The Ben Shapiro Show - July 22, 2026


4 Problems Fueling Socialism — and How to Fix Each One


Episode Stats


Length

10 minutes

Words per minute

201.87

Word count

2,049

Sentence count

154

Harmful content

Toxicity

1

sentences flagged

Hate speech

7

sentences flagged


Summary

Summaries generated with gmurro/bart-large-finetuned-filtered-spotify-podcast-summ .

In this episode, I talk about how to defeat the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) in the midterms and beyond, and why you should vote for the Republican Party in order to win in 2020 and beyond. I also talk about the Iran war and why we need to wrap it up.

Transcript

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Toxicity classifications generated with s-nlp/roberta_toxicity_classifier .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 Folks, I understand that Republicans are worried about the midterms.
00:00:02.000 It is indeed imperative that Republicans win.
00:00:04.000 Meanwhile, the Democratic Socialists of America are eating the Democratic Party whole.
00:00:08.000 They're showing no signs of stopping.
00:00:10.000 So here is my pitch on how Republicans can win against the DSA, not only in 2026, but well beyond.
00:00:16.000 We actually have to focus on defending free markets, but in a different way.
00:00:21.000 If we do, we'll win.
00:00:22.000 And if we don't, well, President AOC is not a distant possibility.
00:00:27.000 So Speaker Mike Johnson, yesterday he was talking about the war in Iran.
00:00:32.000 And he says that we need to wrap up the war in Iran.
00:00:34.000 By the way, I agree that we need to wrap up the war in Iran. 0.99
00:00:36.000 We need to wrap it up in a good way by defeating and destroying the Iranian capacity over the Strait of Hormuz and ending their nuclear program. 0.99
00:00:43.000 That's what we need to do. 1.00
00:00:44.000 And we should have done that fast.
00:00:45.000 We should have done it hard.
00:00:46.000 We should not be doing this kind of graduated escalation routine, as I talked about yesterday on the show. 0.97
00:00:52.000 It's a dumb move.
00:00:52.000 Okay, but Speaker Johnson wants this to wrap up because he would like for gas prices to go down before the midterms.
00:01:00.000 Look, I think it's important for all of our international partners, is my personal view.
00:01:05.000 To have a role in this.
00:01:06.000 I mean, we've got all of our allied nations through NATO.
00:01:09.000 We've got the Arab countries over there, the Gulf states that are in closest proximity to Iran. 0.71
00:01:14.000 Iran is now fired on all of its neighbors, and they're turning everybody in the world into an enemy. 0.65
00:01:20.000 And I think this is an important moment of history for all of the world community to decide how they want to handle this. 0.99
00:01:26.000 It shouldn't just be America's obligation.
00:01:29.000 My view is that everybody needs to play a role.
00:01:31.000 So we'll see how that develops.
00:01:33.000 I think we have to allow the space to do that.
00:01:35.000 And I know that this administration is working around the clock to resolve that in a way so that we don't suffer any more troop losses.
00:01:41.000 This is a great tragedy.
00:01:42.000 It shouldn't happen.
00:01:44.000 But it is a very important, very important objective that I believe we've achieved to ensure that the largest sponsor of terrorism does not have a nuclear weapon.
00:01:54.000 That would be a disaster for everybody, and everybody around the world understands that.
00:01:57.000 Now we've got to wrap it up.
00:02:00.000 Okay, so we've got to wrap it up, is the thing people are glomming onto.
00:02:02.000 Now, again, I agree we need to wrap it up, and I'll talk in a little bit about how we ought to go about wrapping it up.
00:02:07.000 But.
00:02:08.000 I think that Republicans should be pretty clear about something.
00:02:11.000 When it comes to the generic congressional vote, Republicans have had a problem since Liberation Day.
00:02:17.000 You want to talk about affordability?
00:02:18.000 It really started with Liberation Day and the tariffs.
00:02:21.000 Since literally that day, Republicans have been trailing in the real clear politics, generic congressional average, every day since Liberation Day, every single day.
00:02:30.000 And the margin of Republican defeat here, of potential Republican defeat, has been essentially the same since January. 0.57
