Hey, welcome back everyone. Brian Kilmeade is back with you right here in Studio 48th and 6th in Midtown Manhattan. With me in studio is Dr. Marcus Collins. He's the best-selling author of For the Culture, the power behind what we buy, what we do and who we want to be. It's available in paperback now and it's also important to know that you actually have action wear for your book. I mean it says For the Culture, a pullover sweatshirt.
I'm so jealous. I'm a marketer, man. This is what we do. Right. Think about all the many ways by which we go to market beyond just the product. Right.
So, so tell us how this plays, your beliefs play into this election. Sure. People are smart.
Sure. You know, well, I believe, you know, anytime we, we put candidates on stage, we are going to market, right? We are marketing. We are bringing our candidates to market in hopes of getting people to cast their vote. Just like a company will bring their product to market to in hopes that you will pay money.
We are constantly trying to get people to move. And what I believe is that in this election in particular, is that people will be voting based upon their ideological subscription. More so than about like my connection with the candidate. For instance, you know, back in the day, I think the Bush days, it was like, I want to get a beer with that guy. I'm going to vote for that guy. I don't know his policies that well, but I feel like he's feel likable, right? Just like JFK and Nixon's like, that guy has a cold. That's not my guy.
It's that guy who looks more, more proper. But I feel like we're at a time in society where ideologically that's what drives, that what drives how we think about the political zeitgeist. And there's so much division in the world because of our ideological incongruence that that's going to, that's what's going to lead the day today, I think. So, but don't you think things have changed even from 2020? I mean, a lot of the things that Kamala Harris was standing for in 2020 that she was running for against other Democrats.
She's like, yeah, I'm out for that anymore. Whether it's getting rid of fossil fuels, whether it was, we even found her talking to Al Sharpton about reparations. She was talking about decriminalizing border crossings, giving health care for illegals. She knows that doesn't fly for either side in this culture, correct?
And if she held to that, she might get blown out. Like Barry Goldwater got blown out. He'd put a set of beliefs America was not there in 60, 64. I think that there are some policy issues that can evolve over time. There's some ideological things that evolved slowly, right? So policy issues that I stood for this, I believed in this five years ago, but you know what, as I think about it more as the zeitgeist shifts, my perspective changes.
Here's a crude example. I grew up listening to or loving stand-up comedy. Like I loved Eddie Murphy as a kid.
Love, love, loved him. Eddie Murphy's Raw and Delirious comes back on, comes on Netflix. And I'm like, I'm so excited to watch this. Like reliving my childhood.
I watch it and I'm clutching my pearls the entire time. I, the, the, so-called political incorrectness, the movie, the show, this, the, the standup hadn't changed over those years, but I had, right. And I think the same thing kind of goes, we think about policy issues that my stance on the thing can shift as more information comes in. But what I believe, how I see the world, those things I feel are far more permanent and those things, they move less quickly. Therefore I'm more likely to find the person I'm most ideologically aligned with to say, that's my guy or that's my woman.
And it's okay. So give me an idea. So if it's not policy, cause you think that's going to evolve quickly and change quickly. What about, what do you think about the culture right now? What, what is going to be polarizing in the culture right now, or it might be something a candidate should be aware of if they want to get that vote? Yeah. I mean, I think that the fact that you call it that the culture right now, culture is built on identity and beliefs, right?
I believe this and therefore I'm going to find the person who sees the world most like I do. We see, you know, a hotbed conversation right now is around women's Bali autonomy. That's an ideological thing. There are policies that come out of that ideological topic, but it's the beliefs around that that's going to guide where people set their shares.
Even the way you said that's different, because up until five years ago, pro-life, pro-choice. Yeah, exactly. So what did you just say? Exactly. Bali autonomy, right?
Again, so perfectly said, right? Pro-life, pro-choice, that is about policy. They are informed by ideals, but they're policy driven.
Bali autonomy is all conceptual. I believe that women should have the right to choose what they do with their bodies, right? That belief system then informs the kind of policy that I would follow. But in most cases today, for sure, people are like, I just want to go where the beliefs are.
