The Matt Walsh Show - Ep. 39 - What Conservatives Can Learn From The Roseanne Implosion

00:00:00.000 So let's talk about Roseanne for some reason. Roseanne, as I'm sure you've heard, has been

00:00:08.520 canceled because Roseanne, the person, went on a bizarre, deranged tweet storm that included a 1.00

00:00:15.120 racist tweet. And it was a really racist tweet. I mean, actually racist. There's a definite boy

00:00:21.980 who cried wolf thing that goes on with racist claims where everybody's accused of being racist

00:00:26.440 and everything is racist and so on and so forth. But in this case, there's a wolf. There's a real

00:00:32.900 wolf here because this was actually racist. Roseanne tweeted, this was her tweet,

00:00:38.400 Muslim Brotherhood and Planet of the Apes had a baby, VJ, as in VJ was the baby. And VJ refers to 0.60

00:00:45.980 Valerie Jarrett, who's Obama's former White House advisor, and she's a black woman. Now, some 0.86

00:00:53.000 conservatives on Twitter have really embarrassed themselves by trying to defend Roseanne on the

00:00:59.540 basis that Valerie Jarrett is not actually black. And so it's not racist to say she's from Planet 0.54

00:01:04.040 of the Apes, but she is definitely actually black. And I mean, I've even seen, I've seen people

00:01:11.240 passing around photos of Valerie Jarrett where she, where her skin has been lightened in the photo

00:01:17.600 through Photoshop in order to defend Roseanne. I mean, this is just, it's really pathetic. 0.98

00:01:24.620 She's not only is she a black woman, but she's clearly black. There's not, it's, I, I'm no Rose, 0.99

00:01:30.360 I'm not a Valerie Jarrett biographer. Okay. Well, I know very few things about her. In fact,

00:01:36.660 what I just said is everything I know about her. I know she was a former White House advisor and she's

00:01:41.580 a black woman. And I know that she's a black woman because I've seen her. And if you do actually

00:01:46.040 investigate her, her lineage, you'll find that both of her parents were black. So she's, and in fact,

00:01:51.840 she apparently even has her maternal grandfather was a prominent black architect or something like

00:01:58.060 that, I believe. So she's, she's definitely black and no way around it. Roseanne said that, 1.00

00:02:03.600 and she's obviously black and Roseanne said she's from Planet of the Apes. And she was also now to put 0.99

00:02:08.180 this in fully in context, Valerie Jarrett was also born in Iran. So you've got a black woman born in

00:02:15.620 Iran and Roseanne says that she's the love child of the Muslim Brotherhood and Planet of the Apes. 0.98

00:02:22.140 That is super, super hyper racism on steroids. That's, that is the, if that's not a racist comment,

00:02:30.600 then it is impossible to make a racist comment. Racist comments don't exist. If that is not a

00:02:36.220 racist comment, I don't know how else to put it. There's no justifying that there's no claiming it's

00:02:41.800 not racist. It is. Okay. And it's not, this is one thing people are not playing a gotcha game with

00:02:50.360 Roseanne where they're jumping on some innocent comment and trying to make it. No, this is, she

00:02:55.780 said that a black woman's from Planet of the Apes. And so, you know, just don't say that it's a really

00:03:02.320 easy thing to not say, right? Most of us can go through our whole lives and never say that a black

00:03:07.380 person's from Planet of the Apes. It's a really easy thing to not say. And if you don't think it,

00:03:12.900 if you don't think that way, then you probably would never say it. And especially should be easy

00:03:17.300 as for, for Roseanne as a, whatever, 65 year old wealthy multimillionaire prominent woman who's 1.00

00:03:24.120 getting paid millions of dollars from ABC to do a show. I think ABC expects her to not go on a public

00:03:31.380 forum and say racist stuff. And that's not a, that's a, that's a pretty reasonable expectation.

