How to Think for Yourself in a Polarized World with Matt Lewis

 Matt Lewis joins me for a real conversation about identity, work, and courage. Matt is a columnist and author of Filthy Rich Politicians and Too Dumb to Fail, and the host of Matt Lewis Can’t Lose. He has appeared on C-SPAN, PBS NewsHour, MSNBC’s Morning Joe, HBO’s Real Time with Bill Maher, and CBS News’ Face The Nation as a political commentator.

We talk about growing up in rural Maryland, early career detours, why political consulting was the wrong fit, and how writing, teaching, and podcasting became the right lane. You’ll hear what “crunchy cons” means, how to check whether your beliefs are truly yours, and the simple filter Matt uses for work and life: choose easy, work hard. If you are ready to stop shrinking and show up as yourself, this one is for you.

Resources and links:
 • Matt’s site: https://www.mattklewis.com/
• Matt’s YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@MattLewis/featured
• Matt’s podcast on Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/matt-lewis-cant-lose/id1737212124
• Filthy Rich Politicians by Matt K. Lewis
• Too Dumb to Fail by Matt K. Lewis

Transcript

[00:00:00:00 - 00:00:26:10]
Daffney  Allwein
 Hi everyone, thank you for joining us. Another episode of Don't F*kn Shrink. And today, if you've been lucky enough to experience some of our prize political commentary here in the DMV, our next guest might look quite familiar to you, contributing columnist for the LA Times and The Hill, author of Filthy Rich Politicians and Too Dumb to Fail, Matt Lewis.

[00:00:27:15 - 00:00:53:01]
Daffney  Allwein
 Hi Matt, thanks for being with us. Good to see you. You too. Now, I also admit that some more background on Matt is that he's a dad, he's a husband and he's a diehard Baltimore Orioles fan. So I chose my outfit today in solidarity. I don't know how well their season is going this year, but I figured this was the way to--

[00:00:53:01 - 00:00:55:05]
Matt Lewis
 We need help, we need solidarity.

[00:00:55:05 - 00:01:00:17]
Daffney  Allwein
 All right, is this like a backwards, sort of a backwards cap thing, what I'm doing, right? I figured friendly territory.

[00:01:02:00 - 00:01:19:00]
Daffney  Allwein
 Matt, thank you for joining us. I have to tell you, I have some firsthand knowledge on Matt and his story and how similar and things that we have found together that we have in common. And I really wanted to share that with our audience today.

[00:01:21:11 - 00:01:27:04]
Daffney  Allwein
 Matt, tell us a little bit about your work. Tell me about the best part of your work. That's a typical DC question, right?

[00:01:28:08 - 00:01:43:21]
Matt Lewis
 Yeah, well, I'm, you know, on one hand, it's a tough gig, right? I mean, the industry, the journalism industry is in a tough time right now. Like obviously ever since newspapers started going away, there's AI,

[00:01:44:22 - 00:01:59:17]
Matt Lewis
 there's the media fragmentation, there's Donald Trump. So on one hand, it's a tough job. On the other hand, wow, it's not even a job. It's like a blessing. I mean, I get to like hang out at my house,

[00:02:00:20 - 00:02:38:11]
Matt Lewis
 see my family and write about ideas and topics. And, you know, sometimes it could be Sidney Sweeney. Sometimes it could be, you know, Donald Trump, whatever is in the news, I'm usually writing about it and talking about it. And what makes it cool, I think the best part of it is not to be like melodramatic, because I do realize, trust me, I realized that most of what I say and write doesn't matter. But the cool thing is that every once in a while it does. There's a quote from the playwright Tom Stoppard where one of his characters says,

[00:02:39:17 - 00:02:43:00]
Matt Lewis
 "Writers can't move the world," I'm paraphrasing.

[00:02:44:03 - 00:02:48:15]
Matt Lewis
 "Writers don't push the world, but every once in a while they can nudge it a little bit."

[00:02:48:15 - 00:03:38:20]
Daffney  Allwein
 Now I'm not gonna shrink in that moment. I won't let you mad. And I say that in, it's very self-deprecating on your part, but you're an educator, Matt. If I can be honest, my association with politics in the 20 years I've been living here in the DNB, I wanted to stay away from it as much as possible. I think it was almost polarizing. You couldn't have a conversation with a Republican and a Democrat in the same room. And you did the opposite for me. And you made politics very palatable. So if you get a chance to read one of Matt's books, it really is palatable. It is based in history and thought and perspective and the idea that this is part of our fabric. This is part of our country's fabric and the way things are going.

[00:03:39:20 - 00:04:03:02]
Daffney  Allwein
 And that doesn't change. Those ideas don't change and you are an educator and we'll dig into that a little further. You made a palatable for me, somebody who is not into politics at all. And there's one particular term that you taught me in our time together, working together, that I had to learn more about. It was crunchy con. Can you tell me more about that?

