Charlie Kirk & Scott Galloway

Transcript Transcribed by Laura M.

Courtney: Hello everyone and welcome back. My name is Courtney. I am here with my spouse Royce. Together we are The Ace Couple and I am once again talking about… Scott Galloway. But only kind of. Because we’re actually talking about Charlie Kirk. But only kind of. I want to talk about how the ideologies of these two very prominent men in modern talking points politics are really two sides of the same conservative coin. Is one more harmful than the other? Yes. Does one absolutely feed into the other in terms of those who are predisposed to accept these talking points or identify with them at face value? Also, yes. So a while back we talked for— I don’t know, was it the second or third time we’ve talked about Scott Galloway?

Royce: I mean, in depth it’s been twice, but there have been a few other mentions here and there.

Courtney: Yeah, he really, really— I mean, as a marketing professor, he’s very good at staying right smack dab in the middle of my news cycle. Extremely annoying of him. But our most recent episode talking about Scott Galloway sort of featured his 3P’s, his code, if you will, for modern masculinity, which is provide, protect, and procreate. Where the long-story-short of that is the only one I don’t really have issues with is Protect, but I do have an issue with protection being branded as a particularly masculine trait. I think in general, all people of all genders should aspire to protect one another. But now the thing about Scott Galloway being a very, at times, perplexing centrist, I believe I have referred to listening to him at length as experiencing, like, political whiplash, ’cause every now and then he’ll make, like, a really good point and he’ll turn right around and make just the worst, most awful point you can possibly think of.

Courtney: Others often speak about him as if he is a liberal. Centrist at best. But truly, truly, his idea of the 3P’s in modern masculinity is conservative. And the only reason why we occasionally think he is a centrist or a liberal is because the ones we’ve historically known to be conservatives are just fascist now. And that is the Charlie Kirk’s of the world. Now, shortly after that little incident with Charlie Kirk, his close friend and executive producer of his show, Andrew Kolvet— Kolvitt? Kolvay? I did not actually look up the pronunciation of this man’s name, I am now realizing. He appeared on Fox News talking about his good friend Charlie and what he wanted for America and what the two of them always talked about for their vision for all Americans. Something they call the 3M’s. Which, I don’t know, sounds a whole heck of a lot like the 3P’s.

Courtney: This branding-business-talkification of politics drives me nuts. It really, really does. It’s like the worst, like, corporate, everything has to be buzzy, everything has to be an acronym. The probably very wealthy white man who came up with it thinks it’s revolutionary and so brilliant and it’s going to change lives.

Courtney: But what are the 3M’s? The 3M’s are marriage, mortgage, and mating. That is their vision for all Americans. And please, please, for the love of gnomes, can we stop adding mating and procreation and sex and childbearing to the sole American ideal to aspire to? Do I think that people who want to raise children should have every opportunity to do that safely and comfortably and affordably? Absolutely. But it can never just be so simple.

Courtney: We recently covered the special report put out by the Heritage Foundation called Saving America by Saving the Family: A Foundation for the Next 250 Years. We did 2 episodes on that, you can go back and listen to those if you want a more in-depth overview. But in this report, they literally recommend that the government require any agency, department, contract, anything seeking federal funding to prove that what they’re doing will increase marriages and birth rates. And to give special funding to any, you know, municipalities, cities, states that have higher than the average birth rate. Which we know is disproportionately going to swing toward heavily religious conservative areas. So make no mistake, it’s never, “Oh, we just want childbirth and childcare and more resources for people who want to be parents.” It’s really going to be about punishing those who opt out of that system or do it in a non-traditional way.

Courtney: But on the surface, using these marketing tactics, the 3M’s— marriage, mortgage, and mating— the 3P’s— provide, protect, procreate— that’s the overly simplified buzzwords to get someone to pay attention and remember the talking points. But what are the underlying ideologies? How do we get to a point where, in one case, men can provide, protect, and procreate, or in the other case all Americans can have a marriage, a mortgage, and mating. Well, Scott Galloway here takes an extremely conservative viewpoint. He tries very hard to convince us that it’s not a conservative viewpoint because there are some more progressive values that he holds. He does think abortion should be accessible, as one example. You don’t hear a lot of conservative Republicans advocating for the same.

