Latest / CrossPolitic Show / Why Conservatives Keep Losing w/ Jeremy Boreing and N.D. Wilson
Transcript
- Hey, oh, welcome to Cosball took on a fight lap feast network. It's good to be with you on the water boy I got a couple guests in the studio today because Toby's pastoring past or Toby's pastoring. He's got a wedding and Knox is traveling Walker. So you guys are the plan B Here's the substitutes. So I got of course you guys know Indy Wilson and former CEO of David wire Jeremy boring joining the show But it's former we shouldn't really call you former CEO anymore I mean it's like because you're the Jeremy Boying show now It's tough, you know, it's like when when you live in the shadow of your former glory I mean co-founder. I wouldn't say I wouldn't say like former CEO So just a co-founder really where there we go. Yeah forever co-founder of the daily wire Current Nate's always got a good traction of the jury Jeremy Boying show So before we get to it a couple of plugs kind of get down the business side of things You know Jeremy knows all about this Nate doesn't can and doesn't really do this Yeah, we just tie our shoelaces together and trip over Classical conversations are you concerned your children's current education won't give them skills necessary to succeed in any area of life Consider homeskilling with classical conversations by applying the classical Christian model of education the classical conversations Curriculum encourages students in how to learn how to think for themselves so they can adapt to every challenge life throws at them join over 50,000 families and 60 countries who have chosen to educate their children with classical conversations by visiting Classical conversations.com Ford slash flf that's fight laugh fees for slash flf That's classical conversations.com for slash flf another one and then we're into it My daughter does classical conversations. So I feel like we're already in oh man did there did you put in code cross-politic when you uh went Yes, yes, there's only one way to answer that question on the live on the show Robert Bartons made ham. Yeah, yeah, that's right. Let's be clear about something how you handle your money is not a neutral act Our monitors down right now. So I'm reading this. It's it's not separate from your walk with Christ It's not exempt from his lordship if you're a Christian then everything you have is under the authority of Jesus Christ And we are commanded to be faithful in all of it to many and well strategies exist to help families think biblically and act wisely When it comes to financial stewardship the they offer education and consulting to help Christians align their household economics With long-term Christ centered post-millennial vision. Oh, I need to tell Jeremy about that. That's for sure They provide guidance on areas like budgeting saving debt management life insurance state organizations and developing multi-generational Financial vision their goal is not to sell products. It's to help you ask the right questions and making form decisions consistent with your convictions This isn't about chasing wealth for its own sake It's about faithfulness domaining helps their clients protect what matters and prepare for the future with clarity and conviction If you're ready to think more intentionally about how to steward the resources God has entrusted you Visit and this is the best website around right now reformed. Not money WWE that reformed that money and schedule a complimentary consultation with dominion wealth great guys. I work with them Can we workshop that one? It would it you know they always give me longer plugs because I think they want me to look to them or products I think they want me to look to them or the longer I read them right look Are they not in business? They are yeah, it goes not that says it goes not to sell products. I know well less trust these guys. It's a I go was not only to sell products. Yes Yeah, there's a way to work it. I can be that one for we know what a useless Yeah, now I got they're great. I love a Nate Nate host the show called stories or soul food And actually I wouldn't call it a show. Yes, it's you and Brian. Yeah, one of my favorite things is when you guys are like tearing up Proposals yeah, we get we get creative pitches which we and they'll they'll tear them up on the show and it's a little second It's called make me famous. Yeah, it's a lot of a lot of fun and everything so I have a friend in in Hollywood named Rodrick the Falconer Taylor and he was a he was he's Did he self name himself he did he's known as one of the great living Poets actually, but he had huge success in the 70s and made a bunch of records for Gatham and then became a really prominent screenwriter So he's had these three incredible acts in his life But he he's a bit of a missing throw but he'll say that when people pitch him because this is what happens when you're a writer You know everyone was to hey my son wants to be on the phone. I have an idea Oh, yeah, I've had your idea. I am a professional. I've had every idea. There are no ideas That you have that are of any interest to me I think it's actually true and it's actually important because Ideas aren't worth much Everything in life is what you do you know Steven Spielberg's not the first guy who had the idea of like what if we made a movie with dinosaurs Like that. No, that's not the thing. Mm-hmm. He made the movie that had the dinosaurs and he made it to be great like everything is an execution Yeah, so I mean I want to start just the first part of the show just kind of talking about the past You obviously launched daily wire with Ben Shapiro was it 2016? 15 So I had been on the show in 2017 just shortly after you guys Launched daily wire we had been on and I asked Ben. I was like or maybe Toby I can't remember but we asked Ben what do you think about Jesus? So we talked we let Ben do a stick on economics and culture and all that stuff and yeah The last question we asked him was what do you think about Jesus and I'm uh and uh It's been went on for you know three or four minutes or something like that and he said But I really appreciate Christians because you guys tried to evangelize me and not kill me kind of thing That's where he ended But someone took that clip and clipped it and put on their own YouTube channel and went all replace him back in 2017 Going viral is really you know man you want it you want to go viral And it was so jealous I was like why didn't no one bet they didn't reference the link back to us They just clipped it they made it their own thing. I was I was bummed but uh Um stolen valor, but what was what was interesting was um so 2015 you guys launched Uh, Ben probably came on my radar around 2016 Is so shortly after and um, but you've been as part of that journey like you built One of the largest conservative platforms Um Without like cable TV the cable platforms all that stuff with daily wire um up and and then and then March 20, 20, 25 let's just cut to the chase they let they let you go or you guys parted ways or They fired you or however, whatever I mean actually really filed much of of your story besides I mean I followed I followed you in the boring show But when people get fired at I just or move places and leave I don't pay much attention But like talk a little bit about kind of like that journey all the way to like leaving daily wire Sure, well, you know, Ben and I have been working together for many years before we found that the daily wire we Had a publication called Truth Revolved at the David Horwitz Freedom Center. Yeah I'm uh yep For a good bit and and had worked on a lot of projects in the years leading up to that So we did one decade of the daily wiring. You know, it's a long long time to take keep a band together And we had a lot