The Glenn Beck Program - Best of the Program ｜ Guests： Ezra Levant & Spencer Klavan ｜ 9⧸25⧸23

00:00:00.000 Hey, welcome to the podcast. You got to hear the whole story here from the New York Times.

00:00:05.900 So it's got to be true. Nearly a year ago, as Ron DeSantis political stock was rising,

00:00:12.220 a former Guantanamo Bay detainee came forward with a stunning claim. Before he was Florida's

00:00:19.900 governor as a young Navy lawyer, Ron DeSantis had taken part in force feeding of a hunger striker

00:00:26.700 by pouring down cases of the dietary supplement Ensure down his throat. And he laughed as he did

00:00:37.260 so. Now in the last paragraph, they go like, yeah, but that's not really probably true. But I

00:00:43.900 appreciate the New York Times doing that great, great work. And I know that DeSantis camp appreciates

00:00:50.180 it too. So much to talk about on today's program. And I just want to throw out a note. I'm going

00:00:56.600 to be giving a speech on the American covenant. Are we a covenant nation or not? I'm going to be

00:01:03.100 speaking October 19th at 7pm at the Mountain America Expo Center in Sandy, Utah, just outside

00:01:11.720 of Salt Lake City. You can get your tickets. All you have to do is go to Eventbrite and look at my

00:01:17.640 name, Glenn Beck, and you'll get all the information. Again, it's October 19th, 7pm. Don't miss it.

00:01:24.160 Bring your family. These are $10 tickets, general admission. So we'll see you there.

00:01:29.500 Today's podcast brought to you by Relief Factor. If you're in pain, how would he say get out of

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00:02:31.180 You're listening to the best of the Glenn Beck program.

00:02:47.460 Oh, yeah. Yeah, there's no, this is I'm telling you.

00:02:52.760 Who even notices things like inflation? You know what I mean?

00:02:56.760 Go Bidenomics. Remember, the idea is that you will own nothing. You'll own nothing. And you'll

00:03:07.420 like it. So what are the things that you just think you're never going to get people out of

00:03:14.360 their home? Never going to get people to stop driving cars? Well, well, now let's look at this

00:03:21.820 for a second. The home affordability index has fallen from 169 point average in 2020 to 87.8 points

00:03:35.300 as of July. That's according to the National Association of Realtors. One key driver of the

00:03:42.060 expense is, of course, inflation, which peaked at 9.1 percent. Both housing and automobiles

00:03:51.680 now are mostly unfordable to American households. And why is that? Well, the government spent an awful

00:04:02.760 lot of money and the feds had to raise the rates. That's how most people, they don't go out and buy a

00:04:09.020 house or car with cash. The Biden administration has introduced, I would say, a lot of high spending

00:04:18.320 bills. We have the $1.9 trillion American rescue plan. Then you have the Inflation Reduction Act,

00:04:30.280 which he says, I wish we wouldn't have named it that because people think it's about inflation and

00:04:35.600 it's not. It's a green new deal. That was $750 billion in new spending, $370 billion for that

00:04:44.040 going towards green initiatives. And then the Fed was like, hey, we're going to have inflation. And so

00:04:52.480 they've brought the the Fed rate up to 5.5. Now, that's the that's the amount they they loan to the

00:05:01.580 the banks, not you. You're not getting 5.5. So as housing becomes unaffordable, what's it look like?

00:05:11.460 Well, in most markets across the U.S., home prices have risen between 10 and 15 percent just in the last

00:05:20.520 couple of years. The median home price in July was four hundred and twelve thousand three hundred

00:05:28.240 dollars. That's insanity. That's insanity. Half a million dollars almost for the average house.

00:05:38.960 That's crazy. Mortgage rates were six point nine two. So you're you're paying seven percent on your

00:05:48.480 mortgage compared to twenty twenty when the median home was three hundred thousand dollars.

00:05:55.940 Plus, I refinanced just a couple of years ago at like two point eight or something.

00:06:01.500 The average at the time was three point one seven six point. Wow. Yeah, that's and still historically

00:06:08.300 that is low, but we haven't seen that in a long time. Long time.

00:06:12.440 OK, four hundred and twelve thousand dollars for the average house who can afford that real wages

00:06:20.340 have been downgraded by inflation. The median weekly real earnings for both wage and salary workers,

00:06:28.320 according to the Federal Reserve of St. Louis, has declined seven point one percent in the second

00:06:37.060 quarter of this year.

00:06:42.460 Seven point one.

