The Megyn Kelly Show - Culture War Disconnects, Nike Hypocrisy, and the Religion of Woke, with John McWhorter and Ethan Strauss ｜ Ep. 189

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00:00:31.300 Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show, your home for open, honest and provocative conversations.

00:00:42.780 Hey everyone, I'm Megyn Kelly. Welcome to The Megyn Kelly Show.

00:00:45.860 Today we have a great program for you. There's so much to go over.

00:00:49.100 One of my favorite people, he is such a great guest, is here, John McWhorter.

00:00:53.580 We're going to kick it off with him in a minute by discussing former President

00:00:56.460 Barack Obama calling issues that Republican and other voters too,

00:01:00.740 it's not just a Republican thing, care about nothing more than, quote,

00:01:04.080 phony culture wars. This is an effort to support Terry McAuliffe down in Virginia.

00:01:09.480 And the culture war down there involves the National School Board issue,

00:01:12.460 the man who alleged his daughter was raped. There's an update on that.

00:01:15.560 Is that a phony culture war? We'll talk about it.

00:01:18.240 We're also going to discuss the fact that the National School Boards Association

00:01:21.300 has now retracted that letter that likened upset parents to domestic terrorists.

00:01:27.380 What a turnaround, right? What a crazy turnaround.

00:01:31.680 So we'll get into what that means for the DOJ investigation

00:01:34.520 and an absolutely disgusting new attack on former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice,

00:01:39.260 who for some reason went on The View this week.

00:01:42.440 And boy, did the knives come out.

00:01:44.500 Then later, we're going to talk a little bit of sports because the Celtics star Ennis Cantor.

00:01:51.000 Oh, my gosh. Have you heard? So I didn't know Ennis Cantor.

00:01:53.300 You know, I don't know sports, but something extraordinary happened with this guy.

00:01:57.860 He absolutely torched Nike in a new video that's really about China.

00:02:05.000 And that's why it's so extraordinary.

00:02:06.740 He was mad that Nike has remained silent on China's human rights abuses.

00:02:10.080 And you know what happens in the NBA when you criticize China.

00:02:13.840 They completely cut you out of their basketball feed over there. 0.96

00:02:17.520 It can cost you hundreds of millions of dollars.

00:02:19.360 We saw that happen once before.

00:02:21.160 And this guy, Ennis Cantor, went off.

00:02:24.560 He called out LeBron James by name, Michael Jordan by name.

00:02:27.740 So who is this guy and what's going to happen now?

00:02:30.460 And should there be about several hundred more like him in the NBA finding the stones to do this?

00:02:36.620 I'm going to take it up with a guy named Ethan Staus.

00:02:39.960 Ethan is a sports journalist who writes for Substack after he left the establishment sports media recently.

00:02:46.080 And he's not afraid to go to the uncomfortable places.

00:02:48.080 So he's going to fit right in here.

00:02:49.940 First, though, we begin with John McWhorter.

00:02:51.960 John is a linguistics professor at Columbia University and an opinion writer now for The New York Times

00:02:58.200 and the author of the new book, Woke Racism, How a New Religion Has Betrayed Black America.

00:03:06.120 John, great to have you back.

00:03:07.120 Thanks for being here.

00:03:08.340 Good to be here, Megan.

00:03:09.160 Thank you very much.

00:03:10.420 All right.

00:03:10.640 So let's kick it off with Barack Obama, which he's trying to get Terry McAuliffe elected back into the governor's mansion.

00:03:17.220 And this has become a tighter and tighter race because McAuliffe committed a pretty big political blunder on stage at one of these debates saying parents shouldn't really have anything to do with the curriculum that their child is taught in a school.

00:03:32.900 And his opponent, his Republican opponent, got all over him, Glenn Youngking, on that in all these ads and so on.

00:03:40.180 And now it's getting tighter and tighter.

00:03:42.560 And McAuliffe, who had this as basically a straightaway, he could lose.

00:03:47.320 The odds are he's probably going to win, but it's gotten a lot tighter because of that statement.

00:03:52.740 So Barack Obama was called in.

00:03:54.100 He's the big gun in the Democratic Party and went down there and said the following.

00:03:58.920 We don't have time to be wasting on these phony, trumped up culture wars.

00:04:06.400 This fake outrage that the right wing media's pedals to juice their ratings and the fact that he's willing to go along with it instead of talking about serious problems that actually affect serious people.

00:04:19.440 That's a shame.

00:04:22.180 Your take on it, because I'll tell you, I mean, I have virtually every single one of my friend is a liberal.

00:04:26.380 You know, I've spent the past 20 years in New York and I don't know a mom who's not upset about what's happening in the schools from, you know, it could be covid mask policy, could be CRT, could be the trans ideology being shoved down the throats of, you know, eight year olds who aren't ready for it and so on.

00:04:42.800 I don't think this is a phony culture war at all.

00:04:45.020 And I don't think it's it's entirely driven by the right.

00:04:47.320 What do you think?

00:04:47.820 Yeah, there is a massive disconnect between the way we are trained to talk about what's going on and what's actually going on.

00:04:58.800 And I should say I'm a big Obama fan.

00:05:01.980 I have no animus against him at all.

00:05:04.640 And I know that sometimes he needs to play politics because that was and is his job.

00:05:10.160 But on this one, no, we're not talking about a phony culture war.

00:05:14.460 This is not the people yelling and screaming about tenured radicals taking over university campuses 20 years ago.

00:05:20.480 Something really serious is going on that really does hurt people.

00:05:25.020 And disproportionately, it's black people because part of these culture wars involves white liberal people being taught that to be a good person, you're supposed to excuse black people from real challenge,

00:05:38.240 that you're supposed to treat black people essentially like children as a way of atoning for America's moral stain of slavery and Jim Crow and all of this stuff in terms of what you do in the present tense is really scary.

00:05:53.580 And so, for example, CRT, we're supposed to think that there's certain people who are just dedicated to racism and slavery not being taught in schools and that these are people who don't understand that America has some explaining to do.

00:06:06.260 But that's not what most people who have a problem with CRT in schools are thinking about.

00:06:11.680 We're talking about what sorts of ideas, what sorts of self-conceptions you impose upon children, not law students reading articles 30 years ago, but children now in classrooms.

00:06:21.980 And, you know, I don't know if anybody has the ultimate answer about these things, but to wave away parents' real concerns about really bizarre things that have been happening in our schools,

00:06:32.700 especially with the major uptick over the past couple of years, to wave all of that away as just, quote unquote, phony culture wars.

00:06:39.340 Again, I say I have no problem with Barack Obama, but that view, especially when coming from other people, is overly simplistic.

00:06:48.120 And no, we have some real problems going on right now.

00:06:51.980 There was a there was a piece in The Washington Post recently on October 21st.

00:06:56.520 It was authored by Jack Schneider, an assistant professor of education at the University of Massachusetts, Lowell, and Jennifer Berkshire, freelance journalist who are more on the this is a phony culture war side.

00:07:10.400 They said this is a Republican driven thing, this objection to CRT, that they are working right now to ensure their base turns out in force by stoking white racial grievance.

00:07:21.240 And they say that the recent firestone over critical race theory is a perfect case in point.

00:07:24.940 Quote, never mind that this concept from legal scholarship isn't actually taught in K through 12 schools or that it isn't what most protesters believe it to be.

00:07:35.040 And they talk about how Republicans are gaining an electrical advantage by convincing their base that white children are being taught to hate themselves, their family and their country. 0.60

00:07:44.600 Can you speak to that? Because we hear this more and more from people defending what's happening in schools.

00:07:50.940 It's not critical race theory. That's a fake boogeyman.

00:07:55.040 That's a law school concept. And people who say it's being taught are are not correct.

00:07:59.740 My own take on it is there's yes, there's a theory that gets taught in law schools that that may not be the exact thing that's being taught.

00:08:06.280 It's become a short form for this racial division that's being stoked.

00:08:11.060 You can call it whatever you want to call it. It's been given this useful short form because before it had that, I think, thanks to Chris Ruffo, none of us really had a short form way of describing what was happening.

00:08:21.420 Mm hmm. Yeah, I am. Those people need to stop that. 0.97

00:08:25.580 I mean, I frankly think at this point that they're aware that what they're doing is a rhetorical trick.

00:08:29.860 It's a straw man. Nobody has claimed that obscure legal doctrine is being taught to people who are seven years old.

00:08:37.180 Why would that happen? Why would anybody think so? Things change. Labels are imprecise.

00:08:42.000 And when people say CRT, they don't mean that somebody is being taught the legal theory of Kimberly Crenshaw in overalls.

00:08:48.460 What we're talking about is what is derived from that way of thinking, which very much is a trend that's happening all over the country.

00:08:56.120 And all you have to do is metaphorically open a newspaper in any big city to see it, which is that especially in private schools.

00:09:02.820 But now it's trickling into public schools and quickly kids are being taught that the most interesting thing about America is that there are power differentials based on race and that there are always have been.

00:09:14.560 That white kids need to be taught that they are part of a ruling class with a certain responsibility and guilt that is being taught to people who are eight years old, often with those words.

00:09:24.200 That black kids are to think of themselves as potential victims of this oppression and should be wary of what white people are going to do to them.

00:09:32.440 These things are actually happening, including kids being separated into different groups.

00:09:36.800 And what it comes down to at this point is this. It's been happening for such a short time that there are not academic surveys yet of exactly where this is happening and to what degree.

00:09:46.560 But the anecdotal and journalistic evidence is coming so fast and thick that we can say this quite simply.

00:09:52.140 If there were exactly this much evidence of cops killing black men, one in Detroit, one in Atlanta, one in New England, something happens in L.A., and you have a whole bunch of them.

00:10:03.360 If that was what there was, that would be considered because it is a national epidemic, racist stain.

00:10:09.380 America has a problem. America must atone.

00:10:11.660 All it would take is exactly the amount of evidence that we have for this takeover of CRT.

00:10:16.580 People like me who are worried about it are not crazy.

00:10:19.100 We're watching what's happening. And if this is really all about the right wing, if it's all about these people waving the flag and wishing that Ronald Reagan was still around, I don't know what world these people are in.

00:10:29.560 Because I'm hearing problems with this from moms with half a glass of Chardonnay on a play date who vote Democratic and are blue American people with higher degrees who are really worried about what's happening in their schools.

00:10:43.140 I think that we've got to stop this idea that it's only about descendants of Newt Gingrich on this.

00:10:47.680 This is a national problem. And people who are worried about CRT are not people who are wishing that Dwight D. Eisenhower was still president.

00:10:56.040 There's something larger going on.

00:10:58.060 It's, you know, I've said before, when I had Glenn and Coleman Hughes on my show a year ago, we talked about why I pulled my kids from the New York City private schools.

00:11:06.560 And it was all of this stuff. You know, it's all this stuff.

00:11:09.240 But you can call it whatever you want.

00:11:10.980 In my school, they were promoting an article by some so-called scholar saying in every classroom where white children learn, there is a future killer cop.

00:11:19.780 I don't you don't have to call that CRT. I don't care what you call that.

00:11:22.340 Don't teach it to my child. Don't teach it to his classmates.

00:11:25.680 Couldn't care. You can call it whatever you want. But I want it to stop.

00:11:28.780 And I think that's how most parents are feeling.

00:11:30.420 Like, it looks like to me, the other side, it doesn't I don't know, want Republicans to.

00:11:34.720 I'm not sure exactly what the motivation is, because, you know, everyone should be concerned about this kind of message if they're not woke.

00:11:41.280 Right. We understand elect, as you would call them, the elect.

00:11:43.880 Everyone who's not elect should be concerned about this and not trying to diminish it as a as a purely partisan issue.

00:11:50.940 It's not. And in part, it's what your your whole new book is about.

00:11:54.780 Before we get to that, though, let's stay on Virginia and McWhorter and Youngkin for just one second, because one of the things that's come out of Virginia is that one of the items cited by the National Association of School Boards as evidence that parents might be looked at as domestic terrorists now was dad in Virginia who showed up at a school board meeting and was dragged out and was made sort of the poster boy for bad behavior at a school board meeting.

