Latest / The Orange Report with Kira Davis / Ep.53 The affordability AND perseverance crisis - with Lenny Mcallister

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Ep.53 The affordability AND perseverance crisis - with Lenny Mcallister · The Orange Report with Kira Davis

• speaker-0: Welcome back to the show today. I'm your host, Kira Davis. Go ahead and follow me at Kira Davis here on X. Follow me ⁓ or me or us on YouTube at Kira Davis or the Orange Report. And as always, sign up for my Substack, just Kira Davis.com and the Orange Report at Substack, where we do California news with Orange County views peppered in there. ⁓ but as you can see, I have a guest today, and I'm so excited to welcome this particular guest, who's actually not just a guest, he's a friend of mine, a longtime friend. And I had the pleasure of actually enjoying him in person last month. And ⁓ he's here to talk to us about his new book, among some other issues. Please welcome to the show, Lenny McAllister out there in ⁓ on the East Coast, Lenny. Yeah, opposite coast. speaker-1: I am on the opposite coast. I'm in my hometown of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania today. How have you been, Kara? It's good. It was fantastic to see you in person after working together both in print and on red and black over the years. So it was it was a delight. It really, really was. speaker-0: We met we we met up at the Teacher Freedom Alliance ⁓ conference last month in Texas where we talked where we attended a conference and talked to teachers about leaving the unions or about their challenges in education. We heard from a lot of people in education. It was really great. Lenny is a big proponent of of education and he's an advocate of of proper education and he's just been a real ⁓ a real warrior for our students, particularly Lenny. I I I do believe black students across the country. And that's been a passion of mine as well, is actually why I'm a conservative. ⁓ and so I I just really appreciate everything you do. And of course he mentioned Red and Black, which was our old show on Red State. We used to do that with our buddies, Jeff Charles and the late Dr. Metzler, ⁓ along with Priscilla Ron. So ⁓ good times, Lenny, but we're here to talk about speaker-1: And Chris Sorps. Chris was an OG once. speaker-0: And Chris Harps, I forgot about Chris Arps. He's he's ⁓ he's a fancy man now. He's got a radio show, radio station in St. Louis, Missouri. We're just on the bottom tier here. Chris Harps is living the highlight. No, I'm just kidding, Chris. We love you. Sorry, I forgot about you. ⁓ Chris Harps, of course. But Lenny, I want to talk today about ⁓ what you've got coming up and something very exciting, a project that I have here with me. And we're gonna talk about this. Let me set this up first, but I do want to get your thoughts on some recent events, news events. But the book is, and Scott, you can go pull up that website for us so people can see it. The book is a Venn diagram of one, an American story by Lenny McAllister, forward by Michael Steele, which is pretty impressive. ⁓ Lenny, ⁓ just give us the overview of your book before we get started. speaker-1: Kara basically talks about things that you and I have talked about over the years and we believe in, which is if you stick to certain American values, they're timeless. They are they have been used by all different types of Americans, regardless of where you come from or what your origin story here is in the United States. But because we have walked away from those values, we find ourselves talking in echo chambers, not being able to get the solutions that generations need to move from some of the malaise that we're in and get them to a better way of life. It primarily focuses on two things. One, my personal story and how I stuck to certain American values of of security, empowerment and opportunity that allowed me to get to second acts in my life and and as well as my dad who overcame a near fatal shooting, my wife who went from being a domestic violence victim to graduating Magdalene cum laud in biology at age fifty three this past spring, to be able to talk about historical figures that found their second acts in America as well, and to be able to say, listen, if you stick to American values, they're timeless, they're nonpartisan, but they work. And I just brought up examples of that and try to give some hope to going back to those values once again. speaker-0: Really think that is an extremely relevant overview because today I do want to talk about the affordability crisis. There's some things, some conversation popping off on X today. But what I loved about I haven't finished the book, but what I have been loving when I when I read it is your your idea, and you just laid it out here perfectly. But the idea that there is a path to success. It is peppered with challenges, though. You're not pie in the sky, you're not saying ⁓ you have to be left or you have to be right or you have to think about it in this way. What you're saying is there are challenges to American life. ⁓ if you're black, if you're a woman, if you're there's all kinds of challenges that are unique to wherever you are in your life. But there's these paths of opportunity that that are established paths, and they're available to everybody if if we're willing to to ⁓ push through the challenges. speaker-1: Yes, and that's something that we've seen in American history throughout our time. And it doesn't matter if you ended up becoming president of the United States or you you own the corner store. The bottom line is we were bequeathed an opportunity to pursue happiness as we see fit. That's what's in the founding documents. It's not economic, you know, prosperity, it's not owning a a vacation home, it's not going to an Ivy League school. It's finding that self fulfillment. That self-determination that we believe comes from God. And when you think about it from that perspective, you can't have too much government, you can't have too much regulation, and you can't walk this walk on a daily basis in America without hope and faith that through time you'll find your way. speaker-0: Okay, this is the perfect transition to what I want to talk to you about today because on X and Scott, why don't you pull up ⁓ why don't you pull up number two? Matt Walsh and Andrew Colvette from TP USA were having a little back and forth, and I'll pull up this ⁓ I'll pull up this tweet here. But they, you know, Matt Walsh is is his point of view right now. He's a bit frustrated like a lot of people with the Iranian war. And his point of view is that, ⁓ is that the it's it's causing life to be more expensive. And the kids are really getting, you know, out of sorts about it for all kinds of good reasons. And everybody's got their reasonings reasonings on why it's happened. But Andrew Colvet from TPSA responded, ⁓ Well, this