Kelly Tshibaka: 0:04
Hello America and hello Alaska. Welcome to STAND. This is where perseverance is celebrated and passivity is shocked. I’m Kelly Tshibaka, former candidate for US Senate in Alaska, and I’ll be joined later today by my amazing husband and co-host, Niki Tshibaka, an attorney who formerly served at the Department of Justice. We are broadcasting today from Alaska. Remember, you can become one of our standouts by subscribing to our show on your favorite platform of choice. You can find all of our podcast platform information and social media information on our website, standshow. org. If you leave us a review this week, you will be entered to win one of our awesome hydroflask stickers. Leave us a review. We’ll pick a reviewer and send you this sticker. Also, remember to share this episode with one of your friends or family members so you can help them stand up to life’s challenges, one episode at a time. On today’s show, we will have Will Witt join us. He is a social media influencer with millions of viewers. But first I am thrilled to announce that we have two very special guests with us today, the power couple that champions the conservative movement in America. Matt Schlapp is a seasoned political strategist, commentator and the chairman of the American Conservative Union. He’s been at the forefront of conservative principles and advocacy, making a significant impact in American politics, and his wife, Mercy Schlapp, has served in the George W Bush and Trump White Houses. She’s an accomplished political consultant, a writer and a commentator who boldly takes a stand for conservative values. Together, they form this powerhouse duo that’s unafraid to tackle the most pressing issues of our time Through ACU, america’s oldest conservative lobbying organization. The ACU advocates for foundations of conservatism and public policy. They rate our elected leaders and they host a gathering of thousands of conservatives annually at CPAC. That’s our Conservative Political Action Conference, and you can learn more about all of that at foundationconservative. org. We’ll talk about CPAC today. Matt and Mercy Schlapp, welcome to stand. We’re so glad to have you with us. You with me, kelly. Yes, it’s great to be with you. All right, so you would be the experts in knowing this, and we’re so curious. I get this question often what is the difference between leftist and conservative thinking?

Mercy Schlapp: 2:31
Schlapp, you take that, you take it first, Go ahead. You’re the daughter of a man who fought communism. I think you’re the best yeah okay, then you know it’s interesting because we come up with these themes every year for CPAC, and one of the years we talked about America versus socialism, and I think it’s America versus the leftist, communist thinking which is, I think, penetrating our society right now. When you have the Marxist thought, this mob mentality of where it is about destroying family, destroying the individual, destroying the child in terms of gender ideology, critical race theory, even on terms of the economics, where it is about not what you’ve earned and worked hard for, but just the equal distribution of wealth. I mean, it goes on and on. It’s about government telling you what to do, how to think, what to believe, and this goes so counter to what our founding fathers wanted, to what the conservative American principles are, which is that of ensuring that you empower the individual, that you empower your God-given rights and protect your God-given rights. That includes the rights of raising your family, of raising your children. That includes the rights of freedom of speech and freedom of religion, so valued and so critical in this nation. And I think that you know, when I see my father, for example, who was a political prisoner in Cuba, fought against the Castro dictatorship and understood very clearly how fragile our freedoms are in his country, in Cuba, then came to the United States and he really put it on my heart and on the hearts of our children that we have to fight for these freedoms, because America is this exceptional place blessed by God and we have an obligation to ensure that the next generations understand the importance of really being allowed to debate, although we don’t agree, instead of trying to shut down the other side and try to censor them. So you know, these are just, I think, basic, fundamental values and virtues here in America that I think right now it’s being threatened.

Matt Schlapp: 4:43
Well, I mean, I just dovetail off what Mercy said. You know, when we have this theme of America versus socialism, you have this question can the modern day leftist be a good American? And the fact is, if you understand our history, if you understand the philosophy behind it, americanism is not synonymous cannot make peace with Marxism. These are contrary concepts. So you can have a Democratic Party and a Republican Party, you can have a conservative party and a liberal party, but you can’t have something on the right trying to work collaboratively, even on a couple of issues, with Marxist communists, because everything about that is just contrary to what America is. This is why we have the conflict we have. This is why people say why is it so hostile? Well, the modern leftist movement is anti-God, it’s anti-family, it’s anti-business, it’s anti-constitution, and you can’t make peace with them, you can’t compromise with them. That’s either one side wins or the other side wins, and that’s why we’re in this juggernaut that we can’t get out of, until the Democratic Party, until we just take leftism out of the mainstream that’s been occurring in the Democratic Party.

Kelly Tshibaka: 6:01
Yeah, matt, that’s really well said. I think there’s a little bit of an education aspect that needs to happen, because I think so many people don’t really understand the fundamental conflict between leftist Americanism you said it really well but these ideologies, they’re actually two different forms of government and that’s really what’s happening. And there are Democrats who aren’t leftists. But when the leftists have put their home within the Democrat Party, like you said, there isn’t compromise or getting along or making peace with that. Those two ideas are completely at war with each other. It’s America and anti-America, and so I think that’s why we’re seeing so many conversions over to a different way of thinking. As people are saying, I’ve taken the red pill. That’s why we see RFK popping up and Democrats and populist Republicans looking more like yeah, mercy.

