Dark Humour for Dark Times: Ben Bankas - podcast episode cover

Dark Humour for Dark Times: Ben Bankas

Mar 15, 20261 hr 32 min
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Summary

Ben Bankas discusses the challenges faced by offensive comedians in today's cancel culture, particularly in Canada, where "woke" ideology and government-funded venues suppress free speech. He contrasts this with America's more resilient comedy scene and critiques the left's "anti-humor" stance. Bankas argues for a more aggressive political approach from the right and emphasizes personal success as a powerful form of protest, sharing his hope for Canada's future despite widespread brainwashing and cultural decline.

Episode description

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Transcript

Comedy, Offense, and Free Speech

This whole idea that you don't feel safe because somebody's making jokes is so dangerous for society. Some guy was trying to get people to call the police during the show to have me arrested for hate speech. One of my audience members told me that her union, teachers union, sent her an email saying not to attend my show. Imagine an email going out to a company or an organization saying, Please do not attend this dragtime story hour.

Improving your own life will do more for the country than marching around with a sign trying to get a comedy show canceled. Be successful, start a business, clean your room. Clean your room. And I sound like a parent, but the right needs to parent the left. Your universities are incredibly prestigious. You've got literally everything. They've all been infiltrated. All the universities are infiltrated by

China. We need to make the gay people in charge of the country and then fill the country with money. Yeah. Welcome to Trigonometry. Thank you so much for having me. Oh man, it's awesome. You are absolutely blowing up. We were just talking before we started. The reason we really like your stuff, A is you're very, very funny. Just very funny. But also I think you're very authentic with the voice that you represent, which is like a lot of comedians who do offensive material.

they play that sort of like guilty liberal card. It's like, well, you know, I you know, I'm not woke, but I'm also not that other evil thing. Whereas you embrace the evil. What are we talking? Ricky Jabet? No. I d think he stays out of politics. But you know what I mean, right? Yeah. No, he takes good pictures of his cat. I um We're starting strong here. I like it. I mean, look, I I I say things that I think of and that's what the art form is and there are things that I would say to

Probably my mom, if she was still alive and she w to make her laugh, I would you know, growing up, my mom had a pretty dark sense of humor. She was a high school teacher, thirty five years in Scarborough, Ontario, which is a A little bit of a rough suburb of of Toronto and

She always ha you know, there was always things happening at her school, you know, robberies and murders and Um, she had a student shoot somebody in the in a bus with a sawed off shotgun on on the w you know, and it was a kid that she had just thrown out of her class like a week before and So she you know, she saw stuff and she had a real life and and you know, her p like she was born nineteen forty eight, so right after the war and stuff.

So I always made jokes about whatever I wanted at home. There was never a a line, you know, maybe if it was really bad joke my mom would go, oops. But that's what comedy is. Sometimes it is y you you're making somebody laugh and they're going, Stop, that's not the right time. But when it's on a stage and the people have paid for it. It is the right time. And I don't believe in

censoring myself, especially on stage. Sometimes I'll I make the joke with my audience. I'll make a really bad joke and be like, not posting that one. And then you post it. And then I post it. Yeah. No, no, I don't. Some some I mean, some of my my worst stuff is not being posted yet because it's for the audience to come and pay and

The Politics of Cancellation in Canada

See, you said I believe in free speech, I believe in speech for pay. Well, you got into uh trouble, uh, if you can say it that way, with your stuff about ice, right? Um What was your take on on the whole ICE thing? I mean as I mean I'm I'm Canadian, so I'm an immigrant.

I think we need to get rid of these people. I don't know. I don't know what to say. It's the same thing in Canada. Canada does not have ICE. I think the number is now around four hundred thousand people waiting for deportation who've had or more. Maybe there's millions, but officially I think there's four or five hundred thousand in Canada. There's no ICE, there's no deporting those people. They are they just get a notice and they're supposed to self deport and that's not good for the country.

to just have a bunch of illegal I mean, right now they in Canada has I R G C members and and stuff in the country and you know, during the like the Canada's becoming a safe haven for uh uh you know uh s IRGC members. I mean, is that a good thing? I don't think so. So I I think that I I believe in s a safe I wanna have a safe, healthy, beautiful country, whether it's Canada, America, wherever I'm living, I want it to be beautiful and amazing and And the people who are pro or anti ice.

are also in favor of letting people out of jail for committing serious crimes and um, you know, giving money to illegal immigrants. It's it's it I I just don't know how I can be in in favor of that stuff. But you didn't get in trouble for that. You got in trouble for a joke about ICE, right? Yeah. Something to do with Renee Good? Yeah. Yeah, I made a joke about it right when it happened and

You know, it was it was very funny for my audience. And the people who are upset, of course they're gonna be upset, you know. They but they canceled a bunch of your shows, right? Is that what happened? No. This is interesting. There's a lot of people are like, are your shows all getting canceled? No, not at all. I mean, we had shows in Minnesota ha got canceled because

There was an active riot. And I mean, I should have canceled it myself. People were like, you should maybe not go. Like people were worried about me. And the venue canceled because I mean, they said it was y for safety reasons. The real reason is they were liberal. And the people who ran the business were liberals. So even though Democrats because they believe in like communism now,

They don't care about making money. So it's like, oh, six sold out shows six sold out shows, we'll cancel'em because it's for the greater good of what we w the greater Renee good. I'm just I'm just saying it's not so

Yeah, i i this this idea that shows are being cancelled is not in America is not true. Canada they cancelled a few. They have these uh the Canadian anti hate network And all these uh organizations that are paid for, they just found out are paid for by the Liberal Party in Canada, which is like the Democrat Party in Canada. Uh through back channels, apparently. Um and um that organization's goal is to shut down people like

me, I guess, that don't aren't censoring themselves or aren't woke. Basically it's if you're not woke, you shouldn't be allowed to perform. You shouldn't be allowed to be platformed. You shouldn't be allowed to blah blah blah. Even when the shows are sold out. And that's wrong. I mean, it's obviously wrong.

And a lot of it has to do with in Canada, if you're going to be at a venue, a lot of them are city funded or or or, you know, government funded venues and they're saying he shouldn't be allowed to perform there because it's government funded and they have a mandate to have DEI and and, you know Not you know all those

bullshit things that they write in those, you know. Our mission statement is that we acknowledge that we are on stolen land and there's no freedom of speech allowed in this establishment. And if you say anything naughty, you'll be

You know. They have great names though, those organizations, right? The the anti hate ones. Like we have one of them in the UK called Hope Not Hate. And all they do is go around doxing anyone who's not a good idea. Well yeah, it's like so Oh you're anti hate, what do you do? Oh we hate Ben Bankers. And we discriminate. We don't discriminate against uh broad groups. We discriminate about one person at a time. And that's apparently

Okay, but the shows were sold out. I mean, we're talking, I just had a show, Nanaimo BC, 900 people sold out. It's been sold out for like a month and a half, and then they cancel it. I you know, there was a whole thing. They had the they had a city it was a city funded venue but not affiliated with the city or something. So people went to the they protested. They protested the city council meeting. They got into the city council meeting. They raised this concern. The mayor of Nanaimo said that.

Well, we don't wanna be part of censorship, even though his material is disgusting and horrific and and awful, but it's we don't wanna take part in censorship. So they basically said we're not gonna pressure the venue to shut it down, but we will s make a statement. that we this is the new thing. Something bad happens, let's make a we make a statement reaffirming our uh commitment to diversity, inclusion. What what does that even mean? It means nothing.

And so they sent that statement to the the venue and Of course there's somebody woke working at the venue who goes finally There's a statement. This means we can cancel. And then they get some woke lawyer to look at it and the woke lawyer goes, Well, with the statement, you just say that we didn't feel safe. The staff was didn't feel safe. This whole idea that you don't feel safe because somebody's making jokes. is so dangerous for society. The idea that it's like

Safety has to do with words is not it's it's just not true. It's it's a lie and it's being peddled. And that venue. uh is is getting bombarded by my fans, of course. So this is the weird thing. Venues will cancel my shows in Canada. 10 people complain, apparently, you know, if they're loud enough. Or, you know, okay, oh, there was 50. Okay, there's 50 that they gathered over. We had 900.

