All Episodes
Previous Next
Jan. 6, 2022 - The Ben Shapiro Show
48:55
The Democrats' January 6th Push To Ruin Democracy | Ep. 1406
| Copy link to current segment

Time Text
According to Democrats, January 6th was the turning point for democracy and one of the most important dates in American history.
And that's why you have to give them total power.
I'm Ben Shapiro.
This is the Ben Shapiro Show.
Stand up for your digital rights.
Take action at expressvpn.com.
Slash Ben.
We'll get to all the news in just one moment.
First, you already know inflation is now at 40-year highs.
The Federal Reserve is considering increasing interest rates because they have to taper.
Otherwise, the inflation will run out of control.
Maybe you don't want to rely on the Federal Reserve for all of your asset base to be maintained.
This might be why you would diversify into precious metals the way that I have.
Think about this.
Right now, inflation rates are higher than the interest on treasury bonds.
So every day that passes, the government owes less on its mountain of debt.
Imagine if your mortgage payment had a negative interest rate.
Would you be in a hurry to pay it off?
You would not.
So Your pain is their gain.
Protect your savings now.
Hedge against inflation with gold from Birchgold.
Because the government is indeed sabotaging the value of the United States dollar, Birchgold will help you convert an eligible IRA or 401k into an IRA backed by real gold.
That is peace of mind and that is why I am a Birchgold customer.
With thousands of satisfied customers and an A-plus rating with the Better Business Bureau, you can trust Birchgold to protect your savings.
Text BEN to 989898 to get a free information kit on gold.
And when you buy before the end of the month, Birchgold will send you a copy of my newest book, The authoritarian moment.
Text Ben to 989898.
Get your free information kit today.
Again, text Ben to 989898.
Get your free information kit today.
Okay, so today is January 6th.
It is the first anniversary of the only important moment in modern American history, according to the left.
Here is the thing.
The reason that the left is paying attention to January 6th is pure politics.
This is pure political theater.
Because politics is always politics.
And it is not possible to be too cynical about politics.
It really is not.
The big news of the day is not January 6th.
The big news of the day is that the Federal Reserve officials at their meeting last month, according to the Wall Street Journal, are now eyeing a faster timetable for raising interest rates this year, potentially as soon as March.
And Democrats are panicking.
Because when the Fed raises the interest rates, yes, inflation gets curbed.
But also, unemployment is likely to go up.
Because typically, when you raise the interest rates, you make it harder for people to borrow.
When you make it harder for people to borrow, they cannot then spend that money on hiring people.
And so employment tends to go down.
And so Democrats are freaking the hell out.
And they should be freaking out.
This is all bad policy brought about by Joe Biden's interventionist take on economics.
And the Federal Reserve raising its rates is going to have some pretty dire effects for the Democrats come 2022 in the midterm elections.
According to the Wall Street Journal, minutes of their December 14th to 15th meeting, released Wednesday, showed officials believe that rising inflation and a very tight labor market could call for lifting short-term rates sooner or at a faster pace than participants had earlier anticipated.
Some officials also thought the Fed should start shrinking its $8.76 trillion portfolio of bonds and other assets relatively soon after beginning to raise the rates.
Investors would see the move as another way for the Fed to tighten financial conditions to cool the economy.
The predictable effect of this revelation is that stocks immediately dumped.
They turned sharply lower after the minutes were released on Wednesday afternoon.
The Dow Jones fell 1.1 percent.
The Nasdaq lost 3.3 percent.
Meanwhile, government bond yields rose on Wednesday.
Trading in interest rate futures implied a roughly two-thirds probability that the Fed would raise rates in March.
Okay, so what does this mean?
It means that Democrats desperately, desperately have to redirect to January 6th.
So both Kamala Harris, the Vice President of the United States, and Joe Biden spoke at the Capitol Rotunda this morning.
They did so because, of course, they have to make hay while the sun shines.
January 6th being the most important thing in history.
Joe Biden is not great at this.
Kamala Harris is just absolutely abysmal at this.
So Joe Biden was able to sort of cover some of his some of his tracks.
Kamala Harris just kind of puts it all right out there.
Here in this very building, a decision will be made about whether we uphold the right to vote and ensure free and fair elections.
Let's be clear.
We must pass the voting rights bills that are now before the Senate.
And the American people must also do something more.
We cannot sit on the sidelines.
We must unite in defense of our democracy.
Here was Vice President Kamala Harris claiming that January 6th was just like, wait for it, Pearl Harbor and 9-11.
Certain dates echo throughout history, including dates that instantly remind all who have lived through them where they were and what they were doing when our democracy came under assault.
Dates that occupy not only a place on our calendars, But a place in our collective memory.
December 7th, 1941.
September 11th, 2001.
And January 6th, 2021.
Here's Joe Biden talking about the threat to democracy from which he must save us all.
I did not seek this fight brought to this Capitol one year ago today.
But I will not shrink from it either.
I will stand in this breach.
I will defend this nation.
And I will allow no one to place a dagger at the throat of democracy.
We will make sure the will of the people is heard.
That the ballot prevails, not violence.
That authority in this nation will always Be peacefully transferred.
You can't love your country only when you win.
You can't obey the law only when it's convenient.
You can't be patriotic when you embrace and enable lies.
unprecedented threat on January 6th, but he will stand in the breach.
All you have to do is give him complete ultimate power.
You can't love your country only when you win.
You can't obey the law only when it's convenient.
You can't be patriotic when you embrace and enable lies.
Those who stormed this Capitol and those who instigated and incited and those who called on them to do so held a dagger at the throat of America and American democracy.
It's so tiresome.
It's so tiresome because we know the game that he's playing, right?