of hits, you know, there are our pressures when you have hits And we navigated those pressures. I think extraordinarily well for a decade But eventually it's you know, like I say it's difficult to keep those things going there are a lot of pressures On you when you're in that sort of a position We we're really proud of what we built them. Yeah, we built um, I think the preeminent conservative digital media company of its time Uh, I think that we were ahead of the curve I think you know over the years we had a handful of good ideas As I said at the beginning, I think everything's in the execution. We had one idea that doesn't feel profound in retrospect Um, because now everyone has that idea Yeah, right, but you know, we were we were early to it which is Uh, that social media presented an opportunity to win right it presented an opportunity to go around the traditional gay keepers and get our message out And we were 18 months ahead of the curve, you know on on that and we tackled it in a really Uh We tackled it in a very serious way whereas a lot of our peers in the space didn't have success early on you they they got in trouble They got canceled they got shadow band that got demonetized Um, and you know sometimes people will take issue with that. I think Mike Sarnovich who I think is you know Generally a very fun follow on x because he's uh, he's kind of a conoclastic and eccentric and he has ideas that are all over the map and Uh, heterodox and so sometimes they'll have these uh, he did buckle a little bit in covid A lot of people buckle a little bit or a bit a lot of people buckle a little bit Yeah, but sort of actually to point recently like uh the daily wire was getting special treatment I think Tucker echoed this uh this last week the the daily wire got special treatment from social media. Yeah, which is nonsense. I mean we were Probably the only organization in the conservative uh world where Facebook would change its algorithm not to penalize Conservatives to penalize us specifically the daily wire because we were being so successful for 18 consecutive months We are the number one publisher on earth on faithland is 15 consecutive 18 total months. Okay, we're the number one publisher in the world on the biggest platform in the world Yeah And here are swisher Kevin rooster these guys would write in the new york times and they put a lot of pressure on Facebook I to do something about it. So Facebook would change its algorithms just to stop us well, and they were unsuccessful for a long time And the reason is because not it's not because we Had a special relationship with Facebook. It's because we had a special attitude toward Facebook And it's a we were a for-profit company not a nonprofit Which is dominates most of the conservative media of land. Yep And we just believe that you only win by winning we believe that You know in the conservative nonprofit model you can sometimes win by losing You can do what I call the like lose gripe Andres repeat. Yep. Yeah, you actually don't want to do well on Facebook because that's hard You want to be shadow band on Facebook so you can play about it. Yeah, we quickly send me 20 bucks Yeah, but we saw we saw a big tech as a problem that could be solved um Not as you know an opportunity to lose and engage in failure theater for money And now we're not the only ones who did that. Yeah, but we built an institution around doing it I used to I used to have a think of a 10 30 meeting every morning. I would gather The movers and shakers in my business the management level or executive level and and I would say if you blame the algorithm You're fired. Yeah Not because the algorithm isn't actually to blame not because the opposite is not a problem there Yeah, that's right. But what your job is to succeed no matter what the platforms do and we deployed We had an attitude about that that no one else had we deployed resources that no one else deployed We had the biggest team working on that problem We had lawyers dedicated to nothing, but that problem we had social media people Dedicated to that problem. We spent and a significant percentage of our revenue on that problem And we constantly iterated. Yeah, we would try We sort of invented the influencer network before that became a more popular thing six seven years later Where we would have other people post our stuff We would buy channels that we thought could post our stuff. They would make changes that would go away No, we would engage in paid video marketing that would work for a while It would go away. We would engage in paid publishing marketing that would work for a while go away Whatever it was We were just skating to where the puck's going to be right we wanted to we wanted to win And I think that one of the problems that exists in right wing media But I think sort of exists In in right wing spaces more broadly not only media Is that there's a defeatist attitude There's a belief that there is no future that the world is over There's a kind of release that we get a kind of reprieve that we get from having responsibility if we Preview is good word. Yeah, we want to lose and some in some tragic way We want to lose because no because maybe it proves us right somehow and I don't buy into that I've never bought into it the daily wire didn't buy into it. We existed to win Fought hard to win and we won a lot for 10 years So blaze blaze was first in oh a Glenn bet. Yeah, he was ahead everybody. He's first in but you guys I think really developed The first model that actually Worked in terms of like really getting revenue in well Glenn had a fundamental problem with his early business I admire Glenn hugely for being the innovator in the space. There's no doubt being first in and spend the money in risk that he took Yeah, unbelievable and Glenn is often that guy. He's a he's an innovator He's definitely a forward-faker and he puts his money where his mouth is yeah His business model was just slightly flawed He The problem with his or he had that listen he adapted But the problem with adaptation is sometimes that the timing is what really dies you You know Glenn's problem at the beginning of the blaze is that he locked his most valuable asset behind a paywall which means That Glenn was the most famous he was ever going to be on the day that he started the blaze He could only become less famous over time Within the context of that early model now of course he changed that and that was good And they went on to have a lot of success Tyler Cardin's one of the great operators in the conservative media for sure and a good friend But that is my Glenn. I think he had this right idea There was an opportunity to monetize subscriptions were the future the internet was the future social media was the future but The trap that got him in the earliest days of the blaze was put the most valuable asset behind the paywall that does get you the early wave of Subscribers but now how do you get the next wave of subscribers because your most important asset now is a diminishing asset And there's a tension there. How do you how do you take your your IP now you take your hosts how you take your ideas Get the maximum penetration because that top of funnel has to constantly be growing. Yeah, so then you can convert more and more people down I'm gonna pull this one off because my yep, you know, I'm ashamed to say I have very small Here's the worst Well, at least both your ears work You know, I'm gonna take one out because they both work and I'll need one in my ear So I have a couple questions for you one is what you're talking about that 1030 meaning that attitude I've don't basically don't give me your reprieve don't give me the excuses What conservatives love a permission slip to have failed yes, they loved you have been persecuted Um, I had a big