Let's Talk About Dave Rubin

the world. And uh, we're doing something a little bit, a little bit, a little a little bit different today. See it's helpful in this show with all the breaking news that happens in the world and the fact that I sometimes go cover it live. Uh, to have a little bit of a backlog built up gives us some flexibility, let's just do things. And we lost that backlog this summer because of all the riots that I had to attend. Um,

So we're trying to build that backlog back up. But I got it right, like twenty page is a week just to just to to keep moving. So we're we're working on some ways to get some to get ahead of it, and and one of them is Today's special episode. We're focusing on what I would call a little be bastard, someone who would not be enough to get an episode behind the Bastards on his own, but I do think

is interesting in the way he's shitty. So I've written a short essay about him, and then we're going to delve into his book um and to help me explore this particular little be bastard. This this this, this special piece of crap. Uh is Sharine Lana Yoda. I'm back, fam, I'm back. Come monshurin weird talking about David Rubin. Oh, thank you? That was wow the last little bee. I thought you would say, David Ruben? Should I David Reuben?

I think? I mean that's good? Should I? Who? David Rubin? Is? No? You? You shouldn't? You sun't. He's very popular among people who are trash, um, very popular. He's like moderately popular because he hangs onto people who are very popular among people who are trash. But he himself is of of it best modest notoriety. Now, he's been very successful at writing the coat tails of some of the shittiest people in our discourse to modest success actually significant, like a lot

of money, but that's the trash leach a trash leach. Um. Robert is stepped away, so it's my opportunity to say off the top. I just want I want to get out of the way. But I don't know if I could top my last appearance. That was a trip for me. Um. But I just really, really really want to thank everyone that reached out to me via email, Twitter, Instagram. I

read everything you wrote. I tried to respond to everyone that I could, but it really meant a lot to me, Um and um, yeah, it was just really sweet and really affirmed that I should be vulnerable and normalizing. Talking about sex and sexuality is so important to me, and it's okay if I'm the vehicle for that sometimes. But but yeah, I just wanted to say a really quick thank you to all the listeners that are listening now that maybe have reached out to me, because your words

really meant a lot. Thank you. That's very sweet to hear and very and very soulful, which is appropriate because the person we're talking about today, um doesn't have a soul, not a single ounce of soul. Yeah. Good to know. Good to know, which makes which makes this episode, which makes you the perfect guest was episode because you are full of soul and love and warmth. Oh thanks, I really feel dead inside most of the time, so that's nice that you have that impression of me. So, Sharine,

you you don't know David Ruman. He's like a YouTuber. He's a right wing YouTuber. He gets a lot of coke money, um, and he's he's pretty trash. So we're gonna read a little essay about Mr Reuben, and then we're gonna read from his book, which is called Oh

You're gonna love it, Sharine. It's called don't burn this book, um, which is I think a pretty sad attempt to make people like to act as if there's anything actually um uh disruptive in there, as opposed to just being another cash grab by a guy who's basic modus operandi is to support the Republican Party. So David Joshua Rubin was born on June nine six. Obviously, since this isn't a standard episode, I'm not writing ten pages on this guy.

But we do have to get some context of his career because it's interesting and he's emblematic of a species of grifter. He grew up in what he called a fairly secular household in Long Island. Uh. He came of age in Siosit, New York or psioset. I don't know how you fucking East Coast fucking I hate that whole fucking coast shrine. Um, it's s y O S S E T New York. He grew up there. He got

a bachelor's degree in political silence at Binghamton University. UM, and despite a complete lack of talent and charisma, Dave decided that he was going to be a stand up comedian. So Dave decided that, like I, he was going to be a stand up comedian. And he's he had no talent in comedy, uh, no ability to really work a crowd. Um, but he decided to give it a shot anyway. So he started rampaging through a bunch of open mics in New York. Most of his jokes centered around the fact

that that he was a gay man, and isn't that funny? Uh? Like that that kind of comedy? Heard that before? Yeah. In the early OTTs, he was one of the hosts of a podcast called Hot Gay Comics, UM, which I'm sure was very I love when people make their sexuality their entire personality. Yeah, I'm gay and I do comedy. That's the joke. Yeah. Uh. He made a public access fake news program like like a parody of a new Show in around two thousand UM, and he co founded

a couple of comedy clubs. His career in Standoff never really took off like he was he was he had a certain level of prominence, like within a certain community, but it was not the kind of thing he was ever going to make a good living at, which is why he quit in two thousand seven UM. And I think looking at a few clips of him being a comedian, it's very clear why his career didn't take off, because he's he's very, very bad. He's he's a he's a void of charisma. And I'm gonna send you a link here.

I was just gonna say, I love that you put yourself through that, but now you're putting me through that, so oh yeah, no, absolutely thankfully. This is from a tweet by Nathan Robinson. I'm not sure if he's the person who collected the videos or not, but somebody took clips from a bunch of his different stand ups over I think it was probably over a couple of years. And so we just have him like a few different punchlines of his so we can see how how the

crowd reacts to Dave Ruben lesbian's love. Am still, what is that? What is it? It tastes like water? Is there anything hotter than a lesbian spitting? Am still light all over herself? This is But I'm very uncomfortable and you I think you're gay? Are you? But your am? I right? No? Really, no Mormon? You raise your hand. Does anyone need their genitals warmed up? That is our show? All right? Did you guys have fun? Does anyone need their genitals warmed up? Yeah? That's a joke, get it?

Because he's he's not straight, So that's the joke. Um, I did post this is this is pretty funny. But I did post this image the other day that has this wound on someone's arm and it says white guilt and then there's a band aid come and go over it that says queerness. Um. And I do think some people use their sexuality and or queerness, and this is

coming from a queer person. White people use their queerness sometimes as a way to skirt around the fact that they're problematic, and that gives them this like leeway to say whatever they want when really, uh, it doesn't do that at all, if that makes sense. I'm like summarizing that meme in a very uh roundabout way, but weaponizing your sexuality is never really to to disparage someone else has never really uh advised in my opinion. Yeah, And I don't think he was meaning to be disparaging at

this point. I think it was just a matter of like, he's not a very good comedian and so, like, you know, this was the early early two thousands that was sort of like like you you watch a lot of TV shows that had like gay characters in them, and like the joke was that they were gay, but it wasn't

