what everyone thinks is the inevitable course of society, when running correctly,

Malcolm Collins: you

Simone Collins: know,

Malcolm Collins: absolutely agree with you. And, and to add more color to the anecdote, she's talking about here.

There was a time in my life rated jaw. Choice between joining a venture capital firm in Korea, which was like a really risky move for me, or taking on a management position at Google. And she was like, differentially, you will have more impact on reality. If you take the job in Korea, therefore it's the obvious choice.

[00:22:00] Speaking of, you know, we also look for opportunities to help people in these sorts of spaces. So that said if anyone here is looking to buy server space for AI stuff we are looking to find somebody interested in that right now for a side project that I've taken on because I think it could change the course of AI development.

And of course now that's an inflection point in human history, so that's why I'm, I'm focused on it.

Simone Collins: Now, by the way, the, the Churchill quote is, you have enemies, good. That means you've stood up for something sometime in your life. And I love that.

Malcolm Collins: Yeah, no, people are like, how do you feel about people online making fun of you?

And it's like, well, you see, here is the thing. I've met the average human. If the average human disapproves of me, I'm probably doing something right. Uh, The average human. Um, My God uh, but yeah, it's, it's, it's absolutely wild now to you, Simone, how did you grow up thinking about this term weird? Would you [00:23:00] have thought about the term weird as like an intrinsically negative term growing up?

Or would you have taken it as a compliment?

Simone Collins: I would have taken it as a compliment, which is another reason why I find this campaign tactics so perplexing. It. I thought that everyone, when asked who they were in high school, the default, as a joke, as a trope, answer was, I was the weird one. I floated between crowds.

You know, I didn't affiliate with really anyone. And I thought that everyone saw themselves as weird and considered themselves weird. And the fact that they're attacking someone as weird, I thought, you know, Well, they're only going to alienate themselves from everyone who identifies as weird.

Apparently I was incorrect in this being a pervasive trope. Am I missing something here? Or was that actually a thing? No, I thought it was a thing too. I always thought weird was

Malcolm Collins: a good thing, right? Like,

Simone Collins: or at least it was how people personally identified. So if you saw other people accusing [00:24:00] someone of being weird, it's that same effect that I said about, that if you saw someone being, someone calling someone else weirdo or freak, they would think the name caller was the bad guy, not the name called.

Malcolm Collins: Well, and I think that this, this sort of shows that the progressive party has become a party of people desperate to fit in. Desperate to not be criticized. But if you were

Simone Collins: desperate to fit in, you'd be like, well, we're all weirdos here and like, we're inclusive.

Malcolm Collins: I thought that was the thing. I thought that was, They got cultural control of society?

No, now the weirdos are the bad guys. There are the cool kids. And I'd also like to point out here that some people be like, how can you be saying this? Trump's the bully, not Kamala. Look at the way he acted in like his early debates where he would make fun of people. And I was like, Okay, come on, bro. In Trump's early debates, when he was debating against, like, the other conservatives to win the ticket, he was, hands down, seen as the underdog.

He was a giant political institution that was [00:25:00] constantly making fun of him, saying his political campaign was a joke. Nobody took

Simone Collins: him seriously. Nobody

Malcolm Collins: took him seriously. And Constantly, constantly clowned on him. He was the guy going up. He's the little nerdy kid who you saw getting bullied and then, like, turns out to know karate or something.

No, no.

Simone Collins: Here's the problem is you haven't seen it, but in 16 Candles, he's the blonde nerd. And it, it, for those who haven't seen the movie, including you, Malcolm, in, in the movie, there is this character who's kind of like the bully of the nerds who comes up to them and is like, I'm gonna I'm going to have sex with this girl.

You know, I'm going to like get her panties. And then he does get her panties, but he doesn't actually have sex with her. He just convinces her to loan her panties to him. So he can tell his friends that he had sex with her. Yeah. But like, that's Trump. Trump is like, just, I want to, like, I want to be cool. I want people to see that I'm cool.