00:06:44.960 Also, you want to buy a car, you have the high interest rates, you have how much is the average

00:06:50.480 car now? I have over 30 over 30,000. It's got to be over 30. Yeah, easily over 30. You might. I remember

00:06:57.280 when I was growing up a Mercedes, which I didn't know anybody who had in a Mercedes or any. No, I didn't

00:07:02.760 either. It was like thirty thousand dollars or twenty. I think it was twenty thousand. Probably

00:07:06.200 more like twenty. Yeah. Twenty thousand dollars. The price of auto insurance is now up nineteen

00:07:12.260 point one percent. Why is that?

00:07:19.280 Why is that? Why is it up? A lot of tickets. A lot of speeding tickets. No, no, no, no, no,

00:07:24.920 it's not that. Not that. No, that's you. That's you. It's a little close to home. Yeah. No.

00:07:30.100 What is it? People stealing cars, people breaking into cars all over the country, breaking their

00:07:36.340 glass, having to be repaired over and over and over again. So that makes so the crime that the left

00:07:43.380 brought us. Yeah. And the inflation that both the right and the left have brought us, but now crazy

00:07:52.980 from the from the left. And so what's happening? Nobody's buying cars, which is hurting Detroit

00:08:02.660 and hurting the workers and new home construction is crashing. It's down thirty three percent from last

00:08:13.020 year at this time. But don't worry. There's a lot of, you know, jobless construction workers out there. 0.79

00:08:21.540 And we're importing millions of new hardworking illegals. So that's going to make that even better 1.00

00:08:30.660 for the construction workers. By the way, how much does it take to now qualify for a mortgage?

00:08:39.380 One hundred and four thousand dollars for you to even qualify. Our national debt is now thirty three

00:08:47.980 trillion dollars last Tuesday, more than five trillion over Biden's term, far greater than the

00:08:56.060 two point four eight trillion increase seen under Donald Trump and the four point three trillion

00:09:02.700 under Obama. In eight years, in eight years, five trillion in two.

00:09:13.900 So, you know, yeah, but he told us over the weekend, he just hasn't been getting the message out. He's got

00:09:19.500 to get the message out to people. I'm trying to help him. I'm trying to help him. And I'm sure he'd thank

00:09:26.160 you for this. Yeah, thank you. So there's another story. Remember, the whole goal is you don't own

00:09:33.240 anything. And the only way they can make that happen is if you just can't afford anything.

00:09:39.120 And so you'll have to go to renting. You'll rent your car. You'll take an Uber. You'll you won't drive.

00:09:46.200 You'll rent a bike. You'll rent a house. All of it. And you won't have any place to go because they

00:09:56.460 want to reclaim the national parks and thirty percent of the country. So they don't want you

00:10:04.540 driving very far. Another reason for electric cars, 400 miles tops. They don't want you driving

00:10:10.640 across the country. You won't be flying across the country. And in in something that I'm sure is

00:10:18.140 absolutely has nothing to do with anything that I just talked about. La Jolla Beach in San Diego,

00:10:23.900 known for its beauty and rugged rocks.

00:10:29.100 Mainly what people really love the sea lion population. I know I love that. I love that.

00:10:35.920 Um, well, they're now going to, uh, uh, ban and protect the sea lion, uh, population in San

00:10:46.800 Diego. Um, the 80 voice, uh, 80 vote in the city council said they're going to close the

00:10:55.680 beach, close the beach in La Jolla. Uh, but just for seven years. It's like, okay. So just,

00:11:03.680 just seven years to stop the spread. Uh, that's all that's, that's all that, all that is. What

00:11:11.060 happens after seven years? The sea lions have had enough babies in order to repopulate the beach.

00:11:17.560 Of course, of course, of course. And anybody who stands in the, in the way, of course, you know,

00:11:24.280 you're a, you're a problem. By the way, uh, Gavin Newsom, uh, kind of hit the panic button over the

00:11:31.120 weekend. He found out that his son listens to Joe Rogan and, uh, said that, you know, I, I really

00:11:39.200 worry about the misinformation and the disinformation from, from Rogan, you know, about what's happening

00:11:44.400 to our country. I worry about these micro cults that my kids are in. So really it's a micro. If

00:11:52.400 you listen to Joe Rogan, you're in a micro cult. Huh? I didn't, I didn't realize that. Uh, by the

00:12:01.980 way, speaking of Joe Rogan, did you see what he did over the weekend? I did not. Well, we told you