00:03:37.400 Just don't do that. Don't say that. Why would you say that? You've got hundreds of people that

00:03:42.140 are reliant on you for a job. Think about all the people that work on Roseanne and now they're out of

00:03:46.100 a job, not because of ABC, but because of Roseanne, because she's mentally unbalanced and selfish. 1.00

00:03:51.860 And so she can't control herself. You know, this is her fault. 100%. The firing makes a lot of sense. 0.94

00:03:58.400 I'm sorry, guys. This is not a, uh, it's not a free speech issue. Roseanne is not a martyr. Okay.

00:04:03.720 She's not being persecuted. She brought this entirely on herself. 100%. Roseanne, because she's

00:04:10.200 loony, put her employers in a position where they had to choose. This is, this is the position that

00:04:16.700 her employers were in. They had to choose between defending slash minimizing her statements, comparing

00:04:21.980 a black woman to the planet of the apes. On one hand, they could do that. And this is a major company 0.97

00:04:28.100 in the year 2018, reliant on sponsors and advertisers. And so they're thinking they can

00:04:33.600 get in that corner. Okay. And try to make that argument to die on that hill, or they could

00:04:39.180 just fire her. And they chose the latter. And you know something that's a perfectly sensible 1.00

00:04:45.520 thing to do. And I'll tell you this, if it were my employee and I'm paying them millions

00:04:50.760 of dollars and then they go on a public forum and say crap like that, I would definitely fire 0.98

00:04:56.540 them. I wouldn't even have to think about it. Of course you're going to fire them. It's 0.99

00:05:01.440 not my responsibility as an employer to defend you on that. It's your responsibility as someone

00:05:06.720 getting paid millions of dollars by me to not embarrass me like that and to not cause

00:05:12.180 a PR nightmare where I could lose millions of dollars. It's your responsibility to not do

00:05:17.400 that. And you couldn't even fulfill it. So get out of here. You're done. Any sensible business

00:05:24.660 person will make the same decision. And I know you're going to say, well, she millions of people

00:05:28.400 are watching her show. She's got a great, you know what? They're going to find another show

00:05:32.120 that's going to do fine. And most of the people that are saying they're going to boycott ABC and

00:05:35.440 Disney, they won't do it. They just won't. You know, if there's another show, most of the people

00:05:40.240 right now say, I'm done with ABC. If Roseanne's not on ABC. Yeah. You know what? If ABC has a show

00:05:45.960 next week announces a new show and you think it's interesting, you'll watch it. Everybody's going to

00:05:50.020 just watch, you know, people just, if people want to watch something, they're going to watch it. It

00:05:53.680 doesn't matter now. And, and, and by the way, just, just to say one thing, I think this is

00:05:59.580 important. It would be different. I think it would be different if let's say Roseanne had made a comment 0.96

00:06:07.240 like this a long time ago, she'd made a joke like this. And, um, somebody went on a dirt digging

00:06:14.740 expedition and dug this up to try to destroy her. And they, you know, went sifting through

00:06:20.840 and they went through the effort to go find this thing from a long time ago and use it against her.

00:06:27.220 And let's say that were to happen. And then this is brought to the forefront and Roseanne's

00:06:31.640 embarrassed and she apologizes and she says, yeah, that was a long time ago. I regret it. You know,

00:06:36.420 I made jokes like that. I've grown since then. I'm not that kind of person anymore. I'm, you know,

00:06:40.460 I'm an old, I'm a 65 year old woman now. Um, this is, that's not who I am anymore. If that's

00:06:46.500 how it had gone, then I would probably be on Roseanne's side. I would say, look, you know,

00:06:51.400 you can't, people make mistakes. It was a long time ago. And, uh, she, she's moved on since then.

00:06:57.840 She's grown. So no, I don't think you should take her past sins and hang them around her neck,

00:07:03.000 but that's not what happened. This is something she just said yesterday publicly in front of everybody.

