The Matt Walsh Show - Ep. 414 - CNN Makes Campaign Ad For Trump

00:00:00.000 Welcome to the show. You know, we spend a lot of time in this culture, a lot of time and energy

00:00:05.320 supposedly exposing, attacking, weeding out forms of bigotry. And this zealousness to get rid of

00:00:13.840 bigotry could be a good thing, even an overzealousness, even an overzealousness that

00:00:19.260 leads to sometimes to calling something bigotry, even when it isn't bigotry. That could be a price

00:00:25.780 worth paying, except that the problem is our crusade against bigotry is, of course, rather 0.96

00:00:31.800 selective and inconsistent and self-contradictory and hypocritical. And what we discover in the end

00:00:40.240 is that we're no different than any culture in the past. All cultures have had their accepted

00:00:46.060 bigotries and their unaccepted bigotries. There are acceptable bigotries and unacceptable, and that's

00:00:52.260 the same for us. Now, to root out and reject all bigotry, that would be novel. That would be unique.

00:01:00.840 That would be progress. And as I said, maybe even a price, maybe even worth the price of overzealousness,

00:01:10.100 but that's not our situation. We have simply chosen different bigotries as acceptable and different ones

00:01:17.360 as unacceptable. So it was a lateral move, not a progression. And when I say we, of course, I mean

00:01:22.320 the powerful forces in our culture, not you and me necessarily, but media, academia, Hollywood,

00:01:28.000 government, and so on, which brings us to a perfect example of acceptable bigotry in our culture today.

00:01:34.560 This example provided to you by CNN, an alleged news network. I'll just play the clip for you if you

00:01:41.040 haven't seen it yet. Here is Don Lemon with two other guys laughing at and mocking millions of

00:01:48.920 working class Americans. Watch this. He also knows deep in his heart that Donald Trump couldn't find

00:01:54.260 Ukraine on a map if you had the letter U and a picture of an actual physical crane next to it.

00:01:59.440 He knows that this is, you know, an administration defined by ignorance of the world. And so that's

00:02:05.820 partly him playing to their base and playing to their audience. Uh, you know, the, the, the credulous

00:02:11.220 boomer Rube demo that backs Donald Trump, um, that, that wants to think that, that, that Donald Trump's

00:02:17.360 a smart one in there. Oh, y'all, y'all elitist are dumb. You will, you elitist with your geography and 1.00

00:02:23.560 your maps and your spelling, even though my math and you're reading. Yeah. You're reading, you know,

00:02:29.800 your geography, no one, other countries, sipping your latte, all those lines on the map.

00:02:39.020 Only them elitist know where Ukraine is. Sorry. I apologize.

00:02:45.580 But it was Rick's fault. I blame Rick, but in all honesty, but I blame Rick.

00:02:55.840 Why not? Sorry. Hold on. Wait, wait, wait. Can I tell you a second? Hold on. Hold on. Hold on.

00:02:59.980 Sorry. No, it's good. Sorry. Rick, that was a good one. I needed that. Okay. So listen,

00:03:07.140 let's get back to business here. Okay. First of all, my first problem is that it's not funny.

00:03:14.540 The worst, the worst sin that any joke can commit is, is failing to be funny. And if it's, if,

00:03:20.780 if a joke succeeds in being funny, then it's redeemed itself, no matter the content of the joke,

00:03:25.360 really. Uh, but it's not funny. And the reason why it's not funny is that being funny. Isn't the

00:03:30.960 point when, when Don Lemon is cackling like a slap happy drunk and says, Oh, I needed that.

00:03:37.880 What he needed was an excuse to mock people. He hates. That was the delight, the delight in that 0.93

00:03:44.520 quote humor for him and for the other people on camera is just, it was an outlet, a way of venting

00:03:51.160 hatred for this group of people. That's all. Uh, it wasn't the humor that, that anyone needed,

00:03:58.060 uh, because there wasn't any humor there. There was no wit or anything like that. This was just

00:04:03.320 sheer mockery, mockery out of spite and hate. And that kind of mockery is never funny. Not because

00:04:09.400 it's offensive, but because mock, and I'm not saying that mockery itself is never funny. Mockery can be

00:04:16.120 extremely funny. But when you're mocking people simply because you hate their guts, uh, and for

00:04:21.920 no other reason, it's not going to be funny because there needs to be some respect or at least some

00:04:26.880 kind of understanding in humor for it to be funny, for it to be actually humor. Uh, and not, not just

00:04:35.280 you, not just you ranting and raving. Now, the second thing quickly, and you're just speaking for

00:04:41.140 myself, um, I don't care at all. Just to clarify here for anyone who doesn't understand what people

