Ben Shapiro dissects the "Seinfeld Democrats"—a party fixated on trivial culture wars like climate performative activism and transgender debates while ignoring economic collapse risks, comparing AOC’s policies to generational warfare. He mocks CNN’s 26% ratings drop since 2018, Biden’s incompetence (e.g., claiming Thatcher called him about Trump), and Buttigieg’s hypocritical religious politics. Guest Joshua Muravchik reveals socialism’s resurgence despite its 100M-death history, tracing its emotional appeal to moral outrage over inequality, while noting Israel’s kibbutzim thrived only until members abandoned collectivism in the 1980s. The episode ends with Anthony Jeselnik’s praised Netflix special, where a "satanic" 15-minute abortion bit showcases his comedic mastery—yet Shapiro insists he judges art by skill alone. Ultimately, the critique frames modern Democrats as out-of-touch ideologues clinging to failed utopianism while dismissing technological and economic realities. [Automatically generated summary]
So while that idiot Donald Trump wastes America's time improving the economy and eliminating joblessness and realigning our foreign relations for the 21st century, Democrats are bravely fighting the truly important battles of our day.
Freshman Congresswoman Alexandria Akashinal-Cortex, for instance, is striving to keep the climate from changing.
A battle she says is to our generation what World War II was to real people.
As in World War II, 18-year-old boys charged off troop ships into withering machine gun fire, so today, 18-year-old boys wearing skirts and sporting man buns scream hysterically at old men in coffee shops for wearing MAGA hats.
As in World War II, movie stars and directors left their careers to fly bombing raids over Germany, so today movie stars and directors sit around the Chateau Marmand, West Hollywood, and talk about how stupid Republicans are, not to see the looming threat when everyone who's anyone knows that if things get any worse, they'll all have to take their private jets to Geneva just to escape this dreadful, dreadful heat.
And as in World War II, politicians risked their reputations to stand against an evil philosophy, so today activists shake their fists at the sun for being so bright you can hardly stand it.
Likewise, as once Americans dared nuclear disaster to stand up to the enslaving threat of socialism, so today Democrats dare economic collapse to bring about the enslaving threat of socialism.
So that even has some of the same words in it.
And as once Americans of all races marched despite violent opposition to end segregation in Jim Crow, so today Democrats of all sexes call people names if they won't agree that a guy in a dress is really a woman.
And finally, as once Americans conquered space and landed on the moon, so today Democrats have begun the great project of complaining about every little thing, which is kind of like going to the moon in that both glorify our nation, except for the complaining.
Politicians Risking Reputations00:03:20
What abs.
Onward, courageous Democrats.
Trigger warning, I'm Andrew Clavin, and this is the Andrew Clavin Show.
I'm the hunky-dunky.
Life is tickety boom.
Birds are ringing, also singing, hunky-dunky-dicky.
Ship-shaped hipsy-topsy, the world is a bitty zing.
It's a wonderful day.
Hoorah, hooray!
It makes me want to sing.
Oh, hoorah, hooray.
Oh, hooray, hurrah.
So yesterday, we discussed the fact, and it is a fact, that the American news media has given up on reporting news.
In what's now become an obsessive effort to shape the narrative in favor of the Democrats, which is to say in favor of giving the government and leftist corporations like Facebook the power to control our lives, the news media and the Democrats, but I repeat myself, have to spin the news like a clown with a plate on a stick.
A booming economy, a looming scandal about how the Obama administration used the FBI to spy on a Republican presidential candidate, another socialist collapse in Venezuela, more Islamist atrocities against our pals in Israel.
These all have to be swept under the rug in favor of, well, in favor of what?
What exactly are Democrats complaining about?
What are they fighting for?
What's the news media reporting?
The answer is nothing.
Truly nothing.
We are now dealing with the Seinfeld Democrats.
They're funny, but they're just about nothing.
Which raises the question, what else aren't we talking about?
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The most important thing you need to know in an emergency, how do you spell Clavin, is K-L-A-V-A-N.
So, I have to read this.
This is too funny from our friends at Newsbusters.
This week, it was reported that CNN lost 26% of its audience, down 237,000 viewers since April 2018.
I wonder what happened there.
Watching Made-Up News00:15:55
Obviously, it turned out that this whole Trump-Russia thing turned out to be a fabrication.
So, everybody who was watching CNN suddenly realized, oh, I'm watching nothing.
