Knowledge Fight - #582: Chattin' With Jared

Episode Date: August 2, 2021

Jordan is still out of town, so Dan takes the opportunity to sit down and chat with Jared Holt.  The two chat about Alex Jones' youthful bigot friend Nick, and learn about how Twitter fights relate t...o opposition to voting rights.

Transcript
Discussion (0)
Starting point is 00:00:00 I'm sick of them posing as if they're the good guys, Shang, we are the bad guys. I'm sick of them posing as if they're the good guys, Shang, we are the bad guys. I'm sick of them posing as if they're the good guys, Shang, we are the bad guys. I'm sick of them posing as if they're the good guys, Shang, we are the bad guys. I'm sick of them posing as if they're the bad guys, Shang, we are the bad guys. I'm sick of them posing as if they're the good guys, Shang, we are the bad guys. I'm sick of them posing as if they're the bad guys, Shang, we are the bad guys. I'm sick of them posing as if they're the bad guys, Shang, we are the bad guys.
Starting point is 00:03:43 I'm sick of them posing as if they're the bad guys, Shang, we are the bad guys. Pre-pandemic, before COVID ever came to be a word we knew about, you and I had gone back and forth a little bit on Twitter and we were talking about the phenomenon that we were noticing that was that Alex and Infowars were becoming buddy-buddy with Nick Fuentes and how bizarre that was. And we had wanted to get together and have a little conversation about our feelings about that and what we thought that meant and then a worldwide pandemic happened and it kind of knocked those plans off track and then it looked for a little bit like their friendship or their sort of working relationship wasn't going anywhere but now it's blossomed again. Nick is hosting some of his videos on the Infowars site now, I would consider that a pretty astounding development and Alex and Nick were both appearing at the same rallies working together for Stop the Steel and they were on tour together. Yeah, I mean they've really grown closer together and it's interesting, we were talking before we started recording, it's not really a perfect match like the whole Groyper white nationalist stuff, I mean certainly Alex has broadcast elements of that movement or rhetoric on his show throughout the years and various capacities but styling wise and sort of strategy wise it's kind of like two different extremist worlds coming together and it's really interesting to see kind of where that is meshing and where it's not. I think interestingly I think strategy or you know like that end of things I think is actually fairly compatible because it is kind of attention grabbing based strategy you know like at least in terms of on the ground you know Nick Fuentes and all of his followers would go and like disrupt turning point events and it would get a lot of attention and you know Alex would go bullhorn people and that gets him tons of attention too. But I think what you mean is more like strategy behind like social policy and like what their goals would be.
Starting point is 00:06:36 Yeah and also just kind of how they see the vehicle into influence and power. Somebody like Nick Fuentes who's you know just unabashed white nationalist unless he's getting criticism then he's just kidding on a comedian. It's a comedy show complete coward by the way way more respect if you just own it but like I'm not saying that's a lot of respect but at least a smidge maybe in a very cynical way a loath a loath some respect. I guess that's a way to put it but Nick sees his strategy as you know they do these disruptive events they go to turning point USA conferences. They were at CPAC a few weeks ago as we're recording America uncancelled. Yeah and they just kind of walk around and act like dicks and like they get attention there's a ton of press at all the things they go to. And their hope is to kind of siphon off enough of the energy that's going on with those groups to become a type of stakeholder in the broader scene. That demands you know if not respect at least some sort of like catering or compromise with whereas Alex I don't know that he's really seeing his goal as like mainlining into the GOP or like he hasn't particularly targeted young people the way that Nick has.
Starting point is 00:07:59 I think he would like to. Yeah I mean I'm sure he'd love to but I don't know that I've seen so much of a coherent strategy for that. No that's true that's true and I think that what you're getting at is something that I've always thought of as like Nick and Alex are very different in as much as I think that Nick has a political project he's working on and Alex is just a con artist. You know like he has like there's an ideology behind Alex and like there's but there's beliefs that he has and there's things that he would like to see put in place in terms of you know I mean some of it does overlap with Nick like anti immigrant sentiment certainly they both share. But Alex yeah definitely he doesn't have the same like desire to really augment the GOP he wants Alex wants the GOP to be weirder like him whereas Nick wants to gain sort of access to the means of power. Yeah because Nick I mean I unfortunately have the experience of being one of the first people to like really critically cover Nick in reporting for right wing watch at the time and. All he's wanted the whole time is just to command some kind of respect in the Republican Party because he was this young guy based you know around here in Chicago. Don't rub it in went to school was anti Trump then was pro Trump then got this like shitty little gig at right side broadcasting network before it was anything then got canned from that being like for saying something along the lines like oh CNN anchors should be
Starting point is 00:09:39 hanged you know and just got bitter about it you know and well and he's you know in his view he's doing all this stuff to support the Trump cause in a way that is truer to the Trump cause then you know a place like Fox News. Sure and believes that he is entitled to some kind of throne you know to be some kind of intellectual thought leader. I think he's really bitter towards Charlie Kirk because Charlie Kirk is a bumbling doofus and Nick thinks that he should be Charlie Kirk you know yeah I think that I think on some level if you take away like how a toxic of people they are. I get that Nick is better at this so like Charlie Kirk but I think that he's I think that the problem with that entitlement is is not understanding what the requirements of the gig are the fact that Charlie Kirk is a bumbling doofus is the reason he fits into that hole and the and the the the fact that Nick has a like a sense of himself and feels entitled means he does not qualify for that role no because he would end up fucking up the game you would end up going off script you would end up advocating for some position that the the people who are bankrolling everything don't want him to and then well this is a problem. Yeah that's that's how it goes and not to mention that around geez I don't know 2016 2017 2018 and I mean for fuck's sake the rest of the years afterward. He's been toying with you know what was called the alt right at that time you know mingling very close with just some really grizzly like white supremacists and you know echoing themes of holocaust denial rambling on about anti Jewish conspiracy theories and it doesn't matter what he does or what he changes at this point. He has done enough damage to himself already that he is like never going to be the Charlie Kirk unless you know there is some sort of insurgency type movement within the younger GOP base yeah yeah and I think you can see that that is what he would like to
Starting point is 00:11:56 Yeah almost out of self preservation interestingly and now that you put it that way it almost seems like well this is the only shot I have at relevance is to ferment extremism that I can ride the wave of yeah and you know Nick wants to write it to power Alex wants to write it to sell Superman male vitality and keep himself afloat I maybe younger in Alex's career he had aspirations like that but it I don't even know if they were as explicit or as as obvious as Nick's are. Yeah yeah I would I would say so from looking at other periods in Alex's career I think I think he's closer but certainly not to the to the degree that that Nick is at like what is he 22 now like you know it's like he has he has a very sharp focus at a young age. You were you were bringing up like high school did you ever have you watched his videos from high school. A handful here and just enough to like kind of get the gist of what I was reporting out at the time just to be like who the fuck is this guy because even years ago I mean this probably three or four years ago at this point when I first kind of caught wind of Nick and was watching his videos I was like this guy is young. This guy is for better for worse sharp he speaks extremely well and like depending on what this guy does it could be very potent and I think we're seeing sort of the side effects of that potency yeah you're getting elected officials like Paul Gosar in Arizona. Michelle Malkin a very prominent you know columnist for decades throwing their weight behind this guy because they see him as like the next generation of what they do. Yeah and somebody who has like the ability to be a face of of what they do you know like he has the the ability to enter hostile spaces and come away with at least some lot of come of like well that didn't destroy me.