like they weren't trying to be mean. It was like attempting, Like there's a Simpsons episode that won an award for gay representation that is cringe e to watch these days, but like at the time they were like, oh my god, the gay people in the show aren't monsters. Like it's like so I think he was kind of writing that wave, um, which didn't last long because people were like, oh, what don't we just treated everybody like people? And like didn't didn't you know and and Dave for material and really

he couldn't reach very far. No, and he yeah, you can see. They're like, he can't work a crowd. He has no charisma. People don't like him, um when he does like a live show. And this made, you know, a career in live performances less than an ideal professional route for Dave. But he did have some talents. You know,

he was good at organizing things. He put together some comedy clubs, you know, he was he I assume his show was funny enough that it earned him some like the the Local Access show, that it earned him some attention, and he got an internship with the daily shows John Stewart. Um, what yeah, which is big And this is like early on, like when John Stewart is like kind of having his

big rise to prominence, you know. Um, so Ruben does that for a little while and I think it eventually leads him to get hired by the Young Turks Network and it moves to California and stuff, and the Young Turks is like a yeah, so like we'll talk about them in a second, but yeah, so he gets his own show, the Reuben Report on the Young Turks Network back up in thousands thirteen, Jon Stewart and the Young Turks. That's pretty left, you know. Yeah, and he's left at

this point. Yeah, okay, yeah, yeah, he's he's he's at least masquerading as a progressive at this point. So he's like thirty seven years old when he gets his show with the Young Turks, and that's kind of his big break. Now. The Young Turks are a progressive left wing news network unadvisedly named after the architects of the Armenian Genocide for

reasons to complicated to explain here. The network's number one claim to fame was providing the launchpad for the career of one of my favorite journalists, Ken Clippenstein, who who's pretty fucking cool, elips best Twitter follow you could ever hope for. Yeah, he fucking rules. Um So for a while, like that's kind of like it's a pretty you know, progressive network. Um, not hard left, but not democrat like, kind of soft left like sandersy. It's kind of where

we'd say it. Um. And for a while, David's show was pretty standard like soft left wing fair I'm gonna quote from rational Wiki here, kind of summarizing the stuff that he got up to on his and the Reuben Report. In its Young Turks days, he publicly criticized National Rifle Association commercials trying to incite the fear of consequences of gun reform laws being planned to be passed by the United States Congress. Addressed a decision by McDonald's to remove

healthier foods from its menu in a critical manner. On a two thousand fourteen episode of The Young Turks, he rebuked self regulation in the economy and claimed that it has never worked, and he was supportive of single payer health insurance. So ok, yeah, he's fine, Like right, He's like a pretty normal, like kind of lefty democrat. Um. Nothing something too outrageous. There were, however, some early signs

that something might be a little odd with Dave. In two thousand and fourteen, when Israel invaded Gaza, they had

that they had their war in Gaza. Um, the Young Turks did like a forty minute sort of like episode round table where they all kind of talked about what was happening, and Dave got into fights with absolutely everybody by kind of like not kind of by repeatedly defending his reel's behavior in the war UH and in subsequent shows, he repeatedly denied like war crimes that had been committed

by Israel. He showed up on like a radical atheist kind of podcast to express a bunch of like like pretty much outright lies about Palestinian people in the Palestinian cause. So like there were some signs like, Okay, Dave's, something's going on with Reuben here, something a little bit not not the standard for the melieu he occupies as I'm wearing my Palestine shirt. Yep, Yeah, Palestine isn't free. Yeah, and neither is my time. Dave, Sorry, I should know

that's nice. I didn't see the lower part. Palestine is free and neither is my time. That's funny, so Dave, uh, yeah, it's a little bit odd. And he keeps getting into arguments with um, with other folks at the Young Turks, particularly the founder of the network, Shank Wager, and this is probably more or less like why he winds up leaving the Young Turks network. He and Jank had an

escalating series of disagreements that started with Ruben's comments about Palestine. UM. Reuben himself would later claim that he grew apart from the left because of its obsession with identity, polics, hostility towards free speech, and unwillingness to debate openly. Um, he now has a completely different story for why he he left the left, But um, you know that that that's

as will cover. That's the main reason that he's prominent now is that he used to be on the left, and he gives a bunch of lectures on why he left. Uh So that's kind of the whole He's just monetized that very effectively. So the Young Turks allowed Ruben to take his show and its YouTube account with him. He bounced around from company to company, including or A TV, which was founded by Mexican billionaire Carlos Slim and Larry King.

That didn't work out, and Ruben went through a number of different hosts and networks over the course of about a year from until um which suggests he might have been kind of a pain in the ask to work with. In two thousand and sixteen, the Reuben Report went independent and Dave Ruben finally found the thing he was good at. See two thousand sixteen is like the easiest possible year you could have picked to get into the business of

making right wing propaganda on YouTube. The mix of prevailing political winds and Google's algorithm meant that even an idiot could make money spreading quasi fascist propaganda for a while. And Dave, unfortunately was not a total idiot. In a move that showed just how savvy he could be, he pivoted his show to almost exclusively hosting guests who are members of what would come to be called the intellectual

dark Web. Remember that thing. Yeah, so he Yeah, he sees that all these guys, these like kind of regressive right wing thinkers are rapidly gaining in popularity thanks to a mix of Google's algorithm and like just sort of

the political you know. So he he starts having all these dudes on his show as they're rising, which number one, builds a relationship with them, so they keep showing up even as they get big, and it kind of allows him to siphon off from their fan bases and build a large fan base of his own, and this is

a very effective tactic. Um he starts interfacing more directly with other chunks of the right wing UH information sphere, including Prager University UM, where he starts in a viral video called why I Left the Left UM and I'm gonna send you this clip. We're gonna start it at three minutes and twenty nine seconds, and you're gonna run it to four minutes in three seconds of that. Okay, lucky me. I know you're going to really be happy today.