I mean, the game that he is playing right here is let me pass the legislation I want.
Otherwise, you are the dagger at the throat of democracy.
When he compares what happened on January 6th to the Edmund Pettus Bridge, you know, like black people being beaten up for being black as part of a broader Jim Crow effort to subvert the rights of black people.
When he compares it to, when he compares it to December 7th, what he's really saying is that anybody who disagrees with his agenda is the enemy because when he says he wants a renaissance of democracy, He does not mean respect for elections purely and simply.
What he really means is pass my Voting Rights Act.
He means let me add 87 justices to the Supreme Court and kill the filibuster and federalize election procedure.
That's what he means.
It's a political game and pretending that it's not, pretending that this is all just good-hearted, let's get together and be more civil about our election, that's not what he's doing and anyone with half a brain knows that's not what he's doing.
The worse things get for the Democrats, the more they're going to redirect to January 6th.
Now why?
I mean, this is the real question that should be asked.
Why?
So January 6th was a bad moment in American history.
It was.
And it was a moment in American history.
What I mean by that is that President Trump spent from November 4th to January 6th telling people that he had duly won the election and that for fraudulent reasons, Joe Biden was being selected as president.
And then he had his legal advisors telling people falsely that under the Electoral Count Act, the Vice President of the United States had the capacity to simply throw away state-certified votes.
That is not true.
Donald Trump had every legal avenue available to him to challenge election results.
He did it sometimes.
He didn't allege half of the stuff that he has alleged publicly.
And so by the time that it came time to certify the election, which happened in early December, by the time that happened, the Trump team had basically Made no case as to why states should throw out their own election results.
That is not to deny that there is election fraud in a country with 155 million votes.
There will be some election fraud.
This is not to deny that there wasn't screwing around with the elections given the procedures of 2020.
Thanks to the pandemic and thanks to democratic opportunism, there are a bunch of absentee ballots that were being sent out to people who did not ask for them or you had increased Drop in mailboxes or you had increase in terms of the number of people who were voting early, right?
All of this is true.
And it is also true that the election was, in fact, rigged from the perspective of the media, silencing information, preventing true information from getting to the public, and manipulating information that you did see, right?
All of that can be true.
And also, Donald Trump did not have a legal case for overturning the election.
And that's just the simple fact of the matter.
If he had had a legal case for overturning the election, he would have won some cases legally.
He did not win.
He won one case legally, and that was quickly overturned out of something like 80 across the country.
And the ballot recounts that have been done in places like Georgia and in Arizona, including the audit that was done in Arizona, the much ballyhooed Maricopa County audit found that there was not mass electoral fraud on the scale necessary to declare that Donald Trump had won the election in Arizona, for example.
So Donald Trump from November 4th to January 6th was maintaining that he was the rightfully elected President of the United States or that the election was totally fraudulent or that the Senate Majority Leader and the Vice President of the United States had the legal capacity to simply throw out duly certified state votes.
That was not true.
But Donald Trump did not tell people to storm the Capitol building.
He did not.
He said that people should peacefully protest at the Capitol building.
So a bunch of people went over there.
There was a huge rally.
I mean like tens of thousands of people.
The vast majority of those people went home.
The vast majority of those people did not engage in the violence at the Capitol building.
And then several hundred people did engage in violence at the Capitol building.
Something like 100 police officers were injured and some of those people broke into the Capitol building and some of the people in the Capitol building were running around yelling for Mike Pence.
Or assaulting police officers.
And some of those people were just kind of wandering around inside.
Okay, that is what happened on January 6th.
And then, within three hours, the entire place was clear.
All the Congress people were back in their seats.
And Mitch McConnell and Mike Pence were certifying the election.
That's what actually happened on January 6th.
Okay, we were all there.
We all remember it.
It was bad.
It was not good.
The president of the United States waited too long to tell people to go home.
But all of that said, was this a full-blown coup?
No, because a coup requires some sort of institutional support that would legitimate a failure of an effective transition of power.
And people say there was no peaceful transition of power.
That is a lie.
There was a peaceful transition of power.
The presence of a riot does not mean that there was no peaceful transition of power.
If that were the case, there was no peaceful transition of power back in 2017 when Donald Trump, at his inauguration, there were massive riots outside Trump's inauguration involving the arrest of over 200 people.
Was that a peaceful transition of power?
It was because Joe Biden left and Donald Trump took office.
Well, on January 20th of 2021, Donald Trump left and Joe Biden took office.
That is called a peaceful transition of power.
Was this a moment of crisis for our democracy?
No, it wasn't.
Within three hours of idiots invading the Capitol building, the election was being certified.
So then why is this a moment of national disgrace, a moment of national shame?
And the answer is because for the left, it must be.
It must be because of the left's goal.
Within 24 hours of this event, forget 24 hours, then 24 minutes of this event, it became wildly apparent that for the Democrats and for the media, this was gold.
And it was gold because they got to try and lump in everyone who voted with Trump To people who protested the election and then lump in all those people with the Capitol rioters.
So the idea was that if you voted for Trump, or if you voted against Biden, or if you would ever consider voting for Trump, or if you would ever consider voting for any other Republican, you were complicit in the actions of January 6th.
This became perfectly clear when Parler was knocked offline by Amazon Web Services.
Amazon Web Services is a neutral service provider.
The suggestion was that Parler had been used to organize the January 6th riots, and therefore, Parler needed to be dumped offline.
Well, Facebook was used much more than Parler for that.
They weren't dumped offline.
Twitter was used.
Twitter was not dumped offline.
It became very clear very quickly that major institutions in the United States were going to use January 6th As the excuse and the predicate for cracking down on political opposition.
