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May 18, 2016 - The Ben Shapiro Show
48:07
Ep. 120 - The Democratic Party Implodes

Why we're all on the slow road to Venezuela, Donald Trump chats with Megyn Kelly and shows his softer side, and Hillary breaks out the worst impression in history. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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The wages of political sin is Donald Trump.
Speaker of the House Paul Ryan found that out this week after NBC News released a brand new poll showing only 39% of Republicans trust Ryan to lead the party more than 2016 presumptive nominee Donald Trump.
58% trusted Donald Trump to lead the Republican Party.
That holds true regardless of ideological self-identification.
Very conservative voters favor Trump 63 to 34 over Ryan.
Conservatives trusted Trump 57 to 40 over Ryan.
Even moderates trusted Trump 57 to 40 over Ryan.
For his part, Ryan, who's been trying to broker some sort of detente between Trump and the never Trump conservatives, he proclaimed himself just sanguine about the whole thing.
He said, quote, I hope it's Donald Trump.
He's getting the nomination.
He's wrapping up the nomination.
Good Lord, I hope it is, because the person who's getting the nomination of our party is the person to lead our party.
Okay, so this isn't a reflection of Trump's supposed massive popularity.
He's won 42% of the Republican primary votes.
It's a reflection of widespread discontent with a Republican establishment unwilling to go to the mat to stop President Obama's agenda, instead negotiating budget deals that fund Obamacare and executive amnesty and the Iran deal, among other travesties.
Less than a quarter of Republicans generally approve of the job Congress has done, so it's no wonder that very few Republicans want to get by a Republican's congressional leader.
And it turns out there are only two options on the poll.
That's the nature of Trumpism.
Well, at least he's not X. At least Trump isn't Paul Ryan.
At least Trump isn't Hillary Clinton.
At least Trump isn't the Republican establishment.
At least Trump isn't the media.
Well, that's true, so far as it goes.
That isn't very far.
And it's not a particularly good case for making Trump leader of the free world or the Republican Party, given that a flaming bag of dog excrement is likely more popular than all of the choices that we just listed above.
Nonetheless, Trump will be seen as the leader of the Republican Party, which, of course, is a giant problem.
When all the options are terrible, or at least when all the decent options were taken off the table, even the least bad option is still terrible.
Trump, as leader of the Republican Party, he does an inordinate amount of brand damage to the GOP, he hollows out the core of the party's supposed conservative ideology, and he underscores the left's favorite image of Republicans as ignorant know-nothings willing to pander to bigots to get ahead.
But hey, you know what?
At least he's not Paul Ryan.
Right, fellow Republicans?
I'm Ben Shapiro.
This is The Ben Shapiro Show.
All righty, so we're going to start today with chaos inside the Democratic Party.
So let's start, first of all, with the latest from Venezuela, because I just want to point something out.
Venezuela is completely collapsing.
Venezuela is collapsing because it is an authoritarian model based on economic populism.
They closed their borders to trade.
They nationalized industry.
They raised taxes, they increased government spending.
This was supposed to be sort of the model country for how leftism could work.
American-style leftism could work if you just handed enough power to one big strongman, and it's a giant fail.
The LA Times reports today, with dire shortages of basic goods, a looming foreign debt payment, horrific street crime, and intransigent political divisions, Venezuela is in danger of collapsing into waves of deadly violence, U.S.
intelligence officials warn.
Venezuela, which controls the world's largest reserves of crude oil, is in the throes of a potentially explosive political stalemate after opposition parties gained a majority in the National Congress in elections late last year.
President Nicolas Maduro, a leftist, faces a possible recall vote sponsored by the opposition he's maneuvering to block.
All portends a dilemma for U.S.
policymakers concerned about the ripples of more violence, but with few options to change the course of events.
A senior US intelligence official said Friday, quote, So the Obama administration has already sanctioned a bunch of Venezuelan individuals linked to human rights abuses.
The Senate has voted to extend the sanctions.
Under the sanctions, we can actually confiscate some of their money, but we don't have much direct influence in the country.
It's been ruled by anti-American socialists since Hugo Chavez came to power in 1999.
You figure Obama and Hugo Chavez would have gotten along better, but Hugo Chavez died and went directly to hell where he burns in sulfur.
Maduro is a former bus driver and Chavez's hand-picked successor, which is a great resume right there.
You know you need somebody to lead the country when they used to drive a bus.
That's the chief qualification.
And again, nothing against bus drivers, but going straight from being a bus driver to running the country is weird.
He was elected to a six-year term in 2013 after Chavez died, and then the United States says, we can't really intervene, because if we intervene, then we're seen as the problem.
His approval ratings, Maduro's, are 15%.
People have no goods.
People are dying in the streets.
This is what happens when socialism and socialist populism ends up winning the day.
This is what happens.
So, here is the part that's scary for us, ladies and gentlemen.
Bernie Sanders thinks that we ought to be much more like Venezuela.
All they're doing is closing the borders to trade, taking out more debt, spending more money where it doesn't belong on redistributionist programs, putting heavy regulations on whatever private industry is left, nationalizing industry.
That is Bernie Sanders' goal.
He wants to do all those things, except he wants to be even worse than Chavez was, in the sense that he would like to quash the domestic American oil industry, where Chavez lived off of the Venezuelan oil industry, to fund his petro... his petro...
Tyranny.
And by the way, the richest person in Venezuela is Hugo Chavez's daughter, which is not a coincidence.
Bernie Sanders wants us to be more like Venezuela.
