you know. that's right. and so we need to understand and that the future that is in front of us is all of us. and if we're going to build a can experience the dignity and standing, that will allow them dreams and to make that dream a reality, if that's going to happen, we all f cultivation in pursuit of a more just world. and at the thateads us to the conclusion that if the world is going to be a bettero have to be the leaders to make it happen. i love it.well, eddie, brother eddie this was a real pleasure. a pleasure tt book. and it was wonderful to have this conversation. and i'm hopeful that those on will pick it up, learn for themselves and pass it on. igood evening.

if i can have your attention please. welcome you all to tonight's con ceremony. and my colleague dantaking lead for us. so before i kick it over to him him he is is ise a vice presidcollegiate network as well as the editor of acs journal modern, which you all have your seats and they just modern age just introduced anlaun which you should go look at at modern age journal with that i will turn it over to dan thank you for beingthank you, tom. and thank you for joining us th evening. isi has been educating liberty campuses since 1953. ourlieved it was not enough complain about socialism andern ideology. we have to teach the alternative the roots civilization,

the isi henry and an apology book award honors writers who excelled in defining the crisis of our times and instructing indeed reminding us of the solutions the award has possible by the generous and an apology to remarkable individuals who force. and paolucci columbia. she taught at city colle university research professor at saint john's university in new york. she was a scholar. the renaissance of the theater she was an author, and she was the founder and president literatures. she also established the palatucci international conference center in new yor and kindred spirit, henry pollard, she was a gra york. he served in the nascent u.s. force in the second world war and later earned his ph.d. from columbia a man of action as well as scholarship professor carlucci was instrumentalthe conservative party of new. as a scholar, hecollege city college, columbia university and

york. we are grateful to the memory ofpresence of their friends and family. tonight, senator s multisite clarissa rocio. michael, michael. michelle and azar arturo. we're also very grateful support of athos, a powerhouse literary and publicity and its co-founder, jonathan brzezinski. now, let me tell honoree, a man, whose ideas and reporting are at theevolution against the radicals who have hijacked our nation's institutions. christopher rufo is a senior fellow and the director of the initiative critical race theory at the manhattan. he is a contributing editor at city journal and the author of the new york times bestseller e recognize him tonight america's cultural revolution how the left radical how the radical left conquered everything, his research theory have inspired a presidential and legislation in more than 20 states. as a filmmaker, he has directed for pbs's netflix inter he holds degrees from georgetown rd they resent him for it. and he lives in the pacific

northwest with his wife and three sons. ni washington, dc. please welcome christhank you. it's great to. be here. let's notrop the award shatter it. and i'd be a little embarrassing. honored for a book. which is a much more active enterprise. you go into some forgotten territory you spent a year of your lifeerving something in the wild and then spend time huddled in a something into shape. by contrast, the book is actually much then so. so it's been kind of a fun thing to to write this book, but what i think i'd like to talk about tonight is book either be dead or alive. '3 are kind ofpolitically dead, even if they have some content to them. but what i tried to do with this bookto make sure that it was not oriented towards research, a good

line of argument, some actually oriented towards active political so the subject of the book isstory, think a very important story of the last half century of american political life. looking at how aal wing political movement that never achieveded an electoral majority, was able to institutions through ures and what impact that's had on so the story is a historical telling. the history of this movement, telling therogression of ideas through institutions. it's biographical story. i tell history four of the leading of this period. let's see if i remember too having written this book in a while. herbo ferreira angela davis and derrick bell. for those of you who are not familiar them herbert marcuse. i was a cone of the founders of the discipline of critical. godfather, the new left in the late 1960s in the united, as well as in

