The Ben Shapiro Show - Will Trump Be Disqualified Before The Election Even Starts?

00:00:00.000 Yesterday, Kamala Harris said something extraordinarily wise.

00:00:03.000 It was a rare moment of shining brilliance from our very historic Vice President.

00:00:07.000 Here she was.

00:00:08.000 You know, every election cycle, we talk about this is the most election of our lifetime.

00:00:13.000 Lawrence, this one is.

00:00:14.000 I have been fortunate and blessed to, during the course of being vice president, have many situations where it becomes clear to me that there are, you know, people of every age and gender, by the way, who see something about being the first that lets them know they don't need to be limited by other people's limited Um, understanding of who can do what.

00:00:42.000 Yes, indeed.

00:00:44.000 2024 is shaping up to be the most election of our lifetime.

00:00:48.000 Not just an election, the most election. 0.54

00:00:52.000 In other words, a complete sh** show.

00:00:54.000 While America awaits the Supreme Court ruling on whether or not Colorado can bar Donald Trump from the ballot, other states are now considering how they can follow Colorado's suit and bar the leading Republican candidate in America, the likely nominee, For the presidency, from the ballot entirely. 0.91

00:01:08.000 According to the New York Times, there are at least 15 other states besides Colorado considering barring Trump from the ballot, including four state lawsuits in Michigan, Oregon, New Jersey, and Wisconsin, and 11 federal lawsuits in Alaska, Arizona, Nevada, New York, New Mexico, South Carolina, Texas, Vermont, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wyoming.

00:01:25.000 Right now, the cases in Arizona and Michigan have already been dismissed in Trump's favor, but they have now been appealed.

00:01:31.000 If the Supreme Court doesn't take up the Colorado case, if they just leave it there, then Trump will remain off the ballot in Colorado.

00:01:37.000 And we can be sure this insanity will be repeated anywhere there is a Democratic Supreme Court or legislature and governor.

00:01:43.000 In fact, just yesterday, the California Lieutenant Governor Alina Koulanakis wrote a letter to the California Secretary of State begging for her to, quote, explore every legal option to remove President Donald Trump from California's 2024 presidential primary ballot.

00:01:58.000 Hilariously, Kounalakis is apparently illiterate.

00:02:01.000 She writes in her letter, quote, Actually, you have to be 35, but same difference.

00:02:10.000 Now, it's clear the Colorado Supreme Court is legally in the wrong.

00:02:13.000 Even Trump's biggest detractors say so.

00:02:15.000 Here is Trump's former Attorney General, Bill Barr, who has hardly been a Trump ally in the days since the 2020 election.

00:02:22.000 As you know, I strongly oppose Donald Trump for the Republican nomination.

00:02:26.000 But I think that this case is legally wrong and untenable.

00:02:32.000 And I think this kind of action of stretching the law, taking these hyper aggressive positions to try to knock Trump out of the race are counterproductive.

00:02:41.000 They backfire.

00:02:42.000 As you know, he feeds on grievance, just like a fire feeds on oxygen.

00:02:49.000 And this is going to end up as a grievance that helps him.

00:02:54.000 And here's Chris Christie, who's running a campaign simply and specifically to throw dirt in Trump's eye.

00:03:00.000 I do not believe Donald Trump should be prevented from being president of the United States by any court.

00:03:07.000 I think he should be prevented from being president of the United States by the voters of this country.

00:03:12.000 Well, that doesn't matter.

00:03:14.000 Those who hate Trump believe that it is morally justifiable to use literally any means necessary to keep him from the White House.

00:03:20.000 According to a brand new poll from YouGov, 54% of Americans approve of the Colorado State Supreme Court's decision to boot Trump from the ballot, including 84% of Democrats.

00:03:30.000 So a majority of Americans, according to this poll, believe that the Colorado State Supreme Court should boot Trump from the ballot.

00:03:36.000 Doesn't bode particularly well for the actual election cycle.

00:03:39.000 That's not because these people believe the legal theory behind what the Colorado Supreme Court just did.

00:03:43.000 It's because they believe that any club available to slam Trump in the skull must be used.

00:03:48.000 They're in the same camp as Mary Trump, Trump's niece, who no one had ever heard of five years ago, but who has now made a nice career for herself bashing her uncle.

00:03:56.000 Fabulous news today from the Colorado Supreme Court, who ruled that Donald Trump Yes, Donald Trump, the insurrectionist, anti-American, anti-Democratic fascist who, for some bizarre reason, is leading the Republican nominating contest by 50 points or something, is not eligible to be on the ballot for the Republican

00:04:23.000 Primary in that state.

00:04:25.000 This is amazing news.

00:04:27.000 Yes, it's going to go to the United States Supreme Court, but if they are able to read English, they should concur with this decision.

00:04:41.000 This legal scholar, who is a psychologist, by the way, has her legal thoughts.

00:04:45.000 Joe Biden is fomenting all of this by supporting the rationale behind the

00:04:49.000 Colorado ban. So yesterday he was asked about the Colorado state Supreme Court

00:04:52.000 ruling, and he said that Trump was certainly an insurrectionist and that

00:04:56.000 should presumably bar him from the ballot.

00:04:57.000 Trump an insurrectionist, sir?

00:05:01.000 Well, I think it's certainly self-evident.

00:05:05.000 You saw it all.

00:05:06.000 Now, whether the 14th Amendment applies, I'll let the court make that decision.

00:05:09.000 But he certainly supported an insurrection.

00:05:12.000 No question about it.

00:05:14.000 Zero.

00:05:14.000 None.

00:05:16.000 Zero question, says our doddering old president.

00:05:19.000 No wonder Republicans are up in arms.

00:05:21.000 If Democrats are going to claim that the law can be used as a club, and simultaneously that they are law-abiding citizens merely following the law, Trump fans are similarly going to pick up any club at hand.

00:05:31.000 That's why Trump fans are increasingly cheering his applause line about temporary dictatorship.

00:05:35.000 Here are some of those fans, for example.

00:05:37.000 They can't say that he's... Well, I mean, they are saying that he's coming after his political opponents, but literally, that's exactly... Everything they're accusing this man of doing is literally what has been going on for the last... That's why I have no problem with Day One Dictator.

00:05:49.000 That's why I have no problem with it.

00:05:50.000 If a dictator means he's going to drill, baby, drill, sign me up for that dictatorship anyway.

00:05:57.000 Okay, so, again, the idea is that Trump's language about dictatorship and all the rest of it, by which he really means just using executive authority in the same ways that Biden and Obama used executive authority, When people say this sort of thing, the reason they're saying it is specifically because Democrats claim that they are pro-democracy at the same time they seek to thwart it in a variety of ways.