I will say the minute you look him up on Google, his face, well, I know I say this maybe every time, but a very punchable face, a very very if you look a punchable face, that's what comes up. For these reasons, I can no longer call myself a progressive. I don't really call myself a democrat either. I'm a classical liberal, a free thinker, and as much as I don't like to admit it, defending my liberal values has suddenly become

a conservative position. So if you think people should be able to say what they think without being punished for it, that people should be judged by their behavior, not their skin color, and that people should be able to live the way that they want to live without government interference, then there's not much left on the left for you. Yeah, yeah, you get the idea. Yeah, that's the way he and the video is very successful. I don't know how many

views is that fucker have right now? Serene, Oh my god, it has over fourteen million views and two hundred and twelve thousand likes, and that has too many. All this to other with like having people like Ben Shapiro, Jordan Peterson, UM, and you know the kind of I d W intellectual dark web crowd on his show over the course of builds a huge brand for David Reuben UM. And again, the appeal is not Reuben himself, although I think he

probably thinks that it is. The appeal is that he has all these people who are really popular on and controversial, and he's willing to UM. He's willing to have conversations with all of these people. UM. And he he consistently refuses to identify his right wing, as he said in the video, he calls himself a classical liberal. He endorses a libertarian, not Trump at Steen. But in spite of this, he repeatedly agrees with far right talking points, even endorsing

banning Muslims from entering the United States. He has people like Mike Sernovich and Milo Yanopolis on his show, and Lauren Southern, who like went on his show and defended Richard Spencer, while he goes, uh huh, yeah, it's uh yeah, so much so. Yeah, his his episodes with these out and out fascists like Milo. We're ostensibly the civil debates that he claimed that he loved, but he never actually pushed back against any of these right wing folks like

not never. Um, So they're not really debates. They're just him platforming and agreeing with terrible people because he's terrible. Um. Even when, like Ben Shapiro, his quote unquote friend expressed the opinion that Ruben's very marriage is itself a moral because Ben Shapiro doesn't then gay people should get married. Rubens like doesn't. None of this provides any conflict for Dave Ruben because, as will become increasingly clear, he's never believed in a single thing in his entire life other

than Dave Ruben being famous and rich. I mean, that's not that's a huge that's a great point. It's never about the platform or the politics or anything. And it's all about ego and is never about anything but ego. And he's just doing everything he can possibly do to enslate his ego. And and it's just it's not money, it's not about standing up for anyone but himself, And I mean not even that he doesn't even stand for his own marriage. I wonder what his husband thought about that.

He talks about how dis agreements with jenk Or while he left the Young Turks, but also like the Young Turks were never gonna make him rich, Like I think they pay a living wage and he I'm sure he got a living wage. But you don't get rich working for those folks. I mean maybe Jenquez, but like that, you're not gonna get rich doing that gig. You can get rich, especially in two seen being a far right

YouTube group. And I mean the other thing about the Young Turks is that he would never be the main character. You know, he wants to be. He wants to be front and center, spotlight. He is not because it's about his ego, it's not by anything else. And the sad thing is he's still not the main character because he only has gained success by like attaching himself lamb prey like to more successful grifters. Um I'm gonna quote from

Business Insider here. Ruben's interviewing style is to rely on civility, which in practice serves as a platform for the guests to present their arguments unchallenged. But the idea seems to apply for only one side. In a two thousand nineteen interview within Democratic presidential candidate Mary Ann Williamson, Ruben scolded her for making what he called a slippery slope argument

and comparing the Holocaust slavery. Guests like far right provocateur Milu Unapolis, who said Jews control the banks and media, Stefan Mulineux, who said blacks have smaller brains than whites, and Lauren Southern, who defended Richard Spencer's white nationalism is distinct from white supremacism, whom Reuben later called fearless, were met with no pushback at all when making egregious statements on the Reuben Report. Oh my god, Wow, wow wait can you that was too much? My brain can all

of that? Yeah, it's a lot, right, because he's a piece of shit. He's just he's just garbage. Do you want to think about what you want to say while we take her quick? You know who's not garbage? You know who won't platform? Lauren Southern? Oh who products and services who support this podcast? Wow? No way, nice segue. We're bad. Got a little bit of good news before

we dive back into Dave Reuben Uh. Harvey Weinstein's lawyer just said that if not released, till die in prison with the picture of him on a walker, which is like, okay, don't threaten me with a good time, bro, Like I don't. I actually hate the idea of incarceration effectively used as a death penalty. But also, I'm not going to I'm not gonna. I'm not gonna. I'm not gonna use any of my fox that I have to give on fucking

Harvey Weinstein right now. You know what I'll promise, for the sake of intellectual consistency, if we deal with thirty or forty thousand more pressing problems, I will care about that. Injustice yeah, yeah, I mean down the line. Maybe yeah, sure we we we take care of a few tenth and problems. Deal with climate change, you know, stop the rise of fascism. Reform the criminal justice systems, the black men stop getting murdered by cops, and indigenous people stop

getting murdered by cops. Uh. In the war on drugs, release everybody with a drug related conviction. Um, you know, we we get all that done. Um, then I'll be like, yeah, we should. We should make sure Harvey, you know, dies in a two bedroom apartment that is comfortable. It also keeps him isolated from the rest of humanity rather than locking him in a torturous cell. Um, I'll get on board that. I don't know. I think I would still, uh, we might disagree on this. I don't. I think he

maybe should die. I think I would. I think you don't know. I'm not willing to endorse him dying in prison, but I will have a long argument with you about whether or not he should die in prison while he's dying in prison, and then if he happens to die in prison while we're trying to come to an accord. Oh, oh, that's a good point. Okay, wait, okay, I see what Okay, I see, I see I initial uh my anger got the better of me. But yeah, you're right. I think

I think you're completely right. I think justice needs to be served in a better way than just him disintegrating in a prison cell. I think he and um Paul Manafort. I think he and Paul Manafort should have to inhabit a small apartment in Keegan and Citrus a day. Oh my god, why seeing the Manafort roommates. I would watch that reality show and they can be the only ones picking citrus on whatever farm they're on, because neither of them can be allowed to talk to people other than

each other. Yeah, two old monsters grifting each other and picking lemons all day, entertaining to think about it is okay, So we're back to We're back to Dave Reuben de Rube Drew Um. So yeah, I'm gonna quote here from his rite up in Rational WEEKI about sort of how all of his positions changed is in as it became

very profitable to be a right wing grifter. Of course, Rubin reversed his earlier stance on self regulation in the economy, saying on a two thousand eighteen episode of The Joe Rogan Show that he wanted major d regulation and greater self regulation after saying it never works. In addition, he showed an ever expanding devotion to bringing in controversial right wing figures, including those with sympathies to causes of objectivist style libertarianism and people with far right views on topics

on his show In the Name of Free Speech. One such figure is to Fawn mal Aneux. Note for both objectivist stances as well as reactionary attitudes to women's rights, given his openly negative view of women as well as molanne support of racialist perspectives. He's a Nazi. Uh. When he does invite guests on the left now, it's usually only to complain about regressivism, which is his favorite word.

