Join Malcolm and Simone Collins as they dive deep into the fascinating dynamics of Trump's VP pick, JD Vance, and what it means for the future of conservative politics. This thought-provoking discussion explores the concept of "identity laundering," the evolution of American cultural groups, and how authenticity is perceived in modern politics. The Collins couple offers unique insights into the shifting alliances within the Republican party and the rise of tech elites in conservative circles.
Key points covered:
The concept of "identity laundering" in politics
JD Vance's journey from hillbilly to venture capitalist to conservative icon
The evolution of Trump's political identity
The alliance between tech elites and rural conservatives
The influence of Scots-Irish culture on American politics
The shift in conservative elite culture
The potential impact on the 2024 election
Whether you're a political junkie, a student of American culture, or simply interested in understanding the complex dynamics of modern conservatism, this video offers valuable insights into the changing face of American politics.
Malcolm Collins: [00:00:00] Both J. D. Vance and Trump. represent a form of identity laundering and fraudulence that is extremely authentic and trustworthy. It builds trust. he grew up an actual hillbilly. Then he found out that to achieve the things that society told him were valuable, he had to adopt another identity.
He's a Princeton venture capitalist, right?
Simone Collins: Yeah.
Malcolm Collins: Your true self is who you choose to be, how you choose to see the world. Yeah, he is not somebody who accidentally became who he is.
He became who he is because he had a goal, I want to be X type of person now, and he has transformed himself
Simone Collins: all culture is a LARP. I think this ties into that. And I think you're much more authentic when you're LARPing culture than when you're just defaulting into whatever culture surrounds you because [00:01:00] you have consciously chosen it.
Therefore, you own it.
Would you like to know more?
Malcolm Collins: Hello, Simone! I am so excited to be talking to you today! We had done an episode on J. D. Vance that actually went live today, and I was, as Trump's VP pick and the writer of Hillbilly Eulogy.
Simone Collins: Eulogy. L and G.
Malcolm Collins: I'm always going to get that wrong.
Effigy is, I'm always going to say, don't say effigy. Anyway I, there was a really interesting discussion on the discord about the episode. And I'll put the interesting topic on the discord here so people can get these types of comments in real time as they're coming up. But it made me realize that this pic was fascinating.
From so many perspectives that I want to dive into, like the psychology of this pick and the psychology that's represented in Trump now having as his running mate, I think the personification of the never Trump movement. And what that [00:02:00] means for the shift that we've had culturally speaking. Both J. D. Vance and Trump. represent a form of identity laundering and fraudulence that is extremely authentic and trustworthy. It builds trust.
Simone Collins: Yeah.
Malcolm Collins: And so do you want to talk about this?
Because you were the one who first notices.
Simone Collins: Yeah. So there are particular brands and personalities. I think are comforting and trustworthy in the same way that franchises are trustworthy. And I'll explain why. So I'd said earlier that it was very fitting to me and I found it very pleasing that Trump is like the poor man's caricature of a rich man.
In yesterday's conversation how Trump is he frames himself as this very like classy, successful businessman. Whereas like your typical, like WASPy wealthy person in the U S would seem as pretty trashy.
And on the flip side, you have this [00:03:00] man who's branded himself as a hillbilly and a man of people who nevertheless, after coming out of the Marines, went to Yale law school, worked in venture capital, worked with the tech that we, it's totally not like the hillbilly. And yet we see them as being.
Probably more authentic when you actually come down to it than, like your average normal politician who's playing by the politician template of I'm authentic. This is me. And I'm basic. And I think a lot of what's going on there is they've both adopted characters that are predictable and in that way, trustworthy.
You don't have to like someone to trust them. You have to feel like you can model and predict them. That's it.
Malcolm Collins: I think it's more than that. So I think JD Vance is a bit easier to study this from than Trump, right? So JD Vance grew up like an actual hillbilly. So you read his book. Can you talk to some of the stories in
Simone Collins: it?
Yeah. I think, yeah, this is important that. People recognize it. He was mostly raised by his grandmother who he called Meemaw, and she really is this caricature as [00:04:00] well. This is like the classic Scots Irish back country, American. There was this one family story where apparently Meemaw said to.
her husband that if she came home, if he came home drunk again, she would kill him. And lo and behold, one day he comes home, drink, of course, like one day he comes home drunk, passes out on the couch and she, he wrote in his book actually, that she poured gasoline on him. The family actually quibble that no, it was probably lighter fluid, but that was the only thing, some context but yeah, and lit him on fire.
And it was actually JV's, I think, aunt, one of the, one of the daughters who, took pity upon this man and saved his life. But this is a woman
Malcolm Collins: who does not fuck around. This is very backcountry uh, value systems. Like, you, you know, You set boundaries and then you enforce them with, Violence.
Yeah, but I,
Simone Collins: and I think this is, the way that, people are like JD Vance is [00:05:00] not really a hillbilly. But he was raised in that kind of culture and environment and also people are like, yeah Trump's not really like a classy, wealthy businessman.
He was raised really wealthy. Like it, the way in which these people are frauds are like, not exactly the stereotypes that you're playing, that's playing topic I wanna get into, or nuance I wanna make here around fraudulence,
Malcolm Collins: which is to say he grew up an actual hillbilly. Then he found out that to achieve the things that society told him were valuable, he had to adopt another identity.
He's a Princeton venture capitalist, right? And he fit in with this new identity community that he was representing when he was writing Hillbilly elegy. He. Was writing it to explain how could anyone ever vote for Trump, which was genuinely something that was in his community.
People were asking, and he at the time was motivated to believe I could never do something like this. I would [00:06:00] never do something like this. Not the person I am today, but then he thought the environment I grew up in, I can model them. I can begin to see how they might
Simone Collins: do certain
Malcolm Collins: things or why they might do certain things.
And then he did something that a lot of people do at different points of their life, which is he was modeling this other community, this community he originally came from, and either because he thought through re adopting this identity in the same way that he adopted the. Ultra urban monoculture identity to achieve success in venture capital and Princeton law and all that.
He might have realized he could politically capitalize from this new identity and began to adapt it. Like maybe that was part of the early motive motivation, but people code switch too. Yeah. People code switch all the time. But maybe it was in modeling this in engaging with this population again, I don't believe in a true self like a lot of people are like, Oh, you should just be your true self.
