- If I had been doing it for
the money and was a grifter,
and I remember this
moment when I became aware
that my thoughts and
opinions were different
than most of my peers, and I was like oh.
I need to make a choice.
- It's scary, right?
- I either need to just be honest or,
I'm smart enough to be able
to just parrot the talking points
and be like derp-a-dur!
Trump is Hitler, bur bur bur!
- That's hilarious when they say that
over and over.
- And a billion re-tweets,
that would be grifting.
From me, that would be
that would be a grift.
(upbeat music)
- This is the Rubin Report,
and according to the deep
state, I'm Dave Rubin.
Quick reminder, guys, subscribe
to our YouTube channel,
which gives you just a teeny tiny
chance of actually seeing our videos.
All right then, joining me today
is a writer, a comedian, and
host of "The Dumpster Fire,"
right here on YouTube, Bridget Phetasy.
Welcome back to the Rubin Report.
- I'm back!
- All right, lady, you're back!
- We're both still here.
- Last time I had you on here,
you were at the beginnings
of your political evolution.
You were saying,
I don't know what's
goin' on with this world,
you were tryin' to make
some sense of the world.
- [Bridget] I still have no idea.
- Well, a year later,
or whatever it's been,
barely a year.
- Yeah, barely a year.
- Barely a year, you're one of,
you're on the short list of people
that make some sense to me.
So, what does that say about me?
- A, that's terrifying. (laughs)
People say this to me and I'm like,
you know that the world had gone crazy
if somehow I'm a voice of reason.
And I get a lot of, so I
guess what's happened is,
it's true, it has been kind
of an exponential, I guess,
just from a statistical point of view
and numbers point of view,
on something like Twitter,
it has been exponential rise or growth.
And with that comes a lot
of criticism. (laughs)
And different opinions--
- Whoa, whoa, whoa,
you get criticism--
- I do! (laughs)
- and people say mean things
to you on social media?
- I know, it's strange.
I know that this doesn't
affect other people,
but it really seems to
affect me, in particular.
No, but I feel like the criticism I get
all the time is that I'm a grifter.
- You know, like I'm some,
like I was one way and then
now I'm another way grifting.
And they're like, you know, eventually
you're gonna need to knock off
this both sides routine of yours,
because you're always trying to just,
I'm like, I'm just being me, though.
I'm really just confused. (laughs)
- Do you think that that's sort of
what's working for you
more than anything else?
There's an up front-ness
about your evolution.
For me, something like five years ago,
I just started sayin' eh, guys,
I'm a liberal but somethin'
ain't right around here.
And then it was just, people
started goin', oh, me too,
and I sense you're sorta just
constantly in that thing.
- I was one of those
people, though. (laughs)
That was like oh, Dave!
- Hey, my pleasure.
- Thank you!
But I think the difference between us
is that you were already kind
of in the political world.
And, what was your degree in?
- Political science.
- Okay, so yeah, you--
- I'm one of three people
that ever used a political science degree
for politics.
- And, you went to college,
I dropped out.
So, I was--
- I was smoking
a lot of pot for the record.
- Yeah,
but I was blacked out
and smoking a lot of pot,
and waitressing, and I
say this to people a lot,
that I talked about the factory settings
and how I think when you're just,
when you have your head down
and I didn't know until
maybe last February
how I was gonna pay more than
two months worth of bills,
ever, since when I was 17.
So, when you have your head down
just tryin' to figure that stuff out,
you're not really paying
attention to anything else.
I was just trying to make
money and wait tables
and I moved to LA so that I
could be a content creator.
I wanted to write television
shows and do comedy,
and I was not aware there
was a culture war going on.
Which sounds completely naive of me,
and Michael Malice has said to me,
that just goes to show you how
entrenched the cathedral
is in terms of media
and entertainment and academia,
is that I didn't even know
I was in the cathedral.
- Right, do you sense that
getting the criticism of grifter,
or somehow you're doing this for money,
even though as you said,
it's just literally a year and a half ago
where you're scrounging
around and all that.
And also it's also funny
'cause people think
just 'cause we're on YouTube
and we have a little powder on our faces
that we're like rolling in dough.
And I'm not complaining by any stretch
and it was a long time to get here,
and I'm just somewhere on
my journey, as you are,
but I find that this thing of like,
'cause a lot of people in our space now
get thrown with grifter or
you're doin' it for the money
or you're a sellout or
something like that.
And in a weird way, while
that used to bother me,
now it's becoming, in some ways,
it's the ultimate compliment.
'Cause it's almost like
they have nothin' left.
There's nothin' left about
the ideas that you put forth
or the positions that you hold,
because you actually hold a mixed bag
of sorta left, right positions,
which I think most people do.
So all they got is, ah,
she's doin' it for the money!
- She's doin' it for the money!
- As if you were like,
oh, if I just stuck out
that position over there,
that's where the money rolls in.
- If I had been doing it for
the money and was a grifter,
and I remember this moment,
when I became aware that
my thoughts and opinions
were different than most of my peers,
and I was like oh. (laughs)
- It's scary, right?
- I need to make a choice.
I either need to just be honest or,
I'm smart enough to be able
to just parrot the talking points
and be like derp-a-dur!
Trump is Hitler, bur bur bur!
- That's hilarious when they say that
over and over.
- And a billion re-tweets,
that would be grifting.
From me, that would be a grift.
Because my idea of a grift is that
I'm being disingenuous,
I'm being dishonest,
I'm saying that I have one
thing and I'm selling another.
But, I'm selling, if I'm selling anything,
it's my confusion. (laughs)
- Well also, wouldn't a grift also be
that you would take the easier way out?
Clearly, I think--
- [Bridget] How is that easy?
- I think the people that are
in the space that we're in,
whatever you wanna call that,
this is the road less traveled, right?
But if you're on the grift,
you don't do the hard thing,
you do the easy thing.
- Yeah, it would be easy for me
to go in either direction, all in.
And it would also be easy for
me to completely just defect
and be like I'm MAGA now! (laughs)
And I've always joked that
there are these two strains
of Trump derangement syndrome,
and I can pretty quickly tell
if somebody has one or the other.
It's if, everything is Trump's fault
or Trump can do no wrong.
And it's MAGA and resistance,
it's like the hashtags.
And they are, I feel like most people
exist in the gray area in between,
but they get so bombarded by both sides
if they dare to be like, well,
I think there might be, you know,
I can see this from both sides
or there might be a perspective here
that they just are like,
nah, I'm just gonna be quiet.
- So speaking of that, it's a
good reason to have you on now
because I know you're an
expert in foreign policy,
especially related to Iran, right?
That's your specific expertise?
- Specifically what I'm here for. (laughs)
- No, that obviously is not true,
but actually, often in the morning
when I wake up and I haven't had my coffee
and I'm just sort of slowly getting online
and I'm trying to get
my thoughts centered,
I'll shoot you some texts
and we'll go back and forth a little bit,
and one of the things
over the last couple weeks
that consistently comes
up is the craziness
related to every single person on Twitter.
