EXIT Podcast

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit blog.exitgroup.usMike Shelby is a former military intelligence officer, contractor, author, EXIT man, and Founder and CEO of Forward Observer, a private intelligence service. The second edition of his book, The Area Intelligence Handbook, is scheduled for release later this month.Starting this quarter, EXIT is collecting area studies from all over the country — starting with Mike’s book as a template — to identify targets for prosocial action between now and 2028.Last month, Constitutional Action hosted Mike at the American Fork Veteran’s Hall, to discuss how ordinary Americans can bring their friends and neighbors together to push back against radical leftist organizing in their communities.Notes:0:00 Welcome & Constitutional Action intro5:35 Counter-organizing framework11:55 Low-intensity conflict explained16:00 Viet Minh organizing strategy21:31 Three sources of power25:39 Conditioned power & motivation29:25 The Campaign41:45 Next StepsWe had about 80 people turn out to hear Mike speak, and signed up 38 new members of Constitutional Action. (You can join us at constitutionalaction.org.)At Mike’s request, his presentation is paywalled in full.Become a paid subscriber now to receive this and other EXIT content, including full recordings of our Tuesday night Q&As. Upcoming Q&A guests include Curtis Yarvin, Jeremy Carl, Blake Masters, Ron Dodson, Kevin DeAnna, and more.If you want to join us in building fraternity and organizing for power in your community, you can apply for full membership at exitgroup.us.EXIT News* Weekly Full Group Call* This week (9/29), we had our Q3 Review/Q4 Preview and discussed the overall vision of EXIT.* Next week (10/6) we will hear from Douglass Mackey on facing prosecution for memes, declining a pardon, and courage under fire.* The following week (10/13), we will welcome Joshua Sheats to discuss his efforts to build a Great House, his homeschool curriculum, etc.* EXIT Events:* 10/09, Austin: Annual EXIT Retreat. Jonathan has reserved an Airbnb in the Texas Hill Country for our third annual Austin weekend. Steak dinner, private tour of a MAHA intentional community southwest of town, hiking at Pedernales Falls State Park. (Members only.)* 10/17, Dallas: Constitutional Action Beautification Event. EXIT and Constitutional Action are getting together to clean up a neglected cemetery in Oak Cliff. Sign up here to join us.* 10/29, New York: EXIT + Passage Press Halloween Party. Join EXIT and Passage Press for a Halloween party at Pubkey in Manhattan.* 11/07, Dallas: Manifest Destiny Ball. EXIT families across Texas are getting together for a black-tie event to celebrate our heritage and look toward our common future. (Members only.)* 11/13, Salt Lake City: The Great American Weekender. In collaboration with Delphica, Frontier Magazine, and IM-1776, EXIT is hosting a weekend salon here in Salt Lake City. RSVP here.* 11/21, Orem: Paideia Buildathon. We are hosting a youth AI buildathon — getting teens to build their own games, websites, etc. Sponsored by OpenAI. Admission is free. Sign up here.* Monthly private dinner meetups for EXIT members (members can check chat.exitgroup.us or monthly internal newsletter for details):* 10/3 Orem, UT* 10/9, Nashville, TN* 10/10, Houston, TX* 10/10, Phoenix, AZ* 10/16, Atlanta GA* 10/16, Washington, DC* 10/17, Columbus, OH* 10/19, Dallas, TX* 10/24, St. Louis, MO* Events with Friends of EXIT:* 10/08, Singapore: Network State Conference. Third annual Network State Conference in Singapore with Balaji Srinivasan. Streamable. RSVP here.* 10/10, Knoxville: FORUM event + Football watch party. Join Mass Deportation Coalition and FORUM for a discussion of immigration policy with Ryan Neuhaus and Greg Bovino, followed by a watch party for the Vols game. RSVP here.* 10/10, St. Louis: American Fiction Event. Join Oyarsa for an evening of readings feat. Theodore Judson of ARK Press, author of Fitzpatrick's War and The Timerman, and John Jay Stancliff of Farthest Heaven, author of FEDBOOK. RSVP here.* 10/19, Nashville: Peter Thiel Lecture Series with Pamphleteer. Dr. Bennett will be attending the fourth and final lecture of the series. RSVP here.* 10/21, New York: Michael Anton book signing event. Reign (formerly Sovereign House) is hosting Michael Anton to discuss and sign his new book, Studies in Machiavellian Political Philosophy. RSVP here.* 10/24, Atlanta: 1903 Club Exclusive Dinner Featuring Andrew Isker. Andrew will be speaking on his new book, “The Seed of Abraham.” Private four course dinner. Jacket required, ties encouraged. RSVP here.[nothing below paywall]