00:12:08.680 last week that the house and the Senate or the assembly and the Senate, they voted to pass something

00:12:16.580 really special and it was only waiting for Gavin Newsom's signature. It passed overwhelmingly and it was

00:12:26.300 just say no to parents being notified. You couldn't, you, you were not allowed to tell a parent if your

00:12:36.500 kid was going to, uh, be, you know, have a sex change operation. And the bigger part of it, the teeth

00:12:45.900 if your parent did not affirm your treatment, you could be arrested. The kids could be taken

00:12:54.600 away. Now I thought there was no way Gavin Newsom's not going to sign that Gavin in California

00:13:02.180 when it passed the past, the house and the Senate, he's going to stand in the way of it.

00:13:06.740 Everybody thought it was a foregone conclusion. Hmm. Yeah. He vetoed it.

00:13:15.900 Now I'm not saying that he's going to be running for president, but with the rest of the news coming

00:13:23.940 out this weekend about how bad Joe Biden is performing in the polls, I'm not, not saying

00:13:32.500 that either. This is the best of the Glenn Beck program. So I've got, I've questioned many questions

00:13:38.820 about Canada. Uh, you know, I, I grew up right by the Northern border. Uh, and especially, you know,

00:13:45.980 we had problems with the Canadians coming across that border, you know, in droves and, uh, and then 0.99

00:13:52.800 just, you know, go into like the Kmart and Walmart and getting deals and then just coming right back

00:13:59.400 across their border. It was crazy. Anyway. Um, you know, I've always, I've always thought Canadians had 1.00

00:14:05.780 some common sense to, I don't think that's still true. Um, because some of the things that are going

00:14:13.300 on, there's good news and bad news coming out of, out of Canada. Ezra Levant is with us now. He's a

00:14:19.840 rebel news founder. It's kind of like the blaze up in Canada. He is the host of the Ezra Levant show.

00:14:26.180 Uh, and, uh, and he's here to tell us the happenings this weekend. Let's start with, um, the big standing

00:14:34.740 ovation that was, was given to a Canadian Nazi. Ezra. Glenn, it's absolutely crazy. Uh, Yaroslav

00:14:47.220 Hunka is the name of a former Nazi SS officer. So I'm not just talking about some regular GI in the 0.60

00:14:55.940 Wehrmacht who was conscripted and just fought in a tank. I'm talking about someone who volunteered

00:15:00.960 to be part of Hitler's elite Nazis in Ukraine. Now he's 98 years old and he's been living a very

00:15:09.540 low profile life in Canada. So unlike some other Nazis, he hasn't been hunted down by the Mossad. 0.77

00:15:16.060 Imagine how surprised he must've been to receive a phone call that he would be the honored guest in

00:15:21.900 parliament when Justin Trudeau welcomed Vladimir Zelensky on Friday. And he was just like in your

00:15:29.240 American state of the union address where they point the camera at someone in the audience and

00:15:33.960 they give him a shout out and everyone gives him applause. They literally did that for Yaroslav

00:15:39.160 Hunka, a 98 year old Nazi SS officer, but they didn't introduce him that way, Glenn. They said he

00:15:46.580 quote, fought the Russians. Well, the Nazis did that. Hitler did that. That's right. Amongst other 0.75

00:15:55.040 things. You know, they also fought the Poles. They also fought the Jews and this guy, Hunka couldn't 0.98

00:16:01.360 believe it. He's been hiding in Canada for 70 years. And then in the twilight of his life, he's

00:16:08.300 cheered and he, he raises his fist and he gets a standing O. But later on, and, and I did a little

00:16:15.900 bit of digging here. I thought, well, who is this guy? And he was one of 2000 Nazis that sort of sneaked 0.79

00:16:22.780 into Canada after the war. They went to Argentina and other Latin American countries and 2000 of them

00:16:28.520 came to Canada. And don't tell me they didn't know. Don't tell me you don't have a guest of honor

00:16:34.680 at our version of a state of the union address where the entire parliament is assembled. Don't

00:16:40.400 tell me when Vladimir Zelensky comes, they have a very high security vetting everybody rule. Don't

00:16:46.280 tell me they didn't know who this guy was. They absolutely knew who he was, Glenn.

00:16:51.720 Here is the interesting thing to me. They cheer in parliament, an actual SS Nazi. And yet they 0.58

00:17:01.980 accuse what half of Canada, anybody who stood behind the truckers, they accuse them of Nazis

00:17:08.960 and threatened to put them all in jail.

