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June 15, 2021 - The Ben Shapiro Show

48:49

Joe And Vladimir: A Love Story | Ep. 1276

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	Joe Biden continues to malfunction on the public stage as Vladimir Putin makes his aggressive intentions clear and China demonstrates once again they can't be trusted.
	I'm Ben Shapiro.
	This is the Ben Shapiro Show.
	Today's show is sponsored by ExpressVPN.
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	We'll get to all the news in just one moment.
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	Alrighty, well, we begin with the simple fact that Joe Biden is slated to meet Vladimir Putin, and things are not going to go well.
	This is my prediction.
	According to Yahoo News, President Biden agrees with Russian President Vladimir Putin on at least one thing.
	Relations between their two nations are currently at a very low ebb.
	Now, my favorite way that that is sort of phrased is the suggestion that they have been at high ebb in the recent past.
	You may have remembered that George W. Bush once said that he looked into Vladimir Putin's eyes and saw his soul.
	And relations didn't end up being very good.
	And then Barack Obama was like, I think we can do business.
	You and me.
	I'll give you some flexibility.
	And then things didn't end up going very well.
	And then Donald Trump took a harsher position with the Russians, but was currently, was simultaneously being accused of being a sort of Russian stooge.
	And it turns out relations weren't that great.
	It turns out it's very difficult to have excellent relations with a dictatorial murderer like Vladimir Putin.
	I mean, just baseline, very rough.
	Rough stuff, right?
	But apparently Joe Biden and Vladimir Putin agree on one thing, and that is that Donald Trump is a very bad orange man who's bad and orange as well.
	Both said as much in interviews leading up to Wednesday's meeting in Geneva, which comes amid tensions over myriad issues, including a spate of cyber attacks emanating from within Russia, Putin's military adventurism along his country's border with Ukraine, And his imprisonment of opposition leader Alexei Navalny, who survived poisoning with a Russian nerve agent.
	According to Yahoo News, Biden arrives at the summit fresh from enthusiastic meetings with allies welcoming the return of the United States to conventional multilateral diplomacy.
	He aims to use that support to present a unified front to challenge Putin.
	That's a weird way of putting it, considering that in the recent past Joe Biden has basically Greenlit the Nord Stream 2 pipeline, which is going to wildly enrich Russia.
	And also, saying that he's arriving fresh from anywhere is a bit of a malaprop considering that Joe Biden has not been fresh for nigh on 45 years.
	I mean, that fish has been rotten for quite a while.
	And that simple fact is demonstrative of sort of where we stand in terms of global politics right now.
	The rest of the world is looking at the United States and they are seeing easy pickings right now.
	That's just the reality.
	The reality is that Donald Trump, for all of his foibles, was considered prickly.
	He was considered unpredictable.
	He himself said, I like to be sort of predictably unpredictable, right?
	I don't want them to know what I'm thinking.
	And nobody knew what he was thinking.
	I mean, to his credit.
	People didn't know whether he was going to hug them or if he was going to fire some sort of missile at them.
	And that's not a terrible thing.
	With Joe Biden, everybody sort of knows what they're going to get, which is a little bit of talk and not much action.
	The Russians know this.
	Vladimir Putin isn't being shy about any of this.
	Not only that, Vladimir Putin understands enough about the American left to understand that if he just mirrors the arguments of the American left, there's not much they can do about it.
	Now, this was a common tactic during the Soviet Union.
	During the Soviet Union, the Soviet Union would be criticized for, you know, slaughtering 20 million of its own people, or keeping 100 million people under the boot heel of a totalitarian regime.
	Or taking over Eastern Europe?
	Or funding communist insurgencies around the world, ending with the murder of tens of thousands of human beings?
	They get these sort of critiques every so often.
	Rare from the left, but sometimes.
	And their usual response would be, ah yes, but you too have sinned.
	Ah yes, but look at race relations in the United States.
	Ah yes, but look at the United States, where cruel exploitation has led to capitalistic poverty.
	And the left would be like, that's true.
	Oh my God, I never thought of it that, that's so true.
	We are, we, maybe we are the bad guys.
	So Vladimir Putin trained in the KGB.
	And so he uses these exact same tactics all the time.
	And he says stuff he knows that the American left will agree with.
	So he makes the same critiques of the United States that BLM makes.
	He makes the critical race theory arguments that the left in the United States likes to make.
	And so he will deflect any criticism and all criticism simply by talking about the weaknesses of the United States, with which the left largely agrees.
	Here is Vladimir Putin, for example, deflecting criticism by citing January 6th.
	He said, we have a saying, don't be mad at the mirror if you're ugly.
	Points, honestly, points for being a Bond villain to Vladimir Putin.
	I've said it before, the man is just an excellent Bond villain.
	He says, it has nothing to do with you personally.
	But if somebody blames us for something, what I say is, why don't you look at yourself?
	You'll see yourselves in the mirror, not us.
	We have much in common, Mr. Bond.
	It's every Vladimir Putin speech.
	He said, did you order the assassination of the woman who walked into Congress and who was shot and killed by policemen?
	He's talking about Ashley Babbitt.
	He says, do you know 450 individuals were arrested after entering Congress?
	They didn't go there to steal a laptop.
	They came with political demands.