00:04:46.540 are upset about. Um, and I, I think I speak for a lot of other people, but for myself anyway, I don't

00:04:54.180 care at all about the first part of this where they're making fun of Donald Trump. That doesn't

00:04:59.680 bother me, bother me. I will never be offended by insults directed at politicians. I think insulting

00:05:05.260 politicians is as American as apple pie. I think it's, uh, I think it's patriotic. I think it's our

00:05:10.580 patriotic duty to, to insult and mock politicians. I'm fine with that. I'd rather err on the side of

00:05:17.860 disrespecting politicians than err on the side of giving them too much reverence or any reverence

00:05:24.440 because we shouldn't have any reverence at all for politicians in this country. And I do think

00:05:28.760 that there are too many people on both sides of the aisle who err too much on the side of reverence.

00:05:36.200 Uh, I don't think it's a, it's not a left versus right thing. I think it's a matter of the human

00:05:39.900 condition. There are some people who are inclined to fall into cults of personality and so on. So

00:05:45.440 there are some Trump supporters like that, just like there were some Obama supporters like that.

00:05:50.080 Um, and other politicians as well have supporters like this who, who, uh, can't stand any mockery of

00:05:57.500 their guy and, and, and have again, reverence for him. I think that's a problem. And this is

00:06:03.680 one of the things that separates us from places like Iran and Saudi Arabia. In this country, you can

00:06:09.760 get on the TV and you can ruthlessly mock our politicians and powerful people and they can't do

00:06:15.120 anything to you. I think it's good for them. It's good for them to, to experience that, to be reminded

00:06:20.180 that they're just people, they're human beings, they're just bureaucrats. They're not kings. And it's

00:06:25.160 good for us to remember that about them. So that I'm fine with now to do it on an, on a supposedly

00:06:31.260 unbiased news network is embarrassing and, and, uh, and, uh, inappropriate obviously, but whatever,

00:06:40.200 I don't care. Insult, insult politicians, all you want. It's not going to offend me. The problem is it

00:06:45.520 doesn't stop there. Of course, the Trump stuff is only the first five seconds. It goes on for another

00:06:50.760 minute directed at, clearly directed specifically at white, blue collar, especially Southern people. 1.00

00:06:58.180 And the joke, the quote unquote joke is that they are dumb hicks who can't read and can't spell and 1.00

00:07:03.520 can't figure out how to use a map. That's the joke. So this is bigotry, plain and simple. 1.00

00:07:11.500 Mocking a politician, that's not bigotry. Mocking millions of, of Democrats, of, of, of Americans based on

00:07:20.240 their racial and socioeconomic demographic, that's bigotry. And we'll talk more about this in just a

00:07:27.320 second, but first a word from our friends at Vincero watches, you know, with this new year,

00:07:31.380 it's time to get started on improving yourself. No one knows that better than one of my favorite

00:07:36.140 sponsors and that's Vincero. Uh, these guys just, they know how important it is to look and feel

00:07:40.640 your best. And they're here to keep you motivated through 2020 and beyond. If you're looking to upgrade

00:07:45.580 your look, don't waste money on a cheap cookie cutter watch that doesn't get you noticed finding

00:07:50.320 a watch that's stylish, bold and built to last. The thing is it can cost a pretty penny. It can be

00:07:54.940 pretty expensive. And so a lot of times if you want to get a watch and you don't want to spend

00:07:59.620 exorbitant amounts of money, that's when you end up with the cheap, ugly cookie cutter watch. Well,

00:08:04.300 you don't need to do that. Vincero is changing the paradigm here. They believe that you deserve to

00:08:09.280 look good. No matter your budget, you deserve better than settling for something underwhelming.

00:08:13.300 So head over to vincerowatches.com slash walsh. You can check out my favorite picks,

00:08:17.520 take advantage of my special discount while you shop there as well. Remember to use Walsh,

00:08:21.900 the code Walsh while you're shopping. Vincero understands the frustrations of online shopping

00:08:26.520 and these guys get it. That's why they're making it as easy as possible for you. Um, you get free

00:08:32.040 shipping, 30 day returns, and they've also got reviews on the site. You can go and look for

00:08:36.140 yourself. The 20,000 five-star reviews should tell you, uh, you know, don't take it from me.

