The Political Earthquake That No One Is Ready For - Konstantin Kisin (4K)

1. 0:00 – 6:31

   Is Konstantin Right-Wing?

   1. CWChris Williamson0:00

      So are you right-wing?

   2. KKKonstantin Kisin0:03

      No, (laughs) I'm still not right-wing. I think you're referring to an article in- in a video I did saying, the title of which was Fine, Call Me Right-Wing. And it's basically just me saying I'm tired of, like, defending myself against this allegation. Uh, I'm still not right-wing but if- if it's- it's really important for people to frame me in that way, that's- that's fine, they can do it.

   3. CWChris Williamson0:23

      Why is right-wing a disparaging, uh, marker?

   4. KKKonstantin Kisin0:27

      I think we, um, the political realm in which we operate is- is the framing is, I think deep down if people are honest, is like the- the caricature of the left is that they're wrong but well-meaning, and of the right is that they're, like, factually more correct but evil.

   5. CWChris Williamson0:46

      Callous.

   6. KKKonstantin Kisin0:46

      Callous and evil and cruel and nasty.

   7. CWChris Williamson0:48

      Mm-hmm.

   8. KKKonstantin Kisin0:49

      Um, and so even if you're right, you're still wrong kind of. (laughs) That- that's kind of the- the way people seem to think-

   9. CWChris Williamson0:54

      Morally.

   10. KKKonstantin Kisin0:55

       Morally wrong, exactly.

   11. CWChris Williamson0:57

       Mm-hmm.

   12. KKKonstantin Kisin0:58

       Um, and I think that- that's why, that's what I noticed, right? Because my journey into all of this world, as you know, was like, "Hey guys, maybe free speech is quite impor- oh, right-wing." I was like, "What?" And- and then I just gradually discovered that, you know, thinking that you should be allowed to speak freely makes you right-wing, which when I was in my early 20s, you know, George Carlin and Bill Hicks, these were my heroes when I was growing up, these great comedians who were getting arrested like George Carlin for routine, like, the seven words you can't say on TV or whatever, whatever it was. So, um, that flipped without me realizing that it happened. It was a left-wing thing or maybe universal thing.

   13. CWChris Williamson1:35

       Mm-hmm.

   14. KKKonstantin Kisin1:36

       Um, and then it became a right-wing thing. Then, you know, thinking your country's not all bad became right-wing. Uh, and we can go down the list of- of all of those things. So, it, I just, I think that it- it's basically what a lot of people call you if what they want to do is discredit the things that you're saying 'cause they don't actually have a counterargument to what it is that you're saying.

   15. CWChris Williamson1:58

       Mm, and we can't really be fully aware of somebody's intentions, so castigating, lambasting the, uh, moral foundation that it's based on and saying, "Oh, y- y- y- it's- it's coming from a place of judgment, or impoliteness, or uncouthness, or callousness, or whatever," is kind of a easy slime to throw at someone maybe.

   16. KKKonstantin Kisin2:21

       Yeah, and- and I, uh, it- it makes people question people's motives. And we, a lot of people find people's motives more interesting than the results of the things that they're advocating. So if you go and, you know, try to create this beautiful utopia in which everyone's equal and you end up killing 50 million people in the process, well, you know, that wasn't real communism. You- you were just, you were well-intentioned but you didn't quite live up to the ideals of this great philosophy. Whereas if you actually do things that work but you have the wrong intentions or you're a bad person, then people don't seem as interested in that. And I find that quite an interesting thing because I was in Hungary earlier this year and they have a very actually right-wing government, uh, under Viktor Orbán. And one of the things that I- I found out is they were very keen to deal with abortion in some way. Uh, they wanted to reduce the number of abortions in Hungary. But they looked around the world and they realized that abortion as a political issue doesn't work. It's- it's an issue that actually loses votes for the right. Even if people tend to agree with the position, somehow it still ends up being a vote loser and it's a bad thing to do. So what they've been doing is, uh, you probably know, is pursuing very pro-family policies more generally. If you have X number of kids, you get this tax break, if you have this number of kids...

   17. CWChris Williamson3:39

       If you have three kids, the woman never pays income tax again-

   18. KKKonstantin Kisin3:42

       Right.

   19. CWChris Williamson3:42

       ... for the rest of her life.

   20. KKKonstantin Kisin3:43

       Exactly. And what they've found is without actually legislating much about abortion, they've reduced the number of abortions in half-

   21. CWChris Williamson3:51

       Mm-hmm.

   22. KKKonstantin Kisin3:51

       ... simply by pursuing policies that make families more appealing for people to have.

   23. CWChris Williamson3:56

       Isn't that interesting, uh, creating a positive vision for the thing you want as opposed to a negative vision against the thing you don't want?

   24. KKKonstantin Kisin4:04

       Exactly.

   25. CWChris Williamson4:04

       That's like, well, that seems a very upside down sort of world. We've just come out of the, uh, US presidential, uh, election campaign. And in that, so many, you know, whatever the most effective political ad of the last few decades was, "We are not that." It was mostly about, "We are not that." Yeah, Donald Trump is for you.

   26. KKKonstantin Kisin4:23

       Mm-hmm.

   27. CWChris Williamson4:23

       But the entire thing was Kamala Harris is doing this, trans surgeries for immigrants and undocumented, et cetera, et cetera. "We are not that."

   28. KKKonstantin Kisin4:30

       Mm-hmm.

   29. CWChris Williamson4:30

       They identified the- the binding together of an in-group over the mutual othering of an out-group. And, um, I understand that it's effective, it may be even more salient to humans to go like, "Well, that's a threat, that's something that's not right, something to avoid." Maybe it even does bind us together more effectively, but it doesn't feel like a particularly hopeful view for the world. And, uh, yeah, I wonder if, I wonder if that can be adjusted a little bit and we can have a little bit more sort of upward vision as opposed to kind of backward defensiveness against other things.