	So now he is suggesting that the crackdown on people who invaded the Capitol building is sort of like the crackdown on, you know, just peaceful dissenters in Russia who have been imprisoned en masse, their protests broken up and all the rest.
	So this is the game that Vladimir Putin loves to play.
	And Vladimir Putin also, at the same time, will not commit to human rights in his own country, because why would he?
	Hell's the point.
	He's been there for 20 years.
	I mean, who's gonna do something about it, is Vladimir Putin's point of view.
	So Putin, for example, was asked about whether Alexei Navalny, who's this Russian dissident, who has basically been falsely imprisoned in Russia, whether he is going to leave prison alive, because he's very sick.
	Putin allegedly tried to poison him a while back.
	He got very sick, recovered.
	Now he's in prison in Russia, because he landed in Russia, they immediately grabbed him and threw him in prison, and now he is, like, on his deathbed.
	And here's Putin being like, going full Ivan Drago.
	If he dies, he dies.
	Will you commit that you will personally ensure that Alexei Navalny will leave prison alive?
	I proceed from the premise that the person that you have mentioned, the same kind of measures will apply, not in any way worse than to anybody else who happens to be in prison.
	His name is Alexei Navalny.
	People will note that you... I don't care.
	I don't care.
	And he doesn't care!
	Again.
	Bond villain.
	Okay, so we're going to get to more of this in just one second, and then we'll get to the President of the United States, who's supposed to stand up to this guy.
	Mm-hmm.
	In just one second.
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	Okay, so.
	Meanwhile, Vladimir Putin, not only is he engaging in this sort of gamesmanship, he also suggested publicly that the Kremlin has never been engaged in any of these sort of hacks against American targets.
	No, no, no.
	Never.
	I mean, no.
	And also, all the real human rights violations are happening, of course, in the United States.
	Of course.
	That's really the problem.
	Meanwhile, it turns out that Vladimir Putin has been ordering the largest military exercises in the Pacific since the end of the Cold War.
	Oh, he's not being confrontational or anything, guys.
	guys, everything's going great.
	According to the Daily Star in the UK, Vladimir Putin's forces have been spotted hunting an enemy submarine, fake enemy submarine, with 20 surface ships, submarines, and supporting vessels, all playing their part in the largest scale naval exercise since the fall of the Soviet Union.
	The Russian president will meet US.
	counterpart Joe Biden on June 16.
	Putin was not afraid to show his military might just days before the meeting.
	A total of 20 warplanes took to the skies, including Tu-142M3 long-range anti-submarine aircraft, MiG-31BM high-altitude interceptor fighters, and a selection of other aircraft belonging to Russia's Aerospace Force, according to TASS.
	In a video put out by Russia's Ministry of Defense, the fleet can be seen in pursuit of, and quote-unquote, driving out a mock enemy submarine.
	A Moscow Defense Ministry statement said during the exercise, the crews of the Pacific Fleet's warships fired from the Automatic Naval Gun Mount AK-630 and the Universal Naval Artillery A-190.
	So, obviously, Vladimir Putin trying to flex his muscles.
	Meanwhile, Joe Biden has no muscles to flex.
	And this is the biggest problem.
	Joe Biden is not all there.
	Now, theoretically, he could be not all there, but his team could be staffed by a bunch of hawks who really are going to face up to the threat that Russia poses.
	And remember, according to the Democrats, until the last 35 seconds, when Joe Biden became president, Russia was the chief threat to the United States.
	Now, they said that, of course, because they were focused in over and over and over on the idea that Donald Trump was somehow being bribed to be president by Vladimir Putin, that he was a Manchurian candidate.
	Or the Moscow candidate.
	But now that Biden's president, they're like, you know what?
	It would be great if we cut our military.
	And you know, what if we put out some like recruiting videos for the military that featured lesbian moms?
	I mean, that seems like a great way to recruit for the military.
	And for the CIA, what if we like really targeted the group of people who are thinking about applying to the CIA, but suffer from generalized anxiety disorder?
	That's like, that's where we got to put our time and our effort.
	And also, we really have to consider whether military bases should fly the pride flag.
	I mean, these are really important subjects for the United States military in the face of increased Russian aggression.
	And meanwhile, you've got that administration topped by a person whose brain is just not functioning.
	Okay, I'm sorry.
	The media are not going to show you these clips.
	They will not show you these clips on CBS Evening News because they are extremely disquieting.
	And honestly, you have to feel bad for the President of the United States, who at this point seems to be the victim of elder abuse.
	They're trotting out a person who does not have his faculties about him.
	If you've ever had an elderly relative who is starting to lose it, Joe Biden is your elderly relative who is starting to lose it.
	I actually feel bad for the man.
	He is in a high-pressure situation, the highest pressure job on planet Earth, and he is clearly not capable of handling himself.
	Honestly, he's my president too, right?
	He's your president.
	He's the elected president.
	You don't want the elected president to not have the ability to even speak.
	Here was Joe Biden yesterday.
	I mean, this is an unbelievable clip.
	Here is Joe Biden yesterday, asked about whether Vladimir Putin is a killer.
	Now, to preface this clip, to backtrack for a moment, understand that in March, Joe Biden did an interview in which he was asked whether Vladimir Putin was a killer.
	And he said, absolutely.
	Here was Joe Biden just a couple of months ago saying that Vladimir Putin was a killer.