00:17:11.920 Well, that's a good way to understand Justin Trudeau. He calls himself a male feminist, but

00:17:17.220 he admits that he sexually assaulted a woman named Rose Knight. He just said, oh, she experienced 0.61

00:17:22.660 it differently. He calls you a racist, but he's a guy who dressed up in blackface so many 0.87

00:17:28.660 times he says he lost count. He calls everyone he doesn't like a Nazi, including Jewish people. 0.99

00:17:34.080 He called a Jewish MP a Nazi. He called a black MP a Nazi. But he's the one leading the standing 1.00

00:17:42.940 ovation for an actual Nazi, not Nazi linked or Nazi vibes. This guy was out there with his gun

00:17:51.580 obeying their Fuhrer. And it's just incredible. And the kind of mop up work that the media party is

00:17:59.440 doing, Glenn, is just incredible. And do you think for a second that Trudeau will stop calling people

00:18:05.840 Nazis? It's such a total meltdown. Trudeau's taken a day off from question period today. Normally,

00:18:11.820 he goes into Parliament and answers questions. He can't be bothered. He's got other things to do.

00:18:16.360 By the way, this is one week after he accused the country of India of murdering a Canadian. And his

00:18:24.620 deputy actually suggested that India might be sabotaging Trudeau's plane to kill him. Canada 0.64

00:18:30.880 is becoming a failed state. We're falling apart economically. The only countries in the world that

00:18:37.800 we have stronger relations with now than we did 10 years ago are Cuba and Ukraine. It's a mess up 1.00

00:18:43.600 here, Glenn.

00:18:44.100 Same. But as well, we're going the same route. I don't even know if we have good relations with

00:18:49.340 Ukraine. I mean, we're sending them money, but I think they come over and they're like,

00:18:53.760 you pigs, they still eat. Give me more money. Now, there was some good news. I saw on Friday and 0.99

00:19:03.580 then again on Saturday, parents were marching, something you don't see in America anymore

00:19:10.020 because January 6th scared the pants off of people. And so now they're not going out and

00:19:14.940 marching. But no matter what Trudeau did to the truckers, you had people out on the streets

00:19:20.760 marching against what's being done in their schools.

00:19:24.900 Oh, it's amazing. It was called the Million Person March. It was parents marching to protect

00:19:32.080 their kids from gender ideology in schools. And here's the crazy thing. The leader of this

00:19:38.480 march was a Muslim immigrant to Canada. And what's so interesting is some of the parents

00:19:44.180 who care the most about their kids come from abroad. They're newcomers to Canada and they have

00:19:50.200 family values and they don't understand gender ideology. I think the most iconic picture from 0.93

00:19:55.880 those, and I don't know if there was quite a million people, that would be an awful lot for

00:20:00.180 a country as small as Canada, but there were hundreds of thousands. We had 14 reporters in

00:20:05.800 seven cities and it was eye popping. It really was comparable to the trucker convoy. The most iconic

00:20:13.340 picture was a Muslim woman wearing a hijab, holding up a sign that said, don't trust anyone who tells 0.96

00:20:22.620 you to keep secrets from your parents. It was something like that. I don't have the picture

00:20:26.420 in front of me. And that's what it is. Across Canada, our provincial governments are introducing

00:20:31.740 laws that would require schools to tell parents if their minor children were switching genders,

00:20:38.520 changing their name, changing their pronouns, just to let parents know. Because until this point,

00:20:45.640 it's being kept a secret between sex ed counselors at school and the kids. And that's so gross,

00:20:52.940 keeping secrets about sexual matters from your parents. That's something that, you know, 0.96

00:20:57.980 you used to arrest people for a decade ago. So public opinion polls show that about 80% of Canadians

00:21:06.440 support the parents' right to be informed. But Trudeau called those people transphobic,

00:21:13.360 no surprise. So where is Trudeau? Because he's kind of, I think, kind of like our Gavin Newsom. The

00:21:20.100 guy's bat crap crazy. And where is he in his cycle? I mean, do you have term limits on him? And when is he 0.99

00:21:29.620 up for reelection? We do not have term limits. He has been prime minister for eight years. And his

00:21:37.160 father, Pierre Trudeau, was prime minister for 16 years. And I fear that Justin Trudeau wants to equal

00:21:44.460 or better his father. Now, there is some hopeful news, though. He's had so many missteps. And by the

00:21:50.260 way, it all started when the truckers made him blink. He overreacted. He declared martial law.