That the left is regressive um, which he you know, fights against by partnering with people on the regressive right. I guess. So Ruben's pivot has made him into a wealthy man. His YouTube channel has well over two million subscribers. Again, he works for one of the foundations or whatnot that he gets funding for is funded itself by the Koke Brothers um and traditionally shady thing. Yeah, he gets coke

money as if he that's a nineteen. He's hosted by Glenn Beck's The Blaze Network, and all of this has made him a very wealthy man. He bought a five million dollar house in the Hollywood Hills like a year or so very recently. Yeah, all of this has caused on a Casparian, his former colleague and friend at the Young Turks, to call him a lazy fraud who wanted quote to make a six figure salary to host a thirty minute a week show. Despite herself in her colleagues

working twelve hour days for far less. She reiterated that he's sold out to corporate America by pointing out he's received money from the Koke Brothers and alleges that he has no true political identity. He's not an honest actor, nor an intellectual, just a fraud plane and simple. Yeah,

that's pretty pretty accurate. And she was she she was his friend, um, which has to be a bumb It's like weird to work with someone on a very left wing platform and then only see the sea like swap over to the other side simply because it's more lucrative and I don't know, attention grabby, because then it just proves they were never about any type of cause. Like she's right, Like he doesn't have any political opinions. He's

just he's just an attention horror. And that reminds me to throw in a plug for my new uh nightly show on Fox News, Robert Evans Left Bad, which I will be recording from the private island that I bought with my signing botus Robert Evans Left Bad. Yeah, that's you could come up with wing Bad over and over again and playing clips of Antifa looking scary. Um, I've made seventy million dollars already. You don't think about it

at all. Bad I hated so much. If you're going to be a right wing grifter, you can't think at all about what you're doing. Just I mean, I speak for the listeners. We expect better, Robert, You're not my listeners anymore. A bunch of frightened elderly people watching Fox News are going to be my listeners now, and all I have to tell them is that the left wing is bad. Why would it not be behind the left bastards? That's too complicated a title, way too complicated a type.

Robert Evans left bad. I'm just gonna left. How about left equals bad? That it's getting it's getting worse, So let's move on. So there are thankfully some signs that Dave's ride to the top maybe nearing an end. Much of his fame and his fan base were developed due to his close relationship to members of the Intellectual Dark Web. He was often seen as the group's hype man, and in fact, he acted as the hype man for Jordan

Peterson during The Professor's World tour. After the release of his book Twelve Rules for Life, like he would introduce him at shows and stuff and terrible terrible sets um. But in recent months, the intellectual dark Web has kind of faded into a subcultural memory. Don't talk so much about those guys these days. They've become less wrong. Why is that? Like? How have they made that possible? Like? How have they made them themselves? Truly fade away into

the background while still existing. The intellectual Dark webs whole goal was to kind of provide do you know what parachuting is? Remind me, Well, there's a couple of ways to do it. But one of them is you put like a bunch of drugs that you're going to take and like a little a packet of something and swallow it so that it dissolves slowly in your in your stomach, and it's kind of a way to avoid the nasty flavor and to get maybe a longer high. Let's parachuting.

Do you repeat that? I'm going to take some notes. Okay, yeah, so okay, like the intellectual Dark Web, we're kind of parachuting fascism into our culture by like wrapping it up in um uh, like just asking questions and the other kind of ships did it. But they did it. That they did it and now they're not is relevant anymore. Like that's Shapiro it uh in a way what they wanted they like, it's I think they just wanted to

be famous and prominent intellectuals. Um. But the problem is that now it's moved beyond them, and the right is represented by a mix of the president and a bunch of gun toting um howling violent fascists and people like

Ben Shapiro. Um. Yeah, I don't have nearly as much cultural like cash as they used to have because things have moved far beyond them, um, And things have moved far beyond guys like like obviously, Ruben's biggest break was his his friendship and his relationship to Jordan Peterson, and Jordan Peterson's brain melted this year. Um and his daughter first subjected him to experimental Russian drug addiction therapy and then gave him covid. Um, So he's not he's not

really someone that Dave can cash in on anymore. Yeah. You and all meat diet would do something to your body. Yeah, I think that was even know if that's what did it? Like, it's just in general, Yeah, Uh. Dave have been also had kind of failed during his maximum period of expansion to really have any actual Like A bunch of left wing folks kept asking him to debate like and he would never say yes, and he would actually regularly block them um when they argued with him, because he actually

hates debate UM, so he doesn't. He's kind of locked himself into this position where the acceptable ideological spectrum of discussion in his show gets narrower and narrower every day. Um, and he can't really bring in new blood and the thing that he the what was once a fertile field for a guy like him, which is kind of like, I hate the left now. I'm not a right winger. I'm a classical liberal. Like, listen to me. As things

have gotten more polarized, nobody gives a shit about that anymore. Um, or at least people give less shits about it than they used to. Uh. And I actually found a write up in medium from one of his former fans, um who is still really a big fan of guys like Ben Shapiro and Sam Harris and Dr Jordan B. Peterson um, but who has gotten bored with Dave Rubin lately and I want to end this chunk of the episode with

a quote on from that. I say this as someone who genuinely admires people like Sam Harris and even what conservatives like Ben Shapiro have to say in two thousand nineteen, the Reuben Report is only concerned with the same handful of repetitive topics. Criticism of social justice warriors, political correctness, and student coddling on university campuses is all well and good, but it has reached the point of at nauseum with