Mercy Schlapp: 6:57
Yeah, I just want to add to that. It’s not just anti-America, it’s anti-Western civilization. I think we need to really understand right now. When you see the terror, the threats coming from Hamas, from Iran, from Hezbollah, from these radical Islamic groups, it’s very clear that they hate the way we live our lives and they will do what it takes to destroy us and to destroy Israel. And when you talk to our Jewish friends and they’re seeing, they share with you the atrocities of what happened on October 7th and during those first weeks and how these demonic, barbaric terrorists killed innocent babies, innocent women, innocent men. I mean you get to the point that you think how can anyone, anyone support Hamas, knowing that they have the way they killed and what they did to destroy people’s lives? And we have to stand up for humanity, we have to stand up for individuals and people’s lives and their freedoms and their rights. And obviously what you’re seeing right now is that it even goes beyond America. This is about Western civilization. This is about the fundamentals of a healthy society that are being destroyed before our eyes.

Kelly Tshibaka: 8:19
Yeah, it’s a whole different way of thinking and I think you’re really bringing something to light that it’s a view of extremism that they will do anything at any cost. We’re seeing the absolute annihilation of our economy. And then when you bring up like Hamas and all the people supporting them anyone who knows the history of the area they’re not interested in a land compromise that’s been offered. The land for a free Palestine has been offered. They want the absolute annihilation and ethnic genocide of a people group. So when you’re supporting Hamas or quote free Palestine, that’s what you’re supporting. So when we say, take a stand, we need more than just put something up on social media. If you’re going to actually stand for things like freedom and economic justice and the things that we stand for in America or Western society, you have to do something about it. But also doing something about it, like what you guys do, comes at a cost. So some people who follow you know that you’ve faced a lot of challenges many that have been public and then, I imagine, many that aren’t public and I would just love for you to share with us how do you overcome those challenges. You’re on the front lines, you have a large family, you’re married and you have all the things that people would care about protecting, and you put those things up at a cost. So how do you face those challenges and overcome them?

Matt Schlapp: 9:37
Well, I think the first thing you have to understand is that in the battle between left and right that I just described, it’s no longer a policy debate. There was a time you know, I’m 55 years old and I’ve been in politics my whole life there was a time when left and right would have a policy discussion. And since the left, since the Democratic Party, has embraced this leftist, marxist attitude. It does seem like there’s an attempt to destroy the individual and the family and the family. So if you disagree with them, there’s an all out attempt to destroy everything about you. That’s why, whenever you read that a conservative pops gets a job that’s important, it seems to have a voice that’s listened to immediately come all of the charges. So you saw this, for instance, with Tucker Carlson he becomes. When he was doing Fox and Friends on the Saturday show, you didn’t read much about Tucker Carlson being a fascist or racist or, you know, misogynist or whatever these terms they throw out. And then all of a sudden he gets the top rated show every night, and then all of this stuff about how he mistreats his staff and everything comes out, and that’s just the nature of the destruction. So I will tell you, I’m a Midwest boy, so it takes you the breath out of you. You’re kind of shocked. They obviously love to use the courts, they love to use their friends in the media just to slime you, oftentimes with anonymous sources. I think for us it’s been a real wake up call to put God first and to start your day asking God what he wants you to get done that day, to make sure that every step you take, every breath you take, is dedicated towards his will for your life. And to raise your kids to be, to be, warrior children. So it doesn’t mean that they’re all going to join the Marines although we’d be very proud of our daughters if they joined the Marines but it just means that they understand that, as, as the kind of decent society breaks down, it’s not just breaking down, it’s being destroyed. So it’s like an aggressive attempt to destroy society, civilization. What brings us together? What? What makes people joyful? As, as there’s an attack on that, life courses and they will face more struggles. They face the struggles of having to bear my last name. They face the struggles of going to school, even though we think our kids go to good schools. Yes, although you might have the one last name, that’s harder people to grasp.

Kelly Tshibaka: 12:07
Let’s pick up with this after the break. Wait, mercy, I want to get your take. Let’s pick up on the other side of the break. You’re on stand with Kelly Niki Tshibaka. We’ve got Matt and Schlapp with with us. Stand by. Welcome back to stand with Kelly Niki Tshibaka. We’re on with Matt and Mercy Schlapp. We were just talking about how they overcome challenges as they take a stand. Mercy, you were going to say something about how you handle things. I’d love to hear it.