is what Matt says. Grocery prices are insane. They're still rising. Addressing this problem should be the number one priority of every elected leader. End the stupid foreign wars and focus on this issue. It's one of the main reasons socialists are gaining ground. And Andrew says, one of our TPUSA college students gave me his take on affordability. A burrito shouldn't cost $20. Yeah, a lot of this is a hangover from COVID and Biden era inflation, but the lived experience is the same. It it just feels like basic things cost too much. Thank you, Scott. And for both their troubles, they they have gotten just a litany of responses to that. And I've been reading them all. They've all been very interesting, Lenny. ⁓ tell me what you think of the like is Matt right? Is Matt right about our affordability crisis? And are Matt and Andrew right that just the things The kids are complaining a lot, you know, sure. A are they right to complain about the cost of everything right now? speaker-1: Well the bottom line is it's it it when you define kids is not necessarily, you know, the teenagers in the house and you're talking about the kids that are in their late twenties that are still living in your house. They're kids. Yes, exactly. There there's a an expectation that a child will launch once they hit eighteen to twenty two. It may not be the smoothest launch, but they'll have an opportunity to graduate into young adulthood and move on from there. That has been stymied. speaker-0: Yeah. speaker-1: with this generation because of everything from the the economy of COVID, the culture of COVID, the shuts down shutdowns of COVID. And then from there we've had this these economic interruptions that have been going on. And it started before the Iran War. Let's remember we had this back and forth, if you will, with skyrocketing inflation going into 2024, which was a big campaign issue. Then subsequent to that You started having Liberation Day and some of the the back and forth that transpired because of the tariffs. As a result, you have young people who, by the way, care, as we both well know, are now young voters that are saying, the American dream's dead. I cannot find my way. I'll never buy a home. I'm gonna be living at home until I'm 35 years old. And they've grown desperate. And as a result, they're inclined to look for different types of solutions, even if it's more extreme. And one of the more extreme solutions that you're seeing younger voters gravitate towards is the DSA, which is why you're finding these people on the far left from Michigan and elsewhere being able to win elections and flat out just put out democratic socialist platforms. One of the purposes of the book, a Venn diagram of one, is to remind people listen, poor immigrants that couldn't speak the language, African Americans that came up from slavery or dealt with Jim Crow. They were able to use American principles, free market principles, democracy, those type of things that we find in our constitution to find a better way of life. It was not a result of this hard left shift to socialism. So it the book serves as a reminder, but as you can hear, Kira, people feel the angst, even those that gravitate more towards our side of the aisle. speaker-0: Well, speaking of your book, you know, you talk a little bit about being a young man, being in college, working in the deli, you know, working at the grocery counter, serving that, you know, the the sliced meat thinly sliced and that the you know, and you were even a young father at the time. I mean, you weren't you didn't just have this smooth transition into the the corporate, you know, the the suit and tie guy we see today. That's not the Lenny, you know, that that started out life. ⁓ And I think there are a lot of people who would say, Lenny, well, you know, I just I can't do something like that. You know, that's what he did way back then. But it's a different sort of atmosphere and these days. And, you know, ⁓ Lenny just had it easier. And we can't do what he did to lift himself up out of out of his circumstances. Talk a little bit about being a broke young man with a family to support. paths you took and how that might relate to how kids are looking, kid and I'm saying kids, you know, but obviously it's it's ⁓ you know the younger generation, not necessarily children, but how they're looking at the future and what's hopeful for that. speaker-1: One of the things that I put in the book, Kira, is talking about empowerment and specifically entrepreneurial empowerment. And and more often than not, when people talk about being an entrepreneur, they think running a business, which makes sense. But it's more than just that. Being an entrepreneur means you are a brand manager. It means that you have the ability to pivot and reinvent yourself by keeping the best of yourself, but also augmenting the brand when you need to. Look, I went from being a college dropout to a dad. To a guy that was sweeping floors and and buffing floors as a janitor at the local Kmart overnight to learning how to cut lunch meat so that I can be a deli clerk. I used the skill of learning how to type that I learned as a freshman in high school to get a part-time job making six dollars an hour to get a better job that allowed me to get a full time job, that allowed me to eventually learn how to computer program, which then led me back to college, which then led me back to Davidson College. Which then led me to this my soulmate in the level of my life and then this new life. But it took an ongoing evolution of being an entrepreneur, believing with faith in both God, but also faith in the American way, that the next pivot can get me closer to where I want to be. And even that pivot, Kira, might take me down a path that I couldn't have imagined for myself. I went back to school to get my degree. I didn't go back to school to find my soulmate. Both things happen. These are the type of things That happened with second acts in America. And America has always been a nation that has fostered second acts for people that come to these shores and do their time and do the best that they can to find their pursuit of happiness. speaker-0: Yeah, but why do you think that a lot of people don't feel that way, especially young people just out of college, just out of graduate school or or maybe slightly older who are just starting families? As we opened up the podcast with, you know, last night there were some ⁓ pretty big upsets in ⁓ statewide primaries and places like Michigan, where the DSA Muslim candidate really ran away with a lot of votes and People and those are younger votes. The statistically speaking, they're younger votes. Now, younger people, I everyone needs to remember this. I don't care what anybody says about the youth vote. Younger people do not come out to vote in the numbers that we're always imagining they do. When you start a