european capitals for, a brief blaze ofere student radicals, were carrying banners that said, youmarxism. those were the, youhe philosopher for that the pen the sword and the prophet. that's how he was conceptualized for a period. and if you read his work, you study his life, you realize the conceptual framework that he established in a relatively period mid 1960s to the mid 1970s, about testill the dominant intellectual framework that whether they know it or not, many peopleo freire was a brazilian. marx ist pedagogy just happens to also cior in all of the social sciences in the united states. actually quite influential, if you think about it a example to give you a sense of his politics called the revolution quote the most genial solution the century. to give you an idea of who his inspirations were. angela davis, of course, is black panthe communist

party, usa, kind of ethno l of the 1960s who specifically ethnic, radical, precursor or inspiration and lives movement that emerged a half century later under tutelage not onlyntellectually, but actually directly. and if you read angela davis work, or if you read it, digested through my book, you'll find all of the of the concepts, all of the rhetorical lines, all of the esthetic references of the black lives mattercrested in 2020, was established by angela davis. 1969. in the last, you know person on the list of infamy was derrick be founder rather the godfather of critical this as a progression,ical theory. then there's kind a can race harvard campus with professor derrick bell, who became an influential figure of taking many of these ideas from

fringe of power. and he was also a campus activist. that bureaucrats have used to gain power within for universities or government agencies. we now it affectionately asrsity, equity and inclusion. derrick bell developed a lot eighties nineties and created pessimistic pseudo radical movement that occupied positions then of power and prestige over time. but what isting about all of these figures is if you look at purely abstractly heavyweight. there's some somel even if you disagree with it, cannot deny that he has a certain depth of thought. a serious scholar. the other ones there intellectual work is is lacking. it's shallow by comparison. but what's interesting about them is that their intelleented towards practical power? it was anenterprise that had political praxis willing to do the

political work of getting those ideas into positions of authority, to take hegemony over institution. and lo and phases to this revolution. the first not sond, quite successful. the first was a explore licit marxist leninist guerilla warfare revoluti panther party, when that became into black liberation army. you had the weather un and this other network of movements. and for those of you i k here is is is under 50. but for those of us who are younger might not remember it. i was actually shocked to research, the level of intensity of that period. than 12 and politically motivated bombi beginning the 1970s dozens of airlining hijacked. every year, many of which were for kind of polit political agitation. and some of these groups were assasscenew york and georgia and san francisco. they wer capital, bombing the pentagon bombing, police stations and,

you know, murdering judges in extremely period. and the theory was we can take from mao'sake from the marxist leninist guerillas of central america, we can adopt these tactics and have revolution again in the united it was delusional, but for a bit. they had somemaybe give us hope. you go from property bombings,assassination, guns, kind of guerrilla warfare to the richard nixon 49 state landslide in political culture shifted dramatically again himovement. but what happened then? the second phase of this campaign, which was more successful, was one that was more insidious. it was a not a long that chairman mao executed highlands central china, where he regroup nationalists through physical violence. it was, they call, what the student radical rudi dutschke, called the lo this was a peaceful but subversive march. they knew very never get an electoral majority in the we states.

karl marx's workers detroit or the, you k factories down in tennessee or any of industrial wor were uninsured stood in revolution. he said the in the united states is explicitly. they're with us and rather than maybe reconsider his politics he said oh well we need a revolution of the inrevolution elites at the top level, and then a lumpenproletariat in marxist of society can be motivated towards pressure. what do we see today? ical race theory? it's an academic discipline that has crewith public funding, even though in many to installed. it's not just in california and new york. it's actually, you know, almost everywhere.lorida. it's in texas. well we're taking care of that a littlebut.but but the point being is that these ideas proliferate it and propagate it through the

institutions. the real question is how? that's theught to answer in the book. that's driving question that i ta see your opponent, your enemy language, successful in the sameou're playing. the worst answer is to say there, they' rehere they're bad, they're stupid. don't know what they' work. the better question is to ask, well, did they do it? and what you learn from it? and then how you adjust your own politics to. and so if you read the book, there are two. i tried to put two layers into it. some peoplethat. but the explici history. but the embedded text is a process of learning and teaching assimilating. ideas, tactics strategies. because we're fighting in a different environment. if you watch a movie like mr. nyone know that movie? yeah. it's beyond that, you know. i mean, great movie. very sweet. verykeouch gramscian style