Mercy Schlapp: 12:35
Well, Kelly, I think you’ve been in that front line as well. You know the vicious attacks that come with it, even for people from your own party, which is just so outrageous. But I think for us, I’m actually very grateful for going through what we have gone through in this past year. It has strengthened our faith. It has strengthened our family. I think we are razor focused on what the battles are that lie ahead. I think we’ve become fortified to be ready for the next battles that are to come. And look, I think for us, you also learn a lot about humility. I think you learn a lot about saying God, it’s not about us, it’s about you, lord. What can I do for you in your glory? And I think one of the things you learn and it’s for us we’re devout Catholics. When you go to Mass, there’s always a in one of the lines that basically says Jesus was betrayed. After he was betrayed, and what you learn is that people will betray you. Friends that you’ve had, that you thought were friends, are not your friends, and so it really teaches you to keep your circle very tight and to be protective of those you love, and I think it’s been an awakening for us and I think it’s also helped us to be a lot more compassionate to other people who have, you know, had difficulties in their lives. So you know, I am, I feel like for us it’s been, it’s given us a lot of grace and I’m very grateful for that as well. And it’s you know, you mentioned Psalm 27,. We have like our favorite song, psalm 91, psalm 63.

Matt Schlapp: 14:10
The list is growing.

Mercy Schlapp: 14:11
And really you go back to the Bible and that is where you find your strength. And then you go back to God, and that is where you find your strength because you know you can’t do anything without him. And I think, when the world is how it is right now chaotic, dangerous, uncertain you know one thing is certain, and that is the love of God, and that is that God is with you and we have to trust in him and not be afraid. And I think those are the strong messages, at least that we’ve received during this time.

Matt Schlapp: 14:37
I think two things happened as society coursed into Washington. Dc broke down and the BLM riots and the lockdowns over the virus, and it almost seemed to become acceptable to be nasty and rude. And you walk the streets of DC it’s not uncommon to see people just yelling at each other. It’s just we’re at this time when you know people say the devil’s unleashed and if people are less religious, you just see that people are meaner to each other and they think that’s acceptable. And that happened at the same time that our profile changed. There was a time in Washington DC that if you were seen as being wired up within either the Democrat or Republican Party, you were liked more, you were more popular, you were seen as important and there was a kind of camaraderie amongst people that were political, even across the line that died. At the same time the city broke and now it’s become totally controlled by the left wing city. Even other corporate offices are mostly controlled by people on the left and it’s a it’s a bizarre time for a conservative who’s well wired and knows all these members and everything else and stood by Trump and will stand by Trump again, because then they don’t want you to play in the sandbox anymore, and I don’t weep about that, I’m not sad about that, it’s just the fact. So you realize that if you’re going to live in this city, which hopefully won’t do very much longer, it’s a hostile territory and that means you got to have new ground rules. You can’t trust people, you can’t talk to people, you can’t share with people. Friendships become very tricky. So we’re in a war zone is kind of a cold war, not hot war. But we’re in a war zone and there’s a lot of spies around and we’re going to hold our family close, we’re going to keep them in schools that protect them and we’ll get through this and hopefully America will come to a better place than the other side. But it might not.

Kelly Tshibaka: 16:26
I think that’s all a lot of wisdom to share, and I really like how you also identify the blessings in a time of difficulty, and one of the things I was telling one of our kids recently is you know, fire can melt and fire can forge, and a lot of it depends just on your perspective going through it. But there’s no way you can be forged unless you go through fire. I don’t know anyone who’s gotten stronger, better, ready to take on bigger challenges by avoiding all difficulty, and so you have to go through some kind of level of challenge in order to get better at rising to the challenge.

Matt Schlapp: 17:01
I, you know, kayleigh, that would be my advice to everyone around the country. And, as Mercy says, the broader conversation about civilization is, you know, we take CPAC into all of these continents, all these countries and generally, I would say, for those of you and they’re probably not listening to your podcast, because people listen to your podcast, get it. But for those of you who think you can stay asleep and kind of avoid the conflict and just kind of live your life and kind of like a libertarian fantasy, that I can avoid all these things because I’m just going to do my thing, you got to wake up because you can’t live that way. They have no desire to let anybody live their own individual American life, free of the government or free of their dictates. It’s coming your way and so wake up now and let’s all work together and let’s make this insanity stop.

Kelly Tshibaka: 17:47
What are some of the things people could do? So you’re out there, you’re mobilizing people. If there are people listening right now like, yeah, I’d like to get more involved, I don’t know where to start. What would you recommend people do to be the most effective?

Matt Schlapp: 17:58
I’ll jump in first. First, you’ve got to come to CPAC. Everyone needs to come. You’re all invited. People have the misconception that you have to get invited to come to CPAC. You don’t need to be, we want you there. We have a special ticket price of 95 bucks for four days, so it’s pretty cheap. For kids it’s 50 bucks for four days. We charge the $50 just so there’s at least some skin in the game to make a difference. And the presidential campaign will be starting in earnest the general election, although some of us think it’s kind of already started and you’re going to hear from everybody. You want to hear from all these important candidates, all these important voices, important conservative leaders or, as we say now, just American leaders. It’s a big celebration of America and the Constitution and it gives you a lot of motivation.

