Please, Somebody, Hire Governor Jesse Ventura!

“I’m blackballed right now. I haven’t been able to get a job with a US employer for the last four or five years. No one will hire me to do anything.” - Governor Jesse Ventura

That revelation kicked off my wild conversation with Jesse Ventura on the latest episode of The McFuture podcast. Jesse is the former Governor of Minnesota, Navy Seal, pro-wrestler, TV host, and author of the new book The Marijuana Manifesto. I couldn’t think of a better person to discuss my recent obsession with the ideas of “disruption” and “revolution”. Jesse did not disappoint. This is the story of one of America’s true disrupters - and why I think he might be one of our last. A lesson on the future of free speech for anyone looking to really change the world.

Peak Kardashian

Five years ago, I blinked and every corporate drone suddenly became a “disrupter” or “innovator” or “social media guru”.  Every kid with a WeWork desk is thisclose to annihilating some major industry...as long as it doesn’t wake up his mom. One guy is a “Digital Prophet”!! ...at a half-dead company. No joke. Even I’ve been guilty of it. “Futurist.” Yech.

We’re all rocketing towards “Peak Kardashian”. It’s when our packaging becomes more valuable than the product inside.

Maybe that’s why we suddenly crave “authenticity”. And why Trump and Bernie are leading “revolutions”. That’s in quotes because history is a brutal judge of who is and is not revolutionary. True revolutionaries are rare. How can you tell who might be? Consequences. Real revolutionaries usually pay a price. Not because they set out to be martyrs or to change the world. But because they don’t know any other way to be.

I’ll let history decide if Jesse Ventura is a revolutionary. But he’s definitely paying a price for challenging a system that does not like to be challenged.

I don’t always agree with Jesse. Neither will you. But when we’re done, I bet you’d rather live in a world that lets him say it. Unfortunately, I think the walls are closing in. We’re headed towards a mass-silence. I’ll explain...

(Hear both of my chats with Jesse: Killing Trump & bonus Smoke This at IdeaFaktory.)  

Why Can’t Jesse Get Work?

After Ross Perot’s failed third party run for President, Perot started the Reform Party. Jesse Ventura was its first (and ultimately, only) major success. A loud, in-your-face ex-wrestler as governor of a major state? Instantly, Jesse and the Reform Party became enemies of the comfy, two-party establishment.

After his term, Jesse was a hot commodity. In 2003, MSNBC threw big cash at him, but he never made it on air. His almost-colleague Phil Donahue was also removed. Why? Both were among the few voices opposed to invading Iraq. Back then, that was a no-no. MSNBC paid Jesse for three years, but his voice was silenced.

Jesse’s next project, the TV show Conspiracy Theory, sealed his fate as a heretic.

He exposed camps built by FEMA in case of another storm like Katrina. According to Jesse, they looked exactly like Concentration Camps. Talk about bad PR...

Jesse also spoke to a former Star Wars scientist, who suspected his CIA handler wouldn’t like what he had to say. He might have been right. He was dead the next day. Jesse called 911 and the police chief to report it, but no one followed up or covered the story. I tried to validate Jesse’s account. These  three  links are the best I could find. You be the judge.   

The show’s trip to the fringe was not intentional. Jesse explains, “We were going to do both sides of the conspiracy but the government gives you zero cooperation. So we morphed the show...let’s just show the conspiracy side...let people see an alternative to what they’ve been told.”

“[Conspiracy Theory] ticked off people...I exposed how government lies to us,” - Jesse Ventura

Killing Trump

You’d think years of under-employment would tame the former Governor. He’d get a crisp pinstriped suit, spell-check his resume, and walk into CNN a model corporate citizen. Yeah, right. Jesse is not one for makeovers. He’s as controversial as ever.  

Case and point:

Jesse recalled a conversation with friend and former NBA star Charles Barkley from 2003. Charles quipped, “If you pick me [as your Vice President], we could get rid of the Secret Service.” Jesse took the bait, “Why’s that?” Charles replied, “Ain’t nobody gonna shoot you and put a black man like me in there.”

To Jesse, the Trump-Pence ticket was the exact opposite. He hatched a movie idea in which establishment Republicans kill off Trump to coronate Pence and pin it on one of Trump’s enemies. So many to choose from - Mexicans, Chinese, Muslims, groped women, disgruntled Access Hollywood hosts...

Jesse implied that’s why JFK bought the farm. “They” wanted a war with Vietnam and LBJ would give it to them. Whoever “they” are...

Gotta love Jesse. Free as a bird.

Meanwhile, I was shutting my shades and dimming the lights as we spoke. Not sure who arrives first - the hitman or the Secret Service…? Better bake some brownies, get on their good side.

Loving Trump, Feeling Berned

Trump came up a lot in our conversation. Though Jesse disagrees with most of what The Orange One stands for, he’s overjoyed to see Trump dismantle the GOP the same way Pat Buchanan and the GOP destroyed the Reform Party. Payback is a bitch.

But it’s Bernie Sanders who really disappointed Jesse. Like Bernie, Jesse thinks campaign finance reform would end corruption and save our republic. In an abrupt encounter at a Minnesota rally - at the peak of Bernie Fever - Jesse asked if Bernie plans to continue his revolution if he loses. Bernie said no. He’d support the Democrat. To Jesse, Bernie was another paper tiger, a ‘company man’, not a revolutionary.

Stay Inside Those Lines, Rebels!

It occurred to me that every successful “disrupter” in Jesse’s world of media and politics knows how to rebel inside the lines. Corporate lines. Party lines. Jesse never got that memo.

