The Glenn Beck Program - December 20, 2018


Best of Program ｜ Guests： Vicki Barbolak, David French & Charles Duhigg ｜ 12⧸20⧸18


Episode Stats


Length

52 minutes

Words per minute

173.29651

Word count

9,015

Sentence count

722

Harmful content

Misogyny

14

sentences flagged

Hate speech

18

sentences flagged


Summary

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

Vickie Barbalock joins the show to talk about the President's new ban on bumping stocks and how anger can get out of control quickly. Also, a conversation with Charles Duhigg on anger and how quickly it can become a problem.

Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Misogyny classifications generated with MilaNLProc/bert-base-uncased-ear-misogyny .
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
00:00:00.000 On the podcast today, we've got a couple of things.
00:00:02.520 We started a little rocky, a little rocky with bump stocks being outlawed by the President of the United States.
00:00:10.440 A lot of people were not happy about that.
00:00:13.360 Then we took a happy turn, and we had a guest in.
00:00:17.340 Her name is Vicki Barbalock.
00:00:19.540 She is, she's trailer trash. 1.00
00:00:21.720 She's trailer nasty. 1.00
00:00:23.300 Self-identified.
00:00:23.900 Yeah, and she's a 61-year-old woman who was aging out of comedy until she was discovered or rediscovered on America's Got Talent. 0.99
00:00:35.060 She's hysterical.
00:00:36.620 You don't want to miss that.
00:00:38.300 Also, I think an interesting conversation with Charles Duhigg on anger and how anger can get out of control quickly, all on today's podcast.
00:00:53.900 You're listening to The Best of the Glenn Beck Program.
00:01:03.160 It's Thursday, December 20th.
00:01:05.760 This is the Glenn Beck Program.
00:01:08.560 Not going to be a good day for Donald Trump fans.
00:01:15.040 Yesterday, the President, by decree, outlawed bump stocks.
00:01:23.260 Okay, first of all, let's not set a precedent of taking away anything to do with guns through presidential decree.
00:01:33.680 We would be apoplectic if anyone else, even if George Bush would have done it, let alone Barack Obama, we would be apoplectic.
00:01:43.760 Now, I am not defending bump stocks.
00:01:47.000 I don't know anybody who uses them or why you would want them.
00:01:51.200 You can do the same thing with a rubber band or your belt loop.
00:01:54.500 I mean, it doesn't matter.
00:01:56.600 People are going to find a way around it.
00:01:59.040 But you don't ban it.
00:02:02.280 And for this president to come out and just, at a time when people are not talking about this.
00:02:10.100 I mean, we just gave away something that I don't care that you could have given away as a compromise later in Congress.
00:02:21.160 Right.
00:02:21.420 You're telling me you couldn't get a bump stock ban through Congress with Democrats?
00:02:24.680 Of course you could.
00:02:25.100 Of course you could have.
00:02:25.700 Of course you could.
00:02:26.340 Why would we force this through?
00:02:28.520 And again, I think it's completely unconstitutional.
00:02:32.500 I do, too.
00:02:32.860 First of all, we should set the baseline there.
00:02:34.520 It's unconstitutional to do this.
00:02:36.580 This is obviously an infringement on your ability to bear arms.
00:02:39.800 Obviously.
00:02:42.840 Fundamentally, it is unconstitutional.
00:02:45.820 It's tied to another law that is unconstitutional, which is these three different statutes that come out against machine guns and automatic weapons, which I completely think are unconstitutional as well.
00:02:55.700 So, but even if you go beyond that, let's just say we live in this world, we're in a progressive world where we don't necessarily follow the Constitution all that closely, and we do the things that just have to be done, and that's the world we're living.
00:03:07.360 Even if you're in that world, you've got to pass a law.
00:03:10.880 You've got to pass a law.
00:03:11.980 You can't have the president just making up distinctions on, well, we don't like that thing.
00:03:16.660 Again, in the legal statute of what a machine gun is, is the very clear language that a bump stock is not included.
00:03:26.220 Very specifically, it says, any weapon which shoots is designed to shoot or can be readily restored to shoot automatically more than one shot without manual reloading by a single function of the trigger.
00:03:39.440 So, in other words, you pull the trigger back and you hold it.
00:03:43.520 That's not what a bump stock is.
00:03:45.840 It isn't.
00:03:46.380 And if you think, well, but I think that's similar to a bump stock, that's great.
00:03:50.660 Then pass a law against a bump stock if you don't like them.
00:03:53.520 I'll still argue that it's unconstitutional, but at least it makes some sense.
00:03:57.160 So, and here's the reason why.
00:03:58.800 I said this to the Democrats and they didn't listen.
00:04:02.340 Don't go down this path, Democrats, because someday Barack Obama is going to be gone.
00:04:09.900 And you're going to so disenfranchise people and make people angry and set this precedent that someone else that you really don't like is going to use those same things against you.
00:04:24.180 Yeah.
00:04:24.360 We now have Donald Trump.
00:04:26.760 Now, please don't set this precedent.
00:04:30.140 You can't have the precedent of a president just saying, you know what, and something else I want to ban.
00:04:38.220 You can't do it.
00:04:39.880 That's right.
00:04:40.100 The next Democrat president who wants to ban, whether it's magazines at a certain capacity, anything they want to pick apart from your ability to bear arms, they will cite this bump stock ban and say, look, the president, a Republican president.
00:04:56.860 Yes, did that.
00:04:57.480 Of course I can do it.
00:04:59.040 And you didn't say anything.
00:04:59.380 You didn't say anything.
00:05:00.140 And we didn't say anything because I don't want to defend bump stocks.
00:05:03.520 Yes.
00:05:03.740 I don't care about bump stocks.
00:05:05.320 I don't know anybody who does care about bump stocks.
00:05:07.800 But it's those battles that you don't care about that become the most important.
00:05:12.920 Yeah.
00:05:13.160 Go back.
00:05:13.540 I mean, there was a battle in the Supreme Court that, you know, this is relatively recent history, about marijuana in which someone, they basically fought the Commerce Clause when it came to marijuana.
00:05:27.480 And it was a case in the 2000s that, you know, because it was marijuana, I don't think any conservative was, like, into thinking about it.
00:05:35.260 And it was not a big issue on talk radio at the time or anything.
00:05:38.860 But that was, like, probably one of the best opportunities to reverse the ridiculous nonsense the government has used with the Commerce Clause over a very long period of time to restrict the way or to get their tentacles into business.
00:05:53.740 And you know what?
00:05:54.500 The Commerce Clause is a really good example of that.
00:05:57.240 I don't remember the farmer's name, but the court case that happened under FDR, nobody paid attention to.
00:06:05.580 Nobody cared because it just involved a farmer and his wheat.
00:06:09.980 And I don't grow wheat and I don't care.
00:06:12.700 But that's why Washington is in all of our businesses, because of that one move that no one cared.
00:06:20.240 Will Moore.
00:06:21.240 Whitburn, Willard, I'm right around it.
00:06:23.360 Yeah, it's Fillmore versus Whitburn.
00:06:26.400 We're right in there.
00:06:27.260 Willard versus Fickburn.
