The Glenn Beck Program - May 25, 2023


Best of the Program ｜ Guests： Gov. Ron DeSantis & Spencer Klavan ｜ 5⧸25⧸23


Episode Stats

Length

43 minutes

Words per Minute

170.3999

Word Count

7,478

Sentence Count

571

Misogynist Sentences

6

Hate Speech Sentences

6


Summary

Ron DeSantis announces he is running for President of the United States! What does that mean for the future of the Republican Party? What does it mean for his chances of winning the 2020 primary? Is this a good or bad thing? And what does it say about the current state of the country as a whole? All that and much more on today's show.


Transcript

00:00:00.000 I think this is kind of a news-breaking show today, podcast.
00:00:02.660 Yeah, there's a guy on that announced he's running for president.
00:00:06.260 Yeah, just last night.
00:00:07.860 And he is, this must-listen-to podcast and interview on the podcast.
00:00:14.120 Yeah, get some interesting hints as to what his strategy and approach is going to be in his primary.
00:00:19.860 Rhonda Sanders, of course, joins us today.
00:00:21.700 Really good.
00:00:22.080 And we also tie some things together that just don't make sense and try to use the scientific method to take you through.
00:00:31.060 We have the son of Andrew Clavin on, who's written a new book about how to save the West.
00:00:36.140 It's really good.
00:00:38.040 And Ali Stuckey on Target.
00:00:40.100 So don't miss any of it.
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00:01:19.680 You're listening to the best of the Glenn Beck Program.
00:01:32.740 Welcome to the Glenn Beck Program.
00:01:35.340 Governor Ron DeSantis from Florida announced yesterday he is formally announced that he is running for president of the United States.
00:01:43.740 And so it begins.
00:01:46.680 And it's going to be an interesting 18 months.
00:01:49.700 Welcome to the program.
00:01:51.120 Governor DeSantis.
00:01:51.940 How are you, sir?
00:01:53.260 I'm doing great, Glenn.
00:01:54.480 Thanks for having me.
00:01:55.280 How are you?
00:01:55.800 I'm good.
00:01:56.420 I'm good.
00:01:57.620 Enjoyed it.
00:01:58.480 Not the first 20 minutes.
00:01:59.800 That must have been incredibly frustrating for you with the technical problems.
00:02:04.300 But it was the largest audience gathered on Twitter.
00:02:10.160 Yeah.
00:02:10.640 I mean, I was just kind of sitting in Tallahassee.
00:02:13.380 Like, I didn't really know what was going on because they, Twitter, handled all of that.
00:02:16.700 And they were just getting so many people above and beyond what they've ever gotten that I think it kind of melted the servers.
00:02:23.880 But they were able to correct it.
00:02:25.980 And we were able to do an announcement that I think, you know, obviously I laid out the case at the beginning for five or six minutes.
00:02:33.680 But then we were able to talk about actual issues that people should care about.
00:02:39.260 And I think it's now up to eight or nine million people have viewed it across some of the platforms that have featured it.
00:02:46.360 And obviously when Elon's involved, you get a lot of buzz out of it.
00:02:49.380 So we're getting huge feedback and raising money and doing all that, which is great.
00:02:54.380 We were talking earlier today, Stu and I, about this choice that you have always had this approach where you don't care what the New York Times says.
00:03:03.140 You're not sitting down trying to get, you know, a puff piece out of the New York Times.
00:03:07.160 You know you're not going to get one, so you just ignore them.
00:03:09.880 And I think that's really, really smart, but very different.
00:03:14.080 This, too, I think is going to be remembered as the Clinton MTV or Arsenio Hall program.
00:03:21.220 This is really smart to do.
00:03:23.580 Does this, is this a sign the end of the mainstream media going right straight to people?
00:03:30.660 Well, I think what Elon's done is he's opened up Twitter.
00:03:35.320 I mean, the social networks when they first came on the scene had a lot of potential because we could go around legacy media and we could converse with ourselves.
00:03:44.240 And that was a big threat to them.
00:03:46.040 And so they really helped lobby companies like Facebook to start censoring.
00:03:51.160 And then it got to the point where not only were they trying to enforce a narrative, the tech companies were colluding with federal agencies like the FBI and the CDC to censor and stifle dissent.
00:04:03.140 And so Elon, I think, has put his money where his mouth is, gotten one of those platforms and opened it up.
00:04:08.620 So I think open platforms are good for conservatives because it allows us to go around the filter.
00:04:15.420 But I do think we have a huge battle on our hands about tech censorship writ large.
00:04:20.540 What Elon's done is great.
00:04:21.700 But how many people are worth $250 billion or they could afford to just, you know, put $54 billion down to buy a social platform?
00:04:30.480 And so tech censorship, I think, is going to continue to be an issue.
00:04:34.600 I think we've not dealt with it in Florida.
00:04:36.240 We're going to do more as president, of course, to make sure that the First Amendment actually means something.
00:04:41.860 Because you can't let the government subcontract out censorship to Silicon Valley and say you still have a First Amendment.
00:04:49.160 OK, so let me talk to you about the government, FBI, DOJ, IRS, NSA, CIA, ATF, everything.
00:04:58.440 Even the Capitol Police now are an intelligence-gathering agency.
00:05:02.860 How do you even run a campaign when you know the all-of-government approach to the last election?
00:05:14.560 How do you, if you win, how do you dismantle this?
00:05:19.740 Because it's almost like an unplug it and plug it back in and reset it to factory settings.
00:05:26.880 I mean, it's cleaning house.