moment in late high school with a football coach holding my face mask and just spit flying in my face My helmet with him yelling good players don't get held Because I had been held and had thus and you're complaining that a coach Well, my job is outside containment. I gave up outside containment. Yeah, they scored I gave up outside containment because somebody was dragging on my jersey. Yeah, you know, and so I thought oh, I'm fine And the scoreboard didn't care that right, you know, it didn't care at all coach didn't care no at that moment for me was just like This big dude spitting in my face The most toxic idea that exists in the in the universe is the victim mentality It's and the victim mentality is always poison, but it is especially poisonous when you have been victimized Yeah, and I think it's all is It's as old as literally as old as sin because it's from the beginning. We've got Adam in like I was The woman you gave me everybody's got their little get out jail free card that turns out don't work These are invalid. They don't function and when reality reinforces your sense of victimhood Yeah, then you've created the ultimate inescapable trap conservatives are persecuted We the daily wire was exactly you were held yeah exactly so so what it just doesn't matter the outcome the outcome is what matters there We we want to win what I'm really curious about because there were many there are many wins There's good moments and it was like it was the daily wire's not gone no certainly But in those 10 years In which you were having those 10 30 meetings and doing everything you were doing What are the biggest lessons so you I guarantee Everybody else that you have a ton of lessons some of which you'll probably share and some of which you wouldn't be willing to share Yeah, but the the gold I want the ones that you aren't willing to share public But the good the goal really the gold there's a there's a lot of positive lessons The gold is in the lessons of 10 years. That's right. Oh as a veteran commander of And this this might not be fair, but the blaze to me Oh, I always loved what Glenn was doing who was trying to go there and yeah, what he did But it felt fundamentally defensive and the daily wire felt fundamentally offensive so just in terms of Foot back to football three yard, you know three yard draws and handoffs up the middle and just lots of collisions and dust or Air raid and attack and go and and extreme offense daily wire was offense This felt like offense offense offense all the time And so I'm the thing I am jealous of or crave it are all those those lessons all the gold that you got out of the 10 years The things now as we look forward to the future Everybody as you look forward to the future as we look forward to the future with what we're doing as conservatives in general involved in media and Alt media Look at the future. What are the biggest Lessons we all need to be aware of don't fight churn Don't fight churn that's interesting every consultant every new Accounting and finance first and every new executive has ever come in To the daily wire would say, oh man if we could get that churn number down because you know what happens is for Yeah, people who don't know You get some subscribers coming in and then every month some of those subscribers fall away. No and Some of them fall away because of simple things like Dunning you know they fall away because their credit card number changes Yeah, you need a strategy for how to go reactivate that person. They don't intend to walk away Also in our business, you know if you say apple pie is good then the pecan pie people are pissed and they And they quit on you know, it's just that's an that's an occupational hazard conservatives Everyone comes in and they look at a churn number and they go man You're turning 3% if we get that down to 2% then we uh, they'd be so great our everything would fix all of our Our profit margins would go up. You know everything we get so much easier and I would always say that's absurd The entire idea of fighting churn Is premised on the idea that the biggest we could ever be is how big we are today the way that you win Uh, and and ultimately even the way that you defeat churn is to grow Always be growing always be growing if you take a defensive posture towards your audience that's the Netflix posture toward Your revenue if you take a defensive posture toward if you approach your business As though the most important thing is preservation By the way, this is true of your life too If you approach your personal accounting through Preservation instead of through growth if you if you approach your family through preservation if you approach your art or your work Through the idea that this is all that there will ever be Then yeah, you might slow the decline But decline is the thing that you're act the actual enterprise that you're engaged in and we were always focused on growth And there were times where I would fall victim to it. I say always that's not fair There's nothing that we were always yeah, there's what we always Revered it to after trying all the other things and failing Really when it comes down to you like wait we've been fighting churn for a minute. We should go back to office We should actually go win again. We should do what is a woman that's right and then you Instead of preserving a hundred thousand you now grow to 500 And you get some of those back because you did Yeah, so that's a big turn. What's another one of the huge lessons don't don't fight churn um Yeah, well the one where he said is don't complain But do you know always move forward? I would say that another really important lesson is that in a missional business One of the hardest like like conservative media like conservative and the mission of being conservative media one of the what and I think this also has universal application In your life and your family The hardest thing to get right in life is Not what priorities to have it's what order of prioritization in which to place them almost all Halfway decent people have somewhat similar Top priorities which is what ordered you put them in and One of the very difficult lessons that I learned at the daily wire is that whichever one you place as paramount You Definitioly all of the other ones become subordinate to mm-hmm. So in a missional business The business is very important. You cannot win an emotional business if you don't make more money You can't win an emotional business if you don't get a bigger audience You can't win an emotional business if you don't grow your team you can't win an emotional business Uh, if you don't expand and sell more and do more and and yet If business is the paramount priority then the mission will always be subordinate and that means the mission will Ultimately lose and the irony is an emotional business It means then that the business will also lose if you make the business the highest priority the business will fail Now if you don't prioritize the business the mission will fail. Yeah, of course. That's true There's more than one way to die There are more this every and and in a fallen world every single good thing also kills you Which is a hard another lesson. Nate. I got a question about that because I mean I think we're all kind of in that genre Missional businesses cross-paltic Canon Canon plus Jeremy Boying show Because this is something that you know, I've I don't I wouldn't say struggled But I had to think through a lot on a different number of different levels Over time because you make decisions that are not going to help your business grow sometimes You know you release a meme against Joel Webin on That only helped You know, but I'm here We finally got Jeremy in the show with us. Yes, Jeremy's here. You know, I mean like yeah man help me help me