Your true [00:07:00] self is who you choose to be, how you choose to see the world. Yeah, he began to choose like he realized, I think, Partially that he had distanced himself from his real cultural ancestry because he had began to dehumanize people with those value systems and that culture and he realized that, oh, I shouldn't be doing that.
They actually have some value to them. Perhaps more value than the urban monoculture. And this is the journey that many people have gone down. And so the question is when was he pretending? Was he pretending when he was ultra urban monoculture, venture capitalist, Princeton guy, or is he pretending now that he's still has many of their mannerisms.
He can still close switch to access their community, but when he's making decisions about the metaphysical nature of reality, good and evil, et cetera,
Simone Collins: which.
Malcolm Collins: Identity is a channeling. He tells us which identity he's channeling. I think both in his actions [00:08:00] and in his policy positions and in that we can see that he is not somebody who accidentally became who he is.
He became who he is because he had a goal, I want to be X type of person now, and he has transformed himself from the way that he dresses and talks to his value system into a high class hillbilly.
A poor mountain deer barely kept his family fed. Well, the first thing you know, Joe Jet's a billionaire. Said, California's the place you ought to be. So they loaded up the truck and they moved to Beverly. Hills, that is there are so many people in this here town. It's gonna take a long time to meet everybody. That's real nice, son. This here's what I carry. Okay, [00:09:00] cool. Cool, cool.
Simone Collins: Um, One, you once tweeted that all culture is a LARP. I think this ties into that. And I think you're much more authentic when you're LARPing culture than when you're just defaulting into whatever culture surrounds you because you have consciously chosen it.
Therefore, you own it. You've thought through it. And you can Instead of deontologically or performatively acting out that culture, just Oh, I guess this is how it's done. Going through the motions, you're living it. You're living the values and you're executing on them with true fidelity to that cultural system.
Malcolm Collins: I actually think that this form of identity laundering or identity fraud is actually The core of the new vitalist framework. Oh, interesting. Look at our previous video where they see the concepts of we think that we've moved from a disgust based moral system to a cringe based moral system to know a vitalist based moral system.
Which elevates people like Tiger King, who is another person who I think represents this form of fraud.
Simone Collins: Oh, totally. Tiger
Malcolm Collins: King isn't who Tiger King [00:10:00] is because of random circumstances that happened to him throughout his life. Tiger King decided to become. Tiger King. It was a brand that he, uh, aspired to embody and now does embody in a very authentic way because it is it's not something that he is because it's just what the people around him are,
Simone Collins: Because
Malcolm Collins: he chose to be.
Keep rolling, keep rolling. Now this is the kind of movies we're gonna make here, okay? Ladies and gentlemen, before you hear it on the news, I'm going to tell you myself, about an hour ago we had an incident where one of the employees stuck their arm through the cage and a tiger tore her arm off. I can give you your money back, or I can give you a rain check.
Simone Collins: Yeah. This is what I value. This is what I like. This is who I'm going to be. And this is what I'm going to stand for. And I'm living it 100 percent of the time at volume 10. Yes. And I actually think Andrew Tate is very similar. Yes. [00:11:00] Yes.
I guarantee you don't walk around your house with a sword because you're not commander. I'm a commander.
Simone Collins: And I think that's one of the appeals about him for people.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah.
It's so funny when people see our value system and they're like, you can't just choose who you want to be. You can't just choose what you want to believe in your moral system. Yeah, you absolutely can. That is the way the world works. That is. A value system that you actually have because you own it.
Now the, or because you chose it and you intentionally went into it. And this reminds me of when people are like, how could you guys be around racists? Or like, why would it be a problem if we're around racists? Like we're trying to convince them not to be racist. And they go if you're around enough racists, you'll become a racist.
And it's oh, what you're telling us is you hold your value system because the people you are around hold that value system. Not because you chose that value system. They are susceptible to What the general public is doing in a way that we are not [00:12:00] because they didn't choose to be who they are, who they are as just an average of the people around them.
And you also see this in Trump Trump's identity when people say it's like a fraudulent identity because he isn't accepted within high class culture. He's not high class. He doesn't he is as somebody who grew up and this is actually interesting to me because Trump did grow up wealthy, right? Yeah.
That's
Simone Collins: the thing. Yeah.
Malcolm Collins: But it's clear to me that his family was never accepted in high class culture. So I grew up in what was an exceptionally wealthy family. Now I inherited none of it. The family had all the money taken from them and I was disowned from them long before that. But they are a very, I call it a Bohemian Grove, wealthy family, like that type of person.
They were like Dallas. We, there was a Dallas social book that listed like the most important families in Dallas and we were in that but we still have a copy of it somewhere in our house where when they used to have a social register, you might not know what social registers are.
They had them in England where they would rank people by how important their family was. The Bratz, [00:13:00] my love. The
Simone Collins: peerage, yeah.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah, the peerage. It was very important to, like, how you address other people. A lot of the old southern cities had this as well and so we were in that book and we would go to all the parties, and so I really understood how to code to this community.
I went to Cotillion, I went to all that, And the
Simone Collins: house you were in when you were born was featured in this magazine, yeah.
Malcolm Collins: Oh yeah, there was a lot of so I knew that community. Now, the reason why I was expelled from my family is because I intentionally decided I did not like that community and I did not like their value system.
But I think a lot of people can see when they interact with me or look at me. And my family was always considered an outsider within that community. We used to be called out. They called
Simone Collins: you an outsider. Yeah, they called you an outsider. Um,
Malcolm Collins: Because we were seen as so weird within that community. But that was the like, I knew how to code switch into that.
Simone Collins: It's clear that, and that was when you lived in Highland Park, right? So the other Highland Park families of Dallas, which is this wealthy neighborhood, it's like the Beverly Hills of Dallas saw them as Yeah, yeah, yeah. I
Malcolm Collins: grew up [00:14:00] hanging out with the Bush family and the, the, those sorts of individuals.
I so I understood how to code switch into that and what it means to be that. It's very clear to me that for whatever reason. Trump did not grow up or was not acculturated into actual blue blood culture. He doesn't, he appears to want to be something like that, but he doesn't know how to code that way.
And as I've mentioned in other episodes to me, he actually codes like a Persian.
Simone Collins: Right? Yeah.
Yeah, look, I'm guessing there's some kind of soccer match from your home country going on. . But, uh, some of us are trying to sleep.