Courtney: But at the heart of what he says it’s men just need to get off their asses and make more money. They need to make more money, they need to be better people, they need to basically pull themselves up by the bootstraps. That is the quintessential conservative talking point that has now practically just become a meme. And his very flawed obsession with ‘make more money, make more money, keep making money,’ is always going to be at the behest of companies, corporations, millionaires, billionaires, the employers, the people who are consistently undermining workers’ rights, keeping wages low. There are extremely skilled workers who find themselves being exploited, who find themselves being laid off, who find themselves out of work. And we’ve made the case that telling young men, “You just need to get up and make more money,” in a system where it isn’t always their choice.

Courtney: There are a number of things that are out of their control, and not nearly enough social safety nets who will help pick them back up when they get exploited by our current economic system. So where he says, “Do it yourself, get up, make more money, make more money,” Charlie Kirk and his executive producer are saying, “We just need policies that will make everything more affordable.” They aren’t saying, “Pick yourself up by the bootstraps” anymore. They’re saying, “The country needs to change because if we do X, Y, and Z, everything will be more affordable.” Reading between the lines, it’s, you know, the amount of money you’re making now could go further if we just do these things. But what are these things? Uh, in a news segment from November 15th, 2025, where executive producer Andrew is talking about the 3M’s, and how he and Charlie were always talking about the 3M’s, they’re always talking about how they need to figure out how every member of Gen Z can have their marriage, mortgage, and mating.

Courtney: And please, again, again! Just stop and think for two seconds about how strange it is for two grown men to be like, “The younger generation needs to mate. How do we get them to mate more? How do we get them to mate better? Or to only mate in the ways we want them to mate? We talk about this so often because we’re just so passionate about them mating. We’re so passionate about them procreating. Kids these days just aren’t having enough sex!” We see headlines like this every fucking week! And some of the political commentators that our modern media takes very seriously just sits there and looks at him going like, “Yeah, good point. You’re right.” Meanwhile, millions of Americans are still distraught over the Epstein files. And there’s no— it, it baffles me how few people make the connection that no, maybe actually older generations obsessing over the sex lives or prospective sex lives or future sex lives of teenagers and young adults is, um, fucking weird. And we should stop. We, we should, we should stop. We should stop.

Courtney: But until more people start listening to The Ace Couple podcast than whatever the hell Scott Galloway’s many podcasts are, I don’t think we’re gonna get there. But unlike Scott Galloway, we are not capitalist workaholics obsessed with milking every dollar out of every minute of every day and we don’t wanna. We don’t wanna do what we need to do to get a bigger podcast, so I guess that’s our fault. Sorry, society. So as much as I loathe bootstraps ideology, I can concede that it is marginally better than what the Charlie Kirk’s of the world are saying. Because, and I will link this, it’s just a short little news clip, it’ll be in the show notes on our website as well as the description box if you’re listening on YouTube. All the usual places.

Courtney: So what is their solution? What do we have to do to give all Gen Z a bright, glorious future of marriage, mortgage, and mating? Well, you see, we need to stop letting in so many immigrants. That is literally their solution to ‘how do we get more young people to be able to own a home.’ ‘How do we get more young people to get married and have kids?’ Have kids the good old-fashioned way! It’s not even their rhetoric of, you know, undocumented immigrants being a problem, because of course we get plenty of that, we’ve seen that for years. He outright says, “We let in too many people legally. We give out too many green cards. We should stop.”

Royce: Because isolationism has always done such wonders for economic systems and populations throughout human history.

Courtney: It’s so infuriating.

Royce: And here I thought his way to save money was just gonna be to gut a bunch of government programs.

Courtney: Well, I mean, that’s part of it.

Royce: Is that number 2 on the list?

Courtney: A government department controls how many green cards they issue per year. But that was the main talking point of this video is: let fewer immigrants into the country. That’s it. Which, like, I think about our city, our neighborhood, and it’s not, “Oh, nobody can buy a home anymore because all of these immigrants are legally coming into the country and buying houses.” No, it’s corporations. It’s people buying homes for investments. It’s— Rarely even anymore is it people buying houses to just be an investment rental property, which, under the system we currently live in, extremely flawed though it is, renting does need to be an option for some people.