00:06:28.740 Okay, close.
00:06:29.480 There we go.
00:06:31.080 We had all of the syllables, just all in the wrong order.
00:06:33.760 All in the wrong order.
00:06:34.380 Okay, so that was the Attorney General against the, against a farmer.
00:06:42.720 It's Attorney General?
00:06:44.480 Yeah.
00:06:44.860 Uh, and, uh, because of that, the guy who grew his wheat on his farm, he never sold it.
00:06:53.100 It was just for him and his family and his livestock.
00:06:56.620 It never went anywhere.
00:06:58.320 They said, well, it could.
00:07:01.380 And, more importantly, you are going to be feeding your family and your livestock with wheat not purchased.
00:07:10.960 So, that wheat that you would have purchased if you weren't a wheat farmer, that might affect the price of wheat coming into your state or leaving your state.
00:07:21.600 So, we have a right to regulate your land.
00:07:25.380 Oh, my gosh.
00:07:26.440 And, people didn't say anything.
00:07:28.760 And, that's how we lost our freedom.
00:07:30.180 And, the same can be said.
00:07:32.300 First of all, the bump stock thing.
00:07:36.000 Also yesterday.
00:07:37.940 Can you imagine, well, you don't have to, imagine when President Obama just said, you know what?
00:07:45.120 We're leaving Iraq.
00:07:46.480 And, he became General Obama?
00:07:48.880 And, how upset we all were?
00:07:51.280 Wait, hold it just a second.
00:07:52.860 No, no, no.
00:07:54.320 This is going to be really bad.
00:07:56.440 The President yesterday went a step further.
00:08:00.100 He didn't even alert the Pentagon.
00:08:02.960 The Pentagon found out yesterday, through Twitter, that we were going to be pulling out of Syria.
00:08:10.280 This is causing all kinds of problems with our allies.
00:08:15.500 Russia, I know the opposite is being said.
00:08:18.700 Trust me.
00:08:19.500 Russia loves this.
00:08:21.260 Because, it is just given the Middle East to Iran. 0.69
00:08:25.320 And, by the way, Russia is saying it on their official social media accounts.
00:08:30.180 Their official spokespeople are saying what a wonderful move it is.
00:08:32.660 The idea that, you know, we're trying to act as if this is bad for them in some way is ridiculous.
00:08:38.380 Well, they're only trying to take down Trump.
00:08:39.980 Wait a minute.
00:08:40.580 Last, yesterday, last night, everybody was saying they were in bed with Trump.
00:08:45.680 So, which one is it?
00:08:47.700 Stop it.
00:08:48.760 Stop it.
00:08:50.180 It's been a weird.
00:08:52.060 There's a thing that happens, I think, with big executives where, and you've even expressed this frustration at times, Glenn, where, like, you have an idea and you really want to do it.
00:09:02.880 And everyone kind of keeps telling you you can't do it.
00:09:05.180 And here's X, Y, and Z, why you can't do it.
00:09:07.060 And you haven't changed your mind, but you're ceding a little bit of authority to your advisors, the experts around you.
00:09:13.240 And you, but eventually you hit that point where you're like, I want it done and I'm doing it.
00:09:18.280 Right.
00:09:18.560 And it seems like Trump hit that point on several things this week.
00:09:22.620 And, you know, Syria seems to be the main one.
00:09:25.440 But this, the same sort of thing happened with tariffs, I think.
00:09:28.020 He had a lot of people around him telling him don't do the tariffs thing.
00:09:30.380 And then one day he was just like, it's happening and it kind of came out on Twitter.
00:09:33.320 It seems to be the way that he makes those decisions.
00:09:35.240 Now, with the bump stock thing, it's not his right because the Constitution prohibits him doing what he did.
00:09:41.700 However, in most of these situations, it is his right.
00:09:44.060 I mean, he can pull out troops from Syria if he wants to pull out troops from Syria.
00:09:47.220 And, you know, look, his entire life has been a guy who's, he didn't want the Iraq war in the first place, mostly.
00:09:54.060 He kind of supported it early on, but he switched on it pretty quickly.
00:09:57.020 He, you know, has opposed most of the wars throughout history.
00:10:00.660 And I think his coming in, he said he wanted to get the troops home.
00:10:03.860 It's relatively consistent with where he's been.
00:10:07.160 However, the way he's doing it is, I think, what's shocking here to a lot of the people in the military.
00:10:12.160 And again, we're just letting the Kurds down again. 0.58
00:10:16.100 We just keep pointing to these people.
00:10:16.540 Look, I want to end this war, too.
00:10:18.040 I want this war. 0.96
00:10:18.960 I want our troops to come home.
00:10:20.240 We've got to stop all of this stuff.
00:10:21.680 But we also stopped with Yemen and Saudi Arabia, which has big, big ramifications that no one is telling the American people.
00:10:34.200 Saudi Arabia is so weak right now.
00:10:37.180 If Saudi Arabia falls, you hand the entire region to Iran, to Iran. 0.94
00:10:44.840 Now, Iran is also in a precarious situation.
00:10:48.440 But Iran has the full support of Russia.
00:10:52.520 And now Russia is in a precarious situation.
00:10:55.580 But so are we.
00:10:56.840 I mean, we are all on the edge and anything that adds chaos is bad.
00:11:04.280 The the Democrats just doing all kinds of investigation and just trying to drag his butt through an impeachment on trumped up charges.
00:11:15.080 No pun intended.
00:11:16.700 If there are charges.
00:11:18.300 Great.
00:11:18.840 Let's hear them.
00:11:19.580 Let's get it done with.
00:11:20.760 But this chaos in Washington is bad.
00:11:24.560 This chaos of I didn't sign a letter.
00:11:27.620 I didn't have any business.
00:11:29.140 Oh, I do have a letter.
00:11:30.500 It is business.
00:11:31.700 I did sign it.
00:11:33.280 Kavanaugh.
00:11:33.980 He's he's going to be great for the right.
00:11:37.840 He's going to stop all abortions.
00:11:40.380 He's just a pro-life demagogue.
00:11:43.360 And then he gets in and he's not the border.
00:11:48.400 I'm going to make Mexico pay for it. 0.92
00:11:51.040 No, I'm not going to.
00:11:52.160 In fact, we're not even going to build one.
00:11:54.360 And I'm certainly not going to make Mexico pay for it.
00:11:56.800 I'm going to give them five billion dollars.
00:11:59.620 All of these things are causing chaos.
00:12:02.840 And we've got to stop.
00:12:05.620 Stop.
00:12:06.600 We have to have something that is reliable and predictable and something we can all gather around and say, yes, I trust this.
00:12:16.820 And right now, what do you trust?
00:12:20.320 What do you trust?
00:12:21.700 And don't say, well, it's better than this or that.
00:12:24.740 I get it.
00:12:25.860 I get that.
00:12:27.660 But do you trust it?
00:12:29.400 And when it comes to people saying that he's going to be impeached, I don't know if he's going to or not.
00:12:36.680 I don't think so.
00:12:37.960 I don't think so.
00:12:38.500 What's her name?
00:12:39.460 Ann Coulter came out and said yesterday he's going to be he's not going to make it to the end of his term.
00:12:43.520 I don't agree with that.
00:12:44.420 But remember, it's President Pence.
00:12:49.020 President Pence is steady, very conservative and rock solid.
00:12:54.600 That's not Hillary Clinton. 1.00
00:12:56.140 Do you have the audio of George Bush and why he did TARP?
00:13:12.100 Yes, we actually do.
00:13:13.520 Yeah.
00:13:14.120 Have you ever heard this?
00:13:15.020 Listen to this.
00:13:15.520 This is from a new documentary on HBO.
00:13:17.920 George Bush.
00:13:18.960 They're talking about TARP.
00:13:20.680 And remember, he said I had to violate the free market system.
