Elephants in Rooms
Hi, I’m Ken LaCorte. I spent 20 years behind-the-scenes at Fox News and now host “Elephants in Rooms”.
Here, we jump into topics that many people avoid and that the mainstream narrative often vilifies. Even when they’re true.
If you’re looking for true insight into issues – without straw men or sensationalism – you’ve found the right place.
Elephants in Rooms
Escaping the media bubble | Adam B. Coleman
Wrong Speak Publishing founder Adam B. Coleman used to follow the typical mainstream media – until the media pushed him over the red line, and he discovered truths he'd never seen before.
Adam tells Ken what made him change, how the media’s biased reporting affected his views, and more about his rise as a political commentator.
To watch the video version and find Ken in the social world, click here: https://linktr.ee/KenLaCorte
Adam’s Substack: https://adambcoleman.substack.com/
Find his book “Black Victim to Black Victor” here: https://www.amazon.com/Black-Victim-Victor-Identifying-ideologies/dp/B0915JT4XD
In today's political climate, it's rare for someone to actually listen to the other side. Adam Coleman, author of black victim to black Victor did just that. Adam used to follow the blue path guided by the mainstream media. But as he started to double check the information he was getting, he discovered both lies and truth.
Adam B. Coleman:Basically, every major media outlet that is supposedly moderate or left leaning, ran with that narrative for years at that point, and that was the breaking point for me.
Ken LaCorte:He and I talked about how we broke the media bubble, his rise as a political commentator, and why he thinks black Americans don't need saving. So look, I appreciate you making time for me. It's funny how mass media works. I've read probably 20 of your articles. And I know what's what's going on more in your head than like some good friends of mine in the sense that, you know, you've given serious thought I've read it, and I've gone through that. And so it's just kind of a bizarre thing. I maybe fame is the wrong word. But certainly, it's an interesting age. And we can do stuff like that. So I first stumbled across you because of an article you wrote about a month ago, where it was about about living in a media bubble growing up, and and you talked about how kind of the mainstream media lied to me about conservatives. And it was very fascinating. And I guess the question that I the first question that jumped to mind was, how did you get out of that bubble? Was that slow? Or was it an event or how did that happen?
Adam B. Coleman:It was a multitude of events. You know, I would say certain contradictions started occurring. I'll tell you, and this wasn't the biggest thing, but I just remember, you know, waiting for Robert Moeller to come down in front of the camera to show us how Donald Trump colluded with Russia. And I remember watching like the view and Bill Maher and all these different mainstream liberal, you know, pundit type TV shows, where they're painting Robert Moeller as this wonderful man who's gonna save America. And finally, get rid of this traitor, Donald Trump. And Robert Moeller essentially said, there's nothing there. Right. And in the most political way possible, of just saying, there's essentially nothing, right. I just remember, I actually remember vividly Joy Beyhadh saying, Well, he was a Republican anyways. All right. And I thought that was very, very strange. Like, they put everything on this guy. And then when he didn't give the results that they wanted, they just dismissed him and moved on to the next thing. That was a small thing that kind of stayed in the back of my head. Another big one was I met a British Conservative. When I was traveling abroad in Madrid. I didn't know he was conservative, I just met him through you know, because I'm a big football fan. And we were just communicating. And he told me he was for, for Brexit. And I thought to myself, like I thought Brexit was for these, you know, racist, white people who don't like foreigners and stuff like that. So I asked him, Why are you for Brexit? And probably, I think for Batum, he basically told me, the United States would never allow an outside governing body to tell them what to do. And I said, that's the most, you know, common sense, explanation someone's ever given me. Meanwhile, I have this whole media apparatus telling me it's because of racism is because of racism. And, you know, devil's advocate, maybe for a section of people, that's the reason. But I'm not hearing this guy's perspective. And the more I'm talking to people, I'm finding out that far more of them actually feel the way that he does, right sovereignty over their nation and not being controlled by some bureaucratic body that resides in Brussels. To me, that makes sense that we wouldn't allow that as Americans. He's absolutely right. So, you know, I mean, we complain all the time right now about, you know, the Davos meetings and then deciding our future and they have no governmental power. Yeah. You know, the EU has governmental power. So I guess what I'm getting at is being dribs and drabs of being exposed to different things, some of it purpose release some of that by accident. listen to podcasts, listen to Joe Rogan. I remember one time I listened to Peter Schiff, give this amazing explanation to something and it messed me up for a couple of days. Because I agreed with everything he said it made so much sense and I was like, am I conservative?
Ken LaCorte:Oh fuck yeah.
Adam B. Coleman:So it was just it was just questioning you kept
Ken LaCorte:seeing your own eyes. I you know, I'm I'm a huge believer in what I tell people. I'm like when you see some event where you saw the We'll thing or like you know a lot about it, and then read the media and see what they take on it. You know, you talked about you're at some conservative conference, and by the time you got home and reading about it, it was all like Nazis and white supremacist and you were like, What the heck. The Rittenhouse trial did that for a lot of people too. They saw the trial and then in fact I forget her name the gal who's on the turret. What is it the Oh Annika? Yes. And Annika spear and I've seen her do this twice. You know, I mean, she's you know, she's hard out on on a far, far left limb and twice and one of them was about Kyle Rittenhouse. And she was like, I watched the trial and he's innocent. And that's not what I had heard Drib to me for the year beforehand. So right yeah, no, that's that's actually and yet you can catch both liberal and conservative media, you can really kind of when you know something about it, or literally watch a whole speech or a whole event. I was I this was I'll date myself here. I remember watching Newt Gingrich's speech when they took over when the Republicans took over the House of Representatives in like, I don't know, 98 or a lot a lot of years ago. And I watched this whole speech and he was a very Prophet Oriole guy who talked about history and the founding fathers. It was a fascinating speech. And he made one kind of asshole she flippant, you know, and then the Democrats, they had their turn to governance there turns over, it's our turn, you know, let's move on. And of course, that's what I saw all on the evening news was was out of this wonderful speech, this one kind of flippant comment that he made. And I was like, Oh, I get it. That's what people actually meant by by media bias. He kind of had to understand it. And it wasn't until I started going to work for Fox, where I had like 12 televisions in my in my office seeing the where you could then really see when you when you when you had had things to compare it to. So it was anyhow. All right. I was interesting. I was interested to know whether that was an incremental thing, or whether there was some like kind of massive, massive event in your life. Well,
Adam B. Coleman:I'll tell you the final straw, and I remember the final straw. There was a book, I'm gonna mess up her name someday we're gonna say it, but there's a book called resistance at any cost. As a Kimberly Strauss, I believe her name is Ken Fisher,
Ken LaCorte:the Wall Street Journal, I'm gonna say, right? Yeah.
Adam B. Coleman:I just came across her book. And I'm, and I'm listening to the audiobook. And I'm like, How come? I never heard about that? How come they didn't know that? And then she brought up the good people on both sides. And then I went on YouTube and watch the full clip. And I said, Oh, my God, you know, because I remember CNN, MSNBC, playing this clip over and over good people on both sides. He supported the Nazis well, and right before he says, I'm not talking about the Neo Nazis. And I'm just like, wow, wow, that is does a huge amount of deception. And they ran running on this for years at that point.