[00:04:03:02 - 00:04:14:12]
Matt Lewis
 Yeah, no, actually. So one of my favorite books, it's probably 20 years old now, but it's by a writer named Rod Dreher. And it's called Crunchy Cons. And basically the premise is,

[00:04:15:13 - 00:05:09:15]
Matt Lewis
 you know, if think about where the world was 20 years ago, where the Republican Party and where conservatism was 20 years ago, at the time it was perceived to be very buttoned up. A conservative was someone who sort of looked like George Will, who wore a bow tie and that sort of thing. But Crunchy Cons looked at it a little differently. And it talked about there's people out there in America who are in many ways conservative, but they're like, they're traditionalists. Maybe they live in a rural area and they go to farmer's markets and they wear Birkenstocks. And they care about things like conservation. They're conservatives in that regard. And so I think one of, it's a very long subtitle, but part of it said something to do with Birkenstock Burkeans. I remember being, you know, so like, they read Edmund Burke, but they wear Birkenstocks.

[00:05:10:18 - 00:05:22:15]
Matt Lewis
 And these people do exist. And I think actually probably a little more prominent today. We've learned in recent years that like Tucker Carlson and Ann Coulter are big fans of the Grateful Dead.

[00:05:23:18 - 00:05:28:17]
Matt Lewis
 And so I don't know if that makes them Crunchy Cons, but yeah, you kind of get the vibe.

[00:05:28:17 - 00:06:02:13]
Daffney  Allwein
 They're gonna have to identify. They're gonna have to put it on their subject line. Or they're, yeah, that's their identifiers. Yeah, it's really interesting. And I think we're also in a world and we won't go too deep into politics, but it's hard to not recognize that you're in the middle in some ways and that there are so many different dynamic opportunities to engage in either party and there's not just two parties. And I think your education even reaches further with that as we're learning that the polarizing of things going on actually teaches us further where we actually stand.

[00:06:04:02 - 00:06:18:05]
Matt Lewis
 Yeah, well, I can tell you myself that once Donald Trump came along and really shook up the paradigm, because there used to be like a conservative orthodoxy, right, like we were against tariffs, for example.

[00:06:19:23 - 00:06:23:00]
Matt Lewis
 And you get on the list, there's so many things. We were very anti-Russia.

[00:06:24:04 - 00:06:25:19]
Matt Lewis
 Donald Trump seems to be more pro-Russia.

[00:06:25:19 - 00:06:28:08]
Daffney  Allwein
 There's a whole bunch of things. And he's moving around just that, yeah.

[00:06:28:08 - 00:06:46:16]
Matt Lewis
 He shook things up. And it really, in a weird way for me was liberating. I learned that I had been sort of outsourcing some of my views to just like, I'm a conservative, therefore, I believe all of these things that conservatives believe.

[00:06:47:16 - 00:07:14:05]
Matt Lewis
 And once Donald Trump came along and sort of upset that apple cart, I think there were some negative externalities that came from that. But for me, one of the really positive outcomes was I no longer felt beholden, the sense of having to be loyal to any party or cause anymore. And so it really freed me up. And so I think I'm actually still am a conservative person in many ways, but it allowed me to like really,

[00:07:15:05 - 00:07:27:14]
Matt Lewis
 I don't, who cares what they say anymore, because they don't even believe, they're not even anti-terror. They've changed their positions. So it really freed me up to think for myself in a way that I thought I was all the time, but now I know I really have.

[00:07:27:14 - 00:07:32:20]
Daffney  Allwein
 I mean, even if we think about what the Republican Party looked like during the time of Lincoln, right?

[00:07:32:20 - 00:07:33:19]
Matt Lewis
 Yeah.

[00:07:33:19 - 00:07:40:04]
Daffney  Allwein
 Right, it's just, it changes and it evolves and it adapts and there's so much to learn, and I'm glad you're there for that.

[00:07:41:11 - 00:07:59:21]
Daffney  Allwein
 Now you and I, speaking of being conservative, we both came from fairly conservative areas, right? Or backgrounds and environments. And that definitely shapes a lot of the ways that I think or have thought over the times. And of course that's evolved as I become an adult and had my own experiences.

[00:08:00:22 - 00:08:13:04]
Daffney  Allwein
 But I think what we're seeing a lot of is children are only experiencing certain political affiliation based on their parents or their community or their environments.

[00:08:14:21 - 00:08:16:08]
Daffney  Allwein
 Is that changing now with the internet?

[00:08:17:21 - 00:08:28:12]
Matt Lewis
 That's a great question. Yeah, first I can, I'll tell you, so I'm from Wolfsville, Maryland, which is a little town between Frederick and Hagerstown, Maryland. Western, you know, they call it Western Maryland. It's actually North Central.

[00:08:28:12 - 00:08:34:11]
Daffney  Allwein
 My dad was a person-- You've been kind enough to share a photo. Is that a high school photo?

[00:08:35:14 - 00:08:38:05]
Matt Lewis
 Yeah, and I've got one of me and my dad, I think with a gun.

[00:08:38:05 - 00:08:39:08]
Daffney  Allwein
 We'll share those here.

[00:08:39:08 - 00:09:08:19]
Matt Lewis
 Christmas, so politically incorrect. My dad was a prison guard for 30 years. He voluntarily went to jail so I could get paid to write about politics and go to college and all that stuff. I went to college in Shepherdstown, West Virginia. I live in West Virginia now. So I've got that. I feel like that gave me an understanding and appreciation of some rural, traditional values. But I also lived and worked in the DC area for about 15 years. One of the places I worked was at the Daily Caller for Tucker Carlson.

