Followup video from his chainmail grill scrubber from last year.
I had this whole rant written about earlier, but I think it's easier to summarize my thesis. Destin Sandlin (the channel's host) is basically confessing he's MAGA with dog whistles. The video's title boils down to co-opting American leftist buzz words with "I was lied to about trickle-down economics" and "outsourcing the means of production".
Throughout the video he mentions China twice. The first time is by framing America's industrial decline as a direct sabotage:
So if [China] can break the intellect chain [of passing on institutional knowledge], they beat us. And I think that's brilliant and we're stupid for letting that happen.
Then the second time he talks about sourcing chainmail from Canada:
And why am I sleeping well at night knowing I'm doing this [sourcing Canadian chainmail]? But I didn't sleep well at night knowing that I was doing this [sourcing Costa Rian knobs]. And the answer is, I know the people that are doing this. We've talked. I know the conditions under which they're working. I know they're not being exploited. In fact, I know this is providing for their families and they are not being taken advantage of. I don't know that that's true here. I know that yes, whoever put that insert into that injection molding machine, their families are being provided for, but I don't know they're not being exploited.
So yeah, he's really not living down the stereotype of "racist Southerner", as apparently he cares about worker exploitation if its White Canadians but not when it's dark skinned Central Americans.
I should add that Destin has not and
cannot legally visit China, at least not within his lifetime. He's a former US Army weapons engineer, stationed at Redstone Arsenal in Alabama where he still lives. So it shouldn't be
too surprising that he's MAGA, nor should his co-opting of leftist language. I'm only saying this because any claims that he's just ignorant doesn't work when the US State Department, and China's MFA and MPS will probably block any attempts to enter China.