00:21:56.460 He deployed riot horses. He seized bank accounts of his political opponents. And he felt pretty proud

00:22:03.480 of himself. But that marked, I think, the end of the honeymoon. And he's been on decline in the

00:22:09.400 polls ever since. The latest polls put him 15% behind the new conservative party leader,

00:22:16.320 who again was installed because the truckers, because the old conservative party leader wouldn't

00:22:20.940 even meet the truckers. And so the conservative caucus threw out their old leader, and they chose

00:22:27.040 a leader who's got a little bit more courage. So those truckers, I think, really, not only helped

00:22:32.920 end the lockdowns, but I think they put Canada on a more hopeful path. Now, it's very dark right now.

00:22:38.820 But Trudeau is 15% behind the polls. He's alienating so many different communities.

00:22:45.440 And I have to think that, you know, a lot of people were sort of in love with Trudeau. And

00:22:51.700 when you fall out of love with someone, it often turns to hate. It's not just neutrality. I think

00:22:57.180 people felt feel duped by him. People who were enthralled by him feel that they were tricked and

00:23:04.280 hoodwinked. They realized that he is an odious man. He's an actor. Like many male feminists, he was

00:23:10.100 faking it. I think he's going to be thrown out. I sure hope so, Glenn. 0.61

00:23:13.380 Well, that would be good news for the United States, as long as he's replaced with somebody

00:23:18.140 better and not necessarily, you know, we could do worse. I don't know how, but I think the devil

00:23:23.540 has some time on his hands. You know, I'm sure he would take the job in either of our countries.

00:23:30.180 Ezra, thank you so much. I appreciate everything you guys do up in Canada. Thank you.

00:23:34.560 Thanks, my friend.

00:23:35.300 You bet. Bye-bye.

00:23:36.120 This is the best of the Glenn Beck Program.

00:23:37.960 Spencer Clavin is a friend of the program. His father is a dear friend, Andrew Clavin.

00:23:46.600 And Spencer is probably one of the more brilliant people I happen to know. He wrote the book

00:23:52.120 How to Save the West. And we wanted to get him on today to talk a little bit about, you know,

00:23:59.740 the Roman Empire, because we've been thinking about it a lot, Spencer.

00:24:04.580 We have. It's a pleasure to be back. And I think this will fill our quota for the entire week.

00:24:11.300 I mean, you're the one guy that probably does think of the Roman Empire. I don't understand.

00:24:17.420 I don't understand. I never think of the Roman Empire.

00:24:19.880 I'm glad you. I'm glad you can admit that. Yeah.

00:24:23.100 Take a big man to admit that.

00:24:24.260 I said, put me in, coach. You know, I'm ready.

00:24:27.000 Yeah. Okay. All right. So are we are we repeating the pattern of the Roman Empire?

00:24:36.100 Well, there's a good case to be made that the pattern we're actually repeating is the pattern of the Roman Republic at its very end, right when it became an empire.

00:24:47.480 We in America are a republic. That's how our nation was founded. That's the regime our founders put in place.

00:24:54.540 And they put it in place for a very specific reason, because they had studied ancient history as well as more recent history.

00:25:01.220 And they knew that all sorts of forms of tyranny can come into place with all different kinds of government.

00:25:08.600 You can even have a tyranny of the mob under democracy.

00:25:11.680 You can, of course, have the tyranny of a monarchy, which they had just escaped from.

00:25:15.540 And in order to preserve American liberty against those forms of tyranny, they created this threefold government.

00:25:23.500 The three different branches of our government are meant to balance the different powers that compete against one another so that individual Americans can be free.

00:25:33.120 The only way that you can destroy that kind of system is from within.

00:25:37.180 And republics die by suicide. And in Rome, what happened is a very small coterie of elites, of well-heeled, rich, well-to-do people got together among their cronies and conspired to deprive large masses of the citizenry from their birthright, from the lands that they were supposed to have access to after their military service.

00:25:57.000 Oh, holy no.

00:25:57.780 I know. Imagine that. And it's impossible, of course, for us to think about this happening in America, you know, a small group of elites getting together and rewarding it over the people.

00:26:09.020 That would never happen here.

00:26:10.200 But of course, that's exactly what we're starting to look at.

00:26:14.540 And it's part of why guys like me, and I think you as well, you know, are so concerned about the way that the Davos crowd and these, you know, sort of hoity-toity upper crust elites are trying effectively to take control away from the people.

00:26:28.220 So what caused the downfall of the republic? What was it besides the elites? The people had to be probably like we are now.

