A California Revolution?

Real life presents the Jack Hibbs Podcast with intention and boldness to proclaim truth, equip the saints, and impact our culture. Hey everybody, welcome to the Jack Hibbs Podcast. Today we are going to be absolutely blown away. Stay tuned. I think we've got some hope and it's come into California. If it's come into California, then it's come into the other 49. Stay tuned. You can get the outlines of this podcast by going to jackhibbs.com slash podcast. Today, if this podcast lifts you up and encourages you to live a more fulfilled life in Christ, then make sure you leave us one of those five star ratings. To us, that's like saying amen or yes. Then that rating will encourage others to listen. Now open your hearts to what God's word has to say to you. Here is Jack Hibbs. We're everybody. Welcome to this special edition of our real life podcast. And we are really excited to have with us someone that's not going to be a stranger to you. If you've ever watched Fox TV, Fox News, you have seen his program. You have seen him as he makes commentary and as he brings insight into what's going on in our world and our nation specifically in them in the political realm, cultural realm. And I'm talking about Steve Hilton. It is awesome to have Steve Hilton with us. And he's got some things that I wanted to share. You're going to want to know. And I think by the time we're done, you're going to want to get out the word about what Steve Hilton is doing. Because if you know anything about me and about us, we're all about having our faith make a difference in the culture in which we live in. And as Americans, we can do that because of the founding of this country founded upon not only the belief of the Magna Carta, but it was the Magna Carta that inspired our pilgrim fathers to pen a two pair of phrase document called the Mayflower Compact, which is really the birth certificate to this to this country. And so Steve, I'm just delighted to have you. I'm telling you, I'm such a fan. And likewise, it's just an honor. It really is. What you've built here and with everyone is just phenomenal. It's so exciting. Well, I tell you, I think that we share a lot of things. And people might find it interesting that, so wait a minute, Jack, you're from San Diego and Steve with that accent is from where? Where's your roots? Tell us about your background. So the accent, people would say, well, he's from England. But here's the journey. And I think that that idea of the journey is very much in my mind right now. My parents are actually Hungarian. Both my parents are from Hungary and I was born in the UK. So they made their journey. They started in Hungary in a communist regime. They left. And in fact, my stepfather is also Hungarian had a very, very difficult journey. He was in a village on the west side of Hungary. And they heard on the radio in 1956, the invasion by the Soviet Union, the Soviet invasion, the Russians are coming. And they left. They ran. They were 14 years old with his brother and some friends from school. And they ran and they went to the border with Austria. And they tried to get out. And some of them died in the attempt. And they ended up in a refugee. He and his brother were okay and a couple of friends. Many of their friends died trying to escape. And then they were in a refugee camp in Austria and ended up in England. So this journey, and I'll explain why it matters so much to me. I feel very, very deep. I think about it very deeply because of that, the nature of that effort to get to freedom. And so there I was born in England with all the opportunities that that brings compared to my cousins who I spent many vacations with when I was a kid. We'd go back to communist Hungary and would experience what that was like and see it. But then we'd get to go back home to England. And that's where I was raised. I had enormous opportunities there. And then 12 years ago, the journey as far as I'm concerned was complete because we moved here to California with my family. Wait, you moved to California? We moved to California. You intended to do that. Exactly. On purpose, it wasn't an accident. And it's a very interesting thing because we came in 2012. And that was for, it's actually connected to my wife's work at the time. We didn't know that we were going to stay. We didn't really have a strong feeling about that. We just had our second son had just been born. And she was traveling and it was just complicated for our family. At the time, I had a big job. By then I'd done all these things and ended up in the government in the UK. I was working in 10 Downing Street. I was senior advisor to the Prime Minister. So I had this big job in the government. And our family was, you know, it was just tough with a young child and the family. So we decided for our family to stay together, moved to California, to the Bay Area. And then four years later, this is this is when I think the final step, I think really you could say took place. I remember going back to England, I'd written a book about the importance of, the book was called More Human. Designing a world where people come first. And the theme of the book was that everything in our world has become too big and bureaucratic and centralized and distant from the human scale. And we need to put humanity back at the heart of everything we do. That was the argument in the book. And it did very well there a year before when it came out. And then they published a paper and I did an update for the paper back. And it was the same time as the Brexit debate was going on. Remember Brexit 2016, the first really first sign of this populist revolution that then of course Donald Trump led here in America. But this a few months before his Brexit. And the paper back of More Human came out in the UK and I did an update. And in a way, the EU, the European Union bureaucracy was a perfect example of what I was arguing against. So I laid out in the paper in the update that I was in favor of Brexit. And so I went back and did the book tour and campaign for Brexit. And that happened. But I remember so clearly, this is the moment I wanted to you know, really focus on in terms of this idea of the journey. Landing at San Francisco Airport after spending a couple of weeks away campaigning for Brexit. And I just remember the plane coming in and I just sat back and I said to my I thought to myself, oh, it's so great to be home. That's so interesting. Yeah. This is now home. Wow. And and and then I thought about that and reflected on it. And it was home, not just in a literal sense, but in a spiritual sense, because it it was clear to me that America meant something very special that I felt at home in America in a way that more than I had ever done in the UK. And then even California and we joke about it and what a disaster California is and we can get into that. But there's something special about California that I have found I really connect