The left finds a target-rich environment in corporate cowards. The woke scolds come for Dave Chappelle. And Brexit's fate remains unclear. Ben Shapiro talks about the new crusade by the left to use pressure politics in virtually every area of American life, and how it is actually working to make things worse for Americans in order to get things they don't like done. He also discusses the failure of political blackmail and how the left is using it to push Mitch McConnell to take a hard line on gun control and other issues that Americans don't want to talk about. And he explains why this is actually a good thing, and why it actually opens up opportunities for conservatives in the market as corporations are forced to cater to the whims of the far-left's whimsical whimsical ideas and short-sighted policies. The full show is available on Amazon Prime and Vimeo worldwide. Thanks for listening and share the podcast with your fellow podcasting friends! The opinions expressed in this podcast are our own, not those of our corporate overlords at Amazon, the R.I.P.S. (Ronna DeKorte and The Washington Post). We do not own the rights to any of the music used in the podcast. This podcast was produced for noncommercial use, unless otherwise specified. If you like what you hear on the podcast, please consider leaving us a five star rating and review the podcast on Apple Podcasts. or other podcasting platform. Subscribe to our podcast on iTunes, Podchaser or wherever else you re listening to our content. Thank you. We appreciate the support us. You can also become a supporter of our work. by becoming a patron. and share our podcasting Subscribe and review our podcast by clicking the podcast and leave us a review and review your thoughts and reviews on iTunes in the comments section on your favorite streaming platform, if you re a review, review your review and rating in a review or review of our podcast listening to us on your podcast or review we review us on it is a review of the podcast and review we post it on iTunes or review it on your social media platform we also helps us or review our work is appreciated by someone else s work is also we can do a review on a review we do it on the medium we review it you can become a fellow patron is a friend of the show?
00:00:09.000We have an enormous amount to get to today, and we will get to all of it We'll just move straight through it.
00:00:19.000We begin today with the new crusade by the left.
00:00:22.000So the left is attempting to use pressure politics in virtually every area of American life.
00:00:27.000We're going to talk about how it is that the left uses these pressure politics in areas of American life to make American life a lot worse.
00:00:33.000Because normally, if you're going to use pressure politics, you use it in, you know, politics, right?
00:01:04.000That doesn't violate prescriptions on limited government.
00:01:06.000But it does change the natural tone and tenor of how it is to live as an American.
00:01:11.000If you are simply going after the commanding heights of Hollywood and using it to cram down cultural stereotypes about people you don't like, that does have an impact on American life.
00:01:19.000If you are going to the commanding heights of corporate America and demanding that corporate America do your political bending, that does have an impact on how we live.
00:01:28.000Again, there's a difference between the government doing something like that and a corporation doing something like that.
00:01:34.000We'll talk about that difference and why it actually opens up some market opportunities for conservatives as corporations make themselves less competitive on the American stage in order to cater to the whims of the far left.
00:01:45.000It's very short-sighted corporate policy, but nonetheless, it does polarize us in heretofore unseen ways in America.
00:01:52.000Okay, so we begin today with the failure of political blackmail.
00:01:55.000Political pressure politics have been used, obviously, throughout the history of the United States.
00:02:14.000You could just elect a majority of Democratic senators.
00:02:16.000In fact, you had a majority of Democratic senators all the way up through, what, 2014?
00:02:21.000And you could elect a Democratic House, which you already have.
00:02:23.000You could elect a Democratic president.
00:02:24.000In fact, you had all three of those branches.
00:02:27.000You had the Congress, and you had the Senate, and you had the presidency from 2009 all the way through 2011, early 2011.
00:02:35.000And you didn't do anything on gun control.
00:02:36.000So now, you see the press trying to push Mitch McConnell into doing something, and they're trying to use President Trump's vagary on gun control as sort of the lever to get McConnell to do something.
00:02:47.000So you got the Washington Post editorial board writing a full-page editorial, I mean, an extraordinarily long editorial, today, trying to push Mitch McConnell, suggesting that it's Mitch McConnell's fault that mass shootings are taking place.
00:02:59.000Which is a rather large absurdity, considering, again, that mass shootings have been taking place in the United States for decades at this point.
00:03:31.000OK, this is just the way politics works.
00:03:33.000And there's nothing particularly wrong with this.
00:03:35.000I mean, the people who are pushing the agenda have the wrong agenda.
00:03:38.000They're pushing policy that is impractical.
00:03:40.000But this is sort of normal politics as politics, I guess, is supposed to work.
00:03:43.000So The Washington Post writes an editorial.
00:03:46.000Again, titled, How many more names will be added to the list before Mitch McConnell acts on guns?
00:03:51.000And they just list a bunch of people who were killed Saturday in Midland and Odessa.
00:03:55.000They said, add those seven individuals randomly slaughtered Saturday by a shooter in the West Texas cities of Midland and Odessa to the toll of those lost to America's gun insanity.
00:04:23.000To suggest that it's a part of America's quote-unquote gun insanity is to create this miasmatic evil that descends on America randomly when that is not in fact the case.
