The Ben Shapiro Show - The Closing Of The American Mind | Ep. 1050

00:00:00.000 As the left shifts the Overton window, cancel culture becomes more and more demanding.

00:00:04.000 Coronavirus continues to rage across the country as President Trump finally dons a mask.

00:00:08.000 And crime surges while AOC blames, you guessed it, capitalism.

00:00:11.000 I'm Ben Shapiro.

00:00:12.000 This is the Ben Shapiro Show.

00:00:13.000 This show is sponsored by ExpressVPN.com.

00:00:21.000 Don't like the government spying on you?

00:00:22.000 Then visit expressvpn.com to stay anonymous.

00:00:26.000 Okay, well I hope that you had a safe and happy weekend.

00:00:28.000 We're going to get to all the news because there is plenty of it.

00:00:31.000 We begin today with a simple observation.

00:00:34.000 The push to the left is not going to stop if Joe Biden becomes president.

00:00:37.000 I think there are a lot of people who believe that Joe Biden becoming president simply will let everything get back to normal.

00:00:41.000 And once Joe Biden is president, and the polls seem to reflect this, and once Joe Biden is president, everybody can go back about their business, all the crazy stops, everybody calms down.

00:00:49.000 The left calms down because Trump is no longer president, and the right calms down because Trump is no longer president, and slow old Joe just is kind of there, and everything goes back to quasi-normal.

00:00:59.000 I think that this is really missing the boat.

00:01:01.000 I think the reason this is missing the boat is because we have had this pattern in American politics for quite a while, where everybody misinterprets an election victory as a mandate for their particular program.

00:01:10.000 And to be fair, This is a bipartisan issue.

00:01:12.000 So in 2004, after George W. Bush won, and he beat John Kerry, instead of interpreting that as, I just beat John Kerry, he interpreted it as, well, I guess that my program is popular now, so I'm gonna move forward with social security privatization and immigration reform.

00:01:25.000 Both of those things, dead on arrival.

00:01:27.000 And they died immediately, and within two years, the entire Congress has been lost.

00:01:31.000 A 12-year dominant run for Republicans in Congress is gone.

00:01:34.000 And the same thing happened for Barack Obama in 2008.

00:01:36.000 So after 2008, he wins a sweeping victory over John McCain.

00:01:41.000 And his first thought is, you know what I'm going to do?

00:01:43.000 I'm going to do Obamacare.

00:01:44.000 And the Americans were like, you're going to do what now?

00:01:47.000 And in 2010, the Republicans sweep back into power in the House, two years after Obama wins this sweeping victory.

00:01:54.000 So if Joe Biden were to win a sweeping victory in 2020, I don't think that he would interpret that as, oh, I guess people just really didn't like Donald Trump.

00:02:01.000 Instead, he would interpret that as, well, now it's time for my LBJ FDR type program.

00:02:07.000 And here's the reality.

00:02:08.000 The American people, when they elect people to government, It's very rare that they are endorsing wholesale all of the big movement-type changes that the politicians think they are endorsing.

00:02:19.000 See, what's funny about this is that politicians deep down, they know this.

00:02:22.000 Deep down, politicians know that politics is basically about personal appeal and how you appear to voters.

00:02:28.000 They understand that politics is very rarely about policy.

00:02:31.000 They understand that the policies they espouse are like number four on the list of why people generally vote for them.

00:02:36.000 People vote for them because they feel comfortable with them, or because they feel that they're going to maintain the status quo, Or because maybe they're going to trim around the edges.

00:02:42.000 But most Americans, generally speaking, are somewhere in the center of politics, right?

00:02:46.000 There are people like me who are out on the right, and there are people on the left.

00:02:50.000 And we are fighting over sort of the ideological turf.

00:02:53.000 And the people in the middle are kind of like, okay, well, if you swing too far out, there's going to be a natural backlash.

00:02:57.000 And that's why you've seen American politics swinging wildly like a pendulum.

00:03:02.000 Because the politicians keep misinterpreting the movement of the pendulum as an endorsement of their position, instead of interpreting the movement of the pendulum as just a natural movement of the pendulum, meaning the pendulum swings.

00:03:14.000 But that pendulum swing does not mean that the ball at the end of the pendulum, or the razor at the end of the pendulum, is going to immediately stop in your corner.

00:03:23.000 Right, it's going to swing back because the pendulum really wants to go to zero, right?

00:03:26.000 The pendulum really wants to stop down there at the center, but American politics doesn't allow anybody to do that.

00:03:31.000 This is why if President Trump had actually come into office and then governed as a centrist, which I would have opposed, he'd probably be relatively popular today, right?

00:03:39.000 If he had pushed forward a giant infrastructure package and if he had endorsed a bunch of big government programs, but if at the same time he had also scaled back some of the regulations, right?

00:03:47.000 That kind of stuff is kind of popular, which is what Bill Clinton did during his second term, which is why he left office popular despite being impeached.

00:03:53.000 So my going inclination here is that Joe Biden, especially if he wins a big sweeping victory, which is what the polls tend to suggest is what's going to happen, at least right now.

00:04:01.000 Times could change.

00:04:02.000 Things could be different.

00:04:03.000 We could come up with a vaccine for coronavirus, which would change everything.

00:04:06.000 But barring some sort of cataclysmic event, Trump is not on a winning path here.

00:04:11.000 I mean, that's just the simple fact of matters.

00:04:12.000 A pullout today showing Biden up in Texas.

00:04:15.000 I mean, if Biden wins Texas, then basically he's going to win 40 states.

00:04:19.000 And you've got a historic size landslide.

00:04:20.000 Like he actually outperforms Barack Obama circa 2008, which is insane.

00:04:24.000 Okay.

00:04:25.000 That is a possibility at this point.

00:04:27.000 If that happens, I don't think Biden is going to interpret that the way he should, which is, I'm dead and people hate Trump, right?

00:04:33.000 Which is the actual reason why people would vote for Biden.

00:04:35.000 He will interpret that as, this is an endorsement of all the liberal principles I've ever stood for.

00:04:39.000 This is an endorsement of my entire career.

00:04:41.000 Because contrary to popular opinion, Joe Biden was one of the left-most senators in the United States Senate for nearly his entire career.

00:04:47.000 He has sort of these outlier moments where he supported things that were not wildly left, like the criminal reform, the criminal justice reform bill in 1994.

00:04:55.000 But that is a rarity, okay?

00:04:57.000 Usually he's very far to the left, which is why he was very much aligned with Barack Obama.

00:05:01.000 Okay, what does that mean?

00:05:02.000 Well, what does that mean?

00:05:03.000 It means, number one, that if Biden were to be elected in a landslide, I think the left would declare that this was the end of politics and they would go for broke.

00:05:09.000 And by going for broke, they would actually push the American public back against them.

00:05:12.000 In other words, you could have a situation where Republicans lose the presidency, lose the Senate, and two years later, the Republicans are back in Congress.

00:05:19.000 That is a very significant possibility.

00:05:21.000 But the other problem is that with every election, and this is where the right really misses the boat, because the right tends to focus in on politics, I talked about this, been talking about this for weeks, the right tends to focus in on electoral politics, they don't tend to focus in on the cultural underpinnings of politics, and so the deck of the ship keeps tilting to the left.

00:05:41.000 I just keep tilting to the left.

00:05:43.000 And so even though the pendulum does swing back and forth, if the entire base of the pendulum is sliding to the left, that means that the swing between right and left is happening on a ground that is not even.

00:05:52.000 It means that the entire move of the United States is in the wrong direction.

00:05:55.000 We're going to get to this in just one second.

00:05:57.000 Why the debate matters and why the shift of the debate really, really matters.

00:06:00.000 How the Overton window is shifting far to the left.

00:06:02.000 We're going to get to that in one moment.

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00:07:12.000 Okay, so.

00:07:13.000 The shift in American politics, the movement of the entire base of the pendulum to the left is the real worry here.

00:07:19.000 Not whatever Joe Biden tries to do in the next couple of years.

00:07:22.000 Because if Joe Biden is elected president, God forbid, what he will try to do, probably he goes for a public option in the Senate.

00:07:28.000 Maybe he tries to break the filibuster, although I wonder.

00:07:30.000 I mean, I do wonder whether Joe Biden goes along with that.

00:07:32.000 He's a Senate creature.

00:07:33.000 Maybe he does.

00:07:34.000 Maybe he does.

00:07:35.000 If he does, he's making an awful mistake because the fact is Republicans will eventually retake the Senate and that will come back to haunt him in exactly the same way that getting rid of the judicial filibuster ended up haunting Democrats when Donald Trump became president.

00:07:47.000 But whatever changes he makes over the next two years, I think the American public is going to say it's too much and they're going to swing back to the other side.

00:07:53.000 They're going to say, listen, we were reacting to Trump.

00:07:54.000 We weren't reacting to, we love you.

00:07:56.000 We were reacting to, we weren't that big on this Trump guy.