Hillary Clinton also wants us to be more like Venezuela, but slowly.
She wants us to get there, but we can't tell people we want to go there because then they're going to look there and they're going to see that place a crap hole.
So instead, we're just going to sort of hedge our bets, pretend that we like private industry.
No, we don't want to shut down free trade.
No, we don't want to shut down private industry or regulate it.
No, we never want to take out more debt and raise taxes to crazy levels.
No!
So Hillary is basically Bernie Sanders and Hugo Chavez, just slower.
And then there's Donald Trump, who also wants to be Hugo Chavez, right?
Donald Trump wants total control over the economy.
He wants to help his friends and hurt his enemies.
He wants tremendously high tariffs on all foreign goods.
He wants to maintain all of the entitlement programs and, in fact, grow them.
So we have three candidates left in the race, all of whom want us to be more like Venezuela.
So yeah, we're effed.
I mean, we've got a serious problem on our hands.
Okay, so, with all of that said, what's happening inside the Democratic Party is we've now reached the fascist moment in American politics.
Where you've got Sanders people who are upset with the Democratic Party establishment, they're upset with the system, and so they've started to engage in violence, and they want somebody who's going to come in and fix everything.
They want a powerful man, like Bernie Sanders.
You've got Hillary Clinton, who wants an inordinate amount of power to push her agenda.
She wants that power to shut down her opposition.
She's always had these tendencies.
And you've got Donald Trump, who is also of the authoritarian mold, who wants to shut down his opposition, and who is being told by his own base That the system is so unworkable that we need a bad man to come in and fix all of it.
So we've reached the moment of tyranny in the United States.
But we focused a lot on the Republican Party and the rise of the kind of tyrannical authoritarianism of Trump inside the Republican Party.
The same thing is happening, but even more extreme in the Democratic Party.
Because at least you could say Ted Cruz wasn't an authoritarian.
Hillary is an authoritarian.
Bernie Sanders is a worse authoritarian.
So you have an authoritarian fight over there.
So, all of this is now breaking out into the open in a rather hilarious fashion.
Over the weekend, and then the Nevada caucuses, we talked a little bit about this yesterday, at the Nevada Democratic Party had its state meeting, and the leader of the Democratic Party there is a woman named Roberta Lang, you're about to see her, and this is at the Paris Las Vegas Hotel.
And one of the things the Bernie Sanders supporters wanted is they wanted a bunch of alternative delegates sponsored as possible alternatives to the Hillary delegates.
They feel like they're being excluded from the process.
She didn't want any of this.
She just wanted to appoint the Hillary people and then leave.
The Bernie people showed up and they were ticked.
And here's what it looked like.
As to me, the county chairs, all those in favor say aye.
All those in favor say no.
The business on the convention.
This convention is concluded.
We have finished all of it.
Take it.
We are in favor.
You're welcome.
Okay, so.
We're hurt.
What the f- So people, for folks who can't see this, basically, she walks up there, she shouts that there's been a voice vote to appoint the delegates and adjourn.
There's not a voice vote.
She just slams the gavel on the podium, like, as I said yesterday, like Bill Clinton slapping a woman on the ass.
I mean, she just grabs the gavel and bangs it on the podium.
And apparently the police then just filed in and started clearing everybody out.
So the Bernie Sanders people were ticked.
They started cursing at Barbara Boxer and yelling at Barbara Boxer.
They started throwing chairs.
They started making all sorts of trouble.
Barbara Boxer said that Bernie Sanders is responsible for this.
She said he should get things under control.
We have to be united.
He knows that.
Dianne Feinstein, Senator from California, big Hillary supporter, said Sanders should drop out.
I think it would be regretful if there becomes a schism, she said.
It's the responsibility, particularly of Senator Sanders, to see that that doesn't happen.
Apparently, high-level Sanders organizers told people at this Nevada convention, don't leave even if they tell you to leave.
Right?
Just stick around and make trouble.
Joan Cato was a National Delegates Director.
She said you should not leave.
I'm going to repeat, unless you are told by someone from the campaign you can leave, you should not leave.
So Bernie Sanders was asked about the violence here, he was asked about this in an interview, this clip three, and here was Bernie Sanders' response being asked about the violence at the Nevada Democratic Convention.
Senator, quickly, uh, this past weekend with the Nevada Convention, your supporters... Okay, I think, yeah, we're gonna do with that later on.
Do you have any reaction to that?
So, for those who can't see, and this is why you should subscribe, folks, because the video is pretty incredible.
He's asked the question, and then suddenly his earpiece, his hearing aid stops working, and he sort of toddles off.
And when he takes off for the car, he takes off very slowly, because he's not capable of moving quickly.
He's 73 years old, but he completely ignores the question and just walks away.
He's also now issued a statement.
Okay, so the Sanders campaign has issued a statement, Because they've come under heavy criticism from a lot of Democrats on all of this.
Here's the statement Bernie Sanders issued, quote, It is imperative that the democratic leadership, both nationally and in the states, understand that the political world is changing and that millions of Americans are outraged at establishment politics and establishment economics.
The people of this country want a government which represents all of us, not just the 1% super PACs and wealthy campaign contributors.
The Democratic Party has a choice.
It can open its doors and welcome into the party people who are prepared to fight for real economic and social change, people who are willing to take on Wall Street, corporate greed, and a fossil fuel industry which is destroying the planet, or the party can choose to maintain its status quo structure, remain dependent on big money campaign contributions, and be a party with limited participation and limited energy.
Within the last few days, and this is a long statement, he says, within the last few days, there have been a number of criticisms made against my campaign organization.
