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Nov. 19, 2019 - The Ben Shapiro Show
01:00:32
Leaning Left And Letting Fly | Ep. 900
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Barack Obama warns Democrats if they move too far left, they'll lose.
But will they listen?
Plus, Eric Swalwell denies it.
But did he supply it?
I'm Ben Shapiro.
This is The Ben Shapiro Show.
The Ben Shapiro Show is sponsored by ExpressVPN.
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Okay, so we begin today with the most important story that's happened in America since Epstein didn't kill himself.
And that, of course, is the great question of the day.
Whether Congressman Eric Swalwell, former presidential candidate whose candidacy didn't last nearly as long as a fart in the wind, whether he actually blew a large gas or a national TV lesson.
Now, I know it's not an important story.
I know it's not an important story.
But hey, if we can't have fun with this, then what can we have fun with?
So that's night on MSNBC.
Appearing on Harbaugh, Chris Matthews.
Chris Matthews rolled out into the studio.
He's talking to Eric Swallow about impeachment.
In the middle of this talk, Eric Swallow was talking about impeachment.
All of a sudden, right in my ear, there's something wild happening.
Next, what we'll go.
Uncontradicted that the president used taxpayer dollars to ask the Ukrainians to help him cheat an election. - Okay.
Okay, come on.
If you can't laugh at a fart joke, what can you laugh at?
Now, MSNBC did claim.
He denied it.
He did.
Swalwell denied it.
Did he supply it?
I think the rules speak for themselves.
You can see the fear in his eyes as this Uncontradicted that the president used taxpayer dollars to ask the Ukrainians to help him cheat an election.
Then there's a mild pause.
In any case, am I a fart truther?
I don't know.
In any case, Eric Swalwell denies that he did this.
Chris Matthews also denied it.
He said it wasn't me.
I didn't do it either.
I mean, come on.
You think I would care?
I'd just denounce it if it was me.
I play hardball here.
I don't hide the ball.
If it was me blowing on national TV, you think I'd hide that?
No, I'd brag about it.
I'd talk about having the best.
MSNBC is the best place for gas on national TV.
You think I'd do that?
Kathleen, tell them.
Hardball actually claimed that it was their mug.
They actually claimed that it was Chris Matthews moving a mug, moving a mug on his desk, and that is what caused that.
And then they tried to sell the Hardball mug on that basis.
And as Josh Barrow, the columnist, said, I'm not sure that a farting mug is actually your best pitch for people to buy the mug.
Huh.
In any case, does any of this matter?
No, but listen guys, if we can't take a break from politics for just a second and come together around a man barring nationality.
Even Alyssa Milano.
Alyssa Milano and I disagree on everything, but again.
There are certain simple joys in life that bring us back to our childhood.
And a solid fart joke on national TV.
I think that does it.
Okay, in a second we're gonna get to actual important news.
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Okay, so, in actual news, the big question for Democrats going into 2020 is just how radical can they be?
And there's something reminiscent, actually, about 2008 here, slightly.
In 2008, there was serious talk about whether Barack Obama was too radical to be the nominee.
Now, Obama really hit it.
Obama didn't proclaim that he was quite as radical as he ended up being.
He didn't talk nationalized health care quite as much early on in the campaign.
He sort of proposed that he was a moderate who was going to unite the blue states and the red states.
We're all going to get together.
We're all the same.
And then, of course, he ended up being a fairly radical left president.
But there was some controversy over whether he was too far to the left because obviously he was running against Hillary Clinton, who is widely perceived as more moderate.
And the Democratic Party said, no, we're going to go with the more radical guy.
And then, of course, Obama ends up being a sort of once-in-a-generation candidate and wins a sweeping victory over John McCain.
Well, now, Barack Obama is warning the Democrats that they are too far left.
Now, when Barack Obama is warning you that you are too far left, Okay, this is Stalin warning Trotsky that he is not in line.
And because the fact is that Barack Obama, he's not, he's not Stalin.
But the point is that Barack Obama is, in fact, a far-left guy.
And when he's warning the Democrats that they are so far over the rails that Donald Trump is going to win re-election, you might think that the Democrats would take a hint.
But they're not.
Some far-left Democrats very angry at Obama.
They've been using the hashtag too far left, sniping at Obama.
Obama told a group of Democrat donors at a dinner event on Friday evening, quote, even as we push the envelope and we are bold in our vision, we also have to be rooted in reality.
The average American doesn't think we have to completely tear down the system and remake it.
And that's obviously him sort of slapping at Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders.
He says, I don't think we should be deluded into thinking that the resistance to certain approaches to things is simply because voters haven't heard a bold enough proposal.
And if they hear something as bold as possible, then immediately that's going to activate them.
And this, of course, is true, because in the swing states, the fact is that the vast majority of voters are not in favor of Medicare for all.
Elizabeth Warren, as her proposals have been exposed to the light of day, has been dropping in the polls pretty significantly.
Again, the betting odds on Elizabeth Warren have dropped dramatically over the past few weeks.
In the middle of October, she was better than 50% in the odds to take the nomination.
Now, she's all the way down at 29% in the odds, with Biden at 24% and Pete Buttigieg at 19%.
And the fact is that right now, Elizabeth Warren is only leading in one state, New Hampshire, which happens to be next door to her home state of Massachusetts.
Pete Buttigieg is in the lead in Iowa.
Warren is running second, maybe third, depending on where you put Biden in those poll numbers.
In New Hampshire, Warren is running first, Biden is running second.
And then in all the other states, Biden is cleaning up.
So Elizabeth Warren has been dropping like a stone.
So Barack Obama is correct about all of this.
And the proof is in the pudding, right?
Even as the Democrats claim That they want to move far to the left.
The ones who are actually winning are the ones who are more moderate.
So Rahm Emanuel, who is the mayor of Chicago, right?
I mean, he was Obama's chief of staff.
This is not a person who is a moderate.
Rahm Emanuel is warning the Democrats, guys, you are way off the rails here.
He has a piece in the Washington Post today called, if they're not true to their history, Democrats risk squandering a rare opportunity.
He says credit where credit is due.
Senators Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders have done a masterful job baiting the rest of the field into fighting this campaign on their turf.
Many voters inevitably presume today that redistribution of wealth is the Democratic Party's animating creed.
But that's simply not true to history.
Since the New Deal, Democrats have thrived when championing ideas moored in the belief that rights come with responsibilities and benefits are earned through work.
Which actually sounds a lot more like a Republican creed than a Democratic creed.