00:05:28.640 And I think that this is a fundamental problem.
00:05:32.860 So we will look at, like, an example of weaponization, which is obviously many examples.
00:05:37.860 But that's kind of the end point.
00:05:39.260 Like, why are we here?
00:05:40.460 And the reason that we're here is because we have these agencies that have been detached from constitutional accountability.
00:05:47.740 There was never supposed to be a fourth branch of government.
00:05:51.020 But Congress has not held them accountable with the power of the purse or with legislating more precisely.
00:05:57.380 And presidents have not been willing to wield Article II power to discipline the bureaucracy.
00:06:03.620 So I think I'll come in, and on day one, we'll be spitting nails.
00:06:07.820 I understand, and all your listeners should understand, that if we do everything right, if we're disciplined, if we're strong as anyone could be,
00:06:15.660 it still takes a two-term project.
00:06:18.380 I think it takes eight years to be able to reconstitutionalize this government.
00:06:22.320 But the question it raises is, do we govern ourselves or do we not?
00:06:26.620 Because right now, the most significant issues tend not to be resolved by our elected representatives.
00:06:32.900 They're done by these bureaucrats and through these agencies.
00:06:36.960 And so it's really, I think, a crisis of self-government.
00:06:39.920 And now, what you have with lack of accountability, you just have a consolidation of power amongst people that all have the same worldview.
00:06:49.580 And so their worldview is different than our worldview, and they view people like us as factions that they want to exert power over.
00:06:57.180 And so the weaponization, I think, flows from human nature.
00:07:00.160 So what would I do, you know, day one?
00:07:01.960 First of all, I already said, new FBI director, day one.
00:07:06.060 That is a no-brainer.
00:07:07.360 You've got to do that.
00:07:08.240 I'll have an attorney general that has a backbone, an attorney general that recognizes if you are doing your job properly,
00:07:16.060 you are going to be pilloried by the Washington Post and the New York Times and CNN.
00:07:21.520 And so if that's not something that you're comfortable with, then don't even apply for this job.
00:07:26.540 Understand you're going into the lion's den.
00:07:29.040 These people do not want to give up this power willingly.
00:07:32.600 And so they're going to smear you.
00:07:33.940 They're going to attack you.
00:07:34.740 So I think getting the personnel right, if you can't do that, then it's just not going to work at all.
00:07:41.240 Second thing, I think, is you've got to be willing to use Article II authority to its fullest extent.
00:07:46.860 The idea that some FBI agent can collude with a tech company to censor like Hunter Biden, you should be firing these people.
00:07:55.820 You have the authority to do it.
00:07:57.380 Yes, it'll be contested.
00:07:59.200 They'll sue you.
00:08:00.520 But who gets the Article II power?
00:08:03.140 The person that wins the Electoral College or some middle managing bureaucrat in the IRS or the FBI?
00:08:10.880 So asserting that authority, making sure that you have political control over those agencies, that is a huge battle.
00:08:18.200 It's something you've got to be disciplined about.
00:08:20.160 It's something you've got to be strategic about.
00:08:21.900 And it's not something that anyone's really tried to do because, you know, these are tough fights.
00:08:27.420 I mean, it's like trench warfare.
00:08:29.300 And you've got to be ready on day one.
00:08:30.980 And incidentally, who's the attorney general?
00:08:34.060 Very important.
00:08:35.260 But it's also important who's in a step or two below that across all these agencies.
00:08:40.160 And I think you need to have thousands of people ready to go.
00:08:44.100 So are you thinking, you know, one of the things that really bothers me about the Republicans is the Democrats were gaming and putting everything into, you know, the Obama bill.
00:09:02.240 When he walked in, that thing was 2,000 pages long.
00:09:05.840 They had worked on that for years.
00:09:07.660 Are you assembling teams and talking about what to do so you could just launch if you would win?
00:09:15.660 Absolutely.
00:09:16.480 And so, first of all, we're working with allied conservative organizations who are already collecting resumes from people around the country.
00:09:24.460 And I will have a message if I'm in, you know, if I'm in Nevada, I'm going to say, look, some of you who are in this audience,
00:09:30.420 you may need to pick up your family and move to Washington, D.C. for two, four, six years because you can't just recycle everybody from D.C.
00:09:38.580 It's not going to change if that's the case.
00:09:40.740 And so you really need to have most of these people descending on D.C. from outside the country.
00:09:46.180 What we're also going to do is I'll issue a directive to all these agencies that they need to reduce the footprint of their agencies in D.C. by at least 50%.
00:09:56.480 Oh, my gosh.
00:09:57.080 Because I think what's happened is, you know, the growth, the government, the size of it is one thing, of course.
00:10:04.100 But the consolidation of it in Washington, I think, has been totally toxic.
00:10:09.180 You know, you have a place in Washington, D.C.
00:10:11.500 It votes 95% Democrat.
00:10:14.880 I think Trump got 4% or 5% of the vote in 2020.
00:10:18.440 And so this is totally not representative of the public as a whole.
00:10:23.320 And I think the founders would look at that, and I think they would say, like, that is a huge, huge problem.
00:10:28.820 So dispersing power out of D.C., yes, reducing the government overall, but whatever government you have, we want less consolidation in D.C.
00:10:38.760 And I think that that will make a difference.