Starting point is 00:14:00 You know you can argue with people who disagree with him. He is very slick. He is yeah I it I got the exact same sense from him the first time I came across him as well for a period friend of mine was really into like those online debates and like those those where they want to just yell at each other and they're like welcome to the political debate we've gathered eight people to scream at each other none of whom have an undergrad degree and then they're like all right we go now to base night 34 and then base night 34 gets on there and it's just like I hate gay people and then everyone's like that's terrible and and that's the debate. Hear him out. He gets two minutes like the rest of you. I would watch some of these and I believe this friend of mine was really into destiny and so I watched his debate with Nicholas and I that was I think where he first came into my scope of awareness and I thought like this guy is fucking dangerous. Yeah he is he is really good at making bad points and he's really young too. So his potential shelf life is a long long time. Things have gotten much harder for him lately. I don't know what fucking did it right but you know what was left of his access to social media platforms finally pulled the trigger It was amazing. It took that long. Yeah it's he had a verified account on Twitter until like with like six weeks ago six figure following.
Starting point is 00:15:41 Yeah and would speak like very explicitly Southern poverty Law Center put out a report that took a big look at sort of the problems with Twitter and how it relates to extremism and in part of that report they brought up Nick Fuentes and they pulled this quote that I think like illustrated sort of what was interesting here really well like oh yeah you know I got banned from YouTube or I get banned from D live or whatever and then I just tweet the link and then everybody goes and follows me on the next one like that was kind of his last really effective megaphone and now he's on telegram I guess and gab I think is still active but he won't shut the fuck up about how much he hates telegram and like he's not he probably are terrible communication mediums. Well it's one way right. Yeah. So it's like he sends a message and it's not like his followers really like it's not like Twitter where they get in the replies and they just like pop off or whatever people fight with each other. There's no endorphin rush. It's just yeah it's one way. I guess there's like few counts on it. If you opened up if he opened up that telegram channel where people could comment on it it would just be like insanity. I'm his phone would blow up and you know so I saw that he's on a rumble like there's that video platform where people can just post shit and one of the things that I thought was really interesting is looking at how unactive that is. Yeah rumble. Donald Trump Jr. is on rumble. That's sort of the flagship. I think Dinesh D'Souza other great philosophical mind sure that I use rumble. Some QAnon people used rumble for a while. I don't know if that's as prominent anymore but previously don't get that much traffic.
Starting point is 00:17:30 No. Yeah. Previously my only interaction with it was when Owen Schreuer did that that caravan along the East Coast for Stop and the Steel that the person who was along with him was only posting stuff on rumble. So it was the only time I'd been there. I had no real sense of the site. I went to when I was preparing this episode I went to Nick's channel. Very very low counts and if I were him I would actually see info wars as one of the more viable outlets that has actual people around and that kind of scares the shit out of me. Like if I had gone to rumble and seen good view counts I would be like well at least he has his own thing off Alex's space. Yeah but like on Alex's platform I was super skeptical of it when he launched it but some of the videos on there pulling in hundreds of thousands views I don't know I haven't looked at the view counts for Nick's videos on there but you know occasionally you get a viral banger on Alex's platform. Yeah. It's not it's not super common. The numbers aren't like what they used to be on on like a YouTube or whatever but it's still it's still more than than like it's more than nothing. Right. Nick's views aren't huge but they're better than on like let's say a rumble type platform which would be something that you would take into consideration if you're looking at a market. And one of the things that you were saying you were skeptical when Alex launched that I was skeptical when Nick came around because I thought that there was no way that Alex was going to let him be explicit and I was wrong. Well a lot of the way Nick got into info wars was sort of through the like sea list host you had like Jake Floyd at the time Harrison Smith was having him on.