He says, if we fail to return to that agenda ahead of the 2020 election, we risk squandering a rare opportunity.
Fortunately, we now have a chance to shift that narrative.
He says, amid all the talk about programs designed to redistribute America's wealth, the phrase most glaringly absent from the 2020 campaign to this point is inclusive growth.
With former Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick entering the race last week and former New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg emerging as another late entrant, we can begin to have an ideas primary in earnest.
We're stronger as a party when we debate substantive proposals for how to expand prosperity and opportunity.
But to meet the far left's big ideas, traditional liberals need to show up with bold ideas of their own.
Rahm Emanuel says, admittedly, I've been critical of those trying to steer the Democratic Party further to the left.
I think Medicare for All is a pipe dream, though I support efforts to expand coverage and control costs.
And much as I agree that concentrated power is a threat to American prosperity, I believe a universal basic income runs counter to America's deep-seated belief that people should earn their living by working hard and playing by the rules.
As power and money have flowed away from the working and middle classes, a change driven as much by technology and globalization as by a rigged system, government has too frequently turned the other cheek.
Since we have consensus on the nature of the problem, the question then is how to level the playing field.
Rahm Emanuel says traditional liberals need to begin offering their own bold ideas for three principal reasons.
The first, and most important, centers on history.
Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal, John F. Kennedy's New Frontier, Bill Clinton's New Covenant, and Barack Obama's belief that, quote, there's not a liberal in America and a conservative America, there's the United States of America.
All appealed to voters by tapping into the nation's firmly established belief that people should earn their prosperity through hard work.
Social Security and Medicare aren't handouts.
They're financed by what workers pay through a payroll tax.
The GI Bill and AmeriCorps both offer tuition assistance in return for national service, says Rahm Emanuel.
The Earned Income Tax Credit is designed to boost families working their way out of poverty.
And then he talks about the fact that when they win elections, it's because they have moved along the lines of work deserves better pay, not along the lines of tearing down wealth.
He says, when our party has nominated candidates banging the drum for redistribution, like George McGovern or Walter Mondale, we've lost.
Hopefully bids from Bloomberg and Patrick will serve as a wake-up call.
And then he points out that these policies are also bound to fail.
He says, big ideas aren't necessarily good.
And that is a slap at Warren and Sanders.
He says, with any luck, Bloomberg and Patrick will spur traditional liberals to reanimate the bold democratic creed centered on work, responsibility, shared prosperity, and equal access to opportunity.
If the new contenders inspire a new wave of progressive thinking, we'll not only prevail next November, but for years to come.
But will those ideas prevail?
Will those ideas prevail?
Because the Democratic Party is fringing itself.
I mean, that is what is happening in real time.
The Democratic Party is fringing itself.
And in a second, I will show you how the Democratic Party is taking victories and turning them into defeats because of their own allegiance to radical ideas.
We'll get to that in just one second.
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Okay, so as I say, the Democratic Party, despite the advice of Barack Obama and Rahm Emanuel, they are moving in radical directions.
According to the New York Times, the Democratic Attorneys General group has now decided that they will not endorse any candidate for State Attorney General across the country unless they explicitly endorse abortion on demand.
Which is Full-scale insanity.
The fact is that if Democrats want to win in purple areas, what they shouldn't do is embrace their more radical side, but that is what they are doing.
According to the New York Times, an association of Democratic state attorneys general will become the first national party committee to impose an explicit abortion litmus test on its candidates, announcing on Monday that it will refuse to endorse anyone who does not support reproductive rights and expanding access to abortion services.
To win financial and strategic backing from the group, candidates will be required to make a public statement declaring their support of abortion rights.
So it's an actual full on litmus test.
The group, the Democratic Attorneys General Association, recruits candidates and helps their campaigns with financial support, data analysis, messaging and policy positions.
The decision comes as a series of state legislatures have approved restrictive laws designed to provoke a renewed legal battle over abortion rights with the aim to reach the U.S.
Supreme Court and topple Roe v. Wade.
Letitia James, the New York AG, who, by the way, is an awful AG, and I pointed out when she was elected that she said that she was going after Trump, which, by the way, is not the way AGs are supposed to work.
It's not, I identify the person I wish to target, and then I find a crime.
It's, I identify a crime, and then I go after the criminal.
But she says Attorneys General are on the front lines of the fight for reproductive freedom.
They have the power to protect your rights.
It is important to note here that the same Democratic Party that claims that Attorney General William Barr is a political hack is openly calling for Attorneys General to be political hacks.
Because we have actually seen Attorneys General like Kamala Harris across the country simply refuse to defend the laws of their state.
And the insane Supreme Court has decided that if a state attorney general refuses to defend the law of a state, the state no longer has standing to sue for the law being upheld.
This actually happened in the Proposition 8 case in California, where the Californian public voted overwhelmingly to protect traditional marriage in the state constitution.
That was elevated to the Supreme Court.
Senator Kamala Harris was then Attorney General of the state of California.
She refused to defend Proposition 8 in court, saying that she could not in good conscience do so, but she also wouldn't resign, right?
She just wouldn't defend it.
And then the Ninth Circuit said, well, since your state AG is not defending the law, the state of California does not have the standing to sue for the defense of its law in court, which is fully insane.
I mean, it basically gives veto power on any law to a state AG.
I mean, that's the height of illegality.
The Democrats treat the law as a standard to be tossed or adhered to at political whim.
Well now, as I say, the Democrats' AG group, they're saying to their own people, we're not going to back you unless you back abortion on demand.
The new standard is unlikely to have an immediate impact on incumbents, according to the New York Times.
Of 27 Democrat AGs currently in office, just one, Jim Hood of Mississippi, describes himself as a pro-life Democrat.
But officials believe it could have a ripple effect throughout the Democratic ecosystem, reflecting the changing mores of a national party I thought the AG's job was to enforce the law, not to enforce democratic priorities that are not the law.
She says we're going to be the ones right out in front.
Attorney General Ellen Rosenblum of Oregon.
She said state attorney generals are now on the map as taking the lead when it comes to democratic values.
It should scare the hell out of anybody.
I thought the AG's job was to enforce the law, not to enforce democratic priorities that are not the law.
She says we're going to be the ones right out in front.
Hopefully other committees will follow right along.
The new litmus test does worry some Democrats who fear it could hurt their party in rural areas and more moderate suburban districts than one Democrats control of the House last fall.
There are 40 districts the Democrats won that were in very close toss-up Trump or very slightly Hillary districts in the last election cycle.
