You Can’t "Keep Politics Out" Anymore

Speaker 1: Hey everybody. Welcome back to Fighting Matters. I am Steve Quan from BJJ Mental Models. I got my friends Jeff Shaw from Bellingham BJJ on the line. Jeff, what's up? Speaker 2: We know, everything, everything is perfect all the time. Speaker 1: Everything is just perfect. That's why we're doing this podcast because nothing important has happened. Speaker 2: Obviously, it's been a pretty good night for me. Speaker 1: Uh it's been a pretty good night for me. I just came from night class, still wearing my rash guard under this, going like half Danaher, not full Danaher. So I put the Speaker 3: Never go full Danaher. Speaker 1: And that voice there is the goat Stefan Kesting from Grapple Arts. Stefan, how are you doing, man? Speaker 3: Hey, I'm glad to be here. This is the uh the West Coast edition of Fighting Matters, seeing as we're all left coasters. Speaker 1: That is true. All of the East Coasters like Jesse and Mike are apparently dead at the moment. They appear to have picked up whatever that bug is that's going around that has incapacitated everyone. I have just recovered from what I think is probably the same bug. Um and I can vouch that yeah, it it sucks. Man, I was sick as a dog for a while, but you know what? The show goes on. There's a lot to talk about. Holy shit, is there a lot to talk about? It is not even the end of January as of this recording. We're not even one month into 2026. And I'm not even sure I could run down all of the earth-shattering news just from memory here. I probably should have written this down, but God, I mean, what what's happened since the beginning of the year? There was the Renee Good killing. Um there was the Alex Pretty killing. There was um Donald Trump threatening to annex Greenland and pull out of NATO. There was all of the shakeups now at um God, everywhere with um was it Bavino has now been removed. Um Christie Gnome and maybe even Stephen Miller seem like they're in hot water. Oh man, I hope, I really hope that all of these people just eat each other alive. Um there have been so many earth-shattering, world-changing events in 2026 so far. It has not even been a full month. Speaker 3: You missed the Ilhan Omar attack. Speaker 1: The Ilhan Omar attack just happened. Late breaking news, um you know, Congressperson Ilhan Omar from Minnesota was attacked and the person who did it apparently is a hardcore Trumper. But I mean, and of course, what was Donald Trump's response to this? I'm sure he came out and tried to cool things, right? And say calmer heads should prevail and we should unify and violence is unacceptable. Um Stefan, can you confirm that that is what the president said during this very difficult, scary time? Speaker 3: Uh I have it right here. Um in an in an ABC interview on whether he saw the attack on Ilhan Omar, he said, no, I don't really think about her. I think she's a fraud. I really don't think about that. She probably had herself sprayed, knowing her. And that's interesting because it's the heuristic that every accusation is a confession. That that does, you know, put the say the assassination attempt in Butler, Pennsylvania into a fresh perspective. I mean, that's the one where he rose up with a bloody face and going, fight, fight, fight. Speaker 1: Fight, fight, fight. Speaker 3: I came, yeah, I came out of isolation, deep isolation for a month in uh in none of it, in way northern Canada last summer, right before that happened. And I was in a happy head space and I was trying to stay off the internet and then I flew down to a hotel on my way home and I turned on the internet. The very first thing on Instagram was Gordon Ryan fanboying, putting that picture about 10 times on his Instagram. And like, my first reaction was like, fuck, there goes the election. And and I was right. But uh yeah, I actually here, this, why don't we go into conspiracyville? Because I think conspiracy, reflexive conspiracism is incredibly toxic. But uh Jeff, what do you think really happened in Butler, Pennsylvania? Is it exactly what the the narrative is? Speaker 2: So I have a slightly different take on this and I'm going to I'm going to I I I will get to Butler, Pennsylvania, but you know how you know that Donald Trump doesn't really think Ilhan Omar is a fraud? Because he hasn't pardoned her. He's pardoned 12 people who have been accused, or not accused, convicted of fraud. One lady can was convicted of defrauding people of about a billion dollars, uh got convicted, went to prison, Trump pardoned her, got out. She was convicted again of defrauding people again, and he pardoned her again. So, uh you know that he doesn't really think she's a fraud because if so, he'd probably give her a cabinet position. And you know, and speaking of which, you guys know this and I want to thank you guys for having me as the token American on this one. As the token American, I'm also a former Minnesotan. I lived in Minneapolis for about a year and a half and it's a great city and it's filled with amazing people and it you know, people that are I think behaving in a really inspiring fashion against literal military occupation by their own federal government. And um I think that this is the stage where um you know, this is the stage where if you still support the actions of this administration, there are there are no more excuses. You are supporting open fascism. And and as Stefan pointed out, when you were in your minute-long talk about what has happened in January, Steve, you did miss the Ilhan Omar attack, but you also missed the FBI rating uh the Fulton County uh voting machines today, not because of anything that's recent, but to talk about the 2020 election still after every court in America and every lawsuit that has been filed has found absolutely no wrongdoing. Speaker 1: Well, while we're on that, while we're on that, didn't the Washington Post um raid also happen this year where there was a a reporter who just in a completely unprecedented event, um her house was raided and all of her documents were taken. I believe that was this year. We didn't even get into Jerome Powell. I mean, that's another thing. Also, tariffs are apparently back on the menu. Um it is really clear that this is a a strategy of chaos and overwhelm. And we know that that's the game that this administration plays, but I just don't know how to respond to this effectively because we have to talk about this stuff. It's earth-shattering and important, but I'm also cognizant of the fact that by doing it, we're playing exactly into their hands. So