00:10:40.640 So, Governor, the one thing that Donald Trump will have going for him in spades is the economy.
00:10:45.780 People will trust him on the economy.
00:10:47.660 He's already done it once.
00:10:49.460 He's known as a businessman.
00:10:50.940 Man, what are you bringing to the table to this all-out war on the American dream?
00:10:59.360 Corporations have been weaponized, red tape, all of the stuff that's going on.
00:11:05.300 You'll have the Fed against you, the big banks.
00:11:09.100 How do you change the economy?
00:11:12.760 Well, look, I would just say push back a little bit.
00:11:15.320 I mean, I think he did great for three years, but when he turned the country over to Fauci in March of 2020, that destroyed millions of people's lives.
00:11:23.580 And in Florida, we were one of the few that stood up, cut against the grain, took incoming fire from media, bureaucracy, the left, even a lot of Republicans, had schools open, preserved businesses.
00:11:37.340 And so Florida, since COVID, has outperformed virtually any state in the country when you look at all these significant metrics.
00:11:43.980 I mean, we're booming, we've got people moving in here, wealth is coming in here.
00:11:49.240 And so I think when people look back, you know, that 2020 year was not a good year for the country as a whole.
00:11:56.600 It was a situation where Florida started to stand alone.
00:12:01.080 So I think that that's an important contrast.
00:12:02.860 Now, going forward, yes, you rip up what Biden's done on day one with things like energy.
00:12:08.700 They are trying to price middle class people out of having a middle class standard of living.
00:12:14.500 We're not going to force people to buy electric vehicles.
00:12:18.420 We're going to make sure that people have a choice to have affordable transportation.
00:12:23.100 We absolutely reduce federal spending.
00:12:27.080 We're going to fight with the Congress on that.
00:12:28.840 I mean, I think the debt has gone up under both Republican and Democrat.
00:12:32.460 I mean, we act like it's just Biden, you know, went up $8 trillion, the debt under Trump as well.
00:12:37.720 And so we've got to stop doing that.
00:12:40.060 That has absolutely driven the inflation since March of 2020 with all the borrowing and spending.
00:12:45.720 I also think we need to have the Federal Reserve focus on stable money and stop trying to be the economic central planner.
00:12:53.980 You look at how much money they've printed since COVID, of course you're going to get inflation when that happens.
00:12:59.540 And so you need a major overhaul with the Federal Reserve.
00:13:02.820 And so and then, yes, fighting woke capital.
00:13:06.560 Woke capital is absolutely bad for the average American because they're pursuing an ideological agenda to achieve ideological left wing goals that are going to make it harder for the average American family to make ends meet.
00:13:19.420 May I ask you a question?
00:13:22.720 First of all, we are doing sit downs with each candidate.
00:13:27.180 You've already done one, but as governor, not as a candidate.
00:13:29.980 Will you sit down and just talk about your policies with me?
00:13:35.740 Oh, yeah, of course.
00:13:36.920 Absolutely.
00:13:37.360 Would you be for a debate or a roundtable hosted by, for instance, us that would not necessarily get the backing of the Republicans?
00:13:53.720 I think the Republican Party controls these debates so much that we keep going back to the mainstream media.
00:14:03.220 And I don't understand why.
00:14:04.200 You guys should absolutely do a debate and the RNC should sanction it.
00:14:09.440 I mean, here's the thing, Glenn, with with with corporate media.
00:14:13.380 They some will say because I say they shouldn't be involved in our process because they're they're hostile to to us as Republicans.
00:14:20.620 They have a partisan agenda, which is fine.
00:14:22.860 It's a free country.
00:14:24.120 And people say, oh, well, you just don't want them to ask Republicans tough questions.
00:14:27.820 No, their gotcha questions are not tough questions.
00:14:30.840 Their questions are designed to further a narrative.
00:14:33.320 Correct questions, though, are not illuminating to Republican primary voters because they're not one of us.
00:14:40.840 And so when you have people who live in kind of our world, you are going to be asking the tougher questions.
00:14:46.940 They're not going to be gotcha questions, but they're going to be substantive.
00:14:50.140 And they're going to require candidates to actually go beneath a talking point to talk about their vision for the country on these various issues.
00:14:58.960 And so I think you guys should do it.
00:15:01.120 You know, I'd love to be a part of it.
00:15:02.240 But I absolutely think the RNC should sanction it because you've seen what happened in 2015 or 16 with some of those debates.
00:15:10.720 It was a mockery what these what these legacy media outs are doing.
00:15:15.140 And their whole goal is to try to make the Republican candidates look as as ridiculous as possible.
00:15:23.200 Right.
00:15:23.640 They do not want us to be to look like, you know, we're serious people.
00:15:27.820 They want to be able to plow the field to get Biden reelected.
00:15:31.260 So we know that that's their agenda.
00:15:32.980 So why would you want to give them a platform to be able to be involved in our process?
00:15:38.400 I could tell you in Florida, we had four congressional seats that were open seats.
00:15:42.720 Republicans ended up winning and there were primaries in all of them.
00:15:45.300 We sanctioned debates with the state party and we had conservative journalists and moderators doing debates.
00:15:52.280 And guess what?
00:15:52.780 They were great, substantive debates.
00:15:54.500 And the issues that people actually care about in our party were discussed.