Party leaders in Nevada, for example, claim that the Sanders campaign has a quote-unquote penchant for violence.
That is nonsense.
Our campaign has held giant rallies all around the country, including in high-crime areas, and there have been zero reports of violence.
Not true.
You remember, Sanders supporters showed up at the Donald Trump rally in Chicago and shut that thing down because they were getting violent outside the campaign rally.
And then he complains about violence against Bernie Sanders supporters in Nevada.
He says, he says, if the Democratic Party is to be successful in November, it is imperative that all state parties treat our campaign supporters with fairness and respect that they have earned.
And then he talks about all the terrible things that happened in Nevada.
So he's basically saying, OK, you know, they're doing what they're doing.
Nothing I can do.
He's pulling a Trump.
Well, you know, they're doing they're just doing their thing.
And here's Bernie Sanders saying it straight out.
He says that that, you know, this clip, too, that they've got to do what they're going to do.
And I can't stop them.
So I say to the leadership of the Democratic Party, open the doors, let the people in!
Or the other option for the Democratic Party, which I see as a very sad and tragic option, is to choose to maintain its status quo structure, remain dependent on big-money campaign contributions,
remain dependent on big-money campaign contributions, and be a party with limited participation and limited energy.
And a party which, incredibly, is allowing a right-wing extremist Republican Party to capture the votes of a majority of working people in this country.
So, there he is, making the claim that the Democratic Party is broken.
Bernie and Hillary don't really disagree on anything.
Hillary's just an incrementalist.
She is using the corporate culture in order to foster her leftism.
She's created this corporatism, this idea of corporatism, business working hand-in-glove with government.
Bernie believes a lot of these same things.
He's just more pure about it in the way that he speaks it.
He's more honest in the way that he speaks it.
Basically, what this is now breaking down into is the establishment wing of the Democratic Party and the Bernie Sanders wing.
It sounds a lot like the Republican Party, where there's the quote-unquote establishment wing, and then there's the Donald Trump wing.
The difference is that there are actual substantive policy differences between Donald Trump and other Republicans.
There are no substantive policy differences between Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton.
Like, none.
The only difference is one of approach.
But it's getting bad anyway because people are so frustrated and people feel like they've been screwed even by people like Hillary Clinton because she has the stink of money on her.
She has the stink of money on her.
And so they're very, very upset about all of this.
And you can see, I mean, here's a typical Democratic supporter.
So let's start with it.
There's this actress.
who's talking, I can't remember her name.
I've seen her in a lot of stuff.
She's very familiar.
But she's talking here about how she first started to feel the burn, and no, it wasn't because of a urinary tract infection.
This is where she starts talking about how she joined the Bernie Sanders movement.
And every single person, one by one, got up and stood there silently.
I saw a few people hold their arms up with a gentle fist.
No one was.
Now, I was peeking, of course, because my eyes were closed, but I was looking around at all of this.
And then I looked up at the stage where Senator Sanders was standing, and I will never forget that moment.
He stood there with a look of awe in his face.
We love Bernie!
We love Bernie!
He had a look of amazement in his face.
His countenance was that of a man with such deep feelings.
And at that moment, I felt what he felt.
And that's when my heart was ignited.
That's when I started feeling the burn.
So, there she is.
This is the lady from Titanic.
I think she's one of the villainesses in Titanic.
So there she is, saying that she saw this look on Bernie Sanders' face, this angelic look on Bernie Sanders' face, and that's how she joined up.
This is the new politics.
The new politics is, I saw the power emanating from Donald Trump.
I saw the glory emanating from Bernie Sanders, and they will lead us to the promised land.
All these people will magically, magically lead us to the promised land.
When you believe in that sort of leadership, it's not a long leap from there to, we're just going to push people around in the name of our God-King, whoever that God-King is.
So the conflict is now breaking out in the Democratic Party.
Bernie Sanders, his campaign manager, was on MSNBC.
He said that Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the head of the DNC, the Democratic National Committee, Well, it's ridiculous, frankly.
Bernie Sanders made it very clear before the convention that he wanted people to act civilly.
He made it clear after the convention that he condemned any threats that went on.
You know, the chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee, I mean, it's been pretty clear, Steve, almost from the get-go, that she has been working against Bernie Sanders.
I mean, there's no doubt about it.
You know, for personal reasons.
You know, whether it's that debate schedule that we had, that very confined debate schedule that we had with debates scheduled on weekends where no one was going to be watching, whether it was this joint fundraising agreement that they have with the Hillary Clinton campaign which is taking money out of state parties.
You know, whether it's these standing committees where they've appointed really hostile Hillary Clinton partisans to head these committees at the convention.
Debbie Wasserman Schultz has really been a divider and not really provided the kind of leadership that the Democratic Party needs going forward.
For personal reasons, when you say she's doing this for personal reasons, what do you mean?
Well, I just think if you talk to other high-ranking Democrats on the Democratic National Committee, which I do with some frequency, I would say that there is not unanimity in terms of her tactics and her responses throughout this campaign.
I mean, if you think back to that issue where they shut off Senator Sanders' access to his data shortly before the Iowa caucuses, I mean, that was a unilateral action taken on her part.
Believe me, there was tremendous pressure inside the party structure for her to relent.
So you think she's greasing the skids for Hillary Clinton?
No, I don't really know what her motivation is, but it's been clear there's a pattern of conduct from the beginning of this campaign that has been hostile to Bernie Sanders.
Okay, so this is how the Bernie Sanders people feel.