to the way I put it now is that I was in love with California even before we ever moved here. And in fact, thinking back on all these steps, I recall an article in one of the political magazines in the UK when I was working for David Cameron, when he's the prime minister, and it was about the kind of ideas that I was trying to bring to the policy argument in England and implement in the government. And the article was California dreaming. And the theme was Steve Hilton, David Cameron's advisor, what wants to make Britain more like California. So that was 12 years ago, more than that, more like 15 years ago. And you think, well, today, I say this all the time and I'm on the road a lot in California. I say, is there a policy advisor to any political leader anywhere in the world who would want to make their country more like California as it is now? No, no, no, the point that counts. But the reason it's so there's a lot we need to change. But the reason I bring that up is that I love this state so much because to me, it represents the best of what should be the best of America. What it used to be exactly. And that's sad to say that it used to be because everything, as you've traveled up and down this state, we're talking about this earlier before where the geography of this state, the sheer beauty, the resources, the where you and I could go to the desert today and then be back to be in Newport Beach tonight. Yes, you know, it's just remarkable. That said, everything that's wrong about California is manmade. 100, but this is the crucial point. Yeah. And that means we can turn it around. And also and think about the fact that it's happened relatively quickly because actually you don't have to go back that far. Even when we moved here, you could see things were wrong. It's 12 years 2012. But not like you see today. That's happened quickly. It is totally manmade. And the thing I always say about this point is that, of course, we need to turn things around in California and that's what I'm working on now. That's my focus now. But it's not just for us, actually. It's not just for those of us who live here now and for our friends and our neighbors or even for our children or our grandchildren. It's bigger than that. And this is what I really connect with California because to me, it's the physical beauty, but it's the spirit of California, that idea of optimism and energy and innovation and just a positive spirit about things. That's really what California is all about. And actually in that sense, there's a quote that I came across. And I say this at pretty much every event I do. So forgive me if people have seen me say this before, but it's at the heart of why this matters so much that we save California. I read it, I think sometime last year and here's the quote, California means to America what America means to the world. I agree. And that is so profound because if we think, as I know, we do that America is the greatest nation on earth, greatest nation that's ever existed. What that means is that California is the should be the greatest expression of everything that's wonderful about America. I'm old enough to have lived the years where that was in fact true. Were people long to come here? Yes. Not just America. They land in America to get to California. Exactly. There's a reason why there is a North rip. There is the Tesla, the gold rush, the Apple, the Disneyland, the surfing. You know, surfing was born right in Huntington Beach. It's off city. Yes. It's absolutely epic. And in fact, it used to be where California produced even politicians that were reputable guys like Ronald Reagan. Exactly. Was, you know, California governor and but what's interesting is the change to the negative has happened so quickly. Yes. Where I can hear Steve my naysayers who a lot of them are fellow pastors who say you shouldn't be talking about should never talk about politics as a pastor. I think that's absolutely ludicrous. When I read the Bible, it is it is a book about God, his government, kings and kingdoms and God's the one that says that you need to elect a good people to office so people can live at peace because when bad people rule the people grown, that's what Proverbs 29 verse 2 says that. When bad people are empowered, people grow when good people are empowered, people rejoice. California is a perfect model of that. California used to be the destination for the person that would say, I'm going to head west. Yes. This is what I talk about the whole time. The California dream, right? Other states, you know, with the greatest respect, of course, don't have that, right? And we know what that is. The California dream. We all feel it, right? It's come here. It's follow your dreams. It's, it's raise your family within a home of your own in a in a in a in a beautiful neighborhood. Enjoy in a single family home. Then we're not allowed to say that. That's apparently evil to have a single family home. Well, then we have to say it like, of course, exactly. So, and a good job that that can provide for your family in a safe neighborhood with a decent education and you enjoy everything that California has to offer. And that's just been taken away from people. So the California dream is something that we know what it is and we know that it's missing and we need to put it back. But the point about faith in all this, I think, is so important in the interaction with politics because, you know, we were talking about this earlier. Of course, it's true that the fundamental things are human, you know, that it's about us and how we are and how we operate in the world and how we relate to each other and our families. And particularly, I want to focus on that word family, please, because this is, you know, going back to my very early days with David Cameron when I was with him when he was running for the leadership of the Conservative Party. And we really connected, you know, we were good friends and we really connected on the fact that family is the central thing. And in fact, I remember writing these lines for him, but I mean, he felt it too. So, I mean, it wasn't as if I was putting something into his, into his thoughts that wasn't there already. We both shared this sentiment. The line was, family is the most important thing in my life and it should be the most important thing in our nation's life. So, if we believe that, and I certainly do, and I say it today because I mean it, well, then if you look at what government does in terms of the framework that it puts out there through which people have to operate, the framework in which people have to make decisions in the thick of everyday life about how they operate and how they relate to each other. And if you have a framework put there by politicians that is actively hostile to family life, to the idea that people come together as a couple to raise children in a stable and loving way. Then if the politicians are actively assaulting that with