with that like the Missional business has been I think honestly if I were going to say where I make the biggest Mistakes is always in favoring the mission over the business right yeah, and so business discipline and prioritizing the business Is not the temptation, but yeah is for every operator right has to be and so we're always we're always faced with bottom lines and making you know making the payroll and And sometimes you can drive the operations guy nuts. Yeah Absolutely, but it's it's one of those things that my my dad was Wasn't is a crazy serial entrepreneur who'd never made any money and was never motivated by money at all So you know when guys are starting colleges they normally have more than a hundred and fifty dollars in their checking account You know, it's like when they're when they're founding the college when you're founding a denomination the association of classical classical Christian schools. Yeah Oh You know everything that's come from that and it's it's funny to be people think that my dad must be incredibly wealthy because of everything that he's built But it's always been mission and before him my grandfather made he founded a bunch of Christian bookstores that gave I told you Jeremy just a little bit about you so he gave a ton of books away Well, he was all about giving books away and he had this knack for knowing exactly how many books a store could give away without Going under and dying But all of his managers did not have that knack. Yeah, so he was constantly having to like travel back in and then salvage this store and travel to this one and salvage this store because that balance of The mission and eyes on the mission, but also yeah pay your people Make budget, you know, it's like do those. That's a really really difficult thing. I think that As a just a general rule not necessarily. This is not necessarily true of everything in our sure would forest ecosystem the The Moscow Idaho ecosystem of decentralized but sister businesses and ministries and so on right I do think that we have sacrificed the business side more often than the yeah Than the mission. Yeah, which then shortchanges the mission. Yeah, for sure Yeah, the money for the flip side is I've seen it over and over and over again Was soon as that mission that mission all businesses limping Intelligent operators business guys come in who made a bunch of money selling flatware or mattresses And they come in and they're like this is how it's done And the the bottom line rules and then the whole spirit goes out the fire disappears. Yeah, this isn't will destroy the whole thing Yeah, it's it's really strange. I think that the fight the church don't fight the churn is a really interesting comment because across Years of cannon plus and what we would do in there our churns always been constant Like it doesn't it doesn't change when people rally and try to boycott us Nothing happens like you you couldn't actually there's no significant jumper We had we had not had any incident there was large enough that you could know about it just by looking at the growth Uh, and the churn rates and everything else. Yeah, but we do constantly find ourselves in that conversation of like how do we stop the churn? Yeah, how do we this churn exists wouldn't it be great if we could turn that off Really Sure, it's a great word. It was like okay. That's yeah, they'd be great if you could turn it off But that's not the that's not the goal. So I think with us we've walked away I guess is exactly what you're saying Because that's a business mentality that's a business solve If we start focusing entirely on that instead of on advancing and hitting the next target and when God said be fruitful and multiply before sent Even in or the world who was calling a stop to miss him Yeah, he was essentially he was essentially saying you have to sow into an uncertain future in faith believing that there's something better ahead and there isn't always I mean catastrophe happens Yeah, natural disaster happens. We live in a world of sin and death Uh, and so we sometimes sow into the future And don't succeed But we will never cynically and defensively approach the future and succeed. It's a yeah, it's an imperfect ever It's an imperfect system. It's not like every time you're optimistic you will win But every time you're pessimistic you will lose and then to the extent that we've been given dominion and told us Disobdued the earth at the extent that we've been told to be fruitful and multiply We have to believe in the future We have to believe that we can be bigger tomorrow than we were today That we can do better tomorrow than we did today that we can accomplish more tomorrow than we accomplished today and live that way go do it So that's great. Yeah, that's really good. I like that um You know, everything has the landscape has just changed significantly the last two years Yeah, um and the two years before that on the two years and yeah, yeah Um, I mean, yes, and it's probably Trump really it seems like every four years something's changing Rapidly, well tacked to you. So Trump and tacked. Yeah. No. Yeah. Hey, I know and um My least favorite thing in the world innovation innovation Is happening, but also in like um, I mean, so maybe just start here, you know, I didn't vote for Trump in 2016 But I didn't vote for like I didn't vote for Mitt Romney. I couldn't trust Mitt Romney I just like how is he like pro choice and then all of a sudden pro life same with Trump How is um Trump in the 90s pro choice and then also in pro life and not knowing if there's any significant real conversion in his life That that would help explain for but I just couldn't trust Trump in so in 2016 I didn't vote for him I watched the fight I watched his media fight which I was very grateful for and in 2020 I voted for him in 2024 I voted for him um But with the the state of like media um that which is so funny because like I think media the conversation with media and the conversation with like You know new conservatism or or Trump can Trump magus whatever There's so much. I think that's a like there that's going on um You know, I'm grateful. I would also say and add to this like you know, I told you my story about you know, getting arrested in 2020 that we had no For actually this has happened before 2020 One of the reasons why we started or really ramped up can't am pro plus And why Doug's pastoral some started his own blog is because evangelicalism had blacklisted us So we were we're basically getting deep platform from evangelicalism and then so we'll start let's start on publisher or let's ramp up our own publisher Doug starts his own blog. Let's uh And then and then podcasting came along 2016-17 we started everyone started our own podcast is here um And so we were able to kind of go around the man or whatever the evangelical man and but that also became such the opportunity for conservative media like day with the wire It's like well Fox was kind of a A sifter a dead-end you know, if you got on got through Fox then maybe you got somewhere kind of thing But you just were so limited and so many ways to fight and now it feels like everyone can fight And now that everyone can fight There's there's the you know can is own fans and then there's the daily wire fans and then there's the you know, it's not you it's like Part of what's happened with media and the opportunities with media is caused the The ability for a lot more fracturing to happen It used to be like your Republican or Democrat That that that had its downsides and that has downsides. Yeah, and you only had Fox news and NBC or seen in you just you just had your your representative markets But even they but but now we have like so many fracturing markets. I don't know this kind of a big question when I'm getting I understand