00:12:20.880 Turns out the guy's daughter had been raped a week or two before and the school got up.

00:12:26.300 The superintendent at that school board meeting and said, it's never happened.

00:12:29.700 We have not had a student attacked in a bathroom.

00:12:32.600 And this guy knows his his it just happened to his daughter and that the superintendent is lying.

00:12:36.340 So he got upset. 0.99

00:12:37.400 Somebody told him that his daughter was a liar and he called that person a bitch and things went downhill. 1.00

00:12:42.440 But he did. That's all that really happened. 1.00

00:12:44.260 OK, so that's the backstory to why we saw this guy getting dragged out.

00:12:47.140 The National School Board Association, without probing further, decides to say, based on that behavior and a few other examples, people should be treated as domestic terrorists.

00:12:55.680 DOJ should get involved and they say, we'll do it.

00:12:59.540 Well, there was just a reversal by the National School Boards Association.

00:13:04.040 They were forced to apologize for their letter in an extraordinary 180 with with on which they had coordinated with the Biden White House.

00:13:11.520 We know that thanks to a group called Parents Defending Education, which, like the group you and I support, FAIR Foundation Against Intolerance and Racism, is doing great work, nonpartisan, totally nonpartisan, just supporting parents who want to push back against this stuff.

00:13:23.580 So Parents Defending Education gets the email showing the White House had pregamed the whole thing with the School Boards Association.

00:13:30.220 They wrote to the White House.

00:13:31.260 The White House farmed it to Merrick Garland at DOJ.

00:13:33.360 They wrote the letter saying, yeah, we're going to be looking into parents.

00:13:36.100 Total mistake.

00:13:37.340 Massive backlash.

00:13:39.000 Parents everywhere complained.

00:13:40.700 The National School Board Association members started complaining, we don't support this.

00:13:43.820 This wasn't run by us.

00:13:44.700 Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

00:13:46.100 So far, the DOJ hasn't officially backed off its letter, though.

00:13:49.220 Its statement saying it might go after parents.

00:13:51.460 And you tell me whether it needs to do that ASAP or this is going to remain the explosive issue it's become.

00:14:01.340 I mean, parents are angry that they're being labeled in this way because they're speaking out about this stuff.

00:14:08.380 You know, what this is, if you pull the camera back, what this comes from is that many people would be surprised at the difference between what you would think training in education is, including educational administration, and what the people in question are often taught.

00:14:25.900 And the truth is, it took me about 20 years to fully see this.

00:14:30.860 If you are trained by a school of education and you take in what they're telling you often, you learn very little about how to teach kids.

00:14:37.760 What you're taught is how to be somebody of a certain kind of radical leftist politics.

00:14:43.300 And, you know, God bless radical leftist politics, but in another universe, there wouldn't be this massive intersection between a field that's supposed to be about how to teach kids how to read and write and do arithmetic and teaching them a certain radical and sometimes even utopian political view, which, frankly, these days is very much infused with this thing that we're calling CRT.

00:15:07.980 And so what that means is that when parents resist, when parents resist a certain orthodoxy, such as sometimes trying to say that the fact that there are a disproportionate number of black boys who are violent in a school doesn't mean that the black boys should not be expelled, then you are treated as some kind of moral pervert because you're not committed to battling power differentials. 0.68

00:15:31.100 That's what a lot of this comes from.

00:15:32.460 It's the teachers.

00:15:33.320 It's also the administrators.

00:15:34.660 The idea is that it's okay for somebody to be violent in a school because it's kind of a symbolic fight against the establishment and you don't want to be bigoted against black boys, for example.

00:15:45.500 That CRT is okay because what kids should be learning is to protest the very foundations of the society they live in.

00:15:51.540 That's what these people believe.

00:15:52.880 And I'm not trying to make them sound like fanatics, but they, in a very placid but unreachable sense, do believe that that is the soul of what education and educational institutions are.

00:16:03.820 That, I have to stick in the plug, is the sort of thing that woke racism is about.

00:16:09.160 Not specifically school.

00:16:10.200 I don't want people to think this is a book about education.

00:16:12.380 No, it's not.

00:16:12.960 It's about, frankly, the world.

00:16:14.600 But that is the ideology that we're talking about.

00:16:17.640 So Condoleezza Rice goes on The View and why, I cannot tell you.

00:16:23.940 This was not necessary for her, but she did.

00:16:26.860 And they were asked, they asked her her thoughts on CRT and she gave them.

00:16:31.180 I'm going to play them one second in part.

00:16:33.200 Boy, oh boy, is she getting attacked.

00:16:35.060 I mean, she's getting attacked, of course, you know, by the mainstream press.

00:16:38.080 But I'll play one attack in particular.

00:16:40.420 I'll highlight for you one attack in particular that's just gone below the belt and is indicative of this view that we're talking about, right, that, well, we'll see.

00:16:48.280 Let me set it up with Condi's statements about whether CRT ought to be taught in schools on The View.

00:16:53.580 It either seems so big that somehow white people now have to feel guilty for everything that happened in the past.

00:16:59.700 I don't think that's very productive. 0.83

00:17:01.500 Or black people have to feel disempowered by race.

00:17:07.080 I would like black kids to be completely empowered, to know that they are beautiful in their blackness. 0.78

00:17:13.920 But in order to do that, I don't have to make white kids feel bad for being white.

00:17:17.760 It goes back to how we teach the history.

00:17:20.660 That's what I'm saying.

00:17:21.120 We teach the good and we teach the bad of history.

00:17:23.440 But what we don't do is make 7- and 10-year-olds feel that they are somehow bad people because of the color of their skin.

00:17:33.100 We've been through that.

00:17:34.260 And we don't need to do that again.

00:17:37.460 So Whoopi kind of pushed back saying, well, we need to teach history.

00:17:42.580 And Condi wasn't saying we don't need to teach history.

00:17:46.620 She was saying you don't have to shame children for the color of their skin in doing that.

00:17:50.620 So Q, this guy, Ture, he got fired from MSNBC for incendiary comments along these same lines.

00:17:58.140 He now writes for The Griot.

00:18:00.960 And he writes that her stance on CRT, quote, proves she's a foot soldier for white supremacy. 0.99

00:18:08.400 Her appearance was offensive and disgusting. 0.99

00:18:11.500 And her thoughts on CRT are completely white-centric as they revolve around the thoughts and needs of white people. 0.98

00:18:19.160 Her primary argument against CRT is that history should not, history should not be taught in a way that makes white kids feel bad.

00:18:27.620 And he goes on to say, I hope they do feel bad.

00:18:31.440 And says, if your white kid doesn't feel bad when he learns about how all the stories where, quote, white people knock us down and stand on our necks and then ask why we're on the ground, I really don't care about them.

00:18:44.080 I don't care if learning it makes them feel bad. 0.91

00:18:45.460 They ought to feel bad.

00:18:46.140 So your thoughts on that?

00:18:48.900 Ture is an interesting figure.

00:18:51.360 I'm disappointed in him on this, frankly.

00:18:54.300 He wrote a book about 10 years ago called Who's Afraid of Post-Blackness.

00:18:58.680 And yet it's not clear to me in a comment like that how this is post-Black.

00:19:04.180 It strikes me as an alarmingly easy ditch of thought to fall into.

00:19:10.180 I think it's cruel to call Condoleezza Rice a white supremacist.

00:19:15.160 It's just not necessary to hurl names like that around so indiscriminately.

00:19:20.260 It's not right.

00:19:21.380 I'm sorry.

00:19:22.360 And really what it comes down to is this.

00:19:25.820 Ture is assuming that the proper view, the Black view, I guess, is that we need white people to walk around feeling guilty for things that they as individuals didn't do. 0.63

00:19:37.660 I think Ture is assuming that the case for that vision has been made in an impregnable way.

00:19:44.040 But it hasn't.

00:19:45.500 And I would say, for example, that yes, history needs to be taught.

00:19:48.140 We shouldn't even need to say that.

00:19:49.760 Who thinks history shouldn't be taught?

00:19:51.500 We're not the opposite.

00:19:51.960 No one's arguing the opposite.

00:19:53.080 Of course history needs to be taught.

00:19:54.540 But the question is, after the history is taught, after a white person thinks, God, that's awful, and they may even think, hmm, my grandmother participated in that, are they then supposed to walk around feeling guilty?

00:20:05.640 I make a proposition here.

00:20:07.460 No.

00:20:08.160 And I'm not alone.

00:20:09.420 And there are a great many Black people who feel the same way.

00:20:11.580 I can definitely say I am a Black man, and I think about it all the time, and yet I do not need, for my sense of well-being, white people to walk around feeling guilty about things that they as individuals didn't do.

00:20:26.100 I hereby make that statement.

00:20:27.400 I do not consider it naive.

00:20:28.960 It is not immoral.

00:20:30.220 It is shared by millions of Black people.

00:20:33.340 The idea that white people need to walk around feeling guilty is largely a conceit of the intelligentsia and certain elements in the media.

00:20:40.540 All power to them, but it is not truth.

00:20:43.480 And as such, for Condoleezza Rice, with her lifetime experience, including growing up in the segregated effing South, she grew up in serious racism of a kind that neither me nor Toure ever had to deal with.

00:20:55.600 For her to be called a white supremacist and for her views to be called revolting, I just think that it's extreme, it's rhetorical, it's not fair, and it's not truth.

00:21:10.240 A great many of us, and by us I mean Black people, don't need that white guilt that a certain other kind of Black person seems to think is so necessary for us to overcome.

00:21:20.040 They have a case to make.

00:21:21.480 I'd like to hear it.

00:21:22.320 Hmm. And as you point out in your book, it's not just a certain other kind of Black person, it's certain other white people who are pushing these messages, maybe even more, the so-called elect that have decided that in penance for sins of the father or mother or whatever, that they need to spend their lives somehow doing penance and making it up to the Black community per Robin DiAngelo.

00:21:45.620 So we're going to have more with John McWhorter next.

00:21:49.060 His views on so many things are fascinating, and we're going to ask him about the latest because there's an update on the Dave Chappelle saga, and we'll get into his latest book, which I know you're going to find really interesting.

00:21:58.540 Stay with us.

00:22:15.620 So before we get into the book, let's talk about the latest on Dave Chappelle because he's been all over the news this week, and it's been sort of an interesting thing.

00:22:43.180 One of the things he's getting criticized for in his latest Netflix special is that he was accused of pitting the trans community against the Black community and not sort of understanding that there are a lot of Black people who are also trans and not understanding that there doesn't need to be a war between Black people and trans people in general.

00:23:05.340 Right. And he has stood his ground. He has not apologized for anything.

00:23:11.080 Netflix has stood behind him, though. Ted Sarandos, one of the leaders, has said he probably could have been more sensitive and sort of rolling it out.

00:23:18.100 He the head of Netflix and Dave Chappelle has now come out and said, is this on?

00:23:23.900 Yeah, actually, we have this on camera. So let's listen. Here's what he's now saying.

00:23:27.920 Even though the media frames us that it's me versus that community is not what it is, do not blame the LBGTQ community for any of this shit. 0.99

00:23:38.700 This has nothing to do with them. It's about corporate interests and what I can say and what I cannot say. 0.98

00:23:45.700 To the transgender community, I am more than willing to give you an audience, but you will not summon me. 1.00

00:24:00.220 I am not bending to anybody's demands.

00:24:03.820 Sort of an interesting thing. I mean, to me, I see, you know, normally the media would definitely be siding with Dave Chappelle as a black man who's made it in a tough field comedy.

00:24:22.500 He's killing it. Twenty million bucks is special for Netflix.

00:24:26.220 But he touched another one of their, you know, golden geese, the trans community.

00:24:31.680 And that's that's a third rail that the trans activists will be very, very loud and coming for you no matter who you are. 0.83

00:24:38.360 And so far, it's sort of this standoff. You know, it's like there's impasse.

00:24:44.220 Dave's not bending and Netflix hasn't bent, which is shocking, but good.

00:24:47.840 And the trans community is not bending. They had their walkout. They're still on it. 1.00

00:24:51.340 They're still pushing that he although Dave does go on to say that his movie that he had coming out this summer with a bunch of his comedy specials in it, I think, has been canceled by virtually everyone.