00:15:58.480 Well, I will tell you that as we took a stand for Harmeet Dillon, we didn't make any friends at the GOP national level.
00:16:05.840 But thank you so much for coming on.
00:16:08.940 Congratulations on the rollout yesterday.
00:16:11.660 We look forward to hearing more from you and all the best.
00:16:18.460 We'll definitely sit down with you.
00:16:20.260 And I'd love for all your folks out there, invest with us at RonDeSantis.com.
00:16:24.860 We'd love to have your support.
00:16:26.580 I pledge you nominate me.
00:16:28.580 We will win.
00:16:29.620 We'll go in on day one and we'll get all this done.
00:16:32.920 Very good.
00:16:33.740 Thank you very much, Governor.
00:16:35.280 God bless.
00:16:35.860 Thanks.
00:16:36.360 God bless.
00:16:37.100 This is the best of the Glenn Beck program.
00:16:39.020 And don't forget, rate us on iTunes.
00:16:42.660 Spencer, how are you, sir?
00:16:45.260 Glenn, I'm doing so well.
00:16:46.820 It's great to be here.
00:16:48.020 I was listening to you talk about me before the break.
00:16:50.500 I was thinking, who's this guy he's talking about?
00:16:53.680 Terrifying.
00:16:54.580 I promise I'm not that scary.
00:16:56.480 I know we've met before, haven't we?
00:16:58.760 We met at your dad's house, dad and mom's house.
00:17:01.720 That's right.
00:17:02.380 Yeah.
00:17:02.500 That's right.
00:17:02.860 Years ago, and I remember thinking, boy, these parents of this man, they are amazing.
00:17:13.060 And now reading your book, I have to tell you, I love your father.
00:17:17.720 I love him to death.
00:17:19.460 He has got to be just beaming with what you have written.
00:17:25.500 This is brilliant, Spencer.
00:17:27.220 Really is.
00:17:28.700 I'm very touched by that.
00:17:30.280 Thank you.
00:17:30.620 I was extremely lucky in both of my parents, my mom and my dad.
00:17:34.800 My father, of course, disavows all ownership over me.
00:17:37.740 And we like to joke that we're not related to one another.
00:17:40.200 But no, I learned a great deal of what I know from him.
00:17:45.180 And in part, I wrote this book out of the love that he instilled in me of great literature
00:17:50.940 and of Western sense.
00:17:51.940 So let's talk about it.
00:17:55.200 You break up the saving of the West into five different categories.
00:18:01.720 The crisis of reality, the crisis of body, the crisis of meaning, the crisis of religion,
00:18:07.420 and the crisis of regime.
00:18:09.440 You start with reality, and it's just so spot on.
00:18:16.620 Can you take us there first?
00:18:19.000 Absolutely.
00:18:19.700 Yeah.
00:18:19.900 Let me say a little bit for a second about what I mean by the word crisis, because I
00:18:24.280 think that's one of the most overused words in the world.
00:18:27.380 You know, you wake up every morning and there's a supply chain crisis and a COVID crisis and
00:18:31.860 any number of other things.
00:18:33.180 And, you know, of course, many of those things are quite serious and troublesome.
00:18:37.060 But when I use the word crisis, I'm drawing on this Greek idea, which is where the word
00:18:42.540 comes from.
00:18:43.600 The Greek verb krino means to judge or to make a decision.
00:18:47.620 And so a crisis is a time for choosing.
00:18:51.560 It's a moment of being presented with two fundamentally unreconcilable ways of looking
00:18:57.360 at the world.
00:18:58.160 And so let me hang out just a second.
00:19:00.360 Let me just say to the audience, the whole book is like that.
00:19:03.540 And it's fantastic.
00:19:05.360 Anyway, go ahead.
00:19:07.420 That's here I am.
00:19:09.500 This is my jam.
00:19:10.200 No, I absolutely.
00:19:12.940 I mean, you know, this once you start to see this, the reason that the book is is written
00:19:17.800 this way is that once you start to see this, you understand that underneath the kind of
00:19:21.940 daily news cycle stories that we're constantly inundated with, they all feel kind of confusing
00:19:27.020 and disorienting.
00:19:27.980 But that's because we haven't really connected ourselves to the deeper questions that are
00:19:32.580 at stake behind some of these things.
00:19:34.820 You know, you hear about things like the metaverse and virtual reality, which is how the book
00:19:38.840 starts.
00:19:39.580 Or you hear about, you know, all this new kind of tech and the strange things that are happening.
00:19:44.240 And what this stuff is really doing is it's forcing us to grapple with some of the most
00:19:49.300 fundamental questions that humankind has ever wrestled with.
00:19:52.720 And weirdly, that's kind of good news because it means we're not alone.
00:19:57.260 It means that the, you know, the greatest minds that have ever lived have wrestled and
00:20:00.720 thought with this stuff.
00:20:01.620 We don't have to face it just based on what the CDC or the WF says tomorrow or Dr. Fauci
00:20:07.160 comes up with five minutes ago.
00:20:08.680 We actually have resources for dealing with this.
00:20:11.040 And the very first question that we are up against, whenever we start to think about
00:20:15.760 these profound questions, is the crisis of reality.
00:20:18.140 And that's, is there anything that is absolutely true and absolutely false, no matter who says
00:20:23.480 otherwise?
00:20:24.600 Or is it all just kind of my truth, your truth, and that's sort of how we feel about it?
00:20:29.760 And this is one of the most ancient questions in philosophy.
00:20:31.840 It's how the book begins, because I think it's the first question you have to answer before
00:20:35.080 you can proceed in any sort of meaningful direction.
00:20:37.320 So can you, I mean, you lay out the case so well, can you give a two-minute version of
00:20:45.360 reality and the collapse of reality and what we're really, we should be asking ourselves?
00:20:53.660 Yeah, absolutely.