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit blog.exitgroup.us[Above is the recording of our discussion with Mike Shelby from Forward Observer, on the broader topic of a “Yellow Revolution” somewhere 2026-2028. Below is a narrower discussion of the role of welfare programs, and the tug-of-war over government assistance, in the coming conflict(s).]If the government shutdown is not resolved next week, 42 million people will lose access to food stamps for the month of November.My timeline is now full of inner-city blacks warning of the consequences if payments fail. Many of these seem to be monetized TikTok rage-bait, but others just describe the same things that I expect to see if the spigot gets cut off all at once. It would be remarkable if 42 million people losing food benefits didn’t lead to a surge in violent crime and civil disorder.Obviously the welfare system has created generations of dependents with a deeply perverse attitude toward the people whose largesse they receive, and that system should be abolished or at least deeply reformed — but it’s also a significant structural component of the US economy.EXIT is a fraternity dedicated to building family empires. Learn more here:In general, Nothing Ever Happens because, while an apocalyptic confrontation is brewing, both sides do the math:One side realizes they can’t actually win, some less-confrontational solution is quietly arrived at, and you still have to go to work in the morning.Whatever you think of the food stamp program or its recipients, cutting 42 million people’s monthly income by one-third, with less than two weeks’ notice, would be one hell of a Happening — which would mean that at least one party severely miscalculated their odds of victory.It may not happen next week, but it’s going to happen eventually.The tug-of-war between the Trump Administration and the administrative state won’t stop until something like this settles the question with finality.If it isn’t another government shutdown, the EBT system has documented, open vulnerabilities to cyber-attack, which would be easy to exploit in the event of a serious foreign policy confrontation.And if that doesn’t happen, sooner or later the government’s fiscal problems will either lead to nonpayment of these benefits, or hyperinflation (which amounts to the same thing.)So the consequences of an EBT shutdown are worth examining, because they’re coming one way or another, even if you think this particular standoff will be resolved before the deadline.Articles are never paywalled. Subscribe for free full articles and weekly EXIT news in your inbox. Paid subscribers get access to recorded calls and in-person EXIT cocktail hours.The No Kings protests last week drew an impressive crowd numerically (7 million, by some estimates) — but strained the notion of democratic mobilization as a proxy for warfighting.The crowd was 90% white, 60% female, and the median age was 44. In our recording with Mike Shelby, we discuss how this mobilization is in preparation for a Color Revolution against President Trump, either in 2026 or 2028.But while getting seven million people in the street is a testament to Democrats’ organizational capacity, it’s hard to see how that converts into any sort of hard power.Normies seem to enjoy the “No Kings” framing — but they are, by definition, not serious people, and no actual fighting-age males in the Leftist coalition care about any of that stuff.The political Left is facing the inevitable conclusion of their feminized politics:Nagging and shaming are repellent to all young men capable of violence: so, when nagging and shaming stop working, there is no longer any credible physical backstop to the argument, because all the young men capable of violence have been pushed to one side (or, as with young black men, checked out of the conversation).All the Right has to do is stop caring about the political opinions of gays, grannies, and grandes, and the Left has no more cards to play — which has been the story of the last year or so of American politics.The power of moral blackmail in US partisan politics has absolutely collapsed. It no longer matters how many old people assemble to complain.But the optics of a “bread riot” could change all that.The Left is at its rhetorical best when it reminds people what things were like in the ancien regime (generally either the Great Depression, or Dickensian England): toddlers smeared with coal dust, gaunt farmwives selling their children, bread lines; the working man “owing his soul to the company store”.