00:26:40.000 That's right. Well, this is part of why elite capture is so poisonous for republics.

00:26:47.380 You know, Machiavelli, the great Renaissance-era thinker in political philosophy, looked back on the Roman Republic, and he said, were the elites or the people worse?

00:26:58.720 It's kind of hard to tell who was more to blame.

00:27:02.300 But ultimately, he said it was the elites who failed most because in their failure, they not only discredited themselves, but the entire system that they were supposed to represent.

00:27:12.800 And that is also what happened in Rome, that public trust started to drain, to hemorrhage out of these republican institutions.

00:27:22.540 And by the time the era of Julius Caesar came along, Plutarch, one of the great essayists of antiquity, said there were many observers who thought there would be lucky if nothing worse than a tyranny emerged from this situation.

00:27:35.680 You start to get populist rulers who agitate the crowd. It becomes very, very easy for one person or one group of people to effectively promise the people that they'll give them everything they want.

00:27:49.080 They'll give them all their land and all their money back. They'll just take it out of the hands of the elite.

00:27:52.460 And then you have a populist uprising, which eventually turns into a monarchy or a tyranny, which is what you got after many, many years of civil war in Rome.

00:28:01.500 Yeah, I can kind of relate to all of that. Where are we on this cycle?

00:28:09.860 Well, one thing I think it's important to bear in mind so that we don't despair here is that this is not an ironclad prophecy.

00:28:19.360 These things don't always happen exactly the same way. History doesn't repeat itself, but it does rhyme.

00:28:23.820 And so I would propose that in many ways at home, what we're looking at is this kind of decay of a republic at the point at which the people begin to become fed up.

00:28:38.040 There is an enormous mass of populist energy, not just on the right, also on the left, with people feeling that both political parties have completely failed to serve their interests

00:28:48.440 or even to offer them a solution to the problems that they refuse to acknowledge and in many cases undertake to make worse.

00:28:56.640 And so that populist energy is now, I think, brewing in our country in some very dangerous ways.

00:29:02.880 We've seen the way that, you know, when people take to the streets, as in 2020, for example, things can get really hairy really quickly.

00:29:09.700 It doesn't mean that we are doomed, I don't think, to tear our government down to the studs and institute a monarchy.

00:29:17.760 But it does mean that very careful and serious engagement with the legitimate concerns of those people that feel underserved by the government

00:29:25.760 is the only way for anybody to take serious political power in this country right now.

00:29:30.160 And I think that explains a lot of what you're seeing in the presidential race as well.

00:29:34.600 Has anyone gotten to this point and turned it around?

00:29:37.040 Hmm. Yeah, it's a great question.

00:29:40.720 We talked about this when I went on your podcast.

00:29:44.120 I mean, I think that the Romans got to this point several times before it all collapsed and did turn it around.

00:29:50.580 And the way that they did that was by a meeting between the elites and the people.

00:29:56.560 Several times in Rome's history, the people clamored again in the way that they did at the end for more rights,

00:30:03.580 for more attention, for to be given what they believed was their due as Romans.

00:30:09.900 And it was not that they simply the elites then just rolled over and gave citizenship to everybody that wanted it

00:30:17.500 and just kind of answered every populist claim.

00:30:21.260 But they understood that they were now responsible.

00:30:24.100 They had what you might call now a noblesse oblige, a sense that as elites,

00:30:28.220 they had an obligation to listen to the voice of the people and to negotiate.

00:30:32.580 One thing that's true about America is we are not going to get rid of elites altogether.

00:30:38.560 It's a mistake to think that what's coming up next is, well, we'll just have a bright new future of equality for all.

00:30:45.600 In every respect, everybody's going to be the same.

00:30:47.520 There are always going to be elites because there are always going to, even in a meritocracy,

00:30:52.040 people are going to rise to the top. The key is to replace our current elites who have no interest in negotiating with the people

00:30:59.360 with elites who have a sense of responsibility toward those people that they are elevated above.

00:31:04.620 And that kind of negotiation can turn this thing around.

00:31:07.720 It did in Rome several times before the end, and it could for us, too, if we have a little bit of help from upstairs.

00:31:15.080 How do you convince people? Have you thought about this, Spencer, on the way we have been brainwashed?

00:31:24.560 I look at the 1930s, and I think we are repeating many of those same mistakes.

00:31:30.800 And I never understood how the German populace could go from, you know, decent people with a republic

00:31:39.080 to, 15 years later, the Nazis. How did that happen? I understand it much more now.

