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Here are your hosts, Jason Bassler, Matt Agarist, and Dawn Vai Jr.
Hello again, Freethinkers. Welcome back to the Freethought Project podcast.
My name is Jason Bassler and joining me is the Freethought Project Editor-in-Chief, Matt Agarist.
We also have TFTP writer and editor, Dawn Vai Jr. joining us again today.
Well, thank you everybody for tuning in and joining us once again.
We are back this week for our second show of 2026.
It is Episode 198.
And if you missed our first episode back after our holiday hiatus,
in my opinion, it's definitely a must listen.
We spoke to author, innovator, and New Hampshire Senate candidate
Aaron Day last week and covered a lot of ground.
We spoke about Aaron's recent decision to run and why he's running.
We talked about the political persecution of crypto innovators
like Ian Freeman, Roman Storm, Keane Rodriguez,
and even the hoops that Bitcoin Jesus, a.k.a. Bitcoin Jesus, Roger Beer had to jump through
to finally get off the IRS DOJ hit list.
But the main segment of the podcast focused on medical tourism,
creating medical trusts and how to opt out of the medical mafia extortion racket
known as modern day health care.
Now, Aaron is truly a brilliant and dedicated Liberty activist
and the show was definitely worth the listen.
So download it and check it out after this episode.
And I also wanted to share that we've already lined up nearly four months of guests
for this podcast.
We're talking unique minds out of the box free thinkers,
people who see the world from perspectives you've likely never heard before.
So do make sure you are subscribed on your favorite podcast app
and also take a moment to rate and review the show.
It goes a long way and really helps us get these conversations into more people's ears.
All right, guys.
So we are welcoming back a returning guest.
And yeah, I know what you're thinking.
We've had a lot of those over the past year.
But this guest has only joined us once before in the past.
It was actually back in August of 2024 after I had just met him at the Freedom Fest conference in Vegas.
Now, I do want to mention that we did have a show we had planned.
We had to kind of put this one together at the last second.
I was really looking forward to speaking to our scheduled guests,
which were a group of veterans, EMS,
Ex-Law Enforcement and Experienced Rescue Agents
who actually saved lives of human trafficked children called Gideon's Army.
Unfortunately, they couldn't join us this week.
So we did scramble.
We did panic.
And at the last minute, I reached out to today's guest
and he kindly accepted the offer to join today's show.
But we will try to get Gideon's Army rescheduled.
I think that would be a good one.
But today's guest is someone I really admire.
I take a lot of value from his posts on Twitter
where he has nearly 70,000 followers and for good reason.
He also runs a sub-stack called Interlinked,
which digs into the ways technology, identity, and existence shape each other,
which are all topics I actually kind of wanted to cover and talk about today.
So our guest is Dylan Allman.
Dylan, welcome back to the Freethought Project podcast.
And thanks for joining us on such short notice, brother.
Yeah. Hey, what's up, guys?
Those other guests you're supposed to have seem way more interesting than me.
So I'm glad I could at least step in and give some input on this show.
I disagree, man.
We do appreciate it.
I disagree, bro.
Don't sell yourself short.
You have a lot of great things you've been saying,
a lot of great work that you've been doing.
And why not just jump right into the culture war side of things, right?
And I think maybe we could get into some of the tech and surveillance side of things
and Ian Freeman stuff as well.
But at first it seems like a no-brainer to start with some of the bizarre antics
and I guess kind of predictable antics going on in social media
and more specifically Twitter, where I think we all kind of spend most of our time.
Because if you needed a reminder on just how divided this country is,
look no further, it's pretty discouraging just to see the lack of critical thinking
that does surround us.
But the element I wanted to get into involves a meme that I made just yesterday
and involved me to indulge here on my meme.
Basically on the left side of the meme it said, you know,
2020 at the top had a clearly angry and irate NPC Wojak
with a face mask on, a Pfizer shirt and needles sticking out of their arm.
And then on the right side of the meme had the same exact upset NPC Wojak
but with a red MAGA hat on.
And I love cop's t-shirt and it said 2026 at the top.
Now both the left and the right NPC Wojaks were saying the same thing.
Just comply with government and you won't die.
And the meme went viral last time I checked.
It had around half a million people,
it reached about half a million people in less than 24 hours.
And you know, the point being made clearly resonated with a lot of people
but there were a lot of MAGA buffoons in the comments
and of course they all claimed it was inaccurate and stupid and exaggerated
but none of them really articulated why it was inaccurate or stupid.
You know, it was just kind of the tribal mud flinging and the insults and office tree.
But I think the reason why the meme went viral
is because it touched on something that a lot of people are thinking.
Clearly there are some parallels to how MAGA is acting
now after the Renee Good shooting in Minnesota
and how the left was acting during COVID.
But you know, cognitive dissonance is one hell of a drug.
So I don't really have an elaborate question for this
but I know you've been calling it out as well, Dylan.
So what the hell is going on here and why are both sides so cult-like
and why do neither seem to have any critical thinking skills?
I tend to treat both sides of the traditional political spectrum
as essentially one and the same.
And their differences are,
they seem to just be aesthetic in nature
and I try and lead to this in the posts that I make
because when the rubber meets the road,
they want the same things.
I mean they equally believe in the state.
They just want the state to do their preferred bidding
and to me they're coming from a very similar place.