00:07:59.000 If Biden is to win a sweeping victory.

00:08:01.000 But that doesn't mean that the ground can't shift.

00:08:03.000 So I'm not sanguine about this and no one should be sanguine about this.

00:08:06.000 There's a piece by a law professor named Amna Akbar, a law professor who studies leftist social movements and apparently teaches at Moritz College of Law at Ohio State University.

00:08:19.000 And this person has a piece called The Left is Remaking the World.

00:08:22.000 The professor writes, The uprisings in response to the killing of George Floyd are far different from anything that has come before.

00:08:28.000 Not just because they may be the largest in our history or that seven weeks in, people are still in the streets, but also because for the last few years, organizers have been thinking boldly.

00:08:35.000 They've been pushing demands from defund the police to cancel rent to pass the Green New Deal that would upend the status quo and redistribute power from elites to the working class.

00:08:44.000 And now ordinary people are too.

00:08:46.000 Social movements have helped spread these demands to a public mobilized by the pandemic and the protests.

00:08:50.000 Now, on a practical level, am I afraid that defund the police is going to become like a mainstream democratic talking point?

00:08:56.000 No, I don't think that's gonna happen.

00:08:57.000 But the generalized anti-police feeling is going to be mainstreamed.

00:09:01.000 That is the goal of many of these leftist movements, is not to achieve the policy outcome, but to shift the ground upon which we speak.

00:09:07.000 So, there's a general perception that police are good people who are trying to take care of you and your family and your community.

00:09:13.000 That was the generalized perception of police.

00:09:15.000 And over the last few years, we've seen that image battered.

00:09:18.000 For some good reasons and many, many bad reasons.

00:09:20.000 Right?

00:09:20.000 The videos that come out, obviously it's going to undermine your faith in police officers.

00:09:24.000 But, at the same time, we have something like...

00:09:27.000 It literally tends to hundreds of millions of interactions between police and American citizens every year.

00:09:31.000 There are 800,000 law enforcement agents in the United States.

00:09:35.000 It turns out what the polls show is that while people may express distrust with police in general, when asked about their local police, they're very much in favor of their local police.

00:09:42.000 The goal of some of these movements is to delegitimize that, to make room for later on, five, 10 years down the line, to make room for some of the more radical policies.

00:09:50.000 What radicals understand is that given time, And given energy, they can accomplish anything.

00:09:57.000 They need the time and they need the energy.

00:09:57.000 They need both.

00:09:59.000 The energy is now to shift the cultural debate.

00:10:01.000 Get rid of all the cultural totems of being pro-police.

00:10:03.000 Get rid of PAW Patrol. 0.96

00:10:04.000 These things all seem very silly, but in the end, I'm not sure they're so silly. 0.77

00:10:08.000 I think that's why the left is fighting for them.

00:10:10.000 Because if you are fighting to get rid of all of the cultural totems that remind you that the police are the good guys, well then it's a lot easier 10 years from now to say, yeah, you don't think of the police all that well, do you?

00:10:18.000 Well, what if we just got rid of them?

00:10:20.000 What if we just, right?

00:10:21.000 That's a 10-year program.

00:10:21.000 That's it.

00:10:22.000 It's not something that's going to happen in the next six months.

00:10:25.000 The idea of canceling rent.

00:10:26.000 It's absurd.

00:10:27.000 No one is going to stand in favor of canceling rent right now.

00:10:29.000 But if the idea is that landlords are inevitably evil and terrible and are trying to cheat you, and they're very bad people, and then 10 years from now there's another economic collapse, and they're like, you know what?

00:10:41.000 We're just going to seize property and nationalize it.

00:10:43.000 The more you push the culture to the left, the more you are seeding the ground for the future leftist crops to grow.

00:10:48.000 And this is what this law professor understands.

00:10:51.000 This professor says these movements are in conversation with one another, cross endorsing demands.

00:10:55.000 They expand their grassroots basis.

00:10:56.000 This is another.

00:10:57.000 It's actually a good point.

00:10:58.000 The defund the police group is a small group.

00:11:00.000 The past of the Green New Deal group is a small group.

00:11:03.000 But then what they do, and you've seen this on college campuses, they unite forces against the broader infrastructure.

00:11:08.000 It's not like everybody in the defund the police group gives a damn about the Green New Deal.

00:11:11.000 It's not like everybody in the Green New Deal gives a damn about defund the police.

00:11:14.000 But when you put them together in opposition to X, X being the system, well, then you can sometimes forge a coalition of power.

00:11:21.000 Cancel the rent campaigns have joined the call to defund the police.

00:11:24.000 This month, racial climate and economic justice organizations are hosting a four-day crash course on defunding the police.

00:11:29.000 Each demand demonstrates a new attitude among leftist social movements.

00:11:32.000 They don't want to reduce police violence or sidestep our environmentally unsustainable global supply chain or create grace periods for late rent.

00:11:39.000 These are the responses of reformers and policy elites.

00:11:42.000 Instead, the people making these demands want a new society.

00:11:46.000 Here it is.

00:11:48.000 Okay, let's just make a couple of points here.

00:11:52.000 If you took that sentence seriously, you'd be talking about the end of civilization, right?

00:11:56.000 A break from prisons and the police would mean the purge.

00:11:59.000 It means all the criminals go free.

00:12:01.000 A break from carbon means basically every fuel that you use right now goes away immediately.

00:12:07.000 A break from rent means no one builds another unit ever, right?

00:12:11.000 There's no more real estate development anywhere in the United States, and all the landlords man in their buildings, and then who takes care of the buildings?

00:12:11.000 They just stop.

00:12:19.000 This means the collapse of civilization is what they are calling for, but they're open about that, right?

00:12:22.000 They want a new society.

00:12:23.000 They want counselors in place of cops, housing for all, a jobs guarantee, which really spells what we really want in the end, is government to take over all the functions of the private market.

00:12:32.000 We'll get rid of energy, we'll get rid of police, we'll get rid of prisons, we'll get rid of rent, and then what'll come in?

00:12:36.000 A big, friendly government to give you a hug!

00:12:40.000 Well, many people find this naive.

00:12:41.000 Polls, participation in protests, and growing membership in social movement organizations show these demands are drawing larger and larger parts of the public toward a fundamental critique of the status quo and a radical vision for the future.

00:12:53.000 This is correct.

00:12:55.000 This is written as a piece of fan mail to this movement.

00:12:58.000 But the idea that leftist movements are pushing the entire discussion to the left, that part is correct.

00:13:03.000 And they're pushing Joe Biden too.

00:13:04.000 And we're gonna get to that in just one second.

00:13:06.000 This is the inherent danger of a Joe Biden presidency.

00:13:08.000 Not that Joe Biden Does anything radical right off the bat.

00:13:11.000 If he does, there will be a backlash.

00:13:13.000 Not that Joe Biden is going to be some sort of world-changing candidate.

00:13:16.000 I don't think he will be.

00:13:18.000 But the simple idea that by electing Joe Biden, you have opened the door to the next step in the social revolution.

00:13:23.000 And that Joe Biden not only is not going to shut that door, he's embracing bits and pieces of it on a moment-to-moment basis.

00:13:29.000 And he's emboldening this movement to move on to the next step.

00:13:33.000 Because remember, this is a progressive movement.

00:13:34.000 And when I say progressive, I don't mean like they're making progress.

00:13:36.000 What I mean is that they progress step over step.

00:13:39.000 It is not the Russian Revolution.

00:13:41.000 It is a soft revolution that happens over the course of time.

00:13:43.000 And the left understands this.

00:13:45.000 This is why they've been pushing consistently for years.

00:13:46.000 I use the example of same-sex marriage.

00:13:49.000 Because no matter what you think of same-sex marriage, it's an excellent example of how a leftist movement progressed from one idea to another.

00:13:55.000 All the while suggesting that they had basically reached the end point in their crusade, right?

00:13:59.000 Originally, it was, we just want the right for anybody to sleep with whomever they want, and that's none of your business.

00:14:03.000 And most Americans were like, okay, sounds good.

00:14:05.000 And then, they were like, well, you know what?

00:14:06.000 We want civil unions, so that a gay couple So a gay partner isn't barred from the hospital if their partner is dying in the hospital.

00:14:14.000 And most people are like, okay, well, you could deal with a contract or you could just do a contract.

00:14:17.000 But I suppose if you want to make that the default, that you can form a civil union and then you can do that and you can will property, then sure, go for it.

00:14:23.000 And they said, don't worry, we definitely do not want marriage. 0.72

00:14:26.000 And then people are like, okay, well, civil unions sound good.

00:14:28.000 And they're like, well, no, we want marriage because marriage is exactly the same as a civil union.

00:14:31.000 We're just changing the terms and we deserve respect for our relationship.

00:14:34.000 And actually, most Americans eventually started to be like, well, you know, I'm not comfortable with equating traditional marriage and same sex marriage, but.

00:14:43.000 Your argument that it's not gonna affect my marriage and it doesn't really affect my life, okay, okay.