I have we have the ability we have what we have a radically inflated Oh Just a inflation of platforms. Yeah in terms of like that anybody can anyone can start talking anybody can jump on X and think of themselves as an influencer They now they now have a channel and they need 24 hour programming and everybody needs a take needs another take on everything Uh, they feel at a mostal burden to have a take on everything Oh inside of that you're always gonna have weight classes You're always gonna have yep, the Jeremy wait. We're gonna have you're gonna have daily wire You're gonna Candace who's was very effective at pulling in all the day drinking moms and and and bots And so she's got she's wagon. She's wagon that dog. Yeah Specifically, but it is it is weird. I think there's kind of an odd dysfunction In conservatives specifically Where we do fracture and we do have a weird purity culture and That spiral yeah, and and different people have put those lines in different places And so they have their lines where in 2016 you couldn't vote for Trump because of your purity screwpals right and it doesn't mean those are wrong Which is you have them and I can't vote for this guy yeah, and all these different people have them and so I conservatives can make it about head coverings. They can make it about education They can make it about incrementalism versus abolitionism when it comes to abortion And they're capable of fracturing and fighting over all sorts of things. It's like we're trying to land on the beaches of Normandy And everybody's arguing with each other in the surf and throwing elbows. I think there's two important things to say about that one Um A lot of the radical atomization is technological. We live in a moment where The ubiquity of social media Makes it very difficult to create institutions very difficult for institutions to thrive And there is some good to that. Yep. You know, we needed to get around the gatekeepers in 2015 100% yep But a nation can't survive without gatekeeping A nation is fundamentally nothing can no institution can And a nation is fundamentally a group of people who come together and rally together around what they're willing to live for fight for and die for Yeah, yep If if we call that basically culture at the end of the day that the things that make us the same is culture If we don't have one of those then we aren't a nation if we're not a nation then we're not going to remain a nation I mean, it's just like a totology right you're just You're doomed. So somehow we have to do what um We're in the terrible situation that you sometimes find when a marriage starts to break up because the husband cheated A marriage only works when a wife trusts her husband The wife gives to the husband with the church gives to Christ which is a kind of worship worship and trust and the husband gives to his wife what Christ gives to the church which is love and sanctification sacrifice to the point of redemption See here is holy and unblemished as it says in Ephesians But those are very difficult things women don't want to give trust to a husband I mean don't want to give love and grace to a what to a wise to the point of death to the point of death Yeah Both are called to do something that's sort of fundamentally inherently Against their natural yeah, I can't the flesh. Yeah, that's right um, and so you end up in this situation where uh the the great sort of paradox is that the husband The wife is not called to trust the husband because he's trustworthy She's called to trust the husband because that's what she's that's Relationally what she's supposed to do but the the strange paradox is Husbands become trustworthy in response to the trust of their wives And wives become lovable in response to the love of the husband again In a fallen world nothing works perfectly but every wife who trusts her husband Get to trust worthy husband and but respect makes somebody more respectful and love makes somebody more lovely And that's just and the only way there's no perfect way to get those things But the only way you will ever get those things is by giving the part that you're supposed to give And we're in a similar position all of our institutions have fundamentally proven themselves untrustworthy Yeah, and yet the only way that the marriage can work Has not changed we have to trust in institutions The wife who has the husband who cheated The only way that marriage will ever be redeemed is if she trusts her husband Which I have so much sympathy for her it is now virtually impossible And especially if if the husband's unrepentant So the institutions are unapologetic unrepentant that we know you know good luck So what do we do we have to trust in institutions again The institutions have proven themselves to be untrustworthy they're unrepentant to your point where the answer is we have to go Occupy those institutions and reform them into institutions. They can be Trust if it's gonna be very difficult the technology the technological moment that we're in Definitely cuts against us, but if we can't do it then this entire exercise is for not We will not survive not as a conservative movement not as a fundamentally as a nation If if it's sort of every man for himself everybody can go their own way You know, I believe in freedom I want everyone to have the right to go their own way But if we're gonna have a nation we all have to The one way that we're all choosing Is they're gonna have to come into some sort of cohesion So there's so things of fracturing I agree with you on the whole trusting big time like fractured not even just fracturing Yeah, yeah One year let's just say 11 months after the martyrdom murder of Charlie Kirk and into what looks like a cohesive Uniting tell-os basically of like the conservative has been like oh wow like this is they want to kill us And there is this unity and then within days the attacks begin from can't believe others and and where we are now We're fractured on Iran we're fractured on you know and wars were like Shane Gillis Everybody's like I love Shane Gillis because he says retarded and then Shane Gillis is caught so they're like rally behind him, but then he's calling for a reversal health care And what are you doing Shane like it's We're all low. It's apparently all the juice fault. So yeah, but that's really it's like it's Believe me if there's anyone who wants us to have more health care, it's the juice But you're then higher they're just wrong you're just your judgment is incorrect Really very much the thing is thought as I seem like liberals Should be the cat people but conservatives are we are we are the cats. What do you mean that we are cat? We are just cats everywhere cat ladies and cat personalities and scattering cats everywhere you cannot hurt us Yeah, everybody's hissing and scratching and fighting and it's it's it's truly it's truly bizarre, but I think the your point about A people disintegrates if you if you don't have that that ability to trust If you don't have a wife cannot trust her husband the marriage is over In actuality whether or not Is this the force or yeah, right and we do have we are absolutely in that situation as a people relating to our our cities our states Yeah, our federal government that's what was gonna go yeah, and so Trump at the top we've all watched We've all watched What you want to call it the deep state? It's actually people we've watched people try to sabotage him and take him out Who are his subordinates? Yeah, we have we have watched a bullet graze his ear we have seen Oh, you're one of those guys sure you believe I'm just saying I assassination attempt a Butler does it doesn't even believe it I believe that it happened yes But the same at the same time prior to that indictments. Yeah, it's like impeachment. Yeah, like