All Episodes
Previous Next
July 5, 2023 - The Ben Shapiro Show
48:29
Why Do Democrats Celebrate July 4th?
| Copy link to current segment

Time Text
flag outside of somebody's house I just automatically assume you racism almost definitely but we thought that way for years like I'm 51 and even as a kid we knew it was understood if there was an American flag at their house they some racist ass white mother that's just just what it was I thought everybody thought that or knew that it's funny to see that they're saying it now and it's like it's kind of new but no Yeah, been thinking about that.
Thought that.
Forever.
Yep, the American flag is racism.
Happy Independence Day, everybody!
So yesterday was Independence Day, and the Democrats celebrated as they typically do, with a bunch of sloganeering and empty jingoism, because the real question is, why exactly people celebrate Independence Day?
I mean, I understand why I celebrate Independence Day, because I think the principles of the Declaration of Independence, the principles that were established by the founding of this country, are in fact the greatest principles ever set for the founding of a country.
But I do not think that a lot of Democrats feel the same way.
And this raises some serious questions as to why exactly certain people celebrate that holiday.
As it turns out, we'll find out.
Many people don't.
But if you're the president of the United States, then you have to at least pretend that you celebrate the holiday with all of the hoopla.
So here is Joe Biden yesterday celebrating Independence Day from the White House.
Ladies and gentlemen, we've come out of every single solitary crisis.
Stronger than we went in for 247 years.
That's not hyperbole, that's a fact.
We're the only nation that has.
So folks, happy 4th of July.
God bless you and may God protect our troops.
Ah, exciting stuff.
There was also apparently some serious celebration over at the White House.
According to the New York Times, a small amount of a white powdery substance was found in the White House on Sunday evening.
According to a person familiar with the episode, an initial test by emergency response workers determined it was cocaine.
President Biden and his family were away at Camp David when a uniformed Secret Service agent found the substance during a patrol of the West Wing around 6 p.m.
on Sunday, prompting a brief shutdown of the White House while they tried to figure out exactly what it was.
It turns out it was coke.
Hmm.
Mystery of mysteries.
How could cocaine end up in the West Wing of the White House?
No one knows.
Apparently, the substance was found in a work area of the West Wing.
Another dispatch said that the substance had been found in a White House library.
That was incorrect.
Apparently, it was found instead in a work area of the West Wing.
It may or may not have happened.
Someone at the White House may or may not have left a note saying, if you find a powdery white substance in a bag, please return it to Hunter Biden.
Unclear exactly where this came from.
So celebrating the 4th of July in style, Kamala Harris also decided to celebrate the 4th of July with a picture that is very clearly staged of her and her husband barbecuing somewhere.
I do not think that they are barbecuing.
Like, that barbecue is immaculate.
There is no way.
That is the stagiest July 4th photo.
Happy 4th of July, says Vice President Kamala Harris.
Well, again, this is all just to lead up to a big question, which is, why do people celebrate July 4th in the first place?
Well, it turns out that every year there are these polling stats that come out with regard to how many people believe they are extremely proud to be American.
And there's a massive partisan gap.
And this massive partisan gap has existed in America for literally as long as I've been alive, but it has grown wider and wider in the United States.
So, there is a Gallup poll, and it shows that today, 60% of Republicans say they are extremely proud to be American.
Only 33% of Independents say they are extremely proud to be American.
Only 29% of Democrats say they are extremely proud to be American.
Now what's amazing about those stats is that right now Joe Biden is the President of the United States.
Right now, Democrats are in control of the United States Senate.
And actually, if you look at the polls, what you see is that Republicans are consistently more proud to be American than Democrats are.
This was true throughout the Obama era, even during the Obama era, when Democrats were so proud of President Obama because finally they had shown that a black person could be president of the United States and all that.
They still weren't exactly proud of the United States.
The stats during the Obama era, something like 75 to 80% of Republicans said they were proud to be American.
And only about 50% of Democrats, 45% of Democrats said they were extremely proud to be American.
That, of course, plummeted the minute that Donald Trump was elected.
When Donald Trump was elected, that dropped well down into the 20% area for Democrats.
Independence being proud of America, that's been on a steady state of decline since essentially 2001.
In fact, if you go all the way back to 2001, more Democrats than Independents said that they were extremely proud to be American.
But the bottom line is there's this massive partisan gap in who exactly is extremely proud to be American, and it's been existing for a very long time.
In fact, there are studies that demonstrate that attendance at a 4th of July parade is a pretty good It's a pretty good indicator.
It correlates very highly with Republican identity.
Republicans tend to be flag wavers.
They tend to be more patriotic.
Why?
Well, because they actually like the founding of the United States of America.
They think that the country was founded on proper values.
They think there is something here worth conserving because they are, in fact, conservative.
And if you're on the left and you feel that America is basically a terrible place filled with oppression, racism, genocide, xenophobia, homophobia, and all the rest, what exactly is it that you are proud of?
Well, the decline in generalized patriotism in the United States is across the board.
So if you look at even the Republican stats, back in 2000, some 60-some percent of Republicans said they were extremely proud to be American.
That jumped all the way up to about 90% in the aftermath of the September 11th attacks.
And it took all the way until now to hit 60%, again, to drive all the way down to 60%.
That is because there is tremendous feeling that the country is coming apart.
Right now, according to an Axios poll, This is actually from Gallup.
74% of Republicans say that the state of moral values in the United States is poor.
Only 38% of Democrats believe that.
So, when you correlate that, you would think, okay, well, that would mean that Democrats are extremely proud to be American, no?
They think that the state of morality in America is great.
62% do not think that the state of morality in America is poor.
Meanwhile, only 26% of Republicans think that the state of morality in the United States is not poor.
So why exactly are Republicans proud of the country and Democrats are not?
The answer is, Republicans are not proud of how the American people are acting right now, but we are very, very proud of what the country was meant to be and what the country is all about.
Democrats are not very proud of what the country was all about and what it was meant to be, but they're very, very proud of how people are acting right now.