00:08:41.640 Don't even take it from Vincero watches themselves. Take it from the people that have bought

00:08:45.680 the product and they're going to tell you how they feel about it. And it's just rave reviews all

00:08:49.860 over the place. Um, so you don't want to pass up on this deal. Go to vincerowatches.com. That's

00:08:56.780 V-I-N-C-E-R-O watches.com forward slash Walsh and use my discount code Walsh for a discount at

00:09:03.200 checkout. Don't pay full price on these beautiful timepieces. You don't need to pay full price. Just

00:09:07.740 remember to use my code Walsh when you're there, vincerowatches.com. All right. So back to the

00:09:13.920 cackling hyenas on CNN. Um, I want you to imagine this, imagine that, imagine that exact same segment

00:09:21.040 that we, that we just played for you, except on Fox during the Obama years and directed at Obama's

00:09:29.180 urban voters. Imagine that. If, if, if, if anyone who is skeptical that this is bigotry we're dealing

00:09:37.160 with, well, imagine in that scenario, exact same thing, exact same kind of mockery, but directed at

00:09:47.000 a different politician's supporters. The outrage in that case would be nuclear in proportion and

00:09:55.840 justifiably so. I mean, the, but the left, they would go beyond that. I mean, they'd be,

00:10:01.980 they'd be calling for an FBI investigation. Probably they'd be, they'd be asking for hate

00:10:05.780 crime charges to be filed. And I'm not exaggerating, you know, I'm not exaggerating, but there's not

00:10:11.380 going to be anything close to that sort of reaction here because bigotry against white working class

00:10:16.080 people, especially in the South is totally acceptable in our culture. It's one of the last 1.00

00:10:20.820 remaining acceptable bigotries. Or with this group of people, you could basically say whatever

00:10:26.320 you want about them. You can make a caricature of them. You can mock them. You can cut them down.

00:10:30.700 Doesn't matter.

00:10:33.960 And why can you do that? Well, because they don't count.

00:10:38.180 Their opinion doesn't count. Doesn't matter. They don't matter. That's the attitude.

00:10:42.220 Now, I don't want to spend 20 minutes of the show hyperventilating over this. Oh, they made fun

00:10:49.900 of us. It hurts. It hurts so much. Give me my fainting couch. I don't want to do that. And on one

00:10:56.240 level, I, I, I don't care what they think of us. It doesn't bother me, but there is an enormous

00:11:05.020 double standard at work here. And it's worth pointing out. It's worth pointing out the, the double

00:11:10.860 standard. Because remember, these very same people, especially on CNN, they're doing that

00:11:20.960 one minute. And then the next minute, they're fretting over, you know, the coarseness of Donald

00:11:29.340 Trump and how mean and insulting he is and so on. Not to mention, they're talking about bigotry and how

00:11:37.040 we need to get rid of bigotry. If they didn't do that, listen, if, if, if, if, if they would just,

00:11:44.480 it wouldn't even really bother me that much if they were mocked, that they were mocking millions

00:11:47.740 of Americans, if they would be open and say, okay, yeah, this is, this is how we are. No, we don't,

00:11:54.620 we don't care about having respectful dialogue. We don't care about bigotry. We don't care about

00:11:59.000 any of that. If we hate someone, we're going to say it. At least if they took that approach and

00:12:05.240 they were honest, I could have some respect for the honesty at least. But it's the hypocrisy and

00:12:11.460 the double standard that annoys me the most. More than the insult. It's the, it's what it represents.

00:12:19.780 But, um, really Trump fans should be thanking CNN for this because this is the most effective Trump

00:12:25.660 ad anyone could ever come up with. This is millions of dollars worth of campaign ads right here that

00:12:32.600 Trump doesn't have to spend. So it's 2016 all over again. That Trump may have put a few ads out,

00:12:39.700 but he, he, he could have spent no money on ads at all because the media was advertising for him

00:12:43.940 and they're doing it again. They haven't stopped doing it for three years. Uh, if the people at

00:12:49.340 CNN were to sit around trying to dream up a way to get Trump reelected, they could not have thought

00:12:54.080 of a better strategy and they couldn't have thought of a better 60 or a better, more effective, more

00:12:59.320 persuasive 60 second segment than that to persuade people to vote for Trump. If for no other reason

00:13:07.580 than to do the opposite of what those people want. One other thing about this, because, uh, a defense that

00:13:16.820 you'll hear with this kind of thing, people will defend it by saying, well, Trump, Trump mocks

00:13:24.780 people all the time. Trump's a big meanie head himself, which is a very childish defense, but it's

00:13:31.560 also, it also misses the point because yeah, Trump can be very mean and insulting. We know that 0.93

00:13:39.260 Trump can mock people. Uh, and I'm, I'm not even going to claim that Trump, you know, yeah, Trump

00:13:46.280 mocks people, but he don't, but he never punches down. He does punch down. Arguably when you're the

00:13:50.800 president of the United States, if you're punching at all, you're always punching down because everybody

00:13:53.960 is less powerful than you. So he's, he's not above that, but think about the people that he mocks

00:14:01.820 and insults. It's going to be other politicians, people in the media, Hollywood celebrities.