00:14:49.000 And then it was, well, actually, now we're going to require your business to subsidize same-sex marriage, even if you are a religious person.

00:14:56.000 We're going to require you to bake a cake for the same-sex wedding. 1.00

00:14:59.000 And people are like, well, hold up.

00:15:00.000 This started at, you just wanted people to be left alone, and now it's your coming into my business and demanding of me that I celebrate your behavior, right?

00:15:07.000 This is a pretty grand shift.

00:15:08.000 That is the shift that happened.

00:15:10.000 This is how the left changes the conversation consistently in order to push forward an agenda that would have been unpalatable to most Americans when the first agenda was put forward, right?

00:15:17.000 The gay rights movement begins in the late 1960s.

00:15:20.000 It takes 50 years to get to the point where you're demanding that bakers be forced to bake cakes for your same-sex wedding, right?

00:15:27.000 That is a long process.

00:15:29.000 And again, that's not an argument against any element of that process, although obviously I have personal arguments against same-sex marriage being upheld on a traditional level or on the same level as traditional marriage, and I have serious problems with the idea that anybody should be forced to do anything in their business that they don't want to do as a general matter.

00:15:44.000 But the argument I'm making is really not about same-sex marriage.

00:15:46.000 It's really about looking at how, when you keep shifting the ground, eventually the policy follows.

00:15:52.000 You don't have to shove the rock down the hill.

00:15:54.000 All you have to do is increase the slope of the hill.

00:15:57.000 That's all you have to do.

00:16:00.000 All you have to do is sweep away all of the detritus in front of the rock, and then it makes it easier for the rock to sail in.

00:16:00.000 It's like curling.

00:16:07.000 And that's exactly what the left is doing right now.

00:16:09.000 We're going to get to more of this in just a moment and how Joe Biden, he may not be the one pushing the rock, but he is certainly the guy who is clearing all of the detritus off the ice in preparation for the rock to be put.

00:16:19.000 First curling metaphor in the history of political radio.

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00:17:35.000 Okay, so Joe Biden is the curling guy, right?

00:17:39.000 He's gonna be the person who sweeps away all of the little chips of ice in precisely the correct pattern.

00:17:46.000 is that the leftist stone hurled down the ice can land in the target area.

00:17:50.000 Matt Viser writing at the Washington Post says, Joe Biden is looking at building 500 million solar panels, slashing US carbon emissions within 15 years, and rapidly expanding a government-sponsored healthcare plan.

00:18:00.000 He wants to overhaul the way policing is conducted on American streets and the way success is measured in primary schools.

00:18:05.000 Wait a second, doesn't that sound like a very soft version of everything that we just read about in that piece one second ago?

00:18:10.000 The overhauling the way policing is conducted, That is the soft corollary of defund the police.

00:18:17.000 Building 500 million solar panels, that is the soft corollary of the Green New Deal.

00:18:22.000 carbon emissions.

00:18:22.000 Slashing U.S.

00:18:23.000 That is the soft corollary of getting rid of carbon.

00:18:26.000 These are all soft corollaries.

00:18:27.000 All he's doing is helping to shift the ground.

00:18:29.000 And this is what Democrats understand in a way Republicans do not.

00:18:32.000 Even Republicans in power never try to shift the culture.

00:18:34.000 Instead, what they attempt to do is shift the politics.

00:18:38.000 They'll shift the tax rates or something.

00:18:39.000 They'll appoint some good judges.

00:18:41.000 Because Republicans still have a fundamental disconnect.

00:18:44.000 As to what government has become in American life.

00:18:47.000 Government is not merely the promulgator of policy.

00:18:49.000 Government is now the promulgator of morality.

00:18:51.000 This is what the left has understood.

00:18:52.000 They've used government as the substitute for religion and God and social institutions.

00:18:56.000 And so whatever government approves, and whatever government actors say, this is why most Americans look to the president for leadership.

00:19:03.000 If you ask most Americans at the beginning of the republic, they'd be like, that's weird.

00:19:06.000 Like, we need a strong leader because otherwise the country's gonna fall apart.

00:19:09.000 We need George Washington.

00:19:10.000 But then, basically, I mean, when James Monroe was president, no one ran in opposition.

00:19:15.000 The federal government was so weak that people were like, are we really?

00:19:19.000 There were some hard-fought presidential campaigns, but the reality is that if you ask most Americans between, like, Let's say Andrew Jackson and Abraham Lincoln to name two of those presidents today.

00:19:19.000 Like, do we care?

00:19:31.000 You probably couldn't.

00:19:33.000 Most Americans can't.

00:19:34.000 If you ask most Americans to name two presidents between Ulysses S. Grant and Teddy Roosevelt, they probably could not.

00:19:41.000 I'm not just speaking of general American ignorance, I'm talking about the role of American government in American life.

00:19:46.000 Now, most Americans are like, I need my president to be a great moral leader.

00:19:52.000 I've never thought you need a president to be a great moral leader.

00:19:54.000 I'd prefer he be a moral person, but I don't think that you need the president to be the, he's not the person you go to for great moral advice or for a vision of the world.

00:20:01.000 But because government has become so powerful, the part of the presidency that involves speaking about the nature of American culture and America herself has become more and more important.

00:20:13.000 And the policymaking end has become sort of the trailing after effect.

00:20:17.000 The direction in which we move the country ends up being the chief forward-going factor, and then what follows is the policy.

00:20:25.000 This is why, for example, the bleed-over from Reagan, really reshifting the conversation, doesn't even happen during the Reagan administration.

00:20:31.000 It happens when Bill Clinton has to cut capital gains taxes, and when Bill Clinton has to put in place welfare reform.

00:20:36.000 That is the trailing aftereffect of Reagan's reshifting the idea of how government is supposed to work in American life.

00:20:42.000 And what we are seeing now is really the trailing after effect of really Barack Obama.

00:20:47.000 And we're going to see that continue into Joe Biden.

00:20:50.000 And if Joe Biden continues to forward that, you're going to see that continue past Joe Biden, which is why he calls himself a transitional figure.

00:20:56.000 Over the past week, according to the Washington Post, the presumptive Democratic nominee has offered the biggest burst of policy proposals since he effectively won the nomination, including a plan to spend $700 billion on American products and research.

00:21:07.000 It marks a significant move to the left, from where Biden and his party were only recently, on everything from climate to guns to healthcare and policing, and reflects a fundamental shift in the political landscape.

00:21:16.000 Why?

00:21:17.000 Well, because number one, Biden thinks he's going to win big, and so he can get very, very progressive.

00:21:21.000 According to the Washington Post, it's a remarkable turn for a candidate who was once defined by incrementalism, but is now attempting to show voters how he'd grappled with tens of thousands of Americans dying from a global pandemic, an economy in tatters, and a country wracked by a reckoning over racism.

00:21:34.000 And so he's moving far to the left, and he's doing so very quickly.

00:21:37.000 Now, again, that bears political danger for the Democratic Party in the near term, but it does mean that everything is being shoved to the left.

00:21:42.000 It also explains why, on the show, I spend a lot of time focusing on what I call the radical left, because I think the radical left becomes the mainstream Democratic Party within about five years.

00:21:51.000 Basically, it's just a lead time to either stop the radical left now, or that is going to be the mainstream Democratic Party that you are fighting within the next five years to a decade.

00:22:00.000 That is the basic rule.

00:22:01.000 Whatever starts on the radical left ends up in the mainstream.

00:22:05.000 I mean, it really is quite fascinating how this works, this sort of bleed over.

00:22:09.000 And so when we look at the attempt to quash free speech, for example, when we looked at the defund the police movement, we look at the cancel culture, and we realize that the unofficial cancel culture, which is becoming more and more prevalent in America, eventually is going to find its way into the halls of democratic power and then into government.

00:22:25.000 That's when things start to get incredibly, incredibly scary.

00:22:28.000 Because there you're not just talking about expanding the size and scope of government, you're talking about encroachment on fundamental freedoms.

00:22:33.000 In other words, I don't think that simple social pressure is going to be sufficient for people on the left.

00:22:39.000 I think if people on the left had their way, they would be encoding hate speech laws in American law today.

00:22:45.000 And I think within five to ten years, that will be the common sense position of the Democratic Party.

00:22:49.000 I think within two election cycles, you're going to see the Democratic Party openly promulgating directives at hate speech, and hoping to appoint enough justices to overturn the First Amendment.

00:23:00.000 I think right now you'd have the support of at least two.

00:23:02.000 I think that Ginsburg and probably Sotomayor would support the idea of encroaching on free speech on behalf of quote-unquote hate speech.

00:23:10.000 I think that's fairly clear.

00:23:13.000 And over the years, I think that'll become a more and more common position in the Democratic Party.

00:23:16.000 We'll get to more of this in just one second.

00:23:17.000 First, you know that I believe in individual liberty.

00:23:20.000 I've been talking about individual liberty and fundamental freedoms and the attack on individual liberty and fundamental freedoms.