what do we do here? I mean, Stefan, you had an idea. You tell me. Speaker 3: Well, I think there's sort of you can interpret all the chaos as an attempt to distract from the fact that they're now one month and 10 days, today's the 29th when I'm recording this, past the day when the Epstein Act, when the Epstein Transparency Act was came into power, right? That was passed by Congress almost unanimously. I think there was one dissenter in November, November 19th, 2025, and said that by December 19th, 2025, so more than a month ago, all the files had to be released, not just the ones that were convenient, protecting only the identity of victims. And that's still not out. And it's going to be out any day now, any day now, probably right along with the healthcare plan that he promised back in 2016. So, you you can look at all this chaos as potentially trying to uh distract from the fact that these fucking files haven't been released yet. And the more that they do, like, I was originally an Epstein file minimizer. Right? I I despise reflexive conspiracism. But when you have the President of the United States saying he's going to release the files, no, he's not going to release the files because they might hurt some people. Oh, just Lane Maxwell's been arrested. I wish her well. Moving her to minimum security prison. Then saying the Epstein files don't exist. Then saying they exist, but they're a a Democratic hoax. Then saying he's going to release them. Then not releasing them. Then saying, are people still talking about this? I can't believe that they're still talking about the Epstein files. And then, if if you go through this lens of invading blue cities, essentially with paramilitary units. Or threatening to militarily invade Greenland. And invading and doing the Venezuela operation. These are all potentially, you could you could look at them as massive distractions. True, you can look at them as episodes of reality television where you need to have a cliffhanger every day to have people tune in the next day. Right? That that's one model. But the more that they're doing to deny that these things exist, to block their release, to minimize, to the the more real it seems. And how many photos and videos are there now of Trump partying with Epstein and and Ghislaine Maxwell? And I I think it bears saying, yet again, and I'm speaking for both of you, that we don't give a fuck who's in the Epstein files. I like Noam Chomsky. But if Noam Chomsky abused underage girls on Epstein Island, send her to trial and if he's guilty, lock him up forever. I don't give a shit that I liked him. Uh it it doesn't matter who's in there. It doesn't matter if Bill Clinton, it doesn't matter if Mahatma Gandhi, investigate everybody. If if they're there's enough evidence, prosecute them, and if they're guilty, throw them in jail forever. Speaker 2: You know, when we talk about strategy, and Steve, you asked what can we do? The thing is, I don't think there's a coherent strategy in the administration except to create chaos. There are different factions in the administration that believe in different things and sometimes those are at odds with each other. And so I think like this is a an insane period of deep crisis for America, but in times of crisis, the only good thing about destabilization is gives you it gives you the opportunity to build something back out of the ashes that is better than it was before. And I'm actually, although I do think that it is going to get rougher in and around America in the next nine to to 12 months. I do think the long-term trends, I'm more positive about the long-term trends than I ever have been because I Speaker 1: Why? Speaker 2: That's a great question. Because people that are apolitical are people that the the reality is for most Americans, most Americans would prefer to avoid politics. They don't like thinking about it, they don't like talking about it. They have enough struggle in their lives, they have enough conflict in their lives. People would rather live their lives, pursue their passions, do jiu-jitsu, go home, hang out with their families. And so the the it's not as simple as people paint it with the there's the right and the left and then there's the middle and the tug of war. Of course, it's more complex than that. But I think the vast majority of Americans are apolitical. You can see that in our voting rates. And what I'm seeing as someone that's always been a very political person who's worked in politics, who's, you know, experienced this and lived in America most of my life. People that are apolitical grandfathers or self-identified centrists or self-identified moderates are in the streets in Minneapolis and elsewhere. The people that are radically pro-Trump are much quieter by and large. And this is not just my anecdotal experience, although it is my anecdotal experience. Also libertarians, who until very recently have been very quiet, are now speaking up vocally, like state libertarian parties in America, as well as like a lot of the libertarians that are in my in my in my circle. And I've always been really skeptical of the fact that, okay, there's 40% of us that are right, there are 40% of us that are left, and then there's 20% that are in the middle. I don't think it is that simple. I think the vast I think there is uh the way that you move policy in America is through enthusiastic members of the base, which has been the Republican strategy, just fire up the angriest members of the right that you possibly can. I think that what has happened is a lot of people that would rather just be going to church or just be getting a degree are like, hey, I have a disabled person that I love and these people are destroying the individuals with disabilities education Act. Hey, I actually believe in the Constitution, whether that's the First Amendment, Second Amendment, Fourth Amendment, all of which seem to be on the table. And I think a lot of people in America are used to being able to say, okay, that's just political rhetoric. He doesn't actually mean he wishes he seized the voting machines. And now I think people are understanding like, oh no, when when his chief of staff John Kelly, a lifelong Republican, military man, conservative, said, no, he's a fascist. I think people are realizing that was not rhetoric and that that no, this is this is real. And so, um, you know, I have a lot of people in my life that are conservatives that I love. And there are some of those that are I I consider the bellwether of middle America political opinion. And I have been stunned that