It just looks a little bit different.
You know, one's got that conservative aesthetic
and the other's got that progressive aesthetic.
And you see this anytime that there are things that arise
that are within their preferred policies like with COVID.
You know, that was more of a left wing thing.
So of course, you know, they all swallowed the boot
when that time came
and now this time around it's the right wing doing it.
And yeah, I saw that meme that you put out
and that was a very good illustration of exactly what we're seeing.
And I made some similar posts as well
about talking about the Second Amendment.
It's like, hey guys, like you've been talking about
this inevitable encroachment of tyranny
and about how you need to be prepared
and it's like, this is your time.
Like, here you go. This is what you've been dreaming of.
Let's get going.
You're like, no, no, no, no, this isn't it.
This isn't it.
And it's because they look at, they associate their identity
with the current administration.
And so, yeah, I made a post that said exactly,
the Second Amendment exists precisely for times like these,
the author's new with certainty
that the government would eventually turn on its own people
when the law becomes unjust,
the just man becomes an outlaw,
when the state becomes a tyrant,
the citizen becomes a soldier.
Embrace it, arm yourself accordingly
as the founder's intended.
Stand ready to defend your life against the encroaching dark.
It's the most American thing you can do.
And this shouldn't be controversial from this side of things.
These people have been talking about these things
for decades, centuries even.
And as soon as the people in power
are perceived to be on their side for whatever reason,
and they've essentially just swallowed this propaganda
hook line and sinker,
I get almost every single one of the replies to these posts
are basically the same thing,
accusing me of being a leftist like,
oh, now you care about gun rights.
Like, yeah, dude, I care about it now.
I cared about it then.
This is exactly like, it's baffling to me.
Some of the responses to this,
I had the most absurd response that I got from any of this is,
of course they associate this with all the ice raids
and everything, and it's within that context,
so I understand.
And people would say things along the lines of like,
ice is serving as the sort of militia
deporting these foreign criminals and looters,
and the real domestic threats are the leftist
sheltering the enemy as in these illegal immigrants
from within.
It's like, that's a pretty insane twist,
but at least I sort of understand,
based off of the propaganda that's come out,
these are, quote, foreign invaders, whatever,
ice is this sort of makeshift federal force
that's gonna come in and protect us, whatever.
I mean, I think that's stupid, but at least it makes sense.
And I would respond to these people and be like,
okay, I understand what you're saying,
but this ice is exactly what the founders warned against.
They're essentially confusing this,
an actual federal military with a militia.
There are ice is a permanent professional federal force
in peacetime that is going around terrorizing people.
We're seeing videos of them arresting American citizens,
beating them to the ground, no accountability whatsoever.
This is exactly the kind of elitist tool for tyranny
that the revolutionaries fought to abolish
and explicitly warned about.
I mean, the founders understood
that a separate armed caste
inevitably becomes the enforcer of the state's will
against the individual.
And they despised the British's use of professional soldiers
to oppress the colonies,
and they would view ice,
this federal police force dragging people from their homes
in this peacetime, just domestically,
like there's nothing going on as an abomination
in praising this sort of apparatus
as cheering for the very monster
the Second Amendment was written to slay.
Now, one guy responded to me, and it's like,
well, we're not at peacetime.
We're repelling a foreign invasion.
And this is the most insane reply that I've ever gotten.
And I read this to my wife, and we literally laughed out loud.
This guy says to me,
illegal aliens are the new redcoats.
Only there are also fraudsters and looters
who undermine our right to self-government.
Every ice agent I know is a freedom-loving
Second Amendment-supporting patriot.
Illegal aliens are the new redcoats.
It may be the most insane comment that I've seen
in a very long time.
Like, these people are off the rails, man.
They have bought into this propaganda
as much as you possibly can.
And to some extent, I understand it.
It's easy.
I really tried to find this post from Alex Jones
that he posted many months ago.
But he said something, and someone replied and was like,
well, Donald Trump could be compromised.
And he essentially replied and was like,
well, if Trump is compromised, then just all is lost.
Like, that's it. We're all done.
And to some extent, I understand that from his perspective.
Like, he put all of his weight into this guy, Trump,
who's going to come in.
He's going to fix everything.
He's going to disrupt it all.
He's our last bastion.
And if he's compromised, then we're fucked.
Like, that's it. We're done.
I understand the delusional optimism that that induces.
Like, okay, Trump is now compromised.
He was our only hope.
Like, my country's gone.
Like, everything that I've ever stood for is gone.
It doesn't matter.
We're all fucked. We're all dead.
Like, it makes, I understand not wanting to fall into that.
That's really dark place to be.
And so I feel like a lot of people are coming from that
similar space where it makes it very easy for them to
buy into all the propaganda because they want to.
You know, they watch the same video that we said
and they're like, yeah, that's a domestic terrorist
that tried to violently kill the ICE agent
and he was completely justified
and just murdering her on the spot.
We're not murdering her.
Defending himself against this terrorist.
And it's like, we watched the same video
and there's just not a shared foundation of facts anymore.
No, people aren't living in the same reality
and that's becoming very clear with this new stuff
that's coming out.
It's really illustrating this and it's really disheartening
to see because there's a lot of people that may look
like on paper, it's like, oh, you know,
they seem to also be very libertarian
and would agree on paper
and all these different preferred policies,
but they live in a completely different reality than me.