Ken LaCorte:And it wasn't just like the Huffington Post. It was the New York Times it was all everybody we were supposed to trust and love in life,
Adam B. Coleman:whether everybody, every every major, basically every major media outlet that is supposedly moderate, or left leaning, I ran with that narrative for years at that point. And that was the breaking point for me, because, like, that's a bold faced lie. And, and from that moment, I had to tell myself, I cannot trust them. I cannot blindly trust them at all right? It was slowly disappearing. But that was just like so blatant, because it was such a major talking point for years, and reasoning, why he has this strong label as being racist, and all these other things. They melt that, that Charlottesville narrative about him, even though it was some completely separate faction of people, and it was unfortunate what had happened, someone died there. But that had nothing to do with him. But they made it all about him.
Ken LaCorte:It's so weird when you see like, the anchor sitting in their chairs or read the New York Times and you just like they're intentionally deceiving me and when you come to, because just sound like like, like a crack when you say it. I had, I had an uncle growing up and he was you know, I don't know what he read, but he was always neither lied about you this and the UN and, but when you come to that conclusion, you're like, I don't think I'm crazy, but I know that they're lying to me. And that's, that's an interesting day in life.
Adam B. Coleman:Yeah. And then there becomes the other part. So, you know, some people call it like black pilling where you think you just immediately go to the negative about everything. Like you go to the extreme, like, everything's alive, the entire world is falling apart. And so, for me, it wasn't that, like, I'm a, I'm a pretty rational person. I'm a pretty moderate person. So instead of saying the mainstream media, all they do is lie. I said, yeah, they're probably lying about their opponents. Right? Good. Chances are they're they're lying, deceiving. deceiving people, they're hiding particular particular things about what's going on, or putting a slant on things and pretending that they're not being bias. So I expect that, however, it doesn't mean that everything that they say is going to be a lie just depends. So I just seemed to be critical. And that basically just led for me to listen to everybody everything. Right? And that's actually, a lot of people think that, you know, once you once you just trust the mainstream media, because they're liberal, you immediately go to the conservative and actually, I went left, because I wanted to hear what the progresses thought. So when I talk about progresses, I write a lot of articles talking about progressives for for very particular reasons, is because I consume progressive media for months. That's all I did. I didn't go back and forth. I listened to progressive media. And by the way, even when I was open to listen, progressive media, the Young Turks are terrible. I could not listen to them whatsoever. They have terrible personalities, unappealing to listen to
Ken LaCorte:because they're yelling, and you wrote, you wrote an article on this. And it was one of the last ones that I recently that I read, you wrote, like, like six months ago, and you were talking about when you realize that you're, uh, somebody you're talking with, isn't trying to have a conversation and be open and actually, you know, be honest in their in their intellectualism back and forth, but they're just trying to just trying to have debate points that they when you're like, that's when to click them off. And it was good. It was good peace.
Adam B. Coleman:Thank you. Yeah, I practice that. Often, you know, especially in a place like Twitter. I make sure not to engage with people in bad faith. So if I say something to someone, is because most of the time, I think there's a conversation to be had. Sometimes someone's snarky, and I've just stuck you back to them. You know, sometimes it's fun.
Ken LaCorte:Twitter, but often Twitter brings that out and you doesn't it?
Adam B. Coleman:Yeah, it's because it's really easy. Yeah. But often, even when, even when someone says something about me, I'm using this as a moment to say, here's why this person's argument is flawed, right? So I'm actually a lot of times I take a screenshot, and I don't even include them into the conversation because it's pointless, but I'm saying the person that's espousing these ideas, here's why they're flawed. Here's what's wrong with how they're, they're thinking, right? So I'm not using insults and saying this, and that I don't know who these people are. But I'm pointing out the idea because ideas can spread to different people. And my problem is with the certain ideas that are out there. And so let's talk about these ideas. But as far as engaging in bad faith conversations, I leave, I literally tell people, this is a bad faith conversation. Have a good day. Like that's it, because I don't unlike other people, I am one I'm not married to being right. You know, so I'm not gonna fight people just to feel like I'm right about something. If I'm wrong, I'm wrong. And I'll admit that, or I'll say that makes more sense. And I'll give him credit. And the other thing is that I just value my time. Like, I just don't, I don't have time to argue with people. You know, what's the point? What's the point of arguing with strangers?
Ken LaCorte:My old boss used to call them silly people. And he'd be like, yeah, you can have this but then there was certain people, he was just like, don't waste your time with silly people. And you know, like, it's funny. I thought that when people would criticize me and you know, throw whatever. In fact, if they could, that I'd be bothered by that. I just almost find it amusing. Actually, I do find it amusing. It's kind of like just a stranger on the side walking down the sidewalk and calling you an asshole and keep walking. You're just like, how do I take that seriously? If it was somebody I loved or, or admired than I might have done, I might have a problem. You also talked about how like kind of similar the left and right eco spheres were. Because you've you know, I've been conservative ish for 30 years. So I'm not used to the other side, or at least at least kind of swimming in that world. What do you how do you see that and then how do you how does that influence how you get your information sources trying to figure out the truth in life?
Adam B. Coleman:Um, it's, it's more about so cuz I know what you're talking about the article that I wrote, it's less about, because sometimes people read that as in there the same thing. And I'm saying no, just the tactics are the same, right? The left wants you to want you to save democracy. Donald Trump, for example, wants to save America. You know, it's, it's like, here's a verb insert noun. You know, it's the, it's the same type of rhetoric, sometimes almost like the exact phrase just swap out a word. And they use it because it works. Right? And a lot of times, it's fear based. And I'll give credit, Barack Obama's campaign was actually not fear based. It was hope. Right, it was actually a positive. And that type of that type of rhetoric hasn't been seen in quite a while. A lot of people have blamed Donald Trump and, and all this other stuff, but the political climate has become more poisonous. There's always, you know, differences between Republicans and Democrats. And, you know, maybe just because they're the adversaries, right. But it became a moral battle. Right, it became a moral issue. If you support a Trump,
Ken LaCorte:yeah. Well, both sides, if they don't just say, that side is wrong, they seem to emerge too much to say, that side is bad. And that's, you know, and while we're in a political war, it's like, no, and war, you're trying to kill people. And in a political debate, you're trying to win people onto your side, which is, I think what we just saw in this red rave that didn't happen was we had a lot of the Kerry lakes of the world, they would have won a Fox News, Fox News election, 99 to 1%. And they're she's touted as being Trump's vice president. And she couldn't pull the majority and in Arizona, because I think that those those two, those two teams have become so desperate and and but the larger issue that is troublesome is that so many people think you just must be bad. If you're on that side, no matter what that side is, or what we do about
Adam B. Coleman:Yeah. What can we do about it? Better rhetoric? Um, I mean, you know, I've been saying this since I became exposed to the right. Most of the time, the messaging is terrible. You know, I always go back to like, the facts over feelings, you know, that kind of narrative. But actually, like, people's feelings don't really care about your facts, either. And, you know, for a lot of Americans, you know, they do care if there's a level of compassion that's involved in policy. They do care about certain things, and they want that emotional pool. Like, people don't get up early in the morning to go and vote because of some fiscal responsibility. Like, maybe for some people, but you want to get as many people as you want. So you're trying to appeal to as many people as you can. And this is why, you know, I've been critical as far as Donald Trump running again, for office. It's because he is polarizing. It's because he's not appealing to the majority of people like he was prior. Or actually, that's not even true, because someone had to tell me like, you do. Remember, he didn't win the popular vote. I was like, actually, that's a good point. And, and that's even more of a reason. Because now like, I'm talking to people who voted for him twice. Right. I'm talking to people who were supporters of him who are now tired. Right? And I'd say that's
Ken LaCorte:about, that's about half of Republicans, I'd say. I'd say it's pretty close right now.