And there's tremendous anger out there.
Tremendous anger at a party establishment that feels like it's not listening to the voice of the young people who are really, really angry at capitalism and really angry at crony capitalism.
What's amazing about all of this, folks, is that all of the corruption, all of the failures of government, they're leading people toward more government.
The solution is we need somebody bigger, we need somebody stronger to take over the government.
But put that aside for a minute.
There's been critiques of the Republican establishment for not paying attention to the anger of the Republican base.
Take a look at Hillary's response to everything that went on in Nevada.
What happened in Nevada?
Did you hear about what happened in Nevada?
The Nevada Commission?
No, I don't know.
Nothing's happening.
She's standing there.
I haven't heard anything.
Have you heard anything?
So Hillary's doing this routine now.
The anger doesn't even exist.
It doesn't exist.
There's no reason for people to be upset.
There's no reason for people to be angry.
She's not even going to try and co-opt the anger.
She stole Sanders' entire platform, but she's not going to try and co-opt the anger as well.
The Sanders campaign, by the way, when they say that Debbie Wasserman Schultz is backing Hillary Clinton, they're exactly right.
Debbie Wasserman Schultz and the superdelegates were selected long in advance in favor of Hillary Clinton.
Remember this.
This is a very close race between Bernie Sanders and Hillary Clinton.
Imagine how much closer it would be if we hadn't all been told from the outset that five to six hundred Hillary superdelegates were already on board.
Imagine if those superdelegates just didn't exist.
Do you think that would have changed things at all?
That as Bernie started to build momentum, the Hillary inevitability train would have slowed?
But because the Democratic Party put its finger on the scale with these superdelegates who are unelected and are selected top-down, that meant that Bernie had a really difficult time overcoming that.
And Debbie Wasserman Schultz is still refusing to recognize the anger.
They have to maintain this blindness because the anger is really against them.
Here's Debbie Wasserman Schultz blaming Bernie Sanders for what happened at the Nevada Convention.
This is unacceptable behavior, and the Sanders campaign and Senator Sanders himself should not only outright condemn that specific conduct, but they also need to take steps to...
And make sure that their supporters understand that the most important and correct way to respond to any frustration they have over process is to be civil and orderly, not respond with violence and intimidation.
And that needs to be unequivocally condemned.
And unfortunately, it has not been unequivocally condemned.
Have you reached out directly to Bernie Sanders to talk to him about your concerns?
I have not.
We have communicated through our senior staff and I sent a statement and Senator Reid and others have spoken directly with Senator Sanders.
I think it should be pretty clear to anybody that violence and intimidation is never acceptable under any circumstances and it should be condemned and there are no ifs, ands, or buts about it.
Why not call him?
Why not reach out?
You're the leader of the Democratic Party.
Why not make a phone call to Senator Sanders and tell him exactly what you just told us?
You know, after I heard that Senator Reid, that Leader Reid had had a conversation with Senator Sanders and he publicly announced that he felt that Senator Sanders was going to respond appropriately and issue a statement, I was comfortable that one conversation was enough.
Unfortunately, the Senator's response was anything but acceptable.
It certainly did not Okay, so it's very funny.
Debbie Wasserman Schultz will go after Bernie Sanders' supporters for going after Barbara Boxer and Hillary supporters.
She didn't have anything to say when people were rioting in Chicago to stop Trump from Doing a speech there, right?
And then Debbie Wasserman Schultz was totally silent.
So, clearly, she's motivated on behalf of Hillary.
She's been a big supporter of Hillary Clinton for at least 15 years.
So this is nothing new in any way, shape, or form.
So this battle is now breaking out into the open.
You've got one side saying we've got a revolution going on.
You've got the other side saying that there is no revolution.
It's not happening.
Alison Lundrigan Grimes, who was a Senate candidate in Kentucky, She is back and now she is saying that there is no revolution happening in Kentucky, which was a state where they had a primary yesterday.
They are about making sure that we are enforcing the laws that are on the books and that's what Secretary Clinton has put forth.
What we're seeing tonight is that Kentuckians are setting forth, there's no revolution that's occurring for Senator Sanders here in the Commonwealth of Kentucky.
He didn't get the big night that he needed and importantly Secretary Clinton came here to the Commonwealth to continue to talk about her plan and importantly making sure that she sets forth a brighter future for all Kentuckians and for all Americans.
Okay, this is the Secretary of State.
was one focused very much on the general election.
And I think most people realize the big delegates that are left, the remaining pledged delegates, during the contest in California and New Jersey, they're coming up in June.
And that's where the nomination will be had.
But I do feel confident that Secretary Hillary Rodham Clinton will be the first female to win the major nomination of a Democratic Party.
This is the Secretary of State.
By the way, she's the Secretary of State whose job it is to certify election results in Kentucky.
And you wonder why the Sanders supporters are going a little bit crazy over this whole election cycle?
So here's what it looks like when this whole thing breaks out into the open.
So leftist pundits, there are a couple different leftist pundits who are on CNN, and they started just losing their crap with each other.
Bill Press, who's a radical leftist, and Hillary Rosen, who's a Clinton leftist.
Hillary Rosen, you'll remember, was the charming woman who suggested way back when, she's such a charmer, she suggested that Ann Romney didn't do anything for a living.
You remember that she was that one who said that Ann Romney was basically a stay-at-home nothing person.
So Bill Press versus Hillary Rosen on Bernie Sanders.
I personally believe that W. Wasserman Schultz should learn some lessons from Reince Priebus about being an impartial chair who brings people together and soothes things down rather rather than stirs it up.