And I think that we're actually kind of wired for that. I mean, we think about what is culture? Culture is a system of conventions and expectations that demarcate who we are and govern what people like us do, right? I am a, we believe this, therefore I. As we look at the political zeitgeist, we find ourselves having much of our division based upon how we see the world, our ideological subscription. Therefore, we're going to say, who are the candidates that are most like me, not in identity, but in belief system?
And that's where I'm going to point myself. Where does practicality come in from? Where does practicality come in?
For example, if I'm not safe at home, if I can't afford to shop the way I used to, I'm angry and I want that person that's going to bring me back to security and the financial stability. Yeah. Well, how does that figure into what you said?
Yeah. I mean, that's actually the beautiful part in all of this, that there are empirical proof points that say the economy is doing well. But then people go, I'm feeling that.
This is not going well for me. I don't feel it that way. Well, you go, well, objectively it is.
Unemployment's low, market's up. Exactly. But the truth of the matter is, which I think is kind of what my work centers on, is that there is no objectivity. Everything is subjective.
That's why for some a cow is leather, for others a deity, for some it's dinner. Which one is it? It's all those things, depending on who you are and how you see the world. For some a rug is decor, for others a souvenir, and for some it's a place of worship.
Which one is it? It's all those things, depending on who you are. So we ask questions like, well, what about safety and what about economic security? And I go, well, some look at those numbers and say, well, I don't see it that way and others do, based on how we see the world. So looking at the voter based, not based on the labels we put on them, Democrat, Republican, Independent, but belief systems, I think it opens, widens the aperture and gives us a better understanding of where people actually place their votes. So where's America now? You say, we are separate in some ways. So what do you think the things matter to the average American now?
I think that there are hotbed issues right there. You mentioned about reproductive rights. I want to be able to care for my family.
I want to have some stability in my health. I want to make sure that my kids can go to school and they're going to come back safe. They're these sort of primal things. Did you see the shooting yesterday in Georgia? Exactly, exactly. So because of that belief system, I will then point to a policy that aligns most with the ideal on whether or not people should have access to guns with any kind of regulation or not. So again, anchored in identity or anchored in ideology and then manifested through policy. I think that we are in a state as a country that the culture wars that we're living in, it is a byproduct of our misunderstanding of what culture is and how we navigate through it. By that I mean, culture is a system of conventions and expectations that takes things that are messy, that are abstract, that are noisy, that are nonsense and we give it meaning based on how we see the world.
And if we understood culture that way, that the world is not objective, it's subjective, then I could say, oh, Brian, your truth is different than my truth. I'll give you the best example. Yeah. Mayor of Chicago. Yep. Mayor of Chicago comes out and he sees these young kids, minority kids, raiding a section, really nice area of Chicago. And he goes, it's got to stop. You got to find security.
He says, we got to find something for these kids to do. Yeah. One say, I just want security.
I don't care why they're here. That's right. Wrong.
You can't, you can't go rob a store because you don't have a gym to play. That's right. Yeah.
But he goes, look, no, we got to, we got to do better by these kids. They have no, they have no outlet. They're single parent families. That's right. So same problem, different perspective, different perspective. Exactly. And so the beautiful part of this is that your truth can be different than my truth, can be opposed to my truth. Same facts. But exactly. We're looking at the same thing empirically, but we're translating it differently. And so long as your truth doesn't mean my oppression, doesn't mean my marginalization, we can actually work together. Right.
And that's like the beautiful part. That is the diversity bonus as it is that you get different perspectives in a room and we look at a problem from different, different sides and go, what's the best solution? Do you think anyone could get elected by saying both sides, Hey, yeah, I saw what happened over in the, the, um, smash and grab over in San Francisco. Yeah. I saw what happened over there.
And I see one side come out and say, that's the problem. Minority kids are not, are Americans of inherently racist. Yeah. And for minority kids, they don't have the same opportunity as white kids. That's why white kids aren't there. And then you could look at this and say, and the other people say, are you kidding me?