00:06:15.000 And if Democrats truly seek to bar Trump from the ballot across the country, Republicans will presumably do the same thing to Democrats.

00:06:21.000 Here's Texas's Lieutenant Governor Dan Patrick.

00:06:24.000 Arizona tried this about 10 years ago, but our law is different.

00:06:28.000 It simply says that our law enforcement can arrest anyone, take them in, do a background check, photograph, do fingerprints.

00:06:38.000 If they saw them cross the border illegally, we can do that. 1.00

00:06:42.000 Or if they happen to reveal in the arrest stop that they crossed illegally, and then the magistrate will send them back and will escort them to the border.

00:06:53.000 Uh, and they have a choice.

00:06:54.000 They go to jail or they can go back.

00:06:56.000 And if they go back and try to come back again and we arrest them again, the penalty gets even higher.

00:07:01.000 In fact, seeing what happened in Colorado tonight, Laura, it makes me think, except we believe in democracy in Texas, maybe we should take Joe Biden off the ballot in Texas for allowing 8 million people to cross the border since he's been president.

00:07:01.000 We're fed up.

00:07:16.000 Again, Section 3 of the 14th Amendment does suggest that if you take sides against America, if you take sides with America's enemies, if you undermine the Constitution, maybe that acts as cause to remove somebody from the ballot.

00:07:28.000 America is indeed on the precipice of something truly dangerous.

00:07:32.000 Question, are there now any conditions under which Republicans will accept a Biden victory?

00:07:36.000 At this point, if Joe Biden wins the 2024 election, how many Republicans are going to simply say, okay, done here, and elections an election?

00:07:44.000 On the other side, are there any conditions under which Democrats will accept a Trump victory?

00:07:48.000 And if not, what comes next?

00:07:50.000 The answer is nothing very good.

00:07:52.000 2024 is indeed going to be very election.

00:07:56.000 The most election, as Kamala Harris says.

00:07:58.000 So, get ready.

00:08:00.000 In one second, we'll get to the polls.

00:08:01.000 Donald Trump way out in front nationally, but some interesting things happening in New Hampshire in the primaries first.

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00:09:00.000 Pure Talk is simply Okay, so looking at the national polls, Donald Trump is experiencing, unsurprisingly, a fairly significant bump after the Colorado Supreme Court just did what it did.

00:09:17.000 According to the latest Quinnipiac poll, Trump is up nationally 67% to 11% for DeSantis and 11% for Haley.

00:09:24.000 So two-thirds of the national vote behind Donald Trump.

00:09:27.000 In the various states, You can see Trump continuing to lead fairly significantly.

00:09:33.000 So in Iowa, the latest Fox Business poll has Trump up at 52%, DeSantis at 18, and Nikki Haley at 16.

00:09:39.000 So even if you combined both of their percentages, they would be at 34%, 18% behind Donald Trump.

00:09:44.000 So he has a significant lead over in Iowa.

00:09:47.000 New Hampshire is a bit of a different story.

00:09:49.000 According to a new CBS poll, New Hampshire, Trump is at 44, but Nikki Haley is at 30%.

00:09:58.000 Chris Christie is at 12%.

00:09:59.000 So if you added together Chris Christie's support and Nikki Haley's support, if Christie were to get out of the race, as he should, that would look like a competitive state.

00:10:06.000 Then he'd move down south to South Carolina and things could theoretically get a little interesting because, of course, Nikki Haley is the former governor of South Carolina. 1.00

00:10:13.000 Nationally speaking, the Trump versus Biden polls, they are tightening a little bit.

00:10:19.000 Quinnipiac has Biden up one, 47 to 46.

00:10:22.000 Economist YouGov has them tied at 43.

00:10:25.000 Morning Consult has Trump up by two at 44 to 42.

00:10:28.000 And again, this is how it works.

00:10:30.000 As Trump gets back in the headlines, the polls tend to tighten between Trump and Biden.

00:10:33.000 This is why anybody who is suggesting that it's gonna be a runaway for Trump, I don't see the evidence for that.

00:10:37.000 Anybody who's suggesting that it's gonna be a runaway for Biden, I don't see the evidence of that either.

00:10:41.000 This thing could seriously go either way, and a lot is dependent on the candidate's strategy.

00:10:46.000 So Joe Biden is going to try to run a basement strategy, and it's not going to work because he's the current president of the United States.

00:10:51.000 Donald Trump should be running a basement strategy.

00:10:53.000 If Donald Trump runs a basement strategy in 2024, if he does exactly what Joe Biden did in 2020, if he just goes down to his basement and watches Shark Week from now until the election, very solid shot that he becomes president again.

00:11:06.000 But one of the big problems that the RNC is having is this is a big election year, not just for Donald Trump, but for the Republican Senate, for example.

00:11:13.000 So Republicans have the upper hand in a bunch of Senate races that they need in order to regain the majority in the Senate.

00:11:19.000 But the RNC has no cash because all the money is getting sucked up into Trump world.

00:11:22.000 And Trump doesn't spend the cash on Republican candidates in these various areas.

00:11:26.000 According to Rob Pryors, who is a political junkie research director for the California Target Book, He has statistics on RNC cash on hand at the end of November by year.

00:11:38.000 In 2016, the RNC had $21 million on hand.

00:11:41.000 In 2018, $27 million.

00:11:43.000 In 2020, $58 million.

00:11:45.000 2021, $65 million.

00:11:46.000 As of 2023, the RNC cash on hand is less than $10 million.

00:11:52.000 Meaning no one is giving to the RNC.

00:11:55.000 That's a real problem if you're looking at a bunch of competitive congressional races and Senate races where Donald Trump is not going to spend one iota of his time.

00:12:02.000 That is the reality of the race. 0.96

00:12:05.000 And so, again, the idea that Trump's just going to walk away with this thing, I understand that Trump doesn't like strategy and Trump really does not like planning.

00:12:12.000 His on-the-ground game is not really existent.

00:12:15.000 He sort of throws it out there and then hopes and prays that victory will emerge.

00:12:20.000 Maybe it will.

00:12:21.000 I'm not saying it can't.

00:12:22.000 I'm just saying that right now the RNC is short on cash.

00:12:24.000 Trump has no ground game and no actual strategy in a lot of these states.

00:12:28.000 The best thing he could do right now is get some pros on board to actually run the on-the-ground get-out-the-vote campaign if he wins the primaries, which presumably he will.

00:12:37.000 And then he needs to go to the basement and shut up and watch Joe Biden be a bad president.

00:12:40.000 Speaking of which, Joe Biden's presidency, it continues to be a mess.

00:12:44.000 He cannot take clear political positions on nearly anything.