I'm watching a complete made-up news story.
So, it's 40% down from its 2016 peak.
And to put those numbers in their proper perspective, this article goes on.
It's by Rich Noyes.
The article goes on, according to Wikipedia, the population, this is just cruel, the population of prostitutes in the U.S., approximately 1 million, is larger than the population of CNN viewers.
CNN ranks now 15th behind Home and Garden TV, the Hallmark Channel, and the Food Network.
The 237,000 viewers CNN has lost over the last year is more than the population of Richmond, Virginia, Baton Rouge, or Des Moines.
Their remaining viewers could all comfortably fit into Jefferson County, Kentucky.
Jefferson County, Kentucky has the number of people who are watching CNN.
There's one other one that just kept.
More households keep chickens and other poultry birds as pets than tune into CNN's primetime shows, according to the survey from the American Veteran.
So the only time you see CNN or anybody sees CNN in an airport or you're watching this show and I'm making fun of them.
That's it.
So why?
Let me show you why, okay?
Recently, it may have been yesterday, I think it was the day before, Donald Trump retweeted a tweet from Jerry Falwell Jr., okay?
Fall, you got to watch this.
This is great.
Falwell tweeted out, after the best week ever for real Donald Trump, no obstruction, no collusion, the New York Times admits Barack Obama did spy on his campaign and the economy is soaring.
Jerry Falwell Jr. says, I now support reparations.
Trump should have two years added to his first term as payback for time stolen by this corrupt, failed coup.
So that's Jerry Falwell and Donald Trump retweeted it.
So here's the discussion on Anderson Cooper's show on CNN between a Trump supporter, Steve Cortez, and Kirsten Powers, who used to be kind of sensible but has kind of lost her mind and become this kind of raising, raving, crazy leftist woman.
Here's their conversation about this tweet.
Reparations is to repay black people who were kidnapped and enslaved and brought to the shores and built literally our entire economy and our entire country.
So to invoke reparations over something like that is literally, that's the biggest outrage of what has happened today.
And I don't know how you can eventually.
What you're doing there, Kirsten, what you're doing there is you're actually combining the two smears.
So not only is the president a racist, he's also authoritarian.
Look, obviously.
The only person who's mentioned authoritarianism.
I'm talking about the fact that he says that he retweeted.
He said something saying that he should get an extra two years as reparations.
Reparations is used to.
Oh, so slavery's funny.
If you couldn't see that, the best part of it is the look on Anderson Cooper's face, who's just looking like, what have I done with my life?
How have I wasted my life?
What sin did I commit to find myself between this woman shouting about reparations for black people kidnapped from Africa?
And believe me, if you can find me a black person who was kidnapped from Africa and put to work as a slave in this country, bring him to me and I will pay him reparations, even though my family wasn't here until after the Civil War.
I mean, this is what they're arguing about on CNN.
And they're seriously, because of this tweet, they're seriously discussing whether Donald Trump will leave office when it's his time to leave office.
I mean, Hillary Clinton the other day said, she said, I think it's critical to understand that as I've been telling candidates who've come to see me, you can run the best campaign, you can even become the nominee, and you can have the election stolen from you.
I'm sorry, but these guys are hilarious.
She has now descended into this fantasy world in which the election was torn from her hands because of her, after her brilliant campaign, where she just forgot one thing, which was to go to the middle of the country where she needed to win, and she lost the election.
So, I mean, and that's that, by the way, the idea of the election being stolen was the thing that she called horrible, terrible, awful when Donald Trump brought up the prospect and she thought she was going to win.
So, the only people who haven't accepted the outcome of elections are the Democrats.
And now they're projecting that on Donald Trump.
He's not going to leave office.
But that's what they're arguing about in the CNN.
So, no wonder more people are raising chickens than are watching CNN.
Some of their former viewers have quit watching CNN in order to have more time to raise chickens because they don't want to watch Anderson Cooper's career turn into, did you listen to these two people shout at each other over nothing?
I'm sorry to crack up, but the look on the guy's face, the look on the guy's face was just sad.
I mean, it's just really sad.
Anyway, if you can see this on YouTube, it's just like it is worth looking at.
Let me just give you another example, though, while we're talking about this.
Yesterday, Trump gave the Medal of Freedom to Tiger Woods, right?
Tiger had that great comeback.
He's had a terrible time in his life.
A lot of it is his own fault.
But still, it's like the guy is inspiring.