youth movement, that's great, but it rarely translates in big numbers to voting. Don't ask me why. I probably I didn't really pay a lot of attention to voting too when I was in my twenties. But that's how it works. So I'll point that out. But also, there are clearly, Lenny, I agree with you. You're right. But what's happening? How is that message? I mean, obviously you're working on getting that message out with your book, a Venn diagram of one, and telling your story. But how is this message? Why is it not getting out to the people who need to hear it the most? speaker-1: I think number one, I often talk about how instead of having a ladder of success these days, kids have a stepstool. They can go up to another level and then they're hitting levels where they're stuck and they're trapped. Before there were pathways where you can climb the ladder of success. You can pivot. You could reinvent yourself a little easier. Kids are having a hard time doing that now. And as a result, they're giving up midstream. The other thing is, Kara. We really do live in an instant gratification society these days because of social media, the way traditional media has has evolved over forty years and the like. Therefore, we're not allowing these younger generations to be able to build their skills, to be able to to truly be able to make mistakes without being canceled. I mean, we we haven't used the phrase cancel culture in a while, but that was a big thing where something you did at fifteen was all of a sudden impacting you at thirty-two. There was a time where that was called being young, you said me a culpa, you learned from the mistake and you became a better child of God as a result. When you combine those two things, not having a ladder of success to climb because there's not as much pathway, coupled with the instant gratification, and then the type of economies we've been dealing with, the lack of resources, the fact that the the cost of college and postgraduate education has gone through the roof, it's made it harder for those kids to not only do the work, but more so. To believe. If you believe, you'll do hard work. I even mentioned that in the book. If you don't believe, you'll never get anybody to take the next step. speaker-0: Wow, we'll expand on that. I've you know, and maybe some people in you know, of the modern in modern social media speak, we would we might call that ⁓ manifesting or, you know, it but envisioning, but expand on that because I I feel like that is an idea that is maybe lost a lot in maybe a a part of the we talked about this a lot on red and black when we work together. Idea of victim culture, victimhood culture, it's a type of currency of its own these days. I'm actually in the middle of writing an article right now about Angel Reese and how ⁓ the WNBA player, she just got a Barbie doll after her, which is super cool. But then she said, you know, this is important to me because when I was growing up, we didn't have dolls that look like me. Well, she was born in 2008. Like what the year we elected our first black president. And so ⁓ even I couldn't say, and I'm fifty-two, I couldn't say that, but I I think the connection I'm trying to make here is that a lot of people feel like they have to attach themselves to other stories if they've had too easy. And she's clearly worked hard for her position, but private school, private college, all of that, she's had every advantage. Maybe they feel like, ⁓ well, I've got to be some kind of victim because there's currency in that. But we and so It's always an opposite message, isn't it, Lenny? Like, yes, we have this victimhood culture that gives you a type of currency, but then to attach yourself to the victimhood culture actually actually creates difficulty within connecting to the idea of believing in yourself. So you suddenly you're saddled with this outside burden that says, Well, you really can't make it that far because everything's stacked against you, but also the fact that you can't make it that far. Is is something that you can use as a type of currency. speaker-1: Well, unfortunately, Kira, we're now in the business in America of rewarding results almost a hundred percent of the time and not rewarding work ethic, not rewarding the grind, not rewarding the hard work, not rewarding the the small things that have big value. And when you continuously teach young people that through social media, traditional media, sports, politics, civics, in school, in your economic system. When you do that, you're basically telling them you're either a winner or you're a victim. There's no such thing as I just haven't won yet. Michael Jordan didn't win an NBA championship for seven years. He was in the NBA making all kinds of money, was the biggest name in the NBA, and didn't win an NBA championship for seven years. People do not remember that fact because. You know, they live in an era where LeBron James went from high school to being one of the biggest names in the NBA almost immediately. Now that doesn't mean that there's something wrong with LeBron James, but there's value in the story of Michael Jordan getting cut from his varsity team as a sophomore. There's a there's value in Michael Jordan struggling through the playoffs. He couldn't get through this team, he couldn't get through that team. There's a grind that used to be part of the American story. That we have forgotten about. And we have to, we have to bequeath that to our kids so that when they see these tough times now, they don't say, these are the most divisive times we've ever lived through. Well, let me go show you 1953 and 1954. Let me go show you 1859. Let me show you, you know, after the Missouri Compromise. Let me show you what it looked like right after 1776. I can assure you that people were much more tense during those times. than they are now. Doesn't mean that it's a cakewalk now, but it does mean that America has continuously been able to find second acts. We have to find it within ourselves to do the hard work to find our second act in contemporary times today. speaker-0: Well, what's the difference between us and them? You know, what's the difference between wh how I might struggle now and how my grandparents struggled in in the in in in the civil rights era here in America? ⁓ they were very involved with that. ⁓ so I feel I'm just playing devil's advocate here, but I I feel like someone might look at listen to what you're saying and say, Well, sure, we've overcome things before. But it's really tough now and things are very expensive and groceries are very expensive. And I also have a hundred thousand dollar student loan bill. And, you know, and ⁓ I look at we again, this is another topic we've talked about a lot on red and black. We look at the pictures of our ancestors, our grandparents, our great grandparents. They are always dressed to the nine. They're always doesn't