00:24:59.780 But what do you make of this whole controversy, John?

00:25:01.500 It's the issue of degree. The idea seems to be that he's not allowed to say things, that there are things that he's not supposed to say.

00:25:09.100 So it's not that he said some things that some people didn't like and they explain why partly and maybe even abusively.

00:25:16.080 The idea is that he shouldn't have said it and a platform that shows him saying it and supports him saying it deserves to be walked out upon.

00:25:26.180 In other words, he sinned. The way people are behaving is as if he's committed some kind of heresy.

00:25:32.260 This is a very unusual kind of behavior, unless you understand that we're talking about religion.

00:25:39.600 And so however you feel about his comments about the trans community and who he's aligning against to,

00:25:46.180 what's interesting about the whole thing in the socio-historical perspective is the notion that what you do when you don't like what people are saying is forbid people to say those things.

00:25:55.300 Make it so that everybody's afraid to open their mouth about those things.

00:25:59.060 And the problem is that despite the cathartic pleasure that there is in telling people to shut the F up, and I completely get it.

00:26:07.920 You have a sense that, and I don't mean sense of power. That makes it sound like they're walking around with a mallet.

00:26:12.280 You feel like you can make a difference and you can get what you want.

00:26:16.300 Anybody would enjoy that.

00:26:18.620 And especially if it's about something that you're sensitive about, such as whatever your identity happens to be.

00:26:23.180 But the thing is, after you do it, you're not stopping people from thinking it.

00:26:27.720 And I'm not sure people fully realize that just because you can't say something out loud doesn't mean that people aren't having conversations behind your back.

00:26:35.800 It doesn't mean that they're not going to keep thinking what they're thinking.

00:26:38.760 You can't control what people are thinking.

00:26:40.820 The words are just an expression of it.

00:26:42.700 And unless that's what people want, that people can think things but just not say it in public.

00:26:47.860 And the problem is, why would you want that?

00:26:50.000 Why are you seeking that?

00:26:51.300 What you really think is that you're changing the world, but you're not.

00:26:54.300 You're just zipping people's mouths shut.

00:26:56.760 We encourage that too much in this culture.

00:26:59.580 We look at that sort of thing being done in the deep past, and we think of it as quaint, that you're not allowed to say certain things, that it's heretical.

00:27:08.080 Now we just use different words like hegemony and social justice, do the same thing, and think of it as the height of sophistication.

00:27:15.440 I'm not sure it is.

00:27:16.420 This, your comment reminded me of a scene from a show I used to watch all the time and loved, Everybody Loves Raymond, where Raymond is talking to his wife, Deborah, and she says to him, me thinks thou doth protest too much.

00:27:33.260 And he says, don't say me thinks thou doth protest too much.

00:27:38.080 And she says, okay, I won't say it, but me thinks it.

00:27:41.620 That show is not streaming, and it's making me mad because I only got up to the fourth season.

00:27:49.080 I can picture that scene, though.

00:27:50.900 It's spectacular.

00:27:51.960 But that's the point, right?

00:27:52.980 Me thinks it.

00:27:54.040 Me still thinks it, even if I can't say it.

00:27:56.580 You're going to keep thinking it.

00:27:57.160 This business of you can't say it simply doesn't work.

00:28:00.960 I know that the people who are doing all of this shutting down think of themselves as on the side of the angels.

00:28:05.920 They think they're continuing the struggle.

00:28:07.440 They think this is how you create social justice.

00:28:10.540 But I think if they really took a look at themselves, they'd realize that, I hate to say it, but there's something childish in this notion that you can't say that.

00:28:19.840 It doesn't work.

00:28:20.600 I kind of thought, I'm going to start sounding old, but I kind of thought we learned that back in the days of PC.

00:28:26.380 You know, that's not PC.

00:28:27.860 And everybody knew all it meant was that people would talk about it when you weren't around.

00:28:31.580 It's the same thing now.

00:28:32.640 I guess we have to learn that lesson again.

00:28:34.720 For example, changing thought about trans people is something that can happen.

00:28:39.760 We're seeing it.

00:28:40.820 I mean, we are undergoing a massive shift in the visibility of trans people, what we think about trans people.

00:28:47.740 The whole thing is changing with dazzling rapidity.

00:28:51.680 But these things do take time.

00:28:54.300 It doesn't take just a year.

00:28:55.640 It happens over a few decades.

00:28:57.800 We've seen this with the acceptance of, say, gay marriage, of homosexuality in general.

00:29:02.980 And with trans issues, I think it's going to be the same sort of thing.

00:29:06.440 And I think I'm seeing it.

00:29:08.140 But part of that cannot be telling Dave Chappelle he can't say things.

00:29:12.540 It's just not going to work.

00:29:13.700 We have a whole segment on the show called You Can't Say That.

00:29:16.920 So the point of your new book, and I've heard you say it with Glenn Lowry on your show that you guys do together.

00:29:21.560 But the point is that, as it says in the title, it's a new religion.

00:29:26.920 Wokeism, woke racism, it's a new religion.

00:29:29.740 You call them the elect.

00:29:30.960 We talked about this last time.

00:29:32.100 We thought wokesters was too kind.

00:29:34.560 It makes them sound too hip.

00:29:35.960 Wokerati, too much like glitterati.

00:29:37.900 That's too complimentary.

00:29:38.720 The elect is what you've gone for.

00:29:40.500 And you say their time is limited.

00:29:42.060 But in the meantime, they're powerful.

00:29:44.200 They are coming for your kids.

00:29:45.760 Make no mistake, they absolutely are.

00:29:49.000 And it's beyond the university and K through 12 education system.

00:29:53.380 And that I really would love to talk about this, that it's futile to dialogue with them, that it is futile to dialogue with them.

00:30:01.260 So what is the alternative to dialoguing with the with the elect?

00:30:06.360 Yeah, this is a major plank of woke racism.

00:30:09.420 It's not just, you know, 150 pages about how it's a religion that would get boring.

00:30:13.380 The issue is what to do about these people.

00:30:16.260 And the sad fact is you cannot reason with them on these issues.

00:30:20.980 You can reason with them about tax policy.

00:30:22.980 You can reason with them about, you know, how to make a fruit tree grow in your backyard.

00:30:26.880 But you cannot reason with them about issues having to do with power differentials.

00:30:31.160 It's a religion partly because of this utter imperviousness to reason.

00:30:36.120 You cannot teach somebody that Jesus doesn't love them.

00:30:38.920 There are very few people who would be open to that.

00:30:40.660 In the same way, you cannot reach these people on these issues.

00:30:43.720 And so the question is not how can you break bread with an elect person and make them see things your way and maybe change some of their behavior.

00:30:52.540 You can't.

00:30:53.420 So few of them would be available to that that it wouldn't be worth trying.

00:30:56.420 But what this means is that woke, truly woke, as in most of us Americans, have a new job.

00:31:04.980 And it's a shame that we have so many jobs.

00:31:06.600 But it used to be that white America had the job of learning that black people were human.

00:31:11.000 The idea of racism as a stain.

00:31:14.480 White America had to learn that.

00:31:15.980 White America didn't like it.

00:31:17.520 White America, I think, has learned that now about as well as white America ever will. 0.88

00:31:21.040 But it was counterintuitive at first.

00:31:22.680 It took work.

00:31:23.740 Now there's a new thing.

00:31:24.840 And it's white and black people.

00:31:26.520 We have to stand up to the elect.

00:31:28.720 When an elect person is trying to take over your curriculum, take over your workplace, take over what your kids are being taught, or even just take over a conversation, that person needs to be stood down.

00:31:41.340 We need to stop being afraid, specifically, of being called racists on Twitter.

00:31:45.980 What the elect do is that if you say that you don't agree with them, or you say something they don't like, you say some words that they have decided they don't approve of, you get called a racist on social media, and especially Twitter.

00:31:57.700 You get flamed.

00:31:59.220 And they do that because they see it as creating social justice.

00:32:02.820 They genuinely think they're doing a good thing.

00:32:05.420 However, it hurts. 0.86

00:32:06.560 It hurts to be called a racist or a self-hating person if you're black on Twitter. 1.00

00:32:10.620 You're a white supremacist. 1.00

00:32:12.020 You know, Condoleezza Rice apparently is a white supremacist. 1.00

00:32:14.460 You get called that on Twitter.

00:32:16.000 We need to start walking on.

00:32:17.740 We need to get used to it.

00:32:18.580 People often ask me, how can I stop them from calling me a racist?

00:32:21.300 And I say, you can't.

00:32:22.500 You have to watch them calling you a racist when you open up your phone and realize that it'll die down in a week or two and walk on.

00:32:29.520 Some people will be more in a position to do this than others.

00:32:32.320 For some people, and I hear from at least one a day, it's their job that's on the line.

00:32:36.200 They can't speak out or they lose their job.

00:32:37.860 But that's not everybody.

00:32:39.160 They're little things that almost everybody can do in the meantime to teach the elect that they can't run the show.

00:32:46.120 And I don't want to chase the elect out of the room.

00:32:48.160 They want to chase us out of the room.

00:32:49.340 I don't want to chase them out of the room.

00:32:50.380 I want them to sit down at the table where they were circa 2010 and give their ideas.

00:32:57.400 And one listens.

00:32:58.180 One needs to hear things from the hard left.

00:33:00.980 Very slowly, they can help us push life forward.

00:33:03.840 But since about June 2020, the elect have learned that they can stand up and have their way by stringing together a few words like intersectionality and hegemony and calling you a racist on Twitter if you dare to disagree.

00:33:16.100 That's no way to run a country.

00:33:17.980 And so we need to learn how to stand these people down.

00:33:21.920 And I think it'll work if we all just develop a spine and stop walking around pretending to agree with these people because they're scary.

00:33:29.960 They'll back down.

00:33:30.720 I think I have I have an addendum to your comments, which is if you speak out and you get fired and I realize that's that's a scary thing.

00:33:42.120 You know, I realize that.

00:33:43.420 But that all that that might doesn't necessarily need to be a deal breaker.

00:33:48.900 Perhaps you will land at a different place that you're more aligned with that doesn't fire people for speaking out against nonsense like this.

00:33:58.620 That doesn't judge you based on your political views or something you write on Twitter or a meeting you go to protesting CRT.

00:34:05.480 You know, perhaps you weren't meant to be at a place that is as intolerant as the one for which you work.

00:34:12.000 So I do think I know it's easy for me to say now I own my own company and so on.

00:34:16.240 But I got here by ruffling a lot of feathers and taking off a lot of people and being called awful names.

00:34:21.300 And I would say I'm much better off and happier now than I was when I was working for places that try to speech police me one way or the other.

00:34:28.760 Yeah. And, you know, I would say, Megan, that you are quite right.

00:34:33.680 And, you know, I'm in a similar position.

00:34:35.900 But then we also do have to acknowledge that there is, say, the assistant professor at a school who feels a certain way.

00:34:43.300 But, you know, if they express their views, they wouldn't get tenure and they'd have to go try to find another job.

00:34:48.780 And they might find themselves unhirable because, for example, the one place that really does scare me, unfortunately, is academia, where I have started, where it's getting to the point where the people who run the show are almost all elect.

00:35:00.240 And so you can't get a job if you're not one of those people.

00:35:02.500 So with them, I'm not sure that they would see it as feasible to leave and become better people by doing something unless they leave the field.

00:35:10.100 I'm still in my camp. Yeah. But look, look, look at Peter Boghossian. Right.

00:35:12.880 He just left his college in the in the northwest and they were they were far left.

00:35:17.640 And I think he's going to do better, not in that environment.

00:35:20.900 You know, they were so intolerant of him. They were so cruel to him.

00:35:24.820 They targeted him for having. And again, he's a he's more of a left wing guy, but he's not woke and he spoke out against it.

00:35:32.460 I think he'll wind up killing it on Substack or in the podcast world like Brett Weinstein did.

00:35:37.300 Right. You can't I think you can't dispute that his life has settled in a better place now than it was when.

00:35:43.000 He was on the college campus with his wife, Heather, and they were being tired.

00:35:45.980 I just think I don't know if it's the universe, if it's God, it's if it's karma.