Adam B. Coleman:Right? Right. And you know what, to be fair, if he's the nominee, you know, 90 plus percent of them will suck it up and vote for him anyways. Right? Because this happens on the Democrat side, too. At the end of the day, which side is better to you? Well, the Republicans are better so I'm gonna vote for a Republican. If Donald Trump is the guy, he's the guy. But it's not about the base. And I'm just trying to do like a simple political math equation. The base is going to go with Trump either way if he's the nominee, but who are the people outside of the base? Who are you appealing to? So that's why I wrote that article saying that the red wave was a red warning. Because as much as I like Carrie Lake to think Is she is highly associated with Donald Trump. And I think it's I think it's a mistake for the right to hold on to this election. Integrity narrative, right? Is that some of it possibly, but it should be investigated. But to assume that you lose because someone cheated, makes you no different than when the Democrats say Hillary lost because Russia cheated, when in reality, what they made some bot accounts and upset a few people
Ken LaCorte:literally spent, I think $100,000 on Facebook ads, which in the grand scheme of life is the equivalent of zero and and in fairness, they probably were the ones that that hacked the DNC, the DNC emails that that kind of exploded on him. So there was that right. But ya know, I've got the same footage of Hillary and others saying, you know, you can run as good of a campaign but if the Russians steal it from me, you can't do it. It is hurting it is hurting Republicans, though it is it is them running around saying every election we lose is because we've been cheated. Doesn't make them look sane, to the average, the average person in the middle. And, and I have a tendency to blame the mainstream media for kind of everything, including the abdication in 2020 of actually looking at the charges. I mean, there were a lot of there was a lot of smoke around Oh, hey, why did they send the election workers away in this video, and then they started pulling stuff out and counting. I mean, there was a lot of weirdness. But man, every time I dug into it at the very bottom of it, it was it was virtually always a nothing burger, right. There was just you couldn't get I read the I mean, I worked for Giuliani back in the 80s. For his first campaign for mayor and I read his his lawsuits. And there was no evidence, it was just we know this is the case, give the election to Donald Trump signed Rudy Giuliani and a bunch of lawyers and you were like, This isn't good. This This isn't this isn't real here best best we can best we know at this point in place. So
Adam B. Coleman:yeah. And what's sad is that was that is that so much political energy is wasted on this? Right? And I'll tell you this, one thing I love about the political right, is personal responsibility and being accountable. Right, which means you look at yourself first before you before you start pointing fingers at other people in the Donald Trump election situation to me, has been the opposite. It's been well, they did this to us. They did this to us. And I'm like, But y'all could have done so much better. Campaign wise. You guys could have done better as far as Donald Trump's messaging, you could have done better all these things. And all I hear from the loyal, loyal Donald Trump supporters who some of them I really like. But I hear so much victim, victim victim victim, and Donald Trump is supposed to be this big, masterful hero winner, but yet he's the victim. every sip every case,
Ken LaCorte:it is an odd thing. You're 100%. Right, because it's like, you know, winners don't allow allow elections to be stolen from them. And then and that's, it's it's tricky, because it's the one thing that I hate writing about, because I know that most of the people on my on my substack are think the election was stolen. I think they're wrong. But it's kind of like saying, Oh, you're Catholic, I don't think that Catholicism was right, it. It's like there's not a whole lot to be gained from it at this point. Because it's very, very difficult to win an argument with somebody on that, because I've tried it in person and via email and you play Whack a Mole. It's like, well, what about Alabama? And then what about it? And it's just, you know, it was like arguing with the 911 truthers who are convinced that, that, you know, George Bush's cronies brought down brought down the World Trade Center and whatnot. So it's a tricky argument that I hope. But I think interestingly, DeSantis, if he's smart says, You know what, we fixed the elections in Florida, we counted quickly, they were fair and free. And you know, no, no, no shenanigans that people that people found out about. And it wasn't all that many years ago that Florida was, you know, in the middle of Bush v. Gore, where that was the race that they were all looking at individual ballots and hanging chads and all of that stuff. So if he's smart, which he is, he will probably push that line. But yeah, you're right. It's a it's an odd thing. But you know what, they were prepping that stuff. Before Trump's before the 2020 election. They were laying down the groundwork that if he loses, he didn't lose, you know, look at look at the size of our rallies, you know, Joe Biden has 18 people in a drive in movie theater and our guy has 50,000 And they were right about that. But that's not always the best predictor of election success.
Adam B. Coleman:It isn't it isn't it? And in one of my articles, I compared it to a man I'm forgetting his name now. But it's like It's like a guy who sells at a concert. And saying like, see he has mass appeal. Everybody loves him. He's like, Well, how
Ken LaCorte:come he John Mellencamp can't be? be president? He sold out a concert. Right? Right.
Adam B. Coleman:Right, exactly. And I'm just thinking to myself, that's even more of a reason. Because if a guy who does even campaign is able to beat your guy, that's a problem. Right? And immediately when you would say that they will go back to well, that's because the election was stolen. But in my head, I'm saying, so. So you're telling me that there's nothing nothing campaign wise that could have been done better? Right? You know, and, like, we're definitely not at that point.
Ken LaCorte:I get the allegiance to him. I. For years, the Democrats and the Republicans kind of seem like like, even though it never felt like this when you were middle of it, he thought the Clintons are very different from the bushes, but but with a little bit of time, and by squinting your eyes just a little bit, you're like, are they really all that different? You know, we went we went out like 50 years in America and a Clinton or Bush was on 80% of the presidential presidential election tickets, whether it was him her or one of the two bushes. And Donald Trump upset that whole applecart. I mean, it was really the Bush family, the Clinton family and all of the DC establishment who seemed to run the government for and on behalf of the elites, even though kind of pretended they didn't do that. And he came in, he was so different. You know, the first time I remember it's like, this is like throwing a hand grenade into Washington, DC, but don't have to kill anybody. Right? I mean, he would upset that whole and challenge the whole status quo, and the whole status quo came after him. So it's like, there was so much to be all his craziness aside, all his My hands are big, my penis is big. My face is orange, you know, all of that stuff aside. He, he brought hope to a big, big group of people who, who thought that all the politicians were working against them, whatever, whatever the the letter after, after their name. And so I kind of get the people who are still like, you know what? I picked him over the Republican Party, and I'm still sticking with him. I mean, I can't get to, I can't get too angsty about those people, even if I think it's, he'll, he'll take the party down to ruin again, if he if, if he's, if he's the standard bearer this time. So
Adam B. Coleman:yeah, and, you know, it's, I completely understand, like, I get it to, you know, the, the the average man, you know, the quote, unquote, average man feels invisible. And rightfully so in many cases, as to what's going on. You know, what did what did we just recently deal with? Like, a billion dollars? No, not a billion. I'm sorry. Trump has multiple, yeah, multiple billions of dollars to for reparations for climate change that we just sent to foreign nations. And I'm just like, wait, what, where did this money come from? And just, it just seems like things are happening. We don't ever get to vote on anything. We don't have a decision. They don't even care about polling half the time, unless it's convenient to care about polling. And it just seems like there is a group of elite people who have a lot of power, a lot of say, who were basically at the whims of corporations who aren't listening to what we want, and what's going on. And Donald Trump was the image of someone who wasn't necessarily part of corporate America. Which he kind of was, but he's he's someone who was willing to say, I know that the system is rigged, because I'm part of the system. And I'm going to fix it for you guys. Right? I kind of weird
Ken LaCorte:that it came from a billionaire. Yeah. And everybody bought, I mean, who would think that Donald Trump the the, the common man's hero, but But you're right,
Adam B. Coleman:right. And actually, it's kind of funny. You say that because we just have Elon Musk and Twitter. And he's like, the common man's hero. At the at this very moment.
