How To Deprogram A Liberal (w/ Matt Van Swol) | Episode 115

0:00Dan Bongino:Hey everybody, welcome to the Vince Labor Day special. It is so good to have you with us, brought to you by Blackout Coffee, the official coffee of all of us here at Silverlock. Go to blackoutcoffee.com slash Vince. Use the code Vince, that's V-I-N-C-E, and get 20 % off your first order. Coming up, I've got a great conversation ahead for you with Matt Van Swol and his wife Erin. These are two very interesting people who led a life as Democrats for the longest time. They believed what CNN was telling them. and then all of a sudden their lives got turned upside down by an awful storm in western north carolina and ever since they realized wait a second we've been lied to and now they're proud conservatives how that all happened that's ahead on this edition of vince it's a great conversation you're going to love it please share it with others too it's it's important i think a fall is planting season did you know that many plants and trees actually do better when they're planted this time of year, but you've got to know where to start.

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3:05Dan Bongino:All right, joining me now, Matt Van Swal is a growth marketer. You can find him on X at Matt Van Swal. There's an underscore in there. Easy to find. Now you can find him. And Aaron Durham is also here with us, documentary filmmaker. Matt's wife. You find her on X at History Boutique. Thank you both so much for doing this today. I appreciate you. Yeah, thanks, Vince. Thank you so much. So I want to just start with kind of a primer on your bio, who you are and where you came from. I know that the big traumatic experience that you had was living through the flooding in western North Carolina and the eye-opening experience that you had going into that.

3:40Dan Bongino:Just give me a sense of who you are and how that changed your life. Yeah, let me start. Yeah. So, you know, we were pre-Hurricane Helene, you know, pre-September of last year, we were aggressive liberals, basically anything that came down the CNN pipeline, we believed, and we fought for. And when Helene hit, I'm a filmmaker, I'm with the largest agency in Los Angeles, so I reached out to my agent and said, you know, connect me with CNN, MSNBC, everyone who will listen. Some of these people I even had shows with in the past, have worked with producers, I got zero responses back. I got crickets.

4:25Not even, is your family okay? And that was that kind of very quick turning point where I was like, oh, this doesn't fit the agenda. This is it sounds like I'm bashing Biden because I'm saying, where is FEMA? Where is the national response? So they didn't have me on. They didn't even check on me. And it was Fox News and multiple incredible independent journalists and conservative journalists that reached out and had us on the air and helped us get help. And that was the moment. and in response, our liberal friends in our city got really angry at Matt and I for being on these conservative outlets, even though we were actively getting help to our city.

5:11And that was the moment where I was like, I think I'm on the wrong team. Like this doesn't seem right. And we're working our butts off through the night, getting people out of the cold, out of tents and into hotels with nonprofits and with churches and, and we're getting demonized. Even by FEMA itself was demonizing us at the time saying, these people are, you know, full of it. And they're not, they're not telling the truth. Everything's fine. And we're like, everything is not fine. So that was just a massive turning point that luckily, Matt and I got to go through together. So there wasn't a big moment in our relationship.

5:53We were able to just have these moments every morning, drinking coffee with our kiddos and going like, what the heck is happening? Like, why?

6:00Dan Bongino:Do you remember it? Was there like a breaking moment where all of a sudden your mind just opened up? You're like, whoa, wait a second. I've been getting this thing all wrong because I think it's big. I mean, for anybody, regardless of where you're coming from, your political adherence is a strong magnetic pull. And it's I think it would be very hard to just wake up one morning and just be like, whoa, whoa, whoa. I've been attached to something that I didn't realize was alive for a very long time. And I need to break free from that. Was there a pivot point, like a moment where you realize this?

6:29Yes, sort of. You know, it's hard to impress this upon people. Probably your your listeners or viewers would probably be hard pressed to understand this. But when you're in a media ecosystem, you tend to stay in it. And it's almost impossible to break out of it unless something dramatic happens that makes you go looking for other sources. And for us and for me, that moment was getting on Twitter. So once we got on Twitter, I saw on X, I saw that there was very little to no media coverage about what was happening on the ground where I lived. And I saw CNN wasn't covering it. A lot of the major news outlets weren't covering it.

