Fighting Back Against the Crazy People: Steve Hilton Talks to A&G

just for you. That's what I was picturing you. Hey, we we had something we wanted to play you from another cable news channel and then discuss a little bit. This was on Morning Joe on MSNBC this morning. The retail pharmacy Giant Walgreens is set to close the five stores in San Francisco due to rampant shoplifting and organized retail crime. It also makes me feel bad that things are so bad for people that they have, that this

is happening. It's no, it's not incredibly sad. They're criminals. No, no, no, this has been happening for some time. But we also want to be alpened and and and and charitable and mindful that folks are out here hurting even as ninety

year old men are flying into space. So Steve Hilton's new podcast is California Rebel Base and Steve, when you hear that sort of commentary from Mika Bradzynski that people are just steving stores to the point that the chains are closing because they're in need, do you have any comment.

It's just insane, isn't it what. It's just so typical of the lunacy that seems to have taken over the way government works or doesn't work in California and all the cities, and the lunacy with which people comment on it and don't understand what's going on. What you've got going on up and down the state is a bunch of people in charge who are literally pro criminal. The people running the criminal justice they are on the side

of the criminals. They are against actually doing what the first responsibility of government is if you should basically keep things safe, protect law and order, make it possible for people to do business. But now it's so oh, we have to understand that the criminals need to loot wal greens otherwise how they can eat by the way in a state where they spend so much on welfare, and they said, spend sake so much money in tax and

waste it on all these services. And another part of their plan, they they keep going on about the billions that they're spending on homelessness. Obviously that isn't enough because you've got the owners people robbing the sort. I mean, it's just lunacy, all of it. And basically, this is what you get when you have a one party rule, when you have a bunch of people in charge with no political challenge, there's no accountability, no one standing up

to them. They think they can get away with anything to get then they can because that's what's been happening, and then they let the criminals get away with anything. I mean, this is why people are so angry. This is actually why I started the podcast us which is called California Rebel Base, and the reason for their name is that, actually, I think up and down the state there are millions and millions of people fed up with this,

rebels against this one party rule. But I don't know what to do about it, because wherever you turn, the crazy people are in charge. We've got to fight back against it, and we've got to have a kind of really concerted effort. We've got to get together, and we've got to stick with it for the long term, not just a quick thing with a recall or whatever. We've got to really go for it, because you can't go on like this in such a state that there is

one thing we love California. I love California. I live here, I live in the Bay Area. I'm in the middle of all this madness. But you know, we've got to fight back. I can tell by your Valley girl accent um. So what I've been trying to figure out though, is like, does the president or the California legislature do they actually believe this nonsense or are they just play into the Twitter crowd thinking that the Twitter crowd is much bigger

than it actually is. Because I just I find it so hard to believe that there are grown ups that think, yeah, the people robbing the Walgreens are just you know, they're just they're struggling because of the COVID and because of systemic racism in the the patriarchy and all the homeless people. It's just because of the bad economy. So let's let's try and be charitable, okay, And let's try and assume good intent on their partner and trying to understand what's

really going on. That's underlying your question, which is they can't just be crazy. Obviously the policies are crazy and the outcomes are crazy, but these people are not literally lunatic. What is going on? What are they trying to do? I think the heart of it is that they've been completely kind of There's two things. Actually, there's the woke ideology, and that is absolutely infecting what you see happening in the schools with the curriculum and a bunch of other

stuff where we see that woke ideology. I've traced the origins of it back on my show on Fox News that it goes back a hundred years. This didn't just

show up with AOC and her Twitter account. That kind a way of thinking about the world that is all about, um, these kind of categories of identity that's been going on for a long time, and it originated back in the day in Europe with this Marxist school of philosophers, the Frankfurt School, who were asking themselves the question, why did the communist revolution that Marks and Angles predicted would take over the world and the workers would rise up and

capitalism would be abolished. It didn't really happen, and in Russia they did it with force, but it didn't really take off anywhere else. Why was that? And their answer was, actually, it's not just about economics, as Marks argued, there are other things that keep the working class oppressed. And the three that they focused on with faith, family, and culture, and they said, those are the things that give the working people this kind of false consciousness that they could

should carry on with capitalism. So we have to undermine those things. We have to attack faith and religion and organized religion. We have to undermine family because the family unit is what keeps people attached to this oppressive, working, oppressive capitalist system. And we have to seize the leavers of power in culture and make sure that that's under

the control of our ideology as well. That's what they all formulated back in the nineteen twenties in Frankfurt, and over the last century that's been pushed forward and you can see the fruits of that absolutely applied today. So there's an ideology of work that says, actually, we do want to undermine family and religion and so on, and you can see that being played out there's another part

of it, though. The second part of it, I would say, again trying to be fair to these democrats, is that they are so consumed by the desire to appear compassionate and be kind to people and have compassion for people who are suffering, that they totally forget that real compassion also includes an element of discipline. And you can't just give people things and not expect anything in turn, um and and not demand anything returned and expect a decent outcome.