we've we've seen the Kick co me with his 86 Uh, all that like petty stupid stuff, but we we have watched we can't trust the institutions that we are subordinate to But our leader cannot trust the institutions who are subordinate to him right yeah, they're right and we're in those weird Mis trust sandwich if you will of like from the very very top yeah to the very bottom and the middle is The completely untrustworthy Rebuctures the manipulations the illegal immigration the ballot box stuffing like all of the stuff that's been used to control both sides Yeah, the top and the bottom that's hopeful isn't running in the middle so when you talk about taking the institutions I agree But there's we did you know it's like at the top no no no no we didn't well This in terms of what people think yeah, like we got to the highest we got the president in the house Voting voting is an incredibly important thing that we do in our country It is hardly the only thing that we're responsible for in our country And a major problem that Republicans have generally conservatives have generally That the left is better than us at there. They are more correct than us Is that they understand that you have responsibilities beyond your vote They don't believe that you can show up once every four years Uh Select the guy that the New York Times hates and that that's going to fix all of your problems And then go right back to doing your own. Yeah, you also have to burn many apples Yeah, I wouldn't quite draw a straw Seattle in Portland quite endorse No, but you're leftist no, but that's that's part of their action right but the what that is Not every part of their action. I'm not endorsing the whole pro No, I'm saying that I'm saying that I feel like we're defending him at this point Go ahead. Sorry. I was an air opinion. No, no, I want to finish your Point so the but the point of the point is if you go to TPUSA To their pack to their or their c4 that does a TPUSA action I believe it's called the one says the the sort of get out the vote. Yeah Program you know, they'll talk they'll they'll show you how many people you have to deploy Just to change the outcome of an election in Phoenix. Yeah And it's a I can't say off the top of my head with the number is but it's like Thousands of people it's unbelievable number of people just up big effort And they'll go we know we're the first organ is I or the first conservative group to organize whatever the number I'm gonna make these up 5000 people In living memory. This is never happened. We've we've mobilized 5000 people In Phoenix and you go wow that that's unbelievable how many people is the left Organized and I said well they have 28,000 in Michigan alone And then they do that in every single state and go oh yeah, we're we don't understand that we also have to do Yeah, we have to always be doing it's so difficult to get conservatives to do because of the Because of freedom and every man doing what's right in his own eyes Yeah, well because of that and because our um We're we're not organized over around the idea of Fundamental radical change we're not revolutionaries. Yeah, and the left is revolutionary They actually are trying to tear down what was yeah tearing down as much easier to tearing down as much easier And so you know, I just think that we have I'm big on human agency. I'm big on we can and since we can we shouldn't since we should we must And I think that that's really almost every problem in Conservatism comes down to failing to really appreciate that Okay, so I feel like we've been really negative. I want to ask your question real quick Yeah, yeah, just before you move move on we'll be positive in a minute. Yeah, this so you're Your point about taking institutions Which I think is Critical I think it's a really really good observation One of the things that we've experienced and hopefully that others have experienced as well is the importance of forming institutions So whether it is a right it is a business like daily wire You had a Little squadron of tanks You like you had an offensive weapon that was formed that had a hierarchy That had the the ability to call plays and run plays and so on. I mean Michael Noles was a squirt gun But no, I'm kidding. He's hopefully he hears that. Let's go back. Let's go back But the uh you have that but then you also over where we were if we the church Denominations, you know our our denomination the can Ceres informed evangelical churches issued a religious exemption Vaccine statement that ended up being used across many denominations, but it was it was tea from my son at Columbia Where he was fighting where a very very small handful of kids ended up Allowed to be there without being vaxed and a small group of parents were put on a zoom with the head of Columbia medicine to be yelled at By this Catholic guy who less scolded this all for being murderers, but it's And it's it was bizarre both out the institution without an institution to fight back so schools the formation of faithful schools the Formation of faithful churches which are also institutions businesses Which will resist and use their resources to resist We have all these things these these institutions are key But at the same time we don't have a coherent hierarchy between them Well, there are there are two different kinds of people in this regard, you know, there are people who Are entrepreneurial who are who are founders who yeah who I Guess are sort of like Sadomasicus like they they take on enormous amounts of pain You know our culture is one of the only cultures left in the world that sort of looks up to or has any sort of glorification of people who create Um and suffer to do so and suffer to do so and that's really important And that isn't everyone while it is a very good thing and it's good to we appropriately as a society still revered that um If you are not the kind of person who's going to take on that kind of pain That's okay, too. It doesn't ameliorate any of your responsibilities some people need to go be a part of institutions Yeah, yeah, maybe you're not going to start the CPTA the conservative parent teacher association Go be in the PTA then or go be in the CPT CPT a that's not an easy one Don't start that It's go be in that when somebody else does start it You know support the people who are doing the things that you believe in or go occupy the thing that used to do the thing that you Believe in Both of those are really important functions. You know Occupy the institutions and creating institutions are both I think really vital I think also right now that's a great word is be part of and support institutions and Trust them. That's what you're talking about that relationship have trust and don't become purity culture perfectionist that's right But do trust them I think one of the ways you can do this right now is go find that Christian school that passed the test during COVID that never ever even barely bent a knee to woke Like go find those people then there's a reason we have recent wars. We have very recent We can see where you can go say like yeah, yeah, this church kiss the ring of woke Did this institution compromise? Yeah, don't go you know don't go wedge yourself to that just right away and tell me If Toby calls an institution proto woke you should still buy its razors which we did you should We did I want to ask that question, but um So the thing is we should have we should oh yeah, I want to stick it back around that maybe a different show But yeah, but that actually also goes to goes to purity culture too. Yeah, yeah in terms of like okay Culture is a desk spiral whenever you have any line and there are lines that cannot be crossed or odd not to be crossed But at what point do we start disfellowshipping yeah Like like a bunch of Jehovah's Witnesses over