The Saad Truth with Dr. Saad - David Harsanyi - How the Democrats Became a Party of Conspiracy Theorists (The Saad Truth with Dr. Saad_757)

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00:01:15.700 Hi, everybody. This is Gatsad for The Sad Truth. Today, I've got with me journalist, columnist,

00:01:20.580 and editor, David Harsani. How are you doing, sir? I'm well. Thanks for having me.

00:01:25.140 Oh, it's a pleasure to have you. I just want to read a few of your key biological, biographical

00:01:33.120 elements. Six books published. The Nanny State was the earliest one in 2007. Obama's Four Horsemen.

00:01:42.300 There's a big subtitle, but I'll avoid these. Then the People Have Spoken and They Are Wrong. That was in

00:01:48.800 2014. First Freedom. 2018. Euro Trash. 2021. And your book that's about to come out, I think,

00:01:59.620 next Tuesday on November 19th, The Rise of Blue Anon, How the Democrats Became a Party of Conspiracy

00:02:08.080 Theors. That's a great title because most people would undoubtedly predict, oh no, it's all coming

00:02:13.780 from the right. So take it away, give us the synopsis, and then we'll drill down.

00:02:17.300 Well, that's exactly why I thought of it. Most people, there's a consensus in the media and

00:02:23.000 among elites, I guess, that the right is much more susceptible to conspiracy theories, to

00:02:28.600 misinformation and disinformation. But it's not true. I mean, I don't think anyone is immune from

00:02:35.880 it. Don't get me wrong. I think it goes back to ancient Greece, probably even before. Conspiracy

00:02:40.800 theories are often embraced by partisans. But the left's conspiracies are much more dangerous

00:02:48.620 because they're usually laundered through media, polished up, calibrated for plausibility.

00:02:55.360 In recent years, we have experts who are partisans participating in it, giving it credibility.

00:03:01.400 And it's dangerous because those are very hard to debunk. We used to trust former heads of the CIA.

00:03:06.980 If they said something was true, we would never think they would lie to us. The New York Times has

00:03:11.180 been biased always. Since I'm a kid, I know that. But you never thought they would just make

00:03:17.020 something up, basically, to affect politics. And it's the most successful... Russian collusion was

00:03:23.780 the most successful conspiracy theory ever in politics in American life. It completely subsumed

00:03:30.220 everything. The only thing we were talking about, it ensured that the Trump administration couldn't

00:03:37.000 really govern correctly. But it goes... There are many other aspects to it, but that was the impetus,

00:03:43.800 basically, for why. But I go back to the Michael Moores of the world, who were celebrated at the Oscars,

00:03:49.620 who are bigger conspiracy theorists than anyone on the right, and so on. The election denialism of 2000,

00:03:56.180 of 2004, you know, as well. I don't like that word, but I'm just using that phrasing. But, you know, so...

00:04:02.920 So how... So in some cases, when someone, you know, succumbs to a conspiracy theory,

00:04:09.400 they truly believe it, right? So if you're a rabid Jew hater, you know, I call it the game, 0.61

00:04:15.380 the six degrees of Jew. I can link any calamity to no more than six causal steps to somehow blame the 1.00

00:04:22.240 Jew for it, right? An Amazonian frog just died in the Amazon. Go. Why is it the fault of the Jews? 1.00

00:04:28.700 But in many of those cases, the person who is succumbing to the conspiracy theory truly believes

00:04:34.840 it. Whereas in other cases, I think, wink, wink, in the deep recesses of their mind, when they go to

00:04:40.620 bed at night, they know that they're just peddling, you know, nonsense. So in many cases, in many of the,

00:04:46.280 you know, Trump is a, you know, is worse than Hitler, and so on. In many cases, I almost can

00:04:52.540 be assured that they don't truly believe that. So do you differentiate between, I truly do believe

00:04:57.880 the nonsense that I believe in versus I'm, I'm duplicitly, you know, peddling that nonsense?

00:05:03.820 Well, I can't bore into the soul of people, but I'm pretty sure that most of the elites who came up

00:05:10.500 with the Russia collusion thing, for instance, or who, you know, talk about Trump being the next

00:05:15.920 Hitler or, you know, are cynically doing it. I think, and you would know more about this than I, 0.87

00:05:22.900 but, you know, and then I think there are credulous partisans who want to hear what they want, and then

00:05:28.480 they believe it. They silo themselves in a group of people who also believe it, keep reaffirming it as

00:05:34.500 true. And then because of hatred or emotional reasons, maybe, or maybe people aren't that bright

00:05:40.120 sometimes, frankly, you know, they'll believe it and spread it. The guy who grabs a gun and tries

00:05:46.240 to kill Donald Trump, or who the guy who grabbed a gun and went down to Alexandria to kill all the 0.85

00:05:51.700 Republican congressmen, he's, I think, convinced that he's been stripped, you know, that there's a 0.99

00:05:56.820 Nazi coming and that, you know, the world's going to end for him. But there's always, right, 0.95

00:06:02.140 there's always cynical people, and then there's credulous people. And I think we have too many of

00:06:07.620 the latter, but maybe, you know, we have too many of both, actually. But yeah, I guess that's the

00:06:14.260 answer. Yeah, well, so there's, there are several ways by which I could link your, your latest book

00:06:19.980 to some of my own work. So, you know, in, say, the parasitic mind, I talk about how all of these

00:06:25.760 parasitic ideas were spawned on university campuses, and then eventually they proliferate to every nook and

00:06:31.580 cranny of society. Now, in my case, I state upfront that I will be focusing on parasitic ideas that

00:06:40.840 come from universities, and then therefore, by definition, they all stem from leftist professors,

00:06:47.060 because academia has completely taken over, you know, by leftist professors, especially in the

00:06:54.260 activist fields, right? So if you're in anthropology and in sociology and ethnic studies, the lopsidedness

00:07:00.460 of Democrat to Republicans is absolutely astounding. And I make the point very clearly, that it's not

00:07:07.200 because only leftists peddle bullshit, but it's because in academia, that's, that's the only animal 1.00

00:07:15.280 that inhabits that ecosystem. And so I give usually one good example to point to this. The theory of 0.99

00:07:22.400 evolution is much more likely to be rejected by people on the right, typically, because it doesn't

00:07:29.620 confirm with my religious beliefs. But evolutionary psychology, the application of the theory of

00:07:35.660 evolution to the study of the human mind is much more vociferously rejected by people on the left.