00:04:33.000But that's not where the editorial board is going, obviously.
00:04:37.000What if there was a mass shooting in the United States, not once or twice or four or six times monthly, but every single day, a big one, the kind that electrifies social media and squats for days on page one?
00:04:46.000Would that be enough to move Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell from his insistent inertia on gun safety?
00:04:52.000Would any volume of bloodshed convince the Kentucky Republican that Congress faces a moral imperative to act?
00:04:58.00038 people were slain in three such shootings in August, and still Senate Republicans and President Trump refuse to act.
00:05:03.000Again, this is the old Democratic saw, which is that if you don't agree with them on policy, it's because you don't care if people get shot.
00:05:09.000And that's a lie, and it's nasty, but it is normal politics if you're directing it at an elected senator.
00:05:14.000And then they just list off all of the people who have been killed in a variety of mass shootings.
00:05:19.000They don't seem to care about all the people getting killed in Chicago because that is Democrat governed.
00:05:23.000They say the list below, far from comprehensive, is tragic in part because it is so far from inevitable.
00:05:28.000No, no single law would end gun violence, but there are reasonable, obvious measures that would help.
00:05:32.000For example, ban the sale of military grade assault weapons.
00:05:36.000Again, they say that's reasonable and obvious.
00:05:38.000Didn't really have an impact on mass shootings in the United States.
00:05:43.000Again, you can't just assert this sort of stuff.
00:06:21.000Yesterday, Yesterday, there was an article from Bloomberg that resulted in a Texas conservative named Leif Olson leaving the Department of Labor.
00:06:31.000Why exactly was he forced to leave the Department of Labor?
00:06:34.000Because he posted a couple of times on Facebook, making fun of the alt-right and mocking anti-Semitism.
00:06:40.000And Bloomberg took that out of context to suggest that he was alt-right and supported anti-Semitism.
00:06:45.000I'll get to that story in just one second.
00:06:47.000First, let's talk about safety for just a minute.
00:06:49.000So, I'm somebody who requires an enormous amount of safety precautions.
00:06:53.000Unfortunately, I get an enormous number of death threats.
00:07:22.000I don't have to be home to know exactly what's going on at the doorbell of my house.
00:07:26.000As a subscriber, you have a special offer on a Ring welcome kit available right now at ring.com slash Ben.
00:07:32.000The kit includes the Ring Video Doorbell 2 and a Chime Pro, which is just what you need to start building a ring of security around your home today.
00:07:38.000In fact, I just upgraded all of my Ring kit because we're upgrading security around my home.
00:08:04.000A recently appointed Trump Labor Department official with a history of advancing controversial conservative and faith based causes in court has resigned after revelations that he wrote a 2016 Facebook post suggesting the Jewish controlled media protects their own.
00:08:17.000And that sounds pretty bad, doesn't it?
00:08:20.000Except for it's obviously not what he is saying.
00:08:23.000He is obviously mocking all of the people on the alt right who were suggesting this 2016 that Paul Ryan, then the Speaker of the House, was going to lose his congressional primary to Paul Nalen, an open white supremacist.
00:08:35.000And he wrote this mocking, this mocking, ridiculous Facebook post making fun of the alt-right.
00:08:41.000He wrote, establishment insider rhino corporate tool Paul Ryan was finally brought to heel in tonight's primary election by an uprising of the conservative masses of real America, eager for an authentic voice in Washington, instead of the same tired globalist open borders pap they've been pushing on us since the elites abandoned the people.
00:08:56.000The guy just suffered a massive, historic, emasculating 70 point victory.
00:09:01.000Let's see him and his Georgetown cocktail party puppet masters try to walk that one off.
00:09:05.000As obviously he is mocking people who said that Paul Malin was going to beat Paul Ryan.
00:09:10.000And then somebody wrote back to him as a humorous reply.
00:09:26.000OK, so Bloomberg reported this as though making fun of the alt-right and anti-Semitism was actually anti-Semitic so they could get this guy fired.
00:09:35.000OK, so this is the shift from normal political I'm like Mitch McConnell, to going out of your way to deliberately read something wrong in order to target somebody.
00:10:06.000An organization that is a lobbying organization on behalf of American citizens who wish to protect their Second Amendment rights is now a domestic terrorist organization.
00:10:20.000I mean, I really wonder why so many gun owners are uneasy about red flag laws when you have the San Francisco legislative body passing a resolution officially labeling the NRA a domestic terrorist organization.
00:10:31.000This is the equivalent of labeling EMILY's List a domestic terrorist organization on the right.
00:10:36.000District 2 Supervisor Catherine Stefani, whose district includes the Marina and Presidio, wrote the declaration stating that the NRA, quote, spreads propaganda that misinforms and aims to deceive the public about the dangers of gun violence.
00:10:47.000In other words, they exercise their First Amendment rights.
00:10:50.000Therefore, they're a terrorist organization.
00:10:53.000They say that the NRA, quote, musters its considerable wealth and organizational strength to promote gun ownership and incite gun owners to acts of violence.
00:11:00.000There's no evidence that the NRA incites gun owners to acts of violence.