	Most important thing dealing with foreign leaders, in my experience, and I've dealt with an awful lot of them over my career, is just know the other guy.
	So you know Vladimir Putin?
	You think he's a killer?
	Mm-hmm.
	I do.
	Okay, so pretty swift answer there with his good friend George Stephanopoulos.
	Here was yesterday.
	Remember, this has only been a three-month gap.
	This is a guy in a serious state of mental decline.
	I don't know what else to tell you.
	I'm only looking at the evidence in my eyes.
	I'm not a doctor.
	I'm not going to pretend I'm a doctor.
	All I can tell you is that if you've ever seen a person who is sliding down the hill in terms of his faculties, Joe Biden looks an awful lot like that.
	Remember, that was him with George Stephanopoulos in March.
	Here is President Joe Biden in June being asked the same question.
	To answer the first question?
	I'm laughing too.
	They actually, uh, well, look, I mean, he has made clear that, uh, uh, the answer is, I believe he is in the past essentially acknowledge that he was, uh, there are certain things that he would do or did do.
	But look, um, when I was asked that question, On air, I answered it honestly.
	But it's not much of a I don't think it matters a whole lot in terms of this next meeting we're about to have.
	OK, first of all, very weak answer.
	But second of all, that is a full six and a half second gap in that tape where he's just standing there not knowing what's going on around him.
	Hey, that guy is going to stand up to a KGB trained killer like Vladimir Putin.
	I hope he does.
	He's my president, too.
	Again, I would love to see the presidents of the United States take a hard, strong stance with regards to the Russians.
	I just don't think it's going to happen.
	And Joe Biden was also asked, by the way, about Russia, and he referred to Russia as, quote, unquote, our adversary and or our possible adversary.
	Again, it's just.
	I've been doing this a long time.
	Arnold Schwarzenegger in total recall wearing the lady disguise when it starts to glitch.
	I mean, you're afraid that his head is going to start opening up.
	That's that's what he's going to start shaking all over the place and then it's going to explode into Arnold Schwarzenegger.
	It's so weird.
	Here's the president of the United States.
	I've been doing this a long time.
	Yes, you have.
	The last thing anyone would do is negotiate in front of the world press as to how he's going to approach a critical meeting with another adversary and or someone who could be an adversary.
	It's the last thing I'm going to do.
	Yes.
	Great.
	Okay.
	Well, meanwhile, China is on the move as well.
	Biden's being tested.
	So far, not seeing a lot from Joe Biden.
	We'll get to more of this in just one second.
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	Alrighty, so meanwhile, the Chinese government is also getting more and more aggressive.
	So apparently, the Chinese government is now engaging in serious harassment around Taiwan.
	According to Newsweek, the Chinese government has now activated a swarm of warplanes around Taiwan after the G7 and NATO talked up the threat of China.
	Newsweek says, over a dozen warplanes took off from China and triggered radar stations in Taiwan early Tuesday as military aircraft once again swarmed the island's air defense zone following more than a week of relative quiet.
	Radio intercepts sent to Newsweek included at least 17 airborne warnings aimed at PLA warplanes.
	The warnings were broadcast by Republic of China Air Force radio operators between 5.48 a.m.
	and 10.43 a.m.
	local time.
	The precise number of intruding aircraft was initially unclear.
	The Office of Taiwan's Ministry of National Defense spokesperson declined to comment on these developments.
	The department later announced it had detected 28 Chinese military planes.
	That is a single day record.
	Apparently the large incursion into the southwest corner of Taiwan's ADIZ comes after 10 days of relative quiet, with just one PLA asset detected in the area since June 4th, a Y-8 anti-submarine warfare aircraft spotted on Monday.
	The Chinese military's return to gray zone activity around Taiwan follows Biden's attendance of key summits with G7 and NATO allies, both of which resulted in firm rebukes of Beijing's actions across various sectors.
	Now understand, this is not about China's about to invade Taiwan.
	And what this is about is intimidating all of the border countries around China into understanding that if they push China too hard, China will push back.
	And not only will they push back, they understand that the West isn't going to do anything about it.
	Monday's NATO joint statement highlighted China's ambitions and assertive behavior, but they agreed to do nothing.
	Didn't agree to anything.
	Biden led G7 leaders in a communique that included several direct and indirect mentions of China, pushing Beijing for cooperation on COVID-19 origin tracing, fair trade practices, and human rights.
	But they're not going to do anything.
	Again, there will be nothing done.
	And that is really what matters in foreign policy.
	It's not these empty statements that everybody knows are empty.
	It's whether you're going to do anything.
	And understand, China, like Russia, is not an accelerating power.
	China is a declining power.
	China has serious problems.
	China, because of its one-child policy, has gone into steep population decline, which is why they've now said that people in China should have three kids.
	After engaging in the murder of literally hundreds of millions of children over the course of the last three decades, they've now reversed themselves because they've completely demographically wiped themselves off the map.
	Not only that, their economy is not nearly what it is supposed to be.
	It is predicated heavily on taking out foreign debt.
	It is predicated on being able to cram down particularly in rural areas misery on its own citizens.
	China remains a totalitarian slave state for a large number of its citizens.
	Okay, and not only that, there's supposed technological prowess.