00:12:47.000 So on the one hand, you have the State Department for the United States saying that Israel should basically be allowed to defend itself by taking out Hamas, which is good. 0.93

00:12:57.000 Your Secretary of State, Tony Blinken, saying that yesterday.

00:13:00.000 What is striking to me is that even as, again, we hear many countries urging the end to this conflict, which we would all like to see, I hear virtually no one saying, demanding of Hamas. 0.91

00:13:18.000 That it stopped hiding behind civilians, that it laid down its arms, that it surrendered.

00:13:24.000 This is over tomorrow if Hamas does that. 0.89

00:13:27.000 This would have been over a month ago, six weeks ago, if Hamas had done that. 0.59

00:13:32.000 And how could it be that there are no demands Made of the aggressor and only demands made of the victim.

00:13:44.000 So it would be good if there was a strong international voice pressing Hamas to do what's necessary to end this.

00:13:55.000 Hey, obviously that's good, but at the same exact time, the United States is now negotiating with the most eyesleeve international politics, a wretched hive of scum and villainy, the United Nations, in order to facilitate the passage of some sort of UN Security Council resolution about ceasefires and humanitarian aid and all the rest.

00:14:12.000 It's just a mess of policy inside the Biden administration because apparently they lack the courage of their own convictions.

00:14:18.000 We'll get to that in just one second.

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00:15:21.000 So, the reason that you have this mass confusion inside the White House is because they can't take a moral stand.

00:15:27.000 Too many of their supporters are either radical leftists or weak liberals.

00:15:31.000 When I say weak liberals, I mean people who are willing to cave to radical leftists if they believe the situation so requires.

00:15:36.000 So, speaking of the radical leftists, the other night, and this is just an amazing video and it shows you how insane some of the Democratic support base is.

00:15:45.000 Protesters in New York City were screaming shame on you at an event, outside an event that was being held, a charity event in New York City.

00:15:53.000 So the woman who's actually leaving here is a woman named Ayelet Levy.

00:15:57.000 Ayelet's daughter is Naama, who happens to be one of the hostages who was raped and kidnapped by Hamas terrorists.

00:16:03.000 And here are the protesters screaming at her. 0.98

00:16:05.000 Shame on you! 1.00

00:16:21.000 Flipping off, screaming at, you know, the mothers of people who were kidnapped and raped. 1.00

00:16:26.000 Pretty obviously raped.

00:16:27.000 You remember the daughter as the woman from the photograph where her pants are covered in blood and her Achilles heels were cut so she could not run away. 0.90

00:16:35.000 She was hobbled so she couldn't run away.

00:16:38.000 So those are the radical leftists who are part of Joe Biden's base.

00:16:40.000 Meanwhile, you have the so-called soft liberals inside Biden's congressional caucus.

00:16:45.000 Those would be people like Jason Crow and Chrissy Houlihan, unfortunately Seth Moulton, Alyssa Slotkin, Abigail Spanberger.

00:16:50.000 These are the supposed moderates in the Democratic caucus.

00:16:52.000 They issued a letter yesterday to Biden saying, quote, We are deeply concerned by Prime Minister Netanyahu's current military strategy in Gaza.

00:16:58.000 The mounting civilian death toll and humanitarian crisis are unacceptable and not in line with

00:17:02.000 American interests, nor do they advance the cause of security for our ally Israel.

00:17:05.000 We also believe it jeopardizes efforts to destroy the terrorist organization Hamas and

00:17:09.000 secure the release of all hostages.

00:17:11.000 From our positions on the Intelligence, Armed Services and Foreign Affairs Committee, we

00:17:13.000 have consistently pushed for Israel to shift its military strategy.

00:17:17.000 There has been no significant change.

00:17:20.000 Now, I have a question.

00:17:20.000 What exactly would that change look like?

00:17:22.000 Seriously, all recommendations welcome.

00:17:24.000 People keep saying that Israel ought to be more humane.

00:17:26.000 They need to preserve civilian life better.

00:17:27.000 They need to go in on the ground and be more careful.

00:17:29.000 Israel has lost about 130 soldiers in the Gaza Strip already, all of them very young men.

00:17:37.000 Israel is sacrificing those lives in order to save civilians, obviously.

00:17:41.000 But there is this bizarre mentality that now prevails among many Americans in which war does not exist.

00:17:46.000 Or if war does exist, it's supposed to be clean.

00:17:48.000 It's supposed to be precise.

00:17:49.000 That is not how war works. 1.00

00:17:52.000 This letter includes the following idiotic line, by the way. 0.99

00:17:55.000 We know from personal and often painful experience, you can't destroy a terror ideology with military 1.00

00:17:59.000 force alone, and it can in fact make it worse. Well, the way that you actually destroy a terror

00:18:04.000 ideology is with long-term occupation, pacification, and counterinsurgency tactics.

00:18:10.000 That's actually how you destroy a terror ideology over time.

00:18:13.000 It certainly isn't by making concessions to terrorists, which is what a ceasefire would be, as Blinken correctly stated.

00:18:20.000 Meanwhile, Hamas is openly thanking its allies in the Western world. 0.51

00:18:24.000 So literally, a spokesperson for Hamas yesterday issued a video thanking the Canadian government for calling for a ceasefire.

00:18:30.000 Guys, if Hamas is thanking you, you're doing it wrong.

00:18:34.000 by Canada, Australia and New Zealand backing sustainable ceasefire in Gaza.

00:18:41.000 We welcome these developments and consider them in the right direction toward isolation

00:18:48.000 the fascist is a fascist Israeli government globally and ending the longer evil occupation 0.92

00:18:56.000 in our modern time.

00:18:58.000 Okay, that's Hamas literally thanking Western governments.

00:19:02.000 Again, when a terrorist group thanks you, you are doing it wrong.

00:19:05.000 Meanwhile, Hamas is rejecting Israel's offer to stop fighting for a week for a hostage deal to go forward.

00:19:11.000 They say, no, no, no, you have to stop firing on us before we are going to offer you anything.

00:19:15.000 Meanwhile, as of this morning, Hamas was firing its largest barrage of rockets into Tel Aviv that it has for a couple of weeks, like 30 rockets falling toward Tel Aviv.

00:19:24.000 So, so much for the ceasefire.

00:19:26.000 There is no ceasefire.

00:19:27.000 Hamas knows it.

00:19:28.000 It's all a tactic by Hamas. 0.98

00:19:31.000 And weakness breeds.

00:19:33.000 It breeds problems.

00:19:35.000 It breeds failure.

00:19:36.000 We'll get to that in just one second.

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00:20:39.000 Okay, so.