(Of course, having 13% of the US population on food stamps suggests an economic situation comparable to the Depression — just without the optical problem of poor people physically waiting in lines.)President Trump has, to this point, succeeded in framing the modern American Left as shrill, spoiled, and out of touch — but 42 million people at least rhetorically “going without food” would dramatically change that perception.For Democrats, an EBT failure would remind the poor and lower-middle class what life looks like without mommy government, in the messiest and most disruptive way possible — casting Trump in the role of an uncaring plutocrat, or even an American Yeltsin. (”Sure, things weren’t perfect under Gay Race Communism, but at least things were stable, predictable, etc.”)A Color Revolution is never going to happen because President Trump remodeled the East Wing, or because of some banal inside-baseball power struggle in the executive bureaucracy.A Color Revolution happens when normies run cover for an extended period of radical violent criminality, which metastasizes into armed resistance — which is exactly what an EBT failure would do.The BLM protests really were “mostly peaceful”.20 to 25 million people attended the BLM protests. That’s a huge fraction of the country’s population: about as many as watched Survivor or American Idol at their peak.Almost none of these people were radical communists — they were normies swept up in the Current Thing. They showed up, clapped and chanted, waved their signs, got their faces painted, and were home before sundown. The crowd really was “not, generally speaking, unruly”The purpose of Mostly Peaceful Protests is to provide narrative and physical cover for a surge of criminal violence (which is also largely not performed by radical communists, but by lumpenprole opportunists.)A Mostly Peaceful Protest forces the police to man the picket lines instead of fighting street crime. The crowds jam roads, preventing police from moving resources across the city. Trained protestors use “black bloc” tactics to provide anonymity, so that violent actors are harder to surveil and apprehend.Protest organizers deliberately blur the lines between civilian and criminal/combatant actors, both to make violent direct action appear more legitimate and popular than it is, and to provoke police into mistakenly attacking civilians.The purpose of a Color Revolution is to produce and prolong a Schmittian “state of exception”.A state of exception is a condition in which the ordinary/”lawful” powers and procedures of the state are inadequate to maintain the integrity of the state, so new powers must be asserted. The sovereign is (by definition) the person who decides when such a condition exists, and what to do about it.The state never has sufficient security resources to directly or coercively enforce the law on everyone at once: public order depends on widespread, habitual obedience.A genuine protest — one that is actually adversarial to the government — is always an attempt to break the population’s habitual obedience, in order to generate a security crisis that the government cannot survive. (Anything else is a parade.)This is the concrete meaning of “people power”:* We have the media and organizational capability to jam your city with millions of harmless morons.* The crowd will disrupt the ordinary business of the city, and conceal a wave of violent crime.* People will demand that you do something about it.* We will make it impossible for you, or the police, or the viewers at home, to distinguish civilians from criminal agitators.* You will be powerless to end the crisis within your legal and popular mandate.* If you step outside your mandate, the crowd will get bigger and more violent, the crisis will deepen, you will face defections from your security forces, and then execution or prison.Obviously not all adversarial protests end this way, because the parties usually come to terms long before this happens — but this is the implicit threat of protest.Color revolutions never “overthrow the government” — they just reveal who the real government was all along.A state of exception never destroys sovereign power — it can only expand it. It renders the political situation liquid, so that it can be altered without limit, but only by the sovereign.The Orange Revolution didn’t weaken Viktor Yanukovych as the sovereign in Ukraine — it simply demonstrated that Yanukovych was not, in fact, the sovereign. Who decides the state of exception in Ukraine? Who decides what happens in Ukraine when Ukrainian law has no answers? Empirically, the US State Department.In a failed color revolution, the liquid political situation is exploited by the target of the protests to strengthen his own power. After the 2012 protests in Russia, Vladimir Putin tightened restrictions on public assembly, required NGOs to register as foreign agents, expanded treason statutes, and expanded state censorship authority over the internet.This means that the bar for a “state of exception” is much higher in Russia than it was before, because Putin’s has expanded legal authority (and demonstrated security capacity) to put down a foreign-backed protest movement.You would never incite a color revolution in a state in which you did not believe you were the sovereign — you would never deliberately create a state of exception that you did not expect to control.An American riot is the opposite of a revolution.The Trump Administration has made massive gains by ignoring leftists’ hypocrisy and moralizing — but it can still be converted into real power.An EBT failure creates the following conditions:* Millions