	You read in the Thomas Friedman, wow, Thomas Friedman has written about how China is creating new high-speed rail.
	Okay, the reality is that China's infrastructure sucks.
	Okay, they have a few nice things and a lot of really bad things.
	It's sort of like how the Soviet Union used to have these showpieces, these sort of Potemkin villages where they would bring the Westerners and be like, oh, look, isn't this nice?
	China's a little bit better because they actually do have some serious major cities.
	But understand that in a country of a billion people, a huge number of those people are living in serious poverty.
	Those, like, by American standards, true abject poverty.
	Not only that.
	Their facilities are just not all that great.
	I mean, right now, we have a report that, you know, you thought that the Wuhan lab was China's Chernobyl?
	Nope, it turns out that China's Chernobyl is China's Chernobyl.
	According to CNN, the U.S.
	government has spent the past week assessing a report of a leak at a Chinese nuclear power plant after a French company that part owns and helps operate it warned of an imminent radiological threat, according to U.S.
	officials and documents reviewed by CNN.
	The warning included an accusation that the Chinese safety authority was raising the acceptable limits for radiation detection.
	Outside the Taishan nuclear power plant in Guangdong province in order to avoid having to shut it down.
	And so they're going full scale communist authoritarian state.
	Oh, you know, we're letting off too much radiation.
	I have an idea.
	What if we just call it not too much radiation?
	This is their idea.
	This is what they're doing.
	So there's a leak that's happening, basically.
	And the Chinese government's like, instead of defining it as a leak, what if we just pretended it wasn't the leak?
	How about that?
	Despite the alarming notification that Framatome, the French company of the Biden administration, believes the facility is not yet at a crisis level, according to one of the sources.
	U.S.
	officials have deemed the situation does not currently pose a severe safety threat to workers at the plant or the Chinese public, but it is unusual that a foreign company would unilaterally reach out to the American government for help when its Chinese state-owned partner is yet to acknowledge a problem exists.
	The scenario could put the U.S.
	in a complicated situation should the leak continue or become more severe without being fixed.
	Um, well, why?
	I mean, is it possible that the reason that the French company is coming to the U.S.
	is because the Chinese are hiding this?
	Because this is what the Chinese government does?
	The Chinese government, by the way, continues to play down the possibility.
	of a serious lab leak.
	In fact, one of the scientists from China has now said, no, no, no, no, there's no lab leak here.
	There's nothing to see.
	She said, how on earth can I offer up evidence for something where there is no evidence?
	She said, I don't know how the world has come to this constantly pouring filth on an innocent scientist.
	She announced the suspicions as baseless as what Chinese bat woman, right?
	She works at the Wuhan lab, including the allegations that several of her colleagues may have been ill before the outbreak emerged.
	I don't believe you.
	In the words of Anchorman, I don't believe you.
	And I don't believe you because you have not demonstrated any sort of trustworthiness.
	By the way, when I say not demonstrated any sort of trustworthiness, remember China rolled out its quote unquote Sinopharm vaccine for COVID-19.
	It sucked so badly that countries that have used it are seeing massive spikes in COVID.
	So China is in a state of decay, which makes it more aggressive.
	Russia in a state of decay makes it more aggressive.
	And we have a president in a state of decay and that is no good.
	Okay, in just a second, we're gonna get to what is truly occupying the US government at this point.
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	Okay.
	Meanwhile, we are focusing in on the important things here in the United States.
	Not foreign threats.
	Come on.
	Not rising world powers that are threatening people around their borders, and hacking American systems, and stealing American technology, and undermining the world economy, and threatening trade routes.
	No, no, no.
	We have our priorities.
	Our priorities are the progress pride flag.
	The Interior Department yesterday on Flag Day.
	So yesterday was Flag Day.
	Flag Day celebrates the adoption of the original American flag in 1777.
	So on Flag Day, it was time to adopt a new flag over at the Interior Department.
	Deb Haaland put up the so-called Progress Pride Flag.
	So this is a flag that we probably aren't all that familiar with.
	The classical pride flag was just the rainbow flag, right?
	Well, now you have the It is a truly hideous flag, just on an aesthetic level.
	The Progress Pride flag, which has a bunch of new stripes coming in from the side, in an arrow formation, pushing across the original Pride flag.
	And this includes transgender, and intersex, and all sorts of stripes for different people, because flags don't unify anymore.
	You have to have an individual stripe on the flag that represents your identity personally.
	It doesn't represent a state, like a star would.
	Right, because that is a body politic.
	No, it represents you personally on the flag.
	And this is now being flown over government buildings, because obviously it unifies all Americans.
	All of these issues are truly unifying to all Americans.
	So, Deb Haaland tweeted out, Again, imagine that when Donald Trump was president, he just decided to raise up a giant flag of a cross over a government building and said, you know, happy religious freedom day, America.
	You think people would have been okay with that?
	And yet, this is totally fine.
	These are the issues that we're focused on.
	They're the most important issues in America today.
	And in fact, the most important issues are recognizing that America is a system of privilege that must be revolutionized from within.
	It is a constant, ongoing revolution.
	And if you notice the revolution, then you're the bad guy.
	If you notice that there is an active attempt by folks on the left to undermine traditional American values, you're the bad guy.
	If you point out That the left seems wildly focused on an identity politics that suggests that America's institutions are not only rife with racism, but rooted in racism and inextricably intertwined with racism.