So I ask you, Are you proud of the country or are you proud of how people are acting right now?
Because I gotta tell you, I'm not real fond of how people are acting right now.
It seems like they're acting pretty badly.
And the polls demonstrate that we should believe that they are acting pretty badly.
We'll get some social science stats in just one second.
First, let's talk about maintaining a healthy lifestyle this summer.
So I gotta tell you, not a big fan of veggies.
Veggies are one of God's punishments to us.
They are healthy, but they do not taste good.
And since I have the palate of a small child, that means that I don't like eating them.
Well, that also means that I have to keep healthy some way, and I rely on balance of nature fruits and veggies.
They're a great way to make sure you're getting essential nutritional ingredients every single day.
Through Balance of Nature's advanced cold vacuum process, the vitamins, minerals, and phytonutrients of the fruits and vegetables are preserved, so you can get that vital nutrition in each capsule.
Balance of Nature is a whole food supplement with no additives, fillers, extracts, synthetics, pesticides, or added sugar.
Pure fruits and veggies.
Those are the only things they put in their capsules.
Balance of Nature has sent a bunch of products over to the office.
They are kosher, so I've been able to try them myself, and they are excellent for a limited time this summer.
When you become a preferred customer at Balance of Nature, they're throwing in a free fruit and veggies travel set and giving an additional $25 off your first order.
Go to balanceofnature.com, use promo code SHAPIRO for a free travel set and $25 off your first order as a preferred customer, and that's balanceofnature.com, promo code SHAPIRO.
Again, balanceofnature.com, promo code SHAPIRO.
Okay, so according to these new statistics from Pew Research, 25% of all 40-year-olds in the United States have never been married.
A quarter of all 40-year-olds in the United States have never been married.
That is an all-time high in the United States.
Far and away, an all-time high.
That figure was 6% in 1980.
When it comes to values, like family, or like God, when it comes to the values that Americans hold dear, those have been in a state of steep decline in the United States.
Which again, answers exactly why it is that Republicans are proud of the country, but not proud of the American people and how they're acting right now.
Democrats are very proud of how the American people are acting right now, and I just ask you, why?
What about how the American people are acting right now makes you proud of your fellow Americans?
And the answer is, That you're really not all that proud of your fellow Americans.
You're proud of your fellow Americans who think like you.
And this is resulting in tremendous political polarization.
Now, I think that political polarization, actually, in this arena, is not a bad thing.
I think you should live near people who generally think like you, especially for raising kids.
It's very important that you raise your kids around values that you actually agree with.
The big sort that's been happening in the United States demographically, I think is actually quite a good thing.
In fact, there's an entire piece in the Associated Press today all about conservatives moving to red states and left-wingers going to blue states as the country grows more polarized.
I'm not sure that's a bad thing.
That'd actually be a very good thing if we could all understand the federal government should then take a light hand, and then you should be allowed to live in a red state that does red state things, and if you're in a blue state, you should do blue state things, and everybody should leave each other alone.
That's the only way they're going to maintain any sort of coherence as a country at all.
Because otherwise, if the federal government just becomes a war of all against all, and whoever controls the federal government gun points it at the people they don't like, things are gonna get real ugly real quickly.
According to the Associated Press, Colorado and Idaho represent two poles of state-level political homogenization.
Both are fast-growing Rocky Mountain states that have been transformed by an influx of like-minded residents.
Life in the two states can be quite similar.
Conversations revolve around local ski areas, mountain bike trails, and how newcomers are making things too crowded, but politically, they increasingly occupy two separate worlds.
That is right.
Idaho is becoming more red.
Colorado is becoming more blue.
I don't think that that's necessarily a bad thing.
It's happening in places like Florida and California as well.
I moved my entire family to Florida from California.
So, this sort of stuff is leading to a feeling of tremendous polarization.
But this brings us back to the original question.
What is it that Democrats exactly are celebrating?
Again, I understand what Republicans are celebrating.
What exactly are Democrats celebrating?
The answer is many of them aren't.
Cori Bush, who is a Democratic Black Lives Matter Congresswoman from Missouri.
She literally was a member of Black Lives Matter.
She was a spokesperson for it before she was elected to Congress.
She tweeted out on Independence Day, quote, The Declaration of Independence was written by enslavers and didn't recognize black people as human.
Today is a great day to demand reparations now.
So, does she have a barbecue?
Like, does she think the American flag is a good thing?
I would think not, right?
I mean, after all, what we are celebrating is the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776.
I don't understand exactly what she would be celebrating, Cori Bush.
It's a reparation.
July 4th is about how evil the United States is.
Jamal Bowman, another radical congressperson from New York, So first of all, this dude makes a fairly decent salary as an elected congressperson in the richest country in the history of the world.
So I notice that his life is pretty good.
But again, the message is America is really bad.
It's all built on stolen land.
so that these ideals are accessible to everyone, not just a privileged few.
We are not free until everyone is truly free.
So first of all, this dude makes a fairly decent salary as an elected congressperson in the richest country
in the history of the world.
So I noticed that his life is pretty good.
But again, the message is America is really bad.
It's all built on stolen land.
It's a terrible, awful, no good, very bad place.
And thus, what exactly is Jamal Bowman celebrating?
I mean, obviously, America is a horrible, horrifying place.
So I don't understand what it is that he is supposed to be so positive about when it comes to July 4th.
In fact, the New York Times has an entire article published a couple of days ago called No Sparkler for These Folks.
Whether because of crowds, politics, or a loss of patriotism, some Americans are conflicted about celebrating the 4th of July.
Growing up in Benton, Arkansas, Malaya Tapp loved celebrating the Fourth of July with her family.
We would go to parades and see fireworks shows and hang out with friends, she said.
It was always such a fun holiday.
But now that she's an adult, she's 18 and entering college next year, commemorating the holiday isn't so simple.
It started in 2020 when the BLM movement spotlighted many of the injustices across the country.
Quote, I lost a lot of my patriotic feelings, she said.