   30. KKKonstantin Kisin5:01

       Well, I think if you look at the two campaigns that we just saw, I actually thought that, you know, we went to the Na- Nazi rally in Madison Square Garden-
2. 6:31 – 19:39

   Why Politics Prioritises Optics Over Outcomes

   1. CWChris Williamson6:31

      introduced me a long time ago, not introduced me to Thomas Sowell, but certainly kind of, uh, re-popularized some of those ideas.

   2. KKKonstantin Kisin6:39

      Mm-hmm.

   3. CWChris Williamson6:39

      Uh, and one of the ones I wanted to, uh, bring up is something I heard you say recently, "We've replaced things that work with things that sound good."

   4. KKKonstantin Kisin6:45

      Mm-hmm.

   5. CWChris Williamson6:46

      Uh, the sort of optimizing for optics over outcomes, maybe you could say, something like that. Dig into that a little bit more for me. Why is that a- a salient quote in the modern world?

   6. KKKonstantin Kisin6:56

      Well he, what his quote about that, Thomas Sowell's quote about that is that's the history of th- of the modern West over the last 30 or 40 years. And I think it's universally true. I mean, we're sitting here in London, for example, where the mantra is, you know, "Diversity is our strength." And- and the more it's evident that that has flaws in it, the more we (laughs) double down o- on- on the statement, right? So, um, a lot of this is, uh, sloganeering versus reality, and I think it's really been amplified by social media to a great extent because I think, um, things that are not possible in the real world are possible online. Online you're an avatar which can change its sex, it can change its, uh, everything about it. You can be effectively whoever you want to be online.

   7. CWChris Williamson7:43

      You can make statements that are never stress tested.

   8. KKKonstantin Kisin7:45

      Correct. Uh, they're- they're- they're tested only by whether they get likes or they don't get likes. And you see this on the left and the right. There- there are things both the l- the far left and the far right will say that are absolutely not in any way related to the truth, but they're very appealing to people's, uh, feelings and so, uh, they'll do that. Uh, look, the- the reality is the truth is very unpopular and always has been because the truth is messy, unpleasant, complicated. The truth probably doesn't agree with you on a lot of things, uh, just necessarily because, um, it's not going to fit exactly to the worldview that you have. Uh, so it's very unpleasant, uh, and it's much easier to engage in sloganeering for e- for yourself as well as for society.

   9. CWChris Williamson8:33

      There's a H.L. Mencken quote, something about, uh, simple answers to complex problems are often wrong.

   10. KKKonstantin Kisin8:39

       Mm-hmm.

   11. CWChris Williamson8:39

       That it would be nice if we could constrain down a lot of the issues that we're seeing to something that kind of wrangles the chaos into order, but I don't know, uh, the chasing for simplicity, uh, to me just a lot of the time seems to be retrofitting a new problem to an old solution that you've had for a long time. Everything is because of... dot, dot, dot.

   12. KKKonstantin Kisin8:59

       Mm-hmm.

   13. CWChris Williamson8:59

       And this again happens on both sides.

   14. KKKonstantin Kisin9:01

       Yeah. And I- and I think, um, usually the ve- uh, the easiest telltale sign of, uh, working out if someone's full of shit is if they have a simple, single explanation for all the problems that they identify, um, and they're not willing to recognize the trade-offs in- in- in these situations. So I think, um, in answer to your question why is this happening, even more so now, I just think we live in a world where we're much more governed by emotion and feeling than we are by the hard... I, you know, I'm reading, um, Churchill's diaries of World War II right now and it's funny to the extent to which the stuff that he clearly takes for granted in describing things, um, is now... (clears throat) would now be completely abhorrent to our-

   15. CWChris Williamson9:47

       What like?

   16. KKKonstantin Kisin9:47

       ... to our sensibilities. Well, for example, one thing I actually didn't know was, you know, the evacuation of the British Expeditionary Force from Dunkirk.

   17. CWChris Williamson9:53

       Mm-hmm.

   18. KKKonstantin Kisin9:54

       People would have seen the movie. That only was possible because, uh, there was a- a unit at Calais, which is further south of Dunkirk, um, which was basically ordered to stand to the death. So we were like, "We're gonna sacrifice all these people, they're gonna die so we can save these people."

   19. CWChris Williamson10:09

       And they did?

   20. KKKonstantin Kisin10:10

       And they did.

   21. CWChris Williamson10:11

       Wow. Do you know how many people died?

   22. KKKonstantin Kisin10:12

       I don't know, but it, uh, they- they fought almost to the death, then they pulled out the commanding officer, they gave him a direct order, "You have to get on this boat and leave and leave your men behind 'cause we're gonna need you later." Uh, and then they allowed the- the small remnants of the British unit to surrender, right? Um, if you look at the way we talk about many fo- uh, conflicts that are happening at the moment, there is no recognition that casualties are part of conflict, for example, right? Th- this has now become completely abnormal to our way of thinking. Uh, and so there are lots of things in which, uh, we've moved onto this illusory- illusory world that exists in our heads in which everything is supposed to be perfect.

   23. CWChris Williamson10:54

       Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

   24. KKKonstantin Kisin10:55

       Therefore it's, if it's not perfect, it's someone else's fault.

   25. CWChris Williamson10:59

       That's the, "There are no solutions, only trade-offs" insight...

   26. KKKonstantin Kisin11:02

       Correct.

   27. CWChris Williamson11:02

       ... from Sowell again.

   28. KKKonstantin Kisin11:03

       Mm-hmm.

   29. CWChris Williamson11:04

       Why... I've been thinking, I've been pretty obsessed with that quote over the last couple of months actually. Why is this need, compulsion for perfection or hatred of, uh, small flaws, what's the driving force or dynamic behind that do you think? Is there something that's p- is it... So here's my theory, here's my pet theory, before maybe you give yours.

   30. KKKonstantin Kisin11:29

       Mm-hmm.
3. 19:39 – 37:22

   Will Trump’s America Inspire Confidence?