00:07:10.460 And she's, and she's making excuses for it now. Now she says that she was on Ambien and that's

00:07:16.140 why she said it. So she has not taken, she said it publicly yesterday and, um, she won't even take

00:07:23.120 ownership of it. She refuses to take ownership. She's saying that she was on Ambien and that's

00:07:26.300 her excuse. So, you know, what can you do? Um, this is, you have no choice, but to just fire her.

00:07:32.460 Now, I think this story serves or should serve anyway, as a cautionary tale for conservatives

00:07:40.880 and to understand why let's back up for a moment. Okay. Let's back up to the,

00:07:47.340 let's, let's go back to the nineties. Okay. To understand, to get the full picture in the full

00:07:52.200 context. So in the nineties, Roseanne was one of the most left-wing sitcoms in the history of American

00:08:00.420 television, if not probably the most left-wing. In fact, um, at the time it promoted abortion,

00:08:07.480 it promoted gay marriage. It was blatant in its agenda and ahead of its time in that regard. 1.00

00:08:15.640 Now it's not so unusual to find shows that promote those things, of course, but, uh, back then it was

00:08:22.120 unusual. So Roseanne was not, uh, not only a leftist sitcom, but it was a radically leftist sitcom

00:08:30.180 and it was ahead of the curve in terms of its leftism. So that's the show. Then it ends

00:08:37.260 and Roseanne, the person goes on to become a far left political activist. She runs for president as 0.76

00:08:42.980 a socialist. She's an avowed socialist. She champions left-wing causes. Um, she was so mad 1.00

00:08:50.040 at Chick-fil-A because it's CEO supports traditional marriage that she tweeted a few years ago. And I

00:08:57.080 quote anyone, anyone who eats crap filet. Well, she didn't use crap. She used the S word. So anyone 0.99

00:09:04.380 who eats Chick-fil-A deserves to get cancer. Anyone who eats Chick-fil-A is deserves to get the cancer 0.99

00:09:12.280 that is sure to come from eating antibiotic filled tortured chickens for Christ. So she tweeted 0.82

00:09:19.420 just to recap there. Okay. Uh, she tweeted that, that the Christian conservatives who eat Chick-fil-A

00:09:26.500 deserve to get cancer. And then when she was criticized for this, she lashed out at the Christian 0.98

00:09:33.460 liars who were attacking her. She never actually apologized for the tweet. And in fact, what she 0.88

00:09:38.720 did is she backtracked and she made an excuse and she later claimed, okay, she later claimed that she,

00:09:44.340 she wasn't saying that anyone deserves to get cancer. What she was trying to do was she was

00:09:49.140 trying to warn us of the, um, of the, the negative health effects of eating fast food. She was trying

00:09:55.520 to warn us of the health impact of eating fast food. That's what she was claiming that tweet was

00:09:59.320 about. So she has a pattern of not only saying vile, disgusting things, but of refusing to take 1.00

00:10:05.400 ownership of them and refusing to have the moral courage to own them and to apologize for them. 0.98

00:10:09.640 And instead coming up with lame, ridiculous, uh, excuses, the kind of excuses that a 12 year old 0.96

00:10:14.820 would come up with. That's the pattern of behavior for Roseanne that goes back years. 0.99

00:10:19.120 And then there's a few years of this kind of, so just remember, by the way, um, if you're a Christian

00:10:23.780 conservative and you, and you like Chick-fil-A, you support traditional, traditional marriage,

00:10:27.660 and you also love Roseanne. Just remember that she wants you to get cancer. That's what she said.