00:20:41.000 Weakness breeds failure, and that's what we are seeing in the Red Sea.

00:20:45.000 So, according to the Wall Street Journal, as a U.S.-led multinational task force steamed toward the Middle East to protect one of the world's vital shipping lanes, the Houthi rebels vowed to retaliate if attacked.

00:20:55.000 Yet despite rising tensions in the Red Sea on Wednesday, traders reacted with relative calm, even as shipping companies diverted more cargoes to alternative routes.

00:21:02.000 While the threat of more severe disruption persists, the response of energy markets has been muted compared with dramatic moves in prices sparked by some other past outbreaks of violence in the Middle East.

00:21:10.000 Well, yeah, I mean, if you compare, it's like 1973, of course, because there's a giant oil embargo from, like, Saudi Arabia.

00:21:15.000 But the reality of the situation is that when you have, again, ragtag Houthi pirates in inflatables with drones who are holding up One of the key choke points for global trade that is a serious problem.

00:21:26.000 And it's not just a serious problem because of what's happening in the Red Sea.

00:21:30.000 It's a serious problem because once States that hate the United States, ones countries that have interests adverse to our own, realize that they can drive America off the ball in the area of freedom of the seas.

00:21:44.000 They can really affect the global economy in significant and severe ways.

00:21:48.000 So I want to show you a map.

00:21:49.000 This is a map of maritime choke points across the world.

00:21:52.000 And a lot of people don't think about exactly how the stuff that you want gets to you.

00:21:56.000 But the reality is that there are these choke points, you know, places where a huge percentage of trade actually moves.

00:22:02.000 So if you can't see the map, there are, again, a bunch of things labeled on this map I'll try to describe for you.

00:22:08.000 Places that trade moves, and these are bottlenecks, like places that very often are close to nations that are adversarial to the United States.

00:22:16.000 So, the number one choke point, the primary choke point for Asia, is a place called the Strait of Malacca. 0.75

00:22:23.000 It is very close to China and has the ability, if you close it, to really affect China's economy.

00:22:28.000 Alternatively, because it's very close to China, you could see China attempt to make aggressive moves in the Strait of Malacca.

00:22:34.000 It accounts for about 25% of all traded goods and a third of all seaborne oil.

00:22:39.000 And that is a choke point.

00:22:41.000 Another choke point, the Taiwan Straits.

00:22:43.000 So when China is threatening Taiwan, they are also threatening the Taiwan Straits, which is a place where a lot of trade moves.

00:22:51.000 If you look at, for example, the Strait of Hormuz, this is one of the areas that Iran is currently threatening. 0.99

00:22:57.000 30% of all oil traded on the world's oceans passes through the Strait of Hormuz.

00:23:01.000 These are moves from the Middle East and down through the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait, which is another place where a lot of oil moves.

00:23:07.000 And then up through the Suez Canal, again, all these places threatened by Iran and Iranian proxies.

00:23:13.000 So you have China, which is threatening like the Taiwan Straits and the Strait of Malacca. 0.98

00:23:17.000 And you have Middle Eastern countries adversarial to America, like Iran, threatening the Strait of Hormuz, the Bab-el-Mandeb Strait, the Suez Canal, forcing people to travel all the way around the southern tip of Africa, the Cape of Good Hope, which is a much longer trip. 0.70

00:23:33.000 It increases all of your prices.

00:23:36.000 What this really means is that, again, if America does not guarantee freedom of the seas, then what you're going to end up with is a cratered global economy at the behest of countries that hate the United States and seek to curb our power.

00:23:48.000 And the Chinese are seeing the weakness.

00:23:50.000 Apparently, according to ABC News last night, Chinese President Xi Jinping told President Joe Biden directly at their recent summit that China will reunify with Taiwan.

00:23:59.000 It was unclear whether Beijing plans to use force in its efforts to reunify with Taiwan, but Xi indicated they will try at first to do so peacefully.

00:24:05.000 Key words there being at first.

00:24:08.000 Xi has said as much publicly what is noteworthy is that he said this so bluntly to the president at a summit intended to thaw their relations.

00:24:15.000 And John Kirby told reporters, quote, I'm not going to get into specifics of the discussion between the two leaders.

00:24:18.000 I think you can understand I'm not going to read out that private conversation.

00:24:21.000 He said, President Xi has been public and clear about his desires for reunification.

00:24:24.000 That's not something different or new.

00:24:26.000 We have been clear and the president was clear with you guys and with President Xi, we still adhere to the one China policy.

00:24:30.000 We don't support independence for Taiwan.

00:24:32.000 We also don't support a change in the status quo unilaterally and certainly not one by force.

00:24:36.000 And as the president has said, there's no reason for this to come to blows.

00:24:40.000 Asked about whether U.S.

00:24:41.000 involvement in two other global conflicts, Ukraine and Gaza, alters its previous commitment to defend Taiwan from any Chinese military action, Biden reiterated in November the U.S.

00:24:50.000 position in favor of the one-China policy, which is basically just, let's not talk about this.

00:24:54.000 The one-China policy is like, sure, Taiwan is part of the one-China policy, and also if you attack Taiwan, we'll defend it probably.

00:25:02.000 It's strategic vagueness.

00:25:03.000 Biden said, look, I reiterate what I've said since I've become president and what every previous president of late has said, that we maintain an agreement.

00:25:08.000 There's one China policy.

00:25:09.000 I'm not going to change that.

00:25:10.000 That's not going to change.

00:25:11.000 And so that's about the extent to which we discussed it.

00:25:14.000 Apparently, in a readout of the summit, China said, quote, Xi Jinping elaborated on his principled position on the Taiwan issue and pointed out the Taiwan issue has always been the most important and sensitive issue in Sino-U.S.

00:25:24.000 relations.

00:25:25.000 China attaches importance to the relevant positive statements made by the United States at the Bali meeting.

00:25:30.000 China will be unified and inevitably will be unified.

00:25:34.000 military intelligence, Xi has been instructing his military to be ready by 2027 to invade Taiwan.

00:25:34.000 According to U.S.

00:25:40.000 That obviously is a timeline that could be moved up pretty dramatically if Xi senses global weakness by the West, an unwillingness to use, for example, naval power in pursuit of the freedom of the seas.

00:25:56.000 That could continue to be a serious problem.

00:25:58.000 And it goes also to a general belief in the United States that we can randomly sort of cut off our own military without real consequence to the American people.

00:26:08.000 We spend too much money, we should be more isolationist, and all of the rest.

00:26:12.000 That is, in fact, also a massive problem.

00:26:15.000 When it comes to American underinvestment, that is particularly true with regard to the Navy.