Sports is inspiring.
Gives him the Medal of Freedom.
Now, this is a medal, you know, Barack Obama gave it to Cheetah Rivera.
He gave it to Stevie Wonder.
It's a, you know, it's a kind of like a government Oscar, basically, for people that we like.
And sometimes it goes to deeply, deeply important people.
But Tiger Woods is an inspiring figure and certainly one of the great sportsmen of our time.
And Trump loves golf, so he was obviously really into it.
Here's just a cut of him giving that award.
Tiger, we are inspired by everything you've become and attained.
The job you've done is incredible.
Your spectacular achievements of the golf course, your triumph over physical adversity, and your relentless will to win, win, win.
These qualities embody the American spirit of pushing boundaries, defying limits, and always striving for greatness.
That's what he does.
Congratulations again on your amazing comeback and your amazing life and for giving sports fans everywhere a lifetime of memories.
We can't wait to see what's next, Tiger.
It's going to be good.
We know that.
So that's right.
A feature story, a little piece.
And let me just show you how CBS and NBC, this is cut seven, how CBS and NBC covered this story.
Woods is now the youngest athlete to receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom, an honor President Trump announced the day after an improbable master's triumph.
For more than a decade, they've been golfing partners and business partners.
Tiger is designing a Trump course in Dubai.
Harmon Katayan co-wrote a best-selling biography of Woods.
Certainly, Tiger is, I believe, very deserving of this award, but there's no question there's a branding and a marketing opportunity through the eyes of the president.
In 2013, Mr. Trump went out of his way to salute Woods, saying he stuck with him after his personal life spilled into public with a series of extramarital affairs.
Last year, the president praised Tiger for not criticizing him.
Now, some critics are questioning Mr. Trump's decision to give what is considered a lifetime achievement award to someone who still has a flourishing career.
He gives this award, which was a hallowed award, maybe someday it will be one, again, to people he wants to associate himself with.
And so he likes golf.
Well, they sure blew the lid off, didn't they?
They blew the lid off that story.
I mean, this stuff is really funny.
It's just like, I have this image in my mind of these reporters sitting around in a bar staring into their whiskey, thinking, you know, I went to J school, I studied, I got an advanced degree, and I'm covering Tiger Woods, getting the Medal of Freedom as if it were a story.
But they have to, because otherwise they got to cover the fact that Trump is doing a great job.
You notice, by the way, that nobody is running, none of the Democrats are running on foreign policy.
Why?
Because Trump's foreign policy is actually working.
He actually is bringing people to the table who haven't come to the table before.
He's got our enemies scared out of their wits.
He's got our allies like Germany suddenly thinking, oh, well, maybe we do have to pay up a little bit.
It's still a negotiation, but at least they're talking about it.
You know, they're not talking about that at all.
So what are they talking about?
They're talking about, you know, Gerald Nadler in the House is threatening Attorney General Barr with contempt of Congress in the incredibly, incredible shrinking investigation.
Remember, we start out, Trump is a Russian spy.
We're using the word treason.
This is a terrible, terrible thing.
And then it's no, he wasn't a Russian spy, but he tried to obstruct justice.
Only the justice wasn't obstructed and he cooperated with the investigation, but he said a lot of things.
So he wanted to obstruct justice.
So now we're investigating that.
And now we're investigating the fact that the Attorney General put out a summary that the investigator didn't quite like.
And so now they're going to hold him in contempt of Congress.
It really is going to end up with like that tie.
Who told you you could wear a striped tie with a striped shirt?
Excuse me, Attorney General Barr.
You're in contempt of fashion.
This is right now.
So there was an amazing moment on TV when Al Green, from the congressman from Texas, actually said the Democrat, the actual Democrat program.
I hate the people who work here.
I meant the untalented Al Green.
I'm concerned that if we don't impeach this president, he will get re-elected.
If we don't impeach him, he will say he has been vindicated.
He will say the Democrats had an overwhelming majority in the House and they didn't take up impeachment.
He will say that we had a constitutional duty to do it if it was there and we didn't.
He will say that he has been vindicated.
But here's what I say.
We're confronting a constitutional crisis as I speak to you.
As I look the people of America in the eye, I'm telling you we have a constitutional crisis.
When the chief executive officer, the president of the United States, refuses to comply with subpoenas and says he will order others to do so.
This creates a constitutional crisis.
But this is the genesis of it.