00:20:54.760 So from the very beginning of Western thought, there has been this temptation to say, well,
00:21:02.040 how can we really know anything that's true or false?
00:21:04.740 And the temptation is always that if you don't, you know, have to acknowledge reality, if
00:21:09.920 you don't have to say that a man is a man and a woman is a woman, that, you know, good
00:21:13.400 is good and wrong is wrong, then you can do all sorts of things.
00:21:17.060 You can gain all sorts of power over the world by twisting and distorting reality.
00:21:22.120 But the thing that I argue in the book is there is no halfway house on this stuff.
00:21:26.560 People think that they can say, oh, well, it's just my truth and your truth when it comes
00:21:30.980 to, you know, morality, but I want to fight for social justice and I want to believe in
00:21:36.140 the good and the virtuous.
00:21:37.600 Well, the thing about it is, if you're talking about, if you want to do anything good or virtuous,
00:21:42.520 you have to believe there's such a thing as goodness and virtue.
00:21:45.460 And that means that there actually is truth.
00:21:47.500 We can know it.
00:21:48.280 And unless we believe that, all we are is grappling for power with one another.
00:21:53.640 And that's what we're seeing right now.
00:21:55.480 So the crisis of meaning, we have lost meaning of words and of life.
00:22:02.340 Talk about that.
00:22:03.560 Yes, that's right.
00:22:05.000 Well, when you talk about meaning, you're saying that the words we use aren't just,
00:22:09.780 you know, word games.
00:22:10.820 They're not just for fun.
00:22:11.960 They're actually referring to something outside of ourself, outside of the human body, outside
00:22:17.720 of just our little, you know, minds and the way we happen to want to live our lives.
00:22:22.500 And the reason that this is so difficult for people is that if you're talking about things
00:22:26.180 that are outside of yourself, you're ultimately going to get to the thing that is highest above
00:22:30.480 you, that is most outside of you.
00:22:32.260 That's the supernatural and that's the divine.
00:22:35.280 And we've been sold this bill of goods that, you know, God and theology, this is a kind of
00:22:39.900 backwards, outdated superstition.
00:22:42.280 Nobody believes in that anymore.
00:22:43.760 And the more we do that, the blinder we become to this whole universe that is still exists.
00:22:51.180 It doesn't stop existing just because we say it's not there.
00:22:54.740 We just don't realize what we're doing.
00:22:56.880 And so we become these kind of blind worshipers of, you know, the science or BLM or whatever
00:23:02.320 we want to bend the knee to.
00:23:04.040 And we don't realize that we've just become pagan worshipers by another name.
00:23:07.640 And so to really recover a sense of meaning that won't inflame us, but will set us free,
00:23:13.220 we've got to let the divine back into our lives.
00:23:16.640 So we have just, you know, we see half the country and there's a lot of people like, for
00:23:24.260 instance, I think Elon Musk is one of these.
00:23:26.720 You have a lot of really great people who are probably more classical liberals that have
00:23:34.760 have looked at things and went, OK, wait, there's no evidence.
00:23:39.940 In fact, all the evidence goes in the opposite direction.
00:23:42.960 We got to stop this.
00:23:44.080 And they're not changing.
00:23:45.480 You know, they're not suddenly becoming conservatives.
00:23:47.060 But half of the country is just locked in on things that do not make sense.
00:23:55.460 They didn't make sense in theory.
00:23:57.060 And now we're seeing the fruits of it all across the country.
00:24:02.340 What is happening to them?
00:24:04.620 And how do we reconnect?
00:24:07.760 Well, I think that those people that you're describing who are, you know, I would say enthralled
00:24:13.580 to a kind of woke dogma.
00:24:16.360 Those people are being offered an alternative religion.
00:24:19.780 And it doesn't call itself a religion, but it has all the characteristics of a religion.
00:24:24.400 It involves begging for forgiveness.
00:24:26.920 It involves this ultimate kind of quest for apocalyptic utopia where everything is going
00:24:31.840 to come out OK and the world is going to be cleansed in a divine fire.
00:24:36.200 It has all the hallmarks of religion because people are craving, craving something that gives
00:24:41.340 meaning and direction to their lives.
00:24:43.960 And I think that as conservatives, as people that think this stuff doesn't make any sense,
00:24:48.420 we have to recognize that we're not just going to argue people out of this by, you know,
00:24:54.440 presenting them a budget sheet by saying, oh, the economy is going to go better if you
00:24:58.840 do it this way rather than that way.
00:25:00.380 What we actually have to say is the thing that you're yearning for, the meaning, the significance,
00:25:06.880 the passion that you are yearning for in this woke madness, the reality of it, the truth
00:25:12.620 of it is in the great tradition, is in the divine truths of scripture, is in the great
00:25:19.220 adventure of philosophy.
00:25:21.360 We've got to present this stuff as the joy that it is.
00:25:24.980 And that's cultural.
00:25:25.940 That's spiritual.
00:25:26.880 That's not just political.
00:25:28.620 So I think that, you know, the right and even just normal people that can see this stuff
00:25:33.040 is going terribly wrong.
00:25:34.620 We're going to have to offer a countervailing vision, a vision of the great tradition and
00:25:38.900 the great adventure that we're all on of carrying that flame forward, because that's the only
00:25:42.800 thing that can answer the real needs of the human heart.
00:25:45.780 Spencer Clavin, the name of the book is How to Save the West.
00:25:49.400 Spencer, if you don't mind, hang on for 60 seconds.