Starting point is 00:19:25 Sure. Ellen and him I hit it off pretty well. Yeah it's like he almost came in through like the trap door of course and then Alex was like look at this Patriot this guy is amazing. I always remember like when I was younger I was told that even if you didn't like graduate from high school even if you never took the SAT or ACT if you went to two summer school classes at the University of Missouri you'd be automatically enrolled the next semester as a student. And that's kind of what Nick did with info wars. Yeah yeah kind of kind of yeah I I remember to like the the first like real indication that I had that something was like a trouble was the CPAC from last year I believe when Alex went and got too drunk and fell asleep before his speech and then Nick was kind of just taking over the room. And like you could see that he had a far more potent sway over the audience than that. Well I mean Alex was asleep but the rest of the people there didn't have any kind of connection that was close to to what Nick was bringing. That was that was a little bit bad. He took over Alex's own event more or less. Yeah and I think that was going to kind of happen anyway. I've gone to CPAC several years. I haven't gone since the pandemic but that CPAC I did go to I did not go to the info wars event. Wait that was two years ago right. Yeah it was two years ago. Yeah excuse me. I didn't go to the info wars event because at that point I mean I'm a known enough quantity to these people that it's almost no I can't do reporting if I go there because as soon as I show up I just get like swarmed right. You become the story. Yeah that's that's not what my job is. Yeah so I I tend to just skip it or I was like watching it or whatever but CPAC generally as an event like certainly there's some donors that are around some older activists you know passionate adults but it and it's like this for almost you know any major major conference or event in DC they pack the numbers with college kids like what happens on the stage is for the cameras and there's media it's like a media circus and then there's also like the underbelly of all these
Starting point is 00:21:44 conferences is bringing in young college kids and trying to rear up the next generation of the conservative movement because the conservative movement has been so shitty the last couple decades frankly at pulling in younger generations to their cause so because Nick the way he styles himself being young personally and also you know borrowing rhetoric and and stylings from you know popular twitch streamers or memes and jokes stuff like that he resonates more with a younger audience sure and I think you know at an event like CPAC there's probably more people numbers wise in the crowd that could be pulled to somebody like Fuentes then you know I don't know how many die hard info wars listeners are just roaming around CPAC in fact most of the time when they go to CPAC is just to go be a thorn in the side until they get asked to leave yeah yeah yeah I guess that that makes sense I mean I think that someone like Alex probably has a difficult time connecting with the youth because the youth don't care about the red scare yeah try coms there's a little bit of you know you're an old man and I think that even like a lot of the insults that we see thrown around by Nick apply to Alex that's another thing that I think is really funny about this incompatibility is that on its face these two dudes are like like most of what makes Nick's brand work is opposition to what Alex stands for which is like boomer 1776 taking America back Revolution yeah Nick on his own I don't care what color you are if you really red blood yeah no on Nick show he he talks about people that use that kind of rhetoric and just I mean I won't say what he calls them sure he speaks very lowly of them yeah and then he goes on info wars and it he's almost just like I almost feel like you can see it in his face sometimes he's like he he knows that he kind of maybe for his career should be doing this but like isn't incredibly down I think just sort of happy to have access to a large audience yeah yeah I'm doing I remember back when I did stand up there would be shows that I didn't want to do but it's like this is you just got to do it you just got to do it there's a crowd there you know just whatever I
Starting point is 00:24:13 yeah you get that sense of just like yeah I'm checking this off the list I'm just doing this and the other thing too on this incompatibility note is we were talking earlier about the turning point feud with with Nick and one of the big things that they used as a as a wedge in those whenever they would disrupt the turning point events was Israel yeah they would bring up Israel and it would be like a why won't you denounce you know you know they were and this exact strategy could be quite effectively used against Alex yeah I don't understand how somebody like Alex could watch what Nick and his fan base have done like exploiting turning point USA and not realize like well yeah that's like one of the few territories Alex it tends to be a little hesitant to go I he's gone there once or twice but like you know generally speaking yeah he kind of soft walks at the very much very much to the point where I actually don't fully know what his full position is no I I think that is probably on purpose to keep it ambiguous enough that the folks in the audience that you know believe in all kinds of anti-Semitic conspiracy theories don't drop him but not specific enough that he gets in trouble with the other part of the audience that you know it is supportive of the state of Israel yeah I think I think that that is probably a strategic move on his part and probably wise for his his brand but it's also the exact thing that someone like Nick would would be like no have a position why won't you have a but that's basically what he was yelling at Charlie Kirk right at all those events and I just feel like Alex should know that that's might be coming down the road from within your own organization yeah I mean we'll see with Nick not being on these platforms and losing access and you know being in a position where he has the potential to start circling the drain quite a bit we'll see if Alex can how long he can hold on I I am pretty curious though you know because there's almost two ways it could go right where on one hand Alex is so cynical and you know is kind of half consciously doing his show at this point that he's just like yeah whatever we're getting the numbers in this is about censorship this isn't about what anybody is specifically saying
Starting point is 00:26:52 and then there's the other part where he's just like oh maybe maybe we can like host the videos but he doesn't come on the show anymore that sort of thing it's it'll be interesting to see where those chips fall oh well I feel I feel like it's no matter what gonna be bad I don't feel like you can have these influences in the same like pot turn on a little bit of heat and it not turn into just utter chaos but but we'll see I'm going to keep track of it and one of the things that I wanted to do was I wanted to just discuss a little video that of Nick Fuentes is that he put on info wars so again this is something that now Alex has to deal with I in preparation for this episode I wanted to go and watch some of his Nick's off platform work and I was shocked how bad it is not even like offensive like there's some offensive stuff but it's just also bad it's also just really doesn't seem like he's trying all that hard yeah he's really gotten in his own head lately and like I feel like half the show he's just he just talks about he's almost pulling a Laura Loomer where every time she opens her mouth she's like I'm I'm so persecuted is so terrible blah blah blah and just goes on and on and for like 20 minutes and then at the end is like um let's check the super chats I oppose tech censorship to that's important look at Google Google it and then the the one I watched one and he was he did like a five minute rant about how he wants to be a martyr but like not like Jesus he doesn't want to get crucified he wants to because crucifixion would suck but he's fine being a martyr like he's on a no fly list but even if he was crucified he'd probably go to heaven so that would be great I was like I don't know what this this is I listen to Alex Jones all the time like I didn't I thought that was kind of uncompelling broadcasting and I listen to this asshole yeah um yeah let's listen to some clips all right so this is a speech this is from a speech that Nick gave that is on info wars now is hosted on there and it is about opposition to feminism and that classic popular political position that sure anti-feminism is a galvanizing force within some of the some of the proto-trumpian communities yeah definitely it fueled a lot of the anti SJW kind of outrage now I think that there's a difference between what you might call classical anti-feminist ideas