00:13:23.480 Yeah.
00:13:23.560 Had to abandon the free market system to save it.
00:13:28.180 Right.
00:13:28.780 Yeah.
00:13:29.640 Listen to why he did that.
00:13:31.920 Hank came in with Bernanke, with Geithner, started talking to the president about we're going to need some legislative authority.
00:13:41.080 We're kind of out of ammunition.
00:13:43.920 We needed to put capital into the banking system.
00:13:45.820 But Hank's concern about capital injections was that it would look like the government was nationalizing or taking over the banking system.
00:13:56.240 And so his idea was to buy troubled assets.
00:14:00.560 That's why it was called the Troubled Asset Relief Program, the TARP.
00:14:04.380 About halfway through the conversation, the president interrupted Hank and directed a question at Ben.
00:14:12.700 I asked her, we headed for a Great Depression.
00:14:15.320 And Bernanke said, you know, it looks that way.
00:14:20.340 And you have to make up your mind, you know.
00:14:23.520 Do you care?
00:14:25.680 And what I cared about was people that would be hurting.
00:14:31.920 They were already starting to hurt.
00:14:34.640 People getting run out of their homes.
00:14:37.140 Payrolls couldn't be met.
00:14:38.220 And I just could envision what a Great Depression would mean.
00:14:42.300 If it's bad now, imagine how bad it would really get.
00:14:47.720 As we left that meeting, the president turned to us and said, if this is Hoover or Roosevelt, for damn sure I'm going to be Roosevelt.
00:14:56.860 I just want you to put that in perspective because we are headed for the effects now.
00:15:04.440 We're going to feel the ramifications of 08.
00:15:06.960 And the world is feeling, is already feeling it.
00:15:09.940 And it's coming.
00:15:13.620 Our president is going to be in the same situation.
00:15:16.360 Are you going to be Roosevelt or are you going to be Hoover?
00:15:18.720 Are you going to abide by the principles that we have?
00:15:22.200 Or are you going to fundamentally change us for, you know, compassionate reasons or whatever?
00:15:29.440 It's going to be an extraordinarily difficult choice.
00:15:32.580 But America is on the verge of changing.
00:15:35.060 We must stand for the Bill of Rights right now.
00:15:40.480 Speech.
00:15:41.840 Right to protect yourself.
00:15:43.300 Right to assemble.
00:15:44.340 Right to privacy.
00:15:45.140 Those things must be unchangeable and defended and never weakened, especially over the next five years.
00:15:58.900 You're listening to the best of the Glenn Beck program.
00:16:06.560 Like listening to this podcast?
00:16:08.460 If you're not a subscriber, become one now on iTunes.
00:16:11.740 And while you're there, do us a favor and rate the show.
00:16:14.100 I never watch America's Got Talent.
00:16:16.980 I just don't watch TV, generally speaking.
00:16:20.000 But my son came to me with YouTube and said, Dad, you have to see this woman.
00:16:25.840 Vicky Barbalock is her name.
00:16:28.180 She was, she's 60, you're 60 years old?
00:16:31.600 I'm the 61 this year.
00:16:33.500 You're 61.
00:16:34.820 Okay.
00:16:35.660 And she came out on stage and I don't remember who it was, Naomi Campbell or somebody said,
00:16:40.160 what are you going to do?
00:16:40.760 And she said, I'm a ballerina.
00:16:42.320 And she's clearly not a ballerina.
00:16:45.580 And she followed that with, no, I'm kidding.
00:16:48.220 I like to eat.
00:16:49.920 So I'm not a ballerina.
00:16:51.620 And it went on from there.
00:16:53.740 And she, you came back, I think, two times after that?
00:16:57.980 I think there was, you know, I think there was like four more shows till the last final.
00:17:02.180 Okay.
00:17:02.440 And you are now going back for the Champions Show.
00:17:06.460 Champions, where are they now?
00:17:07.700 I'm like, I'm in the driveway.
00:17:08.860 I haven't left.
00:17:09.700 I just got out of there.
00:17:11.400 So you, now like you really, you, you are from California.
00:17:14.760 Yeah.
00:17:15.860 You've been a comedian.
00:17:18.040 20 years.
00:17:18.700 20 years.
00:17:19.280 And you kind of found yourself in a place to where you were too old for your own club.
00:17:24.040 I mean, yeah.
00:17:24.500 I mean, I didn't start till I was like nearly 40.
00:17:26.920 And I didn't know that was not a good idea.
00:17:29.840 Luckily, or I wouldn't have started, you know.
00:17:31.480 Right.
00:17:31.780 I probably would have that because I am an idiot.
00:17:33.600 But I mean, and so, you know, I was, I was having a great time doing it.
00:17:38.020 But when I would go, no matter what would happen to me, like e-television would say
00:17:41.840 I'm in the next breakthrough from the comedy store.
00:17:43.660 I would go to these agents in Hollywood and they go, well, we, we, you're too fat.
00:17:48.680 You're too old.
00:17:49.200 You're too, we, there's nothing we can do for you.
00:17:51.640 And so, and so, I mean, I, I just, I just kept hoping something would happen.
00:17:55.720 But I just, you know, I see Steve Martin said, you get so good, they can't ignore you.
00:17:59.780 And that was my only plan.
00:18:00.920 Just keep doing it.
00:18:01.840 Keep loving it.
00:18:02.800 But I kept thinking maybe Steve was wrong.
00:18:05.160 Then America's Got Talent happened.
00:18:07.140 And what happened?
00:18:07.900 That show had such a gigantic reach.
00:18:09.960 And the people it brought to me, it just, then Hollywood had to come around.
00:18:15.420 You are without being politically incorrect.
00:18:18.020 I mean, you are clearly politically incorrect.
00:18:19.780 But without trying to be politically incorrect, you are just so natural.
00:18:24.800 You just feel like somebody that everybody knows.
00:18:28.140 I've, you know, that's fun about what I'm doing is I am like meat and potatoes comedy.
00:18:32.440 I'm the middle of the road.
00:18:34.200 I'm a Midwestern, Miss Mitzi, the owner of the comedy store, she goes, Vicki, are you from
00:18:39.400 the Midwest?
00:18:40.680 And I said, no, but my parents, my mother is from Iowa.
00:18:43.920 My uncles are my heroes and they're from Iowa.
00:18:46.780 She goes, yeah, I can tell.
00:18:48.480 You know, I'm very Midwest, that's a humor.
00:18:50.580 You know, but I've never lived in the Midwest, but that is, that is, I think, who I am in the
00:18:53.780 middle of America.
00:18:54.440 Your dad.
00:18:56.620 Yeah, my dad played for the Pittsburgh Steelers.
00:18:58.360 He played for the Steelers.
00:18:59.540 I'm not bragging, Beck.
00:19:00.540 I just wanted you to know what the daughter of an NFL football player looks like, because 0.88
00:19:03.820 you never saw one before.
00:19:05.100 This is no padding.
00:19:06.180 This is natural.
00:19:07.200 Right.
00:19:07.700 So, yeah.
00:19:08.220 And so he had, you know, he'd been hit around a lot, you know, leather helmet time for him,
00:19:12.740 1950, 51.
00:19:13.540 And so, as I grew up, he was daffy and daffy and daffier, but he was just lots of fun.
00:19:19.540 And, you know, he, he was just a great dad, but he was totally daffy. 0.99
00:19:25.280 So where do you get this, from your dad or from your mom?
00:19:29.340 Because you're.
00:19:30.280 I think, you know, I just, I was also a little fat little kid.
00:19:33.520 I was like hugely fat.
00:19:34.720 I was like 220 at 12.
00:19:36.940 And so I was, my birth weight was 104 pounds.
00:19:39.340 So, I mean, I was always.
00:19:41.100 You've really let yourself go.
00:19:42.240 I let it go.
00:19:43.320 I'm just thin now.