And that's what continues today.
The left's argument is that January 6th is not just something that happened.
It's not just a bad thing perpetrated by people who acted criminally and are going to jail.
It was not even about Donald Trump saying things that were not true.
It was not about any of that.
It was about a full-fledged attempt by the right wing in the United States to subvert democracy.
And that can only be stopped, according to the left, by allowing them to subvert democracy.
Tear away at the fundamental institutions of Republicanism in this country.
Get rid of the Senate filibuster, for example, so they can pass a Voting Rights Act, which is not really a Voting Rights Act.
It's a Federalization of Elections Act.
Complete with insanely loose election restrictions.
This is their argument.
Their argument is you must give them total power to prevent the Republicans from taking total power.
Because after all, those evil, evil Republicans are seeking to take total power.
Now, what are they basing that on?
They're basing that on the fact that there are laws that have been passed in states like Georgia that shore up certain election procedures and actually loosen certain election procedures.
Everyone who looks at the Georgia law just facially understands this is not a device for stealing elections in Georgia.
Anyone who suggests to you that the Georgia election law is about Republicans stealing election is out of their mind or lying to you.
The great election threat here does not exist.
Okay, Republicans are not stealing elections across the country.
The left is suggesting, for example, that the John Lewis Voting Rights Act be used in order to crack down on particularly red states when it comes to redistricting.
There's only one problem, according to Cook Political, in Republican states in which they've engaged in redistricting this year.
There really is no major shift toward Republican seats.
There's actually more of a shift in Democratic states with Democratic redistricting than there is in Republican states with Republican redistricting.
In other words, this is not a major problem.
Democrats have decided it's a major problem because they wish to use this as the excuse to seize more power.
That's what this is about.
This is not a sincere effort.
Nobody believes this is sincerely about January 6th.
Which part of it would be sincere from the left?
The part where they're very upset about people protesting elections?
Who's going to make that case?
Governor Stacey Abrams of Georgia, who lost an election by 50,000 votes and was declared in 2020 a governor of Georgia by the Democratic Party at their national convention?
Who exactly on the Democratic side of the aisle is really upset about people who protest elections?
The same people who spent four years declaring that Donald Trump was only president because of Russian collusion and Facebook memes?
Or maybe we're supposed to believe that the Democratic left is deeply, deeply upset and angry over the treatment of police officers on January 6th.
I mean, hell, the New York Times has an entire piece today titled, Capitol Police Bear Scars of Riots.
Now, I just have a question.
About 100 police officers, 120 police officers were injured on January 6th over the course of the Black Lives Matter riots, which were predicated on a huge lie.
A much bigger lie, by the way, in consequence for literally millions of Americans than the lie that President Trump openly won the 2020 election, for example.
The lie that America's police are systemically racist, targeting black men and shooting them down in the streets.
That's what Black Lives Matter was predicated upon.
It was a full-blown lie promoted by every major Democrat to the point where you had the current Vice President of the United States bailing rioters out of jail in Minnesota.
In those riots, over 2,000 police officers were injured.
Not one word from Democrats on this.
So are we supposed to believe that the reason that this is a truly historic event is because of mistreatment of police?
Is that what we're meant to believe from the media and the Democrats?
Which part of January 6th is the part that they are really, they're standing on solid ground in terms of their own approach toward, for example, elections, or treatment of police, or treatment of political violence, which they winked and nodded at, and in some cases openly promoted in the middle of 2020.
That's why, as always, this is a political game, and pretending that it is anything but a political game is being pretty damned dishonest.
We'll get to more of this in just one second.
Let's talk about a simple fact.
You require life insurance.
You do.
I mean, let's say that you are just walking down the street and it's in Florida and so suddenly an alligator is just leaping at you.
Well, as that alligator leaps at you and as you fend it off and as it begins to sink its teeth into your jugular vein, you might be thinking, Man, I should have listened to Shapiro and gone and gotten some life insurance.
Head on over to Policygenius.com slash Shapiro, answer a few questions about yourself.
In minutes, you can work out how much life insurance coverage you need, compare personalized quotes to find your best price.
You could save 50% or more on life insurance by comparing quotes with Policygenius.
Their licensed experts will help you understand your options and apply for a policy.
The Policygenius team works for you, not the insurance companies.
You can trust them to offer unbiased help and advocate for you at every step until you are covered.
Policygenius does not add on extra fees.
Policygenius doesn't sell your information to third parties.
Policy Genius has thousands of five-star reviews across Google and Trustpilot.
So what exactly are you waiting for?
They've already helped 30 million people shop for insurance.
They placed $120 billion in coverage.
They can certainly help you.
Head on over to policygenius.com slash Shapiro.
Get your free life insurance quotes.
See how much you could save.
That's policygenius.com slash Shapiro.
So Joe Biden says, Are we going to be a nation that accepts political violence as a norm?
I don't know, Joe.
Are we?
Where were you for all of summer 2020?
Where?
Where was your entire party for all of summer 2020 when I was locked in my home in LA thanks to the riots that were occurring on Sunset Boulevard and down the street from me on Whitsitt?
I just have a question.
Where were you?
Are we going to be a nation that accepts political violence as a norm?
You already did.
You already did.
Don't shed me no crocodile tears about January 6th after you spent an entire summer greenlighting $5 billion in uninsured property damage across the country and pretending it's not a big deal because after all, George Floyd.
Biden says, are we going to be a nation where we allow partisan election officials to overturn the legally expressed will of the people?
Well, I mean, I don't know, Joe, are we?
Nancy Pelosi challenged a duly held election in the state of Iowa in which there is a very close congressional race, and she held up the results for months.