Just buying tickets. Then plus the other thousands that wanted to buy tickets that couldn't get tickets, plus the millions online. And the venue seems to just only worry about liberal complaints because the second they cancel my show, what do they do? They turn off comments on all their posts. They turn off reviews on Facebook.

Any review, any negative review on that venue that says you guys canceled the show. I'm very upset about this. They just mark his spam and get it deleted. So If they don't care about complaints coming from the right or from people who already bought tickets who legitimately were going to go to your venue, but care about complaints from people who are never gonna go to your venue, might not even live in your city, but are calling in.

Challenging the 'Free Speech' Narrative

W is that a free country? Is that free speech? No. And this th the left pushes back and goes, Well, it is free speech, but it's not free of consequences. It's a sold-out show. It's been on sale for seven months. We sold it out. I did my part.

the venue decides to cancel it because they're getting complaints, that is a that is a violation of free speech. I'm sorry, in my eyes, maybe I don't know what You know, British Columbia and Canada has some really crazy laws, so I'm sure, you know, I th they w they they were suggesting the guy some guy was trying to get people to call the police during the show. To have me arrested for hate speech. Do you when did it become the case?

Like these people, like eh, I'm just really offended and we used to take the piss out of them back in the day. These people were losers. And we all used to laugh at them. They still are. Yeah, and they still are. They'd be the people at school who would grass you up. to the teachers, like he said something nasty. But now it's like, oh, we listen to these people.

Guess it's the payback we get for bullying the crap out of them in high school, right? They uh we bullied them and and then we bullied them in university when they took liberal arts degrees and we said, You're not gonna have a job, you're not gonna be anybody, you're gonna be nobody You're gonna be working at McDonald's. We used to do that at my uh alma mater in Queen's University in in Kingston, Ontario.

the Frosh week, the first week, like freshman week. And they would, you know, the uh the engineers would say to the the arts majors that go their thing was McDonald's, McDonald's, that you're gonna work at McDonald's because your career your degree means nothing. So those people got upset. And those people were like

Maybe I'll get into politics. And then they got into politics. And then all the other people who were bullied and felt you know d done wrong by all voted for them and wanted, yes, we're gonna change things, we're gonna get rid of the jock. and the meanies and and the the you know the toxic men and we're gonna replace it with feminized men and and woke women and and LGBTQ plus a 2IA and uh you know BIPOC and all this stuff. And they don't want to lead for everybody.

That's the big difference is that people who were in power before who weren't like ultra left did primarily they they they would make speeches and say, We're we're trying to make we're we're here for everybody, even though we won. You know, your guy lost, but we're we wanna make sure that you know that we care about you and and your problems. And for the most part they did. Conservatives were in power in Canada. Uh homosexuality was not illegal. Uh it was

So what you win some, you'd lose some. But I don't think homosexuality should be illegal. But uh but I know, but but that's the point is that They think people on the right are like homophobic, anti-Semitic. It's like not true at all. A lot of people on the right are pro-Semitic or Jews or are Jews.

And like I have a joke about, you know, people like, oh, the right they h they don't like gay people. It's like not true. If I meet a gay guy and he he goes, I like Trump, I'm like, oh maybe I like Dick You know, it's uh but it's the it's the point is that We should all be getting along and respecting each other's differences. And if I have a difference of opinion and a difference of joke and you don't like it, don't go to the show.

Ignore it and move on with your life. And if you can't, well, I guess it was a good joke.

Political Divide and Media Bias

Has it come to the point do you think in Canada? Because I do think in the UK, a friend of the show, a magnificent comedian called Scott Kapuro. He regularly tells me, calls me up, I go, Scott, how's this week been? He went, Well, I played a comedy club uh recently in London and I got reported to the European Court of Human Rights. And then seriously like people uh and I think the problem is

It's your dealing with children. The more you allow this sort of behaviour to continue, the more you embolden it and the more it happens. Whereas if you just turn around and go, you're being, to use British vernacular, a bit of a minge, mate. Grow up. I think we'd see this.

Is that us saying it to them or yeah, yeah, go ch y but if everybody did it, not just us, but if literally everybody just turned round and went, You can have your tantrum but ultimately I don't I think a lot of conservatives traditionally, people who voted conservatively weren't that involved in everything. They had their jobs, they had their good life and they go, Okay, and then I vote conservative'cause screw all these people. I don't wanna give them money. I don't care about them.

Which is your right. You y y you have a right to not care. Mm-hmm. You don't have to care about everything. What about the what about I don't care. I'm not allowed I I'm allowed to not care. So, um I don't know, what was the question? So I guess the question is is that if we just Oh tell them to stop. Well or even just go look, you can do it, but it's gonna make no difference.

Have your tantrum, have your tweets, whatever else. It's not gonna change anything. Eventually it would stop working, wouldn't it? Correct. And a big problem is Again, in Canada, the the medium-sized venues have these mission statements. that they came up with, I don't know why, but they they came up with these woke mission statements and it gives ammunition to the people who want my show canceled to say, Hey, look, your on your website it says you support

fairness and being nice and no bad words or whatever. And then this guy's doing the opposite of this. And then the c and then they go, oh no. And then the person in charge who's uns judge probably unsophisticated. Probably doesn't understand what's going on in the world from both sides, is looking at it from one perspective.

Good, we can get rid of them. We don't have to do it and we can just move on. And they think that they're they're gonna be uh the the only backlash is gonna come from the left. Most people think they're informed. In reality they're selectively. Modern media doesn't just tell stories. It quietly decides which ones you never hear about at all. That's why I use Ground News. It's the only app that compares how the same story is covered across the political world.

Spectrum and show you what whole audiences are not being told. The Blind Sport feed is one of my favorite features. Every day it flags upwards of 20 stories that are being ignored either by the left or the right. Follow along at ground.news.com.

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It seems like America's kind of got past the point that Francis is talking about though, right? Like my sense uh Britain and k uh by by your t telling Canada as well, hasn't. But in the US it feels like no one actually Thanks to Trump. I mean he's the guy openly saying retard and Um you know, uh what f what speech has been limited by Trump? A according to the left it would be you can't say that you want to destroy America and uh kill all the Jews. You're not allowed to do that anymore? I mean

That's our that that you were never allowed. It's just that the the Democrats were bat uh you know, w wouldn't bat an eye at it even though they knew it was illegal, just like the uh immigration. They knew the immigration was coming in illegally, but uh it's gonna help us, so let's let's keep doing it.

Weaponization of News and Dark Humor

So There is a lot of gaslighting going. I don't know if you saw this story yesterday as we're recording this. Um somebody there was a protest outside Mam Danny's mansion in New York, right? And then somebody threw two uh improvise explosive devices. And they were and most of the mainstream media reported it.

Like like I just told you, what they failed to say is the devices were thrown by two Islamists at the protesters who were outside. Like the the amount of just misrepresentation of what's going on is quite incredible. Well If there's an incident where somebody throws a bomb at a protest, the main question is: wait, what was the protest? And that's wrong. I mean, if you're throwing a bomb at any protest, that's a big problem.

But for some re if it was a liberal leftist protest, they would have said, uh white supremacist uh attacks uh uh peaceful LGBTQ anti-abortion rally. uh or pro abor pro abortion rally. If it was an anti-abortion rally, that's the thing. Pro abortion rally, somebody tries to blow it up. How you know, uh how dare you these people anti-abortion rally, well they were they were causing some ruckus, you know, they were causing some problems out there and It shouldn't be like that.

You want to say what you want to say. If you want to protest, protest. If that's being attacked violently, it should be called out. And I saw that Mob Donnie half called it out, but really was more like more calling out the protest. And the thing that I always find surprising though, Ben, is we talk about your comedy being offensive. I think back to like what me and my mates used to joke about 20 years ago and what goes on in people's WhatsApp groups.