Former Senator Heidi Heitkamp of North Dakota, who served two terms as her state AG, described the decision as wrongheaded.
She lost her seat representing her red state after voting against the confirmation of Justice Brett Kavanaugh last year.
And she points out correctly that Governor John Bel Edwards of Louisiana just won re-election on Saturday after campaigning on his opposition to abortion and supporting a state law barring abortion after the pulsing of what becomes the fetus's heart can be detected.
In other words, in Louisiana, if you want to be a Democrat who gets elected, then probably you shouldn't be radically pro-choice.
The Democrats are embracing the politics of AOC in the land of Donald Trump, which makes no sense at all, politically speaking.
Heidi Heitkamp says there are very principled people who are Democrats who feel very strongly about this issue for religious reasons, and when you say you're not welcome in our party, I think it's exclusionary.
You have to look at the totality of a candidate.
By the way, even the way that Heitkamp describes that is incorrect.
There are many people, I would say the vast majority of people, who are pro-life, who are not pro-life for religious reasons.
They're not pro-life because of the Book of Psalms.
They are pro-life because the science suggests that human life begins at conception.
In any case, the Democratic Attorney General Association is now forcing this litmus test down the throats of their own people, which is full-scale political insanity, especially, again, given what just happened in Louisiana.
As Charles Camosi writes over at First Things, Democrat John Bel Edwards dramatically expanded Medicaid in his state, yes, but he also signed a bill banning abortion after a heartbeat can be detected.
That's why he managed to win the governorship of a deep-red state in which the president has a plus-12 approval rating.
As Camosi points out, simply put, Bel Edwards never could have won in such a state if he were not pro-life.
His traditional values in this area reflect both his deep commitment to Catholicism and the views of Louisiana voters, especially Democratic voters of color.
In the run-up to the election, both racial justice activist organizations and Edwards' campaign itself made a dramatic increase in African-American voter turnout a major priority.
And with good results, voters of colors put Edwards over the top, especially when it came to early voting.
It would be interesting to know, says Camosi, what white, progressive, highly educated Democrats think of all this.
After all, they have been primarily responsible for the party's turn to the kind of abortion extremism that would have doomed an Orthodox Democrat in a race like this one.
Mother Jones ran a piece a few days before the election with the headline, Is There Still Room for an Anti-Abortion Hardliner in the Democratic Party?
The answer in the party platform, which claims that abortion should be unrestricted, that it should be paid for by pro-lifers tax dollars, and that it is core to women's, men's, and young people's health and well-being, is obviously in the negative.
Now, Democrats will support Bell Edwards when it comes to defeating Donald Trump, but the fact is that Democrats who violate the sort of radical left have become the enemy inside the Democratic Party, which is a very bad move for them.
I mean, the fact is that Tulsi Gabbard has suggested that abortion ought to be safe, legal, and rare, and she gets blasted by the people in her own party.
I mean, Democrats, it's foolishness.
I mean, it's real foolishness.
And you're starting to see this break out into the Democratic primary as the more moderate candidates are ripped up and down for the great sin of not being radically to the left.
And as the more leftist candidates signify to the voters that they are more pure.
Now, will primary voters buy it?
I'm not so sure.
I'm not so sure.
We'll get to more of this in just one second.
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So, as I say, the gap between the so-called moderates and the radical leftists in the Democratic Party is now breaking out into the open.
So basically, on the one side you have Joe Biden, Pete Buttigieg, and maybe Cory Booker, and on the other side you have people like Julian Castro, Bernie Sanders, and Elizabeth Warren.
And the Democrats seem fairly split, almost right down the middle on this particular issue.
The reason that Joe Biden continues to be durable in the polls, the reason that he has never budged below around 25 to 30 percent in the national polling data is because people in the Democratic Party understand, I think a large chunk of them understand that you push too far to the left and the American people are not up for this.
Joe Biden's case is basically I'm the only one who can beat Trump.
Here is Joe Biden making that case yesterday.
It's not going to be easy to beat him.
We're talking about this is going to be this, the cakewalk.
He is going to have a billion dollars.
He's going to have an awful lot of the same kind of negative campaigns that he's run in the past.
And he is he's not going to be that easy to beat.
So we better be careful about who we nominate as our candidate, because the risk of.
Nominating someone who can't beat Donald Trump or doesn't beat Donald Trump is a nation and a world we don't want to leave to our kids.
Okay, and so Biden's case is the only person who can beat Trump is somebody who's not going to be a full-scale crazy.
The problem is the full-scale crazies in the Democratic Party are in control of the boat, at least when it comes to social media, and many of the Democrats have followed them down this rat hole.
This is why you end up with the spectacle this morning of Tea Party trending on Twitter.
So Tea Party was trending on Twitter and I was thinking to myself, well, the Tea Party hasn't really been a term that's been mentioned for several years.
I mean, the Tea Party basically went defunct as in terms of having events as of like 2014, 2015, like it just kind of stopped being a thing.
So why exactly was it trending?
Well, it turns out it was trending because way back in 2011, Pete Buttigieg spoke at a Tea Party event.
I have to admit as a Democrat that many of my friends and supporters looked at me as if I was absolutely nuts when I suggested that I would be coming tonight to speak with a group that's often identified with the Tea Party.
new Unearthed video.
I have to admit as a Democrat that many of my friends and supporters looked at me as if I was absolutely nuts when I suggested that I would be coming tonight to speak with a group that's often identified as a Tea Party.
There are some, especially in my party, where the Tea Party is a wholly owned subsidiary Republican Party.
But there are many others who believe that the Tea Party is motivated by real concerns about the direction of our government and the responsiveness of our government to citizens.
And above all, the frustration with businesses.
That is what motivated me to run.
Okay, so that was Buttigieg when he was running for mayor of South Bend, actually trying to appeal to people across the aisle by saying, I'm not going to castigate Tea Party as terrorists.
He's getting blasted for this today.
I mean, just ripped up and down by the entire Democratic left.
How could he have ever treated people in the Tea Party as human beings?
And you saw the same thing with Joe Biden.
When Joe Biden said, yeah, I used to work across the aisle with my good friends like John McCain.
And people, how dare you work with John McCain?
He was a very bad man.
That side of the Democratic Party, which side is going to win?
Honestly, for the good of the country, it's kind of funny.
As a conservative, as a Republican, Donald Trump has a better shot of winning if he runs against somebody like Elizabeth Warren or Bernie Sanders than somebody like Biden or Buttigieg.