00:10:33.020 So she thinks you should get cancer. That's her opinion about you. So I don't know. I mean, 0.86

00:10:38.880 that maybe is a relevant point. A few years of this stuff continues. And then during the 2016 campaign,

00:10:45.900 Roseanne randomly says that she likes Trump of all the things that she's rambling about

00:10:51.220 nonsensically. That's one of the things that she happens to say, although her left-wing

00:10:56.820 convictions still remain intact, she likes Trump. And suddenly this woman who has spent a career 0.91

00:11:06.100 spewing far left lunacy all over the place and promoting and mainstreaming far left ideas,

00:11:16.240 this woman who has wished cancer on Christian conservatives now becomes a hero of conservatives 0.97

00:11:23.460 simply because she likes Trump. And then the new show was announced. And in the first episode of

00:11:31.080 the new show, there's a storyline involving a cross-dressing nine-year-old. So there's no, 0.95

00:11:37.800 it's not like she has a change. She's had a change of heart and she's changed and she's grown and the

00:11:42.040 show is going to be different now and everything. And, and this, what used to be a far left show is now

00:11:46.760 going to be a conservative family value show. No, it's still far left. It is still actually ahead

00:11:52.440 of its time and it's far leftness. Cross-dressing nine-year-olds on a family sitcom is still unusual. 0.79

00:12:00.060 So again, Roseanne is ahead of the curve on, on, on the leftism, but still conservatives,

00:12:07.040 some of them anyway, champion this show in spite of the gross perverted sexualization of children, 0.91

00:12:14.780 all because Roseanne likes Trump. That's it. That's all it takes. Every, nothing else matters. 0.51

00:12:24.260 She just likes Trump. And some of the people that have this attitude, they said, well, I've forgiven

00:12:28.560 Roseanne. It's, it's forgiveness. No, it's not forgiveness. If she didn't like Trump, you wouldn't

00:12:33.040 be saying any of the stuff you're saying right now. Be honest. Don't tell me it's because you've

00:12:37.700 forgiven her. It's because she likes Trump. It's the only reason. If everything else stayed the same

00:12:42.780 with Roseanne, but she didn't like Trump, you'd hate her. You wouldn't be, you wouldn't be watching

00:12:47.140 the show. You wouldn't support her. It's only because of the Trump thing is that's the only

00:12:50.160 reason. That's it. So then that happens. And then Roseanne proceeds to say racist stuff. So 1.00

00:12:55.820 what did conservatives achieve by latching onto a celebrity who happened to utter one thing they

00:13:03.600 agreed with? What did conservatives achieve? Nothing. I'm afraid to say they embarrassed themselves.

00:13:10.840 That's what they achieved. They embarrassed themselves. We are embarrassed now. And somehow

00:13:17.260 you've got this far left person who says something racist. And now suddenly we have to take ownership

00:13:25.840 of that. That's our thing now when it shouldn't be. This is a far left comedian. Why is, why is this

00:13:33.320 our thing? Becomes our thing? Because for some ridiculous reason, we latched onto her.

00:13:40.060 And so we're embarrassed. And that is generally what happens when conservatives, you know, with 0.85

00:13:45.660 conservatives and their desperate, sad, pitiful celebrity infatuation. This is generally what

00:13:51.000 happens. Whenever we cling on to any famous person who says one single thing we agree with,

00:13:55.900 we end up looking stupid. And whether it's because Roseanne says something racist, 0.99

00:14:00.040 or because we invite Clint Eastwood to the Republican National Convention, and he yells at a chair 0.97

00:14:05.080 for 45 minutes, we always end up looking ridiculous. And so maybe we should stop doing this.

00:14:14.660 You know, maybe, maybe, maybe it's, we should look at a different strategy. Here's the problem.

00:14:19.020 I think we seem to believe, and I keep using the word we, I realize I, I'm talking about conservatives

00:14:25.260 generally, of which I guess I am a part, although conservatism is, is now such a meaningless term

00:14:31.260 that I, I don't even know how I can associate myself with it. But just for the sake of argument,

00:14:35.680 I'm talking about conservatism generally. So here's the problem. We seem to believe that the way to

00:14:42.540 defeat the left is to copy it. That's what we're doing. We're, we are like the pitiful little,

00:14:48.800 um, sad little, uh, little brother, you know, who, who sees his older brother and just imitate,

00:14:55.480 starts dressing like him and imitates everything he does. And so we treat the left like our older

