Inside the Conservative Civil War - Brett Cooper - #1030

**Chris Williamson** (0:00)
What are your thoughts on the conservative civil war that seems to be happening?

**Brett Cooper** (0:05)
Starting off strong. Oh gosh.
You know, I think that it is, obviously, there are a lot of issues that people are debating. I think that have caused this schism that we're seeing. But I think that there are a lot of people that are arguing and finding it good faith. I think that there are a lot of people online who think that these are just like bad actors on both sides, we're going after each other. I look at it as these groups of people, they're extremely passionate, they have an idea of the direct shark country in this movement and party should go, and they're worried about one side taking too much power of the radicals, taking control of us getting too involved in foreign affairs, whatever it might be. I look at it as something that is, not that the Civil War is a positive, but that there are good people fighting it. So I think that makes it a little more nuanced.

**Chris Williamson** (1:00)
That's a very diplomatic way to start. Yeah, well done. Just claim it done.

**Brett Cooper** (1:04)
Yeah. But I also think that, I think my big issue with it is when it comes down to the issue of free speech and hypocrisy. On the right, that's what I've been talking about a lot, is that we spent so many years railing against the purity tests, and we're not going to dig up people's social media and cancel them. We're not going to take things out of contact. You know, do that. We're better than that. We celebrate when somebody refuses to bend a knee to the mob, and then the same thing is happening on the right, and they're demanding that somebody is canceled into platformed because that person platforms somebody that you don't like. Or now, you know, why I talk to girl on the show today, just to really get into it, is Tucker Harrelson's son works for JD Dance. How does he know that? And they're now asking his son to disavow his father.
He must make a statement about his father. Like, how have we gotten to this? And I said this on the show, but it reminds me so much of, do you remember when Sydney Sweeney went viral for her mom having a big 60 great again birthday party?

**Chris Williamson** (2:06)
No.

**Brett Cooper** (2:07)
Okay, it was like 2022, I think. These photos made their way around Reddit and X and all of the things that people saw her at, you know, a birthday party celebrating her mom and there were like MAGA looking hats in the background and it really lost their shit. And it turns out it was make 60 great again. And she took a photo with one, some relative who was wearing a thin glue line t-shirt, that just exploded it even more and she had to make this statement. And she basically said, guys, like, get over it. She was like, I'm like, I'm not going to disavow my family. I don't really care. It was a celebration for my mom and that's all that matters. And the right was like, yes, this is so amazing. She's an inspiration. This is how you handle these types of things. You know, her values aren't necessarily to represent her family. This is great. You know, she loves her family. And every we are like demanding Tucker Ferrelson's son, like, condemn his father.

**Chris Williamson** (2:55)
The Carlson silence is deafening.

**Brett Cooper** (2:57)
Yeah. So anyway, so I just think it's all a bit ridiculous. I would rather people air out their ideas and debate them. They, some light is the best disinfectant. If you hate somebody's ideas, like, let them speak and see what people think about them. I think that there is a bit of a Streisand effect going on as well. The more we say, don't listen to this, don't listen to that person. Especially with my generation, everybody's going to go like.

**Chris Williamson** (3:23)
Exactly. I'm going to go and rumble and I'm going to see what's happening. Yeah.

**Brett Cooper** (3:26)
Yeah. So those are my thoughts on it.

**Chris Williamson** (3:29)
What I'm interested in is why the unity that we saw for probably the last four years has started to splinter apart. My notion, my bro science theory, is when you're outside of the tent pissing in, it's very easy to unify because you're trying to achieve a common goal. We must get into power. Look at these people. Groups are bound together more over the mutual distaste of an out group as opposed to the mutual love of the in group. But as soon as you're inside of the tent pissing out, you're the guys that are in power, you start to look around and go, well, maybe he can go out of the tent now. I think if you look at the left, because this was the argument that the right always had against the left, the progressives and the liberals and the far left and the populists. It's so fractured, they're so ununified.