those folks have not gone full anti-Trump before now, but a bunch of them are now full anti-Trump. And uh I think that creates political space. And I think it creates the space um to to really define what it means to be an American in a positive way as opposed to just reacting against something. Speaker 1: I I have a lot of thoughts on this. I mean, my my observations align with yours, Jeff. There's a lot of people who even just a few months ago were telling me how much they disliked politics and they were, you know, skeptical of the libs and they wanted to give Trump the benefit of the doubt. A lot of that is gone now. Um a lot of that has been washed away and honestly, some of the rhetoric that I have heard out of people I would consider to be more on the conservative side is pretty scary because I get the feeling that a lot of people are getting to the point where they're like, fuck, we might have to actually fight for our government. I was listening to um I don't know to what extent you guys get exposed to all of all of this stuff in terms of international news, but the way that the rest of the world is talking about America, um is no joke. There was an article in the Guardian, I think I circulated with you guys, an an op-ed. Um and I mean, I know that the right loves to rag on the Guardian and call it left, but whatever, right? It's it's a legitimate news source. Speaker 3: Which means it's an op-ed. Speaker 1: Yeah. And they published an op-ed that straight up encouraged Americans to rise up and overthrow their government even if it means violating the Constitution to do so. And I thought that is a wild thing for a a major publication to put out even in an opinion article. But it's increasingly becoming um a realization that I think a lot of Americans are are coming to, which is I shit, I might actually have to I may be called on to fight for my country here against itself. Um Anne Applebaum, I was listening to an interview recently and she's talking about this and she said like, one thing that Americans need to do right now is mentally prepare themselves for the possibility of having to fight back against their government. I mean, this is this is fucking insane. This is absolutely insane that we've come to this point, but I think it to your point, Stefan, you know, talking about conspiracies, it is very much become the rational mindset now that like, no, this is a fascist government by any definition, right? I mean, if you don't believe Trump himself telling you that he wants to be a dictator, then just I mean, look at look at everyone else, right? The New York Times put out an article recently saying, yep, okay, we admit it now. We we we fought this, but we admit it, it's fascism. We have to call it what it is. Um the Wall Street Journal now is pushing back. These are, you know, basically everyone to the left of Newsmax is realizing that this is what people said it was. The thing that that we thought was too terrible to even accept as a possibility that America could become a dictatorship because we've never even considered such a thing in our lifetime as being possible. We're seeing what the rest of the world already knows, which is that yes, it can happen anywhere. And it is happening here now. Um and to your point, Jeff, the the bravery of Minnesotans. Man, if presuming that American democracy survives this and this is written about in the history books, I think it will look very kindly on the people of Minnesota as real heroes who just I mean, they really demonstrated what to the rest of the world America has always been marketed as. Just these are the good people of America. Like, man, if if you guys can get through this okay, I am going to put so much of my money into Minnesota. I've never been. I'm going to go there and I'm going to drop some of my crappy Canadian dollars because these people are are heroes. And it's not like it's one or two people. It it's the entire community coming together. Right down to the police force and the National Guard. I mean, I know especially in Minnesota, you know, the police have not historically had a great reputation, but even they are so far coming together and saying like, we stand with our people over the federal government. That is a powerful message to send. Um and I think I mean, as of this recording, we have seen that even this fascist administration has apparently realized they need to take the brakes they need to put put the brakes down and maybe change course on this because people will fight back. This is not one of those issues that can be steamrolled over. And it it gives me a level of hope that I did not have at the end of 2025 that there is still fight here and that even the administration realizes like, shit, this could be the end of us. Speaker 3: When we're talking about strategy for dealing with this, there's kind of American strategy and what can the average American citizen do, what can American politicians do. But as not an American, it's fascinating to watch the international community. And I realize that many people living in Idaho, they don't think that it matters what the rest of the world thinks of the United States. We got to kick all their asses at the same time with one hand tied behind our back. Okay, cool. But uh the the implications of alienating the rest of the world when a lot of your financial well-being is based on interconnected supply chains and the relative value of the US dollar as a reserve currency. If if you if I could convince people to watch one thing, it would be Mark Carney's speech. So Mark Carney uh Prime Minister of Canada, basically Trump got him elected because he was slated to get clobbered in the last Canadian election, like and then Trump started talking about Speaker 1: Well, he wasn't. Justin Trudeau was slated to get clobbered. Speaker 3: Well, but the the the Liberals were still going to lose. In a Carney to Polievra uh matchup, Carney was losing big time. And then uh Trump started talking about the 51st state business. And that instantly swung the electorate by about 40 points, by about 40 percentage points. And to watch his speech that he gave at Davos, which is acknowledging that we're now in a different world and we can no longer essentially trust the United States as our ally. We can no longer trust that um that we have to make our own uh trade deals, we have to make our own uh allegiances, we have to create new, he called it the middle powers. You create an economic block of say Europe and Canada. You know, that's a massive economic block. That rivals China, that rivals the