And so they just think it's all about being compassionate and kind and virtue things. We love, you know, we don't want to offend anyone. And as those two things going together to produce these insane policies, right well, as I've said many times, order without compassion is fascism. But compassion without order is chaos and the dissolution of society. And and that's what we're seeing, you know, just a

dovetail to that thought. We at the Arms Starring Getty Show, we have never spent a lot of time talking about the Koch brothers Boogatie Bogaty and George Soros Boogatie Bogaty, because those aren't arguments. That's not a policy argument, it's

just citing a boogeyman. But it is worth observing that George Soros and types like him, who are very smart, hardcore far left idealogues, are very very good at manipulating well meaning left leaning voters and people to the extent that they get as Boordine elected as the d A in the San Francisco area or what's his face in l A, George Gascon exactly, thank you. Yeah. Um. These

people are hardcore Marxists. But there's nothing in the Carl Marks or the modified Marks point of view that you were describing that says we must at all times be perfectly honest about what we're trying to accomplish. No, quite the contrary. They're open with each other about we have got to dupe the well meaning suburban bourgeoisie and to going along with our plans. That's exactly right. And they know that they can do that because that that's not

who they're going to for their votes. And as you say, they're funded by people with unlimited amounts of money who don't live in those places. They don't have to experience any of this. This is what its enraging about all of this. If you look at someone like George Soros, for example, you know, we we talked about it on my podcast, you know, the other the other week. He

lives in probably some mansion somewhere. He doesn't actually encounter the consequences of this UM, this pro criminal ideology that he is funding UM. And that's what's so offensive about it. Actually, the people who suffer most, and this is true most of this lunacy you see being pushed by the by the Democrats in California, UM, the people who suffer the most, the exact same people that they say they are standing up for the poorest, the most vulnerable people who are

recent immigrants, black people and Latinos and Asian America. These are the people who actually end up having to suffer that, you know, the worst public schools, the worst impact from crime. And that's what I find so offensive about it. And that's why, you know, it's time we said that clearly, and don't let them paint people who reject these policies as people who some are uncaring or cruel or not

interested in social justice. It's the exact opposite. They're the ones who are cruel because it's their policies who hurt with that hurt the most vulnerable. But enjoying your commentary for a while, I think first became aware of you whenever you'd be a guest on like the panel on Brett Bear Show. But how did you come to your political beliefs? Do you do you have any sense of why you're this direction as opposed to the other direction? Yeah, it's interesting. I mean, you know, I grew up in

the UK. My parents are both Hungarian. Um, my stepfathers also Hungarian, So that's my family background. And obviously, you know, and most of my family still is back in Hungary, which obviously no longer has to suffer the oppression of the communist regime. But I certainly grew up aware of that and traveling to Hungary and seeing my family and just being told that. I remember as a kid, it's the weird memory that sticks in your mind. I'm running

around on the street. I didn't really know what I was doing with my two cousins, And as a kind of joke as a young kid, I remember um yelling on the street the name of the lead yo car. Dad was the was the Communist leader of Hunger at that point. It wasn't, but it was. It was the sort of softer end of the communist spectrum. It wasn't. It wasn't as bad as you got in some other countries, but you know, it's still pretty bad. And and the name of this lead. I yelled it out and said, oh,

he's an idiot. He's an idiot, and my most totally to my cousins day, I don't say that. And then I got back home and my aunt gave me this stern lecture about how you can't say things like that, Um, your cousins will get in trouble, will be punished as a family. It was really interesting. I didn't know anything back in those days about obviously these these concepts we talk about now, like councel culture or whatever, but it's stuck in my mind. There's this kind of absence of freedom.

You couldn't just say what you wanted. I think they are. The really formative thing in my life was the fact that my my stepfather was was you know, he run a small business. He was in construction. He did house repairs and built small house and so and I spent a lot of time with him on construction sites. Um, you know, we grew up in a kind of you know, we weren't poor, but it's kind of a sort of

classic kind of middle class family. And that that idea of working hard and doing an honest day's work and literally, you know, working that kind of blue college job that so many people depend on. I think that really stuck with me. Um And for example, when I you know, I was lucky enough to get to Oxford University, but before I went there, I took a year out and I actually worked for a construction company in London and

learned skills as a project manage and so on. But I think that whole notion of really understanding that kind of basic hard work mindset. I think those two things, the Hungarian background and then that culture of you know, like working hard and climbing the ladder of opportunity that in which I've been able to do. I feel so lucky and privileged to be able to have done that myself, and now you just see it being taken away for so many other people by these terrible policies. I think

that's where it comes from. We talk a fair amount about whether it's possible to roll back some of the policies and entitlements that are growing. You were director of strategy for British Prime Minister David Cameron for a handful of years, and it's so difficult to get an honest, even handed account of Britain's journey through postwar socialist uh.

