A conversational transcript of Chris Collins and Ramon discussing political polarization, propaganda, and how tribalism mirrors cult recruitment (isolation, enemy-making, love-bombing). They critique how formerly anti-establishment cultural figures (named: Shepard Fairey, Dave Grohl) appear to support mainstream political figures, and describe personal consequences of public political alignment (lost friendships/family divisions). The speakers argue that propaganda deepens division and prevents attention to substantive problems like education, crime, and rehabilitation.
Chapters
You're into cult stuff, right? Yeah. And so what do you think about what's going on now in the sense of, like, if you wanted to start a cult, one of the first things you would do is find a specific type of person that was a little lost, injured, maybe trauma. Traumatized. Right. And then you would exploit that by isolating them, creating an enemy. Right. And then giving them approval and acceptance, love bombing them. Right. And so the political parties right now are, like, isolating people. Like, if you're for one side, you can't talk to people that are on the other side. Right? So, like, let's just say you're for Trump. Then there's a bunch of people that are gonna say, don't talk to me. And that happens in families now, Right? Like, families are divided whether they're. They're Republican or Democrat, which is dividing. That's isolating people. Right. So now you don't talk to your family anymore. And so then your new community is the people that are for whichever side you're for. And then you have an enemy. Then you're going out and recruiting new people into your cult. But it's very culty. Like, the political parties aren't for the people anymore. They're. They're just picking a side and finding your identity in that without considering, like, what is actually getting fixed. Like, we're not fixing the schools. We're not fixing anything. We're just divided. But you might be one of the only people I can talk to about this. But you know something that blows me away, like, let's just take, like, punk rock and graffiti, right? Those two things come from a world of challenging authority. And Shepard Fairey. You would think that Shepard Fairey would be making art for Trump, not for Kamala. It is the craziest thing that Shepard Fairey is buying into this narrative. And I love Shepherd Fairey. I have a lot of his stuff or whatever.
Yeah.
Same thing with David Grohl. Like, he came from a punk rock world, and he's saying Trump can't play his music. And he's. He's like, I do not understand at all how these guys are in for the machine. They're buying into the machine that is the enemy of what they originally stood for. But now they have some money, and their. Their sensibilities are completely corrupted. It blows me away. Like, yeah, how is Shepard Fairy not promoting Trump right now? And he's promoting Kamala.
Yeah, no, like, he's.
Then he's pro war. He's pro. All of the things that He. He was against. Like, he's turned on himself. Yeah. Which is nuts.
Like, it's. That's exactly what that is. Yeah. I don't even want to try and get. I'm not trying to rant on political, because, trust me, I have so many.
I want to hear it.
I was rocking with Trump since the beginning, and a lot of people don't like that. Like, I've lost so many friends, so.
Even the fact that people are afraid to say that.
Yeah.
It's hilarious.
Yeah. Like, since the beginning, I rocked with Trump. I knew all that propaganda. And I'm not saying the dude's a saint. I'm not.
I'm just saying, like, bro, nobody's outside the system.
Yeah. And also, like, the other side is just, like, you already know what to expect. Like, to me is just like, yo, like, Obama, Biden, like, it's just the Democrats play the game certain, a certain way, and the fact that people can't see through. And don't get me wrong, every. Every politician has their angle, right. But I rocked with Trump, bro. Cause I came out and started just talking, like, just unconventional, like, like, on a podium, and I was like, what the is this? Like, this is weird. Like, so it might have been the shock value at first that drew me to him and me not taking politics serious either, because I knew it was all circus for us. But, yeah, man, I rocked to Trump in the beginning. I lost. I lost homies. I lost at family members. Be like, what the wait, oh, you're racist and I'm this. That. Oh, it's because you're not. You're not Mexican. Like, that's why later I'm like, nah, dawg. Like, it's really not that. But when Trump got in office and I kind of publicly supported him, I guess that helped me a lot with not giving a. About what people thought. Because also, even the occult stuff, I don't tell everybody. Like, oh, I like these type of things because they look at you like you're a devil worshiper, you believe in Satan and you. Whatever. And it's like, you know what? Instead of me explaining what the. I mean, let me just let you believe that it's fine. I don't care. You know, like, if you think I'm a Satanist, that's fine. But I think that was the whole Trump being an office kind of allowed me to not really give a fine.