00:35:49.540 Well, something happens where if you just continue working, it continue rowing, you will ultimately land in a better place.

00:35:58.520 If you stick by your own ethics, your own morals and you don't let your voice be silenced.

00:36:03.160 It's not to say you have to scream every position you have from the rooftops.

00:36:06.520 But I think this is an important fight and we need we need as many soldiers in it as we can get.

00:36:11.780 We do. I worry actually at this point about younger people who are seeking to go into academia.

00:36:18.900 I think we need to work on concrete pathways that we can point them to where they can use their talents somewhere other than the university.

00:36:25.940 Because it's getting to the point where, as you say, that kind of person might be happier not even going into academia at all.

00:36:32.580 It might become difficult for that person to do it unless they've been unusually circumspect on Twitter,

00:36:37.260 because it's getting to the point where committees are looking at people's social media beforehand in order not to be caught short.

00:36:44.140 So, yeah, things are really changing in that way.

00:36:46.420 But it's better to live honestly.

00:36:48.260 Well, you point out in your book that if you think you can, you know, sort of choose like you do on a menu on between the precepts that the that the woke follow, the elect follow.

00:36:58.680 Think again, because it's not enough that you I'm thinking of the actress Sarah Paulson, who has been very outspoken on LGBTQ rights.

00:37:07.260 She she is part of that community, but wouldn't say her pronouns.

00:37:11.360 That was like all the chips she had put into the elect bank.

00:37:14.340 John did not matter.

00:37:15.640 You're not allowed to pick and choose.

00:37:17.400 You have to adopt the entire religion. 1.00

00:37:20.060 It's a religion, in other words.

00:37:22.040 And there are some people who are pushing back against me calling it a religion.

00:37:25.040 And I understand that in another world, I might call it an ideology.

00:37:28.380 But there's a heat, there's a fervency and there's an imperviousness to reason involved in this.

00:37:33.600 That is more like the bad aspects of religion than just what was going on in China during the Cultural Revolution.

00:37:40.840 And part of it is that if you say something that has been prescribed, you are treated basically as a witch.

00:37:48.740 The idea is not that you have a different opinion or that you're quirky.

00:37:53.080 If you go against any of the tenets, you are considered a bad person, unworthy of being dealt with.

00:37:59.020 And you have to be pushed out the window.

00:38:00.800 People cannot stand to be in the room with you.

00:38:02.700 And that's not sophisticated thought.

00:38:06.240 That's one of the big themes about this, which is that it's being put forth as if it's the next step.

00:38:11.180 It's the great leap forward.

00:38:12.620 When really a lot of it is very simplistic and sometimes even juvenile.

00:38:17.340 We have to stop pretending that this sort of thing is wisdom just because it's scary when those people write the word racist on Twitter.

00:38:23.360 Because, yeah, they are really mechanical.

00:38:26.360 They can be really mean.

00:38:27.740 And we cannot teach them that they're not right.

00:38:30.860 You call it.

00:38:31.280 I love this.

00:38:32.000 Ken DeAngelonian gospel.

00:38:35.880 That's so beautiful.

00:38:36.800 Took me a few reads to realize what you'd done there.

00:38:39.520 Ken DeAngelonian gospel.

00:38:41.780 Well done.

00:38:42.380 Well done.

00:38:42.920 So but one of the one of the points you make in the book is and this is quoting the elect on what should matter to concerned black people.

00:38:50.040 This is one of the exhibits that you offer historical figures who weren't woke on race must be canceled.

00:38:57.040 And, you know, you sort of take this on mockingly.

00:38:59.580 It made me think of the fact that in the New York City City Hall, they just took down the statue of Thomas Jefferson, which has been there for 100 years.

00:39:08.480 They've also announced as of this past June that they are taking down the Teddy Roosevelt statue that's been in front of the Museum of Natural History since 1940 because they say it symbolizes colonialism and racism because Teddy Roosevelt and Thomas Jefferson were not woke.

00:39:25.260 They were not woke when it comes to race. 0.73

00:39:26.920 I think that is a fair accusation.

00:39:28.420 And therefore, they must be thrown out.

00:39:30.820 Their statues must not be seen.

00:39:33.200 Yeah, you know, each one of those cases is different.

00:39:36.700 And so I'm going to ruffle some feathers and say, I think I understand the Teddy Roosevelt case.

00:39:42.080 He was a great man in some ways, but he was all about America coming to bestride the world and America's bestriding of the world hurt a lot of people in a lot of ways.

00:39:55.340 I'm left enough to understand that.

00:39:57.820 Now, big surprise, Roosevelt was a racist by our standards.

00:40:01.780 That's no reason to take the statue away.

00:40:03.620 You know, everybody was a racist in 1903.

00:40:06.760 But you could say that the thing that he stands for most is this business of bullying and going up the hill.

00:40:12.340 Now, some people may say he was also a progressive and make an argument.

00:40:16.200 There's an argument there.

00:40:17.660 Jefferson, though, I'm very disappointed in that.

00:40:19.960 I mean, the man lived hundreds of years ago.

00:40:23.240 He was a man of his time in certain ways, including thinking of black people as inferior, which he wrote down.

00:40:28.840 But that was a default view at the time.

00:40:31.960 And in terms of his contribution to the United States, he was indisputably a great man, not to mention he was an incredible polymath.

00:40:40.360 He was a fascinating person.

00:40:42.320 Now, was his moral life pristine?

00:40:45.520 Clearly not.

00:40:46.300 And we all know what I'm referring to.

00:40:48.160 Sure.

00:40:48.460 But judging him by our standards, once again, it's simplistic.

00:40:53.800 The idea is to say, look at him.

00:40:56.180 Look at what he stands for.

00:40:57.560 We are going to slap back at the deep past to show that we know what racism is.

00:41:03.260 Why?

00:41:03.640 I think any 10-year-old could see, well, if Thomas Jefferson was a racist, it's because essentially everybody was at the time.

00:41:11.840 And to expect him to have been able to see past it is asking a bit much, given that very few of us can see past our own time.

00:41:19.220 Any 10-year-old can figure that out.

00:41:21.000 You're taught that it's sophisticated to instead say, we shall not look at this statue of the person who wrote the Declaration of Independence because of Sally Hemings and because he thought black people were inferior.

00:41:32.480 Well, good for them.

00:41:34.300 I'm not sure what they've proven.

00:41:36.200 Frankly, I think they're giving in to simplicity.

00:41:38.500 I'm not sure why that's sophisticated.

00:41:40.660 Well, and I mean, I can relate.

00:41:43.340 Women were not in the Declaration of Independence either.

00:41:46.080 We did not get a mention.

00:41:48.400 Do I hold it against Thomas Jefferson?

00:41:50.040 Do I think he was not pro-equality when it comes to women's rights?

00:41:54.320 I do believe that.

00:41:55.400 I don't care.

00:41:56.460 It happened a long time ago.

00:41:57.680 I can appreciate what he did in the founding of this country, an extraordinary act of courage and intellectual prowess that I don't have to go back and expect him to have 2021 attitudes on all these issues.

00:42:09.440 But I don't know.

00:42:10.800 I think, John, you and I are in the majority.

00:42:12.260 And I would like to get your thoughts on how big you think this group is, the elect.

00:42:18.540 I realize it's grown beyond academia, but I continue to believe that most liberals are with you and with me.

00:42:25.960 And I know all conservatives are, except for maybe 2%.

00:42:29.000 Yeah, it's a small group, the elect.

00:42:32.520 They are overrepresented in the media and in academia, but it's a small group of people relatively.

00:42:38.820 I have no official numbers, but most people left of center are not like that.

00:42:44.220 They aren't that dogmatic.

00:42:45.660 They aren't that prosecutorial.

00:42:47.000 The issue, though, is that the people who are like that end up exerting disproportionate influence because they scare you into doing things their way.

00:42:56.480 I have made, with Glenn Lowry, a graceless analogy, which is also in the book.

00:43:01.560 But unfortunately, it's the only one.

00:43:03.700 And it involves that we left of center people these days are people who have, if I may, and please bleep it if I can't, we've peed ourselves.

00:43:12.840 I see that all over, where people are pretending to agree with a certain kind of angry vocal person who will call you dirty names in the public square if you don't pretend to agree with them.

00:43:23.680 And that's not going to work.

00:43:25.360 I don't think that suddenly everybody left of center has become this religious elect figure.

00:43:30.320 It's just a few.

00:43:31.500 But because of this invention called social media, and we're never going to do without it, but if it didn't exist, we wouldn't have this problem.

00:43:38.120 Because the whole world is in our hands, everybody can now talk to everybody, and it's so easy to get a mob together.

00:43:45.100 You can exert this kind of influence by basically calling people the moral equivalent of pedophiles on social media if they don't jump to your tune.

00:43:53.700 We can't let these people have that kind of influence.

00:43:56.240 Now that we realize that that's the problem, we're rubbing our eyes post-pandemic, we have to start standing up.

00:44:01.940 Otherwise, we're going to have this country taken over by a religion, which is really not what this experiment was supposed to be about. 1.00

00:44:09.580 It's extremely backwards.

00:44:10.820 The solution is not to dialogue with them.

00:44:14.020 The solution is to fight them.

00:44:16.380 I said it before.

00:44:17.080 I'll say it again.

00:44:17.880 You and Glenn Lowry got me through, and my friend Coleman Hughes, who I love, got me through the past couple of years just watching you guys on Blogging Heads TV.

00:44:26.520 You can see it on YouTube as well.

00:44:27.640 You're sort of ticked off little exchanges.

00:44:31.740 You know, John calls himself, I think it's a cranky liberal, and Glenn is more of a conservative, but just reason and fact-based and honest, and you don't really give two dams who's going to come after you.

00:44:42.560 One of the things I love about you.

00:44:44.040 Thank you so much.

00:44:44.680 Good luck with the book.

00:44:45.480 Want to remind people, go out and buy it.

00:44:47.000 It's called Woke Racism, How a New Religion Has Betrayed Black America from One of the Greatest Thinkers on These Issues. 0.98

00:44:54.240 I've had the pleasure to listen to.

00:44:55.640 All the best with it.

00:44:57.020 Thank you so much, Megan.

00:44:58.460 Hope to speak soon.

00:45:00.160 Coming up, actually, after the break, we're going to have the segment, You Can't Say That, speaking of You Can't Say That.

00:45:05.200 So we'll bring you the latest on why you can't say the latest thing.

00:45:07.700 And then we're going to be joined by sub-sex sports writer Ethan Strauss on Nike, LeBron, Kyrie, and vaccine mandates, and much, much more.

00:45:18.640 It's time for another edition of a feature we have here on The Megyn Kelly Show called You Can't Say That, or Think That, or Do That.

00:45:25.920 Oh, wait, this is America.

00:45:28.040 I feel like John McWhorter, he would have liked this.

00:45:30.180 Hopefully, he's still listening.

00:45:32.160 Today, we are taking you deep into the world of birds.

00:45:35.780 Yes, if the wokesters can affect the world of knitting, they can absolutely affect the world of birds. 0.97

00:45:41.400 And here we talk about the racist bird names, which are now causing all sorts of drama amongst scientists and others in the ornithological space.

00:45:51.780 According to a recent article in Science News, racist legacies lurk in the world of animal names.

00:45:58.520 142 North American bird names endure as verbal monuments to people who are deemed problematic, according to Jamie Chambers.

00:46:07.160 142, I say.

00:46:08.800 For example, there is the beautiful yellow and black Scott's Oriole found in California.

00:46:14.300 Look at it.

00:46:15.740 Yeah, you can tell it's going to be problematic.

00:46:18.040 Scott's Oriole found in California, which was named after Winfield Scott.

00:46:22.460 He killed Native Americans along the Trail of Tears.

00:46:25.200 How did he get a bird?

00:46:26.480 Scott's Oriole, you got to go.

00:46:27.660 In 2021, thankfully, there are bird lovers with a whole lot of time on their hands, including a grassroots campaign called Bird Names for Birds, which has made it a mission to replace all eponymous bird names with descriptive ones.

00:46:43.820 I don't really know what they mean.