00:23:25.000 Our founding fathers knew these were cornerstones to a great civilization, which is why they created the Second Amendment to protect all of those fundamental freedoms.

00:23:32.000 Owning a rifle is an awesome responsibility.

00:23:33.000 Building rifles is no different.

00:23:35.000 That's why I love the people over at Bravo Company Manufacturing.

00:23:38.000 The people at Bravo Company MFG support the right of responsible private individuals to have the access and ability to employ the same tools as civilian law enforcement as a means of defending ourselves, our loved ones, our communities, and our freedoms should a threatening situation ever arise.

00:23:51.000 BCM assumes when a rifle leaves their shop, it will be used in a life or death situation.

00:23:54.000 This is not for target shooting.

00:23:55.000 It's not for sport.

00:23:56.000 The point of a gun is that you have to have it work in case, God forbid, there's someone breaking in the front door of your home.

00:24:01.000 As an American, You have the luxury of living in a free society where you can improve your life through education and religious exploration, the open exchange of ideas.

00:24:09.000 You have rights if and when your life and liberty ever come under fire.

00:24:12.000 Firearms are, first and foremost, a means to preserve the lives and liberties of yourself and others.

00:24:16.000 To learn more about Bravo Company Manufacturing, head on over to BravoCompanyMFG.com, where you can discover more about their products, special offers, upcoming news.

00:24:24.000 That's BravoCompanyMFG.com.

00:24:26.000 Again, BravoCompanyMFG.com.

00:24:28.000 Go check them out right now.

00:24:30.000 BravoCompanyMFG.com.

00:24:32.000 Okay, so where does this cross streams with the cancel culture? 0.79

00:24:35.000 Well, this is the most powerful cultural movement on the left right now is the cancel culture.

00:24:38.000 If you say the wrong thing, we are going to come after you with everything we've got.

00:24:42.000 And principles of freedom and justice require that freedom and justice themselves be put to the side.

00:24:47.000 So last week we discussed a letter that was printed in Harper's Weekly.

00:24:52.000 By 153 left and center left individuals, old school liberals, people who disagree with me on politics, but also agree that freedom of speech is pretty important and don't like cancel culture very much.

00:25:02.000 And we're talking about people I think are just atrocious in their politics, people like Noam Chomsky.

00:25:06.000 But we're also talking about people who are sort of old school, classical liberals like Francis Fukuyama.

00:25:10.000 There are a bunch of people on that list.

00:25:13.000 Well, a counter came out.

00:25:15.000 The counter came out from a bevy of cancel culture mavens who are very upset, very, very upset that people would speak out against cancel culture.

00:25:24.000 And it's worth looking at their point of view simply because, number one, a lot of these people are in positions of power, and number two, because this will be the dominant position inside the Democratic Party within five years.

00:25:34.000 This will be the dominant position inside the Democratic Party in five years.

00:25:36.000 Now, I will say, it is quite amusing.

00:25:38.000 This letter, this response letter, is signed by a bunch of people.

00:25:42.000 Like, some names that you would know, many people who you wouldn't necessarily know.

00:25:46.000 Many of the people who have signed, signed it unsigned.

00:25:49.000 So they say, cancel culture doesn't exist, right?

00:25:51.000 Cancel culture doesn't exist.

00:25:52.000 Also, I'm not going to sign my name to this letter because I'm afraid that I will be canceled or fired, right?

00:25:56.000 So apparently, cancel culture does not exist except that they're afraid of it.

00:25:59.000 Anyway, their letter says, a more specific letter on justice and open debate.

00:26:04.000 They say the signatories to that original letter, many of them white, wealthy, and endowed with massive platforms, argue they are afraid of being silenced, that so-called cancel culture is out of control, that they fear for their jobs and free exchange of ideas, even as they speak from one of the most prestigious magazines in the country.

00:26:17.000 This is a very common argument, is that if you are concerned that there's a group of people who trot around going after your advertisers if you're on TV, or there's a group of people who will go to your boss if they disagree with what you say, and if you are powerful, if you're in a powerful position, but you're afraid of what might happen, Well, obviously you're powerful right now, so why are you afraid of what might happen?

00:26:35.000 Hmm?

00:26:36.000 And then after you've been cancelled, then they say, well, cancel culture didn't really exist.

00:26:36.000 Hmm?

00:26:39.000 That was just the voice of the people.

00:26:42.000 The letter, according to this response letter, was spearheaded by Thomas Chatterton Williams, a black writer who believes that racism at once persists and is also capable of being transcended, especially at the interpersonal level.

00:26:53.000 Since the letter was published, some commentators have used Williams' presence and the presence of other non-white writers to argue the letter presents a selection of diverse voices.

00:27:00.000 But they missed the point.

00:27:01.000 The irony of the piece is that nowhere in it do the signatories mention how marginalized voices have been silenced for generations in journalism, academia, and publishing.

00:27:09.000 So in other words, we should be able to cancel people because we believe the system itself results in injustice.

00:27:16.000 This is the Robin DiAngelo view of racism again.

00:27:19.000 Any system that results in a balance, a racial mix we don't like at the end of it, the system is to blame. 1.00

00:27:26.000 And thus the system must be torn down. 0.96

00:27:27.000 And if you are complicit in the system, you're a racist and it doesn't matter if you're black like Thomas Chatterton Williams. 0.97

00:27:32.000 The content of the letter does not deal with the problem of power. 0.95

00:27:34.000 Who has it and who does not?

00:27:36.000 Harper's is a prestigious institution backed by money and influence.

00:27:39.000 Harper's has decided to bestow its platform, not to marginalize people, but to people who already have large followings and plenty of opportunities to make their views heard.

00:27:46.000 So, basically, you're simultaneously complaining that these people are powerful and therefore they shouldn't be able to complain, and you're complaining you don't have enough power and that people should give you power.

00:27:56.000 It seems like mainly your viewpoint is a power viewpoint.

00:27:59.000 It seems like your viewpoint is driven by a desire for other people's power that you have not yourself earned.

00:28:05.000 This entire letter is about how free speech is really about power and how truly the attempt to cancel speech, the attempt to crack down on people, that is actually a force for good.

00:28:17.000 That force for good is making the world a better place.

00:28:23.000 They say, it is impossible to see how signatories to this letter are contributing to the most vital causes of our time during this moment of widespread reckoning with oppressive social systems.

00:28:31.000 In other words, we disagree with you and we don't like you, so they shouldn't have their letter in Harper's Weekly.

00:28:34.000 Also, cancel culture doesn't exist and it's good.

00:28:37.000 Right, so this is the viewpoint increasingly of groups on the left.

00:28:41.000 The good news about that letter is at least now we have a long list of people who believe cancel culture is good.

00:28:45.000 But how does this manifest in real life?

00:28:47.000 Well, it manifests as things like boycotting Goya.

00:28:49.000 Right, so Goya is this major Latino-owned company.

00:28:53.000 And now it's subject of an online attempt to boycott, with NBC News cheering along the progress.

00:29:00.000 This is what the media do.

00:29:01.000 Again, the media love these boycotts because it creates a story where there is none.

00:29:04.000 Do you really think that Goya is going to lose enough of its profit to sustain it for an hour?

00:29:10.000 The answer is no.

00:29:11.000 There's no widespread boycott of Goya.

00:29:12.000 It's not a thing.

00:29:13.000 Every time people say there's a widespread boycott, it never really materializes.

00:29:16.000 It materializes for like a day.

00:29:18.000 You can do it to a small business, right?

00:29:20.000 Because if you remove a week of income from a small business, it really hurts the small business.

00:29:24.000 But if you remove like A million bucks from the income of Goya?

00:29:28.000 They just call that a rounding error.

00:29:30.000 Anyway, NBC News says, Goya's CEO's Trump's comment led Latinos to call for a boycott that Goya was surprised says a lot.

00:29:36.000 By Julio Ricardo Varela.

00:29:39.000 Goya Food CEO Bob Yunanou might be regretting his Rose Garden endorsement of a president he called a blessed leader.

00:29:46.000 His remarks at a Thursday White House event where President Trump hosted a group of Hispanic supporters came at a time when U.S.

00:29:51.000 Latinos are facing a disproportionate effect from COVID-19 and experiencing a 14.5% unemployment rate.

00:29:57.000 He certainly struck a chord with Latinos, but not the one he or Trump hoped for.

00:30:00.000 Instead, his comments were met with massive calls to boycott Goya, the iconic mostly East Coast Latino food brand that has been both a staple and a nutritional pariah for the country's largest non-white population.

00:30:10.000 Well, maybe because he didn't think he was risking his company's future when he said something nice about the sitting president of the United States.

00:30:15.000 Maybe that. 1.00

00:30:16.000 Maybe he didn't realize that you guys were such jackasses. 0.99

00:30:17.000 head of one of the richest Spanish-American families would be willing to risk his company's future by siding with this president of all presidents. 0.97

00:30:23.000 Well, maybe because he didn't think he was risking his company's future when he said something nice about the sitting presidents of the United States.