00:11:09.000If San Francisco is now in the business of labeling people terrorists who disagree with them, now we are getting into the realm of the dangerous.
00:11:15.000So you move from normal political manipulation, that is bad stuff, the Mitch McConnell stuff, To abnormal political manipulation, members of the media attacking people for precisely the opposite of what they're saying, to openly labeling everybody who you don't like some sort of terrorist.
00:11:37.000The declaration, according to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, reads, quote, All countries have violent and hateful people, but only in America do we give them ready access to assault weapons and large capacity magazines, thanks in large part to the National Rifle Association's influence.
00:11:57.000So that one is bad because that is an actual board of government labeling fellow citizens terrorists on the basis of their belief system, which is really nasty.
00:12:05.000And let us not forget that the entire left has suggested that if you use inflammatory language, about the positions of people on the left, that you're inciting violence against them.
00:12:15.000So if you say that Ilhan Omar is a bad person and an anti-Semite, she says that you're inciting violence against her.
00:12:19.000If you suggest that Rashida Tlaib's belief system is wrong and nasty, then you're inciting violence against her in some sort of way.
00:12:26.000If you label everybody in the United States who supports the Second Amendment a terrorist, apparently that's totally okay in San Francisco.
00:12:32.000If you label the NRA, which is again, a law-abiding, First Amendment exercising organization, a terrorist organization, That's totally fine.
00:12:45.000But, here's the thing, all of that is also unsuccessful.
00:12:48.000The fact is, no matter how much the San Francisco Board of Supervisors yells at the NRA, that is not going to be an effective pressure tactic because the NRA is the NRA.
00:12:56.000The fact is that Bloomberg could have reported this about Lief Olsen, and if Lief Olsen and the Trump administration had just stood strong and fought back, they really couldn't have gotten anything done.
00:13:06.000The fact is that the Washington Post can write as many editorials as it could possibly want about Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, and he's not going to do their bidding.
00:13:40.000So back in the 1960s and 1950s, there were segregated businesses, and private people decided to boycott those businesses in order to end segregation.
00:13:49.000So for example, the Woolworths counter, In the early 1960s, the Woolworth's lunch counter was segregated.
00:13:55.000And a bunch of civil rights activists, young black students for the most part, went into Woolworth's and sat down at the counter and then were abused at the counter.
00:14:04.000And this was such a national scandal that Woolworth's actually voluntarily desegregated its counters because they didn't want the blowback.
00:14:11.000Right now, those people were acting in courageous ways.
00:14:16.000And as a general rule, It is quite possible that you can pressure a corporation to quote-unquote do the right thing.
00:14:23.000But what we have now seen is that that tactic has been expanded beyond its use in specific situations to simply castigate anybody who disagrees with you on matters of politics and to change corporate policy from above.
00:14:38.000And to change corporate policy from above from the commanding heights of business.
00:14:43.000And this has grown beyond specific instances of fighting against discrimination and into we need to get our political preferences done by any means necessary, including activating corporate bosses to do our bidding for us.
00:14:55.000Today's example comes courtesy of Walmart.
00:14:57.000We'll explain why this is actually quite divisive and polarizing and why the end result is not going to be exactly what the left thinks it is.
00:16:49.000I'm not calling for the regulation of Walmart or Facebook or any of these other corporations.
00:16:53.000I am saying that the left's use of corporations as a cudgel is dangerous for the nature of American political discourse.
00:17:00.000And this is what the left is increasingly doing.
00:17:02.000Now, it started off in the realm of secondary boycotts.
00:17:04.000So you saw the left do this originally with Rush Limbaugh, and they did it with Sean Hannity, and they did it with Tucker Carlson, they've done it with Laura Ingraham, they've tried to do it with my show.
00:17:12.000What they do is they go to corporations, and they try to say to those corporations, how dare you sponsor and subsidize speech with which we disagree?
00:17:20.000It doesn't matter that you run your advertising on a wide variety of political shows.
00:17:38.000The fact is that those who claim they're going to boycott You know, the coffee makers who are on Sean Hannity's show are totally full of crap.
00:17:45.000They were never going to boycott those companies.
00:17:47.000The people who sound off from Media Matters, they really are not wielding enormous amounts of power.
00:17:52.000They can create a problem for your HR, for your PR department for like three days and that's it.
00:17:57.000But a lot of corporations started caving to this sort of stuff when they went after Rush Limbaugh's advertisers, when they went after Sean's advertisers or Tucker's.
00:18:04.000They can create all sorts of problems.
00:18:06.000And the left saw that this was successful.
00:18:08.000So they've decided that they are going to rely on corporate cowardice in order for them to push their agenda now on a broader level.
00:18:14.000Not just by going after advertisers on programs like this one, which, by the way, is why you should subscribe to the programs you like.
00:18:19.000You can subscribe to this program over at dailywire.com.
00:18:22.000They've decided they are going to go after corporations more broadly and use those corporations to cram down policy that affects the entire country.
00:18:29.000Again, perfectly legal, but it is a sign of corporate cowardice that so many corporate CEOs are falling for this.
