Ep.74 Cultural Commentary w/ Morgonn McMichael

Dive headfirst into the culture wars, breaking down the biggest issues shaping society today- from feminism and indoctrination to conservative values and American traditions. Programming Lions hears her bold take on hot button issues.

Links:

IG: https://www.instagram.com/morgonn/

YT: https://www.youtube.com/c/MorgonnMcMichael

X: https://x.com/morgonnm?s=21&t=05i67B-_Si9xoNRuRSq3bA

Rumble: https://rumble.com/c/Morgonn

TIMELINE

00:00 Intro

01:02 Engineering

04:16 Indoctrination

08:43 Attack on nuclear family

11:07 Gen Z worries

13:16 Planting seeds

16:16 Influencer advice

18:38 Ideal woman

Transcript

0:05

Welcome to the Programming Lions podcast, Morgan McMichael is with us, a Gen Z speaker, writer, social media commentator who inspires young conservatives with her viral content and cultural commentary, a Silicon Valley native and former mechanical engineering student who also served as our VP of the Turning Point chapter before leaving college and taking on the culture wars. Speaking on feminism, cancel culture, free speech, and conservative values, Morgan reaches millions through her articles, Fox news, Newsmax appearances, and multiple campus talks. So we are going to get right into it. Yeah.

Morgan-Matt-webcam-00h_00m_00s_306ms-StreamYard: 0:49

McMichael has joined the Programming Alliance podcast. Thanks for coming on. Morgan is a Turning Point USA contributor. And so we're going to get into a few topics with her today. Boys, what kind of questions do you have for Morgan? Hit me with the hard ones. Okay, so I heard that you went to school for mechanical engineering. So I'm wondering, what was your passion before you started to do commentating? So, that's a really good question, because you don't see a lot of girls, first of all, in engineering, and then also you don't see a lot of girls in engineering drop out of college. So, actually, I'm gonna flash back to 2016. I was a 16 year old girl in high school, and I was doing competitive robotics, so I fell in love with the engineering world. I've always admired Elon Musk, which we all know now is like a free speech warrior. Thank goodness for him. But In 2016, there was a very pivotal election going on, and that is when I saw cancel culture for the first time. Being a high school student and being told that I was graded down on my papers for using Fox News, I had my government teacher in high school tell me that I had to debate for the Second Amendment against my entire class because they were not for the Second Amendment and not for owning firearms, which is crazy, right? And this was in California, so maybe like a little less crazy. But, you know, it was one of those things at a very young age, I was very aware of what was going on in the school system, but that was how I became passionate about engineering. So when I went to college, studied engineering and then also had been passionate a little bit about politics, because I was exposed to that cancel culture, but I had not found turning point until I was in college. That is when I realize that college kinda is a scam, I will say, not everyone should drop out of college, I do think that college is a scam. still important for degrees like STEM fields, like doctors, like there are still some degrees that are valuable in college but that's when I went to college and I loved engineering more than anything. But during the pandemic, during COVID, when you're trying to do an engineering degree online, you're not really learning a whole lot when you're having to do labs and you can't actually go into a machine shop anymore. So COVID was horrible. That's why I ended up dropping out of college to work for Turning Point USA. Yeah. Wow, that's pretty interesting. Wow, do you guys know anybody else who studied mechanical engineering? You. Oh yes. You did? He's a mechanical engineer, yeah. That's pretty cool. Worked in that field pretty much for, yeah, 25 years. And I do think that there is like I said, like I don't think dropping out of college is for everyone I do think there is a lot of validity there Especially for engineers and I do think like I actually talked to an engineer today who was like, you know I'm thinking about working in politics and I was like listen, we also need a conservative engineers. Yes. We need conservative doctors. We need conservative Lawyers. We can't have everyone be a podcaster, you know, all the time, or commentator, or a social media influencer. Is we need those conservative voices to infiltrate every single faction. It is important because design, even technical design, drifts into everything in terms of the customer experience and what they use and how they use it. And I found that in, you know, in my jobs. Our ideologies would drift into how we felt design should work and function and everything. So, it