On today's show, we discuss the removal of a Robert E. Lee statue from the U.S. Capitol, the replacement for it with a statue of a teenaged civil rights icon named Barbara Rose Johns, and why this is such a sad day in American history.
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00:03:55.300I had to, like, pull up her Wikipedia.
00:03:56.600And even her Wikipedia is a bit lacking.
00:03:58.620Robert E. Lee was about a million times more historically significant.
00:04:02.020He was also a million times more honorable and courageous than all of the politicians applauding in this video.
00:04:06.280So that really hits at the core of what's going on here is it's unimpressive people standing on the shoulders of giants tearing down the legacy of immensely impressive people.
00:04:19.780Matt Walsh, again, he provided some more commentary.
00:04:21.720He's been cooking all morning on this topic.
00:04:23.820The left tells us that we can't have monuments to Confederate generals because they supported slavery and fought against the federal government and lost.
00:04:30.940And yet they tell us that we must honor Native American tribes who supported slavery and fought against the federal government and lost.
00:04:39.740Again, it's just this weird, bizarre thing where we celebrate, like, we celebrate these losers with the Native Americans.
00:04:48.860I mean, they just didn't put up a good fight.
00:04:50.800I'm kind of tired of this, like, noble, savage lines that people use regarding the Native Americans.
00:04:55.760We're supposed to venerate and celebrate them.
00:04:57.780But the Confederates, who, you know, whatever your take is on the Civil War, it's not a Civil War history show, they had their cause that they believed in.
00:05:08.220And they were incredibly, immensely impressive people.
00:05:11.280Robert E. Lee is one of the greatest military minds probably in human history, certainly in American history.
00:05:19.520That's worth having sort of a monument that when you're taking your children into Emancipation Hall that you can point to and say, well, this is a great man.
00:05:26.600Again, whatever gripes you have with Robert E. Lee or the Confederacy at large, that shouldn't downplay the fact that, A, he was an American, and, B, the way he conducted himself cemented him in the history books forever.
00:05:40.080Generally, as human beings, we should always be trying to learn from someone that has cemented themselves in history books.
00:05:46.160We should always try to be saying, what about them was so impactful that they were able to drop in on the timeline and shatter it?
00:06:01.460I want to bring him to discuss this situation here.
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00:07:33.240Well, I wanted to bring you in because you, obviously, on the timeline for years, have been a big proponent of America, constantly sort of pointing to great men throughout our history who have impacted sort of the history books in very dramatic ways, people that carry immense gravity.
00:07:50.360And Robert E. Lee fits into that very effectively.
00:07:53.380He is someone, again, I was pointing out, like, whatever your gripes are with Robert E. Lee, why would that be a reason to tear down a statue of such a great, immense figure?
00:08:04.080And then we obviously saw that taking place.
00:08:06.580And it was spearheaded by Republicans.
00:08:20.600And they're working in opposition to that by hoisting a statue of a lady that no one's ever heard.
00:08:25.160Even CBS News called it a pointed sort of statement because they even acknowledged that, like, look, this is a direct insult to the history and heritage of millions, tens of millions of Americans, not just across the South, but largely.
00:08:38.220I mean, what is your whole take on this?
00:08:40.420We read your tweet, but what's your analysis of the situation, your thoughts on Robert E. Lee?
00:09:03.800So I, you know, my ancestors fought for the Union, you know.
00:09:09.220So we actually did, like, fight for the Union.
00:09:12.540But my wife is from Texas, so I have a little bit, I think that gives me a little bit of credibility.
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00:09:45.760On the Robert E. Lee thing, no, I just like to claim that I use her as my excuse that I think that gives me a little bit of a claim as a Southerner.
00:09:58.840She doesn't necessarily agree with that.
00:10:00.660But, no, I think this is truly, this is kind of what you got to, Tate.
00:10:09.040I think one of the most insulting things about this, this obviously came out of the BLM hysteria from 2020 where they just started ripping down statues to all sorts of great Americans throughout history.
00:10:25.800You know, this wasn't just like, oh, it's about the South thing, you know, that's what that's what they said.
00:10:31.480But then they started quickly tearing down statues to Andrew Jackson, to Teddy Roosevelt.