And to me, that's way more distancing
than someone that may still claim to be a libertarian,
but is just living in this completely different world.
I feel so distant from those people
that even my progressive friends in real life,
I feel way closer to
because they're not fucking insane,
even if they come to different policy conclusions.
You know, and so it's, you know,
I've talked for long enough here,
but it's baffling to me, dude.
I hate to see it.
I don't know how to combat it because these people will go,
will hold water and go to bat
for people that don't give a fuck about them at all.
You know, these people that they're defending
relentlessly with their lives online
would sell their lives for a nickel
and they just don't, they don't get it.
They cast a vote for Trump
and think they're just part of the king's men.
It's like, dude, no, this dude would shoot you
in the middle of the street if he wanted to
and he wouldn't lose any supporters.
Yeah, exactly.
It's not stupid.
I just, I can't even.
Yeah, you know, it's such a,
it's fascinating, but it's fascinating in a morbid way
and I say that as like a lifelong student of psychology
of like sort of having spent so much time
trying to like understand the machinations
of the human brain and the functionalities of it at all
and just like to see all of this take place.
It's very much like you said,
it's like we have people who are literally living
in separate realities
and it sort of reminds me of what was talked about
a few years ago, I believe it was some sort of concept
that was being promoted by like the WEF
and you know, all these like New World Order
globalist shitheads about a quote unquote
post-truth world and I very much think that we're,
if not on the cusp of that, we're there
especially with AI and all of the,
you know, the fakeness going around
even with the whole Renate Good thing,
there were like a number of fake pictures
and videos that got spread that just caught,
you know, viral fire.
But when it comes to like what's going on currently
and obviously it's been going on for a long time
not even just the last 10 years with the
rise of Trump's particular cult of personality
and like brand of political cultism
because obviously, you know, all of us here
being anti-statists, we all recognize that the state
in and of itself is a cult
and has been for the last 6,000 plus years
of human history.
But so I think it's,
and then what I want to get your take on here
is with this, the last 20 so plus years
of social media
and the way that these
algorithms have been developed
because I was just reminded of this
of this yesterday when I saw a post
I think it was by Alex Zeck actually
who had mentioned that people have to keep in mind
that the way these social media algorithms are designed
is to specifically put people in feedback loops
of the most extreme versions
of the biases that they're already experiencing
to sort of create this clash between
ideologies and, you know, flare up all of this stuff
and seeing that you work with technology and things
that I very much like to get your input
on the ways in which social media manipulation
has specifically gone into creating
these insanely
diametrically opposed false perspectives
on either side of these things
because I mean we have people, not going to drop names
but there are people that I'm close to
that I have had to try to wake up
unfortunately to no avail that I'm like dog
you in last summer
you were supporting putting human beings
in a fucking concentration camp
surrounded by alligators
you're not seeing any problem
with an American citizen that just got shot in the face
what is like to
again the psychology student in me is like
how does your brain work
to think that any of what is going on right now
is okay
but aside from that like I said
your perspective on the way that social media
and algorithmic manipulation has specifically played into
facilitating these sorts of cults
so
let me tell you a little story here
so
back when I was in the army
I was bored as fuck
I didn't have much to do
I didn't feel good about being there
and I didn't experiment
I wanted to see
if I could
grow a
Twitter account organically
doing something that I
knew nothing about
and so this would be more of a test
to see
if I was actually good at growing social media
or if I was just good at talking about
libertarian shit
and I thought okay what's so
far from what I already know
that I could choose
that I'm even diametrically opposed to
that would really test that
and I was like oh
like Nazi shit
and a lot of people didn't like this
but I went out of my way to try and grow
like an anonymous neo-Nazi account
it didn't last for very long
and I wasn't very successful
but it got banned
and then when Elon took over that account
or took over the website
I got the account unbanned
and now it's become very useful
as a
eye into that side of the internet
and so I'll go on that account
and scroll through and it's a completely different Twitter
like completely different
like you don't realize how many
full-on Nazis there are on Twitter
not just like
oh I care about white people
like no like Hitler
was a good man
who tried to do good things
and the global elite didn't like that
and killed him
with tens of thousands of likes
every single day
and if I go on that account
it shows it
it's a constant feed of
just that all day
every day
I don't see anything else
that's terrible
it's crazy
I've shown some people in person
of what the timeline looks like
and it's nuts
it's so disheartening
and that's exactly what we're seeing
but with everybody's own
ideology and groups
and
this is exactly how it continues to get
perpetuated
and now we're seeing
the actual administration
feed into it
when that ice shooting happened
almost immediately
I mean within
within like ten minutes of that video coming out
and starting to go viral
the president, the vice president
the DHS secretary
I think also
Pam Bondi
they all came out and immediately
just towed the exact line
in that direction of
this was a domestic terrorist
who hated America
who deliberately tried to run over
an ice agent
who was just trying to do
his job to protect
America from Ford and invaders
and he had no choice
but to shoot her to save his own life
and he's currently in the hospital
and we don't even know if he'll be able to make it
and it's like that's
like they said that
immediately and you know
they didn't see the video
they didn't see this, they didn't do their due diligence
of figuring out what actually happened
they couldn't have
it just fucking happened
and of course
all of the pundits
all of the chills
echo all of this out
and so immediately
your boomer dad, your gen X
dad, whatever
fox news grandpa