	If you notice that they are pushing this actively, then this means that you are the bad guy.
	Terry McAuliffe, the former Virginia governor and current Virginia gubernatorial candidate, he's back.
	And he is saying, you know, all these right-wingers who are focused in on critical race theory these days, I don't know why they're focused in on critical race theory these days, even though we are now adopting the tenets of critical race theory into nearly every aspect of American education and government.
	No, no, no, no, no.
	If you're noticing, it's because you are a conspiracy theorist.
	All the Republicans are talking about, like, critical race theory, and they're making this huge deal about it, and it's all the conversation in the news of Virginia.
	Like, what are you going to say to all those people making education about that?
	That's another right-wing conspiracy.
	This is totally made up by Donald Trump and Glenn Young.
	This is who they are.
	It's a conspiracy theory.
	Oh, it's a conspiracy theory.
	Weird, then, that it's being adopted and praised in the pages of the New York Times, and also that there are so many open proponents of it in the halls of power in the United States.
	Strange, strange.
	If it's a conspiracy theory, it seems like the conspiracy is kind of real, considering how many major players are out defending critical race theory today, Charles Blow being one of the latest in the opinion pages of the New York Times.
	It just demonstrates, understand, critical race theory suggests That all of America's core institutional tenants, all of our basic values of the Declaration of Independence, they are lies.
	Really, those are just a guise for white supremacist power politics.
	It's all about upholding the power of white supremacy.
	It's all about upholding the systems of power in the United States and all this talk about individual rights and freedom of speech and freedom of the press and freedom of religion.
	All those freedoms are basically just a lie designed to keep people of color down, which is weird because in the United States, Asian Americans are the highest earning income group.
	Nigerian Americans are extraordinarily high earning income group, far higher than white Americans.
	So apparently the institutions meant to elevate white people actually kind of suck in the United States at this point, but Put all of that aside, the idea is that everything at root is about power.
	There's no such thing as principle, is the theory of critical race theory.
	All those principles are a lie.
	It is all about power.
	Now, the dirty secret is that critical race theory itself is an attempt to regain power.
	It is not about principle.
	It is not about establishing some high-minded principle of equity.
	It is simply about who wields power against whom, which is why they are so darned upset if you try to define their terms.
	But if you say, okay, I want you to explain to me what critical race theory is so that I can actually understand it and then accept or reject it, they get very angry at you.
	And even if you've read all of their works, even if you've read Richard Delgado, even if you've read Gene Stefanchik, even if you've read Derrick Bell, right?
	Which I have, in law school.
	Even if you've read all of those things, they will still say, no, you misunderstand.
	And the reason they always say this, notice this is a common tactic on the left, refusal to define terms.
	If I even have to define it, you just don't know.
	They do the same thing with the term woman.
	If you say, okay, it seems like the term woman that you're constantly using to talk about how important it is that Kamala Harris is a woman, for example, it seems like that term is utterly malleable considering that men who identify as women, you also consider women.
	So please define woman.
	They'll be like, if you don't know, then I'm not going to explain it to you.
	The last refuge of the intellectual scoundrel.
	So the left does this all the time.
	They don't want to define terms because terms, language is a tool of power.
	This is pure Michel Foucault.
	Foucault suggested that language was basically just a weapon.
	And the left believes this.
	Everything they suggest about the right is true of the left.
	Everything they suggest about the right, that we have principles but that those principles aren't principles.
	They're really just power.
	That we are merely using words as cudgels.
	This is all the left does all day.
	It is just projection.
	It is pure projection.
	James Lindsay says this, the professor, he is correct about this.
	It is, in fact, just projection.
	It is pure projection.
	So Charles Blow is a perfect example of this.
	So he will say that all of America's high-minded principles, those are really just cover for power.
	But also, critical race theory is not just a cover for power.
	Critical race theory is a higher ideal.
	But if you attempt to define it, Then I'm not going to let you.
	Because I sort of like the power structure that is embedded in critical race theory.
	In a second we'll get to Charles Blow trying to obfuscate the issue.
	Because again, in the obfuscation lies the ability to beat to political death your opponents.
	We'll get to that in just one second.
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	Now, if you're an American, you've probably noticed a few things happening lately.
	You know, like spending a year locked in your home, forced masking, the ideological indoctrination that is surging through our school system, corporations, government.
	If you're like me, you probably care about stopping it.
	You feel like you're living in an increasingly authoritarian state.
	Well, that is why I wrote The Authoritarian Moment.
	To help you understand how our culture got to this point and how you can fight it.
	The Authoritarian Moment, it's coming out on July 27th, but you can order it early right now.
	It is a really important book.
	It talks about why you feel the way you do.
	The reason you feel the way you do is because it ain't in your head, it's reality.
	Every major institution in our society has been twisted toward leftist authoritarianism, cram downs, quashing of dissent.
	You need to know how that happened so that we can reverse it.
	I talk in the book, The Authoritarian Moment, about how to reverse it, how to fight back.
	It requires concerted and intelligent action.
	The Authoritarian Moment is now available for pre-order at Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or any other major bookseller.
	A lot of people make the journey from the left to the right for good reason.
	The left is undeniably growing more insane by the day.
	Some of you who leave the left have documented it.