Ms.
Tapp, who now lives in Atlanta, also realized many festive components of Fourth of July aren't that palatable for her.
There are the fireworks.
She said they're very bad for the environment.
They release a lot of toxic chemicals.
This year she is skipping the holiday altogether, opting instead to travel with her church youth group to visit a Navajo Nation community in Arizona, but the trip was cancelled because of a COVID outbreak.
Some Americans, especially younger people, are rethinking whether they want to celebrate Independence Day.
A survey by YouGov found that only 56% of American adults plan to join in the festivities this year.
Marissa Vivori, 29, a tech product manager in Manhattan, remembers the last time she celebrated the 4th of July a few summers ago.
She was going to the Hamptons, she said, on the most packed Long Island Railroad train she had ever been on.
I didn't get a seat.
I was standing in the aisle, she said.
The toilet overflowed.
We all had to hold our bags.
She realized she never loved the holiday.
She also has political qualms.
Quote, last summer Roe vs. Wade was overturned.
That made me really less inclined to celebrate.
So, again, for a lot of Democrats, they only are into celebrating America when they are getting the things that they want.
And when it comes to the fundamental principles of America, not so much.
And that's a real problem, folks.
Ben & Jerry's, on the corporate level, is a great indicator of this sort of thinking.
So Ben and Jerry's put out a tweet that says, quote, This 4th of July, it's high time we recognize the United
States exists on stolen indigenous land and commits returning it.
Learn more and take action now.
Which is interesting because Ben and Jerry's has a very nice
headquarters over in Vermont.
They can turn that back over to one of the local Native American tribes anytime.
Anytime.
It's all, it's all virtue signaling.
But it really isn't virtue that's being signaled.
It's stupidity that's being signaled.
So what does this really mean?
Well, it means for the left, what the 4th of July is about, if you're going to celebrate it, is America as platform.
It's not America as principles, place of creed.
It's America as platform.
America is a place where I can say the things I want to fundamentally transform the United States into a place that does things that I want it to do.
It's not that America is worthy of upholding whether or not you win.
You don't believe in the system.
You only believe in you getting your way.
This is the difference between believing in any system and not believing in the system.
So to take an example, I hate the IRS.
I pay my taxes.
And you know what?
It's not just because I'm afraid that the IRS would audit me.
Although, let's be real, I'm a prominent conservative figure.
There's a good shot they would audit me.
The reason I pay my taxes is because I am part of the system.
This is the system in which I live.
I believe in the system even when I don't get the outcome that I like.
And I don't believe that if a law is legally passed in the United States, that I just get to disobey it.
The reason that people believe in the authority of a system is not because they agree with every decision that's made by the authorities in the system.
It's because they believe that the system is better than any alternative.
They believe that there is no alternative system that is going to operate better than that, and that change has to come, if it's going to come, from within the system, not from without the system.
Now Democrats, even progressive Democrats, used to believe that.
But I don't think that's the case anymore.
Democrats now seem to believe that the only time that the system is justified in any way, shape, or form is when they're in the White House.
When they are in control of the levers of power.
That's not the way that loyalty works.
That is not the way that patriotism works.
And no country can actually be upheld if you only believe in the system when it gives you the things that you want.
In the same way that no family can be upheld if you only love your parents when they give you the stuff that you want.
If you only love your spouse when your spouse gives you the things that you want.
You have to believe in the institution of the marriage in order for a marriage to last.
It can't just be, you're not giving me what I want right now, I'm out.
I hate my marriage because I'm not getting exactly what I want at this particular time.
Guess what?
Life ain't all daisies and roses.
You're not always going to get what you want.
But for Democrats, it's all about using it as a platform.
The country is a platform to pursue their goals.
And their goals are, in many cases, tearing down those institutions.
We'll get to that momentarily.
As central banks in countries like China, India, and Australia look to potentially transition to digital currency, the Federal Reserve has been contemplating the same possibility for the United States.
With a digital currency, the government could track every single purchase you make.
Officials could even prohibit you from purchasing certain products or easily freeze or seize part or all of your money.
Times like these are a great reminder to diversify a portion of your savings into gold.
You can help do that with the help of Birch Gold.
They're the people that I trust with my precious metals investments, so do thousands of other concerned savers.
Birch Gold will help you convert an existing IRA or 401k into an IRA.
In gold, you don't pay a penny out of pocket.
When currencies fail, gold is your safe haven.
How much more time does the dollar have?
I don't know.
But that's why I diversify, protect your savings the way I do, with gold.
Birch Gold has an A-plus rating with the Better Business Bureau.
Thousands of happy customers.
Text Ben to 989898 to get a free info kit on gold.
If a central bank digital currency becomes a reality, well, it'd be nice to have some gold to depend on because, frankly, if the central bank has a digital currency, they can inflate, deflate the currency whenever they please.
They're in even more control of your dollar.
Well, diversify at least a little bit into a precious metal, an asset that has never been worth zero.
Text Ben to 989898 to get started.
Okay, so, This brings us to the transformational politics that is now being pursued by the left.
They're proud of America because it's all about changing America.
They're proud of the American flag so long as it is flanking the Pride Progress flag or the BLM flag.
The American flag on its own is bad.
The American flag on its own is a bunch of principles that stand for the robbing of indigenous people and the enslavement of black people and Jim Crow and mistreatment of gay people and all the rest of it.
Only if the American flag can be used as sort of a stepping stone towards something better is the American flag worth upholding.
This is why, for example, Jen Psaki, she was talking about the fact that there are a lot of Muslims in the United States who have decided they are not in favor of the LGBTQ agenda.
This upsets her because the stepping stone of the American flag is all about the diversity of the American people.
The diversity of the American people is all about overcoming the white male heterosexual privilege that is implicit in the American flag.
It's about stepping from the American flag to the Pride Progress flag with all the BLM stuff on it.
And that's the transformation.
So she's very upset that Muslims are now coming out as obviously socially conservative, which they are.
It must be that the evil white Christians are somehow manipulating the Muslims or something.