   1. CWChris Williamson19:39

      Trump victory.

   2. KKKonstantin Kisin19:40

      Mm-hmm.

   3. CWChris Williamson19:41

      Do you think that a Trump victory can inspire a broader movement across the world? I think places like the US and Argentina have got their mojo back a little bit. At least it feels like that. They've kind of got confidence back. Uh, is this- is- is that just the post-coital glow of a (laughs) uh, uh, election victory or is there something more going on?

   4. KKKonstantin Kisin20:03

      Well, what's interesting to me was that... So we were in the US before the election, during the election and after the election. And on the day of the election, we flew from Austin in Texas to LA. And all the people that we know in- in Austin were like, "What are you doing? You're going to LA for the riots, for when Trump wins. You know, there's gonna be..." And when we got to LA a- and we were there on the night of the election, and th- then we were there for a week after, there were literally... W- like there was nothing. N- nobody... Th- th- th- there was no reaction of any kind. And I think that was because the scale of the victory was very, very important. It's like nobody can pretend that America didn't vote in this direction anymore. It wasn't Russia collusion, it wasn't blah, blah, blah. It was like Americans looked at this and went, "On balance, we prefer this." I thought that was very important. Um, as for whether that has a chance to spread, well, look, th- Am- America is the place where we all download our memes, right? So wha- I- I always think of the example of during the summer of BLM when we had protestors in this country, in London, in front of police officers saying, "Hands up, don't shoot," in front of cops that don't carry guns. You just go, "Like, that's not a real thing. You've just downloaded the meme," yeah? And you're misapplying it here about something that really doesn't affect British people in anything like the same way. And I think th- that possibility is there. I hope it's there. And by the way, I'm not someone who- who's, um, who thinks that the Trump presidency is nailed on to be a positive thing for the world. It's not guaranteed. It's an opportunity, and it really fundamentally depends on whether he's able to govern and deliver the things that he promised to the American people. W- one of the fascinating things as well, and this is actually something Francis, my co-host on Trigonometry pointed out, is if you look at the- the- the kind of the lineup of the- of the Trump campaign, the people at the very top of that are all Democrats, former Democrats.

   5. CWChris Williamson22:12

      Ex, yeah.

   6. KKKonstantin Kisin22:12

      Trump, Elon, Vivek, uh, Tulsi, RFK.

   7. CWChris Williamson22:19

      RFK.

   8. KKKonstantin Kisin22:19

      They're all former Democrats. Um, and so what you're looking at is- is- is- is not a, uh, this super right wing coalition. Actually, it was really a broad movement that won people over on the promise of a number of things. Improving the economy, uh, cutting government waste, uh, closing the border, dealing with illegal immigration and, uh, sorting out the geopolitical situation. But none of those things are particularly right wing, actually. And, um, he stayed away on the campaign trail from a lot of the more controversial issues like abortion, for example. He was actually, uh, you know, very, um, centrist about that. Now, if he can deliver on those things, if he can close the border and deal with illegal immigration, if America's economy is booming, and if, you know, Elon and Vivek take an ax to the government bureaucracy and it's still standing and able to function in the same way that X is still standing after you fired 80% of the people, I don't see how that doesn't inspire people around the world. I don't see it. Because if you look at all of the Western world, the- I would say th- there are two problems. They're not unrelated entirely, but they're- they're very big problems in their own right. Uh, it's the demographic issue and the government debt issue, right? Uh, almost every country in the Western world, there are some exceptions, is running close to 100% of GDP levels of debt, all right? We are so indebted. We actually... I don't think there is a way to solve that problem w- without growing your way out of it.

   9. CWChris Williamson23:51

      Mm-hmm.

   10. KKKonstantin Kisin23:51

       You just can't inflict that much pain on the public-

   11. CWChris Williamson23:54

       Mm-hmm.

   12. KKKonstantin Kisin23:54

       ... and survive electorally.

   13. CWChris Williamson23:56

       It- there would be so many restrictions placed that it would be... there would be a social unrest to the point where the- the country gets destroyed.

   14. KKKonstantin Kisin24:02

       Well, look at what happened in the UK. The Conservatives came in and said, "We needed some austerity." They cut the government like expenditure. I don't remember what the number was, but I think it was like 1% or something. And everyone, "The Tories are killing people."

   15. CWChris Williamson24:14

       (laughs)

   16. KKKonstantin Kisin24:14

       So- so how do you cut it, you know?

   17. CWChris Williamson24:16

       I mean, we just saw this in France, right?

   18. KKKonstantin Kisin24:18

       Right.

   19. CWChris Williamson24:19

       Yeah.

   20. KKKonstantin Kisin24:19

       Um, so...The only way to probably to deal with it at this point, if you can deal with it, is to grow your way out of it, right? The UK economy, uh, on a per capita basis is smaller now than it was in 2007. People in this country are poorer per head of population than they were before the financial crisis. We still haven't recovered. The only reason our economy is actually "growing," I use inverted commas for people who are listening, is that we import lots of people who, they don't increase, they reduce our, uh, income per head, per head because they're low wage people. But the politicians can say, "Well, our economy has grown because look, we've added this person who earns at 12 grand a year or something," right? Um, so if Trump can actually unleash the talents and ingenuity of the American people and allow them to start businesses, to grow the economy, real growth of the economy, which I suspect he will because, um, all you really have to do is make energy cheap and an economy will grow.

   21. CWChris Williamson25:24

       Mm-hmm.

   22. KKKonstantin Kisin25:24

       That- I mean, this is what people don't understand about net zero and all of this other nonsense that we've got going on here, is energy is included in the price of everything. We put... Our electricity prices are way higher than most other countries. I think they're four times the, the, the ones in America.

   23. CWChris Williamson25:41

       I saw you tweet that. Yeah.