is yeah because you know this is an author, but this is the conversation I like this is what actually takes place if you uh Cheat on your wife not wants not twice not repentantly, but forever. Yeah, as a lifestyle just abusive and awful if you If you engage in gluttony and greed if you You know get drunk and get into altercations with police officers Um, that's that's fine. That's great As well as you're nice to Christians That this is the opinion yeah all Christians toward Hollywood Yeah, if anyone in Hollywood and you cannot imagine the lifestyle Whoever your favorite guy in Hollywood is I probably got 20 stories right saying I got sat as me You don't you don't have any idea the reality of Gamora how much it's Gamora by the sea as Don canley calls it um So okay, but if they're if they even give a grin toward Christians You'll invite them to speak in your church I mean if you but if you use the word damn in one of your novels. Yeah, you're gonna be boycotted by like 80 Full disclosure I have yeah I know that's why you don't know what it's the you don't put business as a high priority No, but that's it like our side Allows this sort of it's not just that we're engaged in a purity desk spiral It's that we're selectively engaged in a purity desk spiral we only apply any of these Unwinable untenable standards internally we don't we don't apply any of these stand This is I would say this forever if I make a movie anytime I make a movie people on our side are angry about no matter what it is You find 20 things to be mad about They all go home and watch Game of Thrones. I know because I can just look at the ratings. I know they go home with games of thrones Uh, they won't allow us to tell to even tell truth in the art I'm speaking hyperbolicly It won't allow us to tell truth in art very often And they'll support the very very worse things as long as it comes from the machine itself The weirdest the weirdest part about all this yes you're 100% right and you've run into it a ton of times I've run into it a ton of times Oh The fact is that I work with I work with angel I don't have my line is not where their line is It just isn't I work with Netflix my line isn't where Netflix is line is right I'm in Babylon Gamora by the sea Working with those people. I'm also Working with alt media with the daily wire with angel and so on on on other things But the place I cannot work to what Gabe has said earlier is the evangelical ecosystem. That's right I am not allowed to work there Because I am a Christian have always been a Christian. I'm over here fighting if I were an absolute dirtbag And had been an absolute dirtbag And had a 20 year career of dirtbaggery and then came out on Twitter supporting Trump or Currently just supporting Sophie Cunningham They're right. They're right would just grab me and elevate me immediately, but because of my my dad once I said something that shocked and scandalized people. I'm even generationally blacklisted. Yeah inside of evangelical The evangelical ecosystem, which is really really funny That gives me two more answers to your what lessons did you learn one of them is you have to build institutions And so like right now I'm doing the Jeremy boring show because that's yeah when you go through a Separation like I've gone through with the daily wire You you go through a term after that where you're limited and some of the choices. Yeah, you're not gonna get it non disclosure But the Jeremy boring show is not my aspiration. It's a part of the Vision that I have for what I want to do with the next chapter of my life Which comes to our big third act of this conversation one must build institutions. Yeah, yeah To just be a guy who with a show. Yeah, that's not the way. Yeah, Western man can't be saved by a guy with a show and and the second one is Uh You cannot there's a pair of social relationship that exists and it exists in both directions every person Who thinks a good idea is to put a microphone in front of their own lips? Put a camera in front of their own face has some narcissistic tendencies every one of us every now it's Some of us have narcissistic personality to slow us back to leader. Yeah um Every one of us has Some some ego that allows us to know we do to put ourselves out there the way that we put ourselves out there And so what the audience gives us matters a great deal to us And so the audience gets power over us Similarly the audience sees us very often as avatars for their own beliefs have a thirst for their own values We're we're fighting the word that they don't feel that they're empowered to fight and so they develop a pair of social relationship with us And so in both direction audience capture works in both directions and there is a founding philosophy um, and it goes far back pre-America But I think it was really encapsulated in our founding answer to this which is called republicanism And in republicanism you're neither a populist nor an elitist You neither do what the mob wants nor do you rule over the mob We have the house of representatives where you're supposed to be wagged by the mob and then we have And also what you're supposed to do is live in the center of an irreconcilable tension between representing the people and leading the people and that creates Constant tension and sometimes you air too far one way and it creates populism sometimes here to far the other way and it empowers elitism uh But that doesn't mean that this you know there are no perfect systems. There's no ism that's going to save you Yes, this tension is where we're supposed to live and as the creator Your job is to live in a place where your audience Believes that you represent them and feels constantly challenged by you. Yeah, if they only love you And now you're doomed you can only let them down. Yep. You will only fail them in their purity standard Because they've projected on to you them and you are not them So you will never be able to give them what they want and you will never get what you want from them They will constantly pull you out of your own core convictions And this is sort of maybe a different way of saying putting the business ahead of the mission You'll find yourself compromising on behalf of the audience all the time and both of those are part of the purity death spiral You actually have to find a way to be comfortable never getting everything that you want from the audience And never giving the audience everything that it wants from you Yeah, and art ultimately powerful art elevates and leads It is not what the fans wanted that right there's fan service and then there's creation that requires them to follow you know, there's And there there is forsaking them. Yeah, absolutely. That's wrong. Absolutely So there's betraying them. There's betraying what you've done before and it is funny to me how you can have guys in Hollywood who have Made horrible horrible things like just really bad things And then they throw that bone to the audience and just watching This even jelly support yeah flock to them as if they'll never be betrayed. Yeah, while Fighting parsing and fighting with conservatives. So when you say very very tiny things when you support institutions on our side Don't put your faith in them put your trust in them. Yeah, don't put your faith in them. Don't expect perfection from them Uh For them the amount of grace that's necessary for all people doing anything in this world That doesn't mean that you Allow them to become the thing that you hate of course not you can't But you do have to guard I think in yourself you have to guard as a consumer you have to guard yourself against Expecting What's created to perfectly represent you it can't yeah, I said it at lunch a bit ago that If if a workspace salvation is the way at most one human being could ever be saved