Ken LaCorte:We gotta, we gotta pick our billionaires.
Adam B. Coleman:But I do think that, that that Mystique, right. And I someone said this recently, and it bothers me when people say this, that Donald Trump isn't a politician. And I said, this is not 2015. He is a politician. He was the president of the United States for four years, right? It doesn't get any more politician than that. And he's picking candidates. He's a politician to score. So now because what ends up happening is when you keep saying he's not a politician, you start to not judge him like he's a politician. Right? You have a certain level of expectations from this guy. because he's a politician, but Trump, oh, he's just a guy. If he makes a mistake, he's just a guy. He's not a politician. No, you've been in the job for you. If you had a plumber, who's been a plumber for four years, and he says, Listen, I messed up, but I'm not really a plumber, I'm just a guy with a plunger, you know? No, you're a plumber, you've been doing the job for four years. If you mess up, you mess up as a politician. So now we get to judge your record, and actually examine what you've been doing and what you promised, and how much of those promises you've kept. And there are lots of holes that we can easily poke through. When it comes to Donald Trump, we have to stop using these excuses that well, he's a politician. He's not a politician. He's just a guy. He's a businessman, you know, they like to say all these things to absolve him of where he let people down.
Ken LaCorte:You know, I've also been a believer with him, though, if he would, and it's like, he always hated saying, you know, Donald Trump should do x, because as he rose in 2016, as he rose in popularity, he did it by doing all of the wrong things, you know, quote, unquote, wrong things. He had all the and I used to run political campaigns in my 20s and 30s. And, and you know, you would never insult the other guy's wife, you know, my wife's better looking than his. Dad, you know, Nate, I can't tell you I worked at Fox at this point, how often I'd have an editor call me he has to apologize. I'm like, he's never going to apologize. That's off brand for him. Right? He could somebody and he realized he could shoot somebody, he just keep moving and call them a Democrat and, and move on. So. So I always hesitate to say, Well, Donald Trump should do this. But if he dialed it back, 30% it, let's say the end the last year of his presidency during COVID, and it stopped being about the personal insults and the, you know, how many times can you hear a guy say that he shut the flights down from China, it's like, I got it, I got it. But people are still people are still now concerned about COVID. And you can't make make it look like you're being too light of it. And that's the biggest constituency group that he lost in that election was older people didn't lose him, but he lost, you lose five or 10 points. Among people who are 70 and older who vote 90% of the time. That's hard to make it up by extra Hispanics or extra black votes or extra youth votes. It was that that was his kind of Achilles heel that took him down down in that last one. So it will, it will be an interesting time. It's like we've got what I think a year almost a year until until the first until Iowa or New Hampshire. So we're gonna have half a year of all this stuff. Probably the biggest fear that Republicans have is 17 of them get in they split the anti Trump vote and he gets in with 40% in the primaries, as opposed to somebody like a DeSantis being, you know, I think it was head to head right now Trump would be in problem. But if it's him versus DeSantis, and four other people or six other people who all get 3% of the vote. We'll see on that.
Adam B. Coleman:So you know, it's interesting, because I was gonna say, it's interesting that you say that because I almost feel like it's DeSantis or nothing. Like as far as in my head. That's what it is. Yeah, yeah. As far as the GOP and what they're betting on. I heard Nikki Haley saying I'm considering it. No, she's not she's not gonna she's not but you know,
Ken LaCorte:what? How do I say running for president doesn't necessarily hurt your future even if you end up with 4% of the vote? Oh, yeah, you run for president you get to be on you get a national stage you got to be in debates people are kissing your ass and flying you into here into that so it's like there's good reasons for the for those types to run for office even if even if they don't think that they have a chance and of course you know, we can all Deleuze delude ourselves into into thinking a lot of stuff. It's like of course I should be president. You know. DeSantis is pretty good. Trump's too old DeSantis is too young. Look at me, I'm 55 years old. I'm the guy so I wouldn't be surprised if a whole bunch of them jump in. I can't imagine I think you know there's multiple there's multiple elections in the country right there's there's kind of like the media election. If they decide to not take you seriously. They don't take you seriously and good luck and trying to burst your way onto the scene. There's there's the contributor and the the money guys. You know, I think right now, they're probably all lined up for DeSantis. Or a good chunk of them. Although, you know, it's always a mistake counting Donald Trump that because you remember how people were hilariously hilariously voting or laughing at them. If you ever want some fun, watch those. What are the roasts? Comedy Central roasts, have you ever seen the way Donald Trump? Yeah, one of Donald Trump's like 15 years ago, right. It was well before the election and he was seriously running for President. that. And I've watched that recently with within the past year. And it's like the fact that everybody was openly mocking Him and they were pretending to mock him. They were openly mocking him for thinking that he could be president. And he didn't shrivel away and go into a hole like I was, I mean, it was like me saying, I'm just going to be, I'm going to be a great baseball player at age 50. And take it seriously. It was like something is and I don't know if it's a good thing, or a crazy thing or a little bit of both, right, that that, that he kept pushing through that when everybody was mocking him to a crazy degree. And that was inside and outside of Hollywood. So anyhow, that was, yeah, it's an eye opening thing for it. So So So you, you're a you're a computer guy, right? Yes. Okay. And then you decide to? How did you go from a computer guy to a computer guy with a book that did pretty well? I mean, that seemed to seem to be a big jump in life. I missed that in your bio, how did how'd you do? I mean, how did you? had that happen?
Adam B. Coleman:Um, you know, the book? Well, actually, I'll go to the very beginning, I had, I had many moments of transformation in my life, personal transformations, and just examining things. You know, we talked about my political transformation, so to speak, or I would actually say political realization, evolution because evolution ish, because I'm much of the same as before, it's just I have better information. And I'm more principle oriented than party oriented. But, you know, I went through these different personal transformations. And one of the things that came to me was the word legacy. And I said, you know, what about my legacy, and I thought about my son, my son is my legacy, right? But I thought about, like, leaving something behind for my son, so that my son could have, and I said, a book. And I had like, an idea about writing a book about asking questions or questioning things. And I sat down and tried to write something one day and never picked it back up. Because I had no vision idea how to go about it. But then George Floyd, happened some years later. And it was, it was me being starved of have a way to express myself in a very confusing time. Because, you know, there's been other police shootings and stuff like that, but George Floyd felt different. And I was actually a little bit surprised, because I saw like, clips of the video, I don't like watching that stuff. And I just say, whatever. You know, it's unfortunate. But I didn't, I didn't realize if it turned into when it turned into turn, you know, this global movement. And then, you know, I wasn't really on social media, I had a Facebook account. But I'm just like, I have to go in there. I'm looking. And it's like, people, I grew up with black people, I grew up with live good lives and everything. Suddenly, these victims of oppression and all this, and I'm just like, what is happening around me? Because it just feels like everyone's having a panic attack because of one man's unfortunate death. And I knew that I couldn't say what I really wanted to say, on social media. I couldn't say it. And because of that, I felt alone.