00:46:45.040 What does that mean?

00:46:45.840 But then there's a group opposing that effort, and that's the American Ornithological Society, which initially rejected a recent effort to rename the bird known as McCown's long spur, named after Confederate general.

00:46:57.020 They don't think you need to rename the Confederate bird.

00:47:00.520 But then after pushback, the society changed its mind, saying, well, we're going to undergo a new name changing process because, as the president there says, we are committed to changing these harmful and exclusionary bird names.

00:47:12.000 God.

00:47:12.440 And remember, the gypsy moth has been deemed problematic because gypsy is considered by some to be a slur for the Romani people.

00:47:22.900 So the next time you call a moth a gypsy or an Oriole a scot, you just remember you're a racist and you can't say that or think that or do that.

00:47:32.240 Oh, wait, this is America.

00:47:35.400 Don't go away.

00:47:36.300 Coming up, we've got a sports journalist who broke away from mainstream media to report on all sorts of things like China and the NBA.

00:47:43.500 We are going to lead with that when Ethan Strauss joins us next.

00:47:46.820 Joining me now is former ESPN writer and beat reporter with The Athletic for the Golden State Warriors, Ethan Strauss.

00:47:59.440 He's recently broken away from mainstream sports media to forge his own path on Substack called the House of Strauss.

00:48:05.800 Ethan is no stranger to tackling tough topics in sports, including Nike turning against its core audience, men, vaccine mandates, not to mention the NBA's dealings with China.

00:48:18.740 Ethan, thank you so much for being here.

00:48:20.020 Welcome to the independent media world.

00:48:22.060 It's wonderful to be in the independent media world.

00:48:24.680 And thanks so much for having me.

00:48:26.180 Sure.

00:48:26.540 All right.

00:48:26.800 So, you know, you have a big advantage over me because I know nothing about sports.

00:48:29.800 I mean, truly, I like I truly know next to nothing.

00:48:32.420 I'm interested in it, though.

00:48:33.420 Like when it crosses over into the news world, I'm always like, I should pay more attention to this.

00:48:36.960 This could be a stress reliever.

00:48:39.600 People seem to get great joy out of talking about sports.

00:48:42.420 I don't know.

00:48:42.960 Clay Travis kind of lured me into wanting to become a sports fan because he said it's like sort of the male real housewives.

00:48:50.080 I was like, this is a getaway.

00:48:52.340 It's an emotional getaway.

00:48:54.480 Yeah, I think that's that's a good way to put it.

00:48:56.600 I often wonder myself, is this an opiate of the masses that distracts us from what we need or is it pro social?

00:49:02.620 And it's a bonding opportunity that we are desperately in need of right now because we're always fighting.

00:49:08.740 And I'm not sure I actually haven't even sorted that one out for myself.

00:49:12.040 I mean, I just know that it's the industry that I follow.

00:49:15.380 I know it crosses into culture.

00:49:16.860 I know that, as they say, a lot of what is it?

00:49:20.240 Politics is downstream of culture.

00:49:21.840 I always reverse those two.

00:49:23.160 And sports is all part of that.

00:49:24.540 So it's worth watching.

00:49:25.540 Yeah.

00:49:26.160 And team sports, you know, they offer the opportunity to a lot of life's lessons.

00:49:30.520 I see it now with my kids learning how to cooperate, how to take a loss, how to be a gracious winner, all that stuff.

00:49:36.720 Unfortunately, now you've got places like ESPN that are trying to teach all sorts of other lessons that it's not their business to try to teach.

00:49:42.420 And that's why, you know, sort of alternate sports media sites, whether it's OutKick or Dave Portnoy's, you know, Barstools or you are doing so well, because I don't think most people want their politics shoved down their throat in their sports.

00:49:58.900 Yeah, I guess it's a good question as to why that happens, because I hear that from a lot of fans, from a lot of readers.

00:50:05.160 They say, I don't want my sports to turn political.

00:50:08.820 I don't want it to turn into a lecture that's aimed at me.

00:50:12.080 But the reason it's happening is because of the neutrality they want and the neutrality that they're used to.

00:50:18.200 For a propagandist of any bent, place a space that reads as neutral.

00:50:23.700 I mean, that's that's great territory to have, because if you can take a space that reads as neutral and if it's very popular, people come together, then you can really shift the conversation because whatever is being said in that space is going to read as just objective.

00:50:38.840 And I know people from the left would point to military flyovers as a kind of propagandizing where you're using the platform of sports.

00:50:47.160 But in recent years, it's been more of the social justice messaging that we've seen.

00:50:51.920 But it really opens up these fascinating incongruities where the messaging coming from sports teams sometimes bumps up against just the natural fan response.

00:51:03.640 I mean, I was fascinated the first game of the NFL season of 2020, first post-pandemic NFL game.

00:51:10.920 And they all the players, it was at the Chiefs Stadium.

00:51:13.920 They all linked arms with one another and they were doing some big speaking out against racism and they speaking out against police violence and the jumbo traumas involved.

00:51:23.860 And it was fascinating to watch because the crowd thunderously booed and you could just look at the faces of the players and these these just visages of shock as it washed over them because they had been on social media for months during that hot and heavy summer of 2020.

00:51:42.860 And I don't think it ever occurred to them that the sense of consensus that they were absorbing from social media was just completely contradicted by what the NFL fans were feeling at that moment.

00:51:56.580 So in that way, at that time, you just got a taste of the politics of the fans and how so much of the messaging towards the fans were completely perpendicular to it.

00:52:06.500 Yeah, the media doesn't want people to know how the fan base feels.

00:52:10.880 For that matter, we found out last week that the media doesn't want you to know how a liberal icon like Ruth Bader Ginsburg feels about things like protesting at the football games and taking a knee. 1.00

00:52:19.840 Katie Couric admitting that she edited that part out of her interview with Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

00:52:24.160 She didn't think it was befitting for a liberal icon.

00:52:26.980 Well, that's that's really not the job of a journalist to try to protect somebody's rep because you think it's going to hurt them with the left wing.

00:52:34.080 I think more accurately, it's it would have shorn up a position that, you know, Katie and other liberals don't want to see shorn up, which is where they don't want to see kneeling at the football game. 0.69

00:52:43.700 Even post George Floyd, people don't need a black national anthem.

00:52:47.420 They don't need people to be separated based on race when they're just trying to take in a game.

00:52:52.620 And the polls reflect that. All right.

00:52:54.180 So let's get into what's happening now in sports in China, because I find this really fascinating.

00:52:59.080 You know, I had this very contentious interview with Mark Cuban when I launched this show, not the one on Sirius.

00:53:04.020 You know, I think people know this. Actually, I'm not sure.

00:53:06.800 We are doing the podcast live now for Sirius XM on the Triumph Channel 111.

00:53:12.580 But later we released it as a podcast. I don't know how people consume it.

00:53:15.540 But the podcast before Sirius launched about a year ago and it was our ninth show, October 12th.

00:53:21.860 And he was talking all about Black Lives Matter and how it's important to speak out for what you believe in, human rights abuses. 0.80

00:53:27.980 And that's why he defended the logo BLM on the basketball courts.

00:53:31.040 But great, great, great. I see it. You know, you're deeply held convictions.

00:53:34.900 What about China? What about the hundreds of millions you're taking from China?

00:53:39.680 Because like they're kind of engaged in ethic genocide right now. Seems kind of problematic.

00:53:44.200 You want to speak out against them? And boy, oh boy, he wouldn't.

00:53:48.660 And now today, this guy Ennis Cantor, this big basketball player, has gone to the place where no one wanted to go before.

00:53:58.000 There was one guy, one guy who spoke out. It was like a team coach or a team manager.

00:54:03.120 But Mark Cuban certainly didn't. So I'll give you just a flavor of what happened with Mark Cuban because we have it queued up.

00:54:08.380 And then I want to get to the news of the day. Ennis Cantor taking the stand as boldly and bravely as anybody I've seen.

00:54:14.180 Here was Cuban refusing to do it. 0.99

00:54:15.760 Why would the NBA take five hundred million dollars plus from a country that is engaging in ethnic cleansing? 1.00

00:54:23.900 Why would so basically you're saying that no nobody should do business with China ever?

00:54:29.580 Why don't you just answer my question?

00:54:31.060 No, Megan, I'm just trying to get to the root of it.

00:54:34.100 So why would the NBA do that?

00:54:35.540 You're the one. You are the one.

00:54:37.140 Because they are a customer. They're they are a customer of ours.

00:54:40.020 And guess what, Megan? I'm OK with doing business with China. 0.88

00:54:42.580 You know, I wish I could solve all the world's problems, Megan. I'm sure you do, too.

00:54:47.000 But we can't. And so we have to pick all battles.

00:54:50.200 And while you'd like to get proclamation so you can create a clip that says, look what I got Mark to say, you don't want to deal with the actual action item.

00:54:57.980 You might think silence is violence, but action gets change.

00:55:01.620 Right.

00:55:01.980 And so when I start to talk about your action, he's not alone.

00:55:05.120 That's how most people in the NBA would defend it.

00:55:06.980 They will not condemn China.

00:55:09.020 Oh, my God. I just I remember listening to that interview at the time and it was fascinating.

00:55:15.540 I mean, credit to Mark Cuban for showing up and face in the fire.

00:55:18.780 But to just take a step back, I know we'll return to China in the NBA.

00:55:24.640 I found it so fascinating because he had been on such a run on Twitter.

00:55:28.440 He had been tweeting a lot going into that interview, Megan, and it seemed like he wasn't prepared.

00:55:33.340 And he had these little rejoinders.

00:55:35.880 I remember that he was using with you, for instance, at one point you were confronting him with the ratings falling apart for the NBA.

00:55:42.140 And he was he made some point about the Kentucky Derby having bad ratings.

00:55:45.900 And he said, are horses woke?

00:55:48.620 And you just did the auditory equivalent of just kind of blinking at him and going, no, here's the question.

00:55:54.760 And I think it was just a fascinating just case of somebody getting used to the Twitter environment, how you can have a snappy rejoinder and have your cheering section and walk away.

00:56:06.920 And it leaves them utterly unprepared to deal with a real interview.

00:56:09.780 He fell apart.

00:56:10.700 He was terrible in that interview.

00:56:12.020 It's uncomfortable.

00:56:13.120 He sounds angry.

00:56:14.860 And it's because there's no moral defense.

00:56:16.680 There's no moral defense in doing business with China when you are promoting yourself as a brand in the way that the NBA has.

00:56:24.180 And we can get into that and how they promoted themselves.

00:56:27.220 There's no defense for it.

00:56:28.580 And what gets so frustrating is I actually will take the answer that he eventually gives, which is it's about the money.

00:56:35.240 What gets so frustrating and insulting is when the NBA tries to pretend it's something else.

00:56:40.160 I mean, I'm looking – I could look at just some of the stuff Adam Silver, the commissioner, says is so ridiculous and insulting about their position on China.

00:56:49.760 I remember a few months back where he's asked about it, and I'm reading the quote.

00:56:54.500 You know, as a former political science major from Duke University, I'm still a believer in soft power.

00:57:00.880 I think these cultural exchanges are critically important.

00:57:03.580 And he goes on and on and on again about how this is somehow going to cool the tension between these two nuclear armed superpowers.

00:57:09.780 This is going to save the Uyghurs, the Muslim minority that's being tortured. 0.99

00:57:14.060 Sure. 0.99

00:57:14.520 It's ridiculous.

00:57:15.540 And I think there's a component to this conversation that is getting ignored by a lot of the media, though, and that's that we're living in the aftermath of failure when it comes to the NBA's China policy to say nothing of the moral concerns you're talking about. 0.54

00:57:28.900 The NBA had this big colonial adventure into China.

00:57:31.720 They were going to make a ton of money, and they were going to incubate a bunch of Chinese superstars in the NBA.

00:57:38.500 You know, everybody remembers Yao Ming.

00:57:39.880 He was 7'6 in the early 2000s, and from China, it was a big deal. 0.98

00:57:44.580 It was a big deal, pardon the pun.

00:57:46.920 So the NBA funded all these academies in China.