00:14:10.140 And that's pretty much it. We're other world leaders. Okay. It's a, it's a pretty long list

00:14:16.660 of people that he's insulted, but they're all in that realm, right? What, what he doesn't do,

00:14:23.040 what I've never heard him do. And correct me if I'm wrong, if anyone's ever heard this,

00:14:27.880 I have never heard him mock Democrat voters across the board that I've never heard him do.

00:14:39.080 And that's the difference here. This is something that you see on the left. They are increasingly

00:14:45.860 cavalier and blatant about their, their feelings about millions of, of working class people.

00:14:56.600 Trump really doesn't do that, which, which should tell you something. That should be kind of a

00:15:04.660 cautionary tale. It should be a word of warning for people on the left that even Donald Trump,

00:15:10.240 who has no compunction about insulting people, even he doesn't do that.

00:15:15.800 All right. So let's go briefly back to the sad, sad story of Stephen King. You know, we talked about

00:15:29.220 it a few, few weeks ago on the show, Stephen King sent out, it was around the time of the Golden Globes,

00:15:35.560 I think. And, uh, he, he sent out a, a, a tweet saying basically that we should award works of art

00:15:47.540 based on their merit, based on how good the art is based on the quality of it and not based on

00:15:52.780 demographics. You know, he said that diversity, right? It's like the point is not diversity when

00:15:58.320 it comes to art. The point is the merit of the art of the work of art itself. That was the point that

00:16:03.360 Stephen King made. Well, of course that is not acceptable on the left. And so the, um, the

00:16:08.520 pitchfork mob came after him. And so he spent the last several weeks on an increasingly pathetic and 0.98

00:16:18.220 hard to watch apology tour, just begging for forgiveness. This, this, this, this brief moment 0.94

00:16:24.360 of sanity and clarity from Stephen King. And he, um, he's been begging for forgiveness for it for the

00:16:31.900 last few weeks. And it just gets more and more pitiful. Uh, reading now from the Daily Wire,

00:16:37.180 this is the latest in Stephen King's apology tour, apologizing for his lapse into common sense.

00:16:45.360 Daily Wire says, in an op-ed for the Washington Post on Monday, the renowned author, uh, scolded

00:16:49.860 the recent Academy Award nominations for their lack of racial and sexual diversity, arguing that the

00:16:54.820 whole business is rigged in favor of white folks. He says, has there been progress in the film 0.58

00:17:00.920 community? Yes, some. I'm old enough to remember when there were only a handful of African American

00:17:06.440 directors and about the only director of Hollywood was, um, Ida Lupino, who made hard-edged noir

00:17:12.840 bee pictures in the 1950s and later worked in television. Um, but King blames the lack of diversity

00:17:19.660 among those nominated on the diversity of the Academy's voting members, noting that they are only 32%

00:17:23.760 women and 16% minorities. King says, not good enough, not even within shouting distance of good enough.

00:17:30.920 King closed out his post, uh, op-ed by reflecting upon how a perfect world would be completely

00:17:37.340 colorblind before lamenting on how that perfect world has been supplanted by a system rigged in

00:17:42.500 favor of white folks. He writes, my overall attitude that as with justice, judgments of creative

00:17:48.020 excellence should be blind. But that would be the case in a perfect world, one where the game isn't

00:17:53.400 rigged in favor of the white folks. Creative excellence comes from every walk, color, creed, gender,

00:17:58.760 and sexual orientation. And it's made richer and bolder and more exciting by diversity. Blah, blah, 0.99

00:18:04.400 blah, blah, blah, blah. Okay. You get the point. Just a simpering, uh, groveling. You could tell

00:18:15.460 he was, he was like on his hands and knees while probably while he was typing this, weeping onto the

00:18:21.800 keyboard. Please forgive me, please. He goes from saying, listen, you know, the issue here is not

00:18:29.680 racial diversity with art. It's just about, was it good or not? Really common sense. He goes from that

00:18:35.000 to, um, the, the, the, the arts are rigged against, against, uh, minorities and so on and so forth.

00:18:44.580 This is what happens. Um, and this is why it's, you know, it's, we, we talk about having common sense

00:18:52.380 in our culture and how common sense is so important. Common sense is important, but I think most people

00:19:00.360 have common sense. That's why we call it common, right? If, if, if most people didn't have it, it

00:19:07.320 wouldn't be common sense. So most people have it. And there's this illusion we have, I think, and it is

00:19:13.500 kind of an illusion that people don't have common sense anymore, that everyone's going crazy. I don't

00:19:19.660 think that's, there might be an element of that, but that's not really the problem. It's not common

00:19:27.240 sense that we lack. It's backbone. It's courage. You need to have some backbone and courage

00:19:34.100 to stand for common sense and then keep standing when the irrational hordes come after you.