Mercy Schlapp: 18:41
Well, you say America, but there’s also. They come from over 30 countries as well. We have representatives from Japan, australia, brazil, a ton of the European countries Because why they look at CPAC. They have taken the brand and said we need this in our country. We need to mobilize our conservative voices. We need to stop this globalist approach, because people need to understand that this is not just like the leftists in America. This is a very well coordinated globalist network that is infiltrating all of our societies To change our children, to destroy the family and to have control economic control of our societies, and I think that that’s an important message that we want to share, and I just. The conference is incredibly important, which is happening February 21st through the 24th, but also CPAC is every day. We are constantly like you, kelly, out there, we have our shows online on CPACorg, we are constantly pushing, messaging. So just following at CPAC, at Mercedes-Benz, at M-SLAB you know the power of social media. It’s so critical Because why Our goal is to really continue to expand the CPAC community, and not only in the United States, but globally. Sometimes people feel like they’re alone. Sometimes they feel like I’m thinking this, but where are the people that support me? That is what CPAC is about. It is a family. It is about the fact that we support each other. I don’t know how many people have gone to CPAC that they literally make it into a reunion every year. And then from there you have people who run for Congress, people who run for their local school board. They are the movers, become the movers and shakers of their communities. I don’t know how many moms I’ve had that have called me up and said, hey, I went to CPAC and then I decided I was going to run for school board and I won. These are the remarkable stories, and our goal is to provide them with information so that they’re able to make a change. And then, on top of that, we are working closely with the state legislatures, we’re working closely with the Republican Congress to help set the agenda, and part of this is making sure that we push back on corporations who gave $99 million. How much? 91., 91 million dollars. Billion, but in counting To Black Lives Matter, and we want to know if any of that money ended up in the hands of Hamas and these terrorist organizations that have led these protests within the United States.

Will Witt: 21:14
We are going to hold corporations accountable.

Mercy Schlapp: 21:16
hold Black Lives Matter accountable. We are going to make sure we fight against human trafficking. You hear these horrific stories of 13 to 16-year-old children crossing the border and saying they’re going to their uncle’s house and then we never hear from them again. We want to stop that. We need to stop this demonic billion-dollar human trafficking industry that’s infiltrated here in the United States and, on top of that, ensuring that we keep on this, on really supporting Israel. We are that counter to that mob, pro-hamas, terrorist mentality that is penetrating the colleges that we continue to stand strong and support our Jewish brothers and sisters. We are going to continue to be on the forefront of all these battles. We will not be silenced and that is we want to encourage others to join in this fight that we are a part of.

Kelly Tshibaka: 22:11
Yeah, and CPAC is in February, as you said, and it’s a national harbor which is just outside DC.

Matt Schlapp: 22:16
this year, right, yeah, yeah, the largest hotel in Washington DC, literally minutes from Reagan Airport.

Kelly Tshibaka: 22:24
Yeah, beautiful area, and I want to totally validate what you’re saying. I took my teenagers to CPAC and just you know, for more family time and they became absolutely electrified. So just to validate, because you guys have to put this on, you don’t know what the experience is on the ground they got to meet Candace Owens, they got to see all of these amazing speakers and, like you said, some of them were new people to the stage who now are congressmen, but they gave amazing speeches. So it’s an education event, it’s an inspiration event. But for people who are looking at, how can I get involved? what can I do, I agree that this is a great, not only community, but a movement across America that doesn’t just apply to people who are in our age bracket, who have kids at home and are interested in policy and can understand exactly everything you just said, mercy, about all these crises, but even kids who are in high school or teenagers, and just tagging along with their parents absolutely change their outlook. So my daughter’s now in college and she’ll pipe up in these classes and rebut and inform her teachers, in part because of stuff she learned at CPAC, which is exactly what we’re going for.

Niki Tshibaka: 23:30
Good Right More informed.

Kelly Tshibaka: 23:30
Americans. So this has been a great episode of Stand. Thank you, matt and Mercy Schlapp for being with us. We’ve been talking about people going to CPAC, the conservative political action conference that ACU holds this February. You can find out about it online. They’re at foundationconservative. org. This is where you can find everything about ACU. Please sign up for CPAC and go. Support their work. Standouts, make sure to check out Matt and Mercy’s work and, on our break, remember to subscribe to Stand on your favorite platform of choice. Next up, we have massive social media influencer Will Witt with us to talk about his new book Do Not Comply Talking exactly about what we’ve been talking about the Marxist Takeover America, and then he’ll also share with us how to persuade people of opposing perspectives to come on over to your point of view. So make sure to stand by On our next segment of Stand cancel culture gets wrecked. We have with us Will Witt. He went to college as a left-leaning thinker and atheist, but became a conservative and a Christian, so now he boldly stands for what he believes. He’s become a massive social media influencer with millions of followers. Will previously worked for PragerU and is now the editor-in-chief of the Florida Standard. His books are how to Win Friends and Influence Enemies. And recently, do Not Comply. They’re available for purchase anywhere books are sold. Will we’re so happy to have you on stand? Welcome to the show.