00:10:36.320So this was more of a cultural revolution thing.
00:10:39.460It's actually cultural liquidation is what's happening.
00:10:41.880And I think the saddest part about it, even looking back on that era now, is how many of these weak Republicans just decided they're like, oh, well, we can we this isn't really I guess like we're going to let them shame us because they're so afraid of being called racist by leftists who hate them.
00:11:04.260And they're like, oh, well, I guess we could like move it to a museum or like take them out or whatever.
00:12:25.820So that's that's a whole different issue aside.
00:12:28.840But even some as an American myself whose ancestors fought for the union.
00:12:32.460When I see someone like who's a foreigner desecrating like the graves or dancing on the graves of the Confederates, it's like this is not your history.
00:12:42.240You are clearly supplanting or redirecting your hatred towards red America today and saying you guys are the same as the South.
00:12:54.480And so I'm sorry, I could rant about this for a while, but it's to see the Republicans going along with that is is truly shameful.
00:13:03.080And last thing, Glenn Youngkin was in his post about this.
00:13:08.800He's like he said something along the lines of you can't tell the story of Virginia and the story of America without whatever this lady's name.
00:13:17.740Nobody's ever heard of, you know, but you actually like that's actually true about Robert E.
00:13:22.440You cannot tell the story of Virginia, especially, but you cannot tell the story of America without Robert E.
00:13:29.020Lee. So I think going along with this is is disgraceful and it shows you how unprepared many are still on our side.
00:14:05.880First of all, if you read, you know, if you read history and you look at sort of the sentiments among those who fought for the union, those who were northerners at the time of the Civil War, they did not have really any venom towards the Confederates.
00:14:20.420They viewed it as like this tragic thing, this tragic family feud that was inevitable in many ways.
00:14:25.040But they weren't like celebrating the deaths of their fellow countrymen and they certainly wouldn't have been desecrating and mocking them.
00:14:33.400So it's just like weird that they take on this LARP to sort of desecrate people that they're trying to adopt a LARP and sort of retcon how these people actually felt when they did not feel this way whatsoever.
00:14:46.280And it's just bizarre to me that this is like permitted and promoted by the left.
00:14:51.760But what's more bizarre to me is that the right, like you said, is just not prepared whatsoever to fight back on this, as you correctly identified, cultural liquidation.
00:14:59.560It's like they just can't understand what's going on here.
00:15:02.580I make this point quite a bit is you can't step into the left's framework and expect to beat them at their own game because they're the masters at it.
00:15:10.220You need to pull them into your framework and then beat them at your own game.
00:15:13.180And so it's so weird to see here is people like Mike Johnson, people like Glenn Youngkin, who I agree, like they're directionally correct on a lot of things, but where they expect like, OK, if we keep throwing enough bones to the left, maybe they will finally vote for us.
00:15:28.960Maybe they'll finally view us as sensible and they won't, you know, they'll stop lambasting us as racist.
00:15:32.980And I personally, I thought we this is why this story is so shocking to me, is I thought we had kind of moved on from that in many regards.
00:15:38.940Like this was something that really hit fever pitch, the Biden winner with COVID, with the BLM riots, that sort of thing.
00:15:45.120I thought that everyone kind of wised up to what was going on.
00:15:48.040And to me, when Trump was elected the second time, I thought everyone was kind of in agreement, like, OK, we don't have to do these weird like struggle sessions anymore.
00:15:57.080Yeah. So that's to me like just so strange.
00:16:00.000It's like these these guys, Mike Johnson is the speaker of the House.
00:16:02.860This is someone who really, in many ways, is at the forefront of this right wing movement in the United States.
00:16:09.760He is supposed to be the leader. He is supposed to be the guy that we can look to for direction and to see him not just to the left of like the Republican constituency, but to the left of like some Democrats is just like it's just I struggle to find the words to describe how horrific this is.
00:16:30.180Yeah, it is. It is. It is truly mind boggling.
00:16:37.180But the GOP, you know, a lot of times they will pretend that they represent their constituents.