Because the more sort of moderate the Democrats are, the better shot they have at winning.
So on the one hand, as a conservative, I'm rooting for the Democrats to nominate somebody like Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren because I don't think that they will survive the election.
I think that they will implode on impact.
But, at the same time, for the good of the country, I think it would be much better if the Democratic Party were a reasonable party.
I think that having two parties that are reasonable is a lot better than having one that is reasonable and one that is unreasonable, at least in terms of policy.
So, on the one hand, I'm rooting for the Democrats to nominate the worst candidate, which would be somebody like Sanders or Warren.
On the other hand, I'm rooting for the Democrats to nominate somebody who actually signifies that the country has a shot of coming back together, because the more radical Democrats get, the worse it is for the country.
So again, this whole thing is breaking out into the open.
Julian Castro, who's been campaigning as sort of Beto Light, right?
So he's run to the radical left also.
He's slamming Buttigieg going, well, what has he actually done?
What have you actually done?
Like seriously, you're Secretary of Housing and Urban Development.
Ooh, ah, Housing and Urban Development.
Wow, that was a real important gig over there.
Here's Julian Castro going after Buttigieg.
I was mayor of a city that was 14 times larger than South Bend, Indiana.
So, I've seen a lot when it comes to urban policy, and not only that, have a stronger track record, not only with the black community in San Antonio versus Mayor Buttigieg's record with the black community in South Bend.
I actually have a record of accomplishment, of things that I can point to from the time that I was Mayor and HUD Secretary, unlike Mayor Buttigieg, that you never hear What did he actually do in office when he was there?
Okay, wow, he was mayor of San Antonio.
Huge, huge, amazing.
And he's not wrong that Buttigieg doesn't have tons of experience.
But the fact is what Julian Castro is really ticked about is the fact that Buttigieg is getting attention when Julian Castro is getting none.
Meanwhile, Cory Booker is going after Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders as well.
He should.
He has a piece in the New York Times today called, Stop Being Dogmatic About Public Charter Schools.
He says, we can't dismiss good ideas because they don't fit into neat ideological boxes or don't personally affect some of the louder, more privileged voices in the party.
Which is him saying to Elizabeth Warren, you are very wealthy.
You are very wealthy, and now you don't care about charter schools, which is weird, because you used to support them.
Here's Cory Booker blasting Elizabeth Warren.
He says, about 15 years ago, when I was living in Brick Towers, a high-rise, low-income housing community in Newark's Central Ward, a neighbor stopped me and told me about how her child's public school was failing its students, like many others in our area at the time.
Desperate, she asked if I knew a way to help get her child into a private school.
She knew, as all parents do, that a great education was her child's primary pathway to a better life.
And he talks about how his parents got him into a better school.
He says, parents in struggling communities across the country are going to extraordinary lengths to try to get their children into great public schools.
There's even a trend of children's guardians using fake addresses to enroll them in better schools in nearby neighborhoods or towns.
Living in fear of hired investigators who follow children home to verify their addresses.
He says, it's largely up to Democrats.
He rips down Republicans and says, for some reason, that Republicans are making the problem worse, which of course is untrue, but Booker's a Democrat, so of course he's gonna lie about that.
He says it's up to Democrats, especially those of us in this presidential primary race, to have a better discussion about practical K-12 solutions to ensure that every child in our country can go to a great public school.
That discussion needs to include high-achieving public charter schools when local communities call for them.
He says many public charter schools have proven to be an effective, targeted tool to give children with few other options a chance to succeed.
And he points out that when he was mayor of Newark, they invested in both traditional public schools and high-performing public charter schools, and the citywide graduation rate rose to 77% in 2018, from 50% a decade ago.
Today, he says, Newark is ranked the number one city in America for beat-the-odds, high-poverty, high-performance schools by the Center on Reinventing Public Education.
This is, by the way, the one good thing that Cory Booker did as mayor of Newark.
It is the one interesting thing.
And the fact that he has waited until now to run on it is pretty amazing and demonstrative of just how far the Democratic Party fell down the rat hole here.
Because the fact is that if Booker had campaigned from the outset on charter schools, he'd be doing much better in these primaries.
He really would.
Because again, his record as mayor of Newark was much more suggested of a sort of Biden-esque bipartisanship than it was a Bernie Sanders or Elizabeth Warren.
Now in a second we're going to get to Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren, but suffice it to say that the sort of subtweeting of Sanders and Warren is now an ongoing thing.
It's an ongoing thing and it should be an ongoing thing inside the Democratic Party.
I think it's a good thing for the country that it's an ongoing thing for the Democratic Party.
We'll get to more of The war inside the Democratic Party, should they move moderate or should they skew to the radical left in just one second?
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Okay, in just one second, we'll get to the rest of the Democratic breakdown.
Sanders and Warren continuing to skew to the left.
Warren, you know, she was running as the person with one foot in either camp, in sort of the moderate camp and the radical camp.
Not anymore.
Both feet are in the radical camp.
And in honor of the hilarious self-own by Elizabeth Warren tweeting that she is selling billionaire tears mugs, on a website that actually benefits the billionaire.
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All righty.
So Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren continue, meanwhile, to skew to the left.
There's an article in the Wall Street Journal talking about Bernie Sanders' brokerage tax.
So the fact is that Bernie Sanders, he has a proposal for a financial transaction tax.
It is going to dramatically lower your ability to invest in the market.
In fact, European countries that have tried to levy a 50 point basis tax on all equity trades, they've had to dismantle that tax because it's so bad for the markets.
Sweden repealed it because all of their trading volume migrated to London.
We tried this sort of tax in 1914, but it was scrapped in 1965 because it was producing little revenue.
And lowering growth.
And according to Georgetown economist James Angle, the tax could reduce retirement savings by as much as 8.5% over a typical worker's lifetime.
But Bernie Sanders is pushing it anyway, which is exactly what you would suspect.
Meanwhile, Elizabeth Warren continues to be a massive hypocrite.
So while she is ripping on rich people, she is worth $12 million.
It turns out that her close allies, who are very, very rich, are maintaining campaign titles as Warren's finance co-chairs.
This would be Paul Egerman and activist Shanti Fry.
Politico.com reporting that even as Warren has sheered links to the Democratic donor class, Fry and Eagerman are courting big donors in the Northeast by organizing trips, hosting events, and acting as conduits for information about the campaign.
She's going to raise money, you know she will, for outside sources to spend money.