Dave Reuben. I would further argue that outside of niche internet political circles, the vast majority of people in daily life are hardly concerned with these subjects to begin with. After the eighth or ninth Softball Question interview with the right leaning guest on dunking on blue haired gender studies, majors working at Starbucks, and other blase conservative talking points, I eventually decided that listening to the Reuben Report every

week was hardly the best use of my time. And this dude who was a fan of his, got blocked by Dave for like arguing very politely with him on Twitter because again Dave's little fragile fragile little baby. Yeah, both fragile fragile man ego. So that's a little overview of day Rube Drew. Yeah, but time to make fun of him now it is it's time to it's time to look into his terrible book. Um, don't burn this book, I think the first psychology because now all I want

to do is burn his book. Oh see, I don't care about his book that much too, but I also just like to burn things. Maybe I should preface that. I like, yeah, I mean I do enjoy a good fire. Yeah, And the book is like the cover is don't burn this book in big letters sub heading thinking for Yourself in an Age of unreasoned And there's a big match on the book. Um, and we're going to do the thing we always do where we we buy the book and then refunded as soon as we finish. Here. I'm

surprised his face is it on the cover? Uh? Yeah, so am I. It has like a jacket quote from Dr Jordan B. Peterson, which I guess must be one of the last things Dr Jordan B. Peterson did before his his brain melted down. Um yeah whatever, Um yeah, so his there's a fun quote in here. From his publisher writes that in a time of madness, the book will give you the tools you need to think for yourself, which is very funny for for Dave Reuben to say

considering to think for yourself. He's never thought. He just lets other people spew their thought vomit out on his show, and then he nods unless they're on the left, in which based disagrees shallowy yeah yeah. And a representative passage from the book before we get into it reads, I want you to walk into a bar and order a full bodied opinion. I want you to get absolutely wasted on facts until three am, and then when you're just about ready to pass out, I want you to get

another glass of reality and chug it. See how funny that is the comedy he's like reading drunk on knowledge? Well yeah, and it's not even like the funny version of that, Like you could do a funny version of that where it's like, I want people to be well informed. I want people to get wasted on the facts. I want you to be shipping on the floor of your aunt's apartment with knowledge. Yeah exactly. But David, I'm sure when he read that back he was like, fuck, yeah, man, Yeah,

I'm comedy, Yeah, genius. Yeah, it's I don't know, like it's he's bad. Anyway, let's look into his book, shall we.

I actually want to start by reading so I told you he's given a couple of different versions of the story of like why he finally left the left, and you know it started with his like the the what seems to be the fact is that he had a bunch of disagreement with jenk about his support of Israel over Palestine, and like that led to other disagreements and he was just kind of a pain in the s

to work with. Um. But in his book, Reuben gives a very different story and he claims that, like his his break with the left started in two thousand sixteen, which we know it happened much earlier, but this makes it is kind of a better story. And it was during an interview with Larry Elder, who was a conservative talk radio a black conservative talk radio guy, UM and a very experienced talk radio guy. UM and Ruben used the phrase systemic racism. UM and Elder challenge him and

rallied off. You know, he did the thing that like you can do if two people who aren't good at debating about something like this and like give off anecdotes about individual incidents of police brutality that were misreported, or talk about black on black crime, um, which you know, ignores the fact that white people commit the most crimes against white people, and ignores the fact that, like, no, there's actually quite a bit of like, well, yes, there

are misreported cases of police brutality. There's a lot of documentation about like because Ruben doesn't do research because he's dumb um, or at least because he's a bad researcher, or at least because he's dishonest, he had nothing, like

he had nothing to say against this or anything like that. Yeah, And so he claims that like this interview with Elder is what changed his his his opinion, which is like why, Um, it's a smart move for him to try to pull I guess he did it a little bit late, but like he has to kind of rewrite that history because sixteen is such an inflection point politically. Um. And because this way he can u he can claim that like, no, it was like a conservative black man and who like

pulled me, a gay man away from the left. So I wanted to I wanted to clarify something that I said up top about white guilt and queerness, because this is perfectly proves my point is that when some um people that are already marginalized, like if you're a white gay man, like you could argue that you're already marginalized, so you don't have to examine how your whiteness is

still problematic. And so I'm sure I'm sure there's an element of that as far as um kind of using a black man to like prove his point, like like like like like help his story along because um, like in his mind like I'm more, I'm also marginalized, like I'm not. I'm not like other white people, like I understand. Um. So I don't know if that makes sense. That's that

kind of yeah, it does. And he definitely does this thing where like he one of the things he rails against the most in his show as identity politics, but he also focused on like, well, I'm a game, and and I think that's what he uses it to only

prove backwards points when really he's not. He's using it as a crutch to not examine how his whiteness is the main like a huge point of his privilege and especially because he is able to uh pass as like presuming like he's he's not someone that would get ostracized in society by looking at him kind of thing. Um, And so I think there's also privilege in passing uh.

And I think he really uses a sexuality as as the worst kind of weapon against actual marginalized people, which is so upsetting, and it's so upsetting for the gay community and like in general, because Ah, I don't know just that that kind of um, that that brand of of whiteness is really upsetting to me. Yeah, it's it's very frustrating, all of it's very frustrating. And the way in which he kind of cashes in on look a black man agrees with me about the left, like is

very gross and he his book is very silly. Um. So I'm going to read from kind of the end of the introduction here where he lists first off, the greatest contemporary thinkers in the world, which includes Jordan Peterson, Sam Harris, Bim Shapiro, Thomas Soul, Dennis Praeger, Brett Weinstein Ion here see Ali Christina hoff Summers, who did a documentary about the men's rights movement, and of course Peter Teal famed, famed greatest intellectual in the world, Peter Teal.

Yoh yeah, they all. I mean, I guess we know where some of that money is coming from. Huh. Parody. Yeah, he is like a parody. Everyone who tries to be an intellectual on the far right is like a parody of a smart guy. Um. Yeah, they too came out of the political closet and helps me to see that tribalism is dead and that diversity of thought is far more important than diversity for its own sake. We need

diversity of thought. We don't. It doesn't matter like if we if everybody is white, as long as they think different things, we can have a like god damn it. Yeah. Yeah, that's one step away from like I don't see color. But there's a good different. There's like a different, that's what he's saying. Yeah. Yeah. He brands his book is a tin step guide for political authenticity and promises in it you'll learn how to embrace your wake up call. It's the catalyst that brought you to do these pages

in the first place. I think freely or Die. You'll get a much needed crash course and classically liberal principles that stand the test of time, YadA, YadA, YadA, YadA, and then freely die. Stop worrying about whether you're a Nazi.

Oh my god, no, you're joking. That is not real. No, that is a that isn't that that isn't truly if I was writing a parody book about some right wing nut that wrote a book about Oh my god, stop worrying if you're no. Yeah, yeah, stop worrying about being a Nazi, because that's that's clearly like, if you keep getting called a Nazi, don't analyze whether or not you're doing Nazi ship, just except that, like that, it means nothing to be called a Nazi. That like you basically

shouldn't even consider for a second. Yeah. Yeah, it's like, don't worry if someone calls you a racist. You're fine, Like, don't worry. Fine, yeah, declared you fine. Yeah, check your facts, not your privilege. Don't tell me this book did well. If this book did well, I'm I don't think truly signing off. Yeah, I think I don't know. I think it did. It did Okay, I don't think it was like a giant national bestseller. Um let's see here. Um, you can probably pull that up pretty fast. Oh it's new.