you know they all see this and they go yep
that's already what I think
and this feeds into exactly
what I want to be the case
and this is my president
and this is coming from official channels
which they seem to care about
now for some reason
and
it just spreads and spreads
and now that's the narrative
and you know that none of them saw it
because I forget exactly
who asked Trump
but he responded and he was like oh yeah
seeing that video like it's really sad
you know that she got shot
and you know that's terrible
it's like dude you changed your tone immediately
when you saw it
because you didn't see it before you said something
and this is exactly how
and like I was saying
now the administration
is feeding into it themselves
this is what is exacerbating it
even more
you know say what you will
about past administrations but like
Obama wouldn't have
gone on social media
within 10 minutes
and just fed into propaganda that
we could see with our own eyes
like it's not like he's just
making something up
that like only he has access to
we can all see this
and they're just saying
the exact opposite right in front of us
but you would think would
get people to be like okay
this doesn't seem right
the problem is
is that this Trump
cult of personality is something like
I've never seen before
he knows that there are millions
upon millions of people
that are so
deluded into believing
everything that he says
that he could say
the exact opposite of what they see
right in front of them and they will defend it
relentlessly
and I think
that's why he's just been so openly
corrupt with everything this time around
because he knows there will be millions
of people that will defend it
so he doesn't even pretend
if he can just be corrupt openly
then people will openly defend
corruption
when if he were to try to hide it
he would just you know lie
and the people would defend those lies
but now it's like okay
now they're just getting
they're defending him
with blatant corruption
and I think that's working to his advantage
and we're seeing this happen in real time
that people are just denying reality outright
they really are man
and it's so disheartening to watch it unfold
I mean
you were saying how the
you know they said he was hospitalized
Ross or whatever his name is
and then three days later
they have the gall and audacity to say
that he was suffering from internal bleeding
when there was clear video
of the dude walking around
angrily
with zero injuries whatsoever
he had absolutely
nothing wrong with them
and that cognitive dissonance
you had Angela McCartle tweeting out to him
like oh I really hope he's okay
and what are you doing supporting this
when he shot a fucking lady in the face
and it's clear that he is okay
this is propaganda and lies
and yeah man people are eating it up
left and right and some
libertarians are jumping on the bandwagon too
I don't know what it is
it's like the cognitive dissonance right now
is staggering
like what you just said earlier
like people think that the fucking immigrants are the red coats
you gotta be kidding me dude
like Carlos next door to my house
putting a new roof on to my neighbors
you know like he's the fucking enemy combat
right like we need ice over here
to rip him off the roof and fucking throw him in a cage
so he doesn't do harm to this community
but if they do take him
no one else puts roofs on around here
but like I think
the mask really slipped this week
when Trump was photographed
at that rally
he went to at a Ford plant
and some blue collar worker like yelled out at him
you know like you're a pedophile protector
whatever and Trump flipped
him off and I mean that moment right there
was like just
an eye-opening historical moment
where the president of the United States
is flipping off a blue collar worker
because the blue collar worker
called him a pedophile protector
and I mean that guy's made like
I saw something this morning like $700,000
whatever already on a go fund me
so I'm sure he's glad he did that
but I posted
that on X and I got
all the magas in my comments talking about how
yeah Trump owned that communist
you know he's a communist as if
as if
like wanting to arrest pedophiles is somehow
Marxist
like but I mean it's really just
that just shows what the regime thinks of the working class
it's not they're not Marxist
they're not communist but all these people are eating it up
but back to
like ICE in Minnesota
you know
that quote you said by somebody
calling them redcoats to immigrants
redcoats like it's completely
the opposite of that right the real invaders
are the people
the ICE agents on the ground they are
the standing army that our forefathers warned us about
and
these people that are supporting them
they're like yeah we got to get the criminals off the street
and they don't they don't understand
that 75% of these people that they're
rounding up have no criminal record
and and many of them have been here for
decades and many of them
have been born here
I read a story the other day
one of these people didn't even speak Spanish
and they were
exporting out of the country you know like that's
that's crazy to me that's cruel and it's
inhumane and and people are
just like
chomping at the bit and foaming at the mouths to keep
supporting this shit it's
it's wild to me man and
they're you know like yeah
the second amendment activists right
they're like yeah we need our second amendment rights
well this is this is kind of like
a moment you know for for a second
amendment activists to stand up especially
with another video that happened this week
where an American citizen
was detained by ICE he looked a little
Latino so they naturally they just snatched
him off the fucking street threw him against the car
and started searching him and then they slandered
him saying well he was carrying a weapon but he had
every right to carry a weapon because he's
an American citizen and he wasn't breaking the law
but they disarmed him anyway
and I saw so many people on the right
cheering this on and it was
again very disheartening
you know when when the
government can just go around in the streets to
and disarm people like that's something
that we need to be speaking about like the
right wing needs to come out and say
we should not be standing
for this right now we we needed you know
but it's the opposite they're doing the exact opposite
and it's fucking scary like
I I have never seen
the amount of
like this
mental illness this this festering in the
right right now that doesn't allow them
to see the crimes of their own party like
like the left did during covid
but this is even worse I mean
like when they're cheering on somebody getting disarmed
in the street at least it was understandable
when there's
like everyone's getting sick