00:57:50.140 Adam Silver in 2017, the NBA commissioner, was expressing frustration that there were no NBA players from China, and there are still no NBA players from China.

00:58:00.500 So when you see China punishing the NBA and cutting off contacts sporadically as punishment for a player like Enos Kanter criticizing Xi Jinping or criticizing the former general manager of the Rockets, now the 76ers, Daryl Morey, for doing a free Hong Kong tweet, there's this element of, well, there's no real leverage that the NBA has over China because China is a very nationalistic country that likes to promote nationalism.

00:58:25.580 And there are no Chinese players in the NBA.

00:58:28.640 So because of that, I just think the dynamic is broken.

00:58:31.920 It's like one of those election nights where you get the results early in the night, and you know that South Carolina has gone red or California has gone blue, and we just haven't counted up the votes.

00:58:43.060 The NBA in China is a dead dynamic.

00:58:46.020 It's not going to work.

00:58:47.320 Trying to stand on both of them is like trying to stand on two rafts that are floating in opposite directions.

00:58:52.120 And the NBA has been so cynical on this issue as to be naive.

00:58:56.980 That's my conclusion.

00:58:58.240 I completely agree.

00:58:58.920 And that's the thing that was so infuriating about, you know, Cuban, and I do give him credit for coming on, but, and frankly, I probably wouldn't have gone as hard on him if he hadn't been so incendiary on Twitter.

00:59:09.380 He loves to pick fights, especially on these issues, dropping F-bombs, going after people like Ted Cruz, and sort of always trying to get the last word.

00:59:16.860 And with me, it was a real-life human being who had facts and, you know, kept pressing him, and it was a different dynamic.

00:59:23.780 I'd love to have him on again.

00:59:26.100 Now give him a second chance.

00:59:27.120 We have another, he could have another bite at the apple.

00:59:30.160 But that's sort of why I really want to get into it.

00:59:32.440 Because if you're going to play the moral arbiter of us all and lecture on BLM and why, you know, the United States has so much work to do when it comes to how it treats its people,

00:59:40.900 and then take money from this regime that's, that's forcing sterilizations on women, putting them into work camps against their will, and so on, you can spare me. 0.95

00:59:51.080 Please, you, you've lost the moral authority.

00:59:53.100 It's like Joe Biden lecturing us on sexism in the United States when, you know, girls are not getting their heads chopped off by the Taliban in Afghanistan.

00:59:59.760 He can stop.

01:00:00.880 He can stop.

01:00:01.500 Yeah.

01:00:01.600 Because they're there, exposed, because we pulled out so soon.

01:00:05.380 But, but, but, so let me ask you about this guy.

01:00:07.900 Is it, it's Enos?

01:00:09.160 It's not Enos Cantor?

01:00:10.900 Uh, frankly, I just know him as Cantor.

01:00:13.620 Is it Enos?

01:00:14.200 Is it Enos?

01:00:14.720 I'm not sure.

01:00:15.540 I just know he's from Turkey.

01:00:16.580 I don't know.

01:00:16.720 He's a badass.

01:00:16.740 And I know he's an NBA journeyman center, uh, who has had many outspoken positions over the years.

01:00:22.840 Okay.

01:00:23.100 So, badass Cantor.

01:00:24.780 Cantor.

01:00:25.300 He decides, unlike everybody else.

01:00:27.140 So, literally, the only person who has spoken out about, uh, human rights abuses in China is that guy you just mentioned, who's now running the 76ers.

01:00:35.060 And the 76ers are being punished by China, right?

01:00:37.560 They're not airing their games on Tencent.

01:00:39.960 Um, and now Enos's team.

01:00:43.380 Because Enos said the following.

01:00:45.840 Here's a clip.

01:00:47.600 Dear Nike, your company says that you are making a positive impact in our communities.

01:00:52.480 And that is true.

01:00:54.280 Yes, you are.

01:00:55.980 Here in the United States.

01:00:57.760 But when it comes to China, Nike remains silent.

01:01:03.020 You are scared to speak up.

01:01:04.520 Don't forget.

01:01:06.520 Don't forget.

01:01:07.520 Every time you put those shoes on your feet or you put that t-shirt on your back.

01:01:10.980 There are so many tears and so much oppression and so much blood behind it all.

01:01:16.200 To the owner of Nike, Phil Knight, I have a message for you.

01:01:19.620 How about I book up plane tickets for us?

01:01:22.680 Let's fly to China together.

01:01:24.800 We can try to visit these slave labor camps.

01:01:27.360 And you can see it with your own eyes.

01:01:30.620 LeBron James and Michael Jordan.

01:01:32.820 You guys are welcome to come to.

01:01:37.060 He's like throwing down.

01:01:38.920 All right.

01:01:39.100 So who does he play for?

01:01:40.980 He plays for the Celtics.

01:01:42.580 He doesn't get a lot of playing time.

01:01:44.180 I would say I would caution a little bit.

01:01:46.180 I do think he's at the end of his career.

01:01:48.040 He's not wrong about anything he's saying.

01:01:49.840 I mean, this is all correct.

01:01:50.940 But he has had a tendency a little bit like Kyrie Irving to do attention getting things. 0.99

01:01:57.580 I'm not denying that he feels a moral compunction in this instance.

01:02:01.340 And I'm not denying that there is an element of bravery to it.

01:02:05.240 I just sometimes would caution against just saying, hey, I blanket endorse everything that

01:02:10.260 Cantor says because you really don't know what the next thing is going to be.

01:02:13.880 But the reason that this is such purchase is because it's true, because it's raw,

01:02:18.500 because these companies, they advertise themselves as virtuous.

01:02:23.040 That's part of their self-branding.

01:02:24.800 Even if people I don't believe are that interested in it, I don't think it has much to do with

01:02:29.700 why people resonate to these brands.

01:02:32.100 But the NBA and Nike both have gone all in on this.

01:02:36.200 And it's an obvious vulnerability.

01:02:37.920 So it's hilarious.

01:02:40.200 And there's an element of schadenfreude when somebody like Enos Cantor just takes a fire

01:02:45.620 poker and just presses on it.

01:02:47.200 It's funny because, you know, they can't handle it.

01:02:49.880 They really have nothing to say.

01:02:51.080 They get angry like Mark Cuban does.

01:02:53.120 Well, so what's going to happen is what I hear is that they're not airing.

01:02:55.720 So China is now already not airing the 76ers games and, you know, the poor 76ers because

01:02:59.860 they really had nothing to do with it.

01:03:01.000 The guy said the remarks when he was on another team, the one other guy.

01:03:05.020 I say that facetiously because good good for that guy for taking a stand.

01:03:08.600 But now he takes a stand and now they're not going to air the Celtics games.

01:03:11.920 And that, I guess, could be worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

01:03:15.740 I mean, that's actually going to cost.

01:03:17.700 Is it the Celtics or the NBA a lot of money?

01:03:21.440 I would say mostly the NBA before the Daryl Morey tweet in 2019, the free Hong Kong tweet

01:03:28.320 that initially caused the NBA to get bounced off CCTV in China.

01:03:33.440 China accounted for 15 percent of basketball related income.

01:03:37.600 So that's quite a bit.

01:03:39.060 It was really amusing in the aftermath of that, by the way, Megan, because all these

01:03:42.840 NBA people were asked about it and they would say the same thing, which is it's complicated.

01:03:47.220 We don't understand China.

01:03:48.440 And I thought to myself, all the major superstars every offseason fly to China to hawk their

01:03:54.600 shoes.

01:03:55.340 I mean, there's no country other than the United States that the NBA has become more obsessed

01:04:00.840 with than China.

01:04:01.640 But suddenly, when this issue pops into the foreground, it's, oh, I don't know anything.

01:04:07.940 Please don't ask me.

01:04:09.160 I haven't done my research.

01:04:10.580 I have no idea.

01:04:12.280 And I will say that there's this additional component that I think is being underplayed

01:04:17.120 because, yes, China, ethnic cleansing, horrible, Hong Kong, terrible.

01:04:22.660 But there's this other aspect of it where are we really just going to be hunky dory with

01:04:27.740 this rival superpower that does want to supplant us, is not shy about it, has spies all throughout

01:04:33.980 our university system, has incubated, whether by accident or whatever else, the virus that

01:04:40.080 has killed over 700,000 of our fellow citizens in addition to shutting down the world.

01:04:44.880 And it's funny, Megan, because you look at the situation, you look at where the NBA is

01:04:51.420 on it, you look at where China is on it.

01:04:53.360 And then you look at Gallup polling that says that 79% of Americans disapprove or have negative

01:05:00.080 approval of China.

01:05:01.020 And you think to yourself, why is this not getting more of a representation among people

01:05:06.380 of influence?

01:05:07.580 Why are they not criticizing China?

01:05:09.700 Why is somebody like Kyrie Irving on the nets getting more criticism for spreading coronavirus

01:05:14.760 because he doesn't want to take a vaccine than the nation of China?

01:05:18.920 There is a massive incongruity, it seems, with what public sentiment in the United States

01:05:24.440 is towards this nation and what anybody with influence and power, anybody with money seems

01:05:30.200 to say about it.

01:05:31.560 Can I tell you something just anecdotally?

01:05:33.140 A couple of years ago, a couple of summers ago before the virus, I was at I just swung by

01:05:38.600 basically this big think tank get together of all these muckety mucks in journalism, in

01:05:45.600 tech and beyond, representatives from all these industries and some celebrities.

01:05:52.060 And it was very pro-China.

01:05:54.400 And Mila Kunis, the wife of Ashton Kutcher and successful actress in her own right, both

01:06:00.500 of them were there.

01:06:01.300 And she stood up and she said, why is everyone so unabashedly pro-China in this room?

01:06:09.980 Don't we have reason to believe they're spying on us, that they're an enemy to us, that they're

01:06:14.160 working against us militarily?

01:06:15.740 I was like, oh my God, look at her go, you go, girl.

01:06:19.260 And the room, the media elites, the tech elites, you know, all sorts of industries were like,

01:06:25.880 and didn't expressly accuse her of being a bigot.

01:06:30.720 But it was kind of like, if you're so small minded, you can't understand how the partnership

01:06:35.940 we can have with China could change both worlds for the better. 1.00

01:06:39.740 You know, then we can't explain it to you, dumb ass Hollywood actress. 1.00

01:06:43.540 All right, I'm being too harsh. 1.00

01:06:44.340 That's not really.

01:06:44.980 But that was essentially the messaging.

01:06:46.360 And she sat down and she was right.

01:06:48.780 She was right.

01:06:49.440 But it was an example of how the elites won't allow that kind of coverage or talk to take

01:06:54.680 place.

01:06:55.480 No, they're greedy. 0.91

01:06:56.940 They want the money.

01:06:57.960 And then they make it about something else because they know that looks bad.

01:07:00.920 And it's about ping pong diplomacy or whatever Adam Silver is using as a justification.

01:07:06.520 And look, I have respect for China, despite some of the awful things they're doing as 1.00

01:07:12.960 a country, as a country that has raised the standard of living for its middle class of

01:07:17.720 the last 20 years.

01:07:18.620 But they are clearly not a friend to the United States.

01:07:22.100 And so I think it's fair to ask our leaders, do you care about this country?

01:07:28.000 Is this a country you care about?

01:07:29.680 Do you want it to do better than the nation of China?

01:07:33.040 Because these are things that the people want.

01:07:35.140 And I think that perhaps on no issue is there a greater gap between the public opinion and

01:07:41.620 the opinion of the, for lack of a better term, the elites than on this issue, where you will

01:07:46.800 see in polling, people are angry at China over what happened with COVID-19.

01:07:52.300 Who's their tribune?

01:07:54.180 Who's their voice at the New York Times on CNN?

01:07:57.000 And one of the main reasons why this voice does not exist, Megan, as you know, is the

01:08:03.560 intense corruption when it comes to these multinational media companies.

01:08:07.820 I mean, just look at it.

01:08:09.120 You look at Comcast, for instance.

01:08:11.300 Well, they're building theme parks in China.

01:08:13.400 China can just cut off the spigot immediately like they did with the NBA if there's any 0.99

01:08:17.580 criticism towards their country.