matter if they were going to work in the shop or going to work in the fields, you know, or going it just was When you were out on the streets, you were put together, even though this was the poorest community and the most struggling community in America at that time, what is the difference between us now and then? speaker-1: We have kept the same goals, I think, Kira, and not kept a a modern count of what we should be fighting for. And when you do that and lose track of the values that truly make you great, you know, security, empowerment and and opportunity, having security in your potential, having security in the belief of who you are as a child of God, being empowered through education. Knowing that you're going to have an opportunity. One of the things I talk about in opportunity in the book is hope, act, and pivot. If you have opportunity to have hope, you will plan something. Once you plan, you will act. Even if you act and you fail, if you have hope and you act, you will then pivot into something else until you're successful. But it starts with hope. Well, when you're looking at the same goals and saying, well, I'd like to have a black president, all right, we did that for eight years. I'd like to see black people on TV, okay, we've done that for eight years. I'd like to see women in positions of power, okay, we've done that all over the place. If that's the only set of goals, then the only thing we react to, the only thing we challenge ourselves with, the only thing we grasp our values to take hold of and move through are things we've already done. In twenty twenty six the challenges are different. You know, we're not dealing with an economy like we did when we were growing up, where the Soviet Union existed, East Germany was a country, China was a closed market. You know, we we have a different economic system, so we have to learn how to compete differently. That means we're have gonna have to diversify how we educate. That means we're gonna have to make sure our kids get a robust education. That means our kids are gonna have to be prepared to pivot. They may have nine careers over the course of their lifetime. versus our parents that may have only had two. These are things that we're not focusing on enough. And unfortunately, Kara, you and I both know it's because we're focused on culture wars. We're focused on, you know, the latest and greatest of something. Can this person play in this league? Is that person wearing that suit? Is this person naked on the on the red carpet? Or or the type of fights that we've seen, we've taken our eye off the ball. We got to get our eyes back on on the ball. And and part of that overall ball is our value. speaker-0: I feel like that we we could draw a direct line from what you just said to the education system. And my show yesterday was titled, I think it's time to end public education. ⁓ and I know that you're a great advocate of school choice, as am I and educational opportunity. What do you think? Agree or disagree? Is it time to end public school? speaker-1: Think that public school serves a purpose in certain communities. It should not be compulsory. It should be where parents have a true choice because those that support the traditional public school system also fail to remember that those same systems failed generations, not one generation, not two generations, not even three generations of students. You're talking about at least four generations of students. That had to deal with everything from redlining to lack of resources dating back to the redlining. So then when you look at, okay, where are our entrepreneurs coming from? Where are our banking systems coming from for middle class communities? They're not coming from there anymore because you have truncated the talent base, because you have not allowed a full robust system of education to take effect. As a result, you can keep public education because there are some public schools. That do work for kids. It is the best option. But choice means choice. Tax dollars should go to where the best fit for that individual child is. Is that a private school, Catholic school, public school, charter school, home school, cyber school? There's a myriad of of options. And it's important in 2026, Kira, because we're facing a myriad of opponents geoeconomically that we have to compete with. That's going to also keep us safe from a military perspective if we're on the cutting edge of innovation, on the cutting edge of of of an economy globally, if we're on the cutting edge of making sure that we're in positions of power with wisdom, but also with knowledge. speaker-0: Scott, why don't we go ahead and pull up that ⁓ X response from ⁓ Joel Berry? That's number three. Joe, so Joel Berry ⁓ responded, he's a former editor of Babylon B, and he responded to Andrew Colvet and to Matt Walsh when when Andrew in particular he responded to Andrew's assertion that he he talked to a young student who said, you know, a burrito shouldn't cost 20 bucks. And Joel said, last night my wife made homemade burritos. For our family of eight, and it didn't cost less, and it costs less than twenty dollars total for everyone. I'm beginning to think the affordability crisis is really an I don't know how to cook crisis. And I I I think I have some point of agreement with him here. Although as the mother of a son in his 20s, Lenny, ⁓ I do understand the the economic outlook. Thank you, Scott. You can take that off. I do understand the economic outlook for young people these days. I mean, we live in California. So Scott, can you give me my screen back, please? Are you out there? This is my son actually that I'm yelling at right now. ⁓ so maybe we need to talk about working later. Just give it ⁓ I'm done here. You can put Lenny back up so I can see him and talk to him, please. Thank you. ⁓ but you know, I understand having a son in his twenties. You know, that it is exp I get I live in California. I get it. This is the most expensive state in the union. But there i I feel there is something to the I can't cook crisis. You know, when I look at what kids are paying, kids are taking on these micro loans to buy clothes. They are ordering DoorDash all the time. They, you know, the the art of thrifting is very niche and lost these days. There's a lot of things you and I did. You talk about it in your book, being a young father, trying to find ways to make ends meet. There are a lot of things you and I did to make the ends meet. Does Joel Berry have something here? I mean, is he right that maybe there maybe there is something to this that part of the affordability crisis is what people feel entitled to these days. speaker-1: But it's yes and no, Kira, because part of it too is what do we want our young people doing? ⁓ you know, my twenty something lives in Brooklyn. Where do what do we want our twenty somethings doing when they have no kids and they're