00:30:27.000 Maybe that. 0.99

00:30:28.000 Maybe he didn't realize that you guys were such jackasses. 1.00

00:30:31.000 Maybe it's that simple. 0.99

00:30:33.000 But the boycott of Goya is merely the first step, right?

00:30:37.000 The cancel culture is quite real. 0.88

00:30:39.000 The attempt to boycott people based on the great evil of a man said a nice thing about the president of the United States is utterly insane, but it is quite real.

00:30:46.000 It is not the only example these days.

00:30:48.000 There are many examples these days, and it will lead to a predictable effect.

00:30:52.000 As I say, everything that begins in the culture ends in the government when it comes to the left.

00:30:55.000 Everything that begins in the culture ends in the government.

00:30:58.000 That, because there's a simple rule on the left, as my friend Eric Erickson has said, That if something is tolerated, eventually it will be mandated.

00:31:09.000 According to the left, if something is to be tolerated eventually, the government will make it mandatory.

00:31:13.000 And everything that is not tolerated will be banned.

00:31:17.000 There is no third category called, we disagree but we leave you alone, in the world of the left.

00:31:21.000 It just doesn't exist.

00:31:23.000 Like they're forced to right now because of institutional structures, but that's why they're thrashing up against the glass of the institutional structures, trying to break out of that barrier.

00:31:31.000 In one second, we'll get to more of this, and then we'll get to the COVID updates and everything else.

00:31:35.000 First, let us talk about a simple fact.

00:31:38.000 Sleep may be difficult to come by these days.

00:31:40.000 This is why you need a Helix Sleep Mattress.

00:31:42.000 So, I have a little baby.

00:31:43.000 My baby wakes me up like three times a night.

00:31:45.000 I have two other children.

00:31:46.000 They also enjoy waking me up in the middle of the night.

00:31:48.000 It's like a game.

00:31:49.000 They tag team this thing. 0.99

00:31:50.000 That means in the slim moment between bouts of restless anxiety, I need to be on a mattress that is going to put me to sleep like a baby.

00:32:01.000 Helix Sleep is the mattress that will do this.

00:32:03.000 It takes just two minutes to complete.

00:32:03.000 They have a quiz.

00:32:05.000 Matches your body type and sleep preferences to the perfect mattress for you.

00:32:08.000 Whether you're a side sleeper or a hot sleeper, whether you like a plush or a firm bed with Helix, there's no more confusion and no more compromising.

00:32:13.000 Helix Sleep is rated the number one mattress by GQ and Wired Magazine.

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00:32:19.000 Just head on over to HelixSleep.com slash Ben.

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00:32:36.000 That is HelixSleep.com slash Ben.

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00:32:39.000 HelixSleep.com slash Ben.

00:32:42.000 All righty, we're gonna get to more on the cancel culture and then we'll get to your COVID-19 updates.

00:32:46.000 President Trump donning a mask and all of that.

00:32:47.000 First, my new book, How to Destroy America in Three Easy Steps.

00:32:51.000 It is on sale next Tuesday, July 21st.

00:32:54.000 Long awaited, long sought after.

00:32:56.000 6 p.m.

00:32:56.000 Eastern, 3 p.m.

00:32:57.000 Pacific.

00:32:58.000 We will be doing a virtual live signing event the day of release.

00:33:01.000 With your purchase of a signed copy, you can write in a question which may be read and answered as I sign your book live on the air.

00:33:07.000 It's a magical experience.

00:33:08.000 You can pre-order your signed copy and write in your question at dailywire.com slash Ben.

00:33:14.000 The book covers two fundamentally different visions of America that are currently on the table.

00:33:18.000 One is the disintegrationist vision, a vision of America that says that America's history is evil, that America's philosophy is evil, and that America's culture of rights is actually just cover for brutal power hierarchies.

00:33:27.000 Sound kind of relevant?

00:33:28.000 Yeah, because it is.

00:33:29.000 It's everything that's going on right now.

00:33:30.000 That is one vision of the culture.

00:33:32.000 That is one vision of America.

00:33:33.000 Narratives like the Robin DiAngelo White Fragility or the New York Times 1619 Project.

00:33:37.000 Those are the disintegrationists.

00:33:39.000 People who wish to see the country come apart, to fray and break, or for 51% of the population to simply dominate the other 49% of the population.

00:33:47.000 Then, there's a unionist vision of America.

00:33:49.000 That is a traditionalist vision of America that says America's history is flawed but great.

00:33:54.000 It says that America's philosophy is unparalleled in the annals of human history.

00:33:58.000 That says that America's culture of rights is the fundamental framework within which we should all operate.

00:34:04.000 Right?

00:34:04.000 You need to be a unionist, not a disintegrationist.

00:34:07.000 The disintegrations are using the cancel culture, they're deleting or silencing people they don't like. 0.78

00:34:11.000 The book not only explicates everything that is going on here in, I think, a pretty thorough and deep fashion, it also debunks it in a way that you can use to argue with friends and family and arm yourself against these bad ideas.

00:34:22.000 How to Destroy America in Three Easy Steps.

00:34:24.000 Details how the disintegrationists have gained so much cultural ground so quickly and offers a penetrating view of our culture at a time in our history when it is absolutely vital that you be familiar with it.

00:34:32.000 Again, that's dailywire.com slash Ben to order your signed copy today and join my live signing on Tuesday, July 21st.

00:34:39.000 If you're not already a Daily Wire member, by the way, you should head on over to dailywire.com and subscribe and get the reader's pass for $3 a month when you sign up, $0.99 for the first month.

00:34:46.000 You also get access to our mobile app, our articles ad free, access to exclusive editorials like this one from Michael Schellenberger on behalf of environmentalists.

00:34:53.000 I apologize for the climate scare.

00:34:55.000 So if you haven't checked out the reader's pass already, head on over to dailywire.com and sign up for just $1.

00:35:00.000 you're listening to the largest, fastest growing conservative podcast and radio show in the nation.

00:35:03.000 So one of the people who signed that anti-cancel culture letter is now they're trying to cancel him.

00:35:13.000 So obviously cancel culture doesn't exist.

00:35:14.000 The Linguistic Society of America is trying to come after Harvard linguist Steven Pinker.

00:35:18.000 I've talked about Steven Pinker on the show before, apparently because he said very, very bad things.

00:35:24.000 600 people signed a letter trying to kick him off the Distinguished Fellows list from the Linguistic Society of America.

00:35:30.000 What exactly did he do?

00:35:32.000 Well, he said, for example, that data matters, right?

00:35:36.000 He actually declared that police don't shoot blacks disproportionately.

00:35:39.000 They want to kick him off the Linguistic Society of America for pointing out that police do not shoot blacks disproportionately, which is 100% true. 0.96

00:35:46.000 Also, Pinker is blamed for referencing a 2017 New York Times op-ed suggesting a way to reduce the terrible toll of killings by police.

00:35:54.000 Pinker tweeted, police kill too many people, black and white.

00:35:57.000 Focus on race distracts from solving problems as we do with plane crashes.

00:36:01.000 Which, again, is like, obvious, isn't it?

00:36:05.000 Apparently, that's very bad.

00:36:06.000 It's like saying all lives matter.

00:36:07.000 Also, Pinker is very bad.

00:36:10.000 Because, in his 2011 book, The Better Angels of Our Nature, Why Violence Has Declined, he noted that in 1984, Bernie Getz, a mild-mannered engineer, became a folk hero for shooting four young muggers in a New York subway car.

00:36:20.000 Apparently, because he said mild-mannered, this was Pinker's tendency to downplay very real violence, and so they attempted to get him kicked off of the Linguistic Society of America.

00:36:28.000 Now, Pinker's pretty powerful, and so he didn't go down easily.

00:36:31.000 The LSA executive committee issued a letter to Pinker affirming the group is committed to intellectual freedom.

00:36:36.000 But again, the assault simply does not stop.

00:36:38.000 And here's the thing, it's not going to stop in the end until it becomes legislation.

00:36:43.000 And that is the end goal.

00:36:44.000 There's a wild, I mean, the assault is so crazy, the cancel culture assault.

00:36:49.000 This is my favorite example.

00:36:50.000 Penn State, which is a college where I spoke, and there was nearly a riot when I spoke there.

00:36:55.000 This was back in 2016, I believe.

00:36:58.000 It got crazy.

00:36:59.000 It might have been 2017.

00:37:00.000 It was wild.

00:37:01.000 There were protesters banging on the doors and trying to disrupt.

00:37:04.000 Police were insufficient.

00:37:05.000 It was very crazy.

00:37:06.000 Okay, Penn State Liberal Arts, they put out a tweet.

00:37:09.000 That said, dear students, each of you belongs here.

00:37:11.000 And then it was a list of various groups of students.

00:37:14.000 Dear black students, your lives matter. 0.98

00:37:15.000 Dear Muslim and Jewish students, your beliefs are valued here.