00:02:37.000 So nothing has actually changed due to the Iran war.
00:02:40.000 And now, would changing the affordability concerns change that math somewhat?
00:02:44.000 Probably.
00:02:45.000 But if you wish to defeat the DSA long term, if you wish to defeat the DSA long term, then you need to do something else.
00:02:53.000 And that is not just make things slightly more affordable.
00:02:57.000 You need to actively make the case as to why the DSA is wrong.
00:03:01.000 You have to make the case, in other words, for free market capitalism.
00:03:04.000 This is what the Republican Party has to do going forward.
00:03:07.000 When you're online, the truth is you're not spending all that much time actually reading and consuming.
00:03:11.000 Relevant information.
00:03:12.000 You know when that's the most true?
00:03:13.000 Like the most true.
00:03:14.000 It's actually the most true every time you have, say, an app update and it's got 47 pages of legal language and you scroll right to the bottom and just hit agree.
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00:04:11.000 So when people say affordability, let's talk about affordability for a second in a real way.
00:04:15.000 When people say affordability, as I've said before, they just mean things cost too much for me.
00:04:19.000 I'm not making enough money.
00:04:21.000 I've yet to meet anyone on planet Earth who believes that things don't cost too much money and they're making enough money.
00:04:27.000 That's true for pretty much everybody.
00:04:28.000 Obviously, it's more true objectively for some than for others.
00:04:31.000 However, When it comes to affordability, the problem for Republicans, and this is what I see for Republicans going forward, is they keep trying to outbid Democrats on government interventionism in the economy.
00:04:41.000 The DSA will say affordability and then propose nationalization.
00:04:45.000 And the right will say, no, no, no, our response is just partial nationalization.
00:04:48.000 Okay, let's be clear.
00:04:49.000 When it comes to affordability, there are basically four issues that affordability means.
00:04:55.000 There are four issues affordability means, and Republicans need to take on them all.
00:04:58.000 This is where the momentum for the Democrats is coming from on the affordability issue.
00:05:03.000 One, uncertainty.
00:05:05.000 Americans feel genuinely uncertain about the economy.
00:05:08.000 And a large chunk of that is about AI.
00:05:11.000 That uncertainty tends to lead to a form of economic revanchism, kind of a general societal call to halt economic progress and innovation, and instead aim to kind of stop things dead where they are and then redistribute.
00:05:22.000 So, if the GOP, if Republicans, if free market conservatives wish to overcome that uncertainty, we have to argue, number one, that of course all economics is uncertain, but AI is a transitional moment.
00:05:34.000 It will radically drive down costs on the other end.
00:05:37.000 That you will, in fact, either retain your job or your job will become easier or you will get a new job pretty quickly.
00:05:43.000 Americans are worried about this across the board, by the way.
00:05:45.000 The polls show that 47% of Republicans are concerned about someone in their household losing a job to AI.
00:05:51.000 61% of Democrats are.
00:05:52.000 70% of Americans believe AI is going to decrease job opportunities overall.
00:05:58.000 And then when you tie that to the apocalyptic rhetoric of AI founders and creators who are simultaneously saying that AI is going to destroy the world and also we need to pour more money into AI, Americans feel under threat.
00:06:08.000 Republicans need to explain AI.
00:06:09.000 They do.
00:06:10.000 Second, confusion.
00:06:12.000 You have uncertainty and then you have confusion.
00:06:14.000 Americans do not understand how wealth creation and free markets work.
00:06:19.000 And conservatives have spent almost zero time for the past several decades explaining this sort of stuff.
00:06:23.000 They have treated the markets as though the markets are sort of mean and nasty and cold.
00:06:28.000 This goes all the way back to George W. Bush's compassionate conservatism.
00:06:32.000 We don't need Medicare for all, we need Econ 101 for all.