and dying you know maybe
it's overblown but at least it's a little more
understandable it's like hey guys I don't want to
get I don't want to die and get sick just wear
mask or something it's like
yeah absolutely went
totally overboard with that for sure
but at least that's
that's that this whole
thing about immigrants are destroying our
fucking country is
is insane like it's first of all
it's just not true like
the the the amount of
violent offenders
amongst immigrants per capita
is much smaller percentage
than actual U.S. citizens
it's not about that
you know just going off the rails
I mean dude there are
there there are plenty of criminals who are here
illegally and they've done some bad things
and they get highlighted
every time they do those bad things and it's all over
the news media everywhere you know libs of tiktok
just plaster their shit everywhere
but
it's it's not as common as people think
but like yeah I think covid you know
there was a pandemic right right off the
bat and everybody thought that it was it was kind of
scary right when it first started so I could see
that that might give somebody
a little bit more pause and a little bit more fear but
I think like what you just said earlier
about how this administration
is is like pouring gas
on the fire basically with this hatred
that they're spewing out like without
like what trump did without even watching the
video he called her he called rene good
a domestic terrorist and who was trying
to kill an ice agent and and to come
away from that video watching that that she was
trying to kill him and she was a domestic terror
yes she was some asshole liberal woman who
was fucking trying to like get
in the way of ice and and yell at people
and block traffic and all that like
yes that's the truth it's called civil
disobedience exactly she could be
right right and and you can have you can
disagree with her on that but does that
mean she should die have some fucking
literally not dude I mean
how do we even begin to
deprogram people who are so blinded
by this partisan loyalty
that they accept the state murdering
citizens so long as the right people
are in charge well see
this problem it's
a good example of
throwing gasoline on the fire
is the when Charlie Kirk
died I mean immediately before
anybody knew anything about the who
shot him no one even knew
who shot him you know for days
yep immediately it was like it's
a it's a violent leftist
the democrats of the party of murder
I mean Elon musk said
that the
president said
just as much and it's
they have the audacity
to be like this is the left's
fault for calling us fascists
they need to tone down
the rhetoric it's like
dude tone your own rhetoric
down I mean my god
like you're painting
100 million plus
people of this country as
like enemy combatants
traders terrorists
that deserve to die
like you
like this this isn't okay like you
don't don't tell them to
tone their rhetoric down if you're gonna
like a fish like the president of the
United States you can't get any higher than that
talking about
oh the democrats the party of murder
that I I didn't see a single
actual elected
democrat official
praise the murder of Charlie Kirk
like of course there were
a bunch of just regular
people that did
so what people do
dumb shit all the time
you see actual sitting
congressman
president the vice president all this
in the aftermath of Charlie Kirk
calling
democrats the party of murder
like there's a difference
in degree here
and people try to equate the two
it's like no dude just
tone tone the damn rhetoric down but
it works in their favor
because
just like when this ice thing happened
they just need to come out
tell exactly the narrative they're trying to
push and everyone will just push it
for them and
it's a it's a huge
problem and and
I to
to compare to the covid stuff
the post that I read earlier about the
second amendment that I put out you know how many people
went in the comments and tagged the FBI
and we're like
here's a guy threatening to shoot
cops or whatever
like we need to look into them you need to be put in jail
like you know
cash Patel
tagging the FBI
it's like dude do you
you have no self-awareness at all
like this is exactly what
progressives did
during covid
look at this person not wearing a mask
here's to call the FBI
like oh we need the second amendment
to defend ourselves against
the state police that are showing up
to keep us locked in our homes
tag the FBI
it's the exact same thing
they're just
they've just got the
you know right wing aesthetic instead
it's the exact same impulse
and it's
I saw a clip the other day
where
someone was talking to you know one of these like
super radicalized right wingers
that's like the biggest problem
in America is that there's just way too
many illegals and blah blah blah
they're like okay so
we deport them all
in this hypothetical
the state comes in they deport
all of the illegal immigrants they're gone
now what
and the guy was speechless
it's like well you know then
then everything's just better like the cut
and it's like what do you mean
we just get rid of all these people
and then all of a sudden the country is just better
like what are you talking about
what are you proposing here
anything to say
because there's nothing there
it's this easy impulse
to just find a scapegoat
blame them for all of the problems
and then go with that full force
and
that's really easy
for people to do and I
you know I understand my people do it
and this is the
this is the same thing
this is the same Nazi Germany
all of our problems are because of Jewish people
get rid of them
and everything will be great
that's all we need
and it's the same thing coming around
it's the immigrants of the problem
get rid of them everything's great
yeah I was just about to
make that very same comparison
especially because of what you had mentioned earlier
with the
your sort of social media
social experiment with the Nazi accounts
and everything and it's like
not only is it
especially but also considering the Charlie Kirk thing
they're like oh well this is what happens
when they constantly call us Nazis
but now we look
at the fucking official accounts
of the White House
and DHS
and Department of State
literally posting
slogans
and like
propaganda pieces
that are
copy-paste Nazi propaganda
and using like neo-fascist slogans
it's like well if you don't want us to call you a Nazi
stop behaving like a fucking Nazi
yeah they don't care
they want they want people to do that
because they give them the fuel
to go look they're calling us
Nazis they want us to die
we have full reign
to do whatever we want to them
it's like a technocratic right stock
fire honestly
yes absolutely
and it's it feeds into