And he, he may come across as a bully sometimes, I think mostly because he's. Fronting. He wants people to see way. No, no, no. It's not because

Malcolm Collins: he does. Unless you are completely brainwashed, [00:26:00] Trump never looked like a bully to you. If you are brainwashed, then you're like, anyone who fights the urban monoculture automatically bad.

But Trump, well come on the

Simone Collins: name calling. The, the, you know, he, he does,

Malcolm Collins: yeah. He was clearly in a position of non-power. He had a, a giant political apparatus that was against him on both sides. He had an entire press that was against him. Come on Malcolm.

Simone Collins: He wants to be seen. As a powerful boy,

Malcolm Collins: regardless, most nerds want to be seen as powerful.

There's the famous line at the end of revenge of the nerds, where the one character goes, well, I'm a nerd, which is something I just learned today. You know, you, you don't like, you don't get the nerd card. Okay. Simone, but when he was making fun of whether it was the press or it was his political opponents, these were people with power over him.

that had been acting in bad faith against him. And it was exactly to everyone who was watching this with any level of cultural sanity, [00:27:00] the nerd in the high school that you, you, you know, a hallway who then gets stopped by a group of like three beefy bullies who are picking on him, like he ends up just verbally owning them.

And then like, he's like, yeah, but you know, your mom doesn't love you and it's getting a divorce and they like run off crying or something. People can be like, Whoa, that was a low blow. The truth is, is everybody who saw what went down is like, thank God that little squirrely guy stood up for himself. And every, every other little squirrely guy out there, that is what he represented in those moments.

And you can be like, well, that's bull He reacted to their bullying. Like you look at the, oh, what about the reporter who had that disability? But it's like, yeah, but did you read the piece that he wrote about Trump? Did you like, are you just pretending that he did nothing to, that he didn't have power over Trump, that he's supposed to be able to like write whatever he wants, do whatever he wants without Trump overstepping in the same [00:28:00] way that he overstepped in his position of power in society.

And I think that this is the thing. It's very much like a, how can he slap moment. Progressives are so used. To making fun of and clowning on and telling white lies from their perspective about their opponents

Go on, b***h, say something funny. Uh oh. He's getting mad. Jack, let's just get out of here, okay? Yeah, puss. Run away. Go ahead, b***h. Say something funny. Make me laugh. Here,

Malcolm Collins: And then when their opponents fight back, they're like, oh my god You can't do that. You're a lower cast member than me in our society My cast is allowed to goon on your cast, but you're not allowed to do anything to us, of course and [00:29:00] I think that you're you're playing into their character Well, basically lie that Trump was acting with any level of cultural authority in those moments.

Once Trump was actually president, once he actually had power, he did fairly little actually picking on people. And this is something Yeah, lock her

Simone Collins: up kind of stopped

Malcolm Collins: and And he didn't Look, the progressives literally tried to lock him up. He didn't when he got power. All of that stuff for him was because and allowed, like, by his set of morals, allowed because he was in a position of less power.

Not, not, it wasn't stuff that he did when he became president, and he did it even less than previous Republican presidents, like back when the Republican ethos was like the dominant ethos, and you look at like the George Bush era, it was like well known that he would constantly make fun of his, like, staffers, like, Right, but I'll put the clip here from, um, 30 rock where he gets the nickname [00:30:00] burger.

Like five seconds after meeting Bush

Because that was the type of guy he was. He was from a dominant culture and he was used to being a Using it to sort of signal his power over other people. But Trump didn't do that. And he also didn't really front, you know, look at him always getting his like McDonald's and everything like that.

You know, he had weird cultural things, but they weren't high class cultural things. Like is a gold toilet, high class or trashy, right? A gold toilet and McDonald's burgers is the trashiest thing I can imagine. It's just rich, trashy, you know, he wasn't actually culturally fronting. He was being him. is nerdy.

But I mean, do you have other thoughts on this or?