trench by trenc in, which mr. smith would beinstantly. you know, the poor -- wouldn' chance. and so rather than harking with a sense oftalgia. of how things ought to be or lamentin is not way that it is today. we have to fight in a better way. and last few years for the year that i nathan negotiated a great contract for me, he got you got me a wholethey wanted to turn it around in like three months. you. publishers. i ask how much time some of theit's like, i can't do this in three months. that seems impossible. get it time you can, you know. but a lot of the time that i spent was writing this book. i think, i guess, was get in the at eight jumble aund on for like 90 minutes, take a phone call stuff. and at the end of the afternoon. but as i was writi book, thinking about these ideas looking at these tactics, i was also adapting some of them in

some of these very public that i've been engaged in the previous few starting every year, there's like a theme kind of how i've stumbled20, 21 was the fight against end of 2020, but theory. if believe theewmagazine, i am the what did say the consinve aed the conflict over critical race theory and. some of my friends said, oh, that's awful. that's, you know, you didn't invent the conflal thing but in another sense, it's not wrong there's a phenomenon that exists in the world. but until you it until you bring it to public consciousness until you polarize it and until you turn it into a real political's a process of invention in some ways. right. onception of how the world is. a conception how you want the world toy doesn't matter. you get it off the page and into the next year i was doing some reporting on gender hospitals, some of human sacrifice that's happening in

children's hospitals in a very dark i did a story, for example, about a doctor in portland oregon, who has has as deployed a child castration robot. 's dystopian, you don't know the half of it. worse. and then last year, my big bureaucracy. and so i'd like todetail, because it's the most at it is relevant to this book because, again, getting off the page. s ago about, the creation of this dea dea bureaucracy. and in the past year after the book published, i got about goal. and so in january of last year iou paper with manhattan institute abolish the dea equality in america's institutions. i made a announced mint with ron desantis of the state of florida. we held an event together where aid the campaign abolish destroy and assault over the dea bureaucracy in every state

university in thflorida. start there. start with the most couragusalways a good place to start and then go state by out, restricting it stopping preventing from from further entrenching itself. because you have hegemony, you have a political kind of ostensiblen florida. supermajority, texas majority. god forbid you, go to like the south dakota, you know, massive. you know, it's not even a superman short it's whatever is, it's a hy say. but why are your state bureaucracies and pushing and gender theory. you control but your opponents have politicalit's a different different different thing. whenno this campaign it was denounced by everybody. people, is a right wing evil to to to do whatever. i don't i don't pay too much but, you know it was seen as a fringe right wing idea. by summertime the new york times. invited me to publish op ed making the case for abolishingering some and by the of the year we had

effectively begun the process of abolition. and i don't know or six states taken territory changing institutions moving the shifting incentives creating space our ideas to replace their ideas and. i think point is important and. this is actually the floor of the critical theories and the an actually have a chance to overcome them, to transcend them y replace them as the guiding philosopideology. let's let's not give it too much credit, not ph but. the critical theory is operate on the principle of negation, dismantling whatever they have these great know, some academics spend bunch of time thinking, you know, how can i let's grab this osiris. let's figure out a way to sound smart when we're saying this the thing. they think america is evil they think

our principles are evil. they destroy. dot, dot dot. and then a utopia will emerge spontaneously. that. that's kind of the marcuse whose litmus this is. i don't know what it'll look like after, but after i think something great is going to happen. and he was that what happened in the communist regimes of the 20 cema responsible position. but earlyforgive people unions, you know let's say you're living in russia in 1910. s great to be serf you know and you maybe ideology has a chance may can't that by the 1970s i mean, let's get real with this. but what webeyond negation. it's a concrete principle of principles that we can we can govern ourselves by. we can borrow from our founding the principles that i think still work still offer us a kind of more political, moral we can rebuild.