If our WhatsApp groups, anybody's WhatsApp groups were doxxed, it'll be over for all of us. So actually what you're doing is a more honest version of comedy where you're going, hey, you know these fucked-up thoughts that we all have? I'm gonna say them in a funny way. I'm doing something different. And people can argue that, people can hate on me, people can whatever. But I know what I'm doing in my heart and I know that it's a good thing for this world and for regular people.

to be able to feel free to express themselves and not feel afraid. Um and and w every time I make a joke and I post it and it gets ten million views, that broadens the free speech array or or what's what's you know, and and that's what the left really hates about my comedy. If he makes that joke, that means somebody else is gonna make another joke and then somebody else is gonna Yeah.

Because you guys are trying to k stop that. You're trying to suppress free speech and then turn around like in Canada they'll they'll shut down a show and then the people shutting it down will make a statement and go We believe in free speech. But when it comes to this, we don't. That's then you don't believe in free speech. Why not just come out and be honest, be like, we are against free speech. Free speech is dangerous. We don't like it. Because that's the reality.

I I'm sick of hearing I'm all in favor of freedom of speech except this guy really pushed the what are you talking about? That's what free speech is for. But it it's also just not the fact that what you're saying aren't opinions. This is what really annoys me. You're a comedian, you do comedy. The purpose of comedy by its nature is that you don't take it seriously.

You're not a politician getting up there and going, Well, she died. That's a good thing. Yeah. Might have to be though. Might have to be a politician. Don't become a politician. But doesn't that frustrate you in a way? Um I mean it doesn't really frustr I I think um the more angry people get, I mean Good. Right? Good. Let him get that.

Matted a joke. Okay. So I'm if anything, I'm actually doing the people who are angry a favor because instead of being angry at their own lives and their own failures and what's going on in the world and being m angry that they can't pay their bills. They get to just go online and look at my comedy and go, This is what I'm gonna spend This is what I'm going to be. So you're welcome.

To the people who are angry that I've given you a a break from your own problems. I do think you've hit on something very true there, which and and it's true of like everybody on all sides. You know, you y in Britain you go to in England you go to a football game, there's some very, very angry men about somebody who's kicked the ball the wrong way.

allows people to channel their rage at the failings and things that we all have to deal with in life at some figure that they claim is right ruined fucking everything because he told a joke in a comedy club, you know? They're not necessarily angry about the material or what I'm saying. They're angry that I'm doing it in a way that is Successful. And in a way that is the If I did it on a podcast, they'd go, well, that wasn't funny. He's not funny. And they still say that on my stand-up.

But they know it's not true because they're watching people die laughing and clapping. And that that's what really pisses them off. And then they go, okay, well, let me do the math. If you twenty third tickets are thirty-five dollars a piece, you did 700 seats. Oh shit, cancel it.

We can't let'em get money. We can't let'em be successful. We can't let'em Because they know that once you get successful Once you have money, you your words mean a lot more, and and you're a m that's that's a much better form of protest. than standing outside in the rain with a sign screaming with a whistle is to get that's that's all good, but uh how about I just get rich and then say what I want? That's scary for people because when you're rich and and you have s some heat behind you

People are gonna um listen. And and like you said, it's comedy. I'm trying to make people laugh. And when they laugh, that is a threat to the left because they are anti humor right now. They're anti don't laugh at that. You can't laugh at that. Here's what you can laugh at. And to them a good joke is something that only if it's not doesn't offend anybody, doesn't hurt anybody that's not gonna make me laugh necessarily. Maybe if I'm at my you know, a kid's recital I'll laugh, you know, I I

I laugh at some borderline woke stuff. And honestly some woke comedy it's offensive the other way, s talking about Trump and and sometimes I do laugh. I I I I'm I don't get angry. I don't watch comedy and get angry ever. I I'm curious what the other side's doing. I I I watch. I I and do their thing. I would never say I hope he doesn't he shouldn't make it. He shouldn't be paid. No, do your thing. Make your money.

And you can appreciate a good joke even if you don't agree with the premise of it. I do that all the time. For sure. I mean I'll laugh. And that's the thing is that people laugh at my some of the people complaining about my comedy, I Bet You anything, did laugh. They watched it, they laughed and they go, Oh my god, I'm so mad that I laughed And then they they How dare you, you're this wasn't funny and it's like you laughed. Just just relax.

We're in a very tumultuous world and crazy time, and the best way to get through hard times is to laugh. That's what soldiers do, that's what paramedics do, that's what doctors do. That's what everybody who has a tough job and a tough life does. And you know, the left needs to loosen up.

Failure of 'Woke' Comedy

Stop with the stop dying on the hill of free speech and what the other side is allowed to make jokes of, what the other side is allowed to. You guys do something better then. Canada, th w there was a video, it's it's absolutely hilarious. I don't know if you could we'll f I'll show it to you later, but The C B C which is like the BBC, um made w you know so after my show one of my shows was cancelled in Kitchener, I think, Ontario.

Now they're getting an another woke comedy group, which is like a a sixty five year old woman who has like two hundred followers and like some other lady who's like n not just nobody. And they're gonna do a comedy show for good. And a comedy show, it's called Laugh Good or whatever. And it's it's to to promote and it's we have twelve local comics.

So complete nobodies. And this is this is our alternative. We're we're giving an alternative for Ben Bengis. No, you're not. You're canceling my show, and then you're saying this is what yours allowed. And then nobody's gonna buy tickets, nobody's gonna go to that show. But that's fine. Let's let's that's they they almost rather Have nobody show up to the show but it's not offensive and offensive and it's sold out. Because

W the way they portray you is that you're this kind of edgy darklord who lives in the recesses of the internet. And I'm the ever loads of people that I know, and I would include normies under this umbrella. Love your stuff, share your stuff. You are the mainstream. You are far more mainstream in that sense than somebody who's like, I don't know what a woman is. They want to discredit me, especially in the Canadian media. They wanna make it s like I I think in this video the woman was saying

He is this new rage bait comedy. It's like, oh yeah, you mean like Lenny Bruce? Right. Rage Bank comedy from nineteen sixty two. I mean, this new phenomenon where a guy goes on stage, says something really funny about a recent topic that's sensitive and everybody laughs. They are it's c pure propaganda. They have a billion dollars behind them, and I'm an independent artist. And I'm Canadian getting cancelled in my own country by the Canadian Arts Council and all that those people.

in order to put in their terrible comics that nobody knows and in their m and and they're so stupid that they think that my fans, who are regular people, are gonna get a refund notice on their ticket for my show and go Well, I'm glad. I'm glad because that was gonna be really bad. What else is there to see? Oh, uh comedy uh two female uh queer comics uh doing a a a dan interpretive dance. Let's go to that instead.

I mean where d are they that stupid that they really think that they're gonna convince My fans who are working people, jocks, ex-hockey players, cop, uh, lawyers, uh, professionals, business owners, they're gonna go and watch an extremely far-left performance of nobody no-name comic. And this is what they're the you know, people it's like they just think like they just bought tickets. They didn't know what they were buying tickets. No, they're my fans.

There's right now 1.4 something million between Facebook and Instagram. And they want to see me. They don't want to see your crap. And They're gonna all those all the venues that uh ha have tried or or or want to cancel in Canada They're going to be begging for me to come back in a couple years when I'm, you know, and they're going to say, we're sorry. We did we got new management. We got I'm going to say, I'm not coming back there.

Reclaiming Politics: Harder Stance

I'm not supporting a business that does that. I think you're overestimating what people's ability to change their mind, man. They're not gonna change their mind. They're just gonna be they're gonna be kicked out. Because and because they Do you really think that, Ben? You said yourself, they since they believe in communism, they don't give a shit about the money. They don't, but it's gonna ch I I have faith that it will change. I mean Pierre Polyev

Maybe he'll win. If not, maybe I'll have to fucking run. I'm not gonna do that. We just had Pierre on the show. I know, I know. I w I I listened to it and you know, he's I've met Pierre and I really respect Pierre. But he needs to win because He needs to go a little bit harder. And I've said this to a few MPs in Canada that I know. Uh because look at Trump. He went really hard. He went hard. Okay. And he won. So you either go hard and win.