00:18:35.000So corporate CEOs do control an enormous amount of American life.
00:18:53.000I've been over here defending Walmart, right?
00:18:55.000But Walmart does control an enormous amount of America's industry, obviously.
00:19:00.000And this is true for a wide variety of corporations.
00:19:02.000So, if the left cannot capture government, if they cannot get elected to positions of power, instead they figure they will capture the boardrooms by threatening action against CEOs, by threatening action against corporations, by threatening to make a PR stink if they do not get what they want.
00:19:16.000Now, all it would take is corporations to just say, no, not gonna do it.
00:19:23.000And if you don't like those products, that's on you, man.
00:19:26.000If you don't like the products that we sell, you can feel free to shop elsewhere.
00:19:30.000But now, because of the media pressure, because of the left's pressure, political pressure, the threat of legislation from the government, what you're starting to see is corporations seeking safety behind the shield of either government regulation or positive PR from the press.
00:20:07.000They're designed to provide you products and services.
00:20:09.000You're the one who's supposed to do good with the products and services.
00:20:13.000It's not up to a paternalistic CEO to decide exactly which products you should consume.
00:20:18.000It is up to you to decide which products you should consume.
00:20:22.000And again, this is different from Woolworth's counter-boycotts, which were designed to stymie actual discriminatory policy by corporations.
00:20:30.000That, I think, is morally justifiable.
00:20:32.000I think that if you are going after Walmart and suggesting that Walmart cannot distribute or sell ammunition because it makes you mad, I'm having a hard time understanding what that has to do with them discriminating against black people, how that's comparable in any way, for example.
00:20:47.000Well, because on Tuesday, Walmart announced that after its current inventory is depleted, it will cave to the demands of far-left activists and stop selling handgun ammunition and ammunition commonly used in other popular semi-automatic firearms.
00:20:58.000Now, again, let me reiterate, this is their decision.
00:21:13.000And it's not going to be good for the culture in the long run.
00:21:15.000Walmart also stated it was requesting that customers issue carrying guns openly in their roughly 4,700 stores, as well as at Sam's Club stores in states that permit open carry.
00:21:25.000According to CNN, this is Daily Wire reporting.
00:21:27.000Walmart CEO Doug McMillan issued a memo to employees on Tuesday, in which he started by citing the mass shooting in El Paso and Dayton in August, as well as further shootings in Midland and Odessa, Texas.
00:21:36.000He continued, quote, we've been listening to a lot of people inside and outside our company as we think about the role we can play in helping to make the country feel safer.
00:21:44.000It is clear to us that the status quo is unacceptable.
00:21:46.000McMillan noted that Walmart had already ceased selling AR-15s, raising the age of limit to purchase a firearm or ammo to 21, required a green light on the background check for purchase instead of the absence of red light, which is required by federal law, among other steps.
00:22:00.000Then he wrote, quote, Today, we're sharing the decisions we've made that go further.
00:22:04.000After selling through our current inventory commitments, we will discontinue sales of short-barrel rifle ammunition, such as the .223 caliber and the .556 caliber, that, while commonly used in some hunting rifles, can also be used in large-capacity clips on military-style weapons.
00:22:19.000Again, no definition of what a military-style weapon is here.
00:22:22.000He says, we will sell through and discontinue handgun ammunition.
00:22:25.000We will discontinue handgun sales in Alaska, marking our complete exit from handguns.
00:22:31.000McMillan acknowledged that the stores would still offer long-barreled deer rifles and shotguns, cited incidents where individuals have entered Walmart stores attempting to make a statement and test our response, and then says we are respectfully requesting that customers no longer openly carry firearms into our stores or Sam's Clubs in states where open carry is permitted, unless they are authorized law enforcement officers.
00:22:51.000McMillan stated he was sending letters to the White House and congressional leadership, encouraging them to implement stronger background checks and the removal of weapons from those who have been determined to pose an imminent danger.
00:23:00.000He concluded the status quo is unacceptable.
00:23:02.000OK, so this is corporations that are now being activated in political ways.
00:23:08.000Don Bartlett, who is the Walmart executive VP of corporate affairs, told reporters, quote, We feel like we are striking a responsible balance between the interests of law abiding citizens who are exercising their legal rights and the safety concerns of our associates and customers.
00:23:54.000That is the number of pairs of Tommy John underwear they have sold, with 96% of their customers rating them with four stars or greater.
00:24:01.000With Tommy John's revolutionary underwear, the legs never ride up, the waistbands never roll down, and Tommy John is more than just underwear.
00:24:06.000They've got 750 products online, such as super soft loungewear, polo shirts, and apparel.
00:24:11.000Tommy John is so sure you're gonna love the fit and feel, that it's all backed by their best pair you'll ever wear, or it's free, guarantee.
00:24:17.000That means if you don't love your first pair, you will get a full refund.