and really what i think my is as dan mentioned, it'counterrevolution. and i was recently reading thomas paine. conservative, but he had this beautiful line in a letter that he wrote, a frenchister, he said the american revolution was not really a r counter-revolution, recover lost rights and does that sound familiar to our situation today the colonists who were revolting over the taxation right is like a heavy tax. what do you think tax rate was that were to the to the to the king to the parliament was. was 1 to 2%. u know, they're like, we're going to fight you to death tax, which comes that we become so complacent. i'm from california. they're like 50% we can compromise there, but not a pennythan 50%. but i think we have toi think we'd

have to learn from our enemies and then encourage friendsnd wha a small town in washington state. i don't live in i would say i lihat neighborhood? you know, georgetown or whatever. it's like, no, no, no washington state. and then i get very puzzled stares like where but what i try to wake up and do every day is to put victories on the board because of the mind that even opens new possibilities. you learn something by the trying, maybe failing, butrn most from your failures no. you learn most from your create other opportunities they have this beautiful effect whenew veins of possibility open up new resources, new people and we need to increase the tempo of. our know, we don't need five year strategic plans. weplans, victory after victory after show people that it's passive so we have a demoralized movement. and i think that one of the most

important things we can do is demoralize it. i mean, we moralize it in the sense of like, you know,ns in kindergarten. that's one way to do it. but i really mean more of us in people, reminding them why we're fighting, reminding them what the problemsming the enemy, and then calling think it's very possible. that is more perilous than it's ever been. but in some ways we have enough a base and enough of a hat it's absolutely worth fighting. so thanks th you for coming. and we love to have the the conversation. thankthank you, chris. thosenderful remarks. and i actually want to begin where you left off abouthave we reached a turning point the ca expose those and defeat such because we've seen these victories states is the enemy now somewhat in retreat? are they is their advance at

least arrested or are they pe counter offensive at some point? so the in the ideal of our republic is supposed to be govern majority with some, you know, institutional constraints, checks and balances and so forth. but the founders actually quite clear on this. democracy is, essentially the rule of said before that. but we're in a very strange wheris locally in, let's say, bluey and red states. and and in our country, the public is against kind of left deology. the public is against the kind of derangement of the public university system. the public is against, you know, gender, ideology and secret child sexual transitions in. look at any of the these are all 70% 80% issues, but they're not policy. and so to me, the political work

is two fold. one, dominate public opinion. you have to create the languyou have to feed it into the media cycle. and then you to polarize a strong majority of the public in your favbecause politicians are lagging indicators. politicians get when it's a little safer in general, state legislators. so. so you have to create the conditions courage principles all these beautiful things but actually it's easier to do do the thing to not do the thing. so the public opinion is, is of this. but then there's an institutional problem. i think ideologically we' this ideologies in the sense if you look at the public po in a strong position against them. , that therefore, you know, woke has. ever heard that people say that columnist. the woke aw're peak woke you know post woke. okay yeah measured by public opinion maybe it's crested but not bureaucratic and

administratively when youave now tens of thousands hundreds of thousands peopl depend on promoting these ideas in institutions, k-through-12 school system, university system, federal bureaucracy. when they have functional control over the institution the job not done and mobilized public opinion doesn't matter. the next step, which is much more difficult, although we're making there too, we're having change the composition of the institutions institutions and to institutions with different people, with better ideas. that's a lot harder. and so i kind ofokingly kind of not jokingly say we need like a pink slip we need to have like the pink paper printers atbecause ultimately these these e made real and made meaningful a spoils style system when we win control of the government, of the political system, we were in control of

the institutions and they advance ouriples. that to me is the harder fight. trying figure that out, but it's far from brought up a curious paradox, which is th where as you said, we perhaps even have a hyper majority of legislators legislators who consider themselves conservative, who arere and we see that the institutions ofutions of character formation, many cases are dominate think i'm a few years older than you, and i back to the amer in, which was a much more conservative america we have to somehow some complacency or some weakness on the part of that stronger and more virtuous america opened the door. the insanity that we've s the last plus years. i'm curious, what do you think has created this sense complacency or this obliviousness. so many conservative people towards the threat that they're revolutionary left? wellhat tongue in cheek i'd like to blame two groups of people o right. i'd like to blame baby boomers and i'd like to blamelibertarians.