But I want to separate that from... Wait, hold on one second.
You've got to be kidding from Hillary.
So one point, one response.
Sure, sure.
Go ahead, Hillary.
That's the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard.
Just last night, Debbie was on TV, our DNC chair, asking if Bernie should get out.
No, absolutely.
Reince Priebus, you know, John Kasich has been on TV all week complaining that Reince Priebus called the election for Donald Trump, you know, weeks before he got close to the delegate count.
The DNC has been scrupulously objective and stayed out of this for a long time.
This trashing of the DNC leadership is absolutely ridiculous and unacceptable.
Just because Bernie Sanders is losing, all he's doing is whining about the process.
And Bill, this is beneath you!
Come on!
Okay, so is this reminiscent at all?
Is this debate reminiscent at all?
People saying the process is screwing the person who has all the anger on his side?
And other people saying, well, the process isn't that skewed.
I mean, the guy's doing fine.
Yes, and it broke out into open war in the Republican Party.
It will break out into open war in the Democratic Party.
It is going to damage the people at the top of the Democratic Party.
MSNBC's Michael Brzezinski, she's out there saying that Debbie Wasserman Schultz should actually step down.
She should resign her job.
Why would Bernie Sanders politely get in line for the Democratic Party.
I sure as hell wouldn't if the party I was a member of treated me like this, rigged the debate process, rigged Iowa, rigged the entire thing going forward.
If the Republican Party, I'd say go straight to hell I'm running as an independent.
I would go out there, because I would be betraying my people All of those people that gave him $25, $26, $27 to just play nice with the Democratic Party and fold yourself into a convention at the end when the Democratic Party doesn't respect them.
Okay, so, you know, this is now, again, the reason that I'm emphasizing this is because the entire political system is now breaking down.
The entire political system on both sides of the political aisle is now breaking down.
People in the Democratic Party don't even know what they're angry at.
They don't even know what they're angry at.
In the Republican Party, Half of them don't know what they're angry at.
My impression, and this is the impression of a lot of people, is that people were angry at the Republican establishment because they didn't like them making deals with Barack Obama and cutting bad deals with Barack Obama that re-enshrined big government.
And so, it turned out that was false because we just made the nominee somebody who wants bigger government and who wants to cut more deals with Democrats.
So what's the anger all about?
It's about nothing.
The anger is just anger.
It doesn't have a source.
People have a generalized anxiety about... In medicine, there's an idea that you can be anxious about certain specific events.
You become anxious about certain specific events.
If you do this often enough, you get generalized anxiety disorder.
You just wake up and you're anxious.
Everything around you makes you anxious.
Everything around you makes you upset.
Okay, that's what's happened.
After enough years of feeling like the political structure has screwed people, people are now feeling...
Completely disenchanted with everyone in the political process.
It's why you take polls of Congress, and the polls show 15% approval rating for Congress, even though people keep electing the same Congress people.
And it shows low approval ratings for the president, no matter who the president is, and they'll keep re-electing the same president.
So people are just generally angry.
Inside the Republican Party, you know, there's talk about there's anger against free trade.
Okay, that's true for a small segment of the Trump support.
There's anger against immigration.
That's true for, again, a small segment of the Trump support.
Look at the polls.
It's not an overwhelming majority of Trump supporters who are super hard on the border.
A majority of Trump supporters are in favor of some sort of immigration reform, believe it or not.
You look at these polls, this is true.
So what's the anger about?
The anger is just you feel out of control.
And in the Democratic Party, same thing.
What's the anger about?
The Democrats have given leftists everything they could possibly want.
They're moving toward universal health care.
They're moving toward higher taxes.
They're moving toward total regulation.
They're moving toward a sexual utopia in which you get to choose not just your sexual orientation, but whether you're a man or a woman or something in between.
Right?
The Democratic Party is giving the left what they want.
So what are they whining about?
What are they so upset about?
The answer is that when you get what you want, and it turns out not to be what you want, you just get mad.
When you give government all this power to fix your life, and then government doesn't fix your life, your life is exactly the same as it ever was, if not a little bit worse, because now you've got higher taxes and more regulations.
What you end up with is this tremendous sense of frustration, and you find a figure to channel that frustration into, and then everybody who's not for that figure is against that figure, and those are the enemies.
Because people don't think through issues seriously.
Ask Bernie Sanders supporters what are their chief issues, and they'll say things like income inequality.
Ask Hillary people what their chief issues are, and they'll say income inequality.
But the Sanders supporters hate the Hillary supporters.
Hate them.
If you ask the Hillary supporters, what's your big problem with Bernie Sanders, they'll say he's unrealistic.
Ask the Sanders supporters what their big problem is with Hillary Clinton, they'll say that she's corrupt.
But these same people don't seem to care that what Bernie Sanders wants is a government of people who are selected, not elected, to figure out how to divvy up the dollars.
Corruption runs endemic to socialism.
It's part of socialism.
Socialism is the most corrupt system that was ever created by man or God.
So, here's what happens.
When you have this much anger floating around out there, when you've put all your faith, not in yourself, not in your family, not in a basic principle of freedom, not in God, not in your church, not in your community, when you put all your faith in these people who are far away to solve all your problems, and then that doesn't happen.
Your solution, unfortunately, tends not to be, OK, give me the power back.
OK, give me the power back.
It tends to be, no, you know what?
I was right to make the original decision to delegate my power over my own life to somebody else.
We just need somebody different to do it.