bad policies, then of course we must get involved in that fight. Because that's the way you get to what we want to see, which is a society that's founded on these strong human relationships. You graciously use the word if, if the government wants to help us be a family. The truth is, because you're being so kind, the truth is they have proven themselves to be both California and nationally. They've proven themselves to be actually the opposition to the family. They have done everything and they're doing everything possible right now to destroy the family. Because when they tax us, I think I just read this recently that the California, the California gallon of gas, one gallon of gas in California is taxed, something like 15 times before it reaches your tank. And that is that's seven taxes more than any other state. And how does that affect people? It affects the mom that's trying to get to work. And then all of these things that are taking place where, and you know this better than I do, even though I was born here, you've studied this well, California has the natural resources. People don't realize we have oil. We literally have unbelievable amounts of oil. And I'm going to guess where I'm going tomorrow. Baker's field. So you go to Baker's field and stick a straw on the ground and oil comes up. Yeah, Kern County, 70% of our oil and gas reserves are there. These are communities that and what are they doing? They're crushing it. But the thing that drives me crazy about this is that they're not doing it in any way. It doesn't make sense even in their own terms because as they're crushing our industries and the communities that support them here in California, it's not like we're not using oil and gas. No, what are we doing? We're importing it from from who? Venezuela, Ecuador, Iran, it's insane. We are funding to put that gallon in our tank. We're funding the very ones who want to see our demise. It's insane. And on top of that, again, even if let's give them everything that they're arguing about climate change and carbon dioxide, whatever, even on those terms, it doesn't make sense because the method, how does that oil get here? Super tankers, they are the most polluting forms of transportation in the world via mile. I mean, some people have said, in fact, Arnold Schwarzenegger, I don't know, it's the eye to eye with on everything. He's a critic of this. He told me that the 15 largest super tankers on earth that are traveling the oceans, many of them carrying oil around produce more carbon emissions than all the cars on earth combined. You can't doubt that because we're not all that far from L.A. Harbor and they're parked out there right now. And when they fire those babies up, when they turn those ships on, there is a plume of soup for hours. It comes out on a few. It's just insane. Wow. So none of this makes sense. But here's what's cool. Here's what's cool. It's not that you and I are beating up on all of government. I'm going to say government. I'm going to avoid politics. I'll tell you why in a moment. As I said, I grew up when in the day, California used to be. When was the last time you heard this, everybody? California used to be famous for smog. Smog, you can't breathe. I went to elementary school, junior high, where we had PE, physical ed. We had sports. We had games canceled because of the smog alerts. The sky was yellow and it burned your throat. You could taste metal in your throat. But there were some emission controls established and put into place. And listen, today you'll be hard pressed and it's been true for over 20 years now. You'll be hard pressed to find smog in California, including Los Angeles. I mean, you would have to be here on a very, very foggy day that holds it in somehow. Technology works for the betterment of people can make things better, but technology in the wrong hands or the fake move of technology where we've got to do something we have to save the environment. California is actually a fantastic example of how over the last 30, 40 years, the environment has been saved. Exactly. And I always say this every time I talk about this subject, I always say, look, I am an environmentalist. Conservatives typically in my experience, by the way, know a lot more about nature and have a stronger connection to nature than a lot of the people on the left who are lecturing us the whole time about it. And so, you know, next week, I'm going to be visiting with our family in National Park. You know, so we love nature. That's the most incredible thing about California. This beauty that's here that we get to enjoy. We get to enjoy it if we protect it and we look after it and we pass it on to the next generation. We understand that. So the idea that that objecting to the insanity of some of I call it, I mean, they go on about climate policy. It's extremism. It's climate extremism. It's not sensible. It doesn't even achieve the objectives that they claim for it. And in the process, people are being hurt. So get back to where we started. Like if you look at actually, you know, the framework for family life in California, so much of it actually is negative because of this climate extremism. So I'll give you another really good example. And it should that I've spent a lot of time working on through my new organization, Golden Together, which focuses on golden together, which is all about ideas and policies to turn things around. So we can go get back to that vision of the golden state and the California dream. So housing is a really good example. So we now have the highest housing costs in America and the lowest home ownership in saying in California, the home of the California dream. And what you're seeing is the impact of of high housing costs on families because it's making people younger people say, well, look, I can't start a family because we can't afford to buy home. And it's a really direct factor in that decision. And also a family is leaving and saying, well, I can't afford it here in California. You never be able to afford a home. So we can have to move somewhere else. And that breaks up a family because then the grandparents aren't there with the children to help. That's reality. Oh, but Steve, but Steve, you know, I'm a Christian and you're mixing, you're mixing politics with with my Christian faith. Wait a minute. What? What you're talking about is a reality. And for so many Christians, they say, well, I'm not going to vote because that's a dirty world. That's why you should vote. You should vote to help clean it up. You should vote for the right people. Exactly. Not sit it out because we've all learned that if you sit it out, then the crazy is going to elect it. Yes. And so when you talk about climate or pollution or homes or oil, you're all talking about issues that actually deal with morality. And you say, well, how can that be morality? It's the welfare of the human. Exactly right. No, it is. And the strength of our society, if