00:26:20.000 The Navy does the biggest share of the lifting when it comes to war-making, ensuring freedom of trade.

00:26:24.000 I did a recent Facts episode all about this.

00:26:27.000 You can go check it out on YouTube.

00:26:29.000 But the Navy represents about 23% of our annual military budget that's lower than both the Army and the Air Force.

00:26:34.000 Not only that, the U.S.

00:26:35.000 fewer operating naval carriers today than it did four decades ago. The U.S. Navy keeps talking

00:26:40.000 about growing while shrinking, relying on better technology to make up for lack of ships. One of

00:26:44.000 the things that we have seen historically with U.S.

00:26:46.000 military policy is whenever the U.S. military is like, well, we'll do it fewer but better, that tends to

00:26:51.000 work out not particularly well, whether you're talking about the occupation of Iraq or they're

00:26:55.000 talking about in Vietnam using much more military technology, but doing graduated escalation.

00:27:01.000 That doesn't actually work.

00:27:02.000 You need lots of ships in the water to challenge the Chinese, who have 355 ships. 1.00

00:27:06.000 Now they do have what they call a grey water navy, meaning that they are really relegated to coastal areas to do serious battle, but the thing is the Taiwan Straits for them, that's basically a coastal battle.

00:27:17.000 Admiral Charles Richard, Commander of U.S.

00:27:18.000 U.S. Strategic Command said in 2022, as I assess our level of deterrence against China,

00:27:22.000 the ship is slowly sinking.

00:27:23.000 It's sinking slowly, but it is sinking as fundamentally they're putting capability

00:27:26.000 in the field faster than we are.

00:27:28.000 As those curves keep going, it isn't gonna matter how good our operating plan is

00:27:31.000 or how good our commanders are or how good our forces are.

00:27:34.000 We're not gonna have enough of them.

00:27:35.000 That is a very near-term problem.

00:27:36.000 Undersea capabilities is still the one true asymmetric advantage we have against our opponents, but unless we pick up pace in terms of getting our maintenance problems fixed, getting new construction going, if we can't figure that out, we're not going to put ourselves in a good position to maintain strategic deterrence and national defense."

00:27:51.000 So, again, when Xi is threatening Taiwan, the reason he is doing that is because if the United States and its allies can't even deter the Houthis, then how are you going to deter a massive military power like the Chinese?

00:28:02.000 And that does have serious spillover effects.

00:28:05.000 I know everybody likes to pretend that war-making and economics are completely disconnected from each other, that isolationism has no actual consequences.

00:28:12.000 That is wrong.

00:28:13.000 Not only is that wrong, it's connected to a bizarre view of how the economy works in general.

00:28:17.000 I'll get to that in just one second.

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00:29:20.000 Well, all this foreign policy isolationism and vacillation is connected to a deeper view of the American economy that I think is totally and deeply flawed.

00:29:29.000 And the reality is, freedom of the seas has allowed you to live a better lifestyle.

00:29:34.000 Freedom of the seas, the spread of democracy, the spread of liberalism, the possibility of free trade, all of these things have a real world impact on you.

00:29:43.000 Autarky in the United States is possible, but super duper expensive.

00:29:47.000 This is like basic econ 101.

00:29:49.000 You can go down to the local McDonald's, you can pick up a hamburger for a couple of bucks.

00:29:55.000 Do you know how much it would take to produce that hamburger in your backyard?

00:29:58.000 To like go and buy a cow, to then slaughter the cow, process the cow, to grow the wheat, to grow all the ingredients, to do all this stuff?

00:30:09.000 A lot of money.

00:30:11.000 Supply chains, supply lines.

00:30:13.000 Comparative advantage.

00:30:15.000 All of these things matter.

00:30:16.000 It is why efficiencies are created that allow you to go get pretty much any product you want on Amazon for an affordable price.

00:30:22.000 It's why people have been living better lives consistently over the course of time.

00:30:26.000 It's because of the rise of free trade.

00:30:28.000 It's because of the broadening of supply lines.

00:30:31.000 It's because of that comparative advantage that so many people like to rip upon.

00:30:35.000 It's because of, for lack of a better term, libertarian economics.

00:30:37.000 Now, I am not a libertarian when it comes to social policy.

00:30:40.000 Because I think libertarianism is ignorant of what it is that makes human beings tick when it comes to social policy.

00:30:45.000 Because we're not just atomized individuals, we are members of communities.

00:30:48.000 And obviously it's a really important part of being a fulfilled human being capable of living a full human life and experience.

00:30:55.000 And building institutions and raising families and all the rest.

00:30:59.000 However, when it comes to economics, there's this phrase that's been used, been tossed around a lot by people on the right of late.

00:31:05.000 They'll say, like, two cheers for capitalism. 0.91

00:31:07.000 And I always think to myself, that's a dumb phrase, as opposed to three cheers for capitalism. 0.68

00:31:11.000 Why? 0.94

00:31:12.000 Because capitalism doesn't solve all your problems.

00:31:14.000 Well, duh.

00:31:15.000 I mean, duh.

00:31:16.000 I'm always confused as to why anyone would think capitalism would solve literally all of your problems.

00:31:21.000 Only a Marxist materialist would think that economics can solve all of your problems.

00:31:25.000 Economics can't solve all your problems.

00:31:26.000 It can solve some of your economic problems, but it can't solve, you know, spiritual problems.

00:31:31.000 It can't solve the problems you're having with your wife.

00:31:33.000 Economics is not going to solve whatever family issues you have or whether your church is breaking down.

00:31:39.000 In fact, depending on the economic system, it can exacerbate some of those conflicts.

00:31:43.000 What economics can do, depending on the system, is make things better and cheaper and more plentiful and innovative.

00:31:49.000 That's what economics can do.

00:31:51.000 When people say two cheers for economics or two cheers for capitalism, I think to myself, it's like saying two cheers for a hammer.

00:31:59.000 Well, no, I mean, it depends what you're doing.

00:32:00.000 If you're hitting a nail, three cheers for the hammer.

00:32:02.000 If you're holding a baby, zero cheers for the hammer. 1.00

00:32:06.000 What exactly is it that you are attempting to do with the tool?

00:32:09.000 What is the system you're describing?

00:32:11.000 The reason this comes to mind is because I've had sort of this long-standing debate with Tucker Carlson about the nature of economics in the United States and what we should be pursuing.

00:32:22.000 So Tucker and I did this really interesting interview a couple years ago now, probably longer than that, maybe five years ago now, where we talked about the role of the government in the economy.

00:32:30.000 And Tucker has a significantly more socialistic view of the economy than I do, just blatantly.

00:32:35.000 I mean, he has endorsed, for example, many of the plans of Senator Elizabeth Warren.