of people with a substantial direct financial incentive to fill the streets* Millions of normies with an excuse to believe that criminals are Aladdin, actually (they are desperate to believe this, because it collapses the cognitive dissonance generated by the end of the liberal consensus)* Young muscle pulled back into the Democratic machine, whom they lost after post-BLM demoralization and Gaza fissures* A straightforward rally point for collective civil disobedience (literally “stealing bread to feed your family”)This would put the American Left in the strongest position they’ve had in almost a century.Democrats aren’t actually radicalized about the object-level conflict that is keeping the government shut down (Medicaid for illegals). They want the government shut down, so that they can create a state of emergency and reclaim control of the state.This means that capitulation won’t help: it will simply set the stage for another confrontation in 8 weeks, when the next continuing resolution runs out. They want the chaos, because they believe (not without justification) that they are still the sovereign power.There are two ways Trump could defang this threat:* End the filibuster.Without the filibuster, Republicans could end the shutdown with a simple 51-49 vote. Senate Majority Leader John Thune, Mitch McConnell, and Susan Collins all oppose this (because they are swamp creatures who also want to reassert control).If Trump can pin an ongoing shutdown on the RINOs, they may fold — which would deepen Trump’s control of the GOP, but also raise the stakes of the midterms in 2026.If they take this route, the chaos will merely be postponed until the 2026 midterms.* Get the program funded without Congress.This would be the most audacious and Caesarean move: hold a benefit in Madison Square Garden.Make a generous donation yourself, and then publicly remind Wal-Mart and Coca-Cola that they’ve been suckling the SNAP tit for generations, and tell them to pony up. Tell Crazy Nancy to come out of pocket from her insider-trading money.Post statistics that show all the major corporate recipients of SNAP money, as well as the employers of SNAP-qualified Americans. Display a gauge meter that shows the proportion of donations coming from Democrats and Republicans.This week, a single donor came up with $130M to keep Army salaries paid. The money exists, and Trump can find it.If this keeps the program funded for even an extra week, it removes the justification for collective civil disobedience and keeps civilians off the streets, allowing much more aggressive police action against criminal agitators.Even a smaller victory, like fully funding WIC (a targeted food program for mothers and children, less than one-tenth the size of SNAP) would put the blame for the shutdown squarely where it belongs, and almost certainly force Democrats to back down.A move like this would strengthen Trump’s claim to sovereignty without the need for a messy crackdown.“When there was a crisis and the regular functions of government were suspended, Trump came through for all Americans.” Trump is the one who makes the gibs flow.And once that’s established, he can start to make some sane decisions about who gets them. This would be difficult to pull off — but far more feasible than trying to get Democrats to vote for entitlement reform.Of course, we have no pull with these people, or knowledge of their plans. So while we wait for them to get creative, we need to make arrangements for ourselves and our families.Don’t be in jurisdictions controlled by Democrats. Acquire assets that cannot be seized, destroyed, or inflated away. Become important to the people around you. Build your personal intelligence network. Make contingency plans with your friends and family. Connect with as many like-minded people as you can find.exitgroup.usEXIT News* Weekly Group Calls, Tuesdays at 9PM ET:* Tomorrow (10/28), we will hear from Jeremy Carl, author of Unprotected Class and nominee for Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs. Call will not be recorded.* Next week (11/4), we’ll have a discussion of Family Traditions and strengthening family identity and culture, in advance of the Thanksgiving and Christmas holidays.* Meetups:* Successful meetups in Nashville, Dallas, Houston, and Oklahoma City last week.* 11/1: Utah Valley meetup. Cocktail hour link below for subscribers.* 11/8: Austin meetup. Members only.* 11/8: Washington, DC meetup. Members only.* 11/8: Portland meetup. I’ll be speaking at Scyldings’ Oregon Weaving event.* 11/14: New York City meetup. Cocktail hour link below for subscribers.* 11/15: San Diego meetup. Cocktail hour link below for subscribers.* EXIT cocktail hours for Utah Valley (11/1), New York City (11/14), and San Diego (11/15) below the paywall for Substack subscribers. EXIT cocktail hours are a great way to get to know your local EXIT guys and find out if full group membership is right for you.