00:25:49.000Point number two, if you continue along these lines where major corporations are expected to insert themselves in hot button political debates and then take sides in hot button political debates, the predictable and more than that, where the policies that they cram the predictable and more than that, where the policies that they cram down from above on customers are policies that favor one political side, what you will end up with is an entire other side of
00:26:15.000So for every Walmart that fails to sell ammunition as they used to, there will be another store that crops up that sells ammunition.
00:26:22.000And this is why, again, I'm not going to pretend that government regulation and Walmart doing this are the same.
00:26:28.000Obviously, I've made that distinction several times here.
00:26:30.000But what you are going to end up with inevitably, and this is the direction we are moving as a country, is separate stores for conservatives and liberals.
00:26:36.000Is separate TV channels for conservatives and liberals.
00:26:39.000Separate everything for conservatives and liberals.
00:26:42.000All the common spaces we once used to inhabit will go away.
00:26:45.000Because once you expect corporations to become the leading political players because they have enormous power to shape American life, you should not be surprised when other corporations form to fight back against all of that.
00:26:58.000The former Walmart CEO, Bill Simon, he said yesterday that in the end, the only thing that will solve the problem is gun control and D.C.
00:27:06.000And this is why when people say that big business is Republican or big business is conservative, it's not true.
00:27:13.000Okay, what that means sometimes is they are rent-seeking from D.C.
00:27:18.000And so they don't want to have to take a position on this.
00:27:20.000And so they're going to call on Washington, D.C.
00:27:22.000to change policy just so that they don't actually have to make decisions about any of this or leave it to the customers to make decisions about any of this.
00:27:29.000Here's Bill Simon, former Walmart CEO.
00:27:31.000When you do see a major retailer like Walmart take a move like this though, do you think it does add pressure to lawmakers to try and come to the table and have discussions?
00:27:40.000I think that's the only thing that's going to solve the problem.
00:27:43.000We have a crisis that has to be dealt with, and it has to be dealt with by sitting down petitions to retailers.
00:27:51.000Gosh, maybe they make some people feel good because they feel like they need to take action, but they won't solve the problem.
00:27:56.000Okay, now that's true, but it didn't stop Walmart from, quote unquote, trying to solve the problem by inserting itself into the issue.
00:28:01.000And so that really should be the normal answer of CEOs.
00:28:05.000Now, I understand that what the left has been trying to do is suggest that capitalism is itself the problem.
00:28:10.000There's this real push over at the New York Times, a bunch of other major publications suggesting that capitalism and free markets themselves are the problems.
00:28:17.000and that we need a new type of capitalism, a quote-unquote responsible capitalism, What they mean by that is they want retailers not to give customers choice.
00:28:25.000They want retailers to act as sort of guardian angels toward the American public.
00:28:31.000Not to stop selling products that inevitably do damage to people, like cigarettes, for example, but products that can be used for good or can be used for ill.
00:28:42.000Well, they're not going to like it if the shoe's on the other foot, right?
00:28:44.000I mean, if the corporations decide the other way, to ban a bunch of products the left loves, then all of a sudden it'll be, well, how could these corporations be cramming down their politics on us?
00:28:52.000But when it comes to them cramming down their politics using the commanding heights of the economy, then they are not only fine with it, they are very much in favor of it.
00:29:02.000Again, the predictable result is going to be a massive, large-scale division in American life.
00:29:07.000And it's not going to stop at Walmart.
00:29:08.000So Andrew Ross Sorkin, who writes for the New York Times and also is a commentator on CNBC, he has a column in which he praises Walmart's CEO for injecting themselves into this gun debate.
00:29:19.000And then he suggests that this should happen with all businesses.
00:29:23.000Right, he says, Midday Tuesday, Doug McMillan, Walmart's chief executive, sent me a surprise email.
00:29:27.000He shared a series of policies the company was about to make public about combating gun violence since the mass shooting that killed 22 people at one of his El Paso stores last month.
00:29:36.000Mr. McMillan's email was a reply of sorts to an open letter I had written to him, along with the outcry he heard from scores of Americans calling on him to use his leverage as leader of the country's largest retailer to create a model for more responsible gun selling practices.
00:29:48.000Now, McMillan and Walmart were not breaking the law in the first place.
00:29:52.000They were abiding by the law, but the idea was that they were supposed to do more.
00:29:55.000They were supposed to be our leaders, the corporations.
00:29:58.000It's always amusing to hear folks on the left, who are constantly ripping on big business and corporations, talk about these people being our moral leaders.
00:30:04.000Weird how that morphs really quickly, right?
00:30:06.000Elizabeth Warren moves from, corporations are the evil scourge of our society to, but they really should be setting gun policy, shouldn't they?
00:30:16.000But Ross Sorkin wants more, not just from Walmart.
00:30:19.000He says, until now, many top executives in corporate America, with some notable exceptions, refused to acknowledge the roles they could play in curbing the epidemic of gun violence.
00:30:27.000They invariably pointed to politicians in Washington as the ones who are responsible for solving the crisis.
00:30:32.000For example, now listen to this example.
00:31:40.000Instead, what they would like to do is create manufactured media controversy, and then suggest that the CEOs should step in where the political bosses have failed to act.
00:31:48.000So, these are the new pressure tactics.