00:07:41.680 And so in a sense, it speaks to the positioning of your book, which is, it's not that the right,

00:07:47.080 right wing guys don't spread conspiracies, but let's include the left guys as part of the tent of

00:07:52.180 conspiracies. Well, yeah, imagine if right wing professors controlled all the schools, then I assume there would be

00:07:59.620 fringe right wingers who become professors after a while, and that they would spread their own

00:08:03.800 conspiracy theories. But that's not the case. You can't go to an Ivy League school and probably find

00:08:08.060 more than one right wing professor, or not even a right wing professor, or normie, you know, someone

00:08:12.780 who maybe tries to see both sides of a political issue. And that's why you create these, and frankly,

00:08:20.160 you mentioned Jews and conspiracy theories of linked to Judaism for a very, you know, into ancient times

00:08:27.260 are now again spreading on the left, because let's face it, even Marx was an anti-Semite, and he came 0.93

00:08:33.820 from a family of rabbis, right? It's always been part of the left. And then on the day after October 7th,

00:08:41.500 you have pro-Hamas marchers in Harvard campus. So clearly something's gone terribly wrong there,

00:08:48.500 you know, not just because of conspiracy theories, which I think most of these people believe,

00:08:54.140 maybe they're just ignorant of history, I don't know, but I assume that they believe more than that.

00:08:58.820 But also something has gone morally wrong, right? There's some moral problem with people who would

00:09:04.080 defend rapists and murderers of civilians. So I think paranoia is part of it, because there's

00:09:09.500 always paranoia about Jews, but I don't know, there's something more to it, I think, you know? 1.00

00:09:14.800 I mean, in your case, you're very much focusing on the fact that political orientation, in this case,

00:09:20.580 on the left, you know, spews all this conspiracy stuff. But did you look at any other possible

00:09:26.960 predictors, for example, irrespective of my political orientation, is there a particular

00:09:31.920 personality profile that I may have that makes me more susceptible to being a conspiracy theorist

00:09:38.880 adherent?

00:09:41.360 You know, that's not my expertise, it's more of a history, but I would say that people typically

00:09:46.060 who feel powerless in society are more susceptible to believing that dark forces are conspiring against

00:09:53.200 them, and that's always been the case. But the left has kind of inverted that in that even when

00:09:58.520 they're in control, they pretend that they're victims. So I'll give you an example. I think one of

00:10:05.620 the most pernicious paranoias of politics is the idea that there's a systemic racist society that 0.91

00:10:12.840 is not letting black people vote. It's easier to vote now than it's ever been for anyone in history 1.00

00:10:18.960 in the United States. You can ask them to mail you a ballot in like 12 languages or more. It's easy.

00:10:25.600 The idea that your agency has been stripped of you, that you will have no say in what happens to you

00:10:31.020 in politics, it's very evil, right? I think, especially when it's not true. Or the idea that

00:10:39.160 white policemen are creeping around trying to kill hunting black men. It's not true. I'm not saying 0.99

00:10:47.000 there aren't racists. There are racists, and sometimes people do try to stop you from voting,

00:10:51.180 but it's not a systemic thing in the United States. So you make victims out of people who aren't

00:10:56.760 victims, and often who are running major cities, who are the major voting block of a city. So I don't

00:11:04.120 know if that answers the question, but I think that when you feel powerless, that's when you are more

00:11:09.060 susceptible to believing things like that. Yeah, I think another parallel between your current book

00:11:14.780 and some of the stuff that I've written about is, so I talk about, you know, creating a mind vaccine,

00:11:19.280 right? I mean, is there something that I can offer you that could allow you to build an inoculation

00:11:26.440 against some of these alluring parasitic ideas? And so then I ask myself, the same question could be

00:11:32.080 asked within the context of your book, which is, is there any information that I can take and offer

00:11:39.960 to an ardent conspiracy theorist that could anchor him away from holding that conspiracy dearly? And

00:11:47.280 before I cede the floor to you, I'm going to be pessimistic and say that for a large chunk of

00:11:53.060 people, they're impervious to any evidence that I might offer. Because one of the most difficult

00:11:58.080 things I have found to be true that you can't do is to change someone's opinion once it's anchored

00:12:05.940 in a position. So what are your thoughts on that? Can I offer, can I hit you with the mind vaccine? Or

00:12:11.420 once you believe in the conspiracy, you're down the rabbit hole. And my personal experience is that

00:12:16.720 there's nothing really you can say a lot of it is emotionally driven, you know, you want to believe

00:12:20.620 these things because you feel like someone's taking something from you. But I'll give you a quick

00:12:25.000 example. I think this is true. I don't have the exact numbers. But Jewish people often in American

00:12:30.940 Jewish groups, particularly always talk about Holocaust education, we need to educate people in the

00:12:35.140 Holocaust, then they would see how horrible it is, right? I mean, any normal person, rational person, 0.92

00:12:39.520 moral person would be horrified. But there are studies that show that the more you teach it,

00:12:43.860 the less people believe it, the more people become skeptical. Teaching people, you know,

00:12:49.060 just because you're rational about something doesn't mean that the other person is going to be rational

00:12:52.740 just because you give them certain facts. It's like Ben Shapiro has that saying where facts don't care

00:12:59.160 about your feelings, but your feelings don't care about facts. I mean, the truth is that a lot of people

00:13:04.140 feel something and want to believe it. And there's no amount of information you can give them.

00:13:08.580 These days, they'll just tell you, you know, they'll dismiss it because they're skeptical that

00:13:15.440 anyone is telling them the truth anymore because institution, we've lost trust in almost every

00:13:20.660 institution. And it's the institution's fault that that happened, but it's still bad for society that

00:13:25.680 we can't trust the journalists, that we can't. If journalists tomorrow found something that Donald

00:13:30.860 Trump actually did wrong, something terrible, and it was true, no one would believe it, right?

00:13:35.120 Because they've lied so often. And so I think that's a problem as well for us.