[00:09:09:21 - 00:09:13:15]
Matt Lewis
 And, you know, almost everyone I worked with there was super rich.

[00:09:14:18 - 00:09:24:05]
Matt Lewis
 It was unbelievable. And so that gave me a difference. I've experienced the political world from all sorts of different angles. And I do think it's been enlightening.

[00:09:25:06 - 00:10:08:20]
Matt Lewis
 But I think that is rare. And most people, I think, gotta get locked in one or the other. And that really shapes their political worldview. And if they're not careful, they start to believe that their beliefs are based on, I don't know, reason or logic when it's just kind of based on their personal experience and what their parents taught them. Which isn't all bad, but I do think it's incumbent upon us if you wanna be an informed citizen at some point as you age to really reflect

[00:10:10:09 - 00:10:20:16]
Matt Lewis
 whether the things that you believe are really what you believe because they're right, or if they're what you believe because it's, that's what everyone where you grew up said.

[00:10:20:16 - 00:10:38:14]
Daffney  Allwein
 Yeah, yeah, it's a real coming into yourself moment. Yeah, now you've been in politics for a long time, right? This is not your first gig. This is not your first job. In fact, I don't think I have a photo of your first day on the job in politics, but would you tell us about your earliest work?

[00:10:38:14 - 00:10:40:13]
Matt Lewis
 I'll send you one. I've got one.

[00:10:40:13 - 00:10:41:09]
Daffney  Allwein
 Okay, please.

[00:10:41:09 - 00:10:45:11]
Matt Lewis
 I really do. Yeah, so I went to Shepherd College in West Virginia.

[00:10:46:20 - 00:10:51:02]
Matt Lewis
 My dad's a prison guard, so I don't know anything about it. I didn't do a single internship.

[00:10:52:08 - 00:10:54:03]
Matt Lewis
 I ended up being a political science major,

[00:10:55:05 - 00:11:09:21]
Matt Lewis
 partly because it was the only way I could graduate. You didn't have to have a foreign language. I kept failing Spanish. This is not a joke. I mean, I literally became a political science major just the only way I could graduate. There was some loophole that allowed me to get a degree.

[00:11:11:09 - 00:11:36:09]
Matt Lewis
 I graduated in the late 90s, the economy's booming. I can't get a job, and I don't know how to get a job. I think the way to get a job is, I assume it's to look in the "Frederick News Post" in the classifieds, and show up, look for the want ads, which is, even back then was ridiculous. Before the internet. That wasn't the way to do it back then. So I went to a headhunter, and they sent me to manage a fast food restaurant,

[00:11:37:14 - 00:11:39:07]
Matt Lewis
 and I was really miserable.

[00:11:40:08 - 00:11:41:04]
Matt Lewis
 And then

[00:11:41:04 - 00:11:42:17]
Daffney  Allwein
 I-- You wanted to say the name of the fast food restaurant?

[00:11:42:17 - 00:12:27:12]
Matt Lewis
 Yeah, I'll say it. It's Roy Rogers. They were actually great. I like Roy Rogers. Their food's terrific. They were really good to me. It just wasn't the right fit for me. I was pretty miserable for a bunch of reasons, not all their fault. But I kind of hit rock bottom, and I ended up volunteering on a political campaign. Nice. Which had never occurred to me before to do, even though I was a political science major. No one told me I had to. It wasn't like a required, there were no internships that I had to do. And that really changed my life and started me. But originally, I thought I wanted to be a campaign political operative, which I did for a little bit, and I was pretty good at it initially. But eventually I realized that that wasn't who I was, actually.

[00:12:29:03 - 00:12:48:11]
Daffney  Allwein
 Wow. And you didn't take up the band. You didn't, we should tell you that Matt was actually in a band back in Maryland. And maybe not the biggest extrovert either, but gained some skills, right? It's funny how the experiences that we have shape exactly who we've become.

[00:12:49:13 - 00:13:24:04]
Daffney  Allwein
 And it's right, on career day, no one told me that I could run a political campaign. During career day, nobody told me I could have a podcast. Maybe they do that now on career day, I don't know, in high school. But based on the experiences you have in life, and sometimes you fall into these things, I think that you and I sort of have that in common where we didn't know something was available because we had no experience in it, but we met the right people, or we met the right opportunities. And when it came to starting on the campaign trail, did you ever wanna be a politician yourself?

[00:13:25:08 - 00:14:27:04]
Matt Lewis
 Well, first let me say, coming where I come from, there was literally one of my cousins didn't have indoor plumbing until we were in middle school. So you gotta realize that the world I came from, and so the idea that I could even do what I'm doing today, and I'm certainly by no means a household name or anything like that, but the idea that I would get to even just go on TV and talk about politics, like the likelihood that I would be a rock star or a major league baseball player were just as likely. Like if you had told my dad, your son's gonna get to ride on the Straight Talk Express with John, you know, interview John McCain, and he's gonna go on, there's gonna be this show called Morning Joe, or he's gonna go on HBO's Real Time with Bill Maher. That would have been just as absurd as telling him he's gonna be a famous rock star or whatever. And so the time that I was growing up, if you wanted to kind of make something of yourself and you were a little eccentric and maybe you had some delusions of grandeur,

[00:14:28:18 - 00:14:38:17]
Matt Lewis
 joining a rock band wasn't the craziest idea, and it did force me to learn things about myself and to grow, like how to work with three or four other guys.