00:37:17.000 Dear conservative students, your viewpoints are important.

00:37:20.000 Okay, they deleted it.

00:37:21.000 They deleted the tweet because it said, dear conservative students, your viewpoints are important.

00:37:25.000 Okay, but here's the best example of where things are going.

00:37:28.000 And I think that this is where things are going.

00:37:30.000 And you may think this is okay.

00:37:31.000 If you think this is okay, then I would suggest that you really need to reconsider the values you prioritize.

00:37:38.000 Okay, so here's the story.

00:37:39.000 This is out of Great Britain.

00:37:42.000 West Midlands police have arrested a 12-year-old boy after Crystal Palace winger Wilfried Zaha received racist messages on social media ahead of the club's Premier League clash with Aston Villa on Sunday.

00:37:54.000 Zaha27 shared the obscene messages on Twitter before the match, and Via said they would investigate the incident with police.

00:38:00.000 After VIA's 2-0 win over Palace, a police statement read, We were alerted to a series of racist messages sent to a footballer today, and after looking into them and conducting checks, we have arrested a boy.

00:38:08.000 The 12-year-old from Solihull has been taken into custody.

00:38:12.000 Thanks to everyone who raised it, racism won't be tolerated.

00:38:15.000 Before the match, the Palace manager Roy Hodgson was asked about the incident and told Sky Sports, It is very saddening on the day.

00:38:22.000 There is no excuse at all.

00:38:23.000 that a player wakes up to this cowardly and despicable abuse.

00:38:25.000 I think it is right that Wolf made people aware of it.

00:38:26.000 I don't think it's something you should have kept quiet about.

00:38:28.000 I think it's very good that our club, Aston Villa and the Premier League are doing everything they can to find out who the despicable individual is.

00:38:34.000 And one can only hope they will get identified and they will get called to account and they will pay for these actions.

00:38:38.000 There is literally no excuse.

00:38:40.000 There is no excuse at all.

00:38:41.000 Before kickoff, both sets of players took a knee to support the Black Lives Matter movement.

00:38:47.000 Okay, the kid who was arrested is 12. 12 12 years old, for sending hate tweets.

00:38:53.000 Okay, now, hate tweets are bad. 0.90

00:38:54.000 They're ugly. 0.95

00:38:55.000 They're yucky. 0.91

00:38:56.000 In fact, Twitter attempts to take down those tweets, right?

00:38:58.000 That's part of their policy.

00:39:00.000 If you believe that 12-year-old boys should be arrested for sending nasty, racist tweets to adult soccer players, I've got some questions to you about your priorities.

00:39:09.000 Should somebody take the kid aside and say, you've done something wrong?

00:39:13.000 Of course.

00:39:14.000 Should that be how we normally, I mean, that's normally how we handle things, right?

00:39:17.000 As adults, that's how we handle things.

00:39:18.000 If we treated, what's amazing is, if we treated each other like people we actually like, the world would be a much more reasonable place.

00:39:24.000 If somebody you knew and were acquainted with said something kind of nasty to you, Wouldn't you take them aside and be like, you know, dude, that was really a terrible thing to say, and I would appreciate it if you didn't say it again like that?

00:39:33.000 Or would you call the cops?

00:39:34.000 Using the cops as the great moral arbiter, the great Zeus thundering lightning from the sky, right?

00:39:39.000 Firing lightning at 12-year-old boys.

00:39:42.000 If that's the direction that we're going to move as a culture, then that's a very bad thing.

00:39:46.000 So I know there are people on the left today and they're saying, listen, we're not calling for legislation.

00:39:49.000 There's a difference between cancel culture and government action.

00:39:52.000 I totally agree.

00:39:53.000 There is a difference between cancel culture and government action.

00:39:55.000 I just don't trust you that you're going to limit this.

00:39:58.000 I don't.

00:39:59.000 I don't trust it.

00:39:59.000 First of all, I think that your application of cancel culture is a moral negative.

00:40:02.000 I think it is ugly that you are attempting to boycott a company because the head of that company supports a political cause you don't like.

00:40:08.000 I buy from tons of companies I don't like.

00:40:10.000 Right now, on my feet, are Nike shoes that I bought a couple of years ago.

00:40:14.000 I disagreed with the political priorities of Nike.

00:40:16.000 I still disagree with the political priorities of Nike.

00:40:18.000 Guess what?

00:40:19.000 I like their shoes.

00:40:20.000 And I frankly don't care the political priorities of Nike.

00:40:25.000 And that holds true about all of my corporate purchases.

00:40:28.000 I mean, I'm working right now on an Apple computer.

00:40:32.000 Do I agree with everything the Apple leadership says about the world?

00:40:35.000 Of course not.

00:40:36.000 You think that I agree with Tim Cook on virtually anything?

00:40:37.000 Of course not.

00:40:38.000 But would that be a rationale for boycotting Apple, per se?

00:40:42.000 I think pretty bad for the country when this becomes the way that we do business as a general rule.

00:40:47.000 This is what the cancel culture wants, but more than that, I don't think the cancel culture stops with this.

00:40:50.000 I think the cancel culture goes directly in the position, toward the position held by Canada or the UK, that free speech is not an absolute, and that free speech should instead be essentially quashed by government.

00:41:00.000 I think that we are moving very quickly toward what just happened in the UK.

00:41:05.000 And that should scare the hell out of anybody who believes that rights are a fundamental thing and pre-exist government to begin.

00:41:09.000 Okay, meanwhile, on the COVID front, We have seen this extraordinary uptick in the number of positive cases in states across the country.

00:41:18.000 It is not merely happening in Florida.

00:41:20.000 It has also happened in Texas.

00:41:21.000 It has also happened in California.

00:41:23.000 It seems to be largely dependent, again, on how much time people are spending with air conditioning.

00:41:27.000 The reason I point this out is because Colorado opened up at the same time as Georgia.

00:41:30.000 Colorado has seen a 41% decrease in day-over-day Diagnoses of COVID-19, and that's because right now the weather in Colorado is pretty temperate, so people are outdoors a lot.

00:41:39.000 They're not spending a lot of time in indoor spaces, you know, in Florida, in Texas, in California.

00:41:45.000 In California, it was like 106 degrees yesterday.

00:41:46.000 So people are spending time in indoor spaces a lot.

00:41:50.000 My favorite thing by the media, by the way, my favorite aspect of dishonesty by the media is this new pitch for New York.

00:41:56.000 This I find really incredible.

00:41:58.000 Jennifer Rubin had the incredible gall to suggest that New York handled this thing right.

00:42:05.000 I am not kidding.

00:42:06.000 She said, New York City reports zero COVID-19 deaths for the first time since pandemic hit.

00:42:10.000 This is what competent government can accomplish.

00:42:15.000 The death rate on Alderaan went down to zero.

00:42:17.000 Like two days after Admiral Tarkin ordered the complete destruction of Alderaan, no one died two days after that.

00:42:23.000 Because they were already dead because Alderaan no longer existed, okay guys?

00:42:26.000 The reason you haven't seen an uptick in New York is because it killed everyone, okay?

00:42:29.000 Killed 33,000 people in New York.

00:42:32.000 That is not a great leadership moment.

00:42:36.000 By the way, if you actually take the chart of New York, what you will see in the chart of New York's death is exactly the chart that they told us we were supposed to avoid.

00:42:44.000 Right?

00:42:45.000 If you look at, you remember the Bend the Curve chart?

00:42:46.000 Remember that?

00:42:47.000 The Flatten the Curve chart?

00:42:48.000 Remember that one?

00:42:48.000 It had the very big, tall bell curve, and it said, this one's bad because it's going to overwhelm the hospital system.

00:42:54.000 And then it said, and if you do this right, then what you will get is a less steep curve.

00:42:58.000 Same area under the curve.

00:43:00.000 Okay, that less steep curve is looking a lot more like Texas or Florida or California than it looks like New York.

00:43:05.000 New York looks like the bad curve.

00:43:07.000 But we're being told that now, because it's amazing, the momentary thinking on COVID-19 is truly incredible.

00:43:13.000 And people were saying this about Sweden.

00:43:15.000 Well, look at Sweden.

00:43:15.000 Sweden's having a lot of death.

00:43:16.000 And I kept saying, guys, you need to wait some months.

00:43:18.000 You need to wait some months, right?

00:43:19.000 Because Sweden is going to go through it.

00:43:21.000 And then on the other end, there's not going to be a second wave.

00:43:23.000 Because Sweden will have already gone through it. 0.94

00:43:25.000 And that's exactly what you're seeing.

00:43:26.000 You're seeing rising caseload in Sweden, and the death toll continues to decline in Sweden, because it's already run through the population.

00:43:32.000 And you're seeing that in New York as well.

00:43:36.000 But at the time, everybody was like, look at Sweden's numbers today.

00:43:39.000 I was like, no, you gotta wait.