There's even talk of seating the Democrat in place of the Republican in that particular race.
So I'm all for verifiable procedures.
I'm all for certified elections being carried forward.
I think that Mike Pence and Mitch McConnell did the right thing in January of 2020.
I also think that it would be good if states, for example, carry out their votes and then tally their votes and then certify their votes without political interference.
I agree with that.
I'm just wondering, do you still think that Governor Stacey Abrams is the governor of Georgia?
We can't allow ourselves to be that kind of nation.
Joe Biden is going to speak about January 6th incessantly because he's a crappy president and he has to get you to think about something else.
Don't pay attention to the inflation over here.
Please don't pay attention to the fact that we are shutting down schools in Chicago and in New York and in Philadelphia, or at least trying in New York.
Don't pay attention to any of that.
Pay attention to the fact that January 6th happened.
See the shiny object?
Pay attention to this hand, not to this hand.
So Jen Psaki talked a little bit yesterday about Biden's plans for January 6th.
Here's what she had to say.
President Biden has been clear-eyed about the threat the former president represents to our democracy and how the former president constantly works to undermine basic American values and rule of law.
And President Biden has, of course, spoken repeatedly about how the former president abused his office, undermined the Constitution, and ignored his oath to the American people in an effort to amass more power for himself and his allies.
He sees January 6th as a tragic culmination of what those four years under President Trump did to our country.
Okay, that right there is the key, right?
So when Jen Psaki says that Joe Biden sees January 6th as the tragic culmination of what Trump did to the country.
Okay, first of all, the democratic idea about politics is that the world began spinning the moment Trump became president, and then it stopped spinning on January 6th.
That is the only period of history that we are ever allowed to look at.
Actually, there are a couple periods, right?
There's when America allowed slavery, and then you fast forward all the way to Trump becoming president.
These are the only periods in American history that have ever mattered, according to the left, apparently.
When Jen Psaki says that, what she means to do is to tie every Trump policy to January 6th.
If you supported Trump's tax cuts, well, it did culminate in January 6th.
If you supported Trump's foreign policy, the Abraham Accords, strengthening our position vis-a-vis China, well, that did culminate in January 6th.
If you supported Trump's judicial nominees, well, that did culminate in January 6th.
She's not being specific.
Deliberately.
She's being deliberately vague because the idea is if you disagree with us on any of these things, you are part of the problem.
You're part of the problem.
So they have to continue to maintain that there is this vast threat to American democracy that justifies exactly what they are doing.
And again, what's amazing about this is they are not hiding the ball in any way, shape or form.
If you mention it, people get mad at you because we're all supposed to believe that the only thing that matters in American life is January 6th.
But they are pretty much just saying it.
They are pretty much just saying what it is that they want to do.
They want to push this rejiggering of all voting law.
That is the goal.
And they're going to use this as the lever to do it.
Again, this is not a shock.
This is what people do in politics.
It's not unique to Democrats, not unique to Republicans.
Politicians exploit situations.
January 6th is a situation Democrats believe they can exploit.
And so they will shed crocodile tears in orders that they can push forward a bunch of stuff they wanted to do anyway.
That is the goal here.
And that is why you're seeing them play up the notion that there's like this giant threat.
Okay, January 6th is not going to be repeated today.
That's not a thing.
I mean, they spent months putting barbed wire around the Capitol when there was no threat.
None.
Why?
Because they had to maintain the idea that there is a threat so grave that you have to let us do exactly what we want to do.
You'll get some more of this in just one second, because this is the universal message from the left on January 6th, the first anniversary.
First, did you know that one out of three Americans regularly suffer from nausea?
We've all experienced that horrible feeling.
It is no fun.
My wife tends to get very, very carsick, for example.
Well, instead of suffering with the nausea, instead get something called a relief band.
Relief band is great.
So my wife uses a relief band when we're on long car drives and she tends to get that sort of car sickness.
My sister also, she tends to get car sick as well and she had some morning sickness because she's pregnant.
We got her a relief band as well.
It is very, very useful.
Relief band is the number one FDA cleared anti-nausea wristband.
It has been clinically proven.
So quickly, relieve and effectively prevent nausea and vomiting associated with motion sickness, anxiety, migraines, hangovers, morning sickness, chemo, and so much more.
The product is 100% drug-free, non-drowsy, provides all-natural, long-lasting relief with zero side effects for as long as needed.
The technology was originally developed over 20 years ago in hospitals to relieve nausea from patients.
Now, through a relief band, it's available to the masses.
Relief band simulates a nerve in the wrist.
It travels to the part of the brain that controls nausea.
Then it blocks the signal your brain is sending to your stomach telling you that you're sick.
Relief Band just introduced its newest model, Relief Band Sport.
The sport is waterproof, features interchangeable bands, and has extended battery life as well.
Don't let nausea keep you from doing the things you love right now.
Relief Band has an exclusive offer just for Ben Shapiro listeners.
If you go to reliefband.com and use promo code SHAPIRO, you'll receive 20% off plus free shipping, no questions asked, 30-day money-back guarantee.
Head on over to r-e-l-i-e-f-b-a-n-d.com.
Use our promo code SHAPIRO for 20% off plus free shipping.
Okay, so.
Joe Biden's entire shtick here is again to promote the idea that democracy is under grave threat and therefore we can do what we want.
He's trotting out his DHS secretary Alejandro Mayorkas to say, there is indeed a continuing and real threat from insurrectionists a la January 6th.
Meanwhile, why don't we leave the southern border open?
Like completely open.
We'll just, we'll do that.