Will Witt: 25:10
Hey, I’m happy to be here. Thank you so much.

Kelly Tshibaka: 25:12
Yeah, it’s awesome to have you, so share with us a little bit more about your intellectual and political journey that led to your transition from being a Democrat even working for a Democrat to now becoming a huge conservative social media influencer.

Will Witt: 25:27
Yeah, I mean my senior year of high school. I was working for a Democrat center back in. Colorado, where I grew up. It wasn’t until I went to college and I saw just how backwards everything was that I actually became a conservative. You know, I was in my sociology class, which was a worthless class, and I’m sitting next to this girl, this black girl, and my teacher in the class comes up to me, points to me and says you are oppressing this girl next to you because of the color of your skin. And this didn’t really make much sense to me because the girl next to me didn’t feel like I was oppressing her and I didn’t feel like I was some oppressor. But this teacher at this $50,000 a year university gets to come and tell me that I’m oppressing someone. And that was quite shocking to me, especially growing up in Aurora, colorado, where at my high school I was the minority as the white guy. I didn’t feel like I had any sort of white privilege in that type of environment. And so I started looking into things, looking into PragerU videos and eventually turning points and all these different organizations, and I said the world is much different than what people have led it out to believe, of what I’ve been told for so long, and so I eventually decided to go and make a video on my campus where I interviewed women what they thought about the wage gap and I taught myself how to shoot the video, edit the video, send it to PragerU and they ended up loving the video and, long story short, they offered me a job and I moved out to Los Angeles, dropped out of school after two years and started working for PragerU, where I was for the last five years in LA and now just recently about a year ago moved out to Tampa, florida, to start my newspaper.

Kelly Tshibaka: 26:52
I think there’s a lot more in that story, having followed some of your journey and heard a lot more of it, but I want us to jump into this recent book. You’ve got two books out now that I think are really fantastic, but this recent one do not comply. Tell us more about it and what inspired you to write it.

Will Witt: 27:08
It is about anyone who wants to turn you into a slave, anyone who comes on and says you do not have the right to think for yourself on this, or you need to follow us and not question it. These are the people that you cannot comply with. We cannot be obedient to authority that tells us not to think. We have to be people who are free thinkers. That’s also a reverent of being a conservative or Republican. Being a conservative or Republican doesn’t always mean that you’re doing the right thing. What is the right thing is the truth and whatever God professes, and so that is what we have to follow. That’s what I really try and get out there in the book. I didn’t want to write just another Republican book about here’s why Joe Biden sucks the book or the 2020 election with Trump the book. Those are fine books and there’s plenty of them out there but they have a shelf life of about three months and then it’s on to the next one. I wanted to write something about humanity, about for people, that anyone could pick up and say listen, there are people who are in charge of this country, and there are things that our country is doing that is putting us in steep decline, that are turning our people into weak and lazy people. How can we get out of it? I think it will be a message of not compliance for a long time, I hope.

Niki Tshibaka: 28:14
It’s really good. You know, I picking up on that if you believe in human dignity, if you respect the sanctity of human life, then you have to respect the right to the rights of conscience, to right to think for oneself, and so anyone who demands that you think a certain way, or tries to force you to think a certain way, or threaten you to you know, threaten harm to you if you don’t think a certain way, at that point you are essentially defiling the dignity of the individual, and so that’s why I think a book like this is so important to remind all of us that respect for freedom of thought, freedom of conscience, is essential if you respect the dignity of every human being. What I want to pick up on one of the phrases you just mentioned in describing your book is that you talk about America being in decline, and I know you also talk about in your book how there are interests in dividing us for purposes of, you know, gaining wealth, and that there’s greed and selfishness involved in these interests that are creating divisions among us, and so, while people are getting richer off of fomenting these divisions, the rest of us are paying the price. Pun intended, what do you propose as a way for us to push back on that and to reverse that division. It’s not that we all have to agree with each other, but how do we re-embrace that, that sense of unity within the midst of our diversity?

Will Witt: 30:00
Yeah. Well, there’s something that’s really beautiful about people disagreeing on things. It’s how the the greatest empires and civilizations in the world were able to become that way, because they flourished through free expression and people with disagreements coming and finding the best solution. There’s nothing wrong with disagreeing with somebody else, but what we have now in America today, that, I think, is worse than what I would say from my knowledge of history, worse than any other time in history, because of the amount of Collectivism that we have in this country right now. That’s again. You could be a Republican and be involved with this collectivism. A Democrat, one of these greenies, vegan, all these different things, all these different collective identity groups that turn people into what, as Nietzsche the philosopher would say, is Heard morality, where these people only think about this certain aspect of their life and don’t really ever take into account Anything else. And so I think if we want to fight against these things and and fight back against the division in this country, then we have to actually Kind of go back and look at ourselves as individuals instead of as a group. You know, I don’t look at myself as a Republican and I need to define everything that I do with the Republican Party. I don’t look at myself as as a Floridian, and I need to love everything that a Florida does. It is about the truth, it is about individuality and it’s about God and it’s about putting these things first. If we have that and we know that we can have disagreements while all being individuals, then we can flourish. But people get so Tied to some sort of identity and it turns them into slaves. Frederick Douglass said to make a contented slave is to make a thoughtless one, and that’s exactly what we have in America today.