00:19:44.520 So, so my, so my life was a child that was bullied and I would make the fat jokes first.
00:19:49.120 So fat jokes were a defense.
00:19:50.820 I learned that in my whole life that anything good happened to me came because I could make
00:19:54.960 people laugh.
00:19:55.680 So it was always something that I did.
00:19:57.840 I worked for my parents at their carpet store for 20 years and I didn't care if people bought
00:20:01.860 carpet for me, but if they didn't laugh at my joke, I was devastated.
00:20:05.420 So, I mean, it was all, I've always been about making people laugh.
00:20:08.200 And it, it, it, the stuff in your, the stuff in your act, for instance, you know, you never
00:20:15.340 drink alone.
00:20:16.140 Yeah.
00:20:16.540 Like, you know, I, I, I'm very proud of that.
00:20:18.960 A lot of the other moms, they would sit around and drink all day, but I was disciplined because 1.00
00:20:23.180 you know, only alcoholics drink alone.
00:20:24.580 I read all the pamphlets.
00:20:25.760 I would always, I always waited until the kids get home from school.
00:20:29.820 That's, you know, sometimes I call in a fake dental appointment, you know, when I'm
00:20:33.880 so parched.
00:20:34.460 Yeah.
00:20:34.860 Right.
00:20:35.060 But I did my best.
00:20:36.380 Right.
00:20:36.680 Right.
00:20:36.880 And, and, and when you, when you took your kids on field trips.
00:20:42.260 Oh yeah.
00:20:42.360 That's another thing.
00:20:43.440 My mother, you know, that came from the last generation. 0.98
00:20:45.500 I think of women that party 24 seven, you know, and I got kids and I'm thinking party,
00:20:49.500 but the party was over.
00:20:50.200 Right.
00:20:50.800 I didn't know my mom and her friends always, always brought flasks on field trips.
00:20:54.820 I mean, I'm like, I'm going to get on a bus sober with first graders.
00:20:58.080 Not now, not ever.
00:20:59.020 I don't care what they do to me.
00:21:00.340 Right.
00:21:00.520 So I go on my daughter's first field trip and I take out my flask and it is, it's not
00:21:04.900 a big alky flask.
00:21:05.980 You know, it's a very pretty, it's a little two ounce or.
00:21:08.000 Right.
00:21:08.240 It's not.
00:21:08.640 Okay.
00:21:09.060 How loaded could you get off of two ounces anyway?
00:21:10.960 Right.
00:21:11.340 Right.
00:21:11.740 But I take it out and I take a little flat, you know, sip and all the other moms on the 0.99
00:21:16.040 field trip, they just go ballistic.
00:21:18.240 They're like, you know, she's got a flask, she's got a flask, you know, and I'm like,
00:21:21.060 calm down.
00:21:22.040 You know, biatches. 0.65
00:21:23.920 I'm not driving the bus.
00:21:25.420 I am not driving.
00:21:26.080 Relax.
00:21:29.280 So how much of your life is true?
00:21:33.420 How much, how much is, how much is, for instance, do you watch, uh, uh, the Marvelous
00:21:40.300 Miss Maisel? 0.77
00:21:40.900 I do watch it.
00:21:41.900 I think it's one of the most brilliant shows ever.
00:21:43.880 It's so great.
00:21:44.780 Are you?
00:21:45.020 It's so great for women. 1.00
00:21:45.800 I, I, are you Sophie, uh, um, the, the Sophie character, put that on your plate.
00:21:53.460 That is completely, are we going to find out you're living in a mansion?
00:21:57.080 Yes, you are.
00:21:59.600 If I keep going, I'm going to buy a triple Y, you know, that's pretty much, you know,
00:22:04.300 and the thing about the drinking alone, that was my mother. 1.00
00:22:07.160 Every day I came home from school, my mother would sit there with her decks, deck of cards
00:22:11.680 between her legs, her mu mu one inside out with a large amount of safety pins here in 0.94
00:22:15.560 case 30 people needed a safety pin on every given day.
00:22:18.600 She was a president of the PTA.
00:22:20.060 She was a treacher of the women's club. 1.00
00:22:21.860 She was all those things. 0.79
00:22:23.120 And she, you know, we'd come home and the first beer would open, boom, when we'd walk
00:22:28.980 in that side door.
00:22:29.960 And my mother was a fun woman.
00:22:32.380 I started when I started standup telling that story that audiences got worried for me that
00:22:37.660 I had this terrible childhood with a crazy alcoholic mother.
00:22:40.420 It wasn't like that.
00:22:41.500 My mother was a blast and she was, it wasn't like that.
00:22:44.360 And so I took that story of my mother and I put it on me.
00:22:47.660 And I mean, I do love to party.
00:22:49.500 I'm not lying about that.
00:22:50.780 Right.
00:22:50.940 Boxed wine is my life.
00:22:52.280 But, um, it's, but so everything in my, everything that I, that I talk about is coming from a truth
00:22:59.080 that I know.
00:23:00.040 Right.
00:23:00.580 You know, and you, but you do live in a beautiful trailer.
00:23:03.620 Glenn, you cannot dynamite me.
00:23:05.860 I've waited five years to buy the second best trailer in my trailer park.
00:23:09.320 And I would like look at their trash can for like five years.
00:23:12.320 I'd like, what's in there?
00:23:13.800 I knew they liked Applebee's.
00:23:15.040 That's all they knew.
00:23:15.660 And then one day the trash was empty and I called the trailer park realtor, Les.
00:23:19.340 He's like 90.
00:23:20.200 I'm like, Les, I want to buy this trailer.
00:23:22.000 He loaned me the money.
00:23:23.520 I started AGT at the same time as trying to get this dream trailer.
00:23:27.200 It all worked out.
00:23:27.820 But I mean, I mean, I, this, I am so proud.
00:23:31.140 I live on top of the hill.
00:23:32.100 Look at F.
00:23:32.600 It's beautiful.
00:23:33.280 So you're, you're out of the slums.
00:23:34.740 You're, you're looking down on the people.
00:23:36.500 The old trailer part of the, I call that part of the park, the ghetto. 1.00
00:23:39.460 I always call this the Heights.
00:23:41.680 I don't talk to anyone below the lake, which is actually a drainage ditch made to look like
00:23:46.280 a lake, but I don't speak to those people anymore.
00:23:48.880 I wish I could, but I cannot.
00:23:51.080 Right.
00:23:51.600 Well, you're in a different class now.
00:23:52.880 They can look up on the hill and be inspired by what you've done.
00:23:55.260 That's what I try to say.
00:23:56.700 Don't give up your dream.
00:23:57.820 So, um, you know, if you sold your high class, top of the hill trailer park, uh, you know,
00:24:09.860 trailer there in California, you could probably live in a 20,000 square foot home here in Texas.
00:24:16.460 You know, I love, you know, I always had a dream seven years ago, my friend, uh, Brett
00:24:21.280 Frank, who lives in Denton, he saw me in Hollywood, flew me out here for his birthday party in
00:24:25.140 Denton, his 30th birthday.
00:24:26.100 I two stepped all night.
00:24:27.460 I had the time of my life.
00:24:28.740 He and I took my promo pack over here to the Dallas improv seven years ago, asked him if
00:24:34.040 I could do a set there.
00:24:35.140 They never, you know, got back to me.
00:24:36.640 It took me seven years to get here.
00:24:38.600 I've always wanted to be in Texas.
00:24:40.620 I, something mystical and romantic and ever since that night, and you know, Denton was
00:24:44.420 on the border, but I mean, I love it here.
00:24:47.080 I would love to have a place on a lake or a trailer.
00:24:49.940 I would, you know, it'd have to be, I don't have to be a trailer.
00:24:52.600 I don't like drywall.
00:24:53.220 I'm going to make that right now.
00:24:54.120 I just don't feel comfortable around it.
00:24:57.220 I like to be slightly off the ground.
00:24:59.100 See in this part of the country though, you're the first to be sucked up.