01:08:19.160 So you're not going to see a lot of criticism on NBC, for instance, towards China.

01:08:23.320 Obviously, the same thing with ESPN, which is owned by Disney.

01:08:27.200 Disney has so many interests in China, the movies, the theme parks.

01:08:31.860 That's why you don't see any criticism.

01:08:33.580 I mean, it's insane to me, Megan, that you have China just cutting off the NBA completely 1.00

01:08:38.840 in the aftermath of a tweet from a general manager of an NBA team, a free Hong Kong tweet.

01:08:44.360 Where are the people on the set of ESPN saying that's crazy?

01:08:47.620 Where are the people on the set of ESPN saying, yeah, in America, we should be allowed to say

01:08:51.920 what we want.

01:08:52.780 That's the way it works here.

01:08:53.600 And we don't take kindly to people from other countries trying to control our speech via 0.97

01:08:58.020 its corporate proxies.

01:08:59.480 This is wrong.

01:09:00.800 You don't see any of that.

01:09:02.360 It's completely corrupt.

01:09:02.540 We're not teaching them anything.

01:09:03.780 We're not teaching them.

01:09:04.420 We're bending the knee to them. 0.91

01:09:05.640 That's what we're doing.

01:09:07.140 And it is with the cooperation of companies like Nike that's gone completely woke and abandoned.

01:09:14.800 You'd written this in a piece that I want to talk to you about to sort of abandon

01:09:17.560 its base, men, with its new woke messaging.

01:09:20.820 And how's that working?

01:09:22.360 I want to get into that next.

01:09:23.580 Nike, we sort of pulled, we pulled a couple of ads to show the difference, the evolution

01:09:27.060 of Nike.

01:09:28.520 We'll talk about that.

01:09:29.060 And also what ESPN did to Alison Williams, who's now found a new job with our pal Ben

01:09:33.700 Shapiro.

01:09:34.240 We'll talk about that in a minute.

01:09:35.300 Okay, Ethan, so you had a piece recently going after Nike on its evolution as a new wokester.

01:09:47.100 You know, they're behind Colin Kaepernick and so on, and harkened back to a 1996 Nike

01:09:53.160 ad.

01:09:54.100 And this, you know, it's not that long ago.

01:09:56.140 I was fresh out of law school.

01:09:58.400 1996 is not exactly 1956.

01:10:00.280 But here's how Nike was selling itself to the world in 1996.

01:10:06.280 Watch, listen.

01:10:26.120 I'm not sure what we just saw, but for our listeners taking this in by radio, Ethan,

01:10:30.080 can you explain what we just saw?

01:10:33.140 I thought you were going to play the chicks dig the long ball ad with the Atlanta Braves 1.00

01:10:37.160 pitchers who were getting really into the home run chase to try to impress Heather Locklear.

01:10:44.460 You know, that was one that Americans remember that ad that just played was this Nike soccer

01:10:49.460 players versus the devil ad that was super popular outside the United States that culminates.

01:10:54.860 I mean, it's, it's just a fun ad.

01:10:56.900 It's all these great Nike soccer players and they're fighting Satan's army.

01:11:01.520 It's the sort of weird stuff that Whedon and Kennedy, the ad firm that commissioned that

01:11:06.120 one did.

01:11:07.100 And it ends with Eric Cantona, the French soccer star, super French guy popping his collar 0.54

01:11:12.700 and just kicking a fireball through the devil who is keeping goals.

01:11:17.340 So that's a crazy ad too.

01:11:19.400 But the main point was that Nike used to have very inventive ads, the kinds of ads that would

01:11:24.920 stick and be remembered.

01:11:27.560 A chick's dig the long ball is not a politically correct phrase, but it's a phrase any man over 1.00

01:11:32.500 the age of 30 in the United States probably remembers from that hilarious ad.

01:11:37.100 But the recent ads have turned towards sanctimony.

01:11:41.320 They've turned towards, as John McWhorter would say, the elect's preferences and political

01:11:46.680 worldview.

01:11:47.560 And now they're just lecturing people.

01:11:49.180 They're not fun.

01:11:49.900 They're not funny.

01:11:50.700 They're just cringe.

01:11:52.000 And we have an example of 2021 Nike.

01:11:55.840 Take a listen to this.

01:11:56.920 Here, you can be whoever you want.

01:12:03.380 Class.

01:12:05.220 Be with whoever you want.

01:12:08.140 Or just be.

01:12:11.560 And if we don't agree, au revoir.

01:12:16.420 So bring your love.

01:12:17.500 And leave the hate.

01:12:27.720 Welcome to the land of new football.

01:12:29.440 Sauce to build.

01:12:30.160 Sauce to play.

01:12:31.400 All right, that's another one.

01:12:32.880 Let's get out of this.

01:12:33.800 Okay, so you've seen a little.

01:12:35.140 It's basically women, women, women, women with babies, two men kissing, woke, woke, woke,

01:12:39.740 identity politics on display.

01:12:41.360 And apparently my team really wants us to play one on basketball, too.

01:12:45.180 Watch this.

01:12:45.640 Today, I have a presentation on dynasties.

01:12:49.040 But I refuse to talk about the aging history and drama.

01:12:52.440 That's just the patriarchy.

01:12:54.260 Instead, I'm going to talk about a dynasty that I actually look up to.

01:12:58.020 An all-women dynasty. 0.88

01:12:59.800 Women of color. 0.96

01:13:01.720 Gay women. 1.00

01:13:02.900 Women who fight for social justice. 0.99

01:13:05.220 Women with a jump shot. 1.00

01:13:06.760 A dynasty that makes your favorite men's basketball, football, and baseball teams look like amateurs.

01:13:11.720 A dynasty with fire braids.

01:13:13.380 A dynasty with sick style. 0.81

01:13:15.100 A dynasty with crazy dimes.

01:13:17.160 A dynasty that makes Alexander great.

01:13:19.100 Look like Alexander B.

01:13:20.300 Okay.

01:13:21.500 The dynasty that's been reigning for the past 25 years.

01:13:24.160 It's undefeated since 96.

01:13:26.340 The USA basketball women's national team.

01:13:29.500 Oh, my Lord.

01:13:30.700 Oh, my Lord. 0.94

01:13:32.160 This is ridiculous. 0.88

01:13:34.000 I don't get... 0.94

01:13:34.660 I'm not subjected to these because I don't watch the sports channels.

01:13:36.860 But this is absurd.

01:13:39.360 That's how I knew I had something with this article, by the way, Megan.

01:13:42.800 I showed it to my mom.

01:13:43.940 My mom is very liberal.

01:13:45.400 Sierra Club.

01:13:46.180 That kind of thing.

01:13:47.560 And she just started scoffing at some of these modern ads because they're beyond parody.

01:13:52.160 They look like some SNL satire of modern orthodoxies. 0.71

01:13:57.680 They're completely insane. 0.97

01:13:59.420 And it's not charismatic. 0.88

01:14:01.360 I don't think customers want to be lectured about the patriarchy when they're thinking about Nike, for instance.

01:14:07.120 And they actually don't even have the convictions of their courage.

01:14:09.520 Because if you notice in that ad for the women's national team, there aren't any highlights of what the women's national team for the U.S., very successful, what they're doing.

01:14:18.100 It's just all lecturing and these quick shots.

01:14:21.500 And I think what's happening...

01:14:23.080 I mean, a lot of things are happening.

01:14:24.420 But one of them is this sort of...

01:14:26.800 You had Ryan Holiday on.

01:14:28.300 You guys talked about...

01:14:29.940 There's this phrase I love.

01:14:31.220 And it's actually a favorite of the Miami Heat general manager slash president slash whatever, Pat Riley, which is keep the main thing the main thing.

01:14:39.520 Yep.

01:14:40.900 These companies, whether it's the NBA, whether it's Nike, are not keeping the main thing the main thing.

01:14:46.320 They've got a core market.

01:14:48.420 They feel comfortable with that core market.

01:14:50.500 But they're dreaming on this other market.

01:14:52.400 I call it the undecided whale.

01:14:54.540 When you're trying to grow as a business, you take for granted your core market.

01:14:58.220 In the case of Nike, they're one of the few apparel companies that has far more male customers than female customers.

01:15:04.280 They take it for granted.

01:15:05.540 And they just dream about how much money they could be making if they somehow get women to buy Nike.

01:15:11.360 But the way they go about it is super cringe.

01:15:14.440 It's not like those ads are appealing to women.

01:15:16.580 Maybe you could contradict me.

01:15:18.180 Do they think women hate men?

01:15:20.380 I mean, really, do they think we hate men?

01:15:21.940 Because the only way to make more little women is for us to like men. 1.00

01:15:25.680 Yes, I would agree with that.

01:15:29.040 I think there's this other thing happening in addition to this sort of undecided whale dynamic, which is the externalization of blame.

01:15:36.800 Because Nike had a sexual harassment scandal and a lot of the male leadership was ousted.

01:15:44.140 And like Hollywood in Me Too, remember all those award shows where people would get up after Me Too?

01:15:49.580 They would lecture you, you, Bob in Iowa, you need to change.

01:15:54.480 It's time for all of us to change.

01:15:56.520 It wasn't that we are in, I don't know, a completely depraved industry, a meat market with the casting couch.

01:16:03.020 It's not us who need to change.

01:16:04.880 We're externalizing it.

01:16:06.240 We're making it about you.

01:16:08.000 And I think that's also happening at Nike.

01:16:10.100 Nike, when they do their messaging, they're not saying, hey, we're sorry, we screwed up.

01:16:14.440 We need to change our culture.

01:16:16.040 It's you, the patriarchy.

01:16:18.260 We've got to stop.

01:16:19.880 Now we have all sorts of crazy ambitions and goals that are related to it.

01:16:22.980 In another ad, they said that they wish that the WNBA becomes more popular than the NBA.

01:16:27.300 The NBA that actually made Nike into the brand that it is, thanks to Michael Jordan.

01:16:31.340 So, yeah, those are the two big dynamics as far as I see it.

01:16:35.860 Externalization of blame and undecided whale. 0.97

01:16:38.700 Oh my, it's ridiculous. 0.81

01:16:40.360 It's so absurd. 0.92

01:16:41.500 And just to think about all these companies doing business with China, it's the same thing.

01:16:45.760 It's like, where's your ad talking about, okay, so you're upset about the patriarchy here in America?

01:16:50.840 Like, where's your ad on the forced sterilizations?

01:16:54.300 Oh, whoops, that's something you don't want to touch?

01:16:56.380 How weird.

01:16:57.400 I mean, it's amazing that they actually succeed in painting themselves as these heroes of, you know, social justice warriors.

01:17:04.800 And that, you know, they're totally committed to all these values.

01:17:07.200 People buy it because it's like them going and preaching and like kneeling at the altar of these social justice warriors.

01:17:13.580 They're going to buy into that religion.

01:17:15.340 They want those customers.

01:17:16.700 And yet, as we just discussed with John McWhorter, it's not that big a group.

01:17:19.920 They're just loud. 0.99

01:17:21.360 Isn't there somebody in the marketing department of Nike or are these other groups to say, yo, this bullshit is a very small group. 0.99

01:17:27.720 What about the masses of America? 0.99

01:17:30.220 Why would you thumb your middle finger at men and all the women who love them?

01:17:36.020 Well, I think there's this other component, which is that they're insulated from consequence.

01:17:39.800 You've got these companies in the United States, these mega corporations that have such a stranglehold on the market where there's some recent indicators to say that Nike sales have stagnated of late.

01:17:51.220 I don't think the strategy is working, but they're so far ahead of the game, like all major corporations, the stock market and the pandemic went way, way up.

01:18:00.260 And so this is what you do when you get a little bit complacent. 0.90

01:18:03.900 You start doing dumb stuff like this. 0.93

01:18:05.960 You're not as hungry as you were in the 1990s where you're trying to be popular and be charismatic. 0.98

01:18:11.160 It becomes about something else.

01:18:12.480 And I think that's one of the most fascinating aspects of the modern era we're in is this other thing.

01:18:18.460 And it's something I've observed, which is you would think that the financial incentives overwhelm all.

01:18:24.980 It's clearly part of why the NBA wants into China.