John Oliver delivers smart, funny exposes on topics that seem provocative. Look closer and his targets align perfectly with HBO's sensibilities and the #hashtag warriors watching. They can’t wait to take on any injustice...from the comfort of their iPhones.

Ann Coulter, Sarah Palin, and their hatchling Milo Yiannopoulos say wild, outrageous things. But, their wildness is tailored for conservative audiences who want a few cups of crazy...not full buckets. At the end, they tow party lines, support GOP orthodoxies, and find a warm home on the GOP speaking circuit.

Even the King of All Media, Howard Stern, who redefined the boundaries of free speech on TV and radio, mostly shocked inside corporate lines. Yes, he was fined by the FCC and fired early in his career. But then he became too big to fail. No one could afford to have $hock Jock, Inc. go under. Even after streaming, podcasting, and mobile could have liberated him, Howard always chose big comfy contracts from steady masters like NBC, Infinity, and Sirius-XM.

Jesse’s reaction to my thesis pulled no punches.

“I think Howard sold out,” Jesse Ventura proclaimed.

“And it breaks my heart. I think the Howard Stern of old would have run with me. Howard turned me down. He’s got the big NBC deal and he lives out in the Hamptons...life is pretty terrific right now. I don’t think Howard wants to rock this terrific boat he’s riding. I don’t blame him.”

“It’s just what you said with Oliver and Howard...I go outside the corporate lines, they stay within them.”

So most of our “rebels” are safely kicking up dirt inside established tribes and ideologies.

Maybe they have a point. People don’t want rebellion or even change. They want comfort, certainty, and safety nets. Life is scary enough. Plus, they see what happens to real disrupters like Assange and Snowden, who literally don’t see the light of day.

That’s the path Jesse was on, before he was pushed to the fringe. Some of that was his own doing. But compared to Snowden and Assange, maybe “they” did him a favor...

The F Word.

That brings me to a larger trend. The walls of freedom are slowly closing in.

As I said in the Revolution video, consider these six facts:

1. The Fortune 500 is now 72% of our economy.
2. Every major industry is consolidating.
3. We rely on more and more monopolies for everything from mobile to media to food.
4. We sign one-sided contracts and 35,000-word online user agreements almost daily.
5. Automation is eliminating jobs faster than we can create them.
6. A majority of Americans depend on employers for health coverage.

This is not a recipe for freer speech or more liberty. This is a recipe for silence. A subtle silence that sneaks up on us, one EULA at a time.

Over time, people become more and more afraid to speak out. The consequences become too great. Losing a job will be like losing your life. And our feeble, useless government offers no protection. It facilitates the very consolidation that will silence us.

Maybe I’m being too negative. Maybe we need a healthy dose of fear. Something to lose. To keeps us civil. To keep us trying.

Jesse’s response to my hypothesis?

“What we’ve just spoken about, I can get it to one word. It’s a word that gets you in trouble if you say it. Fascism.” - Jesse Ventura

My reaction? “Oh boy…”

(Listen to the whole conversation fall apart here.)

Evolution Becomes Revolution

At the end, Jesse is optimistic. He’s the second guest on The McFuture, along with Jeremy Rifkin, to have high hopes for Millennials. Neither thinks a revolution is imminent, but both agree change is inevitable.

“I don’t think the transition will happen now, but it’s going to happen... Millennials are going to change things a lot. The majority don’t believe in God. That’s going to be a big transformation. That’s evolution. Evolution can lead to revolution...Twenty two states voted for a socialist, didn’t they?”

One change big Jesse expects is the subject of his latest book, The Marijuana Manifesto. He believes ending the drug war and legalizing pot will end police brutality, heal minority communities, and unleash medicinal powers last seen in Harry Potter.

Sounds crazy...until you hear Jesse explain how it's already happening inside America's most cherished sport, football. The Denver Broncos parking lot is practically Woodstock. Smoking has replaced drinking and violence replaced by munchies. Even star Peyton Manning praised the change.

Jesse doubts it will happen on a national level. "Maybe they don't want us to be happy," he mused. But city by city evolution is becoming revolution.

“They” Are Coming

Where I part with Jesse philosophically is he believes in a “they” - a top-down orchestration of events, of conspiracies. And history gives him valid reasons to do so. I think a room full of Illuminati hatching evil plans is rare. However, years of powerful people making decisions in their own self-interest, eventually starts to look like “they” hatched a plan. But only in retrospect. Yes, the consolidation of wealth and power makes it a lot easier to fit all the power brokers in one room. And who knows, maybe someday I’ll side with Jesse.

Though we often disagree - and I told him so, from the safety of my phone - I’m glad Jesse’s out there. His legacy might not be his words or ideas, but the fact that he can say them. He is our first amendment incarnate - with a tiny dash of madman. A walking, talking Independence Day, minus the cheesy aliens. In a world of corporate shills and a empty talking points, I’ll take a cup of crazy every time.  Now, somebody, please hire the guy for god sakes! And buy his book!  

Wait, There’s More!

Listen and subscribe to the full episode here.

On the bonus episode, Smoke This with Governor Jesse Ventura, Jesse and I talk politics, abortion, race relations, marijuana legalization, the drug war, and the Middle East.

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My Bio: 

Steve Faktor is CEO of IdeaFaktory growth & innovation consultancy and host of The McFuture Podcast, a provocative, funny exploration of a future stuffed with Kardashians but starved for meaning...and vision. Steve is a popular keynote speaker, LinkedIn Influencer, and regularly featured in Forbes, Harvard Business Review, NPR, Wall Street Journal, among others. Steve is the former head of the American Express Chairman’s Innovation Fund, senior executive at Citi and MasterCard, and Andersen consultant. You can follow him via email newsletter,LinkedIn, Facebook & Twitter.