a little bit of what I was talking about before
where they know that there's going to be
these couple million people
that will
that are just absolutely insane that will
defend everything
and so they have
people that
know what the fuck they're doing
in the administration
who
understand the lore
of the QAnon stuff
and
are posting
explicit dog whistles to that
knowing that like
the regular person isn't going to give a fuck about any of this
but this will signal
to the insane person
that will do our bidding
that we acknowledge them
and they're doing it constantly
and this is this is terrifying
because those people are
nuts
like super super nuts
I don't know if you've watched any documentaries about
some of these QAnon people
but they are off the fucking wall
and they will get
people killed
this is
trust the plan until
you know death
type people and
the administration knows this
and it's so sad to see
because
it's not like these are bad people
they've just been
completely brainwashed and co-opted by
these people that want to take advantage of them
and
they're doing it on the most grand scale possible
by signaling
these very explicit dog whistles to them
which wasn't the case during
the first Trump administration
I just don't think they understood
the whole conspiracy of it
but this time around they're like
we're gonna use this to our advantage
because we're gonna do some crazy shit
that
isn't gonna be defended
across the board and so we're gonna need
we're gonna need our fanaticals
involved here so
let's get somebody that's in the know
to manage these White House accounts
and post
actual QAnon
Nazi shit
just on the nose
well I think you made a good point
not that we'd ever really want to defend Obama
on anything but I think you're right
I think this is unprecedented in many ways
the fact that the
administration the White House is going so
in on really pushing
these narratives to really
stimulate that divide
to really demonize and vilify
the political left and you're right
I didn't see this type of behavior from Trump
in the first administration certainly not
but I think he kind of realizes that
this is the end of his legacy
now he's doing more than ever
they're flooding the zone with all types of nonsense
every day
he's more bold and brash than he's ever been
as far as geopolitically wise
I feel like he understands and I know there's
talk of him actually having a third term
and some of his cohorts really
you know advocating for that as well
but I feel like
this is really all intentional
and really pushing things
in the wrong direction at least
for the unity of the country
and I know that's almost a dirty word because
it's couched in leftist terminology
but at the same time
it really isn't
left versus right it isn't white versus black
it's us versus the state
I think we know that in this conversation
but the fact that we're seeing so much hypocrisy
and double standards right now and you touched
on the Charlie Kirk shooting
Dylan and you know
I think the point that you might have missed is that
they vilified the left
for making a mockery of it
right and of course yeah a lot of that was
really undesirable type of behavior
you know kind of over the top
really unempathetic but
at the same time what do you see now
you see a lot of these same right wingers who are calling out
the left for doing that
criticizing the left
saying that Renee Goode you know FAFO
she fucked around and she found out
right she just awoke social justice
warrior really
throwing dirt on her name smearing her name
the lesbian wife I mean
all this stuff it all plays into
that polarization and
I don't know the more I see
it does feel like to me that
what we're witnessing is just straight up
like you know
those 80s commercials you know this is your
your brain on drugs well this is your brain
on right wing media for over
a decade now the fact
that you are falling into this trap
you know that a lot of the MAGA
is falling into this trap
isn't something that we saw 10 years
ago we become more
polarized than ever
there's this mentality that if it's their side
if it's their team well they're okay
with the unlimited authoritarianism right
they're okay with unlimited tyranny
as long as it's their side doing it
never thinking twice about future
administrations future regimes coming
in using these same powers
you know and using that
against their political factions
I mean I'm so tired of all this
man and I think you know you
had mentioned the two-way stuff in the beginning
of this conversation I think that's
the perfect example of how hypocritical
the right are right now because
if Joe Biden or Kamala was doing any of this
stuff you know they would be up in arms
we'd see the boog boys out in full force
with their tropical shirts on
and showing up at every protest and every
rally and every
courthouse and every capital building
you know strapped and
you know dressed up and their fatigues
and unfortunately that's not happening
anymore I do believe that a lot
of a lot of it does stem from
what happened within the libertarian
party in this last election
cycle it really does feel
like the liberty movement got gentrified by
MAGA and people like Angela
McCartle who maybe had the right intentions
but hey this is exactly
why we never unify
with either the left or the right but
especially the right because they have no
qualms no problems whatsoever
supporting and
advocating and defending and justifying
unbridled authoritarianism
we've seen it before
and it's hitting a fever pitch at this point
you know so it does
feel like the right really has narrowed
it down to this really rigid idea
that the law is always
right simply because it's the law right
and we've talked about this for years
that legality does not
equate morality you know
but there's this instinct by the right
to basically shut down any moral
ethical discussion
by just straight up jumping
to well just comply
and I'm curious how
you see this trend Dylan like
why do you think so much of the modern right
wing discourses collapse into this
comply or die framing like where this
legality gets treated as morality
even though we should know better right
we know historically that that's never been
the case that the good guys never say well
just comply or I'm just doing my job
so why does it now
why does obedience become
the only acceptable response
because it's easy
I think a lot of
it comes down to that
people have
lives they do their own things
they're focused on other stuff
it's much
easier to just
okay comply
be obedient just
believe whatever said from
my perceived tribe
because actually
exercising nuance
and
thinking and
discerning
truth rigorously
is a difficult thing to do
and
just to circle back to the
comment that I talked about
