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Lessons - My Family Fled Soviet Oppression with $90 - Now I Fight for American Freedom | Elizabeth Pipko - RNC Spokesperson · Success Story with Scott Clary

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  In this lessons episode, explore what freedom means in American culture and why it remains
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  both a privilege and a challenge.
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  Discover how generational shifts affect patriotism and fuel anti-American sentiment, understand
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  how education and social media reshape liberalism and influence youth views and uncover why
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  protecting free expression even for opposing ideas is vital to democracy.
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  What in your mind does it mean to be American outside of legal definition?
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  It's weird because again, I have this mentality because my parents are immigrants.
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  So I always say I have the privilege of being the daughter of two immigrants.
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  I think about things very differently, but knowing how my parents were raised, knowing
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  that my mom was beaten in school for being a Jew.
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  My dad said goodbye to his father, never seeing him again, finding out later on after
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  his father died and the Soviet Union collapsed, but there was a KGB file on his family and
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  that the KGB was tracking his father, and that's why he never got to see him.
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  To me, that's what it means to be American is that my parents had to live a very different
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  life that I had to live.
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  But being a merit, I mean, we say freedom, right, like what is freedom?
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  I mean, that's really what it means to be an American.
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  A lot of people everywhere around the world have to live their life a certain way.
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  And no, they don't have to legally live it a certain way even, but they all live a certain
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  way because it's not a part of their blood and their culture and their personalities
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  to try to be different.
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  It's kind of a part of ours, you know, that you can do whatever you want and you can
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  fail at everything in the world, but we encourage you to try.
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  That's American.
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  Which I love.
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  And I guess then the follow up question is, we give so much leeway to try new things
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  to think differently, like that is freedom, right?
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  Now with that much leeway and freedom, do you see younger generations having this rise
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  of like anti-American sentiment, like I don't understand how just the ability to be anti-American,
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  like do you understand how privileged you are to be able to go through life and to even
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  think those thoughts and vocalize those thoughts because if you go to any other country
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  in anywhere, anywhere, almost anywhere, you would not be alive for long or ever heard
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  of again.
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  So I'm so curious how freedom leads to anti-American sentiment, which you see in colleges and
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  I mean, a, it's almost a beautiful thing as much as I hate to see it.
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  How incredible that we live in a country where you can burn that American flag and that
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  was going to do anything to you.
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  Like how amazing that these kids can spout whatever nonsense they want and say how horrible
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  this country is and they actually get applauded because we support speech even if we hate
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  it.
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  Even if it makes us physically sick, we will defend your right to say whatever you want.
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  So a part of me, even when I see it, I'm actually happy because my parents weren't
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  allowed to criticize anyone, I'm packing a rest, right?
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  Definitely not, no.
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  So as much as I disagree, a people fought and died so that you can say whatever you want
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  and it's beautiful that we let in 2025, we continued the American way and you can still
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  do that because that's what I fight for every day.
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  It's very easy to fight for people to speak who you agree with.
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  So hey, I think it's great at the same time.
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  It's concerning.
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  It's very concerning.
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  If you look at the numbers, people get less patriotic with every generation and young people
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  don't know what they have.
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  And I think if people put their phones down and professors started, you know, teaching
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  a little more and maybe stopped being activists and started being professors again.
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  People opened a history book maybe, maybe even look around at what's going on in the world
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  right now and it'd feel a lot better.
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  But you know, it's a combination of being super grateful that I live in the country where
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  you can criticize it as much as you want and be being concerned that every generation
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  loves America a little bit less and people are to this day fighting and dying so that
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  we can appreciate what we have and many people don't understand that.
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  I mean, what is that?
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  What does that lead to in 10, 15 years from now?
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  I did knock it out with like, again, like even if, just to give context, even if colleges
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  or universities, how we call them in Canada, were a little bit more liberal, which they
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  were.
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  I think college universities are always skew a little bit more liberal.
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  It was liberal in terms of like criminal justice reform or maybe immigration is a little
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  bit easier, but it was all under the context of this country's great and we're going
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  to try and improve the country and we're going to try and make it easier for people to
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  win in this country.
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  Not this country's shitty.
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  It was never replacing the country.
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  It was like, how do we under the frameworks that exist make it make life better?
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  This new anti-American, whatever anti-country really idealism is very scary and I've never
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  seen a generation grow up hating the country that they're born into.
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  It's also like I'm watching a definition of liberalism change because liberalism at
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  one point was a celebration of diversity of thought and most liberals would defend people
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  that disagreed with them because they wanted them to have that polar opposite opinion.
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  They wanted the diversity.