But I don't wanna make
this just about Twitter,
but the need for all the celebrities,
all of the journalists,
air quote journalists,
and just everybody to have an opinion
on everything at all times.
Remember, just a couple weeks ago,
we were in World War III.
- We were.
- How'd that go, how'd
World War III go for you,
by the way?
- It went well,
I walked my dog.
That's the crazy thing.
And we kind of talked about
this on "Dumpster Fire,"
my YouTube show which
just makes fun of every--
My whole thing with "Dumpster Fire"
is we just wanna laugh
while the world burns
because in the moment
when news is breaking
and having, it is
diplomacy by Twitter, now.
So there is serious,
there's news breaking.
The President's tweeting a flag.
Then the Ambassador to the Supreme Leader
is tweeting their flag.
These are, I mean, my roommate
Samantha said it perfectly.
She said, it's "Ender's Game"
meets "Risk" on Twitter.
(laughing) That's like
the perfect description.
And I think that there--
So there is this real,
people are getting hurt,
people are affected by this.
It's all playing out virtually.
And then you close your
computer or put your phone down
and walk outside, and it's
like, do-do-do-do-do-do.
Nothing's going on.
And the majority of people have no idea.
They're not living in that.
But if you're in that
moment in the news cycle
as it's all breaking and
everybody's got their takes
and the journalists are all
trying to figure it out.
And they're waiting for the
Pentagon to confirm things
so that they can confirm
the rumors they heard.
You get that kind of rush.
- What do you make of these
people that literally,
something happens now and then they have
the exact opposite reaction
because it was another
administration five years ago.
I'm not talking about somebody
that's evolved over time
with their political ideas.
I'm talking about well, Trump didn't have
Congressional authorization.
And then there's literally five years,
their tweet when they
were completely for-Libya.
I mean, Nancy Pelosi's a great example.
Trump didn't need, and I don't even mean
just the people in politics.
But there's a video right
now that's been going around
that I've shared of Pelosi five years ago,
or whatever it is, six years ago,
saying Obama didn't need
Congressional authorization.
We toppled the Libyan regime
in Qaddafi, now he needs it.
But then everyone just
flips on every little thing
'cause it's all sports.
- So my question is, has
it always been like this
and we're just more aware of it
because everything lives forever?
Because what about him is
gonna destroy democracy?
Because you can always
say, well what about this,
and what about that, and what about this?
And well, actually, and
everybody can go back and forth.
But what are your principles, I guess?
And it's so easy to just adjust your mind
to confirm your own belief
and principles anyways
that I don't know how anyone really avoids
being a hypocrite in politics.
And maybe it was always like this
and we're just more aware of it.
- Yeah, one of the things I find,
which is why I think you're sort of a
breath of fresh air in this, is that A,
you're not pretending to be an expert
in all of these things, despite the fact
that someone will now clip,
"Oh, Dave Rubin says that Bridget
Phetasy's an Iran expert."
Blah, blah, blah.
But you're not pretending to be an expert.
But also, you are being
funny throughout the day
and it's like, we really have
watched comedy get slaughtered
in this freaking thing.
- It's weird because you'll--
So I just got told that "Dumpster Fire"
is being shadow banned.
I don't know if this is true or not.
- So you saw somebody tweeted at you
that basically they're subscribed
to your channel.
- A bunch of people did.
- A bunch of people, they're
subscribed to your channel.
- And my video didn't
show up in their feed.
And I don't--
- Bridget, I'm shocked
and appalled that you
could do that.
- I don't have enough
followers for this to matter.
I just went on YouTube three months ago.
- You're over the target,
Sister, it's happening.
- Well, we make a lot
of inappropriate jokes
and we were joking on this week's.
I'm like, then Maggie was saying,
oh, who's gonna wanna sponsor this show?
Because I said something
like, I was joking about
how the "Golden Globes" went vegan.
And I was like, I just
miss the good old days
where a man could be a man,
and a woman was in the kitchen.
And Maggie's like Jesus.
You can't make jokes like that
because someone will
clip that and then say,
see, here's Bridget with
her internalized patriarchy.
- Unless you say that
everyone from the 1950s
was a racist, bigoted
homophobe, you're canceled.
- Yeah.
But should we just pre-cancel?
Because comedy is, I think, saying--
I said something that was really,
it's always those off the
cuff jokes that you make
that are completely inappropriate that,
I think I said something about Cardi B,
and we were filming the
"Dumpster Fire," which,
and I said, she said,
threatened to go to Nigeria.
And I said, have fun with Boko Haram.
And Maggie and Sam, who are
in there filming with me,
my cousin Maggie who's
my producing partner,
and Samantha who's also on the team.
They started dying laughing
because that's what funny,
is those things that are off the cuff.
And if you say something like that now
and you aren't in a position like I'm in,
which is slightly immune
to cancel culture,
you will get canceled or you're
in risk of getting canceled.
So I think comedy has
become a lot more afraid.
And then the argument that people say
is cancel culture isn't
real, is that people
like Ricky Gervais and Dave
Chappelle are making jokes,
well they're millionaires.
- They're multi, multi, multi.
- And they're powerful.
So you're just, you can't use people who,
or even J. K. Rowling.
You can't use billionaires
and multi-millionaires
as examples of people who are cancel-proof
because they're cancel-proof
just because they're rich.
- Do you sense, though,
that people like us
may be at, if Gervais
and Chappelle, let's say,
are doing it at the Air Force level,
that we're sort of more
the foot soldiers in this
or something, or we're in
the tanks on the ground?
And we're offering cover
to the average person
that is the foot soldier in this
that just wants to be
able to work a real job
but still occasionally say what they think
without being mobbed.
And we are actually offering
them a little bit of cover
in that.
- Yeah, I think that
people feel confused and
there is that sense of terror,
but also hilarious.
And we were talking about this
as well on "Dumpster Fire,"
just how it's almost like a defense--
Humor for me is a defense mechanism.
It is for many people.
And that's why inappropriate
jokes are funny
because you're like ha-ha-ha-ha-ha-ha.
World War III, right guys?
And then the memes come out
and the memes are hilarious.
And so people are using
humor to try and make sense
of a world that's really crazy.
And then you have all these
people who are experts.
And I always say, no one knows anything.
I mean, even experts, they
might know things about,
they might have things to contribute.
But no one knows what's gonna happen.
So anyone who's telling you,
here's what's gonna happen,
is really just projecting
their own biases and hopes
into the world.
But no one is Nostradamus.
They're not gonna--
So I think people just wanna
laugh to make sense of it.
- You mentioned your factory settings,
which I have credited you with many times.
- Thank you, I really appreciate that.
- I'm 99% sure I credited you
when I mentioned it in the book.
Suddenly as I'm saying it,
I'm suddenly afraid that I didn't,
but let it be known that
you were the first person
that came up with the
phrase factory settings
that I had ever heard.
Can you just explain what
factory settings are?
I know we talked about it last time.
But I think it's such a right way
of sort of looking at why
everything is so screwed up
or sort of how you would
take everything down
to first principles, to then
sort of look at the world.
- Yeah, factory settings
is really just the default
that you were kind of
installed as a child.