Also, the DNC can spend as much money as it wants, and just because her campaign forswears big donors does not mean the big donors can't go over to the DNC, which then spends on behalf of Elizabeth Warren, of course.
It's all a scam.
Politico is noting this.
They say their efforts highlight how some wealthy donors, especially progressives in her Boston base, have continued to embrace Warren, and they are planning on giving her a lot, a lot of money.
Apparently, these two very, very rich people, Egerman and Fry, continue to fly around the country trying to raise money for her.
Steve Grossman, former chairman of the DNC, says they're playing a non-traditional role.
He says they are rolling up their sleeves and they're doing it.
He says that doesn't mean they're not asking people for substantial contributions.
Grossman said, adding that his wife Barbara donated $2,800 to Warren after a request from Frye.
Warren's campaign declined to answer questions from Politico about whether the campaign had paid for any travel for Egerman or Frye or for the donors on trips that the finance co-chairs have organized to early voting states and other Warren events.
So, again, if Warren becomes the Democratic nominee, according to Politico, friends and allies expect Egerman and Frye to work to corral donors to write big checks to the DNC and help Warren fundraise for other campaigns and state parties, all of which the campaign has said she would do in a general election.
So a lot of this is hypocrisy.
Now, Warren and Sanders penned a letter together just today to underscore their socialist bona fides ripping on private equity.
They did so in the most dishonest possible way, which is not a great shock.
They're both ripping into a study that just came out from Ernst & Young, released in partnership with the American Investment Council, which is a trade group for the private equity industry.
The report was prepared as a response to private equity legislation pushed by Warren Sanders called the Stop Wall Street Looting Act of 2019, which should tell you everything you need to know about the act.
The legislation is designed to basically tax private equity.
And what the report said is, guys, private equity is supporting a lot of jobs in this country because private equity does a couple of things.
Some people think private equity is all the sort of leveraged buyouts of companies that are falling down on the job and then selling off all of their assets.
They think it's the movie Wall Street, in other words.
Well, that's not really all that private equity is doing.
Private equity is giving loans to startup companies.
Private equity is investing in companies that need investment.
And yes, private equity is taking over unprofitable companies, cutting the fat and relaunching those companies or selling off the assets if those companies are no longer able to support the workers or compete in the global industry.
But the idea that without private equity, there would be more jobs rather than fewer jobs is purely asinine.
Yes, private equity does engage in what Joseph Schumpeter calls creative destruction.
There's no question that private equity will buy up a business at a bargain basement price and then sell off the assets if the business is no longer operating fully.
But that does not mean that the business would continue to operate at a loss forever.
It would just declare bankruptcy and in many cases wouldn't even be able to restructure.
So this report from Ernst & Young and the American Investment Council estimates that the U.S.
private equity sector provides employment and earnings for 8.8 million workers earning $600 billion in wages and benefits because the private equity sector is supporting all of these people with their investments, obviously.
They say the average U.S.
private equity sector worker earned approximately $71,000 in wages and benefits in 2018.
So this is really funny.
Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders are very upset with this study.
They say, well, why are you using the average salary?
I mean, that includes people who are in private equity at Goldman Sachs and also the line worker over at Sears.
So why are you averaging out the salary?
I don't know.
The same reason that you average out the salaries of women and men and then pretend that women earn less than men on a per point basis.
Okay, the fact is that if you want to make the case that there is tremendous economic inequality in the American economy, that of course is true, but that does not change the fact that if you are talking about generating more jobs and better jobs, that is going to require investment from somewhere and the government ain't doing it, nor is the government qualified to do it.
Ernst & Young also points out that the U.S.
private equity sector directly generated $1.1 trillion of value added in the United States in 2018.
Value added measures a sector's or industry's contribution to the production of final goods and services produced in the U.S.
or U.S.
gross domestic product.
The U.S.
private equity sector's value added comprised approximately 5% of U.S.
GDP in 2018, so fairly significant, obviously.
Also, the U.S.
private equity sector generates tax revenue through U.S.
private equity firms, private equity-backed companies, and its employees.
In 2018, according to this report, the U.S.
private equity sector paid $174 billion of federal, state, and local taxes.
But according to Elizabeth Warren, all of the private equity sector is very bad and basically should be put out of business.
Why?
Because they point out that some private equity deals end with the closing of business, which of course is true.
But if private equity weren't doing it, you know what happened to those businesses?
They would go bankrupt, obviously.
I mean, Elizabeth Warren, as well as illustrious economic names like Ayanna Pressley and Bernie Sanders, And Rashida Tlaib, right?
These people signed this 10-page letter talking about how terrible private equity is.
And the letter makes no sense, right?
I mean, the letter talks about how if you compare companies that are invested in by private equity with companies that are not invested in by private equity, the companies that are not invested in by private equity very often do better.
Yes, because why do you think private equity gets involved in a business?
You think that they are going to buy into a successful business?
Why would anybody sell the successful business?
Private equity gets involved very often when a company is already failing.
But again, for the left in the United States right now, for the hard left, it is about punishing success and punishing people who are perceived as successful.
This is why Elizabeth Warren is selling billionaire tears mugs.
That's why.
She perceives billionaires as the ideological enemy.
I perceive the hard left as the ideological enemy.
That's why we sell leftist tears mugs, right?
Not liberal tears, leftist tears.
Liberals are people who disagree with me on economics.
Disagree with me on social policy?
Leftists are people who want to shut down debate by pretending that mainstream conservatism is outside the Overton window.
It's a very different thing.
Elizabeth Warren perceives billionaires themselves to be the enemy, which is why she is selling billionaire tears mugs.
It is very obvious what she is doing.
She's just mirroring the same policy as Britain's Labour Party, the Socialist Labour Party over there.
They've been taking aim at quote-unquote obscene billionaires, pledging radical redistribution of wealth to cut the power of the super-rich.
The transnational radical left is on the rise.
Okay, meanwhile, in a major policy shift that should be celebrated, the Trump administration has now announced that the Trump administration views American policy on Israeli settlements as Israeli settlements are not a violation of international law.
Now, it was always absurd to suggest that Israeli settlements are a violation of international law.
Jews have been living in this area for literally thousands of years.
The international community had suggested it was a violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention for Jews to settle in these particular areas.
Why?
Because there's a provision in the Fourth Geneva Convention that says that you're not allowed to deport your population into occupied areas.
But the population isn't being deported into occupied areas.
Israel won that territory in a legitimate war with Jordan.
Has offered the territory back to Jordan, by the way.
Jordan has turned it down.