00:13:40.900 To your point about the Holocaust example, where teaching more Holocaust, you're swayed in the

00:13:46.940 opposite direction to what you were hoping. Leon Festinger, the pioneer, the founder of

00:13:52.620 theory of cognitive dissonance, has a wonderful quote, which I quote in The Parasitic Mind, where

00:13:58.560 I'm paraphrasing, I don't have the exact quote, but he says that, you know, the more evidence you

00:14:03.580 provide, the more the recipient of that evidence comes up with all sorts of cognitive machinations

00:14:10.220 to dissuade you that what you're saying is true. So exactly to your point, after I provide you with

00:14:16.640 the inoculation, you're even less likely to believe in what I'm saying.

00:14:20.520 That's a good point, because with conspiracy theories, it happens where the more you debunk

00:14:27.500 things, the more questions it poses for people, or the more information you give them, the more

00:14:33.400 holes they can punch into your ideas. And most conspiracy theories are cobbled together from

00:14:40.560 existing fact. There's always a sort of a seed of truth. For instance, the Trump dossier,

00:14:47.520 you remember that whole thing? You know, people said, well, most of it is true. Yeah,

00:14:52.320 most of it is true. But all the crazy parts aren't true. You know, they always you always

00:14:57.080 stuff some sort of rat, plausible or realistic or factual things. And then, you know, that is the

00:15:03.180 basis then for growing a conspiracy theory, which is often done. So, you know,

00:15:09.160 Now, journalists, I, I think I've cited some study, maybe it was 2013 from Indiana University,

00:15:15.980 I'm going on memory, where it was something in the order of, you know, 7% of journalists,

00:15:20.840 I don't remember the exact number, identify as, you know, conservative. So I suspect that it is as

00:15:28.680 bad or as lopsided in journalism as it might be in academia, or maybe a bit better. How do you

00:15:34.360 navigate that ecosystem? You're certainly not amongst your your blue friends. So how do you,

00:15:39.540 has it, has it been, has it been a tough goal or are you holding the fort down?

00:15:44.400 Well, in the last years, I've worked at conservative, you know, in places, but I did

00:15:50.240 start my career working at newspapers, like the Denver Post, when newspapers mattered and had many

00:15:54.260 people reading them. And it was not an easy thing to do. I was on the editorial board at the Denver

00:15:58.760 Post. And that was a relatively, it wasn't like a crazy place, but journalists have changed.

00:16:05.080 Even the left wing journalists that I knew, especially ones that have been around a while,

00:16:09.440 they were, they'd be happy to take down anyone. They were, of course, biased, but they were not

00:16:14.320 activists. There's a difference between hiding Joe Biden's cognitive decline and getting, and then

00:16:22.820 when it comes forth, you just immediately just make a U-turn and get, you know, and try to push him

00:16:28.440 out of office. And, and just reporting things in a biased manner. When I was young, you know,

00:16:34.200 the New York Times, we always knew it was anti-Israel. So you had to read between the lines

00:16:37.740 to understand what was going on. Now they're from their headline down, you know, it's meant

00:16:43.060 to mislead you. There's a difference between that, I think. So things have changed and the

00:16:48.840 whole culture is wrong. If, if the New York Times publishes something that the editorial assistant

00:16:55.040 doesn't like, they all have a little revolt and they get the boss fired. That's not how things

00:17:00.200 are supposed to work in a, in a, in a properly functioning institution. And journalism is no

00:17:04.620 longer a properly functioning institution.

00:17:07.020 Do you feel that, I mean, certainly given the cataclysmic changes that are taking place today

00:17:12.500 in the United States, that there might be a very quick auto-correction within the journalism industry

00:17:18.880 where, you know, the fulcrum kind of goes back to the center, or do you think the left train is

00:17:24.340 going never to turn in any other direction? I hate to always be a skeptic, but I, I, it seems

00:17:30.440 difficult for me to imagine that happening considering the culture I just talked about,

00:17:33.800 but also the incentives. What is the incentive to be a good reporter? You don't, you don't get the

00:17:38.000 followers you get if you're just anti-Trump and talking about how Trump is Hitler. The incentive is

00:17:42.220 to be, you know, to be over, to be, to the hyperbole is the incentive, not the rash tempered,

00:17:48.580 you know, arguments in, in our society, in our journalistic society. And a lot of that has to do

00:17:52.800 with social media as well and things like that. But, um, you know, so it, to me, I mean, who knows,

00:17:59.840 I don't know if MSNBC goes out of business and CNN goes up, maybe people will, will, will see the

00:18:04.100 light, but I suspect not. I suspect the New York times will do excellent under Trump, you know,

00:18:09.440 because a lot of people are hysterics and, uh, that's how they are. And that's what they want to

00:18:14.660 hear. Um, if there were like Elon Musk and others, other billionaires give a lot of money to, you know,

00:18:21.980 plow money into politics and that's fine. Um, I think money is speech and all that, but I think

00:18:27.860 they would do better to change our whole culture by plowing money into journalistic institutions that 0.79

00:18:33.060 are, I wouldn't say conservative, but at least on, you know, contrarian, skeptical of power

00:18:40.960 across the board, not just of Democrats, but across the board. I think it's important not to,

00:18:45.740 to, to participate in group think if you're a journalist and I think you have to have a certain

00:18:49.900 demeanor, I'm pretty, I'm a contrarian. So on the same day, I'll argue with my brother about

00:18:55.040 something on one side and then my father on the other side of the same argument. And in my, in my

00:18:59.960 heart, I'm passionate and believe the things I'm saying both times. Maybe I'm, maybe I'm susceptible

00:19:04.700 to conspiracy theories, but, um, uh, I, I feel like journalists aren't that way anymore and, and, and,

00:19:10.840 and they should be. Yeah. I mean, to your point about the fact that it's, it's beyond just giving

00:19:15.900 money, the billionaire is giving money. It's sort of a longer game. I immediately after Trump won,

00:19:21.080 I mean, I was elated as a, as a Canadian who believes in certain deontological universal

00:19:26.140 principles, even though I didn't have a direct dog in that fight, I was very, very happy that he won.