younow. and i won't just launch that out there. i'll explain.baby boomers i boomers, let's say, inherited a world in which we had one. the communism. we defeated the soviet union. we'd relegated it to a kind of forgotten evil period in history that never be resurrectedeople did a couple of things. they retreatedcorunning, businesses making mo spiritual life, you know, going to church, taking care of the p money care of your people. these are good things. but i think they a public square. they didn't feel like they felt like the threat was over and they could relax. angela davis you know, all the people who were still alive, you know, still pushing. they didn't take the of the soviet union as a defeat. they took it as a temporary but the second group used to maybe

be one, is a a libertarians capture the kind of conservative mind with some ideas if you think about it. sure the institutions are neutral you know. okay all libertarians you know, okay, great. that good but help me out here. name one ins history has been neutral. hard answer because of course it's impossible. institutions will be governed according to a set of principles principle. politics is a competition. wh top administratively, we like we've got a presiden also morally spiritually even what principle is the guiding principle that orients all the. the left knowshis d.i. our institutions areof principles. what is it for the right? what do weask conservative.

even conservative university. you know what's. what's the telos? what's the fi cause of the university raisinguh, building new buildings. we've gotthis, you know, the trustees are very excitedinstitutional neutrality gets you there. institute neutrality is, you know, unilateral surrender. that's it amounts to in practice. and so you get conservatives who beco caretakers of their enemies institutions. you know i'll be at the top kind of figurehead but everyone below is operating a different set of principles ande series of them. but i think that's the that's the most important one and then i canjust like, oh my god, it's such a big kids to think not what to think. and hey, how that even logically possible, how do you teach a kid how to think without any content and then be if you evaporate

kind of content decisions somebody else will fillu get howard zinn for your class. you and also it's a really irresponsible thing to do. kids don't know anything. you actually have to teach them least for a think. that's important. this is the value we're trying to transmit to the next. and the other. and this is kind of a bush u know and then subsequently is this kreduction of education into a material line up. one pr never goes up like 50 years. it's been completely flat. but the bigger problem is not that that's a horrible goal for education to reduce it, to test score line up. what you'really is saying we want iq to up you of a i mean it's an uncomfortable thing for people talk about but it' how you do it. that doesn't really make any sense. this like a poor objective. we don't know how to this. the purpose of education. if you go back to aristotle little book eight of the

politics, aristotle's great statement on education in a book called the politics which gives you a sense of how it should be embedded. and he says something that is true. you should educate children into the regime, you should form their character, the type of society that yo educating our children into a kind of an set of virtues and habits and principles? not at all. you sound like a crazy person if you even say something like that. and so i think we've abdicated on on thoseemarks have put me in mind of a rather dark passage alexis, to tocqueville's democracy in america where he predicts that the path what he calls democratic despotism, where people will willingly,ive up their culture, their everything to some centralize is to hillary. power is going to come through what he calls individualism which sounds like he may be criticizing kind of libertarians of aunt elettra, but fact, what he means is a retreat into the wholesome parts of public square and politics concentrating on family, concentrate on religion, which are good things. but to the extent that they withdraw politics, they then leave politics, be colonized by

power of despotism. and i think you're quite right well that. there's a way in which both the libertarian flaws and also the flaws of the baby boomers combined, a whole generation of