00:15:00.040 brothers. And so we're just copying everything they do. And then pretending that we're beating

00:15:05.540 them somehow that way. You see, we beat the left by becoming them. Ha ha. You didn't see that coming,

00:15:12.760 did you? So we see that they have a bunch of celebrities on their side. And we think that

00:15:18.800 well, that means we need to get us some celebrities, but the problem is that they have

00:15:23.100 cool celebrities on their side. Okay. They have like LeBron James and we have Roseanne who isn't 0.74

00:15:30.440 even really on our side. And we have, uh, we, we have Roseanne and we have, uh, I don't know,

00:15:36.000 James Woods and one of the Baldwin brothers, I think, and Scott Baio. Okay. Those are, those are our

00:15:42.000 people. The liberals have all the cool ones. And we have, uh, this is our collection of, uh,

00:15:47.760 of misfits that we, that we've, that we've brought together. So it doesn't work. We aren't 0.99

00:15:54.720 going to beat the left at its own game. We aren't going to out celebrity them and we should stop

00:16:00.980 trying. Now it's, it's one thing. Don't confuse what I'm saying here, because if we do find a piece

00:16:07.260 of pop culture art, like a film or a television show or music or whatever, that really does effectively

00:16:15.420 convey a truthful, essential message, then we should champion it. We shouldn't go overboard.

00:16:21.940 We shouldn't become groupies, but we should support it. But Roseanne is emphatically not that show. 0.87

00:16:29.200 First of all, it's just a bad, it's a stupid show. Second, it's, it's a vehicle for left wing 0.99

00:16:36.020 values. That's what it's always been and still is or was anyway. So it's not in any way, the kind of

00:16:46.300 thing that we should be supporting. It's not, this, this is a vehicle for left wing values, not for

00:16:52.820 conservative values, whatever those are at this point. On the rare occasion that we get something

00:16:58.620 like a movie or a show that is, that is really different and champions what we might call

00:17:07.520 conservative values, quote unquote, then I think, yeah, we should support it. Just an example is my

00:17:13.540 wife and I just, a couple of nights ago, my wife and I went to see the movie, A Quiet Place, which I

00:17:19.960 think has, and, and, you know, it's been out for a while now, it's very popular movie. And I agree with

00:17:24.720 what many other people have said about the film, that even though on one level, it just seems like

00:17:29.480 your standard sci-fi horror film, it actually, I think, has some very profound and beautiful

00:17:35.640 pro-life, pro-family, pro-faith themes. And on top of that, it's just a well-done, effective,

00:17:43.980 skillfully crafted and executed film. And it's also entertaining. And so in that case, yeah, I think we go

00:17:50.760 support a movie like that. A movie that shows this family bonded together by faith, the man in this

00:17:57.540 protector role, the woman as a strong but feminine character, you know, that's something that I think

00:18:03.260 we should support. So I do think that pop culture and movies and film, they are, they are a very

00:18:08.800 powerful way to get across a message. But the problem comes when we latch on to literally any pop

00:18:17.380 culture property, that even vaguely sort of dimly echoes a few right wing talking points. That's the

00:18:25.660 problem. We just end up discrediting ourselves and we come across in the meantime, also, like we have

00:18:32.180 horrible taste, which I don't think helps our case either. But the point remains, we are not going to win

00:18:39.940 the culture with celebrity, especially not with these celebrities, okay, especially not with Roseanne.