you measure the strength of our society in the strength of our families and strong families across the generations, then we are the current, I don't even want to use the word leadership, the people in charge in California are actively undermining that through these policies. And that's not what they think they're doing. I don't want to describe that motive to them. You're so nice. They're not saying, I want to, you know, destroy the family unit in California. And that's why I'm pushing this climate extremism, but that is the effect of it. And by the way, it is not an accident. It is the direct result of the policies. So why is housing so expensive in California? It's not the weather. It's not, it's not some inevitable consequence. We have plenty of room. It's because of the regulatory. There's two things that are driving it. One, there's this thing called secret, the California Environmental Quality Act, which is abused horrible. The name sounds good. It is abused to block the kind of housing being built that we need. They want to force everyone into tiny apartments so they can live like in North Korea, not in California. No single family homes. You can't have the suburbs. They hate all that. And so even that's where people want to live and raise a family. That's how they want to live and enjoy the weather and have a yard. No, can't have that. And so this is being abused in order to block that kind of housing from being built. And the people also who are abusing sequer to block housing. And barely anyone knows this. And I didn't know it till I really dug into it. The unions. People don't see that connection. The unions file lawsuits to block housing developments in order to extract concessions from developers. That's right. And so that's the whole scam going on there. And then the second part of it is just the enormous taxes that elevated in particular by Democrat runplaces where in San Francisco, for example, recently, you know, it went as they call it impact fees where they put all these different taxes on to the construction of housing. In San Francisco, it went as high as $300,000 per apartment unit. If you add up all the taxes. And so no wonder it's so expensive. That means people are leaving. That means the families are broken up. Grandparents don't get to see their grandkids because now the families in Texas or Arizona, or wherever it may be. And young people who otherwise, if they could see a path to buying a nice little starter home where they could have kids and raise them the way that they want, they would get together. And they would come together as a family unit. And that's not happening. So it's completely connected to politics. And actually, I would say if we want to see that vision realize of a healthy wholesome society centered around strong families, then we have to engage in this fight because it's the politicians who are currently fighting against that. We got to kick them out. Yeah. You know, so allow me to say this. I'm going to represent team faith for your Muslim Jew, Christian, it doesn't matter. I'm team faith over here on this side. And let's say that you're on that side and you're representing California's government. Wouldn't it be refreshing? It's said that that I think it's going to have to be this way, but it would be at least refreshing for a California political individual to say, Hey, Muslims, Jews, Christians, we got a homeless problem. Right? Listen, we've got a homeless problem. You guys are all about faith, right? You're about doing this love thing. So how about if we hope, how about you help this state out? How about each church in every zip code area started adopting so many homeless people? You got people in your churches that own businesses. Maybe we can get these people taught and rehabbed and put back in the culture. The church and I'm, when I say church, I'm going to put again, Muslim Jew and Christian, they're blabbing off about how great they are. Why don't we shut up and have the governor or have the state legislator say, you know, you guys have been around here since Father Sarah showed up. Why don't you do something good? We want you to fix the homeless problem. My goodness, I think the homeless problem would be done in months if houses of faith stepped up. But so many pastors I know are waiting for the government to give them a thumbs up about something. Well, I can't do that unless the government, well, what if there was a leadership that said faith's a big deal, especially in California. A lot of people will realize that Father Sarah was establishing mission stations in California at the same time, no offense to your English side. But we were finding a, let's be clear. I'm an American. That's right. We don't have to worry about that. That's right. Well, we're fighting our four freedoms in 13 colonies. Father Sarah was preaching the gospel to the native natives in California. Education, morality, help them. They helped them. What's remarkable is if, and I do believe that California's got enough good people and enough people with faith that if a good idea was brought forth, it would be done. When you and I head up north on the five freeway, for example, and we get in just north of Bakersfield, these start experiencing farmland. Yes. Some of the most prolific farmland. I was there last week. I'm in the Central Valley often. It's one of my favorite parts of this thing. So then you've seen the signs that say something like this, the farmer has on his property. It's not a sin to grow food. I know. It's unbelievable. What's being done to offer. Please give us our water back Gavin. Yes. These are real signs. It's so offensive to me. I mean, there's a lot. If I can just sort of unpack some of them. First of all, let's just make the big point in relation to faith and the institutions of faith that operate in our communities. So that actually gets to a really deep point about my political philosophy, actually, which that book that I've mentioned, more human captures, and I make the argument in there. But it's really what I try to bring. Every time I've operated in the area of politics or policy, I mean, I've done other things. I've started companies and including restaurants. That is not an easy business to be. Back in the day, so exactly. So I've done, you know, I started a tech company here and I've done different things. But when it comes to politics and policy, the central idea, and I think this going right back to where we started, why I feel so proud to be an American and so at home here, the central idea that really drives me is the decentralization of power, putting power in people's hands. That, of course, is the American idea. That's right. That's what it was all about. Putting power in people's hands, taking it away from a despotic monarch and putting it in people's hands. Now, how does that connect to policy making? I have always argued that that's what we should be doing in terms of how we saw