Here's Alejandro Mayorkas, the terrible, terrible head of Homeland Security.
domestic violent extremism does in fact remain one of the greatest threats that we face on the homeland. And what we in the Department of Homeland Security do is obtain information and share information and make sure that not only we across the federal enterprise, but also our state and local partners are fully equipped with the information and best positioned
to prevent a threat from materializing.
The threat is real but it is our job to be prepared for it and to be responsive if in fact it should materialize.
Okay, no, the threat of a coup is not real.
The threat of a mass-scale insurrection is not real.
I mean, how motivated are Democrats to come up?
With this narrative, they've been sending polls showing that something like 4% of Americans want Trump to lead a coup right now.
10% of Americans think Elvis is still alive.
And the margin of error on these polls is like 4%.
But we're supposed to believe that there's 10 million Americans who are desperate and willing to pick up arms in order to effectuate a coup.
Uh, no.
No.
By the way, the people who violated the law on January 6th have been prosecuted to the hilt by the federal government.
Much, much more than the rioters of Black Lives Matter summer.
There were literally thousands of people committing crimes across the country during 2020.
A huge majority of those people are not going to jail.
I wish to God that we had the same sort of law and order attitude toward the rioters of 2020 that we did toward the rioters of January 6th.
This is why I don't believe Democrats when they start talking about, yes, well, January 6th, it's all about law and order.
Here's Merrick Garland doing that routine.
With increasing numbers of individuals having breached the Capitol, members of the Senate and the House of Representatives, including the President of the Senate, Vice President Mike Pence, had to be evacuated.
As a consequence, proceedings in both chambers were disrupted for hours, interfering with a fundamental element of American democracy, the peaceful transfer of power from one administration to the next.
Those involved must be held accountable.
And there is no higher priority for us at the Department of Justice.
It's the only priority at the Department of Justice because the Department of Justice is a political tool of the Biden administration.
Well, how about, honestly, it's not whataboutism to say that there is a standard and it should apply across the board.
If it does not apply across the board, I have a feeling that it's politically driven.
That's not whataboutism.
It's not whataboutism because I think that the people who broke the law on January 6th should go to jail.
It would be whataboutism if I were making the argument that they shouldn't go to jail.
But if you broke the law, you should go to jail.
But I believe that about everybody who breaks the law.
But Merrick Garland and DOJ don't believe that.
They're currently cramming down consent decrees on police departments, making it easier for criminals to effectuate their crime.
Here's Merrick Garland continuing along these lines.
January 6th, of course, being the only important event in American history.
The actions we have taken thus far will not be our last.
The Justice Department remains committed to holding all January 6th perpetrators at any level accountable under law, whether they were present that day or were otherwise criminally responsible for the assault on our democracy.
We will follow the facts wherever they lead.
Okay, meanwhile, so I have some doubts about the way that this sort of stuff is portrayed.
The reason I have some doubts about the way this is portrayed is because, for example, the idea here is that Trump led the insurrection.
Okay, now, again, Trump said things that were not true between November 4th and January 6th.
I've been very clear about this.
I do not think that Trump had the evidence to overturn the 2020 election.
I don't think he presented it in court.
I don't think that the allegations that he made publicly are the ones he tried to substantiate in court.
It's not that I don't think that, I know that, because I've looked at the court filings.
But, when President Trump is accused of, for example, quote-unquote, inciting the violence at the Capitol, there's two questions here.
One is, did he incite the violence at the Capitol?
And two is, did he tamp it down fast enough once it broke out?
Two is still an open question at the very least.
One is not really an open question.
Because the fact is, he said in his speech to peacefully protest at the Capitol building, I've held a very consistent standard on this.
If a politician raises the level of rhetoric, he is guilty for raising the level of rhetoric.
He is not guilty of incitement.
Bernie Sanders is not guilty for the congressional baseball shooting.
Barack Obama was not guilty for the 2016 assassination of six Dallas police officers.
And Donald Trump is not guilty for the break-in at the Capitol building.
But the goal for the media is always to turn whatever Trump says into incitement.
So, for example, Yesterday, Trump put out a statement regarding VAX mandates.
He said the Biden administration's response to COVID is getting worse every day.
Joe Biden said there is no federal solution to the pandemic, but he then federalized the distribution of antibodies.
Red states are getting the short end of the stick.
In my administration, we respected the role of governors to take care of their own states, and they could request antibodies and therapeutics depending on what they needed.
That's the way our country is supposed to run.
Now there's talk by the Biden administration again about closing schools and even VAX mandates for schoolchildren.
This is an outrage.
The federal government must be reined in and give people back the freedom to decide whether they want to be vaccinated or not.
Right?
And he suggests that MAGA should, quote unquote, rise up.
Right?
He says that the exact phrase that he uses is, this is an outrage and MAGA nation should rise up and oppose this egregious federal government outreach.
OK, overreach.
And so the media immediately said that because he used the language rise up, he means violent insurrection.
No, he doesn't.
No, he doesn't.
People use that language routinely when it comes to politics.
I mean, that's just, that's silly.
That's silly.
But again, the goal is any association with January 6th can be used to smear literally everyone.
And that is, at the very least, wildly objectionable.
But that's the talking point for today.
And so we have Jimmy Carter writing guest pieces for the New York Times about fearing for democracy.
We'll get to that in just one second.
If you haven't taken advantage of record low mortgage rates, now would be the time.
They're not going to be here much longer.
The Fed has told us a few times now, every day that passes, you know what's going to happen.
We are at risk of seeing higher mortgage rates in the very near future.
It will cost you money.
So please, find out what your options are.
You can get a free mortgage review by calling our friends at American Financing, where you can learn about ways to save up to a thousand bucks a month and tens of thousands of bucks long term.