00:43:40.000 And now, when it comes to New York, they're like, look at the numbers now.

00:43:44.000 You should have short-term memory loss, and you should forget what happened two months ago when it was completely overrunning NYU Langone.

00:43:50.000 Oh my God, I can't keep up with the machinations that are committed in order to drive forward narrative about democratic competence here.

00:44:01.000 It's pretty incredible.

00:44:02.000 Okay, with all of that said, with the cases spiking and with the death rate seeming to rise in a lot of these states, there've been over a hundred deaths in places like Florida and Texas the last few days, President Trump finally put on a mask.

00:44:14.000 Here is what that sounded like.

00:44:20.000 Okay, so President Trump is wearing a mask looking, as he likes to say, like the Lone Ranger.

00:44:24.000 So that's very exciting stuff.

00:44:26.000 Okay, and again, he should have done this a while ago, I think.

00:44:30.000 I think that the...

00:44:32.000 The president, because he's a stubborn dude, he had a moment there where he really could have taken the leadership position on all of this, when he could have basically said to the Democrats, you guys are out there saying that everybody should just be able to protest as they see fit, and it'll just be fun and games.

00:44:46.000 And I'm taking this thing real seriously.

00:44:47.000 Instead, he kind of didn't.

00:44:48.000 He kept downplaying it.

00:44:49.000 He wants it to go away.

00:44:51.000 And so he wished a world where it had just gone away, kind of.

00:44:53.000 Well, now he finally put on the mask.

00:44:54.000 This became a talking point for the left.

00:44:57.000 Meanwhile, Anthony Fauci has been sounding off, suggesting that we might need renewed lockdowns from time to time.

00:45:02.000 Saying that we definitely can't reopen the schools.

00:45:05.000 By the way, quick note here.

00:45:06.000 Again, on a data-driven point, people keep saying that Florida had this biggest single-day increase in positives yesterday.

00:45:10.000 They had like 15,000 positive cases.

00:45:12.000 The single biggest test day in history yesterday.

00:45:16.000 So the actual positivity rate in Florida went down slightly over last week.

00:45:20.000 So they're testing a lot more.

00:45:21.000 So that increase in absolute number of tests, that one actually is due to the increase in how many tests are done, right?

00:45:28.000 So the increased number of people who have it is not pure testing, but the increased identification of people who have it is at least partly testing, right?

00:45:35.000 It's not all testing, but it is partly testing.

00:45:37.000 And yesterday is a good example of that.

00:45:39.000 Louisiana continues to be savaged.

00:45:41.000 Louisiana has a Democratic governor, so we don't talk about Louisiana.

00:45:43.000 But Louisiana has the highest case rate per capita in the nation at this point.

00:45:47.000 Pittsburgh is experiencing a major surge, according to the New York Times.

00:45:50.000 Again, Pittsburgh is in Pennsylvania.

00:45:52.000 Pennsylvania is largely governed by Democrats, has a Democratic governor.

00:45:55.000 Therefore, we're not supposed to talk about Pittsburgh too much.

00:45:58.000 But big battle has broken out over Anthony Fauci, who's been a little bit sidelined here, according to the Washington Post.

00:46:06.000 For months, Fauci has played a lead role in America's coronavirus pandemic.

00:46:09.000 But as the Trump administration has strayed from the advice of many of its scientists and public health experts, the White House has moved to sideline Fauci, scuttling some of his planned TV appearances and largely keeping him out of the Oval Office for more than a month, even as coronavirus infections surge in large swaths of the country.

00:46:24.000 In recent days, the 79-year-old scientist and director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases has found himself in the president's crosshairs during a Fox News interview.

00:46:33.000 Trump said Fauci is a nice man, but he's made a lot of mistakes.

00:46:36.000 When Greta Van Susteren asked him last week about Fauci's assessment the country was not in a good place, Trump said flatly, I disagree with him.

00:46:42.000 So this sort of conflict is exactly, Fauci is a new resistance hero, because obviously, even though Trump basically made Fauci famous, right?

00:46:49.000 Nobody knew Fauci's name, unless you were a real maven of this stuff, until the last six months or so.

00:46:53.000 Now Trump's the bad guy for attacking Fauci and all of that.

00:46:56.000 Fauci has gotten his message out.

00:46:58.000 He said, as a country, when you compare us to other countries, I don't think you can say we're doing great.

00:47:01.000 I mean, we're just not.

00:47:03.000 A White House official released a statement saying, several White House officials are concerned about the number of times Dr. Fauci has been wrong on things, and then included a lengthy list of the scientists' comments from earlier in the outbreak.

00:47:13.000 And by the way, this is not unfair.

00:47:14.000 Okay, it really isn't.

00:47:16.000 I know that it's, here's how you know it's not unfair.

00:47:19.000 People will say Trump was totally wrong about the masks in March.

00:47:22.000 Like, this has become the talking point.

00:47:24.000 So has Fauci.

00:47:25.000 Like, pointing out that scientists have basically not had a handle on this thing from the beginning and continue to not have a handle on this thing is not actually Wrong.

00:47:34.000 I know you're supposed to basically say that Fauci is the godhead at this point, but as I pointed out, I think he's a man trying to do his best in a situation where he has not a ton of leverage and also a situation where nobody really knows anything.

00:47:46.000 I mean, the most incredible thing about this virus is that we are now Four months into this pandemic, everybody's been partially locked down.

00:47:52.000 It could go on forever, basically.

00:47:54.000 And nobody knows anything.

00:47:55.000 We still don't know if kids are really transmitting it.

00:47:57.000 We don't know if the asymptomatic transmit it.

00:48:00.000 We don't know whether it's fully airborne or whether it is mostly droplets.

00:48:03.000 We don't know anything, right?

00:48:05.000 That's the part that's crazy.

00:48:06.000 And so Fauci's opinion is as good as yours, maybe better than yours, but it's no better than John Ioannidis over at Stanford.

00:48:13.000 There's no reason that Scott Atlas knows tons less than Dr. Fauci about this stuff.

00:48:17.000 But if you quote anybody who contradicts Fauci, Fauci because he's repeating points that the left likes right now that we should shut down schools and that we are in a bad position and that bad governance has been responsible for all of this.

00:48:28.000 Again, other countries are experiencing a spike too.

00:48:31.000 Israel had to shut down again.

00:48:32.000 Israel opened up the schools.

00:48:34.000 There was a super spreader event at a school and they had to shut down again.

00:48:37.000 Admiral Girard, who is one of the White House's top officials on this stuff, he's really heading the response effort, he says, listen, Fauci's not 100% right.

00:48:46.000 I respect Dr. Fauci a lot, but Dr. Fauci is not 100% right, and he also doesn't necessarily, and he admits that, have the whole national interest in mind.

00:48:56.000 He looks at it from a very narrow public health point of view.

00:48:59.000 But let me just say, there is absolutely open discourse, I feel, Absolutely free saying anything to the vice president within those rooms.

00:49:06.000 The vice president, I know, briefs the president on a daily basis, so nobody feels like anything is held back.

00:49:13.000 We all take this as a serious crisis.

00:49:14.000 It's got to be science driving the policy, and that's the way it is.

00:49:19.000 You know, science should be driving the debate, but politics is obviously driving the debate.

00:49:23.000 How do you know this?

00:49:24.000 Because in all the conversation, for example, about reopening schools, it's become incredibly political.

00:49:29.000 Like, I think there's a good argument to be made that schools should open.

00:49:32.000 I think that there's an okay, not fantastic argument to be made that the schools should remain somewhat closed.

00:49:38.000 I can hear these arguments on any side.

00:49:40.000 I really don't see them as political.

00:49:41.000 But you can see how this is breaking down purely politically because Trump says something and immediately he's like a catalyst added to some sort of bizarre concoction where both the elements in the concoction are polarized because the catalyst has been added.

00:49:53.000 And you've seen this on schools.

00:49:54.000 Okay, time for a quick thing that I hate.

00:50:01.000 Alrighty, so remember how crime was not going to skyrocket when we got rid of the cops?

00:50:06.000 Remember that?

00:50:07.000 That was funny.

00:50:07.000 That was really super funny.

00:50:11.000 I bring you the genius of AOC.

00:50:13.000 Okay, so AOC was asked about why crime is continuing to surge in places like New York.

00:50:18.000 And it is continuing to surge.

00:50:20.000 So the New York Post reports, New York's plague of gun crime continued this weekend with 15 people shot in the same number of hours Since midday on Saturday, police sources told the Post of 15 shootings in 15 hours in New York City.

00:50:32.000 The shootings, including a 21-year-old man left fighting for his life after being shot in the head while sitting in a car in Sheepshead Bay early on Sunday, were more in one day than the whole of the same week last year, according to sources.

00:50:43.000 They kept 43 shootings so far this week, more than triple last year's tally of 13 for the same period.

00:50:48.000 I'd gone to bed early, and the next thing I knew, I heard two pops out my window that sounded just like fireworks, said a neighbor.