   24. KKKonstantin Kisin25:43

       Yeah. Uh, it's Bjorn Lomborg's tweet that I retweeted. So basically when you make energy more expensive, you make everything more expensive. That's why all manufacturings-

   25. CWChris Williamson25:52

       Everything needs energy.

   26. KKKonstantin Kisin25:53

       Everything needs energy. So, um, uh, GDP is energy transformed is the, is the line, right? So if Trump's policy of drill, baby, drill means that energy in America is cheaper, that alone will make a big difference. Then you add to that cutting of government regulation and waste, if that can happen. Um, then you put those two things together and you've got real economic growth. Amazing. You close the border, or you... I'm not talking about like mass deportations or any of that because none of that I don't think is realistic or is going to happen, and you already see people close to the administration rolling all of that back. Uh, actually, you know, I heard an interview on Winston Marshall's show with the head of the Heritage Foundation saying, "Well, you know, we're going to be able to get rid of 100,000 criminal illegal aliens, but everyone else is going to be voluntary or something." And you're just going, "Okay, so we're talking more realistically now." But if you close the border, which is a big problem in all of the Western world, as we know, right? Illegal immigration on a large scale that nobody voted for. If you do that, you destroy DEI and all of this work crap in the institutions. Who wouldn't sign up for that when they're given the option? So it can inspire that sort of renaissance or revival in the Western world, and I hope that it does if he's able to govern properly. Um, and I hope that he does that. And one of the things that I really hope the Trump administration is able to do is not... Do... Not make the mistakes they had to perhaps make the first time, which was to actually consider the opinion of the mainstream media as important. Because what this election really showed that we just had, this was the first podcast election. Everyone's talked about this to death, right? But what I think that means is that this could be the first podcast administration.

   27. CWChris Williamson27:38

       (laughs) God.

   28. KKKonstantin Kisin27:40

       Well, I'm not saying that's universally positive, by the way.

   29. CWChris Williamson27:42

       Yes.

   30. KKKonstantin Kisin27:42

       But what I'm saying is if the New York Times writes yet another piece about how Trump is Hitler for improving relations between Israel and Saudi Arabia or something, right?
4. 37:22 – 44:00

   What Happens if Trump Fails to Deliver?

   1. CWChris Williamson37:22

      You- you mentioned sort of Trump has the opportunity-

   2. KKKonstantin Kisin37:25

      Mm-hmm.

   3. CWChris Williamson37:25

      ... very clear set of objectives. Uh, also, I- I can't even remember what it is, the House, the Senate, the popular vote, the blah, blah, the blah, blah, the money, the technology, the talent.

   4. KKKonstantin Kisin37:34

      Mm.

   5. CWChris Williamson37:35

      What happens if Trump fails to deliver change?

   6. KKKonstantin Kisin37:41

      That's an interesting question. Uh, I- I think, uh, all of the things that many of us have been saying about the decline of the West (laughs) are gonna come back 100 times because what you, what you then see is there's literally no way out of this.

   7. CWChris Williamson37:56

      It's unfixable.

   8. KKKonstantin Kisin37:57

      There's no way out. There's no way out. So the- the reason I think a lot of people were relieved as I was, was at least in this election-

   9. CWChris Williamson38:06

      The Trump one.

   10. KKKonstantin Kisin38:06

       Yeah. The- the- the- the feeling for me was, well, at least there's choice. Like, in the UK you don't have choice in, on- on the issues that I care about, right? Which is our country being prosperous, uh, immigration being, uh, beneficial to the country. I- I'm pro lots and lots of immigration if it's-

   11. CWChris Williamson38:26

       As an immigrant.

   12. KKKonstantin Kisin38:27

       ... if it's beneficial to the country. I am against even small levels of immigration that are detrimental to the country, and I'm completely against illegal immigration for that reason. Um, and as you know, again, the woke shit, you know, grinds my gears. So, uh, on all of that stuff, we don't have a choice in this country. W- we haven't had a choice for 14 years. The- the- the conservative government that's just left is virtually indistinguishable from the Labor Pa- party that's just come in to the point where the Labor leader is attacking the Conservatives for their failure on mass immigration and everyone's going, "Well, you know, he's got a point. I mean, he's gonna make it worse, but he's got a point." Do you know what I mean? So in America at least the feeling was, well, okay, they actually have choice. The- they can choose. If like, if you don't want this continued slime into, slide into managed decline-

   13. CWChris Williamson39:15

       Mm.

   14. KKKonstantin Kisin39:16

       ... you can vote for something else.

   15. CWChris Williamson39:17

       Pivot.

   16. KKKonstantin Kisin39:18

       If you vote for that something else and you don't actually end up having that choice, then you're in deep trouble.

   17. CWChris Williamson39:26

       Holy fuck.

   18. KKKonstantin Kisin39:26

       And as you probably know, you know, in the fringes of- of right-wing discourse, the Curtis Yarvis of the world-

   19. CWChris Williamson39:34

       Not super fami- I've met Curtis, but I'm not super familiar with his-

   20. KKKonstantin Kisin39:36

       Yeah. He's an interesting guy, but- but it's not even about him specifically. There are a lot of people who up until this point were- were increasing in profile because they were saying something that I don't necessarily agree with, but I see the logic of, and that is, what good is democracy if you can't vote for the things that you want? If you can't vote your way out of this, is that democracy or is that a fake democracy? And therefore if it's a fake democracy, then you're not living in a place of choice, you're living in a place where there's a tyrannical authoritarian structure that's telling you, "You must have net zero. You must have woke. You must have DEI."

   21. CWChris Williamson40:18

       It's just got a much more sophisticated delivery mechanism that makes you feel like you're playing the game.

   22. KKKonstantin Kisin40:22

       You're living in the matrix, right? You're being given this soma, whatever you wanna call it, you're being given this drug that makes you feel like you're living in some kind of-

   23. CWChris Williamson40:31

       On a piece of ballot paper.