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit blog.exitgroup.usOn last night’s EXIT group call, retired Navy veteran and OG EXIT Guy Francis discussed his evacuation from the Augusta area during Hurricane Helene last September, and relief efforts thereafter. Lessons learned:Preparedness isn’t about gear.Francis’ biggest takeaway from the experience is that physical fitness, mobility, and social capital mattered way more than gear. Especially in a city like Augusta, his expensive kit was a security liability as much as a benefit.Most prepper fantasies involve hunkering down to restart civilization, but that’s not even close to the most likely emergency outcome. Pack light, move quick, and get to safety as quickly as possible.Who, not how.Francis’ biggest assets in keeping his family safe and comfortable were a good network and good intelligence. By getting in touch with friends throughout the region, he was able to avoid threats and obstacles, find resources, and make himself useful to others who were in worse shape.The ideal networking situation is to be deeply connected in your local area, and have a broad network that provides optionality and intelligence from outside. We had an extended conversation on the value of an Area Study (more on this later.)Fitness and psychological preparedness.Keeping his family’s morale high was a challenge — Francis plans to do more short-notice camping trips to prepare his children for disruption and discomfort, and require more unplugged time so that they learn to entertain themselves without electronics. Francis also benefited from his MMA and firearms training in being able to interact confidently with unfriendly or untrustworthy strangers. Sustaining a serious injury later taught him not to take basic fitness for granted — the situation would have been much worse without the ability to walk, run, and carry heavy things. (Sometimes these situations are unavoidable — another good reason to cultivate a strong early-warning and local support network.)exitgroup.usEXIT News* On next week’s full-group call (9/2), we’re running a book club on The Forest Passage by Ernst Junger. It’s a quick read, and more important now than when it was written.* New Calls:* Family/Fatherhood and Homeschooling on alternating Thursdays at 7PM ET/4PM PT* Leadership on the second Wednesday of each month at 8PM ET/5PM PT. (This month, 9/10, we will discuss Alexander and Caesar from Plutarch’s Parallel Lives.)* Civic Engagement on third Thursdays at 10PM ET/7PM PT.* Several of the guys will be in DC next week for NatCon. Reach out in the #dc channel to coordinate a meetup.* Caught a couple of the guys in Utah Valley this week. Planning a sauna build before it gets cold — check #utah channel for details.* BBQ meetup in Boise September 1. Check #idaho channel to RSVP.* Canyoneering Trip in Zion National Park (10/17-10/18). We should be getting the results from our lottery any day now. Check #meetups and #utah channel for updates.>THERE IS NOTHING BELOW THE PAYWALL

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit blog.exitgroup.us[Part 1][Part 2][Part 3]This presentation and Q&A is the fourth in a four-part series. Because of the strong reception to the series, we have made this a weekly call, which is recorded for EXIT members.Modern societies are allergic to cults and company towns.Partly out of legitimate concern for unaccountable and abusive power — but also because they compete with and make trouble for larger, even-less-accountable institutions.Cults and company towns are defeated because they arouse the jealousy of the Powers that Be — but that’s always easier to do when they also arouse the resentment and moral outrage of the public.All parallel institutions have the same problem: they exist to generate interference with the cultural and material enforcement mechanisms of dominant institutions. If you aren’t trying to scare the hoes at least a little bit, you don’t need a parallel institution.So, if you want to build a robust parallel institution that serves this purpose, there are at least four things to learn from the history of cults and company towns:* How to achieve meaningful cohesion and group sovereignty (the hardest part)* How to avoid their real, structural problems* How to avoid their public-relations problems* How to gain maximum independence while attracting minimum institutional hostilityIn this episode, Greg discusses a model for setting up a network of interrelated “pillar institutions” which create a degree of genuine multipolarity without giving away the cohesion and unity of a strong community.We discuss various economic and cultural institutions that could serve as the kernel for such a community, and what it will take to get started.exitgroup.usEXIT News:* Weekly Group Calls (Tuesdays 9PM ET/6PM PT)* Last week (7/8) we heard from Andrew Isker (Boniface Option) on his exit from Minnesota, planting a church with New Founding in Tennessee, and cooperation between right-wing guys with conflicting religious commitments.