00:16:43.040But Oren McIntyre has a great line that like a lot of the leaders in the GOP have the same beliefs as the left, that there's like this like army of like hidden Ku Klux Klan members somewhere in America.
00:16:55.540And so like everything must be upended to prevent them from like rising and taking over the government.
00:17:04.180It's just this absurd fantasy that like, oh, if we you know, if we got rid of civil rights, for instance, that like somehow red America is just going to rise up and be they view the same thing.
00:17:15.380It's like what the left does when they project their hatred for the Confederacy.
00:17:22.020What they're saying is we hate normal Americans in a heartland today.
00:17:26.660And that's what we want to do to them is to annihilate them.
00:17:29.700They always say, oh, we should have we should have hung every last Confederate.
00:17:33.980It's like this is way crazier than any opinion that like Lincoln had.
00:17:39.280Now, maybe Sherman could be a different one, but he might have been the most bloodthirsty of the union.
00:19:12.120I cannot highly, I cannot recommend it highly enough.
00:19:15.720And I know Mystery Grove has been huge on this.
00:19:18.720I've had a couple people that put me on to those books, but they are phenomenal.
00:19:23.760And when you look at them, when you read them, you understand just how much of kind of what you were talking about, Tate.
00:19:32.100There is a lot of respect on both sides.
00:19:36.720So, like, you would have a battle where these people would be literally slaughtering each other.
00:19:43.240And then, you know, for like one particular, if there was a July 4th holiday, there was a battle at Vicksburg, for instance, where on July 4th, the Confederate Army was besieged.
00:19:59.520They were about to lose, and there was no fighting on July 4th because these—and you would see soldiers, like, from each side, you know, walking across the lines and exchanging various things that either side wanted, you know, various supplies.
00:20:19.080And they would—it literally was a brother war.
00:20:21.260And when you see the—there's that great picture—someone put it in color.
00:20:28.380But there's that great picture of Union and Confederate veterans at Gettysburg when they're all, like, 80 or 90 years old on the anniversary, and they're all sitting there shaking hands, you know.
00:20:39.700So this is, like, much different than—what actually they want—the left wants to happen is they don't want unity.
00:20:49.760It should have been settled a long time ago, but they want to keep reopening those wounds and keep hammering you over the head and just say, you are traitors, you are racist, we hate you.
00:21:00.220And they're not—they're not interested in coming together.
00:21:03.400And so I think the behoove of Republicans to learn and understand that you're not dealing in an enemy—like, this is not someone who's operating in good faith.
00:22:11.760They didn't have this, like, bloodthirsty hatred.
00:22:14.720I mean, I'm sure some of the minority did.
00:22:16.440But the overwhelming majority of the men that fought didn't have this, like, bloodthirsty hatred for the opposition.
00:22:21.680And to your point, like, we talked about earlier with that TikTok that everyone sort of references.
00:22:25.980But even, like, white Americans that are on the left that just, yeah, view, like, the Union as if there was some sort of, like, super soldiers that had this, like, vengeance against the Confederacy.
00:22:37.220And it's because it's, like, like you said, they just view the Confederacy as an analog for traditional Americans.
00:22:43.280Because those people who are LARPing as, like, these Union generals or whatever and, like, you know, making all these threats against Confederates,
00:22:51.080these types of people would be scandalized by the views of a Union soldier.
00:23:35.940Because they realize—these people on the left, they realize their beliefs are so inhuman that there's no sort of historical undercurrent to any of it.
00:23:47.540That in order to provide some credibility for their beliefs, they need to find these historical analogs to then, like, sort of retcon and sort of use as an avatar.
00:23:56.920Because, yeah, fundamentally they're like, oh, wow, this actually has no precedent in history.
00:24:00.860This is an ideology that whatever form it did exist in history led to the destruction of that civilization.
00:24:06.640So maybe if we sort of adopt these historical figures that, you know, right-wingers may be sympathetic to, then perhaps we could sell it to them.
00:24:17.340But unfortunately, because they hate sort of core heritage Americans so much, they can't, like, get out of their own way.
00:24:24.160And then they just end up revealing that they do indeed have this bloodthirsty hatred for the Confederacy, which is just a stand-in for, you know, normal conservative Americans.