Or you pretend to be kind of in the middle and you lose. The people you're going to the way you're going to win an election in Canada, and I mean in the States, this is what happened, is you're going to activate voters that never voted. Stop trying to win over. You know, the new The the Little India, we're gonna go to Little India and we're gonna put on a turb the white politician puts on a turban and goes, Whoa, please vote for No. No.

Stop it. Just say what you actually want to do. We're gonna deport all these people. Go go into the little Indian and be like, hey, who's here legally? Raise your hand. Who's not? Okay, get out. But I'm saying that there has to be Some s d some aggressive policy. Like if I was to run for Prime Minister in Canada. I would say

We're going to get rid of all wokeness in every establishment in the country that is government funded. Anybody who's government funded, we are gonna if you wanna be woke, you can be private and you can lose money. But the government's not gonna lose money and sub subsidize something that uh th Like these venues. Why does the government have to subsidize a venue if they're gonna cancel arbitrarily different performances and lose money?

Why? We should be we should Canada should be encouraging all the best comedians in America to come to all of the venues and treat them with the utmost respect and the utmost uh be super welcoming, especially if they're selling out. Especially if the people that the government represents who are the taxpayers are buying tickets to the venue.

That's the whole their whole argument is it's a taxpayer venue. Yeah, you know who's a taxpayer? Me. You know who's a taxpayer? All the all the people who are going to the show. You know who isn't or barely is a taxpayer? The people complaining.

Well oh yeah, they're a taxpayer. They but they got a tax return. They're they're actually getting paid by the government. They're not a tax they're not a taxpayer. They're getting three, four, five, six thousand dollars at the end of the year because they they made so little money. A while back I pushed myself in training because I'm a bit of a legend. But ended up with a back strain that took far longer to recover from than it ever used to. Nothing dramatic.

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Canada's Woke Climate and Talent Exodus

Well, do you not think uh and I honestly don't know about Canada, but when I think about the UK and there seem to be some similarities, I go I think the reason that a lot of politicians and this kind of centre right don't go the Trump route is the the public are very different. Like the the population of the country is like Or they're bought and paid for. But but you what I'm getting at is like Th there's a big cultural difference between Canada and America and America and and Britain, no?

I mean Ari Matias this great joke. I think he went to Canada. Um we had him on the show a while back and he just went it's great to be in Canada as I call it gay America. You know, like is there is very creative. Never heard that one before But you know, but like if an American made that joke in Britain, y the the there is a kernel of truth to it in that people

see the world differently. People are much more they are more on on the balance of things more work. Or at least there's more of them, you know. Is that no fact? What did Pierre lose by? Like a percentage or something? Like one or two percent. It's so close. It's so fifty fifty. Right. And and that's of the people that vote, which is only like sixty percent or seventy percent of the the whole country. So that thirty percent They're mostly not woke because

Woke people vote. That's why they keep winning,'cause they're so organized and their organizations and they're in their unions and sending out emails. Oh, that was another one in Sudbury, Ontario. One of the one of my audience members told me that her union, her union, teachers union sent her an email saying not to attend my show.

So that's where they're at. But um The Teachers Union Teachers Union sent an email to the teachers in Sudbury, Ontario saying do not attend the Ben Bankis comedy show. It's hate filled, blah blah. But you know what's interesting about teachers is that the good ones They have the darkest sense of humor. Oh, because the thing yeah. Because the when I was working in schools

The stuff that you deal with on a day-to-day basis. Here's the thing: there aren't any good ones anymore. Well, the good one was the one that came to my show and ignored that. But there's no imagine an email going out to a company or an organization saying, Please do not attend this dragtime story hour. This is That can't that oh that's that's and even the show in Nanaimo that they canceled 900 seats, the next day they announced an all ages drag event.

Literally the next day they announced it. That was their like, we're so sorry that we even were about to maybe have him here. So let's have as many gay people on stage with our penis design as possible. So um The people who love my comedy are definitely, you know, most in Canada, I got you most of them, if not ninety nine percent of them, would become American like this or be okay with fifty first state. And the reason is because of like what you said.

They're trying so hard to convince the people on the right that you have no option. Your opinion's invalid. You're not allowed to have it. You'll be fired if you have it. Your comedian, you like this guy. He's good in cancer. We're not gonna allow him to perform. And so it pushes people to be like, well, maybe we should just get an, you know, be part of America where free speech is allowed because why is why are we being pushed and pulled by the left?

who is not the dominant force in Canada in term financially, just politically. You have a bunch of poor loser people protesting things, you know, like how on a scale of one to ten, how insane do you have to be to protest a comedy? Like how like are you like do you just do that and then after you're like, Oh, that was a tough day. All right, tomorrow uh we gotta talk to my accountant, I gotta talk to my lawyer, I g no, there's there's they're nobody's right. So The answer is

a Trump style thing would work well in Britain and in Canada. It's just a matter of Stop being afraid that you're gonna lose. Stop being afraid to lose.

New Totalitarianism: Religious Right to Woke Left

What I find interesting is how unaware these people are that like forty years ago it was exactly where the other way around and it was the religious right that was protesting and cancelling comedians. I mean Bill Hicks' final Letterman appearance. That wasn't broadcast'cause I think he came out as being pro lesbian or made a joke that sounded like he was, you know, uh daddy's two uh like Billy's two mummies or whatever. Um

And other th George Carlin but ev George Carlin wasn't being arrested because he wasn't woke enough. Like, do you know what I mean? So it's it's funny how the very movement and ideology that came up on this idea of like, well, artists should be free to be creative and shouldn't be restricted by the state and all they're now doing the exact same thing. Is incredible. They're doing it in an even more aggressive way because it you know back then it had never been.

So it was kind of like, Where's this coming from? Why are they swearing so much? Why are they talking about vulgarity? Um and sex and and all these things like when Lenny Bruce would be arrested and and George Carlin and and Richard Breyer and um We had the eighties and nineties and the two thousands and now all of a sudden it's Let's go back.

Let's actually no, no, no. All that stuff we've been doing for thirty years that people have been loving, that's been making billions and billions of dollars for the entertainment industry in Hollywood and made all these stars famous and made Jimmy Kimmel famous because he was doing blackface and you know made uh Jimmy Fallon did blackface. Everybody was doing blackface. But now Only those people can be famous and those people that were bad before are now the most woke.

And nobody can come into the industry. That's what it is, because really to break out in the industry you have to be different. You have to say what you really think and be yourself. And yeah, maybe in twenty, thirty years when, you know, maybe I'll be like, you know what? Some of what I A little too far. But that's because you already have money. Right. You know what I'm saying?

So You've already made it. It's uh And by the way, you don't want to lose it. There's the other part of it which is like they all have to act like they're super woke, even if a lot of them aren't. Because if you push back against this, well, you did blackface.

Here's a fucking photo on the front page of the New York Times. What are you gonna do now? They're worth enough money to speak their mind. It's pretty I think it's now it's just that they truly are and have been brainwashed. And I think that even Millionaires who are part of the Hollywood system are being brainwalled. And you know, they're I mean, people are coming to their house.

You know, when the FBI is coming to your house and going, maybe we'll do a little more like this. Maybe the stick goes a little this way. I I don't know if that I don't know if that's actually happening, but if you're a late night TV show, there is some affiliation with like public policy and and and there's a reason why they're doing it. So it's not purely money,'cause they think if you know.

How much is Jimmy Himmel worth? I don't think it's about money. It's about status. It's about status and friendship groups and whatever. Like you have a you have a cozy life, you have your friends, you have your you the the golf club that you go all of that bullshit. And and people fear, I think, losing being ostracized by their community a lot more than they fear losing money, actually.