And I could almost deal with the noise. But it's the cologne, alright? I can smell it in my bed, that's how powerful it is. Okay? That's how powerful it is.
Simone Collins: Well, But also he does all these other things that like, Classy people aren't allowed to do everyone knows
As a side note here, I genuinely do not think Trump knew this.
Simone Collins: that sure. If you want to, as like a very wealthy man of [00:15:00] a high social class, you can have your mistresses or whatever that you have to marry a respectable woman.
Like ideally, someone from your shared culture who has social status within your social groups and who is, educated And, respectable and I'm not, I mean, Melania is a queen. She is a fantastic woman, but she is a, an Eastern European model. That is what trashy people marry in a trashy people where I marry the, the mail order brides were incredibly sexy and accomplished and obviously great people, but that's not like the conforming thing to do.
Malcolm Collins: I think a great example, you look at somebody like JFK, you have the absolute queen, Jackie Kennedy, right? Yeah, but he's, and he
Simone Collins: got like the otherwise sexy women, he just, yeah, he slept with them, yeah.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah, he sleeps with the Marilyn Monroe, he marries the Jackie Kennedy. Yeah. You don't marry the Marilyn Monroe.
Yeah. But Trump got his signals crossed around. And if I had to guess around why this is, my guess would be because his family made money [00:16:00] in what was considered a low class industry. And so he, he was never really accepted as a use into the high class world. So he was
Simone Collins: like a wealthy merchant family rather than a wealthy lord family or something.
It's not
Malcolm Collins: just, yeah, it's not just that. That he's a wealthy merchant. It, so people might not know this but within blue blood circles real estate is considered a very low class thing to be involved in. It's almost as low class as car sales
Yeah, well, my dad totally owns a dealership dude, do you know who his dad is? He's totally rich. He will totally hook you up, dude. We're drunk.
Malcolm Collins: which is, you can make,
Simone Collins: Oh my God.
Malcolm Collins: You can,
Simone Collins: so you don't know this, but there's all these genres now on Netflix of wealthy real estate brokers.
And they are the trashiest people in the entire world. They're great shows because they like trashy people by like only super designer brands and do a lot of conspicuous consumption, which again is like the ultimate sign of being trashy. So that is so funny because I've never actually heard you say that before.
And I never thought that [00:17:00] real estate was associated with like trashiness, but when you go and watch these real estate. reality tv shows on Netflix, which I do because I am low culture. Thank you very much. Um, Wow, you're right. It's it is not the waspy blue blood. It is not the prep. It is the It is.
Oh, yeah.
I'm the new agent, Francine. I'm like a lemur monkey. Mostly business, but I will throw my own shit at you if I have to.
Malcolm Collins: Cause a lot of people don't know this. They don't know, if you didn't grow up in one of these families, you don't because you can make an astronomical amount of money owning chains of car dealerships, but it's just considered low class.
My dad's like totally rich, we own this dealership, and uh, what sorority are you in? Let's get together!
Dude, dude! Get off my shirt! It's worth more than your ass life, my dad owns a dealership! Hello! I can chill out for a while, I mean, I've already flunked out, but it's cool, I'm gonna work at my dad's dealership. My dad owns this dealership
Malcolm Collins: um,
Simone Collins: well, And this is, like for those who are not very familiar with American discussions of class, cause I know we have a lot of like non American viewers. Yeah. [00:18:00] They're, class, not at all in the United States is associated with how much money you have. There's like these two different version of versions of it.
There's like social class wealthy, which means like you could have absolutely nothing be drowning in college debt and like living in a hovel out, like slightly outside Brooklyn, but be very high class and know all the right people and go to all the right parties. Or you could be like, An air conditioning company baron or a real estate baron and have the best clothes and have the best houses and actually live in mansions and actually have economic power and not be in those circles and not being I know
Malcolm Collins: it about the American class system is if you know how to code switch into it, you will generally be accepted regardless of your background.
You will be considered higher class than the people who were born into that class.
This might actually explain why JD Vance was so readily accepted and elevated within this culture while Trump struggled so much to gain acceptance within this culture.
Malcolm Collins: This reminds me of something that Ayla wrote,
I realize this might need some context or people who aren't regular Watchers at the show. [00:19:00] ALA is a famous sex worker and sex researcher. And she ran away from her family at a young age and got her start working in factories.
Malcolm Collins: where she's I don't understand why I keep getting invited to all these parties and I'm treated as so, like why, why is it that upper class society is so interested in having me at all their events?
Simone Collins: Yeah. And like, when will they realize that I am not? Yeah
Malcolm Collins: but she doesn't get it. In upper class, because upper class America always wants to believe that it's not classes. Ayla codes very well for extreme upper class. Oh, totally, yeah. The way she talks, the way she does her house, the way she dresses.
The questions she asks her, her
Simone Collins: intellectual nature her level of education. Her intellectual nature. Totally.
This probably also explained to why ALA was so easily accepted into upper-class circles, but Trump was not signaling intellectual curiosity. Is considered intrinsically very high class by these communities. , which is something that [00:20:00] ALA constantly does. And Trump very rarely does. Well, attempting to signal your own wealth is considered incredibly low class. Um, and that's something that somebody like ALA never does, but Trump is constantly doing.
Simone Collins: And what's
Malcolm Collins: also interesting is sex work is not considered low class within upper class communities in the same way. And a lot of people are really shocked by this. They're like, what? Sex work has always been considered low class.
And I was like, actually, historically speaking, sex workers are generally You know like, Aspasia,
Simone Collins: right? That was her name.
Malcolm Collins: What? Aspasia. Aspasia. Yeah. So if you look at like ancient Greek culture, actually the highest class profession you could have as a woman was a special kind of sex work. Now, it's not normal sex work but this was also true in the philosopher
Simone Collins: queen sex worker.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah. This was also true in the courts of the French nobility. Yeah, being a courtesan.
Simone Collins: Yeah. Madame Pompadour.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah. So the idea of, which is also really interesting, that sex work is not considered a low class profession if you do it while being an incredible intellectual while something like real work, like being a involved in , [00:21:00] real estate or car sales.
I think people from a middle-class background or who didn't grow up in blue blood families would be very surprised by the professions that give you class status dings and the ones that don't. , an example here would be. I remember my mom telling me that I would be disinherited if I got a law degree because she considered being a lawyer.