[00:14:40:15 - 00:14:43:02]
Matt Lewis
 As a writer, you do that, it's called collaboration,

[00:14:44:03 - 00:15:06:20]
Matt Lewis
 but you do it in a band with writing songs and performing and getting up on stage and performing, overcoming nerves is something that I do now. Promoting the band, handing out flyers, trying to get people to come out to see your band, your group, because that's really what matters actually. It doesn't matter how good you sound, it's if you can get people to tune in.

[00:15:08:03 - 00:15:13:10]
Matt Lewis
 It's amazing how it's very similar to what I do now. So it was a good training ground for me.

[00:15:13:10 - 00:15:16:15]
Daffney  Allwein
 And we can expect a reunion tour coming up at some point, right?

[00:15:16:15 - 00:15:18:00]
Matt Lewis
 Someday, yeah, we've talked about it.

[00:15:18:00 - 00:15:28:10]
Daffney  Allwein
 Okay, good. Okay, it's in. Matt, when did you realize that the mold, where you came from or what were you doing, just wasn't a fit for you anymore? It didn't mind.

[00:15:28:10 - 00:15:38:11]
Matt Lewis
 Wow. I always knew to a certain degree that like, I didn't really totally fit in with where I'm from, you know what I mean? My dad was this, you know,

[00:15:40:17 - 00:16:13:05]
Matt Lewis
 pretty tall, pretty husky, prison guard, hunter. Like one year he killed three deer. I mean, all legally, it was bow and arrow, rifle and muzzle loader. So it was pretty much the, back then, I think now there's more opportunities, the seasons longer, they have an overpopulation of deer. Back then, you had to be really good to do what he did. And so, you know, we had sports in common, we liked watching Andy Griffith together, but like hunting, fishing, I wasn't that kind of guy.

[00:16:14:15 - 00:16:20:08]
Matt Lewis
 Construction, I never knew how to build that kind of thing. And I always, you know, I would watch,

[00:16:21:18 - 00:16:42:09]
Matt Lewis
 TV kept me from being a redneck, I swear it did. I would turn on TV and see these people living these kind of glamorous lives and be like, I want that. I want to be a 90210. I don't want to be like on Beverly Hillbillies, I want to be on 90210. So it gave me, you know, and I don't want to like

[00:16:43:23 - 00:16:56:04]
Matt Lewis
 criticize or dismiss my rural upbringing. That's part of me, but I also had this other part, which was the affinity for, you know, that more glamorous style. What's out there?

[00:16:56:04 - 00:17:31:21]
Daffney  Allwein
 That's part of the truth. Right, what else? I joked earlier today when I was talking with a friend that a lot of my experience in life came from watching television, just cause there was not a lot of other opportunity. In fact, I to this day, thank Nick at Night reruns for understanding an entire generation or two of people. Even to this day, I can make those references and they're like, oh yeah, I know that show Dragnet, right? And it does, it brings people together. And sometimes that's the only thing connecting you to the people around you or to opportunity to see things differently.

[00:17:33:14 - 00:17:51:08]
Matt Lewis
 Totally, I had a guy, I'll call him a protege, a young guy named Nick who interned for us at the Daily Caller and he and I just kept in touch over the years and we're still friends. And I've tried to help him here and there cause you know, I'm like 15 or 20 years older than him. But he had this,

[00:17:52:10 - 00:18:16:01]
Matt Lewis
 he had like two older brothers and they were, you know, they were really into pop culture. So he grew up, even though he's younger than me, he grew up watching like Jerry Maguire and As Good As It Gets and like all these nineties movies that I watched that I went to see, you know, at the theaters, even like eighties movies like Ferris Bueller. So like he and I could talk, he could talk, I think it was a big benefit to him.

[00:18:16:01 - 00:18:16:21]
Daffney  Allwein
 The new language, right?

[00:18:16:21 - 00:18:20:03]
Matt Lewis
 To talk to people older than him about media that they loved.

[00:18:21:08 - 00:18:35:13]
Daffney  Allwein
 Pro tip for anybody who's coming in and trying to work from generational literacy into their hierarchy. Is just maybe watch some really inappropriate nineties films or 2000 in our case where, wow, I can't watch those things again.

[00:18:37:02 - 00:18:51:19]
Daffney  Allwein
 That's huge. Well, I'm glad you brought that up. So there is a dynamic there where part of life was living in vicariously through some of these characters or some of these situations that you and I would have not of had the experience to do.

[00:18:52:21 - 00:18:59:01]
Daffney  Allwein
 So I know who you weren't because it just wasn't an alignment for you. But who were you at 10 years old?

[00:18:59:01 - 00:19:04:12]
Matt Lewis
 Well, at 10, I was a very nice boy.

[00:19:05:14 - 00:19:13:21]
Matt Lewis
 I was very sensitive and sweet and carefree.

[00:19:15:06 - 00:19:23:06]
Matt Lewis
 And that's because at 10 years old, before I went to middle school, I went to this little elementary school called Wolfsville Elementary.