00:31:51.000Basically, you use a form of corporate blackmail to go after corporate figures, and then use them to culturally cram down what you could not achieve politically.
00:31:59.000As I say, all of that is perfectly legal.
00:32:04.000Well, imagine a world in which Visa sets policy for exactly who they will do business with.
00:32:09.000Imagine a world in which Visa says, we are just not going to process your transaction.
00:32:13.000All the credit card companies, the left gets what it wants.
00:32:15.000All the credit card companies say, we are not going to process your transactions if they're not transactions with which we agree.
00:32:23.000That's going to get into some really dicey territory incredibly quickly.
00:32:26.000Because let's say, for example, that you want to give charity to your synagogue or your church.
00:32:31.000And your synagogue or your church does not perform same-sex marriages, for example.
00:32:35.000And Visa says, OK, well, we are not going to allow you to give charity using our credit card because we disagree with your church's policies.
00:32:45.000OK, is that a good thing or a bad thing?
00:32:49.000What you will end up with is separate chains of commerce, politically speaking.
00:32:53.000The biggest problem in the country right now, everyone talks about it, is political polarization, but the left's solution for political polarization is to not let you engage in any business, in any commerce, unless you agree with them.
00:33:05.000Let's not pretend that they just want Walmart to stop selling ammo.
00:33:08.000What they want is for everyone to stop selling ammo and everyone to stop selling guns.
00:33:12.000Instead, what you're going to have happen is people who set up entire chains of commerce that are based outside of the common system we currently hold.
00:33:20.000People like me will set up a conservative credit card that is designed and oriented so that conservatives can patronize conservative businesses and get points back to conservative causes.
00:33:30.000And we'll do this, not because we want to, but out of necessity.
00:33:33.000What you will end up with is not people failing to buy guns.
00:33:36.000You'll have people buying guns in cash, which actually makes it a lot harder for people to track the transactions.
00:33:42.000So if you're on the left and you like gun control, that ain't smart.
00:33:44.000What you're going to end up with is a world in which we have entirely separate spheres of life based on your political orientation because we force corporations into taking sides.
00:33:55.000That is where we are going, and that is the future that a lot on the left want.
00:33:59.000They're very excited that corporate CEOs are now getting involved in these fights.
00:34:03.000Now, in the long term, what's going to end up happening is that these corporations are going to cut themselves off from half the American public.
00:34:08.000Because there will be a reaction, and the reaction will be, I'm not going to shop there anymore.
00:34:12.000So in the moment, they're figuring that conservatives will be sanguine about all of this, and they'll just continue to shop at Walmart.
00:35:06.000Also, Austin has a deep and abiding level of calm and patronizing cynicism that alienates everyone who works within a 30-foot sphere of Austin.
00:35:15.000Now, he's not actually really cynical.
00:35:17.000He's actually a really nice guy, but he's so quiet that you feel like he's judging you all the time.
00:36:00.000They're one of our favorite advertisers, especially because I can always use their advertisements to make my Employees deeply uncomfortable on every possible level.
00:36:10.000In just a second, I want to get to more cultural polarization because the attempts to polarize us using politics, those are pretty much going to fail in the political sphere.
00:36:20.000But then to do it on the corporate level, that is succeeding.
00:36:22.000And then there's another area where the left seeks to polarize, and that is in the entertainment arena.
00:36:36.000Because the left would like to remove all profit incentive from those programs by going after advertisers, by going after corporations, by suggesting that we cannot work in the normal business sphere.
00:36:49.000The way you protect yourself against that to make sure that we can continue to bring you the content that you love is you go to dailywire.com and you spend $9.99 a month or $99 a year When you get the 99 buck a year annual subscription, you also get this, the very greatest in beverage vessels, the leftist here's hot or cold tumbler.
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00:37:12.000So go check us out right now at dailywire.com.
00:37:14.000We are the largest, fastest growing conservative podcast and radio show in the nation.
00:37:17.000So as I say, what we're going to end up with is a cultural polarization.
00:37:27.000And the CEOs think that they can buy off the left.
00:37:36.000I mean, imagine a supposedly First Amendment press organization cheering a corporate decision to crack down basically on some of its own consumers.
00:37:50.000If you consider what an enormous retailer Walmart is, what an enormous employer it is, and we can sit here in a newsroom and say this is a very clear-cut issue, it's not a clear-cut issue.
00:38:02.000Gun culture is a really important part of America.
00:38:05.000Right, and Walmart sees more of America than any other business in this country.
00:38:51.000What they don't understand is that when you shape the overall culture so that people feel alienated from your business because they feel like you're taking sides, Your long-term risk is actually pretty significant.
00:39:01.000And if you think that the Democrats are going to lay off you, you are totally wrong.
00:39:23.000He just knows he doesn't like Mark Zuckerberg.
00:39:25.000He says, Mark Zuckerberg has repeatedly lied to the American people about privacy.
00:39:28.000I think he ought to be held personally accountable, which is everything from financial fines to, and let me underline this, the possibility of a prison term.