You can even skip two mortgage payments and you might be able to close in as fast as 10 days.
There's a lot of savings in your back pocket ready for you to grab.
But you've got to call now before these rates get higher.
866-721-3300.
That's 866-721-3300.
Now is the best time probably in American history to refi your mortgage because the rates are at historic lows.
Again, they're not going to remain that way for long.
We already know the Federal Reserve is looking to taper.
That means mortgage rates are likely to rise as early as late this spring, summer.
That means you really should get on the ball right now.
Go to AmericanFinancing.net.
Give them a call at 866-721-3300.
That's 866-721-3300.
NMLS182334.
NMLSConsumerAccess.org.
Go check them out right now.
Okay, so.
And the entire media are now repeating the Democratic talking points because this is what we do.
And so we have Jimmy Carter.
The 1,000-year-old former president of the United States writing in the New York Times about how we almost descended into complete tyranny in January of 2020.
We didn't.
I'm sorry, we didn't.
There was no institutional support for the Capitol rioters who were cleared from the Capitol building, I repeat, again, within three hours.
They went to jail, and then the election was certified by Donald Trump's vice president.
But according to Jimmy Carter, it was a crisis for democracy, and that crisis has not abated.
He says, one year ago, a violent mob guided by unscrupulous politicians stormed the Capitol and almost succeeded in preventing the Democratic transfer of power.
No, they didn't.
They didn't even come close to preventing the Democratic transfer of power.
They did not come within 100 yards of preventing the Democratic transfer of power.
They occupied a building, were cleared from the building within three hours.
The only person who was killed, by the way, is one of the protesters shot, Ashley Babbitt.
Everybody else who died, died of a heart attack or died of other extraneous conditions.
There's no direct evidence that any police officer was murdered on January 6th.
But again, it has to be blown up into, we're on the verge of losing our democracy, which of course is really, really, really silly.
He says, all four of us former presidents condemned their actions and affirmed the legitimacy of the 2020 election.
There followed a brief hope that the insurrection would shock the nation into addressing the toxic polarization that threatens our democracy.
Is what Jimmy Carter, Captain Polarization himself has to say.
However, one year on, Promoters of the lie that the election was stolen have taken over one political party and stoked distrust in our electoral systems.
These forces exert power and influence the relentless disinformation which continues to turn Americans against Americans.
Politicians in my home state of Georgia, as well as in others, such as Texas and Florida, have leveraged the distrust they have created to enact laws that empower partisan legislatures to intervene in election processes.
They seek to win by any means, and many Americans are being persuaded to think and act likewise, threatening to collapse the foundations of our society and democracy with breathtaking speed.
I now fear that what we have fought so hard to achieve globally, the right to free, fair elections unhindered by strongman politicians, has become dangerously fragile at home.
Okay, so I have a question for Jimmy Carter.
In 2006, Jimmy Carter, I mean, speaking of free and fair elections, Jimmy Carter, in 2006, presided over an election in the Gaza Strip.
Okay, in the Middle East.
That election was won by Hamas.
Hamas is a terrorist group.
That election was marred by tremendous abuses of power because Hamas is, as stated, a terrorist group.
Jimmy Carter then proceeded to certify that election and say that election was good and say that Hamas should be given a chance.
So I'm just wondering what leg he has to stand on in talking about democracy promotion and electoral fraud.
But, you know, they've got to call everybody out of the woodwork to make the case.
He makes some recommendations.
He says, first, while citizens can disagree on policies, people of all political stripes must agree on fundamental constitutional principles and norms of fairness, civility, and respect for the rule of law.
Agree.
I have no problem with any of that.
I'm just wondering why it only applies to one side of the political aisle, but I have no problem with any of that.
Second, we must push for reforms that ensure the security and accessibility of our elections and ensure public confidence in the accuracy of results.
Okay, that's, again, no objections.
Third, we must resist the polarization that is reshaping our identities around politics.
We must focus on a few core truths that we are all human, we are all Americans, we have common hopes for our communities and our country to thrive.
Again, agree.
Fourth, violence has no place in our politics.
We must act urgently to pass or strengthen laws to reverse the trends of character assassination, intimidation, and the presence of armed militias at events.
Um, okay, I don't know how that is going to materialize in a country where we still respect the First Amendment.
There is a pretty wide distinction between violence in politics and trends of character assassination.
That seems like a... Now you're starting to verge on the conflation of good ideas with very, very bad ideas.
Finally, he says, lastly, the spread of disinformation, especially on social media, must be addressed.
We must rein in these platforms and get in the habit of seeking out accurate information.
Corporate America and religious communities should encourage respect for democratic norms, participation in elections, and efforts to counter disinformation.
So now he's talking again about how he gets to define what is disinformation and what is not, and he gets to control that.
So we went very quickly from things we can all agree on to things that very few of us can agree on because we don't trust you to actually handle those systems.
But that's the entire goal.
Okay, so Joy Behar.
I'm not going to her as some sort of apex of democratic intellectualism, because that would be disingenuous.
She's not.
What she is is the id of the Democratic Party.
When Joy Behar says something, this is what lies at the gut level of the Democratic Party.
What she says here is pretty much the whole ball of wax.
The reason that this has to be done right now, the reason January 6th is important, the reason they have to federalize election law, the reason that they have to go back to the Voting Rights Act, even though the Supreme Court basically says this doesn't apply 50 years on, The reason they have to do this is because Republicans might win.
That's why.
That's why the urgency.
That's why the outsized screaming.
That's why the crocodile tears.
Here's Joy Behar of The View.
You know, I remember in Watergate, it took a long time before they actually nailed all these people.
It doesn't happen that fast.