There's never been a sovereign Palestinian state in that area.
Every offer to create one has been rejected by the Palestinians.
And Jews have lived in this area for literally thousands of years.
Thousands of years.
So that is not the deportation of a foreign population into a foreign area.
Under the Fourth Geneva Convention, that is a domestic population that has been living there continuously for literally thousands of years.
So good for the Trump administration.
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo announced during a press briefing on Monday, according to Ryan's Vedra at the Daily Wire, that the Trump administration was reversing an Obama-era policy and now does not view Israel's settlements in the West Bank as a violation of international law.
He says the Trump administration is reversing the Obama administration's approach toward Israeli settlements.
U.S.
public statements on settlement activities in the West Bank have been inconsistent over decades, which is true.
He said in 1978, the Carter administration categorically concluded that Israel's establishment of civilian settlements was inconsistent with international law.
However, in 1981, President Reagan disagreed with that conclusion and stated he didn't believe the settlements were inherently illegal.
Which obviously is true.
If Jews settle in East Jerusalem, why should that be illegal in any way?
Pompeo said subsequent administrations recognized that unrestrained settlement activity could be an obstacle to peace, but they wisely and prudently recognized that dwelling on legal positions didn't advance peace.
However, in December 2016, at the end of the previous administration, Secretary Kerry changed decades of this careful bipartisan approach by publicly reaffirming the supposed illegality of settlements, which basically suggests that the Palestinians own Judea, Samaria, and the Gaza Strip.
Outright, without any negotiation, which of course is not only true, it raises the prospects of terrorism, right?
It's not only a base lie to suggest that this is historic Palestinian territory, it also raises the prospects of terrorism because now you are claiming that any Jew living on that territory is a violation of international law, so why shouldn't the Palestinians ethnically cleanse the Jews in this area?
Pompeo says, I want to emphasize several important considerations.
First, we recognize that as Israeli courts have the legal conclusions related to individual settlements must depend on assessments of specific facts and circumstances on the ground.
Therefore, the US government is expressing no view on the legal status of any individual settlement.
He says Israeli courts have confirmed the legality of certain settlement activities and has concluded that others cannot be legally sustained.
Second, we're not addressing or prejudging the status of the West Bank that's for Israelis and Palestinians to negotiate.
International law does not compel a particular outcome or create any legal obstacle to a negotiated resolution.
Third, says Pompeo, the conclusion that we will no longer recognize Israeli settlements as per se inconsistent with international law is based on the unique facts, history, and circumstances presented by the established civilian settlements in the West Bank.
Our decision today does not prejudice or decide legal conclusions regarding situations in any other part of the world.
And finally, calling the establishment of civilian settlements inconsistent with international law Has not worked.
It has not advanced the cause of peace.
The hard truth is there will never be a judicial resolution to the conflict, which of course is true.
Good for the Trump administration for recognizing baseline reality on the ground.
The Obama administration was attempting to force Israel to abandon these particular areas to the tender mercies of terrorists, by the way, by trying to claim that historic Jewish living in these areas was somehow forbidden by international law.
It was always a garbage position.
Good for the Trump administration for reversing it.
Okay.
Now, finally, to the latest on Impeachment Gate.
Now, I haven't talked about Impeachment Gate so far, because frankly, I don't think the testimony today matters very much.
I think the only testimony that is probably going to matter is the testimony tomorrow of Gordon Sondland, who's the EU ambassador.
Nonetheless, the media are playing up the testimony of Lieutenant Colonel Vindman.
The reason they're playing up this testimony is because Vindman shows well on TV.
Alexander Vindman, National Security Council official.
He's a Purple Heart recipient.
He testified today about his alarm at President Trump's request that Ukraine investigate his political opponents.
But as I have been saying for literally weeks here, there were many people on that call.
Their perceptions of the call are utterly irrelevant to the question of whether a crime was committed.
Whether an impeachable high crime or misdemeanor was committed.
They have a perception about the call.
You know who else has a perception about the call?
You.
I have a perception about the call.
We all have a perception about the call.
Because it turns out we've all seen the memo slash transcript of the call.
Vindman himself suggests that the transcript is pretty good, right?
It's not a full transcript.
But it does signify what exactly was talked about.
So why exactly are the Democrats calling Vindman?
They're calling Vindman for the same reason that they were calling Bill Taylor for the same reason that they've been calling other members Marie Yovanovitch because they're trying to create the image of a Trump administration gone wild.
So this is more of an electoral tactic than an impeachment one.
They're basically trying to make the case that Trump ought not be president because he has bad judgment.
Now, you can make that case, but making that case in the context of an impeachment inquiry is pretty ridiculous when you're out from the election.
If you want to make the case that Trump is unfit for the presidency, we have these things called elections in the United States.
You can make that case.
You're going to get the chance to.
You've been making the case all along, but turning this into an impeachment inquiry on the basis of testimony from people like Vindman makes no sense.
Now, if you want to bring forward People who have first-hand knowledge that Trump was attempting to solicit a bribe from Ukraine, for example.
This is why Sunlin's testimony tomorrow matters, because he actually talked to Trump.
That's one thing.
But propping up all of these third parties who had perceptions of the call is utterly irrelevant.
So really, this is all about optics, right?
We all know this is about optics.
So, Vindman is being brought forward for a couple of reasons.
One, because he has a long storied history as a patriotic American.
Two, because some people on the right were foolish enough to attack him, which is an idiotic proposition.
You could have just said, listen, his perception is not of great consequence to the question of whether Trump committed a crime.
He's welcome to his perception.
He's an American patriot.
You don't have to castigate him as a person in order to disagree with his perception of the circumstances.
But a lot of people on the right were ripping into Vindman personally, suggesting it was all politically motivated and all the rest of this sort of stuff.
So Vindman, in turn, has now taken up the baton of I'm a victim, that he is being victimized by people on the right.
And Democrats are playing this to the help.
They did the same thing with Marie Yovanovitch on Friday.
Yovanovitch, who says that she was wrongly fired as ambassador.
The case can certainly be made that she was wrongly fired as ambassador, but that's not criminally fired, just bad policy.
She proclaimed that she was greatly intimidated by Donald Trump tweeting about her, which, of course, is silly.
Well now, Vindman, he testified this morning, and in his testimony he did a routine suggesting that he was in dire danger, significant risk.
Now, maybe that's true.
As a person who's been the subject of many death threats over the course of my career, I can say it is uncomfortable.