Ken LaCorte:It was that because of the you just felt like, you get slammed if you did that, or is that because of the medium or Okay, okay.
Adam B. Coleman:Yeah, I felt like I would get slammed. I felt like it would bring up all types of energy that I didn't want, targeted towards me. So I actually started looking for free speech forums to find a place to save how I felt. And that's when I discovered like, I'm not alone. Like, there's a lot of people who feel the same way I do. And I actually got some encouragement from people after I was writing because I would do like this long form. I guess you could say articles, but long form statements about how I felt, and someone was like, you should consider writing. That was really good. And then it hit me one day, I was like, This is my book idea. You know, so initially, the idea was just write about race, and, you know, my feelings on race and all these different things. But
Ken LaCorte:but you turn that around, because you wrote about you. Well,
Adam B. Coleman:yeah, I and you know what, actually, it came from another writer, because I sent her some very early things that I wrote. And she said, It's good. But she said the problem with guys like you, you know, conservative libertarian ish, guys, is that your to matter of fact, you're too, you know, analytical. She said, women read books, too. And you should add some emotion to it. And I said, That's a good point. All right. And so from there, I was like, I think there's opportunity to kind of use my story. And that's when it kind of evolved into a bigger premise. And it was some months later, where one day hit me, I said, I knew exactly how am I booked to look. And that's how it turned out. So, you know, it's racist at the surface level, but it's much deeper talking about family, the importance of fathers. You know, even some, some aspects of God and morality, not too heavy on it or anything like that. I didn't want it to be a political book, I actually didn't want it to be like, this is a black conservative book, right? Is, is not very political whatsoever. Anybody can read it. I just wanted it to be a very matter of fact, open honest type of book very revealing. So people learn understand my childhood and what I went through, and why I look at the world the way I look at the world. And, and even in the introduction, I talked about bad faith, and the introduction of the book, I said, if at any point, you feel that I have any hatred, or animosity towards anybody, then stop reading the book. So I'm establishing good faith before you even get dive into the points because I'm going to talk about some things that you're not supposed to talk about. And I'm criticizing because I care, not because I hate.
Ken LaCorte:You know, one of the more interesting things I found out about you is was you got read pilled a bit will save a few years back, but you did it with at what but what are and for those who don't understand, well, we can describe what it is later. But you did it without the anger and asshole lessness that so often come along with being read pilled that, actually, I mean that now did. Did you go through that anger phase? And go ahead?
Adam B. Coleman:Yeah, um, actually, it wasn't so much because of the red pill. But it was the anger that I had, of being frustrated that I wasn't able to express myself. So when when I started writing the book, you know, I was just, I was just writing how I felt, you know, she said, I had some emotion, I was adding motion. And so, you know, I would say like, I can't believe like, people are so gullible. You know, I was just, I was saying things like that very, very inflammatory things. And then, as time went on, the more research and the more I thought about it, I was like, Well, yeah, I get it. Right. Like, if I'm talking about the media, doing all these different things, and placing these narratives and tricking people and trying to do this, I get why certain people feel this way. I get why people see the world in this in this particular vision. Do I agree with that? No, but I get it. And so I'm kind of like empathetic to that.
Ken LaCorte:And so you have to understand it, if you want to try to affect it at all.
Adam B. Coleman:Exactly. So you know, after it was interesting, because it was about like three or four months in of writing. I really, for one, my writing style got better. My voice got clearer. And then I went back and read my original stuff. And I said, Oh, no, I can't. I can't, I can't continue, continue with this. So I actually had to rewrite. So it took me longer, but I had to rewrite everything that I wrote, from the very beginning to the tone of my real tone. This is how I really speak. This is my real tone. I'm not an angry person. I'm a pretty understanding and empathetic person. And I had to get rid of that anger, and actually have it come through in the book. So that's why I've had so many people come to me and say, your book got me through certain moments, your book was like you putting your arm around my shoulder and telling me truth. Right, but you said it with love. You said it with care. And I'm so glad when people say that, because that's actually what I wanted to come through. And I'm really glad that I spent that extra time to put it in my real voice and how I really wanted it to sound.
Ken LaCorte:That's interesting, because in both sides, I think Miss that in their political debates, it's like, you know, transgender is obviously not a top issue. It's like, I can both have love towards them and want nothing but the best for for someone like that in the world. Without saying what you're asking for is what you should get or that I have to change my whether it's the way I look at the world, whether it's how I speak or, or or allow you to push this ideology that I think is harmful to you and to others. You know, that's a tricky thing to do. And it's and you know, when I see somebody saying something just completely stupid, I always ask myself, are they are they dumb? Are they evil? Right? In other words, and that's that's a nasty way of saying Are they misinformed and they're a good person and they just don't understand everything, or do they do they know The truth is and they're spinning it so that they can they can achieve their goals 95% of the time, it's the former somebody who's just like, You know what, they've, they've swum in the media sea. And they've, they've, it's understandable for people to come to a lot of these a lot of these wrong conclusions, when you just turn on channel two news at night, and sometimes listen to the things they say, and you're like, oh, that ain't true. But but it seeps into people. But God, I wish we could do more of that. It's like, the concept that so much of America thinks that the other side is, uh, is just bad. And, and so I live in San Francisco area, right? So it's like, you know, and I'm conservative up here. But I never get into yelling matches with people or I'm part of that's just my style. I just, you know, it's okay. If I'm right, and you're wrong, I'm not gonna, you know, I'm not gonna lose any sleep over that tonight. But, but I found that when you and part of it was so so I go to Burning Man every year, right? I've done that for like five or six years. Very, very, and I got into this camp, that was a very, you know, it's kind of Camp oriented, we had maybe 4040 people. And they were a bunch, they are a largely a group of, of Bay Area, probably 85% liberal. But very, very cool people. And we didn't really talk politics much, or really, at all kind of it was kind of like, just leave, leave that at the gates. But then when I would later try to do that, it's like, so here's this person who I know thinks diametrically opposite from me on on anything you could vote on for the most part. But I love this person I've we've had, we've hung out for weeks now and sometimes years. And, and when you can get into that mindset of a political discussion, and you just really trying to not even convince somebody but saying, like, here's what I believe, here's what you may not have heard. And the biggest compliment to me is when I have a political discussion with somebody in the Bay Area, and they said, You know, I've never heard that before. I mean, I started one conversation at a party where there was a school shooting, and the guy was like, I don't understand why anybody in America should be able to hold on a gun. And, you know, we talked a little bit about history about about, you know, about how people die over the course of 1000s of years and hundreds of years, you know, back then I could say, Do you really want Donald Trump to own every gun? Control every gun in America and for the first time, you know, Democrats could see the concept of a totalitarian right, which was, you know, Republicans always see a totalitarian left. And to me, that's the, you know, when somebody ends a conversation, I don't even care if I but if I change their mind, but when they say, You made me think about something I hadn't ever heard it phrased that way and got it. That's it's tough. I can do that. Still today more easily in person than I can through various mediums. I mean, I've never read a book. And I tried to start a new I was at Fox for 20 years, I tried to start a news thing where it could be in the normal, the middle. It doesn't get shared, it doesn't get picked up the whole media ecosphere is it's really, really tricky and difficult to say something nuanced that can appeal to a broad spectrum of people. But if you say Trump is great, or he's a poopoo head, you know, you're cashing the checks, because because that's the stuff that gets shared, which is just something we got to deal with, I guess.