Or losing future earnings. Having friends is overrated. If you have time to have friends, uh you're doing something wrong. I mean you know I mean you're you're a friend, but like it's nice to have But We couldn't even say the word. We're not sitting on the couch playing Xbox for four hours, you know what I'm saying? Like we're adults. This is you know I Do I go I have a family. Once you have a family and you're working all the time. Who's who's your friend? Right. Nobody. Right.

your agent. You know? You're gonna find out one day that is not true, but I well well, maybe not. But I do think it's important. I mean, look, I'd rather be friends with people I'm paying. Because then I can fire'em. I don't want to be friends with them anymore. True friendship, right there. I mean that show business friendship. But yeah.

You know, once you get to a certain point, you define yourself by having the Jimmy Kimmel show. Are you really Jimmy Kimmel without the Jimmy Kimmel show? And also you see a lot of people who work in legacy media. There's this fear because on a part of on a on a level, they got given something. They got given an opportunity. Now, to be fair to all of them, they made the most of that opportunity. The show became successful, whatever.

But there's a still a part of it that was given to you. You were given that opportunity. No one gave the opportunity to you.

Legacy Media Hypocrisy and Authenticity

You built it off your own back, which means that you are far more stable and secure than even the Jimmy Kimmels of this world who knows that at a a split second it can be taken away from them. Well, when Jimmy Kimmel made the comments about uh, Charlie Kirk and they took his show off the air and it was this whole like fake thing where it's like, cancel culture is coming to the you know, the Trump shut it da and then he was back on the air two days later.

So it was never like he was shut down. It was never like he stopped getting paid. It was all fake. Now, here's my question to Jimmy Kimmel. You think that there's uh a a a lack of freedom of speech for people on the left? Well how about change your show all of a sudden and go completely right and you know, just go like Gutfeld, be on the right. See what happens.

See what happens. Will your speech be taken away? Because that's the true test. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. Number one, it might, they might question it until the viewership goes up. Gottfeld gets more views than than all of those other late-night TV shows. Why? Because is a because he's he's not lying.

I I don't even think some of the people uh like the Jimmy Jimmy this and Jimmy that, they don't even believe the stuff they're pushing. Like you said, they're they're just they're doing a job and um they're doing it well in the sense that they'll cry on they'll cry.

They'll cry on command if they gotta prove their point. Or maybe maybe they do believe it. I don't know, but the point is if they switched up and tried to become right wing, they would have their speech taken away very quickly by those. uh networks in my opinion. But it's also it's not about being right wing. It's just about being honest. You see sometimes they present these stories and you go, nobody believes.

The vast majority of people don't believe this. Yeah. And if you're not prepared to take risks, in a creative industry as an artist, you're done. It doesn't matter. Even if you're doing observational material, you still need to take risks. I just don't understand this whole thing is like people like it's like you're not allowed to say

It's right wing, but the left is allowed to say it's right wing. You know what I'm saying? So like they'll they'll look at my comedy and go, It's far right. It's anti woke. It's

But if you yourself are like right wing openly, then it's like y you know, you're not allowed to do that. Wha wh wh why can't we th the right if they wanna continue being in power in America and if they wanna be in power in Europe and and stuff like that, they have to kinda unfortunately, use some of the tactics of the left, at least in being loud and and annoying, um, to win because the otherwise the other side will just be louder and more annoying with less people.

And you know, it it it's like you're not allowed to say at a workplace, if you work for a bank and you're in the office and you go, you know what, I like that. Let's get rid of more people. I think they shouldn't be here. That's not allowed. You could be fired. But if you come in and say we need to get rid of ice, I would I think we need to go around and round up the ice agents and put them in jail and take away their rights. That's fine.

So that's not right. And generally my comedy is existing for the people who are frustrated about that to have some cathartic relief and laugh about the current state of the lack of freedom of speech. And they should be allowed to do it. They should be allowed to go to the show. They should be allowed to laugh at it. And if they're not, then it's getting more serious.

Safetyism, Comedy's Intent, Explaining Jokes

You know, it's it's their the the left is making this more serious than it has to be. They they claim some of the pl the NIMO BC, we're canceling the show for the safety of the community. It's a comedy show. What safety are you worried about? Well, we're worried that some of the words in there are going to raise everybody laughing at those jokes already agrees with those things.

So you're just saying that they're not allowed to agree or they're not allowed to laugh. And now you're actually making it more dangerous because now you have 900 people who live in your community. You canceled their favorite thing that they were gonna go do. Now they're pissed off. Now they might go out into the community and say something crazy to uh who knows what.

at some bus stop and be like, you know, start instead of biting their tongue. If they went to my show and laughed about it, they'd look at it and just go But I would d I would disagree with what you said, th say that they agree with your points of view. One of my favourite comedians who you probably have never heard of is a guy called Jerry Sadowitz. Jerry Sadowitz is one of the most brilliant comedians to ever grace the stage. He's brilliant. And what Jerry Sadowitz does is he plays this carry.

of the most pathetic, awful human being that you could ever see. He is the lowest of the low. And because of that, he does jokes about everyone that are really dark, really hateful, really offensive. He got cancelled from the Edinburgh Festival. uh because you know people pr got upset. You know, the standard stuff. I don't agree with what Jerry Sadowitz said. I go to watch Jerry Settlitz.

Why does everybody have to say that? No, no, no. No, no, no, no, no. No, no, Fran France is making a different point. I don't know what his jokes were. Jerry Sadowitz is not expressing his fucking opinion on stage. He's telling jokes. Right. And there's a big fucking difference. Yeah. A character telling jokes.

And a person expressing their opinions. Now in your case, I think they're much more closely aligned. But Francis point is sometimes it's just a joke. So for instance, one of Jerry Sadowitz's jokes is uh Gary Glitter is the greatest rock star of our generation. He should be allowed to fuck who he wants, when he wants, how he wants. Gary Glitter is a paedophile who got arrested in Thailand.

Right. But but the whole purpose of Jerry is that I'm gonna say the most dark, outrageous, awful stuff which is indefensible on any level. But I'm gonna express it beautifully. I'm gonna write it immaculately and I'm gonna deliver it phenomenally well so that you have to laugh. Despite you know, you know him full well that what I'm saying. You might have already walked out of the shop. It's awful. But do you see what I mean?

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Yeah. If her name was, you know, what some other random last name and you just said I'm glad, like it doesn't or good, it doesn't make sense. So yeah, of course the jokes, you know, uh are are exaggerated over the top, but To laugh at them, you have to be in agreement with something. You have to be in agreement with me that I'm telling you a joke and that you're not going to to to to be offended.

You don't necessarily have to agree politically, but you have to agree to something. You're you're making when you go into a comedy show, you're there's a cot there's an unwritten uns contract of I'm gonna tell the joke. And if you don't like it, you don't have to laugh. If you really don't like it, you can leave. You can't yell out. You can't c cause problems during the show. But if I and and you understand that I am joking. You know what I'm saying? Do you get a lot of people heckling you?

Uh yeah. normal amount. I get a lot people are really excited for my shows, they get really drunk. They get really drunk and then just I I you know, they they end up heckling Um, but they love me. You know what I'm saying? And then I have yeah, if I go to a random place and do a show, somebody might freak out and get mad and um

But, you know, I just don't understand this whole like it's like why do you have to explain that you're like that pedophile joke is like why do you have to explain that you're against it? Like it's like obviously. You know what I'm saying? Like I had it's I do Epstein jokes and it's like somebody got mad at mothership. I made a joke and I'cause I was saying that um Whatever, that he was a good guy.

You know. So why is that f but it's funny because it's obviously not true. Right. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? Now some of my jokes are joke funny because they are true. Or maybe there maybe maybe Epstein was a good guy, I don't know. But you know, like people he made jokes about indigenous people in Canada.

So you're not allowed to? You're not allowed to talk about a group of Canadians that I'm a c I'm born and raised in Canada, grew up with the whole learned the history, blah blah blah, and I still can't make a joke? Well if you knew the history you'd know it's not funny. Ugh, give me.

Freaking break. Let me deal with what's funny. You deal with what's serious. You know what I'm saying? Or I'll have to come over there and tell you what's serious. And then they won't like that. That won't be very funny. I can't imagine they will. No, they'll be scared shit.