7:21So I was like, I guess I guess I'm the one. I guess I'm the one that's going to bring the news out. And so I did. And it started getting millions of views on X. And even though it got millions of views on X, I assumed that the media would equate that to this sounds like a big story. Maybe we should cover this story. Look at all the views. I mean, hundreds of millions of views on X and and no, no media coverage at all.

7:49Dan Bongino:So in other words, I recognize this. What you're describing, and I've seen this happen before, is that you're at the center of a major news story all of a sudden. And then you're looking at the way the legacy media are covering it. And you're saying, wait a second, this bears no resemblance to reality. I'm living through it. I actually know what it's like. Why are you lying to people about the circumstances? Stop that. Somebody ask me what's going on. I'm actually in the middle of it. In that experience, I've seen that happen before with things like with crime. You'll see it where lefty media people all of a sudden start admitting, actually, Trump's right.

8:24Dan Bongino:Crime's kind of a problem. And usually at the core is they were mugged. They were attacked. They were robbed. They had some sort of personal experience with it that has altered their perception of the story that the media are telling. Yes. And that's that's exactly what happened to us is we we started working with nonprofits that, you know, we're delivering RVs like in the cold to people sleeping in sheds. and the media was like FEMA's got it or they were like doesn't exist it's one or the other right and you would read all these stories like look at all the money that Biden's given to western North Carolina and while I'm driving an RV to someone I open up my phone and they're on a CNN push notification is Biden gives another you know couple billion dollars to Ukraine and I'm like I'm driving an RV to a woman and her son in 22 degree weather that are sleeping in a shed powered by propane.

9:18Like, no, this isn't working for me.

9:22Dan Bongino:Western North Carolina, when we would hear stories about what was going on there, being off the grid like it was as a result of the storm, it was hard to get those stories out. And my impression is that the landscape has been in many ways irreversibly altered. that entire communities have shifted away from where they once were and that people are living in such remote and difficult to get to places that the only way to get there was horseback. I mean, it really sounded like a completely different country. And yet the message out of Washington was that don't worry, everything's being taken care of.

9:57Yeah, I mean, it was unbelievable. We were driving around with Sean Hendricks, who we found on X. He was one of the first people in the region helping people, even though he didn't live here. And I remember getting into his truck on the first day and I could barely climb in. And that's the kind of vehicle it took to get to these places. And this is generational land. These are people that are off the grid. That's why we've talked so much about the death toll being so much higher, I think, than what's reported, even though we have no way of really identifying what it is because these people, they have no interest in, you know, being a part of a community outside of the small one that they're in.

10:40And we went directly into these places and they weren't getting help. And if FEMA would come, this is early in the days of FEMA, they would be disrespectful. They would try and take advantage of some of these people. There's stories of these young women getting harassed by FEMA workers and And luckily, Cameron Hamilton came in after the Trump administration jumped in and he fired all of those people, which then became a political story of look at them firing FEMA workers when we need more on the ground. Like, no, those were corrupt people that did really bad things to our neighbors. So just all of these things started to pile up.

11:22And we realized if these liberal media outlets and the liberal politicians that we voted for were willing to not only not help us, But throw people like Matt and I and first responders like our friend Samson, who actually did the deliveries with us. They were willing to throw them under the bus and demonize them and call them, you know, militia. That that was just unconscionable to me.

11:53Dan Bongino:So was this experience so obviously on this issue, you said, whoa, the left is getting this completely wrong. They're lying about the circumstances. Did that become a gateway for other issues for you? Did you did is that when you started taking an inventory of everything that you thought you knew and you started kind of assessing, OK, what do I actually believe about this? Yeah, it was definitely like a slow roll. You know, it's funny. I like look back on my own tweets from like that time period where I'm like trying to rationalize why someone would vote for Trump like in that time period. And, you know, I think the turning point for me was truly being on X and having my own assumptions challenged, meeting with first responders who way more often than not were way more right wing.