Simone Collins: No, I think that that's accurate. And I still can't get over it. I can't get over that. We've gotten to the point where the. The party that used to be about letting your freak flag fly has become the party that literally accuses its opponents of [00:31:00] being weird.

Malcolm Collins: But even think about the things that they're accusing them of. JD Vance wears eyeliner. Yeah.

Simone Collins: I thought eyeliner belonged to the left. They should be like, stop appropriating our eyeliner, JD Vance.

Malcolm Collins: No, but they're like, he's the weird kid. Let's pick on him.

Simone Collins: Yeah. And, and also, you know, Sex with a couch? I thought we were sex positive.

This is horrible.

Malcolm Collins: Is that not like a classic weirdo kid who then ends up making a billion dollar thing to do? Yeah, but also he didn't do it. No, he didn't do it, but what I'm saying is even the fictions that they're creating around him are power fantasies around bullying someone. To create a fiction like this.

No,

Simone Collins: it's so classic. It's like the, it's like something that mean girls would make up in a high school. That like, oh so and so had sex with a couch. That, that's, it's what like, Shelby, the, the mean cheerleader who hates Cheryl. I, I'm [00:32:00] bad at names. But yeah. It's, it's, it's juvenile. An invention. I mean, it's funny.

I'm sure someone came up with it that, you know, they were very clever to do so, but.

Malcolm Collins: Oh my God. I need to take it aside here to talk about like how much Dems don't get it. Wait, what? The, the video from Kennedy that unfortunately is probably going to hurt Trump because it connects with like base people so much is he has this video and I'll see if I put it here about running into a, a bear okay.

So bear roadkill. Progressive bear roadkill story. Like, like make fun of him. They're like, what a weirdo to like. Put a bear in Central Park and then I'll play the video here or at least the highlights from it.

And that woman in a van in front of me hit a bear and killed it. A young bear. So I pulled over and I picked up the bear and put him in the back of my van because I was going to skin the bear.

[00:33:00] And it was very good condition and I was going to put the meat in my refrigerator. And you can do that in New York City. You can get a bear tag for a roadkill bear.

So we stayed late and instead of going back to my home in Westchester, I had to go right to the city because there was a dinner at Peter Lugar's Steakhouse. And at the end of the dinner, it went late, and I realized I couldn't go home, I had to go to the airport. And the bear was in my car, and I didn't want to leave the bear in the car.

Um, because that would have been bad. So then I thought, you know, at that time, This was the, a little bit of the redneck in me. There'd been a series of bicycle accidents in New York. They had just put in the bike lanes and saw people, a couple of people got killed. And it was every day and people had gotten badly injured.

Every day it was in the press. And so I thought, [00:34:00] I wasn't drinking, of course, but people were drinking with me who thought this was a good idea. And I said, I had an old bike in my car that somebody had asked me to get rid of. I said, let's go put the bear in Central Park and we'll make it look like he got hit by a bike.

It'll be fun, funny for people. So, everybody thought, that's a great idea. So we went and did that and we thought it would be amusing for whoever found it or something. That's it. The next day, it was like, it was on every television station, it was the front page of every paper, and I turned on the TV, and there was like a mile of yellow tape, and there were twenty cop cars, there were helicopters flying over it, and I was like, oh my god, what did I do?

And, uh, and then, they were, there were some people on TV in Tyvek suits with gloves on, lifting up the bike, and they were saying they were going to take this guy home. It was up to Albany to get [00:35:00] a fingerprinted problem and, uh, I was worried because my prints were all over that bike.

Luckily, um, the, uh, the story died down after a while and, uh, And it stayed dead for a decade and then, um, the New Yorker somehow found out about it and they just, they're going to do a big article on me and that's one of the articles. So they asked me, the fact checker, to say, you know, it's going to be a bad story.

Malcolm Collins: And then you watch this video and if you're like a patriotic American, you're coming away from this like, this guy is f ing amazing.