So low class. , I actually got the similar threats. If I went into profession as a doctor. , And I think that a lot of people from, you know, non blue blood backgrounds would be confused by that and assume that those would be considered high class degrees. That I'm, I'm usually. , or is it something like ALA's work would bar her for being considered high class when it's like, no, no, not at all. Um, actually, this is something I noticed at, , St.
Andrew's. , where I went to school and it's known for having a lot of blue blood kids go there is that the blue blood kids, like all sorted into like one of two degrees. , either it was, if you went into [00:22:00] the arts, you would go into, The classics, which is like a completely useless degree. , or art history or philosophy. , but if you went into the sciences, we're actually about, I'd say 50% of the kids did, who came from blue blood families, the generic degree you would get, , or, or stem was neuroscience, , or, , particle physics.
Those were considered the two, like really high class degrees to have. , which you know, humorously, but it's my brother and I have degrees in neuroscience. , and, and again, there that's because it's considered the most technically challenging of the degrees and therefore it was the classiest of the degrees. Also, I hope people can begin to understand why I abandoned that cultural group. Even if it, you know, for a period, cut me off for my family. and It cost me what could have been a fairly easy life. it just wasn't worth it. Uh, and, and really interesting. , it's so funny that I grew up in this group that was traditionally aligned with the Republican party.
And as this group moved to align with the democratic party, that new group, I [00:23:00] ended up adopting, you know, tech entrepreneurs and venture capitalists. They moved to the Republican party from the democratic party. Um, so I, I have this weird perspective and insight sort of across this transition.
Malcolm Collins: So I'm just going on a tangent here about how the class system works in America. I think many people would find this amazing and interesting and weird. But Because to me, I find it interesting and weird. It's a weird thing that like America still has this class system. What I will note is that it is mostly fallen apart.
So it existed when I was growing up, but that was really the last generation that maintained it. And it has now transformed itself. And the new high class faction is the faction that JD Vance is LARPing, which is a form of urban monoculture. If you look at our video, on Classically Abby about like why her channel never really caught on or worked out.
It's because when she says classy, she means normative within upper class culture. But the problem is normative upper class culture in America now is urban monoculture. And now there's a branch of upper class culture, which we'll get to in another video, which I find very [00:24:00] interesting, which is the tech elite.
And they are not urban monoculture. They actually have their whole own set of value systems. And that is where JD Vance is from and what we have seen. And I think what it has really transformed from the first Trump election till now, and with the party switch that's going on in the United States right now is the traditional upper class the old merchant, Class descendants, right?
They were bosom buddies with Republicans because of like deregulation and stuff like that. Trump is now basically a union guy in many ways. Um, And you know, pro terrorists, pro everything like that. But what's interesting is at the same time as he has lost the ability to work with this classic upper class and I said she wasn't able to sell it because that community doesn't exist anymore.
The tech elite rose. And they. began to move incrementally over the past years to being more Trump. This is like a Vitalik, Chamath, Teeter Teal, Elon, like us. The coded tech elite culture [00:25:00] is now a conservative cultural group and aligned with the conservative value system. This is the crypto conservatives, right?
A lot of the people in the crypto community have these extreme libertarian positions and stuff like that.
We have another video where we're going to go into this in a lot more detail, but if you look at the old conservative party, the conservative party before Trump. , and we'll call this GOP Inc. It predominantly existed as an Alliance of theocratic interests. And blue blood slash.
Big business interests. Big business left the Alliance. And so did blue bloods, as both groups went, woke. , and that allowed for Trump to rise where instead of appealing, primarily to theocrats or big business, he appealed to angry and discontent Americans, but this was also part of why his first administration struggled so much because angry discontent Americans don't exactly make up a good. , like governing bureaucracy, if you [00:26:00] want it to enact all of Trump's policies. During this period, if you, if you look back at the nineties and the eighties, well, big business and intergenerational wealth supported Republicans, tech entrepreneurs generally supported.
Progressive's. Well, just as big business went away. As Trump was changing the parties and the value systems and as big business and intergenerational wealth solidly aligned themselves with the progressive party. Tech entrepreneurs. I began to move from being progressive, to being staunch Republicans. And we'll have another video as to why and how this happened. , but I think JD Vance represents a solidification of this transition.
Malcolm Collins: But Trump's inability to properly signal that it seems at some point in his life, what he decided is he was just going to decide for himself what it meant to be and look like an upper class person.
And I think that is the core personal transformation he went through from his first presidency to this one. [00:27:00] And I think at first he thought that, Someday they would eventually accept him. The old upper classes would eventually accept him of New York. At least when he became president. At least when he became president and he's realized, Oh no, they'll never accept me.
And I, and all of these people who are more interesting and who like me for the way that I thought class worked, i. e. for me do represent me. And so the Trump that we see is more authentic. than somebody trying to be their authentic self.
Simone Collins: I think you can say a lot of people are like, why is he so moderated now?
Why is he so calm? Why is he looking more reasonable? This is so calculated. Maybe some of it's calculated, but I think a lot of it is that he's fuck you guys. I'm comfortable with myself now. And a lot of that. That calmness and that lack of abrasiveness actually comes from a place of greater personal security.
Malcolm Collins: And I think that in a way choosing JD Vance's, his running mate is the culmination of this. So I want to read something that was on our discord that I found really was like, wow, like [00:28:00] the right. Our
Simone Collins: discord regularly schools us. We're like, why don't we, why don't we listen to our podcast
Malcolm Collins: when we could just be on our discord?
We should just have a podcast reading the discord. Yes and no, to build a voter base, you need. To appeal to different groups because there are only two parties, different groups inevitably end up grouped together. You should differentiate between the technocratic elites and the liberal elites.
Technocratic elites built a company, they're smart and entrepreneurial. They pulled themselves up by their boots. Technocratic elites use. And I, here I'll note I'll say the techno elites because technocratic means something specific. Yeah. And it's a form of bureaucratic. I'll actually just say tech elites.
Tech elites. Tech elites used to vote alongside the liberal elites because both of them are quote unquote elites. But Vance is using tech elites to side with rural Appalachia because rural Appalachia is scrappy and entrepreneurial. We have a, quote, pull yourself up by your boots, end quote, mentality that tech elites don't have.