Because again, the intersectional coalition is what it's all about for the Democrats.
During his campaign for president in 1968, the Republican Party made a concerted effort to reach white Southerners who used to vote for Democrats by playing to their fears of African-Americans and the civil rights movement.
And it worked!
By pitting one group of Americans against another, the GOP successfully managed to split off Southern whites from the Democratic Party.
Now, decades later, the right wing is reviving that same playbook, this time with Muslim Americans and trans people.
Hear me out here.
The GOP is trying to recruit Muslim Americans, a community that makes up less than 2% of the U.S.
population, against another tiny, marginalized group of Americans, transgender people.
Okay, so do you know how stupid this is?
It's obviously stupid on its face.
Because Muslims are both culturally and socially conservative.
In fact, if you look at Islamic law, they are even less big on the gay rights movement than Christians or Orthodox Jews.
This bizarre notion from Jen Psaki that Muslims are the natural allies of trans people is insane.
But again, that is because the coalitional politics of the Democratic Party demands exactly this sort of nonsense.
It demands it.
In fact, Natasha Cloud, who, again, I've mentioned more WNBA players on this show in the context of their politics, certainly, than have ever been mentioned in the context of their WNBA play.
I've never heard of Natasha Cloud until she tweeted out something unbelievably stupid over the weekend.
But here's what she tweeted, quote, Our country is trash in so many ways.
And instead of using our resources to make it better, we continue to oppress marginalized groups that we have targeted since the beginning of times.
Black, brown communities and LGBTQ+, man, we are too powerful to still be attacking issues separate.
It's the intersectional call.
Our country is trash.
The American flag is worthy of being burned.
In fact, dissent is the highest form of patriotism.
Burn that American flag so we can reestablish a new country along different lines.
That's why we celebrate July 4th.
It's not about America being a great place.
America was never great in the words of Democrats.
Now it's really about America being, again, that stepping stone toward a utopian notion of what America can be.
Something very different from America.
A place where not all men are created equal.
Where we can judge people by their race.
Where we can give people special privilege by their sexual orientation.
Where we can make sure that freedom of speech no longer applies.
And, as it turns out, where the federal government can use its extraordinary powers in order to compel social media companies to do exactly what it wants.
We'll get to that momentarily.
First, we have a dog.
His name is Happy.
Happy is back home.
He took a little break because we had a baby.
He is back home and he is absolutely just a wonderful dog.
We have now, he's much more obedient now.
Like we taught him place.
So he will go where we tell him to go.
He's awesome.
The kids love him.
And that's why we want Happy to live a long and healthy life,
which is why we give him rough greens every morning.
The dog food you've been giving your dog is dead food.
That's the brown food.
But here's the thing.
Green food will help it out.
Rough Greens boost Happy's food back to life.
It can do the same for your dog as well.
You don't have to go out and buy new dog food.
Just sprinkle some Rough Greens on their food every day.
It contains all the necessary vitamins and minerals your dog is not getting from their regular dog food.
Happy loves his Rough Greens.
Rough Greens is the only supplement your dog will ask for by name.
Rough Greens.
You get it?
It's a joke.
Got it?
Right?
Like rough.
Naturopathic Dr. Dennis Black, the founder of Rough Greens, so confident that this product will improve your dog's health, he's offering my listeners a free Jumpstart Trial Bag.
Go to freeroughgreens.com slash ben.
Let Rough Greens bring your dog's food back to life.
That's free.
R-U-F-F greens.com slash ben today.
Or call 833 MY DOG 33.
That's 833 MY DOG 33 today.
That's 833-MY-DOG-33 today.
Okay, so all of this brings us to the demand that the rights that are embedded in the Constitution
of the United States and that are implicit in the Declaration of Independence, the natural
rights that the founders talked about, those are actually bad unless they are utilized
in favor of the things that the left wants.
Which presumably is why the Biden administration used its power to cram down on social media companies throughout the early days of the administration a bunch of censorship.
Well now, in a devastating blow to the Biden administration, a federal judge in Louisiana ruled on Tuesday the Biden administration likely violated the First Amendment by censoring unfavorable views on social media over the course of the coronavirus pandemic, calling the efforts Orwellian.
U.S.
District Court Judge Terry Dowdy issued a sweeping preliminary injunction barring numerous federal officials and agencies, including the Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra, White House Press Secretary Karine Jean-Pierre, and all employees of the DOJ and FBI from having any contact with social media firms for the purpose of discouraging or removing First Amendment protected speech.
The ruling and order from Dowdy, who's an appointee of President Trump, are the latest developments in a long-running lawsuit spearheaded by Republican-led states alleging the administration pressured social media companies to remove posts containing purported misinformation about the coronavirus, election security, and other issues.
Dowdy wrote, During the COVID-19 pandemic, a period best characterized by widespread doubt and uncertainty, the U.S.
government seems to have assumed a role similar to an Orwellian ministry of truth.
According to the judge's decision, there were a wide range of topics that were all suppressed on social media at the urging of administration officials, including opposition to COVID vaccines, masking lockdowns, and lab leak theory, opposition to the validity of the 2020 election, opposition to Joe Biden and other officials' policies, and a statement claiming that the laptop belonged to Hunter Biden.
That story was not true.
That story was true, actually.
He didn't just restrict it, of course, to right-wing censorship.
of view, which is quite telling. He said, quote, This targeted suppression of conservative ideas
is a perfect example of viewpoint discrimination of political speech. American citizens have the
right to engage in free debate about the significant issues affecting the country.
The evidence produced thus far depicts an almost dystopian scenario.
He didn't just restrict it, of course, to right wing censorship. He also pointed out
that the social media companies censored Robert F. Kennedy Jr. The preliminary injunction prohibits
nearly all of the federal government from coercing and colluding with social media companies
to go after free speech.
It prohibits these government officials from meeting with social media companies for the purpose of urging, encouraging, pressuring, or inducing in any manner the removal, deletion, suppression, or reduction of content containing protected free speech posted on social media platforms.