00:32:39.000 This is not a slander against Tucker.

00:32:40.000 I mean, it's something that he will say openly and clearly.

00:32:43.000 Well, he was doing an interview the other day with Glenn Greenwald, who's also been a guest on my program.

00:32:48.000 And they were talking about economics.

00:32:50.000 And Tucker went into this rant about the evils of libertarian economics.

00:32:55.000 And I think this is so short-sighted.

00:32:57.000 I think it's really damaging to the future of American prosperity.

00:33:02.000 And it relies on a bunch of Falsehoods with regard to how the world works.

00:33:09.000 Now, I want to listen to this because, again, I think this has spillover effects for foreign policy.

00:33:12.000 It assumes that the best policy is going to be protectionist.

00:33:16.000 That high tariffs around America's borders are what's going to make American people wealthier and better off.

00:33:21.000 It assumes that an uninvolved America in the world's fear is somehow going to make American citizens better off.

00:33:27.000 It's all predicated on this notion of economics that ignores the importance of comparative advantage and price structure and all the rest in favor of vaguer concepts like beauty.

00:33:38.000 Now again, I'm not anti-beauty, but when I need a hamburger, I'm more interested in the hamburger than I am in, you know, the Venus de Milo.

00:33:45.000 In any case, here is Tucker, and then I want to break this down a little bit because it's interesting.

00:33:49.000 I think a lot of people have awakened to the now demonstrable fact that libertarian economics was a scam perpetrated by the beneficiaries of the economic system that they were defending.

00:34:00.000 So they created this whole intellectual framework.

00:34:02.000 Okay, pause that for a second.

00:34:04.000 So I don't like this conspiracy theorizing about the nature of libertarian economics.

00:34:08.000 Libertarian economics says the government should not control the free flow of goods and services.

00:34:13.000 That's all libertarian economics says.

00:34:15.000 A free market has property rights for you and the government can't get involved.

00:34:18.000 That is the opposite of a conspiracy theory.

00:34:21.000 A conspiracy is when a group of powerful people restructure an entire economy around particular interests.

00:34:27.000 So for example, if you were to push forward a protectionist policy, that is a policy designed to protect specific people in your country in a particular industry from competition from other people in the country and also elsewhere.

00:34:39.000 That is the goal of it.

00:34:41.000 That's an actual cadre of powerful people shaping the economic system for everyone. 0.92

00:34:45.000 A baseline rule, which is that you have freely alienatable goods and services.

00:34:49.000 You can alienate your own labor.

00:34:52.000 Someone can pay you for your labor at a given wage.

00:34:55.000 That's not a conspiracy.

00:34:58.000 Me giving you the ability.

00:35:00.000 To actually trade with other people.

00:35:03.000 I'm confused as to how that would be a conspiracy by me.

00:35:06.000 Now, it may not end to the benefit of people who are less competitive in a particular industry.

00:35:10.000 And there may be very good reasons to protect certain industries.

00:35:12.000 For example, for national security reasons.

00:35:14.000 I think that we should be cutting down on trade from China because I don't think we should be enriching our enemies.

00:35:18.000 That's a different thing from saying that economically speaking, there's this group, this secret group of libertarian economists Who for their own benefit, like Milton Friedman was sitting in the back room and he's like, I need to be rich.

00:35:29.000 And the only way I'm going to be rich is if there's free market economics.

00:35:34.000 That's just not true.

00:35:36.000 It's just not true.

00:35:38.000 There's a kind of politics that a lot of people are engaged in these days called emotivism.

00:35:42.000 It's a basic philosophy that suggests that the reason your opponents are doing the thing they are doing is because of their own emotions.

00:35:47.000 They're doing it because they're badly motivated, because they want the worst for you.

00:35:50.000 I think it's an ugly way to do politics unless you have actual evidence that that is the case.

00:35:54.000 It's a conspiracy way to do politics.

00:35:56.000 It turns out that some people have ideas that are different from you.

00:35:58.000 Sometimes it is because they're corrupt or they're being paid or whatever it is.

00:36:02.000 But in many cases, it's because they just disagree.

00:36:04.000 I don't think Tucker's saying what he's saying because he's being paid off or because he's a vested interest.

00:36:09.000 And so I kind of object to this idea that anyone who disagrees disagrees because they're trying to actively harm somebody else.

00:36:16.000 I don't think that that's the case when you are talking about, for example, free market economics.

00:36:20.000 Here's more of Tucker.

00:36:21.000 ...actual framework to justify the private equity culture that's hollowed out the country.

00:36:27.000 That's my personal view and I've seen it up close my whole life, so I think it's a fair assessment.

00:36:32.000 I think a smarter way to assess an economic system is by its results.

00:36:37.000 So you can assign whatever name you want to the economic system of the United States.

00:36:41.000 You could call it market capitalism.

00:36:43.000 You could call it, I mean, you could call it a whole host of different things.

00:36:46.000 But I don't think any of that's useful.

00:36:48.000 Those are boring conversations.

00:36:49.000 I think you need to ask, does this economic system produce a lot of dollar stores?

00:36:54.000 And if it does, it's not a system that you want because it degrades people and it makes their lives worse and it increases exponentially the amount of ugliness in your society.

00:37:05.000 And anything that increases ugliness is evil.

00:37:08.000 Let's just start there.

00:37:10.000 So if it's such a good system, why do we have all these dollar stores?

00:37:14.000 Okay, that is an amazing statement.

00:37:17.000 Why exactly are dollar stores the root of all evil?

00:37:19.000 So first of all, I should point out at this point that according to Consumer Reports, 88% of Americans shop at dollar stores at least occasionally.

00:37:26.000 My family shops at the dollar store at least occasionally.

00:37:28.000 Almost a third of respondents in the 2021 Consumer Reports survey said they shop at dollar stores more than once a month.

00:37:34.000 This seems like a really elitist attitude.

00:37:35.000 It seems like dollar stores are good.

00:37:37.000 You buy things for a dollar, or at least you did until Joe Biden took office and inflated the currency.

00:37:41.000 Now it's like the $5 store.

00:37:43.000 It is good to have products at your disposal for cheaper.

00:37:47.000 This is a good thing.

00:37:49.000 Why are we frowning upon this?

00:37:50.000 It seems to me a much, much worse system is a system that produces no dollar stores.

00:37:56.000 A system that produces more expensive goods and services that force your family to pay more.

00:38:01.000 A system that, for example, relies on guilds and doesn't produce dollars or relies on government.

00:38:08.000 Are bread lines better than dollar stores?

00:38:09.000 Because there are a few choices when it comes to economics.

00:38:11.000 Dollar stores are actually not.