The wheels of justice grind slowly.
I'm not losing hope yet, but I will worry in November if the Republicans take over the House and the Senate.
That will be the beginning of the end for this country.
Oh, if they win the House and the Senate, it's the beginning of the end of the country.
Well, that justifies pretty much anything, does it?
I thought from Jimmy Carter we're supposed to end polarization.
Nothing ends polarization quite like saying that if your political opponents win an election, it's the end of the country.
But that's what I'm... They are simultaneously making the case that political polarization has to end, and the only way for political polarization to end is for them to win from now until the end of time.
That is one way to end polarization, is to create a monopoly.
Monopolies end polarization, because now you don't have two polls.
You only have one.
But that is not the way that you effectuate actual peace, harmony and civility in the United States.
I said this when Joe Biden took office.
He came in, he said, I'm going to be a unifier, not a divider.
And I said, OK, unity is great.
But by unity, do you mean tolerance for other people's points of views, pursuit of moderate policies approved by a majority of Americans?
Or do you mean I'm going to cram down whatever the hell I want and you shut the hell up?
Because that's two separate ways of creating unity.
It is fairly obvious that he meant the latter.
We'll get to more on this in just one second.
First, let's talk about getting in shape.
So, sometimes it's hard to schlep out to the gym, right?
Or you want to work out and it turns out that your local gym is already closed.
It's too late at night or it's too early in the morning or something.
Well, I'll tell you what I've been doing.
I've been hopping on my Echelon bike.
Echelon brings the gym home to you.
When you're trying to reach your fitness goals, it can really help to have world-class instructors choreographing classes, music from your favorite artists, and a community of hundreds of thousands of people who can give you that extra push.
Echelon gives you that.
Echelon is the affordable way to get the workout equipment, the workout community, and an instructor's motivation right in the comfort of your own home.
Echelon's fitness app provides you thousands of live and on-demand classes with great music.
With Echelon, you can work out anytime day or night and crush your fitness goals.
Just pick your class, climb the leaderboard, cheer each other on, give it your all.
Echelon's certified fitness instructors are supportive, engaging, and fun.
They really know how to get you moving.
I know because I use Echelon pretty frequently.
They've got around-the-clock classes for the family.
They've got full-body workout programs that keep you coming back.
One membership covers a family of five.
Right now, for a limited time, podcast listeners get up to $800 off MSRP, which is a fantastic deal.
To get this exclusive podcast discount, text BEN to 818181.
Again, text BEN to 818181.
Get up to $800 off MSRP.
Again, text Ben to 818181, get up to 800 bucks off MSRP.
Text Ben to 818181.
Message and data rates may apply.
See terms for details.
All right, we'll get some more on all of this in just one second.
First, tomorrow is a huge day for The Daily Wire and frankly for the country, because we have a lawsuit against the Biden administration's tyrannical VAX mandate.
And tomorrow is the day the Supreme Court is going to convene to hear arguments on the legality and constitutionality of Joe Biden's dissent into medical tyranny.
So we are trying to Push for our Do Not Comply petition to have as many signatures as humanly possible.
We're well over a million at this point.
We would love to boost that in advance of the hearing tomorrow.
Head on over to dailywire.com slash do not comply right now.
We are counting on you to help us put a stop to this disgusting, tyrannical federal overreach.
you're listening to the largest, fastest growing conservative podcast and radio show in the nation.
Alrighty, so again, the agenda here is very clear.
January 6th is the center of the universe because the left wants to do things.
So, for example, there's a piece in the New York Times today from Cynthia Miller Idris, director of the Polarization and Extremism Research and Innovation Lab at American University.
The first part of this column, America's most urgent threat now comes from within.
Our most urgent threat now comes from within.
And what is that threat?
That threat, of course, is the January 6th riot types.
So what is her recommendation as to policy?
Because extremist ideas are no longer limited to an isolated lone wolf fringe, the United States should focus less on isolating and containing a few bad cells, and more on reducing the fertile ground in which anti-democratic and violent extremist ideologies thrive.
It needs a public health approach to preventing violent extremism.
This is where all the bells should be clanging.
Because whenever the left says public health approach, think about what they did over public health over the last year and a half.
Over the last few years, public health meant they could lock you in your home and send your children home from school interminably.
They could force masks on your face and force vaccines into your arm.
And when the left says public health approach, they mean, we can force you to do anything we want.
That's what they mean.
Says this columnist, This means that federal, state, and local governments should invest in and promote digital and media literacy programs, civic education, and other efforts to strengthen democratic norms and values.
American leaders should lead by example in rejecting disinformation, propaganda, online manipulation, and conspiracy theories.
It's not an easy fix, and this shift in mindset will not happen overnight, but inclusive, equitable democracies make it harder for extremist ideas to take root and spread.
No one wants the federal government to police people's beliefs.
But!
But!
And always remember the first rule of but.
Everything that comes before the but don't matter.
But!
The U.S.
government's focus on using conventional counterterrorism tools fails to account for the generally unchecked spread of disinformation and conspiracy theories, propaganda targeting racial and religious minorities, and the increasing dehumanization of those with whom one disagrees.
These are important precursors to violence.
What would January 6th have looked like if policymakers had focused on these precursors?
Many of the Americans who stormed the Capitol last year were immersed in a universe of disinformation that convinced them they were heroes acting to save democracy.
A public health approach to preventing violent extremism would shift prevention work away from security and intelligence experts, away from wiretaps and cultivated informants, and toward social workers, school counselors and teachers, mental health experts, and religious leaders to focus on social support and democratic resilience.
In such a world, the rioters' lives would look very different.
They would have been taught in school or through programs in sports clubs or faith communities to recognize disinformation.