single and they're living in a city like New York City or Chicago or or Los Angeles? Go out and spend money with small businesses. Well, what's one of the most popular small businesses you're gonna have in places like Brooklyn, New York? There are gonna be these little restaurants, these little coffee shops, these little entrepreneurs that are trying to find their way. Hey, come to my come to my newsstand and buy yourself a little s ⁓ little Debbie's while you get your coffee and grab your New York Post, which by the way, I'll be in the New York Post on May 9th this ⁓ this upcoming Sunday. So speaker-0: August ninth. You said May. August night. speaker-1: Night, I said May 9th, August 9th. You want people to spend May 9th is when Laney graduated from college. That may that date will always be emblazoned in my mind. ⁓ you want people to spend money. We want, I mean, remember the stimulus checks? What was the purpose of the stimulus check? Everybody's staying at home. All these businesses cut their employees. The only way we can bring these businesses back if we give Americans money to spend. Now, yes, that led to the inflation problem. I understand that. I get that. But the flip side is let's look at the rationale. What was it for? To get people that could have quote unquote disposable income to spend it. The way our free market works is you got to be able to be smart and be thrifty when you need to. But we also want those businesses to be able to hire people without having those type of businesses hiring people at minimum wage at fifteen, sixteen, seventeen dollars an hour by mandate of law. And in order to do that, you gotta have that foot traffic. So it's a little bit of both. Yes. We haven't been eating out as much, but I also know that my son who can cook and is about to turn twenty seven, also goes out with his friends because after all he lives in Brooklyn, New York. speaker-0: Well he's making choices, right? And then I think that's the other thing that we forget. And again, just to go back to your book, A Venn diagram of one, you talk you talk a lot about that in the di I again, I haven't finished yet, but in this first half, you talk a lot about the decisions you make. We are responsible for d the decisions we make. So sure, your son, yeah, he's contributing to the economy and going out. But he's making choices, right? He's giving okay, I'm this week I'm going to you know, spend less on, I don't know, shaving cream or something and I'm gonna go out for drinks with my friends or I feel like we haven't taught our our kids very well. This is a generalization, of course, over the over the past two decades or so, how to make choices that are uncomfortable in order to have the things you want or do the things you want. speaker-1: Part of it too is unfortunately, Kara, and this is something that we have to be better at as American leaders. That generation's gone through a lot of trauma. I bring this up a lot on my radio show. I've talked about it at the very beginning of the book as well. In the introduction of the book, Event Diagramma One, I list out all the different things that have happened over the last two decades in America. Nine eleven, it's gonna be the twenty fifth year remembrance of nine eleven coming up in September. You have that. You have the Iraq war. You have the Great Recession. You have the the war where you had the first interaction between Russia and Ukraine. You have ISIS. Then you go into the midterms. You have the back and forth. You have the tensions where we had a sequester. And people think, ⁓ well, Obama brought down the national debt. That was a sequester because Obama and the Tea Party Republicans couldn't find a way to get a deal. So it automatically triggered. That had an impact. Then we got into 2016, the economy started slowing down, then we had COVID, then we had high inflation, now we have gone through the last year and a half of slow job growth. That's 25 years of trauma. If you were born in 1996, that's your life. You know, you were born during the Clinton era where your parents thought everything was great, and by the time you were hoping to have the same promise of of a future that they had going through the eighties and the nineties, you look at today and you're like, I'll never be able to buy a home. I'm gonna always be renting. Would you I'm gonna always be working a job and a half. And it's very hard for them to keep hope. Part of what we have to do is remind them, the greatest generation went through some things too. You go look at what your great grandparents went through. They went through the Great Depression. And then by the way, this crazy guy out of Germany tried to take over the world. And had everybody shooting at each other for six years. Then we had a Cold War after that. And yet they found a way to buy that house that you saw grandma in just last Thanksgiving. These are the type of life lessons that we don't teach enough to our young people that I try to remind people of in the book, because they're all around us if we're willing to just take a breath and look. speaker-0: Yeah, I always tell people I I agree with you, Lenny. I think it's like six of one and half a dozen of the other, right? I think I think it's both. It's both and it is, yes, things the cost of living and life is more expensive and that's not the fault of our young people. And yes, we also need to be teaching young people to make sacrifices and and really push through with a good work ethic, a good American work at work ethic like we did, like our ancestors did. I I use I always use this example, Lenny, you're a Chicago boy. ⁓ when I was living in Chicago as a young single woman, just out of college, I was a barista, you know, and I think the minimum wage at that time was four seventy five or five bucks an hour. And and I but I lived on the north side of Chicago, right by the lake, on Belmont and Broadway, right across the street from the lake. It's not cheap, and especially not today. speaker-1: Sheep. speaker-0: Yeah. and ⁓ but I lived in a two bedroom basement apartment blocks from the lake. Like, and when I say blocks, I mean two from the lake, but I had six other roommates. So there were seven of us in a two bedroom in Chicago. And I always challenge young people who say, I can't afford to live anywhere, I can't afford to live anywhere. Well, sure, I get that. Like Manhattan's expensive. If you want to live in Manhattan, that's expensive. But what could you afford if you split the rent with seven people? Like the I think the attitude towards what you have to do in order to afford the life you want at a certain age, it's different. Back then we were like, yeah, we gave we were all friends. We gave each other a year. Everybody had a year to make other arrangements. You find your job, you save your money, and you should be in another lease somewhere else within a year. And