For instance, I was raised
in a very liberal family.
It was very East Coast.
I was thinking about it the other day.
I'm like, I don't think I even met anyone
who was pro-life until I was in my 30s.
- [Dave] Until you were on Twitter.
- Yeah, maybe.
I mean, it might have been.
I just was not exposed to--
I was in Minnesota, but
we lived in the city.
So I was always very much in--
And again, I wasn't really engaging
in the debate club at school.
So I had some conservatives in my life,
but my default settings, factory settings,
were just pro-choice,
Republicans are evil,
all they care about is
money, you're the good guys.
- Democrats are nice.
- We care about people.
- They care about the poor people.
Do you think that's a personal
thing or that generally--
When I use the phrase, maybe
this is my own take on it,
I've sort of said to people
that the factory settings
that we're all given, pretty much,
if you grow up in America in
the last 40 years let's say,
is that that is the narrative.
So yes, of course, some
people are brought up,
say Christian conservative,
and they're brought up
pro-life and whatever.
But that's really an outlier--
- [Bridget] They're the counter-culture.
- To the main set of ideas
that are sort of accepted
out of the gate, which are
Democrats good, Republicans bad.
Democrats for poor people,
Republicans for rich people.
Democrats, all of that kind of stuff.
- Well it just depends
on where you grow up
because I think everyone's
factory settings
are different and it
depends on your region.
So if I was raised in,
somewhere in the south perhaps
or in Texas, or in a different family,
then perhaps I would have
different factory settings.
My very good friend
was raised conservative
and he was raised to think
all liberals are idiots.
- Lefties, lefties,
not liberals.
- Lefties.
And that they can't argue
any of their own points.
So he just won't even
engage in a leftist debate
because he thinks that, that
was the way he was raised
by his family that was conservative.
But it was also known that
they were not the mainstream
point of view or voice.
- That set of ideas wasn't
the thing coming down to you
from Hollywood and the media all the time.
- And to kind of keep those
ideas somewhat on the down low.
So even in graduate school,
he's had to kind of pretend,
just fake go along with
a lot of the crazy stuff
that he's seen and just because he wants
to kind of swim through and
get done and be done with it.
So I think that's interesting, too.
I don't know.
It's been interesting hearing
from as many conservatives
as I have in the past couple years,
their own struggles at colleges
and how they're kind of
these, they're outliers,
really, in the culture
and I never knew that
'cause I was just like whatever.
Give me the weed.
- Let's back up for a second, though,
because that is relative to all this.
For people that don't know you
or didn't see our first
interview, you're a former addict
which I think in a lot of ways,
seems to set up, sort of
your view on all of this,
that the culture war, for
as important as it is,
and this is what we do every day.
And I do believe that
this fight is the fight
for western values and
all of these things,
it is important.
But that you've already lived through
your own existential battle
for existence, right?
- I feel like that, I grew up
in a kind of crazy household, too.
I think there are a lot
of people probably like me
who grew up in dysfunctional homes
where the culture as it's
gone increasingly more crazy,
I'm like that meme, the
little dog drinking coffee.
This is fine while everything's on fire.
Because that was what I was used to.
So the culture is finally reflecting.
I'm like, oh I know how
to handle this.
- The culture has caught up
to your dysfunctional home.
I don't know what that says.
- But I think the existential crisis,
the first time I had it, I was 19.
Let's be clear, I'm still an addict.
- I was making you a retired addict.
- No, yeah, no, I still,
that's still there.
I can do anything addictively
even if it's good for me.
And I do have a crazy,
I get fixated on things
and obsessed with them.
Twitter is a great example.
I have a hard time,
people are always like,
how do I get on Twitter, what do I do?
And I don't know what to tell
them because I love Twitter.
I'm like, I need to pull myself away.
- But you take some breaks, too.
- I do, and I have a
pretty healthy relationship
to social media for the most part.
- And it's about to get healthier.
We're gonna talk about it
in just a few minutes.
- Yes, it is.
I think what being in
recovery has done for me
during all of this craziness,
and I just celebrated six
years of sobriety in October,
I can't personally be
in anger or resentment
because it puts my sobriety in danger.
So I can't live with that stuff.
So I quickly have to figure
out how to come into acceptance
and I think some of the biggest problems,
and I'm sure this existed
with conservatives
when Obama was president, I
just never saw it, 'cause--
- Well 'cause factory settings
for most of society--
- Factory settings.
- Didn't let it get there.
- The cathedral,
as Michael has explained it.
The cognitive dissonance, but
and particularly on the left,
and this is what's really so fascinating
to me psychologically is,
trying to align those things
of watching people applaud
dictatorships and regimes,
applaud things like the economy crashing,
so that their view--
- Literally Bill Maher.
- Of a person can be correct
is really unsettling to me.
Because that is,
you are willing to see people suffer
to validate your own rightness.
Like come on, can't you
self reflect at all?
Can't you look at yourself and see
that you're cheering
for the supreme leaders
so that you can be right?
How is there--
And then I'll read these
psychological studies
about how people, it
feels better for people
to have their beliefs validated,
no matter what those beliefs
are, than to be challenged.
- And we see crazy,
crazy examples of this.
This is not just something you're saying
as if these are random
Twitter people doing it.
I mean, a couple of them are.
Bill Maher literally
said it would be great
if the economy crashed so
that Trump would get out.
It's like, well that's
pretty easy for you to say,
guy that probably is
worth 100 million bucks,
that's one thing.
- Talk about privilege,
I mean geeze.
- The other one,
the other one though, a couple
weeks ago on "The View,"
when Joy Behar--
- Oh, the applauding.
- So Joy Behar says, a bit of good news.
White Nationalist Richard Spencer
is no longer supporting Donald Trump.
He regrets supporting Donald Trump
because of the Iran strike.
And the audience cheered,
which meant that they were cheering
that the White Nationalist
no longer supports Trump,
as if Trump is worse than
the White Nationalist.
- We made fun of this on "Dumpster Fire."
The audience is like, yay.
(applauding)
Yay, the White Nationalist agrees with us.
Trump's a bad man, yay.
I'm like, what, how can you sit and--
That is what is, I think
for most Americans,
I still hold on to the
faith that most Americans
are looking at all of
this and going, what the?
What the heck?
- [Dave] You can say it.
- What the fuck?
- There you go.
Didn't that feel nice?
- Thank you, it does.
And there's craziness all around.
It's not just on one side or another.
It does feel chaotic everywhere.
But that in particular,
that cognitive dissonance is really just--
- But do you see a link there,
between that and something
that you went through
with addiction, the need
to keep doubling down?
Or something like that?
You're always rationalizing your existence
or something?
- Well here's the thing.
I don't trust myself.
Being an addict made me
not trust my thoughts.
And I tell this to people
about reading the news.
You have to be aware of your biases.
I'm very aware of my own biases.
I'm very aware.
And there are probably
some that I'm not aware of.
But I'm, as much as I
can be, aware of them
and I'm aware of my
defects, and my addictions,
and my weaknesses, and
in order to get sober,
you really have to take, in my instance,
I had to take a very
hard look at all of that.