Like, A, he's the type of guy who like sees bear roadkill and his first thought is, I bet I could skin that. Yeah, skin it and

Simone Collins: freeze the meat. This is an opportunity. You know, and also that he knew the roadkill laws. [00:36:00] Yeah, well, it's legal in New York, so it should

Malcolm Collins: be fine to break him away from this Kennedy stereotype of like being out of touch and you're like, Oh no, this guy Fs.

I know,

Simone Collins: but look, here's what I want. I want your take on, and maybe base campers want to know this too. So who is Kennedy going to draw votes from? Is he going to draw votes from Trump or from, from Kamala Harris?

Malcolm Collins: With stuff like this? I mean, this is the most authentic thing I've ever seen. Then that he, he gets, he gets to New York and he's like, Oh gosh, I got to go to an airport.

I can't leave the bear in my car. What do I do with it? Oh, I know what I'll do. I'll put it in a bike lane and then take an old bike and, and put it next to it. Like somebody crashed into the bear to try to clown on bikers and it's like, here's the thing. Everybody hates bikers. Pedestrians hate bikers.

Cars hate bikers. The only people who don't like bikers are obsessive bikers. That guy No man, other

Simone Collins: bicyclists hate bikers. The only time I've ever been hit by a bike is when I was on a bike.

Malcolm Collins: Oh, I'm gonna post a video of the [00:37:00] IT crowd, biker boss guy, but like, I had a guy like this, a biker at my office, who would come in and like, his whole outfit, yeah, just, you know, he's a biker, there's like biker

Simone Collins: cleats.

Yeah, yeah.

Malcolm Collins: So I, I see this and I'm like, oh my God, that is one. I love that you are like. You know, non pretentious and backwoods enough to see roadkill and immediately think, skin it. And then in bit two, you're cool enough to clown on bikers. Like, come on, that's fun, man. Well, then isn't

Simone Collins: Trump screwed then?

If Kennedy's going to draw votes from him?

Malcolm Collins: Nobody really cares. I mean, look, Kennedy is, is not going to matter that much in this election. But I, I will say that I gained a lot more respect for him after seeing this. And this is such a good example of media baiting where the progressives think that some fact that they are delivering to you is going to make you hate a person.

And then a normal American watches it. And they're like, that guy is so cool. Well, he also,

Simone Collins: he handled this. In the perfect way possible. [00:38:00] Basically, he hoped that this story would stay dead for what? 30 years. Yeah. And he had the New Yorker call him to fact check it realized, Oh s**t, this is finally coming out.

I thought this would never come out and then decided to release a video about it. And he released the video in the best possible way. It wasn't him facing a camera saying, this is what happened. I'm sorry. It was him sitting at a table talking to like in a room, there's at least two other people that are clearly more, but mostly like a woman who's kind of leaning against a coffee table.

And at first the woman looks kind of just kind of bored and disinterested, or maybe a little bit. Mad at him. And then everyone just starts cracking up as his story plays out. And as you're watching this woman, you're with her, you're having this journey with her as you're hearing this story and you're cracking up with her.

And it was, it was perfectly done. I don't know how intentional all of it was, but he had a [00:39:00] masterful approach to this.

Malcolm Collins: I love this. Before we sign out, what is the one, another thing that they've been attacking JD Vance for being weird for it? I want to hear your response to this. The weird cat lady, Oh, the childless cat

Simone Collins: lady 2021 comment on Twitter that he will now there's an op ed in the New York Times.

There's an op ed in the New Yorker. I mean, everyone has an opinion about him calling people. Out for being childless cat ladies.

Malcolm Collins: We used to know that old maid was a bad thing, that being a cat lady was a bad thing. But now the progressives are like a party of cat ladies and they're like, how dare he?

They call her the Cat Lady. People say she's crazy just because she has a few dozen cats. AHHH! NAH! AHH! TEEHEEHEEEHEEEHEEHEE!

Malcolm Collins: Well, I love

Simone Collins: his response. And one of his responses in a TV interview recently was I have nothing against cats, which is not a big response. That's a great non apology.