And that's true. That is [00:29:00] absolutely true. He found the overlap. One of the reasons why these two communities align with each other. I think it's also that the tech elites like contrarianism. That's another reason they really like this group. They like things that are true, that you will be shamed for saying.
That's the thing that's true. Status was in the tech elite community because that is what leads you to be more successful when you are a venture capitalist, for example, having ideas that are true that most people shame. It's how you beat the markets. It's how you choose to start up that everyone else thinks of the gun, is a good idea, right?
So of course these values end up getting lauded, which ended up aligning with this new conservative movement. And I think that is what Trump has done here. Now there's another thing that I think Trump has done here that somebody else in the discord was saying that I think is really true. Jaden Hansen, in a way, represents somebody who was part of that genuinely accepted into elite culture that Trump strove for in his early days.
But he turned it down. He didn't want it. [00:30:00] He was the picture of the never trumper because he was the picture of NPR elitism. And as society began to change, as that community became more and more basically just Nazis i. e. they have they believe society should be divided into an ethno hierarchy with Jews at the bottom.
And they're like, no, it's not Jews at the bottom. It's Zionists at the bottom. And I'm like depending on the survey, you look at Zionists make up 95 percent to 92 percent of Jews. So That's just semantics at that point. It's oh, I don't hate Christians.
Just the ones who, believe that Jesus was the son of God. It's yeah, it's pretty close to a perfect circle, that Venn diagram there. But anyway so he, he had that, that dream that Trump originally wanted and
Simone Collins: he
Malcolm Collins: threw it away. Now he works to denigrate that culture. He's that culture is bad.
That culture is toxic. He converted to Catholicism. He is, you look at his background on the Senate floor. He's not just trying to be a standard Republican. He's trying to build his own moral framework. He's racing. When you see
Simone Collins: [00:31:00] this like we talked about with his policies yesterday, how they, it's not along party lines that he makes decisions.
He's cool with trust busting, but he's also cool with building pipelines, natural gas pipelines. He's cool with nuclear. He's. Against untethered, unfettered immigration, like there's, I like it.
Malcolm Collins: I like it. Yeah. So what I see here is Trump choosing to side with and to have as his partner, somebody who represented the culture that he wanted access to and who turned it down for the culture that Trump wanted.
That actually liked Trump and admired Trump. And I think that represents a psychological development, character building, right? Is he realized that the best of the old culture are now realizing that culture is bad. And that the cultures that he always appealed to being this authentic in that he chose it identity of what he thought elitism was appeal to them.
Simone Collins: [00:32:00] Interesting. Yeah. So it's not as Jon Stewart claims that. Donald Trump merely selected for VP, the man who looked like Don Trump Jr's actor in a Lifetime movie.
Malcolm Collins: I don't think it is at all. I think that there's I don't know how much of this is psychological, how much of it is strategic, but it does to me represent, a real OG Trump, you've chosen the guy who led his.
Detractors as a running mate, he would have chosen the guy who was first to jump in and support him.
Simone Collins: Like you were saying to me earlier too Pence really represented as Trump's first Mike Pence represented as Trump's first VP pick, GOP Inc, the old guard Of the Republican party, of conservatives in the United States.
And so this VP pick represents something very different. It represents Trump and not just saying, okay, I'm going to. Go the tech elite route. I'm going to go the more [00:33:00] authentic route. I'm going to go this is the new tone for the Republican party. I'm going to call it. But yeah, it is going to shape the future of conservatism in the United States, especially if they win.
And
Malcolm Collins: this is what somebody else said which was interesting was the first Trumpian revolution. Is it didn't have any elite factions. It was a completely the disenfranchised who were supportive of Trump in the early days in his first run. And you can't build a an entire party off of just the disenfranchised.
You, and I think that this is why his party was so ineffective at actually operating the White House.
Simone Collins: They really struggled just to staff people. Things like people didn't show up to meetings. There was, I can't remember the title of the book, but there were several books about what happened after Trump was elected.
And in many cases, what happened is major governmental departments, when the changeover happens, they have these meetings, the people get sent out from the president's office and they're like, here's what's going to change and of [00:34:00] course, they're here, you get these large government agencies sitting and waiting.
Okay. Day one, like the people are going to come in and tell us how it's going to be, and no one shows up. And I was like and then the deep state just did and went what it was going to
Malcolm Collins: do. Stop doing the deep state. You need the thing about elites is what often makes them elite.
There's different ways that they can be elite. They can be born elite, like the progressive elite, but at least they have, high quality education and stuff like that. Or they can prove their efficacy in the economic system by either ability to be productive. And that's what makes people
Simone Collins: money.
That's a big one.
Malcolm Collins: And siding with the elites who proved their elite status through shot calling and genuinely building value for other people. That's a pretty smart faction to bring over to your side. Damn straight. The tech elite.
Simone Collins: That is the tech elite. And that's what makes them so useful.
Malcolm Collins: Yeah. Now we should note that there are two groups of the tech elite, right? There's the old guard tech elite who are fully urban monoculture. These are the ones who own the giant natural monopolies that [00:35:00] control our means of communication. These are the founders of Twitter. These are your Bill Gates, your Mark Zuckerberg.
They are from a different generation and their core goal is just to fit in with the old elite factions, but the new tech elite. Is predominantly of this new faction which is just fascinating to me and it's a very strategic alliance building. But there's another aspect of the interesting thing of the Trump Alliance with the tech elite and the Appalachian Tech Elite Alliance,
Simone Collins: the Appian Tech elite.
Yes. What an unexpected alliance, but it makes sense.
Malcolm Collins: Yes, it's an unexpected alliance, but when you think about it, it makes sense. But there's also like the ethnic thing about it. So one of the things about the Taculate is that they have a huge number of Indians in them. And so you're noticing a huge number of Indian American conservatives rising.
And I think we'll begin to see more and more leaders of the American movement, American conservative movement to be Indian Americans. [00:36:00] You've got your Viveks, your Chamas, your or the last guy who ran the conservative party in the UK or name and post or even
Simone Collins: Kamala Harris, Indian American.
Malcolm Collins: No, she's half Jamaican.
Simone Collins: Jamaican, I thought she was like,
Malcolm Collins: yeah, she's black. I think she's half Jamaican, half white, but she could be half Jamaican, half
Simone Collins: yeah. Harris's maternal ancestry comes from Tamil Nadu, India. Her parent, her parental, an ancestry comes from St. Anne. Sorry, paternal ancestry comes from St. Annina. Paternal, yeah.