   24. KKKonstantin Kisin40:33

       Yes. But actually you're living in hell in which you're stuck with the things that you hate. And even if the majority of you get together and vote against this, it will still happen.

   25. CWChris Williamson40:43

       The same outcome occurs.

   26. KKKonstantin Kisin40:45

       So their argument is d- democracy's not working, why don't we look at alternatives? And alternatives are, you know, that's why, that explains the- the fascination that, as I say, fringes of the right increasingly have with the Putins of the world.

   27. CWChris Williamson41:01

       Mm-hmm.

   28. KKKonstantin Kisin41:01

       Because it's like, "Well, this is like a strong man who'll actually fix this country." You know? Um, and if Trump fails, I don't see why those voices wouldn't get louder.

   29. CWChris Williamson41:12

       That's very interesting.

   30. KKKonstantin Kisin41:14

       I- I can't see a logical reason why that wouldn't be the case. Do you?
5. 44:00 – 49:35

   What Will Happen to the Right-Wing Snowflakes?

   1. KKKonstantin Kisin44:00

      the world for sure.

   2. CWChris Williamson44:01

      Something that I was- ... I actually thought about this, uh, I was in Brisbane on the day of the election, so I was moving seamlessly from my workout playlist to the Daily Wire's live stream.

   3. KKKonstantin Kisin44:10

      Mm-hmm.

   4. CWChris Williamson44:11

      Like just switching between these two, you know, it's 1:00 in the afternoon or something on a Wednesday for me as I'm watching results come in slowly and- and as it became increasingly likely that it seemed like a Republican victory was afoot, uh, I actually thought about, uh, you and your position, uh, your particular distaste for right-wing snowflakes.

   5. KKKonstantin Kisin44:29

      Mm-hmm.

   6. CWChris Williamson44:29

      Uh, and I wondered being on the outside for the last four years or so, um, allows you to have this sort of anarchistic, rebellious, sort of sexy problem identifying but not needing to be solution proposing sort of group. I wondered whether you thought there's an opportunity for that right-wing snowflakeism energy to appear more or less now that that side is in power? I wondered if you considered that?

   7. KKKonstantin Kisin44:58

      Yeah, I think actually what- what- what Trump's election will do, uh, and I s- I really realized this particularly when we went to- to the Trump rally, uh, in Madison Square Garden, is I think it, uh, if he's successful in particular, it has the power to entirely deflate that fringe of the right that has become very much like the woke left in the way that it operates. The cancel culture, the identity politics, the grievance, um, mongering. I- the- Trump, uh, one of the things that those people are obsessed about is Israel and Jews.

   8. CWChris Williamson45:31

      Mm-hmm.

   9. KKKonstantin Kisin45:31

      And Trump is the most phallosymmetric president the United States has had for decades. So, um, e- Tr- and he doesn't need them, and I- I- I don't think he's- he's ever really particularly...

   10. CWChris Williamson45:43

       Well, interesting on October 7th, he was with Ben.

   11. KKKonstantin Kisin45:46

       Was he?

   12. CWChris Williamson45:47

       Yes. Yeah.

   13. KKKonstantin Kisin45:48

       I didn't know that.

   14. CWChris Williamson45:48

       He was- I can't remember where they went, Ben and him, some sort of ceremony type memorial thing.

   15. KKKonstantin Kisin45:54

       Mm-hmm.

   16. CWChris Williamson45:54

       And I remember thinking at the time, "Fuck, like I see a lot of loud voices on Twitter that have a problem, a big problem on the right, from the right."

   17. KKKonstantin Kisin46:02

       Mm-hmm.

   18. CWChris Williamson46:02

       And it was like Fuentes adjacent type-

   19. KKKonstantin Kisin46:04

       Mm-hmm.

   20. CWChris Williamson46:05

       ... sort of type people and, uh, I thought, "Holy f- like that might have damaged part of the- the campaign. Maybe that's lost a significant number of votes or whatever."

   21. KKKonstantin Kisin46:13

       Yeah, I know, that's what happened when I went to the mad- the rally in Madison Square Garden because full of Jews, full of Israel flags, um, and every time anyone mentioned Israel or like, I mean one guy was on stage and he just went, "We're gonna crush jihad." And I was all, "Fff..." And- and ever- and everyone was just loving it. So I think one of the reasons I actually talk less about that fringe of the right now even though I just find them intellectually very irritating because they're not very bright is that I don't think they're relevant truthfully. And- and so I don't really talk about it too much. I- you know, James Lindsay is trolling them and I enjoy that and I like trolling these idiots. But generally speaking, I- what I saw in America was they have no purchase in the Trump movement whatsoever.

   22. CWChris Williamson46:59

       Mm-hmm.

   23. KKKonstantin Kisin46:59

       Um, and if Trump is successful, these people will become utterly irrelevant. Uh, and, uh, you- and by the way, quite a lot of those people, you know, I don't know if you remember the Lauren Chen situation, but there was the revelation that some of these people were being funded from Russia.

   24. CWChris Williamson47:16

       Mm-hmm.

   25. KKKonstantin Kisin47:17

       Um, and, you- now when you see that some of these people like a week before the election saying, "Trump's not my guy," or whatever, you go, "Mm, uh, are all those likes on Twitter really organic? Are they really..."

   26. CWChris Williamson47:29

       Everyone's had these-

   27. KKKonstantin Kisin47:30

       Are they really? I don't- because I don't see this reflected in real life.

   28. CWChris Williamson47:34

       No.

   29. KKKonstantin Kisin47:34

       You know, I- I think there's- wha- when it comes to social media, our reality is being distorted in 100 different ways and one of them is undoubtedly foreign operations.

   30. CWChris Williamson47:43

       Yeah.
6. 49:35 – 53:54

   The Trajectory of the Progressive Movement

   1. CWChris Williamson49:35

      it's on the front page of the New York Times or when it trends on Twitter but when your dad messages you about it on Facebook Messenger.