00:25:03.120 You know what, you're right.
00:25:03.940 In this part of the country, I'm going to take it back.
00:25:05.720 I'm going to have to do, I'm going to have to get, I'm going to have to face it.
00:25:08.600 Right.
00:25:08.900 I don't want to get blown to Kansas.
00:25:10.560 Right.
00:25:10.900 Or you could have an underground trailer.
00:25:12.420 Part of your trailer is underground that you go for safety.
00:25:15.320 Back in just a second with Vicki Barbalock.
00:25:18.220 She is the winner of America's Got Talent top 10.
00:25:22.580 She is now going to be in the Champions edition on NBC.
00:25:26.160 It begins January 7th.
00:25:33.120 You're listening to the best of the Glenn Beck Program.
00:25:46.060 David Frenchon, we wanted to talk a little bit about being deplatformed in social media
00:25:50.260 and what it says about us, et cetera, et cetera.
00:25:52.980 But he was, he's a veteran of Operation Iraqi Freedom.
00:25:58.080 And so I wanted to get his opinion, because he has written a lot about ISIS over the years
00:26:03.680 as well, his opinion on us pulling out of Syria and what this, what this means.
00:26:10.460 Welcome to the program, David.
00:26:12.440 Oh, thanks so much for having me.
00:26:13.500 I appreciate it.
00:26:14.240 Sure.
00:26:14.880 So your thoughts on what happened yesterday?
00:26:20.280 It's stunning and it's a terrible mistake.
00:26:22.940 It's a very dangerous mistake.
00:26:24.820 It's stunning in part because just days ago, the administration had reaffirmed its commitment
00:26:31.740 to our Kurdish allies and to completing the mission of destroying ISIS.
00:26:36.560 And people have to understand when you talk about ISIS, there's the caliphate, their attempt 0.68
00:26:42.220 to create a nation state that has been largely, the caliphate has been largely wiped out.
00:26:46.540 But ISIS, the terrorist organization, still exists.
00:26:49.820 And to put this into perspective, in 2011, when Obama wrongly pulled out of Iraq, this
00:26:55.200 is something that, that conservatives were deeply concerned about when he did it.
00:26:59.840 And when he wrongly left Iraq, there were only about 700 members of Al Qaeda in Iraq left
00:27:04.920 in our country, only about 700.
00:27:07.460 The best estimate of the remaining strength of ISIS in Iraq and Syria is between 20 and 30,000.
00:27:14.720 And so to say that it's done, that the job is done, is just not factually correct.
00:27:20.200 It is wrong.
00:27:21.480 We knew this in World War II.
00:27:23.660 I mean, when the regime collapsed in Germany, we didn't stop.
00:27:28.020 We went werewolf hunting.
00:27:30.040 We went looking for those that were called werewolves, self-described werewolves, that 0.56
00:27:35.340 were the Nazi believers that went back into the communities and were not going to let this 0.97
00:27:40.500 thing die.
00:27:41.820 We knew we had to kill them and stop them.
00:27:44.760 Well, you know, this would be about like declaring the end of the Afghan war right after the Taliban
00:27:52.280 fell, even though we knew, we knew that Al Qaeda was still out there.
00:27:58.140 Yeah, the capital cities of the caliphate have fallen.
00:28:01.840 And that's been, and Trump deserves a lot of credit for continuing that military campaign
00:28:06.400 and stepping up that military campaign that began under Obama.
00:28:09.560 But now to pull out before that job is done, and then to make it worse, the people, there
00:28:16.860 are three entities most likely to gain, three enemies of the U.S. that are most likely to
00:28:23.160 gain from this.
00:28:23.820 ISIS, of course, Russia, and Iran. 0.68
00:28:27.280 This is something that we're going to strengthen our enemies.
00:28:30.500 We're going to betray our allies.
00:28:32.280 And to what purpose?
00:28:34.240 This is this had been one of the most successful American military interventions since 9-11.
00:28:40.660 I mean, we had with very light casualties by comparison to other American military interventions,
00:28:47.940 toppled the heart of the caliphate, empowered Kurdish allies, held the line against Russia and
00:28:53.640 Iran, and put ISIS in headlong retreat, and before it's all done, you just leave, and you 0.93
00:29:00.580 do it by shocking your own generals?
00:29:02.580 That doesn't make sense.
00:29:04.940 Why did it happen?
00:29:09.380 Well, we have to crawl into the mind of Donald Trump.
00:29:11.780 I mean, I think part of, you know, from the beginning, he has expressed deep skepticism about
00:29:19.500 America's military actions, involvement overseas.
00:29:23.400 He has been talked out of on multiple occasions, headlong and precipitous retreats in Afghanistan,
00:29:31.260 in Syria.
00:29:33.000 You just get the feeling that it's what he wants to do, and that he's been repeatedly talked
00:29:37.960 out of it by the people around him.
00:29:40.480 But you're just going to go ahead and do it.
00:29:42.160 Yeah.
00:29:42.600 Right.
00:29:43.720 Okay.
00:29:45.000 Let's talk about something that I think, David, the conservatives and all Americans should
00:29:50.620 be very concerned about right now, but I'm going to really be focusing on it in 2019,
00:29:56.680 and that is the silencing of voices and social media.
00:30:02.920 You wrote an article, Social Media Idealism Collides with Human Nature.
00:30:08.580 I think that headline says it all.
00:30:12.900 Explain that.
00:30:14.520 Yeah.
00:30:15.320 So, essentially, what I'm talking about there is the frustration that the social media companies
00:30:21.400 are now feeling with how their platforms are used, and they're clumsy and sometimes censorious
00:30:31.080 attempts to bring their platforms in alignment with their vision.
00:30:34.660 And so, what they imagined was, you know, they're going to create these platforms that
00:30:39.040 are going to bring the world together and, not just bring the world together, but and
00:30:44.300 transmit and communicate their values.
00:30:47.540 That, you know, you have these Facebook, Twitter, et cetera, executives, almost all of
00:30:52.980 them uniformly progressive, who believe that these platforms would accomplish progressive
00:30:58.800 things in the world.
00:30:59.960 But it turns out when you create a platform, when you create a true marketplace of ideas,
00:31:04.420 you also empower a lot of voices you don't like and a lot of voices you disagree with.
00:31:10.580 And particularly on Facebook, it's very interesting.
00:31:13.160 If you look at the top publishers on Facebook in the political context, time and again, it's
00:31:18.400 conservative.
00:31:19.260 Time and again, it's Republican.
00:31:20.420 And that's not what Zuckerberg built Facebook for.
00:31:25.420 And they have and they've done everything they can to hurt those platforms and to hurt the
00:31:31.800 traffic trying to I mean, for me, I have what, 3.2 million Facebook likes and fans and followers.
00:31:42.060 And I they want me to pay to be able to reach the people who said I want the stuff from him.
00:31:50.540 I mean, they're doing everything they can to limit the voice.
00:31:55.200 Yeah.
00:31:55.760 You know, the in the problem is they they want they want two things.
00:32:00.640 They want they want it all and they can't have it all.
00:32:02.840 So what they want is to reach every person in the world.
00:32:06.180 And then they also want to spread and inculcate a particular set of values.
00:32:11.100 Well, if you make your platform a a value transmission device, you're going to limit
00:32:17.840 its reach.
00:32:18.960 And so they keep on trying to square that circle.