00:39:36.000If corporate CEOs believe that there will not be a push by members of the Democratic Party to jail CEOs who do not do what they want them to do, they're wrong.
00:39:47.000The far left is not going to stop with, oh, we're so happy that Walmart stopped selling ammo.
00:39:52.000Do you really think that that's the only problem the left has with Walmart?
00:39:54.000Because if so, you haven't been watching very closely.
00:39:57.000Now, this has also infected the cultural sphere.
00:39:59.000So, the left, there are several major institutions in American life where there are commanding heights.
00:40:06.000Now, again, for the ninth time this show, there's a difference between the government, which is an elected body with delegated powers to defend our rights, Invading those rights and the cultural decay that happens when other common institutions break down.
00:41:07.000I mean, Chappelle is correct about this.
00:41:09.000Chappelle also calls out, in specific, I mean, he specifically calls out the LGBTQ lobbying organizations for going after comedians and for trying to destroy their careers.
00:41:18.000And he specifically cites the Kevin Hart situation.
00:41:21.000He very hilariously states that Kevin Hart, who's known for years, is basically a perfect human being.
00:41:27.000And he talks about Kevin Hart's career basically being destroyed.
00:41:31.000Or at least significantly damaged at the height of his career aspirations, I host the Oscars, by the woke skulls.
00:41:38.000And then he talks at length, he does a riff about abortion.
00:41:40.000And his riff about abortion ends up being kind of pro-life.
00:41:43.000And he says that he doesn't care whether a woman has an abortion, but if it's the woman's choice, and only the woman's choice, then men shouldn't have to pay for the child support, which is a very common argument that is made by sort of cynical pro-lifers.
00:41:56.000And then he says, or maybe we have the logic of this whole thing entirely wrong.
00:42:00.000The left has gone absolutely ape bleep about this.
00:42:03.000I mean, they have gone insane about this.
00:42:06.000And the critics hate this Chappelle speech.
00:42:07.000Now, Chappelle used to be the sort of consensus best comedian living.
00:42:12.000And there are a lot of great comedians.
00:42:24.000The commanding heights of Hollywood must prevent the accession of people like Dave Chappelle.
00:42:30.000Because Dave Chappelle has crossed too many lines.
00:42:33.000Now, Dave Chappelle is intersectional, right?
00:42:35.000He is a black man, and this means that he also makes jokes about white people that are very, very harsh jokes about the heroin epidemic and white folks and all the rest of this.
00:42:45.000But he is a gun-toting black man who makes jokes about abortion and LGBTQ lobbying organizations, and this means he must be excised.
00:42:55.000Hollywood has to be, the commanding heights of Hollywood have to be used on behalf of one particular point of view.
00:43:01.000And if they are not, then the woke scolds in the media and in Hollywood will come after them.
00:43:06.000So Dave Chappelle is now the target of these woke scolds.
00:43:08.000So Vice reviewed Chappelle's special like this, quote, now he chooses to blatantly ignore the historic criticism against his style of comedy and new loud and clear criticism from the trans community.
00:43:21.000Pace Magazine called his special boring, hypocritical, and out of touch.
00:43:33.000Because critics are no longer reviewing the quality of an act.
00:43:35.000Instead, they're reviewing the wokeness of an act, which is how Hannah Gadsby, who is the least funny person who has ever lived.
00:43:42.000I mean, I'm talking about the least funny human being who has ever lived.
00:43:47.000There are There are human beings who live in caves, in isolation, who have never heard a joke and are not properly socialized, who are more funny than Hannah Gadsby.
00:43:59.000She has 100% ratings on Rotten Tomatoes.
00:44:02.000Dave Chappelle was at 0% on Rotten Tomatoes.
00:44:11.000On Rotten Tomatoes, Slate, right, Nkou Kang of Slate wrote, like dropping in on a rascally uncle who doesn't know or doesn't care how much he's disappointing you.
00:44:20.000Alison Herman of The Ringer said Sticks and Stones is designed to generate inflammatory coverage.
00:44:24.000It's a symbiotic cycle with no end in sight.
00:44:26.000It's become the last thing a beloved provocateur should ever want to be predictable.
00:44:32.000Okay, they are reviewing him for his proper acquiescence to the struggle session Maoist left views of comedy.
00:45:05.000So Chappelle is now on the target list, the same way that Kevin Hart was on the target list.
00:45:10.000It's the same reason why you saw in the last 48 hours attempts by folks in Hollywood to try and out everybody in Beverly Hills who is going to a Trump fundraiser because everyone must think alike or be excised.
00:45:20.000The commanding heights of the culture, the commanding heights of corporate America, and the commanding heights of politics must all be occupied by folks who agree with the left.
00:45:28.000Now, in the political realm, The good news is we have things called elections, and so we can just say no.
00:45:33.000In the corporate realm, it is very difficult to convince corporate CEOs that they ought to listen to their own customers as opposed to the woke-schooled, check-marked crowd on Twitter.
00:45:43.000And in the entertainment media, that is particularly true.
00:45:46.000So here I must stop and say good on Whoopi Goldberg.