It started when the president decided he would fire Mr. Comey for his failure, pardon me, as a result of his desire not to be invested.
He was great, wasn't he, before he became congressman?
Look, we're all sensitive people, I think.
When Al Green says, the untalented Al Green says that we have to impeach President Trump or he'll win, he's telling you everything.
He's telling you everything you need to know.
Trump is doing a great job.
You know, you can say that the Twitter stuff is annoying.
I sometimes find it annoying.
I have complaints about Donald Trump, but he is doing a great job as president of the United States.
The economy is great.
Our foreign policy is being realigned in ways that it should be, certainly after Obama messed it up so badly by aligning us with Iran instead of with Israel, which is insane.
So Trump has really restored that kind of respect that we need in our foreign policy.
So they got nothing.
I mean, there's nothing.
And because the news industry is all Democrat, they've got nothing to report.
And then the question is, what do the candidates run on?
You know, Trump's polls now have him at 46% around, which is higher than Obama was at the same time.
And think about that, because Obama took office right after the crash.
So the crash, the dead cat was going to bounce, the economy was going to come back.
It was almost impossible for him not to do well in his first years as president.
He had a press that had elevated him to the level of messiah, the light worker.
Remember, he was a light worker.
But he was like at 44%, I think.
It's like 2% lower than what Donald Trump is at now.
Donald Trump has done great.
He has restored an economy that Obama's regulations and his, you know, Obama just deadened what they call the animal spirits of the economy by constantly scolding everybody, by constantly, oh, you know, you can make too much money and all this stuff.
You know, I don't want businessmen to think that.
I want businessmen to think, no, I want to make all the money so they do a better job every day.
But he was constantly scolding people and he drove the dead cat.
He killed the dead cat.
He killed the dead cat.
It couldn't even bounce.
I mean, we were like growing at 1% or whatever it was.
Trump unleashed that bounce and now he's unleashed really the economy, the animal spirits of the economy, and they're doing really well.
So what are they going to run on?
You know, Biden has now taken a huge lead in the polls, although it's a little deceptive, which is interesting about Bernie because Bernie was always, you know, people say, well, Bernie would have won if the DNC hadn't cheated him out of the nomination and given it to Hillary.
But the fact that the DNC was protecting Hillary made Bernie the only guy in town, the only other game in town.
So anybody who hated Hillary was going to go to Bernie because nobody else wanted to get into that fight because the DNC wasn't going to support them.
So because it was her turn, right?
So now the weakness of Bernie comes out because the minute Biden announces, he's like 30% up in the polls.
Now those are the national polls in the local polls, like the Iowa primary polls.
It's a lot closer.
It's like more like 19% and 20%.
And that's where the fight takes place.
So those polls are deceptive.
But Biden, you know, I mean, Biden is really out of it.
You know, I don't mean to pick on him for being old.
I mean, like, but he is, what is he, 110, I think?
He's 77, something like that.
He's really old, but he is out of it.
I mean, and they pick on him because the other day he said that Margaret Thatcher called him to complain about Trump.
She's been dead a bit, but okay, so you make a mistake.
It's fun to make fun of the guy, but he made a mistake.
But this is what I mean.
He was talking about China.
Listen to Biden talk about China.
China is going to eat our lunch.
Come on, man.
They can't even figure out how to deal with the fact that they have this great division between the China Sea and the mountains in the east.
I mean, in the West.
They can't figure out how they're going to deal with the corruption that exists within the system.
I mean, you know, they're not bad folks, folks.
But guess what?
They're not competition for us.
Yeah, they haven't even invented the fork.
I mean, they keep eating with those little sticks.
How's China?
I mean, has he seen China lately?
I mean, they have these amazing cities.
They obviously have a burgeoning economy.
They're moving their naval forces into the China Sea.
Here's Mike Pompeo responding to those remarks quite sensibly, in my opinion.
Seems a little disconnected from the reality that is China today.
China's Rising Economy00:15:46
Maybe when he ran for president the first time this was the situation.
But it's certainly not today.
China poses an enormous challenge to the United States of America.
I agree with him.
Ultimately, America will prevail.
I'm confident that.
We should bet on our nation.
But it's going to take a serious concerted effort.
A president like President Trump, who's prepared to push back against China, whether that be on trade or their military buildup or the theft of our intellectual property.
We need a president who will be serious in protecting America against the challenges that China presents.