Starting point is 00:29:39 and what Nick is bringing to the table and we'll see that here we go we're gonna give it a start now they call me a sexist and that one is just true quite an applause break so that's just true and as your man you almost have to be I don't really respect you if you're not but no but so they call you a sexist and why I even get called this by so-called right-wing women like for example you know Alex Clark so I think this is one of the issues with dealing with someone his age and maybe humor maturity level and trying to mix the issues that he's trying to cover with she's ugly yeah it seems almost explicitly aimed at like 14 year old boys who are angry yeah and that's like particularly what is concerning to me about Fuentes as he goes through the years is he aims young like a like a Crowder type like he he's clearly somebody who is like I know once you reach a certain age you're probably not going to be interested in this bullshit right right and it's he's like part stand-up comic even though as I try to imagine that set in like literally any comedy club and he's like Alex Clark right in the audience is like who who the fuck is that I pay attention to right-wing stuff and even I had to look up who she was yeah she does an Instagram show for TP USA who gives a shit dude yeah who cares well see that's what that's what's fascinating to me about this is like imagining it as a stand-up said it's like huh but then also imagining it as like a serious political thing is also like what are you doing yeah
Starting point is 00:31:57 like I got into a fight with this commentator for turning point USA this is the cornerstone of these this lecture that I'm going to get it's absurd in both spaces yeah it's just I I don't know I just don't get it really I mean I get it I get what the point of it is but the way he's going about it it's it's it kind of makes me sick a little bit to think like imagine if you and I were putting out the show but we were putting on the like hello it's or what's the meme like howdy my fellow kids or whatever oh yeah the Steve Buscemi meme yeah yeah we open up the podcast and I'm just like epic dab Dan that's so fucking sick yeah Alex Jones he looks like he's got a a zit for a head and morning morning zoo sounds you know it's it would be something worth taking seriously I think well the thing is there's some real political action to back it up right so we kind of like have to take it seriously that's the trap and that's the problem and I think that understanding that trap is it's important to recognize that you have this like bad stand up and bad political thing that is absurd but it also veers into this like he's complaining about Alex Clark and this is one of his complaints that he brings up almost immediately upon bringing her up she's pretty rough looking and I see these pictures of her you ever see in the dating show she's in the jacuzzi like a black guy what the fuck is that?
Starting point is 00:33:46 whoops see there we go you know like you have this joke that's not a joke yeah exactly and it's it's kind of clever because when throughout the years people like myself or places like the Southern Poverty Law Center you know anti extremism people have criticized Nick he's kind of hidden under the oh it's an edgy joke it's a stand up comedy you know 20 years ago you'd go to a comedy club and hear this but I don't think Nick is even old enough to know if that's true or not that's just like something someone told him one time yeah yeah he might just say Lenny Bruce and then never know who he was but like the thing is like let's if you want to take it from like the perspective of a joke like the joke here is that Nick thinks it's gross that someone who's not black would be in a jacuzzi with a black man and I don't know what the joke is yeah it's not a joke there isn't a joke that's just hate yeah I guess the joke is like the only possible joke is him parodying being racist for the sake of being anti racist and that's clearly not what he's doing
Starting point is 00:35:07 damn this podcast is taking a turn I didn't think it would be Nick Fuentes secret anti fascist it's an inside job I remember I had a friend when I was younger who was pretty convinced that Ann Coulter was a performance artist and like all of it was an elaborate parody of right wing stuff and I thought that was fascinating back when I used to smoke a lot of weed and I was like oh what if damn bro I think that if I were younger maybe someone would make that argument about Nick like secretly this is all parody and like no it's not it's just poorly thought out bigotry that's being masked by like a very thin sheet yeah very thin I don't know how it could it's like a Kleenex where you can see right through it so in this next clip here Nick begins to lay out what his problem with feminism is and it relates back to Clark Alex Clark a little bit but it actually doesn't it relates to a friend of Alex Clark's which is really weird but here's the problem with feminism you know you see all these conservatives and they've been beating this drum for years
Starting point is 00:36:22 they'll say things like well there's no sexism there's no gender pay gap they've been doing that argument for like ten thousand years and they'll say things like for example third wave feminism is the problem you know we'll always have to stipulate well it's the third wave it's these new feminists all feminism's fine you know the first second every wave leading up to the third wave is wrong and or rather everything leading up to the third wave is right the reason they call me a sexist or a woman-hater like Robert Barnes said is because I actually believe in real traditional values and I'll tell you what I mean by that at CPAC they're against abortion and if you're Christian you have to be against abortion it really if you're a human being and I'll say it's not even just Christians if you're a human being if you see what they do to these babies they go in there and they rip them out of the pieces this is barbarism it's completely inhumane and over at CPAC they're opposed to abortion and I think that's a very standard conservative position and it should be but abortion is kind of starting the story in the middle when it comes to an unplanned so-called unplanned pregnancy