Royce: Sometimes it’s a preferable option even if you have the money to own.

Courtney: Sometimes it is! Buying a home, getting a mortgage is not for everybody. I do agree that if you want to own a home, it should be more attainable than it is right now, But right now, a lot of houses are getting bought up the day they go on the market. Not because it’s so easy for the average American to just buy a home, but because people are buying them up to turn into full-time Airbnb’s. It’s because of these investment firms who are buying up houses all over the country. And these are the type of buyers who are able to either offer cash, offer over the asking price, or offer exactly the asking price but waiving typical parts of the home buying process like home inspections before you close the contract. Things that to sellers who just want to get this very large transaction out of the way as quickly and easily as possible make it a very sweet offer, and that’s why they don’t stay on the market very long.

Courtney: And let me tell you, as someone who does live in a suburban neighborhood, I 1.000% would rather have a rental house that is being rented to a long-term family who has maybe like a year lease. Maybe they’ll renew it at the end of the year if this house and neighborhood and lifestyle still suits them. Because then I still have a neighbor. I still have a neighbor I can meet and get introduced to and try to look out for and try to build a community alongside. If someone buys the house right next to me just to profit off of it, to make it an Airbnb, I don’t have a neighbor anymore. I don’t. I just have a revolving door of people. And in a situation where there are many people who can’t afford a house, who maybe want to, and I think should have the ability to do so, it really is egregious. It really is a crime that, no, someone instead just bought this to be their 8th Airbnb. Maybe they don’t even live in the city, maybe they don’t even live in the state, maybe they’ve never been to the house even, because they just pay someone else to clean up between rentals.

Courtney: Let alone the fact that a lot of these companies are foreign investors. And in this same news clip, he outright says we need a more nationalist mindset. That’s what we need for this country. In his eyes, he calls it a more optimistic view. He says the democrats, the socialists, the ones he calls anti-Western– I believe he names Zohran Mamdani saying he’s anti-Western as he’s talking about how, “Hey, let’s stop letting immigrants come here legally even.” Extremely racist. Extremely racist. He says this is an optimistic viewpoint. All those other viewpoints, the Zohran Mamdani’s of the world, they’re pessimistic. They’re reactionary. They’re telling you that life is unfair. “But we’re optimistic. We’re telling you that life can be fair. If only we become more nationalist. Nationalism is the same as optimism. Come be optimistic with us.”

Courtney: And that’s why I think the Scott Galloway’s of the world with the 3P’s, even if they think of themselves or if other people think of them as, oh, maybe this is a little gateway to get people out of the right-wing pipeline, maybe this is a stepping stone to get them to go the other direction, my very pessimistic assumption is that it does exactly the opposite. Because if you have disillusioned young people, more often than not disillusioned young men, who are increasingly believing that the cards are stacked against them, and someone like Scott Galloway comes along and is able to persuade them into picking up a bootstraps mentality— stop playing that video game, stop smoking weed in your mom’s basement, go get a job, start making money. Great, now that you’re making money, find a way to make more money. Pick yourself up by the bootstraps and just go out and do it. Then you’ll be rewarded by being able to have sex with women.

Courtney: How are those same disillusioned young men going to react when either they still hold these fundamentally conservative views that a lot of women reject– Gosh, I’ve been hearing lately that the latest season of Love Is Blind completely edited out multiple women who were screening through men by asking them if they voted for Trump. And if they said yes, they’re like, “Well, that’s instant deal breaker for me.” And apparently some of the Trump voting men were getting very upset and frustrated by that. And the show decided not to air any of that. For as messy as that show is, they still seem to be protecting the conservative guys, even though— can you imagine the social media commentary if they showed that? That would— I might have even picked up the recent season if I saw that they were airing something like that. And I’ve decided I’m not gonna watch American Love Is Blind anymore. I’ve still got 2 seasons of Swedish Love Is Blind to catch up on, thank you very much.

Courtney: So how are these disillusioned young men going to react when they get— they pick themselves up by the bootstraps, they start making money, they find a way, and women are still rejecting them because they still just—

Royce: Suck?