Growth of those programs and then the Margaret Thatcher era. Um, of course, you know, all of the media and the pop stars and all portray hers far worse than the wicked Witch of the West, just an oppressive, evil person who was, to my mind, just trying to recapture great Britain's greatness and agility as opposed to a giant, bloated welfare state. Growing up, how did you see that that rise and fall? Uh? What's your honest assessment of the

Thatcher years? Oh, I mean, I I couldn't be more of I mean, I was so proud that I actually got to meet her and and and and work work in the for for while I was had a junior researcher job in the Conservative Party when she was Prime Minister. No, I I mean, and I actually growing up that was part of that whole story for me because I remember, you know, and I guess I absorbed this at the kind of kitchen table or whatever. You know, my stepfather

and my family know, we it was very interesting. Again, it's these things you remember, like Thatcher was on our side because she was for working people and the Labor Party, the socially equivalent Democrats. I remember this phrase that was used all the time in our household there for the layabouts, you know, which is a pretty kind of aggressive word and whatever. I probably wouldn't use it now, you know, But that's that's people are going to call layabouts for

the rest of my life. Now, the lay abouts maybe that's the you know, the lay about. So look, she did she I mean, she saved the country, there's no question about that. And stop what was looking like a really terminal decline for for Britain. And it was and it was and it was focused on two things, which is getting the government the government. I mean, it's an insane level of central centralization of government power where the government owned and ran pretty much everything in the country.

I mean, you know, the airline, the railways, the phone company, either all the utilities, energy, everything It was owned by the government and run by the government and delivered with no petition, no private sector investment. And everything was falling apart. And so the great innovation was the privatization program to take those assets, put them back in the public sector, sell them to the people so people could be become shareholders and get invested in the success of the economy.

Is an incredible transformation. The second part was the union reform, the trade union reform, and you basically you couldn't do anything in the UK without the permission of the unions, not just the government unions, but unions in the private sector as well. So she enabled people who started and

run businesses as I have. You know, I've been an entrepreneur in the UK and here in California, and you know, like that just that freedom to start your business and and employ people, and and find a customer and find customers for your your product or service, and that that that whole enterprise culture is what she created and revived the the economy and society in this in the process. So she was a complete savior for the country as

far as I'm concerned. That's not to say we think she said or did was perfect, but overwhelmingly, shoot, I mean, she saved the country. I think that's the simplest way of putting it. Enterprise culture. That's interesting case again back to where do we get our world views? And I don't even know where I got mine, really, But the back when I was starting out in you know, after college or whatever, and struggling like so many people doing.

I had three jobs and I was broken. I was sleeping on the floor in this sublet apartment because I didn't have a bed. I mean I didn't, But it never, it never crossed my mind that there should be some government program or something, and just it never occurred to me. And so we got you were somehow being cheated. Yeah, I just thought I've made some bad decisions, which I had, and uh, and I needed to make some better ones

or get a better job. And so we got this five trillion, another five trillion dollars worth of programs staring us in the face here in a couple of weeks. And how do you get people out of the mindset that it's the government's got to fix my current woes as opposed to me. I just I don't even know how you do it. Well, there's a couple of answers

to that. I mean, first of all, and this this is something that maybe isn't such a comfortable conversation for conservatives or people on the right to have, but it's important we have it. Why is there such an appetite for this far left lunacy, as as we could characterize it. Why is it even being discussed? Why is it so the norm actually for a lot of younger people to say, yeah,

of course we need this. Of course we need the government to to help me with, you know, buying a house or rent or whatever it may be, and and and every aspect of my life to be subsidized and supported by the government. One of the reasons for that is that they look around and their experience of the free market, free enterprise capitalist system over the last couple of the last decade or so it has not been very positive. And they said, well, hang on a second,

why should I buy into the market approach? Because the market approach means that there's absolutely no chance are ever earn enough, will be able to save enough to own

my own home. That's completely out of reach. Most of these jobs that you look at, you know, they don't pay enough to live on with all the taxes, and and so they what's been going on, and they say, actually, there's no opportunity, that's all just bs this idea that if you work hard, you get on and so on, and that also feeds into these terrible social trends, like people thinking, I can't afford to have kids, So what's the point of actually thinking about starting a family because

it's never going to be possible. So we've got to acknowledge that actually there are things that have gone wrong with the way capitalism has worked. And this is actually one of the things I argue in my in my book Positive Populism was actually there is there is something to that populous critique, um. And we've got to do something about the fact that a lot of the rewards in the pre enterprise system have gone to people at