Starting point is 00:37:38 so now here is where he gets into his problem it's when you have an opposition to abortion that's starting the problem in the middle that's like you have a problem that you think is the problem and it's abortion but there's actually a problem over here beforehand yeah I mean beneath all the like weird jokes that aren't jokes and like almost the openers are almost like stand-up comedy or edgy twitch streamers rhetoric Nick's whole rhetorical strategy and you know extreme students all the time is to present themselves as like the truer version of that you've heard this you're not in your head but let me tell you this is a stopgap it does not fix the problem and I have the solution that's his whole his whole presentation is the truer conservative it goes back to what I was saying he believes he deserves the place of somebody like Charlie Kirk because he thinks he is a truer iteration of Trumpism which as somebody who didn't like Trump too much I won't fight him on that you can take that mantle if you want go for it
Starting point is 00:38:48 you know what dude go for it I won't correct you but yeah it's interesting because this is what he's been doing for years yeah the rhetorical strategy that you're talking about is definitely there and I think the other thing that he's doing is he's taking this thing that everybody in the room agrees on and that is that we're against abortion because obviously you can hear from their response this is a anti-choice crowd so he's taking that agreement and then he's twisting it into well if you agree with this you actually also agree with this other thing that you probably actually don't and there's not really connective tissue to get you there logically and this is where Alex Clark's friend comes into play because apparently Alex Clark was friends with somebody who decided not to get an abortion and this makes Nick mad somehow you know for example there was a friend of Alex Clark who we had a little bit of a fight with on Twitter earlier this year and she went out on Twitter and she announced hey everybody I'm not aborting my baby and everybody was like wow wow Queen great job you didn't abort your baby I mean all the groipers said is the bar really hallo I mean if that's the bar to be a conservative or a conservative influencer that you don't abort babies and now we're supposed to sing your praises
Starting point is 00:40:13 I said that's not good enough and let's think about the story here a woman will have an unplanned pregnancy so called and then you know maybe she'll choose life or maybe she'll choose abortion but why are women having pregnancies that they don't want I mean ask yourself that why does that happen why do abortions happen they're having babies they don't want because they're having sex outside of marriage that's why and there's a word for that there's a word for that it's called adultery that's what that's called this is this is dumb yeah this is real dumb yeah so you've taken the opposition to abortion and that turned it into like well you actually have to be opposed to people having sex because that's why unplanned pregnancies happen and I would say that a really easy rebuttal to this would just be like well are there other things that can stop unplanned pregnancies like maybe universal access to reproductive health care destigmatization by way of reproductive education these these kinds of things have clearly a track record that is shown that this does drastically reduce unwanted pregnancies so why do we have to just have everyone stop fucking yeah and this seems like a pretty hard sell to a room of teenage boys I'll just say that remembering myself as a teenage boy and how the only thing I thought about was I wonder if and when I will have sex
Starting point is 00:41:52 it was on my mind it would come up from time to time I grew up in a bit of a Christian environment and the same I should tell you that I did get a promise ring and there was a I'm going to save myself for marriage thing in my in my church I grew up in Arkansas but I didn't go that far well I wish that I had had the restraint because it was a bad period of time I feel a little embarrassed looking back but I found it really interesting listening to stuff like this because there's an anger behind what Nick is saying and there's an anger to that women shouldn't have sex before marriage whereas as much as I regret and I get kind of cringy feelings about myself looking back at my past I don't think there was anger about premarital sex I think there was a choice that I felt I was making and I didn't really care that much about what other people were doing except my friends in the church community if they had already made the same decision as I had yeah because the premise of a promise ring is kind of a personal one it is the person that I end up marrying I believe deserves to have me completely that's the kind of rhetoric they use versus what pre committed to each other or whatever versus what Nick does is like I it is essentially just like
Starting point is 00:43:18 in a woman must be clean for me it's like it's like it's one thing for people to be like oh I want to do this for my partner do whatever but it's another thing to be like you owe me this like that is a little fucked up yeah I think also just like even just like ballooning out a little bit umbrella looking at it the preoccupation with with virginity or purity or any of that stuff is a little bit unhealthy no matter what but the hostility in the anger really just bums me out especially when there's just like if your problem is allegedly abortion and your solution to it is you know get rid of things that lead to premarital or unplanned pregnancies or other strategies you do not have to go with people can't have sex and and ultimately if you zoom out just a little bit what Nick is doing is like some friend of Alex Clark was probably like fuck you Nick rightfully so yeah probably disagree with her on everything else like there's some common ground there and he looked at that and said like oh she said fuck you Nick gross she had sex what a what a blob you know I I really don't want to borrow the language he's using but there's it's it's it's pretty gross yeah and I think that there's also even like if we take if we take all of this all this content out of it you still have somebody who sees himself as like a political leader complaining about a fight he had on Twitter right and that is sad and his gripe they had sex gross right and then something happened that was unexpected and they made the decision I would want them to make and I'm still mad about it yeah because it's still not good enough because they had said okay sure whatever so Nick also appears to be against contraception as he lays out a little bit
Starting point is 00:45:26 why else do women have unplanned pregnancies well they use contraception and it doesn't work contraception and they wind up with a pregnancy in short the Bible and Christianity tells us about sexuality this is traditional too that young men and young women are supposed to get married and then they're only supposed to do it with each other that's what the Bible tells us about marriage conservative seem to be okay with everything leading up to the unplanned pregnancy the contraception the promiscuity the sort of cook up culture casual sex all of that and then when there's an unplanned pregnancy then they draw the line and they say no no but we're the real conservatives go no further you've got to go all the way to the beginning of the story so Nick is equating conservative values with theocratic Christian societal organization basically and even then I would encourage him to brush up on his Bible a little bit because there are plenty of people in God's good graces that got around I would say sure Jesus hung out with some folks who might have been look down upon by someone like Nick even spoke out in their defense in fact yeah it's but yeah like you're saying the argument here is that the GOP should be the vehicle of the church yes which a lot of Christian right folks would probably agree with but is something that our government is set up at least on paper in theory to not be I would hope fingers crossed I mean the rate we're going now yeah and I think that there's a difference between like wanting your religious beliefs to be respected and wanting them to be doctrine to everyone and expected of everyone to follow and that is clearly what Nick is advocating for Nick is clearly advocating for a society where his particular religious beliefs are codified into whatever one has to follow