00:19:45.760 So Stephen King is not a crazy person. He obviously has common sense, but he doesn't have any courage.

00:19:55.480 He doesn't have any moral fortitude whatsoever. And think about how lacking in courage you

00:20:03.340 must be to back down this way when you're Stephen King. I mean, you're rich beyond most

00:20:12.340 people's imagination. This guy's worth hundreds of millions of dollars. Like 15 of his books

00:20:19.080 have been made into movies. And he's completely in a position where he could say, I don't care

00:20:24.480 what you people think. Yeah, that's my opinion. Go ahead and go cry about it some more. What

00:20:28.440 are you going to do to me? What are you going to do? I'm still going to have fans. Even if

00:20:34.460 I don't, I'm rich, I'm wealthy. I've, you know, I've, I've, I've made my point. He's in a position

00:20:40.600 where he could say that, but, um, so lacking in courage that, uh, he refuses to do it. It's

00:20:47.040 hard to watch. Um, all right, before we move on a quick word from rock auto, you know, I have to

00:20:54.680 tell you, I've been, we've been having issues with our, with our, with both of our cars actually

00:20:58.180 recently. And it's always, it seems like it's, it's kind of a, when it rains at poor situation,

00:21:03.260 when you have car problems where one thing leads to another, another, at least that's how it is for us.

00:21:07.720 So I've been getting a lot of use out of rockauto.com recently. Rockauto.com is a family

00:21:12.320 business serving auto parts customers online for 20 years. Go to rockauto.com to shop for auto and

00:21:17.580 body parts from hundreds of manufacturers. Um, they've got everything from engine control

00:21:21.800 modules and brake parts, tail lamps, motor oil, new carpet, whatever you want, whether it's a

00:21:26.540 classic car, it's the daily driver you drive around every day, whatever it is that you need,

00:21:30.940 rockauto.com has it. Their catalog is unique and remarkably easy to navigate. You'll have no problem

00:21:36.200 getting around on the site. You can quickly see all the parts that are available and you could

00:21:41.120 choose what brand and everything you want. And it's as easy as that. Uh, and this is a lot easier

00:21:46.580 than going to an auto parts store, which takes time first of all. Um, and you also have to,

00:21:51.720 you might have to get into the car that's not working to get to the auto parts store. So that's

00:21:55.600 a problem. And then once you get there, most of the time, they're just going to have to order

00:21:59.340 online the parts that you need anyway. Why bother with that? Just go online yourself and get it.

00:22:04.140 Amazing selection, reliably low prices, all the parts your car will ever need. Rockauto.com.

00:22:08.460 Go to rockauto.com right now. See all the parts available for your car or truck.

00:22:12.580 Write Walsh in there. How did you hear about us box? So that they know, uh, that, uh, we sent you.

00:22:17.940 All right. So Anne Frank, um, is, uh, the chief executive of the Chartered Management Institute.

00:22:24.020 And she is arguing that people shouldn't talk about sports in the workplace. Men specifically

00:22:31.780 shouldn't because it makes women feel left out. In an interview on the BBC, she said, quote,

00:22:38.340 a lot of women in particular feel left out. They don't follow those sports and they don't like 1.00

00:22:42.060 either being forced to talk about them or not be included. I have nothing against sports enthusiasts

00:22:46.920 or cricket fans. That's great. But the issue is many people aren't cricket fans. Um, I, for

00:22:54.000 one, I'm a huge cricket fan. I could talk for hours about it, but I won't. And then, but

00:22:58.600 she goes a step further and she starts talking about how discussions of sports, a discussion

00:23:07.440 about sports is essentially a gateway drug that can lead directly into sexual harassment.

00:23:15.420 That's, that's her argument. I'm not making that up here. I'll play a clip of that part of

00:23:18.820 the BBC interview. Uh, listen to this.

00:23:20.500 We were talking earlier, you said one of the points about this is that football banter

00:23:24.500 can be the gateway to more offensive behavior, to much more loudish behavior. Is that one

00:23:28.360 of the points you're trying to make about it?

00:23:29.520 Absolutely. Um, it's a gateway to a more loudish behavior and it's a, if it just goes

00:23:34.860 unchecked, it's a signal of a more, uh, loudish culture. And it's very easy for it to escalate

00:23:40.000 from, you know, the VAR talk and chat to, um, slapping each other on the back and talking

00:23:45.680 about their conquests at the weekend. Yes. A gateway into laddish behavior, a gateway.