Courtney: Yes... I was gonna say don’t respect women, but yeah, we— As always, Royce, you are very talented at saying what I’m feeling in much fewer words. So when they get out here and say, “Hey, I was promised if I start making money that I can start having sex too and these women still don’t wanna have sex with me. What gives? I was lied to!” They’re gonna start looking for who else is causing this problem. It’s clearly not my fault, I did everything I was supposed to do. But you’ve already trained them away from ‘there are unfair systems in place,’ you know. This unfair system, predominantly, we’ll say in this instance, is patriarchy, which although it disproportionately harms women, does also harm men in social upbringing. But they’ve already been steered away from looking at and examining and questioning the patriarchal system and values that have been ingrained in them since probably before they could talk.

Courtney: Or what happens when these disillusioned young men do start making money, and maybe they do find themself a nice conservative woman, and they finally have someone they can have sex with, everything they always dreamed of, but then they get laid off from this company who succeeded its, like, 5th merger, and now they’ve been made redundant, and they can’t find another company to work at because now the 10 companies there used to be are 3 of them now. And none of them are hiring. And all of them are trying to incorporate AI instead of hiring more real people. Where are they gonna go now? They’re gonna question, “I did everything right, I did everything you told me to do. Where am I gonna put this rage?” They’re pre-primed, buying into the 3P’s, to move further into fascism and say, “Oh, these 3M’s? Sounds like the same thing. Oh, you’re telling me immigrants were the problem all along? Why, that doesn’t harm my pre-existing worldview. Sounds great.”

Courtney: And then they’re gonna go get a fucking job at ICE. And now I’m just making up men to be mad at, but men like this do exist, and I’m mad at them. Do you know how many whistles we have had to 3D print because of men like you? Too many! Too many whistles! So even though this episode is about these two men, it’s about a lot more than these two men. It is about the fact— I’m sure if you are a listener of our podcast, you talk to other very politically engaged people, you listen to other politically engaged people, and you’ve probably heard things like the Democratic Party in the US is moving further and further right. I’m sure you’ve seen we don’t have a left-wing party in this country, we have a centrist party and a right-wing one, or we have a right-wing one and a righter-wing one. And I think this is very, very indicative of that in popular politics, popular talking points.

Courtney: But essentially what we have is a fascist wing who’s saying, “You need to get married, you need to have the right kind of sex life, you need to have the right kind of kids. We’re gonna do everything in our power to change every law in this country in order to make that the only economically and socially viable way to live your life.” And then we have a Democratic Party which, yes, if you look at their platform versus any other left-wing party worldwide, does skew further to the right on average. Who is saying, “Well, blaming immigrants for this problem may be a little bit much. Maybe instead pick yourself up by the bootstraps.” And naturally, the fascist wing is the one that is currently in power. And even though they know that there are many Americans who are frantically searching for any politician or party or platform that is truly left-wing, that is more progressive, they’re doing everything they can to keep those silenced as well.

Courtney: Not a secret that we are infuriated with Kansas politics right now, but here’s another example of that. Our Senate recently passed a bill to educate children on what they claim are un-American ideologies. They presented on the Senate floor data that shows that younger generations of America hold a more favorable view of socialism and communism than the older generations. The fascist Republicans said, “Oh no, no, not on our watch. Clearly we haven’t done a good enough job of indoctrinating the children. Let’s try to indoctrinate them harder.” So this would literally, if passed, force kindergarten through 12th grade public schools in the state of Kansas teach all children in the public school system that socialism and communism are dangerous. They are un-American, they are fully counter to the Constitution. And that is just part of the curriculum now. Should it pass. Hopefully it doesn’t, but I’ve seen some really awful things passin’ this year. So who’s to say.

Courtney: The other [sighs] more complicated component of this bill is that it would require all Kansas children to take the same U.S. citizenship test that immigrants take during the American naturalization process. Now, this is fascinating to me.

Royce: It sounds like they’re going to unintentionally raise a generation of kids who hate the current immigration process and want it simplified.

Courtney: Well, that’s the thing. I don’t know what the effect is going to be, and that’s why I believe the intent is bad. I believe their intent is to try to create more nationalists.

Royce: Oh, that’s absolutely what they’re trying to do.

Courtney: That is the intent.

Royce: Because there’s a bunch of propaganda in that test.

Courtney: I hope it has the exact opposite effect.