00:24:37.160Yeah, I mean, to your point, Tate, if you go back and read some of Lincoln's inaugural addresses, like, for instance, I think it's his second inaugural.
00:24:44.780Lincoln was not this, like, they love to think of him as, like, this, like, anti-racism crusade or whatever.
00:24:53.340It's like, this is not actually, if you go back and read Lincoln, it's like there's some stuff that would really, really offend, not just the sensibilities of the modern left, but also the conservatives.
00:25:03.040And it's just hilarious that, and I will keep harping on this, because I think leftists are just so consumed by media that everything is the Avengers to them.
00:25:16.440And this happens, this is to the extent of Republicans, too, at least a lot of the boomers, you see this, where under, like, I saw a bunch of the comments under the post yesterday where the statue's being taken down, the video.
00:25:32.280And a bunch of these old boomer Republicans are like, oh, the Democrats were the real racists.
00:25:39.620Like, we were the Republicans and whatever.
00:26:16.420But if you read, some of these soldiers, Confederate soldiers who are not even technically educated, you know, they didn't go to college, they couldn't name a whole lot of the Constitution.
00:26:29.360They could hardly basically describe, like, the Bill of Rights to you.
00:26:34.400But the letters that they write are so much more intelligible and articulate than what most college students today are writing or able to talk or the way that they're able to express their feelings or what's going on around them.
00:26:56.620But people are just so historically illiterate that they don't understand what they're trying to explain and describe.
00:27:05.680Lee, for instance, was a formidable opponent.
00:27:10.320They were – he was heavily – I mean, he garnered a ton of respect even from the opposite side.
00:27:15.220You know, the South thought he was going to be their hero, and he was, but they thought he was going to – they were always banking even after their big losses.
00:27:22.400They said, well, Lee's going to be able to deliver us from this no matter how hopeless the situation gets.
00:27:28.420The opposite side, this is why – I mean, Lincoln had to shuffle through so many different generals before he got to Grant because they didn't know how to deal with Lee in Virginia.
00:27:40.600And they're all sitting there like, how in the heck is this guy doing it?
00:27:44.140He's outnumbered by tens of thousands of troops.
00:27:49.900We have more machines, vastly more industry than the South, and yet he had like this – somehow he has such a fantastic military mind that he was able to outmaneuver them even when he's vastly outnumbered.
00:28:05.340So all of the – there was so much respect for him on the opposite side because they're like, he is the person who is – he keeps – he's humiliating us in Virginia.
00:28:14.140And it's just – it's fascinating to read about.
00:28:59.420I mean, one – yeah, with Lincoln, you were talking about this weird retconning where they try to turn him into this like wholesome, chungus, anti-racist like figure.
00:29:06.840And it was like literally like the war happens.
00:29:10.200And then they're like, so what do we do now with all these freed slaves?
00:29:28.880And like – yeah, but I think it's also – you mentioned this, sort of the Democrats are the real racist line.
00:29:36.720Why that is ineffective as a line, I would say – I want to propose sort of something different than the conventional line of attack against that line from the right.
00:29:46.500Is I want to make the case that modern liberalism as it stands, modern leftism broadly, has no historical analog.
00:29:54.260This is something that's demonic in many ways.
00:29:57.180And they can't find precedent in history because it's inherently a destructive ideology.
00:30:01.360Again, like I said, anyone that did adopt this ideology in any form ended up being destroyed so dramatically that they don't even make the history books.
00:30:08.900So when you – that's a concession when you say the Democrats were the real racist because you're saying, no, they actually do have precedent in history.
00:30:17.140This ideology has existed throughout history.
00:30:20.160No, this is something entirely new, something entirely horrific, something entirely destructive.
00:30:27.080And so that's why I think that line is just specifically like – you think it's like an own, but it's actually the opposite.
00:30:32.420It's like, no, you're lending them historical credibility, and it's just a complete disaster.
00:30:38.840And then, yeah, to your point with Robert E. Lee, I mean, you would see these old world powers.
00:30:43.740They were like – it was like college football where they were, like, scouting them out.
00:30:47.140They're like, who is this guy? Can we pick him up in the transfer portal?