Dan Crenshaw on the battles in Washington and Biden’s border crisis

Libby Emmons: You are against outrage culture, both on the right and the left and the importance of persuasion. What would you say to independent, conservative media as to how to engage readers with persuasion as opposed to outright sensationalism?

Rep. Dan Crenshaw: Good question. That's your problem, not mine. But, yeah, it does speak to a deeper problem. We like to blame the outrage specialists for a lot of this. But look, the reality is: they're just responding to incentives.

Because people—I know exactly what will make people click and "like" something—but I can post a real dry policy video, and I know what kind of engagement that will get. That makes it hard. Because a lot of Americans say they want just the middle of the road, just the news.

Okay, well, then watch it. But they don't. So look, it's hard. I'm not sure I have a great answer for you. I think of a good strategy for a news organization would be to do your best to fairly present both sides—if that's your goal—to fairly present both sides is sort of to argue with yourself on it. I think that would be a really interesting take that I haven't really seen from a news organization.

It's like you just pointed out, a difficult problem with how news media is supposed to survive.

Emmons: You also mentioned the difference between the pursuit of happiness and the pursuit of liberty and pleasure. In terms of what conservatism has to offer young people in the face of the left's moral relativist revolution? What, what does the left tell young people is meaningful, versus what actually is meaningful?

Crenshaw: Well, if you ask a leftist, they'll say that what you should be pursuing is the fight against injustice. That would be fine if there was a rational definition that they were using of the term injustice, but they don't use the definition of justice.

They don't mean: Person A infringing on the rights of Person B, that would be an injustice, they don't mean an infringement on due process, okay? They don't mean a bastardization of meritocracy, that would be an injustice, right? If you're better qualified than so and so. That would be injustice, in a really traditional sense. That's not what they mean, though. They mean outcomes are just different. And that's what makes it attractive, because everybody wants to fight against injustice. For a young person, that's very compelling.

The left is selling a false bill of goods there. Because they mean something totally different by injustice.

That's what they say they're providing, but they're not. I know what we need to be providing is a sense of meaning grounded in a moral framework based on the trials and tribulations of thousands of years of history, based on stability.

The moral framework associated with conservatism distinguishes it from libertarianism. That's what we're offering to people. It's a real sense of meaning, meaning that you control but the left is selling you some kind of service that others are in charge of, if you just vote for them. We're offering the ability to pursue it on your own, which is empowering.

Emmons: How is that different than the conservatism of the past that focused on lower taxes, small government?

Crenshaw: That's the outcome of the philosophy but the problem is, is we always just kind of settled on "okay, lower taxes, smaller government," but it's like why, right? And the "why" is because of empowerment. Those policies are the natural outcomes of that philosophy.

Emmons: You also were talking to students about how to approach conservative activism. Do you find that that's a tough sell for conservative youth who are typically trying to embark on more traditional lives and get families started?

Crenshaw: I don't judge anybody who doesn't want to go get super involved on their campus. I just wanted to go to parties, I wanted to be a SEAL, that's what I cared about.

Back when I was in school, even at a liberal university, I don't remember politics being on everybody's sleeve the way it is. So it's a different time. Politics is everywhere. Everybody has to have an opinion on everything, which is crazy, because you don't know anything, you're a teenager.

That's often my message, especially in high schools, "you don't know anything, that's okay." What's not okay is if you have a really strong opinion without knowing anything, without backing it up. Don't judge anybody who doesn't want to be involved, be involved the way you can be, and if you are going to get involved in activism, then focus on persuasion.

Emmons: What are the battles that you're fighting in Washington now that are different than they were under the previous administration?

Crenshaw: Well, it was a friendly administration before now, we have an unfriendly administration now. I think the hardest battle right now is the border. Every other agenda item has been divided, the Biden administration is having a hard time getting through the Senate, they don't have nearly enough control—thank God for our checks and balances—conservatives don't like them when we're in power, but we sure do like them when the other side is in power—But the borders are real problem. That's that that we feel helpless about.