00:25:51.760 We'll come back with more with How to Save the West.
00:25:56.080 It's available wherever you buy your books.
00:25:58.780 This half hour is brought to you by Good Ranchers.
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00:26:14.540 If I have a neighbor like Stu, vegan, oh, I put my grill right at the fence, right at
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00:26:21.780 I'm not for him, but for everybody else in the family that he is depriving.
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00:26:27.560 I grill all the time.
00:26:28.540 I'm not vegan.
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00:27:48.120 Spencer, you're my favorite kind of intellectual.
00:28:02.300 You don't lord it over anybody's head.
00:28:04.240 And even though there is one sentence in your book that I think has three words that I've never heard of before, I still, I get it.
00:28:16.140 You're not talking over people's heads.
00:28:18.940 You get it.
00:28:20.700 And I just, you know, go ahead.
00:28:23.420 I actually did not go to grad school for the purposes of feeling better than everybody else.
00:28:27.200 I think that puts me in a vanishingly small minority.
00:28:29.740 Yeah, it does.
00:28:30.800 Yeah, it does.
00:28:32.080 It does.
00:28:32.560 You're not spouting knowledge to show everybody how smart you are.
00:28:38.120 You are connecting the dots and telling stories that, you know, most of us haven't learned or we learned a little bit and forgot and you've thought deeply about them.
00:28:48.780 And we are at a time.
00:28:50.040 I've been saying this forever.
00:28:51.480 However, we have to define what life is because AI is coming and people will say that's alive.
00:29:01.260 So what do you do?
00:29:03.580 But if it's alive, are you a slave owner by keeping it and we're having it work for you for free?
00:29:10.860 Should it vote if it's alive?
00:29:12.260 I mean, we are going to have to re-answer all of the most basic questions.
00:29:20.200 And I think that's what your book gets to.
00:29:22.920 That's absolutely right.
00:29:24.220 Thank you.
00:29:24.700 Yeah, well, it speaks actually to what you were saying about not lording, you know, the great books or the canon over people.
00:29:33.440 That's incredibly important to me.
00:29:35.780 That's, you know, really personal from my perspective, because these things, these books that sit up on the shelf and we kind of think of them as, you know, big, scary words, Plato's Republic, Aristotle's Nicomachean Ethics, you know, we treat them as if they're beyond us or even maybe they're kind of, you know, outdated or they're not worth reading.
00:29:53.980 And we've been told this by our kind of cultural legislators, by the people that said, hey, hey, ho, ho, Western Civ has got to go.
00:30:00.940 And for me, growing up in a house filled with these books, one thing I really quickly realized is that these great minds are not there to intimidate us.
00:30:10.860 They're actually our greatest friends in the world.
00:30:13.620 They're there to teach us about what it means to be human and how to be good at being human.
00:30:18.700 And that's not something for eggheads like me to specialize in.
00:30:22.280 That's something for everybody to care deeply about.
00:30:25.380 We all do.
00:30:26.020 And so when you crack open a book like that, you'll find so much more sanity and common sense than you will from our kind of modern gurus on a lot of this.
00:30:34.360 And what's amazing is you you find that you are not alone.
00:30:39.740 That I mean, I remember when I first I had to be 30 when I first started writing reading Plato.
00:30:45.240 I mean, really reading it to learn something.
00:30:48.440 And I was shocked at how relevant it was.
00:30:53.320 It was like, oh, my gosh, I'm struggling with that now.
00:30:55.740 Oh, my gosh, I understand that problem.
00:30:58.460 And we we we lose that because our history has been so poorly taught that we we think these things are just incredibly boring.
00:31:09.020 But the answers are all there because these are eternal truths or at least the search for an eternal truth.
00:31:15.900 You say save save the West.
00:31:22.360 And we are looking at a time where it looks like America could, I mean, just go down at any time.
00:31:30.040 Is there is there is there anything about this time that gives you hope that you're seeing that we are different than the past or is it kind of inevitable?
00:31:45.320 You know, this is one of those questions that I have wrestled with myself.
00:31:51.960 And I know probably everybody listening to us right now is worried about this very thing.
00:31:57.160 What's going to happen to us?
00:31:58.280 And a lot of the times this gets framed in terms of like, are you an optimist or are you a pessimist?
00:32:03.240 Right. Do you think everything is going to go great or everything is going to go poorly?
00:32:06.220 And one thing I've realized is that both optimism and pessimism are kind of mistakes because they're predictions about the future.
00:32:14.780 If you're an optimist, you think everything is going to go well.
00:32:16.440 Maybe you don't work hard to preserve the great tradition.
00:32:19.620 If you're a pessimist, you think it's going to go badly.
00:32:21.360 Why would you do anything?
00:32:22.640 And so my question always is, where do you put your hope?
00:32:26.840 Where does your hope lie?
00:32:28.260 Because hope is a virtue.
00:32:29.620 It's actually one of the central Christian virtues.
00:32:32.460 And my hope is in this tradition that I am delivering, which has endured both the rising and the falling of great nations.
00:32:40.660 It doesn't matter.
00:32:41.260 It's a matter of indifference.
00:32:42.840 What what doesn't mean it's a matter of indifference what happens in our politics.
00:32:45.920 It just means that the things of the world, which are beyond our control, are going to transpire, you know, whether we choose them or not.