is important. Engineering is a great field. It teaches a lot of problem solving. So I imagine you use that today in everything that you do, just like, how to, yeah, how to unwind issues that you run into. So, very cool. This kind of leads into indoctrination in the schools. And so, what's your experience? You tour, you do a lot of commentating, and what's your experience with indoctrination in the school systems? I see a lot of what Turning Point does with our professor watch list. I don't know if you guys have seen this, you know, we expose these college and high school professors, or, I guess, college professors, high school teachers, on a weekly basis. And I go to these college campuses, and the one thing I notice with my generation, Gen Z, is that there is a craving for the truth. There is a craving for the alternative narrative than what is being shown in the classrooms. You know, when Charlie Kirk and I show up on a college campus and we have 3, 000 students gathered at Penn State. That is monumental. And this is every single school that we visited. 25 chapters. This past semester, all swing states, and we saw how the margin shifted with this election, which is awesome. You know, but Gen Z is not this generation that is just asleep, that is just consistently on TikTok, who is uninformed. I actually think that Gen Z was heavily underestimated because when you actually look at 81 percent of Gen Z, get their information on the internet, starting with YouTube and then after that is TikTok. So that just shows how much more necessary it is. For us, to continue to create content that is truthful and combat against, you know, the cultural narrative. And we have to continue to push in and shape the culture, because if we win the culture, we can win everything. And I think that that's what really changed with this election cycle that we've been going through. I see the indoctrination happening first hand on these college campuses, where Kids are forced to take LGBTQ education classes, they have to take what is a woman class because apparently men can be women these days, which we all know isn't true. And it's really, no, fake. They're fake. So it's just like, you know. These kids are fed up with being lied to every single day by these institutions that are making, it's a billion dollar industry every single year. Why are they paying thousands of dollars to go to these indoctrination centers to get a piece of paper that ultimately is meaningless? Speaking of indoctrination, you boys have some experience in, in feedback about indoctrination. Yeah, let's do it. What about our trolls? Huh? You guys have some haters? Oh, yeah. Oh, do we? Oh my gosh. I've been called Hitler like ten times. What? Yeah, they called for abortion ads on me and my dad. One person actually said that if, that if there is no law against murder, these kids would be dead by tomorrow morning. That's so sad. People are calling on Luigi. Yeah, yeah, they want Luigi to visit us. But besides all those gross, vile people, what's another common theme that we get? That we're stupid? No. Oh, indoctrination. Yeah. Yeah, you get indoctrination. We get that a lot. And it's interesting, because, a lot of people say we're indoctrinating our children by teaching them, let's say, traditional values and being together as a family, being a present parent. Crazy, isn't it? Sorry, sorry, I'm trying to be a good dad. I'm sure I make mistakes, but Sorry, I don't want the government to parent my children. Yeah, that's usually what I'll respond, like if somebody says something, once in a while I'll respond, well, your suggestion is that I let the state raise my child? Right. Do you think that the Department of Education has your children's best interest at heart? Absolutely not. Yeah. No. So I think what happens is when people see parents that are really engaged, the left is definitely against this because it's in opposition to their ability to indoctrinate future generations. And so I think they're seeing people stand up against this and go, wait a minute, the traditional education system's got a lot of flaws and I don't want my kids to fall into that vortex. And so The encounter cultural is cool. And I actually saw someone tweet, like, I can't believe that people want to get rid of the Department of Education. You know, reading and math scores are in the tank. We need to uplift our kids. They have, we're getting fed horribly. And it's like, yeah, because of the Department of Education. If you look at when Carter put that in place, and all the test scores, that was sort of the tipping point. They are doing a disservice to the American people. And I think that it is in part Intentional is that they want to make the future of America dumber and sicker every single day And what better way to do that than to control the youth, and how are you gonna do that? Well when they're sitting in a classroom for eight hours a day We're going to daycare as young as two years old sometimes even sooner than that ripping them away from their parents Yeah, what is the best way to destabilize Western civilization attack the nuclear family? Yeah Yeah, yeah and demonize it inflation I think is, is intentional in a lot of ways because then they can force both parents in a household to work so that they're not home and then somebody else gets to raise the children. Did you guys know, this might be a new one for you, did you guys know that when women entered the workforce, it became impossible, nearly impossible, for you to raise a family on just one income. Because, all of a sudden, women were making just as much money as men, where they were combining household incomes, and that became the new normal. So now, it's even more difficult for dads to go out and work, and for moms to be stay at home parents. Because the median income is now reliant on two incomes. And that was a lot of big work. Woah. But it's pretty crazy, you know? And that started way back when, even the housing market. You know, a lot of people say that they can't afford houses now. Why is that? Because they're reliant on two incomes instead of just one. So the entire market has inflated over the past couple of decades. Yeah. Yeah, it's sad. I'm Gen X, so I think in a lot of ways my generation and others have I say we like pulled up the ladder behind us a little bit. Yeah. And we allowed bad policies and inflation to happen. And it's really put Gen Z and Gen Alpha in a tough spot where the portion of, like, what a home would cost me as a multiple of my take home pay was, like, reasonable. Right. And it's, which was maybe two to three times. And now it's, like, eight times. So, or for these kids it's gonna be more. It's almost impossible to own a house if you're a Gen Z er right now and if you do not have money in the bank. Which is really scary. You know, that's, and that's one of the biggest issues I think that's facing Gen Z when I interview kids, is like, what is the biggest issue? They say inflation. They're worried about having money in the bank in the future. They're worried about wanting to own a house. It's like, hey, I want to have a family. I want to have a lot of kids. You know, I want to be a present mother and father in the household. But how am I going to do that if I have to work? Do Gen Z, do they want to own a home? Do they want to have a family? Or do they want to own nothing and be happy? Be happy. Like the World Economic Forum says. Yes, yes. You know, it's funny, I've actually been to the World Economic Forum. Economic Forum in Davos, which that was pretty crazy because you're surrounded by the globalist elite. Yes But you know when you talk to Gen Zers They do care about the economy because it's actually affecting them every single day Abortion isn't really affecting them every single day. You know, it's not like women are just getting abortions every single day all over the place I mean they are and they aren't but what is affecting them is when they go to the gas station and they see their tank Continuously costing hundreds of dollars. Yeah. Like that's a problem, you know, when you're going to the grocery store and you can't afford groceries anymore when you're a student and you're living off of ramen in your dorm room, and all of a sudden the price was starting to go up and so it's those economic issues that I think really shifted the culture. Mm-hmm Also talking about issues in a more fun, entertaining way, I think really helped shift the selection. Gen Z isn't completely lost. They aren't just a generation talking about abortion and hookup culture. Instead, they're being more counter cultural because they fear cancel culture. And I saw a stat that majority of Gen Z ers lied about who they voted for, fearing cancel culture because of what other people would say about them, which is really sad, and that's why I love working for Turning Point, because we are giving the voice back to my generation and y'all's generation. And so it's, it's really interesting when you meet with Gen Zers and they're like, No, I'm a, I'm a conservative, yes, I believe, I just, I'm too scared. And we have to continue to cancel, cancel culture. Like that is truly 25 percent of Gen Zers, that is what they were concerned about was cancel culture and the inflation. Inflation was another, I think 18 to 20, 20%. They cared more about inflation than these social issues. So as much as the left is going to talk about these more social issues instead of economic and fiscal issues they're trying to push a narrative that isn't real. Oh my gosh. I know. We have gone deep. We've gone deep. We have gone deep. You want to bring it up to a more shallow level, Max? What do you got? Yeah, Max, show