They would have been less susceptible to claims about a stolen election.
If you were to flirt with those claims and mention them to a family member or a friend, the relative or friend would know how to get help.
There would be dedicated resources like a toll-free support line or gatherings akin to Alcoholics Anonymous meetings that could offer counseling and intervention.
No approach can totally prevent radicalization, but a more holistic one is better suited to defend against mainstream extremism.
So, the idea here is that we need the federal government to get involved in how people consume information.
Won't nothing go wrong there.
Just leave the feds involved in how people consume information and sponsoring programs with regard to how people consume information.
That'll be good.
That'll probably work out well.
No danger there.
Everything's fine.
So here is the thing.
The notion from the left is that January 6th represented an institutional threat to democracy.
The truth is, the true powers in our society are all on the other side.
Every major power in the United States is not only on the other side of January 6th, they're on the other side of the aisle from the conservatives generally.
The great myth of January 6th is that Democrats and their allies are a put-upon group of people who have no power in the American political discourse and therefore they must use the power of government in order to cram down their point of view and restructure elections.
The reality is that every major institution in the United States has been performing a soft takeover of all of our political thought and the way politics is done in the United States.
Thomas Edsel has a piece in the New York Times that's just astonishing.
This piece is about what happened in 2020, which, for the record, is much more an American tipping point than what happened in 2021.
What happened in 2020 with the Black Lives Matter riots, in which every major institution in American public life immediately swiveled into line and began pouring billions of dollars into a radical cause, should be far more of a cause for concern than 200, 300, 500 droogs running into the Capitol building, breaking some windows, and getting arrested.
Because here's the thing.
In order for there to be a coup or an insurrection, typically, you have to, number one, have a plan, which they didn't on January 6th, and number two, you actually have to have some sort of institutional backing, which again, they did not on January 6th.
But the radicals on the left do have institutional backing.
There's no one who's too radical for the left, and there's no program too radical for the left and the institutions that back it.
Thomas Edsel has a piece yesterday about the institutional support for the Black Lives Matter movement in 2020.
in 2020. Ready for this? The killing of George Floyd and the nationwide Black Lives Matter protests that followed drove an exceptionally large increase in foundation grants and pledges to criminal and racial justice reform groups and other causes.
Candid is a website that connects people who want to change the world with the resources Publish.
What does Candid's grants data say about funding for racial equity in the United States?
By a person named Anna Koob.
July 24th, 2020.
Kubrot, in the months since George Floyd's murder by Minneapolis police, witnessed a surge in attention to long-standing anti-Black racism in the United States.
Although racial inequality is hardly a new phenomenon, the public reaction to these events does feel bigger and more broad-based.
Before Floyd's death, Candid found that philanthropies provided $3.3 billion in racial equity funding in the nine years from 2011 to 2019.
So something in excess of $300 million a year.
So something in excess of 300 million dollars a year.
Major corporations and philanthropies from 2011 to 2019.
Since then, candid calculations revealed these totals for 2020.
$12.7 billion in 2020.
$11.6 billion in 2021 for quote-unquote racial equity funding.
Okay, that is a grand total, if I'm doing my math correctly, of $24.3 billion.
billion dollars in 2021 for quote unquote racial equity funding.
Okay, that that that is a grand total if I'm doing my math correctly of 24.3 billion dollars 24.3 billion dollars in 2020 2021 coming from major institutions in our society for the Black Lives Matter movement.
I know the conservative movement really well.
There is no way in hell the conservatives have ever spent anything remotely like that in a two-year period on anything political, including elections.
Okay, on a presidential election, conservatives might spend, I don't know, what, a billion dollars?
Maybe?
But on all other... 24 billion dollars?
In two years?
On Black Lives Matter?
This included Mackenzie Scott, $2.9 billion.
The Ford Foundation, $3 billion.
JPMorgan Chase, $2.1 billion.
Kellogg, $1.2 billion.
Bill and Melinda Gates, $1.1 billion.
Silicon Valley Community Foundation, $1 billion.
Walton Family Foundation, $689 million.
The William and Flora Hewlett Foundation, $438 million.
Foundation to Promote an Open Society, that's George Soros, $350.5 million.
The institutions in our society do run in one direction.
The institutional power in our society runs in one direction.
To suggest that the institutional power and the threat to our country lies in the direction of a few hundred people who went, as far as I'm aware, unarmed into the Capitol building.
There's no guns found on anybody in the Capitol building, so far as I'm aware.
That that is the true threat to democracy.
And the true threat to democracy is not the fact that all of our institutions, from politics to media to corporate life, have swiveled behind a radical agenda that undermines political comedy in the country.
Is a wild misdirect, which of course is what this really is, right?
It is all a wild misdirect.
Alrighty, we'll be back here later today with an additional hour of content.
In the meantime, go check out the Michael Moll's show.
In today's show, Trump cancels his January 6th rally.
You can hear more details about that story over on Michael's show that's available right now.
I'm Ben Shapiro.
Shapiro, this is the Ben Shapiro Show.
Executive Producer, Jeremy Boring.
Our Supervising Producer is Mathis Glover.
And our Production Manager is Pavel Lydowsky.
Associate Producer, Bradford Carrington.
Editing is by Adam Saievitz.
Audio is mixed by Mike Koromina.
Hair and Makeup is by Fabiola Christina.
Production Assistant, Jessica Crand.
The Ben Shapiro Show is a Daily Wire production.
Copyright Daily Wire 2022.
Today, January 6th, we commemorate a wonderful and glorious event.
The Pope tells millennials to stop treating their puppies like children, and Elon Musk complains that there are just not enough people.
▲
Export Selection