00:32:55.640 That's how it works.
00:32:56.500 What's in our control is the preservation of the Western tradition, of virtue, of the small, human-sized, face-to-face practice of courage, integrity, reason, prudence.
00:33:10.060 These sorts of things, which people like Plato talk about, they take place at the dinner table.
00:33:14.180 They take place in neighborhoods.
00:33:15.680 They take place in schools.
00:33:16.860 And that's why we're seeing so much energy in these local communities, even as everything seems to be going terribly wrong on the world stage.
00:33:25.020 The more people invest in their states, in their towns, in their families, in their churches, the more we start to see that actually, you know, the West is not some grand narrative that's outside of our understanding or control.
00:33:39.460 The West is us.
00:33:40.780 You're the West.
00:33:41.380 I have to thank you.
00:33:42.980 Please tell your father he should have laid claim to you and then tell your mother she did a great job of raising you.
00:33:49.920 It's fantastic.
00:33:51.200 I'll pass that on.
00:33:51.760 Fantastic.
00:33:52.500 Thank you.
00:33:52.900 How to save the West.
00:33:55.400 You want real answers?
00:33:57.200 Really well-thought-out answers?
00:33:59.200 How to save the West.
00:34:00.960 Available everywhere.
00:34:01.880 You're listening to the best of the Glenn Beck Program.
00:34:04.600 I want you to hear from CNN the corporate cost of culture wars.
00:34:13.320 They're asking, should businesses back away from this because what happened to Bud Light and what's currently going on with Target?
00:34:20.020 Listen to the analysis.
00:34:21.960 What advice could you give companies that sort of get swept up in this?
00:34:26.760 Well, the issue is who are you beholden to?
00:34:32.920 Are you beholden?
00:34:33.800 You're beholden to many different stakeholders, but in particular, you're beholden to your investors.
00:34:40.900 And investors are not showing, are not pulled back from looking at how companies.
00:34:47.780 There's a lot more on this, but let me just, let me stop it there.
00:34:51.000 You're beholden to many stakeholders.
00:34:53.100 Okay, that's ESG talk.
00:34:56.300 And you're really, you have to answer to the shareholders.
00:35:00.180 So who are the shareholders of Target?
00:35:03.060 You ready?
00:35:04.800 Vanguard with 9%.
00:35:07.720 BlackRock, 9%.
00:35:10.480 State Street, 8%.
00:35:13.280 Then another Vanguard fund with 3%.
00:35:17.480 Then Wells Fargo.
00:35:19.140 Then Bank of America.
00:35:20.620 Then another Vanguard 500 index fund.
00:35:24.040 They're only talking about 12 people.
00:35:26.800 You've got maybe 12 people that are really diehard into ESG at the top of these companies.
00:35:33.220 And they're the ones telling these companies, you do this.
00:35:39.100 Good luck with that, Target.
00:35:41.700 Allie Stuckey is with me now from Blaze TV.
00:35:45.260 Hi, Allie.
00:35:46.360 How are you?
00:35:46.720 But I know you've been all over this, and it has been shocking.
00:35:53.720 I walked into Target last Friday, and I didn't know if it had been going on.
00:35:59.040 Apparently, it had just gone up.
00:36:00.540 And I looked at my wife, and I said, we are not shopping here.
00:36:04.020 Yeah.
00:36:04.280 This is way over the line.
00:36:07.600 Right, right.
00:36:08.440 And apparently, I wasn't alone with that.
00:36:10.600 Yeah, you know, some people started boycotting a long time ago.
00:36:13.220 I started boycotting a year ago, so I was even kind of late to the game.
00:36:17.580 In some ways, some people were boycotting when they were allowing men into women's restrooms,
00:36:21.760 which they were ahead of the game on that.
00:36:23.760 But I started boycotting last year when I saw that they were selling, in the name of Pride Month,
00:36:28.100 these compression tops, which they're selling again this year,
00:36:31.120 for young girls who want to pretend to be boys, to look like boys.
00:36:34.920 And I just thought, there's really no more wicked message than that, that your body is bad,
00:36:39.560 that God made a mistake with you, and we will help you cover up the body that God gave you,
00:36:44.600 so that you can pretend to be something else.
00:36:46.840 Like, how self-loathing is that?
00:36:48.660 And then now, as you've already talked about, they have the same thing for boys,
00:36:51.580 with the tucking swimsuits and all that.
00:36:53.260 And I just said, you know what?
00:36:54.580 I don't boycott everything.
00:36:56.120 I don't divest from every corporation that doesn't agree with all my values,
00:36:59.820 but I'm already spending too much money at Target.
00:37:01.700 Those Target runs end up, you know, racking the bill with things that you don't really need.
00:37:06.220 And I can't spend that much money on a company that is directly opposing everything that I am fighting for.
00:37:12.800 So I know it sounds difficult, but I stopped shopping there a year ago, and I haven't looked back.
00:37:18.260 I have to tell you, I think if this becomes a Bud Light thing, the entire thing begins to fall apart.
00:37:27.420 Because Bud Light expected a hit and then turn it around.
00:37:33.680 But if people start to look at Target, like I now look at Target, and go, you are an enemy to my family.
00:37:40.580 Yes.
00:37:41.720 Then things begin to change.
00:37:43.640 When somebody walks into the kitchen with a Target bag, and somebody else says, you shopped at Target?
00:37:50.020 Right.
00:37:50.700 That's when it's over.
00:37:52.080 Yep, absolutely.
00:37:52.960 And they just took it a step too far, even for the people who are like, okay, I can tolerate the rainbows.
00:37:58.880 That's fine.
00:37:59.500 It's one segment, whatever.