   2. KKKonstantin Kisin49:40

      Mm-hmm.

   3. CWChris Williamson49:40

      Like, that's when.

   4. KKKonstantin Kisin49:41

      Mm-hmm.

   5. CWChris Williamson49:41

      You know, it's happened two or three times, I think, over the last few years, one being, uh, Rogan's CNN debacle during COVID, where he messaged me and said, "I see your friend Mr. Rogan is in the news again." I'm like, "Wow." Like, that's hit a-

   6. KKKonstantin Kisin49:56

      Yeah. Yeah.

   7. CWChris Williamson49:56

      ... you know, 60s-year-old northeast of the UK father. And then, uh, mid '22, where he messaged and said that Andrew Tate's a nasty piece of work, isn't he? T-A-I-T.

   8. KKKonstantin Kisin50:07

      Mm.

   9. CWChris Williamson50:07

      I was like, "Tate, you have reached full mainstream significance because my dad is talking about you."

   10. KKKonstantin Kisin50:13

       Yeah.

   11. CWChris Williamson50:13

       Um, but all of that together to say there are many worlds that you inhabit and if you're an agile, online, degener- ex user, power user type thing, uh, I think you have a skewed perspective of how sort of nimbly, uh, things are moving along. So what's, how, how have you come to sort of conceptualize this and the trajectory of, of this sort of progressive overreach and stuff?

   12. KKKonstantin Kisin50:34

       Well, I think the g- geography is very important here. So, uh, I don't think in, in the UK or Australia or in Canada we've remotely reached peak woke because DEI and all of this other stuff is so deeply embedded in the institutions, uh, and in politics. Uh, you look, I mean look at London. London is run by a guy who, who's, who's painted the, the crossings rainbow colors and the police rainbow co- and all of this stuff, right? Um, and that, that, uh, I know those are trivial things but they're symbolic of very strong underlying things where people are being hired or fired based on their demographic characteristics and so on. Uh, in the US, yes, uh, Trump and people like Chris Rufo and Elon and Vivek, they have an opportunity to absolutely dismantle from the ground up, uh, all of these, um, ideological introductions that have occurred over the last 10, 20 years.

   13. CWChris Williamson51:30

       Even if structurally they can't get into Yale or into Harvard-

   14. KKKonstantin Kisin51:33

       Yeah.

   15. CWChris Williamson51:33

       ... or into Netflix or whatever.

   16. KKKonstantin Kisin51:35

       Yes.

   17. CWChris Williamson51:35

       They can, uh, go a little bit more upstream from that.

   18. KKKonstantin Kisin51:38

       But most of this stuff is in government. So if you can strip affirmative action hiring from the government institutions, uh, then everything else will naturally follow. The corporations never wanted to be woke, they just felt they had to.

   19. CWChris Williamson51:53

       Yeah, that's interesting. Incentives as opposed to, like, ideology.

   20. KKKonstantin Kisin51:57

       Yeah. And, you know, the Jaguars of this world, they're not gonna benefit from, from, from that and from what's coming. So I think that there's a big opportunity for a reset in America, but even so, it's like you've got the virus and it's infected you and you're still sick but you have the potential to start recovering. That's kind of how I see it. Um, in, in, in, in the rest of the Western world, I don't think we're, uh, I think woke is gonna run and run for a long time. Uh-

   21. CWChris Williamson52:25

       Given that you're downstream hopefully from the US though, if that is...

   22. KKKonstantin Kisin52:30

       Y- But I, I really don't, until the political leadership changes, I don't see how it changes.

   23. CWChris Williamson52:35

       Mm.

   24. KKKonstantin Kisin52:35

       Because if, even if, you know, you, you could tell me, "Well look, Gen Z men are, are not woke." Great, wh- what are they ruling? What are they deciding?

   25. CWChris Williamson52:43

       (laughs)

   26. KKKonstantin Kisin52:43

       What, who, who gives a shit what they think, you know what I mean, um, uh, other than me and you? So, uh, the- the political power to change the things that are embedded in the institutions, uh, that's what this is about. That's why Trump has a chance to reset it in the US. Then hopefully it's inspirational to the rest of us.

   27. CWChris Williamson53:03

       What's your assessment on the state of the UK at the moment?

   28. KKKonstantin Kisin53:08

       Um, at the moment, I think it's fucked. I really do. Um, I, (laughs) you know, I, I love this country, I really do, but at the moment I feel like, uh, have you ever heard that Micky Flanagan joke about going to Brighton? So Micky Flanagan's a very famous, very successful British comedian, um, and I remember he did a show in Brighton and, um, he talked about, you know, kind of the contrast between London, the big city, and Brighton, the seaside town that he comes. And he went, "You know, you, you get on the train in London, you're really stressed and you just, you get on the train, it's full, it's packed, it's uncomfortable, and then you just, you get off at the station in Brighton, you, you smell the sea air and you can feel the ambition just draining out of you."

   29. CWChris Williamson53:52

       (laughs)

   30. KKKonstantin Kisin53:52

       (laughs) It's kind of how

7. 53:54 – 1:12:11

   The Downfall of the UK

   1. KKKonstantin Kisin53:54

      I feel about the UK. And I know that y- And the reason I say that is that all the bright and talented people that I know are leaving. Anyone who can, is. Uh, all the rich people are leaving. W- This country has lost more millionaires than any other country except China. Now if you compare the populations, that tells you-

   2. CWChris Williamson54:13

      3%.

   3. KKKonstantin Kisin54:14

      Right. So, we're losing the people who have created the jobs, who are going t- who are creating the jobs and who are going to create the jobs, and one of the reasons is they look at the environment that we're operating in and we've talked about high energy prices but this government has decided that the people who it needs to tax are the businesses basically, particularly the smaller side businesses, which is where so much creativity really happens, um, uh-And then there's all sorts of other things about infrastructure, housing, uh, demographics, uh, that are going on. That I, I don't, you know, we talk about net immigration figures, and what no one really talks about is the fact that what we're actually doing is we're chasing out all the people who create wealth and have wealth, who pay the taxes, and we're replacing them with people coming in towards the bottom of the jobs market at best-

   4. CWChris Williamson55:10

      Mm-hmm.