Adam B. Coleman:You know, it's interesting, because, in general, I think you're right. I think that polarization sells. However, I had, I have a publicist friends who asked me when she she started helping me in, you know, last year, she said, What do you want your image to be? And it was a question I never really thought about because I just wanted to write a book and see if people want to hear what I had at the thing. But what do you want your image to be? And so one of the things I want people to see me as the voice of the silent majority, the voice of the middle? Because that's, that's who I am. I'm not pretending to be a middle. This is actually who I am. And I try to be nuanced, and I try to be values oriented. Partly because that's how most people who are in the middle are right, I talk about swing voters because we don't talk enough about swing voters we pretend like these people don't exist. What is the base one right for either side? And I'm like, but you guys win or lose because the swing voters for the independents. I talk about the a political people because I know these people like they don't really care about politics getting them to vote is like pulling a leg they just don't care. And you know, I there's a guy that I work with, I can off the bat I know he does does not care at all about politics whatsoever. And that that's his right that this is these people exist. So like, there's so many people who are not being spoken for. And I'm just I'm partly speaking for the like, I'm speaking for myself. But in many ways, I'm speaking for these people as well. I'm speaking for the people who have switched from Democrat to Republican or Democrat to independent, or even in some cases, Republican to independent, right. I'm speaking for a lot of these people who are in the middle because no one's really speaking, or saying the things that they want to say. And sometimes I'm going to say things probably more than 50% of times, I'm going to say things that are conservative minded, right leaning, because, yeah, in today's day and age, not wanting to mutilate children is conservative. You know, that's just here comes the Hey, yeah, just this is like, this is the shift. That's where we're at. But I'm making sense, right? And you may not someone may not agree with my assessment, but they can at least say like, alright, well, he thought this way through someone today, because I did a, an interview on a on a podcast. And I said that most progressives are white supremacist, and I explained why I said what I said, you know, because they're constantly painting black people as being inferior, incapable, or just waiting for the good graces of the government of white people. Like, to me, that's what a white supremacist would be, right to hold themselves above black people. And they said, Oh, you're just using that,
Ken LaCorte:you know, for twisting that phrase to? Yeah,
Adam B. Coleman:for rhetorical. You know, to get people's attention. And to know, like, I said that, because that's what I believe. If you asked me a couple years ago, I wouldn't have said that, but I've been watching in an understanding and listening. That's my conclusion. If you were to ask me four years ago, or white supremacist problem, I said, No. But I actually do think that white supremacy is a problem. The problem is that there progresses problems that they're far left progresses, and they have so much say, and so much control in our society. That's why I call them white supremacist, because by my definition of seeing themselves superior to black people, and acting as their, but, you know, people need their benevolent, and all these different things like what we're hearing. Right? Right. So to me, that's almost like
Ken LaCorte:a benevolent, white surprise, I mean, because they actually I think, are coming at those issues, not trying to be nasty, but possibly achieving the same thing. I mean, you know, I look at like, like, the more things that are that are separating races at at colleges, we now have, you know, we always had like, a black club or a student group or whatnot. And but it's like now it's black dorms and, and safe spaces over here and different graduations. And I wrote a piece, it's like, the K K. K is winning. It's just like, this concept of we're all going to be on our little boxes is actually what what the kind of really, over the top racial shitheads were pushing for 50 years ago, or however, however far back you, you look through humanity. So the title of the of the podcast, and I listened to a big chunk of it, but I didn't get right into the depths of that the one that you just recently did on trigonometry. What did they hang on? Black people don't need saving. Give me the essence of what you meant by that.
Adam B. Coleman:I look at moments like, we always talk about the Jim Crow South as being the government oppressing black Americans, government forcing black Americans, white Americans to live separately. And I look at something like that. And I also realized that even during that time, there was Black Wall Street. Even during that time, there were families that were intact. Even during a time of governmental oppression, you had so many things that you could actually say were relatively positive, that existed. You had arts, music, all these different things that stemmed from the Jim Crow South, over oppression towards people, yet they still kept going. And I'm thinking to myself, why do we now think that black people need saving? Right? Were the descendants of these people. Yet now suddenly, when Jim Crow was lifted, when the overt government oppression is lifted, we have all these things that have changed in our society, free society. We don't need green book anymore. I don't need to be worried about traveling to certain parts of the country. I can move about my life as I want and I've and I've, unlike most people, I've lived in multiple states, right? I've lived in rural I've lived in urban In semi urban suburban, right? I've lived in all these different places, the Northeast and the South. Yeah, yeah, the Northeast in the south. And I was born in the Midwest. So I've lived in all these different places, and I visited all these different places, you know, what people are people? we've progressed so far. And I've been treated overwhelmingly. Well, right, the amount of times that I've had some sort of negative interaction, where I'm certain it's because of my race, or felt uncomfortable with the implication was because of my race, our I could probably count on one hand, right. And to me that success, that's overwhelming is overwhelming success. So now tell me why I need saving.
Ken LaCorte:So let me play just a little bit of devil's advocate here. Sure. So the typical white liberal or conservative will look at like, like, I mean, I got a handful, a small handful of black friends. And they all went to good college, you know, they all kind of think they have very similar values to what I have. Then I look at the numbers in the black community. And it's, and there's just like, a lot of bad numbers, right. And whether it's single motherhood, whether it's the murder rates, which you opened up with in your book, which I've told the black politicians before, who were like stunned that those numbers existed. You had some numbers. And another thing too. When I look at at poverty, I mean, when you when you kind of like numerically look at black America versus America, there's still there's still a disparity, and people are like, Alright, how do we help fix that? I see I see a hungry kid, I'll give $5 to the to the feed hungry kid fund, I see cancer, I'll do that. You got people who say, all right, there's, there's a section of America who hasn't achieved the same goodness in America that that that that most of us have? How does a white whether liberal or conservative? How should they think about that? If it's like, that's, that's what a lot of that's coming from is they're like, Man, I'm glad I wasn't born in a black neighborhood, or I'd be more likely to have these negative things going on. And so, and I don't want to call it guilt, because I've never felt, I don't even feel guilty about the shit I've done, let alone the stuff I haven't. So I don't know, how does, how should they deal with it?
Adam B. Coleman:I look at it as we've taken the approach to interfere in black Americans lives to fix their problems. It has backfired. So my thinking is, if going all in and trying to fix their problems didn't work, then the opposite is probably the solution. Stay out of their way. I've gone to and listen, I like I understand if you are white conservative, if you're white liberal, and you live in the suburbs, and you've had a good upbringing and good things around you happy life and you know, across the tracks, it looks like hell is going on over there. And you know that people are caught up in a situation and you're like, How can I help? Sometimes helping actually hurts. And a lot of times, helping actually hurts, right? Because then people become dependent. And in sometimes you have to fail and have no other option. So you can start doing for yourself. And so I've told this to white conservatives who asked questions like what can I do to help they genuinely care? And I say do nothing? Do nothing
Ken LaCorte:easy, man. I'm in a very, very good point. And a lot of it is because you know, was it Reagan? I think who was the worst? Worst thing that any businessman wants to hear is we're from the government and we're here to help. And and you know, when I look at, and I think I got this through Thomas Sol, what do you look at, at at Black nuclear family rates before and after Johnson's Great Society. It's like, oh, so maybe funding, the ability to be a single mom could have a negative effect. You know, and harshly, harshly harm millions of people down the road, when you were just trying to help. And that's, that's a tough reality to face. And to think about.