United States. And I think in terms of long-term side effects, yeah, like let's just say the orange rapist dies of a clot tomorrow and let's just say the midterms are actually legit and let's just say that um the Senate also gets taken and that by this time next year, this was all a bad dream. Let's just say that. The long-term effects of American power in the world and the long-term effects of uh the absolute degradation of people of the of the relationships that have been built and the trust that's been put in the United States. And what that means in terms of dollars and cents and global power is is massive and that's going to take decades to repair if ever. I I actually don't think it can be repaired, but because just because Trump's out, doesn't mean that four years from now, uh the American electorate isn't going to reelect another worse Trump. So, Carney's speech, which again, everybody should watch, was basically saying, you know, we can we can no longer trust uh America. It was only mentioned once by name, but it was super clear what he was talking about. And there's a reason that Davos put the Carney, Mark Carney front and center and before Trump. And then they let Trump ramble on for 40 minutes about election fraud and and this, that and the other thing and the juxtaposition of those two speeches, it it when you have, you know, European heads of state going, okay, this really is as bad as we thought. Fuck this. We're we're we're going to start severing ties as fast as we possibly can. Speaker 1: I I really think that everyone should watch that Mark Carney Davos speech. I mean, of course, I I come to this with a lot of Canadian bias, but I do think it was probably the most important speech delivered in the 21st century so far. Um and I'd say it's not even close. Um what was really fascinating about it, Stefan, was it wasn't an attack on the US. And Carney even said this after, I mean, there's been a lot of drama about that speech since then. And he even said like, this is this is an acknowledgment of the reality that we live in. This is not a condemnation of the US. It is an acknowledgment of the fact that we have to move forward in this new world order and here's a vision for doing so. Um and the fact that such a speech could be given and basically treat the United States as a footnote was a very interesting framing. And that I think is the thing that more than anything should scare Americans, not that they're loved or hated, but that they're increasingly becoming irrelevant. Um and I know that's impossible for a lot of Americans to even consider because they've lived their entire lives as have their parents in this world where American superiority is the lay of the land. But America is deliberately seeding that advantage and they won't get it back. I mean, I'm not going to sit here and defend everything that China does, but if you look at the way that they have handled this and the statements that they have made, they are increasingly coming across as the sane people in the room. And if they are able to just slot in and take the place that the United States had before, um that that is a as Mark Carney said, a rupture, a change in the world order that is completely unpredictable in terms of what will happen next. Um a lot of Americans that I've talked to about this speech have said like, ah, well, you know, it's it was a it was a good speech, but given this news cycle, it'll be forgotten in the next day or two. And my thought is like, you got to understand about that speech, it was not addressed to Americans. That speech was addressed to the rest of the world and they have not forgotten. Other countries have been very clear that they are changing foreign policy based on the implications of that speech and the ripple effect is massive. I mean, the uh the BRICS nations are proposing a new currency that they call the unit, which is very clearly intended to be kind of positioned as a future world currency. And as much as as much as Americans have this aura of invincibility, if the world decides to move off the US dollar as the official reserve currency, I don't think Americans understand what that will do to their country. They will immediately overnight go from being basically the center of the world order to being just another middle power, but with a big military. And I think what they'll find is that big military actually doesn't do them as much day-to-day good as they thought it would. Um and it all and while it might guarantee some degree of domestic security, it can't be easily deployed to extract value out of the rest of the world as quickly as diplomacy had been. Pretty much everything that Americans have benefited from over the past 100 years, it's not been their military, it's been diplomacy that has allowed them to become the superpower that they are and they threw all of that away. It's a bizarre thing to watch from the perspective of an an American neighbor. Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't disagree with any of that and I would like to elevate the last bit because I was going to bring up the reserve currency. I think most Americans don't really understand uh because most Americans don't travel and most Americans don't have a sense of a world that did not have uh the dollar as a reserve currency. And I think probably the single I thought that the European countries were going to use the trade bazooka uh with all the recent stuff that's happened. I'm I'm I'm a little conflicted about them not having done so, but I'm kind of at by any means necessary at this stage. I I agree completely that I don't think Americans understand the consequences of the loss of American economic primacy and about how other nations are dumping the dollar and I think that this is there are broader issues here. Like obviously, uh it breaks my heart as an American uh to see us throw away decades of goodwill and American soft power and in so many ways, not just through the overheated and let's just call it what it is, unhinged rhetoric of the 51st state and invading Greenland and getting rid of NATO and just burning those relationships to the ground, but also undermining very successful American overseas investment programs that built soft power like USAID, which kept millions of people alive and now does not, which generated goodwill for America in the world in places that are now being filled by China. And I I've said this before, America the Trump administration has ceded the entire century to China. They've ceded energy dominance to China, which is now the world leader