I mean, Trump is doing some stuff that is really surprising.
He's threatening China with tariffs that will take place.
I think on Friday, the stock market took a nosedive when they saw that.
But that's good.
You want the stock market to be awake to dangerous things and to things going on.
I mean, that means people are paying attention and they're not just kind of getting stoned on profits.
But he is actually taking this on.
And the idea that China is still, they can't figure out how to deal with the mountains in the West or wherever the hell they are.
I mean, that's nuts.
That is just nuts.
And it's just, I mean, it's the same thing as Barack Obama telling Mitt Romney that Russia is not a threat in the 1980s called and want their foreign policy back.
I mean, these guys are totally out of it, which also is going to be true about the economy because Biden's got to run on the Biden-Obama economy.
He said the first thing he's going to do, he said, is repeal those Trump tax cuts because we want to get back to that Obama economy.
I don't think that's going anywhere.
I do not think that's going to.
I mean, talk about eating his lunch.
I think Trump will bounce him down the street like a basketball if this is the best that he can do.
He's got the things that are vaunted about him.
One is black women apparently like him.
They keep saying he knows how to talk to black people, but I am not impressed.
I mean, he had this one thing he said.
This is cut number 10.
You remember he said they're going to put you all back in chains.
He's still selling this.
Listen to this on so-called voter suppression.
Folks, speaking of dignity, it means we have to protect, which is not happening now, the single most important right you have as an American, the right to vote, the right to vote.
And folks, last year, 24 states introduced or enacted at least 70 bills to curtail the right to vote.
And guess what?
Mostly directed at, quote, people of color.
You see it.
We got Jim Crow sneaking back in.
No, I mean it.
It's all corrupt.
Why?
Why?
Because they know you saw it in North Carolina.
You saw what happened in Georgia.
You saw what happened in Florida.
Why?
Because you know if everybody has an equal right to vote, guess what?
They lose.
They lose!
So Biden is running against Jim Crow.
Kirsten Powers is talking about blacks being kidnapped out of Africa.
All things the Democrats did, by the way.
The Republicans never had anything to do with any of this stuff, never had anything to do with Jim Crow, never had anything to do with slavery, except one thing.
Republicans had one thing to do with slavery.
They sent Republican Abe Lincoln to end slavery.
That's what they had to do with that.
Helped in Jim Crow.
I mean, this is, I don't know, at some point, at some point, you know, I have full faith and trust in Americans of color, however you want to call that.
It always strikes me as a stupid phrase.
We're all some color.
But I have utter faith that Americans who are black are one day going to look up and say, wait just a minute.
That's not my problem.
You know, that's not the problem in my neighborhood.
My problem is crime.
My problem is illegitimacy.
My problem is things that actually the Democrats created.
And maybe I got to start listening to evil Donald Trump, who didn't say the things the press said he said, who doesn't have the attitudes the Democrats say he has.
I mean, one of these days, that stuff is really old-fashioned.
One of these days, people are going to catch up with him.
Then you've got the other guy, Pete Budejej, Pete Budigej, who to me is like, you know, it's like gay people can be bigots too.
Is that his policy?
They asked him about his religious faith on TV.
I just want to make sure we get the right cut here.
Yeah, it's cut four.
Listen to this response.
You also spent a fair amount of time talking about your faith.
Yes.
Why?
It's important a bit.
And I think it's also important that we stop seeing religion used as a kind of cudgel, as if God belonged to a political party.
And if he did, I can't imagine it would be the one that sent the current president into the White House.
So we've got to stop using religion as a cudgel.
And let me cudgel Republicans with religion.
I mean, here's a guy who has actually said that my ideas about marriage are more true.
He knows he's a gay guy married to a man.
He says, my ideas about marriage are more traditional than Trump's because Trump has obviously been adulterous in his marriage, which, by the way, is a tradition.
But I mean, so gay people are now Christians, which I am very much in favor of, okay?
Whether or not homosexuality is a sin before God, it's not a crime.
It's not for me to judge.
And I do not understand why the same people who say, you know, oh, we must correct sin in homosexuals don't say, oh, I'm going to go up and tell that fat guy to stop eating because gluttony is also a sin, by the way.
I don't understand why it is the one thing that keeps you out of church.
I do not believe anybody should be denied the table of Christ in Christ's lifetime.
He didn't deny people.
He sat and ate with all kinds of people while the religious authorities quailed.