Starting point is 00:47:36 and that's not going to be great yeah I think for Nick and also for like people in the white nationalism that came generations before him they saw the church even if the church isn't in total agreement with their agenda is kind of the fastest way to erase or to get to push the country away from the ideal of a multicultural democracy by instituting some sort of theocratic control or you know mandating the laws of the government based on a religious philosophy you can get more people to not along and also have like an esoteric thing to point to it's not you are not accountable you are just following the rules in the good book right yeah yeah you have like sort of a thing you can fall back on that that's like wow this is unquestionable yeah and I want to be totally clear nothing against religion I'm not religious what but whatever you know it helps people right but you know they do see this as a vehicle and you know I think for anybody who's listening to the show that's like a person of faith it's something to be conscious of that that people are out there that would seek to exploit your faith to turn you toward something really nasty sure yeah I mean like I think you see that you see that a bit and that's that's one of the things that makes some of these conversations a little bit murky is you know trying to discuss that without coming off as anti religious or anti any kind of faith and I think it's I think it's very possible to walk that line but people sometimes do a bad job of it and I think it doesn't help that a lot of people have negative past experiences of their own that they bring to the table with religious communities and you know that that's just a challenge we all have yeah it's hard to talk about it in a way that's not personal is my my tan from my promise ring showing my my permanent and I don't know well it's funny because it's on a few fingers how many promises did you make Dan I made a lot of promises they've all been broken I had a pinky ring I had a pinky promise ring oh man I was gonna have a gang pink pinky in the boys um I need to just jump out the window here for the what there was there was another thing that I was thinking about here to oh yeah that that's what it was um there's
Starting point is 00:50:08 there's there's another aspect of this religious stuff that Nick is bringing to the table and I think really highlights a distinct difference between him and people like Alex and traditional sort of anti communist types and that is that there's religious zealotry and fervor on both sides but Nick is a Catholic fascist yeah very specifically and Alex is more of a Protestant type and I think that Alex doesn't understand that yeah I don't know that he fully understands how those two um even historically speaking perhaps do not really get along yeah the extreme ends of Catholic extremism let's say and more I don't even know what you would call him I mean just what Christian identity kind of is the the the vein you would put Alex in yeah no I think that's right because he he sees it as something that he is um and I don't often hear Alex articulate like a really coherent like biblical argument for stuff it's like sometimes he talks about like space in terms of God he's weird oh yeah um yeah I think that most things that he brings up about the bible are like sort of out of context quotes about like Jesus saying get a sword and stuff like that and it's like well I'm not sure not sure what a grasp you have here yeah but the traditions of his community in his world in terms of religion are very different in terms of doctrine in terms of goals then then next and I don't think that he realizes that when they say God or whatever they may have very distinct views in their mind and I think that's another thing that could lead to a problem between the two of them yeah because Alex will undoubtedly fail a purity test if Nick decides he wants to apply it
Starting point is 00:52:13 or Alex I mean potentially I guess could get uncomfortable by it I don't know to do things make him uncomfortable I don't know I don't know I mean like until Nick does something that like his lawyer thinks he needs to do something about I don't know if Alex would be uncomfortable because I don't think he knows like honestly I don't I don't think he knows what goes on his own site I don't I I can't imagine that because I just he has to either not care or not know yeah and it's hard to know which which one of those it is yeah because things like this would be very difficult to stand behind so you have Nick saying that you know abortion is wrong and he's got the room on his side and therefore can't fuck because that's bad you can only fucking marriage but also this extends much further it's not just about sexual morality it's not just about the family but it's also about the composition of society when men and women get married who's having the babies does anybody know I mean it's the women that are having the babies yeah that's how that works these days it seems like people are okay with women in the workforce I mean I go out there on my show and I say I don't think women should be in the workforce frankly I don't know if they should be voted and people say that's so backwards how could you say that what is this the 1950s the 1950s were a good time they say what is this the 1950s no but it should be we have to go back we have to go back
Starting point is 00:54:05 so go ahead sorry so just to be clear for the for the listeners at home we've been talking in between some of these cliffs but this is all from the same speech he has gone from a gun no Twitter argument with Alex Clark to about her friend who did the thing that I would want her to do her friend got pregnant and then kept the baby but she shouldn't have gotten pregnant in the first place because she shouldn't have been having sex which by the way even with contraceptions fuck those things women shouldn't vote yes this is spiraled out into and also this is speech I'm not cutting out parts that make it make sense this is the train of thought that he's on is these are the things that lead to abortion which you need to be against if you're truly against abortion if you're truly against abortion you need to be against fucking you need women not to be in the office not in the workplace probably shouldn't vote okay we need to return to the 1950s that era the era in time that was famously good to everybody yeah wonderful time for everyone everyone the thing is if you if you look at that train of thought what you really start to recognize is how much the abortion has nothing to do with what he actually is advocating no he's hiding behind that mantle because it's something that is people people will obviously get on board with trying to make the connection between women voting having the right to vote and being opposed to abortion it's a long walk it's a long walk but he gets there and like I mean what is it 60 seconds give or take yeah fucking an Olympian athlete well I mean in a in a favorable room you know I think if he tried to make this this makes sense outside of his own America Uncanceled