It's like it was like universally politically panned. Yeah, I didn't realize it. Yeah, its a woke machine from outrage. Oh my god, I can't read the Yeah, I know, it's it's incredibly frustrating. Um yeah, I mean it's not great. It came out not that long ago. It's like number almost five thousand in Barnes and Noble. It's like thirty or fifty and Amazon. Like if I don't think it's yeah, I mean you have your friends all like it. It's not. It has not been, you know, the giant success that

I think he hoped it would. They were hoping it would like like, clearly this book is angled at like converting a bunch of people to the right. Uh, and I don't think it did that. Um yeah, stop hating America the Western straight white men. One of the motivations you'll have to stand up against the mob is that you'll love your country, the straight white men within it,

and Western values in general. In fact, you'll know that America isn't perfect, nor can any nation ever be, but that she has granted more people more freedoms than any other country in the history of the world. You'll also know that straight white men aren't evil, it's actually racist and sexist to believe so. And that Western values are rooted in individual rights at the cornerstone of free societies.

And again this is like he talks about how you have to have your facts straight and going to debate with facts, but of course he doesn't like do that with this where number one, uh, nobody in any sort of prominent position anywhere on the left is saying that straight white men are evil. They're saying that, like the concept of whiteness is fundamentally toxic and we need to reorient our societies away from it. And also the idea that Western values rooted in individual rights are the cornerstoins

of free society ignores a couple of things. You wanted to list a couple of those things in the in the seventeen seventies, when the British conquered India and then starved between thirty and forty million people to death in order to maximize the profits of the British East India Company,

that was not rooted in individual rights. Was it not super into rooted in individual rights when like the European powers took over basically the entire Middle East and partitioned it up without asking any of the people who lived in the former Ottoman Empire where they wanted to live in the psychs Pico Agreement, and then forced a lot of them under dictators in order to maximize oil revenue. That was not, like, you know, super respectful of individual rights.

When the United States had Salvadora Inde assassinated or a lot of other leaders assassinated in Central America and then back death squads through the schools of the America, killing hundreds of thousands of people in leading to mass rape campaigns, including the burning alive of numerous nuns, that was also

not rooted in respect for individual rights. Um, you might say, Western values have never been rooted in individual rights and have instead been rooted in plundering the rest of the world for the wealth of the West, who get to have individual rights as long as they don't criticize the plundering of the world anyway, fun, David Reuben, I brought some facts, Dave, Um, we can talk about those if you want. I'll go on your show. He'll never He'll

never agree to any type of back and forth. He would just expose him right, Like, okay, but I will say I, Um, I'm skimming through these reviews on Amazon want to throw up or they're they're overwhelmingly positive. I'm sure he must have bought some of them. I refused to believe this. Many idiots exists in the world. But there's this really long one um that's near that is basically a five star review. This book can change your life.

It talks about how he used to be. He used to call himself a feminist, and how feminist in his own life canceled him because of arguments about the crime of rape. And oh boy, I wonder what those arcuments were. God, well, I can continue if you're curious. Yeah, please, I want to know what this guy. I want to I want to know this Dave Reuben fans hot take on rapes. Well, okay, this is like the third or four of the fourth

paragraph down of this essay review. It says, Um, the first line of it is I had never heard of David Reuben when I was fan of the Young Turks, and while I still called past tense, I called myself a feminist. Um, feminists in my own life canceled me for numerous reasons or attempted to in parentheses. One of the arguments was over the crime of rape, as in rape is a heinous crime that has best practices for prevention and resistance, just like preventing and resisting the crime

of murder, where men number upon its primary victims. The audacity that one would talk about preventing rape as if the solution is not to simply tell men to rape less. We have laws against such things, and these simple schoolmarm admonition, surprise don't work on rapists. This got me canceled by more people that I can count, including one person. Um well, I had the displeasure of seeing introduced Sam Harris and

Richard Dawkins for one of their gatherings. By this time, I had taken a major dose of the red I had a major dose of the red pill, and I was taking some type of comfort. Was I crazy? Could I be literally Hitler? Because I dare think outside literally it's like this bockstep enter David Reuben and how this man changed his life. Um, oh my god. People for the most part aren't called I. I don't believe people have been calling him literally Hitler for his controversial stance

on rape. I think they've been like dude, what the funk? Like why are you so adamant about arguing with everybody about rape? And like like what is wrong with you? Oh my god? So apparently he dedicated the book to Ben Affleck. Is that Dave Ruben did. That's what Chad says that Amazon, it's that real. That seems like it's got to be a joke. Um, I have to look to double check this big Oh it is it is for Ben Affleck. I'm sure that's some sort of joke

that we don't get because we don't watch this terrible show. Um, I don't know. That's horrible. Well, no, it's not fun Ben Affleck. Like I don't think Ben Affleck believes anything other than having a gigantic, hideous tattoo of a phoenix on his back, which, in fairness to Ben Affleck, is more of a commitment than Dave of Reuben has ever made to anything controversial. Like, like, you gotta give Affleck credit. It is not a cowardly decision to have the tattoo

that he has. That is a commitment that that is a type of person you are going to be. Anything else, let alone the tattoo itself. I will say, I'm not an Affleck fan. The only thing that Affleck that I respect Affleck four is I think it was like a twenty fourteen or something. But I dislike Bill Maher a lot.