12:41and just you know we were on these road trips together and uh some of them would stay at our house and we'd have these fireside chats like you know what do you think's going on here and you know we would talk about the disparities that we're seeing between the reality on the ground and um you know what the media was saying and then things just started to pile up and so you would you would see like i had no idea illegal immigration was such a problem none at all zero clue never heard about it before and then all of a sudden you open up twitter and you're like oh my gosh this is a serious problem you know and it was story after story after story just like that and you're like what i like i open up my phone even now and i'll see a story i've never seen before and i'll go how much of this did i miss like what how much of this media bent just told me a half truth and I'm like yep experts said it must be true CNN said it then it was parodied on a TikTok video that I saw posted on Instagram and that whole ecosystem was just there and I was like yeah if everybody's saying it it's probably accurate but the system really is designed to tell you the truth in a bent and I would not have believed that if you had told me unless it happened on the ground to me personally.

14:07Dan Bongino:Yeah, that's a radicalizing experience. So when you say you were consuming the media before all of this happened, before Hurricane Helene, how often were you consuming the press? Was it just casually? Were you intense media consumers or was it just kind of in between things? You would see stuff and you're like, oh, I believe that. Depends on her or me, but we used to watch CNN together every morning with coffee, probably for, you know, just before work or whatever. And then I've had, you know, news outlets installed on my phone that would send me push notifications about the news and you'd read the headline and you'd go, that's not good.

14:44Or, you know, or whatever it might be. So, you know, I think a casual consumer of the news can turn into a high consumption consumer of the news if you only read the headlines. And that's what most people do, including me. I think you might have a different story though well it's you know i feel like i consumed it but from a a very strong place of ignorance i didn't really understand politics i understood that you know that there were echo chambers but i thought because we got our sources from cnn we got our sources from um New York Times podcast from NPR's podcast that we had enough variation there.

15:27And, and that's, I think was the massive difference was realizing that these, you know, these media outlets are truly there to push an agenda. And if it doesn't fit into the agenda, doesn't go into the news. And that is is so as soon as we saw that it was we need to rethink everything. But the the issue that we're finding now is unless you have a truly traumatic experience, you don't go looking for that. And I mean, we have lost so many friends. We have like even even thoughtful friends who are like, help us understand what you're going through. Like, why? Why are you people? Yeah. And they're and then they're like, you know what?

16:13We can't take it. We're out. We just we need some space. And I'm like, I don't know how.

16:20Dan Bongino:How they say that they can't be friends with you. They can't maintain a relationship with you because of what you've learned and the life you're now leading as a result of it. Absolutely. And these are people that, in my opinion, like, you know, these are ride or die friends. These are people in my past, in our past that have been through serious traumas with us and experienced, you know, what it was like for days, not really, not knowing if Matt or I or our children were alive after Helene. And they are so willing to go, or they're so manipulated that they think we have joined a cult. And I've said very recently, I feel like I just got out of a cult.

17:03Like, I feel like I feel like I can have conversations with conservatives and disagree with them. And I don't get, you know, they don't treat me poorly. They just go, I don't believe that. But, you know, you do you. But it is not the same from the people of our past. And I mean, my industry in general, L.A., I think there's one that still speaks to me.

17:26Dan Bongino:And I haven't got that. So so in the industry side, you can see one of the rationales might be professional preservation. Like you're doing that because you know that the only way you'll continue to gain access to the work you want to do is you have to share the politics. But I do wonder about like your other personal friends. What could what could possibly motivate that attitude? What do you think that is that you would be rejected as a person just for coming to a conclusion based on the experiences that you've lived? I yeah I'll take this one I I truly think that people think they're doing something correct right and moral by pushing someone they view as let's just say a bigot let's just say a racist let's just say someone who supports Trump who they fit into all of those categories i think they think it's moral to push them out so that they can kind of save their own morality so to speak and this is something we did not that long ago like aaron's parents would come to our house and they were pretty hardcore maga supporters and aaron's dad would wear a maga hat um you know uh left his tears tumbler like he would bring these things to our house and we would say you can't have that in here right and the reason for that and my dad is like he's a wonderful man he's like the nicest most thoughtful human helps anybody like he is like the guy that everyone i know is like your dad is the best i mean he is santa claus literally santa claus during christmas He is.

19:10And, and I was like crying, how dare you wear a MAGA hat in my house. And now when I see him wear a MAGA hat, I'm like, yay. It's I have to daily apologize to my parents. Like I, I, and they were so kind to just, just be patient and wait and not get mad at me and not tell me I'm wrong. They just, he just took the hat off and he said, you know, whatever you want, babe. And like, that should have told me right there that I was wrong, you know?