Canada's Decline: Over-Empathy and Immigration

If I was in power in Canada, full power, you'd be scared shitless of me. I mean, you've got a glint in your eye when you when you say that. I'm gonna have to do it. I'm gonna have to maybe ten ten, fifteen years from now, we'll see. How did Canada get in this mess? This is a question that I've actually wanted to ask c uh Can Canadians. I mean the same th we look at Europe. It's in the same problem. Do you think it's the same problem? Yeah. Well it's the same civilization.

The problem is over empathy and feeling bad for people that we shouldn't feel bad for and you know, letting in millions and millions of immigrants into the country that have completely different views, hate the West, want to change the West, wanna implement Sharia law. wanna implement um, you know, okay, we'll split up the West basically. Okay, this is the Sharia part, this is the LGBTQ plus uh trans part, uh this is the uh Hindu part, and then

There's a little sliver for the people who, yeah, this you remember your country. This is where you go. So and when you do that and you have people in power. So the the LGBTQ plus people created all these woke rules that now. ultra uh is like Islamists are taking advantage of. Right. So their rules were originally like

We're just gay. We just want to be gay. We don't want anybody to make fun of us. And we don't want to get our feelings hurt. We want to be able to shake our dicks in front of kids and do drag queen story hour and all this stuff. And then the Islamists are like coming in going, Oh my god, if they're falling for this. They'll fall for our stock.

You know, th if the if the oh and then they can say whatever they want and anybody who says anything to me, that's discrimination based on the laws that the gay people pass. And now so it's and and Another reason that it all this nonsense is because normal regular people are busy doing comedy and podcasts instead of politics. Because we don't want to we we thought we could just live in a country. and be successful and follow our dreams and

the people who didn't think that was the case are now in power. Right. So But they don't want you to live your life they wanna be in your shit. They wanna be in your business twenty four. You need to make being in politics cool again for the cool people. And the cool people might need to go back into politics and start saying what they really want to say and pushing what they really want instead of just being at home shaking their head going, Oh, this is horrible. Anyway, gotta go to work.

Yeah, it's a good point actually. We need to get back to the A era of JFK where you could basically be a cool president and have sex with Marilyn Monroe. Nothing wrong with being a cool president, nothing wrong with being a cool prime minister. Um and and you know, Keir Starmer is so not that and he's so he's so aggressively uh so aggressively woke and so you know

I've never seen him laugh or smile. He takes everything super seriously. Everything is Hello to the British people. This is one of the worst th There's no fun. Where's the fun? When's the last time a politician talked about have fun? When's the last time a politician said We need to care about families and and worry about the the health and longevity and the love. The left has hijacked love. they know like bad money i am i guess i am love is stronger than i hate first of all

But second of all Yeah, historically speaking, I think you're on you're onto something. But why does the community who aborts kids wants to ha trans is their kids, uh doesn't really or doesn't have kids or doesn't want kids. Why are they the community of love? And it's all about what when they when the left says love, what they really mean is allowing illegal immigration to happen unfettered. Nobody should check it.

Uh, love is the uh you know, we have to r loving our trans community, loving what about but the l the left the the right is the one who actually loves. They love their family. They love their country. They would die for their country, die for their family. Protect their family like I I have kids. I love my kids. You're telling me that the love that the LGBTQ plus community has for each other is stronger than the love that people have for their children? Huh? Like what are we doing?

They're not the arbiter of truth. They're not the arbiter of love. And if anything, the left is the hateful, evil side of things now that is disregarded. God. I mean you don't have to be religious to believe in God. You don't have to be we're on a rock spitting in the middle of a a a galaxy in a universe we don't understand, swimming in some sort of soup that we're all in, that we can't see, that we breathe in.

Th something insane is going on on Earth and when you're thinking about these trivial well he said a joke that I didn't like and does he not know how serious it is that women historically have been marginalized

Personal Success as a Form of Protest

You don't we're in a universe. Like you could do anything. You could become an astronaut. You could invent something. You can become the next Elon. You can They but this is where you're wrong though. This is where you're wrong. They can't become the next elon because becoming the next elonor is fucking hard.

You gotta be smart, you gotta work hard, you gotta take big risks. They can, they just don't want to. I don't think they even can. They they neither want to nor do they have the talent, which is why they sit in the corner and go, I can't believe he said that. Because it's so

Y like you said, they don't want to do the work that it takes to achieve anything. But a lot of them also maybe just and can't. And so they are stuck in Looserville and because of that they hate everyone who isn't. Well that's why They side with Hamas. They side with like terrorist organizations because, like you said, they feel that

Well, I'm not good I can't become anything, so let's just burn it all down and let's just, you know, uh l let's let's not like you know, I hate Elon because he's a billionaire and'cause he works and I hate this person and I hate that person. It's like You know, if you're if you're not waking up every day going how do I become s more successful or how do I fix

something? How do I improve my life? Improving your own life will do more for the country than sh marching around with a sign uh trying to get a comedy show canceled or trying to get Anything canceled. And that goes for both sides. Like if you're on the right and you really you're you're you're out of protest, I get it. But like be successful, start a business, buy some pool cleaning equipment.

Uh clean your room. Clean your room. But I'm saying buy some pool cleaning equipment and create a pool business that cleans pools and use something. It's not that hard to start a business and to be successful. And my message to the left is. the opposite of yours in a way that'cause I want them to snap out of it. I do think they're capable of doing great things, but they have to put down the sign

Push the put the on the phone and focus on something. And I'm I know I s and I sound like a parent, maybe a parent that they never had, or the parent they did have that they resent, but Th this is what's going on right now is the right needs to parent the left and they need to basically say, Hey, like you said, this no, you're ruining the country. You're destroying everything. You have to stop. And if they don't What what do we do?

What is the consequence? We just have no more uh you know, Canada'll have no comedy shows, cancel everything. unless you're a government funded comedian like in the Soviet Union. Like my dad, he's a so he's from the Soviet Union, former Soviet Union, Lithuania. And he talks when he watches the C B C in Canada, he goes, This is Soviet, like the w level of propaganda. It's it's legit. So

No. Comedy's comedy. If you don't like it, don't go. Uh and as for everything else, I uh show me one thing where the left has improved anything. Like one thing. The coffee. It's true. It's coffee. Look, I'm look, it's at the very end. At after all the uh the human trafficking t uh and the and the in the Colombian forest jungle and the children picking at the tree and the bing bing bing.

And then on then the the and then finally uh and then it's processed but at a plant with a bunch of probably Republican people working at it and it and the companies pr and then finally in the last second some woke person goes Do you want uh do you want Americano or do you want powder milk, okay. Yeah. But you can't deny it. Conservatives are terrible at making coffee and also they're terrible at making movies. And they're terrible at making breakfast.

Really? Yeah, conservative breakfast are terrible conservative. What's a conservative breakfast? Oh you know it's heavy and it's stodgy and it's what about the English breakfast? Surely that's conservative because it's traditional. Right. The English have you ever had an English bre you look like you've had you y you look like you enjoy an English breakfast. What is it? What do you mean? ¡GET OUT!

No, it's like tea and crumpets, right? Yeah, yeah, tea and cr well no, it's it's it's it's black pudding. Sausage, egg, bacon, baked beans, mash brown, all that good stuff. Yeah, I've had that. When you come to basically Canada Mark two What movies of conservatives made that are bad or Because the pushback to that is Clint Eastwood is a conservative. He's made some great movies. Yeah.

The issue is that conservatives don't want to make movies. The ones that would be good at it are making money doing something else, owning a you know, a a some random company that does pool cleaning or you know and they never they just made their money. They're like, I'm not gonna get into movies.

Canada's Brainwashed Society and Wasted Potential

You know what my hope is, is that we reached the peak of this in politics with Justin Trudeau, who was the wokest of the woke of the woke. And you talk about Canada and I think What we're doing is we're not being really honest in a way because your population voted for a Trudeau. Who was the literal word?