00:32:21.340 They keep trying to say, well, we want everybody on there, but we really, truly only want a
00:32:26.580 certain kind of expression on there.
00:32:28.220 You can't have both.
00:32:30.360 But they flail around often trying to have both or at least limiting, trying their best
00:32:35.400 to limit the spread of ideas that they dislike.
00:32:38.640 And this is a real problem.
00:32:40.200 It creates an, you know, almost an unbearable amount of tension because on the one hand,
00:32:44.280 you have conservatives saying, hey, you know, treat us equally.
00:32:47.960 Just treat that.
00:32:48.960 You know, we don't need special treatment.
00:32:50.380 Just treat us equally with other perspectives.
00:32:52.180 And then you have progressives who happen to be, you know, in their peer group, essentially
00:32:56.960 saying, what are you doing?
00:32:59.680 You're all progressives.
00:33:00.980 You want the progressive values spread.
00:33:03.580 And you and you, I think you also have a third group of of people that are both sides
00:33:10.620 that look at these really hideous things from anti-Semites or whatever.
00:33:16.620 Right.
00:33:17.500 And and say, you got to get rid of you got to get rid of them.
00:33:21.680 But the the correct answer is I can't get rid of anybody.
00:33:25.980 It's a platform.
00:33:27.180 I can't get rid of anybody.
00:33:29.100 Well, yeah, the correct I think, and I've been long arguing this, that the correct way
00:33:33.220 to look at this is to not try to reinvent the wheel, but take America's 200 plus years
00:33:39.480 of experience with the First Amendment and apply it to these social media companies, not
00:33:45.320 by force of law.
00:33:46.380 And I don't I don't want Congress saying you have to apply First Amendment principles.
00:33:50.180 But I say Twitter and Facebook voluntarily applying First Amendment principles and core
00:33:56.640 to the First Amendment jurisprudence is the idea of viewpoint neutrality.
00:34:01.160 In other words, if we're a platform, the rule, whatever rules we put in place, they're
00:34:06.280 going to be viewpoint neutral rules.
00:34:08.900 We're not going to privilege a point of view and suppress another point of view.
00:34:12.620 We're going to we're going to create a marketplace of ideas.
00:34:16.180 And I think that that's the way through this wilderness.
00:34:19.080 But because they have not done that and because they have put their thumb on the scales, you
00:34:25.200 know, sometimes to get rid of really, truly bad people, no question.
00:34:28.840 But because they have put their thumb on the scales, they're opening themselves to endless
00:34:33.280 charges of double standards.
00:34:34.940 Yeah.
00:34:35.120 Because those double standards are very, very real.
00:34:38.000 And it I'm trying to decide Facebook, Google, you know, all social media and these and
00:34:47.480 these big platforms, YouTube, are they are they creating a hostile civilization?
00:34:57.100 Are they just empowering that hostile position or are they just revealing who we really are?
00:35:05.880 I think it's revealing and empowering.
00:35:08.780 So I don't think people are in people are people.
00:35:13.360 But what what Facebook has been able to do, what YouTube has been able to do is essentially
00:35:18.800 take all of the flaws of human beings, all of and often all the virtues of human beings
00:35:25.140 as well, but all of the flaws of human beings and put them right in our face all the time
00:35:30.860 so that if, you know, let's say you have neighbors who live five doors down who have
00:35:36.540 bad ideas about politics, you might not ever encounter them pre Facebook, pre Twitter.
00:35:42.980 But now everybody's bad ideas and by bad ideas, the ones you don't like are thrown in your
00:35:48.680 face constantly all the time on these platforms.
00:35:51.260 And I think what it does is it sort of takes our natural emotional reaction to being exposed
00:35:57.060 to things we don't like, makes it relentless, and then sort of over time turns it up to,
00:36:02.600 you know, 11.
00:36:03.720 And and it's it's the only way to really escape it is to turn off social media entirely.
00:36:10.980 But then you get that sort of nagging feeling that what am I missing?
00:36:14.680 Am I missing these developments with my grandkids?
00:36:17.500 Am I missing these developments with my friends on the West Coast?
00:36:20.800 So you turn it back on for the friendships?
00:36:23.100 And then there it is again, all of the things that you dislike.
00:36:26.460 And it's and and I think it just takes who we actually are and just throws it in our face
00:36:31.900 all the time.
00:36:33.940 And it makes it worse.
00:36:35.180 It's a great point, because I mean, think about the holidays come around, like whatever,
00:36:37.660 you know, if you have a holiday party that you go to once a year and you know, a couple
00:36:41.240 people there that you don't like are going to be there and you sort of dread it for like
00:36:45.340 weeks going into that party, we are exposing ourselves to like six or seven hours of that
00:36:50.840 party every day where everyone we don't like is always talking to us.
00:36:55.260 That cannot be healthy long term, David.
00:36:58.060 No, you know, it's interesting.
00:37:00.340 If you look at some of the charts of anxiety and depression, especially amongst younger people
00:37:06.260 in the country, the rates of anxiety and depression, they started to really spike around the time
00:37:12.120 that the smartphone became ubiquitous.
00:37:14.860 And of course, it's not the phone itself.
00:37:17.060 It's what's on the phone and what's on the phone is social media.
00:37:20.040 And you can even see a sharp rise and political hatred that is tied to a couple of specific
00:37:26.580 core correlates with a couple of specific events.
00:37:29.420 And one of them is widespread adaptation of the smartphone.
00:37:32.520 And so, you know, these that when you when you feel like you cannot avoid or that this
00:37:39.120 good thing that you like also carries with it this kind of poison pill in the middle of 0.58
00:37:43.480 it that that plays on your insecurities, that plays on your emotions, that touches sometimes
00:37:50.140 your deepest beliefs.
00:37:52.540 Yeah, it can be toxic.
00:37:54.380 David French, National Review.
00:37:56.520 Great article.
00:37:57.480 Social media idealism collides with human nature.
00:37:59.940 Thanks, David.
00:38:00.420 We'll talk again.
00:38:02.520 This is the best of the Glenn Beck program.
00:38:07.560 And don't forget, rate us on iTunes.
00:38:16.360 A couple of weeks ago, I I read a great article from Charles Duhigg, and he's the author of
00:38:25.100 The Power of Habit.
00:38:26.240 And it was the articles about how we're all angry and we're all outraged.
00:38:31.880 And and what struck me as so interesting is he quoted a study that came out in the 1970s
00:38:40.520 of a guy who was doing an anger study and found out that there's there's good anger and bad
00:38:48.180 anger.
00:38:48.500 And when anger gets out of control, it just burns everything down.
00:38:53.680 And we are now into that what I would call addicted to anger, addicted to hate, addicted
00:38:59.520 to outrage.
00:39:00.960 We're in that phase.
00:39:02.400 And how do we pull that back and still recognize that there are things that people should be
00:39:09.360 angry about, that, you know, that we're not angry for invalid reasons, per se.
00:39:17.360 We just don't have a control of our anger anymore.