01:18:27.380 It's clearly why Nike wants in to China.

01:18:29.440 But it does seem like we're living in an age where the social media incentives are more powerful than the financial incentives sometimes.

01:18:36.500 That the urge to be popular on Twitter or the fear of one's employees staging a walkout, the craziest employees, is governing a lot of what powerful institutions are saying and a lot of what they're not saying.

01:18:50.680 And that opens up these market inefficiencies for independent actors.

01:18:54.100 I hope to be one of them who just talks outside of that and talks past that.

01:18:57.960 But it is rather strange to have something more powerful, just the the fear inspired by the social media mob, more powerful than even the money.

01:19:08.440 My God, who are these?

01:19:10.040 Forgive me.

01:19:11.000 Ballless wonders who are like truly where are.

01:19:14.800 And I say this metaphorically and physically, physically. 0.99

01:19:18.280 Where are their balls? 0.99

01:19:19.740 Like, where are they? 0.99

01:19:20.820 They're not the ones actually on the courts doing the athletics and they're not the ones behind the scenes who have the spine, let's say, to actually make tough decisions and stand up against social social media bullies.

01:19:32.960 Grow a pair.

01:19:34.420 Well, that's a funny thing that you're a little bit getting into here, which is that the culture of sport is not, for lack of a better term, woke.

01:19:41.880 Right.

01:19:42.180 It is Darwinian.

01:19:44.220 It is brutal.

01:19:45.100 My job before all this was being a beat writer and following the Golden State Warriors around from locker room to locker room to locker room.

01:19:52.900 The culture of sport overwhelmingly is quite masculine.

01:19:57.140 I know this is when people say, well, what about the women's team? 0.98

01:20:00.080 And, you know, my my sister is a huge sports fan.

01:20:03.100 I get it.

01:20:03.740 I'm just saying that the among daily viewers of ESPN, it's four times as male as female.

01:20:09.320 I just did a story on the top newsbreaker in the NBA, Adrian Wojnarowski, passing around a social media resume to potential sources.

01:20:18.200 And in the resume, it said that 94 percent of his followers were male.

01:20:21.980 There's no country in the world that has more women who are sports fans than men.

01:20:27.420 So it's a very masculinized space.

01:20:30.500 It's the province mostly of men, not exclusively, but mostly. 0.90

01:20:35.060 And so when you get into some of this messaging, especially on the issues of gender, there is an incongruity.

01:20:42.020 There are things that cannot be reconciled and it creates a lot of cringe messaging.

01:20:46.460 I'm feeling it.

01:20:47.780 All right.

01:20:48.040 Let's talk about Kyrie Irving, because he's been sort of celebrated as this hero because he isn't getting the vaccine.

01:20:55.980 And now he first they said you just can't play the away games.

01:21:00.000 He plays for the Brooklyn Nets, but then they changed it to, you know what, you can't play for any games.

01:21:03.580 But it's just too complicated.

01:21:05.680 And so you're not going to play.

01:21:06.340 And he he's sort of stood his ground.

01:21:08.400 You had an interesting piece.

01:21:09.420 I love pieces that make me think.

01:21:10.860 I really do.

01:21:11.720 I and it was like, I get it.

01:21:14.100 You know, he's being heralded by the right now as this sort of hero.

01:21:18.540 Maybe not.

01:21:19.860 And slow your roll.

01:21:22.260 And let's see, because you might not know who you're talking about.

01:21:26.720 Ted Cruz may not fully understand Kyrie Irving and his history and what he stands for.

01:21:30.940 But can you expand on why you wrote that piece and what your point was?

01:21:35.000 Yeah, I'm not any sort of expert on covid or the civil liberties implications of mandates.

01:21:41.180 I mean, I'm vaxxed, but I don't.

01:21:43.260 It's just not an issue that I feel like I'm an expert on when it comes to cities making their laws versus corporations.

01:21:48.960 I'll leave that to people like Glenn Greenwald, who goes on your program.

01:21:52.080 But I did view him almost as a window into the two warring political movements.

01:21:56.580 And I I said, when you look at Kyrie Irving, somebody who and I know people who've worked with him, gets a lot of his information about the world from sitting around and just watching Instagram video after Instagram video without much discernment, which has a lot to do with why he once came out and said that he thought the earth was flat.

01:22:13.840 Or at least that there wasn't enough proof of its roundness to go from earlier this guy being a man of the left who was with the Standing Rock protesters.

01:22:26.580 He wanted to blow up the 2020 NBA bubble playoffs for racial justice.

01:22:31.860 And he was being heralded by Dave Zirin of the nation as as like Muhammad Ali.

01:22:36.720 These were the names that were being used to comp Kyrie Irving when the left liked him.

01:22:43.060 And now he takes his position on not wanting the vaccine.

01:22:47.180 And you've got Ted Cruz praising his courage and people on the right saying, look up to Kyrie Irving.

01:22:52.480 And the whole time, Kyrie Irving is just this guy.

01:22:54.760 And I think it's this part of this cultural dynamic.

01:22:57.160 I think Peter Thiel has said that courage is in shorter supply than genius.

01:23:01.700 So when somebody is being courageous and Kyrie is courageous, people will flock to him and they won't necessarily ask questions about, does this guy have a process that makes sense?

01:23:12.320 Is he sharp?

01:23:13.800 Is he discerning?

01:23:14.900 They just like that his courage overlaps with their cause.

01:23:18.340 But beyond that, what I take from it is that conservatives are insecurely opportunistic and progressives are scornfully possessive.

01:23:29.140 And so when you have an athlete, a black athlete, a lot of conservatives, they know when they're animated by just the knowledge that when there's a vote, it's roughly 90 percent to 10 percent Democrat to Republican in the black community.

01:23:44.020 And they know that a lot of black athletes don't like them very much.

01:23:47.020 So there's any sort of overlap with any issue they like.

01:23:49.660 They completely glom on and are obsequious and are praising Kyrie and holding him up.

01:23:54.580 And on the other side, a lot of people on the left have that same knowledge and that same fear.

01:23:59.200 They know they get 90 percent of black votes versus the 10 percent.

01:24:04.520 They worry about what might happen if there's any slippage.

01:24:06.820 I know David Shore, the Democratic pollster, has written that there's some slippage.

01:24:10.300 And so when a black celebrity like Nicki Minaj or Kyrie Irving takes this position, there's a bit of a freak out.

01:24:16.500 And on CNN, on MSNBC, these celebrities who are just celebrities, they're just being ripped to shreds.

01:24:22.920 And I don't think these celebrities are going to move the needle of black America. 0.54

01:24:26.480 But a lot of people with platforms are completely neurotic about platforms, especially ever since Donald Trump won in 2016, because of all in their mind, all the free advertising from CNN. 0.62

01:24:36.960 So I just look at Kyrie as this window into how these warring movements are getting so ridiculous as to fight over the affections of a guy who doesn't know what he's talking about.

01:24:46.800 That's fascinating.

01:24:47.620 I mean, as we speak, apparently Floyd Mayweather has issued a statement on on Kyrie and says some of, you know, espouses some of the opinions that you just offered.

01:25:00.560 He says, I commend him for having some integrity and for for, quote, being your own man.

01:25:06.900 America is the land of the free, freedom of speech, religion, supposedly freedom to choose, never be controlled by money.

01:25:12.600 I respect you for having some integrity, being your own man.

01:25:14.580 Free mind makes his own choices and an enslaved mind follows the crowd.

01:25:19.000 Stand for something, fall for anything.

01:25:20.840 One man can lead a revolution to stand up and fight for what's right.

01:25:23.280 One choice, one word, one action can change the world.

01:25:25.760 It's crazy how people hate you for being a leader.

01:25:29.540 I hope your actions encourage many others to stand up and say enough is enough.

01:25:34.660 I mean, but back to our other conversation, isn't this? 0.99

01:25:36.920 I mean, I could make the case he found his balls. 0.99

01:25:39.660 Sorry, sorry to be so crude, but you know what I mean? 0.99

01:25:41.620 Like, there's so much pressure not to not to bitch about the vaccine. 0.84

01:25:46.580 It's the vaccine mandate. 0.58

01:25:47.840 Apparently, he's upset about and so are many others.

01:25:50.120 But I don't it sounds like he's not vaxxed.

01:25:53.100 I don't know.

01:25:53.780 There is something admirable about something somebody going against the grain.

01:25:58.060 Well, yeah, he's a ballsy guy.

01:25:59.240 He hit the biggest shot, maybe in NBA history for some background, since I know you're not too into sports.

01:26:04.320 So I did not mean he's yeah, he's a ballsy guy.

01:26:08.320 He's got that. 0.94

01:26:09.280 What's the what's the phrase where fools rush in, where angels fear to tread? 0.91

01:26:13.920 I'm not saying that.

01:26:15.560 Look, what I'm saying is that somebody could potentially take a principled, thoughtful position on refusing a mandate.

01:26:22.640 I don't necessarily think that he's that guy, but he clearly has the courage to do it, which has put him into the four and put him into the news cycle that he's in right now.

01:26:35.960 And it is funny, again, to just see the freak out from prestige media, which I think has abandoned their mandate to call balls and strikes and be objective and are now in this position to prevent as Tamir Karan, the professor at Duke, calls a preference cascade.

01:26:52.980 This fear that there is going to be one person who has a position and then another.

01:26:58.100 And it just completely like dominoes.

01:27:00.260 I feel as though so much of the media right now is animated by guarding against a preference cascade among normal people that is definitely tainting the coverage and it's getting increasingly angry and increasingly paternalistic.

01:27:15.220 And it's not just saying, hey, this is what Kyrie Irving thinks.

01:27:18.140 It's, hey, you need to understand how bad he is.

01:27:22.460 And that's the tone of the coverage.

01:27:24.120 It's, I go back to the Katie Couric things.

01:27:26.580 It's so indicative of how the media thinks about their subjects and the rest of us.

01:27:31.780 You know, like the other comment Couric made was something like she didn't think Ruth Bader Ginsburg understood the question.

01:27:39.760 Ruth Bader Ginsburg understood virtually everything better than Katie Couric or I will ever understand anything.

01:27:46.020 She was absolutely brilliant, even if you didn't share her politics.

01:27:49.040 She was brilliant. 0.99

01:27:50.040 But that's how they see, you know, like the stupid masses need to have it explained to them by those of us who understand. 0.98

01:27:56.040 But I object to the use of the term prestige media. 0.97

01:27:58.320 They are not prestige media.

01:27:59.700 You're prestige media.

01:28:01.160 We're hopefully going to be prestige media.

01:28:03.260 Their prestige is in the eye of the beholder.

01:28:05.000 And I don't think the corporate folks have it.

01:28:07.340 You're fun.

01:28:07.860 I enjoyed talking to you, Ethan.

01:28:09.160 I hope you come back.

01:28:10.900 Well, the feeling is mutual.

01:28:11.940 I'm a big fan of the podcast.

01:28:13.200 And thanks for having me.

01:28:14.420 Oh, my pleasure.

01:28:15.060 All right.

01:28:15.540 Ethan Strauss, a new superstar on our show.

01:28:18.720 But an established one in his own right.

01:28:20.780 And if you haven't checked him out on Substack, do it.

01:28:22.580 He could use your support.

01:28:23.700 And we should be supporting people who tell it like it is.

01:28:26.200 Tomorrow, we've got MMA athlete and military vet, Tim Kennedy.

01:28:30.200 Fascinating guy.

01:28:31.540 In the meantime, if you'd like to support the show, I would love it if you'd go to youtube.com slash Megan Kelly and subscribe to the YouTube channel.

01:28:38.420 You can watch the show there, too, or show some clips to your friends.

01:28:42.120 And you can also download the show as a podcast.

01:28:44.140 Apple, Pandora, Spotify, Stitcher.

01:28:45.580 We'll see you tomorrow.

01:28:46.240 Thanks for listening to The Megan Kelly Show.

01:28:50.140 No BS, no agenda, and no fear.

The Megyn Kelly Show - October 26, 2021

Culture War Disconnects, Nike Hypocrisy, and the Religion of Woke, with John McWhorter and Ethan Strauss ｜ Ep. 189

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