Adam B. Coleman:And actually, I'll throw one thing in here. So I've had a conversation with with people who who work within politics. Similar type of question like, What can we do within government to help? And so my suggestion is always you do not go into a neighborhood to help black people. Right? You go into that neighborhood because they're citizens of the United States. There are citizens of this particular area and you have jurisdiction to help and treat them equally like everybody, everybody else. So if you see that funding is lacking in This particular thing, then you provide funding, because that's what you would do anywhere else. Right? If they happen to be black, Hispanic or whatever. That's what happens. But that's why I'm a big fan of local politics, and in approaching urban areas with a local policy mindset, and that's what my disappointment for Republicans, is. They've basically washed their hands in many urban areas, and then wonder why every every four years they lose Philadelphia. And, and, and Pittsburgh, right, even though the rest of Pennsylvania is red, right? Like, they always wonder that is because you've basically given up in these particular areas there, you can't tell me that there aren't areas of improvement in Philadelphia, why aren't Republicans attempting to do something? Why are Republicans attempting to have some sort of solution to help in these particular areas? They're not even trying. And I understand why you
Ken LaCorte:just said to leave him alone?
Adam B. Coleman:Well, I'm saying I'm saying leave them alone, as far as interjecting in their lives directly. But if you see that there's a lack of funding for police. And let's say, I'm a governor, right. And I see that throughout the rest of my state, everything is fine. But there is a lack of funding in a particular area, and I feel that the state can help to provide funding for something very particular. Right? This isn't me giving out welfare checks, bring them up, where everybody else is up.
Ken LaCorte:How often is that? Do you think, a substantive issue of less funding of certain things in certain areas? Is that Is that true? I mean, like I know, like, in California, that it kind of goes the opposite way in the school districts, schools that are underperforming, get more money. So it's like, okay, well, that's a good thing, because we want to help them on the other hand, it's kind of a perverse incentive. I mean, we had that for years with here with, with teaching kids to speak English. If they taught a kid English, they had a they get low at less money from the state because they got more money for kids who didn't speak English. Don't Hispanic kids who didn't speak English at home? So so sometimes is, so I don't Yeah, I'm not sure I don't I don't study all the numbers on what happens and things like that. But it's,
Adam B. Coleman:I'm saying adding funding as in like, I'm just being very, whatever it might be, I mean, very generic. Right. And you're absolutely right. There are there are plenty of times that funding is the problem. And I wish we actually started admitting that for a lot of different situations, especially for education. There's so many different areas where we look, they get more money per pupil, than any other place within your state. The perfect example, probably just like, the perfect example is Detroit. Detroit gets more money per pupil, yet gets the worst results among any district in the country, not even in the state. Why is that the case? Oh, because there's corruption, this mismanagement, there's all these different things that happen within that in that city. And I'm not seeing someone from a political standpoint, coming in there to do something about it in a consistent way to interject to prosecute people, right. I'm sure there's plenty of people that can be prosecuted for embezzlement for mismanagement, mismanagement of funds, you name it. Because there's that much corruption that's happened, actually, it has happened where they prosecuted people in, in Detroit. So, you know, there are those governmental aspects that government can interject on a city level, because it's their duty to do so. It's their duty to, to basically support. No, I don't always do support to serve the public. Right. But outside of that, outside of infrastructure, and environment, the government should not be in people's homes. And and I that's the that's the area where I'm saying stay out of their business. Do not start saying, well, we need to give them money. We need to give them this. We need to put this into their homes. No, do not do not go that route. Right. Yeah,
Ken LaCorte:I see another another kind of interesting fact to put or concept to put over that is the element of well, how are these groups doing over time? I read a book that just kind of blew me away. It wasn't about America, it was about it was about poverty in the world, like like poverty, poverty, like I can't afford this cup all year poverty. And it was written by a guy he's passed away now Hans Hans Rosling, he was a Sweden, Finland, one of the one of those countries and he was a doctor from there and he was looking at, at basically poverty rates and child death rates around the world. But he looked at them over time. And so like, you know, he spent a lot of I'm living in Africa and in South America, and in places where some people were just like, This place sucks, it's gonna suck when you're dead. It's, you know, it's, you know, we hear, you know, kids are dying of something that could easily be fixed with a 10 cent tablet, it's like, well, how do you do that? And it's, of course, the answers are well, you know, the mom has to be able to read and understand that you have to have, I mean, it's not just a tablet, it's a whole structure that was that, that is that is behind the curve on it. But then when he started showing these numbers in, in over, over past 100 years, it was a wonderful story, because what you saw was, you know, the whole worlds kind of moving from where we were apes hitting each other with sticks, and, and fist and, you know, murdering each other just for fun, to a civilized world where kids are taken care of, or you have hospitals. And he was showing how like, yes, certain places in Sub Saharan Africa are as good a terrible now compared to us, compared to the first world. And maybe that's not the best phrase on it. But he was like, you know, it's the same as what they were in Germany 50 years ago. In other words, and the reason why I bring this up is, is there was a New York Times story, and this was pre COVID. And it was talking about a black life rates versus versus whites. And if you just look at it at initial, you're like, X years, whatever it is. But when you looked at out over the past 100 years, it was very wide and kind of doing this over time as as people got better access to health care, as they got better education and all that. So it's kind of like, looking at any group or at any problem in life, you kind of say, well, I see where we are right now. But when you look at, I think both for economics for education for maybe not recently, with a crime stats on it, it's like a lot of the groups in America are getting a hell of a lot better than they were just when you and I were born. And it's like, it's, that's a reason to be optimistic that it's moving in the right direction. Sometimes. I don't absolutely. I don't know if I explained that right. But it exists inside of my head. You did.
Adam B. Coleman:And actually, that makes me think about something that is a little bit of a pet peeve. But it's the strong association where black equals poor, when the majority of black Americans are middle class, right. And it's, it's this image, like I understand it to a degree, because it's so stark when you see it. But the reality is, is that most of us are actually doing pretty well.
Ken LaCorte:Has, is that a more recent phenomenon than less? Or is that just something that's always been there, and we've always focused in the media and in the mallu on something else. Because I remember when I was 20 years old, I was going to LAX. And I was like two hours early, and I stopped. And it was the first time that I'd ever there's a an upper class black community, relatively, I forget which I forget what it was. But I was kind of blown away, I'd never seen that every time I'd driven through a black neighborhood. It was always poor. And and and, you know, was very different. And that was the first time that I'd ever seen that. And it kind of so I'd be interested to know is that are Blacks been moving into the middle class more recently? Or is did that always exist? And we just don't write about it, because that's not where we're the bad things are happening.
Adam B. Coleman:I'd be lying if I could tell you like his historical context, even like in the past 50 years. But one thing, so I'll give you some numbers that I think are significant as to why we might see certain things in a particular way. So Black Americans are about 13% of the population. Right? So very small. Despite how many commercials you might see, we're like half the commercials, but we're very small demographic, from that 13% 60% of black Americans live in 10 states.
Ken LaCorte:And within those states, mainly the southern belt.