00:38:01.420 But when you're talking about bathing suits meant to cover up male genitalia for pretty young boys, it looks like, depending on, you know, the product that you're looking at.
00:38:12.280 I mean, really, if you're associating with that.
00:38:15.040 And I just want to say, because it's really suburban women, suburban moms that are propping up Target.
00:38:19.520 And I would say a lot of Christian women, a lot of women go there specifically for Chip and Joanna's Magnolia line.
00:38:26.080 That's another one people should be writing to Chip and Joanna and saying, are you seeing what's going on?
00:38:33.080 How can you remain silent with a partner that is doing this?
00:38:38.500 I mean, I know they have contracts and it's something you walk away from, but you should at least speak out.
00:38:45.960 Right.
00:38:46.300 And, you know, it's not like they don't speak out about other things.
00:38:49.880 Because a few years ago, after the whole George Floyd debacle, they did make statements about, you know, the dangers of racism and white supremacy and doing better and doing the work.
00:38:59.180 So they're okay with speaking out about some social justice issues.
00:39:02.460 But guys, you have represented yourself as strong Christians, as defenders of the Christian faith.
00:39:08.060 And family.
00:39:08.820 And family.
00:39:10.000 And so at this point, I do think that their silence is strange.
00:39:13.920 Yeah.
00:39:14.540 So do you think this is something that we've seen the biggest part of?
00:39:20.380 Or do you think this becomes a Bud Light thing?
00:39:22.760 I think that as long as those of us who have a microphone or anyone who has influence, whether it's small or large, continues this, continues to double down.
00:39:30.800 Don't take their little statements, their moving the segments to other parts of the store as, oh, we won.
00:39:37.180 No, you double down.
00:39:38.320 I'm asking people, at least for the month of June, and I know some people think that they are totally dependent on Target, and that's another conversation for another day.
00:39:45.900 At least for the month of June, women, Christian women, suburban moms, do not shop at Target.
00:39:51.260 At least for the month of June.
00:39:53.060 I think that can make a difference.
00:39:54.700 I will tell you, they will wait it out, but Bud Light is now six weeks into it.
00:40:03.380 Is that right?
00:40:03.820 Six, seven weeks?
00:40:04.600 Yes.
00:40:04.940 Six weeks?
00:40:05.580 And they're down 30% or 29% now.
00:40:08.760 And they're freaking out now.
00:40:10.640 They expect us, because we don't do this, they expect us just to go along.
00:40:17.260 And I think we've hit a turning point in all of this, to where people with Bud Light, it doesn't make sense that we didn't do anything about Nike.
00:40:31.720 And yet, here comes Bud Light, and all of a sudden, there's something that has happened in the minds of Americans.
00:40:38.500 And I'm hoping that this is the next shoot-a-fall, because if it happens to Target and Bud Light, the number one beer in America, it happens to those two, it will put all corporations on notice, something's changed, they're not going to take it.
00:40:59.040 Look, the idea of boys being able to become girls and vice versa, and all of the bodily mutilation that we've seen come from that, whether you consider yourself an independent or whether you're a Christian or not, that's just too far for people.
00:41:12.360 I mean, obviously, as a Christian, I'm for traditional marriage and all of that.
00:41:15.440 But even just for the non-religious, non-conservative person, the idea of a little boy being told to talk is just too far.
00:41:23.660 It's insanity, and I think that's why.
00:41:25.900 I think that's why it's changed to this year.
00:41:27.980 I think that's why there's more vitriol, and because there's a lot of disgust and a lot of depravity that people don't want to be a part of.
00:41:35.180 It's evil.
00:41:36.760 It's evil.
00:41:37.820 And it is a slap against the face of every woman, every girl to bind.
00:41:46.400 Would anyone go to a place that's like, hey, women, you should bind your feet like they used to in China?
00:41:54.980 Right.
00:41:55.240 No, we know that's horrible.
00:41:57.980 You now want to bind women's breasts?
00:42:01.980 This is so far over the line.
00:42:06.460 And then on top of it, the fact that they are doing business with a designer who is a Satanist and has no problem saying it.
00:42:17.020 And some of his designs are like, what was it?
00:42:20.700 Satan.
00:42:21.660 Satan respects pronouns.
00:42:23.240 Yeah.
00:42:23.700 Also murderous things of like, time's up for homophobes or a homophobe headrest, which was actually a picture of a guillotine.
00:42:30.700 Yeah.
00:42:30.840 So, I mean, this is a murderous person that the people at Target were like, yes, we want to partner with you.
00:42:36.860 I can't believe how deeply it goes because that's not that's not just a corporate decision to say, hey, let's get into the LGBTQ because of the the S in ESG.
00:42:49.760 No, no, no.
00:42:50.480 This is a fundamental problem in Target.
00:42:54.480 If your company has now started to bring Satanists in, known Satanists, and you're selling their product that talks about Satan, you've got a deep, deep problem at the core of you.
00:43:13.000 And by ignoring it, it doesn't get better.
00:43:17.080 It will only get worse.
00:43:19.160 Guys, don't do not shop at Target.
00:43:23.900 Don't tell everybody, you know, don't.
00:43:27.180 I'm telling you, this is a big moment.
00:43:30.080 If we actually take this moment seriously and start drawing lines in the sand and saying, no, you might make all your money on Wall Street, but you will not make it from me.
00:43:45.900 You'll change the world.
00:43:47.540 You'll change the world.
00:43:48.520 So, keep the fight going.
00:43:51.980 Thank you.
00:43:52.360 You too.
00:43:52.820 You bet.