Kelly Tshibaka: 31:34
So I’m curious, because you are in the middle of this every day. You talk to people all the time who plant their flag firmly in identity politics and get Heatedly up in your face over issues that people should be able to talk about without emotion but just stick to facts. So in your book, are you able to identify, first, who are the people that are fermenting this kind of division among Americans, trying to divide us into camps and polarize us, and what do they benefit from it? Well, why is it to people’s I mean power, people’s benefit to have so much animus between Americans where we what you can just feel like this hate brimming among the population, when it didn’t used to be this way?

Will Witt: 32:24
Yeah well, the elites love chaos. They know that if they have chaos, they can control people. Chaos makes people afraid. Chaos makes people do things that they might normally not do. We saw this very clearly with COVID, we saw with the Black Lives Matter Protests, we see it now with the transgender movement and all these things. These are chaotic ideas. I mean, there is no such thing as a Transgender person in the sense that someone who was born a man as a woman. It’s just. It’s just not true, it’s impossible. So and but these types of ideas are chaotic and they make it so that now we are completely divided and now we’re arguing about this, and that’s what we’re worried about. We’re arguing over things that are so unintellectual, so unimportant, to be honest, in the grand scheme of things, that we lose sight of what really matters. I mean, look at all the stuff happening between Trump and the Santas right now within the Republican Party and the infighting that is going On. They want us to fight. They want us to be divided as conservatives on these things Instead of be people who who come together and say listen, it’s about the idea, is not so much the candidate. If we can look past those kinds of things and come together, then they can’t control us anymore, they can’t make us care about nonsense, they can’t make us care about all the things that they want. So I think it’s a means of creating chaos and brewing it inside of people, which then you can create anger, which creates fear and turns people into Essentially consumers of what are whatever the culture is pushing at that time.

Kelly Tshibaka: 33:44
Yeah, everything you’re saying sounds so wise and so oppression, even of Things that people would write when they came out of communist countries and they say this is how it happened and these are the concerns. To look out for flags to be aware of where they would. They would brew this descent and chaos and fear, and Then the people would be so eager for a government-centric Powered solution. The only person who could come in and solve all of these many problems was an all-powerful government who then doled out the benefits and the solutions to everybody equally, instead of the people and the communities Locally being empowered to solve their own problems out of love and caring for each other. And I I’m concerned that that’s exactly what your book is identified. I think that it is a A Voice, a young voice, calling out to this generation at this time, saying for now and identifying for now the issues that that you’re seeing in our time, just like we have these legacy voices calling out from Look out for this in the, in the new time. You’re saying now, this is here Together to say the past is now being near to the present. I think that’s really important. It reminds me of that book. I don’t know if you’ve read it Live, not by lies, but it sounds like your book do not comply is. It’s like today’s version of that, and I think that that’s really important. So we’re gonna take a short break. Stand, you’re with will wit, social media influencer, author of do not comply, and you can get this book anywhere books are sold. You can find it on Amazon, barnes, noble I found it on both and, of course, bookstores. If you have those in your community, please feel free to pick it up, and we’re gonna be back just on the other side of this break. In the meantime, hit, subscribe on your favorite podcast platform at stand with Kelly Niki Tshibaka. If you leave a review, you could be one of our lucky winners this week to win this awesome hydro flash sticker from stand. So we’ll see you on the other side of the break. Stand firm, stand strong. You’re back on stand with will witt, social media influencer and author of do not comply, which is available for purchase anywhere books are sold. I’m sure you can figure it out.

Niki Tshibaka: 36:13
Will. I wanted to follow up and and ask you a little bit more about the book. The last chapter of the book is called courage is found in unlikely places, and In it you talk about what everyday Americans can do to begin to reverse our nation’s decline. I was wondering if you could tease that for our audience. Tell them a little bit about that. What can we do to be part of another great American comeback together?