You'll never find one other person who agrees with you on 100 person things. So if being correct Yeah, yeah is the actual prerequisite if God's just waiting for the one guy to get it right then I think he'll never get any guy But he'll at best get one guy one of the things I think is strange I love sports for a lot of reasons, but because you got two good eyes Yeah for two two eyes But I like the lessons available. I like the I'm I think I think GK Chesterton was a Catholic because he thought the outfits were funny Like I think I think he liked he liked the the uh Strangeness of it now he's also a sentimentalist. I love the guy, but I I love the Calvinist now. Yeah, I like yeah, I love the weird Sociological phenomenon that we are the species that takes our young out To run into circle against the young of other villages to see whose young is fastest And then we we have all these like controlled parameters for rules and like if you envision us as ants and I mean the little ants have to go out there It's like go Johnny you have to run faster work harder like you can the trash can't to the to the little ones And it's we also release tension between towns and regions with You know this these lightning rods of like rivalries and and so on. It's weird But the thing that I find strange is when I do something and I started publishing in like 2007 was my first novel and I've never read reviews My wife does and every now and then she she makes me Listen to one or she makes me look at one or something uh Nate's real prickly. Yeah, I just I want I want to Relationship that dynamic is interesting because also reviews are Not the the masses reviews are one individual person who thinks they have content But I've never done that but the thing is weird to me is when I do get word When people are mad at me about something when they're upset and I'm sitting here kind of standing on the football field Where it's like we're running plays We're trying to win we're fighting to win and there's an odd moment when people who are supposedly your supporters and supposedly rooting for you and supposedly Trying to help you and cheer for you and chant on third downs and all that kind of stuff instead turn on you And when they turn on you There should have been more than that play didn't work as well I think it should have you never should have want to run a sweep right that should have been a trips left You know, but uh what you know, it's like it's just this odd thing of like the play calling wasn't exactly what they wanted And so they burned the jersey in the stands Which is a really odd what you were never on my team you were never supportive now if I Did some horrible active treason down here if I knock over my own quarterback and cause us to lose I understand them being mad at me But when you're just running plays them in the fight It is really weird to me This weird toxic attack man and the arena. Yeah, you you say you don't read the bad reviews And I've always been that way not don't read the good ones either people people don't believe me I've read a bunch of nice comments since I started the Jeremy boring show and that's really been a novel experience Because I stayed out of the comments the whole time I've been in public life You know, I think you guys have had a few criticisms for me over the years and I didn't know about them when I said yes to doing the show Did you'll bring it to speed? I've only ever agreed with you 100% completely on I really love you Yeah, Joel was yeah, Joel was like, oh, yeah, there is this this this I'm like really meet him everyone loves Because uh Because nothing good comes up because it changes you cannot help yeah, but now start trying to serve other people's Other people's do of how things should be instead of your own and I think that it is it is one of the great temptations of the creator Is to get lost in that you have you have to be your own You have to be your own you have to be Consistent to your own values if you're going to put values out into the world or you're gonna put someone else's values out into the world Which makes you basically a slave so the thing is that I taught for rhetoric at New San Andreas College forever and The difference between all taught rhetoric. Yeah Sofistry like a real like a many manipulative sophistry and Actual faithful communication is one that does not really look at outcomes. It pursues outcomes Without measuring success by outcome Which is a really weird thing. So if you think about the apostle Paul preaching If he measured success by whether or not there was a revival or a riot by whether or not they stoned him Or all repented Then he would he would look at all these amazing acts of faithfulness some of his most faithful communication There was where there's those times when he's speaking to a crowd that's now going to try to kill him And so if we start to measure Our success based on whether or not the crowd loves us which by the way is we are dead That's when the sort of natural narcissistic tendencies that anyone in public life has yeah when that becomes an actual Narcissistic personality they want the crowd in front of them to share them on this is when kandas says when someone has a criticism for kandas Owens and she says look at the numbers Imagine if Paul used that as his standard Yeah, it's it's amazing and so we see Paul wants the revival he wants the repentance and he is running his play and his communication to try to achieve that And sometimes they ask it over the city. Yeah, or yeah He's heaping condemnation because it's further light that they're sitting against And so when he is stoned and left for dead when he is being smuggled out that is not a rhetorical failure He he was faithful in his communication And so there's when we're out there when we're out there trying to communicate there could be times somebody could have critiques I could be out there in the man in the arena or Paul could be out there preaching in somebody because they have a note I think you you How to run on sentence there and and we'll look at the writing of Paul he did yeah, the man was king of run on senses Like I model my writing after yeah, so if somebody could have a criticism of him But it is bizarre it would it's just truly bizarre to try to separate over it or to Be in his shoes and start to gauge popularity as the measure as the measure of faithful communication so the the reason why I didn't Read reviews was because I Believed at the very very start that the positive ones would probably be more seductive and dangerous Given my own personality if people hated me, I would be fine and I'd probably turn into it It is about you. I would just turn into a naughty transgressive author who was just trying to irritate people. That's good Yeah, so yeah, I see that my wife my wife read those things But the ones that are like over the top or suit somebody's really grateful or they're they're funny Those are Kind you can be grateful for them. I'm grateful every time somebody's trying to share content or spread content. That's wonderful But that's a hook That is a hook in me if I pay it if I pay too much attention to that yeah, if I start measuring it be like oh well Mary Jo and Iowa She loved my last two books, but this one this one she didn't like oh no Oh, yeah, I lost Mary Jo I lost Mary Jo I got it I gotta wrap this up because because Jeremy's got to go and then maybe if you guys stay around Have a cigar with us at our house. I think Nate can come pass your dog stuff. I'd love to chase I'm gonna step down a lot more, but you got to go to another show so Um, I'm just gonna end it right here. Hey until next week love God with all your heart soul minus strength club your neighbor self go fight laugh and feast I just broke my pen and this is post-pollative. Thank you