I know he's a piece of ship. I hate Bill mar Yeah, but when he was on his show and Bill Maher was being his regular slamophobic self, Bill or Ben Affleck uh fought back against him on his show and he was like one of the only commentators on the stage that was like really upset or something and like fought back pretty hard. So I really respected him

for that reason. But regular person I Yeah, I will say of Ben Affleck, and this is actually my favorite thing about Ben Affleck is that he looks like a man who committed that, despite his fame and despite being classically handsome most of the time, uh, and despite like the legions of adoring fans he's had throughout aspects of his career, he committed to never not being the kind of guy who would throw empty cans of steel reserve at his television at four in the morning. And that's

what his back tattoo represents. Like riding out, rising out of the ashes, yeah, and then hooking a steel reserve can at the television because he's angry at it. That's Ben Affleck. And I will say I don't find him attractive in the slightest but um no, But clearly he must have to someone, right, he had that whole career

who made him batman whatever apparently he is. He he takes some boxes for some people, but people want to Ben Affleck and that's like, is this classic example of white men just needing to be above a certain height to be considered attractive? In my opinion, this was just turned into a Ben Affleck stand podcast? Stand no Stand. I mean, I can't think of a single movie he's been in where I actually cared about his his his

his appearance at all. But I love the pictures of him like shirtless and out of shape, drunk and staring out at things. And I will say, yeah, theres something tragically beautiful about that. Yeah, I I admire that greatly because I have that energy myself a lot of the time, just like funk this ship. I'm going to drink a forty and someone else's trash can. Yeah, it's amazing. We're talking about Ben Affleck right now because Dave Rubens sucks so bad that we're all thinking like a Ben Affleck.

There's a person that I didn't keep to him, so it is that is kind of interesting. You know what's better than Dave Reuben and a more honest intellectual thinker than Dave Reuben exactly Ray Theon. Well, Dave Reuben vacillates and you know, refuses to commit and and just lets fascists talk over him and platforms them. Ray Theon doesn't platform anybody. They just build missile guidance systems that kill people in Yemen. And you know what I don't have.

Let's roll the rest of the ads. Okay, we're back, and speaking of backs, I spent the ad break looking at that picture of Ben afflecks unbelievable back tattoo, which I I at no point in my life will I ever have had enough of realizing that in everything Ben Affleck has ever done, that's been underneath his shirt all the time. You han't escape it. You can't escape it. All right, let's leave read what Dave Reuben has to

say about drugs. I've done a pretty decent amount of drugs in my day, which is a sign that someone's either done no drugs or only done cocaine. Um yeah, I've smoked pots, snorted coke, eating magic mushrooms, I've danced poorly on ecstasy, and probably a couple of other things. These days, I'm a red wine and Indica guy, But I don't deny my past. Actually I have some great memories of it. Yeaha YadA, YadA, YadA. Okay, calls magic

mushrooms magic mushrooms, has never done shrooms. Um yeah, yeah, Okay, So he's talking, he's doing like a standard libertarian thing about how like it's we should just legalize this stuff, which is fine, Like it's the standard libertarian thing you've got to go through. Um YadA, YadA, YadA, um okay. The catches that this libertarian inspired view falls apart when it starts to include Schedule one substances such as crack

and heroin, which are obviously very different. Beast crack is just cocaine, like David, crack is just a form of cocaine.

You're just criminalized the version that you think black people tend to do, like he he has no idea about the history of crack and why it's called crack and willing Yeah, like I don't know, man, Like what a but no, these are the drugs that need that need the lightest possible touch of government to to to criminalize them, because freedom can't be a free for all, he writes, um, and we don't want a breaking bad episode happening next

or well, if methamphetamine, we're saying, manufactured by the government in the way that certain schedule women arcotics are in parts of Europe, and we're distributed to people who need like take it. Uh and, and you know that we're like a thing that they could do and get a get a consistent product and not have to deal with drug dealers. Then maybe there wouldn't be as much street crime. And maybe because they're going into like government facilities where

there's nurses and stuff, people could actually get healthcare. Uh and and hopefully eventually get off of meth which is how they've treated heroin addiction very successfully in parts of Scandinavia. But like Dave again, the guy who talks about coming armed with facts doesn't he just talks about how okay, So he talks about how bad and scary San Francisco

is because of meth and opiates. Um, And that's his that's why the government needs to criminalize those drugs is because San Francisco is scary, and which is like I grew up in Dallas, dude, Like there's parts of Dallas like like San Francisco has got its sketchy like neighborhoods largely because there's just a lot of houseless people who the local city government and like the Nimbi type rich folks don't want to help. But like fucking hang out

in Dallas or fucking Atlanta or like a whole every city. Yeah, anyone that calls San Francisco scary has lived a very privileged life, to say the least. It's it's yeah, it's a mix of like what they consider scary. Like right, it's in in a lot of the Deep South, you deal with more meth shacks. In San Francisco, you're more likely to find needles on the ground. But it's like, yeah, all of them are symptoms of the fact that our

society has serious problems. It's not the fault of the actual individual substances, because we know that that's not how society has failed so many people. And yeah, and it's just not the fault of those people as the fault of a society at large. But then making you sound like they're the reasons why a city is scary that is so problematic. Yeah, it's the whole. It's the whole.

Like the Dave's whole argument basically is that, like I think the drugs that white people do should be legal, um, of course, or the at least that I see white people doing should be legal. Um. So yeah, this whole section is basically him explaining why, like if you support things like gay marriage, uh and and uh that kind

of stuff. Uh, you're you're you're a classical liberal like him. Um, although you should, you should still support people who are caught with heroin or meth being put in prison rather than receiving treatment because San Francisco scary. Um. Dave Reuben is a is a consistent guy. Oh god, Okay, here's his views on abortion. Um. Before this process started, I'd always been solidly pro choice, though in the last two years or so, I've begun to describe myself as begrudgingly

pro choice. After you're learning more about the biology of gestation in the process of abortion and seeing the left fetishize it in a way I'm not comfortable with their countless videos on YouTube of women celebrating their termination, while organizations says to shout your abortion encourages Twitter users to do the same with carefree abandoned. Okay, I sorry, I saw vomiting when you said the word gestation. Yeah yeah,

it's it's him. It's him. Number one, Like willfully misunderstanding, like the difference between people being like, hey, you shouldn't be ashamed if you've had an abortion. People need to be more open about that fact so that like they there's less storm around it. Like you're not saying like, yeah, I love the fact that I got an abortion. It's fun. Let's go get another. Nobody like enjoys that process. But there's no shame in it. That's the whole point of

that ship. Yeah. Yeah, it's just the things that you're normalizing, Like talking about it and being open about it makes it less of a taboo and makes it less less of something that you feel shame around. It's not about being crowd that you terminate a pregnancy. It's about normalizing even seeking it out, and so it's not the shameful

taboo topic. It's this thing that conservatives keep doing with like should they do with sex education too, where like if you're if you're in favor of like kids getting better sex education, then you're in favor of sexualizing children's like, like, you shouldn't even be telling kids that like sex is good or bad. You should just be explaining very simply what it is, how it works, how their bodies work, Like it should be. It should be like learning about