19:43Dan Bongino:All right, more ahead of my conversation with Matt and Aaron. But before that, we have to thank our great sponsors. Did you ever think about aging until you started aging? Well, now that you are aging, is your body constantly reminding that you are? Look, here's the thing. You can get your energy back and you can do it with C15 from Fatty15. It's the first essential fatty acid to be discovered in more than 90 years. Fatty 15 co-founder Dr. Stephanie Van Watson discovered the benefits of C15 while working with the U.S. Navy. And based on studies, we do know that when our cells don't have enough C15, they can age faster.

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22:01Dan Bongino:Use the code Vince at BoneCharge.com to save 15%. These statements and products have not been evaluated by the FDA. These products are not intended to diagnose, treat, cure, or prevent any disease or condition. Now back to my conversation with Matt and Aaron. You know, it's funny. I'm listening to this, and I'm almost getting emotional thinking about it because as a father, and Matt, you may share this, and just as a mother, Aaron, you may share this too, that you just think about, like, imagine your child heading off in a direction that you know is wrong for them. You're like, oh, man, it seems you're an adult.

22:32Dan Bongino:It's like this is probably beyond salvaging. She may never come back to me. And then suddenly now the two of you are on board. I can't imagine how filled with joy your dad might be. He's so happy. You have no idea. He's so happy. And he's still very, you know, he's still very respectful of people who think differently of him. But he's been, you know, my parent, both of my parents have been the biggest advocates for Matt and I to just keep putting this out there because he's like, if you guys can change, if you, the most liberal people we knew can change and can listen to other perspectives, then there's hope.

23:08Dan Bongino:So one thing that I'm detecting from both of you is that you have a healthy marriage. So the fact that you both, the boat that you both made this change at the same time, you both kind of same came to these conclusions means that you were having these conversations. Is there is there one person in the relationship who was more of the driving force on this? I'm just curious because I do think it's interesting that you didn't do this independently. You coincidentally decided, actually, man, I got to break free. Well, we both got on X around the same time, and I do think that's probably one of the driving forces.

23:42But it was also just something we were both so engrossed in and having the conversations with first responders, you know, with. I mean, I remember us vividly going back and forth one evening before we were going to go on Fox and Friends. We were like, should we just cancel? Like, I don't know if we want our friends to think we're promoting Fox News, you know? And we would, I mean, it was tough. You know, we did the same thing with, like, The Blaze and, like, should we talk to this right-wing reporter, you know? And we kind of rationalized it by like, you know, we might hate everything that they're for, but at least we're getting the news out about Western North Carolina.

24:22Dan Bongino:And conservatives raised a lot of money to help you, to help the people in Western North Carolina. Yes. And, you know, Elon gave us Starlink for free. Trump flew in his helicopter, dropped off Starlink then. I didn't know any of those things until much later. But, I mean, I guess you were probably more of the driving force than me. Well, for me, it started a little bit before where after October 7th, I started to see, you know, and I have a ton of Jewish friends, you know, grew up Catholic. like I understand I just feel like they Catholics and Jews like understand each other and and I was like starting to see CNN and other liberal outlets start to try and humanize and try and relate to terrorists and I was like whoa wait a second so there were moments where I was starting to bring this up to Matt and he would go and he would you know kind of repeat what he heard on CNN and I I would be like, does that feel right to you?

25:27That doesn't feel right. And so it was moments like that. But Matt is very, very good at diving in, especially to a digital community, more than anybody I've ever met. And I think when he jumped into X, he jumped in so open-minded that he let the good people, the really strong writers on X, help him understand what was going on.

25:54Dan Bongino:How much? So the two of you have three children, correct? Mm-hmm. Okay. And they're all pretty young relatively, all three kids? No, we have a 12-, 14-, and 5-year-old. Okay. Well, young enough. Yeah. And so I wonder, what role does having kids play in this? Because one thing that I know as a dad is that when my daughter was born, that I had this realization that playtime was over for me, that my moral direction needed to be clear and that I needed to bring her to church, for instance. I needed to give her a good upbringing. So a lot of what animates my thinking now is what kind of life am I leaving to her?