00:19:32.220 But yet right away, I started saying, look, guys, don't, don't, uh, overestimate the impact of this

00:19:37.980 because, you know, it took 50 to a hundred years for many of these dreadful ideas to fully

00:19:45.240 proliferate. Right. I mean, some ideas, cultural relativism started about a hundred years ago,

00:19:50.120 post-modernism about 50 years ago. Now, hopefully it won't take another 50 to a hundred years to

00:19:54.720 eradicate them, but it is going to take a generation of, you know, the, in the battle of ideas. Do you

00:20:00.580 subscribe to that? Or do you think that Trump's come in nuclear bomb? And then, you know, because I mean,

00:20:05.320 I'll give you an example before I see it before you, uh, occasional cortex AOC just recently,

00:20:12.020 I think maybe today removed the pronouns in her bio. Now that might seem like a very small thing,

00:20:18.720 but it basically says that in her own calculus, putting that useless signal is no longer valuable.

00:20:27.540 So a small win. So how do you view that? Do is, is the, is the, is the road to victory still a long

00:20:33.660 way away? Or are we, are, can we press the, can we press the fast forward button?

00:20:39.220 I think it's a long way away. I view this elect. I don't even view this election as a win for

00:20:44.880 Republicans or conservatives. For me, I believe at least that this was a normie election, meaning

00:20:50.180 that they, them, that ad that said Kamala is for they, them, Donald Trump is for you was so powerful

00:20:55.900 because they, them is a microcosm of a bunch of social science quackery that have been adopted and

00:21:01.500 spread by people who have been, who have gone through the, the university system and come out

00:21:07.780 and be been political activists and so on totally detached from what a normal person was. I don't

00:21:13.380 think the Latino male vote moved over because they believe, you know, suddenly in free markets and,

00:21:19.340 you know, classical liberal ideas. I think that they believe that these people who say Latinx are crazy. 0.97

00:21:24.940 You know what I mean? So Donald Trump really is very moderate on policy. He's a very centrist 0.55

00:21:31.620 character really in many ways. And I think that people feel safe, even though they were calling

00:21:36.460 him Hitler, they feel safe voting for someone like that. If you want to change the way people think 0.94

00:21:41.920 you bring them over and then you succeed in the things that you're talking about and you show them

00:21:46.600 that this system here, that this value is important. And I think over a long time, they'll,

00:21:52.440 they'll go that way. Think about, you know, I'm, I'm more of a, a libertarian or classical liberal,

00:21:57.400 I think than most, than most Republicans these days. But think about Barry Golder water ran in 64.

00:22:03.340 He lost very badly. It took until 1980 to start convincing people that you had to change how we,

00:22:11.020 the relationship between the state and the per and the individual. It's a long time. And I think it's

00:22:17.780 going to have to be a similar kind of change now. Um, I still think there's going to be a fight on

00:22:22.640 the right to, to, to define the party. I think the popular star winning now and, you know, in many

00:22:28.140 ways, but, um, and also I wonder just to ask you, maybe you have a, is this, is this movement,

00:22:35.440 Donald Trump, meaning he's a celebrity is a very singular figure and unique. Will it go past him?

00:22:43.400 If J.D. Vance was running this election, would you have seen all that movement towards the,

00:22:48.420 towards the Republicans? I'm not sure. Yeah, that's, that's a great question. I mean,

00:22:51.360 I think there's definitely a unique element to Donald Trump that allowed this to happen. Right.

00:22:57.640 So for example, the, the, I call it honey badgerism, right? His, his honey badger attitude. I mean,

00:23:04.020 it would be difficult to imagine another human being being put through as many tests,

00:23:10.800 stressors and coming out on top of it, the way that Donald Trump. So for no other reason,

00:23:16.580 he would be sort of a historical role model in terms of his resilience and persistence and doggedness

00:23:22.860 and so on. So, uh, I think from a policy perspective, I think, you know, I, there'll be

00:23:29.160 continuity, uh, yet whether it be J.D. Vance or there's a whole, you know, there are a whole bunch

00:23:34.880 of people on the, on the bench that are quite talented, whether it be Cotton or Haley or a whole

00:23:40.660 bunch of other folks, but there is, I think something truly unique that could only have

00:23:46.660 happened because it is Donald Trump. And by the way, I I've drawn, uh, I'm going a bit off your

00:23:52.240 question, but I've drawn recently a parallel between, uh, do you know anything about soccer?

00:23:57.160 I mean, do you know who Lionel Messi is? Does that? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, vaguely, but yes.

00:24:01.660 Okay. So when I'm a huge Lionel Messi fan, uh, and when the world cup final was happening,

00:24:07.900 I don't think I'd ever been as stressed in my life, which in a sense, you could think it's a

00:24:12.740 bit irrational. He doesn't know who I am, doesn't care about me. And yet I was fully vested in him

00:24:17.660 winning. And I explained that I, I, I had appeared on a Joe Rogan show and I said, it was a, it was a

00:24:25.640 moment where either cosmic justice was going to be meted or not. So for a player as beautiful

00:24:31.660 as messy to not have won the world cup. And also he's such a role model. He's a humble guy. He's

00:24:38.480 a family man. He's been with the same girl his entire life. It just seemed like if he wins,

00:24:44.220 then there's a chance for all of the rest of us to go through the difficulties of life. And then he

00:24:48.560 won. And I say something similar to Donald Trump, not because he's as humble and as lovely as Lionel

00:24:54.860 Messi, but the fact that you could throw everything at him and then he could come out victorious,

00:25:01.600 we should be writing camp songs about this guy. So in that sense, I think that he is unique.

00:25:07.880 Yeah. I mean, the way he reacted after that first assassination attempt, I, you know, it was just,

00:25:13.680 it was, it was amazing. And I, I, it was almost like, if you, if you didn't think that was a great

00:25:19.940 moment, you weren't patriotic in some way. And, um, I, it was one of, it was just an amazing iconic

00:25:25.760 moment. People misuse, you know, iconic all the time, but that is an iconic moment. I do worry if

00:25:32.900 I can be honest a little bit about the cult of personality around a person. I've seen two men,

00:25:38.600 the anti-Trump, never Trumper types. They, they abandoned all their principles because they hated

00:25:43.420 Trump so much, but it's important for the other side, not to abandon their principles just because

00:25:47.460 they love the guy. And you do see that sometimes. And I do worry if he, I feel sometimes like no

00:25:52.680 matter what he says or does, there's a bunch of, there's a group think now on the right where

00:25:57.180 they immediately, you know, follow, um, he is still just a man and just a politician. It's

00:26:03.520 and politicians will always let you down because they over promise all the time and they can't

00:26:08.420 really make your life fulfilling in the way that a sports team can, for instance. Um, I think it's

00:26:14.380 okay to be irrational about sports. I'm a huge hockey fan. You're from Canada. You know, when,

00:26:18.900 um, for me, I am more nervous and more worried about my hockey team, New York Rangers than I am

00:26:23.840 about anything in politics. Uh, New York. Great. Well, I can say that my favorite hockey player of

00:26:29.060 all time was Wayne Gretzky, I think played for the New York Rangers for a bit. Two years. Yeah.