Specifically, flagging content or posts on social media platforms and or forwarding such to social media companies, urging, encouraging, pressuring or inducing in any manner for removal, deletion, suppression or reduction of content containing protected free speech.
Urging, encouraging, pressuring or inducing in any manner social media companies to change their guidelines.
So it is a sweeping order from this federal judge.
It is well worth the read.
deletion suppression or reduction of content containing protected free speech,
or collaborating or working with the Election Integrity Partnership,
the Virality Project, the Stanford Internet Observatory, or any like project or group
for the purpose of pushing censorship.
So it is a sweeping order from this federal judge.
It is well worth the read.
It's like 155 page ruling.
And it goes through in detail the insanity of what the White House was doing
and how the White House was explicitly working with Facebook in order to prohibit
the dissemination of clearly true information in many cases.
.
Like 10-15 pages of content all about how they were essentially prohibiting Facebook from amplifying any sort of material they didn't like?
But this sort of stuff doesn't bother the left whatsoever.
Again, because the principles of freedom of speech are mere platforms.
They're not actual principles that are worthy of being upheld.
See, the question on whether you believe in a principle is whether when your opponents exercise it, you believe that the principle should no longer apply.
So, for example, your opponent exercises free speech.
Should they be shut down?
So, if you believe in free speech, the general answer is no.
Everybody has a right to speak freely.
I've never called, for example, for the deplatforming of people who explicitly attack me on social media because, again, that's their prerogative.
This is the United States.
The left has no such prerogative.
The left doesn't believe that.
The left believes that free speech is merely a tool of power.
So when they control it, free speech is good.
When they don't control it, free speech is very, very bad.
This is also presumably why the left is so all-fired angry at that Supreme Court ruling last Friday that suggested that if you are a person who designs websites, that you must not be forced to actually design websites that you don't agree with.
That if you're a conservative Christian who designs wedding websites, you can't be forced to design a same-sex wedding website.
The left is very angry about this.
In fact, the left is so angry about this, they're now trumping up an entire narrative trying to reverse the case on the basis of nonsense.
According to NBC News, the Supreme Court's recent ruling in favor of an evangelical Christian web designer who refused to work on same-sex weddings didn't hinge on what now appears to have been a request from a fake customer.
So what they're saying is that the case cited a request from a customer suggesting a same-sex website and then a lawsuit was filed.
And it turns out that the customer didn't exist or something.
Does that change the ruling in the case?
The answer, of course, is no.
The New Republic published an article On Lori Stewart, who was the web designer, who had said in a previous court filing that someone named Stewart had reached out to her in 2016 about putting together a website for his marriage to a person named Mike.
The narrative was thrown into question after the New Republic published an article on Stewart who denied ever having reached out to Smith.
Apparently, he was a web designer who'd been married to a woman for years.
That revelation led to complaints on social media.
The case shouldn't have made it to the Supreme Court, but legal experts reached by NBC News disagreed.
Carolyn Shapiro, professor at Chicago Kent College of Law, said, I think the Supreme Court opinion is misguided in many ways, but she has standing.
Because this is a pre-enforcement challenge, meaning there was no actual demand made and the law didn't even crack down on it.
But the left is trying to do anything it can do to avoid the ramifications of even-handed law.
This is why they're attempting now to create policies that go around the affirmative action ruling by the Supreme Court of the United States.
That's why they're now going to try to craft laws that still crack down on religious people in places like California.
And then, of course, their claim is that if they lose, authoritarianism has won.
So Hillary Clinton, one of the more authoritarian figures in recent memory, she said that if Donald Trump wins, it will be the end of democracy in the United States.
What would happen if Trump won, first of all, in Ukraine?
What would happen to the Ukraine situation?
Look, if Trump wins, Which I do not believe will happen.
Let me just quickly say that if in some scenario that were to happen It would be the end of democracy in the United States It would be the end of Ukraine it would become a you know We he will pull us out of NATO if he wins again And just like he pulled us out of the Iran deal he pulled us out of the Paris Accords He will pull us out of NATO So, he's an authoritarian.
He's very bad.
He's a terrible, terrible person, says Hillary Clinton, whose campaign literally laundered, via the DOJ and the FBI, the Steele dossier into public view, and then essentially launched a four-year investigation into the elected president of the United States, and before that, his actual campaign.
That was done by Hillary Clinton while she was simultaneously destroying documents.
Now, of course, Hillary Clinton is out there posing in Butthurt Emails hats.
While chortling that Donald Trump might, in fact, go to jail for mishandling of classified documents.
The rule for the left, when it comes to even issues like authoritarianism, is authoritarianism is great for us.
We wish to cram down on social media what we wish.
But if you guys get elected, that's the true authoritarianism.
And that goes back again to the idea of patriotism.
Republicans, conservatives, they're patriotic regardless of whether a Democrat is president or whether a Republican is president.
They may not like the results of an election, they don't become less patriotic generally because of it.
However, Democrats are deeply ambivalent about the United States and its founding documents and its founding principles, which means they're only enthusiastic about the country when they get what they want.
I mean, Michelle Obama said this pretty clearly back in 2008.
The first time she was ever proud of her country is when her husband was nominated for the presidency.
Literally the first time.
After spending a lifetime benefiting from the magic of the United States, going to Princeton University, Harvard Law School, and then getting a cush job at the University of Chicago Medical Center.
That was the first time she was proud of the country.
That is a gap that cannot be bridged.
You have to be proud of the fundamental principles of the country if you wish to live in that country.
I don't even see why this is a matter of question.
And yet, a huge swath of the country is not proud of those fundamental principles.
And that is, of course, a very, very dangerous thing.
Okay, in just a second, we'll get into the 2024 presidential race.
Ron DeSantis has become the chief target of the media.
He is, in fact, sinking in the polls.
We'll talk about what the campaign bodes for him.
First, my team knows I need my Black Ruffle coffee, like, every single morning.
And it is just a fact of the world.