You know, when he went our men and he said a woman or That wasn't him though. Wasn't it him? No, it's some American senator, but Mail in ball I mean I'm not a conspiracy guy fully, but I know that male in ballots were huge in that election um because it was covid. You know, Pierre Polyev again, he didn't push hard enough. He should have.

He didn't push hard enough against everything. And he made a lot of conservatives vote for this other party that is like more right. And that's why they lost. Because if they had not had that other party, they would have voted for him and he wouldn't have won.

the idea that everybody supported him is not true. The the the the people who vote, he won from the people who vote. The people who don't vote didn't vote. Why didn't they vote? Well because the conservative guy didn't func make them wanna vote. I mean that's absolutely fair. Do you think that we're gonna see Canada get better? D do you have hope for Canada? I have hope. I think that me doing my shows is helping. I d I mean I I I do because when they happen, it gives people hope.

They cancel two and then w and then we're still gonna do three or I just did um this weekend I've six sold out in Niagara Falls and then Sold out in Lethbridge, Alberta, sold out in Cranbrook, BC, sold out in Campbell River, BC, sold out in Kelowna, B.C. And when those shows happen, people see it and they feel hope. Um that that the country is i i is what it used to be. And when and they think that they're gonna cancel shows and it's somehow gonna like get rid of me. It's like you're literally

You know, making me bigger. You're making me more people who haven't heard of me go, Who are these people complaining about? These people that I hate. Who are they complaining about? Then they see it's me and they go, Oh, I love Oh, I can't believe I never heard of this guy. Where's when is he performing? Okay, I'm gonna go get tickets. So yeah, thank you to the haters and

keep keep keep e building venues, you know, do your thing and try to they're trying to get the cat shows cancelled because they have nothing better to do. And really what they're doing is me a huge favor, so Mira, te voy a decir una cosa. Si apprende un idiola. Solo con libros, you have to qued attacked. Look what marks the difference is essentially why the gentleman. If you didn't understand that, but you want to, then listen up. If you did,

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Slash trigonometry. Because the concern is, Ben, is that the people who are entrepreneurial, the people who are on the right, the people who want to achieve things, build things, they're gonna leave Canada because quite frankly, why would you stay? They already have. A lot of them already have. Um I mean I ran into I mean, when I'm in Canada I do get recognized on the street. I ran into f two people in Yorkville.

um just crossing the street and the one guy was a young guy, tall guy and he was like, Love everything you're doing, you know, thank you for for being brave enough to just do what you're doing and um and and he's like, You live in the States mostly I'm like, Yeah and he's like Man, I was just in Scottsdale. It's so nice. It's so good. I just I want to get down. Everybody wants to go. Um, because they're the regular normal people who aren't well

Can't handle it anymore. And that's part of the part of the goal of the woke, in my opinion, is to make it so horrible. that the people they hate leave, which is successful people. Who's gonna pay all the taxes when that happens though? They don't care. They just borrow money. It's all fake.

They just keep borrowing from whoever in China and they do that they have some system where they they buy the bonds back from themselves and the to print the money and it I forg I don't know. I'm not a finance but I know that It's not good. It's not sustainable. But

They want this this world and then they have more crime and more poverty and more starvation and all these problems. And then they have eventually they're gonna have nobody but themselves to blame. So it might maybe it will be a thirty year thing where they go full, full communists and everybody any dissenters are either arrested or have to leave. And then um when finally the new generation of woke people go, wait a second, why is everything like this? I don't like this.

Then it'll change because the people now are brainwashed to the extreme. They are. The people who and like you said, there's more of them. I don't know if there's more, but they're they're loud and they're super brainwashed and they believe it so much that they They'll do anything. They'll do anything to shut things down, including violence. Because it's so bizarre, because Canada should be one of the most successful, richest nations on the planet. When you look at the resources that you have.

You should be w literally top five, top six richest nations. And you look at the population as well who are edu who are super educated, your universities are incredibly prestigious. You've got literally everything. They've all been infiltrated. All the universities are infiltrated by China and super I mean part of s ultra woke is China, I believe. That they they know they knew, they studied, how do we destroy the West? And they go, let's woke and then

Um Benigio Ben, you can't do the ch without doing the accent. Come on. We need to make the gay people in charge of the country. And then fill the country with mushrooms. And then we can have control of the farm rent. But that's really they um what they want is is

It's control. It's all about control. Part of the apology stuff and not like for Why did they cancel all those pipelines where they could have been pumping gas to the entire world and Canada could have been a leader in natural gas and oil production and or or uh whatever, getting it out of the ground? Because of woke, because it's environmentally not friendly and because the indigenous people and because of this and it's like

But although the environment and the indigenous people would be better taken care of if Canada was rich. It's the same thing. Like it's like it's the same. I'm gonna hold the sign up and say I'm for this instead of I'm gonna forget about all that, focus on my business, get rich, and then maybe have an opinion about something once I'm a prominent individual. So Canada decided, let's not be a prominent country. Let's stand up for all these uh BS woke takes.

So there's no pipeline. Now they're giving all the land back to the indigenous people that are already impoverished and sorry to say a lot of them are you know, it's they're not in great shape.

And what is the reason for that? They they've been given billions of dollars. Why are they not in great shape? Oh, well, they need the land back. Okay, here's the land. Oh, they're still not in great shape. What do they need? Well, they need to make sure that there's no freedom of speech so nobody can talk badly about them. And then they'll be okay. And then

They're destroying good countries and it's coming from these people who are brainwashed maybe by China, maybe you know, the t the TikToks and I I don't know what it is, but

I'm against it. I want Canada to be a great, safe, amazing place to raise your uh families, to you should be able to have the schools should not be filled with political stuff and political I mean transgender ideology and all that stuff which Imagine having to learn about transgender ideology a week after there was a trans person who shot up school and there's people dead and then the next the first class fact they're like, Well, we need to risk first of all, let's acknowledge the land we're on.

It's all fake. It's all meant to make you insane. It's all meant to make you angry. So that you hopefully I think their main goal is that you do something crazy and then they can really now we're just trapped. Well, you mentioned f uh good place for families. How are you finding being a dad?

Parenthood, Family, and Challenging Woke Ideology

I love being a dad. I think everybody should be a parent. I think that you grow up and a lot of these people who are out there protesting who have no kids, no nothing, no job, no no responsibilities. It's like you didn't grow up. Once you have a kid, that's when you have your own kid, you deal with your own

you know, traumas as the from when you grew up or whatever, like you remember, oh, that's why my dad was mad because this and that everything starts to make sense. You ca you you it's healing. It's a healing thing to have your own family and and want to destroy that and take away, you know, first of all, the first way they destroy it, well, women need to work too. They want women's rights. But what they really mean is they want women to work as hard as men and

than also be taken care of like their women. It's like you can't have both. You can't have both. And women like staying at home and and taking care of kids. I guess not all women do. I think that's a good thing. Not all women. Not all women. But you there's nobody's forcing you to do that. But people are forcing other people

uh because the co the economy is getting so horrible that it's like you ca in Canada at least, you can't do it. In America you can't. There's more and more s uh state Stay at old moms every day.

Well the evidence is very clear. Statistically speaking, most women would prefer the opportunity to stay at home with their kids for a lot longer than they get to. And now there's these like, you know, women in their fifties and they're like, my kids, I just don't know what happened to them. They were so sweet. What happened is you didn't stay home.

And you send'em to some school and you s and you made a false reality of what they're working towards and their whole goal is to get 85 average so they can get into some university so that they can go there and have sex with a million people and then they and then after that they can may hopefully go into the workforce and then hopefully they meet a guy by 35 and then hopefully it's all both

The reason why people used to get married so young, I think, and why it makes more sense is'cause you actually can love somebody then. You know, like w think about your first and second, you know, loves i versus, you know, dating in your thirties or dating in your forties or fifties. That's why those marriages lasted. They met young. They had kids young. They grew up in their twenties. They didn't grow up in their forties.