Adam B. Coleman:Actually, the states you can probably pick out because of the cities. Right? Okay. So, Chicago, Illinois, New Orleans, Louisiana, right? So it's not even necessarily region. It's cities. It's urban areas. So about 60% basically live in or surrounding, in, I'm sorry, in all around us, a surrounding urban area. Alright, so Atlanta for Georgia, either living within Atlanta or the surrounding area of Atlanta. That's where majority of the black Americans you're going to see. But outside of that we're scattered all over the country and So that's why, like, how you might imagine something like, for example, you saying, Los Angeles, Los Angeles is one of those places where there's a pretty good concentration of black Americans that live there. Watson and, you know, you know, South Central and stuff like that. So you might see them in that particular area. And you say, Well, my association is the black community is, is just like this area. And it's poor. And it's this, right? Why? Because it's a highly populated area, more people live there, more eyeballs are saying, like, don't go in that area, it's majority black, and it's incredibly poor as a lot of crime. But outside of those 10, those 10 states, were scattered all over the place. So, you know, it's, I understand why we have the image, it's because we're highly visible within big cities.
Ken LaCorte:Okay, so you're, you're moving forward as kind of a black conservative, but you're, I'd say, you're a little bit 80% conservative, if I had to just pick a silly number out of there. I mean, you're not. You're not like a Candace Owens out there. Who's decided i Right. And, and I tell you about white conservatives, love black conservatives. It's just like it because it's kind of like, See, I told you, we're not racist. And we actually have interesting ideas. And so does that kind of as you're thinking of your image kind of moving forward? You know, you got another book coming out on you, you're thinking on Savior ism. Is that your is that? Does that I don't how do I? How do I say it? Are there? Are there forces that pull you into being like the hardcore conservative? Because? Because that might be more of an easier path to be successful in? Then, kind of the atom way that you've got moving forward? Or is it just like, you know, what, I'm rolling my, my boat in the direction I want. And whatever happens, you know, that that's the best path? Obviously, that's the best path for you. I'm just wondering if, if, if it tries to pull you over? If that makes kind of sense.
Adam B. Coleman:To be honest with you, No, I haven't really had people try to make me say things that I didn't want to say or pull me in a particular direction. Even writing for different publications. At I will say this, there may be there are times where it's like, the rhetoric wouldn't be my voice. So then I have to, you know, maybe argue with with someone to like, tone it down to make it sound a little bit more. But I understand they're trying to sell stuff. But I would say for the most part, that's not what ends up happening. The vast majority of the editors that I deal with, let me have my voice, the changes that they make, are very minimal. Because they like what I have to say they like, which is
Ken LaCorte:why they came here, right? Right. Now, when you write on substack, do you have an editor as well? Who goes over that stuff? Or how do you saw me? Right? You read it again, the next day, just to see how you sounded? Or because sometimes I find myself if like, anytime I just hit send, sometimes I get nervous when I do that, because if I read it the next day, I'm like, Oh, that sounded kind of stupid, or how do you how do you how do you how do you do that, or you just don't need to,
Adam B. Coleman:you know, it's funny. I call writing my writing my book like a cheat. Right? It's been, it's been like a crash course, of I can't even talk Crash Course, a crash course, to writing. Because I did it every single day. I did it for about an hour to hour and a half. And I was able to do something that most people have a hard time doing, who don't write a book, which is finding their voice. And so you start to discover how you approach things, how you say things, you know, what's your writing, voice sound, the tone, you know, you discover all these things. And I did that basically for nine months. And I came out of it, knowing exactly who I am knowing exactly how I want to say things has gotten even better. Yeah, because I've been writing more. But I'm a lot farther than a lot of people who may just start to write an article here or write an article there. And it's a lot, it's a lot harder for them to start from nothing, right. So that and I basically, you know, I was just a regular guy, not in the public eye and I was able to discover my voice. So I guess I say that because when I write like for example, most of the articles that you read on substack I wrote in an hour, hour and a half. You said
Ken LaCorte:and you and that's not a hard process. It comes it comes Like, like when you would do in your hour a day was that like, Man, I got to do this and I sat down and I stare at the screen or was it just kind of came out here pretty quickly,
Adam B. Coleman:I would say 90% of the time, I was able to put something out there. Even Even then, an hour to an hour and a half, I would do like in a Word document, a page page, I'm sorry, a page and a half to two pages, right? That was usually the goal. And then I'll be done for the day, and then continue the next day. So I actually I write pretty fast because I know my voice, right? It's just a matter of coming up with concepts and ideas and what I want to talk about. But I actually have a really fast turnaround most of the time with the New York Post. There's been plenty of times where they say, Can you write an article about this? Sure, when you need it by 430. And it's 12. Right? And I give it to him by three. So
Ken LaCorte:my issue is that for 20 ish years at Fox, I was mainly an editor, right I was getting somebody's script I was I was concepts wrong, the words wrong and and so then when you start writing on your own, and you're writing voices here, and your editor voices there, it can get a little tricky, because it's like, you know, I'd write the same sentence seven times, if that's not the right word and the source at the center. So that and and, you know, sometimes if I just have like one shot of Jack Daniels, that was easier. And then by the time I was I was not buzzed any more than I could edit it up. And that worked fine. But I admire you that you can knock out that stuff. Because it's well written, you gotta you gotta voice on that. And it's, and it's, ya know, it's good stuff, you're gonna be very successful.
Adam B. Coleman:So thank you. The one thing I always wanted to do was just express myself, I wanted to be my voice. I actually try not to read other people's writings because I don't want to absorb something. Or their arguments. There have been times like, I'll like accidentally watch Tucker Carlson. I was like, Oh, snap, he makes a good point on that.
Ken LaCorte:I can't use I can't steal it. You're allowed to Yeah, you're allowed to synthesize right? Isn't that what? But well, then how do you come down to the ideas, if you're not getting some things from some other smart people out there? It's all from inside?
Adam B. Coleman:I would say the the vast majority, or even if it's like, let's say it's something that can't really be dissected to an nth degree, but I want to say it in my own way. Right, right. You know, I want to find my own approach. But oftentimes, I'm outside the box person, the thing that everybody's talking about, I want to talk about the thing that they're not talking about, that's associated with the same topic. And so I think that's what makes it interesting. And so that's, that's, that's generally how I see it. And part of the reason is, because I'm highly interested in human behavior, psychology. And so like, I like to sit back and watch, I want to watch people's reactions. I want to watch what they're saying,
Ken LaCorte:well, your your curiosity comes through in your writing. And yeah, and that's the first, you know, you need to be curious to want to know what, what the issues are, what people are thinking how to and that's such a fundamental aspect to understanding life is first trying, you know, asking questions, as opposed to thinking that you've got all the answers first.
Adam B. Coleman:Oh, yeah. Oh, yeah. And that's, listen, I've been absolutely wrong. And the years past, right, so there's no point going to be like, Oh, I'm absolutely right now, you know, but I have to be curious. And I have to think through things. And I have to wonder certain things, and as, as particular questions, or highlight things that people aren't highlighting. And I think I always go back to one guy, his name is James, who follows me. I talked to him on the phone one time, he said, you know, Why follow you? Because you're normal. I'm a normal guy, who just like, hey, I'm just looking at politics. I'm just trying to examine what's going on around me. I'm not trying to be this arbiter of I'm right, you're wrong. I'm just saying this doesn't make sense. To me. This makes sense to me. And how does this match up with my values? I'm just trying to express myself. So every article that you'll ever see me right is is a form of expression for me and that dictation? That's great.
Ken LaCorte:All right, dude. Well, look, it's getting late. I hope to chat with you again. Again, your writings great and, and this has been this has been a fun talk.
Adam B. Coleman:Thank you. I had a great time as well. Thank you.