00:45:50.000Whoopi Goldberg actually said the right thing yesterday on The View.
00:45:53.000She was talking about this push by Deborah Messing and Eric McCormick, the stars of Will & Grace, to out all of the donors to President Trump in the Beverly Hills area.
00:46:01.000And Whoopi Goldberg says the right thing.
00:46:04.000Your idea of who you don't want to work with is your personal business.
00:46:09.000Do not encourage people to print out lists, because the next list that comes out, your name will be on, and then people will be coming after you.
00:46:16.000In this country, people can vote for who they want to.
00:46:20.000That is one of the great rights of this country.
00:46:52.000I'm suggesting that these CEOs can do precisely what they want, but there will be ramifications to it, and it will not be good for the country.
00:46:58.000Will Wilkinson, who writes for, I believe, Huffington Post sometimes, he said, the complaint here is really that businesses cater to customers, but the hard-right minority is accustomed to political institutions rigged to stymie majority opinion, and they want everything to be like that.
00:47:11.000Is the majority opinion in the United States that Walmart should not be able to sell product that's legal?
00:47:14.000Is that the majority opinion in the United States?
00:47:16.000Or is that a minority opinion in the United States that is using the power of social media and blue check marks and MSNBC to cram down their preferred policy on CEOs?
00:47:24.000Again, my big concern here is that at least politics is built so that we can have conversations.
00:47:30.000And then we can decide how those conversations turn out because we do this thing called voting.
00:48:01.000Or he will do what Aziz Ansari has done and say some politically incorrect things, but say them in politically correct ways.
00:48:08.000He will either cave to the crowd or he will be destroyed.
00:48:10.000And in corporate America, as long as corporate CEOs decide that they are going to cower in fear at the woke left, Then there's not much the conservatives can really do about any of that, which is why I say that corporations need to stand up on their hind legs and say, our job is to provide goods and services to willing customers.
00:48:28.000If you want to change the law, change the law, but we are not going to change policy based on your policy preferences today.
00:48:33.000That is not what we are doing as a general rule.
00:48:37.000If they don't do that, then things will get more polarized, and it will become more and more important for Republicans to keep the levers of government.
00:48:43.000You wonder why Republicans are so rabid about elections these days?
00:48:47.000They feel like the government is the only area of life where they still get a say, and they feel like if the left takes over the government, they're going to use precisely the same logic that they have used with corporations and with Hollywood, and they are going to cram down their opinions on everybody else using the power of the government gun this time, not just the power of a few loudspeakers in the faces of abjectly craven CEOs.
00:49:07.000Okay, time for a quick thing I like, and then a quick thing that I hate.
00:49:13.000So, in my spare time, my copious free time, I am a fan of fantasy novels.
00:49:17.000Somebody in the office had recommended Terry Goodkind's Wizard's First Rule.
00:49:21.000I'll admit it took me a little bit of time to get into it.
00:49:24.000This book, I believe, is from the early 90s, I think?
00:49:27.000And it took me maybe 150, 200 pages to get into it.
00:49:30.000I have not finished the book yet, so I don't know if it ends well.
00:49:33.000But I will say that it is entertaining and it definitely carries you.
00:49:37.000So the book is Wizard's First Rule by Terry Goodkind.
00:49:40.000The writing style takes a little bit to adjust to because at the beginning it's kind of awkwardly written, but then it definitely gets better and more interesting as it goes on.
00:49:46.000So if you're into good fantasy novels, then try that one out.
00:49:49.000Wizard's First Rule by Terry Goodkind.
00:49:50.000And thanks to producer Anthony for that particular recommendation.
00:49:54.000Okay, time for a quick thing that I hate.
00:50:00.000Alrighty, so, today, the New York Post is reporting that Representative Ilhan Omar's husband wants a divorce after this bombshell report about her having an affair with D.C.
00:50:22.000I will point out that if a Republican congresswoman were involved in this sort of scandal right now, it would be on the front pages of every newspaper in America.
00:50:28.000Because Ilhan Omar is a beloved figure on the left, however, then everybody sort of ignores this or pretends that it's politically incorrect to talk about it.
00:50:36.000The fact is that it raises serious moral questions about her character, obviously.
00:50:44.000They allegedly separated in March, and Omar asked Hersey to divorce her around that time because she didn't want to file the papers, but Hersey refused, telling her if she wanted a divorce, she should do it herself, according to sources talking to the New York Post.
00:50:58.000And then, after Tim Minot's wife filed bombshell divorce papers claiming that her spouse was having an affair with Omar, Hersey was angry, and he said that he was made to look a fool, and he is considering filing for divorce.
00:51:10.000Again, the media coverage of this, I mean, the New York Post is covering it.
00:51:13.000I've not seen it covered in any mainstream publication.
00:52:07.000Hey folks, it's Andrew Klavan, host of The Andrew Klavan Show.
00:52:10.000Whether it's about race, about guns, or the climate, Brexit, or the economy, the left has learned to tell simple stories to get what they want, power.
00:52:18.000We'll talk about that, plus solve all your problems in the mailbag.