Royce: Well, I was just thinking about the first thing. One, first of all there are going to be subversive teachers that try to give their students— that try to walk as close to that edge as possible.

Courtney: Oh, gnomes bless all the subversive teachers out there.

Royce: Or like just a librarian who’s just slipping books to students that they managed to keep in the library. Like, it’s— there are going to be people like that. But just this idea of someone— they don’t do this anymore. I don’t know what they do in schools anymore. You can’t wheel out the old CRT TV cart. [Courtney laughs] But just putting, like, a clearly propaganda PSA and all the students just, like, pull up TikTok instead on their phones and, like, see completely contrary information.

Courtney: Yeah, that’s the thing. Because I mean, even children themselves, like middle schoolers, high schoolers, once they start to learn more about the world outside of what’s being taught in school, like, there are absolutely kids who have set up their own banned book clubs. Dealing books out of their lockers. Like, that absolutely is a thing that the kids can and should and do and have done. So that is why I think this one is fascinating, because a common talking point for people who do think that the immigration process is unfair or unnecessary— like, a lot of people will be like, “Oh, I was born in this country, lived here my whole life, and I couldn’t even pass that test. And there’s information in that test that I’ve never needed in my day-to-day life.” So unlike an equity level, I suppose theoretically, like, yeah, if we are making people immigrating to this country take this test, I guess we should also take the test too. But that’s the opposite direction I’d rather take it. I’d rather say, why does anyone have to take this test? Maybe no one should have to take this test. But yeah, wouldn’t it— wouldn’t it be delightful if just a whole generation of Kansas kids go, “You know what? Fuck this test.” [chuckles]

Royce: I feel like this is— if they pushed harder on this, they’re kind of setting up the phenomenon that I feel like gets joked about with homeschool kids when they either, you know, make— go to college, or maybe they are homeschooled up through middle school and then they go to high school where it’s like they’re finally in the real world. And sometimes they have this, like, personality whiplash where they go, like, direct opposite of their sheltered upbringing. So yeah, obviously a bad policy could also have the complete opposite effects that the people writing it wanted to have.

Courtney: I mean, the only thing better than this bill not passing would be it does pass and bites them in the ass 10, 20 years from now. But yeah, the interesting thing is this isn’t just for public schools either. They would require this for private and parochial schools as well. And actually, when it comes to just the testing itself, this is gonna be actually more strict than the current immigration test. Because the immigration test, there are 128 questions of which 20 of them will be randomly selected and asked to you, and you must answer 12 of those 20 correctly. This Kansas bill would require Kansas students— a requirement for graduation. If you don’t pass this test, you don’t get your diploma. You have to take a 100-question exam, and you need to get at least 80 of them correct in order to pass the test, in order to get your diploma.

Royce: Well, if there’s one thing students love, it’s standardized testing season. Did you have state testing done in South Dakota?

Courtney: Yeah, I mean, everyone in— across the country, I think, did during those years.

Royce: I couldn’t remember what they were called, and I didn’t know how many states actually did them.

Courtney: Yeah, now I’m realizing that since it’s been a few years since I’ve actually, like, taught students, I don’t even know what technology post, like, Zoom classes looks like in schools anymore. When you were talking about, you know, rolling out the TV, I’m like–

Royce: Rolling out the TV cart.

Courtney: I was like, do they even have smart boards anymore, or has that now become an antiquated classroom technology?

Royce: I feel like smart boards never really lived up to what they were supposed to be.

Courtney: No, well, that’s, that’s why I’m wondering, like, did they get better? Are there better smart boards now, or did they—

Royce: Probably not.

Courtney: Did they scrap the idea entirely?

Royce: It’s been so long since I’ve done the standardized state testing. I know you mentioned that this test would be for graduation, which will probably just increase the number of GEDs. I could see very politically minded students refusing to answer the propaganda questions in the way that people want them to do and just getting a GED instead of their diploma. I don’t think that’ll be widespread, but it’ll probably happen.

Courtney: I don’t think there’s many propaganda questions in it. Like, well, I, I guess there could be some that people could swing. Like, one of the questions, like, why did the United States enter the Persian Gulf War? I’m sure there’s a couple of different answers someone who really did their homework could whip out.

Royce: But yeah, when we did standardized testing, that wasn’t a classroom school-related grade. It was just something you submitted back to the state, if I remember correctly.