I have little kids.
My kids are waking me up at all hours.
My sleep schedule last night went like this.
Went to bed at 11.15.
Last night, in my son's room, because the baby was waking up a lot, and then my small daughter, my three-year-old, woke up at five and brought me into her room because she wanted to yell about something.
So I came in this morning and I said, I want my coffee.
Black Rifle Coffee is the only thing that makes this company run.
Black Rifle Coffee literally fuels, not just me, the entire Daily Wire.
Our office drinks about 40 pounds of their coffee every week.
If you haven't tried Black Rifle Coffee yet, you need to.
A great place to start is their Complete the Mission fuel sampler, giving you a taste of the entire spectrum of Black Rifle Coffee flavor profiles.
Offering four-ounce bags of the following roasts, the silencer smooth, AK-47 espresso, Beyond Black, and Just Black, the only hard part is picking a favorite amongst these classic roasts.
Black Rifle Coffee is a veteran-owned coffee company operated by principled men and women who honor those who protect, defend, and support our country with every purchase you make, they give back.
Stop running out of coffee, sign up for a coffee club subscription, have Black Rifle Coffee delivered straight to your door on a schedule.
Coffee Club subscribers receive their high-quality coffee at lower prices with free shipping.
Plus, they get early access to exclusive deals and prices as well.
Go to BlackRifleCoffee.com, use promo code SHAPIRO at checkout for 10% off your order.
That's BlackRifleCoffee.com.
Use promo code SHAPIRO for 10% off.
You can also find Black Rifle Coffee in grocery and convenience stores near you.
Black Rifle Coffee, America's coffee.
Also, Whether it's changing the definition of words or trying to convince you 2 plus 2 actually equals 5, it sometimes feels like the current culture is doing its best to make you into an idiot.
When wokeness permeates every aspect of your life, it's hard to know where to turn for guidance, but we have good news.
Our friend Dennis Prager is back with additional episodes of PragerU Master's Program.
We released the first five episodes earlier this year.
Audiences loved it.
It sparked a ton of conversation online.
Dennis offers useful advice on happiness, marriage, and how to be a good person plus so much more.
He even dares to explain the differences between men and women.
Ooh, the unsayable.
In a world that wants to make you woke, Dennis is on a mission to make you wise.
Our latest episode picks up by sharing more of the differences between left and right.
A few of them might surprise you.
It's available right now for Daily Wire plus members with new episodes coming out.
Meanwhile, when it comes to the 2024 race, the big question for Republicans, I keep asking it, is whether they actually would like to win this race or not.
It is a serious question.
Maybe Donald Trump has a plan to win.
Maybe he doesn't.
If he does, I would like to see it at some point.
Apparently, his belief is that Joe Biden is such a terrible president that people will automatically resonate back to his side.
I've yet to see data that actually supports that.
Republicans are going to have to outwork Democrats along every possible parameter in this election cycle.
And simply being upset is not a parameter of success.
Upsetness may get you to the polls, but you're going to the polls in all likelihood anyway.
The real question is, how do you win over independents?
How do you win over people in the middle of the country?
How do you make sure that you are doing the Well, there's a reason why Democrats are increasingly, I would say, enthusiastic about attacking Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida, widely perceived as the chief obstacle to Donald Trump winning the nomination.
They spent pretty much the entire weekend attacking DeSantis.
And they're doing so by doing worse than Trump.
They're now doing the worse than Trump routine.
That combined with the generalized attempt by the media to suggest that DeSantis' campaign is over before it's begun.
Again, it's a little early.
We are talking about July of the year before the election, right?
It is currently July of 2023.
The first primaries are not going to take place until late January of 2024.
So you're writing obituaries just a little bit early.
But the media are increasingly unbridled in their hatred of DeSantis.
That is not any sort of true shock.
Here is CNN political analyst Laura Baron-Lopez suggesting that Ron DeSantis is trying to take away the rights of minority groups.
It's interesting that Scott says that because seeing the moves that Ron DeSantis has made in recent weeks, he really appears laser-focused on Trump and trying to appear more conservative and to the right of the former president.
We've seen him issue immigration policies where he mentions the word invasion multiple times.
We saw recently this video that his campaign promoted that was just staunchly anti-LGBTQ, anti-transgender, And he is essentially trying to say that he, not Donald Trump, is someone who is going to take away rights from these minority groups, and that he will do it more effectively than the former president.
Yes, Ron DeSantis is oh so scary.
Worse than Trump has started very early at this point.
PBS's Anna Nawaz is doing the same thing.
She says DeSantis is trying to demonize immigrants.
Clearly this is at least partially being done with an eye towards 2024.
And Trump as president, as candidate before, he obviously made immigration one of the most hotly debated issues.
Will it be this time too, do you think?
I think if Governor DeSantis has anything to say about it, it absolutely will be.
This is part of a pattern in terms of steps that he's taken to, in many cases, demonize arriving communities and undocumented populations.
We have to remember Governor DeSantis was the force behind the flying of recently arrived migrants to Martha's Vineyard and we know some of those moves are under investigation as well by local authorities there.
So, again, the idea here is that DeSantis is extremely, extremely dangerous.
CNN went out of its way to interview a quote-unquote pro-DeSantis mom who's upset about his six weeks abortion ban in the state of Florida.
I have greater concerns about the six-week abortion ban.
Tell me about that.
You know, I think if he made it clear that he's a states' rights person and that he's not looking to kind of pass a national law in this regard, I would be less concerned.
Not everyone in their Twitter orbit agrees on his tactics, but these three do think Florida's new six-week abortion ban is bad.
I think that's dangerous.
That's something that I cannot get behind.
And I don't think that's going to bode well for his presidential campaign.
I think that that might be a real impediment to bringing in moderate women.
The media are opening up their guns on DeSantis, again, for a reason.
The reason is because they think that Donald Trump is beatable.
Now, again, they may be wrong.
It may be that they get Donald Trump nominated, or help to get Donald Trump nominated, and then Donald Trump suddenly wins, which would be the worst nightmare to come to life.
