Richard Feidler

And I think there's another similarity, which is that...

Everything is so hollow.

The loyalty that people had who were appointed in these communist countries, there was the personal loyalty, which usually got them the job.

And then there was the loyalty oaths and the joining the Communist Party when it was required.

The saying all the right words, the citing all the right sources if they were supposedly academics or other kinds of writers.

All of this sort of hollow performativity is actually very similar.

The point about these guys who are destroying the federal government in the United States is not that they believe in something that is antithetical to the people that they're dealing with, which is what they're saying, right?

It's that they believe in absolutely nothing.

I don't even think they necessarily believe that DEI is bad, or they believe anything about DEI, right?

They just believe in destruction.

Right, because words have no meaning.

You know, I'm not a big fan of that kind of candor.

I think we all engage in some rituals, in some ritual speech when we do politics, or at least I hope we engage in some ritual speech.

we sort of reaffirm some values, and maybe we don't entirely live up to all those values in our political lives or in our personal lives, but at least we say that we believe in the rule of law, and maybe we assert some humanist values, and we say that we're honest, and all those things that may not be 100% true, but...

But they are aspirational and they assert shared values.

And when these guys take the stage and say, you know, there's no such thing as shared values, my only aspiration is to take as much power as I can and to kill or bomb

or denigrate people whom I believe to be beneath me.

I don't see the value in that kind of candor.

Such a great quote.

I think the admiration of power is a really great insight.