Will Witt: 36:41
Yeah, courage is found in likely places. And then the quote that I use is from the Hobbit. I’m the biggest Lord of the Rings fan in the world and I think Tolkien and his works, I mean, he’s a genius. He teaches people how to live. He teaches people how to love God without ever mentioning God within his work. I recommend everyone read Lord of the Rings, even first, before my book. If they haven’t, because just so good. But the the reason why I wrote that chapter is because I Wrote the book and I felt a little cynical writing it. I have all these chapters about the elites in this country and how bad things have gotten, how weak our generation has become, how in debt we are, the people at B who want to turn us into slaves. I felt a little cynical and a little hardened. I guess you could say I didn’t see a lot of hope with a lot of things I was talking about. So in the last chapter and some of the other few last chapters I go into more of a hopeful message that listen, even if the world around you is horrible, that doesn’t mean that you don’t stand with integrity. It doesn’t mean that you don’t do what’s right and say what’s true and be the person who you want to believe. You know, we’re looking out to Trump, to Santis, another Republican, matt Gates, kevin McCarthy, whatever it might be. We’re looking to one of these guys and saying, well, why can’t they be this perfect leader, why can’t they be someone who who stands up and does the things that I want them to do? But we don’t look in the mirror and say, well, why don’t I be the person that I want these other people to be? When am I going to change what? Am I going to be the good person, who who does the things that I believe are are really good for the world? We don’t have that. People don’t want to take any sort of responsibility. We want to always blame some foreign enemy or a politician, or our pastor or parents, whatever it might be. We’re always looking for someone to blame. Really, we need to be putting a lot of the blame on ourselves, and so I think that if we can find that courage within ourselves to really fix ourselves and be the best versions of ourselves that we can be, then this country will be fixed in a matter, in a matter of seconds. But if we start looking for all these different solutions by blaming others. It’s not really ever going to work out the way that was that it’s supposed to.

Niki Tshibaka: 38:38
Yeah, that’s really good. I mean, we look for perfect leaders and we forget about the fact that there’s no perfect person, including ourselves. And so I hear you saying we have to become we’ve come more introspective and focus on Changing ourselves. That’s where everything Begins, that’s where we can. We can begin to be a part of the reversal of this decline, and I would say it begins with Learning to what it really means to love other people who disagree with us. It seems like we have forgotten what that looks like and and what that means. And I mean, you’ve had a lot of experience will talking with people who passionately disagree with you, who, I would say, even despise you, and they, they have a caricature in their mind of who you are. That isn’t accurate. What are some of the practical tips that you share with people and how they can positively influence others who disagree with them, and you may even hate them because of their views being different from those other folks. How do we positively influence them and build a bridge?

Will Witt: 39:57
Well, the number one thing that we can do is by asking questions. I think that when we’re going into debates or arguments or talking with people, we’re so interested in proving that we are right instead of proving that the ideas are right, and that’s the wrong way to go about it. At the end of the day, I don’t care whether or not you think I’m right. I care about whether or not you know what is true in the objective sense of the word. That’s much more important, and so we need to go into conversations without a lot of pride, without vanity, and say this is about asking questions because I actually care what this other person has to say and what they believe. I am weaving the facts that I want to be told to this person into questions, asking them what they believe, because, at the end of the day, it’s not me changing that person’s mind, it’s them changing their own mind because they couldn’t answer the question that I gave them. By asking questions, being compassionate, you will be able to change so many more people’s minds than by going in there with an agenda for yourself. And I know that’s difficult. I know it’s hard to keep your head straight and keep your emotions on even keel and not get angry when you’re talking with some of these people. I understand, but if you really want to be someone, to be a great mind changer and have good conversations, then you got to ask questions and hear the other person.

Niki Tshibaka: 41:07
That’s a great, great response, because I think that also goes to what you talked about earlier about becoming critical thinkers again. And you don’t become a critical thinker and you don’t encourage people to become critical thinkers if you come in and just start spewing facts and arguments at them, legending them Right. And instead, asking questions helps them and you to think critically about whatever the issue is that you’re talking about, and it shows a certain amount of humility, right and saying look, I’m not saying I know everything, so let’s ask these questions together and see where it leads. It sounds to me like that’s a much more productive way of having a conversation, so I’m going to take that to heart.

Kelly Tshibaka: 41:50
It also sounds like I might be assuming here, but it sounds like you ask the same questions that you asked yourself, that you took on that journey from becoming more left thinking to becoming more conservative. So I want to know if you could help us out with this. One of the things we aim to do is to equip our audience to take a stand so that they don’t just hear cool stories about someone like you who’s super successful with millions of followers. I understand that you were once just Will Witt at a college who got stuck with an awful confrontational question and said hey, wait, I’m not comfortable with that and you did something about it. That’s where most of the people on the show are. They’re at the point where they’re a little bit uncomfortable about life around them and we want to empower and equip them to do something about it. So I’m curious on just a couple of topics if we could run through them, what would be the questions you would ask or the way that you would approach having a conversation with somebody about this to help start influencing them over to the way that you would think if someone listening to the show had the courage to have that talk with their friend, colleague or a family member. Okay, you ready for that? Got my like, maybe a minute or two each Okay. so, Niki, you wanted to start out with one, and then I’ve got a couple too.

Niki Tshibaka: 43:06
Yeah, so lightning round, here we go. We’re going to give people PhDs in each of these topics One minute or less, no pressure.