00:38:13.000 And then he shifts into this discussion of it increases ugliness.

00:38:16.000 Now, when he talks about ugliness, are we talking about the physical stature of dollar stores?

00:38:20.000 These are not like gorgeous, gothic edifices.

00:38:24.000 They're not beautiful to look at?

00:38:26.000 Well obviously, that's true.

00:38:28.000 Obviously it's true.

00:38:29.000 That dollar stores are not beautiful to look at.

00:38:30.000 They look like big box stores.

00:38:32.000 Also, that's one of the reasons that you can get the product for cheap at the dollar store.

00:38:35.000 Because if they look like gothic cathedrals, they'd have to upcharge you on the product in order to pay for the gothic cathedral looking place where you're buying your tomatoes.

00:38:43.000 Which would be weird.

00:38:46.000 There's this kind of break that's happening here, where from an elite perspective, they don't like that it looks bad, that there's like an ugly store at the corner of town that makes it possible for you to feed your family.

00:38:57.000 That seems really elitist to me.

00:38:58.000 It also seems to be disconnected from history.

00:39:00.000 If you go to Hungary, which is a country that a lot of people love and has a lot of history to it, and a lot of the architecture there is spectacular.

00:39:08.000 I mean, Budapest is an incredibly beautiful city.

00:39:11.000 I can tell you, because this is the way that it worked in Hungary for hundreds of years.

00:39:16.000 Nobody was running the farmer's market from the church.

00:39:20.000 They had like a hut outside.

00:39:22.000 The equivalent of the dollar store in Hungary is not a gothic cathedral.

00:39:26.000 A gothic cathedral is a gothic cathedral.

00:39:28.000 The equivalent of a dollar store in Hungary for hundreds of years was like an outdoor stall in the market that was significantly worse for produce than, for example, a dollar store.

00:39:39.000 Here's the thing about America.

00:39:41.000 America As always, this is one of the beauties of America.

00:39:43.000 It's the reason why we're a world power.

00:39:45.000 This is one of the reasons we have always been a nascent and then obviously dominant world power.

00:39:50.000 It is because in America, function frequently defeats beauty as a priority. 0.99

00:39:55.000 Because Americans are a pragmatic and practical people who are seeking to better the lives of their citizens through things like economic opportunity, which means more dollar stores, not fewer dollar stores.

00:40:06.000 Not only do you shop at them, tons of people work at them.

00:40:09.000 Go back to Alexis de Tocqueville, writing in 1831.

00:40:11.000 Again, this is nothing new.

00:40:13.000 I don't know where this idea came from, that America was always filled with gorgeous edifices.

00:40:17.000 It's not true.

00:40:18.000 The vast majority of early American history was filled with abandoned log cabins.

00:40:22.000 Here's what Alexis de Tocqueville writes in Democracy in America, quote, Thus, the European quits his cottage to go to inhabit transatlantic shores, and the American who is born on the same coast plunges in turn into the solitudes of the center of America.

00:40:34.000 This double movement of emigration never stops.

00:40:37.000 It begins deep in Europe.

00:40:38.000 It continues over the Great Ocean.

00:40:39.000 It follows across the solitudes of the New World.

00:40:41.000 Millions of men advance at once toward the same point on the horizon.

00:40:44.000 Their language, their religion, their mores differ.

00:40:47.000 Their goal is common.

00:40:49.000 They were told that fortune is to be found somewhere toward the west and they go off in haste to meet it.

00:40:53.000 Sometimes man advances so quickly the wilderness reappears behind him.

00:40:56.000 The forest is only bent underneath his feet.

00:40:57.000 As soon as he has passed, it recovers.

00:40:59.000 It is not rare when passing through the new states of the west to encounter abandoned dwellings in the middle of the woods.

00:41:04.000 Often one discovers the debris of a hut in the deepest solitude and one is astonished to come across partial clearings which attest at once to human power and human inconstancy.

00:41:14.000 In Europe, we habitually regard restiveness of mind, immoderate desire for wealth, extreme love of independence as great social dangers.

00:41:20.000 It is precisely all these things that guarantee a long and peaceful future to the American republics.

00:41:25.000 This is Alexis de Tocqueville writing in 1831, two centuries ago.

00:41:28.000 Without these restive passions, the population would be concentrated around certain places and would, as among us, soon feel needs difficult to satisfy.

00:41:36.000 What a happy country is the new world, where man's vices are almost as useful to society as his virtues.

00:41:41.000 The American republics in our day I like companies of merchants formed to exploit income in the wilderness lands of the new world and busy in a commerce that is prospering.

00:41:49.000 And then he talks about what exactly log cabins look like in America.

00:41:54.000 He says, quote, At the extreme limits of the Confederated States, on the boundaries of society and wilderness, stands a population of hardy adventurers who, in order to flee the poverty ready to afflict them under their father's roofs, have no fear of plunging into the solitudes of America and seeking a new native country there.

00:42:07.000 Scarcely arrived at a place that will serve as a refuge for him, the pioneer hastily fells some trees and raises a cabin under the leaves.

00:42:13.000 It might build a dollar store.

00:42:15.000 Nothing offers a more miserable aspect than these isolated dwellings.

00:42:18.000 The traveler who approaches them toward evening perceives from afar the flame of the hearth glittering through the walls, and at night, if the wind comes up, he hears the roof of foliage rustling in the midst of the trees of the forest.

00:42:27.000 Who could not believe that this poor cottage serves as a refuge for coarseness and ignorance?

00:42:31.000 Yet, one must not establish any relation between the pioneer and the place that serves as his refuge.

00:42:36.000 All is primitive and savage around him.

00:42:38.000 But he is, so to speak, the result of 18 centuries of work and experience.

00:42:41.000 He wears the clothing of the towns.

00:42:42.000 He speaks their language.

00:42:43.000 He knows the past, is curious about the future, argues about the present.

00:42:46.000 He's a very civilized man who, for a time, submits to living in the middle of the woods, who plunges into the wilderness of the new world with a Bible, a hatchet, and newspapers.

00:42:54.000 It is difficult to imagine how incredibly rapidly thought circulates within this wilderness.

00:42:58.000 There is scarcely a pioneer's cabin where one does not encounter some odd volumes of Shakespeare.

00:43:02.000 I recall having read the feudal drama of Henry V for the first time in a log house.

00:43:07.000 And the sort of scorn that's being poured on people who shop at the dollar store in the name of the people is very weird to me.

00:43:14.000 I don't understand it.

00:43:15.000 It doesn't make sense.

00:43:16.000 What makes lives better for middle class and lower income Americans is freedom of the seas, trade, better products at a cheaper price.