I think gay people should be allowed at the table, but do they have to become the worst kind of Christians, the kind of Christians nobody can stand who are always lecturing other people about how they're not in God's good favor?
I mean, that's the kind of thing that Christianity has been moving away from all these years, all these hundreds of years.
But Pete Buttigieg is going to take us right back.
But then he says something important.
And I do want to get to this before we go to our break in our guest.
He says this when he talks about Donald Trump's MAGA slogan.
Our current president targeted with a message saying that we could find greatness by just stopping the clock and turning it back and making America great again.
When that past that he is promising to return us to was never as great as advertised.
But this is not true.
One of the things that has really struck me recently is the same people who follow buffoons like Alexandria Occasional Cortex, the same people are in some ways, have in some ways the same complaint as the people who turned to Donald Trump and said, help us out here because we've been abandoned by the government.
sense of being left behind, a sense that the world, that the experts, the elites, you know, they have this thing, the Met Gala.
And this is a fashion show to support the Metropolitan Museum in New York.
And I love the Metropolitan Museum in New York.
But if ever there was an elite institution, this is it.
And all these movie stars show up in their weird fashions.
If you have pictures, just put them up there while I'm talking.
They show up in their weird fashions to raise money for this.
And so all these celebrities are out there looking utterly absurd in these incredibly expensive fashions that have to be attended by people holding them up and all this stuff.
And you look at this and you think, oh, this is how the French Revolution started.
Because a lot of these people who are complaining both to Alexandria Casional Cortex and to Donald Trump are saying, we're being left behind.
We're being left behind.
And in both cases, from the left and the right, they're being answered with a contradiction.
Okay, the contradiction from the left is the government is ignoring you.
Let's have more government.
That's a bad idea.
It's also a 19th century idea that there's money here.
I'm going to take the money here and I'm going to put it there and then everything's going to be fine.
I mean, that is a childish, childish notion.
It has never worked because money is only a symbol of your hard work, your desire, your ambition, your creativity.
You cannot, by moving the money, you don't move those things, right?
You don't move those things.
So charity, yes, of course, charity for the people in the worst need, but it does not change the system.
And that's why socialism has never worked.
We're going to bring on an expert on socialism and talk about that in a minute.
But that's why socialism has never worked.
But the right also has a contradiction going on.
The contradiction on the right is we say, you know, we don't want government doing things.
We want institutions doing them.
We want churches.
We want communities.
We want the Elks Club.
We want local communities.
But if a factory leaves because it's gone to China and the community falls apart and people get mired in opiate abuse and drug abuse and divorce, tough, tough luck.
They should move.
They should go somewhere else.
Well, you know, you can't just rebuild all those mediating institutions.
That's your home.
You've got to rebuild those things.
The 21st century is going to be about training.
The 21st century solutions are going to be about training and it can be in a private-public unity.
You know, it can be in a private enterprise can work with governments to train people on the spot.
It's going to have to be kind of like hit training.
We're going to go in here and we're going to train you for the new thing because it was just invented yesterday and you have to know how to do this.
And they make a joke about learn to code.
Oh, how can a truck driver learn to code?
But people can learn all kinds of things.
We can keep people nimble and retrained.
It can be done.
And that's going to be the solution in the 21st century.
You know, when the Luddites in the early 19th century, the Luddites were the guys who tore down the machines.
They attacked the machines because they had destroyed their industries.
They destroyed their home industry.
They would make fabric and now they were making fabric at the machine.
So the Luddites went out and destroyed the machines.
And they were hanged.
The British would hang them for doing that.
But, you know, they had a point.
The word Luddite has become a word for people who don't like the future.
But because the machines were ultimately good for humankind, that's true.
But they weren't good for that generation of people who starved and whose families fell apart and whose farms were destroyed.
We have to be able to deal with technology.
And neither the right nor the left is doing that.
Trump is still using 20th century solutions, cutting taxes, good idea, less regulation, good idea.
But we need 21st century solutions as well.
And those are things that we're not talking about while we talk about nothing.
That is what the Democrats are talking about.
Nothing.
They're not learning anything.
They're not looking to the future.
They're simply talking about nothing.
They're the Seinfeld Democrats.
I got to say goodbye to Facebook and YouTube.
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Joshua Moravchik is a distinguished fellow at the World Affairs Institute, a writer and specialist on U.S. foreign policy.