the fucking Falkland's invasion or whatever. It should be just another fucking class like, this is your body, this is how it works, this is how this all like. You're not nobody's sexualizing kids should just it's sexy. It should not be this thing we only talked about behind closed doors, like normalizing talking about it starts. It should start very young, and it should start just as an educational thing. And conservatives make everything about be like they just twisted They

twist it so strangely. Yeah, all right, this is a terrible book. Let's move down to the fucking Nazi. Okay, I want to see some of these guys. Don't worry, You're not a Nazi. Don't worry, you're not a Nazi. That's what someone says, he is a Nazi. Congratulations, I have fantastic news. You are not a Nazi. You may be wondering how I know this, considering we've probably never met. But trust me, I know what's vitally going forward is

that you know this too. You don't know David. He's like making a sound like if you're reading his book, you're a good person. You're smart enough to not be you bought this book by me? Yeah yeah, yeah, Okay. So he goes into how like Nazis were actually socialists. Uh, people have totally rewritten history on the matter. No they haven't. They just understand that it was like a branding sort of thing, and that there was a left wing of the Nazi Party that all got murdered in the Night

of Long Knives. That's what that was, David, was the left wing of the Nazi Party all getting killed. But again, none of these people have ever oh yeah, he twitters. Or he talked about how Hitler was on the left because he was an art loving vegetarian um and that he wooed voters away from Germany Social Democrat and comings most of hit like the core Hitler support came from the German conservatives. I'm pretty sure, like the monarchists in

the right wing. But okay, like again just completely uh completely, and like, here's okay, so this is funny. So he talks about how Mussolini also has to have clearly come up from been a left wing guy because he started out as a left wing journalist, which is true. Mussolini was initially a socialist and a left winger like Dave Ruben. Then he became a fascist like Dave Ruben. You know, glossed over that fact. Oh cool. He just talks about how real Nazis hated gays and Jews to the point

of mass extermination of them, and which is true. Nazis killed a lot of gay people. Let's talk about Ernst Rome. You've heard of the brown Shirts, right, yes, yeah, they were Hitler's street by his proud boys. These are guys who go out in the street like murder left wing activists. They were his like his enforcers, the like violent arm

of the Nazi electoral movement. The head of the s A, the head of the brown Shirts, was in a flamboyantly and fairly openly gay man named Ernst Rome, who was caught when Hitler decided he had to kill him because the Nazis had gained power and they wanted to purge the left in Rome was an embarrassment because he was gay. Uh. They found him at like a giant orgy at a castle with a bunch of his like his boy toys and stuff, and he like he like the Nazis had

a ton of Game members early on. They killed them all after they got into power, which might be a warning to fucking Dave Reuben, like when you truck with these people who hate you, they will use you while you're valuable for them to get in power, and then they'll put you in a camp or just have you shoot yourself in a prison. David actually read some history. He's like mapping out his own demise exactly. Yeah, these

people are very frustrating. And I that he that he said that Hitler was on the left because he was art loving vegetarian. He just basically called him a hipster, right, Like it's like, I don't know, it's just like the weirdest thing to be, like to prove a point. Yeah. Uh. He does point out that someone on Twitter said Dave Reuben isn't a Nazi, it's just that he'd sit across from Himler and say interesting a lot, which is actually

a pretty accurate. Yeah, it's good stuff. I can't believe he's so he's that idiotic to not realize that he people will he can only go so far with the stick. I feel like, yeah, yeah, and it it does seem like he's kind of, um, he's running to the end of his grif. Now he did get very rich. We'll see how much long that last and how long he's able to like carry some of this ship for um. But I don't think he's going to have super long career after this, because, like especially if hopefully things go

well in the election. I mean, we'll fucking see. Um. But even now, like with Trump and power, like as always happens to these guys, he has rapidly lost influence because Dave Rubin was only ever valuable as a vehicle to like push these far right thinkers, just like all

the other intellectual dark web guys. And now that it's become mainstream to just openly call for the executions of your political opponents in the installation of a dictatorship among the right, there's not a whole lot of need for classical liberals, you know, I don't know, we'll see, maybe we're wrong. I hope not. I hope you're right. I mean I trust, I trust your instincts Um. I hope this is the last time I'll ever have to talk

about him. Um. But yeah, garbage man. Yeah, he's trash and I think we're done talking about him, but I don't want to Await. Sorry, I insulted actual people that work as garbageman. That's all what I meant. Oh no, no garbageman or awesome. Yeah, no, one of the most important jobs in the entire civilization. Yeah, he is a man made of garbage. Yes, that's what I meant. He's like a pile of trash. He's not a garbage man.

A garbage man would remove him to a dump and thus carry out an incredibly necessary role in modern civilization, an active service to help us all. Yeah, thank you garbagemen and women and non binary garbage people of all sorts. Yeah. I just wanted to clarify and before someone jumped on me saying that term. Yeah, nothing but love for garbage people here, but not people made of garbage. We're gonna need to work on some of the language here, but

that that can happen later. Sharine, you got any pluggables to plug, pluggables to plug? Well, you can follow me along the interwebs if you want, I'm Shiro here instagram s h E E R O H. And then on Twitter it's Shiro Heroix six. Um. Yeah, and I have a podcast called Ethinically Ambiguous, and I'm writing a second poetry book. My first one is out there somewhere. Um. But yeah, I am trying to work on more films. So if you want to see what I come up with,

follow me along if you want. And if you don't I get it, well follow follow Sharine. Uh. And what I don't know. I was gonna have a joke, but I don't. I don't have a joke. I don't have a joke to in this on make your own fucking jokes people, What do you think I owe you a joke right now just because you listen to my episode. I'm sorry, I'm getting abusive now, and that's not Think back to the image, Robert, Think back to the beach.

The tattoo. Yeah, fucking ben Affleck bent over belly spilling out, giant phoenix tattoo on his back and a fortius steel reserve in his hands. Just the saddest man who's ever lived. God, I love him, Robert, you kind of went Robert Evans Left Bad. There's that. Oh yeah, well yeah, and watch me on Fox News for my new show, Left Equals Bad. Um filmed on my private island that I bought with

the eighty million dollars they gave me. Um yeah yeah, those flight logs better watch out, well, listen not, we don't need to talk about Okay, episodes done