[00:19:24:09 - 00:19:38:16]
Matt Lewis
 And it became known as like the Redneck school because what happened is all the good country kids, and there were some ornery rough folks up there, but there was also a lot of just wholesome church going,

[00:19:40:19 - 00:19:45:02]
Matt Lewis
 these mild mannered folks up there. We all got sent to this big,

[00:19:46:06 - 00:19:53:13]
Matt Lewis
 middle town, I don't know if you know about the middle town, Maryland. Think of like when Daniel La Russa shows up

[00:19:54:22 - 00:20:23:21]
Matt Lewis
 his first day of high school with the Cobra Kai guys and their motorcycles and, you know, cruel summer, not the Taylor Swift version, but the Banana Rama version as playing. Like that's what it was like. We went from being in this little country school with like 22 kids in our classroom to being sent to middle town where we were outnumbered, outgunned, outclassed.

[00:20:23:21 - 00:20:24:21]
Daffney  Allwein
 Outsophisticated, yeah.

[00:20:24:21 - 00:20:25:14]
Matt Lewis
 And it really,

[00:20:27:02 - 00:20:31:15]
Matt Lewis
 and because I was a little bit higher,

[00:20:33:10 - 00:20:36:05]
Matt Lewis
 you know how they put you in like the red group, the purple group.

[00:20:36:05 - 00:20:44:01]
Daffney  Allwein
 Oh, right, right. They tried to jazz it up with colors, but really they were trying to tell you academically where you saw it. Like the smart group, the dumb group, the middle group. Oh, you're maroon? Oh, okay.

[00:20:44:01 - 00:20:48:13]
Matt Lewis
 One story short, I ended up, it was as if I moved to a new school.

[00:20:49:13 - 00:20:59:05]
Matt Lewis
 And now these kids are wearing like jams and ocean Pacific clothes. Jams are like these long shorts that were really popular. OPA was ocean Pacific.

[00:20:59:05 - 00:21:00:08]
Daffney  Allwein
 Anybody who doesn't remember jam season?

[00:21:00:08 - 00:21:02:02]
Matt Lewis
 And I'm wearing Kmart.

[00:21:03:03 - 00:21:05:23]
Matt Lewis
 I'm wearing my Kmart clothes. James Way, Ames.

[00:21:06:23 - 00:21:17:18]
Matt Lewis
 And so that changed me a little bit, but at 10 I was a sweet, gentle, like a lamb being led into the slaughter, let's say.

[00:21:19:21 - 00:21:22:12]
Daffney  Allwein
 So you learned a lot, middle school was transformational for you.

[00:21:23:20 - 00:21:38:01]
Matt Lewis
 Yeah, I'm not sure in a good way. Yeah. I'm not sure in a good way. And what's funny is the older I get, the more I realize that I'm still like the 10 year old kid. Like I just recently took a personality test.

[00:21:38:01 - 00:21:39:03]
Daffney  Allwein
 Indeed, yes.

[00:21:39:03 - 00:21:52:12]
Matt Lewis
 And so I don't wanna be a nice vanilla introvert. I wanna be exciting and dangerous and daring and suave, but I'm not.

[00:21:53:15 - 00:22:02:18]
Matt Lewis
 I'm still the 10 year old sweet kid, but sometimes you have to fake things. Fake it till you make it. I'm not sure it's great advice, but I'm sure I've tried it.

[00:22:02:18 - 00:22:19:08]
Daffney  Allwein
 Yeah, that's, so in that sort of transition, because you know who you are and that's awesome. And you're still that person. You must have had sort of an inner voice that like followed you around or maybe it was somebody that you knew or somebody you didn't or who is that?

[00:22:21:22 - 00:22:26:11]
Matt Lewis
 Yeah, I think the inner voice is,

[00:22:29:06 - 00:22:40:01]
Matt Lewis
 and if you, I'm a Christian, so the inner voice could also be the Holy Spirit. I'm not sure. I don't know if it's a spiritual thing or if it's just your true self.

[00:22:42:04 - 00:22:52:20]
Matt Lewis
 But I think as a young man, our frontal cortex isn't developed until you're 25. So that's still small voice is pretty quiet until then.

[00:22:53:20 - 00:22:55:10]
Matt Lewis
 But at a certain point,

[00:22:57:10 - 00:23:00:08]
Matt Lewis
 that voice shows up in the middle of the night

[00:23:01:08 - 00:23:02:13]
Matt Lewis
 demanding to be heard

[00:23:02:13 - 00:23:03:20]
 (Laughs)

[00:23:03:20 - 00:23:13:06]
Matt Lewis
 and saying to thine own self be true, this is not who you are. And I think that's a good thing. I'm sure it's kept me out of a lot of trouble.

[00:23:13:06 - 00:23:15:11]
Daffney  Allwein
 Yeah, when's the last time you heard that voice?

[00:23:18:08 - 00:23:20:09]
Matt Lewis
 Probably the last time I had too much to drink.

[00:23:20:09 - 00:23:25:04]
Daffney  Allwein
 Okay. Yeah, it tells me. Yeah, give yourself that pep talk.