   5. KKKonstantin Kisin55:10

      ... if they're actually working at all. Uh, and so you, your net immigration figure of 900,000, that includes you having lost some of your best people and replaced them with people who are not contributing.

   6. CWChris Williamson55:20

      Oh, that's, that's very interesting. Yeah, net doesn't account for the cohorts that have gone and the cohorts that have come in, and it's probably not like-for-like.

   7. KKKonstantin Kisin55:27

      Yeah, and so everyone I know who, who actually had a, a successful business that, that's portable, they're moving to Dubai, they're moving to America, they're moving to all sorts of other places. Uh, because, and what they say is very simple, "Well, look. I want my kids to go to a school where they're not taught that they're trans. I want to pay reasonable taxes," which in some places is like 0%. Um, "I, I want, uh, clean, safe streets, which you do not have."

   8. CWChris Williamson55:56

      Mm-hmm.

   9. KKKonstantin Kisin55:57

      You know, I went, um, I don't go on the Tube very much these days just from a, you know, um, and I'm not in London that often actually. Uh, and I went on the Tube the other day. During daytime, it was like, I don't know, 5:00, 6:00, and there was kids running absolutely rampant all over it, jumping over barriers, not paying, pushing each other on, on the escalators, smashing the stop button. Like really causing genuine nuisance.

   10. CWChris Williamson56:23

       Mm-hmm.

   11. KKKonstantin Kisin56:23

       And I, I watched the staff watch them jump over barriers and do nothing. 2023-

   12. CWChris Williamson56:29

       Mm-hmm. I got some data. Recent data reveals a 56% increase in Tube crime with thefts up by 83% and robberies doubling in '23, '24.

   13. KKKonstantin Kisin56:39

       And this extends more broadly. I saw the, the Labor government's talking about, you know, they're gonna reduce crime. Um, well, c- street crime is up very significantly, and one of the reasons it's up is that it's not really being dealt with by the police. I mean, anyone who... I had my car broken into a few years ago. Uh, window smashed, there was a CCTV camera right above it. I called the police, you can't call, I had to email the police 'cause they don't answer the phone unless it's like, you know, someone's-

   14. CWChris Williamson57:06

       No, no, no.

   15. KKKonstantin Kisin57:07

       ... someone's been misgendered or something-

   16. CWChris Williamson57:08

       (laughs)

   17. KKKonstantin Kisin57:08

       ... you know. Um, and they, they emailed me back saying, "We've investigated. We can't find anything right under the CCTV camera. Here's your crime reference number." There was a viral video, uh, that you probably would've been seen of a guy who deliberately left a bike on the street with, with a, uh, geolocator in-

   18. CWChris Williamson57:28

       Directly outside of Scotland Yard?

   19. KKKonstantin Kisin57:30

       Yeah. He got nicked, uh, they tracked it down to the house where it was being stored. They gave the police the information, and the police said, "We've looked into it, here's your crime reference number. We can't do anything." So-

   20. CWChris Williamson57:41

       And then once the video caught sufficient fire, they got an email back from the police saying, "We've reopened your case."

   21. KKKonstantin Kisin57:47

       Yes.

   22. CWChris Williamson57:47

       "Great news."

   23. KKKonstantin Kisin57:48

       Exactly. Now, by the way, the, the, I, I don't want this to s- come across as if I'm criticizing police officers because f- I know police officers and I know that a lot of them really are working very, very hard. Uh, but the priorities and the resources they have for, set from above don't seem to man- manifest themselves in this kind of low-level crime being addressed. Now, you might say, "Well, you know, there's some kids not paying for the Tube. Who cares?" Well, actually, the, the broken window series is entirely correct. If you are observing people engage in low-level criminal behavior, um, it makes people feel much less safe about their, their, their overall experience because they know that, well, if they're not gonna enforce this, well, what reason do I have to think that if my phone gets stolen, I, you know?

   24. CWChris Williamson58:30

       Yeah, the subtext is that more serious things also won't be looked at with care.

   25. KKKonstantin Kisin58:34

       And they aren't, and they aren't. Uh, I know people who've left because of simp- single incidents. I know a really wealthy guy who left the UK, uh, because he was walking out of a restaurant in Mayfair with a nice watch on his wrist and his pregnant wife. Uh, three guys jumped out of a van with balaclavas on, smashed him to the floor, uh, punched him a few times, pushed his pregnant wife aside, got the watch off him, got back in the van. Police don't give a shit. No, no real investigation, nothing.

   26. CWChris Williamson59:02

       Why? Why are these crimes in the UK, why is this sort of social fabric disintegrating like that?

   27. KKKonstantin Kisin59:09

       Uh, I think it's partly 'cause the economy isn't growing and so there's not a lot of money to be put into policing. Um, and when you think that net zero is the way to prosperity, i.e. driving up energy prices 'cause you wanna feel green or whatever, you wanna reduce Britain's contribution to global climate change from 2% to 1%.

   28. CWChris Williamson59:28

       Mm-hmm.