00:23:54.540 You got to watch out for those, for those laddish gateways. Uh, because, and, and look,

00:24:00.200 she's right. I can't tell you how many times I've been talking to a guy about sports and

00:24:05.640 next thing you know, he's slapping me on the back and telling me about his sexual conquest.

00:24:08.860 It happens all the time. It's very normal. Actually, it's not normal at all. And this 0.94

00:24:15.140 just shows, um, something that I have pointed out before about feminists is that, and this 1.00

00:24:23.440 is one of their problems, I think, that they, they, they don't appear to know anything about

00:24:28.900 men, which maybe isn't surprising. That's why they're feminists, but they don't know anything 1.00

00:24:34.840 about men. They don't understand how men operate. And they have this cartoonish idea

00:24:40.800 about, about men. It's as if they've never met a real one before. And all of their ideas

00:24:47.340 about men they got from watching, I don't know, um, movies in the 1980s or something.

00:24:55.560 So they don't know anything about men, but the, the, the bigger issue here with this is,

00:24:59.720 this is another example of, well, are, are we treating men and women equally or not?

00:25:08.780 I mean, when, when I see a woman, am I supposed to treat her as a woman or am I supposed to 0.97

00:25:16.740 just treat her as a coworker, irrespective of gender and talk to her the same way that

00:25:21.760 I would a man? I mean, which is it? You kind of have to decide. It can't be both. It has 0.98

00:25:27.800 to be one or the other. And if I, if, if, if it is, uh, if it's, you know, we're treating

00:25:35.380 everybody exactly the same, not taking their gender into account at all. That's not my,

00:25:39.960 see, that's not what I advocate for. I think that you do take gender into account in social

00:25:44.060 interactions. That's part of what chivalry is all about. So I think you should do that,

00:25:49.600 which isn't to say that you should never talk to a woman, a woman about sports, but in general,

00:25:53.360 yeah, I think in social interactions, you take that into account, you take gender into

00:25:57.920 account. That makes sense. But that's not what feminists would say. They would say, don't 1.00

00:26:02.300 just treat a woman like a person. Forget about her gender completely. Well, if that's the case, 0.99

00:26:09.940 then we, then that's, that's it. And then we're, we're going in that direction. You choose that path.

00:26:17.060 That's a completely different path. You can't have it both ways. All right, let's go to emails,

00:26:22.560 mattwalshowatgmail.com, mattwalshowatgmail.com. This is from Maximilian says, hey, Matt, love the

00:26:28.160 show. I think I found a personality test worth taking. Have you ever heard of the big five

00:26:32.400 aspect scale? Jordan Peterson is one of the people who helped put that together and I respect his

00:26:37.860 opinion on a lot of things. So at the very least it's worth looking into. An example of how it points

00:26:41.700 out the negatives and positives is that I got a 77th percentile for compassion, meaning that I'm

00:26:48.520 more compassionate than 77% of people. But it, something tells me I wouldn't be in the 77th

00:26:55.320 percentile, but it gave me a 1% in assertiveness, meaning pretty much everyone is more assertive

00:27:00.160 than me. In my opinion, this personality test is the closest to reality as I've seen. By the way,

00:27:04.980 I agree with your opinion on personality tests. Most people just want to hear good things about

00:27:08.800 themselves. I like how you, you tell me you got a 1% in assertiveness and then immediately you tell

00:27:15.440 me you agree with me. So very, very well done. Illustrating the point. But, um, I mean, that sounds

00:27:22.780 like an interesting take on personality tests, I guess. Maybe I'll check it out, but I still feel that

00:27:27.120 the whole concept is arbitrary and sort of weird. I mean, can you really quantify a trait like

00:27:34.020 assertiveness and assign a numerical value to it? 1%? Why not 3%? Why not 7%? I mean,

00:27:42.980 I think personalities are more fluid than that. Harder to quantify. Conditional.

00:27:50.100 Situational. Based on circumstance. People don't really have the exact same personality

00:27:55.900 in every situation. So that's part of the problem. Uh, this is from Ian says, Matt, I agree with you

00:28:03.460 that personality tests are useless. What is your take on IQ tests? Same thing? Well, at least with IQ

00:28:10.740 tests, the person taking the test can't easily rig it to get whatever favorable result they want,

00:28:16.040 right? It's not necessarily easy to rig an IQ test for yourself so that it comes back with a 170 IQ.