00:50:53.000 who identified herself as Lucy of the Sheepshead Bay shooting.

00:50:57.000 I heard plenty of fireworks around here a week ago.

00:50:58.000 I didn't think anything of it until I heard someone screaming.

00:51:01.000 And then there were police lights and ambulance lights.

00:51:04.000 So there are tons and tons of shootings over the weekend.

00:51:08.000 Commissioner Dermot Shea has blamed bail reform and prisoner releases over the coronavirus pandemic for the alarming rise in gun crime, which has brought increased criticism for Mayor Bill de Blasio.

00:51:19.000 Criminal justice experts say the cops should focus on the flow of illegal guns into the city instead of just playing the blame game.

00:51:23.000 So you're never supposed to blame the politicians for cutting the cops.

00:51:27.000 You're supposed to blame the cops for not doing a better job policing while you're cutting the cops.

00:51:31.000 By the way, crime is surging around the country.

00:51:33.000 It is not just in New York City.

00:51:35.000 According to the Wall Street Journal, in Milwaukee, homicides are up 37% so far this year, on pace to break the record of 167 in 1991, which included 16 murders by Jeffrey Dahmer.

00:51:45.000 Homicides so far this year in Chicago are ahead of the pace in 2016.

00:51:49.000 That was the city's highest tally since 1996.

00:51:51.000 In New York and LA, killings this year are up 23% and 11.6%.

00:51:55.000 In Kansas City, Missouri, they've recorded 99 killings since January, far outpacing any record for the first six months of the year.

00:52:02.000 Community groups acknowledge the crime increase, but say more aggressive policing to combat it shouldn't come at the expense of enacting broader reform.

00:52:10.000 Oh, is that what's happening right now?

00:52:13.000 It is not a shock that as you continue to slash police budgets and signal to criminals that they can basically get away with it, and that if a cop attempts to defend a citizen, that that cop may be hauled up for arrest.

00:52:22.000 That's going to be a bit of a problem.

00:52:24.000 City leaders and law enforcement officials say the months of lockdown, rising unemployment, more guns on the street, and the fallout from mass protests over the George Floyd killing helped create conditions for more violence.

00:52:33.000 At the same time, law enforcement officials say they are weighing the risks of aggressively enforcing the law, concerned that a backlash from activists, protesters, and residents could trigger attacks on police or a replay of the riots and looting that marked some of the earlier protests.

00:52:45.000 In some cases, officials say police are backing away from some kinds of petty crime arrests that give them a higher profile on the street, hoping to quell tensions, which, of course, is exactly the wrong tactic.

00:52:54.000 It's exactly the wrong tactic.

00:52:55.000 Broken windows policing, which was utilized in New York City in the aftermath of the great crime wave beginning in the 60s and stretching all the way to the early 1990s, Broken window policing was the idea that you have to stop ignoring the people who are jumping turnstiles.

00:53:09.000 You actually have to start policing small-level crime, because if you don't, then people will engage in larger-scale crime.

00:53:14.000 Police departments all over the country have decided they're no longer going to do this.

00:53:17.000 And so, naturally, you're seeing more violence.

00:53:20.000 And that violence is becoming politicized.

00:53:22.000 There's an awful, awful case out of Indianapolis.

00:53:25.000 According to the Post Millennial, a 24-year-old named Jessica Doty was fatally shot early on Sunday, allegedly following an argument with supporters of Black Lives Matter.

00:53:33.000 The victim's family said the dispute was sparked by an argument involving Black Lives Matter and language, according to Fox 59.

00:53:38.000 The two sides parted ways before witnesses claimed the perpetrator opened fire from a bridge nearby and then ran away.

00:53:44.000 The victim's father, Robert J. Doty, told Cassandra Fairbanks his daughter told the Black Lives Matter supporters that, quote, Apparently, the victim's fiancé, José Romero, said, Two people were shot in the same area one week earlier, including a 14-year-old.

00:53:57.000 But they were sitting on St. Clair waiting for us to come under the bridge, and that's when she got shot.

00:54:01.000 She had a three-year-old son, apparently.

00:54:03.000 Two people were shot in the same area one week earlier, including a 14-year-old.

00:54:08.000 That 14-year-old died in what the authorities deems an attempted armed robbery.

00:54:12.000 So good things happening all across the country on crime.

00:54:15.000 Thankfully, we have explanations, complex explanations for what's happening from geniuses, the likes of AOC.

00:54:22.000 Alexandra Ocasio-Cortez, obviously one of the very freshest of the faces, very fresh, very face.

00:54:27.000 Here she was explaining the representative from New York exactly why people are shooting each other in mass numbers in New York.

00:54:32.000 So why is this uptick in crime happening?

00:54:35.000 Well, let's think about it.

00:54:37.000 Do we think this has to do with the fact that there's record unemployment in the United States right now?

00:54:42.000 The fact that people are at a level of economic desperation that we have not seen since the Great Recession.

00:54:49.000 Maybe this has to do with the fact that people aren't paying their rent and are scared to pay their rent.

00:54:54.000 And so they go out and they need to feed their child and they don't have money.

00:54:59.000 So you maybe have to, they're put in a position where they feel like they either need to shoplift some bread or go hungry that night.

00:55:08.000 Um, so, shoplifting is not the problem right now.

00:55:10.000 I'm just gonna point that out.

00:55:11.000 Larceny is actually down in New York City.

00:55:13.000 Shoplifting is not the actual issue.

00:55:15.000 Shooting people in minority areas is not a response to, I'm hungry. 0.94

00:55:19.000 Like, that's not the way this works.

00:55:21.000 It's not, okay, I'm missing bread tonight.

00:55:22.000 Like, listen, I understand the argument that poverty drives crime.

00:55:25.000 I do.

00:55:25.000 I get it.

00:55:26.000 But, let me tell you what poverty generally does not have to drive.

00:55:29.000 Murdering other people who are impoverished.

00:55:31.000 That is not correct.

00:55:32.000 Okay, if you want to say that Jean Valjean has to steal the loaf of bread because he's hungry, all right, that's not what you're seeing.

00:55:37.000 You're seeing people shoplift a TV because they're what?

00:55:40.000 Hungry for a TV?

00:55:41.000 You're seeing people shoot each other in huge numbers in New York City.

00:55:45.000 Because why?

00:55:46.000 Because of the uptick in COVID or something?

00:55:50.000 I'm gonna go, this is a pretty easy answer.

00:55:51.000 You withdraw the police from high crime areas and the crime goes back up.

00:55:54.000 Very, very easy.

00:55:56.000 But according to AOC, it's all because of bread lines.

00:55:58.000 It's all because of bread.

00:56:00.000 People aren't shooting bread.

00:56:01.000 They're not.

00:56:02.000 Okay, they're not shooting the bread.

00:56:03.000 And they're not stealing the bread.

00:56:05.000 That's not what's going on here.

00:56:06.000 They're not going down to the local grocery store and just picking up a bag of veggies and then holding up the counter, Clark.

00:56:11.000 That's not what's happening.

00:56:12.000 People are being shot in mass numbers because you decided to remove the police.

00:56:14.000 This is all genius, genius, galaxy brain kind of stuff here.

00:56:17.000 Okay, what you're talking about here is just people who are acting like criminals.

00:56:21.000 And I think it's fair to call a person who shoots a child a thug.

00:56:23.000 I think that's fair, regardless of race.

00:56:25.000 So if you do that, I have very little sympathy for the idea that you are doing this out of sheer desperation because you lost your job.

00:56:30.000 I just, I don't think that that's the case.

00:56:31.000 I don't think anybody goes and loses their job in the United States.

00:56:34.000 You know what? 0.99

00:56:34.000 I'm gonna go shoot the 13-year-old on the next block. 0.99

00:56:36.000 That seems like a big miss there. 0.97

00:56:38.000 But again, when your agenda is to tear down the entire system, then you go with it, I guess.

00:56:42.000 Then you go with it.

00:56:43.000 Alrighty, we'll be back here later today with two additional hours of content.

00:56:45.000 Otherwise, we'll see you here tomorrow.

00:56:47.000 I'm Ben Shapiro.

00:56:47.000 This is The Ben Shapiro Show.

00:56:53.000 The Ben Shapiro Show is produced by Colton Haas, executive producer Jeremy Boring, supervising producer Mathis Glover and Robert Sterling, assistant director Pavel Lydowsky, technical producer Austin Stevens, playback and media operated by Nick Sheehan, associate producer Katie Swinnerton, edited by Adam Sajovic, audio is mixed by Mike Koromina, hair and makeup is by Nika Geneva.

00:57:13.000 The Ben Shapiro Show is a Daily Wire production, copyright Daily Wire 2020.

00:57:17.000 If you want to cut through the madness of our politics and culture and know what's really going on, head on over to The Michael Knowles Show where we can all bask in the simple joys of being right.

The Ben Shapiro Show - July 13, 2020

The Closing Of The American Mind | Ep. 1050

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