in um clean energy because they don't believe it's a thing. And I think it's a it's a it's a disgrace and you know, when when I think, you know, it's interesting to me being the only American on the call because it is interesting to see y'all's perspectives and for me to be in a position of like, what should we do and how do we define we? I think it is time for international neighbors to start boycotting American things. I think it is time to boycott the World Cup. Um I wish that they would. I think and I hate to say that because it would and a lot of people that are listening to this may think that Jeff, that would impact us as Americans economically a great deal and even though it might be necessary to change administration behavior, tactics like boycotts would hurt America's economy. And that's true. The thing is, we're doing a great job of that on our own. And some, you know, one of one of you guys mentioned tariffs being back on the agenda. I ate at the tariff trough again this month. It is hurting American small businesses every day. I have friends who own a coffee shop that it has basically wiped out their entire profit. The the the tariffs. Uh jiu-jitsu gym owners, if you order gear from overseas, which I do, you cannot avoid your costs have skyrocketed. And these are things that we won't see the impact of them immediately. We're starting to see the tip of the tip of the iceberg. And to return and I'll I'll shut up in a moment because I wanted to return to one larger point that Stefan made. This is generational harm. And in the if the the let's if if the whatever your dream scenario is for how this ends. And I'll give you mine, which is a complete sweep in the midterms, the inexplicable uh you know, an inexplicably magnanimous Trump concession that there they've been rebuffed and all the policy changes. And in that polyanna scenario, our allies still are not going to trust us and they're right not to. Because even if America makes it right to whatever that looks like with the rest of the world over the next X number of years, what our political system is is saying to them is at any time, we could we could elect a deranged narcissistic sociopath who is clearly experiencing cognitive delay, however however nicely you want to say it. He's clearly not right. And his party will still back him without and and that I think is a like it's it's an indictment of all of America, yes, but it's a particular indictment of the Republican Party. And the main thing that we're seeing, and this is what a lot of the moderate Americans that I talk to are are saying, is that look, the Democrats constrain their left. The Democrats marginalize the left extremely effectively. And what we're learning from this administration is the Democrats will or if the Republicans are in power, literally anything the president wants is not only on the table, but will not be resisted. You know, as Stephen Miller said, the power of the president will not be questioned. Speaker 1: Yeah. God, I something that I have seen a lot of Americans on the news talk about recently and say, this has kind of become a bit of a mantra is that um America is not like this because Donald Trump is president. Donald Trump is president because America is like this. And I think that's important to unpack because I have always heard, whenever something like this happens, politicians come out and say, this is not who we are. And I think we have to talk to the critical race theory DEI people and acknowledge that they can take a victory lap here because they were right. This is clearly who America is. It always has been. There has been a large enough portion of the United States that is just relentlessly racist and hostile and fascist and selfish. There's always been enough of a population that this threat has been a it's a bomb. It's a ticking bomb and every few generations it goes off in America and it needs to be fought back against. Um this has happened time and time again. And that is not to disparage Americans because every culture has these problems, right? I mean, in Canada, like I could I don't think anyone cares, but Stefan and I could sit here and talk about the transgressions of the Canadians for a whole episode and more because no one is immune from the, you know, the damages and the harms of history. We all have a dark side. But being refusing, flat out refusing to talk about that dark side is what allows it to fester. And when people started trying to kill DEI and critical race theory, this is what that inherently leads to, right? I mean, you can be as annoyed as you want about blue-haired lesbians or whatever the stereotype is, but at the end of the day, they were right. This is there is enough of a groundswell of this hateful, fascist shit in America that it is allowed Trump to regain power and basically create this fascist hellscape even after everything that happened in his first term and the insurrection and the the rape and the 34 criminal convictions, even after all of that, there was enough of this of this movement to bring him back in. And you can try to wash that away by saying Americans aren't political, maybe that's part of it. But I think a lot of that comes from this deep-seated, honestly, ignorance. Um and I I would dare to say a failure for adults to do their civic duty. I am really disappointed to see hear so many people in our community say things like, keep politics out of this, don't talk about politics, as if it's this bad thing. It's become almost this mantra that jiu-jitsu people have like, you know, they don't mean it though. Well, let me give you an example, right? Jiu-jitsu people will always say, they have we have a lot of mantras in this sport, like, you know, you never lose, you you only win or you learn. A lot of stuff that people just say or the one, two, three clap, stupid traditions that people pick up and they just don't say and they don't think about. Keep politics out of jiu-jitsu is is one of those. People say that because it sounds good and it's a good way it's a thought-terminating cliché, but I got news for people. If you are a fully functioning adult, a mature adult, politics are part of your civic responsibility as a member of the state. It is your I mean, this is this is the entire history of America, the responsibility of individual Americans to hold their government accountable. So when you as a gym owner say, keep politics out of jiu-jitsu, you are failing as a citizen of your country. I don't want to hear about what a patriot you are if you're discouraging people from taking a stand in