* This Tuesday (7/15), we will have a book club on The Outlaws by Ernst von Salomon. Many parallels to our situation over the last five years, and some darker possible futures. Don’t miss this!* On 7/22, the topic is Pioneers — bring stories of your most excellent ancestors, and we will discuss where the frontiers can be found today..3* Member-led Calls* Drone/EWAR call* Great Houses call* “EXIT Bar Association” call. For EXIT JDs only — reach out in #legal for an invite. Goal is to build a shared list of highly aligned lawyers in all 50 states, so everyone has someone to call in another state if needed.* Calls coming soon:* Fatherhood/Home Education: family traditions, discipline, education, cultivation, and homeschool.* Acquisition Entrepreneurship: Finding, valuing, buying, operating, and improving an existing business.* Civic Engagement: Getting involved with your local political and community institutions.* Member meetups* 7/19: Tubing in New Braunfels. Details in #texas channel.* 7/21: DFW meetup at the usual spot. Details in #dfw channel.* 7/26: Nashville meetup — details TBA. See #tennessee channel.* 7/26: Houston meetup — details TBA. See #texas channel.* 8/9: Family retreat in Holland, MI. See #midwest channel or contact Andrew for details.* 10/17-10/18 — Canyoneering trip at Zion National Park. Descending a slot canyon via rappelling, hiking, swimming, scrambling. Expect a 12-hour day, traversing ~13 miles, mostly downhill. No wives or girlfriends, but sons are welcome if they can keep up. Contact Devin for details.* RSVP links for Dallas (7/21) and Nashville (7/26) cocktail hours available to subscribers below the paywall. EXIT cocktail hours are a great way to get to know the EXIT guys in your area and see if the group is right for you.

This is a free preview of a paid episode. To hear more, visit blog.exitgroup.us[Click here to listen to Part 1]In this episode of our Great House series, we address a simplified model of an illegible but enforceable arrangement of patronage between a wealthy family and their clients — or, “How to start a town without a bank”.Starting from the text of John Winthrop’s sermon, A Model of Christian Charity, we discuss how high-trust communities have created legal vehicles that allow for profitable investment, mentorship, and a reasonable assurance of cultural alignment. “Just don’t call it a loan.”This recorded presentation and Q&A is the second in a four-part series.EXIT Investment SyndicateThis week, we will have the opening call of our first EXIT Investment Syndicate. Ten to twelve investors will pool resources to invest in one man and one project as a group.On this inaugural call (Thursday 5/22 at 7PM ET, and Tuesday 5/27 at 10PM ET), investors will vote on the principles and investment thesis that will drive the selection of a project.The following week (7PM ET Thursday 5/29 and 10PM ET Tuesday 6/3), we will consider EXIT men and projects that accord with our chosen thesis.The goal of this project is to connect the EXIT brothers through shared enterprises, generate returns to shareholders, build capacity among our chosen champions, establish a real-world footprint for the group, and provide the cashflow and procedural knowledge to support future champions and projects.We will send reminders for each of these calls in the #announcements channel on the chat, and via email the morning before. EXIT guys: if you are able and willing to support this project as an investor, please check your email for an invite to the calls, or contact me directly.EXIT News* Tuesday night full-group calls:* On last week’s call (5/13), we heard from an EXIT member on his process for building community with Amish-style “work parties”, building a wireless ISP business, and growing culinary mushrooms for fun and profit. For opsec reasons this one was not recorded.* Last night (5/20), we heard about an EXIT member’s tokenized, industrial-scale Bitcoin mining operation.* Next Tuesday (5/27), we will have our book club on Starship Troopers, by Robert Heinlein.* Recent EXIT wins* One of our startup teams just won an 8-figure DoD contract* One of our guys just accepted a CEO role at a biotech company* EXIT guys have accepted senior positions in four executive agencies in the Trump Administration* The Hot Seat call to get our man out of Canada was a success — he has secured visa work in the US* Member Meetups* Austin meetup was a success. Spent the weekend at an Airbnb, ate barbecue, toured a 500-acre MAHA intentional community in the hill country, and got to know some of the wives and kids. Huge thanks to Jonathan for putting it together.* New York City, 5/24. See #new-england channel for details.* Nashville, 5/29. See #tennessee channel for details.* San Francisco, 6/8. See #bay-area-and-NorCal channel for details.* Seattle, 6/26. See #PNW channel for details.* Finalizing June dates for DC, Atlanta, and SLC meetups this week.* Cocktail hour invite for Seattle meetup (6/26) available to subscribers below the paywall. EXIT cocktail hours are a great way to get to know the EXIT guys in your area and see if the group is right for you.