00:39:20.860 And we're not doing anything positive about it.
00:39:24.320 And so I wanted to get Charles on with us.
00:39:26.240 Welcome to the program, Charles Duhigg.
00:39:27.680 How are you, sir?
00:39:29.340 I'm good.
00:39:29.940 Thanks for having me on.
00:39:30.860 Sure.
00:39:31.560 So first of all, tell everybody about the study that happened in the 1970s and what what
00:39:36.160 he found.
00:39:37.600 It's really interesting.
00:39:38.720 So a researcher at the University of Massachusetts Amherst sent a survey to everyone living in
00:39:44.740 a small town in Massachusetts.
00:39:46.580 And he asked this basic question, well, think of the last time you were angry and tell me
00:39:51.640 what happened.
00:39:52.580 And it was 14 pages long.
00:39:54.060 It was a long survey.
00:39:55.480 And he found that dozens, hundreds of people actually responded to this thing.
00:39:59.720 And what they did is they described when the last time they had become furious and what
00:40:03.960 had infuriated them.
00:40:04.940 And what he expected, the academic, was that they would say, look, I'm really sorry I got
00:40:09.020 angry because it made everything worse.
00:40:10.660 It just exacerbated all these tensions.
00:40:12.740 I should have kept my temper in check.
00:40:14.740 But what he found is exactly the opposite.
00:40:17.020 People said that when they got angry, when they shouted at the person who was driving
00:40:20.500 them crazy, things actually got better.
00:40:23.000 That not only did it feel good to be able to communicate what was bothering them, but
00:40:26.640 that the other person listened really closely.
00:40:29.180 That all of a sudden they started taking their concerns seriously and they would sit down and
00:40:32.880 try and find some resolution together.
00:40:34.680 And this is actually what we know about anger, that for the most part, when anger is expressed
00:40:39.760 interpersonally from one person to another, it actually helps tamp down tensions rather
00:40:45.720 than exacerbate them because it's this very dense form of communication.
00:40:49.280 It forces us to listen to each other and to try and come to some type of resolution, a catharsis
00:40:55.600 of what's bothering someone in the first place.
00:40:57.880 So then how has this cycle turned into this where it is only increasing anger?
00:41:07.660 We're not listening to each other.
00:41:09.640 You can see people screaming at each other and they are not listening.
00:41:13.420 Right.
00:41:15.280 And there's a couple of problems going on right now.
00:41:18.120 The first is that when you think about anger nowadays, so much of it is expressed online
00:41:23.280 or it's expressed on the screen, right, over a news station.
00:41:28.340 And as a result, the people who are the focus of that anger, they're not listening.
00:41:33.120 They're not part of that conversation.
00:41:35.180 And their reaction is to punch back rather than to take seriously what the person is saying.
00:41:40.440 That's part of the problem.
00:41:41.740 Another part of the problem is that in the last 20 years, there's been this huge group
00:41:47.260 of professionals, the outrage merchants who exist now to fan the flames of this anger.
00:41:56.700 This is companies.
00:41:58.220 It's cable news.
00:42:00.340 It's Twitter and the Facebook.
00:42:01.860 It's political campaigns.
00:42:03.580 One political professional told me that the way you win campaigns now is through fear and
00:42:08.920 anger, because that's the surest thing to get people into the voting booth. 0.90
00:42:12.700 But the third thing that's happened is that anger only works when you think it's going
00:42:16.300 to actually change things.
00:42:18.160 When people stop believing that the system is functioning well, that it's working for
00:42:22.400 them, then that anger actually becomes this desire for revenge.
00:42:26.360 You're not interested in having the other side hear what you have to say.
00:42:29.740 You're interested in beating them, being victorious over them, vanquishing them.
00:42:35.680 And when that happens, anger is no longer a productive, healthy force in our lives.
00:42:39.940 It becomes something that that despoils, that corrupts and and corones.
00:42:45.040 I think that's where we are.
00:42:47.140 Would you agree?
00:42:48.380 Absolutely.
00:42:49.380 Yeah, absolutely.
00:42:50.460 And a lot of people, when they talk about this, they look at politics right now, right?
00:42:53.800 They say they look at, you know, whether you're you're a supporter or not at the White House.
00:42:58.540 And they say the president fans the flames of anger.
00:43:01.340 But it's it's a mistake to say that we're angry right now just because of who's occupying
00:43:05.620 the Oval Office.
00:43:06.840 This is something that has been building for the last 15 years.
00:43:10.140 Yeah.
00:43:10.600 And we were is someone who uses that anger effectively.
00:43:13.620 It's going to persist even once he's gone.
00:43:16.720 So this is I just I love this article, Charles, because I thought you just nailed it.
00:43:21.600 Thank you.
00:43:22.320 But it is, you know, I say to people all the time, you know, there was a time of people
00:43:27.060 just hated my guts.
00:43:28.240 And I'm like, you know what?
00:43:29.340 Listen, I've got some perspective here.
00:43:31.640 Imagine a world where Glenn Beck is hit by a bus or a falling safe right now.
00:43:36.560 Does the world change?
00:43:37.880 No.
00:43:38.640 Donald Trump, Barack Obama, they're killed by a bus.
00:43:42.600 And does the world change?
00:43:44.400 No, we it's us.
00:43:46.420 It's us.
00:43:47.960 They are a reflection of of of us.
00:43:52.300 And and when when he leaves office, somebody else is going to be doing it.
00:44:00.560 And and how do we break this cycle?
00:44:04.520 Well, I think a big part of it is is two things.
00:44:06.960 First of all, to recognize the reason why people are so angry right now is that they feel
00:44:10.900 like the systems in there that surround them have stopped working.
00:44:15.080 The psychologists and sociologists refer to this as procedural justice.
00:44:19.040 Right.
00:44:19.820 We don't feel the need to take justice into our own hands when we feel like our courts
00:44:24.120 are working well, our economy is working well, our elections are working well.
00:44:27.880 But, you know, ever since the financial crisis, there are wide swaths of this nation who saw
00:44:33.180 banks got bailed out and they didn't have any relief from homeowners.
00:44:37.400 For on the left, you have folks who saw an election occur where their candidate won the
00:44:42.300 popular vote but lost the presidency.
00:44:44.640 That undermines your faith in these institutions like the economy and our democracy.
00:44:50.020 And as a result, that makes people angry, but also makes them feel powerless.
00:44:53.220 So, Charles, I was I was anger won't accomplish it.
00:44:55.780 I was so afraid this morning because I was reading some articles about Harvey Weinstein that they
00:45:03.060 thought it was going to they were going to dismiss the charges today and not take him to court.
00:45:08.520 And I thought, if that happens, what do what do so many people in America now say there is
00:45:16.640 no justice?
00:45:17.640 There is no justice.
00:45:19.320 Exactly right.
00:45:19.860 Right.
00:45:20.080 And the fact that after the financial crisis and no one from Wall Street really went to jail,
00:45:25.060 right, it feels it feels completely infuriating and it makes you feel powerless.