But the Democrats are obviously playing this sort of thing up because what they are attempting to suggest is that Trump is militarizing the civilian population against witnesses who don't like him.
So here is Lieutenant Colonel Vindman telling his father, they came from the Soviet Union, while the Soviet Union was still standing when he was a child, saying, Dad, I'll be fine as I testify.
It's high drama, but it has nothing to do with impeachment.
Dad, I'm sitting here today in the U.S.
Capitol, Talking to our elected professionals is proof that you made the right decision 40 years ago to leave the Soviet Union and come here to the United States of America in search of a better life for our family.
Do not worry.
I will be fine for telling the truth.
Thank you again for your consideration.
I'll be happy to answer your questions.
Right, so that last line there is basically, people are threatening me, the President of the United States is threatening me, and I'm standing up here being brave.
Now, listen.
Can there be truth to that?
Sure.
But is this optics?
Of course, this is optics.
And Vindman was definitely playing this up, right?
I mean, during the testimony, at one point, somebody called him Mr. Vindman, and he immediately corrected them and said, no, Lieutenant Colonel, because, again, the Democrats, the media, they've been playing this whole – they did the same thing with Bill Taylor, right?
You served in Vietnam, and you are an American hero, and as an American hero, you don't like Trump.
That's a lot of the game that's being played here.
Here's Vindman doing a little bit of it.
Mr. Vindman, you testified in your deposition that you did not know the whistleblower.
A ranking member, it's Lieutenant Colonel Vindman, please.
Lieutenant Colonel Vindman, you testified in the deposition that you did not know – Who the whistleblower was.
I do not know.
Okay, so Vindman then testified that he was concerned by the phone call and he didn't think it was proper to demand that a foreign government investigate U.S.
citizens.
That testimony was contradicted by Tim Morrison, who is another official who was on the phone call, who suggested that he was not concerned that anything illegal was discussed on the phone call.
And also he disagreed with Vindman's characterization of the conversation.
Vindman suggested that the term Burisma was used on the call.
Morrison says that he doesn't remember that term being used on the call.
Even Vindman acknowledged that from his conversations in Ukraine, he didn't get the impression that the Ukrainians were feeling pressured by President Trump particularly.
Colonel Vindman, you testified that President Trump's request for a favor from President Zelensky would be considered as a demand to President Zelensky.
After this call, did you ever hear from any Ukrainians either in the United States or Ukraine about any pressure that they felt to do these investigations that President Trump demanded?
Not that I can recall.
Okay, so you can't recall having any conversations with the Ukrainians where they were expressing to him any consternation about what President Trump had actually demanded.
So that's really the key to his testimony, but the Democrats are trying to make it that the key to his testimony is his perception of the phone call more broadly.
And that's the story of today's testimony.
All the people who will be testifying today are basically going to testify as to their impressions on all of this.
And their impressions are basically not particularly useful.
They're not particularly useful.
And so, Vindman testified.
He said that he told lawmakers that vile character attacks against public servants testifying in the impeachment inquiry were reprehensible and urged Americans to be better than the callow and cowardly attacks.
He was wearing his army uniform and medals while he did all of this, obviously.
He was basically subtweeting Trump in all of that.
And again, this is about the optics of electioneering.
This has very little to do with the actual charges at hand.
The other people who are scheduled to testify today are Kurt Volker, the former U.S.
Special Envoy to Ukraine, Jennifer Williams, an aide to Vice President Mike Pence, and former National Security Council Russia expert Tim Morrison.
According to prepared testimony, Jennifer Williams said that Trump's phone call was unusual because it involved a discussion of what appeared to be a domestic political matter.
Williams was then attacked by Trump on Twitter just days before her public appearance.
Trump went after her on Sunday as a never-Trumper who should, quote, work out a better presidential attack.
And he has, you know, Trump obviously has gone after a lot of these witnesses.
It's bad optics.
It's foolish of Trump because, again, this is directed toward elections.
Volker told lawmakers in October he didn't know of any effort by Trump to press Ukraine to investigate Biden.
He said that Vice President Biden was never a topic of discussion, but other people have tried to claim that Volker was one of the people working out Ukrainian foreign policy.
Vindman and Volker have clashed over what occurred at previous meetings, so we'll see what Volker has to say today.
Bottom line is that none of these people have first-hand knowledge of what exactly it is that Trump wanted.
The only person who really does, presumably, is Sondland, who's going to testify tomorrow, and that's where all the big headlines are going to be.
Alrighty, time for a quick thing I like and then a quick thing that I hate.
So, things that I like today.
As I say, I've been on a Paul Johnson kick, really enjoy his work.
Historian wrote a very fun, short biography of Mozart back in 2013.
So if you're a fan of Mozart's music, then this does bust a few key myths about Mozart.
Among them, that Mozart was an irreligious philanderer.
That is not true.
He was a deeply religious guy.
Also, that Mozart was deeply troubled.
Not a lot of evidence to that effect.
Also, that his wife Constance was actually a terrible wife who was sort of frivolous.
The perception of her in Amadeus.
That obviously is untrue as well.
She's actually a pretty good wife.
She experienced the tragedy of losing a bunch of children very early on in their life.
She was sick a lot of their marriage, but she was, she ensured that basically their finances were taken care of.
The idea that Mozart was perennially in debt and was thus panicked about money, that is not true either.
The idea that he was tremendously at odds with his dad is not true.
So basically all of the myths that you see in Amadeus, which by the way is one of my favorite movies, They're really not true.
Mozart was a happy guy who composed music, great music.
His entire life was an expert on a variety of instruments, really understood the instruments.
Religious was not, in fact, an idiot savant the way that he is made out to be in Amadeus.
He's actually quite a brilliant fellow.
If you read his letters, it's pretty obvious that he was a very, very intelligent person.
So it's really good.
It's short.
I mean, so if you want to know kind of the key facts about Mozart's life, plus some great discussion of his music, check out Mozart, A Life by Paul Johnson.
Okay, time for a quick thing that I hate.
Alrighty, so this is exciting stuff.
More canceling, more canceling is necessary.
So now the New York Times is going after Paul Galwin, which is very exciting.
So Paul Galwin, last I checked, has been dead for like 150 years, right?
I mean, Paul Galwin died in 1903, age 54.
And it wasn't like people haven't known that he was kind of a scumbag for a really long time.
I mean, his personal life was a shambles.
He treated people horribly.
But, I was not aware that we are now going to be in the business of going back into history and determining when people did bad stuff and then canceling them.