00:31:47.240 All you have to do is start pitting people against each other and telling bigger and bigger lies,

00:31:54.680 and people tend to believe them.

00:31:57.020 Right. Yes, I think about this a lot, and it's something that is discussed at the beginning of Plato's Republic, actually.

00:32:05.100 Socrates says, well, if you won't listen to persuasion, then I have no way of convincing you.

00:32:11.160 If people are actually dead set against hearing because they've been brainwashed,

00:32:16.600 then it becomes very, very difficult to break through that cloud of lies.

00:32:21.700 But I go back again and again to something that Alexander Solzhenitsyn said.

00:32:25.680 And here's a guy who lived through a far worse version of this kind of brainwashing,

00:32:30.500 you know, dissident in the Soviet regime, a prisoner in the gulag.

00:32:34.460 And he gave a speech in which he said, live not by lies.

00:32:38.520 And what he personally concluded in that speech is that the only thing that can undo that kind of spell of media deception,

00:32:48.100 of educational brainwash, all of that stuff, is a personal non-participation in lies.

00:32:54.760 Every one of us that thinks that something is up, something is going wrong, has to be forthright and open about that.

00:33:01.880 Because the hypnotism that happens when everybody is kind of towing one dishonest line isn't just about people believing these lies.

00:33:11.660 It's also about cowardice.

00:33:13.140 It's also about people that say, I think there's something wrong with this, but I'm afraid of what's going to happen if I speak up.

00:33:18.580 And Solzhenitsyn said that one man who refuses to say that lie can turn the world upside down.

00:33:25.920 And I think courage really is the virtue that we are most in need of right now.

00:33:30.840 It's not that you need to be brilliant and see perfectly to every truth that has been concealed.

00:33:36.000 It's just that you need to state forthrightly what you believe, that men can't turn into women,

00:33:41.900 that socialism has failed everywhere it's tried.

00:33:44.460 I mean, these things have become incredibly costly to say, but saying them is our only hope of breaking that spell of lies.

00:33:54.960 When Rome saved itself, did it have a savior, if you will, somebody who stood up and could talk common sense to both sides of the room?

00:34:08.660 Because I don't see that on the horizon.

00:34:11.040 The way things are going politically, I don't see somebody that can unite everybody.

00:34:19.660 That is a huge problem for us.

00:34:21.720 I agree with you.

00:34:22.900 I mean, Rome did have these heroes that would emerge throughout time, and they really rooted a lot of their history in these great men.

00:34:32.040 Some of them were from before the Republic, and then they carried on this tradition.

00:34:36.300 People like Scipio Africanus, you know, that they could look up to and who was rooted not in his love of party, but in his love of Rome itself and in the service that he had given.

00:34:46.820 And one really important way that they encouraged this was that they understood that Roman citizenship was not just a kind of good, a goodie bag that you got born into.

00:34:58.940 It was also a series of responsibilities.

00:35:00.880 And so they encouraged and honored people who went above and beyond in fulfilling those responsibilities, in showing bravery in wartime, showing wisdom in moments of political crisis.

00:35:11.480 One of our major problems in America is that we don't afford honor to people that do that sort of thing.

00:35:17.360 We don't afford honor to honest people.

00:35:19.240 We don't celebrate honesty.

00:35:20.780 Or indeed, we don't celebrate bipartisanship.

00:35:23.860 All of these things are dishonorable in our public life.

00:35:27.520 And that's part of why you're seeing the failure of a lot of our leadership class.

00:35:32.260 It may be that this current class of leaders that is represented really by Joe Biden and even to a certain extent by Donald Trump, that, you know, this is an old guard passing away.

00:35:45.480 It's taking a long time to pass away.

00:35:47.460 We may hope that, especially at the local level, in the way that red states and governors of red states have succeeded, that there's a majority coalition growing who can find leaders from a slightly younger generation.

00:35:59.660 But I agree with you that it's not hopeful among the people currently in power.

00:36:04.260 We're talking to Spencer Clavin, who is a historian, a great writer, and somebody who really just buckles down and studies it so the rest of us don't have to.

00:36:14.100 And Spencer, I have read that the society always starts to, when it starts to dismantle itself, it goes into what used to be called sexual perversions, and men become much more effeminate, and it's almost a loss of the sexes.

00:36:42.380 Is that true?

00:36:44.100 It's certainly a hallmark of this kind of dysfunction.