Malcolm Collins: Her mom was Jamaican. Yeah. So she's
Simone Collins: Indian and Jamaican.
Malcolm Collins: But I would consider Kamel Harris has chosen to identify as black.
She she chooses whatever helps her in the moment, but I don't think that she's like part of the Indian community or no, she doesn't present herself
Simone Collins: as even remotely Indian, which is interesting,
Malcolm Collins: but this is also something that we're seeing. If you look at like our friends who are part of this new conservative movement, like you can look at God, the Arya Babu, for example, who I think is like a great natalist intellectual in the UK, an [00:37:00] Indian immigrant.
So I think what we might see is in the conservative intellectual class more Indians are going to be represented. Which I think is going to piss off some thinkers I know who but I personally think it's fine. I love this alliance of the people who are able to economically compete with the people who are forced to economically compete.
And then there's this entire class of bureaucrats who've never really needed to make a change in their lives. And I think that's what represents the urban monoculture is they got ahead through conformity.
Simone Collins: Yeah. Yeah. The nonconformists, the rebels. And if any of David Hackett Fishers for groups that he covered and Albion seeds is going to. Be the adoptive group of the venture capital class in the United States, it would be the Scots Irish. It wouldn't be the Quakers. It wouldn't be the Cavaliers and it wouldn't be the
Malcolm Collins: Puritans.
Simone Collins: Why don't you talk
Malcolm Collins: about this cultural group because a lot of people don't know what you're talking about.
Simone Collins: Yeah. So in LBNC, David [00:38:00] Hackett Fisher, a historian describes four basically foundational waves of immigration that colored American culture going forward. David. David. The Puritans who were very conservative, religious extremists, visionaries who came over and settled in New England they were very hardworking, very conscientious very looking down their nose at everyone else and very exclusionist.
Then you That's not
Malcolm Collins: true, by the way. That was the Quakers. The Quakers were the exclusionists look down your nose. Remember the Quakers always look down their nose at the back country. Malcolm,
Simone Collins: What did the pilgrims do to Quakers who tried to proselytize in their area?
Malcolm Collins: Yeah, that wasn't looking down.
That was just get out of my community. They would talk. That was like
Simone Collins: tarring and feathering them and dragging. That's
Malcolm Collins: not looking down. They never, no, it's literally not looking down. Like it's literally not the Quaker community. Sorry, you're just misremembering the book based on modern stereotypes.
Huh. So the Quaker community would constantly hand wring, which we see as the ancestor of the urban [00:39:00] monoculture, about the backcountry Scotch Irish, who came in and were very rough and tumble.
Simone Collins: These are the wild, yeah. So the, to jump ahead, the Scots Irish were like, the wild rebels and castoffs of Ireland and Scotland, where there were like massive border skirmishes all the time.
It's a much more rural and tribal and less formal and one could argue less civilized part of the country. Quakers would debate among themselves what was worse the savage Indians who would come in and attack and kill them or the Scots Irish, they were like all terrifying and. It was a group also that was, even they, the way that they dressed freaked out the Quakers who were very prudish, they wore higher skirts.
The women did, they were very, informal and the women were tough. And that, in one moment, one moment would, Slaughter a cow and then come in and serve tea. These are very tough people which of course also stand in contrast to the the Cavaliers.
These were like the [00:40:00] second third sons of wealthy Lords in the UK who came to the United States as immigrants working very closely with the crown to basically make a lot of money, have a plantation maintain the social class system that they were accustomed to the United Kingdom and England at the time.
When you're looking at these different groups, you have these very conformist Quakers who are, very also like religiously extreme, but they're in their own way. You've got the Puritans who are also religious extremists and also conformist and within their own, Within their own culture.
And then you have these crazy renegades. Of course, the crazy renegades are going to be the ones most likely to ally culturally with the crazy renegades of venture capital, of startups, of going out and breaking things and doing things. And as for forgiveness, not permission, move fast and break things.
That is, these are the mottos of Silicon Valley.
Malcolm Collins: Think about even the stories of Elon, like fighting in the halls of his company with his brother.
Simone Collins: Oh my gosh. Yeah. When you read his latest bureaucracy, sorry, bureaucracy, when you read his latest. Latest biography by Walter Isaacson, [00:41:00] he describes how he would sometimes just wrestle with his brother Kimball in their office, their early startup offices as employees looked on with Mixed probably horror and amusement at one point.
I think Kimball was even hospitalized
Malcolm Collins: Fighting but that's very much backcountry scotch irish. Yeah to correct The misinterpretation was important to correct because it is something that the culture believes but just isn't true the Quakers Absolutely looked down upon and hated the scotch irish immigrants.
Simone Collins: Let's be honest just to, not that I'm going to split hairs while you're here, but every one of these four cultures looked down upon the others. No, they didn't. That's the exact point I'm making. No, the Scots Irish absolutely looked down upon the Quakers and raided them sometimes.
Um, And of course the Cavaliers are like, who are all these savages?
Malcolm Collins: What you're missing, and the point I'm making, is that Puritans and the Scotch Irish actually got along and created an intermixed culture, which is what my family comes from. So if you look at [00:42:00] why they got along and why they, because it's even mentioned in the book, like I'm very surprised you don't remember this.
You were like, what? The Puritans charred and feathered the Quakers who would come to their communities and preach. And it's yes, of course they did. I would char and feather a woke person who came to my community and preach too.
Get the f out, but, they got along very well with the Scotch Irish communities, which is where the anti slavery experiment started.
This is where John Brown came from, or the Free State of Jones movement, or many of these others. And you would be like why would these two communities get along? Because they were both very the Puritans were very okay with speak your mind mindset, which is what the Scotch Irish were known for.
They were very much just say whatever they believe. They were not
Simone Collins: prude. They were both largely Calvinist as well. Just different ways. Yeah,
Malcolm Collins: They were not prude like the Quakers were. The Quakers were incredibly free about sexuality, and they thought the Scotch Irish were just like these [00:43:00] lewd, like they would dress down, they would just dress in whatever was useful at the time, they didn't really care about sexuality one way or the other.