There's literally a piece in the New York Times called, Okay, so that's bad stuff.
Gal Gwynn got canceled.
Museums are reassessing the legacy of an artist who had sex with teenage girls and called the Polynesian people he painted savages.
Okay, so that's bad stuff.
Also, is his art good?
I'm highly irritated by this notion that we can't separate the art from the artist in terms of appreciating the art.
Now, it may give you a better understanding of their motivations when they were painting, to understand what they were thinking, but that does not change the actual art.
It doesn't change the art itself, right?
If the art itself is good, then the art itself ought to be seen as good.
It should not be based purely on the sort of deconstructionist narrative that people in the past did bad stuff, therefore we can't look at their art anymore.
This is stupid.
So according to the New York Times, is it time to stop looking at Galwin altogether?
That's the startling question visitors hear on the audio guide as they walk through the Galwin Portraits exhibition at the National Gallery in London.
The show, which runs through January 26th, focuses on Galwin's depictions of himself, his friends and fellow artists, and of the children he fathered and the young girls he lived with in Tahiti.
In other words, he was a douchebag.
is Tehamana has many parents.
It pictures Galgain's teenage lover holding a fan.
The artist repeatedly entered into sexual relations with young girls, marrying two of them and fathering children, reads the wall text.
Galgain undoubtedly exploited his position as a privileged Westerner to make the most of sexual freedoms available to him.
In other words, he was a douchebag.
But everybody knows he was a douchebag.
So, I mean, I'm fine with examining Paul Galgain's life That's fine.
We should always understand the dark sides of history.
But this attempt to quote-unquote cancel a dude 120 years after his death?
Is fairly ridiculous, is it not?
Can't we just appreciate the art for what it is, understand that it came from a bad place, that this was a bad man, and then also recognize that the art is interesting and has something to say?
If we are now going to get into the business of examining the sins of great or small, of any person who creates art, there's not going to be a lot of art.
It turns out that a huge number of artists were horrible, horrible people.
Horrible people.
As my friend Andrew Clavin likes to say, talent falls on the smart and the dumb, on the good and the evil alike.
But according to the New York Times, it's time to cancel, Galguin.
Born in Paris, the son of a radical journalist, Galguin spent his early years in Peru before returning to France.
He took up painting in his 20s while working as a stockbroker, a profession he would soon give up, along with his wife and children to make art full-time.
He set sail for Tahiti in 1891, searching for the exotic surroundings he had known as a boy in Peru.
Galguin spent most of the 12 remaining years of his life in Tahiti and on the French Polynesian island of Hiva Ola, cohabiting with adolescent girls, fathering more children, and producing his best-known paintings.
In the international museum world, Galwin is a box office hit.
There have been a half dozen exhibitions of his work in the last few years alone, including important shows in Paris, Chicago, and San Francisco.
Yet, in an age of heightened public sensitivity to issues of gender, race, and colonialism, museums are having to reassess his legacy.
A couple of decades ago, an exhibition on the same theme would have been a great deal more about formal innovation, said Christopher Riopelle, a co-curator of the National Gallery show.
Now everything must be viewed in a much more nuanced context, he added.
Oh, so in other words, it used to focus on his art, now it's going to focus on the fact that we don't like him anymore.
And the fact, like, by the way, for a long time, the left was very much in vogue with Paul Galguin because Paul Galguin had abandoned his wife and kids and was seen as a political radical.
So only now are they beginning to realize, oh, you mean that the political radicalism went along with him mistreating young girls and treating native peoples horribly?
He said, I don't think any longer it's enough to say, oh, well, that's the way they did it back then.
Well, you don't have to say that in order to recognize that maybe you should assess him on an artistic level.
Riopelle described Galguin as a very complicated person, a very driven person, a very callous person, said he was disappointed that his overwhelming urge to make art led him to hurt or use so many people badly.
The show is co-produced with the National Gallery of Canada and Ottawa Open in Ottawa in late May.
Nine labels were changed to avoid culturally insensitive language, according to the museum's press office.
In Ottawa, the title, Head of a Savage Mask, was shown with an extended label explaining that the words savage and barbarian, considered offensive today, reflect attitudes common to Galguin's time and place.
Elsewhere, his relationship with a young Tahitian woman was changed to his relationship with a 13 or 14 year old Tahitian girl.
By the way, those changes are fine.
I don't see any real problem with being more specific in your description of Galguid.
But as far as quote-unquote cancelling him, I don't know what that is supposed to mean.
To other museum professionals, re-examining the lives of past artists from a 21st century perspective is risky because it could lead to the boycott of great art.
The person I can totally abhor and loathe, but the work is work, said Vincente Tadoli, who is Tate Modern's director, when I stage a major Galgain exhibit in 2010.
Once an artist creates something, it doesn't belong to the artist anymore, it belongs to the world.
Otherwise, he cautioned, we should stop reading the anti-Semitic author Luis Ferdinand Selin or Sean Cervantes in Shakespeare if we found something unsavory about them.
That, of course, is correct.
But because he was a bad guy, apparently we're now supposed to cancel him.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Galguin, you piss me off, begins two nudes on a Tahitian beach, 1894, a poem by a New Zealand poet and academic, Selina Tusitala Marsh.
You stripped me bare, asked to turn me on my side, shove a fan in my face, et cetera, et cetera.
The anonymity of his Tahitian portraits is another cause of frustration.
In the 2009 photographic series, Dee and Dallas do Galguin, the New Zealand-born Samoan artist, Tyla Vow, has cut out the faces in Galguin's reproduction and inserted photos of her own sister and friend.
Galwin's art is a problem if it continues to be used to frame the Pacific in this timely semi-damaged past when there's actually so much going on, says Carolyn Vercoe, a senior lecturer in art, in such a lively and dynamic culture within the indigenous context as well.
So again, the notion that we are going to quote-unquote cancel people 120 years after their death because they were bad when they lived, There's no limit.
There's no limiting principle here.
It turns out that by historic standards, most people were bad.
And it turns out in a hundred years, most people are gonna think we're bad.
So, if you like what is being done with Paul Galguin, then by all means, recognize that in a hundred years it'll be done to you.
And that is not to justify Galguin's behavior.
Galguin was, again, for the fourth time, a douchebag when he was alive.
But the attempt to cancel artists and say we can't show their exhibitions anymore because they're very bad people?
That is not going to end well for the artistic community above all.
Alrighty, we'll be back here later today for two additional hours.
Otherwise, we'll see you here tomorrow.
I'm Ben Shapiro.
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