00:28:22.480 Uh, you have to actually do an efficient job of answering the questions and completing the tasks

00:28:27.580 and everything. But even so, I would say IQ tests are basically useless also. Um, I, you know,

00:28:36.760 so pretty much any test that's supposed to tell you about your intelligence or your personality,

00:28:41.460 I think it's all basically bunk. And I don't know why we have this obsession with trying to measure and

00:28:47.640 quantify every aspect of the human person, even the most complicated and indeterminate parts of us.

00:28:55.040 We want, we want a, we want something quantifiable. We want a number, right? Um,

00:29:01.640 now IQ tests may measure certain aspects of intelligence, but they don't measure intelligence

00:29:08.760 as a whole. It's like if you're doing a fitness test. Now, physical fitness, that is something you

00:29:13.140 can quantify and I think rather easily measure. But if you're doing a fitness test, you couldn't

00:29:17.280 do a fitness test. And the only thing to do on the test is pull-ups because a person might be able

00:29:22.880 to do 19 pull-ups and yet be in pretty bad shape, just like a person may only do five pull-ups and

00:29:27.720 still be in pretty good shape. So there needs to be more to it than that. The problem with,

00:29:31.240 one of the problems with an IQ test is that it only tells you about one sort of aspect of

00:29:38.840 intelligence. So if somebody has a high IQ, that means, okay, uh, they were good at accomplishing

00:29:45.420 the kinds of tasks that are on an IQ test. So it means that they're probably good at detecting

00:29:53.080 patterns. It means they can probably think logically in a certain way. And so, okay, fine.

00:30:01.580 If someone has a 140 IQ, you can be pretty certain that they are, for example, good at finding and

00:30:08.640 understanding numerical patterns. But that has, that, that is not even close to the full story on

00:30:17.200 intelligence. There are whole other realms of intelligence. Now, personally, I think the most

00:30:23.040 revealing, quote, test of a person's intelligence is just to talk to them, especially to talk about

00:30:30.160 an abstract subject or concept. I don't mean talk to them about what they had for dinner.

00:30:35.580 I mean, talk to them about something abstract. And as far as I know about with, with, with, uh,

00:30:43.260 an IQ test, it doesn't have anything to do with that. They don't, they don't go anywhere near that.

00:30:49.540 So if you were to say to someone, now I think, and even this wouldn't tell the whole story,

00:30:53.720 but here's my thing. If I could pick only one test of a person's intelligence, this is what I would

00:31:02.420 choose. I would just ask them a question like, I don't know, what is justice? Some abstract concept

00:31:11.180 like that. And then listen to what they say. It's not about answering it correctly or incorrectly.

00:31:16.160 It's just about the depth of a person's thought, their verbal dexterity in explaining their thoughts,

00:31:23.500 um, their ability to grapple with an abstract concept. Now, I, I think that tells you a lot

00:31:31.220 about their intelligence. Doesn't tell you everything. And I think there are probably people

00:31:36.740 who would score a 90 on an IQ test, which is relatively low, only slightly above average, right?

00:31:44.260 And yet, if you were to talk to them about a subject like that, they could give you a brilliant

00:31:48.900 and fascinating and thoughtful answer, just like there are people who might score a 140 and you try

00:31:54.040 to talk to them about an abstract subject and they have nothing to say. So that's just one of the

00:32:01.920 issues with, uh, IQ tests. All right. Um, this is from Dr. Pat says, dear Met, I am having emailed

00:32:13.700 you many, many days. You never are responses me. You're my favorite person. I get many smarter

00:32:20.300 listening to your mouth. I would have many honors if you read this email on your show. May you having

00:32:27.240 many blessings in your lift. Sincerely, Dr. Pat. Thank you for that email. It's very touching.

00:32:35.440 Um, and, uh, this is from Heidi. Finally, she says, Hey Matt, so based on your raving review of

00:32:44.000 Ad Astra, I knew that my family and I should watch it. You did say that you thought it was better than

00:32:48.620 Interstellar. My family and I love that movie. So we were excited to see what this Ad Astra movie was

00:32:52.580 all about. Two crazy psycho space monkeys later, all we, we all realized that was, uh, that was two

00:32:58.700 hours we would never get back. The Ad Astra movie was more about the human condition and that you

00:33:03.680 should never cross paths with monkeys, that you've been locked up in a spaceship for a long period of

00:33:07.820 time. Whereas Interstellar was more about the space-time continuum, wormholes, the search for

00:33:11.980 life on other planets. It was fascinating. It left you really thinking and pondering about the universe

00:33:16.500 and how it works. Ad Astra left us thinking about how much better it would have been if we'd never

00:33:20.400 watched, uh, Ad Astra. When you become supreme dictator, will you be subjecting the people to only

00:33:25.760 watching movies that you deem as good? If this is the case, my only option will be to move my family

00:33:30.260 and I out of the country. It's our only hope. P.S. My husband and I also watched The Godfather for the

00:33:34.640 first time ever this year, and we watched about an hour of it before falling asleep and haven't finished

00:33:39.060 it since. Well, Heidi, you really buried the lead there because you gave me this whole diatribe about 0.87

00:33:45.560 how I'm wrong about Ad Astra. And at the very end, you admit that you have horrible taste in films.