We just need more cops. Yeah. So do you think a candidate could ever get elected by saying both are right and both are wrong?
I think, and I could go in there and let's fix it. So I think that a candidate can, if they're brave enough to preach that gospel and not to say, I'm going to both sides of this thing. I'm trying to play to both sides, but I'm trying to communicate a point of view that I have. And when they say it out loud, someone goes, yeah, I totally, yes. But you know what, why can't it be both sides? And what happens is that you activate a group of people who see the world the way you do, and then they go evangelize on your behalf.
Because the truth of the matter is that most candidates that we rally around, it's not because we heard her talk and said, yep, that's it. We heard a talk go, that interesting. And then we go to dinner, you and I, and you go, did you hear that talk about whatever I go, that was kind of cool, right? You go, totally.
It was cool. And collectively, we decide that it's acceptable. We do that at dinner, we do that at the bar, we do that at our congregations, at church, we do that at work, and constantly we sort of create these coalitions of shared ideologies. And we gather together and we place our votes accordingly. But what blows up the system is if you tell me, if I'm a candidate and I tell you what you want to hear and I know it, but I don't plan on doing it.
That's the problem. So that's why people's, why, why do you believe that I am going to crack down on crime? Why do you believe that the environment should be number one?
Why do you believe that fossil fuel is being underappreciated and can be done cleaner? So rather than just tell me what I want to believe. Instead of telling me the policy points, tell me what you believe, how you see the world. People get really bitter.
I'll give an example of the most common. Joe Biden came out and said, hey, you know, I'm going to be a moderate. So I'm going to be a moderate. And then people say, okay, you're going to be a moderate.
But no, he was pretty much, I looked at it as way to the left. So that's different. So people feel, wow, I feel duped. So I'm going to vote for some people. I'm going to vote from that. I'm going to vote for Trump regardless. But the people in the middle that go up until the end, you know what, he's going to bring normalcy back. He was going to get rid of the polarization.
Well, we're even more divided by than ever before. And this inflation reduction act had more green policies, had nothing to do with inflation. In fact, you actually told us at the end, had nothing to do with inflation.
It was mislabeled. That I think creates more bitterness than, by the way, when I get in the economy, it's going to be the new green deal. You voted for me, even if I win 49, 48, I won.
And this I told you I'm going to do. But don't go do something opposite from what you said, because it makes people feel taken advantage of. I think the point you're making is that there are promises told and the promises that are not kept.
Or at the very least, there's a tensionality that's communicated, but it doesn't seem to be manifested. People understand not reaching your goals. That's called life. But you got to try.
That's right. And we know, here's the thing, that our understanding as a society of politics, of government, government in particular, it's not, it's pretty shallow. We go, you're president, make it happen.
You go, dude, do you know how many coalitions that I have to create to actually get a thing through the door? Those things are very difficult. And explaining that is better than most. Explain that in 48 minutes with commercial breaks. You can't blame the president no matter who it is that's going wrong and right in your life. There's so much nuance there, it makes it very difficult to communicate it.
So therefore, it's easy to place blame on what happens as opposed to thinking about intentionality. A few more minutes with Dr. Marcus Collins. His book is out now, Paperback for the Culture, The Power Behind What We Buy, What We Do, and Who We Want to Be.
Back in a moment. Expanding your knowledge base. It's the Brian Kilmeade Show. From the Fox News Podcast Network. Stay on top of the latest news and information from Fox News. Listen and download the Fox News hourly update on your time. The trending stories you need anytime you want it. Listen and download now by going to foxnewspodcasts.com. Breaking news, unique opinions. Hear it all on the Brian Kilmeade Show. So Dr. Marcus Collins is here. His book for the culture is out now on Paperback, The Power Behind, What We Buy, What We Do, and Who We Want to Be. So Dr. Collins, I think that Kamala Harris seems to be doing what you're doing because you know what we're seeing?
We're seeing speeches and then we see like TikTok videos of her. Let me tell you the secret to my recipe. Let me tell you this. Let me show you with my family.