00:43:27.000 And their lives, contrary to public opinion, are getting better.

00:43:29.000 We'll get to more on this in just one second.

00:43:31.000 First, The Ben Shapiro Show is supported by Grand Canyon University, an affordable private Christian university with a vibrant campus in beautiful Phoenix, Arizona.

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00:44:11.000 Also, You've heard me talking about how every day, more kids' content is indoctrinating your kids with radical left-wing garbage. 0.99

00:44:17.000 It's only getting worse. 0.98

00:44:18.000 Just this week, the New York Times attacked our bent-key kids' show, Chip-Chilla, for having, quote, a weirdly present father who teaches, quote, lessons about dead white people.

00:44:26.000 Those dead white people, by the way, are like George Washington, Neil Armstrong, and Benjamin Franklin. 0.53

00:44:29.000 Then, Cocomelon, literally the most-watched children's content in history, has 172 billion views on YouTube.

00:44:36.000 It's the most popular kids' show on Netflix.

00:44:38.000 They introduced two dads encouraging their son to choose a dress.

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00:44:44.000 But it's not just Cocomelon.

00:44:45.000 Peppa Pig, Blue's Clues, Muppet Babies, more of these shows that are supposed to be for kids, they continue to push this radical left-wing agenda and propaganda to our kids.

00:44:52.000 I mean, here's the stuff from Cocomelon. 0.77

00:44:56.000 Those who can't see, this is two gay dads.

00:45:05.000 And there is their little boy who is wearing a tiara and a skirt. 0.54

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00:46:13.000 Okay, meanwhile, the same sort of critique that could be leveraged, that could be levied against the dollar store, because it's ugly, because it's put up in a big box, you know, steel frame building.

00:46:25.000 That same critique could have been levied at tract housing across America.

00:46:30.000 So in the 1930s, 40s, 50s, you know, the golden era, when everyone was seeking a house.

00:46:33.000 By the way, our house is now much bigger.

00:46:35.000 But these are like the golden era, according to many of the people who are now proclaiming that American economics has done us wrong.

00:46:42.000 Those tract houses are ugly.

00:46:44.000 They are not beautiful.

00:46:45.000 But the purpose of the tract house was to give a man a plot of land to live on and a house to have.

00:46:51.000 And they were built cheap.

00:46:52.000 If you've ever been in these wood frame houses from 1940, they were thrown up and they all look the same.

00:46:59.000 And here's a picture of tract housing in Cincinnati.

00:47:01.000 Does this look beautiful to you?

00:47:03.000 This picture of tract housing in Cincinnati?

00:47:05.000 This is not beautiful.

00:47:07.000 This is not ad to the beauty.

00:47:08.000 There's nothing gorgeous about these tract houses in Cincinnati.

00:47:11.000 Except for the opportunity they provide to a person to live in his own home with his family.

00:47:16.000 Maybe these people shop at the dollar store.

00:47:18.000 I don't know.

00:47:20.000 It turns out that more than 40 million housing units were built in the United States during the 30-year period following the end of World War II.

00:47:26.000 At least 30 million of those were single-family homes.

00:47:29.000 And a huge percentage of those were these tract houses.

00:47:31.000 Right again, thrown up.

00:47:33.000 Don't look like Eastern Colonials. 0.97

00:47:35.000 Aren't beautiful.

00:47:36.000 All they did is provide people with opportunity.

00:47:39.000 That is what libertarian economics actually does.

00:47:42.000 People buy these tracts of land.

00:47:44.000 They build tract houses and then they sell them.

00:47:47.000 And as for the notion that libertarian economics has sort of hollowed out America, I'm sorry, but it's not true.

00:47:53.000 It is simply not true.

00:47:55.000 There are certain industries in the United States that have gone away as the world supply chains have become more broad and diverse.

00:48:02.000 We don't make a lot of t-shirts here in the United States anymore, for example.

00:48:06.000 But has life become easier for the normal American over the course of time?

00:48:11.000 Absolutely it has.

00:48:12.000 And anybody who denies that should take a trip back to 1980 and see how their Walkman is working.

00:48:18.000 Let's talk about the cost of food, for example.

00:48:21.000 According to Marion Toopey, writing over at Human Progress, they started with the 1919 nominal prices of 42 food items, ranging from a pound of sirloin steak to a dozen oranges.

00:48:31.000 And they assessed how much time you would have to work in order to buy those things in 1919, and then forward to today.

00:48:37.000 They say, quote, we find that the unweighted average time price of our 42 food items fell by 87% between 1919 and 2019.

00:48:47.000 The total time price, i.e.

00:48:49.000 the nominal price divided by the nominal hourly wage of our basket of 42 food items fell from 27.3 hours of work in 1919 to 3.85 hours in 2019.

00:48:58.000 By the way, this is an excellent way of measuring whether life has gotten easier or harder, not in terms of wage numbers or price numbers, because those are fungible.

00:49:05.000 They're changeable due to inflation statistics and the value of the dollar and all the rest of it.

00:49:09.000 The question is, how long you had to work in order to earn a particular good?

00:49:13.000 Well, when it comes to food, you had to work 87% less today for the same basket of food for which you've had to work a century ago.

00:49:22.000 Does that mean that libertarian economics betrayed everybody?

00:49:25.000 Doesn't sound like it to me.

00:49:27.000 Sounds like far from it to me.

00:49:29.000 And again, the problem with all of this is that when you throw that out, when you throw out that entire system, you fail to recognize the counter.

00:49:36.000 Which is what happens afterward when you get rid of the freedom of the seas.

00:49:39.000 When China does grab those choke points. 0.95

00:49:41.000 When the Suez Canal is closed.

00:49:42.000 When we go isolationist.

00:49:44.000 When the United States retreats within our own borders, do you think life gets better for Americans or worse for Americans? 0.57

00:49:48.000 Like, markedly, a lot worse for Americans.

00:49:51.000 When all those dollar stores disappear because nothing costs a dollar anymore, do you think it's easier for Americans to live or harder for Americans to live?

00:49:57.000 And by the way, you're going to have a lot of time left over and money left over to build those beautiful Gothic architecture pieces?

00:50:03.000 That's the real question.

00:50:05.000 America has prospered because America is free when it comes to economics.

00:50:10.000 Free market economics doesn't solve all your problems, but it tends to do a really good job solving the economic part of your problems.

00:50:17.000 Alrighty guys, the rest of the show is continuing right now.

00:50:18.000 You're not going to want to miss it.

00:50:19.000 We'll be asking a question whether the Senate is going to get anything done before the end of the year.

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The Ben Shapiro Show - December 21, 2023

Will Trump Be Disqualified Before The Election Even Starts?

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