the top, which I don't begrudge for a second. As you know, if you start a business and you you people love it and want to buy your stuff, then great, you know you're meeting a need. That's fantastic, and you should get rich in the process as an incentive. No problem with that. But we need to actually look at the policies that, for example, have made housing so unaffordable, um that people look at that and thing, I'll never be able to afford a house. You've got to do

something about that. However, the answer to a lot of these points is not to go in the kind of government control left wing direction, but actually more in the in the opening things up direction. And then the kind of phrase that comes to my mind because I talked about it all the time, is what to me, the populist thing is all about is putting power in people's hands, and that means taking it away from the government to

centralize and control and regulate everything. And a good example in relation to housing is actually, the way you deal with the problem of affordable housing is not to give people more money so that you're subsidizing it, but actually to to reduce the amount of regulation that makes it so expensive to build a house in the first place, and to get rid of some of these zoning regulations that mean that it's impossible to to to create enough

housing to meet the demand. So the answers will often be more conservative and libertarian, but we've got to at least acknowledge that you know why there's this appetite for this incredible march to the left, and give positive solution and not just I mean I always condemn it as craziness because it is, but you've also got offer something positive this says, here's our plan to help you earn a decent living and afford a home and so on,

not not massive compulsory government centralization and regulation. There's a better way of doing I don't think the right has been very good at that. I don't think Republicans have been very good at that. They haven't been offering offering solutions. And we need to get into that business as well. Oh absolutely, I think the right has been very lazy

about advocating for liberty. We've just assumed for many generations that people understand it and value it about Yeah, that's a good point, you know, I was, Steve, I was actually going to bring up a different book, Years More Human from back in twenty something like that. But I know you're you're pretty critical about certain aspects of capitalism.

We've often made the ship the point on our show that there are a lot of aspects of capitalism that people point to and say this is bad, this is ugly, that are the opposite of the free market, the chronic capitalism. They are giant corporations which right the very laws which paved the way for them to become a dominant and ugly and abusive exactly I called them, I think I can't remember now, but kind of private sector bureaucracy, that's

what they are. They're like government bureaucracies. They happen to be in the private sector, and they're very cozy with the the people who make the laws and and and in fact, you know, that's why I'm so I've been so focused on the corruption that we see in our system because actually you literally have, but it pitly at the state level, where there's less scrutiny. You have the businesses who buy up the legislatures they give that you don't need to give that much money. Actually a state

legislator doesn't require that much money for their campaigns. You know, it's pretty cheap to buy them up. And then you get in the room with them and you literally send around what they call model legislation and then they and they and they implement it. But of course we can't be one sided about this, I mean, particularly in California. I mean that's also happening from the left. Never talk

about this. They love attacking the Koch brothers and and and big business and dirty you know, dart money and politics and all this stuff, but they never talk about the fact that you've got exactly the same going on with the government unions. System is such a desert. They own the state because of the government unions. That's no different.

All of it is corrupt. That's why coming back to what I've argued, you know, you put power in people's hands so you get rid of all this corruption and cronyism wherever it comes from, whether that comes from big business or from the big unions, because no one should have too much power. It's the concentration of power that's there's the argument I'm made in more human and positive populism. When you have too much power in too few hands, that's when you get problems, whether that's in the economy

or with government and politics. You've got to take the power away and put it in people's hands. And that's the that's the thing I've always I shout want to make this point. I think it's really important for people who hear the word populist. And you see commentators constantly say, well, you've got left wing populism and right wing populism, and you've got the other kind of trump be right wing populism. And then you've got Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren an

AOC and their populist of the left. I don't think you can be a populist on the left because what they're all about is taking power out of people's hands and putting it in the government's hands and centralizing power there. And actually the most incoherent on this is Elizabeth Warren, who actually I think makes a pretty good case about how there's too much monopoly power in the private sector. We've got to break up big tech and so on.

I agree with her about that, but in the same breath she goes on about centralizing power in the public sector and having a federal government in Washington start controlling everything childcare and family policy and housing and you name it. So she's all for breaking up power in the private sector, and I'm with her on that, but in the public sector, she wants to centralize power. And I think we should be consistent and say we want to put power in

people's hands right across the board. Steve Hilton's podcast is California Rebel based. Steve, you've been generous with your time, Talget or a couple of guys. We couldn't get into Oxford unless we were there to clean the toilet, so but really enjoy the conversation. I hope we can do it again. Fantastic was a great pleasure season. It is remarkable the extent to which people who grew up under communism, or are the children of people grew up under communism.

Are there practically a hundred percent conservatives. I think that speaks volume. Is there a name for that accent? I mean we all just called an English accent, but in America, you know, we've got all kinds of different accents, Northeastern, southern, Midwest. I don't know if there's a name for it, but I would describe it as educated London. Yeah, probably something like that. Huh. I mean he's not like a Manchester Fisher anything like that. Right now? No, not, what are

you doing? No extra large