that Alex Jones made
it's like this is it
if
if their guy
that they've been with for 10 years
and believe
that he's gonna come in and fix everything
and destroy the deep state
if he's that very deep state
if he's compromised
if he's actually
actualizing
the globalist
agenda the technocratic
agenda
like that's it it's a
sunk cost situation
so
what are they gonna do
I mean they dissent
they go oh
he's actually bad
what does that do for them right
all that does is make them
wrestle with
their past self it's going to
uproot the
their standing in the community
that they're in their friends
their tribe
if they're influential enough
they're gonna get roasted by
other influential people
maybe even the actual
president of the united states
ruin their entire political careers
that they've spent decades building
I mean this is
this is the apparatus that's been built
it's not easy to just
remove yourself from that
it's so much easier
to just toe the line and hope
okay this is looking bad
you know thinking to yourself but
man I do I really hope
that I can actually
try and accomplish something good within this
when
you know any rational person
look at that and be like this is a lost cause dude
get the fuck out of there
you know but for them it's like
you know I get it to some extent
not that this is like the good
or rational thing to do
but I get it from a reasonable perspective
that shit's tough
thinking for yourself is a tough
thing to do
you know I have
this reoccurring
experience with
my parents as they get older
is that you know they don't want to
think about stuff anymore
they've spent their lives doing that
and now they just they've got
their ways they've got their fox news that
they're gonna watch they've got their
propaganda they're gonna consume
and that's gonna be it they're gonna have
their opinions fed to them
they're going to repeat those opinions
and anything else
what they're gonna take up arms against the government
come on dude they're tired
they've worked all their lives
it's like
it's it sucks but that's
that's the reality of it
it's just
easy it's just easier to
just just comply now
just they're gonna they're gonna pull you over
they're gonna just just comply with it
you know don't don't make it
too much harder on yourself
it's like that's that's the perspective
and this exactly
what tyrants feed off of
they take
they take you give them an inch they take a mile
and another mile and another mile
if I was a conspiracy theorist
I would suggest that maybe there was
a grand plan
and maybe even the federal reserve plays
into this you know because they've devalued
our money they've inflated the savings
I mean it the money has been
destroyed people are working two jobs
sometimes three jobs just to get by
so everybody is tired everybody is exhausted
nobody has the mental bandwidth
or the time to dig into this stuff
like we do you know so yeah it is
easier and I completely agree I also say
it's a political identity
I think is a big part of that and the tribalism
you know because once you commit to these things
what are you gonna do you're gonna jump
ship you're gonna not be MAGA
anymore I mean that's such a big political
identity to so many people that
they've really taken that on that
I can't foresee that happening
even when they are wrong you know
well that just means you just double down
that just means that you just fight back harder
you divide even harder you call
the left even more
names and point the finger even harder
right and there's a quote that comes
to mind by Robert Anton Wilson
the obedient always think
of themselves as virtuous rather than cowardly
I think that hits the nail on the head
yeah I posted a tweet
I think yesterday
or I said in my experience the people
who believe themselves to be the most
immune to the effects of propaganda
tend to be the ones most susceptible
to it yeah and I think
I think that's very true
I think that
we we see exactly
we see what
what has happened
we see the pacification
of everybody and I think
the the dividers understand
this they understand that everybody's
tired they just want to be on a team
that's the easy thing to do
yeah and I mean you
said it yourself like if
if Obama or
Kamala Harris or Joe Biden would have done anything
remotely like this
you know we would see chaos
in the streets
I mean these people
stormed the U.S.
Capitol building and broke in
and did all this
did all of that
without there being
actual any real evidence
of widespread voter fraud
they just said
we're just gonna our guide
fucking lost and he said that it was stolen
so let's go
let's go blow it up
now it's like we can
see with our own eyes
actual
an actual standing army of federal agents
tyrannizing people in the streets
and they
they couldn't give a fuck
and I think that
the administration
and the people in power with the right
wing aesthetic they understand this
they understand
these are the people that are
per capita much more armed
more they understand
they at least talk
about the potential for government
tyranny a lot more they're a lot more skeptical
of authority and of power
so if we could just
prop up a guy that
is presumably on or
seems to be on their side
we can pacify them in a way that's
going to allow us to
usher in the agenda that we've always wanted
and
we're seeing this happen in real time
and it sucks to watch
people that
on paper should
should be on our side
but they're not
it's really sad
man and it's
it's absolutely terrifying
it makes me
someone who
loves the
founding American vision
what Murray Rothbard talked about
being conceived in liberty
I
sometimes I don't want to be here anymore
I don't want to be in this country
of this direction that we're going
like
me and my wife look at
Switzerland along we're like
seems like a nice place
impossible to fucking
but seriously
I never thought that I would be
considering not
living in America
but this is where we're at
it's so demoralizing
yeah man
and on that note we are
running out of time here and I think
it's a great time for
our white pill question
how we involve in our podcast
man you know before we let you
go you know we do we have to address
like this the psychological war
that's at play here like it's not left
versus right anymore it's like what Jason said
it's us first the state
we're watching them rewrite history
in real time it's
it's a quote like we were talking about
in our free thought chat
the party told you to reject the evidence
of your eyes and ears from Orwell
and whatever party
is in power that's what their supporters do
like the left does it when their support
when you know when Biden was in power
and the right's doing it now
and it's accelerating
and I
don't know what's going to happen
when a Democrat comes in unless