the face of hellacious injustice. Um this I guess is my big battle with being in the space that we all live in. There is almost this willful ignorance. Um almost a condemnation of trying to make the world a better place. Like just stick your head in the ground, be an ostrich, do arm bars, don't worry about the march of fascism through your own country. Um I mean, Stefan, you I just saw this again, you posted about this again, as you do, and someone jumped in and once again, dropped the whole like, keep politics out of jiu-jitsu shit. And my response to that was like, no one asked for your opinion. Shut sit the fuck down. Like some people are trying to actually do something productive here. And nothing gives little dick energy like trying to shut down someone who's trying to make a difference. I hate that so much. But that's become a mantra in our sport. We keep politics out of this. Why? Why do we keep politics out of this? Why are we expected to do that when the Gracies are giving Jair Bolsonaro a black belt and they're using their platform to promote MAGA shit? Like, why are we supposed to be held to that standard when nobody else is doing so? Speaker 3: Because it's not actually keep politics out of jiu-jitsu. Keep politics out of jiu-jitsu is shorthand for keep the politics that I don't like out of jiu-jitsu. Almost 100% of the time when you see somebody say, keep politics out of jiu-jitsu and you go look into them, they're busy following all of the MAGA shitheads in the sport. And they're not telling them to keep politics out of jiu-jitsu when those MAGA shitheads post political stuff. So they don't mean uh it it's like when uh the MAGA people start saying, don't bring guns to a protest. They don't mean, don't bring guns to a protest. They mean, don't bring guns to a protest if you're on the left or if you're protesting against the government that we like and your last name isn't Rittenhouse. That's what they mean. Uh and as for the the the waves of fascism, I think there are a couple factors that go into promoting upticks of fascism. Number one is a degradation of education. Right? And I think it's undeniable that the US educational system has been under attack for decades. If if you go down and you compare the education, and this isn't just me being a uh hometown uh you know, pumping my hometown, but if you compare the level of education in Arkansas and Mississippi in high school to that of your average town in Canada, it's two full grades less. A grade uh nine here is the equivalent of a grade 11 there. It's insane. So, a degradation of education. Number two, drowning in propaganda. And the counter-arguments, well, look at all the crazy leftist media. Man, if you combine Fox News, Newsmax, OAN, uh Lex Friedman, Joe Rogan, uh Jordan B. Peterson, Tim Pool, the size of that influence dwarfs anything on quote the left and the center. It's five to one in terms of amount of influence. So the amount of propaganda, but I think most fundamentally, I think the time that you most often see fascism come up is when the middle class and in particular young men feel really disenfranchised economically. Either because they are disenfranchised economically or because they're being told they're disenfranchised economically. And what do angry young men who feel like they can't get ahead do? Now they're susceptible to all the fascist tropes of it's the enemy within. It's the Jews. It's the commies. It's the trans people. That blue-haired lesbian is why you don't have a job at General Motors. No, that job at General Motors got shipped out overseas 20 years ago. Uh so a a declining standard of living or a perceived declining standard of living, especially among young men is a real huge uh risk factor for the rise of fascism. I mean, Speaker 1: It always has been. Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah. Speaker 1: And and we are seeing that. I mean, we've talked about this on the podcast. Young men have very valid reasons to be upset. Everyone, frankly, has very valid reasons to be upset. The system as it is does not serve the vast majority of Americans. And during times like this, that's where things like fascism get a toehold because they promise an easy solution to a complex problem that prays on our baser instincts, right? I mean, it's like in Star Wars, it's always easier to be a Sith than a Jedi. The Jedi is hard mode, right? But it it's more rewarding, but it's harder. It's easy to be the Sith. And it's very much the same with fascism. It appeals because it's easy. Um and I just I struggle so much like it really breaks my heart to see what's happening, especially in the states, but we are getting this up here in Canada, right? And a big part of that, you know, Stefan, we should talk about this at some point, the uh propagandic pushed um for things like Alberta separatism. Speaker 3: We we we I just did an episode with Tyson Laron and he's scheduled to come back to talk about Alberta separatism and the attempts of the US or the attempts of large powers to destabilize their neighbors. So what was happening with Russia creating separation movements in Ukraine parallels exactly the massive amounts of funding that that's a relatively small separation um movement in Alberta is getting from the US. But so that is definitely on the list. That's an entire episode and I want you to be there. It's coming real soon. Speaker 1: I would love to be there. Well, let's, you know, I always want to try to find a common thread through all of this because of course, I think what we've talked about so far is the crash course on current events that jiu-jitsu people might have missed in the last month if they weren't paying attention, which I understand, although I don't think it's the right thing to do. I kind of get why people would be overwhelmed. But I what I think it feels helpless now, right? I mean, we can all post angry thoughts on social media, but it feels helpless. And I think that's been a big thread throughout my lifetime at least as an adult. Um a lot of people feel like it's it's helpless and hopeless to engage in politics and it's just not a thing that you can control. So people tune out and in many ways they stay deliberately ignorant of what's happening. Um it has been a real challenge for me to reach a lot of jiu-jitsu people and convince them that like, no, this is a real issue that we're dealing with here. This is existential shit. This is not like some minor trade dispute. It's not some obscure overseas fluff up that doesn't impact most people. This is the future of the world. I