00:26:33.600 Two years, but they didn't win during that time. Did they? No, no. So when was the last time that I'm

00:26:39.420 not, I'm not being, I'm not trying to be funny. I really don't. When was the last time the New York

00:26:43.660 Rangers won? 1994. Oh, okay. Not too far. So it's not a Boston Red Sox kind of situation of 80 years

00:26:50.420 or whatever it was until they won. It's not a great situation, but yeah, it's not a, it's not a

00:26:55.060 century long situation. What is the love with the New York Rangers? Are you originally from New York or

00:27:00.220 what's the love? Yeah. I grew up in, I grew up, I was, my, my parents, uh, defected from Hungary in

00:27:06.720 1969. I grew up in Queens, New York, and then Long Island. Yeah. But by the way, off topic, but I told

00:27:13.540 you that it's an organic conversation. I recently went, uh, for the first time ever to Hungary and

00:27:19.580 then I went back to back. So I went two years in a row. Uh, absolutely loved it. Magical. I share many

00:27:26.660 of their values. Have you been to Hungary? How many times have you been? What are your thoughts

00:27:31.420 about the ecosystem in Hungary today? Give us whatever you want to give us. I've been there

00:27:36.020 and I, uh, I was there luckily, or by happenstance in 1989 when, um, things, you know, when the,

00:27:43.280 when communism fell, I was a young, you know, young man, but still, um, I, uh, Budapest, I think

00:27:50.300 is the most, I'm not a huge world traveler, but I think it's a incredibly underrated city.

00:27:55.300 It's quite a beautiful city. I think, I forget who said the bigger, the parliament, the less

00:27:59.660 important, the country in Hungary has a huge, beautiful parliament, you know? Um, but, uh,

00:28:05.600 and I'm not a huge fan of the government there, but I don't think there are any more,

00:28:09.580 I, there are things I like about it. I like, I, I do like that. It's more, uh, that it sort of

00:28:14.920 cares about the traditions of its own country, Nash, its nationality, and it's, and cares about

00:28:19.760 Christianity, I guess you'd say in a way, but you know, it's no more authoritarian than France

00:28:25.220 or Germany or anywhere else, you know, that's my thing. It's just on the wrong side of the 0.89

00:28:28.760 divide for people, you know, for me, the EU, um, is an intrusive, you know, bureaucracy that is,

00:28:36.760 you know, that does that, that undermines people just no more than Orban does, you know, 0.83

00:28:41.320 or maybe no less than Orban does. So to me, they fall well within the tradition of a European

00:28:45.980 government, just maybe not in the way that, uh, EU bureaucrats like, but obviously that kind

00:28:51.180 of populism is getting more and more popular in Europe, it seems to me. So, um, I don't know,

00:28:56.260 do you, what do you think of his governance? Well, uh, so there's many things that I really

00:29:01.280 like. You, you, you refer to something that's not specific to this government, but about the

00:29:05.080 culture and their pride in their heritage. I actually had recently Balazs Orban, who's not

00:29:11.480 related to Viktor Orban, but who's his political director, uh, I had him on the show and I made the

00:29:17.920 point that there is something quite similar between say the Lebanese and in my case, I'm

00:29:23.460 Lebanese Jewish. So say Lebanese Jews or Jews in general, or say Armenians. My wife is Armenian

00:29:29.160 because you often have these folks who are a very small minority among a much larger majority.

00:29:37.200 And then you kind of turn inward, not in the bad sense of the term, but in that you have to be very

00:29:42.260 prideful about your accomplishments because that those are important things to retain. Otherwise,

00:29:47.900 you're going to be swept by the larger majority. And so I feel that Hungary has that trait as do the 0.98

00:29:54.180 Lebanese, as do the Armenians. Uh, Amy Chua would often refer to these, some of these dynamics as

00:30:00.620 market dominant minorities, right? Where, you know, Jews hold a disproportional amount of power in all of 0.96

00:30:08.260 these societies, even though they make up a ministry. So that I like, I like the fact that there is,

00:30:13.500 you know, there are statues of poets and scientists and mathematicians, and it's not of Céline Dion and

00:30:20.940 Wayne Gretzky, right? That there is a cultural element. I love the sense of, I'll call it orgiastic

00:30:28.720 aesthetics and in the, in the good sense of the term, right? I mean, the, the manholes are worked

00:30:34.500 beautifully in terms of the metal work, right? Like everything is exquisite and beautiful in terms of

00:30:40.520 the politics. Look, there are elements that I really like. I, I think that, uh, having a, uh,

00:30:47.060 nearly closed border, certainly given the current dynamics is a civilizational no brainer. My next

00:30:54.000 book is about suicidal empathy, a large part of which is, Hey, all immigrants are equal. Everybody

00:30:59.720 come in. Uh, we're all equally likely to assimilate. Well, nothing, nothing could be further from the truth.

00:31:05.740 I like that. I like the fact that they're anti-woke. Uh, so overall, I mean, so I don't know

00:31:11.040 about some of the dynamics of how authoritarian Orban is, but on the big issues, I tend to support

00:31:17.600 a lot of what they're doing. I agree with all of that. I think it's important for, especially in

00:31:21.780 Europe, it's a different, it's different in the United States and probably in Canada where you have

00:31:25.440 many ethnicities that need to live together. So you need sort of an umbrella kind of, um, you know,

00:31:31.180 it's the Western, but I think, you know, just these ideals that we're supposed to share that

00:31:35.040 money on the left don't, but in Europe, it's very different. And to let Hungary be overrun

00:31:39.680 by immigrants, I don't care where they're coming. I mean, especially immigrants that aren't going to 1.00

00:31:43.380 assimilate into Western culture, but just even overall, such a small country, it would be a bad

00:31:47.720 idea for, for them. They would lose all their, they would lose their identity in, in a, in that

00:31:52.340 kind of way of, um, even big countries like France are, you know, suffer. So imagine what would

00:31:57.560 happen to Hungary. So I think they have every right to close a border and, uh, I have no problem 0.99

00:32:02.060 of that part of it. It's just some of his, you know, I think that the lack of open discourse

00:32:06.940 there and speech and journalism, I'm worried about that a little bit, but again, in Germany,

00:32:11.140 the police can show up at your door and arrest you for a mean tweet or something, you know?

