Alex Marlow Long-Form Interview with Comic Bryan Callen: Globalist Experiment Failing, the Threat of AI, Breitbart’s Strength

Alex Marlow speaking with attendees at the 2020 Student Action Summit hosted by Turning Po
Flickr, Getty

Breitbart News editor-in-chief Alex Marlow spoke with comedian and actor Bryan Callen during a 90-minute interview about how the globalist experiment is failing, the threat that artificial intelligence (AI) poses, and about Breitbart News’s strength.

During the interview with Callen, who appeared in The Hangover and The Hangover Part II, Marlow explained that young leftist activists in the United States feel like “they are the smartest group of people in the history of the world,” adding that this is “chronological snobbery.”

Marlow said:

You asked earlier, what’s your definition of a leftist activist, or leftism in general. I feel like that’s a longer answer for me, but one of the crucial components of it is that it does feel like the left believes that … particularly young Millennial activist left Americans are, they are the smartest group of people in the history of the world, and that they know the most.

The editor-in-chief pointed out that the cultural snobbery of leftist activists is absurd, considering how past generations seemed happier and more productive and created superior art and music.

Watch the interview:

Callen, who is also known for his role as coach Rick Mellor in the television show, The Goldbergs, pointed out that leftist activists would say life is better for “some people,” or for “white people.”

Marlow admitted that “there were pockets of things that are better now than ever,” but that “overall” Americans are more depressed than they were years ago. The editor-in-chief added that more Americans today are dependent on drugs, narcotics, fentanyl, etc., and that suicide rates in the U.S. have risen.

“You look at it and think, ‘Maybe we could get something from the past, right?'” Marlow continued, adding that leftist activists would argue that “we’re just moving ahead and only moving ahead.”

Marlow added that he loves “moving ahead as a news person” and that he always tells his journalists to “look what’s happening next.” The editor-in-chief added that, from a life perspective, there are various things we can learn by looking back, giving examples such as the music of German composer Johann Sebastian Bach, Italian painter Michelangelo, and the Bible.

“From a life perspective, it’s very hard to go back and listen to the music of Bach and look at the art of Michelangelo, and not wonder, ‘Why aren’t any of us doing that? Why is no one doing that stuff?” Marlow explained. “I don’t think they look at the Bible and think, ‘There’s so much more wisdom in here’ than if you took collectively all of the Ivy League faculty members combined, put them all in the room, and gave them a million years to come up with some document. They couldn’t fog a mirror compared to the impact of the Bible.”

Callen said the Bible seems to be as relevant and influential, and “held as closely to the vest today,” by millions and millions of people as much as it was thousands of years ago.

Marlow added that the “smart people,” or the people he looks up to, seem to gravitate toward Biblical values as they age.

The editor-in-chief went on to explain that when he thinks about what “units of society” he values, versus what he thinks a leftist activist would, he values people who “have excelled on an individual level,” with the family being “the next-most important unit.”

When asked if Marlow believes that left-wing activists “favor a world government,” he said:

I would have said during the rise of Trump, when people were so appalled by his nationalism and saying that nationalism was the same as white nationalism: Completely unrelated, completely absurd. Nationalism just means we think America is exceptional, American exceptionalism, and that strong nations make good neighbors.

Callen said former President Donald Trump did not “help his case” when he stated he wanted to “ban Muslims.” Marlow pushed back, noting that Trump said he wanted a stay on the importation of people from nations with high rates of terror, and not a Muslim ban.

Marlow noted that “pre-Trump,” politically, people began to realize the “globalist experiment is failing.”

The globalist experiment is only making the elite “richer and more powerful,” while the poor and working class are left to deal with the rising costs of living, Marlow noted.

Marlow pointed out that the rising costs of living are associated with “unending free trade, open borders,” and “the insistence” that bigger governments and world governments are the solution.

He added that during the time of “peak Obama, as Trump was ramping up,” the “average American leftist” would have said they would “much rather have a globalist EU style” type of government than a “nationalist” type of government.

Marlow said:

I think that peak Obama, as Trump was ramping up, I think the average American leftist for sure would say, ‘I would much rather have a globalist EU-style super state’ than a nationalist U.S. government, particularly run by any Republican, especially Trump.

Has that changed now? I don’t know, maybe. I know that that’s their Utopia. Their ideal is the superstate, is the super government, super state. My ideal: Strong individuals with strong families.

Both Marlow and Callen agreed that the right needs to “win the PR war” against the left, with Callen adding that he is alarmed by the “authoritarian left” who end up creating their own truths when it comes to gender and politics.

Marlow explained that the left is “always looking for ways to have the government support what they’re doing, and that’s why you see in left-wing states now, you’re seeing the effort to ban even informing the parents that their children, not just adults, their children want to transition.”

Callen clarified that transitioning included “puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones, and finally, surgery,” equating it to being “a form of child sacrifice” and a “sick religion.”

Marlow explained that if conservatives “move quickly,” this “huge negative” could be turned into a “blip in history.”

Marlow said:

I don’t think people genuinely believe it. I think that in general most people like traditional masculinity and traditional femininity. It seems like that’s the consensus, not to say that there aren’t people who are outside of that dichotomy, but it feels like that’s the most common thing. So, then you think, why is this happening? A lot of it is about control. I think a lot of it is cynical politics from the left. The best example I can give of this is, think about the Black Lives Matter movement. You notice how quickly it went from Black Lives Matter to Black Trans Lives Matter? How did they get lumped in so quickly? It was probably white, left-wing activists and there’s been a lot of discussion of this in the past. White, left-wing activists thinking, ‘How do we continue to build on this coalition?’ Because we want to be able to move these groups of people, either people with money or lots of voters.

This is actually where Joe Biden has done a pretty good job, politically. He’s terrible on every policy issue imaginable. The one thing he’s done that has helped him stay in power for 50 years, he understands these coalitions and he understands how to move one into his camp and keep one in his camp and to try to not alienate too many others.

I think he’s a purely political animal. I don’t think he’s ideological in the slightest. He goes to Catholic Church, but he’s never met an abortion he doesn’t love.

Marlow admitted that President Joe Biden is a pragmatist, “politically speaking,” adding that there were “lessons to be learned from that” while people on the right “just say he’s stupid” and “move on.”

“I think that’s really what the trans stuff is all about. It’s not about a handful of people, you know, the Caitlyn Jenners of the world, who went through something for 30 years,” Marlow began. Callen interjected to point out that conservatives “don’t mind” if people “want to transition,” but that adults should not “do it with kids.”

Marlow then offered some optimistic words that the right is starting to make strides in the culture war.

“It does feel like things are finally tipping over, where the right has more of the cool kids. I mean, you see Trump’s reception at the UFC events, just wild. What did Joe Rogan call it? The conservative Avengers. That stuff’s unbelievable.”

Marlow and Callen continued to speak about transgender athletes competing in women’s sports, with Marlow explaining that “we didn’t go through the feminist movement so that men could go and beat women at sports.”

On the subject of Title IX, Marlow said that “there were a lot of conservatives” such as former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin (R) “who were big advocates for it because it did create an opportunity for women to have opportunities that were equal to men when it came to sports.”

The editor-in-chief and Callen continued to talk about people on the left having this thing where they won’t “engage with people” like conservatives. Marlow added that this was “not new” and that he made his “peace with this a long time ago.”

Callen’s podcast, “Off Limits” can be found on SpotifyApple Podcasts, and YouTube.

The podcast is described as taking “deep dives” into “controversial, taboo and insightful topics.”

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