Like now, it's like people are Oh, I'm adulting. You're forty three Like you you should have had a kid at twenty f I mean, I wish I had kids earlier and I had a kid at thirty. But I would have maybe you know, and maybe it was the right time. But either way, thirty's still young nowadays. But my message to people who love me and love my comedy is thank you.

Love yourself, forget about these people, do what you need to do, stand up to don't forget about them in the sense that don't let them ruin your day. But if you're if you need to stand up to somebody or say something in public, like do it. Don't break the law. But Like, if if somebody's clearly woke and has a mask on and is like causing a scene, be like, hey, tell them. People don't agree with you. You should know that. People need it people need to to tell people

are pushing this ideology that they're wrong to their face. Because they don't they don't go out and see that. They they're so protected. From getting the other opinion online. They, oh no, block, block, block. Oh, I don't look at any of that stuff. I, you know, even some of the announcements.

They'll they'll make an announcement uh you're trying to get we're we here at the homosexual society of whatever town are trying to get penbank as a show and then the first comment is we have muted comments. to protect the members of the LGBT what are we tal so there's no debate. No debate.

Have a debate. I w I am I'm on the verge. I was thinking like maybe I should in some of these towns, like, should I just do a show where I invite people who hate me on stage and like debate them or something? Like those shows. Would that make them not what like maybe like Don't cancel the show, you can come

You can come and go on stage and try to debate me in front of my crowd. See how it worked. I can see why you'd want to do that. Yeah. It'll be really fun. Get some good clips. Yeah, for you it'd be fun. For them it'd be horrible, but that's the point. That's the point.

Geopolitics and the Unspoken Truth

And d do you have any uh any th uh funny thoughts on Iran and what's happening there? I mean Only horrible thoughts. All right. Next. Funny thoughts on Iran There's you know, people are against it. I I don't I don't know. I think that we need to blow some people up. Listen this is a very MAGA point of view. MAGA loves the war. Yeah. Well not all of it, but look eighty-five percent of America. I've been saying we should blow up like we should blow up everybody because they don't like us.

Well, they want to blow us up, but we're not it's the same thing. It's like woke it's like you you can make fun of me, but if I make fun of you, oh that's bad. So And I guess it's different'cause people are dying. Apparently apparently. Um So you're not pro iatola?

I'm not pro Ayatollah. He's kinda dead, so it's hard to be pro Look. This was something that was gonna happen whether it was now or in twenty years or in fifty years. You can't have Iran having nuclear weapons. But I mean the rest of it is complicated. Also I mean this is my intellectual people on the left. supported the war in Ukraine. They support Ukraine against Russia.

They want Ukraine to win. They still have the Ukrainian thing in their bio. And they go, America needs to step up and help us. And we America did. I mean I say we'cause I live here not'cause I'm American. But I mean Canada helped too. They sent some helmets. But America gave billions, right? Or trillions to to Ukraine. Push to fight back against Russia. And it's not enough. And the Europeans are saying it's not enough. We need to do more. So America goes, all right.

Let's blow the shit out of Iran.'Cause they're giving Russia That actually helps Ukraine massively. It's huge. Right, because the Iranians can't send their drones to Iranians are sending Military equipment to Russia. They're sending uh energy, gas, oil, everything to Russia. They are sup they support Russia. America goes in, blows the shit out of Iran, and everybody's like, this is an illegal war.

It's like, but we're helping the guy this is how we uh you gotta think outside the box. What are we just gonna go into full force into Ukraine and get all of Europe nuked? No. Let's go and and attack their weakest. their weakest ally that's supplying them with stuff. So the Democrats should be happy and secretly some of them know this and they're going, Oh shit, this actually does help the Ukraine poll and and you know Zelensky's on board with it. And And here Starmer goes.

Uh he somebody he probably realized this two two days too late because the first day he was like, We do not stand with them because we want to make sure the Muslims don't riot here. And then two days later he goes, Uh oh, this is good for Ukraine. We gotta let's join in and he goes, We're gonna join and the and um Trump goes, We don't need uh allies jumping in when we already won the war. And it's such an interesting thing to see that so America played it so good. Trump played it so good that

The Europeans, where is America helping us with Ukraine? We need to help billions of dollars from Ukraine. And America was saying, spend your own money more. You need to up your military budget. They weren't doing it. And then finally America goes, Okay, well I'm gonna help you, but in a different way. Are you gonna help me? And they go, No.

So the countries want help from America to fight off Russia, but they won't help America to fight off Russia in an out-of-the-box way because they're not smart enough to realize what's going on. There's a lot of high-level stuff going on and a lot of smart people are behind closed doors. And I think they have a I I think they got a hold of it. I think P uh Sec Mr Secretary of War, Pete Hagsath, is is also very, very

good. He's he's a he's a genius, uh, in in some ways. I know that people would disagree with that and hey, don't judge a book by its cover, but he's uh not that he I mean People think he they're like, he's not s I'm like, he's clearly smart. He knows what he's doing. And I have faith in those people.

And if it if it goes wrong I I would say something, or if I disagreed, I would say something. But so far the only thing I disagree with in the Iran war is the amount of fake news that the left like are th they're supporting this AI like fake wars footage and being like, Look um Israel's getting pounded it's like that's literally Mm. Like you guys have lost your minds. You're literally posting AI and pretending like something's happening that's not.

Final Thoughts: Jews and Purpose

Ben, it's been an absolute pleasure having you on the show. Finally with a street. Yeah, yeah. Holy shit, that's really bad menu. Uh final question's always the same. What's the one thing we're not talking about that we really should be? Before Ben answers the final question at the end of the interview, make sure to go to triggerpod.co.uk where you'll see this.

Are there things you poke fun at in the relatively safe surroundings of Austin that you might be a little more circumspect of in the work environ environs of Toronto? Who would Muslim extremists have to kill for you to believe that their intentions are are benevolent? What's the one thing we're not talking about that we really should be? Uh Jews. We didn't talk about the Jews or not. Quite a lot of people talk about Jews nowadays.

mean my dad was uh Jew uh i like he's not religious either Jewish. He's not yeah, well he's not religious but he was bored in Lithuania right after the Second World War. So his parents used to be probably a little bit more than bored. Uh born. Oh born. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Look, people My opinions people can't handle my opinion, but my opinion is that

For the most Jews created a lot of good things that we use today and and I I don't I I don't hate them. I think that that's controversial to say. I don't hate Jews at all. I like them. People are gonna be mad about this. Are they I do. I think a lot of No no, I agree with you. I I said are th are there a lot of people who are gonna be mad about this? You think I don't know. I get sometimes people are like

Like I'll have like the best bit and then be like was funny but then I researched and found out he's a Jew so not funny. It's like what does that even fucking mean? And I'm not it I'm not I don't go to synagogue, I don't know how to speak Hebrew, I don't know anything. I mean I'm making money. There you go. And that's the most important thing in this world is to take care of yourself and your family and to have faith in some sort of higher power because

You you're gonna need that. You're gonna need that if you're fighting off millions of people who hate you. You're gonna need the power of the universe to do that. my goal is to become the biggest comic in the world. So Or Prime Minister of Canada. Well but that's the same thing. But if I have to become uh uh to become Prime Minister you gotta become Canada's never had a famous pre already famous prime minister, besides Trudeau. But he wasn't famous for something he did himself.

Um, so maybe that's maybe that's the future, but for now we're gonna sell out everything and we're gonna have a gr uh my shows people have the best time of their lives. So We'll see you there. Well, you're doing very well, man. So congratulations and thanks for coming on. Head on over to uh triggerpod.co.uk where we ask Ben your questions.

What conversations have you had with other comedians that have experienced cancellation, i.e. Shane Gillards, Tony Hinscliffe, etc.? Have they given you any advice? This is behind a paywall? Yeah. Hej, det är jag från riksbyggen här. Ursäkta att jag avbryter mitt i din egen tid med podd och allt. Jag vill bara säga att vi har massor av bostäder som passar alla olika sätt att leva.

Det betyder att du kan få ditt drömboende precis som du vill ha det. Men jag gissar att det du helst vill just nu är att fortsätta lysta på din podd. Sen kan du gå in och.

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