[00:23:26:08 - 00:24:05:10]
Daffney  Allwein
 Not again, Matt, not again. No, I think we all do. We all have this voice that's, for some people it's a grandparent or it's a parent or even to this day as adults, we have these voices. But some of them are more neat to us, like our higher self, and some of them are conditioning. So it's really interesting to see what really sort of shaped that personality coming in. So I know you're talking about your intern and about how you have these great conversations with somebody who is a little bit younger than you, but do you have impactful advice or someone that we're giving you really impactful advice?

[00:24:06:10 - 00:24:32:19]
Matt Lewis
 Yeah, so I used to, one of the cool things about the Daily Caller, which I haven't been there in a decade, but they had these things where they didn't really have an intern program. They didn't have an intern coordinator. But what they would do is they would bring in all the interns for this like lunch and learn. And they would have me, each week would be a different person who would speak to them. And so I would give them advice and the best piece of advice that I've ever heard was not actually given to me, I read it. And I think it's by,

[00:24:34:03 - 00:24:55:05]
Matt Lewis
 I think it's from Angela Duckworth, who is an author. But the advice is choose easy, work hard. And I think I've applied this to my life and I've given this out as advice to a lot of people. And it's so important, choose easy, work hard, right? And so whether it's a relationship or a job, if you choose easy,

[00:24:56:07 - 00:25:04:05]
Matt Lewis
 which is like something that comes naturally to you, you don't have to get marriage counseling before you're on your second date. Right, right. It's easy,

[00:25:05:07 - 00:25:19:20]
Matt Lewis
 you like the job, it's fun from day one, it's not a struggle, and you still work hard. If you do those two things, you could be great. If you only have one, if you choose hard, but you work hard, you could survive but you're treading water.

[00:25:19:20 - 00:25:21:10]
Daffney  Allwein
 You're burning out, you're burning out, yeah.

[00:25:21:10 - 00:25:25:05]
Matt Lewis
 But if you have none, if you're 0 for 2,

[00:25:26:22 - 00:25:52:17]
Matt Lewis
 it's destined for failure. But if you get both, you can be great. If you choose easy, choose a spouse or a career, whatever, that just comes naturally and then you still give it, you still work really hard, then you can be great. And so I just think that that's a big, wow, that alone. If you just did that, you probably do pretty well in life.

[00:25:52:17 - 00:25:58:08]
Daffney  Allwein
 Acknowledging what's a need or what's natural to you and then working your ass off, right?

[00:25:58:08 - 00:26:13:19]
Matt Lewis
 Yeah, because I do think a lot of times we want something that isn't right for us. And so we choose hard, we choose something that looks shiny, looks cool, but it isn't really right for us.

[00:26:14:20 - 00:26:21:11]
Matt Lewis
 So it has to be right for you, and if it's right for you, it'll probably be pretty easy, but then you still have to work really hard at it.

[00:26:21:11 - 00:26:43:23]
Daffney  Allwein
 Agree, agreed, and I think sometimes, just like you and I had talked about, what you're exposed to, what you know, is possibly not anything, what your legacy is, may not even be in front of you yet. You don't even know what's coming down the way yet. Yeah. Now, you and I have a little bit of time, a little longer in the tooth and the career and some of the things we've chosen.

[00:26:44:23 - 00:26:46:18]
Daffney  Allwein
 Do you think you're creating a legacy?

[00:26:48:06 - 00:26:52:13]
Matt Lewis
 Well, first, I think the biggest legacy that I probably will create just is as a father.

[00:26:54:15 - 00:26:56:18]
Matt Lewis
 Because, you know, let's be honest,

[00:26:58:14 - 00:27:02:10]
Matt Lewis
 unless you're, I mean, I'm a writer, but like unless you're Ernest Hemingway,

[00:27:04:15 - 00:27:10:12]
Matt Lewis
 no one's gonna really be reading your stuff a hundred years from now, even if you're a bestselling author, the odds, so.

[00:27:12:08 - 00:27:26:16]
Matt Lewis
 But if you're a parent, you are, you know, there's a pretty good chance I've got two boys that things I teach them today will be passed along and that I could have some reach into the 22nd century or something like that.

[00:27:26:16 - 00:27:31:10]
Daffney  Allwein
 Yeah, absolutely. Or at least these photos that we're gonna put up. We're gonna see these for a long time.

[00:27:31:10 - 00:27:35:19]
Matt Lewis
 Yes. So that's part of it. I would say that if I do have a legacy,

[00:27:36:23 - 00:27:40:03]
Matt Lewis
 like, okay, as a writer, like someone who writes,

[00:27:41:13 - 00:27:46:15]
Matt Lewis
 you're always looking for a narrative, right? So like, I'm thinking like, if I were writing my obituary,

[00:27:47:21 - 00:27:55:06]
Matt Lewis
 by the way, sometimes this narrative is a little bit exaggerated. You know what I mean? You find something that's true,

[00:27:56:18 - 00:27:57:06]
Matt Lewis
 but yeah,

[00:27:58:09 - 00:28:01:08]
Matt Lewis
 you make it a little bigger, you know, than it is.

[00:28:01:08 - 00:28:06:08]
Daffney  Allwein
 You don't leave room for curiosity, right? You leave room for interpretation. Yeah.