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  Liberal nowadays doesn't mean that anymore.
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  That's not what we see.
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  So I think the problem is not that the colleges lean left.
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  The problem is that they've changed the definition of what liberalism actually represents.
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  They've made themselves into activists believing that liberalism is what they think is, you
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  know, being a supporter of something on the left and they should fight to the death for
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  that.
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  The reality is that's not liberalism.
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  It's embracing the fact that people around you disagree with you and being in a college
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  or university is the time when you're supposed to have those debates and those conversations
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  and those different thoughts and I think we should just go back to that and that might end
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  up with people disagreeing with America.
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  That's okay but that's not what they're doing right now.
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  They're not thinking it through and having those debates.
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  They're just teaching people that America is bad and that's the problem.
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  If you let people think and you let people debate, they're going to end up in a very different
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  conclusion.
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  You obviously have been an advocate for Israel far before October 7th.
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  So what happened to the world in October 7th when we stopped seeing, this is going
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  to be a leading question and obviously you know my opinion and feelings on this but when
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  we stopped seeing terrorists as terrorists, like this again, I feel like the way that
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  I question what's happening in the world right now, it's as if, I don't know, it's
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  as if like the reality that I lived in no longer exists.
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  It's like black is white and black and drop me in some alternate reality where terrorists
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  are no longer terrorists.
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  No, they're celebrated.
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  And they're celebrated and they're not only celebrated, their flags are celebrated in
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  the U.S., and the U.S. flags are burnt and Israeli flags are burnt and a terrorist
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  flags are like, you know, paraded down streets and nobody...
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  Right by like the Twin Towers, right?
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  That's the creative when you see the flags of terrorist groups, like marching down where
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  the Twin Towers were.
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  And I don't understand what's just it, I guess I was just surprised that there was such
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  a dramatic shift that happened in sentiment that I was not aware of.
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  Even when...
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  So, my dad worked for Ceases, which is Canadian Security Intelligence Services, and he
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  worked heavily with like Shinbet and also intelligence organizations in the U.S.
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  And Canada, U.S., it was always like Israel is the bastion of democracy and intelligence
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  as well in the Middle East.
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  And it was always like, they're the ones that have sort of, they're the...
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  What's the phrase?
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  It's like you're the first...
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  I guess first line of defense against...
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  Yeah, they're fighting our enemies.
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  Anything.
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  And for some reason, all of that changed and I don't know when it happened, but I realized
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  it happened on October 7th when people were like, oh, you know, I don't know if it really
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  happened.
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  Well, I think they had it coming, you know, excuse me.
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  Yeah.
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  What?
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  Yeah, people asked me like, how did October 7th hit you?
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  And it's as awful as that day was, and I remember sitting on the floor for like 10
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  hours straight watching the footage and sobbing, what happened after actually hurt more, because
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  I thought I'd wake up to the entire world defending Israel.
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  Kind of like post 9-11.
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  Right.
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  I thought the world was going to say released.
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  I mean, I think at the point of October 7th, October 8th, we didn't actually know how
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  many people were murdered yet.
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  We didn't know how many people were taken hostage yet.
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  It was very confusing.
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  But I thought I'd wake up that day and have the entire world screaming for these people
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  to, you know, come home.
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  I know we knew some people were taken hostage.
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  I thought we would, you know, be screaming about what just happened in the Middle East.
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  I didn't think I'd lip through that in my lifetime.
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  You know, I've run a Holocaust Museum, a digital Holocaust Museum, and I'm sorting through
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  materials and images from the Holocaust weekly.
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  I never thought I'd lip through a time when the imagery I was seeing actually reminded
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  me so much of what I unfortunately have to sort through from, you know, 80 years ago.
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  But that's what it was.
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  And then I woke up to a bunch of people celebrating what happened, saying Israel deserved it.
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  And ripping down, you know, posters of nine-month-old babies being held hostage, as if it was
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  propaganda, or they deserved it, or whatever else God forbid people were saying.
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  Have you thought about what shifted in the world that led to the change of sentiment?
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  I mean, I think it was the last few years or a blur.
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  Maybe it was after October 7th, but remember a year or two ago, maybe a year, when Al-Sahman
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  Bin Laden's letter went viral on TikTok, and all the, you know, 15 to 19-year-olds were
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  saying Al-Sahman Bin Laden had a point.
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  Yeah.
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  I mean, clearly the shift is greater than just to do with Israel, you know, like it's
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  nothing to do with Israel.
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  Anti-Sahmanism is easy.
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  So we all bounce on attacking Israel because why not scapegoat the Jews were used to
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  it?
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  But it's a lot deeper than Israel.