problems. Take the power and put it in the hands of individuals. When we were in, I wrote a mantra for our policy reform program back in the day in the UK government and it was this. We need to decentralize power wherever the default assumption should be that power should go directly to individuals where possible. If not individuals, then the neighborhood and the local community, and only then to government and only in the last resort to national government, so that kind of cascading idea of power going as low as possible in the Catholic Church, they call it subsidiarity where you just defer to the lowest possible level. Now, what we're seeing, so what that means is that actually the agents of change in our society to advance the goal that we want to see are individuals and families and communities and members of churches and faith organizations, not the government institutions, and even if it is the government institutions, it should be the local government because that's really connected to people and therefore represents people. What you're seeing in California, it's actually across the country as well, is the exact opposite, is power being taken away from the individual. Centralize. You see it at the federal level where you have the federal government, the Biden administration, taking power that it should never be involved. I mean, and I'm a strong, I mean, there's all the different amendments that we like to focus on when we have our political conversations. The one that I don't think gets talked about enough, that I feel very strongly about is the 10th amendment, the 10th amendment that makes it clear that powers that are not specifically set out in the constitution are, this is the quote, are reserved to the states respectively or to the people. That's the 10th amendment, it's broken every single day with this enormous sprawling federal government bureaucracy. Here in California, you look what's been going on in recent years, power over schools, and all these things being sucked up to Sacramento, taken away from local communities. It is completely outrageous, a further point when you say, well, let's get faith organizations, community organizations involved in helping fight homelessness. They literally are going in the opposite direction. For example, when it comes to homelessness, they passed this law in 2016, housing first. That's the, that's the, exactly. Well, what does it actually mean in practice? This is the law in California. If you are an organization that wants to help the homeless problem, help homeless people directly, you are not allowed to receive state money from the state government in Sacramento if you require abstinence from drugs or alcohol as a condition of participation in the program. So as we know, everyone can see that the driver of this chronic homelessness problem is drug and alcohol addiction. That's immoral. It's politics. Right. And they've made it illegal to actually, there's a way I put it, they've actually made it illegal to solve the problem. So if you are, and I've met people in Venice and California, Venice Beach, faith-based organization that works with homeless addicts to help them get clean so that they can get their lives back on track, they are not allowed to take a penny in state funding. They raise all their money, philanthropic cleanser, good for them. But all the organizations that are getting the billions and dollars of our money, you just saw recently, 24 billion dollars. No idea where it went. It went to organizations that the explicitly are prevented by state law from getting people off drugs. It is an unbelievable contradiction of everything that we know in terms of common sense and decency. Okay, so how do we change that? We have to elect people who have a different view, a more human view. And this comes back to the politics. And can't bad lives be repealed or changed? Well, there's a number of, I mean, look, that's why we need, I talk about it all the time, we need a California revolution. We need a revolution in California by show it on Fox will the next revolution. I would say the whole time, let's make the next revolution, the California revolution. And it's not going to be easy, but all these people that say it's impossible and that this is a far left democratic state forever. I think it's absolute rubbish. There's a real hunger for change. More now than ever. Exactly. And people can see what a disaster is when you have this one party rule, one party in control for like, was it 20 years now? It's a disaster. So we have to fight for the change and fight to take that power and put it back in people's hands. You can't do it overnight. It's going to be quick. You got the state legislature, but we need to elect people to statewide office who actually believe in common sense practical solutions to these problems that are all about putting power in people's hands and solving problems and restoring the California dream that we will cherish so much. It's so awesome. I would love to figure out how to encourage good people wherever they're at, right? They're in business or they're in the church or they're in the, but it doesn't matter. They're just good people. They're qualified. They're good people to run for office. There's so many people that view running for office as, oh man, why would I subject my family to this? Why would I do that? And I understand that, but you know, it wasn't a Reagan that said something to the effect that we're just one election away from from losing our freedoms or it's just one generation away. We're at the point now where that conversation was somebody's an attorney and he said, I live here, but I'll never get it involved. And I said, well, how much how much do you love living here? I love it. And this particular person's got a mega million dollar home overlooking L.A. and L.A. Hills. Yeah. A name that people would know legally throughout the United States. And he was telling me why he's not going to get involved. And I said, well, how much do you like your house? Yes. Well, I love my house. I had this house built. Do you plan on moving? Why should I move? And I said, well, you know what? I think it's keep trending politically in California the way that they are. You're not going to own this house much longer. You're not going to have the freedom to go do what you do. You are not going to everything you fought for and you've made this state left as it is. It's going to take it from you. And he actually paused and he said, you know, I had not thought about that. I'm ashamed. I haven't thought about that. And I just find it remarkable that so at my age, I'm almost 67 and so I've had kids and I've got grandkids. I remember when my kids we had not yet had grandchildren. And I'm thinking I was thinking, okay, I have fought the fight. And it's time for me to hang on my gloves and let the next generation fight. Yeah. And that would be my kids. And then you have grandkids. And then it's