And it would be very
easy for me to justify
just going, I could have easily said,
because I wasn't going into the election
some huge Trump fan.
I could have easily the night
that he was elected said,
I'm gonna drink.
I can't live like this.
And I don't have that luxury.
Because I will probably die
or end up in a bad state.
And I quickly, and this is
what I was saying is that,
the thing that's lacking when
you have cognitive dissonance
is acceptance, generally,
being able to accept what is.
And so much of that craziness
on the left right now,
because I'm sure it was true
with the right with Obama,
but right now because they lost,
they cannot accept that he won.
They just cannot accept it, still.
- Have you found any tricks--
People ask me all the time, well Dave,
you seem to have made a little headway
with some of these people?
Like helping the struggling lefties
understand really what
liberalism is or whatever.
But as someone that comes
from a similar place
in that regard, have you found any tricks
to break these people?
I mean, I guess comedy is really
the one consistent.
- Yeah, comedy.
I don't know.
I think my sense is that
there's anyone right of Bernie
and then the people
left of Bernie, I guess.
And I think once you're
in the hashtag resistance,
Trump derangement syndrome,
whatever you wanna call it,
that strain, the only
way you have an epiphany
is when you get canceled.
So when the mob inevitably
comes for you, which it will,
that then suddenly you'll
see these people coming
and asking for my help or advice.
Like oh my gosh, I didn't see this.
Because so much of my personal awakening
was when I was saying
things out of lockstep.
First it's like, well
why I am self censoring?
Okay, we'll I'll stop self censoring.
You quickly realize why
you're self censoring
when you start just saying your thing.
And once your own tribe
kind of turns on you
and comes for you, well you
start questioning that tribe.
- So I know you don't consider
yourself on the right,
or certainly not a
Republican or a conservative,
or something like that.
- No.
- But are you always shocked still?
So this would be my follow up
to our conversation a year ago
where I was sort of like, I
kinda know where you're gonna be
in a year, or something like that.
Are you kinda like,
boy, these conservatives
and libertarians, at least
right now, are just pretty nice?
Do you ever get shit from them, really?
- That's been really interesting to see.
They're more willing to
engage in conversations.
I always joke that,
I think I joked even the
last time I was here,
but I've started doing standup about it,
is the factory settings, I
always thought I was liberal.
And then they tell you when you get sober
that you won't even recognize yourself.
And I'm like, how much weed was I smoking?
I'm a conservative now?
And the conservatives will
start talking about porn
and I'm like, oh thank God,
I'm not with you guys, hooray.
'Cause the minute they start
talking about porn and stuff,
I'm like, oh I'm not one of you either.
All right, thank God.
- Wait, let's talk about that thing.
So there was a few weeks
ago, there was this thing,
was it Matt Walsh, was the guy?
So Matt Walsh, who's "The
Daily Wire" guy, right?
So he put up a post, just clean this up.
Or you wanna get it, maybe?
He basically said
something to the effect of,
that porn should be illegal
and that we should jail
pornographers.
- Later in the thread
I think he said that, to
somebody's who was like,
let me be clear, so we
should jail the pornographers
and the people who make it?
And he's like yes, absolutely.
- Okay, so now he's a conservative.
He works for "The Daily Wire."
I know you like Ben and I like Ben,
so this isn't about "The Daily Wire."
It's not even about Matt specifically.
But he sparked a four or
five-day war on Twitter,
but it was intellectually
really interesting
because it really did show the difference
between conservatives and libertarians.
Where libertarians, it's always about
the maximum amount of personal freedom.
That's the part that I usually,
the side that I lean towards.
And then for conservatives,
it's about conserving
some traditions that over
time seem to build a healthy,
in their minds, build a healthy society
with some sort of traditional values.
My real belief would be
that classical liberalism
is the fusion of those two things.
But what did you make of that
whole debate 'cause you got
into it a little bit.
- I did get into it.
- I sat it out, every
now and again I'm like,
I'm gonna sit one out.
- I was gonna sit it out
and then, it's hard for me to sit it out
coming from "Playboy" and
posting nude, being me.
It's hard.
- Your boobs are on the internet.
- My boobs are on the internet,
it's hard for me to sit that one out.
- We just lost 90% of
the people watching this
because they just went to find your boobs.
- Yeah, no, come back.
That's interesting.
The reason that I kind of waded into it
and I don't even know if I can,
I just think, again, one
of the factory settings
that I was taught was that I grew up
with the party of family values,
the conservative family values.
And then there were cracks in that.
- That's not what you grew up in,
but that's what you grew up
thinking they were.
- No, that's what I grew up
believing and witnessing.
It was all about the moral majority.
And those were the years
that I kind of came--
I remember hearing snippets about that.
- We are Gen Xers, old
timers for YouTubers.
God, we're dinosaurs.
- We are dinosaurs.
We're pretty much like one, 10
years away from OK Boomer-ed.
So I grew up with that impression,
that they were the ones who were very much
about the traditional family.
And then you started seeing the
cracks with the evangelicals
and a lot of the controversies
and the scandals that came out of that.
And then with Trump being
elected and his history,
I'm like, eh, you guys don't really get
to make that argument anymore.
You can't defend Trump as
your president on principle
and also say porn is destroying America.
I'm sorry, that's a cognitive dissonance
that you guys have to deal with.
And so I did wade into it 'cause to me,
it just feels like
you're a very pro-Trump.
And people can say, well
I can separate his actions
from his private life or whatever.
But these are the same people
who were screaming at Bill
Clinton, so no you can't.
- So as someone that used
to write for "Playboy,"
someone that does have
their boobs out there--
Do you like the word boobs?
What should I be, knockers?
- Boobs with a W, boobs.
- Boobs, is that thing?
Boobs.
- The boobs.
- But for someone that, okay
your boobs are on the internet,
you've written for "Playboy,"
so you know this world,
what would you say?
So I saw a lot of the arguments.
The anti-porn arguments
that I saw were that
it is fundamentally just destroying--
We can remove the viewer for a second.
But the people that are
in it, the amount of them
that become drug addicts,
that are 18 years old
and just need any money so
they do all kinds of things.
Do you find any of that
argument compelling,
or anything there?
- And again, and I said
this when I was talking
about the porn, the porn, online.
- Now you became a Baby Boomer,
geez.
- Yeah, I'm a boomer.
The porn on the internet.
As someone who wrote for
"Playboy" and had my DMs open
before I couldn't leave them open anymore,
I had thousands of emails from men
who were talking about
their struggle with porn.
So putting it aside--
The argument that porn, I
see it as a substance though,
in the same way that--
I mean, I had a porn
addiction for a hot minute
and it was when I was trying
to quit all the other things.
I think I just replaced it with porn.
And it is, I do think
that it desensitizes you
in a certain way and
it does make you numb.
It does make things more confusing
with the opposite sex or the same sex,
or whomever you're having sex
with now in this day and age.
Whatever, I don't care.
So that is one argument,
but I would treat it
the same way that I would
treat alcohol and weed.
I have a more libertarian view on it,
that that is not for the
government to regulate
because the argument the
conservatives were making
is that the government should come in
and regulate this and ban it, essentially.