00:06:36.000 You have to make an affirmative case.
00:06:37.000 If you're going to be like President Trump and cite the stock market, you have to explain to people why the stock market matters to them.
00:06:43.000 What does Wall Street actually do for America?
00:06:45.000 The answer, by the way, is that Wall Street invests in every single major business that makes your life better.
00:06:50.000 Wall Street provides the pool of liquidity that probably keeps you employed and keeps your 401k moving up.
00:06:54.000 Wall Street is the pool of capital that allows for growth and allows us to weed out the companies that are underperforming.
00:07:05.000 Now, the supposed illegitimacy of malefactors of great wealth, which is what FDR called it, has been a populist hobby horse for generations.
00:07:12.000 And while finance and tech continue to grow by leaps and bounds, It's likely to get worse unless people explain how econ works.
00:07:18.000 Okay.
00:07:19.000 Third, corruption.
00:07:21.000 A lot of Americans believe that the system is corrupt.
00:07:24.000 They are put off by blatant corruption.
00:07:26.000 And we actually have to make the case that corruption is bad on the right.
00:07:29.000 Yes, all corruption, left and right, it's all bad.
00:07:31.000 Because here's what the left does they say the corruption is happening because of capitalism.
00:07:36.000 But capitalism is not in favor of corruption.
00:07:40.000 Capitalism is about an equally applicable set of private property rules that anyone can play by.
00:07:47.000 If you are getting a special benefit from the government, that is not capitalism, that is cronyism, that is corporatism, in some cases, economic fascism.
00:07:55.000 If the government is taking stakes in various businesses, that is not capitalism.
00:08:00.000 That is a form of government interventionism.
00:08:03.000 Mercantilist trade policy, where you carve out your friends, or corporatist stakeholding in private companies, or your friends, or cronyistic corruption, where friends and family members get the nice sack of cash.
00:08:13.000 That sort of stuff undermines free markets.
00:08:15.000 And it leads the public to conflate those perversions of the free markets with the free markets themselves.
00:08:21.000 This is what happened, by the way, in 2007, 2008.
00:08:23.000 You like the Obama era?
00:08:24.000 The reason that happened is because in the late 1990s, there was a rewrite.
00:08:28.000 Of government rules with regard to mortgages.
00:08:30.000 And the government started subsidizing subprime mortgages at exorbitant rates.
00:08:35.000 And a bunch of companies took the cash and started subsidizing those subprime mortgages.
00:08:39.000 And when it all went to hell in a handbasket, it wasn't the government that got blamed.
00:08:43.000 It was private industry that got blamed.
00:08:45.000 And you ended up with tremendous government regulation under Obamaism.
00:08:49.000 Corruption needs to be fought by people who care about free markets.
00:08:52.000 And finally, of course, envy.
00:08:55.000 So envy might be the only area where actual affordability matters, like the prices of things matter.
00:08:59.000 Uncertainty will never go away.
00:09:00.000 Confusion is an endemic problem.
00:09:03.000 Corruption will only go away when there's less government involvement in the economy.
00:09:07.000 Envy, that's a normal human thing.
00:09:09.000 Everyone has some level of envy, you know, wanting what your neighbor has.
00:09:13.000 And the rise of social media is creating an unending source of jealousy, right?
00:09:16.000 Because you see somebody who has no job vacationing in the Maldives, and you're like, why can't I do that as well?
00:09:22.000 But, you know, as your lifestyle gets better, you have less pure material envy.
00:09:26.000 So, in that area, obviously, affordability matters.
00:09:30.000 But here is the thing if Republicans wish to win long term, so we don't just bounce between parties, If Republicans wish to win long term, it's got to be more than inflation dropping or your lifestyle improving.
00:09:45.000 Right?
00:09:46.000 It's got to be an actual understanding of how the economy works, an actual belief in honesty in the markets, an actual recognition that innovation is good.
00:09:56.000 These are cases that Republicans need to take up again.
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