[00:28:06:08 - 00:28:17:06]
Matt Lewis
 Yeah. I mean, so if I were, it's a tendency anyway. So if I were writing my obituary, I think my legacy would have to be being a conservative who stood up against Donald Trump.

[00:28:18:07 - 00:28:36:02]
Matt Lewis
 Wow. Like, that's the story, right? I mean, if I'm trying to write an obituary that makes this guy seem, this guy who's not a hero, seem like a hero, who isn't really that important, seem important, that's probably the story I write. I write about this guy, Matt Lewis, who was from day one,

[00:28:37:04 - 00:28:43:02]
Matt Lewis
 a conservative who was at a conservative outlet who took chances,

[00:28:44:04 - 00:28:49:09]
Matt Lewis
 could have been dangerous possibly, standing up to Trump. And I think my book,

[00:28:50:09 - 00:29:02:21]
Matt Lewis
 "Too Dumb to Fail," which came out in January of 2016, could be considered the first anti-Trump conservative book that was, or the first never Trump book.

[00:29:02:21 - 00:29:06:22]
Daffney  Allwein
 That was a chance. That was ever published. That was a real chance when you put that out there. I remember that, yeah.

[00:29:06:22 - 00:29:13:03]
Matt Lewis
 Yeah, and a lot of it's just by happenstance. You know, you start writing a book a year or two before it gets published, but,

[00:29:14:18 - 00:29:24:15]
Matt Lewis
 so if I were like stretching to make Matt Lewis have a legacy as a writer, I think that's the obituary that I write.

[00:29:24:15 - 00:29:29:04]
Daffney  Allwein
 Is that it? I think so. Is that book in you right now?

[00:29:30:23 - 00:29:32:10]
Matt Lewis
 The book, what book?

[00:29:32:10 - 00:29:37:06]
Daffney  Allwein
 "Chapter Two, Too Dumb to Fail." Is that "Too Dumb to Fail," too? What does it look like?

[00:29:37:06 - 00:29:38:20]
Matt Lewis
 "Too Smart to Win."

[00:29:38:20 - 00:29:39:07]
 (Laughs)

[00:29:39:07 - 00:29:41:21]
Daffney  Allwein
 "Too Smart to Win," I like that. No, that's perfect, yeah.

[00:29:44:05 - 00:29:53:06]
Matt Lewis
 I think you definitely could write a sequel to it, obviously. Because it's almost, it's gonna be a decade old next year. It's nine years old, so yeah.

[00:29:53:06 - 00:30:07:09]
Daffney  Allwein
 Another reunion in your life, another reunion is that book. Yeah. I think you have so much to offer and I invite you not to shrink and even jump into that second book because that sounds really good. Because I have learned as someone who's not political

[00:30:08:12 - 00:31:43:14]
Daffney  Allwein
 or even well-versed in political history, I have learned so much in our basic discussions and times working out together about how important different players have been and things that maybe weren't even written down in history for us to experience in our textbooks. But you just, you're an educator and I hope you see yourself in that capacity, that you are an educator teaching people and asking people to expand, right? To not shrink, to think of these situations in a broader stroke and also inviting people to align how they feel and not just taking things at face value. If it doesn't feel right to you, don't shrink, say something, be who you are and just because that might not align with your origin or the folks that you grew up with, that's really compelling. And I appreciate all the education you've offered me because I agree I came out of a very rural, conservative upbringing. And I don't think until you and I had some very specific conversations about pieces in history I wasn't aware of, that I even realized that I was a crunchy con and that I really care about Recycle Aid. And these things really matter to me and generations beyond because these are the highlights we need, these are the things we need. And I think you have a huge opportunity to keep educating and keep telling people to see what really aligns with them.

[00:31:44:17 - 00:31:45:09]
Matt Lewis
 Well, thank you.

[00:31:45:09 - 00:31:46:04]
Daffney  Allwein
 Yeah.

[00:31:46:04 - 00:31:58:08]
Matt Lewis
 Yeah, no, I do think, I like teaching. I mean, which implies I know a lot, which I don't necessarily know a lot, but the best way to learn is to teach I've found too. And so that's the thing as a writer,

[00:32:00:01 - 00:32:08:22]
Matt Lewis
 I get to teach, but it forces me, you have to say one lesson ahead of your audience, right? True, yes. Ahead of the students.

[00:32:08:22 - 00:32:11:03]
Daffney  Allwein
 Three reps that don't count backwards, we'll talk about that later.

[00:32:12:04 - 00:32:12:04]
 (Both Laughing)

[00:32:12:04 - 00:32:37:06]
Matt Lewis
 Well, let me say, we used to work out together and you will tell, if you're exercising, you're jogging with somebody, the conversations you're going to have are pretty intimate and that person's gonna really learn and know you. And it's funny, I used to have, I don't know if I ever told you this, I used to get my haircut in the basement of this pretty dank building in downtown DC.

[00:32:38:07 - 00:32:42:08]
Matt Lewis
 And my barbers were these two really old guys.

[00:32:43:15 - 00:32:45:02]
Matt Lewis
 One of them passed away.

[00:32:46:08 - 00:32:49:03]
Matt Lewis
 And he was this old Italian guy who fought in World War II.

[00:32:50:22 - 00:32:57:00]
Matt Lewis
 And he used to be Jack Kent Cook's, the owner of the Washington Redskins, he was his barber.