Courtney: Yeah, it is interesting because I would wonder what all those questions are going to end up being if they are going to be truly identical to what’s on the current U.S. citizenship test. Because some of them are just a factual thing, like a fact you have to memorize.

Royce: Yeah, but I was just pairing that with the idea of ‘we need to teach people that socialism and communism bad’.

Courtney: Right. Which– which, yeah, that’s what it is. Uh, th-this quote here from the Kansas Reflector: “It will craft a curricula that teaches students the— about the negative impacts of communism and socialist regimes and ideologies.”

Royce: But those regimes they were talking about were probably fascist or nationalist or both.

Courtney: Well, I’m glad you mentioned that because some lawmakers pushed back and tried to say, “Let’s add fascism into that.” And so they did amend the first bill to go, “Okay, fine, I guess we’ll also warn them about the dangers of fascism.” While inherently crafting bills, this and others like them, to try to create more nationalists, to try to take away more rights. And this is why we talk about these things. This is why these— this is truly all the same fight, why all of these things are in fact asexual issues, aromantic issues that our communities need to care about. We know better than most how harmful the constant rhetoric of sex, marriage, kids— how profoundly harmful that can be to not only young aces and aros, but even completely allo folks who just decide for whatever reasons are their own that they also want to opt out of this system that clearly does not work for everybody.

Courtney: But because of the years and years and years of propaganda about how sex is what makes us human, about how asexual and aromantic people are other and less than and they’re more animalistic but also more robotic, all these things that we’ve heard and seen and felt for our entire lives, are so easily bought into by the average person who never has to stop and question this because their lives are close enough to the societally prescribed norm that they hear things like– Gosh, remember years ago when someone running for office was saying every American should have the right to sex and we had to talk about that? How no, nobody gets the right to sex with another human, there are two people involved in it, therefore, you do not have a right to someone else’s body.

Courtney: But so many people buy into this on such a superficial level. They never have the deep introspective looks at their own experiences or society as a whole. They see ‘young men can be better people if they simply procreate’, and they just take the word for it. They say ‘all young Americans should get married and have kids’, and they go, “Yeah, they should do that. Absolutely!” And that is, dare I say, the ‘sex sells’ narrative that gets people hooked into these extremely dangerous ideologies. How many times have we talked about and laid out the acephobia to transphobia pipeline? There are extremely transphobic people who are championing the transphobic bills, like, like the ones we’ve talked about recently, the bathroom bill, the invalidating licenses of trans people.

Courtney: A lot of this started from folks who didn’t give more than a thought or two to a trans experience until they found deeply into acephobic rhetoric. And that was the inciting factor that led them down a pipeline of TERFdom, of fascism, of dehumanizing others. And that’s only one side of it. That same acephobia to transphobia pipeline, which if you have not listened to that episode of ours, please do. And compare and contrast it with what is happening here, because it is again two sides of the same coin. We see it in more prominent media cycles. People talk about sex, procreation, mating, having kids, getting married in what they assume and hope will be a cis hetero monogamous relationship. And don’t forget procreative, of course. Everyone goes, “Yeah, yeah, of course.” But once they’re bought into that without thinking about who this rhetoric harms, it is less than a hop, skip, and a jump away from ‘immigrants are the problem.’ This is how fascism works. People talk about how sex sells in marketing, in media, but it also works in extremely harmful politics.

Courtney: But with all that being said, this has not been our first foray into these concepts, and I am sure it will not be our last. But it is in fact all we have for today, so I am going to leave you all as always with our featured MarketplACE vendor of the week, Camp SERCHO!, where you can find creatures, cryptids, and tales designed by Serch, an ace who is local to Tijuana, Mexico. I personally purchased some very cool digital downloads from this shop, including coloring books. You can find the ABC of Mythical Folk and Cryptid Creatures coloring book, or if it is more your speed, you can check out the ABC of Dinosaurs and Prehistoric Creatures coloring book. Very cool artwork and, dare I say, a very relaxing activity to do as you’re calming down from your now-daily political crisis. Links to Camp Sercho are gonna be in the show notes on our website and the description box on YouTube. As always, thank you all so much for being here, and we will talk to you all next time.