Malcolm Collins: They're like, [00:40:00] I'm not a cat lady, I just have one cat

 She'll become a crazy cat lady. She only has one cat. Give her time.

Malcolm Collins: goes, no, it's, it's, we've gotta shame this stuff. And there was actually a progressive outlet that, I think it was in New York Times you were saying that said actually he's right to be shaming.

Simone Collins: The New York Times Op Ed that I read was not, it was, it was shaming him for saying that. Because, for example, he pointed out that many people who are childless are not childless by choice.

That he'd criticized, for example, Pete Buttigieg about, being childless and being one of the many childless lawmakers that's dictating the lives of American families when at that time, he didn't know this, of course, no one knew this, but Pete Buttigieg and his husband had just faced a major setback in their adoption journey, which is heartbreaking, right?

So the point that this Progressive New York Times op ed contributor was making, was that it's not really fair to criticize childless people and to shame them because you never know what's going on with them and it's actually quite sad that growing numbers of people under [00:41:00] 50 are reporting that they're not, they don't expect to ever have kids because many of those people want kids.

So, you know, he, he still shamed him and I, I, I'm with, you and I are clear on our stance that pernatalism should not be about shaming people, but you know anything that people say on twitter You

Malcolm Collins: are clear on that. I am clear on that, yes. My sympathy should involve a component of shame. I know. You

Simone Collins: never wanted to be child free.

I did. And I understand that lifestyle, and I respect it, and I think it's totally fine, and people who want to be child free should be child free. They just shouldn't

Malcolm Collins: have positions of power in society. Listen, P. G. Keenan's

Simone Collins: on No, no, no. P. G. Keenan is on board with me. P. G. Keenan has argued. The best possible thing is that people who want to be child free are going to be child free.

Let them be child free. Okay. I

Malcolm Collins: guess you're right. We don't want to, yeah, we don't want to pressure somebody. You're right. Because then they're having kids for social status and that sort

Simone Collins: of thing. There's nothing worse than someone bringing in an unwanted child that's not going to be given the best possible child and the best possible shot at life.

Anyway. The, the, the larger point is that when something is posted on Twitter, Like, Twitter is for trolling, [00:42:00] okay? I don't, any shaming that takes place on Twitter doesn't count as shaming because it is Twitter. It is where you trash talk, okay? This is not, the fact that But hold on, another thing

Malcolm Collins: you mentioned about this article is the number one upvoted comment under it.

Was wouldn't it be better if humanity went extinct,

Simone Collins: right? So the New York Times of it that I'm referring to the Malcolm is referring to, which we can link to in the, in the description basically was a progressive argument for prenatalism. It was saying that demographic collapse does affect everyone, including progressives, and that while.

J. D. Vance's approach to the issue based on shaming and that his policy stances that don't include support for single parents that don't support LGBTQ plus whatever, marriages, et cetera, is not the answer that we still need a progressive answer, optimally from the progressive view in the form of social services for I have to take a donor call.

Can I take it? All right. I love you.

I'm muting myself and seeing if I can finish up.

 Perennialism matters to everyone. That was the argument that was being made in [00:43:00] the op ed. And then the, the number one comment that was upvoted in this New York Times op ed was.

Well, but honestly, wouldn't it be better if there were no humans left in the world? Like isn't human extinction kind of Okay. Which is, and and you know what I tweeted that ar I tweeted that saying this is why Progre TISM is a right wing coded article and the author of the op-Ed retweeted it because I think he's equally frustrated.

He's like, I tried. I tried and, and no one's listening. And so he gets it. Now he understands. He retweeted

Malcolm Collins: your tweet. That's amazing. He

Simone Collins: retweeted it. He retweeted it. Yeah. Which is I think it goes to show you

Malcolm Collins: have a good day. I'm gonna go.

Yes,

Simone Collins: I'm

Malcolm Collins: still here. Yes!