And it would be highly amusing, for a wide variety of reasons, including the fact that there is, in not insignificant possibility, that Donald Trump may actually be convicted of a crime at that point, and he may have to pardon himself, it's a federal crime, which, I mean, Talk about great writing for season seven of Trump.
That is very solid stuff.
But the attacks on DeSantis are very clearly geared by the media in order to sink him in the polls and in order to jack up Trump in the polls.
So what does DeSantis have to do?
Well, there is audio that emerged of a DeSantis PAC spokesperson who used to work for Trump.
This would be Steve Cortez, who works for the Never Back Down PAC, talking about how far behind DeSantis is and what they have to do.
But to that point of the primaries, too, because I think this is important.
Look, right now in national polling, we are way behind.
I'll be the first to admit that, OK?
I believe in being really blunt and really honest.
It's an uphill battle.
I don't think it's an unwinnable battle by any stretch, OK?
But clearly, Donald Trump is the runaway frontrunner, particularly since the indictments.
That was not the case before the indictments.
It is the case afterwards.
Okay, so here's the question.
What can DeSantis do to turn that around?
If you're somebody in the Republican Party, right now Trump is polling in the national primary vote somewhere around 45 to 49 percent.
So there's about 50 percent of the Republican Party that is not totally sold on Trump and even many of the Trump supporters are not necessarily totally sold on Trump.
They could theoretically switch their vote over to someone else.
What does DeSantis need to do to revive what appears to be a flagging campaign at this point?
I mean, the answer is he needs to actually go into enemy territory and start throwing some punches.
So DeSantis, I think, was banking on the idea that he governed really well in Florida and that people would have a memory long enough to remember when he was throwing punches at the national media during COVID.
The biggest problem that DeSantis has is that people don't want to talk about COVID.
His biggest pro, his biggest plus, is his handling of the COVID pandemic.
No one wants to talk about COVID.
I can tell you this.
By the stats, even on our social media channels, anytime I talk about COVID, people tune out.
And the reason they tune out is because it was an uncomfortable period, people didn't enjoy it, people don't like talking about it, and people don't like thinking about it.
Also, it happens to be a thing that for the vast majority of people who like DeSantis, COVID and its various oppressions essentially ended, I mean in the state of Florida that he ran, it ended like fully three years ago at this point.
So the question really for DeSantis is going to be how can he reinvigorate Republicans to recognize that he is the best person to be pugilistic, not just with regard to Joe Biden, but really with regard to a media that is going to launch a full-out assault on him.
This has always been the key feature of Trump is Trump is unbelievably pugilistic against everybody, right?
Against his friends, against his former employees, against his enemies, against literally everyone.
Women, he's screwed.
I mean, like literally everyone comes under Donald Trump's fire at some point, which is why over the weekend when Donald Trump was literally retruthing F Biden, a lot of people in the in the sort of Republican Party are not super upset about that.
Not only are they not super upset about that, they actually see something to it, meaning he's so pugilistic that he's willing to basically do or say anything.
And he's wildly pugilistic.
And it's the pugilism that a lot of Republicans are looking for that, under the impression that, again, hangover from 2012 when Mitt Romney was not pugilistic, that Trump's pugilism in 2016 set him up for victory, even if his pugilism in 2020 did not avail him.
So when Trump sends out these retruths, or these truths, that are, you know, all caps messages about massive prosecutorial misconduct, or when he tweets stuff like this out, right?
He tweeted this out on July 4th, quote, as my poll numbers go higher and higher,
the communist Marxists and fascists get more and more crazy with their ridiculous indictments
and election interference plans and plots, all controlled by an out of control
and very corrupt DOJ FBI.
They've weaponized law enforcement in America at a level not seen before.
Deranged Jack Smith, who's a sick puppet for A.G.
Garland and crooked Joe Biden, should be defunded and put out to rest.
Republicans must get tough or Dems will steal another election.
MAGA!
Right, so for people who watch politics professionally, like me, it's like, well, that doesn't actually get anything done.
But for people who are voting or supporting candidates based on just a generalized perception of who fights, who fights is always the question.
And the truth is that DeSantis, during this campaign so far, he has not actually put himself in a position to fight.
What DeSantis needs to do, and I would say forthwith, is he needs to go on a show like Meet the Press and he needs to get very combative with the anchor when the anchor starts asking nonsense questions.
DeSantis obviously needs to get more active because otherwise, reality of realities, Trump is going to run away with this thing.
Okay, meanwhile...
We could be watching the unfolding of something truly disastrous in Ukraine.
Russia and Ukraine are now accusing each other of plotting an imminent attack on a nuclear power plant, which is just wonderful.
When you have Russia accusing Ukraine, Ukraine accusing Russia, what that's basically setting up for is, you know, the thing blowing up.
According to Reuters, Russia and Ukraine on Tuesday accused each other of plotting to stage an attack on the Russian-held Zaporizhia nuclear power station, long the subject of mutual recriminations and suspicions.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he told his French counterpart Emmanuel Macron about Russia's dangerous provocation at the plant in southeastern Ukraine.
Russian troops seized the station in February of 2022.
Each side has since regularly accused the other of shelling around the plant and risking a major nuclear mishap.
Renat Karcha, an advisor to the head of Rosonergoatom, which apparently operates Russia's nuclear network, said Ukraine planned to drop ammunition laced with nuclear waste transported from another of the country's five nuclear stations on the plant, which is a pretty wild suggestion.
Zelensky then tweeted that he had told Macron in a telephone conversation the occupation troops are preparing dangerous provocations at the nuclear power plant.
Now, this obviously would be, you know, people would ask, why would Russia bomb a plant that was under its own control?
The answer, theoretically, would be to up the ante such that everybody begs for an end to this conflict because nobody wants to see a nuclear meltdown.
That would presumably be the idea.
So if the thing blows up, it's still going to be very much in question who actually blew it up.
Was it the Ukrainians or was it the Russians?