It was a tool. And the Puritans were also known for engaging in sexuality more, and they were like you're of a different cultural group, they very much had this mindset you're not saved, but I like that you speak your mind, that you have a strong sense of whatever, and you're not telling me how to live my life.
And that was where the Puritans had a hard line.
Simone Collins: Is other
Malcolm Collins: cultural groups coming in and telling them how to live their life. They were like, absolutely not. You guys are wrong. But then the other thing is both the Scots Irish and the Puritans were morally uncompromising in a true sense. So the Quakers had this sort of like social signaling moral hierarchy.
But they were actually morally compromising in the extreme. They were theologically against slaves, but they owned slaves at higher rates than any of the other groups. So you can look at wills of the period, and we have an episode where we talk about this, but it was like 43 percent of Quakers owned slaves which was higher than even the height of the South.
They were very How much you have quotes from the period of Amish thinking that slavery was a Quaker institution? Hey, really [00:44:00] the pyramid and so do it that much. And we don't do it, as the Quaker thing, right? So so they control the education systems and they created this like lie of history, right?
That it was a Puritans who did all these things. They're not know there was them but the Puritans were generally fairly again and they had this like moral extremist position. And the back country people were very okay with moral extremist positions. This is what's right. This is what's wrong.
This is why it's right. This is why it's wrong. Instead of what the Quakers had, which was these deontological like virtue signaling value positions. And so it allowed the two communities to merge very easily. And I would say that almost entirely. The Puritan community that survived, that ended up having high fertility rates, ended up completely merging with the Scotch Irish tradition.
But the Scotch Irish tradition, there is a branch that is just Scotch Irish, so that's left in the United States, which is where like country music and hillbilly culture comes from. But there's a different branch, which is [00:45:00] represented a lot in Texas, for example, where my family's from which was the merger of the Puritan and Scots Irish traditions.
Simone Collins: Yeah. And that checks out. So let's bring this back to JD Vance as we wrap up for people watching then. I could see them being okay, so what is he? Is he urban monoculture? Is he tech bro? Is he hillbilly? What can I actually expect from him? What can I model him? You guys are saying he is authentic.
You're saying he's trustworthy, but what the hell is he now? I'm so confused. What would you say to
Malcolm Collins: that? I'd say he is who he has chosen to become, who he has chosen to become. And you can say why did he choose to be, even if you're like, okay, but he only chose to become that thing because it helped him politically.
He became urban monoculture because it helped him make money and move up. He became what he is now because it helped him, win the love of the conservative party. I want to say. Even if that's true, if he acts out of line with this new identity, he will lose the power it has given him. If he is really that mercenary, then, it's that line from Pirates of the Caribbean.
A [00:46:00] dishonest man you can always trust to be dishonest. It's the honest ones you want to watch out for. Because you can never predict they're going to do something incredibly stupid.
Malcolm Collins: Let's see if I can push it here. You can always trust a dishonest man to be dishonest or really what he means by that is do what's in his best interest. So he's very trustworthy, a trustworthy man. That's a man who might do something stupid. That's good. And so either. You could say he's a trustworthy man and he is honestly signaling his value system, or he's a dishonest man.
And now this value system is what has allowed him to achieve power and fame. And so he will continue to do what's in line with it. So whatever it is, when you
Simone Collins: Trump is definitely Captain Jacking it. Like the, and it's so easy to know what he's going to do. Yeah. And that's, I think that's why we like him.
We like him for the same reason we like Captain Jack Sparrow. You know what I mean?
Malcolm Collins: He actually, like that scene in Pirates of the Caribbean
[00:47:00] Hold up there, you. It's a shilling to tie up your boat at the dock.
Malcolm Collins: Where his little ship is sinking and he steps off onto the pier, that is Trump walking into the presidency. His entire like immediate empire is burning to the ground.
And he's just Um, and the progressives, it's always like you are without a doubt the worst politician I have ever heard of. But you have heard of me, but you have heard of me.
You are without doubt the worst pirate I've ever heard of. But you have heard of me. That's got to be the best pirate I've ever seen. So it would seem.
Malcolm Collins: And that's what, and that is the vitalistic framework is not the type thing the same way. Yes. You're without a doubt.
Yes. The most, the worst animal conservationist I've ever heard of. And he'd be [00:48:00] like, well. but you have heard of me. And I think that's very much like us. Like people are like, Oh my God, you guys, you're always being attacked. Everybody thinks you're crazy. And we're like, ah, I was thinking like, if we ended up getting one of our shows approved, we should do a cover of if you're ever going to survive, you got to get a little crazy song
Malcolm Collins: because that is the truth of the world we live in now.
The groups that survive are the groups that are willing to think for themselves. And I also like that we live in a period where that is becoming culturally lauded among the conservative faction of our society and the old pearl clutching, you must stay within our value set. Like my family being called the Adams family growing up in the local environment, which was like an elite conservative culture.
They were like, Oh, they're weird. They do their own thing. Like, how dare they? And that is [00:49:00] not. That is not the elite culture of today. And so it's, it is cool that in a way, we've been able to find ourselves back into the good graces of an elite cultural faction, despite largely spurning that in my childhood,
Because the faction that I spurned ended up crashing, burning and disappearing.
It's the faction that, that Abby, classically Abby, you know, Ben's sister keeps trying to appeal to.
Simone Collins: Yeah. God. Yeah. You really. You really did come from Scotts Irish. I was just thinking about like stories about things that your mom would do when you were a kid and she totally like, what?
Oh it, you would be your birthday party or something, when you'd be like, oh, I wanna, go do this. And then, you'd run off and the other kids are like, I don't wanna do that. And your mom like, nail down to them just like you, shit, you're gonna do it and you're gonna look happy.
And like little shit that's, that literally came from Scott's Irish culture.
And note here. People may be surprised because they heard earlier that my family was quite a blue blood family, like intergenerational wealth. Uh, when I was growing up and they may be like well, that [00:50:00] precludes you from coming from the hillbilly culture. And it's like, not really. I mean, you can come from the Scots-Irish culture and then end up making intergenerational wealth.
and moving into the center of a major city and becoming an important political family there without completely abandoning all of your cultural traditions.
And I should also note that my mom married into the blue blooded family. She did not grow up in a family like that. So she maintained a much pure version of this culture as you'll hear in some of these stories.
Simone Collins: Yeah.