00:36:49.100 There's a guy called Rob Henderson who writes about what's called luxury beliefs. 0.88

00:36:53.400 And what I suspect is that this kind of extravagant, crazy, and totally unreality-based sexual psychosis that we're going through, this is the kind of thing you can only indulge in when you're rich, fat, and happy.

00:37:07.780 Then you can sit around and say, well, men and women, they're really the same, and they can change into one another.

00:37:12.540 These things become incredibly difficult to maintain when the rubber meets the road.

00:37:17.980 Sure.

00:37:18.280 And there's actually a story in Dionysius of Halicarnassus, who was a great historian from the ancient world, who writes about a tyrant in a little island that was kind of obscure, but who, when he took control, one of the things this tyrant did to make sure that nobody would ever rise up against him is he ordered that all the boys should be taught like girls in school, and that they should be made effeminate through their training.

00:37:46.960 And this is how he thought that he could stay secure in his tyranny, as if he kind of sanded down the rough edges of masculinity.

00:37:54.860 There's a good argument to be made that a generation of weak and effeminate men is one of the best ways to put a tyranny in place, to encourage men to abandon their aspirations to manhood and masculinity, to shame them for trying to take sovereignty over their own lives.

00:38:14.120 These sorts of things are an excellent way to keep a population docile, and they're also an excellent way to render yourself weak to invasion from outside, which is eventually what that tyrant succumbs to, is that people who had not been trained under his oppressive regime took up the call of manliness and overthrew him.

00:38:33.160 So, yeah, I do think that when you're sort of easygoing, when everything is looking great, when you're on top of the world, you can sort of indulge in these obscure theories about masculinity and femininity.

00:38:46.740 But the less you have available to you, the less defense you have available to you, the more you're going to start to realize that actually men need to be men and women need to be women.

00:38:56.060 Boy, boy, boy, boy, boy, is this not, I mean, it's just, everything you're saying is playing out.

00:39:00.600 Is there a place in the Roman Empire or the Roman Republic's history that we haven't repeated yet, that you might say to yourself, when I see this, I'll know?

00:39:14.140 Well, Appian, who is the historian of this kind of period when the Republic fell apart, said that when it was really over is when Romans took up swords against one another, because he mentions, you know, before this, there were all of these different negotiations between the elites and the people.

00:39:33.060 But it wasn't until civil bloodshed in the era of the Iraqi, when people started to kill their leaders in order to get rid of them, that things were destined to fall apart. 0.71

00:39:45.660 And whereas we have had violent riots, whereas we did, you know, have January 6th and we have had the riots of 2020 and all of this kind of political upheaval and uprest, formalized political violence where you decide who's going to rule by killing people is when you really start to think things are falling apart.

00:40:05.440 So thank God we're not there yet.

00:40:07.880 Yes, we're not there.

00:40:09.740 Yes, I'm going to leave it at that.

00:40:11.120 We're not there yet.

00:40:12.260 And so I'd love to have you back on because, you know, a lot of people are talking about, you know, the glory days of the Roman.

00:40:19.720 I don't I'm not sure I know what the glory days of the Roman Empire really were, but maybe we can explore that next time you're on.

00:40:29.900 We'll discuss it next time.

00:40:31.400 There's a good case to be made for Augustus, but we'll leave that for another day.

00:40:35.380 All right.

00:40:35.740 Thanks a lot.

00:40:36.580 Appreciate it, man.

00:40:37.280 Thanks, Clint.

00:40:37.840 You bet.

00:40:38.200 So Spencer Clavin, this this kid is a may I say kid.

00:40:43.660 This guy is amazing.

00:40:45.840 The son of Andrew Clavin and his book, How to Save the West, is tremendous.

00:40:52.940 I was reading it.

00:40:54.180 Didn't even look at the author.

00:40:55.640 I was just reading it.

00:40:56.960 And, you know, Spencer Clavin, I didn't even put two and two together.

00:41:00.120 Get about halfway through and I bring it into the producers and I'm like, we got to get this Spencer Clavin on.

00:41:04.480 And they all looked at me and went, this Spencer Clavin, you know who that is?

00:41:09.140 And I'm like, yeah, of course I do.

00:41:13.760 Who doesn't?

00:41:14.620 Who, yeah.

00:41:15.860 Do you think I'm a dummy?

00:41:17.360 No, no, no, no.

The Glenn Beck Program - September 25, 2023

Best of the Program ｜ Guests： Ezra Levant & Spencer Klavan ｜ 9⧸25⧸23

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