within a year, we pretty much all were scattered to the wind. I actually ended up getting married in that year and other friends moved on to actual careers and moved out. But I feel like there are a lot of kids, and I'm saying kids again, but young people who we're so old. We're just the old heads, I know. This is what happens to you. ⁓ but I feel like there are young people who don't understand that part of it. Yes, life was speaker-1: Maybe we're there. speaker-0: Cheaper. There wasn't as much inflation when I was younger. But also I had seven roommates. Today, Lenny, if I wanted to pick up seven roommates, I could probably afford to live in Manhattan. speaker-1: Yeah, and I can as as a kid that went to, you know, I had a kid that went to NYU and then lived off campus while he was finishing up at NYU and never came back to Pittsburgh, I can tell you it is expensive expensive living in New York, and he's had to do those type of things in order to survive in New York. But part of it is this, Kira, let's just speak clear. Part of this is in the home. And we you and I have talked about this on Red and Black a lot, that all the things we can talk about with public policy. Some policies are family policies. And if you have the family policies in place, you can figure out a way around the public policy. We've talked to our son in law about listen, you've wanted to be in the industry, the media industry, since you were two years old. We told you from about two or three years old, NYU or USC, pick a coast, one of those two schools, good film schools, good law schools. He's an MLK scholar alum. Of New York University, something he wanted to do since he was three years old. You find the dream and then you figure it out. But here's the thing, Kira, you gotta believe that the dream is accessible. If you think that the dream is accessible, again, hope, act, pivot with opportunity. If you can hope and you believe that that dream is accessible, you'll find a way to act. And it might be cobbled and it might take time. I mean, heck, I say in the book, I'm a guy that took a 13 year journey to get a four year degree. I mean, but I got the degree. And I got the girl at the end of the movie too. So that was kind of cool. But with that said, you know, you have to be able to at least believe. And too many young people today, unfortunately, do not believe the American dream is accessible, viable, or even alive. Once that's in place, you're not going to be inclined to try to find four and five other roommates for a year to try to make it work. You're just going to say The system's against me. Let's toss the system. By the way, let's toss the system by way of perhaps groceries that are grocery stores that are run by the government or other type of services, including like a baby sitting service for parent night out that we just heard about in Newark as well. And that has already run into issues. And again, it's not trying to do good things for people. It's how does it work in a country of 300 plus million people in a free market society? That's what has to be figured out and just running in with DSA ideas and thinking you're just gonna plant them onto big cities or plant them on the communities is not the way. It's not the American speaker-0: It's not the American way. And I feel like we have not done a good job of educating the generations behind us about what the American dream is. I think a lot of people don't even really know how to define that these days. How do you define the American dream? speaker-1: The American dream is the ability to pursue one's happiness, the ability to be fulfilled in the constitutional promises and protections that were laid out by the founding fathers and fought for over the course of two hundred and fifty years through each iteration of the Constitution and each iteration of America. And those things, and I talk about this in the book, those things last longer than discrimination against Italian or Irish immigrants. It lasts longer than Jews being in ghettos in New York City. It lasts longer than Jim Crow. It lasts longer than cooleies trade laws on the West Coast. It lasts longer than women not being allowed to vote. That's what people miss. When you look at the history of America and you look at the values that we have as Americans, there's always gonna be an obstacle. There's always gonna be some type of of of angst or some type of rub because you're still dealing with human beings. But as Lincoln said, we have to always try to appeal to our better angels. And America, for the most part, has done a good job of appealing to and following those better angels over time. It's just time for us in twenty twenty six to get back to that again. speaker-0: Do you think that we have the ability to do that? Do you think we have the ability to appeal to our better angels? It does feel like everything I mean, through COVID and the Biden era, you know. I I know we complained a lot about the divisiveness of the Obama era, but it doesn't really feel it feels like it pales in comparative comparison to where we are right now. I get that there's an argument to be made that this came from that, but nonetheless, do you think that we have it in us to appeal to our better angels? And to give our children and their children another stab at the American dream. speaker-1: Uneclavably, yes. Absolutely positively, yes. And it's it's the reason why not only did I write the book, but it's the reason why I am the way I am. It's the reason why, and you had the opportunity. I really was thankful that you were there when I gave a speech. You heard how I talked, the themes that I used, because I believe that we can get back to that. Look at the cover of the book. You know, two of the three images that are on the book cover are a bridge from my hometown of Pittsburgh. And the Dusabo Bridge, which you're familiar with, going over the Chicago River in Chicago. And it's not just because those are two of the three places that I lived in my life. It's also because we need to get back to building bridges. And it's not just between one section to another, or between Democrats and Republicans, or between urban and rural. It's also bridging us from how we feel right now, the lack of confidence we have in being Americans right now. The lack of confidence we have in the American dream right now, and bridging us back to that energy, that civic pride, that civic love that says, We've done this before, we can do this again. Doesn't matter if you're rich, doesn't matter if you're poor, doesn't matter where you came from. There's an American story somewhere in our history where the the protagonist, the hero, the heroine looks like you, struggle like you, and one. So why can't you? And just to be honest, Kira, you read about some of the stumbles I had in my own life to get to my second axe. Well, if a knucklehead from Pittsburgh Penn