00:32:15.100 So that is just, yeah, that's just as authority. Exactly. That's just as authoritarian having, uh,

00:32:20.860 a gang of, um, uh, Islamic immigrants running around looking for Jews to me and you doing nothing 1.00

00:32:28.320 about it. To me, that's just as bad as any kind of anything Orban allows or doesn't allow in his 0.95

00:32:33.480 country. If that makes sense. Do you, it does, do you feel personally less safe as a Jewish person

00:32:42.320 in, in the United States right now? Uh, are you seeing it, you know, do you have a child who's

00:32:47.540 going to Columbia or Harvard or, you know, any personal stories of some of the stuff that we've

00:32:52.800 been saying? Well, I, I, I'm not going to say where my kids go, but they, if it's, it's for

00:32:58.900 science degrees, if it was for any kind of anything else, I would be, I think being an autodidact is a

00:33:04.000 better option these days if for, in many ways, you know, and you'll probably get a better education.

00:33:10.040 Um, I don't feel less, I mean, I, there's more antisemitism now than I've ever experienced. 0.67

00:33:14.860 You know, I get it every day, um, for this, like you were saying before, for the, for ridiculous

00:33:19.800 things, I don't even understand why I'm being called Jewish. And I don't want to sound dramatic, 0.88

00:33:24.520 but I mean, we have a second amendment and, uh, I participate in, and embrace that amendment.

00:33:30.080 And I think that Jews are, you know, I always believe that Jews should be, you know, on firearms. 1.00

00:33:36.080 I mean, I'm not saying someone's going to bother me or anyone's bothered me, but I, I think it makes

00:33:40.480 me feel much safer. It does bother me that the left is just overrun by anti-Zionists who are,

00:33:47.000 you know, which is just a euphemism most of the time for, for antisemitic activity normalized in

00:33:52.440 the democratic party. I mean, you have elected officials in Congress who are complete and open

00:33:57.420 antisemites and the Jews in Congress who are Democrats won't even say a word. They won't say 0.93

00:34:03.360 a word. Um, and that is a betrayal of, of, of their people, I think in a way, and it's a betrayal

00:34:09.920 of American values as well.

00:34:11.740 So that speaks to the earlier point that we were making when, when I said, look, I can hit you with

00:34:16.240 all the evidence you want, and you're still going to go la la la. That is perfectly the

00:34:21.500 case with most parasitized American Jews, where notwithstanding the fact that a lot of

00:34:28.020 them should have revisited their voting behaviors. I mean, if you did, there's been a bit of a

00:34:34.060 shift, but not nearly as much as you would have thought. Do you have any unique insights

00:34:39.220 why it is difficult for most Jews to switch sides?

00:34:43.480 I, I don't, I don't know if this is unique. I doubt it, but I, I mean, I think that the,

00:34:49.060 the whole accusation that, that, that, that, uh, Jews are Democrats, you know, and, and just

00:34:55.640 closed-minded has been overdone in a sense. They're in urban areas where almost every minority votes

00:35:01.820 for Democrats. It's not that they're not actually unique in that way, but, you know, I also think that

00:35:07.960 a lot of American Jewish organizations aren't really Jewish in any real way. I mean, you know,

00:35:12.460 they create denominations. I'm not a religious person. I'm a secular person, but I, but I value

00:35:17.840 faith. I value religion and I value Judaism as both an ethnicity and as a, in a religious way.

00:35:24.200 And I don't think they do, they invent, what is it called? Uh, I forgot what word,

00:35:29.060 what was the concept where you have to heal the world, you know,

00:35:32.700 which is a real thing, but they've taken that little thing out of context, created a whole

00:35:39.960 religion around it, which is, which is more about rainbow flags than it is, uh, anything that's

00:35:45.080 actually a Jewish value. Um, they keep constantly call things Jewish values that have nothing to do

00:35:50.280 with Judaism. Abortion is more important to some of these groups than Israel is or any kind of,

00:35:56.700 you know, value that, that, that helps Jews or, I mean, you know, damn value that helps Jews. And, 0.99

00:36:02.080 um, so I think that's a big problem in many ways, uh, evangelical Christians and Christian groups are,

00:36:07.660 are, are better for Jews and Jewish groups in this country. I'm happy that Mike Huckabee is the

00:36:11.620 ambassador to Israel because he understands that situation better than almost any, uh, leader here

00:36:17.260 or Jewish leader here. And, and I'm not saying everyone, but these, you know, with the ADL and these

00:36:22.420 major organizations, I think they've lost their way if they ever even had the right way. I'm not

00:36:27.760 sure about that. So. Yeah, no, that makes sense. Uh, since you mentioned Huckabee as one of the

00:36:32.740 appointees of the current appointees, are there any that you're incredibly excited about? Boy,

00:36:39.400 he got that spot on and any other ones that you say, what the hell was he thinking? Can we do a do

00:36:45.280 over on that one? Well, I am happy about Marco Rubio, uh, secretary of state. I don't love him in

00:36:52.340 the Senate because I am, uh, I would say a, um, a zealous capitalist, I guess, or a free marketer.

00:36:58.480 And he is not that, but his, his view of China, I think is correct. His support of Israel. I really 0.79

00:37:05.060 admire because, uh, he never backs away. Um, I'm, I'm happy with Mike Huckabee as well. Um,

00:37:12.520 I think that's great. I'm less, you know, I'm less, I don't love, you know, the Tulsi Gabbard thing,

00:37:18.600 you know, it's not, I think she's a Patriot and I think she'll do the right thing, but I think she's

00:37:23.320 susceptible to some kind of, some of the paleo ideas about American power that I don't love.