You know, most of that stuff that I study, I study it to protect myself, not to do it. Yeah. Like, I want to make sure that I'm not getting manipulated. I want to, I want to understand at a deeper level how it works. Yeah, but one of the things you would do is if you were doing that to people, you would try to make it bad to study that thing. Right. Like in the Bible it says anybody who questions this, you know, is going to go to hell or whatever. And it's like, oh, we can't, like we're not allowed to ask questions. That's not a real world that you can't. If somebody really is what they say they are, you'd be able to question them, right?
Yeah, yeah, no, exactly.
You'd be able to have a conversation. But oh, there's certain things that are taboo and it ends up. The things that are taboo are the things that challenge the system because oh, pick a side. Like you're, you're this if you don't pick this side or you're that if you do. And it avoids talking about the real issues. Even though we have all the capabilities to fix the things. Like we could fix our school system, we could fix crime, we could rehabilitate people that go to jail. Right. We could raise the self esteem morale of. Yeah. And patriotism of our country. But we don't want. Why would you want to raise self esteem and morale if you couldn't control people anymore? You can control people way more when they have low self esteem and, and they're just looking for belonging. And then you give them an enemy, you present them with an enemy and it makes sense. And they're like, oh yeah, no, I, I'm, I'm in. Like this is my tribe.
Yeah, yeah.
Meanwhile the tribe doesn't serve them.
Yeah.
Or anybody. Yeah.
And then that's the crazy part too because propaganda obviously is used destructively, but it could also be used like to boost for a good manner. You know, like if, if hip hop music instead of all this that it's putting out was on some more conscious like whatever. What we could apply it to whatever but like it's more productive. Like if we rap if are rapping about like, I don't want to make it sound boring, but just a stupid example like managing money better. You feel me? Stupid. Not saying hip hop should go there, but start little kids will want to manage their money better. Just like the way are promoting Percocets and all this hill popping is the reason why everybody wants to go and pop a pill. We're glorifying and we're idolizing druggies. And I'm talking about like mainstream rap, like the cup drinking lean per cassettes. Per cassettes. Like, I don't think they're happy, bro. I don't think that's a way of living, you feel me? Like, but it's another fantasy, another construct and that's been propagated and it's crazy. So I'm on the same page with you. I'm like, yo, how to not see through it. And if. And I'm pretty sure you're smart enough to see through. So what is really going on? Like, sometimes I'm like, are you compromised?
You, you saw in the hallway, right, where I have the MAGA hat and I have the Obama signed book next to each other. And people, people come in here and it's funny. They assume I'm on the side they're on. I'm not saying anything. Like, I'm just pre. I'm presenting. It's a presidential like thing of presidents. There's jfk, there's all kinds of stuff. But it's funny how people see what they want to see.
So you're saying they thought you were like on a, like an Obama?
They just assume like I'm, I'm on one side or the other. And you know the thing, the thing that I believe is we're way more similar than we are different.
Yeah.
But these, the propaganda makes us polarized in the sense that we're picking a side instead of trying to figure out how to improve and move things forward. Yeah. I'm not for any, I'm not for any of that. If your beliefs are one way, I'm more curious why you believe that than me trying to project my thoughts on you. Right. Like I'm going to learn way more by trying to understand you than I am trying to manipulate you and bully you into a certain thing 100% or play on somebody's self esteem or, you know.
Yeah.
Whatever it is. And that's really what it is, is you, you look at these people that are the most fanatical. They have really low self esteem and they're just looking for a tribe because they, they don't understand the issues whatsoever on both sides.
Yeah, 100%.
It's equal on both sides.
100%.
Well, thanks for doing this, Ra. It was a very fun conversation.