We need somebody who we can look up to and see his face glowing.
We can see the feelings on his face.
And if we hand power to him, everything will be OK.
But anyone who opposes that person is a bad guy.
See, this is one of the great tragedies, I think, of the way that we're taught history in the United States and all over the world, is that we're taught history as though it's a series of almost random events, things that happen that could never happen here.
When bad things happen, it's because monsters did it.
When good things happen, it's because saints did it.
We have a tendency as human beings to tell ourselves pretty bedtime stories about monsters and gods and heroes and villains.
And the truth is most people are just kind of people.
Most people are just humans.
And those humans are capable of making very bad decisions.
And those humans are mostly driven toward handing over power to People who say that they will fix their problems.
Going all the way back to biblical times.
I've talked about this before in the book of Samuel.
Go all the way back to biblical times.
God explicitly says, in the Pentateuch, He actually says openly, don't have a king.
Right?
No kings.
And then, it turns out that the people desperately want a king.
Why do they want a king?
Because they want somebody who's going to consolidate supports, they can fight the bad guys.
And they go to Samuel, who's the leader, who's the judge, and they say to him, why don't you crown us a king?
And he says, well, God said not to, and it's going to be a big mistake.
You're not going to like how this goes.
And they say, we want a king anyway.
He gives them a king.
And then that proceeds to be the Davidic dynasty, which, by the way, does end in tragedy and bloodshed and civil war.
You know, we can make all we want as Jews, we make a big deal out of the Davidic dynasty, but the truth is that was not originally conceived in the Bible.
And the other truth is that it didn't end particularly well.
Dynasties never do.
Kings never do.
Human beings let you down.
But when you get rid of God, when you get rid... You sort of have to believe that there is a higher justice in the universe to believe in your own capacity for individual freedom.
If you believe that all of life is just chaotic, that you're walking around in sort of a Hobbesian universe where things happen to you randomly, you can't control them, you look for a way to control events.
Everybody looks for a way to control events.
I heard Andrew Klaven say on his show that the reason people read mystery novels and watch mystery movies and suspense films and horror films is because they don't want that in real life.
Right?
In real life, they want things to be predictable.
They don't want to be surprised in real life.
No one likes being surprised in real life.
Well, how do you prevent surprise?
Well, if you're a religious believer, nothing is particularly surprising.
You believe God is in control, so it's not really a big surprise.
Something bad happens?
It's bad, but it's not necessarily a surprise.
It's all part of the plan.
It's all part of God's plan.
Right?
If you don't believe in God, if you believe that there's just a universe that's out to get you, and things happen randomly, a bunch of people bounce off each other, then you look for a way to control events.
The easiest way to control events Is to get a bunch of people together who say they will control events if you give them enough power.
And that's what's happening now.
Because no matter who wins, on any side of this, that person, that party, that group of people, they want to consolidate power behind somebody that they worship.
Behind somebody- We have entered the age of idolatry.
We're no longer in a godly American age.
This is the real tragedy of America.
We're no longer in a godly American age.
The church going has gone down in tandem with government going up.
We're now in an age of idol worship, and we all idol worship whomever we feel is going to channel our feelings.
Whoever is going to channel how we feel.
And that's the most important question, because if they channel our feelings, then they'll do right by us.
And they'll do right by us.
So it's, it's, you know, this is all very scary stuff.
It should be, it's fun to laugh at the Democratic Party.
Which has no control over itself, and you've got a 69-year-old corrupt harridan running against a 73-year-old nutjob socialist who's never held an actual job.
But, in the end, this is really a consolidation about power, and the revolution is eating its own.
And it's just going to move further and further to the left.
Trump and his wing of the party are going to move further and further to the tyrannical side of the right, and so we just get to elect our dictator every four years, which is scary stuff.
Speaking of which, Donald Trump had an interview with Megyn Kelly last night.
This is a much-awaited interview.
Megyn Kelly has been moving.
She said that she wants to do sort of a Barbara Walters, a Baba Wawa routine.
And so she wants to do these hour-long specials where she interviews prominent people and does so in a softer manner.
So that's what she did with Donald Trump last night.
It wasn't a typical Megyn Kelly prosecutorial, legalese, lawyer-esque attacking interview.
It was much more kind of Donald Trump's softer side.
And so, Donald Trump was on with Megyn Kelly.
Quick preface, two things happened with the Trump family that are kind of weird, that are worth mentioning.
One is Melania Trump has now made a solid pitch for her husband.
She says he's not Hitler.
She actually says this, to which the alt-right and Milo Yiannopoulos go, oh, dang it.
Okay, so there's some alt-right people who will be upset that he's not in fact Hitler, or at least she says he's not.
Also, Ivanka Trump says her father doesn't grope people.
So we now have an election between a man whose daughter has to assure us that he doesn't grow people, and a woman whose husband grows people.
So that's very exciting.
Anyway, Donald Trump was on with Megyn Kelly, and they go at it a little bit, but it's much nicer than you would previously suppose.
Here's Donald Trump explaining why he was upset with Megyn Kelly's original question in the first debate.
I asked you a tough question about women using only the words that you had used.
I thought it was a fair question.
Why didn't you?
I thought it was unfair.
First of all, I didn't think it was really a question.
I thought it was more of a statement.
That's the first question that I've ever been asked during a debate, and I've never debated before.
I mean, my whole life is a debate, but I've never actually debated before.
And I'm saying to myself, man, what a question.
And then, of course, then you have Brett doing his thing, so I'm saying to myself, I got two hours of this.