	The Walk Away series on YouTube.
	If you've seen them, it's likely you've watched the video of Georgia Howe, a former teacher and liberal who's brought her expertise on ideological indoctrination from the classroom to The Daily Wire.
	She has started her very own show, Office Hours.
	You can now listen to that no matter where you are in podcast form.
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	no matter where you are, you are listening to the largest, fastest growing conservative podcasting radio show in the nation.
	All righty, so Charles Blow of the New York Times, one of the worst columnists over there, but one of the beautiful things about being a bad columnist for the New York Times is sometimes you make clear what the truth is. So here's what he had to say.
	So here's what he had to say.
	So, Blow has a piece today in the New York Times titled, Demonizing Critical Race Theory.
	The fact that the entire Democratic Party feels the necessity to defend critical race theory says something about its importance to them.
	So, says Charles Blow, critical race theory is the political rights new boogeyman.
	The theory Born in the 1970s among legal scholars, he uses race as a lens through which to examine structures of power.
	It was, I would argue, a relatively obscure concept, not because it lacked merit, but because it was novel.
	Now, you may notice, again, his definition here is just wrong.
	It is not just, he's not defining the theory.
	He says the theory is, he uses race as a lens.
	Okay, but that's not a theory.
	The theory is like a theory.
	Like, what does it theorize about the world?
	Like, we all understand that race matters, but what exactly does that have to do with how you examine the world?
	Okay, so, says Charles Blow, critical race theory was simply an analytical tool.
	But to some white people, the fact that white supremacy was overtly used to infect American systems of power with both racial oppressions and racial privileges is too much to handle.
	It is discomforting, it unravels the American myth.
	Okay, so this is where he moves beyond his vague definition and gets a little more specific.
	Right, he moves beyond, critical race theory is just a way to look at the law, you know, you look at race and the law and the relationship between them.
	Instead, he just lets the cat out of the bag.
	What is critical race theory?
	Critical race theory is the fact that white supremacy was overtly used to infect America's systems of power with racial oppressions and racial privileges.
	He says critical race theory doesn't diagnose the country as evil, even though it is beyond dispute that some evil people designed the architecture of racial oppression.
	And that there are still some who help maintain it.
	In fact, I don't even believe that most people have any real concept of what critical race theory is.
	It's just a collection of words that hint to them at agitation and aggrievement.
	A theory that mentions race, and that is critical, or in their mind, criticizes.
	Critical race theory began to stand for any teachings that challenged the narrative that white America had crafted about the country, and that unveiled any truths that it had tried to hide or erase.
	Okay, so now what the left is trying to do, is they're trying to say that if you object to the idea that all of America's institutions of power are shot through with racism today, And that racism is buried so deep in the substructure of American life that it has to be torn out by the roots.
	All of those structures have to be torn out by the roots.
	If you oppose that, it's because you don't want to teach kids about slavery or something.
	Okay, what is the real goal here?
	The real goal here is to be able to press forward the agenda.
	Right?
	And Charles Bloch pretty much makes this clear.
	He makes clear that he just wants what he wants, and if you attack critical race theory, then you're a racist.
	It's a full Motten-Bailey argument.
	They put out an argument, they say, critical race theory, the argument is that America's basically racist.
	Like, from its inception, through all of its institutions, it's racist.
	You say, that's not true.
	And then they were true-true.
	Oh, you don't want to tell the truth about America.
	Which means you're a racist, of course.
	And because you're a racist, I should get to make all the policy.
	Says Charles Blow, this attack on critical race theory is no different than the rush during the Obama administration by states to ban Sharia law in state courts.
	This is simply an extension of the Barack Obama is a secret Muslim conspiracy and the backlash to his presence in the White House.
	Oh, that's what this is.
	Or alternatively, some of us actually read critical race theory and we know what it is and it's bad.
	Okay, but the fact is that again, all of this sort of stuff, the ideology for the left is a tool of power.
	It is not about higher principle.
	It is just about coalition building and tools of power.
	How can you tell?
	Because certain types of commentary are fine according to the left, even if they violate the intersectional strictures of the left.
	It just depends who's doing it.
	Hey, so to take a perfect example, yesterday, Chuck Schumer was a useful person, right?
	There's a division on the left between people who are useful and people who are not.
	That's all.
	It is not who is right and who is wrong, it's who is useful and who is not.
	Chuck Schumer is still useful because Chuck Schumer, of course, is the Senate Majority Leader.
	So yesterday, he was doing a show and he used the word retarded.
	And now, We've been told over and over and over that use of the word retarded, particularly when you're referring specifically to people with Down syndrome, for example, that that is not allowed.
	It is uncouth.
	It is ugly.
	It is a slur.
	Most of us have been trained on this for the last couple of decades or so.
	It's pretty common to hear kids throw this around the playground in like 1993.
	Not so common to hear kids throw this around the playground in like 2021.
	Chuck Schumer just throws it out there.
	The media said that Chuck Schumer's use of the word retarded And when I first was assemblyman, they wanted to build a congregate living place for retarded children.
	The whole neighborhood was against it.
	These are harmless kids.
	They just needed some help.
	It was not a slur.
	It was just uncomfortable.
	It was outmoded.
	The word that Politico used was outmoded.
	Here was Chuck Schumer being outmoded.