   29. KKKonstantin Kisin59:28

       You know, that's the great ambition. Well, then you're not gonna have money. And when you don't have money, you can't pay police officers, and when you don't have p- police officers, people engage in crime. Um, I-

   30. CWChris Williamson59:39

       I mean, this is just to add additional context for the northerner in the room.
8. 1:12:11 – 1:18:40

   Why British People Aren’t as Happy as Americans

   1. CWChris Williamson1:12:11

      the ones who would break the mold, that would, uh, push back against the tall poppy syndrome, you are losing ever more of pre- s- uh, there is a dearth of precisely the countervailing force that you want to the worst parts of some of British culture, the bottom-up stuff, not the top-down stuff. And, um, it seems like a recursive cycle, and I appreciate that I have perhaps contributed to that. After 15 years of coaching maybe 1,000 18 to 25-year-olds in a desperate attempt to try and move culture, I'm like, "Pull the rip cord." Mm-hmm. Like, "I'm gonna go somewhere else." Uh, anyway, I was gonna show you this video. So this is a, uh, a TikTok of- of an American guy who, uh, spent six months in the UK, in London, and he's describing his experience. I've cut a little bit into this, but he's basically said his grandparents were British. He sees himself a little bit as British, and this isn't meant to be as a dig at- at British people. So, we'll have a- we'll have a watch of this.

   2. The people there don't seem like they're having fun. They seem like they're constantly trying to escape misery.They seem like their work is just so depressing, and that the joke is that everything is depressing and bad. And, like, that's the entire sense of humor, is like, "This all sucks. Um, let's just make jokes about it." The class system is so obvious and weird. Like, there are just upper-class people, lower-class people, and you're just born into it. And the accents, you can tell based on people's accents, and that's weird. In America, it's pretty much, like, you have to give it to us, or to America, that you just earn your way. And I know there's lots of, you know, people, you- you get born into things, if you're lucky. But if you get rich, if you g- move up in your class, you're just able to. In England, it's like you're never gonna really be upper class if you're born lower class. They'll always know that you're not 'cause it's about culture. It's not just about money. It's about, like, the way you act. And there's a lot of, like, inner- or inter-class, um, like, anger and, like, weird feelings. And also, I just wanna say, there's a lot of anger in the culture. I was, uh, at a lot of games, soccer games, Premier League games, things like that. Um, and the fans are so angry. Like, it's not like America where people get mad or whatever, and, you know, but it's, like, normal. It's like a- they're a little mad. In England, they're, like, so pissed the whole time. They're just looking for- for, like, reasons to let their anger out, and there's so much anger. There's so much swearing. There'll be a six-year-old just yelling the C-word. It's like, "What the hell? What's going on here?" It's like borderline... I'm- I'm looking around thinking like, "This is uncivilized."

   3. KKKonstantin Kisin1:15:00

      Six-year-old yelling the C-word, that's what makes Britain great. (laughs)

   4. CWChris Williamson1:15:04

      (laughs) Make Britain great again. Uh, but-

   5. KKKonstantin Kisin1:15:06

      No, he's bang on, man. He's bang on. Um, uh, look, I- I do think part of it is the weather, to be honest.

   6. CWChris Williamson1:15:12

      Dude, it's huge. It's a huge, massive influence. You know what it's like. You come out to Austin, Texas, and when was the first time you t- came out this year, February, something like that? In February, March, maybe?

   7. KKKonstantin Kisin1:15:21

      March, yeah.

   8. CWChris Williamson1:15:21

      March time?

   9. KKKonstantin Kisin1:15:22

      I actually don't like the weather in Austin, to be honest.

   10. CWChris Williamson1:15:24

       March is fine.

   11. KKKonstantin Kisin1:15:25

       Ma- March is fine.

   12. CWChris Williamson1:15:26

       Oh, yeah.

   13. KKKonstantin Kisin1:15:26

       But the rest... Yeah.

   14. CWChris Williamson1:15:27

       Well, you only came in March, and then you fucking-

   15. KKKonstantin Kisin1:15:29

       Between- between-

   16. CWChris Williamson1:15:29

       ... came back in October.

   17. KKKonstantin Kisin1:15:30

       Yeah, between November and March, the weather in Austin is fine.

   18. CWChris Williamson1:15:33

       Beautiful.

   19. KKKonstantin Kisin1:15:34

       But if you go, if you spend a week in LA and you just look around, "Oh, I can see why these people are happy," 'cause the weather is really nice. So, that's... I think it's part of it.

   20. CWChris Williamson1:15:40

       But that is the country, okay? With the... When d- unless we're gonna get to the stage where we can terraform the ozone layer above-

   21. KKKonstantin Kisin1:15:47

       Yes.

   22. CWChris Williamson1:15:48

       ... the UK, this isn't gonna change. So, what do you need to do?

   23. KKKonstantin Kisin1:15:51

       Well-

   24. CWChris Williamson1:15:51

       Compensate.

   25. KKKonstantin Kisin1:15:52

       Yes, exactly. You have to compensate for it, and the compensation for it is... Like, if you go to Central London, the nice parts of it, it's a beautiful place. It's a beautiful place, and when, uh, on those three days a year when Britain is sunny, it's the most beautiful country in the world.

   26. CWChris Williamson1:16:10

       Mm-hmm.

   27. KKKonstantin Kisin1:16:10

       You know? Um, but what you have to do is make the other things in this country so good that it- it trumps- it trumps that. Um, and that means people have to have a better quality of life than they otherwise do.

   28. CWChris Williamson1:16:26

       Correct.

   29. KKKonstantin Kisin1:16:26

       And that means they have to be able to afford a home. That means they have to be able to raise their kids and all the rest of it. You know, I- I- I was very persuaded by a book, uh, by a guy called Desmond Morris called The Human Zoo, uh, in which he talked about the fact that essentially all the, uh, problems that we see in modern human society are exactly the problems you get if you put animals into those exact conditions. So, in a zoo, the animals that are there, they have much less space than they need. Uh, they may be surrounded by other animals that they don't necessarily wanna be surrounded by, uh, and all sorts of other things. And they have the exact same outcomes in terms of interpersonal violence, mental health, failure to reproduce, and on and on and on. So partly, this is just a problem of the fact that we have a- a very, very broken housing market which prices people out of it. And, you know, the houses here are very small. Uh, so most people end up flat-sharing in Central London or whatever, living four to a flat. Well, what, are you gonna expect those people to- to be happy?

Episode duration: 2:09:07