And his new book is called Heaven on Earth: The Rise, Fall, and Afterlife of Socialism.
It is out now, and it is a really, really interesting look at a subject that's very important.
Are you there?
I'm here.
Nice to be with you.
Thank you so much for coming on.
You have a remarkably interesting take on socialism in the sense that there is one sense in which you regard it as a tremendous success.
A tremendous success.
Well...
You're interpreting me.
Well, you say that it has spread further and further.
Oh, no.
It was successful in attracting people.
It was the most popular idea ever.
The most popular, I mean, ice cream is the most popular idea, but the most popular idea ever about any, about political things, but even generally about how life ought to be lived, how society ought to be organized.
I would say the only thing that could rival socialism and popularity are the great religions.
And if you think about Christianity being the most widely embraced religion in history, it took 300 years before the Christians could say that they represented 10%, or historians looking back could say about 10% of the world were now Christians.
In 150 years, half as much time from the time the word socialism was first coined in the 1820s, 150 years later, and you look around the world, and more than 60% of the people of the world were living under governments that called themselves socialists.
That's remarkable.
I mean, that is a remarkable PR success, if nothing else.
So what's the appeal?
I mean, were you ever a socialist?
I can't remember.
Oh, I was, Drew.
My parents were, it was their whole lives.
I was raised.
I was a kind of what they call a red diaper baby, except usually that term applies to kids who grew up whose parents were communists.
And I'm grateful.
My parents were never communists.
They were, like Bernie Sanders says, democratic socialists.
And they belonged to the socialist party and they campaigned for people to vote socialists in election after election.
Of course, no one did, but that didn't deter them.
And I imbibed this.
So what is the appeal?
Why is it so successful?
The appeal is a sense that you look around and there are people who are rich and people who are poor and some people who are tremendously rich and some people who are miserably poor.
And you say, why should this be?
These are human beings.
Why should there be this disparity?
And if only we would have everybody share all the wealth and all the property and get rid of private ownership and have everything communal owned.
And then you'd get rid of this miserable poverty.
You'd get rid of this unnecessary excessive wealth.
And beyond that, it would change human life because people would no longer be competing with each other over material things.
And so people could become closer together to each other and live.
We'd have a more harmonious world than we've ever known before.
So, okay, so now that is socialism success, is that it appeals to that idea?
Am I wrong in thinking this has failed everywhere?
Is there anywhere that socialism has succeeded?
Well, it's failed everywhere, often catastrophically.
That is, there are different kinds of socialism.
But communism was probably the most important kind, and that killed 100 million people.
And national socialism was another kind, and that killed scores of millions of people.
But there were also milder kinds that didn't kill anybody, but also didn't achieve their goals.
To answer your question, though, there was one place in the world where socialism actually didn't fail and came to life, and that was in Israel on the kibbutz.
Socialism's Unexpected Experiment00:04:48
And they were pure socialist communities.
They, of course, it wasn't a whole country.
It was just about 200 of these communes that were mostly formed before Israel became a country by the early Zionists.
And they were purely socialist, and they succeeded in that they did develop the land and they did provide military protection.
They were often invulnerable areas.
They were real pillars of the state of Israel coming into being.
But here is the really interesting end to that story.
It was like a laboratory experiment in socialism.
They were able to pull it off.
But as soon, starting in the late 1970s and into the 80s, when Israel was on its feet, when it had gotten by those two big wars in 67 and 73, and it was here to stay,
the members of these kibbutzim, as they're called, voted to abolish socialism and to transform their communities into beautiful little private, suburban, private economy-based communities.
And I went in, I went, if I may continue for a moment, I went and interviewed a lot of the veterans of these kibbutzim.
And I said, well, when was it that you started to feel that this kind of life where everybody shares everything was uncomfortable and therefore you wanted to change it?
And the answer surprised me.
They said to me, it was always uncomfortable, but we did it because we thought we were doing something great and important, redeeming the Jewish people, creating a new country.
We were willing to sacrifice for it and live in this awkward way.
But once we didn't have to make that sacrifice anymore, we wanted to live like normal people.
That is fascinating.
So the book is called Heaven on Earth: The Rise, Fall, and Afterlife of Socialism.
Talk about this afterlife, because people like me look at the history of socialism and think, why will this thing not go away?
Well, I wonder, I must tell you.
This is, to be clear, this is a second version of an earlier book that was written around the turn of this century, which was a kind of retrospective.