And I don't share that
that's the solution.
I think that just pushes
things underground.
It makes it more dangerous
for people in the industry.
And it makes it more enticing for people
because now it's a thing
that's not allowed.
- Right, it also strikes me that,
why that argument feels kind of thin
and where maybe 30 years
ago, or 20 years ago,
it would have felt bigger,
is that 20 or 30 years ago,
like VHS tapes, you wanna get into porn,
you probably had to work for a studio
or you had to move out to the valley
in Los Angeles.
- They were making money too,
back then.
- But you were in more of
an institution where the
opportunities were there
for people to abuse.
Where now it's like, there are people
that make gajillion dollars,
literally just sitting in
their bedroom with a webcam
with no middleman.
It's just a direct interaction
with somebody else.
So it almost feels like it's
a little cleaner or something.
I don't know if that's all fully true.
Obviously I'm not an expert
in the economics of porn.
But something to that, maybe?
- Well and it's the, because
then you start wading
into the idea of sex work,
so you're talking about,
if you're talking about
people who are making it.
Whether are you a cam girl,
are you someone like me
who shows their boobs,
what's the spectrum?
- [Dave] A political boob girl.
- Are we gonna arrest the
cam girl, the e-THOTs?
Every girl that shows
her butt on Instagram?
- Wait, what's e-THOTs?
Am I just gonna sound--
- An e-THOT?
- Yeah, what is that?
- It's E dash T-H-O-T, and
THOT is that ho over there.
It's internet slang, but
e-THOTs, I've been accused
of being an e-THOT.
But I'm an e-THOT that was sent--
I mean, this is the stuff
I get from the right wing,
is that I'm a deep state plant sent
to undermine the conservative party.
- [Dave] Oh, I get plenty of that.
That's what I'm doing
with the conservatives.
- Yeah because of "Conservative
Ink," Ben Shapiro,
and the far right can't stand these--
- These tolerant conservatives,
that's the irony.
But just real quick on that, though.
That to me shows you
what's, why something good
has happened with the conservatives.
Because when the far right element
start attacking them now,
they go on the attack.
Where on the left, when the
far left elements attack,
they seem to always move towards them now.
They sort of bow to them.
Where on the right, when
people have attacked Shapiro,
and Charlie Kirk, and
people that I would say
are more mainstream conservative,
they actually fight back and they say, no,
if you want a white nationalist
state, you're the bad guy.
You're the one that's counter to America.
Where the left seems to always be,
if the bad guy's out here, they
always follow him out there.
- Yeah, and I'm not sure if it's,
I guess bad guys, it's that--
- [Dave] Whatever you wanna call them.
- I already joke that the horseshoe theory
is like a perfect circle now.
- Well the Richard Spencer thing
was the perfect example of that.
Joy Behar, ultimate lefty,
suddenly on the same side
as Richard Spencer, far righty, ba boom.
- I get emails, I got one the other day.
It said, this is a fight for,
you sitting on both sides
while the fight for America,
and it was this tirade against me
and how no one's gonna
remember anyone who left
while the world burned, or something.
And I was like, well, lucky for you,
I don't wanna be remembered.
So I'm cool with that.
But I could not tell you who it was from.
I couldn't tell you if
it was from the far left
or the far right.
And it was a good--
it was nice to see my
followers were a little mixed
on this too because I posted what it said.
And everybody was like, that's
obviously from the right,
that's obviously from the left.
So whatever you believe is the
way you perceive that, too.
And it's a little bit, it's bananas being,
when you are kind of in that space,
you're like, whoa, what?
Somebody the other day on Twitter
said that the American flag
should be the Spider-Man
pointing at the other Spider-Man
meme that goes around.
Where it's like, you, you.
- Yeah, that's funny.
All right, let's shift a little bit here
because let's talk about big tech
'cause you've got an
interesting announcement coming.
But just relative to the
whole big tech conversation
and that's something that
you now might be shadowbanned
on YouTube and we don't know
if they're gonna get us.
And shadowbanning, as I
keep endlessly repeating,
is now quite literally in
the Twitter terms of service.
If you are an American, it doesn't apply
to the Europeans for some reason,
but if you're an American, it
is now in the terms of service
on Twitter, that they can
throttle who sees your tweets.
On top of that, I just saw, as of the day
we're taping this today,
that they're considering
doing a tip thing on Twitter.
- [Bridget] Yeah, I saw that.
- Have you heard about this?
But think how dangerous that is.
That's an interesting idea,
but now they're also saying
they can throttle you, but then that means
they can also not just
control whose information
gets out there, but who can
actually make money, too.
So it's a seriously dangerous thing.
All that being said, when
it comes to big tech,
as someone that's in this,
as a creator, and YouTuber,
and a Twitter, and a boob
person, and all that stuff,
where are you on regulation
and what we should do
about this thing that's
obviously pretty intimate to you?
- So I had to think a lot about this.
And that was one area, it just intersects
with a lot of my interests,
is big tech, free speech.
I'm like, ah, this is
gonna be real interesting
in the future and we'll
see how well that holds up
because free markets,
big tech, and free speech
often do not get along very well.
Because they have an interest to their,
obviously to their investors.
And then you have things
happening on Patreon,
the actual financial
backings, like Mastercard
kind of putting the
pressure on to boot people.
And now there's so many different topics,
but I don't believe everyone
has a right to a platform.
So I don't think that--
Everyone has a right to
free speech in America
in the places that you are
allowed to have free speech.
That doesn't mean--
- You mean the public square.
- Meaning the public square.
Now that doesn't mean
that a private company
owes you a microphone.
- So what about the people that say,
but Twitter, and Facebook, and YouTube
are the avenues we communicate.
And if you're not allowed on there,
it's like saying to somebody 30 years ago,
you can't get a telephone in your house.
- You know what's interesting to me,
is that it's generally people on the left
who are saying this, or on the right
who are getting kind of throttled.
But on the left, it's
like, get them all off.
Ban them all, it's not the public square.
But I think that it hurts really
marginalized people the
most, the trickle down.
And so I don't know, to not
consider it the public square
is dangerous in some ways
because then you are really--
It's just so crazy to me.
It goes to show how you're not gay
because you don't think the right way.
Someone isn't black if they
don't think the right way.
It's the ideology.
So if you have the right ideology,
you'll be allowed in the public square.
Well, that's not the public square.
But it is weird with
Facebook and all these places
because, as far as I'm concerned,
just being that they're private companies,
even if they were smart enough
to create a public square,
they still get to do what they wanna do.
I mean, I don't know what
else to say about that.
That sucks.
- The best line I heard on this,
and this was in the middle
of me trying to figure out
how I wanted to fight this battle,
was everyone always says, but this time,
they have so much power
that it's different.
So the idea would be that
this time, you libertarians,
you kind of have to put it aside
and let the government do it
because Google has so much
information and so much--
This is the time.
And then Yaron Brook, who I've had on,
have you chatted with Yaron?
You should definitely have him on,
from the "Iran Institute."