00:33:52.140 I feel like you should have said that at the beginning. You want, you want to lead with that.

00:33:57.140 Disclaimer, I have terrible taste. Here's my thoughts about movies. The Godfather, of course, is, is quite

00:34:03.340 literally the greatest film in the history of cinema. I, I can almost forgive you for falling asleep

00:34:09.760 during it because you're a woman. And, um, and the Godfather, for whatever reason, often doesn't

00:34:17.020 resonate quite as much with women. All right. But for a man to fall asleep, you said your husband fell

00:34:22.560 asleep. That's disgraceful. That's disgraceful. As for Ad Astra, look, I, I, I, I, you're right that

00:34:30.700 Ad Astra is more about the human condition. It's more, a more ruminative, thoughtful film. And that's

00:34:35.420 what I liked about it. You say that interstellar was more about wormholes and space-time and life

00:34:40.760 on other planets, et cetera. But see, that's my, exactly my issue. I wish that interstellar was

00:34:45.700 about those things. I thought that interstellar was going to be about those things. I remember

00:34:50.080 the marketing campaign for the movie is what, it's one of my most anticipated movies ever. I was

00:34:54.820 looking forward to that movie for, I mean, for months or years before, right? When I first heard

00:34:59.100 about Christopher Nolan making a movie that deals with these crazy scientific and cosmological

00:35:05.160 concepts, I've been waiting for a film like that. And I'm still waiting because actually

00:35:10.680 that's not really what the movie was about. They spend the first third of it on earth.

00:35:15.360 They go into space. They visit a couple of planets, go into a black hole and end up trapped

00:35:20.740 in a bookshelf. That's the whole movie. Now the black hole scene, the rendering of the black

00:35:27.420 hole, that was beautiful and very well done, almost worth the price of admission. But I was

00:35:31.760 expecting a lot more spacey stuff than what we got. Because it turned out that Christopher

00:35:37.100 Nolan also was mostly interested in using space as a forum to explore the human condition.

00:35:45.300 Which I have no problem with that. And that's what Ad Astra does. Other sci-fi films have done

00:35:51.180 the same thing. But I just don't think that interstellar does a good job of that. Their way of exploring

00:35:58.600 the human condition is to have Anne Hathaway deliver like 19 speeches about the cosmic power 1.00

00:36:03.580 of love. So both films really were about the same thing and did the same sort of thing. It's just that

00:36:10.080 Ad Astra did a better, more subtle job of it and I think was a smarter movie. Whereas Interstellar

00:36:17.320 hits you over the head with a two by four shouting the point of the movie into your ear every five

00:36:22.200 seconds. And that's why I didn't like it. But I'm not gonna say I didn't like it. I mean, 0.98

00:36:28.040 it was a fine movie. But it wasn't nearly as good as it could have been. All right. Well,

00:36:35.060 I think we'll leave it there. Thanks everybody for watching. Have a great day. Godspeed.

00:36:39.740 If you enjoyed this episode, don't forget to subscribe. And if you want to help spread the

00:36:46.280 word, please give us a five-star review and tell your friends to subscribe as well. We're available

00:36:50.180 on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you listen to podcasts. Also, be sure to check out the other

00:36:55.340 Daily Wire podcasts, including The Ben Shapiro Show, Michael Knowles Show, and The Andrew Klavan Show.

00:37:00.280 Thanks for listening.

00:37:01.520 The Matt Wall Show is produced by Sean Hampton, executive producer Jeremy Boring, senior producer

00:37:06.860 Jonathan Hay, supervising producer Mathis Glover, supervising producer Robert Sterling,

00:37:12.080 technical producer Austin Stevens, editor Donovan Fowler, audio mixer Robin Fenderson.

00:37:17.240 The Matt Wall Show is a Daily Wire production, copyright Daily Wire 2020.

00:37:21.720 If you prefer facts over feelings, aren't offended by the brutal truth, and you can still laugh at the

00:37:26.160 insanity filling our national news cycle, well, tune in to The Ben Shapiro Show. We'll get a whole lot

00:37:30.720 of that and much more. See you there.

The Matt Walsh Show - January 28, 2020

Ep. 414 - CNN Makes Campaign Ad For Trump

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript