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I was asked by a listener yesterday how I do what I do. And he wasn’t the first person to ask me this question. What he said was, “Hey, Joe, how do you do what you do? You go after Trump hard, you go after Republicans hard. But then you’re also traveling the country, putting people in rooms who disagree, and trying to help them learn how to understand each other. How does that work?”
I should mention that this listener is not where I am politically. He’s a Republican, not a huge MAGA guy, but a Trump voter. And, in a way, his question was a criticism. “It doesn’t make sense, Joe,” he said to me. “You’re preaching about tolerance and understanding, but then I look at you on Twitter and all the other social media platforms, and all you’re doing is saying the worst, most horrible things about Trump and your former party.”
His question was, how are those two things consistent? That’s what he was really asking me. It’s a question I’m asked often. It’s a question I ask myself often. In fact, I’ve even referred to it as my double life. I live a double life. I say that frequently. I’ve said it publicly.
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I’ll say this much: it’s not easy. In fact, it’s exhausting. I sometimes wish I were 20 years younger, because I literally do spend half of my time ripping Trump, ripping my former Republican colleagues in Congress, ripping my former conservative media colleagues. And, by the way, I also spend a good deal of time ripping my new party, ripping the excesses of the left, and trying to help Democrats get their fucking act together. I spend half of my time seemingly in political warfare every single day.
And then I spend the other half of my time every day, week, and month trying to help heal the divide in this country through different projects. Probably the one you are most familiar with now is the Hope, Not Fear Project, where every two weeks I’m traveling the country, putting people in rooms who disagree with each other, and helping to facilitate tough, honest, sometimes uncomfortable, but always respectful conversations.
I’m trying to help increase understanding. I’m trying to help get rid of the hate that we all seem to have for each other. But yes, I get why to some people, like this listener, it feels like I’m living a double life that is not at all consistent and makes no sense. The two things I do—ripping Trump every day, and trying to help heal the divide in this country—contradict each other. “Joe, those don’t go together,” this listener would say. And he’s kind of right.
But here was my answer to him and the reply I generally give, because I do believe there’s a method to my madness. I believe that these missions of mine—and they are missions—to defeat who and what Trump is, to defeat my former political party, and to help heal the dangerous divide in this country are utterly consistent.
So let me just briefly explain.
There’s an important qualifier whenever people ask about this double life that I live. I draw a line. I draw a line between Trump, Republican elected officials, conservative media people, big-name influencers, political talkers and thinkers on one side, and regular American voters, regular folks on the other. I draw a big line, and I’ve always drawn a big line, between these two groups of people. To generalize it, I draw a line between Trump and his voters.
I will always criticize Trump with everything I’ve got. I will always call out my former Fox News colleagues. I’ll always go after my former Republican congressional colleagues. They’re different. But as a rule, I don’t attack Trump voters. I will not attack Trump’s supporters. There’s a big difference. I used to be a Trump supporter, and I can tell you, there’s a big difference.
Trump and his team and his Cabinet and Republicans in Congress and the Senate—they are destroying this country. My former colleagues on Fox News and right-wing media, they know what they’re doing. And they are purposely doing what they’re doing. They’re out there in the public eye. And many of them are doing what they’re doing for utterly cynical reasons. They know better. They’re lying. They’re purposely lying.
And whenever any of them have a change of heart, it’s always for a self-interested reason: to get elected, to stay in office, to keep their show. There’s always another motivation. But when a regular person, when a regular voter, when a regular Trump supporter finally sees the light on Trump, it’s genuine, because they have nothing to gain by it. They don’t have a podcast. They don’t have their own radio show. They’re not in office.
Trump’s supporters and voters have been manipulated and lied to for years. So I will not attack them. But I will attack the manipulators and the liars and those who are purposely trying to damage this country. I’m a public figure. I have every right to go after other public figures. But I spend a lot of my time trying to help Trump’s voters see the light. So I ain’t gonna attack them. I ain’t gonna insult them. I’m not gonna take shots at them.
If you follow me on social media and you listen to my show and you see what I write on Substack, you know that I don’t go after Trump’s supporters. I want this country to heal. And when I say the country needs to heal this dangerous divide, I’m talking about regular Americans. You’re always going to have idiotic partisans in the public eye on both sides. I don’t care about them. I’m talking about the American people. So that’s the important context.
Here’s the other really important point I make when it comes to living this double life. I am very passionate about what I believe. I’m very passionate about what I believe about Trump. I’m very passionate about what I believe about freedom. I’m very passionate about what I believe about free speech, about the Second Amendment, about public corruption. I’m very passionate in what I believe about what’s happened to my former political party. I’ve got passionate beliefs.
And even though I’m trying to bring people together, to help heal the divide, to increase understanding, I’m not asking people to give up their passionate beliefs. Because Lord knows, I won’t. And this is what I try to model every day: being very passionate about what I believe, I’ll sit down with anybody who disagrees with me and have a respectful conversation.
But I’m not going to give up the passion in what I believe. You see the passion in what I believe with everything I put out every day. I’m not going to give that up. And I’m not asking people who disagree with me, when we sit down to have a conversation, to give up what they passionately believe in.
I despise Donald Trump. I think he’s everything our founders feared. But when I sit down with people who adore Trump, who think Trump’s the greatest president in this country’s history, I make really clear from the outset, “I don’t want you to abandon what you believe. I don’t want you to abandon your passion.” What I say is, “We disagree with each other. I just don’t want us to hate each other for our disagreement.”
That’s the whole point of what I do every day with both missions. I fire away passionately on what I believe, and I bring people together to try to increase understanding. But I’m not asking anybody to give up their passion, even though they disagree with me.
I travel this country, and I put people in rooms every few weeks. I’ll put eight MAGA and eight lefties in a room in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, and we’ll have a conversation. And I always only have two rules. The first rule is, listen to each other. I mean, really listen. Listen not to respond, not to fire, but to try to understand. That’s rule number one.
And my second advice is: don’t come into this room and think you have to stop believing what you’re believing. Don’t come into this room and give up the passion that you have in what you believe in. All I’m asking people to do is be respectful, and try to understand why people believe in something different.
But don’t give up your passion. I tell everybody that, no matter where they are politically. And sitting down with people you disagree with doesn’t mean you have to give up what you believe in. Yeah, sure, you try to find common ground, but we may never find common ground. Don’t give up what you believe in. All I’m trying to do is stop people from hating the people who believe in different things. And the only way we get there is when we listen to each other and gain understanding.
So you can get to a place where you might completely disagree with a woman in the room who wants to regulate guns. But, you know, at least now you understand where she’s coming from. And even though you disagree with her, you don’t hate her for believing that. Or, my God, this guy is a huge Trump supporter? Well, okay, I listened to him. I completely disagree with him about Trump, but you know what? I kinda now understand where he’s coming from. So I’m less inclined to hate him.
That’s what I’m trying to do every day, with this double life that I live. Every day, I try to model those two things: I’m passionate about what I believe in, and I’ll sit down with anybody to talk about it. Stay passionate. You don’t have to abandon what you believe in, but doggone it, we’ve got to get off of this road of hating the people we disagree with. Because if we stay on that road, this house divided can’t stand.
So I think there’s a little bit of consistency in my crazy double life. I hope that makes sense.
Be brave,
This Week on The Social Contract
My Substack Lives are open to all subscribers, unless noted. Please join us this week!
Tuesday with Xander Schultz [ [link removed] ] (click if you missed it)
Thursday, 4pm ET: “Unvarnished” with Edwin Eisendrath
Thursday, 6pm ET: “Tequila Talk” with Cliff Schecter
Thursday, 7pm ET: AMA for paid subscribers
Friday, noon ET: “Welcome to the Party, Pal!” with Mike Nellis
INTERVIEWS & QUOTES FROM THE PAST WEEK:
Sen. Ted Cruz Says Blanche Faced ‘Full-On Revolt’ Over ‘Anti-Weaponization Fund’ in Meeting with GOP Senators [ [link removed] ] —CBS News
Former Tea Party Firebrand Has Damning 4-Letter Take On Trump’s Latest Suck-Up Session [ [link removed] ] —HuffPost
The Social Contract with Joe Walsh is a citizen-supported movement resisting authoritarianism and restoring classic American values like civic engagement, tolerance, and mutual respect. To join our community [ [link removed] ], sign up to be a free subscriber. To support our mission [ [link removed] ], please consider becoming a paid subscriber. Thank you!

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