It was really an epitaph for socialism.
And it was just called the rise and fall because I thought it was over.
Yeah.
It seemed to be over.
Communism, Gorbachev had repealed it in the Soviet Union.
The Chinese communists were clinging to power, but they were presiding over a capitalist economy.
They had given up socialism.
The more moderate and more humane social democrats of Europe had turned to free market policies, albeit with a strong welfare state.
But the Labor Party in Britain back then campaigned on the slogan, labor is the party of business.
It made me laugh.
And also in the third world, where after those countries became independent in the 50s and 60s, they had all gone for African socialism, Arab socialism, whatever the heck that meant.
But that was the mantra.
They had all looked at South Korea and Taiwan and Hong Kong and said, wait, we're going nowhere and now we know why.
And they had all given up socialism and tried market-based solutions to developing their countries.
And so in every different aspect, socialism was over.
People had tried it and it had failed, either failed gently or failed catastrophically.
And then to my amazement, here we are in the new century, and there are all these voices saying, let's try that all over again.
And I mean, I do think I understand the underlying allure of the, let's all be brothers, let's share, because I felt it myself as a young man and it governed my parents' lives.
But I don't understand why people can't learn from experience.
And particularly why the younger generation that's coming up now doesn't want to make their own mistakes.
Fire in the Maternity Ward00:04:50
Why do they want to repeat my mistakes, my parents' mistakes?
That I don't get at all.
It is an amazing, amazing thing.
Joshua Muravchik, the book is Heaven on Earth, The Rise, Fall, and Afterlife of Socialism.
Thank you very much for coming on.
Really interesting.
I appreciate it.
Oh, thanks for having me, Drew.
I value the opportunity.
Thanks a lot.
Final reflection.
I have to talk about this new special on Netflix, Anthony Jeselnik's Fire in the Maternity Ward.
You know, I watched his last show, Thoughts and Prayers.
I think he's one of the most talented comedians around, an actual sculptor of jokes.
And what he does is he plays basically Satan.
He plays the worst person on earth.
I have no idea, nor do I care, what his personal life or his political life is about.
I'm only judging him by the routines he does.
I know he dated, what's her name?
Amy, what is her name?
The other comedian, Amy Schumer, yes.
But I don't know anything else about him.
Anyway, in his last, I've commented on this before, in his last show, playing essentially the role of Satan.
He went after people who offered their thoughts and prayers online.
And I found it hilarious that the Democrats then picked that up and started attacking people for offering thoughts and prayers after a tragedy or a shooting online because I thought, here's this guy who's playing Satan, and now they're taking up his philosophy.
Well, in this one, Fire in the Maternity Ward, as always with comedians, I have to warn you about his language.
His language is terrible.
But here's the kind of joke he tells and the style in which he tells them.
One of my next door neighbors is a 90-year-old man suffering from Alzheimer's.
And every single morning at 9 a.m., he knocks on my door and he asks me if I have seen his wife.
Which means that every single morning at 9 a.m., I have to explain to a 90-year-old man suffering from Alzheimer's that his wife has been dead for quite some time.
Now, I have thought about moving.
I have thought about just not answering my door in the morning.
But to be honest, it's worth it just to see the smile on his face.
I mean, he really is a sculptor.
That is a really beautifully put together joke.
The pacing, the timing, it's all really great.
It ends, Fire in the Maternity Award on Netflix ends with a bit about abortion that's 15 minutes long.
Again, I don't know what his politics are.
I don't know how he feels about it.
It is a great, great bit about abortion.
It is satanic.
It is a satanic bit about abortion.
It contains in it one of the best constructed jokes I've ever heard and one of the most powerful and impressive jokes I've ever heard.
I won't give it away because I don't want to ruin it, but it is something else.
And the whole bit is as dark and as funny and as awful as you would expect.
And it really makes, whether he means it to or not, again, whether he means it to or not, it makes a really powerful statement about the truth of abortion and what abortion really is.
He's a really funny guy, a very, very talented writer, a very talented comedian.
And if you don't mind the language and the fact that he's playing this bad guy, I really recommend it.
Anthony Justin like Fire in the Maternity Award on Netflix.
Tomorrow, the mailbag.
Be there.
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President Trump ratchets up trade talks with China.
We will examine the case for tariffs, and we'll see how that turns out.
Then Pete Buttajudge goes after President Trump's marriage because Pete Buttajudge is a big jerk.