That's a very interesting discussion with a thoughtful conservative. One quote really stood out for me:
if you want to cut Social Security, if you want to tell people you’re cutting Medicare and Medicaid, you have to start with the other stuff that doesn’t seem as close to home, with the stuff that’s, you know, the comic books in Peru about wokeness or whatever. You have to cut that stuff out first, and you have to hold up the bloody head before you have popular interest and willingness to go with you to the stuff that touches their families.