Hills can find a way to get back on track after dropping out of school, cutting lunch meat at a local grocery store, and then graduating from an Ivy League school of the South, why can't other Americans do the same thing with a similar level of persistence? speaker-0: Lenny, what is trail magic? You talk about this in your book, a little bit of trail ha getting a little bit of trail magic along the way in your journey. What does that mean? speaker-1: Trail magic, the way I used it, is based off of what you hear about in hiking. When you when you talk about the term trail magic in hiking, it's usually you're you're exhausted, you're tired, you're a little disillusioned, and you look on the trail and you're thirsty and somebody just so happened to leave a six-pack of water. You're a little hungry and somebody just so happened to leave a Ziploc bag of four granola bars. It's it's the the gift that keeps you going that you don't expect. Along the arduous path. Trail magic in life are those moments in time where there they can be inflection points where, okay, this changes my course, but if you reflect upon it and then take a different direction, you have the opportunity to go to a different place in time in your life journey. I've had a lot of those in my life, those trail magic moments where I didn't expect to meet somebody, I didn't expect to do certain things. I mean, heck. even our friendship over the years. I met you, I saw you on television, I figured, ⁓ she's kind of cool, you know, African American sister, she's a conservative, she's doing her thing, she's really smart. Dig that. I never expected to work with you on Red State, then I never expected to do red and black, and I never expected us to have a friendship. But sometimes it's just those small moments of trail magic. If you allow yourself to have the faith in what America does over and over again. If you have the hope, you can then act. And if you need to, subsequent to that, you can then pivot. speaker-0: Love that. I'm gonna take that with me. Just a little trail magic. And also I want to encourage people to leave trail magic for people. You know, and Len Lenny's taught I love ⁓ I love the Pacific ⁓ trail hiking videos on Instagram. I love people who decide to do the Pacific Trail. And I I wouldn't I'm just a lurker eating my potato chips on the couch while I watch other people do it. But they talk a lot about finding the trail magic. And it's always provided by some people drag their chairs and cars out and they sit for twelve or fourteen hours just to be the trail magic for for somebody. So I think we should challenge each other to to also be the trail magic for someone else. You know what I mean? speaker-1: Concur with that 100%. And that's something that I've I've tried to be in life. And even in the in the first chapter and the second chapter, you'll see examples of where it doesn't work out the way I thought it would, but it still worked out better than I could have ever imagined. And and Kara, truth be told, that's how trail magic actually works. You know, you think that you're going to get one result and it's not the result you thought, but then two other things transpire, or you don't meet the person you thought you were going to meet. And then as you're walking away, you meet a a lifelong friend, or you don't get the job you thought you were going to get, but then it leads to something else. I I remember a moment in my life where I applied for a job and I said, Lord, if I don't get this job, I'm going back to college. If I get this job, I'm gonna finish up college in Pittsburgh. Well, I interviewed extremely well. I didn't get the job because they weren't gonna pay enough and it was kind of sketchy. I go back to school, I figure I'm gonna be lonely, I'm gonna be a 28-year-old returning college student hanging with a bunch of 17 and 18-year-olds. I'm not gonna know anybody on campus. One of the people in the admissions office was a former classmate, one of the professors that I knew taught me when I was there the first time around. And I so happen to talk to my advisor five weeks into school, and he tells me that there's this girl there that was there when I was also there in the 1990s. Lo and behold, twenty four years later, here we are, man and wife. speaker-0: And you don't find that trail magic if you don't get sore feet. You know what I mean? You need Yes. speaker-1: You you you have to you have to do the hiking and you have to believe even when you're tired. It takes and this is one thing that is a it's an atrophied muscle that America has right now, Kira. The muscle memory of perseverance. We're we we are a people that persevere through tough times. You know, this union was reunited during the Civil War at a time when it looked like the Confederacy was going to win. We won World War II at a time. Where Germany was knocking everybody off the block. We won the Cold War after losing Sputnik and establishing Detente. We are a persistent people. And then if you get into the domestic matters, we can go on through that all day. We have forgotten that we're persistent for all the right reasons. One of the things that I wrote the book for was to remind us that whether it's in our personal lives or our civic and cultural lives, we have had persistence and it's time to reclaim that. speaker-0: That I actually can't think of a better thing to end our time on together, except I do have a couple of questions for you that I like to ask most of my guests, just kind of fun questions. The first question is: Is there a book or an article that you you can recall that has changed your life or changed the way you think about a certain issue or just changed the way you think at all? Something that you recall it doesn't have to be the most, but just something that comes to mind, ⁓ besides the Bible, 'cause that one's too easy. So ⁓ is there anything that you've read over the years that really changed your perspective? speaker-1: Gonna embarrass you. It's the article you wrote when you started talking about the differentiation of how black conservatives think and why it takes critical thinking and not thinking as though we're a monolith. And I remember the the the courage that it took you to write that article. I remember the blowback that you got from that article. I remember calling you and talking to you about the blowback that you got on that article, and yet you stood strong anyway. And it made me sit there and realize, okay, look. There are certain people that are just gonna be my people. We're gonna disagree on some things. It might be tense. We might vehemently disagree, but good people are good people. And when they show courage in the fire, I'm gonna catch their back. And that was I still remember where I was standing in my old house when I called you. And I remember that article and I remember our conversation. And you became one of my