00:37:28.440 I'm not saying I'm not no neocon or anything, but sometimes you have to teach someone a lesson,

00:37:33.100 you know, and, um, I'm nervous that we're not going to do that sometimes. Uh, Matt Gates,

00:37:38.120 you know, as a AG, I think is a mistake. I just, uh, you know, I think Trump wants a person there

00:37:44.780 who's going to break things and all that, but you know, it's a big organ. If you really want to

00:37:49.520 break things, if you really want to change culture, you're going to get someone who's super competent

00:37:53.180 and can do it not in a way that's going to, you know, that's just for show, but in a real systemic

00:37:58.880 way, change the culture of the, you know, of, of law of the justice department. I don't think he is

00:38:05.400 the guy for it at all. You feel that he doesn't have the legal and administrative gravitas to be able

00:38:10.360 to pull that off. I don't think he has the gravitas. I can't for me to say he's not, uh,

00:38:15.220 qualified is tough because these people are constantly putting Democrats constantly put

00:38:20.100 people in positions who aren't qualified. You know, it's now the norm to put people who aren't

00:38:24.520 qualified in positions. I just think he's not the right guy to meticulously undo the damage that

00:38:30.100 the justice department has done because, you know, he's just a firebrand and I get the impulse to do

00:38:35.920 that to get revenge and all of that. But in the end, I, you know, I'd rather have a country that's

00:38:40.920 run better. I, I, I don't think we value, um, competency enough. You know, DeSantis turned just

00:38:48.240 a guy who I think is super competent as an executive took a state that was always a swing state. He barely

00:38:53.580 won in 2018 and he turned it now into a solid blue state, a red state. And I think mostly he did

00:38:58.680 that because he's super competent at running the government. I think we need people who actually can run

00:39:03.100 the government who aren't ideologues always. So anyway, I don't know if, you know, I don't think

00:39:08.180 he's going to get through anyway, but, um, who knows? We'll see. Uh, what are some things that

00:39:15.280 you do beyond writing? What are some things that, uh, you know, you, you enjoy doing? Do you read a

00:39:21.460 lot? Uh, do you have any advice for aspiring authors? I always like to bring in a personal element

00:39:27.160 so that people get to know the office, not just talk. Yeah. So tell us about some of that.

00:39:31.900 Uh, what do I do? I mean, you know, now that my, uh, kids are off and other than cry at New York

00:39:37.780 Ranger games. Well, I have not missed a game, maybe one or two games in the last 30 years,

00:39:43.360 I would say. So I'm a huge hockey fan. Um, I started out as a sports writer, actually. I,

00:39:48.080 I covered baseball and stuff like that. Yeah. But, uh, yeah, I mean, obviously I love to read a lot

00:39:52.840 in, but, uh, I, you know, I like to play guitar. I like to go fishing, uh, uh, and, uh, enjoy myself

00:39:59.540 in that way. I never, I don't know how to give, uh, here's my advice to writers who want to be in

00:40:04.360 journalism that I always give is that don't go to journalism school. That's the first thing you need

00:40:08.620 not to do. Right. Uh, journalism should be maybe a two-year degree. And I think that it's much more

00:40:15.000 important to try to find internships and, uh, but it's difficult because, you know, uh, journalism

00:40:20.220 professors have PhDs in journalism, which I don't even know. I can't think of a bigger waste of time,

00:40:25.600 but, um, I'm not sure it's probably difficult to get hired if you don't have that degree in these

00:40:30.780 big outlets, I, I suppose, but, um, just get out in the world and have a liberal arts education.

00:40:36.800 That's real, a classical education. Try to understand that a lot of people on beats today

00:40:41.900 that don't like, like, let's say business beat or economics who don't really seem to have any kind

00:40:46.360 of grounding in that, in economics at all, you know, or the funniest thing, religion, people write

00:40:53.640 about religion. Sometimes you're reading and you're like, this person has never read a book

00:40:57.020 about Christianity. They don't understand anything about what, what this is. Um, so I think that's 0.99

00:41:02.660 important. And, and, you know, and, and the, the thing that I think is most important that we don't

00:41:07.480 do anymore as, as writers and stuff is debate. Like it's part of my book, actually. It's that

00:41:13.780 no one debates you. They just call you a Russia dupe or, you know, they, they say you're a traitor. 0.94

00:41:19.500 They won't actually debate you on the issues easier to play the man. And I think that what

00:41:25.120 happened is they stopped debating in that, and maybe they don't even know how to do it anymore.

00:41:29.100 I mean, when I saw JD Vance, who I don't love, love him that much. I mean, again, with the economics,

00:41:35.200 but he was so impressive in taking apart the media, because I don't think they sometimes even knew

00:41:41.840 what he was talking about. Like, they're not prepared to have these intellectual or policy

00:41:46.440 debates. So I think that you should always know what, and you always know what your political

00:41:51.140 opposition is thinking and what their case is, and also present it fairly in your own pieces.

00:41:57.760 Don't, you can rip them apart, but you should, you should present their arguments in a fair way,

00:42:04.500 not, you know, beat down straw mans all the time. I don't know.

00:42:07.960 Do you have any, you know, specific processes that you use when you're writing? I mean,

00:42:15.660 you've written six books, which is a very different process than writing, you know,

00:42:19.000 an 800 word article, because that's a long journey you've got to have. So for example,

00:42:23.380 when I, I'm trying to help my students, if they're doing an MSC thesis or a doctoral dissertation,

00:42:28.720 I tell them, you know, at least have a roadmap of where you'd like to go. So that when the reader

00:42:33.440 is reading, I have a sense of where I am in the unfolding story. So what are, do you have any

00:42:38.800 such processes? Is it more bottom down, up top down or bottom up? It's a bit of, it always depends.

00:42:46.820 I would say this for aspiring, you know, opinion writers, and I wish that opinion, right.