Basically, I mean, it's
the most simple thing,
but he said it so plainly
as if it was nothing,
that it really just struck me.
He's like, well if you
wouldn't have principles,
when they're the hardest time
to have those principles,
then you don't really have them.
And so he's completely
against regulations.
So that leads me to
why over the last year,
and I just announced
it, barely a month ago,
I started Locals.com to allow creators
to own everything they're doing.
Own all your content, own
all of your user data.
Set whatever rules you
want in your locals.
We started mine, which we
have about 10,000 people
in there now, at RubinReport.com.
And we got an iOS app
and a Google Play app.
But I'm not pimping myself out
here, Bridget, because this
all leads to that.
- We're pimping my boobs out.
No, just kidding.
- We're pimping
Bridget's boobs.
- We're not pimping my boobs.
- No, that you, this is the first time
it's being said publicly,
you are the first creator--
- I am.
- On Locals.
People can go to Phetasy.com today.
P-H-E-T-S-A-Y.
- No, A-S-Y.
- Phetasy, P-H-E-T-A-S-Y.
Yeah, is that not what I said?
- No, you said S-A-Y,
it's fine, it's confusing.
- Little dyslexia there.
- We'll put it on the screen.
- But you are the first creator beyond me
that is on Locals.com
and we're super psyched
to have you there.
- I'm honored.
- And we had literally about 5,000 people
that reached out within
that first couple weeks
to create communities and I was like,
Bridget's the right one
because you are just
in the center of all of
this, so I'm thrilled
to tell everybody that.
- I'm honored to be here,
I'm so excited.
I'm excited because, well
there's a couple, many reasons.
One, you put your money
where your mouth is.
I appreciate that.
A lot of people, when I
was too small to really,
I was affected by people
like Jordan and you,
and Sam leaving Patreon because you took
a lot of people who subscribed to me.
- No, I had my own friends angry at me
that were like, Dave,
you left and it's okay,
but people cancel their Patreon accounts
'cause of us, so then a
lot of you guys got hurt.
- It's fine, whatever.
And again, I really don't
like to be the victim-y thing,
so even, I'm like, all
right, shadowban me.
All right, whatever, I'll figure out a way
because I always have.
You actually did figure out
a way and made something.
And a lot of people are like,
well go make your own internet.
Okay, fine, I will go make my own.
It's not a platform, though, is it?
- Well, it's a non-platform platform.
It's a creator-specific platform.
- It's different.
- And one of the cool things
that we're gonna be launching
over the next couple of months
now that we're adding some creators,
and you're just the first
of a whole bunch of people
that we're gonna add, is
that we're gonna be able
to connect our communities.
So you'll be able to
connect your community
with like-minded people.
So perhaps, if Dave and
Bridget like each other,
we'll connect our communities.
It'll strengthen our feeds and our fans
will be able to communicate
with each other.
And if one day, you're like,
that Dave Rubin's a real asshole,
you'll just disconnect the
connection and that's it.
And the idea was, let's
give all of the power
back to the creators and
make sure that the day
that you say something on "Dumpster Fire,"
that YouTube's like,
we're done with this girl.
Well, guess what, you don't have any--
I mean think, how many
subscribers do you have
on YouTube, ballpark?
- Oh, I mean I've only been
on for like three months,
so 11,000 about?
- All right, great.
The day that they find
you too much of a threat
or whatever, and hopefully
by the end of this show
we're gonna send some
subscribers your way.
But the point is, that you
have no way of communicating
with those 11,000 people.
They've chosen to
subscribe to your channel,
but you can't get your message out to them
because the algorithm sits between you
and getting the message out to them.
I wish I had my phone on me.
You get actual push
notifications on your phone.
So I think we've built
something pretty cool
and I'm very happy that
you're a part of it.
- I'm so excited.
I'm excited, I was
telling David that I cried
when I saw--
- [Dave] My David.
- Yes, your David.
That I cried when I saw just the,
because it's just Phetasy.
So I started, I made up the
word Phetasy, years ago.
And it means, when reality becomes parody.
Now, in 2006, this didn't mean anything.
And now it's like the culture has kind of
caught up to the word.
And then because social media was so new,
I used it as my social media name
because A, I didn't
really trust social media
and knew nothing about it.
And I wanted to get the word out.
Well, I inadvertently became the brand
before my company did because
my company went bankrupt
because I was 27 and didn't
have a business plan.
I was gonna make greeting cards.
Again, trying to just
be a voice for people
I felt like didn't have a voice,
which was like divorced people,
and people who had kids out of wedlock.
And that's where I started.
And then it took on a whole
other life of its own,
which is a crazy journey
and probably the book
I should write because it's been--
And then I saw it, just Phetasy,
back with the original logo
and I'm like, I never gave up on this.
- I have it on my phone,
it's the test version,
but it will be--
- And Phetasy was always
meant to be a content creation.
That's all I wanted, I wanted
to be a production company.
And like I said, I have
scripted podcasts I wanna make.
I have Locals-only content
that I wanna put on.
And I see Locals, now,
or the Phetasy Locals,
as my hub where I get to do
that and just keep expanding
and collecting people
as long as I'm allowed
in the public forums.
- But it's the home, I mean,
what I'm trying to tell people
is it's your digital home.
You do whatever you want
in your digital home.
Our TOS, our terms of service,
you can't break the laws
of the United States
across the board on
Locals, but beyond that,
one of the cool things is, you
set the rules in your Locals.
I set the rules in my Locals.
So if someone's just
being purely evil in mine,
I just don't want your money
and goodbye, you're out.
You may have a different policy related
to what you're--
- No.
Mine's pretty much the same.
- Mine, it's sort of, I wrote
it in kind of a funny way.
It's like, it's not that
I have three strikes,
it's just like don't be a relentless dick.
And if you just can't do that,
then I literally don't want your money.
- I mean, that's how I feel.
I call it my gated community.
- Congratulations, the new
institutions are being built.
What do you think though,
because we're doing this
as a subscription thing,
about, that maybe the day
of the absolutely free internet
being the main driving force of everything
is kind of done?
'Cause that's sort of what I'm feeling.
Yes, I get it, I'm not
leaving YouTube or Twitter,
or any of those things for discovery.
- They're not free, though.
- Well, they just
stole your soul, but besides--
- Yeah, that's what I
always say on Twitter.
Twitter takes your soul
and all your information.
So one of the things I love about yours
is that I take that stuff.
I have no interest in selling information
people give me to third parties, none.
I don't like it when other
places do that to me.
I have no interest in that.
If I shut down and die,
it all dies with me.
That's also very clearly
written for my partners.
I don't want them taking
it and selling it.
And I think that the,
I was saying as I was watching all of the
past couple of years, the debates,
the silo-ing of public and private opinion
is happening anyway.
And I was saying, everyone's gonna end up
going back to their domain names.
Everybody left their domain names
to go into these social media places
and now everyone's gonna
start reverting back
to those places, their
homes, their home pages.
- Do you think that that's
part of the problem?
- But you found a way to link them all
and be social, so it's
the future, it's amazing.
- I'm psyched.
- No, it's amazing.