me a, show me a softball here. If anybody's got a shallow question, it's you. What's your favorite thing to talk about? Football. Football. Hey, we love all American football. Have you ever helped sway someone's mind in rethinking their stance on an issue? Like, maybe you have best in, like, four shards. Ooh, this is a really good question. So, this is gonna be a funny story. I was in New York, and I was interviewing this man who came up to me and was shouting at me, telling me he was a woman. Oh. And then there was a woman next to me telling me that she was nonbinary. And that I was misgendering both of them. They were protesting an event that Charlie and I were at, and I asked them, I said, What makes you a woman? And he goes, It's a feeling. And I said, Oh, so all a woman is, is a feeling? So, I'm a man. And they're like, No, it doesn't work like that. And I said, Well, I feel like I'm a man. And then I was talking to them more, and, you know, outside of like the funny, like back and forth jabby moments, I was like, Listen, could you please Like, I sent them a research statistic and I said we're not going to agree on this, but can you at least look up the suicide rates in transgender individuals after transitioning? Yeah. Because I personally know detransitioners, you know, there's some phenomenal young women and men out there who have been just completely destroyed by the billion dollar industry. And so I highlight that story because One thing that I think is really important is seed planting. Is everyone who you talk to in your sphere of influence is somebody who can impact somebody else. And you can be the voice for that somebody, and that somebody can be the voice for another person. And so, it doesn't matter if they're right, if they're left, or if they're in the middle, if they agree with you, or if they disagree with you, every single conversation is worthy of having. And I truly believe that that is like the number one calling that we all have by using our voices. And I've had a lot of young people come up to me and be like, You know, Morgan, I just, I don't, I can't really be fully conservative. Like, I get the inflation thing, like, I'll vote this way, but I just don't know why. And then I'll be like, look, just do a little digging. Go down a rabbit hole and just think for yourself. The what is a woman question is the most funny one to highlight because of course we can talk about inflation, we can talk about taxes, how college is a scam, how taxation is theft, how socialism is horrible, how the world's economic reform and the globalists are going to take over in the future. But, we also have to talk about the funny ones. I just think it's funny when you just ask simple questions like what is a woman? What is a man? What is a woman? Can you tell me what a woman is? A woman is a female who can be, who can be pregnant and can basically have a child. And have XX chromosomes. Yeah. That's the easiest way to put it. Yeah. A woman has XX chromosomes. So, Morgan, you've been at this with Turning Point as a contributor for a few years, you I guess, did you lead the chapter while you were in college, too? I did, yes. And then, now that you're out doing contributor work, and you've got a social media brand, and you're growing, and you're influenced we are, on the early stages of our influencing journey and career, and any tips or advice on, you know, that you could share? Always post it, always talk about it, even if you think that, Oh, I don't know if this reel is going to do really well or go viral. Listen, this, somebody told me this and it's very valuable is it doesn't matter if it has 10 views, 10, 000 views, a million views or 10 million views, because what if that one view was someone like Charlie Kirk and he shares your video? Or what if those 10 views were all people who share your video, and then it turns into 20 40 views. So it doesn't matter about the view count. It matters about the content that you're putting out there, and talking about the truth, and doing it substantially. If you're doing that, then you're doing the right thing. And always post it, always talk about it. Because you never know who's minds, you may be seed planting and giving them a reason to continue to look forward and continue to go down the rabbit holes and do more research. I mean, that's why I do what I do with our students. And that's why I go to these high schools. I don't care if I'm speaking to a room of 5 kids, 50 kids, or 500 kids. Because what if those 5 kids in that one room that I got to pour into, they're the next change makers in the world. And so, when you're, you know, obviously social media, podcasting, like, we want all the views, and we want to be very impactful and influential. But, I think the most encouraging thing is that, if somebody told me that, is like, do not