Starting point is 00:56:06 rally I don't know I don't know how well it would work but yeah I mean this is this is what he's doing he's Trojan horsing these other viewpoints on to the audience I would I would say that they're probably inclined to be angry and hostile towards women to begin with but maybe they wouldn't have gone to a rally that was a women shouldn't vote rally but they might show up for a pro life rally yeah I think I think that's definitely fair and it's I mean like I said it's a whole strategy oh here's something you agree with let me give you the real shit like and to a degree with younger audiences and apparently at the favor of at least one member of Congress it's like resonating which is kind of terrifying because as we just sit here and listen to it it's fucking ridiculous dude it's it doesn't make any sense no and I think that we're of the age where we lived through the tea party happening right and I think that in a lot of ways people didn't take that nearly seriously enough and I think you know you saw that the the effect that it had on on political discourse on on normalizing ideas that were prior like I don't know about this I don't know about this and I think that if we're not careful this could be another thing that goes that direction like you're bringing up like the Michelle Malkin support Gosar support it's not nothing yeah and like these brigades from Nick and his fans who call themselves the grippers and stuff they have been able to like kind of give TP USA like enough pressure for them to bend on some shit
Starting point is 00:57:56 which is a mistake to fucking begin with because once you put that you know you cannot put the toothpaste back in the tube after that it's like a bully you you give into the bully you play the game and guess who's back tomorrow it's the bully again yeah and that's what I feel about Alex having him on the the network even you know like what are you gonna do you're gonna kick him off good luck yeah I mean geez I mean we'll see it's it's a mess but here's where it gets a little bit a little bit racist I think no wait this is this is more just about how women need to be just making babies all the time all right let's do it I love it here's my favorite thing in the world when someone is like no one ever makes the argument so now I will I love that it's when like when Alex is like I'm gonna get down to it I'm gonna prove everything why does nobody is talking about using your toaster in the bathtub so I'm gonna do it right now I'm gonna lay it out I always I always love when someone sets the bar way too high for themselves and that's what Nick has done right here make the argument my man but it's actually serious if we're to have a traditional Christian view of sexual morality then women should be getting married and having lots and lots of kids that's just a natural course of things if you're following God's word if you're a real Christian or real conservative and so if you're having all these babies who is going to raise those babies other than their mother
Starting point is 00:59:55 so yeah he's no one makes the argument so Nick's gonna do it he's gonna lay it out for you damn dude I have never heard that one before thank God Nick made this argument what a what a new idea damn dude yes yes women are things I can't believe women should have children what God this guy is breaking new ground all over the place
Starting point is 01:00:21 did he go to church for the first time last week I find this fascinating and I think you see it a lot with these types this making really really old arguments that we most people have left in the past as if they were new novel like breakthroughs they're like no one no one no one lays it out like me oh my religious beliefs dictate that women are essentially just biological machines that we use to create and take care of the next generation yes oh wow wow groundbreaking mind freak well it's just I mean to go back to the joke I made earlier I guess it's like imagine this in any other context right like so we used to put asbestos in building and then people were getting sick so we stopped we realized that was not how we wanted to go forward so you know we moved on from it and I just imagine somebody like this is the rhetorical equivalent of being like I'm gonna let you in on a little secret there's something you can put in your walls and I swear to God no better insulation
Starting point is 01:01:30 they'll call you an idiot they'll say that you're gonna go to the hospital when you're older if you do this but they're just trying to smear you like this is the same fucking thing my religion dictates that you must take the risk of going to the hospital yeah it's it's not it's not convincing I would say for one and of course it does veer into racism because this is Nick after all and of course it does we have a country now where people have babies and what do they do they have one or two or three kids and then they stop and then they send the kids to date here and the mom's working and the dad's working and they have two cars and two car insurance and all this and they send the kids to daycare and the kids from the time they wake up until the time mommy and daddy get home from work they're being raised by somebody other than their mother they're being raised in many cases by people that don't care about them maybe people that hate them you're seeing people being brought up in daycare and largely it's immigrants working these jobs we're gonna have immigrants raise our babies because mothers are too busy doing what making spreadsheets they're too busy making a schedule this is insane this is not a conservative so yeah it always does have to come back to anti-immigrant sentiment and and coding the our babies and you know it's it always has to come back to that
Starting point is 01:02:59 also I think this is something that needs to be said and that is that Nick is 22 years old and we know what he's been doing since he was in high school I do not know if he's somebody that I would take very seriously about what it's like to have a career or a real job yeah I mean I'm listening to that two cars couple kids I'm just like damn someone figured it out I don't know if I'll be able to do that with the income I've got right they have two cars two car insurances what does that mean they might just have one policy big money right here is what I'm saying but yeah not exactly the authority on the good old days you know I just imagine him flipping through like 1950s edition of like highlights magazine and being like this is what they stole from us which is like you know but he is scrawled slurs in like word bubbles and every drawing in the highlights magazine yeah no it's it's it's ridiculous and also just this whole premise of like because somebody is an immigrant that they would be inept at caring for a child or something and especially if they're in day care they're not in school yet
Starting point is 01:04:09 they're so young they're not gonna remember shit anyway who like I mean mild disdain is not probably going to stick around yeah just and people who gravitate towards childcare careers are often people who do not hate kids yeah the most selfless people in the world typically they're now granted obviously there's going to be bad people in any line of work but I would think that of the people that I know who have gravitated towards that field they love kids yeah you don't do it because you get rich or you get famous it you do it because you care you know for the most part there's going to be outliers in any profession but yeah and I think that I think too that's just like Nick doesn't know what it means to have a job it doesn't know what it means to have a career and therefore he can be reductive and stupid about like oh women are just making spreadsheets so they can't raise their babies well the thing is his audience is so young too it can kind of work yeah cuz they don't know either yeah like if if Nick got in a room full of like I'm thinking the TPU SA donor dinner aging Q tips all assembled in circles around tables eating basil chicken or whatever the fuck they do