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  I mean, we're celebrating terrorists, and they will celebrate the terrorists if they
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  did it here too.
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  Like, how do we fall so far where a knife, whatever, an 18-19-year-old on TikTok thinks
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  that Al-Sahman Bin Laden had a point, like actually, like what the fuck is wrong with people?
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  Yeah, you can totally curse.
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  This is fucking insane.
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  And I just don't understand how, like, because who were the parents, who were the influences
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  on those 19-year-olds?
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  That part I think has been good, because a lot of parents talking to, I mean, I've talked
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  to so many students and parents in October 7th, so many parents had no idea what was going
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  on on these campuses, and they were, you know, paying hundreds of thousands of dollars
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  for this education, and then seeing their kid camped out in a tent with the flag, you
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  know, camped out in a tent outside the campus with a Hamas flag, you know, displayed on
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  their face.
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  And they're wondering what the hell happened to my kid, my Jewish kid, very often too.
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  So I think that's the good thing is people are like, wait, we can't put all this faith
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  in our institutions.
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  Maybe the Department of Education should not be educating my kid, and maybe I should
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  be educating my kid.
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  And I think a lot of people thank God woke up because of that.
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  They had no idea that their kids were being sent away to these schools coming back four
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  years later and thinking of Al-Sahman Bin Laden had a point.
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  So that's been good.
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  People have actually woke up.
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  But when did the curriculum shift?
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  It's a while ago.
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  It's been, I mean-
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  I don't even feel like I'm 34.
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  Yeah.
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  I was in university, okay, what, like, 14, 13, whatever, 12 years ago.
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  I don't remember, like, this was not something that was believed by my generation.
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  This is more to do with Israel, but I went to get my masters, 2022.
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  Yeah.
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  So I graduated in May a few months before October 7th.
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  Before I went, and I went to UPEN, again, great school, large Jewish community.
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  That's why I wanted to go to Penn.
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  When I got into Penn, they had an orientation for students before they, you know, accepted
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  their, like, accepted the, I guess they said acceptance letter, you have to, you know,
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  accept the offer or not.
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  Before you accept the author, the offer they had this orientation, there was a Jewish
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  girl there who was completing her masters in the same program.
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  And I asked her, what is it like to be a Jew on campus?
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  Because I was curious, I had heard stories, I hadn't been in school in a while.
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  She said to me, I'll never forget, the kids in this class would rather find out that
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  you were at the January 6th Capitol riot than that you're a Zionist.
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  And I was like, okay, so this is, things are, things are different.
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  And again, Zionist just means you think Israel has the right to exist.
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  That's, that's all that means that's been used for many others.
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  Of course.
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  So that's when I realized things had shifted.
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  But I, nothing could have prepared me for October 8th.
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  And for waking up and being told the Jews deserved it, these kids deserved it.
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  It's propaganda knowing that, you know, the footage was blasted across every social media
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  network.
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  That's fake.
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  Nothing could have prepared me for October 8th or the 17 months since.
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  You know, I've had a couple conversations with, with, with friends about this.
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  And they've kind of like oversimplified why there's so much anti-Semitism and I'm going
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  to say this, but I don't agree with like anti-Zionism, whatever, which is, I think synonymous.
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  But people will say that it's not, I think they're just trying to.
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  Yeah.
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  It's a fun, easy out to say.
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  I hate the Jews.
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  But a lot of the thought was, for some reason, like Hamas and pro-Palestine groups were
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  really good at social media post-October 7th and pro-Israel groups were not to the same
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  degree.
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  And that was something that they leaned into and exploited.
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  So much that you saw propaganda everywhere.
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  And do you, I'm just curious because obviously you are in social media and I'm wondering
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  how big of an impact you think that actually made on the world.
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  I hate being this person because it becomes a very different conversation and we can talk
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  about this for hours.
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  But the fact is social media has allowed our enemies to infiltrate this country in the
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  easiest way possible by hitting the next generation, right?
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  No one knows what's going on, no one knows what 14-year-olds are doing on their phones,
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  no one can stop them from being on their phones or being on these apps and anyone, anyone
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  in the world can feed them whatever material that they want.
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  That has been the largest problem and that's what it's taken over.
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  I have a problem with politicians, I have a problem with professors, I have a lot of
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  problems with a lot of people.
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  But the fact is, when anyone in Russia and anyone in China, anyone in the Middle East can
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  access your 13-year-old and tell them how to feel and how to think about things like
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  terrorism and change their mind and educate them in a way you don't know what's happening
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  because you're tuned out because your child is 13, doesn't want to listen to you?
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  That's when you have a real problem.
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