00:42:52.000 We just let young people be opinion writers right away. And they're never actually reporters. I think

00:42:56.640 it's important for you to try to be a reporter first, but whatever, if you can get a columnist job,

00:43:00.360 good for you, but you should read the greats. You should read people you love. I'm not saying you

00:43:05.540 should copy them, but you should be inspired by them. I grew up reading PJ O'Rourke, who I loved,

00:43:10.880 you know, so sometimes when I feel like my writing's not coming out that smoothly, I go back and I'll

00:43:15.300 read some of his columns to give me inspiration. I think that's important. But yeah, sometimes I think

00:43:20.620 there is a trick. If you're writing just 800 word columns, a book is a different animal. You write the

00:43:26.080 headline. If you can't explain what you're saying in the headline, in a simple headline,

00:43:30.360 then either it's too complicated, what you're saying, there are too many arguments, or you

00:43:33.660 haven't thought through entirely, or, you know, so that's what I do. And then I try to come up with,

00:43:39.180 you know, three, four points I'm going to make. And then I revise. I mean, there are people I've

00:43:45.260 heard like Buckley or Christopher Hitchens who used to write and it would come out perfectly the first

00:43:50.020 time and they just send it in after half an hour. I'm not that way. I like to sit on it. I like to

00:43:54.920 think it over. I try to be somewhat, people might disagree, but I try to be funny. I think

00:44:01.180 synthesizing complex things and trying to explain it to normal people in a way that they can

00:44:06.180 understand it and enjoy reading it is very important. You know, academic writing is different,

00:44:11.920 but if you're writing for newspapers, if you're writing for, you know, a general audience, I think

00:44:16.980 you have to be entertaining too, not just, yeah, not just tell people what to think, you know?

00:44:22.920 Well, and to your point, I mean, you know, I don't know how much you know of my work. I mean,

00:44:27.720 I, in my public engagement, I use humor and satire. So I'm not just professorial, you know? I mean,

00:44:34.220 I, of course I can be that and I am that, but depending on the context, I always tell people that I

00:44:39.940 will use all of the tools within my persuasion toolbox in order to try to hopefully convince you.

00:44:46.020 And humor is an incredibly powerful way. If I want to demonstrate the lunacy of the less 1.00

00:44:51.260 left, what better way than to exaggerate it using hyperbolic satire? And I do all sorts of skits.

00:44:58.620 Now it's funny because a lot of my colleagues, a few of whom are mild friends, because I don't have

00:45:05.240 too many academic friends because I can't stomach them. They'll say, Hey, but God, you know, but don't

00:45:11.620 you think it, it, it affects the negative way, your, your professorial facade by, but no, I'm a,

00:45:19.100 I'm a multifactorial being. I'm a multifaceted being. I can be professorial when I speak at

00:45:24.680 Stanford and I can act like a buffoon when need be. And so I, I'm, I'm delighted to hear that,

00:45:30.260 you know, you, you, you liked O'Rourke who I think used humor, you use humor. I think it's an

00:45:35.500 incredibly powerful tool.

00:45:36.540 You do something else. I've been reading your book is that you personalize it in a way you tell

00:45:41.200 your story. I think I, you know, listen, I, I, I don't love to divulge everything about my life

00:45:46.040 because they're crazy people out there, obviously. But I think when people feel, when you tell them

00:45:51.060 about yourself and how you came to where you are, not just professionally, but ideologically and how

00:45:56.960 your, your, your thoughts evolved and sometimes how you were wrong or how you changed your mind.

00:46:01.040 Absolutely.

00:46:01.480 Yeah. It gives, it connects them to you in a way and that they, they will become fans of you or

00:46:07.500 understand what you're saying more. Now, you know, I have a readership. It's not huge or whatever,

00:46:11.560 but I have people who have been with me for a very long time. And I think it's because I can be open

00:46:16.820 about being wrong or, or, or learning something new that changes my mind about something. And I don't

00:46:23.320 think there's anything wrong with doing that. And just reading about your past and Lebanon and

00:46:27.000 everything in your book, I think that that probably brings people in as well. I think telling a

00:46:30.640 personal story like that is important. Yeah.

00:46:32.500 Thank you for saying that because when people approach me, say they recognize me on the street,

00:46:36.520 they approach me with such an intimacy that sometimes I'm taken aback. I mean,

00:46:42.340 then in retrospect, I say, wow, that was such a lovely thing. It could be anything. It could be,

00:46:46.780 oh, I'm really sorry to hear that your dog passed away. I'm like, how the hell does this person know

00:46:50.900 this? And then I say, oh, because I tweeted it four days ago and I've got a lot of followers.

00:46:54.920 And so I do think you're exactly right, that people feel that you, they are intimately in

00:47:01.540 your life by, by sharing those important details from your personal life. I agree with you.

00:47:06.280 All right. Yeah, go ahead. Good.

00:47:08.360 No, I was just going to say, yeah, it is weird when someone approaches you and remember something

00:47:11.740 you wrote like five years ago that you don't remember, you know, or they, they talk to you

00:47:16.480 like they know you and they don't. And I'm, I'm pretty socially awkward, I would say, but you know,

00:47:20.640 it is also a nice thing because you, you realize people are listening to you, you know, and, and

00:47:26.760 that's, that's what we want. Yeah. Beautiful. I mean, I know right now you're in the midst of

00:47:32.460 trying to promote this book, which I want to mention again, comes out next Tuesday, the rise

00:47:38.040 of blue and on how the Democrats became a party of conspiracy theories. So yes, we're focusing on

00:47:42.900 promoting that. Is there anything else coming down the pipeline that you might want to use this

00:47:47.840 platform to promote? Take it away, David. Well, just my column, I write columns at the

00:47:54.500 Washington Examiner these days. And also I have a podcast with Molly Hemingway every week called

00:47:59.080 Yeah, where we, we agree often, but we also disagree often. She's more, I would say on the

00:48:05.560 populist side of things. And I'm more on the classical liberal side, I guess. I don't know how,

00:48:09.920 how to explain where I am, but so yeah. And that that's once a week comes out on Wednesdays.

00:48:14.260 That's with under the umbrella of the federalist. Yes. Yeah. Oh, beautiful. Okay. Wonderful.

00:48:20.060 David stay on the line so we could say goodbye offline. Thank you so much for coming guys go

00:48:24.720 out next Tuesday and get that book or pre-order it right away. Best of luck with the book, David.

00:48:29.140 And thank you for coming on. Thanks for having me. I appreciate it. Cheers.

The Saad Truth with Dr. Saad - November 19, 2024

David Harsanyi - How the Democrats Became a Party of Conspiracy Theorists (The Saad Truth with Dr. Saad_757)

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