@red as a gdp than communist

w that it's not an exact comparison to problems there, but they're much more we have much more freedoms here.but in an important sense, you e a larger state than communist china. you where we are as a country and kindof seriousness. what studying like gramsci or marcuse? what did you find in them that you didn't expect perhaps to encounter?there's,

there's a kind of genre. the book that i wrote is not new thing people been talking about the long march for the institution and people about a phrase that i don't use in the book purposely called cultural marxism. i didn't use because it's kind of loaded.d. i kind of didn't want to, you know, be the tinfoil hat. but then the new massive piece christopher rufo cultural marxist theory and all about cultural maritely pointed out, oh that's interesting. show me where in the text they call it cul lady was pretty mad but but whatever it's new right. i think a deepe new but you get a certain genre of conservative book that treats these people as one dimensional artoon villains. what was what i really tried to do is is just to actually look at it from th perspective. what made these people so fascinating? what charismatic? what made them take people from elite ame and. risk it all to fight for their

ideals. i think that's a much better way of approaching. and so i had left wing writers like from very left wing magazines, you know, say like, god, you know, i kind of liked your book, you i think one thing you can't do is dismissg to spend a year your time with people's lives and thinking about them and reading about them. it's like you shouldn't hate . you shouldn't, you know, constantly dismiss them or have a smug sense and so you should see them in a three dimensional way. and. i kind of put myself in the shoes, this these milieu right? it's like well, there's somethinging here that's idealistic. something here that's utopian something queer that is insp so and of course, they're monstershey're evil. their ideology is responsible for the deaths of many many people.there's too. that's the obvious point. right. but less obvious point is, you what, was good about them. and i think that's sothe

process. mm hmm. chris will be very amused to hear that recently at modern age journal, we had an interview with the left feminist naomi wolf who is, you know, somewhat unusual among these days. she's very critical, actually, of the today's far and censorious tendencies. and she actually used the phrase cultural% marxism. oh, good for her. the next time you know, new republic wants to come after someone wi should leave chris rufo alone. they can they can talk about naomi wolf. so's a good i think it's like cultural marxism is their phrase. if look at even the academic scholarship in the 1990s, there's a marcuse, a scholar i think he was at at ucla. blished all of marx's collected works letters correspondence i can't remember the fellow's name, but it's in the footnote%somewhere and they're reading his papers and and it's likehis guy. and like 1995, he's a lefty. it's like, you know, it was critical theory. cultural mar western marxism. those were their categories. and then a kind of preposterous, oh, it's a right

wing theory. it's an anti-semitic conspiracy there. it's lihat? you know, i just spent a whole i'd probably, you know, i'm like the only, likeeller author to write about critical race theory. so i kind of know something aboutcritical race theorist, which is kind of a coolyou. but it's got to do with what? what are you? people are nuts? you know, but i think the important thing there is maybe an important for all of us and maybe an important to close on an language matters. it's critically how we speak. you know, and it's a kind of charactercter test in the test that i kind of virtue, but it's a characttter way to put it. we need language which that can make sense, thintellectual force and that has emotional force. there's this idea that we should, you know, the tive thing like you guys have heard this and this like

neutrality all these problems that i have, the one thing that others drives me crazy is you know facts don't care about your feelings. you've heard this. it's like a very smug thing to i love ben shapiro. he became famous for that. and i saw ben last at he's a great communicator. t but i think that that is actually completely backwards.facts really don't about your you know no yeah. the facts don't care about your feelings much. backwards. i don't care about their feelings your feelings do not careut the facts. have you ever persuaded your presentation? know. no. has it has a car salesman ever sold you a ferrari by nerding out on on the details of the piston or whatever it is. no. the ferrari gives you a feeling because it's a beautifulen you drive it you feel powerful. and so we have to contrary. this notion of and, the greatest logic, we have those things. i we to have language that