like gloves come off the wall back on because. Interesting. Yeah. I found that to be shocking. I mean, I actually experienced that where it's like, oh my gosh, I've got to get back in the fight. So you're never too old to fight. But I love the simple answer to what people think is a really big problem. Oh, why vote? It's all corrupt. Let's assume it's all corrupt. You still have a chance to vote. Oh, so how do you fix corrupt? Everybody goes in votes. Exactly. Look, this is the thing. First of all, I'm all in for this fight. I mean, I'm not there. No announcements today. But I'm telling you that this is my commitment now. This because I feel incredibly strongly that I've had this amazing opportunity since we moved here to America and to this beautiful state of California. I've taught at Stanford University. I've done a tech startup. I had this incredible and unexpected for an Oxford. I know exactly. I've done it's incredible. Very unexpected career in the in the media, which has been a great blessing. And so I feel like I've had all this. And so I need to put it together to actually make something of that opportunity that I've been given. So, you know, stay tuned on that front. But in terms of the politics, I think it's just really important for people to remember that we have the power. We have the power. They don't have the power. We can insist on the changes we want to see. And there's more of us than them. There's more. I mean, I call it team sanity. Right. There's more people on team sanity than there are on team crazy, which is we have in charge right now. And actually, the demoralization that seems to be going on where you have this narrative being pushed constantly by the media, by Democrats, which is, oh, it's Democrat state, Democrat state, Republicans can't win in California. They want us to think that. But Democrats have been winning in California. They have been. That's because the Republicans, and I'm not, you know, don't want to blame anyone in particular. But for whatever reason, we haven't had that energy and the leadership to fight. Now, if you look at what's going on across the country, but also here in California, you see signs that I think absolutely point to an awakening. And people saying, look, we've had enough of this. Even in South, I live in the Bay Area. In San Francisco, just now, you had an overwhelmingly Democrat city vote for policies on crime that, you know, if a Republican had put them forward two years ago, would have been condemned, you know, as racist and whatever for supporting the police, giving the police more power, et cetera, right? You've got the, you look at just now Gavin Newsom's ballot initiative, which was, they assumed would sail through as his kind of flagship policy, his legacy. That was how it was all framed. There was no money spent against it huge because they couldn't raise the money. Huge amounts of money spent in favor of it. It barely squeaked by 50, 50, right? So, and there's so hunting to beach as a great example. It is. They've taken back that is a great example. I always talk about, if you want to look at the California revolution, what's happening in Huntington Beach, the revolution there. I mean, Tony Strickland who led this good friend of mine, he's very much involved in my efforts now. And that's it. You know, so there are signs everywhere. Another thing that's so important to bear in mind, you look at our state where we're now that the largest group in our state Latinos 40% and you see what I mean, I shared this number with you earlier. It's an amazing number. If you look at the Latino vote across the country and you go back to the, the last presidential election before Donald Trump came on the scene. So this is Romney, Obama 2012, the New York Times, Ciena poll 2012 Latino vote Obama 72% Romney 23. Same poll, exact same poll about a month ago. Latino vote Biden 40 Trump 46. We've gone from a 50 point Democrat lead to a six point Republican lead. That isn't absolute transformation. That is. And so if we can capture even some of that energy for positive change among the Latino friends and neighbors we have here in California, we win. Yeah, I love this. Steve, the Bible says, God says, my people are perishing for a lack of vision. Is that a beautiful statement? Yes. Yes. With what you're just saying, if a vision was given, people rally around direction. Exactly. When kids don't miss this, Dr. James Dops and like 50 years ago did this study. He was a big wheel at USC School of Psychology and Pediatrics. They had a, they put a bunch of kids out in a big, big open field and these little kids all congregated together because they were afraid to wander out because there were no fences. The kids didn't know there were fences, but they knew that there were no fences. They looked around it was so vast that the little kids huddled together. The moment they came in with this psychological test, they put up fences. Yeah. And the kids came back the next day and they went all over the place, even some of them by themselves kicking the ball, running, playing. It's wonderful story. Yeah. The fences, fences structure vision, vision gives you guidelines to where you know if you're succeeding or not. You know if you're getting closer. In this nation, we have removed the fences. So nobody knows exactly where are we? Yes. And the fence. I mean, people are going to yell at me for being a Christian nationalist, which I'm a Christian and I love my country. I think if you're German, you should love Germany. Crazy thought. But anyway, I think that if we were to reintroduce into our public school system, a season of teaching the constitution. What is the bill of rights, by the way? Does anybody know what the Declaration of Independence was all about? What are these things? Yeah. What is this this this division of power, these three governmental agencies, which were found in the book of Levedicus, the John Locke, literally sites scripture about the separation of powers. There's kids graduating from school. I got to tell you something to prove my point. Lisa and I were on vacation. We were we took a tour of the Supreme Court in DC. And you know, when you take a tour of the of the Supreme Court, it's with a law student from some of the some local college. And if you've been to the Supreme Court, just like in the state capital, Moses is represented. There is Moses. He's looking right at the chief justice, right straight down the middle of the 90s, right in the middle there. And it's Moses. And then all the law givers are reliefs on the wall. But it's it has, well, we don't know what Moses looked like, but it's Moses's face and it says Moses. And I just thought for fun in the group, I asked the guy, Hey, who's the guy in the middle? Yeah. It said Moses. He said, excuse me, what in the middle? Now, I don't know if he was blind. He didn't read. I don't know, but he said, I'll get back to you before this tour is over to answer