	And when I first was assemblyman, they wanted to build a congregate living place for retarded children.
	The whole neighborhood was against it.
	These are harmless kids.
	They just needed some help.
	We got it done.
	Okay, again, no blowback.
	Outmoded.
	He used some outmoded language.
	Now imagine if a Republican used that word.
	Ah, the world comes crashing down.
	But again, Chuck Schumer, the word, the inconsistency is the point.
	It's the feature, not the bug.
	It is not that the left are a bunch of hypocrites.
	It's that they have no standards.
	The standards are merely a tool they hold you to account.
	But the standards don't apply to them.
	This is why Hunter Biden can use the N-word as much as he could possibly want.
	No problem.
	But if a 17-year-old girl used the N-word with an A at the end, imitating a rapper when she was 15 and got her driver's permit, the New York Times will run a 4,000-word piece and she will lose her scholarship slot in cheerleading at the University of Tennessee.
	The standard only applies to one side of the aisle because it is just a way to beat you to death.
	Everybody on the right understands this, by the way.
	You want to know why the right embraced Trump?
	Because they said, we're not going to hold by any of your standards.
	Now, the proper answer would have been some of those standards are bad and some are good.
	And let's try and figure out which are good and which are bad and hold everybody to account across the board.
	But instead, what the right did is a fairly predictable thing.
	They said, your standards are bull.
	We know your standards are bull.
	And because we know your standards are bull, we're going to elect this guy.
	And you know what?
	He doesn't obey any of your standards.
	Tear down all the standards.
	Which is a rather understandable response, if not a fully morally justified one.
	And because the left doesn't have any standards.
	It's not about hypocrisy.
	It's about they don't have standards except standards to which they hold you to account.
	Another perfect example.
	So yesterday, Marjorie Taylor Greene, the controversial Republican Congresswoman from Georgia, who said a bunch of crazy things about Jewish space lasers in the past, and then she made a weird comment comparing the, and I thought, ridiculous comment comparing mask-wearing, or businesses that suggest that you should have to wear a mask when you walk in if you're unvaccinated, to the Holocaust, right?
	So she went and she visited the Holocaust Center in Washington, D.C.
	Now, this is normally what we demand of our politicians, right?
	In fact, I recall that there was a Democratic politician in Washington, D.C.
	who said that the Jews control the weather.
	And then he went and he visited the Holocaust Museum, and he came out and he made an apology.
	And everybody's like, okay, done.
	Okay, so Marjorie Taylor Greene did the same thing.
	She went to the Holocaust Museum in Washington, D.C., and she came out and she made a statement.
	The horrors of the Holocaust are something that some people don't even believe happened, and some people deny, but there is no comparison to the Holocaust.
	And there are words that I have said, remarks that I've made, that I know are offensive, and for that I want to apologize.
	And I am just fine and very glad to be able to come out here and do that because I believe it's important.
	I believe that if we're going to leave, we need to be able to leave in a way where if we've messed up, it's very important for us to say we're sorry.
	OK, so she goes, she says she's sorry.
	She openly apologized for the comments.
	Listen, well taken.
	All right.
	Meanwhile, Steve Cohen, Democratic congressperson, he comes out and he's like, not enough, not enough for Marjorie Taylor Greene.
	No, I refuse to accept the apology.
	She didn't learn much about really the experience of the Holocaust.
	She sounded like she had some phrases that she saw, maybe some I told her about the worst genocide ever or something that never happened again or never forget.
	But it didn't sound like it came from the heart.
	OK, I'm sorry.
	So the Democratic Party watches Marjorie Taylor.
	They just stripped Marjorie Taylor Greene of all of her committee assignments right over these comments.
	And so Marjorie Taylor Greene lost her committee assignments.
	She went to the Holocaust Museum.
	She apologized.
	Ilhan Omar is a wild, open anti-Semite.
	Rashida Tlaib is a wild, open anti-Semite.
	They, again, every other day, they just say something about how much they hate Jews, basically.
	And the entire Democratic Party is like, well... And then, they quote-unquote clarify, and Nancy Pelosi will give you, well, you know, it's all good.
	It's all good.
	There's nothing to talk about.
	Case closed.
	She's still on the Foreign Affairs Committee.
	So here is the point that I'm making with regard to the left.
	It's all about the power.
	It is not about fundamental principle.
	It's about how they gain and maintain power.
	I do not accept the honesty of the principles they supposedly promulgate.
	I think they are lying to you.
	I think they are lying to me.
	I think that if they believe this stuff, they are lying to themselves.
	I don't think that they hold any of these standards.
	I think that when people are convenient, then they get to outlive They're bad acts, and when they're inconvenient, then we just dispose of them.
	And just to flex their power, every so often you'll see the left just get somebody to issue an apology for no reason at all.
	Right, so Ilhan Omar never issued an apology for anything she's ever said.
	But the left will force Lin-Manuel Miranda to offer his latest apology.
	So remember, Lin-Manuel Miranda has been forced to sort of offer apologies for having written Hamilton.
	How dare he not make slavery the key issue in the founding of the United States in Hamilton?
	And he had to issue some apologies for that.
	Well, now Lin-Manuel Miranda is having to issue apologies for In the Heights, which is a racially diverse musical about people in Crown Heights in New York who are of minority persuasion.