The bottom line here is that things are likely to get worse, not better in Ukraine.
I know that after the attempted coup, the abortive coup against Vladimir Putin, there's a lot of thought that maybe this thing is drawing to an end.
I think not.
I think that Putin is so far in at this point that based on the sunk cost fallacy and the fact that he has so much of his own legitimacy arrayed around this particular war and invested in this particular war, he doesn't have the power to basically stop this thing at this point.
It's going to keep going and going.
And that means that it is very likely that the ante gets upped.
I've been saying for a long time that some sort of off-ramp for Putin, if Putin was willing to take it, would probably be the best solution.
That's not just me, it's Henry Kissinger.
Two things can be true at once.
The allies and Ukrainian forces should continue pressing militarily against the Russians until the point when the Russians actually come to the table and make a deal.
Also, there has to be some deal that's offered on the table right now.
Zelensky is saying that until Crimea is completely free.
Crimea has been in Russian hands since 2014.
And until Crimea is completely free, there won't even be an election in Ukraine.
Which seems pretty wild overall.
Meanwhile, Israel and the Palestinians are at it again.
When I say at it again, I mean the Palestinians are launching a terrorist attack.
Israel goes in to clean out the area that is replete with terrorists and then everybody gets mad at Israel.
That's the way that this idiotic There's been a radical uptick in the amount of Palestinian terrorism against Israeli civilians over the course of the last two or three years has been particularly true over the course of the last year since the election of the new Israeli government and the breakout of mass protests in the streets.
There's been a feeling among Iran and its allies That there was weakness internally in the Israeli system, and so if they just put their thumb into the wound and they started killing Israeli civilians, this would bring down the government.
Well, Israel a couple of days ago launched a major incursion into Jenin.
Jenin is a major Palestinian population center.
They call it a refugee camp, but it's not a refugee camp.
A refugee camp, theoretically, is where refugees live, not people who have been living there for four generations.
In any case, the Palestinian city of Jenin It has been a hotbed of terrorism for a very, very long time.
It's a population of approximately 39,000, somewhere in that neighborhood.
And it is indeed a hotbed of terrorist activity.
It's been a hotbed of terrorist activity for a very, very long time.
Hamas has significant presence there.
Islamic Jihad has very significant presence there.
Fatah, of course, runs the place.
And so Israel launched an incursion in which it was targeting terrorists.
It killed a vast body of terrorists in very specific attacks.
Naturally, this meant that the international community got very, very angry at Israel for the great sin of trying to kill terrorists.
Meanwhile, the amount of outrage from the international community over a Palestinian terrorist literally driving a truck into an Israeli bus stop in Tel Aviv and wounding at least eight people.
That has gotten, you know, not nearly the same level of outrage.
Hamas, which is a terrorist group, funded by Iran, in control of the Gaza Strip, called on terrorists in the West Bank and Jerusalem to strike Israel by all available means.
By Israel, they don't mean Israeli soldiers.
They mean strike Israeli civilians by all available means.
This is the stupid game that we play.
When you grant terrorists the legitimacy of pretending that their attacks on civilians are equivalent to military attacks against terrorists, you end up incentivizing terrorism.
It's something the world press does on the regular.
Really, particularly only with this conflict.
I'm not aware of any other conflict on planet Earth where the press treats terrorist attacks on civilians the same way as military attacks on terrorists.
It wouldn't apply to any of America's other allies.
It wouldn't apply to France, it wouldn't apply to Britain, it wouldn't apply to literally any other place.
But apparently it still applies to Israel because everyone's going to continue to play the stupid double standard game where when Jews sitting at a restaurant in Shiloh, which is in Judea and Samaria, the historic heartland of Israel, now called the West Bank, and when Jews are sitting in a restaurant get murdered for sitting at a restaurant that is somehow the same as a 17-year-old Hamas-inspired terrorist shooting at Israeli soldiers and then getting shot.
It's an amazing, amazing thing.
And truly hideous.
Speaking of shootings that are being covered in precisely the wrong way.
So there is a bad situation over in Philadelphia.
And the situation in Philadelphia is likely to be disappeared by the media in very short order.
So there are a bunch of mass shootings over the weekend.
But as we know, mass shootings stop being covered the minute we find out that the perpetrator is not a white dude who backed Donald Trump.
The shooting in this case was a shooting in Philadelphia.
A rifle-wielding suspect who donned a bulletproof vest before allegedly shooting dead five men and injuring two children in Philadelphia.
Here is the Philadelphia Police Commissioner, Danielle Outlaw, talking about the shooting.
As the investigation into this tragic incident continues, I kindly ask for your patience and your understanding.
Our investigators are working tirelessly to gather and analyze all available evidence, ensuring a thorough and comprehensive investigation.
It is crucial that we allow them the time and resources necessary to uncover the truth, which includes the why.
That said, let me be crystal clear.
What happened last night in our Kinsex neighborhood was unimaginably disgusting and horrifying.
On what was supposed to be a beautiful summer evening, this armed and armored individual wreaked havoc.
The shooter is a 40-year-old man who is trans, apparently.
This person posted two pictures of himself wearing a bra, a women's top, and earrings with his hair braided long in March, three months before the alleged shooting.
He also regularly posts about supporting Black Lives Matter, including supporting workers who protested in the strike for Black lives in July of 2020.
So we're not allowed to talk about this anymore.
This is going to go away really fast.
This person is the kind of person who posted a video on his Facebook page of a burning Philadelphia cop car that had been daubed with graffiti including ACAB.
All cops are bastards.
And also took pictures of himself in women's clothing.
So this case no longer matters.
It's a local crime story.
Stop pretending it's a national news story.
It is not.
We should stop covering it now because obviously this is not a case that we should be covering in any way, shape, or form.
Alrighty guys, the rest of the show continues right now.
You don't want to miss it.
We'll be joined on the line by Dennis Prager.
If you're not a member, become a member.
Use code SHAPIRO.
Check out for two months free on all annual plans.
▲
Export Selection