mean, this this is an existential threat what is happening right now and it really is important for everybody to not look away and and to pay attention to what's happening and to be honest about it. I mean, I still have people trying to convince me that like Alex Pretty had what was coming to him. Fuck that. Like I I saw it with my own eyes. You saw it with your own eyes. I am done trying to sit down and rationalize with these people who are clearly just lying to themselves and to me. We can all see what's happening and the time for debate about this is over. How do we wake people up, especially in our community, that we can control, the jiu-jitsu community? What what do we do to get all of these, you know, semi-conservative or centrist jiu-jitsu coaches to actually do something about this, whether it be at the at the bare minimum, speak up about it if not something greater. What do we do to wake up the community here that we control, the martial arts community that has been so central to the creation of this problem in the first place? How can people start pushing back against that? Speaker 2: Three things. First of all, uh we can't let folks lose hope. And so, uh I've been reading Hannah Arendt a lot lately, the the great philosopher of of anti-fascism. And uh and she points out some things that I think are really insightful in that the point of constant torrents of lies are not that they are to be believed. It's that it justifies what people want to do anyway because they don't really believe that Alex Pretty had it coming. They just have to say that. There's a certain population that just wants to justify what they want to do. And the second thing is that they can't admit weakness. And the thing is what's happening now is not weakness or is not a sign of strength, it is a sign of weakness. And I think we have to keep reminding people of that. We can't let them take hope from us because revolutions run on hope and that's what's needed in America. And I think that the answer to your question, Steve, might be different uh for international folks who don't live in America, but the reality is a lot of this is on us as Americans to fix. And I think, I get what I get really frustrated uh when I meet some of my fellow travelers and there's defeatism and cynicism. It's so much easier to destroy something than it is to create something. It's so much easier to tear something down than it is to build it up. So it's very easy to say, you you think you're going to have elections. It's like, no, we are going to have elections. We had elections during the Civil War, right? There will be elections. States run on elections in America. Will they try to influence the elections? They always do. And yeah, the finger's going to be going to they're going to try to put their fingers on the scale harder now, but that is a thing that has always happened. And I think that this is something that people that truly have the best interests of their neighbor at heart fail to understand when they're dealing with people that are just all about power. And we we we can't continue to be defeatist. We have to act as if there will be a better tomorrow and as such, we will help create it. We are who we pretend to be. So we got to keep pretending to be a functioning liberal democracy and we'll get there. And I think that two things in my mind are certain. The first is Donald Trump and the Republican Party will be absolutely obliterated in the midterm elections. It will be a historic crater that hits that party. They will lose the House and they will lose the Senate. I believe that in my heart and I think they know it. So that's one thing that I think is certain. The second thing that I think is certain is they will not admit they lost because they never admit they lose. And I think this is why they're losing a lot of reasonable mainstream people because when you see something like Alex Pretty's murder and they're saying, he pulled a gun, he was a terrorist. They say, I did not see that. And I think that they've overreached with a lot of those folks. And so, um, I think we have to be prepared for that. And so, my a lot of my fellow leftists discount the importance of elections. And I think that that is the opposite of what we need to do. Are elections everything that needs to happen in America? Certainly not. But the whole reason that they are in Fulton County looking at those voting machines is because the the State Board of Elections is now made up of Republicans. It used to be made up of Democrats. Why is it now made up of Republicans? Because the state house picks who is on that board. And so, I think we need to engage much more in electoral politics. I know that there's a lot of movement folks out there that don't believe that. And I love y'all and you're absolutely wrong. Now, elections are necessary but not sufficient. So, I'm not saying all we have to do is win the midterms, but I am extremely confident that there will that we will look back on the midterm elections in America and remember it as a historic drubbing for the party that enabled this. And then we have to win what comes next. And that's why it's important to um to talk to folks and and and the good thing is, uh the I do believe that the regime has given us a lot of great things to talk to middle America about. Do you remember when we were all supposed to get $5,000 from Doge? That was a lie. Do you remember this? Do you remember when we were all supposed to get $2,000 from the tariff rebates? That was a lie. The new lie is we will all get giant tax refunds. That will be a lie. These people lie even when it's in their best interest to tell the truth because that's who they are. They can never admit defeat, they can never admit weakness, they can never say, hey, Doge didn't go exactly the way we thought and you're not going to get that. And the thing is, people, even people that are apolitical, even people that are predisposed to want to believe in conservatism or fascism or whatever ism they see reflected by Donald Trump. You can't lie to somebody about what's in their wallet. And Trump told a lot of people the tariffs were going to work and they're not working. He told a lot of people they were going to get money back and they're not getting. He told a lot of people that they were going to get jobs that do not exist. And the chickens are going to come home to roost. Speaker 1: Yep. Speaker 2: Well, Jeff, as our token American, what can people what would you suggest people do about this, right? If someone is on the fence there and they're thinking, fuck, I I I