[00:32:58:03 - 00:33:13:12]
Matt Lewis
 And when Jack Kent Cook died, and there was this big controversy over whether his son would take over the team or Dan Snyder was gonna get to buy the team. And I forget the details of why there was a controversy, but long story short, my barber got,

[00:33:14:23 - 00:33:27:22]
Matt Lewis
 what is it, subpoenaed. He was forced to appear in court and to testify. And the reason is that they believed that Jack Kent Cook might tell his barber something that he wouldn't have told anybody else.

[00:33:29:02 - 00:33:38:08]
Matt Lewis
 And so I think whether it's talking to your barber or talking to somebody that you're working out with, sometimes I bet you, you know things that my wife doesn't know.

[00:33:38:08 - 00:33:53:11]
Daffney  Allwein
 Oh, there's, I have to tell you that I have commented that I have lived a thousand lifetimes and a thousand experiences that were not my own, just based on the experiences and the relationships I had working with all the people that I did.

[00:33:55:07 - 00:34:11:07]
Daffney  Allwein
 I never wanna be a politician. And that's mostly because the experience I had working with politicians some of the things that they had to jump in hurdle and personal and family and work. And it's not something that I would want as part of my story.

[00:34:13:00 - 00:34:19:00]
Daffney  Allwein
 And it's incredible, it's incredible. And I appreciate the experience of spending time with you and Aaron as well.

[00:34:20:19 - 00:34:32:20]
Daffney  Allwein
 You learn so much. You learn to appreciate everybody's upbringing and who they are and really get to know them. And it's been an incredible gift for me. So thank you.

[00:34:33:20 - 00:34:37:10]
Daffney  Allwein
 Matt also has a podcast. Can you tell us a little bit about your podcast?

[00:34:38:19 - 00:34:47:19]
Matt Lewis
 Yeah, I've actually been podcasting for like 15 years, believe it or not. It's been a long journey and I find it super rewarding, but yeah, check it out.

[00:34:49:02 - 00:34:58:21]
Matt Lewis
 You can go to my YouTube, Matt Lewis and the News or listen to the audio pod, which called Matt Lewis, can't lose, both of which are 80s pop pop references.

[00:34:58:21 - 00:35:11:10]
Daffney  Allwein
 Yes, references, we see it. I will make sure that we link all of Matt's information in here in the show notes. But Matt, is there anything you want people to know when it comes to shrinking or not shrinking in their own life?

[00:35:13:05 - 00:35:49:00]
Matt Lewis
 Yeah, I mean, so I would say it's a constant struggle, but to find out who you really are and what you really believe. And so, just to sort of finish that one story, after I worked at Roy Rogers, I got involved in political campaigns. I ended up working at a nonprofit where I got to travel around the country for four years, training conservatives how to run for public office. And I thought that I loved political campaigns and that I wanted to do political campaigns for a living.

[00:35:50:03 - 00:35:56:17]
Matt Lewis
 And I ended up moving to North Dakota. The first 10 days I was there, the windshield was 80 plus zero.

[00:35:58:02 - 00:36:01:15]
Matt Lewis
 Yeah. It was a rough year, we lost that election. My dad died that year.

[00:36:03:09 - 00:36:10:06]
Matt Lewis
 And at a certain point it hit me that I had two things. One,

[00:36:11:08 - 00:36:23:08]
Matt Lewis
 I didn't really like, remember when I told you I spent four years teaching people? I loved that job, but it wasn't because I loved politics, it was because I loved teaching people. And so I learned that about myself. But the part about not shrinking is,

[00:36:24:08 - 00:36:25:23]
Matt Lewis
 or that I had seen myself,

[00:36:27:02 - 00:36:36:18]
Matt Lewis
 I had this vision of myself as this sort of slick Republican political operative who was gonna be the West Wing kind of guy. And I had this vision that that's who I was,

[00:36:37:20 - 00:36:48:09]
Matt Lewis
 but that's not really who I was. I was more contrarian, like political operatives are a certain type of person. And I was too contrarian, I was too artistic, too sensitive really, probably to be that.

[00:36:49:14 - 00:36:59:20]
Matt Lewis
 And that's when I discovered that writing about politics was way more fun and revolutionary and contrarian and artistic.

[00:36:59:20 - 00:37:01:20]
Daffney  Allwein
 And romantic too, right?

[00:37:01:20 - 00:37:23:03]
Matt Lewis
 And romantic, that's, yeah. And so that fit me more. But it was at the age of 30 really that I figured this out and it took me years to weasel my way in to getting paid to do it. So keep finding out who you are. And in my case, it took me at least till I was 30.

[00:37:24:19 - 00:37:25:06]
Daffney  Allwein
 That's amazing.

[00:37:26:06 - 00:37:53:08]
Daffney  Allwein
 And you are not your political party. You are not exactly who other people tell you are. And you're a great testament to that. Find out who you are, align with what matters to you. And Matt, thanks for joining us. That was a lot of fun. And thanks for having me on that podcast 200 years ago too, because that was a lot of fun for me. That might've sparked why I'm here in the podcast world now. So thank you so much for joining us. Thanks for joining, don't f*kn shrink. We'll talk to you soon.