They're selling a product rather than selling issues, right? Here's my economy. You know, Warren Harding, this is what I like. You know, there's no, there was no charisma like Teddy Roosevelt, that charisma.
So she's trying to sell her as a personality. In this short, bifurcated race, could that work? Well, I think so. I think we've seen it done in 2008 with Barack Obama. We saw it till the 16 with Donald Trump. We're seeing it now with Kamala Harris. I mean, essentially they're communicating a point of view, how we see the world, right? For Barack Obama, the idea was that we don't have a problem with legislation. We don't have a problem with ideas. We have a problem with cynicism. People believe the government is broken.
So what did he run on? Hope. Together we can. And people said, yes, I see the world that way.
That's my guy. Eight years later, Donald Trump comes and says, well, you know what? We feel like we've kind of gone away from our traditions. We've gone away from sort of what the ethos of America. Let's go back to a time when things were a certain way. And what do you say? Let's make America great again.
People said, yes, that's my guy. Kamala Harris is saying, well, you know what? We actually need to be going forward, making progress as a country because that's what America is all about.
We choose to go to the moon, right? We're moving forward. And so she's saying, you know, freedom is the way by which we do that. Freedom, not going backwards, going forward. So people go, that's the person for me. It's ideologies that we find ourselves gravitating towards more so than the value propositions that manifest through policy.
And I understand that. But do you think also part of the reason that Barack Obama won is because when the economy collapsed, he went to school with Hank Paulson, a Republican Treasury secretary, to say, how do we fix this? So we made people not only feel good that he can speak on his feet, but he's like, well, let me just tell you what I found out what we're going to have to do.
This TARP thing is not political. It's got to work. This is what we're going to have to do with the auto companies. He actually had a plan, right? And same with Trump goes, I'll tell you exactly what I'm going to do. And Biden says, I'm going to show you what normal looks like. And then Harris, at one point, has got to say, looking forward. Now, what does that mean and what changed?
At one point, Steele's got to go against Steele. Sure, sure. I would say, if we're just being totally honest with each other, if you polled people on the street in 2007, 2008, and said, what's Barack Obama's policy? You get a lot of blank stares. I imagine if you did the exact same thing with Donald Trump, you'd probably get sound bites. You'd get wall.
Build the wall. Right. You're like, well, why?
What does that mean? I mean, we've seen videos of this. We've seen videos of this. Like, people don't know it.
They clap, they clump on to language to justify a belief. I mean, the same thing here. I don't think that people are voting on policy. One would say we're voting on vibes. But vibes are important.
Vibes are the instinct that we lead with because of what we feel. We aren't rational human beings. We're rationalizing human beings.
Dr. Marcus Collins, our guest, Dr. Collins. Now, what is the recipe for America to sell itself on the year 2026? It's our 250th birthday. How can a nation rally around that the way they did in 1776?
I mean, in 1976. It's exactly what we're saying today. We have to put... It's an opportunity, isn't it? It's opportunity to say, hey, what do we believe, y'all? Like, you see it should be manifested a different way than I do, but we share the same belief. We want the same things.
The work that we're doing with Suzie, this is a consumer insights company. The work we do with Suzie, we're realizing that while we talk to people who identify as Republicans, Democrats, Independents, they want the same things. Just the manner in which they go about getting them differ. And those differences are important. But at the core, we want the same things. And that's the ethos of this country that we all want. So secure the foundation. Yes.
Got a year to do it. So I think of it this way. When I work with brands like Nike, Nike doesn't talk about the leather that it makes or how it produces the shoes. It talks about every human body is an athlete. And the idea there is pushed there. Right.
Just do it. Pick up for the culture. Thanks, Dr. Collins.
Thanks for having me. The Fox News Rundown. A contrast of perspectives you won't hear anywhere else. Your daily dose of news twice a day. Featuring insight from top newsmakers, reporters and Fox News contributors. Listen and subscribe now by going to Fox News podcast dot com.