moves. language that that people and language that people pass of existence and into politics, which means cowhich controversy and which meansy. i like fighting. it's very suitable to more people that are willing to get out there and fight things out. and i think that the genesis of all this is isg and persuasive language. and so that's why it's such an honor to put many words into the book they cut about 40,000 of the words out of the manuscript it wohagei think this makes it very readable and i'm so honored and ized in this way and some great competitors this year. and so, you know, really appreciate that thanks, chris. so we have time some question and answer sessions from the audience and there's a lot of questions.t's start down here with the gentleman towards front and we have a mic that's comingyourself before you ask a question good evening. williamgroup. i'll just get to the point. i think the the principle i we need to learn from the last few years and the same line

with chris's work is we can't fear to use power. but specifically i want to a of power very curious chris's opinione bill. to me it's a let's let's take this the exercise power but it's i think it's splitting the conservative a bit so i want to get your yeah i didn't read the billically on the text. i don't if it's well-written poorly written that uff does. but as a as, as a general principle. know this is kind of another spot. i'm a capitalist you know i like think anything wrong with that. i like to create value in the world idea that you can give a foreignur country with no terms and conditions restrictions is d in china for a year and. 829 and i notice somethiinteresting interesting. face think twitter was invented yet, but there was like facebook. there were some so platforms were pop in the united states.

they were banned china. bute did is they did copycats. i can remember what it was a website that looks identical to facebook, but it's some chinese website they like, you know massacre or the intellectual property. i mean it's rampant ipave an american company that's in china at the time, i believe partner. 51% stake. why would they choose 51 and not 49? oh, because then you have total control over the company. and so i think that market basis, even on look at adam smith, adam smith a t even if you say hey, free trade in general is good, you have a parade of and you know ricardo ricardian economics. okay fine you to have some kind of adversary you need to protect your people first and foremost and just get rid of it. why not? you know, you go further and further than what the current the current bill does, why did asset transfer into american that's kind of a joke. look, i've spent a year in china.

the ea that own tiktok. and then if you have if the accountants and change, the you know, the domicile of the corporation and the ownehith have the same access is insane. you have be naive to think that they will have access to that that's baked into it you know and so if if if the argument is ve access to a that is in all of our cell phonesst say no more and the conditions that you let all of our social media apps work in china that seems be a prudent middle ground. so i see a question from michael r that. so go. thank you. thanks for doing this this evening. so one of the things i think into, that we're in a presidential year is we have that.mr. trump and i'll be talking to somebody sociallsudden we break into camps are you for or trump or biden come out either side and i will say. well what policies you want to talk about it's really hard to talk about is that typical in america or are we are we in situation now where we just can't talk about

policy because of personality? yeah. yeah. people don't they care about people personalities,ma. and so that's look, that's that's it. i mean and you know, trump has what, 50 years i mean guy's a phenomenon in that way and he's veryizing and for obvious reasons. but i don't know.i i've managed to avoid those and people ask me what do i say? i run a private research firm unow, i made a couple mistakes in the pastt's like i will never make that mistake again again, avoid those conversations, don't get in those arguments, and then surround with friends. and that's the best way to do it. i'm bill maher, and i'm running for congress in virginia'plus 23 seat that i'm unlikely to win. i'm fighting the i to say i'm a little bit closerhe generation x group and not to not toge our young, lovely author here, opinion

what we need mos the right is to majority we need to be as as, they are to us every day of the we and my question is, you know. thank thank isi for all the good work they do putting, putting good ideas in the hands of in the hands of the next generation. you know, and thank thank christopher for his his great work. you know, i love the fact that he wants to not just be a dge between the left and the right but to run over the bridge first,left side, you know, but you know, the fact of the matter is, we're today because we're on not reagan enough. we' need leaders on on the right. what you do to fix that. yeah i, i disagree. y with almost everything that you said said.