When I saw, when you
guys showed me the demo,
I got in the car with cousin
Maggie and we're like,
this is the future.
'Cause it's social media
meets content creation.
It's like Patreon meets
Twitter, a little bit.
And it scrolls, and it's sexy.
It's just, I'm so excited about it.
- Well it's also like, I wanted to--
Everyone that comes in, this is my house.
And everyone that comes in here,
I always repeat the
story, but Tucker Carlson,
who's the number one guy in cable news
that probably makes $15 million a year
or something insane, he
literally opened up the door
to my garage, and I don't
know if he would want me
fully saying what he said,
but he basically said,
holy fucking shit, you did it right.
Meaning I'm free, I built this thing.
And I feel like I've now
done enough to give the tools
to some other people to do those things.
And if you leave Locals, congratulations.
It's all your data, we don't keep it.
We keep the at handle, just
in case someone want to stay
on another Local, but
we don't keep that data.
You can go do whatever you want with it
and all that good stuff.
- Yeah, it's exciting.
I just love the, it's in
line with my principles
of free speech, and free markets,
and being an independent content creator.
And I do think, like you were saying,
that the future, I mean,
right now it's subscriber
and my kind of entry level
might be a little bit higher
than I'd like, just because
that's for my own ability.
But I think--
- What do you mean, you mean your tier?
- My entry level to Locals is five bucks.
I'd like to get to the point where so many
millions of people know
about me that it's two bucks
and they get all this cool content.
But because there's just more awareness.
Because I think the future probably is
people finding those
creators that they like
and spending their money,
instead of on a cable package
which is a total rip.
- Yeah, you're paying
180 bucks for literally 182
channels that you don't watch.
- Yeah, maybe for live sports.
Which again, they're all going,
you can watch those on Twitter.
You can pay two bucks to somebody like me
and three bucks to someone else you like,
and you have your little media budget
for that kind of content.
- What do you think about just generally,
we thought that social
media and all of this stuff
was gonna bring us community.
But what it brought, it helped
a lot of us succeed, right?
So we're living examples
of the good part of it.
But what it also brought
was a certain amount
of endless anxiety,
and the sky is falling,
and everything's horrible,
and everyone hates each other.
And you said it before,
but then you can close
your computer and it's fine.
And that's what I wanted to bridge.
That was the divide I wanted to bridge,
between the good stuff that's online
and then also figure out
some real world stuff.
So like I was in San
Francisco, I would never tweet
where I am, because God only
knows who's gonna show up.
But I did put it on my Local,
knowing that these are paying
people, and about 20 people
showed up within a half
hour in San Francisco.
We all had drinks and it was awesome.
- That's why you do kinda have
to make it cost prohibitive
to keep the riff raff out.
- Look, there's no perfect system, right?
There's no perfect system
'cause someone might pay you
to do all that.
They might, but then it's up to you then.
Either you take their money or you don't.
But it's up to you.
- You make a good point
about the community.
One of the things I've seen,
I foster a kind of community in Patreon.
And when I was going
through hard times this year
which there were a couple, the
community showed up for me,
in a way, and I watched
them show up for each other.
When somebody said they were depressed.
They felt safe in that community
because there weren't
all of these onlookers.
And I have been introduced to
people like, so many people.
I joke that my podcast should be called
All My Friends Are From
Twitter because I've made
so many friends and been
exposed to so many ideas.
And I have my ideas challenged
and I don't think that--
I see so much good in it
and I feel so grateful
to live in America.
I just am kind--
And again, this is a lot of recovery.
- It's pretty awesome, lady.
- It's also just,
I wake up, I'm like, I'm so lucky.
I feel very lucky for the most part.
And I do wanna help other people.
And I see how crazy everyone's going.
So leading into the election
and then whatever happens
post-election, I really
want my Locals community
to feel like they can
challenge each other,
push back, have reasonable conversations,
not be mean, no personal attacks.
But also support each other
in their goals for the future,
their goals for--
One of the people who's in my community,
he's like a brilliant businessman.
He's been mentoring other
people in my community.
It's just so wonderful to see.
- Well by the way, we
should give a shout out
to our man, Warren.
I don't know if he wants
us to say his last name.
But Warren--
- ZenPro Audio.
- Yeah, so Warren from ZenPro Audio,
he owns his own audio company.
Warren was one of my first supporters.
I mean, years, and years, and years ago.
And Warren, all of my,
I know you know this,
but all of my audio stuff,
the labs that we're wearing,
all of the soundproofing,
he donated all of it,
on top of being a supporter for years,
and he's a big supporter of you.
So I feel like, we really should give him
a little shout out.
But related to community and all of that,
do you think that people
will say, oh but Dave,
you're gonna just silo
yourself into your safe space?
- I was thinking about
this on the way over
because that is what's happening anyway.
So I believe--
- Right, as if the people
saying it aren't doing it
themselves.
- Aren't in a bubble?
And I go out of my way
to challenge myself.
So automatically, if I read something
and it confirms my bias,
whatever that might be,
or if I feel that like,
ha, I'm dubious of it.
I'm suspicious of it.
Now this comes A, from not
trusting myself, really,
and my own thoughts and
beliefs from being an addict.
But B, I think it's just
good to train yourself
to know what your biases
are, and know that
when you're being flattered,
you should be suspicious.
This is also just a zen thing.
It's our responsibility.
Somebody, we had this
discussion the other day
and it was a really good question.
Someone in an audience said,
where do you get your news?
What is your trusted news source?
Well, what's yours?
- You're literally asking?
People ask me this all the time
and what I always say is, you can't.
You already said this, actually,
at the beginning of the interview,
but you can't trust institutions anymore.
You can basically figure out
a couple of people to trust.
So there are some journalists,
not even journalists,
I don't even know what they are anymore.
There are some personalities
that I basically think
are good faith actors, who
I think are worth following.
But there's very few.
I just saw literally,
right before we started,
that Lee Lessig, who was
gonna run as an Independent
a couple years ago, just run
on campaign finance reform.
He's a tech guy and he was
gonna self-fund his campaign.
He ended up not going anywhere with it.
But I just saw that he's
suing the "New York Times"
for libel because they
wrote this ridiculous
hit piece on him.
And then I looked at the
by-line of who he's suing,
and it's the same author
who wrote the hit piece
about enforced monogamy on Jordan Peterson
and who wrote the
ridiculous piece last week
on PragerU that they're
circumventing parents and teachers.
What was the point of that?
Why was I telling you that,
related to all of this?
There was some reason there
and I completely lost it
in the midst of that.
- Oh, trusted news sources.
- Oh, right.
That you can't trust an institution.
You can't just say the
"New York Times" is good
because my dad used to
like it when it was good.
And obviously, I'm no fan
of this particular author.
- [Bridget] You have a bias.
- Her name not be mentioned.
But that's the point.
You can't just trust
the institution anymore.
But that's not to say
there isn't a good egg
at the "New York Times."
I'm not quite sure who it is,
but there's gotta be somebody over there.
- They still do some amazing journalism.
And I don't like to shit
on all journalists.
- But isn't that in some ways
the suckier part, when
they do something good?