Trump just becomes a dictator you know
but I think that the next Democrat
is going to be far more unhinged
and even more despotic
and tyrannical than Trump
is you know it just keeps accelerating
and keeps getting worse and worse every time
because this is what they're doing these people are
they're building a prison around themselves
and supporting it the whole way there
they're telling us that the police state is freedom
that the surveillance grid is for our safety
and that you know our neighbors
our enemies basically
they're deliberately stoking this hatred
towards one another because that's the polarization
the polarization that fuels
their surveillance
state that they're creating around us
you know but
before I digress too much
I want to thank you for coming on man
on such short notice that was very awesome of you
yeah
the Gideon army guys they're going to miss out
they missed out on a badass conversation
that we were about to have about the veterans chasing down
Pettos but I think this was
a very important one that we needed to have right now
man we really appreciate all the work
that you do dude and all your writing
it's as we
we're very lucky on this podcast to have
the guests that we do
it's because you guys are all these
like you it's rare to find voices
that are willing to consistently call out the
uniparty you know regardless of who's sitting
in the old office and you do that
and your perspective is invaluable
and like I said we're lucky to be
there's only a handful of these people out there
and we're lucky to get a lot of them on our show
hey free thinkers this is Matt Agarist
and I'm going to take a quick pause to remind you of something really important
first off
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so my white pill
question to you Dylan is
how do we break this spell man
how do we de-escalate this tension
and show people that
their fucking neighbor
is not their enemy you know the state
is the people manipulating you is
the like what's the practical
first step that a person listening
right now can take to
to reject the party's lies
and start building a future based on
on liberty instead of this
fear and hatred that gets pumped into them
every day well you need to
understand where
your opposition is coming from
because
you these people's
perceived enemies are just
other people and
I mean
they're not like a different species
of thing like they
they are people they came
to their beliefs and their
intuitions and their values
in the same way
that you did
and understanding how they got to that point
understanding their
perspective
is gonna lead to a much better outcome
because it's not okay these are just
evil robots that are just
gonna come and kill us all
it's like no understand
where this person is coming from
to do yourself that
your own favor by doing that
and you know
I'm not suggesting everybody do this but that's
something that I learned
and I know this is totally nuts
but with the Nazi
account stuff
it really helps me understand
because this is like okay these are fucking
off the wall people
you know but how did they
get to that point
where did they get how did they get to the point where
they're like basically treating
Adolf Hitler as a god
and completely questioning
his like well established
history
and you know advocating for the
you know this real heinous shit
and it you know
really opened my eyes of like okay these
these are just people
that have been led down
a different path than me
and
I think that's what's necessary because
you have people on either side
that
will just look at the other side
and just not even treat them as a person
this isn't another human
being to them
it's just this is my this is my enemy
and they're nothing else but my enemy
and
they didn't come to their conclusions from
from some rational perspective
it's not reasonable
like they are just evil
it need to be destroyed
and if you have two people on either side
of the pond thinking the exact
that exact thing about each other you're just
it's just gonna be war
if you have both people on either side
of the pond that live
in completely different realities
watch the exact same thing
and there there's
there's no shared foundation
of facts they can't even
begin to have a conversation
like you have to slow down
and go this
thing that I believe
do I have good reason to believe it
who benefits from me believing
this thing
and if the answer to the first question is
no in the answer to the second question
is anybody but yourself
question it
figure out how how the fuck did I
get here
and what can I do
to get closer to the truth
to get closer to something that actually
serves
myself
and I'm not living
somebody else's story
and I think that's very important
and I'm not suggesting everyone go make Nazi accounts
that would be absurd
what I'm saying is just stop and think
this is another person
how did they get there
and just start there
that's all it takes and
I understand there's so many pressures
to lead you in the other direction
coming directly from the administration
but don't
be a sheep dude
you're a person act like a person
hell yeah man
what you just described is just empathy
we just we have a severe lack
of empathy in this country and it's
it's what's driving us to this
insanity you know they
when you surrender your agency or your moral authority
like or your moral agency to like
an authority figure whether it's like a top
or a bureaucrat in DC
you know you stop being a free human being
you become a tool
you have no conscience and tools
only have functions
they weaponize your desire to be a good person
against you and that's what they're doing to us
and we can't fall into that trap
we have to have empathy and
that's the only way out of this mess
and I love that you came up with that too
we need so many more voices like that
out there Dylan thank you man
tell everybody before we go where they can
follow and support your work
yeah I mean pretty much
I mean most of what I do is just on
X Twitter
at Dylan
M Almond
Dylan like Bob Dylan Almond
is in the Almond Brothers Band
that's how I always say it
I also have my blog
my substack that's like my creative outlet
it's
it's Blade Runner themed so it's really nerdy
it's awesome
interlinked.substack.com
yeah interlinked.substack.com
interlinked.blog
also works I have that domain
that's kind of my
my baby so
pretty much the conversion
right from Twitter to that is like
near zero
so anybody that wants to go read it
that would definitely be nice
we know all about that
ask Matt Taibbi about that
he knows
man Dylan thank you so much dude
this was a great conversation I'm glad we got to have it
with you brother
thanks for having me I'm down to be the
backup anytime
thank you bro
peace