people and then my heart as a sister of mine from that conversation. So looking at your face, that's that's immediately where I went. speaker-0: Was that the Candace Owens article, Cousin Candy? Yes. I told you so. I just like saying it out loud over and over again. I told you so, but you're right, Lenny. ⁓ we all got a lot of blowback for that. It actually set me back probably a couple of years in my career, to be honest with you. ⁓ but you're right. The truth is the truth and you cannot sit on the truth. I think that I think sitting on the truth is the quickest way to kill. speaker-1: It was speaker-0: Any forward momentum. speaker-1: And on top of that, when you see somebody be bold, and what I admired about you in that moment was you knew you were paying costs right then and there. You knew you saw the tax coming out of your check, proverbally speaking. And so do you stand by somebody in that moment and say, Hey, I've been through that. I know what that tax looks like. You're good, sister. Just keep it going. Do you do that or you'd be like, thoughts and prayers? Like they say in in Bridgerton, thoughts and prayers. No, you Pick up the phone, you be the trail magic. And so I just remember that article and it it to this day I can still see where I was standing in that moment. speaker-0: Wow, thanks, Lenny. That is a high compliment coming from you. Okay, last question. You get to be the king of America just for one day, one twelve hour period, and then we go back to normal. But in that twelve hour period, no, you're king. You're not a president. You're not a president. You don't gotta go through Congress. You don't gotta do anything. You're the king. And you can enact anything. You can get rid of anything. You have one act. You can do anything. It can be something big. speaker-1: King or my president? speaker-0: Or it can be something small. I'll give you an example. When I answer this question, I always say that when I'm Queen of America, I will make it a mandatory prison term for anybody who doesn't put their shopping carts back in the cart correct. So it can be something like that. ⁓ I've had a lot of pretty deep, really good, thoughtful answers as well. So what do you think? What comes to mind? speaker-1: I was gonna say something. Can I s can I give a serious one and a funny one? Sure. Am I allowed to do that? Okay. speaker-0: You're allowed to do that because you're 'cause you're a published author. So you're allowed to do that. You get the author pass. You get your two. speaker-1: Thank you very much. The serious one would likely be something in regards to school choice because I believe that that's the way that's gonna bring about the level playing field that everybody wants. I would make sure that everybody's able to get into the school that they prefer to get into so that they can have the resources to live the life they want to live. They have an education, they'll be able to figure it out. You won't have to have government program after government program to give it to them. So it'd probably be something with school choice. The funny thing would be There would have to be some type of shutdown mechanism on a car when somebody flips you off in traffic. I laugh. I literally call them child of God and like, what are you doing? You're not ruining my day by sticking one finger out of your window, driving five miles an hour faster than me to get stuck in the same traffic jam 30 seconds later. So there just should be something where if that happens to you and you're that dude or that woman that's you stick your finger off. We should all find you thirty seconds later at the side of the road, just kind of stuck there, like in like a little you know, a ten minute timeout, a middle finger traffic jam timeout, that we can all look at you and laugh and be like, child of God, I don't even know why you thought that was going to impress anybody. That would be my speaker-0: worried Lenny because I'm the person who flipped you off in traffic. I'm that person. I am worried about King Lenny. But I have also my family and I've also decided we're landing on a new universal signal for we don't like the way you drive. It's not the middle finger anymore. It's just a thumbs down. Boo. I don't like how you're driving. ⁓ it's a little sucker. But speaker-1: That that's a that that's that's a little soft. Look here, I'm the guy that I will yell, child of the living God, why did you cut me off? Now it's better than calling them something that, you know, is can be conjugated and is full and flavorful, but it's still yelling at people. So I it's I'm not a saint, but when I get mad I will at least call them by what I deem their spiritual proper name. speaker-0: Okay, well, I've known Lenny for a while. And what he said really is that's very scandalous according to Lenny McAllister rules for life. So you've actually seen Lenny at his worst right now. Lenny, I am so ⁓ glad that you came on the show to share some of your experience with us and your your insight as well. ⁓ you know, I always love talking to you. We always have a great time chatting. Before we let you go, tell people where I'm gonna hold this book up again just so you can see one one last time. Cause I want you to go buy it. Lenny is a very talented writer. It's actually a very good read, everybody. It's an easy read. And by that I mean it's entertaining. You're not gonna feel like you're struggling through, you know, a lot of academics. ⁓ but tell people where they can find the book and where they can find you. speaker-1: Kara, first and foremost, they can find the book anywhere books are sold. You can buy it as an ebook, you can buy it as an audiobook, you can buy it as a hardcover. The book is available for pre-order right now. You can buy the book and go into any store around the country starting August 11th. Like I said, ebook, audiobook, hardcover, a Venn diagram of one. Of course, you can go to my website, Lenny McGallisher.com. I would enjoy you following me. And of course, I would be honored if you bought the book. And Kira. It's been a delight to be on with you. I've been following your podcast career over the years, as you well know. I used to tease you about it on red and black, as you well know, as your son probably well know. I know your husband definitely well knows. So it's just a joy to be able to do this. Thank you for the opportunity. speaker-0: Well, I think it's an exceedingly ⁓ important book and it's really a positive read. It really is. I I would recommend it. I've been enjoying it, Lenny. Thank you so much. God bless you out there. And I will catch you, I R L, my friend. speaker-1: Indeed, God bless you as well, carer. God bless everybody out there. speaker-0: Everybody go follow us on all the socials. You know where to go. Don't forget that sunlight is the best disinfected. So bring on the sunshine. Peace out, everybody. Bye bye.