00:45:30.220 And what do you do when you're angry and powerless?
00:45:32.960 You pick up a pitchfork.
00:45:34.580 You start cheering for the guy who seems to say, you know, the system is rigged.
00:45:38.960 We just need to burn it all down that we need to drain the swamp.
00:45:42.480 It's not surprising what's going on in Washington, D.C. right now, because the the preconditions
00:45:49.120 are all there.
00:45:50.100 But you asked how we make it better.
00:45:51.860 And the first thing we do is we reinvigorate those institutions.
00:45:55.800 We make sure that the courts hold people like Harvey Weinstein and Wall Street accountable.
00:46:00.540 We make sure that democracy isn't being undermined by foreign actors or by a system that seems 0.70
00:46:05.740 to turn up its nose at the popular vote.
00:46:07.960 But equally, we also have to look within.
00:46:10.560 Right.
00:46:10.720 There's a really interesting experiment that was done in Israel where they were able to take
00:46:14.160 some of the angriest people and make them more tolerant by essentially holding up a
00:46:18.840 mirror to them and showing them what you're saying is so extremist.
00:46:22.500 It's so distasteful.
00:46:23.880 You ought to be embarrassed by it.
00:46:25.740 That is right now Facebook and Twitter for many of us.
00:46:28.120 It's that mirror.
00:46:29.340 Look at the people you follow.
00:46:30.900 And if they say crazy things, stop following them.
00:46:34.840 We have to take responsibility for managing our own anger.
00:46:37.700 And we have to set an example for our kids and our siblings and our spouses.
00:46:42.060 We have to become the less angry change we hope to see in this nation.
00:46:47.180 I applaud you for this article and the way you handled it, because nowhere in the article
00:46:53.000 did I see you take on one side without, in the very next paragraph, taking on the other
00:46:57.360 side.
00:46:57.700 Um, and I thought that was, I thought that was, um, really good and healthy because that's
00:47:04.420 not, that's not what we're getting on either side.
00:47:07.800 We're not getting people saying here it is over on the right.
00:47:10.980 Here it is over on the left.
00:47:12.480 Now knock it off.
00:47:13.740 Here's what's happening.
00:47:15.500 And it's interesting.
00:47:16.660 You know, some of the commentary on Twitter about this article is people saying, why do
00:47:20.840 you keep on letting the Republicans off the hook?
00:47:22.800 Or why do you keep on letting the Democrats off the hook?
00:47:24.860 But the truth of the matter is, you know, this politics of anger, it was perfected by
00:47:29.980 both the left and the right.
00:47:33.280 President Obama, President Obama's motto, change we can believe in, was a really subtle
00:47:39.000 way of capturing anger.
00:47:40.540 It's saying change, not like all those other people who lied to you.
00:47:44.280 And obviously, President Trump uses anger very, very effectively.
00:47:47.980 He's a tool, sometimes a weapon.
00:47:50.740 And it is on the left and right.
00:47:52.440 This is not a problem that gets solved by blaming one side.
00:47:55.880 It's a problem that gets solved by people coming together and saying, and I've used
00:48:00.220 this phrase, radical centricism, right?
00:48:03.460 I'm a firebrand of a moderate.
00:48:06.540 It's the people who come together and say, look, we understand that compromise is part of
00:48:11.760 the American system.
00:48:13.200 We just want to find people who are willing to speak to each other civilly, because we
00:48:17.440 know that's where the best compromises come from.
00:48:19.400 And radicalism and fanaticism, it has never done this nation well, whether it comes from
00:48:25.120 the left or the right, it never ends up being in a good place.
00:48:30.160 I was struck by your part on Cesar Chavez on trying to put the anger back into the bottle,
00:48:38.220 because it was very reminiscent of Gandhi.
00:48:43.400 You know, people think that Gandhi went on to a hunger strike, you know, to stop the injustice.
00:48:48.880 No, he was trying to put anger back into the bottle of his own supporters.
00:48:55.120 That's a rare person.
00:48:57.500 Do you see?
00:48:58.660 Right, it is.
00:48:59.560 Do you see?
00:49:00.100 I see the need.
00:49:01.340 Do you see the leaders that are willing to self-destruct for, to help put the anger back
00:49:10.120 in the bottle?
00:49:10.460 No, I do.
00:49:12.380 I do.
00:49:12.860 I think that there are leaders like that right now.
00:49:15.800 I think that they're, I think that they're out of favor, frankly.
00:49:19.260 So I think that they are making some self-sacrifices and we tend not to appreciate them for those
00:49:25.260 self-sacrifices, right?
00:49:26.480 I mean, just look at the number of people who have retired from the Republican Party and
00:49:31.560 retired from political office.
00:49:32.920 I think a lot of those people are folks who said, look, either I want to take a stand,
00:49:36.860 like Jeff Flake, right, who, whether you disagree or agree with him, he clearly was
00:49:41.620 saying, I want to speak out when I don't have to.
00:49:44.480 Or there's other folks like Paul Ryan, who I think has said, look, I'm just not willing
00:49:48.680 to participate in this, what I need to become in order to succeed.
00:49:54.240 But the truth of the matter is that when you're dealing with an angry group, they tend to not
00:49:59.380 appreciate the sacrifice you're making.
00:50:01.060 I mean, that's why it's called a sacrifice, right?
00:50:02.680 Even Cesar Chavez or Gandhi at the time, they came under intense criticism for the actions
00:50:09.500 they took to try and tamp down on the anger of their followers.
00:50:13.640 It's only in retrospect, oftentimes, that we see it as a selfless act.
00:50:17.960 And I guess to your point, I think one of the things we could do right now, and look,
00:50:21.700 there's plenty of people listening who disagree deeply with Paul Ryan or with Jeff Flake or
00:50:27.380 with others on the left who have stepped down from office rather than in order to sort of
00:50:33.140 sacrifice their career for something bigger than themselves.
00:50:36.060 I think whether you agree or disagree with him, we ought to have a space in our vocabulary
00:50:40.460 to say, I respect that these are public servants.
00:50:43.520 I respect that these are people who've spent their lives trying to help others.
00:50:47.480 And even though I disagree with them, I respect that they are at least stepping down or sacrificing
00:50:53.780 for something that they think will make the world a better place.
00:50:57.400 And though I disagree with them, I am going to respect that act.
00:51:02.580 We are so jaded and so not trusting of people's motives that it's hard to get there.
00:51:12.220 Charles, thank you so much.
00:51:14.140 And I hope to talk to you again.
00:51:16.220 Thank you so much.
00:51:16.820 Charles Duhigg, author of The Power of Habit.
00:51:21.360 And the article is worth, is really worth your time.
00:51:24.880 He does, I think he's probably on the left because I always think everybody is on the left.
00:51:32.100 But he's probably on the left.
00:51:34.660 But when you read his article, he takes both sides on really hard.
00:51:39.580 And you may not agree with, you know, his political philosophy, although I didn't see it there.
00:51:46.600 You should listen to the research that he's pointing out and the history, the marks of history
00:51:52.360 that prove this to be true.
00:51:55.400 The Blaze Radio Network.
00:51:59.960 On Demand.