'Cause they do so much bad now,
that then they do something good
and then your ability to calibrate--
- Or do we just only hear about the bad?
Because I think journalists--
I definitely don't want
to demonize journalists
in the mainstream media, or journalists
and journalism, I feel like,
is very important to democracy.
- That's why I demonize the bad ones.
- Yes, because they're
journavists, as I like to say.
They're activists posing as journalists,
which is dangerous to democracy.
Also dangerous to democracy is calling
every single journalist
an enemy of the people.
So, finding good faith
actors is increasingly harder
and I also think somewhere
in, I read everything.
I try to read left, right,
center, libertarian,
just because I feel
like somewhere in there,
I can form my own opinion
and I've become a psycho
about, okay I'll read this headline.
What's my gut instinct?
That's interesting.
Read the article, oh, that quote's
completely taken out of context.
All right, let's read the study.
Oh, who made the study?
But I have time to do that.
Most people don't have
time, nor even the desire.
They just see the headline,
it confirms what they believe,
and they're like, yeah.
- So did that put more
pressure on you in a way?
'Cause I feel that, too, is that
because life seems to be getting faster,
the digital age is making
information consumption faster,
people are living in worlds
where you can get your food delivered
at the same time as you're doing this
and you're watching
this, and da-da-da-da-da.
And you're on your
Peloton, and you're doing
whatever that woman's
doing, and the whole thing.
That in a way, the job of the curator,
if that's what we are in a certain way,
we're sort of in a world of
these relatively trusted people,
our job is more important.
I don't wanna say more important.
It's highly important relative to people
being able to make some
sense out of the madness.
- Yeah, that's a new pressure that I--
I'm not an expert, but
I definitely think--
I also don't just get to say I'm a nobody
and don't know anything.
- Well sometimes you say that.
- That's my default.
- That's the only time
I give you shit, right?
And you do that.
- And you rightfully should
give me shit because it's not really,
I'm advocating my responsibility
and I'm not an expert.
I only have my confusion to offer.
That doesn't mean I
don't have any knowledge,
and it doesn't mean I
don't have any insight,
and it doesn't mean I just get to be--
- But also, self-professed experts
often get everything wrong all the time.
So I like people who do,
and you're gonna make some mistakes along.
I mean, in a weird way, this
is like Trump's greatest gift.
It's not that he's--
He's certainly no expert in politics.
I guess he could be an
expert maybe in building,
building buildings, building
physical structures,
something like that.
But he's not an expert in politics,
but he has a gut feel for
something that seemingly
is sort of right in a
certain way or whatever,
wherever you wanna put that.
- In many ways, I get him.
He's very, he's intuitive.
I understand the way
he shoots off the hip.
He's very intuitive, for sure.
And people always say,
you're like an intuitive
political pundit, or an intuitive pundit
where I don't know anything,
but I do have a good general sense of,
I don't know, the way things, the current,
or the zeitgeists or whatever.
- But that is a real thing.
That is a real thing.
I always tweet this thing
about how is it possible
that Trump, this orange
haired, giant bloviating,
seeming buffoon, is more of a real person
than the Democratic candidates?
And then you see Elizabeth
Warren dancing up there.
- Yeah, people are so
desperate for authenticity
that they'll pick an authentic asshole
over disingenuous lifetime politicians
who have been paid for
the government forever.
And so there's just a distrust
of all our institutions,
so I think anyone who's being authentic
is somebody that people are like,
well I can trust that person.
Now that might not also be true, as well.
And I was saying the other day to my--
I had someone call and they were like,
how can you be both sides?
And this is a family member
and she was distraught,
and crying, and can't you
see the kids in cages?
The repetitive things
that I often hear online.
- You mean the system that Obama set up
that nobody said anything
about at the time?
Yeah, yeah, that system.
- And this is what I said,
I said, the hardest thing
about this time is
evaluating what was true
with every administration
that is now being demonized
because it's Trump, and what is something
that he's doing completely differently
that we need to be aware
of and push back against?
And this is where I will
say principle conservatives
have been pretty good.
And there are some who
are very consistent.
Some of the never-Trumpers, or whatever,
who are lifetime conservatives.
They might not always be
right, but you kind of
have to find those
people where you're like,
okay, this is a left wing thing.
Who are the people who
push back against left wing
and what's their take on it?
And what's the
never-Trumpers' take on this?
Is this a thing that's
always been happening,
or is this a thing that is something
that we should be concerned about?
- You know what's funny, though?
I find the never-Trumpers,
even that phrase,
I would never wanna be
defined by what I never am
or what I'm against.
- And I don't think
they wanna be.
- But it's such
a horrible way to define yourself.
And it also shows why so many of them
have seemingly gone crazy.
- More horrible
than the intellectual dark web?
- That wasn't the greatest,
that wasn't the greatest thing ever.
Well, IDW has a nice ring to it.
But the idea that you'd
say I'm never-Trump,
well that's a real dangerous thing
because if he does six
out of 10 good things
and you're a never-Trump,
well now you're wrong
six out of 10 times, now you're failing.
So it's just one of those things.
- I know and I don't
know that a lot of people
who get thrown in that camp
even consider themselves never-Trumpers.
Everybody just wants to be labeled.
I always just get called Rubin 2.0.
Everyone's like, remember
Rubin two years ago.
She's gonna be saying the
same thing in two years
and I'm like, well I hope--
- You mean, we're gonna be the leader
of the alt-right in two years?
- I hope I have a hot tub.
- Yeah, that would be pretty good.
That would be pretty good.
All right, Bridget, we are gonna
send people to Phetasy.com.
It is the first Local that exists
beyond the Rubin Report Local.
And I'm super psyched
that you're doing it.
And you're gonna be big, Sister.
- It's gonna be fun.
- I have proclaimed it
right here.
- We have a good community.
There's a lot of people in recovery.
There's a lot of people who aren't.
It's just mostly very loving
people who are confused.
It's really interesting.
It's just so interesting,
the different kinds of people
that I feel, I do feel like
if I am in a gated community,
in a silo, at least there's
still dialogue occurring.
It's not just all one thing
or all the other thing.
There's still a lot of talk in my silo.
- Wait, and more important
than anything else,
I hope that you're sharing pictures
of Hope, your dog in there.
'Cause mine's very
Emma-heavy and we both are--
So Emma, most of my audience knows,
is 15 and a half and a year into cancer.
We're sort of entering
that last phase with her.
But I've actually posted some questions
about geriatric dogs and palliative care.
And I get incredible responses from people
about all that kind of stuff.
And Hope was going through
some stuff with her eye,
but she's okay, right?
- Yeah, she's okay.
- You just find strange
ways to build community.
- Yeah, and I think that, I do believe,
and I love people.
I think that most people,
left, right, center,
wherever they are, are doing--
I think they believe what they're saying.
I don't know--
- Doesn't mean they're right.
- Yeah, doesn't mean
their logic is flawed,
or it isn't flawed.
I try to give people the
benefit of the doubt.
Because I know that it's hard being human.
- Give Bridget the benefit
of the doubt at Phetasy.com.
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