Starting point is 01:05:24 sounds like it's on the menu they'd be like they just don't they so they've got careers they've got families they've got whatever but blah blah and I just imagine that audience being like what's he talking about again I just I don't think it would resonate with the older crowd no no because he'd be essentially be looking at them and being like all you do is make spreadsheets and everyone who's had a career or done work knows that there's much more to the having a career especially something that you love something that you find fulfilling something that is like a part of your life the idea of depriving people of that because you and your religious beliefs dictate that they must have babies constantly is is bizarre it's unhinged it's offensive and it's supremacist is what it is it's true that my beliefs are so much more important than you as a person that they should dictate your life mm-hmm yep and it's now something that Alex apparently is either tacitly or explicitly condoning yeah so we have one more clip here but I'm just I'm gonna skip past it because it's basically just him being like well if this is sexist
Starting point is 01:06:43 then I guess I am and yeah yeah I would agree yeah the best point he's made the whole speech yeah so he except the mantle kind of but then it but of course rhetorically what he's trying to do is be like this isn't sex this is just normal and it's not this is this is outrageous and I I've said this before I think it bears repeating I don't think that I would spend time covering hit Nick and I'm glad that people like you do because I think that he's somebody that definitely people should pay attention to and deserves a critical eye but I don't know how much he fits into the the scheme of of what we cover on this show but he's on Alex's network doing this now this is so incompatible with the message that Alex tries to sell his brand on that I think it bears like looking at and being like really this is now this is now info wars this is this is their their content yeah I mean it's it's certainly interesting but it's yeah I mean at the end of the day I think they're kind of on two different tracks and there's some overlap there but when the rubber hits the road I just yeah it is kind of hard to to wrap your head around a bit
Starting point is 01:08:06 I think that they are fortunate that the rubber has not hit the road and I imagine when it does they will turn on each other incredibly aggressively I hope so that would be is somebody who has had to spend countless hours of my life both paying attention to Alex and Nick watching them eat each other alive would be immensely personally entertaining to me I think there would be some shot and Freud for sure I would worry about how we could have the like it could accelerate things for some of their followers yeah if one wins the other's audience it's that's a bad thing yeah but yeah it would be it would be interested to see them take potshots especially because like a lot of the stuff like that that Nick uses as ammunition against people that he goes after are all the criticisms that people in the right wing have had of Alex they've all constantly said that he's a shill for Israel they say that he works for a massage all of this is a tradition that that Nick could pull from and just go to town against Alex well it's something that Nick does for like everybody else and it almost feels like he's pulling a punch with Alex yeah I mean just take me for example Nick fucking hates me
Starting point is 01:09:25 right because I was one of the first people to start writing about him and now when people have questions about Nick people call me and I'm like yeah this guy's shit and hold on let me just send you a word document you off and on the record he sucks you check all this shit out and you tell me what you think of him here's what I think but I you know it's pretty obvious what he's doing like I said it is veiled with a Kleenex you can see straight through it but so he doesn't like me so when I was at right wing watch I was the sorrow shill you know I was working in Jewish interest in some oh yeah and now I work at TFR lab which is connected to the Atlantic Councils now I work for NATO and now I'm CIA and what is the CIA but an extension of an extension of Mossad and like it's just he always takes it back to like having some problem with Jews yeah yeah it's a very constant refrain on his part and expect some of that in the future Alex well Jared thank you for joining I'm sorry to have subjected you to this this is not fun listening to Nick Fuent as ever is really not a pleasant thing to do not a great use of an afternoon but I appreciate you joining oh it's been a pleasure it's it's nice to be in knowledge fight HQ HQ yeah as you can see I'm sending out buttons to the listeners and that's that's the return address knowledge fight HQ oh nice KF HQ it's a treat like I told you when we went out the other night and met up for the first time you're somebody who has been really supportive over the course of the time they've done the show and I really appreciate that and thank you
Starting point is 01:11:17 oh absolutely I mean what you guys have been doing here for so long is important and you guys understand like a lot of media especially national media will maybe go to info wars or go to Alex and cover like an angle of it like the tech the tech D platforming or an angle of it of like this is this particular crazy thing he said but there aren't a whole lot of people just really like sitting with it and like watching the show consistently and really getting a feel for like the info wars cast of characters and like sort of how the show works I can tell you why that is and I think you know why because you used to do that a lot no it sucks that's right it sucks it's not a fun job but it's it's unfortunately important in an ideal world you know maybe knowledge fight wouldn't have to exist but for now I'm really glad that it does well thank you I appreciate that and I'm glad that you're doing the work you're doing as well where can people follow you find some of your analysis and what have you I know you're just on reliable sources oh god yeah you can follow me on you're gonna Alex might talk about you oh I hope so it's really you might do a segment on you he hates stelter oh yeah it's it's I mean it it's always a pleasure to be in the company of such a widely revered potato the most popular vegetable in the United States no Brian's a good guy I don't want to roast him too bad any you keep up with me at Jared L. Holt on Twitter don't follow me on anything else because I'm private on everything else I've got a podcast of my own shitpost shitpost with an exclamation point right yeah it's SH exclamation point T P T O ST because people on iTunes will let you swear yeah I typed it I typed it in originally and I was like oh no I can't what am I gonna do and then I put in the exclamation point and now I have to spend 30 seconds explaining to people yeah to find the show I think in a description of an episode once I put a swear word and I saw that it automatically edited wow this is tech censorship man no cussing
Starting point is 01:13:43 cancelled yeah that's that's what we need to talk about fuck Nick Fuentes gonna kicked off whatever this is America if I want to say you know asshole in the description of my iTunes podcast I should be able to do that I shouldn't have to use dollar signs where are you Ted Cruz various Ted Cruz on free the nipple anyway we'll be back Jordan is gonna be back from vacation and so we will have an episode out on Wednesday where we'll check in with Alex but again Jared thank you so much for joining oh thanks I guess at the end of this I'm supposed to say that I'm Neo I'm Leo I'm DZX Clark I'm Darryl Rundis Andy in Kansas you're on the air thanks for holding well Alex I'm a first time caller I'm a huge fan I love your work I love you

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