that question. He didn't know who that was. Point being, it's not his fault. The point being is we're raising up kids that know more about Madonna or Taylor Swift than they know about George Washington. I would say it's yes. And worse than that, to the extent that they are taught anything about America, it's negative. It's negative. And it's it's and it really is true. It's not an exaggeration. If you look at the curriculum, if you look at the details of what's being taught in public schools over the last few years, it is a non-stop diet of negative argument about America's history. And of course, we believe we're not going to say everything's always positive. Of course, you don't ignore messy. You don't ignore the positive. And and and actually, I mean, for example, the this idea that America is a racist country, it's just so offensive to me. I mean, you're like some black president. And if you look, there's nowhere in the world where you would rather be someone of any race than America, if you want actual opportunity, nowhere in the world, not a country, it's ridiculous. And so but the constant diet now is colonialism and oppression and this and that. And it's just it's so dispiriting, literally, disparity takes away the spirit of optimism about what America can be. And so that's really important. And if you look again, going back to how we change this in the end, it's not going to happen unless we get in the fight to change it. So what does that mean? That means electing people on school boards who can have influence what happens in the school. But that's not enough because here in California, look what happened. You know this very well here in this community, which is you try and do something at your school board that they don't like in Sacramento. What do they do? They sue you and they try and pass a law to stop you from ever doing it again or anyone else doing it again at the local level. So there's no substitute for actually getting in the fight and getting people in positions of power at every level of state government who believe in the ideals of America and of California. To underline and underscore what you just said, in the midst of that battle, this was the circumstances that caused Gavin Newsom to secretly deploy his secretary of education Tony Thurman, flew down here and showed up at the school board meeting and tried to declare the governor's wishes that parents should not be allowed to know what the kids are being taught. This is the children's rights that we must protect. And our school board crafted local, do you talk about the power of local government, our school board crafted the local verbiage of we will not allow our children to be exposed to pornography of the mind in any way, shape or form, words or pictures. It's not going to happen. Newsom was so upset by that that he sends his thug down to stop and the citizens took the man outside and made national news. Yes, it's remarkable. But what you need to think about friends is why would an elected in what is supposed to be a republic, form of government tried to stifle the very will in this case of a local government, let alone the state of California. Well, they do it the whole time. I mean, this is what's so laughable about their endless lectures about how they're the ones that are standing up for, do you remember our democracy, our democracy? So they say it's the virus. But when they don't like the answer, they override it, try and overturn it. I mean, we talked about Huntington Beach, Huntington Beach just passed, you know, the council led it and they put it on the ballot and the voters pass vote to ID for elections in Huntington Beach. What happens next? They almost the next day, from Sacramento, they sue them to overturn it and just like with the school, they part, they're now, there is a now a law going through the state legislature to bar any city or location in California, any entity from requiring voter ID. So it's nothing to do. It's not our democracy that they care about. It is their power. That's what they care about. They're power, by the way, to implement what has there is very clearly now a far left ideology. It is not just regular democratic politics that we were used to maybe from the Clinton era where bit more taxes, bit more regulation. No, this is a far left ideology. They have the themes of it incredibly destructive of our social fabric. The obsession with race and gender and climate extremism is so destructive of so many things and they have nothing positive to say other than give us power and let us run your lives. And that is the opposite of what California should be all about. You guys, everything Steve is saying right now. If you say, well, I disagree, I disagree. Well, is it interesting? Listen, everything that a community or this culture in America in California tries to do, that's good. Okay. And I'll say it because Steve's timid. It's Democrat. It's Democrat. I'm not, listen, I'm not all out on the Republican party. There's some train wrecks in that as well. But 100% of the Democrat power brokers in Sacramento attacked Huntington Beach, trying to send a message to the rest of the cities of California. That's thuggery. That is bullying. Isn't it amazing? Who's going to say bullying's wrong? Oh, the Democrats are going to say bullying's wrong, but they're the ones that do it. But there's so many examples. I mean, you shouldn't spend all the time on it, but you just list them. For example, the a ballot initiative that qualified for this year's ballot, the taxpayer protection and government accountability act. This was a ballot initiative. Howard Jarvis taxpayers business roundtable put it forward and got hundreds of thousands of signatures through the constitutional process to qualify for the ballot. It would limit the ability of governments up and down the state, state and local to raise taxes in an unconstitutional manner. It's restoring the protections for taxpayers that were there that had been there years ago. So guess what? It qualifies to the ballot. So the Sacramento, they Democrats try and take it off the ballot. They're suing. It's going before the Supreme Court. I don't think they're going to succeed. They try and take it off the ballot. So you can't even have a say. I mean, the whole thing is just so extreme. And what it really shows you is the arrogance of power. They are so sure that this assumption that they'll be in power forever, that they can do whatever they want and no one's going to complain and no one's going to stand up to them. I think those days are over. People are complaining. They are standing up to them. And I think we're going to win this California revolution because as far as you can't push people so far to the left and not have a reaction. And people are seeing it right across the board in their daily life on every single area. The education that's going on in their kids schools, the crime, the safety, the homelessness, what