I don't really blame you because you're doing your thing, but from my standpoint, I don't have to like it.
Okay, I don't have to like it.
No one asked him to like it.
They just asked you not to say that she's bleeding from her wherever.
But this is the routine that Trump plays, our orange god king.
He says that he has a right to be upset about all of this.
Trump also said to Megyn Kelly that the first debate was pretty amazing.
That's when he realized he could be president of the United States.
Not to bring up an unpleasant debate, but, you know, that first debate was pretty amazing, and 24 million people watching it, a record on cable television.
And I think that meant something.
I think that first debate meant something, because I felt very, very comfortable with the subject, and I felt very comfortable with the people I was competing against.
He says he was he was comfortable and of course he was comfortable because the truth is that it's hard to watch all of this it's hard to watch and he had a fight with Megyn Kelly for nine months and now they're sitting together and in a Fox special and it's hard not to watch Trump operate and realize that he's part of a whole media complex that is that is really very much In his favor.
As I said earlier, Donald Trump wants to be Hugo Chavez.
Hugo Chavez used to do a routine, where he would actually set up a desk in the middle of a plaza, like a piazza.
There's a full TV channel just dedicated to Hugo Chavez.
And he would set up a desk in the middle of a plaza, and then he would set up a line of people asking him requests from the king, basically.
And they would come and they would ask him requests.
And he would stand up and he'd pound the table and he'd say to a minister, Oh, go get this woman her car!
And he'd say, go get this man his medicine!
And he was just demonstrating to the entire population that he really cared and cared deeply.
This is what you can expect from Donald Trump, right?
This is how Trump is going to operate, is this sort of media ownership.
The touchy-feely stuff for Trump doesn't come off as sincere to me, but it's effective for a certain group of people.
Kelly did go after Trump a little bit.
She said to him, can you go four years without threatening to sue anybody?
Because right now you can't go basically four minutes without threatening to do it.
You have threatened to sue many people in the course of the campaign, but of course if you wind up president...
You're not going to be able to do that either.
Can you go four years without threatening to sue anybody?
Well, what China's done to us is, well, maybe you do the world.
You know, you do have methods of suing countries.
It's going to be a busy law firm.
No, no, it's going to be busy.
But it's a little different.
And it's also a tactic for me.
It's a business for me.
And I've been successful.
And I've used litigation.
And sometimes I use it maybe when I shouldn't.
And sometimes I don't.
Okay, so he says that, not really, maybe he'll sue people.
You know, he uses it sometimes.
I mean, really, that was his answer.
His answer was, yeah, you know, sometimes I use litigation as a tool, sometimes I don't use litigation as a tool.
So she says, can you stop suing people?
He says, well, I guess, maybe.
He won't have to sue people.
As President of the United States, he'll just ban them, right?
He'll just use the power of the federal government to go after people, which is what people love about Donald Trump.
He'll solve all their problems with a wave of his stubby finger.
And I think that the real kind of hoax of a lot of Trump's media manipulation came out in this particular clip.
Megyn Kelly asked Trump, you said you were going to boycott Fox, but you didn't really boycott Fox, did you?
You know, when was the last time I watched a baseball game?
I'm watching you all the time, okay?
I knew it!
I'm watching O'Reilly all the time.
I'm watching Hannity.
Be honest.
You didn't really boycott.
A little bit.
Not as much as I want people to believe.
Okay, so he didn't really boycott Fox.
By the way, he never boycotted them even with appearances.
He continued to appear on Sean Hannity's show about every 30 seconds.
And he'd literally hang up, and then Sean would call him back, and then he'd pick up the phone, and they'd have a conversation, and then it would be like one of those conversations where, say, you hang up first.
No, you.
No, you hang up first.
No, please, you.
You hang up first.
And then Trump would hang up, and then Hannity would say to his producer, go get him back on the line!
In any case, that's...
This whole thing is, in the end, all this politics, this political race is all about power, and it's not about good power.
It's about use of bad power.
It's about use of very negative power.
One thing I do want to note, Megyn Kelly asked him about his legions of online supporters who have been vile to her and to a lot of other people, and here was Donald Trump's answer about this.
This is about when Trump comes after you.
The truth is, when Trump comes after you, it's not just Trump.
I mean, any of us.
We're in news.
We're used to people saying nasty things about us.
You know, like, everybody here is a pigskin.
It's what happens with the supporters.
Not all of them.
You know, most of them are just God-loving Americans who are home, like, yes, would you help me out for the love of God?
But some are not that way.
And some take to, like, serious threats.
And, you know, I have three young kids, and I don't have Secret Service following me around.
And so that piece of it has been very dark.
Okay, so, and that is true.
So I want to make a quick detour here to say you should go check out my piece at National Review today about the anti-Semitism among the Trump supporters.
Already the Trump supporters are up in arms, particularly Jim Hoft at Gateway Pundit.
He's saying that it's just terrible that I'd write about anti-Semitism in the Trump movement.
Apparently he's just discovered that this sort of thing actually exists.
Yes, it does.
It exists.
I mean, I didn't show you the tweets that I received after the birth of my child, but yes, it definitely, definitely exists, and Trump breeds it, and Trump loves it, and Trump pushes it forward because it helps him.
That doesn't mean Trump's an anti-Semite.
It means that he is a politician of convenience.
If we haven't reached the rock bottom of our politics, I shudder to think what comes after all this.
himself forward.
Same thing, by the way, is true of Hillary Clinton, and it's also true of Bernie Sanders.