Will Witt: 43:14
I’m a college dropout.

Kelly Tshibaka: 43:16
Yeah, that’s okay. I think you’re wise.

Niki Tshibaka: 43:18
So Will. How do you define systemic racism and why you believe it’s not a pervasive problem in our country?

Will Witt: 43:30
Well, I think what it’s important to ask, if you’re asking a question on systemic racism, is to ask people first what country in the world would be better for someone who is black or Hispanic or Jewish, whatever? What race would be better in a different country? Which one they could do better in? And then you can go in and ask why do you think 100,000 immigrants from Africa moved to America on their own free will? This isn’t slavery. Why did they move here on their own free will? These types of questions are the ones where you can show that people don’t actually know the history of America and what’s actually going on and know what systemic racism is. They just hear that white oppression is this horrible thing and they’re destroying black people’s lives and won’t actually ever look into the history of how people made this country that are from all different backgrounds and people from all over the world come here for the opportunity to be an American because they know that, no matter what, no matter what they look like, what they think, they can make it here in this country.

Kelly Tshibaka: 44:25
Yeah, even just bringing up what’s happening with our border right now. Why are so many people flooding in if this is a place where they’re gonna be oppressed? Okay, why are you pro-life? What are some of the most effective ways to have that discussion? Pro-life view, discussion with people who are pro-choice.

Will Witt: 44:42
Yeah, I’m unequivocally pro-life. So 100% life begins in conception. I was very disappointed to hear what Trump said the other day about he doesn’t know if he’d signed a 15 week ban and said the six week heartbeat bill in Florida was a terrible thing. So I think what’s important to do what I like to do when I’m talking to people out abortion is break it down by the different trimesters and then eventually you get all the way to birth. Say what does a baby look like in nine months? Or what is it like? What is a baby like at six months? You research these things and you know them and understand them. What is it like at three months? And you start breaking it down this way At six months. They think that it’s still like this amoeba clump of cells. Most people they don’t know that it’s got hair growing and fingernails and the heartbeat and all these different things. And eventually you take it all the way down to when the baby was first conceived and say, listen, do you know what it looks like here? Do you know what the process was? If you can work from top to bottom on what the actual life is, I think you can do a really good job of changing people’s minds there on abortion.

Kelly Tshibaka: 45:41
Yeah, so it sounds like becoming more informed and asking those questions is important. Okay, we have friends who don’t like guns. We wanna end gun violence, so they think the best way is then to just take guns away from everybody. How do you respond to that?

Will Witt: 45:56
I would ask them about Obama and his CDC study, which asked people or not asked people, but showed how many people use guns every single year to defend themselves. Ask them if they know how many people a year use guns to defend themselves in this country and see what they have to say. The number was from 500,000 to 3 million people a year use guns defensively in this country to protect themselves. That’s the main reason why people wanna get rid of guns. You can have a debate with them and talk about the Second Amendment and what it really means, but I think just getting people into the initial conversation by asking more simple questions like that about the necessity for their life with a gun is a great place to start.

Kelly Tshibaka: 46:34
That’s a really good point, because if those people weren’t defended, then those would be homicides of other weapons, right. And that’s a huge homicide tally, that we would have a whole different discussion about stopping other kind of violence. Okay, you talked about this earlier. Why shouldn’t we support gender transitioning for children who truly believe they’re born of the wrong gender?

Will Witt: 46:57
Well, number one it’s evil to do so, it’s not real, and so anyone who’s coming and saying that they are born of different gender, it’s delusional, unfortunately. I feel for these people. It’s very sad, but they are being pushed into this. It is not something that is real within the world, and so if you have someone who is doing something that is wrong, you can either be an enabler and say, yes, I’ll call you she, even if you’re a he, or get them this surgery or these puberty blockers which they also used to castrate sex offenders, by the way these same things that they’re giving to children. It’s truly evil. So you can do that and you can enable them so that you can be quote unquote compassionate and nice and not offend these people. Or you can do what’s hard but what is right, and tell the truth to these people and tell them what the gender that they are, tell them what they were born with and talk to other people about it, so that we can change the culture around this, because 15 years ago, barack Obama and Hillary Clinton were saying they don’t support gay marriage.

Mercy Schlapp: 47:52
And now.

Will Witt: 47:53
Now in America, everywhere you go every 10 seconds you see something about trans this or cutting the penis off a little boy and telling them they’re a girl. I mean it’s disgusting, evil stuff and so we really have to. We can’t be worried about these people’s feelings. It’s about the truth and they’re destroying people’s lives.

Kelly Tshibaka: 48:10
Thank you. You’ve been on stand with Will Witt. His book is Do Not Comply. You can get it anywhere. Books are sold. Make sure to follow us on any podcast channel on YouTube Rumble, and at thestandshow. org is our website, standshow. org. Leave a review, be entered to win our hydroflask sticker. We’ll see you next week. Stand firm, stand strong, stay beautiful.