they pay for their utilities, the gas prices, the rent, the house prices, you know, you name it. There's nothing that's going well. It is all going in the wrong direction. And at the heart of it is something that I think is very profoundly anti-Californian because the whole spirit of California is do your own thing, live your life, live how you want to live, come here to this amazing place and follow your dreams. And instead of these people are telling you, no, you can't have this, you can't live in that kind of home, you can't drive that kind of car, you can't cook your meal on that kind of stove. No, no, no. That is not California. That is the opposite of California. That's why I think we're going to win this fight. I so agree. And here's why I'm encouraged. I mean, there's a lot of reasons why, but when you get knocked down so much so often that eventually you either don't have the strength to get back up or you decide, this is the last time I'm going to get knocked down. And everybody knows this in a school yard where you go and now I'm not endorsing this kind of counsel, but this is how I was raised. My dad taught us that there's going to be a bully, everywhere there's a bully. And he said the best thing to do regarding a bully is when you are, when he's a confirmed bully, taking everybody's lunch money and all this kind of stuff and pushing people around, you just got to walk right up without warning and punch him right in the mouth. And he may turn around and beat the tar out of you, but he'll only do it once. Yep. And he will stop doing it for the entire rest of the year because number one, somebody stood up. When you stand up, and I think that's where California is right now, California started to stand up. We have indicators of life again. Why? There are bills being written. There are good things starting to trend. There's congressional races that in California flipped in Washington, DC, Congress, and Nancy Pelosi had to go home. That came from California, local government, school boards, that whole national school board debate started in this city. There's a lot going on. There's a lot of good. So Steve, we got about two and a half minutes left. I want you to just go on or go for it. Look, I thank you. I mean, look, first of all, thank you so much. It's great to be here. I love to be part of this. I feel such a great connection with everything that we're talking about. And I just want to say, look, we can do this, right? We can do this. I've got this is just the beginning for me. We started off talking about my journey, the journey home to California. I want to make California what it should be. This vision of the most optimistic, positive, innovative, high energy place on earth. That's what it needs to be again, where people can come here and live the life that they want to live and raise their families, do it affordably insecurity and prosperity. And in a way that spiritually nourishes them and their community. I think that is what this is all about. And I'm now committed to doing that. I'm on the road the whole time. I'm traveling the state with building and building. We're building a movement for change. The first part of it is this organization golden together. People can check that out. Golden together. GoldenTogether.com. That's really a policy-focused organization. The ideas that will help restore the California dream. But that's just the first step. We're really getting going here because I think that it's just too important, as I said, it's too important for us here in California for the country. We are not going to let California slide into this swamp of negativity and failure. That is not going to happen. And when people say, I hear all the time when I point out the things that are going wrong, and you hear it particularly from people in other states, well, just get out, just leave. I would say, why should we leave? Why should we leave? Because they, the far left Democrats have gone completely off the rails with this extremism and sent everything in the wrong direction. They're the ones that need to leave. They need to leave office. And we need to help them on their way. That's what this is all about. That's how we save California. And if we save California, I firmly believe we helped save America too. There's no doubt about that. Absolutely. That's why, listen, I'm inviting, I'm appealing to the logical Democrat. Maybe you've been brought up a Democrat and you, you've always voted Democrat because your mom and dad, your grandma, grandpa, but it's time for you to thank right now for yourself and to come on over. Now, I'm not saying come on over to the Republican side. As I said, there's a lot of crazies and they, that camp also. But my point is this, there's one, there's one party that is for total absolute control. And there's another party that wants to let you be free. One party is absolutely take from you and give to people who have not worked for it and call it a day. There are others who say, listen, in your prosperity and in your wealth, help us, help these. And those that cannot be helped, well, that's what state institutions are for. For you to start thinking or maybe you've been conditioned, a California is lost. Well, wait a minute. It wasn't always the case. So if we roll back the hands of time and start doing what worked, it'll work again because truth never changes. And so we're living at a time right now, everybody where we need to get involved. You can't sit it out. And it's exactly. And the, the, the, to prove the point, is it interesting that I was, Steve and I travel a lot. I, when I hear people in other states say to me, man, we need you guys in California to straighten it out. We need you guys to get it right in California. Why do they say that? Because what happens in California is exported to other states. This is the state that sets the heartbeat of the nation. And it's been under the control of people who want to control you. It would be better if this state was under your jurisdiction, so to speak, the voter so that those who are sent to office do the will of the people. And I agree with Steve 100%. 10 noisy people make it feel like there's 10,000 noisy bad people. But it's that silent majority that's got to start speaking up. And you say, well, I don't have a voice. You have the ability to vote. Make sure you register to vote. Steve, where can people find you more and more? I mean, you mentioned, is there other websites? Yeah. Well, there's, there's, I have a weekly show. The Steve Hilton show. Watch it. It's a podcast. It's great. We talk about California. We talk about national politics. That's very good. You can follow me on X at Steve Hilton X. You'll be hearing a lot more from me about California and how we win this fight because I'm very, very confident we can. I'm excited. Thank you. It'll be great. Great to see you. Thank you. Good to see you. 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