Malcolm Collins: Oh, yeah. She took it. She took it with one of my friends. I said, she goes, you're here to make my son happy today. So you go fucking do what he says he wants to do. I already loved it. My favorite thing that she did.
It's very much of this culture is I came home from school one day and the teachers came to them and told them that I had snitched on another kid and how good I was for doing that and she took me aside and she goes, you little shit.
I was like, but they were beating, they were like picking on another kid. She goes, that's what your fists are for. And I was like, but I'll get detention. And she's like, I don't care. I don't fucking care. Be a man. Um, [00:51:00] uh, Don't go to the authority. Handle this yourself. That's how morality is enforced.
Respect. Respect. Where I got in trouble with the teachers at my school and I go to my mom and I was like, I just was doing what I thought was right. And she heard what I had done and she goes, Oh, yeah I'm gonna let you in on a secret. To you, Being a kid, teachers are like your authority.
They're the height of, what sets the culture in your community. I don't know how she says exactly but she's like two adults. Teachers are losers. They are, They are they're making minimum wage then. I don't know if they actually were. But she goes, and nobody respects it. So you shouldn't respect them.
If you listen to their advice, you're going to end up just like them. So she goes, so you do what you think is right. And if you get punished for it, so be it deal with that as well. And I was like, okay, that, that is why I kept getting kicked out of schools. And that is also part of why, you know. Um, because my mom did not grow up in a wealthy [00:52:00] culture.
She married into one of those families. And so I think it was her raising of me to be so annoyed where they would like kowtow or bend the moral systems to fit what was socially normative. And I was like, But no, like it's wrong. It's wrong. And I need to say it's wrong because I know it's wrong. And it would be immoral of me not to do that. By the way, people are wondering just like how white trash your family is. Her name was Winnell. She was the first fan of the show, but she has died since, since this show started. So she'd watch it every day early and she encouraged me to keep doing it.
But um, Her name was Winnel. Her name was Winne because her parents couldn't decide between the names Winnie and Nel. Um, And I was like, yo, that
Simone Collins: was another element of the Scotts Irish culture was insane. Names often Port Manaus too. Yeah.
Malcolm Collins: So it's very much a um, uh, a Jackie bar cultural bob, or like, uh, it is very common in this culture to have double barrel names of your Jim, Bob, Mary Sue, like Jim, Bob, Mary Sue.
She was Winnie Anelle .
Simone Collins: [00:53:00] She, in the end, she was the classiest woman I have ever met.
Malcolm Collins: And I actually think that's where a lot of her life came from, is a desire to be in this upper class culture instead of being able to be who she was.
Simone Collins: Yeah, that was the constant, uh, yeah, no, she's, in, in the context of this conversation, that was this constant pressure is that we always loved the Scots Irish Whannell, and then it was like the singing frog of Warner Brothers phenomenon where we'd like, Present her to people and look it's my mom.
It's the woman we keep telling you about, like we'd share her texts, that she'd send to us that were like super based with our friends. And then she'd hang out with our friends and just be nothing but the sophisticated, classy, witty woman. And we'd be like, okay, that's fine.
But what we
Malcolm Collins: like, that's not what anyone who really
Simone Collins: takes,
Malcolm Collins: but it was because she, unlike Trump was able to succeed where Trump wasn't, she was accepted into extreme upper class culture multiple times, my dad. And then the guy who she remarried [00:54:00] she was in like in Naples, Florida, which we don't know.
It's like this it's where a lot of the Midwestern business elite go
Simone Collins: to winter. And she was
Malcolm Collins: considered a very influential person among the Wellesley society there because she was also classy. It's but that's not who she was, was, you know, a heavy drinking and she was a very heavy drinking person.
She'd always say well, you know, I can't, I can't talk with you until I've had my morning constitutional. Um, Instead of a morning um, Uh, uh, expresso.
Simone Collins: Jen with a massive ice cube and fresh squeezed
Malcolm Collins: lime juice. Yeah, that was what she always wanted. But she needed to stay skinny and attractive, but, she couldn't risk, Don't make it classy.
She anyway,
Simone Collins: Here's to authenticity, cosplaying culture and a very interesting election season in America ahead, which will set the tone of our culture for the next four years, too.
Malcolm Collins: I'm becoming increasingly confident that Republicans are going to win. Now, the [00:55:00] assassination of Tim apparently didn't change things because half of society is run by a cult.
I mean, 30 percent Trump derangement
Simone Collins: syndrome is real. They are going to vote for whatever is not Trump. I, how many times do I have to say this? It changes nothing.
Malcolm Collins: I think this I think this election cycle may break Trump derangement syndrome for a lot of people. And I think J. D. Vance was built like a machine to do that.
You are so sweet. You are so truly pronatalist. That's a cute baby. She's got the wiggles.
Simone Collins: Oh
Malcolm Collins: no. Do I need to go,
Simone Collins: uh,
Malcolm Collins: Pick it together.
Simone Collins: It is time, mac and cheese night. Double cheese. Yes. Oh, I
Malcolm Collins: was gonna have mac and cheese and tomato soup. I think they'd go really well together.
Simone Collins: The tomato soup, if I don't open it will be good until August.
So unless you feel like eating more of it later, you can. So then I'll have some more mac and cheese. Now you want mac and cheese with pulled pork on top would be so good. I don't know why. Oh, sorry. Pulled slow cooker. [00:56:00] Five day, what, brisket?
Malcolm Collins: That's an interesting idea, but today I'm interested in something a little simpler from my
Simone Collins: belly.
Your belly's feeling a little delicate.
Malcolm Collins: And you guys should know, Simone is in extreme searing pain right now, and she has been this entire episode. She is just tanking through it because one of her goals this year is to not show any of her Any negative emotional states
Simone Collins: and I've totally failed at that for multiple occasions so far this year.
So I really got to make it up. Ah,
Malcolm Collins: I don't think so. I think you've done an amazing job. You are a picture of stoicism, which is something I deeply appreciate, you know, show your emotions, but then keep with that Puritan stoicism. Okay.
Simone Collins: Damn straight, Malcolm. I love you.
Malcolm Collins: I love you too. Good. Okay. I was terrified about having to go get the kids in that rain.
Simone Collins: It should let up. It's going to come back this evening, but I love me a good storm, especially now that soon we'll have power banks. Yay.
The Authenticity of Fraud: The Yale Hillbilly + The Classless Aristocrat