look at the numbers, because every single one of those numbers is a person, and that person is valuable. Yeah, that's great advice, you never know who you're going to impact. One more topic and then we can wrap. But I have, I have two young boys here. Okay. Now they are not at the age where they're dating or thinking about that too much yet. Nope, not yet. Girls have cooties. Yes, definitely. He's a good mom. He's nice. I'd like to hear, what would you look for in a future wife? First off, loyal. Loyal? Yes. Christian, because that's our, that's my religion. Probably a person who works out. Okay. Healthy. Yeah, healthy. Yeah, nice too. Okay. And then also beautiful. Wow. Wow. That's a good list. That sounds pretty good, Max. So, loyal, nice, fit. Conservative. Yeah, also conservative. Yeah. A nice conservative Christian woman. Wow. Hey, read Proverbs 31. Okay. Proverbs 31. is the kind of woman that you want to marry. In a sentence, women who embrace their natural femininity allow men to be masculine. Yeah. And I think that's something that we've lost in our culture right now is a lot of women are trying to compete with men instead of allowing men to be chivalrous and allowing men to be masculine and so the way that That women have this power is we embrace our natural femininity and do what the Bible tells us to do and Ephesians 5 About talking about wives and husbands I think is another good one when you're a little bit older of how to lead the household of Of what that looks like, you know the order of like you have we serve God and your husband is Sacrificially serving the Lord and loves you how Jesus loved his church, which He died for all of us so that we could live and so that's saying that husbands you need to love your wives Just in that same way and wives love your husbands in that way. And I think that's something very special So like you're I think you've got a good list if you can find a woman and I know you will that's conservative That's Christian first. She has to love Jesus first, and then have those same values of conservative values. Obviously, you have to be attracted to her. She has to be beautiful. Workout is a good one. You have to be nice. But I think that the number one thing is having the same morals and values, and if you both love Jesus, then it'll be smooth sailing from there. Yeah, that's a pretty good list, Max and Will. And yeah, I agree. I think masculinity is under attack. Feminism has had a role in that, but I also think guys men have had a big role in in that as well. Like, with feminism coming up, like, a lot of guys haven't been great guys, and so then that makes women hate men more. Well, that's because feminism told men that they were being discriminatory towards women. Yeah. Feminism has been weaponized against. And has been destructive to the nuclear family. Our birth rate is down. Our marriage rate is down. People are getting married and having kids way later than they should be. And we're actually not on track to replace the population that is contained. Right. Yeah, yeah. We're under replacement rates, which is, People are not having children at the same rate that people are dying every year, guys. Do you know that? To where, if we had, let's say in America, we had no immigration, right? No legal, no illegal immigration. We are on track to not being able to replace the people who are dying. Do you think that's partly because of abortions? Absolutely. Birth control too. But yeah, absolutely. Abortion's a big one. Sixty million babies have been lost ever since Roe v. Wade was put in, and what was that? Seventy three? I think I may have that wrong. It's like the population of England. But, I know, that's a lot of little kids. Wow. It's pretty sad, it's pretty sad. It's sad. But yeah, I think I'm fortunate to have a great partner, What a mother and a father, or a man and a woman bring to a relationship is unique, and they're both equally important. And so, yeah. Anyway, we're lucky we have that. But with that Women have superpowers and men have superpowers and we each uniquely have better qualities than the other at certain things We do not have to compete we compliment. That's right. That's right And there is no doubt about that. We, mom is like the glue that holds us together. We would be a mess. If she was not here, I, no, no, I, I don't think this whole thing would be here. No, no, we'd all be facedown in a gutter somewhere. Moms have even more superpowers. Yeah, she does a lot for us. But, at any rate, this was fun. Well, thanks for coming on. Yeah, thank you so much for coming on, and all the great work. We appreciate the work that you're doing, too influencing Gen Z. We're trying. We need Gen Z, and we need Gen Alpha to be really strong, and so we really appreciate what you're doing. And thanks so much for spending some time with us. so much.