I think if we haven't reached the rock bottom of our politics, I shudder to think what comes after all this.
Well, on that light note, let's do some things that I like and then some So first thing, thing that I like, here is... I've said before I'm a big Christopher Nolan fan.
One of his movies that is a little bit lesser known, it did well at the box office but didn't blow out the box office, is a movie called The Prestige with Hugh Jackman and Christian Bale.
And it's a really clever, fun movie.
David Bowie shows up for a little while in this film and is actually very good.
And it's just a really good movie.
Here's a bit of the preview.
Shoot me.
Come on.
No, I can't.
Do it!
How do you like that?
How do you do it?
Magic.
I'll perform this feat in a manner never before seen by yourselves or any other audience anywhere in the world.
The audience loved it.
This tree is top-notch.
- We need to celebrate. - A real magician tries to invent something new.
Go on.
It's something that other magicians will scratch their heads over.
I suppose you have such a trick.
That's your thing?
It's the one they're gonna remember me for.
What happened?
It was the greatest magic trick I've ever seen.
I need to know how he does it.
He has no trick.
It's real.
We don't have to show the whole preview, but it is a really, really good movie.
It's a lot of fun.
It's dark, but it's really, really good.
So that's a thing I like.
Here's another thing that I like.
This is a funny video.
Apparently there was a drone that was flying over a Middle Ages reenactment, and things went wrong for the drone when somebody decided to go Middle Ages on its ass.
to go middle ages on its ass.
So here it is.
So somebody legitimately took a spear and speared the drone out of the sky. - Bye.
So there it is.
And if you're missing it, it's pretty funny.
It's pretty funny.
And everybody seems pretty okay with it.
So, good times.
Alright.
A couple of things.
Now a couple of things that I hate.
First of all, Hillary Clinton is the least entertaining human being on planet Earth.
Hillary has now done an impression of Donald Trump.
I don't do a good impression of Donald Trump, and I don't really attempt to do one because I know my impression of Donald Trump is terrible.
Hillary Clinton's impression of Donald Trump is legitimately the worst impression of anyone I have ever heard.
Here's Hillary Clinton.
Again, I don't know where she gets these outfits, but this is again in her Baskin-Robbins pink outfit, trying to do an impression of Donald Trump.
So what is your plan to create jobs?
His answer is, I'm going to create them.
They're going to be great.
I know how to do it, but I'm not telling you what it is I'm going to do.
I'm going to say, here's what we're going to do, here's what we're going to do, here's when to change the tax code, here's how we're going to incentivize people to do it.
Now, some people might say, oh, you know, all anybody wants to hear is just, I'm going to do it, but I'm not telling you what I'm going to do.
See, I don't believe that.
Maybe in the preliminaries, like the Republican primary, that's all they wanted to hear.
But Americans take their vote for president seriously.
Okay, so a couple of things about this are ridiculous.
First of all, that's not even close to Trump.
I mean, come on.
How can you do that without using the word huge at the very least, or frankly, or I can tell you, right?
I mean, there are a few giveaways.
Beyond that, the idea that she's gonna defeat Trump by talking policy is just beyond ridiculous.
Look at the Republican primaries.
No, she's not gonna defeat Trump by talking policy.
Okay, final thing that I hate today, Donald Trump was asked about meeting with Kim Jong-un You know, like the dictator of North Korea, the evil dictator of North Korea.
Here is his answer.
They have tremendous power over China.
China can solve that problem with one meeting or one phone call.
How would they do it?
Because they have tremendous power over North Korea.
But North Korea has nukes.
I know that.
So does China, by the way.
But you say you talk to Kim.
The one, I would speak to him.
I have no problem with speaking to him.
Okay, so he says that he would talk with Kim Jong-un.
Now, the reason this annoys me is not just because you shouldn't talk with dictators without anything to say to the dictator.
The reason it annoys me is because Barack Obama basically said the same thing in 2007.
Excuse me, 2008.
And Republicans looked at it and they went nuts.
They said, what are you talking about?
Are you out of your mind?
He said the same thing about Iran.
We have to talk with them, right?
And Republicans said, that's crazy.
Why would you do that?
The minute that the guy turns into an overweight buffoon reality TV star, Then it's okay.
Then he can say all these things.
The left has been claiming for years that Republicans are racist, and that's the only reason they oppose Obama.
I have been saying, in return, no, that's not true.
The reason we oppose Obama is because his policies suck, and because they're terrible, and because he's awful in every conceivable way.
The problem is this.
If you say that you opposed Obama because of policy, then embrace the exact same policies when they come from your guy.
It's hard for you to argue that it's not some nefarious ulterior motive that's driving you to oppose Obama.
It's a slander on conservatism.
Okay, so that's where we are.
Donald Trump, I'm sure, will be back for more news tomorrow.
But remember, the collapse is happening on all sides.
It isn't quite as bright a world as the Democrats like to think.
It's not that one side is collapsing and the other side is doing just fine.
We are all collapsing toward Venezuela.
We're all moving down the road toward Venezuela.
Because people apparently want a strong man and they want a bigger government.
And so long as those two things are true, so long as they throw over God and family in favor of a bigger government that allows them to put their genitalia where they want and gives them basic goods and services until the money runs out, as it is in Venezuela, as long as that's what people want, they're going to end up with bad leadership across the board.
In the end, it's not about Trump.
It's not about Hillary.
It's not about Sanders.
It's about us.
We need to do a better job educating our children.
We need to do a better job stopping the propaganda of the left that has infused every element of our national life.
I'm Ben Shapiro.
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