have to do something about this, but I don't even know where to start. I've never done civics in my life. I've never been an activist. I have no idea what I as some gym owner in the middle of nowhere can do. What can regular people actually do that will make a difference right now? Speaker 2: That's a great question. I have three answers. The first is stand up and be counted. And you don't have to be loud and you don't have to be caustic and you don't have to insult people. Communicate in the way that you are comfortable communicating, but we all have social media as gym owners. Just leaving good feedback on people's content that you like or making a post on your own Facebook about your own values has immeasurable value. I can't tell you how many messages I've got from school owners who think us for doing this and every one of them makes me happy. And like I feel like what we're doing is is a very small thing in the ocean. But I think just helping other people understand that they're not alone is important. Second, show up. Stefan mentioned some great ways to show up. Uh whether that be at a protest, and I know a lot of people that didn't consider themselves political that are in their 50s that are showing up. And these are not, you know, and I I believe too, show up at an explicitly non-violent protest, which is all protests just to be just to be real. But like show up at a non-violent protest with a sign, meet some people, share some fellowship, let vote with your body in addition to voting with your dollars and the way you spend your money and things of that nature. Third, participate in electoral politics and I'm not just talking about the midterm elections. School boards matter. Local voting boards matter. Um if you are comfortable engaging in your community in that way, do it. If you're not, someone what Stefan suggested about just showing up through your neighbors. In my time in Minnesota, one of the things that most struck me about the people there is there are all political spectrums of opinion in Minnesota. But neighborliness is a community value. We look out for each other. And looking out for each other, you know, and as if we stand up and be counted and we look out for each other, we're headed in the right direction. Speaker 1: Extremely well said. Stefan, any closing thoughts on your side? Speaker 3: No, I'll leave it to the token American because he summed it up perfectly. Speaker 1: He sure did. I exhausted my gas tank here and I've already I've hit the bottom of my whiskey glass. So I've uh I I have burned all of my fuel here, all of my righteous indignation and I'm ready to wrap this one up. But Jeff, one thing I do think we should probably talk about, uh what people might not know about you is you're not just a jiu-jitsu professor, you are a real professor as well. If people actually want to know the real, uncut and surprisingly fascinating history of Brazilian jiu-jitsu, tell them about what you're working on. Speaker 2: Well, so I'm writing I'm currently teaching at Western Washington University an honors seminar called This Is Why We Fight, an interdisciplinary history of martial arts from 1600 to the present. I've developed an online curriculum that BJJ Mental Models is releasing. We're putting out a video a week. So far we have seven videos, an introductory video and six classes. I also produce packets of reading information, podcasts, other supplemental materials if you're interested. If you want, you can check on that out online at bjjmentalmodels.com/fight. One thing I will mention for people that are interested in this podcast, putting together the course has really taught me that the good guys win in the end and that it's better to be open-hearted and internationalist and learn from everyone and the the story of the way jiu-jitsu, what we call jiu-jitsu today developed is a story of where the good guys learn from people of all nations all around and investigated through science training methods. And the bad guys just tried to get immigrants thrown out of the country and it cost everybody money in the long run. As well as human decency. Speaker 1: Well, like you said, all of that material is digitally available. You can grab it at bjjmentalmodels.com/fight. Um I really love the idea of doing more documentary and educational content that's about more than just the nuts and bolts grappling, but also the broader cultural impact of this stuff. I think it's tremendously educational, not just about the history of martial arts, but also about the history of America because you don't really realize how much these things are intertwined until you check out something like This Is Why We Fight. So, bjjmentalmodels.com/fight if you want to check out Jeff's course. Stefan, do you got anything to plug? Speaker 3: No, it uh go on grapplearts, search my name, see if they think uh suits your fancy, that's enough. Speaker 1: Stefan's Kimura course is awesome though. Stefan's Kimura course is awesome. I I always tell people, if you if you only want one jiu-jitsu instructional because understandably, there's a lot. Um and you just want one. You want the most bang for your buck, regardless of belt level, like how will I get the most out of it? BJJ Formula by Stefan Kesting and Rob Bernacki is always my number one recommendation. So check that out check that out at grapplearts.com if you haven't already. Um so there you go. There are the plugs. Um but yeah, and I would also say, you know, if if you are out there and you want to do something and you're screaming into the void and you don't know where to start and you're a martial artist who wants to bring positivity into the community, um contact us, right? At the bare minimum, we're in the process of trying to figure out how can we build a real community of people who will take meaningful action and we can't do that unless we know each other. So shoot us a DM on Fighting Matters on social media, particularly Instagram or what have you, although we're on most platforms. Um or sign up for our Substack because then we can contact you. That's uh fightingmatters.substack.com. Man, thanks a lot guys for doing this and thanks to everyone for listening. It was very cathartic for me to get all of this off my chest. Um I hope people got some value out of it. But God, yeah, it's a weird time, man. It's a weird time. Speaker 2: We will in the end. If we haven't won yet, it's not the end yet. Speaker 1: Well said. Awesome. And thanks to everyone out there who supports us and fights the good fight as well. We appreciate you too. Talk to you soon.