00:18:46.000 But we won't win with celebrity regardless. Even if we had some of the cool ones, we still wouldn't,

00:18:52.060 we still wouldn't win that way. I think we win the culture. If it's going to be won at all,

00:18:58.860 we win it by being radical and firm in our convictions. We win by being authentic, genuine,

00:19:06.880 thoughtful, intelligent. We win by sticking to the truth, by being adults, okay? We don't win by

00:19:15.740 debasing ourselves, by desperately defending whatever racist crap Roseanne says. That's not 0.99

00:19:21.560 how we win. We don't win anything. We just make ourselves look ridiculous and we convince precisely

00:19:27.560 no one. What exactly is being won by rallying around Roseanne? What does that achieve at all? 0.79

00:19:37.700 What are we helping? Who are we convincing? Now, you might say, you might say, well, truth and dignity

00:19:45.160 and moral values, they haven't won yet, Matt. They're losing. So what are you talking about? You

00:19:51.320 can't win that way. Yeah, they haven't won because so few of us actually care about those things or fight

00:19:59.160 for them. That's why they haven't won because we've given up on them. We haven't even tried to

00:20:05.540 fight for them. Most of us don't even try to fight, but we've just given up. Most of the things,

00:20:12.920 when it comes to being really pro-life and pro-family and pro-marriage, most so-called

00:20:17.860 conservatives have given up on that. They don't even try to fight for it. And then they rationalize

00:20:23.860 and they reason and they say, oh, it's because it's a failure. It's not winning. Well, you haven't

00:20:29.220 even tried. Why don't you get up and fight first? Why don't you give it a shot before you tell me

00:20:35.220 it can't be done? Before you surrender, why don't you actually get up off of your butt and actually 0.99

00:20:40.140 try to fight for these things? Don't sit there and tell me that it's not working or it can't win that 0.98

00:20:46.120 way. And let me tell you something. If we have actually gotten to a point in our culture where

00:20:51.260 truth and morality and dignity can't win, well, then it's done. We're finished in that case. And

00:20:59.280 so what's the point? Then at that point, you may as well retain your own dignity for yourself and your

00:21:05.700 family. You may as well hold on to that and worry. And, you know, if everything's collapsing all around

00:21:12.620 us, then you may as well hold on to your own dignity and your own moral sense because it's all falling

00:21:20.360 apart anyway. And there's no advantage in just abandoning that at the last moment.

00:21:25.320 And we also have to ask ourselves, you know, what does it mean to win? We keep using this phrase,

00:21:32.020 winning, winning. Well, how do we win? I don't think we win by winning is not electing Republicans.

00:21:39.840 Plenty of Republicans have been elected over the last many decades, and yet the culture is still on the

00:21:44.720 trajectory that it's on. I think we win fundamentally by building a culture

00:21:49.740 culture that is grounded in objective truth, moral values, and faith, and fortified by strong

00:21:56.580 families. That's what it means to win. There's no other winning. That's winning. Whether or not that

00:22:04.140 can actually be achieved at this point, I don't know. I'm a little bit pessimistic in that regard, but

00:22:09.800 if we're going to go down, I'm going to go down swinging. I don't know about you.

00:22:14.020 But that's what it means to win. That's what we should be fighting for. And the way this ties

00:22:21.020 into Roseanne is that defending Roseanne and latching on to Roseanne and these dumb celebrities, 0.98

00:22:26.520 that doesn't help advance that cause at all. In fact, it undermines it. It hugely undermines it. 0.97

00:22:34.860 Especially when you're latching on to celebrities who for the last many, many, many years of their

00:22:40.120 career have only been contributing to the cultural decay, which is what Roseanne has spent her entire 1.00

00:22:46.800 career doing and is still doing. She is a part of the problem. So pray for her. Yes. But don't stand

00:23:01.120 in her corner. All right. And there's, you know, look, there's better shows out there anyway. There

00:23:06.540 aren't a lot of good shows, but there are a few decent ones. So maybe watch one of those. And

00:23:11.900 if there's ever a time when we turn on the TV and there are no good shows and it's just a bunch of

00:23:16.960 trash, well, then we could turn the TV off and read a book. You know, that's, that's also an option.

00:23:20.880 I think a very worthwhile option as well. So thanks for watching. Thanks for listening, everybody.

00:23:24.940 Godspeed.

The Matt Walsh Show - May 30, 2018

Ep. 39 - What Conservatives Can Learn From The Roseanne Implosion

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