Cenk Uygur

And now you want the same results? You want the same salary as that guy? No, brother, no. He's working twice, four times, ten times harder than you. That's not fair. Fairness matters. I lived, we wound up, I mean, we were in the suburbs of Jersey, but we wound up in Freehold eventually, and we lived across a farm, which is kind of, In Central Jersey it happens, right?

And it was called Fair Chance Farm. I was like, how did I get this? It's amazing, right? And I love that. That's the essence of America, and that's what I want to go back to. So we've got to create that opportunity, not just because it's the moral thing to do, but because it's also the economically smart thing to do. If you enable all those great people that are in –

in lower income classes and middle income classes, you're going to get a much better economy, a much stronger democracy. So that's the direction we're going.

Okay, so now we're getting into social issues, right? So this is where we all rip each other apart and then the people at the top laugh their ass off at us and go, we got a fighting over trans issues. They're killing each other. It's hilarious. And they're so busy, they don't realize we're running the place. Right. Okay. But let's engage.

Some people will look at DEI and go, well, that just gives me an opportunity. Just like anyone else. I love DEI. Another person will look at it and go, no, that gives, that says that you should be picked above me and I hate DEI. Right. So the reality of DEI is a little bit more complicated. And so, but you got to go back. So first, did we need affirmative action in the 1960s? Definitely. Why?

All the firefighter jobs in South Carolina, as an example, are going to white guys. All the longshoremen jobs in New York, LA, wherever you have it, are all going to white guys because that's how the system was. Yes, also in the North, right? So we now are in a civil rights era. We decide we're going to go towards equality.

minorities in that case mainly uh black americans had to find a way to break in i'm not trying to like if you're a longshoreman and it's a good job you naturally want to pass it on to your son i get your instinct i don't hate you for it right but we got to let black kids also have a shot at it right so you need it in the beginning but at a certain point you have to phase it out

So when I was growing up, it's now in the late 80s, early 90s, I hated affirmative action. And I've been principled on it from day one and to this day. I'm not in favor of affirmative action. I say it on the show all the time. Why? I'm a minority. Being a Turk, I grew up Muslim. I'm an atheist now, but...

Generally speaking, a Muslim is certainly a minority in America and pretty much a hated one overall. But I didn't check off Muslim or Turkish or any ethnicity when I applied to college because I believe in a meritocracy, as we were talking about. But we don't really have a meritocracy now.

And so, but so I can come back to that, but, but right now, but so I didn't check it all because I didn't want an unfair advantage, uh, because I want to earn it. I want to earn it. So now I'm in law school and I'm hanging out with right-wingers because at that point I'm a Republican.

And one of the guys says to me about one of our, uh, black student, uh, going to Columbia, he says, oh, I wonder how he got in here. God, that is the problem with affirmative action. It devalues the accomplishments of every minority in the country. You have to transition away from it. If you don't, it sets up a caste system, and that caste system is lethal to democracy.

So does DEI go too far in some instances? Yes. But is it a boogeyman that's going to take all the white jobs and make them black, as Trump would say, black jobs, right, and give minorities too much power, et cetera? No, the idea isn't to rob you and to give all the opportunity to minorities. The idea is to make it equal. But as the pendulum swings, did it swing too far in some directions? Yes.

The left can't acknowledge that, and the right thinks, can't acknowledge that. Of course, at some point, you've got to give a chance for others to break in so they have a fair chance.

Because people are taught to just be in the tribe they're in and to believe it 100%. Like, I've gotten kicked out of every tribe. I might be the most attacked man in internet history, partly because we've been around forever and partly because I disagree with every part of the political spectrum because I believe in independent thought. And the minute you vary a little bit, people go nuts.

And so the far left tribe is... gonna go with their preset ideology, just like the far right tribe is. So for example, on trans issues, we've protected trans people for over 20 years in the Young Turks. We fought for equality for trans people and for all LGBTQ people for two decades. We did it way before anyone else did.

When Biden came out in favor of gay marriage in 2013, we're like, this is comically late. So like, we're all supposed to like congratulate him in the year 2013 that he thinks gay people should have the same rights as straight people. And then he had to push Obama to get there. Right.

So on the other hand, I'm like, guys, if you allow trans women to go into professional sports, not at the high school level, but professional sports, but let's say they go into MMA or boxing. And a trans woman, I mean, it happens in boxing. It happens in MMA. Punches a biological woman so hard that she kills her, right? So you're going to set back trans rights 50 years.

I'm not trying to hurt you. I'm trying to help you. You have to do bounds of reason. So when I say simple things like that, and I say, you give LeBron James every hormone blocker on planet earth, he's still going to dominate the WNBA. Okay. It would be comical. He might score a hundred points a night. Okay. And they'll say, oh, that's outrageous. And they've, some have called me Nazi. Hmm.

For saying that trans women or that professional leagues should make their own decisions on whether they allow trans women in or not. So why do they say that? Because they're so besieged, they think we cannot give an inch. We cannot give any ground. If you give any ground, you're a Nazi. Okay. So we've got to get out of that mindset. You can't function in a democracy saying,

and be in an extreme position and expect the rest of the country to go towards your extreme position. So why do you think we are not in a meritocracy? So because of the corruption. So for example, but there's also, but remember, Corporate media is the matrix. And they plug you into cable, right, in the old days. Now it's a little bit different because of online media.