	What did he do wrong?
	According to Variety.com, Lin-Manuel Miranda is now addressing criticism over the film's lack of Afro-Latino representation.
	In a statement posted to Twitter, Miranda apologized for not including more dark-skinned Afro-Latinos in the film's cast, especially in the leading roles.
	I started writing In the Heights because I didn't feel seen.
	And over the past 20 years, all I wanted was for us, all of us, to feel seen, Miranda's statement begins.
	I'm seeing the discussion around Afro-Latino representation in our film this weekend.
	It is clear many in our dark-skinned Afro-Latino community don't feel sufficiently represented within it.
	Particularly among the leading roles.
	The discussion Miranda mentioned stems from a video article in The Root, published on Wednesday, which points out there are no dark-skinned Afro-Latinos in the film's leading roles.
	So, very important for him to apologize now.
	Miranda ended his statement by saying he would try to do better in the future.
	Try to do better in the future.
	Meanwhile, the left is trying to cudgel apologies out of Tom Hanks because Tom Hanks is not sufficiently anti-racist, he's just not a racist.
	So NPR ran an op-ed from a person named Eric Deggans titled, Tom Hanks is a non-racist.
	It's time for him to be anti-racist.
	See, they're just going to cudgel you into the corner.
	If you are a person who is a lifelong Democrat, but you have not done sufficient work, you have not done the work, they will cudgel you into the corner.
	Because again, it is not about principle.
	It's about power politics.
	It's about getting people on board for whatever your radical agenda is today.
	This article is pretty much a masterclass in this.
	Eric Deggans over at NPR, he writes, First, I must note how much I love Tom Hanks as a performer, Hollywood citizen, and all-around stand-up guy.
	Of course, he's a consummate actor with two Oscars and starring roles in landmark films such as Philadelphia and Forrest Gump.
	He's been an outspoken advocate for gay rights and environmentalism.
	So when I saw he had recently written a guest essay for the New York Times calling for more widespread teaching about the Tulsa Race Massacre, I was sincerely heartened.
	Now I thought we'll see him examine how his work, so often focused on the achievements of virtuous, white, male Americans, may have made it tougher for tales about atrocities such as Tulsa to find similar space.
	You see, it turns out Saving Private Ryan was not about Tulsa, but it should have been about Tulsa.
	So Tom Hanks is a bad white man.
	But, says Eric Deggans, he didn't fully go there.
	Here's what he did say.
	say, quote, history was mostly written by white people about white people like me, while the history of black people, including the horrors of Tulsa was too often left out until relatively recently, the entertainment industry, which helps shape what is history and what is forgotten did the same that includes projects of mine. Then he goes on to say he learned of Tulsa from an article in the New York Times last year.
	And another line later in the piece today.
	Says Eric Deggans, these are wise words, but it is not enough.
	must portray the burden of racism in our nation for the sake of the art form's claims to verisimilitude and authenticity." Says Eric Deggans, these are wise words, but it is not enough. He built a career playing righteous white men. After many years of speaking out about race and media in America, I know the toughest thing for some white Americans is to admit how they were personally and specifically connected to the elevation of white culture above other But in Hanks's case, he's no average American or average Hollywood star for that matter.
	Over the years, he has starred in a lot of big movies about historical events, including Saving Private Ryan, Greyhound, Forrest Gump, Apollo 13, Bridge of Spies, and News of the World.
	He has served as producer or executive producer on even more films and TV shows based on American history, including Band of Brothers, The Pacific, John Adams, and From the Earth to the Moon.
	In other words, he's a baby boomer star who has built a sizable part of his career on stories about American white men doing the right thing.
	But the stories often leave out black contributions.
	They often leave out how black soldiers returned home from fighting in World War II to find out they weren't allowed to use the G.I.
	Bill to secure home loans in certain neighborhoods or were cheated out of claiming benefits at all.
	So, let's just be clear.
	This guy is now angry at Tom Hanks because saving Private Ryan didn't end with a black member of the platoon going home and being rejected from the G.I.
	Bill, which would have fit seamlessly into the plot of the film.
	Obviously, he should have done that.
	No, Tom Hanks must be cudgeled.
	It's the difference between being a non-racist and being an anti-racist.
	He's saying it's time for folks like Hanks to be quote-unquote anti-racist.
	If he really wants to make a difference, Hanks and other stars need to talk specifically about how their work has contributed to these problems and how they will change.
	It's all about Malice Struggle Sessions.
	It's all about power.
	That's what we're focused on here at home.
	Who can we cudgel into doing what the left wants?
	Not confronting foreign adversaries, not strengthening America.
	How can we cudgel other Americans into doing what we want politically by upholding standards that are completely hypocritical and utterly inconsistent on every level?
	That's where we are.
	So good luck to us over the next few years.
	Alrighty, we'll be back here later today with an additional hour of content coming up soon.
	The Matt Walsh Show airs at 1.30 p.m.
	Eastern.
	Be sure to check it out over at dailywire.com.
	I'm Ben Shapiro.
	This is The Ben Shapiro Show.
	Editing is by Adam Sajewicz, audio is mixed by Mike Koromina, hair and makeup is by Fabiola Christina, production assistant is Jessica Kranz.
	The Ben Shapiro Show is a Daily Wire production, copyright Daily Wire 2021.
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