and i'll explain why. you know. you assume that we're in the that that is the case as it was in the great speech about the silent majority than, the non screamer shouters know i'm a nixon. i love nixon. you kno that was undoubtably then. i'm not sure it's true and then the idea about, you know, getting in people's faces, silent. i'm also not persuaded that that's a good thing you be, you know, rude to people. vi to live with people. but if they control the ld the power you're not actually doing anything so. don't mistake noise for effective political i'm almost never mean to people i don't ed in drama to the extent that i can. i try not to get tooou know i'm tempted and i do it. it's a weakness. but i think that then you can descend into kind of politics.

we've s lately. we actually have to be very headed, very smart, very deliberate. i think one of the great thingsabout the right is also standards. younow, maintaining some standards of of to the ext um, and then i thinkptt, necessary, and maybe not even desirable. um, know. i think know, i think it's misreading of reagan. i mean, reagan was like a flame throwing radical. he wasn't above it all. you know, the great communicator, i mean, you know even conservatives didn't like him at the time, right. many conservatives thought he was too polarizing. so we've kind of look back. but. i think that we have people that are in some sense too optimistic. they become naive optimism taken to, its extremist becomes naive. and so i think we need a balance of pessimist ism and optimism that is oriented towards toward purpose. that, to me seems the thing that's lacking than anything is

of and an understanding the true nature of and and i think, look, the faces is always a loser fors the left can burn down city and the media will cover for them. if there's one bad person in a crowd at a conservative rally or something, it tars everybody. and so i think we try to avoid that. take a question from the woman in the back. yeah, you. yep. i'm sorry. i'myeah, yeah yeah. oh. i cannot wait to tell my folks ab's. that's hilarious, right lights, right? lights. long hair, a per long and assume so. so. an pronouns? okay, i'm just going to pretend that didn't happen. soay. okay, let's get. let's get the giggles out. so. i'm probably the youngest person in the room. i'm onall right. we go to formally tc across the vein alexandria and it's lack of a better term, self-absorbed marxists. i remember last yearwalking for the

hallways at my school and teachers put up a poster of one of the plly angela davis on the wall. i'm like, what? you know, i was like, this is america. why? why is this happening? and another happening was, you know, i was in geometry class and it was june last year. of month, pride before the fall. and iike all this like this whole milieu o's call it rainbow content. and i was just thinking to myself, youtransgender ism has anything to do with geometry. i don't senior. so my is what be your biggest piece of advice to someone like trapped the public school system? i have aut i now know that six months, two and a half months, i keep losing track of so what would be your biggest piece of advice to someone like? me, who is a i to, i guess, reduce the suffering a little bit? , a couple of things. and i think this is a great question and i'm actually very optimistic about young people. i did an event two nights ago at a extremely right wing avant

garde art space. new york city, it sounds like like with like hundreds of people, mostly account and radical ideas was galvanizing and it was like a know. what'sthere's this phenomenon if you look at organizing principles, primarily along race and gender, you have kind of race, radicalism, racialist ideology, and then you have kind ideology, gender theory, kind of non-binary etc. this is like the first youth subculture history that is not driven by the youth but driven by the adults. i mean, really truly and i think that there is a rebelliousness and in this country, if you look at especially young men, are extremely with what's happening. they havelious energy and, you're young. that's a time for reb organize a small group of people. you could have two friends, three friends, five friends, ten friends. god forbid that's enough.

create a block llc, a kind of small institution like a high school and don't ha anymore. seriously. an spouting off, push him on ittions. ask questions. this sounds bad and it's not maybe kind ofonservative, but i think it's justified in this case embarrass yourfront of others. make sure he doesn't do that again.i really believe that. andi a lot of people say, oh, well, i should just shut up and wrteacher wants to get an a. i'm much morth the kid that eats the c and doesn't compromise this. yeah so thank you sir that was an excellent question. we are justbout out of time but the conversation will continue with chris rufok and in the pages of modern and. thank you all for coming tonight i want pr for sponsoring tonight's event and the henry and balaji

foundation for all of their sponsorship and suppovative book of the year award. thank you chris. thank